My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts

Let's Do Lent - Properly! 3rd Sunday before Lent - Zacchaeus

2012-02-04T20:31:00.000Z

1 Corinthians 9.16-24; Luke 19.1-9

I'm departing from the Church of England lectionary for the next 3 weeks for the gospel readings. Instead I'll be using the gospel readings set in the Orthodox church for 3 of the Sundays before Great Lent begins. I'm using them as the Orthodox Church does as preparation for our observance of Lent which this year beings on 22nd February. I owe much of what I'll be saying in these sermons to the work of the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Orthodox professor of liturgical theology in his book Great Lent.

In the Western church these days I think we so often go through Lent with the good intention of doing something with the season but we might not properly apply ourselves to it. Our church lets us use it much as we please and much of what we do is quite superficial, it seems to me. We use it, quite rightly as a time of reflection and study. But it shouldn't stay as 'head' stuff, just be limited to acquiring new knowledge.

So this year I'd like to encourage all my readers and listeners to use the season of Lent to good effect. Not just to feed our mind but to change our heart. Lent is there to be taken advantage of as we prepare for Easter. Fr. Alexander calls Lent a 'school of repentance' to which we come year by year to learn again what it means to be truly a Christian, to listen again to the call of Jesus Christ to us to repent and turn to back to God, indeed to learn again how to do that and what it means for us. Many of us in our working life these days have an annual review, a time of taking stock and thinking about how we will shape the future. And the Church gives us the opportunity each year in the season of Lent to review our relationship with God and how effectively we live our Christian life, how much of a disciple of Christ we really are.

As well as being a school, Lent is also a journey, a journey towards the great feast of Easter, the Feast of feasts, the highest point in our year. And if we are to arrive at Easter understanding in a deeper way what it means for us and for the world, then we must go on that journey, the journey in the school of repentance. And in Holy Week, accompany Jesus on His journey to the cross and beyond.

As for any journey we undertake, we have to make preparations. Many of you know that in 2010 I made a pilgrimage to Mount Athos in Greece. I had to make quite extensive preparations for that journey beginning 6 months before I actually departed to Greece. There were special permissions I had to get, bookings in the monasteries I wanted to stay in, bookings for my travel and decisions to make about how I would travel while I was there. I had to decide what I would take in the form of clothing and food and get books and maps to read up and familiarise myself about Mount Athos. I had to do that so I could make the most of the trip and learn the most I could from it. Like those preparations, the journey through Lent needs preparation time too. So we are taking the next three weeks as preparation to begin the journey through Lent on Ash Wednesday.

Today we start our preparations by looking at the character we encounter in the Bible by the name of Zacchaeus. What has he got to show us about how we might prepare for Lent? Well, he shows us what it means to have a desire to see God, to have God in our lives and to let God have an impact on our lives.

Zacchaeus

Here is Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector by trade and physically, a not very tall man. He seems to be disliked by a lot by people. Tax collectors didn't have the best of reputations in his time. So being a chief tax collector might have made him even more unpopular. We get a sense of why he might be unpopular, towards the end of the gospel reading when he talks about the effect his encounter with Jesus has had on him. And he was rich, his wealth perhaps having been made by defrauding the people he collected taxes from. But as we meet him, Zacchaeus has heard about Jesus, that he's coming to Jericho where Zacchaeus lives and he's curious about Jesus.

In fact Zacchaeus, from his behaviour, seems more than curious. He has a great, even overwhelming desire to see Jesus. So much so that, because he's so short and can't see over people in front of him, he runs on ahead and climbs a tree to get a better vantage point. So, he overcomes his limitations, to succeed in his endeavour, and he does see Jesus. I wonder if you've had that sort of deep seated desire in your life? An overwhelming desire to get something or to achieve something? Such a great desire that you will overcome any limitation you might have to succeed; to have your desire fulfilled? At bottom of anybody's great work or great success in life, there's usually an overwhelming desire to succeed, a passion for whatever it is that sees the desire fulfilled.

Well, not only does Zacchaeus see Jesus but Jesus sees Zacchaeus and even better, Jesus shouts up to him and tells him to come down because He wants to stay at Zacchaeus' house. So for Zacchaeus it gets better. His desire has been more than fulfilled.

Others standing by watching complain, of course. Here's Jesus talking with and staying at the house of a sinner, an outcast. We see that all through the gospels, that complaining, borne out of jealousy maybe, borne out of envy and self-righteousness. And at the end of the passage we get an explanation from Jesus Himself why he does this sort of thing which goes against people's expectations of Him - He came 'to save the lost.'

When Zacchaeus climbed the tree, little did he know that his curiosity, his great desire would have such an outcome. He hadn't had any inkling of the sort of impact his encounter with Jesus would have. But like for so many at the time and since, this encounter with Jesus had a profoundly transforming effect. So bowled over with what had happened to him, how he'd been received by Jesus and treated with mercy and grace and peace, that Zacchaeus makes a vow, that he would give half of what he owned to the poor, and also that if he'd defrauded anybody of anything then he would not just return it but return it fourfold.

Remember that Zacchaeus was very rich and he'd lived a life that was shaped by taking from people. And now he was not just anxious but pleased to give away what he had. He was a changed man. It was a 180 degree change, in a moment, after a life time of living a particular way. And all from seeing Jesus, and being received by Jesus. How does Zacchaeus prepare us for Lent?

Lent is about turning again to God, it's about seeing God again or for the first time. But we need to have a need. We must desire to see God, a desire we want to see fulfilled and not only that but a desire we'll do anything to see fulfilled, overcome any limitation, any obstacle to see fulfilled. And that's what I mean about doing Lent properly. It's about taking the time to ask ourselves what we must do if we are to turn to God again. Only we and God know what are our limitations, what's stopping us fulfilling our need. Maybe it's a lack of will, a lack of that desire. So how do you develop the desire? Maybe you feel it's some other much greater obstacle, some sin or difficulty in relationship with a person or others which seems insurmountable.

As we think about Zacchaeus in these few days before Lent begins, take the time to think about just how much you want to see God, how much you want to turn to God again, overcome any limitation or obstacle so that you too might have that transforming encounter with Him that will turn your life around as it did Zacchaeus.

Third Sunday of Epiphany

2012-01-21T21:21:00.000Z

Genesis 14.17-20; Revelation 19.6-10; John 2.1-11

At a human level, all miracles are pretty pointless. I was reading a book during last week written by Fr. Alexander Schmemann entitled 'O death, where is thy sting'. It's, of course, about death, the last enemy. In the book Fr. Alexander mentions the raising of Lazarus; and it got me thinking 'why did Jesus raise Lazarus? What was the point?' He didn't really do Lazarus any favours except extend his time here on earth. Poor Lazarus would have to die all over again, go through the agony of it, or whatever it brought for him. Lazarus's sisters had the benefit of him being around for longer, but assuming Lazarus died before they did, they'd have to grieve all over again. So it seems a bit of a strange thing to have done, which in the end, didn't really benefit anybody.

It could, however, have given Jesus a bit of fame or notoriety. Just think if he'd lived now, in our society that's infatuated and mezmerized by celebrity. He'd be worth billions. But then, there are all sorts of illusionists about nowadays who, if they don't work miracles, send you away believing that they do. So maybe Jesus's miracle working wouldn't be treated as that extraordinary anyway. So what use are miracles?

We've come today to read about Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding reception. He seems a bit reluctant to do it. But he does it; not in an ostentatious way as some sort of party trick or illusion; but in a hidden way, only in front of one or two servants. So nearly all the people in the room had no idea what had happened and they thought only that they'd been served some pretty decent wine. So what was the point of the miracle, except to save the embarrassment of the bride and groom?

St. John, in writing the account of this miracle, gives a hint as to what it was all about. He says that in working the miracle Jesus revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. The sticking point with that is that at the time, Jesus's disciples didn't know about the miracle because only the servants witnessed it. So maybe we've got to think not just about the point of this and other miracles, but how we read the Bible as well.

Turning back to Lazarus for a moment, when we read the account, again written by St. John, we see that he says that Jesus says he's raised Lazarus so that people would believe that God sent Him and that they would see the glory of God.

The raising of Lazarus was done in front of a crowd; the turning of water into wine, in front of just a few. But the thing that both miracles have in common, and that all the other miracles of Jesus have in common is that they are meant to point us towards God. On a human level, the miracles only have relevance for the place, people and time that they happen. They are strange and wonderful things that happen. But that's all they are on a purely human level, when we see and hear about them through purely human eyes and ears. Just strange and wonderful occurrences.

And on a purely human level, whether or not you believe that the miracles happened is entirely up to you. Jesus didn't do miracles to prove anything or as some attempt to persuade people to believe in him. If he had, I guess he'd have done a lot more than he did and have been far more open about them, put on sideshows and appeared in the theatre. I happen to believe that Jesus did do the miracles that we read of. I used to be sceptical; but now I know more about the power and presence of God in life, I've far less reason to doubt.

'And his disciples believed in him', seems to be a sort of throw away line here in St. John's gospel; an after thought even. St. John writes as if the disciples believing in Jesus was a 'spin off' of the miracle rather than the intention of the miracle. And I think that's part of how miracles have an impact upon our lives as well.

The miracles of Jesus point us to a different plane, a different level beyond the purely human level. And beyond this world as we engage with it. The miracles of Jesus point us towards God and towards his kingdom. But more than that even, the miracles of Jesus transfigure human existence and place it firmly in the Kingdom of God. The miracles, to put it another way, are the Kingdom of God breaking through into this world. And they take us there with them too. These miracles are all connected with the greater miracle of God here with us in Jesus Christ, in the Church through His Spirit then and now. As members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we actually inhabit that Kingdom of God, we live in it. And we, in a very immature way experience that Kingdom even now, where earth is transfigured by Jesus Christ into the Kingdom.

God didn't come at Christmas so that we might have a better life in the hereafter. He came to bring in His Kingdom now and so that we might be part of that Kingdom now. And the miracle goes on all around us if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. And He came to lift us into the Kingdom if we'll let Him lift us into it, so that we no longer see our life, our existence in purely human terms, with human eyes and ears; but see our life as God sees it, see it in terms of His glory, see our life in Christ itself as the miracle it was, is and always will be.

The Naming & Circumcision of Jesus - What's in a Name?

2011-12-31T20:18:00.000Z

Numbers 6.22-end; Galatians 4.4-7; Luke 2.15-21

Amongst the Christmas presents I received this Christmas was a bookmark. The bookmark had my name printed on it at the top and below that, the meaning of my name. According to this bookmark, my name means 'Peace'. It goes on to say something of the characteristics that my name symbolises or means. It says 'You have a quiet and peaceful nature. Inside you have a dynamic core. You are not afraid of life. You can deal with your own and others problems.' Well, it's not for me to judge whether that assessment is anywhere near the truth. I can think of instances when the exact opposite to the above can be seen by anyone within a few yards of me. But then we are all a huge mix and mystery.

I guess most, if not all of you have seen things like that about your own name. You might know what is the meaning of your name. And indeed, new parents spend lots of time choosing names for their babies. I'm not sure what the criteria are these days for name choosing. I sometimes have the feeling that the most important criteria is 'nafness', if there is such a word. There are lots of quite obscure names these days which don't seem to mean very much. They may be chosen with love, but I'm not sure that much thought goes into what the name actually says about the child it's given to.

You might think I'm totally off beam saying this sort of thing but I'm only saying it to reinforce the fact that until recently, a name really did mean something and it was chosen, particularly so in ancient times, so that some of the characteristics of the name might actually be shown in the person carrying it. Because it was believed that there was a power in the name; and that knowing the name of a person gave you more than a good insight into who and what that person was, it gave you knowledge of their being.

And that's why when it comes to the Bible, such great store is placed on peoples' names. The angel that visited Zechariah told him that he was to name his child John. And the archangel Gabriel told Mary that she was to name her child Jesus. The name John, in Hebrew tradition apparently means 'God is gracious'. And you can understand why that would be so significant to Elizabeth and Zechariah in their old age. It said something about God's relationship with them and with their son and also something about their son too as he was a prophet and forerunner of God's grace in Jesus Christ.

'Jesus' means 'God saves', and Emmanuel means 'God is with us.' So the name Jesus has a very deep meaning which describes both His person and work. But there is also a power in the name of Jesus which was recognised as we read in the Bible. We read that the name of Jesus was used to cast out devils and to heal people. Jesus himself told his disciples that whatever they asked the Father for in His name they would receive it. St. Peter said that there was salvation only in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And St. Paul, writing to the Philippians tells them that God has bestowed upon Jesus 'the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.' If you are asked why Christians regard their religion as superior to all the others you only need quote those verses - Philippians 2.10 and 11.

So this event in Jesus' life that we are celebrating today in this worship, the naming of Jesus, is one of the most important moments in Jesus' life. It was a moment that affirmed all that Jesus was and was to become, and all that Jesus is to us - Saviour and God with us; a real power and presence in our lives.

We hear the name of the Lord used so much as a swear word these days. It's a name that, more than any others is abused. And that is a direct attack, if you like, on the fourth commandment - 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.' Using the Lord's name as a swear word is simply vicious contempt. Actually, God can stand it. But those who use the Lord's name in that way actually use it to their own damnation. Using the Lord's name like that might upset those of us who hear it, but it damages those who use it that way. What you give out you get back. What you sow you reap. And if you sow contempt, you reap it.

