St Mary, Balcombe Trinity 24 (33A) Stewardship 19.11.23

‘It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away’ (Matthew 25:14).

Its Stewardship Sunday so far as the Sunday Lectionary goes, a reminder from the Lord that we have been entrusted with time, talents and treasure for a lifetime and must answer for it at death or at his Return. The Zephaniah passage challenging complacent living is a pointer to the Gospel.

Archbishop Rowan Williams once said: “What we do with our money proclaims who we think we are – whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. All our actions in some degree reveal us; why should our economic life be different? Why should this too not be an area in which we help to shape our eternal destiny, a matter of sin or holiness?”

In my travels up and down the Diocese both as Diocesan Mission & Renewal Adviser and now as retired priest with permission to officiate I’ve come across many instances of good stewardship linked to the generosity of the people of God throughout Sussex alongside a great deal of energy and hard work invested in maintaining and beautifying our churches including here – there’s an army of folk in this place who give their time and their talents to sustain its life and its witness.

I looked up what the diocesan website says about stewardship - here’s a couple of paragraphs: 

‘The major source of the Diocesan Board of Finance's income comes from the generosity of parishes through the Parish Share.  Parish Share represents approximately 80% of the Diocese’s total income.  In addition, the Diocese generates investment income from historic endowments and from letting out vacant properties. 

‘The majority of the Diocese’s expenditure is spent on the clergy who serve our parishes.  The cost of providing ministry across the diocese represents approximately 80% of total expenditure. This covers clergy stipends, NI, pension, housing, and the costs of training current and future clergy. It also includes money spent on supporting ministry through the work of the Archdeacons, Rural Deans, Continuing Ministerial Development and the payment of removal and resettlement grants. The remaining expenditure is spent on parish support services such as the provision of buildings advice, supporting church schools and safeguarding services, as well as a contribution to the National Church’.

 

In those words the Diocese recognises it is predominantly through the generosity of folk such and you and I that the Church of England in Sussex keeps its roof on and pays its clergy including pensioners like myself.  Another thing that strikes me as former diocesan officer and parish priest at Horsted Keynes is the range of motivations people have in giving their money and their energy to the Church.

So may I ask: why do you do it? Give money or time or talent, I mean, to support St Mary’s? 

Former diocesan colleagues did some careful research about this

• Some people, they found, place great value in buildings (Come to a place like this you can see why). Is that you?

• Others are drawn in by the church’s service to the community 

• Others are motivated by the church as a centre of evangelism – the sharing of Christrian faith and values. Is that you?

• And others place great value in the act of joining together for worship. Where worship is ‘done well’, congregations are growing. Perhaps that is you?

Different people – different motivations – different things that are precious or valuable to people.

• Let me tell you what I value about the Church.

Firstly, the church helps me to know God, the God who seems to do something quite remarkable - quite inexplicable – at Easter. Luke quotes Peter “this man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, God raised from the dead.” (Acts 4:10b). Now raising from the dead is not something that happens very often and when I read about God raising people from the dead I’m tempted to think that God is winding the clock back a bit, restoring life – putting things back to how they were before death. But no – what is happening in Jesus is God is winding the clock forward – not back. This is what it will be like for everybody, says Paul, when he talks about Christ being the first fruits – the forerunner - as it’s a Christian’s destiny to have life after death - not restored life, not life like we know it here, but something new “Look out for the new thing I am going to do” (Isaiah 43v19)

The second thing I like is what Jesus offers us. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Distrust turning to trust. Paul keeps on making this contrast. Do you put your trust in the past, or do you know Christ Jesus? I particularly love the bit you get in Luke’s gospel – just after Easter – about Jesus walking with his disciples on the Emmaus Road here is a Jesus that is prepared to walk with us a whole day – a whole lifetime probably – in the wrong direction before he gently turns us round and points us back to where we should be heading. The only ultimately meaningful thing in life is what conquers death - and Jesus offers this!

And the third thing I value is salvation - the extraordinary relationship between God and humankind that somehow Jesus Christ makes possible for us even while we’re still here, enjoying, as it were, life before death. As today’s second reading voices it: ‘God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that… we may live with him’ (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10). The assurance of this salvation is a lot to do with the Holy Spirit. After resurrection – if that wasn’t dramatic enough - Jesus promises something else, someone else who’ll make us feel as if we’ve been born again. And in the power of this Holy Spirit, we’ll recognise how we relate to God - Not foot soldiers, with God as our commanding officer; Not slaves, with God as our master, but as children, with God as our Father, someone who loves us beyond reason as many human parents do. That love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

‘It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away’.The Parable of the Talents is a reminder all we’re about as mortal beings flows from God who in giving us life lends us time, talents and treasure in the hope we will, like the good steward in the parable, one day hear his words: ‘Well done, good and trustworthy [one]; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your [Lord]’. (Matthew 25:23)

Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour and the majesty; for everything in heaven and earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.

