Trinity 17 Mark 9.30-37 Church of Ascension, Haywards Heath 23 September 2018

We’ve now reached the middle section of Mark’s gospel we’ve been following in Year B of the liturgical cycle since Advent. It’s a Gospel you can read in a hurry of a Jesus in a hurry – the shortest Gospel of a man with a mission! When you pick up Mark – here’s a copy – you see he’s no time for genealogies and birth narratives, angels, shepherds and wise men. For Mark on p1 its straight in – this is the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Repent and believe! It’s real and it matters.

Today engaging with that reality we’ve moved from p1 to p27, half way through the 52 pages of this paperback Mark’s Gospel, the ninth of the 16 Chapters and verse 30 which I will repeat:

After leaving the mountain 30 Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;

• Move forwards with Jesus from the Transfiguration to Calvary: Jesus the great trail blazer making human beings a joyful path to God.
• Crowd falls back to leave Jesus with disciples and the business of deepening their discipleship.
• Marcan secrecy: one commentator: humility to not wish a great fanfare about his obviously successful ministry. His directives to silence about his great accomplishments may be no more than an example to the faithful not to blow their own horns. It proves the reliability of the Gospel as it’s hard to imagine a made up story of Jesus with such emphasis.

31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

• First chapters show us who Jesus is. Now, moving into why God sent him and what it means to us as disciples we have a second prediction of the passion following last Sunday’s in Chapter 8.
• Paradoxes – things that contradict in logic to be held together in experience. Creation (out of nothing ), Trinity (Unity) founded on life (through death) = Son of Man (Son of God).
• Jesus not a physically compelling Messiah but a suffering servant and morally compelling Saviour. A sign of contradiction – I think of the courageous disabled people who speak out to counter attempts to introduce legislation for Assisted Dying which make shallow judgments about the quality and worthwhileness of life, implying disability is a grounds for killing yourself.
• 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’ Ann Voskamp ‘I wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the beauty of Christ’.

      33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

• Post-Transfiguration jealousies set disciples against one another

• Jesus sees into their and our hearts - can show up what’s needful, especially they sin of pride
• Alexander Schmemann - the signs of pride are: the absence of joy, complexity and fear. Signs of humility: joy, simplicity, trust
• Those who serve others have a joy about them, they are the greatest
• How do we get there? ‘Know yourself, love yourself, forget yourself’ (the discipline of Christian meditation which takes us out of ourselves in contemplation – encouragement of last week’s Week of Guided Prayer)

36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

• Paradox of child centred society cf ancient culture and many other cultures which gave or give children no legal rights. Christian legacy.
• Striking act of Jesus to take the most powerless and exalt them
• Who are the powerless around us? Who are those most in need of our help? Those without money – FSW summer holiday scheme run by workers, 7 to 11 this autumn. Those who can’t leave room or home through age or disability. Refugees. The young struggling for a job….
• Last verse shows Jesus before us in the powerless: Whoever welcomes one such ....in my name welcomes me. Cf Matthew 25 Jesus ‘in the least ’
• To see this we need the insight, or spectacles of holy scripture: 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’
• We need the sense of Jesus before us that the eucharist schools us in.
• Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ upon his throne of glory, in the holy scriptures, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, in the hearts of the needy and in the hearts of all his faithful people.

Ascension, Haywards Heath 3rd June 2018

Let’s have another look at our first reading which you can find in the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians Chapter 4 verses 5 to 12. It starts with an awesome description in verses 5 and 6 of what it is to be Christian.

We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Paul writes out of hardship with humility coupled to abundant confidence. As the light of Christ first shone upon him on the Damascus Road it still shines only not just upon him as he seeks the Lord but through him, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. A wonderful phrase! Behind its poetry is a recognition of the miracle of our new birth in Jesus Christ. The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ at creation, who gave us life at our conception and birth has shone in our hearts in Jesus Christ to grant us his life. It’s a light that shines forth from us and from this light house community of the Ascension.

God who brought us to life brought us into being with ability to open our hearts to him and receive his life. You and I are welcoming that life, that love afresh this morning in Holy Communion! Oh that more hearts in Haywards Heath would open to God in whom we find reason and purpose for life, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Let’s read on in v7:

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

Does this verse need commentary? To be a Christian is to have both confidence and humility. Confidence in God and humility before him. I have a little clay lamp with a light that can burn within it which reminds me of how this flesh which is clay destined as ashes to be part of the earth gets lit up, lit up by the light of Christ. It’s very often when I’m feeling most frail that God shows his extraordinary power in me and through me. My self-sufficiency all too often undermines my Christianity. I don’t want to practise God’s presence hour by hour though I try! The Jesus Prayer is a great help - do you know it - Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. It’s a prayer from the church catholic, from the faith of the church through the ages, with evangelical simplicity and it brings charismatic empowerment. It describes the treasure - Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God and how it's placed in me as the fragile clay jar that I am. Have mercy on me a sinner. I need the treasure. - or confidence in Jesus - but without humility, without knowing my need of him its brilliance won’t be shown in my life, that light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Search your soul this morning - am I confident in God? Am I humble with that confidence? Well if you’re not - and few are fully - God has a way of humbling us. Let’s read the rest of the passage, verses 8 to 12.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

These awesome words are written by Paul from the crucible of Christian work. They hand on how Christians get formed by the humiliation of suffering and the grace of resurrection always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  As Christians we travel to God like anyone else through suffering and joy but with the difference of thankfulness for the joy and assurance of God’s love in the suffering. Our Lord who’s the Way has trodden that way before us and expects nothing of us he’s not been through himself which is one message of Holy Week.

