Church as Family

Mini Sermon preached at 9.45am Holy Communion service (BCP) at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton on Sunday 3rd April 2011. Also preached at the 8.30am Said Eucharist at St Mary’s Lapworth.
Mothering Sunday
Readings: Col 3: 12-17 Luke 2: 33-35


In the reading from Colossians, Paul presents the church as he would like it to be; its an image of a church as “family”.
There are many different images of the church: “Institution”, “Boat”, “Hospital”, “net”... and each of them emphasises particular qualities, and ways of behaving which are important to the church.
But it seems to me that in our present times it is very important to emphasise the importance of church as “family”.
This emphasises some of the values Paul mentions: compassion, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, above all love.
How much does our world need these values?
How different they are from what we see on telly!
Actually it is the opposite values that make for dramatic, eye-catching telly – cruelty, arrogance, pushing forward, wanting things now. In the case of these values you have something to look at. Looking at someone being meek or patient is less eye-catching. Consequently our TV tends to celebrate and promote these bad qualities.
Also the power of TV pushes our politicians and leaders away from the true values. A prompt and effective intervention, comes over so much better on a TV News report than patience and meekness. An eye catching initiative or gimmick gets so much more publicity than humility.
I believe that this has affected our society in a very bad way. We fail to value properly and celebrate properly the things that are really good for us: compassion, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving one another, love.
In the church we really need to promote and celebrate these values.
It is with these qualities that Love typically heals and resolves difficult situations, and it takes time. Usually these are the qualities that families and the church need to use to overcome their problems. The dramatic intervention is so often damaging in the longer term.
We often associate these true values (compassion, humility, meekness, patience) with Motherly Love, but actually they are essential to all Love. Fatherly Love might emphasis structure and discipline, but if this is not underpinned by compassion, humility, meekness and patience then it loses all meaning. It is no surprise that our society also struggles to formulate structure and discipline in a way that people find helpful and constructive.
So let’s resolve anew to live by compassion, humility, meekness and patience. Let’s bear with one another, forgive one another, and above all let’s seek to grow in love. Let’s promote these values in our families and in our society, first of all by our example, but also by our words, for our good and for the good of all the people around us. Amen.

Living out the Word of God

Short sermon preached at the 8am Eucharist at St Helen’s Church, Solihull
Sunday Second before Lent, RCL readings:

Isaiah 55: 10-13 1 Corinthians 15: 51-58 Luke 6: 39-49

Our readings today include two important similes help us to understand the Word of God and the effects that it has.
First of all we had the beautiful image from Isaiah of God’s Word being like the rain. In the water cycle the rain falls from the sky and eventually it returns to the sky, by evaporation. But this does not happen without the rain watering the earth, so that plants sprout and our food grows. God says that in the same way his Word (and we think of God’s word as God’s message, especially in the coming of Jesus) goes out from God and returns to God, but this does not happen without the Word accomplishing the purposes of God and succeeding in the thing for which God sent him. And just as the rain gives life to plants and makes them grow, so Jesus brings life, eternal life to us, and makes it grow within us. Thanks be to God!
Then in our gospel reading Jesus emphasises the importance of living in accordance with his teaching, his word. He complains that we cry to him “Lord, Lord” but don’t do the things he tells us. He tells us the parable of the house built on rock and the house built on sand to show how his teaching provides a firm foundation for our lives. It is the solid rock on which we can build. Looking from the outside, focusing on the external appearances only, they probably does not seem to be much difference between the house built on rock and the one built on sand. But when the flood rises and the river bursts against them then the crisis separates what is enduring and true from what is transitory and passing.
So the words of Jesus are the secure foundations for our lives and the word of God is like the rain that allows plants to grow. So we must nurture ourselves on the word of God and allow eternal life to grow within us. It is not enough just listen to the word of God, or just read the bible, we have to put the teaching of Jesus into practice in our everyday lives. Now sometimes we struggle to link the teaching of Jesus with our everyday lives. After all Jesus did not leave clear instructions about how often we should vacuum the carpet or the best route for getting to the office in the morning, but Jesus did teach us to love. He taught us to love everyone, even the very least in society, not excluding anyone (Matt 25: 40). He taught us to love even our enemies (Matt 5: 44). He taught us to be the first to love, not waiting for the others to love us, but rather taking the initiative in love (Matt 5:46). And I think when people think about love they sometimes think about pink fluffy bunnies or a liberal sprinkling of rose petals. But these are not helpful images in helping us understand what love is all about. A better image is Jesus on the cross, dying because he has given everything for his brothers and sisters. Another image is the good shepherd, searching after the lost sheep. Another image is the father running to meet the prodigal son and forgiving him. Another image is Gandhi, seeking the good of the British, whilst insisting on Indian independence. Love is about seeking the good of the other, it is about wanting to share the life of heaven with the other person. It is about giving time, attention and resources to help the other. It is about nurture, and patience and gentleness, all the things described in 1 Corinthians 13.
So as we try to put the word of God into practice in our everyday lives, the key opportunities occur every time we encounter another person; every time someone is standing or sitting near us. What is our attitude to that person? Do we ignore them or resent them or experience them as a threat? Do we want their good, seek to help them, serve them, listen to them? It’s a real challenge, but practicing love helps us to grow in love. This is how we grow into eternal life, like plants watered by the rain. This is how we build our lives on firm foundations; foundations that will withstand even the great crisis of death. Let’s pray for the grace to practice and grow in love. Amen.

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.

Christ the true vine

Short sermon preached at 8am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull on Sunday 10th May 2009, Easter 5 (Year B)

