God tugs us back into life – Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Preacher: Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Title of sermon: God tugs us back into life

Date/time/service: Sunday 17 April 2022, 8am, Easter Day, Holy Communion

We began this week shadowing the last days of Jesus of Nazareth.  Like the first Palm Sunday it started with lots of people, excitement and anticipation.  We had a great service here last Sunday, bright sunshine for our Palm Sunday procession with donkeys and crowds of people following them into the body of the Minster.

But how quickly things can change. Back in church later the same day I was with a bereaved family as they remembered someone very special to them.  From the many and the joyful, I was with the few and the mourning.  We live lives threaded through with all these different experiences – often without much time between them.

It’s hard.

Last week pulled all these themes together, moving from the joy of Palm Sunday to the desolation of the cross.  It’s hard to imagine the rollercoaster of emotions Jesus and his followers went through.  To be the object of popular approval; to be sharing a meal with your closest and dearest friends; to the public ridicule of a shameful death – with your mother watching it all.

Then there’s today.

Friday was supposed to be the end of it all.  As Newman puts it in his prayer: “the fever of life is over and our work is done”.  Despite its horror, at least Good Friday was an end.  The disciples could return to their normal lives, friends could mourn and life would once again become routine, ordinary.

Not today.  Today is the day that changes every day.

The appeal of Jesus had been that he was larger than life – and now we discover that he’s larger than death. Crucifixion; a sword in the side; a stone sealing his body in the darkness of a tomb.  God seems to smile at our puny efforts to decide that his Son is dead.  None of it matters.  God calls Jesus back into life – to bring his life and new possibility to all who put their faith in him.  With God, everything is possible.

What we celebrate today isn’t a ‘get out of jail free’ card.  It doesn’t allow us to skip past pain or be sheltered from suffering.  But when we’ve had enough, and would rather stay in a tomb of our own despair, God tugs us back into life. God asks: “Bring me whatever you have – even if it looks and feels like death: and I will call it back into life”.

We only have to look down the long centuries of Christian history to see how time and again God has taken what the world has written off in order to breathe new life into humanity.

People discarded by the world have wept and battered at the doors of the powerful and demanded justice.

Every Easter we find ourselves at a particular moment in our lives. I hope, for many it will be a good and hopeful place.  But for others it won’t be.  For many today will simply be a grim repeat of yesterday – and a fearful taste of tomorrow.

God knows.  And God says to us: ‘bring what you have – bring who you are, and I will give it life’.  Because today God doesn’t let death have the final work.

Alleluia Christ is Risen!

Lament and Hope – Prayer and Poetry – Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Preacher: Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Title of sermon: Lament and Hope – Prayer and Poetry

Date/time/service: Sunday 3 April 2022, 4pm, Passion Sunday, Choral Evensong 

Here in the Minster, as in many cathedrals and churches the psalms have a special place in our daily acts of worship. In fact, it’s not difficult to argue that the Psalms have a special place in Christianity. Often you will find them in a copy of the New Testament – the only part of the Jewish scriptures routinely included. Why? Why should these songs and poems be of such critical importance that they stand out from all the other books that stretch from Genesis to Malachi.

During Lent at the Minster we’ve been holding a series of talks that look at the relationship between the arts and prayer. One of these talks, given by Wendy Lloyd, discussed ‘Prayer as Lament and Hope’. For many, ‘lament and hope’ might be a good description for what Psalms express. They don’t shy away from the realities of human pain and suffering.

According to the Richard Schmidt:

“It is not that every sentiment expressed by a psalmist is admirable, but that in praying the Psalms, we confront ourselves as we really are. The Psalms are a reality check to keep prayer from becoming sentimental, superficial, or detached from the real world.”

In Lent many of the Psalms we hear in church articulate lament. The music to which they are often sung reflects that sense of anguish and sorrow. If this was all the Psalms conveyed it would indeed be a very bleak 40 days before Easter. As it is, in every Psalm, lament is peppered with hope. Anguish is countered by resolute faith and trust. The lost dare to believe that they might be found; embraced and loved.

Like a rainbow the Psalmists’ hope can seem beyond reach. Despite the grim realities we can all face the Israelites nevertheless believed that this arc of hope was worth pursuing.

It transcended the journey through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’ and gave people who might otherwise have been crushed by life the determination to endure.

Perhaps this is the reason why Psalm 31 has become the key text in the spiritual response to the war in Ukraine. It’s a Psalm that touches on the realities of conflict, with the Psalmist writing: “I was beset as a city under siege”.  The text gives full recognition to the distress, grief, horror, alarm and sense of shame felt by victims of violence. Yet it moves between those feelings and expresses a great sense of hope in God – a conviction that God will come;

that God will restore justice; and that we will be saved through the steadfast love of the Lord.

Our prayer tree here in the Minster is littered with words that express the anguish of what we are all seeing and the longing for peace. Mostly the prayers consist of just a few words – a cry from the human heart for an end to this senseless conflict and the passionate desire for peace. Time and again these prayers express a human solidarity with people whose lives have been ripped apart by conflict.

In holding together gritty realism and spiritual hope the Psalms are strongly poetic.

Like so many of our prayers, poetry allows us to allude to a hope that vanishes if we try to pin it down too exactly. Hope is about something that doesn’t yet exist – but might. The form of language reflects the emerging nature of what we long for; pray for; work towards.

It was a great privilege for us to have here in the Minster recently the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage. He had written a poem commissioned by the Chapter of York to mark the second anniversary of the first UK lockdown. Reflecting on our experiences of isolation Armitage writes about how we “candled our own hearts till the air was fit to breathe again”. Entitled ‘Only Human’ the work concludes with the words: ‘We are better now – that is the hope’.

As the Psalms illustrate, and poets tell us, believing that things will one day be better isn’t an idle or an easy hope. The hope of faith can test the best of us. Whether it’s the Psalmist, Jesus on the cross, or ourselves, there can be times on the journey of faith when we wonder where God is in the darkness.

These fundamental questions are of concern to people of faith and as we, at the Minster, see and hear on a daily basis they are also questions raised by those who come here as tourists but through the experience of this place they find space to explore their spirituality.

At times this can be tentative and ambiguous such as the prayer offered the other day by a visitor which said: ‘I am not a Christian but please God do something about this war’. Rather than dismissing that complexity we need to respond with skill and sensitivity.

