SERMON 94 - SUNDAY 26 MARCH 2017

Sermon at Holy Family RC Chapel, Whaddon  -  Evening Prayer  – Sunday 26th March 2017

Psalm 31:1-16 Micah 7; James 5

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

We now find ourselves well into Lent and I wonder how you are all doing with your Ash Wednesday resolutions?

Following the events of Wednesday 22^nd March in Westminster my son, who is currently studying at the University of Hull, telephoned me to say that he had been watching the events in Westminster unfold on TV (apparently like a lot of modern students he doesn’t appear to have any lectures or seminars to attend on some days of the week!) and that he had concluded that “religion” was the cause of most troubles in the world.   Unfortunately I didn’t have the time or inclination just at that moment – he had phoned me at a particularly difficult time – to enter into a long protracted theological discussion with him but in essence he had reached the view that much of the terrorism and hatred in the world was caused by people with differing and opposing theologies arguing that, as my son put it “my non-existent supreme being is better than your non-existent one” – an echo of the philosophy of Nietzsche.  The conversation left me feeling slightly depressed but also very reflective on what he had said.  I promised him that we would have a much longer and deeper discussion on his philosophical ideas.  After all, he does have a point. My belief in God, as a Christian, is based on some ideas which have and will continue to be challenged by people who would call themselves “enlightened”.  Indeed, what is Faith if it is not based on trust and feelings which can be so difficult to articulate in terms of scientific proof.  Unless we are prepared to examine carefully our faith and be prepared to have it tested, it can easily stagnate and not grow.  Doubting Thomas wouldn’t believe in the risen Christ until he had seen Jesus and felt his wounds. When he was allowed to do so Jesus told him “You have believed because you have seen and felt but how much more blessed will be those who have not seen yet have come to believe” [John 20:29].

I have recently just finished reading an excellent book by Paul Bradbury who is the Church of England’s pioneer minister down in Poole who was tasked with setting up and expanding a Christian community amongst the housing estates and secular community of that town.  He was expected to “hit the ground running” but as time passed on he realised that much more can be achieved by listening to God through contemplative prayer and leading a contemplative life rather than rushing around relying on our own egos and other people’s ideas and very often achieving little in return.  He used the resources he had around him and let everything go to God.  Paul Bradbury uses the Book of Jonah as a good example of where we as humans can think we know better than God.  Jonah was given a commission – he ran away from it only to be caught up with by God using a big fish.  When eventually Jonah arrived at Ninevah and that city repented of its evil ways, Jonah sulked because it was not destroyed as he hoped God would do.  Paul says Jonah’s story is like many of us.  We have our own agenda and we expect that God will follow and support us whereas it’s the other way around. 

In our Psalm and both of our readings the theme is very similar.  A lamentation for the way of the world and the turning away from God.  You have been given a copy of Psalm 31 this evening – do take it away and read it from time to time during this week and particularly the prayer in Verse 15 – “My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me.” [NIV].  How often do we feel that we want to pray these very words?  How often do we feel in despair and so helpless?  Just like my son was feeling when he heard of so much evil happening in a place – Westminster – he knows quite well.  The psalmist does, however, have hope and looks to God to save him from the evil doers.

In our first reading this evening, from the minor prophet Micah, we see a similar situation. Micah says “The faithful have disappeared from the land and there is no one left who is upright.  They all lie in wait for blood and they will hunt each other with nets” [Micah 7:2].

But in James 5 we are encouraged to be patient in our suffering – “As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered.  You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what God has finally brought about.  The Lord is full of compassion and mercy”. [verse 10 – NIV].

James, in the final few paragraphs of his letter tells us what we should do – pray and praise.  Pray when we are in trouble, pray when we are sick, praise God for all the blessings he has bestowed on us.

Jesus throughout the gospels often uses examples of agriculture in his parables.  The mustard seed, the sower, and so forth.  Bradbury, in describing his ministry in Poole tells the story of how he acquired an allotment.  There was a great waiting list for such a piece of land but he was given a plot quite quickly.  He soon discovered why – it was a piece nobody previously had wanted because it was a reclaimed part of an old car park.  The soil was inches thick and full of rubble, stones and broken up tarmac.  It took him and his flock nearly 3 years for it to be turned into something remotely fertile. It was an immense struggle but the day came to plant the vegetable seeds. Paul describes how there was then nothing further that could be done but to wait and let God’s wonderful work of nature take over.  A little weeding here and a little watering there but the creative process of growing was left entirely in the hands of God.  James in verse 7 says exactly this “Be patient, then brothers until the Lord’s coming.  See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains”

The message I think is one we should take on board when the things seem tough, when the world seems against us, when, like that piece of land nothing seems to yield fruit because the ground seems devoid of nourishment.  By our faith we can keep going but it requires us to also be patient and wait upon the Lord.  There is a lovely worship song which was played at Spring Harvest at the time I felt called to ministry – “Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord” with the lines “He will lift us up on wings like eagles”.

