Archbishop William Temple once commented that it does very little harm if an eager layman talks heresy, provided he shows and imparts a love for the Lord Jesus whereas it does great harm if a priest talks orthodoxy so as to make men think the Gospel is dull or irrelevant.
When it comes to the great Truth we are celebrating of the Resurrection of the Lord this is supremely true. I can as a preacher argue for the Resurrection of Jesus but what may matter more is for you to meet with a life set alight by the Truth "Christ is Risen" however bad that person may be at expressing that truth!
I owe my convictions to meeting such a life in 1967 and I am still going strong.
These Glorious Forty Days are for me a celebration of the heart of my Christian Faith. The Paschal Candle stands in the Sanctuary as a sign of the basic truth of Christianity.
Like Paul at Athens I should like it said of me as is written in Acts 17v18 "he preached Jesus and the resurrection"!
The Truth of the Resurrection is a historical truth.
It goes beyond history but it is rooted in history. We have four slightly different accounts affirming that when the disciples went to the tomb of Christ they found his grave clothes folded and no sign of the dead. In the next six weeks the Resurrected Christ was seen according to Paul by over 550 people on 11 different occasions. The disciples lives were transformed and the Church grew at an astonishing rate surviving nearly 20 centuries to this day. Over these centuries, particularly the last two highly sceptical centuries, much critical investigation has gone into the claim for Jesus Christ being the only Man to come back from the dead. In this connection the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Darling, made this comment about Christ's Resurrection:
'In its favour there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the Resurrection story is true'.
The Resurrection being a historically founded truth challenges us as an universal truth. Just as the Battle of Waterloo will remain for ever in the history books as the event that changed European history two centuries ago so the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an event that has not just European significance over two centuries but one that has universal meaning, stretching backwards and forwards in time and in space to every place and era in this Universe.
In the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence I once saw the beautiful 15th Century picture by Masaccio of the Trinity. It shows Jesus on the Cross being handed over to us by the Father. The picture used to hang over a tomb with a skeleton laid on top of it. On the tomb was this inscription: "I was what you are and what I am you shall be" (repeat)
The Resurrection shows us that God has come in the flesh and suffered our death so that we in turn, welcoming this gift of the Risen Christ, may become sharers in His divine Life.
Speaking of Jesus C.S.Lewis said 'It seems obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God. God has landed on this enemy occupied world in human form'.
"Christ has risen from the dead!" sing Orthodox Christians at Easter, "He has crushed death by His death and bestowed Life upon those who lay in the tomb". The Son of God has "crushed death by his death" in the greatest of all imaginable revolutions. Now death to those in Christ is something to look forward to.
May the revolutionary truth of the resurrection seize each one of us this evening. To be a Christian is to be irrepressible. We cannot be put down!
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Easter Sunday John 20.1f 24th April 2011
There are two sides to Easter Sunday.
There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
In the account we just heard from St John’s Gospel something happened outwardly and something happened inwardly.
Simon Peter...went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie; and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple...and he saw and believed.
Easter is about an event for which there is clear evidence. Something happened that just got summarised for us in the words of the Creed. And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.
This event makes Jesus Christ the only founder of a world religion without a grave. His resurrection is said to be as well attested as any event in history. The low key tone of the accounts of Easter in the four gospels would be absent in any made-up tale. The, what was then, remarkable and controversial role of women as witnesses would not have been included in any made up story. There was a new confidence found among frightened disciples and eventually even a new holy day as the first Jewish believers changed their weekly celebration of Sabbath from Friday night to Sunday morning. All of these things are accepted history. They confirm something happened outwardly that first Easter Sunday.
When we look at the accounts we see that some believed, some didn’t.
There are two sides to Easter. There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
How you see the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world because how you think about the greatest things in life determines how you do the things that are least.
If you believe Jesus is the risen Lord, the Son of God and Saviour, that affects everything – take three examples: the way you treat other people (since Easter we know that human beings are sacred), the way you fill in your tax return (Easter is such a truth it makes untruthfulness a wasted space), the attitude you have to growing old (this life is just the preface to the book of life Jesus has written for us and age brings us nearer to this).
If the fact Jesus rose from the dead is one side of Easter the other side is the brightness of faith.
For many people it is too good to believe so their faith is dim. At the beginning of Christianity the apostles didn’t want to believe did they? The women’s words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them St Luke writes.
We human beings have an inner blindness that Jesus touched upon when he once took mud and put it over the eyes of a blind man so that he could see again. There may be some of us, even in church today, who need the brightness of faith to dispel the darkness of unbelief. Jesus can do this if you ask him to.
The fourth century writer Ephrem the Syrian writes ‘Blessed is he who gave the mind’s eye – which we have managed to blind.’ He goes on to describe how, just as God made us first out of clay, Jesus made new eyes out of mud for the blind man and will ‘open the eyes which our own free will has closed’. We need to exercise our free will to gain the brightness of faith and let both sides of Easter ring true.
