The doctrine of the Trinity, of three persons in one God, holds a creative tension between enthusiasm and sympathy that should infect us all.
We just read Our Lord’s enthusiastic call to Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Belief in the Trinity isn’t something to be kept to yourself but something missionary, to be carried to others. Too often we fall short on this task, identifying with those who would condemn religious enthusiasts as lacking human sympathy.
Christian mission is enthusiastic and sympathetic. It reflects the sympathy God has within himself as Father, Son and Spirit as St Paul reminds us in the second reading where he uses Trinitarian doctrine to appeal for more sympathy among the Corinthian believers . Agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. He says. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
The creative tension between enthusiasm and sympathy, between love and truth is hidden in the mystery of God himself. As we draw closer to God we find enthusiasm, sympathy - and in that tension creativity.
All of this I found powerfully illuminated in a book just off the press of interest to all who live in Horsted Keynes and especially to members of St Giles in particular. This book - Rodney Bolt’s As Good as God, as Clever as the Devil - The Impossible Life of Mary Benson.
The book gives sight of religious enthusiasm, Victorian and Edwardian England, same sex friendship, country life in Sussex and leaves you wiser about the wellsprings of creativity.
Mary Benson was born in 1841 and lived at Tremans from 1900 to her death in 1918. She was wife then widow of Archbishop Edward Benson, and this book tells the tale of her loves, trials and family. Mrs Benson worshipped here, her family gave the nativity window in her memory and her son Arthur wrote the fulsome memorial tablet in the porch.
Though religious enthusiasts are notorious for their failure to sympathise where sympathetic gifts are allied to a force of conviction there is a true reflection of the God one in three and a creative dynamic emerges. This appears to have been the case in the extraordinary marriage of Edward and Mary though the force of conviction was at Edward’s end and the pastoral sympathy at Mary’s. Headstrong Edward, loving yet exacting, proposes to Mary when she is only twelve. His helpmate eagerly sympathises with him, his family and many others with such humour and wisdom as to make her a great subject for Rodney Bolt’s biography covering her life, loves and faith pilgrimage.
Edward’s career, founded in the muscular Christianity of Rugby and Wellington College, takes him to Lincoln Cathedral, then onward to be first Bishop of Truro and, as climax, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. His pioneering at Truro earns recognition for gifts of leadership that he carries, with a psychological downside, so that, 12 years older though he was than her, it was Mary who was destined to carry him through many a dark mood. Her support came from a series of same sex friendships compensating for the emotional shallowness of their marriage and helping her recover from the eventual loss of both Edward and the high social standing that fell from her at his death in 1896.
Mary’s same sex friendships, especially the one with Edward Benson’s predecessor, Archbishop Tait’s daughter, Lucy, that continued after Edward’s death, have been controversial. The biographer draws from Mary’s diaries the distinction she made between the love she held in mind and heart for these friends and the physical expression of that love which she fought off. Her underlining of certain passages in her copy of Thomas à Kempis The Imitation of Christ illustrates the struggle she had with, to quote, ‘carnal affection’. Her counsel against physical sex outside marriage to her children is recorded in the book. Rodney Bolt is careful to honour her stated faithfulness to traditional Christian ethics. This is somewhat unintelligible through the sexualising of friendship in post-Christian society.
Is this understatement? St Giles is a haven for all of us, straight or gay, married or single since God’s sympathetic love is utterly inclusive. At the same time, I myself counsel, when asked, marriage and celibacy as the two Christian vocations, with sexual activity outside of marriage as a shortcoming to be repented of.
Others say the Holy Spirit is at work opening up new institutions, including same sex unions. A century on from Mary Benson the Church of England is divided here. As in the matter of women’s ordination the jury is out. All of which means we need to hold in tension a sympathy for individuals, especially those cohabiting, gay or straight, and those who are pushing for a revised Christian ethic, a sympathy, as I say, that doesn’t avoid acknowledgement of the well trodden path of the faith of the church through the ages. Our Christian faith covers our shortcomings, if we repent of them, and challenges us to keep a distinctive standard in terms of sexual morality. It’s a standard that, given Our Lord’s teaching that looking at someone lustfully is already to commit adultery, puts us all on the bottom step!
Back to the Bensons who set us on this thinking. If Edward was head, Mary was heart of an extraordinarily creative family. Arthur wrote the words for Land of Hope and Glory and edited Queen Victoria’s papers. Fred became a highly successful author and ice skating champion and Maggie a famous Egyptologist. Roman Catholic convert, Hugh gained fame as preacher and writer. All made their mark and all suffered great frustrations which, as writers, they document both indirectly and directly. Some of them blame their mental instability on their extraordinary parents. It seems that their living with unfulfilled longings – none married – became a crucible for creative expression. In one of Arthur’s inspirational images life can feel as two lady birds might feel on the inside and outside of a window signalling to one another yet unable to find intimacy.
Arthur’s last word on his mother on her memorial in the porch speaks of Mary’s eager sympathy, wise counsel, abundant humour and far seeing love. These qualities are captured in Bolt’s very readable book that follows her life story whilst opening up the story of England past through many delightful anecdotes. I loved the absent-minded Truro priest whose sister had to secure him to the altar rail with a dog chain and padlock to prevent him wandering off before the service was over. Mary’s attempts to get Arthur to St Giles brings from him a similar image of the liturgy as people penned in rows like sheep intermittently crying out together like ducks in a pool. The book, like its subject, easily catches the imagination.
