Called the Fullness of Life Together in the Spirit – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 10 February 2019 – Sung Eucharist 10am
Isaiah 6:1-8 Luke 5: 1-11
When the Bishop of Winchester commended Jonathan to us as our new Dean at his installation eight days ago, he did so with great eloquence and affection. He noted in particular that two phrases are often to be found on Jonathan’s lips: ‘Our life together in Christ’ and ‘Come, Holy Spirit’. Well, I’ve heard Jonathan utter these words already! The first phrase obviously speaks of the life of the Church. So, too, of course, does the second, but the Bishop was quick to add that for Jonathan the Holy Spirit’s perceived to be just as much at work in the world as in the Church. I take this to indicate that the Church and the world exist in a reciprocal relationship, in which the boundaries between the two are far from sharply drawn, precisely because the Spirit’s present in both.
I want to explore something of what this means in the context of today’s readings, especially the gospel. The broad theme is that of vocation. In the first reading we heard of Isaiah of Jerusalem’s evocative and transformative vision of God in the temple – the God, we might note, whose glory fills the whole earth – with its call to the prophet to speak uncomfortable words to the people of Judah in the latter part of the eight century before Christ. In the second we heard of Jesus calling those who’d been hard at work fishing all night but without success. When they responded to Jesus’ invitation to ‘put out into the deep water’, and saw the result, they ‘left everything and followed Jesus’. I want to speak about the significance of the sea in all this, but I’ll come back to that later. Let’s start with vocation.
What do you think about vocation? Do you think you have one or do you think it’s just for clergy? Let me suggest that every single human being has a vocation and it’s not primarily to be ordained or even to be particularly churchy or religious. In the first instance, it’s simply to be fully human, to be who we have it in us most truly to be. Deep within every human heart is a longing for love, acceptance, relationship and inclusion, a profound desire to experience life not as fragmented and broken but as complete and whole. Jesus shows us what it looks like to be fully who we truly are. His full humanity’s seen to be realised only when it’s completely open to and at one with the transcendent source of all that is, the one he called, ‘Abba, Father,’ just as his divinity’s revealed not as something separate from humanity but as love poured out and into all that is, with absolutely nothing left over.
People responded to Jesus – and still do – as the one in whom all longing, human and divine, meets: our longing for God and God’s longing for us. So to be drawn into ever greater union with God is at one and the same time to be drawn into ever closer relationship with every other human being and, indeed, with all creation. The Church’s primary vocation is to be a community, a communion, of love, united in the Holy Spirit of love, sharing with one another without reserve in the overflowing life and love of the Trinity.
We all know only too well, though, that the Church isn’t always experienced like this. The Church itself is fragmented and broken not only at an institutional level, but also in local communities. This is true to a greater or lesser extent of every church community I’ve ever been involved with. The plain fact of the matter is that even when we respond to the call to attain our full humanity and maturity in Christ, we still share as human beings in the brokenness of the whole world. Being called into life together with God and with one another in the Church doesn’t remove our difficulties in one fell swoop. Rather, we travel together in full awareness of both our brokenness and also of what and who we already are in Christ. We might say that it’s our being in Christ that gives us the freedom to live with our brokenness and to be open to healing and transformation.
It remains the case, nevertheless, that some people – many perhaps – have been hurt and broken by the church itself. In our own time, the significant number of people who’ve been subjected to clerical abuse, for example, testify to this. So, too, do LGBTI people, who’ve often been silenced and excluded, women who’ve suffered discrimination, and divorcees who’ve been made to feel as if they’re beyond the pale. Many have been hurt by the judgmental and harsh attitudes and actions of the Church, and sometimes the Church has had to play catch up with the rest of the world, which, by contrast, can appear to be rather closer to the Spirit than the church itself.
Some simply feel let down or disappointed by the Church, as a result of which they’ve given up on it and looked for what they want and need elsewhere. Among these are those who look for the fulfilment of their deepest spiritual longings outside the Church. I often find myself having conversations with people who used to be part of church communities but who found they were no longer nourished and sustained by what they were given. The many, for example, who’re looking for more silence or for a less dogmatic approach to things. Others feel that the Church doesn’t engage enough, if at all sometimes, with the really serious issues facing us: poverty, injustice, inequality, global warming, migration and so on. The drive to respond to these issues is as often as not found outside the Church. So this very awareness pushes us to look for where the Spirit’s at work in the world as a whole, as well as in the Church.
Some Christians find this rather uncomfortable. The world, they argue, is at best ambiguous, at worst full of temptation and danger, capable of leading us astray. It’s better to play safe, they say, and stay within the secure boundaries of the Church rather than engage too closely with the world.
The difficulty with this is that, as I’ve already suggested, the church itself isn’t always a safe place. The Church can just as much be a place of danger and corruption as the rest of the world. Importantly, too, perhaps, the Church can also be used as an escape from the rest of the world, from life itself and the challenges if brings. Life isn’t always comfortable, though, either in the church or beyond it, and the Spirit’s constantly blowing us out of our comfort zones. The Spirit may sometimes be a still, small voice, but it can also be a hurricane: powerful, uncontrollable and irresistible, just like the sea.
Those who made a living from fishing knew they were encountering danger on a daily basis. In Biblical times, the sea wasn’t just a force of nature, it was a place of chaos and disorder. And yet, Jesus invited the fishermen to put out not just to sea, nor to the shallows alone, but into the deep water, the place where safety and security can’t be guaranteed, where human beings are vulnerable to the elements and definitely out of their comfort zone. The sea, after all, has the capacity to overwhelm and destroy, and yet it’s also teeming with life and energy. If the sea was for those fishermen a symbol of chaos, it was also the place of abundance, grace and generative power: they found so many fish that they could barely contain them in their nets.
The fishermen were surprised by catching anything at all, let alone the sheer size of the catch. Abundance came from the most expected place. So, are we prepared to launch out into the deep? What gifts of abundance and grace in the world do we reject? What gifts might those outside the Church have to offer to it? In what ways do we inhibit such gifts from being offered? Where’s the Church called to listen to the voice of the Spirit in the world today? For the Spirit’s the Lord, the giver of all life, drawing all into union with God and with one another. Only together can we fulfil the divine call to be fully human, to be truly who we are.
So it shouldn’t just be Jonathan praying, ‘Come, Holy Spirit’, but all of us. So come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of all your people, and kindle in us the fire of your love, that the call to us from the depths of the Father’s heart to be who we truly are might be made real in the fullness of our life together in Christ.
The longer Song of Simeon – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 3 February 2019 – The Feast of the Presentation – Evensong
Haggai 2.1-9 & John 2.18-22
What follows is a meditation rather than a conventional sermon. At the heart of the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation is the encounter that took place in the Temple in Jerusalem between an old, holy man called Simeon and Mary, Joseph and the 40 day old baby Jesus. Simeon sang a song of praise we call the Nunc Dimmitis and this song is sung or said every day as part of our Evening Prayer. This meditation is based on that encounter and on Simeon’s role in particular, but is also inspired by a number of other things related to the story like, growing old, visiting, working and worshipping in magnificent buildings like this and the people who come to places like this to mark major life events, like baptism.
Another name for the Nunc Dimmitis is, The Song of Simeon. This meditation is called – The longer Song of Simeon.
The longer Song of Simeon.
Waiting.
Waiting for the Messiah.
Waiting to die.
Waiting is fine,
in a building like this Temple.
Dawn is best – before the crowds.
