Holy Family Feast 28th December 2014

The child Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him. Luke 2.40

So very much is contained in that last sentence of today’s Gospel, the 40^th verse of Luke’s second chapter.

When God became man it didn’t mean human perfection landing just like that. Rather there is a growth into maturity as there is for every one of us, a physical, mental and even – we are talking of God in human flesh - a spiritual maturing.

The child Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

Jesus grew and matured as all of us grow and mature within a family, the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Christians differ about whether there were other family members. There are references to his brothers and sisters but in the terminology of the day these could have been cousins. I stick with the age old tradition of the eastern and western church, some Protestants apart, that Mary was ever a virgin. Set apart for her divine motherhood with Joseph her most chaste spouse the Lord’s Mother is evidently alone on Good Friday when Our Lord tends for her by entrusting her to his beloved disciple, John. We also presume from that incident as well the death of St Joseph in Jesus’ lifetime.

Back to the Gospel story we shall read again at Candlemas this is about the only story about Jesus between his birth and the commencement  of his saving mission around his 30^th year. Traditionally that is said to have lasted 33 years which is the number of rings we make on the church bell before services.

Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, grew, became strong and filled with wisdom within the Holy Family. The first words he uttered to his heavenly Father would have been caught from the devotion of his holy Mother who was his teacher with St Joseph. We imagine this extraordinary threesome, immortalised in the art of the nativity, growing up together, not just their prayer but their humour. Reading Our Lord’s teaching we can’t but imagine the Holy Family as, yes, a school but also one of sound recreation and good humour.

We too get formed as human beings within families though nowadays they take different shapes and sizes. Families are built from sexual intercourse which is a union of life giving love in two senses: the life-giving to husband and wife of genital union and its overflowing in procreation. In Christian teaching the unitive and procreative aspects are inseparable overall. This explains Christian opposition to artificial sexual unions beyond friendship and creating new life outside the warm sexual union of male and female in lifelong commitment . The Church of England allows artificial means of birth control only as the servant of the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage, neither of which should be denied overall in the exercise of the union of life-giving love which is sexual intercourse.

Teaching marriage and family from the example of the Holy Family is a bit of a challenge since, as we say every Sunday in the Creed, there’s no sexual union there but conception by the Holy Spirit excluding Joseph. In so many other ways, though, the Holy Family is our teacher. Jesus’ mental development linked to conversation with his mother and Joseph, along, as we see later in this chapter of St Luke, with the teachers and holy men found in Temple and synagogue. These he astonished through his grasp of spiritual matters as he listened to them and asked them questions.

Lastly the Holy Family is an economic unit, so to speak, a school of work, which the Gospels touch on several times. They mention Our Lord as the carpenter’s son presumably formed up within that trade. Many of us in Church this morning owe both our vocations as Christians and the business we follow or followed partly to the inspiration of our parents. I think I took more after my mother, a teacher, than my father, a bank manager, but I would not be who I am without Elsie and Greg as no doubt each of you wouldn’t be who you are without your parents. I hope with me you give thanks and pray for them be they in this world or the next.

The child Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

Jesus never left the fellowship of the Holy Family and nor do we. Mary and Joseph feature in every Eucharistic prayer I offer and thinking of my death I think of their welcome. In the Hail Mary used by many Anglicans, the words are on the rack at the back of Church, we ask her prayers now and at the hour of our death.

As Jesus matured so do we, with, in and through him and within the company of Mary, Joseph and all the saints. He was as the Carol says born to raise the sons of earth. The Son of God became Son of Man in company with a human family so that the children of men might become the children of God in company with that holy family and all good folk made perfect.

With humility before Jesus true God and true Man and confidence in his divine power we are formed through our prayer, our families and our work until in Paul’s words from Ephesians 4:13 all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 

Birth of St John the Baptist June 24th 2012

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’

In today’s Old Testament passage we have a strengthening word and talk of a herald.

When John the Baptist was miraculously born, as the Gospel narrates, his birth was talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. He came to be seen as that herald, a voice crying out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.


The passage from Acts puts John to the centre of salvation history, which is why his Feast is one of a select few to eclipse the Sunday of the Year. Paul’s speech in Acts 13 talks about God’s choice of Israel and how God has brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, “What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.


St John the Baptist, next to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is of all mortals most blessed. He beheld the Lamb of God and got others to see the same. His words are with us, enshrined in the liturgy. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.


The collect or special prayer for today speaks of God’s providence behind John’s birth and his witness to Christ adding lead us to repent according to his preaching and, after his example, constantly to speak the truth, boldly to rebuke vice, and patiently to suffer for the truth's sake.


