St Wilfrid & St Richard, Haywards Heath Masses 1.2.23

A few thoughts on today’s epistle. Since Christmas we’ve been reading the letter to the Hebrews at weekday eucharists full of wise counsel to struggling believers. Today’s reading from Chapter 12 starts with the reminder of who we are as baptised believers. Last month we celebrated how the Son of God became the Son of Man so children of men could become children of God. The clue to Christian life is owning that dignity of being a child of God granted us by the incarnation. Today’s Gospel narrates how Our Lord struggled to establish his credentials in his hometown of Nazareth, a struggle that brought him to Mount Calvary and the revelation of his own Sonship. ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’ said the Centurion in Matthew 27:54.

Today’s epistle centres on our own sonship established by Christ’s dying and rising. ‘Have you forgotten that encouraging text in which you are addressed as sons? My son, when the Lord corrects you, do not treat it lightly; but do not get discouraged when he reprimands you. For the Lord trains the ones that he loves and he punishes all those that he acknowledges as his sons. Suffering is part of your training; God is treating you as his sons. Has there ever been any son whose father did not train him? Of course, any punishment is most painful at the time, and far from pleasant; but later, in those on whom it has been used, it bears fruit in peace and goodness’. Being sons and daughters of God brings the responsibility to reinterpret positively the harshest of circumstances because our Father is Lord of all and ‘works all things for good for those who love him’ (Romans 8:28). 

After a reminder to take a positive slant on hardship the writer of Hebrews gives this brusque invitation to pull up our socks and press on with life: ‘So hold up your limp arms and steady your trembling knees and smooth out the path you tread; then the injured limb will not be wrenched, it will grow strong again’. This is the beauty of scripture, the way it both encourages and chides us. The last chapter of Hebrews promises God will never fail us or desert us quoting the Psalms to that effect. Meanwhile the conclusion of today’s passage from Chapter 12 has this advice: ‘Always be wanting peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one can ever see the Lord. Be careful that no one is deprived of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness should begin to grow and make trouble; this can poison a whole community’. In other words, as we struggle with things, holiness will be built up in us as we keep cheerful in our trials. Often this requires us to keep grief to ourselves and refrain from blaming others. If we want to see the Lord in heaven that vision will be shared with the communion of saints so ‘wanting peace with all people’ is a vital aspiration to cultivate. In the end we will be invited to lose our lives to others, to God and neighbour, for which invitation earthly struggles like getting over differences with other people, are God sent preparation. As we read in the first letter of St John Chapter 3, picking up the same theme: ‘Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure’. So be it!

 

St Mary, Balcombe Epiphany 4 John 2:1-11 29.1.23

 

There are pros and cons about being Church of England. People look to us in good times and bad. Our Archbishop buried the Queen and is shortly to crown the King. Yet we are seen as so conservative as to be out of date whilst falling ourselves into the trap of being conservative in a worse sense - working to conserve our position in English Society. When I read in today’s Gospel of how Our Lord started his ministry by attending the Marriage at Cana I recall a tumultuous week with the announcement that Christian teaching on marriage is to be put up for renegotiation at General Synod. Already Parliament is having its say on the Church of England’s proposal to authorise prayers of blessing for those in same-sex relationships. Outrage has been conjured up in the media on account of the Bishops’ decision allegedly not to change the doctrine of marriage though their claim not to do that seems questionable given their provision to dedicate same sex civil marriages. 

I am always impressed by Chris Bryant MP, a former Church of England priest, who is gay and married in law to his partner. Chris pulled out all stops in the Commons last week when he said: “Is there any Biblical teaching that says [same-sex marriage] is wrong? Any? Really? Did Jesus say a single word about same-sex relationships or marriage? I don’t think he did. He said a great deal about love. The God of Love and St Paul said in Christ there was neither male or female, nor Jew or Greek, and I think he probably would have also said neither gay or straight’. It's hard to counter the force of the last sentence. Once again, though, the disadvantage of Establishment is made clear when Parliamentarians are telling the Church of England ‘if you’re really our church you should do what we tell you’!

