If there is one word that captures what is distinctive about Christianity it is 'grace'.
If there is one wonder of our life that expresses that most it is the Blessed Sacrament.
As someone wrote, 'the world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.'
To live as a Christian is to live conscious of another world, open to the supernatural enfolding and empowering of grace.
Grace - G-R-A-C-E - God's Riches At Christ's Expense - I've heard it put that way.
What riches are ours, particularly in this Sacrament. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
God's riches - all the benefits of his acceptance, love and empowering - at Christ's Expense - flowing from the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus all of which is already present at the Maundy Thursday supper table and at every eucharist.
Blessed, praised and hallowed be Our Lord Jesus Christ, upon His Throne in Glory, in the Most Holy Sacrament -and in the hearts of all his faithful people.
Tonight God's riches, his unconditional love, are poured into our hearts at the expense of Jesus Christ Himself!
By tonight’s action Our Lord gives himself by intention, and intention to be sealed on the Cross by the actual breaking of his body and shedding of his blood.
His intention is love of Jesus since sacrifice is about love before it is about death. For Our Lord it is about a love stronger than death.
The Blessed Sacrament is His Body Broken for us, his Blood outpoured for us.
We are never worthy of this Gift, as we say repeatedly before Holy Communion. Lord I am not worthy to receive you...
There is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy, to make Jesus love us more.
There is also nothing we can do to make him love us less, that is the wonder of it all.
'There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea' wrote Fr. Faber 'but we make his love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify his strictness with a zeal he will not own. If our love were but more simple, we should take him at his word; and our lives would be all sunshine in the sweetness of our Lord.'
Grace, God's riches at Christ's Expense, this is the very sweetness of our Lord to us.
Grace, unconditional love and acceptance, is foundational to Christianity.
The Blessed Sacrament is not given to us tonight as a reward for good behaviour, even if God's grace is not to be presumed upon.
Jesus makes as free a gift to us which he desires to give to all people.
It is a free gift but not a cheap gift. What expense Our Lord has borne to provide this gift!
And in the garden secretly and on the Cross on high should teach his brethren and inspire to suffer and to die.
After the joyful table gathering tonight we have a procession to a place of sorrows where we keep the Gethsemane Watch before the Blessed Sacrament. I hope a few of us might manage to obey the plea Jesus made to his disciples on this holy night
Could you not watch with me one hour?
So we move back into the action of tonight, the footwashing, the Last Supper Table and Gethsemane , pondering grace, God’s riches at Christ’s expense, given for us and for our salvation on this most holy night.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Palm Sunday 17th April 2011
So we begin Holy Week recalling how Jesus put his life on the line for us.
Through the centuries people who have met and followed Jesus have readily done the same obedient to his words:
'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. (Matthew 16:24-25)
Self-sacrifice is a powerful brand. When I have seen it in the Christian people around me it has made Jesus more real to me.
Jesus calls forth witnesses. The most effective have been martyrs who have lost absolutely all self-interest. Such self-sacrifice has branded Christianity in every age. As the second century writer Tertullian famously expressed it ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’.
Where people have followed Jesus to distant lands to bring his good news their sacrifice has regularly been infectious.
In a recent chronicle of the church in China called The Heavenly Man the exiled Pastor Yun chronicles three imprisonment’s (1983-88, 1991-3 and 2001) in a story that starts in the Cultural Revolution of 1974. Mindful of the teaching and sacrifices of western missionaries in the early 20th century the sixteen year old Yun and his family are led in desperation to pray to Jesus for his father to be healed from cancer. He is remarkably healed so that Yun recognises the power of Jesus. From this first encounter his story goes on testifying to the Lord’s intervention again and again as people are repeatedly humiliated and reduced by circumstances that are again and again turned on their head. This brings praise to God and dramatic growth to his church. The book is as exciting as any adventure story, with miraculous healings, prison escapes and the greater wonder of mass conversion of lives to Jesus all happening in these days on the other side of the world.
Thousands in China are now emulating the heroic witness of the hundreds of western missionaries who gave their lives over a thousand years to plant the church there. They sowed gospel seed but it is only now that the harvest is beginning, so that hundreds of Chinese missionaries are even now taking the gospel back west on foot to Jerusalem challenging Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu cultures on their way with the unique claims of Jesus Christ.
Brother Yun writes: ‘The gospel grows through hardship and will spread throughout the world. The truth will enter everyone’s heart. Truth is always truth. Nothing and no one can change that. It will always conquer’. This uncompromising word of faith captures the spiritual force of his witness. Yun’s recent flight from China has brought him into direct contact with the wider church where he senses something is missing. He writes of God’s desire to loosen our selfish attachments, release more of our energies into prayer and worship, open our minds to scripture and equip us with new boldness to witness for Jesus so that the harvest of transformed lives seen in China can extend into our own nation.
Because Jesus is God’s Word made flesh (John 1:14) he expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He leads them again and again to invest themselves fully in their profession of faith in him.
When people know Jesus they know their witness to him in words will be weighed according to their perceived obedience to his call to die to self and rise to new life in the Holy Spirit. As all England cricketer turned missionary C.T.Studd once wrote ‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.’
Last week I was blessed to see one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, Of God and Men. It centres on the monastery of Tibhirine, where nine Trappist monks lived in harmony with the largely Muslim population of Algeria, until seven of them were kidnapped and assassinated in 1996.
It tells the tale of a peaceful situation between local Christians and Muslims becoming a lethal one due to external events rather like those that have recently swept through Libya and other Arab lands.
The reconstruction of their martyrdom shows the monks at worship, serving the poor Muslims around the monastery and encouraging one another as the violence grows. They have to choose whether to leave Algeria. The screen play focuses on conferences of the community where they debate the possibility of martyrdom which in the end becomes a reality. It is a beautiful film which won a Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Festival. It ends with the reading of the letter one of them, Brother Chretien, left for his mother in case of his death.
Here it is.
‘I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down. I would like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down. I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called the ‘grace of martyrdom’’.
