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Trinity XII Evensong – Ex 4:27–5:1, Heb 13:16–21


It is good that this evening’s the second lesson begins where last week’s ended. The author of the letter to the Hebrews is still giving advice on how to live together as a Christian community. To put it simply we are not to neglect doing good. We are then to use each and every opportunity which we have to do good: to do the right thing regardless of the costs, or the consequences. We are to share what we have, because as Christians we are to be loving and generous people who live out our faith in our lives, who cannot fail to help those in need.
With such love and generosity comes obedience. The leaders are not specified in the letter as priests or bishops, however they ‘watch over your souls’. These then are people who exercise of pastoral care of the people of God, which is a great responsibility. Next comes the main point, they are ‘those who will have to give an account’. I suspect that you are familiar with the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14–30) . Well, those of us ordained priests and bishops are told at our ordination are consecration but we will have to answer to God on the day of judgement for our care of his flock. It is perhaps the singularly most terrifying thing which anyone says to me in life. It scared me then, over a year ago just as it does today. The fact that I will have to answer for my stewardship of God’s people fills me with terror. As stewards go, I’m a pretty poor one, a miserable sinner, in need of God’s love and mercy, who is absolutely not up to the task I have been given. I can but trust in God’s grace, his love at his mercy and cry ‘Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner’. Given the current state of the church in England I can only hope that priests and bishops reading these words this evening will be similarly moved. St John Chrysostom once wrote that ‘the way to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops’, and I can only hope and pray that they will listen to the advice of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and not find themselves wailing and gnashing their teeth, having been found wanting in their stewardship of Christ’s flock.
The care of Christ’s flock is a solemn undertaking which I hope and pray is pondered long and hard before decisions are taken in the forthcoming months which have the potential to disfigure the body of Christ in this land. One can I suspect feel rather like Moses standing before Pharaoh simply asking ‘Let my people go that they may worship me in the wilderness’. To be in the wilderness is to be in a place upon which the world places no value whatsoever. To be in the wilderness is to be with God and to be opposed to the ways of the world, the ways of Pharaoh, and the ways of his power. To be in the wilderness is to wander, but also to be with God knowing that as Christians then is our true home, that the politics of the Gen Synod are as nothing compared to being with God, fed by his word and his sacraments, with true shepherds and not hirelings to lead us so that we may do God’s will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight that we may serve 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 for ever
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Homily for the 19th Sunday of Year B (Jn 6:41–51) ‘Bread for the life of the world’ 12.viii.12

I have something of a confession to make. I was somewhat troubled when I first read this morning’s Gospel. I find it all too easy to moan about all sorts of things. The Church of England is often a target, but one amongst many. It’s something which Our Lord tells us not to do, and so I pray that through God’s grace I may live a life which more closely imitates Jesus, and follows His commands. It reminds me of a passage in the sermons of St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church: ‘“You all say, ‘The times are troubled, the times are hard, the times are wretched.’ Live good lives and you will change the times. By living good lives you will change the times and have nothing to grumble about.”’ (Sermo 311.8) It reminds us that the work of the Gospel is at one level up to us, the Body of Christ, His Church.
          In the Old Testament reading we see the prophet Elijah being fed, we see God providing food which gives strength, strength for the journey. It prefigures the Eucharist, the reason why we are here today, to be fed by God. We can have the strength for our journey of faith, and the hope of eternal life.
          In the letter to the Ephesians we see that as children of God, loved by God, we are to imitate him, after the pattern of Christ, who offered himself, who was a sacrifice who has restored our relationship with God. It is this sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary, which has restored our relationship with God, which will be re=presented, made present here today, that you can touch and taste, that you can know how much God loves you; that you can be strengthened and given the hope of eternal life in Christ.
          In this morning’s Gospel we see Jews complaining, ‘how can he be from Heaven, from God, we know his Mum and Dad’. It is a difficult thing to understand, especially before Jesus suffers and dies, and rises again. It can be hard to understand who and what Jesus is. The Jews see him in purely human terms, they cannot see beyond this, the Messiah whom they long for is in their midst and they fail to recognise him. The notion of consuming human flesh and blood is so abhorrent to Jews that it would represent something sinful and polluting. Jesus’ answer is simple and challenging: stop complaining. We are to accept, we are not to moan, to complain, but instead to trust him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
          Jesus is the Bread of Life, the true nourishment of our souls. It is through him that we can have life as Christians. He came down from heaven and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. He was born as a human being, and in him our human flesh has been raised to eternal life, to glory with God. Jesus speaks of the Eucharist, the sacrament of his body and blood as providing us with eternal life, of opening the way to heaven. So we come to be fed by God, to be fed with God, to have a pledge and foretaste of the joy of heaven, of eternal life with God, to experience true love in the source of love – the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
          We can have such a hope because Jesus gives himself, to suffer and die, and rose again, for love of us. It is this life of love and sacrifice which we are to imitate. Jesus gives himself to us for the life of the world – it is through being fed by him that the world can truly live.  It is in experiencing God’s self-giving love that the world can find true meaning. Life in Christ is what true life means. Fed by him, strengthened by him, to imitate him and live out lives of self-giving love.
          We are fed with Christ’s body and blood not only as a foretaste of heaven, of eternal life and joy with God, but so that we may be strengthened for the journey – strengthened to live lives of faith, to live lives of self-giving love, so that the world may believe. In Christ, fed by him, and following his example, our lives have their true meaning when we live like him, nourished by his Body and Blood. This is how we live out our faith in our lives, so that we can be an example of Christian love and faith which attracts people 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.
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Trinity IX Evensong: Hebrews 11:17–31

The Letter to the Hebrews was written to help and to encourage a group of Christians probably resident in Italy, and in all likelihood in Rome, who were wavering , who were losing heart, and who were about to turn away from Christianity back to Judaism. The author has spent much of the letter focussing on the unique nature of Jesus Christ, who as high priest and sacrificial offering has atoned for our sins in a way that the ceremonies of Yom Kippur cannot.
          To encourage his audience further, the author sets about giving an account of heroes of faith in the history of the people of Israel. And it is from this section where faith itself and those who are outstanding examples of faith are praised that this evening’s second lesson is taken.
          Abraham shows his faith in God by offering all to God. He does not cling on to his own son, Isaac, but willingly offers him. This sacrifice, where God provides a ram, looks forward to Jesus, who is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. God will not hold back, but gives his own son, for love of those he made, to restore their relationship with him. By faith, Moses leads the people of Israel through the Red Sea on dry land. He looks forward to that great Passover when Christ will pass over from death to new life, breaking down the gates of hell, and offering a promised land of new life with God, of eternal life with him.
This is our faith, this is the faith of the Church, and we should hold fast to it. It is why St Paul can single out faith, hope, and love as the three theological virtues. They should mark us out as Christians that we can have faith in God, and in his saving works, which have given us the hope of eternal life in him.
          Thus, it is the vocation of a Christian to hold fast to this faith, not to fall into error, and to live out this faith in our lives. In living out our faith we bear witness to it, and to the saving works of God. We bear witness to what God has done for all humanity, and by our example we draw others to follow our example and to follow Christ, to commit their lives to him, and to walk in his way. Thus we share the light of Christ with others and help them to walk in his light and to share that light, so that the world may believe 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.
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Trinity VIII Evensong – Hebrews 8

