Trinity 20 What Jesus does for us 21 October 2012

What does Jesus do for us?

What does it mean for us as he says in today’s gospel that he came to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10.45)?

There are three main Christian doctrines – the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Atonement. This morning the readings centre on this last doctrine, Atonement, how God and humanity are made one by what Jesus does for us.

How do we understand this making God one with us that Our Lord achieves?

More importantly how do we not only understand the doctrine but see it taking effect so that we know God not just only as our maker but as our saviour?

These are questions that spill out of all three scriptures this morning.

The Isaiah 53 passage was chosen to illuminate the text I read from Mark 10.45 at the end of today’s gospel. There Jesus makes a prediction of his coming Passion which pours cold water on the arrogance of James and John who thought their Lord was going to take worldly power and wanted part of his worldly glory. No, Our Lord says, my kingdom will be built from suffering service. The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.  

Isaiah foresaw the lonely figure on Calvary who would bear the immense burden of sin separating human beings from their maker and how that sin bearing would cost the suffering servant his life like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. The passage hints at the tomb of Jesus given by the rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, verse 9, they made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich. It concludes with a prophecy of the resurrection, verse 12. Let’s read it. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus himself gave no explanation of how his death and rising again made atonement other than to point to this scripture. Only after his resurrection did his followers reflect more fully upon what Jesus did and does for us as Saviour.

So we can move on to the second reading by the anonymous author of the letter to the Hebrews. Here in this letter is the best source of teaching in scripture on the doctrine of the Atonement. This teaching centres on the priesthood of Christ by which Jesus takes what he did on Calvary and pleads it for all time in heaven. It’s this his pleading that we join to at the Eucharist.

Today’s small section of Hebrews is from chapter 5. We read: Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin.

Priests have a ministry of representing mortals to the immortal God and the immortal God to mortals. The passage goes on to outline how Christ was appointed high priest by God but with full sympathy for humanity. He is the Son of God become Son of Man. In this passage we see graphic evidence of Christ’s humanity. It’s a powerful account actually of the passion of Our Lord that begins with his tears in the Garden of Gethsemane. It provides one of the most moving evidences in the bible of how deeply Jesus engaged with our pain and sorrow.

Let’s read this account in verse 7: In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

What does Jesus do for us?

Jesus shows us a God who expects nothing from us he’s not prepared to go through. But he shows us much more. He shows us God’s love and holiness, our need of them both and how we can attain to both.

Our Lord brings us atonement. He makes a way for the God of love and holiness to be one with us in our dignity and frailty.

In giving himself he does so in costly love. He does so on account of the requirements of God’s holiness. He does so because only by the Cross and its pleading for ever in the heavenly sanctuary can women and men be won to glory.

When we look at the Cross we see four things.

We see the love of God fully displayed.

We see the holiness of God in his hatred of sin. The Cross shows what sin feels like to God.

We see our dignity because this act of atonement is given to rescue us for eternal glory.

We see our frailty. Where else do we see the terrible consequences of our sin?

The doctrine of the Atonement is an awesome mystery. We will never fully understand the doctrine but that won’t stop us seeing it take effect in our lives so that we know God not just as our maker but as our saviour.

How does it effect our lives?

The Cross is once and for all but Jesus lives as eternal high priest to plead its benefits.  Inasmuch as we repent of our sins and trust Jesus all that he has done for us comes into operation in our lives bringing forgiveness, healing, deliverance and freedom in the Spirit.

As verse 9 of the Hebrews Chapter 4 passage states Jesus has become the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. What is salvation other than an eternal relationship with God sealed on his side by love and ours by the obedience of faith.

Yes all that Jesus does for us comes to us as we obey. Faith isn’t a feeling it’s obedience. It has its beginning in baptism, which is our great ‘yes’ to God and ‘no’ to self. It has its end in the vision of God face to face with the selfless adoration of all the saints.

The good news of Christianity is very simple.

God made us for friendship. Sin became a barrier to that friendship. God sent Jesus to lift away that barrier making us friends of God.

Things get between us and God so that we’re not at one. Sin, fear, sickness, bondage, anxiety, death and the devil get in the way. Jesus brings atonement – at one ment literally – because what he did in his coming, his suffering, death and resurrection has established the means to overcome these evils - if we use them. That means that the words we read today in Isaiah he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases come true when we trust his healing power. When we read he bore the sins of many that can become true in our experience when we seek his forgiveness and become one of the many who’re made one with God through Jesus.

