Author: Stilman Davis

Collect

Almighty and eternal God, you have kindled the flame of love in the hearts of the saints: grant to us the same faith and power of love, that, as we rejoice in their triumphs, we may be sustained by their example and fellowship; 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

God of glory, touch our lips with the fire of your Spirit, that we with all creation may rejoice to sing your praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Lord of heaven, in this eucharist you have brought us near to an innumerable company of angels and to the spirits of the saints made perfect: as in this food of our earthly pilgrimage we have shared their fellowship, so may we come to share their joy in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.

As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: ‘As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever.’

Daniel 7.1–3,15–18

Psalm

1    Alleluia.
O sing to the Lord a new song; ♦
sing his praise in the congregation of the faithful.

2    Let Israel rejoice in their maker; ♦
let the children of Zion be joyful in their king.

3    Let them praise his name in the dance; ♦
let them sing praise to him with timbrel and lyre.

4    For the Lord has pleasure in his people ♦
and adorns the poor with salvation.

5    Let the faithful be joyful in glory; ♦
let them rejoice in their ranks,

6    With the praises of God in their mouths ♦
and a two-edged sword in their hands;

7    To execute vengeance on the nations ♦
and punishment on the peoples;

8    To bind their kings in chains ♦
and their nobles with fetters of iron;

9    To execute on them the judgement decreed:♦
such honour have all his faithful servants.

      Alleluia.

Psalm 149

Epistle

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 1.11–23

Gospel

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.

‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.

‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.

‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.

‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.

‘Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

‘But I say to you that listen,
Love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you.

If anyone strikes you on the cheek,
offer the other also;

and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Luke 6: 20 – 31

Sermon on All Saints

I have been reading a novel this week whose main character lets her mind wander time and again throughout. On each page she goes off on a tangent – and every time it is interesting in itself, and relevant to the moment. The novel is an impression of how one can allow philosophy – or philosophical thinking – to impact on life in general and specifically. This novel has intersected very nicely with a book by a French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard.

He writes about philosophy as “reverie” – thought in the form of dreams and daydreams, thoughts rational and non-rational, which become real things in speech and art, in the playthings of poets and philosophers. The objects of reverie are not, however, children’s toys which have no consequences. Rather these items of the mind’s eye are very real and reveal more about ourselves than what we choose to announce loudly to one another. In reverie philosophers approach anything, and every single thing, openly as the novel “A Distant View of Everything” depicts. And the poets in their reverie also bring about insight of the world in which we live as they paint pictures of things in new relations which only a daydream can elicit. There can be no harm from this active imagination as these images swarm and attack the common sense of the everyday – like when we question accepted norms. At that moment of question, in that twinkling of an eye, there can only be revelation about life in all its fullness, don’t you think?

But, ‘the visions of my head can terrify me’ to paraphrase the prophet from our reading this morning. Visions are very real experiences for all of us. In reverie we open ourselves up to vision. You might think that the windows of perception are to be cleansed through the daily exercise of dreams. Or, perhaps, with Timothy Leary and his friends, you might be tempted to “Turn on; Tune in; and Drop out” with or without some synthetic help, as many cultures have done in the past, as many individuals are now doing all around us. Perhaps the visions of Leary’s dreamy sleep will become a reality, forsaking the clear sight of religion.

Religion is not the opiate Marx suggested a century ago. I say this because in religion there are often visions, like night terrors. The OT is full of the might of Jehovah over against a sin full humanity – even God’s own people quake in their sandals whenever their Lord nears. The NT describes its own view of the future with the Apocalypse appearing with dreadful power – with its power to terrify. Even our Gospel reading for today speaks of the final times and the eschatological reversal of life as we know it. – The humble being exalted, the mighty cast down to the depths, the happy saddened, the mournful joyful – nothing we ordinarily expect, is it? All the everyday aspirations of life are turned on their heads.

This revolution is one which happens in our own dreams, like the daydreams of the prophet and the poet, when the everyday is suspended and the extraordinary are realised in one’s own experience. In my philosophical reveries, I contemplate “the good life” – not that of suburban Tom’s and Barbara’s, but that of Socrates’ philosopher-king in the Republic, that state in which the wild horses of emotions are bridled to traverse a more beneficial course, where we all dwell in the ideal realm of moral righteousness.

No wonder “the visions of my head terrified me” when I returned to the everyday world of political intrigue, warfare cold and hot, open and clandestine. In the normal crowd, I find a place of secrets and lies, of falsehood and deception, the place where “they” say, “It has always been so,” and accept this wretched status quo and take no action to change what they want to find in life. We are drugged to mindless unseeing by the crowd’s everyday illusion.

This season of the year is exactly one in which “the visions of my head terrify me” for we are in the time of remembrance. I worked in France off and on for short periods and a friend kept talking about memories as ‘souvenir’. It struck me as an interesting way of thinking of what we hold in mind. This French word calls up English ‘souvenirs’, those nik-naks we can handle and rearrange, which we can man- handle and coerce into new significances which may have no relation to the event remembered. Souvenirs are reconfigured and rearranged on the shelf of memory. That French word recalls a philosopher’s state of mind. I think religious reverie and daydream attempt to make remembrance a reality, for instance that state of mercy and grace, of righteousness and holiness, where all the saints and all souls dwell – a place of heavenly reality which we expect for all creation. – Don’t we think this way in this season of remembrance?

I would suggest that remembrance is reverie on our beloved heros, personal and national. We entangle ourselves in the perceptions of the past and free ourselves for the future. We establish our own dream-time – through our reverie, our remembrance – on the reality of our lives. I would like to say, remembrance is the bedrock on which prayer is founded. Last week at the Benefice Eucharist, Mary Tucker promised to speak about prayer, so I feel obliged to mention prayer today because our congregation is divided into its separate parishes. It is not a stretch to go from the reveries of my philosopher to Mary’s prayer mode, for both actively engage with matters past and present in detail, allowing free association between the elements.

This season of remembrance allows us the time to dwell on our souvenirs. We can contemplate those memories of the past which are caught up in our lives – we can pray using our own souvenirs in reverie, for instance, the joyful smile of the beatified saint, the holy wrath of the terrifying preacher, or the hand held in the deepest of friendship’s affection. There are so many memories which can begin our prayer, and we must be aware of them as they fly past the windows of our perception, while we forget them in the dust of the attic storeroom or the clutter of the crammed basement. Wherever and in whatever condition they are, these souvenirs must be inspected and considered again. “Souvenirs” act as markers on our way, pointers which call us to reverie and prayer – that prayer that orients us in the eschaton, the time which God gives us, the time during which the mundane and profane everyday becomes an extraordinary and sacred moment, the joy of the divine in our lives. — These are the moments of true remembrance, when our reverie transforms merely existing into life in all its fullness, when, like St Paul, we pray unceasingly for others throughout the world because the saints and souls who have passed before us have allowed us to see the glory which should be universal here and now.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you: pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself, and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face; 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

Gracious God, you call us to fullness of life: deliver us from unbelief and banish our anxieties with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Jeremiah 29:1,4–7

Psalm

1    Be joyful in God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name;
sing the glory of his praise.

2    Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!
Because of your great strength your enemies shall bow before you.

3    ‘All the earth shall worship you,
sing to you, sing praise to your name.’

4    Come now and behold the works of God,
how wonderful he is in his dealings with humankind.

5    He turned the sea into dry land; the river they passed through on foot;
there we rejoiced in him.

6    In his might he rules for ever; his eyes keep watch over the nations;
let no rebel rise up against him.

7    Bless our God, O you peoples;
make the voice of his praise to be heard,

8    Who holds our souls in life
and suffers not our feet to slip.

9    For you, O God, have proved us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.

10    You brought us into the snare;
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.

11    You let enemies ride over our heads; we went through fire and water;
but you brought us out into a place of liberty.

Psalm

Epistle

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. The saying is sure:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful –
for he cannot deny himself.

Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:8–15

Gospel

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

Luke 17:11–19

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 17

Here are the words of the alternate collect for today:

Gracious God, you call us to fullness of life: deliver us from unbelief and banish our anxieties with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

I would like to consider these words because there are so many ideas and longings expressed in them. Let us start at the beginning, when we call upon God. Here we describe God as “gracious” – but just what do we mean by a gracious God? How does grace enter our lives? Is it as amazing as the hymn has it? Does grace enter our dark lives with resplendent light? Does grace embolden us in our fear? Does grace strengthen the weary? Does grace bring about the reversal of all things at the final trumpet call when the beatitudes are realised? – when the poor become rich, the low lifted high, the sorrowful made glad? Is this grace more than we can expect in our lives, when everyone becomes blessed? I think all those hopes and fears are called to mind as we address our “Gracious God”, don’t you?

Amongst the maelstrom of grace, we see that we are called to “the fullness of life” – the heart of the bishop’s call to “LIFE” in her vision for the diocese and the church here in this place. We proclaim this gracious God has taken us over wholly and fills us completely. This call from God to the fullness of life is like calling upon our gracious God, isn’t it? Isn’t the call of our gracious God fraught with more difficult things than comfortable? Don’t we begin to question the excesses of our everyday expectations when we start to delve into the fullness of life? Even our celebrations of harvest last week were double edged, weren’t they? Didn’t we wonder about greed amongst plenty as we offered to God from our bounty which we donated to charity?

The fullness of life is not just about the things we have gathered around ourselves physically, is it? No, it is also the fullness of our mental life, wherein we appreciate the riches of a developed sense of self, where generosity and kindness evolve, where each of us comes to appreciate the other as the completion of him or her self. The sense of the world in which we live is more than an egocentric self, the mental health of the individual finds expression in the sociality of the person, of all the others round about each of us. This health can be seen in both negative and positive expressions. Covid and lockdown propelled our understanding of the extremes of good and ill mental health, haven’t they?

The fullness of life gives us our mental health but fullness of life, more importantly, is about the spirit. The Church has taken up the spirit as its own preserve, hasn’t it? The Church uses an extensive language of the spirit.

However, saying that the Church has its own spiritual vocabulary is not enough, is it? – We have to ask ourselves, what is ‘the spirit’ for us? For the moment, let us say the spirit is the expression of the whole of the individual. Body and mind are united in this transcendence which we call ‘the spirit’. In our prayers for others we often pray for their health in body, mind and spirit, don’t we? We are ever finding fulfilment in those intentions we have, as we hope and plan, as we enter the future, whether it be just a moment ahead or generations hence. Those intentions speak of that spirit within us, but we also find them in our recollections of the past as we knit the whole of time together in our consciousness. The spirit is our transcendent self, the self which retains and intends to make sense of life in all its fullness in time and space.

With the address to the gracious God and the acknowledgement of our final cause, if I may use that philosophical language, we have stated our hope – that life will be perfected in fullness. Then we move to the second part of the prayer, the petition – ‘deliver us from unbelief and banish our anxieties’. This is the hardest part of our prayer.

Normally we might say that we are calling for complete certainty. But I don’t think that is the case. Unbelief is not doubt, it is the opposite of belief, its negation. Even though I believe my dog loves me, there are moments when I wonder, especially when he takes off after an interesting sniff. I still believe, but there is a doubt when a treat from a stranger is more engaging than me.

It is not unbelief, is it? My belief underlies all my actions, even when there are moments which are pretty tricky. There are moments when my belief is confused, but never is there UNbelief, rather there is distraction and doubt. I am sure we have all experienced that, haven’t we? Yet still we return to the bedrock of our belief.

In our journey back we are anxious, though, aren’t we? Don’t the shadows stretch into our minds? Don’t we feel it is all too much for such a poor sinner who is awaiting the approach of that amazing grace? Anxiety is nothing new, we have lived with it since we became adults. We have been confronted with wars, cold and hot. We have been thrust into a world of ambiguity where anxiety rules. (Just think of everything we should be praying about and influencing with those petitions to God.) At the edge of the abyss, where we find ourselves all too often, especially when we have glimpsed grace in our lives, on that limit of life in all its fullness, we experience everything in a whirl, don’t we? We are in the midst of anxiety before it resolves itself into salvation and our vision of the divine.

How does this anxiety become amazing grace in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye? We are in a state of discomposure, for that maelstrom of our experience lifts us up out of banality and into a very living world. Nothing can prepare us for it. Nothing ever will. We are excited, brought to life ‘with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord’. As in the first embrace of your beloved, the world is transformed, unbelief and anxiety are banished. All strain, physical and mental, dissipate. We have become ‘spiritual’ beings in that moment of love. We are free from all those awful additives of everyday life which the crowd forces upon us. We stand alone invigorated, and willing and able to transform all around us.

‘The liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord’ brings us into the orbit of our gracious God where we are saved from the absence of belief and the void of anxiety, where fullness of life is the whole of our experience.

And so our prayer begins and ends in the loving grace of God within the great congregation – with that great

Amen

Collect

Almighty God, whose only Son has opened for us a new and living way into your presence: give us pure hearts and steadfast wills to worship you in spirit and in truth; 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

Merciful God, your Son came to save us and bore our sins on the cross: may we trust in your mercy and know your love, rejoicing in the righteousness that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,

   my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people

   from far and wide in the land:

‘Is the Lord not in Zion?

   Is her King not in her?’

(‘Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,

   with their foreign idols?’)

‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

   and we are not saved.’

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,

   I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

 

Is there no balm in Gilead?

   Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people

   not been restored?

 

O that my head were a spring of water,

   and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night

   for the slain of my poor people!

Jeremiah 8.18 – 9.1

 

1  O God, the heathen have come into your heritage;

   your holy temple have they defiled

      and made Jerusalem a heap of stones.

2  The dead bodies of your servants they have given

      to be food for the birds of the air,

   and the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the field.

3  Their blood have they shed like water

      on every side of Jerusalem,

   and there was no one to bury them.

4  We have become the taunt of our neighbours,

   the scorn and derision of those that are round about us.

5  Lord, how long will you be angry, for ever?

   How long will your jealous fury blaze like fire?

6  Pour out your wrath upon the nations that have not known you,

   and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name.

7  For they have devoured Jacob

   and laid waste his dwelling place.

8  Remember not against us our former sins;

   let your compassion make haste to meet us,

      for we are brought very low.

9  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name;

   deliver us, and wipe away our sins for your name’s sake.

Psalm 79:1–7

Gospel

Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’

Luke 16.1–13

Remembering promises made

I vow to thee, my country

I vow to thee, my country

All earthly things above

Entire and whole and perfect

The service of my love

The love that asks no questions

The love that stands the test

That lays upon the altar

The dearest and the best

The love that never falters

The love that pays the price

The love that makes undaunted

The final sacrifice

And there’s another country

I’ve heard of long ago

Most dear to them that love her

Most great to them that know

We may (we may not count her armies)

We may (we may not see her King)

Her fortress is a faithful heart

Her pride is suffering

And soul by soul and silently

Her shining bounds increase

And her ways are ways of gentleness

And all her paths are peace

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 14

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,

   my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people

   from far and wide in the land:

Don’t these verses apply today? We mourn the death of the head of our state. The past few days have been full of reminiscences of the sovereign in an attempt to console ourselves.

We are in the midst of mourning for the most beloved of servants, Queen Elizabeth II. We all agree that she was the shining example of selfless service for the country. Many have told stories of meeting the Queen, and they acknowledge that the Queen had been true to her pledge of a life dedicated to caring for her people – so many have related examples of her care as she looked into their eyes. I think this also came across in all of her Christmass messages as our gazes met at the television screen.

The Queen has served us all – reigning in our hearts because she cared about each and every person she met.

The Queen is dead. Long live the King!

