Words in a Particular Order

The Priesthood of All Believers (RIP John Stott)

2012-01-15T11:00:00.002Z

“You have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God.” (Rev 5.10)

1 Samuel 3.1-10; Revelation 5.1-10; John 1.43-end

I was in a packed St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday morning - they were queuing before 8am – for the memorial service for John Stott, the long time Rector and Rector Emeritus of All Souls Langham Place. Both English Archbishops and our own Bishop were there as well as a host of other Archbishops and Bishops from around the world.

John was a remarkable, humble and faithful pastor, Bible scholar, mentor and friend. His simple life of study and prayer, preaching, writing and discipling, helped shape the face of 20th century evangelicalism in Britain and around the world.

It was a long service and as I sat watching the congregation and various participants, it was fascinating to see that while most of the overseas Anglicans wore clerical collars, most of the English Evangelical Anglicans did not.

And I reflected on the differing understandings of priesthood that have ebbed and flowed during the 60 years of John Stott’s ministry.

In the 70s and 80s, many churches used to have those big sign boards outside with a text or a little thought for the week painted on in dayglow colours.

“Don't let worry drive you to despair - let the church help.”

Some of them were quite witty, but all of them were subject to additions by anyone with a spray can.

So “The meek shall inherit the earth” had added underneath - “if that’s alright by you?”

And someone had supplemented the rather hopeful: “Are you tired of sin? Then come inside.” with “If not, phone Bayswater 7328!”

But I remember it was an Anglican Church in the vanguard of the charismatic movement which had the usual more discreet sign outside, which said: Vicar: The Revd So-and-so; Ministers: the whole congregation.

So what is the distinction between laity and priests, and why does our text from Revelation tell us that all believers are priests to our God?

I first began reading John Stott in the 1960s - a time when all distinctions of persons were being swept away and so it is hardly surprising that Vatican II addressed what was seen as the problem of clericalism - nothing could happen without a priest. Priests were to become just ordinary chaps! Nuns would knit their own cardies and wear sensible shoes.

I think it was that great 60s theologian Spike Milligan who said: “never trust a priest who wears a rollneck sweater and says ‘call me Ken’”.

The Vatican II document Ulterior temporibus in 1967, while recognising the increasing role of the laity still maintained that priestly ministry is ‘distinct from the common priesthood of all the faithful... in essence and not merely in degree.’

Many of my low church Anglican colleagues would disagree with this Vatican II distinction between ministry and priesthood.

They might rather agree with the famous Church of England evangelical WH Griffiths Thomas, who was very influential at the beginning of the 20th Century and sometime Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

He said: “Christianity is a religion that is a priesthood and not one that has a priesthood.” This was seen as a strong part of Prayer Book, Reformation faith for many evangelicals.

John Stott was always more measured and biblical. Here he is in his commentary on the Ephesians:

“The New Testament concept of the pastor is not of a person who jealously guards all ministry in his own hands, and successfully squashes all lay initiatives, but of one who helps and encourages all God’s people to discover, develop and exercise their gifts. His teaching and training are directed to this end, to enable the people of God to be a servant people, ministering actively but humbly according to their gifts in a world of alienation and pain. Thus, instead of monopolizing all ministry himself, he actually multiplies ministries.”

There is still a fierce debate that divides the Christian church: is priesthood a matter of ontology (essence); or function? Does ordination change the very being of a priest, or does it just set a person apart for a particular ministry within the church order?

Well, however we view priesthood, clergy both model and mirror the priesthood of all believers or the priesthood of all the baptized as it is often stated.

We are all disciples, and we are all called like Samuel to listen to the call of God, and like Philip and Nathanael, to follow Jesus as loving disciples.

John Stott was once in a debate about the media with Malcolm Muggeridge. These were Muggeridge’s days of fervent faith when he had no time for the media and declared it rotten to the core.

John Stott rounded on him and said you don’t blame the meat when it goes rotten, you blame the salt for not doing its job.

Stott was convinced that unless Christians took their faith and discipleship into their spheres of work, then they were failing in their Gospel calling as salt of the earth.

And he didn’t mean setting up prayer meetings or Bible studies at work – not that I’m against those. He meant that Christians should think hard and biblically about the decisions they make at work and in whatever area of life God has called us to be salt and light.

And so the task of the priest and preacher is to help the faithful to reflect on their manner of living and working. And to live out their calling – for as Christians we all have a calling – to live that out with integrity and in such as way as is honouring to Christ.

Religious faith became very internalised in the last half of the twentieth century – it was all a matter of private belief. Many of my generation and older find it very strange when Christians assert that what they believe is a public truth. That the transcendent God has revealed himself to us in Christ, and that we are all called to respond.

Of course many will choose not to believe or respond and that is their absolute right. But any religion worth its salt must proclaim what it believes publicly and bring its contribution to all debates in the public square.

It was this sense of public ministry that fired the new democracies that sprang out of the Reformation in Europe. People realised that it was not just for clerics and the aristocracy to be civic leaders, but all Christians were called to serve their society - for the common good and not just for their own good.

Last Sunday I was worshipping in Miami Cathedral, and at the end of a very challenging sermon the preacher turned to the organist and said ‘thank you Matthew’ and launched into a song.

It was a moment of deep culture shock for me!

Well I will not be launching into a reworking of

I am the very model of a modern Vicar General
I’ve information biblical, synodical and clerical…

But without a song and dance, and in that very understated English way that was the manner of John Stott,

I urge you to take your Christian faith seriously in every aspect of your life and public service,

So that the prayer of the Elders might be true of all of us…

“You have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God.” (Rev 5.10)

Emmanuel - God is with us - Christmas Day

2011-12-25T11:00:00.000Z

Emmanuel

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23

I’ve just moved flat and seriously ‘downsized’. It meant getting rid of about 4,000 books to various good homes, and of course you begin to look at them once you start bidding them farewell.

And so it was that last night I found myself reading The House at Pooh Corner, the Latin version of course, Domus Anguli Puensis.

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…”

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent upon others.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity.

Then in his incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas, God became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk. The little boy, Jesus, needed Mary to be there, to hold his hand.

As a grown man too Jesus needed companionship and had many friends: men, women and children.

He had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus through the ups and downs of his ministry.

And there at the end of his short life in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there”.

And some were there at his crucifixion: his best friend John, and his mother Mary, who had bought him into the world in that stable in Bethlehem.

So now, physically, he is with us on this planet no more. No hand to hold. But there is an even profounder reality of God’s continuing companionship. For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he lived here and shared our joys and sorrows; he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

Sometimes at Christmas, they show that wonderful animated version of Oscar Wilde’s lovely story, The Selfish Giant. The Giant has been taught to share his garden with all the local children by the appearance of a mysterious little boy at a very low ebb in his life.

But although he searches for this child among the children throughout the rest of his long life, he never finds him, until one day he sees him in a tree in his garden.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?"

For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

By being among us Jesus has also taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for – another theme of Christmas and our compassion for the poor and needy.
This means that all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us, being there.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is there with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies.

So the end of Matthew’s Gospel re-echos the beginning. He reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel; he’s there, here, with us.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

We started with the boy Christopher Robin, thought about the boy Jesus, and I end with a lesson from another little boy.

A while back I was in Stockholm with my good friends Stefan and Helena and their little boy Einar. We were in a flat he’d never been in before and at one point his parents left the room with our host.

He looked at me, said something in Swedish, then remembered I was that poor simple man who didn’t understand anything anyone said. So he came over, put his thumb in his mouth, and reached up and held my hand. Just checking I was there.

I hope you have a very happy Christmas, and a deepening sense in your life of the continual and reassuring presence of God.

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."

Advent Hope (Advent 2)

2011-12-04T22:36:00.006Z

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope." Romans 15.13 (Readings Is 40.1-11; 2 Peter 3.8-15a; Mark 1.1-8)

As a young boy growing up in the 1950s, Christmas night was always one of the most tantalising and frustrating. It was so near to Christmas day and yet not Christmas Day. The anticipation was amplified by the fact that Christmas Day is my birthday as well.

And although the presents were only going to be a torch and a dinky toy and a Rupert Annual – all labelled ‘for birthday and Christmas’ – the wait was nearly unbearable,

Throughout those dark December Advent days, I felt like the children in CS Lewis’s Narnia, where it was always winter but never Christmas. I would fall asleep on Christmas night, exhausted by hope.

For many children, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day still testify to the truth of the Proverb (13.12)

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Of course since the 1950s we’ve moved on. Increased standards of living and credit cards have taken ‘the waiting out of wanting’ – that infamous Access Card slogan of the 1970s.

And even more recently we have seen how ‘Looting takes the waiting out of wanting’. (Bricolage, 2009)

And all this means that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a good Advent; to defer Christmas till Christmas Day.

Hope is one of the three theological virtues, as they are called: faith, hope and charity.

And hope is of the essence of our Christian faith.

The Sundays of Advent, are all waiting-in-hope Sundays. We have closed the curtain on the annual drama of the liturgical year, and start again, preparing, waiting, hoping, for the long-expected Jesus.

And it is no accident that Advent coincides with the run-up to the darkest day of the year, the winter solstice - in the bleak mid winter.

We live in hope that the winter will pass; the light will come back; spring will return.

This is at the heart of God’s message to Isaiah: ‘Comfort, O comfort my people.’

Isaiah was to give fresh hope to the Israelites in exile in Babylon, weeping by the waters, losing hope that they would ever return to rebuild Jerusalem.

He’s to comfort them, stir them up. The word originally means ‘to give great strength to’.

So you remember in the Bayeux Tapestry, that 230 foot picture which tells of everything leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 – there’s a section with the caption “Harold comforteth his troops” - the picture shows him jabbing a spear into a soldier’s backside.

He is comforting them, giving them great strength, encouraging them.

Similarly in the collect today ‘with your great might succour us’. Again literally, ‘run up to us’.

This is the ministry of comforting, of reviving hope.

John Watson was a great Scottish preacher of the second half of the 19th century. He was the product of a Highland Jacobite, Roman Catholic mother, and a strict Free Church father. Shortly before he died in 1907 he told friends: ‘If I had to begin my ministry again, I would preach more comforting sermons.’

Why do we lose hope and need so much comforting?

Three reasons strike us from today’s readings.

Firstly, our thinking is often too short-term. So Peter has to remind the church in his letter ‘that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.’ Jesus had said he would return again – so where was he? Where is he?

It was the American screenwriter Ben Hecht who said: “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second-hand of a clock.”

Waiting, the weeks of Advent, seem dull and negative. Why can’t we cut to the chase?

I always find that little comparison about the age of the earth a healthy way of keeping my historical perspective.

If the 6 billion years of planet earth’s existence were put on a 24 hour clock, then humankind appeared on the planet less than a second ago.

Hope requires a long-term vision.

Secondly, people lack hope because of their personality. Some of us are optimists and some pessimists.

You probably know the story of the brother who was a pessimist and his sister who was an optimist.

Just to see what would happen, on Christmas Eve their father loaded the boy’s room with every imaginable toy and game while he filled the sisters room with horse manure.

On Christmas morning he found the boy sitting amid his mountain of new gifts, wailing:
“I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff. I'll constantly need batteries. My friends will be jealous and my toys will all eventually get broken."

Next door, the father found his daughter dancing for joy in the pile of manure and shouting, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

Most of the prophets were pessimists, and often depressives. When the Lord gives Isaiah this upbeat message, what does Isaiah want to cry?

“All flesh is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it.”

It’s another reason why we need each other to counterbalance either excessive pessimism, or naïve optimism.

And a third reason why people lack hope is because they don’t know, or won’t see all the facts.

John the Baptist was a prophet and therefore given to pessimism and depression. He recognises Jesus as the Messiah, and yet in the depths of his despair before his own death he sends his disciples to ask Jesus: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

We need to understand our world and our personal situation so that we can be realists about life.
The hope that we try to nurture during this waiting period of Advent, is the hope that should comfort us in all the ups and downs of our daily lives.

We know that ‘hope’ does not usually mean getting what you want. The illness doesn’t go away, we do lose our job, the loved one does die. Yet despite what happens, life and hope go on.

Did you hear photographer Giles Dules on Richard Coles’ Saturday Live yesterday? He lost both legs and an arm earlier this year in Afghanistan and said how he felt he was in a better place now than he was a year ago. That’s the product of hope!

And that is why in this Advent season Christ’s first coming as a baby is always set against the backcloth of his second coming in glory. Wars have not yet ceased and we have not beaten our swords into ploughshares. But we live and work in hope, not just of outcomes in this life, but of all that is yet to be in God, now and forever.

There’s a poem by Sheena Pugh which expresses this advent hope of waiting and watching expectantly through all the changing scenes of life. It’s called Sometimes.

Sometimes

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

Sheena Pugh (b.1950)

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope." Romans 15.13

Review - Think, John Piper

2011-11-19T14:33:00.002Z

Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God

Author John Piper

IVP, £8.99

978-1-84474-488-6

This is more an insight into the American evangelical psyche than a book about thinking. There have been some notable other books addressing this topic over the past 50 years and indeed Piper helpfully lists some of the evangelical ones in contradistinction to his own. So his book is "less historical than Mark Noll's Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, less punchy than Os Guinness's Fit Bodies Fat Minds, less philosophical than J P Moreland's Love Your God with All Your Mind, less vocational than James Sire's Habits of the Mind and less cultural than Gene Veith's Loving God with All Your Mind."

So what is Piper's book 'more of' than these or say Harry Blamire's classic The Christian Mind? Well, much more of Scripture. And much more of the 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards with nothing of Hooker, Lewis or Pinker. It was a disappointing read for me, rehearsing old arguments that still seem to preoccupy much of North American evangelicalism. I liked Anna Moyle’s comment in her Amazon review; “Piper has a tendency throughout the book to get caught up in stale agendas and arguments… He thus devotes two entire chapters to the subject of relativism, which could have been better used to write positively about the rise of scholarship within the Christian community in the past few decades.”

