Using all we have for God's praise and glory

Here's the sermon that I shared at: Luke 14. 25-33 (07/09/25, 10.30 am, St Mary’s Little Burstead this morning:

“Christ Jesus had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.” (Phil 2:5-8 MSG)

One thing of which Jesus could never be accused is of not practising what he preached. When he taught that, “none of you can be my disciples unless you give up everything you have,” it was not as though there was anything that he himself was holding back. He gave everything that he had and was, holding nothing back.

He calls us to do the same. That is crystal clear in today's Gospel passage: “Those who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples … none of you can be my disciples unless you give up everything you have.” (Luke 14. 25-33)

These statements sound as though they are a problem for us as we think today about stewardship and following Christ. Jesus’ words are a problem for us because whatever we are currently giving and have given in the past, we are clearly not giving everything. So, are we really disciples at all or are we just playing at being Christians; compromising for our own comfort?

Jesus called his disciples to leave their jobs and families in order to follow him and to take nothing with them for their journey; “no stick, no beggar’s bag, no food, no money, not even an extra shirt.” Is that what Jesus is calling us to when he says, “give up everything you have”? However, when Paul writes to Christians in the new church at Corinth, he says exactly the opposite: “Each of you should go on living according to the Lord’s gift to you, and as you were when God called you.” This is the rule, he writes, that he teaches in all the churches and makes that a rule despite having left his home and given up everything he had to bring the good news to the Gentiles.

So, we can say from this that there may be two different types of calling for Christians; the call to leave everything that we have and to go wherever God sends us, and the call to stay where we are and go on living according to the Lord’s gift to us. Whether from choice or calling, most of us would seem to be currently in the latter group, while those like the missionaries we may support would seem to be in the former group.

But isn’t being in the latter group simply a soft option; following Christ without any real sacrifice? It is not intended to be, although it is possible for us to live like that. The key to staying where we are but still giving up everything we have is in Paul’s words, “to go on living according to the Lord’s gift to us.” What he means by that, is that everything we have is a gift to us from God, given not simply for our benefit, use and enjoyment but to share with others and to use for the glory and praise of God.

You see, we can view what we have as being ours to use to suit ourselves and as we wish or we can view what we have as belonging to God and for his use. Those are two very different attitudes which have very different outcomes and if we genuinely live with the latter attitude then we are also giving up everything we have although we don’t physically leave it behind.

The way it works is like this. We look at what we have and ask ourselves how God wants us to use what we have for his praise and glory. Let’s think about that for a moment in terms of ways in which we might give what we have.

We could think, for example, of our homes; how are they being used for the praise and glory of God? Some people, for example, might open up their homes by showing hospitality to others; they might host a homegroup or a tea afternoon or invite others for a meal or to stay with them for a time. Others, for example, may make a home in which their children can grow up to experience the love and freedom of Jesus for themselves. Others may be lowering the carbon footprint made by their homes through, for example, recycling, energy efficiency initiatives and growing as much of their own food as possible.

These are just a few examples of the difference that this approach to life can make in one area of our lives. This is not to say that only those who already doing some of the things I have mentioned are doing all that they can or that they are in some way better than others. Rather than making comparisons with others, what we are each called to do is to take a detailed look at what we have - time, talents, money, possessions, investments, work, relationships – and work out how we can offer them to God and use them for his praise and glory.

Doing that is what Stewardship is all about. We become stewards when we recognise that what we have has been gifted to us by God and we become good stewards when we use all that we have for his praise and glory. When we do so then, although we have not physically given away all that we have, we hold it and use it not for ourselves, but for God.

Sometimes, you will hear people in churches talk about giving particular amounts or proportions of our income to the Church; most commonly, a tithe or tenth, which is a proportion taken from the Law of Moses in the Old Testament. Measures like that can be helpful in terms of deciding how to divide up the money we have been gifted by God and how much we might give to support local ministry through a local church.