Readings Acts 8: 26-40 1John 4: 7-21 John 15: 1-8

As an eighteen year old, between school and university, I worked as a cook, gardener and housekeeper in the Diocesan House in the Southwark Diocese, South of London. The house is know as Wychcroft. One of the jobs I was given to do was to remove the ivy that was growing up the side of the brick incinerator. I made a start on this, but it was very difficult to pull the ivy off the incinerator. Every stalk had little hair like shoots that bound it onto the brickwork. The stalk would break easily enough, but when you tried to pull off a whole stalk it would immediately break again. I found I had to scrape the stalks off inch by inch.
When the warden came round to see how I was getting on he was surprised how little progress I had made. He tried the job himself and immediately found it just as difficult as I did. So he made a suggestion. “Let’s cut the ivy stalks at the bottom. This will kill off all the ivy above them. We will let it dry out for few weeks and then pull it all off.” And that was exactly what we did. When I returned to the job three weeks later the ivy on the incinerator wall had died and dried out and the hair like shoot that bound it to the brickwork had shrivelled. It was easy to pull the ivy off the wall in sheets, like loose wallpaper, and it all went straight on the fire and burnt very well. It was very satisfying!
Jesus’ parable “I am the true vine” always reminds me off this incident. If the branches of the vine are not bound into the true vine then, without its sap, they soon dry out and shrivel and die. In the same way we Christians must be bound into to Christ who gives life to our souls. Without Christ our souls shrivel and die. They are good for nothing accept the fire. However, if we do abide in Christ and Christ in us then our souls will be healthy and will bare much fruit. Further, we are told, we may ask what ever we wish and it will be done for us.
And what does it mean to abide in Christ, and have him abide in us? [Well clearly our baptism is important here because baptism binds us into Christ; into his death and resurrection. And coming regularly to the Eucharist is important too. When we receive Holy Communion we receive Christ’s presence into our physical bodies; this surely helps us to have Christ abiding in us.]
How in our everyday lives do we abide in Christ? Well, printed on our pewslip today is a passage from 1 John 4 which includes several suggestions about abiding in Christ. It is well worth reading and reflecting on. In particular it says, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4: 16). To me this is the very best suggestion for abiding in God. There are two sides to it. Firstly, we must learn to recognise and trust in God’s immense love for us. We must learn to give thanks to God for all things. We must recognise that even when God prunes the branches, which is painful and can leave us with a real sense of loss, this is actually God’s love for us, forming us more closely to his great designs for us, and enabling us to bear more fruit. Secondly we must make God’s love in us grow by loving other people, by seeking to serve them and help them in the most practical ways possible. It is Christ in others that we serve; we do our best to ignore their bad points and we concentrate on serving Christ.
In this way love grows in us. We abide in love and so we abide in Christ. This ensures that we are properly grafted on to Christ the true vine. It ensure that we can bear much fruit. Amen
[Now what is this fruit of which Jesus talks? Well, in the first instance it is the personal benefits of holiness; the love and joy and peace, the patience and kindness and goodness, the faithfulness and gentleness and self-control that we think of as the fruits of the spirit (Gal 5). But more than that, it is about the good works that we do (Col 1:10), the effects that we have in our families, our communities and our nation. Our fruit is our contribution to help those who are downtrodden, our contribution to the good of society, to justice, to peace. And then more than that, fruit is about restoring, renewing and growing the body of Christ, the Church. It is about loving other people so as to help them on their Christian journey. It is about being full of mercy, so that people are helped to repent of their sins. It is about being full of faith, so that faith spills over and many may turn to Christ. Notice that all these fruits depend not so much on us, but more on our co-operation with God. It just like the fruit on a vine depends just as much on the sap from the vines roots, as it does on the vine itself. We need to abide in Christ and Christ in us.]

One with Christ in the other

Short sermon preached at 8am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull
Sunday 8th February 2009 – Third Sunday before lent
Readings for Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Year B

Readings: Isaiah 40:21-31 1 Corinthians 9: 16-23 Mark 1: 29-39


The Apostle Paul is often seen as the archetypal missionary preacher. Certainly the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles, shows Paul as extraordinarily effective in proclaiming the gospel. This was his great passion; “Woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel” we read from him today. And for me, as a child, an image of this formed in my mind. A huge figure Paul is standing high above a crowd, preaching the gospel in a loud voice and with great emotion and with lots of finger waging. And the people in the crowd are cowering before him in fear for their immortal souls, and are weeping in repentance for their sins.
As time has gone by I have come to realise that this image is not quite right, and in places it reveals some serious misconceptions about what it means to proclaim the gospel. For a start we know that Paul’s physical stature was neither big nor impressive (Acts of Paul and Thecla 3 - late 2nd century). Paul notes of himself that, "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." (2 Cor 10:10) But above all, what is wrong is the impression that Paul, through strength of argument or personality was somehow able to force or coerce people into accepting the gospel. I am quite sure that it was not like this at all. In fact the techniques Paul described in our reading today are the very opposite of force or coercion. They show the love of someone who places great value on the experience and opinions of others.
First of all Paul says, “I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.” Paul sees himself as a slave or a servant of those who he seeks to convert. This does not mean that he allows them to dominate or control him or walk all over him. Rather it means he will look at these people with great charity, trying to see them as God sees them, and trying to recognise and understand God’s creation in them, and above all trying to find within them the new life of Christ. It is this new life in Christ and God’s creation in them that Paul is seeking to serve. He will do whatever he can to nurture it, understand it and help it to grow. And the point about being a servant or a slave is that this is done, not on Paul’s terms, but on the terms of the one who is served. Paul serves Jesus, present in the other people.
But then, even more mysteriously, Paul says, “To the Jews I became a Jew… to those not bound by the law of Moses I became like one not bound by the law of Moses…to the week I became week…I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means win some.” This means that Paul seeks to set aside his own agenda and priorities in order to focus properly on the experience and aspirations of Christ present in the people he meets, be they Jews, or non Jews, the week or the strong. Paul is ready to die to Christ in himself, in order to rise with Christ in the other person. Paul seeks to empathise with Christ in the other person. He seeks to walk in the shoes of the other in order to understand the other and to share in their joys and sorrows, their hopes and fears. And Paul remains convinced that it is this losing of himself for Christ in the other that will eventually win the other over to Christ.
And this is the pattern for our love too. We need to be ready to lose everything in order to seek out and love Christ present in the other person. We seek to empathise with and share in the experience of Christ in that person. And this helps Christ to grow, both in them and in us and so it brings forward the kingdom of God. Amen.

Loving God & neighbour, to please God not mortals

Thought for pew slip 26th October 2008
Last Sunday after Trinity - Proper 25, Year A


Readings Leviticus 19: 1-2 &15-18 1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8 Matthew 22: 34-46


In our gospel reading today Jesus tells us that the greatest and first commandment is to love God. The second commandment is to love our neighbours. Jesus says this second commandment is “like” the first. This is because God created people in his own image and likeness and is, in some way, present in all people. We therefore have to treat all people with the most profound respect, loving them as an expression of our love for God; loving them as God loves them.
When Jesus says, “Love your neighbour” he is quoting from the ancient Jewish law in the book of Leviticus. Our first reading today is from this section of Leviticus. The reading gives some practical examples about what loving our neighbour means. Notice that loving our neighbour is about loving God in them, as God loves them. It is not always about being partial to them or deferring to them.
Paul gives more examples like this in the reading from 1 Thessalonians. He is insistent that he must preach the gospel in order to please God, not mortals. In fact it is clear that some mortals have been very unpleased! Notice that Paul’s caring for his fellow Christians compels him to share his own self with them. We are called to lives that are shared in Christ; our Christianity is not a private matter.

