Welcoming church project launch Christ the King 22nd Nov 2015

Jesus Christ loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father. Revelation 1:5b

A welcoming Lord – a welcoming people – a welcoming church

God loves and welcomes us sinners at great cost to himself.  That welcome is good news we can’t keep to ourselves. It shapes our lives, our fellowship and our building.

The Feast of Christ the King 2015 is an end and a beginning. It ends the Church’s year with a flourish and points to a new phase in the life of St Giles.

In response to the diocesan invitation for parishes to seek a mission focus for 2016 St Giles PCC has decided to revisit building an annex on Church with lavatories to improve access to our worshipping community. This follows consultation with villagers, including Friends of Horsted Keynes Church. The annex project will be promoted as part of a welcoming church focus from Advent 2015 allied to the Bishop of Chichester’s Year of Mercy.

I’ve just read out what we sent to the Archdeacon and this morning’s about getting us on board with the PCC plan that I’m addressing under three headings: A welcoming Lord – a welcoming people – a welcoming church

Thoughts on each heading starting with A welcoming Lord

Jesus Christ loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood we heard. Bishop Martin in announcing the Diocese joining with the Roman Catholic Diocese in keeping the Year of Mercy invited by Pope Francis quotes Church Father Ignatius of Antioch saying ‘Jesus is the door to the Father’s mercy’. The coming church year has an invitation for us to catch fresh glimpses of Jesus who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood. Jesus who is ‘door to the Father’s mercy’

A welcoming Lord – a welcoming people – a welcoming church

Secondly this coming year we’ll be looking at how we as a congregation can reimagine our ministry and make more contribution to the common good. Once again Bishop Martin: Fundamental to re-imagining ministry is the recognition that all Christians by virtue of our baptism have a share in the ministry of Christ as we are called into the life in Christ and empowered with gifts by the Holy Spirit.  The question for us is how can we bring God’s compassion and mercy to bear upon the different contexts and situations that we find ourselves?  Whether in the supermarket or on the railway station, at work or walking the dog, in all the different places we find ourselves over the course of the week there are abundant opportunities if we are alive to them to be conduits for God’s grace and mercy.

The sense of being used by God is at the heart of what the Year of Mercy might be about, especially when we consider prayer, action and fund raising towards the migrant crisis, also addressed by Bishop Martin in conjunction with building understanding in the world: Being compassionate and merciful is about breaking down the barriers of mistrust and suspicion that can exist between us.  It is about emerging from our well defended opinion and views and engaging with generosity with the view- points and perspectives of others. Paris cries out for that more surely than it does for military action even if we can’t fully discount the latter.

A welcoming Lord – a welcoming people – a welcoming church

Thinking about the third heading now, what we glimpse of the Lord Jesus, and how we as his people get energised in ministry, has implications for our use and development of our church building.

The PCC’s decision to revisit building an annex on Church with lavatories to improve access to our worshipping community was made days before I attended the clergy meeting at which the Bishop announced the Year of Mercy. As I left I told him we’d have to rebrand the annex as building the throne of mercy!

Over the last 7 years as parish priest I’ve dealt with many seeking such mercy on this hill with the help of the School Head or the Rector’s tree! Last Sunday was an instance. Someone who’d driven a long way to the baptism arrived desperate and we had to find the school key as quick as we could for her. Over my 7 years we've held two congregational vision days both of which placed the provision of toilets at St Giles high on our wish list. Along with parking and heating these are seen as basic to being a welcoming church for however welcoming people see the Lord and however friendly they see his people a church without a toilet is profoundly unwelcoming in the 21^st century. The coming year will see progress towards shaping up and financing the north annex project through a steering group led by Martin Govas.

A welcoming Lord – a welcoming people – a welcoming church

That’s what we’re looking for at St Giles especially in the coming year.We want the welcoming church project to open doors for people into this congregation and into the church across Sussex. The Bishop writes: This opening of the doors of our hearts and minds is key for our growth in recognising the mercy and compassion of God.  This will be celebrated in a practical way.  The start of the Year of Mercy will be marked by the opening of a door, which is not usually used, in Chichester Cathedral.  This will happen on 6 December at 3.30pm in the context of Cathedral Evensong. 

There will be opportunity to link what’s launched today to the Cathedral through a visit there during the coming year with entry through then mercy door.

Today we look to that mercy from Jesus Christ who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father. To him be glory and eternal dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Trinity 24 15th November 2015

What does it take to reduce someone to tears?

