St. John, Burgess Hill All Saints 31.10.21

Introduction

There’s a culture clash keeping All Saints on Hallowe’en. As the world around parades spiders and witches the Church of Jesus Christ celebrates ‘the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting’. 

As that faith has waned around us pagan New Year’s Eve has revived. When Christianity came here the Celtic Festival of Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) celebrated new year 1 November linked to the start of winter cold associated with the increase of human death. On their New Year’s Eve Celts believed the worlds of the living and dead got blurred with ghosts returning to earth. 

As we keep the Solemnity of All Saints we go beyond that blurring into the actual identification of living and dead, the ‘knitting together of God’s elect in one death-defying communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ’ (Collect). 

This morning we celebrate our fellowship beyond death with the saints and faithful departed blurring heaven and earth as expressed in our second reading: ‘the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his people’ (Revelation 21:3). 

Such is our faith, forward looking, death-defying and in solidarity with all those ‘upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in Jesus and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are for ever one’.

Sermon

In the end we face one of two alternatives: to have God, and in him everything, or to have nothing but ourselves. Such is Christian faith and it has never changed. The Feast of All Saints and Tuesday’s Commemoration of All Souls are the annual reminder of the call to selflessness foundational to the universe. 

God who gave life to all things including you and I has offered us his life the humble welcoming of which is the remedy for mortality. ‘To all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives power to become children of God… born… of God’ (John 1:12-13).

All Saints Feast is a reminder of the death defying dignity implied in today’s Gospel of the raising of Lazarus in which Our Lord, having promised to be our life and resurrection, goes on to demonstrate the same by raising his friend from death. 

Those committed to a relationship with God in Christ can never be lost. Death cannot steal them from the One whose glorious resurrection establishes him as our ‘Alpha and Omega, (our) beginning and (our) end’ (Revelation 21:6a). ‘The souls of the righteous’ - right related to God - ‘are in his hands’ we heard in our first reading from the book of Wisdom. ‘In the eyes of the foolish’ that is materialists who deny the supernatural ‘they seemed to have died… but they are at peace… their hope is full of immortality’ (Wisdom 3:1-4). Such is Christian faith, grounded in the risen Lord Jesus, who gives us a purpose for living and a reason for dying.

The Solemnity of All Saints sets our sights upon the Christian distinctive. This isn’t doing good to others - how patronising to see Christians as unique in that realm! Our Christian distinctive, stated in Ephesians 1:10, is the invitation to be part of the aspiration and accomplishment of ‘gathering up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth’. The gathering of people into the communion of saints is itself part of God’s overarching plan for a wider gathering that brings all things in the cosmos or, as we might say, multiverses, into universal love as shared by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with all the saints.

Today’s Feast reminds us we are never ‘in it on our own’ as Christians. Just as the social engagement of St John’s is teamwork - and we always need more hands on deck for outreach - the work we do for others as individuals is part of something beyond us but absolutely beside us. That is the work alongside us of the invisible fellowship of the saints in light towards bringing the universe together in Christ. Each day I invoke the prayers of my own favourites. Our Lady for trust in God. St Francis for joy. St Vincent de Paul for love for the needy. St. John Vianney inspiring me to be  a listening priest. St Therese of Lisieux warming my heart to God. St. John Henry Newman helping me give answers to questions I get about Faith - and so on. 

Contemplating God alongside the saints is a welcome school of selflessness. Anglican teacher, Eric Mascall expresses this well in his book ‘Grace & Glory’: ‘It is by becoming progressively more self-forgetful, and not by becoming more self-analytic, that our love of God grows in strength and depth. And perhaps the most effective way of imitating the saints is the indirect way of thanking God for the fact that they have served Him so much better than we. For in the Body of Christ we are not simply concerned with achieving our individual perfection but with making our own small contribution to the perfection of the whole body. And in its organic union with the holiness of our fellow-members and, above all, with the supreme and spotless holiness of Christ who is the Body’s Head, our own feeble essays in holiness are clothed with a glory and stamped with a value of which in isolation they would be utterly incapable’. Mascall goes on to quote Thomas Merton on the challenge to self-forgetfulness behind today’s Feast, a quotation which will be followed by a short time of reflection on the word of God. ‘The saints are glad to be saints, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else’. 

