Do not look forward in fear to the changes and chances of this life; Rather, look to them with full confidence that, as they arise, God, to whom you belong will in His love enable you to profit by them.He has guided you thus far in life, and He will lead you safely through all trials; and when you cannot stand it, God will bury you in His arms.Do not look forward to what might happen tomorrow: The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at Peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.
Advent IV
Those of you who are fans of The Sound of Music will know that to begin at the beginning is a very good place to start. This morning’s Gospel does exactly that, by going back to the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the beginning of the story of Christmas. As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth in a few days time,it is only natural to return to the point of His Conception to help us to ponder the wonderful mystery which God accomplishes for our sake.
Our Old Testament reading this morning begins and ends with promises about houses. It starts with King David concerned about the fact that while he lives in a fine palace, the Ark of the Covenant dwells in a tent. Such unease is understandable, and arises out of a desire to give the best to God. David is concerned that he is not doing so, and says:
“See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” (2 Samuel 7:2)
So David plans to build God a Temple. To begin with, it appears that David’s plan to build a Temple is acceptable, but quickly we learn that this is not the case. At a fundamental level, God is not concerned whether he lives in a tent or a temple. It does not matter. God’s response is not to accept David’s offer, but instead to make an offer to David:
Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom… I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son… And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me. Your throne shall be established for ever.’” (2 Samuel 7:11-12, 14, 16)
God offers David a family, a Royal House a promise which he will keep, and which bears fruit with the coming of Jesus, born of the House of David, and the Son of God. Not only this but Jesus’ mother Mary will be the Ark of the New Covenant. This will be a covenant that is not made in stone, but rather in flesh; the flesh of the Son of God, who is born for us, and who dies for us. Her womb will be the place where the Son of God will begin to dwell with us:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa 7:14)
Immanuel in Hebrew means ‘God (is) with us’ and this is what we are preparing to celebrate at Christmas: God being among us.
Ours is a God who keeps his promises, and so St Paul can speak of:
the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations (Rom 16:25-26)
For a moment I would like you to imagine how would you feel if one day a complete stranger turned up on your doorstep and told you something strange and unexpected? Surprised? Confused? Afraid? The fact that you are a teenage girl would most likely intensify these feelings. When you add to this the fact that the girl will conceive a child outside marriage, something for which she could be stoned to death, according to the Law of Moses, the Gospel passage which we have just heard should strike us as odd, and unsettling: this isn’t how God is supposed to work, it isn’t supposed to be like this. There is an unexpected strangeness strangeness about how God comes into the world.
At one level this is not surprising, because God does not follow human rules. He makes this clear through the prophet Isaiah:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. (Isa 55:8)
In the Annunciation God demonstrates this. Mary is confused, she cannot understand what is going on. So the angel Gabriel says ‘Paid ag ofni, Do not be afraid’. Mary does not need to be afraid because God is doing something wonderful. She will bear a son and call him Jesus, which means ‘God saves’. Jesus the Son of God will save God’s people from their sins, and the promise made to David we heard in our first reading will be fulfilled.
Mary cannot understand how this will happen. The Holy Spirit, God active in the world, and the bond of love between God the Father and God the Son, will overshadow her. God will take flesh in her womb and be born as one of us. So Mary replies:
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)
Mary says ‘Yes’ to God. This is a ‘Yes’ which undoes the ‘No’ of Eve. It brings about the salvation of humanity, through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of her Son. Mary’s obedience to the will of God, ‘the obedience of faith’ (Rom 16:26), both trusts God to be at work, and makes it possible. God does not force salvation upon us, but offers it, and invites humanity into a relationship.
The Church continues to make the same invitation, and to offer the same sacrifice, so that God, who became flesh and blood in the womb of Mary, offers us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, so that we might share His Life. May we, like Mary, say yes to God, welcome him into our hearts, and show forth his love to the world, so that it may come to believe and trust in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever. Amen
The 33rd Sunday of Year A (Prov 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31, 1 Thess 5:1-11, Mt 25:14-30)
In the ancient world, as in today’s world, the domestic life of women was difficult. Without modern labour-saving devices, household chores were even more laborious and time-consuming. A wife would be expected to run a household, and it was hard and difficult work. Such a demanding role means that paragons in the domestic sphere were to be praised and prized. And, in the Book of Proverbs, we see such an example of industry, of hard work. Throughout Ancient Wisdom Literature, wisdom and industry go hand in hand, they are beautiful and good, as they come from the source of all beauty and goodness, namely God. An excellent wife is more valuable than jewels, because while precious stones possess beauty and value, they are not capable of doing good.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. (Proverbs 31:11)
As a result of the relationship between a loving husband and wife, their mutual prosperity is assured. This then leads to generosity:
She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. (Proverbs 31:20)
The point of wealth is not for it to be acquired for its own sake, but so that it may be a blessing to others. God wants humanity to flourish by being loving and generous. This theme runs through all our readings this morning.
St Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians is written to a community that is afraid of two things: death and the return of Jesus in Judgement. These are understandable emotions. However, while death and judgement are inescapable, they do not need to be feared. They are compared with the labour pains of a pregnant woman, which are often sudden and sharp. But if we live lives characterised by love, and we have faith in Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us, we have the hope of salvation. This is good news, and leads St Paul to write:
For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1Thess 5:9)
Paul’s letter is written to encourage his fellow Christians, to allay their fears and to build up their faith, hope, and love, as a community:
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing (1Thess 5:11)
We all of us need encouragement, especially when times are difficult, and when we are as afraid or unsure, as we are at the moment. It is good to be reminded that, in trying to lift each others spirits, we are behaving as a Christian community should.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues to talk about the future using parables. Just as with the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, Jesus begins by showing that he is talking about a future reality: how things WILL BE, not how they are now. This future reality is Christ’s return. Christians believe that Jesus will come again to judge the world. The theme of today’s parable, the Parable of the Talents is judgement. These days, we are not comfortable with ideas of judgement. Many of us remember preachers using ideas of hell-fire and damnation to fill people with fear. But the heart of the Gospel is love not fear, and perfect love casts out fear.
In the parable the master goes on a journey and entrusts his property to his servants. He puts his possessions into their care because he trusts them to look after it. The servants who are assigned five and two talents are both praised for being ‘good and faithful’. They have acted morally and demonstrated their faith, and they will be rewarded. The problem is with the servant who was given just one talent and hid it in the ground. He explains his actions, saying:
‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ (Mt 25:24-25)
This servant does not love his master, he fears him. He does not take care of what has been entrusted to him, because he simply sees it as a possession, a thing. The servant loves neither his master nor what was entrusted to him. By hiding the talent in the ground, he squanders the opportunity his master has given him, because he is jealous and resentful. As all gardeners know, seeds produce different results, just as in the Parable of the Sower, but they all need to be sown in the first place. What we learn here is that bitterness and resentment have no place in the Kingdom, they are not compatible with a Gospel of Love. The tragedy is that the fearful servant condemns himself to being outside the Kingdom, by failing to recognise both generosity, and the value of a relationship.
The Parable of the Talents, just like the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, is a commentary on the life of the Kingdom. These are stories of servants who are prepared and continue to work, until their master returns. They are parables which teach us how to be a Church of loving generous service, not one of fear.
It may sound pedestrian, or even humdrum, but living the Christian life, living the life of the Kingdom, is, at a day to day level, boring, difficult and repetitive. It is about ‘keeping on keeping on’ — loving, forgiving, praying –- nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, fed by Him, and with Him, freed from the fear which is the antithesis of the Kingdom, rejoicing in the gifts which God gives us, being thankful for them, and using them for God’s glory. None of us fully deserve the gift of God’s love and forgiveness in Jesus Christ: we have not earned it. It is not a reward, but rather the gift of a loving God. It is a gift which we are called to receive, and it transforms our lives. The God who will come to judge us, and all humanity, is a God of love and mercy, whose hands bear the mark of nails, wounded for love of us. Judgement and mercy go hand in hand, and if we love God and love our neighbour, we are living the life of the Kingdom, here and now, free from fear.
So let us live out that life together, encouraging one another, so that we may all be built up in faith, hope, and love, and together share in the joy of the Kingdom, so that all may know and love God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.
Twenty-first Sunday of Year A
Our first reading this morning is from the prophet Isaiah and is about a change in the appointment of a royal steward. God’s will is that Eliakim is given the power to control the royal palace, as he is someone who can be relied upon and trusted. At a deeper level the prophecy anticipates our Gospel reading.
And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. (Isa 22:22)
The words look forward to Our Lord’s promise to St Peter, and remind us that God keeps His promises, and that we can trust what we read and hear in Scripture.
One of the most important questions in the entire Bible is found in this morning’s Gospel: who do you say that Jesus is? How we answer this question can tell us a lot about our faith. It matters, and it is central to who and what we are as Christians.
Jesus and his disciples ventured into the District of Caesarea Philippi, an area about 25 miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee. The region had tremendous religious implications, as the place was littered with the temples of the Syrian gods. Here was the elaborate marble temple that had been erected by Herod the Great, father of the then-ruling Herod Antipas. Here people worshipped the Roman Emperor as a God himself. You might say that the world religions were on display in this town. It was with this scene in the background that Jesus chose to ask the most crucial questions of his ministry.
Jesus looked at his disciples and in a moment of reflection said: “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples begin sharing with Jesus what they have heard from the people who have been following Jesus: Some say that you are Elijah; others say John the Baptist, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. It has always been this way. Jesus has been seen by the masses in so many different ways. But Jesus then asks his disciples, ‘But who do YOU say that I am?’ (Mt 16:15) Peter answers ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God’ (Mt 16:16) This is a big claim to make. Saying that Jesus is divine was certainly problematic, as it undermined what Jews thought about religion, and also the claims made by Romans about the Emperor. It is a very radical thing to say, that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Hope of Israel, who fulfils the promises in the Prophets.
Nowadays you can speak of Jesus as prophet, holy man, teacher, or spiritual leader, and few will object. But speak of Him as Son of God, Divine, of the same nature as the Father, and people will line up to express their disapproval. This is not a new phenomenon, the history of the Church is full of people who have disagreed on matters of doctrine. This is reason why the Church repeats the words of the Nicene Creed week by week. It is to remind ourselves of what we believe. As Christians in worship we stand up and make a public declaration of our faith, something which would once have led to our death at the hands of the state, and still does in some places today. Nonetheless, we believe that the Nature and Person of the Son of God (who and what Jesus is and does) is an important thing; it is central to our faith.
As a result of Peter’s confession of faith Jesus makes the following promise:
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16:17-19)
Jesus gives Simon a new name, Peter, which means the rock, a rock upon which Christ will build His Church. We know from the Gospel that a wise man builds his house on rock not sand (Mt 7:24-27). The Church is built upon Peter because he confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Our profession of faith makes us Christians. Because of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, sin death and Hell no longer rule over humanity. Christ has conquered, and His victory is complete. Peter is then given the power to bind or loose, which is in effect the power to forgive sin, through Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. The Church exists to bring people closer to God and to create in the world a kingdom of peace and reconciliation to heal the wounds of sinful humanity. The Church exists to make humanity holy, through all that Christ has done for us, and to share this with others and transform the world into the Kingdom of Peace which is what God wills for our good and our flourishing. This is a radical and transformative vision which begins with our acknowledgement of sin, admitting that we have fallen short, and that we cannot sort things out ourselves alone. Only God can do this, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, he has. God longs to heal our wounds because that is what the Kingdom is based upon: healing, reconciliation, transformation. This is what takes an enemy of the Church, Saul, a man who zealously sought to destroy the Church, and makes him its most ardent advocate.
Thus, St Paul came to write to the Church in Rome:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33)
Paul knows this to be a reality because he can testify to the transforming power of God’s love. It is beyond words, beyond human understanding, because His love is a gift which asks for nothing in return. There is nothing we can give God. But we can live out the values of His Kingdom to enable us to flourish as men and women. We will often fail in this, just like St Peter, yet God’s love and mercy are always greater. We keep making mistakes, but God’s love is not conditional, we cannot earn it, it is freely offered to transform us. Thus, our faith is the work of a lifetime. Day by day God’s grace can perfect our nature, if we are humble enough to let God be at work in us. We pray that God’s grace may transform us so that, in this life and the next, we and all creation may give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever. Amen
Fr Lawrence Lew OP, via Flickr,
The Assumption
TODAY THE CHURCH celebrates the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which commemorates her being taken up after death, body and soul, into Heaven. It is important to stress that Assumption is passive rather than active; Jesus ascends to Heaven, whilst Mary is assumed: one is active, the other passive. This is a profound difference. Jesus ascends because He is God, Mary is assumed because she is the Mother of God, and the model for all Christians to follow. Humble and obedient in her life, in her death she shares fully in the resurrection of her Son, and points the way for us as Christians. Where Mary goes, we hope to follow, trusting in the love and mercy of God. It is a sign to us as Christians that we can trust the promises of Christ who went to prepare a place for us, that where He is, we may also be.
From the early days of the Church there is a tradition that Mary’s tomb, outside Jerusalem, is empty, and that her bodily remains are not there. From this developed the belief that after her death she was given a share in her Son’s glory, victory, and eternal life. This is both a reward for her faithfulness and humility, her obedience to God, and also as a sign to us that this is what Christ came to share with us, his people. God in Christ shares our human life, from beginning to end, and offers us eternal life in Heaven, which Mary enjoys. We can trust what God promises us, because God is loving and faithful, even when we are not. He is merciful, so that we can be transformed by His Love. This is the Good News of the Kingdom. We don’t deserve it, we cannot earn it, yet God gives it in loving generosity to heal all that has been marred by sin.
In our first reading from the Book of Revelation, St John has a vision of Heaven:
And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Revelation 12:1)
This is why Mary is often depicted this way in Art. At the foot of the Cross John was given a new family,
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:26-27)
John has been close to both Jesus and His Mother, Mary. In her earthly life, and now, John has a glimpse of her in Heavenly Glory, the Glory of her Son, Jesus Christ. The Church honours her as the Mother of God as without Mary saying, ‘Yes’ to God in the Annunciation, our salvation would not have been possible: we could not have the hope of heavenly glory, which she enjoys, close to God in this life and the next.
Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come (Revelation 12:10)
John’s vision of Heaven shows us that we can have hope of eternal life, through Christ’s victory over sin and death.
It is this hope which allows St Paul to write to the church in Corinth,
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1Corinthians 15:22)
Christ is the new Adam. Sunday, the day of His Resurrection is the first day of the week, and a sign of the New Creation, that God is healing the world of sin. Likewise, Mary is the new Eve, but whereas Eve is disobedient in the Garden, Mary is obedient in the Annunciation, she doesn’t say, ‘No’ she says, ‘Yes’ to God. Thus, Christ is born, and humanity can be saved, healed, and restored. Mary shares in her Son’s victory over sin and death as a Sign of the reality of the Resurrection, a promise made to humanity to share in God’s love and intimacy.
Our Gospel reading begins with a demonstration of Mary’s care and service. The Visitation is not a social call, but a sign of love, and an opportunity to proclaim the Kingdom. Her cousin Elisabeth is six months pregnant, and while her prayers for a child have been answered the realities of life mean that she needs help. Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, is busy in the Temple, so Mary comes in haste to help her cousin. As she arrives, Elizabeth’s baby leaps in her womb. John the Baptist greets Jesus and Mary with joy: even before his birth. He is a prophet, announcing the wonderful works of God.
And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:41)
Elizabeth recognises the wonderful thing that has happened, God’s promise is being fulfilled, He is faithful to His Covenant. As Elizabeth says to Mary,
“Blessed is she who believed” (Luke 1:45)
Mary is indeed blessed in giving birth to the Saviour of humanity, blessed in her obedience, love, and service, and blessed after death to share in the Heavenly Glory of her Son. Mary trusts God, and so she is the example for Christians to follow in living our lives of faith. We need to be like her.
