SERMON 100 - SUNDAY 23 JULY 2017

Sermon at St. Mary’s Parish Church, West Dean  -  Sunday 23 July 2017

Isaiah 44:6-8; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13: 24-30; 36-43

Dear Lord, I pray that these words spoken next shall be your words and shall be a blessing to all who hear them.  Amen

It’s lovely to be back with you here at West Dean, a church and congregation I have so much enjoyed leading and preaching during my six years’ of ministry as a trainee and then as a licensed lay minister in the Clarendon Team.  It is therefore a great delight to mark a special milestone for me here in this church today, for this sermon is the hundredth I have preached since beginning my ministry.  As you may know, I wasn’t planned to take this service originally, you were originally to have Bill Thompson, but today his son is taking his last service as curate in his parish near Ipswich before taking up his appointment as a priest in his first own parish in the Oxford diocese, and I was more than happy to step in and join you today and I pray that Bill’s son will be a blessing to all those in Oxfordshire to whom he will minister.

This morning we have had three very important readings; readings which have a great relevance to the world in which we find ourselves in this second decade of the twenty-first century.  I don’t know about you, but I find today’s world ever more confusing and despairing.  It seems every time I pick up a newspaper or listen or watch the news there are reports of more suffering, more persecutions, more evil.  We live in a world which seems to be choked with evil weeds which Jesus describes in the parable we’ve just heard.  It isn’t just the deliberate evil either that sometimes makes us feel like we are being suffocated – it can simply be the stresses and strains of everyday living in our affluent western society too. Peer pressure,media pressure the pressure of being what others what us or expect us to be.  Just this last week I have felt immense stresses on me from family and friends for a whole host of different reasons and like the farmer in the parable, I thought should I stop and start weeding out all of those things which seem to choke me or should I concentrate on the nurturing and growing of the good wheat and deal with the weeds later and all together at one time?

Paul, in our second reading reminds us of the path we should adopt. He reminds us that if we have put our faith in God, just in the same way that eventually the Hebrew slaves did in their flight from Egypt, and in particular in the Holy Spirit which we have received, then through the Spirit we can be assured that we are set free from sin and death – that we will not be choked by the weeds of evil; but we have to give over our lives to the Holy Spirit – as Paul says – we have an obligation to live by the rules of the Spirit and not our own and the world’s sinful nature.  In other worlds we have to also have patience and make room and time for God in our lives.

Paul reminds us that Christ suffered on the Cross for us and that as his heirs, his children, we too may and will share in that suffering.  It’s not a very sexy message to give to those who may be on the brink of converting to Christianity – to be told that just as the Lord Jesus suffered so will you; but the difference is that as Christians we accept such suffering is part and parcel of our journey of faith.  Our faith will often be tested through suffering, just as Jesus’s was in the Garden of Gethsemane, but, again as Paul puts it so lovingly – “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:18-19). 

It is a fact of life that love and suffering are two sides of a similar coin.  Where there is true love then there inevitably will be suffering – because in a true loving relationship we will feel empathetic for the worries, stresses, sufferings and ultimate the loss of that other person. God himself cries out and feels the same feelings of loss and suffering when we stray away from our Faith and it pains him when we fall out of our relationship with him.  Remember the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15).   Quite contrary to the logical commercial view of accepting the loss of one sheep and the time and effort required  – of just 1% of the flock - the shepherd in that story left his 99% to seek out the errant 1%. What an amazing story and what an amazing revelation that God will do that for us.  It seems commercially crazy yet it is by such acts as this that reveal the true glory of God to an otherwise ignorant world.  Yes, it did take the shepherd time and effort, it might have made little or no difference in financial terms to have lost 1% of the flock – no doubt in those days sheep often were eaten by predators or fell off mountainsides – but the shepherd showed patience and perseverance and he returned with 100% of his flock.

We live in a world of instant gratification; a world which is hurried and never waits. Where time is money, where short cuts are taken, where financial cuts mean a lessening of service and often lead to more suffering. When I first started work as a lawyer back in the 1970s, I would be handed a pile of files in the morning, read through them and if a communication was required I would dictate a letter on an old dictating machine and then hand the tape and file to a secretary in a pool.  The typed letter might be returned to me late that same afternoon but more often than not it would reach me with the new files to look at the following day.  I might have to amend the odd draft letter and return back into the pool.  It wasn’t unusual for a letter to take two or three days from dictation to post room. Then I would put the file away for a week as seldom a reply would be back before then.  The letters were unhurried and often more thoughtful and comprehensive. Today, we type our own letters on our laptops and send them as an email attachment.  Often if a reply isn’t received within an hour a reminder might be sent.  There is a constant feeling of needing to be doing and little time for real thought and patience.

The disciples in our Gospel reading couldn’t at first understand the meaning behind Jesus’s parable. For them, the servant’s suggestion to the owner seemed to be sensible one – shall we go into the field and pull up the weeds which have been sown so evilly by his enemy?  (Matthew 13:28). Let’s take immediate action now. The owner is wise – he realises that in pulling up the weeds now the servants might very well pull up the young wheat shoots too – something which his enemy would love him to do.  No, says the owner, let both wheat and weeds flourish, then when both are fully grown pull up all the weeds, bundle them up and burn them leaving the wheat alone to be harvested.

In his explanation Jesus tells his disciples that all the seed sown by the Son of Man, i.e. Jesus, is good seed and is planted in good soil throughout the world.  Both the seed and the world are good – something which we should always remember as that has to be our starting point as believers in Christ. Yes the world may appear mad and bad but in reality it is good – God only ever created good things – us included. What happens though is that the Devil, evil, creeps in and sows the weeds – in other words we should always be aware that there are those in this world who would try and destroy us and the loving world God created. 

