Commemoration of Archbishop Robert Leighton 26th June 2016

Special parish eucharist with input from the Rector of St Giles, Canon John Twisleton, and historian Ann Govas.

Introduction to the eucharist – Fr John

Some people make their mark on history. St Giles keeps the memory of William de Cahaignes who renamed Horsted when he arrived with the Conqueror. Of his crusader descendant whose image lies in the sanctuary. Of Giles Moore whose day book records 17^th Sussex village life. Of teacher Sidney Peek who died a century ago on missionary service in Africa. Of Arthur Benson who wrote Land of Hope and Glory. Of Ronald and Winifred Knapp run over by a train on their wedding day. Of Harold Macmillan who served as prime minister. All of these we keep the memory of and many of them left the world better at their passing. One though made his mark beyond all the others. When his grave fell into disrepair a national subscription occurred to restore it. Though in life he failed to reconcile Catholic and Protestant in Scotland his writings are still read, his holiness is celebrated and his legacy to Christian education continues. If you could choose to exchange one day with any of the dear dead whose memory we keep at St Giles would it not be Robert Leighton? Who wouldn’t prefer to lie as Leighton lies, awaiting judgement over the service of God and neighbour? Robert Leighton’s death 300 years back is marked across the Christian world today because the mark he made wasn’t just on history. This holy man is our holy man today. 12 generations on we gather at his tomb. His life, writings, example and prayers are here and now, as here and now as the communion of saints. Many have said so over three centuries. We at St Giles have good reason to agree with them as once again we mark his passing, praying God who worked holy wonders in him to work the same wonders in us so that ‘we, like him, believing in the promise of God’s word, like our bishop in good living him, praise and magnify the Lord’. Let us keep silence and then call on the mercy of God for our failings.

Scripture readings: Deuteronomy 32:1-9, Psalm 100, 2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2, Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon part 1 – Fr John

Ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit, just and upright is he. Those words from our first reading, Deuteronomy 32 verses 3 and 4 might summarise Robert Leighton’s invitation to us. Seek to stand on solid ground, on the word of God, and inherit his integrity. Man is a mutable changing essence both in body and mind, and frequently is misinformed Leighton wrote, yet… experience and enquiry give further light… as God, his word, and his confidence direct.

Leighton’s commentary on the first letter of Peter – here it is from the safe – adds: The word of God in itself cannot be abolished, but surpasses the permanence of heaven and earth, as our Saviour teaches; and all the attempts of men against the Divine truth of that word to undo it are as vain as if they should consult to pluck the sun out of the firmament; so likewise, in the heart of a Christian, it is immortal and incorruptible. Where it is once received by faith, it cannot be obliterated again: all the powers of darkness cannot destroy it, although they be never so diligent in their attempts that way. And this is the comfort of the Saints, that though the life, which God by his word hath breathed into the soul, have many and strong enemies, such as they could never hold out against, yet for his own glory, and his promise sake, he will maintain that life, and bring it to its perfection.

Saints have a heroic capacity – Leighton had that – as well as a capacity to point us to God as our Rock and source of integrity and to how laying hold on God’s word gives a purpose for living and a reason for dying. If Robert Leighton is turning in that ornate grave (we are to visit today) it will be over biblical illiteracy. How can we find our lives on a sure foundation without knowledge of God’s promises? The word of God in itself cannot be abolished…where it is once received by faith, it cannot be obliterated again: all the powers of darkness cannot destroy it. The school Leighton’s family founded in 1708 sought above all education in God’s written Word, the Bible, and that work continues not least through initiatives we’re following like Bible Society’s Open the Book themed and dramatised Bible stories.

The second reading on reconciliation set for today’s commemoration of our holy man from 2 Corinthians 5 might have been set in any case for post-referendum Sunday. In the Collect for Robert Leighton we just prayed: Eternal God you raised up Robert Leighton in a time of tumult to settle your people in the peaceable way of truth and holiness. If Archbishop Leighton were in his pulpit rather than his grave this tumultuous morning he would unpack for us as he did for both sides of the Scottish church divide the power of God’s word there: in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:19-20)

Leighton wrote: Let the love of your brethren be as a fire within you, consuming that selfishness which is so contrary to it, and is so natural to men; let it set your thoughts on work to study how to do others good; let your love be an active love, intense within you, and extending itself in doing good to the souls and bodies of your brethren as they need, and you are able.

