Good news from a good God (4) 8am 27th July 2014 Last of sermon series on the letter to the Romans

We move this morning to the last of our four part sermon series on the letter to the Romans we’ve called Good news from a good God explaining the Christian good news repent, believe, ask receive so today’s sub heading is receive.

Being last Sunday of the month it’s Prayer Book at 8 o’clock and our set reading is actually Romans 6, though our series so far has moved through Chapters 7 and 8 in the Common Worship Lectionary  – no matter, the preacher has to make the best of these contingencies!

Last Sunday we reflected on Paul’s opening up in Romans 8 of how the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has rewritten the history of the cosmos bringing us all a purpose for living and a reason for dying. The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Romans 8:21 As Christians we are joined to a body and a cause that will outlive us, God’s forever family, the holy, catholic church which is God’s chosen instrument for bringing the cosmos out of its bondage to decay and into an incorruptible and glorious fulfilment.

The Christian good news is that God has made us for that glory but sin has come into our lives as a spoiler. As we repent of our sin and put faith in Jesus the spoiler goes and we ask for and receive an inextinguishable hope. This is something we need to hold onto. However much we see the church ‘put down’ in our society there is no where else that you’ll find a body so forward looking as the church of Jesus Christ!

‘Church pride’ - this to a degree is what Paul is getting at in calling back disciples to first principles.

Know ye not he says – listen to the man! Know ye not – have you forgotten - that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into his death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4)

So much of preaching, so much of Christianity, is reminder. There’s really nothing new in Christianity, only the call to enter more profoundly into the depth of its profound truth.

Jesus died – we must die to our sinful nature.

Jesus rose – we must rise to our new nature which is life in the Spirit.

Paul at the end of our reading this morning speaks of Jesus: Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Then the twist – the application where Paul moves from speaking of Jesus to speaking of you and I: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:11)

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If you read through Romans, or indeed the whole of Paul, you see talk of Christ indwelling us and sin indwelling us. Romans 6 on baptism is followed by Romans 7 on sin’s indwelling and Romans 8 on Christ’s indwelling.

Are there strategies that can help us live more to Christ and less to sin? There’s one I’ll mention and it’s the Jesus prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

This is a prayer people have prayed for 15 centuries and it’s one that priorities Christ within us over sin within us.  It’s beautifully simple, clear and direct.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

When we see temptation to sin rising in us, when we see the unrighteous anger mentioned in the holy Gospel today rising up within – that’s the time to reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I am baptised – sin has no place in me! It does in practice, but affirming the principle outlined in that verse of Romans has power, as does the Jesus Prayer, in times of temptation: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

The continuous recitation of the Jesus prayer is a counter to all the base aspirations in me. It is a form of spiritual warfare as vividly described in these words from 6th century Saint John of the Ladder: Flog the foes with the name of Jesus; for there is no stronger weapon against them either in heaven or on earth.

The use of the Jesus Prayer enables us to flog our spiritual foes. Its use as an arrow prayer helps bridge the gap between prayer in church or alone and the normal activities of life. When I say Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner I am aware of the power that lies in the name of Jesus, especially as it engages with my base thoughts and desires. The prayer helps me receive and implement the aspiration of Romans we’ve been looking at this month: to reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The letter to the Romans is good news from a good God who sees and loves us through and through.

Repent, believe, ask receive he says.

Repent – turn to me in away from the inner storm of temptation.

Believe I Jesus am with you and in you.

Ask me to act on your behalf when you feel overwhelmed.

Receive the assurance of my love.

Listen to Paul again on Christ’s love, this time from the end of Romans 8: Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Good news from a good God (3) 20th July 2014 Sermon series on Romans Chapters 7 and 8 with baptism of Maia Jeffers

We move this morning to the third of our four part sermon series on the letter to the Romans we’ve called Good news from a good God explaining the Christian good news repent, believe, ask receive so today’s sub heading is ask. It’s Maia Jeffers baptism, a young lady her parents asked for over 9 years which makes today a very special day.

The good news of Christianity thrills through Paul’s greatest letter, his credo, the letter to the Romans. I called it earlier in the series dynamite with two blasts concerning law and history. Reading Romans challenges both that part of us that seeks to earn good will legalistically through good actions and that other part of us that’s deep down lost hope for the future of the world. Such is its power, the power of the Word of God no less, to reset our life and our hope. 

The letter to the Romans says first of all that to reach into a right relationship with God is impossible from our side but that God has reached down to us in Jesus to lift us to his heights. As we heard this morning  If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  It’s God alone by his Spirit who puts us right with him, with one another and with ourselves, helping us to do the good we want to do.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  We’re saved ultimately not by following laws but by welcoming grace so we need to repent, to turn to God and believe in him, the very things we’re expressing for Maia this morning at her baptism.