We now have a new national anthem. Now shouldn’t we speak of a new Carolingian Age, just as we spoke of the second Elizabethan Age in 1952? The epoch of King Charles the Third has begun. What will be the hallmarks of his reign? Charles has promised the same service to country which his mother pronounced seventy years ago and she repeated in the midst of her reign at a Jubilee. Will this Charles be a new Charlemagne? Will we call him Charles the Great? Will there be a renewal of the arts and crafts? Will there be a flourishing of scholarship and knowledge in the universities and schools? Will mercy temper justice? Will each of us attain a personal righteousness while Charles reigns over this country?

I certainly hope so. For the sake of the peace of the world, I pray that his rule will flourish with honesty and truth. I say, let there be an end to the sharp practices of the past, may the law serve all for the sake of righteousness and mercy. These are the thoughts I have as I mourn the passing of the late Queen and welcome the new King into my life.

The prophet mourns his country in our reading, but he asks most pertinent questions,

    Is there no balm in Gilead?

   Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people

   not been restored?

What is the balm in the Gilead of this country? Who is to be our physician here and now? In this broad context of national mourning, we are looking to the King, aren’t we? We ask along with the prophet, Why do we lack true health, the wellness of body and mind, the strength of soul? We wonder as we wander along the route of the funeral cortege with the television coverage. I think we are all in a deep shock – we are not thinking straight, if at all.

So let’s turn that around. Let us start anew by thinking about the physician and the healing balm, just as the prophet does in our reading. What does a good doctor do when you visit him, or when she visits you? I think it is like Androcles and the Lion. The doctor approaches with sympathy and care, observing your pain and offers a little something to take away your hurt, something to start you on your way to a true health. Then he, like Androlocles, takes away the thorn which is sticking in you with a magic potion, that pill which is the silver bullet to solve all ills.

But is that really the healing of the nations? Doesn’t the doctor do something else? She allows you to be yourself again. When you get that, there is true health. It is not just about the extraordinary pill – the physician is treating the whole person. You remember Dr House on the television, don’t you? He was rather cynical and said all his patients lied to him. When they stopped deceiving themselves and told the truth, then they began the healing process. Of course, he was brilliant with his alchemical offerings, but the turn-around always came when the patient was able to speak truthfully about him- or her- self, when the patient did not hold onto an image of self which did not correspond to how the patient appeared before the doctors who were stumped by a set of symptoms gathered together in the life of the patient.

That Lion Androlocles healed was in the same situation. He was beyond all his handlers could do with their given methods, methods which did not include sitting quietly to see just what was wrong, waiting silently for the Lion to show just what the problem was.

The modern Hippocrates should take a leaf out of this fable. The doctor needs to give time and empathy with the hurt person. Hippocrates also said the first maxim for the doctor is “Do no harm.” What harm could there possibly be when the doctor sits and listens to the person before them?

Don’t we all want to be healed in this way? Isn’t the true balm of Gilead that caring silence of the other? It may be that the quiet solicitude of the doctor is all we need in the age of the instant, in this electronic age when apps are the fullest extent of our attention.

I look forward to seeing the eye of the King through the medium of television – I hope to catch the care he will offer to his loyal subjects. The balm is there but will all the physicians dispense it? This is not just a metaphorical question – the NHS is at the heart of so much of our worry, let alone the economy. Or shall we despair with the prophet about the restoration of the health of the people?

Will the physicians of this modern Gilead distribute the balm of healing on the people who are in such dire need of their help? We must ask the dishonest steward of the gospel reading this question, “where is the balm for Gilead?” He was entrusted in a small matter by his master, and he failed. Consequently, every one of us suffers as a result. Who will be worthy of great tasks?

I have been to two funerals this week, and this question of confidence was a very important theme. So many had confidence in the person whose life we celebrated, and we mourned wholeheartedly because of their impact on us. They were the people upon whom tasks great and small could be thrust. They were people in whom confidence has been entrusted. But they are gone now. Who will take their place? Who will be the physicians dispensing the balm to us now? I pray that King Charles, the head of the Church, will distribute that healing medicine.

Amen

Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray and to give more than either we desire or deserve: pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask but through the merits and mediation of 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

God of constant mercy, who sent your Son to save us: remind us of your goodness, increase your grace within us, that our thankfulness may grow, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

God of all mercy, in this eucharist you have set aside our sins and given us your healing: grant that we who are made whole in Christ may bring that healing to this broken world, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

Jeremiah 18:1–11

Psalm

1    Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked,
nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the assembly of the scornful.

2    Their delight is in the law of the Lord
and they meditate on his law day and night.

3    Like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither,
whatever they do, it shall prosper.

4    As for the wicked, it is not so with them;
they are like chaff which the wind blows away.

5    Therefore the wicked shall not be able to stand in the judgement,
nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous.

6    For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked shall perish.

Psalm 1

Epistle

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in your house:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith towards the Lord Jesus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.

For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love – and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother – especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

Philemon 1–21

Gospel

Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Luke 14.25–33

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 12

Last Sunday we said goodbye to Bill Boon. I think we are mourning his departure from the benefice. We have been anticipating his leaving for over a month in different ways. But now that he has left, we are bereft. Alone. And feeling our inadequacy. I myself have failed you this morning, for I have not arranged any music. So I too am in mourning. — What biblical story does all this remind you of? (Don’t worry, I had to look it up too – it comes from the gospel of John.) I am tempted to compare our experience of Bill’s departure with that of the disciples when Jesus set his face to Jerusalem, when Jesus told them in the Farewell Discourse that he was leaving them, that he was going away to the Father, that death awaited him in Jerusalem and he had to go. Don’t you think the disciples feared his departure, just as we fear for the future of the benefice?

Absence is what strikes us so palpably when we think about the vacancy in the parish. We will be without an assigned leader. We thrash about asking questions in this “inter regnum” – What are we to do? Who will tell us what we ought to do? Who will take over all those things that were automatically done in the Sharpness vicarage? So many questions are raised about the future and how our lives will be affected. – Jesus said in that story from John, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Bill also said this from time to time as well, even before he announced his own departure from us. – This gives me pause for thought – matters philosophical and theological flood into my mind and I have to ask myself difficult questions – what is the most important problem of life really? – is it making money or having a nice home? Do we pursue something intangible when we struggle for meaning in life? Should we consider our intention to grasp others lovingly in our lives? Do we reach for the divine?

When we stand at the cliff edge of absence, we are forced to confront those questions, aren’t we? These are the questions the Danish theologian Kierkegaard raised over a century ago. He wrote about the existential angst of absence. He was perplexed by the utter loneliness of being a human being. The usual perception of this quandary is totally at odds with those words Jesus used in his Farewell Discourse, “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

In my first class at university, the teacher said, “Philosophy must first consider death.” – that ultimate moment of being alone, by that abyss Kierkegaard describes. Jesus says in the gospel this morning –

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

What do you think this means? On one level I think it points to our alienation from family and friends, estrangement from the life we all consider normal. Another aspect is the self-loathing of the ascetic, when we really don’t like ourselves at all. Another way to look at it is the solitary life which is bound to the cross. I think it can also be seen as the moment when the child becomes a singular individual, when we become mature adults. Doesn’t Jesus embrace this loneliness of faithfulness completely when he turns his face to Jerusalem?

Let’s consider Good Friday explicitly, when our Lord gave himself up to the hands of sinful men to reveal the power of God in life here and now. – I would like to say that the crucifixion of Jesus does call on all of us to confront the imminence of death so that we understand what life in all its fullness truly is. Here and now we are alive and the object of our faith has to be seen through the prism of the cross. We read in the Gospel of John, when Jesus was lifted up, when he had irrevocably gone away, then he reveals the glory of God, that he has healed the world.

I begin to wonder whether we ever take that statement seriously. Do we understand that, when Jesus was nailed to the wooden beam and roughly raised to hang in the blistering sun –that the glory of God is radiating out from the agony of that ignominious death, a death reserved for the most heinous of criminals, a death forced on men who were the lowest of the low, men held in contempt by all because of their crimes against what we all consider the normal life?