But fundamentally, Jesus says that everything we have is a gift from God. Nothing belongs solely to us for our own sole use. Everything is to be given up and used for the praise and glory of God. That is the challenge of Jesus’ words to his disciples and that is, therefore, why it is vital that we regularly review what and how we use what we have been given by God because our giving is never as generous and cheerful and willing and sacrificial as it could become.

“Christ Jesus had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

As we remember and celebrate in communion all that Jesus gave for us, may we too cheerfully, generously and willingly give up everything we have for his praise and glory. Amen.

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Eric Clapton - Let It Grow.

Looking back to look forward

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

St Paul’s letter to the Christians in Colossae begins with prayers for the church there and reminders of its story of faith and those who were significant in that story (Colossians 1.1-8). In his prayers for the Christians in Colossae, he says that he always thanks God for their faith in Christ Jesus and the love they have for all the saints. He reminds them of the hope laid up for them in heaven and of how they heard of this hope in the gospel that has come to them. Just as the Gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has also been bearing fruit among them from the day you heard it and Epaphras, a beloved fellow-servant, has been a faithful minister of Christ on their behalf.

It is helpful and encouraging for us to look back to the story of faith in our church and Parish, as Paul encourages the Christians in Colossae to do here. Sometimes, when we look back, we can do so from a negative or deficit perspective lamenting what we feel we have lost in the present but which was present in the past. That isn’t what Paul is doing here. Instead, he is looking back in order that the Colossians see that God is working his purposes out in the present, just as did in the past.

Anniversaries can provide us with helpful moments to look back and celebrate God’s faithfulness and constancy in our lives and Parish. Last year, we celebrated the 90th anniversary of a church being opened on this site. Next year, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the opening of the current St Catherine’s Church. As we look back, let us give thanks, as St Paul did, for the faithfulness of God in bringing people to faith and, despite the challenges involved, sustaining Christian witness in this part of Essex.

Looking back also enables us to remember and give thanks for specific individuals, like Epaphras, who have been significant in our lives or in this Parish. Here, such people may include those who have a shared place in our lives and faith journey such as David Loman, who was a much-loved Rector in the Parish and who was also my Diocesan Director of Ordinands who sensitively and helpfully prepared me for selection and for ministry or Paul Trathen, a curate in the Parish when Philip Kearns was Rector, who is also a good friend of mine and someone I met during ordination training meaning we have accompanied each other through our respective ministries. I wonder who the people are in your past who have supported and encouraged you on your faith journey. Take a moment now to bring them to mind and give thanks to God for their ministry in your lives.

Individuals from the past may also provide inspiration for the present and the future. Recently, those who established the exchanges with St Paul’s Wickford in Rhode Island have encouraged us to renew that link and begin preparing for the visit next year of Fr Spencer Reece, the current priest at St Paul’s Wickford. Richard Feldwick has encouraged me by telling me stories of Revd Roy Thomas, who developed cultural initiatives in the Parish, as we are currently doing with the cultural programming here at St Andrew’s and more generally across the Parish. Roy’s initiatives included dance, music and visual arts, involving youth work and a programme of speakers from Christian organisations.

This Saturday, there is an Open Day at St Mary’s Runwell – I encourage you to go along. It’s an opportunity to see inside that beautiful church, view Parish records from the recent past, and learn something of the fascinating history of that significant church. One of the past Vicars of St Mary’s who is an inspiration to me, as we try to minister across compassion, culture, commerce and congregation, is Henry Kingsford Harris (Rector from 1891-1912). He oversaw a significant restoration of the church building in 1907 which included essential structural remedial work on the south aisle, including underpinning the massive piers, and the rebuilding of the chancel. He was also a considerable electrical engineer and a notable feature of his time in the Parish was the ringing of the bells by electricity, and the electric lighting of the church. He built an orphanage and the children served as his choir. He also built several cottages in the parish and St. Andrew’s Mission Church, Chalk Street, on the northern edge of the parish. He also set up the first Parish Council in Runwell. You can find more about his ministry at St Mary’s in the church history book that will be on sale at the Open Day. In that way, you will see how he is an inspirational figure from our past in ways that inform and encourage us to persevere with the approaches we are using now in the present.

