St Wilfrid, Haywards Heath Family photo album Genesis 41.55f 7.7.21

 

As we find space over the summer and see our families gather there may well be a taking out of old photo albums. Here’s one of our family albums recording my parents' visit to Madeira in the 1950s. Of course in an electronic age there are other ways of presenting family albums and letting them scroll away on your TV screen.

This morning at the eucharist we continue to browse through the book of Genesis moving on from Abraham and Isaac to Jacob and Joseph. The Bible is a giant family album full of graphic word pictures. It traces the saving purposes of God from the very beginning of human history. This week at daily eucharist we have a record of how God worked through Joseph to relieve a great famine in the Middle East. This bible story has reached many screens through Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical comedy ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’.

The Joseph story illustrates how God is forever our Redeemer turning wrong to right. In today’s passage from Genesis 41 we hear of the uncomfortable reunion of Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery in Egypt. We hear from Reuben, the brother with the most tender conscience: ‘Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you did not listen, and now we are brought to account for his blood?’ At the same time, as we shall hear from Joseph himself at the eucharist tomorrow, ‘I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt… do not grieve… God sent me before you to preserve your lives’ (Genesis 45).

The Christian revelation, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is unique but it does not come out of the blue. By encouraging us to read through the Old Testament the Church builds our sense of being in the family of God stretching back to Abraham and reaching forward, as we heard in the Gospel, through the acts of the apostles and the community that has succeeded them up to today. God doesn’t change and is faithful to the family he gathers in each generation. Like Jacob’s sons we are a mixed bunch but God is always ready to turn evil to good with an eye to purposes exceeding our imagining. Joseph’s brothers experienced the famine and saw the brother they rejected had been given divine wisdom to lead famine relief. In years to come there will be pictures in the church’ family album so to speak of how lives redeemed through and from the COVID pandemic linked to the witness and service of people of faith like you and I. 

Tracing the history of the people of God is one function of reading scripture. It can inspire a more personal challenge. God is working in the life of each one of us. It is good to take time over these spacious weeks to look back gratefully at his working in our lives and build expectation of his leading us into the months and years ahead. With the songwriter we should be able to affirm that ‘grace has brought us safe thus far and grace will lead us home’. Let us then lift up our hearts and give thanks to the Lord our God in this holy eucharist.

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Sexuality (Pride month) 4.7.21

 

How countercultural is Christianity? It's an uncomfortable question. Today’s readings from Ezekiel and Mark 6 are a wake up call. As believers we stand against the tide, so far as faith goes against ‘impudent and stubborn’ unbelievers ready to ‘shake the dust of our feet’ if needs be. And yet our good news is validating for all, believers or unbelievers, not to mention the creation and the cosmos. That’s the nature of God's amazing inclusive love.

As I was praying through today’s readings last week I was reminded I was doing so in the closing days of Pride month at a season when our Archbishops have invited all parishes to digest ‘Living in Love and Faith: Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage’ as the General Synod considers relaxing the prohibition on same-sex marriage. Some of you may have seen my reviewed of the document in ‘Faith in Sussex’. As I prayed I felt led to share something about the document to focus our response to today’s scripture considering the relationship of church and society at a time of enormous change in understanding sexual relationships.

‘Living in Love and Faith’ is written by the House of Bishops. It celebrates the Christian good news looking at what the Bible, Church tradition and contemporary Christian experience have to say about sexuality alongside the social and biological sciences. There is a celebration of marriage, friendship, celibacy and a hard headed, largehearted, unprescriptive engagement with the issues of same sex marriage and gender fluidity represented through life stories. The resource is available free online with materials for group study including a video and podcast. 

Here is a discomfiting quotation: ‘In our society, equality with regard to sexual orientation is becoming a litmus test for moral competence. Distinctions made between acceptable sexual behaviour for gay or lesbian and straight people are seen to render the Church of England, and other religious bodies of the same mind, untrustworthy moral guides not only in this but in other areas of human life… For some, the deepest problem is that of sexual abuse. Members of the Church of England, clergy and lay, have been responsible, shamefully, for perpetrating abuse, for mistreating survivors of abuse, and for covering up the activities of abusers. Some of the relevant practices and attitudes have had deep roots in the church’s institutional structures and culture – and some believe that the situation was made worse by aspects of the church’s moral teaching’. 

