Noblesse oblige!
One must act in a fashion that conforms to one's position, and with the reputation that one has earned.
The unfashionable nature of this truth fuels our mass media from the irresponsible expenses claims of our MPs to the goings on among minor royalty.
Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
This morning we ourselves have such a reminder as Christians.
The Prayer Book collect for the eight days of the Christmas Octave states the truth behind Christmas from God’s point of view:
Almighty God, you have given us your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
The prayer goes on to tell how this has consequences from our own point of view:
grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
The Son of God took our whole nature upon him, our total manhood, not just our body but our mind and will and emotional makeup so that our mortal nature might be capable of the divine nature.
Something happened yesterday on Christmas Day that affects us profoundly and affects the whole world through us.
Why did God become man? In order that we might become God, be made God’s children by adoption and grace and be daily renewed by God’s Holy Spirit.
To pray as our Christmas collect prays is to ask to be re-born in Jesus and become a partaker of the divine nature. In other words to ask that we may ourselves obtain the full benefit of the Christmas gift of Jesus.
Just as everyone is born of natural parents, if they wish to be regarded as God’s children, they need to be born again in a spiritual fashion, by water and the Spirit, by baptism, through which we share God’s essential nature and are joined to him.
Through the coming of God in Christ there is a new creation. From the incarnation – which means the making flesh of God – the whole world is divinised working from the souls of women and men out into the whole cosmos.
Noblesse oblige – we who are made children of God by the Son of God becoming Son of Man have obligations with such an awesome nobility.
Saint Leo the Great preaching in Rome at Christmas around 450AD had this appeal to his hearers which I hand on to you:
This is the day our Saviour was born: what a joy for us, my beloved! This is no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life – the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising, as it does, immortality...
My beloved, let us offer thanksgiving to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. In the great mercy with which he loved us, he had pity on us, and in giving life to Christ, gave life to us too, when we were dead through sin’, so that in him we might be a new creation, a new work of his hands.
Let us then be quit of the old self and the habits that went with it. Sharers now in the birth of Christ, let us break with the deeds of the flesh.
O Christian, be aware of your nobility – it is God’s own nature that you share: do not then, by an ignoble life, fall back into your former baseness. Think of the Head, think of the Body of which you are a member...you have been made a temple of the Holy Spirit; do not, by evil deeds, drive so great an indweller away from you.
Those words are as true in 2010 as they were in 450. Praise God for the faith of the church through the ages carried down to us by the liturgy of Christmas.
We are God’s children made so by the gift of his only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
Christians, be aware of your nobility!
Born again and made God’s children by adoption and grace, may we daily be renewed by the Holy Spirit;
Noblesse oblige! Whoever claims to be noble must conduct himself nobly.
So are we made noble, so should we conduct ourselves!
Sunday, 26 December 2010
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Christmas day all age eucharist 2010
What did the snow man order at Macdonalds?
Iceburgers with chilli sauce!
What do you get if you cross an apple with a Christmas tree?
A pineapple!
Well, Christmas is here so we’re going to light the Christmas candle from one of the Advent candles. Which reminds me - what did the big candle say to the little candle?
I'm going out tonight!
Well this one isn’t going out, it’s coming on – who shall we choose?
Sunday Club member to light candle.
Christmas is here and it’s time to be thankful for Jesus.
All the gifts we’ve been given this morning are given to honour the greatest Gift from the greatest Giver!
So what gifts have we been given?
Time for children to share.
All of these gifts were given us because of what the angel told those shepherds in our bible reading.
Let’s read it our loud together. It’s the fifth paragraph of this morning’s gospel reading from Luke chapter 2:
What did the angel say to them?
'Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’
Good news of great joy! God has come to earth to give himself a human face, the face of Jesus!
What does it say the child was wrapped in?
Bands of cloth or what were called swaddling bands. Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in blankets or cloth strips so that movement of their limbs is tightly restricted. People believed that swaddling bands helped an infant to develop proper posture.
Swaddling fell out of favor in the seventeenth century. It has become popular again as modern medical studies indicate that swaddling assists babies to sleep, and to remain asleep.
Come back to Jesus though, the baby tightly bound lying in a manger.
We believe this infant Jesus was bound up so that we could be free!
Can anyone point me to an image of Jesus in church outside of the crib that shows him once again bound up?
When Jesus was bound up in the manger it pointed towards his being bound to a cruel cross 33 years later.
Mary and Joseph were told to call their son Jesus, which means Saviour. We know about Jesus more because of how he died and rose than on account of his birth. We keep Christmas because of Easter.
This Christmas eucharist is Christ’s Mass in which we see the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. The eucharist is about the gift of Jesus who’s always alive and with us and loving us – that’s the truth of Christmas.
Jesus was bound so we could be free!
In recent weeks I have seen people released from the power of guilt by the power of Jesus’ forgiveness, people released from the power of cancer by his healing power, worried people released from their anxieties. I have come across people who’ve died freed from fear of death by their faith in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy.
In the joy of this morning you may know many constraints in your life. There is the constraint of a guilty conscience. There is the constraint of regret, of anxiety, of the fear of death, of loneliness.
Today the Son of God was bound in swaddling cloths to free you! We know as Christians, as lovers of Jesus, what we call salvation, a new dimension of freedom in our lives that is the best gift of Christmas.
God who made each one of us in love loves us so much he wants each one of us to be one with him. The Son of God became man so all who open their hearts to him could know the liberty of the children of God!
