5 baskets over – a homily for 8.00 at St Matthew's

With the sudden (if brief) arrival of summer, today feels like a good day to hear the story of the most famous picnic of all time.

We all know it so well – and it may be tempting to just enjoy sitting on that sunny hillside, part of the crowd that listens to Jesus....knowing that we can trust him to feed us when the time comes.

That's good – and true.

We DO need to take time to sit still and listen to Jesus – and he WILL ensure that all are fed, if we trust him to do so.

But there are other parts of the account that are also worth our time.

Jesus worked the miracle – but he needed that little boy, who gave everything that he had with him.

He didn't stop to think about practicalities, to ponder the impossibility of that small packed lunch feeding the assembled multitude...He was instead, impressively impulsive...just the way that younger children always are when you ask for a volunteer.

Sometimes God needs us to be wildly impractical, to allow ourselves to be swept up in his vision, to offer ourselves to attempt the impossible...and always, always, he takes the little that we offer and transforms it beyond our wildest dreams.

But we do need to be obedient...Jesus asked the disciples to get the crowd seated – and they did their part, as did the crowd, before there was any evidence of food on the horizon.

Too often, I fear, I limit God's work in my life by assuming that nothing is going to happen.

Instead of sitting down expectantly, I'm the one arguing about how it can't really work...insisting that really we ought to have a plan, should maybe send a group to buy supplies...missing the miracle by my own stubborn insistence that it cant really happen.

To live in obedient hope leaves the way clear for God to do great things in the most unlikely situations...

And God's generosity is unstinting, limitless

When those gathered on the hillside had been well and truly fed – there were twelve baskets of fragments left.

Jesus took the little that was offered and transformed it into enough and to spare.

He still does...whenever we let him.

You see, we really don't need to view the world from a perspective of scarcity.

So often we live as if we must, above all, protect ourselves and those dear to us.

We plan our living and our giving as if there is not enough to go round – though we know, if we stop to consider, that there is enough for our need, if not for our greed...that even today, it would not take a huge effort to redistribute wealth & resources to ensure that everyone had sufficient.

But we cling on, worried that we might go short...and we are no better in the things of faith – for we assert the claims of our own brand of belief in ways that suggest that we can't cope if God loves others as well as us.

Like a child again, but this time one intent on attention seeking we jump up and down demanding that God notices US...engages with US...over HERE...We're the real Christians, the true Church.......

We forget that God so loved the WORLD – each and every man, woman and child who has ever lived...so much that he sent his only Son.

There are no limits.

 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth....

NO LIMITS.

God longs to fill us, as Paul grasped after his own vision expanded to include those whom he'd once seen as beyond God's reach

“that you may be filled with all the fulness of God”

Fulness of life.

Fulness of love.

Love without conditions, limits or end.

Love that enfolds each one of us here.

Love that transforms us...and our half hearted, inadequate offerings, just as a fragment of bread and a sip of wine are transformed through God's grace into His Body & Blood – all that we need to sustain us as we journey in faith.

"Sometimes it's hard, being a prophet" - Sermon for Triity 6B, Proper

We have a tendency, I think to regard the saints, heroes and heroines in the faith, as people who've got things sorted.

They are the ones who've managed to keep all of the Commandments – even that pesky one about loving your neighbour.

People whose lives are so overwhelmingly full of the joy of the Lord that they float through their days in a kind of glorious golden haze, secure in faith and hope and chock full of love at all times.

Finished products, secure and serene – so focussed on the promises of heaven that earthly struggles pretty much pass them by unnoticed.

If that's your impression, you might just need to think again.

Saints are real people, forthright, outraged, not afraid to take God to task

Saints are people like Teresa of Avila, who exploded one day

“If this is the way you treat your friends, Lord – I'm not surprised you have so few of them”

Her words most definitely struck a chord with me as I looked at today's gospel

Jesus says of his cousin

“Among those born of woman there is none greater than John the Baptist” but despite this affirmation, things don't exactly turn out well for him...(any more, of course, than they do for Jesus)...The story of his death is one of the most gruesome and disturbing in the New Testament. No easy ride for him.

“If that's how you treat your friends...”

Actually, when you're called to be a prophet easy rides are almost unheard of.

Small wonder, then, that most of the great Old Testament prophets resisted their vocation with all that was in them.

“Me? speak truth to power? God, you have to be joking!”

Think of Jonah, bolting for Tarshish when told to take God's message to Nineveh

Or Jeremiah, insisting “How can I speak. I'm only a child...” or Moses, pleading that his stammer disqualified him

Or Amos

“I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I'm a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees”

That sounds wonderfully bucolic and peaceful – but God is adamant

“Go prophesy......”

