Sermon for the Festival of the Baptism of Christ – Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor
Sermon for the Festival of the Baptism of Christ
Sunday 10th January, 2020
Canon Victoria Johnson, Precentor
Readings: Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11
“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”
This quote comes from Karl Barth, the 20th Century German Theologian. It is often used as a kind of framework for the preacher, or the theologian or for the practising Christian. I suppose it’s another way of saying what Jesus said to his disciples: You are to be in the world but not of the world. Christian’s neither shy away from the realities of life which surround us, nor lose hope in the coming of the Kingdom of God. Holding a newspaper in one hand, and our Gospel reading in the other- how might we respond to the events in our world over the past week? Well, where to start?
We find ourselves in the season of Epiphany, a season of revelations as we come to know who Christ is. We come to know Jesus as the Lord of Life, the Beloved Son of God. Jesus enters fully into our humanity, is baptised and as he emerges from the waters, the heavens are torn apart, the Spirit descends like a dove and God says ‘You are my Son, the beloved, and with you I am well pleased’.
He with no sin, takes on the sin of us all. There is in this moment an alignment of reality, promise and hope, and there is in this moment a flash of subversion as heaven and earth are once again knit together as Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism. In this moment, we, as fellow human beings are assured that we are also beloved of God. Maybe that is where we need to start this week. Knowing that we are beloved of God.
Maybe if we understand that we are loved by God, we can also understand that all are loved by God. Maybe understanding that could create the world for which we long. A world of peace, and harmony, a world of compassion and mercy, a world of justice, faith, hope and love. A world not immune to challenge and change and sorrow, but a world able to find a way through to rebuild, and recreate and be reborn.
Baptism for us, is usually less dramatic than the account of a baptism we have read this morning, but the dribbling of water on the head of baby, or the immersion of an adult in a pool or river, is not something that is done and forgotten.
It calls us to daily renewal, daily hope and helps us see that a new world is possible. Through our baptism we are called to work towards the world God wants for his beloved Children, the new creation begun in Christ. It’s clear that what we have seen and read in our newspapers this past week, what we have watched on TV news both here and from across our world is not fully aligned with this Christian hope. We have witnessed hatred, division, violence, lies upon lies of tongue and pen, collusion and ignorance, sorrow, suffering, confusion and despair.
Take your bible and your newspaper and read both.
Perhaps holding up the bible in one hand isn’t enough, even for a president of the United States.
Perhaps we need to open our hearts to the word made flesh who makes all things new and offers us hope from despair and life from death. Perhaps we have to live out what we believe, and put our faith, not in presidents, not in power, nor in the easy speeches which comfort cruel men, we put our faith in the one who really loves us, who lived for us, who died for us, who rose again for us, and taught us that the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. The one who taught us how to love, how to live.
If we don’t believe that the water of baptism can change the world, and rend the heavens and create something new, then it never will. For through Christ, the drops of water poured upon our heads can gather until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
We pray for our world at this time, in all of its chaos and confusion, and we pray that through Christ we may be part of the change that is needed to make all things new. As we recall the baptism of Christ, we remember our own baptism-we pray that today and tomorrow, in our world right now, we may be born again and live into that calling as beloved children of God, and help build that new creation for which we all desperately long.
In the name of the one and only living God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What is your attitude? – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: What is your attitude?
Date/time/service: Sunday 3rd January 2021 Christmas 2
Passage of scripture: Isaiah 46.3-end & Romans 12.1-8
A man walked in to a pub with a little dog. He bought a drink and sat down. Soon another man entered, bought a drink, took off his hat also sat down and began to drink his beer. Soon he noticed that the first man’s little dog had moved to sit next to his hat and had begun to chew it. He said the first man, ‘Excuse me but your dog is eating my hat.’ ‘So!’ exclaimed the first man aggressively, ‘do you want to make something of it?’ ‘Oh’ said the first man, a little surprised, ‘so that is your attitude?’ ‘No’ said the first man ‘that is you hat he chewed!’
A terrible old joke. I can remember my dad telling it to me many, many years ago, so let’s blame him. Anyway, I thought about it again this week because of a line in our second reading this evening,
‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ Romans 12.2
It is remarkable how words written by St Paul to the Christian community in Rome in the middle of the first century continue to resonate with us, a Christian community in York at the beginning of 2021. How are we to approach this New Year? What is our attitude going to be to the challenges we face after such a grim 2020? For example, are we going to be conformed to the rest of the world and simply continue criticising the government, and others in authority, for virtually everything they do? For fear of being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia or transphoboia, are we simply not going to talk about these important subjects at all and just jump on any passing ‘bandwagon’ which purports to defend members of BAME communities or any minority group?
With the words of St Paul in mind my hope for 2021 is that we are not conformed to this world, but that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we learn to discern what is good acceptable and perfect. In other words, my hope is that we change our attitude.
In order for this to happen I think we need to start being much less lazy and we need to start doing much more praying.
While there is much to be thankful for with the digital revolution we are experiencing, maybe one of the down-sides of it is that, if we are not careful, it makes us all lazy. There is such a plethora of news and information available to us today we tend to filter out what we do not want to hear. This means that it is very easy for us to create a little echo chamber where we hear only what we want to hear. We form our opinions and then just have those opinions reinforced by the news and information we have chosen to receive. There is a danger that our lives become regulated by everything to which we give a ‘tick’ or register a ‘like’. This is all very comfortable, easy and lazy ……! We need to make the effort to ensure our lives are not regulated by everything we choose to ‘tick’ or ‘like’ – we need to go out of our way to be confronted by news and information we don’t like, news and information which does not support our ready-made opinions.