I hope that my son will come round to understanding that a faith, a belief in God’s righteousness and love, in our fundamental Christian philosophy through Christ’s teachings the world can be a much better place and that we can bring down the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and that God will lift us up on wings like eagles.

Let us pray

Almighty God,

We ask that you give us patience as we wait to hear from you as to what you wants for us.

Sometimes we feel tired and frustrated in this difficult and broken world as we battle with our struggles and see so much hatred, violence and greed around us.

We pray that your Kingdom will come and that your will be done here on earth as in Heaven and that we all love one another as the beautiful creatures of the one true God.

We ask this all in the name of your Son and our Saviour, Jesus Christ

Amen

94/24032017

SERMON 93 - SUNDAY 12 MARCH 2017

Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish  -  BCP Evensong  – Sunday 12th March 2017

Numbers 21:4-9;  Luke 14:27-33

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

This evening we’ve heard two rather gloomy sounding readings – not much it appears on first glance to excite or gladden the Christian heart and probably the sorts of passages which many non-Christians believe the bible is full of – lots of negativity and little optimism.  But if we drill down further we can be assured that contrary to what first appears in those texts, we have much to be thankful for and that following Christ is indeed something to cherish and evangelise.

Which of us has not felt, at some time in their life, like those Hebrews in our first lesson?  Having been brought out of Egypt after the ten plagues, and having won a great battle against the King of the Canaanites,  Arad,  they find themselves wandering and wondering about why they left their slave masters in that land of seeming plenty to be brought by Moses into the desolation of the Sinai Desert – the wilderness – where we read they spent forty years wandering about until eventually they reached the promised land.  Time for three new generations to have been born before they finally settled.  No wonder they cried out “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? There is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food?”  

It must have seemed pointless and presumably many of the older members of the group would have died on the way – indeed, Moses himself was not to live to cross into the Promised Land.  It all seemed just such a hopeless and futile exodus. However, the people’s complaint about “this miserable food” was a reference to the manna which God had provided to them day after day and, as this was bread from heaven, the blasphemy of this statement was a major wrong to God resulting in the people being stricken by the serpent.

Of course, we know how it ended – with the Hebrews crossing into Canaan and the land of milk and honey there to establish the kingdom of Israel;  but at the time they could not know how it was going to end.  The only way they could have any hope was to keep faith with Moses who remained in contact with God.  Any lack of trust in Moses was, in fact, a lack of trust in the same God who had delivered them from captivity in Egypt.  I wonder what wilderness do you or I now think we are in? How difficult is it for us to trust in God at times of extreme hardship or when we don’t really know where we are going?  Eventually, we read that the people of Israel recognised that in speaking in the way they had done had been disrespectful to God – although it did take poisonous serpents to do so.

In our Second lesson, Jesus does continue this theme in that he tells a great crowd of people who have been following him that great sacrifices are needed if a person wishes to be a true and genuine disciple of his.  

This is a theme which is repeated time and time again throughout Jesus’s teachings and therefore is something which we all need to consider an important aspect of our Christian following – to follow Jesus, to become his disciple it is necessary to give up all your possessions.

Lent is a time when we often choose to give something up – when we fast.  However, why do we do this?  For what purpose do we fast?  If you are giving something up what are you doing in its place?  The answer is that we should be giving out – not just giving up – we should be reflecting on our Christian lives and the teachings of Christ and acting accordingly.  It is one thing to feel good about one’s self, to feel self-righteous but it is quite another to use that self-sacrifice for God’s greater power and glory and for our fellow humans.

Jesus, in his sermon to the people in our Second Lesson, is asking that we consider carefully what and how we are living our lives – to think carefully about what we are doing.  As he puts it – even when building a tower then we should not even lay the first foundation stone until we have carefully thought out whether we have the resources to finish the project; similarly when going to war, he says, we should consider again whether we have the resources to win and if not whether peace terms would be better.  In our daily lives that’s about spending time with God and praying to seek his guidance on all our projects and ideas.

Likewise, when we set out on a course of fasting or giving up we should determine what the outcome could or should be and be prepared to give our all for it – not some half-hearted measure – paying lip service to what we think we should be doing without some real understanding and measured outcome.  Again we need prayer to guide us.

Jesus wants no half measures, he wants total commitment from his disciples.  In the same way Moses was looking for total obedience from his followers through the desert even if, at times, things didn’t look so good.

