Actions may speak louder than words – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean

I wonder what school was like for you. The best days of your life, or the days you couldn’t wait to leave behind? Maybe a mix of both. Certainly, for me, there were subjects I loved, and ones I couldn’t wait to give up. I’m sure my teachers probably couldn’t wait for me to give them up either.

In the Dickens novel Hard Times there’s a pretty grim depiction of education. On the first page we find a teacher in a classroom and Dickens describes the pupils like this: “little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.” Passive students, simply the recipients of facts – not participants in learning.

Thankfully our understanding of education has come a long way since the days of Dickens.

For me education is far more about lighting fires than filling pots. Teach a person how to learn and they can learn for life – an enquiring mind will never stop discovering new things.

All this comes to mind today because our Gospel passage begins with Jesus entering a Synagogue and teaching. One of the frequent titles given to Jesus in the gospels is ‘teacher’; ‘rabbi’.

Jesus is someone who teaches his disciples; teaches communities; teaches crowds.

For many of the people who heard him, his teaching was different from what they were used to: ‘they were astounded… for he taught them as one having authority’.

Perhaps it came because Jesus didn’t seem to be talking about theory but about practice.

Not about the academic debate of theology, but about the nuts and bolts of how to live.

How to live a good, faithful and loving life, even when things were tough and people had enemies. This short passage from the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel tells us something critically important about the way Jesus taught.

In the space of a few moments we move from words to deeds. Jesus teaches with authority – and his deeds mirror his words. It is when the people witness the healing of the man possessed that they are amazed: ‘A new teaching’ they exclaim, – ‘with authority’.

If the task of the Church is to teach Christ to the world then it’s often here that we come unstuck. Our words and deeds aren’t always aligned. We talk about one thing and do another – we try; we stumble; we fail. But we don’t give up. We know that faith is expressed in both teaching and doing and it might be that our doing is some of the most important teaching that we have to offer.

When we get to the end of this pandemic, and begin to reflect on our faith, the things that will mean the most to people will be what we have done. Not least through food banks, unseen acts of care, and the support offered to the bereaved. Deeds that spring from our words will be the lasting legacy.

In a faith which is all about ‘the Word made flesh’ our teaching can never be something theoretical; remote; abstract. It must be rooted in our living and come alive in our doing. It isn’t about filling pots with words, but about being lit with a faith which others may catch.

Only then will others see the Church offer a ‘new teaching – with authority’.

Life has changed – Canon Maggie McLean

Life has changed.

We might prefer it if it hadn’t, but it has.

In January 2020 the first cases of COVID-19 in the UK were identified here in York. At the time the situation was managed, contained, and resolved. It didn’t lead to a wider outbreak.

Yet, a year later, we are facing a crisis of infection, hospitalisations and deaths. Our NHS workers are exhausted and expecting a rising tide of cases. The number of new infections being reported tells a disturbing story of what will follow in the coming weeks. We all need to abide by the measures politicians and scientists are asking us to take.

The events of the last 12 months have shaken the world.

In the thick of this crisis, we can’t determine how it will end, and for the moment we must travel hopefully.

There are vaccines which will begin to change the situation. But there’s a lot we don’t yet know about the way vaccination will allow us to return to a more normal life.

The world has gone through many critical moments in the past.
The contents of the Bible say a lot about uncertainty and fear.
I’m sure that for a whole host of reasons many people are afraid today – perhaps you are one of them.

Fear of the illness itself;
fear of other people who may have it;
fear of the economic cost to our society and the long time it will take to repay the money we are borrowing.

For the people of Israel fear was met with faith.

Despite all they endured a faith in God never failed to surface.
When things seemed most dark and disturbing, faith brought hope and determination. It couldn’t be clearer in the Psalm we heard tonight:
God is our hope and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved…

The writer of the Psalms imagined the thing we rely on most, the certainty of the ground beneath our feet, being shaken, fragmented and tipped into the sea. A terrifying image, but also an image set against the faith that despite all this, God can still be trusted.

In all the calamity we may fear, God’s presence endures. When the things we rely on most are shaken, God remains steady. At the moment we feel we can’t hold everything together, God steps into our silence.

These are tough times.

We want to help others, and we should.

We want to lessen the risk to our neighbours as much as we can, and we must.

But when the doing is done, we need to be still.

It is not by our works, but by God’s grace that we know we are loved.

Loved in good times and times of sorrow. Loved when we feel the ground shaken and when, in those rare moments, we find ourselves utterly still – waiting with hope and with faith upon the love of the Lord.

Let us pray:

Faithful and present God, you are not blind to the storms that rage in this world, the illness that threatens. Bring your refuge and healing strength and make us still in your safety.
When what seems permanent begins to crumble, when devastation ravages the earth, when powers that be claim your authority –help us to let go of fear and doubt and make us still in your waters of gladness.
God, Creator of time, in this new season of quarantine, help us lay down both what keeps us too busy to be still and stillness that is empty before you so that we may lift our eyes to your glory. In Jesus name. Amen.

Frames of Faith – Canon Maggie McLean

I think one of the hardest things in life must be to do a job you don’t enjoy.

Milk round – getting up early on mornings like today – cold – dark – smelt of sour

Nothing wrong with the job – it just wasn’t the right job for me.

Our journey through life can be the story for each of us finding the right job.

It’s the role in life that fits who we are and makes the most of the gifts we’ve been given.

As someone once put it, ‘Find a job you love and never work a day in your life’.
It sounds simple – but the reality of finding that job can be far more challenging.

I know we have several serving and retired teachers at CTK and many only feel fully alive and engaged within the act of teaching.

(There are bad days of course and not all feel like this) but for those who find their fulfilment in helping others learn, who delight in those moments when a student is helped to achieve their full potential, there is nothing quite like it.

