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.

Waiting on God

Thought for parish pewslip
Sunday 18th May 2008 – Trinity Sunday (Year A)

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


On Trinity Sunday we reflect on the great mystery of God, who we say has three “persons”, perfectly united in the one essence of God. It was around 200 AD before the Church started to use the term “Trinity”, and the Church’s understanding of the Holy Trinity continued to develop over the next centuries. However, both of our New Testament readings today clearly show us that the understanding of God as three Persons was present right at the beginning of the Church.
Our reading from Isaiah is a reflection on the great majesty of God who is beyond all understanding and who displays such great power in creation. All nations, all peoples are as nothing when compared to God. The passage is written during the period when the Judeans were in exile in Babylon (6th Century BC). The Judeans had been calling on God to deliver them from exile, and the prophet assures them that God has not forgotten them and he will renew the strength of those who wait on him. God will do something new and they will rise up with wing like eagles.
Sometimes we can feel that God has forgotten us, or forgotten the society that we live in. Isaiah reminds us to renew our trust in the almighty, unknowable God, and to wait on him. The deliverance that we pray for will come. – Fr Gerard

Trinity Sunday

Article for Faith Matters column of Solihull News


On Sunday (18th May) the churches celebrate Trinity Sunday. This is when we reflect on the great mystery of our God who is both “one” and “three” at the same time.
It is important to understand that the Holy Trinity is a mystery. As human beings we don’t have the capacity to understand our creator, who is so much greater than we are. We try always to grow in the love and knowledge of God, and by God’s grace we can make some progress, but we can never hope to fully understand God. If we think we understand God through and through then we are deceiving ourselves!
It is also important to recognise that the threeness of God in no way compromises the oneness of God. The perfect unity of God is central to Christianity, and to many other religions as well.
And yet within this extraordinary oneness of God, Christians recognise relationships of complete self giving between different “Persons”. God the Father gives everything to God the Son (c.f. Matt 28: 18). God the Son gives everything to God the Father, being ready to lay down his life for the Father (c.f. Matt 26: 39-44). God the Holy Spirit shares with us what the Son shares with the Father (c.f. John 16: 13-15).
Human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We were created to have loving, giving and sharing relationships like those that we see in the Holy Trinity. It is relationships like these that give us our true identity and our dignity as human beings. Trinity Sunday therefore invites us to grow in generosity, being ready to give time, money, attention and care to the people around us. Growing in generosity helps us to become the people we were created to be.

Revd Patrick Gerard
Assistant Curate, St Alphege Church, Parish of Solihull

St Alphege's Day

Sermon, preached at St Alphege, Solihull at 9.15am Eucharist on Sunday 20th April 2008.
(A shortened version was preached at the 8am Eucharist at St Alphege)

Easter 5: Year A (St Alphege’s day transferred from 19th April)

Readings: Acts 7:55-60 1 Peter 2:2-10 John 14:1-14]


Yesterday was the 996th anniversary of the death of St Alphege. In the church, and outside the church and up the high street we held St Alphege fair. There were stalls selling plants and bric-a-brac and refreshments. The Sealed Knot paraded around as mediaeval soldiers. The Guardians of St Alphege Church held a flag day and the infant school performed dances in the high street. In church there was a flower festival and craft displays and trips to the bell tower. The mayor came, and it was the mayoress’s birthday, so we sang happy birthday. Despite a cold east wind many people came and enjoyed themselves. Many, many people helped and contributed in different ways, not least our verger Sandra who did much of the organising. And so we can say thank you to all those people who contributed, and give thanks to God for a wonderful day.
And if you missed it there will be another St Alphege fair next year. And as we think about London preparing to host the Olympic Games in July 2012 it seems to me that we in Solihull need to start thinking about how, in April 2012, we are going to mark the 1000th anniversary of the martyrdom of St Alphege.
So who was St Alphege and why is he so important?
Well, Alphege was a monk who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1006. He lived an austere and simple life, filled with prayer. He was gentle and merciful to those around him. He could adapt his speech and mind to every type of person. He was generous in giving the church’s money to the poor and his example encouraged others to do the same. He was highly esteemed and greatly loved.
But in the summer of 1011 the Danes invaded South West of England. The raiders attacked Canterbury and after a short siege it fell to the Danes in September 1011. The Danes were extremely brutal. They burned the city and killed most of the people; men, women and children. They also took into captivity anyone for whom they thought they might be able to extract ransom and most prominent amongst these was England’s beloved archbishop, Alphege. He was badly injured and then kept in chains in a dark, damp, dungeon, with frogs to keep him company, but he bore all these insults with great patience. He kept on praying and giving thanks to God in a way that deeply impressed the Danes whose job it was to guard him. The Danes wanted the church in England to pay a great ransom to have Alphege released. The trouble was that Alphege would not co-operate with this plan. He commanded the church not to pay. They tortured Alphege, but he would not ask for a ransom, so for seven months a situation of stalemate existed. Then in April 1012 a terrible disease struck the Danish invaders. They found themselves writhing in pain and two thousand of them died. The Christians told them to repent of their terrible deeds in the sacking of Canterbury and to go with remorse to their prisoner Alphege. More and more of the Danes went to Alphege, repenting of their sins and asking for his prayers for healing. On Maundy Thursday Alphege remembered Jesus, who washed the feet of Judas and shared bread with him, even though he knew that Judas was about to betray him. Alphege asked the Danes to bring him bread. He blessed the bread and gave it back to the Danes, and all the Danes who ate that bread were healed, and the great illness past away. This miracle deeply impressed his Danish captors, but no sooner had they recovered than they demanded a ransom once again. When Alphege refused to help they heaped yet more terrible tortures on him. But then Alphege started to see visions of God. He was miraculously healed from his injuries and his prison was so filled by the power of God that none of the Danes dared to touch him. The Danish leaders became very worried about Alphege, because he was held in such awe and esteem by many of the soldiers that it was no longer clear that they would obey orders about Alphege.
Alphege was summonsed to the court of the Danish leaders. He was brought before them during a big drunken party. They once again demanded gold from him and he once again refused. They started to throw stones and ox bones at him and he fell to the ground, still praying for the church and for his captors. One of the Danes, Thrum, who had been deeply moved by Alphege, saw him struggling at deaths door and decided to end his suffering. He struck Alphege on the back of the head with an axe, and he died on 19th April 1012.

By a strange coincidence our lectionary reading for today, the fifth Sunday of Easter, is the Stoning of Stephen. It is a story very similar to the martyrdom of Alphege. I normally say my morning payers in St Alphege chapel looking forward at two stain glass windows. On my left I have the stoning of Stephen, on my right the martyrdom of Alphege. It is a very humbling way to start the day.