Taking up our cross and following Christ

Sermon preach at 9.15 Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull
Sunday 31st August 2008, Trinity 15, Proper 17, Year A

Readings: Jeremiah 15:15-21 Romans 12: 9-21 Matthew 16: 21-28


One of my favourite television programmes is “You’ve been framed”. It is a programme where they show funny or embarrassing moments that have been captured on family camcorders. To try and keep people watching the during the advertisement break they often have a, “What happens next?” clip. Last thing before the break they show the start of some clip and you have to guess what happens next. Perhaps you see some lad on a quad bike skilful negotiate some hazard and start to accelerate way. So can you guess what happens next? Somehow you know it will be some kind of disaster. Perhaps he will over do it with the acceleration and the bike will go over backwards? Perhaps he’ll drive straight into a tree? Then after the break you see the second half of the clip. And what happens? Well, another quad bike zooms in from nowhere and knocks him for six. Well we knew it would be something like that, but we did not know exactly what!
This week’s gospel reading is a bit like the second half of a “What happens next?” film clip that we started last week. If you remember last weeks gospel you will remember it recounted a wonderful moment for Peter. He proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus was ever so pleased with Peter. He declared Peter to be the rock on which Jesus would build the Church, and he gave Peter great authority both in heaven and on earth.
And what happened next? Well that’s this week’s gospel. Jesus starts to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer at the hands of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed. Well Peter, full of confidence following his great success, marches in and says, “Forbid it Lord, this must never happen to you!” And Jesus is furious. He says, “Get behind me Satan!” Peter must have felt stung to the core.
And what had Peter done wrong? What he said seemed pretty reasonable really. If you have just worked out that someone is the Messiah, the Son of God, you don’t in the next breath agree to let that person be killed by the very people who need him most. But Jesus explains. Peter was “setting his mind not on divine things, but on human things.”
So Jesus accepts that, humanly speaking, Peter’s has a point. But Jesus is not just human, he is also divine. He has come to earth to teach the divine ways to the apostles and to the whole world. He has come to show us the ways of heaven, and the ways of heaven are different from the ways of earth.
Humanly speaking we all want to avoid suffering. We instinctively want fullness of life, and suffering seems like the very opposite of that, it seems like the lose of life, it seems like the road to death. Yet Jesus teaches us the divine ways, and he is very clear. He says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
What does it mean in practice to take up our cross and follow Jesus? Well it means following Jesus through the bad times as well as the good. It means following Jesus in situations of suffering, or hurt, or pain. And it doesn’t matter if the suffering is physical, or emotional or spiritual. It doesn’t matter is the suffering is our own fault or the fault of the people around us, or no ones fault at all. It does not matter if the suffering is large or small. In all cases of suffering the call is the same; to continue to follow Jesus.
And as we think about Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary, and we think of us following with him, each carrying our own little crosses then there are a two ways in particular in which we are asked to follow him.
Firstly we follow Jesus by continuing to do God’s will, even when it is very costly. The gospels tell us about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane praying that the Father might make the cup of poison may pass from him, and yet also praying, “Not what I want, but what you want” (e.g. Matt 26: 39). Following God’s will can be very costly. Sometimes we need to accept something hurtful or discouraging or sad. Sometimes we need to confront people or situations and risk conversations that might be difficult or painful. There can be all kinds of difficult things, but if we follow God’s will, even through sufferings, then we are following Jesus with his cross and sharing on his journey to Calvary.
Secondly we need to continue to love other people, even when we are suffering. Jesus continues to love through his passion. He forgives the people who crucify him. He ministers to the penitent thief. He makes arrangements for St John to take care of his mother. He continues to think about the others, to hope for the others, to see the good in the others, despite the great evil that is done to him.
So this is how we can follow Jesus in our sufferings; by continuing to do God’s will for us, and by continuing to love. And this very often means denying ourselves, giving up on our own plans and aspirations, giving up on our resentments and frustrations, giving up our sense of comfort or of being in control. This is costly, but Jesus is very clear, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
But now for the good news. By denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus we find that we are bound into a much deeper relationship with Jesus. It is a relationship that becomes deeper and purer and truer as we carry our crosses together. Sometimes we hear war veterans talk of difficult or dangerous situations that they have passed through together. This experience binds them together with a trust and understanding that goes very deep. It is the same with us and Jesus. When we continue to love, and continue to do the will of God through our sufferings we share in a profoundly important experience with Jesus, who loved and did God’s will through his whole passion and death. Jesus starts to share our burdens with us. Our trust and understanding of Jesus grows.
And the news gets even better, because we discover that we are sharing more and more with Jesus. We find we share in the healing and reconciliation that Jesus won for us. Slowly God starts to transform us, and the situations around us, and they start to reflect his peace and his justice and his love.
But the very best news is that when we start to share with Jesus in his sufferings and death, so we begin to share with him in his resurrection, in his newness of life, in his glory (c.f. Romans 6: 5, 8: 17). The risen life of Jesus restores us and makes us whole. It gives us power to hope. We start to share in the eternal life that Jesus promises.
So when sufferings come, let’s follow Jesus by continuing to love and by continuing to do God’s will. In this way we take up our cross and share sufferings with Jesus. In this way too we start also to share in his risen life. Amen.

Everybody called to share in the life of heaven

Preached at 9.15am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull on Sunday 17th August 2008
Trinity 13, Proper 15, Year A.

Readings Isaiah 56:1,6-8 Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15: 21-28


Years ago the Church Times published a letter. It said something like this: “Sermons – what is the point of them? Our Vicar’s preached hundreds of sermons over the years and I can’t remember any of them.” The next week the Church Times published a letter in response. It said, “Over the years, my wife’s cooked me thousands of dinners. I can’t remember many of them, but I am ever so grateful.”
I think it is a very, very helpful letter. It reminds us that, just as we need to keep feeding our bodies with food, so we need to keep feeding our souls with the presence of God. Coming to the Eucharist is a good way of doing this, because we encounter God in his Word proclaimed in scripture and when we receive Jesus present in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
So, just as we don’t worry that we can’t remember all the good meals that we have eaten, so we should not worry that we can’t remember all the good sermons we’ve heard. And this is a good job, because I know that I have listened to hundreds and hundreds of sermons and I can hardly remember any of them!
But here is the funny thing, although it feels like I can hardly remember any sermons, I can remember two sermons about the particular gospel reading that we heard today! They were completely different sermons, by different preachers given years apart, and yet I can remember them both! And the reason I remember them is that they both surprised me, shocked me! So, I’ll tell you what the two preachers said, and let’s see if I can surprise you!
The first preacher said something like, “Well, of course, the big thing about this gospel reading is that Jesus is so rude to the Canaanite woman. She comes to him, wanting him to heal her daughter. To start with Jesus ignores her. When she won’t go away, he explains that he is sent to the people of Israel, not to the Canaanites. Then she comes and kneels in front of him. He can’t ignore her then, and so he says to her, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ Well you can’t get much ruder than that, can you? Basically he is calling the Canaanites, dogs. Nowadays we might call that racist.”
I found this a deeply shocking viewpoint. I was very surprised. I was not ready to think about Jesus being either “rude” or “racist”, even if the woman was being completely unreasonable. Fortunately Jesus’ tone does change dramatically at this point in the story. The woman answers him very graciously and with great faith. She says, “Yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table.” She means that Jesus may have been sent to the people of Israel, but the goodness of Jesus spills over beyond the people of Israel. Like crumbs falling from a table it spills over. Perhaps it spills over because it is so abundant. Perhaps it spills over because the people of Israel don’t value it properly, don’t take it seriously enough. Either way, it spills over and the Canaanites get to share in the goodness of Jesus. Jesus is deeply impressed with this answer. He say’s to her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And the woman’s daughter was heeled at that moment.
So that was the surprise from the first preacher. The second preacher to surprise me when discussing this story said something like this: “This was a crucial moment of Jesus. This was the moment when Jesus realised that his mission was for everybody, not just for the people of Israel. This was the moment when he realised that he had come to save, not just the Jews, but the whole world.” Again, this was a big surprise for me. Since Sunday school I have been taught that Jesus came to save the whole world. I thought everybody knew that! It had never occurred to me that Jesus himself must have learned that at some point. Because Jesus has a divine nature and is God we sometimes forget how humble and ordinary his human nature was. Just like us he had to start as baby and grow up. He had to lean things. We sometimes thing of Jesus as being like some great superhero, but in fact in so many ways he was just like us.
Now I have to say that I am not altogether sure that either of the two preachers was entirely correct. There are certainly other considerations here, but the point is that both sermons helped me to move forward in my journey of faith, and remarkably I remembered them both.
So as we leave church today let’s remember that Jesus came to save everybody. That means he came to save each one of you, and he came to save me. And we might think, “I’m not the religious type”, or “I’m a terrible sinner” or “I’m not worth it” but the fact remains that Jesus came for each one of us. God calls each one of us to our place in heaven. Now we all have a journey to walk. Even Jesus had to walk a journey as he grew up and grew in understanding. We all have to grow in love. We all have to grow in repentance. We all have to become good citizens of heaven. Some of us are starting from places a long way from God, places of great sin and darkness and we have a long, long journey ahead of us, but we are still called. God still wants to share the life of heaven with us. Jesus will still give us the grace we need to walk the journey.
And if we are already on the journey, if we are already growing in love, already growing in repentance then let’s work with God on all these other people, who he also calls to heaven. Let’s love them as God loves them. Let’s have hope for them, as God has hope for them. Let’s want to share the life of heaven with them as God does. And this can be quite a challenge. Do I really want to share heaven with that nasty man at the bus top? We need to grow in love. We need to help the man at the bus stop to grow in love. We will be ready for heaven ourselves when our love is like Jesus’ love; when we truly want to share heaven with everybody.

