This morning’s Gospel from Matthew 16 has the challenge for us to deny ourselves, take up our Cross and follow Jesus. It is illuminated by the Old Testament passage from Jeremiah on the cost of discipleship – the Old Testament passages on Sundays are always chosen with the Gospel in mind. The New Testament reading has wisdom which speaks for itself.
Sometimes it is appropriate for the preacher to let the day’s scripture speak for itself and to touch on a wider theme. Today I believe it will be useful to stand back from the Sunday readings, beyond what I have said, and to give an over view of the liturgical calendar.
The Church of England is, as the Catechism defines her, ‘the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed’.
As such we are a liturgical church holding to the seasons and feasts kept by the catholic or universal church.
That word ‘liturgy’ is a very important one. It means at one level holding to a standardized order of proceedings. In the case of the Church of England the standard is the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and the Common Worship provision of 2000. This standard allows supplementary resourcing such as the prayer over the gifts, postcommunion prayers and antiphons from Roman Catholic use. The liturgical use in this village church has about it a character that would be recognised in Cahagnes, Brazil, India, Australia and the majority of Christian churches gathered for the eucharist this morning.
Liturgy though, means more than holding to a standard. More profoundly, liturgy, from the Greek, means ‘the people’s work’. In Christianity this work of participation by the people in worship is also seen as the work of God. When we follow day by day the ordered celebration of morning prayer, eucharist and evening prayer – liturgy isn’t just for Sunday - we follow an ordered lectionary with set vestment colours. Because that ordering is obedience to the Lord’s command through his church it is said that liturgy is God’s work as well as our own. Through the liturgy Jesus Christ is considered to continue the work of redemption in union with his Church.
The liturgical calendar divides the year into a number of seasons, each with their own emphasis, colour and scripture passages specified by a list we call the lectionary. Here is the lectionary that aids our sacristy team. Incidentally we’re currently one short in that team if anyone wants to join.
The liturgical year begins a month before Christmas with Advent when church is vested in solemn purple, flowers are banned and the Gloria is removed from Sunday eucharist. This is the time of preparation for both the celebration of Jesus' birth, and his expected second coming at the end of time. This season lasts until Christmas Eve when church is vested in white and the flowers return. Christmastide follows, beginning at evening prayer on Christmas Day and ending around three weeks later with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. After this church vests in green for a stretch of what is called ordinary time until Ash Wednesday when the flowers and Gloria go again and green gives way to the purple of penitence.
Lent is the period of purification and penance which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at the Easter Vigil eucharist. It is also as you know associated with fasting. The last two weeks of Lent are called Passiontide when crosses and statues have mourning veils. The last week is called Holy Week. The last three days are called the Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The seven-week liturgical season of Easter, where all stops are pulled out to decorate Church and the Paschal Candle stands proud in the sanctuary, immediately follows the Triduum, climaxing at Pentecost. This last feast recalls the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus' disciples after the Ascension of Jesus. Pentecost Sunday is the second feast Christianity ranking above Christmas but below Easter. The red vestments on that day give way to green the Monday after as the church enters the longest stretch of the ordinary time also known as the Trinity season.
In Christian liturgy there are two main cycles around the great feasts of Christmas and Easter each having a preparation in Advent and Lent. There is though a third and lesser cycle of Saints days which can literally colour a particular Sunday. Two Sundays ago we were in best white because it was the main Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary and next Sunday we’ll be in best white again for our patronal feast of St Giles.
Most days of the year are associated with a saint and these days are ranked into three categories of lesser commemorations called memorials, feasts, and greater feasts or solemnities and it is only solemnities that can trump a Sunday. Here at St Giles only three saints days are ever kept on a Sunday – the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary in August, Saint Giles Day in September and All Saints Day in November. Every major feast day, or ‘Red Letter Day’ to use the old Prayer Book terminology, is kept through an additional weekday 10am celebration of the eucharist advertised in P&P. Next month, for example, besides St Giles we keep the feast of Saint Matthew and St Michael and All Angels.
So what difference can all of this make to us?
If you’re a new worshipper or one with a Free Church background and haven’t had the liturgical calendar explained you’ll hopefully be wiser!
If you’re a well schooled Anglican you’ve had a reminder- and don’t forget nine tenths of preaching is reminding.
I suggest that the main reminder for us all is the point made earlier to have expectancy about participating in the liturgy because it is God’s work as well as our own. Through the liturgy we touch on all aspects of Jesus Christ, his coming, his suffering, death, resurrection, ascension and the gift of his Spirit. It’s worth getting excited about and interested in. All the riches behind the liturgical calendar are given for the good of your soul and mine. Hopefully this teaching sermon will fill what might be seen as empty ritual with the fullness of Christ by making sense of the seasons and colours that come and go in St Giles and have done so for 1000 years on this hill.
Through the action of his Church Our Lord continues his work of redemption, which means we are drawn in to all that Jesus has done for us once and for all by both the action of the Sunday eucharist and the underlining of the liturgical year.
In Advent we are reminded that Jesus comes and has come into our lives so we search our souls. At Christmas we welcome afresh Emmanuel, God with us. In Lent we aim to nail the sinful self to his Cross. At Eastertide we have our vision lifted to the destiny Jesus opens up for us beyond this world. Then Pentecost reminds us that we have his Spirit.
Today’s liturgy is set within the green or ordinary season. It is the 10th Sunday after Trinity or 22nd ordinary Sunday, these Sundays being the total of the green Sundays between Christmastide and Lent and those after Pentecost.
The scripture for Trinity 10 from Matthew 16 and Jeremiah 15 has a challenge intrinsic to the whole liturgical cycle, namely to deny ourselves and make more space for Jesus in our lives.
As we participate together in that cycle we call the church’s year may Jesus renew expectation of our being drawn more fully into what he has done for us by his coming, death and resurrection, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Spirit, now and to the end of the ages. Amen.
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Baptism of Kyle, Liam & Joshua Jones 21st August 2011
There’s a scheme running with mystery worshippers.
They go from church to church and report their findings on the Ship of Fools website.
They can find the service a little dead, the sermon a bit boring and the fellowship rather lifeless with no one speaking to them!
How would St Giles rate? Is there conviction, life and love? I hope so - especially as we want our visitors to be impressed!
