Transitions

I was one of those fortunate women who have very easy labours. Perhaps this is why I never stopped hankering after "just one more baby" - or perhaps that was simply because I didn't really want to grow up. Who knows? However, I could guarantee that even in the shortest and most straightforward of labours (my longest lasted a cool 4 hours) there would be one stage in which I would become thoroughly miserable and unreasonable, ask if I could call the whole thing off and generally rue the day that I ever contemplated motherhood.

This stage will be familiar to parents as transition........and since then I've realised that I don't much enjoy other transitions either.

I don't think many people do.

Currently, I've several friends and family members who are in that threshold space. My beloved daughter Hattie Gandhi returns here this evening, leaving the city that she has loved since her arrival as a 1st year undergraduate. With 2 degrees to her name, she has certainly made the most of her time there in every possible way - and I know it's hard for her to head back to the vicarage, which has never been home for her, with no idea of what comes next.

Meanwhile, a dear friend is waiting to begin a new ministry in a new place and going through all the uncomfortable adjustments that this entails - coupled with the awful bereavement that seems to be part of leaving any parish, at least until the next chapter really begins...and others are on their ordination retreats, contemplating stepping through the door into a completely different world.

Another has just announced that she will be leaving this country and heading across the Pond...And I spent yesterday morning at the Cathedral with the year 6 from valley church school, as they attended the diocesan Leavers' service.

And so it goes on.

Transitions wherever I turn.

So - for all of these dear dear people, specially those who are struggling with what comes next, a prayer by beloved John O'Donahue, from "Benedictus"

For the interim time

When near the end of day, life has drained

Out of light, and it is too soon

For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline

Makes everything look strangely in-between,

Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.

In a while, it will be night, but nothing

Here seems to believe the relief of dark.

You are in this time of the interim

Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;

The way forward is still concealed from you.

The old is not old enough to have died away;

The new is still too young to be born.

You cannot lay claim to anything;

In this place of dusk

Your eyes are blurred;

And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart

And you can see nowhere to put your trust;

You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.

Do not allow your confusion to squander

This call which is loosening 

Your roots in false ground,

That you might come free

From all you had outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind

And it is difficult and slow to become new,

The more faithfully you can endure here,

The more refined your heart will become

For your arrival in the new dawn.

PS. Oh - and for the record - after transition came the hardest work of labour - and then three joyful deliveries. Well worth enduring for!

Homily for 8.00 Trinity Sunday Yr A

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Before I've even written a word, that opening prayer puts us straight into the heart of God.......and straight into the heart of today's feast.

Trinity Sunday – the day when limited human minds, and limited human language attempt to explore the nature of the God who is beyond all our greatest imaginings, our finest words.

There's a tradition in theology called the apophatic tradition, which can be summed up in the words of Wittgenstein

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”

In other words – if words fail, then don't use words.

But actually, the doctrine of the Trinity is all about lived experience...a doctrine formulated to make sense of God as encountered by humanity in só many ways from the very beginning.

Só, this morning, we might focus on the Creation story from Genesis – and encounter all the imaginative excitement of God at work, his Word (THE Word) bringing forth light and life........while the Spirit, God's breath, moves over the face of the waters....

Or we might instead find ourselves standing with the disciples, who have spent 3 years realising that their beloved Rabbi is só God filled that he must BE God – (I and the Father are one) just in time for his risen body to leave them once again – with a Trinitarian commission to obey

Or we might submit ourselves to the embrace that we só often share with one another, those familiar words of mutual blessing that are part of our Epistle today

“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore”

You see, the essence of the Trinity is love, though it is too simple to present it as Love, Lover and Beloved....for what is true of one is true of all.....

John Wesley said
“Tell me how it is that in this room there are three candles and but one light, and I will explain to you the mode of the divine existence”

Because however much we may try to find clever ways to illustrate the truth that God is three and God is one, what we need to grasp most fully is that God in Trinity is God in relationship – a relationship of endless mutual love, into which we are invited.

The point of Christianity has never been to figure God out by reading and learning, but to experience God. The pertinent question is the same question it always was: how do we find God?

How do we experience God's love?

There's a story about a training incumbent who promised his curate a substantial sum if he could manage his first sermon on Trinity Sunday without using the word “mystery”......

He did só, knowing his money was almost 100% safe........but the problem is that we too often treat the Trinity as the sort of mystery that needs to solved – like a detective story – rather than the sort we submit to, like falling in love.

But actually, falling in love is the central concern.

For ours is a God who knows what it is like to give of self completely for the other and who can do that because the other is totally invested in giving its self for the the first.

Here there is no hierarchy, no anxiety over precedence.

Instead the love that defines and informs the one reaches out and spills over into the other

Look, says the Father.......look at the Son........

Look, says the Son...........look at the Spirit

They gaze at one another in mutual love and delight – and invite us to do the same – to participate in their loving relationship and to draw others to do so as well.

In a few moments, we'll enter into that Communion as we come to receive God in the sacrament....Here we find all the love and all the sustenance we will ever need....Here, touched by love, we are made lovely too

só let's pray, using some words of Catherine of Siena

Eternal Trinity, you are a deep sea, into which the more we enter the more we find, and the more we find the more we seek. The soul ever hungers in your abyss, longing to see you with the light of your light and, as the deer yearns for the springs of water, so our souls yearn to see you in truth. Amen

Uncharted territory

June 17th 1978....a Saturday, just 2 days before my 1st A level (Music Aural, as it happens)

The independent school I was attending had Saturday morning lessons, but these were suspended for the Upper 6th so that we could concentrate on revision. 