There is a chapter on the meaning of ‘thinking’ where Piper explains that his main understanding of it is “working hard with our minds to figure out meaning from texts.” There are chapters on rationality and three chapters combatting anti-intellectualism. And he concludes by commending a humble attitude to Christian knowledge that will result in love of God and Man. It is a triumph of the cataphatic over the apophatic; of statements of faith and two sentence positions on abortion, divorce and homosexuality; with little of the struggle of faith seeking understanding, of acknowledging our limited rational powers before the Divine Mind. There is scant room for mystery or bewilderment and consequently not much engagement with how to work alongside other Christians who also ‘think’ but who come to very different conclusions about so many things.

Piper writes well and although I suppose he does set out with an admittedly limited agenda, this probably made better sermon material than a book. My guess is that the people who will benefit most from reading this book are not reading this review.

Published in the Church Times on 4th November 2011

Be Prepared! (3rd before Advent)

2011-11-06T11:00:00.001Z

“But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Cor 2.16

1896 was an interesting year. The first ‘modern’ Olympic Games were held in Athens. Blackpool pleasure beach was opened. Queen Victoria became the longest reigning monarch. The speed limit was raised from 4 to 14 mph.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward Benson, died suddenly in church in Wales. Now he, his six children and wife could be the subject of a whole series of sermons.

Here at St Paul’s, the statue of the Virgin and Child was added above the Chapel of St Luke.

And in America, Charles Sheldon, a Christian socialist, wrote a novel called ‘In His Steps’. It was subtitled, ‘What would Jesus Do?’ It was hugely popular and translated into 21 languages by 1935. As recently as 2010, there was a film, WWJD, based on the book.

I remember in the 1990 when the bracelets with WWJD on them began to appear in the theological college where I taught. Some of the more reformed students also wore the answer to the question – WWJD? – it was FROG – fully rely on God.

FROG bracelets, despite the name, never really took off.

And then came all the spoof badges and bracelets.

WWCD – what would Cliff do? That’s Cliff Richard. Or what would Arnie do? - if that was more of your take on life.

And now, in the thousands of headline pictures and comments on the St Paul’s Cathedral débâcle, there’s that poster again – What Would Jesus Do?

Of course, through the century or so that this challenging little aphorism has been used, it has generally been employed by those who already know the answer to what Jesus would do in this or that particular moral situation, and it tends to be what they would do.

Jesus is just dragged in as a way of re-enforcing some particular message and trying to make any of us who disagree with them feel guilty.

We don’t know what Jesus would do, although if the Gospels are anything to go by, he would probably do nothing that anyone was expecting him to do.

This takes us back to our text. How do we know the mind of Christ as St Paul asserts we do?

Well the first thing to notice is that it is ‘we’ have the mind of Christ. Not ‘I’ have the mind of Christ.

It is to do with the corporate accumulation of Judaeo Christian wisdom and experience, extoled in today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom.

We celebrated Richard Hooker in the church calendar last week, the great 16th century Anglican theologian who gave us the three legged stool model of wisdom.

So we approach situations with the Scriptures, the traditions of the church and our God-given gift of reasoning.

This is what St Paul did. It isn’t easy, and it leads to a degree of messiness and latitude, but it helps us to move forward and in some senses, know the mind of Christ.

Let’s turn to the bridesmaids in today’s Gospel (Matthew 25.1-13). I must avoid the classical parson’s rhetoric here, based on the Authorized Version of course: “will you stay awake with the wise virgins, or will you sleep with the foolish virgins?”

Although, unlike the incident of Jesus with his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, this is not about staying awake. Both sets of women fall asleep.

Rather it is about being prepared when they awoke. (Luke's final phrase, 'keep awake' (25.13) can be translated 'be prepared'.)

Only the five wise bridesmaids had thought to bring extra oil in case the bridegroom was delayed for a long time.

Like most of Jesus’ parables, this one has a slightly puzzling edge to it.

There would be a good argument for the wise women being generous with the poor women who had not thought to bring extra fuel. They could share it out a little, and would it matter if one or two lamps eventually went out?

Although I’m generally against trying to work in too many levels of symbolism or allegory within a parable, it is unavoidable here.

The oil and the light that it produces, represent the accumulated experience and wisdom of life - the light that Jesus tells us we must not hide under a pot.

The women were wise, not because they brought extra oil, but rather, they brought extra oil because they were wise.

And this oil, this wisdom, this accumulated common sense of life, can’t be given to another in a ‘moment’ – poured into their empty vessel.

There are no quick and infallible ways of knowing what Jesus would do, knowing the mind of Christ.

In other words Jesus is saying, there is no way in which the foolish guests could be given insight into life by cadging wisdom from the wise. It is a lifetime’s work.

The early Christians expected the return of Jesus at any time – an Advent theme we will take up in coming weeks – but his return would be delayed till an indeterminate midnight.

So the constant encouragement to the disciples to be vigilant, to stay alert, to be prepared – was indicating a manner of living.

Live to make each day count – carpe diem – grasp the day.

The unexamined life is not worth living, as Plato observed.

So reflect on your life and experiences, in prayer, with other fellow travellers, through reading and conversation.

Then you will have oil and enough to keep your light burning and as you do that, then you will also be passing on your accumulated wisdom to family and friends, little by little, and to all the pilgrims you meet along the way.

Being ready for whatever life brings us, and in the end, being ready for death, is only achieved by a lifetime’s experience and wisdom.

What would Jesus do? We don’t know.

But together, as the Body of Christ, we have the mind of Christ, and we walk in faith, believing that the church is a presence for good in our world, despite its mistakes and weaknesses.

We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.
Though we are many we are one body, because we all share in one bread.

And as we do that, day by day, we can trust that, with Paul, the saints and all our brothers and sisters,

“we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Cor 2.16

Baptism - Easter 5

2011-05-22T08:30:00.002+01:00

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.”

(1 Peter 2.2)

Well I’m sorry if you had hoped for the end of the world last night at 6pm. Although I did wait to prepare my sermon till after 6pm - you wouldn’t want to waste all that preparation would you.

I sent a brief facebook message of consolation to the American Baptist, Harold Camping, who predicted with such certainty that yesterday would be Doomsday.

It just said, ‘Never mind Harold. It’s not the end of the world.’

Not all American Baptists are like Harold.

My first baptism in an American Southern Baptist church was a revelation. No unseemly dunking and splashing for them, like English Baptists. The candidate held a cloth over their nose and mouth and was very gracefully and slowly eased back under the water as the lights dimmed and the organ played seraphic music.

The pastor of the church explained to me that, as baptism represented being buried with Christ, it was more appropriate to lower the candidate lovingly into the water, the grave, rather than to follow the English Baptists who appeared to throw them into it.

Of course babies were baptised by total immersion for many centuries in the worldwide church and still are in some parts of the church.

The normal procedure in the Book of Common Prayer, given in the rubric says:

(If [the parents] shall certify the priest that the Child may well endure it), he shall dip it in the water discreetly and warily… But if they certify that the child is weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it…

Well baby Cyr may be strong as an ox, but Fr Alan will be pouring and not dipping.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that baptism by immersion is a very dramatic re-enactment of the heart of our Christian faith.

The NT imagery of Baptism is of dying and rising in Christ; of being buried with him in death and reborn to a new life in his resurrection. This is why the language of the baptismal liturgy is so stark and uncompromising: ‘Do you reject? Do you turn? Darkness and light.’

Or in the words of 1 Peter which we read earlier and which were always read at early Christian baptisms:

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (I Peter 2.10)

And this is why traditionally we baptize during this Easter season in which we celebrate new life springing from the death of Good Friday; from the cold hard winter; from the empty tomb.

Baptism is also symbolic of the new life we dare to hope for, when, one day, we each pass through the uncertain waters of our own death.

Of course Stephen Hawkins, the physicist, caused a stir last week when he likened the human brain to a computer and added:

There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

In today’s Gospel, Thomas wrestles with this. How can anyone know what comes after death? How can we know where you’re going Jesus? (John 14.5)

Now I admire Stephen Hawkins at lots of levels and enjoy his writings. But please, don’t patronise millions of us by saying the afterlife ‘is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’

Say ‘I think it is a fairy story…’ by all means, but you don’t know Stephen, any more than Thomas the apostle did. You’re a scientist Stephen. You can’t prove it’s a fairy story any more than I can prove it’s true.

Whatever else we do or don’t believe in Christianity; however many doubts we have - and some of us are plagued by more of them than others –

This one, central, historical fact is more important than any other.

It is the crux of Christianity, and if it is true, it is the crux of human history – God raised Jesus from the dead, in a resurrection body.

The witness of Christian history is that it wasn’t just a ‘nice idea’ or a ‘fairy story’ that the disciples dreamed up because they were ‘afraid of the dark’.

If it was, then I think they would have abandoned it when they were faced with torture and death, as most of them were. Stephen, the first martyr that we read about in Acts earlier, might have decided not to have died horribly for a fairy story. It’s not proof, but it’s part of the evidence.

I’m with my brothers and sisters down through the centuries, who although they were often wracked with doubt, nevertheless chose to believe. If I didn’t believe – well I’d have better things to do with my time.

And as Jesus says to Thomas later in our Gospel, ‘happy are those who have not seen [what you have seen, Thomas] and yet believe” – that’s us!

But of course baptism is only a first step along the road to spiritual maturity.

Peter reminds us in this letter, that just as babies quite naturally crave for their mother’s milk, so we should continue to long for spiritual nourishment throughout our lives.

It’s nourishing our faith, not re-enforcing the fairy tale, which deepens our appreciation of life; and strengthens our hope that the love we enjoy within our family here today is something that endures beyond death.

We have all been given the gift of new life in our baptism. Do we pursue this spiritual life and feed it with these other sacraments of bread and wine? Or do we starve our spiritual life, until it simply withers away to religious sentimentality – a fairy tale?

Baptism is a reminder to all of us of our baptismal vows. It is a reminder that if we wish to live life fully, then we must live by the power of the risen Jesus and in loving, daily dependence upon him.

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.”

(1 Peter 2.2)

The Emmaus Road - Easter 3

2011-05-08T11:00:00.001+01:00

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?” Luke 24.32

You know what it’s like. You’re invited out to supper and you gladly agree and put the date of the Friday night in your diary.

But when that Friday comes, you’re exhausted. It’s the end of a long week. You just want to get home, open a bottle of wine and settle down to watch Coronation Street and CSI and wake up half way through newsnight.

The last thing you feel like doing is dressing up and getting back on an overcrowded tube train again.

But, you can’t get to supper without making a journey.

So in today’s Gospel, it’s Easter Sunday afternoon. It’s been a traumatic three days for these two disciples of Christ, Cleopas, and perhaps his wife, Mary. (Cf John 19.25)

But they can’t get home for supper without making a journey.

They are despondent, confused, disappointed and exhausted as they set out on the two-hour walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, hoping to arrive home before nightfall at about 7.

A stranger joins them on the road – nothing too surprising there. There’s safety in numbers on a dangerous road.

But he must be the only person in Jerusalem who seems to know nothing of the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the rumours which flew about this morning that some women had found the tomb of Jesus empty with angels telling them he was alive. Clearly they were deluded and confused.

So Jesus gives them a Bible study for an hour or two. He explains to them what Scripture says about the Messiah – about himself.

But they still don’t get it.

At last they reach Emmaus and Jesus looks as if he’s travelling on beyond the village. Cleopas and Mary are unwilling to see this stranger go off into the dangerous night and press him to stay for supper and sleep on the couch.

And then there’s the famous revelation; the subject of a thousand paintings, of sculptures and stained glass windows and the Caravaggio on the front of today’s Service Sheet.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight. (Luke 24.30f)

They met with Jesus in the breaking of bread. (Luke 24.35)

The breaking of the word, his explanation of the Scriptures, had not been enough. They had not understood it until his actions took them back to the scene in the upper room on Thursday a few days ago – his Last Supper. They had been talking with the other disciples about it all since his death on Friday.

For many people, doctrine and dogma and Bible verses are not enough. Indeed, they sometimes obscure the presence of Jesus. He is not recognised in them.

It is in the mystery of the Breaking of Bread that he is both recognised and disappears from our sight: the hiddenness of God; the Cloud of Unknowing; the believing and seeing and hoping; yet doubting and wondering where God is and why he seems so silent.

In our Anglo-Catholic tradition, we know that liturgy and music and symbols take us beyond words.

I am afraid to admit that I knew Pavlova as a tooth-pulling, meringue dessert long before I knew she was a ballerina. She died far too young some 20 years before I was born.

After one of Anna Pavlova’s great performances, one of her admirers, who had been moved to tears, asked her what the dance meant.

Pavlova replied simply, but profoundly: “If I could have said it, I wouldn’t have had to dance it.”

Today’s Gospel is about journeying, and those we meet along the way, and understanding what we have learned when we stop for supper.

CS Lewis has always been a great inspiration to me in the intellectual pursuit of God, faith seeking understanding in Anselm’s memorable phrase.

In the year that Anna Pavlova died, 1931, CS Lewis was on a journey with his brother Warnie, travelling pillion on his motorcycle to Whipsnade zoo.

In a now famous passage of his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis related his final step into real joy, for his intellectual conversion two years earlier had been a miserable affair and he described himself as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

This is how he describes the journey that was to change his life:

I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.

That journey to Whipsnade Zoo was Lewis's Emmaus Road.

Writer Terry Lindvall, in a fascinating article Joy and Sehnsucht: The Laughter and Longings of C.S. Lewis, explains Lewis's conversion like this:

C.S. Lewis was drawn into the kingdom of God by joy - by a taste of this blessed fruit and divine gift. Joy was the divine carrot that persuaded such a self-proclaimed donkey as Lewis to plod down the road toward Jerusalem. It was the soft, disturbing kiss of God that unmade all of Lewis's world. Joy compelled Lewis toward the resurrection laughter of Easter…

Early Christians were called the people of The Way. Even the fact that you have travelled to church today is a symbol that our meeting and understanding of Christ is in travelling as well as arriving.

For Christ is not only the destination, but he is the Way, the journey and our travelling companion helping us to understand all that has happened to us along the winding path of our life.

