“How Paul spoke to the Athenian agnostics” – Canon Peter Collier, Cathedral Reader

2 Kings 6.8-23; Acts 17.15-34

There is something unusual about Paul arriving in Athens. He had not, so far as we know, planned to go there. He had been driven out of Thessalonica, and from there opposition had followed him to Beroea, where to avoid him getting into further trouble, his companions put him on a boat and sent him south. And so he found himself in Athens, waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him there.

He had arrived in one of the great intellectual and cultural centres of the ancient world. Athens was a city saturated with religion. As he walked up from the port he would have seen its streets and public places filled with temples, shrines and statues. It was also a city saturated with philosophy: a place where people thought and argued, debated and discussed nonstop.

And as Paul walked in through the city, he absorbed all he saw. And Luke tells us that he was “deeply distressed” by what he saw.

We need to understand why that was. As a Jew, Paul’s life was shaped from childhood by the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them”

For Paul, these statues were not simply examples of great sculpture. They represented something profoundly wrong: people turning away from the living God and worshipping created things rather than the Creator.

And yet what Paul does next is instructive for us. He does not denounce the Athenians. He does not tell them that they were wrong or foolish. Instead, he begins to engage them in conversation.

First he goes to the synagogue, as was his custom, and there he reasoned with the Jews, and with them he used their scriptures as a starting point. But then he goes into the marketplace and talks with anyone who will listen. He soon had their attention and as a result he was brought before the Areopagus, the council of Athens, where they asked him: “What is this new teaching that you are presenting?”

And Paul’s response is rather remarkable.

He does not begin with Abraham or Moses or the Hebrew Scriptures, because his audience don’t know them. Instead, he begins with the world they do know. “I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” He has noticed their altars, their religious searching, and one particular altar inscribed “To an unknown god.” Paul takes that phrase and uses it as a springboard from which he can speak about the God he knows. So he says “what you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

It is a remarkable example of Christian witness.

Paul does not compromise his own beliefs. His starting point is that there is one Creator, the Lord of heaven and earth, who cannot be confined to temples made by human hands. But he begins where his hearers are and finds a point of contact with them.

And then he tells them something astonishing: The God whom they do not know is not far away. “He himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” And he adds: “He is not far from each one of us.”

That last sentence is perhaps the heart of his whole speech. “He is not far from each one of us.” It is worth pausing on that phrase. It is very easy to imagine that God is far away. We live in a society in which the Christian story can no longer be assumed. Many people do not know the Bible. They didn’t go to Sunday school. They didn’t sing hymns in school assemblies. They may never have been inside a church except perhaps for a wedding or a funeral. And the church is increasingly not the place you now go for those life events.

There are generations growing up now for whom the basic Christian vocabulary which many of us grew up taking for granted is almost entirely unfamiliar.

And that can leave the Church feeling rather like Paul must have felt in Athens: surrounded by a culture full of ideas, images, ambitions and beliefs, but in which Christianity can sometimes seem to be just one voice among many. But Paul’s experience in Athens has something important to teach us.

Notice first that Paul has his eyes and ears open. As he walked through the city he paid attention to what he saw. And he did not remain in the synagogue and talk about the idolatrous Athenians from a distance He went into the marketplace. He listened. He observed. And then he engaged.

And if we want to tell the good news to our neighbours, perhaps we should be doing the same. We need to know what occupies their minds and hearts. What are they afraid of? What do they hope for? What do they enjoy? What do they think will make their lives worthwhile? And where do they look for meaning? Because although the statues of Athens may have disappeared, human beings have not stopped worshipping. We may not make stone or bronze statues of Zeus or Aphrodite, but we can give ultimate significance to many things – perhaps family, career, reputation, money, possessions, political causes, and in our day technology.

But beneath all this there remains the same human longing. The longing to know what life means. The longing to belong. The longing to be loved. The longing to discover that our lives are not accidental or insignificant. The longing for God.

Paul put it well when he said: God made humanity “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” Others have said the same thing since  – Augustine put it this way: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You”.

Pascal the 17^th century French mathematician and philosopher said “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ”

Perhaps that is why Paul’s speech in Athens remains so powerful. He didn’t begin by saying, “You have got everything wrong.” He began, in effect, by saying: “You are searching. And I want to tell you about the one you are searching for.”

Around us many would not call themselves Christians, but they’re searching. Some call it looking for spirituality. Some call it searching for meaning. Some look to find answers to life’s questions through art, music, nature, philosophy or service to others. Some may have no religious language at all, but may nevertheless carry within them an ache which they cannot quite explain.

And isn’t the best response not immediately to tell them what they ought to think, but to acknowledge that searching and to say: “Yes. I think I know something about what you are looking for.” Because Christians believe that the human search for God is not ultimately a search in which we are left alone. The gospel tells us that God has already come looking for us. And that is where Paul’s speech eventually leads. The God whom we are looking for has made himself known. The God who cannot be contained in temples has come among us. And he has done that in Jesus.

Paul’s speech reaches its climax when he tells the Athenians that God has appointed a man through whom he will judge the world. And then comes the decisive evidence: “He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.”

It was when he spoke about the resurrection of Jesus that the Athenians divided. Some scoffed and sneered. Some said they would hear more another time. And a few believed. That, too, is important. Paul gives his speech faithfully. But he cannot control its reception.

Our calling is to bear faithful witness to Christ. We cannot control what people do with the gospel. We can only offer it.

So as we go from this place into another week, perhaps we can take three things from Paul’s visit to Athens. First, let’s listen carefully and pay attention to the hopes, fears and questions of those amongst whom God has placed us. Second, let’s learn to speak of Christ in ways that make sense to those who may have very little Christian background. And third, let’s trust God with the response to all those conversations.

Amen.

“Trusting Mercy Beyond Boundaries” – The Reverend Eleanor Launders-Brown, Succentor

I’ve recently returned from a holiday in Turkey, and while we were there, we travelled on the local bus service, the dolmuş. Those of you who have used local buses abroad will know that they’re not always for the faint-hearted.

On one journey the bus was particularly full, so the driver invited me to sit beside him in the front passenger seat. What followed was less a bus ride and more a white-knuckle experience. It was more terrifying than anything I’ve encountered in a theme park. The traffic seemed to be coming from every possible direction, and people were making their own lanes in an effort to try and beat the traffic, and the driver’s confidence was considerably greater than mine.

When we finally reached our destination and climbed off the bus, my friends asked me, “How was that?” To which I replied, “I might have prayed… more than once!”

Now, I confess that those prayers were not particularly eloquent. They weren’t beautifully crafted theological reflections. They were simple, urgent pleas for help. In that moment, I became very aware of my vulnerability as a human.

And that’s often how prayer works. When we know our need most clearly, we almost always turn to God.

In today’s gospel, A woman approaches Jesus with extraordinary courage. She has every reason to stay away. She belongs to the wrong people, she is from the wrong place, with the wrong background. She is a Canaanite, a Gentile, an outsider. Yet her daughter is suffering, and that love drives her forward – towards Jesus.

She cries out:

“Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.”

It is one of the simplest and most beautiful prayers in Scripture. There is no pretence, no lengthy explanation, no attempt to impress. She brings her need, her love for her daughter, and her faith that Jesus can help. She simply asks for mercy.

