Sermon at Parish Mass, Advent 1 2022

 

 

The Taking of Christ - Caravaggio. National Gallery of Ireland.

 

Isaiah 2:1-5

Romans 13:1-end

Matthew 24:36-44

 

Happy new year – Church year, that is – and welcome to a new cycle in our Sunday readings, as this year we shall be mostly reading Matthew’s Gospel.

Now, be honest. When you start a new book do you ever sneak a look at the last pages to see how it ends? Because that’s what we did today. We started our reading of Matthew not at the beginning, but in Chapter 24. By this point in the Gospel we are already in Holy Week, and Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph. In just two days it will be the Passover and Jesus will be betrayed and crucified. In the section we heard today he is on the Mount of Olives, teaching his disciples privately about “the end”.

The end of what, exactly? In reading the gospels attentively, we can see that this is answered on more than one level. Jesus speaks of coming catastrophe, and cosmic signs, both in the immediate and the long-term time scale.

There is the catastrophe that is almost upon them, Jesus’s betrayal and death, which he has foretold, but the disciples have not understood. Then, further off, there is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in great violence, which Jesus has also foreseen. Indeed, he has lamented the fate of Jerusalem, “if only they had known the way of peace”. Jesus is in person the Word of the Lord from Isaiah, speaking from Jerusalem, calling on his people to “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks”.

But woven through these two themes Jesus also teaches the disciples that all things are transient, that both our bodily life, and the universe as we know it, will come to an end, and all will be brought into the light of God’s eternity in which all things will be seen in their true nature and value.

For all these things, says Jesus, you must be watchful and ready, staying awake, because you do not know when they are going to happen.

It will be like the days of Noah, says Jesus. That’s a startling image: the sudden flood that swept away those who were unprepared and unaware, leaving only Noah and his family. Just so, two people can be going about their ordinary business, working in the fields or grinding meal, and the disaster will snatch away one and leave the other.

First Century Judea was a police state, and the image of being snatched away unexpectedly was one that people would have recognised. If the authorities didn’t like you, they could come for you at any time. Which is exactly what happened. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Temple police came in the middle of the night, Jesus was taken, and the disciples left behind – the first and most immediate fulfillment of the image that Jesus uses.

But the Greek for “left behind” can also mean “forgiven”, which brings out another layer of meaning. Jesus is taken and killed, voluntarily subjecting himself to the catastrophe of human violence. But through his self-giving death the disciples are forgiven.

Today we might think that the death of Jesus, and the destruction of Jerusalem, are in the past, and the end of the universe may be uncounted billions of years in the future. Does that mean that catastrophe is distant from us, that we can relax? No, says Jesus. Be ready, stay awake. And the gospel writers made sure to transmit his urgent message to future generations.

Out of catastrophe, God brings new life and new creation. Through the resurrection, Jesus entered God’s eternity, which does not make him distant from us, but more immediately present. In him, past and future are not distant, for he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last, Alpha and Omega. He is our end as much as our beginning. But, are we aware, are we awake? Do we know him as he stands before us in the present moment?

He is present in the Eucharist, the sacrament of his body and blood. He is the head and the true life of the Church, his body in the world of which we are members. More than that, he fills the universe, for as Colossians says “all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Christ the first and the last comes to us in the present moment, in his sacraments, in his Church, in the creation, and in all who are his brothers and sisters in need; how we respond to him gives meaning and value to the present moment. Meaning and value that will not be lost when all things are gathered up at the end.

This season of Advent calls us to watchfulness, a renewed attention to Christ and the coming of his kingdom, not at some distant horizon but in the present moment. Because it is here and now that we are called to respond to Christ. He fills the present moment with his transforming power. Our response opens us to forgiveness and new life, even in the midst of catastrophe, new life that will endure when time has passed into eternity.

Advent is then a good time to renew the habit of attention to Christ in repentance, in prayer, and in deeper study of the scriptures. We do this so that the habit deliberately formed in prayer can pervade our daily lives, every present moment, and all that we do.

The shopping centres around us might think that it is already Christmas. But the stillness and pregnant waiting of Advent are here for us, and demand our attention. The long dark nights and short days invite us to contemplation. Because these days and nights are not empty but filled with the fullness of Christ, who waits for us in the present moment, seeking our attention, our conversion, and our love.

Now is the time to awake out of sleep, says St Paul, now is the moment to lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Because now is the present moment in which Christ waits for us in all his fullness.

