The prayer of transfiguration

Here's the sermon that I shared during today's Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford: 

The dictionary definition of transfiguration is: a change in form or appearance or an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change. Those aspects of transfiguration can be seen in our Gospel reading (Luke 9.28-36), but the story defines the word best.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, puts it like this: “There’s glory – the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. There’s the pattern of God’s story in Israel and the church, a story that finds its most poignant moments in the midst of suffering and exile. There’s the loving, tender, presence and heavenly voice of God the Father – a voice that for the only time in their lives, the disciples hear and understand. And there’s the extraordinary realisation that, even though all this could have gone on without them, the disciples have been caught up in the life of the Trinity, the mystery of salvation, the unfolding of God’s heart, the beauty of holiness.”

The way he describes it, transfiguration involves the glory of seeing a person or event in the bigger story of God’s loving purposes for the world. Up until this point, “the disciples know Jesus does plenty of amazing and wonderful things and says many beautiful and true things, but they still assume he’s basically the same as them.” It’s only as they go up the mountain with him that the veil slips and they’re invited in to a whole other world. A world in which “Jesus is completely at home,” “even when the Father’s voice thunders from above.” “And more remarkably still, it seems there’s a place for them in it, hanging out with the likes of Moses and Elijah. They’ve been given a glimpse of glory. It’s a glory that’s faithful to the story of Israel, a glory that has Jesus at the centre of it, a glory that has God speaking words of love, a glory that has a place for them in it, however stumbling and clumsy they are, and finally a glory in which Jesus touches them tenderly in their fear.“

Sam Wells suggests that this experience, this glimpse of glory, can shape the way we pray by giving our prayers the same extra dimension. In fact, he details three different ways to pray. The first involves Resurrection. “Resurrection prayer is a prayer calling for a miracle. It is prayer of faithful risk. We look to the heavens with tightened fist and say, ‘Sweet Jesus, if you’re alive, make your presence known!’”

The second way to pray is Incarnation. This is “a prayer of presence. It is, perhaps, more silent than a prayer of Resurrection. It is a prayer which recognizes that, yes, Jesus was raised, but that it happened through brokenness. Through Christ, God shares our pain and our frailty. So we pray acknowledging that God suffers with us.”

The third way to pray is Transfiguration. Sam writes, “God, in your son’s transfiguration we see a whole reality within and beneath and beyond what we thought we understood; in … times of bewilderment and confusion, show … father your glory, that [we] may find a deeper truth to … life than [we] ever knew, make firmer friends than [we] ever had, discover reasons for living beyond what [we’d] ever imagined, and be folded into your grace like never before.” “In other words, it is a prayer that, in whatever circumstance, asks God to reshape our reality, to give us a new and right spirit to trust that even in the midst of suffering and hardship, truth can still be experienced and shared.”

“On the mountain, the disciples discovered that Christ was part of a conversation with Israel and God and was dwelling in glory in a way that they had no idea of and could hardly grasp and yet it put everything on a different plane.”

As a result, the prayer of Transfiguration is a different kind of a prayer. “The prayer of resurrection has a certain defiance about it – in the face of what seem to be all the known facts, it calls on God to produce the goods and turn the situation round. It has courage and hope but there’s always that fear that it has a bit of fantasy as well. The prayer of incarnation is honest and unflinching about the present and the future, but you could say it’s a little too much swathed in tragedy … it’s so concerned to face … reality … that there’s always that fear that it’s never going to discover the glory of what lies above.”

The prayer of Transfiguration is different. “Not so much, ‘Fix this and take it off my desk!’ Nor even, ‘Be with me and share in my struggle, now and always.’ But something more like, ‘Make this trial and tragedy, this problem and pain, a glimpse of your glory, a window into your world, when I can see your face, sense the mystery in all things, and walk with angels and saints. Bring me closer to you in this crisis than I ever have been in calmer times. Make this a moment of truth, and when I cower in fear and feel alone, touch me, raise me, and make me alive like never before.’”

Maybe you would like to make the prayer of transfiguration your prayer for yourself at this time, “in the midst of whatever it is you’re wrestling with today.”

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John David - Closer To Thee.

ROCK OF AGES: JESUS IN POPULAR SONGS

Tonight's Unveiled evening at St Andrew's Wickford was on Jesus in popular songs. We listened to songs by Joan Osborne, Bob Dylan, Scott Stapp, Jackson Browne, Kendrick Lamar, and googly eyes, Joy Oladokun & Allison Ponthier:

Delvyn Case writes: 'From “Jesus, Take the Wheel” to “Jesus Walks” to “Dropkick Me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life”, Jesus has appeared in hundreds of songs by popular musicians over the past 50 years. No longer just a subject for hymn writers and gospel composers, Jesus now shows up in secular music by rock stars, rappers, singer-songwriters, country stars, and hardcore punks. And that’s just for starters.

For over 50 years, pop musicians in all genres have explored the meaning and significance of Jesus in their music. The result is a rich collection of songs that consider important spiritual questions like faith, doubt, and prayer in unique and often provocative ways. This evening explores some of those songs and what they have to say about Jesus.'

‘What If God Was One of Us?’ by Joan Osborne

“One of Us” is a song recorded by Joan Osborne released on November 21, 1995. It was written by Eric Bazilian (of the Hooters), produced by Rick Chertoff, and released as the lead single of Joan Osborne’s Relish album. It peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 and earned three Grammy nominations. It became a top-20 hit in at least twelve other countries. The song addresses various aspects of belief in God by asking a series of questions.

Several times during “One of Us,” the listener hears the haunting refrain “What if God was one of us?” The good news is that God was one of us. He came to be one of us. In Jesus, he became flesh, becoming human while remaining God.

Fred Herron writes, in a reflection on Osborne’s song: “Christians believe that God took on flesh and blood, or became human, in the person of Jesus. John’s gospel contains a fascinating verse, “So the Word [John adapting/applying Greek ideas of logos to Jesus] became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness” (John 1:14; NLT).

I have always been fascinated with this idea that God disguised himself in human form. He shows up in unexpected ways—born in a manger, born in transient housing, born to a poor Jewish Palestinian woman under the suspicion of illegitimacy. Then Jesus, in his ministry, upends religious purity culture by showing up and practicing radical love towards the sick, the poor, the outsider, the sinner, the prisoner, the prostitute, and the wayward—those whom religious people avoided for fear of contamination. Jesus showed up in unexpected ways with “unfailing love,” teaching that we encounter God “in the least of these” (Matthew 25:40).”

This is what we see in Osborne’s song:

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin’ to make his way home?

‘Sweetheart Like You’ by Bob Dylan

In ‘Sweetheart Like You’, from Bob Dylan’s 1983 album ‘Infidels’, we see a wonderfully contemporary depiction of Christ's incarnation. The song is written from the perspective of a misogynist male employee in an all-male workplace that is literally a hell of a place in which to work. To be in here requires the doing of some evil deed, having your own harem, playing till your lips bleed. There's only one step down from here and that's the ironically named 'land of permanent bliss.'

Into this perverted and prejudiced environment comes a woman, the sweetheart of the song's title. She is a Christ figure; a sinless figure entering into a world of sin and experiencing abuse and betrayal (is 'that first kiss' a Judas kiss?) from those she encounters and to whom she holds out the possibility of a different kind of existence. Dylan makes his equation of the woman with Christ explicit by quoting directly from Jesus: 'They say in your father's house, there's many mansions' (John 14: 2).

The song's narrator is confused and challenged by her appearance. He wants to dismiss her out of hand and back to his stereotypical role for her - 'You know, a woman like you should be at home / That's where you belong / Watching out for someone who loves you true / Who would never do you wrong' - but he can't simply dismiss her as she is really there in front of him and so he begins to wonder, 'What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this?' All the time he asks that question there is the possibility that he may respond to her presence without abuse or dismissal.