I think I was working on history when my housemaster came into the library, tapped me on the shoulder and took me away from my books and, I guess, away from my childhood too.

That morning, while I was worrying about the causes of the English Civil War, my father had quietly moved on from the pain of the last weeks of cancer, the sadness of saying farewell, and had gone safely home to the God whom he'd served with quiet devotion all his 67 years.

The next days, weeks, months were unlike anything I had ever experienced.

From being younger than my years, focussed solely on exam work and music I found myself abruptly transformed into the adult as my mother struggled with a loss so devastating that it took with it her will to live, her reason to engage with the world.

When she died herself, 6 months later, it was almost a relief. They needed to be together - and, surely, had done all they could to prepare me for the world.

And, you know, I think they pretty much had.

They had taught me that there is always enough Love to go round, and had given me a language to recognise this.

They had taught me that it's ALWAYS worth going the extra mile for your friends (and had given me friends who demonstrated that in so many many ways)

They had shown me how books and music can transform pretty much any situation and left me with a lifelong passion for both

And they had shown me how to give, and why it matters to make a difference.

Sometimes, though, I wonder what else I might have learned - particularly now, as I explore what it means to be the parent of adult children...how to provide enough support to be helpful without either swamping or disabling them...how (the familiar, but still challenging lesson here) to both embrace and let go.

They never had to do that...I hope that, one day, my children will look back on my parenting with the same gratitude with which I remember - not just on anniversaries, but whenever I think of them.

Naming the challenge

On Sunday, the feast of Pentecost, we celebrated in both hill and vale with the full seasonal provision that "Times and Seasons" allows. Inevitably, this had a quite different "feel" in each church - probably at least in part because I presided in the valley, which gives you a particular set of priorities during worship. 

There, I stood at the head of the nave and looked down at the congregation, lit on a particularly damp and dark June morning by the light we had shared from the Paschal flame - and was struck above all by the courage of that group of people, none of whom have the easiest of lives...

The commissioning rite that Common Worship includes as a concrete reminder of what "being the Church" actually means, minces no words at all....

Listen

As part of God’s Church here in N, I call upon you to live out what you proclaim.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, will you dare to walk into God’s future,

trusting him to be your guide?

By the Spirit’s power, we will.

Will you dare to embrace each other and grow together in love?

We will.

Will you dare to share your riches in common and minister to each other in need?

We will.

Will you dare to pray for each other until your hearts beat with the longings of God?

We will.

Will you dare to carry the light of Christ into the world’s dark places?

We will.

Those are big words, aren't they....a huge weight of commitment.

It was one thing to ask a congregation if they would live out what they proclaimed. That felt splendid - an affirmation of our common purpose, to be celebrated triumphantly.

Being asked to voice those same proclamations myself not once but twice -both up the hill and in a packed Cathedral, full to welcome our new Dean - was quite quite different.

There, perhaps, we were all carried along by the occasion, by being part of a huge congregation bouyed up by splendid music (Locus Iste, Howells Gloucester Mag. AND If ye love me, all in one service is pretty celestial in my book), and all the high liturgical drama of the day. 

But up the hill, as part of a congregation 2 dozen strong, I felt the weight of every word and all but stumbled.

It was OK to be asked the huge, broad-spectrum questions about walking with God, growing in love, sharing the Christ-light in dark places...While I know that I fail in these every day, I know too that they are intrinsic to the faith that I profess, and actually I do try - and I know that God knows this.

But these are also pledges with soft edges, addressing areas where "success" and "failure" are hard to define.

But what about sharing my riches in common with those in need?

Was I, or anyone else in either congregation, actually up for that?

My voice faltered. 

Giving? - yes - but always with the rider in my head "When I can..." and with the right reserved to determine just what those words mean...

Sharing in common....ummmm.....

I looked around me - at comfortable people in their Sunday best - people like me...

None of their faces registered any disquiet and I wasn't conscious of any sudden diminuendo in the responses.

Were they all crossing their fingers? 

Or was I about to witness an amazing scene in which we poured out of the building to pool our material resources with the rough sleepers of Gloucester, or swept down the hill to solve the financial worries of the valley estates by taking them upon ourselves?

Or was there a shared assumption that we could make huge commitments "by the Spirit's power"

and then blame God for our failure to follow through?

Or worse still, did we not actually mean a word we were saying?

And if not in this context, then where else in our worship might this be so?

I loved the liturgy on Sunday, - but I'm distinctly uneasy when I remember what we promised. Perhaps that unease is the gift of the Spirit....I wish I'd asked to speak Polish* instead.

*Not an entirely random choice - we do have some Polish families at both my valley schools.

Yr A Pentecost Sermon for St M's & All Saints: Acts 2, John 14

When the day of Pentecost had come the people of St Matthew's/All Saints were all gathered together in one place and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire church where they were gathered and……

How did you feel as you heard those words?

What would that sort of dramatic outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit actually mean for us here?