Why is it that the stories of the martyrs are so moving? Why do they have such a big effect on us? Well I think they bare witness to a world beyond this world; the world we were created for; a world where we live with in a full relationship with Jesus. It is world where the Son of Man stands at the right hand of God, as Stephen told us. In our gospel today, Jesus described it as a dwelling place in the father house, where we will be with together with Jesus.
Martyrs are people who have progressed so deeply into their relationship with Jesus that they know, deep in their being, that being true to their relationship with Jesus is the only important thing. The joys and sufferings of this present world will all pass away, but our relationship with Jesus has enduring value.
So let’s build on the witness of the martyrs by building stronger our relationship with Jesus. Let’s grow in our love for Jesus by praying with him to the Father, by following the commandments of Jesus, by loving Jesus present in the people around us (c.f. Matt 25:40). In this way we can build our relationship with Jesus, and this has real and lasting value.

Jesus, the way to the Father

Thought for parish pewslip - Sunday 20th April 2008 - Easter 4 - Year A
Readings: Acts 7:55-60 1 Peter 2:2-10 John 14:1-14

[Our next Fan the Flame event is “Resurrection and Healing” on Thursday (24th April) in St Alphege at 1.30pm, repeated at 8pm. Do come and join with us as we reflect on the new life that comes from Christ, and how it can renew and rejuvenate us as individuals and as a parish.]

Our scripture readings today emphasise that it is through Jesus that we have access to God. In Acts, we hear how Stephen sees the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. As he dies he commends his spirit to Jesus. In 1 Peter we are told to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In our gospel reading Jesus presents himself as the way the truth and the life, whereby we can attain a place in the Father’s house.

Building the temple of God

Preached at St Alphege Church on Sunday 6th April 2008 at 6.30pm Evensong.
Third Sunday of Easter

Readings: Haggai 1:13 – 2:9 1 Corinthians 3:10-17


Our readings this evening are all about building the temple of God. They approach this theme in different ways. As time passes, understandings deepen, and we see a development in what is meant by “building the temple of God”.
First of all we heard the choir sing Psalm 48. This is a song of praise to God, written because of the greatness of city of Jerusalem, which King David had established as the seat of the Kingdom of the Israelites. The psalm sets out the way that God’s chosen people like to think about Jerusalem. It mentions the temple in Jerusalem, where the people ponder the steadfast love of the Lord. It mentions the strong fortification in Mount Zion, the hill that overlooked Jerusalem, and by which Jerusalem was defended. It says that the foreign kings trembled when they saw the strength of the fortifications on Mount Zion. Jerusalem was a safe and secure centre for the kingdom of God’s people, with the temple of Jerusalem right at its heart.
But then we see a complete contrast in the reading from the book of Haggai. In this reading God’s chosen people, now called the Jews, have returned to Jerusalem and are starting to rebuild the temple following the most devastating and traumatic period of their history. Round about 600 BC the Judeans had been conquered by the Babylonians who came from the area that we now call Iraq. This was an absolutely catastrophic experience for the God’s people. Jerusalem was completely overrun. Many Judeans were killed and their bodies left unburied in the street. The temple in Jerusalem was first plundered and then destroyed completely. The remaining Judeans, or most of them, (certainly all the leaders and educated people) were taken off to Babylon where they lived as slaves in exile. Psalm 137 tells us of the torment and bitterness of the exiles. But with the great suffering came a great purification. God taught his people to focus on Him and on His laws. And then after about 70 years of exile God delivered his people back home again in a miraculous and extraordinary way. Babylon was conquered by the Persians and King Cyrus of Persia encouraged the Jews to go back to Jerusalem and he encouraged them to rebuild the temple. This was a wonderful deliverance, beyond anything that the Jews could have hoped for. But the task of rebuilding the life of the nation in Jerusalem and of rebuilding the temple were still fraught with difficulties and progress was extremely slow.
In the passage that we read we heard God, through the prophet Haggai, stir up his people to get on with this work. Above all he encourages them. He says, “My spirit abides among you, do not fear.” He asks if there is anyone left who can remember the temple of old. Although the new temple still appears poor and insignificant compared to the great temple of old, God assures the people that he will make it great. “In a little while…I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and fill this house with splendour” says the Lord of Hosts. “The latter splendour of this house will be greater than the former,” says the Lord.
In our New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians, St Paul compares himself to a skilled master builder, because he has laid the foundations of the church in Corinth. After Paul had left Corinth, Apollus, a well respected Christian of the early church (Acts 18:24), had continued to build and develop the Church in Corinth. We know that Paul wanted Apollos to be a church leader in Corinth (1 Cor 16:12) and that he was infuriated that the church in Corinth sometimes divided itself with some saying that they followed the teaching of Paul and some the teaching of Apollos (see 1 Cor 1 10-13).
Of course when Paul talks about building the church in Corinth he does not mean a physical church building, rather he means the Church, the people of God, the body of Christ. Paul describes the Church as the temple of the living God (2 Cor 6:16, see also Eph 2:21) and he sees himself, and others, as builders of that temple. He emphasises that Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Church (1 Cor 3:11). He goes on to say that that the work of himself, Paul, of Apollos, and of the other different people who have worked to build up the church will be tested by fire. What does this mean?
Well a physical temple building built of gold and precious stones will be resistant to fire, whereas a temple built of wood, hay and straw will easily burn up. The quality of a physical temple can therefore be tested by fire. A well built temple will endure fire, a more cheaply built temple will be destroyed by fire. Similarly if a church is solidly build on the foundation of Jesus Christ and on Christ Crucified (1 Cor 1 18 & 22 also 2:2) then it will stand the test of fire. This presumably means the test of suffering, of persecution, of loss.
So just as many different stones are built together to make a temple building, so we, the different members of the church, are being built together into a temple, a dwelling place for God where God lives by his spirit (Eph 2:21). Paul’s analogy is a very good one. The different stones in a temple building each have different functions, and so it is in the Church. Some stones are more visible than others. Some stones carry more weight than others. Some stones are beautifully carved, some more ordinary looking. But all of the stones have a role, and if any of them were missing then the building would lack something. And so it is with us in the church. Over time God carves us, or moulds us to fulfil the purpose he has for us in the church. We have different roles by which we serve one another within the life of the church. We need to be attentive to God in prayer, and attentive to the Christians around us in order to discern our role, and how we fit in. With love, we each need to serve the other people in the church, in the specific way that God wants us to serve. Also we need to receive service from the other Christians in the church with joy and thanksgiving. We each need to trust God, knowing that by following his will we will find roles that sustain us and fulfil us and lead us on the path to heaven.
But for a temple to be a temple it must be the dwelling place of God. We all know that God is present in his church through his Word proclaimed and through his sacraments, but God is present in other ways too. In 2 Corinthians 6:16, Paul quotes the prophets to explain that when we are formed together to be the temple of the living God, God will live with us, and walk about among us. He will be our God and we shall be his people. Similarly in Matthew 18:20 Jesus promises that he will be present in the midst of people united in his name. This means that when we meet together as church we must meet together united in the name of Jesus, following the commandments of Jesus, especially his New Commandment of mutual love. When we do this Jesus is present in our midst.
And in this there is a wonderful hint of the future promise of God. In the book of Revelation chapter 21 we can read about the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. In the New Jerusalem God makes his home among the mortals and dwells with them. The New Jerusalem is built of gold and of the most precious stones and it shines with the glory of God. There is no sun or moon, for all is illuminated by the glory of God. Most interesting of all, there is no temple in the New Jerusalem for the whole city is the dwelling place of God. And all the glory and honour of all the nations are brought to the New Jerusalem and all the nations will walk by the glorious light of God.
So let us allow God to form us into his living temple the Church. Let’s do what we can to help God build up his Church. Let’s be united in the name of Jesus, so that Jesus is present in the midst of us, and let’s prepare ourselves to be good citizens of the New Jerusalem where there is no need for a temple because God dwells in the midst of all his people. Amen.

