SERMON 23 - SUNDAY 21 APRIL 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I shall fear no evil;

For you are with me,

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

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

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

 

Amen

SERMON 22 - SUNDAY 14 APRIL 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen

SERMON 21 - SUNDAY 10 MARCH 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen

 

SERMON 20 - SUNDAY 3 MARCH 2013

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

Genesis 28:10-19a;  John 1:35-51

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As an astronomer, I particularly like this quote.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The hillside was a patchwork quilt

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

If you’d only seen what I’ve seen

You would surely know what I mean

I think I must have caught a glimpse of Heaven

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

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

Amen

SERMON 19 - SUNDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2013

Sermon at St. Mary’s Hall, Whaddon   -  Evening Prayer  – Sunday 24 February 2013

Luke 14:27-33

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

There is a wonderful children’s worship song which has a really joyful jolly Judaic tune which goes something like this:

JESUS SAID, 'GIVE EVERYTHING UP
If you want to be my disciple.'
Jesus said, 'Give everything up
If you want to be my disciple.'
D.I.S.C.I.P.L.E
Luke 14 verse 33
Jesus said you won’t need anything;

all you need is me

 

But how jolly and joyful would most of us really be if Jesus came into this room right now and made this demand upon us.  I am sure that we all have unfinished projects to fulfil, places to go, people to see; but conversely, what a privilege he would be bestowing on any one of us by offering this invitation!

This song is taken, as the very words suggest, from this evening’s reading from Luke beginning at Verse 27. But this is a “sanitised” version because we need to really read the previous two verses to have a better understanding of what Jesus is actually saying. Those first two verses read:-

“Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them: Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes even life itself, cannot be my disciple”.

Without an unpacking of these words, they seem to be teaching a gospel of hatred towards family and life.  How can that be squared with Jesus’s own teaching of love and tolerance elsewhere in the Gospels?

What He appears to be doing here is challenging us to  walk an impossible path if we really want to follow Him.  It harks back to the Genesis story of Abraham and his son Isaac on the Mount Moriah.  Abraham was also instructed to do something completely against his inclination – to sacrifice his only son. And again, when Jesus told the young rich man to give away all of his possessions if he wanted to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

I believe that what Jesus is saying here to the crowds is that it is not enough simply to follow him around the place – to be seen with the “in crowd”.  As a charismatic personality, he had clearly amassed a huge crowd of followers who wanted to hear his parables and witness his healings and he had a huge popularity – very much like those people who follow celebrities around today.  But like those people today, there may have been an element of fashion – being seen to be around - especially as the Jews were looking with great expectation for a leader to bring them out of Roman oppression.

Jesus isn’t telling them to hate their family in the sense of the word we use today.  In Hebrew, the word “hate” means to “like less” than something else and it used to emphasise the opposite of “like more”.  The corresponding passage in Matthew reads more plainly – “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” – in other words, not that you should hate your family in the modern sense but that you should love Jesus no less and in fact more.  The use of the word “hate” here is down to the fact that Luke liked to use vivid and flamboyant Greek and this should always be borne in mind when reading his gospel or Acts.

However, that aside, back to our reading. 

Jesus uses expressive language and a wonderful analogy to explain what the true cost of following him will entail. To follow Jesus, is to devote ourselves fully and to give our life over to him even if this means “bearing our cross” – a reference to the ultimate penalty of crucifixion which he himself was to suffer.  He was speaking to the “in-crowd” and explaining that a true follower must be prepared to suffer pain and humiliation.

I have often said to my son, that to be a true supporter of a football team you need to be there during those cold and wet Saturdays when your team faces relegation, when it doesn’t play well and is humiliated on the football pitch – not a fair-weather follower or a supporter simply because it is fashionable to do so – not mentioning any clubs in particular of course. I am sure that this would be a modern parable which Jesus would use if he was walking on this Earth today – amongst England’s not so satanic mills and football grounds.

Jesus actually uses as his analogy the construction industry – something which we actually can relate to - even today.  When a building is planned today, apart from the developer himself there are three principle players:

·        Architect – who designs the building with his creative mind

·        The Builder who actually brings the creation into a physical state by putting the materials together

·        And the one the previous two both hate – and in this context I do mean to use the word hate as we understand it - the Quantity Surveyor

I speak from experience having known a quantity surveyor for many years who often told me he was despised by both architect and builder – often piggy in the middle - but not often by the developer.