And sometimes, when we come to this supper; this breaking of bread; this opening of our eyes; this mass; we look back on the ups and the downs of our life journey so far, and although we did not recognise the presence of Jesus with us at the time perhaps, we can now reflect with those early disciples:

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?” Luke 24.32

Beyond the Law, 4 before Lent

2011-02-13T16:11:00.002Z

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matt 5.48

Fourth Sunday before Lent: Ecclesiasticus 15.15-end; Psalm 119.1-8; 1 Corinthians 3.1-9; Matthew 5.21-37

At face value, this is one of the most depressing verses in the Bible.

At the end of this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to his followers: “in short, just be perfect and as good as God is!”

Well that’s life sorted then! No more problems with doing anything wrong. Just got to be perfect.

This is right up there with saying to someone in the depths of depression: “come on, cheer up!”

Or to someone whose life is in a mess: “pull yourself together!”

Or to bolshie teenagers: “why don’t you just grow up!”

Here we are, struggling with sin and all the inconsistencies of our complicated lives and Jesus says: “just be as good as God is!”

When most of us feel like the man standing in church staring at the Ten Commandments on the Wall, muttering to himself: “well at least I haven’t coveted my neighbour’s ox…”

The Old Testament lesson from Ecclesiasticus and today’s Psalm and then all these Gospel commands of Jesus, leave us feeling guilty and hopeless.

But then again, chances are, we haven’t really understood what Jesus is saying.

Matthew gives us six antitheses in the middle of his version of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount: six parallel sets of statements; six pericopae which follow the pattern: “you have heard that it was said… but I say to you…”

Jesus is not ignoring the law and the commandments of the Old Testament, but he is moving us on beyond them, to the law of love, which underlies them.

And he uses hyperbole – a way of exaggerating, often in a figure of speech, which creates strong feelings and reactions. Most of us felt uncomfortable as we were listening to the Gospel I read earlier.

Let me quickly run through the six antitheses without lingering too long on any of them.

The first one identifies the root of murder as anger (vv21-26). So try not to belittle people by abusive language, says Jesus. And when you come to the altar where you receive the tokens of Christ’s love and forgiveness, remember that you are to try and forgive those who trespass against you!

Notice all the hyperbolic language. It’s not literal. It’s quite impractical. This is not about avoiding certain sorts of name-calling; and of course it would be madness to leave your offering – a pigeon, or young goat - at the altar, while you went off to try and patch things up with someone you’ve fallen out with; and it’s certainly not about who you should or shouldn’t take to court.

It’s about following the example of the love of Jesus. Trying to treat others as you would like to be treated – even your enemies as Jesus will say in the sixth antithesis. (vv 43-48)

I’m sure I told you about my friend Ed, who was a rugby blue who was converted in the university mission. A few days later we were walking to a Bible study when one of his rugby friends came up and said playfully: ‘so you’re a Christian now?’ Ed said ‘yes’ and his friend then giggled and slapped him round the face.

Without hesitating, Ed slapped him back so hard that he knocked him down. As he was staggering up Ed said: ‘of course I’m not a very good Christian.’

All human love is less than perfect, less than God’s perfect love. But that’s the gold standard, which is constantly there, not to condemn us, but to encourage us to do better.

The second antithesis is about adultery and lust. The followers of Jesus are not to treat other people as objects – especially women as chattels - to gratify their own sexual appetites.

Again this is obviously not about gouging your eyes out or never having a sexual thought about anyone else.

It is the desire to be treated with respect, whether a man or a woman, and within our own culture, whether straight or gay. It was culturally revolutionary in the first century and still is in many parts of the world today.

Love, sex and relationships are bound up in a complex way, and whatever the cultural patterns, just look at the old Testament, we are to strive for integrity and mutual respect.

The third antithesis is about divorce and the purpose of marriage (v 31f.) It was, in the first century, about the rights of women in particular, and about the responsibilities and commitments of marriage in general.

It is not a law that Jesus is laying down about divorce; and certainly not an edict that all divorced people who remarry are living in adultery. Jesus is using hyperbole to drive home the point in a chauvinistic society.

It may be Jesus’ first word on divorce, but it is not his last and Matthew records a more considered discussion in chapter 19. Divorce is never an ideal way forward, but it is sometimes the best way forward.

The fourth antithesis is about oaths and telling the truth.

It’s not about whether we should or shouldn’t take an oath of obedience to a bishop or swear an oath in court. Rather, because we are to treat one another with love and respect, we must keep our word and always try to be truthful, or if we can’t, be silent.

The fifth and the sixth antitheses are about non-violent resistance (vv.38-42), the Lex Talionis, ‘an eye for an eye’ and turning the other cheek; and following on from that, about loving our enemies and not just our friends (vv.43-47).

And Jesus sums all this up by saying: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I remember when I first learned to play squash. I was taught by a fellow student who went on to be a remarkable national player.

He was very kind to me and always held back so that I genuinely won a few points in every game. As I got better at the game, I began to see just how good he was.

With my lazy eye and my extra stone, I knew I would never be as good as him, but playing against him was very enjoyable and always encouraged me to do better.

When Jesus says: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, he is using hyberbole again, as he has done all through the preceding six antitheses. Our heavenly Father is our kind and encouraging ‘coach’ if you like.

Of course he is always ahead of us; constantly showing us the better way of love; reminding us of the way we are to live together - in the words of Duruflé’s communion motet which we shall hear later on: ‘where charity and love are, God is there.’

So take heart from the words of Jesus and don’t turn them into another law with which to beat yourself up.

They are words which should be an inspiration as well as an aspiration - he’s always there to help us, as he says, with a smile:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matt 5.48

Candlemas

2011-01-31T17:41:00.002Z

Candlemas
Malachi 3.1-5; Hebrews 2.14-18; Luke 2.22-40

“And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Luke 2.35

I sometimes sit in church here after the 6pm mass, when the lights are out and the west doors locked, but the votive candles are still alight at all the shrines around the church.

There is quietness and the strange beauty which flickering candlelight brings to a house of prayer; the lingering smell of incense, the aroma of God; dark, cavernous shadows and pools of golden light.

Life only holds its interest because of the shadows, because it is bittersweet: from the pain of childbirth to the joy that baby brings; to the pain of passing through death and the joy of the mystery of heaven.

At a more mundane level, as I sat in the pub with four old school friends after Christmas, they all looked the worse for wear – not those bright eyed boys from the 1960s – with myself as an obvious exception; but then, what stories they had to tell! The bitter-sweetness of having a life.

But of course we always dream and long for sweetness without bitterness, knowing that even if it were possible, it would be dull existence.

Our Lady Mary’s life was certainly bittersweet. All the confusion and shame of the conception, the agony of labour, the long uncomfortable journey, the indignity of the stable - all is past.

It’s six weeks after Christmas, and now she brings her pride and joy, her baby boy, to be presented in the Temple in Jerusalem: the first fruit of her womb to be dedicated to God.

Both she and the baby God are ritually unclean through childbirth. They must offer the two pigeons as a sin offering and a redemption price, for the firstborn belongs to the Lord and must be redeemed.

Mary and Jesus represent the two aspects of this Feast we keep today, as the 1662 Prayer Book entitles it: “The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called, The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin.”

It was primarily a Feast of Our Lord, rather than of his Mother, as the ancient collect I sang earlier, taken from the 7thC Gregorian Sacramentary, makes plain.

And the blessing of candles? Well this was probably another example of that early Christian cross-cultural trick. Take a pagan festival, to do with flames and torches, and chasing away the darkness of winter, and baptize it; Christianize it!

So because Christ is the Light to lighten the gentiles, we bless all the candles we will use in the coming liturgical year.

And like our pagan ancestors, we process with our torches and candles, putting to flight the steel grey skies of winter and hoping for signs of spring.

Of course our American cousins are busy doing the cross-cultural trick backwards.

So Candlemas, a Christian feast, becomes the secular celebration of Groundhog Day, based on an old Scottish couplet:

"If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
there'll be twa winters in the year."

A sunny Candlemas means the severity of winter will continue – the groundhog will return to its sleep. But if it is dull and overcast, the worst of winter is past.

Candlemas is also a pivotal day in the Christian calendar. It is bittersweet, as we look back on the joy of Christmas and Epiphany, as Simeon and Anna rejoice in the Temple; and yet we look forward towards Lent and Passiontide: the agonies of our Lord’s pierced Body; the anguish of our Lady’s pierced soul.

In some of the older rites, where the blessing of candles took place after mass, the white and gold vestments of the mass were exchanged for penitential purple for the procession of lights.

Candlemas reminds us of Life as we Know It, dappled and pied with pain. Who has not watched children grow into adults and not known the bittersweetness of parenthood?

Who has not loved deeply and not known the bittersweet wounds of affection?

The joyful comfort of lovers, friends and family is always eventually plundered by death and grief.

And with all our conviviality and social pleasures, who has not sat down sometime and felt so alone and lonely.

We should be optimistic about ourselves and about our world, while knowing that we are constantly nagged by intimations of despair.

As Hazlitt put it: “Man is the only species who can laugh or cry because he is the only being who knows the difference between what is and what should be.”

We can long for peace and yet stand looking year after year at war and violence.

We can reach for the stars and in minutes be only too aware of our human mortality and of the contingency of all things.

But, the Light shines in the darkness: that spark of hope that God implants within all of us.

We were hardly aware of it in the full blaze of day, in the sweetness of life, but in the gloom we can see the beckoning light of Christ. Or to use CS Lewis’s metaphor, ‘God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain.’

As Christians we believe that the Light is Christ. The bright radiance of candles around the altar draws us to him, the source of all light, our comfort and joy.

At the altar we see the bittersweet man of sorrows who has been through what we go through, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us in today’s epistle: like us; tested like us. Here at the altar he is crucified and yet exalted; the Lamb that was slain who yet lives.

And we live this strange but alluring bittersweet life in the light of glory, and in the presence of Christ.

John Donne lived his life to the full, and knew pain and pleasure, shame and holy exultation. His vision of heaven was of a state of being where these two sides of human life and human nature would be miraculously transformed into the equanimity of Christ our Lord; perfect composure.

So he prayed:

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 glory and dominion...

And with this confidence in the Gospel, as we celebrate this Candlemas, we shall not fear, even if

“A sword will pierce through (our) own soul too.” Luke 2.35

Epiphany

2011-01-02T17:47:00.002Z

“Arise, shine, for your light has come.” Is 60.1

I suppose I always get a bit maudlin at Christmas and New Year - another birthday, another year, another wrinkle, a stronger pair of reading glasses. And even bishops begin to look young.

The Feast of the Epiphany can help us to look more joyfully at our own mortality.

The Epiphany - the Manifestation - the Showing; or the Theophania as it was also called - the showing of God - it's been celebrated since the early 3rd Century. By the 4th Century, in the Western Church, its focus became the Revelation of God to the Gentiles - personified in those three Wise Men from the East, or were they Kings, or Astrologers? We don't know what they were, or for that matter how many of them there were.

What were they expecting as they followed the star? They had riches and wisdom, and yet left the security of their homes to follow a hunch. Maybe they were going through a mid-life crisis and needed some adventure in their lives?

I think there is some truth in that. Men and women, often at the height of their powers, secure with family and jobs, sometimes question what life is all about. Some change jobs; some climb mountains; some have affairs; others hit the bottle, and some look for the meaning of life. These wise men, from outside of the Jewish tradition, came looking for the one who was to unlock the key to life.

In the paradox of Christian faith, and of this Mass, they found the answer to life in death.

This is a theme in TS Eliot’s famous Journey of the Magi, written as Eliot was going through his own mid-life changes in 1927 when he gave up agnosticism and was baptised.

The poem ends with one of the Magi reflecting on their momentous journey:

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth
and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

The gifts the Magi bear to the infant Christ, although never mentioned in the poem, fit well into this theme of death and life. They symbolise, if you like, Three Deaths.

1. Gold represents the Death of Self. Christ was born to be King, symbolised in this king of metals - gold.

"Born a king on Bethlehem plain, Gold I bring to crown him again..."

In his earthly ministry Jesus was to demand total allegiance from his followers, promising them that only by death to self, would they ever find their true selves.

"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." (Lk 9.24)

Jesus is encapsulating the heart of the Gospel: it is in loving abandonment to Christ that we become fully human, and learn how to love ourselves.

The little boy is standing up in the back seat of the car (this is before seatbelts) and his father keeps telling him to sit down. At last the father stops the car and forcibly sits the boy down. As they continue the journey, the sulking boy in the back shouts: “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!”

This is the individual, assertive self that wreaks such havoc in our lives and in our world; the Naked Self, the Selfish Gene. It does not deserve our loyalty. We only need to look at the world around us to see how love of this self leads to destruction and death. Fealty to Jesus is the only way to life; and to bring life to others.

But wait a minute, we are western liberal thinkers, and all this loyalty to Christ alone sounds a little too exclusive. So let’s look at the second death.

2. Frankincense represents the Death of the gods. We live in a pluralist society. And rightly, there must be acceptance and dialogue with those of other faiths and no faith.

But true as this is, there has also been much twaddle about all faiths being basically the same. They are not. Look for similarities between Mormonism and Melanesian Frog Worship and you will look in vain.

I will respect and defend the rights of others to practise their faith, but I must also proclaim as a follower of Christ that I believe him to be a unique revelation of God to all nations and cultures.

There is no contradiction in thinking in this, and indeed the Incarnation leaves us no choice - 'Incense owns a deity nigh'. We do not believe that Jesus was just a good and holy man, or a prophet. We worship him, with all around the crib, as God. There is no God other than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now this is not to say that he does not reveal himself to others outside of the Christian faith. Or to put it another way: a good Muslim may be much nearer to God than a bad Christian. But I must not let my acceptance of others and their ways of believing paralyze me from holding on to my own Christian faith.

"There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea" as Faber put it. But if we believe that Jesus is Very God and Very Man, there can be no other gods.

3. And that brings us to the central mystery of our faith, and the 3rd Death: The Death of God.

CS Lewis puts it this way:

"The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact." Mythology is full of dying and rising gods. But in Christianity, "we pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to an historical Person crucified under Pontius Pilate…" ('Myth Became Fact' is in Undeception and also in God in the Dock.)

