SERMON 26 - SUNDAY 30 JUNE 2013

Sermon at St. Nicholas’s Parish Church, Porton -  Fifth  Sunday after Trinity 

Bourne Valley Team Eucharist  – Sunday 30 June 2013

Galatians 5:1; 13-25; Luke 9:51

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord.  Amen

Today is a very special day in the Salisbury Diocese of the Church of England. Today is the day that a number of men and women will be ordained Deacons by the Bishop of Salisbury in the Cathedral this morning – the first of the Holy Orders set out in the Book of Common Prayer and the first step to priesthood.  Amongst those will be Mark Phillips from our own Deanery parish of Pitton and our thoughts and prayers must be with him, Claire and his family as he sets forth on God’s ordained ministry.  As with most ministries, Mark’s would have started with a call from God – not always clear but always persistent and compelling.

Our gospel reading this morning has, at its heart, the difficulties and sacrifices which such a call from God has, to whatever ministry he is asking us to; but also a hint at the rewards it can also bring.  Paul has much more to say about the rewards in his letter to the Galatians, a portion of which formed our first reading this morning.

I have heard the gospel reading from Luke umpteen times and I have always found it slightly confusing and worrying – and in order to write this sermon I read it again several times to see how it now spoke to me before delving into any concordance to try and fathom it out.  There seem to be two separate and distinct parts to this passage – but to begin to understand them, we need have a bit of an understanding of the historic and biblical background to the scene.

The first part concerns the Samaritan village – and it is interesting that this part of the story only occurs in Luke – you will not find a parallel account in any of the other four gospels.  We read that this event occurred towards the end of Jesus’s life on earth but this journeying to Jerusalem with his disciples should not be confused with his final journey to his death and resurrection.  Like all good Jews, Jesus would have frequently visited the Temple and it is believed that this particular journey was much earlier in his ministry – it may very well have been the trip to the Feast of the Tabernacles which John recounts in Chapter 7 of his gospel.  When we know that Jesus didn’t start his ministry until the age of 30 and was crucified, resurrected and ascended at the age of 33 we can see that in terms of his earthly life it was indeed “when the days drew near to be taken up” as Luke puts it.

In order to go from Galilee to Jerusalem (which was in Judaea) it would have been necessary for Jesus and his disciples to pass through Samaria – a province whose inhabitants despised the Jews intensely – hence the importance of the message in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Indeed, in order to avoid going through Samaria, many Jewish travellers to Jerusalem would have crossed the Jordan high up and then travelled along the east bank – a much longer but less troublesome route.  It is interesting, therefore, that Jesus chose the more direct and difficult route on this occasion – almost courting problems.

When I heard this story originally I really couldn’t understand why the village did not welcome him “because he was heading for Jerusalem”. In fact when you understand the hatred with which the Samaritans had for the Jews, the fact that Jesus and his followers were on their way to a Jewish festival would have clearly marked them out as people to be despised. 

This clearly incensed John and James (the sons of Zebedee the fisherman) whose response was to want to “nuke” the village or in more biblical parlance call down fire to destroy them.  No doubt they had in mind the calling down of fire by Elijah on the captains and their soldiers sent from the King of Samaria back in 2 Kings (1:9-14). By this act, Elijah was able to demonstrate to the king that he was indeed a man of God.    As followers of Jesus, and having seen many miracles, James and John no doubt thought that this would be a good way to prove to the Samarians that Jesus was also a man of God by reminding them of what had befallen earlier Samaritans. 

No wonder James and John had been called the Sons of Thunder by Jesus when he had first called them.  It was also these same two disciples who had asked to sit at the left and right hand of Jesus when he ruled his kingdom.   As on that occasion, they were, we are told, rebuked by Jesus – not I think because Jesus didn’t approve of what Elijah had done earlier but because they still “just didn’t get it” - that the actions of the Samaritans towards Jesus and his disciples was far less of an issue than the Baal-worshipping subjects of the earlier Samaritan king.  Jesus’s response is simply to move on and find a more accommodating village.  There is something here in this for us today too – when things don’t go our way, when people do not offer us sympathy, hospitality or any of those loving gifts of the spirit which Paul talks about in his letter to the Galatians, when instead we are met with disdain, hatred, strife, enmities then we simply move on.  God will deal with those issues himself in the fullness of time. It is not for us to judge or call down judgment but for God.

The second part of the reading, seems more confusing still in the context of what we have just looked at.  As he continues his journey through Samaria, Jesus appears to be very harsh on those who have felt called to follow him and he appears, at first glance, to have put unfair and unnecessary conditions on those who would follow him.

First we have the man who says he will follow Jesus anywhere.  Jesus makes it clear to him that to follow him he will need to leave his home and become nomadic with no one single place to call home.  Foxes, he says have holes and birds have nests but Jesus has nowhere to lay his head and, by association, neither will any of his disciples. We do not know what the young man’s response was.  In the parallel gospel of Matthew, we are told that the enquirer was a scribe and therefore probably had a regular job and income and probably went home every night and slept in the same bed.  Jesus is being brutally frank with him – following Jesus, being a disciple, will be uncomfortable – he hints at the physical – but as we know it will also be emotionally and spiritually challenging.

Secondly, we have the man who wants to bury his father first.  This is the bit that I’ve always found rather cruel on a first, second and even third reading.  However, an understanding of this lies in Jesus’s reply – “Let the dead bury their own dead”. In this response Jesus is talking about the spiritually dead.  He is saying “If you are called to follow me in your ministry then you are to be a servant of the living” – in other words those who are spiritually dead can bury the physically dead and the spiritually alive should be busy proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

A further explanation could be, and probably is, that the father was not dead.  It was the duty, under Jewish custom, for the eldest son to arrange the funeral of the father; but had the father already have been dead then it is unlikely that the son would have met Jesus as he would already be pre-occupied with the funeral arrangements.  It is more likely that the son was saying that once his father had died (which could be some time in the future) and he had fulfilled his filial duties then he would then follow Jesus.

The final example of a person being called was the man who wanted to say goodbye to his family.  This one I find the most bizarre and difficult of all.  It seems to be such a little thing to ask but again the best way to understand this is to study Jesus’s answer – “No-one who puts his hand to a plough and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God”.