That is why every evening the Church responds with Mary’s great hymn of praise, the Magnificat, which starts with the words, “My Soul doth Magnify the Lord” (Luke 1:46). It shows her complete trust in God, a God who takes it upon Himself to deal with sin and death by giving us His Son. A God who establishes a kingdom of love, forgiveness, and generosity, through which the Church continues God’s work of love and reconciliation in the world. Despite all our sins and failures, God’s love and mercy is greater. All the readings this morning are rooted in the simple fact that God loves us, and Mary shows us how to respond to that love. Her Assumption gives us hope that when Jesus says:
‘In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?’ (John 14:2)
He is telling a great truth. God makes room for us, but can we make room for Him? Can we be like Mary, trusting God to be at work in us? Can we let His Grace perfect our nature, to live lives of hope and joyful service so that after our earthly life we may, in the company of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, sing the praises of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever. Amen.
The Nineteenth Sunday of Year A (Mt 14:22-33)
God has an amazing ability to surprise us, and confound our expectations. It is a manifestation of God’s love for us, a love which sees us change and grow. We see this clearly in our first reading this morning. Elijah the prophet has been experiencing a crisis of faith. He is being persecuted by Jezebel, the wicked idol-worshipping Queen of Israel, and filled with despair, it all seems pointless and hopeless. Then God comes to him not in the wind, nor the earthquake, but in a still, small voice. Quietly, God promises that He will be faithful to those who have not worshipped idols. No matter how bleak the situation may appear, there is a fundamental trust that God is in control, and that all will be well. Elijah has faith in God, and in the power of that faith he brings Israel back to worship God. But he needs to learn the lesson that God is the God of love and mercy, and not just zeal: Elijah has been a fierce defender of God, he has put the prophets of Baal to death on Mt Carmel, but he now must see God’s gentleness in the still small voice, not in the fire or the whirlwind . It is an important lesson of the spiritual life. The gentleness of God is shown to us first and foremost in the Incarnation, where God is born among us in the quiet of Bethlehem. Such lessons are hard to learn. The world values noise and activity, yet God works in ways which defy our expectations and surprise us.
‘Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.’
This morning’s Gospel carries straight on from the miraculous feeding which we heard last week, as Jesus goes to send the crowds back home, he sends disciples ahead so that they might be ready for Him.
‘And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.’
Prayer is important, it is as important as the food we eat, the air we breathe, because it is about our relationship with God. Throughout the Gospels Jesus spends time alone, spends time close to the Father as this relationship is crucial. Where Jesus leads we should follow his example, and stay close to God in prayer. We tell God our hopes and fears and listen for Him to speak to us. Prayer precedes both the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes and the Walking on Water. When we start with prayer, we can let God do wonderful things.
When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.
It’s getting dark, and the disciples are out in the middle of the lake, in deep water; will the boat sink, what can they do? The Sea of Galilee can be a treacherous place, and they are afraid. Then something happens.
And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
The disciples cannot believe that they are seeing Jesus, they think that it is a ghost, not a human being. But it is Jesus, and He encourages them, His presence can give them confidence. Once again, Jesus tells the disciples, and He tells us, ‘Paid ag ofni’ not to be afraid, not to fear the world, but to trust in Him.
Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’
As usual, Peter is the first to react, he takes the lead. Jesus speaks a single word to him, ‘Come’. He speaks it to each and every one of us as Christians, to come, to follow Him. We are called to be close to Jesus, and to live out our faith in our lives strengthened by prayer. Will we trust Jesus enough to follow Him? This is the challenge of the Christian life, our challenge to accept Jesus’ invitation and walk with Him.
“So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.’
Peter listens to what Jesus says, and obeys Him. Peter does something miraculous, something extraordinary: he walks on water, until he is distracted by the world around him, and becomes frightened. Likewise, in the power of God, we can do wonderful things, if we are not distracted by the cares of the world around us. If we listen to what Jesus tells us and do it.
But Peter becomes frightened; he starts to sink, as do we all when the cares of this world overwhelm us. His reaction is to cry ‘Lord, save me’ which Jesus does. Indeed, through Christ’s offering of himself upon the Cross Jesus saves each and every one of us, taking the sin of the world upon Himself so that we might be freed from sin, fear, and death. That same sacrifice will be made present, so that we the people of God, can be fed by God, to be strengthened to have life in Him, to be close to Him.
Peter is rebuked for lacking faith, he still has to learn to trust Jesus. We too need to trust God, to have faith in Him, so that He can be at work in us and through us.
Once the wind has died down, the disciples bow down and worship Jesus, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’ Our fulfilment is worship. This is what we are made for as humans and as Christians. We are to worship God, in our love and our prayer, so that our whole lives are an act of worship, drawing us ever closer to the source of life and love. So that all we say or think or do may proclaim God’s love and truth to the world, so that they may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever. Amen.
The Eighteenth Sunday of Year A (Mt 14:13-21) The Feeding of the Five Thousand
I must admit that our readings this morning have unsettled me somewhat. The joyful character of both Isaiah and the account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in Matthew’s Gospel seem far removed from how life is here and now for many people. The feelings of hope, joy, celebration, and social interaction, are far removed from the fear and concern which have been characterising our daily lives. And yet, despite our fears, there remains in Scripture a promise of hope for the future, as God says in the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Paid ag ofni, Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’ (Isa 43:1). We respond in trust, not that things are fine now, but that they will be. God is someone whom we can trust, who will never disappoint us. As the Psalmist says, ‘our hope and strength, a very present help in trouble’ (Ps 46:1) if we cast our burden upon Him, He will sustain us (cf. Ps 55:22).
In our first reading this morning we hear God’s generous promise to His people. In the manner of a market trader God offers nourishment and refreshment, but not for profit! It is free! God offers water, wine, milk, and bread, food to nourish us, and drink to refresh us. It is a foretaste of the banquet of the Kingdom, in the Eucharist, where we are nourished and fed by God. The passage speaks of God’s covenant with His people, a relationship of love, that we can trust. God, who knows our needs, freely gives to his people love and grace, so that they may have life in all in all its fullness. These promises are fulfilled in Christ, who makes an everlasting covenant with us through His Body and His Blood.
God’s generosity is freely offered, but it can be rejected. We see this in our second reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Unlike the joy and optimism of the previous chapter which we heard last week, here are Israelites who reject Christ and cause St Paul great sorrow and anguish. The rejection of God’s generosity is painful, but it is the price of freedom. We cannot be compelled to accept what God offers, that would not be generous. Instead, we are free to accept or reject what God holds out for us.
Picture the scene: Jesus has just been told that his cousin, John the Baptist, has been put in prison and killed. Jesus has lately been to Nazareth, where he was rejected, by the very people who should have accepted him. It is not for nothing that this morning’s Gospel passage begins with Jesus withdrawing to the desert: to be alone, to pray, to be close to God.
When the people hear where Jesus has gone they follow him, they walk out from the towns into the desert, wanting to see Jesus, and to hear him teach them. When Jesus gets out of the boat he sees a great mass of people and has compassion on them. He is moved by the sight of them, and their need. Jesus heals the sick to show that the Kingdom of God is a place of healing, where humanity can be restored through an encounter with the divine. Jesus’ actions and words proclaim the power of God to heal and restore humanity.
It is getting late, the sun is fast moving towards the West, and the disciples tell him to send the crowds away so that they can buy food. Instead Jesus says that the people do not need to go away, and tells the disciples to give them something to eat. The disciples obey Him, but cannot see how five loaves and two fish can possibly feed the thousands of people who have come to be close to Jesus.
The five loaves represent the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Books of the Law, the Torah, which show Israel how to live, and how to love God. The two fish represent the Law and the Prophets, so that, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ (Mt 4:4) The law and the Prophets point to Jesus, the Word made flesh: they find their fulfilment and true meaning in Him. The hopes of Israel, for the future, for a Messiah, are fulfilled in Him. Just like Israel after crossing the Red Sea here the People of God are fed by God in the desert. There is so much food left over at the end that there is enough to fill twelve baskets, one for each of the disciples, and for each tribe of Israel. In human terms, five loaves and two fish is not enough to feed everyone, but it is more than sufficient in divine terms. Just like at the Wedding feast in Cana, here we see that the Kingdom of God is a place of joy and abundance, of generosity, which isn’t concerned with scrimping or with the ‘good enough’,rather it is a place of lavish excess. This is what the church is supposed to be like: this is meant to be the model for our lives as Christians.
The multiplication of the loaves is not some conjuring trick, meant to amaze us, or to show us how powerful God is. It is a sign of God’s generous love for humanity. This is what God does for us, so that we can respond in a profound and radical way, and thereby change the world. Jesus has been rejected by the people of Nazareth and He responds by feeding people until they are satisfied, until they have had enough, and there is still plenty left over. Likewise, God’s love and mercy are inexhaustible, and are shown and poured out upon the world in Jesus Christ and in his death upon the Cross for our salvation.
Jesus takes the bread and fish, He blesses them, He breaks them and He gives them, actions which look forward to the Last Supper on the night before He died. Jesus told His disciples to carry on doing this in remembrance of Him, so that the Church could continue to be fed by Him and with Him, as a sign of His love for us, so that we might have life and forgiveness in Him.
Let us today be fed with the living bread, the bread which came down from heaven, so that it may feed our souls, so that we may be healed and restored by him. Let us be moved by the lavish generosity of God, and encouraged to live it out in our lives, in our thoughts, our words, and our actions, so that all that we are, all that we say or think or do, will proclaim the truth of God’s saving love to the world, so that we too can enter into the joy of the Lord and come to the banquet of the Kingdom, where all are welcomed, and healed.
Filled with God’s grace, may we live generously and encourage others to share in the generosity of the Kingdom, so that all come to believe believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever. Amen.
Easter IV (The Good Shepherd)
We mark time: day and night, weeks, months, years, and seasons. The Church’s Liturgical Year is a very good thing indeed. It divides up time and it focusses our attention on certain things: allowing us the time to contemplate the mysteries of the Christian Faith. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an event which requires serious contemplation. We need time to let it sink in, and to explore what it means for us and our faith. It is the defining moment of our faith, one which gives Christians the hope that our death is not the end, that this life is not all that there is, and that because of who Christ is, namely God, and what He has done: died for us to take away our sin, and rise again to give us the hope of eternal life in Him.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus says of himself, ‘I am the Good Shepherd’ It discloses something important about Who and What He is — Jesus is one who tends, who looks after His sheep. The Jews in the Temple for the celebration of Hanukkah in the Gospel don’t seem to have been listening. Jesus has told them clearly and they do not believe that He is the Messiah. What Christ does in the Gospels testifies to Who and What He is: the Word made flesh, God with us.
Those of us who are in the Church, through our Baptism belong to Christ, we are His. So we are to listen to what Jesus tells us, in the words of Scripture and through prayer. Jesus knows us and we know him — in word and sacrament, through the outpouring of His grace, and so we follow Christ, we do what He tells us to do: to love, to forgive each other. We are humble, we don’t think of ourselves as better than we are, we know our need of, and our dependance upon God. We put our faith into practice in our lives, so that it becomes a reality in the world.
Christ offers us eternal life, as we share in His death, so we too share in His Resurrection, and are assured of eternal life with Him, something wonderful and freely given, and a reason why we, as the Church, celebrate Easter in an extravagant and exuberant way, because it is a sign that God loves us, and saves us. We are sharing in that Eternal Life here and now, as we are nourished by Him, in Word and Sacrament, strengthened by Him, to live His risen life, here and now.
In Revelation, as St John experiences heavenly worship he states, ‘For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ (Revelation 7:17 ESV). The Lamb will be our shepherd: Christ will care for us, and keep us safe. A Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep as Christ has done through His Death and Resurrection. To drink living water is to experience the fulness of life in God, filled with the Holy Spirit. Christ guides us to that in our baptism, when we are filled with the Spirit and made part of the Church.
So we listen to Christ’s voice, in the Bible. We hear Him speak to us, and through this we listen to Him, and obey Him. That is how we know Christ and follow Him. It affects who we are and how we live, as people of love, loved by God. We are prepared here on earth for the life of heaven, for worship, and closeness to God. We have a foretaste of that closeness in Holy Communion where Christ feeds us with His Body and Blood, so that we may be transformed by it, more and more into His likeness. It changes us, so that we, by the grace of God, in the power of His Holy Spirit, may become what we are: made in the image of God. That image is restored in us by Christ’s death and resurrection. Through it we come to share in the intimacy of the divine life. As Christ says, ‘I and the Father are one.’ (John 10:30 ESV) As Michael Ramsay said, ‘God is Christlike, and in him is no un-Christlikeness at all’ [God, Christ & the World: A Study in Contemporary Theology, London 1969, 98] When we see Jesus, we see God, when we hear Him speak, we hear the voice of God. We can know who God is, the creator and redeemer of the universe, through His Son, Jesus Christ. God is no longer distant, or an angry man on a cloud, but a loving Father, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and a Son who loves us so much that He suffers and dies for us, to give us life in Him. This is God who goes after lost sheep, who longs to love and heal and reconcile, who can heal our wounds if we let Him.
God loves us; we can say this with the utmost confidence because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it all proclaims the same truth: God loves us, not because we’re worthy of it, but so that we might become what God is. It is what we celebrate at Easter, it lies at the heart, the very core of our faith as Christians. It’s why we are what we are, and why we do what we do, to proclaim this simple truth to the world.
We can have peace through our relationship with the Trinity, the source of our peace, and joy, and love. Grounded in this relationship we need not be afraid or troubled – we are free to live lives which proclaim God’s love and victory so that the world may believe. Through God loving us, we can truly love him and each other. We experience this most clearly at the Eucharist when Christ feeds us with His Body and Blood, which He as both priest and victim offers on the Altar of the Cross. That self same sacrifice which heals the world through the outpouring of God’s love feeds us here and now. We are fed so that we may be nourished and share in the divine life and the joy of heaven. We receive the free gift of God’s grace so that it may perfect our human nature, so that we may go where Our Lord is going, and share in the joy, and love, and peace of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.
Easter 2020 [John 20:1-9]
Easter is for Christians a time of celebration, a feast which we continue to celebrate for fifty days until Pentecost. We do this because it is the most important day of the year for us, because Jesus Christ not only died for us on the Cross, but rose again from the dead. For Christians Death does not have the last word, it is not the end, quite the opposite, it is the start of New Life.
We are used to hearing the proclamation of the Easter message, to the point that we can run the risk of becoming immune to the strangeness of what we are celebrating. Easter is odd: bodies don’t usually rise from tombs. In today’s Gospel, Mary of Magdala simply cannot understand what is going on. St Peter goes into the tomb and sees the cloths lying there, but only the other disciple, St John, both sees and believes, because he looks with the eyes of faith. John has listened to what Jesus has said, and understands what has happened, and how it has been foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. He sees and understands because he LOVES.
This Easter we are not able to worship together, as we usually do. Instead, for our own safety and the safety of others, we have to worship on our own. But this does not mean that our worship ceases, not at all. This is a hard and a painful time for all of us, because as Christians we are a family, we worship TOGETHER. But while we are not able to do this together physically, we can still be united spiritually. So what can we do? We can read scripture, and we can pray: for the church, for the world, for each other, for all dealing with the current pandemic, for the sick and suffering, and for the dead and dying. We do this because God hears our prayers, and because prayer changes us. It makes us more loving, more generous, more forgiving, and more keen to seek forgiveness.
This is how we grow in faith, and we can do it whether we are together, or we are apart. It is difficult in this current isolation, but it is by no means impossible. We are an Easter people, and ‘Alleluia’ is our song. We are called to rejoice, regardless of what is happening, regardless of what we may face in this life, because the source of our joy is God, as the prophet Nehemiah says, ‘Go on your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ (Nehemiah 8:10 ESV) God does not disappoint us, and Christ’s resurrection is as true today as it ever was. Christ has conquered sin and death, and risen victorious from the grave, breaking down the bars of Hell and leading souls to Heaven, so we rejoice. As St Paul writes to the Church in Rome: ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8:35-39 ESV) So, my brothers and sisters in Christ, ‘Pasg hapus i chi gyd!’ ‘A Happy Easter to you all!’ May the joy and peace of the Risen Lord fill your hearts and lives, both now and always. Amen.
If you wish to, you can make a Spiritual Communion: the means of grace by which someone, prevented from sharing in a celebration of the Eucharist, nonetheless shares in the communion of Jesus Christ. Please pray the prayer below:
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.
Lent II
We can often find ourselves in situations in which we would rather not be. The current corona virus outbreak is one such example. We feel powerless and scared, the future is uncertain, and panic can easily ensue. There are things we can do, precautions we can take, washing our hands being the main one. We can also pray for all those affected, and trust God to be with us in this troubling time.
