St David, Barbados Feast of Christ the King 26.11.23

After a ceremony in the British Houses of Parliament in London the splendidly robed Lord Hailsham entered a corridor crowded with tourists and spotted his friend the Member of Parliament Neil Marten. ‘Neil’ he shouted and every tourist in the corridor dropped to their knees!

The story captures how intimacy and awe can come together with amusing consequences. 

A couple of years ago I solemnly consecrated a vessel containing altar bread that turned out to be empty. Under the old COVID rules in the UK priests were not allowed to breathe over vessels containing the host so they stayed covered until Communion. I wrongly assumed the covered ciborium placed on the altar by the warden was filled. What a surprise when I genuflected before it, took off the lid ready to distribute Holy Communion and found it empty. I had to say Jesus’ words ‘This is my body’ again over the bread box so we could share Communion.

Merriment is a hallmark of Christ’s kingdom. Archbishop Ramsey described a characteristic of hell as being the absence of laughter. Where there’s laughter there’s lack of self-importance. One imagines hell as being an array of tragically disconnected self important beings unable to reach out to God or one another.

We kneel to no British Lord Chancellor this morning - and Barbados kneels no longer to a British Monarch - but we kneel today to the Blessed Sacrament, to Our Lord on this great Feast of Jesus Christ the Universal King. 

The Lord Chancellor incidentally is the one who still walks backwards before the King having presented him with the text of his Speech at the opening of our Parliament. We saw that ancient ceremony only a fortnight ago. As you may know the King’s Speech is read but not written by him. You could almost see his teeth gritted as he read that his Government ‘will support the future licensing of new oil and gas fields’. Like your Prime Minister Mia Mottley, King Charles has an international reputation as an environmental spokesperson.

Outward ceremonies can lose their meaning and eventually fall out of use. My stories about kneeling recall a controversial diocesan news in my Diocese in which an assistant Bishop berated the lack of kneeling in Church nowadays questioning whether Chichester Diocese was going Methodist in that the only time many kneel is for Communion! He forgot that as we get older kneeling has to be more from the heart.

This morning we kneel in our hearts before Christ the King. As a beautiful eucharistic preface used today within the Church of England affirms: ‘As king [Christ] claims dominion over all your creatures, that he may bring before your infinite majesty a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace’. Truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love and peace, all these are fully found in God. Through his Son and his Spirit our almighty Father is establishing those qualities upon earth so that ‘the kingdom of this world may become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ’ Revelation 11:15. Our Gospel reading reminds us how care for the hungry and thirsty, the sick and those in prison extends Christ’s rule towards the day when, in the words of the Collect, ‘the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under [Christ’s] most gracious rule’.

In the last fortnight the Church of England General Synod made a move, to my mind unfortunate, towards blessing same sex unions paving the way to changing age-old belief in marriage as heterosexual. G.K.Chesterton remarked that only belonging to the Church sets one free from the slavery of being a child of one’s time. As Christians we kneel before God in Christ and not before majority opinion in a post-Christian culture. It isn’t easy for Christians in the west though we are still far from the reality in the east where Crosses are being taken from church roofs. 

The Feast of Christ the King is no feast of an idea. It is the feast of a reality we kneel before, the reality of Christ’s kingship - that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is Lord – three words sum up our Creed.  

Jesus is Lord.  The carpenter born in Nazareth who shows the world the love, truth and power of God – he is Lord. It is his name that brings heaven to earth and earth to heaven. 

Secondly Jesus is Lord.  A human life of 33 years lived at the start of our era continues the same yesterday, today and for ever through the power of an indestructible life (Hebrews 7v16b).  

Thirdly Jesus is Lord which means he is right above all that is or has been or will be.  Jesus is God’s final word to humankind. He is also to be the very last word over all each one of us as we shall contemplate next week on Advent Sunday.   

In Jesus a human being lives over all things in God.  Nothing gives us more hope for the human race than this. Here is the place heaven and earth come together. As Pascal said Jesus Christ is the centre of all, and the goal to which all tends. 

So we kneel before him this morning. 

This Sunday Mass is the hour of Jesus, a time given to him by us together that reminds us all our time belongs to him. 