The Explore Project is designed to address these kinds of questions.

That’s why I’m delighted that we are launching tailor made resources: prayer cards, booklets and a website, which are informed by research into the kind of questions people experience here and in other Cathedrals and Churches across the UK.

And so to mark this launch I would like to finish with a prayer of dedication:

God of all our explorations,

let this ancient place of prayer

and the churches and Cathedrals of this land be places where faith can blossom and lives be transformed.

We dedicate the resources of the Explore Project, that they may be a means by which the gentleness of your invitation to know and to love you is stirred; a means by which fears and anxieties can be named; and an opportunity for questions and doubts be explored. In your name we pray and give thanks.

Amen.

A brief history of the Fourth Sunday of Lent – Revd Dr Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Preacher: Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Title of sermon: A brief history of the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Readings: 1 Samuel 1:20-end, Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 19. 25b-27

Date/time/service: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Mothering Sunday,

I know it says that today is the Fourth Sunday of Lent on the front of the order of service, but in fact this Sunday can go under the guise of many different names. We could mark this day in any number of different ways. So I thought I would offer a brief history of The Fourth Sunday of Lent so we can all make an informed choice as to why we might be here today!

Many years ago, when the church was fairly new, the fourth Sunday of Lent, was called Refreshment Sunday or ‘Rejoicing’ Sunday, in latin, Laetere Sunday. It was a day of celebration during the season of Lent, a little oasis in a season of fasting and penitence.  It got this name because one of the readings on that day began with the words ‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’. And people were happy to take it literally. Some people called it Mid-Lent Sunday, rejoicing that perhaps that they had managed to get half-way through!  Sometimes, the clergy would wear rose coloured vestments to show that they were relaxing- a change from the normal purple, or in our case blue- so, some  people called the fourth Sunday of Lent ‘Rose Sunday’. Confused already?  Welcome to the Church of England!

Another reading that could be read on this Sunday, was the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, telling us about the generosity of God.  So sometimes the fourth Sunday in lent was called Five Loaves Sunday. People would rejoice and give thanks, and sing psalm hymns and spiritual songs to God for all they had. It was a day to remember the goodness and providence of God.  As the years went by, on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, people would be given a break, a day off, a holiday for rest and refreshment. They would make a cake to share with their family- a spicy Simnel cake, covered in Marzipan, and so some people called the Fourth Sunday of Lent ‘Simnel Sunday’. There’s more….

Another reading on the Fourth Sunday of Lent was written by St Paul, and he said that Jerusalem was the Mother of us all, reminding us that we are all children of God.  So again people gave thanks to God in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs for the Mother Church and for Mary, the mother of Jesus.  On the fourth Sunday of Lent, people went back home to their mother church. It might have been the church where they were christened as a baby, or sometimes they would even go to the Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese.

People who visited their mother church on the fourth Sunday of Lent, would say they had gone “a-mothering.” So, the fourth Sunday of Lent became known as Mothering Sunday. Please note: This is a different festival to Mother’s Day, which began in America about 100 years ago, though in England over the years the two festivals have kind of merged into one at least in secular culture.

So from that day to this, if not keeping the fourth Sunday of Lent, the church still keeps, not Mother’s day, but Mothering Sunday, though we remember all the qualities of mothering shared among us, we also remember Mary, the mother of God, and the family of the church, which helps us make a new kind of human family.

All these choices, all these options, what is your preferred choice for this fourth Sunday of Lent? The variety of options experienced on this one Sunday of the churches year, reflect very well the reality and the complexity of the church itself, variegated, different, diverse, sometimes confusing, with as many opposing opinions as Anglican Twitter and as many choices to make as any local coffee shop. Whose corner are you in? What flavour do you like best? It’s sometimes hard to imagine how any of this diversity can be drawn together effectively. If you were trying to tell someone about the church, or indeed sell the concept of church to someone -what would be the USP? As we sit here today, we ourselves in some ways represent the great diversity of humanity, and if we don’t we should.

When we come here what is it that makes this gathering into a community, and what is it that binds us all together not only with one another, but also with every other church in this city, diocese, across this land and across the world? There isn’t time today for a full examination of what Christian community is, we’re just making a start-but maybe it’s something we should all be thinking about?

Of course, there is only one thing that binds the church together beyond all of the flavours, customs, options, opinions and traditions that may exist. That one thing is Christ. Christ alone. Christ on the cross looking down upon the world, embracing the world in his loving arms, with love and compassion, looking down upon the world and binding it together in love.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus said to Mary his mother, this is your Son, pointing to John the disciple.  And pointing to Mary, he said to John, this is your mother. There on the cross, Jesus created a new kind of community not bound by conformity or sameness, not bound by blood, but bound by a love which breaks every barrier down and gathers together the fullness of humanity in all of its diversity and difference. It is only ever Christ that binds us all together. As St Paul says let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.

It may not matter what name we give the fourth Sunday of Lent, as long as we have Christ before us, beside us, below us, above us, between us and that we, for as long as we live, give ourselves to the Lord as our first concern, always through Christ, and with Christ and in Christ.

Disunity, within the church is a sin- it is the devil who tries to divide. There is a difference isn’t there between diversity and division and of course we currently live in a world of deep divisions, divisions between individuals, between families and communities and sadly between nations, perhaps we as the church of Christ, the body of Christ, can help heal those divisions by embodying what unity in diversity is….. if we are brave enough to let ourselves first be bound together as the body of Christ?

The church is one body, we are defined by our community and our unity, we are defined as a church by how we come together in difference and by how we bind together humanity with all of its faults and in all of its fullness.

There is one final tradition for the fourth Sunday of Lent I want to mention – it’s called ‘Clipping the Church’ or embracing the Church, or in modern language ‘hugging the church’, it often happened in the countryside, and the congregation would gather outside all around their church, hand in hand and sing songs, to remember that they were all bound together by the love of God, because sometimes it seems even the church needs reminding that it is called to be one family.

