St Mary, Balcombe Queen’s Requiem 11.9.22

Introduction

We come to Church this morning in sorrow at the passing of Queen Elizabeth. 

We come thankful to God for a lifetime of service and a reign that framed our lives. 

We bow our heads at her memory and lift them to pray ‘God save the King!’

As we follow the Requiem Eucharist, authorised by the Archbishops, for our late Queen, we begin by calling to mind our failings in thought, word, deed and omission seeking forgiveness from the Lord who is Elizabeth’s and ours.

Sermon

The choice of Lamentations Chapter 3 and John Chapter 6 for this unique Eucharist expresses grief alongside the consolation of faith we are granted as Christians who share this morning the holy bread of eternal life. 

‘Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love’ we heard from the book of Lamentations. ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry’ we heard from St John’s Gospel. 

We feel grief akin to losing a mother - Elizabeth was the nation’s mother for 70 years - and we bow our heads before God. The same lady, supreme governor of the Church of England, lived, as many of us live, hungry for God with hunger satisfied weekly by the bread of life. We bow our heads in grief but lift them to the Lord this morning as we receive Holy Communion or a blessing. 

Today all are welcome at the altar as we seek consolation from God who took Elizabeth, graciously and gently in her 96th year, to himself and to union in Christ with her beloved Philip. May they rest in peace and rise in glory!

Today we give thanks for Queen Elizabeth, mindful of both her example of service and her strong Christian faith. Well aware of the fame she had throughout her life she made this observation: ‘Jesus Christ lived obscurely for most of his life. . . He was maligned and rejected by many, though he had done no wrong. And yet, billions of people now follow his teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them’.

Responding to the news of the Queen’s death at Balmoral on Thursday the Archbishop of Canterbury said these words: ‘As a faithful Christian disciple, and also Supreme Governor of the Church of England, she lived out her faith every day of her life. Her trust in God and profound love for God was foundational in how she led her life – hour by hour, day by day’.

Our Bishop, Fr Martin Warner, wrote this: ‘Thanks be to God for the life of his servant, Queen Elizabeth II. Her death is a moment of bereavement for the whole nation, and for the Commonwealth.  She will remain in our hearts and minds as an exceptional example of public duty and commitment to her high calling, carried out with unswerving faith in God. Let us come together as a nation to mark her death with dignity and pride. Our prayers are with those who have been close to her in the service of the crown over many years, together with all the members of the Royal Family as we pray for the new Sovereign, King Charles III’.

So indeed we come together as a nation and gather here from this village, ‘to mark her death with dignity and pride’. I wish to thank on our behalf those at St Mary’s who dropped everything these last three days to prepare this service so we can gather with solemnity to pray rest for the Queen’s soul, express thanksgiving for her life of service and salute our Sovereign Lord, King Charles as he begins his reign.

As I reflected further on today’s set readings and the character of the Queen, the verses that leapt out at me were Lamentations 3:25-6 ‘The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord’. There’s been an enigmatic silence about Queen Elizabeth. This has been prudent, yes, because some of the things about her - all the privilege - and that have occurred around her - Margaret, Diana, Andrew, Harry, Meghan and so on - have been hard for her to address. A prudent silence, undoubtedly,  but also a courageous silence, holding back from putting the record straight. Waiting, silence, looking to God to be your ultimate champion, knowing when to speak and when not to speak are virtues we should covet in a world so ready to speak and speak and speak - given the extraordinary expansion of the media over her lifetime. Such humble silences have been at the heart of our late Queen’s character, a capacity to submit the pains and humiliations of life to God without complaint. As a prayer of Eric Milner-White expresses it to God: ‘Pains... become pure grace of thy giving if offered up in prayer and shouldered to thy praise’. We deceive ourselves if we think we can serve without the self denial represented by eating our words many a time. Taking up the Cross is a shouldering of little humiliations given us by life so they break the ego’s shackle around us and help incorporate us into God’s own mercifulness as we pray for the people linked to our hour by hour frustrations. 

This now is our prayer, as, with sorrow and thanksgiving, we come to God in this historic Requiem for Queen Elizabeth.  ‘Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love… I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry’. As we reflect upon this scripture we bring Mozart to our aid as we pray for Elizabeth the Ave Verum: ‘Hail, true body, born of the Virgin Mary, who truly suffered, sacrificed on the Cross for us, whose pierced side overflowed with water and blood, be for us [and for her] a foretaste in the test of death’.

Ascension & St Richard, Haywards Heath Salvation - Gift, Promise, Choice John 6 1.8.21

 

Has anyone ever asked you if you were saved? How would you answer?