To the letter to his mother Chretien adds a note to the one who will kill him: ‘In God's face I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen! In H'Allah!’
What grace! To recognise God in the face of one’s murderer!
It was a profoundly moving film made more so by its accurate representation of well documented events 15 years ago in Algeria and by its topicality with all that is happening in North Africa today.
Holy Week lifts the bar. We have performed the annual reading of the passion of Our Lord. We have heard some stories of how that story has drawn forth self sacrifice in China and Algeria.
Back to Horsted Keynes! For us self sacrifice will be more mundane but nonetheless significant for that.
We can’t get to be like Jesus without it.
Holy Week is I crossed out. It’s a time to identify and break selfish attachments and release more of our energies into prayer and worship. It is an opportunity, if we make it so, to follow the way of the Cross in the services later this week, to open our minds to scripture and be equipped with new boldness to witness to him.
As has been said Jesus Christ expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He wants us to commit ourselves, our souls and bodies into the profession of faith we make in him.
‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.’
Through the centuries people who have met and followed Jesus have readily done the same obedient to his words:
'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. (Matthew 16:24-25)
Self-sacrifice is a powerful brand. When I have seen it in the Christian people around me it has made Jesus more real to me.
Jesus calls forth witnesses. The most effective have been martyrs who have lost absolutely all self-interest. Such self-sacrifice has branded Christianity in every age. As the second century writer Tertullian famously expressed it ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’.
Where people have followed Jesus to distant lands to bring his good news their sacrifice has regularly been infectious.
In a recent chronicle of the church in China called The Heavenly Man the exiled Pastor Yun chronicles three imprisonment’s (1983-88, 1991-3 and 2001) in a story that starts in the Cultural Revolution of 1974. Mindful of the teaching and sacrifices of western missionaries in the early 20th century the sixteen year old Yun and his family are led in desperation to pray to Jesus for his father to be healed from cancer. He is remarkably healed so that Yun recognises the power of Jesus. From this first encounter his story goes on testifying to the Lord’s intervention again and again as people are repeatedly humiliated and reduced by circumstances that are again and again turned on their head. This brings praise to God and dramatic growth to his church. The book is as exciting as any adventure story, with miraculous healings, prison escapes and the greater wonder of mass conversion of lives to Jesus all happening in these days on the other side of the world.
Thousands in China are now emulating the heroic witness of the hundreds of western missionaries who gave their lives over a thousand years to plant the church there. They sowed gospel seed but it is only now that the harvest is beginning, so that hundreds of Chinese missionaries are even now taking the gospel back west on foot to Jerusalem challenging Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu cultures on their way with the unique claims of Jesus Christ.
Brother Yun writes: ‘The gospel grows through hardship and will spread throughout the world. The truth will enter everyone’s heart. Truth is always truth. Nothing and no one can change that. It will always conquer’. This uncompromising word of faith captures the spiritual force of his witness. Yun’s recent flight from China has brought him into direct contact with the wider church where he senses something is missing. He writes of God’s desire to loosen our selfish attachments, release more of our energies into prayer and worship, open our minds to scripture and equip us with new boldness to witness for Jesus so that the harvest of transformed lives seen in China can extend into our own nation.
Because Jesus is God’s Word made flesh (John 1:14) he expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He leads them again and again to invest themselves fully in their profession of faith in him.
When people know Jesus they know their witness to him in words will be weighed according to their perceived obedience to his call to die to self and rise to new life in the Holy Spirit. As all England cricketer turned missionary C.T.Studd once wrote ‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.’
Last week I was blessed to see one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, Of God and Men. It centres on the monastery of Tibhirine, where nine Trappist monks lived in harmony with the largely Muslim population of Algeria, until seven of them were kidnapped and assassinated in 1996.
It tells the tale of a peaceful situation between local Christians and Muslims becoming a lethal one due to external events rather like those that have recently swept through Libya and other Arab lands.
The reconstruction of their martyrdom shows the monks at worship, serving the poor Muslims around the monastery and encouraging one another as the violence grows. They have to choose whether to leave Algeria. The screen play focuses on conferences of the community where they debate the possibility of martyrdom which in the end becomes a reality. It is a beautiful film which won a Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Festival. It ends with the reading of the letter one of them, Brother Chretien, left for his mother in case of his death.
Here it is.
‘I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down. I would like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down. I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called the ‘grace of martyrdom’’.
To the letter to his mother Chretien adds a note to the one who will kill him: ‘In God's face I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen! In H'Allah!’
What grace! To recognise God in the face of one’s murderer!
It was a profoundly moving film made more so by its accurate representation of well documented events 15 years ago in Algeria and by its topicality with all that is happening in North Africa today.
Holy Week lifts the bar. We have performed the annual reading of the passion of Our Lord. We have heard some stories of how that story has drawn forth self sacrifice in China and Algeria.
Back to Horsted Keynes! For us self sacrifice will be more mundane but nonetheless significant for that.
We can’t get to be like Jesus without it.
Holy Week is I crossed out. It’s a time to identify and break selfish attachments and release more of our energies into prayer and worship. It is an opportunity, if we make it so, to follow the way of the Cross in the services later this week, to open our minds to scripture and be equipped with new boldness to witness to him.
As has been said Jesus Christ expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He wants us to commit ourselves, our souls and bodies into the profession of faith we make in him.
‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.’
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Mothering Sunday 3rd April 2011
It’s Laetare Sunday, Rejoice Sunday, rejoice Jerusalem I read for the opening antiphon. Mothering Sunday.
We’re allowed a little respite from Lent – today is also called Refreshment Sunday - and we even have flowers. The daffodils will appear at the end for you to take away.
We rejoice today in Mother Church, our Jerusalem on the hill but also the heavenly Jerusalem above. As God is our Father the Church is our Mother.
The world has reduced this day to a celebration of our earthly mothers, which is no bad thing, especially when, as for many of us, our faith is owed to good mothering as well as fathering.
There is another mother I need to speak to and her image is on the altar.
In Scripture Mary is there, as in the Gospel at the foot of the Cross, She’s there for Jesus and for us without getting in the way.
