St John the Evangelist, Burgess Hill Transfiguration of Our Lord 6 August 2023

God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6b)

The radiance of Jesus lightens the mind, warms the heart and energises the will.

Just as dynamite contains within itself potential energy that can be released to give light, heat and a surge of momentum so it is with Jesus Our Lord.

The Feast of the Transfiguration provides first disclosure of that radiant energy central to Christianity which is at the heart of its forward momentum flowing from ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.  

Christianity goes forward today by radiant energy as we come again and again before Jesus in word and sacrament and in the hearts of his faithful to see our minds, hearts and wills irradiated.

As Fr. Bull, one of the great Mirfield Fathers put it, the glad tidings of Christianity are in what Jesus Christ did for men and in the abiding energy of that work.

We gather at the eucharist this morning to be caught up afresh into the radiant energy of Jesus which shines from today’s scripture with an invitation to seek a fresh illumination from the truth that is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21), a fresh warming of our hearts by his Sacred Heart and a fresh energising for active service from the working of his great power (Ephesians 1:19b).

All of this will flow from the radiance of Jesus, what the Apostle calls the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

As dynamite is ignited to release its potential energy into light, heat and momentum so our faith ignites the radiance of Jesus to light up our lives and through us light up a world so desperately in need of that irradiation.

I want to suggest that this ignition process has three dimensions – intellectual, devotional and practical. 

There is an intellectual challenge to lay hold afresh on Christian basics so we better answer for our faith. I wonder when you last read a book about the Christian Faith.  Or even the Bible itself? If someone asked you why you thought Christianity was true would you be able to argue for the truth of the resurrection? 

Just a few questions to get us thinking about what’s called apologetics - not apologising but working at thinking through our faith so as to be able to give a better ‘apologia’ or reasonable defence for believing as Christians. I have brought a few copies of my own book itself entitled Elucidations - light on Christian controversies. (Show) It costs just a fiver if any of you fancy summer reading about  topics ranging from self-love to unanswered prayer, Mary to anti-Semitism, suffering to same-sex unions, charismatic experience to the ordination of women, hell to ecology and why we should trust the Church.

The radiance of Jesus lightens the mind. It also warms the heart to an overflow of love.

A radiant Christian is more than someone buzzing with ideas about Christ. There’s something out of this world streaming through them. To gain the radiance of Jesus we need to be exposed to his radiant love. Christian friends, holy priests, all of them help – but nothing can replace our own individual business with God. Welcoming the radiance of Jesus into our hearts is a life-long struggle because of our fallen nature. We need a regular time of prayer, a discipline of self-examination and confession, a resolve to intercede for others, to give a proportion of our income to God’s work and so on. You may have a chance in these summer days - or with greater opportunism the odd rainy day - to review and renew your Christian rule of life, maybe even plan a retreat. Anne and I are discovering Worth Abbey’s monthly Quiet Fridays. Ask one of our clergy if you want advice on planning a Retreat or Quiet Day. 

The radiance of Jesus lightens the mind, warms the heart and then, lastly, it energises the will.

Where would our study and prayer be if it never led us into action, to be part of what Fr. Bull called the abiding energy of the once-for-all work of Jesus Christ?  We are here at the eucharist to gain that energy. 

To go back to the physics analogy, just as the potential energy in an explosive is released to give light, heat and a surge of momentum so all Jesus attained through his life, death and resurrection is given to be celebrated and released so as to give power and direction to our lives. Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory we pray.

How have we acted to transform our environment to be more as Christ would want it since last we met at the altar? How have we acted in recent weeks to change the world around us for Christ? Inasmuch as the radiant energy of Jesus is in us, we find ourselves raiding the kingdom of fear with love, encouraging those who are down, forgiving those who come against us harshly and providing for those in need from our own resources. This energy carries our lives forward to work for the kingdom of this world (to) become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ (Rev 11:15). 

For such energising of will, warming of heart and illumination of mind we lift our hearts to the Father at this Transfiguration Mass seeking our own transfiguration through the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

Pre-Lent Sunday 7th February 2016

We read in the Gospel a very beautiful incident from the account of the life of Our Lord.

Jesus ascends a high mountain with Peter, James and John. While praying up there the Lord’s face glows with the brightness of the sun and his garments became dazzling white.

The splendour of Christ’s divinity penetrates through his human body as the Son of God appears in his splendour and glory.

The glory that was to shine when he rose from the dead at Easter shone in this isolated incident through the person of the earthly Jesus.

The disciples were shown as much of God as they were ready for.

At the heart of Christianity there’s a yearning to see God as he is. This has sprung up from the days Jesus walked and shone on earth with the promise we would be able to see God.

Not with mortal eyes but in the resurrection.

