Sermon for the Birthday of John the Baptist, St Matthew's, 2012

I wonder if you like your name.

Do you take pleasure in remembering why it was chosen for you, enjoy the sight of your signature, see it as a good reflection of the person that you are?

Or do you wish your parents had been more creative, less conventional – or maybe the other way round...

I like my name – but DISlike the spelling – though never enough to take decisive action to change it....

and I've discovered through years of asking for details as I book in baptisms, weddings and funerals, that many people feel very strongly about their names ...indeed, they are rarely neutral.

Only yesterday a baptism dad, asked for his full names proclaimed 2 out of 3 loud and clear – then resorted to a mumble, so that I had to ask him to repeat himself twice,til he explained that he really hated his 3^rd name, chosen as a compliment to his grandfather.

And no, it wasn't Sisyphus or Ebeneezer!

But we do that, don't we...choose names to honour those whom we love or respect, to maintain a family tradition, perhaps to keep a memory alive.

Or there's another approach to naming – when parents choose a name that reflects their aspirations for their child.

Those virtue names that are firmly back in fashion...Faith, Hope, Prudence, Felicity...

names that carry hopes for the future, that try to shape personality and priority by a daily reminder of some lifetime goals..

Those names can be as hard to live up to as the other sort, which honours the past..

You see, we often expect names to carry a message beyond the immediate task of identification.

There's no denying, whatever Shakespeare would have us believe, that names are significant things.

The neighbours who came flocking to celebrate the birth of a son to Zechariah and hitherto barren Elizabeth had firm expectations -that the boy would be named for his father – and in due course, follow him into the family profession as a priest in the Temple.

Zechariah's name means “Remembered by God” - but when God not only remembered but intervened directly in this family's life, the impact left Zechariah dumbfounded.

In the same way, the guests at the baby's circumcision found their expectations confounded.

They had come to watch a tradition observed, to confirm once more their obedience to the Old Covenant between God and Israel...but found Zechariah silenced, unable to express his pride and joy,literally tongue tied....

And Elizabeth – that older mother who should surely have been proudly celebrating the fact that her husband's line would not, after all, dwindle and die....chose that day set apart by tradition, to turn her back on tradition and name her child John.

The first sign of the new covenant to come...a reminder that, whether we co-operate with him or resist him, bemused or baffled...GOD IS GRACIOUS – for THAT is what John means.

What's in a name?

Quite a lot, it seems, when that name is chosen by God – for, of course, an angel had already told the silenced Zechariah that this was to be his son's name...and had planted that same idea firmly in Elizabeth's mind too.

John – a name suming up not just Elizabeth's own perception of this miracle of belated motherhood

-truly this birth has come about by the grace of God alone, - but also, perhaps, representing a prayer and prophecy about that would happen later in John's life...

John – a child sent to remind us from the outset that God is gracious, for certainly this is no ordinary birth – and no ordinary child.

What, then, will this child become?

wondered the guests as they heard Zechariah speak at last, his tongue freed to confirm his wife's startling decision...

His name is JOHN

What will this child become, what is to be the fruit of this extraordinary birth, what the future for this baby graced by God?

Today's gospel leaves that question unanswered, though our reading from Isaiah gives us at least a clue if we really want to look ahead.

Let's stay with the birthday for a moment longer, though...for it offers one further insight into the coming ministry of John.

Had you realised that, apart from Jesus himself, John's is the only birth day that the Church invites us to celebrate?

John the midsummer saint – his birthday exactly 6 months before Christmas, as a reminder that he quickened, leapt in his mother's womb, when Mary came calling with her tale of a visiting angel and some life changing news.

At that point, his identity as a prophet was made clear – for as he leapt with joy, he recognised that his young aunt carried within in her the hopes of Israel and the Promise of God, pointed the way to the One at whose coming he rejoiced.

John the midsummer saint celebrated at this season of long days and short nights because, just in the same way the days draw in from this point of the year til we reach the winter solstice, so John's own light was to gradually diminish,

His mission was to go before Jesus and prepare the way for Him, and so once Christ's earthly ministry had begun the time came when John had to fade into the background and allow Jesus His place.

“He must increase but I must decrease” he said – and in this he is a model for each of us in our journey of faith.

But all that lies ahead today...as does his prophetic ministry, clearing a way in the wilderness, preparing the ground for God...

his challenging, disturbing preaching in the wilderness

his imprisonment and terrible death.