Let’s pause for a quiet moment to reflect on that great thought
Our service moves on now to centre on a new born baby, Arthur Beesley, whom we are to bless on the day God showed himself in the Babe of Bethlehem.
Iceburgers with chilli sauce!
What do you get if you cross an apple with a Christmas tree?
A pineapple!
Well, Christmas is here so we’re going to light the Christmas candle from one of the Advent candles. Which reminds me - what did the big candle say to the little candle?
I'm going out tonight!
Well this one isn’t going out, it’s coming on – who shall we choose?
Sunday Club member to light candle.
Christmas is here and it’s time to be thankful for Jesus.
All the gifts we’ve been given this morning are given to honour the greatest Gift from the greatest Giver!
So what gifts have we been given?
Time for children to share.
All of these gifts were given us because of what the angel told those shepherds in our bible reading.
Let’s read it our loud together. It’s the fifth paragraph of this morning’s gospel reading from Luke chapter 2:
What did the angel say to them?
'Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’
Good news of great joy! God has come to earth to give himself a human face, the face of Jesus!
What does it say the child was wrapped in?
Bands of cloth or what were called swaddling bands. Swaddling is an age-old practice of wrapping infants snugly in blankets or cloth strips so that movement of their limbs is tightly restricted. People believed that swaddling bands helped an infant to develop proper posture.
Swaddling fell out of favor in the seventeenth century. It has become popular again as modern medical studies indicate that swaddling assists babies to sleep, and to remain asleep.
Come back to Jesus though, the baby tightly bound lying in a manger.
We believe this infant Jesus was bound up so that we could be free!
Can anyone point me to an image of Jesus in church outside of the crib that shows him once again bound up?
When Jesus was bound up in the manger it pointed towards his being bound to a cruel cross 33 years later.
Mary and Joseph were told to call their son Jesus, which means Saviour. We know about Jesus more because of how he died and rose than on account of his birth. We keep Christmas because of Easter.
This Christmas eucharist is Christ’s Mass in which we see the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. The eucharist is about the gift of Jesus who’s always alive and with us and loving us – that’s the truth of Christmas.
Jesus was bound so we could be free!
In recent weeks I have seen people released from the power of guilt by the power of Jesus’ forgiveness, people released from the power of cancer by his healing power, worried people released from their anxieties. I have come across people who’ve died freed from fear of death by their faith in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy.
In the joy of this morning you may know many constraints in your life. There is the constraint of a guilty conscience. There is the constraint of regret, of anxiety, of the fear of death, of loneliness.
Today the Son of God was bound in swaddling cloths to free you! We know as Christians, as lovers of Jesus, what we call salvation, a new dimension of freedom in our lives that is the best gift of Christmas.
God who made each one of us in love loves us so much he wants each one of us to be one with him. The Son of God became man so all who open their hearts to him could know the liberty of the children of God!
Let’s pause for a quiet moment to reflect on that great thought
Our service moves on now to centre on a new born baby, Arthur Beesley, whom we are to bless on the day God showed himself in the Babe of Bethlehem.
Midnight Mass 2010
The world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change. In all of my years, one thing does not change, however you disguise it, this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil wrote T.S.Eliot.
We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
These words are appropriate as the calendar turns once more to Christmas.
For over 1000 years on this hill the church calendar has turned. 50 generations have revisited the coming of God to the earth year by year throughout their life time and gained wisdom from this.
Tonight we arrive where we started and know the place as if for the first time.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God (John 1.14, 12). In the Christmas event we welcome life and light afresh. By the Holy Spirit the words of scripture enter our hearts afresh so we know that life and light as if for the first time.
Though 50 generations have prayed here before us we do not inherit that life and light. God has children, not grand children. To be a child of God is to receive him, to believe in his name, the name of Jesus, and so to gain power.
Tonight we recapture the sense of our being God’s children through the love that came down at Christmas. The annual celebration takes us back to basics with its reminder of the dignity afforded the human race by the incarnation.
The world turns and the world changes but this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
In that struggle there’s a winning side we’re called to enlist in as God draws us to his side and his victory in Jesus over sin, death and the devil.
The truth I am sharing is a hidden truth. It started off hidden away in a stable and continued in the obscurity of Palestine over 33 years. Then it was revealed by the resurrection.
We live in a more and more transparent society as the WikiLeaks saga has been reminding us, which is both good and evil. The aggression behind the hacktivity as they call it is such that when the Australian Prime Minister announced plans for censoring the internet the hackers took down his website and that of the Australian parliament.
This thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil...and internet technology is to be found on both sides.
The knowledge that is most powerful remains hidden to pride. It is concealed tonight in a stable away from the mainstream. God, as much as WikiLeaks, sees all. And he loves all. That is the Christian good news in an internet age or any age!
God sees all and he loves all - and all can respond to this truth.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God.
Love needs a body to show itself. Tonight divine love takes flesh.
This year is the centenary of the birth of one of the 20th century’s great explorers, Wilfred Thesiger. I have been reading his life in pictures which has a particularly Christmassy scene on the back.
He twice crossed the so-called Empty Quarter of Arabia, lived in the 1950s with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq and finally among the Samburu of Kenya.
Just as the internet is changing our lives today for good and ill, so Thesiger lamented the changes to Arab society that came about through the demand for oil. His writings are an invaluable record of a desert culture that has been largely lost.
Wilfred Thesiger explored by going native. He took no radio, let alone iPhone, to keep up with what was going on at home. He lived as the natives. Through this he became the first European to see amazing sights, many captured in his brilliant photography.