Atonement isn’t just a doctrine it’s a way of life. It’s living one to one, heart to heart with God.

This is what Jesus does for us. 

Trinity 18 27th of Year Marriage 7th October 2012

Today’s readings centre on the sacrament of marriage.

How many sacraments are there?

The Church of England has seven sacraments of which two baptism and eucharist are given special status with the other five – marriage, ordination, confession, confirmation and anointing – named as lesser sacraments.

A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. The outward sign of water is a sign of baptism’s grace of cleansing and renewal. The outward sign of bread and wine is the sign of Christ’s body and blood. The oil of anointing is the outward sign of God’s healing. The bishop’s or priest’s hands and voice are the outward sign in confession, confirmation and ordination.

What about marriage? What is the outward sign?

The ring? No. The sign of marriage is the vows by which husband and wife give themselves to one another before God.

What is the inward grace of marriage?

Life-long union. Someone reads Mark 10.7-10 But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

Our Lord draws his teaching from our first reading, Genesis 1.21-24: So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The rib story is just that, a story, one that teaches truth, though - the truth that men and women share a common humanity and are designed to complement one another. Vive la difference!

That passage has been abused to argue for the subordination of women so that in Our Lord’s day the all male Rabbi’s would build arguments for divorce to please their fellow men which included ‘she can’t cook as I want’. In Mark Chapter 10 Our Lord challenges this maltreatment of women and the culture of easy divorce weighted towards men. He goes out of his way to uphold marriage as first conceived in Genesis over against the easy divorce of his day as we read in the Gospel v11-12 He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’

Marriage according to Christ is indissoluble – it can’t be dissolved.

It’s a high bar we struggle to reach up to. Like the high bar set in last week’s Gospel when he says if your eye offends you pluck it out.

If the food’s no good the answer isn’t divorce. ‘Pluck your eye out rather than do so’ is the sense of Our Lord’s teaching against breaking a marriage. That teaching has been a source of encouragement to married couples for 20 centuries.

Or should I say discouragement? At times when people are lured by the flesh to look elsewhere they’ve been discouraged from following those lusts by obedience to the wisdom of Jesus.

We need the wisdom of Jesus as much today as ever. Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show divorce rates in England and Wales increased by 5% between 2009 and 2010, from 114,000 to 120,000.

High Court Judge Sir Paul Coleridge made headlines in May for describing marriage breakdown as one of the "most destructive scourges" in Britain. Sir Paul felt compelled to speak out because of the "unprecedented scale of the problem". He’s launched the Marriage Foundation charity to improve public understanding of the "nature, benefits and importance of marriage and how healthy married relationships provide the most stable environment in which to raise children". Interesting that today’s Gospel ends with just that concern, about the welfare of children, having made clear the importance of the faithfulness in marriage that’s so helpful to this.

How does the Church, how do we, today, make sense of Christ’s teaching against divorce?

Each denomination has a pastoral policy on second marriage that allows for what Jesus called hardness of heart in v5. Some marriage failures come, as some of you know, even where there is much soft hearted generosity.  Our Lord taught and showed us soft hearted, irrevocable love.   On Calvary he gave himself as God does, without thought of taking back his gift.

That’s God! Softhearted! Never takes himself back from anyone - only from sin.

We humans love but our love can be hard hearted. When we say ‘I love you’ it can mean ‘I love me and want you’! For all of that it’s the noblest act of a human being to say, as many of us in Church have said to someone, ‘I take you...to love and to cherish. Till death us do part...all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you, within the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’

The nature of the marriage vow, the outward sign of a sacrament, makes repeating it to someone else, within the life time of your spouse, difficult.  For most Churches it is impossible to do so. That’s the position at St Giles. In Christianity, in Christ, a vow of love is a vow of love.  It goes against the grain of Christianity, of Christ, to take love back again.

So what of those who've got no option but to do so?

Roman Catholics have to seek the annulment of their first marriage. If you’re Free Church you fall back on a less sacramental and more human view of marriage and start folk over again. As Anglicans we offer a compromise. Our Service of Prayer and Dedication after Civil Marriage has quite a take up, for the honest service it is, in publicly admitting past failure and seeking God’s blessing on a new start.

If remarriage after divorce seems the unforgiveable sin, which it isn’t, it’s because the Church, being held to Jesus’ teaching, has to protect the integrity of word and deed as best she can. In doing so we try not to make the best the enemy of the good. Our Lord set high standards but was forgiving to those who fell short of them.

