Sermon Preached at the Dedication of the Grand Organ of York Minster On Easter Day at Evensong
Sermon Preached at the Dedication of the Grand Organ of York Minster On Easter Day at Evensong by Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor and accompanied by Ben Morris Assistant Director of Music
Readings Psalm 66, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Luke 24:13-35
Background to the Sermon
On Easter Day we rededicated the Grand Organ of York Minster in which it was ‘woken’ up from sleep after a once in a century refurbishment project. The sermon was a first for York Minster, preached by the Precentor, Canon Victoria Johnson and Ben Morris, Assistant Director of Music.
Central to the concept of the Sermon was the sound of Easter made manifest through the wonderful instrument which had just been dedicated by the Archbishop of York. Vicky said, ‘this was a unique experience combining Liturgy, Music and Spoken word to create a new sound world for the Minster, where the organ, at the very heart of our worship, was given a voice. At a time when congregations are not permitted to sing, the organ articulated the Easter Alleluia on our behalf.’
The sermon was written attentive to the emotions and experience of sound, and tried to articulate the joy of Easter through the Easter Hymn ‘O Filii et Filiae’ whose Alleluia ran like a golden thread through the text. The effect of the sermon relied on the exceptional improvisational skills of Ben Morris who accompanied the text from beginning to end. This co-creation of word and music was greatly appreciated and it provided a moving and exhilarating experience for those who were able to be in the building and those joining special service online.
Have you heard the sound of the Easter Alleluia?
The Organist plays the ‘Alleluia’ from O Filii et Filiae, quietly and mystically, running into a simple minor chord (on quiet strings or similar).
Two thousand years ago, as the sun began to rise, early in the morning on the first day of the week, Mary sat on a stone weeping. She had not yet heard the sound, and her tears ran down her face and dropped onto the dusty earth. As she wept, and as her tears fell, small white flowers sprung up in their place. Small white flowers around her feet.
The sound of small flowers springing up is placed on top of the chord.
Her tears became like the river of the water of life, rushing, flowing, surging, creating something new, there in the garden.
A very quiet sound of water running starts to emerge
And then a voice said ‘Mary, why are you weeping’?
And there in that moment, she suddenly heard the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
A tiny echo of the Alleluia is sounded, and then returns back to the chord.
Two disciples were walking and talking, grappling with a grief which barely contained their confusion at all those strange events in Jerusalem. The crowds, the betrayals, the trial, the circus of accusations, someone washing their hands of it all.
They looked up as a stranger suddenly appeared alongside them, listening, talking, wondering, and in his voice, they hear something of the likeness of…. But no it can’t be.
First five notes of the Alleluia, but then not quite getting there. Back to the chord.
They walk a little further and come to rest at the end of the day. The kindly stranger is still with them and then, in that moment, in that precise moment as bread is broken and wine is shared, their hearts are strangely warmed, and they hear the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
A warm echo of the Alleluia is sounded reducing to a single note- which moves into the first verse of O Filii et Filiae as a single note melody…possibly with a very low undergirding to represent the universe being made.
In the very beginning, when God said ‘let there be light’ this was something of the likeness of the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
As the breath of God blew through the desert and bones clicked into place, bone upon bone, flesh upon flesh. Bones in the sand were brought to life through the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
Back to the chord
Then one day the sound overshadowed the bright heart of a girl, and in her womb there dwelt the new seed of this sound, and from her lips she sang out with all of her being, and though she did not know it yet, she sang with the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
Perhaps a simple chordal or mystical mixture sound of the Alleluia, merging back down into a note, then a chord, then maybe some quick and quite engine like, ‘coursing and building’ the church, to underlay, culminating in a whisper, then a roar of the Alleluia.
This beautiful sound came to live in the hearts of those who could hear it and became the engine oil of justice and righteousness, it brought peace where hatred held sway, it melted the pride and power of the cruel, it disrupted the careless and the slick, and raised up the humble and meek; it exposed lies to the light of truth and gave voice to the voiceless.
It coursed through history, turning sinners into saints, sanctifying the blood of the martyrs, turning our world upside down. It gathered from north, south, east and west, and day by day and year by year, this sound which was from the beginning, made all things new, and in whispers and in roars, we still hear the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
Back to the chord and into alleluia to ‘create the song’…
Can we hear that sound today? After a year of grief and fracture and pain and loss, after a year of isolation, confusion and testing to our limits, we sit again with Mary, in the garden, whose weeping at the grave, creates the sound of a song: Alleluia
Then into silence.
Far, far away from that garden through time and space, in the lands of the north, in a church of great splendour, there was an instrument which had no sound for year upon year. And despite everything which challenged it, and everything that silenced it, one day, it found its voice again.
Back to the chord
It had pipes like penni-whistles, and pipes like clarinets and flutes, and pipes like the strings of an orchestra, and pipes as big as the funnel of great ship navigating the waters of this world.
The Organist illustrates as above and then returns, back to the chord.
The purpose of this instrument was re-kindled by skilled hands and careful ears, and it returned to fulfil its vocation. On this day, when we cannot sing, it sings for us, like a choir of five thousand voices- and it becomes for us a sign of the sound of the Easter Alleluia.
The Organ builds and builds very slowly to:
So let us hear it sing for us, as we sing in our hearts of Jesus Christ who is risen for us and for all.
For he is the sound of the Easter Alleluia. Alleluia Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Alleluia.
A full verses toccata style finish of O Filii et Filiae, ending of course on the final chord with a B natural and not a B flat. Major, not minor.
Amen.
Living Christ’s Story – Reverend Canon Maggie McLean (Missioner)
This weekend last year we had, I guess you would call it an art installation, of the word HOPE in large illuminated letters. They are doing the rounds of all the cathedrals but were with us at the start of this dreadful last 12 months when we have seen lives ruined and lost; families separated; social isolation on a scale I think very few will ever experience again.
And here in the beauty and expanse of York Minster were these four letters – HOPE – shining out of the darkness as we went into an unprecedented year where we probably, amongst all the other adjectives, felt HOPELESS.
I want to reflect a little bit this evening on this word HOPE as part of our Lenten Sermon Series, Living Christ’s Story, and how an understanding of Christian HOPE has been influential in my own journey of faith and discipleship.
