I was listening on the radio to the book programme last week.
Now so many books are online it has been possible to survey the use of words and phrases over a couple of hundred years.
Inevitably the word internet appears only in the last twenty years. The words ‘I must’ occur an awful lot until the 1960s. The word ‘I want’ rarely occurs before the 1950s.
Do you see where I am leading?
Where there is .... selfish ambition, writes James in our reading from Chapter 3 of his epistle – where ‘I want’ reigns - there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
Healing and wholeness link to inner peace and inner peace is very often countered by our selfish craving.
I want it, and I want it now is more of a destructive impulse than we dare to own, so much are we carried along by the flow of electronic media, including advertising, that indulges our selfishness.
Christian healing has been defined as meeting Jesus Christ at your point of need - and restlessness of spirit is a very common need.
Those who take themselves to shopping malls for retail therapy get less return than we will gain tonight through the church’s ministry of healing.
He will quiet you by his love we read in Zephaniah Chapter 3 verse 17.
We cannot escape our desires, and not all our wants are selfish. Yet the quietening of useless desires can be, if we allow it, the gift of the Lord whose love covers the multitude of our sins, negligences and offences against him, against our neighbour and against ourselves.
Saint Seraphim of Sarov lived in Russia from 1759 to his death in 1833. He’s one of the most renowned Russian monks and mystics in the Orthodox Church and is remembered for extending the monastic teachings of contemplation, self-denial and the acquiring of the Holy Spirit to the layperson.
Perhaps Seraphim's most popular quotation amongst Orthodox believers is: Acquire inner peace, and thousands around you will find salvation.
How closely this advice echoes that of Saint James in tonight’s reading: The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
If we want wholeness we need the peace of Spirit that comes with the wisdom from above.
God loves us and wants us to experience peace and life-abundant and eternal.
As we read in the Magnificat refrain from Isaiah 26.3-4:You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
Saint Paul says we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1
This peace is given as we ask the Lord to come alongside us.
This action means an act of faith in him preceded by an act of repentance.
Repentance means turning, in this case turning from all that distracts and consumes our inner energies.
As was found written in the Breviary of 16th century Spanish mystic Saint Teresa of Avila:
Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.
This evening is A Time to Heal. As we seek the Lord we have an opportunity to bring to him our needs of body and mind, soul and spirit and our relational needs. The ministry of healing is automatically holistic.
If your body is hurting it affects your mind and spirit. If your spirit is disturbed it has physical implications. If you are living with unforgiveness in your relationships you will pay a price for that all over. If your sense of what you must do is eclipsed by what you merely want to do, again you will lack wholeness and peace.
At this point it is my privilege to introduce Leslie who received the sacrament of anointing some months back for a serious physical condition and has a message for us about how God can come aside us in our needs bringing peace and healing.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Epiphany 3 23rd January 2011
Let me start by reading an advertisement.
Do you want a faith that stands on the authority of scripture and yet remains thoughtful?
Teaching that rings true to the faith of the Church through the ages?
Would you value worship that is awesome yet accessible?
A Christian community with loose boundaries and a vision for caring within the community?
Here we are - the Church of England!
We do not look down on Roman Catholic or Free Churches but hold hands out to both as 'the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed' (Catechism definition).
Our worshippers are evangelical, catholic, charismatic and radical because the Church has to be all these things.
Yes, we have our problems, some of our own making, but many on account of the honesty with which we are facing up to a fast changing world.
The Church of England is part of the Church in England and has respect for those of other Faiths or no faith at all.
We welcome all who wish to engage with Jesus Christ through the Bible and the Sacraments and through Christian fellowship and service.
As they first said of Jesus, 'Come and see!'
Horsted Keynes will be reading this advertisement in P&P next week. I wrote it out of concern about the bad press the Church of England seems to be getting at the moment.
It was also prompted by preparing this sermon based on part of the second lesson set for today from 1 Corinthians 1.10-12. Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?
This call to unity coincides with the annual week of prayer for Christian Unity held every year from 18-25th January.
It seems to me that St Paul’s warning reaches us as a church at three levels, local, national and universal, so here’s a minute or two on each level.
First local. I have to say, I sense I inherited from Father Timothy, a high degree of unity and a great sense of collaboration as we seek to promote Christianity and develop the life of St Giles with an eye to renewing worship, engaging youth and families and enhancing buildings for better Christian use. We should not be complacent, but St Giles is a coalition of catholic, evangelical, charismatic and liberal Christians that is outwardly focussed, praise God.
Second, nationally the Church of England is suffering bad press. Why? Because the majority decision to ordain women has failed to take the minority along with it. There’s a high majority but no consensus. Those of us who cherish the Church of England’s catholic inheritance can’t see a clear way ahead, with some taking up the Pope’s offer of the Anglican Ordinariate. Those impatient for a church with no prejudice against women are getting very impatient with Anglocatholics. There seems no easy way forward in terms of structures since women bishops seem inevitable. This will be a slow burner and we need even more patience to bear with one another’s views of the ordained ministry.
It isn’t sexist to hold to the Bible and the practice of the worldwide church, Catholic and Orthodox over 20 centuries. Neither is it a betrayal of Christian principle to seek the ordination of women.
It’s just that changing holy orders, one of the seven sacraments, is like changing the heating system in a church. There’s an upheaval and a chilling effect – and the national church is in the middle of it! No easy answers here, just patience. The Holy Spirit is saying one thing to part of the church and another thing to the rest. We must wait and see and avoid knee jerk reactions, seeking to maximise unity as a national church which believes its part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’.
Thirdly let’s look at that international level of the universal church. About this Christians should really be getting impatient. In first century Corinth there were Chloe’s and Apollos’ and Cephas’ groups. In the world of the 21st century there are not three but 39,000 Christian denominations!
Each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?
He has. His purpose to bring all things together is being much frustrated. There’s a need for each Christian church to recognise afresh that they exist by God’s grace - and so do the other denominations! Only as the different churches come together to the foot of Christ’s Cross and admit our need of his forgiveness are we ever going to be made one, as Christ certainly desires. This is happening worldwide whenever Christians opt to maximise cooperation with their sister churches. We should congratulate ourselves, for example, that the Martindale tonight will be a place of healing prayer uniting Catholic, Reformed and Anglican churches.