So on this day in which we celebrate the naming and the name of our Lord, let us pray with all earnestness when we come to it later in our liturgy, 'hallowed be your name'. And give the name of Jesus all glory on this first day of a new year and on every day to come.

The Nativity - If you won't come to me; I'll come to you!

2011-12-22T13:32:00.002Z

Isaiah 2.6-end; Titus 3.4-7; Luke 2.1-20

The Nativity According to the Flesh of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ

The Nativity

I'd like to begin with some words from a sermon of St. Gregory of Nazianzus.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus

'Christ is born: let us glorify him. Christ comes down from heaven: let us go out to meet him. Christ descends to earth: let us be raised on high. Let all the world sing to the Lord: let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad, for his sake who was first in heaven and then on earth. Christ is here in the flesh: let us exult with fear and joy - with fear, because of our sins; with joy, because of the hope that he brings us......This is the solemnity we are celebrating today: the arrival of God among us, so that we might go to God - or more precisely, return to God. So that stripping off our old humanity we might put on the new; for as in Adam we were dead, so in Christ we become alive: we are born with him, and we rise again with him.....A miracle, not of creation, but of re-creation. For this is the feast of my being made whole, my returning to the condition God designed for me, to the original Adam. So let us revere the nativity which releases us from the chains of evil. Let us honour this tiny Bethlehem which restores us to paradise. Let us reverence this crib because from it we, who were deprived of self-understanding, are fed by divine understanding, the Word of God himself.'

It's good, 2,000 years since the first Christmas, to read again what the early Church Fathers said about the birth of Christ. They are nearer in time to the event, yes, but that's not the only reason for reading them. They are a prime source, an original reference to bring us back to the original, and I would dare to say, real meaning of this festival of Christmas. So much has been said over the last 2,000 years, expressing so very many opinions, views and indeed, beliefs about the birth of Christ and of its significance, that, even if we are on what we might call the 'believing side', we can at best be confused and at worst come away feeling that because nobody really knows, if not the 'why', then the 'how', then it's probably all pure speculation anyway. And so St. Gregory who lived in the 4th century and who is also known as Gregory the Theologian, for me, sums up what Christmas, the Nativity of Jesus Christ is all about.

It's good too to remember, I think, that although we, living in time as we do, might have seen many Christmases, for God, who is outside of time, there is only ever one Christmas. And as such we should consider each of our Christmases, as if it were the only one we've ever experienced. So that, we really should come to it with the same sense of awe, wonder, mystery and joy as the shepherds and the magi did. We should try to cast off that sense we are bound to get, that we often do when things are repeated, that we've seen and heard it all before so it has nothing new for us. Most adults do that when they say that Christmas is for children. And it's such a pity that they've lost that excitement and sense of wonder as they look at the crib, or unwrap their gifts. So we get, 'oh, just another pair of socks;' been there, done that, worn the tee-shirt, eaten the pie! What a huge shame and pity.

So, let's try and look on Christmas each time as if it were the first and only. For God shouts down from heaven to us 'If you won't come to me; I'll come to you' (and I have to attribute that phrase to a story told by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware) And He does. And as St. Gregory says, at that we should 'exult with fear and joy - fear because of our sins; with joy, because of the hope that he brings us.'

You can't understand Christmas and find any meaning in it, without knowing something of the whole story of God and creation. Trying to make sense of Christmas on its own is like reading a single chapter from a book without reading the whole book. It won't make sense. It doesn't make sense on its own. So as we read the Christmas story, it only makes sense if we go right back to the beginning of creation, as we read it in the book of Genesis and where we read of the Fall of Adam and Eve. And even at this point and especially at this point, down the centuries people have forgotten or misplaced the meaning of events and interpreted them in a way that's been so destructive to life's meaning and purpose.

Listen to any atheist and especially the contemporary celebrity atheists that you hear vilifying the Christian faith; and immediately you hear that most seem to have a picture of God who is an evil tyrant, who created human beings as sick and needing Him; human beings who are depraved and no matter what they do they can never be right with God. And that same God looks down upon humanity seeking to find them out and punish them at every available opportunity. What a wicked travesty of the Truth this is. If there is a God delusion it's just that.

For the God of ancient Christianity, the God of St. Gregory of Nazianzus and all the other Church Fathers, the God of Jesus Himself, is quite the opposite. God is a God of love, who created the universe and all humanity out of love; who out of love, gave humanity the whole of His creation to care for, who living in the way God prescribed had face to face conversation with Him and an everlasting life of joy and wholeness, of freedom and peace.

But it was humanity, in the form of Adam and Eve, created by God in His image and likeness, that chose out of their own free will to disobey God, to go against what He'd asked of them. And the consequences of their disobedience was a falling into sickness of mind, heart, body and most importantly, sickness of soul. And with that, they died physically too. And if we've inherited anything from Adam and Eve it's that sickness of soul. And because we are spiritually sick, of our own free will, we sin, time and time again, that sin at its deepest being a continuing to turn away from God, to reject Him and walk away from Him; to abandon Him.

The Fall

Read the story, listen to the story as we've heard it through Advent, as we've lit each of those candles on the Advent wreath week by week, and you can see that time and time again God, out of love for humanity, pleads with us to return to Him. Even though we abandon Him, He never abandons us. But every time, we turn away. Time and time again. Until finally God says well, 'if you won't come to me, I'll come to you' and He does that by being born as one of us in the form of Jesus Christ, as a baby born in a manger in Bethlehem. Out of time and space He comes into time and space to meet with us and grow with us and die and rise to bring us back to Himself again so that we could readily and freely have that relationship we had with Him before Adam and Eve fell into sickness and death, spiritual and physical. The Uncreated comes as created, so that we, made in His image may grow into His likeness again.

And this is what St. Gregory is telling us. This is how this great saint, through the Holy Spirit working in him, sees these events, and so he proclaims 'Christ is born: let us glorify Him!' St. Gregory says that, in the light of God's coming in Christ we should fear, because of our sins. God is always a God of judgement, and we should live in the light of that fact. We know that our sin has consequences, we see that in Adam and Eve and we also, if we care to look, see that in our own life story. But we must always remember that we sin of our own free will. It's as simple as that. God gave us that free will out of love; and look how we abuse it. So we bring judgement upon ourselves.

But more than that and much more, God is a God of forgiveness and love, and so the other side of the coin to fear, because of our sins, is the 'joy, because of the hope that He brings us.' We have hope in the everlasting love and forgiveness of God. And that's why on this day, we have a smile on our faces. That everlasting love and forgiveness of God is the cause of and meaning of our celebration today, without an understanding and knowledge of which our celebrations are empty and devoid of anything worth.

Today, again, God reaches out the hand of love to each and everyone of us in Jesus Christ, a baby born in Bethlehem; He reaches out to offer us again the life He intended for us right at the beginning, a life of joy and wholeness, of freedom and peace, a life in continuous and everlasting communion with Him. What greater gift could we desire at this or any Christmas? 'Christ is born: let us glorify Him!'

Christ is born: let us glorify Him!

Advent 4 - According to your word

2011-12-17T21:20:00.001Z

2 Samuel .1-11, 16; Romans 16.25-27; Luke 1.26-38

The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth

Today we come to the fourth Sunday of Advent and we are asked to think on this day about Mary, the mother of our Lord. Since at least the third century, Mary has been given the name Theotokos, which means 'God Bearer'. Hence she has been known down the centuries in Christian tradition as the 'Mother of God'. And today, our readings from the New Testament remind us that this event we have been preparing for over the last three weeks and now going into our fourth is all about God. It's not really about the patriarchs and prophets and St. John the Baptist and about the blessed virgin Mary who we have been remembering week by week. God chose them as part of His plan to redeem the whole of creation, to join in with Him in the process, but it was God who initiated it and God who carried it through.

How extraordinary and even miraculous this thing is that God has done for us. And how extraordinary it is that it is quite forgotten by the majority of the population who celebrate Christmas, and Easter. And even we in the Church find at times that we haven't got the energy or the focus really to think about the magnitude of the event we celebrate at Christmas and also at Easter.

Very often at this time of year we are overtaken by events that come seemingly in opposition to any good recollection of Christmas. It could be anything from severe weather to family tragedy that takes our mind, heart and spirit away from Christmas, so that if we celebrate it at all, it's in a way that keeps us preoccupied rather than occupied with it in awe and wonder at the mystery unfolding.

Just yesterday I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman. They were talking about Christmas and the woman said to the man, 'I'm not celebrating it this year'. When asked why, the woman said it was because she'd lost somebody. I didn't quite catch how the person had been 'lost' but it had quite taken her heart, mind and soul away from what Christmas could and should be for her. And I think all of us very often have something that in some way, 'takes the edge off Christmas'.

So maybe we could just remember, if nothing else, that it's a miracle we are celebrating. The two women mentioned in the gospel reading, Mary and Elizabeth, one so young and the other so old, each hadn't expected to be giving birth to a child. For both of them, what was happening to them was a miracle. And a miracle that came with its own complications and difficulties. God doesn't seem to make it easy for anybody, even in His great grace and love. Or maybe that's because we are so far removed in heart, mind and soul from Him that it just is that way.

But the miracle happening to Mary and Elizabeth, in itself, helps us to remember that what was going on wasn't so much about them, it was about God Himself; about God's will for us and for all creation. And that what God wants, what God looks for in those He chooses to work with Him, is the openness of faith; the willingness of faith. He wants us, like Mary, to turn the unwillingness of Adam and Eve to a willing trust in Him; trust that what He says, He'll see through. And bring us through too, as He brought Mary and Elizabeth through what He had planned for them. And which echoes the Lord's prayer; 'thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven', where God is all in all and so that He may be all in all here on earth also.

On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, with the remembrance of the patriarchs and prophets and of St. John the Baptist behind us; those who paved the way in the world and in heart, mind and soul for the Lord; we come to join with the Mother of God in her acclamation of faith and faithfulness, 'Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.' And just as through all that long preparation the Lord was born into the world, so through all this preparation, and through faith and faithfulness, the Lord may be born again in our heart, mind, soul and body this Christmas.

Advent 3 - A Voice in the Wilderness

2011-12-10T12:04:00.003Z

Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5.16-24; John 1.6-8, 19-28

Last week we thought about Advent as being a time of waiting. But it's a waiting that's not idled away. It's a waiting that is a preparation; and so it's a very active waiting. It's not time simply to be filled in. It's time to be used towards an end.

In that waiting, last week we were introduced to John the Baptist, the Forerunner and Prophet. It's his voice that calls us to make the waiting useful. It's his voice that calls us to prepare. And I want to think, for a few moments, a little bit more about St. John and his call, and about us, and about Jesus, and Advent and Christmas. Just for a few moments.

'Who are you?', asked the priests and Levites of John. 'What do you say about yourself?' So many people at the time had raised themselves up to show people the way to God, to enlightenment, to the answers to life's big questions. As there are so many these days. We have so many gurus around telling us how best to live our life and our death and beyond. John was emphatic. 'I am not the Messiah'. 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord."'

I'm sure we all have that picture in our minds eye of this wild man shouting his threats and promises. Maybe we see him as a little mad, deranged because of his time alone in the desert. Maybe he comes across as a bit frightening. And because of that maybe we don't listen as we could or should. Yes, we see him in the wilderness, shouting out his message. 'Prepare the way of the Lord'.

I wonder if you've ever thought of the wilderness as being yourself; being you and me? John, the wilderness man is crying INTO the wilderness that is your heart and soul and body; and mine too. And he's crying into the wilderness that is our contemporary culture. But you'll say, 'how can I and this time and place be a wilderness? I have everything I could possibly want. I want for nothing.' We can also say, those of us here, like the pharisee, like the rich young man, 'and we come to church too, we are of the faith, we've listened to the message, we hear'.

Well, yes, we have all we want, we have all we need; we think. But almost all of it is temporary and goes away quickly. When the hot winds of misfortune come along and the sand storms of chaos roar across the landscape of our life, how quickly what we see as the good things of life dry up and shrivel up and die. So what we thought was abundance and which we put such great store by was impermanent. We thought we were in a land flowing with milk and honey when all we had was a brief flowering like those desert plants that flower quickly after rain then die away just as quickly.

And isn't the desert also our mind and heart and soul and spirit? We come to church, we hear the message. But do we really know the living God? Do we really love the living God? Maybe you do. Millions upon millions don't. And those who do know God and love God can always know and love Him more. So in that sense we are always a wilderness. There's always that part of heart, mind and soul that remains parched and longing for the life-giving water that is God in Jesus Christ. So the cry of St. John the Baptist is for us too, we who have at one time answered the call and come. Still we need to come more and see more. Still we need to 'Make straight the way of the Lord'.

And notice too something else that John says. 'Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me...' He stands here amongst us and yet we don't know Him. We can come week by week and stand alongside our Lord and still not know Him, just as those priests and Levites did 2,000 years ago. And He stands in the world, in the streets, right beside people, in front and behind them; they look Him in the face and they still don't see, don't know. How many will again this year, look at the crib, give the gifts, wish others a happy Christmas, even come to church and still not know Jesus Christ, still not see Him?