Imagine that! We human beings pass judgement on and murder the incarnation of the divine in one of the most painful and wicked ways possible, an utter destruction devised by people just like you and me. But it is transformed against all expectation by our perception. Instead of showing how wretched humanity can behave towards itself, the cross becomes the wonder of salvation. Jesus shows us life in all its fullness as the glory of God, even as it ends in his own crucifixion. We must remind ourselves that the cross becomes the way to understand life.  Jesus has foreseen the manner of his death as a revelation for those who have eyes to see. As he undergoes the end of his life, alone and solitary, offering himself up for others, he silently declares the meaning of a life lived in all its fullness.

The Church says he died for me. For the wretch I consider myself to be, just as the hymn “Amazing Grace” explicitly says. For me, who once was blind but now I see just what that death is. – It is mine own. It is up to me to live life in all its fullness, so that when I have passed others might be blessed by my spending time with them – that is something we all hope, don’t we?

Yesterday as I drove home from enjoying myself for the day, I listened to a J B Priestley play on Radio 4extra. As I heard it unfold, I was forced to consider our topic for today, our hopes for those who come after, the stuff of that Farewell Discourse from the Gospel of John.

I know that we have been blessed by the presence of Bill Boon in the last quarter century. — However, now he is absent. We must take the lessons he taught and make them our own. Bill taught us that we can stand on our own, that we can live out the christian virtues and avoid the vices which populate the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. Bill was only repeating Jesus’ words – he says to the generations, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” These words of Jesus should put our minds at rest, even if we think we hate our parents and siblings. We need to let all that pass away until we can stand alone and free, on the edge of Kierkegaard’s abyss.

Each one of us must struggle with that most important of philosophical problems with the same candour and passion of Jesus, just as we have to deal with the mundane decisions of our day to day lives. Whether they are large or small choices, we have to consider every moment of our time as life in all its fullness. In other words, I think each of us must contemplate the divine and come to terms with the sacred for ourselves. Each of us stands alone at that decision of faith, and we stand there at any – and every – moment of our lives.

Amen

Collect

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: graft in our hearts the love of your name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of your great mercy keep us in the same; 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

Generous God, you give us gifts and make them grow: though our faith is small as mustard seed, make it grow to your glory and the flourishing of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Lord God, whose Son is the true vine and the source of life, ever giving himself that the world may live: may we so receive within ourselves the power of his death and passion that, in his saving cup, we may share his glory and be made perfect in his love; for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Readings

Old Testament

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me – and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labours under the sun, because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 1.2,12–14; 2.18–23

Psalm

1    Hear this, all you peoples;
listen, all you that dwell in the world,

2    You of low or high degree,
both rich and poor together.

3    My mouth shall speak of wisdom
and my heart shall meditate on understanding.

4    I will incline my ear to a parable;
I will unfold my riddle with the lyre.

5    Why should I fear in evil days,
when the malice of my foes surrounds me,

6    Such as trust in their goods
and glory in the abundance of their riches?

7    For no one can indeed ransom another
or pay to God the price of deliverance.

8    To ransom a soul is too costly;
there is no price one could pay for it,

9    So that they might live for ever,
and never see the grave.

10    For we see that the wise die also; with the foolish and ignorant they perish
and leave their riches to others.

11    Their tomb is their home for ever, their dwelling through all generations,
though they call their lands after their own names.

12    Those who have honour, but lack understanding,
are like the beasts that perish.

Psalm 49.1–12

Epistle

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things – anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

Colossians 3.1–11

Gospel

Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

Luke 12.13–21

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 7

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Teacher, “All is vanity.”

We all know this saying, don’t we? We quote it when everything seems absurd, when we feel there is no sense to events around us. We express this sentiment when we are alienated from everything that once made life worth living – when we experience confusion – when we wonder why everything seems to be a chasing after wind. This, I would say, is universally human.

What is the context of this very well known quotation? I would like to take a step into Biblical Studies to think about what is called “Wisdom Literature” – and the book of Ecclesiastes from which we read this morning, is an example of this type of writing. It is not prophetic like Amos or Isaiah, nor is it history like the book of Kings or Exodus. It is not anything like the poetry of the Psalms – even though it does express itself poetically – unlike the Psalms, Ecclesiastes does not speak about God in terms of praise and thanksgiving. Rather, its purpose is like that of the book of Job – to find sense, a book in which we find very human questions expressed in simply comprehensible language. In Job, for instance, the very human problem of suffering is the focus of the whole book. Wisdom literature gives voice to the questions each of us has about the whence and whither of time and life, more often it turns to the existential question “Why? – why is there being and not nothing?” a question the philosopher asks so pointedly.

These questions confront us in those very human moments of wondering doubt, when we consider life in the concrete terms of our lives, when we question everything, especially where life in all its fullness has disappeared. Don’t we ask ourselves, “Is everything in life just our own vanity over against the world?” Our readings both ask why we do things, don’t they? – Questions, questions, questions, none of which seem to have anything to do with our everyday routine. All these questions, the majority of people don’t address at any point in their everyday lives. Perhaps they do toward the end, at retirement or in hospital in the course of a long illness, like those deathbed confessions of belief we heard of in school. We do ask these questions when there is a crisis. There is, however, no one to reply when we voice our doubts in the blackness of the dark night, as each of us stands at the edge of a decision of conscience – the choice between life in all it fullness or not, as that wonderful Welsh hymn sings, “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.”

This hardly known wisdom literature has been remembered and stored in the Bible to help us in these moments of dread. However, it is not at the front and centre of the great festivals of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Rather, and I think more appropriately, the books of the wisdom literature are to be found in this great green season of Trinity – in other words, we find wisdom in “ordinary” time.

The Teacher spends all her hours in ordinary time. She wonders about the everyday and its implications for the Good, what is right, what is moral. The philosopher cogitates and eventually comes to a conclusion which everyone agrees, “is so obvious”. We all know, as Socrates was quick to elicit in his dialogues, just what we know to be good. But the philosopher wants to know why we consider this or that better than something else. – Don’t we also? Don’t we want to know with certainty why this is the Good in our lives so we might pursue it with a clear conscience vigorously? Don’t we want to live that examined life?

However, when we start on this train of self-discovery, don’t we get confused? Don’t we want to surrender our ticket and get off this express to confusion? The conformity of the everyday is much more comforting than moral certainty, much more easy than standing alone in righteousness. The express train to clarity is a singular journey, one that can be  perilously lonely. To be honest, it seems to be a trip everyone avoids, many call it a train to nowhere. We “blunder in confusion”, as the Cagdwith Anthem sings out, as we consider the vanities of our lives.

I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me – and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?

The Teacher is non-plussed by everything around her, she asks about life and its vanity, whether all we want and do exposes our wisdom or our foolishness. Another philosopher calls life “short and brutish”, reflecting on all that hated toil undertaken in the heat of the sun, a heat we now know since we have suffered those 40°
temperatures.

We should all become pupils of this Teacher as she asks about the everyday in order to expose those deeper meanings, as the philosopher examines through the broken hammer. We all question when our worlds are torn apart by the broken-ness of something we rely on in our everyday lives. The teacher and the philosopher agree that wisdom must be pursued in order to banish vanity.