The Bishops do not pull their punches on the gravity of this moral challenge whilst remaining level headed on the challenge to existing teaching set forth by them most recently in 1991. I quote: ‘Homophile orientation and its expression in sexual activity do not constitute a parallel and alternative form of human sexuality as complete within the terms of the created order as the heterosexual. The convergence of Scripture, tradition and reasoned reflection on experience… make it impossible for the church to come with integrity to any other conclusion’ That statement, which binds gay ordinands and clergy to celibacy, is coupled to affirming God’s love being as great for homosexual as for heterosexual people, a truth distinct from the unalterable givenness of marriage. Thirty years on in this new document the House of Bishops provide a catch up on how the world has changed, an outline of new thinking within the Church of England and an invitation to seek the Holy Spirit’s leading for new vistas on the disagreements and differences clearly outlined.

How do Anglicans see authority? ‘Living in Love and Faith’ clarifies the  importance of scripture, tradition and Christian experience in building consensus on truth and falsehood, right and wrong. This ‘three-legged stool’ is presented, with clarifications helping explain the heated divisions in the Church and the ecumenical implications of any change in marriage. In 2007 the International Anglican–Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission provided a summary of agreements and disagreements stating: ‘In both our Communions marriage has a God-given pattern and significance, entailing the life-long exclusive commitment of a man and a woman, encompassing the reciprocal love of husband and wife and the procreation and raising of children’. In almost 500 pages the document makes one reference to the ordination of women although those involved in the ongoing discernment in that realm will feel at home with its ambience. It is a struggle to sift sound development from innovation, weighing age old practice against calls for change, in marriage, ordination or other realms. Where if anywhere do we go with the culture? Do we stay counter-cultural?

‘Living in Love and Faith’, which you can access free online, steers evenly through issues with intellectual and spiritual rigour helped by repeated and fair presentations of rival positions. Readers are invited to eavesdrop on a series of conversations at the end of the book between those who disagree on issues of sexuality and check whether they can identify with contributors including celibate and sexually active gays and trans gender folk. Some of the statistics got me thinking: The fall in Church of England weddings by 27% from 2007 to 2017; that 64% of the British public said same-sex relationships were ‘not wrong at all’ in 2016, up from 47% in 2012, and 11% in 1987 near to the last reiteration of Christian teaching by the Bishops. There is an explanation of the ever changing LBTQ+ vocabulary. Though the Bishops do not address trans issues directly they mention the Evangelical Alliance report, Transsexuality (2000). This outlines the dilemma as to whether obedience to Christ for trans Christians means ‘learning to accept and live with their given biological identity because this is the identity which God has given them’ or ‘seeking a new post-operative identity on the grounds that it is this which will enable them to more fully express the person God intends them to be’. 

‘Living in Love and Faith’ gives consideration to the misuse of power in sexual relations, sexual abuse and the ascendancy of internet pornography. I quote again: ‘Sin is at work whenever we treat another person simply as a means to our own ends, when we are inattentive to their needs, when we fail to recognize that they, too, are delighted in by their Creator. And sin is at work when we fail to see that we, too, are delighted in by God’. The beauty of the document is its continual return to such tested Christian wisdom in its explanation of ethical teaching alongside the good hearing it gives to people struggling with the restriction of sexual activity to heterosexual marriage. 

In inviting debate on how things can develop pastorally the authors admit they disagree on whether there is a clear Anglican approach on sexuality. With echoes of the ordination of women they conclude ‘we see an ongoing and evolving argument in Anglican history about the proper answer to these questions, with different sides marshalling the evidence of Anglican history in different ways, to suit their differing answers’. The future will tell but looking through this document might be a good act of Christian discipleship as it serves to settle misinformation and encourage us to better engagement between church and society. The Lord guide us forward as a parish and as a diocese as we look to be instruments of the all inclusive love of God whilst respecting the proven, age old guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Full review: https://johntwisletonreviews.blogspot.com/

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Abrahamic religions 30.6.21

If the seven and a half billion inhabitants of the world were but 100 we’re told there’d be: 33 Christians, 21 Muslims, 13 Hindus, 6 Buddhists, 12 people who practice other religions and 14 people of no religion.

Given these statistics, we, as Christians, need discernment over how we share about Christ and engage in as positive a way as we can in a context where awareness of the variety of religions is widespread.