The role of the quantity surveyor is to cost out the project and ensure that it comes out at budget or to advise on cost adjustments if it is likely to go beyond the budgeted project cost. This might mean that materials will need to be downgraded, reduced or the architect’s dream amended in a way to ensure that the project is delivered on time and at the budgeted cost.  He may adjust the whole project or some or part of it.

The Quantity Surveyor will be brought in at an early stage of the project to tell the developer whether the whole project is feasible or not – and at what cost. Jesus is telling the crowds, what kind of idiot would start to build a tower without having brought in the quantity surveyor?  Because there is always the possibility that a project may be started which cannot be finished and the developer will become both a laughing stock and seriously out of pocket!  I remember well, wandering around Benidorm in Spain, one time seeing hundreds of unfinished buildings – and more recently in Ireland. The reason, the developers had overestimated the number of potential visitors and had run out of money in the process.

Jesus also uses a military analogy – who is going to go into battle or start a war without first doing a quantity surveying exercise on the size and strength of the opposing army?  In such circumstances it is better that he sues for peace rather than suffer a crushing defeat which could have been avoided.

Jesus is telling the crowds to understand and to count the cost which following him will have to be paid and then, and only then, be fully committed to Him, for God requires 100% commitment and nothing should dilute that. 

Jesus then goes on to give a third analogy “What use salt, he says, if it has lost its taste or its saltiness?  In other words, we cannot dilute our commitment once made otherwise it is useless.

Jesus says we must give up our possessions.  Does he really mean that?  No, I don’t believe that we are being asked to sell all our possessions and become hermits, beggars, reliant on the state or charity but that we must give full control of our possessions to Christ to guide us how we should manage them best. At each Eucharist we pray “All things come from you and of your own do we give you”.  When we truly follow Christ we are expected to do just that.

When Christ says, “you must hate life itself” he means that we must be inwardly free from worldly-mindedness, envy, selfishness and be wholly devoted to Him.  In other words, give up those aspects of our daily life which separate us from God’s will for us.

Yes it is a tall order; but one with the richest of rewards.  Christians who face persecution in places like China, Nigeria and the Middle East know how costly is the price they often have to pay.

Let us hold them always in our prayers and remember the last words of that children’s song:

Jesus said you won’t need anything;

all you need is me

 

Let us pray,

 

Lord Jesus, in this busy world in which we live we often don’t make room for you in our lives and follow you as fully as we should.  We thank you for all those who, in places of persecution, still follow you along the difficult path that has been laid before them and continue to spread you gospel.

 

We pray that during this coming week and during the period of Lent that we will, in the words of St. Richard of Chichester, use this time to know you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly,
day by day

 

Amen

 

SERMON 18 - SUNDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2013

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

Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4.2; Luke 9:28b-43;

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

Mountain tops feature heavily in our readings this morning and as I sat down to write this sermon the song “Climb Every Mountain” from the musical “Sound of Music” came into my head and I just couldn’t get rid of it!  A song whose lyrics are so familiar that if I were to recite just a few of them to you now, I am sure that the tune would enter your head too and you would find it difficult to get it out again:-

“Climb every mountain,
Search high and low,
Follow every highway,
Every path you know.

Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
'Till you find your dream.

A dream that will need
All the love you can give,
Every day of your life
For as long as you live…”

Anyone who has climbed to the top of a hill such as Pepperbox Hill, let alone a mountain, will know that exhilarating feeling of being on top of the world – where you might feel closer to God.  One of my favourite spots in Wiltshire is Cley Hill near Warminster where, having reached the top, there is a marvellous vista looking across the Wiltshire and Somerset countryside with views, on a clear day, to Glastonbury Tor and beyond.  It has also been reported to be a haunt of strange lights and UFOs and there is something quite compulsive about the desire to climb it when you drive past – as I have done many many times.  On those clear days, it is often very hard to want to climb down again and return to the mundane life at the bottom.  You want that magical moment of feeling on top of the world to go on for ever.   As the song says, there is something of a dreamlike quality about being up there – a searching for a different perspective on life.  To feel above it all – to follow a dream.

The story of the Transfiguration of Christ, as we heard in our gospel reading, was one such moment for the disciples who accompanied Jesus up to the top of what biblical scholars now think was Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights – sitting astride modern day Lebanon and Syria.  Jesus took just three of his disciples up there with him to pray – Peter, John and James – who from Luke’s account were very tired, presumably having already travelled a good distance and then climbed to the top of this mountain which is some 9,200 feet above sea level. 