In our first reading this morning God makes some large demands of Abram, to leave his native land, his nearest and dearest, what he knows and is most familiar with, to go on a journey, and to trust God. He has no idea where he is going, or what is going to happen, but Abram puts his trust in God, knowing that God has promised that Abram will be blessed and a blessing to others. God likewise calls each and every one of us to follow Him, and trust Him. This is not easy at all, but it is what God calls each and every one of us to do.
Likewise St Paul writing to Timothy while under house arrest in Rome, facing a trial that will lead to his death, is in a difficult situation. He is a prisoner of the Lord, who sees his own suffering as a sharing in the suffering of Christ. In this he is united with Christ and enters into Christ’s Passion, and through the power of God’s suffering love experiences true glory. What was true for St Paul is true for us.
In the Gospel, Jesus has just explained to His disciples that He must suffer, die, and rise from the dead. He then takes Peter, James, and John with Him, and when they are alone Christ is transfigured. The disciples are given a glimpse of the glory of God, a glory that will be made manifest in Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection. Also at the moment of the Transfiguration the disciples hear the voice of God the Father. He tells us that Jesus is Jesus is the Son of God, that He is Beloved and God is pleased with Him, and that we should listen to Him. The key here is obedience, listening to what God says to us in prayer and scripture, and doing it. For God suffering and glory go together, and you cannot have one without the other, because the point is to demonstrate sacrificial love to the world, love which has the power to transform, and heal. Hence Jesus can tell His disciples to rise and have no fear, perfect love casts out fear. While fear is a proper response to the presence of God, God calls us in love to follow Him, and enter into the mystery of His love.
Jesus appears with Moses and Elijah to show His disciples and the Church that He is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. Scripture points to Him and finds its fulfilment in Him: He is the Messiah, the Son of God. Peter responds in a moment with a very human response, he knows that it is good to be here and it helps to change his life. His response points to the Feast of Tabernacles when Jews remembered the giving of the Law on Mt Sinai to Moses. But this experience is not to be prolonged, it is a glimpse of the future glory, a moment to be experienced, and not a place to dwell.
When God speaks he tells us three things about Jesus: He is the Son of God, He is loved and we should listen to Him –- what he says and does should affect us and our lives –- we have to be open to the possibility of being changed by God. Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone about this until after he has risen from the dead. The detail is important: Jesus will go up another mountain to suffer and die upon the cross, taking our sins upon Himself, restoring our relationship with God and each other. This is real glory -– not worldly glory but the glory of God’s sacrificial love poured out on the world to heal it and restore it.
“Three important scenes of Our Lord’s life took place on mountains. On one, He preached the Beatitudes, the practice of which would bring a Cross from the world; on the second, He showed the glory that lay beyond the Cross; and on the third, He offered Himself in death as a prelude to His glory and that of all who would believe in His name”
Fulton Sheen The Life of Christ 1970: 158
That is why we are here this morning –- to see the self same sacrifice here with our own eyes, to touch and to taste what God’s love is really like –- to go up the mountain and experience the glory of God, so that God’s love may transform us. We are given a foretaste of heaven, and prepared to be transformed by God. This is true glory –- the glory of the Cross, the glory of suffering love lavished upon the world. The Transfiguration looks to the Cross to help us prepare ourselves to live the life of faith. To help us to behold true majesty, true love and true glory –- the kind that can change the world and last forever, for eternity, not the fading glory of the world, here today and gone tomorrow, but something everlasting, wonderful.
So let us behold God’s glory, here, this morning, let us touch and taste God’s glory, let us prepare to be transformed by his love, through the power of His Holy Spirit, built up as living stones, a temple to God’s glory. As those who are healed, and restored, reconciled, and given a foretaste of eternal life with him, so may God take our lives and transform us, so that everything that we say, or think, or do, may proclaim him, let us tell the world about Him, so that it too may believe and trust and have new life in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple
Once upon a time it was not uncommon to hear of the Churching of Women, sometimes called Thanksgiving after Childbirth, as it was a dangerous and risky business. We are perhaps now not quite so used to ideas of ritual purity inherent in the Thanksgiving for a woman after Childbirth, or her re-admission into society after a period of confinement. But the Law of Moses required that forty days after giving birth the mother was purified in a mikvah, a ritual bath. The law also required that her son, as a first-born male, was presented to the Lord, and sacrifices were made. Today the Church celebrates the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and commonly called Candlemas. The name is derived from the ceremonies which saw the candles for the coming year blessed at this service, so that they may burn as lights which proclaim Christ, the true Light, the light to lighten the Gentiles. They are different titles, but one feast, which make us think about who and what Jesus Christ is, and what he does.
This feast then is the fulfilment of the prophecy spoken by Malachi in our first reading, which also looks to our purification in and through the death of Christ and His atoning sacrifice of Himself, which will be be re-presented here, made present so that we can share in it, so that we can be healed and restored by the very Body and Blood of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it:
‘Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.’
It is hard to see how it could be any clearer. Just as Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac on Mt Moriah, so now God will gladly give His only Son, Jesus Christ, on the altar of the Cross, to restore our relationship with Him.
The Holy Family go to the Temple to give thanks to God and to comply with the Law, just as they had in circumcising their baby on the eighth day: and in so doing they demonstrate obedience, they listen to what God says and do it and as such they are a model for all Christian families to follow — we need to be like them, listening to what God tells us and doing it, regardless of the cost.
When the Holy Family go to the Temple they encounter Simeon, a man of faith and holiness. A man devoted to God, who is looking for the consolation of Israel. He knows that he will not die until he sees the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, and the Saviour of the World. As he takes the child Jesus in his arms he prays: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.’
The promise made to him by God, revealed through the Holy Spirit, has been fulfilled in the six-week-old infant in his arms. Simeon can prepare to meet his God happy in the knowledge that Salvation has dawned in this little child. As Christ was made manifest to the Gentiles at Epiphany, so now His saving message is proclaimed, so that the world may know that its salvation has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Simeon speaks to the Blessed Virgin Mary of her Son’s future, and the pain she will endure at the foot of the Cross. Before he dies Simeon is looking to the Cross, the means by which our salvation is wrought, the Cross at which Mary will stand to see humanity freed from its sin through the love and mercy of God, through grace, the free gift of God in Christ. So as Candlemas concludes our celebration of Christmas, and the mystery of the Incarnation, so to it points to that which gives it its true meaning: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Candlemas prepares for the coming season of Lent by changing our focus and attention from Jesus’ birth to His death, for our sins.
That is why we are here this morning, to be fed by Christ, to be fed with Christ, truly present in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. A God whom we can touch and taste. A God who shares His Divine Life with us, so that we can be transformed by Him, built up as living stones as a temple to His Glory, and given a foretaste of Heaven here on Earth. This is our soul’s true food, the bread for the journey of faith, which sets us free to live for Him, to live with Him, through Him and in Him.
The significance of what is happening is not just recognised by Simeon, but also by Anna, a holy woman, a woman of prayer, a woman who is close to God, she recognises what God is doing in Christ, and she proclaims it, so that God’s redemption of His people may be known. Let us be like her, and let all of our lives, everything which we say, or think, or do, proclaim the saving truth of God’s love to the world.
And finally the Holy Family go back to Nazareth, and Jesus begins to grow up, in the favour of God, obedient to God and His parents in the Gospel we see all of human life: birth, death, work, normality hallowed by the God who loves us, who gives His Son for us. God shares our human life, as He will share our death, to restore us, to heal us,
So let us burn, like the candles which God has blessed, let our faith be active to give light and warmth and hope to the world, so that it may feel that love and warmth, and come to believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever, Amen.
Remembrance 2019
We are gathered here on this special day to do a number of things together. First and foremost we give thanks for the safe deliverance of these islands from the World Wars of the previous century. These were wars on a scale never before seen. The first was supposed to be the ‘war to end all wars’, yet within twenty years a greater conflict began which brought even more death and suffering to millions across the world. Hardly a day has gone by in the past century when there has not been a conflict somewhere in our world.
It is now one hundred years since we first marked the anniversary of the Armistice by stopping in silence for two minutes, and praying: in remembrance of all those who gave their lives for our country, and for all who suffer as a result of war. For one hundred years we have engaged in a public act of remembrance.
In 1919 the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, commissioned a cenotaph (which means empty tomb) to stand in Whitehall, London, as a focus for an act of remembrance, when most of the war dead lay buried overseas. The original wood and plaster structure, designed by Sir Edward Lutyens, was only intended to stand for one week, but it proved so popular that a permanent one was created in Portland Stone ready for the 1920 Armistice Day.
Since 1919, the Cenotaph has become the central focus for national commemoration especially during the National Service of Remembrance held on Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday nearest to 11th November. Its meaning has developed and the Cenotaph now memorialises those who have given their lives in all conflicts since the First World War.
Throughout the country, local memorials were erected to remember the dead of the First and then the Second World War. Like the Cenotaph in London, these became the focus for local Remembrance ceremonies and we keep this tradition here in Maenclochog today, starting our Remembrance Service outside at our Village War Memorial.
Our act of remembrance is not simply to recall a past event, or to bring the dead to mind, but something more. By remembering today, the sacrifice of countless men and women, we continue to show our thanks for the peace and prosperity which we now enjoy.
We give thanks for to all those who have served, and continue to serve this country, both at home and abroad, and for the continuing work of the Royal British Legion in supporting veterans and their families. As a country we have asked much of our sons and daughters, and we continue so to do. ‘Cariad mwy na hwn nid oes gan neb; sef, bod i un roi ei einioes dros ei gyfeillion.’ ‘Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends’ (Jn 15:13). They died that we might live.
Their sacrifice calls to mind another sacrifice, made on a hill outside Jerusalem, ‘ble bu farw ein Harglwydd Iesu Grist drosom ni’. We remember this sacrifice too, as Jesus died for us. It is the heart of the Christian Faith, and the greatest demonstration possible of the saving power of love.
Love is at the heart of remembrance. Our human love comes from God, the source of all love. This love has the power to heal wounds, to comfort grief and loss. One hundred years on from the end of the First World War, the world still needs healing. This is beyond our capabilities as human beings. We need God’s help. Our God loves us, and longs to heal our wounds. He gave His Son to die for us, on the Cross, a painful death at the hands of enemy soldiers. Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead. His tomb was empty, and just as with the empty Cenotaph in London we are reminded that death is not the end. The Christian belief in the Resurrection of the dead and the life to come gives us all hope.
On the first Remembrance Day, one hundred years ago, two minutes silence was introduced. At 11 o’clock, as well as remembering the fallen, we take time to pray for peace. There are two words for peace in Welsh, ‘heddwch’, and ‘tangnefedd’. The first, ‘heddwch’ means an end to hostilities, the Armistice ceasefire which we celebrate today. But ‘tangnefedd’, the other kind of peace, is something far deeper and richer. It is the peace of God, the shalom of the Hebrew Old Testament. This is the gift of God, a feeling of wholeness, which brings about healing. So when Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’ ‘Gwyn eu byd y tangnefeddwyr: canys hwy a elwir yn blant i Dduw’ (Mt 5:9) He is envisaging something both radical and world-changing: something which heals, which forgives, and which loves. Today we commit ourselves to making peace a reality: here and now — in our community, in our families, in our relationships, in what we are, in what we say, and in what we do. We can never be too busy to do this. When we take the path of peace we honour the memory of those who gave their lives so that we might live.
So let us therefore commit ourselves to help create the peace which Christ came to bring, for the glory of God, and the good of all human kind. Our Lord Jesus Christ has shown us another way to live — the way of love and gentleness. In memory of what Christ did here on earth, and continues to do, we can experience the peace of the Kingdom of God, where wounds are healed and divisions are reconciled. Today we give our thanks for those who sacrificed themselves for us, and we honour their memory by treasuring the peace won at so great a cost.
Almighty God, hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all whom we remember this day. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Trinity 18
What’s the point of it all? It’s a question people ask, and thankfully the church has an answer. Humanity exists to love God and serve him in this life, and to enjoy Him in the next. We are made for worship. Nothing else matters: work, family, friends. They’re not bad in themselves, but compared to our relationship with God, they are secondary. Worshipping God is a way of saying that God is the most important thing in our lives. We love God more than our family, our friends, even ourselves. It’s radical and counter-cultural, because it says that our immortal soul matters more than wealth, or power, or prestige. What we are doing is the most important thing we can ever do. It’s what we are made for. To worship God.
In the first reading this morning from Exodus we see what prayer can achieve. Our life is a battle, just like that fought between Israel and the Amalekites. And we can conquer in spiritual matters by keeping our arms raised in prayer, and helping others by supporting them. The church is a community where we help each other, where we bear each other’s burdens. We pray for ourselves and others, and we are prayed for, so that all around the world, every moment of every day, we are surrounded and upheld by Christians praying for us, not to change God’s mind, but to change us.
It is something which Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy shows us is something we need to learn, to believe, and to continue doing. Prayer isn’t grand, it’s a bit of a slog, it takes a lifetime. It has to be taught, it is what preaching is for. Teaching the faith, and telling people who Jesus is (the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary) and what He does (preaches repentance, the forgiveness of sins, dies on the Cross, and rises again). It is easy to pervert this into a message which makes few demands upon us, that says, “yes, you’re all fine, you don’t need to do anything”. Christianity makes demands of us. We have to do certain things, which we might prefer not to do, and not do things we might rather like to do. We all need to reminded about this regularly, to help us stay on track. This also helps us to pray well together.
In this morning’s Gospel Jesus teaches us ‘to pray and not lose heart’ (Lk 18:1) It is important advice. Especially when times are difficult. He teaches us with a parable. There is an unjust judge. He’s corrupt, and he’s fed up, so he gives in, for a quiet life, with the result that the widow receives what is right. God can indeed use many things The point is that the widow is persistent: she keeps on, so that he has to listen to her in the end. So likewise Christian prayer should be unceasing. The widow’s prayers turn wickedness and injustice into mercy and justice. Likewise our prayers do not change God, but instead they change us. That’s the point of prayer not to change God’s mind, but to change us, into what God wants us to be. Persistent prayer can, and will change us. It is how saints are made: through prayer. It takes WORK, but it is wonderful, and worth it.
The parable reminds us that God hears prayer. He may not always answer it in a way we might like. Sometimes God says no, or not yet, which we might not want to hear. It teaches us patience and wisdom, and even if we suffer, we grow through it. Our growth in holiness can be painful and difficult. In the first reading from Exodus, Moses is clearly tired, he has to be held up by Aaron and Hur. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he is not advising something popular, but something unpopular, that people will not want to hear.
The Gospel ends with the question (v. 8): ‘Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ It’s an important question. If we look at statistics, then people in this country are becoming less religious. Fewer people have faith. There are many reasons for this, and this is not the place to explore them. Solutions are likewise not simple, or straightforward. We can do many things, but we need to make sure that our own faith is strong and attractive, and be prepared to bear witness to it, regardless of the cost. Our faith can only be attractive when it is REAL. This is what will encourage people to follow our example, and come to know and love Jesus Christ. Only in this way can real living faith be transferred so then when Christ comes, as He surely will, He will find faith on earth. So let us trust Christ, knowing that His promises are true, that He feeds us with His Body and Blood in the Eucharist to give us life in Him. Let us love the one who loves us, who gave His life for us, to take away our sins, to heal us and restore us. And healed and restored by Him, let us bear witness to Him, so that the world may come to believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.
Homily for Trinity XVII
It can be very easy to look around the church and find bickering and quarrelling. People argue, they argue about words, and what they mean. It is an easy thing to do, and especially in matters of faith, where emotion runs deep. It matters. But it isn’t just a modern problem. It runs through the history of the church, and goes right back to our epistle this morning. From the earliest days of the church people have argued, and we need to be mindful of Paul’s words to Timothy: ‘Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers’ (IITim2:14). Paul writes these words from a prison cell. He is about to be tried for preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. He encourages Timothy to be steadfast in the face of persecution, to endure. What really matters is ‘rightly handling the word of truth’ (v.15) not selling people short, or telling them that everything is going to be ok, and you don’t have to do anything. It isn’t. To be a Christian is to face persecution, especially from those who twist Scripture to suit their own ends, not to warn people where they are going wrong, but instead to lull them into a false sense of security, which leads to destruction.