As the great doors open
shadows brighten and cold stone is warmed by sunlight.
It is as if I am alone with God.
Sometimes sitting in the cool silence.
Sometimes walking,
the noise of my stick echoing around these walls
much older even than me.
I stop and lean or sit,
Yearning, one day, to be absorbed into the stone
to be eternally embraced by the beauty and grandeur of this sacred place.
As the sun climbs in the sky, the people come
to work
to stare
to buy and to sell
to fulfil religious duties
to pray.
Alone, in groups, little families.
I look with tender regret at those little families.
Mine is grown and dispersed
leaving me old and alone
waiting,
waiting for the Messiah,
waiting to die.
These families come to give thanks for life.
Some are proud and wealthy
they march with confident joy,
‘thank offering doves’ fluttering in a cage.
Families wanting to be seen and admired
for their good fortune having been blessed by God
with new life.
Some are poor.
They drag reluctant, noisy children with them,
barely able to afford the pigeons with which they say ‘thank you’ to God.
They look bemused – is this new mouth to feed really a blessing from God?
Families come,
babies cry,
crowds shuffle through this holy place
and I watch
waiting
waiting for the Messiah
waiting to die.
Today, I saw them,
a man and a woman with a new baby
just like all the others,
but different ……
They were pigeon-poor.
What was it that set them apart?
What was it that I recognised?
As they walked nervously through the great doors
it was like the sun in the morning rushing in
brightening the shadows
bringing warmth, even life, to cold stones.
As they walked past me I heard the baby murmur
a tiny sound
and the great echo worked in reverse,
the murmur became a song which increased in volume
as it bounced around these ancient walls
filling this sacred space with divine music.
Incense, candles, oil lamps and sacrifice,
prayer comes in many forms
but, as they walked past me
prayer seemed to be embodied in them,
prayer at its most eloquent in love shared.
Waiting is over.
In this little family
In this tiny baby I saw God,
I saw the Messiah.
Surprised at my request,
reluctant to let go of her new precious gift
she gave me the child to hold.
And as I looked into those eyes
I saw vulnerable humanity
I saw powerful deity
I saw the whole of creation
I saw love.
What did he see?
An old man with a grey beard!
A tear fell from my cheek to his.
I kissed his head.
It looked paternal, friendly
but that kiss was more,
worship
affirmation,
adoration.
I gave him back.
Thank you.
I can die now.
Light has come.
I held the hands of the man and the woman.
Take care.
My tears and my kiss were of joy and love.
Take care.
Such love
Such love will know tears of pain, his own and that of others
Such love will be kissed by treachery
Take care.
I walked away,
the waiting over
the Messiah met,
ready to die in peace.
The rich tapestry of scripture -The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 27 January 2018 – 4th Sunday of Epiphany
1 Corinthians 12.12-31a & Luke 4.14-21
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
This is a fascinating passage of scripture. It appears first in Isaiah 61 where it is clearly about the prophet being the one who will be filled with God’s Spirit to ‘bring good news to the poor’. Then, as we heard in the gospel this morning, Jesus, visiting his home synagogue, reads these words from Isaiah and claims that he is the one who now fulfils these words, he is the one who has come to ‘bring good news to the poor …’ And then to top it all, we heard this morning in his first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, Paul says,
‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’ so now, we are the ones who should ‘bring good news to the poor ……..’
The rich tapestry of scripture!
These are well known words. They will resonate with every churchgoer who hears them again today – we know them well. But what do they mean? They sound great, radical, prophetic, but what do they actually mean, and, in particular, what do they mean for us?
What is ‘good news for the poor’? Perhaps ‘good news for the poor’ is some food. For a young homeless man who joined us for our early morning prayers last week, good news was simply having a chance to sit by a radiator! Thinking globally, good news for the poor might mean a new school or hospital. Perhaps good news for the poor is a permanent job or if you are unable to work, enough money to survive? Are these kinds of things that Isaiah and Jesus had in their minds when they spoke these words?
What does it mean to ‘proclaim release to the captives’? In some versions of the bible this is translated as ‘setting prisoners free’ – is that what Isaiah and Jesus had in mind, criminals being released from prison? Or, perhaps they were thinking about people in slavery, are they talking about slaves being set free?
‘Recovery of sight to the blind’ We think we know what Jesus means when he says these words because we know that, from time to time, he healed blind people, he restored their sight. Is that what Isaiah was talking about? As far as I know there are no records of Isaiah healing blind people. And what of us reading this passage, what do we mean as ‘the body of Christ’ today when we talk of restoring sight to the blind?
What does it mean ‘to let the oppressed go free’? Who were the oppressed in Isaiah’s day? The poor, slaves, people living in exile probably. Who were the oppressed in Jesus’ day? The poor, slaves, Samaritans, lepers, women perhaps? Who are the oppressed in our day, who needs to be set free?
All very interesting. When we think of how this passage relates to us, the ‘body of Christ’ today we nearly always read it as though we are the “do’ers”, we are Isaiah or we are Jesus. In other words we read it and understand that we are the people bringing good news, proclaiming release, restoring sight, liberating the oppressed. This is a perfectly legitimate way to read these words and, to be honest, probably the way we are intended to read them – we are filled with the Spirit through our Baptism and through our sharing regularly in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. We are called to be the liberators, proclaimers of good news, healers. However, I have been thinking this week as I have been mulling over these words, that it might be helpful, and revealing, from time to time, to read this passage in a different way, to read this passage not as the “do’ers” but as the “receivers”.
There are lots of ways to be poor, Poverty is not just lack of money. Perhaps even we, the privileged and relatively wealthy people of York are poor in some ways? Perhaps we are poor in time, we spend so much of our time being busy, being important, paying the bills, that our relationships suffer? Perhaps we are poor in spirit? Perhaps we spend far too much of our time amassing material things and material security that we are starving the spiritual side of ourselves? Perhaps we need to hear the good news that God can break into our busy, acquisitive, self-centred worlds and renew and reset our priorities. Perhaps we need to re-orientate our lives to love our family and our neighbours a little more and ourselves and our ambition a little less? God, through word and sacraments, can enrich our lives and relationships and feed our spiritual hunger.
You don’t have to be in prison to be imprisoned. People are imprisoned in addictions of one sort or another, others are imprisoned in unhealthy or destructive relationships, others are imprisoned by chronic illness. Our God teaches us that none of these have to be life sentences, by living in community, by loving our neighbours and our enemies, by being vulnerable to his healing touch there is nothing from which we cannot be liberated, healed, set free by God.
Jesus makes it clear on more than one occasion that he does not heal the blind simply to improve the lives of one or two people, he heals the blind as a sign that he has come to help everyone see in new ways, or see as they were created to see. How much of the world do we close our eyes to? We close our eyes to suffering but I think we also close our eyes to beauty and to love and to goodness as well. Narrow-mindedness and bigotry are also a form of blindness. I think we need Christ’s healing touch to enable us and encourage us to see the world and other people as they truly are, to see God’s creative presence everywhere and in everyone.
What oppresses you? What stresses you out? Pressure at work? Impending exams? Traffic jams? Moaning children? Nagging parents? When people who were oppressed went to see Jesus he reminded them of the priority of love and he also lavished forgiveness and mercy upon them – Mary Magdalen, Zacchaeus, the rich young man, they were all oppressed in one way or another and they were liberated by the teaching, forgiveness and love of Jesus. We can be liberated too.