We experience this vanity now, don’t we? We see the four horsemen of the apocalypse charging through what we thought was an ordered life of commerce and ordinariness. The events of the past six months have disabused us of that vanity, haven’t they? The wars and rumours of wars of that horseman since the end of World War II should have made us question our everyday assumptions. The horseman of plagues has ridden through our lives. Covid should have put an end to our vain thoughts of what is “normal” – and yet here we are confused and asking the questions our Teacher has already posed in this wisdom literature. The horseman of famine has reared up lately, hasn’t he? And now everyone can see that final horseman of death riding the skies threatening everything people have built up. We can understand the book of Revelations quite clearly now, can’t we? – Our Lord has posed the questions as our Teacher. The four horsemen, I believe can be seen as the background for the parable of the rich man and his barns. It reflects the vanity of our ordinary way of life. That man builds barns larger and larger and yet in vain, for that very night he was taken. So it is with all of us. We fasten our claws onto the ephemeral in the vain hope that they will be eternal and, despairing, we see them pass away. We have not learned from the Teacher, have we? Are we aware of what wisdom has taught? As a society, have we heard the lessons from Wisdom herself? Whether it is from the bible or another world religion? whether it is from the Buddha or Mohammed? whether Ecclesiastes or from the lips of Jesus. Have we listened?

Let us have those eyes to see and those ears to hear what wisdom teaches are the real prizes, the reality in which we comprehend life in all its fullness as our own.

Amen

Collect

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that with you as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal; grant this, heavenly Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Gracious Father, by the obedience of Jesus you brought salvation to our wayward world: draw us into harmony with your will, that we may find all things restored in him, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Post Communion

Eternal God, comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken, you have fed us at the table of life and hope: teach us the ways of gentleness and peace, that all the world may acknowledge the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb-line.’ Then the Lord said,

‘See, I am setting a plumb-line
in the midst of my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by;

the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.’

Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the very centre of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said,

    “Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.” ’

And Amaziah said to Amos, ‘O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’

Then Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

    ‘Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.
You say, “Do not prophesy against Israel,
and do not preach against the house of Isaac.”

Therefore, thus says the Lord:

    “Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
and your land shall be parcelled out by line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.” ’

Amos 7.7–17

Psalm

1    God has taken his stand in the council of heaven;
in the midst of the gods he gives judgement:

2    ‘How long will you judge unjustly
and show such favour to the wicked?

3    ‘You were to judge the weak and the orphan;
defend the right of the humble and needy;

4    ‘Rescue the weak and the poor;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

5    ‘They have no knowledge or wisdom; they walk on still in darkness:
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6    ‘Therefore I say that though you are gods
and all of you children of the Most High,

7    ‘Nevertheless, you shall die like mortals
and fall like one of their princes.’

8    Arise, O God and judge the earth,
for it is you that shall take all nations for your possession.

Psalm 82

Epistle

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1.1–14

Gospel

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Luke 10.25–37

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 4

“With you as our ruler and guide may we so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal.”

These words should always be at the forefront of our minds. What exactly are these “things eternal”? Or would it be easier to catalogue the “things temporal” so that we don’t get bogged down in them as we make our way through them to those eternal?

The philosopher takes this latter approach when he talks of the significance of life in the world. He examines a broken hammer in order to see what our Collect prayer calls “the temporal”. The broken hammer puts the world into focus, because it is broken, it fragments our environment into its  constituent parts precisely because nothing works as expected. Since nothing is “normal”, everything has to be examined, piece by piece, down to the smallest detail.

He examines his world broken down to the most minute element. To the extent that only colour perception remains. He has deconstructed the world so radically that everything becomes ephemeral. But he does not remain in that state for long, because he realises that existence does not merely consist of perception, though it does dawn on us through it. The philosopher then goes on to examine why the world is as it is by considering what glues it all together.

He glues everything together by asking about “intentionality”. – He asks, “how do we relate to the objects of experience?” When we look at those sensory data we interpret as a table, we intend that it has height, depth, colour, solidity and endurance – in other words, we know it doesn’t disappear when we turn our backs on it. What do we really want to remain, when we are away from it? This becomes a very interesting question, doesn’t it? What do we really expect to be enduring? What is eternal? Is it the table? Is it this building? My friends? My loved ones? What do we want never to pass away?

Our reading from Colossians intimates the enduring in our relations with other people, specifically he speaks of the hope we have for them, the love they have shown to us and others, our love toward them, the grace of God which has been shared between us all. These are the moments we remember in our lives, aren’t they? We think these are the most important aspects of life. Love is that greatest of all things, as Paul rhapsodises in one of his other letters. Love is that intention in life beyond all others. It drives us through everything. Love is what endures. Love is not ephemeral.

Jesus speaks more prosaically about that eternal verity through a parable – the good Samaritan. This person shows the lasting nature of love and compassion in a very practical way. The Samaritan has opened himself up to the other in a way that the lawyer and the priest did not, by taking him in hand. He has given aid and succour to an unknown man, a stranger injured and lying by the side of the road. He has not passed by on the other side.

This parable is one of the most poignant in the sayings of Jesus, isn’t it? Everyone knows what you mean when you say “the good Samaritan”, don’t they? Many have preached on it at length and with more insight than I, so I would encourage you to look for them. Googling “the meaning of the parable of the good samaritan” could start you off with a magnificent list of things to read.

However, for the moment, I think the parable is about what is eternal in our lives. The ephemeral is not mentioned at all. After all, we don’t hear about he hunt for the brigands as in a murder mystery. We don’t hear what medical attention was required, or how much money he had to ultimately stump up. We don’t hear about all the nursing lavished on this sad and injured man either. The story of how the beaten man recovered is not related. Rather we hear about what makes the story real.

All we hear about is the care the Samaritan gave to this stranger who had been left for dead, lying on the road. The Samaritan took him up and ensured he was loved. The injured man was to be given the opportunity to heal amongst professionals, people paid to look after him. We don’t hear about the everyday details, those prosaic facts of washing and swaddling in his absence, but he must have come back to examine the object of his pitying love. He must have judged those professionals by the state of the man after they had treated his wounds. Imagine his wrath if the poor man was in a worse state than when he left originally!

We have to think we ourselves might be those professionals in our own time! We have been given the responsibility to care for each other – isn’t that what Jesus commands? “Love one another as you love your self.” What judgement will he make on us when he comes again in his glory? What judgement do we make upon ourselves, when we consider our behaviour towards our loved ones? But more telling is what judgement we make upon ourselves when we reflect on how we have behaved toward the stranger. I would say the stranger reveals what our eternal values are. Do we open our hearts and purses when we meet any stranger in dire straits? Do we close our hands into a fist to hold on to those things we consider so important in the everyday – do we grasp money and possessions with a passion we don’t show to people? Do we shake our fists at them? Have we closed our hands around the ephemeral at the expense of the eternal?

Paul’s letter to the Colossians speaks to what is lasting in life. He begins to extol their love toward the saints because of their hope, which begins with their understanding of the word of the gospel.

Paul prays for the Colossians, that they may continue to “lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work”. There is a marvellous literature about the fruits of the spirit we’ll leave for another time. But those worthy lives show the command of the Lord in action, loving one another.

That love is an openness which reveals just what is eternal. When we open our hands and hearts, we reveal just what can pass through our fingers. Such things are not what defines our lives. When we open our hands and hearts, we reveal what we hold dear, what we consider lasting. We show our love. We show that we want to be in that eternal relationship of caritas – agape when hands stretch out without that ephemeral grasping, rather when hands stretch out opened with eternal love.

Amen

Collect

Almighty and eternal God, who, for the firmer foundation of our faith, allowed your holy apostle Thomas to doubt the resurrection of your Son till word and sight convinced him: grant to us, who have not seen, that we also may believe and so confess Christ as our Lord and our God; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion

Almighty God, who on the day of Pentecost sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame, filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel: by the power of the same Spirit strengthen us to witness to your truth and to draw everyone to the fire of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(or)

Lord God, the source of truth and love, keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, united in prayer and the breaking of bread, and one in joy and simplicity of heart, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

I will stand at my watch-post,

    and station myself on the rampart;

    I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,

    and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

    Write the vision;

    make it plain on tablets,

    so that a runner may read it.

For there is still a vision for the appointed time;

    it speaks of the end, and does not lie.

If it seems to tarry, wait for it;

    it will surely come, it will not delay.

Look at the proud!

    Their spirit is not right in them,

    but the righteous live by their faith.

Habakkuk 2.1–4

Psalm

1    In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; let me never be put to shame;

    deliver me in your righteousness.