Kyle, Liam and Joshua are more familiar with another building across the road, The Horsted Club - which their granddad manages. If that Club’s their second home, St Giles is made the same today by what we’ll be doing in a minute or two.
The Church is a sort of second home. It’s extended family, God’s never ending family, built on the belief expressed in today’s Gospel that Jesus is the Son of the living God.
Because Jesus is God’s Son who loves us we can become his brothers and sisters in baptism which makes us God’s children and part of God’s family.
It’s a family with conviction, life and love that helps build up our human families.
Just like The Horsted, St Giles is in the business of building community as it brings together individuals and families in Horsted Keynes and its surrounds to be refreshed.
The refreshment Andy offers isn’t so different to that offered by the Maker’s rep here in God’s house. There’s alcohol, laughter, life and there’s caring.
Imagine Jesus a mystery visitor to Horsted Keynes. As Son of God he’d be up at Church. As Son of Man he’d be around the drinking places.
He actually is the mystery visitor here this morning. He’s going to be mysteriously present in water and word, bread, wine and fellowship because he said where two or three are gathered in my name I will be there in the midst of them.
One of the attractive things about the followers of Jesus is this. They have a right minded humanity – for the most part they do! Some let us down, of course. Yet if you took away the Christians many of the village institutions that help our health and well being would flop!
Christianity is convivial is it’s anything at all. Look at Jesus. They called him a drunkard and a friend of sinners! He went out of his way to be with those who felt there no one cared about them.
The crisis in our cities has been linked to a lack of compassion there in families and communities. Where people feel they don’t matter, that there’s no one on their side, they can be easily misled. Hence the sort of degrading incidents we’ve been shocked to see on our televisions.
Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world to bring us the conviction, life and love that has the potential to make everyone stand tall.
Even little Kyle, littler Liam and littlest Joshua! One day these boys will stand physically tall. Today Jesus is giving them the means to walking tall morally and spiritually as they’re washed from worldliness and marked with God’s love.
As their dad, Kevin, read in the first reading, they, like us, are not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, so that they may discern what is the will of God— what is good and acceptable and perfect.
This comes to all who seek Jesus, God’s unique Son, whose inspiring portrait lies in the Bible – the boys baptism gift from St Giles is a collections of the stories of Jesus to read.
The Russian Novelist Dostoevsky once wrote: There has never been anyone lovelier, deeper or more sympathetic than Jesus.
That loveliness, depth and sympathy revealed to us in Jesus is at the heart of reality. It’s the face of God, no less.
Mother Julian of Norwich speaking of Jesus captures his loveliness in these words: Completely relaxed and courteous, he himself was the happiness and peace of his dear friends, his beautiful face radiating measureless love like a marvellous symphony.
When we read the portraits of Jesus in the Gospels they breathe out such warmth and humane compassion.
Are there any depths of human misery deeper than those Jesus has endured for us? Despised, rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief ... Who can say God in Jesus expects anything of them that he has not been prepared to go through himself in his suffering and death?
I believe Jesus, as mysterious visitor, finds a home in St Giles and would find a welcome at the Horsted. There is space for him in both places, different as they are. The space he seeks, though, above all spaces, is here in our hearts. It’s as we open our lives that he can really make a difference to us as his warmth and compassion take more hold of us.
Come to him this morning admitting that deep down need! Come with the expectation that he’ll touch you - and you won’t be disappointed.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. All his wondrous compassion and purity. 0 Thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine and let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
They go from church to church and report their findings on the Ship of Fools website.
They can find the service a little dead, the sermon a bit boring and the fellowship rather lifeless with no one speaking to them!
How would St Giles rate? Is there conviction, life and love? I hope so - especially as we want our visitors to be impressed!
Kyle, Liam and Joshua are more familiar with another building across the road, The Horsted Club - which their granddad manages. If that Club’s their second home, St Giles is made the same today by what we’ll be doing in a minute or two.
The Church is a sort of second home. It’s extended family, God’s never ending family, built on the belief expressed in today’s Gospel that Jesus is the Son of the living God.
Because Jesus is God’s Son who loves us we can become his brothers and sisters in baptism which makes us God’s children and part of God’s family.
It’s a family with conviction, life and love that helps build up our human families.
Just like The Horsted, St Giles is in the business of building community as it brings together individuals and families in Horsted Keynes and its surrounds to be refreshed.
The refreshment Andy offers isn’t so different to that offered by the Maker’s rep here in God’s house. There’s alcohol, laughter, life and there’s caring.
Imagine Jesus a mystery visitor to Horsted Keynes. As Son of God he’d be up at Church. As Son of Man he’d be around the drinking places.
He actually is the mystery visitor here this morning. He’s going to be mysteriously present in water and word, bread, wine and fellowship because he said where two or three are gathered in my name I will be there in the midst of them.
One of the attractive things about the followers of Jesus is this. They have a right minded humanity – for the most part they do! Some let us down, of course. Yet if you took away the Christians many of the village institutions that help our health and well being would flop!
Christianity is convivial is it’s anything at all. Look at Jesus. They called him a drunkard and a friend of sinners! He went out of his way to be with those who felt there no one cared about them.
The crisis in our cities has been linked to a lack of compassion there in families and communities. Where people feel they don’t matter, that there’s no one on their side, they can be easily misled. Hence the sort of degrading incidents we’ve been shocked to see on our televisions.
Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world to bring us the conviction, life and love that has the potential to make everyone stand tall.
Even little Kyle, littler Liam and littlest Joshua! One day these boys will stand physically tall. Today Jesus is giving them the means to walking tall morally and spiritually as they’re washed from worldliness and marked with God’s love.
As their dad, Kevin, read in the first reading, they, like us, are not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, so that they may discern what is the will of God— what is good and acceptable and perfect.
This comes to all who seek Jesus, God’s unique Son, whose inspiring portrait lies in the Bible – the boys baptism gift from St Giles is a collections of the stories of Jesus to read.
The Russian Novelist Dostoevsky once wrote: There has never been anyone lovelier, deeper or more sympathetic than Jesus.
That loveliness, depth and sympathy revealed to us in Jesus is at the heart of reality. It’s the face of God, no less.
Mother Julian of Norwich speaking of Jesus captures his loveliness in these words: Completely relaxed and courteous, he himself was the happiness and peace of his dear friends, his beautiful face radiating measureless love like a marvellous symphony.
