St Giles Festival 8am 11th September 2016

The scripture readings on this our Patronal Festival of St Giles give us a window into heaven and advice on how we get there.

The visionary John exiled on the island of Patmos is given consolation from God to share with his persecuted fellow believers. They are to fix their gaze on the consequences of keeping faith which will appear soon, the consequences for faithful believers of the death and resurrection of the Lord:

They are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Immensely powerful poetry – and only God inspired poetry can speak of what’s of course beyond time. This window into heaven was followed today by the passage from Luke Chapter 6 (p1041 Lectionary) which speaks again of the reward for bearing hardship: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you…   rejoice in that day and leap for joy your reward is great in heaven Luke 6:22-23

A window into heaven from Revelation, and advice on how we get there by bearing hardships as Christians in the second reading.

Then our Saint, what does blessed Giles add to the mix? And lastly what are we to take away for practical application on this Festival Sunday?

We know little about Giles save his being a French Saint whose cult was brought by the Normans and that he is paradoxically the Saint of cripples and hunters.

The word bridge comes to mind. The dedication of St Giles Church is a reminder of how the population of this village and its surrounds has seen immigration – a Frexit if you like, the French leaving their continent in the 11^th century. The very architecture of St Giles bridges Saxon and Norman, as you can see above me with the Saxon bits left in, or the North door which is Saxon even if it’s been moved by both Normans and Victorians.

The bridging of St Giles is more graphically illustrated in our wooden medallion besides the organ – there he is stuck with the arrow protecting the deer.  The story runs that 7^th century Giles lived in southern France as a hermit in the forest and there was a deer who sustained him on her milk. Hunters one day tried to kill the deer and shot an arrow at her but Giles jumped over the deer and took the arrow. This is why he’s patron Saint of both cripples and hunters. I think the story makes him a bit more biased to the first than the second – but that’s a distraction to my main thought that Giles, as a bridge Saint, reached out to the deer at a cost to himself.

Christians reach out to the vulnerable and get wounded. We are active symbols of Christ who reaches out to sinners and suffers on their behalf.

To live like a bridge is to get walked over.

So to practical application.

I can’t risk showing my political colours with a desire to bridge the French-English divide, and some of you may walk over me on that!

I must say, staying with friends in France last month I detected little sadness over Brexit, but my own conviction is its better to bring nations together than pull them apart. I’m not going to defend the Norman invasion however.

If St Giles and the history and architecture of this Church are a bridging tale relevant to the potential bridge breaking of June 2016, what do we make for ourselves of the second element of St Giles as bridge icon.

It’s a reminder of the Lord Giles encourages us to serve, the Lord who died in our place to live in our place, who died for our sins so we can live with new life by his Spirit.

The readiness of Giles to bear hurt in reaching across the deer is a reminder of the need to be ready to build bridges. As Pope Francis said recently ‘Those who build walls and break down bridges can hardly be called Christians’. We’re getting a bit of politics this morning aren’t we!

The pains you’re bearing in your soul are most likely linked to bridge building. It’s hard to live with divided loyalties, with unresolved agendas, but you’d be less than you are if you closed your heart and pulled up the drawbridge in those situations.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you…   rejoice in that day and leap for joy your reward is great in heaven.

Come Holy Spirit and make us bridges, your bridges so we may put love where there’s no love and see love grow!

St Giles our Patron, pray that we, like you, may be generous towards the needy, animals especially. That we may face those who hunt and seek the downfall of others, that their eyes be opened to the work of mercy.

Lord Jesus be their shepherd, and guide us all to springs of the water of life, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

St Giles Festival Finding Sanctuary 8am 14th September 2014

For a thousand years from the reign of King Ethelbert in 600 to that of King James 1 those fleeing persecution could make for the nearest assigned church and sit down on the sanctuary stool to be home and dry.  St Giles was one of twenty churches in the diocese of Chichester designated a sanctuary for fugitives. This meant individuals being pursued by lynch mobs could enter church and once there, made subject to royal adjudication, be spared rough justice whilst tempers cooled. The idea of sanctuary links to the holiness people associate with church buildings so any violence within them is seen as sacrilege, an affront to God the source of holiness punishable by excommunication from his church.

Today we keep the festival of St Giles who’s a saint linked to giving sanctuary to beggars and cripples. Our statue - and our wooden medallion of St Giles besides the organ - shows him stuck with an arrow in the company of a deer. The story runs that Giles (c650-c710) lived for a time in southern France as a hermit in the forest near Nîmes with the sole company of a deer who sustained him on her milk. His retreat is rudely broken by royal hunters bent on pursuing the deer back to the King. They shoot an arrow that wounds the saint instead of the deer so, paradoxically Giles became patron of both cripples and hunters.