Sermon part 2 – Ann Govas

When I was in my twenties I worked at Birmingham Crown Court and one of my tasks was to prepare files for the trial judges. While doing this I became aware that new files held a fascination for some folk in the office. They were always keen to read the gory details. This made me wonder whether too much time spent reading about real life sleaze and violence might be bad for the mind.

Robert Leighton was interested in the far more difficult question of what is good for the mind and his writings on this subject are inspirational. He believed that all good and wholesome things in life sprang from the quality of our relationship with God and that the chief study of a Christian and indeed the very thing that makes a person a Christian, is that they want to be more like Christ. Those who strive to become like Christ (Robert maintained) find that the more they learn to truly love Him, the less self centred they become, because self love is the opposite to the love of God. When the love of God truly enters our hearts it destroys and burns up self love.

Our love then ascends upward to God himself and then radiates outwards to our brothers and sisters. It causes us to reflect the spirit of Christ which Robert said is all sweetness and love filling the soul with loving kindness so that being so filled it can show forth nothing else but loving kindness.  We will be drawn to live what he called “an angelical life” partly spent in prayer and worship and partly spent helping our brothers and sisters in practical and spiritual ways.

This belief inspired Robert Leighton to involve himself in the provision of education, firstly for the children in his parish at Newbattle and then for the students of Edinburgh College and Glasgow University. Finally his influence on his nephew Edward Lightmaker helped to bring education to Horsted Keynes.

Robert’s example inspired his nephew Edward to build a school to provide free education for twenty poor children, plus twenty-one further children whose parents were to pay for their schooling. He also left money to pay for the upkeep of the school and to pay the salary of the schoolmaster. The Lightmaker School has experienced difficult times during its long history but nevertheless it survived and it is now incorporated into St Giles School. This school with its caring ethos, dedicated teachers and lively, stimulating curriculum underpinned by Christian teaching is an embodiment of the kind of educational establishment that Robert Leighton would have wished to see in the village where he lived and unofficially ministered to the poor and needy for the last ten years of his life.

Sermon part 3 – Fr John

Our Gospel reading captures the essence of sanctity, presenting Christian discipleship as impacting the world as salt and light. Imagine food without seasoning, Christ is saying, or a room without light?

So would the world be without you and I. It is that partnership Bishop Robert knew first hand – Christ as his light, he as a light to others lit up by Christ. The light of love – for when the love of God enters our hearts it destroys and burns up self love and then radiates outwards to our brothers and sisters.

In this morning’s Prayer Book celebration the last line of today’s Gospel, Matthew 5:16 has honoured place at the start of the offertory: let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. This morning as I say these words I’m mindful I stand where Leighton stood to preach and near where he stood to celebrate the holy mysteries. After saying that sentence in our rite of 1662 he would as priest take up the paten. This morning in extraordinary fashion, having heard that verse in the Gospel, I am to take up almost certainly the paten with which he celebrated the eucharist. Here it is again from the safe, a relic of Leighton which is part of the ongoing life of the church he loved and served from 1674 until his death in 1684. It has also been used for 300 years at weddings to hold the rings. At the eucharist this paten or holy plate symbolises the offering of life. The bread placed on it represents our life awaiting transformation by the Holy Spirit into Jesus Christ.

Robert Leighton’s invitation this morning is twofold – to trust God’s word afresh (show commentary) and to enter afresh the mystery of Christ’s love (show paten). We have heard God’s word. We are now to lay hold of his love in Christ’s dying and rising placing on this plate our hopes and aspirations and the joys and sorrows of the whole world. We include in this the ongoing work of Christian education Leighton entrusts us with under God. I end with his words about the eucharist: Let his death, which we commemorate by this mystery, extinguish in us all worldly affections: may we feel his divine power working us into a conformity to his sacred image. So be it.

Trinity 4 (12th of Year) Luke 8.26-39 19th June 2016

What a strange Gospel – it can hardly be passed over by the preacher!

I invite you to revisit it with me now, which is why the verse numbers are

provided. As we search through it we’ll be picking up on the qualities of divinity and humanity that are in Jesus and, through him, in us, as we live through the circumstances of our lives with many joys and sorrows.

Let’s start by reading together verses 26 and 27:

26 Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is

opposite Galilee.  27  As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who

had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did

not live in a house but in the tombs.

I wonder if you’ve already spotted the overlap with our first reading?

