SERMON 154 - SUNDAY 13 DECEMBER 2020

Sermon on Third Sunday of Advent  (John  the Baptist) -  All Saint’s Church, Winterslow, Morning Praise Service  –  Sunday 13th December 2020

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28

Well, once again may I say how delighted I am to be with you live, so to speak, after an absence of nine months away from doing actual services. It is especially good to be here in Winterslow amongst lovely Christian friends as it was here, eight yours ago, that I gave my first sermon whilst training for the ministry!  I think, therefore, it is only appropriate that I should renew my ministry again here today.

Today we lit the third candle which reminds us that Christmas is now less than two weeks away.  Normally, we are busy bustling around the shops and preparing for relatives to arrive, meeting others for pre-Christmas drinks and so on.  What a difference this year!  Like so many of you I guess you’ve been busy on your computers or other devices ordering goods and presents on line for delivery to your own home and to others.  Many of us have been unable to see friends and relatives and have had to forgo our overseas holidays and visits in order to protect ourselves and those we love.  In other words, we have had to make sacrifices in order to save those we love. Yes, Christmas will be a muted affair this year but perhaps in so being it will make us and many like us more aware of what this celebration is all about – the coming of the Messiah, the one who saves us all!  Emmanuel, God amongst us.

I mentioned earlier that this is my first service “in the flesh” so to speak and it seems so wonderful to be back here amongst you and I wonder whether God felt the same when he sent his Son, in the flesh, to come down and dwell amongst his people.  I don’t claim to be the Messiah, I hasten to add, but it has made me realise, as I have sat at home watching the world tear itself apart, how God must have felt and why he had the overwhelming desire to get back down into the world he had created.  Just as now, back then, the world was a difficult place with so much wrong with it.

Many of you will know of my passion for astronomy.  A passion I have had since I was nine years old. During all the years of pursuing that passion I have seen many wonderful sights in the night sky – the Moon, comets, planets (especially Saturn), galaxies, nebulae, the Milky Way and so forth; but the singular most beautiful thing I have ever seen was that remarkable view of our own planet, Earth, shown to us by the lunar astronauts from the surface of the Moon.  The beauty of our planet is astounding and the one thing which struck me more than anything was how absolutely serene and peaceful it looked out there.  From outer space there are no political boundaries, no evidence of war, destruction, famine or other negative forces. It all seems so positive.  It’s God’s own creation and if you want to get close to God one way, as the Director of the Vatican Observatory, Father Guy Consolmango, recommends is to study his Creation in the Cosmos. It is by wondering at the immensity and mystery of the Universe that we get a feeling for the immensity and mystery of God.  Something for you all to reflect upon next time you look up at the night sky.

But back to today’s readings.   In our first reading, one of my favourites from the Book of Isaiah, the writer is setting out, in a beautiful poetic way, Jesus’s job description! It’s a prophecy of the person God will send down to Earth to put things right:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release the prisoners, to proclaim the year of God’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn … to give them garlands instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit”.

Wow if we ever needed such words of encouragement and comfort we certainly need them today. We are all captive prisoners in some way or another – being it lockdown or captive with our own thoughts and despair.  But we have already had the means to be free of such captivity by the Faith we have in Jesus Christ as our Saviour – even though times seem so dark. I have been involved, in my professional life, with reviewing and drafting job descriptions but this one of Isaiah’s is just perfect.  It was exactly what was needed and continues to be needed today.

John, in our gospel reading refers back to the prophecy of Isaiah reminding us that one would be sent ahead of Jesus to “make straight the way of the Lord”. He refers of course to his namesake, John the Baptist, who we read in Luke’s Gospel was a cousin of Jesus and who was conceived around the same time as Jesus himself. Both Mary and Elizabeth were unlikely mothers back then – one being an unmarried teenager and the other a woman of mature years. His own role, as the one who was to make the ways straight for Jesus, is remembered especially today with the Third Candle.  He was to prepare the way for bringing God’s love to us all.

As we know, John’s ministry began much earlier than Jesus’s.  We don’t know a lot about what Jesus was doing during the first 30 years of his life but can surmise, from many of his parables, that he had a real good handle on both Jewish family life and theology and also the commercial aspects of being involved in the running of a business – Joseph’s carpentry business in all probability.  Recent research suggests that he might have been involved in the building of a new village close to Nazareth.  John’s earlier ministry, on the other hand, is more clearly set out. 

John the Baptist never shied away from proclaiming the ministry of Jesus.  He must have been a very charismatic person for we read that many followed him and were baptised by him in the River Jordan – even Jesus himself to show that whilst he was divine he had come down in human form.  His own baptism gave a stamp of authority to all those who had been previously and latterly baptised by John.

John, in our readings, is quizzed heavily by people sent by the Pharisees who are trying to fathom out precisely who John is and what his actual job description is too. John answers “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord”. He goes on to say that he is not the Messiah because he only baptises with water, that a greater person is coming who will have the ability to baptise with the Spirit.  For the Jews, this would have been quite a revelation for up until that point the Spirit had only been bestowed upon special people for special tasks.  Now here was a hint that the Holy Spirit might be for all, just as water had been for all and any who wanted to be baptised.

I have always found it interesting, and revealing that John begins his Gospel, his story of Jesus’s life, not with Bethlehem, the shepherds and wise men coming to a dirty stable, but with the news that Jesus was always there and was coming down to bring light, life and spirit to a broken world.  Deliberately, he begins at Chapter 1 Verse 1 with the immortal phrase “In the beginning” those self-same words that begin the Jewish Torah with Genesis.  “Jesus, was, is and is to come”. Alleluia!  What a wonderful thought and something for us all to reflect upon as we hurry towards Christmas and may the Holy Spirit be with you all today and always.

