Children

Thought for the parish pew slip – Sunday 27th December 2009

Readings: 1 Samuel 1: 20-22 & 24-end 1 John 3: 1-2 & 21-end Luke 2: 41-end

Our readings today offer stories in sharp contrast with our present day attitudes which encourage us to be possessive and protective of our children.
As we read of the extraordinary generosity of Hannah in giving her only child to the Lord we must remember the great struggle that Hannah endured before Samuel was conceived (see 1 Samuel 1: 1-19). We must also remember the great fruit that came from this gift. Samuel grew up to become the last of the Judges of Israel and the man who anointed David as king.
John reminds us that we are children of God. We are much more truly God’s children than anyone else’s (see also Matt 23:9). We must behave as good brothers and sisters to one another, loving each other as the Lord commanded.
Our gospel reading records a moment of great drama for Mary and Joseph when they think they have lost the child Jesus. In fact Jesus is in the temple. He does not feel lost at all; he is in his Father’s house.

Being a gift for others

Article for the Faith Matters column in Solihull News – Christmas Edition 24/12/09

Christmas - Being a gift for others

When I was little I used to get very excited about Christmas presents. Unwrapping new toys and games was a big part of what Christmas was all about. Now I am older, I still enjoy Christmas gifts, but I am more aware of the real gift that lies at the heart of the celebration. This is God’s gift to us of his only Son, Jesus, who we remember arriving among us at Christmas time.
Jesus was a real gift to people. He healed people. He taught people. He accepted the consequences of people’s sin to the point of dying for them. He is the gift that God gave so that we might have eternal life (c.f. John 3: 16).
This Christmas we too can try to be gifts for other people. We may not have the power or wisdom of Jesus, but we can find practical ways to serve other people, loving them as Jesus loves them. We can do all our share in helping to prepare Christmas meals, and washing up afterwards. We can share the presents we receive. We can show honour and respect to the relatives who we meet at Christmas time. We can be ready to welcome people who we don’t know so well.
If we can live our lives as a gift for other people, then we are being like Jesus. Our behaviour starts to make Jesus more present in the world, as Mary did 2000 years ago. This is the way to really enter into the Christmas story. This is the way to bring peace and goodwill on earth.
May all the joy of Christmas be yours! Fr Gerard

Magnificat

Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull at the 9.15am Eucharist on Sunday 20th December 2009 – Advent 4 Year C. A shorter version was also preached at St Catherine's, Catherine-de-Barnes at 11am.

Readings Micah 5: 2-5a Hebrews 10: 5-10 Luke 1:39-56


If you are one of those people who simply can’t stand looking at other people’s holiday photos, then now is the moment to bury your head in your hands. As you probably know I was went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in November and I came back with 208 photos. Well, before you all run for the doors, I am not going to show all 208 to you now. I am going to show you three! So that should be pretty painless.
Here’s the first one. This is the Church of the Visitation at Ein Karem, on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. It is the site traditionally associated with Mary’s visit to Elizabeth that we heard about in our gospel reading today. Now you can’t really see it from the photo, but the site is about three quarters of the way up a steep mountain side. It seems that Zachariah and Elizabeth had two houses. One here, high in the hills, for the summer, and another one lower down in the valley for the winter. The church on the lower site is associated with the birth of John the Baptist, this church higher up is associated with the Visitation. There is also a tradition that when King Herod sent his soldiers to murder all the baby boys under two years old, that Elizabeth hid the baby John the Baptist here. The rocky hillside somehow swallowed them up and concealed them from the soldiers.
Now we have to recognise that there is a great deal of uncertainty associated with all these traditions. Many of the stories come from an ancient book called the Protevangelium of St James. The Church has never regarded this book as authoritative, and which has never been counted as one of the books of the bible. Also the archaeology is uncertain. Unquestionably, the remains of ancient churches have found on these sites, but the tradition of Christian worship here has been broken for many centuries, on three different occasions; first by the Romans, then by the Persians and then by the Ottoman Empire.
But despite the uncertainties, I found that this place did draw me into the mysteries of the Visitation. In particular I found the artwork inspiring. There was this picture in the roof vaults of a lower chapel. Look how the two women are being filled with the Holy Spirit. Also notice how the ground on which they are standing is bursting with grass and trees, while in other places it looks arid and dry.
Then there is this sculpture. Mary is on the left, in the first months of pregnancy, and Elizabeth on the right, in the last. It could all be very awkward. Elizabeth was really far too old to be pregnant, and Mary really too young. Then there is the problem that Mary is not married, and the worry of what Joseph will say when he finds out that his betrothed is pregnant. Yet despite these difficulties there seems to be a real closeness between the two women.
Our gospel reading tells us what happens when Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s house. First of all, when Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting the child in her womb, John the Baptist, leaps for joy. Elizabeth makes a big speech, declaring Mary blessed, and recognising that the child Mary carries is the Lord. She says that Mary is blessed because she believed that what the Lord had promise her would come to pass.
Then Mary makes this extraordinary speech, which we call the Magnificat. We repete it everyday in this church at evening prayer. It starts “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.” If you look at the photo again, you will see on the wall behind the sculpture lots of plaques with writing on them. Each of the plaques has the words of the Magnificat in a different language. There are dozens of plaques in the courtyard and it is quite fun to look around them all until you find the English one. When our group arrived in the courtyard an American group were also there. They found the English plaque before we did, and one of them read it out very loudly in a powerful American ascent, “MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD…”
I couldn’t help but be struck by the contrast between the way the Magnificat was being read, and what its words seem to mean. The words of the Magnificat speak of the faithfulness of God, his patience and his mercy. They speak of the lowliness of Mary and of her blessedness. Perhaps it is uncharitable to say it, but the booming voice seemed to speak of earthly power and self-sufficiency. And nowhere was the contrast stronger than where the Magnificat says of the Lord,
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent rich away empty.
And these words are such a challenge to us in the western world. We might not have the wealth of the Americans, but we do share in a prosperity which is unprecedented in history and which appears unsustainable. The words remind us that there is a complete social transformation implicit in the gospel message. We are seeking to build a world in which we administer our wealth with generosity for the good of all; we exercise our power and influence for the common good. It’s a world in which the sharing of problems and opportunities becomes so well done that it become impossible to distinguish the rich from the poor.
So how do we play our part in this social transformation? How do we build the Kingdom of Heaven? Well, first of all, let’s remember that it is God’s work not ours, so our first contribution is to do what God wants from us, nothing more and nothing less. And very often this will be very simple things; listening to the person next to us, sharing some gift, being ready to lose our own aspirations for the sake of the others. We can treat our daily lives as a training ground in which we can grow in patience and generosity and in trust in God. Certainly there will be problems and failures but if we keep on training we build up treasure in heaven. Sooner or later this has to flow over from heaven to earth and transform everything. Let’s be like Mary, blessed because we believe that what the Lord has promised will come to pass. And let’s play all our part so that it comes to pass sooner rather than later! Amen.

This is the record of John

Sermon preached at Choral Evensong at St Alphege, Solihull on Sunday 13th December – Advent 3

Readings: Isaiah 35: 1-10 Matthew 11: 2-11
Choir Anthem: This is the Record of John by Orlando Gibbons


Before I arrived at St Alphege Church, three and half years ago, I had had very little exposure to serious church music. Well, over the last three and half years, I have had quite a lot of exposure and I am very grateful for it, and I have enjoyed it far more than I expected. And now that I have been here some time I have started to notice how certain pieces of music come round and different times of the year the Churches calendar and I start to look out for them and to enjoy them all the more.
Our anthem today is just one such example. This is the record of John by Orlando Gibbons. I find it a particularly distinctive anthem because of the very demanding countertenor solo, and we are very fortunate to be able to sing it. The composer is Orlando Gibbons, who lived from 1583-1625 and was one of the outstanding Anglican musicians of his period. Apparently his is particular known as a master of counterpoint, which is where more than one tune is being sung simultaneously by different parts. Nigel was explaining to me earlier that This is the record of John is written for five parts. There are places they are all singing different tunes, and then there are sudden contrasts when all the voices come together, as though to emphasise certain lines.
This is the record of John is a perfect anthem for the third Sunday in Advent when we think particularly about the John the Baptist and the preparations her urged for the coming of Jesus. Gibbon chose English over Latin and the words come from King James’ Authorised Version of the bible, John chapter 1, verses 19-23. These words come up in the gospel reading for Advent 3 in year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. John explains to the priests and Levites that he is not the Christ, nor even a prophet. When John is pressed to explain who he is he says, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.” Here John the Baptist is quoting from the book of Isaiah, chapter 40. In Advent we always read a great deal from the prophet Isaiah. At present the OT readings set for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are both ploughing their way through different sections of the prophet Isaiah. At Morning Prayer in Advent we say a canticle every day based on the words that we have already heard in this service from Isaiah 35.
The reason that we read so much Isaiah in Advent is that the book of Isaiah, especially that part of it which the scholars attribute to second Isaiah, is full of promises about the coming Messiah; God’s anointed one. Second Isaiah was writing in the sixth century BC when the Jews were in exile in Babylon. They were in a very bad way, utterly oppressed, unable to help themselves and a long way from their home in Jerusalem and the Promised Land. Into this experience of desolation God speaks a message of hope. God pours out this message through the prophet Second Isaiah, but he also pours it out through other prophets like Ezekiel and Daniel. Even the prophet Jeremiah, who is all doom and gloom in the build up to the exile, starts to preach a message of consolation and hope once the worst has occurred.
When we read these prophets from the exile period, and their great message of hope, it always a little bit difficult to pin down exactly what the hope is. There is lots of promises about joy and celebration. There is a great deal about the restoration of the Jews in Jerusalem. There are lots of promises about the strengthening of the weak, the healing of the deaf the blind and the lame, the uplifting of the oppressed. The Isaiah 35 that we read today also talks of environmental miracles; the wilderness blossoming with flowers, dry deserts being filled with water so that they can grow with beautiful trees and gardens that we might normally associate with Lebanon or Carmel. Although the hopes are not always clear, it is clear that many of them revolve around this Messiah, the anointed one of God.
It is also very difficult, reading these prophets’ messages of hope during the exile, to pin down exactly when these hopes and blessings might be realised, when they might come about. Some of hopes were spectacularly realised in 539 BC when Cyrus, the king of the Medes and Persians mounted a surprise attack on Babylon. He conquered the Babylonians and promptly announces that he wants the Jews to go back to Jerusalem. This was undoubtedly an extraordinary moment, but other promises remained unfilled and the Messiah figure was still awaited.
Then, eventually, John the Baptist bursts onto the scene, preparing the way of the Lord. His ministry is a great success, with many people coming for baptism and great expectations about the Messiah. When Jesus comes to him for baptism and John recognises him as the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the one on whom the spirit of God descended (John 1: 29-36) and from this point Jesus’ ministry grows, and John’s starts to shrink. Eventually John is put in prison, and it would seem that while in prison he starts to have doubts about whether Jesus really was the Messiah. In the reading we heard today John sends his disciples to Jesus to check if he is the Messiah. Jesus doesn’t give a simple “Yes” answer, but he does point to the evidence. The after John’s disciples are gone, we hear Jesus’ testimony about who John is. Jesus describes him as the greatest of all born of women. Meanwhile John is languishing in jail, full of doubts, and is eventually beheaded. The price of being a top-dog in the kingdom of heaven is very high.
As we leave here, let’s take with us those words of John’s which we heard in the Anthem, “Make straight the way of the Lord”. Jesus is coming. We need to get ready. We need to make straight his way, so that we can enter into our hearts. Are there crooked aspects of our lives that we need to straighten out? Are their relationships where healing and reconciliation is needed? Are there hurts or disappointments that we need deliverance from, which we need to move beyond? Advent is the time for this. Advent is the time to humbly lay these things before God, to offer the pain to God, to seek his healing. We can do this in prayer. Often it becomes more real if we talk about it with someone we trust. We can do this before a priest in confession; I’m going to confession next week. Above all we need to do it before God so that we can be filled with the promise Advent and of all God’s good gifts to us in the coming of Jesus.