Let the Bensons be reminders of the creative tension between enthusiasm and sympathy that should infect us all as Trinitarian believers.
God who is three in one enfolds us in his enthusiastic love. The Lord God enfolds us, as in this eucharist, meeting us just where we are.
In his enthusiasm he can’t bear to leave us there. He challenges us, not least in our human relationships, to move forward, with his help, to be ever more perfect reflectors of him, to whom, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be praise now and forever. Amen.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Pentecost all age eucharist 12th June 2011 Birthday of the Church
Is it anyone's birthday today? This week? This month?
Tell us.... who you are, how old you’ll be and what you expect will happen on your birthday.
Well, whilst I’m very happy that your birthday coming up, today's eucharist is to celebrate another birthday.
It's not really the birthday of another person (although some people do talk about 'her') and it doesn't seem right to call it a thing.
Can the children think whose birthday they might be celebrating today?
Ask one of the children to open the present with the Spanish dictionary in it.Are they any clearer?
Ask another child to open the card and read out the greeting: 'Happy Birthday, The Church'.
How can the Church have a birthday?
When Christians talk about the Church, they aren't just talking about a building – they’re talking about all the people in the world who follow Jesus.
Nowadays there are about 2,000 million Christians in the world but roughly 2,000 years ago there were only about 120. Not 120 million, but just 120.
On the day that the Church was born, a day which Christians call Pentecost, these 120 people were hiding in a house in Jerusalem.
It must have been rather squashed in that house.
Rather like a baby ready to be born is a bit squashed inside its mother's tummy.
These 120 people were all together because they were very anxious. In the previous month they had been through a lot. First, they had seen Jesus die on a cross. That had made them very sad.
Then they had seen Jesus alive again. That had made them very happy.
Then, before their very eyes, Jesus had gone up to Heaven.
Now they were very confused and concerned.
What was going to happen next?
So the 120 people went back to Jerusalem and waited.
Ten days later, something amazing happened. There was a great wind from Heaven...
Let’s blow very hard as if we were the wind
Along with the wind there was something that looked like flames. These flames fell on the heads of Jesus' 120 followers and, like a baby being born, they came out of their hiding place and into the big wide world.
Now children who can tell me the first thing they did when they were born?
No doubt you cried. Babies cry because they want people to take notice of them. The first followers of Jesus didn't cry when they emerged out of their hiding place, but they did get the attention of other people in the city by using their voices.
They told everyone in the city about Jesus. But they all spoke in different languages - languages that were different from their own and which they had never learned. This was one of the many birthday presents that God gave the Church.
That’s behind the dictionary. At Pentecost God gave people the capacity to share about Jesus in every language and nation and send them out to just that.
Church members read out one of the different translations of 'Happy Birthday'.
At that time in Jerusalem, there were many people from different parts of the world. They were so amazed to hear their own languages being spoken that they gathered around to hear what the followers of Jesus were saying.
After Peter, one of Jesus' followers, had spoken to the crowd, 3,000 of them became Christians. Like a newborn baby, the Church had started to grow bigger.
Well no birthday would be complete without a cake.
Server lights the candles.
While this is being done the candles can be a reminder to us of the flames that fell at Pentecost on the heads of the first Christians.
Invite children to blow out candles.
When the candles are blown out, remember the great wind from Heaven that blew the disciples out of their house and into the street.
That’s what Pentecost means today, it’s a reminder that the Holy Spirit who came on this day is still with us and is waiting to inspire us to share with others about Jesus.
Just as the first Christians shared their love of Jesus with people, the cake will be shared amongst everyone after the eucharist.
Tell us.... who you are, how old you’ll be and what you expect will happen on your birthday.
Well, whilst I’m very happy that your birthday coming up, today's eucharist is to celebrate another birthday.
It's not really the birthday of another person (although some people do talk about 'her') and it doesn't seem right to call it a thing.
Can the children think whose birthday they might be celebrating today?
Ask one of the children to open the present with the Spanish dictionary in it.Are they any clearer?
Ask another child to open the card and read out the greeting: 'Happy Birthday, The Church'.
How can the Church have a birthday?
When Christians talk about the Church, they aren't just talking about a building – they’re talking about all the people in the world who follow Jesus.
Nowadays there are about 2,000 million Christians in the world but roughly 2,000 years ago there were only about 120. Not 120 million, but just 120.
On the day that the Church was born, a day which Christians call Pentecost, these 120 people were hiding in a house in Jerusalem.
It must have been rather squashed in that house.
Rather like a baby ready to be born is a bit squashed inside its mother's tummy.
These 120 people were all together because they were very anxious. In the previous month they had been through a lot. First, they had seen Jesus die on a cross. That had made them very sad.
Then they had seen Jesus alive again. That had made them very happy.
Then, before their very eyes, Jesus had gone up to Heaven.
Now they were very confused and concerned.
What was going to happen next?
So the 120 people went back to Jerusalem and waited.
Ten days later, something amazing happened. There was a great wind from Heaven...
