St Bartholomew, Brighton Pentecost Sunday 28.5.23

A tale is told of a monk who became so holy people touching his garments got healed.  

Marvelling at such wonders, especially as the monk seemed outwardly little different to his brothers, his superiors called him to account.  

‘What causes all these miracles?’ they asked. 

‘I am quite mystified’ he replied.  ‘All I do is try hard to will only what God wills.  Prosperity does not lift me up.  Adversity does not cast me down.  I am persuaded that God does all things, or permits all that happens, for his glory and for our greater good; so I am at peace no matter what happens and pray as best I can that God’s will may be done fully in me and through me’.

Now you or I may not be monks but we are certainly called to take a leaf out of this monk’s book.  

We may yearn to be people who heal before they hurt other people, but where is the secret of being such a healer?  

Surely it is in a deep acceptance of our circumstances as being in the will of God?  

How simple – and yet how challenging – is the route to holiness.  

It’s making our wills one with God’s will; as best we can, in all the circumstances of our life, that brings with it anointing in the Holy Spirit.

That anointing first came today, the Day of Pentecost, when ‘the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit… and the crowd gathered and was bewildered, amazed and astonished’ (Acts 2:4,6-7)

As Pope Francis has said, the Holy Spirit is the best Easter present. This evening the Paschal Candle is removed to signal the end of Eastertide but the risen Christ’s greatest gift remains with us.

What a wondrous gift! Associated with creation itself, ‘breathing on the face of the waters’, associated with the resurrection in today’s Gospel where Christ breathes the gift upon the apostles and, in today’s first reading, associated with fire and power and speaking in strange languages on the Day of Pentecost!

What a wondrous gift - and yet also an everyday gift! One for people who make their wills one with God’s will in every circumstance of their life.

‘Come down, O Love divine, seek thou this soul of mine and kindle it thy holy flame bestowing… for none can guess your grace ‘til they become the place wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling!’

In March I went on retreat to Crawley Down monastery praying, among other things, about the struggle we have at home with a family member diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. 

A remarkable insight came to me linked to the Holy Spirit about how God can work through dementia where there’s faith in him. When memory fades you live more in the present moment. This means being left behind somewhat by family and friends with busy diaries and work and recreational commitments. 

As I prayed on retreat I recalled a book I’d read by the contemporary novelist Santa Montefiore. entitled ‘Here and now’. The key figure, Marigold, spent her life taking care of those around her, juggling family life with the running of the local shop, and being an all-round leader in her community. When she finds herself forgetting things the story underlines how she is blessed to dwell more and more with supportive family and friends in the ‘here and now’ which is the book title. 

Are we not all meant to attend to every moment of life as best we can, to be as present here and now as we can be? I thought. And God - this was my key thought on retreat - God too is found in the here and now. Not so much by pondering the past or the future. 

The Holy Spirit has been defined as ‘God in the present moment’. Living with dementia is therefore potentially about living with God and others close to you through rediscovery of the ‘here and now’ - and the joy of living in God’s presence can often be manifested in those suffering this ailment. 

Hardships of every kind throw us back on God and our friends. The readings today remind us how the anointing of the Holy Spirit comes in shared circumstances. In Acts 2v1 we read how ‘they were all together in one place’. In 1 Corinthians 12v13 ‘in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit’. The Gospel from John 20 recalls how on Easter Day evening ‘the doors of the house where the disciples had met being locked out of fear, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you… Receive the Holy Spirit”’.

Today is the birthday of the Church. The anointing of the Holy Spirit comes into the day by day circumstances of believers whose faith engages week by week with the meaning and power of scripture, the Breaking of Bread together. Preaching and music at St Bart’s always has an eye to leaving time for fellowship at the end of Mass, and that fellowship, often with conversation about Christian Faith, sometimes continues over food. Thank you, Holy Spirit for your work among us as a congregation, part of God’s never ending family, the holy Catholic Church!