Once we have put in the hard, and sometimes uncomfortable, work of gathering a broad spectrum of news, information and opinions about the latest government guidelines or race, gender, sexual orientation or the latest political issue, then we need to spend time in prayer, holding these important, complex issues before God. The God who created the world and saw that it is very good, the God who is love. One way of talking about prayer is that it is the ‘renewing or our minds’ in the light of God who created us and loves us. This is where our opinions, our priorities and our goals in life should be formed. It is only when we have done all this that we should ever form an opinion (based on what we discern to be good, acceptable and perfect) and only then maybe send a tweet or write a letter to the papers or enter a heated discussion in the pub.
After Paul talks about the renewal of minds he goes on to warn against ‘thinking too highly of ourselves’. Another word for thinking too highly of ourselves is ‘arrogance’ and it seems to me that in addition to the pandemic of Covid 19 there is also a pandemic of arrogance in our world. We all seem to think that we know best, that we have the insights and wisdom to understand what is happening and to make the right decisions and that anyone who does not see things our way, or do what we would do, is an idiot and not to be trusted.
To act in this way is to be conformed to this world. This is what needs to be transformed so that we become more Christian, more Christ-like. As St Paul reminds us in the second part of the passage we heard today – we all need each other, we are ‘one body in Christ’, we are members ‘one of another’.
As we begin 2021 let us pray that our attitude will not be conformed to this world but will be transformed by God’s grace, our hard work and lots of prayer, so that in all things we may begin to discern God’s will and discover what is good, acceptable and perfect.
A prayer that the Spirit of God will fill us and transform us
Spirit of God, breathe into our hearts peace that is content in your love. Spirit of God, unite us in honouring the gift we are to each other. Spirit of God, give nations common cause to strive for justice and the welfare of all people. Spirit of God, fill us with your grace to trust in your promises and accept your forgiveness for ourselves and others. Spirit of God, breathe into the whole of your creation the peace that comes from you alone through Jesus Christ. Amen
Actions have consequences – The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: Actions have consequences
Date/time/service: Sunday Christmas 1 – St John the Evangelist 2020
Passage of scripture: 1 John 1 & John 21.19b-end
When I was a parish priest I always made a point of celebrating communion on the three days after Christmas. Often only one or two people came and occasionally nobody came so I had to say the service without consecrating the bread and wine, but I didn’t mind. I believe the reason these services are important is because they ground the great Christmas Story in reality. Boxing Day, as the carol ‘Good King Wenceslas’ reminds us, is also the Feast of Stephen. The day we remember the first person to be persecuted and killed for following the baby in the manger. Today, 27th December, we remember St John the Evangelist, the author of the 4th gospel who does not even find room in his writing to tell us the story of the birth of Jesus but launches straight in to the meaning and significance of the incarnation. Tomorrow we remember the Holy Innocents, when we honour all the children killed by Herod and wrestle with the problem of evil in a world where God is incarnate. I think it helps to be reminded that the great Christmas story is not only true but has consequences – the Church helps us in the three days following Christmas Day to face those consequences.
So, today is the Feast of St John the Evangelist who does not write a report or a history of the life of Jesus – he knows that if he is to come anywhere near conveying something of the truth of who Jesus was and is he will have to use metaphor and talk about Signs. John uses poetry and stories to try and delve into the truth and significance of who Jesus truly is – so, probably in his old age, he wrote the most profound, the most theologically challenging, the most complex and the most beautiful gospel. John provokes us to see, or at least glimpse that the action of God in giving us Jesus is so significant, so earth-shatteringly powerful and important that it would be an outrage to only ever think of his birth as a nice little story to be remembered once a year, to be an excuse for a bit of a party, it would perhaps be the biggest blasphemy to leave Jesus, in our memories and in our understanding, as a little baby in a manger, and so, like Mark, John does not even tell us the story of his birth. The gathering sentence at the beginning of Midnight Mass refers to Jesus as,
‘Great little one whose all-embracing birth brings earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth’.
John forces us to wrestle with the complexities, contradictions and challenges of the incarnation. He is saying – don’t just think about the action of God – think about the consequences.
In the first reading from the first epistle attributed to John we are told that God is light and that in God there is no darkness. We are called to walk in the light. In the gospel reading we are told that if everything Jesus did was to be written down, there would not be room in the world for all the books that would be written. For John, it seems, Jesus is the one who turns the light on, so that the truth of God is revealed and we are able to live life to the full. Or as John puts it, live life abundantly.
All the miracles, or signs, John records, tell stories of how life has gone wrong, a wedding reception when the wine runs out, a child at the point of death, a man who is blind, people far from home with nothing to eat, people caught in a storm. On each occasion Jesus steps in to turn things around, to transform the situation, so he provides plenty of excellent wine for the wedding reception, he heals the sick child, he enables the blind man to see, he feeds the hungry crowd and he walks across the raging sea to comfort those frightened by the storm. These stories are told not that we should be awestruck by the miraculous happenings themselves, but that we should be encouraged that Jesus can help people live life as it should be lived. Jesus says, in John 10v10 ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ For Jesus, life is never something that should simply be got through, he wants people to thrive, to excel, to experience life abundantly, that’s why he doesn’t provide just enough wine for the wedding reception, but gallons of the stuff, and when the 5,000 are fed there is heaps of food left over – John’s message is clear – there is reckless generosity at the heart of God providing opportunities for people to live life to the full.
For John the source of transformation and abundance we see in Jesus is nothing otherworldly of exclusively divine, it is simply love. In 1 John 4v16 John tells us, ‘God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.’ So John makes it clear that transformation and abundance are not the exclusive preserve of Jesus. We all have the ability to love so we all have the ability to help enable other people to have life and have it abundantly.