The Transfiguration of Our Lord anticipates both his Resurrection and our own. As children of God we’re heading for the full, glorious sight of God.

Beloved we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed Saint John writes. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

As Lent approaches we should be in the valley of decision about some action that can help us better head for the vision of God. It’s a time to refocus upon Our Lord, to turn our eyes upon Jesus.

Lent challenges us to look to the main things in Christian life and to keeping them the main things.

This season has about it a call to study God’s word. I do commend what I wrote in P&P suggesting we do some extra bible reading from Exodus, Isaiah, John’s gospel, Acts and so on.

As I’ve written in the news sheet from my Premier Radio broadcast on Friday, Lent’s a time we can use to let the power of the Cross take more hold of our lives.

Give out - write a letter or e mail of encouragement to a different friend or colleague each weekday; give time to help a neighbour; save money on food and give it away to charity.

Give something up. Christ bore the Cross for you and fasting can remind you of that love. Just have drinks before and after eating one meal in the afternoon if family arrangements allow; give up alcohol or chocolate on weekdays.

Give out, give up - and give to the Lord in prayer. Make a weekly self examination; attend an extra weekly church group like the Acts for Action on Tuesday evenings in the Martindale or Stations of the Cross which you can always do on your own or with others Saturdays 5.30pm.

The yearning to see God more fully is at the heart of Christianity, and to see God we need to purify our vision. Through giving out, giving up or giving to the Lord in prayer we’ve got 40 days to work especially at this.

Beloved we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)

A happy and holy Lent to you!

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.

Christ the King 24th November 2013

If Christ is King how can he more fully be my king?

A good question as the church year ends and we go into purple next week for a new start in Advent season.

How many more church years will I follow as I prepare for eternity, you could ask, how much time is there left me here on earth to prepare for the dominion of love in heaven?

I don't know about you, but I find it far easier to sing to Christ as King in church on Sunday than to submit to him in my circumstances on Monday - or Tuesday even, Monday being my day off!

I want Christ not just to be one sphere of my life, but the ruler of my whole life, which means my every circumstance.

If I am living close to Christ the difficult conundrum is well solved, the challenging relationship has the love it needs invested in it, there is patience to live with unresolved situations and cheerfulness to overcome contingencies.

How do you keep close to Christ, since without it life gets flat or pear shaped!

Four things to consider as our service books turn back once more to Advent - prayer, bible reading, eucharist and Christian fellowship.

PRAYER  'Seven days without prayer makes one week'. How's your personal prayer? We did some training last month that a lot couldn't come to. During the prayer fortnight I talked one Sunday about how the Jesus Prayer helps me - 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner'. At the start of the church's year, before Christmas crowds my diary, could I refresh the resolve to spend 5 min in prayer with Jesus every day? Just look at him, and let him look at me? Maybe a walk up to Church, always open daytime, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, so we're reminded always of the intimacy of Holy Communion by the Reservation light? Or thinking corporate prayer, why not join occasionally in Saturday's 8am prayer for St Giles which lasts half an hour

BIBLE READING 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps' If you want to come close to Jesus, for him to be Lord of your life, you can hardly do so without attending to his words. 'Lord to whom shall we go’ Peter said to Jesus, ‘you have the words of eternal life'.Yes, you will need a guide, for those words aren't always so clear. This is why to mark the new church year I've got everyone one of these: 'A gift for you'. Show It’s an Advent freeby, four weeks bible reading notes, a week each of Day by Day with God, Guidelines, New Daylight and The Upper Room, all four varieties produced by Bible Reading Fellowship. You could see which you prefer and order a full set in January. Incidentally I've started as a BRF writer from 2014 for their New Daylight notes. You may lack a bible in accessible language. That can easily be remedied if you so decide - we use the NRSV, New Revised Standard Version, in services here.

EUCHARIST  If Christ is King how can he be more fully king of my life? Through more frequent Holy Communion. When the Holy Spirit came on John Wesley he started attending the Eucharist every day and they drove him out of the Church of England! We wouldn't today! Maybe Jesus is wanting you to meet him in his Sacrament on a Tuesday or Friday as well as on a Sunday, especially in Advent. There are few things Jesus gives us as powerful as his body and blood in bread and wine. Do I hunger for that gift? Does it empower me? Does the sacrificial demand of it, offering my soul and body in union with Christ, excite me or disturb me? Seek him more at the altar and you will certainly find him. There is no place you can be more certain of coming close to him, and bringing those on your heart close to him.

CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP From time to time St Giles organises fellowship meetings around a speaker or bible study or healing ministry.  Thursdays in term time we have Life and Faith from about quarter to 2 til 3pm and it’s generally bible based. There's tonight's informal Five o''clock service which has more interaction with one another at and before and after worship than in Church. There's next Sunday's 4pm healing service here in St Giles. Do you hunger for God? Or hunger to hunger for God? Come and receive prayer then to do so! Lack of hunger for God’s a spiritual sickness many of us suffer from. Then your priest's always available for fellowship if you want to book to meet with him and there are also special confession times before Christmas.

