On Saints, Women Bishops, Archbishops & Ecumenism

All Saints Sunday Sermon

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You Don't Have to be Good to be a Christian - 19th Sunday after Trinity

Hebrews 4.12-16; Mark 10.17-31

Jesus & the Rich Young Man

In this sermon I say that Jesus never asks or tells his followers to be good or virtuous.

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Back to Church Sunday - The Day!

We had an excellent attendance at both our services. It was a great encouragement to see so many respond positively. If you want to listen to what I said, please click here.

Back to Church Sunday

Sunday 30th September is Back to Church Sunday. If you live in the locality the invitation is to 'Come and See'.

Harvest Thanksgiving

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In this sermon I refer to Mike Dickson's book 'The More You Give, The More You Get' published by The Generous Press. If you would like to watch Mike Dickson's TEDx Talk on 'What Is Enough?' please click here It's very much worth watching.

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 5.15-20; John 6.51-58

For the last few weeks now we've been reading from two different sources in the Bible which in a very real sense complement one another but might not at first sight seem to have any connection. They both point us in the direction of the way in which we live our daily life, on what you might call a surface level and also on a very deep level. These are things which have a moment by moment relevance and also have an eternal significance.

We have been reading St. Paul who, in writing to the Ephesians is asking them to recall what great work Jesus Christ has done in bringing them back again into a relationship with God which is like that of a natural parent with his or her child. And he goes on to talk about the power of the Holy Spirit working in each one of them empowering them to live the life God calls them to and enabling them to be built up into the Body of Christ Himself. And that body is a very real manifestation of God's presence and power in the world then and now. St. Paul talks about what is the natural behaviour towards one another of those empowered by the Spirit of God, a behaviour that is characterised by thanksgiving and generosity of heart, mind and spirit towards one another. It's a way of life that has put aside everything that is negative, damning and destroying, in thought, speech and behaviour; and is a life that is taken up with blessing and building up one another. It's a way of life that doesn't deny and grieve the Spirit of God but one that welcomes the Spirit and is a fountain of the Spirit's grace, spilling over into the world.

There are things here that are very practical, that have a day to day, moment by moment significance. But they also go very deep indeed, deep into our human psyche. Always St. Paul recognises that this way of life isn't easy; that our inclination is always to draw away from God and for our body, mind and spirit to turn away from God and to grieve His Spirit. And these things go deep within us. St. Paul agonised about this in himself. But as we give ourself over to the Spirit's movement in us, so we gradually become what God intends both as individuals and together as the Body of Christ. St. Paul also knew this personally and the power of God at work in Him so that what he'd been and done in the past was forgiven and forgotten and far outweighed by what God had for him and what he was to accomplish in the future.

Those of us who are getting on in years might look around at the world and particularly our Western world and maybe sigh and maybe get angry because of the ways in which there seems to be nothing new under the sun. Yet again, despite the success and achievement orientated culture within which we live, despite all the wonders of science, medicine and technology so many people here and throughout the world are still scraping a living, going hungry, jobless and homeless. People are still at odds with one another and dying violent deaths. It's as if the lessons of the past are never learned. It's as if each generation makes the same mistakes as the previous one.

Well I think maybe it's because everyone has to learn how to live. We aren't born with all the accumulated knowledge of civilisation. And so there is a sense in which each of us has to make the mistakes of the past. And we do it as individuals and groups and societies. We all have to learn.

And learning is what Jesus's disciples are doing as we've encountered them in the readings from St. John's gospel over the last few weeks. They are learning both about the way of the world and the way of the Kingdom of God. The way of the world is that in which there is need to be satisfied in this very moment without reference to any context or culture or past or future. The 5,000 were hungry and needed feeding and fed they were. What the disciples hadn't grasped and had to have explained to them was that not only were they seeing hungry people fed but they were seeing the Kingdom of God being made very real and present. They were seeing the reality of the abundance of eternity, not the scarcity of a moment in time. What they were witnessing but not really seeing was that new life and new way of living and new dimension of reality that everybody wanted but nobody could see, let alone believe in. God is living bread that lasts for ever. He doesn't just meet the needs of the time but is the provider of all that is needed for eternity. And the real learning comes when we begin to see in our world, God and His Kingdom. God, not just meeting our immediate needs but being the creator and sustainer and provider way beyond our immediate needs into eternity.

When we are born we are born into this world and we have to learn to live and grow in this world. But we are also born with the potential of living in the Kingdom of God. Both Jesus and St. Paul, in what we've been reading these last few weeks and in what we'll come to read, they both are showing us how to see the Kingdom of God, how to recognise it, to believe in it, to live in it and to grow in it. We do that by letting the Spirit of God live in us and bend our will to His, living as God teaches, wills and commands us; by letting the Spirit of God open us up to the Kingdom and not grieving the Spirit or stopping it by our inclination to sin; and when we do that we are promised that Jesus Himself, the bread of heaven gives us all we need and all we will ever need now and in eternity.

Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 1.3-14; Mark 6.14-29

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Fifth Sunday after Trinity

2 Corinthians 12.2-10; Mark 6.1-13

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The Birth of St. John the Baptist

Acts 13.14b-26; Luke 1.57-66, 80

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2nd Sunday after Trinity

The sermon is waiting to be posted

1st Sunday after Trinity

The sermon is waiting to be posted

Trinity Sunday

The sermon is waiting to be posted

Pentecost

Acts 2.1-21; Ezekiel 37.1-14; Romans 8.22-27; John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15

Pentecost

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Please read the NOTE in the left sidebar also.

7th Sunday of Easter

St. Matthias

Acts 1.15-17, 21-26; John 17.6-19

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Please read the NOTE in the left hand side bar if you haven't before.

Ascension Day

Acts 1.1-11; Ephesians 1.15-23; Luke 24.44-53

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With thanks to Anthony de Mello's 'The Song of the Bird'.