Today we have simply the miracle of his birth

and the way that his tongue-tied father finds his voice again, and bursts out in his own stream of exuberant praise that we know as the Benedictus.

Frustratingly, we don't hear those words this morning – but they are familiar to those who grew up with Matins and they are there to be found just after the gospel we've heard today – in Luke 1 67-79. If you do nothing else in response to my words, go home and read those...and ponder the difference that John the Baptist has made to the world, and what this might mean for us.

What then will this child become?

His father seems quite certain of the answer

“And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the most high

For you shall go before the Lord to prepare his way

To give his people knowledge of salvation

By the forgiveness of their sins...”

That sounds like a reasonable job description for one whose very name proclaims that God is gracious...and, unlikely though it may seem, this wild uncomfortable man, is indeed a model

for the Christian life.

Receiving grace, John is called to be a sign of that grace every day, to celebrate it with others, and to help them to see it for themselves.

This is no less the task of the Church...our task.

Receiving grace WE are called to celebrate it with others and to help them to see it for themselves

His midsummer light diminishes as the Christ light burns brighter....but while John lives, his calling is to point others to Jesus, through his words and through his deeds.

While we live, OUR calling is to point others to Jesus, through our words and our deeds.

“He must increase, but I must decrease!”

More of Jesus, less of John.

More of Jesus, less of Kathryn, Mathew, Benedict....whatever name your parents gave you, you are here today because, in your life as in John's, God is gracious.

So give thanks and so live that others may see that through God's mercy and compassion the dawn from on high has indeed broken upon us.

Live so that others will come to know that truly God is gracious.

Thanks be to God!

Homily for 8.00 (& maybe 9.30) Proper 6 Yr B

The vicarage garden is, I have to say, so bad that it's funny.

Though I rather enjoy gardening, I simply don't have any time – and Andrew, who might have the time, has less than no inclination.

Couple that with the fact that when the new vicarage went up, I rather suspect that the builders simply dumped some topsoil on the rubble of the old, and add the presence of a digging enthusiast in the form of Libby the retriever, and hens who will eat anything that lies in their path....

You get the idea. Chelsea it isn't.

But for all that, we DO have a wildflower lawn...something I love for all sorts of reasons but mostly because it demands nothing of me at all.

The clover, daisies, speedwell and dandelions that flourish there owe nothing whatsoever to my hardwork or ingenuity.

They are there simply because they have self sown...and actually, if I decided tomorrow that I wanted a perfect stripey lawn, they'd be almost impossible to get rid of.

And that's also the case with the mustard seed in 1^st century Palestine.

While some varieties were used as spice and others medicinally, in general they were considered at the very least a pest and often somewhat dangerous.

Why? Because wild mustard is incredibly hard to control, and once it takes root it can take over a whole planting area.

In other words, mustard seed was the ground elder of the ancient world...rarely found in well tended gardens, but overrunning a vacant field...

And that, you know, is the most wonderfully encouraging thought.

Jesus says that the Kingdom is like a mustard seed...which means that actually nothing can stop it

We may think that there are no signs of its presence...may feel that the human race is intent on self destruction, that selfishness, cruelty, death and despair are having things all their own way....but, imperceptibly beneath the surface of our broken, workaday world, the seeds of Kingdom transformation are growing...subverting the patterns of this world in ways that we can neither predict nor control.
And I think that's the point: this kingdom Jesus proclaims is not something we can control.

And it's definitely not safe, not, that is, if we're even a little bit satisfied with the way things are.

Rather, the kingdom comes to turn the world upside down, to make the prayerful song of Magnificat a living reality.

The seeds of the kingdom, tiny but irresistible, are also the seeds of hope – hope which moves us to action.
That's what Jesus offers, the dangerous hope that God's kingdom is coming and while we can neither control or even summon it (the farmer in the first of today's parables has no idea how or why his seeds grow) we can be alert for signs of its coming and celebrate its presence among us.
So this week I invite you to look at the world through Kingdom spectacles...

“So now we regard no one from a human point of view”

See things differently.

Be on the lookout for signs of that dangerous, transformative hope of a new reality founded on Love.

And live into it... live your identity as a new creation, brought to birth by water and the Spirit, living in Christ and empowered to be a sign of the Kingdom yourself, in all its justice, and joy

Trinity 1: a new kind of family

“Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother”

Picture the scene.