The second blast of Romans is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has rewritten the history of the cosmos bringing us all a purpose for living and a reason for dying as we read later on in today’s passage. Romans 8:21 the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Maia is being joined to a body and a cause this morning that will outlive her and all of us, God’s forever family, the holy, catholic church which is God’s chosen instrument for bringing the cosmos out of its bondage to decay and into an incorruptible and glorious fulfilment.

Hope is faith for the future. Its saying ‘tomorrow also is God’s’ and tomorrow and tomorrow. When we eat this bread Paul says elsewhere and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. The good news send us in Jesus from a good God is of a good purpose for you and me and Maia. Human life isn’t just there – it’s a reflection of its Maker and its destined for its Maker since we come from God, we belong to God and we go to God.

This claim of God in Christ upon our lives is clear to one with faith, for how can what’s made not owe itself to its maker? Those seats have the mark of Maurice Emmans about them because he made them, the big one in Fr David Stonebanks day and the stools in my day. So with Maia, and you and I, we have the mark or, rather more than the mark, of our Maker about us – we have his very image.

Faith is an intuition, a special gift by which you know you bear that image. The image of Someone dependable beyond our sight, who’s been here before, and to whom there’s no unknown human contingency, however harsh it might be. Hope is simply faith as it looks to the future and both asking God to build his kingdom and seeking to cooperate with that work of building of justice, love and peace.

Our subtitle today is ‘God calls us to ask’. Just as Fiona and Anthony asked for and received Maia so they with us are called to pray day by day the Lord’s Prayer ‘hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done’. It’s all in that prayer! 

To be a Christian is to repent of your sins, believe in God who sent Jesus, ask for his possibilities to emerge – as Maia did for Fiona and Ant – and lastly to receive hope and assurance.

You know we don’t fully realise the significance attending worship has in forming up the virtue of hope. As Fiona and Ant gather with God’s people Sunday by Sunday, following in the footsteps of Ron and Joyce especially here at St Giles they will instill hope in their daughter, hope that’s uncharacteristic of an age that lives just for the sensations of the moment.

Rabbi Hugo Gryn was a child in Auschwitz when his father melted the precious margarine ration to light a Hanukkah candle. Hugo protested. His father said, ‘My child, we know you can live three days without water. You can live three weeks without food. But you cannot live for three minutes without hope.’

As Paul puts it at the end of today’s passage from Romans Chapter 8: In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

Live in hope. That is, live with an eye to what God is building through even the worst agonies of the world - and we think this morning of Ukrainian air disaster. This building of good from evil is expressed in Romans 8.22-23  which says, as we heard earlier, that we know the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved.

Tomorrow also is God’s. This we pray will be true for all the tomorrows of Anthony, Fiona and Maia. Fiona’s yesterdays are so linked with St Giles both through her parents and through her time at our School. At 18 she left the village for Southampton University where she did her nurse’s training. Ant’s work is as an IT infrastructure manager and it’s through his sister Sue, one of Fiona’s best friends from nursing, that the couple came together. They plan to seal their union in marriage. Meanwhile they gather with to celebrate the Christian hope for their daughter who’s full name is Maia Edie Tamar Alwyne Jeffers. The family live close to Fiona’s dad, Ron, one of our home Communicants, in a house they’ve called Joylands after Ron’s late wife,  Fiona’s mother Joyce who was a pillar of St Giles.

Maia’s baptism gains her entry to a second Joylands for that name sums up what I’ve been sharing. To live in hope is to live as you were made to live in God’s image with God’s presence beside you and, as we read in Psalm 16 verse 11 in God’s presence is the fullness of joy.

The Christian good news is that God has made us for that joy but sin has come into our lives as a spoiler. As we repent of our sin and put faith in Jesus the spoiler goes and we ask for and receive joyful unextinguishable hope.

Tomorrow also is God’s – for Maia, Ant, Fiona and all of us. If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  The friendship we have with God through Jesus is sealed in baptism and it sets us on the path of being agents with him of world transformation since through our action and prayer  the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

So be it – live in hope!

Now we reflect for a minute or so on what God’s been saying to us through his word this morning before moving into the baptism service.

Good news from a good God (2) 13th July 2014 A teaching series on the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans Chapters 7 and 8

This morning we move to the second of a four part sermon series this month on the letter to the Romans we’ve called Good news from a good God bringing an explanation of the Christian good news. Our subtitle today is ‘God calls us to believe’ and we’re building from last Sunday’s examination of ‘God’s call to repentance’. We thought then about Paul’s description in Chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans of our knowing what to do but not doing it, an insight from God’s Word that psychology reinforces. We saw how the Christian good news of God’s love offers what psychology will never be able to offer – opportunity  to repent, turn from our inadequacies to the source of grace and holiness which is in Jesus Christ.

In the Sunday lectionary we turn the page today from Romans 7 to Romans 8 which begins with one of the most assuring verses in scripture: There is … no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What a wonderful verse and how much we need to believe it!