Having lived for most of my life in towns and cities I cannot verify the agricultural accuracy of this statement from my own knowledge but my understanding is that to plough a true and straight furrow you need to look where you are going, not where you have come from.  This I think is what Jesus is saying here – look forward not back.  Your call is to minister in the future and not regret or dwell on the past.  Jesus probably felt that if the man went back home he would allow his call to be diluted and maybe overridden by the views of his family.  Saying goodbye to the family would probably entail a long protracted farewell party too and Jesus wanted him now.

In each of these examples, Jesus is testing the call of the person concerned – to see if they really have been called and know what the commitment is – but once called and once answered, then, as Paul says the freedom of Christ has set us free from the yoke of the slavery of sin.  Salvation looks easy – we seek Jesus, he calls us and we join him.  Our reluctance therefore is down to us and the trappings of our earthly life which bind us up and prevent us from moving.

I started this sermon by talking about the call to ordination of the clergy.  The term “call” applies to any form of ministry – not just ordained ministry.  It might be to spread the gospel by our deeds, as St. Francis is reputed to have said, using only words if you must, in the workplace, in the job we do, home, school, community, football terraces, in the pub, club or street – anywhere. It might be service for or in the church but not necessarily.  God has a role for each and every one of us.  He has and will call us to his service.  We must listen for that call and when it comes be prepared to move outside our comfort zone.  God will never give us a task we cannot fulfil. It is for us to meet that challenge in the knowledge that he loves us and trusts us.  He won’t “nuke” us if we don’t;  but better still let’s welcome him and not let him pass on to another village.

Amen

 

SERMON 25 - SUNDAY 16 JUNE 2013

Sermon at All Saints Parish Church, Winterslow  -  Third  Sunday after Trinity - Parish Eucharist (Healing)  Service – Sunday 16 June 2013

2 Samuel 11.26-12.10; 13-15; Galatians 2.15-21; Luke 7.36-8.3

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord.  Amen

It is really wonderful and a great privilege to be here with you all this morning preaching in my “home church” - and to so many people I know so well.  Having said that, I do have in my head that piece of scripture which, although we haven’t heard it this morning, and I am certainly no prophet! – is nevertheless  in the forefront of my mind as I stand here in front of you – from Mark 6:4 – “Prophets are not without honour except in their hometown, and among their own kin and in their own house”. 

In our Old Testament reading from 2 Samuel we learn of David’s complicity in what amounted to murder – so that he could marry the wife of his loyal general, Uriah the Hittite – the beautiful Bathsheba after whom he had lusted when he saw her bathing from the rooftops of his palace.  From that moment on he had schemed to make her his own - resorting, eventually, to having her husband killed by placing him in the most dangerous place in a battle with the Ammonites.  When a child is subsequently born from that illicit union of David and Bathsheba, God, through Nathan the Prophet, tells David that the child will die in infancy – and sure enough it happens – after a short illness the child dies. The price paid, he is told, for his great sins of murder and adultery.  A great theme for Father’s day!

Our second reading is from Paul’s letter to the Galatians – a letter primarily written to a confused church in Galatia who were uncertain whether it was necessary to still follow the Jewish laws to become a true Christian (remembering that Jesus had said he had come to fulfil the law not to destroy it) or whether Gentiles, who did not follow Judaic law, could also be converted to Christianity. Paul’s explanation is that we are justified as Christians, not by simply obeying the law (very much an important part of Jewish faith), but by our simple faith that Jesus Christ died for our salvation and a belief in that alone is sufficient.  This is a theme later taken up by Augustine of Hippo and a main plank of Lutherism and Reformation theology. 

Finally, we had our reading from St. Luke’s gospel in which Jesus admonishes his host for not having greeted him properly and for not having given him water to wash his feet and failing to anoint his head with oil – traditions when a guest came to dinner in those days.  By contrast, he praises the “woman in the city” who has lavished much attention on him – a woman whom we are told is a sinner.  Probably a “lady of the night”. Her simple acts result in her sins being forgiven by Jesus – something which it would be difficult for the host, a Pharisee, to understand because according to Jewish law and custom, only the High Priest on the Day of Atonement could forgive sins. 

Each of these three readings is linked with the ideas of sin and forgiveness after a moving away from God – for each reading talks about a moving away from the law or customs of the day.   Although David is taught a terrible lesson for his adultery and murder, the loss of the first born child, he subsequently went on to have another son with Bathsheba – Solomon – who was to become renowned for his wisdom and for bringing peace and stability to the United Kingdom of Israel – an act showing God’s forgiveness and restoration towards David; Paul teaches that sins can be forgiven through the justification of faith and not just a strict adherence to law and ritual; and finally Jesus forgives the sinful woman through her actions of love towards him at the Pharisees’ dinner table.  Each act of forgiveness is a form of healing.

Today is a special day here in Winterslow.  It is Fathers’ Day and our service is one containing healing ministry.  If nothing else, I think our three readings each teach us the importance of the second commandment which Jesus emphasised to his disciples – to love one another – to treat each other properly with that same love Jesus showed during his earthly ministry – to respect each other and, as Paul says, to let Christ live in us so that we shine that love to others. Above all, such actions result in knowing that we have a Father who forgives us our sins – whatever they are.

During my current course on pastoral care, it has been emphasised time and time again the importance of getting alongside people and listening with three ears – one on the speaker to listen to what is being said;  one interpreting what and why we think it is being said and finally a third on what God is saying to us as we listen.  We should apply this to all our interactions with people and especially our children. We should be good role models for our children and others around us, like the woman in the gospel story, being prepared to spend that extra bit of time lavishing love and care.  Those of us who are fathers know only too well that our time can so easily be taken up with earning a living, or finding it hard or impossible to earn a living ; with dealing with all the stresses that life and work or lack of work brings and not giving enough time for our family and children. The Pharisee in our gospel reading probably was so busy with arranging things for his guest that he forgot the simple common courtesies of the water and the oil.  It is often the little trivial things of life which get in the way of the greater needs of giving love and affection to those around us.  The story is told of the little boy who saw his father spending a great deal of time on his laptop, mobile phone and going to meetings – getting up early in the morning and coming home late - all of which kept him away from having quality time with his son.  Intrigued by what his father was actually doing he asked him “Dad, how much do you get paid for doing all this work?”  The father, rather indignantly responded – “Well it’s not really any of your business but since you ask I get paid £60 per hour”.  That night as the father passed the little boy’s bedroom he heard him on his knees praying his night prayers by his bed. Interested to hear what he was saying he put his ear to the door and he heard his son say “Dear Lord Jesus, please help me save up £60 so I can spend an hour with Dad”.

