‘Where there is tea there is hope’ – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 21 July 2019 – Matins – Trinity 5
Deuteronomy 30.1-10 & 1 Peter 3.8-18
‘Where there is tea there is hope!’ This was written on the wall of café where I was eating my lunch on Friday. It made me think of our second reading this morning. ‘Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.’ 1 Peter 3.15&16 This is the challenge Peter gives the Christians he is writing to. It is, I think, a uniquely British approach to the challenges that life brings to suggest that a cup of tea might help, everything from a bad day at the office to a sudden bereavement can be faced by sitting down and having a cuppa with someone. But is a companionable cuppa all we have to offer in the form of hope? If someone asked you, over that restorative cuppa, why you have hope, how would you respond?
It is not only people in immediate need of hope who ask us questions about faith. People of faith are under constant attack, being challenged to justify what they believe. Even people we know well, including family members, can be dismissive, even rude about our faith – we need to listen to Peter’s teaching, we should not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse – we should bless those who dismiss us and what we believe. ‘Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.’ 1 Peter 3.15&16
As people of faith we have more to offer than a cup of tea when hope seems absent and when our faith is attacked. We should be able to speak about our faith, we should be able to account for the hope we have and we should be able to do this without belligerence, without arrogance and without being supercilious. When we talk about our faith we should only ever talk about it with gentleness and reverence.
For too long too many Christians have hidden behind the belief that their faith is private. People have assumed that, like sex and politics, faith is something we shouldn’t talk about with others. This is nonsense and has led to many faithful and committed Christians being almost inarticulate about their faith.
Because of what I do and because I have family members and good friends who do not share my faith, I am often challenged about faith and have to speak about it. It isn’t good enough to simply say that faith is just a feeling. It is a waste of time to say ‘the bible says …..’, because people who do not share our faith do not trust the bible as a source of truth. We have to be able to talk about our faith with clarity. In the parlance of today, we have to be able to articulate the ‘value added’ to our lives by our faith? What makes life more fulfilled, more meaningful, more hopeful as a Christian?
In my experience most people who do not share our faith think that we cling on to believing a lot of silly, old fairy stories basically because we are frightened of dying. They think that faith is all about trying to get a place in heaven. We have to acknowledge that this is an understandable interpretation of what we believe and that for centuries in the past the Church has used the fear of death as a way of exercising power over people and of getting money out of them! Our forebears have sown the seeds of the criticisms we face today. In addition many think that believing in God helps us to behave well and to behave better than people who do not believe in God.
We have to acknowledge that plenty of people without faith seem to manage to face death with relative equanimity and many people without faith put some Christians to shame by the good that they do. If we are giving an account of the hope we have, ‘heaven’ and ‘being good’ (or being better than most) are not good defences in the eyes of those who criticise us.
I think our defence has to begin with stating that we believe there is more to life than logic, science and reason can explain. Many who attack our faith today are virtually fundamentalist believers in logic, science and reason as the only sources of truth. Having said this we would all, probably make different defences for our faith. As I am the one standing in a pulpit I will share with you a few very short and simple things I say in defence of the hope that is in me.
‘Jesus wept’ John 11.35 – in suffering we are not alone, however isolated we may feel in our lives, we are never alone. When we weep, Jesus weeps with us. The Jesus who wept at the death of his friend reveals that even through grief and pain, new life can come. In my life, I have discovered this to be true and it gives me hope in the darkest of times.
Jesus forgave those who crucified him and by so doing broke the cycle of destructive behaviour surrounding him, an action which led to his crucifixion but also sowed the seeds of healing and resurrection. Difficult though it is, we should never be drawn into maintaining destructive cycles of behaviour – we do this by seeking always to love our enemies. In my life I have discovered this to be true and it gives me hope in the most complex situations.
When Jesus met the grieving Mary Magdalen at the tomb he said her name, ‘Mary’ and she recognised him. This is an example of the truth articulated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, ‘Love never ends’, love is bigger and stronger than anything, including death. And God’s love is not a kind of general, one-size-fits-all love – it is a love that calls us by name. A love which gives us identity, a love which holds us whatever happens. In my life, I have discovered this to be true and it gives me hope every day.
None of this can be proved by logic, science and reason. I do not claim that this has given me life in all its fullness, but it has given me a way to navigate my way through life positively and, for the most part, creatively ….. so far. For what it is worth, as I drink tea with people in need or people attacking my faith, this is some of my defence to anyone who demands from me an account of the hope that is in me. What is yours?
Let us pray
God of reconciling hope, as you guided your people in the past guide each one of us through the turmoil of the present time and bring us to that place of flourishing where our unity can be restored, the common good served and all shall be made well. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
An open, generous, inclusive Hospitality of the Heart – The Reverend Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 21 July 2019 – Sung Eucharist
Colossians 1: 15-28 Luke 10: 38-end
Open, generous, inclusive hospitality. That’s what today’s gospel reading seems to be getting at. The open, generous, inclusive hospitality of home and even more importantly, perhaps, the open, generous, inclusive hospitality of heart.
On the surface, of course, the one who seems the most generous of all in offering hospitality is the one who’s rebuked. Jesus arrives at the home of Martha, who has a sister, Mary. Martha not only welcomed him into her home but expressed her hospitality, presumably, in time-honoured Middle Eastern fashion by preparing a meal. And yet when she asks Jesus to tell her sister, happily sitting at Jesus’ feet, doing not very much, to give her a hand, Jesus rebukes her: ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ Jesus appears to devalue the day-to-day mundane tasks we all have to do simply in order to live. Where would all we be without food, clean clothes, a home to live in and an income of some kind to make such things possible?
For centuries this story has been interpreted in the Church as an allegory of the so-called active and contemplative lives. The message, from the theologian Origen of Alexandria in the early third century onwards, has usually been that the contemplative life has been far more preferable to that of the active. This was one of the reasons why the monastic life was so highly esteemed during the medieval period. To enter a monastery and leave the world behind was considered to be a far higher calling than getting your hands dirty dealing with the everyday affairs of the world. The problem with that, of course, was that the monastic life still depended on people doing the kind of tasks in which Martha was engaged, even in a monastery or convent. It was still necessary to prepare food, to cultivate crops, to erect buildings and so on. If everyone spent all their time on their knees, they’d eventually starve to death!
There’s a wonderful story from the desert fathers and mothers of the fourth century in Egypt which perfectly illustrates this point:
A certain brother came to visit Abba Sylvanus at Mount Sinai, and seeing the hermits at work he exclaimed, “Why do you work for the food that perishes? Mary has chosen the better part.” Then Abba Sylvanus called his disciple, “Zachary, give this brother a book and put him in an empty cell.” Now when it was three o’clock the brother kept looking out of the door to see if someone would call him to eat. But nobody came, so he got up, went to see the old man, and said: “Abba, didn’t the brothers eat today?” The old man said, “Of course we did.” “Then why didn’t you call me?” The old man replied, “You’re a spiritual person, you don’t need the food that perishes, but since we’re earthly, we want to eat and that’s why we work. You’ve chosen the best part, reading all day long, and getting along without food.” When the brother heard this he repented and said, “Forgive me, Abba.” Then the old man said to him: “Mary certainly needed Martha, and it is really by Martha’s help that Mary is praised’.
If we were in any doubt about this, we need only to look at the context in which this story’s placed in Luke’s gospel. It follows on immediately from the parable of the Good Samaritan, which ends with Jesus’ words, ‘Go and do likewise,’ not, ‘Go and pray about it.’ The significance of Jesus’ parable is manifold. At one level, at least, it’s about compassion in action. The Samaritan traveller tends to the needs of a man robbed and beaten up on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The wounded man’s ignored by a priest and a Levite on their way to the temple to perform their duties. It’s the hated foreigner, the one who believes and worships differently from the Jewish characters in the story, who actually conforms far more to what their law requires than they do themselves. They fail to show compassion, to act with kindness and mercy. It’s the outsider, the one they can’t fit into their worldview, who acts with an open, generous heart. And Jesus says, ‘Go and do likewise.’