At first, she receives silence.

Then resistance.

Then what sounds painfully like rejection.

For many, it is one of the most challenging encounters in the Gospels and raises many questions. Why does Jesus seem so reluctant? Why does he not immediately respond? That’s not the Jesus we know.

Whatever else is happening in this exchange, one thing becomes clear. The woman refuses to give up. She believes that the mercy of God is greater than any obstacle that is before her.

And, after some discussion, Jesus says to her:

“Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

And her daughter was healed.

It’s not just a story about persistence in prayer. It’s a story about the wideness of God’s mercy.

This outsider discovers that she is not beyond God’s love after all.

The excluded suddenly find themselves included.

The one who appeared furthest away is welcomed into the embrace of God’s grace.

In our reading from Romans. Paul has been wrestling with the mystery of God’s dealings with Israel and the inclusion of the Gentiles. His conclusion is one of hope, not exclusion.

He reminds us that:

“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

God doesn’t abandon his promises.

God remains faithful.

And then Paul hits us with the sucker punch:

“For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

Not merciful to some.

Not merciful to the respectable.

Not merciful to the religious.

Not merciful to those who seem to have their lives together.

But merciful to all.

That doesn’t mean that sin doesn’t matter. It does mean that mercy has the final word.

The ground at the foot of the cross is level.

The Canaanite woman comes needing mercy.

Paul comes needing mercy.

We come needing mercy.

And that recognition changes how we live.

It encourages us to pray.

The woman’s example reminds us that prayer is not about finding the perfect words. It is about knowing where to turn.

We have moments when life feels rather like that Turkish bus journey. We face uncertainty, grief, illness, anxiety, difficult decisions, or situations beyond our control.

The invitation of today’s Gospel is to turn to Christ.

Not necessarily with polished prayers.

Perhaps simply with:

“Lord, help me.”

“Lord, guide me.”

“Lord, have mercy.”

The Canaanite woman teaches us perseverance.

She continues even when the answer seems absent.

Many of us may know that feeling. We pray for healing and don’t see it immediately. We pray for peace and continue to struggle. We pray for answers and encounter silence.

We are reminded that persistence in prayer is itself an act of trust.

Faith is not believing that God will always do what we want.

Faith is trusting that God is faithful, even if we cannot yet see what is happening.

Today’s readings challenge us to look at things differently.

If God is merciful to all, then we are also called to reflect that mercy in our own lives.

It is easy to divide the world into insiders and outsiders.

Easy to decide who belongs and who doesn’t.

Easy to judge before we understand.

The Gospel message repeatedly overturns those assumptions.

The person we overlook may teach us faith.

The stranger may reveal God’s grace.

The one whom society excludes may be closer to the kingdom than we imagine.

Every person we meet is loved by God.

Every person we meet is someone for whom Christ died.

As we gather around the altar today, that is the deepest lesson of all.

Holy Communion isn’t a reward for the worthy.

We don’t come because we’ve earned a place at Christ’s table. We come because Christ has invited us.

We come trusting in his mercy.

The Canaanite woman discovered that there was a place for her.

Paul discovered that God’s mercy was wider than he could imagine.

And we are invited to discover the same today.

For the God whom we meet in Jesus Christ is a God whose gifts and calling are irrevocable, and whose deepest desire is mercy.

“For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.”

Amen.

“Holy Loitering: Keeping Company with Christ” – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

A very (very) long time ago I was a curate. For those who might not know what that is, it is something that usually happens when your formal training for ministry comes to an end and before you can go it alone in your own parish. A vicar is selected who is thought to be a good mentor for a new cleric. It’s a role that requires a lot of patience as fledgeling clergy find their wings.  As you might imagine, working so closely together, there’s a lot of scope for becoming irritated by one another! Sometimes this can happen at exactly the same time about exactly same thing – but not exactly for the same reason! But just in case my training incumbent is watching online – of course that never happened with us!

Through this process of working together it’s hoped that you begin to be formed as a priest, knowing that like all clergy we are imperfect and unfinished. Yet somehow, despite all our failings, God continues to use the skills of the minister – even their failings – as a way of serving people and leading the worshiping community.

In the Gospels we see Jesus teaching the disciples, but we also read about them simply spending time with him: watching, learning, reflecting. Sometimes they get things wrong and have difficult conversations, like when Jesus says to Peter, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’

The disciples are being taught by Jesus in every step they take with him during the three years of his ministry before the crucifixion. They weren’t attending a class but immersing their lives in the life of their teacher. The stories they told become the basis of how we know Jesus, spending time with him as we read and digest his life into our own.

Rowan Williams, a previous Archbishop of Canterbury, has written extensively on what discipleship means. A key feature of this work is the emphasis Williams places on learning by being alongside Jesus. He says that discipleship is a way of being, not simply a set of beliefs or tasks. Like those first disciples, we need to spend time with Jesus, loitering with the teacher whose life is the entirety of his message.

Whether that’s in reading the Gospels, taking time to pray, or simply being in the company of other disciples and sharing their experiences. Thankfully, we have been left a host of vivid and engaging stories that help us step into the world of those first disciples. Today’s Gospel does just that, placing us with them far from the shore, battered by wind and waves, as Jesus comes to them across the water. We might take comfort from the fact that when disciples are all at sea, whether then or now, Jesus comes out of the storm saying, ‘Take heart… do not be afraid’. In response, Peter wants to be there with Jesus on the waves, and Jesus beckons him on. There is both love and impatience in Peter’s determination. He wants to be with his Rabbi, but he also doubts whether this miracle can sustain him.

There’s a wonderful painting by the contemporary artist Roger Wagner that captures this moment. Peter is outside the boat; feet planted in the waves. His arms go in two completely different directions. One appears to be clinging onto the boat for dear life. The other is stretched out towards the figure of Jesus, open-handed and full of desire to let go of the boat and rely wholly on faith. It’s a posture we might all recognise: the attraction of the solid, familiar and dependable set against the summons to step beyond what we can imagine. What would you do? Let go and risk it all, or stay by the boat, comforted by its seeming security even while it is battered by waves?

I think most Christians would recognise both these feelings: the attraction of what we know and the pull of where God may be leading us. When we accompany Jesus, we allow the whole experience of the Word made flesh to enter our lives: not just into our minds, but into our hearts and souls. What matters more than anything else is for this relationship to be alive; deeper than simply following a set of teachings or complying with a particular religious code. To experience doubt or conflict isn’t failure, but evidence of a living conversation between us and the life of Christ. Like Peter, we are caught in the tension between the familiar and the unknown future opened to us by Jesus — all in response to his presence.

This is more than mentoring. As Rowan Williams says of discipleship: “You’re hanging around; you’re watching; you’re absorbing a way of being… you learn by sharing life; you learn by looking and listening.” As Christians, we’re called to keep company with Christ: in worship, in prayer, in reading the Bible, and in learning from one another.

A kind of holy loitering with the life who is the light of the world. Looking for Jesus even where we think he shouldn’t be. Walking towards us across the choppy waves of life, holding out a hand and saying, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’.

Amen.

“God’s New Exodus” – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

At the moment there seems to be a lot of appetite for big stories.