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.

The New Commandment

Preached at St Alphege Church on Sunday on Maundy Thursday, 20th March 2008 at 7.30pm Eucharist, Year A

Readings: Exodus 12 1-4 & 11-14 1 Corinthians 11 23-26 John 13: 1-17 & 31b- 35


In March 2000 our family was preparing to go to India for what was expected to be a three year work placement. As we planned the move we were advised that alcoholic products could not be taken to India and could not go into UK storage. I was therefore faced with the solemn task of giving away my malt whisky collection. I remember giving an old Dalwhinnie to one friend, a very fine Bowmore to another friend and my beloved highland malts went to the curate. There was a sombre feel to these gifts. There was joy in the giving, but sorrow in losing the whisky and a foreboding sense of departure; going away from my friends for a long time.
Some of these feelings are present with Jesus at the last supper. Our New Testament readings today present Jesus as opening his great spiritual treasure chest and sharing gifts of incalculable value with his friends before he leaves this world.
The first big gift that Jesus gives us at the last supper is the gift of his body and blood in the Eucharist. He asks us to repeat the Eucharist in remembrance of him, proclaiming his death until he comes again.
A second big gift is the example he gives in the washing of the disciples’ feet. Washing feet is a very humble task, traditionally assigned to the lowest servant and yet done by Jesus the Lord and Teacher. The example is to serve one another in very simple and practical ways. He adds, “If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.”
This evening however I would like to focus most on a third big gift. The gift of Jesus’ New Commandment; “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
Now the scary thing about the New Commandment is the level of love implied. Jesus loved us to the point of giving up his life for us, so “as I have loved you” tells us that we should be ready to give our lives for one another; ready to die for one another. So in the church we are called to love one another to the point of being ready to give our lives for one another. And if I am ready to give my life for you, how much more ready am I to wash up for you, to put up with some of your irritating habits, or to help you, or to give you the things that you need.
Now, in the life of the church, it is very important that this loving and self giving is mutual. If one person does all the loving and giving, and is not loved and does not receive anything back, then very quickly the giver starts to run out of steam.
In church we often don’t live the New Commandment very well. Often we do not even know the people around us, never mind love them. As ever, we need to hold before the Lord our various shortcomings and to pray for his mercy and help. And yet I believe that there are signs of hope. During the House Eucharists this Lent I heard many people talking about their favourite hymns. Sometimes through this process small, and even not so small, pieces of spiritual treasure were given and received. Some sharing of our spiritual goods started to take place and this is very significant. I hope that we will find more opportunities for this through Fan the Flame so that we san start to build up the bonds of mutual love between us.
I believe that this is very important. It is important for us as church as we think about Going for Growth. Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” So mutual love among Christians is central to our witness to other people. It is central to our mission. It is central to our aspirations for church growth.
But the New Commandment is also important in forming us into good citizens of heaven. It seems to me that we cannot think our place in heaven as something that is ours by right, or something that we own. Rather it is a gift that we are given, that we must be humble enough to receive and ready to share with others. I suspect that Jesus wants us to live the New Commandment in the church so that we can be well trained and ready to live the life of heaven when we get there.
So as we contemplate the awesome mysteries of the Triduum. As we mediate on Christ who gives himself for us completely even to the point of death, let us pray that the Lord will help us to love one another, to serve one another and to grow into the ways of the New Commandment. Amen.

Starting Holy Week

Thought for the Parish Pewslip 19th March 2008 - Palm Sunday - Year A
Readings: Liturgy of Palms: Matt 21:1-11
Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a and Matt 27:11-54


Today marks the start of Holy Week. We have a procession with palm branches and palm crosses as we remember Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem where the crowds shout “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” But over a few short days the mood changes completely. When read the story of the passion we hear the crowds cry out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” It is a solemn reminder of how fickle human beings can be. We can hold up before God’s great mercy our own shallowness and our own lack of faithfulness in following our Lord.
Our church services in Holy Week help us to follow with Jesus as he journeys through his passion and death to his glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. These liturgies help us to write the pattern of Christ’s death and resurrection into our own hearts so that our own daily lives can start to reflect this pattern. Walking with Christ through his passion and death gives us confidence that we will also share with him in his resurrection life. And so we hope that many, many people will attend the Holy Week services and join with us as we walk with Christ through these most holy hours.

Christ, the resurrection and the life

Preached at St Alphege Church on Sunday 9th March 2008 at 9.15am Eucharist
Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A

Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14 Romans 8:6-11 John 11:1-45
(Shortened sermon to compensate for long readings)


[The fifth Sunday in Lent is often known as Passion Sunday. It marks the point where Jesus resolves to return to Jerusalem, despite the fact that he knows that many people in Jerusalem are out to kill him.
So from today our crosses and statues in church are all covered up, and our liturgies start to build towards the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Next week we have Palm Sunday, when we remember Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Then we are into Holy Week which culminates in the all important Triduum; the three days from the evening of Maundy Thursday to the evening of Easter Sunday. In the liturgies that we celebrate on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and on the evening before Easter Sunday we follow Christ’s progress through his passion and death to his glorious resurrection. The liturgies help us to write the pattern of Christ’s death and resurrection into our own hearts and to reflect it in our own lives. They are among the most important liturgies in the Church’s year and we hope that you will all try to attend those services and walk with us as we follow Christ through those most holy hours.]