Now an interpretation of the story of Martha and Mary which sought to underplay the so-called active in favour of the so-called contemplative would actually be a direct contradiction of the whole significance of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Rather it’s the case that the story of Martha and Mary has to be read in the light of the Good Samaritan. Jesus is actually showing what an open and generous hospitality of heart looks like in a completely different context. The message, though, is the same.
The open and generous heart is to be seen in Jesus’ attitude towards Mary. Women were considered to be second class citizens at best. Deemed to be inferior to men, they were treated as no more than men’s possessions and they had no independent rights in law. And to be a learner, a student, a disciple, well, that was for men. Yet the very posture of Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet denoted that Jesus was treating her in a way that was reserved for men. Jesus transcended convention and related to her with an open, generous, inclusive heart of love, acceptance and respect. She was no second class citizen. As far as he was concerned, she enjoyed the same dignity as a man.
Perhaps it’s this that was the cause of Martha’s distraction, a distraction that had nothing to do with the requirement to do the chores. Was she wrestling with the conditioning she shared with all other women of the time, such that she couldn’t quite see or cope with the way Mary was being treated? Was there a kind of resistance in her in the way that those released from prison, for example, so often pine for the secure and predicable life they lived in prison, despite the fact that they spent all their time in prison longing for freedom? If this were so, it’s no wonder that Jesus told her that Mary had chosen the better part, which could not be taken from her, for Jesus wanted Martha to see that it was her part as well. She was being invited to accept a higher God-given dignity hitherto denied her by the religious and cultural traditions, mores and assumptions of her day. Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s taken the Church of England 2000 years to hear and get the same message?
This open, generous and inclusive hospitality of heart is seen in Jesus’ attitude towards Mary – and Martha, too, of course – in Mary’s attitude towards Jesus, and in the Samaritan’s attitude towards his hated enemy, the Jew. So what about us, you and me? Can we find that same open, generous and inclusive hospitality of heart in ourselves – as individuals, as a church, as a nation? Can we be open and generous to what’s new and different? Can we be open and generous to those who’re different from us? Are we prepared to treat all people with love and respect, acknowledging the God-given dignity of all? Are we willing to be open-minded enough to ways of seeing the world that might unsettle us? Or is our instinct to close in on ourselves, to settle for what’s safe and manageable? For it’s the latter attitude which constitutes our distractedness, just as it did Martha’s. In the end, the story of Martha and Mary, and the parable of the Good Samaritan which precedes it, each push us to see the presence of God, however God’s recognised or named, in every person and aspect of our lives. Ultimately, the contemplative attitude, nurtured by contemplative prayer and meditation, is about seeing things with an open, generous, inclusive and expansive vision. When that happens, we begin to see something of which we heard in the first reading: the fullness of God in Christ. But we shall not only see it; we shall embody and be it, too.
We are ‘Corpus Christi’ – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Thursday 20 June 5.15pm – Corpus Christi
1 Corinthians 11.23-26 & John 6.51-58
It was 1984 in St Michael and All Angels Church, Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, the church where Dom Gregory Dix, a monk and academic wrote a seminal work on Christian worship called ‘The Shape of the Liturgy’. I was 26 years old and presiding at Communion for the first time. There was a good congregation, my mum and dad and other family members were sitting on the front row and close friends were in the congregation or helping out at the service in some way. My training incumbent graciously took a minor role. The guest preacher was my college principle, David Hope. I was very nervous – this was a big deal. This was my First Mass. I had been ordained in Christchurch, Oxford’s Cathedral, the day before. I was wearing vestments I had seen thousands of times but never worn myself, saying words I had heard thousands of times but never said myself, doing actions I had watched thousands of times, but never done myself …. I had practised, but had I practised enough?
All went well fortunately …. until we got to the prayer of consecration …. I said the prayers over the bread and then I lifted the chalice and prepared to speak the prayer over the wine. Suddenly, as I looked into the ruby red liquid, my breath was taken away and I stopped – staring up at me from the surface of the wine was a nervous, inexperienced young man who had been a priest for just over 24 hours ……. what was I doing here?
I have reflected on that moment a great deal in the years that have followed. As a young priest I knew that it was wrong to talk about ‘my ministry’ that I should only talk about sharing in God’s ministry but, to be honest, I was arrogant enough to think, a lot of the time, it was all about me and being surrounded and supported by encouraging parishioners didn’t help! My reflection in the chalice seemed to reinforce this way of thinking. After a number of years as a parish priest I now know for sure that it’s all God’s ministry and my job as a priest, most of the time, is simply to get out of the way, so God can work, God can create, God can love.
We think of our bodies as one thing – this skeleton covered in this flesh identified by this face. We talk of the body of Christ as many things – using images from the Minster – the body of Christ is the tiny, naked, vulnerable baby lying in a box on the floor of a dirty smelly stable in the picture of the nativity in the Lady Chapel. The body of Christ is the tortured figure on the huge crucifix hanging in the south transept. The body of Christ is the feet we see on the boss in the centre of the nave aisle roof as the body of Christ ascends into heaven. The body of Christ is pieces of bread we are given when we come to communion. And, of course, to return to the reflection in the chalice, the body of Christ is you and me. It is not just the presiding priest whose reflection is seen in the chalice – because our chalices are silver and we have excellent vergers, if you look really hard when the priest lifts the chalice, you could see your own face reflected in the silver. As we share in the body of Christ we become, or should become, the body of Christ in the world today.
Usually, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, we reflect on Jesus, present in the sacrament of bread and wine. I think we tend to overcomplicate our thinking about this – in the end I think this is actually all very simple and down to earth. The sharing of bread and wine is often made incredibly beautiful and ornate – this evening the sacred ministers are wearing fantastic vestments, there is beautiful liturgy, careful choreography, fantastic music and incense – all of this helps us to worship, to be moved and inspired by sharing what we share – but in the end, all we are doing is sharing food with people we love. Whether you are sitting down to a 7 course meal at the Ritz to celebrate a family birthday or eating beans on toast on your lap watching Eastenders with your spouse, partner or children, you are just sharing food with the people you love. That is what we are doing here.
Ted, a friend in my previous parish, was a good carpenter. He is a very gregarious, energetic elderly gentleman, a widower with four grown up children. He made his daughter a refectory table for her kitchen and, when he had finished it, he asked for it to be blessed. He always came to our early morning communion on a Thursday, so one Thursday after church the little congregation who always came on Thursdays all went to his house – we had breakfast on the new table, dropped crumbs and marmalade on it and then blessed it. Ted knew that the kitchen table is where, for many, life and love are shared. It’s where arguments take place, memories are shared and jokes are told – it is where people who love each other share food together. He wanted his daughter’s kitchen table to be a holy table, like a church altar is a holy table, because that is where love is shared and it is in that simple, every day sharing that Jesus is present.
God is love – where else would God incarnate be but in the very place where people who love each other (even when they sometimes don’t always like each other) gather to share food and to share life?
We are Corpus Christi – the body of Christ – not just when we are being really holy gathered around a magnificent church altar with a fair linen cloth on it and candles and music and incense, when we can see our reflections in the beautiful silver chalice. All of this should remind us that we are also Corpus Christi – the body of Christ – when we gather around a messy kitchen table covered in crumbs, spilt tea and blobs of marmalade – we are the body of Christ wherever we go, whatever we do.
Pentecost: Unity, Diversity and Love. – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 9 June 2019 Pentecost – Sung Eucharist
Acts 2:1-21 Romans 8:14-17 John 14:8-17, 25-27
It’s not my usual style to begin with a text, so consider today to be the exception that proves the rule. Two texts, in fact, both from the first reading: ‘When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place,’ and then a little further on, ‘Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.’ Togetherness and distinctiveness, unity and diversity, sameness and difference. That’s what I want to speak about today, and about how it’s in the nature of love to make the seemingly impossible a reality.