Let’s blow very hard as if we were the wind
Along with the wind there was something that looked like flames. These flames fell on the heads of Jesus' 120 followers and, like a baby being born, they came out of their hiding place and into the big wide world.
Now children who can tell me the first thing they did when they were born?
No doubt you cried. Babies cry because they want people to take notice of them. The first followers of Jesus didn't cry when they emerged out of their hiding place, but they did get the attention of other people in the city by using their voices.
They told everyone in the city about Jesus. But they all spoke in different languages - languages that were different from their own and which they had never learned. This was one of the many birthday presents that God gave the Church.
That’s behind the dictionary. At Pentecost God gave people the capacity to share about Jesus in every language and nation and send them out to just that.
Church members read out one of the different translations of 'Happy Birthday'.
At that time in Jerusalem, there were many people from different parts of the world. They were so amazed to hear their own languages being spoken that they gathered around to hear what the followers of Jesus were saying.
After Peter, one of Jesus' followers, had spoken to the crowd, 3,000 of them became Christians. Like a newborn baby, the Church had started to grow bigger.
Well no birthday would be complete without a cake.
Server lights the candles.
While this is being done the candles can be a reminder to us of the flames that fell at Pentecost on the heads of the first Christians.
Invite children to blow out candles.
When the candles are blown out, remember the great wind from Heaven that blew the disciples out of their house and into the street.
That’s what Pentecost means today, it’s a reminder that the Holy Spirit who came on this day is still with us and is waiting to inspire us to share with others about Jesus.
Just as the first Christians shared their love of Jesus with people, the cake will be shared amongst everyone after the eucharist.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Easter 7 Healing ministry 5th June 2011
In the news sheet you can see some of the means by which the church’s ministry of healing is made available at St Giles, places where Our Lord ministers to people at their point of need through his church:
• through the sacraments – eucharist, confession and anointing
• through laying on of hands - now available first Wednesdays 6.30pm starting 6th July.
• through the last Thursday of the month visit to Burrswood
• Through people’s names being placed on the sick list or submitted to the telephone Prayerline
I put this list in the news sheet following a series of PCC discussions triggered by a visit in April from the deanery healing ministry consultant Penny Sullens which had one outcome in a promise I gave to speak one Sunday about the church’s ministry of healing.
I thought this Sunday would suit well as it is set in those great days before Pentecost when the church is reminded of her dependence on God the Holy Spirit and of how the Spirit glorifies Jesus.
The church’s ministry of healing is a gift of the Spirit which brings God glory through Jesus Christ.
11 years ago the Church of England published a best seller. This book, A Time to Heal, has provided a vital contribution to the ministry of healing which it describes on the back as visionary, prophetic and dynamic.
This morning I have 6 brief observations, 2 under each of those three headings in A Time to Heal – visionary, prophetic and dynamic.
1. Visionary – what we’re about in the healing ministry is part of a recapturing of the power of the gospel
a) as some thing that is good and practical. Not just a theory but the power of God for salvation Romans 1:16. It’s practical in that it’s linked to people’s demands. Our response to these demands is set within a wider vision eg. social and ecological besides a vision for body, mind and spirit but it is essentially based on a vision of Jesus as practical Saviour
b) as the grounds of a new confident engagement of the church with the local community. Confidence rooted in the promises of God cf. +Rowan: What do I pray for in the Church of the future? Confidence; courage; an imagination set on fire by the vision of God the Holy Trinity; thankfulness. Confidence linked to humility – note the concerns for the safety of those we serve in ministry in ATH guidelines.
This morning as I lift up the vision for healing a question we might ask ourselves is: how can we help bring more people in our community to catch sight of the healing power of God?
2. Prophetic – what we are about in the healing ministry is being channels for God to speak prophetically to individuals and to the church herself.
a) Of redemption – the Saviour is a practical provider for body, mind and spirit and one who roots our life in his community and fellowship. The healing ministry is redemptive in that it fills what is needful in people’s lives. It is also redemptive in its transformation of suffering and sorrow as set out in Paul Bilheimer's Don’t Waste your Sorrows. People are stopped from wasting their sorrows by a prophetic word that opens them up afresh to a vision of God. Above all the prophetic element of the ministry of healing helps people relate faith to the nitty gritty of life cf. The Woman at the Well John 4
b) A call for fuller collaboration of laity and the ordained ATH stresses sacramental,pastoral and charismatic aspects. Prophetic renewal of healing ministry broadens from anointing (apostle) to charisms (prophets) since we are members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone Ephesians 2:19,20
A second pair of questions we might ask ourselves as a Christian community: How do we see the prophetic impact of what we do in the Lord’s name – where are the changed lives? Then secondly when it comes to raising up the ministry of healing how can we improve the partnership between priest and people to make better provision?
3. Dynamic
a)Explain cyclical/dynamic strands in church life – Zechariah 8:23 Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you”. Simon Magus, Leatha
b) Linked to spiritual transformation 2 Cor 3:18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit - wholeness/holiness – spiritual direction.
A last summary pair of questions to provoke more thought might be: What brakes are there here at St Giles on the dynamic we are talking about? What’s stopping the church as a whole and individuals from moving forwards to become more fully what God wants them to be?
I leave you with those thoughts as we take time to reflect on God’s word to us this morning.