This morning's Gospel has a lot to say about salvation and what it is to be saved. This month on Sundays we’re reading through the 6th Chapter of St. John's Gospel, a chapter that ends with Peter's famous summary: Lord, to whom shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Salvation, eternal life, is a gift, a promise and a choice - three headings gathering up the teaching of St. John Chapter 6 - so we'll take them one by one!

1. The Gift

Looking over the whole Chapter we see a tremendous emphasis on the wonder and mystery of the gift of Jesus.

The chapter starts with a tale of miraculous feeding. Five thousand are fed - an image of overflowing, wondrous grace.

Then Jesus begins to make many points about this sign, bringing out not just the meaning of that lunch in Tiberias but the ultimate meaning of all things - and how we can enter into that.

The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world he says in the passage we read this morning, v33.

The multiplication of the loaves represents the abundance of life-giving grace that has come to the earth.

Who is the bread of God? He answers in the passage we will hear next week, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever. v51.

What a gift! To live for ever! Always we are longing, we human beings. We long for security, for love, for identity, for purpose and reason for life - and here it is, all of that for which we long, offered at last - through the great mystery of Jesus, God come to earth, lifting earthbound beings to live with him for ever!

To be saved is to welcome the gift of Jesus, the Bread of Heaven. The passage on the Heavenly Bread interprets and brings out the full meaning of the gift we welcome in this service week by week.

Can there be a passage in the Bible which speaks more strongly about the need to participate in the Eucharist than verse 53 of St. John Chapter 6: Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Salvation is about welcoming Jesus - and what he has done by the separating of his body and blood in sacrifice. It is a gift given for us in the coming to earth, dying and rising of Jesus. You can't be saved, says Jesus, by contemplating your navel, by the vague religiosity of crystals and New Age, or even by our efforts for justice and peace, admirable as they are - but by welcoming the gift of Christ into our souls 

Salvation is presented there as a gift - and also, secondly as a promise.

2. The Promise

You have the words of eternal life says Peter at the end of the chapter. He is confirming his understanding of the earlier teaching where Jesus makes it clear that when we welcome him we also inherit a promise, the promise of eternal life: Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life

When someone asks you if you are saved they are really touching on whether you feel sure that your life will not be lost when you die.

Are you sure?  Do you know that you have eternal life?

I remember someone rather surprisingly asking a holy and thoughtful priest whether he believed in God.  There was a long pause.  Finally the wise old man replied - I'm not sure, but I'm sure of this - that God believes in me. Those humble, thoughtful words back away from arrogant certainty and they reach powerfully into our spirits.

We may lack belief but that doesn't stop God believing in us. We may be unworthy of salvation - but that does not stop God promising it! If I know I am saved it is because God has promised it to believers and I believe God - I trust God to keep his word to me - the key is knowing the promise.

Evangelism is about spreading good news, which means letting people know about the gift and the promises of God so that they can choose for themselves to believe - which brings us onto the last heading.

3. The Choice

At the end of this sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel we read in v60 that many of the followers of Jesus said, "This is intolerable language.  How could anyone accept it? And they choose to leave Jesus. He then says to the Twelve later in the passage: What about you, do you want to go away too? 

When we contemplate the mystery of Christ we should be profoundly moved, awed by the generosity of God in sending his Son to save us and then giving us the choice of whether we accept him or not. This is awesome - for us to be given a choice.  Awesome, but also perilous for us to be so honoured with freedom to choose in a matter affecting our eternal welfare. There is a further mystery of how God himself seems to make a hidden choice of those who do respond positively to him, so that our choice of God is almost pre-empted by his choice of us.

What a wonder and a mystery - the choices of God! We are saved by choice not by chance. No one has a right to heaven.  You may think you're as good as the next person - but what does that matter when we are talking about having eternal life with God? Who are we, so full of deceit and inadequacy, made of the dust of the earth, full of frailty, to be worthy of God in his holiness? 

Only by God's gift and his promise - and our choice of him.

Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

To whom can we go?  There is one giver of salvation who gives us today his flesh and blood as life to our spirit!

You have the words of eternal life  You, Jesus, Bread of Life, promise us through our communion with you a quality of life that is in its nature unending.

And we believe Given such a gift and such a promise the choice is ours, to live not by chance but by a definite choice, a choice for Jesus our Saviour, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Salvation - Gift, Promise, Choice St Mary, Buxted John 6 19th Aug 2018

Has anyone ever asked you if you were saved? How would you answer?