On Friday in Bristol Judge James Dingemans broke into tears after sentencing the couple who killed schoolgirl Becky Watts to a combined total of 50 years in jail. Father of three James paid public tribute to the family of Becky for the dignified way in which they conducted themselves throughout proceedings. "Hearing the evidence during the trial has been difficult for anyone, but it is plain that it has been an immense burden for the family." It was for him as well in a merciful humanity allied to leading judicial process.

What does it take to reduce someone to tears?

Thousands of relatives of the 120 killed, together with those maimed or traumatised in Paris by terrorists, lead weeping across the world today, tears of mourning and desolation.

Jesus wept is the shortest sentence in the Bible. Would that those who afflicted Parisians in the name of God could see how the living and true God sees their actions! Their God is no God but a demon of compulsion. They dishonour , grieve and, I dare to add, bring tears to the God and Father of Jesus whom we worship this morning.

What does it take to reduce someone to tears?

In the last week ministering closely to people in great pain has brought me into tears as I’ve seen husband and wife dealing with a relentless trial.

Sometimes of late I've been brought to tears with parents struggling with the drug scene snaring their children, or the relentless work load of parents that’s damaging  a family.

I see God as the ultimate parent and no way as the absent Father many might think he is in the light of, say, yesterday’s carnage done in the name of religion.

Yes, physics accepts in a way it never did so clearly that the universe had a beginning 14 thousand million years ago in the Big Bang so God is a possibility. As Einstein said, ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ Does matter really come before mind or is it in fact the other way round so we’re given minds not only to explore the world but to understand the Mind that put us here?

Yes, if we think about it, you and I are evidence for God. There’s something about us and our ability to shelve our own interests for others as many are doing through the French tragedy  that points beyond the animal kingdom. When we show love we’re showing something beyond this world, what has been called the image of God in us.

But, how can a loving God exist who allows carnage such as we saw on Friday night. I can’t answer. I can quote theologian Tim Keller ‘If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, …you have….a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know... you can’t have it both ways’. That’s an intellectual approach suited to one of the writers best at putting Richard Dawkins in his place, but it’s no answer to those seeing loved ones enjoying a concert shredded to death.

I see God like Judge Dingemans as just and merciful. He is the ultimate parent keeping boundaries,  grieving transgressions, treating us far better than we are, at the cost of tears, and holding our long term benefit always before him. He’s no absent Father but came to us in the person of his Son to suffer and die for us. As the writer of Hebrews expresses it in our first reading Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.

God knows first-hand what human life’s like. There’s nothing we have to suffer he hasn’t entered through Jesus.

I can’t answer the problem of human suffering but I can point to the Answerer who expects no agony of us he’s not prepared to go through himself and make it a way to glory. In C.S.Lewis’s words, ‘Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn…agony into a glory’.

The first reading spoke of Christ’s love offering on the Cross and went on to invite us ‘to provoke one another to love and good deeds’.

The greatest distortion of Christianity in our age is that it’s a scolding, harassing creed that targets those who fall short. It’s actually the very opposite of that false perception. We hold to a Saviour who wants the best for us and gives us that best by loving it into us and not forcing it in. ‘Love is patient;’ says St Paul. ‘Love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way’.‘God is patient; God is kind; God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. God does not insist on his own way’.

Our love for God expressed in the commitments implied in baptism comes out of his love for us, his readiness to treat us not as the sinners we are but as the beloved daughters and sons of God we are called to be.

May God’s love be poured afresh into our hearts through this eucharist  for a world that is needy as ever for love that will cover its sins.

Remembrance Sunday 8am 8th November 2015

Today is Remembrance Sunday when we remember all those people who died in the World Wars for which the poppy is our visual reminder.

In the early part of the 20th century, the fields of France and Belgium were filled with red poppies. The flowers grew in the same fields where many soldiers lost their lives fighting in World War I.

John McCrae was a Canadian surgeon in the First World War. He wrote poetry and produced a famous poem called "In Flanders Fields". The day before he wrote this one of John's closest friends was killed and buried in a grave decorated with only a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were already blooming between the crosses that marked the graves of those who were killed in battle.

"In Flanders Fields" was first published in December, 1915 in England's "Punch" magazine. Within months it became the most popular poem about the First World War. Many people felt the poem symbolised the sacrifices made by all those who participated in World War I. Here it is

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Today we remember that out of that sadness and terrible events there must be a longing for peace and that we should all work to make everyone's lives peaceful.

There is another sign mentioned in the poem besides that of the poppy. It’s that of the cross which is placed over graves to remind people of the sacrifice of Jesus and his victory over death.

During the First World War a British Soldier fought in one of the trenches in the Somme surviving 4 years of World War between 1914 and 1918 to return to his native Yorkshire.