Jesus surrounded by a crowd so huge that nobody is even THINKING about feeding them...and he's not telling them gentle stories about lost sheep or prodigal sons either...

Instead he is, not to put too fine a point on it, having a bit of a rant.

“How can Satan cast out Satan? …..Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven...”

It's not comfortable listening, even at the beginning.

Nobody much is enjoying themselves...

Small wonder that the Scribes, present perhaps to ensure that orthodoxy is attended to, set out to discredit Jesus – to divert his hearers in mid flow...

“Don't listen to HIM. He's not well...He's raving...Might even be possessed...Ignore him”.

And, in their task of persuading Jesus to shut up, to stop his incendiary diatribe, they recruit some rather unlikely allies...Mary and her sons.

Jesus's Mum and his brothers.

Happy families!

I remember reading this passage while my children were small and thinking

“If my children are ever that rude to me in public – I'll have them across my knee before they know what's hit them”

Nobody likes to hear family tensions being aired in a public space....and certainly the way in which Jesus seems to reject his own flesh and blood is an affront to those “family values” which were as powerful a force in 1^st century Palestine as they are, in a rather different way, in 21^st century Britain.

So, what's going on as Jesus asks his outrageous, offensive question, one that must surely have stung mother Mary like a slap on the cheek?

“Who are my mother and my brothers?”

What IS going on?

Is it possible that Jesus looks at them without really seeing?

That in the flood tide of his preaching he has actually lost sight of reality, forgotten who he is and where he comes from?

I don't think so.

As they appear, intent on leading him away, calming him down, winning his silence, Mary and her sons are allied with the voice of law and order, concerned to keep up appearances, anxious that Jesus should stop making ways – lest they should all be washed away and perish.

For the moment, they've sided with his opponents in the cause of a quiet life.

But Jesus?

He will have none of this

He rejects both his family and their agenda of status quo, peace and stability, and casts about instead for a new family, a core community more truly able to offer support and encouragement, to share his vision and the task he has embraced as his own calling.

He casts about, and lights on those sitting listening – hungry for his words, for all their tendency to baffle and to challenge.

A disparate group, brought together solely because they are drawn there by Jesus.

A disparate group with but one single calling

To do the will of God.

“Here are my mother and brothers...”

And so the Church is born – as surely as it is at the foot of the cross when Jesus gives Mary and John to one another, as surprisingly as when the Spirit came on the disciples at Pentecost.

The Church – the family of Jesus in truth and in deed...drawn by him and existing to do God's will.

It's as simple – and as difficult – as that!

Bur through the centuries it has proved so very hard for us to keep our grip on that central calling.

It's so much easier to be God's family in name than in truth.

But to live it...to do God's will...that hasn't got any easier.

To do God's will continues to set us against contemporary values

It forces us to speak out against injustice – even the sort of injustice that is such an habitual part of life that we are barely aware of it.

It means that instead of being the voice of stability and tranquility, we find ourselves needing to make waves again and again and again.

It involves us in letting go of much that we treasure and long to cling to.

I'm very fond of Mary Byrne's great hymn “Be thou my vision”....and we often sing it in both our churches.

But think what we're singing

“Be all else but naught to me, save that thou art”

Nothing – not our families, not our friends, not our position in the community, not our much prized quiet lives.......NOTHING is to be more important to us than our focus on God and on doing God's will.

It's hard to think of a less comfortable calling.

It sounds so straightforward

“What does the Lord require of you? To do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God” says the prophet...

or, if you prefer, there is the great Commandment of love for God and for neighbour.

Easy!

Except, of course, that it isn't.

Doing God's will means, again and again, upsetting other people...and that's hard.

We all like to be liked, enjoy being in good standing in our communities – but as C.S.Lewis pointed out in the final chapter of “Mere Christianity” the choice is between “nice people or new men”.

Too often, in the Church, we've opted for niceness – it might even be our besetting sin – so that tv vicars, for example, when they're not sinister to the core are damply ineffectual – their call to ministry revolving around being kind to children, cats and little old ladies.

Of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being kind...but it's not what the church is for!

We are here, purely and simply, to do God's will...to live as signs of God's kingdom of love and justice and joy.

That won't often win us friends or allies...for the kingdom is founded on challenge not complacency.

It won't give us an easy ride, at home or abroad – indeed, an easy ride is almost in itself a guarantee that we've lost the plot.