Through such a choice for him may the risen Lord open our inner eyes this morning in Communion so we see new brightness in our faith!
There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
In the account we just heard from St John’s Gospel something happened outwardly and something happened inwardly.
Simon Peter...went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie; and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple...and he saw and believed.
Easter is about an event for which there is clear evidence. Something happened that just got summarised for us in the words of the Creed. And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.
This event makes Jesus Christ the only founder of a world religion without a grave. His resurrection is said to be as well attested as any event in history. The low key tone of the accounts of Easter in the four gospels would be absent in any made-up tale. The, what was then, remarkable and controversial role of women as witnesses would not have been included in any made up story. There was a new confidence found among frightened disciples and eventually even a new holy day as the first Jewish believers changed their weekly celebration of Sabbath from Friday night to Sunday morning. All of these things are accepted history. They confirm something happened outwardly that first Easter Sunday.
When we look at the accounts we see that some believed, some didn’t.
There are two sides to Easter. There’s what actually happened and how people saw it and see it today.
How you see the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world because how you think about the greatest things in life determines how you do the things that are least.
If you believe Jesus is the risen Lord, the Son of God and Saviour, that affects everything – take three examples: the way you treat other people (since Easter we know that human beings are sacred), the way you fill in your tax return (Easter is such a truth it makes untruthfulness a wasted space), the attitude you have to growing old (this life is just the preface to the book of life Jesus has written for us and age brings us nearer to this).
If the fact Jesus rose from the dead is one side of Easter the other side is the brightness of faith.
For many people it is too good to believe so their faith is dim. At the beginning of Christianity the apostles didn’t want to believe did they? The women’s words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them St Luke writes.
We human beings have an inner blindness that Jesus touched upon when he once took mud and put it over the eyes of a blind man so that he could see again. There may be some of us, even in church today, who need the brightness of faith to dispel the darkness of unbelief. Jesus can do this if you ask him to.
The fourth century writer Ephrem the Syrian writes ‘Blessed is he who gave the mind’s eye – which we have managed to blind.’ He goes on to describe how, just as God made us first out of clay, Jesus made new eyes out of mud for the blind man and will ‘open the eyes which our own free will has closed’. We need to exercise our free will to gain the brightness of faith and let both sides of Easter ring true.
Through such a choice for him may the risen Lord open our inner eyes this morning in Communion so we see new brightness in our faith!
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Maundy Thursday 21 April 2011
If there is one word that captures what is distinctive about Christianity it is 'grace'.
If there is one wonder of our life that expresses that most it is the Blessed Sacrament.
As someone wrote, 'the world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.'
To live as a Christian is to live conscious of another world, open to the supernatural enfolding and empowering of grace.
Grace - G-R-A-C-E - God's Riches At Christ's Expense - I've heard it put that way.
What riches are ours, particularly in this Sacrament. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
God's riches - all the benefits of his acceptance, love and empowering - at Christ's Expense - flowing from the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus all of which is already present at the Maundy Thursday supper table and at every eucharist.
Blessed, praised and hallowed be Our Lord Jesus Christ, upon His Throne in Glory, in the Most Holy Sacrament -and in the hearts of all his faithful people.
Tonight God's riches, his unconditional love, are poured into our hearts at the expense of Jesus Christ Himself!
By tonight’s action Our Lord gives himself by intention, and intention to be sealed on the Cross by the actual breaking of his body and shedding of his blood.
His intention is love of Jesus since sacrifice is about love before it is about death. For Our Lord it is about a love stronger than death.
The Blessed Sacrament is His Body Broken for us, his Blood outpoured for us.
We are never worthy of this Gift, as we say repeatedly before Holy Communion. Lord I am not worthy to receive you...
There is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy, to make Jesus love us more.
There is also nothing we can do to make him love us less, that is the wonder of it all.
'There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea' wrote Fr. Faber 'but we make his love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify his strictness with a zeal he will not own. If our love were but more simple, we should take him at his word; and our lives would be all sunshine in the sweetness of our Lord.'
Grace, God's riches at Christ's Expense, this is the very sweetness of our Lord to us.
Grace, unconditional love and acceptance, is foundational to Christianity.
The Blessed Sacrament is not given to us tonight as a reward for good behaviour, even if God's grace is not to be presumed upon.
Jesus makes as free a gift to us which he desires to give to all people.
It is a free gift but not a cheap gift. What expense Our Lord has borne to provide this gift!
And in the garden secretly and on the Cross on high should teach his brethren and inspire to suffer and to die.
After the joyful table gathering tonight we have a procession to a place of sorrows where we keep the Gethsemane Watch before the Blessed Sacrament. I hope a few of us might manage to obey the plea Jesus made to his disciples on this holy night
Could you not watch with me one hour?
So we move back into the action of tonight, the footwashing, the Last Supper Table and Gethsemane , pondering grace, God’s riches at Christ’s expense, given for us and for our salvation on this most holy night.
If there is one wonder of our life that expresses that most it is the Blessed Sacrament.
As someone wrote, 'the world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.'