Just under a month ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury visited Pope Francis in Rome. He said the ‘most amazing thing happened’ when he ‘very cheekily’ asked the Pope if he might record a video message for Thy Kingdom Come, a novena of prayer held across the world among Christians of a variety of traditions between Ascension Day and the Feast of Pentecost, which we celebrate today. The Pope agreed and this is part of what he said:
‘Come Holy Spirit. This is the cry of all Christians on this day of Pentecost. Come Holy Spirit – the promise of the Father; the promise of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit might enlarge and widen our hearts. We all have a problem, and that is that our hearts tend to shrink, become smaller and close. We can’t solve this problem by ourselves. Only the Holy Spirit can solve it.’
The Acts of the Apostles presents us, as we heard, with an arresting picture of what happened on the day of Pentecost. The coming of the Spirit’s described as a ‘sound like the rush of a violent wind.’ The most sensible response to the prospect of a hurricane isn’t simply to batten down the hatches but to get right out of the way! A hurricane sweeps away everything in its path, it churns everything up and destroys. And this is what the Spirit’s like! No wonder we shrink, become smaller and close in on ourselves.
And yet the Spirit’s also life, the very breath of life which God breathes into us to make us living beings, beings animated not just by physical breath but by the very life of God. So our relationship with the Spirit’s ambiguous to say the least. We know that without the Spirit there’s no life, and yet being open to the Spirit leads ultimately to our being consumed, purged, combusted by the fire of the Spirit. Deep down, though, we know that what burns us up is none other than divine love itself. Our first two hymns today captured exactly this: ‘Come down, O Love divine…let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming.’ ‘O Thou who camest from above the pure celestial fire to impart, kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn with inextinguishable blaze, and trembling to its source return in humble prayer and fervent praise.’ For that to become a reality requires us to die: to die to self, to self-centredness, to the sense that the world revolves around you or me above all else.
And this takes us to the heart of the matter. We experience our resistance to being transformed not primarily in relation to God in the first instance, but in relation to other people. It’s other people who threaten our autonomy, our belief that life should always be as I want it to be. It’s this that makes us close in on ourselves, narrow our perspective and seek to throw our weight around. And when this happens, we seek to bolster ourselves up, to defend ourselves, by associating invariably with like-minded people, with those who’re the same. Otherness, difference, is often threatening, in whatever guise it appears: a different sexual orientation, a different religion, a different culture, a different political view, a different vision of life. It’s this very threat that makes us aware that we have two options: close down, shrink and become as small as my own narrow perspective, or open up and expand to embrace that which is different and other. You see, the Pope’s spot on. The core spiritual issue presents itself as one of the human heart, and yet we can’t solve this on our own. Only the Spirit, the one who comes to us from beyond, can solve it. But the Spirit’s the very source of life and love. When we open our hearts, we ultimately open up to love, divine love, which consumes us, yes, but which also manifests itself, if we let it, in every human being, in those who’re different from us. Then we can receive and relate to others as gift, as a gift from God.
On the day of Pentecost, the apostles were gathered together in one place. Here’s an image of unity. And yet, when the Spirit came, it came as divided tongues of fire: an image of difference. The apostles all received the same Spirit but it was this same Spirit that enabled them to speak other languages. What a picture of diversity-in-unity! Theologically speaking, Christ’s the one in whom unity’s found, it’s in him that everything holds together, but it’s the Spirit who differentiates, who enables difference, who makes it possible for you to be wholly you and me to be wholly me, and not clones of anyone, not even of Jesus.
And this is in the nature of love itself. Love isn’t threatened by difference and otherness. As Teilhard de Chardin, the great French philosopher, scientist, theologian and Jesuit priest observed, ‘Love differentiates.’ It’s fear that seeks to control and make everything the same. That’s what we see in totalitarian regimes and it squeezes the very life out of everyone. At the end of today’s gospel reading we heard Jesus saying, ‘My peace I give to you… Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.’ Love, as is stated in the First Letter of John, casts out fear and it’s love that makes it possible for the other to be other without breaking the bond of love. It’s our vocation, the vocation of the whole creation, to be this love, but to be so, we have to be transformed by the fire of love, broken out of our narrow self-centredness, and enlarged.
Jesus is the very embodiment of love, and he reveals that love to be a communion of love, in which difference is held in unity. The relationship between Jesus and the one he calls Abba is so close that he says to Philip, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,’ and ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me,’ and yet they’re not identical. They’re one but different. Furthermore, the Spirit, who’s the fruit of the love between the Father and the Son, also abides in us. We’re drawn into this communion of love, to be part of it, to share in it to the full. So, although we focus on the Holy Spirit today, everything about today’s thoroughly Trinitarian. Divine love is shown to be a communion of love, in which distinct relationships are held in perfect unity. Each of the persons of the Trinity is utterly transparent to the others, nothing’s held back, nothing’s shrunk or closed in, but a total expansiveness and openness to the other. And the Spirit, the one who’s like a violent wind and who transforms us as the fire of love, dwells in us, enabling us to be wholly ourselves, different, and at the same time completely at one with God and everyone and everything else.
If our hearts are to be expanded and widened, as Pope Francis suggests, they have to be broken open to be capable of embracing everything, divine love most of all. It’s a ridiculous vision, isn’t it? It’s impossible. But we start small, in our day to day relationships with one another. There can be pain and turmoil sometimes, but often moments of delight and joy, too. We can’t do it on our own, though. We simply have to be open to the one who makes the seemingly impossible possible. Which is why today of all days we pray, ‘Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people, and kindle in us the fire of your love.’
The Triumph of the Ascension – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Ascension Day, 30 May 2019 – Solemn Eucharist
Acts 1:1-11 Luke 24:44-53
If your family’s at all like mine, you’ll have a favourite, go-to, feel-good film that you watch at significant times when the family gathers together – like Christmas, for example. I’m fairly confident that this notion of a family film is a universal phenomenon because I checked out with my colleagues whether there was such a film in their families and they didn’t need a moment to think about it. So I’ll leave you to work out what these films tell you about my colleagues and their families. The Dean: Love Actually. Canon Peter, who’s not here because he’s on holiday: What we did on our holiday. Canon Michael: Elf. Catriona, who’s not here because she’s lost her voice: Singing in the Rain. Abi: Beauty and the Beast. And me? Cool Runnings.
Cool Runnings tells the highly improbable story of a Jamaican bobsled team, which enters the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. Improbable though it may sound, it’s actually based on historical events. The challenge, of course, is that bobsledding requires ice and there’s not much of that in Jamaica. So the team trains using homemade go-cart-like vehicles over entirely unsuitable terrain, so that crashes are frequent, with wheels spinning off all over the place.
Their inspiration is Irving Blitzer, a two-time American Bobsled gold medallist in the 1968 Winter Olympics, now living in seclusion on the island in disgrace, having cheated in the 1972 games. Initially he wants nothing to do with these deluded idiots but, to cut a very long story short, he does reluctantly agree to coach them.
When they eventually arrive in Calgary, they’re the laughing stock of everyone. Their clothing is inadequate, they’re constantly bickering and arguing, they got next to no experience and they haven’t even got a bobsled to enter the competition with. Against all the odds, they manage to surmount all these obstacles. Despite the prejudice of the judges, they do manage to qualify in the heats and it even begins to look as if they could be in the running for a medal.
All continues to go well but in the crucial race a nut holding the steering mechanism in place comes loose. Careering down the course at a colossal speed, the bobsled loses control and crashes. There’s no movement whatsoever from any of the team, and then we hear Derice say, ‘Shanka, ya dead?’ The reply comes back, ‘Yeah, man!’ Miraculously, none of them is seriously injured and, as they climb out of the bobsled, they see the finishing line not too far away. They hoist the bobsled on to their shoulders and with their heads held high they walk across the line, determined to complete the course. The crowd goes wild as they cheer them on towards the finish. The German team, who’ve ridiculed them all along, congratulate them, say they’ve earned the right to compete, and tell them they’re looking forward to seeing them again in four years’ time.