Passion Sunday has a very solemn feel, and it might therefore be surprising that our readings today are all about resurrection and new life.
First of all we had the reading from Ezekiel, where Ezekiel witnesses the whole tribe of Israel rise into new life, from having been simply dry bones scattered round a valley.
Then, from his letter to the Romans, we heard St Paul explain that life and peace come from setting our mind on God, on God’s Holy Spirit. We know that one day our mortal bodies will die, and we can’t do anything about that. But if the Spirit of God dwells in us, if we share in the Spirit of Christ, then, even though our bodies will die, we will continue to have life in the Spirit. And because of this we can have hope, we can even have hope for our bodies. Just as God raised Christ’s body from the dead, so at the second coming of Christ, we too will experience the resurrection of our bodies through the Spirit of God in which we share.
Finally in our gospel reading we heard the story of Lazarus being brought back from the dead. In this story Jesus reveals himself to be the resurrection and the life, and so we can have hope in him.
And this explains why Jesus was able to turn toward Jerusalem and make his way back to Judea, even though he knew that people there wanted to kill him. Jesus knew that he was walking towards his passion and death and he was able to do this because he was the resurrection and the life. The scribes and the Pharisees could do their worst, the devil could throw everything at him, they could even put him death. But Jesus has life within himself. Ultimately he cannot be killed; ultimately he can only conquer death.
And this is supremely encouraging. As Christians we share in the life of Christ through the Spirit. We seek to make that life grow within us always. We can do this by growing in love for God and in love for our brothers and sisters. We can make the life of Christ in us grow by nurturing ourselves on God’s word in the bible, and by receiving Holy Communion. And as we share more deeply in the life of Christ, we come to trust in it more and more. Little by little we realise that all earthly things pass away. Whatever we have to lose or give up to follow Christ, it is worth it, because Christ always gives us more. And the life he shares with us is eternal life and its value is completely beyond measure.
I would like finish by reflecting briefly on the witness given to new life in Christ by persecuted Christians from around the world. Sadly there are still many places where Christians suffer discrimination or outright persecution as they seek to follow Christ. Why do they continue to follow Christ in such circumstances? Well who can say? But it seems that they somehow realise that the life that they have in Christ is of great value, and worth suffering for. This is extraordinary. There is an organisation called Christian Solidarity Worldwide who publish a magazine about persecuted Christians. It can be very inspiring to read their stories and to find out about churches and their situations. It is very humbling to read about the Church in China where there are many persecutions and trials, but where the Church is thriving and growing rapidly. As you leave church this morning you will be offered a free copy of the Response magazine; they are always available at the back of church, and Richard Chillcott is our contact. Do take a magazine away with you, read it and offer prayers for the persecuted church. But whether or not you get a magazine, let’s all show our solidarity with the persecuted church by placing our trust not in earthly things, but in Christ who is the resurrection and the life.

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.

Transfiguration

Preached at St Alphege Church on Sunday 17th February 2008 at 11am Eucharist
Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a Romans 4:1-5,13-17 Matthew 17:1-9



Perhaps you are familiar with J K Rowling’ series of Harry Potter books? The books are primarily set in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At the school one of the first subjects that a new student is likely to encounter is called Transfiguration. Transfiguration is magic that changes something into something else. Professor McGonagall demonstrates transfiguration by changing her desk into a pig. In their first lesson the students are asked to change a matchstick into a needle.
And so it is that for a whole generation of children, and probably many adults too, the word “Transfiguration” conjures up images of witches and wizards, wands and incantations, which have absolutely nothing to do with the Transfiguration that we heard about in our gospel reading today!
As a child I remember hearing the Transfiguration story from the gospels. I remember thinking that the Transfiguration was just about the strangest story in the whole of the New Testament. Healing miracles I could understand. Bringing people back from the dead was easy to imagine, but the Transfiguration was very hard to picture. It was very hard to imagine what happened, why it happened and why it was necessary.
The story starts as Jesus leads his three most trusted disciples up a high mountain. The scriptures do not tell us which mountain this was, but traditionally it has always been assumed to be Mount Tabor, to the west of the Sea of Galilee, not far from Nazareth. While they are on the mountain, the three disciples witness a most extra ordinary event. It is as though the disciples are briefly allowed to peer into some heavenly realm and see things that are not usually seen from earth. Important things about Jesus are revealed to them.
First of all the disciples see Jesus’ face start to shine like the sun and his clothes turn to a dazzling white. This hints at the divinity of Christ, or at least of his closeness to God. Then the disciples see Moses and Elijah alongside Jesus and talking to Jesus. Moses and Elijah are the two most important prophets in Judaism, so their appearance alongside Jesus emphasises the importance of Jesus, and his relevance to the Jewish tradition. Mark’s account of the transfiguration emphasises that the disciples were overcome by fear. Luke’s account has them overcome with sleep, but in both those accounts Peter hardly knows what he is saying as he offers to build shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah.
Then suddenly a bright cloud envelops them and a voice says, “This is my Son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” This is the voice of God, and a clear affirmation that Jesus is the Son of God.
Then suddenly it is all over. The cloud has gone, Moses and Elijah are gone. It seems that Jesus look like a normal human being once again. He helps the disciples to get up and tells them not to be afraid. He also tells them not to discuss this incident until after the resurrection.
The Transfiguration is very strange, but it clearly tells us some important things about Jesus.
But there are also some aspects of the Transfiguration story that make us think about the very start of Jesus’ public ministry; the moment when Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist in the River Jordon. The most powerful link is the voice from heaven that proclaims “This is my Son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased.” This is almost exactly what is said by the voice from heaven at the Baptism of Christ. But there are other links too. If we had read a few verses further in Matthew’s gospel this morning we would have heard Jesus explaining that John the Baptist has the role of Elijah, the prophet who comes before the Messiah. So Elijah’s presence at the transfiguration can be compared to John the Baptists presence at the Baptism. Moses was present at the Transfiguration. He was not present at the baptism, although passing to new life through the waters of baptism always reminds us of Moses leading the Israelites through the waters of the Red Sea.
There are also things about the Transfiguration that make us think about the very last moments of Jesus’ ministry on earth; the Ascension. The account of the Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles (acts 1) is also set on a mountain; Mount Olivet, near Jerusalem. Jesus is hidden by a cloud and two men in white robes appear to the disciples and talk to them.
So the Transfiguration reminds us of the Baptism of Christ at the start of his ministry and it reminds us of the Ascension at the end of his ministry. It also reminds us of the Most Holy Trinity. God the Father speaks, God the Son, Jesus, is transfigured and God the Holy Spirit is often associated with the bright cloud that envelops them all.
And it seems to me that it is very helpful for us to have this image of Jesus in Glory and to keep this image before us. As Christians we are on a journey towards heaven. We aspire to eternal life, and this life is in Jesus (1John 5:11, 2Timothy1:1). We aspire to share in the holiness of God (Hebrews 12:10), to share in the glory of Jesus (2 Thessalonians 2:15, Romans 8:17) and we don’t necessarily really know what this means or what the experience might be like. And perhaps the Transfiguration starts to give us a glimpse of what it might be like to live in heaven, to dwell permanently close to Jesus with his face shining like the sun and with his clothes dazzlingly white. The disciples seem to have found this experience completely overpowering. Probably there is part of us that wants nothing more than this, that longs for it and waits for it. A yet probably there is also a part of us that finds the idea very exposing, very exhausting, very threatening. We all have our saintly tendencies that rejoice in the presence of Christ, and will all have our sinful tendencies which want to turn from Christ and to hide in the dark. The Transfiguration reminds us that we need to develop and practice and grow in our saintly tendencies that are of Christ, and that rejoice in the presence of Christ and that want to bring us to Christ. Similarly it reminds us that our sinful tendencies have to be left behind. We have to be ready to lose them and to let them die and wither away. We know that it is the pure of heart who will see God. Our impurities might be very hard to live with in the intense light of the glory of Christ.
This is what Lent is about. It is about reminding ourselves anew that we must turn from sin and to follow Christ. This means following in the commandments of Christ and seeking always to grow in love for God and grow in love for our neighbour. Of course we can only do this by the grace of God, but we can pray for that grace and we can make sure that we make the best possible use of the grace that God gives us. Growing in love means living according to our saintly tendencies, it means be generous to others, serving others and wanting their good. It means forsaking our tendencies towards greed and selfishness; our desires to reject, dominate or manipulate others.
So let’s choose to always live in our “saint” so that our saint can grow and develop and come to maturity. Let’s be ready to let our “sinner” wither away, because we know that when we come to encounter Christ in his glory, our “saint” will rejoice to share in the life of heaven, but our “sinner” will find it quite impossible.