During this Lent I have chosen to find more time and space in my day to listen to God and to try and hear and understand what plans he might have for me and my ministry following significant changes in my life.  I want to be more contemplative – something which can be very hard for an extravert like me; so that I can hear God more clearly.  Prayer is not simply about listing  our requests in a babble of supplicatory prayers but allowing time for God to speak to us and not hastily dismissing him when our lists of requests do not seem to be answered in the way we would like.  The people in our first lesson wanted bread but instead they got a strange substance called manna which clearly was not as tasty but did fill their stomachs.

The Hebrews with Moses wanted a quick fix – nothing has changed, in this 21^st Century with all our modern technology.  We expect our computers to give us quick fix answers at the click of a mouse.  Jesus is telling us that often there are no quick fixes as we would like, we need to place everything in God’s hands and follow him unconditionally and unreservedly free from all those possessions (and here I am not talking about material ones necessarily) but distractions which would separate us from our wholehearted commitment to God.

So my message to you this evening is “What things are we doing or thinking which keep us from a full commitment to God?”  It might not be chocolate, or wine, or sweet puddings or biscuits but something far less obvious and perhaps like the young ruler, something much much harder but which will help you to carry our cross and fully follow Jesus.

Let us pray

Almighty God, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ who gave his life on the Cross that we might be freed from our sins

We ask that you show us what crosses we carry and help us to give up those things which can keep us from wholeheartedly and unconditionally following him as his disciple

We ask that when we pray your Holy Spirit will guide us in what we say and more particularly help us to listen to your words of wisdom and guidance.

We ask this all in the name of your Son and our Saviour, Jesus Christ

Amen

93/09032017

SERMON 92 - SUNDAY 5 MARCH 2017

Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish  -  Morning Worship  – Sunday 5th March 2017

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.

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.

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 to 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 quite a bit of 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 – 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 Jeremy Kyle, 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

92/02032017

SERMON 91 - SUNDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2017

Sermon at St. Mary’s Church, West Dean  -  Morning Worship  – Sunday 26th February 2017

Exodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21;  Matthew 17:1-9

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

A common theme running through each of this morning’s reading is that each is saying something about God’s glory being revealed on a mountain top – “a mountain top experience” which is where one might expect to see God’s glory being revealed.  Yet as we know, the Gospel story of the Transfiguration occurs shortly before Jesus reveals that he will be betrayed, handed over and killed.

Recently I visited Madeira and like most visitors was impressed by how mountainous the terrain is – mountains in excess of 4,000 feet and impressive engineering feats evident to cut properties and roads into the seemingly impossible terrain.  My wife and I took a cable car and various buses up into the mountains from where we glimpsed the most amazing and breath-taking views of the capital Funchal and out to sea across the Atlantic Ocean.  With the beautiful flowers and plants around us in the cool clean air we felt at times very close to creation and the wonders of God’s world.  Yet also, at times, the low clouds which can envelope the island would blot out our heavenly views and obscure the beauty we had discovered.  The clouds could appear menacing and dangerous as our bus traversed the narrow winding roads with, at certain places, sheer drops of 400 to 500 feet below us.  I certainly felt vindicated in not having hired a car but equally fearful at having placed the lives of my wife and myself in the hands of, what I hoped was, an experienced , confident driver and sober driver.

Mountains, therefore, are places of glory and of fear.  In this morning’s readings we first of all see Moses with his assistant Joshua (“Jesus” in Greek) on the top of Mount Sinai with God.  We read in Verses 9-11, immediately before this morning’s extract that Moses was with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel but at God’s command only Moses and Joshua (described as his assistant in our translation) went up as far as the summit, leaving Aaron, Hur and the other Elders below, to meet with God.  We read further that just like those mountains on Madeira, the cloud suddenly covered the mountain for six days and it wasn’t until the seventh day that God called out through the cloud to Moses.  Is this a parallel to the six days of Creation; God not giving his message, the tablets containing the law until the Sabbath?  Is this therefore a representation of a New Creation; a new Covenant?  We learn at the end of this piece of scripture that Moses stayed up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights – just like in the story of Noah it rained for 40 days and 40 nights – meaning a very long time.

In our Gospel reading we have a direct parallel – Jesus with Moses and Elijah.  Our passage starts with “Six days later” just as we had six days of Moses being on the mountain and a link with the six days of Creation – so we once again read that it was on the seventh day of a week that the Transfiguration occurred.  Just as in our narrative of Moses on Mount Sinai was accompanied by the Elders, so Jesus is accompanied by his disciples but leaves most of them at the foot of the mountain only taking up Peter and James.  Here, once more, God reveals his glory and Jesus is seen too in that glory when God announces that Jesus is his son in whom he is well pleased:  the same message given to John the Baptist and those at Jesus’s Baptism when the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove. At this point, Jesus’s true divinity is once more revealed especially to Peter, Jesus’s assistant. This time, however, we learn that the cloud which envelopes them is a bright cloud and Peter and James are fearful.  Jesus tells them not to be afraid but to get up and they see that Jesus is once more on his own.