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5th Sunday of Easter

Acts 8.26-40; John 15.1-8

Philip and the Ethiopian

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4th Sunday of Easter

Acts 4.5-12; John 10.11-18

Peter & John before the Sanhedrin

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A transcript of the sermon is awaited

3rd Sunday of Easter

Acts 3.12-19; 1 John 3.1-7; Luke 24.36-48


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Thomas Sunday - 2nd Sunday of Easter

Acts 4.24-35; John 20.19-31

Thomas the Apostle

This sermon is awaiting a transcript. If you would like to listen to it as preached, please click here

My thanks to the Rt. Revd. Michael Baughen formerly Bishop of Chester who provided the inspiration for the subject of this sermon (as well as St. Thomas of course!)

Fifth Sunday of Lent

The Tale of the Magic Pomegranate - A story to listen to, together with this sermon. Click on the title to hear it read.

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Hebrews 5.5-10; John 12.20-33

After coming to the half way point in Lent last week and the rest from our thinking about the demands of the season in our Lenten discipline, today we begin to focus on the way ahead. And that way ahead leads us to the cross and beyond. From today we focus more and more upon Jesus' own journey in the last weeks and days of his earthly life. It's a journey through the pain and horror of death on a cross, to the mystery, wonder, joy and celebration of resurrection. And if we don't learn anything about the Christian journey and its meaning for each of us over the next couple of weeks then we are very unlikely to learn it at any other time of the year.

Today's gospel reading gives us, in just four sentences from Jesus, the whole meaning of the Christian life. If we miss this, we miss it all. And I have to say that outside the Sermon on the Mount, here we have perhaps the most important words of Jesus for us as his would be followers.

"Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Those words and that simple image of a seed giving rise to a plant, so graphically convey the process of becoming a Christian, and we see that we might call it a whole of life process. When we look at a wheat grain. It is in every respect wheat. It contains the whole plant, in embryo. It's as fully a wheat plant as the plant itself. But to become the plant it has to become so transformed that it in effect goes out of existence, it 'dies' Jesus says. We can say that the grain, in growing, becomes what it is. And to do that, something of itself has to gave way to something else.

Every one of us is born in God's image and likeness. And when we are baptised we are given the Holy Spirit and we are 'made' Christian. At baptism we are made followers of Christ and members of the Church. But we are like that grain of wheat, that seed. We are in every respect a Christian after our baptism. But like that seed growing into the plant, we have to become what we are. As we grow in our Christian life, we become more and more like Christ. And in doing so, the way were has to give way to what we are becoming. Something of us has to pass away to give way to, as Jesus says, 'much fruit'.

And what has to die, what has to give way to something else, is usually our own will. In becoming a Christian, our own will has to die. Our own will has to give way to the will of God. And it is a dying. Jesus himself experienced this especially before his ministry began, in his temptation in the wilderness; and towards the end of his life in the Garden of Gethsemane when he was facing arrest and execution. It was his Father's will that he continue his journey to death. And his own will would have made him flee. And Jesus alludes to this further on in our gospel reading today: "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say - 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.'" Jesus gives up his own human will, puts it to death so to speak, to do his Father's will. And it's only then that Jesus becomes what he is, the Saviour of the World.

This is tough stuff. One of the recent Eastern saints is recorded as saying that there is no Christian life, only a Christian death. It makes being a Christian sound like a very sombre, painful and sorrowful way of life. But Jesus says that the life he brings is life in all its fullness. So we look to his promise. He says in this gospel reading this morning. 'Those who love their life, lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.....Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.' So just as the grain of wheat in giving up its life, goes on to become the full fruitful plant, so Jesus says, we do the same as his followers. We become fully what we are. And in that sense, in giving up our life, we get our life back. This time, it's the life God intends for us all along, intends from the beginning.

But we have to go through this process. There's no escaping it. To become what God intends for us, we have to go this way, this way of dying to our self, this giving up of our own will for God's will. In doing so we become like Christ himself, we become fully what we are. There are no half measures too. To gain all, we have to give all.

So this is the way we are following. Its the way of Christ, the way of the cross. But it leads to resurrection. It leads to what Jesus promised - life in all its fullness. And to know what that is, to know what it means, we have to travel the way ourself. Nobody else can do it for us. Each and every one of us has to make the decision to go the way of Christ and then to follow it if we are to become what God intends for us.

The good thing for us though is that there are those who have done it before us and those who are doing it alongside us. So we are not alone. We can share the journey and learn from one another and help one another along, if we will. That's what the Church is here for, this blessed company of faithful people. So we journey together with Jesus over the next two weeks, to his death and beyond. And as we look at his giving himself over to his Father's will, let us also try and do more of that sort of thing, remembering that it's only in giving that we receive, and in giving up our own self to God, he gives us of himself.

Mothering Sunday

Colossians .12-17; Luke 2.33-35


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So we come to be half way through Lent today and arrive at Refreshment Sunday. Refreshment Sunday if indeed we do need to be refreshed in our Lenten fast. Lent is a personal journey as much as anything, with God. And each of us will do with it as we decide. Today gives us the opportunity to look back on the last three weeks and a bit, and then to rededicate ourselves in the season, especially if we haven't really got into it as we'd liked to have done.

So we can take those three disciplines we've been looking at over the past three Sundays, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and recommit ourselves to those principles in whatever way we would like to with renewed determination; remembering of course that the whole exercise is to bring us closer to God and to prepare for the celebration of Easter.

On this day also we are overtaken a bit by Mothering Sunday. Or should I say we are more overtaken by Mother's Day. We all know what Mother's Day is and no doubt we'll be remembering our mothers one way or another today.

But as last year I'd like to make a plea for bringing back into its rightful place in the Church calendar, Mothering Sunday. Because I think it helps us think about things in a more rounded way. For decades we've been reminded that there's an imbalance in our Church, that it's a patriarchal society where men hold all the authority and women are a sort of second class. Whilst it's true that men in the Church have had authority and power within the structure of the Church, I've never underestimated the presence that women have or have had in the Church down the centuries and especially over the last 50 years or so. You don't have to be in a position of authority to have an influence. And it's a fair bet that behind most influential men there have been women who have been even more influential.