The Letter to the Hebrews was written to help and to encourage a group of Christians who had lost their way, who were losing heart, and who were about to fall away from the faith. It is a work full of help and encouragement, which speaks to us, in the Church of England, today. It encourages us, it allows us to say with Job that we know that our Redeemer lives, and that we can believe and trust in him, and in what he has done for us.
The problem is one of sin, where we as humans disobey God’s law, when we do things which separate us from Him. The purpose of sacrifice then is to make amends, to restore our relationship with God. It is a relationship rooted by means of a covenant, a covenant between God and humanity, which defines our relationship.
The first covenant is given on Mt Sinai, to Moses, with the giving of the Law, the Ten Commandments. It is a covenant from which the people of Israel, God’s chosen people have fallen away. The new covenant is likewise given outside the camp, upon the hill of Calvary, where Jesus Christ as both priest and victim offers himself upon the altar of the Cross. This new covenant restores the relationship between God and humanity. It shows us in the clearest possible terms how much God loves us – that God pays the debt which we cannot. He restores us, and makes it possible for us to love God and one another. Unlike the blood of bulls and goats which must be offered again and again, here we have a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, for the sins of all time.
The Church, as the Body of Christ, continues this one perfect sacrifice by re-presenting it, by making it present at the altar, so that we may participate in the joy and worship of heaven. We can be strengthened by it, strengthened to live lives of self-giving love, after the example of Christ who gave himself for love of us. We are freed by it, to lose our lives in the service of God and one another. This then is how the church is to live, how it is to reflect the glory of heaven which was shown on earth when Christ died for us.
We are to love God and one another. Not just the people it is easy to love, but everyone, even and especially those it is difficult to love, our enemies. We are to love and serve one another so that OUR lives may mirror that of Christ. We can do this because Christ loved us first, because he gave himself, because he gave himself for us, because he has restored our relationship with God and each other, because there is a new covenant which is far superior to the earlier one.
Thus, the Church can truly change the World, by living lives of selfless love, by offering the world an alternative to the ways of sin and selfishness, nourished by the word of God, strengthened by the sacrament of His Body and Blood, to live out God’s love in our lives.
This is the message of the Gospel; good news for everyone, made possible by Christ, by his Incarnation, by his life, by his death and resurrection. It’s the greatest news of human history, so let us live it with joy, 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.
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Homily for 18th Sunday of Yr B (Jn 6:24–35)

Well, wonderful things have been happening in and around London, Team GB have been defying expectations, but something far more wonderful will happen here this morning.  Instead of a world which says it’s what you achieve that’s important, we are told by God that it’s what you believethat really matters. It sounds strange, many people will think that I am mad for saying it, but Olympic glory will fade, others will be faster and stronger. What we are to strive for is a glory which is more than gold or silver: the glory of heaven, the joy of eternal life in God, and of believing in him, and doing his work in the world.
        In this morning’s Gospel, we see people who have been fed in the miraculous feeding, the feeding of the five thousand, following Jesus around. Perhaps they’re hoping for another free lunch? They haven’t seen the signs; they haven’t understood what’s going on. Jesus feeds people not as a combination of magic trick and mass catering, but as a sign of God’s generous love. That God loves us, you and me, all of us, so much, that he longs to feed us with himself, that he gives himself to be tortured and die on the Cross for us, to show us that he loves us.
        Jesus wants us to believe in him, to trust in him, to be fed by him, with him, the Word of god made flesh, to be fed by word and sacrament, to be strengthened to run our race, and to live out that faith in the world around us. Jesus is the true bread come down from heaven which satisfies our spiritual hunger in a way which the world: success, money, possessions, what we have and what we do, cannot. He is the living water which satisfies the thirst of our souls. If we believe in Him, and in Him alone, we will never be thirsty. He gives us not what we want, but what we need: a love, a true love which gives meaning to human love, and to all of human existence. If we trust in God, and live our lives according to his will, loving God and each other, with faith in him alone, we can be victorious, and win a prize far greater than a medal of gold or silver, we can win a reward which lasts far longer than human praise or glory: the crown of eternal life and the glory of heaven. So let us be fed by him, with him, nourished by word and sacrament, let us believe in him, let us love Him and one another, and live lives which proclaim his life, his truth and his victory to the world around us: a victory which allows us to win a greater prize, a greater glory than that of the Olympics – true life, true glory, and true joy with him forever in Heaven, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
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29.vii.12 Homily for the 17th Sunday of Yr B (Jn 6:1-15)

As you were getting up this morning, to get ready to come to church, you probably went into your bathroom to wash your face and brush your teeth and turned on the tap marked ‘C’, and all was well. But if you went on holiday to Italy and you wanted to have a drink, wash your face or brush your teeth, you may well stand by a sink and turn on the tap marked ‘C’ and you would get a nasty shock. It stands for Caldo the Italian word for Hot. What you needed to do was to turn on the tap marked ‘F’ for Fredo or Cold.
This mistake is easily made, especially since we are so used to seeing the letter ‘C’ on cold taps back home. It shows us the problem of misreading the signs. In today’s Gospel we have several examples of people misreading signs. First, we have the Apostle Philip. He is asked by Jesus where they can buy bread for the crowd to eat. He replies that 200 denarii would only buy them a mouthful each. Six months wages just for a mouthful! So Philip says that there is no way that the people can be fed. He cannot believe that such a thing could be possible.
The Apostle Andrew begins a bit better. He shows Jesus a boy with two fish and five barley loaves, the bread of the poor. But he cannot see the point and asks ‘what is that between so many?’ The disciples then cannot read the signs and give the wrong answers to Jesus’ questions.
The people are also a bit of a mixed bag. They have followed Jesus as they are impressed by his miraculous healing of the sick. Once they have been fed, they recognise the sign as a declaration of Jesus’ identity, but they misinterpret it. They are about to take him by force and make him king. But this is not what Jesus’ kingship is about, he isn’t a political ruler; his kingship is not of this world. All three groups then have expectations which are met, but not necessarily in the way they were expecting. Our God is a God of Surprises.
The context of the Gospel story is important. It was just before the Passover, the festival commemorating Israel’s journey from slavery in Egypt, across the Red Sea towards the Promised Land. It is a festival of Hope and Freedom, of Liberation, of a God who will feed them with manna from heaven.
It is also the same time that Jesus will celebrate the Last Supper with his disciples, instituting the Eucharist, which Christians have faithfully celebrated ever since and the reason why WE are heretoday. The blessing, breaking and sharing of bread is a serious matter then, and not just an excuse for a conjuring trick.
The fact that it is a serious matter explains why Jesus will devote so much time and effort to teaching the people about this in the Gospel passages we will read over the next few weeks. It matters because it is how we encounter Jesus and are fed by him.
In the Gospel, it is Jesus who takes the initiative. He recognises that people are hungry, and that they need to be fed. He is a good shepherd who looks after his flock. He takes the basic foodstuff, bread, to show us how God works with simple things. These may be, like the barley loaves, poor, the kind that the world despises and looks down its nose at, but for God, nothing or indeed nobody is scorned or cast aside. Ours then is a God who takes what is available and uses it. Jesus takes what he is given and thanks God for it, in recognition that all we have, our lives and all of creation is a gift, for which we should thank God.
It is through prayer and blessing that bread can be broken and distributed and provide sustenance, on a scale and in a way that defies our expectation and understanding. Not only are the people fed but as a sign of the superabundance of God’s love and mercy, but there is more left over at the end than there was to begin with. Thus, in giving thanks to God and sharing his love, the kingdom of God of which the bread is a sign, which grows, which is shared, and which satisfies people’s deepest needs. The more you share it, the more there is.
Jesus takes, blesses, breaks and distributes bread to demonstrate what the Kingdom of God and the message of the Gospel is. This looks forward to the Institution of the Eucharist, just before Passover. It points to the great Passover, where the world is freed from the slavery of sin, washed in the Red Sea that flows from Calvary, and given the Law of love of God and neighbour.
This miraculous feeding by the shore of the Sea of Galilee will happen heretoday, when we, the people of God, united in love and faith offer ourselves and like the little boy, give the bread that we have, so that it may be taken, blessed, broken and given that we may be partakers in the mystical supper of the Kingdom of God. We eat the Body of Christ not as ordinary food – that it may become what we are – but that WE may become what HE is. THIS is our bread for the journey of faith. THIS is the sign and token of God’s love. THIS is the means by which we too may enjoy forever the closer presence of God.
So then, as the five thousand received and were satisfied, let us prepare to eat that same bread, the body of Christ, which satisfies our every need and fills us with a foretaste of the Kingdom of Godthe 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.
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16th Sunday of Year B – 22.vii.12 – Jer 23:1–6, Eph 2:13–18, Mk 6:30–34 ‘He took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd’

