Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 13 2013

Isaiah 58:9b-end
Hebrews 12:18-end
Luke 13:10-17

This week Luke returns to a theme he has visited before: Jesus heals someone on the Sabbath, which causes controversy and opposition, because the religious law said that you shouldn’t work on the Sabbath. This is a theme which is important to the Gospel writers and at its heart is the nature of the Sabbath, what it is for, why it is commanded. 

What the Sabbath is about is the restoration of creation. Christ, God among us, has come to redeem humanity and all of creation from what, in today’s reading, is called the bondage of Satan. This is what the Sabbath has always been about. The Old Testament institution prefigured and foreshadowed this great liberation, and in the New Testament when Christ comes he makes explicit its meaning. But today’s gospel reading is about how this isn’t understood by the religious authorities.

If you’re old enough you may remember the 1940s novel and Ealing film “Whiskey Galore”, in which the devout presbyterian inhabitants of a Scottish island refrain from salvaging a shipwrecked cargo of whiskey because midnight has struck and it is the Sabbath - much to their sorrow. That all seems in a different world now.

But the islanders in that story are making the same mistake as the ruler of the Synagogue in today’s Gospel reading - they are being puritanical and legalistic, making the Sabbath into an oppressive institution instead of a liberating one. “There are six days on which work ought to be done”, says the Synagogue ruler, “come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath”. 

But that is to get it all wrong, as Jesus knows. The Sabbath is about reconnecting with the goodness of creation, about renewal and restoration. Whether that goodness is healing or whiskey - in moderation, of course. The Sabbath rest is about our creatureliness, we are creatures not gods, we have limits and we need to rest and return. Cycles of rest, activity and festivity are part of how the universe is made, and if we resist that we are resisting the good of creation. So healing is a supremely good thing to do on the Sabbath - it is the restoration and renewal of creation to the goodness God intends. 

This is why the Christian Sabbath is now Sunday - the day of resurrection, the greatest healing and restoration in which the new creation is revealed. It is not about keeping a list of rules - this or that activity is banned from midnight. Rather, it is about celebration. The Sabbath rest is to make space for recreation, re-creation in fact: God’s new creation reaffirmed in the weekly day of renewal and festivity.

So we must not take a legalistic approach to the Sabbath, we must not allow it to become an oppressive burden. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, as Jesus has already said in an earlier scene in the Gospel. 

But there is an opposite error to the legalistic approach, one we are perhaps more likely to see in our own society, and that is is to ignore the Sabbath principle. As though we and the earth had no limits, as though we were gods. As though we did not need to be set free from Satan’s bondage. 

There was a tragedy reported in the Evening Standard last week. Moritz Erhardt, a young intern in a major investment bank in London, fell down dead after working through the night eight times in two weeks. He’d seemingly worked solid for 72 hours before his death. There are hundreds of interns working like him. Yes, for high salaries and even higher prospects. But at an inhuman price. One of them told the Standard’s reporter, “Every intern’s worst nightmare is what’s called ‘the magic roundabout’, which is when you get a taxi to drive you home at 7am and then it waits for you while you shower and change and then takes you back to the office.”

Less extreme than that but more pervasive is the ever increasing pressure of work. Having worked at a university for 20 years I know something of what that’s been like in the public sector. Staff numbers have steadily reduced and an ever increasing workload has been placed on ever fewer people. Management practice is now to pool staff in shared offices, where the psychological pressure to stay past your hours and take work home - because that’s what your colleagues are doing - is difficult to avoid.

The result is that leisure is eroded, and rest and re-creation are no longer part of a routine cycle but grabbed as and when, and rarely. Stress increases and families and relationships suffer. The other side of this is those who are unable to find work as those in work do more and more. Unemployment is just as dehumanising, the lack of dignity and purpose and prospects while others are driven ever harder chasing ever inflating house prices, rent and cost of living. 

The woman healed by Jesus in today’s reading is described as having been “bound by Satan for eighteen long years”. “Satan”, as we have seen before, means “the accuser”, the accusatory principle undermining and destroying human life, working against our good place in a good creation. How many people today, I wonder, might identify with that woman, bent over beneath the accuser's burden. And the ignoring of the Sabbath principle results in that kind of bondage and destruction, because it sets human beings up as false gods, idols that demand  even human sacrifices.

And there is more to the Sabbath than just the weekly day of rest. In the Bible the Sabbath principle extends to animals and fields, to the environment, even to economics in the cancellation of debts every fifty years. Everything needs to live within its proper limits if it is truly to live and flourish. Everything needs to discover the liberation that God gives in Christ.

When we read stories like that in the Evening Standard, or consider the ever increasing demands on our own time, it may seem as though everyone is caught in a vicious spiral. How can we break free? Well, first of all we need to remember that it is God’s will and purpose that we should flourish in his creation, and he sent Jesus to free us from the bondage of sin and death and make us a new creation in him. We do not free ourselves, but we are freed by the grace of God. 