Jesus himself was surrounded by women; and although he chose men for his immediate disciples, it's significant that he appeared first to a woman after his resurrection. Indeed, Mary Magdalene is often regarded as the first apostle, as she took news of the risen Jesus to the disciples themselves. And since then, despite this feeling that men have shaped and led the Church down the centuries, there are many women saints who provide an example of Godly life to both women and men, right up to this present day and age. And we remember many of them in our weekday services here at St. Andrew's. So women do figure very prominently in the history of the Church.

But I think this subject goes deeper than that and it's enshrined in what we are celebrating today. Jesus told us to call God, our Father. But the Church is referred to as the Bride of Christ. So the Church is very much our spiritual mother. God is our creator and the Church is the one who nurtures us in Him. In fact the imagery is taken further. The baptismal font is seen as the womb of the Church through the waters of which we are born again to life in Christ.

I think we tend to lose touch with this imagery, this great archetype. And because we've lost touch with it our picture of our spiritual origin and development is skewed towards seeing the whole process in terms of the male - God the Father and God the Son, with very little reference to the female. I was taught that in the Old Testament, in Hebrew, the Holy Spirit is female. If that is true then that adds more balance too to the whole creation process. Through God the Holy Trinity and mother Church we are born and re-born into relationship with God.

Had we kept these reference points down through the centuries I'm not sure that we would be so hung up by the notion of equality in the Church as we are today. I think that successive generations have painted and repainted the picture of the Church so much in their own colours that we've lost touch with the fundamental imagery constructed so well by the apostles and the early Church. Reading of those early days of the Church in the bible, we hear of men and women living together, seemingly happily with the roles ascribed to them and not wishing they were doing somebody else's job. Maybe it was because it was early days, long before the rot set in. And maybe we shouldn't be so eager to take a rosy view of those times.

But history is as it is, and whatever the influences of men and women down the centuries, we have inherited the Church as she is today. And we should celebrate all she does for us in bringing us to and holding us in the Faith. It's in the Church that we find our spiritual nourishment, here above all. It's here that we meet with God, as it were, face to face. And we meet him in the face of one another, in Him in whose image and likeness we are made, male and female, both.

So today, on this Mothering Sunday, as we remember and give thanks for our own mothers, let's also remember and give thanks for our Mother Church who has nurtured us in Spirit and Truth so faithfully, for however long that may have been.

Let's Do Lent Properly - The Journey Home - Almsgiving

Listen to the story of The Two Pickpockets before you read or listen to the sermon. The story is read from 'Favourite Folk Tales from Around the World' edited by Jane Yolen and published by Pantheon.

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I'm sure we usually associate almsgiving with the giving of money. And so the gospel reading for today from St. John's gospel provides a good backdrop to what we have to think about. There's such a lot of emotion and movement in that scene, of Jesus wildly swinging a quickly improvised whip back and forth as he drives the animals and people out of the temple. You can fairly hear the tables going flying and the piles of money falling to the floor and rattling and rolling all around. If anyone thought that Jesus was the wimpy, meek and mild pushover that so many people imagine him to be, this scene puts the lie to that.

But that's not the point. Jesus was angry here for a number of reasons it seems. All the activity that was going on in the temple was an abomination, even a blasphemy. What was once honourable had become dishonourable. A bit like the activities of the financial sector over recent years. And they are having a hard time pulling themselves out of it because they still can't see the abomination of self interest yet at the heart of that sector. 'We are the best so we deserve more than most' seems to be the driving principle behind the top earners. It's nothing more than self-inflated grasping and greed. And that was one of the reasons Jesus got angry in his day.

Grasping and greed. Selfishness and self-interest. Mortal sins because they choke and kill the Spirit. They choke and kill the Spirit because they turn us away from that which gives us life which is God. It's as simple as that. And it usually begins with money and often ends with money. When I was in Environmental Health, we used to give grants for home improvement. And my experience there showed me that if anything turned the hearts and minds of people from peace and love to bitterness, grasping and hatred it was money. The nicest of people would become the nastiest, when money was involved. It's no wonder Jesus said that the love of money is the root of all evil.

And this reveals why almsgiving is regarded as one of the spiritual disciplines. Gathering money closes and clenches the heart, and mind. Giving money opens and extends the heart, and mind.

We've been over this so many times in the past and the point is made. But we do need to go over it time and again because we so easily go off track, as we do when it comes to those other disciplines of prayer and fasting. We lose attention and forget and then eventually lose interest and lose heart, so very easily. What is true of prayer and fasting is also true of almsgiving.

Almsgiving isn't just about money. It's about that spirit of giving that extends our heart and mind and soul in other peoples' direction and in the direction of creation at large. It's about giving back some of what we receive, in every way we can. Jesus himself says early on in his ministry that whatever measure we give out will be returned to us. (Mark 4.24) That's how life and love and the universe work. It really is that simple. But we simply disregard it most of the time, because we are fallen creatures. To both give and receive we have to unclench our heart and mind and soul. Grasping hold of all we've got, as I said earlier, closes us off to God and others. And so giving opens us up in all sorts of ways.

Almsgiving is love in action, whether it be in giving money, or time, or a helping hand, or service to another given freely from the heart. And that's why it opens us up; love opens us up to others, God and ourselves.

So these three disciplines of prayer, fasting and alsmgiving; there for our spiritual health and well-being, provided by the Church especially at this time of year, in Lent, are nothing more than what is ordinary life for the true Christian.

I was raking up and breaking up all sorts of dead stuff in the garden yesterday; clearing away so that new shoots could grow through. As well as reminding me how physically unfit I've become of late, it reminded me of a line in a book I read years ago entitled 'Compassion'. In it there's a section about 'discipline' in the spiritual life, where it considers the sorts of things we've been thinking about over the past few weeks. And one line in that section says that 'discipline is like raking up the leaves on the pathways in the garden of the soul'. I think it's a beautiful line; maybe that's why it's stayed with me.

What we've been considering over the past three weeks and what Lent is all about is that clearing away of all the deadness of sin in the garden of our soul, so that we can grow anew in love for God and for one another and for ourselves. In Lent, we simply make a special effort in what should be the normal way of life for a Christian.