Holy Trinity, Cuckfield eucharist ‘Narrow Door’ Luke 13:24, Romans 8

 

We’ve got a hard saying of Jesus in today’s Gospel from St Luke Chapter 13 verse 24: ‘Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed’.

I find the image of Christian commitment as a narrow door challenging. It seems to go against thinking in church circles that’s generous to outsiders. Whilst God’s love is immense and reaches out to everyone our response to that love has to be focused. 

Putting God’s kingdom first means a narrowing down, or cutting away of what’s superfluous in our lives. Speaking of a rich young man who declined to follow him Jesus spoke of something even narrower: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:25).

We need our desire for God enhanced and purified by the Holy Spirit so we can ‘enter by the narrow door’. Being a Christian is a discipline. Like a concert pianist devoted to improving her playing, believers are called to narrow down superfluous activities to prioritise worship, prayer, bible study, service and reflection.

G.K.Chesterton used Christ’s narrow door to explain to a non-Churchgoer how from outside the Church looks like an imposition that narrows our lives. 

Only when you pluck up faith to go through that narrow door do you find how spacious Christianity as you find ‘the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ spoken of in the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans from where our first reading was taken.

If we are feeling something of a constraint in our lives that may be a sign of a God-given imposition we need to squeeze ourselves through for which he needs us to leave some unnecessary luggage behind.

Picture of Brydges Place off St Martin’s Lane, London’s narrowest alley coming down to 15 inches

St Mary, Balcombe Trinity 19(28B) 10.10.21

 

‘Jesus, looking at him, loved him’ Mark 10:21

We are God's sons and daughters and we're going to God's glory. That's the wonderful truth of our faith. 

We come from him, we belong to him, we go to him. We are going forwards and we should ‘hold fast’ to our faith as today’s epistle from Hebrews warns, pressing forwards and not being dragged forwards.

The main incentive to this ‘pressing forward’ as Christians is surely the love and mercy of the Lord.

We need to keep before us his all seeing eye. He sees what we are and he sees what we will be. Yes, as Amos warns, the eye of God sees our shortcomings, but these are no obstacle to his desire for us to cooperate in growing into his design, which is ‘the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13). We want more of God's vision of how things should be in our lives to dawn afresh upon us and this means searching the Scriptures which can ‘judge the thoughts and  intentions of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12). There is real power in this searching, power to shake off habitual sins and pessimism and see fresh dawning of God’s vision of how he wants us and how he wants the world.

Yet beyond the truth about us that he’s ready to reveal lies, as I say, his love and mercy towards us which, please God, we are called to capture in a more positive and relaxed attitude towards ourselves.

Someone once said "God picks his friends but he does not pick them to pieces". 

It balances that saying of St. Teresa of Avila, whose feast is on Friday, when her horse threw her in the mud, ‘God, if that's how you treat your friends, it's not surprising you have so few’.

If you feel God is picking at you at this time it will be for a purpose and never destructive of your soul. Let the Lord speak as you examine yourself in his light, always remembering that you are already 100% his child and He is 100% your Father waiting to draw you into what is to be yours as his beloved daughter or son.

The same Teresa of Avila taught people to pray in this way. ‘Imagine’, she said, ‘that you see Jesus standing before you. He is looking at you lovingly and humbly. Prayer comes as you notice he is looking at you lovingly and humbly’. This insight comes from today’s Gospel which shows Our Lord’s look of love towards the rich young man.

Not only, says Teresa, does God look upon us with love, he looks upon us humbly. That means he thinks of himself as less than us! 