I wholly believe in spiritual warfare and this is clear biblical evidence that it really does exist. However, it is so easy to fall into the secular, non-biblical way of doing things – going into the field and trying to pick out all the weeds and in so doing destroying the good crop too. Action today leading to destruction tomorrow.  Jesus advocated against this.  He explains that we haven’t yet reached the “end times”.  Before that, as we read elsewhere, we shall go through periods of suffering and persecution and so on as we approach those end times (see Matthew 24).  In the meantime, just as I had to be in those early days as a lawyer, we must be patient, wait and trust in God through the Holy Spirit – just as Paul tells us. 

But all will be well in the end.  That is the wonderful message which Christ gave to us.  Yes we might go through bad patches in our lives, our enemies may appear to have sown our life with weeds, the world may seem stacked against us but we can find comfort in knowing that the world is, indeed, intrinsically a good place, that through and by the Holy Spirit, we are being looked after so long as we remain faithful to the one who created us and who continues to love us unconditionally. 

Then, as Paul says, all our sufferings shall appear insignificant compared to the Glory which will be revealed.

Let us pray

Lord God you created us and the world to be a good place

Keep us and protect us from evil and those who would sow weeds into our lives

Send your Holy Spirit and the Angels to protect and guide us in the ways of the Cross

That following in the steps of Jesus’s suffering we may share in the fruits of of faith in the full knowledge that you will always be with us and will never forsake us now or at the end of time.

 Amen

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SERMON 99 - SUNDAY 11 JUNE 2017

Sermon at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead  -  Sunday 11 June 2017

Isaiah 40:12-17; 27-31; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28: 16-20

Dear Lord, I pray that these words spoken next shall be your words and shall be a blessing to all who hear them.  Amen

Today, as you have already gathered, is Trinity Sunday; that Sunday in which it is usual for incumbents to get their junior ministers and curates to preach on this most interesting yet very often confusing and difficult of subjects. A bit of a test I think.  The whole concept of Three in One, One God yet three persons is something which is often extremely difficult to preach to the Faithful let alone discuss with and try and explain to people of another faith or, still further, no faith at all.  We cannot turn to a page in the bible, anywhere, to find a passage which explains this concept yet throughout both Old and New Testaments we will find reference to God, the Spirit and the “one who is to come”.

I recall a preacher once trying to explain to a young congregation the concept of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.  Three distinct entities, yet the same.  He or she, I think it was, used the example of water with the chemical symbol “H₂O”.  We can apply this example to God – ice – solid and perhaps a bit cold and remote to some, Jesus – liquid, the living water and the Holy Spirit – steam – a gas which we cannot see yet it has the immense power to move us like steam can move a mighty machine such as a railway locomotive.  As children brought up in a Christian family we often were given the concept of God the Father, the all-seeing and sometimes judgmental figure somewhere in the clouds looking down on us and seeing all the naughty things we did; Jesus the prophet and teacher, the son of God, the meek and mild child who was born in a humble stable but never cried or was naughty himself and who was later taken out and cruelly executed by the nasty Romans for being good (so why shouldn’t we be naughty?) and finally the Holy Spirit which we never really understood back then.  When I was growing up it was referred to as the Holy Ghost which made me very fearful of ever having an experience with it, him or her. Ghosts were frightening things and I never wanted to see one.

I am grateful to that preacher though, for her wonderful explanation through the example of water by being able to give her young congregation a really good feeling for what the Trinity is all about.

We read that the Spirit of God moved over the face of the embryonic world right at the beginning of the bible – Genesis 1:2 – the “wind of God” as described in the New Revised Standard Version. Likewise right at the beginning of John’s Gospel (John 1:1) which is a parallel to the Genesis Creation story we read that the “Word” (in this context Jesus) was there at the beginning – at Creation. Therefore, in those two pieces of Scripture – one in the Old and one in the New Testament we learn that the three entities were always there together – God, Jesus and the Spirit. 

Throughout the Old Testament we read of the Spirit descending upon certain individuals for specific purposes – Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, David, Solomon, and so on.  Very often these individuals were ordinary folk who felt unworthy of God’s grace. Sometimes, like King Saul the Spirit left them as they fell from favour or failed in their task; but nevertheless, for a time, at least, the power of the Holy Spirit was with them.

However, it is not until we read in Mark, in the New Testament, that we are told that the Holy Spirit will be made available to all for the asking when John the Baptist reveals that whilst he is baptising with water there will be “one who is more powerful coming after me; …”I baptise you with water” he says “but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7-8).

So right at the beginning of the New Testament, Mark’s Gospel having been written before those of Matthew, Luke or John, although it comes second in the Bible, we learn of the existence and importance and equality of the Holy Spirit.

We have recently celebrated the Feasts of Ascension and Pentecost in the Church’s calendar. Coming fairly soon after Easter they can sometimes be overlooked by many – but hopefully not our regular church goers.  Their importance to us as Christians is immense. In the first, we celebrate Jesus leaving us to return to his Father, to be re-united in the Trinity, having completed – in his own words “Finished” - his Earthly ministry; having left us with the vehicle of forgiveness through him and promising us that he will remain with us – “I am with you always to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  This must have confused the disciples as they saw him ascending – “How can he be with us always when we’ve just seen him disappear?” they must have thought or said to themselves.