Do you honestly believe it could happen?

Every year as we approach Pentecost, I’m conscious that I’m being pulled in two directions.

On the one hand, I feel safe within the familiarity of Anglican liturgy here. I come expecting to find God (in this community) amid the blend of Word and Sacrament, and I am seldom disappointed. I’m Anglican by choice as well as by chance, and I do value worship which is conducted “decently and in order”…so imagining the sort of radical transformation that the Holy Spirit might bring to us is, on one level, more than a little alarming.

But on the other hand what Christian, confronted with the diverse challenges that face both church and world today could fail to pray for the transforming power that enabled a group of fearful uneducated men to take on the world for Christ?

I value what we have, but I know that we so often settle for less than our primary calling – to BE the church – a sign of God's kingdom, a powerful agent of transformation in a broken world...And I know that we will continue to fail, without a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit – in these communities, at this time.

I guess the struggle that I experience is simply par for the course. We all know that encounters with God are unlikely to leave us untouched – and sometimes the changes and challenges ahead seem too huge to contemplate.

The good news is - I rather suspect the disciples felt the same. When the Acts reading begins, they are gathered together, waiting. Though Luke doesn’t say so, it’s quite possible that they are actually gathered together in the upper room, their unofficial Jerusalem HQ. This is holy ground for them, the place where they’d celebrated the Passover with Jesus, and hidden in fear when the Lord was arrested and crucified. It was the place where they had huddled together in the fear and grief of Holy Saturday and the place where they heard the first rumours of resurrection. There they had encountered the risen one who came among them despite barred doors, there they had regrouped when he went from them, there they had watched and prayed for his promise to be fulfilled. Holy ground indeed,the place where they felt themselves to be a community, still united despite the departure of their Lord.

Yes, they were a community in waiting, uncertain about their next step, but a community gathered in faith and hope nonetheless.

Does that sound at all familiar? I do hope that it does

Of course, they were also a community under threat.

Outside the house, the streets were thronged with people once again – just as they had been at Passover…Perhaps the disciples defined themselves as if set against the crowd outside. They were the ones with the special knowledge and experience of God, though the crowds were the ones with the courage and freedom to move about the city.

We don't really know, but we DO know that with the coming of the Spirit, everything changed.

Hiding no longer, they went gladly out from their place of safety, out to speak to the crowds, overwhelmed with enthusiasm for a message that just had to be delivered. They were caught up in the excited turmoil, which was so pervasive that it seemed to onlookers that this was a scene of drunken revelry.

Rather alarming, I think?

But alarming or not, it worked. This wasn’t simply a particularly raucous worship service from which everyone went home scratching their heads, thankful to get back to normal.

Lives were changed.

People heard the Gospel and responded to it. They were baptized and “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers"

Happy Birthday, Church!

For the disciples, the coming of the Spirit meant that they had to let go of the securities of their holy place and go out into the streets, among the crowds that could so easily turn nasty.

The Spirit made that venture possible…and in doing so, opened up Salvation to the whole world.

Wonderful, inspirational....but perhaps a bit too far away from our expectations here this morning.

But, you know, Pentecost was not a once only event...The Spirit has been active throughout history, moving over the face of the waters at creation, transforming Ezekiel's dry bones, descending like a dove upon Jesus at his baptism.

And the Holy Spirit has not vanished from the world, not even from the Church!

At that first Pentecost, God reached out to communicate directly with everyone.

And God still does.

But not always, of course, in the mighty rushing wind, the multilingual gifts and high excitement of the day of Pentecost.

While Luke presents the coming of the Spirit with fanfares and celebrations, John offers us only a gentle whisper, so quiet that we might even miss it.

Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus looks at his exhausted, disappointed disciples, wrung out by all the dramas of holy week, of death and resurrection – and offers them nothing less than artificial respiration.He breathes HIS life into them...literally INSPIRES them....That weary, fearful group is given the very life of God, and a new calling, to reconcile and bless If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

We have to do the same.

Filled with God's life-breath, Inspired as God's church, this is our calling.

Knowing that God so loved not church alone but the whole world, we are to reach out to her in all her pain and brokenness and speak God's words of healing and forgiveness.

Knowing that our language may not be adequate, we are to listen to God and allow the Holy Spirit to translate so that we may more fully communicate God's love.

We speak so many different languages – of mind and heart and spirit – culture and community – yet all must hear the Gospel.

There is no official language for God rather God comes down and speaks our language, whatever it may be.

God's one supreme message of love is translated so that nobody can fail to understand.

Today, the Church's birthday, we should not celebrate a monochrome church, full of people who see the world exactly as we do.

Rather, let us rejoice in the diversity of God’s people, within and beyond our churches, and reach out to share good news with them.

If we will only let him, God can speak through us to all in their own tongue, and God can and will reconcile them all.

We may not experience the drama of that first Pentecost, -but we can and must pray to be open to the Holy Spirit, as strong as the wind, gentle as is the dove.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.

Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, And You shall renew the face of the earth.

Spiritual discipline?

Next to valley church stands the old old vicarage - a huge and impressive building which must always, surely, have been too much for the clergy family to manage. It hasn't been church property for decades. The house that is now home for me was built on the site of a more recent old vicarage, a 1920s building that was much loved by the local community but less popular with those who lived there, and had to deal with the astronomical heating costs - and maintain the huge garden. That house was demolished in the vacancy before my appointment here - and I thank both God and the diocese that someone with my domestic and horticultural limitations does not have to live in it.