The story, to some extent, is suggestive of the events later in Gethsemane except on this occasion, despite being tired, the disciples stayed awake and were to witness a fantastic event.  In a foretaste of the resurrection and ascension, Jesus appears to glow, to be transfigured from the normal human being they had known into something clearly divine and accompanied by the figures of old, Moses and Elijah.  “They were speaking of Jesus’s departure” we are told – which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.  Clearly this is a reference to Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection a few weeks later.

Whenever I hear this story, I immediately think of myself in the shoes of Peter; good old Peter who always seems to have the knack of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time but who also often speaks for us.  He frequently reminds me of those situations where, in a business meeting or other gathering, I have held my tongue because I haven’t wanted to look foolish; but always hoping that there will be a Peter who will ask the same question on my behalf.  Frequently there is, and many of us, not just me, are so glad he did.

Here Peter is clearly enjoying his mountain top moment, just as I have on Cley Hill.  I have often thought what it would be like to build and live in a house up there.  Peter obviously thought the same – how great it would be if that mountain top moment could last for ever.  He doesn’t just want to stay up there but he also wants to capture the actual event and seal if for all time by building shelters for Moses and Elijah.  Fanciful, yes, but Peter had witnessed so many miracles - and if Jesus could walk on water, calm storms, heal lepers, raise the dead then building a few shelters to keep Moses and Elijah up on the mountain with them wouldn’t be beyond his abilities! 

But, as so often on mountains, the weather and mood can suddenly change – as it did here.  Mountain tops can indeed be beautiful and inspirational places but they can also become dangerous and uncomfortable when the weather sets in.  On this occasion we read that a dark cloud descended and from the cloud they heard the voice of God say “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to Him”.  Wow, it must have been like witnessing one of the fabled UFOs on Cley Hill! 

Luke doesn’t comment on their reactions, neither does Mark in his account but Matthew’s account tells us that they were afraid, fell to the ground and Jesus had to reassure them that all was well;  the other two figures disappeared.

Then all four returned down to life in the valley and, as we read, back to business as usual – on this occasion another healing – a boy possessed by demons.  Of interest here is the fact that the boy’s father, who implores Jesus to act, says something so similar to what the disciples had heard from the clouded voice – “I beg you look at my son, he is my only child”. But here it the words are spoken down in the valley.  It is following this miracle that Jesus then tells the disciples that he is shortly to be betrayed.

It is great to go up to the top of the mountain, it is great to look over all the land and marvel at the wonders of God, but just as Moses in our first reading had to come back down from Mount Sinai, to put into practice the laws which he had been given by God, so Jesus, his disciples and indeed all us have to come back down into the valleys of our lives at some time.  From the top of the mountain, the only way we can move on is to come down back to the real world with all its darkness and sorrows. 

Theologian Steve Chalke, in his excellent little book “Change Agents” entitles his first chapter “Others only ever see your mountain top experiences” –  talking about how people perceive successful individuals - yet for every successful person, there are as many, if not more, valley experiences.  Winston Churchill once said – “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” and more recently Richard Branson wrote “The reason I am so successful is because I have failed more times than most people”.  

The Transfiguration was the ultimate mountain top experience – but Jesus knew that he couldn’t end his ministry there.  Neither Peter nor the other disciples then understood that there was more that Jesus had to do – and that it would shortly entail entering a deep dark valley which would initially cause fear and despair to the disciples.  Moses also originally came down from his meeting with God on Mount Sinai to find the people worshipping an idol.  Mountains are only ever distinctive and special when there are valleys surrounding them.

This is the last Sunday before we enter Lent on Ash Wednesday.  Lent is traditionally a time for reflection.  We often give things up – things which we consider our naughty pleasures – alcohol, chocolate, cakes.  That is all well and good but if we do that we should equally think about why we are doing it and reflect on that.  For some it might be like descending that wonderful shining mountain top and entering into a dark dismal valley.  But even as Jesus began his dark period in the wilderness, he continued in his ministry of healing and so should we continue with the ministry which God has called us to do – whatever that might be.

Let us use Lent for that reflection and think of it as a valley between two mountains – in the real world; and be ready to climb another mountain at Easter – strengthening our Faith with the knowledge that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God and that he continues to live in us and with us.  That he had his mountain top and valley monents like all the rest of us.  That way, whenever we feel ourselves in a dark valley we know that we can, indeed, climb every mountain, and find our dream – a dream which God already has created for us to fulfil.

Amen