The Indonesian word for HOPE means ‘looking through the horizon to what is beyond’. What might this mean and what might it look like?
For the Christian I think it means living God’s Kingdom now – to live God’s future today – to look beyond the horizon of this world and live in the hope of God’s Kingdom in the present.
A kingdom that believes in a new way of being:
A Kingdom where women can walk home alone at night;
A kingdom where black lives matter;
A kingdom where climate justice is a reality.
This isn’t wishful thinking, it is the prayer of every Christian ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven….
And I see the reality of this in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. God breaks into our world through the birth of Jesus.
God wants to be in a relationship with us, a relational God in a world made up of relationships. Jesus living a life of relationship where the mighty are brought low and the lowly are lifted high, revealed throughout the Gospels in:
every conversation,
every confrontation,
every act of healing,
every miracle of new life and new birth.
A life that says death does not have the final word but where God tugs us back to life, new life, which allows us to see beyond the present to what can be. And that for me is what it means to live Christ’s story and to live and work for the hope that is within us: a hope for a more just and equal world where we love our neighbours as ourselves and work for the flourishing of all humanity.
The first reading this evening speaks of the exodus, a foundational narrative in which God reminds the Israelites: ‘I will take you as my people, and I will be your God’. A pivotal story in which we are reminded of God’s love for God’s people and God’s will to be in relationship with humanity and to bring us out of all that enslaves us and establish a relationship based on promise and trust.
Writing at a time of great persecution, Paul in the second reading, is not trying to deny the reality of suffering but speaking words of hope to this fragile and fledgling Christian community. Paul, in essence, is reflecting on what it means to live out Christ’s story and we see the confidence and assurance he has in God in a future not yet realised. Or in other words, we hear Paul talking about hope – a hope founded on God wanting to be in relationship with humanity and reconciled, through Christ, with us, because God so loved the world…..
Living Christ’s story is living a life of love. And that is a life of choice. Choosing to love when it would be so easy at times to turn away; not get involved; not love our neighbours as ourselves. That’s not what Jesus did. His life, death, and resurrection are nothing less than the embodiment and enactment of love.
And we see this breaking into our world when…..
We watch someone running into a collapsing building in a war torn city and bring out a crying child;
When a teenager stands up to a president demanding that the leaders of the world do something for climate justice;
When we see a black man carrying an injured white supremacist away from danger;
When we see the daily visit of a husband to a care home to sit for a few hours by the side of his wife who no longer knows him;
When we see a nun kneeling in front of a man with a machine gun.
Living Christ’s Story is in short living a life of love and hope that the world can and will be a better place. A place we begin to occupy today when we live the love to which each of us is called. Freedom from all that diminishes human dignity; suffering that may come when we assert that dignity, and joy in a hope we know will never fail.
In Jesus name we pray ‘thy kingdom come’.
There are no ‘visitors’ – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: There are no ‘visitors’.
Date/time/service: Sunday 14th March 2021 Zoom and Live stream
Passage of scripture: John 19.25b-27
A sermon about hospitality at York Minster in the context of seeking to ‘Live Christ’s Story’. How on earth do we learn about hospitality from someone who was born in a borrowed stable, buried in a borrowed tomb, lived in obscurity for most of his life and, for the notorious bit of his life, didn’t own a home and therefore, presumably, lived off the hospitality of others?
A tough question. Here is my response. For starters, it is interesting, with all this in mind, that Jesus’ dying wish, as we read in the gospel this morning, was that his mother should have somewhere to live, somewhere to call home and someone to care for her when he was not there. Clearly, despite being an itinerant preacher with ‘nowhere to lay his head’, a home and a loving family were important to Jesus.
Perhaps the most important lesson about hospitality we learn from Jesus is that, for him, there are no outsiders. He spent much of his life extending the hand of friendship to those living on the fringes of society. He seeks out lepers, he talks with Samaritans and he befriends fallen women. He commends the generosity of the poor. He speaks of the importance of valuing and protecting children. He tells stories about God’s mercy and forgiveness, about God searching for the lost. It seems that there is no one he will not talk to, heal and forgive. There is no one he will not embrace with love.
We also know that Jesus enjoyed sharing meals with others, in fact some criticised him for being a ‘glutton and a drunkard’ and for sharing food with all sorts of people he should not have consorted with at all. He ate with people like Zacchaeus the tax collector. He also ate with friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and of course he ate with his disciples regularly. Famously his last meal was with them in the upper room.
So, the gospels tell us that Jesus was very social and enjoyed the hospitality of others, and in terms of his time and energy he was generously hospitable, some would say, outrageously generously hospitable towards all sorts of people – spending time with them in conversation and prayer.
What can we, in this cathedral church of York Minster, learn from all of this?
I know that there are people here today, people who come regularly, because this is a hospitable place. Because, when they first came, tentatively looking for a church, someone spoke to them, befriended them and so drew them into this community. I feel sure there will be others who came here once or twice and no one spoke to them and they left and never came back because they felt this was an inhospitable place. Sometimes we get hospitality right, sometimes we don’t. How do we get it right more of the time?
It is, perhaps, inevitable that we identify as ‘visitors’ those who buy a ticket to visit us as a heritage attraction. But for anyone who comes here to pray alone or to worship with us, perhaps we should learn not to think of them as visitors. Maybe, as Jesus did not possess a home, we should not think about this magnificent place as being ‘ours’? It is very clear that possessing things was not important to Jesus.