We need to hear this gospel again and again. Yes we are called, as the Body of Christ, to fulfil it. But we are also called as fallen human beings to hear it and to be encouraged and inspired by it. We are people who need God to speak his Good News into our poverty. We are people who need God to release us from all that imprisons us. We are people who need God to heal us and help us to see the world and others with greater truth and clarity and we need God to liberate us from all that oppresses us. God gives generously to us, we should give generously to God and to others.
As we hear these words again today let us rejoice in the rich tapestry of scripture. There is not just one way to read and understand passages like this, we can dig deep to find new meaning for today, we can hold such passages and look at them from different points of view and God’s truth, like a magnificent diamond with many facets, shines out from every angle. These words should not only inspire us to action, they should also bring us comfort. The Good News of God’s love is not just something for us to proclaim it is also something for us to receive.
Christian Unity – Just do it! -The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Christian Unity – Just do it!
Sunday 20 January 2019 Evensong Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
1 Samuel 3.1-10 & Ephesians 4.1-6
When we were taught how to preach we were told that we should begin by telling the congregation what you are going to tell them, then you should tell them, then you should tell them what you told them. This is a simple lesson in communication. A beginning, a middle and an end tends to be helpful.
If you think about it almost every book you read will have an Introduction or a Forward which tells you what the book is about or why it has been written and possibly something about the context in which it is set. We are used to this way of doing things. We like things to be clear. We like to know what we are letting ourselves in for.
It’s the same in meetings and in business. We like an agenda, clear aims and objectives, a start time and a finish time. We like to know what our goals are and we also like to do things in such a way that we can measure our success at reaching those goals.
These are good ways of communicating and working. They get things done and ensure that time and talents are used efficiently. BUT it is only one way of working and it seems at odds with the approach of the gospel writers and St John in particular. John says of his gospel ….. these things are written;
‘ … so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’ Chap 20 v.31
Now if you or I had been writing this gospel we would have put that little sentence at the beginning in the introduction – John puts it at the very end of the penultimate chapter of his book. He tells the story of Jesus and then tells us why! A strange way of doing things if you think about it. So why does he do it this way?
Perhaps the reason why John takes so long to tell us why he has written this story is that he understands what it takes for people to come to belief. John knows that people do not come to belief in Jesus in the same way that they will come to belief in other truths like historical facts or scientific equations. It takes time – it’s only when we have experienced the story of Jesus by listening to it and letting it touch us and inspire us – it’s only when we have tested out the teaching of Jesus and tried to live our lives the way he says we should live them – it’s only then that we truly come to know Jesus and to say that we have come to belief in him.
The disciple Andrew understood this as well. In the gospel story Andrew fetches his brother to meet Jesus and he simply says, ‘come and see’. He doesn’t try and tell him about Jesus, he doesn’t try to tell him what Jesus means to him. He doesn’t hand him a religious tract and he doesn’t invite him to a meeting to hear the Truth of Jesus set out in logical or systematic argument. Authentic proclamation of the gospel is not telling people about Jesus and hoping that they will accept it. Authentic proclamation of the gospel, as John and Andrew knew, is to invite people to come and see, come and experience, come and share, come and share in our community.
This seems to me to be entirely consistent with the approach of Jesus. He never asked anyone what they believed. He never said ‘I’ll cure you of leprosy if you believe in me’ – he just cured them. He didn’t say ‘If you believe in God the way I believe in God and if you do all the right religious things then, follow me’. He just said ‘follow me’. It’s as simple as that. We follow Jesus first, faith and belief follow.
It seems to me that in this week of prayer for Christian Unity it is good to do things the gospel way! Perhaps we spend too long when we think about Christian Unity trying to set out an agenda, working out what we are going to do, we try to set aims and objectives. When we do this we don’t get very far. Perhaps we just need to get on with it – in the words of the Nike advert, perhaps it is better to ‘Just do it!’ I don’t mean that we should ride roughshod over each other’s traditions or each other’s particular beliefs and dogmas – but we should just get on with being as united as we possibly can. If we live together in mutual love and respect then the rest will follow.
It’s not only Jesus’ love that is unconditional it is his invitation to follow, to live his way. We find this difficult. We like conditions. We like deals. We get used to deals – every advert we ever see on the TV or on a billboard is offering us a deal. We’re so imbued with deals we cannot get our heads around a God who does not offer a deal, God just offers love and fellowship and, in Jesus, God offers an invitation. Too much discussion about Church Unity is based on the idea of a deal – if you accept something we hold dear then we’ll think about accepting something you hold dear. If you compromise we will compromise. The only things that Christians need in order to build unity are a desire to follow Jesus and an instinct to love each other. That’s all. We should simply get on with trying to follow Jesus and loving each other without spending endless meetings and synods trying to work out where we may be headed.
This may seem naïve and I suppose it is. But surely the differences there are between the various Christian denominations significant and important though they are, are nowhere near as significant and important as the invitation we have received to follow Jesus and to love each other.
It’s in just getting on with doing things Jesus’ way that we come to belief, it’s in just getting on with loving each other that we come close to God. It’s in just getting on with living in as much Unity as possible that fuller Unity will come. Let’s ‘Just do it!’
I am sure many of us will be watching the next episode of Les Miserables this evening. The stage show concludes with these words attributed to Victor Hugo which articulate a profound truth which cannot be contained or measured and it is not subject to any deal,
To truly love another person is to see the face of God.
It’s by just getting on with living the Jesus way that we draw close to God. It’s just by getting on and living as closely as we can with all our Christian sisters and brothers that true unity will come.
A prayer for unity from the Quaker tradition
Dear God, We give thanks for places of simplicity and peace. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of nature’s truth and freedom, of joy, inspiration, and renewal, places where all creatures may find acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places in the world, in ourselves, and in others. Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them, and let us create them. May we mend this outer world according to the truth of our inner life and may our souls be shaped and nourished by God’s eternal wisdom. Amen
Epiphany – The Reverend Catriona Cumming
Epiphany 2019
6 January 2019
They say that a preacher has two, maybe three sermons.
And every sermon they ever preach is a variation on those two or three.
At the heart of most of my sermons are these questions:
Who is Jesus?
What is Jesus like?
The whole of this season is essentially a time for the Church to ask these questions?
And added to this… And so what?
Om Christmas Eve I held the figure of Jesus – the bambino, in my arms, and took him to the crib in the Lady Chapel.
And this I know: though ‘his yoke may be easy, and his burthern light,’ to quote Matthew’s Gospel and evoke Handel, our Lord’s likeness is pretty heavy.
Holding a baby in your arms you are very aware of their weight. The solidity of them, and their fragility – both together.
You’re aware of their smell.
That new baby smell which binds them to their family, strong and fragile.
Jesus is small, and weighty, and fragile.
He, like all babies, is full of possibilities for the future, and yet his world is about the present – he is concerned with the business of growing, of becoming.
Jesus is present in the world.
He is engaged in the struggles of living a life which consumes all of who he is.
When I was in theological college we would describe times when we were doing ordinary stuff – reading the paper, doing the laundry, propping up the bar (I will leave you to imagine what I did most frequently), as being “incarnational”.
It was an ironic way of saying ‘I am avoiding doing all the things I should be doing like papers, or revision, by engaging in displacement activity, and it’s FINE, because I’m being “incarnational”.’
The incarnation is the fullness of God dwelling with us: God present in the whole of human existence, enlivening and enriching and transforming that existence so that all is holy – precious in God’s sight.
Jesus, present in the world, transforms each breath, and makes it holy.
Who is Jesus?