But God’s liberation works through us in our co-operation with grace. And that will usually be in the little things of daily life rather than in great revolutions. There is a prayer in the daily office which says, “Lord, lead us to our heavenly home by single steps of self-restraint and deeds of righteousness; through the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Those single steps we can make, through grace, can take many forms. If you have contracted hours of work, go home on time, and take your holiday. Perhaps your colleagues will be inspired to follow your example. And then maybe your employer will have to hire more staff. If you need to, join a union or another group to protect workers’ rights - don’t forget the union movement has its roots not in political flag waving but in Christian values and respect for people working in what were extremely inhuman conditions. Have the courage not to fill every moment with activity. Plan down time and put it in your diary. If you live in a family, eat together at least once a week. Eat food that’s in season. 

Undergirding all of this is not allowing the accuser to hold us captive, allowing Jesus to liberate us. Jesus shows a better way, the way of celebration and trust in the goodness of God our creator. Christ shows the meaning of the Sabbath principle, which is woven into the fabric of creation.

Above all this breaks through and becomes real in what we are doing today, in the Eucharist, which is why Sabbath, Sunday and Eucharist indispensably go together. Right from the start, the Apostles broke bread on the Lord’s day, recognising the Risen Lord in the breaking of bread on the day of the resurrection. 

Sunday Mass is not an arbitrary rule but equally it’s not optional. It gives the meaning to Sunday as the day of festivity, and gives meaning to the rest of the week of work and activity, too. The Eucharist is the re-creative principle of the Sabbath in action, whatever our personal circumstances. It is supremely the life of the resurrection pervading our lives in the here and now, giving purpose and joy and delight in the new creation which the resurrection reveals. 

Sermon at Parish Mass The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary 2013

Revelation 11:19-12:6,10
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 1:46-55

“Elvis has left the building.” A phrase first used, Wikipedia tells me, in 1956, to try to calm down excited concert goers who lingered in hope that the King of Rock and Roll might still be around. Since then it has entered popular culture as a phrase to mark any significant departure, a departure that changes our perception and viewpoint. The building is no longer the same when Elvis isn’t in it. 

Today we celebrate a more significant departure, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Most saints’ days mark departures, as they are usually celebrated on the day of their death. In old lists of saints this was referred to as the ‘birthday’ of the saint, the ‘natalis’ or birth into the life of heaven. But that is also of course their departure from this world. And today is the day of Mary’s departure from this world, a departure more complete than most, for it marks not only her death but also the tradition that her body as well as her soul was assumed into heaven - a foretaste of the general resurrection at the end of time.

A number of early legends elaborated the story of Mary’s assumption, and it is difficult to disentangle their historical core. But it is a fact that no bodily relics of Mary have ever been identified or venerated in the Church, in spite of the popularity of the relic cult from early times. There is indeed a tomb of Mary, near Jerusalem, but, like that of her Son, it is empty. Mary has left this world, it seems, entirely. 

This is not however a puzzle to be solved, as though we need to ask how this came about. Rather, it is a mystery, with a meaning. Mary, like all believers, is called to be conformed by grace to the image and pattern of Christ, her Son. And that image and pattern is the ascended Lord, risen from the dead and raised to the glory of heaven. To say that Mary is assumed into heaven is simply to say that Mary is fully alive in Christ, the ascended Lord. And in her assumption, as throughout her life, she points us to Jesus. It is his doing. It is the triumph of his grace in the life of Mary that we celebrate today.

And yet, it is still a day of departure. Mary, like Jesus, has left the world. But that is not an abandonment. If Mary has ascended it is only because Christ has. And the ascension of Christ does not say that this world is of no account, or that it doesn’t matter. Quite the reverse: the ascension gives the world its true meaning. And Mary, who with the whole Church is in Christ, the ascended Lord, participates in that meaning. 

The Bible says repeatedly that this world is transitory. It will not last for ever.  But equally it is not going to vanish into nothing. St Paul in 1 Corinthians says, “the present form of this world is passing away”, and in Romans says that the universe is “in labour with the birth pangs” of a new age. What is looked for is a new creation in Christ. In him, in his incarnation and ascension, our created human nature has been joined to the Divine nature, and has entered fully into the life of God. 

This passing world of signs and shadows points to what is to come, the world of absolute being, the life of creation fulfilled in the life of God. And Christ has entered that reality, says Paul in Ephesians, as the head of the Church, “which is his body, the fullness of him who himself fills all things”. It is the destiny of all creation to enter, in Christ, into the Kingdom of God, the realm of absolute and unconditioned being which will never pass away.

And that is where the Church believes Mary is. Mary, a created human being like us, is fully alive in Christ, the ascended Lord, who himself fills all things. She has departed from this passing world of signs and shadows, but this does not mean that she is absent. Rather, she is present in a new way, because she is in Christ, who himself fills all things. 

So Mary is invoked everywhere in the Christian world, in all times and places, under many titles which seem to combine the local and the universal.  Our Lady of Good Health, or of Perpetual Succour. Our Lady of Walsingham, or of Lourdes. There is even an Our Lady of the Snows in Antarctica. And she has appeared in many places, too, usually to those who are poor, marginalised or vulnerable - a sign of something being authentically from God - to draw attention once again to the unchanging gospel message of prayer, repentance and faith. Countless people turn to Mary for her prayers and find in her both closeness and compassion, refuge in affliction, solidarity in the communion of faith.