Now those of you who know me well know that I’m a bit of a softy really. It doesn’t take much to make me cry, but when that bobsled’s lifted high up on the team’s shoulders I feel a torrent of tears welling up and ready to gush through my eyes. I find it intensely moving. It’s more, I think, than just the British love of the underdog. There’s something universal in human experience which longs to see things coming right in the end against all the odds, along with the sheer joy when they do.
I hope the resonance between this and the great Feast of the Ascension won’t actually need too much spelling out. In essence, what we celebrate today is the fact that the most improbable and unlikely of stories ends in triumph. The fact that the story ever reaches its completion is something in itself. From the humble beginnings of a fragile birth in a hostile environment, Jesus – as Luke portrays him – becomes a great teacher, prophet and healer, bringing hope to those who feel abandoned, proclaiming the good news of God’s love and presence. Some adore him, others perceive him to be deeply threatening. Despite his popularity with many, he’s too uncomfortable for the establishment and they plot to do away with him. Crucifixion’s probably about the worst kind of suffering and death anyone could undergo, yet this is his end. He dies in disgrace and humiliation, ridiculed by the political and religious authorities, deserted by those closest to him, with the exception of a handful of faithful women. All the promise he brought turns to nothing; it was all a pipe dream.
Then on the first Easter morning something mysterious occurs. The one who was dead and buried is said to be alive again. He appears to some and life begins to emerge in a new way among those who are forlorn and dejected. They’re told to wait for the coming of the Spirit, which will release new energy and vigour in them, enabling them to live the same pattern they saw in Jesus himself.
In the light of all this, the ascension can seem a bit like an also-ran. What, we might ask, does it add, what more does it say? Well, quite a lot. Not only is it God’s affirmation that what looks like failure on one level is actually success. Not only does it assure us that this life, the life of Jesus, is the one which illuminates the meaning and purpose of our lives. More than that, it affirms that the whole of our experience, with all its twists and turns, its triumphs and tragedies, its successes and failures, the very interplay and dynamic of these things, is the way in which we’re drawn into union with God. At the ascension, Jesus takes the whole of our human experience into the life of God. The Christ who ascends is the one who still bears the marks of the nails and spear, the wounds of the crucifixion in his risen body, and takes this into the mystery of God’s life and love. Because Jesus is divine, God experiences in him all that we experience, knows it from the inside and makes it God’s own. Because Jesus is human, he takes the totality of human experience and us with him into the fullness of God’s own life. Our lives are forever hidden with Christ in God, from whom there’s no separation.
The Feast of the Ascension, with all its wonderful symbolism that no longer quite fits our view of the world, can often seem little more than a relic of a bygone age. In truth, it celebrates something so profound and mind-blowing that it’s only really symbols that can evoke and articulate it. And the truth is this: that there’s nothing in life that can finally act as a barrier to the fulfilment of our longing for union with God. The tragedies, failures, disappointments and setbacks are often the very things that can draw us in more closely. In Christ the whole of our experience has been taken into God and, in so doing, turns it into triumph. Because of the ascension, we are already where Christ is, in the very heart of God. Now that’s a cause for tears, not of sadness, but of exuberant joy.
Compassion and the Possibilities of New Life – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday May 2019 – Matins
1 Kings 17:11-23 Luke 7:11-23
Our granddaughter isn’t quite a year old yet, and although she’s clearly hugely interested in and curious about the world, she’s not yet speaking. That’s not to say she doesn’t make a noise, though! Not only does any object capable of being inserted into her mouth generally find its way in, all sorts of wonderful sounds come out, too. It’s only fairly recently that she’s begun to imitate sounds and she obviously delights in what she’s able to reproduce. Exploring sound is the beginning of language for her and opens up a whole world of communication.
As far as words are concerned, young children aren’t troubled by not yet understanding what they actually mean before they start using them. Very often it’s the sheer sound which is the reason for trying them out and, on the whole, the more colourful, odd and slightly rude the sound the better.
As a boy I used to listen to a radio comedy series called Round the Horne, the writer of which, Kenneth Horne, was once described in the Times newspaper as ‘the master of the scandalous double-meaning delivered with shining innocence.’ Some of this was communicated by the sheer sounds of words. Among the memorable characters in the show was one who rejoiced in the glorious name of J. Peasmold Gruntfuttock. Now you probably don’t actually need me to explain that Gruntfuttock was something of a dirty old man! It’s as if the very sound of the word conveys that without our needing to know it. What you probably don’t know, though, is that gruntfuttock is now a recognised word in the English language. Again, if I were to illustrate its use by saying that you might exclaim to someone, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop gruntfuttocking around!’, you probably don’t need much further explanation. So, you might like to consider when you could introduce gruntfuttock into a conversation!
There’s a word in today’s second lesson from Luke’s Gospel which, I can’t in all honesty claim is quite up there with gruntfuttock, but it comes close. It’s not apparent in the English but it is in the original Greek. The word is splanchnizomai and it means to have compassion. When Jesus saw the widow accompanying the bier carrying the lifeless body of her only son, he had compassion: splanchnizomai. There’s something rather earthy, raw, guttural and visceral about the very sound of the word. In the Greek, to have compassion has the sense of feeling it in your guts and the sound of the word splanchnizomai almost conveys a sense of your guts spilling out. It’s an extraordinarily vivid image. Imagine being so moved with compassion that you feel as if your guts are being spilled out.
Compassion is absolutely central to Luke’s Gospel. Two of the best-known and most-loved of Jesus’ stories – The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son – illustrate compassion and both are to be found in Luke alone. In the first, the Samaritan was ‘moved with compassion’ to attend to the practical needs of someone beaten up by robbers and left for dead. In the second, it’s the grieving father who was ‘filled with compassion’ when he saw his wayward son coming home after a long absence. In this case, it was compassion that moved the father to run towards his son with open arms and welcome him home.
Now you might think that to preach about compassion on the basis of today’s reading from Luke amounts to nothing more than a rather cowardly way of avoiding saying something about the widow’s son being brought back to life. In this Easter season, shouldn’t I be preaching resurrection? Well, yes, but the point Luke seems to be making is that compassion is all about making new life possible. Let’s face it, at one level this story’s about the resuscitation of a corpse. As is the case after the raising of Lazarus in John’s Gospel, both the son here and Lazarus there weren’t spared death indefinitely. Both presumably died again at a later stage. So resurrection life isn’t about being immune to death. Luke’s purpose is rather to illustrate what real life is about and, in the person of Jesus, it’s supremely compassion which is an agent of resurrection life. And for Luke, the transformation that compassion brings about is a radical inclusion in God’s love and purpose.
More than in any of the other gospels, Luke’s concerned about those who’re excluded. In the case of the Good Samaritan, it was the foreigner hated by the Jews who was shown to do the right thing on the basis of compassion by attending to the needs of the wounded man – presumably a Jew. In the Prodigal Son, the Father – a symbol of God – embraces and rehabilitates the one who’s wronged him by showing that not even sin excludes us from God’s love and compassion. In the story of the widow of Nain, Jesus reaches out to one, who by virtue of being a widow, had no economic or legal rights or privileges – she was dependent on her only son to meet her material needs – and now he was dead and she was destitute. So here we see Jesus spilling his guts out to show that compassion is who God is and what God does to enable everyone to thrive and flourish, to enable all to be included in the fullness of divine and human life and love.
