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!

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Discernment Acts 12:24-13:5a

 

The Holy Spirit is evident again in this morning’s eucharistic reading from Acts Chapter 12 as the guiding light and force of the early Church. So much is he the agent that the Acts of the Apostles might be better named the Acts of the Holy Spirit. In today’s reading we hear about the gift of discernment granted from the Spirit as a group of leading Christians were offering worship to the Lord and keeping a fast. We read how the Holy Spirit said, ‘I want Barnabas and Saul set apart for the work to which I have called them’. After prayer and laying on of hands the two were, we read, ‘sent on their mission by the Holy Spirit… to Cyprus’.

God has not changed 2000 years on. Our faith and expectation of God is something of the variation from the apostolic era. To give an example of how the Spirit’s gift of discernment remains in operation among Christians here is the story of how a significant community ministry was born in a south London parish. A young man was going to Church Sunday by Sunday and stepping over the tramps that slept in the Churchyard. It was a part of London with a good number of street folk who'd come to see the Churchyard as a safe haven. As this Church member passed these men and women week by week God eventually gave him a burden of prayer for them, which he carried into Church and offered up at the Eucharist. One Sunday he had the idea of running a lunch club for the vagrants and he persuaded his fellow worshippers.  This ran for some months.  Then the organisers advertised for helpers in the local community and received hundreds of enquiries. One man's vision discerned from God got accepted by his Church and became the instrument for Christians and non-Christians working together in the service of a local need.  Many of the non-Church folk got drawn into the life of the Church in the process. It all started from one man's discernment - isn't that encouraging?

How often we sense the Holy Spirit ourselves when we go out of our way to help others, joy in the midst of empathising with and maybe alleviating hardship being endured by others. Such joy provides evidence of the presence of God in the midst for, as the Psalmist writes, in God’s presence there is the fullness of joy. (Psalm 16:11) It’s not how much we do that matters so much as how much love we put into the action. To live in the love of God is the clue to discerning the best form of service to others. Each day I look back at what I’ve done or failed to do and confess to God. Very often the sins I confess are opportunities I’ve lost because my attention’s been elsewhere and very often on myself. Discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit whom we welcome day by day, hour by hour - God’s love pouring into our hearts - but do we? Or do we get so filled with a self-serving agenda that God’s love gets blocked out?

A practical suggestion. Start making a morning offering to the Holy Spirit. Sit on your bed and say ‘God I thank you for the gift of this new day and give myself to you. Send your Holy Spirit to use my gifts to God’s praise and service’. 

I find that such a prayer sweeps the day up into God’s hands so that, as I keep my attention on him, I discern what’s important and get on with it. Living with Holy Spirit discernment and empowerment is actually very simple if we set our hearts upon the Lord. 

We live in one place and time relatively ignorant of where and when to serve. God sees all space and time and the needs that cry out. 

The Holy Spirit rejoices to enlist those who give themselves day by day to his service and helps them discern where they can make a significant difference. 

Give yourself to God and he will give you to others!

St John the Evangelist, Burgess Hill Patronal Festival 27 Dec 2020

Our patron Saint John is a timely figure for his gifts of contemplation and discernment. He ranks among the Twelve Apostles and Four Evangelists but is alongside Our Lady, Saint Peter and Saint Paul as foundational to the Church.

Whereas Our Lady, by her maternity, St Peter by Our Lord’s charge and St Paul by the Damascus Road commission are noted for action St John, is on the record rather for being with Our Lord, the beloved disciple, contemplating, discerning and sharing his contemplation with us through the inspired writings that take pride of place in the New Testament. 

As our patron St John invites us to make use of quieter time after Christmas Day to be with the Lord as his beloved disciples, to contemplate and seek the gift of discernment as we look forward to a new year. 

How do we see St John? Today’s feast is of St John, Apostle and Evangelist and the Collect reminds us how we are ‘enlightened by [the Apostle’s] teaching so we may [see and] walk in the light of God’s truth’. The consequence of welcoming Christ, John the Evangelist teaches is to ‘attain to the light of everlasting life’. No writing in scripture puts the invitation of the risen Lord Jesus Christ more plainly than that of St John in his Gospel, his letters, and his association with the Book of Revelation.

Today’s entrance antiphon summarises our patron: ‘This is John, who reclined on the Lord’s breast at supper, the blessed Apostle, to whom celestial secrets were revealed and who spread the words of life through all the world’.