Living as we do here, out in the countryside, surrounded by fields, I suspect that the imagery in this morning’s readings is not completely lost on us. We are used to sheep and the shepherds who look after them. The care and devotion which a Shepherd should devote to his flock is a sign of God’s love and care for us, and to those of us who have been given pastoral responsibility in the church it serves as a reminder of who and what we are supposed to be: its cost, and the responsibility we share for the care of Christ’s flock, the burden and the joy.
In this morning’s first reading, we see what happens when it goes wrong. The Kings of Israel are not true shepherds as they exercise power which destroys and drives away the sheep. They don’t care for the well-being of the people, who have scattered, gone wandering off, as the mood takes them. It’s all gone horribly wrong; and yet God, the true shepherd of our souls, does not leave his people comfortless. He promises to give them a good Shepherd, and through the words of the prophet Jeremiah points towards his son, the good Shepherd, who will lay down his life for his sheep.
In St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we see the work of the good Shepherd and its fruits. He gives us life through his death. Through him the flock is united, that which divides, that which keeps us apart has been overcome by Jesus, he restores our relationship to one another and to God the Father, by laying down his life, by giving himself for us upon the cross and here in the Eucharist, where we the people of God are fed by God, are fed with God, to be built up into a holy nation, to become more like him, to have a hope of heaven, and of eternal peace and joy with him. In conquering the world and sin, Christ shows us that there is nothing God cannot do or will not do for love of us. All divisions, all human sinfulness can be reconciled through Him who was sinless, who gave himself to be tortured and killed that we might be free and live forever.
In this morning’s Gospel we see a picture of what good shepherds are like. Jesus and the apostles have been teaching the people, it’s a wonderful thing but it does take its toll. The disciples tell Jesus that it’s time to have a rest, to spend some time alone, in prayer and refreshment. The people are so many; their needs are so great that the apostles have not had time to even eat. It is a recognisable picture, and it shows us how great was the people’s need for God, for God’s teaching, for his love and reconciliation. Jesus does not send them away he takes pity on them because they are like sheep without a Shepherd, and he, the good Shepherd, will lay down his life for his sheep. His people are hungry so they will be fed by God, with God. God offers himself as food for his people and continues to do so: he will feed us here today, feed us with his body and blood, with his word, so that we may be fed, may be nourished, may be strengthened to live our lives, that we may live lives which follow him, that we may have the peace which passes all understanding. It’s a wonderful gift, which comes at a tremendous cost, which shows us how loving and generous God is towards us His people. Our response should be gratitude that we are fed in this way, that we have been reconciled to God through him. We should live lives fashioned after his example, lives which show his love and his truth to the world, lives which proclaim his victory, lives which will attract people to come inside the sheep-fold, to have new life in Jesus, to be with Jesus, to be fed by him, to be fed with him.
It’s a difficult thing to do, to live this life, to follow His example but with God’s help, and by helping each other to do it together, we can, and thereby 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.
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Trinity VI Evensong 15.vii.12 Rom 15:1–29 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abide in hope

It may seem strange or even contradictory to begin by being so happy, so upbeat, when all around us the world is in a mess: recession, unemployment, a growing gap between the richest and poorest in society, civil war in Syria, the possibility of an Olympic shambles, and to top it all the Church of England seems more and more to be trying to turn its back upon the faith and order of two millennia of the Christian Church. What was within our lifetimes seen as simple mainstream teaching is now seen as dangerously out of touch, repressive, regressive, reactionary, oppressive and downright wrong. Instead, we have replaced the Gospel with the Spirit of the Age, and where the Episcopal Church in America has led, we appear to be following. Yesterday saw the 179th anniversary of John Keble’s Assize Sermon which gave birth to the Oxford Movement its words still ring true, and I commend it to you in the strongest possible terms: it isn’t very long, but it contains truths which the world and the church need to hear.
          In the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, Paul says to the church in Rome – do not be conformed to the world, do not fashion yourselves after it, but be conformed rather to Christ. It is simple advice, which some two thousand years later humanity still seems reluctant to heed. But this does not cause me anger; rather I am all the more concerned to preach the Gospel. As Christians we may have hope, because our hope is in Christ, who became incarnate for our sake, who offers the world a radically different alternative, a totally new way of living, and totally unlike that of the world. He suffered and died and rose again for our sake, that we may have true joy and hope, which can never be rubbed out by all the heresies which may beset his body, the Church.
          As Christians we are to bear with the failings of the weak, and to build them up in truth and love. We are not to bear grudges, we are not to concern ourselves with power, for in our weakness is our strength. We are to welcome all as Jesus Christ has welcomed us, for the glory of God. This is truly radical, and totally unlike the ways of the world. It is costly, it is demanding, it is truly life-changing and it is truly wonderful. And to be honest there are plenty of people about doing just that, living out their faith in their lives. We can be happy, but not complacent, because it is a wonderful thing and it should encourage us to do more, to live more fully in Christ – to pray harder, fortified by the Sacraments, filled with joy and an example for others to emulate.
Like Paul I have spoken to you boldly, by way of reminder, because of the grace given to me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus in the priestly service of the Gospel of God. It is amongst other things a prophetic calling, to save others from stumbling, to pick them up when they do, to bind their wounds, and show them the right path. It is a joyous task doing the work of God, building up God’s people in love and defending truth against error, but above all to give glory to God.
          It’s a big ask, it isn’t for the faint-hearted, and it allows us to see why the message of the Gospel has been ignored or subverted, it’s the sort of message which has caused the death of many in the church. Be we should not be afraid, or scared, or worried, because by living as our Lord requires us people are attracted to the Christian Faith and way of life, it represents a freedom from the conformity of the world around them, a radical true freedom, of love and of the spirit.
But giving glory to God is all that any of us can hope to do. If we build up one another in love then we can be truly radical and transform this world, and conform it to the will of God, so that every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father. In two thousand years we have not yet managed it, but that does not mean that we should simply give up, or conform ourselves to the ways of the world. No, we should be encouraged to  strive all the more that the whole world may re-echo 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.
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Trinity VI 15.vii.12 Mt 5:20-26 Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven

It may not surprise you to learn that the Church is absolutely not a place in which to do politics. Politics is the art of the possible, where compromise lets you get something close to what you would originally have liked, with as many people on board as possible. Whereas what we see in this morning’s Gospel is something different, Our Lord would seem to be asking the impossible; he presents us with a totally uncompromising picture of what it means to live a Christian life, or in Matthew’s terms, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no compromise here, and what is required looks completely beyond us – that is, I would suggest, the entire point – it isn’t about what we as human beings can do on our own, but what God can do through us.
          Lest we get too disheartened by the rigorous demands of following Jesus, we should remember that what we are dealing with is something of a commentary upon the Beatitudes: Our Lord has called his disciples and explained how he offers a new way to live. He has used a series of contrasts: ‘You have heard it said that … but I say to you …’ He offers the world an alternative community, based on love, and shown most fully in the example, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
          It is his life and death which reconciles us both to God and to one another. To be a Christian is to be part of a community of love, of reconciliation, of freedom from the constraints of a society which says we should act politically, and compromise. In our repentance, our metanoia, our change of mind, we have turned away from sin, anger, adultery, divorce, and become a community of love and forgiveness. We offer the world something different from its own version of law, of justice, and of fairness – we offer something radically different, something which can truly turn the world around.
          That is why we should put away our anger with each other before we approach the altar, lest we eat and drink condemnation upon ourselves. If we follow the ways of the world we shall be in danger of hell fire, of turning our back on God, of being cut off from the salvation and reconciliation which Christ brings. What we are undertaking as the body of Christ is nothing less than the radical transformation of human society, without the political compromise which the world would expect or indeed desire.
          It’s a big ask, it isn’t for the faint-hearted, and it allows us to see why the message of the Gospel has been ignored or subverted, it’s the sort of message which has caused the death of many in the church. Be we should not be afraid, or scared, or worried, because by living as our Lord requires us people are attracted to the Christian Faith and way of life, it represents a freedom from the conformity of the world around them, a radical true freedom, of love and of the spirit. So then let us live this life that 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.
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Trinity V Evensong 8.vii.12 Sermon : 1Kings 18:17–39; Jn 15:1–16