As Christians we don’t expect to be dragged backwards to God at our death but to be more and more at ease with the forward movement of life - even if it brings increased frailty, loss of mobility and the need to depend on others. The passion of Our Lord takes the strain as we give our pain to him. As a priest I’ve been particularly privileged to come close to holy people regular at the Eucharist who’ve voiced to me the power of this service as we struggle with disability, offering it up to be part of Christ’s Sacrifice as we seek Our Lord in this Most Holy Sacrament of his suffering, death and resurrection.

For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Paul speaks of how his humiliations help bring him into spiritual resurrection.

My faith journey took a downturn some years back which was a humiliation especially being a priest. God seemed a long way off. I went to talk to a Mirfield monk. ‘Maybe God’s not gone but your vision of him’ was the advice. ‘Seek the Holy Spirit for a vision more to God’s dimensions and less to your own’. I did seek and I did experience the renewing power of the Holy Spirit which was something of a resurrection of faith. When I came back from Mirfield to the parish I was alive again with some sort of charismatic empowerment that’s never fully left me. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You and I, each one of us are on a journey with Our Lord who is himself the way.  On that journey keeping close to him in his passion and resurrection sweetens our sorrow and deepens our joy, as does the fellowship we have with one another in God’s holy Church. It’s my privilege now to be on your journey as a community in this special time,  a time of challenge and also a time of blessing.

Keep your confidence in God coupled to humility. Seek the Holy Spirit for a vision of God more to his dimensions and less to your own current vision. Be heartened for the ongoing journey of faith which will one day, as it has for many we love but see no longer, vanish into sight. Then, when every tear is wiped away we shall see God as he is. We shall become like him and praise him for all eternity.

O Christ whom now beneath the veil - of bread and wine - we see, may what we thirst for soon our portion be, to gaze on thee unveiled and see thy face, the vision of thy glory and thy grace.

Grant us, Lord, a share in the passion and resurrection of your Only Begotten Son so that we may merit to behold you for all eternity.

Trinity Sunday at Ascension, Haywards Heath 27th May 2018

Today we celebrate the revelation of God as an eternal fellowship of love, three persons equal in majesty, undivided in splendour, yet one God.

The doctrine of the most holy and undivided Trinity is challenging, relevant, intriguing and essential – four headings to steer our delving this morning into foundational truth and life.

Firstly it’s a challenge. Reason takes you so far in Christianity. We could never have invented God in three persons, it’s revealed truth. Then you have the question of weighing other revelations – Islam and Hinduism besides the Judaism from which the Trinitarian revelation came.

Preachers go on leave this Sunday for fear of a seemingly cold, calculated, mathematical doctrine. Three in one and one in three. Why three? Why not one, says Islam, why not more says Hinduism, why not none says the atheist mocking our feeble attempts to get our mind round God three in one.

There’s the challenge set before us in Trinitarian faith but that challenge is based upon historical events. These clearly reveal the nature of God in the coming of Jesus, whose death and resurrection we’ve been following up to Ascension Day, and the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost day. It’s a challenge that might lead you to the church library or the internet so you can better answer for your faith to those who believe in one God, no God or many gods as opposed to one God in three persons.

Secondly the doctrine of the Trinity is utterly relevant. How good it was to see the countercultural coverage on marriage last weekend since marriage as a union of life-giving love points us, because human beings are in the image of God, to God who is himself a union of life-giving love. Keeping true to ourselves as human beings, and true to the life-giving nature of marriage is keeping true to God no less, God as he has revealed himself to us.  God as love within himself. How could God be so without the distinction of persons within him?

Challenging, relevant – thirdly the doctrine of God should be intriguing. The eternal fellowship of love that is God draws us in to himself. What after all is the Church for other than to serve God’s purpose to bring as many souls on earth as possible into fellowship with him?

The doctrine of the Trinity is revealed first of all in Our Lord’s coming into a human family with Mary and Joseph, into village life in Nazareth, then into the missionary partnership of the disciples. That divine society continues after his resurrection and the gift of the Spirit as one, holy catholic and apostolic church which is God’s never-ending family!

How intriguing God is, and we are. If you want evidence for God look in the mirror and read Psalm 8 You have made (us) little lower than the angels and crown (us) with glory and honour. More than that, a human being in isolation isn’t a true human for, in John Donne’s words, no man is an island. What’s intriguing about God as divine society mirrors what we find intriguing about ourselves, namely our desire for society and friendship. This desire will be fully satisfied only in the communion of saints who can be thought of as standing near God as a corona or crown around the sun.

Challenging, relevant, intriguing – lastly the Trinitarian doctrine of God is essential.

It is essential because Christianity is a religion of salvation and that salvation stands or falls on the divinity of Jesus Christ. We read Jesus words in the Gospel all that belongs to the Father is mine…the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you (John 16:15) Does my eternal destiny depend on my own good works, lacking as they are, or on a relationship freely offered me by God in his Son?

In Jesus do we really meet with God himself? That, as they say, is the twenty four thousand dollar question hidden behind keeping a feast day for the Blessed Trinity.This doctrine might sound cold and mathematical but it follows a logic of love, love beyond all measure, extravagant, unconditional love for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ so that all who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

To believe this is to believe God isn’t One but One God in three persons.

It’s challenging to so believe – God is God and has revealed himself this way and not another way.

It’s relevant - the way we see God affects the way we see ourselves and steers us from unworthy pursuits.

It’s intriguing because the loving fellowship of God in three persons chimes in with our sociable nature and draws it to joyful completion in the communion of saints

It’s essential doctrine because without it the divinity of Christ falls, the word of God is emptied of power and the sacraments become empty ritual as God’s coming to us in Jesus and the Spirit is denied.

May all I have shared enrich the eucharist we now offer through, with and in Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all might, majesty, dominion and power now and for evermore. Amen.