Epiphany

Isaiah 60.1-6; Ephesians 3.1-12; Matthew 2.1-12

Journey of the Magi - John Tissot

Our Church of England lectionary gives us the opportunity to celebrate Epiphany this year on 2nd January, the second Sunday of Christmas. In the Orthodox Church, the visit of the Magi is treated as coinciding with the visit of the shepherds to Jesus and so isn't separated by time as it is in the Western Church.

Whenever we celebrate the visit of the Magi to Jesus the important thing to remember is that it is part of the world's recognition of Emmanuel, the incarnate God; of the uncreated God become as one of us. And as the angel reminded the shepherds, this is cause for great joy. And so this week and at the beginning of a new year, we remember especially those who came from afar, came a very great distance to worship the infant Jesus; they found the same sign of great joy that the shepherds found, and joined in that experience of joy. St. Matthew says that when the Magi saw that the star had stopped, 'they were overwhelmed with joy'. Notice the words - overwhelmed with joy. This was a totally enveloping experience for the Magi; one which totally took them over, filled them and covered them. They were 'overwhelmed'. Think about an experience in your life that has overwhelmed you and how totally enveloped you were by your feelings. This is how the feelings of joy overtook the Magi when they visited Jesus. And the result of that overwhelm, of that enveloping was that they knelt down and worshipped Jesus or 'paid Him homage' as our text tells us today.

This is a sort of natural or innate response of human beings, this in-built urge to worship. It's one of the characteristics that distinguishes humans from other animals. It's a response to something that draws us out of ourselves and towards that which we worship. It's a surrendering of ourself to what we are drawn towards. It's an opening of ourself to it. It's an offering, a giving of ourself to that which we worship. And so if our worship is all of this we can see that our worship is an act of love, because love itself has all these characteristics of opening, surrendering and giving. In Jesus we see God and so see love incarnate because God is love. And so our worship is a response of love to Love. And now we can see why this is a natural thing for us to do, this worship of God. It's because we are God's creatures, created in, by and out of love and the love we have recognises its self and origin in God Himself. It's a response of our love born of God to the Love that is God Himself. That's the theory. How does it show up in practice?

The shepherds and the Magi had to journey towards Jesus; nothing held them back. The shepherds journey was short and probably quite easy. The journey of the Magi was long and probably very arduous. T.S. Eliot's well known poem 'The Journey of the Magi' gives us a wonderful description of how that journey might have been; 'A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year for a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter.' And the camels galled, sore-footed, refrectory, lying down in the melting snow......A hard time we had of it'. (p.99 T.S. Eliot Collected Poems 1909 - 1962 Faber and Faber) And the Magi remember what they have left behind; the warm luxury. This description captures very well the experience of many people of the Christian journey, the journey to God. But journey's end for the shepherds and the Magi is worship both; St. Luke and St. Matthew tell us.

And this journey that we all experience, as we come into the presence of God requires us to open ourselves up to Him, to listen and look, just as the shepherds and the Magi. Looking and listening is all part of the experience, all part of the journey. And not in a symbolic way but in a very real way especially when we come to our weekly worship, for as we speak and sing and look and listen we need to be open and attentive to what we see and hear. So that we too might be moved in our thoughts, in our emotions, in our souls, just as the shepherds and the Magi. The words we say and sing in our worship week by week don't do anything unless we care to open our once impenetrable hearts and minds. And open ourselves up as though each time was the very first time we'd been in God's real presence as it was for the shepherds and Magi.

And it's then, when we open ourselves to what we see and hear and begin to grasp what is in front of us, what we are part of and caught up in, as the shepherds and the Magi, that we begin to do as they did, to fall down on our knees and pay Him homage, to worship Jesus Christ, God incarnate, God with us, Emmanuel. And this is the beginning of our worship, the beginning of our homage. The next and final but continual step as we follow the road of the shepherds and the Magi in worship is that we do what the Magi did. They opened their treasures and gave to Jesus the best of what they had, the most precious of what they had. They gave gold, and frankincense and myrrh. And whatever the symbolic meaning of these gifts the point is that they came out of their treasures, they were the very best of the best. Nothing less would do for the King of kings and Lord of lords. They gave their best to the Best. And these were very practical things, not good intentions, not promises, not words or thoughts. They were real, tangible gifts of the highest practical, even worldly as well as monetary value. But right at the heart of those very practical gifts was the highest spiritual purpose and intent. Their giving was an act of love. The giving of gold and frankincense and myrrh by the Magi, to Jesus, was an act of love.

And that's the call to us this and every New Year and throughout our Christian journey and life. That's what we should resolve to emulate if we are going to make any resolutions; that we too, as the Magi did might give to God the best of what we have out of the best of what we have, in very practical and real and seemingly sometimes worldly ways. All of our giving to God in whatever way has a spiritual heart. Because we give it out of love. I think we maybe need to think of this especially in these times; times which are increasingly hard for many people financially and economically. We Christians especially need to balance whatever economy and stingency we are forced to practice in this new year, with the words of Jesus, that we reap what we sow; very practical but deeply spiritual words nonetheless. And deeply spiritual because they remind us that at the heart of God is love which is all giving. Love is all giving, and we see this giving as the purpose of the life of the child lying in a manger, the child whose disciples and imitators we are.

So whatever faces us in this coming year, let us not hold ourselves back from the true worship which is the giving of the best out of the best we have, just as the Magi did 2,000 years ago. Let us offer all we can out of our love for Him who offered Himself for us, in the whole of His life, from the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross.

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St. Stephen, the First Martyr

Acts 7.51-60; Matthew 23.34-39

St. Stephen Preaching

It seems odd that the day after we celebrate a birth we commemorate a death, that of St. Stephen, the first martyr for the faith. But just as God came right into the thick of life in His incarnation, so being a disciple of Christ keeps us right in the thick of life too. We are misguided if we want our Christianity to somehow lift us out of this life and keep us from all its harsh reality. The Acts of the Apostles says that when Stephen was preaching to the people, they 'became enraged and ground their teeth at (him)' and 'they covered their ears'. The Christmas story holds out an invitation and to make a choice. The invitation is to go the way of God, to, as it were, join in the story of Jesus Christ. The choice is to either do that or to continue in our own sweet way, in our own world, often feeling very unfulfilled and wondering what life is all about. Along the way of our religious life we might gain various pleasures and joys but they are often fleeting and shallow and leave us only partly satisfied if satisfied at all.

And every year this story of Jesus' birth and its message of 'good news for all the people' is put out there at Christmas and so many, on hearing it, do as those who were listening to Stephen; they become enraged, grind their teeth and cover their ears.' We've seen that sort of thing from those who call themselves atheists, on tv. When you watch them, you can see and hear them getting angry at the mention of the Faith and if not literally they figuratively cover their ears, because they don't want to listen. I really do wonder why that is. Why should a message of hope and joy and love receive such a response? It can't itself provoke that response, because love and joy and peace can only result in more of the same. As Jesus Himself said, a good tree can't bear bad fruit.

Atheists will say we are deluded; that we have got it very wrong. But how do they know they are right? They have no more certainty that they are right than we have. And yet such a strong reaction to the Faith; grinding of teeth and anger and covering their ears. Well, I'd like to suggest that it's probably pride that does that. And then they will say but isn't pride making us say that? Well, no, because the Christian gospel demands a doing away with pride in all its forms and you can't make the gospel real in your life if there is pride there. And you can only go to your death for faith if you've lost all sense of pride.

When we accept the invitation and make the choice to join in the story of Jesus Christ, to become His follower, His disciple, pride has to be put away. His will, God's will has to become the motivating factor in our life, the one and only principle upon which we live. We live His life in us. That's the whole point and the point I think those who cover their ears don't want to listen to. We give up our own life for Him, for Christ, for God. That's the beginning, middle and end of our Christian journey here on earth, the whole purpose of our Christian life; that God is glorified in us, so that we can say along with St. Paul, 'it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me.'

And that's the good news of great joy for all people; God coming right into our lives and our lives being lived in Him. For St. Stephen and others after him that was worth dying for. We might not be called on to die for Jesus Christ as Stephen was but we can choose to try and live for Jesus Christ while we have the chance. Lets try and live the good news for all the people, this Christmas and always, to God's glory, so that more might want to do the same.

Christmas 2010

Isaiah 9.2-7; Titus 2.11-14; Luke 2.1-20

It's one of the smallest words in our language; and it describes probably the most elusive of human emotions. It's something that is promised to us all by God, yet is something we seem to have to look for all of our lives. It's a word that rings out and runs through the message of Jesus Christ from beginning to end as we read it in St. Luke's gospel. It's right at the heart, especially of the good news of God Incarnate, right at the heart of the message of Christmas, and it's what we all look for IN our Christmas celebrations. The word I'm referring to is the word 'Joy'.