Why should we believe it? Why should we believe Christians are saved from judgement? Verses 2 to 4 of Romans 8 explain all. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  

St Paul talks of three laws here – that of the Spirit, that of sin and death and that given through Moses, the Ten Commandments  which are up on the sanctuary walls by the high altar. The first two laws he speaks of set a contrast picked up throughout today’s passage between a way of blessing – that of the Spirit – and a way of disaster, that of sin and death. The third moral law has what Paul calls a just requirement which can’t be properly enforced on we who live according to the flesh under the law of sin and of death. As we saw last week from Romans 7 no way can our lives be made pleasing to God and free from condemnation by our own efforts but only by God’s grace which makes us acceptable in his Son Jesus Christ which is the good news from a good God.

Peake’s commentary on these initial verses of Romans 8 has this helpful summary: Moses’ law has right but not might; sin’s law has might but not right; the law of the Spirit has both right and might. God’s intervention involved ‘sending his own son’ into the human situation dominated by Sin, not to be contaminated by it but to decontaminate it, in a word to expose and overthrow the power of evil in its occupied territory.

I like that quotation. The law has rights over us but sin has might over us – the very conundrum we looked at last week. I do not do what I want Paul said repeatedly in Chapter 7. Now in Chapter 8 he shows great excitement about the Holy Spirit who has both rights over us and might to help us supply behaviour that’s right. As Saint Augustine – himself transformed by reading the letter to the Romans writes – give me the grace to obey what you command and command what you will.

The ongoing decontamination of our lives by Jesus Christ is good news from a good God. I know how far he’s got to go with me, but at least I have knowledge of what they call ‘a Man who can’.  When your computer is contaminated and the anti-virus has failed you have to take it to be decontaminated by ‘a man who can’ in Haywards Heath or wherever. You can’t deal with it yourself. So it is with the tendency to exalt self over God and neighbour and that deep seated pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth – remember ‘pale gas’, the mnemonic for the seven deadly sins. Our inner contamination requires external treatment through what Jesus does for us, which is spelled out in today’s Romans reading which ends with these words: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Think about those words. Do you believe them? That weekly act of receiving Holy Communion – do you see it for what it is, your decontamination and revitalisation?  This section of Romans 8 sets forth a great divide. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 

There is a great divide between living at a physical level, a life which evidently gets lost in physical death, and living at a spiritual level, in the power of the Holy Spirit, with a quality of life stronger than physical death through the power of Christ’s resurrection.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

The letter to the Romans, like most of New Testament writings, thrills with the perceived consequence of laying hold of the risen Lord Jesus Christ through faith and baptism, Jesus who gives life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells in us.

At every funeral in this Church we place the Paschal Candle besides the coffin as a sign of this and sprinkle the body with holy water as a reminder of the truth of our baptism - that the risen Christ’s indwelling gives life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit. How many of these celebrations ring true to the deceased? Inasmuch as our lives are in the orbit of the Church we have the opportunity to engage with Jesus Christ in word and sacrament. He in turn, throughout our lives, seeks to engage and draw forth the opening and offering of our hearts.

O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee we sing, but too often we are wording Christian faith.

I love this picture. It’s from St Paul’s Cathedral and it’s a call to faith. Holman Hunt’s Light of the world can be found in the north aisle chapel just off the Dome. It shows Jesus Christ standing before a symbol of the human heart, knocking on a door covered in ivy, a door without a handle – on the outside! The scripture text below it from Revelation 3:20 makes plain what Jesus Christ wants from you and I. came on earth it invites. Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.

The human heart, the centre of our being, is designed to open from the inside. Until it opens Jesus cannot come close nor can his Spirit come in to indwell us. To return to our passage, verses 9-10  you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 

As I invite you to read and ponder Romans Chapter 8 in the coming weeks I am pointing to good news that’s not only believable but transformative! Whenever we welcome Jesus and open the door to him his life pours into us, life that’s immortal and insuppressible for the life of Jesus will never be put down – it will never die.

That life is ours for the taking and it’s to be ours in Holy Communion this morning as we open our hearts to Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those who are called to his supper. Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word, and I shall be healed. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Good news from a good God (1) 6th July 2014 A teaching series on the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans Chapters 7 and 8

Good news from a good God is the title of a four part sermon series this month on Romans bringing an explanation of the Christian good news. We’ll be looking at the psychological insight of Romans 7 - I do not do the good I want – and the good news from Romans 8 which speaks of how we reach a place of no condemnation, look positively to the future and welcome the assurance that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God. The series will weave in for our application God’s call to repent, believe, ask and receive as four sub-headings.

This morning we read Romans 7.15-25 which began with a profound statement that must have rung true to each and every one of us. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. How is it that human beings know what’s right and are tortured by their failure to do so? I know I must speak well of all people, because all are loved by God and in his image, yet I get seduced into repeating negative assessments about them, what we call detraction. I know my life is animated by God, surrounded by his love, yet I act sometimes as if he weren’t there and didn’t care – and so on.