I was at Westminster Abbey for evensong last Sunday. There I was reminded of the shared evensong of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope in September that was preceded by Pope Benedict’s visit to the Archbishop at Lambeth Palace. There Rowan Williams said these wise words: In 1845, when John Henry Newman finally decided that he must follow his conscience and seek his future in serving God in communion with the See of Rome, one of his most intimate Anglican friends and allies, the priest Edward Bouverie Pusey.. wrote a moving meditation on this "parting of friends" in which he said of the separation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics: "it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart".
That should not surprise us: holiness is at its simplest fellowship with Christ; and when that fellowship with Christ is brought to maturity, so is our fellowship with one another. As bishops, we are servants of the unity of Christ's people, Christ's one Body. And, meeting as we do as bishops of separated church communities, we must all feel that each of our own ministries is made less by the fact of our dividedness, a very real but imperfect communion. Perhaps we shall not quickly overcome the remaining obstacles to full, restored communion; but no obstacles stand in the way of our seeking, as a matter of joyful obedience to the Lord, more ways in which to build up one another in holiness by prayer and public celebration together, by closer friendship, and by growing together both in the challenging work of service for all whom Christ loves, and mission to all God has made.
Wise words. "it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart". Christian unity grows – locally, nationally or internationally as Christians grow together in both holiness and mission. Let’s make that our priority as much as we can in the coming years.
Do you want a faith that stands on the authority of scripture and yet remains thoughtful?
Teaching that rings true to the faith of the Church through the ages?
Would you value worship that is awesome yet accessible?
A Christian community with loose boundaries and a vision for caring within the community?
Here we are - the Church of England!
We do not look down on Roman Catholic or Free Churches but hold hands out to both as 'the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed' (Catechism definition).
Our worshippers are evangelical, catholic, charismatic and radical because the Church has to be all these things.
Yes, we have our problems, some of our own making, but many on account of the honesty with which we are facing up to a fast changing world.
The Church of England is part of the Church in England and has respect for those of other Faiths or no faith at all.
We welcome all who wish to engage with Jesus Christ through the Bible and the Sacraments and through Christian fellowship and service.
As they first said of Jesus, 'Come and see!'
Horsted Keynes will be reading this advertisement in P&P next week. I wrote it out of concern about the bad press the Church of England seems to be getting at the moment.
It was also prompted by preparing this sermon based on part of the second lesson set for today from 1 Corinthians 1.10-12. Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?
This call to unity coincides with the annual week of prayer for Christian Unity held every year from 18-25th January.
It seems to me that St Paul’s warning reaches us as a church at three levels, local, national and universal, so here’s a minute or two on each level.
First local. I have to say, I sense I inherited from Father Timothy, a high degree of unity and a great sense of collaboration as we seek to promote Christianity and develop the life of St Giles with an eye to renewing worship, engaging youth and families and enhancing buildings for better Christian use. We should not be complacent, but St Giles is a coalition of catholic, evangelical, charismatic and liberal Christians that is outwardly focussed, praise God.
Second, nationally the Church of England is suffering bad press. Why? Because the majority decision to ordain women has failed to take the minority along with it. There’s a high majority but no consensus. Those of us who cherish the Church of England’s catholic inheritance can’t see a clear way ahead, with some taking up the Pope’s offer of the Anglican Ordinariate. Those impatient for a church with no prejudice against women are getting very impatient with Anglocatholics. There seems no easy way forward in terms of structures since women bishops seem inevitable. This will be a slow burner and we need even more patience to bear with one another’s views of the ordained ministry.
It isn’t sexist to hold to the Bible and the practice of the worldwide church, Catholic and Orthodox over 20 centuries. Neither is it a betrayal of Christian principle to seek the ordination of women.
It’s just that changing holy orders, one of the seven sacraments, is like changing the heating system in a church. There’s an upheaval and a chilling effect – and the national church is in the middle of it! No easy answers here, just patience. The Holy Spirit is saying one thing to part of the church and another thing to the rest. We must wait and see and avoid knee jerk reactions, seeking to maximise unity as a national church which believes its part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’.
Thirdly let’s look at that international level of the universal church. About this Christians should really be getting impatient. In first century Corinth there were Chloe’s and Apollos’ and Cephas’ groups. In the world of the 21st century there are not three but 39,000 Christian denominations!
Each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?
He has. His purpose to bring all things together is being much frustrated. There’s a need for each Christian church to recognise afresh that they exist by God’s grace - and so do the other denominations! Only as the different churches come together to the foot of Christ’s Cross and admit our need of his forgiveness are we ever going to be made one, as Christ certainly desires. This is happening worldwide whenever Christians opt to maximise cooperation with their sister churches. We should congratulate ourselves, for example, that the Martindale tonight will be a place of healing prayer uniting Catholic, Reformed and Anglican churches.
I was at Westminster Abbey for evensong last Sunday. There I was reminded of the shared evensong of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope in September that was preceded by Pope Benedict’s visit to the Archbishop at Lambeth Palace. There Rowan Williams said these wise words: In 1845, when John Henry Newman finally decided that he must follow his conscience and seek his future in serving God in communion with the See of Rome, one of his most intimate Anglican friends and allies, the priest Edward Bouverie Pusey.. wrote a moving meditation on this "parting of friends" in which he said of the separation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics: "it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart".
That should not surprise us: holiness is at its simplest fellowship with Christ; and when that fellowship with Christ is brought to maturity, so is our fellowship with one another. As bishops, we are servants of the unity of Christ's people, Christ's one Body. And, meeting as we do as bishops of separated church communities, we must all feel that each of our own ministries is made less by the fact of our dividedness, a very real but imperfect communion. Perhaps we shall not quickly overcome the remaining obstacles to full, restored communion; but no obstacles stand in the way of our seeking, as a matter of joyful obedience to the Lord, more ways in which to build up one another in holiness by prayer and public celebration together, by closer friendship, and by growing together both in the challenging work of service for all whom Christ loves, and mission to all God has made.