Funeral Homily - Abide with me

Preached at Robin Hood Crematorium 1pm on Tuesday 12/02/08.

Reading John 6: 52-59

In a few moments we will be signing ????’s favourite hymn, “Abide with me” and it seems to me that this is a particularly appropriate hymn for her funeral. The words of the first two verses in particular seem to express the sadness of life slowly ebbing away. The darkness deepens, the helpers fail, the comforts flee, joys grow dim, glories pass away and change and decay is all around. Perhaps this is a description of the last decades of ????'s life, as various difficulties became more and more pressing, taking their toll, and causing tremendous problems for friends and relatives. ????'s quality of life was reduced to a very low level until it finally fizzled out. And this might be very depressing.
And yet, paradoxically, "Abide with me" is a hymn of hope. The hymn is a prayer asking the Lord to aside with us, through all the suffering and decay of life slipping away. The hymn expresses a profound trust that through the cross of Jesus we can hope for a new life in heaven, beyond the gloom of our earthly death. “Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee”. It was precisely because of the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, that the new life and hope of his resurrection was revealed. And this is our Christian hope which even in these sceptical and agnostic times, we dare to sign about, dare to trust in.
And it seems to me that ????, in particular has grounds for hope. We know that she was deeply involved in the church community; we know that she was a regular communicant, sharing in the bread and wine of Holy Communion; sharing in Christ’s Body and blood. In the reading that we read a few minutes ago we heard Jesus’ promise that those who share in the body and blood of Jesus, share in his eternal life, he abides with them, and he will raise them up on the last day.
So let us give thanks for ????. Let’s us hold up before the Lord the many sufferings of her last years, both those endured by her and those endured by others. And let us trust in the promise of Jesus, that he will abide with her, and raise her up on the last day.

Funeral homily for Ash Wednesday

Preached at Robin Hood Crematorium Chapel, 1.30pm 6th February 2008: Ash Wednesday

Reading John 14:1-6

Now today is Ash Wednesday. It is the start of Lent, the 40 day period of penitence and fasting that prepares us for Easter. And Ash Wednesday is a very appropriate day for a funeral. One of the things we remember on Ash Wednesday is our dependence on God; as human beings we were created from dust and our human bodies return to dust and ashes and the end of our earthly lives. In church this morning we were marked with the sign of the cross on our foreheads with ash to remind us of our own mortality. Perhaps you can still see the cross of ash on my forehead. Now we have come to a funeral and this too is a poignant reminder of our mortality.
Being reminded that we will one day die can be quite unpleasant. It makes us question what we are about, what we value. Death can feel like a dark shadow looming somewhere over the horizon. Sometimes it is easier just to not think about it.
And yet the Christian Faith teaches us not to fear death. It teaches us that our true life comes from God, and that bodily death changes this life, it does not take it way. The essential part of us, our soul, survives death and goes to be with God. In the scripture reading that we heard just now Jesus was comforting his disciples before he died. He tells them that he goes to prepare a place for them, and that later him will come and take them to be with him so that they can be together. Jesus says this to his disciples, but the New Testament is very clear that we are all called to this shared life with Jesus in heaven. And this is a source of great hope. This allows us to hope that our relationships can survive death and can be restored and renewed in Jesus. It allows us to have hope for ???? and for his wife. It allows us to hope for ourselves when our own time comes.
And the scripture reading is very important because it also tells us how this hope can be realised. Thomas says the Jesus, “We do not know where you are going, how can we know the way,” and Jesus assures him that he, Jesus, is the way the life and the truth. So let’s look to Jesus and have hope. Let’s bury ???? in confidence that we will see him again after our own death. Let’s base our life on the life of Jesus; the life that is more powerful than death.

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.

Confession for a Unity Service

Prayer of confession used at the Unity Service for Churches Together in Central Solihull on 20th January 2008, 6.30pm at Solihull Methodist Church.



Most Holy Trinity, you show us the perfect example of unity and diversity, yet we know that the church is divided and there are many failings in our unity and communion.

We confess that we fail to live by your commandments. Help us to follow the commandments of Jesus, so that we can live in him and he in us (c.f. 1 John 3:24).
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy

We confess that our hearts are often too small to love people very different from us. Help us to grow in love, so that we can love everyone, as Jesus does.
Christ have mercy
Christ have mercy

We confess that we are far from united. Help us to be one, as Jesus and the father are one. May we be so completely one, that the world will believe that Jesus was sent by the Father. (c.f. John 17:20-23)
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy

May Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, forgive us our sins and draw us towards the unity that He desires for His church.