 

Amen                                                                                  MFB/154/11122020

SERMON 153 - SUNDAY 25 OCTOBER 2020

Sermon on Last Sunday after Trinity  (Bible Sunday) -  Clarendon Team Service during Coronvirus Restrictions   –  Sunday 25th October 2020

Colossians 3:12-17

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience” so begins our passage of scripture this morning on this, Bible Sunday.  What absolutely beautiful words they are, aren’t they?  For me they encapsulate everything that should mark out a Christian life from anything else. 

For many, in this modern and for me, increasingly dystopian world, the bible is something which people simply don’t understand.  For many it is a book of don’ts rather than do’s.  For many, being a Christian means not having fun, having to be miserable, always being prevented from doing what you really want to do by old fashioned rules and regulation and laws.  For those of us who are Christians, we know much better and we know that we are expected to live Christ-like lives.  Jesus himself, we read, enjoyed a good party, he ate and drank with people from all walks of lives and indeed was a good storyteller and, at times, humourist (remember the story of the splinter and the plank in the eye); but above all he was the epitome of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.

Today we are expected to act strong, be brave, not show our feelings or vulnerabilities lest they be exploited.  For some, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience are by-words for weakness not strength; but I challenge anyone who has had to act humbly or seek forgiveness after doing or saying something wrong or even show forgiveness to others, to say that it hasn’t often been extremely difficult and has required an immense amount of strength to do it.

Paul, in these few words from his letter to the Christians in Colossus is reminding them that these attributes are indeed the mark of true Christianity. He goes on to express how they should behave if in dispute in verses 12-13 and the prime word here is “forgive” reminding them that to forgive is to act in the same way as God who forgives us all when we truly repent – that is say sorry and turn back to Him.  But, above all Paul, continuing in verse 14, implores us to clothe ourselves in love because from love, agape, will flow that same compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience he first talks about.

We should, in all we say and do, be ever mindful of the word of Christ which, as Christians, now dwells within us. We should support each other with wisdom and continually bind ourselves together in praise and whatever we do or say or think we should do it in the name of Jesus.  He means everything too – not just on Sunday morning in church, but also in our daily lives whether we are cooking, working, cleaning, gardening, playing golf - we should do it with that same love.

It all sounds so easy doesn’t it?  Well it’s not! I was having coffee with a group of Christian men midweek and we discussed how each of us had become a Christian. One of our number had been influenced by his wife after accompanying her to a Christian conference.  He had come to Christ at the age of 56 after a life pursuing things which could not always be described as “Godly”.  After his epiphany he had found it comforting to know that God had forgiven him for his past misdemeanours and that was a great help towards a complete healing process – however, the one thing which took many years afterwards was to forgive himself, and he is still not quite there yet.

That is what I mean about needing to be strong sometimes to be a Christian. It’s not an easy life, it isn’t all going to go well and there will still be times when the going is very tough. Those are the times when we need to feel God’s overwhelming presence and love – to feel his “charity”.

This is where the bible can be so helpful.  In my early years, when the only translation of the bible was the good old King James Authorised Version, I struggled to really understand its beautiful, flowery yet often incomprehensible out-dated language. My copy sat on my bedroom bookshelf gathering dust. As the years went by and I met other Christians through my University Christian Union and was introduced to more modern versions of the bible, I began to understand more and more of the scriptures until I realised that many of the messages contained still have great relevance today. 

The more I read and the more I see of our changing world the more I see the important messages of scripture. It is probably a combination of age and dare I say increasing wisdom, at least I like to think it’s the latter, that makes me now appreciate its messages. But the messages are, for the most part simple – like today’s message from Paul – be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient.  If you are genuinely these things, people will see them in you and you will be a true evangelist, spreading the word of scripture by what you do, think, and behave.  Praise be to God!     

Amen                                                                                              MFB/153/21102020

SERMON 152 - SUNDAY 11 OCTOBER 2020

 

Sermon on 18^th Sunday after Trinity  -  Clarendon Team Service during Coronvirus Restrictions   –  Sunday 11th October 2020

Philippians 4:1-9

In our reading this morning from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi, we hear some very familiar words – the words probably made even more familiar to any of those of you who have sung in a sacred choir.  Indeed Henry Purcell’s setting of the words “Rejoice in the Lord always” is one of my most favourite anthems which I sang on many occasions in my youth in a church choir in Lincolnshire and indeed in Lincoln Cathedral itself.

But for many, in these days of pandemic, we can be forgiven for thinking these words being rather hollow.  What, actually, is there to rejoice about?  The world which we have known and felt secure with for most of our lives seems to be falling apart. 

In fact, Paul’s situation when he wrote this relatively short letter, was far from one of safety and comfort.  He was actually “in chains”, in prison yet he sought to write a letter of warning to his fellow Christians – for that, for the most part, is what this letter is.  His letter begins with a prayer of love and joy for its recipients because he has been well pleased with their spiritual growth but he is also anxious that they do not fall by the wayside and that their Christian growth continues. The Philippians are living in a city fiercely loyal to Rome and their pagan ways and so Paul, who is suffering in prison, is wanting to give encouragement to the Christian community to carry on with the good work and longs for them to enjoy progressively richer and deeper spiritual knowledge which will mould their lives to God’s pattern. 

Chapter 4, in particular, is a cry of encouragement despite the culture and difficulties of the day.  Despite the fact that this letter was written to a Christian community nearly two thousand years ago it could have been written to us only yesterday.

It seems from the first couple of verses read this morning that two Philippian Christian women, Euodia and Syntyche have quarrelled.  Since Paul is dealing with this in a public letter it would appear that it was probably more than a private squabble.  It suggests that they were probably two of the church’s leaders (co-workers) and so their differences could put the whole Christian community in jeopardy. Paul urges the whole church to help them resolve their differences for the benefit of the community at large.  We do not know what the disagreement was about but Paul’s next line, the “rejoice in the Lord always …” suggests that he is imploring his readers to act with gentleness and compassion so that others outside of the Christian community can see the special way, the Christian way, humankind should act.