You might well ask, though: where’s the evidence of this holistic and life-giving compassion in our own experience? Well, if you’ve recently been gripped by the BBC drama series, Line of Duty, you might have been prompted by that to watch a two-part documentary series in the last couple of weeks, presented by one of the stars of Line of Duty, Vicky McClure, called Our Dementia Story. Moved with compassion by the experience of seeing her Nona – her grandmother – live with Dementia, she was determined to explore whether music might have a life-giving and life-changing impact on those living with Dementia. A group of 20 or so people were recruited to form a choir, which would prepare to give a public concert in Nottingham to some 2,500 people. On top of this, neuroscientists were involved in monitoring the changes taking place in the brain as they sang. The results were extraordinary. Many who’d just about lost the capacity to speak found that they could actually sing well, that music facilitated the recovery of memory, and that the emotional impact for the participants and their families of experiencing lost bits of themselves being restored to life was transformational. This documentary was a contemporary presentation of all that Luke’s trying to say in today’s second lesson. Vicky McClure was moved by compassion to do something for those who’re marginalised, ignored and excluded in our society because they live with Dementia. In so doing she enabled such people to experience new possibilities in life where hope had in some cases been evaporated.
There are different types of Dementia and there was at least one person in the programme with Frontotemporal Dementia, which affects behaviour sometimes as well as language. Chris had a great sense of humour and was often rather uninhibited in his behaviour. I’m not sure how he’d have reacted to Splanchnizomai but I’ve not the slightest doubt he’d have enjoyed gruntfuttock – and no explanations would have been needed either!
Visiting the tomb – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Easter Day Evensong 21 April 2019
Isaiah 43.1-21 & 1 Corinthians 15.1-11
A story for Easter Day
When he died I was broken hearted. The suffering he had endured was unimaginable. I was angry at the injustice he had suffered, I was frightened for the future, and, I hate to admit it, I was just a little bit relieved it was all over! Being a friend of Jesus was really hard work. I had given up everything to follow him. For three years I hadn’t really had a good nights sleep, meals had been sporadic, the Roman and Jewish authorities had constantly hassled us and, in addition to all this, Jesus kept on challenging us, saying difficult and disturbing things. Yes, if I am honest, there was a sense of relief that it was all over. I didn’t have the nerve to ask any of the others if they felt the same, I thought it might be just me!
It was with this complicated mixture of feelings that I joined the others to visit the tomb on Sunday morning. We walked there in silence and I was thinking; ….. yes I was sad, I loved him and I know that he loved me ……. I would miss him ……. he was energetic and charismatic, great fun to be with, but exhausting. When we got to the tomb I was certain I would weep and wail with the others, but weeping and wailing was easier than following him, for once, I was in control. He would be dead in the tomb and I could do all the things I felt I needed to do, say all the things I felt that I needed to say, weep all the tears that I needed to weep and then walk away and get on with my life, my way. No more compulsion to risk everything and to live ‘on the road’. I could go home and pick up my safe, comfortable, predictable life and look back at my time with him with deep affection and pride. Maybe one day people would write books about him. I would be able to tell my grandchildren that I travelled with him, I knew him, I loved him.
‘Joanna …… Joanna?’ Mary, James’ mother, one of my companions was speaking to me.
Deep in thought I slowly became aware that she was saying my name.
‘Sorry Mary’, I said, ‘I was miles away’.
‘Joanna, what are you going to do now?’
I was embarrassed to answer the question. To tell Mary that I had already thought about going home and getting on with my old life seemed rather callous, this was only the third day since he had died. In order to dodge the issue I decided I would use a trick he often used. I turned the question on her and asked her to tell me what she was planning to do.
‘Well I haven’t spoken to James yet, but I expect we’ll go back to Galilee. His cousins are still fishing the lake and there’s always work for a fisherman. I’ll go with him, help find him a wife and wait for some grandchildren to come along. It’ll be nice to get back to normal.’ Mary stopped speaking, suddenly realising that she was revealing that there was a little bit in her that was somewhat relieved that he was dead as well. ‘I mean, I am heartbroken, this is awful, he shouldn’t have died ……’
‘It’s alright Mary’ I said, ‘I know what you mean and I have been thinking the same way. I would not have missed my time with him but it has been hard work, I am exhausted and all the things he said and taught are buzzing around in my head. I need some time to rest and think it all through. I am quite looking forward to going home as well.’
Mary took hold of my hand. In this way we comforted each other in our sadness and in our shared feeling of shame that we were relieved it was all over. Now Jesus was dead we could remember all the great things he said about forgiveness and mercy and healing, all the promises he made about the Kingdom of Heaven and we could slowly forget all the difficult things he said about loving our enemies and about judgement, and about giving everything we have to the poor and that ridiculous story about a Good Samaritan, I mean, who has ever heard of a Good Samaritan?
The sun was creeping over the horizon as we neared the tomb. The chill of night being replaced by the warmth of day.
We were visiting the tomb to mourn, we also needed to anoint his body because he had been buried in such a hurry on Friday evening we hadn’t been able to do it then.
‘How are we going to move the stone?’ someone asked.
Silence. We hadn’t thought about that. I don’t suppose any of us were looking forward to doing what we were going to do but we all needed to do it – it was a way of showing our love for him. As we prepared to anoint his dead body I thought of Mary, Martha’s sister, who had anointed his body while he was alive only a week or so ago – I really admired her for that, I wish I had her courage. Anointing a dead body isn’t pleasant but it’s easier, less complicated, less open to misinterpretation than anointing live one.
As the morning mist rose the tomb came into view. Something wasn’t right. We tried to make out what had happened, our pace quickened, and then we saw, the stone had been moved.
‘Someone’s moved it for us already’, Mary said.
We looked around and saw two men standing close by. I couldn’t tell if it was the way the sun shone on their white clothes, but they seemed to glow with light. They dazzled us. We fell to the ground in fear. Were they ghosts? Were they Pilate’s spies? Were they angels? We had no idea, but they frightened us. Then they spoke,
‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.’
We stared at each other in disbelief. He had talked about rising after three days but that didn’t make any sense at all so we’d ignored it. I looked inside the tomb to check if what these two strangers were saying was true. It was empty.
We ran back to tell the others. We didn’t speak, we just ran. Out of breath we told them what had happened and what we had seen. We told them that the tomb was empty. And, do you know what – they didn’t believe us. They just thought we were a bunch of exhausted, grieving, sleep deprived, hallucinating, silly women. Fortunately Peter, in order to shut us up probably, got up and went to the tomb himself. When he came back and told them the tomb was empty, they believed him!
He lives.
What now? I suppose I should be telling you that there was a part of me that was disappointed, but there wasn’t. When I discovered he was alive and always would be alive, because he had overcome death, I knew that he would always be with us, he would always be with me. I knew I would have to live with all the great, easy things he said as well as all the difficult challenging things he said. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to mould my memory of a dead hero to suit me and my life, I knew I was going to have to give my life to him and allow my life to be moulded to fit his teaching, his ways. But that was fine – he would never leave again.
Life remembering a dead hero would be easy, safe, dull and would lead only to the establishment of my own little kingdom with me at the centre. Life with a living friend, a living Lord, would be a constant challenge, complicated, but better by far and will lead I hope, as he always said it would, to the establishment of his Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.
Ash Wednesday – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Ash Wednesday 6th March 2019
2 Corinthians 5.20b 6.10 & John 8.1-11
The lady had woken early and showered. She dressed in simple, expensive and smart clothes. She put on her make up and did her hair. She ate a nourishing and healthy breakfast. She picked up her leather briefcase containing important papers, checked she had her phone and keys and she set out for work. She was confident and in control. She was able and ambitious.
Within an hour of leaving home her clothes were ripped and ruined. She had lost her briefcase, phone and keys. She was wandering the streets in a daze. She was confused and vulnerable. She was covered, head to toe, in dust and ash.
The lady was the victim of a random terrorist attack in a busy city centre. One moment she was confident and in control. Within seconds, due to an act of human evil and sin, she was broken and vulnerable. Covered in dust and ash. This is the human condition writ large. We yearn for a safe and comfortable environment where we are in control, but tragedy and acts of selfishness and sin, by others or by ourselves, constantly wreck and shatter our safe, comfortable and controlled lives.
