St Wilfrid, Haywards Heath & Holy Trinity, Cuckfield Mount Nebo 11.8.21

‘Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land… The Lord said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, "I will give it to your descendants'; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there." Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord's command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab… but no one knows his burial place to this day’ (Deuteronomy 34:1-4).

One advantage of visiting the Holy Land is that for the rest of your life scripture passages come alive in a special sense as you recall the geography. Today’s first reading is such a passage for me. In May 2005 I took part in an ecumenical pilgrimage to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria which has placed those troubled lands much on my heart.  The Jordan leg of our pilgrimage led us to Mount Nebo where Moses viewed the Promised Land as recorded in today’s reading from Deuteronomy 34. He is presumed to have died near to this visit and indeed ‘no one knows his burial place to this day’. If they did Jews, Christians and Muslims would flock to it.

Today people talk of Moses’s Promised Land as the ‘over-promised land’ of which you become very aware from Mount Nebo as you look down from Jordan across to Jericho in the State of Israel. At night the lights of Jerusalem are visible. As pilgrims, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican within the True Life in God network we concelebrated Mass in the excavated basilica on Mount Nebo, an extraordinary privilege allowed on the retreat. I recall being in the midst of scores of priests looking down from the altar across something like a five hundred strong assembly of God’s people towards the west door and the Promised Land beyond. My thoughts and prayers were of how the Lord was to lead us forward from that place as individuals, Christian communities and denominations aspiring for the promised land of heaven. 

As we reflect on our scripture for today we are reminded that we are God’s people in succession to those Israelites and we are more fully so as we look to what God has on the horizon for us as churches and individuals. We attain that in company with one another, looking to the faith of the church through the ages and to one another right across Christian traditions. As we heard in the Gospel from Matthew 18:19-20 ‘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’. 

We are gathered this morning as if on Mount Nebo sensing God’s leading in our lives and in our Christian community, straining forwards to the promise of glory anticipated through the eucharist. ‘O Christ whom now beneath a veil we see may what we thirst for soon our portion be to gaze on thee unveiled and see your face, the vision of your glory and your grace’ (Thomas Aquinas) 

Father we are your people, called by you and destined to inherit your promises. As you kept faith with Moses keep faith with us as trust you for the best future as individuals and as a Christian community. Lord hear us

We pray for Martin our bishop, [the one destined to be our parish priest/Michael our priest] and all Christian leaders especially Justin our Archbishop, Pope Francis, Patriarch Bartholomew and the leaders of the Evangelical Churches that together they may steer your people towards the best provisions on our pilgrim way. Lord hear us

We pray for the Christian communities in [Cuckfield/Haywards Heath] that leaders and members will connect up more so that our joint mission of service and witness to Jesus our Saviour may be the more effective. Lord hear us

Remember, Lord, all those in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity, especially those who have asked our prayers. Lord hear us.

Joining with Our Lady, [St Wilfrid], St Clare and all the saints we commend to you those who have died and all whose anniversaries fall at this time. Lord hear us.   

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath 14 July 2021

 

Moses looked; there was the bush blazing, but it was not being burnt up…and God called to him..”Here I am” he answered. Exodus 3:1-8

Though formerly diocesan mission officer I struggle daily with the idea of mission. If ever there was an area in the life of the Church full of variety, confusion and oversimplification it is this area.

‘The Church exists by mission as fire by burning’ they say. 

Yet is ‘mission’ really the fire that keeps the Church burning with zeal?

‘Mission’ - or ‘Mystery’?

I would say that the Church exists for ‘Mystery’, the worship of Almighty God before it exists for ‘Mission’.

Look at Moses in our first reading this morning. We see his vocation to mission born as he encounters the mystery of God in the burning bush. Awestruck he could not refuse the Lord’s invitation to carry out the greatest mission in the Old Testament – the Exodus.

Look at Isaiah whose vision of God’s holiness is enshrined forever in our Eucharistic prayers. He first heard the angelic hymn we repeat again and again: Holy, holy, holy… the mystery brought him like Moses to ‘take off his shoes’ and fall down before the divine majesty.

Again and again in scripture we see the calling to mission flowing from an encounter with God cloaked in awe and mystery.

Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Gideon, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Our Lady, SS. Peter & Paul...all find their vocation in encounters with God that are both personal and mysterious, moving the recipients to worship.

This morning in this eucharistic gathering the Lord Jesus is wonderfully in our midst, the Holy One. How much do we sense that holiness? How much do we sense our own unworthiness to attend this altar?

The fellowship, mission, and service of Christians flows from their encounter with mystery, their sharing, as we are now sharing, in the worship of the Trinity. 

In my own humbler faith pilgrimage I can trace the missionary zeal that flows in me to a mysterious challenge at a particular stage in my life.

It was the ‘something about’ a priest that made all the difference. As an Oxford undergraduate I fell under the influence of a man who was charismatic in the old sense. The sense of presence and conviction about Fr. John Hooper so intrigued me it won me to his Oxford tea table and then to his Confessional, bowled over by a sense of the immediacy of God about the man. His was a Church where sermons were long but full of the glorification of God. Little logic in those sermons, looking back, but plenty of presence and conviction in the preacher. 

His services were also long. High Mass with ceremonial imbued with a spirit of adoration.

Looking back, ‘evangelisation’ at St. Mary Magdalene’s was one depth sounding across to another, deep chords rung in the heart. There was no newsletter, no home groups, no mission action plan but godliness, awe and wonder. 

The burning bush that kindled my vocation was the sure, unselfconscious majesty of Sunday worship in the great tradition of the church, evoking awe before the mystery of God in a way that no self-conscious construct can achieve.

There was force of conviction about the mystery of the Faith and this bowled me over.

‘Mission’ in my case is about ‘Mystery’. I yearn to see the church rid of so much anaemic, diluted Christianity.

It was the mystery of divine revelation that kindled the missionary call of Moses and God has not changed.

Encountering the mystery of Christ is at the heart of what the church is all about or it is about nothing at all!

Whether we are ‘high church’ or ‘low church’ or ‘broad church’ we need to be deep church if people are to be reached by the Lord through us.