Author: Stilman Davis

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us, your servants, grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity: keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may evermore be defended from all adversities; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Holy God, faithful and unchanging: enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth, and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love, that we may truly worship you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion

Almighty and eternal God,you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and live and reign in the perfect unity of love: hold us firm in this faith, that we may know you in all your ways and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory, who are three Persons yet one God, now and for ever.

Readings

Old Testament – Proverbs 8.1–4, 22–31

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth – when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil.

When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Psalm

1    O Lord our governor, ♦
how glorious is your name in all the world!

2    Your majesty above the heavens is praised ♦
out of the mouths of babes at the breast.

3    You have founded a stronghold against your foes, ♦
that you might still the enemy and the avenger.

4    When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, ♦
the moon and the stars that you have ordained,

5    What is man, that you should be mindful of him; ♦
the son of man, that you should seek him out?

6    You have made him little lower than the angels ♦
and crown him with glory and honour.

7    You have given him dominion over the works of your hands ♦
and put all things under his feet,

8    All sheep and oxen, ♦
even the wild beasts of the field,

9    The birds of the air, the fish of the sea ♦
and whatsoever moves in the paths of the sea.

10    O Lord our governor, ♦
how glorious is your name in all the world!

Epistle – Romans 5.1–5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Gospel – John 16.12–15

‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

hymn 146 Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty

hymn 138 Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire

hymn 295 Let all mortal flesh

hymn 484 The church’s one foundation

Sermon on Trinity Sunday

For many, this Sunday is one of the most important feast days of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church – it celebrates the creed’s formula of the image of God as Trinity – God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As some of you may know, we should be reciting the Athanasian Creed, which you will find in the BCP and Common Worship. – But we won’t, because it is repetitive, and, more probably, because it is so very long, and we don’t do long nowadays anywhere, do we? However, it is profound in a very poetic way.

Wikipedia says about this creed:

The Athanasian Creed – also called the Quicunque Vult (or Quicumque Vult), which is both its Latin name and its opening words, meaning “Whosoever wishes” – is a Christian statement of belief focussed on Trinitarian doctrine and Christology. … The Athanasian Creed has been used in public worship less frequently, with the exception of Trinity Sunday. However, part of it can be found as an “Authorized Affirmation of Faith”… . Despite falling out of liturgical use, the creed’s influence on current Protestant understanding of trinitarian doctrine is clear.

Let’s take our inspiration this morning from this poetic profession, and try to imagine our God here and now.

How can we do this? Our lives are so very prosaic – quite simply, they are not full of poetic moment. We do not partake of the heroic, or the divine, ordinarily, do we? – I have not had a mystical encounter with the source of all being, even the love I show my wife has become, after all these years, very predictable and usual. – What about you? Has your vision opened up vistas of heaven and forced your hand to the good thing in everything you do? Is the infinite a very part of our quite finite and restricted lives here and now? What drives us to act?

My friend, the philosopher, speaks about language and how the poetic is the source of speech and the most profound expression of philosophy, and I might add life itself. Let’s look a little at the Athanasian Creed. Here is how it starts out –

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith unless every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence.

We don’t talk like this in our everyday dealings, do we? We don’t talk about salvation or our worship based on that faith. This creed speaks of huge concepts fully outside our usual topics of conversation – we shy away from talking about our God, whether Trinity or Unity, and even the scholars might be guilty of confounding the Persons of the Trinity and not completely unifying the Essence of God.

We don’t have profound discussions with the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker about the foundations of faith, do we? But, if you believe some of the stories from history, around the time the Roman Empire became christian, everyone was happy to talk about how the world was turned upside down by Constantine and the empire’s conversion to christianity. One scholar relates that when people went to the baker, they would gladly engage in a theological debate as they bought their bread.

Believers were happy to take up the cudgels on behalf of the faith, in an intellectual struggle to “keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may evermore be defended from all adversities”. This hope of our Collect was something very real in the lives of people in the Empire – Roman or British – but what about today? What hope do we have? Are we ever happy to explore our hope with, or expose it to, the world?

Last week we started to chat about my talk together – it became a lively conversation, much like what I imagine those debates with the baker must have been so long ago. We were not scared of confronting the big topics which religion presents to us for reflection and discussion, all because we worshipped together.

A scholar once said that creedal formulations have always been based on the life of prayer. Our prayer life – which we share together in public worship – does speak to the acceptance of Trinity, doesn’t it? Didn’t “Blessed be the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit” just call forth our response, “Blessed be God for ever” at the start of our morning prayer together? The Trinity is the foundation of the church of England’s life. Throughout our worship we acknowledge the Trinity. After all, don’t we repeat “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning is now and shall be for ever. Amen” all the way through our worship services?

Our prayer life influences our thinking about everything, doesn’t it? If we take a triumphalist view of the faith, won’t we have dreams of empire? – Our Victorian ancestors certainly did. – If we have a servant view of Christ, won’t we behave in a very different manner? Our understanding of service will come forward in our attitude towards others, in all of our actions. So, won’t our theology reflect this as well?

Faith is not a little black box into which we secrete our fundamental intention toward life, the universe and everything. Things don’t find their way into the realm of faith never to emerge again. No, I would say faith actually binds everything in our lives together. We don’t understand friendship without understanding that most elusive Other, the Divine. Friendship is based on the most profound love possible, that love we have for the divine in our lives – and that love of God for us informs how we love one another and manifest friendship.

The Trinity is a subject for discussion, which we should enjoy, just as we enjoyed our discussion of Pentecost last week over coffee. We need to have that free exchange of ideas just as they did centuries ago. We may still be confused about the object of our faith, but we should not be disheartened and silent. Although I don’t know how to express what Trinity means in language that is clear for “21st century schizoid man,” to quote King Crimson, I should still try to make it something my friends and neighbours might take seriously. I should make it easier for people to understand what the unity of God is when I speak or demonstrate christian love.

We read that Jesus gave us a promise that all will be revealed, when he said, “‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…’” Jesus declares there are a lot of things we don’t know. We are awaiting Jesus Christ coming into the world again, just as the disciples and St Paul expected all to be revealed. Jesus promised the Spirit would come, just as we celebrated last week. In my weakened state as a human being, I await that coming of truth into the world as, I am sure, you do.

Amen

Collect

God, who as at this time taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Holy Spirit, sent by the Father, ignite in us your holy fire; strengthen your children with the gift of faith, revive your Church with the breath of love, and renew the face of the earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Faithful God, who fulfilled the promises of Easter by sending us your Holy Spirit and opening to every race and nation the way of life eternal: open our lips by your Spirit, that every tongue may tell of your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Acts 2.1–21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

“In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord

shall be saved.”

Gospel – John 14.8–17 [25–27]

Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

[‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.]

hymn 136 – Rejoice, the year upon its way

hymn 137 – Come down, O Love divine

hymn 138 – Come, Holy Ghost our souls inspire

hymn 349 – Come, let us join our cheerful songs

Sermon on Pentecost (WhitSunday)

Here we are at WhitSun, Pentecost. Many call today the birthday of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

What do you do on your own birthday – or what about your beloved’s birthday, your wife’ or husband’ or your son’ or daughter’s birthday? Some of my acquaintances get dressed in their best and take the day off so that they can do something different – if only a day out with the family, or if you are young, a special meal somewhere nice.

But that is it, isn’t it? We just have one day, perhaps a few drinks and then the year begins again. We repeat the same old dull year all over again. No change for the next 364 days. We haven’t changed the world in any way on our birthday. However, isn’t Pentecost something so very different from the very mundane birthday celebrations we usually  have? Imagine this happening on your birthday –

suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

Nothing like this has ever happened on my birthday! What about yours? No great, rushing, violent wind sounds in our hearing when we take our loved ones out on our special birthday outing. But it did happen at the birth of the Church, just as we recall it each year on this day, the day we read this chapter from the Acts of the Apostles.

