St Bartholomew, Brighton Trinity 8 (19C) Faith 11.8.19

I’ve had some pastoral encounters in which people have taken me aside to ask how they can regain the faith their parents instilled in them so they can find hope to carry them through a trial. It’s a reminder to me of how Christianity’s getting eroded all around but that there are residual embers of faith that can be fanned into flame.

People say they find faith hard, but if I dare say it’s simply a matter of opening up to God, opening your inner eye as suggested in today’s first reading. The letter to the Hebrews famously defines faith as conviction of things not seen. That conviction is just the same as the one that clicks the kettle on to release an invisible power. Being a Christian is being like a kettle. We always need the surge of the Holy Spirit to warm us up to boiling point so that faith fizzes out into overflow. I hope our children will remember what overflow there’s been from Anne and my believing and seek the same for themselves. God has no grandchildren.

When we possess faith, that conviction is practical wisdom. Its practical in that it counters our fears, which is why Jesus says to his disciples in today’s Gospel Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 

Faith sets your sights on the big picture of things, as we read in the letter to the Hebrews, it is to desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. As for Abraham faith is taking God at his word when he promises you something good ahead of you. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land… For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God…  because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.’    

We, people of God, are the descendants of Abraham who is our father in faith!

So this morning I want to remind everyone that we have a mission at St Bartholomew’s to grow in faith as well as in love and numbers.

How can we grow in faith?

We need to commit again and again to God in Jesus Christ. God, give me a vision of yourself more to your dimensions and less to mine. Open my inner eyes! If we really prayed that prayer day by day we’d have an awareness of God in the present moment that wouldn’t just satisfy inner restlessness but make our faith grow, warm up and fizz out to bless and serve others.

To grow in faith, as our Hebrews passage said, we need the conviction of things not seen…By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Thomas Aquinas wrote wisely that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. The wisdom of this saying is brought out in the story of the acrobat who in an action now I imagine prohibited wheeled his son in a wheelbarrow as part of his high wire act. When they asked his son how he felt about the exercise he was said to say I trust my dad. 

Here is faith defined as the extra sense it is, quite beyond the natural senses, but nevertheless based on experience. 

The boy needed no explanation for the faith he had in his father though few others would rise to it. By analogy Christian faith in God is the certain conviction you will be carried forward in all the perils of life by one who loves you beyond reason. The strength of Christianity lies in this revelation of God as the Father of Jesus who acts by his Spirit to carry us forward through all the pitfalls in our life to resurrection glory. 

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom Jesus says. 

How can we grow in faith?

Commit yourself to God – and see yourself more fully as he sees you. This means more prayer, more space to ponder God in his creation.

It also means a certain biblical literacy, that is, getting into scripture, where there are so many promises addressed to believers. Those like Abraham praised in today’s purple passage from Hebrews are praised for taking God at his word. Only when you experience a passage of scripture being underlined to you by God and the consequences of that, can you see the powerful implications of taking God at his word. 

Repentance is necessary for us to grow in faith. The Book of Common Prayer exhortation says because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means [of self examination and prayer] cannot quiet his own conscience, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned Minister of God’s holy Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy Word, he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness. 

It’s appropriate I mention the forthcoming Patronal Festival since some have been asking about confession times beforehand. The answer in the spirit of the Prayer Book is come to me, or to some other maybe more discreet and learned Minister of God’s holy Word on our team and fix a time to suit you.

To grow in faith we need from prayer, scripture and turning to God in repentance a fuller sense of who we are as his children, filled with his Spirit, promised his provision and destined for his glory. 

Seeing yourself more fully as God sees you is a real eye opener. It comes though from a readiness to allow the opening up of those inner eyes that are the Spirit’s gift to every human being, even if, mysteriously, so few seem graced to see them opened. 

As something God-given, faith is inevitably mysterious. Believers hold things together in their experience that live in tension from a rational perspective. Hence faith is seen as both a virtue and a gift, a human act yet one prompted by God, a personal act yet inseparable from the corporate faith of the church. The paradox of faith is captured in the famous definition of Thomas Aquinas: Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.  (Repeat) Though seen as a human virtue, faith is seen as something moved by God through grace.