When we read the portraits of Jesus in the Gospels they breathe out such warmth and humane compassion.
Are there any depths of human misery deeper than those Jesus has endured for us? Despised, rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief ... Who can say God in Jesus expects anything of them that he has not been prepared to go through himself in his suffering and death?
I believe Jesus, as mysterious visitor, finds a home in St Giles and would find a welcome at the Horsted. There is space for him in both places, different as they are. The space he seeks, though, above all spaces, is here in our hearts. It’s as we open our lives that he can really make a difference to us as his warmth and compassion take more hold of us.
Come to him this morning admitting that deep down need! Come with the expectation that he’ll touch you - and you won’t be disappointed.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. All his wondrous compassion and purity. 0 Thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine and let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Blessed Virgin Mary 14th August 2011
There are five windows dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in St Giles that trace her involvement in the saving work of her Son.
In the Lady Chapel we have the representation of the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel’s visit, and the Visitation, when Mary was praised by her cousin Elizabeth and herself praised God in her Magnificat.
In the south aisle she is there at the birth of our Saviour in the Benson Window. At the west end Mary is depicted with Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple in the beautiful Kempe window.
All four scenes are joyful. The last is sorrowful and it captures our mood as we come before the Lord at a time of national and international crisis.
This morning on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, our eyes lift to the east window which shows her at the foot of the Cross.
We are to associate that image with ourselves as the spectators day by day of a nation dissolving into anarchy.
We come this morning with Mary to the foot of the Cross. We come, at this eucharist, to plead with Mary her Son’s Sacrifice for a broken world.
This Church was built for that purpose, shaped initially like a Cross, so that the people of Horsted Keynes could bring their joys and sorrows to God with, through and in the offering of Christ’s body and blood.
Within these walls people gathered to celebrate Magna Carta, to mourn the Black Death, to hear the scriptures read in English for the first time, to mourn the fire of London, to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and to mourn the death of Queen Victoria.
In November 1963 Harold MacMillan suggested the Rector change the Sunday readings after President Kennedy’s assassination.
This morning is also historic for this village and church. Once again a Rector has changed the readings – from Mary of joy in St Luke to Mary at the foot of the Cross in St John.
We come to church this morning with all the sorrow and confusion of our Holy Mother Mary on Good Friday. Like her we’re looking at a crucifixion but ours is a crucifixion of London by forces of anarchy.
Like her we look beyond the east window to the light of the resurrection for whenever you look at a crucifix believers must see their risen Lord standing behind.
This morning church isn’t a soothing business but a call to battle.
The battle of prayer!
At the height of Monday’s conflagration the most popular post on Twitter was ‘pray for London’. Through my involvement in Premier Christian Radio I’m aware of the network of churches in London committed to pray for our capital. The inability of people to meet in London this week spurred me to invite us to meet here in St Giles which some of us have since Monday to say the litany as we just did.
The challenge of our national and international crises puts a particular responsibility on Christian people to stand with St Mary by the Cross of her Son and pray with Jesus and Mary to the Father: Our Father - in this situation - hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...deliver us from evil.
By his cross and resurrection action Jesus has, in Paul’s words, disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in what he has done.
We Christians are salt and light because like Mary we can ask Jesus, by the sufferings he has borne uniquely, once and for all, to soak up the evil around us and turn the tables on it.
Our prayers, litanies and eucharists bring the potential of the Cross, which is like a mighty engine out of gear, into gear so the love of God floods into Tottenham and Croydon, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool as well as the workings of international finance.
Paul says God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It was true of Mary at her Annunciation and it is equally true of us in our baptism and confirmation. That love is poured upon us so that, at our prayer, it may cascade extravagantly upon all whom we bring to the foot of the Cross.
With Mary we stand at the Cross on behalf of a troubled, hurting, godless nation and a troubled world this morning - but if we leave church fired up to pray all the more for our nation he who is in us will show himself more powerful than those troubles.
Jesus living in Mary live in us is our prayer in church at every eucharist. Jesus living in Mary live in them is to be our prayer of intercession as we leave church and encounter the needy both in the media images and closer to home.
In a profound sense the key moment of the eucharist isn’t the sermon, or the consecration - but the moment we go out the church door.
You have come with London and our nation and the world’s financial crises upon your heart this morning.
Go forth refreshed by this knowledge: God sees what is in your heart.
Keep lifting the pain you see on the TV to him. Stand with Mary by Jesus crucified. Treat those you see suffering on the media as if they were Christ upon the Cross. Ask the Father to send them healing love and resurrection!
As you do so, pray in your own words. Use the slow recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Use the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Use the Hail Mary if you know it. Use the Litany or prayer sheet you’ve been given this morning.
Take time for a quiet 5 minute of prayer after switching off the TV news you’ve watched. In that way hat you’ve watched will be turned to good and to God.
Come before him knowing that, through the Cross, there’s no human sorrow God’s aloof from.
Your prayer will make God less aloof from those you pray for. It will also help this Christian community to be better evidence to all around that, though cities burst into flame and the innocent suffer violence, there is a God who answers prayer.
Look at the Cross in our east window and the city depicted behind it. You be Mary this week standing by Jesus and make Jerusalem London.
Today the Church issues you a call to arms, my brothers and sisters.
The battle is the Lord’s and it is a battle.
Take up the weapon of prayer to come before the Lord with this aching nation upon your heart day by day, hour by hour in the coming week.
Mary at the Cross, Our Lady of Sorrows, pray with us and for us!
In the Lady Chapel we have the representation of the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel’s visit, and the Visitation, when Mary was praised by her cousin Elizabeth and herself praised God in her Magnificat.
In the south aisle she is there at the birth of our Saviour in the Benson Window. At the west end Mary is depicted with Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple in the beautiful Kempe window.
All four scenes are joyful. The last is sorrowful and it captures our mood as we come before the Lord at a time of national and international crisis.
This morning on the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, our eyes lift to the east window which shows her at the foot of the Cross.
We are to associate that image with ourselves as the spectators day by day of a nation dissolving into anarchy.
We come this morning with Mary to the foot of the Cross. We come, at this eucharist, to plead with Mary her Son’s Sacrifice for a broken world.
This Church was built for that purpose, shaped initially like a Cross, so that the people of Horsted Keynes could bring their joys and sorrows to God with, through and in the offering of Christ’s body and blood.