Meanwhile, the original vicarage still stands, a testimony to the days when the vicar really was Somebody - and, (cynics might say) its fortunes perhaps reflecting those of the church, the building is now a care cum nursing home for the elderly.

I've been a regular visitor there for some time, since a new regime decreed that the local vicar was not, after all, persona non grata, and among the residents who most welcomes Communion there is, amazingly, the daughter of the last vicar to actually LIVE in the old old vicarage. She moved away from the area sometime in the 1930s, married, but had no children, and now in her 90s, struggles with short-term memory loss, though she always knows who I am and why I am there. She lights up as she talks about the many parish children who knew her as Auntie H...and shows a childlike delight in the trinity of teddy bears that are her close companions.

Always, even on her bad days, she recognises and responds to the Sacrament - but yesterday she brought me close to tears.

You see, H is almost crippled by arthritis. Hands that once worked hard knitting and sewing for the struggling families of her father's parishes can now barely manipulate the mechanical grabber that made life manageable from her chair for some time.

She also has a tremor, which was particularly bad yesterday - but she has a will of iron.

She was not going to let anyone, but anyone, prevent her from receiving both the sacred elements herself, in her own hands even though the journey from hand to mouth involved copious false starts and took, to an observer, almost a lifetime..

I hovered, desperate to help but desperate too, not to intrude on this personal battle - wishing that I habitually brought intincted wafers, so that she might be spared going through the whole ordeal twice.

But, I suspect, H would have felt cheated if things had been any easier.

When the host had been consumed, it was time for the chalice.

No compromises allowed...

Could she close those pain-wracked fingers around the cup?

If she could, would she be able to tilt it to allow herself to sip?

She brought her head as low as she could, and laboriously brought the chalice to her lips.

Swallowing, too, cost her so much effort - but it was clear, even while I wept inside, that every second of this painful journey (which must have lasted a couple of minutes) was precious to her, somehow a spiritual discipline in itself.

I could bring the sacrament to her,(even this an unwelcome surrender as she always laments that she is not strong enough to be brought to church) but yesterday I began to understand how hugely important it is for H that she takes an active part in receiving, expressing by her efforts her longing for the One who, when we were still far off, met us in His Son...

One day soon, I think, she will have to receive under one kind...and that tiny spoon that nestles in my Home Communion set will finally get an outline. That, I think, will hurt...and we may have to do some revision of theology. For now, though,  H. will continue to "Take, eat"- and it is not for me, or anyone else, to attempt to make things easier.

Out of darkness...

I hope that I'm always conscious of the privileges of ministry, - the way people suddenly open their hearts and tell their stories, hoping and expecting that I may be able to point out where God is amid the joy, pain or confusion.

Apart from saying Mass, it is simply the most amazing gift, to be allowed to spend time listening to people and helping them notice God at work...but sometimes it is more evident than others.

For me, one Baptism in this weekend of many positively shone with evidence of God's presence.

It started in a rather unpromising way. An infant baptism arranged, at least in part, to placate an anxious great-grandma.

Nothing unusual about that, nor in the discovery that not all those invited to be godparents were themselves baptised.

At this point, I give the parents a copy of the service to share with the would-be godparents, explain that there is nothing to stop them from being wonderful, supportive role models for the infant even without baptism - but that they cannot make promises on his account that they would not make for themselves, and send them off to discuss it.

Often, that is the end of the matter.

Sometimes, I meet up with a possible godparent and we discuss whether or not they might ever have considered baptism were it not for the current possibility...usually, they have the grace to admit that they would only be going through with it to support their friends, and we go our separate ways with our respective integrities intact.

Occasionally, they seem prepared to jump through hoops, and I find myself, bizarrely, trying to talk them out of making promises they really don't plan to keep.

Just sometimes, - there's another agenda running.

So it was when I met with one potential godfather a couple of weeks ago.

Accompanied by the baby's mum, he sat uncomfortably on the vicarage sofa, very young, very male, and very ill at ease.

My heart sank.

I was certain this was going to be one of those conversations that led nowhere - but I could not have been more wrong.

While far from chatty, he was very willing to tell me that he had made some bad choices, wanted to draw a line under those and make a new start, and hoped he would be able to show his godson that there were different possibilities.

How could I do anything but rejoice, and book a date for the baptism.

It happened last weekend.

He came along to church, with only his mum for support...I'm not sure if the alochol fumes that came too were a memory of Saturday night, or Dutch courage to spur him on his way - but he made his promises with clarity and, I believe, conviction.

At the end of the service, I sent him on the journey from the font to the Paschal candle, which still stands in its Eastertide position at the head of the nave....Not a long way, really, but one that seemed freighted with extra signficance as we watched him go. 

7 weeks ago that Paschal candle was carried up the aisle and the darkness of Holy Saturday receded with every pace.

As the young man walked back to us, carrying his baptismal candle with huge care, there were no words necessary.

In the meantime...a homily for Easter 7 A

I sometimes wonder what would happen if some gloriously off-beat, definitely deluded writer attempted a pantomime script based on the Bible.

