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.