Sermon after the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 13 2022

Following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 

 

 

Lamentations 3.22-26,31-33

2 Corinthians 4.16-5.4

John 6.35-40

In speaking to people these last few days I have found that we have been struggling to put into words what we are feeling. The death of our beloved Queen has left a sense of national bereavement – not the same as the loss of someone we know personally, but it is deeply and keenly felt nonetheless.

I think that is something to do with the Queen’s representative role, that she has embodied and personified the Nation and the Commonwealth. That she has been, in her person, a force that has drawn into unity the diverse and rich communities in which we share.

She has embodied continuity and stability, in a rapidly changing world. In her Christmas messages, and at times of crisis, she has always found the right words, simply but profoundly put, to reassure, encourage and inspire. At national events her presence has elevated and united her people. And now that rock, who for most of us has simply always been there, has been taken from us. It is a great loss, unlike any we have known before.

But the Queen, of course, was also a person of profound Christian faith. She saw her role as one of service, following Christ, who taught his disciples that those who want to be great among them must be the servants of all. Her faith in Christ, as her Saviour and her Lord, illuminated her whole life to the end. And that faith, which we share with her, is the unchanging rock upon which she placed her hopes, and which is our sure anchor and hope also. In this time of change and loss, she would remind us that our faith is in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

In John’s Gospel, the word “all” has a weighty and universal significance. The opening of John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word of the Father, the Word made flesh, and that “all things came into being through him”. Later in John, Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all [things or people] to myself”.

This is how we are to hear the words of Jesus, that he will lose nothing of all that the Father has given him. The work of salvation accomplished by Christ is universal, cosmic, in its scope. Nothing is excluded. All means all.

In our modern Western mindset we are used to the idea of the autonomous individual, the self-sufficient “self”, and subconsciously we can conceive of the idea of salvation in those terms. Just me, by myself, or you, by yourself, snatched out of this wicked world and carried safe to heaven in the end. Salvation, in that thinking, is something individual, disconnected, atomized.

But that is a very impoverished version of the vision that scripture gives us. The Bible tells us that Christ is the Saviour of the world, that his work of redemption is cosmic, integrated, and whole. All means all, and all things gathered together. Ephesians chapter one tells us that the will of God is “to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth”.

Human beings are not created for isolation, but for community and communion. “It is not good that the man should be alone”, as God says in Genesis. And we are not saved as isolated individuals, but as a holy people. Destined for the communion for which we were made, communion with God who is himself supremely community and communion beyond our understanding, the Blessed and Holy Trinity.

Human beings do not exist in isolation, but belong to societies, communities, neighbourhoods, and nations. And within those communities, although we experience many failures, we feel instinctively that we must seek and strive for all that builds up and unites. Sharing in communities by nature, we yearn for the supreme gift of communion, the blessed diversity in unity that ultimately we can only receive by grace.

Indeed, the Bible tells us that not only individuals are saved, but also nations. At the end of the Book of Revelation, we see the vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from God, and are told that “the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it… people will bring into it the glory and honour of the nations.”

Kings, those representative people who embody and personify a nation, will bring their glory into God's New Jerusalem. Peoples and nations will bring their glory and honour. What are the glory and honour of the nations? Everything that is good and right and noble and true. All the achievements down the ages of human culture and art and thought and science. Everything that God’s creative Spirit has inspired and brought about through human endeavour will be gathered in.

The role that the Queen has had, a person of profound Christian faith, representing and personifying the nation, has its fulfilment now in that vision, as she journeys into the New Jerusalem.

As we gather for the Eucharist, we reflect that all paths of Christian discipleship are nourished and patterned by the mystery we celebrate. The Queen’s particular vocation, of being a person who embodied unity, was a fruit of her Christian faith and her Eucharistic life. For when Christians share the bread that is Christ and drink his blood, we all share in God’s work of re-assembling and raising to life a divided and broken humanity. Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread. And as we celebrate the Eucharist we look to that final vision of all things gathered in, the glory and honour of the nations, of humanity united in God at last, with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven.

The Queen’s role has now passed to her son, King Charles. And although he has only been King for three days, he has stepped with unbroken continuity into that representative role that stretches back through the history of this nation, and of so many others. He, too, has spoken movingly of his Christian faith. We may be encouraged that the same faith, that kept the Queen firm in her dedication to the end, lives in him too. And we pray for him, that the rich gifts of God’s empowering Spirit will be poured out on him, now, and in the years ahead.