It was set because this story from the life of Jesus fulfils Isaiah’s prophecy speaking of God’s holding out hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who …sit inside tombs, and … eat swine’s flesh. (Isaiah 65) The Gerasene – Gadarene in another translation – are non-Jews resident opposite Galilee and Jesus takes a boat to visit them. The consequences entered history – few imagine this story to be invented – why invent such a story? Truth is much stranger than fiction! The moment Jesus steps onto Gerasene land is historic as it shows God first as no longer God of one group but as God of all. The devil doesn’t like it! Hence the commotion!  As I sat watching Muhammed Ali’s funeral oration I realised he had a Jesus-like knack of crossing the devil. One of his Jewish friends declined to play golf with him at a Club that banned Jews from membership. Ali resigned his membership. His God wasn’t sectarian – he acted to contradict this error not least in planning his funeral! God’s not sectarian for us and that because he is revealed as the God and Father of Jesus. God is Christlike!

Let’s read on:

28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of

his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

I beg you, do not torment me’- 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean

spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was

kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break

the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

In verse 29 we see the compassion of Jesus for this outcast. At first sight of him Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.

God in Jesus Christ sees our demons – the barriers to humanity that war against divinity – and wants rid of them. He wants us out of the tombs we inhabit. I wonder this morning if you feel trapped into some situation that’s relentless, diminishing and makes you feel alien as much as our demoniac? World views change, demonology and the like, but the frustrations of human beings don’t and nor does the joyful goodness of Jesus our Saviour. His invitation stands before us, leaping out of the gospel into the drama of our own lives. Many times it had seized him – we think of relentless pressures upon us. Also of those driven by the demon into the wilds. I think of people and families among us driven into the wilds by the 21^st century demon of alcohol or drug addiction. Their circumstances are no less unsettling than those described in today’s Gospel from Luke 8. We think too of the demonic event on Thursday, of Jo Cox and her family.

Let’s read verses 30 to 33:

30 Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for

many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to

go back into the abyss. 32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine

was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he

gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and

entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake

and was drowned.

I mentioned addictions which dehumanise. The alcohol, drug, food, internet and sex addictions of our day bind people as firmly as the Gerasene demoniac was bound by his demons. Once people know, as he came to know, that evil’s power is an illusion, there’s a break out from captivity. You will know the truth and the truth will make you free Jesus says in John 8.32.

Jesus - with us, alongside us, in us - is more powerful than the devil (1 John 4:4). Our thoughts determine our lives so we need the word of God in our thinking. That first letter of St John is one of many scripture passages that arms us against the deceit of our spiritual adversary the devil. His only power is that of the lie. Lies like ‘you’re nobody… you’re on your own… no one loves you’. At Muhammed Ali’s funeral someone said he undeceived black people thinking they’re nobodies into believing they’re somebodies. This is, exactly, the work of Jesus Christ in lives so vividly illustrated in today’s Gospel. The demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. Evil - the evil in this man and in us – can’t exist of itself but only in so far as it can gain a foothold in the good. What gripped the demoniac went on – with divine permission – to grip the swine. What grips us – and the beasts bless them had no choice – what grips humans beings needs our permission. It’s a foothold we grant as anyone happily rescued from addiction can tell you.

Let’s read on following through from v34 to the end of v37:

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and

told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what

had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from

whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his

right mind. And they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told them how

the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then

all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to

leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat

and returned.

We wouldn’t be reading this passage today unless something very like this had happened on the non-Jewish side of Lake Galilee in the early first century. Luke with his historical sense sees in this an anticipation of the church’s mission to the Gentiles or non-Jews. This started just a year or two after this incident when Jesus suffered, died, rose and opened up heaven for the sending down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. That Holy Spirit is given to cloth us and put us in (our) right mind.

In this story we see the awe-inspiring divinity and humane nature of Jesus. To live close to Jesus is to see humanity divinised by him and put into its right mind. The devil will tell you religion’s the opposite, a dehumanisation that puts people out of their minds. He would do though – he is just what John 8:44 says the devil is - the father of lies!  Former President Bill Clinton speaking at Ali’s memorial reflected on his humanity being linked to the freedom possessed by people of faith. Even his Parkinson’s disease couldn’t undo such freedom because he saw his life under God, and actually a very Christian sort of merciful, loving God which continued to energise his precarious existence. This week’s events in Yorkshire remind us that we all live somewhat precariously, and to know that’s part of the gift of faith. When we know our ultimate Saviour it’s easier to live on the knife edges life supplies. Humanity is made bearable by divinity – this is the kernel of our good news. It makes good news people set free as Paul says in Romans 8:21 from bondage to decay … obtain(ing) the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Let’s finish reading verses 38 and 39 of this transformative Gospel:

38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be

with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 ‘Return to your home,

and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away,

proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. 