Jesus our Lord and God bows down before us as he bowed before his first disciples to wash their feet.

Can there be any more wonderful or encouraging thing in the world than knowing Jesus loves me?

The miracle is this - God loves me even before I do what pleases him. I may love for what I can get out of people but he loves for what he can put in - pure, gracious, generous love!

Love that deals with me according to my needs and not according to my deserts!

Isn’t that true of the way we relate to our own children? I love my sons even when what they do isn’t pleasing to me. Why should that be less true of God my Father’s love for me? Rather it is a million times more true of him!

Now there are times when our children try to teach us something in the way children do. St. Peter was like that with Our Lord when he insisted on washing the Lord’s feet, refusing to allow Jesus to wash his own. ‘Peter!’ The Lord said, ‘If I do not do this, and if you will not let me do it, you have no part in me!’. 

Could it be that Our Lord is challenging you and I this morning as a good parent challenges an overconfident child and says, ‘No - let me go first’? In other words recognise my love for you comes first in all you do. Nothing you do can earn that love. Nothing can remove it either - but things you do can hide it from your perception.

God wants us put in our place. He wants that so he can love and serve us effectively. This is so because only as the truth ‘God loves me’ enters deep into my being can I have the sort of security that removes the burdens and pressures of earthly life.

I end with a famous quotation from the great 18th Century Anglican Teacher, William Law. In his book ‘A Serious Call to the Devout Life’ he writes: ‘Would you know the blessing of all blessings? It is this God of Love dwelling in your soul, and killing every root of bitterness, which is the pain and torment of every earthly, selfish love. For all wants are satisfied, all disorders of nature are removed, no life is any longer a burden, every day is a day of peace, everything you meet becomes a help to you, because everything you see or do is all done in the sweet, gentle element of love.’ 

‘Jesus, looking at him, loved him.’ Mark 10:21  ‘Let us therefore approach (him) with boldness (to) receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’ Hebrews 4:1

Fr Derek Goodrich funeral homily & Canon Atma Budhu’s tribute 30.9.21

‘Hello John, it’s Derek here. I’m speaking from the Tanbury Ward at East Surrey Hospital.  I came in yesterday with what I thought was quite a minor bowel problem with some pain and sickness but I had a scan this morning and the consultant told me that I have a very complicated condition. I could have a very serious operation with doubtful results. So I said, “no,  thank you”. If they leave me I asked him ‘how long?’. He said it might be a matter of days. I did have communion from the hospital chaplain, but I’d like you to come along and talk about my funeral arrangements and probably hear my confession. I should probably like to write a message for the family and friends, so if you could bring some pen and paper with you if you’d like to help with that. Sorry about putting this upon you, but it all happened rather suddenly. Anyway, I have… no worries. I’m in good hands. I feel very very grateful. God bless!’

That was 3rd September. Fr Derek died three days later hours after making his confession. He hadn’t the energy to prepare the message he speaks of for family and friends so I thought the sentiments he expressed on my answering machine could act as that farewell. It captures his practical nature - what a wonderful mentor he was to so many - and his faith illustrated in his fearlessness in the face of death.

‘To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children’ Revelation 21:6 

Our first reading opens up the inheritance Derek thirsted for. Over his long life he built that thirst among thousands in the dear land of Guyana. He taught people about the God-shaped hole within them, the need to declutter it by repentance and to welcome the Holy Spirit. Living in divine mercy himself, this great priest infected you with the generosity that lives within and around us all. Even that abruptness, which cut you off in full flow to end the meeting or phone call, could be part of this when he spoke across negative or judgmental sentiments. Some things should never be voiced. Derek taught me to look on the best side of people and let their worst aspects be looked after by God who always treats us better than we deserve.

‘Breathe on me breath of God, until my heart is pure, until with thee I will one will, to do and to endure’. 