Anointed for Service

Sermon at Parish Mass, Pentecost 2022

Acts 2:1-11

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

 

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’

 

Romans 8:8-17

 

and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit* is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ* from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through* his Spirit that dwells in you.

 

12 So then, brothers and sisters,* we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba!* Father!’ 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness* with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

 

John 14:15-16,23-26

What a weekend it has been. We have never seen a platinum jubilee before, and it may be a very long time before one comes again – certainly not in my lifetime. So much has come together for this unique celebration, not only for the United Kingdom, but also for all the nations of the Commonwealth.

This bank holiday weekend began with the anniversary of the Coronation Service in 1953, the service at which the Queen received the crown in Westminster Abbey. And we’ve seen an awful lot of crowns this holiday: millions of crowns on logos, crowns made in their thousands in schools all over the country from shiny paper and plastic jewels, and some very imaginative ones: knitted crowns, baked crowns, cars dressed up as crowns, a giant crown of flowers at the Chelsea Flower Show.

But we haven’t seen very many ampoules of oil. Which is slightly odd, because the central, the most important moment of the coronation service, was not the placing of the crown on the Queen’s head. The most important part of that service, the most important symbol of royalty, was the anointing of the Queen with holy oil.

The act of anointing is rich in the symbolism of the Holy Spirit, whose gifts we celebrate this day, the Feast of Pentecost.

The prayers used at the anointing of the Queen spoke of her being consecrated, sanctified and set apart for life, of her being filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. After the anointing, the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed this prayer over the Queen:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who by his Father was anointed with the Oil of gladness above his fellows, by his holy Anointing pour down upon your Head and Heart the blessing of the Holy Ghost, and prosper the works of your Hands.”

Oil has been used from of old as a sign of consecration to God’s service. In ancient Israel, prophets, priests and kings were anointed with oil to set them apart them for the task to which they were called. Oil is not like water, it doesn’t evaporate in a moment, it soaks in, spreads, and gets everwhere. And the grace of the Holy Spirit, too, is like that. It spreads, it soaks in, it rubs off on people you encounter. It’s the devil of a job to keep it out! This is why anointing is so powerful a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s gifts.

The Queen has spoken many times of her own Christian faith, and of the help of God’s grace that has supported and equipped her throughout her long life and long reign. That moment of anointing and consecration at her coronation service has been of enduring significance for her. The Queen, of course, has a particular and unique task among her fellow Christians. But she is not different from any other Christian in needing, expecting, and receiving, the grace of the Holy Spirit for the task and path of life to which God has called each one of us.

The Queen is the only person currently alive to have been anointed as a monarch. But all Christians are part of a royal, priestly, people. All Christians receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit in our baptism. The Holy Spirit is poured out in abundance when we are baptised, with all the royal gifts that Christ gives, equipping and empowering us for the work and the path of life that God calls us to.

Those gifts are renewed and bring forth fresh fruit at other sacramental moments: confirmation, ordination, marriage, absolution, the anointing of the sick. The Church invokes the Holy Spirit over the gifts of bread and wine in the Eucharist, that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ, and that those who receive them may become one body in Christ. These sacramental moments are signs of the Spirit who is continually at work in us, constantly supplying the grace and strength that we need.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, empowering them to preach the gospel to all nations. That gift was manifested then in visible signs, in the way the disciples preached with boldness, accompanied by signs and miracles just as Jesus had done.

And the gift of the Spirit endures in the Church in the life of every Christian. Usually the external signs of the Holy Spirit are not so spectacular as on the day of Pentecost: things like reconciliation, love, faith, the quiet business of conversion of life, endurance and hope in adversity. These signs, too, show a real outpouring of spiritual power, enabling us to do things that we could not do by ourselves.

But the deepest sign of the gift of the Holy Spirit is not exterior at all. Saint Paul in the letter to the Romans today tells us that the Spirit bears witness within us, in the secret place of our own spirit, that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, fellow-heirs with Christ, suffering with him that we may be glorified with him.

The work of the Spirit in our lives, the exterior work we are equipped to do, flows from our interior identity in Christ. We are children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ. God’s Spirit has been poured into our hearts, enabling us to cry out, with confidence and faith, “Abba, Father!”