And we can be like that too, it's so easy; so easy to get so caught up in ourselves that He comes and stands alongside us and we still don't know Him. And so we are still a wilderness and St. John still calls to us. And maybe we hear his voice but do we listen?

Let's listen. While there is time let's listen. It might be the last time we hear the voice and it's never too late. And this is the way to listen, in what St. Paul said to the Thessalonians; 'Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do this.'

When we listen in this way then we may know in our hearts what Isaiah prophesied; 'The wilderness and the dry land shall rejoice, the desert shall blossom and burst into song.....For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; The ransomed of the Lord shall return with singing, with everlasting joy upon their heads. Joy and gladness shall be theirs, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.'

Advent 2 - Waiting

2011-12-10T11:16:00.045Z

Isaiah 40.1-11; 2 Peter 3.8-15a; Mark 1.1-8

Advent is a strange time, an awkward time. It's two-fold waiting - for celebration and for return. One with awe, mystery, wonder, joy; the other with judgement and fulfilment of all God promises. And in Advent we are between the two, waiting for them both. And it's the awkwardness of the waiting we feel; the strangeness of the waiting.

Because it's not ordinary waiting, like waiting for a bus or a train or a plane; or waiting in the surgery to see the doctor. This ordinary waiting is like a gap that we can fill with anything we want to do, or nothing. It's up to us. Whatever we do to fill the gap doesn't have anything to do with what we are waiting for. It's usually quite distinct or separate.

Not so with Advent. Advent waiting is preparing for what is to come. And preparing in a very particular way. It's a time for what St. John the Baptist calls for, and Jesus when He comes and St. Peter at Pentecost. It's waiting that calls for repentance, for turning heart, mind and spirit to God. And it's waiting too that isn't sort of languid, but has an urgency about it, even a tension.

It's waiting that in itself requires a response that's immediate. It's not a time to while away or waste. It's a time of opportunity not to be missed, because it might not come again. It might be our last opportunity to respond to St. John's call to repent.

Advent waiting is foretold in those parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of God; because it's that we are waiting for. Advent waiting is like the parable of the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom. Altogether it's about being ready for the best that could ever be. It's about waiting for God and His kingdom. His kingdom of peace, righteousness and justice - to be born, to be fulfilled.

And this happens for us in time. But in God's time it's all of a piece. We exist in time and that's why we experience this waiting and having to get ready. St. Peter reminds us in the beginning of that part of his letter we've read today how this waiting is for God. He is endless patience and He waits for us to turn to Him and be ready for Him. And then He comes in His time. And that for us may be sooner or later.

This waiting may seem like a test, a trial, a temptation. And so it is. For some it's easy, for others it's hard. For many they don't see it as anything at all because they don't hear the call to repent. But in God's grace we don't need to be concerned about others. St. Peter asked Jesus about another disciple. He said to Jesus 'what about him?' And Jesus said, 'don't worry about him, you follow me.'

So Advent waiting is a God given opportunity for each one of us to hear and respond again or for the first time to God's call through John the Baptist today to turn again to Him, to take another step closer to Him no matter how old or young we may be. Love is limitless and God asks seeks our love in response to His love through our repentance.

Let's use Advent to try and take that one step nearer; let's use this time of waiting, for our good.

Christ the King

2011-11-19T19:39:00.000Z

Ezekiel 34.11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1.15-23; Matthew 25.31-46

We come today to the last Sunday of the Church's year and our hearts and minds are encouraged towards heaven in the readings as we think about Jesus Christ King of Kings and Lord of Lords sitting on His throne and from where He ministers His love, mercy and judgement. It's not a bad image with which to round off the year.

The images of judgement we see in the gospel reading are probably the ones that capture the popular imagination. And it's those sadly that most people seem to be left with when they consider the 'merciful judgement of God'. In other words, depending upon your actions in this life you are either in or out, sheep or goat, saved or damned. Jesus the King is on His throne and you'd better watch what you are doing, because He's always watching you and His gaze is ever threatening.

How sad that is because it couldn't be any further from the Truth. We only need to remember what St. John said of God to understand that - 'God is love and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.' Actually, as far as God's judgement is concerned, we needn't start with God, because by our own actions we condemn ourselves, we bring judgement on ourselves. God, in His love has given us free will, and, when we make a mess of things, the door of repentance leading to forgiveness, always stands open waiting for us to walk through. Having said that, the images in Matthew's gospel that Jesus paints for us this morning do focus the mind and heart. Maybe He painted them so that gazing on them we might be more ready to walk through that door of repentance than we would otherwise. Maybe they are there more for encouragement than a threat of actual punishment. Indeed, we do believe that before being resurrected Jesus descended into hell to save those who had been banished there by their actions in life. Most of us don't realise that God loves us that much that He actually goes Himself into the devil's place of abode to haul us out.

As I said, it's really sad that people still have those medieval images in mind when they think of God's judgement, rather forgetting His merciful side. But it's that merciful aspect of His nature and therefore that of Jesus that we might reintroduce people to in this day and age. The power inherent in the judgement and mercy that Jesus shows as King of Kings, St. Paul talks about in his letter to the Ephesians and it's no less than the power that God the Father used to raise Jesus from death. The remarkable thing is that that power is open and available to us.

St. Paul says that the power God used to raise Jesus also sets Him in the highest place in the universe, the Name above every name, far above all other rulers and authorities and powers. That's why we believe that our faith is THE faith; that the Truth we hold as Christians is THE Truth. Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life; everything else is inferior.

Now we have to remember that we come to that not by some superior road, but by way of humility. We have here in Jesus a servant King, who came as He said, not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus the King ascends His throne via servanthood, humiliation, torture and death. What an example to this present generation. How can a King who inherits His throne that way ever be judgemental without love? How can He be threatening and bullying? It's impossible.

Justice and love go together here in a way that means that we are given life through it. In God's justice there is never anything taken away from us. It may seem like it in purely human terms. We only need to recall parables about the kingdom such as the workers in the vineyard who were all paid the same no matter how long they worked. But the same justice is affirming of the disadvantaged as well as those who have more than others. That is a true equality, equality of love.

There is nothing here to fear, only the condemnation we bring upon ourselves by our own sinfulness. And that only arises because we forget God; we leave God out of our lives so very much. And it's on these terms that we can wait and pray for Christ to return as King, bringing His kingdom into its fullness. We couldn't pray for it or anticipate it on any other terms. And it's in that frame of mind and heart that we conclude our year and move into the season of Advent which focusses the same heart and mind on Jesus first coming and looks forward to His second.

All Saints (Sunday or otherwise)

2011-10-29T20:00:00.000+01:00

1 John 3.1-3; Matthew 5.1-12

In my earlier days of following the lectionary I often wondered why this reading of the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount was set for All Saints. Gradually I began to realise that those we call saints of the Church would probably show something of the qualities or virtues that Jesus speaks of like poverty of spirit, meekness, a hunger for righteousness. Later it began to dawn on me that if we were serious about our Christian life and our walk with God then it would be desirable that we too should be able to see these same qualities developing in ourselves. And now most recently I've come to the same mind that at least the Eastern Church has with regard to these Beatitudes, that these qualities or virtues aren't simply desirable in a Christian but are as St. Peter of Damaskos calls them, commandments of God Himself, indeed he calls these Beatitudes The Seven Commandments. (The Philokalia volume 3 A Treasury of Divine Knowledge)

We usually think of the 10 Commandments in the Old Testament when we think of 'Commandments'. But Jesus came, as He said, to 'fulfil the Law and the Prophets'. And so His own life and way of living in His relating to God and others is of itself a commandment to all who profess to be His followers, His disciples. When we are baptised we are baptised 'into' Christ, into His life and so for us there is no other way but His. So in that sense what Jesus tells us, the baptised, of a blessed life is a commandment to us to follow that same way. It's not simply desirable or an option. And so these Beatitudes, as well as showing us who are the 'blessed' also shows us what we are obliged to become ourselves, if we continue to profess our Christian faith and life. And I suppose that's why St. Paul could call all Christians saints and not simply those whose lives are specially marked out by the Church as 'saintly'. These Beatitudes could form a series of Bible studies giving hours to each one. We haven't got time to linger so a brief word about them, as I said, seeing them as commandments of God. And I have to thank St. Peter of Damaskos for this.

In this modern Western world and culture, the virtues we read about in the Beatitudes, I think are interpreted by people of all ages as displaying some sort of weakness of character. For instance you wouldn't find them talked about as qualities that people appearing in the Dragon's Den or The Apprentice would show. And that's where so very many people have got our Christian faith wrong. They come to the Bible and Christianity and they interpret it as weakness when in fact the exact opposite is the truth, and if you look at the lives of those who we call the Saints of the Church you will see that all of them had a peculiar strength and it's a strength that comes out of these virtues. I'm just gong to look at the first four, because our interpretation of those will help us to look on the rest in new light, with a new depth and determine their strength anew.

Poverty of spirit is the starting point; what used to be called in the old days and we see so little of nowadays - ' the Fear of God'. Psalm 111 says 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. It's that relationship with God that sees and recognises that we are totally dependent upon Him and that all we have and are comes from Him. And it recognises in that, the unfathomable depth of love and mercy God has for us, so much so that He gives His own Son to die so that we might have life, that is the life of the Spirit of God Himself. And it was Jesus who said that without Him we can do nothing but at the same time with God all things are possible. Maybe St. Paul summed this up when he said 'when I am weak then I am strong'.

I think we always get the next one wrong. It doesn't mean mourning and grieving about people who have died. It means mourning our sinfulness and the sinfulness of our neighbour. It means grieving the fact that try as we might there's always room for improvement in ourselves, that we constantly hurt one another and are an offence to one another and at the same time offend against God who made us in His image and to be like Him. 'Blessed are those who mourn' is about knowing oneself in the greatest of depths because it's only as we know ourself that we can be all that God desires of us. And it's about lamenting the way of the world and the waywardness of the world and the self-possession of the world. It's only when you know yourself and have a realistic view of the world that you can do anything positive for humankind.

Meekness again isn't some sort of shrinking violet weakness. It's a humility that accepts what comes and lives with it and learns from it and grows through it. It's not what happens to you in life that matters it's what you do about it that counts. And meekness is standing firm in all that life brings. And by that I don't mean being hard like concrete but being supple like a tree, standing firm but bending to the wind. Meekness doesn't mean being compliant but it does mean being pliable.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And this is the power house of these virtues. It means desiring with all your heart for truth, goodness, mercy and love to prevail in all things; the Truth, goodness, mercy and love of God. It's only fuelled with this great desire that anyone can do good in the world, can represent and present Christ to the world. It's the power house of our prayer and of our life in God.

So we can see from just these four vitues how they represent not weakness but strength. When Jesus tells the story, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, of the man who built his house on rock, it was His teaching and His way of life that is the rock on which we build the house which is our own life. And these Beatitudes are that rock. All the rest of the detail of the Sermon on the Mount itself is built on these opening words. And these virtues, because they are the Christian life are commandments for all of us that profess to be followers of Jesus, all of us who have been baptised in His name. And that's why, if our own lives are built on this rock, we too can be called saints, just as those we remember today and each on his or her own day during our Church's year.

So as we remember all the Saints today, let us think about what it was that made them who they were, because it's just the same that makes us Christians and saints today.

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

2011-10-15T20:17:00.002+01:00

1 Thessalonians 1.10; Matthew 22.15-22

Nobody likes paying taxes. It was as true 2,000 years ago as it is today. And the more money people have, it seems, the less they like paying taxes. And there are those who will go to any lengths to avoid paying taxes. And so it's with some amusement perhaps that we read a story out of the gospel of a former tax collector today, that's centred around paying taxes. I wonder of St. Matthew had a smile on his face when he recorded this story about Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees.

The chief priests and the Pharisees come across in St. Matthew's gospel as the bad guys, amongst others. In reality they weren't rotten to the core as we might perceive them when we read of them. They were religous people, very devout and believed that their God and their way to God was right and true and good and holy. The trouble was, Jesus had come along, a man of their own religion, indeed a rabbi, a teacher and what he'd said had begun to turn their whole world upside down. He'd challenged them in ways they weren't accustomed to. He'd got them to think about their God and their religion in a different way. He'd said at the same time that He hadn't come to do away with it but to fulfil it.

But as with lots of things and people we don't understand, with things and people that challenge the way we live and see the world, the Pharisees and chief priests, like we do sometimes, felt threatened. They felt threatened by Jesus. What He'd done and said had been getting under their skin for a while and they didn't like it. And as time went by they liked it less and less, and liked Him less and less. Eventually they'd had enough. Jesus was too big a challenge. And we already know what the outcome was.

Along the way they tried to trip Jesus up here and there. They were very learned men, experienced and wise in their own religion. They were no part-timers when it came to living their religious life. They knew what they were talking about and not just from their books but from experience too. And maybe behind some of the questions they asked Jesus was a real struggle for them; things they had difficulty working through themselves. And I guess the question they asked Jesus, that we've read about today was one that they couldn't really find a satisfactory answer to themselves, whether or not they used it, as St. Matthew says, to entrap Jesus.