In Verse 4 he reminds them (and us) that the Lord is always near and that we should not worry about anything.  We simply need to pray about things but in every request we make we should also give thanks for what we have already received – indeed, God’s gift of his only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Prayer, supplication and thanksgiving – they are all intrinsically interwoven.

In the last two verses of today’s reading, Paul exhorts his readers to think and concentrate,  at all times, on those things which are true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent.  We should keep on acting and living our lives with these things always at the forefront of all we do.

Today we seem to live in a world of falsehoods – at least with the proliferation of social media it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from falsehood. We seem to be becoming increasingly polarised in our views.  What is one person’s truth seems to be another’s fake news. The media bombard us daily with negatives, for bad news sells better than good.  If we go with the flow of negatives then that is precisely where we will end up – negatively, having nothing to rejoice about, wrapped up in our own misery and desolation.

The antidote to all this is quite simple – we need to continually count our blessings – to pray the prayer of thanksgiving – to remember all those good things which God has done.  I found that helpful recently on my week’s break in the Lake District.  Forgetting all the bad news in the media, it was so therapeutic just to look upon those massive Cumbrian Mountains which have been there for millions of years and to feel part of God’s wonderful creation;  to walk upon those fells and commune with nature.  Paul’s words came flooding back and I found myself inwardly humming the words of Purcell’s Anthem, the words with which Paul exhorts us to live our lives – “Rejoice in the Lord Always, and again I say rejoice!”  We do indeed have so much to rejoice about.

Amen

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SERMON 151 - SUNDAY 9 AUGUST 2020

 Sermon on 9^th Sunday after Trinity  -  Clarendon Team Service during Coronvirus Lockdown   – Sunday 9th August 2020

Matthew 14:22-33

Peter, joining Jesus in walking on the water is one of my favourite passages in the New Testament. It is a passage which gets to the very heart of faith, of trusting in Jesus in our lives, of taking a risk, a chance, of answering a call with all its seeming dangers.  In short, it is a metaphor for how we should live as Christians in a world so full of dangers.

Let’s look at the passage, though in the whole.  This scene follows on from those we have been hearing over the last few weeks – the parable of the sower, the parable of the weeds and all those other short parables; the feeding of the five thousand.  Jesus has been busy teaching to vast numbers of people who have been following him around wanting to hear more and more from him following his teaching at the Sermon on the Mount.  He is like a modern day “pop idol” and it is clear that he is becoming weary and needs some recharging of his batteries, both physically and spiritually.

We therefore find him, at the beginning of the passage dismissing his disciples and sending them on their way to the other side of the Sea of Galilee whilst he has some quiet time away from them and everyone up a mountain praying to his Father.  This is the first of the important revelations for us – even Jesus in human form needed some R and R and also needed to commune with his Father through prayer. We like Jesus need to take this example and first and foremost ensure that we are in a good place ourselves.

For a second time we then read that the boat carrying the disciples is being battered by waves on the lake.  People who have visited the Holy Land have told me that even today massive storms can suddenly spring up on this inland lake due to winds funnelling down the Jordan and that they can be terrifying. Again it seems that the disciples are fearful because they are still far from the shore and if you have ever been in a sailing boat you will know how difficult it is to reach land if the wind is against you.  It requires much skill at tacking and can add many miles on to your journey.  This is presumably what the disciples were doing when a ghostly figure comes walking towards them across the turbulent waves.  It must have really added to their fear thinking that perhaps their time was up! 

Then suddenly they hear a familiar voice and a reassurance not to be afraid. Jesus doesn’t appear to admonish them as seemed to be the case in the earlier story of his calming the storm.  Perhaps the disciples now, at long last, realised the strength and power of Jesus in being able to command the winds and the waves. In fact Peter has such bravado that he invites Jesus to command him to get out of the boat and walk towards him.  Once again, Peter seems to be putting on a bit of show to try and show the others that his faith is so strong.

Jesus responds by beckoning him saying “come”!   I have a wonderful vision of Peter suddenly getting cold feet at having his bluff called.  I am sure that would be me! So Peter, having made his declaration steps out of the boat and finds himself able to walk on the surface of the lake.  I am sure he was shocked and surprised possibly to the extent that suddenly he thinks about what he is doing, realises the waves are still turbulent and starts to sink.  Suddenly his faith is put in doubt by the circumstances surrounding him.  Surely it’s not possible, it goes against nature and the waves are truly dangerous.

Jesus catches him, puts a reassuring arm on Peter’s shoulder asking him why he had such little faith and doubt.  The disciples are reassured that they have been re-united with Jesus and are reminded that he is the Son of God.

Don’t we all sometimes feel and act like Peter?  This story also illustrates and foretells Peter’s denial of Jesus too on Good Friday morning.  When the going gets tough Peter’s faith and loyalty evaporates.  Jesus knew this in advance but Peter’s intentions were always good.  Peter being a fisherman would have known the Lake and its weather systems well.  In going out to great Jesus on the water he would have known the dangers.  At first he put everything to the back of his mind and simply followed Jesus’s calling.  All was fine and he achieved what he really wanted to do – walk on the water with Jesus. Only when he let his mind start to question the logic of what he was doing did he start to sink.

We ourselves must learn from this.  Not to blindly follow but to have the faith that when we are called we will be protected by the one who calls us and we will never be called upon to do something which is not possible. Faith is about believing and obeying.  We will then be able to walk forward and not sink. As our faith grows, like the mustard seed, so we too may be called to greater and seemingly more impossible things. The message is simple - Have faith and grow. 