This morning's Gospel has a lot to say about salvation and what it is to be saved. These last few weeks we’ve been reading through the 6th Chapter of St. John's Gospel, a chapter that ends with Peter's famous summary: Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Salvation, eternal life, is a gift, a promise and a choice - three headings gathering up the teaching of St. John Chapter 6 - so we'll take them one by one!

The Gift

Looking over the whole Chapter we see a tremendous emphasis on the wonder and mystery of the gift of Jesus.

The chapter starts with a tale of miraculous feeding. Five thousand are fed - an image of overflowing, wondrous grace.

Then Jesus begins to make many points about this sign, bringing out not just the meaning of that lunch in Tiberias but the ultimate meaning of all things - and how we can enter into that.

The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world he says in the passage we read two weeks ago, v33.

The multiplication of the loaves represents the abundance of life-giving grace that has come to the earth.

Who is the bread of God? He answers, I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever. v51.

What a gift! To live for ever! Always we are longing, we human beings. We long for security, for love, for identity, for purpose and reason for life - and here it is, all of that for which we long, offered at last - through the great mystery of Jesus, God come to earth, lifting earthbound beings to live with him for ever!

To be saved is to welcome the gift of Jesus, the Bread of Heaven. The passage on the Heavenly Bread interprets and brings out the full meaning of the gift we welcome in this service week by week.

Can there be a passage in the Bible which speaks more strongly about the need to participate in the Eucharist than verse 53 of St. John Chapter 6 just read to us: I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.

Salvation is about welcoming Jesus - and what he has done by the separating of his body and blood in sacrifice. It is a gift given for us in the coming to earth, dying and rising of Jesus. You can't be saved, says Jesus, by contemplating your navel, by the vague religiosity of crystals and New Age, or even by our efforts for justice and peace, admirable as they are - but by welcoming the gift of Christ into our souls

Salvation is presented there as a gift - and also, secondly as a promise.

The Promise

You have the message of eternal life says Peter at the end of the chapter.

He is confirming his understanding of the earlier teaching where Jesus makes it clear that when we welcome him we also inherit a promise,

the promise of eternal life: Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my

blood has eternal life

When someone asks you if you are saved they are really touching on whether you feel sure that your life will not be lost when you die.

Are you sure?  Do you know that you have eternal life?

I remember someone rather surprisingly asking a holy and thoughtful priest whether he believed in God.  There was a long pause. Finally the wise old man replied - I'm not sure, but I'm sure of this - that God believes in me. Those humble, thoughtful words back away from arrogant certainty and they reach powerfully into our spirits.

We may lack belief but that doesn't stop God believing in us. We may be unworthy of salvation - but that does not stop God promising it! If I know I am saved it is because God has promised it to believers and I believe God - I trust God to keep his word to me - the key is knowing the promise.

Evangelism is about spreading good news, which means letting people know about the gift and the promises of God so that they can choose for themselves to believe - which brings us onto the last heading.

The Choice

At the end of this sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel we read in v60 that many of the followers of Jesus said, "This is intolerable language.  How could anyone accept it? And they choose to leave Jesus. He then says to the Twelve later in the passage: What about you, do you want to go away too?

When we contemplate the mystery of Christ we should be profoundly moved, awed by the generosity of God in sending his Son to save us and then giving us the choice of whether we accept him or not.

This is awesome - for us to be given a choice.  Awesome, but also perilous for us to be so honoured with freedom to choose in a matter affecting our eternal welfare.

There is a further mystery of how God himself seems to make a hidden choice of those who do respond positively to him, so that our choice of God is almost pre-empted by his choice of us.

What a wonder and a mystery - the choices of God! We are saved by choice not by chance. No one has a right to heaven.  You may think you're as good as the next person - but what does that matter when we are talking about having eternal life with God? Who are we, so full of deceit and inadequacy, made of the dust of the earth, full of frailty, to be worthy of God in his holiness?

Only by God's gift and his promise - and our choice of him.

Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Who shall we go to?  There is one giver of salvation who gives us today his flesh and blood as life to our spirit!

You have the message of eternal life  You, Jesus, Bread of Life, promise us through our communion with you a quality of life that is in its nature unending.

And we believe Given such a gift and such a promise the choice is ours, to live not by chance but by a definite choice, a choice for Jesus our Saviour, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Salvation - Gift, Promise, Choice John 6 Trinity10 (19B) Salvation 9th Aug 15

Has anyone ever asked you if you were saved? How would you answer?

I was visiting the other day. Someone was sharing problems but he set them against what he called ‘the happy go lucky attitude’ he had because he knew, in the end, everything would work out. He knew he was saved.