St John, Burgess Hill & St Richard, Haywards Heath Luke 14:25-33 8 November 2023

‘If anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple’ Luke 14:26. 

Following God means surrendering your whole life to him.

We’re here this morning/evening to give God half an hour of our life for him to impact and take hold of us afresh in word and sacrament and Christian fellowship. Saying our prayers, coming to Church, reading our Bibles, serving our neighbour and reflecting upon our need for God are expressions of that commitment.

Melvyn Bragg once asked Rowan Williams what God meant to him. Here’s the answer he gave: ‘God is first and foremost that depth around all things and beyond all things into which, when I pray, I try to sink. But God is also the activity that comes to me out of that depth, tells me I’m loved, that opens up a future for me, that offers transformation I can’t imagine. Very much a mystery but also very much a presence. Very much a person.’

To commit to God as a Christian is to commit trustfully to the eternal God as the depth beyond all things, to see the world as no longer a flat surface but to descend to the heart of things and be impacted. To be caught up into something utterly mysterious and countercultural. 

Christian belief isn’t something cerebral, contrary to those thinking you build belief or disbelief by argument. It’s whole life surrender. It’s not a matter of thinking your way into a new way of living but living your way into a new way of thinking. 

Faith’s the act of the whole of our being. Doubt by contrast is a partial business employing that part of the mind that questions what we’re about and what it's right to think. This questioning is set for Christians within the wholehearted surrender of faith. We believe in the resurrection not with our minds but as we live out the death of the old self so the Holy Spirit can bring us new life through the agency of faith. We believe in the Cross as we make sense of suffering with the assurance that not all that happens is determined by God's plan but that all that happens is encompassed by his love. 

We are loved by almighty love and we are loved for ever, that is the reality Christian faith sees for sure. 

In his book God is no thing Rupert Short, religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement, reflects upon how many believing artists and writers in the UK are advised to conceal their faith if they want a following. Such is our local scenario in which secular humanism predominates the world of ideas with pretended neutrality. Meanwhile secularism is losing ground worldwide with three quarters of humanity professing a religious faith, said to be heading for 80% by 2050. The world over people evidently see in Christianity a vitality and coherence that is being lost or obscured in our own culture. Reading Shortt was a real tonic. Here is his summary of how he sees what we’re about: ‘Christianity - at its centre, the story of love’s mending of wounded hearts - forms a potent resource for making sense of our existence. It provides the strongest available underpinning for values including the sanctity of life, the dignity of the individual, and human responsibility for the environment’.

I like that phrase love’s mending of wounded hearts as a description of the dynamic of faith. It’s a long way from that over hasty perception of religion as a bully. Shortt sees the problem for religion and secularism as the tendency to bully rather than reason with one another. 

Following God means surrendering your whole life to him.

Today’s Holy Gospel from Luke Chapter 14 verse 25 onwards underlines that Christian basic and we pray it will touch our hearts and enlist them in mending the wounded hearts in our circle. The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms…. God is also the activity that comes to me out of [the] depth, tells me I’m loved, that opens up a future for me, that offers transformation I can’t imagine. 

That transformation isn’t just for you but for all in your orbit. May this Mass fill you with grace so that you can more fully love God and make him loved in the networks you’re part of. As St Paul says at the start of today’s first reading from Romans 13: ‘Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love’.

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Easter 5 2nd May 2021

In the Holy Eucharist we offer ourselves as Christ offers himself.

We consecrate ourselves for whatever God wants in the coming week and the rest of our lives.

We also seek his guidance so that we’ll not only be there for God but not get in the way of what God’s doing.

Just look back at that first reading from Acts Chapter 8. It’s the story of how one man, Philip, having offered himself to God, finds himself in just the right place at the right time. The conversion of Ethiopia to Christ traces back to a court official reading the bible who needed an interpreter and the fact deacon Philip was there to help him.

Who knows how many of your friends and mine are awaiting an interpreter of Christian faith? What are you and I doing to get skilled in this?

Philip was led by an angel to encounter the Ethiopian eunuch. He did his bit and passed on, ‘the Spirit of the Lord snatched him’ away we’re told intriguingly.

A stitch in time saves nine. A word in time saves nine.

 Sometimes people are stuck in their lives like a beached boat. They’re surrounded by just enough tide to be released to sail ahead – but they need a word of advice or encouragement to be launched off the beach.

By saying our prayers, reading and digesting the bible and offering our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice in the Eucharist we make ourselves available for God’s possibilities to be realised not only in our lives but in the lives of those around us.

As I’ve been helping out in the parish I’ve a sense of being used in that way – to be there for you and God trying my best not to get in his way.