To live as a Christian is to live conscious of another world, open to the supernatural enfolding and empowering of grace.
Grace - G-R-A-C-E - God's Riches At Christ's Expense - I've heard it put that way.
What riches are ours, particularly in this Sacrament. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
God's riches - all the benefits of his acceptance, love and empowering - at Christ's Expense - flowing from the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus all of which is already present at the Maundy Thursday supper table and at every eucharist.
Blessed, praised and hallowed be Our Lord Jesus Christ, upon His Throne in Glory, in the Most Holy Sacrament -and in the hearts of all his faithful people.
Tonight God's riches, his unconditional love, are poured into our hearts at the expense of Jesus Christ Himself!
By tonight’s action Our Lord gives himself by intention, and intention to be sealed on the Cross by the actual breaking of his body and shedding of his blood.
His intention is love of Jesus since sacrifice is about love before it is about death. For Our Lord it is about a love stronger than death.
The Blessed Sacrament is His Body Broken for us, his Blood outpoured for us.
We are never worthy of this Gift, as we say repeatedly before Holy Communion. Lord I am not worthy to receive you...
There is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy, to make Jesus love us more.
There is also nothing we can do to make him love us less, that is the wonder of it all.
'There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea' wrote Fr. Faber 'but we make his love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify his strictness with a zeal he will not own. If our love were but more simple, we should take him at his word; and our lives would be all sunshine in the sweetness of our Lord.'
Grace, God's riches at Christ's Expense, this is the very sweetness of our Lord to us.
Grace, unconditional love and acceptance, is foundational to Christianity.
The Blessed Sacrament is not given to us tonight as a reward for good behaviour, even if God's grace is not to be presumed upon.
Jesus makes as free a gift to us which he desires to give to all people.
It is a free gift but not a cheap gift. What expense Our Lord has borne to provide this gift!
And in the garden secretly and on the Cross on high should teach his brethren and inspire to suffer and to die.
After the joyful table gathering tonight we have a procession to a place of sorrows where we keep the Gethsemane Watch before the Blessed Sacrament. I hope a few of us might manage to obey the plea Jesus made to his disciples on this holy night
Could you not watch with me one hour?
So we move back into the action of tonight, the footwashing, the Last Supper Table and Gethsemane , pondering grace, God’s riches at Christ’s expense, given for us and for our salvation on this most holy night.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Palm Sunday 17th April 2011
So we begin Holy Week recalling how Jesus put his life on the line for us.
Through the centuries people who have met and followed Jesus have readily done the same obedient to his words:
'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. (Matthew 16:24-25)
Self-sacrifice is a powerful brand. When I have seen it in the Christian people around me it has made Jesus more real to me.
Jesus calls forth witnesses. The most effective have been martyrs who have lost absolutely all self-interest. Such self-sacrifice has branded Christianity in every age. As the second century writer Tertullian famously expressed it ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’.
Where people have followed Jesus to distant lands to bring his good news their sacrifice has regularly been infectious.
In a recent chronicle of the church in China called The Heavenly Man the exiled Pastor Yun chronicles three imprisonment’s (1983-88, 1991-3 and 2001) in a story that starts in the Cultural Revolution of 1974. Mindful of the teaching and sacrifices of western missionaries in the early 20th century the sixteen year old Yun and his family are led in desperation to pray to Jesus for his father to be healed from cancer. He is remarkably healed so that Yun recognises the power of Jesus. From this first encounter his story goes on testifying to the Lord’s intervention again and again as people are repeatedly humiliated and reduced by circumstances that are again and again turned on their head. This brings praise to God and dramatic growth to his church. The book is as exciting as any adventure story, with miraculous healings, prison escapes and the greater wonder of mass conversion of lives to Jesus all happening in these days on the other side of the world.
Thousands in China are now emulating the heroic witness of the hundreds of western missionaries who gave their lives over a thousand years to plant the church there. They sowed gospel seed but it is only now that the harvest is beginning, so that hundreds of Chinese missionaries are even now taking the gospel back west on foot to Jerusalem challenging Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu cultures on their way with the unique claims of Jesus Christ.
Brother Yun writes: ‘The gospel grows through hardship and will spread throughout the world. The truth will enter everyone’s heart. Truth is always truth. Nothing and no one can change that. It will always conquer’. This uncompromising word of faith captures the spiritual force of his witness. Yun’s recent flight from China has brought him into direct contact with the wider church where he senses something is missing. He writes of God’s desire to loosen our selfish attachments, release more of our energies into prayer and worship, open our minds to scripture and equip us with new boldness to witness for Jesus so that the harvest of transformed lives seen in China can extend into our own nation.
Because Jesus is God’s Word made flesh (John 1:14) he expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He leads them again and again to invest themselves fully in their profession of faith in him.
When people know Jesus they know their witness to him in words will be weighed according to their perceived obedience to his call to die to self and rise to new life in the Holy Spirit. As all England cricketer turned missionary C.T.Studd once wrote ‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.’