Who is there among the clergy that you have known that have impacted or inspired you on your faith journey and ministry. Take a moment now to bring them to mind and give thanks to God for their ministry in your lives.

As we look back, let us, like St Paul, in our prayers always thank God for this Parish and its people, their faith in Christ Jesus and the love they have for all the saints. Let us be reminded that, just as the Gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has also been bearing fruit among us from the day people in this Parish first heard it until today and also give thanks for all who have been faithful ministers of Christ on our behalf. Amen.

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Roger McGuinn - Light Up The Darkness.

Those who humble themselves will be exalted

Here's the sermon that I have shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Peter's Nevendon today: 

One of the things I did during my holiday was to watch a film about the life of the guitarist and rock star Eric Clapton. In part, this was because he experienced a conversion to Christ, about which he has written in some of his songs.

Clapton knew significant trauma in his life being brought up by his grandparents as his mother was unable to look after him as a child and did not bond with him later in life. Additionally, later in life, his four-year-old son, Conor, died in a tragic accident when he fell from a window in a high-rise apartment. The film was particularly interesting because of a radical difference in the way he responded to the painful issues he experienced in his life in his early and later years.

Clapton found fame, wealth and adulation as a young man because of his musical talents but finding those things, when combined with his early traumas did not bring joy and contentment. Instead, they led him into drug and alcohol addition which was focused on his own desires, needs and wants, including desiring a relationship with Patti Boyd, the wife of his best friend, the Beatle George Harrison. Once out of control, through excessive drinking, he also found himself making racist statements on stage that he later regretted because his career was actually based on discovering the blues, the music of Black America.

So, his selfish and self-centred behaviours, which derived in part from early experiences of pain and hurt as a child, had the effect of destroying his and other’s relationships while leading him to say and do many things that, when sober, he regretted. At a key moment in his attempts to kick his addictions, he cried out to God for help and felt that he was answered. Getting sober and finding faith meant that when the rebuilding of a new life was rocked by the tragic death of his young son, he didn’t revert to his former absorption in drink and drugs instead he committed to living in a way that honoured his son. The film ended with Clapton as a happy family man who has set up a charity providing support to those who could not otherwise afford the help needed to get free of their own addictions and using his talents and those of his friends to raise funds to support that vital work.

Our Gospel reading today (Luke 14: 1, 7-14) sets up similar contrasts to those we find in the life of Eric Clapton. The context is a party, something that would have been very familiar to Clapton in his hedonistic days, and the question Jesus poses is how should we enter. In his early years, Clapton would have become familiar with being the star, the one who turned heads when he walked in the room, and would have become used, as a result, to being given all he wanted and desired, even if it did him harm.

Jesus commends the reverse of entering as the star. He encourages us to be the one who takes the last and lowest place at the table. One of the problems, as Clapton discovered, with being at the head of the table is that the only way from there, at some stage, is down. But, as Jesus notes, if you are in the last and lowest place, the only way is up. Jesus is famous for prophesying that, in the final reckoning, the first shall be last and the last first. This is a part of what Clapton discovered in later life as he changes from a life centred on his own needs and wants to one centred on others – his family and those seeking to be free from addictions.

His understanding of this change shows up in his songs, particularly a song called ‘Broken Hearted’, where, in the context of looking forward to heaven, he writes:

‘there's a place where we can go
Where we will not be parted
And who alone will enter there?
Only the broken-hearted’

We live in a world where leaders are increasingly focused on self-promotion – constantly creating narratives about how wonderful they are and how awful their predecessors were – and are advocating policies based on selfishness, particularly by blaming the problems faced by nations on those who have or are migrating from issues and situations most of us can’t imagine and couldn’t cope with. Placing the blame for the issues we face on those travelling to different countries ignores all the other problems our countries face and seeks to portray those who are actually victims of violence or oppressions as invaders. The inherent selfishness that is at the heart of such policies is that of saying we must keep all our resources for those that we see as being the same as ourselves instead of being willing to share – ‘sharing is caring’, as my grandchildren are rightly taught at their school.