Do we stand “amazed and astonished” like all those foreigners who heard those poor, ignorant fishermen speaking in so many languages, and they listened as if they were being directly addressed in their own mother tongue? Do the people speaking within these four walls speak to their contemporaries with that force of meaning and import? Or do we consider this preachers’ ramblings meaningless chatter? Are we startled by what we hear? Do we comment on the situation as those in Jerusalem did so many centuries ago?

All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

Are we amazed by the words we hear? I know that I perplex many with my rantings. Do any or you ask, “What does this mean?” when we leave church – or even over coffee after worship? Do we ever delve any deeper into what we hear anywhere, not just in Church? What is the significance of a politician’s words or anything else we hear? Do we ever look into the meaning of the simple conversations we have day by day? Do we delve into why someone said something to us, which may signify something portentous. And so do we ask, “What does all this mean”?

We may not get what the other person is saying, but I don’t think we are as cynical as those who sneered about those poor fishermen when they accused them of being drunk at such an early hour of the day. Shouldn’t we be able to say, whenever we speak with someone – anyone at all

‘how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’

Never mind the foreigner amongst us, do we speak in a way that our neighbour gets enthusiastic about what we say to them? Do the members of our family hear something very important as we speak with them about life, the universe and everything? Don’t we all wonder whether anyone ever hears us speaking about important matters?

The philosopher has always wondered at the power of language, pondering just how meaning is conveyed through phonemes and syllables, through the power of the word delivered with a voice. Ultimately, that is all I have – I only have my voice to deliver to you what I understand to be powerful and important in my life, just as those words the fishermen pronounced proclaimed God’s deeds of power.

Isn’t it strange that every year we listen to this story of the coming of the Holy Spirit onto those men so long ago? Why? My teacher would explain that we want this to happen today. We want to live out that primordial event of salvation in our own lives right now.

By reciting this origin history we are trying to make it a very real event in our own lives. We are opening ourselves to that fundamental reality the early church proclaimed as its beginnings, that perfect time of origin, which connected them with the resurrected Jesus, that time when the divine was immediately part of their own lives. Don’t we want the same thing? Don’t we want that deed of power and meaning to be part of our own lives? How do I address those “Parthians, Medes [and] Elamites” and anyone else who may be visiting me from faraway places where my mother tongue is unknown? Do I speak louder and louder because no one can speak to me in my own language (as that familiar trope about the English in foreign parts has it)?

Or, more hopefully, do I rely entirely on the gift of tongues – hoping that my seemingly random sounds actually do mean something to somebody else? Or do I have to hope that other people have the gift of interpretation so that they can understand my gabbling?

When we in the Church repeat the story of the day of Pentecost, we want to have a lively birthday celebration. We call to mind so much more than a judgemental thought about ignorant fishermen being drunk so early in the morning (however true that might be of those fishermen from so long ago or even fishermen nowadays).

This story of Pentecost brings together so many strands of the christian message, that salvation had come into the world in Jesus, that his promise of a comforter – the Holy Spirit – was fulfilled, and the Church is filled with the gift of tongues (known and unknown) as well as the gift of interpretation. All things have conspired to culminate on this day, the celebration of Pentecost when the disciples spoke about the deeds of God’s power directly to strangers in their midst. Aren’t we hoping to do the same today, with whomever we meet?

Don’t we want to be as happy as those so-called inebriated fishermen? Their joy has come to the surface, just as ours should. – We have all seen something new which we want to share with everyone of our acquaintance. This is the joy of communication, when language – the gift of tongues and interpretation together – when language expresses our experience of life in all its fullness, an experience we want to share with everyone we meet, just like that drunken fisherman on the corner who sings his joy to all the world.

Amen

Collect

O God the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: we beseech you, leave us not comfortless, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Risen, ascended Lord, as we rejoice at your triumph, fill your Church on earth with power and compassion, that all who are estranged by sin may find forgiveness and know your peace, to the glory of God the Father.

Post Communion

Eternal God, giver of love and power, your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world to preach the gospel of his kingdom: confirm us in this mission, and help us to live the good news we proclaim; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Acts – 16.16–34

One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Gospel – John 17.20–26

‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

Sermon on Sunday after Ascension

Here we are in the Easter period celebrating the Sunday after the Ascension, and yet the text from John comes the darkest time of Jesus’ life on earth, the text comes from the Passion Narrative. In particular, it is found in the Farewell Discourse which is a part of the Last Supper, when Jesus was preparing his disciples. – Jesus was telling them that he was about to go away to his death, a death he anticipated. This speech is full of difficult theological and philosophical concepts – the most tricky is that indwelling of Jesus and God in one another. Let’s begin with a seemingly simple question, How are people “one”? – How can Jesus pray that everyone who believes will participate in the unity which Jesus declares to exist between him and God the Father? Then there is another question, how can Jesus who is about to depart and God the Father in heaven be part of any believer’s being in the world? This is a paradox, isn’t it? This is the life of faith.

For one person to be a part of another is very strange. It is not part of one’s life ordinarily. That one person melts into another is a unique experience. It may be something we have experienced once in our lives, but we may not have, and so many may live a life of profound isolation.

This notion of indwelling, I think, is very much part of our concept of love. We should start our reflections this morning at that point. How does the beloved become a part of our lives? Half a century ago, that hippie generation, those love children, were most prominent in society – they were argued with, and they were argued about, by everyone. However, there was a very definite movement in many circles to explore the theme of love and how our behaviour shows our love. Psychologists such as Eric Fromm wrote about this complex subject, and philosophers were not slow to investigate what they would call “intersubjectivity”. All of them were trying to understand how one person’s life intersects profoundly with another’s so that we might express that relationship as a unity. However we go about exploring this indwelling, Jesus started us all thinking about it in this passage, didn’t he?

When I say that I love my wife, how do I make her mine? “How do I love thee? / Let me count the ways,” the poet exclaims. I suppose there are infinite ways to show how one loves another, both positive and negative. The negative ways of behaviour have been in the media and it has played itself out with our interest in “safe-guarding” within so many organisations, the church being most prominent among them. We all know there are many sorts of coercive behaviour which constrain the other in a relationship. I force that person into what I consider “my life”. For instance, I might not allow my wife her own spending money, or I keep her at home without contact with anyone else. In each case, I isolate her and so her life and mine are “one” in a very negative way. Erich Fromm wrote about this ‘escape from freedom’, which is what the coercive relationship does for both parties – each of them is dependent on the other to define their place in the world. They have forsaken freedom for that strictly defined relationship of interdependence and reduction of self to that coercion alone. There is no freedom to do something unexpected, is there? We are not free as birds to fly where we will when we are in a coercive relationship. We are caged somehow.

Everyone is afraid of freedom in many ways. In that fear we do not take responsibility for our own actions. We are not confident in our choices, in deciding whether this or that is the best course of action. Rather we would listen to the chattering crowd – in the person of the coercive partner – as it presses in around us, letting our personal resolve dissolve before the onslaught of the noise of that crowd. We all know the mumbling of “Rhubarb, rhubarb” of the extras on the stage set of our lives, a sound which merely distracts, if we try to listen to it. Our attention is diverted to something which has no moral authority over us. We run away from the freedom such an ethical self-control actually gives us. We run away from ourselves, and our own decisions for truth and justice. This escape from that freedom to choose, weakens our resolve and isolates us. Consequently, I would suggest, we do not love our neighbours in the way the golden rule bids us. We do not treat others as we would wish to be treated. And so we treat ourselves in so many negative ways – from merely eating too much to actively harming ourselves. There are so many examples and they are recognised as such, so much so, that there are warnings before many television programs which say, “There are scenes which may be distressing” because of some wretched example of humanity’s inhumanity.

Enough of this negativity! What about the positive path on which we are free to love? Surely there is something we can talk about which sets us on that way!