Myrrh represents the Death of Death in the Death of Christ (the wonderful title of John Owen's book).

Mary must have felt one of the first pains of the sword piercing her heart as she was presented with myrrh - used for embalming the dead.

This tiny, mystical life was directed from its first human moments towards a terrible death. But in this death he was to rob death of its finality and darkness. Death is a part of the human condition and is only ‘gone’ when we pass through it to a fuller life.

This is why at times we long for death - moments of despair, moments of ecstasy ('les petits morts'), moments of loneliness, moments of deep faith, moments of deep doubt. At the heart of our faith, at the centre of this Mass, is a Death which brings Life.

I’m a person who always gets very emotionally attached to the community I find myself in. So ever since primary school, I have wept whenever I have left any community: schools, university, colleges, churches. I always wanted to stay.

But of course I have realised as the years have passed that all these little deaths have been necessary if I am to flourish and grow.

Every death has led to a new life.

Or to put it the other way round, as we journey with the Magi, may we not so much “be glad of another death” as embrace the bubbling life of the Christ-child that will invigorate our living, now, through death, and forever.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come.” Is 60.1

John the Baptist and Politics

2010-12-05T14:58:00.002Z

Advent 2

Isaiah 11.1-10; Romans 15.4-9; Matthew 3.1-12

“The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Is 11.9

Tony Blair and that defender of atheism, Christopher Hitchens, debated last weekend in Toronto the proposition that 'Religion is a force for good in the world'. In a vote after the debate, the audience voted two-to-one in Mr Hitchens' favour.

This is a long way on from 2003 when an American journalist from Vanity Fair asked Mr Blair a question about belief, and his former communications manager, Alistair Campbell, stopped the interview in its tracks with the memorable shout from the side: “We don't do God.”

Even the editor of the Economist has recently co-authored the book: “God is back”. Although many of us suspect he never went away.

In Advent, the readings encourage us to think of the role of John the Baptist, imprisoned and beheaded not for his religious beliefs, but because he muddled in politics.

The Old Testament prophets knew no distinction between politics and prophecy. Generally, they were to speak to the powerful on behalf of God and the powerless. Isaiah’s vision that we read earlier was a call to the people of Israel to work towards a godly commonwealth.

St Paul’s plea in today’s epistle to the Romans was for greater international harmony and understanding. Christ, the root of Jesse of which Isaiah prophesied, was to be the hope of all nations and not just the Jews.

I greatly enjoyed Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall on Thomas Cromwell and life in the court of Henry VIII. And that led me on to start reading the CJ Sansom detective novels set in the same period.

It reminded me that the politics of different groups at different times in our history have varied enormously while all claiming to be Christian.

At present in the West, the two great shaping ideologies have become capitalism and socialism. And popularly these are both regarded with healthy cynicism.

So as one pundit has put it: capitalism is man’s exploitation of man, whereas socialism is the exact opposite.

It reminds me of that schoolboy witticism about the difference between democracy and feudalism: in democracy, your votes count, whereas in feudalism it’s the other way round.

The reason the OT prophets knew no distinction between politics and prophecy, was because they operated within a theocracy. God was Head of State. His priests and prophets spoke on behalf of God and received revelations from him in the Divine Privy Council.

Although when we look back on some of the actions they took in the name of God, it could just be possible that they misheard occasionally!

So in the days of the prophets and the judges, there was no need for a king. But Israel demanded one, to keep up with the neighbours, and reluctantly God gave them Saul which was the beginning of the end of theocracy.

Fourteen hundred years after the anointing of Israel’s first king - we’re talking about the 4^th and 5^th centuries - the church arguably became the new Israel and Christendom became the new theocracy.

But now it was no longer prophets who spoke the voice of God, it was the rulers of church and state - which were often the same men.

Another thousand years on and one of the struggles of the last three centuries in the West has been to try and separate religion from politics. In America, they have constitutionally done it in theory, although not in practice. Whereas in Europe, we have generally done it in practice, while not in theory.

So where does that leave the prophetic voice of the Church in politics?

Well some would say, nowhere. If John the Baptist had kept his head down, he wouldn’t have lost it!

But that has not been the response of the historic churches over the last couple of centuries. It has been the response of some sects - the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, strict Calvinists, some Pentecostal groups; but it has not been the response of either mainline Protestants or Catholics.

Now we know from history that sometimes political intervention by the Church and a so-called prophetic voice has been disastrous. It has added to the bigotry and misunderstanding that divide nations and encourage mental and sometimes physical violence. And sadly that is still true in parts of the world.

The majority of that audience in the debate between Blair and Hitchens last week thought this is more often the case than not.

But sometimes the intervention of the Church in the politics of the day has been heroic and Christlike in its attempts to bring peace and justice. Think of Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, Romero, Mandela, Martin Luther King… the list goes on.

Well theocracy is now all but dead - although it is still advocated by some fundamentalists in all three of the historic faiths – Jews, Muslims and Christians.

There are those Christians in America and a few in Britain - restitutionists they are called - who want to re-establish a state that enforces Old Testament law. I’ve read their leaflets, frightening though they are.

For instance, they advocate that gays should be given warning to ‘change their lifestyle’ and if they fail to comply, they should be summarily executed! It would certainly ease congestion in central London, but most of us would not recognise this as the prophetic voice in politics.

If the church is to speak into our society, including the political structures, in any sense as ‘for God’, then we are left with what the prophets majored on - the broad sweep of Biblical ethics, reinforced by our Lord’s own teaching, summed up in the Advent prophet Isaiah “Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” (1.16) or famously in the prophet Micah “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (6.8)

Our Lord echoes these prophetic signposts with his command to love God with the totality of our being, and to love neighbour as self.

John the Baptist was perhaps politically naïve, but his call to repentance and holiness was a necessary preparation for the ministry of Jesus – and the ministry of Jesus would bring about in time the greatest political upheavals the world has ever seen.

The prophetic voice of the church in politics must always be to call our leaders to pay heed to those underlying truths of human authenticity which Jesus exemplifies: goodness, justice, mercy. And to remember, lest we get above ourselves, that we need God’s help and Christ’s example in ordering our society.

We need to tread carefully, but to pray for our politicians, especially those who own the name of Christ, and to work through our democratic structures for a society where:

“The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Is 11.9

St Elizabeth of Hungary

2010-11-19T18:14:00.000Z

“Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Phil 2.4

St Elizabeth of Hungary, 19th November 2010 (Preached in the Cathedral at Evensong)

Think back to when you were 24 years old – much easier to do for some of you than others of us.

What had you done with your life by 24?

I had sat a lot of examinations at school and at university. I had played a lot of rugby and cricket; done a lot of singing; spent a year teaching mathematics to boys at Lancing College; had a few iffy relationships; fallen off my motorbike too many times; generally messed around!

I’d had quite a good time really for the first 24 years of my life. I hope you did.

Today we remember in the Church calendar, St Elizabeth of Hungary, Princess of Thuringia. She was dead by 24. She died on November 17th in the year 1231.

So what did she achieve in those 24 years that made her a saint of the Church?

You don’t have to be an historian to know that Central Europe was a very different place 800 years ago.

Elizabeth was born to King Andrew II of Hungary and his wife Gertrude in 1207 and by the age of four was engaged to be married to the heir to the throne of Thuringia, Prince Hermann. At that tender age, she was taken to be raised in the court of Thuringia (central Germany).

When Elizabeth was six, her mother was murdered by jealous Hungarian nobles.

When she was nine, her fiancé, Hermann died; and when she was ten, Hermann’s father the king, went mad and died. By 14 she was married to Herman’s brother, now the 21 year old King Ludwig IV.

At 15, she had the first of her three children, and by 20, her husband had died of the plague on his way to a Crusade, and her 5 year old son became King Hermann II.

Almost immediately she was driven out of her home in the Castle of Marburg, and her three children were taken away from her.

What a life! Not much cricket and singing and messing about.

It’s hardly surprising then, that she was a very devout Christian from an early age, and in the last few years of her life became a Third order Franciscan.

There are many stories of her dedication to the poor and the infirm. She gave away much of her money and possessions and nursed the sick in her own hospitals.

Her life of self-giving, rather than what could easily have been a life of self-pity, proved an inspiration for generations and many hospitals, schools and churches have been dedicated to her name.

As recently as 2007, the 800th anniversary of her birth, the German 10 Euro coin was engraved with her image and she even had a musical which ran from 2007 to 2009 – not exactly Abba, but ‘Elizabeth – the Legend of a Saint’.

She made the most of her twenty four years, finding meaning in her tragic life by living for God and for others.

Whatever our life holds for us, let’s ask God to help us never to let self-pity drag us down; or self-congratulation puff us up; but to follow Elizabeth and Jesus in the joyful service of others.

As our patron St Paul puts it: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Phil 2.4

Review - Two books on Preaching

2010-09-17T15:13:00.000+01:00

Teaching Preaching as a Christian Practice: A new approach to homiletical pedagogy by Thomas G Long and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Westminster John Knox, 238pp, 2009, £19.99
Preacher Rehab: Restoring faith in the sermon by Ron Cassidy, AuthorHouse, 368pp, 2009, £14.99

I suspect that almost the only people who read books on preaching are those who teach homiletics and book reviewers. Many American preachers still regard preaching as a skill to be honed and worked on throughout ministry, but among Anglican clergy, preaching is often regarded as a chore that goes with the job; to be endured by both priest and people.

The College of Preachers and CODEC (based at St John’s College, Durham) have just completed a preliminary research project into how preaching is received in the pews and what congregations think its role should be. Two striking conclusions are: that people look forward to the sermon; that it makes little difference to their attitudes or behaviour. Both of these books try to address these issues of connecting with the congregation and aiming for a Christ-like transformation.

Long and Tisdale’s book is clearly aimed at the academy although its 14 contributors provide something for everyone, especially in the section on the Components of the Practice of Preaching. The burden of the book is a plea to take preaching seriously as an honourable practice which can be taught and learned in a similar way to law or medicine. The problem of course is that in the modern curriculum there is hardly any time devoted to homiletics and it is often regarded as something ‘you will pick up’. There is no bibliography but good endnotes after each of the 15 chapters, which cover topics from the Preaching Imagination, to a very rapid overview of Voice and Diction, to the more spiritual Marks of Faithful Preaching. It’s idiosyncratic, embedded in the USA and moderately useful.

Cassidy’s book is robustly British and, as the title suggests, is a cri de coeur for a renewed confidence in the power of preaching. The emphasis of this book is the ongoing journey of the preacher after the academy, learning ‘on the job’ and with the ever changing demography of the congregation. There are ten chapters: the Preacher’s Problems, Predecessors, Preparation, Privilege, Perseverance… almost a complete set of alliterative Sweet Ps. And it’s all good stuff, well illustrated with helpful overviews of recent homiletic thought and contemporary culture as well as historical insights. At the same time Cassidy’s 40 years in Anglican ministry means it is very realistic and earthed. So there are tips about using and choosing a PA system as well as a critique of Craddock (Fred, not Fanny) and tips on preaching on special occasions. I liked his exploration of John Wenham’s aim of a sermon: placere (to please), docere (to teach), and movere (to motivate). This is certainly a book for the preacher, but it should also be on the booklist of the academy. There is a good select bibliography and helpful endnotes. Neither books have an index which is unhelpful.

I wouldn’t spend £20 on the American book but I might spend £15 on Cassidy’s. So perhaps you should save your money and continue muddling through as dilettantes, but don’t use that word in a sermon and never use irony.

Church Times

Cost of Discipleship

2010-09-05T16:18:00.003+01:00

Trinity 14

Deut 30.15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1-21; Lk 14.25-33

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14.27)

After the Pope leaves Britain in a couple of weeks time, his next European visit will be to Spain - to Santiago de Compostela and to Barcelona.

I came back last week from a very enjoyable week in Barcelona and I would like to think that the Pope might follow in my footsteps along the beaches; into the wonderful restaurants and noisy bars and clubs;

the local festivals with their dangerous fireworks and human pyramids with small children defying every health and safety regulation known to the European Community; or perhaps a day out to the vineyards where they make Cava around Vilafranca. I remember the start of that day so well, but am much less clear about the ending of the day.

One place where he will certainly follow in my footsteps is into Antoni Gaudi’s magnificent Expiatory Church of the Holy Family, known to most of us who cannot pronounce Catalan as: Sagrada Familia.

On November 7th Pope Benedict XVI will consecrate the Temple as a Basilica.

Gaudi began work on the Church in 1883 and he devoted the last 15 years of his life, until he died in 1926, entirely to the venture.

There was a provisional completion date for 2026, the anniversary of his death. But others think the construction will last into the 22nd century.

When Gaudi was asked why he designed something that would take so long to build he remarked that his client was in no hurry.

Jesus says in our Gospel: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?” (Luke 14.28)

In fact I think Gaudi had estimated the cost. He knew that it would take his entire life and energy and then some. For him, the cost of his Christian discipleship was to give all he had to laying the foundations of a building dedicated to the Gospel.

All the readings today are about major life choices; about the cost of discipleship.

In Deuteronomy, the People of God are on the edge of the Promised Land and faced with a significant choice:
“I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity… Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

The Psalm is about the simple choice of the company you keep. Are you nurtured by life affirming friends? Or are you constantly with people who bring out the worst in you?

Then Paul’s brief letter to the wealthy Philemon, who ran a house church in Colossae, is again about choosing the right way. Paul wrote from prison in about AD62 and within a few years he would be beheaded for his faith.

Onesimus (the name means ‘useful’) was a runaway slave who was converted and whom Paul was sending back to his master, Philemon. So Paul makes a little joke about his name: “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.” (Philemon 11)

Paul reminds them of his own choices which have led him to prison, and urges them to make the right choices – Onesimus to return to his master, and Philemon to welcome him as a Christian brother as well as his slave.

My sister was in Atlantic City yesterday, with crowds of others waiting for hurricane Earl to hit the East coast of America. They were glad that no one was hurt, but they were all a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more to see.