Do you know what I mean? We should be there for people, especially at times of need, but without getting in the way.
This is the art of Mary – and it should be ours as well.
‘I am the handmaid of the Lord’ she says in the Gospel we read on Lady Day a week ago: ‘Let what you have said be done to me’.
We’ll do nothing to bring Christ into the world unless we’re there for God and for people. We’ll do nothing, either, to bring Christ into the world if we serve God and other people dutifully whilst deep down serving them on our terms rather than theirs
That’s not the religion of the child in a manger but the religion of the dog in a manger!
We’re called like Our Lady to let Christ and his kingdom prevail. This means being like midwives who come sympathetically alongside people and situations that cry out for attention and help what God wants to come to pass. We stand by, we facilitate, we pray, knowing our place as unprofitable servants – and, praise God, we see Jesus build his kingdom.
We best serve God and others with a loving discernment that starts from a determination to listen to God with Mary. The more real Jesus becomes to us and in us, not least through our Lenten devotion, the more our actions will grow loving as he is loving. It’s not how much we do or say or even listen that matters so much a how much love we put into it so to speak, which is why our listening to God is so important.
How can we best give more of ourselves? By listening to God and then secondly to ourselveswith Mary. Mary encourages us towards a positive self-regard. The Almighty has done great things for me.
Take stock of all that Jesus is doing in your life and rejoice!
Take stock also of the ingrained selfishness, the ‘dog in the manger’ bit so you can give it to God in confession.
Take stock of how you and I at times put the work of the Lord before the Lord of the work. It’s when we get too busy in the Lord’s work that our own selfishness can become sadly all the more evident.
Listen to God, listen to yourself, sift and purify your agenda, then listen to those God puts your way who need your ears! As we listen to others on this feast of family with our outer ears let’s keep two inner ears listening to God and to our own reaction to what we hear lest it get in the way.
Like Mary let’s be there for people without getting in their way. Being surrendered ourselves, as at this Eucharist, to whatever God wants of us to be made a Christ-bearer under the watchful care of the Mother of believers.
Jesus who was first carried by Mary at Bethlehem, who is carried to us in Bread and Wine this morning, waits to be carried by you and I to a waiting world!
We’re allowed a little respite from Lent – today is also called Refreshment Sunday - and we even have flowers. The daffodils will appear at the end for you to take away.
We rejoice today in Mother Church, our Jerusalem on the hill but also the heavenly Jerusalem above. As God is our Father the Church is our Mother.
The world has reduced this day to a celebration of our earthly mothers, which is no bad thing, especially when, as for many of us, our faith is owed to good mothering as well as fathering.
There is another mother I need to speak to and her image is on the altar.
In Scripture Mary is there, as in the Gospel at the foot of the Cross, She’s there for Jesus and for us without getting in the way.
Do you know what I mean? We should be there for people, especially at times of need, but without getting in the way.
This is the art of Mary – and it should be ours as well.
‘I am the handmaid of the Lord’ she says in the Gospel we read on Lady Day a week ago: ‘Let what you have said be done to me’.
We’ll do nothing to bring Christ into the world unless we’re there for God and for people. We’ll do nothing, either, to bring Christ into the world if we serve God and other people dutifully whilst deep down serving them on our terms rather than theirs
That’s not the religion of the child in a manger but the religion of the dog in a manger!
We’re called like Our Lady to let Christ and his kingdom prevail. This means being like midwives who come sympathetically alongside people and situations that cry out for attention and help what God wants to come to pass. We stand by, we facilitate, we pray, knowing our place as unprofitable servants – and, praise God, we see Jesus build his kingdom.
We best serve God and others with a loving discernment that starts from a determination to listen to God with Mary. The more real Jesus becomes to us and in us, not least through our Lenten devotion, the more our actions will grow loving as he is loving. It’s not how much we do or say or even listen that matters so much a how much love we put into it so to speak, which is why our listening to God is so important.
How can we best give more of ourselves? By listening to God and then secondly to ourselveswith Mary. Mary encourages us towards a positive self-regard. The Almighty has done great things for me.
Take stock of all that Jesus is doing in your life and rejoice!
Take stock also of the ingrained selfishness, the ‘dog in the manger’ bit so you can give it to God in confession.
Take stock of how you and I at times put the work of the Lord before the Lord of the work. It’s when we get too busy in the Lord’s work that our own selfishness can become sadly all the more evident.
Listen to God, listen to yourself, sift and purify your agenda, then listen to those God puts your way who need your ears! As we listen to others on this feast of family with our outer ears let’s keep two inner ears listening to God and to our own reaction to what we hear lest it get in the way.
Like Mary let’s be there for people without getting in their way. Being surrendered ourselves, as at this Eucharist, to whatever God wants of us to be made a Christ-bearer under the watchful care of the Mother of believers.
Jesus who was first carried by Mary at Bethlehem, who is carried to us in Bread and Wine this morning, waits to be carried by you and I to a waiting world!
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Lent 1 13 March 2011
The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story called The Two Pilgrims. It tells of two Russians who set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem intent on being present at the solemn Easter festivities. One had his mind so set on the journey’s end and object that he would stop for nothing and take thought for nothing but the journey.
The other, passing through, found people to be helped at every turn and actually spent so much time and money along the way that he never reached the Holy City. Yet he received a blessing from God the other failed to find in the great Easter celebration.
As we start Lent Tolstoy’s story reminds us that true religion is more about generosity than proper ritual observance. Keeping short accounts with our neighbour is more important to our sanctification than freeing ourselves of all distractions.
What distracts is very often flesh and blood which we sweep away at our spiritual peril.
It comes down to choices, as our first reading reminded us. The story of Adam and Eve warns against choosing things which conflict with the destiny we have under God. It is a poem full of truth about the human condition that is picked up by St Paul who describes how Our Lord’s obedience counters human disobedience. That obedience is represented in the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 4.