So here we are this morning open to grace, seeking those inner eyes to operate more fully in an unbelieving culture. Here we are encountering God in word and sacrament, God who embraces us in the eucharist, as a mother embraces her children, to assure them they are loved. May the love of the Lord indeed be upon us as we put our faith in him!

Trinity 19 (27th of Year) Keep the Faith 2nd October 2016

Keep faith and keep the Faith.

This morning’s scripture speak of faith in two aspects, the quality by which one believes in God through Jesus and that which is believed by Christians.

As believers we respond to God subjectively and in different situations but we also hold to the faith of the church through the ages expressed in the creed and church catechism.

Faith has a subjective and an objective aspect, an individual and collective side, all of which is illustrated by our readings with the Old Testament and Gospel readings going for the subjective, the epistle for the objective aspect.

Habakkuk affirms that the righteous live by their faith (2.4) and Our Lord in Luke 17, following a 

warning to beware of stumbling blocks to faith, gives a shocking response to the apostles’ demand: 

Increase our faith! saying if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry 

tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you. A little faith in a great God goes a

 long way. Jesus goes straight on, though, to warn against overconfident believing paralleling the 

obedience of faith. We believers are worthless slaves… doing only what we ought to have done (Luke 17.10).

Keep faith – he’s saying – but keep it humbly.

Keep the faith – is the invitation of the second reading which again has a latent warning against individuals setting themselves above themselves as believers.  The passage has a strong affirmation from Paul of personal faith I know the one in whom I have put my trust but it goes on to affirm the vitality of holding to the consensus of Christian believing handed down from the apostles. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. 2 Timothy 1.14

At the end of 2 Timothy Paul summarises this as Keeping the Faith. These later New Testament writings s call the Pastoral Epistles show the Church adapting after the death of the apostles to a succession of faith guardians from which our bishops descend. When I became your parish priest I became so before you and the Bishop with a declaration of assent to apostolic faith in these words professing the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation.

Over my 39 years as a priest I have faithfully endeavoured to hand on the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds over almost two generations and at considerable cost. It’s meant challenging thinking: that Sunday obligation’s unbiblical, baptism’s a form of baby blessing, hell’s questionable, marriage’s renegotiable, ordination’s leadership, male and female are interchangeable, the devil’s a myth - and I’ll stop there!

Keep the Faith I say to myself and to others. If you don’t keep to it, Christian faith in its fullness, the whole counsel of God as Paul puts it elsewhere, the catholic or whole faith, if you don’t keep to it, you’ll end up not keeping faith. The Jesus you see will diminish from the contours or dimensions of apostolic faith.  The way you see God will be the way you see him, not as he has actually revealed himself and handed down through the apostles and their successors, witnessed by the creed, the sacraments, the commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

Keep faith and keep the Faith.

I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands. Paul writes to Timothy in today’s lesson; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Without God’s grace, without the Holy Spirit’s anointing, without knowing our Bibles, welcoming Holy Communion, praying, confessing our sins, we will be unable to live in that obedience which Christian faith is.

To live forgiving all who hurt us and thinking of others more than ourselves, to live with both enthusiasm for the Gospel and sympathy for the many in our acquaintance who’re far from Christ – all of this we flag at without the Holy Spirit whose life within us, given at baptism, needs rekindling again and again!

We need the Holy Spirit to keep faith, and we need him to keep us abreast of the Faith, to grasp again and again the rich wonder and cohesion of Christian faith and draw us back from settling for Christianity-Lite!  Of course we can’t make the best the enemy of the good, and the Lord gives us the most brilliant example here, affirming marriage as unbreakable and yet protecting an adulterous woman, applauding utter integrity and yet absolving a thief.

Keeping the faith is something for you and I. Judging unbelief is a matter for God. As Chesterton said, looking through history, with various upsets and persecutions, Christianity has appeared to be going to the dogs seven times over its history - each time the dog has died! Currently our heels are being snapped at by arrogant secularism, behaving as if all the immense knowledge we now have coexists with any more wisdom than past generations. Then there is resurgent Islam at our heels with its naïve and wrathful simplification of Christianity.