Within these walls people gathered to celebrate Magna Carta, to mourn the Black Death, to hear the scriptures read in English for the first time, to mourn the fire of London, to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and to mourn the death of Queen Victoria.
In November 1963 Harold MacMillan suggested the Rector change the Sunday readings after President Kennedy’s assassination.
This morning is also historic for this village and church. Once again a Rector has changed the readings – from Mary of joy in St Luke to Mary at the foot of the Cross in St John.
We come to church this morning with all the sorrow and confusion of our Holy Mother Mary on Good Friday. Like her we’re looking at a crucifixion but ours is a crucifixion of London by forces of anarchy.
Like her we look beyond the east window to the light of the resurrection for whenever you look at a crucifix believers must see their risen Lord standing behind.
This morning church isn’t a soothing business but a call to battle.
The battle of prayer!
At the height of Monday’s conflagration the most popular post on Twitter was ‘pray for London’. Through my involvement in Premier Christian Radio I’m aware of the network of churches in London committed to pray for our capital. The inability of people to meet in London this week spurred me to invite us to meet here in St Giles which some of us have since Monday to say the litany as we just did.
The challenge of our national and international crises puts a particular responsibility on Christian people to stand with St Mary by the Cross of her Son and pray with Jesus and Mary to the Father: Our Father - in this situation - hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...deliver us from evil.
By his cross and resurrection action Jesus has, in Paul’s words, disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in what he has done.
We Christians are salt and light because like Mary we can ask Jesus, by the sufferings he has borne uniquely, once and for all, to soak up the evil around us and turn the tables on it.
Our prayers, litanies and eucharists bring the potential of the Cross, which is like a mighty engine out of gear, into gear so the love of God floods into Tottenham and Croydon, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool as well as the workings of international finance.
Paul says God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It was true of Mary at her Annunciation and it is equally true of us in our baptism and confirmation. That love is poured upon us so that, at our prayer, it may cascade extravagantly upon all whom we bring to the foot of the Cross.
With Mary we stand at the Cross on behalf of a troubled, hurting, godless nation and a troubled world this morning - but if we leave church fired up to pray all the more for our nation he who is in us will show himself more powerful than those troubles.
Jesus living in Mary live in us is our prayer in church at every eucharist. Jesus living in Mary live in them is to be our prayer of intercession as we leave church and encounter the needy both in the media images and closer to home.
In a profound sense the key moment of the eucharist isn’t the sermon, or the consecration - but the moment we go out the church door.
You have come with London and our nation and the world’s financial crises upon your heart this morning.
Go forth refreshed by this knowledge: God sees what is in your heart.
Keep lifting the pain you see on the TV to him. Stand with Mary by Jesus crucified. Treat those you see suffering on the media as if they were Christ upon the Cross. Ask the Father to send them healing love and resurrection!
As you do so, pray in your own words. Use the slow recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Use the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Use the Hail Mary if you know it. Use the Litany or prayer sheet you’ve been given this morning.
Take time for a quiet 5 minute of prayer after switching off the TV news you’ve watched. In that way hat you’ve watched will be turned to good and to God.
Come before him knowing that, through the Cross, there’s no human sorrow God’s aloof from.
Your prayer will make God less aloof from those you pray for. It will also help this Christian community to be better evidence to all around that, though cities burst into flame and the innocent suffer violence, there is a God who answers prayer.
Look at the Cross in our east window and the city depicted behind it. You be Mary this week standing by Jesus and make Jerusalem London.
Today the Church issues you a call to arms, my brothers and sisters.
The battle is the Lord’s and it is a battle.
Take up the weapon of prayer to come before the Lord with this aching nation upon your heart day by day, hour by hour in the coming week.
Mary at the Cross, Our Lady of Sorrows, pray with us and for us!
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Trinity 7 7th August 2011
I want to say something about the value of contemplation this morning.
This is provoked by the 1 Kings reading set to illustrate the Gospel passage from Matthew 14. In both passages those open to God engage with him in contemplation after storms. Elijah finds God in ‘the sound of sheer silence’ and the disciples see Jesus mysteriously on the lake.
Our relationship with the Lord has the ingredients of penitence, thankfulness and the requesting of our needs but it is in its root a call to intimacy. It is a call to just be with him and listen to what he has to say to us. Just as at this moment we are opening our ears in church to the preacher expounding God’s word we are invited to grow more skilled in opening our ears to listen to what the Lord has to say to us day by day and hour by hour.
Contemplation in its call to intimacy is no call to cosiness but a call to being totally available to God.
To grow closer to Jesus we need to identify any resistance within us to the word of God. We need to be checking out daily if there is any difference between what we want and what God wants.
The school of holiness is in the circumstances of our life interpreted to us by the word of God.
In the first reading from the first book of the Kings Chapter 19 we pick up on the story of Elijah after his battle with the prophets of Baal. Threatened by Queen Jezebel Elijah retreats to Mount Horeb to seek God. In the account you can follow again in the news sheet we read of a storm which prepared the way for him to hear God. Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
This passage has been much interpreted by writers in the contemplative Christian tradition which built up on Mount Carmel. To this day the Carmelites keep the Feast of Elijah as one who heard and handed on the word of God.
In the Gospel reading from Matthew 14 we see a similar dynamic: Jesus went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
God speaks again to awed, frightened disciples in the wake of a storm to give them courage.
In both passages storms are the immediate preparation, the herald for God to speak. For Elijah it is in the sound of sheer silence that he hears God questioning him. For the disciples the sight of Jesus and his word of encouragement follows a battering by the waves on Lake Galilee. In both passages disciples of God hear God speak - but only after being shaken around a little!
Isn’t this true of our own discipleship? Very often our attention to God and what he has to say to us is captured when life shakes us up through an unsettling of our circumstances. Of course God speaks to us in our settled routines, such as Sunday obligation to church, regular commitment to prayer, personal study of scripture, devotional reading and so on. But intimacy often grows when we are forced to contemplate and face up to him through a change of circumstances.
