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.
26 July 2009
Jesus does so much with so little
Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull at the 9.15am Eucharist.
Sunday 26th July 2009, Trinity 7 Proper 12 Year B
Readings: 2 kings 4: 42-44 Ephesians 3: 14-21 John 6: 1-21
I studied Maths at university. On the whole I found the maths lectures incredibly difficult. I found that I could never understand what was being taught in the lecturers, but I would take notes and hope to work it out later. The lecturers used to give us “examples sheets” with questions on. The idea was that you worked through the examples with your lecture notes and that way started to understand what the course was all about. We were also encouraged to go to “examples classes” were the lecturer would go through the example sheet and help people who were stuck. But the trouble with going to examples classes was that it was all too easy to show yourself up as being very ignorant and stupid.
I remember on one occasion the lecture had been particularly obscure. I had failed to any progress on even the very first question on the example sheet. I decided to go to the examples class, and I hid myself quietly at the back. Mercifully there were several other people there. We all stared down at our books, hoping not to be asked a question. The lecturer started, “Now put your hands up if you managed to complete the example sheet”. Not a hand moved. I felt relieved. “Oh, Oh, that’s a bit disappointing. Er.. put you hand up if you managed to complete the first half of the example sheet.” Not a hand moved. I felt even more relieved. “Oh dear, Oh dear” said the lecturer, “I hope that this wasn’t too hard for you all, because it was really very basic. Perkins, you usually complete the example sheets, how far did you get?” Perkins, who we all respected as a wiz kid, said, “Actually I couldn’t do any of it.” Waves of relief swept through the classroom. One by one we could all safely admit that we hadn’t managed to do make any progress. And once we were all confident that everyone in the room was hiding an ignorance similar to our own, then we all felt able to admit it. The lecturer had no choice but to go back to the very start and explain it all again.
Now there are people who think that the feeding of the five thousand worked a bit like this. They think that what really happened was that everybody present had hidden away in a cloak or a bag some form of packed lunch. But nobody knew that anybody else had brought food. Nobody wanted to get their food out in case they would need to share it with the people around them, and they would end up going hungry. But when Jesus started to share food around everyone suddenly felt able to get their own food out. Perhaps this was because they recognised it was now time to eat. Perhaps it was Jesus teaching that changed their hearts and made them willing to share, even at the risk of going hungry. Perhaps people simply needed to know that there was plenty of food to go round, and once they knew this they felt confident to get their own food out and share it.
Now personally I don’t believe that this is an adequate explanation of the miracle. It seems to me that something physically miraculous must have happened. Jesus must have really created some food, because, it seems to me, the people present clearly saw it that way and were deeply affected by it.
But however you try to explain it, there is no doubt that something very remarkable happened. A very meagre offering of five loaves and two fish brought about, through the presence of Jesus, the feeding of five thousand people, with 12 baskets of food leftover.
Let’s just think for a moment about the boy who provided the five loaves and two fish? What was it that made him come forward and offer the food that he had? Did he think that such a pitiful amount of food could possibly be significant among so many people? Did he worry that people might laugh at him? Did he worry that people would just steal his food? It may be that he had thoughts like that, but they did not stop him from offering his gift. Then Jesus, somehow or other, in the midst of all those people, ensured that there was sufficient, or rather plentiful food.
Sometime we can be put off doing good because our contribution seems so small compared to the demands of the situation. We might think of picking up a piece of litter while walking to work, but then be put off because there is so much litter. We might think of driving very courteously, but be put off because nobody else does. We might think to write to our MP about a particular issue, and then not do it because nobody else seems to care. We might think of walking rather than using the car, but be put off because that on its own will not solve climate change. We might think of increasing our giving to the church, then shy away because the church needs so much money. We might think of visiting that elderly lady who is lonely, but then not do it because there are so many lonely people we could visit.
The feeding of the five thousand teaches us not to worry about the demands of the situation, but to offer to Jesus what we can and to make the contribution that Jesus asks us to make. We each of us needs to offer to Jesus our own small contribution, and then entrust to Jesus the outcome, because Jesus can do wonderful things. Maybe he does it by encouraging lots of other people to make their own small contribution, maybe he intervenes in some other extraordinary way, but over time Jesus does address the situations that are entrusted to him in love.
I am always amazed by the work of Solihull Churches Asylum Seekers Support Group. A few people shared together a desire to help and support the asylum seekers who the UK Boarder Agency requires to sign on monthly or weekly at Stamford House on Homer Road. What could these people hope to achieve? Yet now, three years later, there are sixty volunteers, four sessions of support offered each week, many regular visitors and an inspiring example that that has been influential with councillors, MPs and Bishops.
And this is just one example. A few years ago a different group of people had a comparable experience in setting up Solihull Churches Action on Homelessness (SCAH). And looking further back, what about those Christians who first established schools to educate the working classes, or who were first moved to make medical services more available to more people.
So let’s never be discouraged from doing good. Let’s make our own contribution in accordance with what Jesus wants from us. Let’s offer this to Jesus, not worrying that it is only a small contribution, and not feeling that we need to solve the problem ourselves. Rather let’s trust Jesus and work with him according to what he asks of us. And over time, let’s see what miracles Jesus performs.
Sunday 26th July 2009, Trinity 7 Proper 12 Year B
Readings: 2 kings 4: 42-44 Ephesians 3: 14-21 John 6: 1-21
I studied Maths at university. On the whole I found the maths lectures incredibly difficult. I found that I could never understand what was being taught in the lecturers, but I would take notes and hope to work it out later. The lecturers used to give us “examples sheets” with questions on. The idea was that you worked through the examples with your lecture notes and that way started to understand what the course was all about. We were also encouraged to go to “examples classes” were the lecturer would go through the example sheet and help people who were stuck. But the trouble with going to examples classes was that it was all too easy to show yourself up as being very ignorant and stupid.
I remember on one occasion the lecture had been particularly obscure. I had failed to any progress on even the very first question on the example sheet. I decided to go to the examples class, and I hid myself quietly at the back. Mercifully there were several other people there. We all stared down at our books, hoping not to be asked a question. The lecturer started, “Now put your hands up if you managed to complete the example sheet”. Not a hand moved. I felt relieved. “Oh, Oh, that’s a bit disappointing. Er.. put you hand up if you managed to complete the first half of the example sheet.” Not a hand moved. I felt even more relieved. “Oh dear, Oh dear” said the lecturer, “I hope that this wasn’t too hard for you all, because it was really very basic. Perkins, you usually complete the example sheets, how far did you get?” Perkins, who we all respected as a wiz kid, said, “Actually I couldn’t do any of it.” Waves of relief swept through the classroom. One by one we could all safely admit that we hadn’t managed to do make any progress. And once we were all confident that everyone in the room was hiding an ignorance similar to our own, then we all felt able to admit it. The lecturer had no choice but to go back to the very start and explain it all again.
Now there are people who think that the feeding of the five thousand worked a bit like this. They think that what really happened was that everybody present had hidden away in a cloak or a bag some form of packed lunch. But nobody knew that anybody else had brought food. Nobody wanted to get their food out in case they would need to share it with the people around them, and they would end up going hungry. But when Jesus started to share food around everyone suddenly felt able to get their own food out. Perhaps this was because they recognised it was now time to eat. Perhaps it was Jesus teaching that changed their hearts and made them willing to share, even at the risk of going hungry. Perhaps people simply needed to know that there was plenty of food to go round, and once they knew this they felt confident to get their own food out and share it.
Now personally I don’t believe that this is an adequate explanation of the miracle. It seems to me that something physically miraculous must have happened. Jesus must have really created some food, because, it seems to me, the people present clearly saw it that way and were deeply affected by it.
But however you try to explain it, there is no doubt that something very remarkable happened. A very meagre offering of five loaves and two fish brought about, through the presence of Jesus, the feeding of five thousand people, with 12 baskets of food leftover.
