St Richard, Haywards Heath Old Year’s night 31.12.22

It’s Old Year’s Day for much of the world though in Britain we call it New Year’s Eve.

31st December marks the end of 2022. It looks to the beginning of 2023.

At St Richard’s every day is new because Jesus Christ is ever new. He’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

The day-by-day newness of Jesus has been evident these last 365 days to us as Christians. We’ve seen it as Jesus covered our sins and negligences and opened up his possibilities again and again to us.

It’s been a tough year for many people and it’s getting tougher as the recession takes its toll upon us and the cost of living rises.

When the pressures are on us we find out what we’re really made of. If Jesus had a real purchase on our lives this last year we’ll be able to look back with gratitude to him.

Can you say thanks that you were able to forget your own needs and go out of your way to care for friends and neighbours in greater need? 

Old Year’s Day says farewell to 2022. As Christians we do gratefully. 

The Lord invites us in his word ‘to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us all’. (1 Thessalonians 5.18)

As 2022 ends we can counter dismay by thanking God at this altar, as the Book of Common Prayer prays ‘for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life but above all for his inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace - especially daily Mass - and for the hope of glory’.

Or as a Free Church hymn invites - and we will take up the invitation now in a time of quiet:

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
and it will surprise you what the Lord has done!

St Richard, Haywards Heath Holy Innocents Feast 28.12.22

Introduction

Our intention at Mass is the repose of the souls of innocent children destroyed in the womb day by day and the worldwide campaign against abortion, infanticide and child abuse.

Though the world clothes Christmas in tinsel the Church’s liturgy and Octave goes in another direction altogether. There is no sentimentality in the day by day recalling of suffering - Stephen, Thomas Becket and today, very troublesome, the mindless slaughter of children by King Herod in his attempt to eliminate the threat to his throne by the King of the Jews announced to him by the wise men. Joy and sorrow are entwined in Christian faith. As we prepare to celebrate this Mass let us call to mind our failure to extend compassion to those who suffer as well as those times when our faith flags before the darkness and evil we see daily on the news.

Sermon

What do we make of the sobbing and loud lament heard in Ramah recorded by Saint Matthew weeks after the birth of Our Lord? Besides its link with the slaughter of the innocent children by King Herod, Ramah has sorrowful association for the Jewish people. Jacob’s wife Rachel died there and in the sixth century before Christ Jews gathered there to set off to exile in Babylon after the Temple was destroyed. What do we make of the Ramah’s set before us today in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria and so on? Last week one of my friends hosting a Ukrainian mother and her children had news that after the recent bombing of their town her husband had escaped to Poland and should soon be with them in Lindfield. We all have stories like that of the horrors around and how they get redeemed to a degree.

‘Time has not softened the sharpness of the impression which is made upon thoughtful spectators by the sight of the sorrows of life’ wrote bible scholar Bishop Westcott. ‘Christ fulfilled man’s destiny, fellowship with God, by the way of sorrow; and the divine voice appeals to us to recognize the fitness of the road. [As Scripture says] ‘It became Him’ - most marvellous phrase - ‘It became Him for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sins unto glory to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings’ (Hebrews 2:10). 

Our Christian faith weaves together suffering and glory. It is convincing because it opens us to the glory of the world to come whilst not devaluing suffering, as in today’s commemoration of the Innocents. It ‘became God’ to be born in poverty, suffer rejection and crucifixion so as to show the possibilities of human nature and Love’s triumph in the resurrection. Christ indeed fulfilled our destiny of eternal fellowship with God by the way of sorrow and invites us to see ‘the fitness of that road’. 

May the Holy Innocents who await fellowship with us beyond the grave implore the grace of God for us that we keep compassion for those who suffer, especially the unborn, whilst having an eye to the glory Christmas opens up to us. Let’s have a moment of reflection enriched by a few verses from St Paul: ‘We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ - if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him…. The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies’ (Romans 8:16-23). 

 

Presentation Church Christmas Day 2022

I have a bicycle across the road at number 13. It has two hubs which get the power from my legs to the wheels and speed me up New England Road. With Anne I’m also helped by two hubs that empower our neighbourhood - Bentswood Hub where I help with digital access and Presentation Church where we drop in on Mondays and were blessed by last week’s festive meal. We’re a giving church at Presentation and as such we’re receiving more interest and commitment from the neighbourhood.