So what do we do? Firstly we don’t panic. All is not lost. To follow Christ is to risk being uncomfortable. It is to be in places where one would rather not be, but to trust God, and to live generously. In our first reading this morning from the Second Book of Kings we see Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army. He has been afflicted with leprosy, and he hears that there is a prophet in Samaria who can cure him. He writes to the King of Israel, to ask for the prophet to heal him. The King of Israel thinks that it is a trick, an excuse for the Syrians to start a war against Israel. The prophet Elisha reassures the king, and asks for Naaman to be sent to him. Elisha tells Naaman to wash seven times in the River Jordan. Naaman can’t believe his ears. He’s angry. This isn’t what healing is all about, it is far too simple, too easy. The point isn’t about having to do something difficult, but letting God do something wonderful. But eventually Naaman listens, and is obedient, and is healed. He goes back to Elisha to say that ‘Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel’(v.17) Naaman is grateful, and comes to believe in God. The mention of washing in the Jordan reminds us of Baptism, how we were washed clean from sin, and given new life in Christ Jesus, sharing His Death and Resurrection, a sign of God’s generous love towards us.
In this morning’s Gospel Jesus is in border country. He’s somewhere uncomfortable, heading towards Jerusalem, towards His Passion and Death. Ten lepers see Him, and cry, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us’. Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to a priest, to prove that they are now clean, no longer outcasts. Jesus complies with the law of Moses in Leviticus. The law commands them to sacrifice in order to be healed. Christ heals them, so that God might be glorified.
One of them returns to say, ‘Thank you’. The leper thanks God, and falls at Jesus’ feet. He shows gratitude. We wouldn’t want to live in a world where no-one said, ‘Thank you’. It would be rude. People would be selfish. They would expect things. Thanksgiving is the heart of prayer, it’s why we celebrate Harvest in Autumn. We thank each other, but most importantly we thank God for what He has done for us. Thanksgiving goes hand in hand with faith, what we believe, where we put our trust.
As Christians we thank God for many things, but first and foremost for what He has done in His Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us. It’s why we celebrate the Eucharist, because Jesus told us to, and so that we might be fed with His Body and Blood. Not because we have earned it, not because we deserve it, but so that we, like the lepers in Gospel, might be healed by Jesus. It is medicine for our sick souls, not a gold star or a prize for the righteous. Christ gives himself for us not because we are worthy, but so that we might BECOME worthy through Him. Salvation is God’s work not ours, as Naaman and the lepers show us. God in Christ saves us and heals us. He dies for us, and rises again so that we might share His Risen life. This is true generosity. And we can receive God’s healing love here and now. We can prepare to be transformed into His likeness, by His body and Blood, which cures not only lepers, but our sin-sick souls. So let us be thankful to God, for all that he has done for us, giving us His Son, to bring about healing, to show mercy, to strengthen our faith. And may we follow Christ, and walk His Way of the Cross, enduring whatever sufferings come our way, with the assurance of faith. May we know that Christ will never abandon us. His words are true. His promise is faithful: ‘if we endure, we will also reign with Him …. if we are faithless, He remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself’ (IITim 2: 12-13) Let us follow where Christ has gone before, confident in His promises, nourished with His Body and Blood, from the shadows and images of this world, into the light of His Truth, who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. Let us proclaim that truth to the world so that it may come to believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.
Homily for Trinity XII
At one level things could not be simpler: we have a choice between life and prosperity or death and adversity. It all depends on whether we love God, obey His commandments and walk in His ways, or go after false gods and die. This morning’s first reading from Deuteronomy presents us with the choice at the heart of the moral life. Do we walk in the way which leads to human flourishing or not? In the short term it is more challenging, but the pay off in the long term is clearly worth it. There is also the simple fact that it is the right thing to do. It may seem a little old fashioned, but as Christians we do things because they are right, not because they are easy. Also we do them TOGETHER. Our religion is a corporate matter, and not just an individual choice.
What we do and how we live affects other people, and this is nowhere more apparent than in this morning’s reading from Paul’s Letter to Philemon. The Apostle is writing to a fellow Christian, sending back to him his slave, Onesimus. The letter encourages Philemon to be generous and loving and to treat Onesimus not like a slave, but like a beloved brother. There is at the heart of the Christian Faith a radical equality. We are all the same, you and I, and all human distinctions of class, wealth, or status disappear, because we are all one in Christ. It’s a radical, counter-cultural message, the same nowadays as it was two thousand years ago. It encourages us to live differently, not conformed to the ways of the world, but living in the love and freedom of the Gospel, which while it looks like slavery is in fact the most liberating way to live.
The Christian faith can appear paradoxical. We are called to love our enemies, but also to hate our parents, our family, our nearest and dearest. It seems strange, and it is. Our Lord uses strong and disturbing language to shock us, and remind us that in Him we are called to a new relationship which takes us away from traditional social structures, so that we can see everyone in the Church as our brother and sister, and that our primary responsibility is to love Christ, and follow Him, imitating Him, and taking up our own Cross.
While our mother gives us life, it is holy mother Church who, through Christ gives us eternal life, and feeds us not with earthly food, but heavenly food, food which lasts for ever, food which strengthens us to live the life of faith: the Eucharist.
It is why we gather week by week, to hear God’s word read and explained, to pray together, and to be nourished together. We do this so that we may grow together in love, and also so that we might embrace the Cross, having died with Christ in our baptism, and being raised to new life with Him, we live out our faith in our lives. Our discipleship is costly and difficult, it calls us to renounce the world and rely upon God, together, as a community of faith. A new community where old ties and distinctions are done away with, where we have a new identity, and are called to a higher purpose.
It’s difficult, and for two thousand years the Church has been trying to do it, and failing. But ours is a God who forgives sins and failings, who understands humanity from the inside, we are not written off, or cast aside. We are not abandoned or discarded, because we are all made in God’s image, people of infinite intrinsic value. Christ died for us, to give us eternal life, to heal our wounds. He calls us to follow Him, so that we may find His freedom, and share in His triumph over death and sin.
We are called to something great and wonderful, to stand, like Christ as a contradiction, offering the world a new way to live, a way of life not of death. A way of generosity and not of selfishness, renouncing the world to embrace the freedom, joy, and life of the Kingdom of God.
It is truly liberating to look at the world and say that it doesn’t really matter. All that really does is loving God, and loving our neighbour. It can be difficult, especially when times are uncertain, but we know that we can trust the God who loves us, who gives His life for us, who comes to us to feed us with Himself. So let us come and follow him and invite others to do so, so that all may sing the praises of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen.
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity Year C
Ours are certainly interesting times in which to live. But as Our Lord says in this morning’s Gospel, ‘Do not be afraid’ (Lk 12:32) or as the Lord says to Abram ‘Do not be afraid…I am your shield’ (Gen 15:1). We can put our trust in one who will not abandon us, a God who loves us.
In our first reading this morning we see how Abram trusts in God to continue his household. It is an example of faith, of trusting the promises and providence of God, even when the situation looks bleak.
In our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear words addressed to a community of believers facing persecution, who are tempted not to believe in Jesus, and revert to their former Jewish faith. The author has explained that Christ is our great High Priest, and that His Sacrifice has atoned for our sins. In today’s passage we hear an overview of salvation history from the creation of the universe to the time of the patriarchs. Just as the people of Israel sought to return from their exile in Egypt, we too seek our eternal homeland: heaven. We ‘desire a better country, that is a heavenly one’ and we trust that our real homeland is in Heaven with God. This is the end of our journey of faith; a better place where the worries of this world are cast aside.
In this morning’s Gospel Jesus comforts his followers. It reminds us that the Church began small. Two thousand years later it looks huge. We may feel that we are only a tiny part of it, that we are not big enough, and that is ok. When the Church began it was fragile and faithful, a flock uncertain of what the future would hold. But God loved the early Christians, just as He loves us, and longs to see us flourish. God gives us the Kingdom, a realm where where God is in charge, and we live lives of freedom, love, and fulfilment. The kingdom is a place of generosity, where gifts are shared. It looks radically different to the world around us, where wealth, status, power, and possessions matter, and give people value. But these are in Luke’s words ‘purses that wear out.’ In the kingdom of God, on the other hand, all of humanity has infinite value and dignity. This is because we are all made in the image and likeness of God. This is what gives us value, and not any other reason. God pours out His Grace upon the church freely, out of love, so that humanity might flourish, and have life in all its fulness.
Christians have the hope of heaven, of sharing in the divine nature, together, with the saints. To be united with love itself, the love that created all that is. The love which redeemed us through the Suffering, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. That is why the second part of our Gospel reading this morning tells us to be prepared and ready for Our Lord’s Return.
Jesus, having ascended to the right hand of God the Father in Heaven will return, as our Saviour and as Judge of all. Should we be afraid? Jesus tells us constantly not to be afraid. There is a choice for the hereafter: Heaven or Hell. It is up to us: what we believe and how we live our lives. The central message in the proclamation of the Kingdom is ‘Repent and Believe’. We can choose to turn away from sin, to turn to God, believe in Him, and live our lives accordingly. Or we can choose not to. We have a greater choice to make, which lasts for ever. Do we trust in a God who loves us so much that His Only Son died for us. Do we gather at this altar and receive the Eucharist so that we may be transformed by Him?
If we do these things, we will open ourselves to living the Christian Life. The faith of our hearts will affect who we are and what we do. We can be filled with joy as we await a judge who comes in mercy and love. One who heals our wounds, and restores in us the image of the God who not only created us but all that exists. Our Christian faith leads us to action, which can transform the world around us, so that God’s kingdom becomes a reality, here and now. For where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. What greater treasure is there than eternal life in heaven with God? This is offered to us freely. Nothing this world proffers comes close. It is all fleeting: wealth, power, privilege, do not last. But we can trust in the eternal promise of a God who loves us, and we can be ready to greet Him, when he comes again. Through the power of Christ’s sacrificial Death we have the hope of heaven and the assurance of sins forgiven. This is GOOD NEWS. It helps us see the vanity of the world for what it is.
We all need to be ready for Jesus, when He comes. We don’t know when this will be, but we are told it will be late and when we do not expect. Also Jesus will not come as we might expect. Instead of appearing as a judge, as someone powerful, Jesus reconfigures our understanding of power and authority. Rather than being someone who expects to be served, Jesus will come again to continue to serve. God, the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all creation, will come and put on an apron and care for us. This image defies our expectation and understanding. It gives us a foretaste of the glory that is to come, where we will be transfigured like Our Lord, and experience the fulness of God’s kingdom.
But for this to take place we need to be careful, we need to be vigilant. Just because we don’t know when Jesus will return doesn’t mean that we can take things easy. Nor can we afford to be lax or lazy, and negligent in the way we treat others. That would be to go against the message of the Gospel. We need to both think and act as though Jesus will return NOW, during this very Eucharist to judge and serve us. As we will welcome His Eucharistic presence with open hands and open hearts, so all of our lives should be open and welcoming to Him. We need to prefer Jesus and His Kingdom to anything else, for where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. We can have no excuse for not choosing Jesus and His message of the Kingdom over the cares and concerns of this world. This is, of course, easier said than done, but if we, as a Christian community, support one another, then we can do this together. The Kingdom of God is not something we can bring about in isolation, or as individuals. We need to do it together, as the body of Christ, by building up a community of love, and encouraging one another.
What we believe and how we act together are a sign and symbol of our relationship with God and one another. So then, let us live lives together which proclaim the Gospel in word and deed, so that when Our Lord comes He may find us ready and doing his will, and singing the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
The Sunday before Lent (Exodus 34:29-35, 2Cor 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-36)
“Three important scenes of Our Lord’s life took place on mountains. On one, He preached the Beatitudes, the practice of which would bring a Cross from the world; on the second, He showed the glory that lay beyond the Cross; and on the third, He offered Himself in death as a prelude to His glory and that of all who would believe in His name”
Fulton Sheen The Life of Christ 1970: 158
Our readings this morning have an important message: being close to God changes you. At its heart Christianity is a religion of transformation: in the Incarnation Christ became what we are, so that we might become what He is. God doesn’t want us to stay as we are. God is active in the world, through the power of His Holy Spirit. When we encounter Him in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, and in the Sacraments, we are changed by that encounter. We become something which we were not before, our faith is deepened, we grow in holiness, and we reflect more fully the light of Him in whose image we were created.
In our reading from Exodus we see Moses’ encounter with God on Mt Sinai and its effects. The people of Israel are afraid to come near Moses because he reflects the divine radiance of God’s presence. He was to be veiled and covered because it was too much for them, they couldn’t cope. It is not so for us under the New Covenant. We have a hope, we can be bold, we can be near to Christ. He gives us the Eucharist, where we cannot only see the glory of God, but we can partake of His Very Self.
Our reading from Luke’s Gospel this morning begins on the eighth day, the first day of the Week, the day of the New Creation. Jesus and his closest apostles go up a mountain to pray. They go to be near God, and they experience the glory of God’s presence. Jesus talks with Moses and Elijah, often understood as the Law and the Prophets. They appear in glory, the glory of God’s presence, ‘and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Lk 9:31 RSVCE) They speak of Christ’s exodus, his departure from this life, and, after His Resurrection, His Ascension and return to the Father. They talk about Christ’s death, as He has already to His disciples. They are looking to the Cross as the final definitive manifestation of God’s Glory. As we prepare to enter Lent, a time of prayer and fasting, we too look to the Cross, our only hope, and all salvation history points to it. From Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, who is substituted by the ram in the thicket, a type of Christ, the Lamb of God, the bronze serpent lifted up in the desert, that those who look on it might live, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. Scripture points to the Cross, as the Transfiguration does, as a manifestation of God’s glory. It’s the culmination of salvation history. The Cross is the central point in the light of which everything makes sense. It gives us life, and joy, and fills us with love.
It may seem strange to see suffering and death as a manifestation of God’s Glory, but it is, because it demonstrates how much God loves us, and the healing and reconciliation which is achieved by it. It is painful, costly, and wonderful. The mystery of God’s love made manifest, for all to see. And because Christ is willing to undergo this for love of us, God can say, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ (Lk9:35 RSVCE). In Christ’s death we will see suffering transfigured by love, to make a new community of healing and reconciliation which is the Church. We, here, this morning, are part of the manifestation of God’s glory in the world. We have been changed by our encounter with God, in our Baptism and in the Eucharist, sharing His Death, and living His Risen life.
When God speaks at the Transfiguration He tells us three things about Jesus: he is the Son of God, he is loved and we should listen to him. He is God, he is loved, and filled with love, to pour it out upon us, we should listen to Him as He shows us how to have life in all its fulness. We should imitate Him. What he says and does should affect us and our lives, that’s why we are Christians. Because of this we have to be open to the possibility of being changed by God. It’s real. I know in my own life how God has been at work in it. I’ve changed and developed. It’s not easy or even pleasant, in fact it can be quite the opposite, and that’s the point. Being conformed to Christ, and sharing in His Passion is difficult, and costly, but we trust God to be at work in us, transforming us more and more into His likeness, preparing us for Heaven, and helping us to live as saints here in earth. The church takes sinners, and tries to make them saints, it’s what we’re for, it’s what we do, each and every one of us is called to this in our baptism.
That is why we are here this morning: to see the sacrifice here with our own eyes, to touch and to taste what God’s love is really like. We are here to go up the mountain and experience the glory of God, what God is really like, so that God’s love may transform us. We are given a foretaste of heaven, and prepared to be transformed by God. This is true glory: the glory of the Cross, the glory of suffering love lavished upon the world. The Transfiguration looks to the Cross to help us prepare for Lent, to begin a period of fasting and prayer, of spiritual spring cleaning, of getting back on track with God and each other, so that we may be prepared to celebrate Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, to behold true majesty, true love and true glory: the kind that can change the world and last forever. It’s for eternity, not like the fading glory of the world, here today and gone tomorrow, but something everlasting, and wonderful.