Our daily prayer is submission to him as Lord of our life, as is the private confession to him of ours sins. 

Our reading of the Bible teaches us to put faith in the constancy of God’s word and not in the multitude of human words that make up public opinion. 

Our service given to other people is a submission to Christ present in all people and things. 

Worship, prayer, bible study, service - these are our kneeling before Christ the King as individual members of his body to be underlined and refreshed this morning. 

Christ is King, Jesus is Lord - and he is our king, our Lord, with the Father and the Holy Spirit to whom be all might, majesty, dominion and power henceforth and for evermore. Amen.

 

St Mary, Balcombe Trinity 24 (33A) Stewardship 19.11.23

‘It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away’ (Matthew 25:14).

Its Stewardship Sunday so far as the Sunday Lectionary goes, a reminder from the Lord that we have been entrusted with time, talents and treasure for a lifetime and must answer for it at death or at his Return. The Zephaniah passage challenging complacent living is a pointer to the Gospel.

Archbishop Rowan Williams once said: “What we do with our money proclaims who we think we are – whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. All our actions in some degree reveal us; why should our economic life be different? Why should this too not be an area in which we help to shape our eternal destiny, a matter of sin or holiness?”

In my travels up and down the Diocese both as Diocesan Mission & Renewal Adviser and now as retired priest with permission to officiate I’ve come across many instances of good stewardship linked to the generosity of the people of God throughout Sussex alongside a great deal of energy and hard work invested in maintaining and beautifying our churches including here – there’s an army of folk in this place who give their time and their talents to sustain its life and its witness.

I looked up what the diocesan website says about stewardship - here’s a couple of paragraphs: 

‘The major source of the Diocesan Board of Finance's income comes from the generosity of parishes through the Parish Share.  Parish Share represents approximately 80% of the Diocese’s total income.  In addition, the Diocese generates investment income from historic endowments and from letting out vacant properties. 

‘The majority of the Diocese’s expenditure is spent on the clergy who serve our parishes.  The cost of providing ministry across the diocese represents approximately 80% of total expenditure. This covers clergy stipends, NI, pension, housing, and the costs of training current and future clergy. It also includes money spent on supporting ministry through the work of the Archdeacons, Rural Deans, Continuing Ministerial Development and the payment of removal and resettlement grants. The remaining expenditure is spent on parish support services such as the provision of buildings advice, supporting church schools and safeguarding services, as well as a contribution to the National Church’.

 

In those words the Diocese recognises it is predominantly through the generosity of folk such and you and I that the Church of England in Sussex keeps its roof on and pays its clergy including pensioners like myself.  Another thing that strikes me as former diocesan officer and parish priest at Horsted Keynes is the range of motivations people have in giving their money and their energy to the Church.

So may I ask: why do you do it? Give money or time or talent, I mean, to support St Mary’s? 

Former diocesan colleagues did some careful research about this

• Some people, they found, place great value in buildings (Come to a place like this you can see why). Is that you?

• Others are drawn in by the church’s service to the community 

• Others are motivated by the church as a centre of evangelism – the sharing of Christrian faith and values. Is that you?

• And others place great value in the act of joining together for worship. Where worship is ‘done well’, congregations are growing. Perhaps that is you?

Different people – different motivations – different things that are precious or valuable to people.

• Let me tell you what I value about the Church.

Firstly, the church helps me to know God, the God who seems to do something quite remarkable - quite inexplicable – at Easter. Luke quotes Peter “this man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, God raised from the dead.” (Acts 4:10b). Now raising from the dead is not something that happens very often and when I read about God raising people from the dead I’m tempted to think that God is winding the clock back a bit, restoring life – putting things back to how they were before death. But no – what is happening in Jesus is God is winding the clock forward – not back. This is what it will be like for everybody, says Paul, when he talks about Christ being the first fruits – the forerunner - as it’s a Christian’s destiny to have life after death - not restored life, not life like we know it here, but something new “Look out for the new thing I am going to do” (Isaiah 43v19)

The second thing I like is what Jesus offers us. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Distrust turning to trust. Paul keeps on making this contrast. Do you put your trust in the past, or do you know Christ Jesus? I particularly love the bit you get in Luke’s gospel – just after Easter – about Jesus walking with his disciples on the Emmaus Road here is a Jesus that is prepared to walk with us a whole day – a whole lifetime probably – in the wrong direction before he gently turns us round and points us back to where we should be heading. The only ultimately meaningful thing in life is what conquers death - and Jesus offers this!