It is also clear that at the beginning Peter really doesn’t understand what is going on.  He suggests that as this is such a good place to be – in the presence of Moses and Elijah, - he offers to put up three dwellings – probably tents, so that they can stay there for a long time. He doesn’t at that stage realise that this is a one off occurrence, it is to show the true glory and divinity of Jesus placing him above the status of Moses and Elijah whom the Jews revered as great prophets and Fathers of their Nation.  How many times have we had those wonderful mountain top experiences and wanted to stay up there, on a high for ever.  Unfortunately life is never like that and we all have to come down into the valley again. 

Peter, writing about this event, in his second letter, some years later, has become much clearer as to the significance of the event.  Peter now a much older, wiser and less impetuous individual appreciates how privileged he was to observe the Transfiguration shortly before his whole world seemed to come crashing down amidst the Passion and his Denial. Peter tells his readers that he and the apostles did not follow the myths and legends only associated with the Old Testament stories but had seen their truth as revealed on the Mountain of Transfiguration – that he as an eyewitness had seen Jesus’s glory revealed with his own eyes.

When practising as a court lawyer, I was always at great pains to tell my clients that an eyewitness to an event was worth 100 times the testimony of circumstantial or hearsay witnesses; so here Peter is underlining the point by saying “Yes I was there when I heard God say ‘This is my son, the Beloved with whom I am well pleased”.  “I heard it; I can vouch for the truth of this”.  This is a wonderful testimony and something which we should take great care to remember when our own Faith is challenged by others in this ever more secular society in which we live.  “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our lord Jesus Christ”. In other words, and in the language of 2017 “We are telling you the truth, we are not following and disseminating False News”.  We as Christians and disciples can, therefore, be assured of the truth of the message which Peter tells us.  Now that is powerful stuff and makes the Transfiguration such an important event even today in 2017.

In Verse 19 Peter takes us deeper theologically and tells us that as we have the prophetic message fully confirmed – that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our Saviour - we need to be attentive and act as would a lamp lighten a darkened place until, as Peter says, the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.  A couple of weeks ago we heard a similar message from Jesus himself in his Sermon on the Mount – how we are to be salt of the earth and light of the world.

Peter acknowledges in his letter that the world has its dark places – the valleys into which we all descend from our mountain top places, but just as we descended back down into Funchal from the Madeiran mountains so the sun shone and the temperature rose. 

Psalm 119:105 tells us that “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”; a lovely piece of poetry – but how true.  Peter repeats this by telling us that we should shine brightly and should carry our Faith as a light to the world until the True Light of Jesus returns – as he puts it “the morning star rises”. Peter also warns us to guard against putting our own interpretation on Scripture because true prophecy comes from or is moved only by the Holy Spirit, that third and equally important member of the Holy Trinity. One of the greatest gifts, if not the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit is discernment – the ability to discern what is of and from God  and what is from our own human thoughts and desires.  It’s a great gift because we can often so easily get it wrong.

In these days of much uncertainty and global fears, I am excited that throughout the world the Christian message is growing and thereby the lamp of Christianity continues to grow bigger and brighter.  We may be few in number here in West Dean but in China, for example, the number of Christians has grown to around 200 million (including Catholics) from about 1 million in 1949 and the rate of growth is increasing annually despite much persecution and State restrictions.  Perhaps the morning star will rise in the east both actually and metaphorically!

When the few of us pray together here this morning, we may be geographically small in this church but in reality we are a huge number globally.  When we pray and worship we add our own prayers to all those other Christian voices worshipping and praying be they in Bedford or Beijing. That is such a wonderful thought and one I ask you to hold on to whether you pray and worship in a small community, large mega church or in home group or individually at home.  You never pray alone but in the company of all Christians on earth and in heaven.

Whatever mountain you might have to climb during these forty days and forty nights of Lent, whatever heights you reach or depths you might have to plunge, remember that God is with you through the close companionship of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray;

Lord Jesus Christ, you appeared to your servants Peter and James transfigured with the prophets Moses and Elijah on a mountain top.  As we enter a period of prayer and reflection through Lent and remember the trials which you endured for us, so might you appear to us through the Holy Spirit to help us discern your words of scripture and the mission which you would have us fulfil. We thank you that you have already come into our lives and that we are a member of that wonderful family of your church. May the lamp which you have given us shine brightly in this world of dark valleys and enable us to see clearly until at last your great morning star rises.