I think the most wonderful thing about God in Jesus Christ is how he respects our freedom. Christians aren’t puppets, we’re co-workers with God, in genuine partnership with him. Having put the demoniac in his right mind Our Lord loosens the natural bond he feels towards his Saviour. Though the man begged that he might be with him… Jesus sent him away. Last week we thought how the Queen has spoken gently yet persistently of Jesus Christ as an inspiration and an anchor in (her) life. As we read the conclusion of today’s Gospel, how can it gain a hearing and an acting out in our own lives?  Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you Jesus says to us this morning. I won’t give you a job to do without the wherewithal – here is my word to you this morning and stand by as entering my self-offering in this eucharist the Holy Spirit changes bread and wine and changes you in the process. Be open to my surprises!

Trinity Sunday 22 May 2016

Anne and I were on a train to Darlington last week. I looked up to see these words above me. Hello, my name is carriage number 55789. How am I looking today? Let us know if there are any areas needing some tlC. Tweet us @northernrailorg#55789

I didn't tweet but it got me thinking about the Trinity. If a train that's carrying me to Darlington can invite me to speak to it, how much more the One in whom I live and move and who accompanies me to glory.

He has spoken - God - in deeds more than words. The Spirit of truth... will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:13 We know about the Trinity because God in Trinity has spoken through his deeds of creation, resurrection and Pentecost to show us himself. You couldn't make Christianity up, it’s a revealed faith no more no less and it’s the function of the Spirit to wake us up to it. Not to convey anything new but to give us a constant update of what’s been revealed once for all in Jesus Christ. 

The first reading from Proverbs catches this, as the reading on the Darlington train caught me last week. Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?... The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. Proverbs 8:1, 22-23 Wisdom is God’s coming forth to us, his speaking out from the depth of his being as ultimately Christ and the Spirit have spoken in history.

And what is God saying from his depths? Our second reading tells us from the receiving end as it speaks of experiencing God in three aspects. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ… and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:1,5) God who speaks and acts to reveal himself comes real to us in Jesus so that for over 20 centuries believers have spoken of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.(2 Corinthians 13:14 )

Today's Feast of the Blessed Trinity summarises what the church has set before us about Jesus in the Christmas and Easter cycles ending with last Sunday's celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Paschal Candle is back at the font but the warm light of the risen Lord burns on in our hearts by the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. This is the grand reminder of Trinity Sunday.

We were up near Darlington to enter the worlds of 2 year old Olivia and Toby who've both doubled in size and age since we last saw them. Lovely to enter the joyous world of children whose fascination with life is such a great teacher.  Oh to see the world through 2 year old eyes! Such simplicity and trust are in the gift of faith, along with fascination concerning the word of God and the paradox of his three in oneness. Just as children take things on trust from their parents, we children of God trust God as he acts in love towards us and speaks of himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

God is love. As we dwell in God he dwells in us and we in him. In the coming of Our Blessed Lord we see how much God loves us. In the pouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts we receive God’s love so we can overcome all that comes against us, putting love where there is no love and seeing love grow around us. This is what St Paul is speaking about in that second reading from Romans 5 when he says: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts (Romans 5:3-5)

The Feast of the Blessed Trinity is about God being love in himself and the revelation of that loving wisdom on earth inseparable from suffering. You can’t love in abstraction, you have to give it, give yourself to others which means no escape from suffering. The sign of the Trinity is the sign of the Cross, I crossed out, since Jesus came down from heaven to earth to suffer on the cross for us.

Just before I travelled up through Darlington I gave the last rites to James Nicholson’s brother Peter in a tearful ceremony with his niece Elizabeth. Few have suffered as much hospitalisation as Peter whose funeral is to be here on Tuesday week. Few families have given as much loving attention over so long a period, year by year, week by week, day by day as the Nicholson’s. Suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts That love remains with Peter and the family as they gather the fruits of perseverance, the character building that fits us by grace, through suffering, for glory.

We started with a talking train and thought of the One who also speaks to us as he carries his faithful to glory.