Let's Do Lent - Properly! - The Journey Home - Fasting

If you prefer to hear the sermon as preached, please click here

Over these three weeks at the beginning of Lent we are thinking about the three spiritual disciplines that we can use to make the most of Lent i.e. Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. And so today we come to think about Fasting.

Last week, one of our adult confirmees was telling the group about her attempt during Lent last year to fast from bread. Things went well except when it came to making toast for her daughters' breakfast in the morning. And then the delicious aroma of the warm and gradually browning bread became almost unbearably tempting.

And that sort of hits the nail on the head. What use is fasting? Mostly to help us develop self-discipline. And that in itself is something that seems to have become rather alien in our gluttonous, lustful western world.

We discovered too last week in our confirmation group, as we were talking about St. Paul's list of the fruits of the Spirit in his letter to the Galatians, the list that contains fruits such as love, joy, peace, patience etc, that the very last of the fruits is - self-control. And that rather puts a different layering on the words self-discipline and self-control. And it connects fasting, right away, with the Holy Spirit and the movement of God in us.

But why do we need self-control or self-discipline anyway? Well, I think we can make another connection here with what Jesus says in our reading from St. Mark's gospel this morning (Mark 8.31-38) Here Jesus is rebuking Peter for thinking on worldly things and not on divine things. He lets his thoughts and imagination run away with him when Jesus foretells his death. He says that theirs is an adulterous and sinful generation. And I guess you could say that of our present generation. In this case Jesus is using those words to emphasise what he's just said to St. Peter. We prefer to think about other things than about God. It's in that way that we are unfaithful and falling short. And so to keep our minds on divine things we have to be disciplined in mind and heart.

And then Jesus pushes home his whole point by saying that what he demands of you who would be his disciples, is giving up your life as you know it and understand it, and taking up life with God. He says it's denying yourself, taking up your cross and following him. And denying yourself demands self-discipline and self-control.

It's hard, it's like being crucified, Jesus says, but it's the only way to life in all its fullness. And that's what Jesus means when he says that strange thing that you have to lose your life to gain your life.

Every single one of us is a slave to our bodily wants, needs and desires. We crave stuff that's bad for us or crave so much of the good stuff that it becomes bad for us. And we show all those, what are known as passions - pride, avarice, lust, envy, hatred, bitterness, and so many other qualities of self-interest and self-centredness. All of which close us off to God and to one another. Isolated we become in our sin, completely cut off from God and totally self-absorbed. Quite the opposite of what God intended us to be. And therein lies our spiritual, psychological and our physical disease and ultimately, death.

But it needn't be like that and God doesn't want us like that. He created us to live in communion with him and to grow and flourish and become light and life and love and peace and joy. But that brings us back to where we started. It brings us back to being tempted by that slice of toast and finding the strength within us to make the right decision, to leave one way and take another; to find the strength to leave the world's way and to take God's way. And that simple giving up in Lent, that fasting from whatever it is has, amongst its foremost benefits the developing of that self-discipline that helps us say yes to God, yes to the Holy Spirit working in us and developing more of that fruit of the spirit which is self-control.

Fasting as a discipline, in the western Church has become only a shadow of what it was and what it really should be or could be again. The rules are there and I'll tell you what they are if you are interested. But suffice to say that to be meaningful, I believe that we should give up something that we normally find essential in our day to day life. We are only going without for 6 weeks. But even that short time is a real test if we give up something that makes a real difference for having given it up. The traditional foods to give up are meat and dairy products. For we who aren't used to fasting, we should just go a little way and then each Lent add to it if we can. It does make a difference and it certainly makes a difference when the fast is over.

Whatever you give up, if you do indeed fast during Lent, as is the Christian way, remember that the giving up is symbolic of giving up your life in the world and taking up the way of God, the way of Jesus, the way of the cross; of giving up your life, of losing your life to gain your life.

Let's Do Lent - Properly! - The Journey Home - Prayer

If you prefer to listen to the actual sermon preached in church please click here

For this and the next two weeks I'm dealing with the traditional Lent disciplines of Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving;  so I'm not quoting the Bible references for the Sundays, as they won't necessarily connect with the topic. However, the reading for the first Sunday in Lent, which is today, is the usual one about Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. This year we read from St. Mark. St. Matthew's is an extended version of the story and I think that gives us a good background to our topic today.

I said too that we wouldn't do any heavy theology this Lent, that I'd keep it very practical. But I would like to start out by making some connections with Jesus's time in the wilderness that I think help us especially in our life of prayer. I think the story of Jesus in the wilderness is a window onto the spiritual realm. Here we see God Himself, wrestling with the devil. It's the cosmic battle between good and evil. And there, through that window we see the whole reason why life is as it is. We see the whole reason why our lives and our Christian lives in particular, are as they are. This cosmic battle, typified in Jesus's temptation has been going on since the dawn of time and we ourselves are caught up in it, just as all the characters we meet in the Bible from beginning to end are caught up in it.

God, the book of Genesis tells us, made us in His image and likeness. Jesus talked about his disciples dwelling in Him as He dwells in the Father. St. Paul talks about us being 'in Christ'. We have the Spirit of Christ in us and St. Paul, again says that it is not he who lives but Christ who lives in him. We are in a relationship with God. We don't simply have a relationship, we are IN a relationship with God. And if this cosmic battle goes on and on we are caught up with it, because our dwelling is in God. That's why St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians that 'we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' And so he tells us to put on what he calls 'the whole armour of God' so that we can wage that spiritual warfare. And it's that spiritual warfare that Jesus himself is at the centre of as we read that gospel reading today.

So that provides the fitting background for this subject of prayer. Because prayer is the foundation and the structure, the warp and weft of our life with God. Again in that same place in his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul says, after putting on the armour of God that we should be 'praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication'. The phrase 'praying... with all prayer and supplication' really pushes the point home. In another place he calls us to 'pray without ceasing'. For St. Paul, prayer was what kept his life as a follower of Christ going. And there's no better teacher of prayer than the Lord himself.