The Lamb of God

Preached at St Alphege Church on Sunday 20th January 2008 at 8am Eucharist
Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 John 1: 29-42

In today’s Gospel we hear John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus. He says, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John the Baptist explains that Jesus is the one for whom he has been preparing the way. He testifies that, “I saw the spirit descending from heaven, like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. The next day he sees Jesus again and says again, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.”
So John is as clear as he can be that Jesus is the Son of God, the one on whom the Holy Spirit rests, the one for whom John has been preparing the people. He also twice calls Jesus “Lamb of God”.
The “Lamb of God”. It is a rather strange title, but one that we use a lot. In this service we have already used the phrase once in the Gloria. We will repeat it three times when we say the Agnus Dei after the breaking of the bread, and I shall repeat it again at the invitation to communion. (Agnus Dei is of course Latin for Lamb of God).
When John the Baptist says, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” it is likely that he is thinking of the sin offerings stipulated in the Law of Moses. It is fascinating to read in the book of Leviticus (chapters 4 and 5) the procedures for sin offerings. If a member of the community sinned then that person had to bring a lamb to the priest. It had to be a good lamb, without blemish and valuable. The lamb would be slaughtered and the priest would take some of the blood on his finger and mark it on special parts of the altar. The rest of the blood would be poured out at the foot of the altar. The priest would cut off the fat from the lamb and burn it on the altar. Through this ceremony the person was forgiven their sins and their relationship with God and the community was restored.
Animal sacrifices now seem a very antiquated idea both for Jews and for Christians, but the idea of sacrifice is still very relevant. Christianity is founded on the sacrifice that Christ made for us on the cross. When we celebrate the Eucharist we make a memorial of that sacrifice, which helps us to receive its benefits, even today. St Augustine defined a sacrifice as “any action which is designed to unite us to God.” “Any action which is designed to unite us with God.” I find this an astonishing definition and I spend a lot of time pondering it.
“Any action which is designed to unite us with God.” This means that, according to St Augustine, our coming to church can be a sacrifice. Saying our prayers can be a sacrifice. Reading the bible can be a sacrifice. Anything we do with the intention of drawing closer to God is a sacrifice. And this can include so many things. In fact, in any present moment of our lives, if we seek to do well what God wants from us in that moment then we can draw closer to God in that moment; we can live that moment as a sacrifice. It might be sweeping the floor. It might be typing on the computer. It might be listening to someone. It might be helping someone. It might be resting or playing or catching up with the family. All these things, if they are done in accordance with what God wants, and done for love of God, all these things can draw us closer to God, all these things can be a sacrifice.
And there is a sense in which they are a sacrifice, because there is always cost involved. In the Old Testament sacrifices it was the cost of the lamb. In fact the regulations in Leviticus had a special provision for people who could not afford a lamb. They were to offer two doves or young pigeons instead. But even today our drawing closer to God has a cost. Coming to church costs us part of our Sunday morning. Saying our prayers costs us time and energy and requires discipline. The same is true of reading the bible. Following what God wants from us in each present moment also has a cost. We have to focus on doing that thing properly and well, for love of God, be it sweeping the floor, typing on the computer or listening to someone or helping someone. Certainly there can be a big cost involved in loving our neighbour, especially when it is someone we do not instinctively like. We have to be attentive to our neighbours needs, being prepared to put aside our own agenda.
So, as we reflect on Jesus, the Lamb of God, let us give thanks for his sacrifice on the cross, that drew humanity closer to God. Let us give thanks for the Eucharist which draws us closer to God each time we share in it. Let’s try to draw closer to God in each present moment of our lives, by seeking to do well what God wants from us in that moment. And let’s not be surprised if there is a cost or an effort involved. We can think of that as our own very small contribution to lay alongside the big sacrifice made by the Lamb of God.

The meaning of "Epiphany"

Preached at St Alphege Solihull at the 9.15am Parish Eucharist
Sunday 6th January 2008 – Year A
Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6 Ephesians 3:1-12 Matthew 2:1-12

One of the Christmas presents received in our family this year was the Simpson’s movie on DVD. A few days after Christmas we sat down as a family and watched it together. Now I am great fan of the Simpson cartoons and I enjoyed the film. But I was particularly interested because in the middle of the film there is a discussion about the word “Epiphany”. By this point in the film Homer has reached rock bottom; he almost dies a lonely death in the snow and ice of a remote corner of Alaska. Then, inexplicably, he is saved by an old wise native American, mother figure. She tells him that she is going to make him have “an Epiphany”. “An Epiphany!” Homer asks, “What’s that?” “Sudden realisation of great truth,” she tells him. Well Homer is rather pig headed, and his Epiphany is some time in coming. But, eventually he realises that he has to stop thinking about himself and start helping his family and his home town. It is the turning point of the film; from that moment things slowly start to get better again, until, by the end of the film, as always happens in Simpson’s cartoons, everything has been restored to its proper state.
So, according to the Simpson’s movie, Epiphany means a “Suddenly realisation of great truth.” Apparently James Joyce also uses the word Epiphany in this way in his short stories about Dubliners. And I wonder about it. Is this really what Epiphany is all about?
We normally say that word Epiphany comes from the Greek word epiphania, which means "manifestation," or “appearance”. In the Church we associate the Epiphany with the key moments when Jesus was shown to the world. Today, on the feast of the Epiphany itself, we think of the moment when the baby Jesus was shown to the wise men from the East. After the service you might like to take a moment to look at our crib scene in St Thomas’s chapel. If you do, you will see that the shepherds have now left and the wise men have arrived and are offering their gifts to the Holy Family. And certainly this is a moment of “showing” a moment of “manifestation”. The wise men encounter Jesus. They respond by paying homage and by offering gifts. But is this, I wonder, a “Sudden realisation of great truth”?
If Epiphany is the “sudden realisation of great truth”, what is the great truth that is being realised here. Did the wise men recognise Jesus as the son of God, as the Messiah? Well we don’t know quite what they understood, we are not told. But they clearly understood that Jesus was important, worthy of homage, and worthy of the most valuable gifts. And perhaps the gifts tell us something of what they understood. Gold is a gift for a king. Frankincense is a gift for a priest, because it’s used in incense. Myrrh is a gift for one who dies. It is the bitter resin used in embalming and in incense for funerals. So the gifts suggest that the wise men had indeed understood some profound truths about Jesus.
But in the end, it does seem to me, that Epiphany is more about the “manifestation” or “appearance” of the baby Jesus on earth. It is about being shown Jesus and it is about showing Jesus to others. The encounter with Jesus does bring about many great things. It might bring about the sudden realisation of great truth, but in the gospel stories meeting Jesus more commonly brings about healing or joy, reconciliation or forgiveness, new life or new understanding.
So in Epiphany tide it is good for us to ponder “How is Jesus shown to us” and “How do we show Jesus to others.” And in this parish, this very much what our Going for Growth programme is about. Through Going for Growth we hope to grow in our own personal encounter with Jesus, and also to help others to encounter Jesus, so that the church can grow. The next big step in our Going for Growth programme is called Fan the Flame. In a few weeks time we will be inviting you all to take part in Fan the Flame, which will happen on five successive Thursdays, starting on 10th April. Each of the five Fan the Flame events focuses on a different aspect of our Faith, with some teaching and reflection. There will also be lots of music in a “Songs of Praise” format.
As we prepare for the Fan the Flame event we would like to invite every member of the congregations to attend a House Eucharist during Lent 2008. The House Eucharists will give us the opportunity to share in the Eucharist together in a more homely and informal environment. The priest will lead a short reflection during the Eucharist. Afterwards, depending on host, we might have tea and coffee and a discussion about favourite hymns, and this will help us to prepare for the Songs of Praise aspect of Fan the Flame.
Lent comes very early this year. Ash Wednesday is exactly a month away, so now is the right time to start thinking about these House Eucharists during Lent. As you leave church today you will be given a leaflet all about the House Eucharists, so please do take those away and read them and think about how you might like to be involved. In particular you might like to think about hosting one of the House Eucharists. It is a wonderful thing to have the Eucharist celebrated in your home. It is a wonderful opportunity to welcome Jesus into your home; in the scripture readings, in the sacrament, in the people who come (Matt 25: 40) and in the midst of the people gathered in his name (Matt 18:20).
So during this Epiphany tide let’s think about how we encounter Jesus and how we show Jesus to others. And let’s start to think in particular about how we can do this through the House Eucharists and through Fan the Flame. Amen

The journey of faith

Magazine article for Solihull Parish News
January 2008 Edition, written for the "Faith Matters" section.