I end with a voice speaking this morning as if from that glory. Here is a 2 min clip Peter recorded for Premier Christian Radio. It speaks of the day of death now arrived for him when grace blossoms into glory, into the vision of the triune God face to face, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

May the Blessed Trinity be Peter's healing and ours, to whom, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion and power henceforth and evermore. Amen.

Easter 6 The Jesus Prayer 8th May 2016

The days between Ascension and Pentecost are always privileged days. We think back to the first disciples gathered with Our Lady in the Upper Room constantly devoting themselves to prayer (Acts 1:14). This year this liturgical reminder about prayer is reinforced by our Archbishops’ Call to Prayer. In consequence there are extra services next week so that each day St Giles folk will be gathering in prayer and we have the Premier Radio resources at hand for daily use.

The Russian Classic Way of a Pilgrim is a book people have been picking up for a century or so, as for example J.D.Salinger in his 1961 book Franny and Zooey in which one of the heroines Franny is caught reading it and explains it as, I quote, ‘the story of how a Russian wanderer learns the power of "praying without ceasing’.

Here it is, relevant to our call to prayer at this season, and here’s a key scene where the wanderer engages his spiritual guide: ‘Be so kind, Reverend Father, as to show me what prayer without ceasing means and how it is learnt?’ ‘The continuous interior Prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine Name of Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart; while forming a mental picture of his constant presence, and imploring his grace, during every occupation, at all places, even during sleep. The appeal is couched in these terms, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, [Son of God] have mercy on me [a sinner]’. One who accustoms himself to this appeal experiences as a result so deep a consolation and so great a need to offer the prayer always, that he can no longer live without it, and it will continue to voice itself within him of its own accord. Now do you understand what prayer without ceasing is?’ ‘Yes, indeed, Father, and in God’s name teach me how to gain the habit of it, I cried filled with joy’. ‘Read this book’, he said.

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

This is the so-called Jesus Prayer and it’s changed my life over the last 9 years helping free me from anxiety, planting peace of mind, deepening devotion to God and even helping me sleep at night – so it’s worth an occasional sermon! Better than that it’s been worth hours of trouble writing this book Using the Jesus Prayer commissioned by the Bible Reading Fellowship that’s sold so far well over a 1000 copies and which builds from the Russian classic I quoted from.

Repetition of the ancient prayer Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner fulfils Paul’s invitation to pray without ceasing and can serve entry into a simpler and more spacious approach to living, including freedom from anxiety.

The Prayer expresses the good news of Christianity. It affirms both the coming of the Saviour and our need for his salvation. Based on incidents in the life of Our Lord it combines Peter’s act of faith in Jesus – You are the Son of God (cf Matthew 16v16) – with the cry of the Publican – have mercy upon me a sinner (Luke 18v13b).

It exalts the name which is above every name (Philippians 2v10b). You can’t repeat the name of Jesus with a good intention without touching his person, God’s person. It’s a form of Holy Communion without bread and wine though it comes into its own in my experience as an extension of sacramental communion. The Name of Jesus, present in the human heart, communicates to it the power of deification…Shining through the heart, the light of the Name of Jesus illuminates all the universe writes Fr Sergei Bulgakov

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

The Jesus Prayer is thoroughly evangelical and uncompromisingly catholic. To pray it continually is to centre upon the good news of Jesus with the faith and prayer of the church through the ages.

This gospel encounter is in recollected repetition of the holy name of Jesus which is found eventually to convey his close presence.  I say eventually. Long labour in prayer and considerable time are needed for a man with a mind which never cools to acquire a new heaven of the heart where Christ dwells wrote Orthodox Saint John Karpathus.

The Jesus Prayer of Eastern Orthodoxy is said to help those with over active minds because it fills the mind with the thought of Jesus. That is certainly my experience. It could be yours if you try it and persevere. Call to our Lord Jesus, often and patiently, and thoughts will retreat, for they cannot bear the warmth of the heart produced by prayer, and flee as if scorched by fire wrote St Gregory of Sinai. Powerful words, true in my experience. It’s ironic that stillness in the centre of our being is helped by constant voicing Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner - but its true!

What about all that repetition – how purposeful is it?