Wise words. "it is what is unholy on both sides that keeps us apart". Christian unity grows – locally, nationally or internationally as Christians grow together in both holiness and mission. Let’s make that our priority as much as we can in the coming years.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Epiphany 2nd January 2011
Today the church enters a glory-filled season, that of Epiphany. The coming of the wise men to Jesus brings the first showing of God’s glory to the nations in the face of Jesus Christ.
Epiphany means the revealing of glory.
This morning is an occasion for celebrating with you some occasions in my ministry I have been on the scene when the glory of Jesus illuminated someone.
Starting with myself!
Jesus first deeply impacted me in Oxford around 1970 through an extraordinary priest and an extraordinary Church.
I say extraordinary because the whole show was unconcerned about something our age is obsessed with and even the Church at times – I mean image.
There was no magazine or newsletter, hardly a noticeboard let alone an Internet Homepage or Church Logo. But there was presence!
There was something very deep and awesome about the worship at Mary Mags, the sure, unselfconscious majesty of the Sung Eucharist, of Sunday worship in the great tradition of the Church, evoked for me an awe before the mystery of God - something that many of our modern services, constructed out of ten minute sound-bites rarely attain!
Then there was charismatic presence in the old, richer sense of that word.
I recall being invited to tea by the Vicar and being strangely moved in my spirit at the encounter. Within weeks I had made a deeper surrender to Christ through making my First Confession.
I remember Epiphany in those days because it was at that time that the practice of genuflecting to the Blessed Sacrament became my own.
In Mary Mags there was a safe on the altar, like our Aumbry in the wall on the right of the old high altar containing bread consecrated bread kept over from the eucharist with a perpetual light burning alongside it. I noticed that when people came into or left church they went down on one knee or did a low bow towards it.
I had been brought up to believe scraping your knees before things was Roman Catholic. Mary Mags challenged my thinking so that one day kneeling at the Christmas Crib I realised that as the Kings fell down before the glory of Jesus there was nothing wrong with my doing so.
It was an Epiphany moment, a manifestation of Christ to me, seeing the glory of Jesus hidden behind the Aumbry veil as he lay hidden in the stable. 40 years on I still genuflect to the Blessed Sacrament. Indeed I would not have come here as parish priest had the sacrament not been reserved here because Jesus showed me that time that the bread is his glorious body and I should treat it as such. He has taught me since that he’s in people as well as in that bread, and in the bible and creation and everywhere – but I remain eternally grateful for that Epiphany experience in Oxford long ago.
The Christian faith spreads by Epiphany, by the manifestation of the glory of Jesus in word and sacrament to and through people. Evangelism has always been rooted in being more than doing. It is a process of spiritual awakening to the Real Presence of God alongside us and within us, inviting us forward on our spiritual journey.
For the faith to spread and the church to grow we need priests and people whose baptism is fully owned, who have presence, presence and conviction to challenge others to become more irradiated, more luminous with Christ’s glory. This Jesus, who walks besides us, would display himself, his Real Presence, in sacrament and word and, most tellingly, in lives lived surrendered to him.
I said I would share occasions in my ministry when I have been on the scene when the glory of Jesus illuminated someone. I’ve time for two more examples
I think of Bernard, a young man in my first mining parish who had been on our life in the Spirit course, a precursor of the Alpha Course. Bernard and Anne were stalwarts of SS Philip & James where I was Curate. Bernard had prayed for the Holy Spirit to come upon him as we encouraged people to pray. One morning he stumbled round to the Clergy House beaming all over his face. Was he drunk? I thought. No. Jesus had come real to him. The Holy Spirit had opened his inner eyes. He never looked back and possessed a great gift of joy and encouragement to us all.
Then I think of an older man to whose troubled deathbed I’d been summoned. The relatives were very concerned at his fearfulness and agitation as he moved towards his death. I came to his hospital bed myself with apprehension. Who was I to help a man faced with death? What on earth could I do to help? Shortly after I arrived I read the 23rd Psalm and as I read a deep peace descended upon him. It was as if Jesus manifested himself, appeared and just took him away. This man died joyfully as I read the words of assurance from Deuteronomy 33.27 The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.
What a difference it makes to someone when they see Jesus! They see glory – glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
To see Jesus is to catch hold of a radiant beauty quite out of this world, a beauty that is compelling and extraordinary in its attractiveness.
Could we wish anything more wonderful for anyone than a personal epiphany, a personal revelation of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?
I believe the Lord seeks always to manifest himself, chiefly through the bible and the eucharist, and that we need to make space for that to happen.
This season of the Epiphany is a season for looking to Jesus and his manifestation to us and through us to our village. Since it coincides with New Year it’s a time to refresh our daily discipline or prayer, to open our bibles, to seek Jesus in his Sweet Sacrament divine, especially at the quiet midweek celebrations.
In our eucharist we make space for such Epiphany in the silences of the word and sacrament. God bless us now as we ponder the gift of Jesus and help us mark and inwardly digest the divine words we need to hear deep into our hearts from the human speech I have been uttering.
Epiphany means the revealing of glory.
This morning is an occasion for celebrating with you some occasions in my ministry I have been on the scene when the glory of Jesus illuminated someone.
Starting with myself!
Jesus first deeply impacted me in Oxford around 1970 through an extraordinary priest and an extraordinary Church.
I say extraordinary because the whole show was unconcerned about something our age is obsessed with and even the Church at times – I mean image.
There was no magazine or newsletter, hardly a noticeboard let alone an Internet Homepage or Church Logo. But there was presence!
There was something very deep and awesome about the worship at Mary Mags, the sure, unselfconscious majesty of the Sung Eucharist, of Sunday worship in the great tradition of the Church, evoked for me an awe before the mystery of God - something that many of our modern services, constructed out of ten minute sound-bites rarely attain!
Then there was charismatic presence in the old, richer sense of that word.
I recall being invited to tea by the Vicar and being strangely moved in my spirit at the encounter. Within weeks I had made a deeper surrender to Christ through making my First Confession.
I remember Epiphany in those days because it was at that time that the practice of genuflecting to the Blessed Sacrament became my own.