'Do not be afraid, for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people'. So says the angel as he visits the shepherds. The good news; which IS joy and which brings joy. And not simply for a small group, an isolated and privileged band; but for ALL the people. And the sign of that good news, the sign of that joy, so the angel tells the shepherds, is 'a child, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.' That child IS joy and brings joy. Because that child is God; God here; among us. And God is here today, Christ is born today. An ancient liturgy, an ancient form of worship that is repeated in part of the Church every Christmas says: 'Today Christ is born of the Virgin in Bethlehem. Today He who knows no beginning now begins to be, and the Word is made flesh. The powers of heaven greatly rejoice, and the earth with mankind makes glad. The Magi offer gifts, the shepherds proclaim the marvel, and we cry aloud without ceasing: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.' The idea behind this celebration (today) is that we don't just remember how wonderful it was for the shepherds and magi 2,000 years ago and celebrate their joy. We are joyful because that world saving event of God becoming Man fills us with such joy too and we join in with the joy of the shepherds and the magi. Because that joy promised by the angel, that joy of ours, of the whole human race is unending.

Well, that's all very well but how does it tie in with what we all know and what I said at the beginning about joy being something we all seem to have to search for in life and seems so elusive? Always there comes along something to stand in the way of our experience of joy, of any lasting and real joy in life. And that betrays what seems to be true of God also; that we all at one time or another have a need for God and yet He also seems so elusive for much of the time; not there when we need Him or quickly departing after an encounter with Him. As I think about all of that I can't help but remember a scene from Emmerdale a couple of weeks ago. It's the Christmas Carol service and the vicar, Ashley, is waxing lyrical about how wonderful God is and how wonderful Christmas is and how God and Christmas are the answer to all our prayers. Sitting in the congregation is Hazel, the mother of the young man who's in hospital, recovering from an accident and paralysed from the neck downwards. All that Ashley is saying about God and Christmas seems so far away, light years away from Hazel's immediate experience that she becomes violently angry, curses God and smashes up the crib with the collection box in which is money to help her son. In one way or another, I guess we have all been there. In one way or another, maybe all of us are actually, right now, just where Hazel is in heart and mind, to a greater or lesser extent. Christmas and life experience for the most part, don't really fit together very well. And yet, and yet, we are here in faith and hope. We are here in faith, and in the hope that what the angels promise the shepherds is actually true; that this child IS 'good news of great joy for all people.' We wouldn't be here if we weren't at the very least, hanging on by a thread in faith and hope.

And that faith and hope, and this celebration here now, is where we begin, it's the road by which we journey, and it's journey's end. Because in that faith and hope, and in this celebration and in that child who is God, lies the joy. We don't find the joy we are promised by the angel to the shepherds in our Christmas gifts. We don't find the joy we are promised even in the people sitting by us or living with us and around us. If we are fortunate and we experience love of another human being and we have loving relationships and receive gifts given in love, they are to us signs of that joy. They are signs of joy that lead us on to the real and deeper and greater joy that is in God Himself. And His coming to us in that child in a manger makes His joy accessible to us. It COMES to us.

All that happens to us in life is what life is and brings us joy and sorrow in, very often, seemingly unequal measures. But it IS life and we can't depend upon what life brings to give us real and lasting joy, it just won't happen, it never happens. The only lasting and real joy can be found in God. That's what the angels tell us, that's what the saints down the ages tell us and that's what we celebrate and come near to ourself tonight, we come near to the lasting 'good news of great joy for all the people.' So how do we make it real in our lives, this good news of great joy for all the people?

Thousands of years before the events we celebrate tonight, the prophet Isaiah says of God, 'my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways'. And that has been humankind's biggest stumbling block in our relationship with the living God. We want to see and think and do it our way, when God's ways are quite different. Human pride and ego and vanity have always stood in the way of our having a real and true, loving and living relationship with God. His way is faith, His way is trust, His way is real love. And it seems that we only realise that when we are washed up on the rocks of life, feeling outcast, spent and exhausted and half dead, maybe just like Mary and Joseph felt as they arrived in Bethlehem with nowhere to stay and only a stable to find shelter for themselves and their baby. We only realise that we have to think and do life differently to get to know God in real terms, when life's nearly done us to death and we seem to have lost all faith and hope.

And yet, ever again, round and round it comes; Christmas. Here comes the promise of the angel once again 'I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.' God is here again amongst us, inviting us once again into faith and trust and love, never giving up on us no matter how much we give up on Him. And it's the promise that when we follow Him in faith and trust and love, then and only then does that good news of great joy become real in us; only then will we know it; only then can we really rejoice and return, from that encounter, like the shepherds, glorifying and praising God for all we have heard and seen.

So (today) we look again at that sign of great joy, 'a baby wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger'; and God invites us to put to one side our own thoughts and our own ways and look deep within, within Himself, within that child, within ourself and look there for the good news of great joy for all the people, because we won't find it anywhere else; and thanks be to God for that. Christ is born; glorify Him.

I wish you all a very happy, blessed and joyful Christmas.

Third Sunday of Advent

James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11
We are thinking in this Advent season how we might best prepare in heart, mind and soul for the celebration of Christmas. We are doing that so that when Christmas comes along we might take to heart the message; and having taken it to heart, make a change in our lives that will help us give more of ourselves to God and give more of ourselves in our discipleship of Christ.
We are looking forward during Advent as we look inward as well. We are looking forward with hope and anticipation and expectation. We really ought to have a mounting excitement at the prospect of finding new meaning in Christmas, of making new discoveries and making changes.
Whenever we look forward with excitement and joy we can begin to want whatever is to come, right now, right at this moment. We can become impatient. And it's such impatience that St. James counsels us against today; 'Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.' And of course, patience has always been seen as one of the virtues and a fruit of the Spirit of God. So in having patience we are tapping right in to God, getting nearer to God, we are becoming godly.
At the time St. James was writing, Jesus' disciples believed that His second coming wouldn't be long. What He'd said here and there led them to believe that. And this passage from St. James' letter tells us such; 'Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.' As they thought Jesus' second coming was near, maybe we could say it was easier for them to have patience than it is for us, who still wait. But I think that patience has little to do with waiting for something. That's just one aspect of this virtue and fruit of the Spirit. Patience is a way of life, a way of being, a way of living in this world no matter what is in front of or around us.
We can see that patience is much bigger than we might first understand. It's much more than just holding your tongue or biding your time. We begin to see this when we go on to read what St. James says next; 'Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.' Grumbling and judgement. How much are they the result, the fruit, the children of impatience? Whenever we come upon a situation that demands patience, we very soon fall into a state of grumbling and judgement. Maybe we are sat in the doctor's waiting room and our appointment time passes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. We begin to get irritated and fall into criticising the appointments system, the reception staff, the doctor, the NHS, the government and so it goes on. The longer we wait, the more harsh the criticism, the deeper the complaining, the harsher the judgement.
St. James, in this letter, gives away another aspect of patience. He says; 'As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.' He's indicating here that patience has something to do with suffering. And indeed if you look at the origin of the word 'patience' it has the same root as the word 'suffer'. We talk about the 'passion' of Christ when we are meaning his suffering. And that's because the meaning of the two words passion and suffering overlap. The word 'patience' comes from the word 'passio' to suffer.
And then there are two aspects to this suffering. In one we mean that demands are made on us so that we can feel or be hurt in body, mind or spirit. And when we are grumbling and complaining and judging, not only do we feel hurt, taken advantage of, abused, we are also hurting ourselves, causing ourselves to suffer through those feelings. That's why Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount; 'judge not, so that you aren't judged, because you will be judged in the same way as you judge others'. What we give out rebounds on us, we reap what we sow. And doesn't this show how intimately connected we all are in such subtle ways. In causing others to suffer, we actually suffer ourselves.
But there's another meaning to the word suffer, a meaning in the use of the word that isn't seen much at all these days. To suffer also means to 'allow'. The words of Jesus; 'Suffer the little children to come to me'; is a well known phrase in older translations of the Bible, meaning let or allow the children. When we suffer something to happen we allow it to happen. And again, here is a link to patience. When we have patience, we have to allow events to unfold, allow them to happen in a detached way. And the prophets did this St. James tells us when they spoke of the Lord. We can see that throughout the Old Testament and indeed in the New Testament as well. All those prophets in the Bible very often spoke of God and the Word of God into a world that ignored it. The western world today is very much like that ancient world in that respect. So the prophets had to have patience, they had to just speak and act and let things unfold as they would unfold. And contemporary prophets learn very quickly that you have to have patience in all senses of the word when it comes to the things of God. God's Kingdom is built in God's time and you can't hurry God and you have to have far more patience when it comes to waiting on God than when you are sat in the doctor's waiting room.
But this is all to and for our own good, for our own spiritual awareness and relationship with God. And for our relationships with one another and ourself as well. In Advent we are reminded that we are waiting with patience and suffering for God to act. We wait with hope and we wait in faith, and the actual waiting is in that sense part of our salvation, part of our healing, part of our coming to know God in His fullness. For now, it's the journey that matters rather more than the destination. So let us wait and watch as God calls us to do, with patience until we see His time come in our lives.

Second Sunday of Advent

1 Timothy 6.6-11; Mark 10.13-16

St. Nicholas the Wonderworker

The Feast of St. Nicholas is properly celebrated tomorrow, the 6th December. However, he's very often missed especially if you don't come to a mid-week service and so I thought that this year we might remember him on the nearest Sunday to the 6th. And I wanted to remember him because he and the traditions and stories surrounding him have had an abiding influence on our celebration of Christmas in this and other countries down the years. His 'claim to fame' as it were stems from his time as bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, now Turkey. His principle good deed apparently was to save three girls from a life of prostitution by giving their poor father, who couldn't afford dowries so that they could get married, gold coins, enough for three dowries. He gave the money anonymously and there are different versions of the story as to how he did that. One of the stories is that Nicholas dropped the bags of money down the chimney of the girls house and the bags fell into the stocking of one of the girls which she'd hung by the fire to dry. St. Nicholas is also known, certainly in the Orthodox world as a wonder worker because many miracles are attributed to his intercessions on behalf of others.