Over my years I have been privileged to visit places traditionally associated with St John. Galilee where the Lord called him from his work as a fisherman. Mount Thabor where he was privileged to see Jesus in glory. Jerusalem’s Mount Calvary where he stood with Mary under the Cross as represented here above us. Ephesus where he lived with Mary whom Jesus entrusted to John until her passing to heaven. Lastly Patmos where one Lord’s Day he received the text of the Book of Revelation which ends our Bibles.

Textual critics find evidence of a variety of styles in the three sections of John’s writings, the Fourth Gospel, the three letters of St John and the Revelation to John. This variety evidences the so-called Johannine school which worked with the Apostle to secure his copious grasp of the things of Christ got into print. I have here an icon (show) I bought on the Greek Island of Patmos which shows this process. You might be able to see John’s head in contemplation inclined to our left where lines descend from above symbolising his discernment of the book of Revelation. The text of this book he is relaying to the scribe on the right who puts his words onto scrolls copies of which have descended to us. These scrolls were made part of the 1600 year old Codex Sinaiticus in the British Museum, the earliest Christian Bible, a text from which this morning’s passages from Exodus 33, Psalm 117, 1 John 1 and John 21 were read out.

The last two of these four passages link directly to the contemplation and discernment of our Patron who describes his closeness to Jesus: ‘We declare to you... what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us’.

In these quieter days after the Christmas Feast, what we call the Octave or eight days of Christmas, we have an invitation to see Jesus with St John, to look to the Lord, to touch him in the Bread of Communion and to welcome what he has to say to us as ‘the word of life’. As our Patron leaned on the Lord physically at the Last Supper we should have an expectation that we too can set apart some time in the days before the New Year to lean upon the Lord, now risen and present not just to the original apostles but to all who will so welcome him by his Spirit.

Holman Hunt captured the force of this invitation the Lord gives us in his painting of The Light of the World (show). It illustrates one of his most powerful invitations in scripture mediated through the Revelation to John with the words from Chapter 3 verse 20 at the bottom. They capture the nearness of the Lord to each one of us which we recall at this season:

‘Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.’

To contemplate Jesus we need faith that he is always at the door of our soul. He is looking towards us. We need to pull off the ivy, so to speak, over the door of our heart, and open up by being quiet so we can come close to him in contemplation. We recall, as today’s collect reminds us, the Lord who ‘casts bright beams of light upon us’ scattering all darkness of heart and mind. 

‘I am the Light of the World’ Jesus says through John; ‘he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life’. 

So be it as we contemplate the Lord in these privileged days and grow the fruit of that contemplation in our lives. 

May such fruit be gathered from us by those who engage with St John’s Church family in the coming year as so many have benefited from the contemplation and writings of St John the Evangelist whose prayers we entreat on this our patronal feast. 

St John, Burgess Hill Advent 4 22.12.19

This morning we see God’s great choice of Our Lady to be mother of Our Lord. 

When we look closely at Mary’s story, especially in Luke’s account, we see how she struggled before saying Yes to God’s choice of her to be the mother of his Son.

In our own lives we also struggle many a time to conform our lives to what God would have us do. 

This morning in Mary the church invites us to ponder the choices of God and to think about how much our lives are faithful to God’s choice of us.

One of the advantages of being a semi-retired priest is that you get a choice of where to go to Church or indeed, as today, of where to celebrate the Eucharist. I’m learning to get family weekends in the diary well in advance so I can respond to vacancy calls such as that from St John’s and St Bartholomew, Brighton. I’m to be a monthly visitor to each over the next three months from my base in Haywards Heath.

Before I left Horsted Keynes two and a half years ago I totted up some of the pastoral involvements from the baptism, marriage and burial registers. Over 8 years I helped celebrate 39 baptisms and 40 marriages with double that number so far as funerals go. That doubling is significant. Birth and marriage today are seen much less in terms of faith than funerals as these reflect Christian formation three generations back.

Nowadays the choice to baptise your child is less about fitting in with the norm in a Christian country but a decided act to own the Christian church with its particular vision and values as an extension of your family. 

Similarly to commit to your partner before God with the understanding of life-long irrevocable union is counter cultural. Aspiring to a gift of self that will not be called back, mirroring God’s love given on Calvary in blood, sweat and tears, goes against the grain today. 