Preparing for the coming of Jesus

Sermon preach at 9.15am and 11am Eucharists at St Alphege Church on Sunday 29th November 2009 – Advent Sunday, Year C.

Readings: Jeremiah 33: 14-16 I Thessalonians 3: 9-13 Luke 21: 25-36


In the summer we had a family holiday in the south of France. During the long drive back in the car we listened to an audio book. It was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, read by William Golding himself. Our children have been studying the book in their English lessons at school. Perhaps you are familiar with the story. A group of English school boys get stranded on a tropical island. Away from civilisation they start to form their own society. Like all societies, it has its strengths and its weaknesses, its good points and its bad points. But as the story develops, the forces of evil seem to grow in strength and everything that we might think of as civilisation starts to fall apart. Democracy gives way to dictatorship, hope gives way to superstition and fear, murders are committed and respectable boys from English public schools start to behave like the worst kind of primitive savages.
The storyline suggests that it is only the pressures and benefits of civilisation itself that causes people to behave in a civilised way. It suggests that without civilisation human beings should be expected to degenerate into an animal like depravity. The story therefore presents a somewhat pessimistic assessment of the human condition.
But one has to ask the question, “Well how did civilisation come about in the first place?” At some point in history there must have been a group of people who had the opposite experience from the boys on the island, an experience in which goodness triumphed and civilisation flourished. Without such an experience there could never have been any civilisation in the first place. I asked this question recently, the last time the book was discussed around our dinner table. The answer that came back was that somehow it is precisely the triumph of evil which allows goodness to be born and to grow. This answer suggests that, had Golding’s book continued with the boys still stranded on the island, then, after the most dreadful murders had been committed, evil would have done its worst and good would have had to prevail. Civilisation would have been reborn.
I thought this was a very interesting suggestion, and there are many parallels with Christian theology. In particular it is the great triumph of evil in the crucifixion of Christ, which reveals the resurrection life and which leads to the descent of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church, and the beginnings of the Christian society.
Or again, we might think of the many terrible martyrdoms that the church suffered at the hands of the Roman Empire in the Coliseum and the Roman Circus. Especially we might think of the thousands who died in the persecution under the emperor Diocletian starting in 303 AD. Did this mass martyrdom not somehow lead to the conversion of the emperor Constantine and the official Christianisation of the Roman Empire, starting from 313 AD?
It is indeed an intriguing thought. Evil must sometimes do its worst, and must appear to triumph, before goodness can be revealed and can flourish. In Advent we reflect on the coming of Jesus. We remember his first coming, as a baby in Bethlehem. But especially in the first half of Advent we focus on the long prophesied second coming of Jesus. And the scriptures suggest to us that the second coming of Christ will contain something of this theme of good being revealed by the apparent triumph and of everything bad. For example, the Gospel reading from Luke which we heard this morning talks of the second coming of Christ. It describes a time of great distress on earth with great confusion among the nations. It talks of people fainting from fear and of a terrible foreboding about what is coming upon the earth. But in the midst of this most terrible moment Luke tells us that people will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory and with redemption for all who have put their trust in Christ.
And there are many other scripture readings like this one (e.g. Matt 24: 9-14, 2 Peter: 3, Rev 13 and 20: 7-10) which suggest that the second coming of Christ will follow a most terrible and evil time, during which many people will be led astray.
So, what are we to make of all this?
Well first of all it is important not to be discouraged when we hear bad news. Watching the TV and reading the newspapers can be very disheartening. But our Christian hope remains solid, even in the face of bad news, or fearful events or terrible evil. In fact these things can be the very means whereby Christian hope is revealed.
And then I think we must take very seriously the advice that we read from St Paul in 1 Thessalonians this morning. Paul is expecting the second coming of Jesus imminently, and he is very concerned that people should prepare for this well. He says, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” (1 Thess 3: 12). He goes on to talk about holiness, and being blameless before God, but it seems that these things come from love. When we set out to do things for love of God, and love of the people around us then we are ordering our lives in accordance with the commands of Jesus, we are living the life of his kingdom and we are preparing ourselves to be good citizens of his kingdom. It is love that continues to have value when we die or when the world comes to an end (1 Cor 13: 13).
So let’s live the season of Advent well, by asking God to help us to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all. This means seeking the good of the other; trying to focus on how we serve others. Ultimately this leads to holiness, and being blameless before Christ. There is no better way of preparing for the coming of Jesus. Amen.

Christ the King

Thought for the parish pew slip – 22/11/09 – Christ the King

Readings: Daniel 7: 9-10 & 13-14 Revelation 1: 4b-8 John 18: 33- 37


At the feast of Christ the King we celebrate our confidence that one day Christ will come to rule as king, with great power, glory and splendour.
Our Old Testament reading describes part of a vision of Daniel in which he sees God the father giving kingship to Jesus. Daniel experienced this vision in the 6th century BC during the Jewish exile in Babylon; a real low point in Jewish history.
The book of Revelation describes St John’s visions of the end times. These have many parallels with the visions that Daniel had had six centuries earlier. Like Daniel, John sees a king of kings, coming on the clouds with great glory and dominion.
Our gospel reading is part of the trial of Jesus in front of Pilate, the Roman governor. Pilate is struggling to understand the kingship of Jesus. Later (John 18: 19-22) Pilate has an inscription displayed on Jesus’ cross. It says, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”. The chief priests object to this, but Pilate refuses to change it.

End-of-the-world events

Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull, at the 8am Eucharist
Sunday 15th November 2009, 2nd Sunday before Advent, Year B

Readings: Daniel 12: 1-3 [Hebrews 10: 11-14 &19-25] Mark 13: 1-8


Last Wednesday I was standing on the Mount of Olives, looking across the Kidron Valley at the Temple Mount. I was in a garden called “Dominus Flevit” or “The Lord wept”. There is a church there in the shape of a teardrop. According to tradition, this is the site described in Luke 19 (v41-44) where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. It may well be that this is the same site, recalled in our gospel reading today, where Peter, Andrew James and John privately ask Jesus when the temple will be destroyed.
Jesus answers that the signs of the approaching destruction will be false Messiahs, wars, earthquakes and famines. He describes these as the beginnings of the birth pangs. The trouble is that false Messiahs, wars, earthquakes and famines seem to be characteristic of every age so they are not as the clear cut indicators that the disciples might have been hoping for. As it turned out, the temple was destroyed in 70AD by the Romans. There is no doubt that it was a terrible event for the Jewish nation, well worthy of Jesus’ tears. The temple has never been rebuilt. The temple mount is now dominated by Islamic buildings; the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
The destruction of the temple felt like an end-of-the-world event for God’s chosen people, the Jews. But in the scriptures it is hard to distinguish prophesies about this event from prophesies about the second coming of Christ, which is also seen as a time of great anguish, and an end-of-the-world style event. Our reading from Daniel 12 would appear to be about the second coming of Christ because it mentions the resurrection of the dead in a way comparable with Revelation chapter 20.
At this time of year, when one church year is ending, and another beginning, our scripture readings encourage us to reflect on the second coming of Christ and on the end times. Next week, the last in the Churches year, we celebrate the feast of Christ the King expressing our confidence that ultimately good must triumph over evil, and Christ must rule over all things.
This confidence that good must ultimately overcome evil – where does it come from? How can we be so sure about it? It comes from the death and resurrection of Christ. Evil can do its worst, it can crucify the one who created all of us, but the resurrection reveals Jesus as the resurrection and the life, the source of eternal life which he wants to share with all people.
We can be sure that just as God’s own temple was torn apart in AD 70, so our own lives, sooner or later, in small ways and big, are torn apart. It can happen through the loss of a job, or through problems in a marriage or through other sufferings small and large. In these moments it is important to remember Jesus on the cross. We need to grow in love for Jesus as he suffers on the cross. Through our own sufferings we can be united to Christ in his death. And this unity with Christ in death leads to a unity with him in resurrection, in new life. And the more we experience this, the more confidence we place in it. We can become sure that good, ultimately must overcome evil. Amen.

