Advent Sunday

1 Thessalonians 3.9-13; Luke 21.25-36

Advent Sunday, the first day of the Church's year in the West and we begin the year by looking forward; looking forward to celebrating the Nativity of the Lord at Christmas and also to His second coming. And so with that looking forward our minds are focussed by the traditional themes of Advent - Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. It sounds like pretty serious and sombre stuff. In a way our worship seems to reflect that with the traditional Advent readings which remind us of the themes. Our hymns and music have the same feeling about them, generally speaking, we have purple as our seasonal colour and we've few if no flowers in Church.

We've got to be carefully though, that in those respects we don't make the Advent season like Lent. It may be a time to reflect but it isn't meant to have the same feeling and atmosphere at all. The themes of Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell are there as I said, to focus the mind, but from the perspective of a healthy sense of God's place and presence in our lives; from what you might call the standpoint of a 'lively' and living faith; and not from a place of great doubt and anxiety. The themes are not meant in that sense to frighten us into submission to God but to help increase our faith and our sense of assurance that God has all in His providence and that 'He upholds us with the power of His might' as St. Paul put it and again, that 'nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord; neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth.' You might recognise those words of St. Paul from his letter to the Romans with which we begin the funeral service. Our lives as Christians are founded on faith, hope and love of God and one another and it's from that standpoint that we have in mind the themes of Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell and take part in the Advent season; that is, from the standpoint of great confidence in God.

Having mentioned those themes though, I do so only to give us the opportunity to think about the frame of mind in which we might make our way through this four short weeks of Advent and how to keep it. There's nothing like contemplating those themes to focus the mind on our past, our present and our future. So I'm not going to look into those themes during Advent at least not directly anyway. What I want to do both on the Sundays and in our Tuesday evening services is to prepare in a more direct way for the celebration of the Nativity of the Lord and what it means for us, before the event, rather than at the time or after. I'm going to be looking more during the Advent season at what Christmas is and, with that in mind preparing heart, mind and soul so that we can appreciate it more fully. And in so doing, we might get a proper appreciation as to how we should have that constant state of expectation of Jesus's coming again. As the Advent collect says, we 'cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, so that on the last day when he shall come again, we may rise to the life immortal.' It's about being ready now, so that, when it happens, when we meet Christ again, we will receive what He promised. In that way we are able to appreciate His first coming and our celebration of it.

So during this Advent season, what I invite you to do is first of all think about what it is we are celebrating on the 25th December, who it is are celebrating on the 25th December. That might sound like a rather pointless plea because we all know don't we? Well mark my words, it isn't, and we don't, necessarily; and I'll tell you why. The reason it's not a pointless plea is because everyone of us is subject to a ruthless dumbing down of the most important event the universe has ever and will ever know - the coming of God into the world in His incarnate Christ and His life, His death and His resurrection. No other event has had as profound an impact upon the whole world. But it's no holds barred in our materialist, secularist, political correctness-gone-mad Western world. There are elements that will stop at nothing to rob us of any appreciation whatever of God in our lives. And remember it's the devil we are up against here and evil invading the lives of individuals and society, that is doing it. And especially vicious are those who call themselves atheists and who seek to rob us of our God and our Christ have no argument except to denigrate the intellect of people who sense that there's more to life than can be seen or touched. They seek to be classed as intellectuals with a superior understanding of life and the universe, but they are nothing of the sort, they are mere naysayers. Thy and the 'politically correct', whatever that really means other than 'I don't like what you do and think and say', tell us we are causing offence by using our Christian symbols and celebrating the important points in our faith, but have no regard to the offence they are causing us by their self righteous demands.