Cinemas are filled with people wanting to watch Christopher Nolan’s epic re-telling of The Odyssey. When I went to see it, the theatre was fairly full, with a wide age span among the audience. Young and old gripped by a story thousands of years old and often regarded as one of the most important works in European literature.

Our first reading, from 1 Kings, was written about 100 years later than The Odyssey. It comes from a very different culture, although one influenced by neighbouring nations and the captivity of Judah by Babylon. In the passage we just heard, much emphasis is made of the beauty and wealth put into the Temple’s construction. There is more gold leaf than in the Oval Office! Such a big building project served many purposes.

In this large and ornate structure, the Ark of the Covenant was housed. Containing the Ten Commandments, the Ark had travelled with the people of Israel and became the centrepiece of the new Temple. It brought together the people’s history; their governance under God; and the achievement of becoming a settled nation. The Temple was the place God dwelt – and also a critical link between divine authority and the King as the chief servant of God. Temple was the place people came to make sacrifice, and it was a symbol of Israel’s success.

By the time of our second reading, the Acts of the Apostles, all the splendour and wealth of the first Temple had gone. All the gold and other items of value had been broken up and taken to Babylon. While a second Temple had been built, it too would soon be destroyed.

It’s interesting that these two Bible passages, placed together today, radically shift the spiritual focus of what is unfolding. In 1 Kings it’s the palatial grandeur of a stunning Temple; in Acts it’s a prison cell and the drama of the early church growing and spreading the good news of the resurrection. For Peter, the disciple of Jesus and a Jewish Christian, the Temple’s importance spanned his life. In particular, the Temple celebrated a foundational event of the Jewish people – the Exodus.

The Exodus story explained how Israel became a people, received the law, and were chosen by God. It’s primary meaning was that God freed the people, liberating them from slavery. In today’s passage from Acts, we find Peter in a similar state to the people of Israel in Egypt. He is confined, heavily guarded and in chains. It is an account that also reminds us of aspects of the resurrection. On that day angels rolled away the stone to let Jesus out. Here an angel releases Peter and the iron gate leading to the city ’opened… of its own accord’. The first person to greet Peter is a woman, Rhoda, who is so confused by joy that she runs to tell others and forgets to let him in! Like the women who first told the disciples Jesus had risen, Rhoda’s news is doubted – and the many had to confirm the word of the one.

For St Luke, the author of both a gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, the Exodus is central to his account of Jesus. In his life, death and resurrection Jesus has worked a new Exodus – a liberation from death and a new way to be with God. For this reason, Luke focusses on the transformative presence of Jesus, bringing us out of the dark prison of sin to freedom in a promised land. Not a promised land of physical space, but a spiritual home that means we can dwell with God both now and for all eternity. If the Temple celebrated the glory of God and the physical liberation of the people, the life of Jesus now assumes that role in a new covenant. It is no longer in an ornate Temple that God is manifest, but in the faithful lives of people born again in baptism.

This is a seismic shift in the understanding of God, and Peter’s night-time release from prison is emblematic of that change. Time and again in his life, Jesus liberated people oppressed by illness, or sin, or an alien authority. This new Exodus frees people trapped in darkness and promises new life through God’s grace. When there are so many troubling issues in our world, and when power is exercised as oppression, the Church continues to proclaim its message of new life in Christ. It doesn’t take a building like York Minster to make that possible, it is an offer open to all, even those who find themselves in prison. Perhaps, especially, all who find themselves in darkness and know their need of God.

Amen.

“The wheat, the weeds, and the waiting” – Canon Peter Collier, Cathedral Reader

Romans 8.12-25; Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43

If you have a garden, then you will know all about weeds. But sometimes it isn’t always clear, apart from to the planter, which are the weeds and which are very much not weeds. Some years ago, we had someone who gave us a couple of hours a week help in the garden. One day my wife suggested that he weed a couple of the flower beds, only to find at the end of the morning that he had pulled up the much tended and much loved forsythia plant.

Even with the best of intentions it is very easy to make mistakes when sorting out the wheat from the weeds.

And that simple proposition is at the heart of our gospel reading this morning.

It is a parable – a story – a farmer sows good seed on his land and waits for it to grow, but much to the surprise of his slaves, one day they spotted that in amongst the wheat were what our bible version calls weeds. Other versions refer to them as tares. The word in Greek is zizania, a wild grass, sometimes translated as darnel, technically: lolium temulentum.

In more recent times (at the beginning of the 20^th century) a Russian plant geneticist, Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, (this really isn’t a line from a Tom Lehrer song), discovered that weeds can evolve to look like domesticated crop plants, and that when you remove the plants that don’t look like the crop you leave behind, it mimics that crop and thrives.

Darnel is just such a mimic. It bears a close resemblance to wheat until the ears appear and ripen, when you will see that the wheat ears appear brown whilst the darnel ears appear black. There are two concerning issues with that – first darnel is actually a poison, and can bring about a drunken nausea which can be fatal, and second its roots spread through the soil and get entwined with the wheat roots, making it difficult to pull up the darnel without also pulling up the wheat.

Jesus was way ahead of Vavilov, and his landowner in the parable told the slaves who were offering to go in and root out the zizania not to do so as they were likely to pull up good plants too, but leave it all until harvest time and then he would instruct the reapers to separate them out, burning the weeds and putting the wheat into the barn.

Our lectionary then skips over two more stories Jesus told and goes to the time when the disciples ask Jesus to explain to them the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

But the other two stories are important. Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a small mustard seed which after it is planted eventually grows into a great tree and the birds of the air come and make nests in it. He then said that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast which a woman mixes with flour but then has to wait until the dough rises.  They both emphasise in the same way as does the wheat and the weeds, that God’s kingdom is very much about waiting and being patient.

And that is something we can find hard to live with. We look around us and see much that disturbs us, and we want it sorting out, and sorting out now! Whether we are looking at international events – why can’t the wars in Ukraine and the Gulf be ended now; or locally at events in the UK and even more locally here in York – we want that Station Gateway Project finishing and finishing now.

And in the church we face a similar longing for the resolution of issues that divide us. Last Sunday we welcomed here at our Eucharist members of the Church of England General Synod, and as we read of their debates and decisions, we may have found ourselves wondering why God doesn’t step in and sort it all out. Though of course we may not all be wanting the sorting out to be done in the same way.

And so against that background of his having told those three parables, the disciples ask Jesus to explain in particular the one about wheat and weeds. And Jesus explained it by talking about the kingdom. And that should be no surprise because with Jesus it is always about the kingdom, God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom which Jesus had come not only to announce but to bring into being. That kingdom he says is being established right here in the midst of this world, as people come into it like children. And as our reading from Romans told us – children who become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus.

But there are those who remain outside that kingdom, not giving their allegiance to God, and they are there alongside the children of the kingdom. And that is how it will be until the end of all things, when the distinctions will be clear, and all that is wrong and evil will be brought to an end, and God’s kingdom will then be seen in all its brilliance and glory.

All things will be shown for what they really are and all things will be put right.

Throughout history there have been those who have believed that we should have a church which is a community of people who all believe the same truths and who all understand the outworking of practical Christian discipleship in the same way. Then we will have a perfect church. A true church. And that spirit is very much alive and well in our time.

The one piece of advice I remember being given very early in my Christian life was: “If you find a perfect church – don’t join it because it will then be no longer perfect”.