Yes, there is, but it is not as exciting as all those stories about which we are warned on television. The excitement of the crime drama makes a love story something insignificant. Real men, they say, don’t read “rom-coms” – why not? I ask. They say Chic-lit is frothy and insignificant – but so is a book like ‘Pride and Prejudice’. There is no action, no daring-do for the hero to engage in. Mr Darcy would be a different man, were he to be in uniform and about to be ordered into battle. Horatio Hornblower would have been a completely different character were there no warfare in which his character was displayed. – Whether manly heroic behaviour or the feminine excess of emotions, human character is revealed (and I think in both we can find love expressed) in the indwelling of the other in the space of the heart. In that place the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is to be discovered, where we learn about a friendship founded on love profound, that love which is undemanding but gives utterly. The Church is the community where truth is spoken with love. But, more importantly, what is said is listened to, and heard with, love – without ego interfering with the other’s life choices.

Here we are in the positive way of freedom. We no longer worry about ourselves in any petty way. We are anxious to live profoundly with one another, in a way that our lives become intertwined because of that indwelling of another within our conscience, a sharing of life so deep the crowd in its interference cannot comprehend just what two people can give to each other. We know that when we dwell within one another there can be no deception or intrigue, nothing deflects. There can only be openness and true character – I would say that the truly heroic, ultimately caring life which Jesus Christ bequeathed us through the Easter event reveals that paradox of true life, a life forsaken yet resurrected in Jesus Christ.

Amen

The Palm Reading – Luke 19.28–40

He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, who in your tender love towards the human race sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross: grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

True and humble king, hailed by the crowd as Messiah: grant us the faith to know you and love you, that we may be found beside you on the way of the cross, which is the path of glory.

Readings

Old Testament – Zechariah 9.9-12

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

   Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

Lo, your king comes to you;

   triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey,

   on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

He will cut off the chariot fro Ephraim

   and the warhorse from Jerusalem;

and the battle-bow shall be cut off,

   and he shall command peace to the nations;

his dominion shall be from sea to sea,

   and from the River to the ends of the earth.

As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,

   I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;

   today I declare that I will restore to you double.

Psalm 62

Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.

1    On God alone my soul in stillness waits; ♦
from him comes my salvation.

2    He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall never be shaken.

3    How long will all of you assail me to destroy me, ♦
as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence?

4    They plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour; lies are their chief delight; ♦
they bless with their mouth, but in their heart they curse.

5    Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul; ♦
for in him is my hope.

6    He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.

Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.

7    In God is my strength and my glory; ♦
God is my strong rock; in him is my refuge.

8    Put your trust in him always, my people; ♦
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.

9    The peoples are but a breath, the whole human race a deceit; ♦
on the scales they are altogether lighter than air.

10    Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride; ♦
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.

11    God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same, ♦
that power belongs to God.

12    Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord, ♦
for you repay everyone according to their deeds.

Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.

    O God, teach us to seek security, not in money or theft, not in human ambition or malice,not in our own ability or power, but in you, the only God,
our rock and our salvation.

Gospel – Luke 23.1–49

Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.’ Then Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ He answered, ‘You say so.’ Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, ‘I find no basis for an accusation against this man.’ But they were insistent and said, ‘He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.’

When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.

Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.’

Then they all shouted out together, ‘Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!’ (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting, ‘Crucify, crucify him!’ A third time he said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.’ But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.

As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[ Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

hymns

511    Ride on, ride on in majesty

90    O sacred head sore wounded

93    Were you there?

89    O dearest Lord

Sermon on Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday, I think it has a rather strange character. What we read as our primary lesson is the passion of the Lord, what he experienced in Jerusalem, after he entered the city on that borrowed donkey, after the crowds had rejoiced greatly, after they strew his way with palms and cloaks. They made a way fit for a king, their king, who is blessed because he comes in the name of the Lord. We re-enact this most significant event of Jesus’ life today. We stand by the wayside waving our palms with exultation and joy. We are the people who crowd the wayfares into the centre of the world, Jerusalem.

But Jesus made his own way into that city when the crowd disappeared. It became a solitary journey,  a way that was full of sorrow, bitter, acquainted with grief. People did not stand with him in the name of the Lord. Even Peter lost all courage when asked whether he was one of them from Galilee who were with Jesus, didn’t he? Would we stand tall and proclaim our allegiance to the Lord when the great panoply of the state requires an answer to the question of leadership?

I ask this as we stand in the midst of a trade war, in the midst of invasion of allied countries, in the midst of the destruction of homes and human rights. All of this is happening throughout the world, and we say nothing. We don’t even say to our closest neighbour, “Let us love one another.” Why, sometimes we don’t even confess love within out own families!

Does what is happening today tell us anything about the suffering of Jesus at the centre of the world, at Jerusalem, which we remember during Lent and especially during Passiontide?

However, today we stand with the crowd waving our palms even throwing our cloaks before the Lord as we read the Palm Sunday Reading. We sing hymns of joy as we greet the Lord riding on a donkey into Jerusalem. “Ride on, ride on in majesty!”

We rejoice in our Lord today, remembering how Jesus accepted the adulation of the people crowding the way into Jerusalem at the Passover. We are doing the same, aren’t we? When we come to church here today – I know that my heart rises when we sing of “the triumphs now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.” I am eager to proclaim “the Father on his sapphire throne awaits his own anointed Son.” I too hope to join the saints praising God, in triune splendour – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That crystal sea, the pure light, the choirs exulting in praise of what is holy – these images compel me to continue.

However, although we proclaim Jesus as Lord, riding in triumph to Jerusalem and his last Passover meal, we have to remember that there are more elements of the story to live through. The story of Holy Week, when we enter Jerusalem to pray with Jesus in the Garden. We expect to have our feet washed, to be stripped of sin as we strip the altar of its decoration, to stand naked before heaven and earth praying that we will be forgiven our frailty in this world as we stand before the cross on Friday.

This is the week of the passion of Jesus Christ our Lord – and it begins with us waving our flags, our palms, as he passes by to endure mocking and scourging and ultimately his own death on an instrument of torture, with his mother standing at the foot of his cross, inconsolable, but taken in by his beloved friend.

These events are inconceivable for us today, but we try to make them real by reading the stories every year, and reminding ourselves of them week by week when we celebrate Eucharist. This is the paradox of our faith. We celebrate the Lord’s incarnation and entry into our lives, as we joined in Christmass festivities. Now we sorrowfully re-enact the Last Supper in our Maundy Thursday rites and shall call it to mind with that shared Seder meal in Lower Cam. The Passover of the Lord is re-lived every year through liturgy – and foreshadowed every week in every Eucharist.

The Protestant tradition does not re-live the events, but it reflects on the events as significant for us here and now. We do not ritually participate in that archetypal meal. Rather we remember everything and apply the significance of events far away in the past to our lives here and now.

Life in the twenty-first century does not take liturgy and ritual seriously, except when it signifies something radically wrong in a person’s behaviour. – We have all watched those cop shows, haven’t we?

Ritual behaviour is seen as aberrant behaviour among “modern man”. This is at odds fundamentally with what the scholar calls “religious man”. Religious participate in ritual wholeheartedly, sometimes even becoming the gods worshipped. At least that is what my professor claimed as the heart of archaic religion. Religion brings the sacred into contact with the profane in order to transform the world from dead matter into numinously charged reality. Far from being neutral or even negative, ritual activity changes the very mundane into positively valued items with which the hero–god dealt with the world in which we live and move and have our being. This is what we say about Jesus and the gospel story, isn’t it?