The letter to the Romans was written to engage exactly with this wretchedness, and the grace from above that frees us from it, the grace spoken of at the end of today’s second reading. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God … Jesus Christ our Lord!

We are talking this morning good news from a good God who knows our plight through and through – has lived in it and through it in Jesus – and whose all powerful goodness can operate in us if we repent and believe in him, ask him in and receive his assurance. This is a scene setting for four weeks of teaching on the basis of Christianity now we move on to look more closely at the letter to the Romans itself which Coleridge called the most profound work ever written.

In the New Testament it’s placed first after the historical accounts of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and before the earlier writings of Paul that deal with particular problems in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus and so on. The letter to the Romans is Paul’s credo written around 55AD to summarise 20 years reflection on the meaning of Jesus Christ. Paul is never an easy read – read through Romans with me in July but not in King James! Use a less poetic but more accessible translation. Be careful though. In reading and getting to grips with Romans you’re handling dynamite! Many who’ve read it – Augustine, Luther and so on – have had to press a reset button on their life.

The dynamite has two blasts and they concern law and history. Reading Romans challenges both that part of us that seeks to earn good will legalistically through good actions and that other part of us that’s deep down lost hope for the future of the world. Such is its power, the power of the Word of God no less, to reset our life and our hope.

The letter to the Romans says first of all that to reach into a right relationship with God is impossible from our side but that God has reached down to us in Jesus to lift us to his heights.  The righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith is banner heading of the letter, Chapter 1:17 saying we’re saved ultimately not by following laws but by welcoming grace.

The second blast of Romans is that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has rewritten the history of the world, making the church God’s new Israel so that the very destiny of the cosmos is tied in with that of God’s children and, as we read in Romans 8:21 the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Over the next four weeks the Sunday Lectionary covers Romans 7 and 8 which are the hinge of 16 Chapters on the good news of God’s goodness. Chapters 1 to 8 of Romans are theological – they are about God, the individual and the church and we will be reading Paul’s summary of these Chapters over the next month in Chapters 7 and 8. Chapters 9 to 11 reflect on the purpose of history, how the Church is the new Israel and how the old Israel will yet find a place in his plan. Chapters 12 to 15 are on Christian ethics, that is, on the practical application to our lives of the truth about God, law and grace, history and the church expounded in the first part of the letter.

So – to practical application this morning – with more thoughts on the section of Romans 7 you have in your service booklet. The passage is a profound reflection on our human condition. When Augustine read it he had the school of thought Lord, make me chaste, but not yet. Like us he knew of the good and evil within him and was complacent. We human beings know our worth, know what we can and might be, but we fall short of it and of the desire for it. To speak of our sinning is to speak as they do in archery of a life that falls short of its target. We know we’re made by God for community to love God and the community but with that knowledge comes the deep frustration of   distrust, or even at times hatred, of God and the community. For I do not do what I want, writes Paul in verse 15 of Chapter 7 but I do the very thing I hate. 

How can I please God? We live dangerously when we think our churchgoing or confirmation or ordination is what ultimately pleases him. It doesn’t displease him but its insufficient to give access to him in his holiness. ‘Lord you are the source of all holiness’ the priest says in the eucharistic prayer, going on to ask God in that holiness to make bread and wine holy for us. It is precisely that body and blood of Christ represented in bread and wine which can make us pleasing to God. The letter to the Hebrews says in Chapter 11 verse 6 that without faith it is impossible to please God. What pleases God is to be found in the body and blood of Jesus as Paul says in Ephesians 1:6-7 glorious grace [is] freely bestowed on us in the Beloved… [Jesus Christ in whom] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. The good news of the goodness of God to us is that though so different, awesome, immense and holy he thought to make us in his image so as to be transformed into his glory and be history makers.  To effect that plan for the future of the cosmos he needed to take our nature and provide sinners with a way into his holiness by incorporating us into the body of Jesus Christ that’s acceptable to God.

By uniting us to the sacrifice of Jesus, made present at this and every eucharist, God makes us acceptable in the Beloved, since, in the words of Romans 3:23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [but] are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This earlier teaching in Romans lies behind the end of today’s passage: Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God … Jesus Christ our Lord!

Read Romans 1 to 7 to get more insight into this need for God to take flesh in Jesus and so provide needful sacrifice for sin - but this morning I leave you with God’s call to repentance. You’ve read Paul’s description of our knowing what to do but not doing it, insight from God’s Word that psychology reinforces. With me accept what psychology will not be able to offer which is the call to repent, to turn from your inadequacy to the source of grace and holiness which is Christ in you – Christ who is coming to you in word and sacrament this morning. Repent, turn to him whose power in you is able to alleviate your wretchedness and work within you by his power to make your life pleasing to God who has made you for his glory.

Here’s a taster for you – but do pick up your bible in the coming week – a modern translation – and savour Romans! 