In Mary Mags there was a safe on the altar, like our Aumbry in the wall on the right of the old high altar containing bread consecrated bread kept over from the eucharist with a perpetual light burning alongside it. I noticed that when people came into or left church they went down on one knee or did a low bow towards it.
I had been brought up to believe scraping your knees before things was Roman Catholic. Mary Mags challenged my thinking so that one day kneeling at the Christmas Crib I realised that as the Kings fell down before the glory of Jesus there was nothing wrong with my doing so.
It was an Epiphany moment, a manifestation of Christ to me, seeing the glory of Jesus hidden behind the Aumbry veil as he lay hidden in the stable. 40 years on I still genuflect to the Blessed Sacrament. Indeed I would not have come here as parish priest had the sacrament not been reserved here because Jesus showed me that time that the bread is his glorious body and I should treat it as such. He has taught me since that he’s in people as well as in that bread, and in the bible and creation and everywhere – but I remain eternally grateful for that Epiphany experience in Oxford long ago.
The Christian faith spreads by Epiphany, by the manifestation of the glory of Jesus in word and sacrament to and through people. Evangelism has always been rooted in being more than doing. It is a process of spiritual awakening to the Real Presence of God alongside us and within us, inviting us forward on our spiritual journey.
For the faith to spread and the church to grow we need priests and people whose baptism is fully owned, who have presence, presence and conviction to challenge others to become more irradiated, more luminous with Christ’s glory. This Jesus, who walks besides us, would display himself, his Real Presence, in sacrament and word and, most tellingly, in lives lived surrendered to him.
I said I would share occasions in my ministry when I have been on the scene when the glory of Jesus illuminated someone. I’ve time for two more examples
I think of Bernard, a young man in my first mining parish who had been on our life in the Spirit course, a precursor of the Alpha Course. Bernard and Anne were stalwarts of SS Philip & James where I was Curate. Bernard had prayed for the Holy Spirit to come upon him as we encouraged people to pray. One morning he stumbled round to the Clergy House beaming all over his face. Was he drunk? I thought. No. Jesus had come real to him. The Holy Spirit had opened his inner eyes. He never looked back and possessed a great gift of joy and encouragement to us all.
Then I think of an older man to whose troubled deathbed I’d been summoned. The relatives were very concerned at his fearfulness and agitation as he moved towards his death. I came to his hospital bed myself with apprehension. Who was I to help a man faced with death? What on earth could I do to help? Shortly after I arrived I read the 23rd Psalm and as I read a deep peace descended upon him. It was as if Jesus manifested himself, appeared and just took him away. This man died joyfully as I read the words of assurance from Deuteronomy 33.27 The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.
What a difference it makes to someone when they see Jesus! They see glory – glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
To see Jesus is to catch hold of a radiant beauty quite out of this world, a beauty that is compelling and extraordinary in its attractiveness.
Could we wish anything more wonderful for anyone than a personal epiphany, a personal revelation of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?
I believe the Lord seeks always to manifest himself, chiefly through the bible and the eucharist, and that we need to make space for that to happen.
This season of the Epiphany is a season for looking to Jesus and his manifestation to us and through us to our village. Since it coincides with New Year it’s a time to refresh our daily discipline or prayer, to open our bibles, to seek Jesus in his Sweet Sacrament divine, especially at the quiet midweek celebrations.
In our eucharist we make space for such Epiphany in the silences of the word and sacrament. God bless us now as we ponder the gift of Jesus and help us mark and inwardly digest the divine words we need to hear deep into our hearts from the human speech I have been uttering.
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Christmas 1 26th December 2010
Noblesse oblige!
One must act in a fashion that conforms to one's position, and with the reputation that one has earned.
The unfashionable nature of this truth fuels our mass media from the irresponsible expenses claims of our MPs to the goings on among minor royalty.
Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
This morning we ourselves have such a reminder as Christians.
The Prayer Book collect for the eight days of the Christmas Octave states the truth behind Christmas from God’s point of view:
Almighty God, you have given us your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
The prayer goes on to tell how this has consequences from our own point of view:
grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
The Son of God took our whole nature upon him, our total manhood, not just our body but our mind and will and emotional makeup so that our mortal nature might be capable of the divine nature.
Something happened yesterday on Christmas Day that affects us profoundly and affects the whole world through us.
Why did God become man? In order that we might become God, be made God’s children by adoption and grace and be daily renewed by God’s Holy Spirit.
To pray as our Christmas collect prays is to ask to be re-born in Jesus and become a partaker of the divine nature. In other words to ask that we may ourselves obtain the full benefit of the Christmas gift of Jesus.
Just as everyone is born of natural parents, if they wish to be regarded as God’s children, they need to be born again in a spiritual fashion, by water and the Spirit, by baptism, through which we share God’s essential nature and are joined to him.
Through the coming of God in Christ there is a new creation. From the incarnation – which means the making flesh of God – the whole world is divinised working from the souls of women and men out into the whole cosmos.
Noblesse oblige – we who are made children of God by the Son of God becoming Son of Man have obligations with such an awesome nobility.
Saint Leo the Great preaching in Rome at Christmas around 450AD had this appeal to his hearers which I hand on to you:
This is the day our Saviour was born: what a joy for us, my beloved! This is no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life – the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising, as it does, immortality...
My beloved, let us offer thanksgiving to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. In the great mercy with which he loved us, he had pity on us, and in giving life to Christ, gave life to us too, when we were dead through sin’, so that in him we might be a new creation, a new work of his hands.
Let us then be quit of the old self and the habits that went with it. Sharers now in the birth of Christ, let us break with the deeds of the flesh.
O Christian, be aware of your nobility – it is God’s own nature that you share: do not then, by an ignoble life, fall back into your former baseness. Think of the Head, think of the Body of which you are a member...you have been made a temple of the Holy Spirit; do not, by evil deeds, drive so great an indweller away from you.
Those words are as true in 2010 as they were in 450. Praise God for the faith of the church through the ages carried down to us by the liturgy of Christmas.
We are God’s children made so by the gift of his only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
Christians, be aware of your nobility!
Born again and made God’s children by adoption and grace, may we daily be renewed by the Holy Spirit;
Noblesse oblige! Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
So are we made noble, so should we conduct ourselves!