I have a few thoughts on this as the weekday Lectionary centres on Abraham as father of faith. He is so for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the so-called Abrahamic faiths. In today’s reading from Genesis 21 we see the protection of Hagar’s son Ishmael seen as father of Muslims parallel to Sarah’s son Isaac revered especially by Jews and Christians. God promises Abram I will bless you and make your name great. So he has, as Paul says Abraham is the father of us all. His faith is in the same God we put faith in who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Romans 4:17

Our Old Testament reading reminds us both of our Jewish roots and our links with Islam. Earlier this year the great theologian Hans Kung died at a good age just short of his century. In his later years he was involved in inter faith dialogue and this must be one of his most quoted sayings: ‘There’ll be no peace in the world without peace between religions and no peace between religions without understanding between religions’.

Earlier this week I posted on Facebook one of my ‘Fifty Walks from Haywards Heath’, a circular from St Wilfrid’s to The Ascension via the Mosque. I did so among other reasons to help put the Mosque on the map. It's sad that many people in our town don’t even know where the Mosque is!

In John chapter 14, verse 6 Christ said: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me’ and in Chapter 18 v38; ‘Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.’ 

If everyone believed that life would be simpler and I wouldn’t be speaking as I am this morning!   Putting it in a more challenging way to you and I, the existence of other religions is proof of our failure to meet with Jesus at a deep level and become the heart to heart draw we’re meant to be through his magnetic love. 

What though of those who’re drawn elsewhere? We see distortions of Christ’s truth in faiths and also approximations. 

Saying yes to Jesus does not mean saying ‘no’ to everything about other faiths. It can mean saying ‘yes, but…’ or rather ‘yes, and…’ to other faiths, which is a far more engaging and reasonable attitude…. I say ‘yes’ to what Muslims say about God’s majesty because sometimes Christians seem to domesticate God and forget his awesome nature. At the same time, I differ with Muslims about how we gain salvation, because I believe Jesus is God’s salvation gift and more than a prophet.

Other faiths can wake us up to aspects of Christian truth that can get forgotten, like the awesome nature of God in Christ. When I visited our Mosque for Friday Prayers I was struck by seeing so many bowing down physically to God, especially as kneeling in Church seems to happen less.

‘There’ll be no peace in the world without peace between religions and no peace between religions without understanding between religions’ (Hans Kung). Bowing down to God is something all three Abrahamic religions, Jewish, Christian and Muslim have in common. Our God is an awesome God - may he build peace in the world through better worship and mutual understanding across faiths.

Trinity 4 (13 B) Jairus’s daughter 27 June 2021

I want us to get into the gospel reading this morning. We stood with attention to hear it read because the church bids us hear the words and acts of Jesus as if he were present to speak and act today. It’s that sort of understanding I want to hold you to as we sit and read it again together in four sections. 

Verses 21-24 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ 24So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 

Some background information. By Mark Chapter 5 we see Jesus  getting well into his public ministry which is continually opposed by the Jewish leaders. Jairus was a Jewish leader and came from a group in Capernaum opposed to what Jesus was teaching about God being God of all and not just God of the Jews. 

Why did Jairus approach Jesus? He was in deep trouble and must have sensed behind the arguments people had with Jesus something about this man that could help. Very often I find people who don’t want the church’s preaching are more than happy to receive the church’s prayer. Jairus came also out of love for his daughter. People want the best for their children.

How did Jesus respond? He made himself immediately available. Once I stepped down as parish priest I lost the demand priests have - or should have - of 24-7 availability and we noticed it. This is part of the sacrifice at the heart of the ministerial priesthood. Jesus didn’t put Jairus on his to do list he went with him right away. Of course availability to others isn’t just for priests - we all need discernment as to when we do as Jesus did here, dropping everything to serve one particular need.

Let’s read on v35-37. As we do so I should note the Gospel passage selected skips over v25-34, the account of the healing of the woman with an issue of blood who touches his cloak on the way to Jairus’ house which explains the first phrase While he was still speaking:

35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

His friends came to break the sad news to Jairus. ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ It was only natural to stop Jesus coming. All was over. But was it? In dealing with Jesus we’re dealing with God in human form and the possibilities of God exceed human imagination. As we heard in the first reading God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living (rather he) created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity. Christ’s resurrection revealed his divinity. It helps us look death in the face. Here in the raising of Jairus’ daughter we see the trailer if you like to the great drama to come.