SS Peter & Paul & Guyana visit debrief 29th June 2014

The double commemoration of Peter and Paul represents two streams in church life, institutional and charismatic. As we heard in the holy Gospel Christ made Peter the ‘rock’ man of the institutional Church - you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church (Matthew 16:18). The papacy survives to this day and Anglicans look to its renewal for a primacy over the institutional Church. It is encouraging to see the good chemistry between our Archbishop and Pope Francis (show Tablet)

The Church of Rome, historically the leading authority in Christianity, has a double foundation as the graves of both Peter and Paul are in that city. Our second reading reminds us of the charismatic- evangelical stream of the church Paul speaks for with great passion. The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed he writes to his assistant Timothy (2 Timothy 4:17). Though Rome and the Reformation are put as opposites the foundation of the Roman Church has both Catholic and Evangelical patrons in SS Peter & Paul whose joint martyrdom we celebrate today. An evangelical papacy such as that of Pope Francis is an exciting recovery that has an effect upon the whole of Christendom.

I want to use that underlining of the institutional-charismatic or catholic-evangelical to frame a debrief of my visit to Guyana earlier this month and to point us forward as a church here at St Giles with our Mission Action Plan to grow in faith, love and numbers.

It was my sixth visit to Guyana following my term as theological college Principal 1987-1990 at Yupukari, where Anne and I were married, three return visits for Sabbaticals in1995, 2000 and 2007 and my last visit with Anne in 2010 just after Bishop Cornell's appointment. The visit three weeks ago included the honour of being formally installed as a Canon in St George's Cathedral following my appointment as the Bishop's UK Commissary last year.

Over the fortnight I was in Guyana I was able to visit the new Duke-Edwards Anglican School and present an illustrated greeting folder prepared by our own Beech Class to the children there, who presented me in return with folders of their work (at the back of Church) to help build links with our school. It was a pleasure to see the computer room stocked with machines and its assigned dedication to St Giles.

My visit was timed to coincide with the Synod of the Diocese which draws in once a year the interior clergy and lay leaders. Guyana is just above the equator and mainly jungle. Communications and travel is costly and difficult so we always make the most of the annual Diocesan Synod. I was able to attend part of the pre-Synod clergy and treasurers’ conference and two training days post-Synod for the new deacons. My first weekend I celebrated Mass on the east coast. My second weekend took me on a six hour jet boat journey over rapids up the Mazuruni to Issano to stay with Fr Allan Alfred and his people. I also said Mass at the Transfiguration Church in Georgetown where I stayed in the Rectory with a new privilege since last time - an air conditioned bedroom!

High point of the visit was the Pentecost Mass with Bishop Cornell that in word and song, dance and solemnity captured the institutional – charismatic tension of today’s feast. We had a successor of the apostles in his Cathedral, the largest wooden cathedral in the world, along with 500 folk much set alight and literally moving with the Holy Spirit. There was a blend of expectancy upon God to act with a caution to patient discernment in the life of church and nation: 'God desires to lead us but he will only do so when he is ready and on his terms...’ the Bishop said ‘it's time for us to tidy up our spiritual lives so we can walk in holiness and righteousness, saying yes to him and no to the devil'.

During Synod Mass I was installed as Canon. I had a second privilege in giving Holy Communion to the Prime Minister, Sam Hinds who is an Anglican. With me he heard the Bishop warn how forgetfulness of God was at the root of moral decay in Guyana. It was good to see some form of partnership between political leaders and the torch bearers of religious vision. Bishop Moss is a real torch bearer! At one point on my visit I heard him use an analogy from his love for Bluebell Railway of himself as an engine driver: When you hear the horn get on board because I'm out to move forward, not looking back as there's so much to do.

Synod meetings continued in a Georgetown hotel Monday to Wednesday at which I presented arguments for and against the ordination of women using a modification of the Rochester Report we used in Cuckfield deanery synod two years ago. Bishop Cornell plans to build from my presentation beyond the group sessions on it at synod by encouraging each Archdeaconry to reflect on female ordination before a vote next year. 

Once again I was aware of the institutional-charismatic creative tension here Guyana is seeking to resolve with reference to the three-legged stool which Anglicanism is built on: scripture, tradition and reason. The lack of Catholic consent for women bishops and priests tells significantly in the Diocese of Guyana, as it does for many of us in the Church of England, even if others see the Holy Spirit moving the whole church that way in the long term.