And the third thing I value is salvation - the extraordinary relationship between God and humankind that somehow Jesus Christ makes possible for us even while we’re still here, enjoying, as it were, life before death. As today’s second reading voices it: ‘God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that… we may live with him’ (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10). The assurance of this salvation is a lot to do with the Holy Spirit. After resurrection – if that wasn’t dramatic enough - Jesus promises something else, someone else who’ll make us feel as if we’ve been born again. And in the power of this Holy Spirit, we’ll recognise how we relate to God - Not foot soldiers, with God as our commanding officer; Not slaves, with God as our master, but as children, with God as our Father, someone who loves us beyond reason as many human parents do. That love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

‘It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away’.The Parable of the Talents is a reminder all we’re about as mortal beings flows from God who in giving us life lends us time, talents and treasure in the hope we will, like the good steward in the parable, one day hear his words: ‘Well done, good and trustworthy [one]; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your [Lord]’. (Matthew 25:23)

Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour and the majesty; for everything in heaven and earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Remembrance Sunday 12.11.23

Muster Green changed character 99 years ago on November 30th 1924 when Lord Leconsfield unveiled the Haywards Heath war memorial to replace a temporary provision at the town’s ancient road junction. With the appalling slaughter of World War One fresh in their minds, hundreds gathered for the blessing of the seven and a half ton granite slab from Cornwall. 

This morning our parish priest leads a commemoration there of those who died in war for our country in which the war dead of the world today will be much in mind. Palestine and Israel with Ukraine, so much in the news, then, currently less newsworthy but with thousands of dead in the last year: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. 

In his Rector’s letter this week Fr Edward quoted from our first reading 'Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her.' (Wisdom 6.12) going on to pray that the nations might pursue Holy Wisdom in their endeavours, working to bring peace, justice and reconciliation to the world. All week I’ve been wrestling with the other two readings from 1 Thessalonians on death and Matthew 25 on the wise and foolish bridesmaids linked to the Wisdom passage. I thought of telling my story of waiting 45 minutes for a bride up at Highbrook on a chilly December afternoon, or that of our family’s getting ready for son James’ marriage in April at Horsted Keynes - but, after reflection, I decided I’d just comment on the Gospel and head for depth study of the 1 Thessalonians which fits Remembrance Sunday. 

Where are the dead? What has become of them? Will we see them again?

The questions folk at Thessalonica put to Paul are just as important today - as is his answer. This passage has two parts, the second optional in the universal lectionary but compulsory in the Church of England. Let’s listen again to the first section, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14: ‘We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died’.

Grief for Christians is not without hope. Our faith is built on a revelation well founded in history - the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Alexander Schmemann writes of this: ‘The only meaningful thing in life is what conquers death, and not “what” but “who” - Christ. There is undoubtedly only one joy: to know him and share him with each other’ (unquote). We gather every Sunday, the Lord’s day, as the Lord’s people, around the Lord’s table to celebrate that Jesus died and rose again. That celebration is linked to knowing and sharing Jesus and professing faith in the everlasting love of God. This takes the sting out of grief at the passing of those we love. 

Let’s read on in the second reading from verses 15 to 18: ‘For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words’ (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18). That second to last sentence says all - ‘we will be with the Lord forever’. 

Its difficult imagery, though, that of the Lord descending from above and the dead coming up from the earth within a three decker universe. In the 21st century we see beyond a three-decker universe to what has been called a multiverse with many dimensions but this does not contradict the Christian Creed.  We just have new symbols of our passing into eternity. One such symbol is the saving of the file of our life into the computer memory of God. That salvation after death, the ultimate hope of Christians, is, according to scripture, Christ-focussed and corporate. 

On Remembrance Sunday as poppies are laid on the ground we affirm that faith founded upon our risen Lord who helps us see through death to ‘the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting’. 