As we think about the feast of Christmas we can see that it is bracketed as it were, by two Feasts that celebrate giving. The first is this feast of St. Nicholas and then after Christmas itself we have the feast that follows on the 6th January, Epiphany, in which we in the West celebrate the visit of the Wise Men to Jesus. So overlapping the weeks of Advent where we are looking forward to celebrating Christmas and to thinking about the second coming of Jesus, we have the theme of giving that stretches from 6th December through Christmas Day to 6th January. It starts with the example of the giving of St. Nicholas, through the giving by God of His Son Jesus Christ, to the giving of the gifts to Jesus by the Wise Men. 

The readings set in the lectionary for the feast of St. Nicholas reflect several themes that connect the man himself, Christmas and the Christian life as you'd expect. The reading from the first letter to Timothy is St. Paul's call to Timothy not to be tempted by and distracted by what the world regards as important such as money, but, as he says, to 'pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.' St. Paul stresses that often, the pursuit of financial gain can lead to ruin in different ways. And it's here that we read those very well worn words, and words that are reflected in the opening sentences of the funeral service 'we brought nothing into the world, so we can take nothing out of it.'

What St. Paul is stressing here, rather than having a swipe at money, is the call to every Christian to get our priorities right. It leads right to what Jesus Himself said that 'where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' And our treasure as Christians is meant to be Jesus Christ and His teaching about faith and love and the values of discipleship. Everything else comes after that. As Jesus Himself again said, 'seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.' And we do that, as the gospel reading reminds us, as little children. That is, with the faith and trust that children have.

And St. Nicholas seemed to do just that. As we look at his life and his work, he was someone who lived the Kingdom of God and passed onto us that example of life and faith and love. And it's love that is at the very heart of his life, for it is out of love that a life of giving springs.

As we think ahead to Christmas and the Nativity of the Incarnate God, we are reminded of those words from St. John's gospel, chapter 3 verse 16 - 'God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son'. God loved so much that He gave. Love is the motivation for giving. And again, it was St. John who said that we can only love because God loved us first. And I suppose that it follows from that, that we can only give in the right and true spirit because God gave Himself to us in Jesus Christ. So if our giving is to be of real value it must be out of love. If it's done out of love it is Godly giving, we are following the example of God Himself.

Maybe as we approach Christmas we might benefit by really thinking about what motivates our giving and whether or not we give out of a real sense of love for others, as did St. Nicholas. Thinking about how we give also paves the way for thinking more deeply about what we give as we shall when we come to think about the giving of the gifts by the Wise Men. In the meantime, as St. Paul says to Timothy, and as undoubtedly St. Nicholas did, let us put righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness at the heart of all our dealings as we prepare this Advent for the great feast of Christmas

Advent Sunday

Isaiah 2.1-5; Romans 13.11-14; Matthew 24.36-44

Today is the first day of our new Church year. It is the first day of the season of Advent, the few weeks we take to prepare for the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the ancient Church, in the East, this is a season of fasting which began two weeks ago on the 15th November. It's a fast in preparation for a feast. And what a feast it is in many different respects that is in front of us. And what preparation it needs, and all of us come through this preparation with different degrees of love or loathing. The fasting is meant to help prepare in body, mind, heart and soul for a greater appreciation of what it means for God to become man amongst us, for the uncreated God to become incarnate as one of us. And a greater understanding of what it means for our life here and in eternity. When you think about it in some depth and linger over the consequences of God becoming man, you can't help but be caught up in the wonder of it all and hopefully in the joy too, which we will read about and celebrate in a few weeks time. But for now we have to start with our preparations.

Our preparations here in the Western Church take on a more sombre tone as we traditionally recall and ponder over the Four Last Things as they are called, Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. And there's nothing like the contemplation of those four things to focus the mind, as we all in this life head in the same direction, the direction of those four last things. And the most important thing is that we don't know, we really don't know how near we are in time and space to their reality. Most people treat the contemplation of death with a morbid fear and quickly change the subject when it is raised. And that is something of a pity because the healthy contemplation of our own death and associated subjects like judgement, heaven and hell can be a very positive occupation leading to our living a much fuller, richer, more faithful to Christ life than we would otherwise. On Friday last I began to read a book by Mitch Albom entitled The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It starts by considering the last hour of the main character Eddie and with thirty four minutes to live and going about his work, the narrative says of Eddie - 'Had he known his death was imminent, he might have gone somewhere else. Instead, he did what we all do. He went about his dull routine as if all the days in the world were still to come.' I thought that was a most apt description of the way we typically live our lives.

Our readings will reflect these issues in the coming weeks on Sundays and if you follow the daily readings in the lectionary, you'll find the themes there as well. And I'd like to think of all of this as an underlying agenda for a simple preparation for hearing again, the story of the birth of Christ. But also and more importantly a preparation for thinking about and taking action on the way in which we respond personally to this great gift to us of Himself, that God made in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. Because the incarnation of Christ will only remain a story, will only remain a myth unless the Truth of it is made real in the living of our lives, made real in a daily turning to God in faith and love for the shaping and living of every moment of our lives.

So you see, I've turned the subject around about 180 degrees. Our traditional themes focus our mind on the living of our lives in the present by thinking about death. What I'm asking you to do is to focus your mind, for the present, on the living or your life in the present by thinking about a birth, the birth in a stable of God Himself as a baby boy, God in human form, God with us. This life that comes to birth in the stable will also lead through growth and death and even resurrection. And in the course of time we'll ask ourselves the same questions about that life's relevance 2,000 years ago to our own life, here, now. But for the time being we stay with His birth and our preparations for that.

You will know the sorts of preparations you will be making or will already have started to make for the celebration of Christmas. Some will be looking forward to a very happy time with the joys of family and exchange of gifts and feasting and partying. And some will be looking forward, rather, to some sadness for many a different reason. Either way, the preparations will be made and practicalities seen to with varying degrees of anxiety, worry and stress. I wonder if anybody will be counter-cultural this year and actually enjoy preparing for Christmas??

But what we are going to celebrate is a birth that has the potential of changing each and every individual human heart, mind and soul, if we let it, if we are prepared for it. It has the potential of turning every life around, of moving its existence onto a much higher plane; one in which love is the mover of every breath and heartbeat and the foundation of every relationship. And by that I don't mean human affection but divine love, the love of God. And that love comes into our lives in that birth, not forced upon us, but as a gift, quietly, silently even. And it's because it is a gift that comes almost unseen, almost unheard that we must be prepared if we are to receive it. We have to open our spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear, to look and listen. When we do that we might begin to hear the angels singing 'glory to God in the highest' as those shepherds did.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Let's not rush into Christmas. Let us just prepare to receive this gift anew as though we had never received it before, because when we do that, when we really look and listen, we might realise that we never have really received it, that our lives have up to now not shown the response the gift should evoke from us; that we have up to now still been in darkness when God is calling us year after year into the light, the light of His love. Let us look forward to this birth, this gift to us, this time with our eyes and ears fully open, and hearts and minds fully prepared.

Third Sunday before Advent

2 Thessalonians 2.1-5, 13-17; Luke 20.27-38

In these few weeks leading up to the season of Advent we have our minds turned towards the subject of the Kingdom of God in our Common Worship lectionary. And the Kingdom of God we are told is both here and yet to come, in all its fullness. And that is linked to what is called the 'end times', that time when Christ will return, history will be rolled up and the Kingdom finally come. To understand this as fully as we can, we have to go back to Old Testament ideas of what is called the 'Day of the Lord', a time seen as being that in which God's rule finally takes its sway, together with a final judgement. Jesus seems to have taken up similar themes right from the start of his ministry when he called people to 'repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.' And then he went on to tell stories about what the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven is like and the way it works. And when we look at these stories, these parables we can see that there are some quite marked contrasts between the way in which the world works and the way the Kingdom of God works. All of this is a huge subject in itself. And the readings this morning point towards all of this. But what I think we could get from this morning's readings is not so much thoughts and ideas about the Kingdom itself but how to approach it and how to live in it.

When he was writing to the people at Thessalonica, Paul was writing in the very early days of the Church, indeed these letters to the Thessalonians are believed to be the earliest letters in our Bible. All that people had on which to base the living of their Christian life was what had been handed down to them by word of mouth and for the Jews amongst them, what was in their Bible, which is our Old Testament. You can imagine that, in these early days, with all these new ideas floating around people would be desperate to know what Jesus had said and done, what was right and what was wrong in all of what they were hearing, what was the truth in and about what Jesus spoke and what was false. Added to that, people had the impression, from what Jesus had said, that He would return very soon. So they needed to know how they could be best prepared for when that happened.

At that time too there were many people going around developing and preaching different spiritual techniques and pathways some based on the things that Jesus had said and others based on more philosophical speculation. So again, Christians could get themselves lost in the welter of weird and wonderful ideas and beliefs and stray far from the Truth that the apostles had received and passed on. And it was too a time of political and religious unrest so that Christians could very easily find themselves being persecuted for their beliefs, putting their lives in danger for simply gathering to talk about Jesus Christ and to worship Him.