The call to holiness

Thought for the parish pewslip
Sunday 25th May 2008, Trinity 1 – Year A (Readings from Epiphany 7)

Readings Leviticus 19: 1-2 & 9-18 1 Cor 3: 10-11 & 16-23 Matt 5: 38-48


In our reading from Leviticus, the Lord calls his people to be holy, for the Lord God himself is holy. The reading then lists behaviours which it associates with holiness; helping the poor, being honest, honouring God, not exploiting the weak, being just and avoiding hatred and revenge. This is summarised as, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”
In the reading from Corinthians, Paul reminds us that we, the church, are a holy temple where God’s Spirit dwells.
In our gospel reading Jesus calls us to love in a completely radical way, not resisting the evildoer, and loving even our enemies. He says we should do this in order to be like God the Father, who has a great love for each person, however good or evil that person might be. Jesus reiterates our Leviticus reading when he says, “Be perfect therefore, as you heavenly Father is perfect.”
When we think of people being holy there is a danger that we think of saints from long ago who immersed themselves in prayer and worship. Our readings today remind us that we today are called to holiness. Holiness is about our behaviour towards others. It’s about loving God and loving our neighbours.

Baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Sermon
Preached on Trinity Sunday – Year A - 18th May 2008
at the 9.15am Eucharist at St Alphege Solihull.
A shortened version was also preached at the 11am Eucharist at St Catherine’s, Catherine de Barnes, Solihull.

Readings: Isaiah 40: 12-17, 27-31 2 Cor13:11-13 Matthew 28:16-20


In our gospel reading this morning we heard the words of Jesus, which are known as, “The Great Commission”. They are Jesus’ last words to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel. He says,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you, and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

These words brought about a dramatic change for the first disciples. Up until this point Jesus’ main message to them had been “follow me”, and “follow my commandments”, and the disciples had done this as best they could. We know that there were all kinds of errors and problems (like Peter denying Christ) but as best they could the disciples had followed Jesus, through his death and resurrection. This had been a completely life changing experience for them. But with these words of the Great Commission and with the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, suddenly the focus for the disciples changes completely. Rather than following, suddenly they are sent out to call others to follow. The 11 disciples become apostles – that is people sent out by God. Suddenly they become preachers, teachers and leaders of the Christian community. This is the start of mission. Mission also means “being sent”.
And included in the great commission is a remarkably good and very short summary of what Jesus wants from people to whom the apostles preach the gospel. He wants these people to become disciples, that is “followers” of Jesus. He wants the people to be baptised. He wants the people to obey his commandments. This is such an excellent summary of what we must do to be Christians; follow Christ, be baptised and obey Christ’s commandments.
But because today is Trinity Sunday, and because next week we have several baptisms taking place in this service, I would like focus today on what it means to be baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
This formula for Baptism “in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is recognised as the correct formula for baptism in all the main stream Christian churches. This is because the formula is recorded in Matthew’s gospel as a direct command from Jesus. All the mainstream churches recognise as valid a baptism made in “the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. The only exception to this is that Baptist churches often do not accept infant baptism, but they do certainly accept this as the correct formula for baptising people.
And this is a very significant thing because the mainstream churches all recognise as valid each others baptism certificates. And although the Church of God has suffered all kind of painful divisions and has been separated into various different denominations there is a level of unity that remains in our baptism. Whatever our denomination, we are all baptised into the body of Christ, into the Church, and we all have become members of that one body.
There are some interesting stories in the Acts of the Apostles about the incompleteness of other forms of baptism. There are stories (Chapter 8) where people have been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus, but have not yet been baptised in the Holy Spirit. There are other stories the other way around (chapter 10). Through these experiences the early church quickly realised that baptism needs to be in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.
Of course the formula “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” is familiar to us, not only because of baptism, but also because Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity. Today is Trinity Sunday, when we reflect on the great mystery of our God who is both three persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and is also perfectly “one” such that we say with great confidence that there is just one true God.
And this can be difficult to understand. But really we should not be surprised that we find it hard to understand God. God is much bigger and deeper and greater than we are. If we think we have got God “all sust out” then we are putting God in a box; we are placing our own intellect above God’s. We are deceiving ourselves and being somewhat arrogant!
And yet, despite the difficulty in understanding the Trinity, I believe it is important that we always make the effort to increase the understanding that we have. Human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) so looking at the Trinity gives us insights into the way that human life is meant to be.
If we look at the Trinity it seems that the perfect unity and harmony is maintained by love; by the love of God. There is lots of self-giving going on. The Father gives himself completely to the Son. The Son gives himself completely to the Father. The Spirit is likewise involved. This love and complete self-giving sustains the harmony and unity. This surely gives us an insight into how a Christian marriage might work. Similarly it throws light on how a community can sustain itself and become harmonious. And what about nations and the whole world even?
So as we celebrate Trinity Sunday, let’s ponder the mystery of the Trinity and seek to understand it better. Let’s seek to grow in relationships of love and mutual self- giving like those that we see in the Trinity. And by this let us come to live out ever better what it means to be a human being, created in the image of God.