The answer came a few days later at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon them likes flames in front of many onlookers. The promise which John the Baptist and Jesus made had come true.

I have been asked, from time to time, as to the significance of the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion. We read that it was “rent from top to bottom” – not bottom to top – signifying something not done by human hands.  The veil separated the Ark of the Covenant from the rest of the “holy of holies” within the inner sanctum of the Temple – a place where the High Priest alone could go, and then only once a year at the Feast of Atonement.  A place where it was believed God dwelt.  Only the priest, after many washings and other ritualistic cleansings was allowed in to make atonement for the sins of the Jewish believers.  Jesus’s death, therefore, caused the veil to be ripped as a symbolic act showing that all Humankind now had access to God and in particular God’s forgiveness.  Jesus’s death was itself Atonement for all our sins. 

However, after his death and resurrection and ascension we still needed to have Jesus with us, to dwell in us, just as he promised to his disciples.  That is why we have access to the Trinity, to the Three-in-One God, by prayer through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  It is the Spirit which dwells within us and which moves us to act as Christians – to obey God and to follow the teachings of Jesus.  The three are inseparable.  When we pray, we either address our prayers to God ending with “Through Jesus Christ our Lord” or address our prayers directly to Jesus as mediator.  We can, though also pray to the Holy Spirit, asking him or her to fill us up, “fill us anew” as the hymn goes.

As Christians we should have the Holy Spirit within us all the time but, like a leaky bicycle tyre, the Spirit can leak away - especially in times when we become distracted or fill our inner selves up with more temporal thoughts - and we should constantly ask to be pumped up.  Nicky Gumbel, the founder of the Alpha Course and leader of Holy Trinity, Brompton, once described the Holy Spirit as being like a gas pilot light burning within us. It’s there all the time but doing little until we call upon it to light up the boiler and then with a “whoomph” it ignites the main boiler and we are warmed by the cosy heat generated.  We too are fired up.

In our Gospel reading Jesus calls upon all his disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations – to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  We are today’s disciples and this Great Commission set out in the last few words of Matthew’s Gospel are a command to us today.  To spread the Good News that Jesus is alive today through the power of the Holy Spirit which is available to all – a free gift just for the asking.  Today not many things worth having are entirely free – but paradoxically a few very important ones are – a few which are the best – love of God, love of each other and the gift of and the gifts provided by the Holy Spirit. 

The words of Paul end my sermon well I think and encapsulate everything I could say in summary to you:

“Finally brothers and sisters … put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all."   (2 Corinthians 13:11-13)

Amen

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SERMON 98 - SUNDAY 28 MAY 2017

Sermon at Winterslow Baptist Church  -  Sunday 28th May 2017

Romans 12:9-21

“Marks of the True Christian"

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Let us begin with a prayer,

Father God, we bless and praise you that we can meet here this morning without fear of persecution knowing that you are always present; especially when we are assembled together as your Church. We thank you that you gave us Your Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us to redeem our sins and that we are forever forgiven. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit and, in these current times of political and economic uncertainty and unrest, may that same Holy Spirit and the example set by Etty Hillesum, the subject of this morning’s talk, be there with us as an inspiration to us all in making and keeping the presence of God deep within us even when the going gets tough.  Amen

Last month, Liz and I, together with my two children, Thom and Mary, visited Poland and during our time there, Liz, Mary and I journeyed the 50 miles west from Krakow to Oswiecim to visit the former Nazi concentration and extermination camps at Auschwitz and in particular Auschwitz-Birkenau. For Liz and Mary, it was their first visit, but for me it was my third.  Thom, having made a previous visit which he had found somewhat distressing chose to stay behind in Krakow and visit a football stadium instead.

On the two previous occasions that I had been there I had been conscious of little or no bird song; Birkenau especially having an overwhelming atmosphere of great evil and hopelessness as I had gazed upon the remnants of the destroyed Gas Chamber and Crematorium II where the “Angel of Death”, Dr Josef Mengele, had carried out his cruel experiments on twins and where so many Jewish men, women and children had perished within a matter of a few hours and in some cases minutes of their arrival at the Camp. However, on this occasion, and perhaps it was because we were visiting in the Spring, I did, for the first time, hear birds singing amongst the trees where, seventy-five years ago, the ashes of over 1 million people were scattered.  We also observed a skylark flying high over the ruined prisoners huts and a single “Lady’s Smock” or “Cuckoo Flower” flourishing only a few yards away from the site of such indescribable and grisly human misery; fresh symbols of hope and healing after such appalling and evil acts had taken place there in some people’s living memory.

Whilst on the tour of the two extermination camps, I also visited, for a second time, the cell used to house Father Maximilian Kolbe and others who were starved to death as a warning to others who disobeyed their Nazi captors.  Today it is a shrine to this 20^th Century saint, canonised by another Polish saint, Pope John-Paul II in 1982.  Father Kolbe, a bachelor, took another’s place in the punishment block so that the other man might live and be re-united with his wife and children after the war.  We were also reminded of Anne Frank, the teenager from Amsterdam who hid from the German occupiers with her family in a secret room in that city until one day they were discovered and sent first to Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen where she died of typhus. Her diary of those years is now a famous best seller. However, there is third individual who perished there whose life is little known about outside Dutch and Christian circles; another woman diarist from Amsterdam named Etty Hillesum, a Jew who became a Christian and who did so much to record the fear and treatment of Amsterdam Jews after the Nazi occupation and the subsequent  misery of the transit camp where hundreds of thousands of Dutch Jews were later held pending their transport to the East and their ultimate destruction under the Nazi’s “Final Solution”.