Many of us will know second marriages where God is evidently at work and first marriages where he needs to get in more, so to speak. This is the human reality but it would become so much more inhuman without the wise standard Jesus sets us .

If the outward and visible sign of marriage is the making of life-long vows to each other the inward and spiritual grace is life-long union. When you marry in Church you receive a special anointing from God to help you keep your vows that’ll always be there for you if you seek it.

It is an excellent practice for married couples to seek that grace together from time to time which is why on Sunday 7^th July we’re inviting couples to renew their marriage vows together at this service.

The sayings of Jesus are unlike the sayings of say the Buddha. Jesus not only gave his teaching, he gave us his life to seal it. By his life, death and resurrection Jesus Christ is able to empower us not just to hear what he says but to do what he says and to do it cheerfully.

What God has joined together, let no one separate – this is the word of Jesus. There is no word of God without power.

Let’s believe it – however much is might cost!

Trinity 17 26th of Year Child abuse 30th September 2012

When I was preparing my sermon I was struck by the words in the Gospel about child abuse which made me feel it right to address the sense of hurt many of us have about the failings of the Diocese.

If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. Mark 9.42

We cannot hear these words of Our Lord this morning without sorrow.

We belong to a great Diocese that’s been let down.

Since Saint Wilfrid came to Sussex in the 7^th century the Christian faith has been taught here. The body of Jesus Christ has been built up. The sacraments have been celebrated.

Some 35,000 Anglicans are with us this morning at worship, many of them children, in some 500 churches from Rye across to Chichester and Brighton up to Crawley.

Tomorrow morning some 37,000 children will be attending 159 church schools across the Diocese.

Each week St Giles Church engages with up to 140 children through our school, Toddler Plus, Sunday Club, servers, choristers, Brownies and intermittent contact with village youth.

We’re part of a great Diocese, in size at least, but also - I speak as a former diocesan adviser – in apostolic vitality, engagement with young people, and in the quality of our leaders from Saint Richard through to Bishop Bell.

A great diocese let down to the chagrin of priests and people.

There are diocesan priests both charged and in jail for child abuse.

In recent weeks we’ve been made aware of the grave failings of a number of clergy and church workers in Chichester Diocese, some committing the unspeakable crime of paedophilia.

In last week’s diocesan bulletin our area Bishop Mark Sowerby writes:

I realise many people want to know how the diocese is responding to the Interim Report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s visiting Commissaries report and its recommendations. We have been responding to... the recommendations... A full action plan is almost complete and will be presented to diocesan synod on 10th November.

Our new bishop believes considerable progress has been made since the Commissaries began to compile their report. We are shaping a programme for the diocesan response to the recommendations... addressing concerns at the November Diocesan Synod.

I would add that the PCC has the updating of child protection policy on its agenda as we await the new Diocesan guidelines. You can read our policy statement reaffirmed in February of this year up in the porch. We are grateful as ever to our child protection coordinator, Linda Allan, who coordinates Criminal Record Bureau checks of our volunteers. Linda, Chris Wheatley and I have attended the diocesan child safeguarding foundation module.

If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. Mark 9.42

In today’s Gospel Our Lord has a strong word for us as Christians about the betrayal of trust. So much is at stake in the work of spreading the good news. Priests particularly have responsibility for clearing away obstacles to faith in themselves and in their people. Yet there are times when we do the very opposite.

The sins of priests in Polegate and Burgess Hill like any sins affect the whole world but they have a particular impact on God’s work in Horsted Keynes. That’s why I felt it right to address the evil this morning, and our hurt concerning it, and to lead us in offering solemn prayer in a moment for the victims of abuse.

This focus apart we are reminded of the two Puritans watching the man ascend the scaffold, one saying to the other ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. My sins, your sins, my and your failure to love as widely as God loves, contribute to the evil of the world. I was put in the world to be a channel bringing love and not a drain sucking it away into myself – so I need his mercy to become what I was meant to be.

How great is the Lord’s forbearance and mercy! He is always ready to forgive and to help us grow out of our selfish attention seeking to engage with the plans he has to purify and change the world we live in.

If we set Our Lord’s saying in its widest context his reference to little ones doesn’t just refer to children but to those little in faith. Can we honestly say that our own life has never put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in Jesus? Are we not guilty at times of careless words, conniving in destructive talk, viewing indecent materials, being inattentive to young people and holding a certain exasperation and even hardness of heart towards those far from Christian values.