The medallion shows the saint protecting the deer whilst impaled by the arrow, so Giles is made a symbol of Christ whose sufferings are borne on our behalf.  According to the legend, Giles’s Christ-like humility so impressed the king he built him the monastery at Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, where his community lived under the rule of St Benedict. The saint died there around 710 with a reputation for holiness and miracles.

In the Middle Ages people saved their lives by running into St Giles to find sanctuary. As St Giles rescued the deer his Church in Horsted Keynes has been a safe place for thousands over as many years.

I want to think for a bit about what it is to find sanctuary.

The Oxford dictionary has these four definitions: Refuge or safety from pursuit, persecution, or other danger: A place where injured or unwanted animals of a specified kind are cared for: A holy place; a temple: The inmost recess or holiest part of a temple: The part of the chancel of a church containing the high altar.

Elsewhere I found these synonyms: refuge, haven, harbour, port in a storm, oasis, shelter, retreat, bolt hole, foxhole, hideout, hiding place, hideaway, den, asylum, safe house, fastness.

Today people find sanctuary in St Giles Church as they flee not from lynch mobs but from the pressures of 21^st century living.

We have evidence for this at the back of Church in the visitors book.

Here are some comments. Read comments from visitors’ book.

I have here a book by a monk from Worth Abbey, Fr Christopher Jamison, itself entitled Finding Sanctuary. Show Finding Sanctuary and read inside flap

I lend this book to spiritual seekers looking for ways ‘to find spiritual space and peace in the busy, and often confusing modern world’. It speaks of the value of finding sanctuary both in silent contemplative prayer and in the warmth of a Christian community.

The book’s first chapter is entitled ‘How did I get this busy. Reading p13-14 of Finding Sanctuary

The book goes on to commend the pursuit of holiness rather than busyness and it proved an inspiration to me when I read it 8 years ago. It was the basis of the TV series called the Monastery and has a sequel called Finding Happiness.

 As a new term starts in many senses, not just next door, we have opportunity to start as we mean to go on finding sanctuary in the basic spiritual disciplines of our Christian faith.

Last week I was sharing about these disciplines and I’ll list them again in a moment before we have a time of quiet reflection.

They’re paralleled by our Muslim sisters and brothers whose Five Pillars consist of knowing their creed,  praying five times each day, giving to the poor and needy, fasting during the month of Ramadan and making pilgrimage to Mecca.

Here are five pillars for Christians that are listed on the news sheet:

Pray every day. Read your bible. Attend eucharist every Sunday wherever you are unless very seriously hindered. Confess your sins. Give your money to serve God’s work.

Just as people have found sanctuary for centuries in St Giles we can find sanctuary in God at all times and in all places.

Let’s pray now, mindful of the challenge of our patronal feast to fresh spiritual discipline, as we find sanctuary once more in the silence of this building that’s given sanctuary to so many over its thousand year existence.

St Giles Festival 8th September 2013

Introduction

Welcome to our beautiful church this morning – beautiful on account of the 26 village organisations that have contributed to our flower festival in honour of St Giles feast and in aid of church funds.

If you’ve not had time or occasion to contribute to the flowers you’re welcome to make a financial contribution – we want the weekend to make a difference to things here - and especially to the shortfall in paying our parish share which cries out for attention.

St Giles got lamed by a hunter’s arrow as he protected a deer. In the same way Jesus took the wounding of our sins on the Cross – this is our faith – but we have to let Our Lord take those sins from us. Let us therefore begin this holy eucharist by calling to mind and confessing our sins in the silence of our hearts.

Address

Last week I was in Israel. It was a bit scary because it’s next door to Syria and they were distributing gas masks last weekend, but it was also exciting for me because it’s where Jesus lived.

At Cana I brought St Giles a special present for St Giles Day: The First Miracle Cana Wedding Wine. We’ll be using this Israeli wine for today’s eucharist.

It was Cana where Jesus worked his first miracle when wine ran out at a wedding he attended with Mary his Mother. Mary asked Jesus to help and he changed water into wine, his first miracle.

Jesus can change things – if we let him!

At Cana I prayed for a couple on the pilgrimage, Jason and Debbie Jones from Los Angeles. They’ve been married 11 years and have no children so they asked me to ask a special blessing from Jesus at Cana.

On my trip I joined around 750 people from 60 countries and 20 Christian denominations including 120 clergy, part of the True Life in God inter faith movement.

We prayed together day by day in places linked to Jesus starting here. Show Bethlehem star.

The ornate star has these words on it in Latin – here Jesus Christ was born. Last week I knelt and kissed the ground here – in Bethlehem (turn) where Jesus was born in a place just south of Jerusalem. It’s the site of a cave that’s covered by the oldest church in the world, the fourth century Basilica of the Nativity or birth of Christ. To pray in Bethlehem we had to pass through an immense security wall from Israel into the Palestinian territories.