The point that this question reaches after is who do we pay allegiance to? Who comes first in our life? Who in fact do we recognise as having ultimate authority? Is it God, or the civil authorities? And when there is a potential conflict, as the chief priests and Pharisees felt there was, because Roman rule was imposed upon the Jewish nation, who do you serve, ultimately? We still struggle with those sorts of questions today; especially when we might believe that the present government's policies are unjust or unfair to sections of the population. As Christians, do we speak out against the government, or do we keep quiet and go along with things? Do we recognise an authority higher than that of the government, in God Himself from where we get our sense of justice and mercy? And if so do we bring this to the notice of our civil authorities and in what way?

It was a trick question that the Pharisees put to Jesus. And their buttering Him up with flattery before they asked it didn't make it any less obvious. They'd hoped He'd condemn Himself as an outlaw by saying that as Jews, and bound by the Law of Moses, that it was unlawful to acceded to the demands of the secular authority and that they shouldn't do it. I'm not sure that the Law of Moses would have said any such thing. But anyway, Jesus sees through their little ruse and gives and answer that doesn't satisfy them but satisfies His predicament. 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.'

Now we might think that Jesus was just getting Himself out of a spot and that there are deficiencies in His answer and that it was a bit disingenuous. But we might go to St. Paul to help us with this because we might remember, from his letter to the Romans that he said we should obey the secular authorities because they are put there by God. In this day and age we'd probably feel that that answer is quite a bit deficient. But at the very least, for the time being, every despotic and tyrannical government in the world, if it hasn't got God's approval, it has God's sufferance.

What I think we have to do is to look behind Jesus's answer to the question put to Him and see it from His point of view. He was bringing in the Kingdom of God, as the Church is today. And yet the Kingdom of God is already established in Jesus Himself. Paying taxes is a temporal thing, a thing of this world with limited significance as is every government of this and any age. All come and go within the eternal Kingdom of God the Father. And it's in that context that Jesus could answer as He did. He wasn't putting the emperor on a par with God in His answer, far from it. Paying taxes, and the workings of worldly kingdoms is quite insignificant compared to the things of the Kingdom of God. If we put the Kingdom of God first in our lives then the paying of taxes and obeying the laws of earthly kingdoms, providing they are just, fair and merciful is something we as Christians ought to get on with. And it's in that vein that Jesus could answer, 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.' Or as Jesus had said, or something like it some time before, 'seek first the Kingdom of God and everything else will then fall into place.'

Tenth Sunday after Trinity

2011-08-27T19:38:00.001+01:00

Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for every.

'Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.' (John 14.13,14)
'If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.' (John 15.7)
'You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.' (John 15.16)
'Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.' (John 16.23,24)

These are some quotations from St. John's gospel which underline time and again what we read in the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew's gospel - 'Ask, and it shall be given you'. These are words of Jesus, and so words of God, that are unequivocal. There is no doubt in Jesus' words here, no ifs, buts or maybes - ask and it shall be given you.

All of us at some time will have wondered whether or not God does answer our prayers. And all of us could probably give evidence that our prayers have been answered. Usually though we have to add a rider somewhere that what I've just quoted from St. Matthew's gospel and St. John's gospel doesn't seem to be so simple. It seems that we don't always get what we ask for. Although there'll be thousands more Wiganers this morning who should be joining us in church today thanking God for answered prayer yesterday afternoon!

It seems that we don't always get our prayers answered and sometimes when we do the answer isn't always as we'd expected. So this whole business of answers to prayer doesn't seem to be as straightforward as Jesus seems to suggest.

I think we need to come to all of our prayers in the way that our collect today suggests; because it says, in a different way what Jesus says about the conditions, if you like, in which we should make our prayers. Jesus outlines the context, if you like, of our prayer and our asking.

The collect, in the way it puts the requests admits that there's a shortcoming in our relationship with God and in the way we live our life. It acknowledges that we fall short of God's ideal for us. That to me is the unwritten part of the collect; because it's saying 'show us how to ask and what to ask for so that we'll ask rightly and get our prayers answered rightly'. I think that's where the collect is coming from. And so it's acknowledging that in order to get our prayers answered as we would wish, we need to pray with heart and mind set on God and His will for us.

And I think the collect also acknowledges that God's way isn't always necessarily our way. And that isn't a 'get out' clause for God. I'm sure God doesn't want us to let Him off so easily. God loves us and wants the best for us. Jesus wouldn't have promised anything and everything to us in the way He does in those quotations from St. John's gospel if God didn't love us.

But what we have to acknowledge again, is the context for our prayers and Jesus makes it quite plain, I think. To get our prayers answered rightly and as we would wish, we have to 'abide' in Jesus Christ as He abides in the Father. Heart, mind, body and soul have to be fully given to Him and His way. Only then will we understand what it's right to pray for and understand the answer we get when we get it. And that answer will either be a granting or refusing of our desire, our want or need. Our prayer will be answered on God's terms; but that's all right because when we abide in Him we understand the answer and can accept the answer. Because God's wisdom is far above human wisdom. And we can only grasp the meaning of that if we abide in Him.

Then secondly our answers to prayer have a particular rationale. The answers we receive are for one reason above all others. We have answers to our prayers not simply for our own good but that God will be glorified by us and by all who witness the answer. Miracles that seem to be answers to prayer might be few and far between but what they are for is that God might be glorified. And God doesn't do miracles simply for the sake of it. He doesn't do them to show that He's superhuman. He does them in times and places that people might turn to Him in humility and love.

So all along, what our prayer is meant to do, no matter what we ask for, is to put God right at the centre of all of our life. And our collect shows us that our prayer, in a sense, issues from God and returns to God. St. Paul says that when we come to God in prayer and we don't know what to ask for, the Holy Spirit will pray in us. God Himself is the initiator of our prayers and the one who answers them, for our good and for His glory.

So, our praying is very much a two way thing, or should I say a three way thing, because all our prayer is Trinitarian. We make our pray by the Holy Spirit to the Father through Jesus Christ. And so in our prayer we ourselves are caught up in that relationship of love that is the Holy Trinity. And it's in that love and through that love that our prayers are answered. And it's when we are firmly established in that relationship with God that we know what to ask for and how to ask; and we recognise and accept the answers to our prayers.

9th Sunday after Trinity

2011-08-21T07:20:00.000+01:00

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Today's collect is quite a simple request but goes right to the heart of how we live our lives as followers of Christ and people of God. And it's about the sort of person each of us is meant to become in our walk with God.

On reading this I'm reminded immediately about what St. Paul wrote to the Galatians about what he called 'living in the Spirit'. And by that I think he means that there's a sense in which our whole being is taken over by God, that we 'abide in the Him', as Jesus would put it, and that we are led and guided by Him, every moment of our lives.

For that to happen we need to do as the collect has us pray today; we need to 'open our hearts to the riches of (His) grace'. This is probably the hardest part. It's hardest because it demands faith. And faith as we've discovered before is about taking a step into the unknown, like stepping off the edge of a cliff. It means putting aside all our preconceived notions about how it's best to live life; and instead, living God's way. And we do that by keeping God's commandments and being and doing as Jesus taught. When we do that we open ourselves to the justice, mercy and love of God's Kingdom. We open ourselves to God's own Spirit working and moving in us. And then we find we are in a quite different place to the Kingdoms of this world. We are in the Kingdom of God.

There is no other way of opening ourselves to God. There are no shortcuts. The only way to having God work in our lives, of opening ourselves up to Him, is to obey God's commandments, to live the Sermon on the Mount and everything else Jesus taught. It's loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us, doing to others what you would have them do to you. It's turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, giving your shirt as well as your coat. It might sound cliched, or hackneyed, but that's the way to God's Kingdom and all the treasures and pleasures it holds. The way is by obeying His laws and His commandments. And Jesus told us just what to expect about getting on that road and how difficult it is; 'The way to life is narrow, and few there are that find it'.

And we don't find it because we are too consumed with living any way but the way God wants us to. Opening our hearts to the riches of His grace is the hardest thing in the world because of our falleness. Right at our heart is our own pride and ego. It's that that says 'I can live my life in any way I choose and in doing that I will get everything I want and need.' And that's the reason we who would follow Christ have to pray that God Himself will help us to live the way He wants us to, because we know we are infected with the outlook that pride and ego brings, and so we can't do it without Him. And specifically, in the words of this collect, we ask for God's help for a particluar reason, and that reason is that we might 'bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in love and joy and peace'.

What more would we ask from life than love, joy and peace? You can have as much money and possessions in your life but none of it has more value than love, joy and peace. I wish we all had as much and more money than we could ever want or need. Our lives would be far more comfortable for it. But much, much more do I wish for love, joy and peace. And we all know you can't buy those. You can't buy love, joy and peace from anbody, anywhere. That doesn't mean we don't try even though it's impossible. Human nature really is so perverse. The only way to love, joy and peace is by living the way God has prescribed which we prayed for in last week's collect, that is, 'in the ways of His laws and the works of His commandments, all of which is summed up in the way that Jesus Himself lived.

And when we live that way we are actually putting into effect what St. Paul spelled out to the Galatians about the fruit of the Spirit. He said that we have to put off the 'works of the flesh' as he called them and as I said, he spelled them out: 'fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing and things like these'. Notice the catch-all there - 'things like these'. His list is open ended but we get his drift. All of these things stop the grace of God working in us. It need not be what we see as great sin that stands in our way, but seemingly simple, every day things like jealousy, anger, quarrels. They stand in the way of God's grace and because they are every day things to us then God's grace is blocked off from us every day, every hour, every minute.

But put those to one side, St. Paul says and see what the contrast is when we allow God's grace to work in us. Then we see the result of that grace working, we see it in what he called the 'fruit of the Spirit' and it's what we pray for today in this collect: 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.' And just these few. God's Spirit is seen in just these nine characteristics. Whereas the list of St. Paul's 'works of the flesh' has 15 characteristics and more because he leaves the list open. Just these few things mark our life in God, our life in Christ. You know the Holy Spirit is working in a person when you see these - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And that's what we pray for today for each one of us.

Whatever we might want in life, whatever we might think we need, it's the fruit of the Spirit that should be our real treasure. It's that that we really ought to grow in our lives because it's the fruit of the Spirit through which God's Kingdom comes on earth as in heaven.

Eight Sunday after Trinity

2011-08-11T15:24:00.000+01:00

Almight Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

What gets you out of bed in a morning? What is it, day by day that keeps you going? Or, as a former vicar of mine asked me a long time ago, 'from where do you get your oxygen? I wonder if you've ever given much thought to those sorts of questions? One word that covers those questions is 'motivation'. What is it that motivates you, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year?

I do believe that we are all here for a purpose; a purpose known to God. And we are fortunate if we can tap into that and find the purpose for our own life. I think that the fundamental purpose for all of us is to get to know God; because it's through fulfilling that purpose that we find our natural place in creation. It's through getting to know God that we, as it were, fall into place in the jig-saw of life alongside others. It's how we fit into the great scheme of things.

Another way of thinking about what purpose we have in life is thinking about what our own mission is in life. Our church, St. Andrew's has a mission statement that was put together quite a long time ago now. And I think each one of us as part of St. Andrew's and simply as individual Christians, members of the Body of Christ, each of us has a mission. And if we thought about it long enough each one of us could put together our own mission statement in a sentence or two.

It's all about meaning and purpose in life. But to have meaning and purpose, to have a mission and to make that meaning, purpose and mission real to us and to others, we have to have the motivation. We have to find the 'oxygen' to breathe to move us forward. We have to have a foundation on which to build a meaningful, purposeful life.

I think the Collect today helps us in providing that foundation, and finding the wherewithal that helps us to be what God wants us to be, so that we can do what He wants us to do; to have a meaningful and purposeful life fulfilling our mission and indeed, as I was talking about last week, living up to our primary vocation, our calling to become Christ-like.

So we look first to the Almighty Lord and everlasting God - 'Almighty and everlasting'. God knows no boundaries of power and of time or space. He is a constant and always full, source of all we could ever need. In Him lies our meaning and purpose and our mission; and the wherewithal to see it and do it. And so it's to this God that we call to be built up and to be moved to be what God wants us to be. 'We beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of your laws and the works of your commandments'.

We tend to separate heart, body and soul. But it's true to say that early Christian theologians saw them as one thing rather than separate. There's evidence going back to the Bible that early Christians used the terms interchangeably here and there, especially the terms soul and body. I think it's useful to think of them that way but with the subtleties of meaning we attribute to each. It's a fact that, certainly in this life, one is dependent upon the other and so it's good to think of them in unity. So we bring all that we are in this life, all that's contained in this that we call our body and ask God to direct, sanctify and govern it. In other words God is what makes each individual one of us to stand out from the other as unique. We ask Him to be the motivator behind all that we are and the sustainer of all that we are. But we ask Him to direct, sanctify and govern us in a particular direction. None of this is without any particular reason. Right from the outset the goal is in mind, the mission, the meaning and purpose of our life is in mind and in the heart of the prayer and in the mind and heart of God. It's all in the direction of 'the ways of your (God's) laws and the works of your (God's) commandments.

Life only works well as God created it, and our lives are only fulfilled in every respect if we live them in the way that God has created us to live. And that is 'in the ways of His laws and the works of His commandments'. Oh, we try to live in other ways, in the ways that humankind dreams up and what a mess we sometimes make of things when those ways aren't God's ways. Look at what has been happening in towns and cities up and down the country over the last few days. Once we've decided that God's laws can be ignored then we can ignore humankind's laws as well. One thing so often forgotten these days is the very fact that the rules that govern Western democratic societies have been fashioned and forged on the laws of God given to Moses and handed down generation after generation. And why? Because it's the way life, human life and society works the best.