For others that sense of fulfilment may not come in a job but in a hobby. Something we do that brings us fully alive. Skiing down a well groomed piste; bungee jumping; creating something beautiful like church vestments, pictures, a play!

In all areas of life, if we are the right person with the right gifts, we can lose ourselves in the task.

It is often in these terms that people make the distinction between a job and a vocation.

As I said a moment ago, finding that activity or area of work can be difficult. For people of faith God is part of that seeking.

We believe God has made us all different, and each of has a combination of skills that is unique to us.

Christians will want to discern the part God has called us to play – the thing we have been uniquely made to do.

Sometimes we discover what this might be not through a positive experience, but a negative one. As someone once wrote:
“There is as much guidance from God in what does not happen and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does happen. Maybe more”.

This experience is sometimes called ‘testing a vocation’. We do something and find out from the experience that it’s not for us.

We learn from it about our self and about the world, and we try something else. What might appear to be failure becomes a major source of learning.

Today we have heard two very contrasting accounts people being called, finding their vocation. In fact they seem to range between the sublime and the ridiculous.

Young Samuel, helping Eli in the Temple, is quick to hear and respond to the call of God. Quite understandably Eli is slow to see what’s going on and who it is that is disturbing Samuel’s sleep. It takes three goes before the penny drops and Eli understands.

Philip, on the other hand, appears to leave his old life behind in response to the briefest call from Jesus.

Nathanael, even more startlingly, bases his entire recognition of Jesus on the fact that Jesus says he saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree.

When Jesus says ‘You believe because I told you I saw you sitting under a fig tree’, it’s hard not to hear a chuckle in his voice.

We go from God having to nag Samuel into response to Nathanael acknowledging Jesus on what seems the most flimsy evidence.

If nothing else it tells us something about the multitude of ways that God calls us – and the diversity of people that call comes to.

This church, like all churches, has a responsibility to help people both encounter God and also come to understand what it is God wants them to do.

The Christian community at its best holds up a frame, opens a door, and encourages people to pay attention.

We want people to share our experience. To be looking and listening at those points in our lives when we are open to spiritual concerns.

I think this is one of the reasons why services of baptism, marriage and for bereavement are so important. It can be at these times when we reflect more deeply on the direction of our lives and what it might be that God is asking us to do.

In this season of Epiphany we are reflecting on how God is made known in the world.

The calling and encounters of Samuel and Nathaniel help us understand the variety of ways this happens.

For most of us our experience may feel like the call of Samuel or the encounter of Nathaniel.

Either way, it reminds us to pay attention to what’s going on around us – and use the frames of faith to see and understand God’s presence in the world around us.

Who are you? – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: Who are you?

Date/time/service: Sunday 10^th January 2021 – Epiphany 1 The Baptism of Christ

Passage of scripture: Acts 19.1-7 & Mark 1.4-11

It was in 1223 that Francis of Assisi had the brilliant idea of creating a Christmas crib. His aim was to help people focus on God’s gift of Jesus to the world. To start with the nativity scene created was with live people and animals but within a very short time this developed into an inanimate affair with statues, rather like our own magnificent crib here at the Minster. Within 100 years of the first nativity scene in Francis’ home town there were nativity scenes in every Catholic church in Italy and soon after the practise spread further afield.

Whenever I read the first chapter of Mark’s gospel I wonder what would have happened if Mark’s gospel was the only gospel to survive. Christmas would be very different because we wouldn’t have the story of the birth of Christ to celebrate. Presumably, in addition to Holy Week and Easter the other major festival of the Church would be today, the day we celebrate the Baptism of Christ. If Mark had been the only gospel to survive instead of cribs containing Mary, Joseph and the baby surrounded by animals, shepherds and kings, we would have the wild figure of John the Baptist pouring water over the head of the adult Jesus with a dove suspended above them. It’s one thing for churches the world over us to set a scene in a stable covered with straw, it would be quite a challenge for us all to set a scene in the middle of a river!

Clearly the most important event for Mark at the beginning of his story of Jesus was not his birth but his baptism. He makes it absolutely clear that John the Baptist is following in the footsteps of the great Old Testament prophets and by so doing sets his story in the context of all that had gone before. In Mark’s story Jesus is the fulfilment of prophecy.

Clearly for Mark the Baptism of Christ is a world changing event. But it is good to remember that at the time it happened it was just an eccentric religious leader pouring water over the head of an unknown man in the middle of nowhere in particular. Perhaps the thing I love most about this strange story is that, as Jesus emerges from the water and the dove descends, the voice of God is heard to say,

‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Mark 1.11

This is before Jesus has done anything else that Mark thinks is worth recording. As far as we know Jesus had done no miracles, he had not exorcised any demons, or healed any lame or blind people, he had shared no teaching and told no parables and yet God proudly identifies him as his Son and says he is pleased with him. Mark does not tell us how old Jesus is but he is clearly an adult, so, it seems that to this point Jesus has led an ordinary life in obscurity – but God honours that ordinary, obscure life by telling Jesus that he loves him and is pleased with him.

Sometimes I watch things like ‘Britain’s got talent’ or ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and see the families of people on these programmes being interviewed. Without exception, when asked about how their family member is performing they will say how proud they are of them and how much they love them, as if the fact that they can sing or dance is what makes them special. This is not God’s way. God does not wait for Jesus to perform as the Messiah before he says he loves his son and is pleased with him …. in Mark’s gospel God makes that clear right at the beginning, before Jesus does or says anything worth writing down.

The fact that the love of God is not earned but is freely given is central to our understanding of who God is. But it is also central to our own sense of who we are, to our own sense of identity.