And it's more subtle than that too. We are encouraged, even from within the Church to popularise God and Christ so that He can be understood, so that people can more readily understand we are told, and so come to know and love him much more easily. Well here again, we don't make God any more attractive by turning sacred music into jingles or by reducing the beautifully expressive language of scripture and traditional hymnody into language you read in tabloid newspapers and hear on reality tv shows. And that's because when we do popularise God in that way, He becomes 'ordinary', He becomes the same as everything else in this world, when we should be showing Him as completely extra-ordinary. And when you put God on a par with everything else in life, a life of so many choices, then God is usually last to be chosen. Yes, God came to earth as a man and was everything a man was, but the point is He was everything God is as well and everything a man is not. And when we popularise Him that's the bit we miss, the most important bit, that it's God we are talking about here, not simply a baby born in a stable. If we miss that fact that it's God we are celebrating, because all we see is the baby in the manger, we miss the point entirely. And I think we miss Him so very much at this time and if at this time than more so the rest of the year.

We'll have the children in Church as we always do at Christmas and we'll be singing and hearing the children sing children's stuff and it will be lovely and I've nothing against it in that sense, as long as we realise that there's much more to it and we don't leave the children there too, with children's stuff, so that they never really grow in faith and love of God. One of the most wonderful things that's coming out of the Young Generations Sunday Slot is that when the children are writing the prayers now, left to themselves, they are beginning to write some quite sophisticated theologically and mystically profound prayers. They are actually leaving behind 'childish things' quite naturally, as they think about themselves and other people and especially about God. I've been amazed at what the children are writing as they grow in confidence and are allowed to dig down inside them and yes, listen to the living God speak in them.

We don't like to think about Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell, they are too hard to think about, they throw up too many questions, raise anxieties; so we try to push them out of the way, to forget them either purposely or by negligence. Or we minimise their impact by thinking of them in ways that take out the 'sting'. But looked at in the right way, from having a sense in God's presence and power in our lives, those themes actually help us in the living of our lives, living our lives to the full. And isn't it like that when we come to think beyond those themes to God Himself? The contemplation of God throws up too many questions for most people, raises too many anxieties, so we give up thinking about Him or think about Him in ways that we can cope with or manage. The trouble is that then, in thinking of Him in ways we can manage, we bring Him down to our size, and when He's our size, He's not big enough to handle the really serious issues in life and in death. We can't have any faith in or love for a man-sized God.

But Jesus was, you might say, a God-sized man. So much so that we believe Him to be God incarnate, God in the flesh. And it's as such that we are thinking about Him this Advent. Not simply as a baby, born in a stable, but the uncreated God, come among us, in the flesh. And as we think of Him as such, as we've removed all the dumbing down and the popularising, we must ask ourselves, how do we receive Him, what attitude should we have, what state of body, mind, spirit and soul need we have to receive Him as God come among us? Think of that over the next four weeks, and if you can, come on Tuesday evening at 7.00 0'clock when I'll be saying more, about just that.

2nd Sunday before Advent

Hebrews 10.11-25; Mark 13.1-8

In the Eastern Church today (15th November) is the start of what is known as the Nativity Fast; the start of the 40 days to Christmas. It's not as strict a fast as Great Lent but it is nevertheless a time of fasting. We in the West have a shortened time of preparation for Christmas that we call Advent and it has a slightly different feel to it. In a way, this last couple of weeks of our Ordinary Time, have a theme, that of the Kingdom of God which, if taken in the right spirit make a nice lead in to Advent and which, taken together with the four weeks of Advent give something like the length of the Nativity Fast. On Advent Sunday in two weeks time we will begin to think in earnest about our preparation for the Christmas celebration and what that means in terms of preparation of heart and mind so that we might come to the celebration in the right way. And I hope that all of us will take advantage of the time to make a good preparation so that we can find new meaning in the celebration and new hope in God when Christmas comes around.