The Church of England is bound to what Jesus tells it to do and he actually did teach on marriage in response to a question about divorce in Matthew 19:4-6 ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning "made them male and female, and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate’. Our Lord clearly roots the nature and institution of marriage in creation. Marriage is marriage because it is the complementarity of a man and a woman evident from the way their bodies were designed by God witnessed in the Genesis poem. The New Testament goes further in making an analogy between bridegroom and bride and Christ and his Church in Ephesians 5:25-28, ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind - yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies’. This teaching echoes Christ’s parable in Matthew 22 which starts: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son’. 

In the parable God is the king, Jesus is the son and we and the cosmos are part of the preparing of the bride for that banquet. The whole of history is headed towards a wedding banquet where Jesus is Bridegroom and the Church is Bride.  All we’re about this morning at the eucharist is preparing for the end of all things when God will be everything to everyone at his wedding banquet. ‘Blessed are those who are called to his supper’!

Coming back to the Gospel we see more fully the significance of Our Lord starting his earthly ministry at a marriage since his ultimate purpose as heavenly Bridegroom is uniting the church to himself ‘in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind… holy and without blemish’. This is a picture, indeed the picture, the big picture of Christianity expressed as an analogy with ceremonies solemnised month by month in this building. I celebrated one for Orjan and Courtney Bergen in September. Their union, I explained, is a reflection of the union being built up between Christ the Bridegroom and his Church, Sunday by Sunday. The eucharist both looks back in making the memorial of the Cross and Resurrection and looks forward in anticipation of the return of Christ as Bridegroom for his Bride. This is why we add to the Communion invitation, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ the phrase ‘blessed are those who are called to his supper’. Not just this morning but on the last day when all our aspirations have outcome in a purified church fitted for her Lord’s return and the heavenly banquet he has prepared for us.

The Gospel of the wedding feast at Cana in St John Chapter 2 is a scene setter for the Messianic banquet on the last day and a pointer to the significance of our eating bread and drinking wine at the eucharist. It is also, by implication, a shot across the bows for those seeking to dismantle the heterosexual symbolism of marriage in the Christian understanding. That being said I rejoice with gay friends at a church initiative attempting to repair damage done over centuries estranging homosexuals from the Church. I know gay Christians who complain they are ‘got at’ by their peers for going to Church and then ‘got at’ at Church for being different. God forgive me if anything I’ve said could be seen in that way. The healing and reconciliation we seek in church life will flow more from the truth that is in Jesus than rhetoric online, in the pulpit, in General Synod, let alone Parliament. The House of Bishops Pastoral Principles, affirming marriage remains heterosexual whilst providing for the dedication of civil same sex unions, has been called a fudge. That fudge isn’t sweet to the lips of conservatives or revisionists. As we pray for February’s Synod let’s ask God to sweeten the way forward. I end with some words from the House of Bishops document: ‘Whenever we encounter diversity, difference and disagreement, we… must remind ourselves of the need to address ignorance, to cast out fear, to acknowledge prejudice, to speak appropriately into oppressive silence, to admit hypocrisy and to pay attention to power. We continue to commend these Pastoral Principles to the whole church so that together we can grow more clearly into the likeness of Christ and make his love known to this generation’. So be it - whatever the cost - come, Holy Spirit and give guidance to the General Synod!

St Richard, Haywards Heath Conversion of St Paul 25 January 2023

 

Some get to know God in a blinding flash, others find gradual illumination and many stay in the dark. My own illumination has been through gradual flashes served by church membership. It came also through researching carbon polymers. As I opened up new realms of knowledge, I had a sense Someone had seen these things before. 

Scientists pursue truth but many have a sense that truth is with us and awaiting us. Reason and faith both lift us to God. Saul of Tarsus whose Conversion we’re celebrating today, originally followed a reasoned religion lacking faith. He lacked openness to the transcendent. God was in his religious books and laws so he was rattled to encounter the first Christians. They spoke of laws and indeed life itself transcended through the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. 

It was too much. He raged against it. But Saul was to become Paul, the reasoned man became the man of faith as heavenly light came over him on the Damascus Road. His eyes were opened to a God built less to his dimensions and more to those of God who is God!

As God is truth we need to seek truth, but that's not enough. We need to be open to truth as something or Someone seeking you! The best of scientists like old Archimedes get eureka moments - I see it! These moments are, like Paul’s today, a lesson in humility, that is, in disbelieving yourself so as to see something more wonderful. 

What an awesome, joy-giving and life-enhancing business it is getting to know God! We need the readiness to loosen from self preoccupation, see the big picture of reality and be put in our place!