The lectionary today recalls faith in two aspects, the quality by which one believes in God through Jesus and that which is believed by Christians.

How well do you know your faith?  Confirmation classes might be a long time back, the world has moved on from there, even if Christianity remains with the unalterable newness of Jesus! Might it help you to pursue a fuller grasp of Faith than a sermon can give, attend the midweek Life and Faith group, or find a good book on Christian basics to help you field the questions people put to you rather than keeping your head down when religion’s an issue. The Church library may help, or having a talk with one of the clergy.

Religion will always be an issue, God-given yet man-handled! 20 centuries of Christianity carry wisdom but that wisdom is ours to seek and you don’t get it any more here in Britain by osmosis. Indeed without actively seeking to increase your apprehension of Christian Faith there’s so much that’s counter it around that the default is more and more renegotiation if not surrender to its plausible yet deceptive alternatives.

Faith in the Christian perspective is as Paul defines it in Romans 5:11 is exultant trust in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord, who in the words of the second reading has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Keep faith – keep the Faith – and may the Holy Spirit anoint you this

morning through the eucharist so that you gain fresh resolve to seek

the Lord and get yourself more abreast of the faith of the Church which

is the good treasure entrusted to you..(by) the Holy Spirit living in us.

Trinity 11 (19th of Year) Faith 7th August 2016

I’ve had some pastoral encounters recently in which people have taken me aside to ask how they can regain the faith their parents instilled in them so they can find hope to carry them through a trial. It’s a reminder to me of how Christianity’s getting eroded all around but that there are residual embers of faith that can be fanned into flame.

People say they find faith hard, but it’s simply a matter of opening up to God, opening your inner eye as suggested in today’s second reading. The letter to the Hebrews famously defines faith as conviction of things not seen. That conviction is just the same as the one that clicks the kettle on to release an invisible power. Being a Christian is being like a kettle. We always need the surge of the Holy Spirit to warm us up to boiling point so that faith fizzes out into overflow. I hope our children will remember what overflow there’s been from Anne and my believing and seek the same for themselves. God has no grandchildren.

When we possess faith, that conviction is practical wisdom. Its practical in that it counters our fears, which is why Jesus says to his disciples in today’s Gospel Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Faith sets your sights on the big picture of things, as we read in the letter to the Hebrews, it is to desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. As for Abraham in the first and second readings faith is taking God at his word when he promises you something good ahead of you. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God…  because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.   

We, people of God, are the descendants of Abraham who is our father in faith!

So this morning I want to remind everyone that we have a mission action plan at St Giles Church to grow in faith as well as in love and numbers.

How can we grow in faith?

We need to commit again and again to God in Jesus Christ. God, give me a vision of yourself more to your dimensions and less to mine. Open my inner eyes! If we really prayed that prayer day by day we’d have an awareness of God in the present moment that wouldn’t just satisfy inner restlessness but make our faith grow, warm up and fizz out to bless and serve others.

To grow in faith, as our Hebrews passage said, we need the conviction of things not seen…By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Thomas Aquinas wrote wisely that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. The wisdom of this saying is brought out in the story of the acrobat who wheeled his son in a wheelbarrow as part of his high wire act. When they asked his son how he felt about the exercise his only comment was I trust my dad.

Here is faith defined as the extra sense it is, quite beyond the natural senses, but nevertheless based on experience. The boy needed no explanation for the faith he had in his father though few others would rise to it. By analogy Christian faith in God is the certain conviction you will be carried forward in all the perils of life by one who loves you beyond reason. The strength of Christianity lies in this revelation of God as the Father of Jesus who acts by his Spirit to carry us forward through all the pitfalls in our life to resurrection glory.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom Jesus says.

How can we grow in faith?

Commit yourself to God – and see yourself more fully as he sees you. This means more prayer, more space to ponder God in his creation.

