St John the Evangelist, Burgess Hill Candlemas 30.1.22

We come to Church to worship and to be enlightened. Jesus came first to the Temple on this day with those two ends of self offering and edification.

His parents made an offering on his behalf and they heard Simeon's prophecy of their Son becoming 'a light to lighten the nations'.

Candlemas gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect about what we do when we come to this Temple Sunday by Sunday. It is a Temple before it is a preaching house, a place of teaching, yes, but primarily not a place of edification but a place of worship. 

In this Church the worship of the eucharist has been offered day by day with a few breaks since 1863. People in their thousands have joined here to offer the unbloody sacrifice initiated by Jesus Christ we call the eucharist. They've come 'to offer themselves, their souls and bodies as a living sacrifice' with, in and through Jesus Christ.

The West Window, subject of our appeal, has two smaller windows at the bottom designed to emphasise the eucharist in this context. One has the sacrifice of the Cross. The other has the priest at the altar pleading the same sacrifice on our behalf with the text ‘ye do show the Lord's death until he comes’. Praying as we do ‘that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Father almighty’. Our response, especially true to this Feast, is ‘may the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands to the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy church’. 

Today on Candlemas, Feast of his Presentation, on his first visit to the one earthly Temple of his day, Our Lord anticipated his eternal sacrifice. The turtle doves sacrificed on his behalf in that Temple gave way, with all animal sacrifices, to his once for all offering made on a repeat visit to Jerusalem in his 33rd year. They took then no doves but an innocent Lamb, and as they did so the prophecy about his mother Mary in today's Gospel was fulfilled. 'A  sword will pierce your heart'. In St Martin’s Brighton, a Church I know well, that very image of Our Lady is provided at the foot of the Cross, graphically in black and with a sword stuck into her heart.

There is deep continuity between the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the offering of Jesus the Lamb of God, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and our own sacrificial living as Christians. They all hang together. In a culture full of self-interest what we are about this morning is powerfully counter-cultural. Here, in union with Christ, we are offering our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice.  Sacrifice is at heart about voluntary choice about how we direct our lives - it is about love before it is about death.  It is about joyous living just as sure as ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. It is not so much about forgoing what we desire but of binding our energies to what God desires. 

In this context it is an excellent practice, helping prepare for the eucharist, to start each day with what’s called the Morning Offering. The idea is to sit on your bed as soon as you get up and, whilst letting the blood reach your head, get into gear spiritually by praying something like, ‘Lord, I thank you for who you are and your love for me and all that is. I give myself to you. Take me and use me for your praise and service and the building up of the body of Christ. Come, Holy Spirit'. When you have made such a prayer at the start of the day you recognise spiritual needs and opportunities around you and the hand of God working in your life in the hours that follow. I know this from when I forget to pray it - my day turns rather useless! The Morning Offering is linked to Christ’s Offering and invitation to join in it at Mass where we pray, ‘May he make of us an eternal offering to you’.

We come to Church to worship and to be enlightened.

Part of that enlightenment, as Mary and Joseph found, is the bringing of understanding and hence more creative involvement with the dark times of our life.

We all live with these - bereavement, chronic illness or the necessity to live with unresolved situations where there may be conflict. With Mary and Joseph this morning we welcome holy Simeon's words with gratitude since they speak of peace coming, as it does again and again, through heavenly illumination.

Jesus Christ is the light who lightens all nations and all ages.

May his light shine on us and into our various life situations this morning as we come to worship 'offering ourselves, our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice' with in and through Jesus Christ.

Like Simeon we see in Jesus one who removes the fear of death and promises perpetual light to his family as they travel forward in his light to their fulfilment in the house of the Lord together and forever.

We come to Church to worship and to be enlightened. Our Lord came first to the Temple on this day with those two ends of self offering and edification.

I end with a beautiful prayer of John Donne, sixteenth century Dean of St Paul’s which captures that aspiration: 

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end. Amen.