I remember reading about a man who was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a Concentration Camp. At his lowest point he reflects that he had lost everything; his career, his family who he assumed were all dead, his clothes, he wore only a prison uniform, his hair which had been shaved off, and even his name, the number tattooed on his wrist was all that identified him. He wonders who he is, what his identity is …. all those things we usually use to identify ourselves, job, family, relationships, dress had gone … from the outside he was just a weak and feeble body with a number …. so who was he – what was his identity now? I have never forgotten this and often reflect on it when I visit people who have lost everything, sometimes even their minds – who are they now? What is their identity?

The answer, for me, is to be found in the story of Jesus’ baptism when the voice of God is heard to say to the obscure carpenter’s son standing in a muddy river in the middle of nowhere, this is my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased. Despite the fact that we do not always please God by our behaviour, God also says to each one of us in our ordinariness and obscurity, ‘this is my child, the beloved’. This is our abiding identity, even when everything else we usually use to identify ourselves is gone, God still says to each one of us, ‘this is my child, the beloved’.

In conclusion, I heard an astronaut being interviewed on the radio yesterday. He recounted being in the International Space Station and in the course of his work a fellow astronaut in the station told him something that ‘earth’ had just said. He reflected that his colleague, in that moment, saw herself as distinct even from the earth. As she hurtled through space, thousands of miles from earth, she was outside separate from the earth. Even then, of course, the voice of God was saying of her, ‘this is my child, the beloved’.

As we reflect on the Baptism of Christ today let us rejoice that, like Jesus, we are beloved children of God. Let us continue to strive to live our lives in such a way that God can also say of us, ‘with you I am well pleased’. But even when we fail at that, even when our lives seem only ordinary and obscure, even when all that we usually use to identify ourselves is lost or taken from us, even if we find ourselves hurtling through space, somewhere, deep inside, may we continue to hear God’s voice giving us our true and abiding identity, ‘you are my beloved child’.

Sermon for the Festival of the Baptism of Christ – Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Sermon for the Festival of the Baptism of Christ

Sunday 10^th January, 2020

Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor

Readings: Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11

“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”

This quote comes from Karl Barth, the 20^th Century German Theologian. It is often used as a kind of framework for the preacher, or the theologian or for the practising Christian. I suppose it’s another way of saying what Jesus said to his disciples: You are to be in the world but not of the world. Christian’s neither shy away from the realities of life which surround us, nor lose hope in the coming of the Kingdom of God. Holding a newspaper in one hand, and our Gospel reading in the other- how might we respond to the events in our world over the past week? Well, where to start?

We find ourselves in the season of Epiphany, a season of revelations as we come to know who Christ is. We come to know Jesus as the Lord of Life, the Beloved Son of God. Jesus enters fully into our humanity, is baptised and as he emerges from the waters, the heavens are torn apart, the Spirit descends like a dove and God says ‘You are my Son, the beloved, and with you I am well pleased’.

He with no sin, takes on the sin of us all. There is in this moment an alignment of reality, promise and hope, and there is in this moment a flash of subversion as heaven and earth are once again knit together as Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism. In this moment, we, as fellow human beings are assured that we are also beloved of God. Maybe that is where we need to start this week. Knowing that we are beloved of God.

Maybe if we understand that we are loved by God, we can also understand that all are loved by God. Maybe understanding that could create the world for which we long. A world of peace, and harmony, a world of compassion and mercy, a world of justice, faith, hope and love. A world not immune to challenge and change and sorrow, but a world able to find a way through to rebuild, and recreate and be reborn.

Baptism for us, is usually less dramatic than the account of a baptism we have read this morning, but the dribbling of water on the head of baby, or the immersion of an adult in a pool or river, is not something that is done and forgotten.

It calls us to daily renewal, daily hope and helps us see that a new world is possible. Through our baptism we are called to work towards the world God wants for his beloved Children, the new creation begun in Christ. It’s clear that what we have seen and read in our newspapers this past week, what we have watched on TV news both here and from across our world is not fully aligned with this Christian hope. We have witnessed hatred, division, violence, lies upon lies of tongue and pen, collusion and ignorance, sorrow, suffering, confusion and despair.

Take your bible and your newspaper and read both.

Perhaps holding up the bible in one hand isn’t enough, even for a president of the United States.

Perhaps we need to open our hearts to the word made flesh who makes all things new and offers us hope from despair and life from death.  Perhaps we have to live out what we believe, and put our faith, not in presidents, not in power, nor in the easy speeches which comfort cruel men, we put our faith in the one who really loves us, who lived for us, who died for us, who rose again for us, and taught us that the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. The one who taught us how to love, how to live.

If we don’t believe that the water of baptism can change the world, and rend the heavens and create something new, then it never will. For through Christ, the drops of water poured upon our heads can gather until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

We pray for our world at this time, in all of its chaos and confusion, and we pray that through Christ we may be part of the change that is needed to make all things new. As we recall the baptism of Christ, we remember our own baptism-we pray that today and tomorrow, in our world right now, we may be born again and live into that calling as beloved children of God, and help build that new creation for which we all desperately long.

In the name of the one and only living God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is your attitude? – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: What is your attitude?

Date/time/service: Sunday 3^rd January 2021 Christmas 2

Passage of scripture: Isaiah 46.3-end & Romans 12.1-8

A man walked in to a pub with a little dog. He bought a drink and sat down. Soon another man entered, bought a drink, took off his hat also sat down and began to drink his beer. Soon he noticed that the first man’s little dog had moved to sit next to his hat and had begun to chew it. He said the first man, ‘Excuse me but your dog is eating my hat.’ ‘So!’ exclaimed the first man aggressively, ‘do you want to make something of it?’ ‘Oh’ said the first man, a little surprised, ‘so that is your attitude?’ ‘No’ said the first man ‘that is you hat he chewed!’