Last week I was blessed to see one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, Of God and Men. It centres on the monastery of Tibhirine, where nine Trappist monks lived in harmony with the largely Muslim population of Algeria, until seven of them were kidnapped and assassinated in 1996.
It tells the tale of a peaceful situation between local Christians and Muslims becoming a lethal one due to external events rather like those that have recently swept through Libya and other Arab lands.
The reconstruction of their martyrdom shows the monks at worship, serving the poor Muslims around the monastery and encouraging one another as the violence grows. They have to choose whether to leave Algeria. The screen play focuses on conferences of the community where they debate the possibility of martyrdom which in the end becomes a reality. It is a beautiful film which won a Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Festival. It ends with the reading of the letter one of them, Brother Chretien, left for his mother in case of his death.
Here it is.
‘I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down. I would like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down. I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called the ‘grace of martyrdom’’.
To the letter to his mother Chretien adds a note to the one who will kill him: ‘In God's face I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen! In H'Allah!’
What grace! To recognise God in the face of one’s murderer!
It was a profoundly moving film made more so by its accurate representation of well documented events 15 years ago in Algeria and by its topicality with all that is happening in North Africa today.
Holy Week lifts the bar. We have performed the annual reading of the passion of Our Lord. We have heard some stories of how that story has drawn forth self sacrifice in China and Algeria.
Back to Horsted Keynes! For us self sacrifice will be more mundane but nonetheless significant for that.
We can’t get to be like Jesus without it.
Holy Week is I crossed out. It’s a time to identify and break selfish attachments and release more of our energies into prayer and worship. It is an opportunity, if we make it so, to follow the way of the Cross in the services later this week, to open our minds to scripture and be equipped with new boldness to witness to him.
As has been said Jesus Christ expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He wants us to commit ourselves, our souls and bodies into the profession of faith we make in him.
‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.’
Through the centuries people who have met and followed Jesus have readily done the same obedient to his words:
'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. (Matthew 16:24-25)
Self-sacrifice is a powerful brand. When I have seen it in the Christian people around me it has made Jesus more real to me.
Jesus calls forth witnesses. The most effective have been martyrs who have lost absolutely all self-interest. Such self-sacrifice has branded Christianity in every age. As the second century writer Tertullian famously expressed it ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’.
Where people have followed Jesus to distant lands to bring his good news their sacrifice has regularly been infectious.
In a recent chronicle of the church in China called The Heavenly Man the exiled Pastor Yun chronicles three imprisonment’s (1983-88, 1991-3 and 2001) in a story that starts in the Cultural Revolution of 1974. Mindful of the teaching and sacrifices of western missionaries in the early 20th century the sixteen year old Yun and his family are led in desperation to pray to Jesus for his father to be healed from cancer. He is remarkably healed so that Yun recognises the power of Jesus. From this first encounter his story goes on testifying to the Lord’s intervention again and again as people are repeatedly humiliated and reduced by circumstances that are again and again turned on their head. This brings praise to God and dramatic growth to his church. The book is as exciting as any adventure story, with miraculous healings, prison escapes and the greater wonder of mass conversion of lives to Jesus all happening in these days on the other side of the world.
Thousands in China are now emulating the heroic witness of the hundreds of western missionaries who gave their lives over a thousand years to plant the church there. They sowed gospel seed but it is only now that the harvest is beginning, so that hundreds of Chinese missionaries are even now taking the gospel back west on foot to Jerusalem challenging Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu cultures on their way with the unique claims of Jesus Christ.
Brother Yun writes: ‘The gospel grows through hardship and will spread throughout the world. The truth will enter everyone’s heart. Truth is always truth. Nothing and no one can change that. It will always conquer’. This uncompromising word of faith captures the spiritual force of his witness. Yun’s recent flight from China has brought him into direct contact with the wider church where he senses something is missing. He writes of God’s desire to loosen our selfish attachments, release more of our energies into prayer and worship, open our minds to scripture and equip us with new boldness to witness for Jesus so that the harvest of transformed lives seen in China can extend into our own nation.
Because Jesus is God’s Word made flesh (John 1:14) he expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He leads them again and again to invest themselves fully in their profession of faith in him.
When people know Jesus they know their witness to him in words will be weighed according to their perceived obedience to his call to die to self and rise to new life in the Holy Spirit. As all England cricketer turned missionary C.T.Studd once wrote ‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.’
Last week I was blessed to see one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, Of God and Men. It centres on the monastery of Tibhirine, where nine Trappist monks lived in harmony with the largely Muslim population of Algeria, until seven of them were kidnapped and assassinated in 1996.
It tells the tale of a peaceful situation between local Christians and Muslims becoming a lethal one due to external events rather like those that have recently swept through Libya and other Arab lands.
The reconstruction of their martyrdom shows the monks at worship, serving the poor Muslims around the monastery and encouraging one another as the violence grows. They have to choose whether to leave Algeria. The screen play focuses on conferences of the community where they debate the possibility of martyrdom which in the end becomes a reality. It is a beautiful film which won a Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Festival. It ends with the reading of the letter one of them, Brother Chretien, left for his mother in case of his death.