Where are the dead? What has become of them? Will we see them again?

It is Christian faith that at the moment of death the soul is judged by God to pass toward one of two ultimate destinations, bliss or loss, heaven or hell. In that passage the prayer of the Church surrounds and helps all those souls the Christian community commends to God who will welcome help, the origin of the maligned term purgatory. 

God wishes nothing or no one to be lost from the sight of his holiness.

We imagine the moment of death, however painful or merciful physically, will be painful spiritually for most of us as we come to see God, turning our eyes away at his loving, holy glance. His invitation to look him in the eyes, like that of any good parent chastising his child, will be painful on account of our unrepented sins. Purgatory can be thought of, some theologians hold, as just momentary. A moment of pain as holiness meets the unrepentant sin within us, then the soul passing on to await the next stage of cosmic history.

Those who die without sin face God, as if in heaven, and begin to see him face to face, but heaven is not yet heaven until that vision is shared bodily in the company of all the saints.

Those without love continue their self-chosen loneliness into hell, which God permits as he permits free will, though the choice to turn our backs on him forever is not God’s will but something made out of human perversity.

The Christian hope is consummated by the return of Jesus Christ ‘who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead’. That final judgement will complete our individual judgement at the moment of death. Today’s second reading indicates the general judgement as bringing humanity of past ages to bodily resurrection to greet Christ’s return and be clothed afresh with the body, to make their heaven fully heaven, or their hell fully hell, in the life of the world to come.

In that world the faithful departed will continue in a salvation that is personal, practical, purposeful and permanent. We will continue to know personally, only unveiled, the one who so knows and loves us. We will experience the practical benefit of our sins being cast away from us. We will be fully taken into the purpose of God and with permanence. The pains we've suffered will be lost in celestial praise. Such is salvation - and here is its anticipation as the Lord’s people gather around the Lord’s table. Happy are those who are called to his supper, to receive in Bread and Wine the pledge of future glory! God open our eyes more fully, and the spiritual eyes of those who have died, to see death vanquished through a Crucified Saviour who opens his arms to us and to them and to all eager to embrace and be embraced by everlasting love in the company of the saints!

St John, Burgess Hill & St Richard, Haywards Heath Luke 14:25-33 8 November 2023

‘If anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple’ Luke 14:26. 

Following God means surrendering your whole life to him.

We’re here this morning/evening to give God half an hour of our life for him to impact and take hold of us afresh in word and sacrament and Christian fellowship. Saying our prayers, coming to Church, reading our Bibles, serving our neighbour and reflecting upon our need for God are expressions of that commitment.

Melvyn Bragg once asked Rowan Williams what God meant to him. Here’s the answer he gave: ‘God is first and foremost that depth around all things and beyond all things into which, when I pray, I try to sink. But God is also the activity that comes to me out of that depth, tells me I’m loved, that opens up a future for me, that offers transformation I can’t imagine. Very much a mystery but also very much a presence. Very much a person.’

To commit to God as a Christian is to commit trustfully to the eternal God as the depth beyond all things, to see the world as no longer a flat surface but to descend to the heart of things and be impacted. To be caught up into something utterly mysterious and countercultural. 

Christian belief isn’t something cerebral, contrary to those thinking you build belief or disbelief by argument. It’s whole life surrender. It’s not a matter of thinking your way into a new way of living but living your way into a new way of thinking. 

Faith’s the act of the whole of our being. Doubt by contrast is a partial business employing that part of the mind that questions what we’re about and what it's right to think. This questioning is set for Christians within the wholehearted surrender of faith. We believe in the resurrection not with our minds but as we live out the death of the old self so the Holy Spirit can bring us new life through the agency of faith. We believe in the Cross as we make sense of suffering with the assurance that not all that happens is determined by God's plan but that all that happens is encompassed by his love. 

We are loved by almighty love and we are loved for ever, that is the reality Christian faith sees for sure. 

