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