The church has always been a hospital – full of those who are in the process of getting better. Always a place where grace has been hard at work. If we set about trying to separate out the righteous from the unrighteous, the faithful from the unfaithful, the deserving from the undeserving, we will not succeed. We cannot succeed because only God has perfect judgement.

And if we expect God to step in and punish those responsible for war and consequent human misery now, why would he not also have to step in and punish me for my comparative misdemeanours?

Whenever I point the finger at anyone else, then there are always three fingers pointing back at me. Just as the group of twelve who heard the explanation contained Judas, it also contained the other eleven who were each a mixture of good and not so good features. If you have seen the TV series “The Chosen”, you will have seen some of those disciples very well depicted with their good and not so good points.

So, if we were to demand instant justice for all now, where would we each stand?

I would add one caveat. Here at York Minster we are a welcoming church, but we also aim to be a safe church, and we all have a responsibility to protect those who are vulnerable. That’s why we have such an emphasis on safeguarding. And why we insist on safeguarding training and that it may be necessary from time to time to set boundaries in order to keep everyone safe. But that is about keeping people safe and not about creating a pure church.

What Jesus is saying is that God has, does and will act justly – in his good time. Meanwhile he is patient – incredibly patient. And that patience gives space for transformation to take place. As Peter, who had every reason to be thankful for Gods’ patience with him, said in his second letter: “the Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

But the other side is that the bad will not last for ever; judgment and vindication will take place. In God’s sight truth matters, justice matters, victims matter; God is not indifferent to suffering and there will come a day when all that harms and destroys life will finally be overcome. The weeds will not inherit the field; the kingdom belongs to God.

The lesson for us today is that we are not to try and get ahead of God, or to complain that he is not acting now to put right what we think is wrong.

Andrew McGowan put it this way: “Our role is to watch, and wait, and work. God has done well at the beginning of all things, and will again at the end.”

Amen.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity – The Reverend Canon Timothy Goode, Congregational Discipleship and Nurture

Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”

May I speak in the name of the living God, who is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. Amen.

There are evenings in the life of this Minster when thanksgiving and farewell sit very close together.

Tonight we are giving thanks for choristers who are being read out: for the years they have given, the music they have offered, the discipline they have learned, the friendships they have formed, and the prayer they have carried on behalf of us all. We are also giving thanks for their families: for the journeys, the waiting, the encouragement, the rearranged lives, the quiet sacrifices, and the many unseen acts of love that have made this visible offering possible.

And into this moment of thanksgiving and farewell comes David’s prayer:

“Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”

It is a beautiful question, because it is so honest. David has just received God’s promise. He had wanted to build God a house, a temple, a permanent dwelling. But God turns the gift around. David says, “I will build you a house.” God says, “No, David. I will build you a house.” David wants to offer something to God and discovers that God has already been offering everything to him.

That is often how grace works. We set out thinking we are the ones giving, building, serving, achieving, and then, if we are attentive, we realise that beneath all our effort there has been gift all along. God has been faithful long before we managed to be faithful ourselves. And grace is a word a cathedral ought never to forget. Because this place is full of human offering. The stone, the glass, the daily pattern of prayer, the music: all of it is the work of many hands and many hearts. And yet none of it begins with us. It begins with God. It begins with the grace that calls us, gathers us, and gives us something to offer in return.

So, David does not stand before God saying, “Look what I have made.” He sits before the Lord and says, “Who am I, that you have brought me thus far?”

This feels such a very fitting prayer for tonight. For our choristers, it speaks of the mystery of gift. Music is never only performance. It is service. It is attention. It is learning to offer our whole selves, breath, body, discipline, imagination, and courage to something larger than the self. A voice is not simply an instrument to be trained. It is a gift to be received, nurtured, and offered.

And perhaps all of us need to remember that. Whatever gifts we are blessed to carry, they are not possessions to guard, but gifts entrusted to us for the blessing of others. We do not own grace. We receive it, and then we share it.

But turning towards the Gospel, we find ourselves in a very different kind of moment.

Jesus draws near to Jerusalem and weeps over it. He does not stand at a distance in cold judgement. He weeps. “If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace.”

This is a deeply tender scene. It shows us that the judgement of Christ is never detached from love. Jesus weeps because the city is beloved. His tears are not the opposite of mercy; they are mercy made visible.

Then he enters the temple and drives out those who have turned the house of prayer into a place of transaction. And when he teaches there, the authorities ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”

It is an understandable question in one sense. Institutions need order. Communities need responsibility. Sacred places need care. But the sadness of the moment is that those asking the question cannot quite recognise what is happening before them. They are trying to manage the situation, but Jesus is inviting them to attend more deeply.

And it is here where the Gospel touches us too.

It is possible for any community, including a cathedral, to become so busy maintaining what matters that we sometimes miss why it matters. We can become so fixated on the pattern, the diary, the structure, the tradition, the next thing to be done, that we forget to pause and recognise the grace at the heart of it all.

This is said not to condemn us. It is said because it is profoundly human. It happens in families. It happens in schools. It happens in choirs. It happens in cathedrals. We become busy with the things we love, and sometimes the busyness makes it harder to see the love itself.

So, tonight’s readings place before us two invitations.

David invites us into gratitude: “Who am I, that you have brought me thus far?”

Jesus invites us into recognition: “If only you had recognised the things that make for peace.”

Gratitude and recognition. These are quiet words, but they can transform how we live. Gratitude reminds us that we are not self-made. Recognition helps us notice where God is present: in beauty, yes; in music, yes; in prayer and scripture, yes; but also in tears, in change, in endings, in the people who carry so much unseen.

So to our leaving choristers, perhaps this is the blessing and the charge tonight. Take with you not only your musical skill, your memories, your confidence; not only your friendships, precious as all these are. Take with you the habit of grace.

Remember that your voice matters. Not just your singing voice, but your complete voice, your kind voice, your courageous voice, your compassionate voice. Use it well. Use your voice for the things that make for peace. Use it to encourage. Use it to include. Use it to bring beauty into places that need hope.

And when life becomes demanding, as it surely will, remember David’s question: “Who am I, that you have brought me thus far?” It is not a question of low self-worth. It is a question of wonder. It is the prayer of someone who knows that life is gift, and that every future begins in grace.

And to our Chorister families, thank you. Cathedrals can sometimes speak as though worship simply happens. It does not. It is carried by sacrifice, patience, encouragement, and love. Your support has been a vital part of the music. Your faithfulness has been part of the offering. Your hidden labour has helped make prayer audible in this place.

And to all of us who remain, the invitation is simple, but not small. Let us be a community that remembers grace. Let us recognise the things that make for peace. Let us allow Christ to keep teaching us what a house of prayer is for: not simply beauty for its own sake, but beauty in the service of love; not tradition as something to possess, but tradition as something to receive and pass on; not excellence as pride, but excellence as offering.

Tonight, as voices move on and this community gives thanks, may we remember. We are not here to build a house grand enough to contain God. We are here because God, in mercy, has made a home among us.

So may we say with David, in humility and wonder, “Who are we, O Lord God, that you have brought us thus far?”

And may we recognise, in the tears of Christ, not only warning, but love: the love that calls us, again and again, to the things that make for peace.

Amen.