There would, I'm sure, be ample opportunity for cries of “Oh no he didn't! Oh yes he did” (what about John 3:16, for starters) – and of course, there are any number of truly amazing transformation scenes – as lepers are cleansed, the dead raised, the way of the cross becomes the way of life and peace – all culminating in the new heaven and new earth that we are promised when God's kingdom comes.

But it's the way that pantomime characters so often spend their time looking in completely the wrong direction that came to my mind as I thought about Ascension.

It's not the only time, of course, when God takes us by surprise...indeed, in the post Easter narratives it happens repeatedly.

And today here we are again

The disciples are craning their necks, trying to catch a final glimpse of Jesus (have you seen that wonderful window at Fairford, which depicts his toes vanishing into the clouds?) - only to be challenged by the angels – not quite “Look behind you” but rather......

“Look ahead”

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

In other words – this is not “Good bye” but most certainly “Au revoir”.

They will see Jesus again.....just not yet.

Of course it is hard for them to let him go...after all, it was just 40 days since he had been restored to them, against all hope, against all reason, as he appeared in the upper room in his resurrection body.

Of course, they are inclined to stay put...to seek security in the place where they have last encountered Jesus – and I don't think that's such a foreign idea to most of us.

But the angels make it clear that God has another agenda.

Indeed, he has had another agenda all along.

‘Lord,’ they ask, ‘is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’

While they were waiting for dramatic action, an unmistakeable declaration that God IS God, that the ancient prophecies will be fulfilled and all made well

God sneaked off in another direction entirely, leaving them to hurry up and wait.

To wait to “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them”

To wait before they can set out as witnesses , to tell the great story in which they have been swept up, against all their expectations.

And in the meantime, while they wait........they pray.

Two millennia later, we wait as well.

We wait for that final fulfillment of the kingdom and, on a smaller scale, in the church's year, we wait to celebrate the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

We wait to discover our own part in telling that great story....for this is our story too.

And as we wait – I hope we pray. For how else will we learn how best to join in with God's agenda

To return to our pantomime theme – some tell this story as a joke – but I'm more inclined to take it seriously.

What do you think?

When Jesus ascended to Heaven to return to His Father, the eleven disciples stood and watched Him rise through the clouds. An angel in the clouds nearby saw Jesus pass by and called out, "Jesus, where are you going?"

"Back to be with my Father in Heaven," he said.

"I thought you were going to bring salvation to the whole world!" the angel protested.

Jesus said, "I have. The atonement is complete. My work on earth is finished."

"But who is going to be your witness and go out into the world and spread the Good News and tell people you love them?"

"They are," Jesus said motioning toward his disciples.

The angel looked down on the rag-tag group of disciples. "Do you have a plan B?"

Remember – this is our story...That call to mission is ours...It is our turn to become witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

There IS no plan B.

“People of Selsley......why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’

‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.

Easter 6 A

Acts 17 22-31 /I Peter 3 13 onwards

In the group of Cotswold villages that used to be home, there was a wonderful woman called Sheila. She’d lived in the village a long while, and was up to her ears in every aspect of community life, -the W.I., the village hall committee, and every sort of village celebration from Bonfire Night to the Harvest Supper. She was also one of those key people without whom the church could not survive, hosting the Mother and Toddler group, and taking her turn at the various jobs on the PCC as well as serving on the Local Ministry Team. She spent, and indeed still spends, nearly every waking minute in the service of other people, and is one of the most shining Christians I’ve ever encountered.

But, though Sheila is endlessly prepared to live her faith, she is firmly opposed to the idea that she might ever have to talk about it. Evangelism is almost a dirty word to her…indeed we used to tease her by referring to it as the E word, to be avoided at all costs.

The trouble is that, if we’re honest, most of us are pretty uncomfortable around that E word. It has gathered too many negative associations through the decades… It’s OK for those who have the gift, but most of us aren’t cut out to be Billy Grahams. So we have a problem.

We're tasked with sharing the Good News of God's love – there's no mistake about that and on Thursday as we celebrate Christ's Ascension we'll be reminded of our calling “Go and make disciples of all nations....”

but despite the urgency of God's voice, we really seem to struggle.

I think it may be specially hard in our current context...because the good news ISNT really new to our neighbours – or at least, that's what they believe.

They think they know all about Christianity and don’t need it

They are self sufficient and successful.

They don’t care.

And they still don’t know Jesus.

So, our job is to help them to meet him – through our words and our lives to make His love real wherever we may be.

It's challenging but essential – what the Church is really for. We can't not do it.

So – can we learn from an expert? Here's Paul, arriving as a kind of working tourist in first century Athens, and choosing to work with, not against the grain of the culture. In a city filled with religious activity, he builds on what he sees about him and with the motto when in Athens, do as the Athenians, goes to the Areopagus, - a kind of philosophical speakers' corner, and joins in debate there. It's all about meeting peope on their own terms in the kind of multi-cultural multi-faith context that is much like ours today.

After all, we live in a society fascinated by “spirituality” but reluctant to buy into any one religious creed.

Christianity may be approved as the basis for moral decisions, while eastern religions are plundered for meditation techniques, and reflective CDs mix plainsong uneasily with new age dolphin noises. Ours is a pick and mix world, in which people hedge their bets by taking the most attractive features of a range of world faiths, cafeteria style...What do you fancy? Ancient or modern?Christian worship without social action? No problem...You choose...