He writes of the fearful splendour of the desert being offset by human companionship. In the pitiless light of day we were as insignificant as the beetles I watched labouring across the sands. Only in the kindly darkness could we borrow a few square feet of desert and find homeliness within the radius of the firelight.
In human solidarity the fearfulness of nature is countered. Just as Thesiger’s work gained from hiding himself away for years among the natives so it is with God’s work of hiding himself in Bethlehem and Horsted Keynes. God is in the homeliness that counters the impersonal forces at loose in the world.
The Christian faith holds God has taken a body and kept it for ever in the body of Christ. God made a home in Bethlehem, literally the House of Bread, so he can continue in that bread, through Christ’s Mass, and in the hearts of all who will receive him.
Love needs a body. Divine love provides the body of Christ which now embraces the world in the words of scripture, in signs of water, oil, bread and wine and in the human warmth of Christian fellowship.
Love needs a body for this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
The light and life of Jesus show us a body with love stronger than death.
Though our lives move on from Christ’s Mass the end of all our living and exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Bethlehem. God made flesh. Love incarnate – this is the place we need to know!
We shall never cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
These words are appropriate as the calendar turns once more to Christmas.
For over 1000 years on this hill the church calendar has turned. 50 generations have revisited the coming of God to the earth year by year throughout their life time and gained wisdom from this.
Tonight we arrive where we started and know the place as if for the first time.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God (John 1.14, 12). In the Christmas event we welcome life and light afresh. By the Holy Spirit the words of scripture enter our hearts afresh so we know that life and light as if for the first time.
Though 50 generations have prayed here before us we do not inherit that life and light. God has children, not grand children. To be a child of God is to receive him, to believe in his name, the name of Jesus, and so to gain power.
Tonight we recapture the sense of our being God’s children through the love that came down at Christmas. The annual celebration takes us back to basics with its reminder of the dignity afforded the human race by the incarnation.
The world turns and the world changes but this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
In that struggle there’s a winning side we’re called to enlist in as God draws us to his side and his victory in Jesus over sin, death and the devil.
The truth I am sharing is a hidden truth. It started off hidden away in a stable and continued in the obscurity of Palestine over 33 years. Then it was revealed by the resurrection.
We live in a more and more transparent society as the WikiLeaks saga has been reminding us, which is both good and evil. The aggression behind the hacktivity as they call it is such that when the Australian Prime Minister announced plans for censoring the internet the hackers took down his website and that of the Australian parliament.
This thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil...and internet technology is to be found on both sides.
The knowledge that is most powerful remains hidden to pride. It is concealed tonight in a stable away from the mainstream. God, as much as WikiLeaks, sees all. And he loves all. That is the Christian good news in an internet age or any age!
God sees all and he loves all - and all can respond to this truth.
The Word became flesh so that those who receive him, who believe in his name, may gain power to become children of God.
Love needs a body to show itself. Tonight divine love takes flesh.
This year is the centenary of the birth of one of the 20th century’s great explorers, Wilfred Thesiger. I have been reading his life in pictures which has a particularly Christmassy scene on the back.
He twice crossed the so-called Empty Quarter of Arabia, lived in the 1950s with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq and finally among the Samburu of Kenya.
Just as the internet is changing our lives today for good and ill, so Thesiger lamented the changes to Arab society that came about through the demand for oil. His writings are an invaluable record of a desert culture that has been largely lost.
Wilfred Thesiger explored by going native. He took no radio, let alone iPhone, to keep up with what was going on at home. He lived as the natives. Through this he became the first European to see amazing sights, many captured in his brilliant photography.
He writes of the fearful splendour of the desert being offset by human companionship. In the pitiless light of day we were as insignificant as the beetles I watched labouring across the sands. Only in the kindly darkness could we borrow a few square feet of desert and find homeliness within the radius of the firelight.
In human solidarity the fearfulness of nature is countered. Just as Thesiger’s work gained from hiding himself away for years among the natives so it is with God’s work of hiding himself in Bethlehem and Horsted Keynes. God is in the homeliness that counters the impersonal forces at loose in the world.
The Christian faith holds God has taken a body and kept it for ever in the body of Christ. God made a home in Bethlehem, literally the House of Bread, so he can continue in that bread, through Christ’s Mass, and in the hearts of all who will receive him.
Love needs a body. Divine love provides the body of Christ which now embraces the world in the words of scripture, in signs of water, oil, bread and wine and in the human warmth of Christian fellowship.
Love needs a body for this thing does not change: the perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
The light and life of Jesus show us a body with love stronger than death.
Though our lives move on from Christ’s Mass the end of all our living and exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Bethlehem. God made flesh. Love incarnate – this is the place we need to know!
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Advent 4 The choices of God 19th December 2010
Decisions, decisions! Our life runs on decision making hour by hour, day by day.
Some of these, like whether to have coffee or tea, are trivial.
Others, like whether to marry Liz or Anne, are less so.
Our decisions are caused by the time frame we live in. As time flows on we come to vital junctions where we can go one way or the other, for one thing or another, for one person or another.
The woman or man of God sees decision making in another perspective. We know that when time has ended we will face the consequences of our decision making.
We will see how closely our lives have run within the will of God and how much they have been lived off the rails.
For it is Christian faith that you and I, through the exercise of our faith, are chosen and guided by God. This means our lives including our decision making are shaped by the choices of God.