Amen

91/22022017

SERMON 90 - SUNDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2017

Sermon at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead  -  Morning Worship  – Sunday 12th February 2017

Deuteronomy 30:15-20;  ; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9;  Matthew 5:21-37

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

Each and every day we face rules and regulations governing our lives.  Recently I took a flight to Madeira from London Gatwick Airport and was confronted with dozens and dozens of rules and regulations in order to check in. What number, size and weight of bags I could take – either in the hold or in the cabin; what goods I could pack in those bags; how many centelitres of liquids, what types of liquid, nothing sharp, nothing inflammable etc. etc.  I had to tick a box to confirm that I and my travelling companions had read and acquainted themselves with all this rules and would abide by them. That was all on the computer before we even got to the airport.  On the way to the airport we were confronted with hundreds of road signs telling us not only the way but the speed, lanes we could drive in, warning signs, informative signs, etc. etc. and then once in the airport going through security more rules and regulations – put metal, belts, shoes, coins, laptops, tablets, phones etc. in different trays, take off your shoes, move through this lane etc. etc.  Clutching my beltless trousers tightly I eventually got through all this to eventually join our flight to Funchal.

Now all of those rules and regulations are important, without them our security in the air would be comprised or there would be anarchy on our roads.  Having spent some seven years training to be a lawyer and spending most of my working life as a solicitor, I am reasonably well acquainted with our laws and the need for them – but how much easier everything would be if the law was much simpler and common sense.

A few years ago I had the privilege of spending a few days in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, on a legal case. During the course of my time over there I enquired as to what was the single blue volume which the Icelandic lawyers and judge kept referring to. My legal host looked at me incredulously and responded “The Law”  meaning that contained in that one single book was the whole of the Icelandic law – criminal law, family law, property law, constitutional law, contract law etc. etc.  Indeed all the laws which I had studied and had to know to pass my legal qualification examinations but by reading and having access to literally hundreds and hundreds of text books, case reports and Parliamentary Acts. They couldn’t believe that in England we had no such simplified and codified legal system.  However to put it into its context the total population of Iceland is about the same as the city of Southampton so the law, although containing similar elements to our own, is governing far fewer people.

Yes, we live today in a society full of rules and regulations made by official bodies – but not content to just have those, we often indulge in making rules and regulation for ourselves in the way we lead our lives – strangling ourselves with our own rituals and procedures which can restrict our inner spiritual growth - and not getting back to the basics.

Our first reading this morning is taken from the Book of Deuteronomy and is one of the five books of the bible which make up the Jewish Law.   Together with the book of Leviticus it sets out specific rule and regulations for the Jews to follow. Our reading comes towards the end of Deuteronomy in which the people of Israel are reminded that by obeying the Commandments of Yahweh, God, by loving Yahweh, your God, observing his decrees and ordinances then the Jewish people shall live and become numerous and God will bless the people and their land.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai in Exodus 20,  he had two tablets with him upon which were engraved the Ten Commandments.  I dare say that you can remember all ten easily, perhaps not in the correct order, but certainly their content. In fact there is an easy way to remember the correct order too which I’ll save for another day – or speak to me about it during coffee afterwards.

These Ten Commandments were to encapsulate the entire law and I daresay you would agree that they cover, just like the Icelandic book of Law, almost the entire circumstances under which law is required – property, crime, family, constitution, contract etc.  But, the Jewish Elders and Lawyers had added innumerable ordinances and rules on top of those simple ten rules engraved on those tablets. In the same way, in English Law we end up with masses of Statutory Instruments and codes just to define and clarify the larger Acts of Parliament.  As these legal instruments grow and become ever more complicated so very often illogical and difficult rules emerge far beyond the original law.  We can become slaves to our own man-made rules and regulations and our own personal rituals and our own way of doing things.  We become trapped. Like the Pharisees, obeying not just the Ten Commandments but each and every incredible rule set out for example in Leviticus. It is an incredible read with some things which today we would consider weird and whacky and positively un-PC.  We can easily lose sight of God’s wish that we develop ourselves to be his followers and disciples and lose the importance of the basic commandments themselves.

Throughout Jesus’s ministry, he was constantly being put to the test by the Elders and Pharisee and Lawyers and, as we know, frequently broke the ordinances such as healing (working) on the Sabbath and allowing his disciples to pick the ears of corn in the cornfield on a Sabbath.  He did this often to provoke a discussion on the futility, not of the basic law, but of the petty and unhelpful rules which had built up around the law and which had become, in some respect, symbols of power and control by the priests and elders. 