When I arrived in Guyana in 1986 Derek was Dean of St George’s Cathedral where he demonstrated fine stewardship of allegedly the largest wooden building in the world. I had come with Fr Allan Buik to exercise stewardship of a humbler edifice - the Church, Library and mud houses of Yupukari that made up the Alan Knight Training Centre for indigenous priests. Fr Derek was our support - confessor, spiritual director and mentor - along with that other great expatriate priest Canon John Dorman of blessed memory. Last time Derek and I were together here in College was at the Requiem and interment of ashes for Fr Buik. Derek’s ashes will lie fittingly here alongside Allan’s and be a place of pilgrimage for Guyanese. 

Earlier this year Fr Derek was an enormous help to me in steering us through the closure of the Guyana Diocesan Association of which he like me and Allan had been stalwarts. Ever practical Derek saw clearer than most when a venture had had its day, had courage to say so and help imagine the best practical way forward within the possibilities of God. 

As the oldest resident at the College he played a very full part in shaping arrangements here, especially pastoral care, serving as sub-Warden himself for a season. He was pleased to get to know, albeit briefly, our new Chaplain, Fr Derek, who is presiding priest at this eucharist.

‘Jesus said: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty… all who see the Son and believe in him… have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day” John 6:35, 40

Our Gospel passage captures the meaning and power of the eucharist Derek engaged in daily at College, until recently being regular celebrant here of the sacred mysteries. Seeing Jesus lifted up in word and sacrament was transformative for him. It filled any spiritual emptiness he felt with grace, setting his heart back into a forward looking aspiration also pulling forward those of us privileged to be in his circle. To paraphrase Pascal, there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every one which cannot be filled by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ. This is the good news at the heart of Christianity hidden in the action we are invited into this morning - pleading Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, receiving the bread of his body to give life to our souls and through us to a hungry world. 

After his last confession, as Derek indicated gratitude to God for his long life and the gift of faith, among the last words he voiced were those of the Gloria in Excelsis - ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth’. That is our prayer this morning, giving glory to God for a life well lived, praying peace upon Derek in paradise and, with resurrection faith, invoking the Holy Spirit upon ourselves and upon this troubled world:

‘Breathe on me breath of God, so shall I never die but live with thee the perfect life fo thine eternity’.

TRIBUTE BY THE REV’D CANON ATMA BUDHU

Good morning my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am honoured to be delivering this tribute today, honouring the life and ministry of The Rev’d Fr. Dereck Goodrich, a good and faithful servant of God, someone I had known for the greater part of my life.

On behalf of my wife Lavinia, our children Stephen and Gail and their spouses, I extend sincere and heartfelt condolences to his family and to the residents and staff of the College of St. Barnabas, U.K., where Fr. Goodrich spent the final 20 years of his life. I also acknowledge, with gratitude, the presence of many of Fr. Goodrich’s former parishioners and friends from Guyana and across the globe, who have joined this service via zoom and other social media platforms. We give Almighty God thanks for his life and ministry which touched ours in amazing and transformative ways.

When I reflect on my nearly 40 years in the ordained ministry, I see the footprints of Fr. Goodrich at important stages of my journey. I was not always a Christian. I was born and raised in a Hindu family and at the age of 17, I was invited to and later that year became a baptized member of St. Joseph’s Church, Port Mourant in the County of Berbice, Guyana. Fr. Goodrich was the Vicar of St. Joseph’s Church between 1967-1971, immediately preceding Fr. Sydney Thomas,  now also in Blessed Memory, who was Vicar when I joined St. Joseph’s Church in 1975. Fr. Goodrich became Vicar of All Saints’, New Amsterdam after leaving St. Joseph’s Parish in 1971.