After Synod I sped by Jet Boat to Issano up the Essequibo River and then, over sometimes perilous rapids, up the Mazaruni to the hub of the mining industry in the heart of the rain forest. Formerly a peaceable Amerindian settlement the gold rush has taken all peace from Issano with loud music day and night from its bars and brothels where miners find solace. I trained the priest there, Fr Alan Alfred and baptised two of his ten children. It was a pleasure to catch up with everyone and sling my hammock in his home. I went down the road to send greetings to Anne via the wifi at - Di Di's bar – probably a brothel - and a rival to our Anglican music making at St Martin's Church which still stands well 40 years on, though the priest's house at its east end is dilapidated. 45 people came to Trinity Sunday Mattins and Mass after which there was a well taken up call to confession and prayer for the Holy Spirit. There are some 20 confirmation candidates awaiting the Bishop's visit. Well schooled in the Alleluia native Christian tradition of the middle Mazaruni Fr Allan incorporates their songs within the Anglican liturgy, as in a special incantation by a female member over men called to the altar that morning for a Father's Day blessing. (Play chant) Following reminders at Synod about care of buildings I appealed for help in restoring the priest's house, for more cohabiting couples to welcome marriage and for vocations to the sacred priesthood.

Talking to people in the village I became aware of how most village dogs had been recently eaten by a tiger from the forest, as well as how many villagers had lost tomatoes and maize from their farms following raids by local monkeys. Over my visit Fr Allan took me on a tour to Mararbusi waterfall and we went round a typical gold mine. I praised God for Immodium, the priest's Godsend, effective counter to what the locals call 'loose belly'!

On my return to Georgetown I led training for three new deacons on parish management, sermon preparation and organising structured bible studies at Diocesan Office. I was able to pick up with life on the coastal strip where most Guyanese live. Things always seem to be looking up visit by visit with individuals more and more part of the connected generation with mobile phones all over as well as wifi. I manage a Facebook group for Guyana Diocesan Association involving over 100 including many young people in Guyana who made themselves known to me directly over my visit – do join up! Over my visit I conducted the Last Rites for a lady I have known for 28 years in the presence of her son and with her daughter on speaker phone from New York. Guyanese are stretched, at times painfully, right across the world. It is this diaspora, caused by the historic difficulties of living in the developing nation of Guyana, that GDA cares for and builds from.

Since our last visit in 2010 I saw there’d been significant progress in the Diocese, which our funding through GDA has impacted, progress both in the development of structures and in the drawing in of personnel that make for new buoyancy in the Diocese. The momentum of this has not been too affected by the Bishop's recent indisposition from which, God be praised, he is slowly but surely recovering. Unfortunately for St Giles a decision has been made to shorten his UK tour which takes out his visit advertised in P&P for 8th-9th July.

My visits to coastal parishes gave me a sense of a vital membership and of how derelict buildings are being restored. The Cathedral restoration - I met with the new Dean Fr Andy Carto - is advancing well with the east end completed and somehow symbolising the spiritual renewal that is abroad in the Diocese as a whole.

The joint celebration of SS Peter and Paul represents two streams in church life, institutional and charismatic. In Guyana I saw how the apostolic teaching ministry of Bishop Cornell and the institutional development of the Diocese, with its new structures of accountability for property and finance, are being balanced by a revitalising of the laity, not least the youth. As I left I was aware of plans for the annual camp involving 400 young people and all the churches I visited had a good number of young people attending and serving at the altar.

Though Bishop Cornell is returning to Guyana early there is still a chance for you to meet with him if you want to join Anne and I in travelling to St John the Divine, Kennington on Saturday week 5^th July to be with him for the Guyana Diocesan Association Festival. We also have opportunity to give to Guyana Diocesan Association through the two monthly charitable collection on 27^th July. Do take and return an orange envelope from the back of Church to serve this.

The two streams in church life, institutional and charismatic were evident to me in Guyana and they’re evident here at St Giles. We’re an institution ten times older than the Diocese of Guyana with an ordered structure – bishop, priest, PCC and so on – that complements the charismatic-evangelical elements of vitalisation flowing from the spiritual formation of each and everyone of our members. We have a Mission Action Plan as you know – or should know – to grow in faith, love and numbers. Last week at 10 o’clock we saw a number of baptism families back among us through the work of a group that invited them and prepared an imaginative all age eucharist. Next on that plan is Back to Church Sunday 13^th July about which we’ll hear more later. St Giles, like the papacy and the Diocese of Guyana, is a structure always in need of revitalisation.

Praise God with St Peter this morning for order and structure in God’s Church! Praise God with St Paul for the revitalising that comes generation by generation in answer to prayer and mission action!

Peter and Paul pray for us, for the Diocese of Guyana that Bishop Cornell be upheld with his people and for St Giles Church, Horsted Keynes, its priest, PCC and buildings as well as its spiritual revitalisation and evangelistic outreach!

May those living without a sense of purpose or belonging come to find with us, in Horsted Keynes or Guyana, the purpose and belonging to be found in Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory now and for ever. Amen.

Baptism of Edward Barblett, Annabel & Jack Speakman 18th May 2014

Our two scripture readings set for this morning's Eastertide eucharist are about building and travelling which are metaphors of both Christianity and of life in general.

‘Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house’ says St Peter to those new in faith in what was probably like this morning a sermon at a baptismal eucharist.