A terrible old joke. I can remember my dad telling it to me many, many years ago, so let’s blame him. Anyway, I thought about it again this week because of a line in our second reading this evening,

‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ Romans 12.2

It is remarkable how words written by St Paul to the Christian community in Rome in the middle of the first century continue to resonate with us, a Christian community in York at the beginning of 2021. How are we to approach this New Year? What is our attitude going to be to the challenges we face after such a grim 2020? For example, are we going to be conformed to the rest of the world and simply continue criticising the government, and others in authority, for virtually everything they do? For fear of being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia or transphoboia, are we simply not going to talk about these important subjects at all and just jump on any passing ‘bandwagon’ which purports to defend members of BAME communities or any minority group?

With the words of St Paul in mind my hope for 2021 is that we are not conformed to this world, but that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we learn to discern what is good acceptable and perfect. In other words, my hope is that we change our attitude.

In order for this to happen I think we need to start being much less lazy and we need to start doing much more praying.

While there is much to be thankful for with the digital revolution we are experiencing, maybe one of the down-sides of it is that, if we are not careful, it makes us all lazy. There is such a plethora of news and information available to us today we tend to filter out what we do not want to hear. This means that it is very easy for us to create a little echo chamber where we hear only what we want to hear. We form our opinions and then just have those opinions reinforced by the news and information we have chosen to receive. There is a danger that our lives become regulated by everything to which we give a ‘tick’ or register a ‘like’. This is all very comfortable, easy and lazy ……! We need to make the effort to ensure our lives are not regulated by everything we choose to ‘tick’ or ‘like’ – we need to go out of our way to be confronted by news and information we don’t like, news and information which does not support our ready-made opinions.

Once we have put in the hard, and sometimes uncomfortable, work of gathering a broad spectrum of news, information and opinions about the latest government guidelines or race, gender, sexual orientation or the latest political issue, then we need to spend time in prayer, holding these important, complex issues before God. The God who created the world and saw that it is very good, the God who is love. One way of talking about prayer is that it is the ‘renewing or our minds’ in the light of God who created us and loves us. This is where our opinions, our priorities and our goals in life should be formed. It is only when we have done all this that we should ever form an opinion (based on what we discern to be good, acceptable and perfect) and only then maybe send a tweet or write a letter to the papers or enter a heated discussion in the pub.

After Paul talks about the renewal of minds he goes on to warn against ‘thinking too highly of ourselves’. Another word for thinking too highly of ourselves is ‘arrogance’ and it seems to me that in addition to the pandemic of Covid 19 there is also a pandemic of arrogance in our world. We all seem to think that we know best, that we have the insights and wisdom to understand what is happening and to make the right decisions and that anyone who does not see things our way, or do what we would do, is an idiot and not to be trusted.

To act in this way is to be conformed to this world. This is what needs to be transformed so that we become more Christian, more Christ-like. As St Paul reminds us in the second part of the passage we heard today – we all need each other, we are ‘one body in Christ’, we are members ‘one of another’.

As we begin 2021 let us pray that our attitude will not be conformed to this world but will be transformed by God’s grace, our hard work and lots of prayer, so that in all things we may begin to discern God’s will and discover what is good, acceptable and perfect.

A prayer that the Spirit of God will fill us and transform us

Spirit of God, breathe into our hearts peace that is content in your love. Spirit of God, unite us in honouring the gift we are to each other. Spirit of God, give nations common cause to strive for justice and the welfare of all people. Spirit of God, fill us with your grace to trust in your promises and accept your forgiveness for ourselves and others. Spirit of God, breathe into the whole of your creation the peace that comes from you alone through Jesus Christ. Amen

Actions have consequences – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Title of sermon: Actions have consequences

Date/time/service: Sunday Christmas 1 – St John the Evangelist 2020

Passage of scripture: 1 John 1 & John 21.19b-end

When I was a parish priest I always made a point of celebrating communion on the three days after Christmas. Often only one or two people came and occasionally nobody came so I had to say the service without consecrating the bread and wine, but I didn’t mind. I believe the reason these services are important is because they ground the great Christmas Story in reality. Boxing Day, as the carol ‘Good King Wenceslas’ reminds us, is also the Feast of Stephen. The day we remember the first person to be persecuted and killed for following the baby in the manger. Today, 27^th December, we remember St John the Evangelist, the author of the 4^th gospel who does not even find room in his writing to tell us the story of the birth of Jesus but launches straight in to the meaning and significance of the incarnation. Tomorrow we remember the Holy Innocents, when we honour all the children killed by Herod and wrestle with the problem of evil in a world where God is incarnate. I think it helps to be reminded that the great Christmas story is not only true but has consequences – the Church helps us in the three days following Christmas Day to face those consequences.

So, today is the Feast of St John the Evangelist who does not write a report or a history of the life of Jesus – he knows that if he is to come anywhere near conveying something of the truth of who Jesus was and is he will have to use metaphor and talk about Signs. John  uses poetry and stories to try and delve into the truth and significance of who Jesus truly is – so, probably in his old age, he wrote the most profound, the most theologically challenging, the most complex and the most beautiful gospel. John provokes us to see, or at least glimpse that the action of God in giving us Jesus is so significant, so earth-shatteringly powerful and important that it would be an outrage to only ever think of his birth as a nice little story to be remembered once a year, to be an excuse for a bit of a party, it would perhaps be the biggest blasphemy to leave Jesus, in our memories and in our understanding, as a little baby in a manger, and so, like Mark, John does not even tell us the story of his birth. The gathering sentence at the beginning of Midnight Mass refers to Jesus as,

‘Great little one whose all-embracing birth brings earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth’.