It's only a slight caricature, I'm afraid.

On the whole, people choose a faith that meets their needs but demands little. That's why so many churches are all but empty. We've lost the plot....forgotten that if we practice our religion without knowing God, we're wasting our time.

So too, the people of Athens were 'hedging their bets'. It wasn't enough that there were shrines and temples to dozens of different gods and goddesses, here was an altar dedicated to the 'unknown god', just in case they’d missed one! Rather than lamenting this, Paul recognised an opportunity and launched straight in with the Gospel,doing everything in his power to introduce the Known to the unknowing.

These are the people who are, as verse 27 says, groping for God…“seekers”…which, of course, is where that E word comes in.

Unlike Sheila Paul has no inhibitions.

Evangelism is his vocation. He wastes no chance to share the good news he has experienced, even recruiting an Athenian poet to his cause, for he has a message he is burning to share.

But what about us?

Does God want us to court ridicule by broacasting through a megaphone in Sainsbury's car park? Or to twist every conversation with our friends to enable us to sqeeze God in somewhere....

Relax. I really don’t think that IS what we are called to.

But we do have something amazing to share…

Our world is full of lives and altars, dedicated to the “unknown God”.

But here's the irony...all of those altars scattered around Athens were dedicated to unknown gods. Not a single one of the gods of stone was known personally by the citizens. There were no personal relationships with Zeus or Apollo. They were merely statues of legends. Paul presents something completely new--a deity who is both infinite and personal, the God of people, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This God desires to be in relationship with His creation, so much that He took on human form. This is a God that is knowable.

I sometimes wonder how many who define themselves as Christians really know God.

Have we simply constructed altars for worship, instead of actually getting to know God?

We know a church building, but that's not God.

We know an inspiring theologian, but that's not God either.

We know a liturgy, a discipleship course, a supportive faith community, but that's no substitute for knowing God. We even know our Bibles, but that should not be mistaken for knowing the infinite, personal God who is revealed in its pages.

It's one thing to 'know about Him', another thing entirely, to "know Him” and we know God when we meet him in Jesus. After all, ours is a God who so wants to be known that he joins us in our humanity. Jesus, in last week's Gospel, pointed out that if you had seen him, you had seen the Father, for "I and the Father are one". The Gospel speaks of a self-revealing God who calls us into relationship with himself. Once we have met him, well then our task is to invite others to get to know God and worship Him.

So we're all involved, reluctant or passionate evangelists...

We all have our own stories to tell of how we met God, how he makes a difference to our lives, why we come here Sunday by Sunday.

That’s not the stuff of sandwich boards, or wayside pulpits…but it is the sort of thing that might come up in an ordinary conversation. The Epistle calls on each of us to have ready our own story, to be able to “give an account of the hope that is in you”.

The more distinctive and attractive our lives, the more we are likely to be asked what makes us tick…We don’t so much have to preach Good News as live it, and then respond to the interest in will generate.

What hope is it that builds inclusive communities when the rest of society is divided and segregated?

What hope is it that allows you to be people who travel light in a world dominated by consumerism?

What hope is it that allows you to transform your homes and workplaces with grace?

What hope is it that keeps you uncomplainingly joyful and positive, even when life deals you a worse hand than you deserve?

This hope is surely something to shout about, something that is Good News to those nearby and those far off.

So share it!

Give an account.

And, when you’re asked the question, answer by telling the story of who Jesus is, what he has done and what he will do. Tell it clearly, courteously and respectfully, and your neighbours and friends will find themselves wanting to share your hope.

You may well have done this already…

So, there you are…you’ve fallen victim to the E word. Thank God for it.

Crying for love

Yesterday was a typical Sunday in the churches of hill and vale.

We met with God in Word and Sacrament, we worshipped, we did a little gentle complaining about our neighbours and the state of the world today (because, after all, what family gathering is complete without a good whinge about someone?) and then, as I do most Sundays from Easter to Harvest, I welcomed three new Christians into the family of the church through Baptism...

As is generally the case, the church was alive with the sound of children - both happy giggles and desolate cries.....but as the service got under way, things calmed down till just one voice could be heard wailing loudly. Not the candidate, little B. He was snuggled peacefully in his father's arms, but across the aisle a little girl, about 9 months old, seemed quite inconsolable despite the best efforts of her granny. 

I always start Baptism services by saying that the one forbidden word in my churches is "Shhhh" - so was fully expecting to manage the service with infant backing-group til a younger woman got up from the pew behind grandma and wailing child, scooped the infant into her arms and took her across the aisle to where the baptism candidate and his family were sitting. Fascinated I watched as the sad little girl opened her arms and enfolded young B in an embrace. As she did so, the most beautiful smile transformed her red, blotchy, tear stained face so that it bore an expression of pure joy.

She had been crying because she wanted to share her love for B and had been thwarted and miserable because she couldn't reach him.

As both babies relaxed into their hug, the whole congregation was softened by their love - and it became wonderfully easy to talk about baptism as our first response to the love that God has always had for us.

Reflecting on the multitude of infants I baptise and will never encounter again, though, I wondered if that experience of crying for love was in itself an important insight into the divine.