One of the privileges of my job is to talk with couples as they prepare for marriage. One of the things I say to them is that, through their marriage and the love which is at its heart, they should help each other live their lives to the full and help each other realise their potential so that, by the time they are old, wrinkled and wobbly, they will each be the best people they can be because the love of their spouse has set them free to live life and live it abundantly. In fact I often quote a line from a song by Sting which could have been written by St John the Evangelist, ‘If you love someone, set them free.’ Many of the ‘signs’ in John’s gospel and much of the teaching of Jesus he records are about liberation, being set free to live life and live it more abundantly.
On this day we give thanks for the wisdom and insights given us by John in his writing. Of course, most of his writing centres on Jesus but in truth, John’s writing is not about Jesus, it is about God. As the theologian John Fenton says, in John’s writing Jesus ‘is the Word of God, the Son of the Father, the agent, the messenger and apostle of another. John’s gospel is not Christo-centric, but theocentric.’ It’s all about God, it’s all about being drawn into the creativity of God, the light of God, the love of God, the very life of God.
Prayer
Jesus, our master, meet us while we walk in the way, and long to reach the heavenly country; so that, following your light we may keep the way of righteousness, and never wander away into the darkness of this world’s night, while you, who are the Way, the Truth, and the Life, are shining within us; for your own name’s sake. Amen
On being mangers… The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: On being mangers ……
Date/time/service: Christmas Day 2020 Zoom Eucharist
Passage of scripture: Luke 2.1-20
Books have been written, television programmes made and now websites created based entirely on the strange and amusing things that children say. A child once returned from the burial of an aged relative convinced that the priest had said ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and into the hole it goes’! A little girl who was learning the Lord’s Prayer was heard to ask Our Father in heaven to ‘deliver us from e mail’! And a young boy wrote about the Christmas story, ‘And because there was no room at the Inn they had to stay round the back in a stable and because there was nowhere to lay the baby they had to use the manager’. Wouldn’t it be great if managers could be that useful?!
Of course it wasn’t a manager that was used it was a manger. The dictionary says that a manger is; ‘A trough or an open box in which feed for livestock is placed.’ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, was laid in a trough.
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to lead a pilgrimage from my parish to Rome and Assisi. In Rome we visited many huge and glorious churches. The focal point of all of these churches was always an ornate altar. Most of these churches were built on the graves of saints and often the altar was directly over the grave, or, underneath the altar there were precious relics of saints, bits of bones or hair and sometimes bits of holy objects like splinters from the cross on which Jesus was crucified. In one church, underneath the high altar, they had a piece of the manger in which Jesus was laid. When we visited, the church was crowded and I made my way down some narrow steps, leading below the high altar, to take a look at this holy and precious object. I was dressed like a priest and must have looked English because as I neared the glass casket which contained the holy relic a young woman approached me, I think she was American, and she asked me what was in the casket. I said it was supposed to be a piece of the manger, adding cynically with a smile, ‘you can believe that or not’! ‘Oh’, she said, ‘I do’ and she went over and knelt in prayer before the altar. Chastened and ashamed of my cynicism I immediately climbed the narrow stairs and never did take a good look at the ancient splintered bit of wood. But this encounter made me think.
Was it a piece of the real manger? If it was, who took it out of the stable? Maybe one of the shepherds took it or one of the wise men? What did the Inn keeper think when he realised his manger had been pinched? And if it is real how did it get to Rome? Should such an object be a focus of prayer? If it isn’t real, does it matter? If it helps some people to pray, is it such a bad thing that it’s just a piece of wood?
In the end I decided I should have been much less cynical – if the piece of the manger, genuine or not, helps some people to pray then that’s fine and good. But, if those prayers are only focussed on what happened in the actual manger two thousand years ago, then it is not helpful, indeed it may be hugely damaging because we should be celebrating the truth of Christmas today not just the truth of the first Christmas.
On the first Christmas night the manger held Jesus. God incarnate, literally, God en-fleshed, God made real. Mary and Joseph recognised him as being special, they adored him as their own child but also as God’s son. The shepherds and the wise men also honoured him, they came to the manger which contained Jesus and worshipped him in awe and reverence. Today we remember that scene with our own crib, in our music, liturgy and prayers. But if that is all we do there is no point in us being here at all. If all we do today is remember what happened two thousand years ago we should have stayed in bed or get on with opening some presents.
To return to where we began – manager or manger – (and this is the ‘cheesy bit of my Christmas sermon) not all of us are managers but we all should be mangers. I am not too concerned about whether there are bits of the actual manger that held Jesus underneath lavish altars in beautiful churches but I am concerned that every single person who celebrates Christmas this year realises that they are actual mangers today. We hold Jesus. We are called to reveal Jesus to the world. Our actions are mangers, our actions at work, at school, at home, should contain, hold Jesus within them. Our words, the things we say, whether at work or at school or at home, are mangers, they should contain, hold Jesus. Think about it, where are the shepherds and wise men of today to find Jesus, where are those who seek Jesus going to find him but in us? In our actions, in our struggle for justice and peace, in our compassion for the vulnerable and weak and in our love for our families, friends and enemies …… this is where the seekers will find Jesus today.
A priest once told me that after a large School Christmas service he was tidying up and noticed that the baby Jesus who had been in the manger in the crib was not there. Jesus was missing. Jesus had been nicked! He had to ring the headteacher and after a great deal of detective work a very embarrassed schoolgirl delivered Jesus back to the vicar to go back in the manger in the crib.
Ironically, we should all follow the example of that naughty school girl. Whenever we visit a crib we should take Jesus away with us. We might not all be managers but we are all mangers, we are to hold Jesus in everything we do and everything we say everyday. Not just at Christmas, not just on Sundays, but everyday.