This morning we see God’s great choice of Our Lady to be mother of Our Lord. When we look closely at Mary’s story, especially in Luke’s account, we see how she struggled before saying Yes to God’s choice of her to be the mother of his Son.
In our own lives we also struggle many a time to conform our lives to what God would have us do.
I remember when I was praying about marriage God opened a door to me to serve as a missionary in Guyana. They told me a dozen men were waiting for a teacher to train them as priests so the sacraments could be available across Guyana’s hinterland. With reluctance I offered myself since the post was for a single man. I met Anne at missionary college and so my obedience to his call also answered the prayer of my heart.
This morning in Mary the church invites us to ponder the choices of God and to think about how much our lives are faithful to God’s choice of us.
Two years ago a process came about that tested my vocation as a priest ending with a decision to come with Anne and James to Horsted Keynes.
Since then I have helped or am helping fourteen couples as they seal their vocation or calling to marriage. I have been helping one young man as he explores his calling to the priesthood.
I have had a number of conversations about vocation with various church members as they seek what God most wants of them in life.
Some have been thinking about a change of job. Others have been making the most of a redundancy. One or two have felt they have done a task in the village or the church for long enough and have been seeking new possibilities which have connected with my own agenda as parish priest for ever seeking volunteers.
Christianity is a faith that holds disparate truths together – God is one and three, Jesus is God and man – and one of these mysteries is that God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
It seems to me that Christians are at two ends when it comes to divine guidance. Some see God ‘s choice as starting us off and then leaving us with common sense – sanctified common sense – to get going on our own. Others, if you ask them to do something, will say they need to pray about it, and they talk of God’s guidance as very immediate and direct.
I am not coming down on one side or the other. What matters is to recognise the hand of God in our lives and to cast aside the things that draw us away from his leadings.
The sanctified common sense sort of guidance needs supplementing by openness to God’s surprises in the form of obvious divine intervention. Those who sense something of a hotline to God need to work harder to check their leadings by arguing the case at times with other experienced believers. Both reason and faith are God’s gift and they shouldn’t contradict each other.
If we want our lives including our decision making to go where they’re meant to go it means developing what Paul in our second reading from the opening verses of the letter to the Romans calls the obedience of faith.
This obedience is more than avoiding deadly sins. It is the best directing of our energies. It is knowing we are in the right employment or state of life, be that married or single. It is a readiness to ask ourselves whether where we are at is truly in God’s will or whether it is at variance with it.
If you are on the rails God gives us, living close to Jesus, you move more peacably than if your life is off the rails. A lack of inner peace can be a helpful warning from God to take stock of your life.
Christmas and New Year bring us such an opportunity to reflect. Some of us will use the sacrament of reconciliation or take opportunity to talk to the priest or another experienced Christian. Others may appreciate being put in touch with a spiritual director. All of us can ask God directly:
‘Show me the needs that are deeper than my wants. Place my energies more and more to your service and less and less to aimless self interest’.
When God chose Mary he invited her to be his mother by a surprise of the Spirit. He did not compel her but won the obedience of her faith.
It is the Christian faith that followers of Jesus, through the voluntary obedience of their faith, are chosen and guided by God.
God seeks our yes to his future possibilities as he sought that of the Blessed Virgin. Her life became a roller coaster of a life, a Lady of sorrow and joy, and so it is to be for us.
God’s hand on our lives, God’s choice of us, is a wonderful and a costly thing. We have a lifespan to exercise our faith in that choice. The penitent thief who turned to Jesus as he died shows us it is never too late to seek God’s leading.
God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
In making this decision the clue is WWJW – maybe you have seen the Christian bracelet – WWJW – What would Jesus want?
The eucharist is all about WWJW. We offer our souls and bodies with Christ to the Father so that our lives are put back on the rails Sunday by Sunday.
With Mary we say: I am God’s servant. Let it be to me as God wills!
Take my energies and use them for good since there is work for those God has chosen. There is a harvest to gather and labourers are few.
Some of these, like whether to have coffee or tea, are trivial.
Others, like whether to marry Liz or Anne, are less so.
Our decisions are caused by the time frame we live in. As time flows on we come to vital junctions where we can go one way or the other, for one thing or another, for one person or another.
The woman or man of God sees decision making in another perspective. We know that when time has ended we will face the consequences of our decision making.
We will see how closely our lives have run within the will of God and how much they have been lived off the rails.
For it is Christian faith that you and I, through the exercise of our faith, are chosen and guided by God. This means our lives including our decision making are shaped by the choices of God.
This morning we see God’s great choice of Our Lady to be mother of Our Lord. When we look closely at Mary’s story, especially in Luke’s account, we see how she struggled before saying Yes to God’s choice of her to be the mother of his Son.
In our own lives we also struggle many a time to conform our lives to what God would have us do.
I remember when I was praying about marriage God opened a door to me to serve as a missionary in Guyana. They told me a dozen men were waiting for a teacher to train them as priests so the sacraments could be available across Guyana’s hinterland. With reluctance I offered myself since the post was for a single man. I met Anne at missionary college and so my obedience to his call also answered the prayer of my heart.
This morning in Mary the church invites us to ponder the choices of God and to think about how much our lives are faithful to God’s choice of us.
Two years ago a process came about that tested my vocation as a priest ending with a decision to come with Anne and James to Horsted Keynes.
Since then I have helped or am helping fourteen couples as they seal their vocation or calling to marriage. I have been helping one young man as he explores his calling to the priesthood.
I have had a number of conversations about vocation with various church members as they seek what God most wants of them in life.