Let’s just think for a moment about the boy who provided the five loaves and two fish? What was it that made him come forward and offer the food that he had? Did he think that such a pitiful amount of food could possibly be significant among so many people? Did he worry that people might laugh at him? Did he worry that people would just steal his food? It may be that he had thoughts like that, but they did not stop him from offering his gift. Then Jesus, somehow or other, in the midst of all those people, ensured that there was sufficient, or rather plentiful food.
Sometime we can be put off doing good because our contribution seems so small compared to the demands of the situation. We might think of picking up a piece of litter while walking to work, but then be put off because there is so much litter. We might think of driving very courteously, but be put off because nobody else does. We might think to write to our MP about a particular issue, and then not do it because nobody else seems to care. We might think of walking rather than using the car, but be put off because that on its own will not solve climate change. We might think of increasing our giving to the church, then shy away because the church needs so much money. We might think of visiting that elderly lady who is lonely, but then not do it because there are so many lonely people we could visit.
The feeding of the five thousand teaches us not to worry about the demands of the situation, but to offer to Jesus what we can and to make the contribution that Jesus asks us to make. We each of us needs to offer to Jesus our own small contribution, and then entrust to Jesus the outcome, because Jesus can do wonderful things. Maybe he does it by encouraging lots of other people to make their own small contribution, maybe he intervenes in some other extraordinary way, but over time Jesus does address the situations that are entrusted to him in love.
I am always amazed by the work of Solihull Churches Asylum Seekers Support Group. A few people shared together a desire to help and support the asylum seekers who the UK Boarder Agency requires to sign on monthly or weekly at Stamford House on Homer Road. What could these people hope to achieve? Yet now, three years later, there are sixty volunteers, four sessions of support offered each week, many regular visitors and an inspiring example that that has been influential with councillors, MPs and Bishops.
And this is just one example. A few years ago a different group of people had a comparable experience in setting up Solihull Churches Action on Homelessness (SCAH). And looking further back, what about those Christians who first established schools to educate the working classes, or who were first moved to make medical services more available to more people.
So let’s never be discouraged from doing good. Let’s make our own contribution in accordance with what Jesus wants from us. Let’s offer this to Jesus, not worrying that it is only a small contribution, and not feeling that we need to solve the problem ourselves. Rather let’s trust Jesus and work with him according to what he asks of us. And over time, let’s see what miracles Jesus performs.
19 July 2009
The Liturgy of the Sacrament
Sermon preached at 9.15am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull
Sunday 19th July 2009 – Trinity 6, Proper 11
Teaching Eucharist on Liturgy of the Sacrament
Delivered without notes.
Readings: [Jeremiah 23:1-6 Ephesians 2: 11-22] Mark 6: 30-34 & 53-56
Camera
So today we have the third in our series of four Teaching Eucharists in the build up to Back to Church Sunday on 27th September. We have been looking at the four parts on the Eucharistic liturgy.
Slide 1
In May Fr Tim lead a Teaching Eucharist, about the gathering rite, the first part of the Eucharist service. In June, Fr Patrick lead a Teaching Eucharist about the Liturgy of the Word. Today we shall be concentrating on the Ministry of the Sacrament, and on 6th September we shall be looking at the final part, the dismissal rite. And let’s just remind ourselves why we are doing this. We are doing this in response to the question “Why go to Church?” The more we understand why 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.
Camera
So let’s think about the liturgy of the sacrament. If we look at our service books we can see that the ministry of the sacrament starts on page n with the Peace. We have an offertory hymn, we bring our gifts of bread and wine to the altar and say a prayers over them. Then we have the Eucharistic prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, the breaking of the bread the invitation and then we start to receive Holy Communion, the consecrated bread and wine, together.
Now I have to say that as I started to prepare this teaching slot I realised that it was such a huge topic, and there was so much that could and should be said, and so much that inevitably must be left out that I started to feel a bit daunted, especially I as know Fr Tim is such an expert on all of this.
But it seems to me that a good way of starting out is to think about the word “Communion” because communion lies behind almost everything that we are doing in the Liturgy of the Sacrament, indeed, everything that we are doing in the Eucharist. Now this word Communion is the way that we most commonly translate the Greek word Koinonia, used many times in the New Testament. But Koinonia can be translated in other ways too; it means fellowship, it means participation, it means shared life, it means a contribution to the life of community, or a receiving from that life. And Koinonia, or Communion, or Shared Life in Christ is what we are trying to build in the Church. God is the source of all life (Is: 42: 5). We gain eternal life by sharing in the life of God, sharing in the resurrection life of Christ. Eternal life is not something we can possess for ourselves; it is a gift given to us by God’s grace. Perhaps we think the Church exists for the saving of souls. Well that’s true but what does it mean to save a soul. It means to bring that person to share in the life of Christ (e.g. Romans 6:23, Col 3: 4). And Koinonia does not just involve sharing life with Christ, it also involved shared life with all the other people who share life in Christ. The other people are very important. As St John says, “Those who do not love a brother or sister who they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4: 20).
And this is why the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins with the Peace. Jesus says, “when you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go, first be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt 5: 23). To share in the life of Christ we have to be reconciled with the other people who share in that life. We have to be reconciled…that does not mean that we have to instinctively like them. It does mean that we have see them as God sees them, love them as God loves them, and be ready to share in Christ’s peace with them. So we shake hands with the people around us and say, “Peace of Christ”. Now this is a symbolic act. I have been to churches where the liturgy almost collapses at this point because the 150 people in church feels the need to hug and kiss each of the other 149! Now we don’t need to do that. If each of us has exchanged the peace with the three or four people immediately around us, then that is enough. It’s enough to remind us that we don’t share in Christ alone, but we share in him together with the whole Church.
Now after the Peace the liturgy moves into the Offertory. We sing an Offertory hymn and we have an Offertory procession, which brings up the gifts of bread and wine to the altar. You can see the gifts now at the crossing in the centre of the church, waiting to be brought up. These gifts of bread and wine represent our offerings to God in the Eucharist. Offering things is a crucial part of the sharing, of the Koinonia. So we are offering not just bread and wine, but our whole lives; our work, our play, our prayers, our hopes, our worries and concerns, the people or situations that we carry on our hearts. We offer all these things to God as the bread and wine are taken forward. Now in the Eucharist Jesus takes the bread and wine we offer, and transforms it, makes it holy and then given back to us to share. And it is the same with all the matters that offer to God in the Eucharist. Jesus takes them and transforms them, making them holy, and then gives them back to us. So, for example, perhaps we are worried about a child who is struggling at school. We can offer that worry to God as the bread and wine go up to the altar. God will take our prayers and as we receive Holy Communion we will receive the grace that we need in that situation; the grace to love the child for the child’s sake not our own, the grace to trust in God, rather than being anxious, perhaps even the grace to do something practical to help the child. So the offertory comes to an end as the bread and wine are placed on the altar, and the priest takes them and says a pray over them, which brings together all our own prayers as the gifts go up.
Then we start the Eucharistic Prayer. Now in the Eucharistic prayer we are copying what Jesus did at the last supper. At the very heart of the Eucharistic Prayer are the words that describe what Jesus did and said. So for the bread we have these words.
Slide 2
And you can see that Jesus basically did four things. He took the bread, meaning he received from those who provided it. He gave thanks over it consecrating it, he broke the bread and he shared it with his disciples.
Now just about everything we do in the Eucharistic prayer reflects these four things that Jesus did. And we are going to be thinking about them in turn. But in fact we have already thought quite a lot about the taking of the bread and wine, because this is especially associated with the Offertory. But before we do that there is a little exercise that we can do to which will give us a break from me talking and which will hopeful help us to talk to one another. So have a look at the little sheets you were given as you came in. These were given out one between two, so it would be good if you could do this exercise together in small groups of two or three.