How should we respond to our changing and self-centred world, as those who are told by Jesus to take the last and lowest place at the table? The answer is to be found in today’s Epistle (Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16):

‘Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’

Christian love – taking the last or lowest place - involves showing hospitality to strangers, remembering those who are in most difficulty or distress as though we are experiencing the same ourselves, being faithful to those closest to us, and living contentedly with what we have, not chasing after material wealth, in order that we trust God for his presence which means more than all we might otherwise gain.

Jesus is clear that those who live self-centred lives are on the wrong path, as all who exalt themselves will be humbled. As we have seen from the story of Eric Clapton’s life that is also what he discovered as he came to see it was a path of destruction, both for himself and for those around him. He wrote in his autobiography: ‘From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for life, and most of all, for my sobriety. I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego, this is the most I can do.’

Each of us, however, has to come to that realisation for ourselves, if we are as individuals or as nations are to change tack and, as Clapton also did, learn the lesson of Jesus’ parable and the value in God’s eyes of taking the last or lowest place. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Eric Clapton - Broken Hearted.

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.

A positive legacy for future generations

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary’s Langdon Hills this morning and will share later at St Peter's Nevendon:

In Jewish society, land belonged first and foremost to God. The land in which the Jews lived was the Promised Land given to them by God when they were a nomadic people. Ultimately, the land was not theirs but God’s. In a sense, they held it in trust.

This is a positive attitude for all of us to have towards our possessions. Ultimately, our home, our money, our savings, our possessions are gifted to us by God and we are stewards of them. If we think like that then, instead of thinking how can I spend what I have on myself, we start thinking how can I use what I have been given for the glory of God. If we start asking ourselves that question then we are on the way to being good stewards of our resources.

When the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, the land itself had been divided up between the twelve tribes down to the level of households. In that patriarchal society the father was head of the household and ownership of the land passed from the father to the eldest son. But the land was held and used for benefit of the whole family and that was one of the reasons why it was not supposed to be sub-divided between younger members of the family. If the land was continually sub-divided eventually it would no longer support family life.

This is perhaps why Jesus was angry with the request of the man in the crowd that we read about in verse 13 (Luke 12. 13-21). He views it as a greedy request because the man wants the property for himself and that will be to the detriment of the wider family. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father does divide the property between both sons. The younger son squanders his half meaning that when he returns everyone has to live on half the property; whereas before they had benefited from the whole property. When you understand that, you understand why the elder brother of the Prodigal Son is so angry with him.

The story that Jesus then tells is a story about greed and living selfishly. The rich man in the story has so much that he can store all he has, stop farming and comfortably live off all he has until the end of his life. This is self-centred because he has decided to do nothing else but to take live easy, eat, drink and enjoy himself. But it is also selfish because he is using up and squandering the inheritance that he should be leaving to his wider family. How will they live in future when he has squandered all his resources on himself and there is no longer a working farm?

Jesus’ punchline then is not just that the rich man will not enjoy his wealth because he will die that night. This parable is a reminder to us of the brevity and uncertainty of life but it is also about the man thinking he can have it all in defiance of the legacy he should leave to his family and then finding because he suddenly dies that the legacy he should have left but didn’t is actually the legacy that his wider family receive. “Who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?” God asks the rich man in the story. The answer is the wider family who should rightfully have received then anyway.

So God is concerned about the legacy that we leave as stewards of all that he has given to us. There are at least two broad implications of these lessons for us in the West where each person consumes about 100 times as much commercially produced energy as an average Bangladeshi and where, in terms of impact on the planet, rich countries are far more overpopulated than poor ones.

The first, is that as good stewards we have a responsibility to share our abundance more equitably with others. The second, is that we need to leave a positive legacy to future generations.