So asking God to provide us with and to be right at the very heart of our living of life we, as it were, come full circle by spelling out the reason for asking - 'that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul'. The reason for asking God to help us live the life He has given us is so that we can go on doing it. It's so that we can come to a full knowledge of Him, and in living His way, find our fulfilment and become all that He means us to become.

What a great prayer this is. What better way to start a service? What better way to start a day, than to ask God that He might help us to become all that He means us to become and do all that He has for us to do.

Seventh Sunday after Trinity

2011-08-05T09:39:00.000+01:00

Lord of all power and might,
the author and give of all good things:
graft in our hearts the love of your name,
increase in us true religion,
nourish us with all goodness,
and of your great mercy keep us in the same;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

We continue to think about the great prayer we pray each week in the Collect; and when I was thinking about this week's prayer, it seemed to me to be like considering the benefits of a good meal. It's as if on sitting down to your dinner, you would think very carefully about where your food came from, what its nutritional value is and what you can do to continue to have such good food and wholesome meals that are good for building body, mind and soul; meals that will keep you through all that life has to bring you, from infancy, through maturity to old age; through the whole course of your life. That's the sort of impression I get from this Collect.

As always, the Collect begins by making a statement of our belief about God; and in this case that He is the 'author and giver of all good things'. When it comes to faith, there are things we have to, as it were, take for granted. If we don't, how can we say we have faith? That's where the great gulf lies, I think, between those who believe in God and those who don't; those who believe in Jesus Christ and those who don't. There's got to be that basic acceptance of foundational principles on which to build one's faith, then comes an understanding of 'the Faith' and you develop the wherewithal to live the life of faith. That way, having faith is not simply some blind acceptance of something that seems impossible, but a life build on acceptance of principles upon which life is lived. And from that comes the 'knowing' that what you have accepted and believe is true.

And here we have such a foundational principle; that God, who in the Bible is always taken for granted, Himself a foundational principle; that God is creator and provider or as the Collect says, is 'author and giver of all good things'. So we and what we pray for next depend entirely upon God for everything that is good. And we recall that at the end of the six days of creation, good looked upon creation and declared it 'very good'. So everything that God gives us, the whole creation, is essentially good. (I'm not going to go into any questions at all about evil, where it comes from, what it is; that's another series of sermons)

Now, having established that basic principle, that basic belief we go on to ask of God four things. The first is that he will 'graft in our hearts the love of your name'. The way this is put is very telling. It says so much about the state we find ourselves in. It takes us right back to the Fall of Adam and Eve. The consequence of Adam and Eve's disobedience was their estrangement from God, their separation from Him. And separation from anything means a forgetting, and a loss of love and finally an antipathy to that we once loved and depended upon. The worst sin of all is that we forget God who is not only the author and giver of all good things, but our creator and redeemer; the one to whom we owe everything. This is original sin, the sin with which we are all tainted, the possibility of not only hating God but of fogetting Him altogether.

But God sought out Adam and Eve to rescue them from the death that their sin had brought and He seeks us out also. And so having turned away from God we need to ask Him to put back into our hearts the love we had for Him before the Fall. So we pray 'graft in our hearts the love of your name.' We have already said we depend upon God as creator for everything. And we depend upon Him just as much to be our Redeemer. We need Him to help us love Him.

And then 'increase in us true religion'. And what would 'true' religion be? 'Religion'. What a word! Some people hate that word with a perfect hatred. Some people fear it. I don't know what the dictionary definition is but I would say that true religion is what we've just prayed for - loving the name of God. All flows from that love. And whatever we do in the name of religion outside of that love isn't religion at all but a mockery of it.True religion is loving God as He commands - with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. I love that last bit; loving God with all your 'strength' with every fibre of your being and will all energy, passion, enthusiasm and longing. That is true religion. Religion takes us nowhere but back to God, always and ever. If it doesn't it isn't true religion.

And 'true religion' to my mind should do what we next pray for. 'Nourish us with all goodness.' If religion that is true takes us back always to God it takes us back always to good and what is good. And when we get near the good, when we approach the good we are warmed by it as we are warmed by a fire. We take in the heat of goodness and are built up by it, we are nourished by the good; it seeps into us as by osmosis. There's an old saying that if you lie down with dogs you come up with fleas. Well the same is true the other way round. If your mind and heart think on good things then you can only become and do good. Because good is of God. We said that right at the beginning, that God is the giver of good things.

And then lastly we ask God to keep us in that good; 'and of your great mercy keep us in the same'. Finally we come to practicalities. It's hard work being good, simply because we are fallen. It's difficult keeping with it, it's difficult remembering God, we always have to work at it. That's at the heart of our vocation as Christians. We talk a lot about vocation in the Church, about God calling us to all sorts of different ministries. But we all share the one vocation that comes before all the others; and that is to daily turn from sin and to Christ. And every single day we have to rededicate ourselves to that vocation, to rededicate ourselves to God, to become Christ like, to follow in His steps, right now. And it's the hardest calling of all. St. Paul begged the people to 'live up' to their calling. And we can only live up to our calling by the mercy of God. We can only live up to our calling because God keeps us going in it; and we must always recognise that. It's God who puts us here and God who keeps us here. It's God who creates us and sustains us. It's God who, when we turn from Him seeks us out, forgives us and puts back into our hearts love of Him. And all of this, this great prayer reminds us of today, and so we continue to pray it not just today but every day.

Sixth Sunday after Trinity

2011-07-31T07:59:00.000+01:00

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The other day; can't remember which, I wrote down a list of my senior moments. When I went to look for it later I couldn't remember where I'd put the list or what the list was about, or indeed, if I'd made a list at all. When I did remember and I found it, all I found was a blank sheet of paper!

Whether or not you've suffered from what seems to be this modern phenomenon of 'senior moments', you've got to admit that the human brain is a very remarkable thing. When you look at the wonderful, quite remarkable technology there is these days in computing; it's nothing compared to what the human brain can do. Nowadays, you tend not to get a book of instructions with a computer. They are put together to be 'intuitive', easy for anybody to find their way about without any sort of instructions. But that just goes to show how very much further advanced the human brain is. We think, as human beings that we are very clever, but creation is light years ahead of anything we human beings can devise.

Those of us who are religious tend to put creation down to God; probably because it is so remarkable, wonderful and even miraculous. But that's not a 'cop out'; because we of faith I think have what we might call a 'knowing'. What I'm trying to describe goes beyond words because we don't have a language to describe it. There are no words. And therefore it's beyond reason. It's beyond even the capacity of our own brain, I hazard to say. It's not emotion either. God isn't a good idea, neither is He a good feeling. So what do we do? How do we get to grips with God if our reason, such as it is and our emotions, such as they are, don't really help in groping towards a sense of God.

The saints that we remember in our Church's calendar describe God as love. And right away we've got to recognise I'd say, that by this we mean that part of love that's beyond emotion or feeling or reason. It's described in words like faith and trust and hope. Those words bring us nearer to it or point towards it. And I think it's that sort of love that I mean when I say that we religious people, certainly we Christians, have that 'knowing' of God. You see how I'm scratching round here? That's because it's beyond reason and emotion. It doesn't mean that loving God doesn't make you feel good. It does sometimes, like it makes you feel bad sometimes as loving a human being makes you feel alternately good and bad.

All this might sound rather vague. But try and describe to someone what it means to love a person and you'll be in difficulty. You'll never be able to say what it means in essence, or what that love is, in essence, it's just there, you 'know'. And it's like that with God. And the Collect today is about that sort of stuff.

Loving God takes us beyond all that we can think or feel, it's beyond our understanding as the prayer puts it, because God is always beyond our understanding. And yet we still 'know'. We can say we know God because we love God. And it's as we come to know God this way and, as we say, 'grow in His love' because we've no better way of talking about our continuing and developing relationship, with God, that we can begin to see that we can ask for his blessing that up to now we've known nothing of.

The Collect puts it this way; 'pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire'. You know, don't you, that when you love someone, blessings come to you from that relationship which aren't in the realm of solid objects like birthday and Christmas presents or gifts given just out of kindness or affection. When you love someone and they love you, the love supports and upholds you through all that life can do to either of you, the love blesses you in intangible ways. Again, we struggle for words. And it's that sort of thing that we are asking God for in our relationship with Him. And His blessings which come out of His love for us and our love for Him have got to be far bigger than the blessings we receive in and through human love. And the reason for that is because we only know what love is because God loved us first. Our love is possible only because of God's love for us. St. John tells us that in his letters.

So this prayer today encourages us to give ourselves to loving God and in that way coming to know God's deep and everlasting love for us and all the blessings that love brings.

Fifth Sunday after Trinity

2011-07-22T12:38:00.000+01:00

Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

I think this Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity is a prayer for the Church, for who it is and what it does. So it's a prayer for all of us gathered as the Body of Christ, for a our good and for our work as Christ in the world today.

The first couple of sentences of the prayer say something about what we believe about the Church. And this is the whole Church of God not just one small part of it. But having said that, even a small part of the whole world wide Church is in essence and in everything the Church. Like a drop of water is the whole thing, it's all water. It's not the whole of the water on the planet but it's exactly the same. So we here at St. Andrew's are the Church in every way, just as the whole Church throughout the world is the Church. Another way of saying it is that we here don't just represent the Church, we are the Church. When people join St. Andrew's, it's not simply St. Andrew's that they are joining, they are joining the Church. There are lots of ways we could put this I'm sure.

However we see the Church, the important thing to note is that it is constituted through the Holy Spirit and takes it's life from the Holy Spirit. Our Collect says that the Church is 'governed and sanctified' by the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we would be just a gathering of people. We'd be a body; a club; a corporation; even an institution. But we wouldn't be the Church. It's the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's presence, that is, Christ's presence, God's presence that makes us the Church. 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name', says the Lord, 'there will I be also'. And we can only meet in the Lord's name through the Holy Spirit.

And it's this that makes the Church different, wholly different to any other body in the world. And it's this difference that people really ought to recognise, or at the very least sense when they encounter the Church. It does mean too that we should expect the Church to be different, to have different structures, constituted differently and have different ways of working than human organisations. For, as Metropolitan Hierotheos puts it 'the Church isn't a human organisation, it's a divine/human organism'. God says in Isaiah, 'my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways'. And that's why we should always asking ourselves many times over before making changes so that we feel releant to the life outside the Church, 'is this really God's way of doing things, or merely human ways revered by human self interest?' Another way of looking at it is that the Church manifests or makes real in the world, the Kingdom of God. That's my understanding of things anyway. And the Church is a force for good as it manifests God's Kingdom; His peace, His justice, His mercy; which don't necessarily show up in the same way the world shows these things.

And so it's in this context, in this Church formed and sustained through and in the Holy Spirit of God that each of us is called to live and work for God, in the name of Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. Each and every one of us has a vocation, a calling. That term isn't just reserved for those who find themselves in ordained ministry. Every single Christian, by virtue of his or her baptism has a vocation, a calling; first of all to live according to God's commandments, according to His Word that we read in scripture and see lived out in Jesus Christ himself. Every single day we are called to commit ourselves anew to that life in Christ.

And then what comes out of that calling, what grows out of it through the gifts and talents that God has given each and every one of us, is our ministry. So just as each of us has a vocation, each of us has a ministry. And that ministry can take one of many many forms, some of which we read about in the Bible and others which although not named there are equally vital to the life of the Church and so vital to the life of the world itself. Never underestimate the value and sacredness of the ministry you are called to offer day by day for the good of humankind, whether it be administering the sacraments, or giving a glass of cold water to a hot and thirsty soul. You do it in and through the Holy Spirit if it's done in the name of Christ.

And this is service 'in holiness and truth' as our Collect says today. To live true to what God has made us is holiness in itself. To live out and to offer all that we are and can be, to the good of humankind is service 'in holiness and truth.' It's nothing very complicated, but at the same time it's not at all easy; because there is always that in the world which would divert us or snatch us away from this ministry in the Lord's name. The siren call of the world will lure us away from the still, small calling of the voice of God. So that's why today we ask God especially to hear the prayer we make for one another so that we might always, day by day, hear God's call and be faithful to Him and to one another as His Church.

Fourth Sunday after Trinity

2011-07-22T11:34:00.000+01:00

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

I'm doing a commentary on the Collects each Sunday during Ordinary Time. That's because I think that these very profound and, some of them, very ancient prayers can be so easily forgotten as we pass on in the eucharist to the Liturgy of the Word. And they contain so much of value to us which helps us to live our Faith day by day. They do contain, as does all our prayer in the Church of England, statements of what we believe about the Faith and so it's important for us to dwell upon what they say.

I'd like to pick up on two themes here in this Collect of the Fourth Sunday after Trinity. First of all the opening couple of lines: 'O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy'. This is a statement of what we believe about God. When it says that he is our protector it sums up all we believe about our life in Christ; not so much that we are protected against the things that life brings upon us, that comes about through the merely living out of our life in a fallen world; nobody escapes those. But the notion of God as our 'protector', is the logical consequence of a life of faith, that in the end, as St. Paul says, 'all things work together for good for those who love God'. We have faith IN God, that being our creator and created in and out of love, God has our good at heart and will, like a human parent seek the greatest good for his or her child, whatever befalls the child. And we'll put this in context when we look at the fourth and fifth sentences of the Collect in a moment which will be the second theme.