Advent Sunday 2020 – The Revd Canon Maggie McLean (Missioner)
In September we were fortunate enough to be on holiday in mid-Wales. Fortunate because travel and overnight stays were permitted – and blessed with weather worthy of the Mediterranean.
On the farm where we stayed there was the opportunity to watch for badgers. The farmer had created a treehouse that overlooked the entrance to a sett. So, one evening, just before dusk, we walked down to position ourselves in the hide.
We waited and we watched. Without moonlight it was hard to make out what was going on, and noises played as much a part as sight. After about 15 minutes our wait was rewarded – we saw several badgers. And it was worth the wait as we watched with joy a whole family snuffle for food but keeping alert for any danger.
We probably all have experience of this kind of waiting. For many it will be as a ‘twitcher’ – someone looking out for birds in the countryside; at a reserve; or even in a garden. And the idea of the ‘twitcher’ is a good one to think about for the season of Advent which we begin today. Because being a twitcher requires great patience – It requires you to keep very still; observing; waiting; watching. And while it may seem very passive, there is in the watcher a gentle sense of excitement – that after much waiting the observer might be rewarded with something very special.
In Mark’s Gospel this morning we hear Jesus talking about a similar time of waiting. But this is no hobby, and what is expected will change everything. It is the purpose of the Advent season to keep us awake – on our toes – mindful that nothing in life is ever certain, even the moment when everything is gathered back to God.
The readings in Advent are full of those who are waiting. John the Baptist looking for ‘the one who is to come’; a woman for her child; and a people for a King. All wait, all watch, and in this season of Advent we watch with them.
I think Advent is a strange season. It is both hopeful and apocalyptic. It promises salvation and restoration, but it does so through events that often sound dreadful and even violent.
It is described by Jesus as the birth pangs of the world, the onset of pain before the beginning of a life that is new.So we wait and watch. We hear in our readings for today a reminder for us to stay awake and keep alert. We are told that tomorrow holds no certainties and that even today our world might change in the blink of an eye.
Advent is a sober season which contrasts our waiting with God’s urgency a theme picked up in the poem
“First Coming” by Madeleine L’Engle.
She writes:
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.
Advent advances into the growing darkness of winter. It reminds us of the uncertain nature of the world, and of the hour of God’s coming. For those of us living in the West this year has jolted our sense of control and power. In a way in which many people live across the globe, we are experiencing uncertainty, restriction of freedoms and suffering.
The time in which we are living is not forever. The world is not forever. As Christians our mission is to be waiting with anticipation. Waiting for a God who appears when we least expect it – restoring our hope and disturbing our certainties.
Once again, this Advent, we stand in the company of those who have waited – watchful
and eager, for the coming of Christ. All those across the history of the Church who have
borne witness that ‘his light will not go out’.
A reflection on the Hymn ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’ – The Revd Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Michael Smith (Pastor)
Title of sermon: A reflection on the Hymn ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’
Date/time/service: Advent Sunday – Evening – 29th November 2020
When I read comics I loved it when, very occasionally, Desperate Dan turned up in a story about Roger the Dodger. I remember an exciting sense of chaos and anarchy when different stories and different characters were mixed up in this way.
Last year I experienced a similar sense of excitement when I wrote a story imagining one of the wise men, from the Christmas story, returning to Jerusalem as an elderly gentleman, with his son, and witnessing the death of the man he had a visited as a new-born baby over thirty years before. As I began to write it felt as though he was in the wrong story.
Because of the way we have made festivals out of the highs and lows of the story of Jesus we have a tendency to think about these stories in isolation. There is the Christmas story, the Easter Story, the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit and numerous other offshoot stories. What we have to remember is that there is actually only one story.
This evening we are reflecting on the hymn. ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending’. A great hymn for Advent, which pictures the second coming of Christ, in clouds, with ‘thousand thousand saints attending’. There are three panels in our great East Window that depict this dramatic scene from the Book of Revelation.
It is easy to get carried away with the glorious and awe inspiring images of the second coming conjured up in the Book of Revelation, depicted in our great window and sung about in many hymns. We can easily come to think that the second coming is basically a divine promise that all will be well. The cynical would say that, like any good fairy tale, the second coming of Christ in glory is the happy ending we all yearn for in a story.
This hymn does not allow us to fall into this simplistic way of thinking. It reminds us very starkly that the one coming on the clouds, attended by a whole host of saints, is the same one who was ‘pierced and nailed’ to a tree. He comes in glory still bearing the ‘glorious scars’, the ‘dear tokens’ of the agonising death he endured for us. As Advent begins we are made to remember the painful story of Good Friday.
There is one story of Jesus and that story includes being born in poverty and utter vulnerability, a life of sacrificial love leading to an agonising death, a glorious resurrection and the expectation that one day the same Jesus, bearing the eternal scars of suffering, will return to claim his kingdom in which ‘God shall wipe away all tears…. and there shall be no more death …’ Rev 21.4
Thank God that this hymn reminds us that the scars of grief and pain we all bear are not wasted, they are part of who we are and they will be transformed, will be part of the ‘dazzling’ resurrection body we will share with Christ.
A Sermon for St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Musicians – Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor
A Sermon for St Cecilia, Patron Saint of Musicians
Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor
Readings: Psalm 106:1-12, Song of Solomon2:10-13; 8, 6,7 and Revelation 14:1-3
To the glory of the one and only living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions to all musicians, appear and inspire; translated daughter, come down and startle, composing mortals with immortal fire.
Some Verses from WH Auden’s ‘Anthem for St Cecilia’s Day’.
The Twenty-Second of November, is a day when musicians herald St Cecilia as their patron. She has long been the muse of poets and artists, and she is often cast as a romantic figure harping upon a harp, or sensuously playing the pipe organ, I believe that is not impossible, whilst also proving that girls can play the organ too!