John forces us to wrestle with the complexities, contradictions and challenges of the incarnation. He is saying – don’t just think about the action of God – think about the consequences.

In the first reading from the first epistle attributed to John we are told that God is light and that in God there is no darkness. We are called to walk in the light. In the gospel reading we are told that if everything Jesus did was to be written down, there would not be room in the world for all the books that would be written. For John, it seems, Jesus is the one who turns the light on, so that the truth of God is revealed and we are able to live life to the full. Or as John puts it, live life abundantly.

All the miracles, or signs, John records, tell stories of how life has gone wrong, a wedding reception when the wine runs out, a child at the point of death, a man who is blind, people far from home with nothing to eat, people caught in a storm. On each occasion Jesus steps in to turn things around, to transform the situation, so he provides plenty of excellent wine for the wedding reception, he heals the sick child, he enables the blind man to see, he feeds the hungry crowd and he walks across the raging sea to comfort those frightened by the storm. These stories are told not that we should be awestruck by the miraculous happenings themselves, but that we should be encouraged that Jesus can help people live life as it should be lived. Jesus says, in John 10v10 ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ For Jesus, life is never something that should simply be got through, he wants people to thrive, to excel, to experience life abundantly, that’s why he doesn’t provide just enough wine for the wedding reception, but gallons of the stuff, and when the 5,000 are fed there is heaps of food left over – John’s message is clear – there is reckless generosity at the heart of God providing opportunities for people to live life to the full.

For John the source of transformation and abundance we see in Jesus is nothing otherworldly of exclusively divine, it is simply love. In 1 John 4v16 John tells us, ‘God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.’ So John makes it clear that transformation and abundance are not the exclusive preserve of Jesus. We all have the ability to love so we all have the ability to help enable other people to have life and have it abundantly.

One of the privileges of my job is to talk with couples as they prepare for marriage. One of the things I say to them is that, through their marriage and the love which is at its heart, they should help each other live their lives to the full and help each other realise their potential so that, by the time they are old, wrinkled and wobbly, they will each be the best people they can be because the love of their spouse has set them free to live life and live it abundantly. In fact I often quote a line from a song by Sting which could have been written by St John the Evangelist, ‘If you love someone, set them free.’ Many of the ‘signs’ in John’s gospel and much of the teaching of Jesus he records are about liberation, being set free to live life and live it more abundantly.

On this day we give thanks for the wisdom and insights given us by John in his writing. Of course, most of his writing centres on Jesus but in truth, John’s writing is not about Jesus, it is about God. As the theologian John Fenton says, in John’s writing Jesus ‘is the Word of God, the Son of the Father, the agent, the messenger and apostle of another. John’s gospel is not Christo-centric, but theocentric.’ It’s all about God, it’s all about being drawn into the creativity of God, the light of God, the love of God, the very life of God.

Prayer

Jesus, our master, meet us while we walk in the way, and long to reach the heavenly country; so that, following your light we may keep the way of righteousness, and never wander away into the darkness of this world’s night, while you, who are the Way, the Truth, and the Life, are shining within us; for your own name’s sake. Amen

On being mangers… The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Title of sermon: On being mangers ……

Date/time/service: Christmas Day 2020 Zoom Eucharist

Passage of scripture: Luke 2.1-20

Books have been written, television programmes made and now websites created based entirely on the strange and amusing things that children say. A child once returned from the burial of an aged relative convinced that the priest had said ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and into the hole it goes’! A little girl who was learning the Lord’s Prayer was heard to ask Our Father in heaven to ‘deliver us from e mail’! And a young boy wrote about the Christmas story, ‘And because there was no room at the Inn they had to stay round the back in a stable and because there was nowhere to lay the baby they had to use the manager’. Wouldn’t it be great if managers could be that useful?!

Of course it wasn’t a manager that was used it was a manger. The dictionary says that a manger is; ‘A trough or an open box in which feed for livestock is placed.’ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, was laid in a trough.

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to lead a pilgrimage from my parish to Rome and Assisi. In Rome we visited many huge and glorious churches. The focal point of all of these churches was always an ornate altar. Most of these churches were built on the graves of saints and often the altar was directly over the grave, or, underneath the altar there were precious relics of saints, bits of bones or hair and sometimes bits of holy objects like splinters from the cross on which Jesus was crucified. In one church, underneath the high altar, they had a piece of the manger in which Jesus was laid. When we visited, the church was crowded and I made my way down some narrow steps, leading below the high altar, to take a look at this holy and precious object. I was dressed like a priest and must have looked English because as I neared the glass casket which contained the holy relic a young woman approached me, I think she was American, and she asked me what was in the casket. I said it was supposed to be a piece of the manger, adding cynically with a smile, ‘you can believe that or not’! ‘Oh’, she said, ‘I do’ and she went over and knelt in prayer before the altar. Chastened and ashamed of my cynicism I immediately climbed the narrow stairs and never did take a good look at the ancient splintered bit of wood. But this encounter made me think.

Was it a piece of the real manger? If it was, who took it out of the stable? Maybe one of the shepherds took it or one of the wise men? What did the Inn keeper think when he realised his manger had been pinched? And if it is real how did it get to Rome? Should such an object be a focus of prayer? If it isn’t real, does it matter? If it helps some people to pray, is it such a bad thing that it’s just a piece of wood?

In the end I decided I should have been much less cynical – if the piece of the manger, genuine or not, helps some people to pray then that’s fine and good. But, if those prayers are only focussed on what happened in the actual manger two thousand years ago, then it is not helpful, indeed it may be hugely damaging because we should be celebrating the truth of Christmas today not just the truth of the first Christmas.