So let us behold God’s glory, here, this morning, let us touch and taste God’s glory, let us prepare to be transformed by his love, through the power of His Holy Spirit, built up as living stones, a temple to God’s glory. Healed, restored, and reconciled. Given a foretaste of eternal life with him, so that God may take our lives and transform us, so that everything that we say, or think, or do, may proclaim him, let us tell the world about him, so that it too may believe and trust and have new life in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
Christmas 2018
Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν·
Athanasius De Incarnatione Dei Verbi 54.3
‘He became human so that we might become divine’
Few of us here today have much experience of living under despotic regimes. We are fortunate indeed. A large part of humanity has not been so lucky, and even today there are plenty of people who are not able to come together as we do, to celebrate the wonderful news given by the angels to the shepherds outside Bethlehem. Peace on earth, and good will amongst men seem in fairly short supply. What can we do? We can pray, and we can worship Almighty God, who comes among us.
We have come here tonight to celebrate something which defies our understanding and expectations. The simple fact that the God who created all that is took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and was born for us in Bethlehem as the Messiah, the Anointed of God, who would save us from our sins, should still feel strange and odd. It simply doesn’t make sense, nor indeed should it. In human terms, Mary should have been stoned to death for extra-marital infidelity, and some thirty three years later her son is executed as a blasphemer, a rabble-rouser, a trouble maker, in an awkward backwater of the Roman Empire, having gathered round himself a small group of misfits and undesirables appealing to the baser elements of society. There is nothing respectable here. And yet here we are, some two thousand years later, celebrating the birth of a child who changed human history and human nature, because we do not judge things solely by human standards. We come together so that we may ponder the mystery of God’s love for us, a God who heals our wounds, who restores broken humanity, who offers us a fresh start, who can see beyond our failures and shortcomings, and who becomes a human being so that humanity might become divine, so that we may share in the divine life of love, both here on earth and in heaven. The Word became flesh, and lived among us. These few words express what the Christian faith is all about, and how it can change the world.
If that isn’t a cause for celebration, I don’t know what is. We are so familiar with the story of Christmas that I wonder whether we, myself included, really take the time to ponder, and to marvel at the mystery which unfolded two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. God, who made all that is, comes among us, taking flesh in the womb of a young girl through the power of His Holy Spirit, so that in His Son we might see and experience God and His love for us.
God comes among us not in power or splendour but as a weak, vulnerable child, depending on others for love, and food, and warmth. He is laid in an animal’s feeding trough, insulated from the cold hard stone by straw — hardly a royal birth, and not what we would expect of God, and that’s the point. It is supposed to be surprising, and to shock us. So now God would be with his pilgrim people on earth – sharing all of human life, from birth to death, so that we might, through him, share the Divine Life of Love, that of God the Holy Trinity: a relational God who invites humanity to share that relationship, who offers it freely, and to all. The sheer exuberance of such an offer, is almost profligate: it is generous in a way which defies our human expectation and our human understanding.
Throughout his life all that Christ says and does shows us how much God loves us. The Word becomes flesh, and enters the world, he dwells among us, a wondrous mystery which provokes us to worship, to kneel with the shepherds and to adore the God who comes among us, who shares our human life so that we might share His divine life, not because we asked for it, not because we deserve it, we haven’t worked for it, or earned it, rather it is the free gift of a loving and merciful God, this then is the glory of God – being born in simple poverty, surrounded by outcasts, on the margins of society, to call humanity to a new way of being together, where the old order is cast aside, turning the world upside down and offering us the possibility of living in a radically different way, a way of peace and love and joy, not one of power. Heaven comes to earth, born in the womb of a Virgin, so that we might behold the glory of God in a new-born child. So that we might experience the love and truth of God.
The word is made flesh so that prophesy might be fulfilled, so that the hope of salvation might be dawn, so that a people who have languished long in darkness might behold the glory of God where heaven and earth meet, in a stable in Bethlehem, where men and angels may sing together ‘Alleluia, Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to people of goodwill’ The worship of heaven is joined with earth on this most holy night, that in the quiet and stillness all the earth might be filled with the praises of Almighty God, who stoops to save humanity in the birth of His Son.
The Son who lives and dies and rises again for us will be here tonight under the outward forms of bread and wine so that the heavenly banquet may nourish our souls. He gives Himself so that we might share His Divinity, so that God’s love can transform our human nature, having redeemed it in His Nativity. So let us come to sing his praises, and be nourished with His Body and Blood and experience here on earth the joy of Heaven and the closeness and the love of God, let it fill our souls with joy, and let us live lives which recognise the wondrous thing which happens tonight, that it may be a reality in our lives, that we may may proclaim in word and deed the reality of the Word made flesh, so that others may be drawn to kneel and worship like the shepherds, like the Holy Family of Mary and Joseph, and come to believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever.
Remembrance 2018
‘Gwyn eu byd y tangnefeddwyr: canys hwy a elwir yn blant i Dduw’ Mt 5:9
Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, when I was at school, I saw something every day which has had a profound effect upon me. Daily I would pass by bronze tablets with the names of the old boys who had died, in the service of their country, from the First World War onwards. I didn’t know them, boys my own age, or a little older, but simply being surrounded by their names made me both aware and grateful of who they were and what they did.
For the Great War there were 1,157 names: more than one-fifth of those who left the school died in war. They were not unusual in this, but the scale of loss is hard to imagine nowadays. Girls at school were told afterwards that they would never marry, or have children, as there weren’t enough men. Up and down the country, every city, town, and village, every family was and still is touched by grief and loss.
Today we remember the fact that exactly one hundred years ago on this day the guns fell silent, and the ‘War to end all wars’ finished, having cost the lives of somewhere up to nineteen million men, women, and children. Some sixty-million people were to die in World War II, and there has hardly been a day in the last hundred years where someone somewhere has not died in war. Faced with such staggering statistics it is hard to know what to say. Such a tremendous cost of human life, love, loss and grief should shock us to the core. The freedom, peace and prosperity which we now enjoy was won at the cost of the lives of countless men and women. It is right and good to pause and remember them.
When we recall the sacrifice made by people from this village, this country and all over the world, our remembrance must be an active one which has an effect in our lives. We recall the generosity of those who have tried to ensure that we can live lives free from warfare and suffering, a generosity which must leave a mark on our lives, and help us to learn from the mistakes of the past and try not to repeat them in the future.
No-one has not been touched by the events of the past one hundred years. Many people, members of our own families, gladly offered, and still continue to offer themselves for the safety and security of humanity. An act of remembrance has a deeper significance when we know that members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces are on active service overseas, working for peace and stability, for a safer, fairer, world, where people can live in peace and plenty. We remember too all the victims of warfare, the countless millions who have lost their lives in a century characterised by conflict. Our reaction will, I suspect, of necessity, be a complex one: a mixture of sadness and thankfulness, gratitude and grief. While we are grateful to live in comparative peace after a period of wholesale slaughter, we cannot fail to be moved by the cost of military and civilian lives, which continues to this day.
Peace then is not simply the absence of war, but the right ordering of the world around us: living the way God wants us to live, in harmony, and love, one with another. That is why peacemakers are children of God. What they do is possible because of what Jesus Christ has done for us: ‘Ac, wedi iddo wneuthur heddwch trwy waed ei groes ef, trwyddo ef gymodi pob peth ag ef ei hun; trwyddo ef, meddaf, pa un bynnag ai pethau ar y ddaear, ai pethau yn y nefoedd’ ‘and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.’ (Colossians 1:20). Without Christ’s sacrifice none of what we are commemorating makes sense. Christ bought us peace by the shedding of His own blood. In the face of anger and aggression His only response was love. Christ is our peace, and Christians are called to follow Him. We do so knowing that the Cross is not a place of shame and defeat, but rather victory. The love of God has triumphed, and all will be well.
Does God want us to fight? No! War may be just, and undertaken for the right reasons, but we are supposed to live in peace. Human nature longs for wealth and power and is willing to stop at nothing to acquire it. Christ, however, shows us another way — the way of love and gentleness, which longs to heal and reconcile. It’s what Christ did here on earth, and continues to do — to draw people into the peace of the Kingdom of God, where wounds are healed and divisions reconciled. We are thankful for those who sacrificed themselves for us, and we honour their memory by treasuring peace won at so great a cost. We are serious about it, because it is the will of God, and the means of human flourishing. It is precious, and it is for everyone. We are thankful that we are alive and able to give thanks for those who gave their lives for us, and we commit ourselves to being peacemakers in our own lives, in our community, in our world. What greater tribute could there be than to work for a world where all may live in peace, for such is the Kingdom of God. In so doing we honour their memory and share the treasure they have given us with humanity — we are generous, after the example of Generous God, who loved us so much that He gave His Son to die for us.
The Kingdom is a radical place which seeks to transform humanity into the image of God. We have been trying to bring it about for two thousand years and we will continue, in church or chapel, and in our daily lives, to make God’s Kingdom a reality here and now, through what Christ has done for us, and the sacrifice of our forebears. We will remember them.
30th Sunday of Year B: Mark 10:46-52
Ours is a world which is characterised by FEAR: it is everywhere. We are afraid concerning Britain’s exit from the European Union, how our climate will change in the future, at the state of global politics and whether there will be another World War, a nuclear cataclysm, or a global pandemic. In short we know that all is not right with the world. We’re not entirely sure what to do about it, but we know that something is wrong.
This situation is not unlike that faced by the people of Israel in exile, as addressed by the prophet Jeremiah. They have turned away from the Lord, and worshipped false gods and seen their land destroyed and captured, and been driven into exile in Babylon. And yet there is hope. God has not abandoned his people, but gives them a promise of healing, and of a bright future. The people will return weeping, sorry for their sins, and looking for God’s compassion and forgiveness. As then, so now. At this time of year we give thanks to God for another harvest being safely gathered in, we give thanks for all those who work, so that we might have food to eat, and things to drink. We also need to say sorry for the way in which we treat God’s Creation, the world in which we live: that we are not always good stewards, that we pollute the world, that we live in a world which produces enough food and yet people are hungry. We need to share what we have, so that all may be fed. This is how God wants us to live, and the greatest harvest we can offer is the harvest of our souls living lives of love, kindness and generosity.
On the way out of Jericho in the Gospel this morning we have a deeply instructive picture. Bartimaeus is sitting by the roadside, a blind beggar, unable to work, a man who has to rely upon the charity of others to live. He hears a commotion, and asks who is coming by. He is told that it is Jesus of Nazareth, so he cries out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ In his words he does two things: he recognises who Jesus is, that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who will save Israel, the one spoken of by the prophets; and he asks for mercy, for God’s forgiveness and compassion. The people around him tell him to be quiet, he’s an embarrassment, he’s making a fuss! But he cries out all the more, he won’t be silent, he is not afraid to make a scene. Jesus asks them to call him. At which point the attitude of the crowd changes, and they tell Bartimaeus, ‘Cheer up, Get up, he’s calling you.’ Jesus asks Bartimaeus, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He asks to recover his sight, so Jesus says, ‘Go on your way, your faith has made you well.’ His sight is restored, and Bartimaeus follows Jesus along the road.
The first followers of Jesus were known as followers of the Way, (Acts 9:2) and this is what Bartimaeus becomes: he follows him on the way, both literally and metaphorically. He trusts Jesus, he has faith in Him, and he follows Him. In Mark’s Gospel the story of Bartimaeus acts as a bridge between the teaching and miracles of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and his time in Jerusalem which leads up to His death. He will enter Jerusalem on a donkey, as the Messiah, and will teach the people of Jerusalem how to follow God, fulfilling the hope and expectation of the prophets. Bartimaeus has faith which allows him to see, whereas the people of Jerusalem cannot see that Jesus is the Messiah, they are blind, whereas Bartimaeus can see, and follows Jesus on the Way.
It is a way which will lead to Jesus’ death on the Cross, where He offers Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It is through this that God’s promise of healing first made through the prophets can be put into effect. Because God has done this we can be healed and restored, and we are able to say, ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’. We are able to celebrate a harvest, knowing that the greatest harvest we can offer God is the harvest of souls, like Bartimaeus, who have faith, and who follow Jesus on the Way.
We all long to be on the path that leads to God, a God who saves us, who loves us, who heals and restores us. As it says in John’s Gospel ‘I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’ If we walk with the eyes of faith we will be on a straight path, to the one who heals and restores humanity.
All the world needs to cry, ‘Jesus, son of God have mercy on me’. We need to know our need of God, we need to be healed and restored by him, like Bartimaeus. The world needs this to be fully alive in God, to turn away from sin and the ways of the world: living for others rather than ourselves, loving God and our neighbour. We should remember what Jesus said earlier in Mark’s Gospel (Mk 2:17) ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’ Christ came on our behalf, to bind up our wounds, to call us to follow Him.
The sin which mars God’s image in us, which separates us from God, which stops us from being what we can be, is borne by Jesus on the Cross. He binds our wounds by bearing the mark of nails, he heals us with the stream of his blood which flows on Calvary. By his stripes we are healed. We are healed by him so that we may see clearly and travel along the path of faith. It is a straight path on which we should not stumble, journeying with our wounded healer, to live out our faith in our lives as those healed and called by Christ and made part of his body, the church, healed by his sacraments, fed by his word and his Body and Blood, to be strengthened on our journey of faith, it is why we are here today, to be fed by him and with him, that our wounds may be healed.
We are all of us sinners in need of the love and mercy of him who bled for us on Calvary and who rose again for us, that we might share new life in him. Let us be fed by him, restored and healed by him, to have life in all its fullness. For we follow the one who heals us not out of blind obedience or fear but through joy, the joy of being free and truly alive in Christ. So let us live that life and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion, and power, now and forever.
22nd Sunday of Year B – Living like Jesus
How we live our lives matters greatly. It is important because what we do helps to form our moral character, how we know to do the right thing. Human beings are creatures of habit. The more we do things, the more they become second nature. We become what we think or do often. There’s no point in just having the appearance of someone good. Outward conformity isn’t what God wants of us. Quite the opposite! We need to bear in mind God’s word to Samuel,‘for the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ (1Samuel 16:7 [ESV])
So how do we live the life God wants us to live? The simple answer is by trying, failing, and keeping on trying. The Christian faith has at its centre Love and Forgiveness. God shows these to us in Jesus Christ, and we have to show them to one another. The Church, you and I, all of us, are called to love and forgive each other, as we will fail. And we will fail often. We can’t earn our way to Heaven through what we do, Jesus has paved the way for us through His Death and Resurrection. We can, however, try to live out our faith in our lives, loving and forgiving each other when we fall short.Not being judgemental and overcritical. Then we can be built up in love, together, as a community reconciled to God and each other. It sounds simple and straightforward, but in practice it is really difficult. This is why we have to keep trying, allowing God transform us more and more into his likeness, through His Grace.
In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus is uncompromising when dealing with the hypocrisy of the Scribes and the Pharisees: their religion is a façade, a sham, something done for show, for outward appearance, whereas we know, from the teaching of the prophets onward, that God looks at what is truly in our heart. If our motives are suspect then, we’re in trouble. The point is simple: what we do affects who and what we are, hence the need for the people of Israel to observe the statutes and ordinances without any additions or subtractions.
Likewise, the advice of the Letter of James is that people should in all gentleness and humility both listen to the word of God and do what it says, so that their thoughts and words and actions proclaim the truth that Christ died to save them from their sins and rose again that they might have new life in Him.
Rather than the pharisaic obsession with exterior cleanliness (and the letter of the Law) Our Lord and Saviour is concerned with the cleanliness of people’s souls, as it is from within, from the human heart, that sinfulness can spring. His point is a simple one: we become what we do, and thus the formation of a moral character is important, and can only be brought about by doing the right things.
The problem is that, despite our best intentions, we will fail in our endeavours. So what do we do? Is it simply a case that having tried and failed we are written off, cast aside and prepared for hell and damnation? By no means! Just as in the Gospel Jesus commands his followers to keep forgiving those who sin; our lives should be ones where we are continually seeking God’s forgiveness and that of our brothers and sisters in Christ, so that slowly and surely, as part of a gradual process, as people forgiven and forgiving, we try day by day to live out our faith in our lives. It is something which affects us all, each and every one of us, and it is only when we can live it out in our lives that our proclamation of the Kingdom can look authentic rather than running the risk of being accused of hypocrisy.
So, we seek forgiveness and forgive others, by being close to God in prayer, in reading the Bible, and in the sacraments of the Church, and in the love and service which we have for each other as a Christian community. A Christian community which recognises that we fail but also that together we can be something greater and more wonderful than we would be if we are apart.