Some have been thinking about a change of job. Others have been making the most of a redundancy. One or two have felt they have done a task in the village or the church for long enough and have been seeking new possibilities which have connected with my own agenda as parish priest for ever seeking volunteers.
Christianity is a faith that holds disparate truths together – God is one and three, Jesus is God and man – and one of these mysteries is that God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
It seems to me that Christians are at two ends when it comes to divine guidance. Some see God ‘s choice as starting us off and then leaving us with common sense – sanctified common sense – to get going on our own. Others, if you ask them to do something, will say they need to pray about it, and they talk of God’s guidance as very immediate and direct.
I am not coming down on one side or the other. What matters is to recognise the hand of God in our lives and to cast aside the things that draw us away from his leadings.
The sanctified common sense sort of guidance needs supplementing by openness to God’s surprises in the form of obvious divine intervention. Those who sense something of a hotline to God need to work harder to check their leadings by arguing the case at times with other experienced believers. Both reason and faith are God’s gift and they shouldn’t contradict each other.
If we want our lives including our decision making to go where they’re meant to go it means developing what Paul in our second reading from the opening verses of the letter to the Romans calls the obedience of faith.
This obedience is more than avoiding deadly sins. It is the best directing of our energies. It is knowing we are in the right employment or state of life, be that married or single. It is a readiness to ask ourselves whether where we are at is truly in God’s will or whether it is at variance with it.
If you are on the rails God gives us, living close to Jesus, you move more peacably than if your life is off the rails. A lack of inner peace can be a helpful warning from God to take stock of your life.
Christmas and New Year bring us such an opportunity to reflect. Some of us will use the sacrament of reconciliation or take opportunity to talk to the priest or another experienced Christian. Others may appreciate being put in touch with a spiritual director. All of us can ask God directly:
‘Show me the needs that are deeper than my wants. Place my energies more and more to your service and less and less to aimless self interest’.
When God chose Mary he invited her to be his mother by a surprise of the Spirit. He did not compel her but won the obedience of her faith.
It is the Christian faith that followers of Jesus, through the voluntary obedience of their faith, are chosen and guided by God.
God seeks our yes to his future possibilities as he sought that of the Blessed Virgin. Her life became a roller coaster of a life, a Lady of sorrow and joy, and so it is to be for us.
God’s hand on our lives, God’s choice of us, is a wonderful and a costly thing. We have a lifespan to exercise our faith in that choice. The penitent thief who turned to Jesus as he died shows us it is never too late to seek God’s leading.
God has chosen you and I and yet we have to decide how to live our lives.
In making this decision the clue is WWJW – maybe you have seen the Christian bracelet – WWJW – What would Jesus want?
The eucharist is all about WWJW. We offer our souls and bodies with Christ to the Father so that our lives are put back on the rails Sunday by Sunday.
With Mary we say: I am God’s servant. Let it be to me as God wills!
Take my energies and use them for good since there is work for those God has chosen. There is a harvest to gather and labourers are few.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Remembrance Sunday 14th November 2010
Would the children please come to the front as I’ve got some things to show them?
We’re about remembering this morning.
On my desk I’ve got a little list to help me remember things I’ve got to do. Some times I do this to remember knot hankie. Other times I use some of these show yellow 'post-it' notes and stick them somewhere to help me remember.
Today is Remembrance Sunday when we remember all those people who died in the World Wars. Just as the little yellow note is a visual reminder of the things we need to do, the poppy is our visual reminder to remember those sad times.
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.
David Shankland reads:
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 also 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.
We can also remember the other sign mentioned in the poem. That of the cross. It reminds us that Jesus loves us so much he died for us. It reminds us of the victory of Jesus over death because Jesus is alive today, and he gives his life to people today.
I have a very special cross – here it is.
It was given me thirty years ago by a miner's widow.
During the First World War, her father, 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 his daughter gave me that crucifix when I visited her in her old age in Doncaster.
Here it is. 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 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 I have copied onto the back page of our service sheet.
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.
As we move now into prayer I want us all to say that prayer together but first I invite the cubs to lead us. Let’s keep quiet for a moment.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 and be with soldiers and peacemakers.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 And be with the hungry in their need.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 And be with the frightened and lonely.
Reader 1 Help us see them,
Reader 2 Hear them
Reader 1 And in their darkness make us part of your light.
Reader 2 Amen.
Let’s all join together in the Westminster Abbey 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. Amen.
We’re about remembering this morning.
On my desk I’ve got a little list to help me remember things I’ve got to do. Some times I do this to remember knot hankie. Other times I use some of these show yellow 'post-it' notes and stick them somewhere to help me remember.
Today is Remembrance Sunday when we remember all those people who died in the World Wars. Just as the little yellow note is a visual reminder of the things we need to do, the poppy is our visual reminder to remember those sad times.
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.
David Shankland reads:
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 also 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.
We can also remember the other sign mentioned in the poem. That of the cross. It reminds us that Jesus loves us so much he died for us. It reminds us of the victory of Jesus over death because Jesus is alive today, and he gives his life to people today.
I have a very special cross – here it is.
It was given me thirty years ago by a miner's widow.
During the First World War, her father, 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 his daughter gave me that crucifix when I visited her in her old age in Doncaster.
Here it is. 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 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 I have copied onto the back page of our service sheet.
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.
As we move now into prayer I want us all to say that prayer together but first I invite the cubs to lead us. Let’s keep quiet for a moment.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 and be with soldiers and peacemakers.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 And be with the hungry in their need.