On the first Christmas night the manger held Jesus. God incarnate, literally, God en-fleshed, God made real. Mary and Joseph recognised him as being special, they adored him as their own child but also as God’s son. The shepherds and the wise men also honoured him, they came to the manger which contained Jesus and worshipped him in awe and reverence. Today we remember that scene with our own crib, in our music, liturgy and prayers. But if that is all we do there is no point in us being here at all. If all we do today is remember what happened two thousand years ago we should have stayed in bed or get on with opening some presents.

To return to where we began – manager or manger – (and this is the ‘cheesy bit of my Christmas sermon) not all of us are managers but we all should be mangers. I am not too concerned about whether there are bits of the actual manger that held Jesus underneath lavish altars in beautiful churches but I am concerned that every single person who celebrates Christmas this year realises that they are actual mangers today. We hold Jesus. We are called to reveal Jesus to the world. Our actions are mangers, our actions at work, at school, at home, should contain, hold Jesus within them. Our words, the things we say, whether at work or at school or at home, are mangers, they should contain, hold Jesus. Think about it, where are the shepherds and wise men of today to find Jesus, where are those who seek Jesus going to find him but in us? In our actions, in our struggle for justice and peace, in our compassion for the vulnerable and weak and in our love for our families, friends and enemies …… this is where the seekers will find Jesus today.

A priest once told me that after a large School Christmas service he was tidying up and noticed that the baby Jesus who had been in the manger in the crib was not there. Jesus was missing. Jesus had been nicked! He had to ring the headteacher and after a great deal of detective work a very embarrassed schoolgirl delivered Jesus back to the vicar to go back in the manger in the crib.

Ironically, we should all follow the example of that naughty school girl. Whenever we visit a crib we should take Jesus away with us. We might not all be managers but we are all mangers, we are to hold Jesus in everything we do and everything we say everyday. Not just at Christmas, not just on Sundays, but everyday.

Advent Sunday 2020 – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean (Missioner)

In September we were fortunate enough to be on holiday in mid-Wales. Fortunate because travel and overnight stays were permitted – and blessed with weather worthy of the Mediterranean.

On the farm where we stayed there was the opportunity to watch for badgers. The farmer had created a treehouse that overlooked the entrance to a sett. So, one evening, just before dusk, we walked down to position ourselves in the hide.

We waited and we watched. Without moonlight it was hard to make out what was going on, and noises played as much a part as sight. After about 15 minutes our wait was rewarded – we saw several badgers. And it was worth the wait as we watched with joy a whole family snuffle for food but keeping alert for any danger.

We probably all have experience of this kind of waiting. For many it will be as a ‘twitcher’ – someone looking out for birds in the countryside; at a reserve; or even in a garden. And the idea of the ‘twitcher’ is a good one to think about for the season of Advent which we begin today.  Because being a twitcher requires great patience – It requires you to keep very still; observing; waiting; watching.  And while it may seem very passive, there is in the watcher a gentle sense of excitement – that after much waiting the observer might be rewarded with something very special.

In Mark’s Gospel this morning we hear Jesus talking about a similar time of waiting.  But this is no hobby, and what is expected will change everything.  It is the purpose of the Advent season to keep us awake – on our toes – mindful that nothing in life is ever certain, even the moment when everything is gathered back to God.

The readings in Advent are full of those who are waiting.  John the Baptist looking for ‘the one who is to come’; a woman for her child; and a people for a King.  All wait, all watch, and in this season of Advent we watch with them.

I think Advent is a strange season.  It is both hopeful and apocalyptic.  It promises salvation and restoration, but it does so through events that often sound dreadful and even violent.

It is described by Jesus as the birth pangs of the world, the onset of pain before the beginning of a life that is new.So we wait and watch.  We hear in our readings for today a reminder for us to stay awake and keep alert.  We are told that tomorrow holds no certainties and that even today our world might change in the blink of an eye.

Advent is a sober season which contrasts our waiting with God’s urgency a theme picked up in the poem

“First Coming” by Madeleine L’Engle.

She writes:

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

Advent advances into the growing darkness of winter.  It reminds us of the uncertain nature of the world, and of the hour of God’s coming.  For those of us living in the West this year has jolted our sense of control and power. In a way in which many people live across the globe, we are experiencing uncertainty, restriction of freedoms and suffering.

The time in which we are living is not forever. The world is not forever. As Christians our mission is to be waiting with anticipation. Waiting for a God who appears when we least expect it – restoring our hope and disturbing our certainties.

Once again, this Advent, we stand in the company of those who have waited – watchful

and eager, for the coming of Christ. All those across the history of the Church who have

borne witness that ‘his light will not go out’.

A reflection on the Hymn ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’ – The Revd Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: A reflection on the Hymn ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’

Date/time/service: Advent Sunday – Evening – 29^th November 2020

When I read comics I loved it when, very occasionally, Desperate Dan turned up in a story about Roger the Dodger. I remember an exciting sense of chaos and anarchy when different stories and different characters were mixed up in this way.

Last year I experienced a similar sense of excitement when I wrote a story imagining one of the wise men, from the Christmas story, returning to Jerusalem as an elderly gentleman, with his son, and witnessing the death of the man he had a visited as a new-born baby over thirty years before. As I began to write it felt as though he was in the wrong story.

Because of the way we have made festivals out of the highs and lows of the story of Jesus we have a tendency to think about these stories in isolation. There is the Christmas story, the Easter Story, the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit and numerous other offshoot stories. What we have to remember is that there is actually only one story.

This evening we are reflecting on the hymn. ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’. A great hymn for Advent, which pictures the second coming of Christ, in clouds, with ‘thousand thousand saints attending’. There are three panels in our great East Window that depict this dramatic scene from the Book of Revelation.