Last Tuesday bishop James sent out a letter to all the clergy and to all PCCs asking them to put aside a whole PCC meeting to consider three questions: How are we serving our community; How can we kindle our love for God and our love for our neighbour; and how can we grow numerically? I think it's the last question, more than the other two that is exercising bishop James, as it was the subject of his Presidential address at the last diocesan synod recently and he sent out a copy of his address with his letter. It was strange or providential, really, to receive that letter when I did, because only the week before, following our Question Time in church I was thinking about the questions that had been asked and writing about that for the next issue of our parish magazine. I'll leave you to read the whole article when it's published and I think you'll find it has a bearing on bishop James's letter. But I think the short and only answer to the question 'how can we grow numerically' is when more people's hearts and minds are turned to God and the whole of their life is lived in Him. You see, I really and truly believe after quite a long time in the Church now, and seeing many people come and go, that the only thing that keeps people coming to Church, in the end, is if God means more to them than just about anything or anyone else; when their whole life, as I said, is lived 'in Him'. The term 'in Him' is the only one I can come up with which adequately expresses what I want to say, and really it's what Jesus said when he talked about 'abiding' in Him. It's that life giving, life enhancing spiritual connection that you just can't live your life without. It's being a branch on the vine so that if you are cut off you wither and die. So there's not just a wish or a desire or a longing for the connection, there's a real, life or death need.

Now I raise this today because I think the readings set for today are taking us in that direction. It's the direction of the Kingdom, the direction of Advent, the direction of God. St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Hebrews that Jesus himself is the once and only sacrifice for our sins so that we are no longer cut off from God, except through our own wilfulness. Our continuing sin, through our own free will, through our own negligence, weakness and our own deliberate fault keeps us distanced from God, it obscures God's image in us, blocks it out so that we can't see it, like dust on a mirror stops us seeing our own reflection. But the sacrifice for our sin has been made in Jesus once and for all and true repentance, that hard personal work of repentance, of turning the heart to God, brings us back, restores or reveals the image of God in us again, and our life giving relationship with God is restored to its fullness. Our sins have been washed away in baptism, which we are reminded about where the reading talks about being sprinkled and washed with water. Our sins have been washed away in baptism and the Spirit of God given to us once and for all; and it's only our continuing sinfulness that grieves the Spirit and hinders the Spirit's work in us. So, blessed are those who mourn, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are those who mourn over their sinfulness and weep tears of repentance and turn again to God.

As we are reminded of this very personal thing that Jesus has done for each one of us in giving himself for us, St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews exhorts us to remember all this, to hold fast to this 'confession of our hope' as he says. And then he goes on to say that we should encourage one another in the faith. He says that we shouldn't neglect to meet together, because how can we encourage one another in the faith if we never meet to worship together? And notice he says 'not neglecting to meet together as is the HABIT of some.' How very easy it is to slip into the habit of not coming to church. How easy it is to 'give church a miss' this week, and then next week and then the week after and the week after that. And it's much easier for me because I have to come, I'm paid to come to church unlike yourselves. But I have been and will be again, God willing, in the very dangerous and difficult position of waking up on a Sunday morning and having to decide whether or not to go to church. And I use the words difficult and dangerous because Sunday morning's got to be the devil's favourite and most busy time of the week. At that most perilous time of the week, when you aren't on a rota for anything or you don't have to take the children to church for Andy's Kids or go and watch them perform, and when you take out getting your attendance mark so the kids will get a place in school or the nagging feeling of guilt you'll have if you don't go, there's really only your love for God that will stop you turning over and pulling the covers over you and will get you out of bed, into your clothes and through the church door on a Sunday morning. In the end, only your love for God will bring you here, week after week, month after month, year after long year. And that's how it should be, and there's not enough of it and that's why attendances are falling.

And we aren't really moved these days by the sort of writing we've read in St. Mark's gospel today out of which we hear echoes about what is known as the 'end time', the apocalypse when history will be rolled up and God's eternal kingdom will come to pass. We in the West have become so numbed and desensitised to any notion of urgency in life, of any notion of eternal judgement or reckoning, that we can no longer be frightened into a relationship with God as maybe our predecessors were, who feared that they might go to hell or suffer eternal damnation if they didn't please God. That might not altogether be a bad thing, but at the very least we really perhaps should have some feeling for the fact that our life and what we do with it has consequences that go far beyond our immediate self and lifespan.