You may have read Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage set for yesterday in his Lent for Everyone commentary on Matthew’s gospel. He points out how temptation is about good things being distorted. 'Bread is good. Jesus will later create a huge amount of it from a few loaves, to feed hungry people. But should he do that just for himself?'
Coming back to Tolstoy’s Lenten pilgrims it is good to be singleminded but it is also good to be sympathetic.
In the story the sympathetic guy is the hero. Better slower together than faster alone.
My son bought me for Christmas a book that’s full of insight about the impact of the screen culture. In Future Minds Richard Watson recognises that the internet is probably going to rank with the alphabet and numbers as a mind-altering technology of universal significance. He goes on to warn about the associated cult of the immediate and contemporary with all the unsympathetic impatience it carries with it.
Whilst it is wonderful to see electronic networking bringing down dictators as in the Middle East and North Africa our best future is challenged by the erosion of conversation and reflective thinking it brings. There is a need for some users to find space and time for these lest electronic technology saps their patience and the resilience essential to creativity.
Internet usage illustrates the creative tension there is in many an area of life between singleminded pursuits and relational obligations. Both are encouraged in Christianity. The seeking first of God’s kingdom is there in one text alongside a warning in another text that to do so, to go for loving God whilst ignoring your brother or sister in need is a serious failure.
If Lent is a call to singlemindedness it is so with the spiritual health warning that comes out of Tolstoy’s story. The singleminded pilgrim so set on his object that he stopped for nothing was not commended as he lacked discernment and sympathy for his fellows. The second pilgrim who was so occupied helping people he got spent up and never reached Jerusalem was commended.
As part of the stocktaking of Lent we might examine where we are on the big life journey and how much our own preoccupations, even spiritual ones, are helping build authentic humanity in us and around us. In a village like our own we have less excuse for not wasting time with people as the Spirit leads us. Love is wasting time, really. When I hear people say ‘time is money’ I feel slightly uncomfortable. There should be sufficient time for us to be ourselves and be ourselves with others, not least those nearest and dearest. Yet the demands of the workplace and commuting are incessant upon many of us. There are no easy fixes here, just a warning to work for a balance.
In this month’s P&P I wrote of Lent as the annual reminder to look to the main things in life and to keeping them as the main things and that for Christians the main things are attention to God and neighbour but you’ve got to give attention to yourself to succeed in these. Examining our stewardship of time, talents and money is part of this, as well as refocusing on the Lord and giving him the things that agitate us.
I quoted another Russian writer, St Seraphim: ‘Acquire inner peace and thousands around you will find salvation’. In Tolstoy’s story the blest pilgrim was the one who let his peaceable heart be emptied on the journey in the flow of circumstances and the human needs that presented themselves. The other pilgrim achieved his personal target but was judged to have missed the mark by seeing the people on the journey as potential distractions.
How often do we get put into that position, treating people as less than they are because we’ve got ourselves set upon the next thing or the next person. This gives me opportunity to warn us as a community to be always alert for Our Lord’s presence with us in the person of the occasional newcomer or visitor after service. St Giles is a place to catch up with our friends on a Sunday, but let’s make sure everyone in church is treated as a friend!
The moral is, whatever grand spiritual aspirations we make, the Holy Spirit is closest to us when we are about our neighbours, sorting out our destructive attitudes, putting love in where there is none, recognising the humanity of those who can seem to be somewhat blind to our own.
May Our Lord deepen such sympathy in us and among us as we prepare in this holy season for the Easter Feast. May we see triumphs of his Spirit as we correct the balance of our lives in obedience to his call upon our lives to seek a richer humanity that is more in his likeness.
The other, passing through, found people to be helped at every turn and actually spent so much time and money along the way that he never reached the Holy City. Yet he received a blessing from God the other failed to find in the great Easter celebration.
As we start Lent Tolstoy’s story reminds us that true religion is more about generosity than proper ritual observance. Keeping short accounts with our neighbour is more important to our sanctification than freeing ourselves of all distractions.
What distracts is very often flesh and blood which we sweep away at our spiritual peril.
It comes down to choices, as our first reading reminded us. The story of Adam and Eve warns against choosing things which conflict with the destiny we have under God. It is a poem full of truth about the human condition that is picked up by St Paul who describes how Our Lord’s obedience counters human disobedience. That obedience is represented in the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 4.
You may have read Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage set for yesterday in his Lent for Everyone commentary on Matthew’s gospel. He points out how temptation is about good things being distorted. 'Bread is good. Jesus will later create a huge amount of it from a few loaves, to feed hungry people. But should he do that just for himself?'
Coming back to Tolstoy’s Lenten pilgrims it is good to be singleminded but it is also good to be sympathetic.
In the story the sympathetic guy is the hero. Better slower together than faster alone.
My son bought me for Christmas a book that’s full of insight about the impact of the screen culture. In Future Minds Richard Watson recognises that the internet is probably going to rank with the alphabet and numbers as a mind-altering technology of universal significance. He goes on to warn about the associated cult of the immediate and contemporary with all the unsympathetic impatience it carries with it.
Whilst it is wonderful to see electronic networking bringing down dictators as in the Middle East and North Africa our best future is challenged by the erosion of conversation and reflective thinking it brings. There is a need for some users to find space and time for these lest electronic technology saps their patience and the resilience essential to creativity.
Internet usage illustrates the creative tension there is in many an area of life between singleminded pursuits and relational obligations. Both are encouraged in Christianity. The seeking first of God’s kingdom is there in one text alongside a warning in another text that to do so, to go for loving God whilst ignoring your brother or sister in need is a serious failure.
If Lent is a call to singlemindedness it is so with the spiritual health warning that comes out of Tolstoy’s story. The singleminded pilgrim so set on his object that he stopped for nothing was not commended as he lacked discernment and sympathy for his fellows. The second pilgrim who was so occupied helping people he got spent up and never reached Jerusalem was commended.