‘Give and it will be given to you’.  Luke 6 verse 38 is the Christian one liner.  It’s easier said than done but when it's done the Holy Spirit flows. Through Sally, Michael, Geraldine and the team love ripples out from here making a difference in Bentswood to many who live alone, sometimes hungry, sometimes cold. 

‘Give and it will be given to you’ summarises our Christmas Gospel. ‘God came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God’ (John 1:11-12) God, who made us, gave to us his Son, Jesus, and through this sacrifice is receiving new children, those gathering here this morning ‘given power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory’ alleluia!

Everyone in Church this morning has been born naturally ‘of blood… the will of the flesh… the will of man’ but if we have made Christ the hub of our life there is within us an empowerment to love from beyond our natural life, the life of the Holy Spirit flowing from our baptism which we seek to see renewed within us this morning in Christmas Communion. As today’s Collect prayed: ‘grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit’.

‘Give and it will be given to you’. God who gave us life at Christmas offers us his life and when we accept that life into our hearts we are made a gift back to him. We are made to be his children, part of the never ending fellowship we call the communion of saints which, when time ends at Christ’s return, will be presented to God who will then be made everything to everyone. 

If my bicycle has two hubs and Bentswood has two hubs in its drop in centre and Presentation Church, so does my soul. One here (my mind) and the other here (my heart). To get these hubs to work together the mind must lower 15 inches into the heart where God lives. Every human being carries something of God. Not every human being knows of the 15 inch journey Christmas invites so we can receive power to become children of God and run better on both hubs, mind and heart. 

It is these two powers of mind and heart that together lift us to God and into living for others and for ourselves in the best way through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

‘Give and it will be given to you’ Becoming a Christian is no surrender of the mind though sadly the behaviour of some believers might encourage that perception. With a past career in Chemistry I am aware of many convergences between science and religion such as belief in the cosmos having a beginning. Mind comes before matter in Christianity. The world traces back to the Big Bang in science. The difference is in the second creation celebrated at Christmas necessitated by the folly of human minds and the disastrous consequences of sin. ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us’. The Son of God became the Son of Man so children of men could become children of God.  The Baby bound in the Crib foreshadows God’s binding upon the Cross to break the bonds of sin and open the life of the Holy Spirit to all believers. In giving his life the Son of God is able to receive you and I into that deathless fellowship if we choose to enter it.

We have a mission at Presentation. Our mission, though, our giving out of love, will be ineffective unless it comes as an overflow from what is being cultivated within and among us. The Christmas Feast is a reminder to keep ourselves at that 15 inch missionary movement from our heads to our hearts where God is. Many of us here welcome Jesus week by week in word and sacrament.  How are we savouring that gift in our daily prayer?  In our discipline of bible reading, reading the lives of the saints, self-examination and confession or generous service as individuals to those in need?

Where people are meeting deep down with Christ his life, his joy takes hold of them so all they say and do gets permeated by that life and joy, energising them like a hub, getting their lives more on the move as they pedal away at being Christians. Our minds and hearts are set to work together within the wider working of the Holy Spirit pouring love across the world starting where we are in Haywards Heath and its surrounds. God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done here - through us!

St John, Burgess Hill & St Richard, Haywards Heath Luke 1:39-45 21.12.22

 

In today’s Gospel of the Visitation Mary in her pregnancy visits her cousin Elizabeth, also pregnant with the Lord’s forerunner, St. John the Baptist.  As the holy women meet the children in their wombs greet one another. 

Their joy expands and bursts out later as Mary expresses it in the great canticle we call Magnificat which the Church uses daily at Evening Prayer – My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.

The shared joy starts with the greeting of Mary.  We read: Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Mary is the first evangelist. It is by her voice that John the Baptist and Elizabeth recognise the presence of Jesus.

I say Mary is the first Christian evangelist.  By that I mean her words communicated from her depths and her integrity the mystery of the Nativity soon to be revealed.  

As baby John heard Our Lady’s voice it was as if one depth sounded across to another, the joy in one being excited joy in another.

In his book ‘The Soul of the Apostolate’ (show), Dom Chautard appeals to his readers to live with God in order to be able to speak of Him, with the best results; the active life (of a Christian)…should be…the overflow of its interior life.

Mary’s words in today’s Gospel made an impact because of what was interior to her.  Our Lady is the model Christian – she models the indwelling of Christ and the priority of the interior life.

We are gathered here in a beautiful Church in a prominent place. It is a place we promote not least by opening our doors day by day. When people draw near to this building, which is so prominent, we should take care that they will be drawn by all they hear and see of those who worship here: Christ in us.