One of the main obstacles to my taking up this form of prayer in the past was fear of consigning my life to rote repetition. I have come though now to discover that the reverent repetition of the phrase, though it needs repeated acts of the will, actually brings with it the momentum of the Holy Spirit.  This is brought out in The Way of a Pilgrim where the pilgrim travels across Russia seeking spiritual counsel. He finds that, as we heard earlier, after learning from a guide to repeat the Jesus Prayer thousands of times a day. This form of prayer eventually catches on – it has for me - and it prays itself involuntarily deep within you.

You can pray the Jesus Prayer in both formal and free ways. The traditional advice for set formal prayer is close your eyes, focus upon the Lord and, after invoking the Holy Spirit, repeat the phrase Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner pausing briefly between each prayer. Guides recommend that prayer be neither gabbled nor offered in too intense a manner.

To help focus the body’s engagement in the exercise prayer ropes of 25, 50 or 100 woollen beads are available. I use such a Jesus Rope for half an hour in my Oratory at the start of my morning prayer time before saying Church of England Morning Prayer and praying for the people of Horsted Keynes.

Usually I follow this pattern which I commend to each one of you. Read a short biblical or spiritual reading, then sitting on an upright chair keep still, close your eyes and repeat for as long as you can at this sort of pace Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner. Aside from this daily set prayer time it’s a matter of gently repeating the prayer as you go about your life which is the free form of the prayer.

You must be very busy people say to me as a priest! God forbid we put busy-ness before holiness, what we do before what we are as daughters and sons of God. The Lord of the work should come before the work of the Lord.  I believe the greatest resource any such worker or priest can have is that of their sense of need of divine mercy which is voiced in the Jesus Prayer which is why I’m delighted our Bishop has made 2016 a year dedicated to seeking the divine mercy.

I applaud that sentiment and it’s applauded in me each time I say the Jesus Prayer with its reminder to live reliant on God’s loving mercy.

I want to end by leading 5 Jesus Prayers for us, not for you to voice with me, but to listen to, and to allow the prayer to permeate you before we engage with our ongoing prayerful reflection.

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

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

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

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

Ascension Day 5th May 2016

God goes up with shouts of joy, the Lord goes up with trumpet blast. 

Sing praise for God, sing praise, sing praise to our king, sing praise. 

These verses from the 47^th Psalm are set for today’s major Christian festival of the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Festal singing, shouting, clapping and trumpeting and incense no doubt were associated with the enthronement of the kings of Israel which was pretext for affirming God's own kingship over all. As the kings took their seats the people led by the choir gave praise to God as supreme ruler. 

Christian worship builds from the Old Testament so Psalm 47 is used to mark and engage with Christ's ascension and enthronement as universal King. God's sovereignty is now exercised through his Son 'who ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead' (Apostles' Creed) 

Jesus is Lord! God goes up with shouts of joy or in Tudor English, has 'gone up with a merry noise'. The carpenter born in Nazareth who shows the world the love, truth and power of God – he is Lord!  A life of 33 years lived at the start of our era continues the same yesterday, today and for ever through the power of an indestructible life (Hebrews 7:16b).  

Jesus is Lord, right above all that is or has been or will be. He's God’s final word to humankind. Jesus is to be the merciful last word over us all.   

God goes up with shouts of joy, the Lord goes up with trumpet blast. Sing praise for God, sing praise, sing praise to our king, sing praise. 

As we move now well into the Diocesan and Universal Year of Mercy we are consoled by the thought that God’s last word on us will be from the One who today ‘ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead'.

He is One who shares our suffering, who knows our every weakness, living like us for 33 years yet without consent to sin. His sinlessness isn’t a setting apart from us. It’s the means by which he is able both to sympathise with us and to stand above and beyond us in our sinful frailty so as to welcome us heavenwards.

In the Feasts of Christ we read, mark and inwardly digest truths that are ‘once for all’ and yet evermore inspire and cleanse our souls. Christ is risen, ascended, glorified so that we can be raised from the works of the flesh, ascend in prayer and anticipate the favourable judgement and glory that’s for all who live in Christ.

The Chinese writer Watchman Nee wrote a short commentary on the letter to the Ephesians entitled Sit, Walk, Stand to remind Christians that as Christ is ascended and seated at God’s right hand, so are we. We are to keep seated with Christ above sin, to keep walking in the Spirit and keep standing fast against the devil.

God goes up with shouts of joy, the Lord goes up with trumpet blast. Sing praise for God, sing praise, sing praise to our king, sing praise. 

The incense today is symbol of rising prayer, of costly sacrifice, and lastly of our life to come in the court of heaven seated with its Monarch. God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, Paul writes to the Ephesians. This is so, he continues, that we can be raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.               