At the age of 17, on 29th November, 1975, Fr. Goodrich presented me for confirmation at All Saints Church on behalf of Fr. Sydney Thomas. Early 1980, he interviewed me on behalf of the Fellowship of Vocation and subsequently recommended that my application to test my vocation at Codrington Theological College, Barbados, be accepted. It was, and in September, 1980 I began theological studies at Codrington College. In June of 1984, having completed Theological education and was ordained Deacon in Barbados, I was appointed Assistant Curate of St. George’s Cathedral where Fr. Goodrich was Dean of Georgetown and Vicar. It was during my 2 year stint at St. George’s Cathedral, working with and observing Fr. Goodrich, that my priestly formation took place more meaningfully and permanently. I am the priest I am today because I encountered him in the vineyard of the Lord at St. George’s Cathedral. To this day I celebrate the Holy Eucharist the way he did and his insistence on careful prior preparation, punctuality and the maintenance of the holiness of the worship space, have become my passion.

At St. George’s we shared a ministry of consistent, parish-wide visitation of members in their homes, sick visitations at homes and hospitals and the faithful observance of the Church’s liturgical calendar. From Fr. Goodrich  I have learnt the importance of taking the Church to the community with out-door processions of witness, out-door stations of the cross during Lent and Christmas caroling in the inner-city communities. He also opened the doors of the Cathedral for the community to enjoy organ recitals and to listen to Lectures on topics of interest at lunchtime. Fr. Goodrich spent most of his 9 years at the Cathedral executing the most extensive and expensive renovations of the tallest wooden building in the world. The formation of the “Friends of St. George’s” proved to be the master stroke on his part, raising much needed funds to finance the project.

I don’t believe there was a part of the city of Georgetown that Fr. Goodrich did not know, even the most impoverished areas and parts considered dangerous, for example, Tiger Bay. He was known as the priest on two wheels. He rode a motorcycle for most of his ministry in Guyana. I began my ministry with him on a bicycle, then he got me a motorcycle, thanks to GDA, and together we crisscrossed Georgetown, visiting hundreds of homes while clocking in thousands of miles on our motorcycles. As we say in the West Indies, “those were the days”.

In 1985, while still his assistant, he prepared my wife and I for marriage and was present at the ceremony on the 30th November, 1985 at St. Patrick’s Church, Canje, Berbice. One year later he baptized our son Stephen and graciously agreed to be Stephen’s godfather. In March 1987, Bishop Randolph George, now also in Blessed Memory, appointed me Vicar of St. Sidwell’s Church, Lodge where Fr. Goodrich was Vicar from 1957 - 1967, a Church he built after the first building was destroyed by fire. He took great interest in my work at St. Sidwell and often, graciously offered words of encouragement. Working with Fr. Goodrich was like watching a master craftsman at work. We never had formal meeting times to discuss church polity and priest craft. I believe he wanted me to watch and learn. And that is what I did. I am the priest and the man I am today because I watched and keenly observed a humble parish priest doing the Lord’s work with so much love, commitment, and dedication that the fragrance of his life descended and remained on me.

St. Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ”. For me to have known Fr. Goodrich was to experience Christ-likeness that is so compelling and transformative. Fr. Goodrich, for many of us who knew him, put a face on Jesus. That to me will be his lasting legacy. I close with these words, the author unknown, spoken at a farewell service of a faithful pastor and priest who was leaving a particular parish: “For me, t’was not the things you taught, to you so clear, to me so dim. But when you came, you brought a sense of Him. And through your eyes He beckoned me, and through your heart His love was shed. Till I lost sight of you and saw the Christ instead.”  

Rest in peace Fr. Goodrich, my mentor, my father in God, my friend, my colleague, my brother. Thank you, good and faithful servant. May your rest this day, be in the paradise of God. Amen.

St Wilfrid, Haywards Heath Feast of St Michael & All Angels 29.9.21

 

On this day in 1969 I was heading on my Lambretta from Harwell up the A34 to my Oxford College when the front tyre burst and I went across the road to slide under a lorry. I was heading to keep this feast of St Michael & All Angels by serving the evening Mass at St Mary Magdalene, Oxford. 