‘In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places – [literally staging posts]’ Jesus says in the Gospel of St John Chapter 14. ‘I go and prepare a place for you...I am the way, and the truth and the life’.

We need in life both a sense of belonging and purpose. These come for Edward and the twins from mum and dad but, most importantly, from where mum and dad place themselves and from the journey they're on.

For the record Claire and David are literally placed very accessibly in Rose Cottage on the Green. Sandy and Lisa are down at Medhurst farm which is more of a hidden treasure. I need to watch my way in and out of the main road!

Both sets of parents see themselves as part of that vast family extending in space across the world and in time down 20 centuries which is God's forever family, the 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic church'.

Talking of crossing the world we welcome visitors from Australia to support the Bartletts and Claire’s dad from New York. What an eventful year Claire and David have had with a move from London coupled to discovering she was pregnant then discovering there’d be twins! Claire speaks of Annabelle and Jack as a double blessing as she, with David enjoys the privilege and task of parenthood. For Lisa and Sandy there is a also deep gratitude for the gift of Edward for whom they’ve been waiting many years.

Both sets of parents are enjoying a new sense of belonging in our village which this morning extends into the church family here at St Giles. ‘Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house’ says St Peter. It is our prayer that they will find here a house of prayer that will kindle a sense of spiritual belonging which goes beyond the material order of things.

Three of the four parents are very involved in one material – oil! David as a ship broker is involved in moving oil. Sandy is company director of an oil company and Lisa finance director for a firm specialising in oil and gas. Claire’s work is in policy at the Department of Education.

Our readings speak of belonging and they speak of purpose. The Christian religion is supremely purposeful, it speaks of the universal purpose of all things and the best way of ordering them. It is as concerned with corporate finance and the best use of oil as it is with families, with encouraging the best use of our strengths in the workplace as well as the charity that begins and ends at home.

As I welcome relatives of the baptism candidates from the Roman Catholic tradition I am mindful of a key agency of that Church across the world, namely the Society of St Vincent de Paul which does a noble work among disadvantaged people. Its founder, the early 19^th century French scholar and journalist Frederick Ozanam had a passion both to engage with ideas dismissive of the Church and to help lead a fuller consecration of Christians in service. In his writings on how Christian civilisation transformed the barbarians he countered Edward Gibbons’ claim that the Church has done more to enslave than to elevate the human mind. Rather like Karl Marx Ozanam saw that understanding the world was no less important than changing it to where it should be, and the foundation of the caring agency SVP, the Society of St Vincent de Paul is his legacy. This is my favourite quote from Frederick Ozanam:  ‘The question which divides men today is whether Society will be merely an immense exploitation for the benefit of the strongest or a consecration of everyone for the service of all’.

The sense of belonging and purpose we’re baptising Edward, Annabelle and Jack into this morning is allied with that vision which I know, from talking to them, that their parents own, a sense of life lent not possessed, lent ideally for work in God’s praise and service. Without that sense of service families, churches, nations and corporates fall short through exploitation. ‘From each according to his ability to each according to their need’ is another aspiration from a French source popularised by Marx which draws, as Ozanam does, on the sharing of goods that occurred in the early Church, and on and off ever since in Christian circles. I think of the gifts that arrive in the porch for Chichester Diocesan Family Support Work.

Today St Giles stands with Sandy and Lisa, David and Claire as they commit their children to the purposeful belonging which is Christianity. Their own gifts are already being employed to make a difference across the world and today will see a reconsecration of their strengths as they commit themselves to God on behalf of their children.

For these children we can have little idea of the work that lies ahead for them in 20 years time. At last week’s School Governors we were looking carefully at the New Curriculum from September this year. It has computer programming from the start of school life, something my son is doing at university!

At the start of my own scientific career Oxford University had one computer which was a whole house on the Banbury Road programmed by uniquely qualified technicians. I remember the wonder of getting it to print President Kennedy and Diana Dors out of noughts and crosses! Or getting a print out of the weather forecast! Now those unique computer programmers in a designated computer house have given way to every child a computer programmer and everyone a computer carrier (show iPhone)

Times change but values don’t inasmuch as they’re anchored in the age old truth of the God who loves us and calls us to his praise and service. At the heart of the baptism service is an affirmation of this truth which has such an impact on we who’ve woken up to it. Claire, David, Lisa and Sandy are here with their children out of gratitude to a loving God who’s privileged them to be parents. Our service affirms God’s love in Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth and the life. It affirms the best start in life for Annabelle, Jack and Edward. Even the prohibitions their parents will have to serve on them will be coloured by this sense of surrounding love. When scripture says ‘you shall not covet or steal or bear false witness’ its emphasis is on you rather than not.  

Because you are loved and precious to me…whatever: that phone doesn’t go under your pillow when you’re 12! Because you are loved you belong with people who worship: Sunday Club is fun because church is fun. Because you are loved by God he has given you ethical boundaries so that your relationships will be flourishing and not destroying. Etc, etc

Today is a new day in so many senses – new every morning is the love our waking and uprising prove – a new day opening up new possibilities in new lives and renewed possibilities in we more seasoned operators. Come, Holy Spirit, bless these children and all of us who stand by them!  