Jesus illustrates this point very well in his discourse in our Gospel Reading. The context is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount which we have looked at over the past couple of weeks.  This Sermon was so very important because in it Jesus is taking the prophesy of Isaiah and the Jew’s history and law as set out in the earlier books of the Old Testament (and we have to remember that he only had the Old Testament as his theme to preach on – neither the gospels nor the epistles had yet been written for obvious reasons)  and he uses them in the context of the situation as he then found it in Judea and the importance of his ministry and later crucifixion and resurrection.

He says, that the Commandments are very specific – you will not murder, you will not commit adultery, you will not take the name of God in vain (swearing), and so on. But, He says, even if you don’t go as far as committing the actual act of murder but are angry with another person you will still be judged, and even if you do not commit the legal definition of adultery by sleeping with another married person yet by your mere lustful thoughts towards such a woman you will still commit that act in the eyes of God.  We can play about with semantics, we can seek to define legally words and terminology, but at the end of the day a simple understanding of God’s intentions is what is required.  In other words, it is time, as John Major said in 1992,  to get “back to basics”.  He reminds his audience that the Ten Commandments came from God and we should live by the spirit of those Commandments not simply pay lip service to them and then feel self-righteous that we can  tick the “check-in” box.

Later on, Jesus is asked by the lawyers “which of the Ten Commandments is the most important?” and Jesus replies that there are two – To love God, and to love your fellow human being as God loves us.  If we obey those two “back to basics” laws then all the other Ordinances and Rules and Regulations and Rituals are unnecessary because we will be living a life to a code required by God and nothing else would be necessary.  Now I am certainly not advocating that we should break the law – as Jesus himself said “I come not to break the law but to fulfil it” meaning that the basics rules of life are the ones which he, as the Son of God, wants to restore – loving God and loving our fellow Humans.

To go back to my air travel analogy, if everybody strictly obeyed the two Commandments which Jesus heralded as the most important, then, from a security point of view (accidents will always happen) air travel would be safer without the need for so many regulations.

Likewise, God wants us to be free from our own strangling rituals and regulations. To feel free to love and worship him and to be kind, compassionate and loving towards our fellow humans.  In the words of Louis Armstrong “What a Wonderful World” that would be.

Amen

90/11022017

SERMON 89 - SUNDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2017

Sermon at St. Peter’s Church, Pitton  -  Morning Praise  – Sunday 5th February 2017

Isaiah 58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20

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

This morning we have heard three very significant and long readings from each of the Old Testament, New Testament Epistles and Gospel – and from perhaps the three greatest contributors to the Christian scriptures we so lovingly read and, hopefully, follow – Isaiah, Paul and Jesus. Although many centuries span our first and second readings the ideas conveyed remain constant and if the language used may seem to us today difficult or flowery even, the message is very simple and I believe never more relevant to where we find the world in 2017.

The rebuke, for that is what it is, in the reading from Isaiah is actually the very essence of the Sermon on the Mount from which our Gospel reading is taken and as we go into the last month before Lent, it is good to remind ourselves and reflect upon what God expects of us in following Christ and leading Christian lives.

Isaiah is admonishing those who would pay lip service to the law: fasting and undertaking religious rituals and observances yet not caring for the poor or oppressed.  As Isaiah so clearly puts it “Is not the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice; to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? “ (Isa 58:6)

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes up Isaiah’s challenge and in the beatitudes reminds his listeners of Isaiah’s statement and that it is the poor and humble, the peacemakers, who will be blessed. 

 Isaiah continues “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house? : when you see the naked, cover them, and not hide yourself from your kin. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.”

Isaiah is writing at a time when the Jews were in Exile in Babylon lamenting the fact that they believed their unrighteousness, by not observing the Jewish law, had led to their captivity and exile. They had a strong belief that a strict and total adherence to the law alone would bring them salvation.  Isaiah is saying that this is really not enough we must help the poor and weak and moving forward to Jesus’s time their country was yet again overrun by a foreign power, this time the Roman Empire. Throughout the gospels we read of Jesus’s discussions and arguments about the law and as we heard in the gospel reading this morning Jesus is at pains to tell the Jewish authorities and ordinary people that he is not here to break the law but rather to fulfil it because the leaders have not got it right. They did not listen to Isaiah. Isaiah was at great pains to point out that they hadn’t got it right several hundred years before too. The law is about protecting the weak and vulnerable, about humility and looking after each other and other peoples – as is encapsulated in the Commandments the greatest two Jesus was quick to point out was to love God and to love each other as God loves us.