In the Gospel, the crowds are following Jesus, not just for his teaching, and not even just for the occasional miracle; but because they hoped he was the Messiah and was going to rout the occupying Roman army.

So Jesus makes it clear he is calling for recruits and not just spectators.

Using typical Jewish hyperbole, our Lord tells his disciples that their love and commitment to him must make their love for family look like hate in comparison!

Their love and commitment to him must mean that their possessions, their talents, their time are at his disposal.

(Although there are relatively few who are called to follow the way of sister poverty.)

So how does all this cost of discipleship work out for most of us in our western culture?

As with much of Christ’s teaching it is about the place of the heart: the root of our affections. It is about the attitudes that we carry through life.

So making the pursuit of possessions or the love of money is the ultimate folly. For we can’t take it with us, despite the misprint I once spotted in ‘Guide me O thou Great Redeemer… land my safe on Canaan’s side’.

So we work hard to make money, but knowing it is always at God’s disposal. We must be cheerful givers.

And of course we love our families, but we must not idolise them – turn them into gods.
Because they are not. They have feet of clay like us and will sometimes fail us as we sometimes fail them.

Our Christian faith gives us a bigger backdrop and wider concerns to protect us from self-absorption, or absorption by the immediate family.

Learning to listen to God is one of the hardest disciplines of the Christian life. But it is essential if we are to count the cost of discipleship and understand what God is calling us to do.

Mother Teresa died on this day in 1997 and I remember her being interviewed once by the American journalist Dan Rather. He said: “Mother Teresa, what do you say when you pray?”

She replied; “Sometimes I don’t say anything. I just listen.”

So Dan presses her further: “Well when you listen, what do you hear?”

Mother Teresa answered: “Well if I listen long enough and patiently enough, I begin to hear what God is calling me to do, and what it might cost me to do it.”

We come to the altar of God to remember what it cost Jesus.

The occasional inconvenience, embarrassment, generosity, or self rebuke for the sake of Christ is hardly too much to bear.

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14.27)

Thomas, Doubt, Easter 2

2010-04-11T09:00:00.002+01:00

(Preached at St Paul's Kay Street, Washington DC, on Easter 2)

“See my hands... my side; stop doubting and believe.” John 20. 27

I’m going to tell you two stories today, and here’s the first one:

A man is walking down the road with a penguin. He meets a policeman and says: “I’ve found this penguin and I’m not sure what to do with it.” The policeman says: “Well take it to the zoo. It’s just across the road.”

The next day, the policeman bumps into the same man, still with the penguin. He says: “So what happened at the zoo yesterday?” The man says: “We had a lovely time thanks. We’re going to the cinema this afternoon.”

Now you probably don’t believe that story. And there’s nothing wrong in doubting its authenticity.

The human ability to doubt, to distinguish fact from fiction, is part of our self-consciousness. It’s part of what makes us human. We are always critical observers of the world.

When I left my Baptist theological college 30 years ago, I was young and very certain of what I believed and of what I knew; but rather uncertain of who I was.

Thirty years on, I’m much more confident about who I am (and who I am not), but far less certain about what I know. (That’s probably why I’m an Anglo-Catholic Priest today!)

So today in this Easter season, when we think about the post-resurrection appearances of our Lord, I want us to think for a few minutes about this appearance of Jesus to Thomas.

He is always remembered as ‘doubting’ Thomas, although this is a little unfair. We don't forever remember ‘denying’ Peter; nor the beloved disciple as ‘streaker’ John.

And it’s unfair because we ALL doubt.

And I don’t mean thoroughgoing scepticism - doubting everything as a view of life.

Like the man who is on his first parachute jump. The instructor says: "you just jump out of the plane, the chute automatically opens, you land in that field - there'll be a nice cup of tea waiting for you." The man is sceptical. "What if the chute doesn't open?" "No problem. You pull the emergency chute cord. Another parachute opens, you land in that field - there'll be a nice cup of tea waiting for you.

The man jumps. Nothing happens. He pulls the emergency cord. Nothing happens. As he plummets to earth he's muttering to himself: "Bet there's no cup of tea either..."

This scepticism is almost part and parcel of our postmodern society, but it shouldn't stop us from believing; it should only alter our attitude to believing.

Now when I say: 'we all doubt', I don’t mean ‘unbelief’. Whether we believe or not is an informed decision of the will. It is a rational choice.

No, I mean, just letting hard questions float around in our mind. We all doubt in that way.

Questions like: “Is God really there or have I just fooled myself?”

Questions like: “Why do such bad things often happen to good people?”

Questions like: “Am I really called to be a priest?”

And a host of others.

Why do we doubt? What’s behind it?

Well, sin - distrusting God - is at the root of many of the problems of our human condition.

Questioning is not a sin. Distrust of God is. It’s the ancient sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden. 'Has God really got the best intentions for us in this Garden? Is he really good? Or is he selfishly holding something back from us?'

As long as we struggle with sin - and we will always struggle with sin - we will struggle with the doubt of whether God is really good. How can we look at our hurting world and not doubt his goodness sometimes?

To compensate for this we may often fall into another sin - the sin of certainty. For the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.

It is our doubts that unite us. Our convictions divide us.

Which of course doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have convictions - but it does mean you should hold them with a degree of humility.

We all know the sort of person for whom there are only two positions on all subjects – theirs; and the wrong one!

Listen to Luther’s ‘doubter’s’ prayer:

Dear Lord,

Although I am sure of my position,
I am unable to sustain it without thee.

Help me, or I am lost.

And here we acknowledge another factor leading to doubt: human frailty - our limitations in grasping the infinite. And our temptation to think we know it all. We know better than God. Job and Ecclesiastes and good St Thomas remind us of this.

Until, like Thomas, we meet the risen Christ face to face, we will always be those who walk by faith, and not by sight. We will always need to ‘keep on believing’, despite the doubts. “Happy are those who have not seen me” says Jesus “ and yet believe”.

Tennyson put it rather well in The Ancient Sage:

For nothing worthy proving can be proven,

Nor yet disproven: wherefore be thou wise,

Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.

And that brings us on to another factor in doubt: personality. Some Christians find it very hard to ‘cleave to the sunnier side of doubt’.

They are by nature prone to look on the gloomier side of most things. They lie awake at night worrying about everything.

(Like the man who wrote to the IRS: “I can’t sleep at night so I’m enclosing the $5,000 I forgot to declare. PS. If I still can’t sleep I’ll send the rest.”)

I’ve never spent a lot of my time absorbed in metaphysical angst. But I have friends who are constantly plagued by stuff that goes on in their head. St Thomas may have been such a man.

That sometimes-tormented priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was certainly such a man. He pleads with himself in one of his poems:

My own heart let me more have pity on; let

Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,

Charitable; not live this tormented mind

With this tormented mind tormenting yet…

Soul, self; come poor Jackself, I do advise

You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile…

And how do we call off thoughts awhile? That's another subject, but we have to recognise that some personalities are prone to be plagued, tormented, by doubt.

We read the account from John's gospel today, but Luke gives us another reason for Thomas’s doubt in his gospel. And indeed this reason may be behind the doubt of all the disciples, and all of us who have followed them in choosing to believe.

“... they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement…” (Lk 24.41)

At the heart of our faith is something almost too incredible to believe. Thomas dared not believe it. And every time we consider the risen Christ, it’s as if Jesus says to us again: “See my hands... my side; stop doubting and believe.”

As we shall say in the mass in a few minutes:

This is the mystery of faith:

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.

The late John Betjeman, a former poet laureate, reflecting on the mystery of Christmas, clung on to that faith, although he hardly dared to believe it:

And is it true? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things...

Can with this single Truth compare -

That God was Man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine.

(Christmas)

We always hold on to our faith, through doubt. It is the safe way to believe, and allows us to explore our faith with humility and proper confidence.

I said I would tell you two stories, and so here is the second – and a very different story from the first. It is a true story.

I visited an elderly lady some years ago, Elsie, who had just come out of hospital in my home town in Shoreham- by-Sea on the Sussex coast. Southlands Hospital was a dilapidated, run-down old 1930’s building, that was due to be rebuilt after the war. It was a dump!

Elsie had been close to death at one point, and a bright young doctor had asked her, if she lapsed into unconsciousness, whether she wanted to be revived?

“I ask you Father” Elsie said, “I’m at the gates of Paradise and he asks me if I’d like to come back to Southlands!”

This is proper confidence! This is the Resurrection hope of those who have not seen, and yet believe.

May you know this hope and confidence this joyful Eastertide, and always.

“See my hands... my side; stop doubting and believe.” John 20.27

The Return of the Prodigal Son

2010-03-14T18:11:00.006Z

Unconditional Love (Mothering Sunday, Lent IV)

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 15.2

It’s a typical family scene. The mother is knocking on her son’s door: “Come on Jimmy. Time to get up. It’s Sunday and time for church.”

“I don’t wanna get up. Church is boring. And I don’t like the people; and they don’t like me!”

“Come on son. Time to get up.”

“Give me three reasons why I should get up”

“Well. It’s 10 o’clock. You’re 43 years old and you’re the Vicar”

I know it’s an old one. But suitable for Mothering Sunday and for opening up today’s Gospel about love in a rather dysfunctional family.

Remember what we have often said of a parable – there is usually only one main point, although there can be other aspects of the parable that often explore the same point in a deeper way.

One of the reasons Jesus used these stories as a teaching tool was because the meaning of a parable is rarely exhausted. We’re still preaching about them 2,000 years later.

So what is the primary point of the parable of the Prodigal Son?

Well it is unconditional love. As we have just sung in Faber’s great hymn:

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man's mind
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he will not own.

[Frederick Faber was the first Superior of the Brompton Oratory along the road here, from its formation in 1849 until his death at the age of 49 in 1863.]

The religious authorities were scandalised by this unconditional love of Jesus: ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

It reminds me of that other little verse I’ve often quoted by Edwin Markham:

They drew a circle that shut me out;

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win

We drew a circle that took them in.

The Pharisees wanted Jesus to condemn the sinners and praise the religious. Instead he partied with the sinners and called the religious ‘whitewashed sepulchres’.

But of course there is more to it than that.

Today’s parable is a tale of three men: two sons and a father. It is only as we look at all three that we begin to get an understanding of God’s unconditional love; his outrageous grace.

Henri Nouwen was a great spiritual writer who died in 1996 and one of his short and profound works is entitled The Return of the Prodigal Son (1992). It was based on Rembrandt’s painting of the same name. [Look it up here or visit the Hermitage in St Petersburg – painted in 1662, shortly before the artist's death; the year of the Book of Common Prayer.]

Henri Nouwen explores each son’s response to the all-loving father.

The younger son is the Prodigal one, or the Lost Son – the verses we missed out of today’s Gospel were the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.

[I guess like many of you I was well into my teens before I realised that prodigal didn’t mean ‘wicked’ or ‘immoral’ – the parable is best called the Lost Son.]

One of Nouwen’s themes is ‘belovedness’ – being forgiven, accepted and loved by God.

The younger son's life shows how the beloved lives a life of misery – eating the pigswill - because he thinks he can only earn the Father’s love; he can only truly be the beloved by living up to the qualifications laid down by his lover.

Some of us are caught in this trap in our family life, our relationships, and usually therefore, in our spiritual life as well.

It may start with a pushy mother or father who have plans for our life. And we become only too aware that we disappoint them and don’t live up to their expectations, and so whatever the reality, we feel unloved.

And continuing in the pattern of learned behaviour, we often choose partners who also make demands on us, and struggle again to live up to them so we can somehow deserve their respect and love.

It’s hardly surprising then that we listen to the wonderful love story of the Gospel of Christ, and interpret it as another set of demands about the way we live. Only by living an exemplary Christian life will we be worthy of the love of God.

It’s all so wrong and so debilitating.

On the other hand, the elder son's actions show how the beloved can be miserable and depressed, unable to enjoy the party, because he thinks he deserves more. He’s kept the rules and struggled all his life to please his father.

And yet he feels unable to enjoy the father’s love, because it only springs from what he thinks he deserves.

Henri Nouwen suffered from great depression at times and put himself in this category of the elder brother. A life of obedience as a Catholic priest and dedication to the church, and yet he felt an inability to enjoy the love of others or of God. Rather he felt anger – why can’t I have intimate relationships with others; why does God let all this happen to me?!

Needless to say, neither of these two responses represent the Christian response, although we all too often follow them at different times in our lives.

The Father in this parable, he alone understands how to give unconditional love and to forgive, and so is able to rejoice and be truly happy that the lost son has returned.

He is our model for both giving unconditional love and receiving it. This is at the heart of living in fulfilled relationships and in enjoying our Christian discipleship.

And then our obedience to God, our ‘wanting to please’, stems from a realisation of how much he has done for us and how much he loves us. When we come to worship, we do not go away and want to lead better lives for fear of punishment – we are justified by faith in Christ. ‘There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus’. This is the message of Paul’s words to the Corinthians in today’s epistle.

No, we want to lead better lives because we love God and know the comfort and assurance of being forgiven, accepted and loved by him.

This was the experience of the godly priest-poet George Herbert. He felt all unworthy to come to the altar, to the Table of the Lord, and had to be reminded of the Love of Christ, Love himself, who had born the blame and justified him through faith, and who welcomed him unconditionally to the Table.

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lack'd anything.

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.

I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.

So I did sit and eat.

Transfiguration

2010-02-14T14:23:00.005Z

Glory, Postmodernity & Transfiguration

“Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory” Luke 9.32

It was a residential Board of Trustees meeting in midsummer, and my first mistake was to suggest that we held the after lunch session out on the lawn.

My second mistake was deciding not just to sit on the grass, but to lie down on the grass. And the third was when I thought ‘I’ll just close my eyes, but I’ll still be able to concentrate’.

I might just have got away with this had I not: one – been Chairman of the Board; and two - started snoring.

We’ve all had those situations where we are desperately struggling to stay awake – I’ve been with some of you at Glyndebourne after the dinner interval!

We would not have had this account of the Transfiguration of our Lord in the Gospels, if the disciples had succumbed to sleep.

And as they reflected on it after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, they realised what they had seen

· They saw Moses the lawgiver and Christ as the fulfilment of the Law.