In recent years as a reaction to the frantic pace of modern life people are re-discovering slowness. There is a slow food movement even slow television. We are encouraged to be mindful and meditate. These are good things, an antidote to the modern obsession with instant results and gratification.
This is the work of a lifetime, a work of slow progress, and frustrating setbacks. It is not easy. To succeed we need to rely upon God to be at work in us throughout our lives. The French Jesuit priest and poet, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote :
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
….
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
….
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919 (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 57.]
Through the love of God being poured into our hearts, and through that love forming who we are and what we do, that self-giving sacrificial love shown to us by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in his dying for us, so that we might live in Him, let us be attentive to the Word of God, the Word made flesh, and not simply listen but also act –- relying not upon our own strength but upon the love and mercy of God, seeking His forgiveness, to do His Will.
When we are formed by God together then we can be built up in love, as living stones, a temple to God’s glory. We proclaim God’s love and truth to the world, through forgiveness and sacrificial love, rather than by being bitter and judgemental and blind to our own faults: like the scribes and Pharisees: eager to point out the sins of others and yet blind to their own faults, failures and shortcomings. Instead, clothed in the humility of our knowledge of our need of God’s love and mercy, let us come to Him, to be fed by Him, to be fed with Him, to be healed and restored by him, so that we can live lives which speak of the power of his kingdom so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever. Amen
Twenty First Sunday of Year B [Jn 6:56-69]
Life can be complicated, it requires us to make choices, which have effects: they define what we become, who we are. Our actions have consequences. In this morning’s first reading from the Book of Joshua, the people of Israel have a choice to make: do they want to worship the God of Israel, or other gods. Joshua is clear: he and his household will serve the Lord. The people of Israel follow his example, they make a commitment to worship God, and Him alone. They make a promise to be faithful. They will, in time break it, at which point they are punished, though God is forgiving.
It is a question of commitment, which involves love and sacrifice — the two go hand in hand. It is what marriage is all about, and it also describes God’s relationship with us, and ours with God. It will see Jesus die on the Cross for us, to show us just how much God loves us, and wants to restore our relationship with Him, and each other. It is wonderful , but it isn’t something God forces us into: we are free to accept it, or to refuse it. It is a free gift.
In the Gospel Jesus tells the worshippers that He is the living bread, and if they eat Him they will have eternal life. These are bold claims to make. They would have been quite extraordinary two thousand years ago, and they still are today. What Jesus is promising goes against everything which they know and understand about their faith. He calls them to do the unthinkable. At that time they caused people to stop following Jesus. They could not cope with the realism of the Eucharistic discourse in John Ch. 6.
Thus, is it hardly surprising that His disciples reply, ‘This teaching is difficult, who can accept it’. That is a normal reaction. But it is not one which Jesus will leave unchallenged. As he is the living bread which came down from Heaven so He will go back. After His death and Resurrection, He will ascend to the Father. Our being fed with the Lord’s Body and Blood is important, and what It is is clearly linked with who He is: God, born for us, who gives himself for us. It is linked to the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News – the words are Spirit and Life – and God gives himself so that His Church may be nourished by Word and Sacrament.
It is sad to think that even then ‘many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.’ Jesus had said something difficult, something troubling, something which turned the accepted order on it its head. People were unable or unwilling to accept what Jesus asked of them, and so He turns to his disciples and asks them if they want to go away too. Peter the leader of the disciples is the first one to reply, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ (Jn 6:68-69 NRSV).
Here Peter is confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. To be a Christian is to make the same confession as Peter, and to have the same hope of eternal life in and through Jesus Christ.
The teaching is hard to accept, difficult to understand, but we can EXPERIENCE it, when we receive Holy Communion. For Peter, and for us, BELIEF precedes KNOWLEDGE. We believe and then we come to know. And like St Peter we can say, ‘To whom can we go?’ Who else offers us this? No-one, other than Jesus Christ; He alone can save us. He alone can offer us the fullness of life. People often think that wealth or fame can make us happy, and this may be true for a while, but such pleasure is fleeting and transitory. It vanishes like a puff of smoke. Only in Jesus can we know true freedom, and everlasting life.
When we gather together as Christians on a Sunday morning we, like Saint Peter, publicly declare our faith in who Jesus is, and what He does. This may not seem a radical act to us. However in the Roman Empire people were expected to worship the emperor as a living God. The thought of burning incense in front of a picture of Queen Elizabeth II would strike us now as not only strange, but wrong, and idolatrous. We worship God, and God alone. And for doing so, countless Christians have been killed over the past two thousand years, and continue to be even today.
We come so that we may hear the words of eternal life, the Good News of Jesus Christ, and so that we may be fed by Him, and fed with Him, with the Body and Blood of Christ, so that we can live forever because of Him. We can have a foretaste of the Heavenly banquet of the Kingdom, here and now, we can be fed with Jesus so that we can be transformed more and more into His likeness and prepared, here and now, for eternal life with God, and that we start living that life here and now, so that our faith is not simply a personal or a private matter but one which affects who and what we are, and how we live our lives, so that our faith affects who and what we are, and what we do, so that the Eucharist is our bread for the journey of faith, so that strengthened by Christ and with Christ, we may live lives which proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom. This is how are supposed to live together as a Christian community, living in love, fed with love itself, here in the Eucharist, where we thank God for His love of us. As children of God, loved by God, we are to imitate him, we are to live after the pattern of Christ, who offered himself, who was a sacrifice who has restored our relationship with God.
Jesus has come to give us hope through the Eucharist, and the promise of eternal life in and through Him. He does this to show us that God LOVES us, to the extent that he died for love of us. He gives Himself so that we might live in and through Him. Let us be filled with that love, and share it with others so that all may have life in and through Christ. Amen.
Eleventh Sunday of Year B
While I like gardening, I don’t do enough of it in practice, I’m sometimes forgetful, and not fond of weeding. There is, however, something wonderful about taking seeds or cuttings and placing them in compost and watching them grow. It never ceases to give me a thrill. Once they have grown you end up with something that you can eat, smell, look at, or even sell: it is a source of joy, of nourishment of body and soul. It is an image used by the prophet Ezekiel this morning to look forward to a future where God’s people are sheltered, it looks to a Messianic future, to one fulfilled by the church, as the Lord plants the twig on the lofty mountain of Calvary. The Cross is our only hope, it is the Tree of Life, through which we have life, and all people can rest secure. Ezekiel’s image is used by Jesus in the parable of the Mustard Seed to show people how his prophecy is being brought about in and through Jesus, the Messiah. This is the promised Kingdom of God, becoming a reality in and through Christ.
We in the West live in an age of anxiety, where we are all worried: what are we doing? Are we doing the right thing? Could we or should we do something different, something more? The Church is in a mess, numbers are falling, what are we going to do about it? Perhaps rather than worrying, we might pause for a second to consider that people have noticed a downward trend in Christian belief and practice over the last two hundred years. It is not something new, but it is complex and long-standing, and cannot be easily reversed. But it is God’s church, and God calls us to be faithful, and to trust in Him.
In the parable of the Kingdom with which this morning’s Gospel (Mk 4:26-34) starts, the one who scatters the seed does not know how things grow, and for all their sleeping and rising they cannot influence matters, they just have to sit back and let something mysterious and wonderful happen. That is how God works.
The church founded by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and entrusted to his apostles began as a small affair, just a few people in a backwater of the Roman Empire, written off as deluded followers of another charismatic prophet. It isn’t an auspicious start; it isn’t what a management consultant would tell you to do. But a small group of people had their lives turned around by God, and told people about it, and risked everything, including their own lives to do so. The Church has now grown to point where there are several billion Christians on earth. Here in the West the picture may currently look rather bleak, but the global picture is far more encouraging, people are coming to know Christ, to love Him, and serve Him. And even if we have been going through some bad harvests over here, the trick is to keep scattering the seed as they will grow in a way which can defy our expectations. It is after all God’s Church not ours.
Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, a small thing, only two millimetres in diameter, and yet in the Mediterranean climate it could grow into a bush as large as 3’ x 12’. It has a small beginning, but there is the possibility of remarkable growth, and the image of birds nesting in its shade signals divine blessings (cf. Judg 9:8-15, Ps 91:1-2, Ezek 17:22-24) Jesus is taking the imagery of Ezekiel and showing how it will be brought to fulfilment in and through the Church. Such is the generous nature of God, that we have somewhere where we can we can be safe, and where we can grow in faith. Such is Divine Providence that God gives us the Church as means of grace, so that humanity may be saved. Through the saving death of His Son on the Cross, we can be assured of salvation in and through Him, a sacrifice which will be made present here this morning in the Eucharist, where Christ feeds us, His people, with His Body and Blood, to nourish and strengthen us.
Thus we can, like the Apostle Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, always be confident:we can put our trust in God, as we know that we cannot be disappointed. On the Cross, God’s victory is complete, so we please God by following his commandments: loving Him and loving our neighbour, motivated by the love of Christ, shown to us most fully when he suffers and dies for us, to heal us and restore us, to bear the burden of our sins: ‘he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.’ (2Cor 5:15 ESV)
And so in the Church we live for Christ — our thoughts, words, and actions proclaim the saving truth of God’s love for humanity. If we seek God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of others, and are forgiving ourselves then we can be built up in love. If we are devout in prayer, nourished by the word of God, and by the Sacrament of his Body and Blood we are built up in love, our souls are nourished and we can grow into the full stature of Christ. So let us come to Him, and be fed by Him, healed and restored by Him, living in love and encouraging others so to do, for the glory of God and the building up of His Kingdom.
If we are faithful, if we keep scattering seed in our thoughts, our words, and our actions, then wonderful things will happen. We have to trust God to be at work in people’s lives, and be there for them when they do respond. If we can be as welcoming as the Mustard Tree then we will have ensured that people have a place where they can come to know Jesus, and grow in love and faith. The trick is not to lose heart, but to trust in the God who loves us, who gave His Son to die for love of us. If we are confident of who Christ is, and what He has done for us, then as people filled with the love of God, we will carry on the Church’s mission of proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and people will come to know and trust that love which changes everything, and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
Easter IV — The Good Shepherd [Acts 4:5-12; 1John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18]
If you ask people about Wales they will probably mention Rugby Football, Singing, and Sheep. The first two we do with great passion or hwyl, and thanks to the large amount of hills and mountains there are here, it is ideal countryside for rearing sheep. As animals go, they often don’t get a good press: they are seen as simple creatures, unable to give birth without assistance, it’s hardly flattering to be compared to sheep, and yet throughout the Bible we see references to sheep and shepherds, important for a nomadic people.
Sheep are gentle creatures, they need help and protection, so that they don’t wander off, and are protected from wolves. The relationship between God and Israel is often described as like a shepherd and his sheep. They know each other, there is a close bond between them, and they need the care and protection of a shepherd. They love company, they like to be together in a flock. Their needs are simple: grass and water. They are not violent or nasty, but they need to be cared for, and loved, and helped.
In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus says of himself, ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ (Jn 10:11 ESV) Jesus lays down His life for us. He offers it willingly, and out of love, to die, and to be crucified for us. This is the heart of our faith as Christians: Jesus loves us, Jesus dies for us, and rises again. It is simple, profound and extraordinary. God loves us this much, that he suffers the most painful, shameful, and degrading death for us, to demonstrate love in action.
Such love requires a response from us, and John, the beloved disciple puts his finger on it in this morning’s epistle, ‘By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers’ (1John 3:16 ESV). We lay down our lives for each other, in love and service. This is what being a Christian looks like in practice — we do the right thing, regardless of the cost. The world around us will tell us to be selfish, and self-centred, to think of ourselves before others, the ‘I’m alright Jack mentality’. It is selfish, and sinful, and wrong. We offer the world something different, sure it is costly, but it proclaims the simple truth that another way is possible, and that we march to the beat of a different tune. We can have the courage and the confidence to do this because Christ rose from the dead, and offers eternal life to those who follow Him. This life is not all that there is. We are preparing for the hope of Heaven, made possible by Christ, by living out our faith here and now. It has the power to the change the world, a soul at a time, because we ARE revolutionaries. We want people to join us, and be like Jesus. He lays down His life for us, and expects to follow His example, and lay down our lives to follow Him. It takes commitment, it isn’t just something you do in a building for an hour on a Sunday morning, it takes over your entire life. I know, for a variety of reasons. Firstly in ordination I offered my life to Jesus, for the service of his church, and secondly in last twelve months I got married, and we got a dog. Marriage and dog ownership are both lifelong commitments, and are both about learning to love, and forgive. My life is far more wonderful and richer than I could have imagined because of the commitments I have made. Yes, they are costly, but they are wonderful. To a world scared by commitment I would have to say, don’t be afraid, dive in, and have a go. You will make mistakes, but as love and forgiveness go hand in hand, through them you have the chance to change, to blossom, and become something other than you were before. This is true for the Christian faith. It offers salvation, through faith, as St Peter puts it in this morning’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, ‘And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’(Acts 4:12 ESV) Jesus offers what no-one else can, salvation and eternal life to those who believe in Him, and follow Him. This truly is good news, true freedom, which the world needs to hear. No-one else can save them, money in the bank, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, they may be pleasant and useful, but they can’t save you. Only Jesus, the Good Shepherd, can do that. He still offers the chance to become bart of His flock, under the One Shepherd, to have life, and life in all its fulness, eternal life, with Him, forever. Just as the apostles testified to the healing power of His name, so that same healing is offered to all who believe and trust in Him. It’s not a magic wand, but a chance to enter into a relationship which can take away our sins, heal our souls, our bodies and our lives.
He lays down His life for us, and He gives himself here today, under the outward forms of bread and wine, so that we can be healed by Him, and given a foretaste of heaven in His Body, and His Blood. Here today, as on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, we meet to be fed by Christ, and fed with Christ, to be healed, to know his love, love you can touch and taste.
What more wonderful proof could we ask for than this, to feast on the Body and Blood of Him who died for us, and rose again. Who gives himself so that we might have life. Let us be filled with His Love, and His Life, let it transform us, and all the world that it may come to know Him, to trust Him, to love Him, and be fed by Him, to give praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion and power, now and forever…
Fifth Sunday of Year B, Mark 1:29-39
It can be hard for us nowadays to imagine what life was like before the National Health Service, when medical care was there for those who could afford it. If we are unwell we see someone and we are treated, and hopefully we recover. In the Ancient World it was not so. Infections and Mental Illness were not understood, people could not do anything, they needed hope, they needed healing.
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has called the first disciples from their nets by the Sea of Galilee and they have gone to the Synagogue in Capernaum, where Jesus has taught on the Sabbath, and healed a man possessed by an unclean spirit. He has shown that God longs to heal humanity, to restore us, and make us whole. He leaves the synagogue and goes to Peter and Andrew’s home in Capernaum, and finds Simon Peter’s mother-in-law ill with a fever. It’s serious, and it’s life-threatening. He takes her by the hand, lifts her up, and she is immediately restored to full health: she gets up and looks after them. Mark’s account is simple and straightforward, and goes along at a tremendous breathless pace. The healing is miraculous and instantaneous. It takes your breath away. It is a powerful demonstration of the reality of God’s love for us: if we let God be at work in our lives then wonderful things are possible, but we have to trust Him. I know that I really struggle with that, and I suspect that I’m not alone in feeling that way.
Once the Sabbath was over at sundown, the people of Capernaum bring people to Him who are sick, and in need of healing, and he heals them. The Kingdom of God has become a reality in the person and actions of Jesus. And then early the next morning, before dawn Jesus goes away to pray. He finds a deserted place, a place where He can be alone with God to pray. It reminds us of the need for prayer and quiet in our own lives – we need time to be with God, to talk to Him, and to listen to what He has to say to us. We live in a world filled with noise and distraction, where social media and mobile phones vibrate and flash to get our attention to draw us in. Instead if we want to be close to God and let His power be at work in us we need to be silent and find a deserted place if only for a few minutes to let a healing encounter take place. God meets us when we are alone, when we are silent, when we are vulnerable, when we no longer rely on our own strength but hand ourselves over completely to Him. This is not an easy thing to do, but it is the only way for God to be at work in us: we need to make space for Him.