It is often helpful to think of our Christian life as a journey. It is a journey that starts on earth and takes us to heaven. For this reason we might call it a Journey of Faith or a Holy Journey.
Our journey towards heaven, towards God, is a journey that we make step by step in each present moment of our lives. Each present moment of our lives is an opportunity to draw closer to God, by seeking to do well what God asks from us in that moment. Perhaps in this present moment God asks us to drop a child of at school? If so then let’s drive well to school as an act of love for God and for the child. Perhaps in this moment God asks us to pray? If so then let’s find a quiet place and pray well, so that our relationship with God can be strengthened.
Each present moment that we live well is a small step on our journey towards God. As we practice we get better at living each present moment well, and over time the effect of all these small steps really adds up. Did you know that walking 10 miles a day for seven years is equivalent to walking round the full circumference of the earth?
It is helpful to think of our lives in this way because we start to see everything that happens to us, the good things and the bad, the happy and the sad, as part of our journey towards God. And this gives meaning to everything; everything starts to have value. Even our sufferings become an opportunity to grow in love for Christ who suffered and died for us on the cross.
Despite this we all know that it can be very hard to make a good journey of faith. Often hours or even days might go by without us even thinking about God. It is all too easy to lose lots of time pursuing our own agenda and not being properly attentive to what God wants from us.
The bible is a key resource for our journey. The bible tells us about Jesus, who is the “way” for our journey (John 14:6) and the example we should follow (John 13:15, 1 Cor 11.1, 1 Peter 2:21). He also our teacher (Matt 23:10) and our friend for the journey who is always with us (Matt 28:20).
Our worship in church also helps us on our journey. When we receive Holy Communion we receive Jesus, present in the bread and wine, inside us. Through Holy Communion Jesus shares his life with us, nourishing us, strengthening us and renewing our orientation for our journey.
As we travel on our journey of faith we go through many different phases. There are periods of excitement and discovery, periods where we have to work on our discipline and consistency, periods of great grace when God seems very present, and periods of desolation where God seems absent and we have to really search for him.
It is very helpful to talk about our faith journey we others. This is one of the huge advantages of house groups or courses like Just Explore or 3D. Simple discussion about what is easy or hard in our faith can really clarify things for us. Also, as we journey on, we become more aware of how our own journey of faith is related to the journeys of the people around us. Helping others and being helped by others becomes an important part of the journey.

Footnote about St Alphege Bookstall and New City books
I am delighted that the St Alphege bookstall has a new arrangement with New City publishers that allows it to stock a wider range of books. Most of the New City books that have been selected for the St Alphege bookstall are books designed to help people on their journey of faith.
Some of these books are collections of meditations or short reflections on different spiritual topics. These are intended to be used for five or ten minutes for quiet reflection each day, ideally in the morning. We read the meditation slowly perhaps two or three times and then we pause to reflect on it for a few minutes, so that it can start to enter into us, body, mind and spirit.
There are also books about particular saints. These too can be read in short chunks and reflected upon. New City books usually present saints to us in ways that help us to see their relevance for our lives today.
When we first start to read about the saints or look at books of meditations it can feel like we are entering a different world. The attitudes and assumptions of the writers and the way that they use language can feel very foreign to us. It is like we are rich Western tourists with cameras looking round a market town in rural India; lots of things seem to be happening, but it seems very confused and it is certainly a very different world from our own. And yet the attitude of the saints is the attitude of heaven. It may feel a very different world, but it is a world we most definitely aspire to become part of. Spending time reading about these things and pondering them can help us on our journey into that most holy and wonderful place.
I commend the books to you – Fr Gerard.

Saved by the presence of God

Thought for the parish pew slip - Sunday 30th December 2007
Christmas 1 - Year A

Readings: Isaiah 63:7-9 Hebrews 2:1-18 Matthew 2:13-23


In the Christmas season we reflect on the deep mystery of God present among us as a fellow human being. Today’s readings highlight the power of that presence of God to save us.
In our reading from Isaiah the prophet recalls God’s goodness and faithfulness to the people of Israel. He emphasises that it was not an angel or messenger that saved Israel, but rather it was the presence of God.
Our reading from Hebrews reminds us that Jesus shares so completely in our human experience that he thinks of us as brothers and sisters. Jesus shares with us the experience of having human flesh and blood. He shares with us the experience of suffering. Through his sufferings and death he conquers death for us.
In our gospel reading we hear about some of the sufferings that affected the Holy Family when Jesus was very young. The family fled to Egypt as refugees to avoid Herod’s murder of children. Later they returned, but then struggled to find a safe place to settle.
At the Eucharist we encounter the presence of God in word and sacrament. Let’s count on the power of that presence to save us, remembering that Jesus saves us through sufferings more than from sufferings. – Fr Gerard

Being like Mary, so that Jesus can grow

Preached at St Alphege, Solihull at 9.15am Eucharist on Christmas Day 2007
25/12/07 - Year A
Informal sermon at all-age worship, with drawing activity for children.

Readings: Titus 3:4-7 Luke 2:8-20

I would like to invite all the children to come to the front.
Now, I wonder if anyone has a Christmas present that they would like to show everybody? [We look at presents]
Tell me, what is the most exciting thing when you receive a present?
[Unwrapping it]
Well there is a big box here that needs unwrapping! Now I don’t want you to get two excited, this is not really a Christmas present. What does it say on the label?
[Activity for Christmas morning]
So its not really a present, it is an activity for this morning. So who is going to take the lid of? What can you see?
[Drawing materials]
So this is our activity for the younger ones this morning. It might be more interesting than listening to the sermon! I would like to invite each of you to draw a picture of Jesus as a child. And draw him at the age that you are now. So if you are four years old now, draw a picture of Jesus aged four, and if you’re six years old now draw Jesus, when he was six. And if you’re a baby, get your parent to help you to draw a picture of Jesus as a baby.
So does everybody know what they are doing? Right well while you are carrying on with that drawing the rest of us can carry on thinking about Christmas.