As I read these phrases I recalled last week’s thoughtful and challenging sermon by Cavan Wood with those three points about a dedicated Christian life – obedience, care for the vulnerable and readiness to suffer. I also recalled the current national debate about same-sex marriage and it is that which I want to speak to as part of this morning’s address.

Speaking the truth is costly as John the Baptist discovered when he crossed King Herod. We keep the lesser Feast of John’s beheading by Herod on 29th August!

I hope what I share this morning won’t lead to Father John’s beheading!

Sexual ethics is a minefield for any preacher.

Christians believe sexual intercourse between husband and wife to be a sign of faithfulness and self-giving that mirrors Christ’s love. Sex is about life-giving love. It is about the irrevocable gift of self. Procreation, the associated gift of children, flows ideally from such life-giving love.

Our sexuality is given to joyfully unite husband and wife and generate new life. Just as glue-sniffing distorts the good use of glue, promiscuous sexual activity is a misuse of this great gift for bonding and creating human beings.

Like all God’s gifts sex can be misused. Our Lord spoke to this when he taught that if we look at someone lustfully we’ve already committed adultery. That’s a levelling teaching if ever there was one!

So what about same-sex marriage?

First we should lament uncaring comments about homosexuals made seemingly in the name of Christianity during the current national debate. It’s bad enough to be in a minority without being kicked by those who profess a loving God.

The good news of God’s love is for all people, gay or straight. That truth is basic, so that my main concern as a priest is about orientation towards God rather than sexual orientation.

When people privilege me in seeking spiritual direction – how they can come closer to God – I counsel marriage or celibacy as biblical ideals and warn against cohabitation since, lacking Christian authority, it may quench the Holy Spirit.

At the same time I recognize so much of moral decision making isn’t black or white but the choice between shades of grey. I sympathise as one who shares the confidences of folk struggling towards the ideal. Many of those who so struggle are opposed to dropping the ideal.

In the last fifty years the prevalence of contraception means the so-called ‘unitive’ and ‘procreative’ aspects of sexual intercourse are largely separated so most sex is unitive. It seems unjust in this respect to challenge homosexual sex. It too isn’t procreative but it does unite people, even if it falls short of the two Christian ideals.

Like many I accept the positive value of civil partnerships in providing just protection for same-sex faithful unions before the law.

What I and the Church as a whole can’t accept – and like St John the Baptist I must ‘speak the truth’ – is redefining marriage, changing a sacrament, so as to make a minority group more comfortable. There is far more at stake than gay rights in changing a sacrament.

A same-sex marriage would indeed have two of the three essentials of marriage – permanence and fidelity – but the third, offspring, would be artificial. I recently met a lesbian couple having twins by intervention of a male friend. I assured them of my prayers for their children’s welfare and they assured me they’d be looking for male role models for them to compensate their female parenting.

Many of you may have similar acquaintances. The Christian and widely held view of marriage as between a man and a woman is being challenged across the western world by such developments. The official Church of England response to the government plans to legalise same-sex marriage defends the inherited understanding of marriage and opposes the new idea that men and women are simply interchangeable individuals.

The Church of England as ‘the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed’ seems to have set its face against reform of the sacrament of marriage to suit homosexuals, holding rather to catholic and universal practice. That is my own position, as with the sacrament of holy orders, that the Church of England lacks authority to change a sacrament unilaterally without the consent of the universal church i.e. Roman Catholic and Orthodox as well as Reformed. Others disagree – not all Anglicans see marriage and ordination as sacraments – and they view Anglicans as Spirit-led pioneers. Time will tell who was on the right side of these church debates.

The atheist gay columnist Matthew Parris who is opposed to same-sex marriage gives me encouragement. He recognizes the basic family-orientation of marriage and the damage that could be done to this by encouraging a solely ‘unitive’ understanding.

The debate will continue. The disestablishment of the Church of England might be a consequence if Church and State end up with different definitions of marriage.

Last Sunday Cavan identified three aspects of a dedicated Christian life – obedience, care for the vulnerable and readiness to suffer. We have the same reminder in today’s Saint who points us to constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake.

Affirming the truth of marriage certainly involves us today in patiently suffering for the truth's sake. In the Same-sex marriage debate our tone is so important though. Rebuking the vice of promiscuity, heterosexual and homosexual has its place, but the vice of homophobia also needs rebuking as part of our care for the vulnerable.

Christianity’s a way of life and it’s one way. There are other ways and we need to have the deepest respect for those who chose other options. Sometimes the most powerful truth we can share is that of our failure to live up to what we see as true and our sense that God accepts us just the same. As we shall say shortly in response to John the Baptist’s words of invitation, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.