As children of God we are incredibly lucky.  We don’t have to say such prayers – God is spending time with us 24/7.  He is with us, as Psalm 139 says, “when we sit up, when we lie down, there is nowhere we can go where He is not there”.  Sometimes, though, I think He needs to ask us where we are?  Just like the son in the story, just like Jesus at Simon the Pharisee’s house, just like Paul in his address to the Galatians and also the prophet Nathan to David – the question posed by God is is where are you?  Why have you moved away from me?  Why do you do things of which I do not approve?

We need only to acknowledge our faith – just as we will shortly be doing in the Creed.   God is always ready to forgive us if we have genuine faith – he wants us to make him the centre of our life – to take a leaf out of his book – to be Christ-centric.  Unlike David, we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit through whom we can seek and receive forgiveness and healing.  As we each come up to take part in the Lord’s supper later, let’s each of us ask God to help us prioritise and remove those blocks and burdens which prevent us from engaging more fully with Him and our Faith. To take away those things which get in the way of a full relationship with God on an hour by hour, minute by minute basis.  To help us overcome those distractions which move us away from God, on those things which we focus on too much instead of God.

I am one of the worst procastinators you can find and get easily distracted.  That applies also, I have to confess, very often to my prayer and faith life.  I can so readily identify with those biblical characters who did lose the plot, lost the focus on God – Peter, David, Jonah, Eli and so on.  But the great thing is that we can re-focus and we can so easily put things right.  Let’s begin that process today.  Let’s ask God through the Holy Spirit to help us get the balance of our spiritual life right and get our spirituality back into focus.

 

Amen

SERMON 24 - SUNDAY 5 MAY 2013

Sermon at All Saints Parish Church, Whiteparish -  Sixth  Sunday in Easter Morning Worship  – Sunday 5 May 2013

Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 14:23-29

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord.  Amen

Whenever I hear the reading from Ezekiel, which we heard this morning, two images of different complexities and emotions come to my mind; first of all a vision of a group of Afro-Americans singing their spiritual song “Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones” but also, secondly, those dreadful images of the skulls and bones from Pol Pot’s Killing Fields of Cambodia.  A horrible image of human inhumanity.

The prophet Ezekiel was, himself a complex character. He was a trainee priest and was looking forward to serving God in the Temple at Jerusalem when suddenly, in 597 BC, the King of Judah, Jehoiachin, was forced to surrender the city and its Temple to the invading Babylonian army, and found himself taken into captivity and exile in Babylon itself.  Along with the King went the cream of Judah’s intelligentsia, a sort of ethnic cleansing in reverse, and such educated people as Daniel (of the Lion’s Den), Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel went along with the Royal Household – we are told some 10,000 in total.

For Ezekiel, especially after he would have heard of the destruction of the Temple 10 years later, it must have seemed like the end of all his hopes and dreams of serving God in the Holiest Place on earth.  Now he, along with others, was forced to live in a foreign land where the customs, food and religion were all very alien and contrary to the strict laws of the Torah. 

Ezekiel would have taken up his responsibilities as a priest at the age of 30 and it seems that it was at this very age that he received a direct call from God to prophesy to the exiled Jewish people – his role had changed from that of priest for the maintenance of prayer, worship and sacrifice in the Temple, to one of prophet (or in New testament terms, evangelist). His call was accompanied by a vivid vision which greatly coloured the whole of his ministry from that moment on, and we can read that call and vision in the first three chapters of the Book of Ezekiel.  The Book is extremely precise in its dating of events and has been used by historical and theological scholars in understanding the precise chronology of the events surrounding the Exile.

For the first ten years of his ministry, his message was mainly one of telling the Jews in exile that the plight in which they found themselves was due to God’s awesome judgment for their sins.  He saw God as a vision of fire and glory which contrasted significantly with the people’s sin in all its blackness; but it seems that after the destruction of the Temple, Ezekiel’s message changed to one of  resurrection and restoration of Jerusalem to God’s people.  From that moment on his message became one of hope and he started to look forward to the time when the people would return to worship at a new Temple where they would offer God perfect worship.

That, then is the background, to this hideous vision recounted in Ezekiel 37 – the valley of the dry bones. 

At first this seems to be a vision conjured up by Ezekiel himself until we read “The Lord led me out by the Spirit and set me in the middle of a valley...It was full of bones”.  In other words, it is God who has brought this vision to Ezekiel – he is quite clear on this.  The valley is dry, the bones are dessicated – there is no sign of life at all – whoever were the owners of these skeletons – they have been long since dead.  No recent death or calamity – a long term death. 

Then God asks Ezekiel a question – “Son of Man, can these bones live?”  I am sure many of us would answer – “Of course not, you must be joking – they are deader than the parrot in the Monty Python sketch!”  But Ezekiel gives the right answer – “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know”.  Indeed, only God knows many things.  How often do we hear people say in response to a difficult question “God only knows!”  We as Christians should always respond – “yes, indeed, you are quite right!”  Try it next time the opportunity arises!

God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones.  At that moment God makes breath – or breathes into the skeletons – the Hebrew word is ruach meaning wind, breath, mind or spirit – that which makes us what we are – that same Spirit which gave life to creation in Genesis.  The word for Holy Spirit in Hebrew is Ruach Hakkodesh and whilst it is not used in the context of Ezekiel’s dry bones, it does appear in several places in the Old Testament.