‘Jesus Was A Rock Star’ by Scott Stapp

David Flowers writes that Scott Stapp “is best known for being founder and frontman of the rock band Creed”: “Creed’s lyrics in their albums My Own Prison (’97) and Human Clay (’99) were reflective of Stapp’s Christian upbringing, but he admits that he lived in rebellion against God for many years. He says he rebelled against a certain “brand” of Christianity that didn’t look much like Jesus. Religious fundamentalism drove him to the edge. Stapp became addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, went through a divorce, and attempted suicide. It seemed he was on a course to join the 27 club. It was through the love and grace of his wife and mother-in-law that Stapp encountered a Christ that loves sinners. Scott Stapp repented of his sins and chose to walk the Jesus path.”

Stapp says of ‘Jesus Was A Rock Star’: “I think that song, again, has two different lines of thought with it. Number one, I'm not the rockstar, man. If you want to talk about who the rockstar is, it's Jesus. So, it's not about me, it's about Him. I wanted to just lay the case out there and be like, "Hey, let me tell you what a rockstar is." I just went right into it with laying the case for how that's who we should glorify. Not me. Then another line of thought in that song was that, [throughout] my whole life, I was told that the electric guitar was an instrument of the devil. And that, in being involved in rock'n'roll music, you couldn't be a Christian. You couldn't bring glory and honor to Christ and to God. So I had a conflict because of that spiritual abuse. I had a conflict that I really wrestled with my whole life because I had this hole in my soul that pulled me closer to God whenever I would play music-- and rock'n'roll music and electric guitar--but then I would feel this guilt and this shame and this condemnation because of how I was lied to and told that it was of the devil. I had this conflict, so I think in writing this song, too, it was to erase that conflict. That I CAN glorify Christ through a rock'n'roll song. I CAN be a Christian and a rock'n'roll singer. I CAN spread the message of Christ through rock'n'roll music. It was resolving that conflict within me. It was basically those two issues that inspired that song.”

‘The Rebel Jesus’ by Jackson Browne

Steve Stockman writes: “Rebel Jesus is a rarity in the Jackson Browne catalogue, hidden away on a The Chieftains' album ‘Bells Of Dublin’ and then as one of the … extra tracks on Browne's compilation album ‘The Next Voice You Hear’. It is however, as potent a Christmas song as you'll ever hear …

It indicts the dubious practices of those who claim to follow Jesus while seemingly contradicting his revolution. Browne uses the story of Christ over turning the tables in the temple to indict those who would abuse God’s Creation for selfish materialist wealth and throws in the “pride and gold” of Churches in the same verse!

In another verse the poor are ignored but might be thrown a token gesture in our Christmas generosity. The irony of the poor being ignored on Christmas Day when the baby celebrated was without a bed or food is the crux of the hypocrisy. How have we shut the door to the marginalised for a warm romanticised day of decadence is the question posed?

Browne then paraphrases Helder Camara’s quote, “If I feed the poor they call me a saint but if I ask why the poor are poor they call me a communist,” to powerful effect. If we decided to turn the world on its head by seeking social and economic justice for the oppressed we would get the same as The Rebel Jesus.”

‘How Much A Dollar Cost’ by Kendrick Lamarr

“How much a dollar really cost?” This question is the focal point of Kendrick Lamar’s song of the same name (give or take a word), “How Much a Dollar Cost” from his third studio album, ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’.

Manny Adewale writes: “this song is based on a true story from Kendrick’s travels to South Africa during his time working on To Pimp a Butterfly, where he interacted with a homeless man after being reluctant to. In each verse, Kendrick narrates a different part of this story, exploring the thoughts and feelings that come with the pursuit of money, as well as cost of desiring to hang on to it …

Kendrick thinks that he’s seen through this man’s request for help; he sees this man as nothing more than a junkie or an alcoholic who’s pretending to be wise. Kendrick admits to his lack of empathy and his insensitivity towards this man. The homeless man then tells Kendrick, “Your potential is bittersweet.” Earlier, this man told Kendrick that he had the chance to be a leader and help those around him, but he now sees that Kendrick’s potential is bittersweet because he’s refusing to let go of his selfishness, stubbornness, and pride. Kendrick refuses to listen again, and as the instrumentation and the production swells, we reach the climax of the song, where the homeless beggar reveals his identity:

He looked at me and said, “Know the truth, it’ll set you free
You’re lookin’ at the Messiah, the son of Jehovah, the higher power
The choir that spoke the word, the Holy Spirit
The nerve of Nazareth, and I’ll tell you just how much a dollar cost
The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss — I am God”

This part of the song is personally my favorite because this is the moment where everything comes to a point, and Kendrick has an epiphany. Again, as a kid who grew up in a Christian home, I always learned that it was good to treat everyone with kindness because you’d never know if you’d just come across an angel:

“Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!” — Hebrews 13:2

I also learned about how Jesus said that showing kindness to those in need was to do so to Him:

“‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’” — Matthew 25:40

For me, this is always a reminder that our choice to be kind and generous to others is an important demonstration of what we believe, and it’s our chance to recognize God in every person we cross paths with.

The line “The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss” is also very striking here. In that same chapter where Jesus thanks those who took care of those in need and rewards them, he turns away those who didn’t. My siblings and I always learned that our generosity and kindness towards other people would be part of how God prepared us to experience the good things He has in store for us, especially Heaven itself.”

‘Jesus and John Wayne’ by googly eyes, Joy Oladokun and Allison Ponthier

A review at Unheard Gems says: “Some songs arrive like lifelines—gently, honestly, and right when you need them. “Jesus and John Wayne” is one of those rare tracks. Born from the pages of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s explosive book of the same name, the song unpacks the painful intersection of faith, identity, and politics with striking vulnerability and nuance. googly eyes, Joy Oladokun, and Allison Ponthier bring their voices together to create something that feels at once intimate and monumental …

This song is more than just a collaboration—it’s an act of reclamation. It redefines what faith can sound like: inclusive, expansive, and rooted in love rather than exclusion …. It’s not afraid to confront the damage done by institutional religion, but it also holds space for healing, for community, and for the radical belief that love—true love—belongs to everyone.

For anyone navigating the complex layers of queerness, spirituality, and self-worth, this track offers comfort without compromise. It’s a hymn for the misfits, the doubters, and the believers still learning to believe in themselves again.”

The song begins:

I liked the teachings of Jesus so much that I followed him right out the door
When steeples kept preaching with hate on their tongues
And distaste for the meek, mild and poor

and concludes with this critique of those who preach hate:

Blessed are the war makers
Blessed are the black in heart
Blessed are the politicians
Blessed are the patriarchs
Blessed are the gold takers
Blessed skin like porcelain
Blessed is America, but only for Americans

And if I had to admit
Jesus wouldn't really fit
With everything you're trying to do with him

Delvyn Case writes that, intended for their fans rather than worshipers, these songs often present Jesus in unique and unorthodox ways, many of which challenge the ways we traditionally think about him. Whether written by believers or atheists, all of these songs seek – in their own unique ways - to answer the oldest questions in Christianity: who was Jesus, what did he mean, and why is he important?

Delvyn has a website called Rock of Ages which is a collection of songs about Jesus. He suggests that some songs treat Jesus exclusively as a human figure, shorn of any theological characteristics. Some depict him as a character in the narrative world of the song. In so doing they provide fascinating explorations of the distinctly human side of Jesus’s existence. These songs focus on Jesus as a Person.

In other songs, Jesus appears not as a human or a theological figure, but rather as a symbol - usually of an abstract idea or character trait. He is usually invoked as the ultimate signifier of whatever is being signified. Though the variety of attributes is quite broad, it is the view of Jesus as the ultimate symbol of power that is most common. These songs focus on Jesus as a Paragon.

His final category is Jesus as Presence in songs that reveal a complex or compelling engagement with the questions of Jesus’s meaning and/or significance.