SERMON 150 - SUNDAY 26 JULY 2020

Sermon on 7^th Sunday after Trinity  -  Clarendon Team Service during Coronvirus Lockdown   – Sunday 26th July 2020

Matthew 13:31-33; 44-52

I just love the three “Ps” of the bible, the Psalms, the Proverbs and the Parables because each of them, in their own way, addresses everyday thoughts and problems and enables us to theologically reflect on them.  In my role as a spiritual director I often use modern day analogies and quotes from the three “Ps” in order to get across theological ideas which otherwise might be difficult to understand.  This is precisely what Jesus did, time and time again during his ministry.  He used everyday situations which everybody folk could understand and he used them to explain difficult concepts such as, in this morning’s case, what he means when he talks of “The Kingdom of Heaven”. Here we find him using not just one parable or analogy but five!  These five stories would appeal each in turn to a gardener, a cook, a treasure hunter, a collector of fine things and last but not least fishermen, with whom he was very well acquainted.

The common theme here is, though, that the Kingdom of Heaven is not easily found and is not obvious at first. We must seek it out and be patient whilst doing so.  The mustard seed will indeed grow into a fine tree capable of harbouring birds and wild life but we must tender it and wait for it to grow.  Likewise, we can make unleaven, that is flat bread, quite quickly and easily with just water and flour– but if we want the more substantial leaven or raised bread we need to add in a small amount of another ingredient called yeast and carefully knead the dough in preparation.  The treasure hunter, in order to legitimately lay claim to the treasure he has buried away in a field must first of all buy the field in order to legally acquire the treasure. The pearl collector may have to sacrifice much of his present wealth and collection in order to acquire that one great pearl which he wishes to possess.  Finally, the fisherman cast out their net for certain edible fish but when the net is hauled in they find a myriad of fish caught in the meshes and therefore must painstakingly sort through them to find those which are of most value for food.

These are all great analogies from which we learn that the Kingdom of Heaven is all around us if we take the time and trouble and patience to find it.

The last analogy which Jesus uses is one that particularly appeals to me.  I was brought up in the fishing town of Grimsby – at that time the world’s premier fishing port; a wealthy place whose economy was built on the catching and processing of good quality white fish. My own grandfather was a trawler skipper and many of my friends came from fishing families. They would tell me how the fishermen would go out for three weeks or more at a time hunting for the best fish to bring back.  But, in the process, they would often catch other fish which they would try out first on board to see if there might be a market for them. They would, like our fishermen in the parable, carefully sift through the catch.  One such fish which they had previously discarded was the monkfish because of its horrible appearance but they found the tail to taste a lot like scampi. Today, monkfish is a delicacy and costs a lot more than the average white fish.  It is an example of where there was something there already but it needed a lot of patience and trial before its worth was acquired.

In the parable Jesus likens the sorting of the fish as the final judgment when those who are righteous will be separated from the evil. That is quite a hard concept for many of us to swallow and reminds us of the Doom paintings which once adorned many of our churches.

I think the essence of Jesus’s teaching here is that we must always have good intentions. Being righteous is doing things for the right reasons.  It I all well and good to sow mustard seeds, bake bread, buy treasure, collect pearls, sort out fish and so on but if we are doing these things for selfish reasons, not right or righteous ones, then we are far from finding the Kingdom of Heaven.

Tom Wright puts it this way: “The little parables in Matthew 13 are all, in their different ways answers to the question “Where is the Kingdom of Heaven and when will it come?”  “Perhaps”, he says, these are the only sorts of answer we can ever give.”

The tiny seed will grow, the leaven will work through the lump of yeast, the treasure is presently hidden, but those who find it will know its worth like the pearl, and finally, one day maybe the peculiar and odd fish, like our monkfish, will be sorted out and perhaps found to be good too. The Kingdom of Heaven is truly here and one day it will be obvious; but in the meantime we must be patient and wait.

Amen 

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SERMON 149 - SUNDAY 5 JULY 2020

Sermon on 4^th Sunday after Trinity  -  Clarendon Team Service during Coronvirus Lockdown   – Sunday 5th July 2020

Matthew 11:16-19; 25-30

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

Those final words of Jesus in this passage are, I think, very familiar to many of us and a great comfort at times when we are struggling with the burdens of life and wonder whether we can carry them any further; perhaps just as we have been feeling during this period of lockdown.

 I have certainly turned to them many times in my life when ever more burdens seem to have been loaded onto me from work, family, church and just daily living.  There was a saying where I worked for many years – “when the going gets tough the tough get going” meaning that through sheer determination we can ourselves get through the difficult times if we act tough enough.  The reality, though, can be quite different.  Often when we try and do things ourselves, without the help of others, we can make a bigger mess of things than when we started.  I have a box full of tools in my garage which I have had to buy in order to put right the things I messed up through thinking I could do DIY in the first place.  Jesus knew this and that he, through the Father, could take the burden and that we could learn through his example.  He, Jesus, tells the crowd, is gentle and humble in heart and asks us to be the same. My yoke is easy (he has the Father with him) and his burden is therefore light. Just in the same way I will leave it to the removal men to shift the piano so too should we sometime leave it to the expert – Jesus.

There is a story told of a woodpecker who, was tapping away at a pine tree one afternoon when suddenly the tree was struck by lightning and was split right down the middle from top to bottom.  The woodpecker looked at it in amazement for a moment and flew off.  He came back later leading nine other woodpeckers. Then, with a great deal of swagger and pride he turned to the nine others and said “There it is, gentlemen, just like I told you” taking credit for having split the tree with his beak.  He was not humble and had misled the others and went away with a false sense of his own importance and ability.  Jesus tells us to be gentle and humble like him and recognize that God can carry the heaviest burden – but we must also acknowledge him as our bearer of it.