In these and many other ways we put stumbling blocks before people who want to travel the Christian way. As Father Keith McRae reminded us people nowadays need half a dozen positive experiences of the Church before they take Christianity seriously. Not-yet Christians are ‘spiritual little ones’ to be cultivated and not impeded by the sins of church members.  

In focussing on this topic I do so aware that Bishop Martin Warner is already taking up responsibility for us as diocesan Bishop. He has already impressed those of us who’ve heard and met him. Our prayers this morning will naturally include him alongside the victims of abuse and the forward mission of the 35,000 folk in our 500 churches and the spiritual well being of the 37,000 children in our 160 church schools.

Let us kneel, if we possibly can kneel, this morning for the prayers.

Loving and holy God we come before you in sorrow and penitence for the sins of priests and people as we lift to you in a minute of silence the victims of abuse in our Diocese.

O Lord look upon the thoughts of our hearts as we agonise over the harm done to our brothers and sisters. Breathe wisdom into our prayers, soothe restless hearts with hope, steady shaken spirits, especially those of our priests, with faith.

Holy Spirit, comforter of hearts, heal your people's wounds and transform our brokenness. Grant to our leaders, especially Bishop Martin, courage and wisdom, humility and grace, so that they may act with justice and be instruments of your healing. 

Purify your Church, Lord, and start with me! Remove all stumbling-blocks before the little ones who believe in Jesus, so that their faith in you may grow strong.  Bless Chichester Diocese in its mission and all who teach in our church and in our school, that the children in our care ‘may develop fully as individuals with Christian values and contribute to, participate in and enjoy the world in which they live’.

Almighty and everlasting God, the comfort of the sad, the strength of those who suffer: hear the prayers of your children who cry out of any trouble, and to every distressed soul grant mercy, relief and refreshment, especially those commended to our prayers......

Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Trinity 16 Mark 9.30-37 26th September 2012

·         Approach Scripture with prayer and penitence. St Athanasius ‘Whoever wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse and purify himself by holiness of life'. Heart seeing is vital, eg seeing the most important thing in life: what conquers death over against the pinch of financial constraints and job insecurity

After leaving the mountain 30Jesus and his disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;

·         Move forwards with Jesus from the Transfiguration to Calvary: Jesus the great trail blazer making human beings a joyful path to God.

·         Crowd falls back to leave Jesus with disciples: ’true discipleship’

·         Marcan secrecy: humility to not wish a great fanfare about his obviously successful ministry. His directives to silence about his great accomplishments may be no more than an example to the faithful not to blow their own horns. It proves the reliability of the Gospel as it’s hard to imagine a made up story of Jesus with such emphasis.

31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

·         First  chapters show us who Jesus is. Now, moving into why God sent him and what it means to us as disciples we have a second prediction of the passion following last Sunday’s in Chapter 8

·         Paradoxes – things that contradict in logic to be held together in experience. Creation (out of nothing ), Trinity (Unity) founded on life (through death) = Son of Man (Son of God).

·         Jesus not a physically compelling Messiah but a suffering servant morally compelling Saviour. A sign of contradiction – Olympians in wheelchairs on London Olympic triumph lorries; Downton Abbey plot

·         'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’ Ann Voskamp ‘I wear the lens of the Word and all the world transfigures into the beauty of Christ ‘

33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

·         Counter ‘big is beautiful’ – cf Horsted Keynes

·         Post-Transfiguration jealousies set disciples against one another

·         Jesus sees into their and our hearts- can show up what’s needful

·         Alexander Schmemann - the signs of pride are: the absence of joy, complexity and fear. Signs of humility: joy, simplicity, trust

·         Those who serve others have a joy about them, they are the greatest

·         How do we get there? ‘Know yourself, love yourself, forget yourself’ (the discipline of Christian meditation which takes us out of ourselves in contemplation – drop by Church and use new prayer sheet )

36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

·         Paradox of child centred society cf ancient culture and many other cultures which gave or give children no legal rights. Christian legacy.

·         Striking act of Jesus to take the most powerless and exalt him/her

·         Who are the powerless around us? Who are those most in need of our help? Those without money – no holidays (£500 raised by Anne for FSW’s Give a Child a Holiday). Those who can’t leave room or home through age or disability. The young struggling for a job.

·         Last verse shows Jesus before us in the powerless: Whoever welcomes one such ....in my name welcomes me.   Cf Matthew 25 Jesus ‘in the least ’

·         To see this we need the insight, or spectacles of holy scripture: 'Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps’

·         We need the sense of Jesus before us that the eucharist schools us in.