“Among the scattered sheep” – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

One saying for which Pope Francis will be remembered is wonderfully brief: ‘Shepherds should smell of their sheep’. It is not an especially attractive image, but it speaks powerfully of church leaders living close to the people they serve. Francis embodied this in his own life, choosing modest accommodation in the Vatican rather than a palace. Long before then, as his story makes clear, his instinct was to live embedded among his people.

This afternoon’s first reading from Ezekiel deepens that image.

The prophet does not simply picture God as a shepherd sitting safely in the middle of the flock. God is found among the scattered sheep: among those who are separated, exposed and vulnerable. This isn’t a pleasant place to be. The scattered sheep are found on a day of clouds and thick darkness. God the shepherd-king is with the injured and the weak. By contrast, the fat and strong receive judgement because their comfort has made them complacent. They have failed to care or act for those in need. It is close to Mary’s radical song at Evensong: God scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts. In God’s Kingdom, it is not ultimately the sheep who are scattered, but the powerful.

Within two months of his appointment, Pope Francis appointed an Argentinian theological advisor called Víctor Fernández who took as his motto the words: ‘Your servant is here among the people’. This reflects a particular commitment to a ‘theology of the people’, which takes seriously the spiritual, cultural and political agency of the poor.

For Christians, the shepherd-king among scattered people finds its fullest expression in the Word made flesh:

Christ stands before Pilate,

meets the Syrophoenician woman,

stays among Samaritans

and receives Greeks who seek him.

In Christ, God moves among the scattered peoples of the world.

And this matters profoundly if our faith is to serve a world torn by disaster, mistrust, aggression and greed.

Among those who died in Venezuela will surely have been clergy and church leaders who lived alongside their people and shared the terrible consequences of the recent earthquakes.

Elsa Tamez, another important voice in this tradition, has written about grace and human dignity.

She warns that we can’t speak honestly of grace without noticing what is disgraceful: the economic, social, cultural and spiritual misery endured by millions each day.

In such a world, simply being human is often not enough.

To be treated as “someone”, people are expected to show the right kind of merits:

income,

property,

possessions,

status.

Those who do not meet that standard are too easily treated as insignificant.

But it hasn’t always felt this stark.

After the devastation of the Second World War, many nations and individuals tried to help others recover, welcome refugees and build institutions for the world’s wellbeing.

It was imperfect, but there was at least a larger ambition to raise human dignity rather than exploit it.

From the perspective of the poor and ordinary, Tamez reminds us that grace is never passive.

It is more than warmth or feeling; it is an invitation to radiate what we have received.

If God’s grace is the source of our deepest dignity, then we are called to recognise that same dignity in lives very different from our own.

Such grace sits uneasily in a consumer society shaped by rivalry, competition and the need to step over others in order to survive.

The Church is called to share God’s commitment to those who are scattered in clouds and thick darkness.

We are to live the grace we have received by being gracious to others, and by seeing God as the source of dignity for every person.

This priestly ministry belongs not only to clergy, but to the whole people of God.

As a Church, we must bear the scent of the scattered sheep and ensure that, in this place and every place, people are shown dignity as children of the God who was, and is, among us.

Amen.

“Dinner party etiquette and the upside down kingdom” – Canon Peter Collier, Cathedral Reader

1 Samuel 24.1-17; Luke 14.12-24

Before I retired, my job meant that I was from time to time invited to formal dinner parties with High Sheriffs and the like. I soon learned that there was an etiquette involved – mode of dress, times of arrival and departure, conversation at the table, both whom you spoke to and about what, and then in some cases at the end of the meal the ladies withdrawing.

And so it would have been in Jesus’ day. There would have been a dinner party etiquette, though I am sure it would have been very different from today’s version.

In our New Testament lesson, Jesus spoke about a great dinner party. We don’t know what the RSVP system was in those days and whether those who had originally been invited had previously indicated that they would come; but as the time approached and no one had turned up, the host was anxious and troubled, and sent his slave to remind them it was time to show up. And they all made excuses.

They were quite extraordinary excuses really – I have bought a piece of land; I have bought five yoke of oxen; I have just got married. You would have thought if you were investing expensive capital in your farm, you would have looked at the land and tested the animals before agreeing to purchase them. And if you had looked at them, then as an excuse it falls away very quickly. As for the newly married, Deuteronomy 24:5 gave them a twelve-month exemption from war and other public duties, but that was all.

It is of course only a parable, a story, and so we mustn’t stretch it too far. But the principle is that those who might have been expected to be invited and in fact were invited to God’s feast had said “no”, and so God invited all the most unexpected guests, and they gladly came to this upside-down party.

Jesus had been travelling around Galilee calling people to come and be part of God’s Kingdom and most of those who you would expect to be first on the list, such as the religious leaders of the time, said they wanted nothing to do with it.  But those who were religious or social nobodies responded gladly and said “sign me up”. The ordinary people – fisherman and the like; the despised people – tax collectors and sex workers; the excluded people – the diseased and disabled; it is they who gladly accepted the invitation to come and feast at the table spread by Jesus.

And for Luke there is an even wider meaning. Luke is very focussed on the good news being available to a much wider group than God’s original chosen people. And to the extent that many of them chose not to accept the invitation it was now offered to the whole world; to every tribe and nation.

And of course, if you join that sort of party, you quickly get its message, and it rapidly comes full circle. Jesus is saying to all those who have come in – you have joined the upside-down club and that will now affect your lives and how you live them.

And that continues today. God is in the turning things upside down business. God always has been and always will be.

When I say always has been – let’ s go back to our OT lesson. King Saul was hunting down David as he believed he was a threat to him. And there was no doubt that he was hunting him down to kill him. Saul had 3000 men with him as he searched the wilderness where he believed David was hiding. There came a point when Saul needed to go to the loo. He spotted a cave and went in. Right at the back of the cave David was hiding with his much smaller band of men. When they saw Saul, his men encouraged David to go and kill him, but he refused. He did creep up on him and cut a snippet off his cloak. But more than that he refused to do.

I guess it is probably no surprise to us as David was trying to keep God’s commandments and live so as to please God. But it was counter intuitive to the society of his time. People naturally look for vengeance.

And we are seeing a lot of that today. When something bad happens then there are calls for vengeance. You will recall the demands a couple of weeks ago for a response of rage to the killing of Henry Nowak. Calls for pure rage, cold rage, white rage, righteous rage – but all looking for rage to dictate how we should respond.

Sometimes it is even dressed up in pseudo Christian language. You may recall some weeks ago the US Secretary of War quoted what he thought was the prophet Ezekiel, though the words he used were the adaptation of Ezekiel by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, as he called for vengeance against Iran. Putin even uses religious language to justify his attacks on Ukraine. And as we have just reminded ourselves, we hear it in our own country with calls to respond in rage when an innocent person is killed, particularly if it is done by someone who is of a different race or colour to us.

It should be no surprise to us, that those who follow Jesus Christ are called to live differently, and so often to behave in a counter intuitive way as we demonstrate God’s true values. When we do so it can have a similar impact on people as David’s behaviour did on Saul. Deep down Saul knew he was wrong and that David was right and when David confronted Saul and told him what he had not done, we read that Saul wept.

But Jesus is going even further when he says that when we act rightly and do good, we should not be looking for favours in return.