Seeking the things that are above

Preached at St Catherine’s Church, Catherine-de-Barnes, Solihull
On Easter Day (Year A), 23/03/08 at 11am Eucharist.
Repeated at 6.30pm evensong in St Alphege Church

Readings: Acts 10:34-43 Romans Col 3:1-4 Matthew 28: 1-10

When I was a little boy, my brother had a pet guinea pig called Ginger. There was a very exciting time when Ginger was pregnant and expected, at any moment, to give birth to one or more baby guinea pigs. One morning my brother went out to feed Ginger and came back upset. I went out with him and looked in Ginger’s cage. Ginger seemed fine, much thinner than she had been. However lying in the middle of her cubby hole was an obviously dead baby guinea pig. We went and called Dad. Dad confirmed that Ginger’s baby was dead. He took the baby guinea pig out and buried it in the garden. My brother made a special little cross of wood to mark the spot. It was a very sad moment.
Later my brother was told to clean out the cage, because it was messy from the dead baby guinea pig. My brother started to clean out the cubby hole where the dead baby had been. He lifted up one of the supporting bricks, and to his great astonishment a baby guinea pig scurried out searching for somewhere to hide. Suddenly our sorrow was turned to joy as we realised that we did indeed have a live and healthy baby guinea pig. Then, when my brother lifted out the second supporting brick, exactly the same thing happened again. In fact we had two live and healthy baby guinea pigs, as well as the dead one.
It felt like a resurrection moment. Our focus on disappointment and death, suddenly changed to a focus on new life. It was wonderful. But it was surprising what a long time it had taken for us to realise what had happened and to grasp its full implications.
And I suspect it was a bit like this for the first followers of Jesus when they first discovered the empty tomb. To start with it was as very strange and disturbing discovery. What did it mean? Who had rolled away the stone? Why had it been done? What did all this mean? Had Jesus’ body been stolen? Then the angles appeared and explained things to them, and this amazed them, gave them great joy, but also filled them with fear. And then suddenly Mary Magdalene saw Jesus and spoke with him and held his feet and worshipped him. Later other disciples had encounters with the risen Lord. Then there was concern that they might have been seeing a ghost. Then there were more and more encounters, and more and more disciples start to believe in the resurrection. But this process took time. In fact the account at the end of Mark’s gospel, Jesus gets cross with the disciples because they are so slow to believe.
So it took the first followers of Jesus time to understand that the resurrection had happened, and what that really meant. It took them even longer to work out all the implications. In Luke’s account of the resurrection one of the main things that the risen Christ does is explain to the disciples all that is written about Jesus in the law, the prophets and psalms so that they could start to understand the extraordinary death and resurrection of the Messiah.
And actually I believe that this is true for us as well. It takes us time to really understand the implications of the resurrection. We have a big advantage over the first disciples, in that we live with the benefit of 2000 years of church experience. From when we are very young we are taught that the resurrection shows us new life in Christ, shows us that love is stronger than death, that sin has been defeated. We are taught that the resurrection means that we can have hope. But despite all this wise teaching there is a sense in which we each have to discover these things for ourselves and to work out their practical implications for our lives.
So how do we do this? Well, St Paul has some good advice for us in our reading from Colossians this morning. He says, “Set your mind on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Setting our mind on the things that are above, means putting love for God and neighbour in the first place in our lives, and not allowing earthly things (jobs, houses, families, food, health, schools, cars, holidays and all that) to get in the way. In fact we can use these earthly things in order to love our neighbours.
And the resurrection really helps us to do this. Sometimes our earthly life gets hard. Sometimes we get ill. Sometimes we have disappointments. Sometimes we have to let go of things that are good and precious. Sometimes we have to deny ourselves in order to love the people around us, sometimes our friends die. And we know that one day we ourselves will die. So undeniably our earthly life can be hard. But if, as Paul suggests, we are seeking the things that are above, then we start to discover the things that our above, our love for God and our love for our neighbours, and we start to find their value. And especially when earthly things let us down or pass away, we discover the enduring quality of the things which are above. As Paul puts it, we have died, and our life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ’s resurrection life is revealed, the true value of the things we have above with also be revealed with him in Glory.
So let’s have the courage to seek the things that are above. Let’s seek always to grow in love for God and love for our neighbours, because we know that if we do this, though we might pass through terrible earthly trials and even through death itself, the resurrection of Christ assures us that the life we have in Christ will be revealed in glory. Amen.

Living water

Preached at St Alphege Church on Sunday 24th February 2008 at 11am Eucharist
Third Sunday in Lent, Year A

Readings: Exodus 17:1-7 Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42


Perhaps, like me, you were sometimes frustrated by the weather last summer. Apparently it was the wettest summer since better records of rainfall started to be collected in 1914. Although autumn 2007 was relatively dry the winter has been wet and flood warnings seem to have become common place. Flooding along the River Severn and the River Avon seems to have become routine and the residents of Tewksbury could be forgiven for wishing that there was far less water around.
How different all this is from Palestine where water is a scarce resource and the perpetual threat is not flooding but rather draught. In biblical Palestine collecting the water needed for the day, was a significant daily task, and one that could become critical in times of draught. Water for drinking, for washing, for watering animals and plants was a precious commodity associated with sustaining life, cleansing bring life to the desert. People in Gloucestershire today may find it rather hard to think of water in such a positive way, but that is the mindset that we need if we are to understand our scripture readings today.
First of all we have the reading from Exodus where the Israelites are in rebellion against Moses and against God because of the lack of water. They start to say that they would have done better to stay in Egypt where at least there was water to drink. Moses asks God what to do. God tells Moses to go and strike a particular rock so that water will flow. Moses does as God tells him, water flows from the rock. The people have plenty to drink and the crisis is averted. However there is something unsatisfactory about the story. It is one of very few places in the bible where God appears to relent to people who are fighting against him. God often relents to people who repent, plead to him or who cry out for help, but it is very rare that he relents to people who struggle against him. Moses names the place Massah (which means trial) and Meribah (which means contention) because there the people put God to the test.
Unease about this incident pervades the Old Testament. The same story is told in the book of Numbers, chapter 20 and in this account God blames Moses and Aaron for their lack of belief during the incident. God declares that Moses and Aaron will not therefore lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. This judgement is repeated in Deuteronomy chapter 32. In Deuteronomy chapter 6 the Lord gives a specific commandment; do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you did at Massah. Psalms 95 and 106 both dwell on the incident, recognising God’s displeasure at being put to the test.
Water is also a key theme in our gospel reading. Jesus talks about the gift of living water, which he wants to give to us. This point comes up in Jesus’ remarkable and wonderful conversation with the Samaritan woman. One of the remarkable things about the conversation is the taboos that it breaks. And these are broken for a very specific purpose. They are broken to show that the love of Jesus, and the gospel message is for everybody… for everybody. The first taboo is that in this kind of situation a man like Jesus would not be expected to talk to a woman. But the gospel is for women every bit as much as it is for men and Jesus does not hesitate to talk to the woman. The second taboo is that as Jew, Jesus would not be expected to talk to a Samaritan. The Jews looked on the Samaritans as a people which had abandoned key parts of its Israelite heritage and religion during the Jewish exile of the sixth century BC. The Samaritans had interbred with other peoples and now practised what the Jews saw as a corrupted version of the Jewish religion based around their own temple on Mount Gerizim. Jews would not voluntarily associate with Samaritans, and would normal seek to avoid travelling through Samaria. But Jesus clearly recognised the Samaritans, like the Jews and the Gentiles, as sons and daughters of the one father in heaven, and so as brothers and sisters to be loved, and as people with whom the gospel should be shared. In his conversation with the Samaritan woman Jesus suggests that although salvation comes from the Jews, it comes for all people. The hour has come when worship will no longer depend on temples, be they in Jerusalem or on the mountain in Samaria. Rather the Heavenly Father seeks anyone who will worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus stayed two days in the Samaritan City to preach and to teach, and we are told that many came to believe in him, because of his word. We are told that they recognised him not so much as the saviour of Israel or the King of the Jews, but rather as the saviour of the World. And so it is that God’s agenda for the messiah and for the Jewish people is shown to be far greater than they had ever imagined. The love of Jesus is for everybody, without distinction; it is a universal love, and the kingdom that this love brings is a kingdom for the whole world.
This fact that Jesus’ love is for everybody…that it is universal, has implications for us as we seek to grow into the likeness of Christ on our journey towards heaven. We too are called to love everybody and this is very challenging. It is usually easy to love the people who we instinctively like, but it is much harder to love the people we don’t like. It is usually fairly easy to love people who are like us, from similar backgrounds and with similar aspirations, but it is much harder to love people who are very different from ourselves. At yet this is one of the key characteristics that distinguishes real love (the love of God) from merely human love. Probably most of us still need to grow in love, so that our love becomes more universal, more open to all, more like the love of God.
And when we think of loving people who are very different from ourselves I think it is worth clarifying a little about what that requires and does not require. To love someone does not require me to agree with their politics, or their lifestyle, or even their morals. Jesus presumably did not “agree” with the Samaritan woman’s religion or with her propensity for getting through husbands. Despite these things he did what he could to build a relationship with her, and to help her on her journey towards God. He spoke to her, offered her living water and called her to worship in spirit and in truth. Love requires us to look beyond our own thoughts and feelings and see the person in front of us as someone created by God, loved by God, who is called by God to share in the life of heaven just as we ourselves are called. Love calls us to do practically what we can to help that person. Very often, that means listening to them, being ready to set aside our own thoughts and feelings in order to be properly attentive to the needs and aspirations of the person in front of us.
So let us pray that the Lord will give us his living water to sustain our hearts and to help them grow in love for everyone. May the living water wash our hearts of all prejudices. May our love may become pure and free of self interest. May Christ’s living water in us become a spring welling up and bringing new life to those parts of our being which are arid and dry like a desert. So may the love of God in us grow, and bring us and many others to eternal life. Amen.