Do not fear, only believe. Put faith in the One who is stronger than the evil you fear. To put faith in God – in Jesus – is to recognise our humble place and to invite the greatness of God to touch our situation. Two men looked through prison bars. One saw mud and one saw stars. The woman or man of faith has an eye trained above and not too down to earth. Do not fear, only believe. These words of Jesus are an encouragement to look to the big picture God sees and is ready to open up to the eye of faith. 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. Perhaps these three were privileged because their faith in Jesus was that bit firmer than the rest.

Let’s read v38-40 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ 40And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 

Mark’s Gospel is the earliest and simplest of the four. Sometimes you can see the raw account he gives tidied up in Matthew and Luke who largely copy Mark. What an emotional roller coaster you see in these verses as the people turn from weeping and wailing loudly so that they laughed at Jesus. When we lose someone we love it can feel as if our whole being is torn apart emotions and all. Jesus himself knew this. We know he wept once at the death of his friend Lazarus. The shortest verse in the Bible - John 11v35 - records this. The child is not dead but sleeping. In those words Jesus tells us the full picture of death. Death is a sleep from which there will be an awakening for  judgement. This is why we have St John’s cemetery which means, from the Greek, St John’s sleeping place’. It is this understanding that lies behind rules that honour and preserve the peace of our cemetery.

Let’s read the last section verses 41-43 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. 

In v40 we read how Jesus put them all outside before he worked his miracle. Those who making so much noise and who lacked faith were a hindrance to what he was about. Notice the determination of Jesus. When we bring God into a situation he helps settle and determine things. ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ Here rarely, because the Gospels were written in Greek, we’re given the actual words spoken by Jesus in Aramaic. In those days little girls weren’t thought of as highly as they are today. It was an extraordinary thing for Jesus to leave the crowd to visit a young girl and speak in love to her as he did. Jesus Christ, though for his own reasons he excluded women from his apostles, did more to raise the profile and dignity of women than any other major religious leader in history. 

So we have the miracle, a great wonder as Jairus’ daughter is resuscitated. And a lovely last touch, reminding us that God is never unconcerned about our lesser matters, he told them to give her something to eat. 

So we meet with Jesus this morning knowing not only will he give us himself as food in the eucharist but that he is concerned to give us this day our daily bread. We meet with Jesus who would make himself as available to you and I by his Spirit as he made himself available to Jairus in the days of his flesh.

We come to Jesus without fear but with belief, to put faith in One who is stronger than all the evils we fear. We come to Church this morning to put faith in God and to invite his love and his greatness to touch our situation and to lift us as he lifted Jairus’ daughter.

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Eucharistic Sacrifice 23.6.21

 

In this Eucharist we are being caught up into the eternal sacrifice of Christ and its profound challenge to our self-interest. This online gathering is part of an eternal gathering stretching back to Abraham and beyond and stretching forward to the consummation of all things. This morning we are touching reality - we are drawn to the events represented here which institute God’s covenant with us, and drawn into a love which touches every concern upon the earth.

The Old Testament reading from Genesis describes an awesome encounter between Abraham and the Lord.  In this holy eucharist we too should be in awe as we approach the same Lord in the Eucharistic sacrifice. This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, happy are those who are called to his supper.

Jesus St John says is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The sacrifice once offered on Calvary and made present at this altar is rooted in the history of God’s people and the eternal covenant.

The first reading from Genesis Chapter 15 describes the institution of that covenant with Abraham by the shedding of blood, an agreement between man and God pledging loyalty even unto death.  In the ancient world, when a covenant was ‘cut’ with the slaughter of lambs its breaking could be punishable by death. It also symbolised a death to independent living and the coming alive of a relationship or covenant.

In the covenant God made with Abraham there was a special sign.  The sacrificed animals were consumed by a supernatural intervention interpreted as an anticipation of the new covenant.  As the animal sacrifice was consumed by fire from heaven, so Jesus is to see his body and blood separated in death and then transformed by power from heaven in the glory of the resurrection.

So it is that in the Eucharist we witness the separate consecration of Christ’s body and blood. We pause devotionally on two occasions to recall the sacrificial sundering of the Lamb of God - this is my body...this is my blood...of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins

Some of us possibly visited the ‘Seeing Salvation’ exhibition years back at the National Gallery. One of the many images of Christ was this  (show) - ‘The Bound Lamb’ by Francisco de Zurbarin who lived in the 17th century.  It is an image that often appears on Nativity scenes, the Shepherds’ offering which anticipates Christ’s sacrifice. As Jeremy Paxman wrote in the Church Times of this painting: ‘no image I know so perfectly captures the astonishing force of the Christian story’.