According to ‘tradition’, Cecilia sang with all her heart at her own wedding, at which she committed herself to remain a perpetual virgin. She is then credited with converting her new husband and his brother to Christianity, with the help of an angelic vision.
She was martyred, and again, according to what we might call ‘the legend’, she was put in a bath of fire and yet remained untouched by the flames. It then took three attempts to kill her by the sword. With her head severed she remained alive for three days, preaching and converting many to the faith. Her body is said to have been exhumed in the sixteenth century and found to be un-corrupt and smelling of roses.
One notable reference to this story is found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but there were many other re-tellings which were equally fanciful and became prevalent as a form of pious romance. Saintly women were often pledged in love to God alone, even if they were married, to vanquish the transgression of Eve with which they were stained, so becoming bright lights to lift mortal vision.
This is the St Cecilia for whom odes, and poems and songs and anthems have been written, this is the St Cecilia who has been portrayed in art and music as chaste and ethereal, a translator of the songs of heaven for mortal ears.
Will the real St Cecilia please stand up?
Like many other Saints, there is actually very little to say about the real St Cecilia, other than she was probably a Roman Noblewomen who allowed Christians to meet in her home and led a church within it, and therein lies the probable reason for her martyrdom in about the year 230.
Other sources say that Cecilia was a powerful preacher and converted hundreds of people to Christianity. A church was established on the site of her house in Trastevere, Rome and she became one of the most revered martyrs of the Roman Church; one of only seven women in addition to the Virgin Mary, remembered in the Canon of the Mass. Whoever she was, this much is true: She was a Christian. She formed a church in her home. She was martyred for her faith and she has been revered ever since.
Can we compose a story, a hagiography, which does justice to her sanctity and her humanity? A story of her life which acknowledges the tradition we have received, and yet also speaks to us today?
What if ….
As a devout and practising Second Century Christian, Cecilia was a singer. Cecilia was a musician.
Her faith was expressed through song and music and from girlhood she would sing to the Lord with all her heart and her faith was infectious. She fell in love with Valerian, who was not a Christian but day by day, he became enraptured by her music, which she sang to the glory of God.
Perhaps she did sing at her wedding, because she understood that all love was an expression of God’s love for the whole world, and who could not sing upon believing such good news and being embraced by such love?
Perhaps she sang to her husband words from the Song of Solomon, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and through her song, he came to faith. So their home together became a house of song, and a house of prayer in the city of Rome.
When she invited other Christians into her home, at great risk to herself and her family, they sang psalms, hymns and spiritual songs together. For Cecilia, the only way to express her love of God was through Song.
Her ‘church’ was a singing church, and as it grew, it sang fervently and loudly to proclaim Christ as Saviour of the world. Its’ choir was augmented by the choir of the redeemed of one hundred and forty four thousand, who joined in from the throne of heaven, and the more these choirs sang together, the more people were drawn in to worship in her little church here on earth. This was music with a mission.
Through her generosity, through her music, through her witness, many came to faith, and the more people who came to faith, the more Cecilia’s ministry became known. People were singing of God’s love everywhere, in the streets, at home, in the market place, old and young, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, the word of God was spreading and the means by which it was spread, was music.
When the Roman authorities caught wind of Cecilia and her singing church, they set out to kill her- they had to silence the song. When they barged into her house with only violence on their lips, she knelt down and sang defiantly as they struck her dead ‘O Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious and his mercy endureth for ever.’ But this was not the end. Her song continued…in her was the life that would never die.
Through the life and witness of St Cecilia we learn that music is both the handmaid of the liturgy and the servant of mission- music and song communicate in ways beyond words alone. Music and song take us to the heart of heaven and music can help build the church in the world today and it doesn’t even need a church building, it can begin in the heart of the home.
Augustine is believed to have said that to sing is to pray twice, and from the Anthem for St Cecilia’s Day, W H Auden imagines that Cecilia ‘constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer, and notes tremendous from her great engine thundered out on the Roman air’. Music seems to extend and magnify prayer, to double it. Music is a vehicle for praise, a means of expressing faith with all of our body, our soul and our might.
JS Bach understood, perhaps as St Cecilia did, that music was made ‘to the glory of God’ and would often sign his music: Soli Deo Gloria, or ‘Glory to God alone’, to signify who and what the music was for.
Is the church still a singing church? And who do we sing for?
In our churches, and colleges and cathedrals the tradition of music and song remains, though slightly bruised through the pandemic of the past six months. This music, in many places, is now accessible for all to see and hear, thousands of ‘hits’ as people in their own homes tune in, but perhaps cannot join in. For the singing church is largely silent as it is still forbidden for congregations to gather in worship and sing. How we long to sing of our faith again, with our own lips and not vicariously through others.
There are many ways of making music in praise of God, it can begin simply and humbly in a home. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be professional. It just has to be from the heart and directed to the right place, heavenwards. Music is communication. Music is communion.
Can music be the means to share the good news to a world that has forgotten how to sing? Can music be a way to help the world express sorrow and lament at all that happened? Is the church in danger of only ever preaching to the choir rather than encouraging the choir, through music and song, to preach to the whole world?
How can we free our music and let everyone join in? Old and young, high and low, rich and poor, one with another. Can the music of the church, so precious and so powerful, which carries the word of God so effectively, be the very thing we should be sharing with our whole heart, and mind and strength? The very thing that might help the church flourish and grow today? The very thing that might bring people to faith. Is our vocation, as a church, to teach the world to sing to the glory of God alone, as St Cecilia did?
I happen to believe that our God is musical, and that the music of the spheres, the music of creation, the music of love, and the music of the church witnesses to this God. Music has the power to transform lives to the glory of God. As a church our deepest desire might be to see more people singing, more people knowing the joy of hearing a mighty organ thunder through the air, more people able to hear the new song that is still being sung by Christ the singer.