• through the sacraments – eucharist, confession and anointing
• through laying on of hands - now available first Wednesdays 6.30pm starting 6th July.
• through the last Thursday of the month visit to Burrswood
• Through people’s names being placed on the sick list or submitted to the telephone Prayerline
I put this list in the news sheet following a series of PCC discussions triggered by a visit in April from the deanery healing ministry consultant Penny Sullens which had one outcome in a promise I gave to speak one Sunday about the church’s ministry of healing.
I thought this Sunday would suit well as it is set in those great days before Pentecost when the church is reminded of her dependence on God the Holy Spirit and of how the Spirit glorifies Jesus.
The church’s ministry of healing is a gift of the Spirit which brings God glory through Jesus Christ.
11 years ago the Church of England published a best seller. This book, A Time to Heal, has provided a vital contribution to the ministry of healing which it describes on the back as visionary, prophetic and dynamic.
This morning I have 6 brief observations, 2 under each of those three headings in A Time to Heal – visionary, prophetic and dynamic.
1. Visionary – what we’re about in the healing ministry is part of a recapturing of the power of the gospel
a) as some thing that is good and practical. Not just a theory but the power of God for salvation Romans 1:16. It’s practical in that it’s linked to people’s demands. Our response to these demands is set within a wider vision eg. social and ecological besides a vision for body, mind and spirit but it is essentially based on a vision of Jesus as practical Saviour
b) as the grounds of a new confident engagement of the church with the local community. Confidence rooted in the promises of God cf. +Rowan: What do I pray for in the Church of the future? Confidence; courage; an imagination set on fire by the vision of God the Holy Trinity; thankfulness. Confidence linked to humility – note the concerns for the safety of those we serve in ministry in ATH guidelines.
This morning as I lift up the vision for healing a question we might ask ourselves is: how can we help bring more people in our community to catch sight of the healing power of God?
2. Prophetic – what we are about in the healing ministry is being channels for God to speak prophetically to individuals and to the church herself.
a) Of redemption – the Saviour is a practical provider for body, mind and spirit and one who roots our life in his community and fellowship. The healing ministry is redemptive in that it fills what is needful in people’s lives. It is also redemptive in its transformation of suffering and sorrow as set out in Paul Bilheimer's Don’t Waste your Sorrows. People are stopped from wasting their sorrows by a prophetic word that opens them up afresh to a vision of God. Above all the prophetic element of the ministry of healing helps people relate faith to the nitty gritty of life cf. The Woman at the Well John 4
b) A call for fuller collaboration of laity and the ordained ATH stresses sacramental,pastoral and charismatic aspects. Prophetic renewal of healing ministry broadens from anointing (apostle) to charisms (prophets) since we are members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone Ephesians 2:19,20
A second pair of questions we might ask ourselves as a Christian community: How do we see the prophetic impact of what we do in the Lord’s name – where are the changed lives? Then secondly when it comes to raising up the ministry of healing how can we improve the partnership between priest and people to make better provision?
3. Dynamic
a)Explain cyclical/dynamic strands in church life – Zechariah 8:23 Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you”. Simon Magus, Leatha
b) Linked to spiritual transformation 2 Cor 3:18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit - wholeness/holiness – spiritual direction.
A last summary pair of questions to provoke more thought might be: What brakes are there here at St Giles on the dynamic we are talking about? What’s stopping the church as a whole and individuals from moving forwards to become more fully what God wants them to be?
I leave you with those thoughts as we take time to reflect on God’s word to us this morning.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Baptismal eucharist for Arthur Beesley and Thomas Kerby 29th May 2011
I will love them and reveal myself to them Jesus says and we take this as a promise for Arthur, Thomas and all of us.
How do we see this love?
It’s a gravitational field that lifts us up to become what we’re meant to be.
The gravitational pull of the love of God competes with the gravitational field of the evil in the world and that, in our souls, we call sin.
When the astronauts trod on the moon they found themselves able to leap and jump with ease because gravity on the moon is a sixth that on earth.
If they had been able to visit Jupiter they would have crawled on the surface so strong is the downward gravity.
You and I get pulled down all the time. Our bodies, thankfully, get pulled down to stay on earth in Horsted Keynes. But our spirits – they get pulled down too. They can feel very heavy - as heavy as what we call depression.
I will love them and reveal myself to them says Jesus and in doing so he invites us to look up and find the gravity of God’s love which lifts us out of ourselves to head where we’re meant to head.
In baptism this morning Arthur and Thomas are being set off in the direction they were made to go with the support of their family. The love they’re being drawn up into is already real to Gordon and Penny and has been proved so through the trials they so cheerfully bear on behalf of their children.
There is one gravitational field of the spirit drawing us into God’s love and there’s another spirit dragging us down.
Human beings, you and I, are caught! We’re caught in the gravitational field of evil: of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth – remember – PALE GAS – P-A-L-E-G-A-S - the seven deadly sins.
For some of us this heaviness is sloth, laziness - especially as we get older. For others it’s the weight of indulgence through gluttony. Or it’s the dead weight of pride that sinks so many of our relationships. Then we have avarice – greed - which, as I describe in the news sheet, weighs down the world around you.
So we can picture and imagine the downward gravity of sin that affects us all.