Jesus was at great pains to teach the elders and the Pharisees the importance of humility and that we should accept God, not like our woodpecker friend, but like infants – believing and trusting.  We can get hung up not only on our own importance but also by our attitude towards learning and knowledge. Like the elders and Pharisees, we might know the law, we might know scripture, we might read them every day but unless we look at them in simple terms their meaning can be hidden because we are trying to see things beyond what they really are. Jesus says “God has hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and has revealed them to infants”.

How often have you heard the phrase “from out of the very mouths of babes comes wisdom?” How often has a child said something to you which has been so profound? So honest?  That is what Jesus is saying here.  We often over-complicate things, especially our faith.  Education is important, don’t get me wrong, but it is what you do with that education and knowledge. How you use it.  Do you use it wisely? Do you act out what you have learned in scripture or just add it to the list of things you store away in your cupboard of knowledge for the pub quiz! Turn that knowledge to wisdom.

Our perceptions (often false) can also get in the way of our faith as again Jesus illustrates at the beginning of the passage – ‘The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!”’ Throughout the bible we see Jesus associating with all sorts of “the wrong people” as far as the respectable elders are concerned; but Jesus’s answer is again simple “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds”.  How many people chosen by God in the Old Testament were “wrong-uns”? – Moses, a murderer, Jacob – a deceiver, Rahab a city prostitute to name but three.

James in his epistle reminds us to show our faith by the deeds we do, not that our deeds in themselves will lead to salvation but our deeds will come out of the faith we have and the way we show it in the way we behave.  That is exactly, I believe, what Jesus is telling us in this passage.  Be humble, be faithful, think simply, relax and leave the heavy burdens to the one who knows how best to carry them. After all, to do otherwise is only making our lives all that bit harder.

Amen

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SERMON 148 - SUNDAY 12 APRIL 2020 - EASTER SUNDAY

Sermon on Easter Sunday  -  Clarendon Team Easter Eucharist during Coronvirus Lockdown   – Sunday 12^th  March 2020

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

Today, of course, is the most important day for us in the year.  It is the celebration of the rising of Jesus from the dead.  It is the beginning of a whole new way of looking at life and we, as Christians, look upon life no longer through our eyes, but through the eyes of the One who broke through the terror of death and into a new way of being.

Perhaps, in the present situation in which we find ourselves this has never been so applicable as we have been grappling with seeing our world in a new light, having to adapt our usual ways of doing things during this period of lockdown in order to deal with our changed circumstance. Easter seems so strange this year as we have no longer been able to celebrate it in our churches and in physical communion  with one another – yet the messages remain the same and we can take heart from them.

The first one, of course, is that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and His Son so loved his Father and the world that he suffered such a grievous and terrible ordeal as he passed through death into new life.

And we must remember this :  that nowhere in the world can we say of God that He is short of love. For Jesus, on the cross, at the moment when his whole world collapsed, when everything that he believed in and trusted seemed to fall about his ears, when he said to his Father, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” he turned to the screaming mob in front of him and he said, “Father, forgive them.”

This is when he became our Messiah, not when he does all the miracles all the healing, all the things that he said and preached, it only comes when everything is taken away from him and he is on the edges of despair, and he turns to his Father and says, “I do this for you. I have only one request: that you hold back your arm of justice and, from now on, only forgiveness.”  As the Bishop said in his homily on Maundy Thursday – God through Jesus therefore expects only three things of us – to love justly, to act kindly to others and to walk humbly with him.

And that’s the first great lesson of today, because he is asking us to do this. We, who are followers of Jesus, must hold back justice and offer forgiveness. And, in this way, the world turns around. It is no longer an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, what is right and what is wrong. There is only love, forgiveness, caring. And this is how we enter into the new life, following in the footsteps of Jesus, our Lord. We all need to remember this as the times ahead during this current crisis possibly worsen.

When the disciples went to the tomb, they didn’t find anything. The tomb was empty, completely gone, an empty tomb. And what are we to think of that?

We are to think, “Where is Jesus?” They didn’t take him away. We know that that was impossible. Did his disciples hide him? They were there. They were amazed. They saw the cloth neatly folded. Where did he go? Did he hide?

And, of course, we know the answer. He passed from death into new life. And he did not do it for himself, for Jesus never did anything for himself, he did it for us.

And so when he faces the ordeals of his life, with all its difficulties, he accepts them, forgiving those who have made such an outrage possible.  He passes through death and gives us a share in the new life that he himself now lives.

The question then, of course, is, if we enter into the tomb, have we really died? For now we are in another way of being.

When we pass through the death of Jesus, we pass through and turn our backs on selfishness, on hurting others, on judging, on making the place that God has created to be a place of great wonder and joy and happiness into a place where many people do not have enough to eat, where many people feel their hopes are dashed each day by the injustices that they have to confront, where many people forget that they were created to walk in this life as children, children free and full of joy.

And so it is when we enter into the tomb, we, as Christians, are asked to leave all these things behind and, in the process, we are learning how to love, the way Jesus loved: to forgive, to care, to reach out to all those around us, perhaps as never before. And then we, too, experience what Jesus says. He has given us new life. The new life is his life. In his life, there is only forgiveness. And so we must take that with us on our journey.

As we reflect upon these words I would like to end with reading a poem by D H Lawrence, entitled “Be Still”:

BE STILL

The only thing to be done, now,

now that the waves of our undoing have begun to strike on us,

is to contain ourselves.

To keep still, and let the wreckage of ourselves go,

let everything go, as the wave smashes us

yet keep still, and hold

the tiny grain of something that no wave can wash away,

not even the most massive wave of destiny.

Among all the smashed debris of myself

keep quiet, and wait.

For the word is Resurrection.

And even the sea of seas will have to give up its dead.

