St Richard, Haywards Heath Easter 5 10th May 2020

How often do you think of heaven?  ‘In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places’ Our Lord says in today’s Gospel from John 14. ‘I go and prepare a place for you’.

When I think of heaven - and I’ve been doing a bit thanks to COVID 19 - I find thinking goes some way. Our reasoning powers can trace experiences of goodness, truth, beauty, holiness and love to find in them pointers to heaven. Suffering, strangely, builds on this reasoning, as does experience of the supernatural. My reasonable thought about heaven though needs the aid of the revelation of God provided in Jesus Christ. That aid is given us this morning in the promises of scripture, the fact we’re gathered despite COVID to celebrate the resurrection, and in the eucharist itself a foretaste of heaven.

Easter season is queen of church seasons on account of its heavenward focus. Even so every Sunday the Lord’s people gather on the Lord’s day round the Lord’s table - ‘This is the day that the Lord has made’, says the Psalmist, ‘let us rejoice and be glad in it. Alleluia!’ (Psalm 118:24)!

True to this holy season, though you can’t see my hands pointing today, I want to use words to point instead in summary of my book ‘Pointers to Heaven’ launched Thursday on Amazon with Bishop Martin’s blessing. 

First of my ten pointers is goodness, and I see that in many here at St Richard’s. I think, if she or he is so good, what must perfect goodness be like for Hebrews 12:23 speaks of our being made perfect in heaven? Then as a former scientist who researched the truth of plastics I see the truth of matter’s design pointing to Mind existing before matter, the truth of God’s mind ‘the way, the truth and the life’ (John 14:6) who’s placed discovery of heaven ahead of us. 

Goodness, truth, beauty, holiness, love all five point us beyond this world. I wouldn’t be preaching this morning without encountering a holy priest when I was a young man. Something otherworldly about Fr Hooper reached into my soul drawing me to ordination through a strengthening of faith in ‘the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting’ (Apostles Creed).

Suffering, strangely, builds on reasoning so far. If there were no God or heaven suffering we bear or see daily on TV would be unconscionably dreadful in its meaninglessness. Alongside suffering, occasional experience of the supernatural points seventhly beyond this world. Throughout my life I’ve been blessed to experience answers to prayer, even the prayer ‘God if you’re there show yourself’. My prayer for St Richard’s as we approach Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit may anoint each and every one of us in answer to such a prayer - Come, Holy Spirit!

My last three pointers to heaven are scripture, the resurrection of Our Lord and worship. With a science background I’m familiar with testing theories by experiment. You can test God’s promises in the Bible like those for guidance, peace of mind or answered prayer. I can’t yet test his promise of future glory but I’m happy to extrapolate the curve on the ‘graph’ of God’s loving faithfulness from all the experimental data I’ve collected in my Christian life. Similarly though Christ’s resurrection goes beyond reason I am convinced of it as a reasonably evidenced historical event. Then the last revelation is what we are about in worship this morning, with angels, and archangels and all the company of heaven. ‘The Lord’s people gather on the Lord’s day around the Lord’s table’, as preview of forthcoming attractions. Blest indeed we are called here to the supper of the Lamb anticipating heaven’s supper to be spread out for us at the fulfilment of all things!  

Alleluia, Christ is risen - he is risen indeed, alleluia!

Trinity Sunday 22 May 2016

Anne and I were on a train to Darlington last week. I looked up to see these words above me. Hello, my name is carriage number 55789. How am I looking today? Let us know if there are any areas needing some tlC. Tweet us @northernrailorg#55789

I didn't tweet but it got me thinking about the Trinity. If a train that's carrying me to Darlington can invite me to speak to it, how much more the One in whom I live and move and who accompanies me to glory.

He has spoken - God - in deeds more than words. The Spirit of truth... will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:13 We know about the Trinity because God in Trinity has spoken through his deeds of creation, resurrection and Pentecost to show us himself. You couldn't make Christianity up, it’s a revealed faith no more no less and it’s the function of the Spirit to wake us up to it. Not to convey anything new but to give us a constant update of what’s been revealed once for all in Jesus Christ. 

The first reading from Proverbs catches this, as the reading on the Darlington train caught me last week. Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?... The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. Proverbs 8:1, 22-23 Wisdom is God’s coming forth to us, his speaking out from the depth of his being as ultimately Christ and the Spirit have spoken in history.

And what is God saying from his depths? Our second reading tells us from the receiving end as it speaks of experiencing God in three aspects. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ… and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:1,5) God who speaks and acts to reveal himself comes real to us in Jesus so that for over 20 centuries believers have spoken of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.(2 Corinthians 13:14 )

Today's Feast of the Blessed Trinity summarises what the church has set before us about Jesus in the Christmas and Easter cycles ending with last Sunday's celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Paschal Candle is back at the font but the warm light of the risen Lord burns on in our hearts by the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. This is the grand reminder of Trinity Sunday.