But first, we pray more about this notion of God being our protector by acknowledging our further dependence upon Him. We affirm that outside of Him there is nothing that has any significance in our life; 'nothing is strong, nothing is holy', we pray. But maybe we can turn that around and look at it in a different way. And by that I mean that we can say that outside God there is nothing; life is nothing outside of God, and yet, that nothing can be very attractive; we can reverence life outside of God. That's what happens with our fallen nature. Everything outside of God becomes important to us and has a huge influence on our life. And that seems to be the way of the world ever more so these days, as the world forgets God.

And this leads us nicely into the next few sentences which make up our second theme or the second point I'd like to make. We ask God to be with us, to be merciful to us. And by that we are asking God to send upon us all goodness and blessing. All of that reminds us of God's presence in our lives or to put it the right way round, His mercy reminds us of our life in Him. And acknowledging that presence as THE reference point of our life and following God's will and commandments we can say He is our 'ruler and guide'. And as we live our whole life in Him, we want to do that so that not only do we live our life in the best way possible now, in the present, but that we will always recall where our life comes from i.e. the eternal God and that our lives have that eternal element about them. It's our Christian belief that we live our lives not simply for the present but that how we live our lives now has consequences for our continuing life after our physical death. And the Collect puts it this way '(that) we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal'.

I think that if there's anything missing from our lives today in this Western world, certainly in the last 30 years or so, it's a sense that there is more to life than this present moment and what we can get out of it. Yes, there is a sense that the only time you know you have is now, this present moment. And it's right that we should remember it's sacredness, it's sanctity and be thankful for each moment of this life that we have. But we live with faith in the hereafter and with a belief that what we do, think and say now has consequences for us and for all humankind both now and for ever, in this world and the next.

I'm convinced that most of the crises we've witnessed in public life and most of the crises that have happened in other arenas of life in recent decades have been precipitated by the loss of a sense of the eternal, that even the smallest of our actions has huge consequences for all people for all time. We only remember that as we remember God.

So this Collect is a timely reminder that our life without God is as nothing, which in itself may feel a good and attractive life well spent; but at the end of the day is nothing without God. And our life has consequences beyong this present moment we find ourself in. Without a sense of the eternal, we lose a sense of the reality and importance of the present. And we see every day, the awful consequences of that all around us.

Third Sunday after Trinity

2011-07-09T19:49:00.001+01:00

Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

I thought I might take the opportunity during these Sundays after Trinity, rather than preaching on the readings this year, to pass on some thoughts about the Sunday Collects as we pray them week by week. Some of these prayers of the Church are centuries old. When lingered over we can savour the wonderful language, almost poetic sometimes and the vivid images, ideas and beliefs that they invoke.

The Collect, in the Eucharist is placed at that important point at the end of the gathering which forms the first part of the service and the part known as the Liturgy of the Word. It naturally provides a link connecting our coming before God with our settling to read and meditate upon God's written Word. It has a theme all of its own which sometimes but by no means always links with the readings these day. The consequence of that can be that what we pray for in the Collect can so soon be forgotten as we delve into scripture. So, again, I thought I'd take this opportunity in these Trinity Sundays to linger over the Collect to discover the gems that it has for us each week.

The Collect usually begins by making a statement which says something about what we believe about God Himself, followed by a request or petition asking God for something and then perhaps something of a statement of the purpose, if you like, of that request. So each Collect has a set form which can be recognised more or less in each. And although in some, especially those that have been around for centuries, the language might seem arcane and convoluted, the form and rhythm of the prayer helps us with the sense of it.

This prayer today begins by our recognising before God His great work of redemption, of bringing us back to Himself and what that means for us. 'Almighty God, you have broken the tyranny of sin'; that can only be by the work of Jesus Christ Himself. Christ gave His life for us so that we might no longer be subject to the spiritual and ultimately physical death that is the consequence of sin. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, humankind has been in thrall to sin. But it needn't be that way. This week the news has been filled with two very significant examples of the way in which sin can tyrannise humanity. First is the News of the World phone hacking scandal. None of us is without sin, none of us; but it seems that when we once fall into sin it's much easier to keep on sinning as time goes by until the way of sin becomes what seems to be normal. And I say seems to be because a sinful life isn't normality. Normality is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before they sinned. Normality is God looking on His creation and pronouncing it 'very good.' Sin is unnatural, an aberration, a turning away from God and the Truth. And once we fall into it we can so easily allow it to take us over and indeed to tyrannise us so that we don't seem to have the wherewithal to stop. It seems to me that those involved with phone hacking were tyrannised by this particular sin although they maybe hadn't realised they were being tyrannised.

The second great news item of the week has been the developing situation because of the failed rains and famine in East Africa. There is enough food in the world to feed every single human being plentifully. But it's only through our greed and selfishness that there are millions who every day go hungry and starve. It's through the tyranny of sin in the human race that people don't have what they need even for survival, let alone what they want for a comfortable life.

But it need not be like this. God has indeed broken sin's tyranny in His Son Jesus Christ, if we would but recognise Him. And not only that but the Spirit of the same Jesus Christ, God has put within us. We know this because as St. Paul says, nobody can call Jesus 'Lord' except by the Holy Spirit. And it's the same Spirit that allows us to call God, 'Father'. And so in the Collect we pray '(you) have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts whereby we call you Father.'

So the power to overcome sin is right within us all the time. We know this, we believe this, we say so in this prayer. It is fact, it is Truth.

And now knowing this and accepting this, believing this we make this plea to God; 'give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service'. We are set free from the tyranny of sin by the Holy Spirit working within us so the natural working of the Spirit makes us reach out to one another, to our fellow human beings in service, that is the same service that Jesus Himself ministered to all He came into contact with. Our freedom from sin brings faith, hope, love, joy, peace as the Holy Spirit moves in us and places us so that we naturally work for the good of all humankind.

And the result of this freedom and working of the Holy Spirit in us, and our working together for the good of one another, on a larger scale is that 'we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of God.' This is the stuff of the Kingdom of God. These words paint a picture of the freedom of spirit and livelihood that is a characteristic of the people of God's Kingdom. And this we pray that it may come on earth as it is in heaven. This is a wonderful and glorious vision; of all of God's creation fulfilling all that it is meant to be. It's the Garden of Eden restored; God able to say of His creation again, that it is 'very good'.

If you wonder what being a Christian is really all about it's this, which embraces not only our own wholeness, health and salvation, but the wholeness, health and salvation of all of humankind. It's a great vision and one that we hold each time we come to worship God, each time we share in this Eucharist, this banquet of the Kingdom. And it's here that this vision is realised as we pray this prayer together.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

2011-05-28T20:10:00.000+01:00

Acts 17.22-31; 1 Peter 3.13-22; John 14.15-21

The parishes of the diocese are wrestling at present with the questions our bishop has put to us about how we can grow the Church. We had a meeting of our deanery with bishop James a few weeks ago when we gave him the answers to the questions he'd put to our Parochial Church Councils over a year ago now. Most people chosen to speak at the meeting told us in great detail of the many things and the work they were doing in their parishes. And wonderful and varied things they were too. A huge amount of good work is being done in God's name by very good, committed and dedicated and godly people. There's no doubt about that.

After we'd all spoken, the bishop told us how Church attendance is very much in decline. And it seemed to me that he'd told us that most of what we are doing, albeit great and good work, isn't contributing at all to increasing the numbers of people who are coming to church. There are one or two exceptions here and there but by and large, it's true that church attendance is still very much in decline. So what IS to be done? Where is the answer?

I think and believe that we are facing the same sort of situations that St. Paul and the other apostles faced in their time in preaching the gospel especially to the gentiles. There's all sorts of religion out there in the world. People are attracted to a whole range of 'spiritualities'; most of which have nothing to do with Chrisitanity. And so the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News of Jesus is foreign and alien to them. And even if they've heard of Christianity, they know nothing about it.

Earlier this week, on Thursday, we celebrated St. Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent by Pope Gregory from Rome in the year 596 with a group of monks to re-evangelise England. Christianity had been around in Britain since at least the 2nd century due largely to some very zealous Celtic monks who preached the gospel tirelessly and fearlessly. And also during the Roman occupation especially when the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity. But the faith, following the Roman occupation, having waxed strong in earlier centuries began to wane and so Augustine was despatched to England re-invigorate the faith. He wasn't a confident man and wanted to turn back. But the Pope wouldn't let him and so reluctantly but in faith he got on with the job.

I have a feeling that the present age had a feel of what both St. Paul and St. Augustine encountered. There's much weird and wonderful spirituality out there in peoples' hearts and minds but it's a far cry from our faith. And there's lots of stuff out there too that's simply heresy in Chrisitan terms. And by that I mean that there are many who claim to be Christian but they don't believe in the Holy Trinity, that Jesus is God, as we do. And this sort of thing the early Fathers of the Church did so much to fend off and stamp out in their own time. But also too now we have so many different interpretations, even within the true Faith itself, of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus that people new to the Faith don't know what it is they are supposed to believe to have a true Faith. There's so very much confusion out there in the minds of people who are attracted to the Faith. And this is an added dimension to the difficulties that early preachers of the gospel had.

So, we have a situation now in this country very much like those early years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It's true that St. Paul looked at the prevailing culture and used what was in it as a peg on which to hang the gospel as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles today. But he didn't beat around the bush. He went straight to the point. There were no gimmicks in St. Paul's preaching. And I think that we will only get more people into our churches when WE understand more fully what's at the heart of our Collect and readings and post-communion prayer today. It's what's at the heart of this Easter season which will shortly be coming to a close.

The Collect speaks about the significance of the resurrection for our whole life. Through the resurrection the Collect says, 'God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His Son.' That's the gospel, in a single sentence. Yes, it might need explaining to the uninitiated, and that's our job, yours and mine. But we'll only be able to do that if we understand what it means by having experienced Christ's resurrection in our own lives, in the way the gospel speaks of it. We can only pass on what we know as real and true for ourselves. And St. Paul explains that 'in Him (God) we live and move and have our being. God is so close to us that we abide in Him. When we are convinced of that and we know that then we can show others. St. Paul says, in the Acts of the Apostles that God put everyone where they are in the world so that they 'would search for God and perhaps grope for Him and find Him.' God wants those people to have that relationship with Him through which they will experience the resurrection of Jesus in their lives, making once dark lives where they 'groped' for God, full of the glory of the light of Christ, where at last they will see. And it's for us to help them into that relationship, not least through our own conviction, as St. Paul did for the people in his age and St. Augustine five centuries later in his.

We don't have to do all the work for others who don't know God in Christ, in fact we can't even begin to show people God, they have to discover Him for themselves having seen that our lives are lived in Him and the difference that makes to us. It's through what we say to them, through how we live our lives in front of them that they might, as our post-communion prayer will say towards the end of the service; come to 'thirst for (God), the spring of life and source of goodness'.

Then and only then, when people experience these things this passing from darkness to light in us and in themselves, these things which are the movement of the Holy Spirit of God in different ways in them and us, will people not only come, but stay. And when they stay, both they and we too, more and more of us together, will learn to love God more and give Him the praise, glory and worship that is due to Him from now until the end of the ages.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

2011-05-21T20:16:00.000+01:00

Acts 7.55-60; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14

During the Easter season we've been reading about the various resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples and also from the Acts of the Apostles what that meant for individuals and the Church. We continue in that vein today and as we do so we are left with these extraordinary words of Jesus from St. John's gospel, 'Very truly, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact, will do greater works thatn these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever yo ask in my name. so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.'

Those are astonishing words which ought to make us sit up and do some really hard thinking and ask some really searching questions; not least whether or not we do feel we get our prayers answered and whether or not we see the things that Jesus did, happening around us now. They are challenging words. But I think they are also meant to lead us much further than simply to answer questions at such an immediate and personal level. They are words which, put together with the other readings this morning highlight what the Church is all about and why we are part of it.

I wonder if you ask yourself the questions, why you are here this morning and why you are a member of the Church? Each of us will have our own personal answer to those questions. But as you look around at the world in which we live, you've got to admit that on the face of it they are pretty odd things to be and to be doing. Compared to everything else we do in life, again from a purely superficial and comparative point of view this being a member of the Church and coming to church are very different indeed. And that in itself should give us cause to ask why we do it; once of course we get beyond the answer that it gives your child a better chance at getting into a Church school.

Well to start at the end with the answer which I'll try to explain a bit more fully as I go on. I like what the theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann said about the Church - 'the Church is the presence in the world of a saved world.' That sums it up very nicely. The Church is here for the sake of the world. The Church is the place where we become all that God intends us to be; and that is completely reconciled to Him and as such, reconciled to one another; to have the relationship we had with Him before the Fall. It's a place where all that we are in the world and all that we bring with us actually makes sense and has meaning. The Church is where we learn to be the people God wants us to be and that is 'in Christ' as St. Paul put it. And as such we become the Body of Christ in the world now. The Church is the very real presence of Christ in the world now. And all this, as Jesus says 'that the Father may be glorified'.