· They saw Elijah the chief of prophets and Christ as the One to whom all the prophets pointed.

· They heard the voice of Almighty God, reiterating Christ’s Baptismal affirmation that this was his beloved Son and that they should listen to him.

· And they saw the Shekinah cloud, a theophany of the God of glory, and the reflection of that glory in the face of their teacher, Jesus the Messiah.

There’s a little Jewish joke here as well - a sort of pun. Blink and you miss it.

The Hebrew word for ‘glory’, ‘kabod’, was the word for weight, heaviness, gravitas. Here the disciples are weighed down with sleep, Luke tells us, but they remained awake and so were weighed down with glory.

One of my fellow students at theological college was good at everything. And he knew it. So nobody liked him very much. So there was much Schadenfreude when he was rusticated for a term for driving a mini car through the front doors of the college.

He was good at Hebrew of course as well, so someone pinned a large notice above his door with the single word in Hebrew: Ichabod - the glory has departed.

It was the name given to Eli’s grandson Ichabod, who was born just after a particularly crushing defeat by the Philistines who also stole the Ark of the Covenant which represented the glory of God – atheme running through all the readings and prayers today.

[In fact it’s a rather tragic story that the Jewish writer turns into another little joke at the end.

“And it came to pass, when the messenger made mention of the ark of God, that Eli fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy.” (I Sam 4)

So the grandson, born at the same time is called Ichabod, the glory has departed - the Ark of the Covenant has been carried off. But it could mean, the heavy one has departed - the fat man has died!]

Ichabod might be a suitable epitaph for the last 25 years: postmodernity as we are coming to call this period of history.

There’s much spiritual interest but little spiritual depth or weight. Believe but don’t belong. (70% of people claim to be Church of England – they believe, but they don’t belong to our congregations in any meaningful sense.)

Postmodernity describes, not so much a movement, as a mood in contemporary society. It is image with attitude; inner emptiness covered up by all the good things money can buy. Tesco ergo sum - I shop, therefore I am. Retail therapy doesn’t give meaning, but it makes me feel better!

The loneliness and ennui is eased by friendships and music, sex, alcohol and other drugs; and lots of idle humour. Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I stuck around. Try and think of an advert that doesn’t use humour.

And one of the characteristics of postmodernity, is that it denies transcendence. So there is little focus to all that spirituality around, and indeed often a denial that there is any objective ‘other’ - the transcendent God of Glory. Spirituality is seen as something purely internal, subjective and personal.

Because of this absent substantiator in postmodern society; an absence of the One who gives weight to human existence, there is a lack of solidness in society, of glory, of weight.

We are in danger of becoming all surface and image.

Let’s go back to our Gospel – the transfiguration of Jesus.

As Jesus goes down the mountain with the disciples, he speaks to them of his impending suffering and of his resurrection. And he has already told them, although they do not understand, that his Passion will be the greatest display of God’s glory. That’s why we read this Gospel passage always on the last Sunday before Lent.

We celebrate this Mass to the Glory of God. As we bring the gifts of the world at the offertory - our bread and wine and money - so we celebrate God’s glory in all he has given to us.

And as we lift up our Lord’s broken body, so we celebrate his victory over death and the glorious hope he has given us.

It is hard to celebrate the glory of God when we are suffering, in body mind or spirit; or watching those whom we love suffer. Yet as we look at the suffering of God in Christ, and remember that we will share in his resurrection glory, then even suffering and death become part of the path to glory.

The Westminster Catechism reminds us that “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.”

Secular drowsiness, the stupor and busyness of 21st century life, must not rob us of seeing God’s glory and delighting in his creation. Part of the reason for the disciplines of Lent is to keep ourselves spiritually awake and alert.

And here at the mass, as Christ is present in another Transfiguration, not with Moses and Elijah, but with bread and wine; here is weight and depth in an increasingly light and shallow culture. Let us be awake to the presence of the Glory of God.

“Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory” Luke 9.32

The Baptism of Christ

2010-01-10T19:01:00.004Z

“And there came a voice from heaven” Mark 1.11

(Cathedral Evensong)

We’re usually very suspicious of anyone who claims that God has spoken to them – ‘a voice from heaven’. Most times they mean by this, a strong inner conviction that this is what they think God wants them to do.

I have had two proposals of marriage made to me on the basis that God ‘spoke’ to the person. On each occasion it would not only have taken an audible voice from heaven, but a considerable band of angels to get me to the altar.

People who claim to have heard the audible voice of God from heaven are in a class of their own. Usually they have simply forgotten to take their medication.

But there is a significant, albeit small number, in Scripture and down through the centuries who claim to have heard, as it were, the external voice of God.

I have met one remarkable woman, crippled with cerebral palsy, who I think genuinely heard the voice of God. I haven’t time to tell you the whole story, but she heard God speak her name, ‘Mary’, and it changed her life, and through her, the lives of many others.

It certainly seems that there needs to be a degree of openness in the listener to hear the voice of God.

So in John’s version of the Baptism of Christ (12.29), when Jesus hears the voice of God at his baptism, most of the crowd think it is thunder. Although the more discerning think it is an angel speaking to him.

It would be nice if we could rely on the voice of God booming out clear instructions at all the difficult turns in our life: a word of encouragement here; a word of warning there; the occasional lottery number perhaps.

But that is not the way of faith. Even for Our Lord there are only two occasions recorded where an audible voice is heard. And one of those, Jesus declares, was for the benefit of the listeners, not himself. (John 12.30)

However, at his Baptism, the voice is for the encouragement of both Jesus and John the Baptist.

The New Testament imagery of Baptism is primarily that of dying and rising in Christ; of being buried with him in death and reborn to a new life in his resurrection. That was Paul’s message in our second reading. (Romans 6.1-11)

It was natural for the early church to interpret the words and commands of our Lord in that way.

But John the Baptist’s baptism, was one of repentance, and this posed something of a problem for the first and second century theologians. Why should the sinless Jesus submit himself to a baptism which was for the washing away of sin?

Even John himself is perplexed by Jesus’ actions, as Matthew records: “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’” (3.14)

Yet John’s baptism was not just about forgiveness of sins, it was about the coming of the New Age, the Kingdom Age, the Messianic Age, when forgiven men and women would gladly submit to the gentle rule of God, and would live out Kingdom values in their daily lives.

It was about extravagant love for God and consequent love of neighbour. It was about hating hypocrisy and deadening religious practice.

In this light, it would be natural for Jesus, in his full humanity, to identify with the baptized of this new movement.

So John’s hesitation was probably not so much to do with Christ’s sinlessness, as with a realisation that Christ was vastly superior to him, in ways that John could hardly imagine possible. He was not worthy so much as to loosen his sandal.

With naive and unembarrassed simplicity, Mark (possibly the earliest Gospel) faithfully records the baptism as marking the beginning of our Lord’s public ministry.

We are sometimes in danger of making baptism and confirmation the very thing that John the Baptist railed against: an empty ritual embedded in cultic Christianity. A folk-religion placebo.

Or even worse, an inoculation against the ‘real’ thing in later life! Sadly, many of our contemporaries have experienced just enough of the church to reject its message, but not enough to understand its message.

The Baptism of Jesus, which we celebrate today, reviving the ancient practice of the church at Epiphanytide, reminds us of the authentic roots of our own baptism. It calls us to follow Christ’s example and command.

So for us, the remembrance of our baptism should spur us to turn from sin and selfishness; to live as heralds of the New Age, to wear the mark of Christ in self-giving and love.

Every time we are sprinkled with holy water; every time we cross ourselves with holy water as we enter or leave church; we are reminded of God’s love, grace and forgiveness; but we are also reminded of our baptismal resolve:

to turn from evil and to follow Christ; to love one another as he has loved us, and thus show to all that we are his disciples.

For Christ, at this turning point in his young life, there is a great affirmation from his Father. Mark records it thus: “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’" (1.10f)

For us, there is nothing so dramatic at our baptism or confirmation. No assuring voice rending the heavens to affirm our decision. Not even divine congratulations for joining the Church of England; only the great British understatement, a cup of tea and, if we’re lucky, a piece of cake.

The ‘voice from heaven’ that Mark describes is probably his translation of a Hebrew idiom: the bath qol - the daughter of a voice.

Since the last prophet, Malachi, fell silent four hundred years before, God seemed voiceless, and the best the devout could hope for was some echo of the Divine – the bath qol, the daughter of a voice.

In Jewish literature it was often compared to the cry of a bird, the murmuring of a dove – and so the Spirit descends like a dove.

John the baptizer was a voice crying in the wilderness.

But as men and women came to him and turned to God, they heard not only a voice in the wilderness, but a distant voice from heaven; an echo of the Divine.

The Holy Spirit’s subtle work within them gave them hope and strength to live for God. To work for a better society, based on the Kingdom values of love and mercy.

The faith of our Baptism sometimes seems very shaky and precarious. And the most we seem to hear is not even a daughter of a voice, but a distant cousin of the voice of God.

But we do not lose heart.

The murmuring of God’s voice, often in unexpected places and at unexpected times in our life, is enough to bring comfort and fresh resolve.

As we struggle to fulfil our baptismal vows in a difficult world, and a very imperfect church, we look to Christ for example and for inner strength, and hope that, however distant it may sound, we too may hear

“... a voice from heaven” Mark 1.11

Curriculum Vitae

2010-01-10T17:00:00.002Z

CURRICULUM VITAE

Nicholas S Mercer MA BA MPhil

Work Experience
2008- Prebendary (Weldland) of St Paul's Cathedral
2007- Vicar General for the London College of Bishops
2004- Honorary Curate, St Paul's Knightsbridge
2003- 07 Director of Ministry, the Diocese of London
1998-04 Curate, St Mary’s Bourne Street
1995-98 Curate, St Edmund the King, Northwood Hills
1990-95 Assistant Principal at London Bible College
1985-91 Director of Training at London Bible College
1984-85 Laing Research Scholar at London Bible College
1979-84 Associate Minister of Upton Vale Baptist Church, Torquay
1978/79 Student Pastor of Suffolks Baptist Church, Enfield
1976-78 Student Pastor of Ashford (Middx) Baptist Church
1975/76 Student Assistant at Camberwell Baptist Church
1973-75 Teacher & House Tutor, Lancing College, Maths, Physics & RS
1968/69 Diesel Engine Research, Ricardo (1927) Ltd

Qualifications
1987 MPhil (LST, CNAA): “A Critical Evaluation of Contemporary Hermeneutical Approaches to Genesis One.”
1979 Diploma in Pastoral Studies (Spurgeon's)
1978 BA (Spurgeon's, CNAA) Theology
1976 MA (Cantab)
1973 PGCE (Cantab) Physics & Mathematics
1972 BA (Cantab) Mechanical Sciences (Pt I), The History & Philosophy of Science (Pt II)

Writing
“Preaching Genesis I-XI” Baptist Ministers’ Journal, 202 (1983)
“From Academia to Arcadia: Genesis One as an example of popularising contemporary hermeneutical issues” Faith & Thought 8 (Oct 1990) (The Annual Lecture of the Victoria Institute).
Frogs in Cream (with Stephen Gaukroger, SU, 1990)
Frogs II (with Stephen Gaukroger, SU, 1992)
“Postmodernity & Rationality - the Final Credits or Just a Commercial
Break?” in Mission and Meaning (Paternoster, 1995)
“I was a housegroup junkie” in housegroups (Crossway, 1996)
“Living Intimately with Strangers” in The Postevangelical Debate (SPCK, 1997)

Current Interests
Ministry, culture, liturgy.

Church
1979 Ordained to Baptist Ministry, Torquay
1995 Ordained Deacon, Petertide, St Paul’s Cathedral
1995 Ordained Priest, Michaelmas, St Edmund the King, Northwood Hills
1995 Professed in the Third Order of the Society of St Francis

Colleges, Councils etc
1975-92 Scripture Union Schools Committee
1984-95 Spurgeon's College Council
1985-90 Administry Council
1985-90 Book Review Editor, Leadership Today
1985-92 Scripture Union Schools Chair
1985-95 Scripture Union Council
1985-92 Consulting Editor ALPHA
1986-92 Careforce Trustee
1987-92 Cara Trust
1987-90 Moorlands College, Visiting Lecturer
1990-95 Regents Park College Oxford, Visiting Lecturer
1992-95 Evangelical Missionary Alliance Council
1992-93 Scripture Union International Relations Chair
1992-95 Regent College, External Examiner (Open University)
1994-95 Baptist Union Council
1994-97 The Warehouse Council of Reference
1996-97 Oasis Trustee
1996-98 Chantry School (Special Educational Needs) Governor
1998-03 St Barnabas Cof E Primary School, Chair of Governors
2004- 08 North Thames Ministerial Training Partnership Trustee
2004 - The Philip Usher Memorial Fund Trustee
2008 - St Mellitus College Founding Trustee
2010 - Honorary Fellow Sion College

Emmanuel - St John the Apostle

2009-12-26T11:56:00.001Z

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23

And a reading from one of my Christmas presents from many years ago – from Winnie the Pooh:

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…” (The House at Pooh Corner)

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent on others. It’s why especially at Christmas we hate to think that anyone will be ‘alone’.

You probably heard the huge response there was to the Today programme’s Christmas Eve interview with 89 year-old John Arthur who would be alone at Christmas. One listener even wanted to fly him over to Paris for the Christmas weekend.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity.

And when he creates mankind in his own image, then he wishes to include them in the society of the Godhead. So Genesis tells us that he walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden.

In our Old Testament lesson today we hear of his closeness to Moses; as Exodus puts it: “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”

Then in his incarnation which we celebrate this Christmastide, God became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk and subject to Mary and Joseph. The boy Jesus, God enfleshed, needed them to be there.

As a grown man too he needed companionship and had many friends: men, women and children.

He had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus for the transfiguration; there in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there”.

And they were there at his crucifixion: his best friend John, and his mother Mary, who had bought him into the world in that stable in Bethlehem – [point to Rood Screen] there are John and Mary, at the foot of his cross as they are in churches throughout the world.