Background doesn't matter....John the Baptist's father was a priest in the Temple, dedicated to the rites and observances of Jewish tradition...nor was Amos's father a recognised spokesman for God......but God called both their sons and placed HIS words of radical challenge on their lips.

You see, God persists in calling unlikely people

Ordinary souls with no particular gifting, fearful souls who would much sooner stay at home, sceptical souls who aren't really sure that God is still active, truculent souls who fight him every step of the way.

People like you and me

God calls them.

God calls us

He calls, because there remains so much in our world that needs to be challenged, needs to be changed...

But don't panic if you don't see yourself as an orator, - for often prophetic action speaks louder than all the words in the world.

Yesterday morning, some of you came to help us raise money for the 5K feast, a month long fund-raising drive for Marah and the Stroud & District Foodbank.

Those who came may have thought they were simply buying a cake or supporting a raffle – but actually they were part of an act of prophetic challenge.

I have to admit, I do have some reservations about the foodbank – because only those with an official referral can be fed, because there are limits to the help that one individual or family can receive. If we set this prudent strategy against the reckless generosity of God – it seems to me that the food bank organisers are setting their sights a little too low. But for all that, they ARE doing something...their words and their actions proclaim them emphatically a sign of God's kingdom.

Motivated by their faith, they are affirming with every food parcel they give out that the hungry in our society matter to God...that it is not acceptable that men, women and children should be going to bed with empty stomachs while just down the road their neighbours spend money on diet foods and exercise classes.

Their presence is a reminder that something is badly broken in society – and, as Christians, we have a responsibility to challenge that brokenness by our actions and by our words.

Does that bother you?

Perhaps I'm sounding too political?

But faith and politics absolutely belong together, until the power structures of our society and all societies are fully reflective of Kingdom values.

When Jesus began his public ministry, he took as his mission statement those words of the prophet Isaiah

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor”

If you are poor and hungry, then good news will surely involve being fed...

If you are frightened of persecution, good news will involve finding a place of safety...

If you are helpless, dis-empowered, good news will arm you with the tools that you need to claim your own future.

Good news changes things

I know that many feel the church should stay out of politics – and perhaps it may be inappropriate to engage in PARTY politics...

But our God has never been content to sit, robed in majesty, untouched by the plight of his children

Our God chose to become incarnate – to join in the mess and muddle and heartbreak of human life, so that that same mess, muddle and heartbreak might be transformed and redeemed.

Our God CARES – and charges us to live as signs of that care.

“Preach the gospel...Use words if you must” said St Francis...

Today too many will be deaf to the gospel unless we show them what it really means for them.

The clamour of their own struggle, their own pain, deafens them to our cry of “good news” - unless they can see, experience and recognise it as good news for themselves.

So......we are called to live as prophets, signs of the Kingdom, to the elderly, selling their homes to fund social care, to the mum crying in the Co-op because there's not enough cash in her purse to buy the food her family needs, to the children sent to school without breakfast, the rough sleeper, the battered wife.

We are called to show that there IS a better way, to live as prophets...sometimes to speak but ALWAYS to act to bring about transformation and root out injustice

This is the agenda presented in the letter of James

“ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”

But to act will probably not win you many friends

To act AND to speak will undoubtedly win you enemies

The Brazilian Archbishop, Dom Helder Camara said

“When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry,they call me a Communist...”

and you can be sure that “Communist” was not intended as a compliment.

No, it's definitely not easy being a prophet...downright dangerous at times.

But safety can be over-rated.

Remember the Collect for today, with its invitation to shake the kaleidoscope and see the world in a different way...

Our current preoccupations with personal security, prosperity, popularity, become second-order concerns when set against those good things which pass our understanding...God's promises that exceed all we can desire

There IS a better way

There IS more on offer than we can imagine in our wildest dreams

So we CAN dare the risk of faith, we can speak and act as citizens of this world who know that our true home is the Kingdom of God...

Let's pray that Collect once again, as we thank God for all those who speak his Truth in our world and ask for courage and faith to do the same

Merciful God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as pass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love toward you that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Sermon for All Saints, Selsley Trinity 5B