2    Incline your ear to me;

    make haste to deliver me.

3    Be my strong rock, a fortress to save me, for you are my rock and my stronghold;

    guide me, and lead me for your name’s sake.

4    Take me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me,

    for you are my strength.

5    Into your hands I commend my spirit,

    for you have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.

6    I hate those who cling to worthless idols;

    I put my trust in the Lord.

Psalm 31

Epistle

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.

Ephesians 2.19–end

Gospel

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

John 20.24–29

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 3

Thomas is mentioned among the number of the apostles in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke but it is in John’s gospel that his significance is revealed. First, he is heard encouraging the other disciples to go to Judea with Jesus; then, not knowing what Jesus meant when he talked about where he was to go elicited the answer that Jesus was himself the Way. But probably most famously he was the apostle notably unconvinced by reports of the resurrection of Jesus, causing Jesus to show him the marks in his hands and side. Thomas then acclaims the risen Christ with the words that have been described as the great climax to John’s gospel: ‘My Lord and my God!’

These few remarks are from a resource called “Exciting Holiness” which is linked with the lectionary. It is rather a scant record for one of the Disciples, don’t you think? I imagine we would all like to know more about a follower of Jesus – a lesson we might learn, something which might further us in our life of faith. To that end, I cast my net further, first of all going to my favourite book of the saints, The Golden Legend. Then I took the plunge into Wikipedia. Both of these resources told me of a lot of things “Exciting Holiness” did not mention.

What do we remember about Thomas Didymos? Whom do we recall with the name, Doubting Thomas, a name which appears on everyone’s lips when they are afraid that they have no faith in miracle stories? Or often when used accusingly amongst the faithful when someone asks a question about a long-held doctrine. Even my wife calls me doubting Thomas when I wonder about what she is saying. “O ye of little faith” is another trope she throws at me in those moments.

Who do you remember when we talk of Thomas? Is it only Thomas, the doubter? Or Thomas the disciple who wandered all the way to India? Do you know about the Gospel of Thomas? Have you heard him called “the Theologian”? These are some of the other aspects of Thomas which appeared as I prepared for this morning. What do you remember about Thomas? But let’s take side step. There is a more general point that I want to emphasise. We all remember one thing about other people, don’t we? Especially strangers, or mere acquaintances. This is a natural coping mechanism. It is easier for us to deal with a one-dimensional character than to deal with someone as complex and complicated as our brother or sister. But who knows? – maybe we reduce our loved ones to one thing or another in order to be rid of any problems their complexity causes us. It is true, we do simplify our relations with other people in order to function more easily in our increasingly perplexing world, especially as we participate with others more and more.

It is easier for me to put my sister in a pigeon-hole and let her stay there while I go about my day-to-day business, isn’t it? I have put my brother in a particular category, he remains there and so he does not mess me about at all. But is that right? I should by rights want to know more about their complexity and the whole of their lives, shouldn’t I? If I put them in that box, they can never blossom, and I will never know about their own very interesting lives. – Just as they will never know about mine, and we both lose so much.

That is exactly what the parable of the good Samaritan teaches. We gain so much by giving of our selves to others when we allow ourselves to take them out of their pigeon-holes. We can watch them fly away, and perhaps fly with them, if we want. The stranger in our midst offers us this possible experience, doesn’t she? She is mysterious, she is not the usual, she breaks all the everyday expectations. The stranger may smell funny – an aftershave we don’t know anything about or like, the lingering scent from last night’s meal, chips or a curry, perhaps his bad breath. So many singular aspects to the stranger can be the defining of who he or she is to us – the reduction of the stranger or loved one to just one thing. We have to ask: is that right?

No, we all agree that it is not right, but it is practical and it happens all the time. It allows us to move on from this one encounter with another. The philosopher deals with this as one of the fundamentals of existence, calling it “the problem of intersubjectivity.” In other words, how can we deal with the other person? How can we deal with Thomas? Should we only call him “the doubter”?

Let’s consider some of the more interesting bits I picked up from my medieval source book. Let’s just start with the name, Thomas Didymos. Didymos means twin. We never hear about his brother, do we? Or it is his twin sister? What is their relationship? Often we make the joke about our “evil twin” when we have done something bad – we say, “Oh, it wasn’t me, it was my evil twin,” in order to absolve ourselves of blame. Perhaps this  twin we attribute to Thomas is merely his alter ego? Or is it an explanation of someone being in two minds? Does this help us understand why the story of Thomas’ doubting appears in the gospel? Perhaps it might help us understand ourselves, when we are doubtful about something.

A more positive interpretation of his name is this: “because he deserved to pierce the deepness of divinity” The questions which Thomas’ doubt raised impels him into the mysteries of the incarnation or maybe he anticipates the philosopher’s intersubjectivity. Thomas elicits Jesus’ revelation, “I am the way, truth, and life.” So we have to say doubt is not the awful thing we normally consider it. Doubt, rather, drives us to truth.

Imagine if Thomas did not doubt – he would never have known the real person of Jesus: he would never have said that ultimate, “My Lord and my God!” would he? Thomas would have have pigeon- holed Jesus as “that strange character” and none of us would have heard Jesus’ revelation of himself as “the way, the truth, and the life.”

Thomas’ doubt drives him into his other mind. No longer is he in two minds, but he is a singular person with many facets.

We must learn more about Thomas, just as we should learn more about one another. This is the mark of agape the highest of christian aspirations, love. We may start with just one aspect of the person staring at us, but that facet allows us to look in and see many other perspectives in and through their eyes.

Let’s take the one aspect we know and open up Thomas the Twin’s life for ourselves. Let’s take Thomas out of his pigeon hole and learn about the value of his doubt in every aspect of life. When we can experience the infinite variety of life through this one aspect of Thomas, we might be able to do so with anyone who comes into our lives. We can experience the majesty of life in all its fullness in the travelling stranger in our midst, if only we would let that stranger fly into our lives.

Amen

Collect

Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth: send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, the true bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whoever lives is counted dead before you. Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Faithful Creator, whose mercy never fails: deepen our faithfulness to you and to your living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion

Loving Father, we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son: sustain us with your Spirit, that we may serve you here on earth until our joy is complete in heaven, and we share in the eternal banquet with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was ploughing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Go back again; for what have I done to you?’ He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

1 Kings 19.15–16,19–21

Psalm

1    Preserve me, O God, for in you have I taken refuge;
I have said to the Lord, ‘You are my lord, all my good depends on you.’

2    All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land,
upon those who are noble in heart.

3    Though the idols are legion that many run after,
their drink offerings of blood I will not offer,
neither make mention of their names upon my lips.

4    The Lord himself is my portion and my cup;
in your hands alone is my fortune.

5    My share has fallen in a fair land;
indeed, I have a goodly heritage.

6    I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel,
and in the night watches he instructs my heart.

7    I have set the Lord always before me;
he is at my right hand; I shall not fall.

8    Wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices;
my flesh also shall rest secure.

9    For you will not abandon my soul to Death,
nor suffer your faithful one to see the Pit.

10    You will show me the path of life; in your presence is the fullness of joy
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

Psalm 16

Epistle

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Galatians 5.1,13–25

Gospel

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’

Luke 9.51–62

Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 2

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ … ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

“Let the dead bury the dead,” is a saying everyone knows, and we have sometimes even used it ourselves, haven’t we? But this contrasts starkly with what we read in the OT.

Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Go back again; for what have I done to you?’

Elijah allows Elisha to go home and say good bye to his parents. In fact, I think you could say he actually encourages Elisha to do so with his words, “What have I done for you?” He has only thrown his mantle over him. What difference does that make? What significance could that have? I think the importance is in the fact that Elisha needs to make a clean break, just as the disciples do. Elijah and Jesus both know that when we follow him, we have to be fully aware of our decision.