So be it!

Easter 3 Finding God 10th April 2016

How do you find God?

Someone I met in the gym found God when he prayed to get free of addiction to cannabis.  He prayed. Something happened and, so the lad told me, he now sees the world in rosier colours with goodness, truth and beauty shining all over the place.  God is only a prayer away.

The scripture passage from the book of Revelation in which John the seer sees the risen Christ and gets messages. He got his vision in Patmos on the Lord’s Day. I was once on Patmos Island at an open air Greek Orthodox eucharist and it  gave me a clue to his vision. There were elders round the altar that morning, the priests. The bread and wine on it stood for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, slain for us. The hundreds present singing beautiful chant gave a sense of surrounding angels. I think, and several Bible scholars agree, that John the seer had his vision right there at Sunday eucharist in Patmos.

How do you find God?

You can find him in prayer, through the Bible and at the eucharist. Here’s the sting, if you like. You find God through the Church. Without the Church, God, to use David Cameron’s image, is like receiving Classic FM in the Cotswolds. The Church helps you tune in to God. John the seer was Church. He said his prayers, knew his bible and came to the eucharist. I’m sure he served others and confessed his sins, two other ways God comes close to us.

How do we find God?

In the last scripture reading from John’s Gospel illustrated on the eucharist booklet cover we’re told Jesus showed himself again to his disciples after his resurrection. Not only did he show them himself as God’s Son, he showed them the best place to fish. Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some. So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.

Finding God is costly – we have to turn away from self – but it’s always profitable.  I think of the lad I met in the gym who prayed when he was in a bad state and saw his prayer answered. God answers prayer, of that I’m utterly convinced, even if some of his answers perplex me.

As the American writer Tim Keller says in answer to Richard Dawkins: 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. I like Keller  we had a book club on his classic ‘The reason for God’ a couple of years back. In it he asks, incisively, whether the civil rights movement across the world could have emerged from secular belief in the goodness of human nature, rather than the Christian conviction about the sinfulness of human hearts we've already voiced at the start of the eucharist.

How do we find God?

Through the Church, for nowhere else can you engage with preaching and sacraments which bring Christ alive in our hearts. Oh yes there’s sin in the Church, in you and I – but there’s Christ as well and Jesus Christ gives us access to God as the way, the truth and the life.

Through prayer, scripture, eucharist, repentance, service and reflection God in Christ comes close. The children of our school - now regularly reflect. Christian meditation started in January. At the start of every afternoon session the children take time to be still and meditate. We will have opportunity to do the same next weekend which will have a contemplative feel to it with the Quiet Day in the Martindale and the 10am Contemplative eucharist with Dan Wolpert.

How do we find God?  

You can’t beat being still. So let’s do just that, for we read his invitation in Psalm 46v10 Be still and know that I am God.   Let’s do that.

Octave Sunday of Divine Mercy 3rd April 2016

On this Divine Mercy Sunday in the Diocesan and global Year of Mercy we’re reminded Easter’s more deeds than words.

Easter’s an event. It’s a mercy mission from God believers become part of that’s changing the world.

The mercy of God is a torrent that has burst its banks wrote St John Vianney. It carries off our hearts in its wake.

Brendan Woodhouse is a volunteer with the United Society supported Lighthouse Refugee Relief which provides care for refugees arriving on the Greek island of Lesvos. He recalls how he helped to save the life of a baby after a boat carrying refugees capsized at night in freezing water about 30 metres from the shore.

He writes: ‘people were hysterical, screaming, sobbing and frightened. On sound in particular I will never forget: the screams of a mother who had lost her baby. ‘While everyone else was facing he shore shouting for help, she was facing out to sea. She shouted at me and pointed out to sea. About 15 metres away I could see a little black dot, bobbing up and down in the water.

‘I swam as fast as I could, knowing I was putting my life in danger as I’m not the greatest of swimmers. Eventually I reached it: a five-month-old baby girl, wrapped in a blanket, face down in the water, with no lifejacket. I grabbed her and look at her face. Her eyes were rolled back. She was not breathing. She was as white as can be, but I knew she stood a chance.

‘I swam backstroke, facing the stars, with the little baby on my chest. I kicked a fast as I could. With my left arm I paddled, and with my right arm I pressed up and down on her chest, ‘I swam past people screaming for help. I swam with everything I had and more. I prayed to God, begging for her life.