We stand here waving our palms remembering Jesus our Saviour. We imagine ourselves in Jerusalem at the Paschal event charged to the highest of excitement gladly welcoming Jesus into the city – our city. We sometimes lose ourselves in worship, and we may be there minutes or hours – it doesn’t matter, because we are fully engaged in the event which we re-enact. We are transported to see Jesus right there. Jesus is within a hand’s breadth to the religious imagination. We understand the positive power of the Passion story as we proclaim the reality of faith, as we proclaim with the crowd, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness, and was tempted as we are, yet without sin: give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit; and, as you know our weakness, so may we know your power to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Heavenly Father, your Son battled with the powers of darkness, and grew closer to you in the desert: help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer that we may witness to your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Lord God, you have renewed us with the living bread from heaven; by it you nourish our faith, increase our hope, and strengthen our love: teach us always to hunger for him who is the true and living bread, and enable us to live by every word that proceeds from out of your mouth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Deuteronomy 26.1–11

Moses said to all Israel: When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, ‘Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’ You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

Psalm 91.1–2, 9–16

1    Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High ♦
and abides under the shadow of the Almighty,

2    Shall say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my stronghold, ♦
my God, in whom I put my trust.’

9    Because you have made the Lord your refuge ♦
and the Most High your stronghold,

10    There shall no evil happen to you, ♦
neither shall any plague come near your tent.

11    For he shall give his angels charge over you, ♦
to keep you in all your ways.

12    They shall bear you in their hands, ♦
lest you dash your foot against a stone.

13    You shall tread upon the lion and adder; ♦
the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot.

14    Because they have set their love upon me, therefore will I deliver them; ♦
I will lift them up, because they know my name.

15    They will call upon me and I will answer them; ♦
I am with them in trouble, I will deliver them and bring them to honour.

16    With long life will I satisfy them ♦
and show them my salvation.

Epistle – Romans 10.8b–13

But what does it say?

‘The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart’

(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Gospel – Luke 4.1–13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone.” ’

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written,

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” ’

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

“He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you”,

and

“On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’ When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Sermon on First Sunday of Lent

You may know that I enjoy mystery novels even more than my more academic and historical reading. One fictional character I find very engaging is Cadfael, a monk from the pen of Ellis Peters. I think you have all seen him on the small screen. I found a resumé of the characters which started my thinking for today’s ramblings.

Abbot Radulfus [is] the median, the ideal abbot, with whom Cadfael has a deep empathy and understanding. Both [prior] Robert and [the former abbot] Heribert also serve to show the cloistered and worldly perils, respectively, that Cadfael balances through his "constant war of conscience". Peters shows Cadfael at the heart of healthy, fulfilling monastic life, which may be flawed by its humanity but is well-intentioned. It is Cadfael, the fulcrum, who helps to maintain the health and perspective that overcomes crises of justice that arise from within and without the community. It may be argued that Peters creates him as a version of St Benedict’s vision of holy fellowship and service. (from Wikipedia, Cadfael)

I looked up Cadfael because I read another novel recently, one by Richard Coles, which began with a quotation from The Rule of St Benedict.

And so we are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord. In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome. But if a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity, do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation, whose entrance cannot but be narrow. For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love. Thus, never departing from His school, but persevering in the monastery according to His teaching until death, we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ and deserve to have a share also in His kingdom.

This description of a monastery as a school, when I read it along with the description of Cadfael in mind, sent me down the track of considering just what the religious life is. The monk who is separated from “the world” – that world in which we secular people live – this monk has a very intense life, surrounded only by others who have taken up that particuliar life, bound together with the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. They chose that life of love and discipline, a life that leads to a full faith.

When I studied, I took a course about western monasticism. We looked at The Rule because it was the aim, the ideal, of all religious communities. It describes of a life of moderation, in which all help each other to share in that reflection of heaven upon earth, where love defines how people behave with each other. Benedict did not want to introduce anything “harsh or burdensome”. It is a life of quiet, there are no raised voices – but when voices do rise it is an emergency, or only demanded by the liturgy, when voices sing the praise of God.

Ora et labora. That is “the motto of the Benedictine order, signifying the importance of balancing spiritual devotion in prayer (ora) with physical labour (labora) in daily life.” (Wikipedia) All western monasticism is based on it. Every order is founded on The Rule – even those very radically different orders which say they won’t change because there is no deviation from The Rule in their way of life. They follow Benedict even if their order has its own peculiarities – for instance that silent order where there is no speech at all.

Richard Coles’ main character realises that whether you live in a secluded community or in the rough and tumble of “the world” you have to choose. For the monk it is the consistent choice of The Rule, a rule which fosters life in all its fullness, a rule which is set in a community which has only one goal, that of salvation for all. Those of us who have not chosen The Rule have to negotiate individual choices made by the people around us – and those choices may not be mutually beneficial, in fact they may be inimical to each other, becoming the cause of wars between nations or the disputes between groups in a community or even the arguments in the midst of families themselves. We might even think that personality problems signify the pull of one thing or another in an individual’s life.

The notion of choice, what the theologians call “free will”, is central to life. It is especially important in today’s political climate. Choice is central to everything we do – where we send our children to school, whether we take the bus or the car, who our doctor should be, everything has become a matter of our own personal choice.

We choose to act in particular ways – there is always a moment of selecting one thing over another. That moment is what the religious life is all about. Whether we have chosen “the cowl” or “the world”, we have to make that selection consistently, or else there is something radically wrong with the world in which we live and move and have our being. That free choice is the point on which our world ultimately rests. We must discern what that point is and we have to know that that point is where our religious sensibilities ground us.

Reading about Cadfael and studying The Rule of St Benedict will help us to discover how we can be authentic in our relations with other people. When we read about dubious characters, or see them on screen, don’t we get scared off behaving in those ways? Don’t we begin to see that the noble way of the good for its own sake is the only way to act? The actions of the wicked character in a novel remind us that we can be held culpable of the very same actions which we condemn as they unfold on the page as we read about them or on the screen as we watch them. We realise that no one is completely innocent when it comes to misdeeds, are they?

Benedict was right when he reminds us that “a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity.” Don’t parents do this for their children? They constrain their children in their love to keep them safe. Don’t we in our working lives also feel the constraint of the HSE and our bosses and other workers? Don’t we conform to safety rules for the sake of good order, a “certain strictness” for the sake of the “preservation of charity”?

These Rules may be Common Law, Health and Safety, or those of Benedict. We follow them because ultimately they allow us to live out our love for one another. “As we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love.” As we go on in life that constricting red tape disintegrates and we are absolutely free to act for the sake of the other person.

I have come to the conclusion that the religious life is a reflection of how we live in the world and Lent can be the real expression of that reality. I would venture to say that we should stand with “Cadfael at the heart of healthy, fulfilling life”. If we realise that, whether in our out of the cloister, we are all living in that “school for the service of the Lord”, a school in which we all really do want to live, even if we might have forgotten the fundamental choice of love we made long ago. Let us use Lent to remember, and resolve ourselves to, that choice of love.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever.

or

Almighty God, give us reverence for all creation and respect for every person, that we may mirror your likeness in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

God our creator, by your gift the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise, and the bread of life at the heart of your Church: may we who have been nourished at your table on earth be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross and enjoy the delights of eternity; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Genesis 2.4b–9, 15–end

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

‘This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.’

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

Psalm

1    Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion; ♦
to you that answer prayer shall vows be paid.

2    To you shall all flesh come to confess their sins; ♦
when our misdeeds prevail against us, you will purge them away.

3    Happy are they whom you choose and draw to your courts to dwell there. ♦
We shall be satisfied with the blessings of your house, even of your holy temple.

4    With wonders you will answer us in your righteousness, O God of our salvation, ♦
O hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.

5    In your strength you set fast the mountains ♦
and are girded about with might.

6    You still the raging of the seas, ♦
the roaring of their waves and the clamour of the peoples.

7    Those who dwell at the ends of the earth tremble at your marvels; ♦
the gates of the morning and evening sing your praise.

8    You visit the earth and water it; ♦
you make it very plenteous.

9    The river of God is full of water; ♦
you prepare grain for your people, for so you provide for the earth.

10    You drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges; ♦
you soften the ground with showers and bless its increase.

11    You crown the year with your goodness, ♦
and your paths overflow with plenty.

12    May the pastures of the wilderness flow with goodness ♦
and the hills be girded with joy.

13    May the meadows be clothed with flocks of sheep ♦
and the valleys stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing.