IN this evening’s first lesson, the prophet Elijah turns to the people of Israel, who are dividing their loyalties between the LordGod and Baal, he asks them ‘How long will you go on limping with two opinions?’ They are to follow the Lordtheir God, or to turn away from him and follow Baal. There is no possibility of compromise, it is a simple choice. Elijah is not particularly bothered that he is the only prophet of God left, while against him stand the prophets of Baal and Asherah, the divine couple of the Levant. It doesn’t matter that Elijah is in a minority, that the people of Israel are hedging their bets, that Ahab and Jezebel are hostile towards him. He trusts in God, and that is enough. Truth, it would seem, is not decided by a majority vote. Elijah does not simply go along with the ways of the world; he does not bow to pressure from authority, he does not turn away, he remains faithful, he trusts in God, and Elijah the Tishbite receives his reward.
          In this evening’s second Lesson, Our Lord gives us a vision of how the church is to be: how we are to remain in Him. Jesus is the true vine, we are the branches, tended by God the Father, the vine-dresser. We are to be united with him, in our prayer, in our study of His word, in our reception of the Sacraments: fed by him, with him, so that we may become what he is. And in this we will bear fruit: in loving God, and being loved by Him, we will share that love with others and our lives will be transformed, for God’s glory and through God’s grace. This is a process rather than an event, it is like the growth of a vine, and its flowering, and bearing fruit. So the Church is to be drawn ever deeper into the mystery of God’s love.
          Jesus commands us to love one another as He has loved us. He has shown this in washing his disciples’ feet, he will show it when He suffers and dies for the sake of all humanity, and we are fed by Him and with Him in Holy Communion. We are to live lives of self-giving, sacrificial love, in service of one another. We lay down our lives for God’s glory to find life in all its fullness, and to live in the expectation of everlasting life. It is a lot to ask, and yet we are to do it gladly, for the sake of Him who died for us. Our relationship to one another and to God is to be profoundly different from that found in the first lesson: we are friends. When Jesus speaks to His disciples, he tells them that they are chosen by Him, and appointed by Him, to go and bear fruit that should abide. We see that now, here, nearly two thousand years later – rooted in Christ, close to Him, abiding in Him, the church is to continue to bear fruit through staying close to Him, obeying his commandments, studying the Bible, being fed and nurtured by the sacraments.
          When the world tells us that we should approve of a redefinition of marriage to include homosexuals, that we should have female bishops, so that the church may reflect the ways of the world, we should perhaps read on to verses 18 and 19, just after our second lesson ended, to see that for two thousand years those in power and authority have hated the Christian faith for all it stands for, they have sought to undermine it, to destroy it, to infiltrate it, and fashion it after their own designs: like the prophets of Baal and Asherah, like Ahad and Jezebel, to turn it away from the truth, to wrestle it from its apostolic foundations. We should turn away from the devices and desires of the world and remember that the Church exists to give glory to God and to conform the world to His will.
          It is a difficult and a dangerous calling, we are to lay down our lives in God’s service that the world may believe and trust in the God who loves us, who died and rose again for us. As the disciples hear that they are to lay down their lives, one of them is about to betray Him, another to deny Him, and yet they are loved, this is what forgiveness means – a love which transforms lives, which takes Peter and makes him turn from scared denier into a fearless leader of the Apostolic band. It isn’t about political games or power, the obsessions of many within the modern-day church, but of fashioning our lives after the One who loves us, that the world may believe – that the good news of Jesus Christ may spread, that all may believe and trust in Him, and in Him alone.
          Many people would rather have a lie-in on a Sunday morning than fulfil their baptism by coming to be fed at God’s altar. They would rather visit a temple of Mammon, to make themselves feel better through retail therapy than seek the love and forgiveness of God. Any excuse rather than find the greatest free gift that has ever been given. So we, the body of Christ must try in all that we are, all that we say, all that we do, to embody this self-giving love, to fashion our lives after Him who loved us, to welcome people to the family of faith. If we abide in Jesus, if we stay close to him, and reject the ways of the world we will bear fruit and thereby 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.
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14th Sunday of Year B – Mark 6:1-6

WHO do you say that I am? This is a question which Jesus asks his disciples, and it is a question which we and the rest of the world need to answer.
          In this morning’s Gospel we have a difficult picture set before us. Our Lord goes back to his home town. He teaches in the synagogue, and people who have known him all his life are amazed when they hear him. He is wise; he works miracles, but can only be understood by those who hear him in terms of the life they have seen him lead. The people of Nazareth know Jesus according to the flesh; but their very familiarity with him is a hindrance to knowing him truly, for it makes it all the more hard for them to see through the veil of his ordinariness. It is a case in point of the familiar saying ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’.
          What then does Jesus look like without faith then? Human, just a man like you or me? But what then do we make of the miracles, the teaching, and the healing? How does he rise from the dead? It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t add up, unless Jesus is simply not just a human being, but also the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word of God Incarnate.
          Either Jesus was a mad fool, or he was what he said he was. What we believe, our faith, matters. That is why we will recite the words of the Creed in a few minutes, simply because it matters. It isn’t enough to think that Jesus was a nice bloke who did nice things, healed people, and told them to love one another. He did what he did, and said what he said because he was God, a God who became incarnate, became flesh and dwelt among us, a God who who loves us, who died for us and rose again, and feeds us with himself, so that we might become what he is, so that humanity might become divine.
          It’s a serious matter, it relates to the salvation of all humanity. The world may say that Jesus was just a human being, and nothing more. But on this, and indeed on many other matters, we have to say that the world is wrong, and that the church should not follow it. It is difficult, but to be prophetic means to speak the truth to power. And so, to a world which sees itself as liberal, as rooted in the values of the Enlightenment, we, as the church, have to say no. We have to believe and trust in a God who lived among us, who saves us. We are to conform the world to the will of God, rather than conform God’s church to the will of the world. We are to express our faith in the God who loves us, who feeds us and who saves us. We are to confess this with our lips, but also live it in our lives. It’s a difficult thing to do, but with God’s help, and by helping each other to do it together, we can, and thereby 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.
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Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter Evensong, And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. Lk 24:11

In this evening’s first reading we hear Isaiah prophesying ‘Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.’ There is a hope that this life is not all that there is, that there is something beyond, something greater. It is a basic human desire to believe that this life is not all that there is. And we believe it at an innate level, so powerful is our need so to do.
            And yet, in Christ’s rising from the dead we know that death is not the end, that our hope, our destiny, our final destination is to be with God, to behold the Glory of God for ever, to be surrounded with his Love. Such a gift is free, and offered to all, young or old, rich or poor, through faith and baptism, for such is the grace of God, the reckless generosity that embraces a world with Love, that shows it its hands and side so that they may see what Love looks like. These are the lengths to which God goes to reconcile the world to himself: to heal our wounds, to be our peace and our joy.
            It is strange that much of the world when faced with the story of the Resurrection would reply something along the lines of ‘And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.’ A former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Hollaway has even written that Christ did not actually rise from the dead, but such was the love his disciples had for him that he lived on in their hearts. This is clearly utter rubbish. The disciple go from being scared and stuck in an upper room to missionaries, evangelists, spreading the Good News around the world, regardless of the cost, even of sacrificing their own lives to bear witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he diedfor our sins, and that he rose again, on this day for us, that God lovesus and tells us to love Him and to love one another. It is a simple and effective message which people still want to hear, even if others do not.
            We should, I suspect, be a little careful about all the talk of persecution in this country: Christianity is not about what jewellery you wear, but what you believe and how you live your life. What is perhaps far more worrying is that more and more (due to the efforts of a liberal-controlled media) we as Christians are portrayed as odd, as extreme, as obsessed by gender, sex and sexuality, an irrelevance to the modern world. Your religion, they say, is a private matter – please do not bother us with it, we’ll come to church as and when we feel like it, possibly Christmas and Easter if you’re lucky, but as for believing anything, well we’re far too grown up for your fairy-story nonsense.
            This may be something of a caricature, but it is a true one, and one which applies to the majority of the inhabitants of this village, of this county, of this country and indeed the Western world. It saddens me that such a mindset should have become prevalent of late, and that when we, as Christians, try to do something about it, we are told that we are all hypocrites, that we do not practise what we preach. There is some truth in this – we are sinners, but the heart of our faith and the Gospel is forgiveness – no matter how many times we mess things up, we are forgiven. It is this reckless generosity of spirit which people find hard – to believe that they too can be forgiven, by a loving God, and by their fellow Christians. That we can, despite our manifold shortcomings we can be a people of love, and forgiveness, and reconciliation. That God’s Grace will in the end not abolish our nature, but perfect it, that being fed by Christ, with Christ: so that we too may become what He is. That faced with the sad emptiness of the world, and its selfishness, its greed, we can be filled with joy, and life, and hope. That like the first apostles we too can spread the Gospel: that the world may believe.
It’s a tall order, perhaps, but one which God promises us. That is what the reality of the Resurrection is all about, it’s either nothing, in which case we are the most pitiable of deluded fools – idiots who are more to be pitied than blamed, or it is the single most important thing in the world. It should affect all of us, every part of our life, every minute of every day, all that we do, all that we say, all that we are. This may not fit in with a reserved English mentality, we think we’re supposed to be polite and not force our views on others. But this simply will not do. We are, after all, dealing with people’s souls, their eternal salvation, it’s a serious matter. And what we offer people is entirely free, can change their lives for the better, and make life worth living.
So let us be filled with the joy of the Resurrection this Easter, let us share that joy with others, may it fill our lives and those of whom we meet with the joy and love of God, who has triumphed and who offers us all new life in Him, that all that we do, all that we are, all that we say or think may 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, dominion and power, now and forever.
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Homily on the Day of Our Lord’s Resurrection – Jn 20:1–10 ‘and he saw and believed’