I love you so often means I love me and want you rather than I love you and want to give to you now and for ever.

Life choices make or break us.  So much moral decision making is about choosing the least bad option. This is where the Holy Spirit, prayer ministry and the sacrament of confession are so precious to us as church members seeking what God most wants of us in the different crises of life.

Some of us are thinking about a change of job. Others making the most of a redundancy. One or two may feel they have done a voluntary task for long enough and are seeking new possibilities.

Just a few thoughts, returning to Our Lady, on the process of guidance.  You might have spotted the connection between the Isaiah 7 passage and the Gospel from Matthew 1:18-25 with the prophecy of the virginal conception: the young woman – the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him ‘Emmanuel’, which means ‘God is with us’. For Mary and Joseph their choice of one another was set within a bigger choice of God to which they deferred to in facing indignity. As we profess Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary 

Christianity is a faith that holds disparate truths together – God is one yet three, Jesus is God yet man – and God has chosen us yet we have to decide how to live our lives.

It seems to me that Christians are at two ends when it comes to divine guidance. Some see God‘s choice as starting us off and then leaving us with common sense – sanctified common sense – to get going on our own. 

Others, if you ask them to do something, will say they need to pray about it, and they talk of God’s guidance as very immediate and direct.

I’m not coming down on one side or the other. What matters is to recognise the hand of God in our lives, as Mary and Joseph did, and to cast aside the things that draw us away from his leadings.

The sanctified common sense sort of guidance needs supplementing by openness to God’s surprises in the form of obvious divine intervention. Those who sense something of a hotline to God need to work harder to check their leadings by arguing the case at times with other experienced believers. Both reason and faith are God’s gift and they shouldn’t contradict each other.

If we want our lives, including our decision making, to go where they’re meant to go, it means developing what Paul in our second reading from the opening verses of the letter to the Romans calls the obedience of faith.  

This obedience is more than avoiding deadly sins. It is the best directing of our energies. It’s about knowing we’re in the right employment or state of life, be that married or single. It’s readiness to ask ourselves whether where we’re at is truly in God’s will or whether it’s actually at variance with it, if only we’d take courage to open our ears to him.

If you are on the rails God gives us, living close to Jesus, you move more peaceably than if your life is off the rails. A lack of inner peace can be a helpful warning from God to take stock of your life. 

Christmas and New Year bring us such an opportunity to reflect. 

Some of us will use the sacrament of reconciliation or take opportunity to talk to the priest or another experienced Christian. Please do so after the service. Others may want to find a spiritual director or prayer guide. 

All of us can ask God directly: ‘Show me the needs that are deeper than my wants. Place my energies more to your service and less to aimless self interest’.

God’s hand on our lives, God’s choice of us, is a wonderful and a costly thing. We have a lifespan to exercise our faith in that choice. The penitent thief who turned to Jesus as he died shows us it’s never too late to seek God’s leading. 

God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives. 

In making this decision the clue is WWJW – maybe you have seen the Christian bracelet – WWJW – What would Jesus want?

The eucharist is all about WWJW. We offer our souls and bodies with Christ to the Father so that our lives are put back on the rails Sunday by Sunday.

With Mary we say: I am God’s servant. Let it be to me as God wills!

Take my energies and use them for good since there is work for those God has chosen. 

There’s a harvest to gather and the labourers are few.

Annual parochial church meeting eucharist 14th April 2013 8am/10am

The annual parochial church meeting is an opportunity to be reminded of our vision as a church, of how it’s being implemented and who’s involved. It’s about challenge, affirmation and communication as well as refreshing leadership in some areas as the Holy Spirit prompts people to commit to new work as part of St Giles.

Our mission is stated on the news sheet. It is to grow in faith, love and numbers. That task is being addressed by some 60 of us involved day by day in church activities and another 60 either retired from an active role, save Sunday worship, or currently too stretched by work or family commitments or health considerations to be up front. This is a remarkable achievement for a village with population under 2,000.

The growth we seek has three dimensions – towards God in faith, towards the community in love and in the number that gather Sunday by Sunday and who work with us for Christian outreach. That growth is a work of invitation as Stuart Townend’s new hymn written out in the news sheet reminds us:

Come, people of the risen King, who delight to bring him praise. Come, all and tune your hearts to sing to the Morning Star of grace. From the shifting shadows of the earth we will lift our eyes to him, where steady arms of mercy reach to gather children in. Come, young and old from every land, men and women of the faith. Come, those with full or empty hands, find the riches of his grace.