In the late seventies, there was a song that everyone was singing, it was a kind of folk song. It was sung by children in Sunday school and in assemblies, it’s still sung today. It’s the kind of song that is usually banned in Cathedrals, because it’s a bit twee and usually played on a guitar and not to everyone’s tastes, and don’t worry I’m not going to make you sing it, not this year anyway, but I am going finish with its words as a kind of prayer, it’s called Bind us together, you might know it. It might be the spiritual song that we could sing in our hearts today as we pray for our community and our unity as the church of Christ and as we pray for unity and compassion in our world:

Bind us together Lord, Bind us together with cords that cannot be broken,

Bind us together Lord, Bind us together Lord, Bind us together in love.

There is only one God, there is only King, there is only one body, this is why we sing:

Bind us together Lord, Bind us together Lord, bind us together in love.

Amen. 

Suppose a King is about to go to war – Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Preacher: Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner

Title of sermon: Suppose a King is about to go to war

Date/time/service: Sunday 13 March 2022, 4pm, Choral Evensong 

Our first reading tonight contrast two kings, father and son. The first models the kind of sovereignty God asks of those anointed to be King. It is a reign of service in which the rights of the poor and needy are upheld. In which there is no violence and where innocent blood isn’t shed. Addressing the son, the prophet mocks the attitude that successful kingship amounts to having finer buildings than those of his father. The son has missed the point.

In Old Testament times, Kings were a separate kind of human being. They had a direct relationship with God. As it was said in this era, the king represented ‘the living law’ – with power and responsibility to match. God used the prophets to rein in this power when it was abused, and the King stopped listening to God and ignored the justice and duties that belonged to royal office.

If at times we feel that stories in the Bible are remote or irrelevant, I think we need to think again. We don’t have to look far in our world to see the tragedy of power that has little or no accountability. Where authority brings ‘oppression’; ‘robbery’; ‘violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow’; where ‘innocent blood is shed’.

In the prophet’s oracle God says: ‘Is not this to know me?’ – ‘to judge the cause of the poor and needy’.

In Ukraine we see today the complete disregard for the poor and needy. In a brief period of time, people are living in what have been described as ‘Medieval’ conditions. No electricity, little food and medicine, a lack of heat in a land where snow is falling. I don’t think we need to ponder very long on the question as to what Jeremiah would make of these actions. While I recognise the dilemma for leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church surely there are some words of prophecy that this moment demands? The former Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote a letter to The Times last week expressing people’s amazement that the Church has entered Lent with no criticism of what is happening in Ukraine:

Orthodox Christians engaging, at this season of all seasons, in indiscriminate killing of the innocent, insanely reckless attacks on nuclear facilities… the unashamed breach of ceasefire agreements, and an attack on one of the most significant Holocaust memorials in Europe.

He concludes that it is not too late for the Church to intervene. But will it?

In our second reading Jesus tells his hearers: ‘suppose a King is about to go to war’.

The parable Jesus tells is about repentance. The idea that no one in their right mind would take up arms against an all powerful God. Instead, reflecting on their circumstances, they would send a delegation to meet the King and negotiate a peace. In other words, knowing our own weaknesses and failings, we should repent and seek God’s forgiveness rather than try to oppose this overwhelming force.

But, thinking of Ukraine, we must ask what happens when the price of any peace you might be offered in this life, is simply to surrender? When accepting defeat means the loss of statehood and independence. In reality, as President Zelensky made so clear speaking to the UK Parliament, the choice is either annihilation or resistance. Ukraine is choosing the latter.

Not every King is willing to negotiate terms. Not every authority is reasonable. Not every use of force is ethical, or moral or justified. We should be hopeful – but not naïve. There are ‘kings’ in our world who do not recognise the value of peace or the claims of people who are poor and in need. Leaders unafraid of spilling innocent blood. Heads of State who seem to feel that they have no accountability to God or anyone else.

Jesus tells us that we each have a cross to carry in this life. There is sacrifice in the confusion of this world, and following a God who seeks justice does not come without cost. It may be that the extensive sanctions now in place will demand some sacrifice from all of us. As we play our part in upholding the needs of the poor and the needy there may also be sacrifices to help and support people who have lost their homes and livelihoods. It feels that this year we are all being asked to share in a Lent which, in our prayers for peace and the sacrifices that help others to live, will draw us closer to the justice God seeks for the world.

Along with us, I hope and pray that the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church consider this deeply, and that they will decide to speak prophetically. It is their job and it is their calling.

Turning aside – Revd Dr Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Preacher: Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Title of sermon: Turning aside, A Homily for the Solemn Eucharist on Ash Wednesday

Readings: Isaiah 58:1-12, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Date/time/service: Wednesday 2 March 2022 

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it.

But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now that I must give all that I have
to possess it.  

Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Not my words but those of RS Thomas, from his poem The Bright Field. This poem captures in words the image of the sun breaking through a dull welsh sky, lighting up a lowly field- a sight so enchanting that it calls us to turn aside and look and absorb that moment of glory being revealed. Brown clay and soil and earth and dust is elevated to take on the mantle of a priceless gem, a pearl of great price, a treasure, in a landscape of gilded furrows.

That idea of turning aside and of turning, is a pertinent one for us today. Perhaps, as we race through life and we hurry on to our receding futures and hanker after our imagined past, we fail to see Gods’ light breaking through around us and within us.

Far from turning aside we rush onwards at speed, hurrying, hankering, caught up in the pace which the world sets for us, constantly ‘ON’, always doing, running, speeding, sending, self-obsessing, oblivious to small miracles coming to birth all around us, failing to take time for the things that matter, not hearing the voices that need to be heard, not noticing the hungry, the naked, the afflicted.

What if life was about turning aside? What if we made a conscious decision daily to turn, to turn towards Christ, and be faithful?

What if we made some effort to turn away from ourselves, and have eyes and hearts open to noticing, perceiving, taking things in, being observant about the world and its needs? Putting others first, making time to stop, and wait, and seek-out God’s presence and see the light breaking through?

What if life was about turning aside? What if life was about turning away from sin, from all that mars God’s image within us, and turning towards Christ? So that we might be strengthened to re-build, to repair, to heal, to loose the bonds of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, so that the fast that we choose goes deeper than a mark on our forehead?

We are offered the chance to turn aside for a while- recognizing our mortality, understanding where we have come from and where we are going, coming to appreciate the preciousness of life itself: from dust we come and to dust we shall return. How then shall we use this gift of life in between? How will we honour this life in those around us? How will we work for this life in a world which constantly tries to diminish it through prejudice, hatred, violence, and now war?