Early in the morning Mary Magdalene, Peter and John come to the tomb. They have seen their Lord and Saviour betrayed, falsely accused, flogged, and killed. We can scarcely imagine what’s going through their minds: grief, anguish, bitterness, Peter’s regret at having denied Jesus, of not being brave enough to say that he was a follower of Jesus, Mary and John who stood by the Cross, just want to be close to him in death as in life. They can’t take in what has happened: a week ago he was hailed as the Messiah, God’s anointed, the successor of David, now he has been cast aside: all his words of God’s love have fallen on deaf ears, he has been cast aside, ignored, a failure, a madman who wanted to change the world.
          Mary sees the stone rolled away, in the darkness, she doesn’t understand but says to Simon Peter ‘they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre and we know not where they have laid him’ her concern is for the dead body of Jesus. She does not know, she does not believe. As Mary has run away from the tomb, John and Simon Peter run towards it. John sees the cloths but does not go in. Peter goes in first and sees everything. Then John sees and believes: God has raised Jesus from the dead. It is his love for Our Lord and Saviour which allows him to see with the eyes of faith, to make sense of the impossible, the incomprehensible.
          As Christians we need to be like the Beloved Disciple: to love Our Lord and Saviour above all else, to see and believe like him, and through this to let God work in our lives. For what happened on that hillside nearly two thousand years ago, early in the morning, on the first day of the week is either nothing at all: a delusion of foolish people, a non-event of no consequence or interest, something the world can safely ignore or laugh at, mocking our credulity in the impossible, childish fools that we are, orit is something else: an event of such importance that the world will never be the same again.
          In dying and rising again, Jesus has changed history; he has changed our relationship with God, and with one another. He has broken down the gates of Hell to lead souls to Heaven, restoring humanity to the loving embrace of God, to open the way to heaven for all humanity, where we may share in the outpouring of God’s love, which is the life of the Trinity. His death means that our death is not the end, that we have an eternal destiny, a joy and bliss beyond our experience or understanding: to share in the life and love of God forever – this is what God does for us, for love of us, who nailed him to a tree, and still do with our dismissals or half-hearted grudging acceptance, done for propriety’s sake.
          There can be no luke-warm responses to this; there is no place for a polite smile and blithely to carry on regardless as though nothing much has happened. Otherwise, we can ask ourselves: why are we here? Why do Christians come together on the first day of the week to listen to the Scriptures, to pray to God, to ask forgiveness for our manifold sins, to be fed by Christ, with Christ: his true body and his blood, for Christ: to be his mystical body, the Church in the world?
          We are to be something different, something out of this world, living by different standards and in different ways, living lives of love not selfishness, self-satisfaction and sin. In baptism we died with Christ and were raised to new life with him, we are to live this life, and to share it with others: ours is a gift far too precious to be kept to ourselves, it is to be shared with the whole world, every last human soul, that they too may believe, perfecting creation, and bringing all of prodigal humanity into the embrace of a loving Father, filled with His Spirit, conformed to the pattern of His Son. This is our life, our calling, to have the singularity of purpose of those first disciples, who saw and believed, who let God in Christ change their lives and share this great free gift of God’s love.
So let our hearts be filled with joy, having died with Christ and raised to new life with him. Let us take that new life, and live it, in our thoughts, our words, and deeds, and share that life with others that the world may believe, that what happened outside a city two thousand years ago has changed all of human history and is still changing lives today. Christ died and is alive so that we and all the earth may have life and have it to the full, sharing in the life and love 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.
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Homily for the Easter Vigil: Mk 16:1–7 ‘There is no need for alarm’

What a week it has been. It began with Our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, as the Messiah, God’s Anointed. As the week goes on the feelings of triumph begin to change. After showing his disciples how God loves them, after feeding them with his body and blood, setting them apart for the service of his people, he goes out to pray. He is taken, falsely accused, tried and condemned to die. The joy and elation has now turned to sorrow, to anguish, and desolation. It looks as though he has failed, he has been rejected and killed. It looks like it’s all over.
          The women go to the tomb to perform the burial rituals which were delayed by the Sabbath, now that it is over they can go, and prepare Our Lord for his burial. They cannot understand what is going on, the stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty. Their emptiness turns to horror: has someone taken him? They greet the angel’s message with amazement, what’s going on? Can it be true? Is this what he meant when he told us that he would rise again after three days?
          In the silence since Friday afternoon, God has been both passive and active: breaking down the gates of Hell, and leading souls to Heaven. The triumph of the Son of God is after reigning on the tree, restoring humanity to the loving embrace of God, to open the way to heaven for all humanity, where we may share in the outpouring of God’s love, which is the life of the Trinity. His death means that our death is not the end, that we have an eternal destiny, a joy and bliss beyond our experience or understanding. Ours is the greater joy, greater since we know what we are celebrating, that we are the people of God, an Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.
          So let our hearts be filled with joy, having died with Christ and raised to new life with him. Let us take that new life, and live it, in our thoughts, our words, and deeds, and share that life with others that the world may believe, that what happened outside a city two thousand years ago has changed all of human history and is still changing lives today. Christ died and is alive so that we and all the earth may have life and have it to the full.
May I wish you all a Happy and Joyous Easter!
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Homily for Good Friday

In today’s first reading, we have the last of the four servant songs which we have been reading this week. They remind us that our Lord’s passion, his suffering and death heart clearly foretold in Scripture. So much of the action of this week has taken place so that Scripture may be fulfilled. What God told the people of Israel through his prophets comes about and the end of his son’s life. It shows us in the clearest possible way that what we see in the prophetic descriptions is true.
          If the truth be told, the suffering, the rejection, torture, and death of our Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ, is beyond our understanding. It is a mystery, the mystery of God’s love: an act of loving service, the power of silent love overcoming a world of political scheming, deception, self-interest and sin. But God’s own son should come from heaven and die to save a sinner like you or me is extraordinary. We are shown today in the clearest possible terms how God loves us: that there is no length to which he will not go to save us, to embrace his prodigal children. The chief priests and elders think that they’re ridding themselves of an heretic, a potential troublemaker, a fool who claims to be the son of God and King of Israel. When Pilate asks “What is Truth?” he does not understand that the source of all truth, the word of God incarnate is stood in front of him. After scourging him the soldiers put a purple robe around our Lord, crown him with thorns, and give him a reed for a sceptre. They think they’re being funny, they’re having a laugh, but this is God showing the world what true kingship is: it is not pomp, or power, the ability to have one’s own way, but the Silent Way of suffering love. It shows us what God’s glory is really like: it turns our human values on their head and inaugurates a new age, according to new values, restoring a relationship broken by human sin.
          In being raised upon the cross, our Lord is not dying the death of a common criminal, but rather reigning in glory. His hands and feet and side are pierced, as wounds of love, to pour out God’s healing life upon the world. In his obedience to the father’s will, he puts to an end the disobedience of humanity’s first parent. Christ is a willing victim, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Silent lamb led to his slaughter, the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep that have gone astray.
          Death and hell, the reward of sin, have no power over us, for in dying, and being laid in a stranger’s tomb, Christ will go down to Hell, to break down its doors, to lead souls to heaven, to alter the nature of the afterlife, once and for all. Just when the devil thinks he’s won, then in his weakness and in his silence Christ overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil. The burden of sin which separates humanity from God is carried on the wood of the cross. On the way to Calvary our Lord falls three times such is the way, such as the burden, so we too as Christians, despite being reconciled to God by the cross, will fall on our road too. We will continue to sin, but also to ask God for his love and mercy. But those arms which were opened on the cross will continue to embrace the world with God’s love. We don’t deserve it, but it is there to help us become the people God wants us to be: to be strengthened, fed, healed, and restored by him, to die to sin and be raised to new life, and to share that life and love with others, that the world might believe and be saved through him. Christ pays the debt which we cannot reconcile humanity to his loving and merciful Father. He shows us the meaning of true love: that we might live it out in our lives, forgiving one another, bearing our own cross, and living lives of love for love of him who died for love of us.
          We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he is our salvation, our life, and our resurrection, through him we are saved and made free.
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Homily for Maundy Thursday: The Mass of the Lord’s Supper – Jn 13:1–15 ‘He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfect his love was’