Christ the singer.
Who sang a hymn in the Garden of Gethsemene, who sang Psalm 22 from the cross, who sang a new creation into being when he rose from the dead.
Blessed Cecilia appear in visions to all musicians, appeal and implore,
That their gift, enlightening, may be shared for the brightening
of Hearts and souls from shore to shore,
At music entrancing, the angels dancing,
Lift up the praises of mortals on earth-
That the Church may sing her song, once again,
To God’s glory alone, Amen, and Amen.
Watch our Celebration of Music for St Cecelia:
Beginnings and Endings… – Reverend Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor
Sermon Preached at Evensong on the Second Sunday before Advent
By Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor
Readings: Psalm 89:20-40, 1 Kings 1:15-40, Revelation 1:4-18
Beginnings and Endings…
Beginnings and Endings are important. A strong beginning signifies a new start. A good ending, brings a chapter to a close drawing a curtain on the past. We like our beginnings and our endings, our fresh starts, our certainty, our neat completions, our clean lines and our sharp decisive finishes. From the profound: birth, death; to the less profound: a decent novel, a good film, an opening motif or perfect cadence, how we begin and end each day.
This past year, we have all been deprived of our beginnings and endings, it feels like we have all been living in an indistinguishable and broken middle. There have been no clean finishes or fresh starts, everything is somehow wrestling with time itself and grappling for certitude and this sense of ambiguity in our lives has brought with it anxiety and fear. We all sense it, we all see it, in our homes, our workplaces, our society, our world.
Many have been deprived of saying a final goodbye to a loved one, many have lost the chance to celebrate a new life or a new start. We have all experienced this loss and ambiguity to a greater or lesser extent, we are all somewhere in the middle looking for a conclusion, for an answer. In the past week, we have seen messy endings in politics, as people cling to power or try to regain it, and we have seen the despair of doctors and nurses who feel as if their shift will never come to an end.
News of a positive vaccine trial gives us hope, but will it come soon enough to mean that we can do this, or that… ‘When will things get back to normal?’, ‘When we can we begin again?’, we might shout into the sky.
Into this messy, and imperfect reality Christ speaks to us from beyond time, where beginnings and endings are subsumed into one equal eternity. We hear his voice: Do not be afraid, he says, I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead and see I am alive for ever. So, let me be your hope, let me hold together the broken middle, let me be your beginning and your end each and every day.
In Christ, our human beginnings and endings are subverted and unexpected – in him there are no easy starts or neat finishes but there is a promise that he will be with us through every moment, God with us forever, in all things, through all things, both waking and sleeping.
For the Church, all this comes to life in the season of Advent, the beginning of the church’s year, when the cradle of new life is foreshadowed with end times, and final judgement echoes the birth of baby in Bethlehem. Beginnings and endings collide into one and the line between them is as thin as the thread between heaven and earth.
Whether we measure our time in days or millennia, we wait with patience and hope in the broken and awkward middle; we sit with the unresolved chords of our lives knowing that all will be one day resolved but not perhaps as we expect. Between our waking and our sleeping each day, Christ alone is the one in whom all our beginnings and endings make sense, and he says to us, Do not be afraid. We somehow hold together the tensions of this present time in his strength.
We are always being invited to begin our encounter with Christ again and again, our Alpha and Omega. We are invited by God in Christ, to seek his presence at every opportunity until all fear is taken away, until we are no longer defined by how we start or how we finish, but only by Christ in our midst, before whom we will stand at the final perfect ‘Amen’ which rings out from above, and lasts for all eternity.
Let us pray
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity: in the habitations of thy majesty and glory, world without end. Amen.
Shards of glass, broken and scattered: A reflection for Remembrance 2020
The village of Youlgreave in Derbyshire lies in a typical Peak District setting. Some of you may know it. A few miles outside Bakewell, quite high up, it catches the early winter weather on all sides.
Once thriving on agriculture, its main industry now is tourism. At its heart sits an impressive church – with a tower that dominates the village.
Inside the church there is also something quite striking. As you wander about looking at many of its fine ancient features, you are suddenly brought up short by a window that looks surprisingly modern: almost as if it’s abstract art.
It’s a window full of colour, but it portrays no image. The glass is pleasing to the eye, but each bit looks as though it belongs somewhere else.
And as you look down, the inscription explains how something so strange has come to be set in an ancient, sleepy, Derbyshire village church. It reads as follows:
‘In memory of Captain Thomas Crompton Waterhouse,
born 1890 killed in action in advance into Gallipoli 1915.’
And further on:
‘This glass was salved from Ypres cathedral and other
churches by his brother between 1914 and 1915.’
Shards of glass, broken and scattered by bombing, were hidden away by Thomas’ brother, brought back to England, and set in their parish church after the war.
In a striking way the window represents so much that was broken and changed by the First World War.
It was a war that had consequences throughout the last century.
It changed the map of the world as Germany lost her overseas territories.
It was the beginning of the modern age, with aircraft and tanks used in warfare for the first time.
And for a generation of poets it brought home the full horror of what the modern age could bring: cavalry riding against machine guns – soldiers stuck in sodden trenches.
At this time of year it is always moving to hear those speaking who fought in these terrible wars. Sometimes it’s in archive recordings of those – like Captain Waterhouse – whose world was changed forever.
A few years ago I remember hearing one of our oldest poppy sellers speaking.
Ernest Carr, then 101 years old, talked with clarity and emotion about his role in WWII and his reflections in older age of the lives he took as he did his duty.
It is a telling reminder of the shadow of war, echoing down the decades long past the events themselves.
It is clear that the pain of war – of so many who didn’t live beyond their 20s – still haunts these men.