Slide 3
On each side there are nine phrases from the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and the idea is to associate each of them with one of those four actions of Jesus – taking, giving thanks and consecrating, breaking and sharing. Now some of them are really very easy. Number 5 for example if you look at it you will find that it is pretty clear that it is about “Taking”. Some of them are easy. Some are a bit harder and you might need to think about them or talk about them a bit. So we will spend three minutes on this now, then I talk for a little longer, then at the end we will put some answers up and have another short discussion.
[3 minutes]
Camera
Right, let’s leave that for now. We will come back to it at the end. Let’s think about the second of those acts of Jesus: giving thanks. Well the main part of the Eucharistic Prayer is a prayer is all about giving thanks and praise to God. And giving thanks and praise is an important part of the consecration, the making holy of the bread and wine. Giving thanks and praise lifts us towards God and gives us the perspective of heaven. In this part of our celebration we are very aware of the transcendence of God; the fact that he is far above us and beyond us dwelling in the heights of heaven. In this moment we are seeking to share in the life of heaven to live out Koinonia with all the angels and saints. We join our praises with the angels and saints, as we sing the Sanctus.
Slide 4
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might.” These words come from the visions of heaven in Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4. Personally I like it when the choir sing the Sanctus for us. It emphasises this transcendence, and reminds us of the great worship of heaven continually going on above us. And then we sing the Benedictus, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” Here we are still thinking of the realms of heaven, but there is a change. Now Jesus is coming to us. These were the words sung by the crowd as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Jesus is coming. Soon he will be present with us in the bread and the wine.
Camera
Now we don’t know at exactly what point Jesus arrives in the bread and wine. Perhaps it is as the priest repeats the words that Jesus used. Perhaps it is when the priest calls down the Holy Spirit on the gifts, perhaps the whole prayer is important. But when we have finished the prayer we are confident that Jesus has arrived in the bread and wine, so we raise them up for everyone to see and we sing together and we repeat the great Amen and we ring the bells. And this Amen is the climax of the Liturgy of the Sacrament. It is the moment we celebrate God among us in bread and wine. It is comparable to the moment after the gospel reading when we raise the book of the gospels and say “This is the gospel of the Lord”.
Slide 5
And there are great mysteries here. We cannot pretend to understand them but somehow Jesus is lifted up, so that we might be saved. We shall ponder this slide a bit longer later in our Eucharist, during communion.
Camera
Now let’s think about the breaking of bread. This reminds us of Jesus’ broken body on the cross; reminds us that he gave everything for us. It reminds us of the theme of sacrifice. In the Eucharist we proclaim Christ’s death until he comes again (1 Cor 11:26) so there is a sense in which we are reliving Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross each time we celebrate the Eucharist. But it is not just his death we remember. We also remember his glorious resurrection from the dead. The Eucharist helps us to establish that same pattern of death and resurrection in our own lives. We share with Christ in dying to sin and to our old ways, and Christ shares his resurrection life with us. As Paul says, “we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal bodies” (2 Cor 4: 11).
Finally let’s think about sharing in Holy Communion; sharing in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. This is the ultimate building of Koinonia. Jesus shares his body and blood with us; his very life is give to us and enters into our bodies. So the life that we share with Christ grows. We are drawn closer into Christ. Christ bides in us and forms us to be like him. This is a very good time to pray. In silent pray we can hope to receive from God graces which correspond to the things we offered to God during the Offertory. So during communion we try to maintain a very prayerful atmosphere of singing and silence.
Then lets think again about Koinonia. If, through the Eucharist we are all sharing in the one Christ, then we are also all sharing with one another. Its not just about us, it is also about our church community. We pray that it can start to reflect an ever deepening shared life in Christ. So sharing is important in our church community. We can share experiences, our hopes, our fears, the things that we pray for. We can try to spend time together, and perhaps even start to share our worldly goods. All this requires love, that same love that Jesus pours out to us in the Eucharist.
So we are running out of time now. But let’s see some answers to the sheets that we were looking at earlier.
Slide 6
Now these are just my answers, so if you don’t agree with them talk about it with the person next to you. If you still don’t agree then put your hand up and we will see what Fr Tim says!
[two minutes]
Sunday 19th July 2009 – Trinity 6, Proper 11
Teaching Eucharist on Liturgy of the Sacrament
Delivered without notes.
Readings: [Jeremiah 23:1-6 Ephesians 2: 11-22] Mark 6: 30-34 & 53-56
Camera
So today we have the third in our series of four Teaching Eucharists in the build up to Back to Church Sunday on 27th September. We have been looking at the four parts on the Eucharistic liturgy.
Slide 1
In May Fr Tim lead a Teaching Eucharist, about the gathering rite, the first part of the Eucharist service. In June, Fr Patrick lead a Teaching Eucharist about the Liturgy of the Word. Today we shall be concentrating on the Ministry of the Sacrament, and on 6th September we shall be looking at the final part, the dismissal rite. And let’s just remind ourselves why we are doing this. We are doing this in response to the question “Why go to Church?” The more we understand why 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.
Camera
So let’s think about the liturgy of the sacrament. If we look at our service books we can see that the ministry of the sacrament starts on page n with the Peace. We have an offertory hymn, we bring our gifts of bread and wine to the altar and say a prayers over them. Then we have the Eucharistic prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, the breaking of the bread the invitation and then we start to receive Holy Communion, the consecrated bread and wine, together.
Now I have to say that as I started to prepare this teaching slot I realised that it was such a huge topic, and there was so much that could and should be said, and so much that inevitably must be left out that I started to feel a bit daunted, especially I as know Fr Tim is such an expert on all of this.
But it seems to me that a good way of starting out is to think about the word “Communion” because communion lies behind almost everything that we are doing in the Liturgy of the Sacrament, indeed, everything that we are doing in the Eucharist. Now this word Communion is the way that we most commonly translate the Greek word Koinonia, used many times in the New Testament. But Koinonia can be translated in other ways too; it means fellowship, it means participation, it means shared life, it means a contribution to the life of community, or a receiving from that life. And Koinonia, or Communion, or Shared Life in Christ is what we are trying to build in the Church. God is the source of all life (Is: 42: 5). We gain eternal life by sharing in the life of God, sharing in the resurrection life of Christ. Eternal life is not something we can possess for ourselves; it is a gift given to us by God’s grace. Perhaps we think the Church exists for the saving of souls. Well that’s true but what does it mean to save a soul. It means to bring that person to share in the life of Christ (e.g. Romans 6:23, Col 3: 4). And Koinonia does not just involve sharing life with Christ, it also involved shared life with all the other people who share life in Christ. The other people are very important. As St John says, “Those who do not love a brother or sister who they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4: 20).
And this is why the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins with the Peace. Jesus says, “when you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go, first be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt 5: 23). To share in the life of Christ we have to be reconciled with the other people who share in that life. We have to be reconciled…that does not mean that we have to instinctively like them. It does mean that we have see them as God sees them, love them as God loves them, and be ready to share in Christ’s peace with them. So we shake hands with the people around us and say, “Peace of Christ”. Now this is a symbolic act. I have been to churches where the liturgy almost collapses at this point because the 150 people in church feels the need to hug and kiss each of the other 149! Now we don’t need to do that. If each of us has exchanged the peace with the three or four people immediately around us, then that is enough. It’s enough to remind us that we don’t share in Christ alone, but we share in him together with the whole Church.