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Scott Stapp - Jesus Was A Rock Star.

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour

I was moved by an Advent reflection this year which featured the hymn Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour, so for our Christmas morning reflection simply shared the story of that hymn and reflected on its meaning - https://reformationbiblecollege.org/blog/beyond-all-splendor-a-favorite-christmas-hymn.

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Keith and Kristen Getty - Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour.

Signs of the kingdom now and nearby

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

In our Gospel reading (Luke 21. 25-36), Jesus talks about signs that the kingdom of God is near which are not always seen or noticed.

There is a condition called presbyopia that relates to this. Presbyopia is when your eyes gradually lose the ability to see things clearly up close. It is a normal part of aging. In fact, the term “presbyopia” comes from a Greek word which means “old eye.” You may start to notice presbyopia shortly after age 40. You will probably find that you hold reading materials farther away in order to see them clearly.

What happens is that your clear lens sits inside the eye behind your coloured iris. It changes shape to focus light onto the retina so you can see. When you are young, the lens is soft and flexible, easily changing shape. This lets you focus on objects both close-up and far away. After age 40, the lens becomes more rigid. It cannot change shape as easily. This makes it harder to read, thread a needle, or do other close-up tasks.

There is no way to stop or reverse the normal aging process that causes presbyopia. However, presbyopia can be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses, medication, or surgery.

This condition means that we see things close up better when we see with the eyes of a child. Jesus spoke about our needing to become like little children in order to see the kingdom of God. A Catholic nun who was also an artist called Sister Corita Kent has described the way in which children look and learn:

“Ask [a] child to come from the front of the house to the back and closely observe her small journey. It will be full of pauses, circling, touching and picking up in order to smell, shake, taste, rub, and scrape. The child’s eyes won’t leave the ground, and every piece of paper, every scrap, every object along the path will be a new discovery.

It does not matter that his is all familiar territory – the same house, the same rug and chair. To the child, the journey of this particular day, with its special light and sound, has never been made before. So the child treats the situation with the open curiosity and attention that it deserves.

The child is quite right.”

The central premise of this parable — that the kingdom is near, now — is a promise that the church needs to here regularly. Watch for the signs, Jesus says, and you will see that your redemption is drawing near, and indeed is already near.

"The Greek word here is engizo, a verb which expresses the immanence, the “coming nearness” of someone or something." So, here, "in this unusual parable and its visualization of this vital New Testament idea of “nearness,” we find the imperative of the gospel, its life-giving assurance — the Kingdom is not far off; it is not waiting; it is not an undiscovered country; it is right here in Jesus, the Son of Man, and in his proclamation. This is the good news: the kingdom of heaven has come near."

So, what is it that we’re missing, what is it that is close by, near to us, that we’re overlooking? Luke has already answered that question for us near the beginning of his Gospel. In Luke 4, we read of Jesus going to the synagogue in Nazareth, being given the scroll, reading words from Isaiah, then sitting down and saying ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

The words he read are his manifesto and the signs that the kingdom of God is near:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

So whenever and wherever we see good news brought to the poor, release proclaimed for captive, recovery of sight for those who are blind and freedom brought to those who are oppressed then we are seeing the kingdom of God coming near.

That is what we are to look out for. That is what can often be seen nearby but which is missed when we, as the Church so often has done, look for the coming kingdom in the far distant future instead of the here and now.

'The kingdom is directly related to Jesus himself. The king is present with us, so the kingdom is near.' 'In Jesus, God was beginning to reign on earth in a new way, in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. Under God’s sovereign authority, righteousness will triumph over injustice and multifaceted peace will fill the earth.

Through Christ, you and I can live today under the reign of God today, however incompletely. When we seek God’s agenda for our lives, when we live for his purposes and glory, when we bow before him in worship, we are experiencing the kingdom of God, in anticipation of that day when all the earth will flourish under the glorious reign of God.'

'God's kingdom is all around you. There's nowhere you go that God doesn't reign. You either choose to recognize the truthfulness of that and live accordingly, or you choose to live in rebellion, rejecting the truth. If you choose the latter, you will find that your life doesn't go quite the way God intended. We're meant to recognize that the reign of God is all around us and to live accordingly.'

As we have seen, 'the knowledge that God's kingdom is all around us is not meant to lead us to ignore the world, saying, "None of the problems in the world really matter, because I live in the kingdom of God." Instead, it's meant to compel us to try to help this world look more like the kingdom of God. We live in rebellion, and the world lives in rebellion, so we see a lot of things in our world that are broken and reflective of our brokenness. But we pray: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."' In teaching us to pray this prayer, Jesus is encouraging us to see with the eyes of a child and to see what is nearby and close up, his kingdom in our lives and our world.

This is our Advent task to look with the eyes of a child for the kingdom of God nearby now, remembering that advent means arrival and that the incarnation involved God moving into our neighbourhood as a child.

So, we pray: Grant us, Lord God, a vision of your world as your love would have it: a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect; a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. Give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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The Innocence Mission - Cloud To Cloud. 

Living and loving in Truth

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Nicholas Laindon this morning;

Last year was the twentieth anniversary of my ordination. I can still remember well the beginning of my training for ordination and the circumstances, changes and feelings involved for me and my family in the challenges of that new beginning. For me, my ministerial studies involved exploring my faith more deeply through theological study and responding to the challenge of exploring many different understandings of what ordained ministry would involve. I had fears about the impact that my change of vocation would have on my family, as they began to experience what life as a clergy family was going to involve. I was also unsure about the extent to which I could meet the expectations that others might place on me once I put on ‘the collar’.

Our Gospel reading (John 17.6-19) takes us into a similar period of change for Jesus’ disciples. Our reading is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples on the night before he died and it is a prayer about vocation for those disciples. Chronologically this prayer comes before Jesus’ Ascension, but, in terms of its content, it is a post-Ascension prayer because Jesus’ concern is for his disciples once he has left them. Many of his disciples had been on the road with him for three years and had sat at his feet as disciples listening to his teaching, observing his example and imbibing his spirit. Following his Ascension, he would leave them and they would have the challenge of continuing his ministry without him there. He knew that that experience would be challenging and therefore he prayed for them to be supported and strengthened in the challenges they would face.

I want us to reflect today on three aspects of the section of Jesus’ prayer that we have as today’s Gospel reading. The three aspects are unity, protection and sanctification; but before considering those things, I want us to note that the prayer which Jesus began on earth continues in eternity. In Hebrews 7:25 we read that Jesus ‘always lives to make intercession’ for us and, in Romans 8:34, St Paul writes: ‘Christ Jesus … is at the right hand of God [and] intercedes for us.’ Many of us will have experienced the benefit, particularly in times of stress and trial, of knowing that others are praying for us and that we are, therefore, regularly on their minds and in their hearts. These verses assure us that we are constantly and eternally on the mind and heart of God and Jesus is consistently sending his love to us in the form of his prayers. That reality underpins this prayer and can be a source of strength and comfort to us, particularly when times are tough.

What Jesus prays in today’s Gospel reading, he continues to pray in eternity, so let’s think now about the first aspect of Jesus’ prayer for us, which is unity. Jesus prays that his disciples may be one, as he is one with God the Father and God the Spirit. In other words, we have to understand the unity that is the Godhead, before we can understand the unity that Jesus wants for his disciples. As God is one and also three persons at one and the same time, there is a community at the heart of God with a constant exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. That exchange is the very heartbeat of God and is the reason we are able to say that God is love. Everything that God is and does and says is the overflow of the exchange of love that is at the heart of the Godhead. Jesus invites us to enter into that relationship of love and to experience it for ourselves. That is his prayer, his teaching and also the purpose of his incarnation, death and resurrection. 