It also means a certain biblical literacy, that is, getting into scripture, where there are so many promises addressed to believers. Those praised in today’s purple passage from Hebrews are praised like Abraham for taking God at his word. Only when you experience a passage of scripture being underlined to you by God and the consequences of that, can you see the powerful implications of taking God at his word.

Repentance is one of the implications. The Book of Common Prayer exhortation says because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means [of self examination and prayer] cannot quiet his own conscience, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned Minister of God’s holy Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy Word, he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness. It’s appropriate I mention the special confession time on Saturday 6pm before the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary but in the spirit of the Prayer Book you can approach the priest at any time.

To grow in faith we need from prayer, scripture and turning to God in repentance a fuller sense of who we are as his children, filled with his Spirit, promised his provision and destined for his glory.

Seeing yourself more fully as God sees you is a real eye opener. It comes though from a readiness to allow the opening up of those inner eyes that are the Spirit’s gift to every human being, even if, mysteriously, so few seem graced to see them opened.

As something God-given, faith is inevitably mysterious. Believers hold things together in their experience that live in tension from a rational perspective. Hence faith is seen as both a virtue and a gift, a human act yet one prompted by God, a personal act yet inseparable from the corporate faith of the church. The paradox of faith is captured in the famous definition of Thomas Aquinas: Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.  

Though seen as a human virtue, faith is seen as something moved by God through grace.

So here we are this morning open to grace, seeking those inner eyes to operate more fully in an unbelieving culture. Here we are encountering God in word and sacrament, coming close to God who embraces us in the eucharist, as a mother embraces her children, to assure them they are loved.

May the love of the Lord be upon us as we put our faith in him!

Midnight Mass and 8am 25th December 2013

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1:5

They say religion is a leap in the dark. I was on the train a week or two back and was disconcerted to hear two business men discussing family members who’d turned religious, lamenting it as something obscure and undesirable. Their whole attitude summarised that of the false enlightenment that surrounds us which sees religion as a leap into the dark.

In recent months the ‘enlightened’ attitudes of British secularism have obscured the age old institution of marriage, eroded the prohibition of suicide and opened the way towards three parent children.  The obscuring of our Christian moral foundation as a society is a direct consequence of pushing faith to the margins of public life.

Over the same period many of us have been digesting a new icon of faith within the world community in Pope Francis.  This man’s welcome engagement with the poorest people in the world and marginalised people in western society, such as refugees and gay people, has led many people not of his communion, including myself, to read his words.

Francis’ first encyclical was published in June and I recently reviewed it for Chichester Magazine and the Church of England magazine New Directions. What brilliance, I thought, as I read it, to counter perceptions of faith as a leap in the dark or obscurantism with a papal encyclical that shines with the light of faith!  

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

What is faith? Francis paints his picture in bright colours and I now quote his words. In the great cathedrals light comes down from heaven by passing through windows depicting the history of salvation. God’s light comes to us through the account of his self-revelation... In the love of God revealed in Jesus, faith perceives the foundation on which all reality and its final destiny lies… Faith knows that God has drawn close to us, that Christ has been given to us as a great gift which inwardly transforms us, dwells within us and thus bestows on us the light that illumines the origin and the end of life. 

I was struck by Francis’ image of faith as a realising of God’s self disclosure being like the way daylight lights up our stained glass representation of tonight’s story. If it were day you’d see the nativity scene here because light will have come from beyond this building.

At Midnight Mass we ask the light of the Holy Spirit to shine in our hearts to warm them to that manger scene, and what St Paul describes as the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6b)

To have faith is nothing obscure. It’s to hear God’s call, to see your life as part of his awesome reality and to touch the Lord in the sacraments. It is ‘to grasp reality’s deepest meaning and to see how much God loves this world and is constantly guiding it towards himself.’

Far from going into some obscure realm Christian faith’s about living our lives in this world with ever greater commitment and intensity. That commitment to the good of the world is a commitment to partnership with people of good will wherever they are, as the Christmas angel song reminds us – Glory to in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will.