What is he like?
Jesus is something else.
It’s interesting to me that the writer of Matthew’s Gospel refers to Jesus at the beginning of this chapter by name.
But in the next eleven verses he is referred to as the child, the Messiah, and described as a ruler.
He is the subject of prophesy:
so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Jesus is light, and hope.
He is the focus of expectation, and the dreams of his people.
The light and hope this child personifies is strong enough to reach out into the darkness – to other nations, drawing wise men from far away.
It is extraordinary to think of the weight of those expectations and dreams, resting on this baby.
This afternoon, at Evensong, we will bring gifts to the bambino in the crib.
With those gifts we bring our own hopes and expectations, which we lay on Jesus, and our own ideas of how that hope will be realised.
But we also bring our doubts, and fears.
Who is Jesus?
What is he like?
It is said that Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Underlying the Gospel passage is a sense of fear.
Herod, hearing the wise mens’ message is frightened – and all Jerusalem with him.
Jesus’ presence doesn’t merely inspire fear in the ruler, but in the whole city.
Because Jesus’ presence means something new is happening.
Change.
Something which we still fear.
If this baby was the signal of something new, then what does that mean for the rulers, and the ordinary people, of this city?
Of this world?
If the life and ministry of Jesus, if the incarnation tells us anything, it is that God does not, will not, operate within the confines, the norms of our politics and society.
God in Jesus will not be confined.
Jesus is honoured as a ruler – and yet will be seen as a rebel.
The Incarnation is described as a mystery.
In fact it is bewildering.
It is bewildering that the Creator of the stars of night should dwell with us, should come to us fully divine, and yet unable to hold his head up.
It is bewildering that one who inspires fear in kings and cities, draws wise men from afar, should be found in poverty.
It is bewildering that after 2000 years, we still find ourselves drawn to this child – despite not quite grasping what this means in this world, here and now.
When asked who Jesus is, and what he is like, a number of answers and images may spring to mind.
One is what we see now in the crib in the Lady Chapel: Jesus as a baby, weighty and fragile, arms outstretched, unable to lift his head.
Another is the cross: Jesus with his arms outstretched again, this time in pain and suffering.
One who is fully divine but unable to lift his head, apparently weak and helpless.
In neither case can we fully answer who Jesus is, and what he is like.
For this season though, I will hold in my mind the weight of the bambino.
The solidity and fragility of a child.
I will hold the thought that the baby Jesus, being, growing, was perfectly himself.
I will call to mind the concentration and determination it takes to be alive in this world, and remember that in Jesus God has been and remains present in the every day struggles, challenges, triumphs of each person’s life.
I will balance the hopes and fears I have for the year to come, with the hope that God is present, and is doing something new on a cosmic, and also at a personal, cellular level.
There was another question I asked right at the beginning of this sermon.
Who is Jesus?
What is Jesus like?
The whole of this season is essentially a time for the Church to ask these questions?
And added to this… And so what?
What does it mean for us, that our everyday existence has been shared by God?
What does it mean for us that the King of kings and Lord of lords lived as he did?
These questions do not have easy answers.
In a year of uncertainty, as we try to work out our place in the world, perhaps the Church can ponder these questions, and the hope we might bring to this city, this nation, this continent, this world.
The Manifestation of the All-Inclusive Love of God – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 6 January 2019 – Matins
Jeremiah 31:7-14 John 1:29-34
Peter Cornelius’s anthem, The Three Kings, which we’ve just heard, takes me right back to my school days. I can remember the very first time I heard it in a darkened chapel with candles flickering, and being utterly transfixed by its simplicity, imaginative power and capacity to evoke wonder. In particular, as a relatively young boy, I was mesmerised by the sounds of the baritone solo wafting lyrically over the steady and solid harmonic accompaniment provided by the choir. I can still remember the name of the boy who sang the solo when I first heard it. To me, of course, he looked and sounded like a grown man, but I was also struck by the sense of vulnerability, precariousness and fragility of this solo voice. Perhaps without realising it, it spoke to me of my own vulnerability and, by association, that of the Magi making an arduous and perilous journey as they followed the leading of the star to the place where the Christ-Child lay. The combination of all these things said something to me then – and still does to this day – of the journey we’re all called to make through life into union with the one for whom our hearts seek and long.
There could scarcely be a more appropriate anthem than this for today, the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrating as it does the culmination of the long journey made by the Magi to the manger. Given that the Epiphany’s associated almost exclusively with the kings or the wise men, it might have struck you as slightly bizarre that neither of the two biblical readings had anything to do with them. Indeed, the second reading concerning the baptism of Jesus seems to have been appointed in the lectionary with the almost deliberate intention of ignoring them. Similarly, at Evensong today, at the end of which we shall make our way in procession to the crib in the Lady Chapel to present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the first lesson from the Prophecy of Isaiah has a definite case for being included, since it actually mentions gold and frankincense, but the second, the story of the wedding at Cana, where water was turned into wine, seems to be almost completely irrelevant. In the immortal words of the comedian Peter Kay: ‘What’s that all about?’
Well there’s actually a profound connection between the wise men, the baptism of Jesus, and the turning of water into wine at Cana. From the earliest days of the Church, these three things have all been associated with one another precisely because they’re all epiphanies of a kind: manifestations, revelations of who Christ is. The story of changing water into wine in the Gospel of John actually ends with the words: ‘Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory.’ We might not hear specifically about the kings or the wise men at Matins or Evensong, but at the celebrations of the Eucharist this morning, the story of the journey of the wise men to the Christ-Child was indeed included as the gospel reading. So at all three services on this day, these three events are held together in close liturgical relationship. They show us different facets of the Epiphany. Each points distinctively to something of what’s being manifested or revealed.
The baptism of Jesus reveals the nature of God as ecstatic love: Jesus awakens to his identity as the beloved Son of the Father, each of whom overflows in love for the other in union with the Spirit. The story of the water being turned into wine at the wedding in Cana speaks of the sheer zest for life, of the very fullness of life that pours forth from God in Christ, a fullness which isn’t just enough but more than enough: abundant, overflowing, unstoppable and uncontrollable. The story of the Magi speaks of inclusion, for they weren’t Jews but gentiles. The heart of this Epiphany is that it shows that God is for all, not just for an exclusive group by virtue of their birth, race, religion or status, but for all, so that all might know themselves to be included in the abundant love of God and enabled to live life in all its fullness. So while all three events celebrated today are indeed epiphanies, it’s on what we call the Epiphany, that is the manifestation of Christ to the Magi, the Kings or the wise Men, representing all gentiles, that I want to focus briefly as I draw to a close. And, in particular, I want to refer once again to the music we heard a few moments ago.
There’s something very evocative about that solo voice, which has to do, I think, with a sense of loneliness or, better perhaps, solitariness. Relationship is absolutely crucial to being human – and indeed to being God, too – but simply being with other people isn’t a guarantee against loneliness. It’s been remarked, hasn’t it, that it’s possible never to feel more lonely than in the middle of a crowd. Similarly, it’s possible be in solitude and yet feel completely in communion with everyone and everything, to sense that everything’s included. This solo voice speaks of something unique and deeply personal, and because it’s unique and so personal it’s also universal: the reaching out, the longing for union and fulfilment. It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that the last notes sung by the soloist to the words, ‘Offer thy heart’, form the musical interval of a major sixth, the interval which, in the hands of the composer Richard Wagner, for example, especially the minor sixth in his opera Tristan und Isolde, conveys that universal sense of yearning and longing for love. The human search is ultimately for love, and the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles shows us that our yearning is met by God’s yearning for us in Christ. In him divine and human love meet, combine and are at one. To offer our hearts to God means having the confidence to be exactly who we are with God, and trusting, knowing that we’re loved as we are, that we’re included along with everything and everyone else in the abundant, overflowing, limitless love of God. This great Feast of the Epiphany invites and encourages us to travel with the whole of humanity into the very fullness of God, so that not one person, not one single thing is excluded now or ever.