Now after the Peace the liturgy moves into the Offertory. We sing an Offertory hymn and we have an Offertory procession, which brings up the gifts of bread and wine to the altar. You can see the gifts now at the crossing in the centre of the church, waiting to be brought up. These gifts of bread and wine represent our offerings to God in the Eucharist. Offering things is a crucial part of the sharing, of the Koinonia. So we are offering not just bread and wine, but our whole lives; our work, our play, our prayers, our hopes, our worries and concerns, the people or situations that we carry on our hearts. We offer all these things to God as the bread and wine are taken forward. Now in the Eucharist Jesus takes the bread and wine we offer, and transforms it, makes it holy and then given back to us to share. And it is the same with all the matters that offer to God in the Eucharist. Jesus takes them and transforms them, making them holy, and then gives them back to us. So, for example, perhaps we are worried about a child who is struggling at school. We can offer that worry to God as the bread and wine go up to the altar. God will take our prayers and as we receive Holy Communion we will receive the grace that we need in that situation; the grace to love the child for the child’s sake not our own, the grace to trust in God, rather than being anxious, perhaps even the grace to do something practical to help the child. So the offertory comes to an end as the bread and wine are placed on the altar, and the priest takes them and says a pray over them, which brings together all our own prayers as the gifts go up.
Then we start the Eucharistic Prayer. Now in the Eucharistic prayer we are copying what Jesus did at the last supper. At the very heart of the Eucharistic Prayer are the words that describe what Jesus did and said. So for the bread we have these words.
Slide 2
And you can see that Jesus basically did four things. He took the bread, meaning he received from those who provided it. He gave thanks over it consecrating it, he broke the bread and he shared it with his disciples.
Now just about everything we do in the Eucharistic prayer reflects these four things that Jesus did. And we are going to be thinking about them in turn. But in fact we have already thought quite a lot about the taking of the bread and wine, because this is especially associated with the Offertory. But before we do that there is a little exercise that we can do to which will give us a break from me talking and which will hopeful help us to talk to one another. So have a look at the little sheets you were given as you came in. These were given out one between two, so it would be good if you could do this exercise together in small groups of two or three.
Slide 3
On each side there are nine phrases from the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and the idea is to associate each of them with one of those four actions of Jesus – taking, giving thanks and consecrating, breaking and sharing. Now some of them are really very easy. Number 5 for example if you look at it you will find that it is pretty clear that it is about “Taking”. Some of them are easy. Some are a bit harder and you might need to think about them or talk about them a bit. So we will spend three minutes on this now, then I talk for a little longer, then at the end we will put some answers up and have another short discussion.
[3 minutes]
Camera
Right, let’s leave that for now. We will come back to it at the end. Let’s think about the second of those acts of Jesus: giving thanks. Well the main part of the Eucharistic Prayer is a prayer is all about giving thanks and praise to God. And giving thanks and praise is an important part of the consecration, the making holy of the bread and wine. Giving thanks and praise lifts us towards God and gives us the perspective of heaven. In this part of our celebration we are very aware of the transcendence of God; the fact that he is far above us and beyond us dwelling in the heights of heaven. In this moment we are seeking to share in the life of heaven to live out Koinonia with all the angels and saints. We join our praises with the angels and saints, as we sing the Sanctus.
Slide 4
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might.” These words come from the visions of heaven in Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4. Personally I like it when the choir sing the Sanctus for us. It emphasises this transcendence, and reminds us of the great worship of heaven continually going on above us. And then we sing the Benedictus, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” Here we are still thinking of the realms of heaven, but there is a change. Now Jesus is coming to us. These were the words sung by the crowd as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Jesus is coming. Soon he will be present with us in the bread and the wine.
Camera
Now we don’t know at exactly what point Jesus arrives in the bread and wine. Perhaps it is as the priest repeats the words that Jesus used. Perhaps it is when the priest calls down the Holy Spirit on the gifts, perhaps the whole prayer is important. But when we have finished the prayer we are confident that Jesus has arrived in the bread and wine, so we raise them up for everyone to see and we sing together and we repeat the great Amen and we ring the bells. And this Amen is the climax of the Liturgy of the Sacrament. It is the moment we celebrate God among us in bread and wine. It is comparable to the moment after the gospel reading when we raise the book of the gospels and say “This is the gospel of the Lord”.
Slide 5
And there are great mysteries here. We cannot pretend to understand them but somehow Jesus is lifted up, so that we might be saved. We shall ponder this slide a bit longer later in our Eucharist, during communion.
Camera
Now let’s think about the breaking of bread. This reminds us of Jesus’ broken body on the cross; reminds us that he gave everything for us. It reminds us of the theme of sacrifice. In the Eucharist we proclaim Christ’s death until he comes again (1 Cor 11:26) so there is a sense in which we are reliving Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross each time we celebrate the Eucharist. But it is not just his death we remember. We also remember his glorious resurrection from the dead. The Eucharist helps us to establish that same pattern of death and resurrection in our own lives. We share with Christ in dying to sin and to our old ways, and Christ shares his resurrection life with us. As Paul says, “we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal bodies” (2 Cor 4: 11).
Finally let’s think about sharing in Holy Communion; sharing in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. This is the ultimate building of Koinonia. Jesus shares his body and blood with us; his very life is give to us and enters into our bodies. So the life that we share with Christ grows. We are drawn closer into Christ. Christ bides in us and forms us to be like him. This is a very good time to pray. In silent pray we can hope to receive from God graces which correspond to the things we offered to God during the Offertory. So during communion we try to maintain a very prayerful atmosphere of singing and silence.
Then lets think again about Koinonia. If, through the Eucharist we are all sharing in the one Christ, then we are also all sharing with one another. Its not just about us, it is also about our church community. We pray that it can start to reflect an ever deepening shared life in Christ. So sharing is important in our church community. We can share experiences, our hopes, our fears, the things that we pray for. We can try to spend time together, and perhaps even start to share our worldly goods. All this requires love, that same love that Jesus pours out to us in the Eucharist.
So we are running out of time now. But let’s see some answers to the sheets that we were looking at earlier.
Slide 6
Now these are just my answers, so if you don’t agree with them talk about it with the person next to you. If you still don’t agree then put your hand up and we will see what Fr Tim says!
[two minutes]
12 July 2009
Good living and earthly outcomes
Sermon preached at 6.30pm Choral Evensong at St Alphege Church.
Sunday 12th July 2009, Trinity 5
Readings: Deuteronomy 30: 9-14 Luke 10: 25-37
In 1993 my wife, Elaine, and I went, with our son Thomas who was then a baby, to visit my brother who was doing Voluntary Service Overseas in Zimbabwe. He was teaching “A” level maths and physics at a school in the village of Sanyati near the town of Kadoma, about 150 miles west of Harare. The school had been founded by Baptist missionaries and was strong on Christian values. By our standards the school was very old fashioned and traditional. Facilities were simple. Resources were limited. Class sizes were large. Discipline could be harsh. The headmaster, Mr Gundu was a big character who was good at promoting the school to anyone who would listen.
Despite the lack of resources, it was clear that the school was extremely successful and extremely important to Sanyati and to the area around it. Through the school children became both literate and numerate. Their ability to take care of themselves and to work constructively with others was immeasurably increased. Because of the school, Sanyati was developing an ability to prosper in a way which was quite unimaginable a generation earlier. The value of this was widely recognised. Parents would go to extreme lengths to afford the school fees. Children would often walk several miles to get to school and back each day.
The thing that struck me about Sanyati was that good behaviour and Christian morality really did seem to help people to get on in life. Children from good families or people who behaved well got good reputations. They were trusted more readily and offered better opportunities by the school and by wider society. They had a better chance of securing a job. Life seemed like to work like a game of snakes and ladders. Virtues really did lead to ladders that helped people to get on in life. Vices really did lead to snake like disasters and setbacks. Raising a child with good Christian values really did seem to help the child and to help the whole of society.
This seemed to contrast very dramatically with my own experience of being brought up in England where, at first sight, Christian values appeared to bring with them very few advantages, and many disadvantages. From this it is almost possible to construct a world view whereby Christianity is a good thing in Africa, but a bad thing in England. Matthew Parris, the Times columnist appears to subscribe to this view. Certainly he has many criticisms of the church, but in the Times on 27th December he wrote this:
Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
In our Old Testament reading today we heard a strong affirmation from God that being good would lead to good outcomes. It is a long passage and we only read a small part of it today, but God is talking to the Israelites after fourty years of wondering in the wilderness. They are about to cross over the River Jordan and take poscession of the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. God chooses this moment to set before them a very clear choice. He say to them, “If you obey me, and keep all your commandments then you shall greatly prosper. Everything will go well for you. On the other hand, if your hearts turn away from me and you worship other gods then you will perish, and you will not hold pocession of the land.” It all seems very simple and good and like Zimbabwe in 1993; do good and things will go well for you, behave badly and things will go wrong for you.