How simple – and yet how challenging – is the route to holiness.  It may be that you are in a trial of one kind or another. I invite you to a deeper acceptance of that trial as being within the will of God. Such acceptance, as the monk said in my story, brings with it the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Easter season which ends tonight brought me to producing a radio series available on listen again at www.premierchristianradio.com/joy. Finding joy in the Lord relates to our turning in faith and repentance to the risen Lord Jesus and welcoming his Spirit into every circumstance of our life. The joy of the Lord becomes our strength as knowledge of Christ grows. It takes courage though to leave aside regrets about the past and anxieties about the future to attend to the present moment where the Holy Spirit, God’s Easter present, can be found whatever our circumstances.  

I close with the prayer of Saint Paul in Romans 15:13: ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit!’

St Bartholomew, Brighton 21C Paradoxes 21.8.22

Today’s scripture seems full of contradictions. 

The Isaiah and Luke readings speak of God’s plan to include everyone in his kingdom: ‘The Lord says: I am coming to gather the nations of every language…  those from east and west, from north and south will come to take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God’. 

Then the Gospel reading starts: ‘Sir, will there be only a few saved?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed’.

Does God really want all to come to him?

Then the letter to the Hebrews spoke of ‘the Lord… punishing all those that he acknowledges as his sons’.

Does God really love us?

35 years ago I worked in Guyana, South America which is where Anne and I were married. Besides Cricket and Anglicanism there is a third binder between England and its former colonies - did you know?  Gilbert and Sullivan - yes it still goes on in Guyana and across the Commonwealth though a bit incorrect nowadays. As a youth I acted in the Pirates of Penzance where Frederick, apprenticed to the Pirates, prepares for freedom on his 21st birthday. Then Ruth, his fierce protectress breaks the news that he is not 21 but only 5 and 'a little bit over' since he was born on 29 February.  

They sing the great 'Paradox' duet, which marks the necessity for Frederick to remain a pirate until he is 84.  The chorus runs:

‘How quaint the ways of paradox, at common sense she gaily mocks…’

Paradoxes are amusing mentally.  They 'mock common sense' by provoking us to look at things two ways at once and get different answers.

Christianity is famous for its paradoxes - God is Three yet One, Jesus is God yet Man, Christ has died, Christ is risen…  

When God comes among us into the world he wants to be the same as us - so he plumbs our human depths. He suffers.

Yet in coming to us as God, so very different to us, he is able to open up our humanity to generous, endless vistas in the revelation of resurrection glory!

Christianity is about the bursting out of resurrection glory from the Risen Christ as shafts of light so often diffract from the sun through dark clouds.

What a picture - darkness and light together showing each other off!

So God shows himself off to us in Christ crucified and risen! God shows himself off in full splendour and lifts our poor humanity in the process, making it a vehicle and instrument of divine glory.

I love paradox. The dictionary states that a paradox occurs when two statements that are contradictory in logic must be held together in experience.

Back to the contradictions I noted earlier in today’s scripture linked to mission and discipleship. ‘The Lord says: I am coming to gather the nations of every language… to take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God’ yet he also says: ‘enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed’.

I love GK Chesterton’s reflection upon the narrow door. The church’s door looks narrow, yes, he wrote, but when you lose something of self to squeeze into church you will find plenty of space inside. The physical image doesn’t quite fit St Bartholomew’s because we have both a large door and a lot of space inside. The big Church in Bethlehem by contrast has a door so small everyone has to bow to enter throughit. This recalls how Christians bow or kneel in the Creed at the words associated with Christ’s birth.

God’s mission is to bring all people into relationship with him but this isn’t automatic on account of the gift of free will. Heaven is a gift to be sought through the narrow gate, dovetailing with the other paradox, as we volunteer to be trained up in holiness. That training is about looking away from self to God in worship, prayer, study of the Bible and the Saints, service to others and regular reflection to keep those main things the main things. 

Does God really want all to come to him? He does and he wants us to play our part in welcoming them here at St Bartholomew’s from the good foot fall through our large door. We have an opportunity to draw people into our building and into worship thanks to the church watch team which always welcomes new members.

Does God really love us? Our circumstances are a training ground for children of God. ‘My son, when the Lord corrects you, do not treat it lightly; but do not get discouraged when he reprimands you. For the Lord trains the ones that he loves and he punishes all those that he acknowledges as his sons. Suffering is part of your training’. 