St Richard, Haywards Heath 3rd Sunday of Year 23 January 2022

The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour. Luke 4:18-19

This morning’s Gospel reading from Luke 4:14-21 speaks very powerfully about all Jesus is about and all his church is meant to be about. Just think of that awesome scene at the start of Our Lord’s public ministry - the Synagogue at Nazareth Our Lord’s first Sermon.  In reading this Gospel we do so mindful that Jesus is invisibly present this morning.  This ministry of the word is his ministry. Jesus speaks and there is no word of God without power!

The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.

Our Lord applies Isaiah’s prophecy to himself.  Yet his anointing as Christ and Messiah is not just for him - it is to be shared with us. Jesus is anointed by the Holy Spirit as Christ so that we might share in his anointing! A Christian is one who shares in the anointing of the Anointed One.  

We can only do what the church must do if we welcome and own that anointing which is our own through baptism. What we say and do flows from what we are.  Only as we welcome and own the presence of Christ deep within us can our words and deeds have any spiritual force.

When you bump into someone something of them spills over you. When you bump into a Christian something of Jesus should come across.

The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor – returning to Our Lord’s great sermon he goes on in v18 to speak of the purpose of his anointing: God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor..

In the Greek there is no definite article before the word ‘ptochos’ - poor, which means it refers to a quality of life rather than particular poor persons.  Jesus will be good news to those who are otherwise powerless to enrich themselves.

As Gospel people we are on the lookout for the poor, seeking to serve them and to be served by them. Those saddled with debt through faulty stewardship or who live in isolation desperate to belong. Those overwhelmed by the circumstances of their life, desperate for forgiveness, for guidance, for a purpose for living or a reason for dying. 

They include ourselves – if we are to bring good news to the poor our own sense of poverty before God and trust in his provision counts over all else.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives ...Our Lord continues to set the downtrodden free

What a difference Christianity can make to lives and communities! The good news of Jesus Christ is about the liberation of lives and communities and St Richard’s is a catalyst of this in the way we invest in Haywards Heath serving as a proud beacon of the light of the Lord.

Some years back in London our drains began to overflow.  We had to send for Dyno-Rod.  In the end they had to send a small camera on a tube down the sewers.  They gave us a 20 minute video of our drains. It’s quite a fascinating 20 minutes, especially the rat that appears half way through! The cameras showed what human eye could never view.  The neighbour’s tree roots had blocked our drains.  They needed cutting out and the drain needed a resin soaked felt lining.

Inside each one of us and indeed our communities there are bonds that oppress us and restrict our health and life and God sees these far more surely than a Dyno-Rod camera.  What is more he is able to show us just where we are held captive and then help us enter a new freedom. The ministry of our priests is a bonus in facing up to this as is that of the PCC in helping discern and address the needs of both church and community under God.

He has sent me to proclaim... to the blind new sight Our Lord continues.

When it comes to mission it is the opening of ‘inner eyes’ that matters most. In the story of Lourdes the key figure is the peasant girl, Bernadette, the shepherdess who in 1854 received a number of visions, allegedly of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In one of these visions Our Lady asked her to lift up some stones so that a spring was uncovered, a spring that flows to this day, a healing stream visited by millions every year.

How important discernment is! What healing streams can flow from one little insight! We have a mission at St Richard’s but where do we get our enthusiasm to do so?  The word means literally ‘in God’. It comes from an ever-fresh welcoming of the anointing of the Anointed One, a readiness to be shown where the flow of his grace is getting blocked within us. As Our Lord says in John’s Gospel:  Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’  Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive  John 7:37-9

How the church needs to take this invitation to heart! How else can we generate new enthusiasm about Jesus other than through some heart-searching for the things that weigh down and block the Spirit in our lives and in our Christian community? As we do so – and lift the stones – we recover a sense of God’s goodness and become his effective instruments, Gospel people – real good news people! Come, Holy Spirit!