We can build lovely buildings in prominent places to honour God, but they only become instruments of his kingdom as the Lord’s presence sanctifies them through the Eucharist and through the indwelling of Christ in his people.

The subtitle of my book ‘Soul of the Apostolate’ is ‘Jesus must be the Life of my work. Otherwise…’ we are left to complete the otherwise.

There is no ‘quick fix’ for getting more of Jesus in your life. It requires dedication and determination, even if it is a grace from above.

Dom Chautard’s wisdom is timely.  Our apostolate, our sense of being ‘sent’ as Christians, will be utterly ineffective unless it comes as an overflow from what is being cultivated within.

What are we doing, here at St John’s/St Richard’s to cultivate the interior life? 

We welcome Jesus day by day in word and sacrament.  How are we savouring that gift in our daily prayer?  In our discipline of bible reading, Confession or of generous service to those in need?

Where people are meeting deep down with Jesus, the joy of  Jesus is taking hold of them so that all that they say and do will be permeated by that joy.

Jesus living in Mary - crown of Advent and Christmas - live in us!

St Mary, Balcombe Old Testament Advent 4 18 December 2022

 

           

We’re poised for Christmas and for a diocesan focus on the Bible and the Creed starting with a Year of the Old Testament. Last week I spoke about the Bible as a way into being God’s people, knowing his provision, his promises and his purpose for our lives and that of the cosmos. There is no Word of God without power so that engagement with this book (show) is energising. I want to complement last week’s teaching by saying something about the Old Testament.

I’m a Canon of the Diocese of Guyana, South America where Anne and I were married and I helped train Amerindian priests thirty years ago. On a recent visit I went to an exhibition in the capital, Georgetown and for understandable reasons picked up the souvenir booklet (show). ‘Cannons of Guyana’ - a display of might from the British colonial era - contrast with the dozen priests who take seats in the sanctuary of St George’s Cathedral. Cannon with three ‘n’s is a bugbear that follows me round in correspondence due to the honour of being a senior priest. This morning we’re talking about another canon, spelt like me with two ‘n’s, the Canon of Scripture. This canon isn’t a priest or a weapon but an authoritative collection of books. The word ‘canon’ here derives from the Egyptian word for a reed used for measuring. The Canon of Scripture counts out the list of 66 books in the Bible noting a supplement 7 strong of secondary value we call the Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books. This library - in Greek biblia - or English ‘The Bible’ - has 39 books we call the Old Testament and 27 books we call the New Testament. The first is the book of our separation from God and the second the book of our reconciliation. Both though are part of a whole to be read together as we do at Sunday eucharists, one illuminating the other, as today when the Isaiah 7 passage at the end of the sheet predicts the virgin giving birth in Matthew 1. 

In today’s other reading Paul explains to the Romans how the good news of Christ was ‘promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures’. In Paul’s day these scriptures were the Jewish scriptures. Today they are supplemented by the New Testament, writings from saints like him owning the testament, covenant or relationship with God in Christ prophesied in Jeremiah Chapter 31:  ‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’ (Jeremiah 31:31, 34). The Holy Spirit who the Creed says, ‘spoke through the prophets’ descended, as today’s Gospel affirms, into Mary’s womb so God is no longer just above and beyond us but also in covenant - in close relationship with us, living within us and among us in the community which gathers today in St Mary’s.

The writings in the Bible have authority within a faith community stretching back three or four thousand years. They are not the writings of scholars or philosophers but those of holy people, prophets in the Old Testament, saints in the New Testament, seen to speak for God and there is no word of God without power! The Canon of Scripture has unique authority and inspiration. The Church teaches that it cannot mislead anyone as it presents the salvation truth of God in Christ. It is that vision of Holy Scripture speaking words through holy people to build up holy readers we need to grasp. Our minds engage with the text at a lower level than this, riding on an emotional roller coaster with shocks and upsets, sheer horror sometimes, alongside beautiful words and stories. By invoking the Holy Spirit we pass beyond what attracts or repels intellectually or emotionally in the text to receive holy inspiration into our spirits from the same words. 