Epistle – Revelation 4

I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! And the one seated there looks like jasper and cornelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God; and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.

Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human face, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing,

‘Holy, holy, holy,
the Lord God the Almighty,
who was and is and is to come.’

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honour and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,

‘You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.’

Gospel – Luke 8.22–25

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

Sermon on Second Sunday before Lent

A few weeks ago we heard about the events at the lake of Gennesaret, when the fishermen were called as disciples after they had hauled in the catch which almost overwhelmed their boats. This week we are back on the water. Today we hear about the storm which threatened to drown them all. We know about those gales, don’t we? When everything is upset, when the normal is overturned and we have to struggle through hell to the other side, we call out “We are perishing” in our despair.

But to whom do we call? Social influencers whom we have never seen, whose words drift by ethereally on our phones, who have no idea of the danger we perceive? We call out to these savants hoping for a solution to our impossible muddle of danger – we call out for aid and succour. “Whence cometh my help” we cry out with the psalmist because we feel we are perishing.

Again we are on the deep waters of life, begging for help. We are about to spill into the deep and, because we don’t think we can swim, we panic in the midst of chaos.

But, on the contrary, I am certain that we can make our way in these deep waters. We have an example of calm, don’t we? We have just read about a fellow who slept through such a storm which threatened destruction to so many. He just stood up and rebuked the chaos. He must have said, “Be still!”

They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

We are like that crowd in wonder. But I think we could do this as well, couldn’t we? We fear and are bewildered about everything which befalls us – we don’t understand this fellow’s power to calm the storms of the most tortured soul.

When we hear that other command, “Do not fear!”, we don’t have to fear. We should take courage and live through the event. We must listen to that voice and take heart. If we do this in the depths of our despair, we would understand that we can make it through everything. We might even have a faith, a belief that we can live in hope.

Some have gone through a terrible journey of life and yet they tell us a story of life in all its fullness. They are the heroes of legend and we praise them, don’t we?

Who can make it through the wicked evil of the hero’s quest? I would say, those heroes who are stilled and work through, with care, the vicissitudes confronting them. They have not panicked in the face of difficulty.

They calmly walk through the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to emerge from the chaos of their epic journey to find themselves at home again, like Odysseus when he reveals himself to Penelope. He might have used his sword on all of her suitors but I think he eventually becomes the man at peace by his hearth. That pacific picture is what must inform us. The end of the quiet life with the beloved should inspire us to carry on with the fight against chaotic evil at every moment.

Jesus calls to us to have faith, to take courage, never to fear. He calls to the blessed in the beatitudes teaching from the precarious position of the boat, a boat which symbolises the precarious position of everyone afloat on the sea of troubles. I think Jesus teaches about the calm of faith by sleeping in the boat during that outrageous storm, that storm which threw everyone into disarray. “They” called to him and revealed the character of the crowd, tossed this way and that in what they saw as chaos because they did not know that they could stand up against the storm blowing against them.

There in a corner of the boat lay the solution to all their fear of that moment. They had to call upon the solution. They had to rouse Jesus from slumber. When Jesus stood up, he spoke up against the perceived chaos. “Be still!” he said and that “Be still,” calms everything, especially our jangling nerves. I suggest we look to a solution far beyond the immediate, beyond the everyday perception of the crowd’s solution to any of our problems.

I would suggest we look to those invisible goods which belong to all, if we would but reach out to grasp them. They are there with us as we panic about everything. When the disciples feared for their lives, they called out “We are perishing!” – and so do we. We call out to God in those times of desperate fear, when we are at the edge. Don’t we now say “OMG”? In our anxiety, however, we do not take stock of our selves to find that reserve of calm, just as the disciples in that boat in the storm do not look to Jesus hidden away in sleep in the corner.

Our salvation lies hidden in our lives. We may not even recognise it as we panic in existential anxiety. We have to listen to the voice of Jesus as he commands, “Be still!” If that voice “commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him,” what can that voice do for us? What benefits can we receive if we were to listen?

Imagine if we were to listen and obey this command, “Do not fear!” What a different life would be ours if we turned away from the panic of the crowd and heard the voice of our heart! Jesus speaks to us in that stillness.

That is the miracle we all long for, isn’t it? But we get sucked along with the crowd. We don’t listen to the voice of our conscience. Rather we listen to the chattering confusion of the masses. We would rather speak about the weather to keep matters of moment at bay. We don’t want to think long and hard about that silence at the core of our being, that silence which challenges the crowd’s noisiness.

There in the corner lies our salvation. In the midst of our panic it lies sleeping. If only we would waken it, if we were to listen to that silent commanding voice, we would not panic – we would enjoy life in all its fullness, that life we pervert because we are too greedy to share with anyone, that life we silence in our existential anxiety as we listen only to the crowd’s distracting noise.

Let us not fear the silence of those corners where salvation sleeps unconcerned about the distractions of storms, the high winds of panic, the overwhelming seas, those nets full of struggling fish, the slings and arrows of humankind’s struggling with each other. Let us share the gift of life in all its fullness, the gift we all have in its abundance if we were to listen to its silent call, the call of loving friend and enemy alike. It is a commanding call, if we were to hear that still small voice of fearless calm, which “commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” Were we to listen to such a voice, that calm would be ours as well, so that we shall share life in all its fullness through loving care.

Amen

Collect

O God, you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Lord of the hosts of heaven, our salvation and our strength, without you we are lost: guard us from all that harms or hurts and raise us when we fall; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Go before us, Lord, in all we do with your most gracious favour, and guide us with your continual help, that in all our works begun, continued and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name, and finally by your mercy receive everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Isaiah 6.1–8 [9–13]

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’

[And he said, ‘Go and say to this people:

“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;

keep looking, but do not understand.”

Make the mind of this people dull,

and stop their ears, and shut their eyes,

so that they may not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and comprehend with their minds,

and turn and be healed.’

Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said:
‘Until cities lie waste

without inhabitant,

and houses without people,

and the land is utterly desolate;

until the Lord sends everyone far away,

and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

Even if a tenth part remains in it,

it will be burned again,

like a terebinth or an oak

whose stump remains standing when it is felled.’

The holy seed is its stump. ]

Psalm

1    I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; ♦

before the gods will I sing praise to you.

2    I will bow down towards your holy temple and praise your name, because of your love and faithfulness; ♦

for you have glorified your name and your word above all things.

3    In the day that I called to you, you answered me; ♦

you put new strength in my soul.

4    All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord, ♦

for they have heard the words of your mouth.

5    They shall sing of the ways of the Lord, ♦

that great is the glory of the Lord.

6    Though the Lord be high, he watches over the lowly; ♦

as for the proud, he regards them from afar.

7    Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will preserve me; ♦

you will stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand will save me.

8    The Lord shall make good his purpose for me; ♦

your loving-kindness, O Lord, endures for ever; forsake not the work of your hands.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians 15.1–11

I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Gospel – Luke 5.1–11

While Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

Sermon on Fourth Sunday before Lent

We read this morning “and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” – Is this something we can say about any crowd today? Who today presses in to listen to anyone else, let alone anyone in a pulpit speaking about the word of God?

These are hard questions. These are questions which we have to ask about ourselves. Do each of us come to church to open our minds and hearts to God’s word? Do we hear that ineffable echo of conscience when we still ourselves and wait patiently with the Quakers and Shakers in silence? Or does the word of God assault us in the majesty of the liturgy as bells ring out reminding us of the incarnation and incense rises with our prayers to the heights of heaven in our ancient and beautified cathedrals and grade one listed churches?

Where is “the crowd” this morning? Have we failed to bring to life the word of God as the prophets of old did? Have we not enlivened our lives so that the crowds would come to join us as people did in the camp revival meetings of a Wesley or a Billy Graham? Does the crowd even want to raise its consciousness of the created world around it and how the crowd affects the environment? There are so many questions the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church must raise in each person, but does the crowd feel interrogated by such silent enquiries which the churches of the world pose?