Joyful discipleship

Sermon preached at St Alphege Church, Solihull at the 11am Eucharist
27/01/08 – Third Sunday after Epiphany - Year A

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-4 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 Matthew 4:12-23


The DJ Chris Evans has a regular “Drive Time” programme in the early evening on Radio 2. On a recent programme he asked listeners to telephone in with stories along the lines of “I went out to buy a …., but I came back with a …..” One gentleman telephoned in with a story. It went something like this: “I went out one day to sign up to join the Navy, but when I got there the Navy man was on his lunch break, so I joined the RAF instead.” I like this story. It is somehow refreshing to think that something as incidental as a lunch break could make such a big difference to someone’s life.
In our gospel reading today we heard Matthew’s account of Jesus calling the first disciples. In Matthew’s account (and Mark’s account is very similar) it looks as though a rather incidental meeting with a stranger makes a huge difference to the disciples lives. It seems that Jesus walks up to the disciples, calls them and they immediately drop everything and follow him. It is almost as though Simon Peter could telephone up Chris Evans and say, “I went out to catch a few fish, but I ended up an Apostle; a fisher of people.”
What makes Matthew’s account so surprising is that it seems that short and coincidental meeting with Jesus that makes the first four disciples drop everything and follow Jesus. However if we start to read the accounts of this event in the other gospels we do start to realise that the account in Matthew is a very bare bones account.
Our gospel reading last week was John’s account of the calling of Andrew and Simon (John 1:35-42). It suggests that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist and John the Baptist encouraged him to follow Jesus who he called “the Lamb of God”. The account in Luke’s gospel (Luke 4:38-5:11) suggests that Jesus has actually done a great deal with Simon and Andrew before he asks them to follow him. In Luke’s gospel Jesus has spent time at Simon’s house, has healed his mother-in-law, has borrowed his boat to preach from and has delivered to the first four disciples a miraculous catch of fish, so huge that it filled two boats to sinking point. Only after all this and after Simon has expressed great fear of Jesus’ mighty powers, does Jesus ask them to follow him.
Personally I find that Luke’s rather fuller account makes the story much more believable. Jesus did not appear from nowhere, call out to some fishermen and have them go away with him. Rather Jesus spent some time with Simon and Andrew, built a relationship with them, did some wonderful things for them, showing them the power of his love and only then called them to be disciples.
And discipleship that arises from a relationship with Jesus, from an experience of his love for us, also gives us a much better pattern for our own discipleship. There are, sadly, many people who experience their Christianity as though some powerful and scary headmaster type has appeared to them and said “follow me” and they have not had the courage to do anything different than to follow. And when Christianity is like this, there is the danger that it can be fearful rather than joyful, experienced as a burden rather than a blessing and there can even be a certain envy of people who have not had that call; people who can devote Sunday morning to leisure activities and who seem accountable to no one.
But this is not the way that discipleship is meant to be. Christianity is a blessing, not a burden. It is not based on fear but rather it casts out fear (1John 4:18). It is the pearl of great value, the treasure hidden in the field (Matt 14:44-46). It is the great wedding banquet (Matt22:2ff). We should not feel envy for people who do not have this gift, rather we should feel compassion, and the desire to share the gift with them.
And what is it that makes the difference? What is it that makes Christianity a blessing rather than a burden, a treasure rather than a liability? I believe it is the love of God, the love of Jesus, the experience of being loved, of being forgiven. If we truly feel ourselves to be loved by God, then it is the most natural thing in the world to want to respond to that love, to want to be a disciple. If we feel we should be a disciple, but don’t particularly feel loved by God then we are going to find being a disciple very hard work!
So they key to it is experiencing ourselves as loved by God. This is what makes discipleship desirable, a blessing. It was the love that Jesus had for Andrew and Simon, the miracles he worked for them, that made them want to follow him. But what if we don’t feel loved by God? What if we do feel loved by God, but only a little? What if we do feel loved by God, but we know that we could feel much, much more loved by God? What can we do about it? How can we come to experience and believe in God’s love for us.
Well first of all, it is a very good thing to desire a great gift like this (c.f. 1 Cor 12:31, 14:1) and if we desire it, and pray to God for it then surely it will please God to give it to us.
Secondly we need to re-educate ourselves, reminding ourselves of the great love that God has already shown us. God shows his love for us in his creation of us. And God has not created us in random isolation. Rather he created us in a specific context with people around us who have raised us as children and who helped us to grow. He has created us with a specific path to walk in life and a specific purpose to fulfil. He has created us for a great destiny as children of God (1John3:1), to join in the glorious life of love that the Jesus shares with the Father (1John1:3). Then, beyond our creation, Jesus, in his great love for us, has redeemed us through his passion and death. He has overcome sin and death and reconciled us to the Father. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1John 4:10). And so we can be forgiven. When we turn to Christ, there is no past sin or human frailty or bad experience that can separate us from his love (c.f. Romans 8: 38-39).
A third thing we can do is train ourselves to see God’s love for us in the things that happen to us. Sometimes this is very easy; when people give us presents or do us some good turn. Sometimes it is much harder, when things seem to go wrong for us or we feel hurt by other people. We have to train ourselves to discover the love of God even in these difficult things. Everything is either willed or allowed by God, in his great love for us. They are all part of his plan for us, part of the road down which he calls us as we journey towards heaven. Now this can be hard, and it requires training. We can make a start by learning to thank God, even for the difficult things. We need to grow in love for even the suffering Christ, who loves us in his passion and death. Slowly we can learn that, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom 8:28).
Another thing we can do is to grow in our own love for God by obeying his commandments, especially his commandment to love God and to love our neighbour. Jesus says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." (John 14:21). Jesus reveals himself as love to those who love him.
So here are some practical things we can do to help us to understand and to feel the great love that God has for us. We can pray for it. We can thank God for our creation, our great destiny and our salvation. We can learn to thank God for all the things in life that happen to us. We can learn to love God and our neighbour, so that Jesus reveals himself to us and we can know his love. And if we do these things we will become more and more aware of the great love that God has for us, and we will find it more and more natural to respond with a discipleship that is real and full of joy.