When we try to rise above it by our own efforts we feel like the man in the gym trying to lift weights that are beyond his capacity.
The more we try to lift ourselves the heavier life feels.
The gravitational field of God’s love that lifts our lives can’t be felt through our own efforts. It reaches down to offer us a hand up in Jesus and all he has done for us by his life, death and resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As we struggle with our relationships, insecurities and spiritual emptiness we find ourselves caught by the gravitational lure of sin as if in a quicksand.
The more we struggle in our own strength to release ourselves the deeper we go down. I remember someone driving his father’s land rover onto a beach south of Morecambe Bay where it sank hopelessly into a quick sand there before they could get a purchase on it. He had some answering to do to his dad!
It is a sad truth of life that so many of our attempts to better ourselves prove counter-productive. People caught in quicksand sink faster through gravity the more they struggle to get out of it.
They need an upward pull from outside themselves.
Jesus does that for us.
I will love them and reveal myself to them.
Every Sunday is a day of resurrection, but particularly a Sunday in Easter Season.
Through resurrection from cruel death the gravitational pull of God’s love has been proved more powerful than the quicksands of sin, death and the devil.
You can prove that’s true - if you accept it!
You won’t escape the quicksands of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth on your own. You need an upwards pull from outside.
There’s a Man outside of you who can. Jesus. He’s alive. He loves you and wants to give you that lift so you can become what you’re meant to be!
That’s why, in a moment, we’ll rightly say I turn to Christ. I repent of my sins. I renounce evil.
As we baptise Arthur and Thomas we are reminded of the two gravitational fields of the spirit we’re all caught up with and the need to welcome God’s rescue provision daily.
We can’t become godlike. We can’t elevate ourselves beyond the quicksand that drags us down however hard we try.
Jesus can, though - he can make us godlike.
He will - if we will let him - provide us with the upward pulls we need hour by hour to rise above the heaviness of our human condition into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
I will love them and reveal myself to them so be it, for Arthur, Thomas and all of us in St Giles this morning.
How do we see this love?
It’s a gravitational field that lifts us up to become what we’re meant to be.
The gravitational pull of the love of God competes with the gravitational field of the evil in the world and that, in our souls, we call sin.
When the astronauts trod on the moon they found themselves able to leap and jump with ease because gravity on the moon is a sixth that on earth.
If they had been able to visit Jupiter they would have crawled on the surface so strong is the downward gravity.
You and I get pulled down all the time. Our bodies, thankfully, get pulled down to stay on earth in Horsted Keynes. But our spirits – they get pulled down too. They can feel very heavy - as heavy as what we call depression.
I will love them and reveal myself to them says Jesus and in doing so he invites us to look up and find the gravity of God’s love which lifts us out of ourselves to head where we’re meant to head.
In baptism this morning Arthur and Thomas are being set off in the direction they were made to go with the support of their family. The love they’re being drawn up into is already real to Gordon and Penny and has been proved so through the trials they so cheerfully bear on behalf of their children.
There is one gravitational field of the spirit drawing us into God’s love and there’s another spirit dragging us down.
Human beings, you and I, are caught! We’re caught in the gravitational field of evil: of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth – remember – PALE GAS – P-A-L-E-G-A-S - the seven deadly sins.
For some of us this heaviness is sloth, laziness - especially as we get older. For others it’s the weight of indulgence through gluttony. Or it’s the dead weight of pride that sinks so many of our relationships. Then we have avarice – greed - which, as I describe in the news sheet, weighs down the world around you.
So we can picture and imagine the downward gravity of sin that affects us all.
When we try to rise above it by our own efforts we feel like the man in the gym trying to lift weights that are beyond his capacity.
The more we try to lift ourselves the heavier life feels.
The gravitational field of God’s love that lifts our lives can’t be felt through our own efforts. It reaches down to offer us a hand up in Jesus and all he has done for us by his life, death and resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As we struggle with our relationships, insecurities and spiritual emptiness we find ourselves caught by the gravitational lure of sin as if in a quicksand.
The more we struggle in our own strength to release ourselves the deeper we go down. I remember someone driving his father’s land rover onto a beach south of Morecambe Bay where it sank hopelessly into a quick sand there before they could get a purchase on it. He had some answering to do to his dad!
It is a sad truth of life that so many of our attempts to better ourselves prove counter-productive. People caught in quicksand sink faster through gravity the more they struggle to get out of it.
They need an upward pull from outside themselves.
Jesus does that for us.
I will love them and reveal myself to them.
Every Sunday is a day of resurrection, but particularly a Sunday in Easter Season.
Through resurrection from cruel death the gravitational pull of God’s love has been proved more powerful than the quicksands of sin, death and the devil.
You can prove that’s true - if you accept it!
You won’t escape the quicksands of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth on your own. You need an upwards pull from outside.
There’s a Man outside of you who can. Jesus. He’s alive. He loves you and wants to give you that lift so you can become what you’re meant to be!
That’s why, in a moment, we’ll rightly say I turn to Christ. I repent of my sins. I renounce evil.
As we baptise Arthur and Thomas we are reminded of the two gravitational fields of the spirit we’re all caught up with and the need to welcome God’s rescue provision daily.
We can’t become godlike. We can’t elevate ourselves beyond the quicksand that drags us down however hard we try.