The sacrificial imagery in today’s Old Testament links to this symbol of Christ as Lamb of God so familiar to us from the liturgy of the Eucharist - familiar and yet often rather empty of meaning to many of us until we examine the Old Testament roots as we are invited to do so by this morning’s first reading.

How often we hear those words ‘Lamb of God’? How much we need to ‘inhabit the words’ of our prayer and liturgy and not be empty ritualists! Jesus is the Lamb of God whose voluntary sacrifice takes away our sin.  Our Lord on Calvary takes the full impact of sin and death for us at the cost of his life. 

Our Lord has soaked up all the evil that would defeat me and offered me life to the full - life that cancels sin with forgiveness, sickness with healing, bondage with deliverance and even doubt with the gift of faith through the mighty Redemption he has won.  

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

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

Jesus died in my place so that he might live in my place. Jesus died in my place to carry off the impact of evil upon me, through the gift of the Eucharist. Jesus lives in my place, cooperating with my will by his Spirit, as I welcome him again and again into my heart in this Sacrament!

This morning we make the memorial of the Offering of Jesus and enter into that Self-Offering! It is through the sacrificial Lamb of God that we can make a perfect offering to the Father, our sinful bodies made clean by his body..our souls washed through his most precious blood.

There is a deep continuity between the sacrifice of Abraham, the offering of Jesus the Lamb of God, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and our own sacrificial living as Christians.  They all hang together. In a culture so full of self-interest what we are about this morning is powerfully counter-cultural. Here, in union with Christ, we are offering our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice 

Sacrifice is at its heart about the voluntary choice about how we direct our lives - it is about love before it is about death.  It is about ‘joyous living’ just as sure as ‘God loves a cheerful giver’. It is not so much about forgoing what we desire but of binding our energies to what God desires. 

Here in the Eucharist day by day we’re drawn into such a school of sacrifice, into a love which touches every human concern upon the earth. We are caught up again and again into the loving sacrifice of Christ and its profound challenge to our self-interest. In offering our lives once again this morning we’re entrusting them afresh into the hands of God, renewing our covenant with him, so as to be employed to his praise and service in every situation we shall face today.

St Wilfrid & Presentation, Haywards Heath Trinity 3 (12B) 20.6.21

 

‘With Jesus in the boat we can smile through the storm as we go sailing home’ That Sunday School song summarises the message of today’s Gospel anticipated in the reading from Job alongside Paul’s chronicle of bearing tribulations as a Christian outlined in 2 Corinthians.

Having sung my song I could sit down but I won’t just yet since I want to share something of the challenge of the storms we face individually and as a church. This last week has been a hard one for many as plans have gone on hold again. The conviction that God is our ultimate security is a saving grace. If you imagine life as an often-perilous journey, the image of a boat represents such security. It's a rich image. The boat carries us through life’s shifting currents. We are moored, and we lose our moorings. We sail with and against the tides. The boat holds us secure above the chaos of life. Many headstones have boats inscribed to capture how faith carries us through the deep waters of death to the harbour of heaven where, to quote Thomas Aquinas, God ‘feasts his saints with the vision of himself, who is true light, the fulfilment of all desires, the joy that knows no ending, gladness unalloyed, and perfect bliss’.

Over the last year I have been thinking about the storms of church life. In the wake of my walk book, publication of which was delayed so it almost coincides with that of the Christian book, I wrote and published Elucidations. Thanks to the ongoing success of ‘Fifty Walks from Haywards Heath’ I’m able to offer it at half the price of that, £5 not £10, to get it into as many hands as I can. ‘Elucidations - light on Christian controversies’ has 25 essays on storms we sail through as a Christian community worldwide and across denominations. Besides the old chestnuts of church divisions, homosexuality, Mary, suffering, unanswered prayer and so on the book touches on the storm of COVID as well as the storm of child abuse. These are rocking the boat of the church worldwide, the second with its sickening evidence of the misuse of power. Such storms impact us all, especially the last two with the weight of regulations and the time and trouble needed to deal with them. 

