There has been some conflict in Georgia lately – thankfully not the sort we saw some months ago - but a conflict between the Head of the Georgian Orthodox Church and a TV show called Top Ten Best Georgians. The programme is modelled on the BBC’s 100 Top Britons. In Georgia voting by more than 300,000 viewers has put one of Georgia's most widely celebrated medieval kings - now known to the Church as Saint David the Builder- into the Top 50. A further 13 saints has also made it on to the shortlist. At once the Georgian Orthodox Church protested that saints should never have been part of the contest because it was, in their words, unjustified to make the public put them in rank order. The TV channel that airs the show is still trying to decide how to respond. It is rare for anyone in a position of authority - even leading politicians - to oppose the view of the Georgian patriarch. The programme editors say that they will not be hurried into a decision and recording for the next edition will go ahead on Thursday. Will the saints be allowed in to the Top Ten? We shall have to wait and see!
Meanwhile, in the Letter to the Hebrews there is no question about rank. The letter writer, keen to express to the Jewish Community to whom he is writing that Jesus is the expected Messiah, talks about Jesus as the ideal high priest, above and beyond any high priest who has ever been before: ‘Holy, innocent and uncontaminated, beyond the influence of sinners, and raised up above the heavens…we have seen that he has been given a ministry of a far higher order, and to the same degree it is a better covenant of which he is the mediator, founded on better promises.” In the gospel reading Jesus is proving more popular then ever. People are gathering to him in great numbers, and they are coming to him from all over the place: from Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania and the region of Tyre and Sidon, and in great numbers. In fact there are so many people that Jesus has to arrange for a boat to be at the ready to save him being crushed by the crowds. There is no question in their minds as to the one who really matters.
Today we remember and thank God for St Vincent, a deacon and martyr of the Church who was killed in the persecutions of Diocletian in the early fourth century. Our society and culture, of course, is very different from that of fourth century Rome and of 21st century Georgia. There are those, of course, who would wish us Christians no harm, there are those who couldn’t care less or who never think about what is important to us, there are others who are curious or questioning or inquisitive, and there is also a number of people who are actively antagonistic towards Christ and his Church. In whatever way we are met by those around us, we still believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose ‘power to save is utterly certain, since he is living for ever to intercede for all who come to God through him.’ It doesn’t make us better than anyone else, it doesn’t make one Christian better than any other: we all fail at times - and where indeed would you begin in ranking any of us anyway. But we are all in this together, and whether or not we are popular for choosing the life we choose it matters not. The one who really counts and the one who really matter is Jesus. Conflict over!
Readings: Hebrews 7:25 - 8:6, Mark 3:7-12
The illustration for the homily may be found here
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