York Minster is the place we come to worship. York Minster is the place we come to meet our friends. York Minster is the place we look after because it is, and has been for generations, a precious and beautiful place of encounter with God. But this is not our place. This is as much ‘home’ to those who have worshipped here regularly for 50 years as it is ‘home’ to anyone who wanders in off the street to join in worship or to offer a prayer of thanksgiving or a prayer of despair. This is as much ‘home’ to those of us who give generously of our time and wealth for its thriving as it is ‘home’ for the person who comes through the door once with nothing in their pockets. This is as much ‘home’ to those of us who have a seat in which we regularly sit (including the Archbishop), as it is ‘home’ to the person who comes and, unknowingly, sits in the seat we think of as ours! ‘Friend, come higher’. Perhaps when we think of hospitality at York Minster and what it might look like in 5 years time, one aim we might adopt is that, by 2025 we will have established a culture whereby, in terms of prayer and worship, THERE ARE NO VISITORS. We may feel that this is our spiritual home, and it is, but for the time anyone is here to pray or to worship with us, it is their spiritual home as well. The only difference there is between one of us, who may have been worshipping here for 50 years and someone who is worshipping here for the first time is that we know where the toilets are and where to go for coffee after the service. In every other respect we are the same. This is their home as much as it is ours. If we began to think more like this how would that change the welcome we extend?
How would our understanding of hospitality change if we stopped thinking ‘us’ and ‘them’, regulars and visitors? Could we ever train ourselves never to use the word ‘visitor’ in relation to someone who comes here to pray or to join in our worship? How would the way we welcome people change if we learned to see everyone who comes here to pray simply as our sisters and brothers in Christ?
I wonder where this way of thinking may lead? Perhaps the next challenge will be to consider how to stop thinking of the people who buy a ticket to visit here as a tourist attraction as ‘visitors’? It seems that visiting a place like this, for many people, is just something else to consume. A place to tick off on their tour of the north of England. All they seem to want is a photo to prove that they came here. Are there things we can do to improve our welcome to those simply dashing in to ‘consume’ another visitor attraction, to make them get a sense that this place belongs to them as much as it belongs to us? That this huge space, these magnificent stones and this gleaming glass enfold, is actually here to encourage everyone to have big thoughts, to ask big questions, to encounter something bigger than themselves we call God? We are not here to sell an experience or a photo opportunity, we are here to maintain a place for everyone and anyone to come and stand in awe, not as a consumer but as themselves. This is a massive challenge because we have to ‘market’ ourselves and we have to sell tickets to maintain these magnificent stones and this gleaming glass. But how can we market ourselves as a place of encounter with something bigger than ourselves and not just a place to tick off having visited like the Railway Museum and Yorvik?
My time is up, but one final thought. I am suggesting we train ourselves to stop thinking of York Minster as ‘ours’ and to adopt a radical, generous hospitality whereby it is made clear that it is home to everyone who comes through the door, and I am suggesting this because this approach resonates with the example and teaching of Jesus Christ, who owned nothing. Among the things he didn’t own was a computer. How do we extend his radical, generous hospitality to those who come to York Minster online through our website, Zoom, live-stream or pre-recorded services? How do make ‘online’ York Minster an awe inspiring place of encounter, just like the building and what happens in it?
In short, York Minster is not our church to share, it is God’s house of prayer and, as such, we share it, as Jesus shared himself, with everyone and anyone.
Living Christ’s Story – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: Living Christ’s Story
Date/time/service: Sunday 7th March 2021 – Evensong
Passage of scripture: Exodus 5.1 – 6.1 & Philippians 3.4b-14
‘The Imitation of Christ’ by Thomas a Kempis, written in the 15th century, is a spiritual classic about the interior life which I read a very long time ago. The title of this book came to mind when I sat down to write my contribution to this series of short homilies on what it means to ‘Live Christ’s Story’.
There is a danger when we talk about faith in relation to books like ‘The Imitation of Christ’, and the invitation to ‘Live Christ’s story’, that we mistakenly believe that faith is all about trying to be something or someone we are not. That faith is all about striving to imitate or be someone else. I think this is profoundly unhelpful and dangerous.
In one of his books Rowan Williams said this, ‘At the day of judgement …… the question will not be about why we failed to be someone else; I shall not be asked why I wasn’t Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa, but why I wasn’t Rowan Williams.’ p. 95
From the age of about 14 all I ever wanted to be was a parish priest. In pursuit of this ambition I got a degree in Theology and then went to Theological College. By the time I was thirty I was a parish priest in a large village. By that time I also had a wife and a child. Everything had fallen into place. Everything, including my faith and my theology, was relatively neat and tidy – my one remaining ambition was to try to be a really good parish priest. Then something happened which resulted in me becoming the chaplain of Helen House, the first Children’s Hospice. I began spending time with children and families who were living the nightmare of dealing with the terminal illness of a child and, within a short while, I was taking funerals for those families. As a result I discovered that my neat and tidy faith and theology were not fit for purpose. In addition my picture of priesthood was profoundly challenged.
Most of the families I met at Helen House had very little or no church connection, so I had to talk with them about the profound challenges they were facing without relying on them knowing much about the bible, and without being able to talk with them about God in the neat and tidy ways I had learnt at University and Theological College. Quite quickly I had to learn to re-interpret my faith, understanding of God and what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, so that I could engage meaningfully with those families in conversations and in taking funerals for them. The truth is that since that time I have never been able to reconstruct a neat and tidy faith. Despite all this my faith, to date, has always been strong and profound, it is just that it is untidy, incomplete and will ever remain, a work in progress.
Mother Frances Dominica, the founder of Helen House, once said this,
“What can we do as we accompany children (and families) through dying and bereavement? …. again and again we feel inadequate to the task and I believe it is right that we should. But we … can be alongside as ourselves, as paid-up card-carrying members of the human race. If we are to have anything worthwhile to offer then we need to be in touch with that which is deepest within ourselves. In the midst of the struggle and the unknowing in myself, there I find God. …… The ground on which we walk in the home or hospital or hospice is holy ground.’
Put simply, what I learnt at Helen House was that in order to be an effective priest I had to be, first and foremost, a human being. I had thought that ‘Living Christ’s Story’ was, for me, about using all that I had learned at University and Theological College, and using the authority given to me at ordination, to lead people and communities through the joys and sorrows of life while all the time proclaiming the good news of what God has done for us in the life of Jesus Christ. At Helen House, I was forced to learn that simple humanity and human connection has to come before any of this. I had to meet people first and foremost not as a qualified and proficient priest but as vulnerable Michael.