This contrast between the fortunes of the wicked and the good is a theme of the psalms. Psalm 37 is extemely confident that good will happen to those who do good, and evil to those who do evil. It starts, “Fret not because of evildoers; be not jealous of those who do wrong. For they shall soon wither away like grass and like the green herb fade away.” Later it assures us that the wicked will disappear, “But the lowly shall pocess the land and shall delight in abundance of peace” (v11). This confidence of psalm 37 is typical of the psalms which are often discuss good outcomes for people who walk with God, and talk of the wicked fading away.
But this is not the whole story. Psalm 44 has a different tone. It reflects on the great miltary triumphs of the Isreal of old, and does not hesitate to attribute the victories to God. It them bewails the rccent miltary defeats suffered by Israel, and it attributes these to God. Then in verse 18 there is a mounful reflection on the defeats, “All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you and have not played false to your covenant. Our hearts have not turned back nor our step gone out of your way. Yet you have crushed us in the haunt of jackels, and covered us with the shadow of death.”
It seems that, generally speaking, beaving well before God leads to good earthly outcomes. But is is not aways like this. There are times when good behaviour seems to carry no earthly advantages, and perhaps even disadvantages. We only have to look at the life of Jesus. His exemplary behaviour led him to his passion and death. And this observation could be very depressing; it could make us think there there is no point is seeking to do good because evil is just as well rewarded. But of course such thinking is false because it ignores the power of the resuurection. Jesus’ goodness was tested to the extreme and appeared to die, but ultimately Jesus could not simply die. He is the resurrection and the life. He had to rise again. In fact it was sin and death that were defeated.
Its my belief that the church in the North West Europe is currently living through one of these freightening but extordinarily valuable periods where good behaviours do not seem to lead to good outcomes. It seems that when the church behaves well it does not benefit and the Church suffers the temptation to behave badly to succure better worldly outcomes. Just as the Christ died on the cross, so we might perceive that the Church, the body of Christ is dying in our present western world. Certainly if you were to look at evensong attendance you might think this! But just as Christ could not die, without being raised to new life, so the body of Christ, the Church, cannot die without being raised. Like Christ dying on the cross we need to be faithful to God; we need to continue to love and to forgive. Like Christ we can ask God “Why have you forsaken us?” But like Christ we must continue to trust God and to commend our spirit into his hands. Trusting God is essential. We need to believe in the resurrection. In time, we will see that there will be new life. There will be restoration. Evil will be defeated and Love will triumph. Amen.
Sunday 12th July 2009, Trinity 5
Readings: Deuteronomy 30: 9-14 Luke 10: 25-37
In 1993 my wife, Elaine, and I went, with our son Thomas who was then a baby, to visit my brother who was doing Voluntary Service Overseas in Zimbabwe. He was teaching “A” level maths and physics at a school in the village of Sanyati near the town of Kadoma, about 150 miles west of Harare. The school had been founded by Baptist missionaries and was strong on Christian values. By our standards the school was very old fashioned and traditional. Facilities were simple. Resources were limited. Class sizes were large. Discipline could be harsh. The headmaster, Mr Gundu was a big character who was good at promoting the school to anyone who would listen.
Despite the lack of resources, it was clear that the school was extremely successful and extremely important to Sanyati and to the area around it. Through the school children became both literate and numerate. Their ability to take care of themselves and to work constructively with others was immeasurably increased. Because of the school, Sanyati was developing an ability to prosper in a way which was quite unimaginable a generation earlier. The value of this was widely recognised. Parents would go to extreme lengths to afford the school fees. Children would often walk several miles to get to school and back each day.
The thing that struck me about Sanyati was that good behaviour and Christian morality really did seem to help people to get on in life. Children from good families or people who behaved well got good reputations. They were trusted more readily and offered better opportunities by the school and by wider society. They had a better chance of securing a job. Life seemed like to work like a game of snakes and ladders. Virtues really did lead to ladders that helped people to get on in life. Vices really did lead to snake like disasters and setbacks. Raising a child with good Christian values really did seem to help the child and to help the whole of society.
This seemed to contrast very dramatically with my own experience of being brought up in England where, at first sight, Christian values appeared to bring with them very few advantages, and many disadvantages. From this it is almost possible to construct a world view whereby Christianity is a good thing in Africa, but a bad thing in England. Matthew Parris, the Times columnist appears to subscribe to this view. Certainly he has many criticisms of the church, but in the Times on 27th December he wrote this:
Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
In our Old Testament reading today we heard a strong affirmation from God that being good would lead to good outcomes. It is a long passage and we only read a small part of it today, but God is talking to the Israelites after fourty years of wondering in the wilderness. They are about to cross over the River Jordan and take poscession of the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. God chooses this moment to set before them a very clear choice. He say to them, “If you obey me, and keep all your commandments then you shall greatly prosper. Everything will go well for you. On the other hand, if your hearts turn away from me and you worship other gods then you will perish, and you will not hold pocession of the land.” It all seems very simple and good and like Zimbabwe in 1993; do good and things will go well for you, behave badly and things will go wrong for you.
This contrast between the fortunes of the wicked and the good is a theme of the psalms. Psalm 37 is extemely confident that good will happen to those who do good, and evil to those who do evil. It starts, “Fret not because of evildoers; be not jealous of those who do wrong. For they shall soon wither away like grass and like the green herb fade away.” Later it assures us that the wicked will disappear, “But the lowly shall pocess the land and shall delight in abundance of peace” (v11). This confidence of psalm 37 is typical of the psalms which are often discuss good outcomes for people who walk with God, and talk of the wicked fading away.
But this is not the whole story. Psalm 44 has a different tone. It reflects on the great miltary triumphs of the Isreal of old, and does not hesitate to attribute the victories to God. It them bewails the rccent miltary defeats suffered by Israel, and it attributes these to God. Then in verse 18 there is a mounful reflection on the defeats, “All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you and have not played false to your covenant. Our hearts have not turned back nor our step gone out of your way. Yet you have crushed us in the haunt of jackels, and covered us with the shadow of death.”
It seems that, generally speaking, beaving well before God leads to good earthly outcomes. But is is not aways like this. There are times when good behaviour seems to carry no earthly advantages, and perhaps even disadvantages. We only have to look at the life of Jesus. His exemplary behaviour led him to his passion and death. And this observation could be very depressing; it could make us think there there is no point is seeking to do good because evil is just as well rewarded. But of course such thinking is false because it ignores the power of the resuurection. Jesus’ goodness was tested to the extreme and appeared to die, but ultimately Jesus could not simply die. He is the resurrection and the life. He had to rise again. In fact it was sin and death that were defeated.
Its my belief that the church in the North West Europe is currently living through one of these freightening but extordinarily valuable periods where good behaviours do not seem to lead to good outcomes. It seems that when the church behaves well it does not benefit and the Church suffers the temptation to behave badly to succure better worldly outcomes. Just as the Christ died on the cross, so we might perceive that the Church, the body of Christ is dying in our present western world. Certainly if you were to look at evensong attendance you might think this! But just as Christ could not die, without being raised to new life, so the body of Christ, the Church, cannot die without being raised. Like Christ dying on the cross we need to be faithful to God; we need to continue to love and to forgive. Like Christ we can ask God “Why have you forsaken us?” But like Christ we must continue to trust God and to commend our spirit into his hands. Trusting God is essential. We need to believe in the resurrection. In time, we will see that there will be new life. There will be restoration. Evil will be defeated and Love will triumph. Amen.