So much has been written on prayer down the centuries that even to find a starting point in all the literature is so very difficult. But I said we'd keep this practical and that's what we'll do. What do you do to start to pray? What do you do to continue in prayer? What do you do, however long you've been on the Christian journey? What we'll do is just look at the best teacher of all.

When His disciples asked him how they should pray Jesus simply taught them what has become the Lord's prayer. Maybe it was a model for all our prayers but it contains all we need to pray. It reminds us of the holiness and nearness of God, of our relationship with Him, and with ourself. It talks of His Kingdom. It talks about how we live with one another and as part of creation. In other words it encompasses all that need be. Pray this prayer every day and only this prayer every day and you will pray for everyone and everything. It would be enough, but we humans usually want more and maybe we need more. Because in our prayer we are building that foundation and structure that's our relationship with God and our life in Him.

But how should you pray and when should you pray? Jesus got up very early in the morning and spent time alone with God, before the day's work started. What more do you need than that? Whenever your day starts, take time before it to spend, alone, with your heavenly Father. Five minutes or a couple of hours. Start small and build up, as much as you feel you need. And during the day, Jesus took time out to be alone. Even when other matters were pressing, he would take himself off, away from them and the press of the crowd, to be renewed in prayer. And in those darkest of times, in Gethsemane and on the cross itself, Jesus took to talking with God. There was no time which was not a good time to pray, for Jesus. And the same is true for us too.

And how should you pray? Maybe like Moses - as a man speaks to his friend. It's as simple as that. No books are needed. No fancy words or phrases. Just the intimacy you have in talking to your friends. Bring that to your time with God. If you want to use books and the prayers of the Church, that's good, but it's not essential. As least not to start with. There's something special about using the words that have been hallowed by centuries of use in the way the Church has used them. And if you can't find words of your own, whether you are a beginner or very experienced in prayer, then by all means use the Church's books.

I'm not going to add to that with fancy formulas, rules or instructions, because when you are in the desert like Jesus was, it usually feels like you are back to the beginning again anyway. And it's in those times that our simplest words are usually most effective. I'd just give you one piece of advice that was given to me and others not long after I was ordained and that is 'pray as you can, not as you can't'. It really is as simple as that. And it should be as simple and easy as talking to your friend. And like the Nike advert said or used to say, 'Just do it'. 

And I've made it sound easy, but in reality it's probably the hardest thing in the world, if not to start, to keep going, simply because the devil is out to stop us. And with that we are back where we started, looking through that window onto Jesus, in the desert, at His prayers, because as we look at Jesus praying, we are, as His disciples, looking at ourselves.

Let's Do Lent Properly! - The Journey Home - Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday and we've been preparing for the past 3 weeks for the season of Lent which starts today. Lent comes around every year giving us the opportunity reconnect with God. The Church gives us this 6 week opportunity to think about our relationship with God and one another and creation and ourselves. As we've discovered over the last 3 weeks it's a time for which it's good to prepare and we've been doing that over the last 3 Sundays by considering different characters we hear of in the Bible.

On the first Sunday we thought about Zacchaeus who had an over-riding desire to see Jesus. He overcame his physical limitations and the thoughts and feelings of others about his being an outcast, with the result that he had a life changing encounter with Jesus. So Zacchaeus shows us the first quality we need to go into Lent well, a real desire to see God.

On the second Sunday we thought about the tax-collector and the Pharisee who come to the Temple to pray. The Pharisee is full of self-righteousness and self-importance, glad that he isn't like other people, proud of his religious observance. The tax-collector, on the other hand daren't lift his head. He knows full well who and what he is and so he simply prays, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner'. Jesus tells us that it's the tax-collector who is right with God after his prayer rather than the Pharisee. It's the tax-collector's humility, humility of heart and mind that is the example to us of how we might approach Lent.

Last Sunday we read the parable of the Prodigal Son, a parable so rich in meaning and teaching. But two statements stand out for me. The first one tells us that the Son goes off into a distant country. Here he is, in fact, in exile, completely cut off from his home and from those he loves. In those days there was no post as we know it, no phone, text messaging or e-mail; no Facebook or Twitter. He's totally cut off from his home and father.

And that's our situation today with respect to God. We spend most of our time far off from God, distanced from Him.

The second statement we read, later in the parable is when the son is at his lowest, his money gone, he's feeding pigs. And it's here that the story says 'But when he came to himself....' That's the turning point. He realises the state he's got himself into and that his only option, to find a life again, is to turn to home and to his father. It's a complete 180 degree turn. And he begins his journey home. This son teaches so much about what it means to turn to God. As we come to Lent, we, like the son, turn again to our Father. And that simple turning is repentance, the necessary quality to take us through Lent, to take us on that journey home, to God.

Over the next six weeks we are going to be making that journey. At various points on the journey we'll stop off to think about what we need to make the most of the journey though Lent.. We'll think about prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We won't be doing any heavy theology. Our thinking will be about practical things to help us to get the best our of our journey through Lent, to help us make that journey home to meet with the risen Christ at Easter. So come with us on that journey.

Let's Do Lent - Properly! The Sunday Next Before Lent - The Parable of the Prodigal Son

2 Corinthians 4.3-6;  Luke 15.11b-32

Jesus was a great storyteller. And what we've heard today is one of His greatest and most profound. If there's one story, one parable that sets the scene for Lent for us it's this parable of the Prodigal Son.

In our first week of preparation we recalled Zacchaeus and his life-changing encounter with the Lord. But for that meeting to be such a huge occasion for Zacchaeus, we learned that he'd really had an over-riding desire to see Jesus in the first place. He wasn't just curious about Jesus, he went out of his way to see Him. He overcame his physical limitations and those imposed by the attitude of others towards him. And the result was life changing. A desire to see God, no matter what is stacked against us is our first quality we need to approach Lent.