The old covenant and the new covenant

Sermon - 26/08/07 – Trinity 12 (Proper 16) – Year C
Preached at St Alphege, Solihull 8.00am Eucharist on 26/08/07
Readings: Isaiah 58:9b-14 Hebrews 12:18-29 Luke 13:10-17

In the gospel reading that we have just heard, Jesus performs a healing miracle on the Sabbath. This is a great scandal to the leader of the synagogue because this appears to be working on the Sabbath and it is certainly not consistent with the Jewish Law as it was generally understood. The synagogue leader argues, “You have six days in a week for work; come and be healed on those six days, but keep the Sabbath day holy.” Jesus however is completely insistent. He appears to see the healing of the woman, bound by Satan for 18 long years, as something that just has to be done. He perhaps even suggests that the Sabbath Day is a particularly appropriate day to do it.
It seems that this was a popular move. The gospel reading tells us that the entire crowd rejoiced at the wonderful things that Jesus was doing. And yet for ordinary Jews who sought to live a good life this must have been a very confusing incident. For a Jew at that time, to live a good life meant, by and large, to follow the Law of Moses. It was the job of the Scribes and the Pharisees to explain to the people what the Law was. It was important to keep the Law. Through Moses, God had agreed a covenant with the people of Israel. They would keep God’s law and God would give them the Promised Land. Keeping the Law was doing you side of the bargain; it was honouring God and helping to secure the Promised Land.
But then Jesus comes along, who is clearly a man of God and a good man, and says don’t just focus on the detail of the Law, rather focus on doing good! Jesus was redefining the covenant of Moses and redefining the relationship between God and his people.
From the earliest times in the Church, we have always been very clear that Jesus was able to do this. Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God, who could be worshipped as God. He was much more significant than Moses, and had every right to redefine the covenant.
Through his passion and death, Jesus mediated a new covenant between people and God. No longer should we be slaves to the details of the Law, but rather we are saved through faith in Christ and by following Christ, the way, the life and the truth. In the Eucharist we celebrate this new covenant, nurturing ourselves on Christ. We hold up the chalice and remember the words of Jesus, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”
The difference between the old and new covenant is emphasised by our New Testament lesson. It is a difficult reading, and worth studying again when you get home. It says that we have not come to something tangible and rigid like the Law of Moses. It describes the scene from Exodus chapter 19 with the tempest, the trumpet and the terrifying voice when the Law was handed over to Moses. Rather, the reading emphasises, we have come to a new covenant, to the city of the living God, to innumerable angels, to the assembly of the first born enrolled in heaven, to God, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and above all to Jesus.
Notice that the new covenant is expressed in terms of people and relationships, much more than it is expressed in terms of rules and regulations. Rules and regulations, like the 10 commandments, are still there to guide us, but our primary responsibility is to true to our heavenly relationships, especially to be true in our relationship with Christ.
So how do we do that? How are we true in our relationship with Christ. Well, in John chapter 14 Jesus says, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” In the same discourse he gives us the New Commandment – to love one another, as he has loved us. Love is indeed the fulfilment of the Law (Romans 13:10). It is by growing in love that we live out the new covenant, and grow in communion with all the citizens of heaven.

Loving as God loves - The art of loving

Sermon preached at St Alphege, Solihull 8.00am Eucharist on 15/07/07
Trinity 6 (Proper 10) - Year C
Readings: Deuteronomy 30:9-14 Colossians 1:1-14 Luke 10:25-37

[Based on Art of Loving in Focolare Spirituality. For more details see page 77-87 or 237 in "Essential Writings" by Chiara Lubich, New City Press, London 2007]



The parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus’ explanation of what it mans “To love your neighbour”. This is crucially important. Jesus summarised the whole of the Law and the prophets in the two commands “Love God with all you’re your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself”, so “loving your neighbour appears to be half of all the Law and the prophets! So what does it mean to “Love your neighbour”.
If we look at the love shown by the Good Samaritan we quickly start to see that it has some extraordinary characteristics. This is not mere human love, and it has very little to do with the images of love that are displayed to us in TV and cinema. Rather it is love with divine qualities and it has a transforming effect on those who encounter it. Let’s think about these divine characteristics.
First of all, divine love loves everybody without distinction. We can assume that the man loved by the Good Samaritan was a Jew, so he was from a different race and from a different religion. Furthermore the Jews and Samaritans did generally not get on. However the Good Samaritan appears not to have considered this. Instead he saw a fellow human being in need, created like him in the image and likeness of God, and loved like him by the same Father in heaven. To love someone does not mean that we agree with them or get on with them or approve of the choices they make. Rather it means that we want their good. We want God’s creation in them to come to fulfilment. We want to love them as God loves them. God loves everybody, even our enemies. As we seek to grow in love we too are called to love everybody.
Second the Good Samaritan is the first to love. He does not recognise the man as someone who has been good to him in the past. He does not wait for the man to be good to him now. Rather he gets straight on in their and takes the initiative in love. St John tells us to love, because God has first loved us (1 John 4:19). This is a second characteristic of divine love. God takes the imitative in love, and we too are called to take the initiative in love.
Third, the Good Samaritans love is about practical service. In a practical way, he does what he can to help. This too is a characteristic of God’s love, and this too is something we are called to. Let’s make our love practical service to help others. This might mean preparing food or laying the table. It might mean washing the car or reading the map. It might mean helping someone to look for something that they have lost. It might mean visiting someone. Let’s make sure we show practical love.
As a fourth characteristic of the love to which the Good Samaritan calls us, let’s notice that he is ready to set aside his own agenda to love the person in front of him. He doesn’t think like the priest, “I’ve got some important praying to do…I can’t get involved here.” He doesn’t think “I have brought this donkey for me to ride on… I can’t use it for someone else.” He is prepared to set aside his own ideas and his own plans in order to love the other person. And we too are called to this and it can be very demanding and costly, because it we have to be ready to lose things, even good things. It calls us to be empty of self. Sometimes we have to hold off saying something in order to properly listen to someone else speaking. Sometimes we have to forget about something we think is important, in order to take on board something that is important to someone else. Sometimes we have to give up on the newspaper, in order to play a computer game with the grandson. We need to be empty of self in order to welcome and be fully present for the other person. This requires great trust in God, because often the things we are called to set aside are genuinely good things…things of God even.
So these are four characteristics of the love of the Good Samaritan; four characteristics of the love that we are called to as we love our neighbour. Love everybody. Be the first to love. Love in practical ways. Be empty of self in order to welcome the other.
In our day to day lives let’s try to love other people in these ways. It will be demanding, and it will require effort, and many times we will fall short. But let’s not be discouraged. God wants to fill us with his love. If we practice and pray and ask for God’s help, then over time love will grow in us. We will start to love more and more like the Good Samaritan and we will find more and more than we have fulfilled all that God asks of us in the Law and the prophets.