The Liturgy of the Word
Sermon preached at 11am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull
Sunday 12th July 2009, Trinity 5 (Proper 10) Year B
Special Theme – The Liturgy of the Word
Readings: Amos 7: 7-15 Ephesians 1: 3-14 Mark 6: 1-13
As you hopefully already know, we are now making preparations for Back to Church Sunday on 27th September. Back to Church Sunday is a national initiative, particularly supported by Birmingham Diocese, whereby each of us who come to church is encouraged to invite back to church someone who used to attend church, but who, for one reason or another, has not attended for a while. The idea is that for that particular Sunday we make it as easy as we possibility can for people to come back. We invite them personally, we offer to travel with them, or meet them outside church, we sit with them and do our best to make them feel welcomed and at home. Hopefully each of us have already began to think about who we might invite back. Hopefully we have already begun to pray for them, and perhaps even tipped them off that we will be inviting them in September. And this is something that we can all take part in. Even if we are not in a position to invite anyone back, we can still support the initiative through our prayers and through our efforts to welcome back comers when we meet them in church.
There will be more practical preparation for back to church Sunday later in the summer, for example with invitation cards. But in the meantime, across the whole parish, we want to make a good spiritual preparation by reflecting on the question “Why go to church?” The more profoundly we feel and understand the reasons for coming to church, the more naturally and authentically we shall be able to encourage others to come back to church. We are tackling this question of “Why come to church?” by looking at the four main parts of the Eucharistic service, seeking to grow our understanding of their significance and relevance. The 9.15am congregation are approaching this through monthly Teaching Eucharists, but at this 11am Eucharist we are covering this theme in the month of July, with four separate sermons; one for each of the four main parts of the Eucharist. Last week Fr Andrew spoke about the Gathering Rite. This week I shall be talking about the liturgy of the Word. The sermon will be slightly longer than usual, and there will be a summary of the main points available on a handout as you leave church.
So let’s think about the Liturgy of the Word. Have a look at your service booklet. You can see on page n the Gathering Rite ends and the Liturgy of the Word begins. We start with scripture readings, then we have a hymn, a gospel reading, a sermon, we say the creed, and conclude with the intercessions on page m.
When we come to church we hope to have some kind of encounter with God through our worship. God is present to us in several different ways in our worship, but the two most important of these are in the sacrament, when we receive it, and also in the Word of God, when it is proclaimed to us. This second one is what the liturgy of the word is primarily about. It is about listening to the scriptures read to us in worship and through them encountering God, understanding him better, drawing closer to him and wanting to live our lives more in accordance with his teaching.
So we say that God is present to us in the reading of the scriptures in Church. At the end of the reading we say, “This is the Word of the Lord” because we are hearing God speak to us through the scriptures. Now I just want to clarify that a little. As Christians we don’t, for example, make the same claims about the bible as Muslim’s make about the Koran. The Muslims say that the Koran is literally the words of God, dictated to the prophet Mohammad. For the most part the bible is not like that. There are some parts of the Old Testament where a prophet says, “Thus says the Lord our God…” to introduce some direct message from God. We also know that Jesus is divine, so the words of Jesus do come directly to us from God. But most of the bible is written by frail and fallible human beings who are recording some aspect of God’s relationship with humanity. And it is that relationship between God and humanity, between God and ourselves which becomes enlightened for us when we listen to the scriptures in worship.
Now typically we have three readings; one from the Old Testament, one from the epistles and a Gospel reading. So first of all we have an Old Testament reading. The Old Testament makes up about three quarters of our current day bibles. It is the old Jewish scriptures, written in Hebrew that Jesus himself would have been familiar with. It is sometimes called the Hebrew Bible. The Old Testament is littered with themes and ideas that recur and are further developed in the New Testament. For example, this morning we heard about the prophet Amos and his plumb line to keep the people of Israel upright and true. Amos caused tension with his prophecies against the king, Jeroboam. This same theme is repeated with John the Baptist in today’s gospel reading. John the Baptist comes proclaiming a message “make your paths straight”, and he too gets into trouble (indeed loses his life) for criticising the king. We might say that Amos is in some sense a precursor of John the Baptist, or to use the technical theological language, a “type”.
Our Old Testament readings are therefore important because they set out understandings about Jesus and the Church in the context of our salvation history; in the context of God’s relationship with the Jews. When I was studying at theological college I bought a big bible that shows cross references between different parts of the bible. I have to say that I was shocked to see how heavily the New Testament draws on the Old Testament. There are references to it everywhere.
After our Old Testament reading we have a New Testament reading, typically from the epistles. The epistles were letters written by the apostles to different churches or church leaders in the first century. They therefore provide essential teaching about how we are to think and behave in the church. For example, today we read a wonderful hymn of praise from Ephesians, which sets out for us the many blessings we have received and will receive through Christ.
Have a look at the lectern from which the scriptures are read. There is an eagle perched on a ball. The ball represents the world, and the eagle represents the word of God. The eagle is a symbol of strength and renewal (Is 40:31) and it spreads itself over the world, like the word of God. An eagle is also the symbol of St John the Evangelist, responsible for 5 of the 27 books in the New Testament.
But the climax of the Liturgy of the Word is the reading of the gospel, and when we read the gospel we use a completely different symbolism. First of all we highlight this part of the liturgy with as much ceremony as possible. We have music for Alleluias or a gradual hymn and many people are involved and sometimes we even have incense. Above all we have a procession which re-enacts certain aspects of the incarnation. In the incarnation God comes down from high heaven to dwell with us mortals on earth, and to bring the good news (the gospel) to us. In the gospel procession the book of the gospels is carried down from its elevated place at the front of church, or on the altar, into the body of the church. We try to read the gospel from the very middle of the church, from the midst of all the people. We are acting out, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1: 14).
As the gospel is announced we are all invited to sign ourselves with a cross three times, once on the forehead, once on the lips and once on the heart. This indicates that we want the gospel (the good news) to be forever on our minds, on our lips and on our hearts. Now I have to admit that, until recently, I never used to make hand signals like this, or make the sign of the cross during worship. Since I have started making them however I have been impressed by how they help me to connect with what is going on. Previously I was participating with my ears and my mind as I listened and my voice, as I said the responses. Now I also participate with my body as I make the signs, and this is a fuller participation. I am more drawn into what is happening as the gospel is read, so I commend these signs to you.
The high point of the Liturgy of the Word comes at the end of the gospel reading, when the proclaimer lifts the book up high and says, “This is the gospel of the Lord.” The moment is analogous to the elevation of the sacrament and great amen at the end of the Eucharistic prayer.
This high point is followed by the sermon, and we all know has the potential to be a real low point! But the purpose of the sermon is to help us to understand the scripture readings, to help us to welcome them into our hearts and transform us. A good sermon will help us to see the relevance of the scriptures and to live out the gospel message in our daily lives. Obviously the success of a sermon depends the skill of the preacher, but it is all too easy to underestimate the role of the congregation in the delivery of a good sermon. If the congregation listen with hope and love to the preacher, rejoicing with the preacher in what is good, and suffering with the preacher in what is bad, then Jesus can be present (c.f. Matt 18:20) and can communicate, despite the preacher’s inadequacies.
After the sermon we have the creed, which is a simple reminder of the fundamental points of the Christian faith into which we were baptised. The creeds give us a solid rock on which all our Christianity can be built. If our Christianity is consistent with the creeds then we can’t go too far wrong. If we start to forget the creeds or to ignore them then the risk of building our lives on unsure foundations starts to increase. One day a crisis will come, and everything that is not built on the solid rock of the teaching of Jesus will fall away. It is good to remind ourselves of the creeds each week.