Even in the Scriptures we can see how Mary begins to be present in a new way through her being entirely in Christ. The last historical record we have of her is in Acts, in the midst of the group of disciples in the upper room as they spent their time in continual prayer, awaiting the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. But then there is that scene in Revelation which we heard as our first reading, the “great portent [that] appeared  in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”. 

This is undoubtedly the mother of the Messiah, for “she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations”. But she is more, too. A woman appearing in heaven in Revelation brings to mind above all the Bride of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem, which appears in its closing chapters. Mary appears as the sign and the type of the completed Church, the new creation which comes down out of heaven from God. And she is in the pangs of giving birth, like the universe in labour to bring forth the new creation in Romans.

More extraordinary still, the attributes of the sun and moon and twelve stars - that is, the signs of the zodiac - are those of the Mother Goddess, Queen of Heaven, who was worshipped throughout Asia long before Christ.  The old intuitions of the Divine feminine that formed part of humanity’s spiritual searching down through the ages are taken up and reinterpreted when Christ is all in all. Mary is no longer constrained by the limitations of earthly life, and it does not seem strange to the author of Revelation to overlay these images in one dazzling vision: the mother of the Messiah; the Church in glory; the new creation; and the Queen of Heaven.

Mary today magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in God her saviour. And with her the whole church exults in joy. In her we see God’s purpose for us, the new creation in Christ of which this passing world is a sign and a shadow. Mary has left this world, but she has entered the greater reality, the Kingdom of God, the realm of absolute being where Christ is all in all. And she accompanies the pilgrim Church on its way to that same goal, helping us with her prayers, always pointing and leading us to Christ, who is the only saviour: of Mary, of us, and of all the world.

Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 11 2013

Genesis 15:1-6

Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16

Luke 12:32-40

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “Faith is believing in something you know ain’t true”. I wonder how many people today think the same: that faith is wishful thinking, talking to an imaginary friend, pie in the sky. Whatever you can’t pin down and prove scientifically isn’t real.

But that I think is to do a disservice to faith, and indeed to science. Our ordinary human experience tells us something more. If you stand before a great painting, such as Cezanne’s Mont Saint-Victoire, chemistry can tell us about the composition of the paint and pigments, where they came from, the spectrum of light they reflect, and so on. Geology can tell us what rocks the mountain in the picture is made from, and how old they are. But the truth of the painting is something else: an intense, immediate experience of a mystery that stands before us, both earth-rooted rock and transcendent height, glowing with colour and light, drawing us in. Cezanne is telling us the truth about a mountain in a way that science never could.

Faith is access to another kind of truth again, truth revealed by God. This is not contrary to the truth of science and human experience, but exists in a different order. So the Letter to the Hebrews says, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.

What is it that is hoped for but not seen? Abraham hoped for descendants and a homeland, and he believed, even though this seemed impossible. Hebrews says this was a heavenly homeland, not the earthly ‘promised land’ which kept going wrong. He was seeking a homeland founded by God.

When and where is that? Today’s gospel reading speaks of the coming of the Son of Man. Does this means the end of the world? Is that imminent, or is it not now? How long have we got? 

Well, an aspect of the teaching of Jesus is about the End, the completion of God’s saving work, when his judgement on all human life will be made known, when Christ will be all in all and the redeemed will be gathered into his Kingdom. But Jesus says his coming is unexpected: if we think this is all about some remote future, far from where we are, we are missing the point. 

Jesus is talking about something for which we need to be alert and ready now.  He says to be “dressed for action”. That’s a quotation from Exodus 12:11, and it’s the instruction for the Passover. The Passover, you’ll remember, was a meal to be eaten in haste, because it was that very night that the Israelites were to leave the land of Egypt. So the bread was unleavened, because it’s quicker to cook, and the dress code was: have your girdle round your waist, your sandals on your feet and a staff in your hand. The girdle round your waist was to hook up your long robes so you could actually run. 

The Passover was urgent and hasty because God was coming to deliver his people right there and then, no time to waste. And Jesus is saying exactly the same thing to his disciples in this passage. He is saying, here and now, God is delivering his people. Can you see what’s happening? Are you ready? 

This is something that Jesus has been drawing attention to over the last few weeks as we have been reading through Luke’s gospel. The Kingdom is happening now. Be attentive. Be aware. 

Two weeks ago we heard how the Lord’s prayer described what God was doing in Jesus, there and then. Prayer takes us into the place where the Kingdom is happening. The parable of the rich fool was about someone whose attention was in the wrong place: on his possessions, his self-constructed image, so he missed the Kingdom. 

Faith is about spiritual awareness. Awakening our inner vision so we can see what God is doing. And Jesus tells two little parables about awareness, one reassuring, and one disturbing, but both are strange. There is something Zen-like about the parables of Jesus. They describe a world which is never quite like the one we know. They challenge our assumptions and expectations. Parables are about probing and deepening our awareness.