When we turn to the gospel reading we are looking at the sort of question that Jesus' preaching raised in peoples' minds, especially in the minds of those who were teachers. Whether or not they were trying to catch Jesus out is neither here nor there. Jesus' answers were very often quite disarming and would throw people back on the question itself or onto the questioners and their own ideas, beliefs and opinions. In this case, the effect of Jesus' answer is to show that indeed, the way the Kingdom of God works is in many respects very different to the way the world works. And we have to be in it to experience it. Until then it just seems like speculation just because it doesn't work the way the world works, very often.

And that brings us to the point of both of these readings this morning and this subject of the Kingdom of God. St. Paul tells people not to listen to all the mumbo jumbo that they hear coming from round about them. Instead, he says "So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter". This is right at the heart of St. Paul's preaching and teaching of the gospel. That people should stick to what they've been taught, to what has been passed on to them by the apostles, is vital to their growth in faith and in the Faith. And he reiterates it to the Corinthians, when they aren't living up to the mark, saying that he passed on to them what had been passed on to him. And that they should imitate him as he imitates Jesus Himself. Only in this way can they come to know what being followers of Christ means. Only by following in this tradition as faithfully as they possibly can will they come to realise the fullness of the Christian life in themselves, the fullness of Christ Himself.

It also means that when they do follow in this tradition as faithfully as possible that the Kingdom of God becomes real to them. It's only then that it makes sense to them and that they can then actually live it and live by it. Because the way it works is that when they were baptised they were baptised into Christ Himself, into His life and it's for them to let the Holy Spirit work in them, so that all that Christ Himself was they can be too. And they do this by keeping to what they have been taught through the tradition handed on to them. It's this that will keep them steadfast and unswerving in such difficult times as they were living through. As St. Paul says, again to the Thessalonians; "Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word."

We too, 2,000 years on live in such difficult times as the Thessalonians. The devil never has rested. We might not be persecuted for our faith in this part of the world, although we are in much more subtle ways; but how much are we pressured or tempted to water down our Christianity so that what it becomes is simply a vague sense of positivity about life or some weekly ritual that makes us feel better about our lot; opium for the masses as Karl Marx called it. And how very present in this world now are all the spiritualities that were floating about 2,000 years ago, brushed up and re-presented in shiny new packaging, as cheap as chips, for anybody to be sidetracked into, ourselves included. And all of which causes such great spiritual confusion and chaos. It's all treasure to the devil. When we are confused, frustrated or depressed about our faith, the devil has done his work well. And how much is the Church herself confused, frustrated and depressed in this part of the world these days?

So it's in times like these that we need to hear St. Paul again urging us to keep to the tradition handed down to us from the apostles. Because this apostolic faith is the true Faith. Christ's light is the true Light. It's the faith that lifts us out of the kingdom of this world into the Kingdom of God the moment we turn to it. It lifts us out of the kingdom of transient affection, quiet and happiness into the Kingdom of true and eternal, love, joy and peace. But it only becomes real when we stick with it, stick to it. And it's then that God Himself will come with His grace and eternal comfort to keep us in His Kingdom.

All Saints Sunday

Ephesians 1.11-23; Luke 6.20-31

The time has come around again when we remember or call to mind many people. From now until 30th November we will be celebrating and commemorating many who belonged to the Church in their own day and age, whether it be as long ago as the Day of Pentecost itself or as recently as days or weeks ago. We do this for different reason but I hope that in doing so our thoughts and emotions won't just stay with them, but that we will find in them some example or inspiration for our own lives and for our own place as members of the Church, the Body of Christ.

We have thought before about what makes somebody a saint. The word is used in different ways. We tend to use the word to mean somebody who is of a particular character or personality, someone we would say who is holy. St. Paul used the term in respect of every member of the Church. But in doing so I think he had a particular sort of 'membership' in mind. It wasn't just people whose names appeared on a membership list, or who turned up day by day or week by week at worship. I think he had in mind those he would have called 'in Christ'; that is their whole lives were lived as if they were immersed in Jesus Christ Himself or that Jesus Christ controlled the whole of their lives. Another way of saying it is to say that they were immersed in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit was the motivator in their lives. Certainly, they were people for whom Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life and not only that but they lived their lives in the light of that Way, Truth and Life, as best they could. And I think for me that's what a saint is.

Now I don't think that means that a saint is necessarily someone who lives a life of spectacular shows of goodness and holiness. To live your life with Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life is a very difficult thing, often meaning great personal challenge in the form of repentance as you try to live that Way, Truth and Life yourself. It could mean leading a very ordinary sort of life far away from the public gaze, being led by the Holy Spirit in conforming to Christ's own Way. Or yes, you could be called to be an Archbishop or a Pope. However the call to live Christ's Way shows itself in one's life, the important thing is how Christ-like one is becoming. Being a saint means daily turning to God, daily repentance, allowing the Holy Spirit to work His will in one's life. The saints prayer is 'Thy will be done' as it was Jesus's daily prayer.

Above all maybe the one thing that determines our saintliness; the one thing our saintliness can be measure by is what Jesus tells us in this extract from St. Luke's gospel this morning. The measurement begins with the words of the last statement. 'Do to others as you would have them do to you'. This has been known as the Golden Rule for centuries. It's not an easy thing to do as we well know. Our pride and ego, our grasping and selfishness get in the way of it. We want to get our own back, not give our own away, which is what this statement demands of us. But hard though that is, as a summing up of what has gone before it in this passage I think it is a bit weak. Because the ultimate measure of saintliness I think is how far we do what Jesus says at the beginning of this paragraph. And that is 'Love your enemies'.

We read and say this very often, the words of Jesus; 'a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.' We read those words especially on Maundy Thursday. I wonder if you've ever stopped to ask yourself why this was a new commandment? Well, it's simply because Jesus loved His enemies and it was the first time that God had told people to love others in that way. Up to then it seems that the Old Testament way seemed to prevail - an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. So when Jesus came along, this was really new; this love your enemies. And doesn't it put a new perspective on our relationships with one another, with God and with ourselves? This is so demanding and so far reaching it seems almost impossible. And that's because it demands new levels of forgiveness, new levels never even thought of before and certainly never asked for. But this is what Jesus commands of all of us who would follow Him - love your enemies. And I would suggest that this is the true measure of saintliness, how well we have been able to love our enemies.

Today we celebrate all the saints down the millennia; all who have striven to become Christ-like, all who have striven to live the Way, the Truth and the Life; all who have striven to love their enemies. Some have done well in that. Some have done not so well. But all have done their best, which is all that God calls for in us. God knows we fail and fail fully and often. But He loves us and that love is shown above all in His forgiveness of us. And He asks us to do the same to others so that our names might go down alongside all those who've gone before us loved and forgiven by God.

Bible Sunday

Isaiah 45.22-25; Romans 15.1-6; Luke 4.16-24

I must confess that this morning's reading from St. Luke's gospel is one of my favourites and for purely personal reasons. It was the gospel passage set for the day on which I preached my first ever sermon. I was absolutely petrified. I remember hardly being able to move my arms so that all I could do was to just push my papers one over the other. Luckily, I'd read the sermon so many times beforehand that I almost knew it off by heart. Maybe I should remember that time rather more because it does emphasise what a very precious thing it is to expound the Word of God to His people. It is a huge responsibility. And that's because, first of all the preacher, in reading the gospel out loud stands in the place of Christ and then it's as Christ Himself that the preacher tries to explain what relevance the gospel has for us in this day and age, 2,000 years after Jesus first spoke the Word of God. It really is a terrible responsibility. And so it's with that in mind that I recall a former tutor telling us that if we can't preach then we shouldn't, that we should do something else instead, maybe get somebody else to do it. Sometimes I think there are probably days when we'd be better off without a sermon, especially when I'm not feeling all that well or when the inspiration has been just about zero. Unfortunately there is no get out clause because the canons of the Church of England say that the Incumbent must 'cause a sermon to be preached at least once on a Sunday in his church', unlike in the church I visited during my study leave where in 8 weeks there was only 2 sermons. On the other weeks, the readings and the rest of the liturgy were left to speak for themselves. But in the Church of England we place Scripture ahead of the other pillars, so to speak, upon which our church is built, the others being tradition, reason and experience. So we bring all of our Christian life to the scriptures for it to be tested there. God, through His written Word is the reference point for all of our Christian life. And that's why it is even more important, maybe, for us to get things right about how we see our Holy Bible and we interpret it and use it in our day to day Christian life.

Even though in the Church of England we give scripture this place above tradition, reason and experience we really must be very careful about how it fits in with everything else in the Church. If we don't do that we can use the Holy Bible to our own ends, we can use it and abuse it very easily. And that is done very much throughout much of the Christian world where individual interpretation is allowed. So when we come to reading and interpreting the Bible we have to remember one or two things.