That faith, that assurance of our calling, of the gift of the Holy Spirit, of our identity in Christ, is the bedrock of our Christian life. It has been so for Her Majesty the Queen throughout her life, as she has so often testified. And it is in no way different for every other Christian, for you and for me.

As we celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit that God has brought forth in her life, we celebrate too our own calling and identity in Christ, the work of the Spirit in our own lives, and we commit ourselves once more to to our work as Christian disciples, for which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are poured out in abundance.

"The Church must be as powerless as God"

 Sermon at Parish Mass Lent 2 2022

 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Genesis 15.1-12,17-18

Philippians 3.17 - 4.1

Luke 13.31-35

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus is continuing on his way to Jerusalem, and there is a background of growing threat, which becomes explicit today when some Pharisees – so often cast as the bad guys – warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him. But Jesus is not yet in Jerusalem, and he tells the Pharisees, who seem only to want to help him, that he can’t be killed yet, as it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem.

As so often in the Gospels, Jesus’s prediction of his suffering and death must have seemed bewildering and distressing to those who were following him.

And then he speaks words of lament over the city, like so many of the prophets did of old, speaking not just of his own time but with the voice of centuries, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”. But these words are in one way different from those of the prophets. They passed on the word of the Lord that they had received, “hear the word of the Lord!”. But Jesus speaks in his own person. He, himself, is the Lord who has lamented over Jerusalem down the ages.

And then comes a most extraordinary sentence. “How often have I desired to…” What? If we hadn’t heard this text before, what would we imagine the Lord would want to do to this violent city that kills his prophets and stones his messengers? Punish it? Raze it to the ground? Force them to obey? But no. “How often have I desired to – gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

In the Old Testament, there are many images of God that evoke power and strength, but Jesus does not choose any of those. Instead he uses an image that does not appear in the Old Testament at all. A hen – which is weak, vulnerable, powerless. But totally committed to protecting her chicks regardless of the threat. Constantly gathering them together as they constantly try to scatter. The hen is an image of unconditional commitment and nurture that will not give up. But she is not an image of power.

God is totally committed to the human project. This is God’s creation and God will not give up on it. His mysterious covenant with Abraham will include all those who have faith in every age, who are more in number than the stars of heaven. God constantly desires to gather together a world that is constantly trying to fly apart.

But when Jesus ratifies this irrevocable covenant he does so in vulnerability and weakness. Jesus says that Jerusalem will not see him until you say “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”. The crowds will cheer on Palm Sunday. They will still be expecting a Messiah who appears in strength. Instead, God’s commitment to them will be shown in a man on a cross. Few will understand that this is how God’s love is shown to them.

The Church, like Jesus, is called to witness to God’s irrevocable commitment to humanity. The Church shares in God’s desire to gather humanity together like a hen gathering her chicks, in a world that is constantly trying to fly apart. But, like Jesus, this will so often be shown to the world in weakness, risk and vulnerability. In fragile acts of kindness and love that are always open to rejection. In the testimony of the martyrs down the ages whose weakness and death testify to God’s power. Even in the courageous witness of those Russian Orthodox priests arrested just last week for using their sermons to tell their people about the invasion of Ukraine, and to call for peace.

In the words of a great Russian Orthodox saint of a previous generation, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, “the Church must be as powerless as God”.

In the Diocese of London, we have a vision for the next eight years “for every Londoner to encounter the love of God in Christ”. We need to consider how we will do that in an age when the church has lost the power, prestige and privilege of former times. We can’t control much, any more. But encounters with love aren’t really something that can be controlled, anyway. A church that is in a position of weakness will find it much easier to be like a hen gathering chicks, than like a powerful lord telling people what to do.

We need to be attentive, then, to how our Diocesan vision is referred to or presented. There is nothing in it about power or control. There is nothing that says we want to turn every Londoner into a Christian, or to make everyone come to church. It is about people encountering the love of God in Christ, out there where the people are. Where Jesus has already gone ahead of us and is already meeting people with his love, whether they recognize him or not. 

To encounter the love of God in Christ is a risky, weak and vulnerable thing. It is the desire of a hen to gather her chicks. Not the desire of the powerful to make everyone conform or become like us. The Church must be as powerless as God. Which means to reject the vainglorious delusions of former ages with their power and privilege.