John V. Taylor, a former Bishop of Winchester, published in 1975 Enough is Enough, a book which kickstarted the simple lifestyle movement with its slogan of ‘Live simply, that others may simply live.’ The time since has not yet led us to the point of collectively owning the lifestyle changes we need to make to make a difference. The prophetic cry, from those like Taylor for a greater simplicity of lifestyle, whether from moral choice or economic necessity, is one that has been effectively sidelined during our past prosperity but is one that we, as church and culture, desperately need to hear as we face a global race to exploit scarce resources.

If we were to genuinely hear and respond to their cry for the abandonment of over consumption and the adoption on an ongoing basis of a simpler lifestyle then not only could we learn not to repeat the issues raised by our over consumption but we would be also be returning to Jesus’ command to the Rich Young Ruler that we should use our wealth for the benefit of others.

That statement that, in the light of his coming kingdom, we should sell our belongings and give to the poor comes hot on the heels of this story about the rich man who piled up his riches for himself without reckoning on the crisis of his imminent demise. Just like Jesus’ disciples, we too face a coming crisis which necessitates the adoption of a simpler lifestyle.

If we hear these prophetic cries, if we learn lessons from the over consumption of our Western prosperity, if we take on board the plain meaning of Jesus’ words then, with John V. Taylor, we will say that “enough is enough!” and will seek to turn a temporary to a permanently simpler lifestyle; living simply that others may simply live.

The picture is, of course, by no means, wholly negative. Much of what happens at the grassroots of church life is actually a real challenge to the public perceptions of what Church is about. Many congregations are genuinely seeking to engage with environmental concerns and offer help in living more simply but much more still remains to be done.

The responsibility that Jesus places on us in this passage is not to store up our resources for ourselves and to leave a positive legacy for future generations. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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God will not let us be tested beyond our strength

Here's the reflection that I shared this evening during Evensong at St Catherine's Wickford:

Like many in the 1970’s, my family had an LP of the songs from Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I remember listening to it frequently and, at some stage, seeing the stage show when it visited Oxford.

The show makes Joseph’s test of brother’s integrity central to the second Act. We can retell the story by quoting lyrics from the show (Genesis 42: 1-25). Back in Canaan the future looked rough and Jacob's family were finding it tough. So, they finally decided to go off to Egypt to see brother Jo. They all lay before Joseph's feet. Mighty prince, give us something to eat. Joseph found it a strain not to laugh because not a brother among them knew who he was. I shall now take them all for a ride, after all they have tried fratricide. Joseph handed them sack loads of food and they grovelled with base gratitude. Then, unseen, Joseph crept out around the back and planted a cup in young Benjamin's sack.

When the brothers were ready to go, Jospeh turned to them all with a terrible stare and said, No. Stop, you robbers - your little number's up, one of you has stolen my precious golden cup. But the brothers said, Benjamin is an innocent man. Show him some mercy, oh mighty one please. He would not do this. He must have been framed. Jail us and beat us, we should be blamed, we are the criminal guilty ones, save him, take me. Joseph knew by this his brothers now were honest men. The time had come at last to reunite them all again.

Joseph’s test is worrying and hard for his brothers but serves to help him see that they have changed and become trustworthy. As a result, he reveals himself to them and they are reunited once more. Joseph’s earlier experiences in Egypt were also testing but he came through with flying colours and was rewarded with high office that then provided him with the opportunity to save his family and to reunite them.

In 1 Corinthians 10, we read that, although we will experience tests and challenges as we go through life, no testing will overtake us that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let us be tested beyond our strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that we may be able to endure it. That is also what we see happening in the story of Joseph and his brothers.

It means that, whenever we are in difficulty or some kind of test, we need to look to God to see what it is we are to learn and where the way out that he has provided is located. This can be a core part of our prayer recognising that, as with Joseph, it took much of his life before he realised how God was using what had seemed bad for good, and, for his brothers, the test was to see whether they would act with integrity under pressure, having failed to do so earlier in the story.

