Trinity 14 (23rd of Year A) St Mary, Balcombe 10th September 2023

At my ordination as a priest the Bishop asked me this question in Sheffield Cathedral: Will you give your faithful diligence … to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded?

I replied with the others: I will so do, by the help of the Lord.

This commitment came back to me as I looked through our readings for Trinity 14 with their focus on church discipline.  The reading from Ezekiel Chapter 33 reminds the prophet of his watchman role which connects with the gospel passage from Matthew 18 that provides instruction about correcting Church members.

The Anglican tradition emphasizes discipline alongside word and sacrament as foundational to church life. At their ordination, therefore, priests and bishops commit to teach, lead worship and pastor the flocks committed to them.

Among other words from the ordination service that stick with me – I read them every year before the renewal of priestly vows at the Chrism eucharist with the Bishop in Holy Week – are these: Have always… printed in your remembrance how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve is his Spouse, and his Body. And if it shall happen the same Church, or any Member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue.

As we heard warning in the first reading to the sentinel priest Ezekiel, their blood I will require at your hand. Neglect of Christ’s flock purchased at the price of his own blood is as serious a thing as you can imagine. It has made me as a priest more concerned to feed the sheep than entertain the goats! By that I mean this: we priests very easily get lost among non-churchgoers in our parishes to the exclusion of care for those who actually attend church and developing their gifts of praise and service. 

It’s never been easy to live and teach Christianity, let alone to minister the discipline of Christ. I’ve done my best as a parish priest and continue to do as locum here and through writing, broadcasting and in offering spiritual accompaniment. What I have to say in the rest of the sermon owes a lot to my book on Christian discipleship still available from Bible Reading Fellowship in paperback or on kindle show, ‘Experiencing Christ’s Love - establishing a life of worship, prayer, study, service and reflection

What is the discipline of Christ? How do I teach it?

Attend eucharist every Sunday wherever you are unless very seriously hindered. Pray every day. Read your bible. Serve the needy which includes giving your money to serve God’s work. Confess your sins. 

These five Christian duties - worship, prayer, study, service and reflection - are the basic disciplines Christians are under. We need these disciplines. They’re paralleled by our Muslim sisters and brothers whose Five Pillars consist of knowing their creed,  praying five times each day, giving to the poor and needy, fasting during the month of Ramadan and making pilgrimage to Mecca.

Oh that you and I had the fervour and discipline of Islam!

Back to the scriptures! The Gospel reading makes clear that discipline in the Church isn’t just from the church pastor but fraternal, that is, carried out by church members to the benefit of each other

If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. We are all involved in church discipline and not just the priest. He of course is under a special discipline himself being accountable to God through the Bishop. At St Mary’s and St Richard’s we also have individuals sharing leadership and oversight of our congregation with our parish priest. Whilst Fr David was on holiday the Churchwarden at St Richard’s called me in to minister to a member of the congregation seriously ill in hospital.

If there are sick needing visiting, grieved needing counsel, church members who’ve fallen away or whatever we all share responsibility for them, according to the Gospel. However, according to the first reading and the ordination service, there is a special responsibility that lies with our priests and to a lesser extent lay leadership teams. 

At my ordination the Bishop said these words from St John’s Gospel Chapter 20 echoed at the end of today’s Gospel from Matthew 18: Receive the holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments; In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Awesome words – what dignity, what responsibility! Also behind my preference to be called Father John, since to imagine John Twisleton could do what a priest does is fanciful and irreverent - I can change no bread and wine or penitent heart. 

Please pray for us priests, for all who minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ. Pray that we may carry our office courageously, believe in our priesthood and love our people. May we truly believe Christ’s doctrine, enter more fully into the awe of the sacraments and live more fully under the discipline of Christ so we priests who minister in God’s temple…may say and sing with our lips [what] we believe in our hearts, and show [that faith] forth in our lives.

Today’s Gospel ends with a promise to all Christians which has echoes of the ordination rite. Our Lord says whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Where Christians are united, where they accept a mutual discipline of worship, prayer, study, sacrificial service and confession of sin, the Holy Spirit can come in power among them. Part of that unity is obedience to our leaders in all things lawful and honest, you to me and my fellow priests, we priests to the bishop and the bishop to God. As St Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labour among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 

Indeed may peace be with us, respect for one another, priests and people, and agreement together in a common discipline so that where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, he may be among us. We have heard his word and approach the sacrament but let’s now take a moment to think of and renew commitment to the five Christian  disciplines I mentioned:  Sunday worship, daily prayer, bible study, sacrificial service including giving our money to God’s work and reflection including confession of sin. Let’s pause for a minute and welcome any reminder the Lord has for us as individuals.