It means, also, to see through the all-too worldly managerial language of success, numbers and growth. Encounters with the love of God in Christ can take so many forms. Acts of kindness for lonely people. Building bridges of understanding between the many cultures and religions in our diverse city. Prioritizing those who are marginalized by a privileged society. Supporting the local foodbank. Giving to refugees whom we will never meet. We can’t really quantify those things. We can’t add them up and report them in our statistics for mission. But they are part of the mission of the Church, nonetheless.

This is what it means for the Church in this age to engage in the risky, weak and vulnerable business of a hen gathering her chicks. Constantly desiring to gather together a world that is constantly trying to fly apart. Witnessing to God’s love persistently, unconditionally, with irrevocable commitment, come what may. And that is to follow in the way of Jesus, and to make real in our discipleship his covenant commitment to the world God has made.

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

Mount Tabor. Photo: Matthew Duckett, 2010.

 

Sermon at Parish Mass Sunday next before Lent 2022

Exodus 34.29-35

2 Corinthians 3.12-4.2
Luke 9.28-36

A pilgrimage to the Holy land, if you have the opportunity to make one, can bring the stories in the Bible alive in a new way, with the insight that comes from being in the places where Jesus walked and taught, and seeing where the great events of salvation happened.

Some of the pilgrimage sites are well authenticated by history and archaeology. In Jerusalem, the places where Jesus died and was buried were venerated by Christians long before Christianity was officially tolerated, and are still there, in the exact spot, encrusted with the devotion of centuries.

Other pilgrim sites are rather more like representative places. We don’t know where the actual site is, but a shrine has been set up to help us make the connection. The traditional stations of the cross, for example, are marked out in winding mediaeval streets that bear no relation to Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

When it comes to the Transfiguration, which we commemorate today, all the Gospels tell us is that Jesus went up a high mountain with Peter, James and John. The Gospels don’t tell us where this mountain was. But early Christian tradition was quick to identify it as Mount Tabor, near Lake Galilee in what is now northern Israel. Today there is a twentieth century pilgrimage church on top of Mount Tabor, next to the remains of churches from the fourth century onwards.

Now you might suppose that the early Christians just thought, pick any old mountain, it will do as a representative site. Until you go there. Mount Tabor is striking. It is almost conical, rising high above the surrounding plain. Even before you get there it looks like a place of supernatural revelations. But it is where it is that is most significant. The plain it rises above is the valley of Jezreel, the site of the ancient city of Megiddo. Or, as it is better known in Greek, Armageddon.

Those are the most ominous place names in the Bible. Because of their location, Jezreel and Megiddo have been the site of battles from ancient times, a plain where contesting armies collide. And fight. And kill. It’s no wonder that the Book of Revelation chooses this site as the location of the symbolic last battle before the Second Coming of Christ.

From the top of the mountain, you see the whole plain. The landscape itself seems as though it is in turmoil. It is a place for battles, contorted rocks in an inhospitable environment burned dry by the sun. But, on top of the mountain, you experience the shade of trees, peace, silence, and prayer.

If this was the site of the Transfiguration, then it makes perfect sense. Because the revelation of Christ in glory presents the world with a choice. On top of the mountain, there is light and glory, the testimony of the law and the prophets, and the voice of the Father, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”. Below, there is darkness, division, hatred, conflict and war. Humanity, without the light of Christ, plunging into a horror and despair of its own making.

The revelation of Christ in glory tells us that it does not have to be this way. “Listen to him!”, says the Father. Listen to the good news of the Kingdom of God. Repent, turn away from violence, hatred, division and war. And his teaching is not difficult. His yoke is easy, and his burden light.

But the nations do not listen. Now, or then. The revelation of Christ in glory is the prelude to his last journey to Jerusalem, to his suffering and his death. Because the world would not listen, Jesus enters willingly into the darkness below, the place of conflict and death. Because the world would not listen, the redemption of the human race must needs be won at a far greater price than that of our listening, the price of his own blood.

We have looked on at the terrible events in Ukraine this last week with a sense of horror, fear, and helplessness. We wonder what might happen next, and what we can do, as once again we see how fragile civilisation can be. And how much contempt those in power can have for human lives.

And yet this is nothing new. The light of Christ shone from the mountain top onto the darkened world beneath, and shines still. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. It is Christ, the Chosen, the Son of the Father, who faces that world squarely, and freely walks into it to suffer all that it will do to him.