Last week we heard the story, told by Jesus of the Tax-collector and the Pharisee in the temple offering up their prayers. The Pharisee, so full of himself, pleased with his progress in the religious life, pleased with how he stuck to the rules and how it made him different from others; thankful in fact, that he was different to others. And the tax-collector, knowing what he was, regarded as an outcast, looked upon by society as a sinner, hardly dare raise his head, for shame and simply asks God to bless him even though he's so sinful. It was this man, Jesus tells us that is right with God. It is the tax-collector that shows us humility, the second quality that we need to go into Lent in the right way.

The Prodigal Son

And now we come to that, amongst the most remembered of parables. What does this parable, among all that things it can say to us, tell us about how we should approach Lent? Well this one, above all else, is about repentance, that turning to God and away from ourself, again that Lent is itself is really all about for us. For Lent is the season of repentance, a journey, a school of repentance as we said in our first week of preparation.

There's so much we could learn from this parable, enough for many bible studies. But let's just look today at two things, two short statements in that parable that teach us so much about Lent and our attitude in Lent.

First of all, the son 'gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country'.  He puts himself far away from his home, far away from his family. And in those days there was no internet or text messaging, no Skype, no Facebook, no Twitter, no e-mail or even post as we know it today. So, in the 'distant country' the son was completely cut off from his home and family; from the father who, out of love, had given him so much and who was to receive him so well and who was so forgiving when he came home. The son was, in effect, in exile.

And that's our situation. The son, 'in a distant country', is us in our relationship with God. Since The Fall of Adam and Eve we've been in exile, so easily. We spend our time, separated from God, cut off from His love. And like the prodigal, it's our own doing. Day after day we spend with hardly a thought of Him if we think of Him at all. And if we do think of God our thoughts are usually full of selfishness, full of what God can do for us rather than what we can do for Him. And, like the prodigal, we squander all that God in His love has given to us. We spend it all in foolish living. And so it continues, our whole life long unless we come to the point that the prodigal Son came to; which is the second statement we read in this wonderful tale.

'But when he came to himself...' 'But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!' That's the turning point, the pivot in the whole story, 'But when he came to himself....' You can imagine that the whole consequence of what he'd done came to him like an express train. Suddenly he realises his folly. Suddenly he realises what he's left behind. Suddenly he sees the state he's in. Suddenly and finally he sees his true self. And he turns for home; because he knows that there is no other course of action if he's to live and regain his true dignity. And he turns for home not knowing what the outcome will be; not expecting to be treated as a son again. It will be enough to be just a servant in his father's household. He knows he's in no place to be treated as a son again.

This is what repentance is all about. It's not about grovelling back to God, tail between the legs, asking for punishment for offending God. It's knowing how estranged from God we are. It's knowing that in our sinfulness we don't deserve to be treated as sons and daughters of God. It's being willing to accept ourselves as God accepts us, no matter how that might be.

It's really like the tax-collector we met last week, who had such complete knowledge of himself that he could be himself before God and not something false and fabricated and deluded like the Pharisee. Because it's only when we can come back to God like the prodigal and the tax-collector that we are the right frame of mind and heart to receive the healing of God's love, of God's forgiveness. For God greets us like the father in the parable, who's been looking out for us right from the start and who runs out and greets us, arms flung around us and with a kiss.

So, here we have the way in which we are best to make our way through Lent; with an over-riding desire to see God; with humility and a spirit of repentance. Do Lent that way and you'll do it properly.

Let's Do Lent - Properly! 2nd Sunday before Lent - The Tax Collector & The Pharisee

Colossians 1.15-20; Luke 18.9-14

We are continuing our pre-Lent readings as a preparation for the great season of Lent; Lent being a time to refocus on our walk with God and our relationship with Him. This week we come to Jesus's parable about the tax-collector and the Pharisee. Tax collectors are appearing quite frequently aren't they? Last week we considered Zacchaeus who was, himself, a chief tax collector. As we said last week, tax collectors in Jesus' time were considered to be outcasts, probably for lots of different reasons. For example, on a larger scale they would be representatives of the oppressive Roman empire. And then nearer to 'home' they were probably often considered to be thieves and rogues.

Last week we heard of an incident in Jesus's life, His encounter with Zacchaeus. This week we are hearing a story told by Jesus; a parable. And again, we are using this reading to give us some idea of how we might approach the season of Lent, how we might best prepare for it.

I think it's true that over the last 20 or 30 years, society has become more self-centred. And that's because each of us has been encouraged if not trained and nurtured in a way that has meant that we have become more self-centred. There's been a focus on achievement and success. All of this being a direct result of the emphasis on free market economics. That says that as individuals achieve and succeed in what they do then there is a trickle down effect which raises the standard of living for everyone in society. That's the theory anyway. I'm sure it's true to a certain extent. I'd say that the majority of the population in this country enjoys a higher standard of living than we did 40 or 50 years ago. And that is good.

But the downside to that is, as I said, that people have become more individualistic, more self-focussed and and more self-centred. And it's a short step from there to the perils and sin of pride and greed and self aggrandisement. Reading between the lines of the New Testament, there was much of it about in Jesus's time, although society was organised rather differently. And thus we read the sort of parable that Jesus told and that we have read this morning.

Into the temple come two men to pray. A Pharisee and a tax collector. The one a religious man, a faithful and upright Jew - the best of the best by the sound of it; a super-achiever in the religion game. And the other, an outcast, a sinner, a lacky of the state, a thief probably and a rogue, maybe. Both of them in their own way are probably the best in their own sphere, in their own world. And yet they are worlds apart in different ways.

The Pharisee is the one who, on the outside, is and does everything that is right and good and commendable in the eyes of Jewish society. And his heart tells him he's the best of the best. It would be hard to find anyone more virtuous, more Godly, more in tune, more successful in religious terms. He's outstanding in all he does. He stands out. And, he literally, stands apart from others at his prayers in the temple. How expressive is that of his attitude of mind and his heart? I am better than you! I am better than the rest! He's quick to let others, and God, know how good he is too. And more than that he's thankful that he's not like the rest. I think it's what's known as self-righteousness.