Certainly, Jesus said in the sermon on the mount “Do to others what you would want them to do to you” (Matt 7:12). But that is not the same thing as doing something to others in order that they will reward you in the same way.

How would you like to be treated?  Well, that’s how you should treat other people. But you don’t treat them in particular ways so that they will treat you in the same way. We know that the path Jesus followed of doing good to all manner of people led to him being rejected and eventually killed. So you don’t do it for that reason, you do it because it is how we are called to live as followers of Jesus Christ.

Coming back to where we started, which was with the dinner invitation to the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame, who were invited when the healthy and the wealthy declined to come having, as they thought, better things to do.

As many of you will know this last Thursday the Archbishop came to Evensong and blessed the new ramp which gives entry into this quire. And that ramp is a symbol of what we are trying to be as a part of Christ’s church – a place that is open to all. A place of welcome and accessibility for those who would have thought “this is not somewhere for me to go as I can’t get in physically”. Let alone, all those who feel excluded for reasons to do with who they are or how they live; to do with their disability, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, mental health, or poverty. Here at York Minster, we extend an open and unconditional welcome to all people to come and join with us as we feast at his table. And it is round his table that we learn what it means to live upside down lives.

Amen.

“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep…says the Lord God” – The Very Reverend Dominic Barrington, Dean of York

This morning, Canon Maggie fascinated our 11am congregation with a mini-biography of St Nicholas of Flüe – the patron saint of Switzerland who fathered ten children before deciding God was calling him to a life of quiet contemplation as a hermit. She made the utterly valid point that the patron saint of Switzerland was as obscure outside his territory, as York’s own patron William – resting in peace directly beneath us right now – is outside this noble city of York.

With a laugh, and with raised eyebrows, I think it fair to say that the worshippers this morning were not entirely convinced that bailing on your responsibilities as a husband and father of ten, to seek out a life of quiet prayer was really an appropriate response to the call of God in his life. But then, the life of this city’s equally obscure patron saint is also, it must be said, not an entirely convincing story of inner sanctity.

York’s own expert on William, Professor Christopher Norton, notes his subject’s obscurity in the opening words of a masterful study of the saint, published some twenty years ago – acknowledging that such fame as he has come to possess derives almost entirely from an extended dispute about the archbishopric, which, as he explains, ‘developed from being a little local difficulty into an international cause célèbre involving kings, cardinals, popes and several men who were subsequently to be reckoned as saints, all divided between… different factions’.

When you add to this background a fairly pervasive modern view of William as being ‘wealthy, indolent and immoral’ (to quote Professor Norton again), you might well be wondering what on earth all the fuss was ever about. You might well wonder how on earth it could be the case that such a figure could ever be declared to be a ‘saint’ at all.

It is certainly enough to make you scratch your head when you remember that William’s remains lie in the heart of a cathedral dedicated to no less a saint than Peter – the ‘prince of apostles’, and one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers.

It is certainly enough to make you scratch your head when, on this, William’s feast day, the spotlight of one of our two readings falls on that equally famous saint Paul, pictured this afternoon having that tearful farewell with the elders of the church he founded in Ephesus.

At least, it makes you scratch your head that William Fitzherbert, this controversial twice-Archbishop of York should be counted a saint when stood alongside the likes of Peter and Paul, until you start looking at these two pillars of God’s church a little more thoroughly.

After all, the patron saint of this great cathedral is the man whom Jesus once addressed as Satan, the man who was constantly blundering awkwardly into situations and getting them wrong, and the man whom Jesus accurately predicted would deny him not once but three times.

And Saul-turned-Paul doesn’t necessarily come off any better. It is clear from the pages of the New Testament that he was an incredibly divisive figure: he was, let us not forget, someone who took pleasure in watching an innocent man being stoned to death and ‘approved’ of it… he was someone who had had a blazing row with Peter about the nature of Christianity … he was someone whose letters verged on the intemperate, with angry remarks about wishing his opponents would castrate themselves.

And once you start scratching your head about the reality of the lives of those we call saints – be they characters from the very pages of the Bible, or obscure medieval churchmen, you begin to realise that God seems to choose some remarkably poor material to work with… from Peter and Paul with all their vivid and visible faults, through William, through Nicholas Flüe, and down to today.

At least – that’s what I realise when I look in the mirror. For when I look in the mirror, I recognize that, like the saint we commemorate today, I’m not universally popular. I recognize that I can make remarks that sound angry and intemperate. I recognize that there most certainly are times when I, too, have betrayed and denied the Christ whom I claim to follow. And it might just possibly be the case that I’m not the only person gathered this evening in York Minster of whom this is true.

But – curiously – it is not all bad news, despite this rather compromised material which for some reason God seems to use in the mission and ministry of God’s church… It’s not all bad news, as some of our youngest church members were discovering this morning. For, while Canon Maggie was opening our eyes to the curious and obscure life of St Nicholas Flüe, around the corner in the Chapter House, something remarkable was happening…

For in our Sunday School, fifteen new archbishops were created this morning. William Fitzherbert found himself being remembered by fifteen small children, each holding hand-made mini-mitres, and each being affirmed in their own call to follow Christ and let their light shine out.

And recalling not a grand old duke, but a complex and sometimes combative archbishop, I am told they sang those well-known words that reminded them – and us – that when we are up, we are up… and when we are down, we are down… and like most of us, a lot of the time in our stumbling and sometimes mediocre lives, in truth, we will be neither up nor down. But God calls us, and God takes us and God finds us and enfolds us into God’s mission to God’s world, with whatever we manage to bring to the communal table of the church’s ministry.

For, as the famous Alabama lawyer Bryan Stevenson has stated so powerfully, ‘Each of us is more that the worst thing we’ve ever done’. And that profound truth reminds us that each of us can play a part in God’s mission. That was true for William of York, whom we remember today, and the Good News is that it is equally true for you and me – for God has a purpose and a use – God has a vocation for each one of us in the ministry and mission of the Church.

Because we deceive ourselves and we misread history and theology if we think that the mission and ministry which William Fitzherbert, Archbishop of York 1143-1147 and 1153-1154 exercised was his mission and ministry. Thank God… it was not. That would not have been Good News. That, I am certain, would not have worked well at all.

But the truth is, as Ezekiel, who found himself surrounded by way too many ‘false shepherds’ remind us – the truth is that ultimately, there is really only one shepherd. But even if at his worst William was, indeed, ‘wealthy, indolent and immoral’, at his best he was a beloved child of God who tried to align himself to the real Good Shepherd – and we know that there were times that he certainly succeeded, so great were the crowds who welcomed him back to York in December 1153, as he uniquely assumed the Archbishopric that second, short-lived time.

And that is our reminder that mission and ministry come from above, and we are all called merely to be the ‘support act’ to the unstoppable Good Shepherd who call us all to follow, and to lend a hand. And we need no mitres, no legacy in stained glass, and no professorial biographies to join in this mission and ministry – just a brief glimpse of that fact that, as the writer of the hymn we are about to sing put it so succinctly, ‘the way of self-giving, Lord, leads us to you’.

Amen.