Joy and Sorrow are our inseparable bedfellows in this paradoxical Christianity of ours. When you struggle with your faith imagine a world without this mystery you struggle with. It's not very hard to imagine it because such a world is all around us! 

Misery or mystery is the choice, really. Take away one side of the paradox and where does it leave you - the mystery of life is reduced to a bare contradiction. Our Lord brings mystery instead of misery - he fills out the picture of life for us - and he can fill out the picture of life for others as we share the good news. 

Let us enter that mystery now in the sacrifice of the Mass for Christ is risen!  God is coming here, shrouded in mystery, to make a difference to us and to the whole world!

St Bartholomew, Brighton Pride Sunday 7.8.22

Described by The Guardian as “the country’s most popular LGBT event,” the Brighton & Hove Pride Festival is a vibrant celebration of all that is wonderful about our city’s diverse community, with visitors from across the globe enjoying its spectacular celebrations. Some of you might have been in yesterday’s parade, others are wiping tired eyes this morning after a night out at Preston Park. Others in the congregation this morning will have made their way to St Bartholomew’s to keep their Sunday obligation in a church famed for the sort of colour and drama our city is all about. To one and all welcome - and I say it at a season when the Anglican Church is getting unwelcome publicity through unwelcoming actions of some of her members towards the LGBT community about which I beat my breast.

I say to them what the Gospel says to us all: ‘There is no need to be afraid’ Luke 12:32. I say to us all, especially those in the congregation who are gay, there is no need to be ashamed. The gay pride movement counters shame about the way we are made and its roots are profoundly Christian. We all need to wake up to our dignity, whatever our sexual orientation, through orienting ourselves more fully to God who made us, loves us and wants our company now and forever. 

‘There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom’. When we look through the Bible we read that phrase ‘fear not’ in one estimate no less than 365 times. It's as if God would say to us each day of the year - there is no need to be afraid. As St Paul writes: ‘nothing… can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:39). And St John: ‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them… there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear… we love because God in Christ first loved us ’ (1 John 4:16, 18-19). On Pride Sunday we’re here, just as we’re here every Sunday, to take pride in the love of God and his pride in us even though all of us sin and fall short of him. At Mass we pray for deliverance from every evil and peace in our days ‘that, by the help of God’s mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress’. As human beings we get distressed so much we get chips on our shoulders. Why should I have to bear this? An astronomic rise in my fuel bill. A relative with dementia. War day by day on TV. Yes, on Pride Sunday, being in a minority with my sexuality. Or being in a Church so divided. We bear stress as human beings, but we do so as Christians looking to the love that surrounds us into which we are lifted day by day, Sunday by Sunday, at Mass.

Ronald Rolheiser in his book ‘Forgotten among the Lilies’ writes: ‘Perhaps the most useful image of how the Eucharist functions is the image of a mother holding a frightened, tired and tense child. In the eucharist God functions as a mother. God picks us up; frightened, tired, helpless, complaining, discouraged and protesting children, and holds us to her heart until the tension subsides and peace and strength flow into us’. Such is the intimacy we are privileged to share this morning and day by day in the Lord’s Presence. ‘There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom’.

Over the last year I’ve been working on a book to be launched at Bart’s in the next month or so. ‘Thirty Walks from Brighton Station - catching sights and sea air’ is partly celebration of the diversity and inclusion characteristic of this great city broadcast on Pride Sunday. My walks pay attention to sights linked to minority groups. They pass the city’s first Mosque founded in the late 1970s as well as Coptic, Anglican and Baptist Churches and a memorial in St Ann’s Garden significant to the gay community. The LGBT suicide tree there recalls the tragic consequences of homophobia. Whereas in many parts of the world minorities tolerate one another Brighton & Hove at its best aims at a respect for those who live differently going beyond tolerance. Respect, for example, given to Muslims, in the attendance here by many non-Muslims in the daily breaking of fast during Ramadan. This weekend’s Pride Festival, internationally famous celebration of respect and diversity, is led by the LGBTQ+ community but attended by people from all walks of life.