Jesus gave the command that we should love one another as we have been loved by God. It is in the sharing of love with each other that we experience unity and experience God. Unity, then, does not come from beliefs or propositions. It is not to do with statements or articles of faith. It does not involve us thinking or believing the same thing. Instead, unity is found in relationship, in the constant, continuing exchange of love with others within community; meaning that unity is actually found in diversity. Jesus prays that we will have that experience firstly by coming into relationship with a relational God and secondly by allowing the love that is at the heart of the Godhead to fill us and overflow from us to others, whilst also receiving the overflow of that love from others.

The second aspect of Jesus’ prayer is his prayer for our protection. Our need for protection is often physical and immediate. That is certainly the case for those caught up in conflict around our world currently. Their need to be protected is one that can be met by ceasefires, provision of aid and then home building, underpinned by prayer. Similarly, church communities can provide tangible protection. I remember hearing a guest of the Sunday International Group at St Martin-in-the-Fields say that that church had been a ‘shelter from the stormy blast’ for him. In his prayer Jesus asks that we will be protected in a different way, by being protected in God’s name. Jesus said that God’s name had been given to him and that he had then given that name to his disciples.

In our day, we have lost much of the depth and richness that names held in more ancient cultures. Names in Jesus’ culture and earlier were signs or indicators of the essence of the thing named. When we read the story of Adam naming the animals in the Book of Genesis that is what was going on; Adam was identifying the distinctive essence of each creature brought before him and seeking a word to capture and articulate that essential characteristic. It is also why the name of God is so special in Judaism – so special that it cannot be spoken – as the name of God discloses God’s essence or core or the very heart of his being. Jesus prayed that we might be put in touch with, in contact with, in relationship with, the very essence of God’s being by knowing his name. That contact is what will protect us. If we are in contact with the essential love and goodness that is at the very heart of God then that will fill our hearts, our emotions, our words, our actions enabling us to live in love with others, instead of living selfishly in opposition to others. Jesus prays that the essential love which is at the heart of God will transform us in our essence, meaning that we are then protected from evil by being filled with love.

The third aspect of Jesus’ prayer is to do with sanctification. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. Jesus prays that we will be sanctified in truth, with the truth being the word of God. The Prologue to John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus himself is the Word of God. Therefore Jesus’ prays for us to become holy in Him. It is as we live in relationship to him, following in the Way that he has established, that we are sanctified. That is what it means for us to know Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is vital that we note that we are not sanctified by the Truth, meaning that sanctification is not about knowing and accepting truths that we are to believe. Instead, we are sanctified in the Truth, meaning that we are made holy as we inhabit, experience, practice and live out the Truth; with that truth being Jesus. 

Knowing God is, therefore, like diving ever deeper into a bottomless ocean where there is always more to see and encounter. We are within that ocean – the truth of relationship with Jesus – and can always see and uncover and discover more of the love of God because the reality of God is of an infinite depth of love. God created all things and therefore all things exist in him and he is more than the sum of all things, so it is impossible for us with our finite minds to ever fully know or understand his love. However profound our experience of God has been, there is always more for us to discover because we live in and are surrounded by infinitude of love. St Augustine is reported to have described this reality in terms of God being a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

It was in my ordination training that I discovered and experienced the reality of these things in a new way for myself. Through debate and discussion with others on my course I was able to re-examine my faith while also being held by the sense of unity that we quickly developed despite our differences. Those relationships have proved extremely strong and necessary as our ordained ministries have later been lived out. My fears about my personal inadequacy and the pressures there would be for my family were eased through a sense that we were on an unfolding journey of discovering God’s love which protects and sanctifies.

I moved from an understanding of God as being there for us – the one who fixes us and who fixes the world for us – to an understanding that we are in God – that in him we live and move and have our being. Because we are with God and in God and God in us, we can and will act in ways that are God-like and Godly. That happens not because we hold a particular set of beliefs or follow a particular set of rules, instead it happens because we are so immersed in God and in his love that his love necessarily overflows from us in ways that we cannot always anticipate or control. Essentially, we learn to improvise as Jesus did, because we are immersed in his ways and his love. Jesus prays constantly for a continual and continuing immersion in relationship with Him so that we will experience unity by sharing love, protection by experiencing the essence of God and holiness through living in Him. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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The Call - Everywhere I Go.

God so loved ...

Here's the reflection based on John 3. 16 – 21 that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

God so loved - love is from God because God is love; pure love, the essence of all that love is and can be. Love that is patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love that does not insist on its own way; is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love that never ends.

God so loved the world - the heavens and the earth that God created in the beginning, the heavens which declare the glory of God and the sky that displays what his hands have made, humankind that God created in his own image. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. God so loved the world that he created in the beginning.

God so loved the world that he gave – true love involves giving; in fact true love is giving. Our love is often less than this. We speak of those we love as being everything we need or as soul mates who complete us, but rarely talk in terms of giving all we have to others. Yet that is the nature of God’s love, he gives all he has to us.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son – the Father gives us his Son and the Son gives his life, his whole life, even unto death. Yet, because Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, this is a way of saying that what God gives to us is himself, everything he has and is.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life – God gives himself to us in order that we can become part of him and enter the very life of God himself. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it to the full. Eternal life is the life of love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share within the Godhead and in to which we are called to come and share by the ever-giving love that God the Father shows to us through God the Son.

God’s love has been revealed among us in this way, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. We live in the light of this love which reveals all that we can potentially be and become as human beings. We come into the light of Christ by comparing our lives to his.

As we do so, inevitably we find that we fall short; that our capacity to do what pleases him (by living out all goodness, righteousness and truth) is less than his capacity for these things. Generally when we make comparisons, we compare ourselves with others and so compare ourselves with those we think are worse than or similar to ourselves. We’ve all heard others and, maybe, ourselves saying ‘I’m alright, Jack!’ or ‘I’m as good as the next person, if not better!’ On the basis of these comparisons we think we are ok; at least no better or worse than others, at best, better than many others around us. On the basis of these comparisons we are comfortable with who we are and see no need to change.

In the light of the way that Jesus loved, we see our own lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, remain in darkness, and there is no truth in us. The true comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’

Jesus, through his life and death, showed us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. It is when we live in the light of Christ, seeing ourselves as we really are that we become honest with ourselves and with God. By coming into that honesty we confess our sins and are purified; as we say in this service, let us confess our sins in penitence and faith, firmly resolved to live in love and peace with all.

As we read in the first letter of John: God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 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. We have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also (1 John 4. 7 – 21 abridged).

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James Kilbane - Love Is His Way.

No strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Andrew's Wickford:

A central aspect of God's experience as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ was that of rejection. Jesus was, in the words of Isaiah 53, ‘despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account’ (Isaiah 53. 3). We see that rejection here, in this story (Mark 6. 1 – 6), set in his home town at the beginning of his ministry, just as we see it more violently worked out at the end of his ministry when he is crucified.

Rejection is a human experience which we all understand because each us will have experienced rejection at one time or another. It is an experience that God has also shared and therefore understands as we go through our personal experiences of rejection.

But rejection is a human experience which we all understand because it is also something to which each of us is party. As in this story, we find it easy, as human beings, to find reasons to reject other people. It is not so long ago in the history of this country that there were appalling signs in windows saying, 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs'. In our lifetime we have seen whole societies built around the separation of people on the basis of colour, with the Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements, thankfully, having brought some significant change to those situations of rejection.

Yet, although we have seen change, we continue to see particular groups of people in society demonised, scapegoated and rejected. In the Church today, it is the LGBTI community who have that experience while in society generally, it is migrants, whether refugees or asylum seekers, that are the focus of significant rejection.

When Jesus is rejected, as in our Gospel reading, God is rejected. God, in Jesus, enters in to our experience, as human beings, of rejection. He does so in order to bring to light our constant scapegoating and rejection of others by exposing us to the futility of that way of life. Rejection of others ties us into a cycle of revenge and recrimination locking us in to spirals of violence.