Epiphany – The Reverend Deacon Abigail Davison (Curate)
The Reverend Deacon Abigail Davison (Curate)
Sunday 6 January 2019 – Evensong
Tonight we celebrate the feast of Epiphany, one of the church’s oldest feast days and the time when we recall the visit of the wise men to the child Jesus. I understand that current scholarly thinking puts Jesus (at the time of the Maji’s arrival) at a very similar age to my own toddler daughter and I have to say, after celebrating my third Christmas now as a mother, I have a new found empathy with Mary being made to receive these slightly bizarre, though I’m assured very symbolic and important gifts, politely and with a smile on her face. Someone gave my daughter a recorder last year. If you only take one thing away from this sermon, then please let it be this: if you truly love your neighbour, do not gift their toddler a recorder for Christmas.
But of course, it wasn’t about the gift, it was about the giving. I don’t necessarily understand the motives behind giving anything noisy to a small child, but the giver definitely felt it was the right thing to do. I wonder if we could think about this question tonight then: what prompts us to give? What motivated those wise men to get up, leave home, and travel all that way to bring those gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh? It wasn’t demanded of them. It wasn’t expected of them: I don’t think social pressure compelled them to give. Was it charity or given out of pity? Gold, frankincense and myrrh were costly, but not necessarily the most helpful things to give a family if they were in need (and I’ve little doubt there were people closer to home and in greater need than the family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus). Perhaps they thought that there was something to be gained in return: a sort of payment made in advance?
The gospel account in Matthew tells us that they went because they saw a light. It was a light that they believed would lead them to a new King, the King of the Jews. So they went to pay him homage, which is something you do with kings, especially if you want to gain their favour for future years. I suspect that once they found this king they understood that it was not an earthly quid-pro-quo system they would be dealing with.
So why did they give to this child? It wasn’t because they had to: who was there that could compel these men to give anything? It wasn’t charity: what did He need? It wasn’t a payment: what could you pay Him?
I think it was a response. A poor, human response, perhaps as unnecessary as the gifting of a recorder to a toddler, but nonetheless (and much more) graciously welcomed, not because of what the gifts were but simply because of the act of giving them. It wasn’t about the gift, it was about the giving.
Or was it? Epiphany isn’t about the giving, it’s about The Gift. God’s gift, the gift of the Christ who is our light, the light which called those wise men from so far away. Epiphany is the revelation of this one true Gift. It’s a revelation that’s made to all, to Jew and to gentile, to those with much to give, and to those with seemingly little. And it’s a Gift that’s offered to all – like the wine at the wedding in Cana when Jesus revealed his glory, there’s more than enough for everyone.
I want to leave you with this though. In moment we will bring the traditional gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh (or representations of them at least) to the crib scene in the Lady Chapel. Now this point sounds a bit negative but it’s not meant to be and it’s definitely theologically accurate, I promise: there is nothing you can give to God that will make you more worthy or appropriate to receive The Gift that he has offered. I have a friend who I trained with and who tells me she often says to herself “you’re not doing God any favours you know”. It’s not meant to be negative, it’s meant as a reminder. God doesn’t need you to give and what could you give Him anyway? There is only what He’s given you, to give. So give that. In accepting The Gift you can become a gift. And always and only give, because you have seen what was given.
The Divine Disruptor -The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 30 December 2018 11.30am Matins
Isaiah 41.21 – 42.1 & 1 John 1.1-7
One of the problems with making the events we celebrate at Christmas into a lovely, easily accessible story is that we tend to forget the profound nature of what we are celebrating, we tend to overlook the theology of what occurred and we tend to gloss over the deeply challenging nature of the message Jesus proclaimed. I heard a sermon recently that described Jesus as ‘the divine disrupter’. Despite the fact that the events we celebrate at Christmas can be made into a nice little story, they actually tell us a great deal about God, the way God is and the way God works, and it’s all very strange and disturbing and disrupting!
I have discovered a lovely prayer recently which helps to shake us out of the complacency of slipping into the lovely, old, comfortable Christmas story like we slip into a pair of lovely, old, comfortable slippers. Listen to this;
Lord Jesus Christ, you came to a stable when men looked in a palace; you were born in poverty when we might have anticipated riches; King of all the earth you were content to visit one nation; Creator of the universe you accepted the hills and plains of Galilee as the backcloth for your ministry. From the beginning to the end, your life held people in suspense, and its surprises force us to reconsider our values and priorities.
Come to us Lord Jesus, Do not let us take you for granted or pretend that we ever fully understand you. Continue to surprise us so that, kept alert, we are always ready to receive you as Lord and to do your will. Amen
This prayer reminds us that the Christmas story is peculiar and unusual, it reveals God in a way we would never have expected.
By focussing on the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke we tend to ignore the fact that Mark doesn’t make any allusion to the birth of Jesus in his gospel, so anxious is he to tell us of the significance and impact of Jesus’ ministry. And we tend to skim over what John says at the beginning of his gospel because it sounds fantastic, but it is a bit difficult,
‘In the beginning was the Word ……. and the Word became flesh and lived among us.’
What we celebrate at Christmas is not just a nice story. Yes, it centres on the birth of a child but it is not just good news for nice neat families who have the privilege of being able to gather together to enjoy and celebrate ‘family-ness’ at Christmas. The events we celebrate are all about God becoming one of us, the way it happened is almost incidental. The way it happened is certainly incidental to St Mark and St John!
Isaiah, in our first reading, speaks of a ‘herald of good tidings’ but goes on to say that no one actually listened, their response was a delusion, their response to the good tidings was to make images which were empty wind. That certainly resonates with the way the Christmas story is received by many of us. You know the aphorism, ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water’ which means that sometimes when we are trying to strip everything down to bare essentials we mistakenly get rid of the essence, the thing that is essential. With Christmas I think we could turn this aphorism around, we are in danger of throwing away the baby (the essence of Christmas) because we love wallowing in the lovely warm Christmassy bath water!
What is important about what we celebrate in this season is not angels and babies born to virgins and shepherds and wise men, what is important is that ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’, God became one of us, one with us to share in our lives forever, to accompany us in our lives every step of the way. So Christmas is not just good news for children, it is not just good news for families, it is good news for those who are struggling, for those who are sick, for those who are bereaved, for those who are in prison or oppressed, for those whose faith is only a faint glimmer, for those who feel that God has abandoned them. The Good News of Christmas is that God is saying to all people, ‘I am with you’, ‘I walk with you’, ‘I suffer with you’, ‘I weep with you’, as well as ‘I rejoice with you’.
There are those who would say to this, ‘So what?’ ‘So what if God walks by my side as I suffer, what difference does that make, I am still suffering?’ Christmas does not stand alone, in a few months we will be celebrating Easter which shows us that by being one with us God leads us always to new ways of being, God leads us to new ways of living, God reveals that healing, resurrection, re-creation, new life is what God wants for all people.