But his call remains, “repent!”. And the voice of the Father sounds in irrevocable command: “listen to him!”.

What can we do? Those things. Repent. Listen to him. Pray. On the threshold of Lent, that great season of repentance, prayer and listening, we realise that our response must begin by turning once again to Christ. The vision of his glory may seem bewildering, incomprehensible, disconnected from the dark world below. But it is precisely that vision which is the hope of the world.

It is that vision which strengthens the disciples before they follow Christ on the way of the cross. The way that will lead them through darkness they could not imagine. To fear and denial and hiding behind locked doors. But, beyond the darkness, their path will bring them in the end to the light of the resurrection. To the definitive encounter with Christ, the Risen One, once and for all triumphant over sin and death. To the one who breathes on them the gift of his Spirit, and says to them, and to us, always, until the end of time, “peace be with you, do not be afraid!”

Sermon at Parish Mass 2nd Sunday before Lent 2022

 

Genesis 2.4b–9, 15–25

Revelation 4

Luke 8.22-25

Our readings today take us from a garden, to a storm, by way of a scene of heavenly worship. I suppose, after Storm Eunice, and the chaos it has caused in our gardens and parks, we might find readings about gardens and storms resonate with us today.

The Church of England, in these two Sundays before Lent, chooses readings along the themes of creation, this week, and Transfiguration, next week. These help to remind us that the Christ, whose footsteps we will follow through Lent and Passiontide, is the Word of creation through whom all things were made, and is the Light of God who has come into the world.

And, so, the common thread running through these readings is that they speak to us of Christ. Indeed, it is Christ himself, the Word of God, who speaks through all the words of scripture when they are read in the community of the Church. But, of course, the words of scripture are very diverse. There are many different kinds of writing in the Bible and we need to be attentive to what sort of thing it is that we are reading, and how we can hear the voice of the living Christ speaking through them.

We began today with the reading from Genesis about the Garden of Eden. This is the second of two different creation myths recorded in Genesis. A myth, as a kind of literature, is not something that is false, but something that seeks to convey true meaning under the form of a grand symbolic narrative.

The Garden of Eden is a place of harmony and peace. Everything that is created lives and belongs together, all is good and pleasant. The one thing that is not good is that the man should be alone, and so the Lord God makes companions for him in the animals, and finally in the woman who is born from his opened side.

This is a companionship that seeks union: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh”. And yet, as we know, sin and division enter in through the disobedience of Adam and Eve. These destroy the original harmony of creation, and create an obstacle to the return to union that human beings seek.

Creation, in the scriptures, is not so much something that happened at a point in time long ago, but is more an ongoing project, a work in progress. The “In the beginning” of Genesis has a rich meaning in Hebrew: it is that which is true in principle, and continues to be true even when it is obscured. What is “original”, in the Genesis myths, is what creation is striving to be.

We see this continuing work of creation when we read the Gospels. The Word of God through whom all things were made has come into the world, to complete the work of creation and to restore that unity and peace for which we were created, and for which we long. The ancient story of Eve being born from Adam’s opened side is echoed in John’s Gospel, when the side of Christ the new Adam is opened on the cross, and out flow blood and water, the sacramental tide of Baptism and the Eucharist that gives birth to the Church, the new Eve, represented by the Mother of Jesus and the Beloved Disciple who stand beneath.

The unity and peace for which we were created are finally made possible in Christ, who unites all things in himself. The healings and miracles that were the signs of his presence in the world show that, in Christ, the work of creation is being healed and brought to perfection. So when Christ, in today’s Gospel reading, rebukes the wind and waves and saves the terrified disciples, he restores the original harmony and peace of creation. “In the beginning”, that which is true in principle, creation is good.

But the word of Christ, who speaks through the scriptures to us, comes to us with a challenge: “where is your faith”? Our recognition may be slow, as it was with the first disciples, but in Christ the creator and redeemer are one and the same. As the scriptures are read in the church, at the gathering for the Eucharist, he stands before us, the living one, the conqueror of death. We are invited not simply to learn about him, but into a living relationship with the risen Lord. In him we are indeed made one; in him we are indeed saved from sin and death.

And this is true whatever is going on for us. With the eye of faith, we can look back at Genesis and see God preparing our redemption even before everything went wrong. In the beginning, God is the redeemer. And, in the midst of the storms of life, God in Christ is with us, still.