D H Lawrence

Amen

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SERMON 147 - SUNDAY 8 MARCH 2020

Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Farley  -  Morning Worship During Lent  – Sunday 8^th  March 2020

Genesis 12:1-4a;  Romans 4:1-5,13-17;  John 3:1-17

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

This morning we have three quite distinct and difficult pieces of scripture to consider and reflect upon. The first describes Abram’s or Abraham’s (as he was later to become known) commission from God to leave his country of birth and nurture, his family home, and go to another entirely new and unknown place (to Abram) chosen by God.

In our second reading, in his letter to the Christian community in Rome, Paul is making a distinction between those things we do for reward (working for our wages for instance) and those things we do simply by faith – the latter Paul describing as those things which can be considered righteous.

Jesus in his discourse with Nicodemus, a learned Jewish elder and a member of the Sanhedrin discusses the need to be “born again” in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven.  Nicodemus for all his learning and knowledge of Hebrew scripture takes Jesus’s words literally and completely misses the point of what Jesus is actually trying to convey. By being “born again” – a greatly overused term in my opinion when I was a member of my student’s Christian Union in Liverpool – Jesus is really saying that we need to repent of our old ways and then by accepting the Holy Spirit we will be more open to what God has in store for us – we should let the Holy Spirit, like the wind, blow where it chooses and we ourselves will then see the world and our own calling through the eyes of God.

All three passages seem, at first, to set impossible tasks or very difficult tasks for us, In the first, Abram is being asked to uproot himself and his family, leaving everything he has been brought up with behind to go where he knows not, God knows where in fact! This is an example of blind faith – putting his whole life at the disposal of God.  At times we ourselves may be asked to do this – to take a gigantic leap of faith for God with seeming no immediate reward. Abram is told that the only reward he will receive will be for him and in particular his future generations to be blessed – something in the future not in the here and now; not in the immediate.  As his wife was well past child bearing age his faith must have been exceedingly strong indeed to be presented with what appeared to be a strong impossibility.

Our second reading reminds me of that great film Schindler’s List. At the beginning of that great epic we see this great Czech pro-Nazi industrialist making money for himself on the backs of forced Jewish labour.  His motivation is purely financial; taking advantage of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the availability of cheap labour to operate an enamel ware factory in Krakow to make money for himself and live a hedonistic lifestyle. As the film develops he begins to see and understand the horrors and injustices and death which this same Nazi regime, with which he hitherto conspired, has brought upon so many innocent lives. We see the moment of this revelation and indeed repentance as Schindler looks on in the scene where we follow the little girl in the red coat during the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto – the only colour we see in an otherwise black and white film. It never fails to move me to tears. 

Towards the very end of the film we see Oscar Schindler himself, played so brilliantly by Liam Neeson, moved to tears as he reflects upon how much more he might have done had he sacrificed his earlier greed and hedonistic life style sooner. For the Jewish people his remorse and repentance is a true mark of doing something without expecting monetary reward but doing it out of faith and seeing things as God sees them. Feeling God’s grief for the treatment of those Jews and doing something about it without seeking wages. That, Paul tells us is acting righteously. Today, Oscar Schindler is still honoured by the Jewish Nation as being “Righteous Amongst Nations” – an award for all those non-Jews who selflessly and often at great risk to themselves, helped Jews escape the Holocaust.

So, what are the lessons and reflections which we can take from these three readings?

Well, first of all, I think that like Abram, where we feel or hear God’s call we should take serious notice of it, even if it is something which might seem difficult or impossible for us. God will never call us to do something which he feels us incapable of if it is a true calling. The difficulty can often be in discerning it as a true calling and not just some idea in our own head. It is often useful, in those circumstances, to talk to a spiritual director or accompanier as we prefer to call them, to examine closely that calling.  Is it really a request from God.

Secondly, we should never expect any immediate reward from anyone for the things we do outside of our paid occupations. As Paul tells us, when we work and expect wages we are simply receiving what is our due. If we do things without expecting or receiving a reward then what we are doing may indeed be considered a righteous act especially if, like Oscar Schindler, we are also taking a great risk at the same time.

Finally, we need to be born again of the Holy Spirit; that is to receive the Holy Spirit through which we can discern the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth as God does. Each Sunday, if not at many other times, we pray the Lord’s prayer part of which reads “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth it is in Heaven”. “Thy Kingdom come”. We pray this continuously but what do we do to help bring it about?  Well first of all we need to see God’s will for ourselves – to see the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus’s eyes. To see what is wrong and then do something about it. That was what Oscar Schindler saw from his horse overlooking the Krakow Ghetto in the film; the girl in the red coat – the discernment that this was wrong. What a wonderful piece of cinematography to show repentance through the realisation of the effects upon the little girl in red. It is the moment for us all when we turn away from those ways which separate us from our love of God and dedicate our lives to his will.

One of our roles then, as Christians, is to continue to pray that prayer – “Thy Will be Done” and act and speak out in ways which can truly help bring that about.

A favourite prayer of mine, which reminds us that Jesus Christ left us the Holy Spirit so we could continue his work toward establishing the Kingdom of Heaven here is the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila

Let us pray :

Christ has no body now but ours

No hands, no feet on earth but ours

Ours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion into the world

Ours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good

Ours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.

Amen

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SERMON 146 - SUNDAY 1 MARCH 2020

Sermon at St Peter’s Church, Pitton  -  Morning Worship  – Sunday 1st March 2020

(Adaptation of Sermon 92)

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19;  Matthew 4:1-11

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.  Amen

We are all familiar, I hope with the words of the Lord’s Prayer – that prayer which Jesus gave to his disciples and followers and which we recite every week and contains the well know lines:

“Forgive give us our sins (or trespasses as the old version has it) as we forgive others and lead us not into temptation”.

I emphasise the “and” because despite what many may think, temptation and sin are two different sides of the same coin.