Today in the church’s calendar we remember that Apostle John. He wrote the most reflected and mystical account of the life of Jesus and although his authorship of the fourth Gospel, the three epistles and the mysterious book often known as the Revelation of St John the Divine, is much debated, there is certainly a corpus of literature that can be called Johannine.

John Keble draws from all those sources in our final hymn today. (See below)

The other disciples were obviously slightly miffed that John had such a special place in the affections of Jesus, especially the Apostle Peter. The verse before today’s Gospel reads:

“Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper.” (John 21.20)

And then the recommissioned Peter goes on to ask the resurrected Jesus, who was telling them that he would be leaving them soon, “so what’s going to happen to John? Is he going with you?”

It’s a fascinating passage, but I don’t want to discuss it now, so on to the present day.

Jesus was born – we continue to celebrate that over the 40 days of Christmas and epiphany; and Jesus has died and risen again and is now ascended back to the Father. Physically, he is with us no more. No hand to hold. No one for John to lean against.

But hinted at in today’s Gospel there is an even profounder reality of God’s continuing companionship with John and with all of us.

For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he shared our joys and sorrows; he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

And he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to ‘check that they are there’.

And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies.

So the end of Matthew’s Gospel echoes the beginning where our text is written: “they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” At the end of the Gospel he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God: Emmanuel - he’s here, with us.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

A while back I was in Stockholm with my good friends Stefan and Helena and their third child, a young boy, Einar. We were in a flat he’d never been in before and at one point his parents left the room with our host.

He looked at me, said something in Swedish, then remembered I was that poor simple man who didn’t understand anything. So he came over, put his thumb in his mouth, and held my hand. Just checking I was there.

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."

Hymn by John Keble (1792-1866) for St John the Apostle's Day

Word Supreme, before creation

Born of God eternally,

Who didst will for our salvation

To be born on earth and die,

Well Thy saints have kept their station,

Watching till Thine hour drew nigh.

Now 'tis come and faith espies Thee;

Like an eagle in the morn

John in steadfast worship eyes Thee,

Thy belov’d, Thy latest born.

In Thy glory he descries Thee

Reigning from the Tree of scorn.

Much he asked in loving wonder,

On Thy bosom leaning, Lord.

In that secret place of thunder

Answer kind didst Thou accord,

Wisdom for Thy Church to ponder

Till the day of dread award.

Lo, heaven's doors lift up, revealing

How thy judgements earthward move;

Scrolls unfolded, trumpets pealing,

Wine-cups from the wrath above;

Yet o'er all a soft voice stealing,

"Little children, trust and love."

Mary - Advent 4

2009-12-19T22:21:00.002Z

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

Luke 1.28

What is the connection between macaroni and the Virgin Mary?

Give up? It’s Christmas Carols.

I’m sure over the next few days we will be listening to lots of carols like ‘In Dulci Jubilo – Let us our homage show’ and ‘A Hymn to the Virgin’- Of one that is so fair and bright, Velut maris stella, which both date back to the 14^th century.

And like many other mediaeval carols, they are macaronic. That is, partly in English and partly in Latin.

The adjective ‘macaronic’, is used to describe any text which is a jumbled mixture of the vernacular – English or German or whatever - and Latin or Latinized words; or indeed words from any other languages.

In the secular world this mixture of languages was often used in burlesque or satire.

The word comes from the New Latin ‘macaronicus’, literally, resembling macaroni: presumably, suggesting lack of sophistication or simple rustic wisdom.

And this is one of the hallmarks of these mediaeval carols, which makes them so attractive, and at the same time rather annoying.

They are often full of homespun devotion to Our Lady and theological naivety.

The Latin is perhaps supposed to give them a bit more weight.

But rather like putting on a posh accent while still using appalling grammar, the overall effect is one of lovable, and even laughable, simplicity.

And it is perhaps hardly surprising then that these macaronic carols were often used to depict Our Lady and the birth of Jesus. For the event is both simply profound and yet profoundly simple.

So there is something deeply mysterious and theological about Mary the Theotokos, the God-bearer, who is the focus of the readings and prayers on this fourth Sunday in Advent.

Yet, at the same time, there is something slightly risqué and ‘common’ about a pregnant teenager who claims to be a virgin. There is something of the barrack-room joke about it. We’ve all heard them and laughed at them. It is the human way to laugh at great mystery.

What does this tell us about the Christian attitude to Mary and her place in our salvation and daily living?

It was music that first began to give me an inkling of devotion to Our Lady, back in my teens.

Not surprisingly, my good puritan Baptist church had no images of any kind in the building - not even a cross until the swinging 60s.

So Mary only featured in Christmas Carols. And even then some of the words had to be changed to protect theological sensibilities.

Remember that line in Adam lay y bounden: ‘Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been, ne had never Our Lady a-been heavene queen’.

Well you can’t have that! So it was changed to ‘Ne had never Christ’s glory on earth ever been seen.’ A not-so-subtle Christological shift there from Our Lady to Our Lord.

But despite all this, as a teenager exploring passion and fallings in love, it was hymns and carols that often inspired my devotion. I recognised that just as Jesus was the most lovable man; the man from God; the second Adam; the man who was God;

so Mary was the most loveable woman, the woman chosen by God, the second Eve; the perfect Mother of Our Lord; a friend, a comforter, who like any good mother, understands and cares.

Here again is an earthiness that the common man understands. Here in this straightforward peasant girl is a mystery almost too great for us to bear.

In today’s Gospel we read of the Visitation, when Mary visits her older cousin Elizabeth, already six months gone with John the Baptist, to talk about pregnancy and birth, and pain and Joseph and hopes and fears.

She had gone because of the Annunciation (depicted in Arthur Hacker's wonderful painting on the front cover of the service sheet – it looks better in the Tate)

– when the angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her she was to be the bearer of the Word made flesh – Jesus.

Whatever happened between Mary and God, between this Angel and Mary; it was such an exceptional happening that no other human being has ever experienced such, before or since.

And the words of these mediaeval, macaronic poems pile up epithets and allegories to draw us out in love of God, and love of this simple woman who became such a channel of grace. Deep, unfathomable mystery and simple, animal, mother-love, for Jesus - and for us.

So what is our response to this remarkable woman who is at the heart of the unfolding Christmas story?

It should surely be the same as hers – astonishment at God’s intervention, complete lack of comprehension – how could this happen? And yet complete trust that God is working his purposes out in our lives and in our world – ‘be it unto me according to thy word’.

Rainer Maria Rilke in his poem on The Annunciation from Das Marienleben, catches the cosmic significance of this pregnant young woman. He suggests that even the Angel Gabriel cannot believe the message he is to deliver to this young Israeli woman. He is astonished.

When the angel stepped in,

he did not take her by surprise,

It was as though a ray of sunlight or moonlight

had entered her room,

No, she did not even blink!

But when he bent close his youthful face

she looked into eyes that looked into hers,

their gaze so powerful that the world outside

was suddenly empty

and the multitudes' visions, their deeds

and their burdens

all were crowded into them: just she and he;

this girl, this angel, this spot.

And they were both astonished.

Then the angel sang his melody.

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1.28

(Rainer Maria Rilke, from Das Marienleben

translated & adapted by Alice Van Buren and Russell Walden)

Advent Sunday

2009-11-29T16:26:00.001Z

“May God so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” I Thess 3.13

My guess is that most of you haven’t been to see the big new apocalyptic disaster film 2012 which was released earlier this month. The posters have the strapline “We were Warned!”

But warned of what? Well warned that the world was more or less going to end in a Doomsday string of cataclysmic disasters in 2012. I won’t bore you with the details, but it could properly spoil the Olympics.

It reminds me of brother George who leads this Christian Sect who are sure that the second coming and the end of the world will be on December 31st at midnight. He and his followers gather on a local hilltop, ready to greet the returning Lord. Midnight comes and they look to the skies – nothing happens. Quarter past midnight – still nothing. 1am – still nothing, even if the Lord were running on European time!

Br George’s followers gradually begin to go back down the hill until only his right hand man is left. At 2am, even he leaves – and as he passes George, he pats him on the shoulder and says “never mind George. It’s not the end of the world.”

It’s Advent Sunday again, the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year: no flowers, no Gloria, we’re wearing sober blue and the choir are singing a lot of unaccompanied plainchant.

And once again we have all these readings about the end of the world, the day of judgement, the parousia – meaning the second coming of Christ, and the apocalypse – the revelation of Christ.

So what is it all about? Men with sandwich boards in Leicester Square proclaiming ‘The End is Nigh’? Will the universe be brought to an abrupt and cataclysmic close?

The Gospel reading from Luke is typical of much apocalyptic writing of the first century. But in Jesus’ words there is more hope than usual, with a purposeful rather than pessimistic view of history.

And there is exhortation included, albeit with an uneasy tension that we still live with: “the end is not yet – don’t believe the prophets of doom” and “these are the end-time signs – like a good boy scout – be prepared!”

I ventured into the foothills of the Atlas mountains last month when I was in Marrakech. As we drove towards them (stopping off at so many of the taxi driver’s cousins who wanted to do us special deals on pots and carpets and Berber coffee tables) we realised that although we could discern the individual peaks we were not always sure which peak was in the foreground and which peak was further off in the background.

The twin peaks of this prophecy of Jesus appear to be the relatively imminent destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD and the more distant close of the age, the Parousia which we still await, his return to earth.

Now which descriptions belong to which event is not at all easy to sort out. Let’s briefly look at that first peak – the destruction of Jerusalem.

And to do that we have to go back to 168BC when Antiochus Epiphanes was King of Syria.

He desecrated the glorious Temple in Jerusalem, setting up an altar to Zeus on the burnt offering altar and sacrificing pigs. It was still raw in the memories of the Jews.

So Jesus uses the apocalyptic imagery that calls up the common memory of this horrendous event before he looks forward to an even worse event – the complete destruction of the Temple; and perhaps even further forward to the then unthought of terrors of the holocaust in the 20th century.

And in such days of suffering and confusion, our Lord warns us of false christs and prophets. False christs never seem too difficult to spot – I have had a number of people tell me over the years that they are Jesus Christ – and I have never felt the need to get a second opinion from another priest about them.

But false prophets are altogether harder to identify. Perhaps there is something in the way that they parade their miracles and signs and wonders. It is significant that Jesus never ‘did tricks’ or performed miracles on demand.

The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, wisely left out of the New Testament canon, has Jesus making clay pigeons and throwing them in the air where they spring into life. Jesus never uses signs and wonders to compel faith or confound sceptics. They spring from compassion for the sick and needy and are often accompanied by a plea to “tell no one”.

It contrasts starkly with some of the tele-evangelists and miracle workers who are still busy around the Christian world.

But let’s move on to the verses we read today.

They are full of familiar Old Testament imagery but also use Jesus’ favourite teaching technique - the parable.

The fig tree is very common in Palestine where most other trees are evergreen. So it is one of the clearest indicators of the passing seasons. Perhaps too Luke is hearkening back to Christ's cursing of the fig tree in an earlier chapter (Luke 11:12-20) which was a pronouncement of judgement on the Temple and religious establishment.

In contrast, the fig tree of this parable is a sign of summer and hope.

In testing and depressing days it’s hard to hold on to hope. (I read on a staff notice board in school: "To make savings during government cut-backs, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off...")

So Jesus reminds them and us that his words are more certain than the seasons and will endure longer than the physical universe: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. (v.33)

There are still groups of Christians around the world obsessed with trying to predict the date and mechanical niceties of the Second Coming.

Jesus puts an end to all such 'almanac discipleship' by asserting that he, the Son, does not know the timetable, and that if he doesn't know, then no one can know.

The pre-occupation of Christians should be with how to conduct themselves in these end times - between Christ's first coming and his Second Coming – this is the Advent theme.

Now of course some of us have become so blasé about all this that we don’t really believe the words we will say in the Nicene creed in a moment: “And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead.”

If we are theologically minded we may have bought into some form of ‘realised eschatology’ – often attributed to Albert Schweitzer and CH Dodd earlier in the 20th century – the idea that everything has already happened in the first coming of Christ. There’s nothing else to wait for.

But more commonly, we just can’t imagine an ‘end of the world’, and hope it doesn’t come before our holidays!

Scientifically, the world will certainly end, and the earth will collapse into the sun – although not while there is a labour government. And of course, through the good services of technology, we are perfectly capable of destroying all life on the planet ourselves. It’s the stuff all these apocalyptic films and novels are made of.

But this is to miss the point of our Lord’s teaching.

On the ‘how’ or the ‘when’ this parousia will happen, we must remain agnostic. We just don’t know.

Rather it means there should be a sense of 'edge' in our Christian living; a knowledge that we may not have all the time in the world, that we should ‘carpe diem’ – seize the day. We should plan for our spiritual future, by investing spiritually in the present.

Advent is about preparation for the joy of Christmas, and the church and indeed most religions have learnt that the best preparation for a feast is a bit of self-denial and spiritual self-examination.

So spend a little more time on your spiritual disciplines in the next month, in between the office parties and soirees, and see how much more you enjoy Christmas when it comes.

“May God so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” I Thess 3.13

Bible Sunday

2009-10-25T16:46:00.005Z

The Bible

“Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away.” (Matt 24.35)

A man is walking through Regents Park with a penguin. He meets a policeman and says: “I’ve found this penguin and I’m not sure what to do with it.” The policeman says: “Well take it to the zoo. It’s just over there.”

The next day, the policeman bumps into the same man in Tottenham Court Road, still with the penguin. He says: “So what happened at the zoo yesterday?” The man says: “We had a lovely time thanks. We’re going to the cinema this afternoon.”

Well it’s a nice story – but of course you don’t believe it. It’s a made up story.

Today is Bible Sunday when we give thanks to God for his Word, the Bible. Some of my friends think that the Bible is full of ‘made up’ stories that Christians somehow convince themselves to believe.

So what do we mean when we say we ‘believe in’ the Bible, or ‘trust God’s Word’?

And how do we do what the collect today prayed for, that we would ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’ the Holy Scriptures?

Does it mean that we have to screw ourselves up to believe things that we know aren’t true?