The good news is I passed under the lorry though I missed that Mass and ended up in the Radcliffe Infirmary. I remain convinced St Michael and his angels were sent by God to protect my life for a purpose. 

Four years later that purpose was revealed. I left my work at Oxford University and the nuclear power station at Harwell to train as a priest.

The angels who shifted the lorry, or my scooter, helped shift my career their way. I say ‘their way’ because angels and priests have the same mission: to bring God’s love to people and people to God’s love. We are both in divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.

Both ministries are about serving God and the church so church members are made better servants of the message of salvation. We are all caught up with the angels in worship of the God we cannot see and in witnessing him to our neighbour in deed and word. The joy of the angels over sinners who turn to God is for us as well. 

Michaelmas day reminds us how God delights to work indirectly through his creatures, angels or men. The angels who watch over us do so as an expression of the love of a God who so many times prefers to do good through his willing servants, earthly or heavenly. 

In the Eucharist we are promised the support of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in lifting ourselves through, with and in Jesus Christ to the Father whose face the angels see and whose sight is promised to us on the day we ourselves will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:51). 

St John the Evangelist, Burgess Hill Trinity 17 (26B) 26.9.21

‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them’ Numbers 11:29

I remember a cheeky church growth metaphor of a bottle with a cork on it. The cork is labelled ‘Vicar’ with the implication that priests keep the fizz down in churches and the importance for church growth of getting loosened from clericalism.

There’s always a fizz about St John’s but I don’t think it's because you’re Vicar-less! Maybe it's because the Holy Spirit is at work as described in today’s scripture. 

In the passage we heard from Numbers Chapter 11 Moses appointed seventy elders to help him lead God’s people in the wilderness and God gave them some of the Spirit put into Moses. There was a manifestation of prophecy demonstrating the Spirit coming on the seventy just like at Pentecost. This stopped and then two people, Eldad and Medad got the Spirit and prophesied though not members of the seventy Moses had chosen. An overzealous young man tried to get Moses to stop this ‘illegitimate’ manifestation of the Spirit. Moses refused saying what was prophetic in a wider sense, my text which points to Pentecost: ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them’.

‘Does God confine the gift of his Spirit to authorised channels?’ is the question, and it comes up again in the Gospel - indeed the Numbers passage was chosen for today to illuminate Mark 9 verses 38. We read there how Our Lord’s disciples tried to stop someone casting out demons in his name because he was not an obvious, or should we say ‘legitimate’ follower of Jesus. ‘But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me’.

Both Our Lord in the Gospel and Moses in the first reading disown clerical arrogance which sees the Holy Spirit just flowing through the channels they have authorised. God is bigger than the institutions he sets up to help his people function right. God is bigger than the church and can make exceptions we should go along with, but - and it's a contentious ‘but’ - we are bound as a rule to expect the Holy Spirit to flow primarily through the channels he authorises. For us Anglicans the Holy Spirit is known as God’s grace and comes primarily through the church. ‘In what ways do you receive… God’s grace?’ Our Catechism asks and it gives this reply. ‘I receive… grace within the fellowship of the Church, when I worship and pray, when I read the Bible, when I receive the Sacraments, and as I live my daily life to his glory’.

Without bishops and priests we cannot have sacramental grace as the Churchwardens know to their cost, working against the odds sometimes to bring priests in to preach and celebrate the eucharist for us in our vacancy - God shorten that and bring us one after his own heart to serve here as our parish priest!

The second reading from James 5 is as ever independent of the other two readings. It provides us with the origin of the Sacraments of Anointing and Confession. Though described in the catechism as lesser sacraments the Church of England reserves these healing sacraments to those ordained in apostolic orders, namely bishops and priests. ‘Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed’ (James 5:13-16a). The confessing of sin to one another became historically confession to a priest, for practical reasons and linked also to Our Lord’s gift of authority to forgive sins to his apostles and by implication to their successors in John’s Gospel Chapter 20.