Here it is.
‘I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down. I would like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down. I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called the ‘grace of martyrdom’’.
To the letter to his mother Chretien adds a note to the one who will kill him: ‘In God's face I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen! In H'Allah!’
What grace! To recognise God in the face of one’s murderer!
It was a profoundly moving film made more so by its accurate representation of well documented events 15 years ago in Algeria and by its topicality with all that is happening in North Africa today.
Holy Week lifts the bar. We have performed the annual reading of the passion of Our Lord. We have heard some stories of how that story has drawn forth self sacrifice in China and Algeria.
Back to Horsted Keynes! For us self sacrifice will be more mundane but nonetheless significant for that.
We can’t get to be like Jesus without it.
Holy Week is I crossed out. It’s a time to identify and break selfish attachments and release more of our energies into prayer and worship. It is an opportunity, if we make it so, to follow the way of the Cross in the services later this week, to open our minds to scripture and be equipped with new boldness to witness to him.
As has been said Jesus Christ expects the words of his followers never to be empty. He wants us to commit ourselves, our souls and bodies into the profession of faith we make in him.
‘If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.’
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Mothering Sunday 3rd April 2011
It’s Laetare Sunday, Rejoice Sunday, rejoice Jerusalem I read for the opening antiphon. Mothering Sunday.
We’re allowed a little respite from Lent – today is also called Refreshment Sunday - and we even have flowers. The daffodils will appear at the end for you to take away.
We rejoice today in Mother Church, our Jerusalem on the hill but also the heavenly Jerusalem above. As God is our Father the Church is our Mother.
The world has reduced this day to a celebration of our earthly mothers, which is no bad thing, especially when, as for many of us, our faith is owed to good mothering as well as fathering.
There is another mother I need to speak to and her image is on the altar.
In Scripture Mary is there, as in the Gospel at the foot of the Cross, She’s there for Jesus and for us without getting in the way.
Do you know what I mean? We should be there for people, especially at times of need, but without getting in the way.
This is the art of Mary – and it should be ours as well.
‘I am the handmaid of the Lord’ she says in the Gospel we read on Lady Day a week ago: ‘Let what you have said be done to me’.
We’ll do nothing to bring Christ into the world unless we’re there for God and for people. We’ll do nothing, either, to bring Christ into the world if we serve God and other people dutifully whilst deep down serving them on our terms rather than theirs
That’s not the religion of the child in a manger but the religion of the dog in a manger!
We’re called like Our Lady to let Christ and his kingdom prevail. This means being like midwives who come sympathetically alongside people and situations that cry out for attention and help what God wants to come to pass. We stand by, we facilitate, we pray, knowing our place as unprofitable servants – and, praise God, we see Jesus build his kingdom.
We best serve God and others with a loving discernment that starts from a determination to listen to God with Mary. The more real Jesus becomes to us and in us, not least through our Lenten devotion, the more our actions will grow loving as he is loving. It’s not how much we do or say or even listen that matters so much a how much love we put into it so to speak, which is why our listening to God is so important.
How can we best give more of ourselves? By listening to God and then secondly to ourselveswith Mary. Mary encourages us towards a positive self-regard. The Almighty has done great things for me.
Take stock of all that Jesus is doing in your life and rejoice!
Take stock also of the ingrained selfishness, the ‘dog in the manger’ bit so you can give it to God in confession.
Take stock of how you and I at times put the work of the Lord before the Lord of the work. It’s when we get too busy in the Lord’s work that our own selfishness can become sadly all the more evident.
Listen to God, listen to yourself, sift and purify your agenda, then listen to those God puts your way who need your ears! As we listen to others on this feast of family with our outer ears let’s keep two inner ears listening to God and to our own reaction to what we hear lest it get in the way.
Like Mary let’s be there for people without getting in their way. Being surrendered ourselves, as at this Eucharist, to whatever God wants of us to be made a Christ-bearer under the watchful care of the Mother of believers.
Jesus who was first carried by Mary at Bethlehem, who is carried to us in Bread and Wine this morning, waits to be carried by you and I to a waiting world!
We’re allowed a little respite from Lent – today is also called Refreshment Sunday - and we even have flowers. The daffodils will appear at the end for you to take away.
We rejoice today in Mother Church, our Jerusalem on the hill but also the heavenly Jerusalem above. As God is our Father the Church is our Mother.
The world has reduced this day to a celebration of our earthly mothers, which is no bad thing, especially when, as for many of us, our faith is owed to good mothering as well as fathering.
There is another mother I need to speak to and her image is on the altar.
In Scripture Mary is there, as in the Gospel at the foot of the Cross, She’s there for Jesus and for us without getting in the way.
Do you know what I mean? We should be there for people, especially at times of need, but without getting in the way.
This is the art of Mary – and it should be ours as well.
‘I am the handmaid of the Lord’ she says in the Gospel we read on Lady Day a week ago: ‘Let what you have said be done to me’.