We all use the phrase “taking on the mantle” or “passing on the mantle” when we refer to the next person who steps into a particular role after another. So Elisha is to take on Elijah’s role as prophet. Does Elisha understand what he is about to do? When he departs from his family, does he really understand the importance of the work that lies ahead – or just what it could cost him?

In his enthusiasm, I don’t think he does. In his eagerness to follow Elijah, he gives up everything. He says good-bye to his old life – literally and figuratively. He has kissed his parents. With that kiss he has cut himself off from his old life as a labourer in the family firm in order to turn and follow Elijah. Elisha actually runs after Elijah in order to follow him. – How many times do we recall anyone actually running in the bible? The beloved disciple in the gospel is the one instance I can immediately think of. And in that story running is such a contrast to the stately progress Jesus is pictured making through the holy land of his ministry. Here we have the excitement of a future being offered, don’t we? And Elisha is keen to take up his role with Elijah. He knows its import, doesn’t he? Even if he does not understand all its future implications.

Like those fresh-faced disciples who have left their nets to follow Jesus, Elisha takes steps that cannot be reversed. He sacrifices the oxen and prepares them over a fire made with their equipment, a feast prepared for everyone. There was no turning back. After all, Elisha has burnt all the wealth he had and given it away in that feast. He has given this farewell banquet and he has kissed his parents. Elisha was off – he was running after Elijah whose mantle was now his to wear.

Why did the prophet allow this young man to say farewell? Why did Jesus
notallow his disciples to make peace with their past in the form of friends and families? Instead of a fond farewell, the disciples were to drop everything and follow Jesus without a word.

Elijah let Elisha make a break from his past. Elijah wants Elisha to depart consciously into a new life, the life of a prophet. And, I think, Elijah wants everyone around Elisha to realise just what a change is about to occur. By holding this farewell banquet, Elisha makes it very clear that all has changed – for everyone.

Jesus is telling his disciples the same thing, but he does not want them to look to the past. He wants the dead to bury their dead. His disciples are to live into the future, and, I think, he is telling them that the future kingdom has nothing to do with grasping onto the past. Like the zen master, the enlightened teacher, Jesus wants his disciples to live in the moment, to live life in all its fullness.

But let’s return to the story. We read, “and you shall anoint Elisha as prophet in your place.” There is no question about what is to happen. Elijah has given over his mantle to Elisha, and the role of prophet of Israel is to pass from Elijah to Elisha. There is no doubt, is there? “This is the word of the Lord,” as they so often say. In other words, there can be no doubt.

Elijah is commanded to anoint leaders in the kingdoms of Aram and Israel, and he is told to provide his successor. This is a very active event in the lives of Elijah’s contemporaries. The people need rulers and a prophet and Elijah provides – at the Lord’s command.

This is not something that is done to Israel, but it is something that has been prepared. It might be unexpected, but everyone living under the Law and the Prophets knows that each one of them must be prepared and must prepare for the future. – Hazael becomes king over Aram, and  Jehu son of Nimshi becomes king over Israel. There seems to be no dispute, does there? We don’t hear in the narrative that there was any bickering about these new rulers. How unlike the leaders of our time! Today everyone wonders about the moral leadership of the country. Do any of the political parties inspire a prophetic impetus to our collective decisions? Will our leaders choose what is right rather than the convenient and less expensive options at hand? Instead of monetary considerations, will we choose the moral option? – Will our leaders make an ethical choice for what the philosopher calls the highest good?

These are questions which should exercise us, just as they must have vexed the people of Elijah’s time. What is the morally right thing to do in any circumstance? Today we seem to choose the facile and less expensive alternative as the preferred option. I don’t imagine Elijah or Jesus think in this way. – Do you? – We are in a sea of trouble and we must set our true course to the Kingdom.

We are faced with difficulties because we should make the ethical choice each and every moment. We are steering our way into dangerous and chaotic waters ahead, as we know from the news every day. We all have to plunge forward into the future, preserving that future for future generations. To do that we must take our course by the moral compass.

We have a very practical problem facing us today, just as Elisha and the disciples did in their days. Ours is a mundane problem. We must prepare for the vacancy in our parishes. With the retirement of Bill Boon, we have to start anew relying on ourselves and each other because there will be an absence of formal leadership within the benefice. What course will we take? Will we have the enthusiasm of Elisha and the disciples to run after our Lord to make those very hard decisions in order to live our lives in all their fullness? How will life in all its fullness be pursued by the faithful of this benefice in the future?

The real question for me is this – Will we be able to take on the mantle which Bill is throwing over our shoulders at this very moment?

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

First Reading

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. 30Then 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.

Acts 16.16–34

Psalm

1    The Lord is king: let the earth rejoice;
let the multitude of the isles be glad.

2    Clouds and darkness are round about him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

3    Fire goes before him
and burns up his enemies on every side.

4    His lightnings lit up the world;
the earth saw it and trembled.

5    The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.

6    The heavens declared his righteousness,
and all the peoples have seen his glory.

7    Confounded be all who worship carved images and delight in mere idols.
Bow down before him, all you gods.

8    Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced,
because of your judgements, O Lord.

9    For you, Lord, are most high over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.

10    The Lord loves those who hate evil;
he preserves the lives of his faithful and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

11    Light has sprung up for the righteous
and joy for the true of heart.

12    Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name.

Psalm 97

Epistle

‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.

‘It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’

And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’

And let everyone who is thirsty come.

Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

Revelation 22.12–14, 16,17,20,21 12

Gospel

‘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.’

John 17.20–26

Sermon on Sunday after Ascension

‘These fellows are disturbing our city; they [are Jews and] are advocating customs that are not lawful for us [as Romans] to adopt or observe.’

“Lawful” – this is such a loaded word, isn’t it? What does this Greek word translated as “lawful” really mean? I would like to delve into the Greek Lexicon just a bit to start us on our way.

The first meaning of the word is “the ability to perform an action”. This is quite innocuous, isn’t it? But the word quickly takes on more significance as it is used mor and more. It transforms from ability  all the way to legality. You can see why it might accrue that sort of content. After all, if I am able to do something, I have permission to do something. I have the power to do something, don’t I? I have the ability to make something happen in some way or another.

However, the question “Just because I can, should I?” raises its head here, doesn’t it? It suggests that I have the permission to do something, and such authority can often be questioned. In other words, power and responsibility of action become entwined morally and it seems that such a combination is reflected in language. The Greek word begins with ability and ends up including rights.

In both the Greek and Jewish communities, the word is used with the connotation and denotation of “authority” and “permission” to do something. For the Greeks a right is granted by the courts and civil authority, in other words through civil law. For the Jews of Jesus’ time and the translators of the Greek OT – the Septuagint – God is the author of all permission, the giver of the Torah, God’s Law. So let’s read our verse again with these considerations in mind.

‘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.’

Haven’t we heard this sort of complaint before? Hasn’t it been said by people all over the globe when “a foreigner” to the community has spoken out about something important? The apostles are just those sort of people – they are disturbing the status quo, aren’t they? But why are they perplexing? Why do they advocate doing things that we don’t want to do – things we say are not customary and legal?

Just what is it that has caused all this commotion in our reading from Acts? The people who are complaining about the apostles are losing their income. The slave girl who had a spirit of divination and told fortunes was very lucrative for her owners. They made this slave tell the future for a price, and that money went straight into their pockets. That girl got nothing. No wonder they caused such a stink for Paul and Silas – and all because they loved money so much.

However, despite the exploitation of the poor slave-girl, she kept up her looking into the future. “A spirit of divination” – that is a rather odd phrase, isn’t it? What does it mean to be so gifted? From the story, we understand that she can look into the future in order to predict it. This is an obvious money spinner for anyone who wishes to make use of it – either by being in charge of the girl or taking a new course of action because of what has been revealed. The owners played on human vulnerability by allowing the girl to tell fortunes to people who would pay for a hint to the future.