He took with him a spent brass shell case from the trench of the Somme. In his spare time he took that case and moulded it into a crucifix, an image of the Cross of Jesus.

Years later I was to meet his daughter who gave me the same crucifix when I visited her in her old age in Doncaster.

Here it is - a very special cross given me thirty years ago by a miner's widow.

A cross made from a shell to show God's love.

A cross made from a weapon of destruction to hold Jesus our crucified Saviour.

I keep it on my desk to remind me of Jesus as the One who can turn the raw material of our lives, with all its pain and sorrow, into a thing of beauty, just as the brass shell became this crucifix.

Through the cross of Jesus we know God has overcome the worst things in the world that can ever come against us – sin, fear, doubt, disease, even death – all these powers are overcome.

Jesus, the Son of God, has been through the darkest valley so I know that there is nothing God and I together cannot overcome in this world or the next.

So on Remembrance Sunday we’re asking God to give help to the living and rest to the departed, peace to the earth and heavenly life to men and women.

There are few more concise and beautiful prayers than the one carved on the outside wall of Westminster Abbey which is particularly appropriate on Remembrance Sunday.

I end by reading this prayer:

May God grant to the living grace, to the departed rest, to the church and the world peace and concord and to us sinners eternal life.

All Saints Day Sunday 1st November 2015

If Christianity is vitalising that’s not why we’re in it. We’re in it for the praise and service of God. Vitalisation comes with the territory.

You’re vitalised by the friends you keep and being friends with Jesus fills your spirit with unalterable youth.

Our first two readings for All Saints Day speak of heaven using the symbol of Mount Zion the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem innumerable angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven (Hebrews 12:22-23 with this from 2 Esdras 2:43), In their midst was a young man of great stature, taller than any of the others, and on the head of each of them he placed a crown, but he was more exalted than they.  

In such words centring on their risen Lord Jesus early Christians spoke of communion and fellowship in the mystical body of … Christ … and the inexpressible joys … prepared for those who truly love God.

We’re a society passionate for inclusion but the inclusion we’re talking about today comes from the unalterable newness of Jesus that reaches beyond death to knit together a mystical body ignorant of mortality.

Christians don’t age or die in spirit. They’re kept young, in the prime of joy, by the most precious and meaningful and awesome reality – I mean the age and death defying Lord Jesus.

The church bell rang 33 times this morning as it does before every service because at that age death encountered the Lord Jesus. ‘Who is that young man who is placing crowns on them and putting palms in their hands?’ He answered and said to me, ‘He is the Son of God, whom they confessed in the world.’ So I began to praise those who had stood valiantly for the name of the Lord. (2 Esdras 2:46-47)

I don’t see God as an old man white a white beard sitting on a cloud – do you? I see him in the 33 year old youth and power of Jesus and in the saints. If I see God in the weak Babe of Bethlehem and the powerless figure on the Cross, in solidarity with the weak and powerless, I see him ultimately in the ring a ring of roses youthful dance of heaven where God’s joy is written large in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn.

It’s the first day of November, month of holy souls, when in the northern hemisphere falling leaves are reminders of mortality. In the southern hemisphere trees are blossoming. Life on earth has such cycles and they’re pointers to a higher realm, revealed to us by Jesus Christ, recorded in Bible and creed and celebrated at the eucharist, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. That realm runs above and counter to the joylessness of materialism, false religion and scepticism none of which come near God.

You can’t know God exists without joy and joy’s the sign you’ve come near to him. You can’t imagine heaven without joy - that is our destiny, to enjoy God forever with all the saints.

If you think about why you’re in Church this morning you won’t have to think long before identifying holy souls who’ve helped shape your active faith. They’re in our past and they’re among us now, in very surprising places. In recent weeks I’ve found quiet joy visiting church members in the harshest of circumstances. It was to people in such circumstances, theirs linked to persecution,  that the 1^st century authors of Hebrews and 2 Esdras were inspired by God to write with reassurance about the world to come. Today’s liturgical celebration is given to write that reassurance large.

In the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 5 we have the secret of eternal youth from the lips of the Son of God. Jesus announces attitudes that pave the way to possessing unalterable joy with all the saints saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… those who mourn… the meek… those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... the merciful…  pure in heart…  peacemakers and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3-10)

These qualities aren’t so much rules or doctrines to grasp but a line by line description of how you live real. To live real you need undeceiving by the world, the flesh and the devil, by a media which at times says the very opposite to what Christ says of the triumph of humility, meekness, purity and enduring humiliation for the truth’s sake. People with these qualities are our best teachers on the route to holiness. They reveal the Lord’s reality and all we are considering today about heaven is based on that and nothing less.