As we now enter into that great period of reflection in the Christian calendar, Lent, we may hear a lot about sin and temptation.  Many of us may have decided to give up something for Lent as a way of expressing our commitment to our Faith – following Jesus into the wilderness before he began his earthly ministry leading to his eventual death of the Cross.  As Jesus himself says, if you want to follow me you must take up your own Cross – and that, to some extent, is what we do during these six weeks of Lent – contemplate upon our own life’s commitment to Christ and the nature of the Cross we have to bear to truly follow him.

To be tempted, is not in itself a sin, only if we accept that temptation, which is to disobey God, is the sin committed. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask not to be tempted for if temptation does not come our way then, ergo, we cannot be led to sin.  A removal of the temptation is an act of prevention which is always the best outcome –  ask any doctor, police officer or fire officer - yet we are very fortunate as Christians because we know that if we are tempted and we do sin there is still a cure.  In the words of the same prayer, we can ask for forgiveness but, in the same breath, only if we forgive others too.  That is, what Desmond Tutu, calls the cycle of forgiveness.

This morning, in our readings, we are dealing with some extremely deep theological issues – issues which have taxed and been debated by eminent theologians for centuries. 

Our first reading, from Genesis, is well known to us as well as many outside of the church.  Having created the world and populated it with animals and humans, and having seen that all was good, God rested on the seventh day we are told; but it wasn’t long before things started to go wrong (as they always seem to do when humans are involved) and the first great temptation appears – that wonderful tree bearing such tempting fruit – made even more tempting by the Serpent, appealing to the curiosity of Eve by saying that eating the fruit will make Eve as knowledgeable as God.  What a great temptation and humans, being what they are, who wouldn’t be tempted.  How many of you, when confronted with a sign chalked on the pavement by a street lamp standard, or close to a doorway or fence with the words “Wet Paint” or “Wet Cement” haven’t been tempted to just test the truthfulness of that statement with a finger?  I know I have and invariably I have discovered the accuracy of the statement by acquiring horribly sticky fingers or hands. The sign is there to warn with an implied request not to touch.  By touching we may have discovered the truth but we have also been disobedient.  Our temptation has turned to sin.  The serpent or snake represents all those who would seek to deceive us – in our modern language to seek to mirepresent a situation through “fake news”.  “You will not die”, says the serpent, “go on eat”. We must all pray for the gift of discernment to know what is true and what is false to prevent us falling into sin.

Adam and Eve were given very strict instructions, we read, not to touch or eat the fruit of this tree yet in doing just this they were being disobedient to God and therefore sinned – resulting in the punishment meted out by the Fall.  They fell for the snake’s trick.

In our epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans, the apostle is comparing the sin of one man, Adam, “his trespass” to use words familiar to many in the Lord’s Prayer, to the action of one man, Jesus, in his “act of righteousness” as Paul calls it, leading to justification (salvation) for all through our belief that Jesus died on the Cross to save us from our sins.  In other words, the situation is put right, the Fall is reversed and humans, through Faith, can be restored in God’s grace to being what God always intended them to be. But it is important that they do have Faith – something beyond simple belief but a commitment to the teachings of Christ and to follow him unreserved and unconditionally.

Romans 5 is not easy to read in isolation from the whole Letter to the Romans and Paul’s way of speaking or writing can, at times, be quite difficult to follow and it does require some study beyond just listening to snippets being read out on a Sunday morning.  The twelve earlier verses of Romans 5 set the scene for us a little better in that Paul reminds his reader that it was only through the suffering of Jesus upon the Cross, an act of the deepest humiliation for a human being to suffer at that time, can we share in the glory of God together with a belief that Jesus died for our salvation. That is the fundamental cornerstone of our Faith. 

Paul says “we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”. (Romans 5:4-5)

Wow, what a wonderful explanation of our Faith. God’s glory, God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  I particularly love the passage “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”  If you get nothing further from this sermon this morning please do take away that one line – “hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”.

But, as Christians, that does not mean that we are now immune from temptation, from fake news in fact, why else would we need continually to pray that we should not be led into that very thing we seek to avoid. I am a great believer in spiritual warfare – good versus evil – the subject of so many books and films – even the Harry Potter series has this as its main overriding theme.  I believe in this context, the greatest and most disobedient temptation is therefore a moving away from God by indulging in our own fantasies and ambitions as opposed to those plans and desires which God has for us and by worshipping other gods – today they might be money, cars, a hedonistic life without thought or empathy for others, a forgetfulness and lack of appreciation of God.   We have no greater example of the spiritual warfare which we can be up against than the account of Christ himself being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness which formed the text of our gospel Reading today.

Here the Devil is testing God through the temptations of Jesus.  Three things Jesus is tempted with – things which any of us could probably equate to temptations which we have faced or have to face – first, tempting Jesus to turn stones into bread.  We know, from the first miracle that Jesus can do such things – he turned water into wine at a wedding – but the difference here is that the Devil is asking him to prove that he is the Son of God by this action not, as previously, as an act of love for his mother and the hosts at the wedding; second, by again proving he is the Son of God by testing God himself to save him from a fatal death by jumping from the temple roof – this would be not only putting God to the test but disobeying his Father who would, in due course, see his Son die of the Cross when similar jibes were exclaimed and finally, an attempt to make Jesus fall down and worship the Devil – a direct disobedience to God’s First Commandment which Jesus himself later proclaimed to be the first of two of the greatest Commandments.

So, we can take comfort and courage that though we may be tempted, so too was Christ.  It is how we deal with those temptations which will make us stronger and able, more closely, to follow Christ and the will of God.  We have the Holy Spirit to guide us and it is ever more important that we continue to have a strong dialogue with God through prayer and reflection.

In front of you there are some small pieces of paper and hopefully a pen.  If you wish to, and there is absolutely no compulsion to do so, I invite you to write down, anonymously, any temptations which you feel you need to avoid, especially during this period of Lent, it might be eating chocolate, drinking wine, having that second helping of bread and butter pudding, gossiping, not reading your bible, watching Love Island or Naked Attraction, anything at all and place the folded paper in the basket here at the front.  After the services we will take them away and destroy them after we have prayed the Lord’s Prayer over them.