A generation was lost, and they speak to us like survivors of an ancient catastrophe which they narrowly escaped. Sorrow, pride, guilt and anger, all mixed together in the potent emotions they express.
The stillness of a peak district church on a winter morning seems a million miles away from the trenches and the modern world which that war ushered in. And the wisdom of Captain Waterhouse’s brother should not be ignored.
He brought those precious fragments from the ruin of France to remind his neighbours of the terrible destruction of warfare – not only in single lives but also the fabric of our communities. Our churches, monuments and homes.
But he was also saying that we shouldn’t lose hope. We may not be able to turn the clock back but, if we pick up the pieces and persevere, there is the chance to turn destruction into something for good.
If nothing else, the memory of that war – and all wars since – should re-double our efforts to live in peace whenever, and wherever, possible. The innocent always suffer – no matter how hard we try to avoid it.
Look at Syria.
The history of a land and its people is changed. And places that have served as churches for many generations can be reduced to rubble in a day. War is a very blunt tool with which to resolve the problems of the world.
So today, as we remember those who have lost their lives in warfare, let us also pray that the young people of this generation are never asked to stand in that place again at so great a cost.
And let us pray for all who seek peace – and those who gather up what remains after the devastation of war, and strive to build it into something precious, new and enduring.
Weeping over the Grave, we make our Song – Reverend Canon Vicky Johnson (Precentor)
A Sermon preached at the service for the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, on All Souls day, 2nd November 2020 by the Precentor Canon Victoria Johnson
Title: Weeping over the Grave, we make our Song.
There is something defiant about being a Christian. We are subversives. We are radicals. In a world where many argue that we are made to be purely functional, rational, material beings, we believe there is something more. We are marked with the sign of the cross at our baptism which brings hope out of defeat and life from death. In a world often devoid of hope, we live in hope- open to possibilities which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, open to new life emerging from a stone cold tomb, however impossible that may seem.
Christian hope is not naïve. We are not delusional. Christian hope is not a quick win- it is not always the consolation we expect it to be- it does not immunize us against pain or sorrow or death. Our hope does not make loss any easier. Christians are not blind to the realities of mourning and loss and loneliness.
But despite all this, against all this – there is something that makes us hold on, through doubt and fear, to the promise that we have been given. We hold on to a living hope- the promise of eternal life, a life beyond this- the promise of a love which overcomes all things, bears all things, hopes all things, and endures all things and cries out in defiance- where O death is your sting? Where is your victory?
We hold on to a living hope -a promise that this is not the end- life and love are somehow impossibly, defiantly, victorious -refusing to be extinguished, crossing over the great chasm of death, so that nothing is lost. We hold on to a living hope that through Christ all will be raised up on the last day.
The words of the Russian Contakion of the departed, a gift from the Eastern Church, are often read, or sung at funeral services. They are echoed in the prayer before our act of commemoration today:
Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more; neither sighing but life everlasting.
“Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”
All we go down to the dust;
and weeping o’er the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Whether the wound of grief is raw or whether it has healed over but leaves a painful scar- These words convey the reality, that it is through tears that we make our song at the graveside, but we make that song nonetheless. That song is strangely not a lament- through our tears we are called sing the most joyful word that a human being can express- Alleluia- Alleluia we sing, defiantly, subversively, hopefully.
We are here this evening to remember to sing Alleluia through our tears and lift our eyes in hope towards Christ himself. Though we are dust and to dust we shall return, we know that we are also drawn beyond this earth. As Christians we own our mortality, but we believe that there is more. We believe that nothing is lost to Christ, and he will gather all things to himself, to raise them up on the last day.
We can see that there is light despite the darkness, we can accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope, we can sing Alleluia and while weeping make our song over the grave- In God’s power alone we are given strength to leave our loved ones to rest in his eternal embrace as light perpetual shines upon them, so that we might live each day in hope, sustained by the love of God in Jesus Christ which never ends, which spans heaven and earth.
For us, death does not have the last word- it is not the final full stop.
In the grammar of the church, in this service- through music, through scripture, through the sacrament, under the light of the paschal candle and by the reading of names in prayer, we stand firm in the new birth of our living hope. We believe incredibly, miraculously, defiantly that Christ is the Resurrection and the life, and through him we may have life in his name, as our loved ones rest in his peace, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting, for they have been raised up on the last day. Alleluia.
All you Saints of God, pray for us – Reverend Canon Vicky Johnson (Precentor)
A Sermon for the Feast of All Saints, preached at York Minster by the Precentor, Canon Victoria Johnson
Title: All you Saints of God, pray for us.
Someone once said that a Saint, ‘is a person who lets the light of Christ shine through their lives’. Lives which, as we look back upon them, help us see the world through the eyes of faith, and give us a glimpse of the glory of God.
We have witnessed just a year or so ago the saint-making of John Henry Newman, a 19th Century priest, writer, and theologian from Birmingham, our newest English Saint. It was in fact, he who said that ‘a Saint, is a person who lets the light of Christ shine through their lives’. In Newman, we can almost touch one of the great cloud of witnesses that surround our steps as we journey on.
Even more recently, you may have read about the British born, Italian teenager from Assisi, Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 when he was just 15. Since his death-Carlo has been beatified for his saintly life- which involved coding for catholic education websites, helping the poor and homeless and worshipping God. His body is to be found preserved under the altar of St Francis Basilica, he is wearing Nike trainers, a red T-shirt and a tracksuit.