Christianity’s a revelation more than it’s an explanation of what’s real. Like our spire it points beyond the pursuits of this world to what’s real, to the inexpressible joys … prepared for those who truly love God.

Do you truly love God? That’s the challenge in today’s gospel. Without setting your heart as Jesus says, with his help and for his glory, that love isn’t true. You know, it’s the sort of ‘I love me and want you God’ sort of love not found among the meek, merciful or poor in spirit.

Archbishop Robert Leighton, a pastor of great unselfishness, who in 1684 was buried here wrote If you ask, ‘how shall I do to love?’ I answer, ‘believe.’ If you ask, ‘how shall I believe?’ I answer, ‘love.’ ‘Believe, and you shall love; believe much, and you shall love much. Leighton preached in this very spot and wrote on the subject of sanctity we address on All Saints day: The journey we are engaged in is indeed great and the way uphill; but the glorious prize which is set before us, is also great, and our great and valiant Captain who has long ago ascended up on high, supplies us with strength.

Robert Leighton sensed as many Christian teachers sense today that the issue for humanity is nothing more or less than the supernatural and that the denial of the supernatural is ultimately dehumanising. In other words human beings can’t go it alone and never were meant to go it alone. We have within us our own unmaking and ageing to death in our pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth. We can have though, also within us, if we invite him, the supernatural power of our re-making and revitalising  through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

God who is in us is greater than the evil inside of us writes St John (1 John 4:4b). Believe it! Be loosened from sin’s shackles! Let the youthful exuberance of Jesus shine forth within you to counter inner tiredness for as Isaiah prophesies those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.(Isaiah 40:31)

Saints of God, come to our aid, lend us your prayers, that we may truly love God and make God loved in this place!

At your prayers and ours may St Giles grow in faith, love and numbers into the unalterable youthfulness of Jesus, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and for ever. Amen.

Bible Sunday 8am 25th October 2015

Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Ephesians 6.17b

It’s Bible Sunday. This morning we have a reminder that there are really two tables at which we feast on Christ: the table of the Word of God and the table of the Blessed Sacrament.

Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God our Saviour said as he was strengthened by the memory of his Father’s word in the desert. All scripture is breathed out by God, Paul says to Timothy, scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 

Christians believe in the Bible, because we believe in its ultimate authorship.  It contains the promises of God which cannot fail. We believe in the Bible out of love for its ultimate author.  The words of scripture are there because Jesus is the Word of God through whom all things were made.  The scriptures bless us. The Holy Spirit who inspired their writing can inspire us as we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them. 

Yet, sad to say, without the Holy Spirit who leads the church forward into all truth (John 16:13) the scriptures fall on deaf ears. 

The Bible is God’s Word in our words.  It’s also the family album of the church tracing God’s action back to our first days. Christians believe in the Bible but look to the church to guide them to its truth.            

                                                           

What about the factual errors and inconsistencies people say they find in the Bible?  We don’t need to defend the Bible here because we have God’s promise that it contains the truth necessary for our salvation.  This doesn’t make the Bible, for example, a science text book because it addresses the why questions more than the how questions in life. 

Approached with humility the Bible brings spiritual encouragement.  Approached with argumentative pride it presents a different picture.  Christians believe the Bible can’t be mistaken as it presents the good news of Jesus to honest seekers.     

It’s true there are difficult passages. Mark Twain said pointedly it wasn’t the passages of the bible he didn’t understand that troubled him so much as the passages he did understand! On Bible Sunday we salute God’s word and pledge to heed it more profoundly with our lives.

People mention sometimes the violence in the Bible especially parts of the Old Testament.  The church uses these passages carefully and only in the light of Christ who fulfils the Old Testament.  The sacrifices offered in the Old Testament point towards the meaning of the Cross as the fulfilment of the scriptures. 

When we say as we shall say in a moment ‘on the third day he rose again’ we add ‘in accordance with the scriptures’. Without the framework of God’s dealings with Israel in the Bible the Christ of the Gospels would be a beautiful picture but one without a frame.  His entry into history would be one unprepared and unexpected.

Through the Bible God’s people welcome this frame for all that Jesus stands for as well as the word and promises of God that bring power and direction into the life of the church.

If the Bible is to do its work in us, then the starting point is to somehow get the words of the Bible into us. Once God’s word is in our lives it can start to challenge our values and opinions, to set off the process Paul calls ‘the renewing of your mind’ so that we will not ‘conform’ ourselves to this world, but let God 'transform' us (Romans 12.2).