Reader 1 Walk among us Jesus
Reader 2 And be with the frightened and lonely.
Reader 1 Help us see them,
Reader 2 Hear them
Reader 1 And in their darkness make us part of your light.
Reader 2 Amen.
Let’s all join together in the Westminster Abbey 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. Amen.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Baptismal eucharist 7th November 2010
Little James and his parents were in church and there was a baptism.
The boy was taken in by all of this. He observed the priest saying something whilst pouring water over the infant’s head.
With a quizzical look on his face, he turned to his father and asked with all the innocence of a five year old ‘Daddy, why is he brainwashing that baby?’
Out of the mouth of babes!
As we baptise Barnie today we will be reminded of what it is to be a Christian.
We will say we turn to Christ, repent of our sins, renounce evil and believe in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
As we say it we will all be a little more brainwashed into Christianity. At no other place does the Church of England make it so clear what it is to be a Christian than in the baptism service. As John Barnabas is so young he relies on his parents and sisters for most things. They have to speak for him today and we join with them in making the statements of Christian faith.
We will be brainwashed that bit more, we will, as Paul says, let this mind be more in us that was also in Christ Jesus.
As we say what we believe our words enter our ears and descend to our hearts so that we believe it all the more.
Little James had a point.
In choosing baptism for their children Stephen and Dawn are seeking to influence them by Jesus. They know that their children will be influenced by all sorts of worldly things and have concern that in all of this they will have the spiritual focus that Jesus offers.
In today’s scripture readings we are reminded about the central doctrine of Christianity which is the resurrection.
The passage from Job is a rare glimpse of life after death in the Old Testament. I know that my redeemer liveth Job says in words made famous by Handel’s Oratorio Messiah. Then in the Gospel reading Our Lord speaks of the existence of those who are considered worthy of a place...in the resurrection of the dead being like angels...children of God being children of the resurrection.
The background is a conflict between Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees who believed respectively in a future resurrection and in no resurrection. We can remember which side was which because the Sadducees were sad you see!
Anyway Our Lord comes down clearly with the belief of the Pharisees, a belief the truth of which his own resurrection was shortly to confirm. The dead are raised he concludes God is god not of the dead but of the living; for to him all of them are alive. (Luke 20.37, 38)
The hope of Christians for life after death is based not on wishful thinking but on the very nature of God himself who is decidedly a God of the living.
One of the things we get brainwashed or disciplined into as Christians is coming to church on a Sunday. Barnie’s sisters Grace and Sadie got an award for their Sunday attendance last week. We Christians gather on a Sunday because our God’s the God of life.
Sunday’s the day life triumphed over death in the resurrection of Jesus and there’s no more meaningful thing in life than what conquers death.
Earthly life’s a prologue. The book of life proper starts beyond the grave with Christianity’s Founder who is the life, the truth and the way.
Life is what Jesus is all about. We rejoice today that he’s given it to Barnie and that he’s got something more than earthly life up his sleeve for this little man and for all of us.
God who gives us life wants to give us his life.
I came to bring them life and have it to the full Jesus says in St John 10 verse 10.
For a Christian the glass is never half empty it’s half full at the least and it gets to overflowing.
Another scripture, again from John, makes this plain. Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Jesus says Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.
When we choose Jesus there’s a fruitful overflowing.
As someone said God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.
Religion can get a bit nutty, yes. It’s God-given but it does get man-handled.
We seek for Barnie the spiritual fruitfulness that is already growing around him in the Hitchen family. I can’t resist applauding Grace in particular for her cheerfulness faced with a broken collar bone, grace in name, grace in deed.
For us Christians we are so in name – our service requires us to say so again – but we seek to be so more in deed.
I have a final image from a book, which perhaps came into my mind by the vision of Stephen cycling day by day to the station. It’s called Bicycling with God and depicts the Christian life as life on the two seated bicycle we call a tandem.
At the start of the story the Christian is in the front seat steering the bicycle whilst God patiently pedals behind him. At some point they decide to swap seats and then the story becomes more exciting and energising and less predictable.
As many of you may know the Hitchens are committed to diplomatic service in the Middle East which makes for an adventure which little Barnie is now joined into. There have been comings and goings from Horsted Keynes and there will be comings and goings in years to come.
May God take the front seat in their travels, Jesus be in their adventures and the Holy Spirit bring excitement and energising to them all as life moves on from this great day in their family and God’s family here at St Giles!
The boy was taken in by all of this. He observed the priest saying something whilst pouring water over the infant’s head.
With a quizzical look on his face, he turned to his father and asked with all the innocence of a five year old ‘Daddy, why is he brainwashing that baby?’
Out of the mouth of babes!
As we baptise Barnie today we will be reminded of what it is to be a Christian.
We will say we turn to Christ, repent of our sins, renounce evil and believe in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
As we say it we will all be a little more brainwashed into Christianity. At no other place does the Church of England make it so clear what it is to be a Christian than in the baptism service. As John Barnabas is so young he relies on his parents and sisters for most things. They have to speak for him today and we join with them in making the statements of Christian faith.
We will be brainwashed that bit more, we will, as Paul says, let this mind be more in us that was also in Christ Jesus.
As we say what we believe our words enter our ears and descend to our hearts so that we believe it all the more.
Little James had a point.
In choosing baptism for their children Stephen and Dawn are seeking to influence them by Jesus. They know that their children will be influenced by all sorts of worldly things and have concern that in all of this they will have the spiritual focus that Jesus offers.