It has been truly said that if we really preached the gospel, we would empty the churches – for the cost of obedience to God is higher than most of us are willing or able to pay.

But – and of this I'm certain – though doing God's will will not guarantee peace and prosperity it will full us with the kind of joy that stems from knowing that all our security, all our identity, is found in God as we seek to do God's will.

We will stumble, fall and fail a thousand times – our human nature pretty much guarantees that.

But still and all, we ARE God's family – drawn by Jesus, called to do God's will.

So let us pause for a moment, reflect, and confess in our hearts our failure as individuals and as community to BE the Church, the family of Christ...our tendency to settle for an easy compromise, our longing for approval from our family and friends...

and having paused, let us turn our faces to the Son and begin our journey again.

If we do so, I know that God's grace will meet us, raise us from death to life and bring us, through Christ our brother, to an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.

Trinity & Jubilee...words for All Saints, 3rd June 2012

This is an extraordinary weekend – one of those which surely will live on in our collective memory

The first Diamond Jubilee since Queen Victoria's

A festival of national and international dimensions, that is brought close to home by the multitude of picnics, street parties, Big Lunches and local celebrations of all kinds;

an opportunity to engage with our neighbours as we may not have done for a long time, a chance to celebrate being a community.

That's good because today the Church too invites us to think about Community – GOD in Community, - the relationship that is represented, however imperfectly, by the doctrine of the Trinity.

You'll know so many of the hopeful illustrations...from St. Patrick's shamrock, to the scientist's water/ice/steam or the school children's favourite the jammy dodger – biscuit, cream and jam...or even the Union Flag - but actually I think these take us further and further from what we really need to know.

Indeed, I think we could spend a lifetime attempting to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and, in the process miss the truth of it completely.

In Genesis God declared

“It is not good for human beings to be alone”

and as we look at human life lived to perfection in the person of Christ we see him engaging not only with the people that he encountered in his earthly ministry, but deeply, intimately with his heavenly Father, in the power of the Spirit.

Relationship demonstrated for us, a reminder that we are designed to face each other, to draw together not turn our backs and walk away.

It is not good for us to be alone

And, amazingly, though God exists in relationship with God – God seeks relationship with us as well, and draws us into God's redemptive work in the world.

That's the message of the Isaiah reading.

We hear of the prophet coming, as we do ourselves, to worship God ...perhaps with no great expectations.

But against all expectation, he has a transforming experience....seeing God in the royal court, with cherubim and seraphim in attendance.

A vision of heavenly glory that puts even the most extravagant jubilee celebration to shame.

Heaven and earth touching as worship takes place.

And you know -that's how it should be for us, week on week.

In our worship, we should, as our own Bishop Michael has put it, “grasp the heel of heaven”...knowing that our half hearted praise and imperfect prayer is swept up into that great chorus of “holy, holy, holy” that resounds throughout creation

“Heaven and earth are full of God's glory”

That's what we sing...week on week on week...

but typing it just now I was suddenly brought up short.

HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE FULL OF GOD'S GLORY –

but we, we are invited to participate in God's mission in the world.

Woe is me...says Isaiah

I'm not equal to the vision...small, inglorious, I don't belong in this holy place, tarnished by life's guilt as I am.

I'm no more at home in the courts of heaven than a tramp at a royal Garden Party...

That's the human judgement.

But God sees things differently.

God sees not present inadequacy but future potential...and offers pardon, transformation – and a clear call to mission.

God offers this not just to Isaiah, once long ago...but to us, here and now.

Today we celebrate the response of one woman to the call that she heard from God

We celebrate the way that she has lived out the anointing that, at her Coronation, set her apart for loving service to this country and the Commonwealth.

We rejoice, for whatever your politics, there is clearly much to celebrate.

But all God's baptised children are anointed too.

Each of us is set apart for loving service.

We are Christians ...anointed ones....for “the Christ” MEANS the anointed One...and we are called to be little Christs...

Set apart for loving service, our experience, our journey, matching Isaiah's own.

We come to worship and glimpse for a moment the glory that fills heaven and earth.

We recognise our own wretchedness, but are absolved and transformed.

And then, like Isaiah, we are invited to take our place in God's mission, to reflect in our lives that relationship of self-giving mutual love that is at the heart of the Trinity...

Here I am, send me

Send me to build community....

to engage with my neighbour,

to find meaning in community,

to join hands with friend and stranger...

not to understand but to mirror, as best I can, that relationship of love in which we live and move and have our being.

