St Richard, Haywards Heath 3rd Sunday of Year A 22.1.23

 

As we ponder the scriptures set for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Season we see an obvious link between the Isaiah 9 passage and the Gospel we just heard from Matthew Chapter 4 quoting that very passage. The emphasis, as when it was used at Midnight Mass, is on people seeing a great light from God in Jesus Christ, but the overlap of today’s passage with the Gospel centres more on the geography. Though St Matthew’s Gospel is slanted heavily to Jewish readers his description of Our Lord’s initial ministry underlines how that begins not in Jewish but Gentile territory, in the ‘land of Zebulun! Land of Naphthali! Way of the sea on the far side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations’ (Matthew 4:15-16). The idea of a prophet coming from Galilee would not have rung true to Matthew’s Jewish readers because this was non-Jewish or Gentile land. Our Lord begins his ministry treading ground outside the Jewish community, treading the way to the revelation of God as universal Lord and Saviour on Mount Calvary. As the second reading puts it, the rejection and crucifixion of the Jewish Messiah lies beyond human philosophy or even theology. 

The astonishing force of Our Lord Jesus Christ is his revelation of God as not just the God of the Jews but the God of all people. As witnessed in the story of the wise men we followed two weeks ago, the God and Father of Jesus has universal significance. Isaiah promises light.  Our Psalm announces ‘The Lord is my light and my help’. The Gospel recounts how that light first shone on earth as Jesus ‘went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people’ (Matthew 4:23). This good news is relevant to body, mind and spirit and has transforming relevance to everyone in every age. Christianity was and is good news that, though rooted in Judaism and spoken about through prophets like Isaiah, cannot be contained in the Old Testament. As Deacon Rebecca explained last week Jesus Christ fulfils what we find in the Old Testament. We turn first every Sunday to the Jewish Scriptures to mark what is presented and prophesied about God and understanding of these scriptures help us to understand Jesus. This is exactly true of this morning where Isaiah 9 illuminates Matthew 4 and its great invitation as ‘Jesus began his preaching with the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand” (Matthew 4:17).

The Greek word ‘metanoia’ which is translated ‘repent’ means to change direction. Our Lord changed his path into non-Jewish territory; he did so with an invitation to us and to all to change direction so as to welcome the mercy of God which reaches the parts of lives and communities no other power can access. As we hear the word of God this morning we do so mindful of its transformative power. Do you have confidence in that power which is at hand to you this morning as we gather to hear the word of God and be made part of Christ’s self offering at Mass? Such an engagement  has the power to change our lives for good if we welcome the Holy Spirit who is always at hand. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. As we turn afresh to God he makes his presence real to us ‘curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among us’. Disease and sickness is much among us this morning, be that of body, mind or spirit. By his death and resurrection Our Lord has countered the power of sin, sickness, bondage, death and the devil. These dark powers are real but their power is broken as we welcome the light of the Lord and see their darkness scatter. 

It may be you are struggling for the grace of acceptance as you face a new trial laid upon you. Or are deceiving yourself over a wrongdoing you need to seek forgiveness for. Maybe you need the assurance of God’s love to reach deeper into your soul. The word of God and the Blessed Sacrament are at hand for you this morning. Soften your heart. Open yourself fresh to the grace of the Holy Spirit who is God’s love ready to be poured into our hearts. Don’t be afraid to seek prayer for such healing outside Mass maybe by talking to one of our priests. We are always ready to be used in the ministry of prayer for individuals, for confession and absolution, for the sacrament of anointing. Our Lord changed direction to Galilee to bring healing and to welcome the kingdom of heaven we need ourselves at times to change our direction. 

Today’s second reading touches on the consequences of our going it alone - our sin - on the Christian community. ‘I am for Paul’, ‘I am for Apollos’, ‘I am for Cephas’, ‘I am for Christ’. I am St Richard’s. I am Methodist. I am Ruwach. I am Baptist. This week of prayer for Christian Unity is a reminder how groups of believers putting themselves above the faith of the church through the ages weaken Christian witness overall. Haywards Heath has eight Christian denominations - Anglican, Baptist, Christ Church, Grace Church, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Ruwach Pentecostal, United Reformed Church. The world has 40,000 Christian denominations. Lord, have mercy! What is the answer and how can you and I be part of that? It is about each denomination coming to the foot of Christ’s Cross and admitting it exists as a Christian community only by God’s grace and mercy poured out on Calvary. This would build from you and I doing the same and by our praying for and fraternising with the other churches in our town. Why not go to a weekday or Sunday evening service in another town Church this week to do your bit to counter the sin of Christian division which does so much to undermine the good news of God’s love?

‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. Indeed it is - the Holy Spirit is close at hand ready to bring healing to individuals, churches and communities. Healing starts here - in the heart of an individual - where we find ourselves and love ourselves sufficiently to give ourselves. You can’t give what you don’t possess! May 2023 be a year of growth here at St Richard’s as our members gain self knowledge, self love and fresh capacity to give out to others. Our new partnership with St Mary, Balcombe places us in a privileged position to challenge churches that live for themselves. Living for yourself either individually or as churches is a receipe for death. Let’s change direction to walk as if to Galilee with Our Lord in the life giving power of the Holy Spirit and be consciously part of God’s never ending family the holy catholic church.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Trinity 13 (21B) 26.8.18

Now I’ve more leisure I’ve more time for conversation around the place. Some time back I had one about spirituality with a businessman in the relaxation area at the Dolphin gym. His firm gave him a wellbeing allowance he used to go on a Buddhist meditation course. He was surprised to hear we did contemplation in the Church of England! Somehow he’d not come to see the Church as a spiritual body. I was thinking of him as I read today’s Gospel.