During Lent, day by day we commit ourselves to use the gift of life we have been given, the life between the dust and remember that the dust from which are all made, and the dust to which we will return- is indeed holy ground.

We are called to turn aside and take a moment to pray, so that even in the dust and dirt there may be hope and light, even in the rubble of a building, in food scarce and yet shared, in underground shelters, in the cries of refugees, we pray that there may yet be hope and light. In our weeping world, we pray that the light will break through and we may notice it when it does.

Instead of hurrying on to a receding future, instead of hankering after an imagined past- instead of being oblivious to all that is around us, we are all being called to turn aside and through the brown clay and earth and soil and dust, to notice the treasure before it’s too late.

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return, turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.

Amen.

Don’t worry – Revd Maggie McLean, Canon Missioner

Preacher: Revd Maggie McLean, Canon Missioner

Title of sermon: Don’t worry

Date/time/service: Sunday 20th February 2022 – 4pm Choral Evensong 

I’ve always felt there’s a slight contradiction in our second reading tonight. Jesus tells his hearers not to worry about tomorrow. One example he gives is to consider the grass of the field. Grass which flourishes today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven. I think if I was the grass I might be a little bit worried about tomorrow!

It’s always easy to say ‘don’t worry’, especially when the worry isn’t ours. Sometimes something makes us anxious and we seem to have little choice but to worry. The people of the Ukraine, and the rest of us, understandably worry about what tomorrow might bring. In the past couple of years in our world it seems that there has been no shortages of things to worry about. Shortages of other things – from toilet rolls to petrol – but a never ending supply of anxiety.

For me the sense of our second reading relies on its relationship to the first reading. In Genesis chapter 1 huge things are taking place. A barren and lifeless world is blessed with light. Water appears and then dry land rises out of it. Over the course of time vegetation appears, great beasts of the sea, animals and birds, and then, late in the day, human beings are created. All this activity of creation is crowned on the seventh day with rest. Just when the story feels as though it’s about to begin, with Adam and Eve set in the garden, God stops. Everything stops. There is rest. Shabbat.

It is this rich cast of creation to which Jesus looks when he tells us not to worry. The birds matter – and without worrying about it, they are fed. The flowers of the field have great colour and vibrancy and splendour – but these aren’t things they think about. This is simply what is.

For Jesus worry is what robs us of the moment. Today we live in a world that can appear driven by worries about what to eat; what to drink; what to wear. A whole advertising industry runs on our dissatisfaction with the things we have. Using all the arts of human psychology and appeal, we are encouraged to be unhappy with what we have and to aspire for something new; better; bigger; richer.

Our culture of dissatisfaction comes with a cost for all of us, perhaps especially the young. It is impossible to think that there is no connection between image-based social media and the lifestyles and anxieties of younger people. Too often it is believed that ‘image is everything’.  Both directly and indirectly we are encouraging people to be dissatisfied with how they look and to buy the things that claim to improve our appearance. It is true that this has always been a part of life, but there can be no doubt that it is entering into our lives in ever more subtle ways.

Thankfully there is a counter narrative to all this hype. People whose appearance doesn’t fit with the dominant standards of beauty are challenging views and attitudes. However, the pressure to conform to accepted ways of looking continues. In truth we can all feel anxious about fitting in, looking the right way and wearing the right things. It’s part of human nature – but also a part that the advertising industry knows and exploits. You tend not to sell very much if your main message is that people are fine as they are.

Time and again Jesus spent time with people who didn’t fit in. Whether it was healing the servant of an enemy officer or being touched by a woman who was haemorrhaging, Jesus kept company with the outsiders. This welcoming and including is a hallmark of the Gospel and a challenge to the usual ways of doing things.

One of the most exciting things about the Church is that anyone can join. There’s no threshold of beauty or intelligence, skill or ability. All it takes is a response to the invitation of Christ to ‘come and follow me’. All that should make us fit in, is the response to that call – we don’t need to be anything else to claim our place in the Kingdom.

Little wonder that our Gospel carries the assurance that we don’t need to worry. In contrast to all the striving and restlessness of trying to fit in, Jesus tells his hearers to be still and reflect on the beauty of the world in which they live. A world in which birds and flowers are simply ‘themselves’, being what God has created them to be – giving no thought for tomorrow.

In our age, we know that there are things which require preparation and planning. Most of us can’t just get up tomorrow and assume everything will be fine. But I think there’s a difference between preparation and anxiety. We need to commit our plans to God as much as the worries of a particular day. We need to find our ‘sabbath’ in the busyness of life so that we can remember that we are in God’s hands.

As we draw nearer to the start of Lent it might be a good idea to spend some time praying about God’s acceptance of our lives. To be reminded that we are loved and wanted and to reject the idea that there is some further level of acceptability we need to achieve. To be still and know that God never rejects our difference; our uniqueness; our life.

Amen. 

Racial Justice Sunday 2022 – Revd Maggie McLean, Canon Missioner

Preacher: Revd Maggie McLean, Canon Missioner

Title of sermon: Racial Justice Sunday 2022

Date/time/service: Sunday 13th February 2022 – 11am Choral Eucharist

“He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.”

Thirty years ago, I was doing my curacy in a church in Bedford. For the people of that city there were very different ways to think about this parish. Depending on your point of view, it was either a) a vibrant multi-cultural community or b) the wrong side of the railway line. For some people an exciting place to live and for others, different; dangerous; unknown.

If we are honest, we can all find the unfamiliar unsettling. There’s a human tendency to seek the familiar and reassuring. Not for everyone, but certainly for many people, both family and friendship circles can look very much the same. Yet when we gravitate towards this familiarity we also deny ourselves rich opportunities to learn and to grow. In Bedford I made friendships that have lasted over the decades and given me insight into the experiences of people with backgrounds very different from my own. Friends whose parents came in the Windrush generation, answering the UK’s request for workers.

Most churches did not make welcome the devout Anglicans who answered this call. It was suggested to people that they would be more ‘comfortable’ somewhere else. Congregations that would have been energised with new life chose instead to close the door on difference. To understand this I cannot commend enough the book ‘Ghost Ship’ published in 2020. Written by a parish priest, A D A France-Williams, it tells the often harrowing, frightening and true accounts of what it means to be black in the Church of England.