Hebrews 12 also speaks of tests and challenges and encourages in the midst of such experiences to strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees and make level paths for our feet. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: ‘My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.’ (James 1. 2 - 4)

In a world of conflict and change is that difficulties, challenges and even opposition are inevitable. The key to coping is linked to attitude. Joseph’s integrity in the face of testing and that of his brother’s when Benjamin was accused are examples to us of viewing difficulties as a testing ground – an assault course – to build up our strength in order to go on; to look for the opportunities in our challenges. If we have a deficit mindset that is focused on all the difficulties we face, then we have lost before we have begun. If we have an abundance mindset that views God as providing resources, support and strength even in the most challenging of circumstances, then, like Joseph, we can have hope in the possibility of moving on and overcoming the challenges we face.

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Denison Witmer - Keep Moving Brother, Keep Moving Sister.

My food is to do the will of him who sent me

Here's the reflection I shared during tonight's Healing Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford:

Jesus said, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.’ (John 4.32-35)

Food provides the body with essential nutrients for growth, energy, and repair. These provide the building blocks for growth and development, the energy to fuel our daily activities, and the components needed to repair and maintain cells.

What was essential for Jesus, what provided the energy to fuel his activities, what provided the building blocks for his growth and development and what enabled him to repair and maintain was doing the will of God and completing the missional task God had given to him. What constitutes our food and are we on the same page as Jesus?

Earlier this week we gave thanks for the life and witness of Bonaventure, who was both Friar and Bishop. Born at Bagnoreggio in Italy in about the year 1218, Bonaventure became a Franciscan Friar in 1243 and his intellectual ability was soon recognised by his Order and by the Church. At the age of thirty-six he was elected Minister General of the Franciscans and virtually re-founded the Order, giving it a stability in training and administration previously unknown. He upheld all the teachings of St Francis except in the founder's attitude to study, since Francis felt the Order should possess no books. He clearly saw, with Francis, that the rôle of the Friars was to support the Church through its contemporary structures rather than to be an instrument for reform. He also believed that the best conversions came from the good example of those anxious to renew the Church, rather than by haranguing or passing laws. He was appointed a cardinal-bishop against his will, and kept the papal messengers waiting while he finished the washing up. He brought about a temporary reunion of the churches in the east and the west but, before it was repudiated, he died on this day at Lyons in the year 1274.

On his feast day, we prayed one of his prayers; a prayer that our food may be to do the will of him who sent us and to complete his work. Let us pray: Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee, may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with Thee. Grant that my soul may hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and super substantial bread, having all sweetness and savour and every delightful taste. May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of Thy savour; may it ever thirst for Thee, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquillity, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably. Amen.

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Bill Fay - The Healing Day.

The Psalms - the bedrock for all music-making in the Church

Here's the talk I shared as part of today's Music Concert organised by Spring of Hope Church:

Rev Matt Simpkins is a former curate of this Parish and an amazing musician, who performs as Rev Simpkins. I interviewed him about his music a year or two ago and he had many insightful things to say about music:

“Music is just such a brilliant expression of our humanity and my faith is that all these things have something to do with grace. Christianity is music: the Psalms are the bedrock of Christian faith and worship. All is melded into one. I’m obsessed with the Psalms and the violent mood swings they contain. Their emotional honesty intertwines music and human life with grace. The richness of creation and human experience – for good and ill – mean that I’m not willing to believe that parts of that are somehow untouched by grace and redemption – even our own suffering and sorrow.”

“I came back to music because I got ill. After ordination I thought that music was something that formed me but was not part of my ministry. When I first got ill, I found it hard to pray, so I read those ancient songs - the Psalms - as I always have. I became especially interested in the bits people often leave out. We need to see the difficulties that underly the songs but also see the joy like the Psalmist. This is the darkness of grace. Shit happens but grace remains.