And then it is over, Simon and the other disciples find Jesus and call Him back to the people who need Him. But rather than simply staying where He is, He moves them on to the next towns, so that He may preach there, for that is why He came out. As well as healing the sick Jesus has a message to proclaim: repent and believe the Good News(Mk 1:15). He calls people to turn away from sin, to turn back to God, and to know that the Kingdom is near. The disciples can only see people’s needs, they need to understand that there is a wider context too. So Jesus preaches, He explains the Scriptures so that people can understand that prophecies are being fulfilled in Him, and He casts out demons so that people can see the Healing which the kingdom promises is a reality there and then.
Which of us can say that we don’t need Christ’s healing in our lives? I know that I do, the truth is that we all do. If we are close to Him in prayer, if we listen to Him, if we have the humility which says, ‘I need God’s help’ then we can be open to the transforming power of His Love. Here this morning, in the Eucharist, at the Altar, Christ will give Himself for us, His Body and His Blood, so that we can feed on Him, be fed by Him, and be fed with Him, so that our souls can be healed. What greater medicine could there be for us, than God’s very self? What gift more precious or more wonderful? Our soul’s true food. We eat Christ’s Body and drink His Blood so that we might share His Divine life, that we might be given a foretaste of Heaven here on earth. For two thousand years, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, the Church has done THIS, to obey Christ’s command, and so that the healing work begun in Galilee might be continued here, now, among us.
Let us listen to His words. Let us be close to Him in prayer. Let us come to Him, to the One who loves us, who heals us, who gives Himself upon the Cross to die for us. To the One who rises again to give us the promise of eternal life in Him. Let us come to be healed, to the table of the Lord to be fed with Him, so that He might heal us, and restore us, so that we might have life, and life to the full in and through Him. Let us live out our faith, and proclaim Him, so that the world may believe, and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
Remembrance 2017
‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Cariad mwy na hwn nid oes gan neb; sef, bod i un roi ei einioes dros ei gyfeillion. Jn 15:13
We come here today to remember, to remember and give thanks for a sacrifice. As Christians, we remember and give thanks for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which reconciles us with God and gives us the hope of everlasting life in him. Fel Cristnogion ry’n cofio ac yn diolch am aberth Iesu Grist, sy’n ein cyfiawnhau â Duw ac yn rhoi gobaith i ni fywyd tragwyddol ynddo. As we meet him week by week and day by day in Word and Sacrament, for He is truly present in Scripture and in his Body and Blood, what we are doing is not simply recalling the events of the past, but experiencing those events and their effects here in the present. The sacrifice and its effects are a reality in our lives.
Likewise when we recall the sacrifice made by people from this village, this country and all over the world, our remembrance must likewise be an active one which has an effect in our lives. We recall the generosity of those who have tried to ensure that we can live lives free from warfare and suffering, a generosity which must leave a mark on our lives, and help us to learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them in the future.
No-one has not been touched by the events of the past one hundred years. Many people, members of our own families, gladly offered, and still continue to offer themselves for the safety and security of humanity. An act of remembrance has a deeper significance when we know that members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces are on active service overseas, working for peace and stability, for a safer, fairer, world, where people can live in peace and plenty. We remember too all the victims of warfare, the countless millions who have lost their lives in a century characterised by conflict. Our reaction will, I suspect, of necessity, be a complex one: a mixture of sadness and thankfulness, gratitude and grief. While we are grateful to live in comparative peace after a period of wholesale slaughter, we cannot fail to be moved by the cost of military and civilian lives, which continues to this day.
It is important to see the sacrificial self-giving love of God in Christ’s passion as the pattern of our own lives. We as Christians are called in our baptism to share in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and this can be lived out in any number of ways. We can remember, too, the vision of peace which characterises the understanding of the Messiah in the prophets. It is a time when the lion will lay with the lamb, and when swords will be beaten into ploughshares. So it seems as though we’re not there yet and in many ways this characterises much of the two thousand years following Christ’s birth. Humanity it seems, while it deeply wants the vision of messianic peace finds itself engaged in warfare of one sort or another, mostly for political ends, with the cost being borne by ordinary men, women and children.
So is there a way out of this endless cycle? In short, Yes. In the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross, who gave himself and suffered for our sins and the sins of all humanity: past, present and future. The slaughter of millions of people which characterised the wars of the last century is an act of brutality which nails Jesus to the cross. And yet he goes to his death gladly, for love of us. It is this act of total self-giving which shows us what true love is, and how we too need to fashion our lives after this pattern of love. We must always remember that Jesus’ loving self-giving is done for the healing of sin and division – for the reconciliation of humanity with God. While we are conscious of our failings and shortcomings and need for God, we must always remember that we are a people who are forgiven, who are loved by God in a way which has the power to transform our lives. Our lives can be transformed when and if we learn to love not only our friends and family, but our enemies, only then can swords be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks. Only then can the peace for which people fought, struggled and died become a reality in our world. By our trusting in the superabundance of God’s mercy and the power of the cross in our lives can we realise our hopes and dreams for peace. But we need to co-operate with a merciful and loving God, by living out lives which are informed by and filled with our faith, to bring about the peace for which we long, and which is the will of Almighty God.
Some words of S. Teresa of Calcutta
- Love to pray, since prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of himself. Ask and seek and your heart will grow big enough to receive him as your own.
- Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
- Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
- Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
- The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.
- At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.’
- Live simply so others may simply live.
- Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.
- We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.
- I must be willing to give whatever it takes to do good to others. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me, and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.
The Nineteenth Sunday of Year A Mt 14:22-33
Fear is a very human feeling, we acquire it through learning, and yet it can be overcome, if we trust in God. Christians in Iraq, China, North Korea & Palestine face real danger, real persecution (we’re safe and comfortable by comparison) and yet they trust, they pray (and so should we) and we should do all that we can to help them. The state of politics at home and abroad is troubling, to say the least. We are afraid that this is the closest we have been to the use of nuclear weapons since the 1960s.
‘Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.’
This morning’s Gospel carries straight on from the miraculous feeding which we should have heard last week, as Jesus goes to send the crowds back home, he sends disciples ahead so that they might be ready.
‘And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.’
Prayer is important, it is as important as the food we eat, the air we breathe, because it is about our relationship with God. Throughout the Gospels Jesus spends time alone, spends time close to the Father as this relationship is crucial. Where Jesus leads we should follow, follow his example.
When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.
It’s getting dark, and the disciples are out in the middle of the lake, in deep water; will the boat sink, what can they do?
And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
The disciples cannot believe that they are seeing Jesus, they think that it is a ghost. But it is Him, and he encourages them, his presence can give them confidence. He tells the disciples, and he tells us not to be afraid, not to fear the world, but to trust in Him.
Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’
As usual, Peter is the first to react, he takes the lead as usual. Jesus speaks a single word to him, ‘Come’ He speaks it to each and every one of us as Christians, to come, to follow him, to be close to him, to live out our faith in our lives strengthened by prayer. Will we trust Jesus enough to follow Him?
“So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.’
Peter listens to what Jesus says, and obeys him, and does something miraculous, something extraordinary, until he is distracted by the world around him, and becomes frightened. Likewise we, in our lives can in the power of God do wonderful things, if we are not distracted by the cares of the world around us. If we listen to what Jesus tells us and do it.
Peter becomes frightened; he starts to sink, as do we all when the cares of this world overwhelm us. His reaction is to cry ‘Lord, save me’ which Jesus does, indeed, through his offering of himself upon the Cross he saves each and every one of us, taking the sin of the world upon himself so that we might be freed from sin, fear and death. That same sacrifice will be made present here, so that we the people of God, can be fed by God, with God, with his Body and Blood to be strengthened to have life in him, to be close to him.
Peter is told off for lacking faith, because it is important, we too need to trust God, to have faith in Him, so that He can be at work in us and through us.
At the end, once the wind has died down the disciples worship Him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’ The end of it all is worship, it is what we as humans and as Christians are for. We are to worship God, in our love and our prayer, so that all of our lives are an act of worship, drawing us ever closer to the source of life and love. So that all we say or think or do may proclaim God’s love and truth to the world, so that they may believe and may give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to who whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever.
11th Sunday of Year A (Mt 9:35-10:28)
Sheep are lovely creatures, their lambs gambol in fields, their wool keeps us warm, their meat is tasty. They do, however, have something of a bad reputation – they are seen as simple, stupid creatures, who munch grass all day and are a bit dozy and clueless. They can be seen very negatively, as an unthinking herd, or as wandering off and getting caught in thickets. It is no wonder then that one of the images in this morning’s Gospel is likewise not generally seen as positive. ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd’ (Mt 9:36) Jesus has compassion on them, Matthew uses a word which means to be moved deep inside, it is a gut feeling, a feeling of compassion, of love and care. Like sheep without a shepherd they can wander aimlessly. They need direction; they need help.
We could be forgiven for thinking that that such feelings belong in our past. We’ve grown up, we’ve moved beyond all that. But, if anything the events of the last few weeks tell us clearly that where there is an absence of leadership people get worried. They start to panic. They’re not sure what is going on, or how they are going to find safety and security . So the world around us is a mess, our politicians don’t seem to be much help, and we’re not sure that the Church is any better. It is a sad indictment of the age in which we live, but THERE IS HOPE. We can always, and in all things trust in Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the Good Shepherd, and who lays down his life for the sheep.
After Jesus has said this He proceeds to call labourers for the Lord’s harvest. He summons the twelve apostles to share his work of proclamation and healing. They are to be sent out for the healing and reconciliation of the nations and to preach the Good News of the Kingdom. He gives them power and authority to do God’s work in the world. It is no easy task – they are to be flogged and handed over for trial. They are to face persecution in the world for doing the work of God. As co-workers with the Lord, fellow shepherds, they too will lay down their lives for their flock, and such is the lot of those called to serve God as bishops, priests and deacons.
In the book of Exodus Moses is addressed by God: ‘Indeed the whole earth is mine but you shall be for me a priestly people and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.’ (Exod 19:5-6) As the church is the New Israel, bought through the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood, then these words apply to us. We are to be priestly and holy. We are to honour God and worship Him, and encourage others so to do. We do this by being close to God in our reading of Holy Scripture and our participation in the sacraments of the New Covenant – primarily Baptism and the Eucharist.
Christ has compassion on the people and gives them the shepherds that they need and want, to guide and direct them along the right path, to feed them, and lay down their lives for the sheep, as in all things they will look to Jesus as their pattern and example. His entire life and ministry points towards His Death and Resurrection, where He lays down his life in obedience to the will of the Father to reconcile humanity to God and to each other. It is this sacrifice and self-oblation which the church sees re-presented in the Eucharist, where on one hundred thousand successive Sundays the Church, through its priests and bishops has done what Jesus did on the night before He died with his apostles in the Upper Room. The Eucharist makes the holy people of God, because in it we are fed by Christ and fed with Christ, fed with the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We are given here and now a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet – humanity eats the bread of Angels, pointed to by the manna in the Desert. We are called to share in the Body and Blood of Christ do that we might live in Him and He in us.
Words cannot adequately describe the wonder of this mystery, that we poor, frail, sinful humanity are called to share in the life of God, to be nourished by it, strengthened by it, to live the life of faith here and now. So to a world desperate for answers, which has given up trusting in God, and indeed in just about anything, we can say ‘Come and see’. The church can offer something that people can trust, someone whom they can follow. A true shepherd to guide them, guard them, and lead them.
So let us cast our cares aside and follow Him, let us be nourished by Him, and invite others to so that they may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and for ever.
Easter VI – John 14:15-21
I once asked a nun who had been professed many years what she found most difficult about the religious life. The answer I received was a surprising one: ‘Obedience’. She could cope with poverty and chastity, with stability, and the ongoing change of character, but she found it hard to do what she was told, to be obedient.
It is not for nothing that the opening words of the Rule of St Benedict are: ‘Listen my son to the words of the Master’. I, like her, struggle with obedience. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves, all of us do too. We like to have our own way, to do what we want, when we want, and how we want to do it. We are wilful, and proud, we want to have our own way, we don’t want to listen to someone else: a spouse, a parent, a priest, or God. Such is the nature of the human condition. This is the reason why God was born as a man, preached the Good News, and taught a new way to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God. For this he suffered, and died.
And for us as the church, the first thing we need to do is to listen to Jesus, to do what he tells us, to be obedient to him. If we love him we will keep his commandments, we will love God and each other with the same costly self-giving love that Jesus shows on the Cross.It’s quite a big ask, following in his footsteps, dying to self and living for God. It does however lie at the heart of it all. When Jesus says, ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you’ in the Upper Room with His disciples, on the night before he dies, He is looking to the Cross and beyond, as the demonstration of real costly self-giving love. The agony of brutal torture awaits him, a painful death for the love of humanity, to save us and heal us. As St Isaac the Syrian says:
‘The sum of all is that God the Lord of all, out of fervent love for his creation, handed over his own Son to death on the cross. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son for its sake.” This was not because he could not have saved us in another way, but so that he might thereby the better indicate to us his surpassing love, so that, by the death of his only-begotten Son, he might bring us close to himself. Yes, if he had had anything more precious he would have given it to us so that our race might thereby have recovered. Because of his great love, he did not want to use compulsion on our freedom, although he would have been able to do so; but instead he chose that we should draw near to him freely, by our own mind’s love.’
God dies for us, and freely offers us the gift of new life in Him. If we listen to him, then Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit, to strengthen us, to encourage us: a generous gift from a generous God., so that we can experience the fulness of new life in him. A gift so wonderful that Jesus ascends to his Father before giving it to the church, a sign of God’s love and trust, given to strengthen and encourage, to build us up. Such is the power of obedience, where we recognise power greater than ourselves, needs greater than our own, when we turn from love of self to love of God and others The world around will never quite understand this, it simply cannot listen to Jesus or trust him, and so misses out on the fulness of God’s love, which awaits us in heaven. So we pray that we might be obedient, that we might listen to what Jesus says, and do it, and that God would pour out his Holy Spirit upon us, to strengthen and encourage us, to build us up in his love. By listening to what God says we find ourselves becoming more free than we could have been before
This is not some future event, but right here and right now; we thirst for this love, and only it can satisfy our deepest desires, so let us come, and drink of that living water, let us feast on him who is the living bread and the true vine, the shepherd of our souls, who loves us so much that he died for us, and let us love him and one another so that all the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever
Jesus and Nicodemus Lent II
The sight of a crucifix has a continuity with Golgotha; at times its vision is embarrassing. We can keep a statue of Buddha in a room, tickle his tummy for good luck, but it is never mortifying. The crucifix somehow or other makes us feel involved. It is much more than a picture of Marie Antoinette and the death-dealing guillotine. No matter how much we thrust it away, it makes its plaguing reappearance like an unpaid bill.
Fulton J. Sheen Those Mysterious Priests 1974: 101—102
Our Baptism is a wonderful thing, and it is why each and every one of us is here today. It is how we enter the Church, how we become part of the body of Christ, it is how our souls are infused with the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, it is how we are regenerate, born again, sharing in His death, and His resurrection. It is something for which people have traditionally prepared during this season of Lent, for Baptism and Confirmation at Easter, so that they can die with Christ and be raised to new life with Him. We enter into the mystery of Christ’s saving work so that we may conformed to it and transformed by it, by Love, by believing and trusting in Christ, publicly declaring our faith in Him, and praying for His Holy Spirit, so that our lives may be transformed – living for Him, living in Him, and being transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.
To be drawn into His likeness means coming closer to His Cross and Passion: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up (Jn 3:14). Just as the serpent in the desert brought salvation to the people of Israel, so now the Cross is our only hope – the sacrifice of God for humanity, not something we can give God, but something he gives us – a free gift of infinite value. God gives it to us and to all the world for one simple reason – love, for love of us – weak, poor, sinful humanity, so that we might be more lovely, more like Him. God sends His Son into the world not to condemn it, but so that the world might be saved through Him – an unselfish act of generosity, of grace, so that we might be saved from sin and death, from ourselves, so that we can share new life in Him.
‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’ John 3:16-17 (ESV) These few words spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus in John’s Gospel encapsulate what we believe as Christians, and why we believe it, may we live them, strengthened through prayer, our study of the Bible, nourished by Our Lord’s Body and Blood, forgiven and forgiving, preparing to be caught up forever in the love of God.