Returning to our thinking about the working of the Holy Spirit from the other two readings, we see in the instruction of the apostle James the sacramental role of the elder or priest in ministering healing to the sick: ‘call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord’. That we do - and even in a vacancy church members should know it can be made available after any eucharist - but this sacrament is allied to the prayer of church members. God authorises sacramental channels like the eucharist, confession and anointing which are available to all through bishops and priests. At the same time Our Lord commends intercessory prayer in his name by church members alone or in twos or threes as a powerful vehicle of the Holy Spirit as in John 16:23, ‘if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you’ or in Matthew 18:19, ‘if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven’. This morning we are agreeing together for God to heal those on our sick list and those on it are assembled by church members. As a priest I see people healed again and again when they receive the sacrament of anointing. Sometimes that healing is a death at peace with God. A couple of weeks ago I was called to a dying priest wanting to make his confession. Within hours of the sacrament being administered he passed peacefully to God. Yet I can relate as many of you can relate how God in his faithfulness answers prayers of both the ordained and non-ordained for their needs and for those in their circle. How important such prayer is in our lives!

Our Lord shares authority with the apostles and their successors, just as Moses shared with the Seventy, to bring God’s care further across the world. At the same time today’s scripture is a powerful reminder that, important as apostolic order is, it is inseparable from apostolic vitality in the sense of all Christians being open to being agents of the Holy Spirit through care and through prayer. ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.’ Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people, and kindle in us the fire of your love! 

St Wilfrid & Presentation eucharist with thoughts on evangelism 22.9.21

‘To evangelise is so to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that men come to put their faith in God through him, to accept him as their Saviour and to serve him as their King in the fellowship of his Church.’ So wrote the great 20th century Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. 

It’s our duty and joy as Christians to evangelise following the command of our Saviour who in today’s Gospel from Luke Chapter 9 ‘called the Twelve together and… sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to… so they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news’.

It’s my experience as a former parish priest that great blessings come upon a church if the majority of its membership is, in their own way, on the lookout for those near to God’s kingdom ready with an invitation to services. Fr Edward’s arrival could be a pretext for us to invite friends along as our Churches enter a new phase of life.

"Each one reach one" - that's a good motto - imagine, if each Christian in our churches were to reach another person every year or bring a lapsed communicant back to Jesus in his most holy sacrament? We’d double our members every year!

Could there be anything dearer to the heart of Jesus than souls won back from materialism and worldly pursuits to living faith in a living God? To a purpose for living and a reason for dying through the Christian faith?

There must be no end to evangelisation, to the sharing of the good news of salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ and no weightier concern for a Christian fully formed in the faith. 

There can no more be an end to evangelising than there is an end or limit upon the love that flows from the Heart of Jesus.

I know that our church has many concerns – repairs, fund raising, children’s work and so on…but didn't Jesus say that if we sought first his kingdom and his righteousness then all other things would fall into place?

He did.

Do we? 

Later in Luke 9 Jesus says 'The harvest is rich but the labourers are few' and that is still true. 

Few are the ones who would really put work in for Jesus' kingdom and the harvest of souls he is gathering for his return in glory. 

So often we raise money for church from our friends. We take and we do not give or share the most precious thing about the church - the knowledge we share as Christians of Jesus Christ as friend and saviour. 

Of course sharing about Jesus takes prudence as well as courage. Coming back to Archbishop Temple though he was asked by some lay members about the dangers of people unlearned in theology sharing with others about Christianity. This was his provocative reply which I hope speaks to both you and I:  

‘It does very little harm if an eager layman talks heresy, provided he shows and imparts a love for the Lord Jesus.  It does great harm if a priest talks orthodoxy so as to make men think the Gospel is dull or irrelevant’. 

Let’s put more heart this week into sharing about the Lord with those in our circle.