St Richard, Haywards Heath Vigil of Immaculate Conception 2022

 

I’ve always found it remarkable that an illiterate girl like Bernadette of Lourdes could be moved to ask her priest what the shining lady who appeared to her meant when she said to the peasant girl in her dialect: ‘Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou’. Fr. Peyramale said that a woman cannot have a name like that. ‘You are mistaken. Do you know what that means?’ The priest was shaken, and unable to talk to Bernadette realising in that moment who was appearing in Lourdes. He quickly sent her away, and she left without the privilege of understanding the meaning of the title. She was only told later that afternoon that the Blessed Mother carried that title, that of the Immaculate Conception. ‘She could never have invented this’ wrote Fr. Peyramale to the bishop that evening. The story of Bernadette rings true in so many respects and the Shrine of Our Lady Immaculate in Lourdes does as well if you ever have the privilege to visit it.

The protection of Mary from sin right from the moment of her conception is a widely held doctrine in the western Church though many Eastern Orthodox and most Protestants question its biblical basis. Anglicans as usual are caught in the middle with many, especially in Society parishes, holding to it. The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady is a doctrine about her origins in contrast to another doctrine frequently confused with it, that of the Virginal Conception which is affirmed in the Creeds which speak of Our Lord ‘being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary’.

To my mind her Immaculate Conception is nothing more or less than Our Lady’s baptism. She is not recorded in the Gospels as having been baptised. The Church holds she was given that grace in anticipation of the saving work of the Son she bore, our and her Saviour, Jesus Christ who came to free us from sin. To us, that freedom is a gift received in baptism and again and again after repentance. To Our Lady, it was a gift from the start so she has never needed repentance. For God to save humanity by his coming, dying and rising in the flesh he needed to enter the flesh of a sinless human being. 

How much we owe to Mary! We owe the formation of the Saviour, no less, and not just in his nine month dwelling within her. With Joseph her husband Mary brought Jesus up. It is an astonishing thought that she would teach Him, the Son of God, to pray – Mary a mortal being inviting God’s Son to pray to His true Father! I like to think of Mary as a woman of great devotion. This devotion is hinted at in her greeting from the Archangel Gabriel in today’s Gospel from the start of St. Luke’s Gospel: Mary, do not be afraid, you have won God’s favour. Listen, you are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.

You have indeed won God’s favour, Blessed Mother – and through you we have all won that favour, the favour of Jesus.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus! Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Come, Holy Spirit!

Pentecost Sunday  8am                                19^th May 2013

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit.

Thirst for God is a gift of God.

It’s the one who is thirsty who comes to drink of him and that thirst, the exercise of our faith, is his gift even if it’s something we have to exercise or act upon.

The writer of Psalm 42 says As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God Psalm 42v1

At Pentecost we are led to think from that sort of physical thirst towards deepening the spiritual thirst which will keep God and all he has done for us in Jesus Christ central to our life.

St Bernadette was a shepherdess who lived in the Pyrenee mountains in the south of France over 150 years ago. She had something of a thirst for God.

One day she had a vision of Jesus’ Mother who told her to lift some stones in the ground and a stream of water slowly emerged.

That stream is well known today. It is in Lourdes where many people who’re thirsty for God go and find healing and refreshment. I’ve been there, drunk the water and bathed in it for healing.

Here’s some of the water (Lourdes water). I’ve put some in the porch holy water this morning so you could take some on the way out.

I said people who’re thirsty for God go to Lourdes and find healing and refreshment but you don’t need to go to Lourdes.

The stone you need to lift is here. By that I mean the things that weight upon your heart and quench the flow of the Holy Spirit in your life.

 What does it mean to be thirsty for God?

It means to know your need of him and to be actively addressing that need through prayer, reading scripture, and receiving the sacraments.

Our Lord taught in Matthew 5: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake for they shall be satisfied. If you’re not actually hungering this morning are you at least hungering to hunger, or hungering to hunger to hunger?

To want more of God in your life we need to pray and through prayer you also receive more of God in your life.  It’s an extraordinary circle and it’s no circle of delusion.

I remember once feeling God was a long way away and saying to him ‘God if you’re there show yourself’. I happened to be walking in the garden and I felt a leaf on a tree speak to me: ‘I made you. I love you. I want to fill you with my Spirit’ That was when I first experienced the Holy Spirit in power and it helped me to pray more easily and love other people more.

When you’re thirsty for God and tell him so he gives you his Holy Spirit.

Before Pentecost Mary and the apostles kept a nine day prayer vigil to express their thirst for God and then we read how At Pentecost as we just heard they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind…and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

To be filled you need to be empty.

Holy Spirit Sunday is a challenge to all of our self-sufficiency. It’s a reminder that to be filled by the Spirit we need the resolve to empty ourselves in service.

Christians, to continue the water image of today’s Gospel, are made like fresh water pools. These need both an inlet and an outlet.

Water goes stagnant when it lacks either an inlet or an outlet. So it is with our souls. They go stagnant unless they both receive from God and give to God.

Pentecost is something very personal. It’s something that can happen in our lives today as either we lift the stones that block the inlet or increase our outgoings in venturesome love and service.

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit.

Come down, O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardour glowing.
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.