Loving your neighbour in Jesus’s book doesn’t mean loving some but not loving others. It means loving all. We are as Christians seeing the vital relevance of God’s pride in us and our pride in ourselves to the xenophobia - hatred of strangers - sweeping through the world. Can there ever be outsiders so far as God’s concerned? Can we trust a nationalism that falls short of the deep British sense of fair play and inclusion, itself built from 1500 years of Christianity?  We want a society that doesn’t just tolerate difference but which respects those who’re different. Building respect though is costly in time and trouble. It refuses to pass by on the other side especially passing by those disadvantaged to be in a minority. 

‘There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom’. 

Lord, we prepare to welcome your embrace in this most holy sacrament. We take pride in you and thank you for the pride you take in us as we approach your mercy. Make good the chips on our shoulders by your embrace. Orient us, whatever our sexual orientation, to your unfailing love so we lose ourselves in you and gain fresh energy to establish the kingdom you have given us, ‘a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace’.                                                                                    Picture: Brighton Station

St Bartholomew, Brighton Epiphany 5 Seasoning the world 9th February 2020

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? Matthew 5:13a

As on many occasions we wrestle with Our Lord's imagery in this passage from the Sermon on the Mount. Trained as a physical chemist I find it hard to imagine that most stable of compounds, sodium chloride, losing its taste other than when removed from solution by a high energy desalination plant! However I do see how Christians can lose their flavour and I know that happens in my life many a time.

In today’s first reading we’ve got additional wisdom on how Christians are called to season the world.  The passage from Isaiah, often used in Lent to highlight the value of fasting, thrills with a passion for justice that’s been inspiration to many. Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house… then…your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. (Isaiah 58:7-8).  Many Christians are joining with other folk of good will to make a practical response to the world’s unprecedented refugee crisis. As we respond to the needy, again and again we sense God going with us, not just in the feel good factor but in the ripple effect of any unselfish act of service. God… our vindicator goes before us, the glory of the Lord is our rearguard.

The mystery of why so few citizens of Brighton & Hove worship on Sundays is tied in with the mystery of the choices of God. We are no better than those who aren’t called, those some of us have left at home this morning, but in the loving providence of God we are being put to a special use in his praise and service. I do not know why God called me as a Christian and as a priest – I am no better than others - but God has called me and what an awesome privilege that is, to be called into situations where God takes me, uses me and is my rearguard, covering my inadequacies and provoking thought of him in what comes to pass in such engagements.

As believers and disciples of Christ we many times find ourselves in situations not of our choosing that have the hand of God upon them. If we are praying, worshipping and studying God’s word we should expect to impact the world in such a way as to get people pondering. Like our immense building we point above and beyond ourselves, inasmuch as God has chosen us to be his pointers.  As we do so Paul’s words are very apposite, where he speaks of weakness… fear and… trembling and yet being given words that are powerful instruments of God. You know those occasions, when you’re given words that unblock things for others, including opening their eyes to the reality of the living God.

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?

Being salt is about instrumentality, about giving up our own ambitions, the desire to make our mark on others, in the name of collaborating with God and others to season the quality of the common life of the world. Day by day a selfless team of volunteers makes St Bartholomew’s accessible to thousands a month. Another much smaller team led by Fr Martin Morgan seasons the life of our Primary School. Through that partnership of teaching staff and volunteers a real difference is made to the life of the children of our locality.

What might God be saying to you this morning as you hear Jesus say 'be salt'? 

How is he speaking to where your life is currently bound up in marriage, family and workplace and how in those several engagements you can season things? Or how you might be salt through the organisations within the orbit of St Bartholomew’s? 

The ministries of the Church – welcoming, catering, serving, church cleaning, flower arranging, choir, music, PCC, deanery synod, service booklet production and so on – serve and savour the life of the Christian community as it overflows in service to others. One of these ministries might contain the Lord’s invitation to you at this time, as the pastoral vacancy continues. Losing a chief pastor has strained us but it's never meant loss of the pastoral care gifts within this worshipping community called to season the life of our church and our city. As the enormous Midnight Mass congregation demonstrated we are Brighton’s Church in the sense at least of being the Church they don’t go to Sunday by Sunday. They know we’re here, though, and here for them!