Jesus can, though - he can make us godlike.
He will - if we will let him - provide us with the upward pulls we need hour by hour to rise above the heaviness of our human condition into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
I will love them and reveal myself to them so be it, for Arthur, Thomas and all of us in St Giles this morning.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Easter 4 Good Shepherd Sunday 15.5.11
One sign of health and spiritual vitality in our church is the level of charitable giving. Last year our missionary and charitable giving of £4668 was double the 2009 figure of £2272. This total is beyond the money raised for Christian Aid, as in this important week, and the Children’s Society at Christmas.
Later in May our charitable giving focus is to be the Guyana Diocesan Association and once again and I am pleased to give some feedback on Anne and my visit over the last two weeks.
We enjoyed our trip and did a good deal for the church. We spent a week on the coast and a week in the interior. No serious mishaps save having my shaving gel eaten by a racoon in the night and having to rescue the archdeacon when he fell in a trench at a friend’s farm when the bridge broke. There was a forty foot snake in the trench – we got him out!
Guyana’s an exciting place and I’m pleased to say the church is on the up once more. St Giles is being made partner to its developing mission thanks to the new bishop Cornell Jerome Moss who made use of both of us to do some training whilst on leave in the beautiful land where we were married 23 years ago. The letter he gave us on our departure
I was encouraged to see the level of faithfulness in men I trained for the priesthood 20 years ago. With that I was impressed by the hunger for God especially at an evangelistic service of healing where I spent over an hour hearing confessions as the local clergy laid on hands assisted by Anne and other laity.
Another encouragement was Bishop Cornell himself who will be back with us on 3 July. He is proving a good shepherd and, to quote the Gospel, the Anglican sheep are following him.
One thing that impresses about the churches in Guyana is that they are full of young people. Youth are the clue to revitalising the ordained ministry, which is the major challenge in the Diocese of Guyana. Many parishes are short of a resident priest. Within a year Bishop Cornell has identified 5 ordination candidates and the UK based Guyana Diocesan Association will be paying for their training next year at Codrington College in Barbados so please be generous in your charitable gift in two weeks time.
I addressed the annual Diocesan Synod promising this support and met the five men who are well worthy of our backing. I also handed over £400 raised by St Giles School to purchase a computer for the Anglican school opening in September which will serve to link our pupils next door to one of the poorest communities in the Caribbean.
Bishop Cornell has appealed to all Anglicans to tithe, which means to give 10 per cent of disposable income to the church. There is already a good response to this challenge. The Diocese is determined to stand on its own feet so that our gifts will be less important in years to come.
What impressed me was the awakening of new pride in being Anglican that is coming about in Guyana alongside a new honesty and transparency about the money and ministry needs.
So is there a message to bring back to St Giles on this Good Shepherd Sunday?
Indeed there is! That we are helping make a difference on the other side of the world and can continue to do so through the 29 May collection. That what we do at this altar associates us with the Anglican communion as part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church; that bishops and priests who shepherd their people in a Christ-like fashion get a following; and last but not least that the Christian good news is something that opens hearts in penitence and brings healing - I felt the readiness to seek God over there incredibly refreshing;
As Our Lord makes plain at the end of today's Gospel: 'I have come that they may have life and have it to the full'.
Later in May our charitable giving focus is to be the Guyana Diocesan Association and once again and I am pleased to give some feedback on Anne and my visit over the last two weeks.
We enjoyed our trip and did a good deal for the church. We spent a week on the coast and a week in the interior. No serious mishaps save having my shaving gel eaten by a racoon in the night and having to rescue the archdeacon when he fell in a trench at a friend’s farm when the bridge broke. There was a forty foot snake in the trench – we got him out!
Guyana’s an exciting place and I’m pleased to say the church is on the up once more. St Giles is being made partner to its developing mission thanks to the new bishop Cornell Jerome Moss who made use of both of us to do some training whilst on leave in the beautiful land where we were married 23 years ago. The letter he gave us on our departure
I was encouraged to see the level of faithfulness in men I trained for the priesthood 20 years ago. With that I was impressed by the hunger for God especially at an evangelistic service of healing where I spent over an hour hearing confessions as the local clergy laid on hands assisted by Anne and other laity.
Another encouragement was Bishop Cornell himself who will be back with us on 3 July. He is proving a good shepherd and, to quote the Gospel, the Anglican sheep are following him.
One thing that impresses about the churches in Guyana is that they are full of young people. Youth are the clue to revitalising the ordained ministry, which is the major challenge in the Diocese of Guyana. Many parishes are short of a resident priest. Within a year Bishop Cornell has identified 5 ordination candidates and the UK based Guyana Diocesan Association will be paying for their training next year at Codrington College in Barbados so please be generous in your charitable gift in two weeks time.
I addressed the annual Diocesan Synod promising this support and met the five men who are well worthy of our backing. I also handed over £400 raised by St Giles School to purchase a computer for the Anglican school opening in September which will serve to link our pupils next door to one of the poorest communities in the Caribbean.
Bishop Cornell has appealed to all Anglicans to tithe, which means to give 10 per cent of disposable income to the church. There is already a good response to this challenge. The Diocese is determined to stand on its own feet so that our gifts will be less important in years to come.