Our Gospel reading this morning begins with a seemingly innocuous detail. Having spent the night up a mountain in prayer, ‘He came down with them and stood on a level place’.

‘He came down with them and stood on a level place’.

Getting to be with Jesus isn’t supposed to be difficult. When you read what France-Williams describes you certainly don’t get a sense of the Church as a level place. Instead, it feels like an optical illusion, where things that appear level accelerate advancement for some while sinking others into an abyss. A game of snakes and ladders where only some people know the rules and control the dice. The many accounts, actions and experiences the book describes show how deeply wired into the church’s life are the assumptions and attitudes that sustain white privilege.

When Jesus stood on a level place people came from everywhere to be near him. ‘A great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon’. They came to this great teacher in a level place to be healed. To confess their sins and be put right. To hear how they needed to be, in order to enter the Kingdom of God. It was a place without privilege or hierarchy – a place where need and love were all that mattered.

‘Ghost Ship’ concludes with a call for change. Racism in the church cannot only be a concern or an issue when people from BAME communities are present. Too often in the church that’s the reality and it needs to stop. Simply saying that our bit of ground is level fails to see the bigger landscape of which York Minster is a part.

France-Williams ends by quoting a South African author who reported on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Antjie Krog:

“Reconciliation will only take place… the day whites feel offended by racism instead of feeling sorry for the blacks”

We can all be part of that change. We can do more, far more, to make sure that all those God calls into the church find it to be a level place. A place where hidden rules and unspoken barriers are set aside. But it will only happen if we are all committed to making a change.

Amen. 

Accession Day 2022 – Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Preacher: Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Title of sermon: Accession Day 2022

Readings: Psalms 20, 101,121. Joshua 1:1-9, Romans 13:1-10

Date/time/service: Sunday 6th February 2022 – 4pm Choral Evensong

Imagine the jubilation, walking into Westminster Abbey to the music we have just heard. The words from Psalm 122 describe the joy and delight of entering into the courts of the Lord in procession for solemn assembly, to worship God. It was sung at the Coronation Service of Queen Elizabeth on the second on 2^nd June 1953, and much of the music we have heard today, references that triumphant ceremony. But let’s rewind just a little to the anniversary we mark today, the moment when a lifelong vocation was born from the pains of death, when the mantle of service was passed on from one generation to another.

In the year previous, on the 6^th February 1952, Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya with her husband Prince Phillip on a royal tour, in place of her father King George the Sixth who was ill. It was here that she received the news of her father’s death and her own Accession to the throne.  In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, she ceased to be Princess Elizabeth and became Queen Elizabeth II. She was just 25.

On that day her life changed forever, and she had to handle the grief of losing a beloved father and the incomparable weight of the duty which was being thrust upon her. We can only imagine her sorrow, and we can only imagine her fear and trepidation in taking on this responsibility and embracing what we in the church might describe as an ontological change- a change in her very being and in her life’s purpose.

When God ordained Joshua as leader of the people of Israel after Moses death, God said to Joshua, ‘As I was with Moses, so I shall be with you, I will not fail or forsake you, be strong and courageous, neither frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you everywhere you go.’

It is worth reflecting on how a young woman of 25, in a patriarchal society where her age as well as her gender would have been a stumbling block to many, it’s worth reflecting on how she would ever have the strength and courage to take on the mantle of being Queen of England. But Elizabeth, with dignity, with incredible humility and courage, made a vow to God in her own heart: to love and serve her people for as long as she lived. And so she has done.

But this fortitude, courage and strength has come from somewhere and our own Queen credits her ministry, (for I think we in the church can recognise this as a ministry), she credits her ministry to her unwavering faith in God and her trust that God will be with her everywhere she goes , just as God was with Joshua, just as God is with us. The words of Psalm 121 seem pertinent: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help, my help cometh even from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Her unique vow to serve as Queen, came in the line of other Christian vows she had already made: the vows made at her baptism, confirmation and marriage. At every stage of her life, she kept faith in God.

Over most of the seventy years of her reign the queen has practised her faith quietly and persistently, but it has been noted that since the turn of the millennium, in her words and in her speeches, particularly at Christmas, she has become more open about her faith, and how it has sustained her and shaped her, less private and more public about what lies at the heart of her reign. What can we learn from her example of Christian discipleship?

Our Queen often talks her own accountability before God, she recognises that in spite of her position she is simply a creature standing before the creator, a sinner in need of forgiveness, a disciple of Christ seeking to love him more dearly, see him more clearly and follow him more nearly day by day.

What can we learn from her lived example of Christian leadership, as individuals, as a church, as a nation?

Throughout her reign she has quietly shown her solidarity with the people she has been called to serve, when she was just twenty one, with an understanding of her future destiny she said this: ‘We must give nothing less than the whole of ourselves,’ she said, “I declare before you, all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service.”

And so we saw when she offered her service in the army during the second world and so we saw only last year, when our queen in solidarity with her people in the midst of a global pandemic, sat alone at the funeral of her beloved husband.

In her speech on Christmas Day, two thousand years after Christ’s birth, she referenced the central teaching of the Christian faith: love God and love thy neighbour as thyself.

Is this simple commandment the answer to the questions we all ask:  how do we live a good life? How do we bear the responsibilities we have been given? How do we honour one another as children of God? And for those with power and authority in our world, how do we exercise that power with humility and with justice? Love God and love thy neighbour as thyself.

St Paul in his letter to the Romans offers that there is no authority except from God, and perhaps those who take that truth seriously, are more likely to be the kind of rulers and leaders our world really needs. Leaders who bear their power not with arrogance but with humility before God.

We can probably find examples of leadership where those with power think they are Gods, beyond reproach, beyond interrogation and beyond integrity, where their needs come before anyone elses.

But not so with our Queen, who throughout her life, in an astonishingly quiet and steadfast way, has been a living example of all those virtues which we hope are still part of the fabric of this great nation: Steadfastness, forbearance, fortitude, integrity, sacrifice, compassion, courage, hope, love and faith.

We have in our Queen an example of Christian Leadership at its most humble and human, and Christian discipleship at its most obedient.

Whatever your take on monarchy in the modern world, we cannot deny that here is a woman of faith who has lived out that faith in word and deed as both as Head of State, as supreme Governor of our Church of England, but most importantly, as a faithful disciple of Christ.

God save the Queen.