Etty’s story is contained in several volumes of diaries written between 9^th March 1941 and just before her own deportation on 7^th September 1943.  She died in Auschwitz-Birkenau, possibly in that same Gas Chamber we looked upon on 30^th November 1943 – just under 3 months after her arrival at the death camp.  A short biography of her life containing some of the more poignant extracts from her diaries is contained in this book “Etty Hillesum - A Life Transformed” by Patrick Woodhouse which I strongly recommend to any of you who find this talk helpful and inspiring or just simply interesting..

Etty was born in Middelburg, Holland in 1914, the eldest child of a Russian Jewish mother who escaped to the Netherlands after a Russian pogrom and a Dutch Jewish father who was a classics scholar and head teacher.  They lived in the Dutch town of Deventer and after leaving her father’s school in 1934 she went to Amsterdam to study law – although she never practised it.  She had two younger brothers but to all intents and purposes, and without going into great detail, it appears to have been a pretty dysfunctional and unhappy family. She describes family life as being “degenerate”, “tainted”, a “madhouse”.  A family portrait of this time shows the family group looking quite detached from one another with little feeling or warmth or love for each other. During her time in Amsterdam, and following the Nazi occupation of Holland in 1940  she met and sought counselling from a psychotherapist named Julius Spiers, a much older man with whom she shortly afterwards had what might be called today an intimate and by today’s standards an “unprofessional” relationship. However during that time, and under his influence she was introduced to the Bible and Christian thought and teaching and learned the art of contemplative prayer. However at no time did she ever engage with institutionalised religion; never joined or went to a church – her Christianity was based entirely on what she learned from Spiers, from reading the bible and other theological and psychological writings and poetry and, above all, her own feelings within herself through regular habitual contemplation.  Indeed, she had suddenly felt an unexplained yet compulsive urge to kneel in prayer.  In her own words;

“This afternoon I suddenly found myself kneeling on the brown coconut matting in the bathroom, my head hidden in my dressing gown, which was slung over the broken cane chair.  Kneeling doesn’t really come easily to me, I feel a sort of embarrassment. Why? Probably because of the critical, rational, atheistic bit that is part of me as well.  And yet, every so often I have a great urge to kneel down with my face in my hands and in this way find some peace and to listen to that hidden source within me” 

Having done it once, though, the barrier is crossed and over the months ahead, from September 1941 onwards, especially as the conditions for her and her fellow Jews around her got uglier, this compulsive kneeling became part of the pattern of her days as she continued to search for her life within her. 

At first she doesn’t acknowledge that it is God to whom she is praying, she is merely seeking for that inner person within herself, but as time passes this acknowledgement arises and she says something very profound in one of her early morning prayers at a time when the whole world around her seemed to be tainted with the evil of the German occupation. This has struck, for me, an incredible chord and which I feel has great significance today when, following the horror of Manchester and the political confusion and hatred all around. I think it can be a prayer which we can all repeat today-

“Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me…I shall try to help you, God, to stop my strength from ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance; but one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me, that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves; and that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of you, God, in ourselves … Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold you responsible.  You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.  There are, it is true, some who, even at this late stage, are putting their vacuum cleaners and silver forks and spoons in safekeeping instead of guarding You, dear God. And there are those who want to put their bodies in safekeeping but who are nothing more now than shelter for a thousand fears and bitter feelings.  And they say ‘I shan’t let them get me in their clutches’.  But they forget that no one is in their clutches who is in Your arms”.

Wow how powerful are those words.  Etty’s contemplative prayer, those urges to pray, to find her innermost-self brought about a realisation that God was to be found dwelling deep within her person.  As a Jew she would have been brought up with the concept of God having or needing a dwelling place – it’s a theme throughout the Old Testament – The Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, The Temple and Psalm 23 ends with:

“Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.

God needs a home on Earth.  Etty firmly believed that it was necessary for each and every one of us to make a place for God within ourselves from which those self-same values and marks of a true Christian, which we heard read out in this morning’s reading, can emanate. Etty’s concerns were that the evil around her and her fellow Jews was making her companions themselves bitter, fearful, in despair and haters in their own right – so much so that there was no room for God to help them as they had made no space for him in their hearts.  That space was already full of fear and hatred.

During the course of many interviews with survivors of the Holocaust, I have heard them say, time and time again when describing their internment in Auschwitz or other camps “God was never in that place.  He clearly deserted us”. Of course, this is an echo of how the Jews felt during the period of the Exile and probably again when Jerusalem was sacked in 70 AD and, dare I say, how many people may feel after some of the terrorist outrages of today.  Where is God in all this?  Hebrews 13 reminds us that God has already told us “I will never fail you or forsake you” but at times it is so difficult to believe that God is present. 

Etty firmly believed differently from those survivors I just mentioned. In her view and her theology, we carry God within us and therefore provided we always make room for him he is always there and was there too during those darkest moments of the Holocaust.  She felt it her duty to make sure that we gave God the resources to help Him by carrying that spirit within us – to take care of God.

Roosevelt, in his post-Pearl Harbor speech to both Houses of Congress in 1941 included the phrase “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” and Etty felt precisely the same – fear bred hatred and led to a vicious circle.  She wrote:-

It is the problem of our age; hatred against the Germans poison’s everyone’s mind.  “Let the bastards drown, the lot of them”. Such sentiments have become part and parcel of our daily speech and sometimes make one feel that life these days has grown impossible”.  