Of course, as I read the gospels I now see what I was missing. So caught up in fulfilling my ambition of becoming a qualified and proficient priest I was missing the fact that Jesus was born a vulnerable human being, engaged with everyone he met first and foremost as a vulnerable human being and died as a direct result of being a vulnerable human being. By baptism I become an active part of Christ’s story, but not fulfilling a role, not playing the part of ‘qualified and proficient priest’ in that story. The best and worst part about living Christ’s story is that we are not in it to play a role, we are in it to be ourselves, our true selves. We are in it to become the people God made us to be. We can play games. We can try to hide behind masks and personas we create, but when we truly live Christ’s story those masks and personas have to be rejected to reveal the real person beneath. The person God made us to be.
I am not a huge fan of reality TV, primarily because it isn’t reality, it is a manipulated and edited version of reality. I am not a fan of reality TV but I am a fan of reality faith. Living Christ’s story has to be all about reality faith.
If I am not facing the challenge of Living Christ’s story as the real me in my real, everyday life then I am not living Christ’s story at all, I am just living my own story and that is ultimately a story of vanity and ultimately, isolation.
Let us pray
Lord Jesus, who did empty yourself of your eternal glory and became a little child for love of us, empty us wholly of all vanity and pretence, that we may love you truly as you love us infinitely, and serve you faithfully with grace and in truth. Amen
Stewardship – Canon Victoria Johnson
Sermon on the theme of Stewardship
Canon Victoria Johnson, Sunday 7th March 2021
Readings Exodus 20:1-17, John 2:13-22
In the name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
In this the third of our Lent Sermon series, we consider Stewardship– as an expression of our Christian faith- how we steward our time, our talents, our money. We do that following on from St John’s account of- Jesus cleansing the Temple– The very reading that provokes angry letters about Cathedral gift shops or charging for entry, a reading that incites people to argue that the church shouldn’t talk about money, or ask for money, or steward money, whilst themselves failing to support the work of the church adequately. An attitude that gives nothing but wants everything. Anyone who has ever been an active member of a Christian community, knows that you cannot run a church on air – bills to pay, roofs to fix, organs to rebuild, staff to salary, ministry to pay for.
I am going to come back to that reading and its very real challenge to us, but I want to start our reflections on stewardship today somewhere else- I want to start by reflecting on a Christian understanding of the word legacy, in the sense of something being passed on from generation to generation. Beyond the merely financial, we could think of legacies in a much broader sense, how we pass on our values and attitudes, how we pass on knowledge and understanding, how we pass on traditions which we cherish, how we pass on the world we currently inhabit. We could also think of this in terms of how we pass on our faith, and how we live out Christ’s story.
To pass on a legacy, to share something of what we have with the future, we have to have a care for how we steward what we have now. One of the most pressing questions about stewardship, growing more urgent by the day, is how we exercise stewardship of our planet, and own up to our human propensity, shall we just call it a sin– to simply trash and exploit everything around us for our own ends, until it’s almost beyond use. Our collective efforts as a human race have so altered our planets eco-systems and climates that we are in danger of causing irreversible damage- the house is on fire now- how are we responding? Individually, nationally, globally? Will there be anything left to pass on?
Let’s bring this thinking into our life of our faith- how do we pass on the faith of the church and the faith that is within us and proclaim that faith anew in every generation? The church, like the world it serves, is not just for us now, it doesn’t exist to see us out– it’s a gift for the future both spiritually and materially, how do we steward this heritage for those who come after us? This is a daily question for us here- we believe this place is a treasure, and we treasure it because it speaks of our faith, but we do have to carefully steward our resources to care for it, and yes- a gift shop, paid staff and careful use of money is part of that stewardship.
Today, we have offered a little blessing for our Grand Organ, which we know will be shared with at least three generations beyond us. It has taken profound generosity, three years of hard work and years longer to plan. Like the Great East Window, restored over the past fifteen years, these are signs of our faith in there actually being a worshipping community here in a hundred years-time: and through our mission we will work hard to ensure there is.
Everything about this wonderful building, of which we are stewards, makes us consider the long game- and what we are passing on from generation to generation. Music, stones, stained glass, mean little unless the faith that inspired their creation is passed on as well. I suppose, we could steward our faith by keeping it private, digging a hole in the ground and hiding it away where it cannot grow or diversify, ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified in our words and actions. But that is no way to steward this gift as the parable of the talents reminds us. The concept of stewardship extends to how we live out our faith in the world today, so that there will be something to pass on.
In our old-testament reading, the Ten Commandments are given by God as a means of living out the faith and then passing it on. In response, God promises to show steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who keep the commandments. They were essentially a rule of life which exploited no-one, cared for the earth, and encouraged the people to be content with what they had, they gave a right perspective, they showed the way, they helped the people of Israel understand who they were. They were both private and public, personal and political. Stewardship in these terms was about walking in the way of God and thinking of the long-game, the legacy of faith that would be passed on.
Over 600years after the Book of Exodus was written, Jesus walks into the temple in Jerusalem, and casts out the money changers. John’s Gospel puts this incident at the beginning of Jesus ministry. A naïve reading of this text uses it to denounce jumble sales in church, back where we began, but we have to give John, the great theologian, more credit than this and do a little more work with our scriptures.
This text is about who Jesus is, his identity as the living temple. This was a figurative and prophetic act which revealed his identity as the Son of God. As he walked into his Father’s House, people had no regard for anything other than themselves, yet alone generations to come. They had forgotten God’s commandments. They were not interested in legacy, they were not interested in stewardship, just an instant kind of gratification, and that self-centred world view made them impervious to the God of heaven and earth who stood before their eyes. No wonder Jesus was angry. They couldn’t see who Jesus was- and they had no concern for the communities of which they were part yet alone the generations that would come after them. This was about his love and their hearts, not about cash registers in church.
There is no instant gratification in Christ-before glory there was crucifixion, before joy there was pain. By his very body, broken, bruised, nailed to a cross, Jesus would build a new temple which would bring together people of every generation, with towers telling of salvation, and walls re-echoing praise. He gave to those who followed him a new commandment to love God and love neighbour as self, he gave them bread and wine to remember him forever. Through him, and with him and in him, they would become the living stones of the new temple.
