St Richard, Haywards Heath Conversion of St Paul 25 January 2023

 

Some get to know God in a blinding flash, others find gradual illumination and many stay in the dark. My own illumination has been through gradual flashes served by church membership. It came also through researching carbon polymers. As I opened up new realms of knowledge, I had a sense Someone had seen these things before. 

Scientists pursue truth but many have a sense that truth is with us and awaiting us. Reason and faith both lift us to God. Saul of Tarsus whose Conversion we’re celebrating today, originally followed a reasoned religion lacking faith. He lacked openness to the transcendent. God was in his religious books and laws so he was rattled to encounter the first Christians. They spoke of laws and indeed life itself transcended through the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. 

It was too much. He raged against it. But Saul was to become Paul, the reasoned man became the man of faith as heavenly light came over him on the Damascus Road. His eyes were opened to a God built less to his dimensions and more to those of God who is God!

As God is truth we need to seek truth, but that's not enough. We need to be open to truth as something or Someone seeking you! The best of scientists like old Archimedes get eureka moments - I see it! These moments are, like Paul’s today, a lesson in humility, that is, in disbelieving yourself so as to see something more wonderful. 

What an awesome, joy-giving and life-enhancing business it is getting to know God! We need the readiness to loosen from self preoccupation, see the big picture of reality and be put in our place!

God grant us a vision of himself more to his dimensions and less to our own.  In Paul’s words to Corinth, God give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4v6)

God who shone on Paul shine on us all!

St Richard, Haywards Heath 3rd Sunday of Year A 22.1.23

 

As we ponder the scriptures set for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Season we see an obvious link between the Isaiah 9 passage and the Gospel we just heard from Matthew Chapter 4 quoting that very passage. The emphasis, as when it was used at Midnight Mass, is on people seeing a great light from God in Jesus Christ, but the overlap of today’s passage with the Gospel centres more on the geography. Though St Matthew’s Gospel is slanted heavily to Jewish readers his description of Our Lord’s initial ministry underlines how that begins not in Jewish but Gentile territory, in the ‘land of Zebulun! Land of Naphthali! Way of the sea on the far side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations’ (Matthew 4:15-16). The idea of a prophet coming from Galilee would not have rung true to Matthew’s Jewish readers because this was non-Jewish or Gentile land. Our Lord begins his ministry treading ground outside the Jewish community, treading the way to the revelation of God as universal Lord and Saviour on Mount Calvary. As the second reading puts it, the rejection and crucifixion of the Jewish Messiah lies beyond human philosophy or even theology. 

The astonishing force of Our Lord Jesus Christ is his revelation of God as not just the God of the Jews but the God of all people. As witnessed in the story of the wise men we followed two weeks ago, the God and Father of Jesus has universal significance. Isaiah promises light.  Our Psalm announces ‘The Lord is my light and my help’. The Gospel recounts how that light first shone on earth as Jesus ‘went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people’ (Matthew 4:23). This good news is relevant to body, mind and spirit and has transforming relevance to everyone in every age. Christianity was and is good news that, though rooted in Judaism and spoken about through prophets like Isaiah, cannot be contained in the Old Testament. As Deacon Rebecca explained last week Jesus Christ fulfils what we find in the Old Testament. We turn first every Sunday to the Jewish Scriptures to mark what is presented and prophesied about God and understanding of these scriptures help us to understand Jesus. This is exactly true of this morning where Isaiah 9 illuminates Matthew 4 and its great invitation as ‘Jesus began his preaching with the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand” (Matthew 4:17).

The Greek word ‘metanoia’ which is translated ‘repent’ means to change direction. Our Lord changed his path into non-Jewish territory; he did so with an invitation to us and to all to change direction so as to welcome the mercy of God which reaches the parts of lives and communities no other power can access. As we hear the word of God this morning we do so mindful of its transformative power. Do you have confidence in that power which is at hand to you this morning as we gather to hear the word of God and be made part of Christ’s self offering at Mass? Such an engagement  has the power to change our lives for good if we welcome the Holy Spirit who is always at hand. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. As we turn afresh to God he makes his presence real to us ‘curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among us’. Disease and sickness is much among us this morning, be that of body, mind or spirit. By his death and resurrection Our Lord has countered the power of sin, sickness, bondage, death and the devil. These dark powers are real but their power is broken as we welcome the light of the Lord and see their darkness scatter. 