Easter 3 4th May 2014

Over my Easter break I enjoyed reading Shirley du Boulay's 'The Silent Melody', a personal memoir of spiritual formation stretching back to the 1960s. It served for me as aide memoire so I found something of a reflection of my own soul's journey in its mirror.

The last half century has seen the decline of Christianity in our land, a greater sense of the other faiths it stands alongside and many new movements expressing interest in spirituality.

Through her production of religious programmes for the BBC Shirley du Boulay chronicled much of this, notably in her encounter with the Beatles when they met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Her book recalls her struggle to be a Roman Catholic and her commitment to inter faith engagement which has had major impact on her spiritual development.

I valued her story despite its conclusion - she is no longer a church member! I was blessed by much of the insight she provides in a well written book which has insight from her previous biographies of among others Dame Cicely Saunders and Desmond Tutu.

Shirley du Boulay starts her book dismissing what she calls 'Anglican vague broadmindedness' but she ends with something very much broader! She struggles with the variety of faiths, their evident spiritual fruitfulness and how that challenges obedience to any one of them.

What I found most interesting were her quotations from Gregory of Nazianzen, Thomas Traherne and others on the ultimate unknowability of God and how spiritual seekers can be united in such, I use invented commas, 'faith'.

The Christian tradition does acknowledge unknowability in God but it holds this in tension with his knowability in Jesus Christ through his Church. Her book blessed and humbled me, but saddened me in the erosion of Christian commitment it documents, and what I would call her very 'subjective' approach to God.

This is my lead in to the beautiful Gospel reading about the risen Lord's appearance to Cleopas and his companion on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. If ever there was a passage that affirmed the 'objectivity' of the presence of God in Christ it's this one from the pen of St Luke, Chapter 24 verses 13 to 35.

While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. This was to change - their subjective reflections on Easter weekend were to be enriched, augmented and challenged by discovering the objective presence of the Lord right there before them.

Luke's vivid narrative reflects the pattern of Christian worship both early and late so that the Lord Jesus is encountered objectively in two ways - the explaining of scripture and the breaking of bread.

What we are about this morning, what Shirley du Boulay sadly absents herself from nowadays, is engaging through preaching and sacrament with something or someone outside of ourselves who first appeared in this fashion to Cleopas and his companion on Easter Sunday.

Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures Luke records. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”...and, Luke concludes '(They told the eleven) how the Lord Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Any relationship we have has a subjective and objective side apart of course from the rather ambiguous relationship we have with ourselves.

Through friendship and marriage others become our intimates, standing away from us yet near to us, so our subjective thoughts of them are balanced by their objective presence and communication to us. In the Christian religion talk of that balance of subjective and objective can still be used, even though God is no object we can see, handle or contain. As Shirley du Boulay affirms in her book God is beyond our being as 'the ground of our being'.

When God sent his Son Jesus Christ he was showing us his love objectively, that is outside of ourselves. Christ died, rose and passed into the sacraments so we encounter God from Easter on through the physical order primarily in the words of Scripture we hear and read and in the breaking of the eucharistic bread as well as in personal prayer and Christian fellowship.

Our relationship with God in Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with both a subjective and an objective side. God is 'in' me but God also stands 'away from' me, over against me, guiding me, loving me, chiding me.

What disturbs me about so much so-called New Age spirituality, in which Shirley has been immersed, is its reduction of the transcendent God to being like 'the genie in my lamp'. There is a loss of vision and a reduction or even domestication of God.

Some of my most telling encounters with God have been more like those of Cleopas, encounters coming from outside of myself from scripture, eucharist or in one case the leaves on a tree, that have woken me up to get going once more to serve God's way, which is a way beyond me taking me out of myself.

When we come to Church to worship we're reminded by the faith of those around us what we believe is part of something bigger. In hearing the sermon we see the words of the Bible striking us, exciting a fuller vision of God. In participating in the offering, blessing and consuming of bread and wine we meet God at a visceral level.

The road to Emmaus is my road, your road, week by week, as it was Cleopas' road that first Easter. It's a road where our subjective sense of God is built up healthily, as in any relationship, by encounter with God the awesome Friend who walks beside us.

This relationship, as our service reminds us, isn't just one-to-one. It is knowing the love of Christ, as Paul explains to the Ephesians, having the power to comprehend, with all the saints (with the whole church) ... the breadth and length and height and depth of his love that surpasses knowledge and fills us with all the fullness of God.

May Our Lord bless us as week by week he speaks to us through his word and comes to be our Food in the eucharist!

May our subjective perception of God expand and deepen through encounter with his objective presence we find here, where two or three are gathered together in his name, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all glory and honour henceforth and for evermore. Amen.