I
 WOULD LIKE to begin this evening by sharing something with you from my recent experience: In February I was fortunate to have undertaken a pilgrimage to Rome with other pilgrims from Leicester, Nottingham and the Midlands. As some of you may know, the journeys both to and from the Eternal City were not entirely unproblematic. Due to first snowfall in twenty five years both our arrival and departure were somewhat delayed. After our flight had finally been cancelled on the Saturday afternoon, and we had spent several hours waiting in the airport to try and find out what was going, we eventually got back on a bus and returned to the Hotel where we had been staying.
          As part of our pilgrimage we had celebrated Mass in a variety of local churches – a generous gesture, but one which had been planned long in advance. It was now Sunday, and nothing had been arranged – we had all expected to be back at home, what could we do? We couldn’t just walk into a church, so we went to one of the larger rooms on the first floor and rearranged the furniture. Priests had vestments with them, some wine was bought, and we had some bread and water with us already, a couple of wineglasses and a plate. Forty or so of us squeezed into this upper room, some stood, some reclined on the beds, or sat. We had gathered on the outskirts of the city as the first Christians, to whom the Apostle Paul wrote his letter did, on that the day of the Lord’s Resurrection we had gathered in a way not unlike Our Lord and the Disciples did on this very night. It all felt very real, we were aware that despite the slightly cobbled-together nature of things, God was very close; we were doing just what Christians have done ever since our Lord and Saviour commanded us to do it in memory of him.
          That is why we are here, tonight, to gather as disciples of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to be fed by him, with him and for him. He has given us an example that we should copy.  We do things as the Church, not because they’re nice, not because they make us feel good, but because Jesus told us to.
          Jesus begins this evening by removing his clothes, taking water, and washing his disciples’ feet. He, the son of God, who was with His Father before the universe and time began, kneels before his disciples, and serves them. He takes the place of a slave or a servant and shows us as Christians that to follow him is to serve. Never did a cross redeem nature from the curse: never was a lamb set upon the altar that could take away the sins of the world, until God took on him and nature of the servant. We as Christians are to serve one another; we are to wash one another’s feet, to help each other to pray for each other, and not to think that any of us is better than the other.
          Despite what the world may think about clergy: that we are weak, ineffectual, and well-meaning, or that we love to lord it over our flock, to stand pontificating 6 foot above criticism, we are in all things to fashion our life and example after Christ. In giving an example of service before the Last Supper, in praying for and setting apart his disciples as the first priests of his church, we who follow in their footsteps are shown in the clearest possible way that to love him, to care for his people is to serve them: we are to imitate the mysteries which we celebrate: offering our lives in his service and the service of his church. It is truly extraordinary that we should have such a responsibility placed on our shoulders. We are all of us, if the truth be told, incapable of such a task if we were acting solely in our own strength and our own abilities. But through the grace of God, and with the help of the prayers of you his people, it is our hope that we may conform ourselves ever more closely to Christ, our great high priest.
          Priests are amongst other things set apart for the service of God and the administration of His sacraments. At this time on this night, Jesus gives us himself, his body and blood to feed us, to nourish us, to strengthen us and to help us become what he is, to share in the outpouring of love which is the very life of God, that we may be given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, that we may experience something of the joy and love and life which awaits us in heaven, forever united with the triune God.
To do this our Lord takes bread and wine, simple ordinary foodstuffs, to transform them, to make something other than they are to view them with new meaning and new life, to strengthen and heal his mystical body of the church with his own true body and blood. It is remarkable and extraordinary, words cannot fully express our awe that we poor wretched sinners, though unworthy are fed by our Lord as both priest and victim. It is not something for us to understand with our minds, but a mystery for us to enter with all our lives.
Jesus, receiving the cup, gave thanks and gave it to them saying: drink ye all of this, for this is my blood for blood of the new and everlasting covenant which will be shed for you and for many so that sins may be forgiven. This is my blood he says which is to be shed. The blood shed and this blood are not two different things, but one and the same. Tomorrow it shall be shed from my side, tonight you drink it and behold it in the cup.
We here, tonight, have come together as the people of God, to be fed by God to be strengthened by him, to live lives in his service. Both tonight and tomorrow, we will see how God loves us. In his service, in his giving of himself to be taken, beaten, falsely accused, scourged and crucified, God shows us what true love, true glory, and true service are. The world can’t understand this, it goes against everything people are told about putting themselves and their lives first, to judge their importance or worth by what they own, rather than how they live their lives. And yet this world is wounded by sin, the image of God is marred. In its selfish searching, what it truly wants and needs is to be healed, to be embraced by a loving God. That is why it tomorrow on the cross our Lord’s Arms will be flung wide open to embrace the world with God’s love.
Let us then prepare ourselves, let us have our feet washed by Christ, let us be fed by him, with him, strengthened by him, to fashion our lives after his. Let us prepare to go to Calvary with him, laying down our lives in his service, picking up our Cross and following him, to death and beyond, to the new life of Easter. Let us live his risen life, and share our joy with others, that the world may 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…
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Tuesday in Holy Week: Jn 13:21–33, 36–38

Now has the Son of Man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified.

WE are used, as human beings, to the concept of glory – of seeing in the great achievements of great people, Roger Bannister running the sub-four minute mile, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, Sir Steve Redgrave winning five gold medals in consecutive Olympic games. It is something wonderful, something which points beyond the realms of normal human existence, and ultimately to the transcendent, to God, the source and origin of all glory.

And yet, in this evening’s gospel, after a description of the Last Supper, we see Judas Iscariot going out to betray Jesus, to hand him over to the Jews, while Jesus tells him ‘what you are going to do, do quickly’. Night falls. It is a time of darkness, not of light, evil will triumph over good and all will be lost. The disciples, Jesus closest and most intimate friends will scatter leaving him alone. Even Peter, the acknowledged leader of the disciples, will deny his Lord three times despite his protestations to the contrary. This picture of sadness, fear, and betrayal does not appear at first sight to be very promising material for the glorification of Jesus Christ the son of God, the eternal Word of the father. The actions of the Last Supper are finished: the washing of his disciples’ feet, the institution of the Eucharist, the sharing of his body and blood which looks to the cross and beyond to the new life of the kingdom of God.

And so Jesus begins a series of farewell discourses, reflections upon what he has done and is about to do, which express the heart of the Christian faith in action, which show us most fully who and what Jesus is and what he does. In this, the apostle Peter, a man who thinks before he speaks, states his commitment to our Lord. In the events that are to come, his resolve will turn through fear to denial. This is a profoundly human response: our initial zeal can, through fear and the pressures of this world, fizzle away. We are, all of us, at one level, no different to Peter. For all our good intentions can end up sacrificed upon the altar of expediency. And like Peter the inadequacy of our good intentions must be exposed before we can follow. Peter trusted in God, he asked for forgiveness and unlike Judas he trusts in God for healing and forgiveness.

Traditionally God’s glory is glimpsed in the light of the divine presence that presents which gives the law to Moses and makes his face shine. It is the glory of the Transfiguration. And yet, having washed his disciples’ feet and fed them at the table and being about to be betrayed abandoned and denied by his closest followers, Jesus is entering his hour of glory. He will in the words of the prophet Isaiah restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back the survivors of Israel; he will make us, his people, the light of the nations so that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Thus, the saving work of our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection shows us in the deepest and most intimate way what God’s glory is really like. We cannot, if the truth be told, understand it, it is mysterious. We need rather to enter into it, to be in a relationship with God through his reconciliation and Love: to be healed by him, restored by him. It is a strength shown in weakness, action shown through passivity. Understanding this turns the world around: when in his passion he is clothed in a purple robe, given a Crown of Thorns and reed for a sceptre, he really is the King of the Jews. Pontius Pilate ends up proclaiming to the entire world the fact of Jesus kingship, a sign fixed to his Cross to show the world what true glory and kingship are.