There will be storms in our lives. Creation is still a work in progress. We look forward to the final vision where all creation is gathered in worship, in the new heaven and the new earth. But in this life, as Our Lord tells us, we will have troubles. Storms and crises can come upon us unexpectedly, and we can find ourselves feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

But in the midst of these times, Christ is still with us. He may seem to be asleep in the bottom of our rickety boat that is in danger of sinking. He may seem even to be absent or uncaring. But he is there, still. Christ, who is the Word of creation and the redeemer of the universe, is with us, no matter what. He stands before us, and asks “where is your faith”?

He does not ask us for certainty. We are not asked to pretend that we don’t have troubles. We are not asked to be strong when we are weak. We don’t have to know how it will all end. But Jesus does ask us to have faith. Faith that the creator and redeemer are one and the same, that he is the living Lord, Jesus Christ, who is with us even in the darkest storms of life. And faith, as St Paul tells us, that all things in the end will work together for good, for those who love God.

Levelling Down

 

Chrispijn van den Broeck  (1523–1591): Christ Healing the Sick (Royal Collection)

Sermon at Parish Mass 3^rd Sunday before Lent 2022

Jeremiah 17.5–10

1 Corinthians 15.12–20

Luke 6.17-26

 

You have probably had the experience of watching a film or TV series adapted from a book that you already know – an Agatha Christie mystery, perhaps, or the Lord of the Rings. You think you know the story but then you watch someone else’s interpretation and think, “it didn’t look like that in the book!”. But someone else’s view of the story can be enlightening, it can open up to us new perspectives and insights which we hadn’t seen before. How it looks to someone else can add to what the story says to us. And perhaps then we might go back to the book and read it again with new eyes.

So let’s try and visualise the scene in today’s Gospel reading. What do we think this scene looked like?

When we hear the Beatitudes, the sayings of Jesus that begin, “blessed are you who are poor”, and so on, we might think straight away, “ah, it’s the Sermon on the Mount”. Because, in Matthew’s Gospel, it is. But not in Luke. Luke records these sayings of Jesus slightly differently, and also adds the “woes” to those who are rich and full. But he also has a different account of where Jesus gives this teaching. In Luke, this scene does not take place on a mountain, but on a level place that Jesus and his disciples come down to.

The different scene in Luke adds to our understanding of what Jesus is teaching. A level place is an accessible place, and it needs to be because so many in the crowd have come to be healed. We have the little detail, that Jesus “looked up at his disciples”. If people are sick and coming to be healed they probably need to sit down, or even lie down. So, when Jesus has healed them he looks up to speak to his disciples. He is down there on the level ground, sitting or kneeling himself with the people who have come to him for healing.

A level place is a place which is accessible to all, a place where all are equal. And this levelling place sets the scene for Luke’s version of the Beatitudes – and the Woes.

The contrasts are sharp. “Blessed are you who are poor”, and that means materially poor, not the “poor in spirit” as in Matthew. “For yours is the kingdom of God”. But, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation”.

Jesus proclaims this great reversal, a theme of Luke’s Gospel, in the level place. The powerful, the privileged and the rich are brought down, but the powerless, the marginalised and the poor are raised up, for the Kingdom of God belongs to them. It is a Gospel of liberation for the oppressed, but also a Gospel of judgment for those who have had their fill.

If we hear this as revolutionary, then we are hearing rightly – it is. But it is not a revolution as human beings tend to arrange them, where the structures of oppression stay the same and you just change who is charge at the top. God’s judgement, here and throughout the scriptures, is a call to repentance, to change. God’s judgement always offers hope. The Gospel of liberation for the poor is also the Gospel of liberation for the rich and powerful, because it is their judgement. They, too, need to be saved from the tangled web of power and privilege from which they cannot free themselves.

The Gospel of liberation brings us all down to a level place, where all are brought in as equals, and Jesus our liberator looks up at us to teach us how to be blessed. He frees the oppressed from their oppression, and the powerful from their power.

We need to hear this call to repentance, to be challenged by the Gospel of liberation, constantly. The imbalance between human beings, the un-level place of power and oppression is everywhere. Jesus summons us out from there to a level place where all are welcome and all are equal.