We are able to be and do this because we are given the Holy Spirit in baptism. And it's in our baptism that we are resurrected to a new life, through the Holy Spirit. It's in our baptism that we are 'born again' as Jesus said. We are born again 'of water and the Spirit' Jesus says in St. John's gospel. But having been born again we have to grow. And we do this as we co-operate with the Holy Spirit in our ongoing life if, that is, we 'crave for the spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good' as St. Peter says. St. Peter exhorts us to come to Christ who he calls that 'living stone' upon which the Church is built. And just as Jesus Christ is the stone which is our foundation as members of the Church, He's also a stumbling block to those who don't or won't believe.

And don't we see this in the death of St. Stephen. We see how when Stephen glorifies God in Christ, people put their hands over their ears and grind their teeth in anger. They can't stand even to hear the name of Jesus. Isn't it like that these days with so many people. How angry and abusive people get these days as they did in those early years of the Church, when Jesus is mentioned. He is their stumbling block.

So we both proclaim Christ and do His works as well, and greater works than Him, He says.But look at the promise held out for us who live this Christian life by the grace of God in the Holy Spirit through faith. St. Peter says, 'you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.' And all of this that more people will be drawn into this holy nation and glorify God. So the Church is the presence in the world of a saved world, and for the sake of the world too.

The Church is different - 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation'. That's why so many have difficulty understanding and becoming part of it. Simply because it is so different to the world. But the thing is that the world is meant to be how the Church is. St. Paul says 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself'. The world isn't meant to stand for ever outside the Church, which is the Body of Christ. It's meant to become the Body of Christ. And that's why the Church has got to remain as it always was and always will be. The Church isn't an organisation of human beings, it's a divine human organism. It's a living thing. It's the Body of Christ. It can't and mustn't be compromised in the so many ways it seems to be these days by taking into it the values of the world around it. It mustn't be 'watered down' and become so dilute that there's no real difference between it and what you find in the world. The reason that people aren't coming any more, the main reason I believe is just that, that people often experience so little difference between what they experience in the Church to what they experience outside it. And the other reason of course is that when people do hear the gospel it's too big a challenge for them, far greater than anything that they experience outside in their world, which compared with the Church is quite cosy and comfortable and manageable. But that's another story.

What we realise from the readings today is that the resurrected Christ is present to the world as the Church, the Body of Christ which is us, you and I. And this Church, this Body is here for the world itself, whether it knows it, understands it or wants it. But it's here out of love for the world, for that's why Christ was born, lived, died and was raised. Because God loved the world so much.......

Low Sunday

2011-04-30T11:08:00.000+01:00

Acts 2.14a, 22-32; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31

The royal wedding on Friday last was such a splendid occasion. It was a nice thing to have at a time when there's so much difficulty in the world. It lifted the spirits. In Easter week it was good to have something that for such a lot of people 'raised them up' again if the message of Christ's resurrection didn't speak to them and raise them up.

I came away from watching it on tv though with some mixed feelings. On the one hand commentators, even a distinguished historian were saying how the couples' relationship and their wedding, and how they relate to people, shows how much the Royal Family has changed in recent years. And there's no doubt they have. On the other hand the wedding wasn't much different from that of William's parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents at heart. It had all the hallmarks of privilege, status and wealth. None of that seemed to be compromised. And 'gettting up close' and shaking hands and smiling a lot, doesn't change that and the gulf that there is between the monarchy and their subjects; because despite democratic government that's what the relationship still is and it's preserved. That's the default, the fall back position. Because you can't do both. The way that Jesus put was to say that 'you can't serve God and Mammon.' There's no integrity in that. If you try to serve both, the cracks soon show and you eventually fall apart. If you try to be two different and divergent things at once, there's no integrity in it and eventually you break up and fall apart. Contrary to what Tony Blair said, there's no such thing as a 'people's princess'. It's being a princess that makes the princess not one of the people. And the whole sad story of Prince William's mother I believe was about her not being able to settle for being either one or the other; or that she wanted to be one thing when really she was another whether she liked it or not.

Now I'm only making this point, not because I have any issues with the monarchy or anything like that. I'm making the point to highlight what it means really to change. The royals have made a lot of cosmetic changes and have developed systems and behaviours so that they don't become even more discredited by and detached from their subjects. And all of those I think are good. But they aren't real change. Real change might have been signified at the royal wedding had all the male members of the royal household worn lounge suits for the wedding instead of military uniform. Do you see what I mean?

It doesn't really matter how the change comes about, but real change isn't cosmetic, it's not something overlaid. Real change turns in and issues from the heart. That's what repentance is all about. That's what repentance means. It means real change. And we see this this morning in Thomas and his encounter with the risen Lord.

You have to admire Thomas's honesty and openness. And he gives us permission, thank God, to ask for proof; 'unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.' Thomas wants proof. And he got his proof and wasn't at all judged for it. And really we shouldn't judge and think any the less of all those who say 'show me', 'convince me'. They are only expressing what most of the rest of us think or feel some times anyway. It's fertile ground for the devil. As I was sat later on Easter Day thinking about our worship and all that we'd affirmed I got really challenged as I thought about the fact that we'd proclaimed that somebody had risen from the dead. How could we do that in the light of reason? It's so incredible. How can it be true? That real doubt came home like a dart and was so clear. For a few moments it really unsettled me. Thank God it went as quickly as it came.

Thomas, faced with what was for him proof, had a change of heart and mind, something that went right to the very centre of his being and it was from there he changed. He believed and he changed. The believing was a change but undoubtedly it changed his whole life. We don't have any documentary evidence but we only need to look at his contemporaries and fellow disciples and disciples down the ages to know that Thomas would have changed in many different ways in his person and in his life as the implications of Jesus being 'my Lord and my God' came home.

Because that's what the resurrection of Jesus is about. It's about fundamental change. It's about heart, mind and soul change. It's not about making cosmetic changes in our life; moving the furniture of our life around to make it look a bit different. It's about radical, fundamental change. It's about coming out of the dark and death of the tomb and into the light of life. It's about change from journeying towards death to journeying towards life. And life in all its fullness, which is what Jesus promised.

But we can only make that journey if we make the change. We can only start to move away from death to the fullness of life if, like Thomas we fall on our knees at the feet of Jesus and proclaim him 'my Lord and my God'. And if we need proof that Jesus is risen to help us do that, we need look no further than the person sitting next to us or in front or behind us in church. No matter what we think or feel about those people they are our fellow disciples who have in their own way seen the risen Lord. They wouldn't be here if they hadn't. They are all the proof we need. The rest is up to us.

Alleluia. Christ is Risen!

Easter Day

2011-04-24T08:57:00.000+01:00

Colossians 3.1-4; John 20.1-18

'Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.' So writes St. John about 'the disciple whom Jesus loved', which we understand may be St. John himself. Whoever it is that at first hesitated at the entrance to the tomb before going in, shows us quite graphically what taking that step of faith and embarking upon the Christian life entails. And he shows us what it means to live the Christian life in it's entirety as well.

Becoming a Christian, or making that decision at some point in your life to commit to the Christian way of life is an awesome decision. Not least because you are committing yourself to following not so much a set of rules or an ethical or moral code, but to following a person, the man, Jesus Christ. That's what the disciples we read about, both the men and the women did. They answered the call of Jesus - 'follow me'. He didn't say, 'do what I tell you and make sure you stick to it'. He said 'follow me'. And then He went on to describe to His disciples and others what that means. And it probably means something like this.

At first you are hesitant. Like John at the entrance to the tomb. Answering the call of Jesus Christ can be very threatening. You don't know what you are letting yourself in for. But you don't get anywhere hanging around outside. The only way you'll satisfy your curiosity is to go in; to take that step. And it's a step into the dark. Or into the light, depending upon how you perceive it for yourself. It's certainly a step into the unknown.

And then when you've taken that step you very often encounter so much that's incomprehensible. Christians subscribe to all sorts of fantastic ideas and concepts, some of which seem quite impossible and incredible, like Jesus dying and then rising from the dead. Christians seem to subscibe to a way of life that it's impossible to live out and they aren't very good at it, most of them. But again, St. John shows us the way here in this gospel reading. It says that 'he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand'. If you are going to be a Christian you have to believe first. And it's only when you believe that you begin to understand. You understand slowly, or in fits and starts, over a life time and even then you haven't finished understanding. Always there's something that challenges reason. And that's because it's a mystery you are believing in and a mystery that you are trying to understand. The mystery is God and God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, and His Spirit, giving you life.

I get more amused these days than angry when atheists tell us that Christianity is rubbish. How do they know? It's like saying my car is rubbish and never getting in and driving it. It's just like that, so simple. It's so simple they don't see it. And you don't have to be an atheist. Just plain ignorance does it all the time. All those people who say religion is rubbish, Christianity is rubbish, Church is rubbish. How do they know? Oh yes, of course, lots of them have been to church, for an hour or two in a life time. And they think they know enough about it to make an informed opinion, and opinion that makes them disbelieve. And so, their disbelief denies them the life of such great riches. If they find out anything, they find out that the Christian way is difficult, it's really hard. There is no soft option.

And that's because when Jesus says 'follow me' he wants you to follow him to his death and yours. And by that I don't just mean your physical death. I mean the death of your ego, the death of your own will. Because just as Jesus follows His Father's will, He's calling us to do the same. And remember in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus found that so difficult, because it meant for Him, facing the cross and accepting the inevitable. And if we follow Jesus Christ, we find that we too have to face our cross, we have to carry it and then nail our own self, our own will to it. That's what Jesus meant when He said we have to carry our own cross. And giving up your self, giving up your own will is personal to you and different from everybody else. Now do you see why people turn away? Now can you see why they rubbish our faith? Because it means if they follow it they'll have to die.

And the only thing that carries us through this is the Spirit of God walking with us and empowering us to do it, being there with us in the highs and in the lows. And the Spirit is there because it's the Spirit that's given to us in our baptism, specially for this whole Christian life. Without the Spirit of God we can't do it, without the Sprit of God we can't follow Christ. Because it's as we walk through this life, carrying our cross and believing, it's only then do we begin, do we begin to get a glimmer at first of understanding. It's as we really carry our cross and crucify our own will in favour of God's will like Jesus did, that the dawn begins to break on our understanding of what Jesus resurrection means. Just like it dawned upon the disciples slowly that Jesus was in fact risen, bodily from the grave, and what it meant for them at its deepest. It meant that death in the end didn't win; that Jesus, by dying himself, had overcome it, He had trampled it down. So St. Paul, later on could say 'Oh death, where is your sting? Where, O grave, is your victory?' And then the understanding becomes clearer because you realise that only God could do that. Having created the body, only He could free it from death and raise it again.

And the most wonderful thing is that God, through Jesus Christ, did it for us. Out of His love for us, gave His life for us so that we too might not die but have with Him again that relationship given to Adam and Eve at their creation and before they grasped at being gods themselves.

And this is Good News. This is the Gospel. And it's Good News we celebrate today, the Day of Days and it's Good News that we will dedicate a child to today in her baptism and that those of us already baptised and whether we are far along the road of following Jesus Christ or have newly taken up the journey, we'll rededicate ourselves today.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Palm Sunday

2011-04-16T20:34:00.001+01:00

Philippians 2.5-11; Matthew 21.1-11

I believe that the message of Palm Sunday is a very simple one for Christians. The message is simply an invitation held out by Christ to all who think they are able to, from those who are confident, to those who feel they only have a ghost of a chance, to follow Him through the events that we shall follow this week here in church in our worship. He's inviting us to follow Him from His entry into that sacred city of Jerusalem, His entry that we celebrate today, through His trial and death and on beyond that to His resurrection. For as we have said before; as Christians we don't follow or live by a set of moral rules and an ethical code; not in the first instance anyway. We follow a person, that person being a man, Jesus Christ. And it's as we follow Him, through all the events of His life but especially those we hear about this week, as we follow Him and give our lives over to Him in faith and love, He becomes our Lord. And we discover with that, that He is already and always has been, our Saviour.

With all the schools now on holiday, this week is most definitely a holiday for many. And quite a few will be missing from our congregation today because of that. But for we Christians, this week is no holiday, this week is the most important week of our whole year. This week is Holy Week. And it's a week that we can best answer that invitation held out to us by our Lord to follow Him, by giving ourselves to reflection and prayer whether we be at home or away, at work or on holiday. We can take more time out even just a few minutes more each day to read and think about the last days and hours of Jesus life and of His resurrection. And we can come to church, to the worship more often this week as we have an act of worship every day. Each of our services on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are services of reflection and penance, asking nothing of you but to ponder your relationship with God and your walk with Him. Maybe you can make connections with what we thought about before Lent began and our preparation for it as we heard those words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount. Or you might like to think about how you've engaged with Lent itself and what the season has revealed.

As we make our way through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday we pay more close attention to the events of the closing hours of Jesus life before His death. And with this we can ask ourselves what meaning they have for our own lives, how we respond to what is happening to Jesus. And we do that because every year it's as if it were happening for the first time, because in God's time there is no time and the events, stretched out into time are happening continuously. The world is created and redeemed simultaneously in God's time. In human earthly time they are separate events. So on a cosmic scale Jesus is for ever being betrayed, being crucified, dying and being raised. And that's why these 'event's are meaningful for us, because they are for us as real as they were to those around Jesus 2,000 years ago. So what does in mean for you for your Lord and Saviour to be put to be betrayed and put to death now, for you, because that's what is happening when you come to worship, we aren't just remembering something that happened a long time ago to other people.