As the breath comes across the bones they start joining together and flesh appears until a whole upright army of the slain is now covering the valley floor. As breath comes into these bodies so they rise and become a huge living army.  The seemingly impossible has been achieved and as these soldiers rise up so God tells Ezekiel that these resurrected bones represent Israel, the nation brought down to its knees in captivity, and that the people will have their graves opened and be restored to their land.  These actions will signify that God is great and can do anything.  In other words, by this action, this miracle, Ezekiel’s authority at prophesying the return to good times is endorsed.  Ezekiel put his own faith in God to answer whether or not it was possible for the bones to come back alive and did not impose his own view or opinion – which no doubt would have been a negative one.

In our Gospel reading from John, Jesus again emphasises the importance of putting your trust and faith in the Father and here, again, we see a reference to the Ruach, the Ruach Hakkodesh, the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’s prophesy that the Spirit will be sent by God in Jesus’s name to teach them everything and to remind them of God’s greatness.  Just as God tells Ezekiel that the bones will be resurrected by the breath of the Spirit, so too does the resurrected Jesus tell his disciples that although he is going away, he is also remaining here on Earth in the form of the Holy Spirit.  That is a powerful message.  After the crucifixion and resurrection, and the atonement of the sins of humankind, there will be left for us to continue Jesus’s work, the Holy Spirit.  One of our hymns today, so carefully chosen, has the chorus - “Thank you Oh my Father for giving us your Son, and leaving Your Spirit, ‘til the work on earth is done”.

I have heard repeatedly, the obituary of the Christian Faith and in particular the Western Church.  Recently, in a series of APCMs we have been told of falling numbers and the lack of interest of most people in things spiritual or religious.   As one theologian put it recently, we in the Western Church often find ourselves on the Mountain of Despair or worse still on the Plateaus of Despondency or Apathy.  We look around and say – can these dry bones live?  We feel that we simply can’t make these bones of a previous church army live – they are too dead.  Certainly we cannot do this on our own; but if we allow the Holy Spirit to work, to come to our aid – to breathe life into those dry bones – then anything is possible.   It is said that the former Pope, John-Paul II, had a particular difficult ecumenical issue on his mind and found it hard to sleep.  In the stillness of his insomnia, he heard a quiet voice whispering in his ear “Whose Church is it anyway?”  The Pope replied – “yours Lord”. “Then” came the response, “stop worrying and let me deal with the problem and you get some sleep”.

The secular world often feels like the Israelites in exile.  You only have to look at the issues which are placed before our politicians and the problems of the economy, immigration, poverty, unemployment, crime and so on.  Like the Israelites we yearn for the good old days.  But were they so good?

The church today has a major role to play in our modern society.  As we approach Pentecost, let us remember that Jesus left us the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Hakkadesh, to be, in the words of John, our Advocate.  Let us breathe life back into our churches, let us go out with our revitalised army and spread the good News that God came down to earth in human form to save us from our sins, to be the direct channel through which we have direct access to our Creator and left the Holy Spirit here to do his work through us.   Let’s not leave the dry bones of our apathy and despondency to rot away.  Let’s make ourselves ready for the Kingdom of Heaven, let’s live Spirit-filled lives.

 

Amen

 

 

SERMON 23 - SUNDAY 21 APRIL 2013

Sermon at St. Mary the Virgin Parish Church, Stapleford  -  Fourth  Sunday in Easter Holy Communion  – Sunday 21 April 2013

Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23 and John 10:22-30

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord.  Amen

Today’s readings, from Acts and John, both deal strongly with the testing of Faith.  If there was ever a week to test our Faith, this last one must be in strong contention as the events in Boston and Texas unfolded.

For me the week started with a nice quiet day off – Monday (the 15^th) April which is my wife’s birthday - and we decided that we would take some time out that day going around those parts of Hampshire where she used to live in the early part of her life and see how the areas and houses in which she lived had changed.  Her birthday is also the anniversary of many tragic events in history – the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the sinking of the Titanic, the terrible loss of life at Hillsborough Football Stadium and as we saw, the Boston Marathon Bombing.

I am a fan of American baseball and on returning home from our trip to Hampshire, I sat and watched the ball game from Fenway Park where the Tampa Bay Rays were taking on the Boston Red Sox.  The weather was bright and sunny and the stadium was full of cheerful fans, of all ages and backgrounds, enjoying the game in the sun and cheering on the Red Sox on to a narrow victory.  I remarked to my wife how was it that there were so many families watching the game of baseball on a Monday lunchtime? The commentator explained as the game ended that it was Patriots Day and shortly the Boston Marathon would begin.   The day had started well and the good weather was such a bonus.

When in the early evening I heard the news and saw the pictures of the devastation and injuries suffered in downtown Boston, not all that far away from Fenway Park, I felt a sort of personal grief from having been with the Red Sox fans in spirit only a matter of hours earlier and wondering about how many people I had seen on my TV screen at that game had been caught up in the mayhem of the bombings. 

Later in the week also, I heard that a good Christian friend of mine had received news that he had been diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening illness and that this revelation had shook his Faith quite badly – not quite understanding why God had chosen him to suffer this problem when he had been such a loyal and faithful follower of Christ.  At times like these, Christians often ask that difficult question – why has God seemed to allow such suffering to happen?

As the events in Boston unfolded further, and the public came forward with eye-witness accounts and cell-phone photographs of the suspects, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, came on to the TV and said something which I found extremely profound, and I have to paraphrase this as I did not write it down at the time, “Amongst this most evil act, and it is indeed an act of extreme Evil, acts of goodness have occurred. Going forward we must focus on those and reject the evil”.  He was, of course, referring to the amazing acts of kindness and assistance which many citizens had provided during those awful moments and, afterwards, in apprehending the suspects as well as the feeling of empathy and community which had formed.  We can also apply the same philosophy to all those other tragic events I mentioned earlier – Lincoln’s death helped in reconciling the Union and Confederate States and the final abolition of slavery after such a terrible bloody conflict; Titanic’s sinking led to far reaching regulations for the safety of life at sea and the incorporation of an ice patrol; Hillsborough led to all-seater stands at football grounds and thereby a revival of football as a family spectator sport.