The master returns from a wedding very late - and swaps roles with his servants, serving them, waiting on them at table. That is not how the world we live in works. Clearly the Kingdom that God is giving to his little flock is very different from human expectations. This Kingdom belongs to a new order in which the most important thing is service, not power. And Jesus will make exactly this point again at the last supper when he says “I am among you as one who serves”. We have to unlearn everything we know about how human society works if we are to enter the Kingdom. 

Then Jesus shifts the imagery from that happy but unexpected scene. Suddenly, there’s a thief coming, but because this is a parable even the thief behaves strangely. Instead of breaking through the door or a window or the roof he literally digs through the wall. This is the Incredible Hulk of burglars!

Parables present us with a challenge, an obstacle to our understanding, to jolt us out of our old way of seeing things. Jesus tells these two stories, one which is strange and has a happy outcome, and the other which is strange but disturbing and upsetting. But both stories are about the coming of the Kingdom, and about our awareness. Can we see what is going on? Can we see how we need to change? Can we see where God is at work? 

In this Gospel passage we are at the scene of a break-in. God in Jesus is visiting his people, but unexpectedly, and in a way which  shatters our pre-conceptions about how human society works. Just as the thief demolishes the walls of the house, so Jesus breaks down the whole framework of how we thought we were meant to live. Masters become servants. Roles are exchanged, boundaries crossed. The Son of Man comes like a thief, like an outsider, to break down the walls which we thought we needed to keep the insiders in and the outsiders out. The city “founded and built by God”, as Hebrews puts it, is very different from the city we human beings construct for ourselves if left to our own devices.

So, the story of the master who serves his servants, and the story of the thief who comes crashing through the wall of the house, are about the same thing. They are about leaving off the way we used to live, and beginning to live in the new and different life of God’s Kingdom. And that happens when we become aware of the Kingdom, attentive to a spiritual reality that we discover by faith. 

But although this is a spiritual reality it is not disconnected from life here and now. Quite the reverse: be alert, be dressed for action, says Jesus. The kingdom is happening here and now. An authentic spiritual awareness of God’s Kingdom will always change how we live in this world and how that world lives around us. The kingdom is becoming real through us.

Justice and liberation, good news for the poor, the marginalised brought into the centre. All these are true signs of God’s kingdom breaking in to this world. But it begins with the Kingdom breaking into our hearts. It begins with awareness and attention to God in the ground of our being. It begins in prayer, and meditation on the scriptures, and the practice of the sacraments. But it ends in breaking down all the walls that this world builds, so that all people can be set free to enter their true home, the City founded and built by God.

Sermon at Parish Mass and Baptism Trinity 10 2013

Ecclesiastes 1.2,12-14;2.18-23

Colossians 3.1-11

Luke 12.13-21

So, Lloyd’s bank is back in profit - and RBS is on the way. Good news! Especially since these two banks are largely owned by us. Though, I have to admit, I’m still awaiting for my dividend cheque in the post. Not such good news is the proliferation of pay day lenders, and the embarrassment that the Church of England was discovered to be indirectly investing in one of their backers. For the few who enjoy bumper profits, there are the many who are being driven deeper into debt. 

The Bible takes a long hard look at riches, money, property and profit, and generally is highly skeptical of them all. We’re reminded of that by Ecclesiastes this morning; this is part of the ancient Jewish wisdom literature,  and is brutally honest about what life can sometimes be like. We’re to suppose that the author is a King of Israel in a great palace full of gorgeous things, and yet he clearly sees that true life and happiness are not to be found in them. 

Yes, the Bible affirms that abundance is a blessing from God - but a blessing to be shared. God is generous so that we can be. Everything we have and everything we are comes from God. It is a gift, not something we create for ourselves. This is why attachment to possessions is regarded as idolatry - worshipping a false God, imagining that we can create ourselves by what we can grasp hold of. This is why those who have received an abundance of God’s blessings have a solemn responsibility to look after the poor. 

And if we don’t understand that basic perspective, that all things come to us from God’s generosity, then these things can so easily become a snare, a trap, possessions that end us possessing us. The encounter in today’s gospel reading illustrates this snare of possessions. 

A man asks Jesus, “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me”. It was not unusual for a rabbi to be asked to adjudicate in disputes and interpretations of the law. But Jesus refuses to go along with that. He sees to the heart of the matter. This man is trapped in desire for the family inheritance, not because he needs it, but because his brother owns it instead of him. 

This in fact is a basic human trait - we imitate one another’s desires. We desire what other people desire, not what we need. And usually we do it quite unconsciously. It’s how advertising works. But the imitation of desire has huge consequences, from Eden to Calvary. It is constantly working to divert us away from God, the source of all we truly need, into rivalry with one another for things we want to grasp and possess.

So Jesus does not adjudicate in this man’s dispute. He simply refuses to be complicit in human rivalry and greed. Instead, he tells the parable of the rich farmer - a caricature, an almost comic figure, but in the end one told with compassion. You end up feeling sorry for him, because he has missed what really matters. 