It is that same sacrifice which we see here this morning, which we can taste and touch, which we can eat and drink, so that our lives and our souls can be transformed to live Christ’s risen life. It is something which we treat with the uttermost reverence because it is God, given for us, because it can transform us to live as children of the Holy Spirit, freed from the shackles of this world, free to live for Him, to live as He wants us to, His new creation, of water and the Spirit. This is what the Church has done on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, in memory of Him, to make the holy people of God. To make us holy: so that everything which we say, or think, or do, may be for His praise and glory, living out the faith which we believe in our hearts, as a sign to the world that the ways of selfishness and sin are as nothing compared with the generous love of God.
So great is this gift, that we prepare to celebrate it with this solemn season of prayer, and fasting, and abstinence, to focus our minds and our lives on the God who loves us and who saves us. We prepare our hearts and minds and lives to celebrate the mystery of our redemption, so that our lives may reflect His glory, so that we may live for Him, fed by Him, fed with Him, with our lives and souls transformed by Him. We are transformed so that we can transform the world so that it may live for Him, living life in all its fullness: living for others, living as God wants us to live. Living the selfless love which saves us and all the world, living out our faith, and encouraging others so to do, can and will conform us to Christ, so that we may be like Him, and become ever more like Him, prepared for eternal life with Him, so that we all may sing the praises of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
A though from Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability — and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually — let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919 (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 57.
A thought for the day from Fulton Sheen
Our own fiat
It makes no difference what you do here on earth; what matters is the love with which you do it. The street cleaner who accepts in God’s name a cross arising from his state of life, such a person is the scorn of his peers; the mother who pronounces her fiat to the Divine Will as she raises a family for the kingdom of God; the afflicted in hospitals who say fiat to their cross of suffering are the uncanonised saints, for what is sanctity but fixation in goodness by abandonment to God’s Holy Will?
Seven words of Jesus and Mary
A thought for the day from Fulton Sheen
God’s plan
We do not always know why such things as sickness and setbacks happen to us, for our minds are too puny to grasp God’s plan. A person is like a little mouse in a piano, which cannot understand why it must be disturbed by someone playing Chopin and forcing it to move off the piano wires.
From the Angels’ Blackboard
A thought for the day from Fulton Sheen
Let go of Fear
God does not love us because we are loveable of and by ourselves, but because he has put his own love into us. He does not even wait for us to love; his own love perfects us. Letting it do this, with no resistance, no holding back for fear of what our egotism must give up, is the one way to the peace that the world can neither give nor take away
Lift up your Heart
A thought for the day from Fulton Sheen
Abandonment to God
We always make the fatal mistake of thinking that it is what we do that matters, when really what matters is what we let God do to us. God sent the angel to Mary, not to ask her to do something, but to let something be done. Since God is a better artisan than you, the more you abandon yourself to him, the happier he can make you.
Seven Words of Jesus and Mary
A Thought from S. Teresa of Avila – When discouraged trust in God’s Mercy
Beware, daughters, of a certain kind of humility suggested by the devil which is accompanied by great anxiety about the gravity of our sins.
He disturbs souls in many ways by this means, until at last he stops them from receiving Holy Communion and from private prayer by doubts as to whether they are in a fit state for it, and such thoughts as: ‘Am I worthy of it? Am I in a good disposition?I am unfit to live in a religious community. ‘
Thus Christians are hindered from prayer, and when they communicate, the time during which they ought to be obtaining graces is spent in wondering whether they are well prepared or no.
Everything such a person says seems to her on the verge of evil, and all her actions appear fruitless, however good they are in themselves. She becomes discouraged and unable to do any good, for what is right in others she fancies is wrong in herself.
When you are in this state, turn your mind so far as you can from your misery and fix it on the mercy of God, his love for us, and all that He suffered for our sake.
The Way of Perfection 39:1, 3
Homily for Lent V
During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reflects upon who and what he is and what he has come to do (Mt 5:17) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” Christ comes to fulfil the law rather than to abolish it, and to inaugurate a new covenant in his blood which will flow from Calvary. This has been pointed to in Scripture: in the first reading this morning the prophet Jeremiah looks forward to a future covenant that will bring faithless sinful Isræl back to the Lord their God. They broke the covenant, they were unfaithful, and though they were married to the Lord their God, here we see not divorce but covenant faithfulness – it’s how God is, this is God’s love in action: self-giving, sacrificial, and costly. Christ fulfils Scripture – it finds its fullness and its true meaning in and through him, the Word of God made Flesh for our sake. God in Christ restores and heals that which was broken through human sinfulness: ‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Isræl after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’ Ours is a God who forgives our iniquities and forgives our sins through the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood.
Jesus Christ is our great high priest: priests offer sacrifice for sin, as on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement where once the people were sprinkled with blood each and every year, whereas under the New Covenant, the covenant of grace rather than law, Christ the mediator of the new covenant sheds his own blood as both priest and victim to reconcile us with God. He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, whose name means King of Righteousness, the King of Salem, better known as Jerusalem, brings out bread and wine, which point to the Eucharist, he is a priest of God Most High, before the priesthood of Aaron, the Levitical priesthood, so this is the true worship of Almighty God which points to Christ and finds its fulfilment in and through Him, who suffered for our sins.
In this morning’s Gospel some Greeks go up to Philip and say ‘Sir, we want to see Jesus’. They approach a disciple with a Greek name, and though they are not Jews themselves, they try to follow the law and to worship God. They are good people with an innate sense of the religious and they have a simple request: they want to see Jesus. Nearly 2000 years later there are people who will ask exactly the same question. What can be said to them? If they come to Mass on a Sunday morning, they will meet the Lord in Word and Sacrament. But will they also see Jesus in us Christians who are the body of Christ? We too are to be His presence in the world. Everything that we say, or think, or do, can proclaim Christ and his saving love to the world. It is our duty as Christians to try at all times and in every way to model our lives upon Christ’s, and by our sharing in his passion, death, and resurrection, to form our lives so that they may reflect his glory so that the world may believe. Each and every careless word and thoughtless action speaks to the world and says that we are hypocrites, who do not practice what we preach. We are perhaps judged more harshly nowadays than at any time before – ours is a world which does not know or understand forgiveness; but we should nonetheless try with all the strength we can muster to live Christ’s life in the world.
‘Now the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified’ Jesus Christ is looking towards his passion and death. God shows the world the fullness of glory, the most profound expression of self-giving love in the events of his passion and death. This is why we celebrate it: week by week and year by year. We prepare ourselves during Lent to walk with Christ to Calvary and beyond. We see how much God loves us, how much God gives himself for us: totally, completely, utterly. If we serve Jesus we must follow him, and where we are he will be too. In the midst of the troubles which beset the church, Christ is with us. When we are afraid or troubled, Christ is with us, he has felt the same feelings as us, and was given the strength to carry on. When the church is written off as an irrelevance, Christ is with us.
When secularism appears strong, we should remember our Lord’s words: ‘now sentence is being passed on this world; now the prince of this world is to be overthrown’. The World and the Devil are overcome in Christ’s self giving love, when on the cross he pays the debt which we cannot, he offers us a new way of living a life filled with love, a love so strong as to overcome death, a love which offers us eternal life.
So then as we continue our journey through Lent our journey to the cross and beyond to the empty tomb of Easter, let us lose our lives in love and service of him who died for us, who bore our sins, who shows us how to live most fully, to be close to God, and filled with his love. Let us encourage one another, strengthen one another, and help each other to live lives which proclaim the truth of God’s saving love. All of us through our baptism share in Christ’s death and resurrection and we should proclaim this truth to the world. This truth, this way, this life, overcomes the world, and turns its selfish values on their head. Together we can love and strengthen and encourage one another to do this together: to be Christ’s body in our love and service of one another, in our proclamation to the world that God loves all humanity and longs, like the father of the Prodigal Son, to embrace us, to welcome us back. And as we do this, growing in love and fellowship we will fulfil the will of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and forever…
Epiphany II: John 1:43-51
In John’s Gospel we have seen Jesus baptised by John the Baptist, we have heard John declare ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world’, we have seen Jesus call Andrew and Simon Peter, disciples of John, to follow him. Now Jesus decides to go from Bethany to Galilee, to go back home. He begins by saying to Philip ‘Follow me’ a simple invitation, which he accepts. Coming from Bethsaida, the same city as Andrew and Peter it is certain that Philip knows them, and is well-disposed to join in with them, and to answer Jesus’ invitation. He then finds Nathanael and testifies that Jesus is he who is spoken of in the Law of Moses and the prophets, the Messiah, the saviour of Israel. Nathanael’s reply, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ looks like a proverbial saying – it reminds us of Jesus’ ordinary earthly existence, growing up in a backwater town. Nathanael’s initial scorn will be transformed; such is the power of God. Philip counters by saying ‘Come and see’, Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples who want to know where he is staying. This invitation to come and see for oneself lies at the heart of the proclamation of the Good News, it remains as key now as it did nearly two thousand years ago.
Jesus sees Nathanael coming towards him and says ‘Here is an Israelite in whom there is no guile’ he’s plain-speaking, honest, there’s no flannel here. Nathanael is amazed before long has acclaimed Jesus as a teacher, the Son of God and King of Israel. Clearly something good can come out of Nazareth, good enough to save the world. For the kingdom to grow we cannot simply expect to open our doors and see people flood in, we have to invite people in, to say to them ‘Come and see’ and make sure that they see Jesus in Word, Sacrament, and in the lives of those around them. Having been called, they can respond to that call. This is what the church is for – to call people to be in a relationship with Jesus, to be nourished by him. We need to continue to repeat the simple invitation of Jesus ‘Come and see’, to come and see the one who is shown in the Law and the Prophets as the Messiah, the Anointed Saviour, so that people can become close to Him.
This openness, this willingness to be changed by an encounter with Christ, encourages us to look outwards and share our faith with others – to live lives of joy, in the knowledge that God loves us and saves us. Our faith as Christians is not something which we keep to ourselves, but rather something which we share, and which affects all of who and what we are, and think, and say, and do. Ours is a radical faith which has at its aim to change the world. It may sound strange or overambitious, but if we acknowledge Jesus Christ as the King of Heaven and Earth, who came to save humanity, we have to call the world to follow him. Our faith then is not a private matter, or something which we just do on a Sunday morning for an hour or so, but rather something which changes our lives, and affects every part of who we are and what we do. What we see starting in this morning’s Gospel is something which we can bear fruit in our lives, if we accept the invitation to ‘Come and see’ and encourage others so to do.
The Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ, good news that God loves humanity, that He saves us, that He gives Himself to save us from our sins, and nourishes us with His Word and His Sacraments, so that we can have life in Him, and life in all its fullness. What starts with the Incarnation is still bearing fruit here and now, still encouraging people to come and see, to meet Jesus, to be nourished and changed by Him, let us accept His invitation, and offer it to others that they too may enter into the joy of the Lord and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed, as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
St Matthew
Death and taxation are two things which none of us can escape, try though we might. Most of us, I suspect, while we recognise the fact that taxation is necessary, don’t particularly enjoy having to hand over money, though we recognise that for the greater good of society it is necessary. It was, I suspect, always thus. In the Roman Empire the business of tax collection was privatised – people paid money for the right to collect taxes, and as a result tended to collect a bit extra so that they could recover the cost of their having to buy the right to collect taxes. This could make tax collectors very wealthy indeed, and so they were not exactly the most popular people – they had a reputation for being corrupt and greedy and selfish, and were not exactly the sort of people with whom one might choose to associate.
And yet at the start of this morning’s Gospel we see Jesus walking past a tax collecting booth and he says to the man there, called Matthew, ‘Follow me’ and he gets up and follows Our Lord. An invitation is offered, to which he responds, which changes his life, and has left us with his account of the Good News of Jesus Christ. That evening at dinner many sinners and tax-collectors want to be near Jesus, they want to listen to him, to what he has to say. For the respectable religious elite, the Pharisees, it is all too much. Why is Jesus hanging around with social undesirables? It isn’t what you’re supposed to do. Hence Our Lord’s reply ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.’ These are people who know their need of God, who are humble enough to come to him, so that they can be healed by him. He tells the Pharisees to go away and learn what the prophet Hosea meant when he said ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’. He has come not to call the righteous but sinners, not people who think they’re fine in the sight of God, but rather those who know that they are not.
The invitation which Jesus makes Matthew is the same one which the Church continues to make – we say to the world ‘Come and follow Him’ and the Church continues to exist because people continue to respond to that same call. The Church continues to invite people to the banquet of the Kingdom, not because they are worthy or respectable, because they have enough money or social standing, because they are the right sort, or people like us, but rather because we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy, people who need healing and restoration. We are the sick who need a physician, the physician who offers the medicine which can heal our souls – His Body and Blood. His sacrifice of Himself in Atonement for our sins and those of the whole world, to heal us and restore our relationship with God and with each other is that for which our sin-sick souls cry out. We need God’s mercy and a sacrifice which does what not human sacrifice can do. That is why we are here, so that we can be nourished with Word and Sacrament, we can be fed by the Lord, with the Lord.
As we are fed by Him and with Him, we can likewise respond to His invitation: ‘Follow me’. Our conversion is both an event and a process, the work of a lifetime, to draw ever closer to Him, and to seek to follow Him, and invite others so to do. This is the work of the kingdom – to continue to stand against the desire of the world to make the Church respectable, full of people like us, and to fling wide the doors and invite people into the banquet of the Kingdom. It is not a treasure which we keep to ourselves, jealously guarding it, but rather which we offer to all, for this is what it means to follow Him – to do what He tells us and to live lives which proclaim the reality of the Kingdom of God here and now, for all humanity.
So let us come and follow Him, let us respond to that invitation and encourage others so to do. Let us be fed by Him and with Him, so that our souls may be healed, so that we can experience the fullness of God’s healing love and mercy, which we do not deserve, but which nonetheless he gives to us so that we may have life and life in all its fullness.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh on Forgiveness
Judgement would hold nothing but terror for us if we had no sure hope of forgiveness. And the gift of forgiveness itself is implicit in God’s and people’s love. Yet it is not enough to be granted forgiveness, we must be prepared to accept it. We must consent to be forgiven by an act of daring faith and generous hope, welcome the gift humbly, as a miracle which love alone, love human and divine, can work, and forever be grateful for its gratuity, its restoring, healing, reintegrating power. We must never confuse forgiving with forgetting, or imagine that these two things go together. Not only do they not belong together, they are mutually exclusive. To wipe out the past has little to do with constructive, imaginative, fruitful forgiveness; the only thing that must go, be erased from the past, is its venom; the bitterness, the resentment, the estrangement; but not the memory.
A thought for the day from St John of the Cross
Wait upon God with loving and pure attentiveness, working no violence on yourself lest you disturb the soul’s peace and tranquility. God will feed your soul with heavenly food since you put no obstacle in his way. The soul in this state must remember that if it is not conscious of making progress, it is making much more than when it is walking on foot, because God himself is bearing it in his arms. Although outwardly it is doing nothing, it is in reality doing more than if it were working, since God is doing the work within it. And it is not remarkable that the soul does not see this, for our senses cannot perceive that which God works in the soul. Let the soul then leave itself in the hands of God and have confidence in him. Let it not trust itself to the hands and works of others, for if it stays in God’s care it will certainly make progress.
A thought for the day from St Isaac of Nineveh
A zealous person never achieves peace of mind. And he who is deprived of peace is deprived of joy.
If, as is said, peace of mind is perfect health, and zeal is opposed to peace, then a person stirred by zeal is ill with a grievous sickness.
While you presume to stir up your zeal against the sickness of others, you will have banished health from your own soul. You should concern yourself with your own healing. But if you wish to heal those who are sick, know that the sick have greater need of loving care than rebukes.
Zeal is not reckoned among mankind as a form of wisdom; rather it is one of the sicknesses of the soul, arising from narrow-mindedness and deep ignorance.
The beginning of divine wisdom is the serenity acquired from generosity of soul and forbearance with human infirmities.
For he says ‘You who are strong should bear the infirmities of the weak’ (Rom 15:1), and ‘Put right transgressor with a humble spirit’ (Gal 6:1). The Apostle numbers peace and long-suffering among the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Thought for the Day – Trust in the Slow Work of God
Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability and
that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you.
your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (1881-1955)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919 (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 57.
Novus Motus Oxoniensis 