Blessed Virgin Mary 14th August 2011

There are five windows dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in St Giles that trace her involvement in the saving work of her Son.

In the Lady Chapel we have the representation of the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel’s visit, and the Visitation, when Mary was praised by her cousin Elizabeth and herself praised God in her Magnificat.

In the south aisle she is there at the birth of our Saviour in the Benson Window. At the west end Mary is depicted with Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple in the beautiful Kempe window.

All four scenes are joyful. The last is sorrowful and it captures our mood as we come before the Lord at a time of national and international crisis.

This morning on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, our eyes lift to the east window which shows her at the foot of the Cross.

We are to associate that image with ourselves as the spectators day by day of a nation dissolving into anarchy.

We come this morning with Mary to the foot of the Cross. We come, at this eucharist, to plead with Mary her Son’s Sacrifice for a broken world.

This Church was built for that purpose, shaped initially like a Cross, so that the people of Horsted Keynes could bring their joys and sorrows to God with, through and in the offering of Christ’s body and blood.

Within these walls people gathered to celebrate Magna Carta, to mourn the Black Death, to hear the scriptures read in English for the first time, to mourn the fire of London, to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and to mourn the death of Queen Victoria.

In November 1963 Harold MacMillan suggested the Rector change the Sunday readings after President Kennedy’s assassination.

This morning is also historic for this village and church. Once again a Rector has changed the readings – from Mary of joy in St Luke to Mary at the foot of the Cross in St John.

We come to church this morning with all the sorrow and confusion of our Holy Mother Mary on Good Friday. Like her we’re looking at a crucifixion but ours is a crucifixion of London by forces of anarchy.

Like her we look beyond the east window to the light of the resurrection for whenever you look at a crucifix believers must see their risen Lord standing behind.

This morning church isn’t a soothing business but a call to battle.

The battle of prayer!

At the height of Monday’s conflagration the most popular post on Twitter was ‘pray for London’. Through my involvement in Premier Christian Radio I’m aware of the network of churches in London committed to pray for our capital. The inability of people to meet in London this week spurred me to invite us to meet here in St Giles which some of us have since Monday to say the litany as we just did.

The challenge of our national and international crises puts a particular responsibility on Christian people to stand with St Mary by the Cross of her Son and pray with Jesus and Mary to the Father: Our Father - in this situation - hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...deliver us from evil.

By his cross and resurrection action Jesus has, in Paul’s words, disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in what he has done.

We Christians are salt and light because like Mary we can ask Jesus, by the sufferings he has borne uniquely, once and for all, to soak up the evil around us and turn the tables on it.

Our prayers, litanies and eucharists bring the potential of the Cross, which is like a mighty engine out of gear, into gear so the love of God floods into Tottenham and Croydon, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool as well as the workings of international finance.

Paul says God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It was true of Mary at her Annunciation and it is equally true of us in our baptism and confirmation. That love is poured upon us so that, at our prayer, it may cascade extravagantly upon all whom we bring to the foot of the Cross.

With Mary we stand at the Cross on behalf of a troubled, hurting, godless nation and a troubled world this morning - but if we leave church fired up to pray all the more for our nation he who is in us will show himself more powerful than those troubles.

Jesus living in Mary live in us is our prayer in church at every eucharist. Jesus living in Mary live in them is to be our prayer of intercession as we leave church and encounter the needy both in the media images and closer to home.

In a profound sense the key moment of the eucharist isn’t the sermon, or the consecration - but the moment we go out the church door.

You have come with London and our nation and the world’s financial crises upon your heart this morning.

Go forth refreshed by this knowledge: God sees what is in your heart.

Keep lifting the pain you see on the TV to him. Stand with Mary by Jesus crucified. Treat those you see suffering on the media as if they were Christ upon the Cross. Ask the Father to send them healing love and resurrection!

As you do so, pray in your own words. Use the slow recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Use the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Use the Hail Mary if you know it. Use the Litany or prayer sheet you’ve been given this morning.

Take time for a quiet 5 minute of prayer after switching off the TV news you’ve watched. In that way hat you’ve watched will be turned to good and to God.
Come before him knowing that, through the Cross, there’s no human sorrow God’s aloof from.

Your prayer will make God less aloof from those you pray for. It will also help this Christian community to be better evidence to all around that, though cities burst into flame and the innocent suffer violence, there is a God who answers prayer.

Look at the Cross in our east window and the city depicted behind it. You be Mary this week standing by Jesus and make Jerusalem London.

Today the Church issues you a call to arms, my brothers and sisters.

The battle is the Lord’s and it is a battle.

Take up the weapon of prayer to come before the Lord with this aching nation upon your heart day by day, hour by hour in the coming week.

Mary at the Cross, Our Lady of Sorrows, pray with us and for us!