Yet, when we have, as human beings, scapegoated and rejected God himself, what more can we do by way of rejection? The way to free ourselves from these negative cycles is by rejecting the impulse to reject or scapegoat others, in other words by following in the footsteps of Jesus who freely laid down his life for others. It is this to which Christ’s death as a scapegoat on the cross calls us.

Today, while we may not literally see signs saying 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs', similar signs are nevertheless still there is our words and actions although applied to different groups of people at this different time. 'No economic migrants,' even 'No migrants', would seem to be the current cry, while in the Anglican Communion we persist in rejecting people on the basis of their sexuality. For those who follow a God who was scapegoated, reviled and rejected, there can be no scapegoating of others. For those who follow a God who laid down this own life for love of others, there must be a similar breaking of cycles of rejection through our own attitudes, speech and actions.

Instead of being those who reject, we need to become those who invite. The opposite of rejection is not simple acceptance, but active engagement; the invitation to participate in community. The goal of those who are great inviters is “to have everyone participating, giving and receiving gifts.” Abundant community involves welcoming “those on the margins”, “which is the heart of hospitality.” As William Butler Yeats was credited with saying, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet.” May it be so with each one of us. Amen.

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Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Prayer.

The fundamental human problem is isolation

Here's the sermon that I shared in tonight's Healing Eucharist at St Andrew’s Wickford:

A group of people brought a paralyzed man lying on a bed to Jesus and Jesus responded to their faith (Matthew 9. 1 – 8). We often read of Jesus responding to people’s faith when he heals and also of Jesus limiting his healing in places like Nazareth where a lack of faith was shown. A lack of faith would have meant that people simply didn’t ask Jesus to help them. Faith, by contrast, opened up the possibility of change, of something new or different occurring. In Hebrews we read that without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Those who brought this man to Jesus believed and were rewarded but not initially in the way they anticipated. They came to Jesus hoping for healing but Jesus responded by forgiving the man’s sins. At the time illness and sin were often equated those who were ill were accused of being punished by God for their sins. Jesus, however, on another occasion, specifically rejected that argument. As a result, we can be sure that Jesus is not making that connection here.

Instead, he could be saying that, for each of us, addressing our sinfulness is of more importance than any other issue or aspect of lives. Whatever the presenting issue in our lives, even something as significant as total paralysis, each pales into insignificance compared to the issue of sin which ultimately cuts us off from relationship with God. Sin is fundamentally living without God. It is being in that place where we don’t have faith, don’t believe and therefore close off the possibility of relationship. Sin means we cannot know we are with God because we don’t believe, and without God we are ultimately cut off from all that is good. Paralysis is an appropriate metaphor for this experience because, when you are paralyzed, you cannot go to be with anyone else. Paralysis is, therefore, an isolating experience unless others come to you or, as in this instance, bring you to others.

Maciej Hoffman’s new exhibition in St Andrew’s shows us what this experience of isolation from God leads to, in the experiences of trauma and conflict that he depicts so powerfully. His paintings confront people with the reality of sin in human life. Alongside his paintings, we have also unveiled David Folley’s equally powerful descent from the cross, which shows what Jesus needed to endure as he entered into to the full reality of a sinful world in order to bring change and healing.

Jesus’ whole life was geared around reversing sin and the isolation it causes. Through his incarnation and nativity he became one of us, moving into our neighbourhood to be Emmanuel, ‘God with us.’ As Sam Wells has stated, “Jesus gives everything that he is for the cause of being with us, for the cause of embracing us within the essence of God’s being.” Ultimately, on the cross, he takes our sin and isolation onto himself to the extent that he loses his own being with God the Father. When he cries out on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,’ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, was choosing between being with the Father or being with us. Here is astonishing good news; at the central moment in history, Jesus chose us. “That is the epicentre of the Christian faith and our very definition of love.”

As a result, Jesus can forgive and overcome sin and isolation for each one of us. He can restore us to relationship with God, because he has broken down every barrier that stood between ourselves and God. His incarnation, death and resurrection give him authority to restore relationship with God for all who are separated from God. That is what he offers to the paralyzed man, that is what he debates with the scribes, and that is what he demonstrates by returning to the paralyzed man the ability to overcome isolation by proactively going to be with others.

“If the fundamental human problem is isolation,” Sam Wells argues, “then the solutions we are looking for do not lie in the laboratory or the hospital or the frontiers of human knowledge or experience. Instead the solutions lie in things we already have — most of all, in one another.” Instead of needing others to be with him, the previously paralyzed man can now: be “with” people in poverty and distress even when there is nothing he can do “for” them; be “with” people in grief and sadness and loss even when there is nothing to say; be “with” and listen to and walk with those he finds most difficult rather than trying to fob them off with a gift or a face-saving gesture.

In other words, he can bring the kingdom of heaven to others. That is a heaven which is worth aspiring to, “as it is a rejoining of relationship, of community, of partnership, a sense of being in the presence of another in which there is neither a folding of identities that loses their difference nor a sharpening of difference that leads to hostility, but an enjoyment of the other that evokes cherishing and relishing.” “The theological word for this is communion.” That is what the previously paralyzed man has been enabled to achieve.

To what extent, I wonder, is that something to which we aspire or seek? Does sin paralyze and isolate us or are we freed up to be with others in relationship?

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Moral Support - Sin.

Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are

Here is the sermon I shared at Midnight Mass in St Catherine's Wickford tonight: 

Three miracles or wonders come together on Christmas night. First, the miracle of carrying a baby. The wonder of new life growing within the life and body of a mother. A shelter within the womb in which dependent life can grow towards independence, a life providing all that is necessary to nurture hidden growth and development.

Second, the miracle or wonder of birth itself. The contractions that signal the inevitable, shuddering and painful (for the mother) descent down the birth canal and out, gasping tiny lungfuls of air for the first time. Then the marvel for the parents of holding this tiny being who is flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone; wholly theirs and yet wholly itself.

Third, there is the reaction of others; friends, family, hospital staff, others on the maternity ward, all of whom gather round to share their congratulations and point out those features which confirm that this is a baby that is the child of these parents and these alone. As the saying goes, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, and that village begins gathering from the moment of birth.

These three miracles or wonders were all present on Christmas night. The miraculous conception of Jesus led Mary from Joseph’s initial rejection and his dream-based acceptance, to the support of her cousin Elizabeth and the recognition of the Messiah by Jesus’ cousin John while still in Elizabeth’s womb, and on to the journey to Bethlehem because of the census, the lack of room for them to stay, with the stable at the inn becoming their resting place in preparation for the birth. Mary was the God-bearer, the one who carried Jesus through his nine-month gestation and who delivered him into a world that neither knew him or particularly wanted him.

That delivery happened on the night that we celebrate tonight. Without midwives and for the usual length of time involving all the usual birth pains, the birth took place of a child about whom prophecies had been spoken and through whom the world itself had come into being and yet he came into a world that did not know him and did not accept him. While born into obscurity, living and dying in obscurity, many, throughout time, have come to see this moment, the birth, as the central moment in human history, the moment around which our wellbeing, salvation and future happiness revolve.

And then others began arriving; first, the animals in the stall, then angels sending shepherds, then a star leading Magi to find the baby born Kings of the Jews. There was celebration and singing, wonder and awe, gift-giving and more dreams providing warnings and directions. A hastily assembled village bringing affirmation, guidance, and protection for the new family who were a long way from home and shortly to become refugees.

All these wonders occurred in less than ideal circumstances as God is always most fully experienced and encountered in adversity, rather than comfort!

Three Christmas wonders, but we have yet to experience the full wonder of Christmas night. There one more wonder, I want to share. I want to encourage you to look more closely into the manger. If you do, looking more intently and closely at the child lying in the manger like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, you will see yourself looking back at you.