On Ash Wednesday we are challenged, by the Church, to face up to this. We are reminded of our mortality, that life is a precious and fragile gift. We are also led to face up to our weakness and sin which is destructive and ultimately leads to death. In this service we take ash – a stark symbol of tragedy and death, and we are marked on our foreheads with a cross. We take ash, a symbol of destruction and death and make the mark of the cross, for Christians, a symbol of life and hope. The message is clear. By God’s power and grace, by God’s willingness to enter into the tragedy and sin of our lives and our world, there is always the potential for new life, for resurrection. In the dust and ash of human tragedy, in the dust and ash caused by human sin, the sins we commit and the sin done by others, even in the dust and ash of death, there is the potential of new life.
Ash Wednesday is about Hope. The season of Lent we begin today is about Hope. Not Hope that God will magically or supernaturally sort out our problems, but Hope that with God’s Grace and Love, and our repentance and courage, there is no tragedy or sin that cannot be overcome, there is no tragedy or sin that cannot lead, in some way to new life, to resurrection.
It is good to be reminded at the beginning of this penitential season that repentance has two elements – there’s the saying sorry for our sins, but this is not enough we also have to do something about our sin. True Repentance involves a serious attempt to put right in our lives what we know is wrong. Think for a moment about the lady caught in adultery in the gospel reading for Ash Wednesday. At the end of the story Jesus says, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’John 8.11. So she didn’t get stoned to death by the mob, she got forgiven by Jesus – thank the Lord. But when she walked away from Jesus, where did she go? As far as we know, the only person who had forgiven her was Jesus, so presumably, she had to go back to her husband and apologise to him and work hard to gain his forgiveness and trust. Then there would be her family to speak to, remember she was humiliated by being dragged through the streets, everyone knew what she had done. So she would also have to face her neighbours, the ladies in the queue to fill the water jars at the well, I wonder what that was like. Life was going to be very tough for the lady in the gospel after Jesus forgave her. Living as a forgiven person is not always immediately a happy ending – often it involves a lot of honest conversations and hard work.
So as we begin this season of Lent today by sharing in this simple ritual where a little ash is used to mark us with a cross, let us be aware of the enormity of the message this ritual carries – life is precious and fragile, yet there is no tragedy, no sin that may drench us in dust and ash, out of which some new life may not come. New life comes through God’s love, grace and forgiveness, and through our true repentance. In a beautiful church building in the context of a moving act of worship with evocative liturgy and beautiful music, this is easy to believe this. When tragedy strikes it becomes more difficult. So as we prepare for the ritual imposition of ash and the assurance of Hope, let us, in a moment of silence pray that, should we be drenched in the ash of sadness or tragedy we will be able to hold on to the belief that God will remain with us and lead us to new life, and let us pray for others we may know or hear about on the news whose lives today are covered in the dust and ash of tragedy. May we repent of the sins that cause so much tragedy, our own sins and the sins with which we are complicit, and work hard to put things right. May we, this Lent, resolve to hold on to the hope of new life and help make that new life a reality for others through our compassion, forgiveness and love.
Does it matter when we read the Bible? – The Reverend Canon Peter Moger (Precentor)
10.00am Sung Eucharist – Sunday 3 March 2019
Luke 9.28-36
Does it matter when we read the Bible? I don’t mean whether we read it in the morning or evening, but when, in relation to the pattern of the Christian Year. I’m a firm believer that when we read the Bible is almost as important as what we read there – that the context of reading has a profound impact on how we read Scripture and apply it to our lives.
Today’s Gospel reading is St Luke’s account of the Transfiguration. That’s an event which has its own date in the Christian calendar – 6 August. But since the 1960s, all the mainstream churches have been reading one or other of the gospel accounts of the Transfiguration on this final Sunday before Lent. Why?
Well, as I’m always saying to Canon Michael, lectionaries – the schemes which tell us which bits of the Bible to read in worship – are not random! Today’s readings are there for a purpose. Today, the Sunday next before Lent, is a watershed Sunday – a gear change. It marks a shift from the Christmas cycle of time into the Easter cycle of time. That first cycle unpacks for us what it means for God to share our life through the birth of Jesus. We prepared during Advent, we celebrated the birth at Christmas, and in the Epiphany season we explored who Jesus is. And now we begin the Easter cycle, in which we delve into the mystery of salvation – the truth that, in Jesus, God shares our life for a purpose, and that purpose is to change it, for ever, through Jesus’ death and resurrection and by sending us the Holy Spirit. The Easter cycle takes us on a journey which begins this coming Wednesday, winds its way through Lent, Holy Week and Easter, and reaches its culmination at Pentecost. So today is a turning point in the year – a threshold – a liminal day – in which we cross from one period of time to another.
And the point of immersing ourselves in cycles of time within the Christian year is that we allow them to form us, year on year. Times and seasons are a formational spiral; as we hit a new season, we never repeat the spiritual journey of last year, because we’ve moved on. The circumstances of the past year’s journey have impacted on us so that we face Lent, Holy Week and Easter afresh, and ready to be formed still further into the people God made us to be.
So what about the Transfiguration, and why is that passage in particular read today? The account sits at a point of transition in Jesus’ earthly life. Luke sets it almost literally as a watershed in the middle of the Gospel. It follows teaching and miracles and, although more of the same follow, it’s clear that after the Transfiguration, Jesus – identified as God’s chosen one – is set on a particular course as he heads towards Jerusalem – the city in which he will die and rise from death, and in which the Holy Spirit will be given. So it marks a gear change in Jesus’ ministry.
The Transfiguration appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke. And although there are subtle differences from one Gospel to the next, the basics are the same. Jesus ascends a mountain with Peter, James and John to pray; his appearance changes; Moses and Elijah are seen; Peter makes a remark which shows that he totally misinterprets the situation; a cloud covers them and God’s voice is heard: ‘this is my Son – listen to him.’
Supernatural / Prayer
We need to recognise that, above all things, the Transfiguration was a supernatural event – one of those occasions when the living God breaks forcefully into the life of the world. It’s easy, in the daily business of life, to ignore the fact that, as Christians, we are people of the supernatural – that at the root of what we believe is that God has broken into, and continues to break into, our world of time and space. Holy places, such as this cathedral, are a constant reminder of that ‘otherness’ which lies at the heart of our faith. The medieval builders of the Minster were about creating ‘otherness on earth’ – cathedral music is about exactly the same thing: not manufacturing the conditions, but providing a fertile context for the supernatural to shine through.
And the particular event of the Transfiguration came about as a result of Jesus and his disciples going up the mountain to pray. Mountains and hills have often been seen as spiritually significant places, but even if we live in the Vale of York, we can still pray. Not all of us will see visions, or hear directly the voice of God, but without exception prayer offers us the space and opens up the capacity for our spirits to connect with God’s Spirit. As we approach Lent, I would like to encourage you to make use of the weekly Silence in the Minster – each Thursday evening, beginning on 14 March. These offer us the opportunity to be genuinely still before God, to listen, and to pray in quiet, and in the time-honoured service of Compline.
The Past
The appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus on the mountain is usually given great theological significance: Moses as the giver of the Law, and Elijah as first among the Prophets. But we don’t need to be OT scholars to grasp that what Moses and Elijah stand for is the past. Jesus is at a threshold in his life: what he is about to do in Jerusalem will have a profound effect on the course of history, but the saving work of Jesus doesn’t come out of nowhere – it has a past.
Each of us, too, has a past – and as we reflect on Jesus standing between the past of Moses and Elijah, and the future in Jerusalem – we can take to heart that God is the God of our past and our future. Who we are is human beings who carry the image of God – that’s true for absolutely everyone. Who we have become over time is the result of a complex interplay of circumstance, chance and choice. But who we shall be is rooted in Jesus and our relationship with him.
Lent is an excellent time to take stock – to reflect on the past, on where we’ve come from – and remind ourselves that God has been with us in that past. It’s a good exercise sometimes to look back over our lives and think about where God has been with us in our journey. And as we trace the hand of God through time, we are in a good place to ask God to show us what we are being called to become.