We know that Jesus prayed the Psalms and believe that he takes all human experience up on himself on the cross. So, if I’m having a scary experience like an MRI scan why not think what I might do creatively with that shuddering racket in a song? I take up my experiences in the faith that they have some connection to grace. Human experience and shared experience can result in emotionally dynamic and authentic songs.”

The music that he has made as a result, however, has been joyful: “I’m trying to give an authentic sense of joy in my music. I find that joy in making music with people I love. We just get together and make music. They know it’s authentic. It’s fun, really fun, and has been incredibly therapeutic. Music is bound up with identity and community and reconnecting with music has been good for my faith. Light and gathering together are part of the Holy Spirit’s personality.

This combination of joy and lament is what we find in Gospel music. It’s plenitude and plurality is composed of worship, lament, joy, word, breath, community, and improvisation. It celebrates using praise, breath, and community while exploring the innermost emotions that are shared through religion, aiding the prospect of surrender and ecstatic freedom and cultivating spaces where art thrives and expresses a unifying language for all. That’s because the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is democratic, filling all and enabling all to prophesy, speak in tongues and create.

As Matt says, the Psalms are the bedrock for all music-making in the Church. The Psalms are the worship songs of the people of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament and are the first occasion in ancient literature where the voice of victims is heard and valued.

The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann in his book Spirituality of the Psalms provides an insightful and structured overview of the Psalms using three categories: orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. Orientation is the establishment of structure and order. Disorientation is a place of imbalance and nonsense, which is potentially unjust. New orientation is moving forward away from what was and toward new possibilities. As a result, the Psalms provide us with expressions of suffering and hope in the seasons of everyday life. In his book, Brueggemann explains how Psalms of negativity, cries for vengeance, and profound penitence are foundational to a life of faith, and establishes that the reality of deep loss and amazing gifts are held together in a powerful tension.

That is what Matt has experienced personally and has expressed through his music. I want to end by reminding us of a musical family who have expressed and exemplified this understanding of what music is and can be in Church.

Gospel great, Mavis Staples, began singing with The Staples Singers in 1950, aged 11. From 1963, the group began supporting the civil rights movement with Pops Staples saying of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, ‘If he can preach it – we can sing it.’ From 1968, through Stax Records, they became soul stars known for their ‘message songs’; songs that were both politically and religiously charged. Since the last Staple Singers album in 1984, Mavis’ solo career has soared by mining the seam of R&B/Gospel developed by her father Pops and taken forward by Mavis through collaborations with the likes of Ry Cooder, Ben Harper and Jeff Tweedy. Through it all the deep resonance of Mavis’ voice drenched in the stylings of Pentecostal churches has been constant; a voice that as Renée Graham noted, ‘doesn’t so much sing a song as baptize it in truth’.

Mavis has spoken of bringing joy, happiness and positive vibrations. This is the transformation that she, and Gospel music generally, achieve; the transformation of struggle into salvation. ‘It’s more than just a feeling–it’s a philosophy’; a philosophy that Mavis Staples lives in concert with every fibre of her being.

The musical journey undertaken by The Staple Singers was an emotional tale and trip combining elation in the gospel with defiance of discrimination, as the group crossed boundaries — first, by combining blues, country, and gospel to create their unique sound, and then by merging spirituality and social comment at civil-rights marches and the Newport Folk Festival, before re-sacralising soul as Stax stars in the Black Power period characterised by the Wattstax Festival of 1972, a benefit after the Watts Riots in 1965.

The story of the Staples Singers is one of the strength that faith and family provide for the long walk to freedom. While the tale and its telling involve anger and loss, it is ultimately, as Mavis states emphatically at the beginning of her concerts, about joy, happiness, inspiration, and positive vibrations; and the tears that it inevitably evokes are tears of joy.

As we enjoy and create music for Church, may we, like Rev Simpkins and The Staple Singers, draw on The Psalms as the worship book for the Church and echo its mix of joy and lament in all we do. Amen.

For more on music and faith see my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.