First of all the New Testament in particular, the gospels, letters and the book of Revelation aren't a systematic history of the life of Jesus, the apostles and the churches. To quote the theologian Archimandrite Vasilieos (Hymn of Entry) 'the Gospel...is not a systematic exposition of Christian teaching, precisely because it is not concerned with teaching. Jesus did not leave behind Him a new philosophical system, not did He institute a mere religion. He left His body and sent His Spirit. And the Gospel consists of fundamental elements from the life of Jesus and the experience of the new community in Christ.' (End quote) With this in mind, I think we often come to the Bible expecting too much of it. We expect to find answers to every problem. And that is one reason why there is so much disagreement in the Church, the Western Church in particular about different issues. The Bible does contain objective Truth because it speaks of Jesus who is 'the Way, the Truth and the Life'. But it won't give you answers to questions on such things as stem cell research or euthanasia, well not so simply anyway. So what do we do then.

In cases such as these it's tempting to go to our own human reason to find the answers to our questions based on what we read in the Bible and we read into it our out of it the answers to our questions, on an individual basis. And our Church allows us very often to make up our own mind. However, we tread on a sort of quicksand there because we are filling the spaces between what we read in the Bible with our own opinions, ideas and beliefs which are all tentative and subjective. So what should we do as far as looking for answers to these questions where the Bible seems to fall short. Is the Bible actually lacking in these circumstances? And what does that mean for us when we have place the Bible in such a commanding position as far as determining our Christian life is concerned?

It's at times like these that we have to remember that the Bible was put together by the Church itself. All the different parts of the New Testament in particular were written by members of the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and writings put together to form what we call the Canon by the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So the Bible was written by the Church and put together by the Church. In light of that it is for the Church to be the final interpreter of the Bible, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We can certainly use the Bible for our own individual guidance, illumination, edification, correction etc. but the final arbiter in anything arising from the Bible must be the Church itself.

This can be difficult for us to follow, we who are used to and encouraged to make up our own minds in just about every area of our lives in this day and age. The danger of that is that all truth then becomes relative. What is true for me isn't necessarily true for anybody else but it is nevertheless true, we believe. And that belief characterises our Western world today.

But so many people, in this chaotic and uncertain world today are looking for objective Truth, they are looking for something they know to be the Truth that is eternal Truth, that it is Truth no matter what the day and age and no matter what your gender, race, colour, sexuality etc. etc. We have objective Truth in Jesus Christ. And it's the Bible that in the end speaks of Him. 'You search the scriptures for in them you think you will find eternal life; but they are they that speak of me' Jesus says in St. John's gospel. And the Church is the Body of Christ, the place where the Holy Spirit dwells. If we see the Church as purely a human organisation then we have a very impoverished view of the Church. The Church actually and really is the presence of Christ now, the Body of Christ and it's to that Body we need to go and to go with faith when we need answers in understanding the scriptures, which speak of the Truth which is Christ Himself.

So as we think of the scriptures on this Bible Sunday, let us give the Bible its honoured place in the Church, in our lives and in our Faith always remembering that it is the Bible that points us towards the Lord Jesus Christ in whom our live our lives and who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Harvest Thanksgiving

Deuteronomy 26.1-11; John 6.25-35

One of the abiding images of my childhood is going to church at Harvest Festival and seeing the church decked out with flowers and fruits and vegetables and all sorts of other reminders of the time of year. And especially the aroma in church that went with it. In those days, where I lived was much more rural than it is now and I remember helping with the harvest in early autumn and potato picking in October. School half term used to be called the potato picking holiday. Joining in the harvest itself and going to church to celebrate it was a very meaningful experience. Although I realised in my boyhood that it was a thanksgiving, what I didn't understand was the deeper meaning, the spiritual meaning and also the reality of the connection between ourselves and the world in which we live, the planet of which we human beings are given the stewardship. There didn't seem to be the worry about those things in those days because I think people felt and appreciated more of a connection with creation than they do now in this Western world. Even fifty years ago, people were much more aware of the bond between and our dependence upon the resources the earth provides, and our lives and livelihoods. And of course over the last 30 years or so we've been made vividly aware of the need to have a consciousness of the growing scarcity of the earth's resources and the need to take care of them.

But it's not just a matter of finding a balance between production and consumption and a living in harmony with creation. There is something much deeper than that, which this festival is all about. It's about the workings of the relationship between God, creation and humankind. Something which is fundamental to life itself, that goes back to the Creation. And it's here in the readings this morning.

In Deuteronomy we see that the people are reminded never to forget their history and God's part in it. At least once a year they are to think about and celebrate God's saving work, the ways in which, throughout history He has continuously upheld and supported them. And part of that remembering is to offer back to God a proportion of what He has given them along the way. And that proportion isn't just any old offering, any bits and pieces gathered together; but it's to be the first fruits, the very first of that which they have grown. And that offering is an act of faith in itself and so an act of love. It's an act of faith and love because in giving away what grows first you can never be sure that anything else is going to grow to replace it. Growing food in the first place is an act of faith but then giving away what comes up first is a step of faith which is an act of love.

But this is the sort of relationship God wants with His people, and the sort of relationship we should want as well. It's a part of our human selfishness to keep not just the first that we get but everything that we get for ourself. It's part of our fallen nature. But God didn't create us like that. He created us to live in a relationship of real love, putting the other before ourself. And the people's offering the first fruits of their labour is a reminder of that lost relationship and the beginning of a restoration of that lost relationship, it's a step in the direction of faith and so a saving act.

I wonder how many of us, out of our income, put a proportion of it first of all in God's direction, or do we give Him what's left over when we've seen to all our other commitments? The point is that God doesn't give us the left overs. He gives us Himself first. He does this in Jesus Christ. And this is where our faith in Christ comes in. When we give ourself to Him we find that He sustains us, that He Himself is our bread, our bread of life. And therein lies our example and our way of life as Christians.

The thing about being a follower of Christ is that we are meant to give ourself first to Him, the first of all we are to Him. I wonder how many of us, for instance, mentally and physically, tag our prayers and our churchgoing onto the end of all we do, when in reality those things should be the first of all we do, the most important thing in our life, the part that's not negotiable at any price? I wonder how many of us see our Christianity as something added to our lives rather than everything in our lives being added to our life in Christ? Do you understand what I mean? I can put it this way. Is our life in Christ as important as our breath or our heartbeat, both of which have to happen first if we are to live?

Well, that giving of ourself first to Christ isn't simply an offering, it's also a celebration and a restoration of our life before the fall of Adam. When we live that way, when we offer the first of ourself to God, we are then in a 'right' relationship with God. We are getting the living of our life the right way round. And then we begin to realise and reap the goodness, the grace and the love of God for us. We can only experience God's grace when we live our life in Him the right way round, when we live it by faith so that the offering of our life to Him is the first of our offerings.

Then and only then do we see and know what Jesus means when He says 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty'.

18th Sunday after Trinity

2 Timothy 1.1-14; Luke 17.5-10

One of the wonderful things about these particular letters of Paul to Timothy which are amongst what are known as the pastoral epistles, is how much they are loaded with very positive encouragement. We have some indication from the pastoral letters of the trials and tribulations that St. Paul has gone through in his ministry and the fact that he also writes from prison here and there. But those difficulties some of them very severe, along the way never stop him from being so very positive about the gospel he believes in, positive about the power and presence of God and positive about the whole enterprise of spreading the gospel far and wide. Here is a man who believes with the whole of his being, who loves God as God commands him to, with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. So that when Paul writes to those who are feeling the strain of living the gospel, of teaching and preaching, his own determination and zeal come shining through to lift up his hearers. Such is the way and the voice in which he writes to Timothy.

It's pretty obvious that Timothy is feeling the strain. St. Paul remarks on having seen Timothy in tears. But then he goes on to metaphorically pat him on the back because he says he is reminded of Timothy's faith, a faith which he inherited from his grandmother and his mother. I wonder how many of us inherited our faith from our mothers and grandmothers? And then Paul goes on, having reminded Timothy of the depth of his faith and the extent of it too in that he shares it with so many others; he goes on to encourage Timothy to 'rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands'. And he goes on to remind Timothy that God's spirit isn't a spirit of cowardice but a spirit of power and love and of self-discipline. Do you see how encouraging these words must have been to Timothy? Maybe there have been times in our lives when we've felt really down simply because the demands of our life and work have become tedious at best and heartbreaking at worst. And maybe someone has come along, a family member or friend who has helped us to take heart, to remember all that we've achieved, helped us believe in ourself again and believe in God again and lifted us up. I remember a colleague saying that when he is encouraged by others, he's twice the man he was before. Maybe we've all felt that sometimes. I hope so.

And then St. Paul goes on to build on that encouragement by helping Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel, no matter what the suffering. He must continue to have faith in the power of God who called them both to the work they are doing and who in the end will save them. And it's a hard thing but St. Paul is content to suffer because it was God himself who called him to the work. So it's the highest of callings and because of that St. Paul is prepared to trust God entirely. And he wants St. Paul to have the same mind. And we are reading that today because as Jesus' disciples we are to be of the same mind.

And the gospel reading reminds us in rather less dramatic ways that to have faith often simply means to carry on despite the demands of the calling. And that there is no let up in the calling. There is no rest in our work for God. And that work is first and foremost to believe in God and in Jesus Christ. Because upon that work of faith IN God is built all our work for Him in the Church and in the world. Without that work of faith IN God we are nothing. It reminds me of the saying of St. Silouan of Mount Athos - it is one thing to speak of God; it is quite another thing to know God. Knowing God is what faith is all about because we can't have faith in God if we don't know Him.