These are questions which must assault us as believers of the Word of God. These are the doubts which I think should be at the forefront of our minds as we consider our lives in the world, as we show our care for our neighbours.

When I let my conscience have control, I despair – I realise that I have not loved my neighbour as myself, and consequently I have not loved God perhaps at all. My sinfulness is ever before me, accusing me of a greedy selfishness at every moment. However, I do not feel I belong in the crowd which presses against me, keeping me away from the word of God. Today there are no crowds pressing ahead to listen eagerly to anyone who purports to speak for God. I begin to wonder, are there no prophets today? Do our leaders only speak words the crowd wants to hear, are our preachers only anodyne mouthpieces of the crowd. No one stands firm on the edge of the world pointing to the sacred and rejecting the profane. Is there no one to confront the stultifying comfort of a life without conscience?

I could wonder if our bible verse is actually a reflection of the reality of the time when Jesus dwellt among us. This thought may be outrageous for many, but they it does occur to everyone at some point, doesn’t it? Just as we wonder about the accuracy of news reports today, was reporting of events any better two thousand years ago?

Did the crowds really press in upon him as the gospels described? Did they fill the plains waiting to be fed with the word of God, or is it only the bread and fish they wanted? Did they really follow him all around Galilee to listen to what he had to say? Did they really force him onto that lake in order they might hear him speak? Or, you might ask, did they gather in the temple and synagogue to listen to him speak about God his Father? What about those words from Isaiah – did they truly understand they were fulfilled in Jesus the Christ? Do we?

I wonder whether we take on those words Jesus spoke as if they were our own? Do we really try to get as close as possible to the word of God as we go about our everyday lives? These are all questions which perplex me every moment of the day. I think they are the sort of questions which provoke cold chills in the dead of night, in those hours when our conscience really does raise its head and ask those very real, and very difficult, questions about ourselves and the way we live.

However, there are those among us who do seek the word of God in their lives – they do want to change the world, to bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven. Don’t we ourselves do so? Don’t we pray daily “thy kingdom come, thy will be done”? These are our best moments, when conscience and action are united into the single entity of faithfulness. Each of us can, and do, call upon God and press forward to listen to those ineffable words which give us life, words of meaning – the message conscience repeats whenever we listen to it.

This is what conversion really is, when we listen and act on, and for, the word of God. Conversion can be a steady state of being, if we let it, if we strive for it.

But that “crowd” is all around us and bullies us into sometimes very inappropriate behaviour. The crowd deadens our senses. We do not see and we do not hear, even though Jesus has hope that those who have ears will hear and those who have eyes will see. – Jesus knows they will know what truth reveals, that they will understand that love is the only motive we should have, getting back to that one commandment Jesus gave us – if you truly love me, you will love one another.

I think, generally, we are living in an age devoid of care for one another. There are also, I believe, the odd examples who do care. – There are Mother Teresa’s in the world. They surround us with their love, but they are not public figures (we need only look at our public leaders, don’t we?). These privately-living saints do not have days named after them, do they? You may know of saint, cloistered away behind their houses’ walls, sending out their parcels of love. We have experienced this, haven’t we? So, I think, we do live in the hope which Jesus had for the world.

While we do live in faith, in that hope Jesus had, we often fail to be publicly accountable for the love we actually want to share with everyone. I am convinced that it only takes practice to become more loving. The love I want to share is what I have experienced. My wife has taught me what true love is, for I am loved. My parents taught me about care because they cared for me. I have made my own mistakes in sharing the love, but they are mine and I repent of these most grievous faults. The love I have been given does inform my life. This is the love Jesus talks about in his parables, especially when he depicts God as the loving father.

We may have experienced all this love imperfectly, just as we try to care and fail. We must admit that fact to ourselves and the world, the fact of our missing the mark of love. I think we all know what we want to accomplish. – I think even the crowd longs for the openness of a true, open friendship, what Paul describes as αγαπη.

Amen

Collect

Almighty and ever–living God, clothed in majesty, whose beloved Son was this day presented in the Temple, in substance of our flesh: grant that we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts, by your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Lord Jesus Christ, light of the nations and glory of Israel: make your home among us, and present us pure and holy to your heavenly Father, your God, and our God.

Post Communion

Lord, you fulfilled the hope of Simeon and Anna, who lived to welcome the Messiah: may we, who have received these gifts beyond words, prepare to meet Christ Jesus when he comes to bring us to eternal life; for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Readings

Old Testament – Malachi 3.1–5

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Then I will draw near to you for judgement; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow, and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

Psalm 24.[1–6] 7–10

[1    The earth is the Lord’s and all that fills it, ♦
the compass of the world and all who dwell therein.

2    For he has founded it upon the seas ♦
and set it firm upon the rivers of the deep.

3    ‘Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, ♦
or who can rise up in his holy place?’

4    ‘Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, ♦  
who have not lifted up their soul to an idol,
nor sworn an oath to a lie;

5    ‘They shall receive a blessing from the Lord, ♦
a just reward from the God of their salvation.’

6    Such is the company of those who seek him, ♦
of those who seek your face, O God of Jacob.]

7    Lift up your heads, O gates;
be lifted up, you everlasting doors; ♦
and the King of glory shall come in.

8    ‘Who is the King of glory?’ ♦
‘The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord who is mighty in battle.’

9    Lift up your heads, O gates;
be lifted up, you everlasting doors; ♦
and the King of glory shall come in.

10    ‘Who is this King of glory?’ ♦
‘The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.’

Epistle – Hebrews 2.14–18

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

Gospel – Luke 2.22–40

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

Sermon on Candlemass

Today we are celebrating Candlemass, the end of the Christmass–Epiphany season, the day when Jesus was presented in the Temple, when Simeon declared the words we know as the Nunc Dimittis, revealing yet again the magnificent mystery of the incarnate Lord. And we are told that Mary’s heart would feel a sword piercing it because the destiny of the child was “the rising and falling of many” and making known “inner thoughts”. I suppose Simeon was warning those parents that the life of a prophet was to be their son’s. It would not be one of sweetness and light, but the pain of self knowledge was to be his fate – that this child was going to stand against the ignorance of the crowd for the sake of humanity’s salvation in the truth, a stance which too often calls forth opposition in every sort of way.

This is the signal event of Jesus’ life in the gospel of Luke, never mind the birth narratives, for he then sums up his childhood with these simple words. “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.” Thirty years of life summed up in one verse. A rather slim recounting of the whole of experience in a youth’s life.

I suppose we have to say that there is no official biography for Jesus. Jesus never published his memoirs. None of the gospels tell the full story of Jesus’ life from his birth through his death to his resurrection. Of course there are all the sayings and miracles, but they are not in one place and they are not all the same in all the material we have about Jesus. In fact there is only one reference to Jesus the Christ in official records outside of Christian literature, at least that is what my teacher used to say.

Even christian records are quite different, the birth narratives diverge drastically, one talks of shepherds, the other about magi, and two of the books do not speak of Jesus’ early life at all. They all agree that Jesus died on the cross, crucified. They all tell of the miraculous resurrection appearances, but each narrative takes on a different character in each gospel.

I suppose it should be no surprise that the lectionary calendar is also confused. Two weeks ago we heard about the miracle at Cana, the week before that we considered Christ’s baptism. The week before that we heard about the visit of the three kings. This week we hear about Jesus’ presentation in the temple. There is no chronology in the gospels nor in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church’s liturgical year. You could say we have a confused narrative concerning Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless from this muddle arises a corporate body of faith, a community of great diversity – sometimes even at odds with itself – and yet it has an historical longevity. The Church has lasted two millennia despite its history and its hopes – despite its internal divisions.