God’s self disclosure – he is love, love of a Father for his Son in the Spirit – God’s self-disclosure given in Bethlehem by the Son taking flesh, announces love as the be all and end all of the universe.

God, who made all that is, loves all that is, just because it is – including you and me! This is heartening good news. It puts heart into those working in the name of that Love, alongside all of good will on this planet, to create wealth and distribute it justly, to feed the hungry, bring peace with justice to the troubled nations and hope for the future.

The light of faith born at Christmas isn’t so much about brightening church interiors like tonight (this morning) as about building hope for the future. Tonight’s feast marks God’s investment in humanity. The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Far from a leap in the dark the Christian religion is about coming into the light of Jesus Christ and bringing the world into it. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. For twenty centuries the light of Jesus Christ has warmed and defrosted frozen hearts into extraordinary service. Ann Govas’ splendid book on our church windows recalls such service kindled within these very walls. Take that warm light which shone through St Giles school teacher Sidney Peek who gave his life as a missionary in what is now Malawi, dying at 21 of black water fever and recalled in St Stephen’s window. Or how the same light shone through Katherine Marshall and Lucy Foster who founded a home for sick and incurable children in Kilburn, recalled in the window of St Monica.

(This morning) Tomorrow at dawn God’s natural light (shone) will shine again through these windows - the nativity window and those of Sidney, Katherine and Lucy - to make the images come alive. (Does) Will his supernatural light find a welcome in this congregation here assembled, so we too can be caught up into building God’s future for the world? 

We don’t need to be lifted from obscurity into being the subject of a church window, but if we too are to lighten the world’s obscure darkness we do need knowledge of the Love that first dawned on Christmas day.

God bless you this night, and raise you out of darkness into the light of his self-disclosure which is Love, into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Trinity 11 11th August 2013

During Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s eight years in Russian prison camps, his parents died and his wife divorced him. Upon his release from prison he was dying of a cancer that was growing in him so rapidly that he could feel the difference in a span of twelve hours. It was at that point that he abandoned himself to God and wrote this beautiful prayer: ‘Oh God, how easy it is for me to believe in You. You created a path for me through despair…Oh God, you have used me, and where you cannot use me, you have appointed others. Thank you.

There’s an image of faith if ever there was one!

People say they find faith hard but it’s simply a matter of opening your inner eye as suggested in today’s second reading from the letter to the Hebrews: Faith is the conviction of things not seen. 

When we possess faith, that conviction is practical wisdom. Solzhenitsyn’s faith was something very practical that gave him purpose even as he faced death. It was a wisdom nurtured by Scripture and the worship of the Church.

Faith is practical in that it counters our fears, which is why Jesus says to his disciples in today’s Gospel Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Faith sets your sights on the big picture of things, as we read in the letter to the Hebrews, it is to desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. As for Abraham in the first and second readings faith is taking God at his word when he promises you something good ahead of you. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God…  because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.’   

We, people of God, are the descendants of Abraham who is our father in faith!

So this morning let’s be reminded of our mission action plan here at St Giles Church, which is to grow in faith, love and numbers.

How can we grow in faith?

We need to commit to God in Jesus Christ. God, give me a vision of yourself more to your dimensions and less to mine. Open my inner eyes! If we really prayed that prayer day by day we’d have an awareness of God in the present moment that wouldn't just satisfy inner restlessness but make our faith a blessing to those around us.

I take the Blessed Sacrament to a number of housebound folk. Last week I was sitting with one home communicant looking out, as one can do in many a home in Horsted Keynes, on a terrific view. The lady said to me she was astonished her children and grandchildren failed to see God behind that beauty. For her and for me the view stirred up the thought, what must he be like who made such beauty? For them the beauty was just there as a backcloth to busy lives and no eye opener to God.

To grow in faith, as our Hebrews passage said, we need the conviction of things not seen…By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Thomas Aquinas wrote wisely that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. The wisdom of this saying is brought out in the story of the acrobat who wheeled his son in a wheelbarrow as part of his high wire act. When they asked his son how he felt about the exercise his only comment was I trust my dad.