One must act in a fashion that conforms to one's position, and with the reputation that one has earned.
The unfashionable nature of this truth fuels our mass media from the irresponsible expenses claims of our MPs to the goings on among minor royalty.
Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
This morning we ourselves have such a reminder as Christians.
The Prayer Book collect for the eight days of the Christmas Octave states the truth behind Christmas from God’s point of view:
Almighty God, you have given us your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
The prayer goes on to tell how this has consequences from our own point of view:
grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
The Son of God took our whole nature upon him, our total manhood, not just our body but our mind and will and emotional makeup so that our mortal nature might be capable of the divine nature.
Something happened yesterday on Christmas Day that affects us profoundly and affects the whole world through us.
Why did God become man? In order that we might become God, be made God’s children by adoption and grace and be daily renewed by God’s Holy Spirit.
To pray as our Christmas collect prays is to ask to be re-born in Jesus and become a partaker of the divine nature. In other words to ask that we may ourselves obtain the full benefit of the Christmas gift of Jesus.
Just as everyone is born of natural parents, if they wish to be regarded as God’s children, they need to be born again in a spiritual fashion, by water and the Spirit, by baptism, through which we share God’s essential nature and are joined to him.
Through the coming of God in Christ there is a new creation. From the incarnation – which means the making flesh of God – the whole world is divinised working from the souls of women and men out into the whole cosmos.
Noblesse oblige – we who are made children of God by the Son of God becoming Son of Man have obligations with such an awesome nobility.
Saint Leo the Great preaching in Rome at Christmas around 450AD had this appeal to his hearers which I hand on to you:
This is the day our Saviour was born: what a joy for us, my beloved! This is no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life – the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising, as it does, immortality...
My beloved, let us offer thanksgiving to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. In the great mercy with which he loved us, he had pity on us, and in giving life to Christ, gave life to us too, when we were dead through sin’, so that in him we might be a new creation, a new work of his hands.
Let us then be quit of the old self and the habits that went with it. Sharers now in the birth of Christ, let us break with the deeds of the flesh.
O Christian, be aware of your nobility – it is God’s own nature that you share: do not then, by an ignoble life, fall back into your former baseness. Think of the Head, think of the Body of which you are a member...you have been made a temple of the Holy Spirit; do not, by evil deeds, drive so great an indweller away from you.
Those words are as true in 2010 as they were in 450. Praise God for the faith of the church through the ages carried down to us by the liturgy of Christmas.
We are God’s children made so by the gift of his only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
Christians, be aware of your nobility!
Born again and made God’s children by adoption and grace, may we daily be renewed by the Holy Spirit;
Noblesse oblige! Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
So are we made noble, so should we conduct ourselves!
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Christmas day all age eucharist 2010
What did the snow man order at Macdonalds?
Iceburgers with chilli sauce!
What do you get if you cross an apple with a Christmas tree?
A pineapple!
Well, Christmas is here so we’re going to light the Christmas candle from one of the Advent candles. Which reminds me - what did the big candle say to the little candle?
I'm going out tonight!
Well this one isn’t going out, it’s coming on – who shall we choose?
Sunday Club member to light candle.
Christmas is here and it’s time to be thankful for Jesus.
All the gifts we’ve been given this morning are given to honour the greatest Gift from the greatest Giver!
So what gifts have we been given?
Time for children to share.
All of these gifts were given us because of what the angel told those shepherds in our bible reading.
Let’s read it our loud together. It’s the fifth paragraph of this morning’s gospel reading from Luke chapter 2:
What did the angel say to them?
'Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’
Good news of great joy! God has come to earth to give himself a human face, the face of Jesus!
What does it say the child was wrapped in?
Bands of cloth or what were called swaddling bands. Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in blankets or cloth strips so that movement of their limbs is tightly restricted. People believed that swaddling bands helped an infant to develop proper posture.
Swaddling fell out of favor in the seventeenth century. It has become popular again as modern medical studies indicate that swaddling assists babies to sleep, and to remain asleep.
Come back to Jesus though, the baby tightly bound lying in a manger.
We believe this infant Jesus was bound up so that we could be free!
Can anyone point me to an image of Jesus in church outside of the crib that shows him once again bound up?
When Jesus was bound up in the manger it pointed towards his being bound to a cruel cross 33 years later.
Mary and Joseph were told to call their son Jesus, which means Saviour. We know about Jesus more because of how he died and rose than on account of his birth. We keep Christmas because of Easter.
This Christmas eucharist is Christ’s Mass in which we see the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. The eucharist is about the gift of Jesus who’s always alive and with us and loving us – that’s the truth of Christmas.
Jesus was bound so we could be free!
In recent weeks I have seen people released from the power of guilt by the power of Jesus’ forgiveness, people released from the power of cancer by his healing power, worried people released from their anxieties. I have come across people who’ve died freed from fear of death by their faith in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy.
In the joy of this morning you may know many constraints in your life. There is the constraint of a guilty conscience. There is the constraint of regret, of anxiety, of the fear of death, of loneliness.
Today the Son of God was bound in swaddling cloths to free you! We know as Christians, as lovers of Jesus, what we call salvation, a new dimension of freedom in our lives that is the best gift of Christmas.
God who made each one of us in love loves us so much he wants each one of us to be one with him. The Son of God became man so all who open their hearts to him could know the liberty of the children of God!
Let’s pause for a quiet moment to reflect on that great thought
Our service moves on now to centre on a new born baby, Arthur Beesley, whom we are to bless on the day God showed himself in the Babe of Bethlehem.
Iceburgers with chilli sauce!
What do you get if you cross an apple with a Christmas tree?
A pineapple!
Well, Christmas is here so we’re going to light the Christmas candle from one of the Advent candles. Which reminds me - what did the big candle say to the little candle?
I'm going out tonight!
Well this one isn’t going out, it’s coming on – who shall we choose?
Sunday Club member to light candle.
Christmas is here and it’s time to be thankful for Jesus.
All the gifts we’ve been given this morning are given to honour the greatest Gift from the greatest Giver!
So what gifts have we been given?