It may be you are struggling for the grace of acceptance as you face a new trial laid upon you. Or are deceiving yourself over a wrongdoing you need to seek forgiveness for. Maybe you need the assurance of God’s love to reach deeper into your soul. The word of God and the Blessed Sacrament are at hand for you this morning. Soften your heart. Open yourself fresh to the grace of the Holy Spirit who is God’s love ready to be poured into our hearts. Don’t be afraid to seek prayer for such healing outside Mass maybe by talking to one of our priests. We are always ready to be used in the ministry of prayer for individuals, for confession and absolution, for the sacrament of anointing. Our Lord changed direction to Galilee to bring healing and to welcome the kingdom of heaven we need ourselves at times to change our direction. 

Today’s second reading touches on the consequences of our going it alone - our sin - on the Christian community. ‘I am for Paul’, ‘I am for Apollos’, ‘I am for Cephas’, ‘I am for Christ’. I am St Richard’s. I am Methodist. I am Ruwach. I am Baptist. This week of prayer for Christian Unity is a reminder how groups of believers putting themselves above the faith of the church through the ages weaken Christian witness overall. Haywards Heath has eight Christian denominations - Anglican, Baptist, Christ Church, Grace Church, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Ruwach Pentecostal, United Reformed Church. The world has 40,000 Christian denominations. Lord, have mercy! What is the answer and how can you and I be part of that? It is about each denomination coming to the foot of Christ’s Cross and admitting it exists as a Christian community only by God’s grace and mercy poured out on Calvary. This would build from you and I doing the same and by our praying for and fraternising with the other churches in our town. Why not go to a weekday or Sunday evening service in another town Church this week to do your bit to counter the sin of Christian division which does so much to undermine the good news of God’s love?

‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. Indeed it is - the Holy Spirit is close at hand ready to bring healing to individuals, churches and communities. Healing starts here - in the heart of an individual - where we find ourselves and love ourselves sufficiently to give ourselves. You can’t give what you don’t possess! May 2023 be a year of growth here at St Richard’s as our members gain self knowledge, self love and fresh capacity to give out to others. Our new partnership with St Mary, Balcombe places us in a privileged position to challenge churches that live for themselves. Living for yourself either individually or as churches is a receipe for death. Let’s change direction to walk as if to Galilee with Our Lord in the life giving power of the Holy Spirit and be consciously part of God’s never ending family the holy catholic church.

St John, Burgess Hill Epiphany 2 15th January 2023

 

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1.29

Our scripture this morning follows on from last Sunday’s continuing to centre on the mission of Jesus. The Old Testament reading from Isaiah 49 prophesies that the mission of God’s servant will extend beyond Israel to all the nations: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ 

This passage was chosen to illuminate the holy gospel which is from John, exceptionally in this year of Matthew. This passage draws out how this mission is a sacrificial mission, that of the Lamb of God.

I’d like to dwell a little on this sacrificial image which appears week by week and day by day in the sacrificial text of the eucharist which recalls the Old Testament Passover Lamb. When we say Lamb of God, or the priest says ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ we go on ‘who takes away the sins of the world’. These words accompany the breaking of the Eucharistic bread which recalls in turn the breaking of Christ’s body on the Cross

This gathering in the parish church is part of an eternal offering of worship stretching back to the foundation of the world and stretching forward to the consummation of all things.

Our Lord is truly the lamb slain from the foundation of the world whose sacrifice on Calvary, as Revelation 13 verse 8 envisions, draws forth in heaven blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever. 

This morning we are touching reality - we are drawn to the event represented here that reveal a love touching every human concern upon the earth. 

At the beginning of a challenging year for our nation and for many peoples the world over there is no more powerful action we can take on behalf of humankind than to plead Christ’s Sacrifice, offering God what is his own…on behalf of all.

To the outward eye we are a small gathering of religious people doing their own thing upon their weekly holy day.

To the eye of faith we are Christians, caught up once more, on behalf of the whole creation, into the eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ, through whom, and with whom and in whom in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we give glory to our Father in heaven.

Here, as on Calvary, we see his body and blood separated in death and then transformed by power from heaven. In every Eucharist we witness the separate consecration of Christ’s body and blood. We pause twice in the Eucharistic prayer to recall the sacrificial sundering of the Son of God - this is my body...this is my blood...of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins

Some of us may remember the ‘Seeing Salvation’ exhibition twenty years ago at the National Gallery. One of the many images of Christ was this  (show) - ‘The Bound Lamb’ by Francisco de Zurbarin who lived in the 17th century.  It is an image that often appears on Nativity scenes, the Shepherds’ offering which anticipates Christ’s sacrifice.  