We are stewards of that gift, his body, the church –through which we find our identity. He commanded us to turn away from self and promised that we would be set free by his life. As we hear in the Litany sung during Lent, we find our identity in his story, by his holy incarnation, his cross, passion, death, burial, resurrection and ascension and through the coming of the Holy Ghost.
Christ’s legacy is universal, unending, unquenchable, and in his name he calls us to live lives of radical generosity, service and love, building life on his life. We are called to proclaim his name and tell the praise of the one who has called us out of darkness into light, not bury it away as if we have never heard it or known it. As he gave his life as a ransom for many, how are we called to give of ourselves and what we have, to be his body in the world today?
The daily challenge for every Christian, is to reflect on how we respond to the generosity of God in Christ, in our words, deeds and actions, and yes- in how we spend our money, use our time, steward our resources and ensure that we have a legacy to pass on. What are we leaving behind? What kind of temple are we building for the future?
Lent is traditionally a time of almsgiving- giving as an expression of our faith. What are we prepared to sacrifice? How are we called to be stewards of our faith today, for the church of tomorrow? How much of ourselves, our time, our money, our talents are we really prepared to give towards the enterprise of being a member of the body of Christ and living his story? That is surely where our reflections on stewardship have to begin?
In the name of the living God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Lent 2: Sacrifice and Service – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean
I sometimes wonder just how many arguments have been avoided due to Sat-Nav. It hasn’t removed them entirely. You may be familiar, as I am, with the argument about why a driver is following Sat-Nav even when they know there’s a quicker way. Perhaps it’s laziness, but it can be easy to follow the directions of a computer than trust our local knowledge.
We follow where we have confidence; when we have faith and when we trust the advice we’re being given. In the pandemic trust in authority has sometimes been in question. When we want a whole nation to follow advice trust matters. Only when we act together and go in the right direction can we achieve the safety and open society we long to see. On Friday the Government’s scientific adviser couldn’t have been clearer about the need to be disciplined in our lives and ensure we leave lockdown together.
Leadership that inspires faith and builds trust is critical to success.
In our Gospel reading today we see a leader who doesn’t hide the difficult reality that lies ahead. The suffering he will endure, and by implication the kind of persecution his followers will encounter.
Rejection and death – and a third day promise the disciples didn’t fully grasp. No wonder Peter takes him to one side to have stern words. It’s not the sort of talk that builds on the success and popularity Jesus was creating.
Yes, healing,
miracles
teaching.
Not persecution,
suffering
death.
For Jesus there was no algorithm or short-cut to achieve what he’d set out to do. The mission of Jesus was a living engagement with the world. As he met the excluded and despised; as he sat with tax collectors and foreigners, women and children, he lived a journey that was unconventional, dazzling and dynamic. The dead were raised; the blind received their sight; and the Kingdom of God lived where he walked. Service stood at the heart of this mission of salvation.
In this Kingdom, the world was turned upside down, with the teacher and lord washing the feet of servant and pupil. The different reality Jesus held out before the disciples and crowds was bound together as both word and deed. Time and again Jesus called people into this story of renewal and new-life.
‘He called to him the multitude with his disciples’. And he tells them about the cost of this service. The price that many would pay if they chose to put their faith in him. A cross to carry and a life to lose.
It’s as though he’s saying: ‘don’t start on the journey; don’t even think about setting out – until you understand the suffering it may bring’.
The risk, the danger, is that people and institutions usually don’t like to change. Most people find it easier to stick with the privilege rather than take a towel and sit on the ground. Servant leadership may sound fine – laudable – but it’s not what we really want, is it? But if we don’t want it nothing will change. It’s hard to blame anybody for refusing to carry a terrible, brutal symbol of death. To hoist a cross on their shoulders and begin that journey.
When I was interviewed here at the Minster a couple of years ago I had to speak to the question: ‘York Minster – place of privilege or mission launchpad?’ As I answered at the time, it’s both. Of course there is privilege. Every day I open my curtains and look across at one of the most amazing wonders of European Medieval art: it’s a privilege. Or when I listen to the choir and the soaring music that fills this extraordinary place. Privilege.
Privilege and service can live together. The real question is, how do we use privilege to become service? How do we truly allow people to share in the central truth this building tells. Not as strangers but as friends; not as visitors but as people who belong to this story just as much as any of the rest of us.
Jesus challenged privilege which was hoarded. Privilege that was kept like pounds in the bank rather than advantage used to serve the poor. The poor in body, mind or spirit. It was his main charge against the rulers of his time;
‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees… For you lock people out of the Kingdom of Heaven.. you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them’.
The service Jesus lived, and the service we are called to share with him, can cost. It can be hard; it can be thankless; and we may feel rejected. But when we take our privilege and turn it to service, lives can, and are, changed. Our lives as well as the lives of others.
As we prepare for the Minster reopening, we look forward to a time when we can welcome people again. Not as strangers or the people who don’t belong – but as the people for whom this amazing place was built: Pilgrims – Friends – Disciples.
Grace, sweet grace – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: Grace, sweet grace.
Date/time/service: Sunday – 2nd Before Lent 2021 (Zoom & Live Stream Euch)
Passage of scripture: Colossians 1.15-20 & 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.’
These days I am not sure that there is anywhere else that you would ever hear anyone talk about grace, but in church and we tend to talk about grace quite a lot here. It’s a churchy word, a holy word but maybe we should be thinking of it much more beyond the world of church? So ….. what is grace? What does it mean? What does grace look like?
To start off, 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 evil, wanton and shameful, someone 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 looming over him he saw men, brutalised by violence, blindly following orders who deserved forgiveness and encouragement to live in a new way and so, as the nails ripped into his flesh, he forgave them. 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.
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 start being full of love when we start filling it with grace sweet grace, a generosity of spirit which does not succumb to labelling or lazy binary thinking, that 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 these days by influential people to further their own ends.
I have just finished reading ‘Living in Love and Faith’ the recent Church of England book about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage. In the final paragraph we hear the conclusion of a conversation of a few parishioners in a church in a small town in England. They are talking about divine judgement, someone wonders if there will be such a thing as gender in heaven. Someone else says that if we decide definitively what we think is right and wrong then surely we are putting ourselves in the place of God? But ultimately God is our only judge. They conclude that it is right for each of us to come to a view on the important issues being discussed but the final sentence of the book is this, from an unnamed parishioner, ‘As long as we’re open to the possibility that we may be wrong, then I think that’s what will qualify us when we meet God.’ As I read that, it struck me that we rarely see that attitude today and that that is what grace look like in our everyday lives. If we all took that position a little more often, how would our religious and political conversations be transformed? How would the world be transformed?