Christmas is such a wonderful event, because God came into the world as a human being. God shared our human life with us, and he transformed our human lives, bringing light and hope and peace for the whole world.
So let’s pause for a moment and think about how this wonderful event came about. What made it happen? Well it was God who made it happen. People didn’t really have to do anything. The shepherds were jus sat on the hill as usual, and suddenly they were told that God had already done this great thing. People didn’t do it; God did it.
But there was at least one person who had to do something, and that was Mary. What did Mary have to do?
Well she had to agree to co-operate with God’s will. When the angel Gabriel told her that she was to have a baby, she said, “Be it unto me according to thy word”.
She also had to trust God. It was a risky business betting pregnant without being married. She had to trust in God’s plan for her; trust that God would take care of her.
She accepted Jesus inside her; loved him and helped him to grow. Then after he was born she fed him and nurtured him continued to help him to grow. And because of this wonderful things happened. Jesus grew up among us and lived his life for us, and died for us and reconciled us to God.

So how are the drawings doing? We have got about another minute, so you need to be finishing off now.

Now I want to suggest is that we too, are called to be a bit like Mary. We are called to accept Jesus inside us and help him to grow. Not so much physically, but spiritually, so that we can grow to become like Christ. St Paul prays that we might all grow up into him who is the head, into Christ, into the full stature of Christ. (c.f. Eph 4:13-15).
Now it is God who makes Christ grow in us. It is not something that we can do ourselves. But if we behave like Mary then we allow God to do this work, without getting in the way.
So like Mary we are called to follow God’s will for us; to say with Mary “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
Like Mary we have to trust God. Sometimes God’s ways seem very strange, frightening even but it is important for us to trust God to bring about his work in us.
Like Mary we need to welcome Jesus, feed him and help him to grow. We can welcome Jesus by loving him in the people around us; we know Jesus is present in each person. We can nurture Jesus within us by listening to his word and by receiving his sacraments. This is how we make Jesus grow spiritually in us.

Now let’s have a look at these pictures of Jesus. Can we line them up so that we have the youngest Jesus at this end and the oldest one at that end. So then as we look along the line we see Jesus growing. So here at this end Jesus is just a baby. Let’s hold the pictures up high. How old is Jesus here? So slowly we can see Jesus growing to maturity. And at this end he is really very mature and the pictures are getting very good! So here before us is the pattern for our lives; Jesus growing. Let’s live our lives like Mary so that God will make Jesus grow within us. Amen.

Doubt and John the Baptist

Sermon preached at SS Mary and Bartholomew, Hampton-in-Arden, West Midlands at the 10.30am Eucharist, 16/12/07 Advent 3, Year A
(A shorter version of this sermon was also preached at the 8am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull, also on 16/12/07)

Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10 (James 5:7-10) Matthew 11:2-11

As we travel along on our Christian journey towards heaven we pass through many different stages and many different experiences. There are happy times and sad times; times when we experience great understanding and clarity, and times when all is confusion and doubt. We know that God, in his great love, can and does use all of these many different experiences to help us to draw nearer to him. But we are only human, and we tend to be much more comfortable when it is all about happiness and clarity, and we are far less comfortable when it is all about sadness and doubt.
In our gospel reading today we hear about John the Baptist, and it would seem that while he is locked up in prison he is experiencing a very painful period of darkness and doubt.
Let’s just remember that a few months earlier John the Baptist had really taken the people of Israel by storm. As we heard in last week’s gospel reading, John’s ministry had been very high profile. He had gone into the wilderness of Judea preaching all the prophecies from Isaiah about the coming of the Messiah. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”. (Matt 3:3, Is 40:3) John’s key message was “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near”. And people had flocked to John in great numbers and many received from him the baptism of water for repentance.
So John had developed a huge following, but he had also witnessed wonderful moments of revelation about Jesus. On the second Sunday of epiphany will hear in our gospel reading Matthew’s account of the Baptism of Christ. We will hear how at that moment John recognises Jesus for who he is. John is initially reluctant to baptise Jesus, but when he final does baptise him he sees the Spirit of God descending like a dove onto Jesus and he hears a great voice saying, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). At this point John is very sure about who Jesus. In chapter one of John’s gospel we hear John testifying about Jesus. John twice calls Jesus the Lamb of God. He explains that the decent of the Holy Spirit as a dove was for him a direct confirmation from God that Jesus was son of God. John had the clearest and most wonderful understanding of Jesus, and he shared this freely with the people around him, just as God had intended.
So we know that John was a very great man. And yet John’s great following soon started to fade. People began going to Jesus for baptism rather than to John. John’s comment on this, recorded in John's gospel, was that, “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). And indeed it seems that John’s fortunes did start to dip quite dramatically. We know that Herod put John in prison, and it seems that while he is in prison and he starts to suffer all kinds of doubts and fears about who Jesus really was. Eventually he becomes so unsure that he sends his own disciples to ask Jesus if Jesus is the one who is to come, or if they should look for another.
To me it seems extraordinary that John the Baptist, the man above all others who bore witness to Christ, should himself start to suffer doubts like these while he his locked away in prison. And off course we know that it does not get any better for John. He never gets out of prison. Eventually, because of the king’s frivolous promise at a drunken party, John is beheaded.

[And the answer that Jesus gives to the disciples of John the Baptist seems not quite as clear as it might be. He says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.” (Matt 11:5). This is a reference to prophesies about the messiah like the one that we read today in Isaiah. Isaiah said, “For then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (Is 35:3-4).
All these things were already very manifest, and were probably already known to John, so it is not clear that this would have helped him very much. I wonder if perhaps John was passing through a very dark moment in his own spiritual journey. We know that God often allows such moments, especially in the lives of his saints, so that the saints can lose their own ego completely and learn to trust entirely in God.]

It is interesting that Jesus waits for John’s disciples to go away before he makes his big speech of affirmation about John. In the big speech Jesus confirms that John is the one of whom it was written “I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you”. Jesus affirms that “among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Matt 11:11). If we had read further in our gospel reading we would have heard Jesus say that John is the Elijah who, in the very last sentences of the Old Testament, is promised to come before the messiah. John the Baptist’s disciples had already left when Jesus said all this, but it might have been very comforting to John if he had heard it.
So when we suffer doubts and uncertainties we can take heart that we are in very good company. Even John the Baptist, the very person who announced the coming of Jesus, had these problems. We might wonder why God seems to allow such experiences. These are deep mysteries, but perhaps one reason is to teach us always to be ready to lose our own understanding of things and to trust completely in God. These moments of losing can be very painful and difficult, but we must never lose heart. John the Baptist became a very great saint. At the very moment that he was suffering from doubt, Jesus was teaching the world how great he was.