The Feast of William of York: Saints, Cities, and the Common Good – The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Down the centuries, saints haven’t always aged well. A few years ago, I was at a conference near Zurich when the organiser took us to what had been the home of one of his favourite saints. Nicholas of Flüe. Well done if you have heard of him – I hadn’t – but he’s actually the Patron Saint of Switzerland. As we were told the story of his life, a few of us began to feel somewhat conflicted about just how saintly he was. As a soldier fighting for the canton of Zurich, it is said that he fought with a sword in one hand a rosary in the other. In the year 1467 he had a vision and decided that God was calling him to devote his life to contemplation. A minor detail in the story is that this involved him leaving his wife and TEN children. (Today that might be called parental desertion, but apparently it all seemed very reasonable at the time).

I imagine that in Switzerland, about as many people have heard of St William of York, as those who’ve heard of Nicholas of Flüe in England. These are not in the stellar lineup of first division international saints, such as a George, Mary or Francis. Instead, they are part of that company of saints often only known in their town or city, and very little beyond those places. According to Ai (which never makes things up) there are more than 10,000 saints recognised in the Christian Church. Perhaps a lot more. Do we really need all these figures, sometimes impressive, sometimes doubtful, littering the liturgical calendar? Well, yes, I think we do.

Part of the reason there are so many is that like William, these holy figures are anchored to particular places. Often their inspiration and sanctity grew after their death, among the people who knew them and loved them. This year, the 800^th anniversary of the Canonization of William, we celebrate his association with the city of York and its people. William was a cleric who rose to be the most important priest in the Diocese – Archbishop of York.

It’s perhaps hard for us to imagine what York would have been like in the year 1226, when he was made a saint. As a building, even though it would not have looked as it does today, the Minster dominated the city. Eight hundred years ago the South Transept was being built and was covered in scaffolding – so not much change there then! The great Rose Window was just beginning to be constructed. More significantly, the things going on in the Minster would have been familiar to us. Candles lit; divine services going on; a choir singing; and pilgrims arriving and leaving.

We know that there are many different aspects a to William’s legacy, leading him to have spiritual significance as someone who waited patiently for his calling to be fulfilled. He was instrumental in both physical and spiritual healing, and who became a patron saint of craftspeople. A fitting association for someone who was made a saint at a time when the Minster-was undergoing transformation and relied on a small army of highly skilled workers. In all sorts of ways, the legacy of William lives on in York.

One of his most notable miracles took place when the Ouse Bridge collapsed due to the weight of a large crowd coming to meet William. Despite many falling into the river, no one died. A fact attributed to the prayers of William. In memory of this event a chapel was constructed at one end of the bridge, and this emphasised William’s role as a bridge between this life and the next – between conflict and peace. Perhaps today, that image of William praying on the remains of the bridge is a good one to inspire our faith.

In our time it feels like many bridges are under pressure – both between neighbours and between communities. In places, all the patient work of pursuing the common good appears likely to fall under the pressure of division. Like William, our prayers and deeds need to ensure that innocent people don’t lose their lives when that pressure leads to collapse.

As we reflect on William’s legacy, let us remember that the work of building bridges – between generations, communities, and faiths – is never finished. The story of the Ouse Bridge reminds us that, even when structures fail, the bonds of compassion and prayer can hold firm. In a world where division often threatens to overwhelm unity, we are called not only to repair what is broken, but to become living bridges ourselves: steadfast, patient, and courageous.

Let us honour William not simply as a figure from history, but as a guide for our own journey. May his example inspire us to reach across divides, to lift up those who stumble, and to stand firm in hope when the weight of the world presses hardest. For it is in these moments – when we choose to build rather than break, to unite rather than separate – that we truly embody the spirit of the saints and ensure that nothing precious is lost in the meeting.

Amen.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter – The Reverend Canon Timothy Goode, Congregational Discipleship and Nurture

“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.”

May I speak in the name of the living God, who is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. Amen.

A few weeks ago, I was undertaking the daily ritual of making the day’s first cup of tea, a sacred ritual upon which the success of the rest of the day depends. I carefully filled the kettle, set it firmly on its base, pressed down the switch, and waited. And waited. And waited.

There is a particular kind of impatience reserved for kettles, especially when one is preparing that first cup of tea. It may be disproportionate, even irrational, and yet somehow it feels entirely justified. I pressed the switch again, checked the lid, lifted it off and put it back down, as though the kettle might respond to encouragement.

By this point, I had moved from mild inconvenience to quiet irritation. The kettle, it seemed, had simply stopped working. I would have to forego my early morning cup of tea, the rest of my day hanging on a thread. And then I noticed the plug. It was not in the socket.

Nothing was wrong with the kettle. It was not broken. It had not failed. It was simply not connected to the very thing that would allow it to do what it was made to do.

A small and trivial moment, but a gift as a sermon anecdote. For we far too often rush to diagnose failure. We assume that something is broken. We worry that life is not working as it should. But sometimes the deeper problem is not failure, it is disconnection. Rather than something being broken; we are simply not connected to the source that gives us life.

And that takes us to the heart of the Ascension.

The Ascension is not Jesus leaving the world behind. It is the moment when the risen Christ carries our wounded humanity into the very life of God. The crucified and risen one does not set aside the wounds of love. He ascends with our humanity, so that, through him, earth and heaven are joined.

And Jesus does not simply pray that we may be helped by God, instructed by God, or protected by God, though all those things matter. He prays that we may be drawn into a deeper connection, into the communion of God’s own life. He prays that the love shared between the Father and the Son may be the place where we connect. “…so that they may be one as we are one.”

This is not a transactional offering. This is an invitation to participate. This is not God assisting us from a safe distance. This is God drawing us into himself.

This matters, because so much of our life, and therefore so much of our imagination, is shaped by transaction. We are taught to believe that flourishing comes from achievement, from productivity, success, and self-sufficiency. I perform, in order to be valued. I succeed, in order to matter. I give, in order to receive.

And if we are not careful, we bring that same logic into faith. We imagine that if we pray hard enough, believe strongly enough, behave well enough, or worship faithfully enough, then God will reward us with the life we want. Prayer becomes a mechanism. Worship becomes a bargaining tool. God becomes the one who blesses our plans.

But that is not the Good News of Jesus Christ. God is not offering us a transaction. God is offering us communion. Human flourishing is not found by bargaining with God or impressing God. It is found by being connected to God, the source of life itself.

That is also the lesson the disciples have to learn. In Acts, they ask Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” It is a very human question. They want to know what happens next. They want a timetable. They want the plan, the map, and the strategy.

We understand that longing. We want to know how and when things will change, how and when peace will come, how and when pain will ease, how and when the Church will be renewed.

But Jesus does not give them, or us, a timetable. He offers them a promise: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.”

They ask for information. Jesus promises connection. They ask for certainty. Jesus promises the Spirit. They ask to know the plan. Jesus draws them into the life and work of God.

And then he is lifted from their sight.

No wonder the disciples are left staring upwards. But the angelic question presses them onward: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

It is not a rebuke of worship. It is a summons to vocation. The disciples are not being told that heaven does not matter. They are being told that heaven has now claimed earth. They are not being told that Christ is absent. They are being prepared to discover his presence in a new way: through the Spirit, in the gathered community, in prayer, in witness, in the breaking of bread, and in the costly work of love.

And the life they seek will not be found by staring upwards as though God were elsewhere. It will be found by connecting to the life of God and then living from that connection in the world God loves.