We can understand why Jesus’ biographical narrative is spotty. Don’t we tell each of our own stories in the same way? Episodes appear and disappear at random as we narrate our own history. At one time we tell it this way, at another we tell it in a different way. It depends on the audience whom we are addressing with our story. You could say we are our own “spin doctors” – we tell the narrative for our own lives as we need to. We don’t have to rely on biographers nowadays, since we are all on FaceBook and we tell our stories in the best possible way there, don’t we? We don’t have to rely on another writer to tell everyone about us hoping against hope that that particular narrator will make us look good. Instead, we do that for ourselves now. Our FaceBook pages remain forever in the ether of the internet and we have created them. They are our gospels, the good news of our very own selves – they are out there in our very own words. They are like the four gospels telling the muddled tale about the person who has appeared on them. The gospels are FaceBook pages in their own peculiar way – just as my pages are the gospel about myself according to me.

Being out there is not all sweetness and light, is it? We have done our best to show ourselves off . We have spun our stories so that we look so very fine. But what happens when people begin to reflect on the story we tell about ourselves. What happens when someone looks a little deeper than the surface revealed by social media? What if one of my beloved NT scholars were to look at my social media output? Would I remain the hero of my imagination and the stories I tell about myself? Or would I appear to be something completely different than the person I portray as myself?

It becomes our turn to be interrogated and interpreted by the readers of our pages, just as Jesus is interpreted by all of us when we open the good book. What do you think the crowd makes of the tales we tell of ourselves? Are we the heroes we think ourselves to be, or do we actually seem to be the villains the crowd may consider us to be?

The difference between our own self understanding through a social media presentation and how others see us, can be very stark. Sometimes we don’t see ourselves in the reflected image we propound. When we overhear a conversation concerning ourselves, do we recognise the person who is subject to that gossip and story-telling? – I suppose the saying we never hear good of ourselves when we eavesdrop is actually true.

So just how does our own understanding of our selves differ from the understanding others have of us? How do we appear to others? How do we appear to ourselves?

Those biblical scholars, whom I revere, took up at one time what was called “the quest for the historical Jesus”. One of the longest and most intricate investigations concluded that they could all be likened to someone looking down into a deep well which is so dark but there is a disk of light at the bottom. On that quest, deep down there, in the well, we see an image. That scholar concluded that the image may not be the authentic and historical Jesus, but it certainly does reflect ourselves as we portray Jesus.

That quest evaluates the records we have and comes to a conclusion, always speaking to the present, always formed by the interests of the time, addressing the meaning we find because of the methods we employ.

These limitations of method and the strictures of self-awareness are what we have to remember when we write on our own FaceBook pages and tell stories about others. I can only hope that when people tell stories about me, they might be uplifting, and when I talk about others, whether friends or not, I will be generous and encouraging as I portray them as they are of me.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, in Christ you make all things new: transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Eternal Lord, our beginning and our end: bring us with the whole creation to your glory, hidden through past ages and made known in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Isaiah 62.1–5

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.

The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.

You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.

For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.

Psalm 36.5–10

5    Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens ♦
and your faithfulness to the clouds.

6    Your righteousness stands like the strong mountains, your justice like the great deep; ♦
you, Lord, shall save both man and beast.

7    How precious is your loving mercy, O God! ♦
All mortal flesh shall take refuge under the shadow of your wings.

8    They shall be satisfied with the abundance of your house; ♦
they shall drink from the river of your delights.

9    For with you is the well of life ♦
and in your light shall we see light.

10    O continue your loving-kindness to those who know you ♦
and your righteousness to those who are true of heart.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians 12.1–11

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

Gospel – John 2.1–11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Sermon on Second Sunday of Epiphany

An epiphany is a moment when we understand everything, isn’t it? – the moment when God appears in our lives and we “get it”. The story about the wedding at Cana is a moment when God appears, we get the miracle that just happened. But just what is it that we “get”? I want to ask, “Are we swayed only by miracles? Is the fact that Jesus transformed lots of water into wine the only thing that brings us to faith?” This water-into-wine is a wonderful revelation, but is that the only ground on which we stand? What would happen if we no longer believe in miracles?

I remember a song by Hot Chocolate from many years ago, sung with such vigour and hope as “I Believe in Miracles”. Even though it was also called “You sexy thing”, I think it speaks to what a miracle does in one’s life. It certainly describes what the miracle of love does in life – what it has done in my life, and yours? … We need to do a little translation of this song before we can fully address the miracle of love as it enters our lives.

Many of us may have gyrated on the dance floor to the pure joy of this or some other song as it blasted from the wall of sound at some venue of our youth which we now remember with fondness. We may have even met our partners as we sang those words with Hot Chocolate playing as the background to our hopes and desires.

The chorus of the song must be cleansed of the prurient – we need to take the song’s base sex out of our considerations, for we have to ponder worthy subjects while in church. The chorus sings

    I believe in miracles
Where’re you from?
You sexy thing
I believe in miracles
Since you came along
You sexy thing

For the words, “You sexy thing”, I think you can hear “You are my life”, or “You are my love”. At least that is how I want to elevate the meaning of this song. This translation of the prurient is in line with the reinterpretation of the bible called “demythologisation”, a project begun a century ago by biblical scholars, who asked “How can we believe in these biblical miracles in the age of the electric light?” Why should we demean ourselves by considering only the flesh? Can’t the miracle of falling in love be seen in the whole of life, body and soul?

So, in order to consider the miracles we have experienced, let us return to the miracle of love, the care between people. That is the only miracle of which I have any experience. What about you? Some lines from that Hot Chocolate song deserve to be considered in terms of the great commandment of loving one another. The good Samaritan could be seen as the figure addressed in these lines:

Where did you come from?
How did you know I needed you?
How did you know I needed you so badly
How did you know I’d give my heart gladly
Yesterday I was one of the lonely people
[Now you are loving me.]

Aren’t these words exactly what the injured man must have thought when he was picked up and cared for by the Samaritan? Here I am in dire need, lying as dead in the road and someone has come to alleviate my pain. I could go on to say

Where did you come from, angel?
How did you know I’d be the one?
Did you know you’re everything I prayed for?
Did you know, every night and day for?
Every day, needing love as satisfaction
Now you’re giving it to me

These lines speak of love as the solution to the problems of life, lifting us up from the desolate isolation of pain. The Hot Chocolate’s song is highly charged, and set with sexual imagery, but we Christians can rise above all that squalid versification to see how it speaks to a refined and noble reality. That reality is confused in life, isn’t it? We are told of the great gulf between the spiritual and the material, that they cannot co-exist – but they do! Our lives attest to their admixture. Paul’s letters and so much christian prose and poetry try to keep these realms separate, that the slings and arrows of the physical deny the spiritual. So many writers demand a rejection of a part of our very own selves, don’t they? However, I don’t think we have to reject the body, but we do have to purify how we behave in the world.

I have to say that it is possible for us to understand the flesh and raise it above the venal. We connect with our loved ones physically – when a touch becomes a caress. – This is clear when we hug our children and our partners – that is quite simply how we express our carnality spiritually, how we are incarnate spiritual beings. All long for that embrace which covers any loneliness with a belonging to one another, when I and my love become one altogether completely. That is what a child feels when the child’s mother kisses a hurt better – that connection of hearts in touch.

This is the ultimate in safe-guarding, isn’t it? People caring with the whole of their being for another, particularly with someone who is vulnerable – like their own child. Don’t we speak of love in terms which encompass the whole of life, that body and soul are wrapped up together in the act of caring for the other with unconditional love. Again, I say this is safe-guarding in its purest form. When the Samaritan picks up the forlorn, almost dead person, does he do it with any other intention than that of helping that virtual corpse back to health and life? I cannot imagine any other motive. Can you?

I am using language much like the language of the Song of Songs, aren’t I? It is the poetry of love. The bible is not averse to speaking in terms of the body and corporal reality along with the spirit, the soul – I think miracles make the point the bible is all about, that we are in the world, confused as we are about body, mind and spirit.