All saints day

Informal sermon preached at St Alphege 9.15 Eucharist
Sunday 1st November 2009 – All Saints Day – Year B
(A more traditional version of this sermon was also preached at the 11am Eucharist.)

Readings: Wisdom 3: 1-9 Rev 21: 1-6 John 11: 32-44

[AV - Camera]
So it’s All Saints Day; the day when we remind ourselves about all the saints in heaven, both those who are famous and have their own special days in the churches calendar, and especially those who are not so famous, those whose holiness is known to God alone.
And what is a Saint? Well a saint is a person who is holy. A saint is a person who has drawn very close to God, who is illuminated by the holiness of God. A saint is someone who is completely filled with the love of God, who moves in complete harmony with God. A saint is someone who has at last become precisely what God created them to be. God’s creation in them has been realised in all its fullness.
[AV - Picture of saints in heaven]
And here we have a picture of the saints in heaven. In the centre you can see Jesus on the cross, above him God the Father, and above him the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. And around the three persons of God we have countless saints, all looking to Christ and all moving in perfect harmony with God.
And the good news is that we are all saints. In the New Testament, all the baptised people are commonly called saints. And we have been baptised. We are a new creation (2 Cor 5: 17), we are members of Christ’s body (1 Cor 6: 15), children of God, and co-heirs of God with Christ (Roman 8: 16-17). By our baptism we become part of God’s chosen people, part of his royal priesthood, and holy nation (1 Peter 2: 9). And all this because we have believed and been baptised (Mark 16: 16). So there is a sense in which we are all saints, already!
[AV - Camera]
Well you are probably sat there looking at the person next to you and thinking, “Well she’s not a saint. I know that for sure. If my wife was a saint she would be far better at cooking!”
And this is where we get to the bad news. Although all of us in the church are saints, we are also all sinners. We all have this part of us that rebels against God’s love; that says, “No, I want to do it my way.” And this sin affects us in many ways. First of all it clouds our vision. It makes us look at things selfishly and not as God sees them. There is a sense in which your wife really is a saint, but in your sinfulness you don’t see it. You are too busy thinking about your stomach! But then our sinfulness also leads us into bad attitudes and bad behaviours. We treat other people as enemies or threats and not as children of God. And as we all know, it gets worse.
So we are all saints, and we are all sinners. Well we probably knew that already, because we know that everyone has their good points and their bad points. But the very important point that we must not overlook is that the saint within us has an eternal and blessed future with God in heaven, and with the saints, whereas the sinner within us has no future. He can only shrivel up and die. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6: 23). So the skill of life on earth is to always make the saint within us grow, and flourish because the saint is our future. And the sinner we allow to die, because in the end that is all he can do.
And how do we do this? How do we make the saint within us grow? Well we do it by focusing on Christ, who is THE saint, the holy one, the source of our holiness.
Our gospel reading today presented a powerful picture of Christ as the resurrection and the life. Jesus was able to restore the body of Lazarus despite the stench of four days of decay in the tomb. Jesus was able to call Lazarus back from the dead and give him life once more. So it is that Jesus is the source of our resurrection life. He is the one who gives life to the saint within us makes it grow. Our holiness does not come from us, it comes from God. It is the gift of grace. Our part is to want it, to pray for it, and to accept it and co-operate with it. And accepting this grace means accepting the commandments of Jesus, especially the commandments to love other people. If we practise loving then the saint grows within us. The kingdom of God within us might feel like a very small mustard seed, but it has the potential to grow into a great tree (c.f. Matt 13: 31).
And as the saint grows within us, so the sinner within gets marginalised and squeezed out. And this can be painful; it a kind of death. But its worth it because it allows the saint to grow.
[AV - Picture of saints in heaven]
Let’s go back to that picture of the saints. One of the amazing things is that they are all very different. In Revelation 7 (v 9) we are told that they come from every tribe and nation, every people and language, and they all have a specific role in heaven. They all have their own distinctive way of ministering to the other saints. And the church on earth is like this too. We are all very different. We do come from many different tribes and peoples, nations and languages. And we all have a distinctive ministry to one another, each of us our own particular way of helping the others.
[AV - Picture of listening]
And today I would like to emphasise one particular ministry that lies beneath all the others; the ministry of listening. It is so important to listen properly to one another, to create the space for the other person to express themselves. Listening is the basis of so many other ministries because only by listening can we understand the needs of the other person, only by being attentive to them can we be sure that our ministry is exercised for their benefit and not out of our own pride. And listening is also very counter cultural. Our culture always emphasises the importance of getting our message across. Listening, in contrast seeks to hear the truth of the other person; not the bluster and self propaganda, but the truth of the person created by God. In October’s parish magazine we advertised a taster evening of training on Christian listening coming up on 17th November. I commend this to you. Look out for more details in the next weeks pewslip.
[AV - Camera]
So, on All Saints day let us rejoice with the saints in heaven. Let’s praise God for our baptism which like a small mustard seed means that we too can grow up to become great saints. And let’s focus on Christ. Even if our lives are sinful and putrid, like a body four days in the grave, Christ can show us the way and make it happen, so that we grow up to discover our own small place in heaven, along side all the other saints. Amen.

Living stones

Sermon preached at 11am Eucharist at St Alphege Church, Solihull
Sunday 18th October 2009 – Dedication Festival – Guardians Sunday

Readings: Genesis 28: 11-18 1 Peter 2: 1-10 John 10: 22-29


Today is Dedication Sunday, when we give thanks to God for our church buildings, and pray that we might use them ever better, so as to take forward God’s kingdom. We are of course especially fortunate here at St Alphege in that we have a particularly beautiful and ancient church building. Let’s briefly remind ourselves about its history.
There has been a church building on this site since about 1190, when the village of Solihull first started to develop. In 1242 Solihull received a royal charter for an annual three day fair, around St Alphege Day. The village grew and needed a bigger church. The first part to be redeveloped was the channel and side chapels from about 1277. Later the nave was pulled down and rebuilt on a larger scale. We can still see the outline of the old nave on the side of the tower. The side aisles were added and the spire. The only part of the original church to have survived is the stonework in the tower. The main structures of the church have changed little since the sixteenth century, although the spire famously fell down and was rebuilt in the eighteenth century and some major structural strengthening took place in the 1940s and 50s.
So as we worship in this church building we follow in a tradition that has continued on this site for about 800 years. The church building provides us with an extraordinary link back through the ages to all those worshippers of old; the people who laid the foundations for the Solihull of today. Many of those people are buried in the church yard. Some of them are commemorated on the walls. There is a sense in which the church, the people of God, is united through time by this church building.
This is a wonderful heritage, that serves our Christian development today, and into the future. We are very fortunate at St Alphege that we have a special organisation dedicated to preserve and take forward that heritage. The Guardians of St. Alphege Church, Solihull was established in 1981. It is a registered charity with the object of raising funds to assist with the maintenance and preservation of the fabric of the church,
for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull and to stimulate interest in the beauty, history and character of St Alphege Church as one of the oldest and finest medieval buildings in the Borough. We are very grateful for their work and for the funds that they make available for the church building. You may remember that in 2007 a significant repair was required at the top of the spire, and for several months the spire had a “flying scaffold” over the top of it. All this, some £35,000, was paid for by the Guardians, and it is an extraordinary gift.
Now I would like to go back to our epistle reading, in which St Peter makes comparisons between the way that God builds up the Church, the people of God, and the way a builder might build a church building. This is a powerful way of thinking about the Church, and similar thinking is expressed by St Paul in Ephesians 2 and by St John in Revelation 21. Peter says, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” In this comparison we can think of Christ as the chief corner stone from which the whole building is laid out. We can think of the apostles as the foundations. And we are the living stones from which the building is built.
So let’s think of ourselves as “living stones”, all of which make a distinctive contribution to the whole church. Take a look around this church building and look at the stones from which it is made. Some are big and some are small. Some are set high up in the structure, some are low down. Some are highly visible and seen by everyone. Some are hidden away in obscure corners and tend to go unnoticed. Some stones are internal to the wall and can never be seen by anyone. Some stones are highly carved and have been cut into very precise shapes, either for decoration, or to fit precisely alongside other stones.
God calls us to be living stones. What kind of stone are you called to be? Are you big or small? Are you called to be high up in the wall or tower, as though to give glory to God. Or are you called to be lower down, supporting many other stones above you? Are you very visible, or is you contribution to be made in a more low profile way. Are you highly carved? Does it sometime feel as though God is painfully chilling away at you to get you into the precise shape that he wants? And what about the other stones around you? How are you connected to them? What are the relationships that bind you into the life of the church? Those relationships can be a bit like the mortar that binds stones together. Is the mortar strong? Does it need re-pointing? What is the specific contribution that your stone is to make to the life of the church? How does it relate to the contribution of the stones around you?
I said that this is a powerful way of thinking about the church, and so it is, but I think we need some words of caution. This way of thinking about the life of the church emphasises the solidity and institutional aspects of church life. And whilst the church certainly has a solid and institutional aspect we must not lose sight of the fact that the church is a living, breathing, moving, evolving organism as well. We are called to be living stones, not dead weights! Like blood that circulates round the body, so news and joys and sorrows, hopes and sufferings must circulate around the church. We must not depend too much on our structures. Remember that over time most of this church building has been pulled down and rebuilt. So it is that God sometimes pulls down and rebuilds his church.
So let’s try to be the living stones that God wants us to be, whether big or small, visible or invisible. Let’s seek our fulfilment not within ourselves but in our service to the living stones around us, and to the whole Church. And as God builds us into a spiritual house let us be conscious of the very high calling that God gives us. We are called to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. And let’s live out this vocation for our own benefit, for the benefit of the whole Church and for the benefit of all of humanity.

