St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Epiphany 2020

 

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.

Epiphany is the origin of this forward movement in the church calendar which today commemorates the first manifestation of Christ to the nations in the person of the Gentile kings.

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 minds and 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 so shines from today’s scripture. Arise, shine for your light has come says Isaiah you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice. 

As we start a New Year this great Feast of the Epiphany invites us to seek a fresh illumination from the truth that is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21), a fresh warming of our hearts by the 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 (2 Corinthians 4:6b). 

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 desperately in need of that irradiation.

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

As we start a New Year 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.

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 these 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 have a chance to review and renew your devotion as a New Year unfolds. Going on a retreat once the COVID restrictions lift – ask one of our priests if you want to know how you can arrange one. 

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.

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 in this Epiphany Eucharist. 

Trinity 6 (17C) St Edward, Burgess on prayer 28.7.19

Lord, teach us to pray they asked Jesus.

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

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 prayed for 2 minutes but took 30 minutes to get there.

Scripture is a means of looking to Jesus through listening to his Word. There is great power in imaginative listening to scripture. One way you can do this is to make the words of scripture more personal by changing the case of the pronoun in the passage. Take that Colossians passage. You could make it into a This is the Word of the Lord about John or whoever you are. It could read: When I John was buried with Christ in baptism, I was also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when I was dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of my flesh, God made me alive together with Christ, when he forgave me all my trespasses. As I read the passage like this it reminds me how God sees me and how I should see myself, as one dead to sin and alive to him. There are times when such an observation can be very powerful.

This sort of exercise is about experiencing what we already possess as Christians, seeing ourselves as God sees us in his word. You 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.

Prayer, looking to Jesus is secondly 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 cf heavenly microwave

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 words 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 early Christian writer, Hesychius of Jerusalem who captures something of the positive, joyful goodness that seems to flow from this discipline even if such graces are inevitably sporadic. The sun, passing over the earth, produces daylight; the holy and worshipful Name of the Lord Jesus, constantly shining in the mind, produces a measureless number of sun-like thoughts. 

Please don’t hesitate to talk to me afterwards if you want guidance on the Jesus Prayer as I’ve written a book about it (show). Not that I’m expert - any expertise I possess is to know that when it comes to prayer we’re all on the bottom rung of the ladder!

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

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 (12v1b).

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 against the dark forces that impel us. Self-examination has been described as being like going under water.  You experience an upthrust, 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! 

Did you know any Anglican Communicant can find a spiritual director through their clergy or by a phone call directly to Diocesan Church House who’ll give you names of potential prayer guides to try out within a short distance of where you live? 

It's also possible to approach visiting priests for one-to-one confidential help in knowing the assurance of God’s forgiveness. We have a saying about use of this ministry of confession among Anglicans: ‘all may, none must, some should’. Sometimes making a sacramental confession can refresh your prayer - ‘Square with God and he will square with you’.

Prayer is warfare. There is a power at work opposed to self-knowledge and we need courage to battle against it, holding to faith God always has our best interests at heart in the costly business of facing up to ourselves, warts and all.

Looking to Jesus fourthly is benevolence, the capacity to enter the good will of God for all people, especially in intercessory prayer.

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].

The prayer of intercession is true to the invitation to benevolence in Galatians where St Paul invites his readers to bear one another’s’ burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.  6:2)

We look to Jesus to be with us as we intercede.  He lifts us up into His Perfect Offering. In intercession we come before the Lord with people and needs on our heart to entrust them to him with confidence.

Here’s one suggested method used by Dorothy Kerin:

By an act of the will place yourself in the presence of Our Lord.

With an act of faith ask him to empty you of self and of all desire save that his will may  be done and that it may illuminate your heart and mind.

Then gather to mind all those you are to intercede for and hold them silently up to him.

Make no special request but just rest with them in him.

Desire nothing but that Our Lord may be glorified in them.

In this simple way of approach Our Lord makes known his will and gives himself to us and to those for whom we intercede – in quietness.

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.

Fifthly 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 forward to what God is going to do in us and through us.

The value of prayer journaling. Tis grace both led me safe thus far … and grace will lead me home. A good exercise is to look back over your life 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, and is able to be present to Jesus at all times so that Jesus can be in them and show through them.

Prayer, looking to Jesus is lastly empowerment.  If you then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (Luke 11:13).

Well we did ask for the Spirit - or others asked, at baptism and confirmation, the birth of our Christian commitment and in the receiving of Holy Communion - but we need to keep inviting him by asking regularly for the Holy Spirit. 

Prayer is an empowerment especially by the gift of the Holy Spirit. As we pray we can at times 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.

Looking to Jesus in prayer then is listening, friendship, warfare, benevolence, recollection and empowerment. 

May the Lord turn our eyes more and more upon himself so that our earthly pursuits may lose some of their enticement as we see more of him through seeking him in prayer. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.