Pentecost 2012 at both churches

Some years ago, a book was published entitled “Living the Trinity”

Its basic premise was that, though a healthy church should reflect the life of each person of the Trinity, a number of churches tended to emphasise one or another at the expense of the third...

Think about it, for a moment.

There are churches whose main emphasis is on the holiness of God.

They may well be churches where traditional worship is very important, where awe and wonder are central to the experience of encountering God, where decency, order and history are much valued.

Perhaps they are laying their main stress on God the Father – the creator robed in majesty.

Others may seem to reflect more the servant ministry of Christ. They have a focus on the world outside the church doors, and may be active in community work while striving to welcome all comers to worship and to change them from church-goers into disciples, people learning what it means to live like Jesus today.

Then there are those churches whose main emphasis is the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

They may sit light to tradition, being ready to adapt and change in response to the Spirit's leading...

They may not use standard liturgies at all – and they may be very comfortable with the charismatic gifts that the disciples first received on the day of Pentecost, but which are still available to work transformation on the church today.

Of course these sketches are generalisations – never the whole story...and remember, a healthy church needs to reflect the fullness of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – though I'm not sure we always manage this.

I can't help but wonder how well balanced we are at St M's/All Saints.

I wonder, particularly on this feast of the Holy Spirit, how easy we find it to leave room for the Spirit's work...for we are, on the whole, quite comfortable with the way things are...and the Holy Spirit is so often the spirit of challenge and change.

Of course, the feast of Pentecost is very much about communication.

The Spirit descends on the disciples, transforming them in an instant from terrified fugitives huddled together for mutual support, to apostles ready to take on the world for the sake of the Kingdom. And as the Spirit descends, that uneducated riff raff from Galilee is suddenly a college of eloquent, compelling preachers....MULTI LINGUAL preachers at that.

So the Spirit does not just challenge – but empowers and equips as well.

Suddenly the apostles find themselves inspired AND enabled to share good news they had hardly dared to believe for themselves.

They are given the gifts they need in order to share with people quite unlike themselves, people they would not normally understand, or be understood by...and brimming over with the joy of their encounter with God at work, they set out to do just that.

God the Holy Spirit will do anything to get the message across, speak any language...of head, heart or mind, in order to reach us.

It's true enough here in this benefice.

Think of All Saints....the building

People are drawn here from across the world by its reputation for beauty and craftmanship.

It exists to speak of a beauty beyond the skill of the greatest artist, a beauty beyond our most eloquent words.

And for 150 years as God's people have gathered within the walls, they have encountered their Father...and, we pray, gone away changed by that encounter, to serve Him in the world.

It's what the Church is about.

Encounter, transformation and loving service.

The language of our building speaks loud and clear to many...

Perhaps it was the way in which the Holy Spirit first spoke to you....

Or perhaps the Spirit spoke through music, or family, friendship, or the glories of larksong on the Common on a May morning.

Remember, the great Communicator will stop at nothing to get the message of Love across – for this is the most important message than anyone will ever hear...the message that changes lives forever.

However the Spirit spoke, whether you know it or not, you are here because you heard and responded.

Responded – yes, once, when the Spirit first spoke to you...but listen... she is still speaking today.

Her words may not always be welcome for this is the Spirit of challenge and change...

The living Spirit of God, that is as real and present in the world today as ever she was at Pentecost.

I wonder what language she is using to reach you now, and how you might best open yourself to hear.

I suspect that often we forget to factor God's Spirit into our equations, our life plans, our tidy little solutions to the problem of being human.

We say, week on week, that “we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life” but behave as if that Spirit has been absent or silent since the first Pentecost...

Or we pay lip service to the Spirit's presence, but continue to arrange our lives in such a way that there is no flexibility, no room to respond to that message of life-giving transformation that once gripped the disciples in the Upper Room. We come to church, sing the hymns and say our prayers, but expect almost nothing – but this is the Spirit of the LIVING GOD, who is always a God of surprises.

Let me tell you a story – a personal one, from only a few weeks ago, though its roots lie way back in my teens.