It remains a problem of our age too.  Gandhi once said “It is written somewhere that if someone dishonours you then you should take an eye for an eye – but if we keep doing that the whole world will soon become blind”.

Etty, in similar vein writes

“To sum up, this is what I really want to say: Nazi barbarism evokes the same kind of barbarism in ourselves… we have to reject that barbarism within us, we must not fan the hatred within us because if we do, the world will not be able to pull itself one inch further out of the mire”.

And further on, after she had been shouted at by a young Gestapo officer she records the incident ending with these words:

“Something else about this morning ... despite all the suffering and injustice I cannot hate.”

Despite strong urgings from friends around her, and unlike Anne Frank, Etty refused to go into hiding when the Jewish round-ups and transportations intensified. Indeed, she became more visible and acquired herself a place on the Jewish Council in Westerbork, the Final Transportation Camp for Jews being sent east to Poland for “resettlement”.  By this time Etty and many knew what their likely fate was going to be but Etty, acting as an administrator and self-appointed chaplain and counsellor tried to relieve the suffering and fears of those hundred and thousands of families (including her own) who passed through, well knowing that eventually her name would be on the list to join the train going east.  Some who did survive recall her kindness and gentleness and uplifting spirit and when she did finally board the train for Auschwitz-Birkenau, she was remembered as singing songs as the train pulled away trying to uplift those around her. 

During her time in Westerbork her diaries reveal much about the conditions and sufferings of the Jewish people and are a great testament to the Holocaust and its history.  She recalls, on one occasion seeing a young German soldier herding people onto a train yet looking into his eyes she sees him as a creature of God and not a monster.

I have reflected greatly on Etty’s story over the past few days in light of the evil which recently has promoted such hatred and fear and which continues to do so.  We must never be consumed by the evil otherwise the Devil will win.  By carrying God in our hearts through the knowledge that Jesus Christ came down, died for our sins and left us all with the power of the Holy Spirit, by making room for him within us, just as Etty did and advocated, we can, in the words of our reading, carry with us the marks of a good Christian and keep the Devil at bay.

And finally, as a post-script, whilst preparing this talk during the week, I visited a church in the southern part of the Salisbury Diocese to see a colleague who is currently struggling with his ministry.  Over a very pleasant outdoor lunch in brilliant sunshine I explained how I was coming here today to preach on the ministry and life of Etty Hillesum.  “Wait a minute” he said – “have you heard about the Prayer House being built outside the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau?”  I had to confess that despite visiting the site only six weeks ago I knew nothing about it.  He proceeded to find and give me this leaflet from an organisation called Living Stones who had recently visited his church to describe their initiative.

In the museum at Auschwitz, is a map showing all the railway lines which carried the transports of people such as Anne Frank and Etty Hillesum to the extermination camps.  This map shows arrows pointing into Auschwitz. The two founders of Living Stones, Mark and Cathy Warwick, each had the same vision at the same time – they saw those self-same arrows pointing away from Auschwitz - in other words reversed.  They are now establishing a House of Prayer close by Hells Gate, Birkenau.

Just as Liz and I saw, for the first time signs of new life on our visit – the Lady’s Smock and the skylark, so too did they see hope springing from that same place of death and destruction.

In their leaflet, Mark and Cathy Warwick write:

“We believe it is Father God’s desire to close this portal of death and open a fountain of life in the Spirit. He wants to redeem Auschwitz-Birkenau and transform it into a place of blessing, healing and reconciliation both for the Jewish people and for all nations.

Transformation is only possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is his sovereign work.  He does, however, invite us to participate with Him through our intercession, praise and worship to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.

The fires of the gas-chamber crematoria burned day and night with a stench of death. Now 70-odd years later Father God desires the fire of His Holy Spirit to burn day and night in a house of prayer”.

I think those words and sentiments are a fitting tribute to Etty and her unfailing love for God throughout those terrible times.  The Holy Spirit burned within her throughout. God was indeed there in Auschwitz and He is with us all now as long as we continue to make room for Him in our hearts.

Amen

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SERMON 97 - SUNDAY 14 MAY 2017

Sermon (Homily) at St. John’s Church,  West Grimstead  -  Pet Service  – Sunday 14th May 2017

Genesis 6:12-22; 7:24; 8:1-12

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord and a blessing to all who hear.  Amen

Pets and animals are, without question, a very important part of life on Earth and their diversity and abundance is a wonderful illustration of the creativity of God, our own Creator. Who cannot be amazed at what we see and learn about animals and plants in such programme as Life on Earth, the Blue Planet and such like?  We also only have to flip through our bibles to find numerous mentions of animals throughout its pages  – Noah’s  animals which we heard about in our bible reading from Genesis this morning; Abraham’s ram, Joseph’s fat and thin cows in Pharaoh’s dreams, Moses’s plagues of frogs, locusts and flies Daniel’s lions in the den; Balaam’s talking donkey; Jonah’s whale, Elijah’s ravens;  David’s sheep, Jesus’s colt on which he entered Jerusalem – all have great theological significance with Jesus frequently using parables connected with shepherds and sheep.  My favourite animal story though, is that of Balaam’s donkey in Numbers (Chap. 22). 

