If angels can fly because they
don’t take themselves too seriously how much more that’s true of Mary, Mother
of the Lord?
The tradition of her
Assumption fits that thought.
The church’s greatest resource
are people who know their need of mercy because those who know their need of
God draw others to him through them.
We've begun a diocesan year of
mercy that puts Chichester Diocese in a special way alongside the universal
church. Over the last two weeks in Cathedrals across the world special doors have been
opened.
In Rome Pope Francis opened a
door. In Arundel Bishop Richard Moth opened a door – with our Bishop Martin
Warner. In Chichester Bishop Martin opened a door with Bishop Richard Moth, his
Roman Catholic colleague. You can see that door on the porch notice board along
with prayers for the year of mercy.
Bishops are opening doors
across the world so that faithful Christians will themselves open more widely
the doors of their hearts to God’s mercy.
Our sense of need for the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit is pivotal to our mission.
I’d like us to make a
pilgrimage to the Cathedral in the coming year and go through that special door
as part of our welcoming church project.
The more the welcoming love of
God gets into our hearts and our congregation the more people around us will
hear and see the Lord’s invitation expressed on the Year of Mercy cards, ‘Come
to me’.
Notice on the card that the
Lord’s invitation is Trinitarian – you have an image of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit saying ‘Come to me’ Year of mercy 2015-16.
On the back you have prayers
that recall God’s mercy as – paragraph one – the Father ‘slow to anger,
abounding in mercy (who as in the parable of the Prodigal Son) sees us and runs
to us when we are far away’.
I love that image. Many are
seeking truth but truth is seeking them!
That’s the gospel, the best news of Christianity!
The second paragraph prays
‘Jesus Christ, you entered the house of sinners, you sat at the table of the
poor, you mounted the Cross, your throne of mercy’.
In the coming days we as a
church will welcome into this building people bearing gifts for refugees and
such mercy is that of Jesus working through us and them, Jesus who ‘sits at the
table of the poor’.
The third paragraph invokes
the Holy Spirit who ‘pours healing gifts over our wounds, who anoints us to
bring good news to the poor’.
Mary’s self-forgetfulness, her
reliance on divine mercy, is the gift of the Spirit who is her partner in the
incarnation. Without Mary, Mother of mercy, there would be no Jesus, no mercy.
Without you and I though – this is
the welcoming church and mercy year challenge – without you and I many will lack the hope Christianity has for them.
Your sense of your need of God
and his mercy, my sense of my need of God and his mercy, play as important a
role in Horsted Keynes and its surrounds as Mary’s did for all of us in
Nazareth. For he hath regarded the
lowliness of his handmaiden. Mary sang. For
behold, from henceforth: all generations
shall call me blessed. Or in today’s Gospel Blessed are
you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb… blessed is she who
believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the
Lord.
The Angel Gabriel knocked on the
door of her heart and she opened it – opened it fully so that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
For us the opening of our heart to
God seems more prosaic but in the sight of God it is no less significant - otherwise
it would be pointless having a welcoming church project or a year of mercy.
When I read that last prayer on
the card I am discomforted:
God of mercies, have mercy on us, so that where sin
abounds your grace may abound all the more, and we shall become like you,
Merciful. Amen.
I am discomforted because when
I say the wrong thing my focus is too brief upon the person I’ve hurt, too long
on my wounded pride and too little on the grace that can abound and overflow to
the one I’ve hurt, to me and through us to those who look on at us, or look to
us.
I am discomforted as I see
people achieving so much, working so hard for those they say they love, whose
relationships are crumbling because they take themselves too seriously and
forget their need of mercy and of their family and fellows.
I am discomforted because I
see people with failings whose self importance blinds them to their failings and
prevents God’s grace abounding to bring them forgiveness deep down in their
lives and more joy in their lives.
Angels can fly because they
don’t take themselves too seriously! They live by God’s mercy - as we should!
God of mercies, have mercy on us, so that where sin
abounds your grace may abound all the more, and we shall become like you,
Merciful.
Remind yourself of the aching
needs of the world we live in: global warming, war in the Middle East and
elsewhere, family breakdown almost next door – what can we best do to make a
difference?
The world is crying out for mercy
and you and I to be its instruments!
Mercy has come – this is what we
are about to celebrate – peace on earth
and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
Our welcoming church project is
about that reconciliation more than it is about funding and building the north
annex, important as that is.
For St Giles to grow in faith,
love and numbers we have to start with faith and love. The numbers will follow,
and the funding and building!
The church’s greatest resource
is people who know their need of mercy because those who know their need of God
draw others to him through them.
That story of the man watching
another being taken to the scaffold and saying
‘there but for the grace of God go I’ needs to be ours, needs to be
mine. More honesty about my own failings and need of mercy. Less concern with
the failings of my neighbour. Fresh vision of God in his meekness, majesty and
mercy.
God of mercies, have mercy on us, so that where sin
abounds your grace may abound all the more, and we shall become like you,
Merciful. Amen.