Back in those days I was, it seemed, the one member of the school's CU who did NOT receive any perceptible gifts of the Spirit at a period when to speak in tongues seemed to be the only acceptable criterion by which faith was judged.
At the time, after a long and anxious conversation with God on the bus home from school I accepted that for me "Blessed are those who have not seen but yet believe" was to be the motto and continued on my journey of faith with only a faint twinge of envy.
It meant that through the next 3 decades I tended to avoid churches where “that sort of thing went on”, because, quite honestly, it would have hurt too much if nothing noticeable had happened to me
That, of course, didn't mean that I didn't have some very powerful experiences of God's presence at various points along the way....but I used different language to describe them. I tended to talk more of my relationship with God, and less about the work of the Holy Spirit - though every year at Pentecost I would find myself praying with all that was in me for something amazing to happen, NOW, this INSTANT, to transform me and my churches.
It didn't seem as if anything much changed - but I've been praying for long enough on so many different topics that I've gradually accepted that prayer really isn't a slot machine.
Nonetheless, it did hurt a bit.
Maybe God didn't love me QUITE as much as he loved some of those others?
In my heart of hearts I knew that was nonsense, but nonetheless....
So I plugged on, working as hard as I possibly could to be a good priest, loving my people and praying for them as best I could, but recognising that there wasn't going to be a miraculous turn-around in the life of my parishes if it depended on me.
Then, as part of my professional development programme, I found myself at a conference for charismatic catholic Anglicans.

Not somewhere I would ever have expected to be..but still and all, I was there, and the talk was all of the work of the Holy Spirit – with was plenty of evidence to suggest that this was more than just talk.
So, almost despite myself, I took a deep breath and decided to run the risk that once again I might not be "chosen" to be blessed?
And very gently, God acted.

I, the non charismatic, who had been too fearful to lose myself in God, found myself experiencing not the gift of tongues but, still more startling, the amazing reality of trusting God completely, of letting go of everything – and finding myself literally bowled over...and awash with wonder, love and praise.

So listen, PLEASE listen...for the Spirit is still speaking...to the churches and to you.

Listen, and remember, this IS the Spirit who gives life, the Spirit who is the agent of God's transformation, the Spirit who can help us to negotiate change and to grow in ways that we would never have imagined.

All we have to do is to open ourselves to Her work...to let go of our fears and our prejudices and join in the creative loving dance of the Trinity, a dance that will continue til everything that has breath is drawn in to share that Love in which we live and move and have our being.

The REAL Lord's Prayer? homily for 8.00 Easter 7B

The Lord's Prayer

That's how we describe the prayer that Jesus taught us...the one he offered when his disciples asked him how they ought to pray.

But in our gospel today we are allowed to eavesdrop on the Lord's prayer that he offers himself – the REAL Lord's prayer, if you like...the words that pass between Father and Son as Jesus prepares to leave the world, as, indeed, he prepares to die.

Time and again I find myself thinking, as I visit someone close to the end of their life-journey

"There's no room for pretence now...This is a time of relentless honesty, a time when we get to see what really matters, who are the real priorities"

And at this time in Jesus' earthly life who does he choose to pray for?

He prays for US

His disciples and all who would believe in him through their words.

The Church with all her aspirations and all her brokenness.

Here, as we listen to this outpouring from Son to Father, we glimpse ourselves as his Love sees us.

Although gospel writers, commentators, and preachers like to present the disciples as clueless and bumbling, we hear Jesus affirm them ("they know in truth that I came from you").

We hear him lift them up ("they do not belong to the world"), and tell us they were worthy companions on his journey ("they have kept your word").

More...they and we are his GLORY...

“I have been glorified in them”

We may offer but the poorest reflection of Christ's righteousness and holiness, we may be dull, disobedient, slow to love but for all that, we are his glory.

This prayer of Jesus is very much about his followers today - it is not just limited to his first century disciples. We still need protection from the evil one, and sanctification for the work we do in the world. In our struggle to preach Christ crucified in a society blinded by material wealth at any cost and enamoured with creature comforts, it is this kind of prayer on our behalf that invokes the Holy Spirit. When we hear Jesus pray this prayer for us, it is a foretaste of the feast of Pentecost, a sampling of the clothing of power from on high...and goodness, we need that power.

While on retreat before my priesting, I was invited to read this prayer and imagine Jesus replacing every reference to the disciples with my own name.

It turned out to be one of the most powerful exercises I've ever undertaken.

“I am coming to you and I speak these things to you so that Kathryn...Mary...Eira...may have my joy made complete in her....”

When Jesus is alone with his Father – he talks about US...and longs for us to be filled with joy. 