You can find it in Numbers chapter 22. It is a slightly confusing story, but at its heart we find covetous Balaam consumed by greed failing to follow God’s commands. Saddling his donkey, he goes off to seek honour and wealth. God sends an angel to slay him, but only the donkey sees the angel standing in the road ahead of Balaam with his sword drawn.  To avoid the angel the donkey turns off the road into the field.  Balaam strikes it viciously. Again the angel moves to block Balaam’s path. Again the donkey sees him, and this time lies down so that Balaam cannot move.  Again Balaam strikes it. Then, astonishingly, and this is the famous bit of the story, God open the mouth of the donkey and gives it the power to speak. The donkey then addresses Balaam, saying “What have I done to you that you have struck me?” (Numbers 22. 28) And when Balaam persists, suggesting the donkey is making a fool of him, the donkey retorts, “Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way?” “No” replies Balaam (Numbers 22.30).  Then, having opened the donkey’s mouth, the Lord opens Balaam’s eyes. He sees the angel waiting to slay him and the angel informs him that the donkey is the only reason he has not been killed. Balaam repents and goes on.

Well, we today live our lives with animals. We keep them as pets. We wear their skins upon our feet. Most of us eat them every day. Some of them – even those we eat – are beautifully cared for, loved and respected right to the end. Many are not. Even household pets are neglected, abused and cast away. If God were to open their mouths; if the animals we live with and depend upon for so much, were to speak to us, what would they say?  Like Balaam’s donkey would they ask “What have I done that you treat me this way?”

I am sure that all these animals now with us here today in church are treated very well with much love and respect – and for their turn they can love and respect us.It is a well-known fact that stroking cats, dogs and some other furry creatures can significantly reduce the incidence of high blood pressure which can lead to strokes and heart attack. Our pets can not only help us physically but also psychologically in reducing loneliness and acting as a constant support when fellow humans can so badly let us down.

I own a beautiful female ginger and white cat called Ginny.  Three years ago my world was turned upside down by events which were not in my control resulting in me having to leave my home in Winterslow and move into a house in Salisbury. It was a bad time or uncertainty and, at times loneliness.  Thankfully, I am out of that valley due to having optimism and positivity and above all having Ginny with me throughout.  When I felt down and disoriented, Ginny was there to jump up on my lap or bed – a constant loyal companion.  Such devoted companionship deserves the best treatment we can afford.  Ginny, although unable to speak like Balaam’s donkey, nevertheless could express her loyalty and devotion which itself made me feel so much better.

Unfortunately, not all animals are so well treated and it’s probably not the mouths of our animals that need opening but our own eyes to what we are doing to God’s created world. By neglecting animals, misusing them or by deliberate acts of selfishness we are in danger of destroying our environment.

Recently a short clip appeared on Facebook about the ecology of part of a Yellowstone National Park in north California.  Deer had stripped much of the vegetation of the area with devastating results for the wildlife.  Fourteen wolves (not thought of as the most friendly or constructive of creatures) were introduced and these had the effect of reducing the deer population which increased the plant life which led to an increase in the population and diversity of other animal life – mice, rabbits, weasels, hawks; it stabilised the soil which then made it possible for beavers to come back to build dams which then changed the path of the river and produced pools and lakes where water fowl were now able to flourish – all because 14 wolves were introduced into the area at the beginning.

God was at great pains to give Noah clear and precise instructions for the building of the ark and the collection and preservation of the animals.  Animals are important to God and that is why we must always respect them and treat them kindly – even if they might one day end up on our dinner plate.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you”, says Jesus in Matthew’s gospel. Surely this must apply to the whole of creation, animals included. In John 10:11 we hear Jesus proclaim, borrowing an image of those who do love and tend for the animals in their care: “I am the Good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”

Some people, I know, struggle with the theology of pet services.  Some ask if animals have souls and if so what puts humans above them? We read the answer at the beginning of Creation; God created the animals first and then put humans in charge of them.  I cannot imagine a Heaven without animals in it. We must always remember that we don’t own this planet – we are just tenants passing through; stewards given responsibility by God to preserve and protect our small blue planet and all of God’s creation here.  It’s a massive responsibility and one we should not shrink from.  As with the Facebook story, animals can and do influence our lives and ecology.  It is right and proper to bless them and look after them. 

This not only describes the relationship that Jesus has with us, loving us to the end, forgiving the uninterrupted misery of our sinfulness, dying for us; but is also an image of the attentive self-giving and respect which should mark our attitude and relationship with all of creation, and especially our closest friends, the animals with whom we live our lives and upon whom we depend so much.  It is the Christian way: to love our neighbours.

Amen

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SERMON 96 - SUNDAY 9 APRIL 2017

Sermon (Homily) at All Saint’s Church, Whiteparish  -  Palm Sunday  – Sunday 9th April 2017

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians  2:5-11; Matthew 26:1-27:66

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

Traditionally on Palm Sunday, and again on Good Friday, churches throughout the length and breadth of the country will act out the Passion Narrative in a manner somewhat similar to how we have done it this morning.  On Good Friday, it seems natural and obvious that the Gospel reading should indeed be a narrative of the second most significant and important event in the Christian calendar, the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus Christ; but even as a child I found it quite disturbing and strange that on Palm Sunday we should do so after also re-enacting Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a humble colt or donkey, with the crowds feting him with palms as some great hero – indeed, it would probably be like a famous actor or pop star suddenly appearing in Whiteparish or more likely if a member of the Royal Family was to suddenly appear here for a service at All Saints.  There would be much flag waving and cheering and people jostling to get a glimpse of the Queen or Royal person as she entered or passed through the village and then turning on them and wanting to kill them.