He has sent me to proclaim… liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free…

This is our task – our task together, priests and people. We need a fresh ‘anointing from the Anointed One’ to effect a new spirit of collaboration. As a church growth expert writes: The task of the ordained ministry is not simply to minister to the congregation but to create and direct a ministering congregation through the detection, development and deployment of God-given resources (Eddie Gibbs). 

The last phrase Our Lord uses in his address at Nazareth refers to ‘the Lord’s favour’.

He has sent me to proclaim ... the Lord’s year of favour

The growth of the church is growth in faith, love and numbers. It is also growth in ‘the Lord’s favour’.  

How can we find favour with God and man as Jesus did?  In such favour lies our lasting peace and wholeness - but how do we find it?  The letter to the Hebrews gives us the answer: Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6

To find favour as we approach Christ we need faith, we need to believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Our mission at St Richard’s should go forward not in a forced or artificial way but in a trusting and natural way, a way that trusts in the Lord’s own favour and empowering.

Listen once again to what Jesus is saying to each one of us individually this morning

The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me - let me share my anointing with you this morning...

He has anointed me to bring the good news to the poor - empty yourself so I can fill you!

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives... to set the downtrodden free - show me the bonds that bind you and St Richard’s and let me loosen them.   

He has sent me to proclaim ... to the blind new sight - see and welcome my possibilities which exceed your imagining - and so place yourself more fully in my favour.

Come, Holy Spirit!

St Barnabas, Hove St Agnes Feast 21.1.22

Our thoughts determine our lives.

Be they self-centred, neighbour-centred or God-centred - and they’re bound to be a mixture of all three for believers.

Controlling our thoughts is difficult. We can’t easily do it because they’re a river flowing through our minds. The danger is seizing a wrong one and implementing it on impulse. Our more measured thoughts help life flow well. Our best thoughts are the making of us and of the world. 

So flowed my own thoughts looking at the martyrdom of St Agnes, a 12 year old girl we know little about save her paying the highest price for chaste thoughts and, being named after Jesus Lamb of God, becoming an icon of self offering. Her story is of a Christian girl resolved to stay single for the sake of the Gospel, who, threatened by an aggressive suitor, is forced into a legal conflict. Agnes’ faith went on trial during the Diocletian persecutions of 304 AD. Her name, mentioned in the oldest eucharistic prayer, means chaste in Greek and lamb in Latin hence our two themes of purity and self-sacrifice.

Being a retired priest gives me more time for relaxation and conversation and - thank you Fr John - attending and leading worship. The other day I got into a conversation with a 21 year old lad who confided in me his decision to turn away from the pornography so many of his friends were getting immersed in. ‘I don’t want my future relationships spoiled’ he said with telling wisdom. 

Our thoughts determine our lives. St Augustine captured the damage done in his lustful youth when he talked of memory being ‘a sad privilege’. Many of us know first hand the truth he speaks of. Thoughts of things from the past intrude the flow of our thinking and fuel action destructive of our relationships. The Feast of St Agnes is a call to purity of thought, word and deed including custody of the eyes and the avoidance of salacious television and reading material.

Secondly, today’s Saint calls us to think on her namesake Jesus Agnus dei. This image may be familiar to some of us - show book ‘The Bound Lamb’ by Francisco de Zurbarin who lived in the 17th century.  It’s an image that often appears on Nativity scenes, the Shepherds’ offering which anticipates Christ’s sacrifice. As Jeremy Paxman wrote in the Church Times of this painting: ‘no image I know so perfectly captures the astonishing force of the Christian story’. Jesus fulfils the sacrifice of the Old Testament Passover Lamb whose blood daubed on doors  protected the households of believers. Unlike the Old Testament lambs, Our Lord’s sacrifice is voluntary and as such takes away sin.  Our Lord on Calvary takes the full force of sin and death for us at the cost of his life. 