It is the spirit that gives life Our Lord says in the Gospel, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. All we’re about at St Richard’s - the door left open day by day, the many services we hold, the friendships built within these walls - all this is barren without the Holy Spirit’s touch upon our membership!

Reading up to this last section of St John Chapter 6 in recent weeks we’ve heard again and again from Our Lord how we must eat his flesh to have eternal life. Now we’re told at the end of the passage that flesh is of no avail, not the Flesh of the Son of God clothed this morning in the form of bread, but our flesh. When they speak of Our Lord’s intolerable language its a reference both to welcoming this Eucharistic change - bread into flesh - and to welcoming the life-giving Spirit, the living presence of God in Jesus Christ. Echoing Joshua’s words we too will serve the Lord, for he is our God in the Old Testament reading Simon Peter shows the same decisiveness: Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the Holy One of God.

How can our spirits welcome more of the Holy Spirit? This is the question for us this morning as we take on the decisiveness invited by today’s scripture.

As I hold my hand up to God as a prayer for the Spirit it's five digits remind me of a rule of life involving worship, prayer, study, service and reflection. Sunday Mass, daily prayer, regular bible study, service to others and confessing my sins are the means by which my spirit can welcome more of the Holy Spirit.

A quick thought on each heading.

First Sunday worship. One of the things Anne and I miss leaving Horsted Keynes for Haywards Heath is sitting by the fire. The way fires burn has something about it which challenges a major spiritual deception which is that we can live a healthy Christian life as long as we go to Church on occasion. Just as coals cool when separated from one another so Christians need one another and worship especially to keep being fired by the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s people gather on the Lord’s day in the Lord's house around the Lord's table. Each Sunday is a new Easter - and it can be a new Pentecost!

Second we welcome the Spirit of God in prayer. In prayer we affirm moment by moment what’s real. My life and my thinking is influenced all the time by material concerns which are natural to living with a body but in prayer I open myself to the primacy of the spiritual: It is the spirit that gives life.  Like God’s presence prayer is invisible, an activity of the soul, though as with God it can find a voice. Without that activity life turns soul-less in the sense it loses its place within the overarching compassion, truth and empowerment of the God who is ground of our being. This is why I’m excited about the Year of Prayer and our forthcoming Week of Guided Prayer.

I remember once in Horsted Keynes attending a Council meeting which many feared could turn ugly. The police had been called. After a few affirmative words to those attending I said I agreed we were in something of a hard place and in need of a miracle. I believed good would come out of our meeting if we listened to one another and assumed the best of one another. I announced I’d spend the meeting quietly praying through the Psalms with their different moods of joy and sorrow which I did for almost three hours. One of the leaders said afterwards he believed this action had turned the mood of things. For myself I felt my heart, carrying the people around me, caught up into and carried by the prayers God himself provides for us in Scripture through the Book of Psalms.

When I pray for specific things I am more surprised when nothing happens to change things than when there’s an obvious outcome as at the village meeting.  

Thirdly bible study. Prayerful reading of scripture is an indisputably powerful means of welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives and through intercession into the lives of those in our circle. This is why the church provides us with a cycle of praying through the Psalms hour by hour and day by day. We’ll have a chance in the forthcoming Week of Guided Prayer to look at ways you can pray from scripture but I’ll rest content to give one example from my own experience when parish priest in Coventry. My mother was staying with us but I’d been rather busy and hadn’t found time to really be with her. One morning during a time of what’s called Ignatian prayer I was reading Luke 7 about the raising of the widow of Nain’s son.

As I came to the words he gave him to his mother I felt convicted of neglecting my widowed mother and came back from Church to spend time with her I’d otherwise not thought to have done. My spirit had welcomed the Holy Spirit as it leapt at me out of my Bible!

Fourthly to welcome the Holy Spirit we need to give to others of our own spirit in service. Whereas rules of worship, prayer, study and reflection are relatively simply organised a rule of service is more complicated. I can make time to attend Church on Sunday, pray daily, study and regularly examine myself but making time to serve my neighbour is so open ended as to be scary. One overarching rule is to see everyone you meet as God’s gift to you. That meeting, fleeting or ongoing, is given so we see Christ before us. Here’s one of the most exciting and challenging ways of welcoming the Holy Spirit, engaging in conversations such as the one I described as having earlier at the gym which impacted me as much as my business friend.

How can our spirits welcome more of the Holy Spirit? Lastly by reflection including self examination and confession. Thinking of the power of reflection, Albert Einstein was told off as a young man for wasting time though overall he made wondrous application of his life to science.

Why do people keep so busy they have no time to reflect?

Sometimes, I’m sure, because they can’t bear the pain of facing the truth about themselves, their situation or God. Yet - if only they knew - if only we sometimes knew - with all our failings God loves us through and through. If we follow Jesus our love for the God who so loves us finds expression in a rule of life in the power of the Holy Spirit so we worship on Sunday, pray every day,  study the Bible, serve our neighbour and reflect upon our lives confessing our sins.

Such is decided Christianity, the counter to superficial living, an opening up to the God of life who wants to anoint us with his Spirit. It is the spirit that gives life… The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the Holy One of God.