Mistakes
Reflection on our past can sometimes lead to an unhealthy pre-occupation with mistakes or choices we wish we hadn’t made – and this can be destructive and compromise the wholeness which God wills for us.
St Peter is our model here. He was someone who, despite having the best of intentions, always managed to put his foot in it, to get it wrong, and – on one occasion – to seriously let Jesus down. But ultimately it was Peter who was chosen to be the rock on whom the whole Church was to be built.
At the Transfiguration, he seems to have been totally mesmerised by the experience. He says to Jesus:
‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’
He wants to fossilize a good experience, without looking beyond, to where that experience might be pointing.
I am glad, both that I am called Peter, and that I was ordained and have served in this Cathedral which bears his dedication. Because it’s a constant reminder that God deals with each of us realistically and as we are – helping us put mistakes behind us and start again. A reminder that past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future possibilities!
Listen to him
Well, the disciples’ cosy experience soon passed and gave way to sheer terror as a cloud covered the mountain. And here the Gospel records a profound and disturbing manifestation of God’s presence, experienced through the voice:
‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’
And that was that. Jesus was left alone with the disciples – and life continued on its course. But that is rather what life can be like. It’s not an endless succession of mountain-top experiences but peaks, troughs and a good bit of trudging along level ground. The key, though, for Peter, James and John – and the key for us – is that we recognise who Jesus really is and we listen to him.
The season of Lent which lies ahead has for many centuries been kept as a time of drawing close to God. St James reminds us in his epistle that if we draw near to God, then God will draw near to us. The danger is that we think, ‘Ah yes, another Lent, another year’ rather than, ‘this Lent, this year.’ As we enter the Easter cycle another time, let us dig deep, as we open ourselves to God’s transforming love.
God of everlasting mercy,
who sent your Son to save us:
remind us of your goodness,
increase your grace within us,
that we may know your power to change and save.
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Glimpsing God’s back… – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 3 March 2019 Matins
Exodus 33.17-end & 1 John 3.1-3
One of the things we pray for most often here at York Minster is that all the people who come will encounter God in some way. Every day at Morning Prayer we pray for the day ahead and for all who will come to the Minster, and our prayer is that they will encounter God in some way. We often introduce Choral Evensong, at which there are often a lot of visitors, by saying that our prayer is that all who are gathered will encounter God by sharing in our worship together. In addition, whenever I am welcoming a congregation to a wedding I often tell them that this is a place where, over many, many centuries, people have encountered God, so I invite the wedding congregation to be prepared for the unexpected! It is interesting to see people start looking just a little nervous, many thought they had come to a ‘venue’ to watch a ceremony, this introduction warns them that this is not just a ‘venue’ and lots of extraordinary things and encounters have happened here over many hundreds of years, so something might happen to them!
So we pray and talk about people encountering God here a lot – but what do we mean? What does encountering God look like and feel like? What am I suggesting the poor, unsuspecting congregations at weddings might experience?
The first reading this morning tells us of an interesting encounter between Moses and God. They are in conversation and Moses says to God, ‘show me your glory’. God tells Moses that he will pass by him but that Moses must stand in the cleft of a rock as God passes by, Moses will not be permitted to see the face of God but he will see God’s back. So his encounter with God will only be partial.
As Christians we believe that Jesus is God incarnate, but most people who encountered Jesus were confused and bemused by their encounter. Certainly, those who heard Jesus’ teaching and parables were nearly always confused and bemused – they recognised that something important and significant was being revealed but most people, at the time, and many people since, have found God’s revelation in Jesus confusing and bemusing.
It is for these reasons that I am always a little bit nervous of people who claim that their encounter with God is absolutely clear, certain and beyond question. Some act as though God has spoken to them with absolute clarity in ways that cannot be doubted or contradicted. It is as if some people claim that, unlike Moses, they have seen God face to face, they have seen God’s glory. This goes against the experience of virtually everything we read in scripture about people encountering God – encountering God is always partial.
Life is not just about ‘being’, it is about ‘becoming’, becoming the people God created us to be – in a sense, nothing is complete, everything we experience is about growing and changing, which is why our encounter with God, like that of Moses, is always partial, is always a glimpse or a moving shadow. In his book about poetry, ‘The Splash of Words’, Mark Oakley says, ‘ … the bible is a collage of writings that remind us that God is not the easy object of our knowledge but the deepest cause of our wonder.’ p. xxii
So, back to all the people who come to the Minster including the poor unsuspecting congregations at our weddings – what does encountering God mean, what does encountering God feel like? It is about sensing something, feeling something beyond us, something bigger than us. As Mark Oakley would say, it is not about ‘knowledge’ but about ‘wonder’.
It is important that we continue to pray that everyone who comes here, for whatever reason, has their hearts touched, their presuppositions challenged. Creation is not just about the individual, it is not just about what we can touch, what we can see, what we can buy, what we can prove – it is about much more, it is about a God who created us and holds us in love. That is not something we can touch, see, buy or prove, but it is something we can sense and even encounter in a place like this.
In conclusion, instead of a traditional prayer I want to read a short poem as a prayerful offering. It is called ‘Muse’ by Malcolm Guite. Among other things I think it is about encountering God
Muse
I stop and sense a subtle presence here,
An opalescent shimmer in the light,
And catch, just at the corner of my eye,
A shifting shape that no one else can see;
Just on the edge, the very edge of sight
Just where the air is brightening, and where
The sky is coloured underneath a cloud.
And so she comes to keep her tryst with me.
She comes with music, music faintly heard,
A trace, a grace-note, floating in clear air,
As over hidden springs the hazels stir.
Time quivers and then she is at my side;
A quickened breath, a feather touch on skin,
A sudden swift connection, deep within.
The Transformation of Peter – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
4th Sunday before Lent 10 Feb 2019 Matins
Jeremiah 26.1-16 & Acts 3.1-10
When we read about people in the New Testament we have a tendency to conflate all the various stories we know of them, from all the different books in the New Testament and draw our conclusions about them from that mass of information. We do exactly the same thing with the Christmas story, we nearly always conflate the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke to make one story. This is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, but sometimes it is interesting and helpful to focus on the portrait one author gives us of a person to see what that important character looks like from the account of their life given by that one author. Having heard the dramatic story about Peter in the passage we heard today from Acts 3, I thought it would be interesting to put that story in the context of the portrait of Peter Luke gives us in the gospel that bears his name and in the Acts of the Apostles which we believe he also wrote. In other words – what picture of Peter does Luke give us?
We first meet Peter in Luke’s gospel when Jesus climbs into a fishing boat and, not unreasonably, suggests to the fishermen that they go fishing. Peter, one of those fishermen, says there is no point because they had been out all the previous night and caught nothing. However, they do what Jesus says and, under his direction, they catch a huge number of fish. Peter recognises that there is a remarkable, miraculous power working through Jesus and he falls to his knees and says to him, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man’. That is the first mention of Peter in Luke’s gospel. Peter then appears in Luke’s list of Jesus’ disciples and we see him helping Jesus with his ministry. Luke then tells of Peter being the first disciple to recognise Jesus as the Messiah and then he tells us that he was present when Jesus was transfigured on the mountainside. As Luke’s story of Jesus unfolds we see Peter again, a couple of times, asking questions, seeking clarification of what Jesus is saying and doing. Then in chapter 22 we hear the heart-breaking story of Peter’s three denials of Jesus. Luke tells us that after the third denial the cock crows and Peter remembers that Jesus had predicted that he would deny him. Luke then tells us, simply and starkly ‘And he went out and wept bitterly’. Peter is mentioned one more time in Luke’s gospel when he ran to the tomb and saw that it was empty and Luke tells us that he was ‘amazed at what had happened.’
So, what we have in Luke’s gospel is the portrait of a faithful fisherman who became a disciple with remarkable insight but who is also beset by self-doubt, fear and weakness.