God has called you, and if he has called you, he will not fail you! God’s work always brings with it God’s provision.

In the passage from 1 Corinthians set for today but omitted to shorten High Mass Paul enthuses: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,   nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’ - these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.  In other words, to be a Christian is to have insight into the depths of things - just as our spirit senses our depths the Holy Spirit searches… the depths of God who is God of our life and that of all that is, capable of linking our passion for him to his passion for all. 

We only have one life but as folk called by God our limited being finds repeated applications that help change the world. We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 

The so-called spirit of the world is exemplified in a degree of pessimism and fruitless pondering over the state of the world. When we see the world apart from God we see a great deal of self-interest and blindness towards what Isaiah calls the homeless poor. The Spirit of God in contrast cares for all that is just because it is, and more especially those in God’s image who are cast to the margins. Through spiritual discernment, what Paul calls understanding the gifts bestowed on us by God we’re empowered to invest our time, talents and money in making a difference where we are. I believe time spent in intercession for world leaders at this junction is one gift God is calling many into. 

God who has called us is God of the world. He is preparing a bride for his Son, the company of the faithful we call the Church, by purifying Christians to be part of that Bride destined to be enthroned at the marriage supper of Christ who is the Church’s husband to be. One part of our purification is a loss of anxiety about the future and laxity in prayer for the kingdom to come. Earthly rulers and kingdoms fail – but what we’re about as Christians seasoning the world can never fail, as expressed in the great hymn of The Revd Sabine Baring Gould: Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane, but the church of Jesus constant will remain. Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail; we have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail. 

We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God. That spirit cannot fail. It is salt that savours the cosmos. 

The church’s humanity fails, yes, but its divinity will prevail as sure as the Spirit of God prevails. In our Christian calling within that of the Church, Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail; we have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail. 

God has called you, he will not fail you! God’s work as you discern it will always brings with it God’s provision to season the life of this ambiguous world.

Seek what the Lord requires of you and cheerfully accept that requirement, Give and it will be given to you - for God is no one's debtor!

St Bartholomew, Brighton Christ the King Mass & Blessed Sacrament Procession 25 November 2018

What is the biggest challenge Christianity faces?

I believe it's the need to heal the schism between the supernatural truth of Christ’s reign and the reign of the evolving body of human truth in people’s minds.

A few years back we celebrated the double centenary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentenary of his book The Origin of Species published in 1859. There was a book published entitled Creation or Evolution – do we have to choose? which posed the gravity of this split.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

Does our kneeling to Christ as King require a surrender of intellectual integrity in the face of evolutionary theory? If the truth of Christ is an anchor that holds us, has it any affinity with the forward movement of the universe? Is Christianity a brake on the world or a spur to world transformation?

Well we need fidelity to Christ which sets us in some ways against the world but we also need audacity for Christ – indeed Our Lord summons it from us!

We need more intellectual audacity to overcome the taunts of the Darwinians. It is Catholic Faith that both reason and faith lift us to God. If you want to be a Catholic Christian you can no more be a mindless fundamentalist than a Richard Dawkins rationalist!

As a former scientist I have a good investment in this collaboration of reason and faith. That’s why I’ve been meeting with a group on Wednesdays this month in the parish room to engage together in the reasoned defence of Catholic faith, so called apologetics. That’s not apologising for faith by the way, but making an ‘apologia’, a reasoned defence of faith.

My doctorate was on the forces between the chains in polythene and Teflon. I wrote it years ago. It’s won me the nickname ‘non-stick-vicar’. I wish that were true!

From that scientific work on what holds polymers together I’ve now moved forward to another concern - what holds the universe together.

We’re here this morning to celebrate the One who does just that – Jesus Christ. He holds all things in being scripture says and he’s bringing all things together in himself.

My mission now as a priest is to help people know Jesus and the truth that’s in Him, truth that’s married to the wider body of human truth that’s emerging day by day as the world evolves. As Our Lord says to Pilate in the Gospel: All who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.

The gentle reign of Christ the King is over hearts and minds. Being subject to that reign, living with Jesus as Lord, entails audacity as well as fidelity. Its having confidence that the world around us is his, that his reign is there in its unfolding truth and so are his mission opportunities.