How good is that"

To know that Christ prayed for "me" gives us strength when we thought we were exhausted, success when we believed ourselves failures, and vision to see transformation where it seemed that none was possible

On Thursday as we celebrated Ascension we remembered that for all our inadequacies, WE are the ones to whom Jesus entrusted his mission in the world. There is no “Plan B”...

Today we see that though he prays for our protection from the world, he does not want to remove us from it but sends us out to get on with that insistent God given task of loving the world into the Kingdom. 

This is not just the “real” Lord's Prayer but the ultimate Eucharistic Prayer...a prayer in which Jesus consecrates not bread and wine but his very self, drawing together in unity all that his Father has given him into unity and sending them, sending US, forth into the world.

Dare we, as we listen to this prayer, offer a heart-felt “Amen”?

Christmas backwards!

That was the way with which I began our exploration of Ascension at the Valley Church School's service this morning. 
The children were wonderful, attempting to read and then interpret "SAMTSIRHC" until someone tumbled to the fact that it might just be a real word in reverse...and we talked about whether at Ascension God took back the gift he had given when Jesus came to earth.
You won't be surprised to hear that I told them he hadn't...but I wanted to share with you what happened next.
The children are very familiar with the idea that Christ is the light of the world...Whenever we light their big worship candle in school we say 
"God said" "LET THERE BE LIGHT": Jesus said "I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD"
so we talked about the way that the Paschal candle had represented that light for us ever since we lit it in the dark of Holy Saturday night...
Then I took it from its stand and hid it...but the children knew it was still alight.
Finally I used a snuffer and invited them to watch carefully as I "changed the light" *
It was amazing.
The smoke continued for almost a minute, pouring from the wick, dancing and wreathing the altar ...The children followed it with their eyes and were very ready to accept that the light was now transformed into something that was everywhere, something that was within them....
We prayed then I sent them out to get on with carrying Christ's love and joy to the world...
As they went, class by class, we sang "You shall go out with joy" and it was truly wonderful.


One of those days when I can really feel how blessed I am to work in this community.




*a Godly Play idea which I first met when preparing the Godly Play Baptism lesson

Love in action - a sermon on John 15 for Christian Aid week

Much of this material comes from the resources provided by Christian Aid. The story of the community of Gbap is as re-told by Revd Anne le Bas on the PRCL lists, and as so often I'm inspired by her words.

It's that time of year again.

The time of year when you find yourself feverishly cudgelling your brains to remember which is the smallest state in Australia;

when teddy bears abseiling down church towers become almost commonplace;

when more than 200,000 people wander around their neighbourhoods posting bright red envelopes through every door – and even have the courage to go back later in the hope that they may have been filled with money.

Christian Aid emerged from the rubble of post-war Europe and has been making a difference to the poorest communities ever since.

Why?

Well, of course, the clue is here in this morning's gospel, as we hear more of Jesus's great farewell speech.

I wonder what the disciples made of it.

Did they realise that all this talk about of love and of fruitfulness was part of a long goodbye...preparation for the moment when Jesus would hand on the baton to them and leave them with the task of loving the world into God's kingdom?

I very much doubt if they did.

Mostly, I expect, they were baffled as usual, distracted by speculation as to what kind of fruit lasted beyond its normal season, indignant that as free men anyone might ever consider them servants, brought up short by the suggestion that friendship might involve personal cost

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends

Did they imagine, for a moment, what “to love one another as I have loved you” might actually mean?

The scope of the love on offer?

The meaning of the lesson in progress?

Every teacher knows the delight of working themselves out of a job, of recognising that the student has fully embraced all they were being taught...

The greatest teacher of all time is about to put his own skills to the test...

We read with the perfect perspective of hindsight but for the disciples – literally students- Jesus had not yet progressed from “do what I say” to “do what I do” as he became a parable himself, dying and rising to show what LOVE really means.

Jesus knows that if his followers look to him to supply the answers forever, they will never be able to exercise the ministry they are meant for. He doesn’t want the distorted relationship of a master and servants, based on a power dynamic that stacks the cards against the weak . He wants them to learn to trust themselves, so that they can act boldly with their own initiative. God has been incarnate – made flesh – in Jesus. Now Jesus, the Word of God, invites them, invites US,to something new...He will not tell us what to say, put words into our mouths, but instead helps us to find our own God-given voice, to be words of God ourselves. We, like the twelve, are to live out the incarnation by becoming God's love in action.