PRAYER, BIBLE READING, EUCHARIST, CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP - these are four ways of building love and loyalty to Christ our King worthy of consideration as we enter a new church year. I would add the church library. Reading a book about the faith, or a faith story, can be a very great help, and in another medium there’s the electronic discipleship page of the church website. It’s just been refreshed and there are links there to useful resources, as well as the Rector's page with the Firmly I Believe listen again audio. From next week there’ll be the Premier Radio Advent series based in Horsted Keynes which some of you are contributing to.

Come close to God and God will come close - give and it will be given to you.

See yourself this next month as a fresh water pool both receiving and giving out with and from Jesus our King, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

May Christ dwell in our hearts St. Swithun, East Grinstead Sunday 15th November 2009

Let us let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer of our faith. Hebrews 12:1

Our whole life as Christians is a looking to Jesus. Our life is this prayer and this prayer, this looking to Jesus is our life.

The Lord wants a deeper place in our life and that of our church because Christianity is always about getting more of Jesus Christ into our lives and shedding self-interest.

Our individual prayer time is foundational to this along with our gathering Sunday by Sunday on the Lord's Day, in the Lord's House, with the Lord's People. This is why we’ve all got an invitation to join our School of Prayer this week at St Swithun’s.

One of the most important things about our daily prayer is the time we give. Whatever we feel or don't feel at prayer it is the offering of 5, 10, 15 minutes daily that is pivotal. Time matters. It is also important to offer Our Lord what we might call ‘prime time’.

Time, and then secondly, place. There’s church of course, suitable for some of us. Most of us though have to find a prayer space at home. We need then to be quiet, but perhaps not too quiet so we keep our feet on the ground. We need perhaps to be comfortable, not so much that we fall asleep. Prayer invites attentiveness. Some people say a hard backed chair gives you that business like feeling. Myself I use a comfy chair, but try to kneel as well for some of the time.

Then what – as one definition puts it ‘prayer is a lifting of heart and mind to God’ and there are many different ‘airports’ for lift off. The aim of our course is to open some of these airports or ways of prayer up to you.

Wherever you lift off from you have to be ‘there’ to get a lift. Confession of sin before you pray is important – you want God to see the real you and nothing pretentious! The bottom line for prayer, for getting to a place of lift off, is honesty. To be there is also about getting down from your mind into your heart as well.

Tom Smail's baldness 'caused by the Lord banging on his head to get his religion from head to heart'- a vital 14".

I want this morning to address briefly six aspects of prayer, of looking to Jesus: listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection, and lastly empowerment.

1. Listening
Prayer, looking unto Jesus, is listening. You can’t look to Jesus unless you give ear to him, unless you attend to him.

Our whole life depends on right listening – to other people and to ourselves at times – but chiefly to Jesus. Through prayer we hear from God. We catch his inspirations for our life and for the world.

How do we look to Jesus in listening? A discipline of time offered to attend directly to God.

Michael Ramsey’s quote – he jokingly said he prayed only for 2 minutes but went on to admit it took him 30 minutes to get there.

Scripture is a means of looking to Jesus through listening to his Word. We read in Hebrews 4:12 that the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

We’ll be looking during the week at the power of imaginative listening to scripture. A basic piece of advice on praying from scripture is to read through prayerfully until God touches your Spirit and then hold yourself at that point once such a prayerful impulse has been given to you.

2. Friendship
Looking to Jesus is about friendship. We seek our friends’ attention and he seeks ours. When friends meet they light up and so it is with Jesus and ourselves as we come before him in contemplation.

When did you last sit in quiet before the Lord? What is it that keeps you from doing so? Could you imagine Jesus your friend doing you any harm?

Contemplative prayer has been described as ‘spiritual radiotherapy’. St Augustine once said that the whole purpose of life is the healing of the heart’s eye through which God is seen.

Heart surgery of the Holy Spirit: the melting of coldness within is like a defrosting by the heavenly microwave!

One aid to contemplation is to read a set prayer slowly, open for God to speak to you as your friend.

A major barrier to contemplation is the way our minds get so distracted which hinders our hearts from contemplation. This is where the repeating of short phrases that engage and focus the mind can be helpful as in the Orthodox Jesus prayer. This involves repeating again and again the gospel prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner. The value of the Jesus Prayer is commended all through the Christian tradition as in the writings of St. John Chrysostom: Abide constantly with the name of our Lord Jesus, so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart and the two become one. Please don’t hesitate to talk to the prayer guides, to myself or your clergy if you want guidance on the Jesus Prayer or any other of the forms of prayer suggested in this booklet.