Time for children to share.
All of these gifts were given us because of what the angel told those shepherds in our bible reading.
Let’s read it our loud together. It’s the fifth paragraph of this morning’s gospel reading from Luke chapter 2:
What did the angel say to them?
'Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’
Good news of great joy! God has come to earth to give himself a human face, the face of Jesus!
What does it say the child was wrapped in?
Bands of cloth or what were called swaddling bands. Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in blankets or cloth strips so that movement of their limbs is tightly restricted. People believed that swaddling bands helped an infant to develop proper posture.
Swaddling fell out of favor in the seventeenth century. It has become popular again as modern medical studies indicate that swaddling assists babies to sleep, and to remain asleep.
Come back to Jesus though, the baby tightly bound lying in a manger.
We believe this infant Jesus was bound up so that we could be free!
Can anyone point me to an image of Jesus in church outside of the crib that shows him once again bound up?
When Jesus was bound up in the manger it pointed towards his being bound to a cruel cross 33 years later.
Mary and Joseph were told to call their son Jesus, which means Saviour. We know about Jesus more because of how he died and rose than on account of his birth. We keep Christmas because of Easter.
This Christmas eucharist is Christ’s Mass in which we see the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. The eucharist is about the gift of Jesus who’s always alive and with us and loving us – that’s the truth of Christmas.
Jesus was bound so we could be free!
In recent weeks I have seen people released from the power of guilt by the power of Jesus’ forgiveness, people released from the power of cancer by his healing power, worried people released from their anxieties. I have come across people who’ve died freed from fear of death by their faith in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy.
In the joy of this morning you may know many constraints in your life. There is the constraint of a guilty conscience. There is the constraint of regret, of anxiety, of the fear of death, of loneliness.
Today the Son of God was bound in swaddling cloths to free you! We know as Christians, as lovers of Jesus, what we call salvation, a new dimension of freedom in our lives that is the best gift of Christmas.
God who made each one of us in love loves us so much he wants each one of us to be one with him. The Son of God became man so all who open their hearts to him could know the liberty of the children of God!
Let’s pause for a quiet moment to reflect on that great thought
Our service moves on now to centre on a new born baby, Arthur Beesley, whom we are to bless on the day God showed himself in the Babe of Bethlehem.
Midnight Mass 2010
The world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change. In all of my years, one thing does not change, however you disguise it, this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil wrote T.S.Eliot.
We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
These words are appropriate as the calendar turns once more to Christmas.
For over 1000 years on this hill the church calendar has turned. 50 generations have revisited the coming of God to the earth year by year throughout their life time and gained wisdom from this.
Tonight we arrive where we started and know the place as if for the first time.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God (John 1.14, 12). In the Christmas event we welcome life and light afresh. By the Holy Spirit the words of scripture enter our hearts afresh so we know that life and light as if for the first time.
Though 50 generations have prayed here before us we do not inherit that life and light. God has children, not grand children. To be a child of God is to receive him, to believe in his name, the name of Jesus, and so to gain power.
Tonight we recapture the sense of our being God’s children through the love that came down at Christmas. The annual celebration takes us back to basics with its reminder of the dignity afforded the human race by the incarnation.
The world turns and the world changes but this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
In that struggle there’s a winning side we’re called to enlist in as God draws us to his side and his victory in Jesus over sin, death and the devil.
The truth I am sharing is a hidden truth. It started off hidden away in a stable and continued in the obscurity of Palestine over 33 years. Then it was revealed by the resurrection.
We live in a more and more transparent society as the WikiLeaks saga has been reminding us, which is both good and evil. The aggression behind the hacktivity as they call it is such that when the Australian Prime Minister announced plans for censoring the internet the hackers took down his website and that of the Australian parliament.
This thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil...and internet technology is to be found on both sides.
The knowledge that is most powerful remains hidden to pride. It is concealed tonight in a stable away from the mainstream. God, as much as WikiLeaks, sees all. And he loves all. That is the Christian good news in an internet age or any age!
God sees all and he loves all - and all can respond to this truth.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God.
Love needs a body to show itself. Tonight divine love takes flesh.
This year is the centenary of the birth of one of the 20th century’s great explorers, Wilfred Thesiger. I have been reading his life in pictures which has a particularly Christmassy scene on the back.
He twice crossed the so-called Empty Quarter of Arabia, lived in the 1950s with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq and finally among the Samburu of Kenya.
Just as the internet is changing our lives today for good and ill, so Thesiger lamented the changes to Arab society that came about through the demand for oil. His writings are an invaluable record of a desert culture that has been largely lost.
Wilfred Thesiger explored by going native. He took no radio, let alone iPhone, to keep up with what was going on at home. He lived as the natives. Through this he became the first European to see amazing sights, many captured in his brilliant photography.
He writes of the fearful splendour of the desert being offset by human companionship. In the pitiless light of day we were as insignificant as the beetles I watched labouring across the sands. Only in the kindly darkness could we borrow a few square feet of desert and find homeliness within the radius of the firelight.
In human solidarity the fearfulness of nature is countered. Just as Thesiger’s work gained from hiding himself away for years among the natives so it is with God’s work of hiding himself in Bethlehem and Horsted Keynes. God is in the homeliness that counters the impersonal forces at loose in the world.
The Christian faith holds God has taken a body and kept it for ever in the body of Christ. God made a home in Bethlehem, literally the House of Bread, so he can continue in that bread, through Christ’s Mass, and in the hearts of all who will receive him.
Love needs a body. Divine love provides the body of Christ which now embraces the world in the words of scripture, in signs of water, oil, bread and wine and in the human warmth of Christian fellowship.
Love needs a body for this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
The light and life of Jesus show us a body with love stronger than death.
Though our lives move on from Christ’s Mass the end of all our living and exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Bethlehem. God made flesh. Love incarnate – this is the place we need to know!
We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
These words are appropriate as the calendar turns once more to Christmas.
For over 1000 years on this hill the church calendar has turned. 50 generations have revisited the coming of God to the earth year by year throughout their life time and gained wisdom from this.