Life of the Trinity

Thought for the parish pew slip – 3rd June 2007 – Trinity Sunday
Readings: Proverbs 8:1-4&22-31, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

Today we reflect upon the most Holy Trinity; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Within the oneness of God there are these three persons, perfectly united as one God. The life of God therefore includes an aspect of community; a shared life of perfect love and communion.
Our Old Testament reading reminds us that Wisdom (who we think of as Christ) has been present and working with God since the beginning of creation. In our gospel reading Jesus tells us that everything that is of the Father, is also of the Son and is declared to us by the Spirit. As St Paul puts it, in our reading from Romans, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” God wants to share his life of love and communion with us!
Let us therefore make our church community into a community where love is shared, following the model of the Trinity. Even in sufferings and troubles, let’s keep on building a community of love. In fact St Paul teaches us to boast of such troubles because, over time, they become the source of our hope; our outrageous Christian hope of sharing in the glory of God! - Fr Gerard

Funeral homily - Nothing can separate us

From homily on 30th May 2007 at Robin Hood Crematorium
Romans 8:31-end

When someone close to us dies we become aware of the importance of our relationships. Death brings about separation and loss, but the love that we have for one another remains, and continues to be important to us.
Ultimately all love comes from God, who is love. We know that ???? had a strong belief in God. In the reading that we had earlier we heard St Paul affirm that nothing in creation can separate us from the love of God. He said, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I don’t know about you, but I find this tremendously reassuring. What ever disasters come (including death) I can continue to trust in the love of God. I can continue to believe that he wants my good, and works for my good. And I can try to love other people as God loves me, and, if by God’s grace I manage that a little, then that love starts to take on the supernatural and eternal qualities of God’s love for me.
So as we go away from this place, let us feel confident that we have entrusted ??? to God’s great mercy. Let us feel confident that the true love that we have shared is something that will remain. Let us allow the love of God to penetrate and sustain all our relationships so that when we in our due turn come to die, something of enduring value will remain.

Funeral homily - The way, the truth and the life

Extract from funeral homily, preached 26 04 07
Readings "She is Gone" (see below) and John 14:1-7


A few moments ago we read the poem “She is Gone” which was taken from the order of service for the Queen Mothers funeral. It contains the line “or you can be full of the love you shared”. This reminds us of St Paul’s affirmation in 1 Corinthians 13, that Faith, Hope and Love remain. When we die we lose all our lose all our earthly possessions and our body returns to dust and ashes, but in the Christian Faith we believe our soul returns to God and in some sense its faith and hope and love are retained.
In the paragraph from the gospel of John that we read at the start of this service we heard Jesus speaking to his disciples shortly before his death. He said, “In my Fathers house there are many dwelling places…I go and prepare a place for you.”. This once again affirms the Christian hope that the essential part of us survives death and goes to dwell with Jesus. Thomas struggles to understand this and asks, “Lord, how can we know that way”. And Jesus answers, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. To us with our very material understanding of the universe it is not easy to understand this comment, but it seems that it is Jesus himself, the man who conquered death, who shows us the true way, and who shares his resurrection life with us. So this is our hope for ????. May she follow Jesus, the way the truth and the life. It is also the hope for each one of us. May we too grow in Christian love so that when we die the love may remain, and go to dwell with Jesus in one of the Father’s many rooms.

Parish Magazine Editorial - March 2007

The month of March comes as winter is giving way to spring. The days lengthen and the weather improves. It is a month that draws us out of the darkness and monotony of winter towards new starts, fresh beginnings and spring cleaning! March falls in the Church’s season of Lent. Lent also calls us to move our spiritual lives forwards, leaving behind our selfish and inward looking ways, and drawing us forward to live by the fresh hope and new creation of Easter. We call this renewal repentance.
Repentance means putting God in the first place in our lives, and setting aside everything that gets in the way of God. Repentance is the only logical and sensible way to live our lives. God created us and loves us immensely. The deepest desires of our hearts were made by him and it is his purpose to bring them to fulfilment. If we trust God and follow him we can be confident that God will work on us and bring us to the fullness of life that that he intends. Unfortunately we always have a tendency to put our faith in our own agenda and our own self understanding, but this can never deliver to us the good which God intends. Worse still, our pride stops us from admitting this, even to ourselves.
Repentance is a lifelong process that we need to engage with all the time, but especially in Lent we are reminded of its importance. Repentance can sometimes feel costly because we have to let go of things which we hold dear, or own up to sufferings that we have caused others. Repentance calls us to devote ourselves to loving God and other people (e.g. Matt 22:37-40) and to spend less time thinking about ourselves. Obviously we have to love ourselves too, forgive ourselves and make sure that our own needs are met, but the purpose of doing this is to serve God better, and especially to serve him in the brothers and sisters we meet around us.
This year, in the Parish of Solihull we have wonderful Lent time resources to help us do just this. Many of us are involved in the “Life Source” home groups looking at prayer. In these groups we explore some of the different patterns of prayer that have arisen within the tradition of the church. Prayer helps us to focus more on God and to be more attentive to God. Through prayer we start to know God better and to understand more clearly the things that he wants from us in each present moment of our lives.
Another resource that we have is the Love Life Live Lent booklets. These suggest lots of simple, practical ways of loving our neighbours. By loving and serving our neighbour we are loving and serving Jesus (see Matt 25:31-46). All too often, our Christianity remains a spiritual thing which does not transform our outward lives. However by loving Jesus in the people around us, little by little, we start to build authentic relationships and to transform the world we live in. Loving the people around us requires us to laugh with those who laugh and weep with those who weep and this can require us to put aside our own joys and sorrows, as required by repentance. The booklets are especially good at challenging us to love people who are very different from us; from a different generation, culture or religion. This challenges us to make our love grow and become universal, like the love of Christ. This too requires repentance.
So this Lent may God’s grace help us to move forwards in true repentance. May we practice growing in love for God and growing in love for our neighbour, so that we can become ever more an influence for good in the world around us. - Fr Gerard