John Twisleton Experiencing Christ’s Love BRF 2017 £6.99 ISBN 978 0857 465177 available on Kindle

St John the Evangelist, Burgess Hill Trinity 17 (26B) 26.9.21

‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them’ Numbers 11:29

I remember a cheeky church growth metaphor of a bottle with a cork on it. The cork is labelled ‘Vicar’ with the implication that priests keep the fizz down in churches and the importance for church growth of getting loosened from clericalism.

There’s always a fizz about St John’s but I don’t think it's because you’re Vicar-less! Maybe it's because the Holy Spirit is at work as described in today’s scripture. 

In the passage we heard from Numbers Chapter 11 Moses appointed seventy elders to help him lead God’s people in the wilderness and God gave them some of the Spirit put into Moses. There was a manifestation of prophecy demonstrating the Spirit coming on the seventy just like at Pentecost. This stopped and then two people, Eldad and Medad got the Spirit and prophesied though not members of the seventy Moses had chosen. An overzealous young man tried to get Moses to stop this ‘illegitimate’ manifestation of the Spirit. Moses refused saying what was prophetic in a wider sense, my text which points to Pentecost: ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them’.

‘Does God confine the gift of his Spirit to authorised channels?’ is the question, and it comes up again in the Gospel - indeed the Numbers passage was chosen for today to illuminate Mark 9 verses 38. We read there how Our Lord’s disciples tried to stop someone casting out demons in his name because he was not an obvious, or should we say ‘legitimate’ follower of Jesus. ‘But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me’.

Both Our Lord in the Gospel and Moses in the first reading disown clerical arrogance which sees the Holy Spirit just flowing through the channels they have authorised. God is bigger than the institutions he sets up to help his people function right. God is bigger than the church and can make exceptions we should go along with, but - and it's a contentious ‘but’ - we are bound as a rule to expect the Holy Spirit to flow primarily through the channels he authorises. For us Anglicans the Holy Spirit is known as God’s grace and comes primarily through the church. ‘In what ways do you receive… God’s grace?’ Our Catechism asks and it gives this reply. ‘I receive… grace within the fellowship of the Church, when I worship and pray, when I read the Bible, when I receive the Sacraments, and as I live my daily life to his glory’.

Without bishops and priests we cannot have sacramental grace as the Churchwardens know to their cost, working against the odds sometimes to bring priests in to preach and celebrate the eucharist for us in our vacancy - God shorten that and bring us one after his own heart to serve here as our parish priest!

The second reading from James 5 is as ever independent of the other two readings. It provides us with the origin of the Sacraments of Anointing and Confession. Though described in the catechism as lesser sacraments the Church of England reserves these healing sacraments to those ordained in apostolic orders, namely bishops and priests. ‘Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed’ (James 5:13-16a). The confessing of sin to one another became historically confession to a priest, for practical reasons and linked also to Our Lord’s gift of authority to forgive sins to his apostles and by implication to their successors in John’s Gospel Chapter 20.

Returning to our thinking about the working of the Holy Spirit from the other two readings, we see in the instruction of the apostle James the sacramental role of the elder or priest in ministering healing to the sick: ‘call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord’. That we do - and even in a vacancy church members should know it can be made available after any eucharist - but this sacrament is allied to the prayer of church members. God authorises sacramental channels like the eucharist, confession and anointing which are available to all through bishops and priests. At the same time Our Lord commends intercessory prayer in his name by church members alone or in twos or threes as a powerful vehicle of the Holy Spirit as in John 16:23, ‘if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you’ or in Matthew 18:19, ‘if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven’. This morning we are agreeing together for God to heal those on our sick list and those on it are assembled by church members. As a priest I see people healed again and again when they receive the sacrament of anointing. Sometimes that healing is a death at peace with God. A couple of weeks ago I was called to a dying priest wanting to make his confession. Within hours of the sacrament being administered he passed peacefully to God. Yet I can relate as many of you can relate how God in his faithfulness answers prayers of both the ordained and non-ordained for their needs and for those in their circle. How important such prayer is in our lives!

Our Lord shares authority with the apostles and their successors, just as Moses shared with the Seventy, to bring God’s care further across the world. At the same time today’s scripture is a powerful reminder that, important as apostolic order is, it is inseparable from apostolic vitality in the sense of all Christians being open to being agents of the Holy Spirit through care and through prayer. ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.’ Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people, and kindle in us the fire of your love! 