God grant us a vision of himself more to his dimensions and less to our own.  In Paul’s words to Corinth, God give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4v6)

God who shone on Paul shine on us all!

St Richard, Haywards Heath 3rd Sunday of Year A 22.1.23

 

As we ponder the scriptures set for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Season we see an obvious link between the Isaiah 9 passage and the Gospel we just heard from Matthew Chapter 4 quoting that very passage. The emphasis, as when it was used at Midnight Mass, is on people seeing a great light from God in Jesus Christ, but the overlap of today’s passage with the Gospel centres more on the geography. Though St Matthew’s Gospel is slanted heavily to Jewish readers his description of Our Lord’s initial ministry underlines how that begins not in Jewish but Gentile territory, in the ‘land of Zebulun! Land of Naphthali! Way of the sea on the far side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations’ (Matthew 4:15-16). The idea of a prophet coming from Galilee would not have rung true to Matthew’s Jewish readers because this was non-Jewish or Gentile land. Our Lord begins his ministry treading ground outside the Jewish community, treading the way to the revelation of God as universal Lord and Saviour on Mount Calvary. As the second reading puts it, the rejection and crucifixion of the Jewish Messiah lies beyond human philosophy or even theology. 

The astonishing force of Our Lord Jesus Christ is his revelation of God as not just the God of the Jews but the God of all people. As witnessed in the story of the wise men we followed two weeks ago, the God and Father of Jesus has universal significance. Isaiah promises light.  Our Psalm announces ‘The Lord is my light and my help’. The Gospel recounts how that light first shone on earth as Jesus ‘went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people’ (Matthew 4:23). This good news is relevant to body, mind and spirit and has transforming relevance to everyone in every age. Christianity was and is good news that, though rooted in Judaism and spoken about through prophets like Isaiah, cannot be contained in the Old Testament. As Deacon Rebecca explained last week Jesus Christ fulfils what we find in the Old Testament. We turn first every Sunday to the Jewish Scriptures to mark what is presented and prophesied about God and understanding of these scriptures help us to understand Jesus. This is exactly true of this morning where Isaiah 9 illuminates Matthew 4 and its great invitation as ‘Jesus began his preaching with the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand” (Matthew 4:17).

The Greek word ‘metanoia’ which is translated ‘repent’ means to change direction. Our Lord changed his path into non-Jewish territory; he did so with an invitation to us and to all to change direction so as to welcome the mercy of God which reaches the parts of lives and communities no other power can access. As we hear the word of God this morning we do so mindful of its transformative power. Do you have confidence in that power which is at hand to you this morning as we gather to hear the word of God and be made part of Christ’s self offering at Mass? Such an engagement  has the power to change our lives for good if we welcome the Holy Spirit who is always at hand. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. As we turn afresh to God he makes his presence real to us ‘curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among us’. Disease and sickness is much among us this morning, be that of body, mind or spirit. By his death and resurrection Our Lord has countered the power of sin, sickness, bondage, death and the devil. These dark powers are real but their power is broken as we welcome the light of the Lord and see their darkness scatter. 

It may be you are struggling for the grace of acceptance as you face a new trial laid upon you. Or are deceiving yourself over a wrongdoing you need to seek forgiveness for. Maybe you need the assurance of God’s love to reach deeper into your soul. The word of God and the Blessed Sacrament are at hand for you this morning. Soften your heart. Open yourself fresh to the grace of the Holy Spirit who is God’s love ready to be poured into our hearts. Don’t be afraid to seek prayer for such healing outside Mass maybe by talking to one of our priests. We are always ready to be used in the ministry of prayer for individuals, for confession and absolution, for the sacrament of anointing. Our Lord changed direction to Galilee to bring healing and to welcome the kingdom of heaven we need ourselves at times to change our direction. 