Somehow all of this confusion about just what we are, how we are in the world – flesh, body, mind, spirit – gets straightened out. In an epiphany it all makes sense. This is the real miracle. That ultimately we understand through love, how love unites the whole of our lives through our connection with the other. The Hot Chocolate song, I would like to say, can express that highest experience of love, if we work at it, if we make that translation into the whole of our lives. And we need to do this. We need to work out just how the miracles enter our lives and become that epiphany moment.

Don’t we confess this through the words of the gospel of St John, that the word was made flesh and dwellt amongst us, just as each one of us dwells in the world as incarnate beings. As incarnate beings like the Samaritan and the I of the Hot Chocolate song, let us love one another as we love ourselves. Let us dwell amongst our contemporaries with that joy understanding miracles gives us. I would like to think that love is a miracle even greater than turning water into wine for it abides forever.

Amen

Collect

Eternal Father, who at the baptism of Jesus revealed him to be your Son, anointing him with the Holy Spirit: grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit, that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Heavenly Father, at the Jordan you revealed Jesus as your Son: may we recognize him as our Lord and know ourselves to be your beloved children; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Post Communion

Lo rd of all time and eternity, you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son: by the power of your Spirit complete the heavenly work of our rebirth through the waters of the new creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Isaiah 43.1–7

43Thus says the Lord,

   he who created you, O Jacob,

   he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

   I have called you by name, you are mine.

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

   and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

   and the flame shall not consume you.

3 For I am the Lord your God,

   the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

   Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

4 Because you are precious in my sight,

   and honoured, and I love you,

I give people in return for you,

   nations in exchange for your life.

5 Do not fear, for I am with you;

   I will bring your offspring from the east,

   and from the west I will gather you;

6 I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’,

   and to the south, ‘Do not withhold;

bring my sons from far away

   and my daughters from the end of the earth—

7 everyone who is called by my name,

   whom I created for my glory,

   whom I formed and made.’

Psalm 29

1    Ascribe to the Lord, you powers of heaven, w
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

2    Ascribe to the Lord the honour due to his name; w

worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

3    The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;
the God of glory thunders; w
the Lord is upon the mighty waters.

4    The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation; w
the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice.

5    The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; w
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;

6    He makes Lebanon skip like a calf w
and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7    The voice of the Lord splits the flash of lightning;

the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; w

the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

8    The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare; w
in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’

9    The Lord sits enthroned above the water flood; w
the Lord sits enthroned as king for evermore.

10    The Lord shall give strength to his people; w
the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

Epistle – Acts 8.14–17

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the
word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed
for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit
had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they
received the Holy Spirit.

Gospel – Luke 3.15–17, 21, 22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in
their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered
all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful
than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He
will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in
his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his
granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ 

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized
and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon
him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are
my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ 

Sermon for the Baptism of Christ

Did your mother or father ever say to you, “You are my Son [or Daughter],
the Beloved [Child born to me]; with you I am so well pleased”? If our
parents have never said this to us, their children, how can we expect anyone
else to express such love? Indeed, how can we proclaim our love for anyone
else?

Life is not full of affirmation, is it? We ourselves often fail to appreciate
all of the people around us. This is the sort of thing that happens all
the time. This is the sort of thing we ought to safe-guard against. All
of us must examine our behaviour daily to see whether we have failed those
who have come into our daily orbit, whether it is the fellow who delivers
the post, or the doctor who delivers a life-changing health report. We
must commit our time with others fully. We need to speak with them with
a care–full witness to our encounter. I think we should be able to take
the post deliberately in our hand and mean that anodyne “Thank you,” as
the postie departs.

Little things make the world the place it is. We all know that is true,
don’t we? We remember the little things people have done, and perhaps our
conscience pricks us when we remember some of the little things we have
done. Perhaps our conscience disturbs us because we have not done anything
for others.

John was preaching that we are to make a way in the desert for our King.
He was preaching for a conversion of the heart – he preached about a true
turning to God, and I would say that this new person, the converted heart,
was an appropriate person for that acclamation our parents never made about
us. But it is something God from heaven declares about Jesus. John also
delights – for John rejoices in his cousin as he rises from the waters
of baptism just as everyone hears that thunder rolling around the hills
as a commendation of this fellow.

Perhaps we never heard that peal from the heavens at our baptism. We might
even lose track of the voice of God in our lives – or we don’t hear the
Word of God in the scriptures as it directs us this way and that, away
from temptation and keeping us from evil. It is clear that we fail so very
often, isn’t it? We pray, off and on, with the Desert Fathers, “Have mercy
on me, Lord, for I am a sinner,” as we attempt to clear our conscience
and reconcile ourselves with God and neighbour. That, I would say, is the
moment of baptism. We turn to God as the words of the baptismal liturgy
say. However, God doesn’t stay in only one place the whole of our lives.
We have to keep our eye on, and our ear out for, God. The ancient Church
had a terrible time with idolatry, when it became fixated on one image
of God. You remember those passages in the Bible, don’t you? You may even
remember that the Church has been torn apart many times by the vexed question
of images in the church. The Protestants wanted churches without decoration
at all – just white walls and clear glass windows. There should be nothing
to distract our attention when we attend to worship. The Quakers go even
further, not even a pulpit or a preacher – just silence in a white room
with light streaming through clear glass windows.

Baptism is to wash everything away which gets in the way of God for our
lives – to cleanse us of anything that could distract our attention away
from the most profound reality in our lives, a reality we too often forget.
I think we have turned away from that fascinating and terrifying reality
of the holy – I suppose we are just like Herod and all of Jerusalem in
the Epiphany reading last week, when the Magi asked about the whereabouts
of the newly born king. We have to wash away all that fear, to sit quietly
in that fascinating silence of purity, in order to attend to our ownmost
possibility. — Baptism is when we present ourselves as the beloved child
in whom the parent should be well pleased. The child must work hard for
that reality, as does the parent. Both must present themselves to each
other. The child must say, “Here I stand in the infinite possibility of
purity, ready to make my way in this world.” And the parent must be able
to say, “You stand innocently before me, my child in whom I am well pleased,
and I shall let my beloved child go forth in hope.”

Baptism is the sign of a conversion, when we strip away all that is not
conducive to the new life we have appropriated – the purity which descends
with the waters of a divine bathing. Baptism is symbolic of that absolutely
different quality of life we realise in the depths of our being upon conversion.

The depth of life in all its fullness is what we experience in these profound
existential moments, when the whole of life presents itself completely,
when we open ourselves up to the whole of life without any barriers between
self and the reality of existence. We experience our ownmost possibility
at that moment of conversion. Baptism confirms it within the tradition
in which we find ourselves, whether it is the simplicity of the silent
Quaker meeting room or the complexity of a rococo cathedral with crowds
and music swelling all around. Wherever we experience it, it is most profound,
but at the same time it is so ephemeral. It comes and overwhelms and it
leaves us exhausted and perhaps even empty.

That is the moment of danger – the moment after the exhilaration of conversion
– that period of exhaustion. What will fill that emptiness? We have worked
so very hard through our baptismal preparations, the converted now must
build a new life, taking on the new habits of virtue, forsaking a life
which may have been habitually vicious.

Did anyone listen to the Breakfast programme on Radio Three on New Year’s
Eve? Hannah French, the presenter, catalogued so many little rituals in
different places of the world. The Japanese eat “long meals” consisting
of long noodles to symbolise longevity. In other places Buddhists tone
bells in their temples to cleanse the world of bad spirits. In some of
our own churches the bellringers fired the bells at midnight to announce
the New Year’s commencement, probably for the same effect as the temple
bells in Asia.

Life is symbolic in so many ways, these signs should point us to the depth
of our lives and the heights of joy to which we should aspire. Baptism
is the moment when we should feel the weight of symbols in our lives, with
our conversion a sign which announces itself to the crowd which presses
upon us from all sides. We have to stand in that new quality of being,
shining as lights in the world where darkness attempts to overcome us.
In the baptism which reveals our conversion, we have revalued our lives,
those new lives which we offer to share with our neighbour through love,
those new lives which should say, “You are my beloved friend with whom
I am pleased.”

Amen