We’ll do nothing to bring Christ into the world unless we’re there for God and for people. We’ll do nothing, either, to bring Christ into the world if we serve God and other people dutifully whilst deep down serving them on our terms rather than theirs
That’s not the religion of the child in a manger but the religion of the dog in a manger!
We’re called like Our Lady to let Christ and his kingdom prevail. This means being like midwives who come sympathetically alongside people and situations that cry out for attention and help what God wants to come to pass. We stand by, we facilitate, we pray, knowing our place as unprofitable servants – and, praise God, we see Jesus build his kingdom.
We best serve God and others with a loving discernment that starts from a determination to listen to God with Mary. The more real Jesus becomes to us and in us, not least through our Lenten devotion, the more our actions will grow loving as he is loving. It’s not how much we do or say or even listen that matters so much a how much love we put into it so to speak, which is why our listening to God is so important.
How can we best give more of ourselves? By listening to God and then secondly to ourselveswith Mary. Mary encourages us towards a positive self-regard. The Almighty has done great things for me.
Take stock of all that Jesus is doing in your life and rejoice!
Take stock also of the ingrained selfishness, the ‘dog in the manger’ bit so you can give it to God in confession.
Take stock of how you and I at times put the work of the Lord before the Lord of the work. It’s when we get too busy in the Lord’s work that our own selfishness can become sadly all the more evident.
Listen to God, listen to yourself, sift and purify your agenda, then listen to those God puts your way who need your ears! As we listen to others on this feast of family with our outer ears let’s keep two inner ears listening to God and to our own reaction to what we hear lest it get in the way.
Like Mary let’s be there for people without getting in their way. Being surrendered ourselves, as at this Eucharist, to whatever God wants of us to be made a Christ-bearer under the watchful care of the Mother of believers.
Jesus who was first carried by Mary at Bethlehem, who is carried to us in Bread and Wine this morning, waits to be carried by you and I to a waiting world!
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Lent 1 13 March 2011
The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story called The Two Pilgrims. It tells of two Russians who set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem intent on being present at the solemn Easter festivities. One had his mind so set on the journey’s end and object that he would stop for nothing and take thought for nothing but the journey.
The other, passing through, found people to be helped at every turn and actually spent so much time and money along the way that he never reached the Holy City. Yet he received a blessing from God the other failed to find in the great Easter celebration.
As we start Lent Tolstoy’s story reminds us that true religion is more about generosity than proper ritual observance. Keeping short accounts with our neighbour is more important to our sanctification than freeing ourselves of all distractions.
What distracts is very often flesh and blood which we sweep away at our spiritual peril.
It comes down to choices, as our first reading reminded us. The story of Adam and Eve warns against choosing things which conflict with the destiny we have under God. It is a poem full of truth about the human condition that is picked up by St Paul who describes how Our Lord’s obedience counters human disobedience. That obedience is represented in the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 4.
You may have read Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage set for yesterday in his Lent for Everyone commentary on Matthew’s gospel. He points out how temptation is about good things being distorted. 'Bread is good. Jesus will later create a huge amount of it from a few loaves, to feed hungry people. But should he do that just for himself?'
Coming back to Tolstoy’s Lenten pilgrims it is good to be singleminded but it is also good to be sympathetic.
In the story the sympathetic guy is the hero. Better slower together than faster alone.
My son bought me for Christmas a book that’s full of insight about the impact of the screen culture. In Future Minds Richard Watson recognises that the internet is probably going to rank with the alphabet and numbers as a mind-altering technology of universal significance. He goes on to warn about the associated cult of the immediate and contemporary with all the unsympathetic impatience it carries with it.
Whilst it is wonderful to see electronic networking bringing down dictators as in the Middle East and North Africa our best future is challenged by the erosion of conversation and reflective thinking it brings. There is a need for some users to find space and time for these lest electronic technology saps their patience and the resilience essential to creativity.
Internet usage illustrates the creative tension there is in many an area of life between singleminded pursuits and relational obligations. Both are encouraged in Christianity. The seeking first of God’s kingdom is there in one text alongside a warning in another text that to do so, to go for loving God whilst ignoring your brother or sister in need is a serious failure.
If Lent is a call to singlemindedness it is so with the spiritual health warning that comes out of Tolstoy’s story. The singleminded pilgrim so set on his object that he stopped for nothing was not commended as he lacked discernment and sympathy for his fellows. The second pilgrim who was so occupied helping people he got spent up and never reached Jerusalem was commended.
As part of the stocktaking of Lent we might examine where we are on the big life journey and how much our own preoccupations, even spiritual ones, are helping build authentic humanity in us and around us. In a village like our own we have less excuse for not wasting time with people as the Spirit leads us. Love is wasting time, really. When I hear people say ‘time is money’ I feel slightly uncomfortable. There should be sufficient time for us to be ourselves and be ourselves with others, not least those nearest and dearest. Yet the demands of the workplace and commuting are incessant upon many of us. There are no easy fixes here, just a warning to work for a balance.