And how do we avoid the sort of fundamentalism which is so dangerous and yet so pervasive within the three great monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three religions claim to be people of The Book.

The real debate is between Revelation and Reason: between God’s revealed truth in the Book, and the human mind’s capacity to deduce things from the outer world - to reason. Can we harmonise the Book of God’s words - the Bible; and the book of God’s works - the external world and the inner mind?

The debate goes back thousands of years as the early Jews struggled with the spoken, and later written words of priests and prophets such as those we have just read from Isaiah. What did they mean?

A whole school of Midrash grew up to give the Rabbinic (and therefore correct) view of what we would now call the OT. There were halachic (= of the law) Midrashim and haggadic (= of the narratives/non legal) Midrashim, and these commentaries on Scripture were written to harmonise and expound the Word of God. These writings flourished from 800BC to 800AD and you can still read many of them.

(Jesus often referred to these when he said ‘you have heard it said that… but I say unto you...’)

The process of arguing about the meaning of Scripture has continued through the great councils of the church.

The Nicene creed, which we always say after the sermon, was an attempt in the 4^thC to clear up any ambiguity about the person of Christ - to establish the doctrine of the Trinity, not explicit in Scripture, but deduced by our reason from the Scriptures.

(Which books actually got into the Bible was also determined in this period of the Church’s history.)

Then later, through the celebrated disputes between the Curch and Galileo Galilei in the 17^thC;

the Church debated the motions of the solar system and how they related to the teaching of Scripture – did the earth go round the sun, or the sun go round the earth as Scripture appeared to teach?

The 19^thC saw the great evolution debates and the rise of a new form of Biblical analysis which came out of Germany and the so-called ‘higher criticism’.

In the last twenty years we have seen the Bible brought in to defend or attack, women priests, remarriage of the divorced, gay relationships, New Labour, stem cell research, euthanasia - the list is endless.

Like most polarisations, the simple ‘Reason versus Revelation’ is a false dichotomy – much loved by Richard Dawkins of course.

For the Christian, Revelation certainly informs our reason ; yet we cannot understand Revelation, or indeed discuss it, without the use of reason.

Over recent years, there have been a number of unhealthy approaches to the Bible. And by ‘unhealthy’ I mean they are not my approach to the Bible!

There is ‘The Bible as Scientific Document’ - that atomistic dissection of Scripture to which both Liberals and Fundamentalists are prone. CS Lewis mocked the approach in his essay ‘Fernseed and Elephants’ [In the collection of essays of the same title] where he supposes that a similar critical approach to the much more recent documents - say the plays of Shakespeare - would be ridiculed by the literary world.

[Post-liberals have realised the foolishness of trying to discern whether, for instance, Genesis 12.4 was written by J, E, P or D - the supposed 4 sources of the Pentateuch - the first 5 books of the OT.

And Post-evangelicals have moved away from building theologies based on the 29 tent-pegs of the Tabernacle or on a single verse of St Paul.]

Then there is that approach known as ‘The Bible as Literature’ – it’s just like all other great literature and equally valid for helping us in our understanding of life, the universe and everything. We might as well study Charles Dickens or Iris Murdoch. This has never been the position of the Church which sees the Bible as unique and fundamental to its very existence.

Or there’s ‘The Bible as Instruction Manual’ - rather like those computer manuals, only without an index, no logical structure, and written by foreigners - come to think of it that’s just like my computer manual! How to create a universe. How to discipline children.

There are other approaches we could explore – ‘The Bible as horoscope’ – ‘The Bible as systematic theology’ – ‘The Bible as Beautiful Prose’ (we’ll get a lot of that in 2011!) – ‘The Bible as Doorstop.’

So what is it? Well, it is unique and defies any clear and simple definition - which is what we might expect from a mysterious God, who wants to communicate with us.

‘The Bible as Word of God’ is as good a description as any. [Some prefer a finer Barthian distinction, that the Bible ‘contains the Word of God’.]

The important thing is made clear by Jesus in today’s Gospel: through God’s Word and the people of God we meet the Word made Flesh - Jesus - the divine communication which transcends and complements the knowledge and wisdom of reading the Book.

It is an encounter with the Source of human communication, the author of the Book, if you like, which puts the book in context and helps us to understand it and act upon it.

It’s a bit like watching Jamie Oliver on TV following one of his own recipes – the instructions come alive and you can see what he means by things.

But of course Jesus doesn’t appear on TV and so this approach is very subjective and is why we need to encounter Christ in his Word, but also in the context of the Church. One man and his Bible usually lead to the foundation of a new sect!

How then do we approach the Bible in order to know Christ, and in order to live lives pleasing to God?

Well of course we must approach it theologically and rationally. We must try to understand what it meant when it was written and what it might mean to us today: ‘The Two Horizons’ as Georg Gadamer calls them.

And then personally, as we read it and hear it read, we ‘ingest’ it, and begin quite naturally to act upon it. We shouldn’t worry too much about the detail, for the devil is truly in the detail.

It was Mark Twain who remarked, “I am not worried about the bits of the Bible I do not understand. I am worried about the bits I do understand!”

And in either case, reading the Bible theologically or personally, we must approach the Word of God with a right attitude, with humility - ‘faith seeking understanding’ as Augustine put it; and not pride seeking confirmation of prejudice.

The Bible has shaped our world and our British culture like no other book.

We honour it in our church - in the Gospel procession and the way we handle it; and in our liturgy that is based upon it.

We honour it in our lives when we follow the teachings of our Lord, and of his Father, guided by the Holy Spirit and by the whole people of God as we try to 'read, mark, learn and inwardly digest'.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away.” (Matt 24.35)

Faith, Trust and Dawkins

2009-09-13T21:43:00.004+01:00

“Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8.27)

Last Saturday I went back to my old College, to celebrate 40 years since we matriculated: a hundred bright eyed public school boys with a smattering of grammar school boys like me.

It was the end of the 60s when, as Philip Larkin reminded us, sex was invented, although we didn’t let that trouble us in Selwyn. We wore flares, long hair and our gabardine macs.

All my contemporaries at our dinner last Saturday seem to have aged an enormous amount and most of them are now at least ten years older than me. We reminisced.

There were twelve Engineers in Selwyn College in my year, part of the 300 engineers in the Cambridge Mechanical Sciences department.

We had to work with laboratory partners, and mine was one of the two women amongst the 300 – I think they thought she would be safe with me because I was a Baptist. In fact she was safe with me for a number of other reasons...

…but why only half a dozen women among the 1000 engineers.

Even today, women are very much in a minority in the engineering faculty.

Is it perhaps because men and women’s brains are hard-wired in different ways? A lot of research would suggest that.

You probably heard in the news last week the findings of Bruce Hood, professor of developmental psychology at Bristol University. He suggests that magical and supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological force already there.

We have a propensity to believe in God, or at the very least in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.

Of course this argument can run both ways.

For those of us who are theists and have always thought that it is more natural to believe in God than not to – and that does count for the very great majority of the human race - this comes as no surprise.

It was the Preacher in Ecclesiastes written nearly 3,000 years ago who said:

“God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Eccles 3.11)

Or the famous quotation of Augustine in the 5^th century:

“Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.” (Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Chapter 1)

And so through the centuries many have argued that there is a God shaped void in everyone.

On the other hand, the hard-wired argument can also play into the hands of evangelical atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

They assert that brave atheists need to lead the way in overcoming the hard-wiring of our brains so that we are not poisoned by religion.

Humans have will-power and rationality and we must smother our inner propensity for religious belief before it destroys all humankind.

The High Mass this morning led by a bunch of militant and deluded priests is part of the mumbo jumbo that supports the destructive forces of religion in the world.

So, hard-wiring or not, there is no scientific proof of God, but the world of science generally reinforces the faith of those who do already believe.

Unless of course you set up some opposition to scientific discovery, as Archbishop Ussher unwittingly did in the 17^th century. He deduced that the first day of creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23rd, 4004 BC – he wasn’t willing to be more specific than that!

But very few Christians take such a needlessly confrontational stance.

So science isn’t in itself going to lead us to God.

Many others have tried to argue for belief in God from reason.

The Quinque Viae, Five Ways, or Five Proofs are five arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th century theologian St.Thomas Aquinas in his book, Summa Theologica.

Descartes, Newton, Pascal and many others have worked to develop this branch of apologetics.

But although, like science, reason reinforces the belief of believers, it cannot present a compelling case for belief in God. The argument is ultimately as sterile as the scientific one.

CS Lewis, a reluctant convert to Christianity in the middle of last century, is more famous for The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe now than for all his Christian apologetics; especially his influential book, Mere Christianity.

He came nearer to the crux of Christian belief by focusing not on the general idea of God, but on the uniquely Christian idea of God in Christ.

He famously sets up the argument by saying that when you consider the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, he must be either mad, bad, or who he said he was - the Son of God.

He argues that you cannot read a Gospel like today’s and decide that Jesus was just a good man, or even a prophet.

He must have been a great fabricator of lies, or so delusional that he should have been in psychiatric care.

Attractive as this line of reasoning is, it too is ultimately sterile. A postmodern response to CS Lewis’s ‘mad, bad or who he said he was’ is a dismissive shrug and a ‘so what’!

In today’s Gospel Peter answers Jesus’ question of “who do people say that I am?” with a simple affirmation of trust in the man he is following – you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Chosen One.

It is not scientific proof, or clever reasoning, but a transforming relationship with the man, Christ Jesus, that sustains his belief and elicits his trust.

And when Thomas makes a similar affirmation after the Resurrection – my Lord and my God – Jesus says: “because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Why do people like me and many of you, believe in God, and come to worship in a service like this? Is it because the scientific evidence has swayed us? No.

Or is it that rational argument has left us no other reasonable course of action? No.

It is because we believe that Jesus loves us, and when we commit ourselves to loving God in response, it brings us an inexplicable sense of well-being and rightness.

In Kant’s words, God ‘is not an ‘it’ to be discussed, but a ‘thou’ to be met’. When we approach him in faltering faith and trust, we find he had seen us from a long way off and had run to meet us.

He prepared a simple feast for us of bread and wine, and as we rehearse his dying love, Jesus asks a further question of us as he did of Peter – not ‘who do people say that I am?’ – but ‘who do you say that I am?’

Hypocrisy (Wednesday teaching mass)

2009-08-26T22:47:00.004+01:00

Hypocrisy
Matthew 23.27-32

Beati quorum via integra est, qui ambulant in lege Domini. Ps 119.1

Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.

I love Alan Bennett’s line in A Cream Cracker under the Settee, when Thora Heard has been visited by the Christian sect who push tracts through the door and call through the letterbox that Jesus loves her. She remarks with fine British bathos: “Shouting about Jesus and leaving the gate open - it’s hypocrisy is that!”

Jesus was against hypocrisy. He roundly condemned it, especially in the religious hierarchy, the Pharisees, scribes and lawyers.

So what is it?

It’s not hypocrisy if you are a smoker, and you warn someone else that they shouldn’t smoke.

It is if you pretend that you’re not a smoker yourself.

So when people say that Christians are hypocrites – as they often do – they usually mean that we don’t live up the standards we believe God has set for us.

That’s not being hypocritical.

It would be more correct to call us sinners – and then, when we acknowledge that we are - they don’t like that either and say we are always on about sin!

In other words, hypocrisy is not simply an inconsistency between what is advocated and what is done. Samuel Johnson made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in Rambler No. 14 in the mid 18^th century
“Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practise; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.”

Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that you don’t actually have. It’s a sort of lie that is often coupled with a desire to hide how you really are from others, and in its more complex forms, to hide it from yourself.

Etymology:
Hupo – under

Krinomai – sift, decide (middle voice, iquid aorist, critic, crisis)

Not an easy or certain etymology: from "separate gradually" to "answer" to "answer a fellow actor on stage" to "play a part."

So hypocrisy is in a sense play-acting

And why is Jesus so against it?

1. It can lead to self-deception – and pride. Two sides of the same coin.

2. It makes others feel bad about themselves. It loads them down, as Jesus makes clear in Matthew 23, today’s Gospel, and Luke 11 where he accuses the lawyers of this

3. It can make us physically ill.

As Boris Pasternak has Yurii say in Doctor Zhivago, "Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel; if you grovel before what you dislike... Our nervous system isn't just fiction, it’s part of our physical body, and it can't be forever violated with impunity."

So what is the remedy, the positive virtue to counteract this destructive sin?

Well it is authenticity (being yourself); integrity (being of one thing, whole).

Now this is easier said than done because we are not culturally free agents – in other words we live in a society where we cannot always be ‘authentic’.

We only have to think about the ‘gay’ issue to see that.

Living with parents, families, in society, in a church, in an office… all these place constraints upon us, so being authentic is a constant compromise.

Sometimes we rebel against the compromise, especially in our teenage years when we are trying to find the ‘authentic me’.

But also later – me with blond hair, earrings, tattoos in my 40s… This is as much me as this dog collar, the chasuble. I am something ‘whole’ – an integrity.

And this is true of all of us in the different roles we play in life.

So how do we get the balance right between conforming and asserting what we see as our authentic self?

If we look to Jesus as our guide we get some help.

In general he appears to have conformed in most ways to his Jewish culture; more so than John the Baptist.

But when he was trying to ‘set the captives free’, to liberate men and women from the burdens the religious set upon them, he was more likely to rebel:

The use of the Sabbath

The moneychangers in the temple

Pointing out hypocrisy

His attitude to women and children

In other words he did not assert his own authenticity just for the sake of it – for his own sake; he asserted it when it would be part of a liberation of others; an enabling of them to be authentic.

And this was of course at considerable cost to himself. The cost we celebrate at this mass tonight.

This is perhaps a guide for us as

we struggle to avoid hypocrisy, but not to be self-congratulatory about our authenticity;

about being ‘me’ while still respecting those around us who may be in a different space, a different place.

Stanford’s translation, wherever he got it from, (it’ not in any of Jerome’s Vulgate versions) has a deep truth in it.

Beati quorum via integra est, qui ambulant in lege Domini. Ps 119.1

Which we might paraphrase:

Happy are those who can live authentically, and yet still walk with integrity before God.