What impressed me was the awakening of new pride in being Anglican that is coming about in Guyana alongside a new honesty and transparency about the money and ministry needs.
So is there a message to bring back to St Giles on this Good Shepherd Sunday?
Indeed there is! That we are helping make a difference on the other side of the world and can continue to do so through the 29 May collection. That what we do at this altar associates us with the Anglican communion as part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church; that bishops and priests who shepherd their people in a Christ-like fashion get a following; and last but not least that the Christian good news is something that opens hearts in penitence and brings healing - I felt the readiness to seek God over there incredibly refreshing;
As Our Lord makes plain at the end of today's Gospel: 'I have come that they may have life and have it to the full'.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Easter Sunday evensong 24th April 2011
Archbishop William Temple once commented that it does very little harm if an eager layman talks heresy, provided he shows and imparts a love for the Lord Jesus whereas it does great harm if a priest talks orthodoxy so as to make men think the Gospel is dull or irrelevant.
When it comes to the great Truth we are celebrating of the Resurrection of the Lord this is supremely true. I can as a preacher argue for the Resurrection of Jesus but what may matter more is for you to meet with a life set alight by the Truth "Christ is Risen" however bad that person may be at expressing that truth!
I owe my convictions to meeting such a life in 1967 and I am still going strong.
These Glorious Forty Days are for me a celebration of the heart of my Christian Faith. The Paschal Candle stands in the Sanctuary as a sign of the basic truth of Christianity.
Like Paul at Athens I should like it said of me as is written in Acts 17v18 "he preached Jesus and the resurrection"!
The Truth of the Resurrection is a historical truth.
It goes beyond history but it is rooted in history. We have four slightly different accounts affirming that when the disciples went to the tomb of Christ they found his grave clothes folded and no sign of the dead. In the next six weeks the Resurrected Christ was seen according to Paul by over 550 people on 11 different occasions. The disciples lives were transformed and the Church grew at an astonishing rate surviving nearly 20 centuries to this day. Over these centuries, particularly the last two highly sceptical centuries, much critical investigation has gone into the claim for Jesus Christ being the only Man to come back from the dead. In this connection the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Darling, made this comment about Christ's Resurrection:
'In its favour there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the Resurrection story is true'.
The Resurrection being a historically founded truth challenges us as an universal truth. Just as the Battle of Waterloo will remain for ever in the history books as the event that changed European history two centuries ago so the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an event that has not just European significance over two centuries but one that has universal meaning, stretching backwards and forwards in time and in space to every place and era in this Universe.
In the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence I once saw the beautiful 15th Century picture by Masaccio of the Trinity. It shows Jesus on the Cross being handed over to us by the Father. The picture used to hang over a tomb with a skeleton laid on top of it. On the tomb was this inscription: "I was what you are and what I am you shall be" (repeat)
The Resurrection shows us that God has come in the flesh and suffered our death so that we in turn, welcoming this gift of the Risen Christ, may become sharers in His divine Life.
Speaking of Jesus C.S.Lewis said 'It seems obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God. God has landed on this enemy occupied world in human form'.
"Christ has risen from the dead!" sing Orthodox Christians at Easter, "He has crushed death by His death and bestowed Life upon those who lay in the tomb". The Son of God has "crushed death by his death" in the greatest of all imaginable revolutions. Now death to those in Christ is something to look forward to.
May the revolutionary truth of the resurrection seize each one of us this evening. To be a Christian is to be irrepressible. We cannot be put down!
When it comes to the great Truth we are celebrating of the Resurrection of the Lord this is supremely true. I can as a preacher argue for the Resurrection of Jesus but what may matter more is for you to meet with a life set alight by the Truth "Christ is Risen" however bad that person may be at expressing that truth!
I owe my convictions to meeting such a life in 1967 and I am still going strong.
These Glorious Forty Days are for me a celebration of the heart of my Christian Faith. The Paschal Candle stands in the Sanctuary as a sign of the basic truth of Christianity.
Like Paul at Athens I should like it said of me as is written in Acts 17v18 "he preached Jesus and the resurrection"!
The Truth of the Resurrection is a historical truth.
It goes beyond history but it is rooted in history. We have four slightly different accounts affirming that when the disciples went to the tomb of Christ they found his grave clothes folded and no sign of the dead. In the next six weeks the Resurrected Christ was seen according to Paul by over 550 people on 11 different occasions. The disciples lives were transformed and the Church grew at an astonishing rate surviving nearly 20 centuries to this day. Over these centuries, particularly the last two highly sceptical centuries, much critical investigation has gone into the claim for Jesus Christ being the only Man to come back from the dead. In this connection the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Darling, made this comment about Christ's Resurrection:
'In its favour there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the Resurrection story is true'.
The Resurrection being a historically founded truth challenges us as an universal truth. Just as the Battle of Waterloo will remain for ever in the history books as the event that changed European history two centuries ago so the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an event that has not just European significance over two centuries but one that has universal meaning, stretching backwards and forwards in time and in space to every place and era in this Universe.
In the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence I once saw the beautiful 15th Century picture by Masaccio of the Trinity. It shows Jesus on the Cross being handed over to us by the Father. The picture used to hang over a tomb with a skeleton laid on top of it. On the tomb was this inscription: "I was what you are and what I am you shall be" (repeat)
The Resurrection shows us that God has come in the flesh and suffered our death so that we in turn, welcoming this gift of the Risen Christ, may become sharers in His divine Life.