In this month’s P&P I wrote of Lent as the annual reminder to look to the main things in life and to keeping them as the main things and that for Christians the main things are attention to God and neighbour but you’ve got to give attention to yourself to succeed in these. Examining our stewardship of time, talents and money is part of this, as well as refocusing on the Lord and giving him the things that agitate us.
I quoted another Russian writer, St Seraphim: ‘Acquire inner peace and thousands around you will find salvation’. In Tolstoy’s story the blest pilgrim was the one who let his peaceable heart be emptied on the journey in the flow of circumstances and the human needs that presented themselves. The other pilgrim achieved his personal target but was judged to have missed the mark by seeing the people on the journey as potential distractions.
How often do we get put into that position, treating people as less than they are because we’ve got ourselves set upon the next thing or the next person. This gives me opportunity to warn us as a community to be always alert for Our Lord’s presence with us in the person of the occasional newcomer or visitor after service. St Giles is a place to catch up with our friends on a Sunday, but let’s make sure everyone in church is treated as a friend!
The moral is, whatever grand spiritual aspirations we make, the Holy Spirit is closest to us when we are about our neighbours, sorting out our destructive attitudes, putting love in where there is none, recognising the humanity of those who can seem to be somewhat blind to our own.
May Our Lord deepen such sympathy in us and among us as we prepare in this holy season for the Easter Feast. May we see triumphs of his Spirit as we correct the balance of our lives in obedience to his call upon our lives to seek a richer humanity that is more in his likeness.
The other, passing through, found people to be helped at every turn and actually spent so much time and money along the way that he never reached the Holy City. Yet he received a blessing from God the other failed to find in the great Easter celebration.
As we start Lent Tolstoy’s story reminds us that true religion is more about generosity than proper ritual observance. Keeping short accounts with our neighbour is more important to our sanctification than freeing ourselves of all distractions.
What distracts is very often flesh and blood which we sweep away at our spiritual peril.
It comes down to choices, as our first reading reminded us. The story of Adam and Eve warns against choosing things which conflict with the destiny we have under God. It is a poem full of truth about the human condition that is picked up by St Paul who describes how Our Lord’s obedience counters human disobedience. That obedience is represented in the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 4.
You may have read Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on this passage set for yesterday in his Lent for Everyone commentary on Matthew’s gospel. He points out how temptation is about good things being distorted. 'Bread is good. Jesus will later create a huge amount of it from a few loaves, to feed hungry people. But should he do that just for himself?'
Coming back to Tolstoy’s Lenten pilgrims it is good to be singleminded but it is also good to be sympathetic.
In the story the sympathetic guy is the hero. Better slower together than faster alone.
My son bought me for Christmas a book that’s full of insight about the impact of the screen culture. In Future Minds Richard Watson recognises that the internet is probably going to rank with the alphabet and numbers as a mind-altering technology of universal significance. He goes on to warn about the associated cult of the immediate and contemporary with all the unsympathetic impatience it carries with it.
Whilst it is wonderful to see electronic networking bringing down dictators as in the Middle East and North Africa our best future is challenged by the erosion of conversation and reflective thinking it brings. There is a need for some users to find space and time for these lest electronic technology saps their patience and the resilience essential to creativity.
Internet usage illustrates the creative tension there is in many an area of life between singleminded pursuits and relational obligations. Both are encouraged in Christianity. The seeking first of God’s kingdom is there in one text alongside a warning in another text that to do so, to go for loving God whilst ignoring your brother or sister in need is a serious failure.
If Lent is a call to singlemindedness it is so with the spiritual health warning that comes out of Tolstoy’s story. The singleminded pilgrim so set on his object that he stopped for nothing was not commended as he lacked discernment and sympathy for his fellows. The second pilgrim who was so occupied helping people he got spent up and never reached Jerusalem was commended.
As part of the stocktaking of Lent we might examine where we are on the big life journey and how much our own preoccupations, even spiritual ones, are helping build authentic humanity in us and around us. In a village like our own we have less excuse for not wasting time with people as the Spirit leads us. Love is wasting time, really. When I hear people say ‘time is money’ I feel slightly uncomfortable. There should be sufficient time for us to be ourselves and be ourselves with others, not least those nearest and dearest. Yet the demands of the workplace and commuting are incessant upon many of us. There are no easy fixes here, just a warning to work for a balance.
In this month’s P&P I wrote of Lent as the annual reminder to look to the main things in life and to keeping them as the main things and that for Christians the main things are attention to God and neighbour but you’ve got to give attention to yourself to succeed in these. Examining our stewardship of time, talents and money is part of this, as well as refocusing on the Lord and giving him the things that agitate us.
I quoted another Russian writer, St Seraphim: ‘Acquire inner peace and thousands around you will find salvation’. In Tolstoy’s story the blest pilgrim was the one who let his peaceable heart be emptied on the journey in the flow of circumstances and the human needs that presented themselves. The other pilgrim achieved his personal target but was judged to have missed the mark by seeing the people on the journey as potential distractions.