Christmas is not just good news for those of us who can come to church, sing Away in a manger and then go home for Turkey and presents in front of a roaring fire. Christmas is good news for all people, and we as Christians, we as ‘the body of Christ’, are called to help make it so by our compassion, generosity, understanding and love towards all people.
What Then Will This Child Become? Growing in Love and Compassion – Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Canon Dr Christopher Collingwood (Chancellor)
Sunday 30 December 2018 – Sung Eucharist
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Luke 2:41-52
As some of you may be aware, Sue and I have a new granddaughter. We met her for the first time in August, when she was just three weeks old. To do that, we had to travel to Jordan, where she was born, and where she lives with Andrew, our second son, and Dania, his wife, who’s half-Jordanian and half-Egyptian. We’ve had the delight of having them with us for Christmas and we’re all agreed that our granddaughter is the perfect embodiment of her name: Farah – ‘Joy’ in Arabic.
A newly-born baby’s full of promise, potential and possibility, and I find myself pondering in relation to Farah the question posed by the family of John, later to be dubbed ‘the Baptist’, when his parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, brought him to be circumcised: ‘What then will this child become?’ For them, as Luke recounts, the birth of their child was a sign of something new, mysterious and promising, a sign of God’s presence and activity among his people after what seemed like a long time of apparent absence. As I look at Farah, I marvel at her capacity to evoke feelings of sheer love by virtue of nothing more than the fact that she simply is, that she’s just there. Most mothers know what this is like. The love of a mother for her newly-born child isn’t wrenched out of her reluctantly, nor does the mother wait to love her child until the child somehow deserves it. A mother loves her child simply because she’s her child.
This is a love I, too, have for Farah, a love that doesn’t seem to be of my making or of hers. It’s simply there; it arises spontaneously and naturally from deep within. From within this love, though, I find myself wondering what she will become, how her life will unfold and what it will bring. I also recognise in myself a degree of sadness that I won’t live long enough to see her live her life to its end. I shan’t see the fulfilment of the promise, potential and possibility that she represents right now, but then that’s life isn’t it. We live our own lives and then make way for the next generations to live theirs.
And Farah’s arrival also makes me reflect on my own life and the course it’s taken thus far with all its twists and turns, joys and sorrows, ups and downs. There’s a temptation in all of us to live vicariously to some extent. Parents, especially, can project on to their own children their own unrealised hopes, longings and ambitions. That’s a danger, I guess, for grandparents, too. In truth, of course, what we’re all called to do, whether in family relationships, friendships or passing acquaintances, is to enable every single human being, as far as it lies within us, to be who they really have it in them to be. All of us both help and hinder that possibility in all sorts of ways.
It’s in Luke’s gospel, more than in any other, that we find the questions of promise, potential and possibility presented to us in relation to Jesus. Luke allows time for Jesus to grow and develop, to discover who he really is and, in so doing, to show us, too, who we, deep down, really are. And Mary and Joseph play a pivotal role in Jesus’ nurture and development.
Luke alone includes the story of Jesus visiting the temple on the threshold of adolescence, as we heard in today’s gospel reading. Mary, of all people, must have wondered what would become of her child from before his birth. Luke depicts the sense of anticipation and expectation she had when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with her own son, John. Luke tells us that when the shepherds leave the manger, Mary ‘treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’. Something similar is said of her after the visit to the temple when Jesus gets lost: ‘His mother treasured all these things in her heart’. It’s as if Mary gives Jesus everything a child could ask for, primarily love, but a love which includes, crucially, perhaps, allowing the child space to grow without imposing or projecting her own desires on him. Jesus was for Mary, and indeed for Joseph, so it would seem from Matthew’s gospel, something of an enigma, someone incapable of being manipulated or controlled, someone who always seemed to put them into question, rather than the other way round. So Mary ponders and watches as things unfold.
On the surface, the account of Jesus’ visit to the temple at the age of 12 appears to portray him as a stereotypical, stroppy, very-nearly teenager: thoughtless about his parents’ concerns and responsibilities, insensitive about their feelings, and wrapped up in his own world. This, though, would be to read into it our own 21st century sensibilities and thus rather to miss the point.
Practically every parent will know what it’s like, shall we say, to ‘mislay’ a child. It’s happened to us twice and the feeling of utter dread’s almost impossible to describe. This wasn’t quite how it was for Mary and Joseph. What appears to be carelessness on their part was probably nothing of the sort. In order to celebrate the Passover, families and friends usually travelled to and from Jerusalem with others in large groups. It would simply have been assumed that Jesus was somewhere in the party. Only at the end of the day would it have become clear that Jesus wasn’t with them. At that stage, no doubt, panic set in, but when they found Jesus safe and sound, deep in discussion with the teachers in the temple, there was almost certainly that mixture of relief and then anger: ‘Oh, Jesus, thank God you’re safe. If you ever do that again, we’ll kill you!’ Luke’s concern, though, isn’t really with psychological analysis; it’s with something else.
Luke’s Jesus is in one sense rather precocious: he can hold his own at the age of 12 with the best teachers of the day. But that’s rather the point. When he says, ‘Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ or in the more familiar but equally acceptable translation, ‘Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?’, Luke’s showing that the answer to the implicit question, ‘What then will this child become?’, lies in his total orientation to God. His very being, life and identity are found in God. At the same time, though, this doesn’t give him carte blanche to ignore human considerations, conventions and concerns; he submits himself in obedience to Mary and Joseph and, as a result, grows in wisdom and in divine and human favour. What his life shows, as it unfolds and develops, is that to be truly and fully human requires our being utterly grounded in God, just as to be divine means for Jesus to surrender himself in all humility to the needs and demands of humanity. And these two orientations meet supremely as the manifestation of love and compassion.
The answer to the question, ‘What then will this child become?’, is to be found in the way Luke presents Jesus in his teaching and in his life as the very embodiment of love and compassion. In his first sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus reads from the scroll of the Prophecy of Isaiah, but stops reading at the point where vengeance is mentioned. He turns his back on violence, power and force in favour of compassionate understanding and self-giving love, something he’ll live out in his own passion and death. Only in Luke do we find the parable of the Good Samaritan, depicting as it does how the hated outsider is closer to the spirit of the Law of love than those who purport to live by it. Only in Luke do we find the parable of the so-called Prodigal Son, in which the father sees the world not through the eyes of success and failure but through the unchanging, unchanged and unchangeable love for his son. Only in Luke do we find Jesus on the cross praying with love and compassion for those who put him there: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’
This seems to run completely counter to the way things are in the world, where love, compassion and forgiveness are taken so often as signs of weakness. Yet the opposite’s actually the case. Real strength is to be seen in the willingness to let go of oneself in and through the apparent weakness of love and compassion. This is so because Jesus shows us that this is who God is and what God’s like. The whole purpose of Luke’s gospel is to show us that God’s love and compassion know no bounds. Jesus demonstrates that being about his Father’s business issues supremely in manifesting divine love and compassion for all. And his whole ministry is about living that out in whatever way it’s called for, but particularly in his concern for those who suffer, for the marginalised, the excluded, the disadvantaged, the poor, the powerless, the disreputable, the unloved and the unlovable.
I may not live long enough to see what will become of Farah. What I do know, though, is that the more she grows in love and compassion, the more she will become who she truly is, as, indeed, is the case for you and me as well, for we’re all created in the image and likeness of God, who is love and compassion. The rest is simply detail.
Christmas Eve Midnight Mass – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Grace, sweet grace.