Dedication Sunday

Thought for the parish pewslip - Sunday 18th October 2009 - Dedication Sunday

Readings: Genesis 28: 11-18 1 Peter 2:1-10 John 10: 22-29

On Dedication Sunday we give thanks to God for our church buildings.
In our reading from Genesis, Jacob has a dream and says, “How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” This is how we want our church buildings to be.
In our epistle reading Peter makes a comparison between building up the Church (by which he means the holy nation, God’s own people) and the building up of a house. God is the builder. Each of us is a “living stone”. Christ is the chief corner stone, and the apostles are the foundations (see also Rev 21: 14 and Eph 2: 20). We have to allow God to cut us into shape, and to set us in our destined positions, alongside all the other stones, for the benefit of the whole building.
In our gospel reading the feast of the Dedication and the splendour of the temple buildings remind the Jews of the greatness of their calling and their need for a Messiah, an anointed, one to raise them up. Jesus was the Messiah, but his salvation was more personal, secure and more all encompassing than they could understand.

Living simply

Informal Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull for the all-age Eucharist.
Sunday 11th October 2009 – Year B - Harvest Thanksgiving

Readings: [Joel 2: 21-27] 1 Timothy 6: 6-10 Matthew 6: 25-33


[AV - Camera on speaker]

Today we celebrate our harvest thanksgiving; it’s a day of thanksgiving to God for his all gifts to us, and especially for his gift of food. Over the spring and summer farmers grow all kinds of foods in the fields. Now all the food has been collected in, the harvest is completed, and we come to give thanks to God for all the food that has grown and we give thanks for the food we shall eat over this coming year.

But thinking about the harvest and our food also makes us think about God’s other great gifts to us; about the land, the sunshine and the weather, all the things that people make and which we buy and sell, all the good things that we have and that we enjoy.

And if you are sitting in the first three rows you might like to have a look under your seat cushions and see if you can find examples of some of the many good things that we have and enjoy, that come to us through God’s creation. If you find one, perhaps you could bring it forward to now.

[Children look under seats, find eight posters and bring them forward. Each poster has a picture illustrating a word]

So what have we got? For the sake of the AV operator I want to read these out in a particular order. We have got:
Mobile phones [AV - Display mobile phones]
Food [AV - Display food]
Holidays [AV - Display holidays]
Clothes [AV - Display clothes]
Houses [AV - Display shelter]
Water [AV - Display water]
Beauty products [AV - Display beauty products]
Car [AV - Display car]
[The children hold these up for all to see.]
[AV - display eight words with small pictures.]
Lots and lots of wonderful things. We are very fortunate to have all these things.

Now let me ask you [talking to children in the front pews], which of these would make the best birthday present. If you could ask for any one of these for you birthday, which would it be?

[Discussion with children, probable outcome mobile phone or car]
[AV - if possible display the relevant picture]

Well that good, and I am sure that we would all like …. for a birthday present.

But now let’s turn things around a bit, and think about these eight things in a different way. Let’s suppose that you could only have half them. Let’s suppose that half of them we can keep, and half of them we have to lose, and live without. Which four would you keep and which four would you manage without?

[More discussion with children. Hopefully we agree to keep House, Water, Food, Clothes.]
[AV - display slide with “Food, Clothes, Houses, Water”]

So what’s a bit interesting here, is when we select one as a birthday present its [mobile phone], but when we have to select four to live with and four to live without, we choose to manage without a [mobile phone]. So when we are forced to choose, it is the simple things that matter; water, food, clothes and a place to live.

Now it is a very good thing that we have chosen the simple things, because the sad truth is that in the western world, we take much more than our fair share of the good gifts of the earth. And because we take more than our fair share, other people have less; sometimes they don’t even have the simple things that they need. So, for example, if we think about the amount of oil and gas that we burn, in Europe and in the USA we burn far more than our fair share. This slide shows how the average carbon emissions of your average American and European burn, compared to average carbon emissions in China, India and Africa. [AV - Display “contract and converge” slide from 2012].
This slide shows how much we should each be burning, so as to give us a good chance of avoiding serious climate change.
[AV - Display “contract and converge” slide from 2025]

Look how much smaller the American and European need to be! We really need to cut down massively on the oil and gas that we burn, for the sake of the climate. This means that we need to get better at living simple lives, less dependent on cars and holidays.
[AV - Camera on speaker]
Now we all know this isn’t easy. We all know that we like our cars and our holidays. There is a very real sense in which we need our cars and our holidays, so how can we change? How can we move towards simpler living? Well, I think we need to take very seriously the words that Jesus said in our gospel reading today. We have to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” So let’s try, moment by moment, to live as God wants us to live. Let’s try to love other people as God loves them. If we can do this then God will give us the things we need, and we do certainly need a solution on climate change. If we follow God then in small steps and in large, he will lead us towards lifestyles that are simpler and more fulfilling. We will get better at enjoying the simple things in life like our clothes and houses, our water and our food. We will want to give thanks to God for these things more and more. Our harvest thanksgivings will become ever more meaningful.

Living by trust in God

Short Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull 8am Eucharist.
Sunday 11th October 2009 – Year B - Harvest Thanksgiving

Readings: [Joel 2: 21-27] 1 Timothy 6: 6-10 Matthew 6: 25-33


I wonder if you noticed that this week’s gospel reading was almost identical to last week’s? Perhaps you thought, I have heard this before recently? Perhaps you thought that some mistake had been made? But no, we are in year B of the Lectionary, and it just so happens that, in year B, the Harvest Thanksgiving gospel is the same teaching of Jesus as we read on the St Francis’ day, which we observed last Sunday. The only difference is that this week we read Matthew’s account, last week we read Luke’s. In fact the two accounts are very, very similar.
And this coincidence (although it isn’t really a coincidence) serves to highlight how the Franciscan attitude to food and clothing exemplifies the attitude that we ourselves should have as we come to God in thanksgiving for the harvest, and indeed in thanksgiving for all our worldly wealth.
St Francis, as we know, was in love with “Lady Poverty”. He and his companions would live from day to day on the gifts they were given. Francis would never allow his brothers to have any money or property. Initially they were more or less beggars, but over time a pattern built up whereby they did work for people and were given food and shelter. And in large part the work they did was the proclamation of the gospel. They were therefore lived out a very good example of the teaching in our gospel reading today. They did not worry about their food or their clothing. They strived first for the kingdom of God, and his righteousness and God gave them the food and clothing that they needed. And far from starving to death, or dying from hypothermia, they grew to become a huge religious family, with many branches spread throughout the whole world to this day.
Now most of us gathered here today are not called by God to be Franciscans, but we are all called to live these same words of Jesus, “Strive first for the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” However secure we are in our food and our clothing there are many other areas of our life where we have to live by faith in God. How can we save ourselves from terrorism, or global warming or financial collapse? How can we deal with that situation in our marriage or in our family that weighs heavily upon us? How can we prevent the deterioration of community values, the alienation of the young people, the loss of national identity? How can we cope with illness, old age, and death? In respect of all these things we have to live by faith. We can never resolve these issues; we have to entrust them to God. And how do we do that? We do it by focusing first and foremost of the kingdom of God, on seeking to do God’s will in each present moment of our lives, on seeking to love others as God loves them. In this way we make our own small contribution to the solving of problems, in accordance with what God asks from us, but for the most part we have to entrust the problems to God. And if we strive, first and foremost, for the kingdom of God, we will slowly come to see will that all these problems are part of God’s love for us, they are part of our journey, they help us to walk towards him. And if we truly entrust them to God we will see how, in the fullness of time, God brings them to resolution.
As we make our harvest thanksgiving, let’s pray for the grace to strive first and foremost for the kingdom of God. Let’s then trust God, not just for our food and our clothing, but that all these other issues too will be sorted out by God, as we live in faith. Amen.

Being content with the things we have

Thought for Parish Pewslip – 11th October 2009 – Harvest Thanksgiving

Readings: Joel 2: 21-27 1 Timothy 6: 6-10 Mathew 6: 25-33


Our Old Testament reading follows a traumatic “Day of the Lord” in which a huge army of locusts have destroyed all the crops of Israel, leaving the land desolate and bare. The prophet Joel describes a call to repentance and prayer. After that he presents the people with the “vision of plenty” that we read today.
In our reading from 1 Timothy, St Paul emphasises the importance of being content with the things that we have. He notes that the desire to be rich opens people up to all kinds of temptations and problems, and we know that these problems are rampant in the society we live in today.
So what can we do about it? How can we avoid wanting more, when there is such a huge advertising industry always telling us to want more? Well the advice of Jesus comes in our gospel reading: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” If we put God in the first place in our lives, and seek to do his will, and grow in his love, then God will take care of all these other problems.