What the world needs now is grace, sweet grace. Perhaps as we prepare to enter into Lent and hopefully to begin to emerge from some of the restrictions under which we have been living, on and off, for almost a year, it would be good to reflect on grace and particularly how gracious we are in our own lives? 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. It is right that we should have a point of view on important subjects. It is right that we should disagree. But we should do so acknowledging that though this is what I think is right, I know I might be wrong, and I am always ready to listen to others and to change. Absolute certainty kills grace. Let’s relate to each other, not as labels but as individual, complex and nuanced people. Let us make sure that there is more grace in our lives, in our dealings with others at home, at school, at work, 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 deal kindly, politely, respectfully and creatively with everyone with whom we share our lives, including those with whom we disagree?
‘As long as we’re open to the possibility that we may be wrong, then I think that’s what will qualify us when we meet God.’
‘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 emerge from lockdown is to seek to ensure that our lives are full of grace and truth.
‘Love, justice and transfiguration’ – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean
Perhaps Valentine’s Day last year was about the last community celebration unaffected by the pandemic. A few weeks later, as Mothering Sunday approached, everything was locked down. The last festival of the old ‘normal’ was the festival most people associate with love.
So here we are, in 2021, once again on Valentine’s Day. Love will still be celebrated – the romantic love we think of today – but the way we keep it will be different. Once again we are reminded of the cost and losses of COVID. No meals out; households unable to mix;
gift shops closed.
Yet love remains.
Love that we treasure all the more because the trappings have gone and each of us knows that being loved, and expressing love, has mattered a lot during the dark days of the past year. Christians know that love sits at the heart of faith.
In the Diocese of York we are being encouraged by our Archbishop to focus on what it means to ‘live Christ’s story’. I guess there’s a distinction here between believing and doing.
Christians aren’t called to believe in Jesus and stop there. We are called into faith to be lit by the love of God. To live in our life, the kind of life which Jesus led. And time and again the Gospels tell us that this life is about love. Love strong as death; love fierce as the grave.
One of the ways that this love gained life, was in a thirst for justice. Jesus couldn’t abide the hypocrisy he saw around him, especially when committed by religious leaders. When the people who should have known better couldn’t be bothered. When the innocent suffered and those already oppressed suffered even more.
In his teaching about the Kingdom of God Jesus told people that life didn’t need to be this way. Together with God we can seek that Kingdom and begin to live in the here and now a love which promises perfect freedom. If we live Christ’s story we can’t settle for the world as it is.
Today is not only Valentine’s Day but also Racial Justice Sunday. The coincidence of these days serves to remind us that love and justice belong together. If we love our neighbour we cannot ignore prejudice, hatred and injury. If we want to live in the Kingdom of God then things have to change in our society. We need more education to pull down walls of ignorance; to challenge the casual discrimination that passes as ‘harmless’ comments.
How can we live Christ’s story if we don’t address the prejudice in our own hearts and in the voices of those around us? There can be no true love without justice.
Sadly, I think the words of the Home Secretary last week will have been welcomed by those who see Black Lives Matter as an extremist movement or simply a passing fad. All I can say, as a woman who grew up through the 1970s and 80s, is that discrimination diminishes people. Whether its sexism, racism or homophobia, groups of people treated differently is a lived reality for many, many people in our world. And it is not good; not loving; not just.
Time and again in the Gospels Jesus stands with those his disciples would rather he avoid.
A woman of bad reputation alone at a well; the hated tax collectors; lepers and lunatics;
a foreign military officer seeking help for a servant – and a foreign woman asking the same for her daughter. When these people draw near to Jesus through love there is always a place for them. Always room at the table and often an affirmation of their faith and openness.
Do we want to live this story?
On Wednesday we enter Lent and usually we put ashes on our heads. Perhaps this year we should think about what those ashes represent. What do we really need to give up – to reduce to ashes something that stands in the way of living Christ’s story? Forget the chocolate, booze or luxury we might forgo. Dig a little deeper. What’s stopping us becoming more Christ-like, loving and just? Lent offers us a moment to walk with Jesus and ask that question. How is God asking us to grow?
This doesn’t sound an easy path to take.
One of the things our faith offers is a glimpse of what the Kingdom of God is like and who Jesus is. In our Gospel we shared with a handful of disciples that vision of Jesus so bright and so dazzling that there are hardly words to describe it. We use the word ‘transfiguration’. A moment when the disciples saw Jesus in his full glory – a vivid reality of how God’s love and justice go beyond our imagination. And Paul in Corinthians says that this outward brightness can be an inner experience for those who know Jesus Christ.
Love, justice, transfiguration.
They are all celebrated this Sunday – and serve to remind us of the God whose love won’t leave us as we are. A God who calls us to ‘live Christ’s story’ and work together for that Kingdom where love is made perfect.
Actions may speak louder than words – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean
I wonder what school was like for you. The best days of your life, or the days you couldn’t wait to leave behind? Maybe a mix of both. Certainly, for me, there were subjects I loved, and ones I couldn’t wait to give up. I’m sure my teachers probably couldn’t wait for me to give them up either.
In the Dickens novel Hard Times there’s a pretty grim depiction of education. On the first page we find a teacher in a classroom and Dickens describes the pupils like this: “little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.” Passive students, simply the recipients of facts – not participants in learning.
Thankfully our understanding of education has come a long way since the days of Dickens.
For me education is far more about lighting fires than filling pots. Teach a person how to learn and they can learn for life – an enquiring mind will never stop discovering new things.
All this comes to mind today because our Gospel passage begins with Jesus entering a Synagogue and teaching. One of the frequent titles given to Jesus in the gospels is ‘teacher’; ‘rabbi’.
Jesus is someone who teaches his disciples; teaches communities; teaches crowds.