We choose, again and again, to put ourselves as far out of God's reach as we can...

We turn away instead of relaxing into his arms...and as we do so, perhaps we make God cry.

"Heaven shall not wait" - Sermon for Easter 5A

I'm conscious that there are some very disappointed people in the world this morning.

According to an American preacher, Harold Camping by name, yesterday should have been the end of the world as we know it, the day on which the righteous would be taken up into heaven in the rapture.

All through the week, the internet has been buzzing with cries of derision, or jokes from some....

A man on a tractor just passed me in the lane and shouted that the end of the world was nigh. I think it was Farmer Geddon!

Others have lamented that Mr Camping and his friends are the sort of nutty Christians that give the rest of us a bad name.

I didn't, anywhere, encounter anyone who was prepared to entertain the idea that he might be right, even for a second.

And yet, you know, for some people the world will have ended yesterday.

Some will, quite literally, have passed from this life into the hereafter.

Others will have had the things they thought certain, the props they leaned on, removed by a word, a diagnosis, an event.

They will be expected to carry on anyway – but in a world with a new and unwelcome landscape.

And they won't have been able to prepare themselves for it in any way at all.

Because actually, despite all those frantic calculations of Biblical pseudo scholars, that's the way it will be.

Jesus made that very clear

“No-one knows the day or the hour, except the Father”

Speculation is pointless – a waste of the time that we do have.

Time we've been given to make a difference.

Our gospel passage is perhaps the most popular reading for funerals. In that context it speaks powerfully of comfort, of home-coming......Jesus, the servant of all, going ahead to prepare a place for us.....to put flowers in the guest room, turn down the bedclothes...

But there are other themes to explore.

Jesus promises that he will come again –

no rapture, then. We wont fly through the air to him – as always, he will take the initiative and come to find us, no matter where we are, or what state we may be in.

We can rely on that.

He will come again and we will be with him.

Do we actually need to worry about anything else then?

Could anything be better?

He will take us to himself so that we may be where Jesus is.

Perhaps that's actually all we need to know.

Certainly just typing those words filled me with joy and hope.

Jesus will come again and we will be with him.

Of course, dear Thomas, who asks so often those questions we all have on the tip of our tongue, dares to question again today.

“Lord, we don't know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

I get so angry, so sad when I hear of Christians who use the answer to that question as a way to exclude many from the kingdom

“I am the way” says Jesus

I'm certain – completely and utterly certain – that this does not mean that those who have neglected to sign a commitment card, failed to consciously give their lives to Christ, will find themselves outside the welcome of God's infinite mercy.

Jesus is the way. He shows us how to live – and in his life and death and resurrection clears a way home for us.

Jesus is the way to live...so living his way will bring us to the Father.

And what are the essentials of this way?

It's a way of life based not on fear and denial but on a radical, inclusive welcome

A way of love for enemies as well as friends...for the inconvenient, irritating people, for those who disappoint us and those who don't pull their weight, a way of love for all.

A way that leads to His Father's house, where there is room for all those ill assorted people – and many more besides.

We can be certain of this, because Jesus is also the truth...and through his Spirit leads us into all truth. Not dodgy theologies that depend on bending Scripture to our end.

Not partial readings that depend for their impact on fear or exclusion.

Jesus is the truth...and in His truth, shows us the Father.

If we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus...who is anything but meek and mild.

Jesus, constantly challenging, often controversial, usually uncomfortable...as truth often is.

Jesus is the life.

Jesus is the life all week, not just on Sunday, living his way, living his truth, in every corner of our existence.

The time we have been given – is time in which there is Jesus.

Nothing we do, nothing we are, is outside his sphere of influence.

This week, as Harold Camping and his friends prepared for the end of the world as we know it, ordinary people all across the country have been pounding the pavements of Britain, delivering and collecting their Christian Aid envelopes. They have been doing this because, as Christian Aid reminds us, “We believe in life BEFORE death”....and in doing so they have been helping to show us the Kingdom of God.

They have chosen to make a difference here and now – they don't know what time they have to spend.......but they choose to send it generously.

That's an option for all of us.

We can't know when the end will come -but we can truly live in the meantime, according to God's pattern, that Jesus shows us.

We can love and laugh.

We can listen and pray.

We can smell the flowers and listen to Bach or to birdsong

And we can try to make a difference, to assert in the face of a broken, selfish and suffering world, that we choose another way.

And in doing so we proclaim Christ's victory again and again.

Heaven shall not wait for the poor to lose their patience,
the scorned to smile,
the despised to find a friend:
Jesus is Lord; he has championed the unwanted;
in him injustice confronts its timely end.

Heaven shall not wait for the rich to share their fortunes,
the proud to fall, the elite to tend the least;
Jesus is Lord; he has shown the master's privilege -
to kneel and wash servants' feet before they feast.

Heaven shall not wait for the dawn of great ideas
thoughts of compassion divorced from cries of pain:
Jesus is Lord; he has married word and action;
his cross and company make his purpose plain.