The final part of the Liturgy of the Word is the intercessions; the prayers. These prayers are in part a response to the encounter with the word of God. Hopefully the encounter has encouraged us and moved us forward and we want to rededicate ourselves to God in prayer. But the prayers are also a preparation for the Liturgy of the Sacrament, which is about to begin. We lay before the Lord our prayers confident that by the great sacrifice of Jesus that the Eucharist recalls, they may be purified and made acceptable and desirable to God. The word “intercede” means to plead to someone on behalf of someone else. Most of the time, in intercessions, we are praying for other people. Most noticeably we pray for people who are sick or who have died, or those who have asked for our prayers. Of course we can and should pray for ourselves, but we must recognise that our prayers for others are more generous and more purified and therefore more beneficial in front of God.
So that, in a nutshell, is the Liturgy of the Word. Hopefully as we understanding the liturgy better we will find it easier to engage with what is happening and be drawn more fully into the encounter with God. I am sure that worshiping well ourselves will prove to be the best possible preparation as we come to invite others to worship with us on Back to Church Sunday. Amen.
Sunday 12th July 2009, Trinity 5 (Proper 10) Year B
Special Theme – The Liturgy of the Word
Readings: Amos 7: 7-15 Ephesians 1: 3-14 Mark 6: 1-13
As you hopefully already know, we are now making preparations for Back to Church Sunday on 27th September. Back to Church Sunday is a national initiative, particularly supported by Birmingham Diocese, whereby each of us who come to church is encouraged to invite back to church someone who used to attend church, but who, for one reason or another, has not attended for a while. The idea is that for that particular Sunday we make it as easy as we possibility can for people to come back. We invite them personally, we offer to travel with them, or meet them outside church, we sit with them and do our best to make them feel welcomed and at home. Hopefully each of us have already began to think about who we might invite back. Hopefully we have already begun to pray for them, and perhaps even tipped them off that we will be inviting them in September. And this is something that we can all take part in. Even if we are not in a position to invite anyone back, we can still support the initiative through our prayers and through our efforts to welcome back comers when we meet them in church.
There will be more practical preparation for back to church Sunday later in the summer, for example with invitation cards. But in the meantime, across the whole parish, we want to make a good spiritual preparation by reflecting on the question “Why go to church?” The more profoundly we feel and understand the reasons for coming to church, the more naturally and authentically we shall be able to encourage others to come back to church. We are tackling this question of “Why come to church?” by looking at the four main parts of the Eucharistic service, seeking to grow our understanding of their significance and relevance. The 9.15am congregation are approaching this through monthly Teaching Eucharists, but at this 11am Eucharist we are covering this theme in the month of July, with four separate sermons; one for each of the four main parts of the Eucharist. Last week Fr Andrew spoke about the Gathering Rite. This week I shall be talking about the liturgy of the Word. The sermon will be slightly longer than usual, and there will be a summary of the main points available on a handout as you leave church.
So let’s think about the Liturgy of the Word. Have a look at your service booklet. You can see on page n the Gathering Rite ends and the Liturgy of the Word begins. We start with scripture readings, then we have a hymn, a gospel reading, a sermon, we say the creed, and conclude with the intercessions on page m.
When we come to church we hope to have some kind of encounter with God through our worship. God is present to us in several different ways in our worship, but the two most important of these are in the sacrament, when we receive it, and also in the Word of God, when it is proclaimed to us. This second one is what the liturgy of the word is primarily about. It is about listening to the scriptures read to us in worship and through them encountering God, understanding him better, drawing closer to him and wanting to live our lives more in accordance with his teaching.
So we say that God is present to us in the reading of the scriptures in Church. At the end of the reading we say, “This is the Word of the Lord” because we are hearing God speak to us through the scriptures. Now I just want to clarify that a little. As Christians we don’t, for example, make the same claims about the bible as Muslim’s make about the Koran. The Muslims say that the Koran is literally the words of God, dictated to the prophet Mohammad. For the most part the bible is not like that. There are some parts of the Old Testament where a prophet says, “Thus says the Lord our God…” to introduce some direct message from God. We also know that Jesus is divine, so the words of Jesus do come directly to us from God. But most of the bible is written by frail and fallible human beings who are recording some aspect of God’s relationship with humanity. And it is that relationship between God and humanity, between God and ourselves which becomes enlightened for us when we listen to the scriptures in worship.
Now typically we have three readings; one from the Old Testament, one from the epistles and a Gospel reading. So first of all we have an Old Testament reading. The Old Testament makes up about three quarters of our current day bibles. It is the old Jewish scriptures, written in Hebrew that Jesus himself would have been familiar with. It is sometimes called the Hebrew Bible. The Old Testament is littered with themes and ideas that recur and are further developed in the New Testament. For example, this morning we heard about the prophet Amos and his plumb line to keep the people of Israel upright and true. Amos caused tension with his prophecies against the king, Jeroboam. This same theme is repeated with John the Baptist in today’s gospel reading. John the Baptist comes proclaiming a message “make your paths straight”, and he too gets into trouble (indeed loses his life) for criticising the king. We might say that Amos is in some sense a precursor of John the Baptist, or to use the technical theological language, a “type”.
Our Old Testament readings are therefore important because they set out understandings about Jesus and the Church in the context of our salvation history; in the context of God’s relationship with the Jews. When I was studying at theological college I bought a big bible that shows cross references between different parts of the bible. I have to say that I was shocked to see how heavily the New Testament draws on the Old Testament. There are references to it everywhere.
After our Old Testament reading we have a New Testament reading, typically from the epistles. The epistles were letters written by the apostles to different churches or church leaders in the first century. They therefore provide essential teaching about how we are to think and behave in the church. For example, today we read a wonderful hymn of praise from Ephesians, which sets out for us the many blessings we have received and will receive through Christ.
Have a look at the lectern from which the scriptures are read. There is an eagle perched on a ball. The ball represents the world, and the eagle represents the word of God. The eagle is a symbol of strength and renewal (Is 40:31) and it spreads itself over the world, like the word of God. An eagle is also the symbol of St John the Evangelist, responsible for 5 of the 27 books in the New Testament.
But the climax of the Liturgy of the Word is the reading of the gospel, and when we read the gospel we use a completely different symbolism. First of all we highlight this part of the liturgy with as much ceremony as possible. We have music for Alleluias or a gradual hymn and many people are involved and sometimes we even have incense. Above all we have a procession which re-enacts certain aspects of the incarnation. In the incarnation God comes down from high heaven to dwell with us mortals on earth, and to bring the good news (the gospel) to us. In the gospel procession the book of the gospels is carried down from its elevated place at the front of church, or on the altar, into the body of the church. We try to read the gospel from the very middle of the church, from the midst of all the people. We are acting out, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1: 14).
As the gospel is announced we are all invited to sign ourselves with a cross three times, once on the forehead, once on the lips and once on the heart. This indicates that we want the gospel (the good news) to be forever on our minds, on our lips and on our hearts. Now I have to admit that, until recently, I never used to make hand signals like this, or make the sign of the cross during worship. Since I have started making them however I have been impressed by how they help me to connect with what is going on. Previously I was participating with my ears and my mind as I listened and my voice, as I said the responses. Now I also participate with my body as I make the signs, and this is a fuller participation. I am more drawn into what is happening as the gospel is read, so I commend these signs to you.
The high point of the Liturgy of the Word comes at the end of the gospel reading, when the proclaimer lifts the book up high and says, “This is the gospel of the Lord.” The moment is analogous to the elevation of the sacrament and great amen at the end of the Eucharistic prayer.
This high point is followed by the sermon, and we all know has the potential to be a real low point! But the purpose of the sermon is to help us to understand the scripture readings, to help us to welcome them into our hearts and transform us. A good sermon will help us to see the relevance of the scriptures and to live out the gospel message in our daily lives. Obviously the success of a sermon depends the skill of the preacher, but it is all too easy to underestimate the role of the congregation in the delivery of a good sermon. If the congregation listen with hope and love to the preacher, rejoicing with the preacher in what is good, and suffering with the preacher in what is bad, then Jesus can be present (c.f. Matt 18:20) and can communicate, despite the preacher’s inadequacies.