Speaking of Jesus C.S.Lewis said 'It seems obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God. God has landed on this enemy occupied world in human form'.
"Christ has risen from the dead!" sing Orthodox Christians at Easter, "He has crushed death by His death and bestowed Life upon those who lay in the tomb". The Son of God has "crushed death by his death" in the greatest of all imaginable revolutions. Now death to those in Christ is something to look forward to.
May the revolutionary truth of the resurrection seize each one of us this evening. To be a Christian is to be irrepressible. We cannot be put down!
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Easter Sunday John 20.1f 24th April 2011
There are two sides to Easter Sunday.
There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
In the account we just heard from St John’s Gospel something happened outwardly and something happened inwardly.
Simon Peter...went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie; and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple...and he saw and believed.
Easter is about an event for which there is clear evidence. Something happened that just got summarised for us in the words of the Creed. And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.
This event makes Jesus Christ the only founder of a world religion without a grave. His resurrection is said to be as well attested as any event in history. The low key tone of the accounts of Easter in the four gospels would be absent in any made-up tale. The, what was then, remarkable and controversial role of women as witnesses would not have been included in any made up story. There was a new confidence found among frightened disciples and eventually even a new holy day as the first Jewish believers changed their weekly celebration of Sabbath from Friday night to Sunday morning. All of these things are accepted history. They confirm something happened outwardly that first Easter Sunday.
When we look at the accounts we see that some believed, some didn’t.
There are two sides to Easter. There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
How you see the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world because how you think about the greatest things in life determines how you do the things that are least.
If you believe Jesus is the risen Lord, the Son of God and Saviour, that affects everything – take three examples: the way you treat other people (since Easter we know that human beings are sacred), the way you fill in your tax return (Easter is such a truth it makes untruthfulness a wasted space), the attitude you have to growing old (this life is just the preface to the book of life Jesus has written for us and age brings us nearer to this).
If the fact Jesus rose from the dead is one side of Easter the other side is the brightness of faith.
For many people it is too good to believe so their faith is dim. At the beginning of Christianity the apostles didn’t want to believe did they? The women’s words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them St Luke writes.
We human beings have an inner blindness that Jesus touched upon when he once took mud and put it over the eyes of a blind man so that he could see again. There may be some of us, even in church today, who need the brightness of faith to dispel the darkness of unbelief. Jesus can do this if you ask him to.
The fourth century writer Ephrem the Syrian writes ‘Blessed is he who gave the mind’s eye – which we have managed to blind.’ He goes on to describe how, just as God made us first out of clay, Jesus made new eyes out of mud for the blind man and will ‘open the eyes which our own free will has closed’. We need to exercise our free will to gain the brightness of faith and let both sides of Easter ring true.
Through such a choice for him may the risen Lord open our inner eyes this morning in Communion so we see new brightness in our faith!
There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
In the account we just heard from St John’s Gospel something happened outwardly and something happened inwardly.
Simon Peter...went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie; and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple...and he saw and believed.
Easter is about an event for which there is clear evidence. Something happened that just got summarised for us in the words of the Creed. And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.
This event makes Jesus Christ the only founder of a world religion without a grave. His resurrection is said to be as well attested as any event in history. The low key tone of the accounts of Easter in the four gospels would be absent in any made-up tale. The, what was then, remarkable and controversial role of women as witnesses would not have been included in any made up story. There was a new confidence found among frightened disciples and eventually even a new holy day as the first Jewish believers changed their weekly celebration of Sabbath from Friday night to Sunday morning. All of these things are accepted history. They confirm something happened outwardly that first Easter Sunday.
When we look at the accounts we see that some believed, some didn’t.
There are two sides to Easter. There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
How you see the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world because how you think about the greatest things in life determines how you do the things that are least.
If you believe Jesus is the risen Lord, the Son of God and Saviour, that affects everything – take three examples: the way you treat other people (since Easter we know that human beings are sacred), the way you fill in your tax return (Easter is such a truth it makes untruthfulness a wasted space), the attitude you have to growing old (this life is just the preface to the book of life Jesus has written for us and age brings us nearer to this).
If the fact Jesus rose from the dead is one side of Easter the other side is the brightness of faith.
For many people it is too good to believe so their faith is dim. At the beginning of Christianity the apostles didn’t want to believe did they? The women’s words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them St Luke writes.
We human beings have an inner blindness that Jesus touched upon when he once took mud and put it over the eyes of a blind man so that he could see again. There may be some of us, even in church today, who need the brightness of faith to dispel the darkness of unbelief. Jesus can do this if you ask him to.
The fourth century writer Ephrem the Syrian writes ‘Blessed is he who gave the mind’s eye – which we have managed to blind.’ He goes on to describe how, just as God made us first out of clay, Jesus made new eyes out of mud for the blind man and will ‘open the eyes which our own free will has closed’. We need to exercise our free will to gain the brightness of faith and let both sides of Easter ring true.
Through such a choice for him may the risen Lord open our inner eyes this morning in Communion so we see new brightness in our faith!
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