So today we are reminded, each and everyone of us to rekindle the gift of faith that God has given us day by day and to keep on in faith whatever the life of faith brings because that is God's first and foremost call to each of us who calls himself a Christian, work that is simply our duty as Christians but a duty from which all else flows.

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Amos 6.1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6.6-19; Luke 16.19-31

'Abraham said to him, "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."' That quote from the gospel reading this morning takes me right back, many years, to the office I used to work in and one day I remember very well. There was a discussion going on amongst 3 or 4 of us about Jesus Christ and the gospel and one of the group said to the rest of us, 'even if Jesus came and stood here right next to me now I wouldn't believe it'. It's strange how some things stick in your memory for years when most of the time you can't even remember where you left your keys, or why you went into another room, just a minute or two ago. Anyway, that quote at the end of the gospel reading, I think corresponds directly with what was said by my colleague all those years ago. God and all that comes from Him are matters of faith and it's really pointless trying to bring scientific and other methods to prove or disprove whether God exists or whether faith is anything at all. If someone is determined not to believe, nothing will convince them. And what that means for us, for we people of faith, I think, rather than trying to prove anything, is simply to show forth to the world, the Christian life as St. Paul says to his beloved friend Timothy in that last line of our epistle this morning, to show forth the 'life that really is life'.

Jesus said, you may recall, 'I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness.' We already have a life and that life is given to us by God. The life we have, no matter who and what we are, is a sacred gift, to make the best of, in the best sense of the word. So what is this 'life in all its fullness' that Jesus speaks of; the 'life that really is life', that St. Paul tells Timothy about? Well in short it's life in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated in his earthly life, the Kingdom that as Christians, we actually do inhabit even though it isn't fully here yet. And we see that Kingdom best of all when we gather as we do today, at the Eucharist, at the Holy Communion, because all the elements of Kingdom life are contained in this act of worship, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. So If we are a bit blind and deaf, in a spiritual sense, as most of us are; the readings this morning help us towards seeing and hearing and living in, the Kingdom.

There's a word used in theological circles that's quite an important word. It's the word 'antinomy'. It means, roughly, when two contradictory things are true at the same time. And there is an antinomy right at the heart of being a Christian. St. Paul spoke of it when he said as Christians we are 'in the world but not of it'. So, we live in the Kingdom of God but also live in the world which is not the Kingdom, at the same time. We can't really be in both at the same time but we are. You'll remember that Jesus said that you cannot serve God and wealth at the same time. That's true, you can't because you can only be loyal to one thing at once. But when it comes to the Kingdom of God, we have to do something a bit different. What we do is we serve God and live a Godly life and by that, by living in the Kingdom yet in the world at the same time, we transform the world. That's how I see it. I may have got it wrong but it's the best I can do for now.

In the New Testament reading St. Paul first warns Timothy about being side tracked by wealth. And remember that Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And then he goes on to remind Timothy about how he can live a Godly life, the life, as he says, that really is life. We are reading that this morning because we, as Jesus' followers, living in the Kingdom are meant to do the same. This is Kingdom life if you like; 'pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith....keep the commandment without spot or blame'. That's Kingdom life. And it's meant to be the life we live as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ. It's the life of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the life of the Church.

And that contrasts so vividly with life in the world which has a different focus, a focus of selfish gain, not just in terms of monetary wealth but of selfish gain in every respect; because the 'self' is god in the world. But the world out there isn't bad, it's just fallen, because we are fallen. But God has redeemed the world through Christ and it is becoming the Kingdom of God through Christ as each of us lives the life of the Kingdom. We are the Body of Christ in the world and so even as we speak, as we meet as the Body of Christ the world is being redeemed, the Kingdom is coming even though it has already come.

And as I said, here, at this Holy Communion service is where we see the Kingdom of God at its best, at its fullest for now. All we do, sing and say speaks of the Kingdom and the life of the Kingdom. This is the 'life that really is life', as St. Paul says, 'life in all its fullness' as Jesus says. And that's because here in this Eucharist, we are putting God first, here is where God is our treasure and therefore where our heart is. And it's this we carry out with us when we leave this place this morning. The Kingdom life we live here in all its fullness we carry out into the world when we leave here and we try to realise it there as much as we do here. So we are in the world but not of it.

And then it's for God to do. As we live our Kingdom life it's for God to open the eyes and ears of others to see and hear it; to put God and the Kingdom first in their lives. Jesus lived the Kingdom life and spoke of it. The rest was up to God and the people out there. It wasn't easy for Him and it's not easy for us. But that is our calling as people of the Kingdom and remembering in all the sorrow and the joy that we have 'the life that really is life', 'life in all its fullness'.

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Philemon 1-21; Luke 14.25-33

Our readings today say something about the cost of being a disciple of Christ. And to put it very simply and right at the beginning, that cost is 'love'. We hear it put in positive terms in Paul's letter to Philemon and in what you might call negative terms in the reading from St. Luke's gospel. One approach to the subject, that of St. Paul is what you might call a soft approach, that in the words of Jesus in the gospel, a hard approach. Either way, the result is the same, the cost of being a disciple of Christ is 'love'. And love actually costs us everything.

This letter of Paul to Philemon, Paul's and Timothy's dear friend and co-worker is written with an attitude of love. In the letter Paul thanks God for Philemon because he hears of their own love and faith and the work they are doing from their church which gathers in Philemon's house. He says that he has received joy and encouragement from their love because their hearts have been refreshed through Philemon's ministry to them.

Then Paul pulls rank a bit. He says that he could command Philemon to do his duty. There was much of St. Paul that wasn't converted on the road to Damascus I think. But he says he prefers to appeal to Philemon out of love. Its the iron hand in the velvet glove touch. Paul is playing good cop, bad cop all at the same time. He does it further on when he says that 'I'm asking you to do this favour for me, and I won't mention that you owe me the weight of yourself'. But you can see that the whole of the letter has that touch of love running through it. It sounds as though Onesimus might have had a set-to with Philemon in the past, that there is a bit of bad blood between them. But Paul says to Philemon that he must regard Onesimus now as a beloved brother and receive him back as such, and if there is anything owing from Onesimus to Philemon that he, Paul will accept responsibility. There's love going on here, from Paul and learning about love in Philemon and Onesimus.

Skip to the gospel this morning. Jesus talks in different terms. He says unless you hate just about everybody, especially those closest to you , you don't need to bother being His disciple. It's not about hate, Jesus is pushing the point that God comes first in our affections. Why? Because it's in our relationship with God that we learn what love is. Because God is love and those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them, says St. John in his first letter. And there is a cost in loving God and therefore in loving others and the cost is the cross. And the cross is the complete giving up of one's self, the complete giving up, of the putting to death of one's own self interest. There is nothing of the self in true love. Loving another is a one way process, from you to the other and asking nothing in return. It's an emptying out of the self towards the other, just as God emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and took on human form, as we read in the Bible.

And Jesus says to us that we should make sure we understand what the cost will be before we begin. And then there is another disjointed shift at the end of the reading where Jesus says none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Some, just a few, the monastics amongst us take that literally. The rest of us have to struggle with the torment of possessions and mainly our own self possession as we come back to the beginning again and recall that to love God and our neighbour means the complete forgetting of our self, which is a sort of death which is very painful indeed when we take it seriously.

But curiously and only can it be so in God's providence, that death is also the way to life, joy and peace. When we pay the price of putting to death our own self for love of God and neighbour, then we get back a life far more full, far more of love. Which is why we call Christ's death a victory and why we say that Christ trampled down death by death. He showed the way. He made it possible. By His death, actual and real, he did away with the effects of death and showed us the way to life.

Love is the hardest, costliest thing for any of us, but it's the one thing in life and in death that gives the greatest return.

13th Sunday after Trinity

Titus 3.3-7; John 3.1-8

I've changed the readings for this Sunday because we have baptisms at our 10.45 service and the readings I've chosen are amongst those appointed for Holy Baptism. The Canons of the Church of England say that baptisms should take place in divine service when the regular congregation is present. And that's for a number of reasons, not least because witnessing the baptism of a new member of the Church, the Body of Christ, reminds us of our own commitment and place in the same Body of Christ. Witnessing a baptism takes us right back to the root or foundation of who and what we are as a Christian.

During my study leave, as I came upon something that was new to me in the particular Church and tradition I was studying, whether it be a point of theology or spirituality or about the life of the Church I had to go right back to the beginning again and read about how things have developed over 2,000 years. And I found very often that things we do and believe now were established in the first few centuries of the Church. And reading about and learning about those things for the first time or indeed going over them again, I found not only helped me to understand and make sense of things in the present it also deepened my faith and love for God. And it also had the effect of changing me and how I see and understand the Church and my part in it.

One of the books I found myself reading while I was away is by St. Athanasius and entitled 'On the Incarnation'. The particular edition I read has an introduction by the late C S Lewis a great Christian writer of the 20th century. And in the introduction, where he talks about the need for us Christians to read not just modern writings but ancient writings as well, he says this: 'If you join at 11.00 o'clock a conversation which began at 8.00 you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why - the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point.'