As Jeremy Paxman wrote in the Church Times then of this painting: ‘no image I know so perfectly captures the astonishing force of the Christian story’.

It was given greater force at the time as a symbol through the images of sheep and lambs slaughtered so uselessly in the foot and mouth epidemic. The image of the bound lamb is one of innocent suffering but, for Christians, never one of useless suffering.

There is a Church in Norway, I’m told, which has the image of a sheep sculpted half way up its tower.  

Only when people enter that Church and hear something of its history do they discover the full Christian significance of the sculpted sheep.

Years before the sculpture was erected some renovation work was occurring on the Church steeple in this rural community.  One day a workman slipped from the steeple to almost certain death.  At the same time by a remarkable twist of providence a flock of sheep was being driven past the Church.  

The steeplejack fell on a sheep and his fall was cushioned. The sheep died to save him - an awesome happening! The workers expressed their gratitude to God by adorning that Church tower with a sculpted sheep. It was welcomed as a powerful symbol of Christian Faith.

Jesus is the Lamb of God whose voluntary sacrifice takes away our sin.  Our Lord on Calvary takes the full impact of sin and death for us at the cost of his life.

I do not understand why God sent his Son to do just that for me. It is love beyond logic.

I cannot though deny the evil in the world and in my own heart. 

I will not deny that it threatens my fulfilment - not just my sin, but my fear and doubt and sickness as well as the self-serving use of my gifts. 

Neither will I as a Christian deny, though it goes quite beyond my reasoning powers, that Jesus, Christ the Son of God has taken the full impact of those evil powers for me. Our Lord has soaked up all the evil that would defeat me and offered me life to the full - life that cancels sin with forgiveness, sickness with healing, bondage with deliverance and even doubt with the gift of faith through the mighty Redemption he has won.  

All of this is powerfully present to me in every celebration of the Eucharist.

I cannot understand it but I will accept it. I cannot understand the way electricity works but that does not stop me switching on the lights. I take both on authority and it works to do so.

Jesus died in my place so that he might live in my place. 

Jesus died in my place to carry off the impact of evil upon me, particularly through the gift of the Eucharist. 

Jesus lives in my place, cooperating with my will by his Spirit, as I welcome him again and again into my heart in this Sacrament!

This morning we make the memorial of the Offering of Jesus and enter into that Self-Offering!

It is through the sacrificial Lamb of God that we can make a perfect offering to the Father, our sinful bodies made clean by his body..our souls washed through his most precious blood.

How much God needs the offering of our lives for his work here in Burgess Hill and its surrounds! 

Let’s pause for a minute or two to reflect on God’s word this morning as we prepare to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Requiem for Pope Benedict XVI 4.1.23

Today’s Gospel recalls how ‘Andrew took his brother Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked hard at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas’ – meaning Rock’. We read elsewhere in the Gospels how Our Lord renames Simon: Peter - literally ‘rock man’ - founding his Church on the ‘rock’ of Peter’s faith in Christ’s divinity.  To this day the Christian world takes note of the successor of St Peter, first Bishop of Rome, seeing him as a referee helping safe play continue down the centuries. This is why the death of a former Pope is being marked at the altar this evening.

Pope Benedict XVI, whose funeral is tomorrow, was an exceptional Bishop of Rome and one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century.  Some Bishops, priests and Popes are more pastors and some more teachers.  Benedict, like his friend Archbishop Rowan Williams, came to office from being a theology professor. That friendship, one of many he had with Anglicans, came to the fore when he visited the United Kingdom in 2010 to canonise John Henry Newman.

Unlike his successor Pope Francis, more pastor than teacher, Benedict has gained an unfair reputation as over dogmatic churchman. This is despite his being instrumental with other theologians of the revolutionary empowerment of the laity at the 1962-5 Second Vatican Council. Picking up on failure to address clerical abuse under the reign of Pope St John Paul II, Pope Benedict acted only to be blamed himself  for the abuse crisis, one reason he resigned and handed over to Pope Francis. 