St Francis, a model for today

Sermon preached at St Alphege 11am Eucharist
Sunday 4th October 2009: St Francis of Assisi

Readings: Micah 6: 6-8 Galatians 6: 14-18 Luke 12: 22-34



St Francis is probably the most famous and influential saint to have lived since biblical times, certainly within western Christianity. He may have died almost 800 years ago, but it seems to me that he remains extraordinarily relevant to our modern day world. Our sophisticated world of wealth, consumerism and individualism needs now more than ever to focus on St Francis and his values of poverty, simplicity and trust. I would like to give three examples of how helpful, and also challenging, Franciscan values can be. I suspect that many, many other examples that could also be given.
First of all let’s think about Francis, and his love of poverty. Francis would not allow his followers to have any money. They lived from day to day on the gifts provided by others. He and his followers took very seriously our gospel reading today. They sought first of all the kingdom of heaven, especially through their preaching and teaching; and all the other things, clothes, food, shelter, were given to them as they needed them. St Francis considered “Lady Poverty” to be his best spiritual friend; it was almost as though he had married her.
Now this attitude to wealth was extremely influential. Most of us are not all called by God to live a life without money or processions. But we are all called by God to see our processions as gifts that God has given us to help us to serve one another. Whether we are rich or poor, we are called not to be too attached to our processions. We must be ready to give, especially if we have more than we need. In my opinion this generous spiritual attitude towards worldly wealth was one of the factors that allowed the western world to become very wealthy over the following centuries. It contrasts starkly with the greed that lies behind our current economic problems. It is profoundly helpful for us at this time to be reminded of the importance of spiritual poverty. It helps us both personally and as a society if we develop the ability to give freely and the ability to let go of earthly things whenever this is required by God’s will.
Now as a second influence let’s think about Francis and his great love of creation. He loved all creation. He is famous for preaching to the birds and to the fish and for rejoicing in everything that God has made. Our first hymn today was based on his canticle of the sun, in which he calls on all creation to praise God. The sun, the moon, the wind, the clouds, the morning and the evening, water and fire, earth, flowers and fruit are all called to sing praises to God. It does not come over in hymn version, but in the original poem Francis speaks of brother sun and sister moon. As a fellow creature created by God he feels himself profoundly close to all creation, like a brother or a sister. His attitude always is that it is important to take great care of all that God has made, and to use things only as God intends, for God’s own purposed. How powerfully this contrasts with the way that we tend to exploit nature for our own purposes, undermining the purposes of God and leading to all kinds of environmental crises. And the simpler lifestyle advocated by Francis could make a hugely important contribution towards solving the climate change problems. If we are to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 20% by 2020 then we all need to live much simpler lifestyles, less dependant on cars and consumer goods and depending much more on our relationships with the people around us.
Third example - Francis lived during the crusades. Christians and Muslims were at war. We may feel that Christian Muslim relationships are difficult nowadays, but things were far worse in the early 13th Century. After the failure of the third crusade Francis travelled to Egypt to visit the Sultan, thinking he would simply solve the crusade problem by converting the Sultan to Christianity. Most people of the people who saw him go thought this was a crazy idea, and fully expected Francis to be beheaded for his insolence long before he got anywhere near the Sultan. But Francis walked in faith. He was received by the Sultan, and preached the gospel to him. The Sultan did not convert, but he was deeply impressed by the holiness of Francis. They entered into a week long discussion. Francis too was profoundly impressed by the Muslims, by their pattern of regular prayer and by their prayer beads. One website I looked at even suggested that it was this encounter that introduced into Catholic spirituality the practice of saying the rosary with beads, and the thrice daily recitation of the angelus. The Sultan apparently said, “Pray for me, that God may deign to reveal to me that law and faith which is most pleasing to him.” It was a foundational example of inter-faith dialogue. It was made possible by Francis conviction that judgement was for God. His role, as a Christian, was not to judge, but rather to love and serve the people who God had made. This includes all people, the Christians and non-Christians, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. This universal love of Francis is an outstanding example for us, as we struggle to cope with multi-faith, multi-cultural societies.
So there you are three challenges from St Francis. Firstly to be spiritually poor; ready to lose things for the good of others, or as God requires. Secondly, to love all creation, and to ourselves as part of it, not exploiting creation, but working in harmony with it, as God intended. Thirdly, to be ready to love everyone, even the person of a different race and religion who we might be tempted to think of as an enemy. Let’s thank God for St Francis, and let’s pray for the grace to follow his example. Amen.

Giving thanks for our food

Editorial for the Parish Magazine (Parish of Solihull – October 2009)

October is the month when we celebrate the harvest. We give thanks to God for the crops that have grown and been collected in. We give thanks to God for the food which we shall eat over the coming year.
The Victorians developed the annual harvest thanksgiving into full blown Harvest Festivals. Harvest hymns started to appear. “Come ye thankful people come” was written in 1844. “We plough the fields and scatter” was translated from the German in 1861. Churches were decorated with harvest produce. Harvest gifts were collected and shared with the poor. Church bells were rung and liturgical celebrations spilt over into Harvest Suppers and Harvest Shows.
In recent decades there have been some interesting developments as harvest festivals come to reflect the changing times. Away from rural areas, harvest gifts now tend to reflect what we eat rather than what we grow or harvest. Tinned and packaged foods have become the norm, and actually they make for much more practical harvest gifts! In some places the emphasis has moved away from harvest towards a celebration of the different ways in which we earn our daily bread. I have seen manufactured goods proudly displayed in church alongside sheaths of corn. As the manufacturing sector gives way to the services sector perhaps we should expect to see displays of consultancy brochures or software CDs in our church displays!
These changes make us realise the extraordinarily complicated and sophisticated ways in which we get our food. For most of us, the way we earn our money has nothing to do with producing food. We use that money to buy food that is often imported, sometimes over vast distances. Much of our food is mass produced. In the supermarkets most food is available all year round.
There are many benefits to this. An extraordinary variety of food is available to us all the time. It is more affordable and convenient than ever before and the quality is extremely consistent. The importing of food from all around the world makes us more aware of the interconnectedness of all humanity and the “Global Village” effect.
But despite all these benefits, the changes do raise several concerns. There are ethical concerns about intensive farming, GM crops and the terms of trade with the third world. There are concerns about the greenhouse gases generated by transporting food, and the intensive farming of cattle. Food security becomes more of a concern as we realise that our food supply is so heavily dependent on world trade and financial institutions. Then there is the very real problem of rising food prices, caused by agricultural land being switched from food production to bio-fuel production. This switching threatens to cause food prices to rise to levels beyond what can be afforded in many of the world’s poorest nations. Finally there is the sense in which we are diminished as human beings by our lack of connectedness with where our food comes from. We cease to understand our relationship with the soil and the weather. Our consciousness of seasonal foods and of local specialities disappears. Our distinctive role in food production is reduced to that of consumer.
It could be easy to become depressed about these problems, but our Christian faith teaches us always to live in hope. It also provides us with extraordinary resources that ultimately have the power to address the problems. For example, on 4th October we commemorate St Francis of Assisi in our liturgy. St Francis lived a life of radical simplicity and poverty, which was extremely challenging to the economic assumptions of his time, and which remains both challenging and inspirational to us today.
What would Francis suggest to us about our food today? I suspect that in his simplicity he would suggest growing more of our food locally and growing it less intensively. He would encourage us to grow some of our own food in our own gardens. He would encourage a more interdependent community, working together on food production. He would encourage a freer sharing of the food produced. Our involvement with growing food and our connectedness with nature would increase. Of course such proposals might involve real economic costs and a reduction in financial wealth, but with his love of “Lady Poverty” Francis would rejoice in that too!
Now, we are not all called to be Franciscans. There are other spiritualities within the Church and other legitimate perspectives on food production. However, it seems to me that as the complexities and instabilities of food production increases so the Franciscan perspective will become harder to ignore. In the meantime we must give thanks for the food that God gives us, without worrying, and remembering the advice that Jesus gave to those who worried about their food. He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6: 33).

Going to Church

Short sermon preached at 8am Eucharist at St Alphege Church, Parish of Solihull
Sunday 27th September 2009, Back to Church Sunday

Readings for Back to Church Sunday, taken from Year C, Proper 26.
Isaiah 1: 10-18 2 Thessalonians 1: 1-4 & 11-12 Luke 19: 1-10