Palm Sunday was just like that – a popular hero of the people – the person whom many thought was the Messiah who would come to rid the occupying forces of the Romans – come to claim his rightful crown in Jerusalem.  They shouted “Hosanna” a form of acclamation or praise which derives from two Hebrew words “yasha” to deliver and save and “anna” meaning “I beg or I beseech” – the two words put together literally meaning “I beg you to save us or deliver us”.   Indeed he had but not in the way they expected.  I found it disturbing back then because it pained me to think that such an adoring crowd could, five days later, be baying for his blood rather than that of Barabbas, the terrorist murderer.

Stainer’s great oratorio, The Crucifixion, has the piece “Fling Wide the Gates” – a piece I remember well performing in my local church in Lincolnshire as a treble chorister many many years ago.  I remember the words really well to this day:

“Fling Wide the Gates! Fling Wide the Gates!

For the Saviour Waits to tread in his Royal Way

He has come from above in his power and love

To die on this Passion Day”

Today we walked in procession from the Village Hall to the Church with a donkey with us.  Jesus deliberately chose a donkey as his means of transport to make his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem.  Kings would usually ride on splendid horses to denote their power and authority and to strike an imposing figure to all who saw them – just as the Queen, if she did pass through Whiteparish is likely to be in a splendid limo not a humble Nissan Micra or similar vehicle.  Jesus, by riding on a donkey, a humble everyday person’s mode of transport, was seeking to display his humility and be seen as a simple person like all those feting him – not a great King who had come to regain Jerusalem from the Romans. His destiny was much greater and far more reaching although it would be hard to understand until after Easter Sunday.

Every year we tell this story – of Jesus’s triumphant entry and then his trial and execution.  Jesus arrived as did many others in Jerusalem to celebrate the most important Jewish Festival of Passover – a celebration to remember how the Jewish people had been spared from the the final plague which God brought upon those living in Egypt at the time of the Captivity – the death of all the first born which finally led to their release.  The people probably thought that Jesus had chosen this time to release them from their enslavement by the Romans – how appropriate would that have been I daresay they thought. 

As we know, and as we shall find out again on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Jesus came to liberate his people and us in a far greater way – to be the sacrificial lamb for all our sins and to give us direct access to God through personal prayer and the Holy Spirit.

The story is, or should be so familiar to all of us who are Christians and we should hear it and tell it as often as we can so important is its message.

C.S. Lewis, writing as a literary critic, once proposed a test for good writing.  It was a simple question “How often does it deserve to be read?”  Cheap magazine stories, he suggested, come at the bottom of the pile – once read and when you know what is going to happen, you discard them, like newspaper articles used to become tomorrow’s fish and chip paper - and the great novels and plays are at the top.  There are people who read through the complete works of Shakespeare once every year.  Measured this way the Passion Narrative must score very highly. The action is swift and the dialogue terse and pregnant. Dozens of human cameos – Jesus, Pilate, Peter, Judas, Barabbas, Caiaphas, Simon, the criminals – each one carefully playing an important part.

In Ignatian Bible Study, the student places himself inside the story as one of the characters or as an eye witness observer at the place or event.  It’s a wonderful way of getting to grips with exactly what is going on within the biblical text and reaching a feeling of empathy with a character.  For example, poor Peter, would you have done the same as him?  Would you have denied Jesus three times in circumstances where your great mate and master had been arrested and was facing a death penalty?  Hopefully, those of you who walked with us this morning in procession with palms and saying hosanna did indeed feel you were part of the story.

But the most exciting thing of all is that, in fact we were and we still are an integral part of the story for as Christians we have accepted Jesus into our lives for what he did for us during this Holy Week culminating in his cruel death and resurrection.  Something he did with humility and dignity and love – as the Apostle Peter puts it in our reading from his letter to the Philippians:

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard 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; he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” [Phil. 2:5-8]

“Let the same mind be in you”.  What a great phrase and what a wonderful ambition for us all to achieve. Through compassion, humility and dignity we can show ourselves to have true empathy and connections with our fellow humans, and especially with God our Creator through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Amen

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SERMON 95 - SUNDAY 2 APRIL 2017

Sermon at St. Peter’s Church, Pitton  -  Morning Praise  – Sunday 2nd April 2017

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11;  John 11:1-45

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

This morning we’ve had two very well-known pieces of scripture in our readings from both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Our Old Testament reading is so well known that it formed the lyrics of a song made popular in the 1950s and 1960s “Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones” by The Rhythm Boys,  but which I discovered was actually composed much earlier in 1928.  It became a very popular children’s song, teaching them the anatomy of the skeleton.  I bet many of you will now be humming or singing it to yourselves instead of listening to my sermon.  Probably not a bad choice!  For me, it recalls the army of the skeletons in that old film “Jason and the Argonauts” and more recently a similar army of the dead in the wastelands north of the Wall in Westeros in Game of Thrones.  But I digress.

The Gospel reading is a long narrative on the death and resurrection of Jesus’s friend Lazarus, and again a very popular story for children – what could be more exciting, especially for boys, than a story which involves a dead person rising up again – and that is precisely the story which is going to preoccupy us as we go into the last two weeks of Lent.  This, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, marks the beginning of Passiontide; next Sunday we celebrate the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, followed by Holy week leading to Good Friday and the Easter celebration on the following Sunday.

Our readings today give us so much material that I could talk for a couple of hours or more (you’ll be pleased to learn that I’m not); but in trying to condense this morning’s talk into a nice bite-size chunk for us to digest and be able to go away and reflect upon, I turned to Tom Wright’s excellent book “Twelve Months of Sundays” containing reflections on each of  the readings from the Common Worship Lectionary for all three Years.  Turning up today’s readings his helpful hint was “A preacher who needs help with John 11 is in bad shape”.  Thank you Tom!  That really did help and put me under no pressure whatsoever didn’t it?