·         Blessed and praised be Jesus Christ upon his throne of glory, in the holy scriptures, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, in the hearts of the needy and in the hearts of all his faithful people.

Trinity 15 Mark’s Gospel 16th September 2012

Today we return to Mark, Year B’s Gospel source back from a few weeks of John and today’s Gospel from 8.27-38 is the hinge of Mark.

First 7 chapters show us who Jesus is. Now we move into why God sent him and what it means to us. Time on all three headings.

Why I like Mark:

• Short to read
• Action packed
• Earliest Gospel 40 years after resurrection copied by Matthew and Luke. Only Paul’s letters are earlier. Papias 130 AD: Mark being the interpreter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy
• Mystery of uneven ending - the original may have got lost from the end of the scroll to be replaced by other texts in Chapter 16
• Clear purpose set forth in Chapter 8 to show us who Jesus is, why God sent him and what it means to us.

Who Jesus is

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ 28 And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ 29 He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
• A crucial paragraph. In Mark 1-7 we’ve followed how Jesus’ identity emerges through miracles, healings and teachings. In February I preached on the miracles of Ch 2, and two weeks ago on his attack on lip service in Ch 7. Today’s the hinge: ‘Who do people say that I am?’
• Variations in how people see Jesus – then and now
• ‘You are the Messiah (Saviour).’ Peter’s role (Papias) of voicing what was the truly the case. Wisdom given Peter by God (Cf Matthew 16)

Why God sent him

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
• As Messiah Jesus didn’t and still doesn’t fulfil Jewish expectations
• A suffering Saviour sent to rescue us from sin.
• The world isn’t as it should be because we’re not as we should be. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.
• God’s Son was sent to earth to show us our sin and to show us his own heart and bring us, in Victor Hugo’s phrase, to ‘life’s greatest happiness’ which is ‘to be convinced we are loved’
• God made us for friendship. Sin made a barrier to this. Jesus died to destroy the barrier so restoring friendship with God.

What it means to us

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’
• A church member in hospital offering their pain for all who’re there is focussed outside of themselves with Jesus for all
• Faith is ongoing choice for God and his provision in Jesus
• In baptism Jesus’ principle of losing life to gain it is impressed on us
• v38 Jesus is alpha and omega

St Giles Festival 8am 9th September 2012 Revelation 21.1-7

On this our Patronal Festival of St Giles the Church sets before us a glance through the window of heaven in our second reading from the beginning of Revelation Chapter 21.

The book of Revelation is a difficult and much misused book. It was written by the visionary John exiled on the island of Patmos most likely during the persecution of Emperor Domitian in 93AD. At that time Christians like all Roman citizens were being forced to call a man God. Their refusal led to their widespread martyrdom. From his exile Saint John handed on a vision rich in symbolism sent to help Christians in that and all ages to make good of their troubles by fixing their gaze on the consequences of the incarnation.

It is Christian faith that God took flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. By taking our nature he has lifted it up into his divinity. This man is truly man and God and so worthy of our worship.

The book of Revelation takes what has been revealed to his first worshippers through the unique life, death and resurrection of Jesus and applies it to the community of the Church. More than that - it sets forth a vision of cosmic transformation.

The love of God in Jesus is known to us as it was known to Saint Giles, in word and sacrament and fellowship. This knowledge we have is by anticipation. It’s a preview of what’s to come from the love of Jesus for, as someone said across the pond, ‘we ain’t seen nothing yet’!

The nearest we get as Christians to what the future will be is here in the book of Revelation. Here we read of the Church in a way that’s truly awesome. There is a wedding ahead. Jesus is the bridegroom. The Church is the bride to be, once she is perfected. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

These are almost the last words in the Christian holy book and they’re set for us on our Saint’s Day. When they speak as they do of a marriage they express in poetry the consummation of Christian faith. See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.

To believe God has made his home with mortals is at the heart of Christianity. It is affirmed at the start of the Gospel of Saint John for Jesus and here at the end of the Revelation to Saint John it is affirmed for all believers.

If Jesus is uniquely the Son of God made a mortal we who, with St Giles, trust the same Lord Jesus are destined to be carried through this vale of tears into a place of resurrection where Jesus waits for us. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

These last words of the Bible are an encouragement to all of us as press on with faith towards the world to come.

Jesus loves me this I know, because the Bible tells me so.

Of all the places I can think of where texts from the Book of Revelation are to be seen none is more striking than the display of Chapter 11 verse 15 above the coronation altar in Westminster Abbey where you read these words: the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever.