Contrast him with the tax collector. The tax collector might be the best of the best of tax collectors. Like Zacchaeus was, he might be rich from the proceeds of his tax collecting. But what does he do? He stands far off, from the altar presumably, away from where God's presence was most evident in the temple. He doesn't dare to look up. He doesn't want to catch God's eye as it were. And he beats his breast with his fist. And all this because he knows, he really knows who and what he is. He doesn't have to compare himself with others as the Pharisee does. And so his demeanour, his body language and finally, his prayer say quite well his state of mind and heart, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'

And Jesus tells us who is the more right with God. And here is the lesson, the lesson for all of us, the lesson for this week and for every day of our Christian life. It's not that we have to think of ourselves as the lowest of the low. It's not that we have to grovel before God for forgiveness. It's not that we have to do ourselves down because we've overstepped the mark. The lesson is simply to have a true knowledge of ourselves before God and before others. The lesson here is one of humility.

One of the great traps that lots of people fall into these days is that of comparison. We compare ourselves and our lot with that of others. It's what the Pharisee did and it leads us right into the jaws of sin. In comparing ourselves with others we fall into jealousy and envy and pride and greed and self-righteousness. God doesn't ask us to compare ourselves with anyone or anything. He calls us to follow in Jesus' footsteps. And we can only do that properly if we know and acknowledge who and what we truly are. Because then we are acknowledging the person who God made. And then God can speak into our heart.

The tax collector actually shows us the starting point. In that prayer that he made, he shows us where humility starts, where being ourself starts. And it's from there that God makes us all we can be with Him. As Jesus said, the tax collector after praying that prayer went down to his home justified, made right with God. He was the one of the two that could then hold his head up high, because he was being truly himself and not some deluded fabrication.

So this week we see what humility is about and we begin to see why it's important to have that sense of humility as we go into Lent, as we start on that journey again to God and with God, as we start on that journey of repentance. As we saw last week we first need the desire to see God and then we have to come to him in that spirit of humility, the spirit that lets us stand before God openly and honestly and in a way that means that God can really speak into our hearts and minds, and more importantly, that we can hear and listen.

Let's Do Lent - Properly! 3rd Sunday before Lent - Zacchaeus

1 Corinthians 9.16-24; Luke 19.1-9

I'm departing from the Church of England lectionary for the next 3 weeks for the gospel readings. Instead I'll be using the gospel readings set in the Orthodox church for 3 of the Sundays before Great Lent begins. I'm using them as the Orthodox Church does as preparation for our observance of Lent which this year beings on 22nd February. I owe much of what I'll be saying in these sermons to the work of the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Orthodox professor of liturgical theology in his book Great Lent.

In the Western church these days I think we so often go through Lent with the good intention of doing something with the season but we might not properly apply ourselves to it. Our church lets us use it much as we please and much of what we do is quite superficial, it seems to me. We use it, quite rightly as a time of reflection and study. But it shouldn't stay as 'head' stuff, just be limited to acquiring new knowledge.

So this year I'd like to encourage all my readers and listeners to use the season of Lent to good effect. Not just to feed our mind but to change our heart. Lent is there to be taken advantage of as we prepare for Easter. Fr. Alexander calls Lent a 'school of repentance' to which we come year by year to learn again what it means to be truly a Christian, to listen again to the call of Jesus Christ to us to repent and turn to back to God, indeed to learn again how to do that and what it means for us. Many of us in our working life these days have an annual review, a time of taking stock and thinking about how we will shape the future. And the Church gives us the opportunity each year in the season of Lent to review our relationship with God and how effectively we live our Christian life, how much of a disciple of Christ we really are.

As well as being a school, Lent is also a journey, a journey towards the great feast of Easter, the Feast of feasts, the highest point in our year. And if we are to arrive at Easter understanding in a deeper way what it means for us and for the world, then we must go on that journey, the journey in the school of repentance. And in Holy Week, accompany Jesus on His journey to the cross and beyond.

As for any journey we undertake, we have to make preparations. Many of you know that in 2010 I made a pilgrimage to Mount Athos in Greece. I had to make quite extensive preparations for that journey beginning 6 months before I actually departed to Greece. There were special permissions I had to get, bookings in the monasteries I wanted to stay in, bookings for my travel and decisions to make about how I would travel while I was there. I had to decide what I would take in the form of clothing and food and get books and maps to read up and familiarise myself about Mount Athos. I had to do that so I could make the most of the trip and learn the most I could from it. Like those preparations, the journey through Lent needs preparation time too. So we are taking the next three weeks as preparation to begin the journey through Lent on Ash Wednesday.

Today we start our preparations by looking at the character we encounter in the Bible by the name of Zacchaeus. What has he got to show us about how we might prepare for Lent? Well, he shows us what it means to have a desire to see God, to have God in our lives and to let God have an impact on our lives.

Zacchaeus

Here is Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector by trade and physically, a not very tall man. He seems to be disliked by a lot by people. Tax collectors didn't have the best of reputations in his time. So being a chief tax collector might have made him even more unpopular. We get a sense of why he might be unpopular, towards the end of the gospel reading when he talks about the effect his encounter with Jesus has had on him. And he was rich, his wealth perhaps having been made by defrauding the people he collected taxes from. But as we meet him, Zacchaeus has heard about Jesus, that he's coming to Jericho where Zacchaeus lives and he's curious about Jesus.

In fact Zacchaeus, from his behaviour, seems more than curious. He has a great, even overwhelming desire to see Jesus. So much so that, because he's so short and can't see over people in front of him, he runs on ahead and climbs a tree to get a better vantage point. So, he overcomes his limitations, to succeed in his endeavour, and he does see Jesus. I wonder if you've had that sort of deep seated desire in your life? An overwhelming desire to get something or to achieve something? Such a great desire that you will overcome any limitation you might have to succeed; to have your desire fulfilled? At bottom of anybody's great work or great success in life, there's usually an overwhelming desire to succeed, a passion for whatever it is that sees the desire fulfilled.

Well, not only does Zacchaeus see Jesus but Jesus sees Zacchaeus and even better, Jesus shouts up to him and tells him to come down because He wants to stay at Zacchaeus' house. So for Zacchaeus it gets better. His desire has been more than fulfilled.