Is your all on the altar? – Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Preacher: Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Title of sermon: Is your all on the altar?

Readings: Ezekiel 43:27-44.4, I Corinthians 13, Luke 2:22-40

Date/time/service: Sunday 30th January 2022 – 11am Choral Eucharist

You have longed for sweet peace,

And for faith to increase,

And have earnestly, fervently prayed.

But you cannot have rest,

Or be perfectly blest,

Until all on the altar is laid.

Refrain:

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

Your heart does the Spirit control?

You can only be blest,

And have peace and sweet rest,

As you yield Him your body and soul.

These words are from the once well know hymn, Is your all on the altar? Written in 1900 by Elisha Hoffman, the hymn questions how much we are really prepared to give of ourselves in and through worship, how much of ourselves we are really prepared to give to God.  Evelyn Underhill, the 20^th century Anglican theologian, in her reflections on worship, said that Christian worship can never be divorced from sacrifice. Worship is not a form of entertainment, though occasionally the sermon can be funny. It’s not a ‘show’ that we watch passively, and it’s not something we are forced to do. For the Christian, this is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. But what does that mean?

Martin Luther suggested that when we hear the word of God with all our heart, we offer a sacrifice. When we pray and when we give in charity to our neighbour, this is sacrifice. When we receive the sacrament, we offer a sacrifice. This is the place where we are transformed and made new. This is the place when we give of ourselves that we might therefore live.

It’s the basic message of the gospels give your life to God to save your life. Love God with all of your heart and mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. Worship is a sign of all of these things, and the place where we learn them. It’s a school for the soul.

Thankfully when we come to worship, we do not have to offer a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, a donation as you leave would be wonderful though! We are simply called to offer ourselves in love to God, and that is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise.

In the lifetimes of Elisha Hoffman, Evelyn Underhill or Martin Luther, sacrifice might have been an easier word to understand, but for us today the concept seems rather challenging.  Why would anyone give up anything for someone else? Or give of themselves for another? Hasn’t our culture has become a culture of taking rather than giving- a culture all about ‘me’ and my views, my needs, my rights above the views, needs, and rights of everyone else?

To put all this in another more straightforward way how might this act of worship help us look at the world in a new way? What is worship teaching us to be and to do and how is it shaping the life of the Christian community and the world in which we live?

In faith, Joseph and Mary went to the temple to present their new born in thanksgiving and praise. Their response to the living God was their duty and their joy. Their thank-offering represented all that they were- they were putting their all on the altar in the form of their new born baby.

Their love for God had drawn them to the temple, as it had drawn Simeon. He had also given his long life, living in the hope of seeing the salvation of God. And what about Anna, the prophet, who had given her life to the Lord, praying and fasting in the temple until, upon seeing this child, her fasting turned to celebration and her prayer was transformed into praise.

Every one of the characters in our Gospel reading put their all on the altar and of course, as Simeon looked at this tiny new life in front of him, he said to Mary ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too’- a premonition of the sacrifice of Christ himself upon the cross, the sacrifice above every sacrifice, God giving a beloved son for the life of the world.

This pattern we are called to follow, is one where we give of ourselves, for God and for our neighbour, putting our all on the altar. Throughout the gospels, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him with a whole heart not at their own convenience.

Another name for this ‘giving of our all’– this ‘sacrifice’ might in fact be love.

St Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, gives us a definition of divine love and in that definition, love always gives of itself: to love is to give yourself away for the sake of another. Love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful arrogant or rude, love does not insist on its own way. In the vows made at a wedding, loved and beloved say to each other- all that I am I give to you, all that I have I share with you, within the love of God. Of course, that formulation only works if both people say it, and this formulation is meant to be a reminder of the complete love of God for each one of us, and hopefully our love in return.

This is the love we are called to give to God and our neighbour- love given as a sacrifice of praise. Christina Rossetti captures this perfectly in her carol, In the Bleak Midwinter: ‘What can I give him, poor as I am?’ she asks. In the end she realises that she doesn’t need to offer a lamb like the shepherds, or a gift of great price like the wise men- all she is asked to do is to give her heart.

This is all we are asked to give: all that we have and all that we are. This is the kind of love which could transform the corrupt and unjust structures of our society into the kind of communities which reflect humanity at its best, where the forgotten are drawn in, the excluded gathered to the centre, the victims of tyranny, poverty and oppression released from their captivity. It can all start here, if we are prepared to put our all on the altar.

Perhaps Sacrifice is a good word for us to use after all? Because it suggests that none of this is easy. If we think beyond our circles of comfort, what are we prepared to give for the good and the flourishing of another, not just those with whom we share our lives, or those like us, but a brother or sister who lives on the other side of the world, who lives on the streets of our city, who is excluded and persecuted for who they are?

Might we want to break down, just a little, the injustices of our world? The corruption, the sense of entitlement, the selfishness? As we read the news and reflect on the world around us this week, might we want to build a different kind of kingdom, with more loving values, with more sacrificial values?

‘Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle’, so said, Martin Luther King. What are we really prepared to give or give up for this Kingdom cause? What individual inconveniences are we willing to accommodate for love in its truest and broadest definition?

Well, it all starts here.  If we really take our worship seriously, if we give our heart, if we give our all, if we see ourselves as a living sacrifice, and are ready and open to being transformed by love, we can really change the world through our worship and all we have to do, is put our all on the altar, in the name and to the glory of the one and only living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

How can we know the way? – Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Preacher: Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Title of sermon: How can we know the way?

Readings: Numbers 9. 15–end, 1 Corinthians 7. 17–24

Date/time/service: Sunday 23rd January 2022 – 4pm Choral Evensong

In the last week or so much has been said about what it means to have (or not have) a ‘moral compass’. It’s hard to work out why, with so much honesty and integrity in public life.

Nevertheless, when this phrase is used it usually refers to an internalized set of values and objectives that guide a person with regard to their ethical behaviour and decision-making. Day by day and week by week, how do you make decisions? Decisions for yourself or on behalf of others? What set of values and objectives are you using? I guess having a ‘moral compass’ helps us decide what is right and what is wrong, what to do and what not to do. But who sets the compass?