This insight was first expressed in 1939 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who directed an underground seminary in Germany, an intentional Christian community that practised a new form of monasticism. The seminary was closed down in 1937 by the Gestapo and more than two dozen of its students were arrested. Bonhoeffer, too, was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II. Earlier, while still at liberty, he wrote circular letters to his students encouraging them to pursue and maintain fellowship with one another in any and every way possible.

In his circular letter sent at Christmas in 1939 Bonhoeffer wrote this about the nativity:

‘The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh. He bears our flesh. Therefore, where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; that is true because of the incarnation. What happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. It really is all our "poor flesh and blood" which lies there in the crib; it is our flesh which dies with him on the cross and is buried with him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. So the Christmas message for all … runs: You are accepted. God has not despised you, but he bears in his body all your flesh and blood. Look at the cradle! In the body of the little child, in the incarnate son of God, your flesh, all your distress, anxiety, temptation, indeed all your sin, is borne, forgiven and healed.’

That is the great insight of Bonhoeffer’s letters; where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; what happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. He became a human being like us, so that we would become divine. He came to us so that we would come to him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. Like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, so, when we look in the manger, we see ourselves looking back at us.

‘How shall we deal with such a child?’ Bonhoeffer asks. How shall we respond to so many Christmas wonders? These wonders, these miracles, are all wonderful points of connection with the God who connects with us in and through the Christ-child on Christmas night.

I wonder with which of the four wonders of Christmas night you most identify? I wonder how you will come and connect with the Christ-child this Christmas night? As one who has carried a baby and given birth, as one who has gathered in support of a new family, or as one who has seen something of yourself in the new-born child.

Bonhoeffer also asks us, ‘Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts … that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children?’ Will you look in the manger this Christmas night to see not only Jesus, but also yourself, and bow your head in humility and worship at the wonder of this God-given child.

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Steve Bell - O Holy Night.

The meaning of life enters humanity still

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning (using material from Alan Stewart and Late, Late Service):

It was a day like any other day
Kneading bread. Lost in my thoughts
And then from behind
This light
An amazing light that filled the room
I turned round, holding my hand to my eyes
Backing away from it
And from inside this light, the figure of a man
Standing there. Looking at me
I felt I should run
I wanted to run
But his gaze fixed me to the spot
Like some rabbit charmed by a fox
But actually
His eyes were kind
And I felt strangely safe
‘is this an angel?’ I suddenly thought
have I sinned?
Has he mistaken me for someone?
Someone of importance
And then he spoke
‘Mary’
he knew my name
‘Mary’, he said ’don’t be afraid’
‘I have news for you’
‘in 9 months you will have a child and you are to call him Jeshua; God saves’
before I knew it, I was speaking
‘but I’m not married yet, I don’t…’
‘the child will be fathered by the Holy Spirit and he will save his people
the lord God will give him the throne of his father David’
the Saviour?, the Messiah?
I knelt down
And whispered
Simply
‘may it be to me as you have said’
I said yes
I said yes to my God
And I have come to question those words
For I did not know where they would lead

The Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38) is the moment when the creator of everything finds a way into flesh and blood. And in doing that, the meaning of all life enters into full humanity. That's what we celebrate at Christmas.

And the meaning of life enters humanity still. The meaning of life desires us. Watches our movements and listens to our hopes. The meaning of life is a lover whose gentle fingers occasionally touch and startle us, asking if we can love back, but never using force on us ... waiting to be invited to love. The meaning of life is love. Something intangible by nature. Something that cannot be possessed, bought, or sold.

And at Christmas we celebrate the fact that God, the source of all love and meaning, has so desired humanity that He has taken the risk of becoming vulnerable to what we might do if His life is left in our hands. God, the meaning of life, desires you and me in a way that one of us would desire our partner.

Love and desire are about creative union. About being open and receptive to the other, letting them be fully themselves, working for their pleasure, receiving their gifts to you. And when we're open to being God's partner, we find the mystery of meaning: that the ordinary moments of life have meaning. Not a meaning perhaps that you could put into words, just a sense of being right, purposeful.

You and I have this choice. A chance to respond to the touch of our lover and receive this union in our souls ... the centre of who we are. A choice to live life for the meaning of the moment, not just the thrill, and to turn from anything that promises a thrill and delivers meaninglessness. God is still in Flesh and Blood. Now God is flesh and blood in partnership and love, and like Mary we must say "Yes" to that partnership and discover the meaning of our own individual (and communal) lives.

When we know this for ourselves we will say with Mary:

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour
For he has been mindful
Of the humble state of his servant
From now on all generations will call me blessed
For the mighty One has done great things for me
And holy is his name

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Late, Late Service - Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled.

The four wonders of Christmas

Here's the sermon that I preached at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

Three miracles or wonders come together on Christmas Day. First, the miracle of carrying a baby. The wonder of new life growing within the life and body of a mother. A shelter within the womb in which dependent life can grow towards independence, a life providing all that is necessary to nurture hidden growth and development.

Second, the miracle or wonder of birth itself. The contractions that signal the inevitable, shuddering and painful (for the mother) descent down the birth canal and out, gasping tiny lungfuls of air for the first time. Then the marvel for the parents of holding this tiny being who is flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone; wholly theirs and yet wholly itself.

Third, there is the reaction of others; friends, family, hospital staff, others on the maternity ward, all of whom gather round to share their congratulations and point out those features which confirm that this is a baby that is the child of these parents and these alone. As the saying goes, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, and that village begins gathering from the moment of birth.

These three miracles or wonders were all present at the Nativity. The miraculous conception of Jesus led Mary from Joseph’s initial rejection and his dream-based acceptance, to the support of her cousin Elizabeth and the recognition of the Messiah by Jesus’ cousin John while still in Elizabeth’s womb, and on to the journey to Bethlehem because of the census, the lack of room for them to stay, with the stable at the inn becoming their resting place in preparation for the birth. Mary was the God-bearer, the one who carried Jesus through his nine-month gestation and who delivered him into a world that neither knew him or particularly wanted him.

That delivery happened on Christmas night. Without midwives and for the usual length of time involving all the usual birth pains, the birth took place of a child about whom prophecies had been spoken and through whom the world itself had come into being and yet he came into a world that did not know him and did not accept him. While born into obscurity, living and dying in obscurity, many, throughout time, have come to see this moment, the birth, as the central moment in human history, the moment around which our wellbeing, salvation and future happiness revolve.

And then others began arriving; first, the animals in the stall, then angels sending shepherds, then a star leading Magi to find the baby born Kings of the Jews. There was celebration and singing, wonder and awe, gift-giving and more dreams providing warnings and directions. A hastily assembled village bringing affirmation, guidance, and protection for the new family who were a long way from home and shortly to become refugees.

Three Christmas wonders, but we have yet to experience the full wonder of Christmas night. There one more wonder, I want to share. I want to encourage you to look more closely into the manger. If you do, looking more intently and closely at the child lying in the manger like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, you will see yourself looking back at you.

This insight was first expressed in 1939 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who directed an underground seminary in Germany, an intentional Christian community that practised a new form of monasticism. The seminary was closed down in 1937 by the Gestapo and more than two dozen of its students were arrested. Bonhoeffer, too, was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II. Earlier, while still at liberty, he wrote circular letters to his students encouraging them to pursue and maintain fellowship with one another in any and every way possible.

In his circular letter sent at Christmas in 1939 Bonhoeffer wrote this about the nativity:

‘The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh. He bears our flesh. Therefore, where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; that is true because of the incarnation. What happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. It really is all our "poor flesh and blood" which lies there in the crib; it is our flesh which dies with him on the cross and is buried with him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. So the Christmas message for all … runs: You are accepted. God has not despised you, but he bears in his body all your flesh and blood. Look at the cradle! In the body of the little child, in the incarnate son of God, your flesh, all your distress, anxiety, temptation, indeed all your sin, is borne, forgiven and healed.’