And then on Holy Saturday night shortly before midnight we shall begin our Easter proclamation, having first blessed new fire and lit our Paschal Candle and heard the story of the creation of the world and the redemption of God's people. At midnight we shall proclaim the resurrection and receive the Holy Communion of Easter. Finally on Easter Day we will celebrate the resurrection all together united as one body with the Lord in our midst, just as the disciples, gathered as one body, were visited by the risen Jesus in that upper room and where later Thomas would fall to his knees and proclaim Jesus as 'my Lord and my God'.

And so we'll come to the end of this Holy Week with heart, mind, body and soul renewed and resurrected along with the risen Christ. But we'll only understand, we'll only KNOW what all of this means, what the point of it is, if we've accepted the invitation that's on offer today, this Palm Sunday, to follow Jesus as closely as we can through the whole of this week. And that will be difficult for all of us because as we do follow closely it's only then do we recognise the times when we betray Jesus and leave Him deserted for things and people more attractive to the fallen human heart and mind. And it's at those times that we need to fall on our knees, ask His forgiveness, which will be given, and proclaim Him - 'My Lord and my God.' It will be a difficult journey but one that's worth doing because it's a journey that leads to new life, to life in all its fullness, to resurrection life.

Lent 4 - Mothering Sunday

2011-04-02T20:15:00.000+01:00

1 Samuel 1.20-28; Colossians 3.12-17; John 19.25b-27

This fourth Sunday in Lent is traditionally known as Refreshment Sunday or Mothering Sunday. It's a day on which we can rest and relax from our Lenten discipline. During a long journey, which Lent is, we need times of rest to gather energy to complete the course and so the Church gives us this day to do just that.

Historically, on this day, people would go from their parish churches to worship at the Mother Church of the diocese or at least of the locality. Most of the parishes around this town sprung up from All Saints in the town centre. And we have the hang over of that in the way in which most church people around the town tend to refer to All Saints as 'the' Parish Church. So I guess on this day if we were keeping to the tradition we would all go to All Saints for our worship. Anyway, I'll leave that thought with you. The way things are going with the forced reduction in stipendiary clergy numbers hereabouts, that might become a regular feature and not too far off! But in the meantime we are glad to be able to come here to celebrate Mothering Sunday and relax a bit from the rigours of Lent.

As this is Mothering Sunday, I'd like us to reflect for a few minutes on the place of the Church in our lives. And there's one thing we need to get out of the way before we go any further. The Church's celebration of Mothering Sunday is about the Church and has nothing whatever to do with our own mothers or the secular celebration of Mother's Day. But inevitably that celebration has crept in and overtaken the Church's celebration. Mother's Day, whilst a lovely time for some, for other women and for some children, is a very difficult and painful time, and we don't need to go into that. It's for the Church always and on such a day as this in particular to show it's love for all and not just to single out particular individuals.

When I was growing up I was taught, rightly or wrongly that as God is our Heavenly Father, so the Church is our spiritual mother. God is the one who creates us, if you like, and the Church is the one who nurtures us. You can't press those images too far theologically but I, personally, think that they are very useful images. St. Augustine referred to the Church as 'Mother Church'. The Church is referred to by St. Paul as the Bride of Christ, as well as being Christ's Body. And so it's right that we should think of the Church first and foremost not as an organisation or an institution, as we do secular bodies. But we should think of the Church as something living, something organic, a 'divine-human organism' as Metropoloitan Hierotheos refers to it. (The Mind of the Orthodox Church) Only if we think of the Church in this way, as a living body of which we are a part and that nurtures us, nutures our own body, mind, soul and spirit are we saved from thinking of it in worldly ways, ways in which we think of all, simply human organisations and institutions. Because the Church is fundamentally different to any other organisation.

If we see the Church in this way, as a place where we are nurtured in our life as disciples of Christ, as members of His Body; as people who, as St. Paul says, have their lives 'hid with Christ in God', then we come to it first and foremost to let it change us, to let it form us in the way of Christ. Being part of the Church, and having the Church as the Body of Christ, our spiritual mother, we see it as a place where we first of all put aside everything that wells up out of our own ego. We put aside our own selfish and self-possessed opinions, points of view, agendas, beliefs, versions of truth and we let the Church nourish and sustain, inform and fashion our opinions, points of view, agendas and beliefs. And we let ourselves be open to THE Truth - Jesus Christ, THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life. So that in the end we can pray along with Christ Himself - 'not my will, but thy will be done'.

Far, far too much do we come to the Church with our own beliefs and opinions and expect the Church to change for us, in little ways and in big ways. We expect the Church to accept unreservedly all of our own idiosyncracies, particularities and peculiarities and accomodate them equally alongside everybody else's. This is not how it's meant to be. There's a very real sense in which when we come to this place we should leave our 'self' outside the door so that we can discover God. Because the one thing, the ONE thing that stops any of us discovering God is our overbearing 'self'; that in us that clamours and screams to make the world and everybody in the world the way that IT wants them to be. And you only need to read the gospels and listen to Jesus and time and time again you will hear Him say, 'that's not the way it is, neither in the Church nor indeed in the world. That's not God's way, that's not My way.'

You hear people say that they believe in God but they don't like 'organised' religion; they don't like the Church. What I believe they mean by that is that they don't like being told what they are supposed to believe. Spirituality for them is some airy-fairy, nice feeling of otherworldliness that can be good or indeed pure evil. The trouble is, if it's of your own discovery how do you discern whether or not it is good, true and genuine, or evil. How do you know it's something objective or just your imagination? Again, it's their self that won't let them listen and understand and take on Truth which is objective Truth, they'd rather listen to their own subjective truth.

When we are baptised we are baptised into the Body of Christ, baptised into the Church and from that day on we are meant to become disciples of Christ as His Spirit works in us. We give up everything, in a sense to follow Him and be nurtured by Him through the Church. Jesus reinforces this when He says that we have to take up our cross and follow Him, when we have to put God before anyone or anything else. So as a member of the Church, being a disciple of Christ is meant to be the number one priority in our life. Everything else comes behind Him or lower down the list.

That on the face of it, is hard to take and hard to understand. However can we put Jesus first in this day of so much competition from so much outside us including our families and friends? And it's hard to take BECAUSE we don't understand. We don't understand because we don't know God. If we knew God, then we would understand. Well we get to know God as we become disciples of His Son, our Saviour. When we live our lives in accordance with Jesus' commandments and His teaching. That's what the first disciples did. And they handed on the teaching to others and it's been handed down to us.

And you know they gave their life for this teaching, they gave their lives for Christ. That's what He means when He says that we must put Him first. All of these paintings of saints we see around us today aren't just there for decoration. They are there to remind us that we are called to be disciples of Christ as they were. For them, God was more important than their heartbeat; the Church was more important than their own breath. It was God that gave both to them anyway.

When we look at ourselves today, we should be asking ourselves is God more important than our heartbeat? Is the Church more important than our own breath? If not, then we have work to do. We may never be called on to die for our Faith or for the Church as other saints have done, but we tread the same path in the same direction as they did when we are followers of the same Christ. We tread the path to God. And we tread it together, not on our own. We tread the path to God together as members of the one Body, the Church; the Church of which we are a part and which nurtures us as a spiritual mother. And there is nobody asking us to do that except God Himself. This idea of organised religion is nonesense, it's an excuse made by those who haven't even the courage to open themselves to hear the one true God calling to them, as He does contantly. Only Christ says 'follow me'. Only Christ says 'come and see'. And it's for each one of us to answer that call, the call to go further and further and deeper and deeper into God with every passing day.

Third Sunday of Lent

2011-03-26T20:07:00.000Z

Exodus 17.1-7; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-12

By next Sunday we will be half way through Lent. I wonder if you are letting the season work its magic on you? I have to confess that in past years I've not given the season really serious thought. I've entered into bible studies and done extra reading and tried to treat it as a season of reflection. But I think this year is the first time I've taken it seriously from the point of view of using one of the disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving and looking at how that challenges me.

Before Lent began I read quite a bit about the Christian understanding of fasting and listened, by way of the internet, to a number of clergy speaking on the subject. From that I began to understand in a better way how we depend for everything upon God, for our food and everything else that we need to sustain a healthy body, mind and spirit. And so I decided that this Lent I would fast from meat. Not that I've been a huge meat eater. But it seemed to me that if we are going to understand what fasting is all about for a Christian then it would be a good idea to do it in the way that the ancient Church did it and still does it in this day and age. Meat is one of the essentials in the not very long list of foods that are fasted from during this season. And the advice is that if you haven't fasted before then you should go easy at first and gradually build up to what is right for you. And what is right for you, you are advised to discuss with a spiritual director or priest, someone who knows you from a spiritual point of view. So, I've given up meat; and through that I'm learning quite a bit, in different ways about my relationship with God and of God's way of doing things. Which brings me to what we've read this morning from His word.

In the Old Testament reading today we meet the Hebrews wandering about in the desert without water. And so in their deprivation they complain to Moses in the strongest terms 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?' Moses, in his usual state of panic when met with a challenge cries out to God 'What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.' Notice he's more concerned with his own safety than with the people's problem. Quite a human response. But, sadly for Moses and sadly for the people in their plight, not a response out of faith. It's a response from faith's opposite - fear, to the situation they both find themselves in. Both Moses and the people are afraid of dying, for different reasons, one from thirst, the other from stoning. In fearing for their lives, they lose their faith in God. And faith in God is the heart, the essential of their relationship with Him, as it is for us. Faith, hope and love are the great trinity of relationship with God. And all three have disappeared from these people as we meet them in the desert.

And the test of their relationship has come through the lack of something essential to their life. And if they'd understood that all their needs come from and are met by God then they would most certainly have responded differently to their deprivation. And that's why the Church, in her wisdom gives us this season of fasting from what we see as staples in our diet, essential foods, to test out our relationship with God; to test our faith and to help us work on that relationship, to find faith, hope and love in God again. And I'd like to skip here to the gospel reading because I think that this faith, this hope and love are the living water that Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman about.

The Hebrews lacked water, the water that gives life to their bodies. The Samaritan woman had lots, buckets full. What she lacked, Jesus told her was the 'water of life', water that was available from and through Him. But the woman misunderstood, as we all do one way or another, because we are all fixated on our own needs, wants and desires; without the satisfaction of which and even with a surfeit of which, we become filled with fear and forget God and faith in Him. 'Give me this water so that I don't need to keep coming back here to fill my bucket' she says to Jesus. Total confusion. But Jesus helps her see, as He helps all of us to see. He talks about her life, past and present and it gets her thinking. The woman probably has lots of questions about her life, whether or not it's a good and right and proper life before God, as we all do. She's probably taken up with rules and regulations about religion; as the disciples are when they meet up with Jesus. He's talking to a Samaritan woman, horror of horrors! But Jesus speaks through and beyond the rules and regulations. The woman recognises that Jesus sees beyond the outward appearance and what impression it gives. Jesus is speaking from faith and hope and love.

Not that the rules of religion aren't important. Remember what Jesus said about coming not to do away with the law but to fulfil it. The law is, if you like, the skeleton, the bones and Jesus is the flesh upon the bones and the breath in the lungs. And this all takes us back to those Old Testament people who had the law, given by God to Moses for himself and the people. But the law wasn't the life. It was the means to life. In that same Old Testament God gave the people a choice - life or death. Go His way and it would lead to life. Go their own way and it would lead to death. And the framework for God's way was the law. The law was the map. But the journey could be made, the life could only be lived through faith, in hope, with love. Lose one of those and you lose the life even though you might keep the law.

And that's why St. Paul could say that we are justified, made right with God, through faith and through that comes peace with God. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul talks a lot about the law and sin and their relationship with one another. He struggled very badly with the whole thing about keeping the law and not keeping the law and of falling into sin through not keeping the law. He felt that as soon as we try to keep the law, keep to the rules we are bound to fail because we can't help but fail and therefore in a moral and juridical sense fall into sin. And we can't put ourselves right. The more we try, the more we fail. That was St. Paul's experience. Until he realised that because of God's love for us and through our love for Him, through God's grace and our faith in God, our relationship is put right with God. And all of this is beyond the law.

So what this boils down to is that our religion isn't in the end about keeping to rules, it's about faith. Yes, the rules, the commandments of God are an expression of God's love, they are a way in to a relationship with God but it's only through faith that we can come into the fullest knowledge of and right standing and right relationship with God. When we keep the Lenten fast we keep to the rules and that just for a short time in the year, because the rules help us be more aware of God and our need for faith, so that our relationship with God might blossom. Without faith, we forget God, we fall into fear and we lose the context for and the meaning from which God's laws derive their relevance. That's what happened to the Hebrews in their wandering in the desert. And that's what happens to us as we wander through the deserts of this life.

As we make our way through Lent, there's still time to take the season seriously. There's still at this stage, lots of time for us to look again at our life, our needs in this life and who meets them, through faith; and to let the season work its magic, so that we might come at Easter time with a new faith, new hope and new love for the Christ who raises us from death and gives us streams of living water, the living water of faith, gushing up, as He says, to eternal life.