However, in seriousness, he is absolutely right.  The death and raising of Lazarus is a clear and unambiguous message and prophesy of Jesus’s own role – to live, minister, die and come back to life to live in you and me for all time – but to be reborn with the Holy Spirit.  That is what makes the Christian message so real, so unique and so exciting.  Yet despite this amazing fact, so many people will not or are not prepared to believe this or, at the very least, they continue to seem unclear how they can have a living relationship with someone who died on a Cross some 2,000 years ago.

We know from other bible passages that Jesus had the power to bring life to the dead – Jairus’s daughter (Matthew 9:25), the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:13-15) and now Lazarus and we know that the disciples went on to raise others from the dead – both Peter and Paul are later recorded as having performed this great miracle (see Acts 14:19-20 and 20:9-12) and even today we read of such miracles as these occurring in Africa, particularly in Mozambique.  The disciples had already seen examples of Jesus’s miraculous power in this area yet Jesus needed to re-inforce it.  We read from John’s account that Jesus was given word that his old friend Lazarus was sick.  Jesus had visited his old friend many times at his house – the same house where Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha resided – yet he dilly-dallied and didn’t go straight away, such that Lazarus’s illness becomes fatal.  Eventually when he does finally arrive Lazarus has been dead and entombed for a few days.  Martha berates Jesus for his indolence in getting there too late and warns him, when he requests that the tombstone be removed, of the terrible smell which will be released from the rotten decaying body.  Jesus does not flinch – no doubt he already knows that the body will not have begun to decompose and he is clear on his intentions to raise his dead friend.

An interesting exchange on theology occurs between Jesus and Martha.  You will recall that Martha was the sister who rushed around preparing the meal for Jesus in Luke 10:28-42 whilst Mary sat at the Lord’s feet soaking up his words of wisdom and learning; yet here Mary is the one staying at home whilst Martha rushes out to meet Jesus.  I suspect that Mary was a great reflective introvert, and was clearly in mourning for her late brother,  whilst Martha was an extroverted “doer”.  However, she clearly understands some of Jesus’s teachings as in answer to Jesus’s promise that her brother will rise again she says yes, she understands this to mean that he will rise with others on the last day.  Jesus goes on to say, in the words so familiar to any who have recently attended a funeral “I am the resurrection and the life”.

We read that Mary shortly joined them together with the household, all whom were weeping.  We then have the shortest sentence in the whole bible “Jesus wept”.  Those two words are of immense significance to us Christians.  “Jesus Wept”.  We have often heard it used as a profanity but in its true and contextual meaning it shows that Jesus, the Son of Man, God himself has immense compassion for us.  That he befriends us and is saddened and can experience those same emotions as we humans have – here we see God, through Jesus, experiencing great love for his friend Lazarus and also great grief.

I have heard it said by some Evangelical Christians, and it troubles and angers me a lot, that we should not grieve when a faithful person dies because they are now in heaven with God. Of course we should grieve, it’s part of the suffering necessary for the subsequent healing process and, like falling in love, is a natural emotional state when somebody or something we care about is taken from us.

We all hope to go to a better place, to be with Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven, but how many of you would put your hands up if I asked you now if you wanted to go this very day? In this very long passage, those two words say so much.  They tell us that God incarnate had the same human feelings as we have today, it tells us that he loved other human beings, it reminds us that Jesus had to be wholly human, as well as wholly divine to have true empathy with us and it tells us that it is alright to grieve.  Jesus knew what he was going to do – he knew that he could and would bring Lazarus back to life – to live and die another day – yet he still wept.

The message in all our reading is the message of hope – but it is also the message that sometimes we have to pass through dark times and have to die for our faith.  Jesus could have acted sooner, he could have prevented Lazarus’s death but he deliberately chose not to do so to illustrate that it is through death that we are resurrected to a new life in Christ and that by his own death Jesus will give us new life and direct access through prayer to God.

Paul, in our Epistle reading expands further on Jesus’s theological message. Just like the dry bones of Ezekiel, mere flesh, the physical body, is nothing unless the spirit of God is breathed into them.  Those dry bones only became alive after the Holy Spirit was breathed into them.  Likewise, when Lazarus was raised, the Spirit was once more breathed into his dead body.

Metaphorically, therefore, we ourselves are dead unless we have received the Holy Spirit Paul puts it this way: “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”  In other words, the flesh without the Spirit of God, relying on our own efforts and plans without reference to the will of God through prayer and reflection, will not produce the person God created us to be.  We need that spiritual element.

Paul goes on to say, addressing the followers in Rome: “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him; but if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness”.

As humans we have three elements – body, mind and spirit.  Through our mind we have a choice as to whether we accept God’s Holy Spirit and in so doing we can lead a truly full and fulfilling life in the knowledge that wherever we are, whatever we do, we can be at peace with ourselves for we are also at peace with God and righteous in his sight.

Let us pray

Almighty God,

We thank you that you gave your only Son to die for us on the Cross and gave us your Holy Spirit that we might be forgiven for all our sins and lead a righteous life

We ask you to strengthen us at times of darkness and difficulty and be with us as we travel on our earthly journey 

Remembering that your Son Jesus Christ lived and experienced human joy, love, grief and suffering we acknowledge that by him you know the worries and emotions which we experience

As we enter this Passiontide, help us to remember and reflect upon your Son’s life and ministry and follow him unreservedly to Calvary and into the blessed light and joy of his resurrection at Easter.

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

Amen                                                                                                             

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