“Be prepared”
The motto adopted by Lord Baden Powell in the early days of Scouting is now famous across the world – and its sheer common sense is clear and evident. It's always advisable to be ready for all eventualities, to expect the unexpected and have the resources with you to enable you to deal with whatever life throws at you. On Wednesday night, when my car broke down a few miles outside Cirencester, on a wonderfully dark and empty stretch of road, I was extremely glad that though we had left the house in a hurry, so that I had only my phone and my car keys, Jack had automatically picked up his wallet – containing the all-important RAC membership card. What's more, thanks to a bit of startling self-knowledge, our family membership subs had been paid via standing order – or the card would almost certainly have been out of date, and help unavailable.
However, Jack was indeed a Scout – and had organised an expedition to Uganda whose preparations seemed to dominate every aspect of life for months beforehand, with all sorts of wonderful equipment arriving at the vicarage, designed to make it easier for his small group to survive and thrive during that part of the expedition when they were literally on their own in the bush.
I teased him – and indeed most of the medicine kit came home thankfully untouched – but in my heart of hearts I was really glad of his meticulous preparations – just as I was when eventually an RAC mechanic rescued us at a little before 1.00 on Thursday morning.

Quite often in life, it seems like a good thing to be prepared.

What, then, should we make of the rather different message that Jesus gives his disciples this morning?

 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

By almost any standards that sounds positively stupid...They are to go out into unknown situations, to places where they've no idea how their message or their ministry might be received...and they are to take nothing with them.

What a huge contrast to the way in which the Fleming family arrived at the vicarage 4 years ago, our removal van crammed to the gunwhales...and indeed, when we got here, it was to find churches thoroughly equipped with everything necessary for orderly worship and lots of measures in place to keep the show on the road.

There were, and are, teams of people engaged in managing most of the practicalities of church life, from making the important decisions to polishing the brass...and we even had funds to enable us to kick start the roof appeal, when that unwelcome eventuality came to pass.

I came, lock, stock and such a lot of baggage, to serve two groups of people who were, and are, prepared to keep the church afloat. Maybe we're not pioneers, for I don't think anyone would deny that we all of us (in the Church of England in general, and not just in these parishes) tend struggle a little with the task of going out and sharing good news with our neighbours...so perhaps we've not pushed the boundaries of our churches much in the past few decades...

Not pioneers, then......but as settlers we're not doing badly at all.

The trouble is – again and again when we read the gospels, we see that Jesus had something rather different in mind.

In the west today, even in recession, we are surrounded by the trappings of affluence – both good and bad. We have sound-systems to ensure that the gospel is heard, here in our churches …..but somehow we find we've lost our voice when we go out, so that we rarely share it beyond the walls.

We have envelopes schemes and direct debits to enable our giving – but we've lost the sense of urgency to feed the hungry and clothe the naked that inspired the early church to share everything in common as they waited for Christ's return.

We have devoted singers and musicians – but we don't always live each day as a song of praise to our Creator.

We've replaced spontaneity and openness to the Holy Spirit with a set of provisions for circumstances that WE have decided on...and no longer dare to consider how we might need to react, what kind of church we might need to be, in a world that looks quite different from the one in which we grew up.

We know what we CAN manage – so we tend to focus on that (remember the saying “if you have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail)...though as we look around it doesn't take much imagination to see that to carry on as we are is to ensure the death of the institution in the next few decades.

Does that sound bleak and pessimistic?

I don't think it needs to.

Yes, I think that there IS a crisis in the life of the institutional church...but I don't think that this is something to distress us.

We've carried so much luggage with us through the centuries, have become so very good at being the institutional church...but perhaps we've lost sight of what it means to be the radical church, the Body of Christ, charged with living the Kingdom here and now.

Perhaps we need to listen to Jesus once again

Take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

Travel light...Go empty handed....That way we'll never be deceived into thinking that we are in charge of this enterprise.

Did you imagine for a moment that we were?

This is not OUR Church.......it is GODS church....called to be the agent of his transforming love in the world.

If we're not able and willing for that, then God WILL do a new thing without us...

So – we need to have courage.

Courage to put down the beloved burdens, the contingency funds the prudent provisions for every occasion

Courage to empty our hands and open our hearts and our minds

Courage to recognise and accept just how small and powerless we are, when we stand alone, no longer hiding behind the weight of preparation that we have inherited

Courage to admit our own inadequacy to the task, the mission to which we are called.

Perhaps Paul can help us, for he had to step outside his own protective shield, as he recognised that in Christ God was turning the world upside down...that the values and assurances of orthodox Judaism were no longer enough....that all his education and status would do him no good at all in his new task.

He came to embrace his own limitations, even to celebrate them

 Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ

Remember, this is the kingdom of God, where victory comes through vulnerability, where winners look like losers, where the last is truly first.

That's our context for living as Christians today – and every day.

Does it scare you as much as it scares me?

But, oh its exciting too...

For if we dare to take the risk...if we dare to empty ourselves, in the same way that Christ did when he set aside divinity to live human life in all its vulnerability and pain...

well, then we can claim God's word to Paul as an assurance for us as well

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness

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.