For many of the people who heard him, his teaching was different from what they were used to: ‘they were astounded… for he taught them as one having authority’.
Perhaps it came because Jesus didn’t seem to be talking about theory but about practice.
Not about the academic debate of theology, but about the nuts and bolts of how to live.
How to live a good, faithful and loving life, even when things were tough and people had enemies. This short passage from the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel tells us something critically important about the way Jesus taught.
In the space of a few moments we move from words to deeds. Jesus teaches with authority – and his deeds mirror his words. It is when the people witness the healing of the man possessed that they are amazed: ‘A new teaching’ they exclaim, – ‘with authority’.
If the task of the Church is to teach Christ to the world then it’s often here that we come unstuck. Our words and deeds aren’t always aligned. We talk about one thing and do another – we try; we stumble; we fail. But we don’t give up. We know that faith is expressed in both teaching and doing and it might be that our doing is some of the most important teaching that we have to offer.
When we get to the end of this pandemic, and begin to reflect on our faith, the things that will mean the most to people will be what we have done. Not least through food banks, unseen acts of care, and the support offered to the bereaved. Deeds that spring from our words will be the lasting legacy.
In a faith which is all about ‘the Word made flesh’ our teaching can never be something theoretical; remote; abstract. It must be rooted in our living and come alive in our doing. It isn’t about filling pots with words, but about being lit with a faith which others may catch.
Only then will others see the Church offer a ‘new teaching – with authority’.
Life has changed – Canon Maggie McLean
Life has changed.
We might prefer it if it hadn’t, but it has.
In January 2020 the first cases of COVID-19 in the UK were identified here in York. At the time the situation was managed, contained, and resolved. It didn’t lead to a wider outbreak.
Yet, a year later, we are facing a crisis of infection, hospitalisations and deaths. Our NHS workers are exhausted and expecting a rising tide of cases. The number of new infections being reported tells a disturbing story of what will follow in the coming weeks. We all need to abide by the measures politicians and scientists are asking us to take.
The events of the last 12 months have shaken the world.
In the thick of this crisis, we can’t determine how it will end, and for the moment we must travel hopefully.
There are vaccines which will begin to change the situation. But there’s a lot we don’t yet know about the way vaccination will allow us to return to a more normal life.
The world has gone through many critical moments in the past.
The contents of the Bible say a lot about uncertainty and fear.
I’m sure that for a whole host of reasons many people are afraid today – perhaps you are one of them.
Fear of the illness itself;
fear of other people who may have it;
fear of the economic cost to our society and the long time it will take to repay the money we are borrowing.
For the people of Israel fear was met with faith.
Despite all they endured a faith in God never failed to surface.
When things seemed most dark and disturbing, faith brought hope and determination. It couldn’t be clearer in the Psalm we heard tonight:
God is our hope and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved…
The writer of the Psalms imagined the thing we rely on most, the certainty of the ground beneath our feet, being shaken, fragmented and tipped into the sea. A terrifying image, but also an image set against the faith that despite all this, God can still be trusted.
In all the calamity we may fear, God’s presence endures. When the things we rely on most are shaken, God remains steady. At the moment we feel we can’t hold everything together, God steps into our silence.
These are tough times.
We want to help others, and we should.
We want to lessen the risk to our neighbours as much as we can, and we must.
But when the doing is done, we need to be still.
It is not by our works, but by God’s grace that we know we are loved.
Loved in good times and times of sorrow. Loved when we feel the ground shaken and when, in those rare moments, we find ourselves utterly still – waiting with hope and with faith upon the love of the Lord.
Let us pray:
Faithful and present God, you are not blind to the storms that rage in this world, the illness that threatens. Bring your refuge and healing strength and make us still in your safety.
When what seems permanent begins to crumble, when devastation ravages the earth, when powers that be claim your authority –help us to let go of fear and doubt and make us still in your waters of gladness.
God, Creator of time, in this new season of quarantine, help us lay down both what keeps us too busy to be still and stillness that is empty before you so that we may lift our eyes to your glory. In Jesus name. Amen.
Frames of Faith – Canon Maggie McLean
I think one of the hardest things in life must be to do a job you don’t enjoy.
Milk round – getting up early on mornings like today – cold – dark – smelt of sour
Nothing wrong with the job – it just wasn’t the right job for me.
Our journey through life can be the story for each of us finding the right job.
It’s the role in life that fits who we are and makes the most of the gifts we’ve been given.
As someone once put it, ‘Find a job you love and never work a day in your life’.
It sounds simple – but the reality of finding that job can be far more challenging.
I know we have several serving and retired teachers at CTK and many only feel fully alive and engaged within the act of teaching.
(There are bad days of course and not all feel like this) but for those who find their fulfilment in helping others learn, who delight in those moments when a student is helped to achieve their full potential, there is nothing quite like it.
For others that sense of fulfilment may not come in a job but in a hobby. Something we do that brings us fully alive. Skiing down a well groomed piste; bungee jumping; creating something beautiful like church vestments, pictures, a play!
In all areas of life, if we are the right person with the right gifts, we can lose ourselves in the task.
It is often in these terms that people make the distinction between a job and a vocation.
As I said a moment ago, finding that activity or area of work can be difficult. For people of faith God is part of that seeking.
We believe God has made us all different, and each of has a combination of skills that is unique to us.
Christians will want to discern the part God has called us to play – the thing we have been uniquely made to do.
Sometimes we discover what this might be not through a positive experience, but a negative one. As someone once wrote:
“There is as much guidance from God in what does not happen and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does happen. Maybe more”.
This experience is sometimes called ‘testing a vocation’. We do something and find out from the experience that it’s not for us.
We learn from it about our self and about the world, and we try something else. What might appear to be failure becomes a major source of learning.
Today we have heard two very contrasting accounts people being called, finding their vocation. In fact they seem to range between the sublime and the ridiculous.
Young Samuel, helping Eli in the Temple, is quick to hear and respond to the call of God. Quite understandably Eli is slow to see what’s going on and who it is that is disturbing Samuel’s sleep. It takes three goes before the penny drops and Eli understands.
Philip, on the other hand, appears to leave his old life behind in response to the briefest call from Jesus.