We started this morning’s service when the children were with us with the very jolly little song “This Little Light of Mine” and we shall end it when they return with the song which has as its refrain “Walk, Walk in the Light”.  I think that the first hymn should actually be entitled “This Great Light of Mine” – although it wouldn’t scan quite so well - because that is the concept that Jesus is putting so well in his great Sermon – we are all called upon to walk in the light and shine with God’s glory. He is telling this to his followers, his disciples and we, as modern day Christians must always remember that we are his disciples today.

Jesus uses another metaphor for how Christians should be – and here I emphasise that we are talking about being and not simply doing.  The Jews thought that by doing – observing and doing religious acts they would avoid the wrath of God and gain salvation, whereas Jesus is saying that it is by being faithful to God’s calling and being warm-hearted and loving our fellow man that we really fulfil what God intends for us.  Jesus talks about us being the salt of the earth.

I love that term – whenever somebody says “he or she is the salt of the earth” we know exactly what that means – a good and honest decent person, reliable and to be looked upon favourably, having integrity but also being humble and kind.  A wonderful epitaph for anyone to have.

Jesus uses the examples of salt and light telling his followers that they are indeed “the salt of the earth and the light of the world” (Mt 5:13-14).  Both salt and light are the very essence of and necessary for life to exist.  Salt is vital to sustain life especially in the hot countries of the world – so much so that in the last century the British authorities taxed it in places like India where Gandhi carried our his great march across the sub-continent to the sea to make salt in defiance of and a mark of protest against British domination in his country.  Salt, like light, is readily available but can also be withdrawn.  Salt makes food taste better, it is also used to cure and preserve it and can also be used as an antiseptic – indeed in Nelson’s navy salt was rubbed into the wounds of sailors who had been lashed not to increase their suffering, although it can’t have been very pleasant and from this experience we get the phrase “to rub salt into the wound” meaning to make things worse -  but actually it was used to help cleanse and heal the wounds; but as Jesus says, if salt loses its saltiness, if it loses its properties for whatever use it is normally put to, it is of no use to anybody. It is simply thrown away and trampled under foot.  Jesus is telling us that we have so much to give by being “salt” but if we lose that ability to be as such – to add taste, preserve or heal then we are no good for anything.  We are human “beings” and not human “doings” and by being the salt of the earth we are capable of sustaining and preserving the spiritual lives of those God wants us to be and those around us.  We can cleanse, add taste and heal others by our Faithful lives – by being as God would have us be.

Similarly, we are the light of the world.  As Christians we have received the light of Christ and through him the Holy Spirit.  In the Nunc Dimittis, the Song of Simeon who, as an old man, was present at Christ’s presentation at the temple by Mary, Simeon says of the child Jesus “[he will] be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of your people Israel”. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is passing that light on to all his followers and like the Olympic Torch that light passes from one Christian generation to another in continuity – to all who follow Christ. That is an immense responsibility and one we should never shirk from.  Jesus is with us and remains with us, by us and in us every day and by bearing or being his light we, as his disciples, are expected to go forth and make further disciples. Pass the “Olympic Torch”. Wow, what a wonderful and joyous responsibility. Simeon is also prophesying that Jesus will not only bring glory to the people of Israel, as predicted by Isaiah, but also will bring a light to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.  Jesus’s light is available to all just as is the ability for us to be the salt of the earth.

Today the world is facing fresh and difficult challenges.  I don’t need to spell them out in detail – they are there for all to read and see in the media; challenges facing Great Britain, Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia in particular. In fact the challenges are global because whether we like it or not we live in a global society.

We look for heroes, men and women of action to lead and solve our problems.  In the 1920s and 1930s the German people looked for a hero, a man of action, a leader to come forward. He did – with catastrophic and tragic consequences. Such people are doers – they get things done but often with little regard for their ethical and moral character.  As Christians, and particular those in leadership in the church, we are called to be people of being – being of good character, being ethical, being morally upright. It is not always easy – but that is precisely what Jesus is telling us.  Things will get done but in a manner which accords with God’s desires for the world and Jesus’s teachings and example.

Paul in our epistle reading takes up the theme further by reminding his readers in Corinth by asking the question “what human being knows what is truly human except that the human spirit is within him?” (1 Cor. 2:11). He then answers it by saying “Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God and we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual” [1 Cor. 2:12].

In other words, to be fully alive as human beings is, as St. Iraneus taught us, to show the Glory of God.  God wants us to be spiritual beings as well as human beings and by using the gifts which we receive we can be true disciples of the living Christ.

Towards the end of our service today we will sing the song “The Spirit Lives to Set us Free” with the refrain “Walk, Walk in the Light” the last verse of which says “The Spirit Lives in You and Me”.  I encourage you, when you sing this today, to reflect on how you can use the gifts given to you by the Spirit, to keep you walking and shining in the light of the Lord for yourselves and others.