I believe that our Faith is strongest when it is tested.  My friend with the illness asked me if I could give him an answer.  I cannot – God alone knows why he does certain things at certain times – and often not the times which feel to be the most appropriate.  God frequently has a completely different timetable to that which we make for ourselves.  When these tragedies occur the immediate reaction is often to blame God or at least get angry with him.  In our Acts reading, I have no doubt that the friends and family of Tabitha felt a great loss at her death.  Tabitha, like my friend, had dedicated her life to following Christ and doing good works – it seems that she had been making clothes for the widows of the town.  We read that all the widows were standing by her bed and weeping when the Apostle Peter went into the room.  Peter had been sent by two men, we do not know who they were but they are described in our scripture passage as disciples, who clearly believed that Peter could do something.  We can imagine that Peter was present when Jesus had raised Lazarus and Jairus’s daughter and that he felt that the Holy Spirit had been given to him to perform similar miracles.  But as is the case with so many of the miracles of Jesus in the gospels, it was Faith that led to the healing – Faith that Peter, as a close apostle of Jesus, had within him this power to raise Tabitha through the Holy Spirit.

Time and time again I hear of charismatic Christians who say that people suffer because their faith is not strong enough – or that if they are Christians they’ll never be ill or have problems.  I believe that the stronger our Faith is the stronger it is likely to be tested, but that ultimately, God will never ask us to bear anything which he does not believe we actually can bear.  I liken this to when you first teach your child to ride a bicycle.  You hold on to the back of the bike and give reassurance to your child that you will hang on – then the moment comes when you let go, without them knowing, and they pedal away for several yards on their own.  They may look back, wobble and end up with a grazed knee – but they have done it – they’ve ridden the bicycle themselves over those few yards - and you have helped them grow.  I firmly believe God does just that.  We look back on what we have achieved, we look back at the difficulties we have gone through – and the Faith we have has been the force which has kept us peddling, got us through those bad times and helped us with those achievements.

In our Gospel Reading, Jesus is being quizzed by the Jews as to his identity. Clearly they know he is a remarkable man - but they need to know whether he is the long-awaited Messiah.  His answer is simple, if you believe in me, if you are one of my sheep as he puts it, you will know who I am.  In effect, he is stating that he is Human yet he is also God and those who follow him will have eternal life. Jesus liked using the analogy of the shepherd – one who tends to his sheep but who also gives them freedom to roam.  Freedom of will is always there – and that is why often bad things happen. We can still fall off our bicycles.

The Lectionary for today also includes the 23^rd Psalm – perhaps the most well-known psalm to Christians and non-Christians alike.  It is well worth remembering these following lines from it –

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death;

I shall fear no evil;

For you are with me,

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

 It is reported that those words were recited aloud by The Rev. John Harper, a Baptist pastor from Paisley, Scotland, as the Titanic was going down.  His memorial stone reads “Called to Higher Service from the decks of RMS Titanic on 15^th April 1912”.

Whatever trials and problems come our way, by a firm belief in the goodness of God and by faithful membership of his flock, supported by leading a prayerful and Christ-centred life we can be sustained and grow until we too are called to a Higher Service.

 

Amen

SERMON 22 - SUNDAY 14 APRIL 2013

Sermon at St. Mary’s Parish Church, West Dean   -  Third Sunday in Easter – Morning Worship  – Sunday 14 April 2013

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Acts 9:1-6 (7-20) and John 21:1-19

May the words of my mouth and the mediation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord.  Amen

“And someone else will fasten a belt around you, and take you where you do not wish to go” – those are the final parting words of Jesus to Peter after the breakfast on the beach.  How often in our lives do we feel like that, that we are being led where we do not wish to go – being asked to do things which we really don’t want to do?

All of today’s readings are rich in their teaching.  In particular, the readings from Acts and John tell us about the beginning of the ministries of those giants of the New Testament – Peter and Paul.  Great cathedrals and basilicas have been named after them – on Wednesday, our former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher will have a funeral service conducted for her in St. Paul’s Cathedral; we have recently seen the proclamation of a new pope at the basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome; in St. Petersburg, there stands on an island in the River Neva, the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul where Russian Tsars were crowned and buried over centuries.  We have our own St. Paul’s Church in Salisbury where regularly, every Sunday, some 600 Christians worship.  Wherever you go in the Christian world you will find churches dedicated to these two great apostles (I use the term loosely here as I know some eminent theologians would challenge my use of the word “apostle” for Paul).  Probably no single human being has shaped the Church more than Paul – and here I talk of church not the wider concept of Christianity. Yet when we study in our bible of the events that followed Jesus’s resurrection in Acts and by reading the letters of Peter and Paul, we begin to unpick what Jesus was saying to Peter when he asked him to feed his sheep on three separate occasions. 

Peter was very adept at getting things wrong.  He denied Jesus three times on that night in Jerusalem.  He constantly had to be castigated by Jesus – you can often hear Jesus’s frustration in his conversations with him when Peter suggests building shelters for the three figures at the Transfiguration; demanding to be washed all over by Jesus on Maundy Thursday,  by denying that he will deny Jesus and often not listening.  “Oh Peter!, won’t you ever get it right?” – you can hear the words of Jesus’s frustration. Or sometimes just “Oh Peter!!”  A simple fisherman whom Jesus takes away from his skilled work to be his rock upon which he will build his church – but he is flawed individual.  A flawed and ordinary guy, just like us. 

After the crucifixion, Peter must have been in a desperate place – as were all the disciples.  How he must have felt particularly wretched when he realised that he had indeed denied Jesus – just as Jesus had said he would – not once but three times!  Then not to have fully believed in the resurrection until Jesus appeared to him and others in the upper room.  When Jesus broke the fish and the bread that morning on the shores of the lake – he was saying two things to Peter and his colleagues – “I am the risen Christ, I am not a ghost, I eat like you.  I am back in the body, albeit only for a short time, and despite the denial of Peter I renew my commission to him in the same manner that he denied me three times - I affirm his ministry three times. In other words, I re-commission him. He was broken but is now whole.  He does not need to repent, I have forgiven him”.  Repentance is not something which must happen before you are forgiven – Jesus had already forgiven Peter – even before the sheep-feeding conversation. Now in acknowledging that he is reconciled with God through Jesus, Peter must also know that his life as a Christian missionary – i.e. one sent out by God to spread the gospel, the Good News, will be hard and lead him into dark places where he wouldn’t wish to be led – culminating in his own crucifixion.  Repentance is, therefore, something which happens after forgiveness.  When Jesus stopped the stoning of the adulteress he first forgave her and then asked her to repent – to go and sin no more.  Isn’t it wonderful to think that when we turn to Him, he unconditionally forgives us – however many times we might seek his forgiveness.