That is why the Eucharist stands at the heart of our life together, for we do not come to the altar to negotiate with God. We do not come to purchase grace with our goodness. We do not come because we have understood everything or made ourselves worthy. We come with empty hands. We come to receive.

The Eucharist is the antithesis of religious transaction. It is communion. It is the life of the risen and ascended Christ given to his people. Here heaven and earth connect. Here Christ is not less present because he is ascended, but more deeply present: before us, among us, within us.

We are presently in that strange and holy liminal space between Ascension and Pentecost, where the Church finds itself between what has been revealed and what is still to be received; between knowing where the source of life comes from and learning how to live from that source.

And perhaps that is where many of us find ourselves too. We know enough to recognise that something is wrong. We know the barrenness of living transactionally, as though love, faith, service, and even prayer were things we use in order to get something back. We know that a life built only on productivity, control, and achievement cannot finally sustain the weight of the human soul.

But the Ascension reveals how we are to respond. It shows us that the life we seek is not generated by frantic effort, nor secured by looking upwards towards a distant heaven, but received through our connecting with the risen and ascended Lord.

Yet that does not leave us passive observers. The kettle may have needed power, but someone still had to notice the disconnection, put the plug into the socket, and press down the switch. Grace is gift, but it calls forth response. Communion is offered, but we must allow ourselves to be drawn in. The Spirit is promised, but the disciples still have to return, gather, wait, and pray.

So our question this morning is not simply, “What is broken?” Nor even, “Where is God?” The question is: are we connected? Are we connected to the source of life? Will we stop pressing harder on mechanisms that cannot save us, and instead open ourselves to the life Christ has promised?

For when we are connected to that promise, when we are plugged into the grace already given, when we have pressed the switch not in anxious striving but in faithful response, we discover that we are not merely repaired, improved, or made more effective. We are connected into the life of the risen and ascended Christ, held within the communion of God’s own love, and sent in the power of the Spirit to bear witness to this astonishing truth: heaven has claimed earth, grace has broken open the world, and all things are being made new.

Amen.

“Another Paraclete” – Canon Peter Collier, Cathedral Reader

Acts 17: 22-31; John 14: 15-21

Our gospel reading today was from John’s gospel, as it was last week. John’s gospel is so full of memorable sayings of Jesus. But if I was to ask you to pick out three passages from John’s gospel that summarise the good news we have through Jesus, I wonder which ones you would choose.

For me there is no doubt about it.

God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.

And so the Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son.

But when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Those three verses seem to me to encapsulate the good news that we have in Jesus Christ.

And the thread running through them is the golden thread of God’s love – God’s love for his Son and God’s love for us; and the Son’s love for his Father and also for us.

And that is the very heart of what we are about as we come together as part of God’s worldwide church this morning. We are here because in some way and to some extent we have been captivated by the unconditional love of God, who has accepted us into his kingdom just as we are. With all our blemishes and failings, let alone the hurts and harms we have done to others, he accepts us into his family. And he assures us that nothing can separate us from that love, which will go on for ever and ever, world without end. And having been found by that kind of love, we now live together in the context of that love.

Just as God is three persons who from before eternity have been involved in a dance of love, so we are now called to enjoy and to join in their love. And when that happens our lives are changed and cannot be the same as they were before.

In his farewell discourse, which our gospel reading is taken from, Jesus links living in that love with obeying his commandment. And what is that commandment?  Well, he has just told them – it is that they are to love one another.

Jesus has spent three years with this group of followers – the 12 disciples, along with many others who followed him closely. In that time, he had explained to them in many ways how God’s kingdom is different from the kingdoms of the world around them – both the religious and the political kingdoms – it is about service not power. He not only spoke about God’s love for all manner of people, but he himself regularly interacted with those who were marginalised, or excluded – Gentiles, women, lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, and we could go on.

Of course, this was not new. There was much in their scriptures about God caring for the widows, the orphans and the refugees. But as with most societies, then as now, it is power that rules, and those in power who set the rules.

Now, knowing that very soon he will be taken and crucified, that he will rise again, and shortly thereafter return to the Father, he wants his disciples to understand how they are to go on without his physical presence among them.

And so, he focuses on showing and explaining to them how they are to live. In the previous chapter (chapter 13) we read how he took a towel and a basin and washed the feet of the twelve. And then he told them that that was what they were to do also. He then said that he was going to lay his life down for them, and he was giving them a new commandment to love one another, in just the same way as he had loved them.

So, with the washing of feet and the laying down of life, he had shown love, and now they too were to live in and to show that love.

But how were they to do it without him? We know how often they had got things wrong and needed correction, so what would happen when he was not there to lead and to correct?

What he promised in the passage that have just read was that he would not leave them as orphans. An orphan is someone without parents, without support, without guidance, alone in the world. Jesus said he was not going to leave them like that, but he would ask the Father to give them another paraclete, who would be with them for ever.

Some of you will know of the community of religious sisters based at Whitby. Their order is known as the Order of the Holy Paraclete, not to be confused as is sometime said “the holy parakeet”. The literal translation of paraclete is “one called alongside”.

Our NRSV translates the word paraclete as advocate. Other versions historically and now use the word counsellor, or helper, or comforter, using the word comfort in its older sense of strengthening rather than soothing. But they all have in common someone who comes alongside another to help them.

By “another” paraclete, Jesus means “another like me”. “Another” one who will do what I have been doing.

Jesus came alongside us so that we might see and get to know the otherwise invisible God. The one whom Paul had described in Athens as “the unknown god”. Jesus taught his disciples the truth; He showed them how to live; He corrected them when they were going wrong. That was what happened when the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.

And that is what another paraclete will now do.

I personally like the word advocate, which many of you won’t find surprising as you know that I was for many years a barrister. And I was very fortunate in that for a long time I worked regularly here in York at the Crown Court. Things were done very differently in the 1980s. So, a typical day would begin by having a full English breakfast with colleagues in Fenwicks. Then we would go across to the Court, robe up and more often than not I would go down into the cells to meet my lay client. There I would literally get alongside them, sitting down on the cell bench next to them and listening to them as they told me their story. It was then my job to speak for them.  I was their advocate. But I could only fulfil that role by really getting alongside, listening, understanding and then interpreting them.

Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit is already alongside them, but he says something more is going to happen – the Spirit is going to live within them, to indwell them. There is a great deal in chapters 14 and 15 about the Father, the Son, the Spirit and us, and talk of who lives in whom, which I find far from easy to follow and grasp. But for me the bottom line is that it is all about the love of God which has found us and within which we now live.

And that Spirit is with each of us day by day in the same way that Jesus was with his disciples, to demonstrate, to teach, to train, and to correct. We now have the Spirit doing all that. Putting a finger on what needs to change, enabling us to produce good fruit, strengthening us to speak and live to God’s glory – that is what the Spirit does. Do you want to see the Spirit at work in your life? Then look inside – that’s where you will find God’s Spirit at work. Any sense you have of what God is saying and doing is simply the promised paraclete doing his job.

And the marker of authenticity we look for is anything and everything to do with love.

One of the sisters of the OHP – the late sister Marion Eva – used to say that when we are called to give an account of ourselves on the last day the question will not be “How much did you do for the kingdom?” But “how have you loved?”

Amen.