The events of his passion are clearly foretold in Scripture, in the prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Having told the people of Israel how this is to be brought about, Scripture is fulfilled, its meaning is deepened, it is shown to be true as coming from the source of all truth, God himself. In the events of his passion, trial, death, and resurrection Jesus shows the world what God’s love, reconciliation, and healing are like. He shows us the lengths to which the Father will go to embrace the prodigal son of humanity. And there is no price which he is not willing to pay to save you me and all of the human race.

In the events of the next few days, we will see how God’s salvation can reach to the ends of the Earth. The proclamation of the Gospel is the work of the church, it is our work: yours and mine which is done so that the world may believe. The world may choose to reject this message but that does not mean that it can and will fail. Christ’s victory is total and complete. In spite of his being rejected by the Jews Christ was ready to conquer by dying. But he did not set out to be rejected: his work was not a ritual suicide; it was an outpouring of love. So we can ask, what did he set out to do in his mission to Israel? Shall we not say that he brought the divine life into the world of humanity so that it overflowed upon them and through them into union with itself? What else? He formed a fellowship with them which not death itself, not anyone’s death, be it his or theirs, should break: for he was King in the everlasting kingdom of God – grounded in a relationship of love, restoring humanity to God, and bringing about a new Creation as the second Adam, feeding us with himself, giving us the hope of heaven, and the possibility of being filled with Divine life. This then is true glory, expressed through selfless love, humility, pain and rejection. This is the true balm of Gilead, pointed to in Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet. This is how the world is healed. Let us turn to him, come to him, and ask for his healing love and mercy. Let us be transformed through his grace and lay down our lives for him.

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Monday in Holy Week Jn 12:1–11

Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair; the house was full of the scent of the ointment.

LET ME BEGIN this evening by asking you all a question: when was the last time something extraordinary and unexpected happened to you? If not yourself then someone you know, and something you saw. Take a moment to recall it, shut your eyes, picture it in your mind, feel the emotions, smell the smells, relive it. In a similar way we should find it both strange and surprising to be confronted with this picture from this evening’s gospel. Jesus, throughout his earthly ministry, has shown particular care for the poor, the needy, and the outcast, they have been fed by the disciples at their own expense and healed and welcomed by Jesus: they see the kingdom of God in their midst. They are to be loved and cared for by us as Christians.

And so, the picture of a lavish expense, of a reckless generosity, strikes us as odd. It goes against the grain, it’s almost as though there’s something wrong here. We should be alert to the fact that something important is happening in the gospel account. Mary’s anointing of Jesus is done in preparation for his burial, after his suffering and death on the cross, before he is laid in a stranger’s tomb. Straight after his triumphant entry into Jerusalem the day before, on a donkey just like his mother on the way to Bethlehem, or the Holy Family going into exile in Egypt, Our Lord’s mind and heart are set on the events of Good Friday – and this is exactly where our hearts and minds should be too. The King of the Jews will reign triumphantly from the Cross: as both priest and victim, the Lamb of God (who will be sacrificed upon the altar of the cross to bring about the true Passover of God’s people). He is prepared for his death and burial with the same substance which was burnt upon the altar of incense in the temple, symbolising the fact that Christ’s service, suffering, and death will be a fragrant offering to God the Almighty Father.

The cost of the ointment which Mary used was (in rough terms) a year’s wages for an agricultural labourer. Taking something worth ten or twelve thousand pounds in today’s money to anoint someone’s feet is an act of reckless generosity. As such, it points towards the outpouring of God’s love upon his world – it shows us the lengths to which God in Christ is willing to go to save and heal a world wounded by Sin – nothing is too costly, no expense is spared for the love of us, sinful humanity. These days of holy week are unique, and the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross is a singular event, whose effects are felt through time.

To reinforce the importance of the events leading up to our Lord’s passion and the passion itself, this week we find ourselves reading with the Church a number of portions of the book of the prophet Isaiah and in particular, those sections known as the four servant songs. In these the prophet describes the persecution, suffering and death of the servant of the Lord. The church has always seen these passages of Scripture as pointing toward Jesus, his suffering and death. His passion is prefigured in these prophetic utterances. We see in the events of this week a rollercoaster of emotion, which starts with a triumphant entry into the Messiah into Jerusalem only to end in trial, torture, and death.

In this evening’s first reading we see the silence of our Lord before the high priest and before Pilate, it is a picture of someone filled with God’s spirit, the chosen one in whom God delights. The events of the passion will show us both what God’s love and God’s justice are. What this will bring about is the healing of the nations: the opening of the eyes of the blind, the freeing of captive humanity from the prison of sin, from the darkness of our dungeon into the new light and life of Easter. That such wonderful things should be inaugurated by an act which mirrors God’s reckless and overflowing generosity is not that surprising at all.

It also teaches us that our human response to God in worship should likewise be extravagant, mirroring God’s response to us. Our worship should be costly in terms of time and effort and expense. We should try to give our best in every sense, solely for the glory of God, and to mark things out as a special, extraordinary, not of this world. As we gather around the altar to be fed by the Lord with his body and blood, we partake in the one, perfect, sufficient sacrifice of Calvary, made ever-present on the altars of God’s church. We are nourished and transformed by God’s saving love. So then, as we walk in our Lord’s footsteps, let us pray that he will nourish as in both word and sacrament, perfecting our human nature by his grace, and enabling us to live his risen life in thought and word and deed that the world may believe

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Homily for Lent V Year B

Some Greeks go up to Philip and say ‘Sir, we would like 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 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 they will also see Jesus in us Christians, who are the body of Christ, we too are to be his presence in the world. Everything 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 on Christ’s, and our sharing in his passion, death, and resurrection, to form our lives so that they reflect his glory so that the world may believe. 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; 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’ Our Lord is looking towards his passion and death. In this God shows the world the fullness of divine glory, he gives the world the most profound expression of self-giving love in His Passion, in His death upon the Cross, and in His rising to new life. This is why we as Christians celebrate Our Lord’s Death and Resurrection: 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, 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…
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Homily for Lent IV Year B

‘For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that through him the world might be saved.’

 It is far too easy to see the church in a negative way. We can be characterised as strange, quaint, and out of touch. It suits people to see us as opposed to certain things. We are prescriptive, we limit people’s freedom, and failing to practice what we preach, we can be written off as hypocrites, with no right to proclaim objective truth, to offer the world a moral framework, within which to live its life; to offer the world an alternative paradigm, a new way of living and of being through which to have life, and have life in all its fullness.

This morning’s gospel reminds us of the fundamental truth that God loves us. In the incarnation Jesus comes among us as a poor helpless baby, laid to rest in the rough wood of an animals’ feeding trough. He is cared for through the love of his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who in her love, service, and obedience, stands as the model for all Christians. She is the first Christian, the greatest, a pattern for us to imitate, and a foreshadowing of our great mother the church.

Upon the rough wood of the cross, Jesus will suffer and die for us. His mother, Mary, stands by and watches and weeps. As the church we too should watch and weep for the wounds of sin and division which still scar Christ’s body. We should do all that we can to live God’s life of sacrificial self giving love: living lives of light, which shine in the darkness. The salvation and eternal life which Christ offers freely to all, comes through the church, which we enter in baptism, where we are nourished in word and are sacrament, given food for the journey, strengthened and taught, to live his risen life, to share in the joys of Easter.

God cares so much about the world and its people that he takes flesh, and lives a life of love, amidst the messiness of humanity, to show us how to live lives filled with love, life in all its fullness. Not to condemn the world but to offer it a way of being. God has made us for himself , and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him. The spiritual needs and searching which characterise people in the world around us, can be satisfied in God and in God alone, through the church.

We can rejoice, and relax our Lenten discipline for a little while to give thanks for the wonderful gift of God’s love in our lives, in the church, and for the world. But we also need to trust God, to listen to what he says through Scripture, to be fed by him, and to live lives in accordance with his will and purpose, together, as a family, as a community of love, cared for and supported by our mother, the church. And in so doing we look to our Lady as mother of our Lord and mother of the church, as a pattern for love and obedience, as a model for all mothers: loving and tender, putting the needs of others before self, self-giving, sacrificial, and open to both joy and pain.