St Giles worked for that kingdom of love and peace to come in his generation. With Christian vision and motivation he helped build up his community in France. In doing so he had his sights on the life of that community he is now for ever part of, the home of God where death will be no more; nor mourning and crying and pain. May what he thirsted for be ours! May the communions we make at this altar be fulfilled as we join Giles one day at the marriage feast of Jesus our heavenly Bridegroom.

Trinity 13 2nd September 2012 8am

In Mark 7 Our Lord makes a stinging attack on lip service. He draws on Isaiah: This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.

True worship is from the heart through the outward form. Impatience with outward form can be godly, but it can also be ungodly. It’s a godly motive to make worship accessible to outsiders. It’s ungodly to make worship bespoke.

Bespoke is all the range. Some of you may be wearing bespoke clothing which has been custom made to your own specification as opposed to being a ready to wear item. Bespoke is no longer just about tailored clothing. It’s about all sorts of things.

Worship though can’t really be bespoke! It’s rather the opposite. The Anglo Saxon means to give worth to something beyond you. Worship is, to quote Evelyn Underhill, the adoring acknowledgment of all that lies beyond us – the glory that fills heaven and earth. It’s very ‘unbespoke’ and hardly consumerist

The word adoration means from the Greek submission and from the Latin ad-oratio, literally, mouth to mouth, the kiss of love.

True worship is God-oriented and linked to the gathering together of prayerful hearts.

Accessibility is very important in worship of course. It’s not Christian to be an élite community. Yet, at the heart of Christian worship there is awe before God drawing us to submission and loving devotion. We don’t want our church to be élite and inaccessible but we do want our church to be awesome – awesome, not awful. There’s quite a fine divide here for young people I’m afraid.

Renewing worship means working for accessibility. This has always been the case. The move from Latin at the Reformation was one attempt. Alas making worship accessible is far more than making the words intelligible. Even the truths of the faith can be made as plain as can be and worshippers, this one included, fail to act on them. This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.

The role of the sermon in worship is both to touch on what is awesome, open up some windows to the resurrection world we enter on the Lord ’s Day, and to serve access to scripture. The role of ceremonial around the altar at the consecration of the Eucharist is to herald and make accessible the Lord in our midst.

As we work to renew worship at St Giles we’re not going to find anything ready built other than what the Lord has provided in word and sacrament and his call for us to participate actively in it.

Just a suggestion. Free your eyes on occasion from your service booklet and news sheet. Don’t feel obliged to follow every word as if you were word checking a proof. Try closing your eyes or looking up at the east window. When the priest takes, blesses, shows and breaks the elements watch. Jesus didn’t say read this in remembrance of me – he said do this. The Eucharist isn’t something read out of a book. It’s a sacrificial action. As Christ was taken, broken and shared in his passion so is the bread – and so are you and I.

Here is part of a poem that expresses what I am saying:

I lift this bread and lift therewith the world, myself and Thee.
Hast Thou not said ‘I, lifted up, will draw the universe to me?’(Martindale)

Attendance at this service is about lifting ourselves and the world on our hearts with Christ to God. I lift this bread and lift therewith the world, myself and Thee.

As the bread is offered at the Eucharist see your life and the lives of all those on your heart as being placed on the altar. As the wine is mixed and offered see your sorrows and those of the world that are on your heart as being offered.

What happened 2000 years ago and what is happening in the lives of those who gather around the altar are joined together and lifted up to the Father through Christ, with Christ and in Christ.

Worship is about submission, and the adoring kiss of love. It is about our love for God and God’s for us and our love for one another in the body of Christ. Accessible worship is worship that helps a congregation see such a vibrant flow of love from their joined hearts through the externals of word and sacrament to God and back.

I lift this bread and lift therewith the world, myself and Thee.
Hast Thou not said ‘I, lifted up, will draw the universe to me?’

Coming to the Eucharist is a lot more than taking a piece of blessed bread and sipping consecrated wine. Sometimes the consumerist streak in all of us sees Holy Communion as the important thing – what we get out of the Eucharist.

No, it’s what we put in as well! Proper Sunday worship is about our whole life being taken up by Jesus Christ to be offered to the Father for transformation.

All of this is hidden in that phrase that flows all too lightly from our lips: We offer thee our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice – Amen, may that be so, more and more deeply in us and among us so that those around us, part of the universe that is ours, may be intrigued, drawn to the celestial flame of love which is his, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.