In the Acts of the Apostles, even before the events of Pentecost, Luke lets us know that Peter is in charge! In chapter 1, Peter speaks to all the followers of Jesus about Judas and his role in betraying Jesus, followed by Peter overseeing the selection of Matthias as the man to replace Judas as one of the 12 disciples. In chapter 2 Peter makes an impressive, authoritative speech after he and the other followers of Jesus have been filled with the Holy Spirit. He explains how Jesus has fulfilled prophecy, courageously he criticises many of those listening for being, in part, to blame for the crucifixion of Jesus, he calls them to repent and he speaks of the hope we have through the resurrection of Jesus. At the end of this great speech and a brief description of how the followers of Jesus cared for each other and met regularly to pray and break bread, Luke says simply, ‘And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved’.
We heard the opening verses of chapter three as our second reading today. Peter and John encounter a lame man at the temple, speak with him and then heal him.
For Luke it’s almost as if there is no break in the ministry of Jesus. In the gospel Jesus himself teaches and heals, assisted by Peter and other faithful but flawed disciples and followers. In the Acts of the Apostles, despite the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, the teaching and the healing, continues and Peter, perhaps the most faithful and most flawed disciple, is the chief person continuing that ministry. He who was taught is now the teacher. He who was healed is now the healer. He who denied Jesus now professes and explains faith in him. He who needed forgiveness now speaks of God’s love and mercy.
So, in Luke’s story, what is it that moves Peter from being the faithful but flawed fisherman in the gospel, into Peter the confident and articulate leader in Acts? It is the resurrection, he saw the empty tomb and was amazed, the Ascension, after which all the disciples went back to their upper room to pray, and, of course, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost after which Peter speaks with even greater authority.
Luke’s message seems clear to me – by encountering Jesus, by encountering the crucified, resurrected and ascended Lord, by being filled with the Holy Spirit – ordinary, flawed human beings, like Peter, like James, John and all the other disciples and, yes, ordinary, flawed human beings like you and me, carry on the ministry of Jesus. The bible tells us, and our liturgy often reminds us, that we are the body of Christ. The story of Jesus we read about in scripture, the regular reminders and celebrations we share in at church of the key events in the life of Jesus, aren’t just about us remembering the story, aren’t just about us honouring Jesus by doing the right religious things, aren’t just about us being pious – no – the story of Jesus we remember and mark and celebrate in liturgy is all about you and me becoming Jesus and carrying on his ministry.
A prayer attributed to St Theresa of Avila – Let us pray
Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the earth, yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now. Amen
Clothed with Christ – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 10 February 2019 – Choral Evensong
Hosea 1 Colossians 3:1-22
I’ve recently read the most exhilarating book: Bow First, Ask Questions Later. It’s original, intelligent, perceptive, profound, witty and funny. Before you rush to order it, though, I ought – in all fairness – to come clean, and all I need to do, probably, is just tell you the subtitle: Ordination, Love and Monastic Zen in Japan. There, now; if your taste buds had been aroused a moment ago, they’ve probably gone to sleep now! The reason I mention the book, though, is because it offers an interesting slant on this evening’s second lesson and, in particular, on what it might mean to be clothed with the new self, with Christ. So, a little introduction to the book first.
When it was written, the author was still in her twenties and is even now, just a year after its publication, only 32. In 2009, when the stock market crashed, she was an English major at an American university, completing a ‘creative writing thesis that was a collection of love poetry’, so, as she says, she was ‘even less marketable than [she] could have been’. Her solution to the problem? She did, as she says, ‘what any self-respecting spiritual white girl would have done: [she] went to India’.
India wasn’t all it was cracked up to be as far she was concerned, so she moved on to Japan, where she met a monk who would become a significant influence in her life. So taken with him was she that she spent six months in his monastery before returning to America to write a novel. It was in her own words ‘a good novel. It was sexy and dark. It was intelligent, vulnerable and kinky, kind of like Franny and Zooey meets Fifty Shades of Grey’. The problem, though, was that she didn’t know how to end it. So if the contents of this novel interest you more than Bow First, Ask Questions Later, I’m sorry to disappoint you. It was never finished! You’ll just have to imagine what might have been!
As so often seems to be the case in life, the apparent frustration of our hopes, dreams and desires often nudges us in the direction of what we’re really seeking deep down, but haven’t quite identified. What Gesshin Claire Greenwood was clear about, though, was that she needed to return to Japan and to the monk who’d so impressed her when she’d first arrived in there. So it was that on 28th December 2010, she was ordained by him as a Buddhist nun, after which she spent another five years in various Japanese monasteries before receiving authorisation from him in 2015 to teach Zen, receiving final recognition of this in 2017.
Towards the end of the book she recalls how just before her ordination she asked her teacher what was the main difference between a layperson and a monk. His response took her by surprise: ‘a monk is someone who wears monk clothing’. The reason for her bafflement was that this answer seemed so shallow, implying that being a monk’s all about dressing up. Now there are plenty of Anglican clergy for whom this appears to be the case! Such people can leave us feeling slightly uneasy. This isn’t what the monk was suggesting. So what was he getting at? His understanding is actually quite profound, and it’s this that might help us appreciate a little more what it means to be clothed with Christ.
Let’s think about the clothes we wear. Over the last few decades, conventions concerning dress have become rather fluid, to say the least. In the 1950s, for example, there were fairly well accepted dress codes: men tended to wear suits for everything and women dressed in varying degrees of formality. In our own time, people increasingly wear simply what they feel comfortable in. This has happened in the Church. Even just a decade or so ago most clergy would have worn the vesture appropriate to their tradition. Nowadays there are some clergy who reject the wearing not only of a dog collar in everyday life, but even of what’s traditionally been expected in church itself. The motivation for this is no doubt that formality puts people off. There may be some truth in that in some instances, yet it’s also the case that there are some roles which do require a certain form of dress. If Her Majesty the Queen turned up for an official visit wearing trainers, jeans and a hoodie, your first reaction might be that it was rather out of character, and your second that she wasn’t really taking her role seriously. And that’s the point. The queen inhabits a role that’s performed in part by wearing clothes that are appropriate to the role. She is what she does and what she wears.
This is true not just of the Queen. When our probationary choristers, for example, are admitted as full choristers, having completed their initial training, they’re clothed with a surplice, which is ceremonially placed over their heads by senior choristers. The surplice denotes their role. They’re not at this stage as experienced or as able as older choristers, but they gain the necessary experience precisely by doing what their clothing indicates. In this way, they grow into the role and little by little perform it with increasing skill and ability. An eight or nine year-old chorister may not be fully fledged, but what they wear denotes that they perform a role in exactly the same way as is expected of the more experienced adults in the choir. The wearing of the surplice instils in the chorister the aspiration to inhabit that role in an ever more accomplished way, an aspiration that’s never exhausted.
It’s something of this that lay behind the assertion that a monk is someone who wears monk clothing. At what stage can a monk ever say he’s all a monk should or could be? There’s continual growth and development, which never comes to an end. The clothing denotes the role to be performed and is a reminder and an encouragement to continue to grow into that role throughout life.
Now this seems to me to be very pertinent to what it means to be clothed with Christ. The Letter to the Colossians doesn’t suggest this involves a particular form of clothing, although for some roles and vocations it might. Rather, clothing is used as a metaphor. The author does spell out, though, what being clothed with Christ actually looks like. The interior transformation by which the old self is stripped off and clothed with the new self becomes apparent, we might say, in the way we wear ourselves. The clothes we put on are compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, forgiveness and, above all, love.
It might be objected, though, that it’s not so simple: we can’t just be these things instantly, as if by magic. But that’s the whole point. We become these things by doing them. We become compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, forgiveness and love by performing them, by doing them, by practising them. There’s always going to be a gap between what these things really entail and how inadequately we perform them, but we have to begin somewhere. We fall short, we get things wrong, but in the process we gradually learn to inhabit the role, wear the clothes more naturally and comfortably. We don’t spend forever thinking about it and pondering the difficulties of it all. We just get on with it. We bow first and ask questions later.