Eventually I reached down with my feet and touched rock. I balanced as best I could and gave her five rescue breaths. After the second breath, she sicked up water from her lungs and started to cry. It was the most beautiful sound in the world because I knew I had breathed life back into her’.

Brendan reached the shore where other volunteers took over. The baby’s condition was stabilised. Then she was reunited with her mother and rushed to hospital, where she made a full recovery. Henry Hartley, of Lighthouse Refugee Relief, said: ‘The funding we have received from United Society is directly responsible for saving lives’.

You helped save that baby and others. You did so by your gifts to United Society, formerly USPG, in our orange envelopes from January to March that the PCC doubled before sending it to this mercy mission.

That graphic human story reminds us how the resurrection of Christ is like dynamite. It has wide and enormous impact for it’s an ongoing explosion of love, joy and peace which counters all that’s wrong in the world. It’s about life, life after death of course, but life before death as well.

The year of mercy is a reminder of this. In the year’s mercy logo, which we’ve blown up this week, you see the risen Lord Jesus taking the lost on his shoulders, just as Brendan Woodhouse took and carried that baby. Jesus carries us, in our weakness, to the home of the Father. I have been very aware of this mercy ministry these last weeks as I’ve been his instrument in helping carry dying brothers and sisters.

Our Lord’s mercy mission is the conquest of death. It’s also collaborative conquest of death-dealing hunger, injustice and disease afflicting those in the prime of life. Jesus invites us to carry others in God’s mercy mission of redemption.

In the image on the eucharist booklet, the eyes of Jesus merge with the eyes of our fallen nature. Christ sees with the eyes of Adam and Adam can now see with the eyes of Christ. Easter is about the gift of those eyes in a new nature, a new capability to see possibilities beyond mortal imagination.

Moving from the troubled shores of a Greek island to a peaceful Sussex village you might wonder where God’s mercy mission is here - hope you do! I hope you give yourself each day, as I do, to be used as best you can to his praise and service.

In Lent a dozen of us met in the Martindale to look at the Acts of the Apostles with an eye to serving the needs of the community: Acts for Action. The PCC looked at some of the points raised there at its meeting on Thursday. In particular we thought about using P&P to celebrate month by month the different organisations, some 40 in number, that impact our life together as a village, and to give thanks for them also in Church on occasion.

Loneliness was something that came up, as did parenting. Engaging both these areas is a mercy mission, incredibly important, incredibly difficult. Difficult to allay and to help, save a life orientation of service that’s what we as Easter people are committed to.

The village empties of workers and their children each morning. At this holiday season it empties for a week or so. As you go round visiting homes as I do, you find in the day, away from weekends and out of holiday season, a sprinkling of home based workers, young mums, elderly and housebound. The bus stop’s a big feature, elderly folk getting out, getting away, meeting others there and beyond in Haywards Heath.

How do you help the lonely or those struggling as parents? Being there, whilst not getting in the way, is our mercy mission. Inviting folk to Thursday coffee, or the third Friday village lunch. If you can, going on the coffee or chef rota. Both ventures are a mercy mission. You might have read Faith in Sussex – do pick up a copy of this month’s Diocesan magazine. There our village lunch is styled a mercy project, providing as it does a place of belonging for all through a high quality £4 a head lunch at which all are welcome. Bishop Martin is coming to it on 16^th September.

St Giles does a lot to help parents across Sussex through collections and food gifts towards Diocesan Family Support Work. My wife Anne has just retired from promoting FSW in deaneries and has exceptionally written a report in this month’s P&P. Veronica Griffiths is still the representative for St Giles, linking us with that work and has appealed repeatedly for someone to take over.

Easter’s deeds more than words. It’s an event, a mercy mission from God believers are part of that’s changing the world primarily through little acts, like that of Brendan with the baby, like what, less dramatically, you’ve got planned ahead this week, or the spaces and times you leave unplanned for surprises of the Holy Spirit.

The mercy of God is a torrent that has burst its banks. It carries off our hearts in its wake.

In our day to day, hour to hour living we are carried by Our Lord, and with him carry others, as we discern, being his instruments. There is an ocean of need around. Our prayer and merciful action looks a drop in that ocean – but it matters! It will matter more, impact more, if we see ourselves as we really are, caught into the torrent of mercy that flows from the cross, bursting banks and carrying our hearts in its wake.