Sermon at Vespers in St Paul, Haywards Heath on the day of St John Henry Newman’s canonisation 13th October 2019

Love and truth walk in the presence of God, writes the Psalmist (89:14) and so do his saints. Saint John Henry Newman’s walk with God appeals to both heart and mind as expressed in his motto and grave inscription. Cor ad cor loquitur - let heart speak to heart. Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem - from shadows and images into the truth. 

Today the Christian world gives glory to God for raising up an exceptional servant who has moulded Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions up to this day through his teaching and holiness. Both traditions helped form our Saint and both are built up in love and truth through his patronage. I stand here this evening grateful to Newman with millions of fellow Anglicans. Through his influence and that of the Oxford Movement the 1662 Prayer Book Catechism was revised 300 years later in1962 to include this definition. ‘The Church of England is the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed. It proclaims and holds fast the doctrine and ministry of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’.

Our Saint contributed to a recovery of Anglicanism as being in continuity with the early and medieval Church though that perception was so unwelcome in his day as to trigger Newman’s transition to Roman Catholic obedience. I dare to say such a perception is more accepted nowadays even if recent discontinuities in Anglican ministry await the verdict of history.

As a scientist by training, I have always been attracted to Newman whose writings counter what would put a brake on the best forward thinking. His great Apologia affirming both Anglican and Catholic heritage was published 5 years after Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), a story of spiritual evolution complementing Darwin’s thesis on biological evolution. To live is to change Newman wrote and to be perfect is to have changed often. Life is a forward movement we can choose - he chose it - from what Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 as from such shadows and images into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

Our Saint, though aware through his sufferings of life’s sad limitations, is a teacher affirmative of life’s value and dynamic, an ecumenical, forward looking saint whose teaching, love and prayers are with both Churches he belonged to over his long life.   Saint John’s work on church development and how we protect the church from godless innovation to secure godly reform came into its own at the time of the Second Vatican Council of which he’s been called patron This through his stress on the centrality of Christ and the dignity of the laity and their role in keeping the Church faithful to God’s truth. What Catholics, what Church doctors, as well as Apostles, have ever lived on, he wrote, is not any number of theological canons or decrees, but ... Christ Himself, as He is represented in concrete existence in the Gospels.      In those words Newman speaks true to his Evangelical Anglican upbringing about the centrality of Christ to Christian experience which is at the heart of the reshaping in emphasis within Roman Catholic teaching expressed in the decrees of Vatican II.

Our Saint was always ready to defend dogma, the fence alongside the well trodden path of Christian believing, but intellectual formulation of Christianity was second to his warm hearted approach to God. His motto Cor ad cor loquitur expresses this, let heart speak to heart. Newman teaches us holiness is the best guide to the science of God, not argument, as in his hymn Lead, kindly light. There he speaks of surrendering rational choice, fears, and pride to be opened up to a fuller vision by the light of the Holy Spirit. This poem written during a health crisis admits the importance of the trials of life in leading us into more certain faith. Whereas scientific research reaches conclusions by appeal to the necessary and unchanging, human action by contrast works beyond logic. Certitude is moral not intellectual and its shown in humble determination to head from shadows and images into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

To Newman church development and reform is rooted in such individual transformation, under the authority of both the faith of the church through the ages and the golden thread of spiritual direction reaching down the Christian centuries. Faith is nurtured from discipleship, from upholding in our lives worship, prayer, study, service and reflection. Such disciplines express our choice to be nurtured in holiness by and with those who have sought and today seek the Holy Spirit within the Christian Church. Newman found such a community at Littlemore and later on in the Oratory of St Philip Neri he founded in Birmingham and London. 

When our Saint decided to make his transition into communion with the See of Rome, his Anglican friend, Edward Pusey observed wisely of the separation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics: ‘it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart’.
 Today’s Canonisation is both a celebration and a challenge. The Church’s mission to the world is damaged by its spiritual immaturity expressed in its divisions even if there are friendships across denominational divides. 

It is appropriate to recall Anne and my friendships with many here at St Paul’s through our 18 years in Haywards Heath or nearby Horsted Keynes. The recent loss to Christine and all of you of Deacon Gerard Irwin was our loss as well. Over recent years I recall heart-warming occasions like the 24-7 prayer in St Paul’s Hall in 2004, Churches Together events in the Dolphin Leisure Centre and bridge building occasions fostered by charismatic renewal and the True Life in God apostolic network. I’m delighted to hear of a new venture of ecumenical prayer starting at St Paul’s and we hope to be part of it.

As someone who attends Mass at St Richard’s and here on occasion Saint John is my patron. I yearn for the visible unity of the Church to complement the spiritual unity expressed tonight. ‘We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord’ - but let’s not stay there, as the song continues, ‘and we pray that all unity may one day be restored’. Why? So that Our Lord’s prayer for us in John 17:21 can be answered: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me’.