Let’s focus briefly on the structure of the Old Testament. Our Lord spoke of the Law and the Prophets. The Jewish Scripture was finalised with another section called Writings including the Psalms so familiar to him. Our Bibles start like Jewish Bibles with the books of the Law or Pentateuch - five books - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. They continue with a mixture of historical, prophetic and wisdom writings. The historical books are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther. The prophets are the 15 books from Isaiah to Malachi. The wisdom writings include the Psalms, Proverbs, Job and other poetic books. The book of Daniel, like the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation, looks, as we do so much in Advent, to the last things. By reading through the Old Testament at this season the Church makes present the ancient expectation that the Messiah will come by sharing the centuries of preparation for Christ’s coming using this to build ardent desire for his second coming. On this last Sunday before Christmas, as the figure of Mary appears, we sit, reading Matthew 1, on the hinge between the Old and the New Testaments.

I said last week that when we read and study Matthew’s Gospel, as we shall do over the next year, we see a Sermon on a Mount from Jesus presented like Moses who brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai. When we read in the Acts about Pentecost we see a reversal of the Tower of Babel in Genesis so that people heard the same message in their different languages. The Holy Spirit who drives the Church forward from Pentecost is the same Lord working secretly throughout the biblical story of God’s people. When we read the Old Testament story of the Exodus we see ourselves going through the Red Sea – the waters of baptism – fed by manna – the heavenly bread of the eucharist – destined for Canaan – a glorious homeland. When in the story of Cain and Abel we read God’s words to Cain, ‘where is your brother?’ they are words reminding us God’s family find God again and again through love of other people. In the Psalms we read day by day at the eucharist and morning and evening prayer we enter the faith of the people of God through the ages and the prayer of Christ himself. 

A few thoughts to conclude on how we familiarise ourselves with the Old Testament. First we come to read it after invoking the Spirit who came upon Mary and who made Jesus the Christ, anointed by the same Spirit. Then we need an accessible translation. To match what’s read in Church that might be the New Revised Standard Version which uses inclusive language but not for God. If you have a smart phone you can download a Bible App or a form of morning and evening prayer such as the Daily Prayer or Universalis Apps. These will take you through the Canon of Scripture day by day. In October I downloaded on Audible Eugene Peterson’s Message which is a paraphrase of the Bible onto my iPhone and iPad to listen to in spare moments. I’m now half way through the Bible on it. Being an American voice its different. I find it wakes me up to the text, especially the repetitive sections in the Old Testament. You follow two or three chapters of the Old Testament at a time being with a Psalm and every three or four sessions you switch to the New Testament so its quite varied and engaging. I’ll play a bit from where I’ve got up to.

However we engage with the Bible, it is necessary food for our spirit. Its truth isn’t pages to be copied into our minds but in the interaction between reader and text. It's necessary food we have, if you like, to mash up and digest to serve healthy spiritual  bodies. This consuming is akin to the second feeding of Christians we now approach in the sacrament of Christ’s body, food which also helps make us what we are meant to be as godlike members of the body of Christ.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Commemoration of St John of the Cross 14 Dec 2022

 Introduction to Mass

Today, with some deference to Advent season, we commemorate St John of the Cross who lived in Spain during the 16th century and helped reform the Carmelite religious order. As a contemplative he wrote ‘It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others’. As we begin Mass by calling to mind our sins we might recall our failure to refrain from judging the remarks, deeds and lives of others. Such refraining, however difficult in the judgmental culture of the 21st century, is part of loving our neighbour. As we reflect we might recall another saying of John, ‘In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone’.

Sermon

‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled, I form the light and create the dark’ (Isaiah 45:6) Those words of prophecy spoken through Isaiah in our first reading capture something of the spiritual invitation of today’s saint. Spaniard John of the Cross was a man of his times, the troubled times of the sixteenth century with reformation and counter reformation shaping the Church. With his near contemporary Teresa of Avila John was about shaking Christians out of complacency, even Christians living under the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It's almost unbelievable that his attempts to reform religious life led to his being imprisoned by fellow monks in a tiny cell in Toledo for nine months!

‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled’. John saw this and taught the need for Christians, even monks, to work for detachment, emptiness and poverty, before God. ‘Desire to possess nothing’ he taught, ‘in order to arrive at being everything’. God is the greatest good to which all other goods must be subordinated. Through worship, prayer, study, service and reflection we are to shake off inordinate desire for trivial pursuits and see growth in our desire for God’s agenda in our lives and the working out of that for the good of the world around us. As a smartphone user I am challenged by that teaching on detachment as, like many, I feel the grip of electronic media as a world of sensory addiction tantamount to bondage. I try to break this bond, especially as part of my Friday fast. St John of the Cross encourages decisive action here. The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union he teaches. ‘Whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly’.

‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled’ writes Isaiah. ‘I form the light and create the dark’. A second aspect of St John is the insight he gives in his mystical works: ‘The Ascent of Mount Carmel’, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’, ‘The Spiritual Canticle’ and ‘The Living Flame of Love’. Complementary to his call for detachment from worldly concerns we read here invaluable teaching on purification of Christian aspiration towards God. His teaching gives unique insight into times of spiritual desolation. What do we make of times when God seems absent or far away? ‘I form the light and create the dark’. To Saint John of the Cross times of darkness - and he had a lot of them - are God-given and can be precious times if we keep looking to the Lord. His poem title ‘The dark night of the soul’ has entered Christian vocabulary. Through faithfulness in times of hardship, looking to God for being our loving God rather than for the consolation he gives on many occasions, we prove and we forge our love for God. 

‘Apart from me, all is nothing. I am the Lord, unrivalled, I form the light and create the dark’ May the prayers of St John of the Cross help deepen our dependence upon God through consolation and desolation, summer warmth and winter chill.

St Mary, Balcombe The Bible Advent 3 11 December 2022

           

There is no Word of God without power so that this place – the pulpit – and the book expounded here – this book (show) – are about energising. I want to use this sermon to promote a spiritually  energising initiative from Bishop Martin on the Bible and the Creed which starts with a Year of the Old Testament. Since I am celebrant and preacher this week and next I propose to focus on the Bible today and the Old Testament next Sunday.

Why is it so important we familiarise ourselves with the Bible?

Because, to those with open ears, the Bible speaks of God’s people, provision, promises and purpose. 

In reading the Bible we find God’s people. The Bible is the family history of the Christian church. It is our life story. We are to see it as part of our own story since Christians see themselves in the sacred history it provides. When, for example, in the story of Cain and Abel we read God’s words to Cain, ‘where is your brother?’ they are words that remind us that God’s family find God again and again through love of other people. When we read the story of the Exodus we see ourselves going through the Red Sea – the waters of baptism – fed by manna – the heavenly bread of the eucharist – destined for Canaan – a glorious homeland. 

When we read and study Matthew’s Gospel we see a Sermon on a Mount from Jesus presented as the new Moses since Matthew’s Jewish readers knew it was Moses who first brought teaching down from Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments. When we read in the Acts about Pentecost we see a reversal of the Tower of Babel in Genesis so that people heard the same message in their different languages. The Holy Spirit who drives the Church forward from Pentecost is the same Lord working secretly throughout the biblical story of God’s people.

We read the Bible because it tells us who we are – God’s children made so by God’s provision.

This provision, the gift of Jesus, is a second motivator for bible reading so that Saint Jerome could say that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ no less.

The bible reveals how God who created the world provided his Son, Jesus Christ to redeem it from sin through a new creation. This is the year of Saint Matthew in the three year cycle of Sunday readings. When we open a Bible Matthew is on its hinge, the hinge between the Old and New Testaments.  The word Bible comes from the Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books" whose contents and order vary between denominations. The Old Testament has 39 books of Hebrew Scripture, though some denominations including our own give authority to a series of Jewish books called the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books. The New Testament contains 27 books the first four of which form the Canonical gospels, first Matthew’s, recounting the life of Christ and central to our faith.

There is no Word of God without power because scripture points us to Jesus. Saint Tikhon, an 18th century Russian writer, says ‘whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking to Him’. This is why we read the Bible – to seek and find God’s provision. 

The Bible is an instrument of divine revelation, the word of God communicated in human words. As such it has unique authority and inspiration and cannot mislead anyone as it presents the salvation truth of God in Christ. This is what the Bible says about itself through what Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.15-17 where he reminds his assistant bishop, and through him, all of us, ‘how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work’. 

In the Bible we meet God’s people, see God’s provision ‘for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’. Thirdly we find God’s promises. The bible contains what Saint Peter describes in 2 Peter 1.4 as ‘God’s precious and very great promises’ for us to ‘read, mark and inwardly digest’. Bishop Tom Wright in his commentary on the biblical account of Christ’s temptation notes how Jesus himself holds fast to God’s promises as he resists them. ‘We are not simply spectators in this extraordinary drama. We too, are tempted to do the right things in the wrong way or for the wrong reason. Part of the discipline of [being Christian] is about learning to recognize the flickering impulses, the whispering voices, for what they are, and to have the scripture fuelled courage to resist’. I like that phrase ‘scripture fuelled courage’. When I am tempted by anxiety it is the fuelling of my spiritual life by the biblical promises of God that defend me, such as ‘My peace I give unto you’ (John 14.27) ‘You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you’ (Isaiah 26.3) ‘The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind’ (Philippians 4.7). The point is that unless I knew these verses, and had memorised them, the Bible would have no power to help me. I would lack what Tom Wright calls ‘scripture fuelled courage’. There is no word of God without power! The Bible itself points to the power of the Holy Spirit who inspired it and will inspire its readers. In particular the discipline of bible study helps us get into ourselves some of the key promises of God by the inspiration they give to heart and mind, an inspiration that evidences itself in our lives.