Solemn Eucharist of Christmas Night 2018
Hebrews 1.1-4 & John 1.1-14
‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’
I am not sure that there is anywhere else that you would ever hear anyone talk about grace, but in church. We tend to talk about grace in church quite a lot. We expect to hear about it on occasions like this. It sounds good but, what does it mean? What is grace? What does grace look like?
Here are a few examples of what grace looks like in the life of Jesus. When a woman, caught in adultery, was brought to Jesus by a baying mob full of self-righteous hatred, everyone saw the woman as an evil, wanton, shameful woman who deserved the punishment of death. When Jesus saw the same woman he saw a sad, troubled and damaged lady who had given way to temptation, but who deserved forgiveness and another chance at life. That is what grace looks like.
When people saw Zacchaeus, a tax collector, they saw a greedy, intimidating, bullying crook. When Jesus saw Zacchaeus he saw a small man who was rich by his ill-gotten gains but lonely and isolated, so he invited himself to dinner with Zacchaeus and the tax collector changed completely. That is what grace looks like.
When Jesus was being crucified people saw the soldiers hammering the nails as evil, fearsome, unthinking brutes, servants of the Roman occupying force. When Jesus saw those soldiers he saw men, brutalised by violence, blindly following orders who deserved forgiveness and encouragement to live in a new way. That is what grace looks like.
In the life of Jesus grace is seen in his generosity of spirit, his willingness and desire to take a moment to look carefully at people and situations. Jesus did not order his world as we do, by labelling people. He did not order his world by only seeing things and people as being either good or bad. He did not order his world by counting people as either in or out of my tribe, my team, my social class, my religion or denomination, my political party. Jesus ordered his world by loving everyone and that only happens when you are full of grace, when you take time to see the glimmer of goodness, or even the glimmer of the possibility of goodness, in all people. Grace is taking time to look for that glimmer of goodness in everyone and it leads to love.
A famous song of the 1960’s said that ‘What the world needs now is love, sweet love’. We would all agree, but the world will only be full of love if we start filling it with grace sweet grace, a generosity of spirit which is not swept along by the tide of public opinion because public opinion is nearly always ill-informed as so much of it is manipulated by influential people to further their own ends.
I was watching a recording of a stand up show by Russel Brand recently, not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ I know. Whether you think he is funny or not he is invariably thought provoking. As part of his routine he quoted Albert Maysles an American documentary film maker who said ‘Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance’. Unsurprisingly Russel Brand was bemoaning the fact that the things he says as a joke are often quoted by others (actually he singled out the Daily Mail!) completely out of context, to attack him and to inflame fear, mistrust and hatred – the nuance of what he says is deliberately removed. Maybe we could also say, Tyranny is the deliberate removal of grace? Grace can sometimes be about simply taking a moment, before responding to someone elses words or actions, to look for the context, the mood, the tone, the humour, the nuance around what is being said and done before we respond.
Part of our problem in the 21st century is that virtually all social media platforms do not do nuance! I know people try to communicate the mood, or indicate nuance by adding cute little emojis but they are a poor substitute for real communication.
What the world needs this Christmas, what the world needs at this point in our history, is what Jesus is full of, grace and truth. Think of politics, sport, celebrity culture, the Church – we all need more grace.
In the world of politics I am not just thinking about there being more grace on the floor of the House of Commons during Prime Minsters Question Time or in the Today studio when John Humphrey’s interviews people. I am thinking of the normal conversations you and I might have over a pint or round the dinner table or over a coffee at work, about politics. I know of several people who still do not feel able to say which way they voted in the referendum when in the presence of people they know voted the other way, for fear of falling out with them. Remainers imply Brexiteers are idiotic, jingoistic racists and Brexteers imply Remainers are privileged, liberal idealists who aren’t living in the real world. We need grace in all political discussions at every level.
Yes we need grace in elite sport which seems to be full of greed and aggression, but we also need to see a little more grace on the touchline from parents and grandparents watching their children and grandchildren playing sport – teachers tell of appalling, aggressive behaviour from many ‘grown ups’ at school fixtures.
Don’t get me started on reality TV – there may be some grace on ‘Strictly’ but there is never any to be seen on ‘The Apprentice’, ‘Love Island’ or ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ – all we seem to see there are arrogant, self-obsessed, narcissists who then somehow become admired role models! Easy targets I know, but we all need to accept that we need to replace the arrogance, self-obsession and narcissism in ourselves with a little more humility and grace.
It would be nice to think that grace is blossoming from everything the Church says and does but sadly this is not the case. Quite often those who claim to speak on behalf of the Church adopt the same belligerent attitude to communicating their message as most politicians and others in the public eye – they are combative, aggressive, quick to speak, slow to listen – seemingly blind to context and nuance in scripture and in what others say.
What the world needs now is grace, sweet grace. When we sit down for our Christmas dinner tomorrow, whether we say grace or not before we eat, let us try and ensure that our conversations and the way we are with each other, especially those we find it difficult to love, are full of grace, generosity of spirit. Let’s be tuned into the nuances of what others say and the way they behave. And when Christmas is over and life returns to normal let us make sure that there is more grace in our lives, in our dealings with others at home, at school, at work, at the sports club and in our church. If Jesus can be so full of grace that he could forgive those hammering nails into his hands and feet, surely we can fill our lives with grace and to deal kindly, politely, respectfully and creatively with everyone with whom we share our lives?
‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’
The best way to celebrate Christmas is to seek to ensure that our lives are also full of grace and truth.
An ordinary miracle – The Reverend Catriona Cumming
Advent 4 2018 – An ordinary miracle.
23 December 2018
A young woman has received momentous news, which is by turns wonderful and terrifying: she’s pregnant.
It’s not a planned pregnancy, and the timing isn’t ideal, especially given the journey they have to make in the third trimester.
But she and her fiancé, after the shock has worn off, are excited.
The young woman feels compelled to go and see someone who will understand: a family member who is going through, if not exactly the same thing, something similar enough that there will be empathy, and support.
This impulse is something that is easy to understand.
Many of us will be familiar with the stories that are shared by women in particular, about the joys, challenges and indignities of pregnancy and childbirth.
Sharing funny, profound, or horrible stories tells us that the experience, whatever it is, is not one we have to go through alone, and that others have been where we are.
But for this young woman, something else is going to happen on this visit.
Because this young woman’s pregnancy is in one sense unique.
Mary is going to have to tell her cousin about the visit of an angel, and what she has agreed to do.
She is going to have to persuade her cousin that, remarkable as Elizabeth’s pregnancy might be, Mary has a story to top it.
She never has the chance to tell that story.
Because Elizabeth KNOWS.
This too may be familiar to a lot of people.
Whether it’s actually true or not, many mothers/sisters/aunts/friends will claim that they knew a woman was pregnant either before she did, or before she tells them.
Here too though, that trope is added to.
Not only Elizabeth, but Elizabeth’s unborn child, recognise that Mary is pregnant.
And there is also a recognition of who that child is.
Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
Elizabeth is overjoyed, not simply at the fact of the pregnancy – but at who the child already is.
‘Lord’ has already been used repeatedly in the Gospel, in relation to God.
It occurs multiple times in the story of Zechariah, and his encounter with an angel in the Temple:
Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense (Luke 1. 11).
And it has just been used in the encounter between Mary and Gabriel, when Gabriel says to Mary:
‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ (Luke 1. 28)
There are not many occasions in the Bible where we see a scene between two women, where they have all the dialogue.
They do exist. Naomi and Ruth spring to mind, but there are not many of them.