Nathanael, even more startlingly, bases his entire recognition of Jesus on the fact that Jesus says he saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree.
When Jesus says ‘You believe because I told you I saw you sitting under a fig tree’, it’s hard not to hear a chuckle in his voice.
We go from God having to nag Samuel into response to Nathanael acknowledging Jesus on what seems the most flimsy evidence.
If nothing else it tells us something about the multitude of ways that God calls us – and the diversity of people that call comes to.
This church, like all churches, has a responsibility to help people both encounter God and also come to understand what it is God wants them to do.
The Christian community at its best holds up a frame, opens a door, and encourages people to pay attention.
We want people to share our experience. To be looking and listening at those points in our lives when we are open to spiritual concerns.
I think this is one of the reasons why services of baptism, marriage and for bereavement are so important. It can be at these times when we reflect more deeply on the direction of our lives and what it might be that God is asking us to do.
In this season of Epiphany we are reflecting on how God is made known in the world.
The calling and encounters of Samuel and Nathaniel help us understand the variety of ways this happens.
For most of us our experience may feel like the call of Samuel or the encounter of Nathaniel.
Either way, it reminds us to pay attention to what’s going on around us – and use the frames of faith to see and understand God’s presence in the world around us.
Who are you? – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: Who are you?
Date/time/service: Sunday 10th January 2021 – Epiphany 1 The Baptism of Christ
Passage of scripture: Acts 19.1-7 & Mark 1.4-11
It was in 1223 that Francis of Assisi had the brilliant idea of creating a Christmas crib. His aim was to help people focus on God’s gift of Jesus to the world. To start with the nativity scene created was with live people and animals but within a very short time this developed into an inanimate affair with statues, rather like our own magnificent crib here at the Minster. Within 100 years of the first nativity scene in Francis’ home town there were nativity scenes in every Catholic church in Italy and soon after the practise spread further afield.
Whenever I read the first chapter of Mark’s gospel I wonder what would have happened if Mark’s gospel was the only gospel to survive. Christmas would be very different because we wouldn’t have the story of the birth of Christ to celebrate. Presumably, in addition to Holy Week and Easter the other major festival of the Church would be today, the day we celebrate the Baptism of Christ. If Mark had been the only gospel to survive instead of cribs containing Mary, Joseph and the baby surrounded by animals, shepherds and kings, we would have the wild figure of John the Baptist pouring water over the head of the adult Jesus with a dove suspended above them. It’s one thing for churches the world over us to set a scene in a stable covered with straw, it would be quite a challenge for us all to set a scene in the middle of a river!
Clearly the most important event for Mark at the beginning of his story of Jesus was not his birth but his baptism. He makes it absolutely clear that John the Baptist is following in the footsteps of the great Old Testament prophets and by so doing sets his story in the context of all that had gone before. In Mark’s story Jesus is the fulfilment of prophecy.
Clearly for Mark the Baptism of Christ is a world changing event. But it is good to remember that at the time it happened it was just an eccentric religious leader pouring water over the head of an unknown man in the middle of nowhere in particular. Perhaps the thing I love most about this strange story is that, as Jesus emerges from the water and the dove descends, the voice of God is heard to say,
‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Mark 1.11
This is before Jesus has done anything else that Mark thinks is worth recording. As far as we know Jesus had done no miracles, he had not exorcised any demons, or healed any lame or blind people, he had shared no teaching and told no parables and yet God proudly identifies him as his Son and says he is pleased with him. Mark does not tell us how old Jesus is but he is clearly an adult, so, it seems that to this point Jesus has led an ordinary life in obscurity – but God honours that ordinary, obscure life by telling Jesus that he loves him and is pleased with him.
Sometimes I watch things like ‘Britain’s got talent’ or ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and see the families of people on these programmes being interviewed. Without exception, when asked about how their family member is performing they will say how proud they are of them and how much they love them, as if the fact that they can sing or dance is what makes them special. This is not God’s way. God does not wait for Jesus to perform as the Messiah before he says he loves his son and is pleased with him …. in Mark’s gospel God makes that clear right at the beginning, before Jesus does or says anything worth writing down.
The fact that the love of God is not earned but is freely given is central to our understanding of who God is. But it is also central to our own sense of who we are, to our own sense of identity.
I remember reading about a man who was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a Concentration Camp. At his lowest point he reflects that he had lost everything; his career, his family who he assumed were all dead, his clothes, he wore only a prison uniform, his hair which had been shaved off, and even his name, the number tattooed on his wrist was all that identified him. He wonders who he is, what his identity is …. all those things we usually use to identify ourselves, job, family, relationships, dress had gone … from the outside he was just a weak and feeble body with a number …. so who was he – what was his identity now? I have never forgotten this and often reflect on it when I visit people who have lost everything, sometimes even their minds – who are they now? What is their identity?
The answer, for me, is to be found in the story of Jesus’ baptism when the voice of God is heard to say to the obscure carpenter’s son standing in a muddy river in the middle of nowhere, this is my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased. Despite the fact that we do not always please God by our behaviour, God also says to each one of us in our ordinariness and obscurity, ‘this is my child, the beloved’. This is our abiding identity, even when everything else we usually use to identify ourselves is gone, God still says to each one of us, ‘this is my child, the beloved’.
In conclusion, I heard an astronaut being interviewed on the radio yesterday. He recounted being in the International Space Station and in the course of his work a fellow astronaut in the station told him something that ‘earth’ had just said. He reflected that his colleague, in that moment, saw herself as distinct even from the earth. As she hurtled through space, thousands of miles from earth, she was outside separate from the earth. Even then, of course, the voice of God was saying of her, ‘this is my child, the beloved’.
As we reflect on the Baptism of Christ today let us rejoice that, like Jesus, we are beloved children of God. Let us continue to strive to live our lives in such a way that God can also say of us, ‘with you I am well pleased’. But even when we fail at that, even when our lives seem only ordinary and obscure, even when all that we usually use to identify ourselves is lost or taken from us, even if we find ourselves hurtling through space, somewhere, deep inside, may we continue to hear God’s voice giving us our true and abiding identity, ‘you are my beloved child’.