It is easy to get carried away with the glorious and awe inspiring images of the second coming conjured up in the Book of Revelation, depicted in our great window and sung about in many hymns. We can easily come to think that the second coming is basically a divine promise that all will be well. The cynical would say that, like any good fairy tale, the second coming of Christ in glory is the happy ending we all yearn for in a story.

This hymn does not allow us to fall into this simplistic way of thinking. It reminds us very starkly that the one coming on the clouds, attended by a whole host of saints, is the same one who was ‘pierced and nailed’ to a tree. He comes in glory still bearing the ‘glorious scars’, the ‘dear tokens’ of the agonising death he endured for us. As Advent begins we are made to remember the painful story of Good Friday.

There is one story of Jesus and that story includes being born in poverty and utter vulnerability, a life of sacrificial love leading to an agonising death, a glorious resurrection and the expectation that one day the same Jesus, bearing the eternal scars of suffering, will return to claim his kingdom in which ‘God shall wipe away all tears…. and there shall be no more death …’ Rev 21.4

Thank God that this hymn reminds us that the scars of grief and pain we all bear are not wasted, they are part of who we are and they will be transformed, will be part of the ‘dazzling’ resurrection body we will share with Christ.

A Sermon for St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Musicians – Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor

A Sermon for St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Musicians

Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor

Readings: Psalm 106:1-12, Song of Solomon2:10-13; 8, 6,7 and Revelation 14:1-3

To the glory of the one and only living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions to all musicians, appear and inspire; translated daughter, come down and startle, composing mortals with immortal fire.

Some Verses from WH Auden’s ‘Anthem for St Cecilia’s Day’.

The Twenty-Second of November, is a day when musicians herald St Cecilia as their patron. She has long been the muse of poets and artists, and she is often cast as a romantic figure harping upon a harp, or sensuously playing the pipe organ, I believe that is not impossible, whilst also proving that girls can play the organ too!

According to ‘tradition’, Cecilia sang with all her heart at her own wedding, at which she committed herself to remain a perpetual virgin. She is then credited with converting her new husband and his brother to Christianity, with the help of an angelic vision.

She was martyred, and again, according to what we might call ‘the legend’, she was put in a bath of fire and yet remained untouched by the flames. It then took three attempts to kill her by the sword. With her head severed she remained alive for three days, preaching and converting many to the faith. Her body is said to have been exhumed in the sixteenth century and found to be un-corrupt and smelling of roses.

One notable reference to this story is found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but there were many other re-tellings which were equally fanciful and became prevalent as a form of pious romance. Saintly women were often pledged in love to God alone, even if they were married, to vanquish the transgression of Eve with which they were stained, so becoming bright lights to lift mortal vision.

This is the St Cecilia for whom odes, and poems and songs and anthems have been written, this is the St Cecilia who has been portrayed in art and music as chaste and ethereal, a translator of the songs of heaven for mortal ears.

Will the real St Cecilia please stand up?

Like many other Saints, there is actually very little to say about the real St Cecilia, other than she was probably a Roman Noblewomen who allowed Christians to meet in her home and led a church within it, and therein lies the probable reason for her martyrdom in about the year 230.

Other sources say that Cecilia was a powerful preacher and converted hundreds of people to Christianity. A church was established on the site of her house in Trastevere, Rome and she became one of the most revered martyrs of the Roman Church; one of only seven women in addition to the Virgin Mary, remembered in the Canon of the Mass. Whoever she was, this much is true: She was a Christian. She formed a church in her home. She was martyred for her faith and she has been revered ever since.

Can we compose a story, a hagiography, which does justice to her sanctity and her humanity? A story of her life which acknowledges the tradition we have received, and yet also speaks to us today?

What if ….

As a devout and practising Second Century Christian, Cecilia was a singer. Cecilia was a musician.

Her faith was expressed through song and music and from girlhood she would sing to the Lord with all her heart and her faith was infectious. She fell in love with Valerian, who was not a Christian but day by day, he became enraptured by her music, which she sang to the glory of God.

Perhaps she did sing at her wedding, because she understood that all love was an expression of God’s love for the whole world, and who could not sing upon believing such good news and being embraced by such love?

Perhaps she sang to her husband words from the Song of Solomon, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and through her song, he came to faith. So their home together became a house of song, and a house of prayer in the city of Rome.

When she invited other Christians into her home, at great risk to herself and her family, they sang psalms, hymns and spiritual songs together. For Cecilia, the only way to express her love of God was through Song.

Her ‘church’ was a singing church, and as it grew, it sang fervently and loudly to proclaim Christ as Saviour of the world. Its’ choir was augmented by the choir of the redeemed of one hundred and forty four thousand, who joined in from the throne of heaven, and the more these choirs sang together, the more people were drawn in to worship in her little church here on earth. This was music with a mission.

Through her generosity, through her music, through her witness, many came to faith, and the more people who came to faith, the more Cecilia’s ministry became known. People were singing of God’s love everywhere, in the streets, at home, in the market place, old and young, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, the word of God was spreading and the means by which it was spread, was music.

When the Roman authorities caught wind of Cecilia and her singing church, they set out to kill her- they had to silence the song. When they barged into her house with only violence on their lips, she knelt down and sang defiantly as they struck her dead ‘O Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious and his mercy endureth for ever.’ But this was not the end. Her song continued…in her was the life that would never die.

Through the life and witness of St Cecilia we learn that music is both the handmaid of the liturgy and the servant of mission- music and song communicate in ways beyond words alone.  Music and song take us to the heart of heaven and music can help build the church in the world today and it doesn’t even need a church building, it can begin in the heart of the home.