In today’s scripture readings we are reminded about the central doctrine of Christianity which is the resurrection.
The passage from Job is a rare glimpse of life after death in the Old Testament. I know that my redeemer liveth Job says in words made famous by Handel’s Oratorio Messiah. Then in the Gospel reading Our Lord speaks of the existence of those who are considered worthy of a place...in the resurrection of the dead being like angels...children of God being children of the resurrection.
The background is a conflict between Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees who believed respectively in a future resurrection and in no resurrection. We can remember which side was which because the Sadducees were sad you see!
Anyway Our Lord comes down clearly with the belief of the Pharisees, a belief the truth of which his own resurrection was shortly to confirm. The dead are raised he concludes God is god not of the dead but of the living; for to him all of them are alive. (Luke 20.37, 38)
The hope of Christians for life after death is based not on wishful thinking but on the very nature of God himself who is decidedly a God of the living.
One of the things we get brainwashed or disciplined into as Christians is coming to church on a Sunday. Barnie’s sisters Grace and Sadie got an award for their Sunday attendance last week. We Christians gather on a Sunday because our God’s the God of life.
Sunday’s the day life triumphed over death in the resurrection of Jesus and there’s no more meaningful thing in life than what conquers death.
Earthly life’s a prologue. The book of life proper starts beyond the grave with Christianity’s Founder who is the life, the truth and the way.
Life is what Jesus is all about. We rejoice today that he’s given it to Barnie and that he’s got something more than earthly life up his sleeve for this little man and for all of us.
God who gives us life wants to give us his life.
I came to bring them life and have it to the full Jesus says in St John 10 verse 10.
For a Christian the glass is never half empty it’s half full at the least and it gets to overflowing.
Another scripture, again from John, makes this plain. Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Jesus says Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.
When we choose Jesus there’s a fruitful overflowing.
As someone said God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.
Religion can get a bit nutty, yes. It’s God-given but it does get man-handled.
We seek for Barnie the spiritual fruitfulness that is already growing around him in the Hitchen family. I can’t resist applauding Grace in particular for her cheerfulness faced with a broken collar bone, grace in name, grace in deed.
For us Christians we are so in name – our service requires us to say so again – but we seek to be so more in deed.
I have a final image from a book, which perhaps came into my mind by the vision of Stephen cycling day by day to the station. It’s called Bicycling with God and depicts the Christian life as life on the two seated bicycle we call a tandem.
At the start of the story the Christian is in the front seat steering the bicycle whilst God patiently pedals behind him. At some point they decide to swap seats and then the story becomes more exciting and energising and less predictable.
As many of you may know the Hitchens are committed to diplomatic service in the Middle East which makes for an adventure which little Barnie is now joined into. There have been comings and goings from Horsted Keynes and there will be comings and goings in years to come.
May God take the front seat in their travels, Jesus be in their adventures and the Holy Spirit bring excitement and energising to them all as life moves on from this great day in their family and God’s family here at St Giles!
Sunday, 31 October 2010
All Saints Feast 31st October 2010
Sometimes I get exasperated in my pastoral encounters, especially when people seem over concerned with material things.
Don’t get me wrong, with the government squeeze many of us are feeling the pinch and we’ve a duty to be alongside the most vulnerable.
Sometimes though, I find among us an over concern for this world’s goods and their security.
I want to dare to say in those pastoral encounters what I can say quite fearlessly in the pulpit on All Saints’ Day.
Remember – the most meaningful thing in life is what conquers death.
Earthly life is a prologue. The book of life proper starts beyond the grave with Christianity’s Founder who is the life, the truth and the way.
Christians live knowing their homeland is in heaven. We come to church to develop a taste for that homeland through bread and wine that anticipates the heavenly banquet and through the word of God which promises the same.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.
In the eucharist we come before Jesus. We’re happy to eat and drink of him now knowing we’ll be the happier to eat and drink with him in his kingdom.
Happy are those who are called to his supper. That phrase in the liturgy has a double meaning referring to both the eucharist and the celestial banquet. This Holy Communion service is, like the cinema trailer, the preview of a forthcoming attraction in the joy of all the saints.
If people in our village could see the way things really are they’d fight to get a place at this celebration! It’s our failure, my and my predecessors, your and your predecessors as worshippers failure, to believe and to communicate this that is robbing them of this privilege.
The most meaningful thing in life is what conquers death.
I go to the Chemists and see a rack of booklets on how to overcome various conditions - arthritis, indigestion, osteoporosis, stress, varicose veins and so on.
One question not addressed is how you deal with dying.
Perhaps you wouldn’t expect doctors to have much to say about how we deal with death. Maybe they see death as the ultimate defeat for health professionals.
Yet the whole of life leads up to death. It's something quite natural, in a sense. The end of man - but in which sense - 'end' as 'finish' or 'end' as 'fulfillment'?
Dying is just as much a daily medical condition as arthritis or indigestion. Yet how do people find a consultant who can advise them on how to die?
Where do people facing eternity go to for help?
Our Christian Faith is built upon the risen Christ. He is our Consultant.
Who else can advise and prepare, console and strengthen in the face of death than Jesus?
Jesus, who in dying bore the agony of death for us.
Jesus, who in rising burst open the gates of paradise!
Our Consultant writes these words for us in his manual - though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil. I am with you.
This church points up to a world beyond this world because it is the church of Jesus Christ
That community is one mystical Body of Christ where there is no division between the living and the dead but all are one in the death defying love of God.