Quite often, when I meet people from the fringes of our church community I get the comment, “Of course you don’t have to go to church to be a good Christian!” Well, you won’t be surprised to know that vicar/curate types like me don’t particularly like this kind of comment; it reveals very restricted form of Christian life in which the worship and community life of the church are marginalised.
But if you wanted to try and prove from scripture that, “You don’t have to go to church to be a good Christian,” one of the texts that you might well go for is the reading from Isaiah that we heard this morning. The reading is from the eighth century BC. In it, God, through the prophet Isaiah, complains bitterly against his chosen people, the nation of Israel. And God’s particular complaint appears to be their worship. He says, “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? …Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. … I can’t endure your solemn assemblies with iniquity.” On the face of it God is complaining about their worship. He hates their worship. So there you have it; it is better not to worship. It is better to be a Christian who never comes to church! QED!
Well, no! To understand the passage in this way is to misunderstand it completely. If we read the passage carefully we will see that the real problem is the iniquity of the people, the evil of their doings. The real problem is their bad behaviour. If people behave badly then their worship becomes hypocrisy. It’s becomes like a child telling you that you are a wonderful Dad, while steeling your money. It becomes like a neighbour praising your good nature, while bringing a lawsuit against you. It becomes like a work colleague who is all sweetness and light, but who is quietly stabbing you in the back.
So the message of the passage is not, “Don’t Worship!” On the contrary, the message of the passage is, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; …cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice … then your worship will be acceptable to God. Then God will listen to your prayers. Then God will not hide himself from you.”
And this might feel like a challenge too far. You try and do a favour for God by coming to church, and then God turns round and tells you that you need to get you whole life in order first. He tells us that we need to live a good life before we can worship. Well, we might as all well go home right now!
But no! This isn’t the message either, and we can see this in the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a public sinner of the first order. He conspired with the Romans to take taxes off the Jews. His work strengthened the occupying Roman army and weakened the Jewish people. To the Jews he was the lowest of the low; a betrayer of God’s people, a traitor. And Jesus knew all this. Jesus knew that Zacchaeus’ whole lifestyle was embroiled in sin. And yet Jesus called to him. Jesus came to visit him. People criticised Jesus for visiting a sinner, but Jesus went all the same and stayed at Zacchaeus’ house.
And when Zacchaeus realised he was loved by Jesus, suddenly he found the capacity to change. Suddenly he could throw off his sin, he could give generously to the poor, he could make good fourfold the loses of anyone he had cheated. He remained a tax collector, but now a just one, and Jesus confirmed that salvation had come to his house.
When we come to church, we come to meet Jesus. It can be a bit awkward and uncomfortable, a bit like climbing a tree. But let’s listen to Jesus calling to us. Let’s listen to Jesus wanting to stay with us. Let’s know that Jesus loves us, and calls us to walk the path to heaven. And with our fixed on Jesus, we will find the grace to put aside our sinful ways. We will start to live lives worthy of our calling. Our worship will become pleasing to God. We will find ourselves able to walk the journey to heaven and to dwell always in the presence of God. Amen.

Business Ethics

Sermon preached at Choral Evensong at St Alphege church on Sunday 20th September 2009, Trinity 15.

Readings: Amos 8: 4-7 Luke 16: 1-13



If you read newspapers or watch television you will most certainly have noticed the anniversary of the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in the early hours of 15th September 2008. It was a watershed moment. It was the moment that the grave problems in the credit markets exploded into a full blown financial crisis. It marked the start of some very uncertain days in which the complete collapse of the world financial system appeared to be a very real and very frightening possibility.
The media have marked the anniversary in a big way. One thing I watched, was a BBC 2 drama broadcast on 9th September called “The Last Days of Lehman Brothers”. The drama focused on the weekend leading up to the Lehman Brothers failure. It sought to recreate the events of that weekend, as they unfolded for the main characters involved. For people not well acquainted with the collapse it was rather a confusing drama to watch. There were lots of big, powerful men in dark suits getting more and more fraught as they struggled desperately tried to save the bank, and as they eventually saw it fail. A key moment in the drama came just before midnight on the Friday night. The characters suddenly realised that they had to think the unthinkable. They had to take seriously the possibility of bankruptcy. It was an apocalyptic moment. The Book of Revelation, chapter 18, was quoted with powerful dramatic effect. “…Babylon the great is fallen and become the habitation of devils!...the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies…”.
And it is certainly true, that if you look at Revelation chapter 18, the immorality and subsequent collapse of trade, money and wealth does appear to be an important part of the realisation of the end time prophecies. Bad ethical practice in trade and economics seems to be a symptom of the coming of the end of the world. But this is not just a theme of the Book of Revelation. It is also a theme of the book of Amos chapter 8, part of which we have just heard as our first scripture reading.
Amos was prophesying in the eighth century BC. He was warning the people of the northern kingdom of Israel of an immanent “Day of the Lord”; a terrible day of judgement when their society would be destroyed. This message was very unpopular and people did their best to ignore it. Amos got into trouble with the authorities for his teaching, but his prophecies were fulfilled in 722 BC when the Assyrians utterly vanquished the northern kingdom, removing everything of value and sending the people into exile.
The part of Amos chapter 8 that we read today set out God’s complaint against Israel. God is angry with the merchants and traders, who oppress the poor and trample on the needy. He is angry with their impatience to get on with their trade. They cannot wait until the Sabbath is over and the new moon over, so that they can get on with it. He is angry at the cheating practices in their trade, with rigged measurements and biased scales. He notices that it is the poor who are impoverished by the corrupt practises in trading. These are the charges that God brings against Israel, and for which he dooms it to destruction. It is a powerful lesson in business ethics.
At first sight our reading from Luke is also about business ethics. It is the story of a dishonest businessman who receives his comeuppance. A rich master employs a manager who had been squandering the master’s money. The master decides that the manager must be fired. The manager comes up with a cunning, albeit dishonest, scheme whereby, at his masters expense, he can ensure that he will have lots of friends who will look after him, even after he has been fired. It is all too easy to make comparisons with contemporary failed bankers who ensure their future livelihood, even after they are fired, by means of generous payoffs or oversized pensions.
It is a rather confusing parable because the master, who we might thinks represent God, appears to commend the dishonest manager for his shrewdness in looking after himself, rather than getting angry at the further squandering of the master’s wealth. Is the parable telling us that we should commend people for being dishonest and selfish? The biblical commentaries that I have looked at seem to struggle to explain this away. Some work hard to morally justify the manager’s actions. Others work hard to play down the master’s apparent commendation. I have to say that I am not convinced by either of these approaches. Personally I do not think the parable is seeking to make points about the morality of the manager. Rather it seeks to make a point about the way that money and wealth should be used in this earthly life. Jesus explains, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” I think Jesus is saying that the wealth you have on earth is not really yours. It is given to you by God, and you can use it on earth, but you most certainly can’t take it with you when you die. However your good deeds do go with you when you die (Rev 14: 13), so it makes sense to use earthly wealth to help others. In this way transient earthly wealth can be used to generate real and enduring wealth in heaven.
But even if business ethics is not the central message of this parable in Luke, there can be no doubt that unjust business practices, and especially practices that damaged the poor, lay at the heart of God’s complaints against the northern kingdom of Israel in the period leading up to its destruction. And this is rather sobering for us as we meditate on the world financial system a year after the Lehman collapse. As the Archbishop of Canterbury commented on Newsnight (Tuesday 15th September), “There has not been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance, We haven’t heard people saying, ‘Well actually we got in wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, empty’.” He is absolutely right, of course. Three trillion dollars of public money have been pumped into the world economy to allow it to return to business as usual. It seems to me that this can only be storing up even bigger problems for the future. If the financial system continues to destroy value, then next time this comes home to roust the concern will not be the solvency of banks, but rather the solvency of governments. As the high gold price suggests, we have every reason to feel insecure about our financial futures.
And if we do feel insecure, then the value of the parable in Luke stands out even more clearly. We know we can’t take our money with us. Let’s use it to do good on earth. Especially let’s take care to trade in a way that helps rather than damages the poor. In this way, when we finally lose our money, however that may come about, we will have built up treasure in heaven.

Universal love - God's love for everyone!

Sermon preached at St Michael’s, 10:30 Eucharist, Sharman Cross School, Solihull
Sunday 6th September 2009. Trinity 13, Proper 18, Year B

Readings: Isaiah 35: 4-7a James 2: 1-10 & 14-17 Mark 7: 24-37

I once saw a film about the childhood of the American president John F. Kennedy (JFK). John was born in 1917. He was the second of nine children. The film depicted what appeared to be a very happy childhood, with lots of brothers and sisters and lots of friends around to play. I was very struck by a scene in the film where there are lots of children around playing and Kennedy’s father, the larger than life Joe Kennedy, arrives home. The children run to gather around him and he greets them and sits with them and talks to them and asks them questions and is always encouraging them, even when he is correcting them. It is presented as a wonderful image of fatherhood, and it made it easy to believe that so many of those nine children would grow up to be such significant figures. Then this father figure asks a question which is answered by a visitor to the house, a friend of one of the boys. Suddenly and completely abruptly Joe Kennedy’s tone changes completely. Rather than making the most of and celebrating the answer given he barks out “Who asked you?” The young boy is much taken aback, and probably feels very hurt by this. He is courageous and remains gracious, but the message from Joe Kennedy is very clear. I love and teach and celebrate and promote my own children, but you are not one of them, this love is not for you.
Well, it is rather an extreme example, but this is a very characteristic aspect of a love that is merely human. How often does it happen that we love our own people, but hate the others? And the examples are endless. Perhaps we love our own children, but hate other peoples. Perhaps we love Villa but hate City, or perhaps it’s the other way round. Perhaps we love Christians, but hate Muslims. Perhaps we love people of our own race, but hate other races. Perhaps we dislike people who are poorer than us, or wealthier than us, or better educated than us, or not educated or learner drivers or traffic wardens, or politicians, or teenagers, or old people…
But the love of God is not like this. The love of God is universal. God loves everyone who he has created. He has a plan for each person; a path to fulfilment for each person, a special role of service for each person, a place in heaven for each person. He makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the good and the bad alike (Matt 5: 45). And each one of us is called to share in the love of God. We are called to share in the love that he has for all people, even the most unattractive, even the ones who are suffering, even the ones who cause us problems, or who are on the wrong side of the law or are far away. God loves them and we too are called to love them as he does.
In our gospel reading today it seems that Jesus himself realises that he is called for the good of all people, not just for the Jews. He is approached by the Gentile woman who needed his help. Now the Gentiles were the people from “the nations”, the people from outside of the Israel, who were not Jews. And because of this Jesus is unwilling to help her. In fact is a very rude to her. He says, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” What he means is, “My ministry is first and foremost to the people of Israel. I must not waste my time looking after other people.” But the woman replies, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And Jesus is deeply impressed with this answer. He realises he needs to help the woman. He tells her than her daughter has been healed. And this is a crucial early example of Jesus’ love spreading beyond the Jews. And as the New Testament unfolds this spreading happens more and more, especially in the Acts of the Apostles. There is a growing realisation that the love of Jesus is for all.
And this also comes up in our reading from the letter of James. James insists that the Church must love all the people who come. It must not prioritise the rich person over the poor person; it must find ways to love both. He says the churches must not “make distinctions among themselves, and become judges with evil thoughts.” And James makes another point. The proof of our love is in what we do. Our love must be practical. We must help one another, according to the different needs each one has. James says that if anyone is naked owe should give them clothes, or if they are hungry we should give them food. But in our present day context we might think if any are lonely we should befriend them, if any lack social skills we should be patient with them, if any need prayer we should pray with them, if any are suffering we should wait with them.
And I would like to just clarify a couple of things. The fact that we are called to love everybody means, first and foremost, that we have to love the people around us right now, in each present moment of our lives. So, of course parents have to have a special love for their own children, of course football fans have a special love for their own club. But the point is that this love for one thing cannot be hatred for another. Rather it is a love that pour outwards, over all that it has contact with. We love our own household first, in order to love the other households, then also to love our street, our town, our nation, our continent and our whole world.
And a second thing. We know that we are all far from perfect. We know that the love we have in our own hearts is but a very poor shadow of the love of God. But we must not be disheartened. If we keep practising then love will grow in us. If every time we fail, or become aware of our shortcomings, we offer them to God and keep trying, then we are working with God, and it will please God to make his love will grow within us.
And finally a third thing. We all know that there are some people who are very hard to love. Well, loving them does not always mean going along with everything they say or do. It doesn’t mean pretending they are good when they are bad. But love does mean looking for the good in them, seeking to see Jesus present within them. It means being patient with them. It means wanting their good. It means being ready to share in their sufferings and problems. It means trying to find the right way to help them. It means wanting, one day, to share with them in the life of heaven. This is what God wants for all his children. This is what he wants for us. This is what he wants us to want for all of our brothers and sisters. Amen.