I speak as one widely read in his writings. Only last week I was reading his book on the biblical texts related to Christ’s birth. His writings, so rooted in scripture, transcend the Catholic-Evangelical divide in the Church. Benedict’s passion was to help rise above Christian divisions to commend to the next generation the reality of the risen Lord. In this  he used captivating images such as his commending to people, young and old, what he calls ‘Jesus’ Hour’, attendance at Sunday Mass, through which the Lord manifests himself to us transformatively in word and sacrament week by week, day by day, down through the centuries.

As Anglicans who value our Church’s place in the stream of Christian believing through the centuries we should be grateful for steps he took in 2012, seen as provocative by some, to establish an Anglican Ordinariate which has become a sort of bridge between our Communions under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman. Though both the action of and the secession of many from the Anglican Church over female ordination in recent years is controversial Pope Benedict’s action remains an affirmation of the intrinsic catholic credentials of historic Anglicanism which would warm Newman’s heart. 

When we compare how global media treat Pope Benedict’s reputation compared to informed church circles it is evident how very little the reputation has to do with the man. It is our reputation before God, each one of us, that will count when at last we stand before him. A holy and gentle soul Benedict’s last recorded words were ‘Lord, I love you’. He knew God’s love and laboured to bring others into its orbit. As St John puts it so beautifully in the passage we read yesterday at Mass ‘Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are… what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is’. So be it for us - and for Pope Benedict, blessed in name and in life.

St Richard, Haywards Heath Old Year’s night 31.12.22

It’s Old Year’s Day for much of the world though in Britain we call it New Year’s Eve.

31st December marks the end of 2022. It looks to the beginning of 2023.

At St Richard’s every day is new because Jesus Christ is ever new. He’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

The day-by-day newness of Jesus has been evident these last 365 days to us as Christians. We’ve seen it as Jesus covered our sins and negligences and opened up his possibilities again and again to us.

It’s been a tough year for many people and it’s getting tougher as the recession takes its toll upon us and the cost of living rises.

When the pressures are on us we find out what we’re really made of. If Jesus had a real purchase on our lives this last year we’ll be able to look back with gratitude to him.

Can you say thanks that you were able to forget your own needs and go out of your way to care for friends and neighbours in greater need? 

Old Year’s Day says farewell to 2022. As Christians we do gratefully. 

The Lord invites us in his word ‘to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us all’. (1 Thessalonians 5.18)

As 2022 ends we can counter dismay by thanking God at this altar, as the Book of Common Prayer prays ‘for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life but above all for his inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace - especially daily Mass - and for the hope of glory’.

Or as a Free Church hymn invites - and we will take up the invitation now in a time of quiet:

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
and it will surprise you what the Lord has done!

St Richard, Haywards Heath Holy Innocents Feast 28.12.22

Introduction

Our intention at Mass is the repose of the souls of innocent children destroyed in the womb day by day and the worldwide campaign against abortion, infanticide and child abuse.

Though the world clothes Christmas in tinsel the Church’s liturgy and Octave goes in another direction altogether. There is no sentimentality in the day by day recalling of suffering - Stephen, Thomas Becket and today, very troublesome, the mindless slaughter of children by King Herod in his attempt to eliminate the threat to his throne by the King of the Jews announced to him by the wise men. Joy and sorrow are entwined in Christian faith. As we prepare to celebrate this Mass let us call to mind our failure to extend compassion to those who suffer as well as those times when our faith flags before the darkness and evil we see daily on the news.

Sermon

What do we make of the sobbing and loud lament heard in Ramah recorded by Saint Matthew weeks after the birth of Our Lord? Besides its link with the slaughter of the innocent children by King Herod, Ramah has sorrowful association for the Jewish people. Jacob’s wife Rachel died there and in the sixth century before Christ Jews gathered there to set off to exile in Babylon after the Temple was destroyed. What do we make of the Ramah’s set before us today in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria and so on? Last week one of my friends hosting a Ukrainian mother and her children had news that after the recent bombing of their town her husband had escaped to Poland and should soon be with them in Lindfield. We all have stories like that of the horrors around and how they get redeemed to a degree.

‘Time has not softened the sharpness of the impression which is made upon thoughtful spectators by the sight of the sorrows of life’ wrote bible scholar Bishop Westcott. ‘Christ fulfilled man’s destiny, fellowship with God, by the way of sorrow; and the divine voice appeals to us to recognize the fitness of the road. [As Scripture says] ‘It became Him’ - most marvellous phrase - ‘It became Him for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sins unto glory to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings’ (Hebrews 2:10). 