Today’s second reading touches on the consequences of our going it alone - our sin - on the Christian community. ‘I am for Paul’, ‘I am for Apollos’, ‘I am for Cephas’, ‘I am for Christ’. I am St Richard’s. I am Methodist. I am Ruwach. I am Baptist. This week of prayer for Christian Unity is a reminder how groups of believers putting themselves above the faith of the church through the ages weaken Christian witness overall. Haywards Heath has eight Christian denominations - Anglican, Baptist, Christ Church, Grace Church, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Ruwach Pentecostal, United Reformed Church. The world has 40,000 Christian denominations. Lord, have mercy! What is the answer and how can you and I be part of that? It is about each denomination coming to the foot of Christ’s Cross and admitting it exists as a Christian community only by God’s grace and mercy poured out on Calvary. This would build from you and I doing the same and by our praying for and fraternising with the other churches in our town. Why not go to a weekday or Sunday evening service in another town Church this week to do your bit to counter the sin of Christian division which does so much to undermine the good news of God’s love?

‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. Indeed it is - the Holy Spirit is close at hand ready to bring healing to individuals, churches and communities. Healing starts here - in the heart of an individual - where we find ourselves and love ourselves sufficiently to give ourselves. You can’t give what you don’t possess! May 2023 be a year of growth here at St Richard’s as our members gain self knowledge, self love and fresh capacity to give out to others. Our new partnership with St Mary, Balcombe places us in a privileged position to challenge churches that live for themselves. Living for yourself either individually or as churches is a receipe for death. Let’s change direction to walk as if to Galilee with Our Lord in the life giving power of the Holy Spirit and be consciously part of God’s never ending family the holy catholic church.

St John, Burgess Hill Epiphany 2 15th January 2023

 

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1.29

Our scripture this morning follows on from last Sunday’s continuing to centre on the mission of Jesus. The Old Testament reading from Isaiah 49 prophesies that the mission of God’s servant will extend beyond Israel to all the nations: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ 

This passage was chosen to illuminate the holy gospel which is from John, exceptionally in this year of Matthew. This passage draws out how this mission is a sacrificial mission, that of the Lamb of God.

I’d like to dwell a little on this sacrificial image which appears week by week and day by day in the sacrificial text of the eucharist which recalls the Old Testament Passover Lamb. When we say Lamb of God, or the priest says ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ we go on ‘who takes away the sins of the world’. These words accompany the breaking of the Eucharistic bread which recalls in turn the breaking of Christ’s body on the Cross

This gathering in the parish church is part of an eternal offering of worship stretching back to the foundation of the world and stretching forward to the consummation of all things.

Our Lord is truly the lamb slain from the foundation of the world whose sacrifice on Calvary, as Revelation 13 verse 8 envisions, draws forth in heaven blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever. 

This morning we are touching reality - we are drawn to the event represented here that reveal a love touching every human concern upon the earth. 

At the beginning of a challenging year for our nation and for many peoples the world over there is no more powerful action we can take on behalf of humankind than to plead Christ’s Sacrifice, offering God what is his own…on behalf of all.

To the outward eye we are a small gathering of religious people doing their own thing upon their weekly holy day.

To the eye of faith we are Christians, caught up once more, on behalf of the whole creation, into the eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ, through whom, and with whom and in whom in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we give glory to our Father in heaven.

Here, as on Calvary, we see his body and blood separated in death and then transformed by power from heaven. In every Eucharist we witness the separate consecration of Christ’s body and blood. We pause twice in the Eucharistic prayer to recall the sacrificial sundering of the Son of God - this is my body...this is my blood...of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins

Some of us may remember the ‘Seeing Salvation’ exhibition twenty years ago at the National Gallery. One of the many images of Christ was this  (show) - ‘The Bound Lamb’ by Francisco de Zurbarin who lived in the 17th century.  It is an image that often appears on Nativity scenes, the Shepherds’ offering which anticipates Christ’s sacrifice.  

As Jeremy Paxman wrote in the Church Times then of this painting: ‘no image I know so perfectly captures the astonishing force of the Christian story’.

It was given greater force at the time as a symbol through the images of sheep and lambs slaughtered so uselessly in the foot and mouth epidemic. The image of the bound lamb is one of innocent suffering but, for Christians, never one of useless suffering.

There is a Church in Norway, I’m told, which has the image of a sheep sculpted half way up its tower.  

Only when people enter that Church and hear something of its history do they discover the full Christian significance of the sculpted sheep.

Years before the sculpture was erected some renovation work was occurring on the Church steeple in this rural community.  One day a workman slipped from the steeple to almost certain death.  At the same time by a remarkable twist of providence a flock of sheep was being driven past the Church.  

The steeplejack fell on a sheep and his fall was cushioned. The sheep died to save him - an awesome happening! The workers expressed their gratitude to God by adorning that Church tower with a sculpted sheep. It was welcomed as a powerful symbol of Christian Faith.