Others standing by watching complain, of course. Here's Jesus talking with and staying at the house of a sinner, an outcast. We see that all through the gospels, that complaining, borne out of jealousy maybe, borne out of envy and self-righteousness. And at the end of the passage we get an explanation from Jesus Himself why he does this sort of thing which goes against people's expectations of Him - He came 'to save the lost.'

When Zacchaeus climbed the tree, little did he know that his curiosity, his great desire would have such an outcome. He hadn't had any inkling of the sort of impact his encounter with Jesus would have. But like for so many at the time and since, this encounter with Jesus had a profoundly transforming effect. So bowled over with what had happened to him, how he'd been received by Jesus and treated with mercy and grace and peace, that Zacchaeus makes a vow, that he would give half of what he owned to the poor, and also that if he'd defrauded anybody of anything then he would not just return it but return it fourfold.

Remember that Zacchaeus was very rich and he'd lived a life that was shaped by taking from people. And now he was not just anxious but pleased to give away what he had. He was a changed man. It was a 180 degree change, in a moment, after a life time of living a particular way. And all from seeing Jesus, and being received by Jesus.  How does Zacchaeus prepare us for Lent?

Lent is about turning again to God, it's about seeing God again or for the first time. But we need to have a need. We must desire to see God, a desire we want to see fulfilled and not only that but a desire we'll do anything to see fulfilled, overcome any limitation, any obstacle to see fulfilled. And that's what I mean about doing Lent properly. It's about taking the time to ask ourselves what we must do if we are to turn to God again. Only we and God know what are our limitations, what's stopping us fulfilling our need. Maybe it's a lack of will, a lack of that desire. So how do you develop the desire? Maybe you feel it's some other much greater obstacle, some sin or difficulty in relationship with a person or others which seems insurmountable.

As we think about Zacchaeus in these few days before Lent begins, take the time to think about just how much you want to see God, how much you want to turn to God again, overcome any limitation or obstacle so that you too might have that transforming encounter with Him that will turn your life around as it did Zacchaeus.

Third Sunday of Epiphany

Genesis 14.17-20; Revelation 19.6-10; John 2.1-11

At a human level, all miracles are pretty pointless. I was reading a book during last week written by Fr. Alexander Schmemann entitled 'O death, where is thy sting'. It's, of course, about death, the last enemy. In the book Fr. Alexander mentions the raising of Lazarus; and it got me thinking 'why did Jesus raise Lazarus? What was the point?' He didn't really do Lazarus any favours except extend his time here on earth. Poor Lazarus would have to die all over again, go through the agony of it, or whatever it brought for him. Lazarus's sisters had the benefit of him being around for longer, but assuming Lazarus died before they did, they'd have to grieve all over again. So it seems a bit of a strange thing to have done, which in the end, didn't really benefit anybody.

It could, however, have given Jesus a bit of fame or notoriety. Just think if he'd lived now, in our society that's infatuated and mezmerized by celebrity. He'd be worth billions. But then, there are all sorts of illusionists about nowadays who, if they don't work miracles, send you away believing that they do. So maybe Jesus's miracle working wouldn't be treated as that extraordinary anyway. So what use are miracles?

We've come today to read about Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding reception. He seems a bit reluctant to do it. But he does it; not in an ostentatious way as some sort of party trick or illusion; but in a hidden way, only in front of one or two servants. So nearly all the people in the room had no idea what had happened and they thought only that they'd been served some pretty decent wine. So what was the point of the miracle, except to save the embarrassment of the bride and groom?

St. John, in writing the account of this miracle, gives a hint as to what it was all about. He says that in working the miracle Jesus revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. The sticking point with that is that at the time, Jesus's disciples didn't know about the miracle because only the servants witnessed it. So maybe we've got to think not just about the point of this and other miracles, but how we read the Bible as well.

Turning back to Lazarus for a moment, when we read the account, again written by St. John, we see that he says that Jesus says he's raised Lazarus so that people would believe that God sent Him and that they would see the glory of God.

The raising of Lazarus was done in front of a crowd; the turning of water into wine, in front of just a few. But the thing that both miracles have in common, and that all the other miracles of Jesus have in common is that they are meant to point us towards God. On a human level, the miracles only have relevance for the place, people and time that they happen. They are strange and wonderful things that happen. But that's all they are on a purely human level, when we see and hear about them through purely human eyes and ears. Just strange and wonderful occurrences.

And on a purely human level, whether or not you believe that the miracles happened is entirely up to you. Jesus didn't do miracles to prove anything or as some attempt to persuade people to believe in him. If he had, I guess he'd have done a lot more than he did and have been far more open about them, put on sideshows and appeared in the theatre. I happen to believe that Jesus did do the miracles that we read of. I used to be sceptical; but now I know more about the power and presence of God in life, I've far less reason to doubt.

'And his disciples believed in him', seems to be a sort of throw away line here in St. John's gospel; an after thought even. St. John writes as if the disciples believing in Jesus was a 'spin off' of the miracle rather than the intention of the miracle. And I think that's part of how miracles have an impact upon our lives as well.

The miracles of Jesus point us to a different plane, a different level beyond the purely human level. And beyond this world as we engage with it. The miracles of Jesus point us towards God and towards his kingdom. But more than that even, the miracles of Jesus transfigure human existence and place it firmly in the Kingdom of God. The miracles, to put it another way, are the Kingdom of God breaking through into this world. And they take us there with them too. These miracles are all connected with the greater miracle of God here with us in Jesus Christ, in the Church through His Spirit then and now. As members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we actually inhabit that Kingdom of God, we live in it. And we, in a very immature way experience that Kingdom even now, where earth is transfigured by Jesus Christ into the Kingdom.

God didn't come at Christmas so that we might have a better life in the hereafter. He came to bring in His Kingdom now and so that we might be part of that Kingdom now. And the miracle goes on all around us if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. And He came to lift us into the Kingdom if we'll let Him lift us into it, so that we no longer see our life, our existence in purely human terms, with human eyes and ears; but see our life as God sees it, see it in terms of His glory, see our life in Christ itself as the miracle it was, is and always will be.