This scene shows two women engaged, on the surface, in a conversation common to millions of women, sharing in the joy and anxiety of pregnancy.
Within that conversation though, we clearly see God at work.
The incarnation – Jesus’ birth, and life, and death – is about God transforming the ordinary stuff of human life and death.
The everyday, boring, uncomfortable, painful or ridiculous stuff of human life.
God’s presence in Jesus Christ tells us that all of this, and all of us, are precious to God – that it, and we, are priceless.
There are layers and layers to this scene.
I’ve said that this scene – featuring two women – is remarkable in the Bible.
What adds to this, is that these women have each of them, have faced disgrace in their community – Elizabeth because of her inability to conceive, and Mary because of her unplanned pregnancy.
God has chosen these women, not only to bear children who will themselves change the world, but to be prophets themselves.
Both Mary and Elizabeth articulate powerfully who God is, and what God does.
They too, are powerful voices.
And they are blessed by God. Not simply in the sense that they have been given good things.
Elizabeth says:
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord’.
The word that Elizabeth uses is akin to that of the beatitudes – a sense of divine joy. Righteous, and joyful before God is Mary, because she has believed God has done as God promised: to lift up the lowly, and save God’s people.
Mary’s own Spirit-filled response has become one of the great songs of the Church, sung or said daily here in the words of the Magnificat.
We will sing the words ourselves in this service, in our final hymn, Tell out my soul.
Within that song is a sense of primal exultation that God is good, God is faithful, and God is present.
Countless women through the ages have rejoiced at the news that they will have a child, and countless others have shared in that joy, and supported them.
God, whose Spirit hovered over the face of the deep at the beginning of the world, and in whom we all live, and move, and have our being, has been present with each of those women.
For God has always loved, and cared for his creation.
But with this story, and with this pregnancy, we glimpse more clearly than ever, the richness of that love.
Here our Lord enters our human nature, and so experiences the joys and sorrows of human life.
Over the next couple of days we will hear the story of how Jesus was born, not in a royal house or hall, but in a stable dark and dim, the word made flesh a light for all.
But for now, this morning, let us rejoice with the women of Jesus’ family.
These women whose humanity and faithfulness was honoured by a faithful and loving God, and whose ordinary human experience was transformed by God’s spirit.
Ordinary women whose courage, compassion, and faithfulness mean that we too can rejoice, in God’s presence with us, and can join in the song.
Tell out, my soul, the glories of his word!
Firm is his promise, and his mercy sure.
Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord
to children’s children and for evermore!
Is Judgement Good News? – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Sunday 16 December 2018 10am
Philippians 4.4-7 & Luke 3.7-18
In the gospel reading today John the Baptist calls the crowds who were following him a ‘brood of vipers’. He talks about the ‘wrath to come’ and trees that don’t bear good fruit being chopped down and burned in the fire. He calls the people to live generously and compassionately and then again warns them that the wheat and the chaff will be separated on the threshing floor and the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire. All of this fearsome rhetoric takes us from chapter 3.7 to chapter 3.17 and then we are told in verse 18, ‘So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people’. Good news? Vipers, wrath, unquenchable fire ….. John seems to have an interesting view on what might be considered Good News!
We talk a lot about The Good News as if we know what it means! I suppose that if we took a survey of what we all thought it meant today we’d say things like;
The Good News is that God loves us.
The Good News is that Jesus takes away our sins.
The Good News is that Jesus gives us eternal life.
As ever with our beautiful and mysterious bible there is no one answer. There are many ways of talking about The Good News. The chopping down of unfruitful trees and the burning of chaff – thinly veiled images of Judgement – is this really Good News? This has got me thinking this week. After pondering these words I have concluded that, yes indeed, Judgement is good news and yes, of course, it is good news that we are called to live in a morally upright way.
You are all sitting there now thinking that I am about to launch it a good old fashioned Hell Fire and Brimstone sermon. The kind of sermon we need more of – we are constantly told by people who used to go to church! Well I am not going to preach a ‘Hell Fire and Brimstone Sermon’, but I am going to muse about the idea that Judgement is actually Good News.
Imagine spending a great deal of time and energy writing a report at work, you deliver it, on time, to your boss ……. and then you hear nothing more.
Imagine doing your homework (I know that is difficult for some!) a difficult essay or some hard sums and your teacher forgets to mark it and then loses it.
Imagine you arranged for a friend’s house to be decorated while they were on holiday and they come home and don’t even notice!
If any of these things happened you would feel pretty peeved, to say the least. You would feel that all your hard work was not valued and had been wasted.
Maybe we should stop seeing Judgement exclusively in terms of the chopping down of unfruitful trees or the burning of useless chaff and start seeing it in a more positive light. Judgement is God’s way of saying that you, and what you do, matters. It makes a difference. Judgement also a reinforces the fact that we have freewill – we have choices in life and God values each one of us so much that God is interested in the choices we make.
Ah, so Judgement is a kind of divine system of appraisal is it? If that’s the kind of language you like – then yes – why not?
The problem with the church and the subject of Judgment is that we only ever think of it in terms of the metaphors used in the bible, sheep and goats being separated, eternal sulphurous flames, the chopping down of unfruitful trees, the burning of chaff, vicious images of divine retribution unleashed when people get things wrong. The world likes things to be binary, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, people have to be saints or sinners. Because the bible has so much frightening imagery surrounding the idea of judgement and because there is also talk of ‘Judgement Day’ – one day in the future when the good will go to heaven and the bad will go to Hell, we all get very edgy about Judgement and people like me often try not to talk about it too much because it is uncomfortable. Imagine having your only appraisal session on the day you retire – imagine waiting until then to learn whether you were any good at your job or not! Ridiculous! Maybe we should think of everyday as Judgement Day? Every day we should assess how our life is going and reflect on our behaviour and our activity prayerfully in the presence of God. Maybe part of our prayers should be about asking ourselves, am I living in the way I should? Am I sharing my possessions? Am I taking more than my fair share? Am I bullying people? We should be aiming for the very highest standards of moral behaviour, not because we are afraid of burning in hellfire but because it’s the best, most fulfilling and sustainable way of life for us and for everyone – because it brings us closer to God. We have been given freewill as a gift from God. Imagine you give an expensive present to someone this Christmas, a brand new, expensive and shiny mobile phone, and then you watch all Christmas afternoon as the person you gave it to fiddles with it, loses the charger, spills a drink on it, scratches the screen and then drops it on the drive as they leave because they were carrying too much. That must be how God feels as he watches us misuse the great gift to of freewill. Freewill is a precious gift we should value and the giver of the gift is interested to see that we use it well.
So St Luke was right when he describes St John the Baptists exhortations about judgement as Good News. Judgement is good news because it means you matter. We are not just nameless, insignificant people. We are people loved and valued by God. The choices we make in life are important to God. The choices we make in life make a difference. If we only ever think about Judgement in terms of biblical imagery we will not get very far – we’ll stop thinking about it all – think of Judgment as a sign that you are important to God – it is another expression of God’s love.
Cardinal Basil Hume, who was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster some time ago described Judgement like this;
’Judgement is whispering into the ear of a merciful and compassionate God the story of my life which I had never been able to tell’. To be a Pilgrim’ p.228
So let us think positively about Judgement, let us give thanks for Judgement and let us ensure that we use our freewill wisely and carefully – we are accountable for the choices we make in life. Above all let us give thanks that our judge is merciful and compassionate and that our judge loves us.