The Church is God-given yet man-handled. As God’s never-ending family it has unique status tracing back twenty centuries across five continents. It is an instrument of salvation conveying Christ’s divinity, a safe boat for voyaging through the tumult of this world. It is also human in a deficient sense compared to her sinless Lord. With 24-7 media scrutiny people are more aware than ever of those failings. Trusting the Church, an essential for Christians, has been made a mockery in our age and an uphill struggle to elucidate. Despite clerical failings however scripture makes these invitations: ‘we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labour among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work’ 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13. ‘Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not sighing’ we read in Hebrews 13:17. In such words we are encouraged to distrust ourselves and look to those trained and authorised to engage us with the word of God, in the worship of the eucharist and moral wisdom of the church through the ages. The alternative is swimming outside the boat, so to speak. It’s going our own way without sermons, eucharists, moral guidance or formation in prayer all of which build divine life within us to the detriment of our sinful humanity. 

More than that, essential to being a Christian is being part of the community, the local body of Christ, in corporate engagement with scripture, eucharist, the age old expression of faith and morals, under pastoral oversight. Helping out at St Wilfrid’s and Presentation has been for me an enormous privilege building from my own community involvement in Bentwood seizing opportunities to share Christian faith both online and face to face in which ‘Elucidations’ is playing a part. 

‘A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"’ Mark 4:37-40

It has been an unsettling week with the extension of lockdown restrictions we hoped would be lifted tomorrow. Our Lord is the illumination, the one to elucidate, to shed light on our forward path. ‘Peace, be still…why are you afraid?’ The scripture today invites us to confess our anxieties and make fresh entrustment to God of our lives, our church, our town and our world. One expression of that entrusting is manning the boat, so to speak, under the captaining of Derek and Arthur as we await the answer to our prayers for a successor to Fr Ray. A new partnership of priests and people is on the horizon continuing teamwork stretching back over 150 years. 

When I served as diocesan mission and renewal adviser I recall how surveys of new church members evidenced them being drawn across spiritual and practical hurdles into two convictions: God is good and the Church is OK.  Business with God leads people so far but it needs complementing by a decision to trust the Church and give the institution the benefit of the doubt. As in my own experience, seeing the integrity, large-heartedness and holiness of church members can be pivotal in overcoming the stereotypes of Christians as narrow thinking. ‘As we work together with Christ’, Paul says to us this morning, ‘we urge you… not to accept the grace of God in vain. See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation… open wide your hearts!’ (2 Corinthians 6:1,2,13)

‘With Jesus in the boat we can smile through the storm as we go sailing home’.

St Wilfrid, Haywards Heath & Holy Trinity, Cuckfield Feast of St Richard of Chichester Wednesday 16th June 2021

 

In 2003 I remember being part of a group welcoming a touring icon of St Richard of Chichester at Haywards Heath station. It was our diocesan patron’s 750th anniversary and I was responsible for organising a great service in Worth Abbey as part of the Icon’s itinerary.

St Richard in his lifetime was seen as a representation of the living Lord Jesus. All our devotion to him is to the Christ in him. His prayer for us is Christ’s prayer. All prayer to the Saints is prayer to the Christ in them.

Through his teaching, miracles and charity St Richard shared in the newness of Jesus and brought the Lord’s mission and empowerment into the 13th century. His enduring legacy is that of the Lord himself as we invoke his prayers today.

The Lord Jesus has an unalterable newness as we engage with him day by day through scripture, sacrament and the saints as well as through prayer and the disciplines of Christian life and fellowship.

New every morning is the love our wakening and uprising prove. 

Yes you and I are in our conscious beings evidence of the love of God in Jesus Christ for through Christ all things were made including you and I.

We were made, as in the end of Richard’s famous prayer, to know, love and follow Jesus Christ.

In Jesus Christ we gain not ideas, doctrines, rules but Life - and here it is in our midst at the eucharist. Life that connects us with God and one another, with the church and with the cosmos! 

To be made new with Jesus we need to seek Jesus. We need to choose to empty our pride for this quest to be effective.

On the feast of our diocesan patron we are rightly called afresh to know, love and follow Jesus Christ in imitation of St Richard.

As our patron brought the light of the Lord to the 13th century we are called to bring the same to Sussex in the 21st century - and the main obstacle to this lies within us in our lack of repentance and faith.

Today’s a day to admit shortfallings and turn with all our hearts to the One who is author and perfecter of our faith and can make us new.  Let today’s eucharist draw forth fresh allegiance to Our Lord and be a loosening from more of our shortfallings.

As a near contemporary of St Richard expressed it – and I advise you to take this saying to heart - It is not what you are or have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes but what you would be. 

What would you be today? Would you be new with the unalterable newness of Jesus, filled with his Spirit? I hope you would, since that would give our diocesan community of faith what it most needs from you at the prayers of St Richard.