Without something or someone to guide us in the right way, we have a tendency to go the wrong way, because we are all only human, we are, in the words of the book of common prayer like lost sheep who are easily led astray. We follow too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We are always tempted to want more, we are programmed to try and control the future, thinking that we are masters of our own universe and that destiny is held within our hands alone. Our compasses are very often turned inwards on ourselves and our own needs and that is always where it starts to go wrong.

I think in the last couple of years we have all come to realise that sometimes we do not always know which way to go, which road to travel on, it’s sometimes felt that all we can do is get through, one day at a time. The world has been catapulted into the unknown. So I suppose the question is how do we navigate a way forward in the midst of so much uncertainty, change and doubt? How do we know which way to go- whether morally, or physically, or spiritually? How do we make decisions in our daily lives, what do we use as a compass or a guide? As we are called to move forward, what can we learn from our global wilderness experience -when the entire human family has been stopped in its tracks and forced to re-set its compass by an airborne virus.

Our reading from the Book of Numbers describes the journey of the people of Israel through the wilderness after their freedom from slavery in Egypt. As an oppressed and imprisoned people they had been isolated, they had been broken in spirit, they had had their hope and their dignity taken away. They were exhausted, they were fearful, they were uncertain. They did not know where they were going, they had lost all sense of direction.

So God provides a pillar of cloud and fire to lead them, when the pillar is settled on the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, the people of Israel make a camp and rest, when the pillar lifts they move on. By night the pillar of cloud becomes a pillar of fire to provide light and warmth and comfort. When all else had been taken away, and in order to simply put one foot in front of another, the people of Israel follow the firey-cloudy pillar and accept God as their only guide.

St Paul in his letter to the Church in Corinth advises this new community of Christians to be careful of their desires and not to put too much emphasis on trying to control the future. To this community, he advises that they remember who they are, that they continue to move forward, and that they focus on the here and now rather than a future beyond their reach or a past life long before they were called.  In all the worlds temptations they are advised to let God be their guide through their pilgrimage of life.

In his poem ‘Lead kindly light’ John Henry Newman reminds us that ‘one step is enough’ in the midst of any encircling gloom. ‘I do not ask to see the distant scene’, he says ‘one step enough for me’.  If we are open to being led by the kindly light, or by the fire and cloudy pillar, we need not worry so much about the future perhaps, we need not be afraid. If we are open to being led by Christ, rather than our own devices and desires, we can walk on in faith, even if not by sight. If we are open to being led by Christ, we may not even need a moral compass, because Christ is the only direction we need.

As we are still journeying through the season of Epiphany and the month of January, it seems appropriate for us to be thinking about what might lie ahead in the year to come or indeed what might happen tomorrow. What choices might we have to make in the days and months ahead and how will we travel on the right way?

I’ll close with the words of another poem, by Millie Haskins, written at the turn of the twentieth century, a poem which can be taken as a prayer, and reminds us that all we need do is put our hand into the hand of God, and let God guide us onwards and upwards. That is probably the only decision we need to make today, tomorrow and every day of our lives.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”. And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way”. So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

Amen.

What lies before us – The Reverend Canon Victoria Johnson

Sermon Preached on the Tercentenary of Grinling Gibbons, Wood Carver and Yorkshire Day

York Minster, Sunday 1 August 2021 by Canon Victoria Johnson

Readings: Psalm 84, 1 Chronicles 22. 6–end, 1 Corinthians 3. 10–17.

What lies before us.

A celebration of the tercentenary of a Master Wood Carver and sculptor and the annual commemoration of God’s own county, on Yorkshire Day: two events which combine during this service and may together help us reflect on the future that lies before us, and how we might be called to fashion it.

Grinling Gibbons, is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important wood carvers in history. He wasn’t a Yorkshire man and he wasn’t English, he was an immigrant from Rotterdam-but it was here in this city that he flourished as an artist and created works of beauty to inspire and memorialize, among them three elaborate carvings here in York Minster for three Archbishops. It was here in this city that he honed his skills among the guilds, craftspeople and businesses that contributed to the life of this northern metropolis three hundred years ago.

In a building like this, it seems fitting that we remember all those who carved stone and wood and painted glass, creating windows into new worlds delighting the eye and inspiring the heart, monuments to the transcendent and the timeless. As we sit beneath the Great West Window, locally known as the Heart of Yorkshire, in the city of the county, we also mark Yorkshire day, a much more recent celebration of a county with a rich heritage and history.

But to be of any worth, or significance, both of our celebrations today must also encourage us look to the future, otherwise they are simply fossilized traditions, time stood still. For we cannot celebrate Grinling Gibbons without a thought for the artisans and craftspeople of today, giving thanks for their skills and considering how they are supported, trained and nurtured within a modern economy. We cannot celebrate our county and its heritage without consideration of what it might represent now and in the future, we are all part of living traditions.

For the past is not all that we have: we have a future waiting to be shaped before us, and as we slowly emerge from a global pandemic, what kind of city, what kind of church, what kind of county, what kind of country, what kind of world are we hoping to build for those generations who come after us?

Our readings, speak rather fittingly of a building for the future. King David commissions his son Solomon to build a temple, a house for the Lord, with the assistance of stonecutters, masons, carpenters and all kinds of artisans working in gold, silver, bronze and iron. In our second reading, we move from an architectural vision of a physical house made by human hands to a different kind of temple in the form of a person, a temple built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. Through Christ, God comes to dwell with us, and God sanctifies humanity -we are his temple- so that each and every person made in his image, is a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.  Each builder must chose with care how to build on this foundation we are told.

Let’s think about how we might create and build communities which are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ whether they be communities of faith, communities of collaboration in our city, or communities of friendship across our county- with Christ as our foundation what might those communities look like?

Today we can draw upon another moment in history associated with 1^st August. William Wilberforce, a Yorkshire MP and committed Christian campaigned for the Abolition of Slavery. His rather plain slate memorial is just over there.

He died on 29^th July 1833, not quite seeing the Act of Abolition passed on this day in 1834. Here was someone who was trying to create and shape a new future built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, someone who believed that every person in their glory and uniqueness, was made in God’s image and we should build a world to reflect that. Here was someone who believed in new futures of justice and mercy for all people everywhere, new futures of compassion and kindness and generosity.  We still need to work towards those new futures in our society today, where the evil of racism persists, where there is still discrimination, poverty, injustice and modern day slavery.

