With the G7 summit we have been following thinking and resolutions about the future of the world linked to countering COVID by vaccination and addressing the environmental crisis. Sometimes people see Christianity apart from such forward thinking and that is sadly mistaken. The worship of Jesus Christ is inseparable from an aspiration that ‘the kingdom of this world become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ’, a scripture emblazoned behind the altar in Westminster Abbey, Revelation 11:15.
Today’s readings touch on the future - the future of the world, the church and each one of us as individuals chosen and loved by God. The Gospel reading from St Mark, Chapter 4 touches on the nature of God’s kingdom and can be read in relation to his ultimate plan for the world. The first reading from Ezekiel Chapter 17 illuminates God’s forward plan for the church and the second reading from 2 Corinthians 5 the best future he has for us as individuals. I wasn’t at the zoom meeting to look at these readings on Thursday but I picked up from Jack how people saw in them those three lines of thought: the key role of God in inspiring mission, that whether a Church thrives or not is up to him as also to the carrying of responsibilities by individuals like us called to execute his will in Pimlico in 2021.
Three readings then, and three aspects of mission, all of which we can engage with further after Mass over lunch. The process we are in at Heaven’s Gate is true to the Gospel where ‘using many parables … Jesus spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding… and he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone’. Lockdown has been a set back to us here but what we are about is set within a longer term process and that should help us gain heart.
'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time; he starts to reap because the harvest has come.' I love that image - ‘first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear’. Though in terms of numbers we feel set back if there is sowing going on reaping will come about. My task as a visitor is to encourage our keeping faith in that big picture and using what resources we have to bless and go with what God is accomplishing in Churchill Gardens stage by stage.
When the kingdom of God is preached and lived the church grows.
Anne and I spent a couple of nights in Hastings last week. A century ago this was home to one of Christianity’s most forward thinkers, the French priest scientist Teilhard de Chardin who trained there because of the anti-clericalism of his day in France. As a geologist he climbed the cliffs. As a seminarian he trained as a priest. Teilhard said his first Mass in Our Lady, Star of the Sea Church at Hastings (bottom left). On Friday’s feast I walked under the cliffs and recalled Teilhard’s devotion to the Sacred Heart, to Christ who promised to ‘cast fire upon the earth’ (Luke 12:49) seeing the fire of divine love as parallel to the fiery lava in the heart of the earth. When Christ’s heart was pierced at his death stones were heard breaking in the earth beneath. This groaning of the earth anticipated the transformation and gathering together in Christ of the whole creation. When we lift up host and chalice at the eucharist, transformed material, Teilhard taught, we anticipate the transformation of all things starting in this room and rippling out through this estate, across London, the world and the cosmos! Rich stuff, which came back to me walking by the sea in Hastings. What we sow through prayer and the celebration of the eucharist is preparing a kingdom harvest, that is, it anticipates Jesus Christ being made the be all and end all.
Our first reading from Ezekiel with its image of grafting has a bearing on how we see the Church in this bigger picture of God’s kingdom forming up in Christ. The Lord is ‘the one who stunts tall trees and makes the withered green’. This small gathering is green at different levels - we might like to explore that over lunch - maybe a green-ness that is naive, we hope not, or one that sees lockdown as a passing winter that will be followed by church growth. Ezekiel’s image of green fruitful branches that give shade is a precious one as we gather today in a place as needy as this estate. Lastly, making the withered green is a work of the Holy Spirit in the individuals associated with St Gabriel’s committed to Heaven’s Gate mission, which brings us to the second reading.
‘We are always full of confidence’ Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 6 going on to affirm how that confidence is linked to faith and not sight, to the hope of heaven more than to earthly appearances. As ‘Heaven’s Gate’ it is that sort of faith we are to instil but it must start with each one of us as individuals keeping their faith green. How do we do that? It is more than receiving the love of God in Jesus Christ which we will do shortly in Holy Communion. I mean, if you want to build that faith, that love, the recipe is to give it away. The only way to keep yourself in the love of Jesus is to be forever sharing it with others. Heaven’s Gate is made so by you and I being always ready to hand on the love of Christ. Remember the Magic Penny song sung for years at primary school - it never loses its force - ‘Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away. Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more. So be it in Churchill Gardens starting at Heaven’s Gate.
Today’s scripture has as much relevance to the future of the world as the G7 meeting but like that meeting it needs practical application through you and I in generous living woven together within this pioneer Christian community. The Lord who ‘makes the withered green’ is at work among us and in this Garden Estate as part of a greater work impacting the future of the world in which the kingdom of this world is giving way to ‘a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace’ (Preface of Christ the King).
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