Amen

89/01022017

SERMON 88 - 7 JANUARY 2017

Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish -  BCP Evensong  – Sunday 8th January  2017

Joshua 3:1-8; 14-24; Luke 3:15-22

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

Today’s two reading have many things in common and the obvious one is the role which the River Jordan has played in both the Old and the New Testament – a link which provides a continuity in the story of our Faith as Christians.

In our first reading from Joshua, we are presented with an account of the crossing of the River Jordan by the Israelites into the promised land.  They have with them the Ark of the Covenant in which were deposited the tablets given to Moses and jars containing Manna collected when they were in the wilderness.  It was the belief that within the Ark God resided until such time as the Ark was placed in a permanent Temple setting.  Therefore it was with great reverence and ceremony that the Ark was transported and escorted by the priests. We are told that the River Jordan was brimming over at this time and that in order to cross the river it was necessary for the priests to dip their feet into the river and bear the Ark across to the centre and a dry pathway made for the people to cross.

This of course, is an allusion to the parting of the Red Sea when Moses and the Israelites crossed that stretch of water with Pharaoh and his troops pursuing them during the great Exodus.  Once again the power of God is displayed before the people reminding them that Joshua is the rightful successor to Moses in leading the people onwards and it is also a further reminder that it is only with the presence of God that such miracles are possible.  For the Jewish people, therefore, this crossing of the Jordan became symbolic with healing and goodness and the river a sacred place.

In our New Testament reading from Luke’s gospel, we receive one of four different and separate accounts of the baptism of Jesus in that same river, the Jordan.  It is interesting and important to note that this event is one of only a few which are recorded in all four gospels and, indeed, Mark begins his account of the life of Jesus with his baptism.  We can therefore be certain that this event is a very significant one for our Faith as Christians and baptism itself remains one of only two sacraments which the Anglican Protestant Church acknowledged after the Reformation.

A question which is often asked is “why did the Son of God, need to be baptised?  Surely it should be the Son of God who is doing the baptising?”  Indeed, in Matthew’s Gospel (3:14-15) John the Baptist says to Jesus – “Surely you should be the one baptising me” but Jesus insists saying “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness”. 

We further read that John the Baptist had already predicted the coming of Jesus and that whilst he, John, baptised with water from the sacred River Jordan, Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit.  However, it must be remembered that Jesus was born in human form and as a human being must set an example to all humans who want to follow a good and righteous life.  By becoming baptised he demonstrated the new life, the born again existence, which was necessary for his ministry on Earth to be righteously fulfilled as he told John. We are told that as Jesus re-emerges from the waters of the Jordan so the Holy Spirit is seen descending upon him like a dove from Heaven.

I think this piece of theology is beautifully portrayed in the famous painting by Piero della Francesca which was painted about 1450 and which can be seen in the National Gallery in London. I have brought a couple of copies of this wonderful piece of art with me this evening and I invite you to spend a few minutes looking at it and reflecting upon your own baptism and confirmation.

The painting clearly portrays Jesus being baptised by John, his head surmounted by the dove representing the Holy Spirit.  John’s hand, the bird and the bowl form an axis which divides the painting into two symmetrical parts.
Behind John we see a man in white briefs struggling to get out of his undershirt and the three angels on the left wear different clothes and not, as tradition would have had it at the time, holding Jesus’ garments but each other’s hands.

With the man in the background preparing for his own baptism we see here not a special event just for Jesus; but his baptism being in the course of a communal event signifying that Jesus has come for all and we are reminded of Paul’s statement in his letter to the Philippians (2:6 onwards) – “Christ Jesus … though he was in the form of God did not regard himself [with equality] with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness and being found in human form humbling himself and becoming obedient …”

I think that this also emphasises the need for baptisms today to be communal events within the body of the Church rather than private affairs.  After all we are welcoming into the Body of Christ new members and this is a time of great rejoicing for all.  We read in the Acts of the Apostles how many came to Christ and were baptised at the same time – whole households.

Jesus by being baptised himself set a great example.  He received the Holy Spirit so that in due course it might be available to all.  During the times of the Old Testament we read of the Holy Spirit being bestowed upon individuals at specific times for specific purposes – for example Saul and David and Elijah and Elisha.  Jesus came for all and by being publicly baptised with both water and with the Holy Spirit descending upon him, he was able to give it to all – that we ourselves may be baptised in both water and spirit.

Let us pray

Lord Jesus we thank you for having come upon us and been baptised in the River Jordan

We give praises that the Holy Spirit descended upon you and that we in turn may now receive its blessings

We acknowledge you to be the Son of God, our Saviour and Mediator and we look forward to your return again when the world will be made new and all sufferings cease.

 

Amen

88/06012017