Today on our patronal feast we make the memorial of the Offering of Jesus and enter into that Self-Offering. It is through the sacrificial Lamb of God that we can make a perfect offering to the Father, our sinful bodies made clean by his body..our souls washed through his most precious blood. There is a deep continuity between the sacrifices of the Old Testament - Abel, Abraham and Melchizedek - the offering of Jesus the Lamb of God, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and our own sacrificial living as Christians. They all hang together. In a culture full of self-interest what we are about this evening is powerfully counter-cultural. Here, in union with Christ, we are offering our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice 

As St Agnes teaches, sacrifice is at heart about voluntary choice about how we direct our lives - it is about love before it is about death.  It is about joyous living just as sure as ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. It is not so much about forgoing what we desire but of binding our energies to what God desires. 

Our thoughts determine our lives - be they indulgent or geared to purity and sacrifice.

A couple of practical suggestions to help order our thinking and action more into those two qualities of St Agnes captured in her name, one about using the Jesus Prayer and another about making a Morning Offering. 

Repeating under our breath the Jesus Prayer of Eastern Orthodoxy, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’ is very powerful, as people have found praying it for 1500 years. It's a succinct summary of faith with capacity to empower us against useless and harmful thoughts. The power in the name of Jesus is such that, when we are tempted by base thoughts, repetition of this prayer sees them fly away. ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’. We need the will to pray, but knowing and using this prayer is a key aid to purity. 

Secondly the Morning Offering. The idea is to sit on your bed as soon as you get up and, whilst letting the blood reach your head, get into gear spiritually by praying something like, ‘Lord, I thank you for who you are and your love for me and all that is. I give myself to you. Take me and use me for your praise and service and the building up of the body of Christ. Come, Holy Spirit'. When you have made such a prayer at the start of the day you recognise spiritual needs and opportunities around you and the hand of God working in your life in the hours that follow. I know this from when I forget to pray it - my day turns rather useless! The Morning Offering is linked to Christ’s Offering and invitation to join in it at Mass where we pray, ‘May he make of us an eternal offering to you’.

Our thoughts determine our lives. May the prayer of St Agnes inspire us to take continual battle against bad thoughts and make of our lives an ever more complete offering to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be all might, majesty, dominion and power now and henceforth and to the ages of ages. Amen.

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Epiphany 2 The Charismatic Tendency 20th Jan 2022

 

‘The Church of England is the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed’ says the Revised Catechism and though some parishes go very much for being ‘catholic’ and others ‘reformed’ here at St Wilfrid’s we hold the careful balance implied in our formularies. When St Wilfrid’s was dedicated in 1865 the sense of the Church of England being part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ was being recovered by the Oxford movement rebalancing from the ascendant reformed or even Protestant tendency of that age. 

150 years or so on there is another rebalancing going on of which I was reminded both by today’s second reading and by listening again to Andrew Marr’s Start the Week of 22 November on Christianity’s Changing Fortunes where the focus was predominantly on Pentecostalism. When I was diocesan mission & renewal advisor we reckoned half of church attenders in Sussex were Pentecostalists of one shade or another from The Point Anglican and other fresh expressions, meeting in warehouses and schools, across to denominational Pentecostals. 

In 2022 with the Catholic and Evangelical tendency we now have the charismatic or Pentecostal tendency a century or so old. This draws strength from the ‘charisms’ or gifts of the Spirit listed in the 12th Chapter of the first letter of St Paul to Corinth with its teaching about supernatural empowerment. As Anglicans we read this passage on Sunday every three years in January and it fashions a good preparation for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. During the vacancy I had the privilege of presiding at a service in Holy Week on behalf of St Wilfrid’s that drew in our local Pentecostals, Ruwach Christian Church, which is probably the youngest church in Haywards Heath both in origin and age profile. Pastor Tom Partis attended Fr Edward’s induction service. If we want to take a leaf out of Ruwach’s book it's the 1 Corinthians 12 leaf or page in our bible that’s just been read to us.

Concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. Paul says in verse 1 and Pentecostalists it must be admitted are more informed than Anglicans. The Apostle goes on to explain in verses 2 and 3 that ministry in the Church is animated by supernatural empowerment through the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. He outlines the glorious diversity of ministry gifts there are in Corinth, reminding those who have them that what they’ve been given is given not for them but for the building up of the body of Christ. In this passage Paul lists supernatural gifts – wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues and the gift to interpret that. We need to read this list though alongside two other lists of ministries Paul gives in Romans 12, where he adds the more natural gifts of serving, teaching, exhortation, generosity and leadership and Ephesians 4, where he adds apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors. 

Let’s look at verses 4 to 7 of today’s reading: 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

In his first letter to Corinth Paul’s chapter 12 and 14 are about supernatural gifts and their use for the common good. These two chapters – 14 is mainly about speaking in tongues – have the famous one on love, Chapter 13 in the midst. Paul lists the empowering gifts and goes on to say they’re all great but will go nowhere unless you use them lovingly, submitting to the body of Christ as a whole. He says elsewhere that no Christian can be right with God unless they’re right with those over them in the Lord. To best use what God has given us we need to use it in an authorised way and not freelance. Otherwise we see body breaking and not body building! Such body breaking occurred a century ago when groups in the mainline churches rediscovered the supernatural gifts, sadly got their marching orders and founded Pentecostal Churches!

Let’s read on, verses 8 to 11: 8To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.  

A few brief points. The Greek word for gifts is charismata. The first two charismatic gifts in v8, wisdom and knowledge are the capacity to receive supernatural information about situations through which God can change things. What a difference these can make to a Church! When God gives you an insight and you follow it things flow relatively easily as you persevere in pressing forward. At St Wilfrid's and the Presentation we need that gift to better plan our services, their timing and how we best link in to our greatest youth and family resource, St Wilfrid’s School. 

When in verse 9 we read of the gift of Faith that’s not the faith by which we believe but a special gift linked to believing God for something special. It's possible that such a gift of  faith may emerge to invest in our worship ministry and school liaison. If that needs more money the gift of faith about it would link to conviction God has such funding up his sleeve awaiting release. God’s work brings with it God’s supernatural provision.

The next two charismatic gifts are named healing and miracles in v9 and 10. One of the encouraging signs in our life together is the evidence of answered prayer not least from those on our prayer list, even if those answers are manifested at times in the midst of great suffering. 

Prophecy and discernment v10 are capacities to help the church see the way ahead. Elsewhere Paul says the church is founded upon ‘the apostles and prophets’. The Rector and PCC share an apostolic function into which members relay creative suggestions, some of which are prophetic. Those that are prophetic, truly of God, are taken on, taken forward and shown to be so by their effectiveness and fruitfulness.

Tongues and interpretation are similarly gifts of empowerment some of us have received linked to deepening prayer and praise in individuals for the common good. Speaking in tongues isn’t ecstatic or hysterical but something you can do before breakfast. It’s a gift many Christians have received through the ages which helps believers pray as the Holy Spirit leads for what the Holy Spirit wants. It is a devotional aid that helps build more praise and intercession in the life of the Church. The gift of interpretation, rarely used in Anglican circles, comes into play when tongues are rather exceptionally used aloud at services.

If we at St Wilfrid’s and The Presentation are going to deepen our life and grow new members we need to make space for the exercise of both natural and supernatural ministry gifts. We need to recognise that these gifts are to be exercised under authority, ultimately that of the bishop. The Church needs and has been provided with that safe structure, just like our natural bodies need our skeletons. As Anglicans we are blessed with such apostolic order but not always with the apostolic vitality of our sister Pentecostalists. Like them we need the Holy Spirit’s giftings and vitalitisation to clothe the skeleton, so to speak, of the apostolic order of holy church. We don’t want to be the dry bones mentioned in the book of Ezekiel. To that intent I suggest each of us prays daily ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ as part of offering our lives to God first thing every morning. When you pray that prayer you see spiritual needs and opportunities and the hand of God working in your life in the hours that follow. I know this from when I forget to pray ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ and my day turns rather useless!