This came back to me as I looked at this morning's Gospel which has a lot to say about salvation and what it is to be saved. These last few weeks we've been reading through the sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel, a chapter that ends with Peter's famous summary: Lord, to whom shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Salvation, eternal life, is a gift, a promise and a choice - three headings gathering up the teaching of St John Chapter 6 - so we'll take them one by one!

1.                  The Gift

Looking over the whole Chapter we see a tremendous emphasis on the wonder and mystery of the gift of Jesus.

The chapter starts with a tale of miraculous feeding. Five thousand are fed - an image of overflowing, wondrous grace.

Then Jesus begins to make many points about this sign, bringing out not just the meaning of that lunch in Tiberias but the ultimate meaning of all things - and how we can enter into that.

The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world he says in the passage we read last week, v33.

The multiplication of the loaves represents the abundance of life-giving grace that has come to the earth.

Who is the bread of God? He answers at the start and end of today’s gospel v35: I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty and the end sentence v51: Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. .

What a gift! To live for ever! Always we are longing, we human beings. We long for security, for love, for identity, for purpose and reason for life - and here it is, all of that for which we long, offered at last - through the great mystery of Jesus, God come to earth, lifting earthbound beings to live with him for ever!

To be saved is to welcome the gift of Jesus, the Bread of Heaven. The passage on the Heavenly Bread interprets and brings out the full meaning of the gift we welcome in this service week by week.

Can there be a passage in the Bible which speaks more strongly about the need to participate in the Eucharist than verse 53 of St. John Chapter 6 just after today’s section: Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Salvation is about welcoming Jesus - and what he has done by the separating of his body and blood in sacrifice. It is a gift given for us in the coming to earth, dying and rising of Jesus. You can't be saved, says Jesus, by contemplating your navel, by the vague religiosity of crystals and New Age, or even by our efforts for justice and peace, admirable as they are - but by welcoming the gift of Christ into our souls

Salvation is presented here as a gift - and also, secondly as a promise.

2.                  The Promise

You have the words of eternal life says Peter at the end of the chapter. He is confirming his understanding of the earlier teaching where Jesus makes it clear that when we welcome him we also inherit a promise, the promise of eternal life: Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my

blood has eternal life

When someone asks you if you are saved they are really touching on whether you feel sure that your life will not be lost when you die.

Are you sure?  Do you know that you have eternal life?

St Cyril of Jerusalem speaking to those preparing for Christian initiation in the 4^th century said we have no modest aim, but the gaining of eternal life… we endure everything that we may gain that life from the Lord… the Father is life really and truly. Through the Son he pours forth upon all in the Holy Spirit the gifts of heaven as from a fountain. The experience of salvation is to be playfully ‘happy go lucky’ under that fountain. It’s taking God at his word when he promises you something.

I remember someone rather surprisingly asking a holy and thoughtful priest whether he believed in God.  There was a long pause.  Finally the wise old man replied - I'm not sure, but I'm sure of this - that God believes in me. Those humble, thoughtful words back away from arrogant certainty and they reach powerfully into our spirits.

We may lack belief but that doesn't stop God believing in us. We may be unworthy of salvation - but that does not stop God promising it! If I know I am saved it is because God has promised it to believers and I believe God - I trust God to keep his word to me - the key is knowing the promise.

Evangelism is about spreading good news, which means letting people know about the gift and the promises of God so that they can choose for themselves to believe - which brings us onto the last heading.

3.                  The Choice

At the end of this sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel we read in v60 that many of the followers of Jesus said, "This is intolerable language.  How could anyone accept it? And they choose to leave Jesus. He then says to the Twelve later in the passage: What about you, do you want to go away too?

When we contemplate the mystery of Christ we should be profoundly moved, awed by the generosity of God in sending his Son to save us and then giving us the choice of whether we accept him or not.

This is awesome - for us to be given a choice.  Awesome, but also perilous for us to be so honoured with freedom to choose in a matter affecting our eternal welfare.

There is a further mystery of how God himself seems to make a hidden choice of those who do respond positively to him, so that our choice of God is almost pre-empted by his choice of us.

What a wonder and a mystery - the choices of God! We are saved by choice not by chance. No one has a right to heaven.  You may think you're as good as the next person - but what does that matter when we are talking about having eternal life with God? Who are we, so full of deceit and inadequacy, made of the dust of the earth, full of frailty, to be worthy of God in his holiness?

Only by God's gift and his promise - and our choice of him.

Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

To whom can we go?  There is one giver of salvation who gives us today his flesh and blood as life to our spirit!

You have the words of eternal life. You, Jesus, Bread of Life, promise us through our communion with you a quality of life that is in its nature unending. 