Jesus is the Lamb of God whose voluntary sacrifice takes away our sin.  Our Lord on Calvary takes the full impact of sin and death for us at the cost of his life.

I do not understand why God sent his Son to do just that for me. It is love beyond logic.

I cannot though deny the evil in the world and in my own heart. 

I will not deny that it threatens my fulfilment - not just my sin, but my fear and doubt and sickness as well as the self-serving use of my gifts. 

Neither will I as a Christian deny, though it goes quite beyond my reasoning powers, that Jesus, Christ the Son of God has taken the full impact of those evil powers for me. Our Lord has soaked up all the evil that would defeat me and offered me life to the full - life that cancels sin with forgiveness, sickness with healing, bondage with deliverance and even doubt with the gift of faith through the mighty Redemption he has won.  

All of this is powerfully present to me in every celebration of the Eucharist.

I cannot understand it but I will accept it. I cannot understand the way electricity works but that does not stop me switching on the lights. I take both on authority and it works to do so.

Jesus died in my place so that he might live in my place. 

Jesus died in my place to carry off the impact of evil upon me, particularly through the gift of the Eucharist. 

Jesus lives in my place, cooperating with my will by his Spirit, as I welcome him again and again into my heart in this Sacrament!

This morning 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.

How much God needs the offering of our lives for his work here in Burgess Hill and its surrounds! 

Let’s pause for a minute or two to reflect on God’s word this morning as we prepare to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Requiem for Pope Benedict XVI 4.1.23

Today’s Gospel recalls how ‘Andrew took his brother Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked hard at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas’ – meaning Rock’. We read elsewhere in the Gospels how Our Lord renames Simon: Peter - literally ‘rock man’ - founding his Church on the ‘rock’ of Peter’s faith in Christ’s divinity.  To this day the Christian world takes note of the successor of St Peter, first Bishop of Rome, seeing him as a referee helping safe play continue down the centuries. This is why the death of a former Pope is being marked at the altar this evening.

Pope Benedict XVI, whose funeral is tomorrow, was an exceptional Bishop of Rome and one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century.  Some Bishops, priests and Popes are more pastors and some more teachers.  Benedict, like his friend Archbishop Rowan Williams, came to office from being a theology professor. That friendship, one of many he had with Anglicans, came to the fore when he visited the United Kingdom in 2010 to canonise John Henry Newman.

Unlike his successor Pope Francis, more pastor than teacher, Benedict has gained an unfair reputation as over dogmatic churchman. This is despite his being instrumental with other theologians of the revolutionary empowerment of the laity at the 1962-5 Second Vatican Council. Picking up on failure to address clerical abuse under the reign of Pope St John Paul II, Pope Benedict acted only to be blamed himself  for the abuse crisis, one reason he resigned and handed over to Pope Francis. 

I speak as one widely read in his writings. Only last week I was reading his book on the biblical texts related to Christ’s birth. His writings, so rooted in scripture, transcend the Catholic-Evangelical divide in the Church. Benedict’s passion was to help rise above Christian divisions to commend to the next generation the reality of the risen Lord. In this  he used captivating images such as his commending to people, young and old, what he calls ‘Jesus’ Hour’, attendance at Sunday Mass, through which the Lord manifests himself to us transformatively in word and sacrament week by week, day by day, down through the centuries.

As Anglicans who value our Church’s place in the stream of Christian believing through the centuries we should be grateful for steps he took in 2012, seen as provocative by some, to establish an Anglican Ordinariate which has become a sort of bridge between our Communions under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman. Though both the action of and the secession of many from the Anglican Church over female ordination in recent years is controversial Pope Benedict’s action remains an affirmation of the intrinsic catholic credentials of historic Anglicanism which would warm Newman’s heart. 

When we compare how global media treat Pope Benedict’s reputation compared to informed church circles it is evident how very little the reputation has to do with the man. It is our reputation before God, each one of us, that will count when at last we stand before him. A holy and gentle soul Benedict’s last recorded words were ‘Lord, I love you’. He knew God’s love and laboured to bring others into its orbit. As St John puts it so beautifully in the passage we read yesterday at Mass ‘Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are… what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is’. So be it for us - and for Pope Benedict, blessed in name and in life.