The church in the West, for the last 1,000 years has developed separately from the Orthodox Church which I was studying. So our respective conversations, if you like, have gone on separately for 1,000 years. In taking my study leave I found myself as it were in a different conversation, the language of which and what it was communicating, I found strange. There were bits in it I recognised but most of it I couldn't understand, so that's why I had to do my own research which as I said took me right back to the beginning to see how that Church had developed independently of the one I am part of. And then as I did that and kept on listening, as time went by what I was hearing and experiencing began to make more sense and the message that was being communicated to me and everyone else I began to understand and take to myself.

Many of us come to our Faith like that I think. We come to it and come to worship every Sunday and join in a conversation that's been going on for 2,000 years. And we wonder why it's strange sometimes and why we can't understand what we see or hear, in the message and in the worship, Sunday by Sunday. But C S Lewis gives us an answer.

When we are baptised we join in, become part of something that's been going on for 2,000 years. We become part of a Body, the Body of Christ that's been a real presence in the world for a very long time. And if we are to understand our part in it, if we are to realise fully what being a part of the Body of Christ means for us we have a lot of work to do in terms of seeing and hearing and coming to understand. And we have a lot of work to do in joining in even though we don't yet know what's going on, where what we are doing is leading us to, and what will be the outcome. We call that 'having faith.'

And this is a 'rest of your life' thing. When we are born, into the world, we have a whole life in front of us, learning and growing and bearing fruit and becoming part of the society which is the world, giving back to the world and others so that they grow too. And when we are born again into the Body of Christ we have a whole Christian life in front of us, a life of learning and growing and bearing fruit and becoming part of that Body which is the new world, if you like, the saved world of which we are part which itself is there for life of the world in which the Body of Christ finds itself.

I'll be talking more about how we go about living and learning and growing and taking our place in the Body of Christ at some other time. But for today lets just sum up, in a couple of sentences we've heard from the readings this morning. First from the letter to Titus; 'When the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us...through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.' That's the start we are given, that's us joining in that age long conversation, being given the privilege of a part in it. And then from the gospel reading '...no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit (and this is capital S - God's Spirit, the Spirit of Christ) What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ..The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.' And here we pick up the conversation in faith and as we live the Christian life in faith, as we live and grow in it and learn more and more, the Spirit of God takes us where it will.

How exciting is that? And what a great privilege to be part of that age-long, world changing conversation.

12th Sunday after Trinity

Isaiah 58.9-14; Hebrews 12.18-29; Luke 13.10-17

I'd like to draw your attention first to the reading from the letter to the Hebrews this morning because for me it reminds me about what the Church and our worship is all about. It's summed up for me in a phrase I picked up from a theologian that impressed me while I was on my leave. He says that the Church 'is the presence in the world of a saved world'; (The Journals of Fr. Alexander Schmemann 1973-1983) and for Him the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, is the manifestation and realisation of the Kingdom of God now; that when we gather to do this that we are about this morning, we become the Church and we step into the Kingdom of God and we are doing what the Church is here for. That's a bit simplistic but maybe you see something of what he means.

Look at what it says in this letter to the Hebrews - 'You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them......But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.'

What is being said here is that as we read in the Old Testament, the Hebrew people, as they wandered in the wilderness came to Mount Sinai which was a place where God called people to meet with Him. But it was a place of fear, a place not to be approached or touched unless God called. It was out in the desert where people couldn't live permanently. So even though the people were meeting with God they couldn't enter into God's holiness. But now, Mount Zion has replaced Sinai and it's a place where the people of God are encouraged to gather; because we are already in the Kingdom of God, we take part in it and dwell there. And the Kingdom isn't an earthly Kingdom but a heavenly Kingdom inhabited by angels as well as people. It is an unending assembly, the divinely instituted gathering of God's people of all ages where they know themselves as the Church. And in this Kingdom there is no blood crying for vengeance as Abel's did, but the blood of Christ, of which we partake in the Eucharist, and it calls for mercy, that is God's overflowing great goodness towards us, for forgiveness, atonement and unending life. (Orthodox Study Bible) Do you see the difference? And it's the latter of which we are a part, all of us gathered here this morning, as the Church.

This that we read in Hebrews is the sort of vision we should have of ourselves as Christians and as the Church and of our gathering and Eucharist. It's a very lofty vision, a holy vision. And sometimes it's hard to capture or realise as we live our lives in this fallen world. To put it another way, it's hard to realise that we Christians, as the Church, are the presence in the world of a saved world.

St. Paul said that we are 'in the world but not of it'. And this might make the world sound like an evil place. But the coming of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God blessed again all of creation; and we through his incarnation, death and resurrection have the possibility of realising our salvation. Being made in the image of God we have the possibility of becoming more like God through His Spirit and achieving oneness with God. So although the world is a fallen world, through Jesus we can become all God meant us to be which we see in Adam and Eve before their fall. This is the Kingdom of God. And we have a vision of this Kingdom, here but not yet fully here, when we gather as the Church to partake of this heavenly banquet which is the Eucharist; a banquet that goes on continually and that we, as it were, step into every time we gather as we do this morning.

As I said, this is a vision to capture; and you might find it difficult to capture this vision. But because we see it each time we are here like this, if we really look and listen when we are here, then that vision actually becomes real for us and we are changed and reformed by it into the People of God. But we need to be really here, in body, mind and soul. It's so easy to be only partly here because we have so many distractions within and without. If we can really hear what's said and sung and really see what is around us and let the words, music, sights, sounds, and smells do their work on us then we will become what God intends - the presence in the world of a saved world.

And that's our immediate mission, the mission to ourselves, before we go to tell others. Our first call and commission is to be the Church, the Body of Christ, Christ's real presence in the world. And that's what all those miracles and those healings are about that Jesus did, as we read of in St. Luke's gospel this morning. They are the signs of the Kingdom, the signs of the presence of that saved world in the world. They are signs of the presence of God. And they help us see God and keep the vision of the Kingdom alive.

We argue so much about what it is we are doing when we come to church, what church should be like, what we should do, sing and say; who should do what, where, why, when and how. And it's in all the dispute and disagreement that we lose the vision because all we are talking about is our own sinful self, speaking out of our own pride. What we witness when we come to Church at the Eucharist, however it takes shape before us, is a miracle. We witness our own salvation, our redemption, our joining with God in His Kingdom, ever being accomplished by Jesus Christ. To see it happen, all we need do is stand still and keep quiet long enough.

The Assumption of Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin

Galatians 4.4-7; Luke 1.46-55

The Assumption or Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of the major Feasts of the Church of England and indeed of the Church throughout the world. In the Church of England, each individual church tends to make of it whatever they will as we are more than a bit hesitant as to how we should remember Jesus's mother. There are at least three feast days allocated to her in the Church's calendar, this, the 15th August, also the celebration of her birth held on 8th September and the Annunciation on 25th March. The hesitation we bring is characterised in one of the resource books we use for services throughout the year, which says that the 15th August, although traditionally being the major feast of the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God since the 5th century is used in the Church of England as a 'generic' date for remembering Blessed Mary. In other words we can use the date to remember Mary in any way we like. I think this hesitation in the Church of England comes out of fear that is still a hang over from the Reformation and fear of the Roman Catholic Church; which is a very great pity because all the tradition surrounding Mary and our veneration of her as the Mother of God is meant to point us firmly towards her Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ and in that, onward to the Holy Trinity. Our looking towards Mary and our celebration of her never stops at her, but is always carried onward to God, and that is almost always shown in iconography and icons of Mary, since the earliest days of the Church.

When we come to consider Mary from the point of view of our faith, we find that there are many stories, myths and legends surrounding her with miracles attributed to paintings, statues and icons of her; and there are many stories about people having visions of her one or two of which you might know well. When I was on Mount Athos I bought a couple of icons of Mary the originals of which have miraculous stories attached to them. I've brought a copy of one of those today, that of the Virgin Portaitissa or Gatekeeper.

Whatever we think about these stories, they are meant to be first and foremost, encouragement to us in our faith and to help us think about Mary herself and especially about the Son of God. Today especially we think of Mary herself and her particular calling. And as we do that we might feel challenged about our own commitment and devotion to God. For Mary was someone who more than anything submitted fully to the will of God for her. Her submission was total. What an extraordinary calling she had. To be the mother of the uncreated God become Incarnate through her and the Holy Spirit. God could have chosen any way to make his presence on earth known to people, as He had in past times. But He called a woman to bear His Son, His created presence and to bring Him to birth in time and place. And that woman, probably still a teenager put her own will aside to do the will of God. And in that she is probably our greatest example of dedication to God.

This putting aside our own will to do God's will is probably the hardest thing for us to do. Our own ego gets in the way all the time. It causes us to think that if we replace our own will with God's will that we will somehow become as nothing, be of no account, lose our identity, become a sort of slave without any say in how our life is lived. But in actual fact, the reality is that when we do give ourselves to God's will, we become what He always intended us to become. And that is always our highest achievement; to be what we were always intended to be and not what we think we should be from our own poor human point of view. As we grow we have all sorts of ideas about the person we should be or would like to be, as our ego and our sense of identity take shape. But it's all usually so very self-centred as we pursue status and authority and power, all of which are ego driven. And as we get older it gets more and more difficult to set those aside because we think those things are what make us the person we are. But we are only what we are meant to be when we become what God wants us to be.