That is the great insight of Bonhoeffer’s letters; where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; what happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. He became a human being like us, so that we would become divine. He came to us so that we would come to him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. Like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, so, when we look in the manger, we see ourselves looking back at us.

‘How shall we deal with such a child?’ Bonhoeffer asks. How shall we respond to so many Christmas wonders? These wonders, these miracles, are all wonderful points of connection with the God who connects with us in and through the Christ-child on Christmas Day.

I wonder with which of the four wonders of Christmas you most identify? I wonder how you will come and connect with the Christ-child this Christmas Day? As one who has carried a baby and given birth, as one who has gathered in support of a new family, or as one who has seen something of yourself in the new-born child.

Bonhoeffer also asks us, ‘Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts … that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children?’ Will you look in the manger this Christmas night to see not only Jesus, but also yourself, and bow your head in humility and worship at the wonder of this God-given child.

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Iona - Encircling.

Love came down at Christmas

Here's the sermon I shared at St Catherine's Wickford for Midnight Mass and at St Mary's Runwell in their Christmas Day Eucharist:

In a previous parish, a mosaic of the word ‘Love’, that had been hanging at the East End of the church for several years, was blown down overnight in strong winds at Christmas time. For us, at the time, it was a literal reminder that love came down at Christmas.

Christina Rossetti’s wonderful carol, from which that phrase comes, focuses on the Christ-child as the ultimate expression of love:

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

Through these words, she reminds us firstly that God is love. As the Apostle John wrote, “God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven” (1 John 4. 9 & 10). And, again, “This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us (1 John 3. 16).”

But Rossetti also reminds us that the incarnation, God become human, is as much a sign of love for us as is Christ’s crucifixion. This is what she means by that marvellous phrase “Love came down at Christmas”.

But what does it mean that love came down? When I run Quiet Days on everyday prayer, I often use a prayer by David Adam which provides a clear answer to this question.

Escalator prayer

As I ascend this stair
I pray for all who are in despair

All who have been betrayed
All who are dismayed
All who are distressed
All who feel depressed
All ill and in pain
All who are driven insane
All whose hope has flown
All who are alone
All homeless on the street
All who with danger meet

Lord, who came down to share our plight
Lift them into your love and light

(David Adam, PowerLines: Celtic Prayers about Work, Triangle, 1992)

This prayer uses the imagery of descending and ascending an escalator to pray that those at the bottom of the descent will be understood and ministered to before being then raised up themselves. The prayer is based on the understanding that, through his incarnation and nativity, Christ comes into the messiness of human life, as a human being, to experience all that we experience for himself. The betrayals, dismay, distress, depression, illness, pain, insanity, loss of hope, loneliness, homelessness, danger and despair that many of us experience at periods in our lives and which some experience as their everyday life. Christ comes to understand all this and to bear it on his shoulders to God, through his death on the cross, in order that, like him, we too can rise to new life and ascend to the life of God himself. “Lord, who came down to share our plight / Lift them into your love and light.” This is the hope held out to us through the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem; that he was born into poverty, exile, danger, stigma for our sake, in order to reach out to and rescue us.

God, in Jesus, “had to become like his people in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in his service to God, so that the people's sins would be forgiven. And now he can help those who are tempted, because he himself was tempted and suffered” (Hebrews 2. 17 & 18). “... we have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God — Jesus, the Son of God. Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it” (Hebrews 4. 14 – 16).

This is the wonderful result of love coming down at Christmas - of Christ’s nativity and incarnation – we can have confidence to “approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.” Lord, who came down to share our plight, lift us all into your love and light.

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John Rutter - Love Came Down At Christmas.

The ways Christ made his home with us when the Spirit came at Pentecost

Here's the sermon I preached at St Catherine’s this morning:

‘It's coming home, it’s coming home, it's coming...
Football's coming home.’

The England football song 'Three Lions', which was written by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and Ian Broudie and was first released in 1996 for that year's European Championships, perfectly captures the sense of hope and longing mixed with realism that comes with supporting a men’s national side which has won the major trophy once and come close on other occasions without quite repeating that pinnacle moment. Those of us who sing it when England qualify for the World Cup or European Championship, sing with a sense that this could be the moment of triumph revisited, but probably won't be.

Advent seems to contain that same mix of hope and unfulfilled longing. The word ‘Advent’ is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning ‘coming’. Advent has traditionally been observed as a time of preparation for both the celebration of the first coming of Jesus at Christmas and as a time of prayer for the return of Jesus at the Second Coming. It is this second aspect to Advent which results in passages like today’s Gospel (Matthew 24.36-44) taken from Jesus’ end times sermon featuring heavily in the readings during this season. Advent asks us to reflect on the nature of Jesus’ first and second comings and on how we are to live in the time in between. But Christ’s second coming seems a long time delayed and we wonder, as with the England team winning another trophy, whether that day will ever come.

Our Gospel reading seems to suggest that even the realisation of our hopes for Christ's return can involve a similar sense of hope fulfilled and hopes dashed. It has often been understood as describing what will happen to believers and non-believers when Christ returns and has been used as an evangelistic appeal with the aim of scaring us into salvation. As a teenager, for example, I listened repeatedly to a haunting song by Larry Norman based on today’s Gospel reading. It is called ‘I wish we’d all been ready’ and the second verse includes these lines:

‘A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head he's gone
I wish we’d all been ready
Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and ones left standing still
I wish we’d all been ready
There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind’

These images, based directly on our Gospel reading, of people being suddenly separated are taken from a block of teaching given by Jesus during his final week in Jerusalem that have become known as his eschatological sermon. In my view, Jesus’ eschatological sermon was not actually about the end of the world but rather about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which occurred in AD70. The destruction of the Temple by the Romans was a time of sudden exile and separation, persecution and loss, as graphically described in today's Gospel reading and as it affected the majority of Jesus’ disciples. There was a sudden attack that resulted in some who were in Jerusalem at the time dying and others separating and fleeing the city; just the kind of events which are described in today’s Gospel reading.

The message of Advent is that we are not alone in such times. Advent prepares us to celebrate Christ's first coming into our world. The incarnation involves God, in the baby Jesus, coming into our world and moving into our neighbourhood to be God with us as he makes his home with us. So, the message of Advent is that Christ comes to us and makes his home with us.

But, as we reflected earlier, our experience of hope and of opportunities to genuinely come home is mixed. Like England fans singing 'Three Lions' there is a mix of optimism and realism. The disciples experienced separation and loss when Christ died and when he ascended but he then came again when his Spirit filled them on the day of Pentecost and made his home within them.

So, rather than looking for another future coming, we need instead to be looking at the ways Christ made his home with us when the Spirit came at Pentecost. Together with the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, we can say that Christ now plays in a thousand places and faces, so that we can greet him when we meet him and bless when we understand. This is light in our darkness. It is the calm in the storm that the disciples experienced on the Sea of Galilee and it is what took the disciples through the separation, loss and exile that they experienced following the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD70. Because Christ was with them, because he had made his home in them, they could take the good news of his love and presence with them to the far corners of the Roman Empire. As an old children's song perhaps rather simplistically puts it, with Jesus in the boat we can smile in the storm as we go sailing home.

So, home starts here and now because Christ has come to make his home with us through his Spirit. The 17th century German mystic, Angelus Silesius, warns us:

Though Christ a thousand times
In Bethlehem be born
If he’s not born in thee,
Thou art still forlorn.

If Christ is not born in us as we listen and sing this Advent, our time together will be pleasant but not life changing. But, if Christ is born in us, then the whole story will be transformed. It will become our story. He will make his home with us and we will be able to say:

Christ born in a stable
is born in me.
Christ accepted by shepherds
accepts me.
Christ receiving the wise men
receives me.
Christ revealed to the nations
be revealed in me.
Christ dwelling in Nazareth
You dwell in me.

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Ricky Ross - Holy Night/Pale Rider.