Fourthly, if the Bible brings us the family history of God’s people, God’s provision for us in Jesus and his promises to fuel our courage it brings us hope for the future. It outlines to us God’s purpose. The bible contains God’s plan. It sets human history in the perspective revealed by Christ’s resurrection, his gathering of God’s people, building of the kingdom and promised return. Bishop Tom speaks on the importance of the bible in opening up God’s future to us and of the kingdom of God in Matthew’s Gospel: ‘Jesus is looking for people to sign on, people who are prepared to take his kingdom-movement forward in their own day’. In telling us the old, old story the Bible invites us to sign up to having faith for the future. As its last book affirms ‘the kingdom of the world (is to become) the kingdom of our God and of his Christ’ (Revelation 11:15). 

This is what we sign up to at every eucharist since this sacred meal anticipates the heavenly banquet. So too our pondering of the Word of God energises our thinking and acting. It builds our conviction that if this is the day the Lord has made so is tomorrow.

The Bible – a way into being God’s people, knowing his provision, his promises and his purpose for our lives and that of the cosmos. The Lord deepen our hunger for God’s Word as he makes us hungry now for the table of the eucharist.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Vigil of Immaculate Conception 2022

 

I’ve always found it remarkable that an illiterate girl like Bernadette of Lourdes could be moved to ask her priest what the shining lady who appeared to her meant when she said to the peasant girl in her dialect: ‘Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou’. Fr. Peyramale said that a woman cannot have a name like that. ‘You are mistaken. Do you know what that means?’ The priest was shaken, and unable to talk to Bernadette realising in that moment who was appearing in Lourdes. He quickly sent her away, and she left without the privilege of understanding the meaning of the title. She was only told later that afternoon that the Blessed Mother carried that title, that of the Immaculate Conception. ‘She could never have invented this’ wrote Fr. Peyramale to the bishop that evening. The story of Bernadette rings true in so many respects and the Shrine of Our Lady Immaculate in Lourdes does as well if you ever have the privilege to visit it.

The protection of Mary from sin right from the moment of her conception is a widely held doctrine in the western Church though many Eastern Orthodox and most Protestants question its biblical basis. Anglicans as usual are caught in the middle with many, especially in Society parishes, holding to it. The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is a doctrine about her origins in contrast to another doctrine frequently confused with it, that of the Virginal Conception which is affirmed in the Creeds which speak of Our Lord ‘being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary’.

To my mind her Immaculate Conception is nothing more or less than Our Lady’s baptism. She is not recorded in the Gospels as having been baptised. The Church holds she was given that grace in anticipation of the saving work of the Son she bore, our and her Saviour, Jesus Christ who came to free us from sin. To us, that freedom is a gift received in baptism and again and again after repentance. To Our Lady, it was a gift from the start so she has never needed repentance. For God to save humanity by his coming, dying and rising in the flesh he needed to enter the flesh of a sinless human being. 

How much we owe to Mary! We owe the formation of the Saviour, no less, and not just in his nine month dwelling within her. With Joseph her husband Mary brought Jesus up. It is an astonishing thought that she would teach Him, the Son of God, to pray – Mary a mortal being inviting God’s Son to pray to His true Father! I like to think of Mary as a woman of great devotion. This devotion is hinted at in her greeting from the Archangel Gabriel in today’s Gospel from the start of St. Luke’s Gospel: Mary, do not be afraid, you have won God’s favour. Listen, you are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.

You have indeed won God’s favour, Blessed Mother – and through you we have all won that favour, the favour of Jesus.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus! Amen.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Feast of St Andrew 30 November 2022

It's St Andrew's Day and Scotland rejoices!  So does the Church throughout the world as it keeps the great apostle's Feast.  

Famous for bringing his brother Peter to the Lord, Andrew ranks after Peter and Paul as a great Christian hero.  He even has a special X Shaped cross.  The tradition is that he died spread-eagled on a cross to associate himself with his Master, just as Peter is said to have been crucified upside down out of humility.