In our reading in Acts, of which I am certain we are all very familiar, Paul has his Damascus experience – literally!  Paul is a broken and flawed person also.  As a Zealot, he has vigorously persecuted Christ-followers as they, to his mind, have committed heresies against the Jewish faith.  Indeed, he is on his way to persecute some more of Christ’s followers in Damascus.  Could there ever be a more unlikely person to be used by God to carry out Christian mission to the Gentile world? A man steeped in Jewish tradition, who held the coats of those who stoned the apostle Stephen?  Hardly! 

The vision of Jesus stands before Paul and after asking the simple question “Why do you persecute me” he is blinded and in an echo of Jesus’s earlier words to Peter, he is led to where he doesn’t wish to go.  To the home of a Christian follower in Damascus where he meets with other followers of Christ – and from there to a life dedicated to Jesus which will lead him into conflicts with Peter and the other disciples, with the Roman and Jewish authorities and his life will be one of a nomadic existence – travelling the then known world apart from periods in various prisons. A far cry from what he had thought originally had been his ministry – persecution of those he comes to lead. Again, Jesus asks Paul to acknowledge his sin but has already forgiven him – he has already chosen him in all his brokenness to be his disciple.  And what of poor Ananias?  He was certainly called to go somewhere he didn’t want to go! To see Saul the persecutor.

These two separate but, in my view, very linked stories can be well applied to us today.  God calls each and every one of us to some form of ministry if we are true believers and followers .  We often can’t accept or deal with this - feeling that we are not worthy – we have self-doubts about our abilities – or maybe it’s just too scary!  We are sinful people.  In fact, probably one of the worst sins we can have is to harbour and protect those self-doubts within us against God’s plan.  Yes, we should be humble and gracious – not in a Uriah Heap sort of way – but by accepting and acknowledging that God does know what is best for us even if it seems impossible or sheer lunacy to us.  When we start to superimpose, over God’s will, our own views and try and lead ourselves in another direction then we deny ourselves, just as Peter did, the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives.  Then we are lost.

I love reading these stories about Peter and Paul.  They are both so human.  Both frustrate me and irritate me at times – but then again, we all frustrate and irritate people at some time.  They were broken people when they were commissioned by God through Jesus. 

As Christ's disciples we are meant to have the light of Christ within us.  Only by our human imperfections, like those of Peter and Paul, our brokenness and our cracks, can that light shine through to us.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the lyrics of the Leonard Cohen song - “Anthem” which I think sums up perfectly all I have been speaking about today:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There’s a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Amen

SERMON 21 - SUNDAY 10 MARCH 2013

Sermon at St. Mary’s Parish Church, West Dean   -  Mothering Sunday – Morning Worship  – Sunday 10 March 2013

Exodus 2:1-10; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:33-35

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

When I was asked to take this Mothering Day service and I first looked at today’s readings, I was in quite a quandary as to how to start off my sermon or talk.  The Lectionary gives the preacher a choice of texts to follow and on Monday I was just one of a group of several trainees meeting in Sarum College who had been tasked with delivering a sermon today - and we all expressed apprehension and exchanged some quite different ideas.

Since Monday, I have seen literally hundreds of advertisements from commercial organisations as to how best to celebrate “Mothers’ Day” as it is more commonly known in the secular world – from cards, flowers  and meals to some quite bizarre and exotic gifts – cruises, weekends in Paris and so on.  This  got me into thinking about what the origins of this festival were and how did it develop into the secular celebration we often see today.

Mothering Sunday is clearly set out as a festival within the Church’s Lectionary and indeed, when putting together this service, there were plenty of both on-line and good old fashioned off-line resources to help me – not least from the Church of England itself.  Unlike Fathers’ Day, which started in 1910 in the United States to show equality of honouring fathers with mothers, Mothering Sunday goes much further back and its origin, whilst steeped in ecclesiology, was not quite what we see today and I thought that I would share my research with you.

Mothering Sunday always falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent and as such has no connection with the American celebration of Mothers’ Day.  Traditionally, it was the day when children, mainly daughters who had gone to work in domestic service, were given the day off to visit their mother and family.  As we know, now it is the day when children give cards, flowers and presents to their mother. 

Churchgoers, generally, worshipped in the church nearest to where they were living – although this is not always the case today – known as their “daughter church” – and in the sixteenth century it was felt important that people returned to their home or “mother church” at least once a year.

So each year, in the middle of Lent, everyone would visit their “mother church” – the main church or cathedral of the area.

Inevitably, the return to the “mother” church became an occasion for family re-unions when children who were working away returned home (it was quite common in those days for children as young as ten to leave home and find work away).

Most historians think that it was the return to the “Mother Church” which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family.

How lovely it would be if our modern day employers allowed their staff a long weekend off to visit their mothers and go to their mother’s local parish church once a year)!  Unfortunately, I cannot see that happening.  In today’s modern age many children are separated from their parents by many hundreds of miles – often across continents.

As they walked along the country lanes, children would pick wild flowers or violets to take to church or give to their mother as a small gift – hence the tradition of giving flowers to the mums.  The term given to these visits was to go “a-mothering”.

Another explanation is that Mothering Sunday derived from the original Epistle scriptural text for the Fourth Sunday in Lent as set out in the Book of Common Prayer before the modern Lectionary came into being – Galatians 4:26 – which reads

“.. Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother”. 

Paul, writing to the church of Galatia, was wanting to explain to the Christian community there what their relationship as Christians was to the Jewish law which the Galatians were being told, by others, they were breaking by following Paul’s teachings.

In the full passage (Galatians 4:21-31), the two children born by Hagar and Sarah to Abraham are seen as symbolising two promises from God:

One is the Torah which is restraining and earthly.  The other is the Gospel, which is spiritual and liberating.  The Galatians are told to regard themselves as the children of the Gospel.