Growth comes from the Lord’s invitation through us to seekers. It’s happening through the quality of our worship and friendliness as new attenders testify. Sacraments don’t need to be mechanical rituals. Preaching doesn’t need to be finger wagging moralism. Christian fellowship doesn't need to be holier than thou superiority. At St Giles there’s awesome warmth in the eucharist, gracious inspiration we trust in the range of preaching and preachers and a fellowship that sees its Christianity as about getting your head screwed on the right way.

The Gospel reading set for today addresses the issue of discernment that’s so essential as we look forward as a church with limited personnel and energies. The news sheet boat and fish logo capture its essence. The disciples fish unfruitfully until they get discerning advice from the Lord. Look with me at the last five lines of the passage from the beginning of St John Chapter 21:

Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.

Over the last year we've prayed discernment as a Church - and we've received it!

A year ago we were fishing fabric-wise on the left side of the boat as our PCC gave attention to best provision of amenities including a toilet at St Giles. The Lord turned our attention during 2012 to the right hand side, so to speak, as he opened up the Martindale refurbishment as a possibility through the Martindale Committee’s identifying and seeking the Verity Waterlow funding. That hasn't meant the church toilet being forgotten, just that Jesus gave us discernment through circumstances  to shift priorities as we sought to enhance our buildings overall to better serve growth in faith, love and numbers.

Faithful to that leading, and the call to fish for or rather engage with new people we’ve set out at the end of the PCC report a major challenge for 2013 as making the Martindale a more effective mission focus serving to bring new folk into the orbit of God’s love. If that is to happen we need people on board, people well formed in Christian faith to help build outreach.

Over the last two years several of us have been fishing to get connections with the youth. We sense, as if from the Lord, we need his discernment to fish elsewhere for them or for whoever the Lord has up his sleeve to lead the youth. That’s why we've written down another 2013 challenge as involving more young adults in church leadership.

In finance again discernment is being given and sought. For the third year running we've been unable to pay our parish share in full. It’s clear that of recent years we've only managed to pay it from the reserves we had then that are now pretty well emptied. I would like to see fresh transparency over our finances which will serve corporate discernment and demonstrate more fully the generosity of St Giles membership and how the Lord is repaying it. God indeed loves a cheerful giver as St Paul writes to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 9.7) and also encourages them, as I would encourage you, in these words: On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn (1 Corinthians 16.2). In other words put your giving to God’s work top of the list and make it a proportion of your income.

The 23 group reports for 2012 are full of encouragement, though I ask myself as a church with 50 weekly communicants is our fishing like that I saw on Dieppe pier last week, too many people throwing their own lines? Most fish landed in Dieppe is caught in nets by fishing teams. Can a small church like ours really keep up 23 realms of engagement? How can we team up more?

That being said I’m a bit of a loner myself and that may need addressing. As the group reports show I’m responsible for two new initiatives, electronic discipleship and meditation group both, near to my heart, but which I see as experimental.

The First Steps and village lunch reports remind us how much the Martindale serves our mission. Now the Martindale looks a more attractive venue commercially we will have to watch and guard its use so that it serves our aim as a church which isn't raising money so much as growing Christians in faith, love and numbers.

That vision is best implemented by a strategy founded on prayerful discernment. As I said at Epiphany when we launched the new Mission Action Plan with my pair of scissors Show Each one reach one may be a good motto for 2013. Our main challenge is one of reaching out, cutting into spiritual apathy with the two scissor blades of prayer and invitation.

Through intercessory prayer for the spreading of the gift of faith we open ourselves to Our Lord’s invitation to fish in the right place. There are a good number of folk who’d come to Church if someone would ask them. The best way to identify who in your acquaintance, or down your street, may be open to an invitation from you to attend St Giles is to commit daily in prayer to the spread of faith.

Our spire points up to a God whose possibilities, exceeding our imagining, are released on earth through prayer.

'The future of the world lies with the intercessors and connectors.' Someone wrote. Will you help change the future of the world through St Giles by being the intercessors and connectors we so badly need to see the body of Christ built up in this place?

Each one reach one – by scissor blades of prayer and invitation – so that we anticipate in Horsted Keynes John’s Revelation, part of which we heard as our first reading, where every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, sing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever! Amen!