After the sermon we have the creed, which is a simple reminder of the fundamental points of the Christian faith into which we were baptised. The creeds give us a solid rock on which all our Christianity can be built. If our Christianity is consistent with the creeds then we can’t go too far wrong. If we start to forget the creeds or to ignore them then the risk of building our lives on unsure foundations starts to increase. One day a crisis will come, and everything that is not built on the solid rock of the teaching of Jesus will fall away. It is good to remind ourselves of the creeds each week.
The final part of the Liturgy of the Word is the intercessions; the prayers. These prayers are in part a response to the encounter with the word of God. Hopefully the encounter has encouraged us and moved us forward and we want to rededicate ourselves to God in prayer. But the prayers are also a preparation for the Liturgy of the Sacrament, which is about to begin. We lay before the Lord our prayers confident that by the great sacrifice of Jesus that the Eucharist recalls, they may be purified and made acceptable and desirable to God. The word “intercede” means to plead to someone on behalf of someone else. Most of the time, in intercessions, we are praying for other people. Most noticeably we pray for people who are sick or who have died, or those who have asked for our prayers. Of course we can and should pray for ourselves, but we must recognise that our prayers for others are more generous and more purified and therefore more beneficial in front of God.
So that, in a nutshell, is the Liturgy of the Word. Hopefully as we understanding the liturgy better we will find it easier to engage with what is happening and be drawn more fully into the encounter with God. I am sure that worshiping well ourselves will prove to be the best possible preparation as we come to invite others to worship with us on Back to Church Sunday. Amen.
05 July 2009
Ordinary and extraordinary
Short sermon preached at St Alphege 8am Eucharist on Sunday 5th July 2009
Trinity 4 – Proper 9 – Year B
Readings: [Ezekiel 2: 1-5] 2 Corinthians 12: 2-10 Mark 6: 1-13
Four times a year I go to Glasshampton Monastery in Worcestershire to make my confession and to receive spiritual direction from Br Anselm of the Society of St Francis. As well as being a priest of the Church of England, Br Anselm is a Franciscan friar and has spent the last 56 years living the simple life of community envisaged by St Francis, guided by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
I was very interested to see an interview with Br Anselm, which appears on the back page of this week’s Church Times. In the interview he is asked when he is most happy. He recalls a moment from last summer, when he was sitting on a stool in the garden at Glasshampton picking spinach in the sunshine. I was very struck by this answer. Firstly I was struck by what a very ordinary and simple thing that was. Happiness is something that we all search for and for many of us it seems very illusive; but sitting in the garden picking spinach; it would probably be very easy for most us to do something quite similar to that. Secondly I was struck because I know that Br Anselm takes his stool and does some work in the garden almost every day. OK, the sun doesn’t shine every day, but it does seem that he has a happy lifestyle.
And Anslem’s lifestyle is worth some reflection. In many ways his lifestyle is extremely simple, natural and ordinary. Most of his days are made up of domestic chores, welcoming visitors and gardening, as well as the moments for prayers and meals around which the monastery life is structured. But the simplicity and ordinariness of this lifestyle has to be compared with some aspects which are very radical and extreme. The monastery is in the middle of nowhere. It reflects a real poverty, with no central heating and a rather run down, in need of decoration, feel. Then there is the celibacy; few of us could cope with that. And obedience; for many of us that would feel like a denial of freedom. So Anselm has a lifestyle which is on the one hand extremely ordinary, and on the other is very radically different.
I think we get a sense of both this ordinariness and this radical difference in our gospel reading today. Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue. The radical wisdom of his teaching and the great power of his miracles were on display, and people were amazed. But at the same people just could not grasp it because they knew it was Jesus, the very ordinary boy who had grown up among them, not in any way outstanding or remarkable, but the very normal son of Mary and the carpenter. People could not get their heads round it, and they took offence at Jesus.
And there is a hint of the same contrast in our reading from St Paul. On the one hand St Paul has received visions of the third heaven, of paradise, and he has received unspeakable revelations of an exception character. On the other hand he suffers from some thorn in the flesh. We don’t know what it is but the scholars speculate that it is some physical or physiological problem, from which Paul can never escape, but which gave him pain and made him weak as a human being. How normal and ordinary! How easily we can identify with that; some enduring problem which never goes away, but which frustrates us in so many ways.
And it seems to me that, as each of us walk the journey towards heaven we should expect to see some of this contrast in our own lives too. As we grow in holiness we should expect to become more radical in our choice of God and our love for other people. We should expect extraordinary and remarkable things to happen. But at the same time, if we live as God wants us to live, then the beauty and fulfilment of God’s creation in us should start to become apparent. There should be a simplicity and ordinariness about our lives; naturalness about everything we do. These are the characteristics of the saints. This is the way of heaven.
Trinity 4 – Proper 9 – Year B
Readings: [Ezekiel 2: 1-5] 2 Corinthians 12: 2-10 Mark 6: 1-13
Four times a year I go to Glasshampton Monastery in Worcestershire to make my confession and to receive spiritual direction from Br Anselm of the Society of St Francis. As well as being a priest of the Church of England, Br Anselm is a Franciscan friar and has spent the last 56 years living the simple life of community envisaged by St Francis, guided by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
I was very interested to see an interview with Br Anselm, which appears on the back page of this week’s Church Times. In the interview he is asked when he is most happy. He recalls a moment from last summer, when he was sitting on a stool in the garden at Glasshampton picking spinach in the sunshine. I was very struck by this answer. Firstly I was struck by what a very ordinary and simple thing that was. Happiness is something that we all search for and for many of us it seems very illusive; but sitting in the garden picking spinach; it would probably be very easy for most us to do something quite similar to that. Secondly I was struck because I know that Br Anselm takes his stool and does some work in the garden almost every day. OK, the sun doesn’t shine every day, but it does seem that he has a happy lifestyle.
And Anslem’s lifestyle is worth some reflection. In many ways his lifestyle is extremely simple, natural and ordinary. Most of his days are made up of domestic chores, welcoming visitors and gardening, as well as the moments for prayers and meals around which the monastery life is structured. But the simplicity and ordinariness of this lifestyle has to be compared with some aspects which are very radical and extreme. The monastery is in the middle of nowhere. It reflects a real poverty, with no central heating and a rather run down, in need of decoration, feel. Then there is the celibacy; few of us could cope with that. And obedience; for many of us that would feel like a denial of freedom. So Anselm has a lifestyle which is on the one hand extremely ordinary, and on the other is very radically different.
I think we get a sense of both this ordinariness and this radical difference in our gospel reading today. Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue. The radical wisdom of his teaching and the great power of his miracles were on display, and people were amazed. But at the same people just could not grasp it because they knew it was Jesus, the very ordinary boy who had grown up among them, not in any way outstanding or remarkable, but the very normal son of Mary and the carpenter. People could not get their heads round it, and they took offence at Jesus.
And there is a hint of the same contrast in our reading from St Paul. On the one hand St Paul has received visions of the third heaven, of paradise, and he has received unspeakable revelations of an exception character. On the other hand he suffers from some thorn in the flesh. We don’t know what it is but the scholars speculate that it is some physical or physiological problem, from which Paul can never escape, but which gave him pain and made him weak as a human being. How normal and ordinary! How easily we can identify with that; some enduring problem which never goes away, but which frustrates us in so many ways.
And it seems to me that, as each of us walk the journey towards heaven we should expect to see some of this contrast in our own lives too. As we grow in holiness we should expect to become more radical in our choice of God and our love for other people. We should expect extraordinary and remarkable things to happen. But at the same time, if we live as God wants us to live, then the beauty and fulfilment of God’s creation in us should start to become apparent. There should be a simplicity and ordinariness about our lives; naturalness about everything we do. These are the characteristics of the saints. This is the way of heaven.
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