Living God's future now

Here's the sermon that I preached today at St Catherine's Wickford:

Often working people (usually rightly) say that work barely gets a mention in Church yet when you look at the stories Jesus told large numbers of them are to do with work.

Luke 16. 1 - 13 is one of those stories and it may well be the one that it is most difficult to understand. The story and the teaching based on it seem contradictory and it doesn’t seem to fit with other things that Jesus said and taught.

A manager is wasting his employer’s money. He is found out and fired. The beginning of the story makes sense to us. It’s what happens next that causes a problem. The manager then reduces the debts that various people owe to his employer in order to get on good terms with them before he leaves his master’s employment. Although he is again wasting his master’s money, this time the master praises what he has done.

Jesus goes on to say that we should use our money to make friends and that this will help us to be welcomed into eternity. That seems almost the reverse of his saying store up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth. Then to compound all the complications he commends faithfulness after having told a story in which the dishonest manager is praised for his dishonesty.

How can we find a way in to a set of teaching that seems contradictory and confused? It may be that the key is Jesus’ statement that we should make friends for ourselves. Although the dishonest manager remains dishonest there is a change that occurs in the story. And we can see that change most clearly if we think about the manager’s work-life balance.

At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on his list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but wasting his employer’s money. It is likely then that his life is focused around work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendship and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

The teaching that follows the story makes it clear that Jesus does not condone dishonesty; if this manager is dishonest in small matters then he will also be dishonest in large ones. The manager’s fundamental dishonesty does not change but the priority he places on relationships does. In other teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if fathers who are bad, he says, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this story is similar. He is saying that if shrewd, worldly people, like the dishonest manager, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

Why is this so important? Jesus throws out a hint when he says “make friends for yourself … so that … you will be welcomed in the eternal home.” Jesus seems to be hinting that the relationships we form now in some way continue into eternity. Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 13 when he writes that faith, hope and love remain using a word for ‘remain’ which suggests that acts of faith, hope and love continue into eternity. Building relationships Jesus and Paul suggest may not just be good for the here and now but may also have eternal implications. All the more reason then for us to learn from this story and, whether we are at home, at work, or in our community, to prioritise the building of good relationships with those around us.

So, prioritising relationships, Jesus says, is about preparing for eternity and he specifically tells us this story that we might be welcomed into the eternal homes. Why is this so? Well, the answer is very simple. In heaven there will be nothing to fix, nothing to solve, and therefore no work to be done. In heaven there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. In heaven there will be nothing we can do for others, because God will have done everything for us. So, what will there be to do? Heaven is all about our relationships; being with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation. Heaven is all about enjoying our relationships to the full for what they are.

In Philippians 3 we are told to imitate those who set their minds on heavenly things because our citizenship is in heaven. Citizenship is all about belonging to a particular community together with all the other members of that community. In relation to heaven, it is about being in relationship with God’s people. So, if heaven is about anything at all, it is about relationship.

Jesus wants us to prepare for heaven. The writer to the Philippians wants us to set our minds on our citizenship in heaven. They are calling us to live God’s future now, to anticipate what heaven will be like in the here and now, in the present. We do that by doing what Jesus told this parable to encourage; prioritising relationships – prioritising our being with God, being with ourselves, being with others and being with creation now.

That is what incarnational mission and ministry is all about. After all, Jesus spent 90% of his incarnation in Nazareth being with his friends and family. He prioritised relationships in his life and wants us to do the same in ours.

Queen Elizabeth provides us with an example of one who did this. Throughout her 70-year reign, the Queen met and spoke to thousands of ordinary people up and down the country. She shared a unique relationship with her subjects and worked tirelessly to serve us to the best of her ability. Those sharing their memories of the Queen at this time have consistently noted this aspect of her life saying things like: “I expected her to be aloof, but she was the opposite – compassionate and understanding” or “She was incredibly easy to talk to and the twinkle in her eye when she smiled is a sight I’ll never forget” or “She was genuinely interested in what everybody doing.” 

When we prioritise relationships in life, we anticipate heaven and live God’s future now.

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Delerious? - Now Is The Time.

The kingdom of God come close

Here's the reflection I shared today as part of the midweek Communion Service at St Andrew's Wickford:

A week or two ago, an image that I was involved in initiating featured in Church Times. The Blind Jesus (No-one belongs here more than you) is an image in charcoal of the Last Supper which includes the central character of a visually impaired Jesus, surrounded by twelve people of differing ages, backgrounds and abilities. At the table, an empty chair invites the viewer to find themselves at the table.

This image was commissioned by Celia Webster, Co-Founder of Wave (We’re All Valued Equally), as part of a project in which it seeds other images of the Last Supper that are truly for everyone and is displayed by churches alongside selections of these additional images. Schools, churches and community groups are being invited as part of this project to create their own Last Supper images. I hope we can show the image here in future.

Celia writes: “The wounded Jesus reassures me that He is never a distant God and like any loving parent experiences His children’s hurt and suffering as his own. Jesus is the friend of the overlooked and those on the edge. We are shown in this picture that our true identity is found in Jesus who just wants us to be close to him and love him and allow him to love and transform us!”

Revd John Beauchamp, Diocesan Disability Ministry Enabler for the Diocese of London, writes that: “In this Last Supper, the marginalised and excluded and devalued are invited to the table. Invited to be with Jesus. To sit and eat with him. To find themselves with him and recognise themselves in him.”

The good news that the disciples were asked to proclaim, as we heard in our Gospel reading (Matthew 10:1-7), was that the kingdom of God had come near to those that they visited. Our mission, if we will accept it, is the same, to proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near to the people of Wickford and Runwell. To understand what that means and what it is we are to do, we need to understand what it meant for the first disciples. The disciples were the heralds for Jesus’ imminent arrival in the places to which they travelled, so that phrase would certainly have meant Jesus is coming and the Kingdom of God arrives where he arrives.

The kingdom of God comes near to us when Jesus comes near because Jesus is God with us. That is what the incarnation, the crucifixion and the resurrection are all about. The Gospel of Matthew begins with the angel's promise that the Messiah will be called Emmanuel - God with us. The Gospel ends with Jesus's promise to his disciples, "Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." In between we get Jesus's promise to the church, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them." … And, perhaps most significantly of all, the Gospel of John says "The Word was made flesh and dwelt with us." Jesus's ministry is about being with us, in pain and glory, in sorrow and in joy, in quiet and in conflict, in death and in life. God is with us when Jesus comes near, which is, in reality, all the time. That is our witness as Christians and it is also our ministry. If the heart of the Gospel is that God is with us in every circumstance and into eternity, then our task is to be with others in order that they experience God with them.

Because the disciples were living out their faith in practice, as those bringing peace and healing into the communities they visited, it also meant that the Kingdom of God could be seen in their lives and examples too. That can still be true for us today as well. Doing good, for Christians, is not about our salvation – it’s not about earning God’s love – instead it is a consequence of our salvation; because God has loved us so much, we then want to love others and, as we do, the Kingdom of God comes close to those we love, help and heal.

The kingdom of God has come near means that in our relationships, sharing and mutuality we experience together a taste of heaven. That is not something that we have brought or something that only we can offer to others. Instead, it is about real communion, a real sharing, a mutual sharing of selves that is welcoming and inclusive one of the other. After all, in heaven there is only relationship with God, with ourselves, with one another and with the whole creation. So, it is only as we enter into real and deepening relationships that we anticipate heaven in the present and live God's future now.

That is the relational mission to which Jesus called his disciples when sending out the 70 and to which he calls each one of us. It's not a guilt inducing call that makes the salvation of others reliant on our response. It's a relationship affirming call to live in community, to form partnerships, to deepen relationships, to experience communion, and to live God's future now. As Rachel Held Evans once said, “This is what God's kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there's always room for more.”

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Ho Wai-On - Blessed.