And we believe Given such a gift and such a promise the choice is ours, to live not by chance but by a definite choice, a choice for Jesus our Saviour, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Salvation - Gift, Promise, Choice John 6 Trinity 11 19th August 2012

Has anyone ever asked you if you were saved? How would you answer?

This morning's Gospel has a lot to say about salvation and what it is to be saved. These last few weeks we’ve been reading through the 6th Chapter of St. John's Gospel, a chapter that ends with Peter's famous summary: Lord, to whom shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.

Salvation, eternal life, is a gift, a promise and a choice - three headings gathering up the teaching of St. John Chapter 6 - so we'll take them one by one!

1. The Gift

Looking over the whole Chapter we see a tremendous emphasis on the wonder and mystery of the gift of Jesus.

The chapter starts with a tale of miraculous feeding. Five thousand are fed - an image of overflowing, wondrous grace.

Then Jesus begins to make many points about this sign, bringing out not just the meaning of that lunch in Tiberias but the ultimate meaning of all things - and how we can enter into that.

The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world he says in the passage we read two weeks ago, v33.

The multiplication of the loaves represents the abundance of life-giving grace that has come to the earth.

Who is the bread of God? He answers, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever. v51.

What a gift! To live for ever! Always we are longing, we human beings. We long for security, for love, for identity, for purpose and reason for life - and here it is, all of that for which we long, offered at last - through the great mystery of Jesus, God come to earth, lifting earthbound beings to live with him for ever!

To be saved is to welcome the gift of Jesus, the Bread of Heaven. The passage on the Heavenly Bread interprets and brings out the full meaning of the gift we welcome in this service week by week.

Can there be a passage in the Bible which speaks more strongly about the need to participate in the Eucharist than verse 53 of St. John Chapter 6 just read to us: Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Salvation is about welcoming Jesus - and what he has done by the separating of his body and blood in sacrifice. It is a gift given for us in the coming to earth, dying and rising of Jesus. You can't be saved, says Jesus, by contemplating your navel, by the vague religiosity of crystals and New Age, or even by our efforts for justice and peace, admirable as they are - but by welcoming the gift of Christ into our souls

Salvation is presented there as a gift - and also, secondly as a promise.

2. The Promise

You have the words of eternal life says Peter at the end of the chapter. He is confirming his understanding of the earlier teaching where Jesus makes it clear that when we welcome him we also inherit a promise,the promise of eternal life: Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life

When someone asks you if you are saved they are really touching on whether you feel sure that your life will not be lost when you die.

Are you sure? Do you know that you have eternal life?

I remember someone rather surprisingly asking a holy and thoughtful priest whether he believed in God. There was a long pause. Finally the wise old man replied - I'm not sure, but I'm sure of this - that God believes in me. Those humble, thoughtful words back away from arrogant certainty and they reach powerfully into our spirits.

We may lack belief but that doesn't stop God believing in us. We may be unworthy of salvation - but that does not stop God promising it! If I know I am saved it is because God has promised it to believers and I believe God - I trust God to keep his word to me - the key is knowing the promise.

Evangelism is about spreading good news, which means letting people know about the gift and the promises of God so that they can choose for themselves to believe - which brings us onto the last heading.

3. The Choice

At the end of this sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel we read in v60 that many of the followers of Jesus said, "This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it? And they choose to leave Jesus. He then says to the Twelve later in the passage: What about you, do you want to go away too?

When we contemplate the mystery of Christ we should be profoundly moved, awed by the generosity of God in sending his Son to save us and then giving us the choice of whether we accept him or not.

This is awesome - for us to be given a choice. Awesome, but also perilous for us to be so honoured with freedom to choose in a matter affecting our eternal welfare.

There is a further mystery of how God himself seems to make a hidden choice of those who do respond positively to him, so that our choice of God is almost pre-empted by his choice of us.

What a wonder and a mystery - the choices of God! We are saved by choice not by chance. No one has a right to heaven. You may think you're as good as the next person - but what does that matter when we are talking about having eternal life with God? Who are we, so full of deceit and inadequacy, made of the dust of the earth, full of frailty, to be worthy of God in his holiness?

Only by God's gift and his promise - and our choice of him.

Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.

To whom can we go? There is one giver of salvation who gives us today his flesh and blood as life to our spirit!

You have the words of eternal life You, Jesus, Bread of Life, promise us through our communion with you a quality of life that is in its nature unending.

And we believe Given such a gift and such a promise the choice is ours, to live not by chance but by a definite choice, a choice for Jesus our Saviour, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.