In the last week I have been privileged to enter some of your personal circumstances linked to the loss of a loved one, an unsettling of employment prospects and the coming to terms with a sudden loss of mobility through injury. In all of these tumultuous events we have been seeking to contemplate and attend to what God is saying. I become, in a famous phrase used last week to welcome me in The Green Man, the Maker’s rep. As Maker’s rep my task is to help people as best I can see the Maker’s instructions. I need them myself and will be seeking them from another priest as I confess my sins before next Sunday’s feast.
Sin is basically a refusal to listen to God who says to us again and again in his word, written and spoken, that we are loved. All the time we are busy developing strategies to help us think we are in control of our lives but the God of power and might is expert in gaining our attention to him – and to his repeated assurance, ‘I love you’. ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
Contemplation is the heart of prayer - being still and knowing God is God. It’s no selfish navel gazing but the shaking up and out of self regard to see with excitement and awe how and who God is. Through such prayerful attention we come to see and love as he sees and loves.
As for Elijah this means letting go of lesser gods so we can welcome the God who is Love more profoundly. This letting go involves what has been called ‘the dark night of the soul’ since intimacy with the Lord demands withdrawal from unhelpful things and this brings pain. The heart is so complex and in need of purification.
The contemplative way is a way opened up by Our Lord Jesus, a way of death and resurrection into being a better human being so that the best contemplatives are shown up by their attitude to their neighbour.
May the eucharist we celebrate build a spirit of contemplation within us and a readiness to hear God’s word not just peaceably on a Sunday at 10 o’clock but in every turn, up or down of the roller coaster of our lives.
This is provoked by the 1 Kings reading set to illustrate the Gospel passage from Matthew 14. In both passages those open to God engage with him in contemplation after storms. Elijah finds God in ‘the sound of sheer silence’ and the disciples see Jesus mysteriously on the lake.
Our relationship with the Lord has the ingredients of penitence, thankfulness and the requesting of our needs but it is in its root a call to intimacy. It is a call to just be with him and listen to what he has to say to us. Just as at this moment we are opening our ears in church to the preacher expounding God’s word we are invited to grow more skilled in opening our ears to listen to what the Lord has to say to us day by day and hour by hour.
Contemplation in its call to intimacy is no call to cosiness but a call to being totally available to God.
To grow closer to Jesus we need to identify any resistance within us to the word of God. We need to be checking out daily if there is any difference between what we want and what God wants.
The school of holiness is in the circumstances of our life interpreted to us by the word of God.
In the first reading from the first book of the Kings Chapter 19 we pick up on the story of Elijah after his battle with the prophets of Baal. Threatened by Queen Jezebel Elijah retreats to Mount Horeb to seek God. In the account you can follow again in the news sheet we read of a storm which prepared the way for him to hear God. Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
This passage has been much interpreted by writers in the contemplative Christian tradition which built up on Mount Carmel. To this day the Carmelites keep the Feast of Elijah as one who heard and handed on the word of God.
In the Gospel reading from Matthew 14 we see a similar dynamic: Jesus went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
God speaks again to awed, frightened disciples in the wake of a storm to give them courage.
In both passages storms are the immediate preparation, the herald for God to speak. For Elijah it is in the sound of sheer silence that he hears God questioning him. For the disciples the sight of Jesus and his word of encouragement follows a battering by the waves on Lake Galilee. In both passages disciples of God hear God speak - but only after being shaken around a little!
Isn’t this true of our own discipleship? Very often our attention to God and what he has to say to us is captured when life shakes us up through an unsettling of our circumstances. Of course God speaks to us in our settled routines, such as Sunday obligation to church, regular commitment to prayer, personal study of scripture, devotional reading and so on. But intimacy often grows when we are forced to contemplate and face up to him through a change of circumstances.
In the last week I have been privileged to enter some of your personal circumstances linked to the loss of a loved one, an unsettling of employment prospects and the coming to terms with a sudden loss of mobility through injury. In all of these tumultuous events we have been seeking to contemplate and attend to what God is saying. I become, in a famous phrase used last week to welcome me in The Green Man, the Maker’s rep. As Maker’s rep my task is to help people as best I can see the Maker’s instructions. I need them myself and will be seeking them from another priest as I confess my sins before next Sunday’s feast.
Sin is basically a refusal to listen to God who says to us again and again in his word, written and spoken, that we are loved. All the time we are busy developing strategies to help us think we are in control of our lives but the God of power and might is expert in gaining our attention to him – and to his repeated assurance, ‘I love you’. ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
Contemplation is the heart of prayer - being still and knowing God is God. It’s no selfish navel gazing but the shaking up and out of self regard to see with excitement and awe how and who God is. Through such prayerful attention we come to see and love as he sees and loves.
As for Elijah this means letting go of lesser gods so we can welcome the God who is Love more profoundly. This letting go involves what has been called ‘the dark night of the soul’ since intimacy with the Lord demands withdrawal from unhelpful things and this brings pain. The heart is so complex and in need of purification.
The contemplative way is a way opened up by Our Lord Jesus, a way of death and resurrection into being a better human being so that the best contemplatives are shown up by their attitude to their neighbour.
May the eucharist we celebrate build a spirit of contemplation within us and a readiness to hear God’s word not just peaceably on a Sunday at 10 o’clock but in every turn, up or down of the roller coaster of our lives.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Trinity 5 24th July 2011
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matthew 13.44
One Sunday allegedly in January 1927 this passage from Matthew 13 was the subject of a sermon by my predecessor The Revd Frank Stenton-Eardley. It was an exceptionally profitable sermon. One of the congregation from Broadhurst Manor went home, dug in a field there and unearthed a hoard of sixty-four gold nobles. This gold, deposited 500 years before, is now in the British Museum.
How profitable will this sermon be? Indeed how profitable is any sermon? Did you know you can engage with the sermon not only by grabbing the preacher over coffee but also by going on his blog linked to the church website which, thanks to David Ollington, has each week’s teaching displayed for further digestion.
There is no word of God without power. The preacher’s role is to read and study it and read and study his people and their context and make connections in a 10-15 minute talk that will help such an engagement with Our Lord that it will echo on in their lives in the coming week.
The guy who found the treasure at Broadhurst remembered the Rector’s sermon when his spade clinked the treasure. What does today’s Rector suggest you might find memorable about the same Scripture?
I don’t know enough about the circumstances of the finding of the sixty-four gold nobles to say whether the finder gained, though I guess he did, or was it the then owner of Broadhurst Manor?