We were up near Darlington to enter the worlds of 2 year old Olivia and Toby who've both doubled in size and age since we last saw them. Lovely to enter the joyous world of children whose fascination with life is such a great teacher.  Oh to see the world through 2 year old eyes! Such simplicity and trust are in the gift of faith, along with fascination concerning the word of God and the paradox of his three in oneness. Just as children take things on trust from their parents, we children of God trust God as he acts in love towards us and speaks of himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

God is love. As we dwell in God he dwells in us and we in him. In the coming of Our Blessed Lord we see how much God loves us. In the pouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts we receive God’s love so we can overcome all that comes against us, putting love where there is no love and seeing love grow around us. This is what St Paul is speaking about in that second reading from Romans 5 when he says: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts (Romans 5:3-5)

The Feast of the Blessed Trinity is about God being love in himself and the revelation of that loving wisdom on earth inseparable from suffering. You can’t love in abstraction, you have to give it, give yourself to others which means no escape from suffering. The sign of the Trinity is the sign of the Cross, I crossed out, since Jesus came down from heaven to earth to suffer on the cross for us.

Just before I travelled up through Darlington I gave the last rites to James Nicholson’s brother Peter in a tearful ceremony with his niece Elizabeth. Few have suffered as much hospitalisation as Peter whose funeral is to be here on Tuesday week. Few families have given as much loving attention over so long a period, year by year, week by week, day by day as the Nicholson’s. Suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts That love remains with Peter and the family as they gather the fruits of perseverance, the character building that fits us by grace, through suffering, for glory.

We started with a talking train and thought of the One who also speaks to us as he carries his faithful to glory.

I end with a voice speaking this morning as if from that glory. Here is a 2 min clip Peter recorded for Premier Christian Radio. It speaks of the day of death now arrived for him when grace blossoms into glory, into the vision of the triune God face to face, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

May the Blessed Trinity be Peter's healing and ours, to whom, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion and power henceforth and evermore. Amen.

All Saints Feast 3rd November 2013 8am

At a time of economic hardship unprecedented in recent years or decades even it is inevitable that we find something of almost an over concern with material things from energy costs upward or rather downward if you live at the Rectory!

Many of us are feeling the pinch and we’ve a duty to be alongside the most vulnerable.

Sometimes though, I get troubled as a priest by what I call the over concern for this world’s goods and their security.

Why? Because of the truth enshrined in this weekend’s liturgy of All Saints, namely this:

The most meaningful thing in life is what conquers death.

Earthly life is a prologue. The book of life proper starts beyond the grave with Christianity’s Founder who is the life, the truth and the way.

Christians live knowing their homeland is in heaven. We come to church to develop a taste for that homeland through bread and wine that anticipates the heavenly banquet and through the word of God which promises the same.

If people around could really see this they’d fight to get a place at this celebration! It’s our failure, my and my predecessors, your and your predecessors as worshippers failure, to believe and to communicate this that is robbing them of this privilege.

The most meaningful thing in life is what conquers death.

I go to the Chemists and see a rack of booklets on how to overcome various conditions - arthritis, indigestion, osteoporosis, stress, varicose veins and so on.

One question not addressed is how you deal with dying.

Perhaps you wouldn’t expect doctors to have much to say about how we deal with death.  Maybe they see death as the ultimate defeat for health professionals.

Yet the whole of life leads up to death.  It's something quite natural, in a sense.  The end of man - but in which sense - 'end' as 'finish' or 'end' as 'fulfillment'?

Dying is just as much a daily medical condition as arthritis or indigestion.  Yet how do people find a consultant who can advise them on how to die?

Where do people facing eternity go to for help?

Our Christian Faith is built upon the risen Christ. He is our Consultant.

Who else can advise and prepare, console and strengthen in the face of death than Jesus?

Jesus, who in dying bore the agony of death for us.

Jesus, who in rising burst open the gates of paradise!

Our Consultant writes these words for us in his manual - though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil. I am with you.

This church points up to a world beyond this world because it is the church of Jesus Christ

We are one today also with our beloved dead - our families, friends, benefactors - those who have inspired us or enriched our lives, who now pray for us wrapped in the mantle of God’s love for all eternity.

That oneness with them at the eucharist is no better described than by a person who attended the Divine Liturgy in the icon filled Cathedral of Kiev in the Ukraine:

‘There is always a crowd’, he said, ‘ a promiscuity of rich and poor, of well dressed and tattered, a kaleidoscope mingling of people and colours - people standing and praying, people kneeling, people prostrated... There is no organ music, but an unearthly and spontaneous outburst of praise from the choir and the clergy and the people worshipping together...

‘And from the back and from the sides - and from the pillars and from the columns, look the pale faces of antiquity, the faces of the dead who are alive looking over the shoulders of the alive who have not yet died...All praising God, enfolding in a vast choric communion the few who in the Church have met on the common impulse to acknowledge the wonder and the splendour of the mystery of God.

‘You lose the sense of Ego, the separated individual, you are aware only of being part of a great unity praising God. You cease to be man and woman and become THE CHURCH (the Bride of Christ)’

And that is what we are this morning – the church, the community of Jesus - stretching beyond these four walls into eternity - living with lives that gain meaning from the conquest of death which brings and should bring our humanity into its right mind.