Heaven shall not wait for triumphant Hallelujahs,
when earth has passed and we reach another shore
Jesus is Lord; in our present imperfection;
his power and love are for now and then for evermore. John Bell

Sermon Easter 4 Yr A

Last Christmas A bought me a sat nav...I do a fair bit of driving, often to far flung parts of the diocese and it has on the whole been a godsend, though the pronounciation of some place names is peculiar to say the least. Generally, though, I do end up where I want to be.....which is more than could be said for the relative of a member of Chelsea FC. She had been given VIP tickets for a home match, - her first visit to a game – and had programmed her sat nav to take her to Chelsea's home ground of Stamford Bridge from her home near Heathrow. She listened to the instructions, followed them to the letter, obeying every left and right turn, but as kick off time drew near, she was distraught that she seemed to be driving through open country with the ground nowhere in sight.....Her satnav had taken her straight up the motorway to Stamford, Lincolnshire.

It matters, you see, just whose voice you are following...and you might need, too, to be alert to the landscape around you.

That's what Jesus tells his disciples, as he shows them what they can expect as they journey with him.

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

Whether we know it or not, we are here, each one of us, because we've responded to that voice.

Whether a decision was made for us years ago, or whether we met God in a surprising way later in life and found our lives changed, we are here, Sunday by Sunday, because of that call.

Here we gather as the shepherd's flock, each of us marked in baptism with that sign that proclaims us His own forever – and we rejoice that here in the fold we are safely at home.

But I wonder, do we listen for his voice during the week? There are só many other competing voices, - many of them inviting us to do good and useful things.

It can be hard to be sure that we're actually following the Shepherd – though we can be sure that if we're NOT listening, we're bound to go astray. Friends and family, politicians and the media, all are intent on telling us how to live our lives.

It’s ever more crucial, and ever more difficult, for us to listen to Jesus’ voice if we want to be his followers and make a difference in the world for his sake.

So what does it mean, practically speaking, to “listen to Jesus’ voice?”

First of all, listening to Jesus’ voice isn’t some strange mystical thing which only some extra-religious people can “do” – we do similar things in the rest of our lives.

I’m sure you will have experienced being faced with a decision and remembering advice from someone you trusted – you may even have remembered how they sounded when they were giving it. Hearing Jesus voice is like that.

Listening to Jesus is a deliberate choice. It means seeking him out, and focussing on his voice among the many others.

There are things we can do to make it easier, starting with being well informed. This means reading in the Bible about Jesus so we know what he said and how he behaved; and it means praying, opening ourselves, heart and mind, to the influence of God’s Holy Spirit.

Then, as we apply our minds to deciding what we should say and do in our lives, and as we listen to our consciences, the words that come to us will be Jesus’ words – the voice we hear will be Jesus’ voice.

As we hear his voice in this way, we can follow him by living our lives in the ways he demonstrated. That doesn’t mean it’s all about saying or doing the “right” things, or living our lives according to a set of rules.

It means that, gradually, the landscape of our lives will change só that we become, step by tiny step, more and more like Jesus.

That footballer's relative might have noticed that she was being led astray if she had bothered to look through about her and notice that the streets of London were giving way to open countryside. Getting lost is not an instant process but rather a series of wrong turnings from which it is harder and harder to find your way home...and that can be só in our Christian journey too.

Só how do we know if we are truly following the Good Shepherd?

Let's look, for a moment, at the description of the early church that we heard in Acts.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

2:44 All who believed were together and had all things in common;

2:45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

It sounds as if, as a church, we might have gone just a little off course...

According to that template, there could be no rich churches, no rich Christians while people starve – and as Christian Aid Week begins, perhaps we need to remember that.

What's more, this little flock devote themselves to prayer, the Sacraments, to teaching and to fellowship....DEVOTE themselves. Living out their faith is the fundamental, over-arching concern of their lives....not a bolt-on, optional extra to be fitted in as and when it suits.

If we're listening for the voice of the Good Shepherd – the landscape of our lives will, slowly but surely be transformed.

I wonder how that makes you feel? Does it scare you, the thought that we might reach a place where that voice and its calling really WAS all in all for us? 

Is it just too difficult, that demand that we give up our own wills, our own egos and trust that the Shepherd can lead us safely home?

We have His word that the destination is worth aiming for.....

“I am come that they may have life, and have it in abundance”

Abundance – overflowing, beyond our needs, beyond our dreams.

The only other place that St John uses that word is in his account of the feeding of 5000, when he tells us about the 12 baskets of left overs – more than could be imagined as the disciples looked in desperation at the original offering of loaves and fishes.....

Abundance – God's generosity, filling and transforming every corner of our lives

Those who see in Christianity a route of painful denial, and endless succession of “thou shalt nots” taken a wrong turning, misheard the voice of the Shepherd.

Yes, we are called to give up our own agendas, to let go of our selfish core – but in return we will be given not just all that we need but more and more and more......

We can follow where those loud, demanding egos lead, and get by – of course we can.

We may even feel that we're doing rather well – materially secure, emotionally satisfied by relationship with family and friends...but in the end, there will always be something missing – that God-shaped hole at the centre of our beings will remain unfilled and our journey through life will be characterised by a nagging fear – that there might not be enough to go round, -enough food, enough things, even enough love.

But if we follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, the journey will be altogether different – perhaps a little harder, rather more challenging, but always, always we will know that we are secure.....as he leads us from the death of self to the abundant life of God's Kingdom.