So what?

Can we hear today's gospel and then go home unchanged to a Sunday roast and a glass of sherry?

That call to love in action MUST make a difference...and Christian Aid week gives us the opportunity both to see love at work and to join in.

Let me tell you a story.

Come with me, if you will, all the way to Sierra Leone on the West African coast.

The region was once a centre of the transatlantic slave trade, with slaves being shipped from its ports. When slaves began to gain their freedom some returned to Africa, supported by white British philanthropists. But most had no idea where their ancestors had come from and no way of returning to their roots. So a colony was formed in the early 19th Century , arbitrarily carved out of what seemed to be spare land and
groups of slaves were settled there, regardless of where their ancestors
might actually have hailed from. It might have seemed like a good idea at
the time, but it was riven with problems. There were bitter conflicts with
the existing population of the land. There were no natural connections
within the new population. The new settlement was heavily dependent on
British protection and soon it simply became an outpost of the expanding
British Empire. It was a prime spot, a gateway into a continent that was
increasingly being exploited for its rich natural resources. Independence
didn’t finally come until 1961 but it is no surprise that even after that it
has been a very rough ride. This is a nation which was built on the rubble
of slavery – the ultimate distorted relationship - and then pushed around by
nations with agendas of their own ever since.

No wonder it has been hard for it to establish its own identity, find its
own dignity and exercise its own power wisely. Eventually it erupted into
bitter civil war in the 1990’s which lasted over a decade and left the
country in ruins.

That’s the backdrop to the work Christian Aid is doing, supporting those who
are trying to re-establish themselves in villages that have been razed to
the ground, on farmland that’s been abandoned and reverted to nature, with
infrastructure that has been destroyed. Sierra Leone’s people are great
survivors. Simply to have got through these tough times and still have the
urge to try again shows that. They are full of ingenuity, enterprise and
energy. What they have lacked though, are the basic tools for rebuilding.
One in five families doesn’t even have enough to eat – the most fundamental
necessity. It’s like being expected to climb Mount Everest in bare feet.
And that’s where Christian Aid and its partner organisations have come in.

The particular project whose story Christian Aid is telling this week is in
a village called Gbap (pronounced Bap). One woman there, Mary Samuel, put
its problems in a nutshell..  “If we had food today,” Mary said, “what would
we eat the next day?” There was nothing to rely on, no certainty about the
future. But things have changed for her since the Methodist Church of Sierra
Leone, which is supported by Christian Aid, came to their tow. It encouraged
the people of Gbap to set up a village development committee so that they
could decide for themselves what they needed to do. It was a simple thing,
but through it the people of Gbap were given a voice.

They decided to set up a food production group. With the Church’s
assistance, they distributed seeds and tools to local farmers. They trained
them in more effective agricultural practices, so that they could cultivate
the floodplain outside the town and develop a rice farm and a cassava plot.
They negotiated the loan of a tractor, and that meant they could plough more
land and produce more food.
Inspired by this, one thing led to another. They are now building an work
centre to house a cassava-grater and rice-thresher – vital machines that
will help them process their raw produce into something that will sell for a
higher price at the market. And they have built a new school – a long overdue replacement for the crumbling building they had before, which was so unsafe that many parents
refused to send their children there.

Christian Aid believes that poverty is, at its heart, an issue of power. And in their approach to development, we try to avoid models of ‘donor and beneficiary’, to work instead as equal partners,  friends sharing power together. 

This year, the people of Gbap have been empowered to take their future into their own hands to speak out for change and look towards a better future. And in hearing their story, we too can be changed. Mary Samuel looks at the changes to her village and comments: ‘Today we are
seeing something which has come from us.” That’s what’s made the
difference. The people of Gbap have learned to see themselves not as pawns
in the games played by national and international forces beyond their power
to influence, but as people who can take their own future into their own
hands and do something about it.

Not servants but friends...equal partners in the work of loving the world into God's kingdom.

Let's join in too.

Will you pray with me now?

Gracious God, who bids us to love one another

May we listen to the voices of all who speak out for a more loving world.

Inspire us to gifts of love and friendship;

Sustain us when we stand together for change

and transform our offerings

so that we may become part of the miracle of your Love.

Bless the gifts that we offer

Bless the work we will do

And bless all who bear witness

to our support for your people on the edge

Bless all our endeavours

and our small contributions

and transform them into fruit that endures.