The second reading builds to my thinking on the first because it reminds us that Christianity spreads through loving communities. We have an individual role, like Philip, to engage with people and be there for them and for God but ultimately the best witness for Christ is a loving, intriguing community. People are brought to the Lord by a team in effect.

No one has ever seen God but if we love one another God lives in us. People see God in communities of the self forgetful. Actually the Blessed Trinity is himself a community of the self forgetful: the Father forgets himself for the Son, the Son for the Father and the Spirit is their self forgetful go between.

Capturing this thought 14th century Catherine of Siena, whose feast we kept on Thursday, prayed ‘Eternal Trinity… mystery deep as the sea, you could give me no greater gift than the gift of yourself. For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being’.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them.

Perhaps God made the world to make himself a halo. You know that sort of crowning halo which can surround the moon at night caused by the dispersion of moon light through ice particles in earth’s atmosphere. Could we see the love of the saints as like such a halo reflecting the giving and receiving of love from Jesus by his holy ones?

When churches on earth get that sort of intriguing, holy love they can draw people.

The occasional kindnesses of church members are the best draw for non members towards Christianity. Just as Philip responded to a request in the first reading from Acts, the second reading from the first letter of Saint John is a call to more active loving kindness in which we don’t just respond to requests but actively seek to give people what they need.

Those who say ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers and sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.

If you’ve got a heart for other people you’ll recognise their needs. With occasional God given imagination you’ll be able to show them acts of kindness that touch them deeply as if from God. 

The first reading calls us to be interpreters of Christian faith. We need better skills here, in so called Christian apologetics. This means offering an ‘apologia’ or reasoned defence of our faith. We might well look for ways we can build such skills, not least by reading a book. In the wake of the success of my walk book - I have copies this morning - I am shortly publishing a book called ‘Elucidations - light on Christian controversies’ with a Foreword by the Bishop of Lewes. I hope it will draw some of those who have bought Fifty Walks’. This second book attempts to clear misconceptions of the truth that is in Jesus, the authority of the Bible and the trustworthiness of the Church in a society with increased religious illiteracy. In it I attempt to condense down thinking on controversial topics ranging from self-love to unanswered prayer, Mary to antisemitism, suffering to same sex unions, charismatic experience to the ordination of women, hell to ecology and trusting the Church, a total of twenty five essays. End of advert - forgive me - but giving answers or at least clarifications on issues such as these is an urgent necessity. You and I are on the front line as interpreters of Christian faith. Finding words, as Philip did when asked in the first reading, is helped by intellectual formation in the faith. Such words may not go very far without the loving kindness recommended in the second reading.

The gospel tells us how we get motivated to do both of these – to share best words and best deeds.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.

As a vine branch gets life from the sap of the vine so Christians gain life from Christ. 

It’s not a matter of working up our faith but of resting in what Jesus has done for us.

‘Abide in me, as I abide in you’ (John 15:4). To abide in Christ is to rest on the rock of Christ in the sunlight of the Father and the energising of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer has been compared by Bishop Rowan Williams to such sunbathing, a matter of receiving from above - but getting there to pray, to abide in Christ, is in practice a disciplined struggle. Take mental distractions! 

One great aid to overcoming such distractions in minds that get overheated at times is the inward repetition of the Jesus Prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner. This prayer expresses the good news of Christianity. It affirms both the coming of the Saviour and our need for his salvation. Based on incidents in the life of Our Lord the Jesus Prayer combines Peter’s act of faith in Jesus – You are the Son of God (cf Matthew 16v16) – with the cry of the Publican – have mercy upon me a sinner (Luke 18v13b). The Jesus Prayer is a wonderful servant of the aspiration of today’s gospel: abide in me and I in you. It exalts the name which is above every name (Philippians 2v10b). You can’t repeat that name, the name of Jesus with a good intention without touching his person, God’s person. It’s really a form of Holy Communion without bread and wine and it effects an extension of our sacramental communion week by week. 

To pray the Jesus Prayer is to centre your life upon the good news of Jesus with the faith and prayer of the church through the ages. It’s a way of settling your life repeatedly back on the rock of Christ since the recollected repetition of the holy name of Jesus is found eventually to convey his close presence.

In the Eucharist we offer ourselves as Christ offers himself and we receive Christ afresh to carry him out to share him in word and deed.

We consecrate ourselves for whatever God wants of us in the future, including elucidating our faith to others. This consecration continues inasmuch as we continually abide in Christ by saying our prayers, maybe using the Jesus Prayer, reading and digesting the bible, confessing our shortcomings and preparing the regular offering of our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice in the Eucharist.

God’s possibilities are waiting to be realised in our lives, just as they were waiting in the Ethiopian court official. God’s love is waiting to be poured out from us, through us as we read today in John’s first letter.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.

May the Lord settle us into a fresh, deeper abiding as we celebrate this Holy Eucharist.