What I think you and I can gain 84 years on is the reminder to renew our spiritual alertness and determination. These are the clue to an ongoing welcome of treasure that’ll never be shipped off from us to the British Museum!
The two parables of the treasure and the pearl remind Christians of the need to put supreme value on building our longing for God and his kingdom.
It is not what you are or have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be wrote the mystic author of that Medieval classic, The Cloud of Unknowing.
What would you be? Where’s your heart set?
In our first reading from the book of Kings we heard of Solomon’s being approached by God in a dream with a similar question: Ask what I should give you. He answers with a prayer for wisdom and is praised accordingly. God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.
God wants his aspirations to be of supreme value to his children and we can’t attain these without alertness and determination, two virtues that come out of the parables of the treasure and the pearl in our gospel reading from the end of Matthew Chapter 13. Like the Broadhurst Manor labourer if we proceed about our lives with wise mindfulness we don’t have to go far to find God and his riches. The purpose of scripture, of sermons and bible study, is to school us to be alert to the possibilities of God breaking into our situation, as the clink of the spade on the gold alerted the farm worker schooled by the Sunday sermon preached from this pulpit in January 1927.
Speaking personally I always find the number of God-incidences in a day linked to the fervor or length of my morning prayer. The more something of God’s eternal wisdom has touched my heart the more alert I am to the need to give ear to that villager I meet on the road or to visit, phone or e mail this person or that. Treasured encounters come to me inasmuch as my heart is set to evaluate everyone I meet as if they were Christ, to see my diary as containing what’s ultimately important as well as what’s merely pressing upon me.
The treasure parable of God’s kingdom is a reminder to recognize the treasure that’s already there in our lives and the joy its discovery brings. Over the summer vacation we’ve got great opportunities to rediscover the joy of marriage and family as the demands of work lift from many of us.
If this parable is a reminder to be alert to God’s moments the parable of the merchant is a reminder to be spiritually determined. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Jesus emphasises in this parable how being his follower takes you on a determined spiritual search. The cost of this will be eclipsed by the outcome but there is a cost.
To be better disciples of Jesus we need opportunities to discipline ourselves so our personal agendas give way more and more to his. This cannot occur, Jesus cannot reach into our lives, without prayer, scripture and the eucharist.
In the coming year we’re going to have a monthly Tuesday evening with a discipleship theme at which we’ll be sharing with one another some of the ways that help build up our spiritual determination.
It is not what you are or have been or are that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be. Saint Seraphim, a great Russian spiritual teacher, was asked what was the secret that lay behind people who appear to have more of the Holy Spirit than others. Just their determination was his reply.
May the Lord build that determination for him as well as the day by day, hour by hour alertness to the treasure we don’t need to go on holiday to find since it lies buried and awaiting us in Horsted Keynes.
One Sunday allegedly in January 1927 this passage from Matthew 13 was the subject of a sermon by my predecessor The Revd Frank Stenton-Eardley. It was an exceptionally profitable sermon. One of the congregation from Broadhurst Manor went home, dug in a field there and unearthed a hoard of sixty-four gold nobles. This gold, deposited 500 years before, is now in the British Museum.
How profitable will this sermon be? Indeed how profitable is any sermon? Did you know you can engage with the sermon not only by grabbing the preacher over coffee but also by going on his blog linked to the church website which, thanks to David Ollington, has each week’s teaching displayed for further digestion.
There is no word of God without power. The preacher’s role is to read and study it and read and study his people and their context and make connections in a 10-15 minute talk that will help such an engagement with Our Lord that it will echo on in their lives in the coming week.
The guy who found the treasure at Broadhurst remembered the Rector’s sermon when his spade clinked the treasure. What does today’s Rector suggest you might find memorable about the same Scripture?
I don’t know enough about the circumstances of the finding of the sixty-four gold nobles to say whether the finder gained, though I guess he did, or was it the then owner of Broadhurst Manor?
What I think you and I can gain 84 years on is the reminder to renew our spiritual alertness and determination. These are the clue to an ongoing welcome of treasure that’ll never be shipped off from us to the British Museum!
The two parables of the treasure and the pearl remind Christians of the need to put supreme value on building our longing for God and his kingdom.
It is not what you are or have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be wrote the mystic author of that Medieval classic, The Cloud of Unknowing.
What would you be? Where’s your heart set?
In our first reading from the book of Kings we heard of Solomon’s being approached by God in a dream with a similar question: Ask what I should give you. He answers with a prayer for wisdom and is praised accordingly. God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.
God wants his aspirations to be of supreme value to his children and we can’t attain these without alertness and determination, two virtues that come out of the parables of the treasure and the pearl in our gospel reading from the end of Matthew Chapter 13. Like the Broadhurst Manor labourer if we proceed about our lives with wise mindfulness we don’t have to go far to find God and his riches. The purpose of scripture, of sermons and bible study, is to school us to be alert to the possibilities of God breaking into our situation, as the clink of the spade on the gold alerted the farm worker schooled by the Sunday sermon preached from this pulpit in January 1927.
Speaking personally I always find the number of God-incidences in a day linked to the fervor or length of my morning prayer. The more something of God’s eternal wisdom has touched my heart the more alert I am to the need to give ear to that villager I meet on the road or to visit, phone or e mail this person or that. Treasured encounters come to me inasmuch as my heart is set to evaluate everyone I meet as if they were Christ, to see my diary as containing what’s ultimately important as well as what’s merely pressing upon me.
The treasure parable of God’s kingdom is a reminder to recognize the treasure that’s already there in our lives and the joy its discovery brings. Over the summer vacation we’ve got great opportunities to rediscover the joy of marriage and family as the demands of work lift from many of us.
If this parable is a reminder to be alert to God’s moments the parable of the merchant is a reminder to be spiritually determined. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Jesus emphasises in this parable how being his follower takes you on a determined spiritual search. The cost of this will be eclipsed by the outcome but there is a cost.
To be better disciples of Jesus we need opportunities to discipline ourselves so our personal agendas give way more and more to his. This cannot occur, Jesus cannot reach into our lives, without prayer, scripture and the eucharist.
In the coming year we’re going to have a monthly Tuesday evening with a discipleship theme at which we’ll be sharing with one another some of the ways that help build up our spiritual determination.