“Mothering Sunday” has also been called Refreshment Sunday amongst other names.  It stands right in the middle of Lent and traditionally it has been seen as the one day when the rules of fasting can be relaxed. You can eat chocolate and drink wine today!  I rather like that idea. In some Church of England churches, even today, it was also seen as the one and only day during the period of Lent when a couple could get married.

Finally, it was also a day when the congregation engaged in a tradition known as “clipping the church” – when everyone would encircle the church holding hands – a bit difficult with the size of our modern congregations and embrace the building.  I don’t expect anyone to do that today!

Enough of Church history! Neither our modern Lectionary nor Book of Common Prayer has the Galatians reading assigned for today – but they do have the readings which we heard – and how much more they are relevant too.  Both the Old Testament reading from Exodus – part of the Torah - and Luke (one of the Gospels) are well known stories which often appear in the junior bible stories – the first where a mother abandons her child out of the deepest love and emotion she can have – to protect him for a certain death.  What a wrench, though,  it must be for any mother to be separated from her child. 

In the passage immediately before the one we had read to us, Pharaoh has given commands to ethnically cleanse his country by culling the number of Israelites in his country - killing every male child immediately after he is born by throwing him in the Nile.  In a bid to save her new-born child, she hides him in the rushes by the side of the Nile where he is shortly picked up by the daughter of the very same Pharaoh who has decreed he should die.  In a twist of providence, the child’s mother is later employed to act as his nurse.

So many parallels with the Gospel story – the slaughter of the innocence and the hiding of the child to avoid capture – ironically in the case of Jesus by taking him to the very country where the kinsmen of Moses were being enslaved and persecuted. It must have been a wonderful re-union for the mother of Moses but, in its way, must have been quite painful to know that the child being cared for by the Egyptian princess is the very child you went through labour and birthing pains for.  He was, after all, her flesh and blood.

In our Gospel story, Mary and Joseph have taken the baby Jesus to the Temple to present him to the Lord and give praise and thanksgiving for his birth.  There they meet Simeon and Anna, two devout old worshippers.  We read that Simeon had the Holy Spirit on him and that he immediately recognized whom the baby was.  After taking Jesus in his arms he gave praise in the words of the Nunc Dimittis (which we say at Evening Prayer) and Mary and Joseph marvelled at these words.

But, in the next breath, Simeon says something to Mary which must have sent a cold shiver down her spine – “This child is destined to cause a falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  A sword will pierce your own soul too”.

Prophetic words indeed – Mary, 33 years later was to witness the cruellest of deaths of the child which she had just borne and whose tiny hands clenching in her arms, would one day be nailed to a crude instrument of execution.  One wonders what she must have thought.

All parents have only the best thoughts and intentions for their children.  Both the mother of Moses and the mother of Jesus could not have known, in those early days, how life would pan out for their first born sons. But of one thing that is certain, both mothers lavished so much love on them and formed them into the people they became and Mary’s love for her son clearly lasted beyond his crucifixion and resurrection.

Mothers bear many strains and anguish.  The joy of having children bears with it physical pain and suffering too.  Recently we have been reading in our Lent Groups about the relationship that C. S. Lewis had with Joy Gresham and her words to Jack during their wonderful day out to the Golden Valley ring so true: – "The pain then, is part of the happiness now. That's the deal."   In other words, whenever there is much happiness there is likely to be pain at some time in the future – and the happier the experience or relationship now, the greater the pain is likely to be in the future.

Our mothers are, or have been, cooks, nurses, storytellers, waitresses, bottle washers, shoppers, designers, taxi drivers, preachers, teachers, and much much more. 

Human mothers have a bond with their children which is probably the strongest in nature. 

The reading which I did not choose today is the piece of scripture when Jesus from the Cross says to his mother Mary who is standing next to the disciple John,

“Dear woman, here is your son”, and to John, “Here is your mother. From that time on, this disciple took her into his home”.

Even in the middle of his own agony on the Cross, Jesus realised also the pain which both mother and disciple were going through – a mother needed a son and the disciple a mother. 

We all need our mothers, whether our natural mother or our mother church.  For those who have lost their mothers today can be the painful part of the happiness you have had as described by Joy Lewis.   As we later give and receive flowers as a token of the love which exists between mother and child, let’s not forget that such love comes from God himself and is a sample of the love that he has in amazing abundance for all of us.  Like the Levi woman, the mother of Moses, and Mary, mother of Jesus, they sacrificed up their sons for the greater glory of God.

Amen

 

SERMON 20 - SUNDAY 3 MARCH 2013

Sermon at All Saint’s Parish Church, Whiteparish  -  Evensong  – Sunday 3 March 2013

Genesis 28:10-19a;  John 1:35-51

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Since a very early age I’ve had a fascination for ecclesiastic architecture and, to be more precise, the wonderful heritage of our English cathedrals.  Being brought up in North Lincolnshire, I was very familiar with the edifice which is Lincoln Cathedral – after all it often used to mark the beginning of our journey to our summer holiday destination. Once beyond Lincoln, we were on less familiar territory as we journeyed south to the warmer climes of the English Channel coastal resorts or the west country.  Lincoln Cathedral stands on a hill dominating the city and the surrounding countryside and never fails to impress.  The three tall towers with their twelve pinnacles soaring heavenward.  Indeed, for me it was a glimpse of heaven.

As we passed through towns and cities on our journey – there few motorways and by-passes in those days - I would always ask the same three questions – Is this a city? Does it have a cathedral?  Can we stop and see it?  My parents would generally oblige and I built up an amazing collection of Pitkin Pride guides as holiday souvenirs.

One of our holiday destinations used to be Torquay – well Brixham to be more precise – and on that trip I remember visiting Exeter Cathedral, Wells Cathedral (with the swans that ring a bell) and Bath Abbey (I was never sure whether that was a cathedral or not).  I still have the guide books.  On the front of the one for Bath Abbey is a photograph of the west front depicting, in stone, Jacobs’ Ladder with the twelve apostles ascending and descending up and down its rungs.  I still remember to this day how impressive this appeared to me. 