This is a man who desires more than he needs. He already has barns which presumably he has been using for many years. They are therefore enough, they contain what he needs to carry on the business of the farm for the coming year. But he has a bumper harvest, so what should he do with the surplus? Jewish tradition and the Bible are quite clear: if God has blessed you, you should bless others. Give what you don’t need to those who don’t have enough. St Augustine, commenting on this passage, said, “The safest storehouse for surplus grain is the bellies of the poor”. But for this rich man, enough is never enough. He knows no limits, He has to keep grasping and holding on to more and more. 

In fact this grasping and greed and possessiveness has swollen up to such an extent that he has forgotten who he is. He regards his soul, that is his true self, almost as a different person. He speaks to his soul as though it were someone else. “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.’” This is a man who is literally ‘beside himself’. He has constructed a huge all-demanding false self, ever swelling up with more and more possessions, and has come to mistake that illusion, that construct, for who he really is.   

In fact he is experiencing what St Paul describes in our reading from Colossians - ‘wrath’. Wrath is an important concept in the Bible, one we need to pay attention to. It’s a bit of an old fashioned word, and we might think it means just anger or rage or losing your temper. But in the Bible wrath and desire are closely connected. The Greek word for wrath is orge. “Orgy” comes from the same word. It speaks of desire which is never satisfied, desire swollen up out of control, desire collapsing in on itself in a spiral of self-destruction. Wrath is, if you like, the flip side of our rivalrous desires, what those desires do to us if we are not saved from them. Instead of receiving our true self as God’s gift we keep trying to feed the false self more and more, like an addict needing ever higher doses of a drug. But this in the end will never satisfy us, it will always, ultimately, fail. And so we experience wrath, rage, frustration. 

It’s important to note that there is no wrath in God. The Bible sometimes talks about “the wrath of God”, and sometimes just about “wrath”. But this is metaphorical language. God is not an organic being like us. God is light and in him is no darkness at all. There is no change or alteration in God, no passions or moods. The “wrath of God” is not something in God, but is what we experience when we try to hang on to our false selves and resist receiving our true self, our true life, as God’s gift. Wrath is something that happens in us, not in God. And it is something that God is saving us from.

Our true life is in God and from God, who gives without limit and without being diminished. Life we cannot grasp at or claim as our own. But to receive that means letting go of our rivalrous desires and attempts to construct ourselves. In theological language this means dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ. These are words which we will hear again in a few moments, addressed to the parents and godparent as we prepare to baptise Kareena and Kiera. “To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life with him.” But they are words which are, really, addressed to all of us. We are all followers of Christ. Baptism is a life journey. It is a call to all of us to turn away from everything that would hold us back from finding our true self in God.

St Paul describes that life of the baptised today, in the extract we heard from the letter to the Colossians. Our new life, our true self, is Christ and is in Christ. It is entirely God’s gift to us, something to receive with thanksgiving, not something we can construct or possess. And it means putting to death whatever in us belongs to the old life. That’s strong language, but new life in Christ means sharing his resurrection and therefore his death. The old false self has to die if we are to truly live. That is why baptism, for all of us, is a life long commitment to follow Christ and to turn away from sin. A commitment to let go of all our attempts to construct ourselves, and instead to trust Christ to renew us in his image. And in that renewal all human greed and rivalry and division and conflict is overcome.

“Set your minds on things that are above,” says St Paul, “not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory... you have stripped off the old self and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

That is the life of the baptised, which we celebrate today with Kiera and Kareena. But it is also God’s call for each and every one of us: to find our true self, our real life, as God’s gift in Christ.

Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 9 2013

Genesis 18:20-32

Colossians 2:6-15

Luke 11:1-13

Well there’s been quite a lot in the news about fatherhood this week - and motherhood, of course. The birth of the Royal baby produced a frenzy of excitement in the media, here and abroad - in Italy I had a choice of live coverage from Paddington in French, German and Italian. And the new arrival has turned people’s attention to the joys and challenges of the family and parents in general, as well as the royal family and its history.  

Now I’m sure that William and Kate will do their very best for Prince George, as most families do. But we know that the human family isn’t always perfect, and the Bible knows this too. Both Luke and Matthew introduce the life of Jesus with a genealogy, a list of ancestors - entirely fathers, in Luke’s case. And if you check them out they are really quite a mixed bunch, there is a lot of human frailty and failure and sin that make up the human family. And that family, all those fathers and mothers from the beginning, is the background to the coming of the Messiah. The Bible is quite clear: it is the human race as a whole which is in need of redemption. 

So when Jesus teaches us to call God “Father” he is both revealing something new about God, and showing us what it really means to be a father. He is inviting us into a new and unconditionally loving relationship with God in which our own human relationships, too, will be taken up and redeemed.

Up until this moment in Luke’s Gospel, only Jesus has known this relationship with God. It is Jesus alone who has called God “Father”. It is Jesus alone who has gone off to lonely places to pray in deep communion with the Father. But this is a relationship which Jesus has come to reveal and to share. In the previous chapter he said:

All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

But now the time has come for that revelation. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and perhaps they are expecting a method, or some kind of training, like you might get if you were practicing meditation or yoga. But this is not what they get. They get a prayer which is uniquely great, and all encompassing, and simple: the Lord’s prayer. Both Luke and Matthew give an account of this prayer: Matthew’s version is the one we are used to praying in the Liturgy, Luke’s is shorter and punchier in style, almost telegraphic. Not one word to excess. 