Healing for Israel, the world and the environment

Thought for the Parish Pewslip
Sunday 6th September 2009. Trinity 13, Proper 18, Year B

Readings: Isaiah 35: 4-7a James 2: 1-10 & 14-17 Mark 7: 24-37

Our reading from Isaiah foretells of the coming of Jesus, and of the healing miracles that can be expected. Healing is not just for the speechless and the deaf. There will be healing, even for the environment because “waters shall break forth in the wilderness”! Not all the things prophesied about Jesus seem to have occurred yet, but as Christians we are still awaiting the second coming of Christ.
Our reading from James reminds us that we are called to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, and that this includes all of our neighbours without partiality. If we favour the rich over the poor, or the attractive over the unattractive, or the people like us over the rest, then our love falls short of the love of God. Further our love must include practical actions of care for the people around us.
In our gospel reading we hear about two of Jesus’ healing miracles. The first is especially remarkable because Jesus initially appears reluctant to help the Gentile woman. “Let the children be fed first,” he said, meaning that his ministry was to the descendents of Jacob, not to the gentiles. He even suggests that the Gentiles are dogs! However, when Jesus hears the woman’s faith he realises that he must help her. It is becoming clear that Jesus has come to save all people, not only the Jews.

Receiving eternal life

Sermon preached at St Alphege Church, 9.15am Eucharist
Sunday 23rd August 2009, Trinity 11, Proper 16, Year B

Readings: Joshua 24: 1-2a & 14-18 Ephesians 6: 10-20 John 6: 56-69

One of the great themes of John’s gospel is "Eternal Life". In John, chapter 10, Jesus says, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). And this great theme resonates throughout John’s gospel (indeed it resonates throughout the whole New Testament), but it is especially intense in the passage that we heard as our gospel reading today.
But before we look at the gospel let’s pause for a moment to reflect on what John means when he talks about eternal life. Certainly he is looking at life that goes far beyond the 70 or 80 years that we might hope for as an earthly life. He speaks of eternal life, the life that survives death, the life that endures for ever. And we are not talking here of a life of monotony, a dreary life, like a prison sentence to be endured. We are talking of the fullness of life in all it beauty and all its wholeness. Elsewhere in the gospel he describes it as the life that is the light of humanity (John 1: 4), the life which is like a rich harvest (c.f. John 4: 36), the life free from condemnation (John 5: 24), the life which never perishes (John 10: 28), the life that comes with the knowledge of God (John 17: 3). Perhaps by “knowledge of God”, we might understand, “full relationship with God”.
And today’s gospel reading is especially concerned with how we receive this eternal; life that Jesus wants to share with it. It is concerned with where it comes from and what we have to do to get it! And we need to be careful to understand what it means to receive this life. Eternal life is something that comes to us from God. It is something we share in when we abide in God and God in us. It is not something that we can ever own in our own right, independent of God, as though we held legal title to it. Rather it is something that God continually gives to us, continually tops us up with, like water being poured onto a garden every evening, throughout a long dry summer (not that we have had much experience of long dry summers recently!). We receive this life from God by grace, as God’s own free gift to us. When our relationship with God is strong we can gain a sense of assurance that God will pour out this life for us, but it always remains God’s to pour out.
So if that it means to receive eternal life, then how do we do it? What can we do to help to help the process, to receive this life that God wants to pour out to us. Well, in the short passage of scripture that we read for our gospel today Jesus gives us at least three direct descriptions of where this life comes from.
First of all Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. … The one who eats this bread will live forever.” Well there are many different interpretations of what Jesus means here, and probably, to a greater or lesser extent, many have truth within them. However, it seems to me very natural and obvious to think that Jesus is talking about the Eucharist at this point. Certainly it is true, coming to the Eucharist is a practical and very physical way of receiving the life of Christ within us. And it is important to come regularly. Just as a garden needs to be watered regularly if it is to grow and bear fruit, so we need to come regularly to the Eucharist to be refreshed in the eternal life, and to grow and bare spiritual fruit.
The second description of where eternal life comes from occurs when Jesus says, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is useless.” This is a reminder that we all need to be born again in the Spirit. Just as, physically, we are born as babies and need to grow up into mature human beings, so, spiritually, we must be born of the spirit and grow up to be mature spiritual being, saints, ready to lay aside our earthly flesh and to live the life of heaven. We associate being born in the spirit with baptism, when we receive the Holy Spirit and begin our journey of faith within the Church.
“It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is useless.” This phrase also reminds us to give proper attention to our spiritual lives, setting aside time for prayer and meditation. Devoting time to our spiritual life may appear to be unproductive use of time, but it is the spirit that gives life. We might manage to stay alive in the flesh for seventy or eighty years, but sooner or later the flesh passes away and at that point we depend completely on our spiritual life.
The third description of where eternal life comes from arises when Jesus says, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” We have to receive the words of Jesus and if we receive them then we receive both spirit and life. How do we receive the words of Jesus? Well we have to listen to them prayerfully, and allow them to sink into us, and to challenge us and transform us. Above all we have to allow them to affect our attitudes and behaviours, so that we live our lives in accordance with the words of Jesus. At the heart of the words of Jesus we must remember the commandment that he gave us which he described as new and as his own. “Love one another, as I have loved you”. This is the characteristic attitude and behaviour of people who have received the words of Jesus. Inwardly we seek to receive the words of Jesus, and outwardly we practise the behaviours of love. By this we receive the spirit and life of Jesus. Jesus grows within us, and we move towards maturity in the spiritual life.
[There is in fact a forth description of how eternal life come to us comes when Peter says to Jesus, “You have the words of Eternal Life”. There is much that could be said about this wonderful acclamation of peter, but in a way he is not adding very much to what Jesus has already said. Jesus has just said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” So let’s focus on the three descriptions made by Jesus; there is already more than enough there.]
So, to summarise. Jesus wants to share his eternal life with us. He wants to give us this gift. How do we receive it? Well first in the Eucharist we receive Christ’s life within ourselves, his very body and blood. Secondly we receive eternal life from the Spirit. We give thanks for our baptism, but we must also take good care of our spiritual lives, making sure that we set aside time for prayer and meditation. Thirdly we receive eternal life from the words, the commands, of Jesus, when we let them enter into us and transform our ways of thinking and behaving. [And the most central word or commandment of Jesus is “Love one another as I have loved you.” This should grow to become our central attitude, our characteristic behaviour.] And although eternal life is entirely God’s free gift, as we grow in this way we can start to hope for a sense of assurance, a profound knowledge and trust, that God is indeed sharing his life with us, and that he will indeed continue to do so for all eternity. Amen.