Mission is God’s business. Jesus Christ our King is there in front of us awaiting our faith in him.

All we need is the Holy Spirit to transform our fear into courage.

The Lord is ahead of us if we attend to him.

Earlier this year I did a series of posts on social media about the French priest scientist and mystic Teilhard de Chardin.   

For Teilhard the Jesus whose reign today’s readings announce is the one who holds all things together and who leads us forward to a fulfilment that will coincide with his majestic return.

The whole cosmos is like a cone with the movements within it converging upon Jesus as the apex or omega point. Our individual futures, the future development of St. Bartholomew’s and of the whole church and the future of Brighton and the whole created order rests in Jesus and is to end in Jesus.

You have so filled the universe in every direction, Jesus wrote Fr. Teilhard, that from now on it is blessedly impossible for us to escape you…Neither life, whose progress reinforces the hold you have on me; nor death which throws me into your hands, nor the good or bad spiritual powers which are your living instruments; nor the energies of matter, into which you are plunged;…nor the unfathomable abysses of space, which are the measure of your greatness;…none of these things will be able to separate me from your substantial love, because they are only the veil, the “species”, under which you hold me so that I can hold you. (Le Milieu Divin 1957).

His last reference draws an analogy that as Jesus is hidden under the species of bread in the Holy Eucharist so that he can come to us and change us into himself, so Jesus is hid in the creation itself as the binding force, as joy and sorrow visible to the eye of faith.

Teilhard teaches me that when I as a priest in his name - and your name - say This is my body… over bread and This is my blood over wine, something spills out from the altar mystically across the church and its surrounds. This priestly act extends even beyond the transubstantiated host to the cosmos itself Teilhard writes.

Wondrous stuff – but Christianity and the dynamic that urges it forward are wondrous stuff!

The best encouragement I can provide for our mission here at St. Bartholomew’s is to point to Jesus before you and within you in the Blessed Sacrament, building our faith towards seizing his possibilities.

Jesus Christ holds you and I together. He holds Brighton together – or he would hold Brighton together, not overriding free will but by compelling love. St Paul says of Our Lord in Colossians ‘He…is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

As we heard in today’s first reading: I am the Alpha and the Omega...God who is, who was and is to come, the Almighty.

Mission is God’s business. Our Lord is there in front of us awaiting our faith in him.

All we need is to see Jesus mystically in all the people and things in our lives as one beckoning us forward into ever greater audacity for him.

In his book Mass on the World Teilhard addresses directly this apparent schism between Christianity and the world. Reflecting there on the Eucharist and how we seek here both purity and charity he says: The true meaning of purity is not a debilitating separation from all created reality but an impulse carrying one through all forms of created beauty…the true nature of charity is not a sterile fear of doing wrong but a vigorous determination that all of us together should break open the doors of life.

Jesus is saying the same to us today as his great purpose weaves forward incorporating our lives and those on our hearts and the whole community of Brighton to break open the doors of life as we consecrate ourselves to God in this Eucharist.

Can you see with Teilhard that when the priest lifts the paten, the holy plate with bread to offer what is offered is the whole cosmos including our little part as it is the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands? When he offers the chalice of wine to God it is a chalice containing the pressing out not just of grapes but of lives and communities under pressure to become for us the chalice of salvation?

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation…this is your body…this is your blood…this bread and wine, our lives and potentially the lives of all those linked to ours in the marvel of the created order. Open our spiritual eyes to your leading and your resourcing through this Mass!

Grant us fidelity and audacity in service of Our Lord Jesus Christ who is before all things, and in whom all things hold together…. the Alpha and the Omega...God who is, who was and is to come… to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all might, majesty dominion and power henceforth and forevermore. Amen.

St Bartholomew, Brighton Trinity 18 (26B) 30 September 2018

‘We need a heart of flame towards God’ wrote Saint Augustine, ‘a heart of love towards our fellows and a heart of steel towards ourselves’.

Those three aspirations frame today’s difficult Gospel from Saint Mark Chapter 9 verse 38 to 50. In this passage we see the wideness of God’s mercy at the beginning and end but the middle section is steely indeed, with hellfire thrown in for good measure. Let’s have a closer look.