So what can we do to get more into the Bible and more of the Bible into us?

You could make it the basis for a daily or maybe occasional special prayer time. Dedicate a time. It needn’t be first thing in the morning or last thing at night. It could be part of your lunchtime routine, a spiritual refresher. Choose a portion for study, maybe Mark’s Gospel which takes an hour and a half in total to read for an average reader. Don’t beat yourself up about it if you miss a few days. If reading the Bible is difficult, why not buy one of the readily available CD or MP3 recording and listen to that? Or find a website to browse.

You have the texts of the Sunday readings to take away each week with the thoughts on them given by the preacher. If you miss Church on a Sunday you can check the church website for the readings and sermon. This is an opportunity to thank our new web editor Judith Bowron and her back up, Sarah Howland for work on keeping the site updated week by week.

There are some bibles in the lectern if people want to use them when they come to pray in Church. Each of us, or each family, should ideally have a bible, maybe one or two bibles in traditional and modern translations. The New Revised Standard or New International Version are in wide use. There is also a very popular American paraphrase called The Message that folk are finding helpful. Buying a new modern translation can be a helpful tool to awaken us to the meaning of the original text, the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament.

You could subscribe to Bible study notes. I have listed some resources in the news sheet. Or you could join the new home study group on three Wednesday evenings in November on Luke’s gospel led by Deacon David at the Johnsons down Cheeleys. We also have the Thursday 1.30pm Life and Faith discussion group which does some bible study and there’ll be more group Bible study planned during the coming year especially in Lent.

In all of these ways we can develop our understanding of how to apply the teaching of God and his church in today’s world through reflecting on what the Bible says and how best to respond in our situation.

Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Let’s reflect for a few moments on what the bible is saying to us in today’s Prayer Book lectionary and what we can do to live lives more open to the word of God through our daily devotion.

Trinity 18 29th Week (B) What Jesus does for us 18 October 2015

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. 

Harvest Festival 8am 11th October 2015

This Sunday our theme is one of thanks for the fruits of the earth – our harvest festival.

We’re showing our gratitude to God by giving to others. As we gather round the Lord’s table this morning we do so with produce that will support families in need across Sussex and address, by financial gifts in the orange envelopes, the food shortages in East and West Africa.

Do not worry about your life says the harvest gospel reading from Matthew 6.25.

This morning on Harvest Festival the Church reminds us that our whole life, past, present and future is in God's hands. To be truly grateful is to believe that God is in control of our lives and the life of the world.

A Christian is someone who at the best of times is able to see the hand of God behind everything. We have faith to see that we come from God, belong to God, go to God.

25 years ago I served as Theological College Principal training up Amerindian priests. In the indigenous communities of Guyana parishioners live ‘around the cooking pot’.  Money is in use, but much of the economy relies on age-old barter from hunting, fishing and handicraft. Harvest festival was the main source of income for the church.

Anne and I well remember the harvest festivals in the church at Yupukari where we were married in and in which we first worshipped together. I recall one where a sheep was tethered to the altar and was slaughtered afterwards so that the village ate meat afterwards for the first time in weeks.

Do not worry about your life the Lord says.

In the deep rain forest of Guyana the natives may have less possessions but they have few worries. When I was planning a week’s trip up river to a remote mission I could ask my boatman to take me at very short notice. It took him five minutes to pack - a toothbrush, a bar of soap and a spare pair of underpants was all he needed with his hammock. I took far longer to gather my tackle - mosquito net, insect repellent, books to read, torches, toilet paper (they used leaves), tins of food, sun hat, mass kit, vestments, short wave radio for the BBC World Service..the list could go on!

The Indians tell a tale of the Amazon a few hundred miles south of Guyana. There was a shipwreck off the Brazilian Coast and some of the men managed to survive on a life raft. They drifted for two weeks by which time they were pretty well dying of thirst. Eventually they encountered a boat and were hauled aboard. The crew were surprised the men were thirsty. You see they were drifting by then across the mouth of the Amazon River, the largest fresh water source upon the earth.

Sometimes we are literally resting like those sailors upon the answer to our problems.

Do not worry about your life the Lord says.

God’s Spirit is always with us like streams of fresh water welling up within us. When worry dries us up the Holy Spirit is at hand to refresh us and here is the place above all places to welcome the Spirit through God’s word and through the body of Jesus given to us in the sacrament.

Only our unbelief stops us acting as if God were with us, just as the ignorance of those sailors kept them thirsty when they were floating on fresh water.

Let’s keep silence as we prepare at this Eucharist to entrust ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a living sacrifice through Christ to the Father.