As part of the stocktaking of Lent we might examine where we are on the big life journey and how much our own preoccupations, even spiritual ones, are helping build authentic humanity in us and around us. In a village like our own we have less excuse for not wasting time with people as the Spirit leads us. Love is wasting time, really. When I hear people say ‘time is money’ I feel slightly uncomfortable. There should be sufficient time for us to be ourselves and be ourselves with others, not least those nearest and dearest. Yet the demands of the workplace and commuting are incessant upon many of us. There are no easy fixes here, just a warning to work for a balance.
In this month’s P&P I wrote of Lent as the annual reminder to look to the main things in life and to keeping them as the main things and that for Christians the main things are attention to God and neighbour but you’ve got to give attention to yourself to succeed in these. Examining our stewardship of time, talents and money is part of this, as well as refocusing on the Lord and giving him the things that agitate us.
I quoted another Russian writer, St Seraphim: ‘Acquire inner peace and thousands around you will find salvation’. In Tolstoy’s story the blest pilgrim was the one who let his peaceable heart be emptied on the journey in the flow of circumstances and the human needs that presented themselves. The other pilgrim achieved his personal target but was judged to have missed the mark by seeing the people on the journey as potential distractions.
How often do we get put into that position, treating people as less than they are because we’ve got ourselves set upon the next thing or the next person. This gives me opportunity to warn us as a community to be always alert for Our Lord’s presence with us in the person of the occasional newcomer or visitor after service. St Giles is a place to catch up with our friends on a Sunday, but let’s make sure everyone in church is treated as a friend!
The moral is, whatever grand spiritual aspirations we make, the Holy Spirit is closest to us when we are about our neighbours, sorting out our destructive attitudes, putting love in where there is none, recognising the humanity of those who can seem to be somewhat blind to our own.
May Our Lord deepen such sympathy in us and among us as we prepare in this holy season for the Easter Feast. May we see triumphs of his Spirit as we correct the balance of our lives in obedience to his call upon our lives to seek a richer humanity that is more in his likeness.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Sunday before Lent 6th March 2011 8am
As the Church begins to set her sights on Easter the Sunday liturgy before Lent starts centres in the Gospel on an anticipation of the Easter festival that we are shortly to prepare for in the coming holy season.
We just read in the Gospel a very beautiful incident from the account of the life of Our Lord.
Jesus ascends a high mountain with Peter, James and John. While praying up there the Lord’s face glows with the brightness of the sun and his garments became dazzling white.
The splendour of Christ’s divinity penetrates through his human body as the Son of God appears in his splendour and glory.
The glory that was to shine at Easter shone in this isolated incident through the person of the earthly Jesus.
The disciples were shown as much glory as they could bear.
Just as when there is an astronomical event like a transit of Venus across the sun people are warned to view the event indirectly so it was when God shone in Jesus on the earth. The disciples fell to the ground and hid their faces.
‘No one can see God and live’ we read in Exodus 33 verse 20. Yet moving from Old to New Testament texts we catch something of the revolution that Our Lord brings, as in St John’s Gospel Chapter 1 verse 18: ‘No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’.
At the heart of Christianity is a yearning to see God as he is. This has sprung up from the days Jesus walked and shone on earth with the promise we could see God.
Not with mortal eyes but in the resurrection.
The Transfiguration of Our Lord anticipates both his Resurrection and our own. As children of God we are heading for the full, glorious sight of God.
‘Beloved we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed’ Saint John writes. ‘What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’. (1 John 3:2)
As Lent approaches we should be in the valley of decision about some action that can help us better head for the beatific vision, the vision of God.
It is a time to refocus upon Our Lord, to turn our eyes upon Jesus. Lent challenges us to look to the main things in Christian life and to keeping them the main things.
This season is a call to study God’s word and I do commend again Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone which helps you read through sections of Matthew’s Gospel day by day. The book includes the scripture text.
Through contemplating today’s Gospel we see an image of devotion as the yearning to see God as he is. This yearning that sprang up from the coming of Jesus remains at the heart of Christianity.
May the Lord excite our yearning for him by the devotion we seek in the coming weeks through things given up and taken up to mark the season of Christ’s Passion.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his beautiful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
We just read in the Gospel a very beautiful incident from the account of the life of Our Lord.
Jesus ascends a high mountain with Peter, James and John. While praying up there the Lord’s face glows with the brightness of the sun and his garments became dazzling white.
The splendour of Christ’s divinity penetrates through his human body as the Son of God appears in his splendour and glory.
The glory that was to shine at Easter shone in this isolated incident through the person of the earthly Jesus.
The disciples were shown as much glory as they could bear.
Just as when there is an astronomical event like a transit of Venus across the sun people are warned to view the event indirectly so it was when God shone in Jesus on the earth. The disciples fell to the ground and hid their faces.
‘No one can see God and live’ we read in Exodus 33 verse 20. Yet moving from Old to New Testament texts we catch something of the revolution that Our Lord brings, as in St John’s Gospel Chapter 1 verse 18: ‘No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’.
At the heart of Christianity is a yearning to see God as he is. This has sprung up from the days Jesus walked and shone on earth with the promise we could see God.
Not with mortal eyes but in the resurrection.
The Transfiguration of Our Lord anticipates both his Resurrection and our own. As children of God we are heading for the full, glorious sight of God.
‘Beloved we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed’ Saint John writes. ‘What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’. (1 John 3:2)
As Lent approaches we should be in the valley of decision about some action that can help us better head for the beatific vision, the vision of God.
It is a time to refocus upon Our Lord, to turn our eyes upon Jesus. Lent challenges us to look to the main things in Christian life and to keeping them the main things.
This season is a call to study God’s word and I do commend again Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone which helps you read through sections of Matthew’s Gospel day by day. The book includes the scripture text.
Through contemplating today’s Gospel we see an image of devotion as the yearning to see God as he is. This yearning that sprang up from the coming of Jesus remains at the heart of Christianity.
May the Lord excite our yearning for him by the devotion we seek in the coming weeks through things given up and taken up to mark the season of Christ’s Passion.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his beautiful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Epiphany 8 27 February 2011
There is no Word of God without power so that this place – the pulpit – and the book expounded here – this book – are about energising.