Augustine is believed to have said that to sing is to pray twice, and from the Anthem for St Cecilia’s Day, W H Auden imagines that Cecilia ‘constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer, and notes tremendous from her great engine thundered out on the Roman air’.  Music seems to extend and magnify prayer, to double it. Music is a vehicle for praise, a means of expressing faith with all of our body, our soul and our might.

JS Bach understood, perhaps as St Cecilia did, that music was made ‘to the glory of God’ and would often sign his music: Soli Deo Gloria, or ‘Glory to God alone’, to signify who and what the music was for.

Is the church still a singing church? And who do we sing for?

In our churches, and colleges and cathedrals the tradition of music and song remains, though slightly bruised through the pandemic of the past six months. This music, in many places, is now accessible for all to see and hear, thousands of ‘hits’ as people in their own homes tune in, but perhaps cannot join in. For the singing church is largely silent as it is still forbidden for congregations to gather in worship and sing. How we long to sing of our faith again, with our own lips and not vicariously through others.

There are many ways of making music in praise of God, it can begin simply and humbly in a home. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be professional. It just has to be from the heart and directed to the right place, heavenwards. Music is communication. Music is communion.

Can music be the means to share the good news to a world that has forgotten how to sing? Can music be a way to help the world express sorrow and lament at all that happened? Is the church in danger of only ever preaching to the choir rather than encouraging the choir, through music and song, to preach to the whole world?

How can we free our music and let everyone join in? Old and young, high and low, rich and poor, one with another. Can the music of the church, so precious and so powerful, which carries the word of God so effectively, be the very thing we should be sharing with our whole heart, and mind and strength? The very thing that might help the church flourish and grow today? The very thing that might bring people to faith. Is our vocation, as a church, to teach the world to sing to the glory of God alone, as St Cecilia did?

I happen to believe that our God is musical, and that the music of the spheres, the music of creation, the music of love, and the music of the church witnesses to this God.  Music has the power to transform lives to the glory of God. As a church our deepest desire might be to see more people singing, more people knowing the joy of hearing a mighty organ thunder through the air, more people able to hear the new song that is still being sung by Christ the singer.

Christ the singer.

Who sang a hymn in the Garden of Gethsemene, who sang Psalm 22 from the cross, who sang a new creation into being when he rose from the dead.

Blessed Cecilia appear in visions to all musicians, appeal and implore,
That their gift, enlightening, may be shared for the brightening
of Hearts and souls from shore to shore,
At music entrancing, the angels dancing,
Lift up the praises of mortals on earth-
That the Church may sing her song, once again,
To God’s glory alone,  Amen, and Amen.

Watch our Celebration of Music for St Cecelia:

Beginnings and Endings… – Reverend Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor

Sermon Preached at Evensong on the Second Sunday before Advent

By Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor

Readings: Psalm 89:20-40, 1 Kings 1:15-40, Revelation 1:4-18

Beginnings and Endings…

Beginnings and Endings are important. A strong beginning signifies a new start. A good ending, brings a chapter to a close drawing a curtain on the past. We like our beginnings and our endings, our fresh starts, our certainty, our neat completions, our clean lines and our sharp decisive finishes. From the profound: birth, death; to the less profound:  a decent novel, a good film, an opening motif or perfect cadence, how we begin and end each day.

This past year, we have all been deprived of our beginnings and endings, it feels like we have all been living in an indistinguishable and broken middle. There have been no clean finishes or fresh starts, everything is somehow wrestling with time itself and grappling for certitude and this sense of ambiguity in our lives has brought with it anxiety and fear. We all sense it, we all see it, in our homes, our workplaces, our society, our world.

Many have been deprived of saying a final goodbye to a loved one, many have lost the chance to celebrate a new life or a new start. We have all experienced this loss and ambiguity to a greater or lesser extent, we are all somewhere in the middle looking for a conclusion, for an answer. In the past week, we have seen messy endings in politics, as people cling to power or try to regain it, and we have seen the despair of doctors and nurses who feel as if their shift will never come to an end.

News of a positive vaccine trial gives us hope, but will it come soon enough to mean that we can do this, or that… ‘When will things get back to normal?’, ‘When we can we begin again?’, we might shout into the sky.

Into this messy, and imperfect reality Christ speaks to us from beyond time, where beginnings and endings are subsumed into one equal eternity.  We hear his voice: Do not be afraid, he says, I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead and see I am alive for ever. So, let me be your hope, let me hold together the broken middle, let me be your beginning and your end each and every day.

In Christ, our human beginnings and endings are subverted and unexpected – in him there are no easy starts or neat finishes but there is a promise that he will be with us through every moment, God with us forever, in all things, through all things, both waking and sleeping.

For the Church, all this comes to life in the season of Advent, the beginning of the church’s year, when the cradle of new life is foreshadowed with end times, and final judgement echoes the birth of baby in Bethlehem. Beginnings and endings collide into one and the line between them is as thin as the thread between heaven and earth.

Whether we measure our time in days or millennia, we wait with patience and hope in the broken and awkward middle; we sit with the unresolved chords of our lives knowing that all will be one day resolved but not perhaps as we expect. Between our waking and our sleeping each day, Christ alone is the one in whom all our beginnings and endings make sense, and he says to us, Do not be afraid. We somehow hold together the tensions of this present time in his strength.

We are always being invited to begin our encounter with Christ again and again, our Alpha and Omega. We are invited by God in Christ, to seek his presence at every opportunity until all fear is taken away, until we are no longer defined by how we start or how we finish, but only by Christ in our midst, before whom we will stand at the final perfect ‘Amen’ which rings out from above, and lasts for all eternity.

Let us pray

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity: in the habitations of thy majesty and glory, world without end. Amen.