In his book God is no thing Rupert Short, religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement, reflects upon how many believing artists and writers in the UK are advised to conceal their faith if they want a following. Such is our local scenario in which secular humanism predominates the world of ideas with pretended neutrality. Meanwhile secularism is losing ground worldwide with three quarters of humanity professing a religious faith, said to be heading for 80% by 2050. The world over people evidently see in Christianity a vitality and coherence that is being lost or obscured in our own culture. Reading Shortt was a real tonic. Here is his summary of how he sees what we’re about: ‘Christianity - at its centre, the story of love’s mending of wounded hearts - forms a potent resource for making sense of our existence. It provides the strongest available underpinning for values including the sanctity of life, the dignity of the individual, and human responsibility for the environment’.

I like that phrase love’s mending of wounded hearts as a description of the dynamic of faith. It’s a long way from that over hasty perception of religion as a bully. Shortt sees the problem for religion and secularism as the tendency to bully rather than reason with one another. 

Following God means surrendering your whole life to him.

Today’s Holy Gospel from Luke Chapter 14 verse 25 onwards underlines that Christian basic and we pray it will touch our hearts and enlist them in mending the wounded hearts in our circle. The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms…. God is also the activity that comes to me out of [the] depth, tells me I’m loved, that opens up a future for me, that offers transformation I can’t imagine. 

That transformation isn’t just for you but for all in your orbit. May this Mass fill you with grace so that you can more fully love God and make him loved in the networks you’re part of. As St Paul says at the start of today’s first reading from Romans 13: ‘Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love’.

St Richard, Haywards Heath All Saints’ Day 1st November 2023

We will see him as he is, and all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 

1 John 3.2-3

We shall see him says St John. The Christian hope set forth on the Feast of All Saints is no less than this.

We shall see him and this is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure.

Three thoughts spring out of the scriptures set for this evening. In the first reading we are reminded that heaven is something corporate, something we shall see. In the second reading we are reminded that heaven is the vision of God no less and that is exciting. The third Gospel reading is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure for the Saints are those who have been poor in spirit, pure in heart and so on.

We shall see him

The vision of God is too wonderful for me alone. This is the understanding we receive from the first reading from Revelation chapter 7 which speaks of a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

Some forms of Christianity are good at throwing a line to unbelievers and drawing them in. They go on to promote their spiritual development as a one to one hotline to Jesus. Today’s Feast presents the drawing power of Jesus not as a line but as a net. The communion of saints is a net that by example and prayer draws us together around the throne of God to worship him day and night within his temple. 

We shall see him

Our second reading from St John’s First Letter complements the first that reminded us heaven is something corporate. It reminds us that to be a Christian is to live God centred in hope of the heavenly vision of God.  Let it speak for itself: what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this; when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

This is the one true and only blessed life Saint Augustine writes to Proba that we should contemplate the delightfulness of the Lord for ever, immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit…Whoever has this will have all that he wishes…There indeed is the spring of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer, so long as we live. To believe in heaven is to yearn for reunion with those we love but see no longer. It is a reunion of mortals after death with all the saints. Yet it is only so because God who made all and sees all for the sake of the sins of us all sent his Son to live and die and open up the kingdom of heaven to all believers. It is Christ’s resurrection that holds mortals beyond death. What other hope is there?

We will see him as he is, and all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 

The last scripture we heard this morning was the Beatitudes reading from the Sermon on the Mount. It is a reminder that the beatific vision comes to those who live the beatitudes – those words beatific and beatitudes link to the Latin root beatus which means blessed or holy one. 

The holy ones, saints, blessed ones are those who are poor in spirit, meek, merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers who mourn for the lost and bear persecution for righteousness sake. All of the qualities Our Lord lists are in his own person, so to be a beatus, a saint, is to be Christ-like. 

Today is All Saints Day and the focus is on heaven. Tomorrow is All Souls Day and the focus there will be on the purification from sin we need to get to heaven in this world and the next. It says of heaven in the second to last chapter of the Bible that no unclean thing will enter there (Revelation 21.27). That is why we pray for those who have died with unrepented sin that they will be cleansed and fitted for the vision of God.

All Saints Feast is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure. We won’t have eyes to see God without purification. This is a painful truth. 

May this Feast of All Saints bring us comfort and discomfort.

We shall see him as he is – what a comforting thought!

And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. How discomforting! 

There is work ahead for us all!