Here is faith defined as the extra sense it is, quite beyond the natural senses, but nevertheless based on experience. The boy needed no explanation for the faith he had in his father though few others would rise to it. By analogy Christian faith in God is the certain conviction you will be carried forward in all the perils of life by one who loves you beyond reason. The strength of Christianity lies in this revelation of God as the Father of Jesus who acts by his Spirit to carry us forward through all the pitfalls in our life to resurrection glory.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom Jesus says.

How can we grow in faith?

Commit yourself to God – and see yourself more fully as he sees you. This means more prayer, more space to ponder God in his creation.

It also means a certain biblical literacy, that is, getting into scripture, where there are so many promises addressed to believers. Those praised in today’s purple passage from Hebrews are praised like Abraham for taking God at his word. Only when you experience a passage of scripture being underlined to you by God and the consequences of that, can you see the powerful implications of taking God at his word.

To grow in faith we need a fuller sense of who we are as God’s children, filled with his Spirit, promised his provision and destined for his glory.

Seeing yourself more fully as God sees you is a real eye opener. It comes though from a readiness to allow the opening up of those inner eyes that are the Spirit’s gift to every human being, even if, mysteriously, so few seem graced to see them opened.

As something God-given, faith is inevitably mysterious. Believers hold things together in their experience that live in tension from a rational perspective. Hence faith is seen as both a virtue and a gift, a human act yet one prompted by God, a personal act yet inseparable from the corporate faith of the church. The paradox of faith is captured in the famous definition of Thomas Aquinas: Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.  

Though seen as a human virtue, faith is seen as something moved by God through grace.

So here we are this morning open to grace, seeking those inner eyes to operate more fully in an unbelieving culture. Here we are encountering God in word and sacrament, coming close to God who embraces us in the eucharist, as a mother embraces her children, to assure them they are loved.

May the love of the Lord be upon us as we put our faith in him!

Dedication Festival 23rd June 2013 8am

As parish priest I get holes in my pocket from these (show)

I carry a lot of keys.

The two porch door keys are biggest, then the sacristy and then the safe.

What a privilege, though, pocket holes apart, for there are no more precious keys in the village than those that open Saint Giles Church.

It is our Feast of Dedication. We recall the day 900 years ago when our current building was set apart, after its construction, for the worship of God.

Church keys take us into church buildings - but what you do there is the real thing.

We worship. We lift heart and mind to God standing on the shoulders of thousands who’ve been here before us in this holy place seeking God’s face.

There was worship in heaven before Saint Giles was built and there will be worship in heaven after this building lies in the dust.

The question is will you and I in a century’s time be part of that worship?

We will need a key to do so.

That will be our faith in Jesus who opens wide the gate of heaven to those below.

By faith, the conviction of things unseen, we unlock possibilities for this world and the next.

The gift of faith gives you access to a sense of belonging, purpose and empowerment that makes life really worth living.

On this Feast of Dedication we have a challenge to deepen our spiritual life.

Take our prayer, yours and mine.

When the church becomes a house of prayer the people will come running. wrote Brother Roger of Taizé

The church’s mission is weak because her prayer is weak.

Refreshing our prayer has enormous implications if we really set our hearts to it – and the Feast of Dedication is good pretext if we will make it so.

Prayer is the key of faith. By it we unlock the eternity we were made for and the eternal love that welcomes open hearts to make them one with the just made perfect .

Prayer is the key that unlocks the way into what God has in store for each one of us.

Through the exercise of faith that is prayer we are able to make better life choices from the countless possibilities that lie before us all.

When I was 21 I remember getting cards with keys upon them. ‘Key of the door – 21’. Life has moved on so that the things I gained access to at 21, to vote, to open a bank account and so on, come earlier than they did years ago.

My church keys open up access to a building where through preaching and sacrament we encounter one whose oversight extends across this world and the next.

Your faith and mine, the Christian faith, owns that oversight and welcomes through it a purpose for living and a reason for dying.  

This is what lies behind what we’re about this morning on our Feast of Dedication: a call to our faith’s exercising itself more in prayer so that we may see even more of God’s possibilities coming about in our lives.