I bought some souvenir holding crosses made smooth by the Palestinian Christian carpenters that I’ll pass round church. Show and pass round crosses

As you hold them think and pray about Christians in the Holy Land. In 1948 Christians made up 43% of the population. Today they make up but 1.3% of the population since many have fled the conflict between Jew and Arab that makes Israel a sad place today. We must have faith: Jesus can change things – if we let him!

One of my most powerful memories was of the 750 of us praying in the church but 40 miles away from Israel’s neighbour, Syria, and for the British Parliament vote the next day. I saw Parliament’s refusal to join the bombing of Syria as an answer to our prayer. Show ‘Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem’

We went back from Bethlehem to Jerusalem so important for Christians since Jesus died and rose there.

Today it’s a town divided between Christians, Muslims and Jews. On the map you can see the bright Dome of the Rock over Mount Moriah, the place Abraham sacrificed Isaac and considered by Muslims as their second holy place after the Kaaba in Mecca. Just to the left in the foreground is the so-called Western or Wailing Wall of the ruined Jerusalem Temple visited day by day by Jews and the most holy place of their religion. Behind it is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most holy place of Christianity where last week I visited the site of Jesus’ death and his empty tomb. We had to queue for two and a half hours! How moving it was to be where Jesus died and rose – it really touched my heart! But then my heart gets changed whenever I come close to Jesus in the Bible or here in the Eucharist or in prayer.

Jesus can change things – if we let him!

My last picture is of Mount Tabor. It’s where he took Peter, James and John and was transfigured – his whole being lit up with sun-like brightness as a sign of the resurrection to come. On my holiday I did think of everyone here. Whilst Fr John was celebrating the eucharist for you last Sunday I spent an hour climbing this mountain praying for you as I walked up reading your names out to God from my phone. My prayer was change them by your Spirit from your image into your glory. As Jesus was transfigured I prayed that we might be even more lit up spiritually!

Everyone is made in God’s image but not everyone gets filled by God’s Spirit so that God who made them gives them his life right inside of them. This is my prayer for us today on St Giles Feast – we prayed it already in that passage from the first letter of John: that we purify ourselves, just as Jesus is pure. 

Jesus can change things – if we let him!

Let’s let him!

St Giles Festival 8am 9th September 2012 Revelation 21.1-7

On this our Patronal Festival of St Giles the Church sets before us a glance through the window of heaven in our second reading from the beginning of Revelation Chapter 21.

The book of Revelation is a difficult and much misused book. It was written by the visionary John exiled on the island of Patmos most likely during the persecution of Emperor Domitian in 93AD. At that time Christians like all Roman citizens were being forced to call a man God. Their refusal led to their widespread martyrdom. From his exile Saint John handed on a vision rich in symbolism sent to help Christians in that and all ages to make good of their troubles by fixing their gaze on the consequences of the incarnation.

It is Christian faith that God took flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. By taking our nature he has lifted it up into his divinity. This man is truly man and God and so worthy of our worship.

The book of Revelation takes what has been revealed to his first worshippers through the unique life, death and resurrection of Jesus and applies it to the community of the Church. More than that - it sets forth a vision of cosmic transformation.

The love of God in Jesus is known to us as it was known to Saint Giles, in word and sacrament and fellowship. This knowledge we have is by anticipation. It’s a preview of what’s to come from the love of Jesus for, as someone said across the pond, ‘we ain’t seen nothing yet’!

The nearest we get as Christians to what the future will be is here in the book of Revelation. Here we read of the Church in a way that’s truly awesome. There is a wedding ahead. Jesus is the bridegroom. The Church is the bride to be, once she is perfected. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

These are almost the last words in the Christian holy book and they’re set for us on our Saint’s Day. When they speak as they do of a marriage they express in poetry the consummation of Christian faith. See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.

To believe God has made his home with mortals is at the heart of Christianity. It is affirmed at the start of the Gospel of Saint John for Jesus and here at the end of the Revelation to Saint John it is affirmed for all believers.

If Jesus is uniquely the Son of God made a mortal we who, with St Giles, trust the same Lord Jesus are destined to be carried through this vale of tears into a place of resurrection where Jesus waits for us. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

These last words of the Bible are an encouragement to all of us as press on with faith towards the world to come.

Jesus loves me this I know, because the Bible tells me so.

Of all the places I can think of where texts from the Book of Revelation are to be seen none is more striking than the display of Chapter 11 verse 15 above the coronation altar in Westminster Abbey where you read these words: the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever.

St Giles worked for that kingdom of love and peace to come in his generation. With Christian vision and motivation he helped build up his community in France. In doing so he had his sights on the life of that community he is now for ever part of, the home of God where death will be no more; nor mourning and crying and pain. May what he thirsted for be ours! May the communions we make at this altar be fulfilled as we join Giles one day at the marriage feast of Jesus our heavenly Bridegroom.