Yesterday in the Yorkshire Post, the Archbishop of York said that Yorkshire Day might also be the day on which, we as citizens of this county, commit to addressing the current climate emergency and the associated floods, droughts, famines and extreme weather events we see all the more frequently, affecting everyone but always detrimentally affecting the poorest and most vulnerable in our world. In the midst of a global pandemic and a climate emergency, we have discovered that we are all in this together, and when one suffers all suffer.

So what kind of future lies before us?

What might need to be re-shaped, re-fashioned, and re-built to create a future which is worth celebrating? A future where communities of love, peace and justice flourish, not only in Yorkshire but across the whole of humanity in all of its fullness and diversity?

If we are tasked with building a new kind of future, or carving something beautiful from a past, and sometimes present reality which is far from perfect, how might we go about it? What is our vision for our city, our county, our nation, our world?

At the beginning of this year, Amanda Gorman, in her own words ‘a skinny black girl descended from slaves’, recited a poem at the inauguration of Joe Biden as President of the United States, called ‘The Hill we climb’.

With her very presence and her words crafted from pain and a history of oppression, she carved out in the air a vision of a new future for her society, and that vision was as beautiful as any sculpture that could be made with human hands. She spoke of her country, made up of countys and cities and townships:

And yes, she said, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.

We lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.

What kind of temple, what kind of city, what kind of county and country- what kind of world stands before us now – waiting to be built?

This temple, this building was created to give glory to Jesus Christ who offered a vision of new future, a kingdom beyond all earthly kingdoms, beyond our definitions of space and time, a kingdom above every earthly city, and state and nation- a kingdom which we pray will come on earth as it is in heaven.

The Kingdom of which he spoke was not bound by borders or any human dividing lines, entry into this kingdom was not restricted by class, gender, race, wealth or status, there would be in this kingdom, no male or female, no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, for all are made one in Christ, who is for us the sure foundation, the cornerstone on which we build.

Today, on the 1^st August 2021, as we rightly celebrate the past and the riches that it shares with us, may we also look at what stands before us, and take up our tools, and begin the work of carving a future of which we can all be proud.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

The divine potter – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Title of sermon: The divine potter

Date/time/service: Sunday 13^th June 2021 – Trinity 2 Evensong

Passage of scripture: Jeremiah 7.1-16 & Romans 9.14-26

I used to enjoy art lessons at school but I was never very good at it. For a term or two we did some pottery and I produced a couple of objects but nobody, including me, knew quite what they were. They stood gathering dust at home until my mum judged I would not notice if they discretely disappeared. I never knew what happened to the heavy, misshapen, ceramic things.

In today’s second reading St Paul compares God to a potter and to us as the clay being shaped by the divine hand. It is a metaphor used a few times in the bible including Isaiah and Jeremiah. I think we need to be a little careful when we reflect on this metaphor as we explore our relationship with God. There is a danger of thinking that our relationship with God is all about striving to become something or someone we are not. This can disturb our sense of identity and lead us to be permanently dissatisfied and yearning to be someone else.

Shifting to a slightly different artistic metaphor for a moment, the great sculptor, Michelangelo, apparently once said, ‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.’ Maybe we can extend this to clay and particularly to the metaphor St Paul uses in chapter 9 of Romans. Within the piece of clay I am made of there is the true Michael, the Michael God intends me to be. The same is true of the pieces of clay we are all made of, within the clay there is ‘you’, the ‘you’ God intends you to be. If we are to truly become the people God intends us to be then the creative work of the divine potter, and our striving to be who we truly are, is ongoing. But the important things is that none of the striving is about trying to be someone else, it is about becoming who we truly are. Too often in this consumer society do we think that if something isn’t working we throw it away and get a new one. We shouldn’t fall in to the trap of thinking this way about our emerging selves.

Of course, all the creative work of the divine potter is done in the context of us having free will so we have a tendency to keep shaping ourselves in line with our selfish instincts and desires which results in us being the wrong shape. Add to this the pressure we come under from the world around us and advertisers in particular, endlessly tempting us to conform and consume our way to happiness. It is no surprise that we all feel pressure to be someone else or to be like someone else. All God wants us to be is truly ourselves.

The passage from Romans goes on to talk about God’s wrath and God’s mercy and the passage we heard from Jeremiah talks about God’s judgement.  It is very easy to be frightened by such talk, indeed some of it sounds bleak and sometimes vicious, but there is another way of thinking about God’s wrath and mercy, about God’s judgement, and that is that we matter to God. We are significant. Who we are, what we do and what we say all matter and are important enough to God for us to make God angry, or to make God want to shower mercy upon us.

Rather than associating wrath, mercy and judgement with the ‘hell fire and brimstone’, ‘day of judgement’,  Fear inducing religion that has been, and sometimes still is, preached in churches, maybe we should associate it more with something like an annual review at work? Each of us is important to God and God, the judge, wants us to thrive, wants us to fulfil our potential and being aware of God’s judgement is all about us being helped to discover where things are going wrong. Where we are misshapen. Where we need to reject the temptations of the world and embrace, or be embraced by, God and the ways of God. To make ourselves vulnerable to the creative moulding of the divine potter, always working with us to make us the shape, the Michael, the ‘you’ – we are meant to be.

There is a pop song from the end of the 1960s by a group appropriately called ‘Amen Corner’ and it is called ‘Bend me shape me’. It is a classic, silly love song. A boy singing to the girl he loves saying that she can ‘make this beggar a king, a clown or a poet’. The chorus then kicks in, ‘Bend me shape me anyway you want me, long as you love me, it’s alright’. It struck me that if we take the words out of the context of a silly love song we can make them in to a prayer rising out of our reading from Romans today. Maybe it is by freely submitting ourselves to the divine potter that we will become who God created us to be, be that a king, a clown, a poet or anything else? Maybe a good prayer for us, to God who loves us, to God who is love, is, ‘bend me, shape me, anyway you want me …..’

Let us pray

Still my restless heart, O God, that I may breathe your love.

Still my restless heart, O God, that I may hear you speak.

Still my restless heart, O God, that I may know you are near.

Still my restless heart, O God, that I may feel your love.

Still my restless heart, O God, that I may trust your will.

Still my restless heart, O God, that I may receive your grace.

In your peace may thy will be done.

In your peace may I discover my true self.

In your peace may I find true blessing through Jesus Christ. Amen