How often do we get put into that position, treating people as less than they are because we’ve got ourselves set upon the next thing or the next person. This gives me opportunity to warn us as a community to be always alert for Our Lord’s presence with us in the person of the occasional newcomer or visitor after service. St Giles is a place to catch up with our friends on a Sunday, but let’s make sure everyone in church is treated as a friend!
The moral is, whatever grand spiritual aspirations we make, the Holy Spirit is closest to us when we are about our neighbours, sorting out our destructive attitudes, putting love in where there is none, recognising the humanity of those who can seem to be somewhat blind to our own.
May Our Lord deepen such sympathy in us and among us as we prepare in this holy season for the Easter Feast. May we see triumphs of his Spirit as we correct the balance of our lives in obedience to his call upon our lives to seek a richer humanity that is more in his likeness.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Sunday before Lent 6th March 2011 8am
As the Church begins to set her sights on Easter the Sunday liturgy before Lent starts centres in the Gospel on an anticipation of the Easter festival that we are shortly to prepare for in the coming holy season.
We just read in the Gospel a very beautiful incident from the account of the life of Our Lord.
Jesus ascends a high mountain with Peter, James and John. While praying up there the Lord’s face glows with the brightness of the sun and his garments became dazzling white.
The splendour of Christ’s divinity penetrates through his human body as the Son of God appears in his splendour and glory.
The glory that was to shine at Easter shone in this isolated incident through the person of the earthly Jesus.
The disciples were shown as much glory as they could bear.
Just as when there is an astronomical event like a transit of Venus across the sun people are warned to view the event indirectly so it was when God shone in Jesus on the earth. The disciples fell to the ground and hid their faces.
‘No one can see God and live’ we read in Exodus 33 verse 20. Yet moving from Old to New Testament texts we catch something of the revolution that Our Lord brings, as in St John’s Gospel Chapter 1 verse 18: ‘No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’.
At the heart of Christianity is a yearning to see God as he is. This has sprung up from the days Jesus walked and shone on earth with the promise we could see God.
Not with mortal eyes but in the resurrection.
The Transfiguration of Our Lord anticipates both his Resurrection and our own. As children of God we are heading for the full, glorious sight of God.
‘Beloved we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed’ Saint John writes. ‘What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’. (1 John 3:2)
As Lent approaches we should be in the valley of decision about some action that can help us better head for the beatific vision, the vision of God.
It is a time to refocus upon Our Lord, to turn our eyes upon Jesus. Lent challenges us to look to the main things in Christian life and to keeping them the main things.
This season is a call to study God’s word and I do commend again Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone which helps you read through sections of Matthew’s Gospel day by day. The book includes the scripture text.
Through contemplating today’s Gospel we see an image of devotion as the yearning to see God as he is. This yearning that sprang up from the coming of Jesus remains at the heart of Christianity.
May the Lord excite our yearning for him by the devotion we seek in the coming weeks through things given up and taken up to mark the season of Christ’s Passion.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his beautiful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
We just read in the Gospel a very beautiful incident from the account of the life of Our Lord.
Jesus ascends a high mountain with Peter, James and John. While praying up there the Lord’s face glows with the brightness of the sun and his garments became dazzling white.
The splendour of Christ’s divinity penetrates through his human body as the Son of God appears in his splendour and glory.
The glory that was to shine at Easter shone in this isolated incident through the person of the earthly Jesus.
The disciples were shown as much glory as they could bear.
Just as when there is an astronomical event like a transit of Venus across the sun people are warned to view the event indirectly so it was when God shone in Jesus on the earth. The disciples fell to the ground and hid their faces.
‘No one can see God and live’ we read in Exodus 33 verse 20. Yet moving from Old to New Testament texts we catch something of the revolution that Our Lord brings, as in St John’s Gospel Chapter 1 verse 18: ‘No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’.
At the heart of Christianity is a yearning to see God as he is. This has sprung up from the days Jesus walked and shone on earth with the promise we could see God.
Not with mortal eyes but in the resurrection.
The Transfiguration of Our Lord anticipates both his Resurrection and our own. As children of God we are heading for the full, glorious sight of God.
‘Beloved we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed’ Saint John writes. ‘What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’. (1 John 3:2)
As Lent approaches we should be in the valley of decision about some action that can help us better head for the beatific vision, the vision of God.
It is a time to refocus upon Our Lord, to turn our eyes upon Jesus. Lent challenges us to look to the main things in Christian life and to keeping them the main things.
This season is a call to study God’s word and I do commend again Tom Wright’s Lent for Everyone which helps you read through sections of Matthew’s Gospel day by day. The book includes the scripture text.
Through contemplating today’s Gospel we see an image of devotion as the yearning to see God as he is. This yearning that sprang up from the coming of Jesus remains at the heart of Christianity.
May the Lord excite our yearning for him by the devotion we seek in the coming weeks through things given up and taken up to mark the season of Christ’s Passion.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his beautiful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
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