But look at the words carefully, and think of them in the context of the story that Luke tells of the ministry of Jesus. The words of the Lord’s prayer describe, in a nutshell, what Jesus has been doing. They describe his mission and ministry as Luke has been telling it. And throughout Luke we see, again and again, that what Jesus is doing is what God is doing. 

“Father.” Jesus is the Son of God who has come to call all humanity into that relationship of sons and daughters. Jesus reveals that God is our Father - not a father in the old human way tainted by failure and sin, but Father of a redeemed and restored relationship of unconditional, unfailing love.  

“Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.” God’s name being hallowed is about God’s good name or reputation being upheld. God is love and justice and integrity, and human society is not. So by restoring love, justice and integrity to human society, God’s name is hallowed. This is the preaching of the Kingdom, what Jesus has come to do.

“Give us each day our daily bread.” The Greek word translated as “daily” is unusual and really means something like “super-substantial”. This is the bread of ultimate and deepest necessity. This speaks not so much of bodily sustenance, though we need that, as of the spirit, the food that nourishes to eternal life. “Super-substantial” bread of course calls to mind the bread of the Eucharist, which is the substance of Jesus himself under sacramental signs. But it speaks also of the bread of prayer and God’s word, the daily need of our spiritual sustenance. 

“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” Again and again in the gospels Jesus says to someone in need, “your sins are forgiven”. The key to restoring health and wholeness, a society at rights with God and with itself, is the forgiveness of sins. Know yourselves to be forgiven, because you are loved. And because of that, forgive others yourself. 

“Do not bring us to the time of trial.” This is the prayer which Jesus will pray in Gethsemane the night before his death. And yet he will add, “not my will be done, but yours”. Jesus subjects himself to the time of trial so that we can be freed from sin and death. From now on, even in life’s darkest moments, even when we pass through the valley of the shadow of death, we will not be alone, for Jesus has passed that way before and is with us to guide us on our way.

Jesus gives his disciples a prayer which describes what he is doing, and that is the same as what God is doing. This is prayer: know that God is your Father, and that you are loved. And attend to what God is doing.  Will what God wills. Desire what God desires. Do what God does.

The essence of prayer consists of locating ourselves in what God is doing. Prayer is not so much telling God what to do or trying to change his mind, still less is it informing God of the needs of a world he would otherwise be neglecting. No, prayer first of all means centring ourselves in God to seek his will and be attentive to what he is doing.   

This is not something that we have to achieve ourselves - it is God’s gift in Jesus. It is the Son who knows the Father and reveals him to us. Through prayer we are drawn into that relationship, so that our prayer is really a sharing in the eternal communion of the Son and the Father in the Holy Spirit. Through that prayer, which is God’s gift to us, we participate in what God is doing, and become co-operators in the building of his kingdom. Through intercessory prayer, prayer for others and the world and its needs, we bring those people and those needs with us into the still centre where God is doing everything. 

Now this needs, of course, attention, and discipline, and persistence. Keep on praying.  

We do need a regular discipline of prayer to sustain and support our lives, but there isn’t a one-size-fits-all prayer life. We need to ask what is appropriate for us with whatever the demands are on our time, and whatever our duties and responsibilities are. But a regular time of silence and stillness, of attention to God, rooted in the Eucharist and in prayerful reading of sacred scripture, are vital. That way, in times of stress or distraction, when we fire off our arrow prayers for help, those little prayers will be rooted in a deep practice of the presence of God.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” The response that Jesus gives is not so much a method as an invitation into the mystery of God. Our prayer is to be drawn into the prayer that Jesus is continually offering, his communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. All that we need and all that the world needs flows out from that deep communion, from that still centre where God is doing everything. 

Father, hallowed be your name.
   Your kingdom come.
   Give us each day our daily bread.
   And forgive us our sins,
     for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
   And do not bring us to the time of trial.’ Amen.

Sermon at Parish Mass and Baptism Trinity 6 2013

Isaiah 66:10-14

Galatians 6:7-16

Luke 10:1-11,16-20

The movement of liberation is escalating! Through our reading of Luke’s gospel at Sunday Mass we’ve seen how Jesus has been healing the sick, preaching peace and proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near. And often he crosses boundaries to reach out to people who have been excluded or marginalised in some way. 

But that has all focussed on Jesus, and to some extent on the twelve Apostles, the first disciples. The twelve were called by Jesus and gathered round him, but spent some time just staying with him, listening, learning, watching what Jesus was doing, before being given authority to go and do the same themselves. But now Jesus appoints 70 more people to join him in this work. 