And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbade him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.  [John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.]

As practicing Christians become a small minority in Britain there’s a danger of our becoming a narrow minority. Into this scenario we need to hear Our Lord’s counter to his disciples narrowness when they stopped others using his name to heal: For he that is not against us is on our part or in NRSV translation Whoever is not against us is for us. Our Lord assumes and brings out the best in people including ourselves. As we look up to him we’re uplifted ourselves, especially at Mass, as we see his loving gaze down on us extending beyond the walls of our Church towards the inhabitants of this great city. There are many around us not against us. Sometimes we fall short like the first disciples by narrowing Christianity into an exclusive preserve. Christ died for all!

Let’s move on now into the second more troublesome paragraph of the Gospel. Here we move from our heart of flame towards God and the world to the heart of steel required towards ourselves as Christian disciples, Mark Chapter 9 verses 42 to 48:

And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. [If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell., And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.]

Forbidding the strange exorcist, narrowing down the work of the kingdom, is dangerous, Our Lord says, because it causes little ones to stumble. Those who teach the Faith need to be watchful lest they make unnecessary obstacles that upset and alienate the vulnerable. I may have been guilty of that last time I preached on Pride Sunday, please forgive me - we do our best in the pulpit, trusting the Holy Spirit to counter our failings, especially when there’s risk of making the best the enemy of the good of individuals.  

Now to those extraordinary verses in the Gospel about physical mutilation being a lesser evil than unfaithful discipleship. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. [If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.] Is there anywhere else in Our Lord’s teaching where his message of the primacy of the life of the soul is put so forcefully? It's not my task to explain it away. Where we catch on to this, get shocked into seeing things we need to put right in our lives and circumstances, we’re indeed in spiritual peril if we don’t act on them. We need to fix the things we know need fixing that we also know are in our power to fix. Something easier said than done - though it's good to say it in the pulpit for there’s no word of God without power!

In my youth I was very troubled by lustful thoughts, which have the destructive effect of schooling you in seeing people as objects and not women and men with beauty to be honoured and given thanks for. I learned several strategies.

One was, when the thoughts came, to imagine my soul on fire - which it was - and seeing a bucket of water thrown over it by the Holy Spirit. Another was to make the thought trigger prayer for the conversion of China, which I came to realise greatly annoyed the devil who would then pull away the lust. Another was to follow the advice of today’s epistle and go to Confession to a priest: confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed (James 5:16a). Best of all I learned to practise giving thanks for human beauty which takes me out of my selfish urges into the praise of God who made that beauty.

Such is the heart of steel we disciples need towards ourselves, towards a conceited, disdaining mindset, towards a spirit of entitlement, towards an attitude of arrogance, towards those seven deadly sins of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth, all of which corrode us inside. Our Lord wants them, not us, on the fire - his reference to hell, Gehenna, the ever burning rubbish heap in a valley outside Jerusalem. We don’t need to take him literally on hell but we do need to take the corrosive impact of uncontested sin seriously.

So to the last two verses which pick up that fire image: For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. [For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.] There are some 15 interpretations of these obscure verses. One that fits the drift of my framework from the Augustine quote is about Christian disciples seasoning the world. Having a heart of flame towards God and a heart of steel so far as one’s own discipleship goes is destined to overflow in a heart of love for one’s fellows. This interpretation builds from the use of salt elsewhere in Our Lord’s teaching as an image of his disciples seasoning the world. If we lose our saltiness, our cutting edge as Christians, we will be less effective as servants of the common good.

‘We need a heart of flame towards God, a heart of love towards our fellows and a heart of steel towards ourselves.’ As we lift ourselves to God at this Mass - as we lift up our hearts - we capture his loving gaze upon us, upon this great city and many around us not against us. That heart of love towards our fellows seasons the common good in Brighton and beyond but it does so at a price - that heart of steel we need to exercise more and more towards ourselves, the fixing of the things we know need fixing in our lives that we also know are within our power to fix which will guarantee we keep spiritual saltiness. Let’s fix these things, the Lord being our helper!