It is not what you are or have been or are that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be. Saint Seraphim, a great Russian spiritual teacher, was asked what was the secret that lay behind people who appear to have more of the Holy Spirit than others. Just their determination was his reply.
May the Lord build that determination for him as well as the day by day, hour by hour alertness to the treasure we don’t need to go on holiday to find since it lies buried and awaiting us in Horsted Keynes.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Baptism of Charlotte Hord 17th July 2011
The parable of the wheat and the weeds is a reminder that the world we inhabit has good and bad in it which God has allowed but that good will triumph in the end.
God like any good parent has forbearance. He’s patient with us, taking a long term view, knowing that harvest day is coming. On that day of judgement he will see a good harvest from the moral struggles of his children. The weeds, the bad they’ve live alongside, will finally be discarded.
To let us off trials and temptations in the here and now would make us lesser people in the hereafter.
At present Horsted Keynes has 16 babies under a year old. This remarkable surge in the birth rate has bred close fellowship within a large group of parents which include John and Helen. In celebrating the birth of these children there are a variety of rites being considered in the group from civil naming ceremonies to a blessing in church and last but not least, as today, infant baptism.
The difference between these rites has a story to tell. To name a baby without religious ceremony can have integrity about it. If people don’t go to Church why should they make hypocrites of themselves? To bless or dedicate a baby is a good thing. It’s asking God to be with the child whilst refraining from making a commitment to the church. This has integrity for folk who believe in some sort of God but aren’t sure about committing their child to a religion they themselves aren’t committed to. No point in buying the Brownie outfit if she’ll never be taken to Brownies.
To baptise a child is to make clear to them and to yourselves as parents that there’s a moral, spiritual and communal framework with definite boundaries that you believe to be essential to their well being.
The argument for baptising a child can run like this. British society has evolved to a point where the old Christian boundaries are no longer upheld by law so unless parents uphold these standards themselves their children will grow up confused. To baptise a child and keep the promises you make is to place that child within a safe framework for their moral and spiritual nurture.
The default for moral standards is no longer the law of the land. If parents want their children to do what’s right by any historic standard they will have to make a commitment to that standard or else their children will be deceived into wrong doing by the fashion of the day.
Let me explain. Because the Law gives people the right to do immoral things doesn’t mean it’s right to do them.
When the Law changes on anything it represents a shift in the social consensus, usually on behalf of people who feel hard done by if they can’t do what they want to do. Yet many of the things we might want to do aren’t right to do – and here is where the revealed and tested teachings of Christianity come in.
Many young people are of the mindset that if the Law gives you the right to do something it must be right to do it. Poppycock!
We have a right to have sexual intercourse from the age of sixteen but all religions affirm the value of abstaining until you find and marry a life partner. We have a right to divorce after two years but the rightness of divorce is contested especially by Christianity and all people who have experience of the damage done to children by the break up of a family. I know there are divorced people in Church this morning but most of them have a tale to tell which shows they didn’t quit their marriage as lightly as many are quitting their obligations today. Soon we will have a right to kill ourselves, especially if we think people don’t want to pay for our upkeep in our old age, but that won’t make it right that we should do so.
When you go up to the altar this morning look up when you get up and turn from the kneeler and you will see the ten commandments on the arch above your heads including Thou shalt not kill. The language and the script may be old fashioned but the words are just as true in 2011 as they were when those words were hung up four centuries ago.
Just because people have a right to kill doesn’t make it right to do so in most circumstances! We read on the wall Thou shalt not bear false witness in a month that has shown gross deceitfulness taken for granted in public life through News International.
If parents want the best for their children it’s going to cost them. Wise parents know a good bank balance, though desirable of course, is no receipe for well being. For their children to live well they need to uphold and be upheld by standards that are true even if the whole world denies them or that bank balance will be emptied in destructive living.
To baptise a child and keep the promises you make is to place the child under those standards in a safe framework for their moral and spiritual nurture.For Christians those standards are set out in a covenant relationship with God so that the Ten Commandments affirm before they condemn. Thou shalt not – you shall not – not you shall not. Why? Because as one of the baptised you’ve got the mark of God on your head. You’re precious and he loves you. He grieves when you act against the dignity he’s given you as his beloved child.
As today’s gospel of the wheat and weeds indicates God is our loving parent who’s infinitely patient with us, taking the long term view knowing that the end day is coming. On that day we’ll see that the moral struggles we have endured have been infinitely worthwhile!
God like any good parent has forbearance. He’s patient with us, taking a long term view, knowing that harvest day is coming. On that day of judgement he will see a good harvest from the moral struggles of his children. The weeds, the bad they’ve live alongside, will finally be discarded.
To let us off trials and temptations in the here and now would make us lesser people in the hereafter.
At present Horsted Keynes has 16 babies under a year old. This remarkable surge in the birth rate has bred close fellowship within a large group of parents which include John and Helen. In celebrating the birth of these children there are a variety of rites being considered in the group from civil naming ceremonies to a blessing in church and last but not least, as today, infant baptism.
The difference between these rites has a story to tell. To name a baby without religious ceremony can have integrity about it. If people don’t go to Church why should they make hypocrites of themselves? To bless or dedicate a baby is a good thing. It’s asking God to be with the child whilst refraining from making a commitment to the church. This has integrity for folk who believe in some sort of God but aren’t sure about committing their child to a religion they themselves aren’t committed to. No point in buying the Brownie outfit if she’ll never be taken to Brownies.
To baptise a child is to make clear to them and to yourselves as parents that there’s a moral, spiritual and communal framework with definite boundaries that you believe to be essential to their well being.
The argument for baptising a child can run like this. British society has evolved to a point where the old Christian boundaries are no longer upheld by law so unless parents uphold these standards themselves their children will grow up confused. To baptise a child and keep the promises you make is to place that child within a safe framework for their moral and spiritual nurture.
The default for moral standards is no longer the law of the land. If parents want their children to do what’s right by any historic standard they will have to make a commitment to that standard or else their children will be deceived into wrong doing by the fashion of the day.
Let me explain. Because the Law gives people the right to do immoral things doesn’t mean it’s right to do them.
When the Law changes on anything it represents a shift in the social consensus, usually on behalf of people who feel hard done by if they can’t do what they want to do. Yet many of the things we might want to do aren’t right to do – and here is where the revealed and tested teachings of Christianity come in.