This, as any mother can tell you, is not easy, it’s difficult, really hard, but its rewards are likewise great. So let us, as we continue our Lenten journey towards the cross, where God shows his love for us most fully and completely, giving his body to be broken and his blood be shed for us, a sacrifice which will be made present here today under the outward forms of bread and wine, to strengthen us to live the risen life of Easter, to offer the world and alternative to selfishness, to self-centredness, to the sin which continues to separate us from God, in a self-giving love of mothers, and of our mother the church. That we may join the Angels in our song of love and praise to the Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, to whom bw ascribed as is right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever

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Remembrance Day 14.xi.2010

‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Jn 15:13
We come here this afternoon to remember, to remember and give thanks for a sacrifice. 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. As we meet him week by week and day by day in word and sacrament, 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 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. Many people, members of our own families, as no-one has not been touched by the events of the past one hundred years, 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, and on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Coventry we call to mind the dreadful cost paid by our near neighbours. 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 lives. We 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.
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 hu-manity: 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, 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 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.

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‘I am the bread of life: and he that cometh to me shall never hunger: and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’

It has been said that the oldest profession in the world are the ladies of the night, but as much as I hate to disappoint those of a more salacious disposition, this opinion is quite wrong. In the second chapter of the Book of Genesis we read that ‘the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.’ Thus, to work the land is to engage in something which takes us back to the very beginnings of humanity, an honourable profession indeed. The practice of coming together to offer our praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the goodness of creation and a harvest safely gathered in is, likewise, an ancient and honourable thing – just as the Ancient Israelites gave thanks for their life in the promised land, so do we. We should, as part of our worship of God offer him the best of all that we have as a response to a loving and generous God.

But while this is important, we need to be careful not to get things wrong – we need to ask ourselves what are we here for, not as a question of existential angst, but as a serious question. Is what we are engaged in a bit of cosy folk religion, a matter of duty, an excuse to be seen, or perhaps something more? When this church was built, its congregation, who lived on and worked the land would gather on the 1st August for Lammas, or Loaf-Mass to give thanks for a successful grain harvest and with the renewal of the Church in the nineteenth century the idea of a harvest celebration became popular once again.

But as well as giving thanks to God, we also need to be shocked challenged and changed by the example and teaching of Jesus in the second lesson. Are we as a church and a society, content simply to be fed, or is God asking more of us. Our faith is not something we can keep safe in a box, to put on like a hat for church on Sunday – it needs to be more than that. Our faith must form all that we are, and all that we do, and say, and think. Our belief in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ needs to form the very ground of our being. This faith, like a plant, needs to be tended, watered, and protected from weeds. Like a child it needs to be nourished, encouraged, and taught.

The crowd in the Gospel story have not grasped the meaning and importance of their being fed, they have not understood its spiritual meaning but are rather interested in the prospect of another free meal, whereas Jesus feeds them as a sign of their heavenly food, the bread of eternal life. Rather than working for the food that perishes we need to work for the bread of life, which is Christ himself. We need to meet at the Lord’s table to be fed by his word and his very self, his body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, to have our bread for the journey for our life of faith together, as God is the sustenance of life itself, of our very existence, for those who trust in him, and he will fill our every need, by giving us that which we cannot work for ourselves, and for which we hunger most.

Our desire for a world where none are hungry, where all are loved, requires our cooperation with the will of God, and our trust in him. By our being fed by his word and the Eucharist our lives can be transfigured, our faith strengthened and renewed, enabling us to transform the world around us, conforming it to the will of God. We can only do this through being nourished body and soul by God – through our participation in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper – fed by God, with God, for God’s work in the world. Only this can satisfy our deepest hunger and thirst, and give us true peace, and hasten the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.

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‘In this way he will be able to encourage the others with the teaching, and also show the errors of those who are opposed to it’

TITUS 1:7–11, 2:1–8
– 28.viii.10 –
PREACHED AT VESPERS OF THE PATRONAL FESTIVAL OF S. AIDAN’S NEW PARKS, LEICESTER

It is fair to say that, of late, Celtic Christianity has been all the rage – with its ‘Wild Goose liturgy’ tear-and-share Eucharists, gazing into water, plenty of pebble-rubbing, and thinly-disguised nature-worship and a touchy-feely approach to the Christian faith which perhaps taps into the emotional side of the British which has been repressed by the stiff upper-lip approach.

If, however, such an understanding is allowed to go unchallenged, it will only serve to perpetuate a misunderstanding which does a great service to the life and witness of saints such as Aidan. These Celtic saints were serious, hard-working men, who took their inspiration from the first monastic communities founded in Egypt, whose leading lights were the Desert Fathers and whose lives and sayings are recorded by John Cassian and others. What we are dealing with are people, above all else, seeking to love God and their neighbour in thought, word and deed, living out the heart of the Gospel in their life and example. It is far too easy to engage in a superficial reading of them which fails to do justice to their lives of Christian service, but this will not do.

A salutary example can be found in the life of S. Aidan. A mission from the Celtic Church to the people of Northumbria had failed and it is Aidan who identifies correctly the reason why it failed. At a conference convened to discuss the failure of the mission, Aidan sets his colleagues straight: ‘Brothers, it seems to me that you were too severe on your ignorant hearers. You should have followed the practice of the apostles … and gradually nourished them with the word of God until they were … able to follow the loftier precepts of Christ’. In other words, Aidan saw clearly the need to meet people half-way, even when one is in the right, which is exactly what our Lord did.

In meeting people where they are, and bringing them to faith gradually, nourishing them first on the milk of human kindness before moving on to the more solid food of the Gospel, we see in Aidan a Christ-like gentleness combined with a zeal that the Good News of Christ will take root in the hearts and in the minds and in the lives of those to whom he is ministering. Aidan is sincere and serious, as Paul advises Titus to be, but he is, above all else, not overbearing, lording it over his brethren, or those whom he is seeking to convert. Rather, in patience and humility, which flow from the love of God and neighbour, his life and example speak of Christian charity lived out in a way which is infectious, to which people cannot fail to be attracted.

This, then, is the challenge to all of us here today – all the baptised people of God need to follow the example of Aidan in gentleness and love, aware of our sins and shortcomings and deeply penitent for them, yet firmly resolved to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel in our own lives. This is a demanding undertaking, one which needs to be grounded in prayer, in waiting on God, in letting him form us. It needs the comfort and strength of the Sacraments where Christ is truly present. We need to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, fed in our minds, in our souls, and in our bodies, to have strength for the journey, for the task which Christ calls us to do in His name and for His glory.

This, then, is the true teaching which Aidan embodies and lives out. It stands in stark contrast to the error of touchy-feely liberalism, of a wishy-washy perversion of Christianity: the dangerous nonsense of Paul’s letter, which damages the Gospel with its laxity just like the harshness which Aidan opposed.

Aidan’s message and example, however, can be trusted as it is rooted in the example and doctrine of Christ and the Apostles – touchstones to which the Church must cling, lest it fall into error. We need then to be sincere and serious, as Paul advises Titus, since the commission to preach the Gospel by word and deed is a serious business for all Christians. We need to be sincere, as anything false or hypocritical damages the Church and the message which it proclaims. We also need to be serious, as it is our compassion, gentleness and humility, which make us truly Christ-like and our proclamation authentic. But for our doing the work of God to bear fruit, we need above else to pray for patience and perseverance. Only if we keep going can the good news of Christ flourish in our own lives and in those whom we seek to bring to new life in Christ, Such an undertaking takes time, and just as Aidan was prepared to live and preach in a way which would win out in the long run, so we too have to be prepared to be willing to taking our time and persevere in the service of Christ.

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Quo nunc Ecclesia Anglicana?

It would seem appropriate to perhaps begin to think about such questions in the light of recent events, especially the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus.

I ought to begin by stating that my own opinion is neither fixed, nor settled, so … watch this space… Some people are overjoyed at the thought of ‘going over’. Can the work started by Newman, Keble, Pusey, Froude and countless others be said to have reached its completion?

All I can say at present is that the best thing to do is to listen to Thomas Tompkin’s Sad Pavan for these distracted times which while it was written in response to the murder of Charles Stuart by a bunch of Puritans, seems strangely appropriate.

I suppose the night is darkest just before the dawn