Four hundred years ago the translation of the Bible into the language of the people energised the church and I want to use this sermon to encourage us to study God’s Word today and to welcome it afresh.
I am mindful as I speak that we have some copies available of the equivalent of the King James Bible for the 21st century – the New Revised Standard Version – as well as our Lent book, Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on St Matthew’s Gospel – and also a newly produced children’s Bible that can be ordered - so this sermon can have practical consequences in a resolve to get into the Bible and seek the empowering of the Holy Spirit with one tool or another.
Why is it so important we familiarise ourselves with the Bible?
Because the Bible speaks to those with open ears of God’s people, provision, promises and purpose.
In reading the Bible we find...God’s people
The Bible is the family history of the Christian church. It is our life story. We are to see it as part of our own story since Christians see themselves in the sacred history it provides. When, for example, in the story of Cain and Abel we read God’s words to Cain, ‘where is your brother?’ they are words that remind us that God’s family find God again and again through love of other people. When we read the story of the Exodus we see ourselves going through the Red Sea – the waters of baptism – fed by manna – the heavenly bread of the eucharist – destined for Canaan – a glorious homeland.
When we read and study Matthew’s Gospel as we shall do in Lent, we see a Sermon on a Mount from Jesus presented by Matthew as the new Moses since his Jewish readers knew it was Moses who first brought teaching down from Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments. When we read in the Acts about Pentecost we see a reversal of the Tower of Babel in Genesis so that people heard the same message in their different languages. The Holy Spirit who drives the Church forward from Pentecost is the same Lord working secretly throughout the biblical story of God’s people.
We read the Bible because it tells us who we are – God’s children made so by God’s provision.
This provision, the gift of Jesus, is a second motivator for bible reading so that Saint Jerome could say that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ no less.
The Bible reveals how God who created the world provided his Son, Jesus Christ to redeem it from sin through a new creation.
This is the year of Saint Matthew in the three year cycle of Sunday readings and we have a chance to dig deep into this Gospel during Lent with Bishop Tom Wright’s Lent book.
When we open a Bible Matthew is on its hinge, the hinge between the Old and New Testaments. The word Bible comes from the Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books" whose contents and order vary between denominations. The Old Testament has 39 books of Hebrew Scripture, though some denominations including our own give authority to a series of Jewish books called the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books. The New Testament contains 27 books the first four of which form the Canonical gospels, first Matthew’s, recounting the life of Christ and central to our faith.
There is no Word of God without power because scripture points us to Jesus. Saint Tikhon, an 18th century Russian writer, says ‘whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking to Him’.
This is why we read the Bible – to seek and find God’s provision. The Bible is an instrument of divine revelation, the word of God communicated in human words. As such it has unique authority and inspiration and cannot mislead anyone as it presents the salvation truth of God in Christ.
This is what the Bible says about itself through what Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.15-17 where he reminds his assistant bishop, and through him, all of us, how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
In the Bible we meet God’s people, see God’s provision for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Thirdly we find God’s promises.
The Bible contains what Saint Peter describes in 2 Peter 1.4 as God’s precious and very great promises for us to ‘read, mark and inwardly digest’.
In his book on Matthew Lent for everyone Tom Wright comments on Our Lord’s temptations and how Jesus himself holds fast to God’s promises as he resists them.
Once more, we are not simply spectators in this extraordinary drama. We too, are tempted to do the right things in the wrong way or for the wrong reason. Part of the discipline of Lent is about learning to recognize the flickering impulses, the whispering voices, for what they are, and to have the scripture fuelled courage to resist.
I like that phrase ‘scripture fuelled courage’. When I am tempted by anxiety it is the fuelling of my spiritual life by the biblical promises of God that defend me, such as those in today’s Gospel or these other texts. ‘My peace I give unto you’ (John 14.27) ‘You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you’ (Isaiah 26.3) ‘The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind’ (Philippians 4.7). The point is that unless I knew these verses, and had memorised them, the Bible would have no power to help me. I would lack what Tom Wright calls ‘scripture fuelled courage’.
There is no word of God without power! The bible itself points to the power of Holy Spirit who inspired it and will inspire its readers. In particular the discipline of Bible study helps us get into ourselves some of the key promises of God by the inspiration they give to heart and mind, an inspiration that evidences itself in our lives.
Fourthly if the Bible brings us the family history of God’s people, God’s provision for us in Jesus and his promises to fuel our courage it brings us hope for the future - God’s purpose.
The Bible contains God’s plan. It sets human history in the perspective revealed by Christ’s resurrection, his gathering of God’s people, building of the kingdom and promised return. In his commentary on Matthew Chapter 13 Bishop Tom speaks on the importance of the bible in opening up God’s future to us and of the kingdom of God in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus is looking for people to sign on, people who are prepared to take his kingdom-movement forward in their own day. In telling us the old, old story the Bible invites us to sign up to having faith for the future. As its last book affirms ‘the kingdom of the world (is to become) the kingdom of our God and of his Christ’ (Revelation 11:15)
This is what we sign up to at every eucharist since this sacred meal anticipates the heavenly banquet. So too our pondering of the Word of God energises our thinking and acting. It builds our conviction that if this is the day the Lord has made so is tomorrow.
The Bible – a way into being God’s people, knowing his provision, his promises and his purpose for our lives and that of the cosmos. The Lord deepen our hunger for God’s Word as he makes us hungry now for the table of the eucharist.
Four hundred years ago the translation of the Bible into the language of the people energised the church and I want to use this sermon to encourage us to study God’s Word today and to welcome it afresh.
I am mindful as I speak that we have some copies available of the equivalent of the King James Bible for the 21st century – the New Revised Standard Version – as well as our Lent book, Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on St Matthew’s Gospel – and also a newly produced children’s Bible that can be ordered - so this sermon can have practical consequences in a resolve to get into the Bible and seek the empowering of the Holy Spirit with one tool or another.
Why is it so important we familiarise ourselves with the Bible?
Because the Bible speaks to those with open ears of God’s people, provision, promises and purpose.