Tonight we arrive where we started and know the place as if for the first time.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God (John 1.14, 12). In the Christmas event we welcome life and light afresh. By the Holy Spirit the words of scripture enter our hearts afresh so we know that life and light as if for the first time.
Though 50 generations have prayed here before us we do not inherit that life and light. God has children, not grand children. To be a child of God is to receive him, to believe in his name, the name of Jesus, and so to gain power.
Tonight we recapture the sense of our being God’s children through the love that came down at Christmas. The annual celebration takes us back to basics with its reminder of the dignity afforded the human race by the incarnation.
The world turns and the world changes but this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
In that struggle there’s a winning side we’re called to enlist in as God draws us to his side and his victory in Jesus over sin, death and the devil.
The truth I am sharing is a hidden truth. It started off hidden away in a stable and continued in the obscurity of Palestine over 33 years. Then it was revealed by the resurrection.
We live in a more and more transparent society as the WikiLeaks saga has been reminding us, which is both good and evil. The aggression behind the hacktivity as they call it is such that when the Australian Prime Minister announced plans for censoring the internet the hackers took down his website and that of the Australian parliament.
This thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil...and internet technology is to be found on both sides.
The knowledge that is most powerful remains hidden to pride. It is concealed tonight in a stable away from the mainstream. God, as much as WikiLeaks, sees all. And he loves all. That is the Christian good news in an internet age or any age!
God sees all and he loves all - and all can respond to this truth.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God.
Love needs a body to show itself. Tonight divine love takes flesh.
This year is the centenary of the birth of one of the 20th century’s great explorers, Wilfred Thesiger. I have been reading his life in pictures which has a particularly Christmassy scene on the back.
He twice crossed the so-called Empty Quarter of Arabia, lived in the 1950s with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq and finally among the Samburu of Kenya.
Just as the internet is changing our lives today for good and ill, so Thesiger lamented the changes to Arab society that came about through the demand for oil. His writings are an invaluable record of a desert culture that has been largely lost.
Wilfred Thesiger explored by going native. He took no radio, let alone iPhone, to keep up with what was going on at home. He lived as the natives. Through this he became the first European to see amazing sights, many captured in his brilliant photography.
He writes of the fearful splendour of the desert being offset by human companionship. In the pitiless light of day we were as insignificant as the beetles I watched labouring across the sands. Only in the kindly darkness could we borrow a few square feet of desert and find homeliness within the radius of the firelight.
In human solidarity the fearfulness of nature is countered. Just as Thesiger’s work gained from hiding himself away for years among the natives so it is with God’s work of hiding himself in Bethlehem and Horsted Keynes. God is in the homeliness that counters the impersonal forces at loose in the world.
The Christian faith holds God has taken a body and kept it for ever in the body of Christ. God made a home in Bethlehem, literally the House of Bread, so he can continue in that bread, through Christ’s Mass, and in the hearts of all who will receive him.
Love needs a body. Divine love provides the body of Christ which now embraces the world in the words of scripture, in signs of water, oil, bread and wine and in the human warmth of Christian fellowship.
Love needs a body for this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
The light and life of Jesus show us a body with love stronger than death.
Though our lives move on from Christ’s Mass the end of all our living and exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Bethlehem. God made flesh. Love incarnate – this is the place we need to know!
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Advent 4 The choices of God 19th December 2010
Decisions, decisions! Our life runs on decision making hour by hour, day by day.
Some of these, like whether to have coffee or tea, are trivial.
Others, like whether to marry Liz or Anne, are less so.
Our decisions are caused by the time frame we live in. As time flows on we come to vital junctions where we can go one way or the other, for one thing or another, for one person or another.
The woman or man of God sees decision making in another perspective. We know that when time has ended we will face the consequences of our decision making.
We will see how closely our lives have run within the will of God and how much they have been lived off the rails.
For it is Christian faith that you and I, through the exercise of our faith, are chosen and guided by God. This means our lives including our decision making are shaped by the choices of God.
This morning we see God’s great choice of Our Lady to be mother of Our Lord. When we look closely at Mary’s story, especially in Luke’s account, we see how she struggled before saying Yes to God’s choice of her to be the mother of his Son.
In our own lives we also struggle many a time to conform our lives to what God would have us do.
I remember when I was praying about marriage God opened a door to me to serve as a missionary in Guyana. They told me a dozen men were waiting for a teacher to train them as priests so the sacraments could be available across Guyana’s hinterland. With reluctance I offered myself since the post was for a single man. I met Anne at missionary college and so my obedience to his call also answered the prayer of my heart.
This morning in Mary the church invites us to ponder the choices of God and to think about how much our lives are faithful to God’s choice of us.
Two years ago a process came about that tested my vocation as a priest ending with a decision to come with Anne and James to Horsted Keynes.
Since then I have helped or am helping fourteen couples as they seal their vocation or calling to marriage. I have been helping one young man as he explores his calling to the priesthood.
I have had a number of conversations about vocation with various church members as they seek what God most wants of them in life.
Some have been thinking about a change of job. Others have been making the most of a redundancy. One or two have felt they have done a task in the village or the church for long enough and have been seeking new possibilities which have connected with my own agenda as parish priest for ever seeking volunteers.
Christianity is a faith that holds disparate truths together – God is one and three, Jesus is God and man – and one of these mysteries is that God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
It seems to me that Christians are at two ends when it comes to divine guidance. Some see God ‘s choice as starting us off and then leaving us with common sense – sanctified common sense – to get going on our own. Others, if you ask them to do something, will say they need to pray about it, and they talk of God’s guidance as very immediate and direct.
I am not coming down on one side or the other. What matters is to recognise the hand of God in our lives and to cast aside the things that draw us away from his leadings.
The sanctified common sense sort of guidance needs supplementing by openness to God’s surprises in the form of obvious divine intervention. Those who sense something of a hotline to God need to work harder to check their leadings by arguing the case at times with other experienced believers. Both reason and faith are God’s gift and they shouldn’t contradict each other.
If we want our lives including our decision making to go where they’re meant to go it means developing what Paul in our second reading from the opening verses of the letter to the Romans calls the obedience of faith.