It's a tough calling, doing God's will, letting it be first in our life, letting it be what drives us, what we are here for. Mary did it as she submitted herself to the Holy Spirit's working in her and so we can too because we are all chosen of God, each and every Christian is chosen of God and has the Holy Spirit working in him or her, from our baptism onwards. Whether or not we co-operate with the Holy Spirit is another story but we always have the option to, we have the choice in every moment of every day, to follow Blessed Mary's example of submission to God and in doing so becoming everything God wants us to be, becoming fulfilled in the best and truest sense.

And so we venerate Mary today, if for no other reason than she shows us, above all others what it means to do God's will, to live in perfect harmony with the Holy Spirit's calling and prompting. And we pray today, that God will help us and that through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin herself, God will help us to turn our heart, mind, soul to Him and to do His will now and every day of our lives.

Second Sunday of Easter/Low Sunday

Acts 5.27-32; John 20.19-31

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

I've got to be careful what I say today. I've learned more than ever before over the last week that it doesn't matter what you say in a sermon, people will hear what they want to hear. Following my Easter Day sermon last week two different people had two very different ideas about what I'd said. One said I'd been criticising the government, and the other said I was criticising Muslims. In fact I'd used the word 'people', that's all; and they'd each interpreted the word 'people' in their own way. Then just a couple of days ago I visited someone and I hadn't got over the threshold before she said 'you are leaving aren't you?' And that's despite having written in the magazine twice, quite clearly what I'm doing. So, just to get matters straight; I'm taking a few weeks away from my parish work to study the Orthodox Church and to have a more extended rest than normal. I'm actually going to be at home most of the time and I'll be back at my parish work on the 9th August, which isn't all that far away. And that's it.

Inevitably, things will change for all of us during that time, even over a few short weeks. But that fits in well with this Easter season because Easter is, amongst other things, about two things. First of all it's about change, and change for the better, despite all the circumstances in which that change takes place and the effect of it for the present. And that sense of change is also about change that takes us beyond our very limited horizon of this life. As St. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians 'If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.' (1 Cor. 15.19). So Easter is about change that has a significance for us right now and a significance for us in eternity.

We have to realise that when we change, as we do to some extent day by day, the change is not just about us; we have to realise that we, as individuals, are not the centre of the universe. When we change, it has an effect on everybody we come into contact with. The change in us reaches out in every direction so that the whole universe is changed. Change in us is like dropping a stone in a pool and watching the ripples flowing outwards; and they go on and on, as far as you can see and beyond. But also the change in us means that we perceive things differently. For example, things that had little significance might now have much greater significance, and vice versa. The change that increasing age brings has that effect, for example. Seen in this way, life is very far from a static or predictable thing. Life, our life, is always moving, this way, that way, from one extreme to another in every conceivable physical, emotional and spiritual way.

When Jesus died and rose again, for the disciples, he changed. He must have done because his disciples didn't recognise him at first. He hadn't changed in reality but it was necessary that the disciples perceived the change so that they could begin to understand what resurrection is all about, the change that takes us on into eternity, into something beyond what language can describe. And this change is so difficult to understand that we hear the disciples being incredulous, totally unbelieving about it; and asking for some sort of proof, like we hear of Thomas this morning. And Jesus gave proof to some of them at the time, because he wasn't 'ascended to his Father', as he put it. I wonder if we can really grasp or imagine how difficult it was for the disciples to understand and how they themselves had to change and what that meant for them. And then of course afterwards there was all the change that they needed within themselves, to cope with the demands that Jesus's resurrection meant for them in terms of their call to preach the gospel to all nations. And because of our New Testament we get some idea of what the demands were and the joys and sorrows and the trials and tribulations that the changes meant for them. And we also, in the light of Jesus's resurrection, in the light of Easter are called to change. The resurrection takes us right back to Jesus's first words, to 'repent and believe the good news'. That call to repentance is for ever challenging us, day after day after day; demanding change after change after change in us. So that's the first thing about Easter, the call to change.

But Easter is also and secondly about continuity and stability. How we long, in this day and age for a sense of continuity and stability, when everything and everybody around us is changing so fast and the changes coming with increasing rapidity year after year. We cast around us for something to hang on to that will keep our feet firmly planted on the ground, ground which seems to shift from underneath us all the time. And many of us look to the Church for that stability and yet it too seems to be always changing one way and another. Well it is, but only on the surface. What's at the heart of the Church never changes because the heart of the Church is God himself. And what we are meant to experience in being part of the Church is something unchanging and that is faith, hope and love and the Spirit of God.

We've changed things somewhat at St. Andrew's in recent months and years with our different types of services or forms of worship. This has been intentional so that different people, in their different stages of spiritual growth and maturity can find something which allows them to worship God in a way that's more meaningful for them and it's worship that includes all ages in leadership. And so although the outward forms of the worship change week by week to a certain extent, what doesn't at all change is the God being worshipped or the faith, hope and love that we should find present here amongst us as we gather together as the Church.

Sometimes I think that our view of the Church is not developed enough. It's too small. At the Annual Parochial Church Meeting I read an extract from a book by an Orthodox bishop, Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, which I think gives us a good sense of how special and precious the Church is and how special our being part of it is and I'd like to read that again now. This is what he says: (its' a bit long so please hang on in as the best bit is at the end!)

'The Church is not a human organisation, but a Divine-Human Organisation. It is not a human corporation, but the Divine-human Body of Christ. The source of the Church is (this) God Himself. It is not men's invention, it is not a fruit and result of men's social need, but it is the sole place of man's salvation. That is to say, the impression is created that men made the Church in order to be able to survive in such difficult and tragic social conditions of life. But...the source of the Church is God Himself, and man's salvation takes place within it....In the Church all the problems are solved. We are not speaking of an abstract Christianity which we link with an ideology, but of a Church which is a communion of God and man, of angels and men, of earthly and heavenly, of man and world. The Church is a 'meeting of heaven and earth'. Peace, justice, etc. are not simply some social conventions, but gifts which are given in the Church. Peace as well as justice and all other virtues, such as love etc. are experiences of the Church. In the Church we experience the real peace, justice and love, which are essential energies of God. The Church is the Body of Christ, which has Christ as its head, and the members of the Church are members of the Body of Christ. Members of the Church exist in all the ages and will exist until the end of time. And when members of the Church cease to exist, the end of the world will come..... The greatest gift of grace which we have is that we belong to the Church. The greatest gift is that we are in this great Family. We should value this gift, we should feel very deeply moved and struggle to remain in the Church, experiencing its sanctifying grace and showing by our lives that we are in its place of redemption and sanctification. Thus we shall also have the great gift of the 'blessed ending', when we are granted to lie asleep 'in the midst of the Church'.

I think we should always try to have such a 'high' or exalted view of the Church and our part in it. Only then can we live up to our calling that God has given us to spread the Good News and at the same time find the faith, hope and love, the joy, peace and healing in what makes the Body of Christ and what gives us the continuity and stability we all crave in this day and age.

And with all of this in mind, I just want to say something before finishing for my study leave about all of us at St. Andrew's, most of which, again, I said at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting. The bishop I've just quoted reminds us that each of us, as members of the Body of Christ is to be part of one another's sanctification. And we are each called to exercise the gifts that God has given us in that endeavour. All of us are equal in that. To be a cleaner of this great house of prayer is as high a calling as that of the priest or the churchwardens. To serve tea after the services is as high a calling as serving at the altar. They are simply different tasks, to be performed with the same love, joy, generosity and thanksgiving. We are called too, to encourage one another in our calling and with equal love and joy to accompany one another on the road. It's not an easy thing to do though and we get at cross purposes very often and find ourselves in conflict and situations of difficulty and division. But God has given us the wherewithal to put those things right in loving one another as He loves us.

In the Orthodox Church, the first Sunday of Lent is called Forgiveness Sunday. At that service, the priest first asks the forgiveness of his congregation and then during the service, everybody goes round everybody else asking their forgiveness. What a challenge that must be, to have to come face to face in Church and before God and ask forgiveness of that person you have just never got on with. I haven't experienced that service for myself but just the thought of it makes me queasy. But it shouldn't. God has given us the ability to forgive one another and in that to discover the continuity and stability of faith, hope and love, that we need.

As I said, each of us is called by God to be part of one another's sanctification. It's part of my particular calling to be out in front, leading. It can be a very lonely place and I know I fail in the task very often. For that I ask your forgiveness as I hope we can all be forgiving of one another, which is a mark of true love in our fellowship. It's part of my task too, to be the bridge, as it were, between you and God, to help you discover God and love him for yourself and offer back to him worship of thanksgiving a praise. Again, I ask your forgiveness where I've been a stumbling block rather than a stepping stone. It's part of my task to love you and keep you in the fold and in the remembrance of God, and I ask your forgiveness for the times when you feel I've neglected you and left you feeling very much unloved.

I'm asking your forgiveness because I'm taking this extended leave and although, God willing, I will be back in church to take up the reins again on the 9th August, you never know what's going to happen to me or you in that time. I need to go with a good heart, and forgiveness fills in the heart's empty spaces and heals its brokenness. I cherish you all without exception, not least because it's you that are helping me become what God wants me to be, you are playing your part in my sanctification.

Please remember while I'm away that the Church, the Body of Christ is a gift to you from God and each one of you is a gift to everybody else here, from God. You are precious in his sight and he loves you, each one of you. May God bless you, wherever you are, wherever you go and bless you in all your endeavours.

Alleluia. Christ is risen!