In the first reading St Paul speaks of the welcome footsteps of those bringing good news and how that news has gone out through all the earth as evangelists have succeeded the apostles generation after generation.

That good news centres on the coming, life, teaching, healing and miracles of Our Lord succeeded by his death upon the Cross and his rising again. Through that Cross God, the maker of all things, has bound himself forever to humankind. Christ’s resurrection underlines the extraordinary action of God’s love revealed in taking human flesh and, as one of us, giving himself up to death for all of us. How can we doubt, as Christians, the dignity of human beings exalted by our Maker above all things? Destined to immortal life as the image of God in us grows towards his likeness in the glory to come?

St Andrew headed to that destiny bearing a special Cross evident in the Scottish flag. Crosses look fine in church in the stories of the Saints - but when they come our way – well that's a different matter! ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me’ Jesus tells us (Mark 8:34). The things that land on us – the difficult neighbour, the physical ailment, the inner pain of emotional loss – these are blessings in disguise.  As it once said outside the florists "crosses made to order".  Indeed they are – our trials we have to make the most of.  

Crosses made to order, as God has permitted or even, dare we say, directed. For Andrew it was the cross of spread-eagled martyrdom.  For us it has been, is and will be different sorts of trials but we can be sure that the Lord Jesus who appoints our crosses has our crowns in mind as He does so.

God has bound himself to us forever by the Cross of which this service is a living memorial. As we receive Holy Communion we accept with it the gift of the Cross through the hardships of life, take courage and lift our heads to move forward into paths he has prepared for us which can make us holy like him.

Thank you, Lord, for the courage you gave St Andrew to bear his cross.  We ask your help in the trials you set before day by day in Jesus' name.  Amen.

St David, Barbados Luke 21:5-19 13 November 2022

 

It's good for Anne and I to be back in the Caribbean where we were married - in Guyana actually - and to be at the altar with Canon Burke with whom I have a friendship tracing back 35 years to my first involvement in the Diocese of Guyana. I was Principal of the Alan Knight Training Centre for Amerindian clergy liaising with Codrington College when I first met your parish priest, identifying with his bright mind, warm heart and administration acumen which has enriched the church in this island for so many years. 

I drew the short straw with today’s liturgy didn’t I? You need something of a theologian to make sense of the Gospel and steer you away from both literalism and scepticism, the two bugbears of the Church in our day. Our three year Provincial Sunday lectionary is an amended version of the Roman Catholic form. This Sunday of Proper 28 there’s a cheerful bit of Isaiah switched for the doom laden Old Testament reading from Malachi set down for the Catholics! I guess that was done for pastoral reasons so we don’t over depress our congregations and make them shrink further. I’ve just come from England and we’re mightily depressed, outside of Church, with three Prime Ministers in a year one of whom caused a mighty dent in national and personal finances - and that’s before you consider Ukraine and Russia. How blessed Anne and I are to escape to Barbados - but we know you well enough not to be blind to the challenge there is here so far as the cost of living. At least you don’t have our heating bills though air conditioning doesn’t come for free!

So, with that prelude, let’s look at Luke 21 verses 5 to 19. It weaves around the words of Our Lord later prophetic thinking about the significance of the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, almost 40 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, which is when we date Luke’s Gospel. It’s so-called ‘apocalyptic literature’, taking the lid off history to unveil its deeper meaning. The Greek verb linked to apocalypse means taking the lid off a jar. When I googled definitions of the word I got ‘prophetic revelation, especially concerning a cataclysm, in which the forces of good permanently triumph over the forces of evil. Any revelation or prophecy, any universal or widespread destruction or disaster, such as the apocalypse of nuclear war’ - that last part of the definition has chilling relevance! In the Lucan passage we can’t be sure where genuine sayings of Jesus end and apocalyptic writing from a generation later begins, but the passage like Luke’s Gospel as a whole has authority across the Church as part of the Canon of Scripture so debate about the origin of texts is secondary to that perspective. Holy Scripture, our Collect reminded us, is ‘written for our learning… to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest… that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of eternal life’. 

There’s no doubt Our Lord repeatedly predicted the destruction of the Temple by the Roman authorities, just as he is quoted as saying in the first paragraph of today’s Gospel:

‘When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’  At his trial this prediction was one of the charges brought against Our Lord, though the accusation couldn’t be made to stick. The later paragraphs of our passage seem to be an expansion from that prediction linked to the event actually taking place in 60AD, and its sequence, so devastating for the Jewish people of those days. 