But is this really what the spirit of divination is all about? The girl does not predict any future for the disciples as she follows them about and makes her declaration about the apostles. What does she say? ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, [they] proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ This is not predictive in the way we think of telling the future, is it? However, it is prophetic in the sense that the OT uses that word and in the sense that the Church uses it as well. It is a declaration of truth.

The slave-girl’s owners couldn’t make any money from that sort of a declaration, could they? No wonder they complained and took Paul and Silas to court. No wonder they accused them of such a fundamental wrong-doing! Their love of money got in the way for what is right. The spirit of divination, what I want to call prophecy, is not a money-spinner which everyone usually wants to have.

Prophecy is not fortune telling, is it? The girl showed this to be the case in her declarations about Paul and Silas. ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ The girl reveals to any who would listen just what these men were doing among them. They were there to “proclaim the way of salvation”, not to profiteer off some gift that another had. They were there to speak and teach for the benefit of others.

Who would listen to such a message? Aren’t there more important things in life, just like the owners of the slave-girl argued in the courts? Paul and Silas were acting contrary to the norms and morés of the crowd around them. They eschewed the motive of greed and exploitation which the owners of the slave-girl display.

This is not unlike what is happening in the world today. Some have been declaring that we need to take responsibility for everything we do. It could save the planet and our society, if only we were to follow their plan of action. In the Ukraine the West has been castigated because it has done nothing in the face of a war that had been expected. In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister has been charged with irresponsibly because of a lack of leadership in the matter of the rule of law, laws that were drawn up for the sake of the nation’s health and safety. However, the law dictates the customs of the population and we see how that is working itself out in the news every day.

The prophets speak against the way the crowd thinks. The prophets want action pursued for the sake of what is right. – Don’t we all? Or do we only what what feathers our own nest? Will we act for the sake of the widow and the orphan? Or will I act only for myself? Will the law speak for the weak and disadvantaged, or only let the status quo stand?

These are the questions that the slaves of the Most High are asking in that Greek town two thousand years ago. These are, I think, the questions the slave-girl tried to raise when she acknowledged the preaching of the way of salvation after she lost that  ability to tell fortunes and she could no longer be exploited by selfishness.

Amen

Collect

Almighty God,whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life: raise us, who trust in him, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, that we may seek those things which are above, where he reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Risen Christ, faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep: teach us to hear your voice and to follow your command, that all your people may be gathered into one flock, to the glory of God the Father.

Post Communion

Merciful Father, you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd, and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again: keep us always under his protection, and give us grace to follow in his steps; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Acts

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Acts 9.36–43

Psalm

1    The Lord is my shepherd;
therefore can I lack nothing.

2    He makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me beside still waters.

3    He shall refresh my soul
and guide me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4    Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5    You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;
you have anointed my head with oil and my cup shall be full.

6    Surely goodness and loving mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Psalm 23

Epistle

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,

‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom

and thanksgiving and honour

and power and might

be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

Revelation 7.9–17

Gospel

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’  Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.’

John 10.22–30

Sermon on Sunday, Easter 4

This is Good Shepherd Sunday. The reading from the gospel of John and our psalm give today its name. We should have had a premonition last week that the shepherd was coming, for in our gospel reading we heard about the terribly trying questions Jesus asked Peter. “Do you love me?” Of course Peter loved Jesus, just as we do. But Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep. That should have got us thinking. We probably should have anticipated today’s theme and been thinking about how to feed sheep.

We have heard how the shepherd knows his flock – he knows them because they turn to him and they know him almost instinctively. Why? Why do sheep know their shepherd? How do sheep get to trust the shepherd?

This is not as daft a question as it sounds. We have all heard that shepherds in the middle east lead their sheep, haven’t we? The flock follows along in the shepherd’s footsteps. They seem to look for a leader. It is a very different sort of behaviour to the way sheep and shepherds act in the west. The BBC’s programme One Man and His Dog should give us a clue. What do we see when we watch them?

First, we have the shepherd who tells us about the help he needs and receives from the dog when dealing with his sheep. Then we are introduced to his dog, the active power which does all the work with the sheep. The dogs run out, gather up, drive and pen those poor, bleating creatures and the shepherd and the dog win their prize. It is a very clever system our shepherds have devised, isn’t it? – using a hunter to gather up the sheep instead of eating them. It is a relationship that has developed over millennia. And we are all beneficiaries of it – at the very least we have been clothed by the sheep with our wool socks, cardigans and coats.

But the shepherds’ dogs in the middle east are not like our collies, are they? They don’t herd the sheep. No, instead those dogs guard the flock. This is a very different relationship between shepherd, sheep and dog. However, it is one that is just as beneficial for all of us, but it is fundamentally different.

That is what we have to consider today.  Peter was asked to “feed Jesus’ sheep”. Peter was to become the shepherd for the flock. How did he care for the sheep? How do we care for the sheep in our own care? Do we drive or lead the sheep to the safety of the sheepfold? Do we force or offer the sheep the sustenance which is best for them?

This is a crucial question – a question which, I believe, is fundamental. Our answer reveals the attitude we have towards each other. It is a question which could explain why different sheepfolds are empty today. Who wants to be driven into a place? We have to admit that there is safety there, but who wants to be forced into a place where we have no choice in the matter, where in fact we may not be willing to settle? Who wants to be told, “This is best for you, so just do it!” Our children certainly resent and rebel against us when we adults take such a high- handed approach. But then again, don’t some of us oldies also take umbrage when we are told by health and safety officers what we must do? Or when our politicians set out regulations for us to adhere to? Don’t we all react better when we are led to a solution which is best for us? When the shepherd of our flock tends us carefully, aren’t we more willing to conform?

Certainly we behave much better when we hear the voice of reason and are asked to agree with another person’s proposals. So do sheep, in my experience. When they see you have food, they are happy to oblige. I suppose they see the benefit for themselves when you ask them to come. They are particularly keen, when you are shaking a bag of food. – They hear that something, don’t they? They may only be listening to their stomachs, but there is a long-term benefit for those sheep. They will have a secure place to live their lives if they listen to the shepherd.

What do we listen to? Whose voice calls to us? Are we listening to the good shepherd or to distractions? Jesus doesn’t tell us what to do, does he? He expects us to follow his lead – whether that leads to our own Golgatha or to heaven on earth, we don’t know, but we are to listen to that still, small voice of conscience – or to quote that famous hymn, that “still, small voice of calm.” That voice does not demand or tell you what do do, does it? Once to each and every one of us comes the moment to decide for the good or evil side. Sometimes we don’t see what the difference is, but we have to choose to do what we believe is good. That good is not an immediate thing, rather the good is ultimately good. It directs everything, and, I believe, it calls to us in spite of ourselves. Eventually we will all turn to the good. Well, I certainly hope so…

If, for instance, profession of the faith is a good, won’t we allow everyone to confess their belief even at the last moment of life? The Church has never turned away a penitent. That is why we have all these stories of death-bed conversions. But shouldn’t every moment of life be lived as if it were our last? That I think is the intent of the great commandments – to love God with all our hearts and minds and strength and to love each other as we love our very selves. Such an attitude puts everything in perspective.

Every moment in our lives could be our last. Isn’t that how we feel when significant events happen? For instance, in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, at the first wedding, the bride is taking leave of everyone at the reception. She is about to go away with her husband, embarking on a brand new life. At that moment she realises just how much she loves everyone – not just because she loves her husband, but because that love expressed in the wedding has opened her eyes to all the possible love in her life. She is that child again in the wonder of everything around her – she is infinite possibility in that moment of understanding love.

Doesn’t the shepherd do the same for the sheep? Don’t the sheep understand how wondrous life is when the shepherd truly cares for them when he leads them back to the sheepfold and the sheepdog guards them from the dangers of the night? We ourselves are sheep and shepherd both at the same time, aren’t we? You care for me and I care for you. We must fulfill the great commandment just as a shepherd and the sheep do. All benefit from this relationship, it just has to be loving in a way that gives infinite possibility to each and every one of us.

Amen