We need to hear it in the Church, as well as in society at large. Father Brian and I have just been doing the safeguarding training that clergy have to undertake every three years. Part of that training is a reminder of how badly the Church has got things wrong in the past. Not only in the appalling crimes of abuse themselves, but also in the ways that Church authorities, bishops and establishment figures, have covered things up, ignored complaints, let abusers go back to abusing, and abandoned the victims. It is a shocking and tragic history. It is also a failure to hear and to live the Gospel of liberation for all.

Good safeguarding practice in Church is not only about responding to disclosures of abuse. It is, even more, about creating a culture where abuse is much less likely. And that means a culture where there are no imbalances of power, where everyone is welcomed and valued as equals. Where children and vulnerable adults are placed at the centre of our care, not ignored on the margins. Where those who have authority realise that it is given them to serve, not to lord it over people. Authority to be down on their knees in the level place, attending most to the people who are most in need.

The recent history of the Church of England shows us that we still have a long way to go to create a good safeguarding culture, but we are learning. As I hope we are also learning in other areas such as race, gender and sexuality. We must not turn back or become complacent. It is Jesus who proclaims the Gospel of liberation for all. It is Jesus who calls us to come down with him to the level place, the accessible place where all are welcome and all are equal. The place where Jesus our liberator brings healing to those most in need, and where he looks up at us to teach us how to be blessed.

Sermon at Parish Mass 6 February 2022

 

Isaiah 6:1-8

1 Corinthians15:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

 

The Queen has said many memorable things in her long reign, but among the words that come to mind particularly today, the 70^th anniversary of her Accession, are some that she spoke while she was still Princess Elizabeth, in 1947:

“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service... But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do... God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.”

The Queen’s sense of calling and duty are something that come through clearly in her life. Illuminated by her Christian faith, she conceives of her role as one of service to the Nation and the Commonwealth. And all that is bound up in prayer and dependence on God. She believes that God called her to her role, and in her Coronation she was consecrated to it for life.

This morning’s readings are all in one way or another about people being called by God, to the particular task or vocation that God gives them. In all three readings, we encounter someone who is called by God but who feels inadequate for the task. Isaiah feels overwhelmed by a sense of uncleanness at the vision he has seen. Paul protests that he is unfit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church of God. And Simon Peter, realising the divine power that is at work in Jesus, cries out, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’

Nevertheless, all three were called by God, all had a specific task to do. And, by the grace of God, they carried out their task. Speaking God’s word to God’s people, making disciples of the nations. Isaiah and Peter and Paul protested their unworthiness, but worthiness had nothing to do with it. It was all grace. God’s calling is God’s gift. And it was undertaken not in their own strength but in the power and strength that God gave for the task.

The calling to be an apostle or a prophet is rare. As St Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets?”. Likewise, the calling to be a Christian monarch or national leader is rare. But we all do have a particular call from God. Christian discipleship, for every follower of Jesus, is in one way or another about hearing his call in our lives and responding.

For most of us this will be discerned and lived out in the ordinary circumstances of daily life. Being a parent or a carer or a partner. In our work which one way or another serves other people’s needs and helps to build up community. In hidden lives of prayer in which we lift to God all those in need, known and unknown. The everyday-ness of these things does not make our lives any less a response to God’s call, and does not mean that we are any less dependent on God’s grace. St Paul says in Colossians, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”.

God’s call to us is God’s gift, and with it the strength and the grace needed to follow that call. God’s call assures us that we are loved and valued for who we are. Jesus said to the disciples, “you did not choose me, but I chose you”.

It is all grace. Worthiness has nothing to do with it. We do not need to earn God’s favour or approval. God’s call came to us first as God’s gift. Our response also is God’s gift. It is Simon Peter, who knows how sinful he is, who is called by Jesus to be a leader of his Church. Simon Peter, who will fail and deny Jesus, is called, anyway, and given grace to respond to his calling. Paul, unworthy to be called an apostle, became by God’s grace the one whom we often just call The Apostle, the messenger of Christ to the nations.

Whatever our particular vocation may be, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus gives joy and thankfulness to our lives. It makes daily life in a way sacramental, a breaking through of grace in the daily round and common task undertaken for God’s sake.

Cardinal Newman summed this sense of being called in the ordinary things of life:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

“He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

“Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.”

Jesus calls us, every one of us, “follow me”. He has chosen us. We are loved and valued as we are. His calling is his gift. Our response is his gift. The strengths and graces we need to follow are his gift. We do not need to see the outcome. His call in our lives is his gift, and the outcome will be, too. And as we follow along the path he calls us, we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.