Looking to Jesus in prayer is about listening and building friendship, about lighting one another up so that in the words of Nehemiah (8v10) the joy of the Lord [becomes] our strength.

3. Warfare
Prayer, looking to Jesus, is thirdly warfare against the deadening spiritual impact of the world, the flesh and the devil. Prayer is warfare because Jesus calls us to a fullness of humanity that involves our shedding constraints, shaking off what Hebrews calls the weight and the sin that clings so closely (12:1b). He who is in you, St John says, is greater than he that is in the world. 1 John 5:4

In prayer we see ourselves in a true light and take action in the name of Jesus against the dark forces that impel us. Hesychius of Jerusalem writes: As it is impossible for the sun to shine without light, so it is impossible for the heart to be cleansed of the filth of wicked thoughts without prayer in the Name of Jesus…let us utter this Name as often as we breathe.

The battle that is prayer comes much into its own when we attempt self-examination. This has been described as like going under water. You experience an up thrust, an opposition. There is a power at work totally opposed to self-knowledge. Satan is fearful of both our knowing God and our knowing ourselves. He wants us to live in ignorance so that we can comply with his schemes! So we battle on – in the spiritual warfare that is prayer!

4. Benevolence
Looking to Jesus fourthly is benevolence, the capacity to enter the good will of God for all people, especially in intercessory prayer. This is a feature of prayer that the St Swithun’s exploration will major on in the coming week.

Christianity is not merely a doctrine or a system of beliefs Thomas Merton wrote, it is Christ living in us and uniting people to one another in His own life and unity. For Merton a hermit monk there is only one true flight from the world; it is not an escape from conflict, anguish and suffering, but … flight from disunity and separation to unity and peace in the love of other [people]. This benevolent spirit of intercession is captured in St. Paul’s invitation in Galatians 6:2 to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.

We look to Jesus to be with us as we intercede. He lifts us up into his perfect Offering, most especially in the Holy Eucharist. In intercession we come before the Lord with people and needs on our heart to entrust them to him with confidence.

My wife Anne’s prayer for Catherine that bore fruit after 11 years

Through intercessory prayer, in the words of Professor Hallesly we couple the powers of heaven to our helplessness…the powers which can awaken those who sleep in sin and raise up the dead … that can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible.

5. Recollection
Looking to Jesus is prayer of recollection, prayer that takes stock of your life and celebrates what God has done and is doing and, looks forwards to what God is going to do in us and through us.

Another feature we will be majoring on in the fortnight ahead is the value of prayer journaling. This is the discipline of keeping a sort of written conversation with the Lord so that we can trace his working in our lives. 'Tis grace both led me safe thus far … and grace will lead me home.

Just an idea, even if you can’t make the sessions. Why not in the coming week attempt a review of your life? Look back over your years and recollect with Jesus the five biggest spiritual milestones along the way, your five most powerful desires, your five worst fears. Recollection is about such reminiscing or calling to mind. It is also about ‘collecting again’ or recovering control of oneself. Through looking to God we gain self-possession.

Attention to God, mindfulness of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian life. The recollected woman or man inhabits her or his words, is able to be present to Jesus at all times so that Jesus can be in them and show through them. As the orthodox spiritual writer Fr. Bulgakov puts it The Name of Jesus present in human heart, communicates to it the power of deification … shining through the heart, the light of the Name of Jesus illuminates all the universe.

6. Empowerment
Looking to Jesus lastly is empowerment. You will receive power he said, when the Holy Spirit comes Acts 1v8. Well he has come, at baptism and confirmation, the birth of our Christian commitment - and in the receiving of Holy Communion - but we need to invite him deeper into our lives by praying regularly for the Holy Spirit. Earlier in Luke 11 Jesus says with a great emphasis ask, and it will be given to you. If you being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Looking to Jesus is an empowerment especially by the word of God and the gifting of the Holy Spirit. You do not have James warns in his letter (4:2) because you do not ask.

When we persist in asking we can from time to time feel God’s touch upon our heart, see some sort of vision or be led to some particular scripture verse as we look to Jesus. This is charismatic prayer, literally graced or given prayer in which our looking to Jesus and waiting before him is answered by a heavenly gift.

To summarise, prayer, looking to Jesus, brings some wonderful experiences. It’s also a matter of perseverance, as Michael Ramsey reminds us with his 2 minutes prayer within half an hour’s devotional time. We need spiritual determination if we’re going to get anywhere in prayer though prayer itself kindles such enthusiasm and determination. Let us run with perseverance then the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus through listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection and empowerment. May the Lord turn our eyes more and more upon himself in the coming week!