As I said, only our love for God will keep us coming to church. Only because we want to please God hour by hour, day by day will we keep coming to church. And it's as we see this in one another that we are encouraged by one another to love God more and to, as St. Paul so eloquently put it 'provoke one another to love and good deeds.'

So as we think about these things over this next couple of weeks and certainly in the season of Advent, as we look forward to the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord, let us use this as a time of real reflection, of preparation of heart and mind, as a time to do some more of the work in ourselves of repentance, of turning our hearts to God again so that we can with a real wish and longing sing 'O come, O come Emmanuel'.

All Saints

Hebrews 12.18-24; Matthew 5.1-12

November is the time in the Church's year specifically dedicated to Remembrance as we celebrate All Saints day today, All Souls tomorrow, Remembrance Sunday next week and then finally at the very end of the month we remember St. Andrew, the 'First Called' of the disciples.

But these celebrations and memorials aren't simply a remembrance of people who have passed on, they also give us the opportunity to thin more deeply about our own life, the Kingdom of God and what we ourselves might be passing on to eventually. With regard to these things I've always found the final prayers at the a burial of ashes quite challenging and evocative. The prayers are:

Heavenly Father,

we thank you for all those whom we love but see no longer.

As we remember N in this place,

hold before us our beginning and our ending,

the dust from which we come

and the death to which we move,

with a firm hope in your eternal love and purposes for us,

in Jesus Christ our Lord.

God of hope,

grant that we, with all who have believed in you,

may be united in the full knowledge of your love

and the unclouded vision of your glory;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

May the infinite and glorious Trinity,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

direct our life in good works,

and after our journey through this world

grant us eternal rest with all the saints.

Those words seem to take us through the whole sweep of our lives in a moment, place us firmly in the Kingdom and also within the providence of God. They take us beyond the horizon of our sight and of our understanding. And as such they demand of us, faith. So, I find those words at one both a comfort, as they place my life firmly in God, and also a challenge, asking me what I really believe, about myself, about life and about God. And I'm challenged to make sense out of life as the prayer tries to give me some sense of what life is.

And it's the same with our readings this morning, first from St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews and then in St. Matthew's gospel.

The reading from Hebrews places us in God's kingdom, through the saving work of Jesus Christ. It says that we aren't like Moses and the people of Israel who came to Mount Sinai and were forbidden to climb the mountain to get close to God. On that sort of thinking was based the whole idea of having to make sacrifices to God to get close to Him and to be able to communicate with Him. But the writer tells us that through Jesus we come to Mount Zion, to the gathering of all the faithful around God's throne perpetually in His presence. So by this we see ourselves as Christians given the hope, through Christ, and the assurance of our place with the saints.

But then comes the challenge in St. Matthew's gospel; because it tells us who these saints are - the poor in Spirit - those who depend upon God totally; those who mourn, and here that means those who mourn over their sins, those who are always conscious of their sinfulness and are genuinely repentant. The meek are those who, being dependent upon God have strength. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are those whose greatest desire is to see God's kingdom as first in their lives.

Do you see the challenge? Looked at in this way, Jesus is giving us a definition of what it means to have the character and the life of a saint. St. Paul said that we should work out our own salvation in fear and trembling and I'm sure it was this sort of thing that he had in mind. Jesus calls us to examine ourselves continually, day by day and to ask ourselves how far we meet this challenge in the whole of our life.

So you see in calling us to think about our loved ones who have passed away and the Saints the Church has us recall week by week, year by year, we are being asked to look at ourselves and ask ourselves if we have that sense of being in the Kingdom now; that sense of heading towards Mount Zion to be gathered around God's throne with all the saints, and probably most importantly a sense of doing the work of sainthood, which is a true and steady turning to God in repentance and faith.