Our Christian faith weaves together suffering and glory. It is convincing because it opens us to the glory of the world to come whilst not devaluing suffering, as in today’s commemoration of the Innocents. It ‘became God’ to be born in poverty, suffer rejection and crucifixion so as to show the possibilities of human nature and Love’s triumph in the resurrection. Christ indeed fulfilled our destiny of eternal fellowship with God by the way of sorrow and invites us to see ‘the fitness of that road’. 

May the Holy Innocents who await fellowship with us beyond the grave implore the grace of God for us that we keep compassion for those who suffer, especially the unborn, whilst having an eye to the glory Christmas opens up to us. Let’s have a moment of reflection enriched by a few verses from St Paul: ‘We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ - if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him…. The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that 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. We know that 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’ (Romans 8:16-23). 

 

Presentation Church Christmas Day 2022

I have a bicycle across the road at number 13. It has two hubs which get the power from my legs to the wheels and speed me up New England Road. With Anne I’m also helped by two hubs that empower our neighbourhood - Bentswood Hub where I help with digital access and Presentation Church where we drop in on Mondays and were blessed by last week’s festive meal. We’re a giving church at Presentation and as such we’re receiving more interest and commitment from the neighbourhood.

‘Give and it will be given to you’.  Luke 6 verse 38 is the Christian one liner.  It’s easier said than done but when it's done the Holy Spirit flows. Through Sally, Michael, Geraldine and the team love ripples out from here making a difference in Bentswood to many who live alone, sometimes hungry, sometimes cold. 

‘Give and it will be given to you’ summarises our Christmas Gospel. ‘God came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God’ (John 1:11-12) God, who made us, gave to us his Son, Jesus, and through this sacrifice is receiving new children, those gathering here this morning ‘given power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory’ alleluia!

Everyone in Church this morning has been born naturally ‘of blood… the will of the flesh… the will of man’ but if we have made Christ the hub of our life there is within us an empowerment to love from beyond our natural life, the life of the Holy Spirit flowing from our baptism which we seek to see renewed within us this morning in Christmas Communion. As today’s Collect prayed: ‘grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit’.

‘Give and it will be given to you’. God who gave us life at Christmas offers us his life and when we accept that life into our hearts we are made a gift back to him. We are made to be his children, part of the never ending fellowship we call the communion of saints which, when time ends at Christ’s return, will be presented to God who will then be made everything to everyone. 

If my bicycle has two hubs and Bentswood has two hubs in its drop in centre and Presentation Church, so does my soul. One here (my mind) and the other here (my heart). To get these hubs to work together the mind must lower 15 inches into the heart where God lives. Every human being carries something of God. Not every human being knows of the 15 inch journey Christmas invites so we can receive power to become children of God and run better on both hubs, mind and heart. 

It is these two powers of mind and heart that together lift us to God and into living for others and for ourselves in the best way through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

‘Give and it will be given to you’ Becoming a Christian is no surrender of the mind though sadly the behaviour of some believers might encourage that perception. With a past career in Chemistry I am aware of many convergences between science and religion such as belief in the cosmos having a beginning. Mind comes before matter in Christianity. The world traces back to the Big Bang in science. The difference is in the second creation celebrated at Christmas necessitated by the folly of human minds and the disastrous consequences of sin. ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us’. The Son of God became the Son of Man so children of men could become children of God.  The Baby bound in the Crib foreshadows God’s binding upon the Cross to break the bonds of sin and open the life of the Holy Spirit to all believers. In giving his life the Son of God is able to receive you and I into that deathless fellowship if we choose to enter it.

We have a mission at Presentation. Our mission, though, our giving out of love, will be ineffective unless it comes as an overflow from what is being cultivated within and among us. The Christmas Feast is a reminder to keep ourselves at that 15 inch missionary movement from our heads to our hearts where God is. Many of us here welcome Jesus week by week in word and sacrament.  How are we savouring that gift in our daily prayer?  In our discipline of bible reading, reading the lives of the saints, self-examination and confession or generous service as individuals to those in need?

Where people are meeting deep down with Christ his life, his joy takes hold of them so all they say and do gets permeated by that life and joy, energising them like a hub, getting their lives more on the move as they pedal away at being Christians. Our minds and hearts are set to work together within the wider working of the Holy Spirit pouring love across the world starting where we are in Haywards Heath and its surrounds. God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done here - through us!