One last clarification on the gifts of the Spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians. The bible many times compares believers to trees that bear fruit. It says we’ll be judged ultimately by the fruit of the Spirit we bear – love, joy, peace and so on. In this passage Paul is speaking not of fruitfulness but of empowerment gifts that are ours to serve the church’s fruitfulness. It’s not a fruit tree image for the church but a Christmas tree image! We’ve been disposing of our Christmas trees this month. Presents hung on a Christmas tree can be taken off by people. They don’t grow from the Christmas tree as fruit grows from an apple tree. 

You and I are called to bear fruit, the church is called to bear fruit, but we also get gifts given us by God that don’t come from us but are given to empower others when they receive them. People given gifts of healing are given them by the one Spirit not from out of themselves but from God above. What they’re given is given to bring blessing to others.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

May the Lord who alerts us this morning to seeking his spiritual gifts equip us with them as we welcome his new wine at this eucharist! Come, Holy Spirit and equip us to serve!

God of Surprises - St John the Evangelist , Burgess Hill & St Wilfrid, Haywards Heath ferial Mass 12.1.22

This breaking in of the sun on Anne and my walk along Eastbourne promenade was a surprise last week. It came back to me reflecting on today’s reading about the call of Samuel. Tell God your plans and you're in for a surprise! Again and again in my life I work, as the conscientious guy I try to be, to set up the best future for myself and my family - but we have a God of surprises! We have a God who as Paul teaches in Romans 8 works all things for good for those who love him through both our planning and through the surprises he gives us. Sometimes these surprises, like challenging illness in the family, are initially unwelcome though they work for good when accepted in faith. There are no circumstances of which God is not Master.

The call of Samuel in our first reading was a surprise to him. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. We're told. Yet At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ and ran to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’

After two rebuttals we hear how Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Samuel and Eli have a surprise of the Spirit they need to come to terms with. In consequence of God’s call to Samuel Israel gets a new start that leads through Samuel to Saul, David and the Kings.

As we move through the first month of a new year many of us are looking for one sort of fresh start or other. Could we do better than look again at our circumstances to discern God’s hand at work? Seek a refreshing of our relationship with God by taking extra time to wait upon him in prayer on our own? To seek the newness imparted to us again and again from the permanent newness of Jesus who's the same yesterday, today and forever?

God in Christ is a living and therefore surprising God. We can’t tie him down in human categories since we are not in his league. We are to him as dust to the heavens above. In God’s house whether you’re the greatest saint or worst sinner puts you either top or bottom of the carpet. In that respect what’s most surprising is God’s actual interest in us humans in the first place. How he takes trouble to call Samuel, the apostles in the Gospel, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law - and, yes, you and I - for we are each one of us here loved and called to be equipped for his purposes?

C.S.Lewis wrote a book ‘Surprised by Joy’ to describe the confounding of his dismal atheism by a surprising encounter with the living God. Sometimes it can be the same for us. We go through phases of practical atheism when God doesn’t seem to count much in our lives only to be woken up like Samuel by a voice from above spoken through and into our circumstances.

Here I am, for you called me, we find ourselves saying in obedience to God’s surprising or disconcerting interventions. If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans.  At the end of the day we’re not ultimately in control of our lives - God is. There are no circumstances of which he is not the Master. Plan we must, as this New Year gets underway, but let our plans leave space and openness to welcome the surprises of the Holy Spirit in our circumstances.

 

St Mary, Balcombe Baptism of the Lord 9.1.22

You can be baptised but have little experience of the Holy Spirit. We know you can be baptised and have little experience of the church - compare the numbers in our baptism registers with those in our service registers!  Yet those of us who come to Church still need encouragement to welcome the Holy Spirit and today’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is such an encouragement.