In reading the Bible we find...God’s people
The Bible is the family history of the Christian church. It is our life story. We are to see it as part of our own story since Christians see themselves in the sacred history it provides. When, for example, in the story of Cain and Abel we read God’s words to Cain, ‘where is your brother?’ they are words that remind us that God’s family find God again and again through love of other people. When we read the story of the Exodus we see ourselves going through the Red Sea – the waters of baptism – fed by manna – the heavenly bread of the eucharist – destined for Canaan – a glorious homeland.
When we read and study Matthew’s Gospel as we shall do in Lent, we see a Sermon on a Mount from Jesus presented by Matthew as the new Moses since his Jewish readers knew it was Moses who first brought teaching down from Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments. When we read in the Acts about Pentecost we see a reversal of the Tower of Babel in Genesis so that people heard the same message in their different languages. The Holy Spirit who drives the Church forward from Pentecost is the same Lord working secretly throughout the biblical story of God’s people.
We read the Bible because it tells us who we are – God’s children made so by God’s provision.
This provision, the gift of Jesus, is a second motivator for bible reading so that Saint Jerome could say that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ no less.
The Bible reveals how God who created the world provided his Son, Jesus Christ to redeem it from sin through a new creation.
This is the year of Saint Matthew in the three year cycle of Sunday readings and we have a chance to dig deep into this Gospel during Lent with Bishop Tom Wright’s Lent book.
When we open a Bible Matthew is on its hinge, the hinge between the Old and New Testaments. The word Bible comes from the Greek τὰ βιβλία ta biblia "the books" whose contents and order vary between denominations. The Old Testament has 39 books of Hebrew Scripture, though some denominations including our own give authority to a series of Jewish books called the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books. The New Testament contains 27 books the first four of which form the Canonical gospels, first Matthew’s, recounting the life of Christ and central to our faith.
There is no Word of God without power because scripture points us to Jesus. Saint Tikhon, an 18th century Russian writer, says ‘whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking to Him’.
This is why we read the Bible – to seek and find God’s provision. The Bible is an instrument of divine revelation, the word of God communicated in human words. As such it has unique authority and inspiration and cannot mislead anyone as it presents the salvation truth of God in Christ.
This is what the Bible says about itself through what Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.15-17 where he reminds his assistant bishop, and through him, all of us, how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
In the Bible we meet God’s people, see God’s provision for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Thirdly we find God’s promises.
The Bible contains what Saint Peter describes in 2 Peter 1.4 as God’s precious and very great promises for us to ‘read, mark and inwardly digest’.
In his book on Matthew Lent for everyone Tom Wright comments on Our Lord’s temptations and how Jesus himself holds fast to God’s promises as he resists them.
Once more, we are not simply spectators in this extraordinary drama. We too, are tempted to do the right things in the wrong way or for the wrong reason. Part of the discipline of Lent is about learning to recognize the flickering impulses, the whispering voices, for what they are, and to have the scripture fuelled courage to resist.
I like that phrase ‘scripture fuelled courage’. When I am tempted by anxiety it is the fuelling of my spiritual life by the biblical promises of God that defend me, such as those in today’s Gospel or these other texts. ‘My peace I give unto you’ (John 14.27) ‘You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you’ (Isaiah 26.3) ‘The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind’ (Philippians 4.7). The point is that unless I knew these verses, and had memorised them, the Bible would have no power to help me. I would lack what Tom Wright calls ‘scripture fuelled courage’.
There is no word of God without power! The bible itself points to the power of Holy Spirit who inspired it and will inspire its readers. In particular the discipline of Bible study helps us get into ourselves some of the key promises of God by the inspiration they give to heart and mind, an inspiration that evidences itself in our lives.
Fourthly if the Bible brings us the family history of God’s people, God’s provision for us in Jesus and his promises to fuel our courage it brings us hope for the future - God’s purpose.
The Bible contains God’s plan. It sets human history in the perspective revealed by Christ’s resurrection, his gathering of God’s people, building of the kingdom and promised return. In his commentary on Matthew Chapter 13 Bishop Tom speaks on the importance of the bible in opening up God’s future to us and of the kingdom of God in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus is looking for people to sign on, people who are prepared to take his kingdom-movement forward in their own day. In telling us the old, old story the Bible invites us to sign up to having faith for the future. As its last book affirms ‘the kingdom of the world (is to become) the kingdom of our God and of his Christ’ (Revelation 11:15)
This is what we sign up to at every eucharist since this sacred meal anticipates the heavenly banquet. So too our pondering of the Word of God energises our thinking and acting. It builds our conviction that if this is the day the Lord has made so is tomorrow.
The Bible – a way into being God’s people, knowing his provision, his promises and his purpose for our lives and that of the cosmos. The Lord deepen our hunger for God’s Word as he makes us hungry now for the table of the eucharist.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Epiphany 5 6 February 2011
'Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven' (Matthew 5:16)
I could sit down now really couldn't I?
There's the message to take home this morning - Matthew 5 verse 16!
The historian and satirist Thomas Carlyle used to complain at long sermons. Over Sunday lunch he suggested to his mother that the preacher that morning would have done better to say: 'Good people you know what to do just go and do it'.
But Thomas, his mother replied, gently. 'Wouldn't you tell them how!'
I won't sit down yet.
How do we let our light shine to God's glory?
We have to get lit up and we have to shine in the right place.
First then: How do we get lit up as Christians?
Jesus kindles his light in our hearts by scripture, eucharist and prayer.
'Your word is a lantern to my feet and a light to my path' writes the Psalmist (Psalm 119.105). Tell me - can you get close to Jesus, can his light be lit in your heart, without ever opening a Bible? Oh yes, you need a guide, you need to select, but may it be for us, day by day, what those first disciples said after meeting Jesus on the Emmaus Road: 'Did not our hearts burn as he opened the Scriptures to us?' (Luke 24.32). This will also be the best fruit if this year's 400th anniversary celebration of the first authorised English Bible. If you want to act on this morning's sermon pick up and take away for £5 a modern language bible from the back of church and/or sign up for the Lent Course next month which is on the Bible.