The big story that Luke is telling, through his Gospel and through the Acts of the Apostles, is that God is in Jesus and has come to redeem Israel, to reconcile God’s chosen people to himself, and then to extend that salvation to all the nations. There is a feeling in Luke that Israel is in captivity, in exile, and needs to be liberated. Just as the Hebrew people were kept in slavery in Egypt long ago, until they were freed by Moses. And in Luke Jesus is often compared to Moses, because the people of Israel were expecting a great prophet, a “prophet like Moses” to appear and save them. 

So Jesus appoints 70 helpers, just as Moses did. In the book of Numbers, chapter 11, Moses appointed 70 elders to help him in his work, and the Spirit of the Lord came down on them, and they received a share of his power. 

So Jesus is doing the same thing that Moses did. It is another exodus, another movement of liberation. Liberation from what? Moses led the people to freedom from slavery in Egypt. But Jesus brings a greater exodus, a greater liberation, because Jesus gives freedom from the spiritual slavery of sin and death. 

And this is what the 70 celebrate when they return from their journey. Particularly they notice that the demons submit to them, and Jesus responds that he saw Satan “falls from heaven like lightning”. 

“Heaven” here refers to the whole realm of the spiritual and the sacred, the unseen powers at work behind events in the world. When Luke focuses on Satan and the demons he is saying that the experience of people up till now has been that the hidden power at work in their lives is destructive and evil. “Heaven” is the place of spiritual power.

Now the name “Satan” means “the accuser”. So if Satan is thought to be in heaven this means that the world is being run by a principle of accusation, division, violence, and casting out. 

But the coming of Jesus shows definitively that this is not true. This is the good news of the Kingdom of God. God is not like that. God is not the accuser. God is not the one who victimises and casts out. And God is the one who is in charge. It is God, not Satan, who reigns in heaven. 

And in Jesus God has come to establish that reign on earth. He has come to save us from the whole mechanism of sacred violence which has been running the world up to now.  And when this is made known then it is seen that Satan has fallen from heaven. The principle of accusation, of victimising and casting out, is no longer in the place of spiritual power. 

Above all this is seen in the cross, the crucifixion of Jesus, where God takes the place of the victim, not the victimiser, and speaks only of forgiveness for his enemies, not of vengeance.

This is what Jesus has been preaching, and the message that the 70 disciples have been given as well. God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself and not counting our sins against us, as St Paul says in 2 Corinthians. 

But the preaching of the Kingdom, the revelation of what God is really like, brings a moment of crisis and decision. Are we to accept or reject this message? Because once you see what God is doing, you can’t continue undecided as though it doesn’t matter. It is a revelation which makes possible both faith, acceptance of Jesus and his message - and rejection. That’s alluded to in our reading, although the passage leaves out some verses in the middle where Jesus says some uncompromising things about the lakeside towns which had heard his message and rejected it. But, one way or the other, when you hear about the Kingdom of God that brings a moment of decision.

Now moments of crisis and decision don’t necessarily come to us just once. In fact the disciples had many moments of crisis following Jesus, especially as he turned towards Jerusalem and his forthcoming Passion and death. And each crisis prompts a renewed decision to accept Jesus and follow in his way - or to turn aside. 

So it is for us. In the baptism today there is a moment called “the decision” which is precisely this - we have heard the Good News of God’s Kingdom, how do we respond? Do we accept Jesus? Do we reject the devil? That decision was made for most of us when we were baptised as children, but it is one we will need to renew and make our own, not just at formal moments such as our confirmation, but many times in life. 

The grace of baptism is a real gift of the Holy Spirit, rebirth to new life as children of God, but it remains in us like a seed in the ground awaiting the right moment to grow and flourish and bear fruit. This comes when we become conscious of God at work in us and in the world, and we make our own decision to turn to the Lord and follow his way. 

In fact the life of a Christian should be a continual conversion, a turning to the Lord in the ordinary stuff of daily life, in our discipline of prayer and the sacraments and living a good Christian life. But there are also distinct moments of renewing our commitment, our decision for Jesus. At the liturgy on Easter day for example we all renew our baptismal promises together. 

And there are also moments of crisis in life, which bring us back once again to Jesus and his message of salvation. Times of loss and darkness and challenge will come to us. But these can work for good if they strip away our illusions and self-reliance and bring us back to the Lord to believe and trust in him more fully, more deeply. 

Because we too, like the 70, are called to be his disciples, to work with him in spreading the good news of the Kingdom of God. Arjun and Raya join us today as the latest new disciples, called and chosen by Jesus to follow in his way. And they are a reminder to all of us of our own calling and the work we have to do for his Kingdom.

Sermon at Parish Mass Ss Peter and Paul 2013

Acts 12:1-11

2 Timothy 4.6-8, 17-18

Matthew 16:13-19

One of the things you have to get to grips with as a new parish priest is the enormous number of keys that come with the job. Keys to the church, to the safe, to this door, to that cupboard, to the other notice board... And then there are keys which open up boxes containing - more keys. It is a surprising number. But you need the keys to do the job. And handing over keys is a sign of empowerment. 

That occurs in other areas of life as well. You might be handed the keys to a car as a gift, or to the front door on your twenty-first birthday (do people still do that?). To have the keys is to be in a position of power and trust.