Bible scholar Reginald Fuller writes: ‘we may reasonably conclude that the predictions of historical disasters - war, earthquake, pestilence and famine - reflect the events of the 60s AD although some of it is described in conventional apocalyptic language. The predictions of persecutions are genuine warnings of Jesus addressed to the disciples… this Gospel reading confronts the preacher with two problems, one arising from its highly complex character, the other from the fact that it refers to a first century crisis which no longer obtains today. The best thing to do with such literature is to treat it as an inspired insight into the meaning of history which is a constant struggle between the forces of good and evil. The Christian has no right to expect that everything is going to get better and better… all he or she knows is that right will triumph in the end and that his or her task is to show patience and endurance: ‘by your endurance you will gain your lives’.

So, preacher, to application! What is there ‘to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’ in this Gospel passage? 

Last time I was in St David’s, a year ago, Fr Noel and many of you were involved in liturgies linked to the transition from Queen Elizabeth II to Dame Sandra Mason as Head of State coinciding with a visit from the then Prince of Wales. Since then we in Britain have seen a sadder transition, with the death of the Queen and accession of King Charles III. Anne and I were privileged to pay respects to our late Queen in Westminster Hall and were invited to the proclamation of the King on 11 September outside the town hall where we live in Haywards Heath south of London. On the 6th of May next year in Westminster Abbey Charles will sit before the high altar of Westminster Abbey to be anointed and crowned. Before him, and billions of viewers across the world, will be this text from Revelation 11 verse 15 that is written over the coronation altar:  ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ’. In Britain our head of state is still appointed in a Christian context, a king or queen, yes, but appointed within a context informed by today’s Gospel. That is, a belief that God is working his purpose out in history through thick and thin. As we shall be reminded in the liturgy of Christ the King next Sunday it is ‘an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace’. 

Applying today’s Gospel is about owning that ultimate reality and seeing everything in the light of it including all we learn hour by hour through the media of the tumult in the world, be that social, economic, political or environmental. All our endeavours as Christians are to be conducted head held high, looking to the Lord, putting faith in his working all things for good for those who love him, cultivating the patience and endurance through which we gain fullness of life with all the saints. As we start Advent season in a fortnight’s time we will receive further spurring on to work for ‘the kingdom of this world.. to become the kingdom of our God and of Christ, his Son’. 

The first Coming of Jesus was into the womb of a holy woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary, demonstrating that we human beings are no mere compartment of the animal kingdom but are capable of union with God. His Second Coming will occur when human beings, drawn to Christ and his Church in the Spirit, have completed the divine plan 'to bring all things together in Christ'. (Ephesians 1.10) 

As Christ waited for the holy woman to be his Mother he now awaits a holy people to be his Bride so that as heavenly Bridegroom he can one day embrace his church and ‘we may rise to the life immortal’. Christ awaits the purification of his church for this consummation just as he had to await a woman for his conception. In Advent season the Church encourages a deeper examination of conscience and greater availability of the sacrament of confession. Even this morning our priests are available after Mass for this ministry or the less formal ministry of prayers with individuals. Through these ministries and through our own individual prayer and bible study we can engage with the wonder of the love and judgement of God in Christ and his purpose for the church and the world.

It is a glorious truth that no one can take away or enhance who we are before God, such is the love he has for us and for all. As we welcome that love afresh this morning may we hold in our hearts those in our circle or our church’s circle who do not know the Lord Jesus, praying they too will open their hearts to him and experience his love. In this respect the anticipation of Christmas in carol services is a bonus. Church-going is less extraordinary on the Island in December. We have a chance to invite our friends to come along with us for a taster of the Church. In the UK some Churches run Christian enquiry courses in January that are promoted among attendees at Advent and Christmas services. 

Through deeper prayer and intercession, self-examination and confession and mission planning may we engage afresh in the coming weeks with the possibilities of God and see them realised in our lives, our church and our community so as to accomplish the deepening and the spread of Christian Faith. 

The kingdom of this world, counter to all appearances, is becoming the kingdom of our God and of Christ, his Son’. This is our faith and our hope - lift up your heads if they are drooping, look to the Lord

In Barbados and in the UK, may holiness reign, with justice and peace, and may our partnership in Christian mission across the Atlantic ocean continue ‘til the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea! 

Picture: Antonio Campi’s Mystery of the Passion of Christ mid 16th century (Louvre)