Jesus kindles his light in our hearts by scripture -and the eucharist. Show me a better way of getting more of Jesus into your life than the regular receiving of his body and blood? With scripture comes the eucharist because words are not enough for Jesus. His love is shown sacramentally because his love, like ours, needs practical expression. 'This is my body which is given for you...my blood which is shed for you’.
How do we get lit up as Christians?
The bible, the eucharist - and prayer. Day by day we seek irradiation as we come before the Lord. It’s a discipline that some, like the preacher, neglect at times. You sense when your prayer discipline fails that you're not glowing and warm – and you remember you've not been in front of the fire!
Some of us heard Leslie Whiting speak two weeks ago about her spiritual healing. Her story is a story that moves us from the first to the second half of the question.
How do we let our light shine to God's glory?
A year ago during the - or should I say during a freeze up Leslie was recipient of the helpfulness of John and Caroline Rich who took her for vitally needed chemotherapy. This village scheme is in itself a 'good work that gives glory to God'. In the case of the lift given to Leslie it served a process in which she invited first these helpers, and then Jesus himself to come alongside her.
As she put it the other week, though the cancer was now in her skull she didn’t presume to ask for healing but rather for the Lord to be with her on her forward journey. Leslie received the sacrament of anointing. Afterwards she was led by God to identify a surgeon who was making trials with a cyber knife that could destroy the tumours in her skull without damaging her brain. She had successful treatment and has gone on to bring light to others in need through the campaign she’s spearheading for the cyber knife facility to be made more available. Do sign her petition detailed in this week's news sheet.
'Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.'
To welcome this light we seek Jesus through scripture, eucharist and prayer.
To let our light shine we need discernment as to the dark places Jesus has for us, where he wants us to be placed.
Someone said to me recently, when I tried to console them after an accident, that they were confident that the circumstances they had been placed in would be a receipe for their spiritual benefit. What faith, I thought! Just as I thought when I heard Lesley's testimony, which seemed so unselfish. Not all cancer sufferers are so - there but for the grace of God go I...
How do we best shine? With an openness to Jesus and a readiness to be used by him wherever he wants us day by day. May this Eucharist be our pledge to offer our souls and bodies to be where he wants us this week and nowhere else.
‘Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light, like a little candle buring in the night. In this world of darkness: so we must shine, you in your small corner and I in mine!’
'Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven'
You are invited to sign Leslie's petition at
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/42313.html
I could sit down now really couldn't I?
There's the message to take home this morning - Matthew 5 verse 16!
The historian and satirist Thomas Carlyle used to complain at long sermons. Over Sunday lunch he suggested to his mother that the preacher that morning would have done better to say: 'Good people you know what to do just go and do it'.
But Thomas, his mother replied, gently. 'Wouldn't you tell them how!'
I won't sit down yet.
How do we let our light shine to God's glory?
We have to get lit up and we have to shine in the right place.
First then: How do we get lit up as Christians?
Jesus kindles his light in our hearts by scripture, eucharist and prayer.
'Your word is a lantern to my feet and a light to my path' writes the Psalmist (Psalm 119.105). Tell me - can you get close to Jesus, can his light be lit in your heart, without ever opening a Bible? Oh yes, you need a guide, you need to select, but may it be for us, day by day, what those first disciples said after meeting Jesus on the Emmaus Road: 'Did not our hearts burn as he opened the Scriptures to us?' (Luke 24.32). This will also be the best fruit if this year's 400th anniversary celebration of the first authorised English Bible. If you want to act on this morning's sermon pick up and take away for £5 a modern language bible from the back of church and/or sign up for the Lent Course next month which is on the Bible.
Jesus kindles his light in our hearts by scripture -and the eucharist. Show me a better way of getting more of Jesus into your life than the regular receiving of his body and blood? With scripture comes the eucharist because words are not enough for Jesus. His love is shown sacramentally because his love, like ours, needs practical expression. 'This is my body which is given for you...my blood which is shed for you’.
How do we get lit up as Christians?
The bible, the eucharist - and prayer. Day by day we seek irradiation as we come before the Lord. It’s a discipline that some, like the preacher, neglect at times. You sense when your prayer discipline fails that you're not glowing and warm – and you remember you've not been in front of the fire!
Some of us heard Leslie Whiting speak two weeks ago about her spiritual healing. Her story is a story that moves us from the first to the second half of the question.
How do we let our light shine to God's glory?
A year ago during the - or should I say during a freeze up Leslie was recipient of the helpfulness of John and Caroline Rich who took her for vitally needed chemotherapy. This village scheme is in itself a 'good work that gives glory to God'. In the case of the lift given to Leslie it served a process in which she invited first these helpers, and then Jesus himself to come alongside her.
As she put it the other week, though the cancer was now in her skull she didn’t presume to ask for healing but rather for the Lord to be with her on her forward journey. Leslie received the sacrament of anointing. Afterwards she was led by God to identify a surgeon who was making trials with a cyber knife that could destroy the tumours in her skull without damaging her brain. She had successful treatment and has gone on to bring light to others in need through the campaign she’s spearheading for the cyber knife facility to be made more available. Do sign her petition detailed in this week's news sheet.
'Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.'
To welcome this light we seek Jesus through scripture, eucharist and prayer.
To let our light shine we need discernment as to the dark places Jesus has for us, where he wants us to be placed.
Someone said to me recently, when I tried to console them after an accident, that they were confident that the circumstances they had been placed in would be a receipe for their spiritual benefit. What faith, I thought! Just as I thought when I heard Lesley's testimony, which seemed so unselfish. Not all cancer sufferers are so - there but for the grace of God go I...
How do we best shine? With an openness to Jesus and a readiness to be used by him wherever he wants us day by day. May this Eucharist be our pledge to offer our souls and bodies to be where he wants us this week and nowhere else.
‘Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light, like a little candle buring in the night. In this world of darkness: so we must shine, you in your small corner and I in mine!’
'Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven'
You are invited to sign Leslie's petition at
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/42313.html
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