I can’t help thinking that the three Christians killed in Nice this past week are now numbered with the Saints in light. Vincent Loquès, the churchwarden, Nadine Devillers, life-long worshipper, Simone Barreto Silva, careworker who ran to get help and died from her injury’s, but not before she had said ‘tell my children I love them’. There are also the saints with whom we might be more familiar- Blessed Mary, Peter the Apostle, Paulinus, Alcuin, William of York, the hosts of northern Saints: Wilfred, Oswald, Aidan, Hilda, William Wilberforce, Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, and on and on the list could go, at least one saint for every single day of the year. We are literally surrounded, if we only have eyes to see them. All you Saints of God, pray for us.
So what is a Saint? A saint is a person whose life and death point towards Christ And embody in their own lives the cross and resurrection –they will have known the pain and suffering that living a life in Christ can bring, they will have had their own journey to the cross, their own passion, but they will also have known that Christ gives joy and life in abundance; in all that they did, their lives will also point to the hope of the Resurrection and the glory and grace of God.
Every Saint is a window into the mystical body of Christ- which is the company of all faithful people, living and departed. They lead us into community, into a great company, from every tribe and language and nation, a great cloud of witnesses who worship God night and day, praying without ceasing, praying for us -their brothers and sisters in faith here on earth- and oh, how we need their prayers today. All you Saints of God, pray for us.
As we set our faces to enter into this next phase of the pandemic, we will all be facing our own ‘ordeals’ to a greater or lesser extent, we are being tested, individually, locally, nationally, globally, we face fracture, discord, brokenness, confusion, we might feel not only deflated and tired, but also as if our world is crashing down around us- but as Christian’s what is our hope?
Our hope is in the God who loved the world so much he gave his only Son, who showed us the Father’s love that we might not perish but have life everlasting, the Son who took upon him our sorrows as we nailed him to the cross, who journeyed to the depths of hell to wake the dead, and rose again through the power of the resurrection to bring new life, and new hope and new love to the whole of creation. Our hope is in the one who created a community of life, filled with his Spirit which we call the church- flawed and fallible on earth but shot through with the glory of God and made one with the church of heaven, those saints in light who endured to the end, who worship with us now, who assist our song and pray for us without ceasing, every day, every hour, every minute.
They too lived in this hope, they died in this faith, they have gone to glory and now they worship with us, and for us. We are not alone in all this. Their lives remind us of where we have come from, who we are, what we believe, and what we can become, they point to light in times of darkness, hope from despair and new beginnings from all that seems lost. They are promise and fulfilment and they hold us in their prayers.
All you saints of God, pray for us, we can be assured on this day of all days, that they have been, they are, and they will be praying for us, now and to the end of the ages. Amen.
Bible Sunday 2020 – Reverend Canon Maggie McLean (Missioner)
Bible Sunday 2020
I imagine that many of us can recall instant details about some parts of the Bible. If I say ‘Our Father’ you know the words that follow. If I ask you – ‘tell me about the Good Samaritan’ – you will be able to summarise the story.
Today is Bible Sunday, a moment in the year when the Church celebrates the importance of Scripture. We all know some of what’s in it; and none of us knows everything that’s in it. If you like, we have a landscape that combines familiarity with hidden surprise.
The Bible is one of those core elements of the Christian faith which draws the Church together. The books we hold in common with other Christians enable us to feed our faith and deepen our understanding of God. Of course, those same words have been a point of disagreement between Christians. How we read the Bible matters at least as much as the words on the page in front of us.
Perhaps, sometimes, we become over-familiar with some of the passages in the Bible. As I said a moment ago, the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer elicits a response almost without thought. The words can be engrained in our lives and emerge before we know it. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. Having key words of Scripture to hand, without the need of a book, has helped Christians in difficult circumstances down the centuries.
However, we can all benefit from things which give us fresh insight. Things that disturb the familiarity of well-word texts.
Sometimes a different perspective can come from travel. Visiting Tanzania I saw familiar passages in new ways. Visiting a well to draw water wasn’t some remote event but a part of daily life. It was only in Africa that I appreciated quite how similar sheep and goats can appear – but I soon learned that the tell-tale difference was, in fact, the tail. Up for goats – down for sheep.
In a similar way, visiting the Holy Land, places with familiar names suddenly had a shape and a character. The position of Lake Galilee can invite stormy conditions that seem to come out of nowhere. At one moment placid waters can be stirred up when small boats can get into difficulty.
But it’s not only travel that can help us see the familiar with new insight. Thankfully the Church has always had good teachers who can help us see fresh ideas among familiar words. Many years ago ,I went to a conference and came across someone for the first time. Not someone I’d heard of before, but her presentation had the delegates enthralled. This was Paula Gooder, now recognised as one of the leading Biblical scholars of our generation.
I’m delighted to say that Paula will be one of four people sharing online reflections here at the Minster during Advent. In these sessions we’ll be looking at an aspect of Scripture which many people find challenging. Linked to sections of our Great East Window, the themes will reflect Advent and come with the title ‘Apocalypse Now (And then)’.
In the strange times we are in, these Advent reflections will connect our age to the time the window was created. The idea of Apocalypse occurs at many points in the Bible and today’s Gospel reading touches on the end times:
“he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call,
and they will gather his elect from the four winds”
Experience changes us and, as we change, we read the Bible with new insights. At a time when so much we took for granted is being brought into question, apocalyptic sayings and passages can be read in new ways. We may not be travelling to new places, but the places we know seem to have changed. As we live with new rules and restrictions the familiar has been made strange. How do we sing (or not sing) the Lord’s song in this new landscape?
I hope that our excellent collection of speakers will help us relate the words of the Bible to the realities we face today. Ultimately that’s the basic task of every Christian – to search the pages of Scripture to learn what God is saying to us today. How God is leading us to live ever more faithful lives.
Today we are invited to read, mark and digest the words given to us in the Bible. I hope that we each feel the desire to do that, and to continue a journey of discover which has rewarded Christians across the centuries.
Peter said to Jesus: ““Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”