Many young people are of the mindset that if the Law gives you the right to do something it must be right to do it. Poppycock!
We have a right to have sexual intercourse from the age of sixteen but all religions affirm the value of abstaining until you find and marry a life partner. We have a right to divorce after two years but the rightness of divorce is contested especially by Christianity and all people who have experience of the damage done to children by the break up of a family. I know there are divorced people in Church this morning but most of them have a tale to tell which shows they didn’t quit their marriage as lightly as many are quitting their obligations today. Soon we will have a right to kill ourselves, especially if we think people don’t want to pay for our upkeep in our old age, but that won’t make it right that we should do so.
When you go up to the altar this morning look up when you get up and turn from the kneeler and you will see the ten commandments on the arch above your heads including Thou shalt not kill. The language and the script may be old fashioned but the words are just as true in 2011 as they were when those words were hung up four centuries ago.
Just because people have a right to kill doesn’t make it right to do so in most circumstances! We read on the wall Thou shalt not bear false witness in a month that has shown gross deceitfulness taken for granted in public life through News International.
If parents want the best for their children it’s going to cost them. Wise parents know a good bank balance, though desirable of course, is no receipe for well being. For their children to live well they need to uphold and be upheld by standards that are true even if the whole world denies them or that bank balance will be emptied in destructive living.
To baptise a child and keep the promises you make is to place the child under those standards in a safe framework for their moral and spiritual nurture.For Christians those standards are set out in a covenant relationship with God so that the Ten Commandments affirm before they condemn. Thou shalt not – you shall not – not you shall not. Why? Because as one of the baptised you’ve got the mark of God on your head. You’re precious and he loves you. He grieves when you act against the dignity he’s given you as his beloved child.
As today’s gospel of the wheat and weeds indicates God is our loving parent who’s infinitely patient with us, taking the long term view knowing that the end day is coming. On that day we’ll see that the moral struggles we have endured have been infinitely worthwhile!
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Trinity 3 8am 10th July 2011
I dropped in on the Christadelphians bible study at the Village Hall on Wednesday evening. Though we differ from them in our Trinitarian faith for them as for us the scriptures are of vital significance. I read some verses as they went round the table reading through Matthew Chapter Five. I gave them a greeting from St Giles and some of them expressed interest in our planned evening on the King James Bible in September.
There is no word of God without power. Christadelphians see the words of scripture as literally words of God. We as Anglicans look rather to the interpretation of that word and to the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to help our reading scripture.
In today’s first and last readings we have an underlining of the importance of scripture. Isaiah speaks prophetically for God:
My word that goes out from my mouth.. shall not return to me empty,but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55.10-13
The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 concludes but as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
The seed sown represents the word of God. Our Lord firstly expects us to believe when we hear the Bible read that we are in some profound sense hearing God.
Then we need to prepare the very ground of our being to welcome that word. The seed that fell on rocky ground failed to produce fruit because it lacked moisture and withered away in the heat of the sun. To hear God’s word is to receive it actively into our heart and mind. If it remains just on the surface of our minds it will not yield fruit.
Receiving it deep within us requires the discipline of studying and pondering it. It is an admirable discipline to take away the pew sheet and do just that, using whatever thinking has been kindled by the Sunday sermon. If we feel touched in our spirit at Sunday worship it is good in the days that follow to fan the flame of whatever touched us.
To return to the images used in today’s Gospel we need to break up the stony ground of our heart to be made capable of receiving what God has to say to us. There is no word of God without power but the word within us fades away and loses power unless watered by the Holy Spirit who comes to us through prayer, fellowship and Holy Communion.
The Holy Spirit – and here we rather differ from Christadelphians – the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is ready to grant inspiration to all who read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them a practical understanding.
There is no word of God without power. We should expect our engagement with scripture to be transformative. The key to that is to hold onto all God says to us in it rather than getting overwhelmed by the cares of the world and the lure of wealth that choke the word (so) it yields nothing.
The key to seeing scripture transforming us is to make it possible for the seed to fall on good soil which comes about when we keep the word alive within us by the Spirit and obey it. This produces the abundant harvest the Gospel speaks of.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts produce such a harvest this morning as we take the word of God to heart by the Holy Spirit. God make us good soil bearing an abundant harvest in his praise and service, to whom, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all might, majesty, dominion and power now and forever. Amen.
There is no word of God without power. Christadelphians see the words of scripture as literally words of God. We as Anglicans look rather to the interpretation of that word and to the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to help our reading scripture.
In today’s first and last readings we have an underlining of the importance of scripture. Isaiah speaks prophetically for God:
My word that goes out from my mouth.. shall not return to me empty,but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55.10-13
The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 concludes but as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
The seed sown represents the word of God. Our Lord firstly expects us to believe when we hear the Bible read that we are in some profound sense hearing God.
Then we need to prepare the very ground of our being to welcome that word. The seed that fell on rocky ground failed to produce fruit because it lacked moisture and withered away in the heat of the sun. To hear God’s word is to receive it actively into our heart and mind. If it remains just on the surface of our minds it will not yield fruit.
Receiving it deep within us requires the discipline of studying and pondering it. It is an admirable discipline to take away the pew sheet and do just that, using whatever thinking has been kindled by the Sunday sermon. If we feel touched in our spirit at Sunday worship it is good in the days that follow to fan the flame of whatever touched us.
To return to the images used in today’s Gospel we need to break up the stony ground of our heart to be made capable of receiving what God has to say to us. There is no word of God without power but the word within us fades away and loses power unless watered by the Holy Spirit who comes to us through prayer, fellowship and Holy Communion.
The Holy Spirit – and here we rather differ from Christadelphians – the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is ready to grant inspiration to all who read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them a practical understanding.
There is no word of God without power. We should expect our engagement with scripture to be transformative. The key to that is to hold onto all God says to us in it rather than getting overwhelmed by the cares of the world and the lure of wealth that choke the word (so) it yields nothing.
The key to seeing scripture transforming us is to make it possible for the seed to fall on good soil which comes about when we keep the word alive within us by the Spirit and obey it. This produces the abundant harvest the Gospel speaks of.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts produce such a harvest this morning as we take the word of God to heart by the Holy Spirit. God make us good soil bearing an abundant harvest in his praise and service, to whom, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all might, majesty, dominion and power now and forever. Amen.
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