And Jesus today says to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven”, a text which has had a lot of weight put upon it over the years, about what is called “the power of the keys” in the Church.

But this is Matthew’s Gospel, and Matthew likes to make lots of references to the Old Testament. He is always keen to show how the new movement initiated by Jesus is in continuity with God’s promises to Israel of old. So here Matthew is making an allusion to one of the prophets, to chapter 22 of Isaiah. In that passage a righteous man called Eliakim is appointed steward of the Royal Household of King Hezekiah, the descendent of David (a post a bit like a Prime Minister). And the Lord says through Isaiah:

I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.

So what Matthew is saying is that Simon, renamed Peter, is to be given charge of the Royal Household of Jesus, the Son of David. He is indeed being given power, and a unique position.

But what sort of power? That is something that we come to see as the rest of the Gospel unfolds, but it is something that Peter and the other disciples don’t at first understand. Power and authority, in the Kingdom of Heaven, are radically different from the power and authority of the world. 

The second part of this Gospel story is not read today, perhaps because it is St Peter’s feast day and the Lectionary is being kind to him. Because the second part of this story is where Peter gets it all wrong. Straight after saying these things to Peter, Jesus immediately talks about his rejection and his death. This is the power not of domination or control but of self-giving love, which in the world as it is has to take the place of the victim. 

But Peter doesn’t understand this. In his mind Jesus is the Messiah - he has got that right! - but he doesn’t understand what that means. He is probably thinking, as many did, that the Messiah would be a leader who would rule as the world does, by domination and control and force. He would drive out the foreign occupiers of Israel and re-establish his capital city in Jerusalem. That is the kingdom that Peter thinks he is being appointed Prime Minister of. 

So he simply cannot grasp what Jesus is talking about. He cannot imagine that the true Messiah will be one who is betrayed and handed over to death. Probably he is also afraid at what seem to be ill-omened words. And he remonstrates with Jesus, and Jesus rebukes him. Because Peter hasn’t yet understood the power of the Kingdom which Jesus is establishing, the power not of domination or control but of self-giving love. So the keys come to Peter both as a gift and as a test - do you get it? do you understand what this kingdom is about - which here he fails. 

He fails later, too. He fought back with his sword in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was betrayed, and was rebuked by Jesus again. And what is another symbol of St Peter? The cock, which crowed at his denials, later that same night. The cock which crowed when Peter, for all his bluster and bravado, was too afraid to admit that he even knew Jesus. Here it is on top of our church and on the warden’s staves. The symbol of Peter’s ultimate failure! What’s that about? Why do we use that sign, as though it was something to be proud of?

Well we use it, it is the symbol of St Peter, because that failure was followed by Peter’s threefold confession of love, which we read about in Chapter 21 of John. Peter had failed again and again but it was that very failure which stripped away his illusions. His illusions about himself, that he was brave and powerful and in control. And his illusions about God, that God’s Kingdom will be like the kingdoms of this world, imposing itself by domination and force and violence. 

And when all that had fallen away, what was left? A wretched, fearful failure who then discovered the most wonderful thing of all. That God was not about violence and control, but about love. And that he, Peter,  was loved, anyway. Loved beyond his imagining, right there in the mess that he had made. And indeed if he hadn’t made such a mess of his attempt to follow Jesus he wouldn’t have known quite how much he was loved. Jesus had known entirely what Peter was like before he called him. And he chose him and called him anyway.

You see, the Gospel is not about being good, but about being forgiven. It is not about persuading God to like us, but about discovering that he loves us regardless of what we do. The Gospel is about doing the worst that we can do, making the greatest mess of it, and then finding that God is waiting to meet us right there in the mess we have made. It is about discovering that God has called us and chosen us as we are, knowing entirely what we are better than we do ourselves. Julian of Norwich, in a statement of profound doctrine, said, “First came the fall, then came the recovery from the fall; both are the mercy of God!”

There is another symbol of St Peter, besides the cock and the keys: the inverted cross. That is the sign of his martyrdom, the triumph of God’s love in him, the fruit of the Holy Spirit who has worked on Peter through his lifetime, remaking him from within so that he could live entirely from the power of God’s Kingdom, the power of self-giving love. So that in the end he could give his life for the Gospel, freely, out of the love that had transformed him. So the story told against himself, the story of his failures, is the story of the triumph of God’s love. A story which is only possible because of that transformation. 

So this is a day of great joy as we rejoice in our heavenly patron, Peter. The mendacious fearful failure who was chosen and called and loved into the person he truly was, out of the ruins of the false self which could not endure. And what was good news for Peter is good news for us, too.

We, every one of us, have been called and chosen, just like Peter, just as we are. Whatever our lives have been and are - God knows it all, and loves us anyway! Called to discover our true selves in the joy of God’s love and forgiveness. Called into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the discovery of what God is really like - not remote, disapproving and controlling, but vivacious, overflowing love, come to meet us where we are. Empowered by the Holy Spirit to live according to that kingdom of self-giving love. God’s love and forgiveness are offered to us today, through Jesus, without condition. And the Holy Spirit will transform us, throughout our lives, just as he did Peter, if we will but let him.