In the second reading we heard of the predicament of the Samarian Christians. ‘Peter and John… prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus). They laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 8:15-17).This passage is often read at confirmation services where the Bishop does what Peter and John did - lay hands on those baptised invoking the Spirit. We receive special anointing of the Spirit at baptism, confirmation and ordination but need to experience what God has given us.  

How do we wake up to the Holy Spirit?

Scripture gives us two answers – by looking outside of ourselves and inside of ourselves. 

Our Lord welcomed the Holy Spirit from above as in today’s Gospel. Elsewhere he speaks of the Holy Spirit flowing from within as in John 7:38:  ‘Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water’.

Scripture records how Moses’s faith lit up when God kindled a flame in the burning bush and yet Paul advised Timothy to ‘rekindle the gift of God which is within’ (2 Timothy 1:6).

Sometimes we need to ask God to give us a vision of himself outside of ourselves so we get humbled into receiving his love. Other times we seek a release from the stuff within us that’s blocking the flow of that love.

If we have been baptised God is already at work within us. In Timothy’s case Paul reminded him that he’d laid hands on him for the Holy Spirit to come years ago. Wake up, he said, to what God has given you. Stir up the gift – in another translation. 

I always think of sugar in the bottom of an unstirred cup of tea. Does that fit your life this morning? God’s inside of you but your life needs sweetening by a bit of a stir? Or, to use another image, that of a gas fire, is it a matter of recognising the pilot light is lit within you but you need to turn the gas on and let the Holy Spirit really take hold of you?

Come, Holy Spirit, and awaken us! You are God in the present moment, make God more present to us, stir us up within, ignite our faith and our prayer on this Feast!

Today Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Christ which means the Anointed One. To be a Christian is to share in the anointing of the Anointed One. As we heard in the Gospel: ‘Jesus Christ will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’ (Luke 3:16).

How do we wake up to the Holy Spirit?

I remember as a student meeting a special priest who had holiness and integrity. Just a few choice words now and then from him were like commands from God - the Holy Spirit zapped me through those words and got me praying - and you know, the more you pray the more you want to pray! Then the more the Spirit burns within us, the more others around us are drawn to the fire of God’s love. Our thirst for God - and the Spirit gives you a thirst for God - infects others. When we pray ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ - and I recommend doing that as part of offering your life to God first thing every morning - we see spiritual needs and opportunities and the hand of God working in our lives hour by hour.

Brother Roger of Taize once said something that’s at the heart of church growth and revitalisation by the Spirit. He said: ‘When the church becomes a house of prayer the whole world will come running!’. It is so. As another Frenchman, Blaise Pascal, said three centuries before him: ‘Holiness is the church’s greatest influence’.  The Holy Spirit who works through scripture and the pulpit works to make the bread and wine extraordinary so that you and I can be extraordinary - the Holy Spirit makes us so. That extraordinariness links to both suffering and the supernatural. 

When I see joy on the faces of Christians near to death - I think of my friend Eve - it is the Spirit. When I hear people speaking in tongues, I recognise a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues is a love language commended as an aid for private prayer by St Paul though its public use can have extraordinary impact. I commend praying for this gift if your prayer life is in the doldrums.

An awakening to the Spirit, a releasing of the Spirit, an unblocking of his flow – this is the invitation and challenge of today’s Feast which links in with suffering and experience of the supernatural. There is ‘one baptism for the forgiveness of sins’ and it confers the Holy Spirit. A gift though when given needs to be received. For Christians to seek the renewing power of the Spirit – we do so as we receive Holy Communion every Sunday - is a matter of seeking to be more fully what we are meant to be in Christ in terms of spiritual empowerment and nothing less! 

We want to be people who know their need for such empowerment! Meanwhile the Spirit is waiting to confirm to us the same words spoken to Our Lord at his baptism: ‘You are my Son, [my Daughter], the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’ (Luke 3:22). Come, Holy Spirit!