As you do that let us pray:

Father we thank you that you gave your Son, Jesus Christ

To die on the Cross to save us from our sins

We ask you to lead us not into temptation so that we are not tempted to sin against the Holy Spirit and be led away from your saving grace.

Knowing that faith leads to salvation and hope will not disappoint us, we ask that we may always live our lives founded on the three great principles of Faith, Hope and Love.

Amen

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SERMON 145 - SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2020

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Winterslow and St. Mary’s and Holy Trinity,  – Sunday 9 February 2020 – Morning Praise and Morning Eucharist

Isaiah 58:1-9(a)(b-12); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may the light of Christ shine through those words to all who hear them.

Last week, our Gospel Reading told the story of Christ’s presentation in the Temple in accordance with Jewish rites and customs and you will recall the words of both Simeon and Anna, that elderly couple who spent much of their time in pray and meditation the Temple. You will also, no doubt, recall the words of Simeon as we so often hear them in the Nunc Dimittis – Jesus is to be “a light to be a light for the Gentiles and to be the glory of the people of Israel.”

When preparing for today’s service and after reading the gospel reading in Matthew, it seemed a good idea to continue the candle theme and a little later on I shall be inviting you to come up and place a candle here on the chancel steps.  

The importance of Jesus’s words, spoken at the Sermon on the Mount are an invitation to all his followers that they/we should not merely sit back and bask in his glorious light but are expected to go out ourselves spreading that light to all nations and in this dark world which we seem to inhabit today these words, I believe, have never had a greater relevance.

Isaiah, in our first reading, is giving the Jewish exiles a stinging rebuke which, as Tom Wright puts it, sows the seeds for what Jesus was later to preach on the Mount. True godliness, true piety must be to share your blessings with the world and not keep them to yourself. Fasting and religious observance is absolutely useless, Isaiah says, whilst injustice goes unchecked, if darkness continues to dominate. It is a call to the Jewish people, just as Jesus’s sermon is, not to refuse to carry out God’s chosen vocation for them. At that time there were many Jews who were focused on bringing God’s swift judgment on those pagan nations which did not hold to the Jewish faith, especially in that brutal area of the Middle East, rather than bringing God’s light to them.  Just as Jonah was upset when the people of Ninevah turned to God and weren’t wiped out by him.

God, through Isaiah is condemning his people for forgetting and ignoring their calling but the passage ends on a positive note – that water will spring up from the parched places and ancient ruins will be rebuilt – if only God’s people remember and follow their vocation.  It is when they feed the hungry, when they welcome the homeless into their homes, that his light shall break through.

They are told that they are this light of the world. It is, as Angela Ritchie tells us, not about what the church should be but about what it must be. That great sacrificial German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this “any community which wants to be invisible is no longer a community that follows Christ”.  We are to be a community of faithful witnesses.

We often hear the term “to hide your light under a bushel” in the context of not showing off about yourself – not being boastful and likewise when we say “he certainly doesn’t hide his light under a bushel” we are often talking in derogatory terms about a person’s fondness for himself; but Jesus wants us not to hide our light, for when we do that we are hiding his light too.  As he says, we must be visible like that city on the hill. Let others see how you live for him, not forsaking all those good deeds and attitudes which Isaiah mentions are important if we are to be true to God and letting people see the love and light of God through us.

St. Teresa of Avila warns us, though, that there is also a spiritual danger in being that community of faithful witnesses. We can become focused on “manifesting the appearance of virtue” because we want our “goodness” to be noticed by others and not simply to give the glory to God. I know I can easily fall into this trap because it feels good when somebody affirms your goodness.

From the outside, too, it can be difficult to distinguish between someone whose good deeds are done from love of praise and someone whose unselfish goodness is offered solely to glorify God.  Outwardly they will appear very similar but inwardly they are an entirely different matter. If we truly are truly transmitting the light of Christ within us to another then it will be a matter of total indifference to us whether our part in this transmission is evident to others.  Our sole aim will be the transmission to the recipient filling them with God’s grace and mercy so they too might carry the light on – a bit like the Olympic Torch.  It is the transmission of the light to its final destination that is important not the individual who carries it.

Paul, in our second reading, touches on this when he challenges his readers who, while professing faith in Christ, still cling to the values of the world – in particular the desire for glory and status. He talks of the difference between wisdom learned in this world compared to true and secret wisdom learned from God and this through experiencing the Holy Spirit.  Paul ends the passage by a rhetorical question – “No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We as Christians have not received the Spirit of this World but the Spirit from God and acknowledge that this is freely given to us so we might spread it to others.

As we light our candles later on in this service, let us remember that as Christians, followers of Jesus Christ and blessed with the Holy Spirit we carry that light within us all the time – sometimes it is only a little pilot light flickering away almost undetected, but at other times it whooshes up and fires us to do great things in his name.  If you come here this morning and don’t yet feel that you have Christ’s light within you, still leave your candle here at the front and pray that the Holy Spirit will enter your life and turn on that inner flame.

We must, like Simeon last week, have the faith to recognise God at work in this world; have the faith to trust that God has a plan for his world; we must, like Anna, be able to look to the dawning of a new age however dark the dawn may be for some today.  Look again into the face of the person or persons sitting next to – you are looking into the face of God’s created image – a glimpse of God himself who loves you and say to that person “God loves you today and always”.

Above all, we must go out from this church today shining our light, given to us by Christ, into the dark places of the world. St. Teresa reminded us, in a prayer, that aided by the Holy Spirit, we are here to continue Jesus’s work on earth. To bring the glory and grace of God to those we meet.  To pass on the flame of salvation to all.

Let us pray the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/08022020