The stonemasons of the Abbey had imagined the ladder as having rungs; probably modelling it on the ladders they themselves must have used to carve it - but the ladder or staircase in Jacob’s dream, an account of which we had read to us in the first lesson, has been depicted in many ways by painters and often illustrated as a winding stairway or steep path up the side of a hillside or mountain. One such famous depiction is by our own English painter and writer, William Blake who may be nearer the truth than those Bath masons.   In the time of Jacob, it was common in Mesopotamia, or modern day Iraq, to build ziggurats – small sloping towers inside which were staircases leading up to a small temple where it was felt more appropriate to worship God - nearer to heaven.  A bit like the way in which the first two Salisbury cathedrals and Lincoln Cathedral were built on top of hills.  The fabled Tower of Babel would have been such a ziggurat on a more massive scale.  In all probability, then, Jacob’s dream incorporated a ziggurat with the vision of God up at the top where he would be expected to be found.

The importance and relevance of Jacob’s dream in scripture has been the source of much debate by theologians over the centuries but I think the answer is very much contained in Jesus’s words as spoken to his new disciples in our second lesson: but before going on to that, there is another important element of Jacob’s dream which is of importance to us as Christians.

God says to Jacob, in verse 18, and I paraphrase:-

“Your descendents will spread over the earth in all directions and will become as numerous as the specks of dust. Your family will be a blessing to all people”

This is an almost complete repetition of the words of God’s call to Abram found in Genesis 12:-

I will bless you and make your descendents into a great nation. I will give you and your family all the land you can see. It will be theirs for ever. I will give you more descendents than there are specks of dust on the earth....”

And again to Jacob’s father Isaac in Genesis 26:-

“I will give all these lands and will confirm what I swore to your father Abraham – I will make your descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands....”

As an astronomer, I particularly like this quote.

The importance here is that God keeps repeating this promise to the descendents of Abraham and this is picked up by Matthew in the opening of his gospel when he sets out in the first chapter the genealogy of Jesus – that Jesus was a direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The significance of Jesus’s words to his disciples becomes plain.  He has direct access to God.

Like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the fishermen of Galilee and those Jesus meets in Bethsaida, particularly Nathanael, are being called by God to service.  Nathanael finds it hard to accept that the Son of Man, the Messiah, can be somebody from Nazareth – “What good ever came out of Nazareth?” he asks. He questions the calling and questions the caller; as have many other biblical characters who have heard a call from God.  In giving the answer, Jesus is making it clear to Nathanael that the reason Nathanael should recognise him as the Son of Man is not because Jesus knew that Nathanael spent some of his time sitting under a fig tree studying scripture, but because he was the one spoken of in the scriptures themselves and when he says that Nathanael shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending Nathanael would have remembered the promises made to Jacob and realised that it is Jesus who is the ladder between heaven and earth.

At the time Jacob had his dream he is on the run from his brother Esau who has vowed to kill him for having swindled him out of his inheritance and fraudulently received a blessing from their father, Isaac.    There is a belief that the spot on which the dream took place, Bethel as Jacob named it, is the same spot on Mount Moriah where the Temple at Jerusalem was built – the gateway to heaven – the point where heaven and earth met and where God dwelt on earth – in the Holy of Holies.  In setting up the stone, as Jacob does, and later building not one but two magnificent temples on the spot, the Jews were trying to capture the very essence of heaven on earth as being a geographical location – a point whereby, through the intercessions of the High Priests, and the sacrifice of burnt offerings, communications with God,  were possible – yet we know, that at the moment of Christ’s death on the Cross, the veil of the Temple – that physical boundary between the chamber where the High Priest officiated and the chamber where God was believed to live, was torn in two from top to bottom.  We will hear about this again during the Good Friday liturgy.

Jesus is telling his disciples, by the choice of the words he uses, angels ascending and descending, that he is the ladder, the stairway or the means by which Heaven and Earth can be joined.  He is the fulfilment of that dream of Jacob’s.  There is no need for a physical structure to reach Heaven, the need to put God in a box, behind a veil to be reached only through the Holy of Holies, God’s love and grace is available to everybody through Jesus himself.

Those stone ladders on the face of Bath Abbey are high and vertical.  The apostles appear as steeplejacks climbing up and down the sheer face – leaving you feeling quite giddy as you look up.  The ladder looks so difficult to climb.

But Jesus is saying to his disciples, and to us today - through scripture – that it doesn’t have to be difficult – the bridge or ladder between heaven and earth is easily available to all through believing and accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.  John reports in his gospel that Jesus said this very clearly indeed - “No one comes to the Father except through me”.

Ladders and stairways are designed not only to be climbed but also for a safe descent too.  The image of our Christian journey is often a one-way street.  We often think that we are on a journey upwards, we hope for an eternal life somewhere in another dimension.  That is a good thought to have but, I believe, it is also the role of a Christian to think in terms of going the other way too - bringing heaven down to earth also.  Indeed in the Lord’s prayer we pray that

“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”

If we are in a true communion with God through the ladder or bridge of Jesus - using prayer in whatever form - then we should also be trying to bring down to Earth a piece of his Kingdom of Heaven – or in other word, if we believe that Heaven is a place where there is no suffering, no envy, no jealousy, no heartbreak and so on we should do all we can to bring as much of that as we can here now.

I remember when I was a law student at university many years ago, a popular song of the time was “A Glimpse of Heaven” by The Strawbs whose first verse went something like this:

The hillside was a patchwork quilt

Neatly stitched with tidy hedge and crumbling grey stone walls.....

If you’d only seen what I’ve seen

You would surely know what I mean

I think I must have caught a glimpse of Heaven

We don’t necessarily have to wait for a dream like Jacob’s - we can always see glimpses of Heaven if we really look. We can also provide others with glimpses of Heaven if we really try.

Lent is a time of reflection.  As we prepare ourselves to celebrate the ultimate sacrifice made for us all on the Cross and the glorious resurrection, let us all pray and meditate on how we can use our communion with Jesus, our ladder to Heaven, to provide a glimpse of that Heaven to those for whom our faith is difficult to understand or irrelevant – and in so doing, just as with Jacob and the apostles, let us also use it to strengthen our own faith.

Amen