Dead or alive we belong to the same family - so we pray for each other. On All Saints feast we recall our solidarity with the Christians who’ve gone before us especially those who’ve worshipped in this church over 40 generations.
These stones that have echoed their praises are holy, and dear is the ground where their feet have once trod. Yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims, and still they were seeking the city of God.
We are one today also with our beloved dead - our families, friends, benefactors - those who have inspired us or enriched our lives, who now pray for us wrapped in the mantle of God’s love for all eternity.
We are one in worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.
This worship no better described than by a person who attended the Divine Liturgy in the icon filled Cathedral of Kiev in the Ukraine:
‘There is always a crowd’, he said, ‘ a promiscuity of rich and poor, of well dressed and tattered, a kaleidoscope mingling of people and colours - people standing and praying, people kneeling, people prostrated... There is no organ music, but an unearthly and spontaneous outburst of praise from the choir and the clergy and the people worshipping together...
‘And from the back and from the sides - and from the pillars and from the columns, look the pale faces of antiquity, the faces of the dead who are alive looking over the shoulders of the alive who have not yet died...All praising God, enfolding in a vast choric communion the few who in the Church have met on the common impulse to acknowledge the wonder and the splendour of the mystery of God.
‘You lose the sense of Ego, the separated individual, you are aware only of being part of a great unity praising God. You cease to be man and woman and become THE CHURCH (the Bride of Christ)’
And that is what we are this morning – the church, the community of Jesus - stretching beyond these four walls into eternity - living with lives that gain meaning from the conquest of death which brings and should bring our humanity into its right mind.
Don’t get me wrong, with the government squeeze many of us are feeling the pinch and we’ve a duty to be alongside the most vulnerable.
Sometimes though, I find among us an over concern for this world’s goods and their security.
I want to dare to say in those pastoral encounters what I can say quite fearlessly in the pulpit on All Saints’ Day.
Remember – the most meaningful thing in life is what conquers death.
Earthly life is a prologue. The book of life proper starts beyond the grave with Christianity’s Founder who is the life, the truth and the way.
Christians live knowing their homeland is in heaven. We come to church to develop a taste for that homeland through bread and wine that anticipates the heavenly banquet and through the word of God which promises the same.
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.
In the eucharist we come before Jesus. We’re happy to eat and drink of him now knowing we’ll be the happier to eat and drink with him in his kingdom.
Happy are those who are called to his supper. That phrase in the liturgy has a double meaning referring to both the eucharist and the celestial banquet. This Holy Communion service is, like the cinema trailer, the preview of a forthcoming attraction in the joy of all the saints.
If people in our village could see the way things really are they’d fight to get a place at this celebration! It’s our failure, my and my predecessors, your and your predecessors as worshippers failure, to believe and to communicate this that is robbing them of this privilege.
The most meaningful thing in life is what conquers death.
I go to the Chemists and see a rack of booklets on how to overcome various conditions - arthritis, indigestion, osteoporosis, stress, varicose veins and so on.
One question not addressed is how you deal with dying.
Perhaps you wouldn’t expect doctors to have much to say about how we deal with death. Maybe they see death as the ultimate defeat for health professionals.
Yet the whole of life leads up to death. It's something quite natural, in a sense. The end of man - but in which sense - 'end' as 'finish' or 'end' as 'fulfillment'?
Dying is just as much a daily medical condition as arthritis or indigestion. Yet how do people find a consultant who can advise them on how to die?
Where do people facing eternity go to for help?
Our Christian Faith is built upon the risen Christ. He is our Consultant.
Who else can advise and prepare, console and strengthen in the face of death than Jesus?
Jesus, who in dying bore the agony of death for us.
Jesus, who in rising burst open the gates of paradise!
Our Consultant writes these words for us in his manual - though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil. I am with you.
This church points up to a world beyond this world because it is the church of Jesus Christ
That community is one mystical Body of Christ where there is no division between the living and the dead but all are one in the death defying love of God.
Dead or alive we belong to the same family - so we pray for each other. On All Saints feast we recall our solidarity with the Christians who’ve gone before us especially those who’ve worshipped in this church over 40 generations.
These stones that have echoed their praises are holy, and dear is the ground where their feet have once trod. Yet here they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims, and still they were seeking the city of God.
We are one today also with our beloved dead - our families, friends, benefactors - those who have inspired us or enriched our lives, who now pray for us wrapped in the mantle of God’s love for all eternity.
We are one in worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.
This worship no better described than by a person who attended the Divine Liturgy in the icon filled Cathedral of Kiev in the Ukraine:
‘There is always a crowd’, he said, ‘ a promiscuity of rich and poor, of well dressed and tattered, a kaleidoscope mingling of people and colours - people standing and praying, people kneeling, people prostrated... There is no organ music, but an unearthly and spontaneous outburst of praise from the choir and the clergy and the people worshipping together...
‘And from the back and from the sides - and from the pillars and from the columns, look the pale faces of antiquity, the faces of the dead who are alive looking over the shoulders of the alive who have not yet died...All praising God, enfolding in a vast choric communion the few who in the Church have met on the common impulse to acknowledge the wonder and the splendour of the mystery of God.
‘You lose the sense of Ego, the separated individual, you are aware only of being part of a great unity praising God. You cease to be man and woman and become THE CHURCH (the Bride of Christ)’
And that is what we are this morning – the church, the community of Jesus - stretching beyond these four walls into eternity - living with lives that gain meaning from the conquest of death which brings and should bring our humanity into its right mind.
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