That prayer and task is ours for the good of Haywards Heath and the world. In such an aspiration, heart will speak to heart as we invoke our new Saint trusting God for many among us to be drawn from shadows and images into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

Trinity 12 (23rd of Year A) Discipline 7th September 2014

At my ordination as a priest 37 years ago the Bishop asked me this question in Sheffield Cathedral: Will you give your faithful diligence … to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded?

I replied with the others: I will so do, by the help of the Lord.

This commitment came back to me as I looked through the readings for Trinity 12 that focus on church discipline.  The reading from Ezekiel Chapter 33 reminds the prophet of his watchman role which connects with the gospel passage from Matthew 18 with its instruction about fraternal correction in the Church.

The reformed Christian tradition of which the Church of England is part emphasizes discipline alongside word and sacrament as foundational to church life. At their ordination therefore priests and bishops commit themselves to teach, lead worship and pastor the flocks committed to them.

Among other words from the ordination service that stick with me – I read them every year before the renewal of priestly vows at the Chrism eucharist with the diocesan Bishop in Holy Week – are these: Have always… printed in your remembrance how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve is his Spouse, and his Body. And if it shall happen the same Church, or any Member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue.

As we heard warning in the first reading to the sentinel priest Ezekiel their blood I will require at your hand. Neglect of Christ’s flock purchased at the price of his own blood is as serious a thing as you can imagine. It has made me a priest more concerned to feed the sheep than entertain the goats. Not that it’s easy to do so, to teach Christianity, let alone to minister the discipline of Christ. It would be more attractive to prop up the bar at the Green Man, not that goats are only found in pubs! And, if I’m honest, the Green Man has no Harvey’s!

What is the discipline of Christ? How do I teach it?

Pray every day. Read your bible. Attend eucharist every Sunday wherever you are unless very seriously hindered. Confess your sins. Give your money to serve God’s work.

These five Christian duties are the basic disciplines Christians are under which I announce to you irregularly. I also announce Feast Days but rarely do I encourage you to fast on Fridays though I do so now. As Sunday’s meal is resurrection festive Friday’s  simple fare honours Jesus who died for us.

We need these disciplines. They’re paralleled by our Muslim sisters and brothers whose Five Pillars consist of knowing their creed,  praying five times each day, giving to the poor and needy, fasting during the month of Ramadan and making pilgrimage to Mecca.

Oh that you and I had the fervour and discipline of Islam!

Back to the scriptures! The Gospel reading makes clear that discipline in the Church isn’t just from the church pastor but fraternal, that is carried and promoted by all church members. If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. We are all involved in church discipline and not just the priest. He of course is under a special discipline himself being accountable to God through the Bishop. At St Giles we have a Churchwarden, David Lamb, a lay officer of the Bishop, with me, sharing leadership and oversight of our congregation.

If there are sick needing visiting, grieved needing counsel, church members who’ve fallen away or whatever we all share responsibility for them, according to the Gospel. However, according to the first reading and the ordination service, there is a special responsibility that lies with the priest and to a lesser extent the Churchwarden.

At my ordination the Bishop said these words from St John’s Gospel Chapter 20 echoed at the end of today’s Gospel from Matthew 18: Receive the holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments; In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Awesome words – what dignity, what responsibility! Also behind my preference to be called Father John since to imagine John Twisleton could do what a priest does is fanciful and irreverent for I can change no bread and wine or penitent heart.

Tomorrow I go to the University of Kent with the 300 licensed priests of our diocese for our clergy conference. Please pray for us, for me and for all who minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ. Pray that we may believe in our priesthood and love our people.

May we truly believe Christ’s doctrine, enter more fully into the awe of the sacraments and live more fully under the discipline of Christ so we priests who minister in God’s temple…may say and sing with our lips [what] we believe in our hearts, and show [that faith] forth in our lives.

Today’s  Gospel ends with a promise to all Christians which has echoes of the ordination rite. Our Lord says whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Where Christians are united, where they accept a mutual discipline of prayer, devotion to God’s word, attendance at the eucharist, mutual forgiveness and sacrificial giving the Holy Spirit can come in power among them. Part of that unity is obedience to our leaders in all things lawful and honest, you to me and me to the bishop. As St Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labour among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 

Indeed may peace be with us, respect for one another, priest and people, and agreement together in a common discipline so that where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, he may be among us. We have heard his word and approach the sacrament but let’s now take a moment to think of and renew commitment to the five Christian  disciplines I mentioned:  daily prayer, reading our bible, Sunday eucharist, confession of our sins and giving money to serve God’s work.