The Blessed Virgin Mary

Sermon preached at 11am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull
Sunday 16th August 2009, The Blessed Virgin Mary
Readings: Revelation 11: 19-end 12: 1-6 & 10 Galatians 4: 4-7 Luke 1: 46-55

Today we celebrate the festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary, transferred from its normal date of 15th August. There are many different festivals in the churches year when we remember different events in Mary’s life, but this is perhaps the festival where we think especially of her. It is a very important date; 15th August is a public holiday in many countries because of this festival.
And why is it so important to have a special day set aside for Mary? Well first of all we have to acknowledge that not all Christians think it is important. More protestant Christians tend to play down the significance of the saints and encourage us to focus on Christ and on God. But this kind of thinking is relatively modern. It has only been around in the church for 500 years or so. The much older and much more widely established tradition of the wider Church has been to place great importance on the saints and on the BVM in particular. And why is this?
Well I believe the saints are important because they show us what can and should be happening to us. God calls all of us to holiness (Matt 5: 48, Rom 6: 19-23, Eph 4:23, 1Peter 1:15-16). We are all called to become saints, to take up our own special place in heaven, fulfilling our own special function for the good of all.
But the holiness that we aspire to does not come from our own resources. Our human nature can be very base and ordinary. Rather our holiness comes from Jesus, it is a sharing in the holiness of God (Heb 12:10). We are co-heirs with Christ, destined to inherit his glory (Rom 8:17). So this pattern of shared life in Christ becomes very important and it is the saints who show us how to do it.
Looking at the saints, and studying their lives helps us to understand how all this can come about in practice. There are many, many saints and their lives are all very different. But some of them have personalities that we can identify with. Some of them have passed through situations that we can recognise. There are some extremely inspiring examples here.
And the Blessed Virgin Mary is probably the most inspiring of them all because her co-operation with God is so perfect, so intimate and so very important to the salvation of the world. I would like to highlight some of her qualities in particular.
The first quality is her readiness to follow God’s plans. At the annunciation Mary famously says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” Luke 1: 38. With great simplicity and humility she agrees to go along with God plans and to do her part, at great personal risk. Through her, Jesus is brought into the world, and by her Jesus is brought up and educated in the values of family life.
A second quality is her readiness to suffer with Jesus. Unlike most of the disciples, who ran away when Jesus was crucified, Mary stood near the foot of the cross and suffered in her own way alongside Jesus until he died. She was not able to do anything practical to help Jesus in that situation, but she stayed there in solidarity with him. We are left with a sense that she has a mother’s love, a great big heart overflowing with motherly love. She is ready to care for and to suffer for all her children, and in a certain sense this includes all of us.
A third quality is her ability to persuade Jesus to act. We see this most obviously at the wedding in Cena in Galilee (John 2: 1-11). The family who have run out of wine approach her. She approaches Jesus, and Jesus gives a couple of good reasons for doing nothing, but in the end he cannot refuse his mother so he performs an extraordinary miracle creating the equivalent of about 800 bottles of wine! And many, many Christians repeat this pattern in their prayers. Rather than pray directly to Jesus or to God, they pray to Mary, and invite Mary to somehow sort things out with God. And for reasons that are hard to understand this does seem to work. It seems to be a very powerful way of praying and it continues to be extremely popular.
Now I have to admit that, in the past, I personally have had a bit of a problem with this. I used to think that it must surely always be better to pray directly to God. But as I have got older I have come to realise that life doesn’t necessarily work like this. The kingdom of heaven is not just about God; we all share in it. Things happen by the mutual love and co-operation of a great many angels and saints. Just as we all have different roles in our local church, so different angels and saints have different roles in the life of heaven. Now you might be best mates with Fr Tim, so when you want a Baptism Information Pack sending out you telephone Fr Tim and ask for one. Well, Fr Tim, however pleased he is to talk to you, is eventually going to pass that request on to Paula in the Parish Office, because it is Paula who does that job of sending out Baptism Information Packs on behalf of Fr Tim and the whole parish. And if you were to regularly ring up Fr Tim asking for Baptism Information Packs he would certainly tell you to start telephoning Paula directly, and the truth is that the whole business would work much quicker and more efficiently if you did go directly to Paula. Well it is my belief that there are many things that we can ask for in prayer that actually get sorted quicker and more cleanly if we address them directly to Mary. That in no way undermines the authority of God. Rather it properly and respectfully recognises the way that God as ordered things, and the way that he wishes relationships to work. Also Mary knows how to approach God and to ask for things. So, it seems to me that very often God would prefer us to communicate in pray directly with is his servant Mary, and in my experience this does seem to work.
A forth quality of Mary is her ability to get things done very quietly and with no fuss and without blowing a big trumpet to announce all that is happening. This is to do with humility and simplicity and beauty and love. She has the absolute opposite attitude to our current day world where everybody has to seek to raise their own profiles, to publicise and promote their activities and to draw attention to themselves by shouting loader and more persistently than the other people. This very low key approach of Mary’s makes it very easy for us to overlook her, to fail to take her seriously, to judge her by the standards of this world. There is something very quiet and recessive about Mary, but in the kingdom of heaven this is not a weakness, rather it is a way of serving others that we are called to emulate.
So I would like to encourage all of us to develop our own personal relationship with Mary, by praying to her. We don’t worship Mary, because she is not God, but we do venerate her, because she is in very close relationship with God. She is a person and we can talk to her, in prayer, just as we can talk to any other person. Let’s talk to her, trusting in her motherly love for us. And let’s become students of all the relationships in heaven, so that when we ask for things in prayer we know who to ask, and how to ask, and so our prayers can become more effective. Amen.

The Dismissal Rite

Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull at the 11am Eucharist.
Sunday 26th July 2009, Trinity 7 Proper 12 Year B
A special sermon on the Dismissal Rite within the Liturgy

Readings: 2 kings 4: 42-44 Ephesians 3: 14-21 John 6: 1-21


So this is the final sermon in our series of four sermons during the month of July about the four parts of the Eucharistic Liturgy. On the first Sunday in July Fr Andrew preached about the Gathering Rite. Two weeks ago I spoke about the Liturgy of the Word. Last week it was Fr Andrew on the Liturgy of the Sacrament and today I will be talking about the last part of the Eucharistic Liturgy; the Dismissal Rite. And let’s remind ourselves once again why we are doing all this. We are doing this in response to the question “Why go to Church?” The more we understand what we do in church, the more we are able to enter into worship and participate in the liturgy, the more simply and naturally we will be able to help others do the same. In particular it will help us as we encourage others to come back to church with us on Back to Church Sunday.
Now the good thing about the Dismissal Rite is that is very short, so hopefully we will not need a very extended homily to talk about it! If you look in your order of service book the dismissal rite starts on page n with the final hymn. We have the notices, the blessing and the words of dismissal – “Go in the peace of Christ”, “Thanks be to God”. The Dismissal Rite is all about being sent out, back into the world to live out in our daily lives the heavenly realities than we have been contemplating in church.
As we think about being sent out in this way, it is helpful to think about Jesus sending out his disciples out before him, as he does for example in Luke chapter 10. He says, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…whatever house you enter say, “Peace to this house” … cure the sick who are there and say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”” This is perhaps the model for being sent out. What we take is not purse or bag or sandals, but above all it is our relationship we Jesus and his peace. We might struggle to cure the sick, but we do strive to be of practical service to the people we encounter in our day to day lives. Also we take the message of Jesus, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” Nowadays we know than many people don’t particular want to hear this message, so we have to sensitive in the way we deliver it. Above all we have to deliver it through the example of our lives much more than through the things that we say. So this is what being sent out is all about, and we will see that these themes are picked up as we go through the Dismissal Rite.
But before the Dismissal Rite even starts we have the post communion prayers or the “Prayer after Communion” as Common Worship calls it. These form a sort of bridge between the time of Communion and the Dismissal Rite. The time after receiving Holy Communion is a crucial time for prayer, and for building our communion with Christ, our shared life with Christ. We offer to Christ our hopes and concerns, and receive from him graces to live well over the coming week. It is a very good time to kneel or sit and silence and listen to what God wants to tell us. In Holy Communion Christ has shared his life (his very body and blood) with us. He has physically entered into our bodies so he is abiding us, and hopefully we in him. It is this communion with Christ which is perhaps the most significant thing that we are sent home from church with, for the benefit of all whom we meet.
Now the prayers after communion collect together all the prayers that we have been offering as individuals and bring them, and us back into the liturgy that we work through together as Church. The pattern of the post communion prayers vary, but typically we have one prayer, set for the specific Sunday and printed in the pew slip, that is said by the priest, and another prayer that we say all together.
Having been brought back together by the post communion prayers we enter the Dismissal Rite proper by singing a final hymn together. Hopefully this is a rousing and invigorating hymn to give us hope and joy and encouragement as we are sent out into the world.
After the final hymn we usually have some notices. Now in one sense these are not really part of the liturgy at all, and we might think that the liturgy would work much better and smoother without them. However there is another sense in which the notices are extremely important because they are usually giving us very practical information about our life together as a church community. So, on a typical Sunday there might be one notice about the Parish Garden Party, and one about the way we use the OBH car park. So someone might think, “Well I don’t go to the Garden Party and I don’t use the OBH car park, so this is nothing to do with me.” Well in one way that’s true; notices that don’t concern us, don’t make any practical difference to us. But there is another more spiritual sense in which we are all part of the family of the church, and we all share in the life of the church. So, even if the notices concern other members of the church family rather than ourselves, it is good that we are aware of what is happening in the family. Hopefully we will want to support church activities through our prayers and by words of encouragement, even if we are not personally involved. In fact I find when I visit another church it is the notices that often tell you most about the life of that church. What is it that really matters in that place, is it about a music group, or a mission activity, or some community service, or the prayer ministry or what? I always find it very interesting.
After the notices we have the blessing. This confirms us in all that we have received in word and sacrament, and blesses us for our mission back in the world. Remember that the word mission means being sent out.
Finally we have the words of dismissal, sometimes spoken by a deacon, and the response to them. Usually the dismissal words are, “Go in the peace of Christ” or “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” It is very fitting when these words to come from a deacon. Not only is a deacon’s role in the liturgy often concerned with the giving of stage directions, but also a deacon has a wider role like a door between the church and the world. The dismissal sends us out of the church door into the world.
Notice that we are sent out with the peace of Christ. This again reminds us Jesus telling his disciples to say, “Peace to this house”. Christ’s peace is once again one of the big things that we take out to be of service to the world.
So that’s it! That’s what the Dismissal Rite is all about. There will be a handout as you leave church. Hopefully we can all get better at leaving Church with Christ’s communion, his peace and his message so that when we arrive back in our daily lives we bring something really valuable for the benefit of all the people around us. Amen.