This obedience is more than avoiding deadly sins. It is the best directing of our energies. It is knowing we are in the right employment or state of life, be that married or single. It is a readiness to ask ourselves whether where we are at is truly in God’s will or whether it is at variance with it.
If you are on the rails God gives us, living close to Jesus, you move more peacably than if your life is off the rails. A lack of inner peace can be a helpful warning from God to take stock of your life.
Christmas and New Year bring us such an opportunity to reflect. Some of us will use the sacrament of reconciliation or take opportunity to talk to the priest or another experienced Christian. Others may appreciate being put in touch with a spiritual director. All of us can ask God directly:
‘Show me the needs that are deeper than my wants. Place my energies more and more to your service and less and less to aimless self interest’.
When God chose Mary he invited her to be his mother by a surprise of the Spirit. He did not compel her but won the obedience of her faith.
It is the Christian faith that followers of Jesus, through the voluntary obedience of their faith, are chosen and guided by God.
God seeks our yes to his future possibilities as he sought that of the Blessed Virgin. Her life became a roller coaster of a life, a Lady of sorrow and joy, and so it is to be for us.
God’s hand on our lives, God’s choice of us, is a wonderful and a costly thing. We have a lifespan to exercise our faith in that choice. The penitent thief who turned to Jesus as he died shows us it is never too late to seek God’s leading.
God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
In making this decision the clue is WWJW – maybe you have seen the Christian bracelet – WWJW – What would Jesus want?
The eucharist is all about WWJW. We offer our souls and bodies with Christ to the Father so that our lives are put back on the rails Sunday by Sunday.
With Mary we say: I am God’s servant. Let it be to me as God wills!
Take my energies and use them for good since there is work for those God has chosen. There is a harvest to gather and labourers are few.
Some of these, like whether to have coffee or tea, are trivial.
Others, like whether to marry Liz or Anne, are less so.
Our decisions are caused by the time frame we live in. As time flows on we come to vital junctions where we can go one way or the other, for one thing or another, for one person or another.
The woman or man of God sees decision making in another perspective. We know that when time has ended we will face the consequences of our decision making.
We will see how closely our lives have run within the will of God and how much they have been lived off the rails.
For it is Christian faith that you and I, through the exercise of our faith, are chosen and guided by God. This means our lives including our decision making are shaped by the choices of God.
This morning we see God’s great choice of Our Lady to be mother of Our Lord. When we look closely at Mary’s story, especially in Luke’s account, we see how she struggled before saying Yes to God’s choice of her to be the mother of his Son.
In our own lives we also struggle many a time to conform our lives to what God would have us do.
I remember when I was praying about marriage God opened a door to me to serve as a missionary in Guyana. They told me a dozen men were waiting for a teacher to train them as priests so the sacraments could be available across Guyana’s hinterland. With reluctance I offered myself since the post was for a single man. I met Anne at missionary college and so my obedience to his call also answered the prayer of my heart.
This morning in Mary the church invites us to ponder the choices of God and to think about how much our lives are faithful to God’s choice of us.
Two years ago a process came about that tested my vocation as a priest ending with a decision to come with Anne and James to Horsted Keynes.
Since then I have helped or am helping fourteen couples as they seal their vocation or calling to marriage. I have been helping one young man as he explores his calling to the priesthood.
I have had a number of conversations about vocation with various church members as they seek what God most wants of them in life.
Some have been thinking about a change of job. Others have been making the most of a redundancy. One or two have felt they have done a task in the village or the church for long enough and have been seeking new possibilities which have connected with my own agenda as parish priest for ever seeking volunteers.
Christianity is a faith that holds disparate truths together – God is one and three, Jesus is God and man – and one of these mysteries is that God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
It seems to me that Christians are at two ends when it comes to divine guidance. Some see God ‘s choice as starting us off and then leaving us with common sense – sanctified common sense – to get going on our own. Others, if you ask them to do something, will say they need to pray about it, and they talk of God’s guidance as very immediate and direct.
I am not coming down on one side or the other. What matters is to recognise the hand of God in our lives and to cast aside the things that draw us away from his leadings.
The sanctified common sense sort of guidance needs supplementing by openness to God’s surprises in the form of obvious divine intervention. Those who sense something of a hotline to God need to work harder to check their leadings by arguing the case at times with other experienced believers. Both reason and faith are God’s gift and they shouldn’t contradict each other.
If we want our lives including our decision making to go where they’re meant to go it means developing what Paul in our second reading from the opening verses of the letter to the Romans calls the obedience of faith.
This obedience is more than avoiding deadly sins. It is the best directing of our energies. It is knowing we are in the right employment or state of life, be that married or single. It is a readiness to ask ourselves whether where we are at is truly in God’s will or whether it is at variance with it.
If you are on the rails God gives us, living close to Jesus, you move more peacably than if your life is off the rails. A lack of inner peace can be a helpful warning from God to take stock of your life.
Christmas and New Year bring us such an opportunity to reflect. Some of us will use the sacrament of reconciliation or take opportunity to talk to the priest or another experienced Christian. Others may appreciate being put in touch with a spiritual director. All of us can ask God directly:
‘Show me the needs that are deeper than my wants. Place my energies more and more to your service and less and less to aimless self interest’.
When God chose Mary he invited her to be his mother by a surprise of the Spirit. He did not compel her but won the obedience of her faith.
It is the Christian faith that followers of Jesus, through the voluntary obedience of their faith, are chosen and guided by God.
God seeks our yes to his future possibilities as he sought that of the Blessed Virgin. Her life became a roller coaster of a life, a Lady of sorrow and joy, and so it is to be for us.
God’s hand on our lives, God’s choice of us, is a wonderful and a costly thing. We have a lifespan to exercise our faith in that choice. The penitent thief who turned to Jesus as he died shows us it is never too late to seek God’s leading.
God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
In making this decision the clue is WWJW – maybe you have seen the Christian bracelet – WWJW – What would Jesus want?
The eucharist is all about WWJW. We offer our souls and bodies with Christ to the Father so that our lives are put back on the rails Sunday by Sunday.
With Mary we say: I am God’s servant. Let it be to me as God wills!
Take my energies and use them for good since there is work for those God has chosen. There is a harvest to gather and labourers are few.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