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Ayo Ayo - High Praise dance

The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

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

This story of Mary and Martha has often been interpreted in terms of being and doing (Luke 10.38-42). The Wikipedia entry on the story of Martha and Mary summarises the usual way in which it is interpreted: “Mary chose listening to the teachings of Jesus over helping her sister prepare food. Jesus responded that she was right because only one thing is needed, “one thing” apparently meaning listening to the teachings of Jesus… To simplify, this is frequently interpreted as spiritual values being more important than material business, such as preparation of food.”

Yet, Martha had opened her home to Jesus and his disciples and providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on that example, the rabbis said that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them (Luke 10). So, Jesus’ words to Martha, while they can appear critical, were not intended as a denigration of the role she was fulfilling, which, as we have thought, has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture.

Jesus had already affirmed Martha's hospitality by welcoming and receiving all she offered. However, he also wanted to affirm Mary’s action as well because Mary's action points to an alternative role for women which could only begin to be realised as a result of his affirmation.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. That was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females.

Tom Wright notes that: “To sit at someone’s feet meant, quite simply, to be their student. And to sit at the feet of a rabbi was what you did if you wanted to be a rabbi yourself. There is no thought here of learning for learning’s sake. Mary has quietly taken her place as a would-be teacher and preacher of the kingdom of God.

Jesus affirms her right to do so. Jesus’ valuation of each human being is based on the overflowing love of God, which, like a great river breaking its banks into a parched countryside, irrigates those parts of human society which until now had remained barren and unfruitful. Mary stands for all those women who, when they hear Jesus speaking about the kingdom, know that God is calling them to listen carefully so that they can speak it too.”

Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirmed Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Martha, Ayla Lepine suggests, “wrapped up in the anxieties of hospitality in relation to rank and status, is ‘distracted by many things.’ Jesus tenderly invites her to dare to offer loving attention that is not transactional – Jesus expects nothing in return for the wisdom and love he offers.”

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8.1-3. Throughout his Gospel, Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

As a result, Tom Wright suggests: “We would be wrong, then, to see Martha and Mary, as they have so often been seen, as models of the ‘active’ and the ‘contemplative’ styles of spirituality. Action and contemplation are of course both important. Without the first you wouldn’t eat, without the second you wouldn’t worship. And no doubt some people are called to one kind of balance between them, and others to another. But we cannot escape the challenge of this passage by turning it into a comment about different types of Christian lifestyle. It is about the boundary-breaking call of Jesus.”

This counter-balance to the patriarchy of the time was necessary in order to signal the value of both women and men in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church. Ultimately, this led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us the value of welcome, hospitality and service. The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; and engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain.

May we be inspired by their examples and also by all women who have followed in their wake as saints and leaders, and more recently as priests and bishops. May we be inspired by saints such as, in our/my Parish, Catherine, who bravely debated with scholars, philosophers, and orators and was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. Also, Our Lady Mary, “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity” remembering that “every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

We can add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches or Deanery, [in our team, women such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe] [such as your own Jacqui Moss and elsewhere Trudy Arnold, Carol Ball, Ruth Dowley, Margaret Fowler, Christine Williams, Karen White and Sue Wise]. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. Each are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell / Pitsea.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples.

May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and at the same time may we support all those women who lead us so well within our churches currently, recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time?

Here's the sermon on Exodus 3.1-15 that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

"A man named Moses is tending his sheep in the land of Midian when he comes across a burning bush. He moves closer to see more and hears the voice of God, speaking to him about his people and their need to be delivered from the land of Egypt. God tells Moses to take off his sandals, for the ground he is standing on is holy.” (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

Holy Ground is an art installation by Paul Hobbs which includes a collection of shoes and stories from Christians all around the world. The stories are short statements about what it means for each person to believe in Christ in their particular situation. Among those represented are: a thief, a refugee, the despised, the rejected – people who Jesus specially sought out – as well as those who have known great opportunity, wealth and success. There are those who are beautiful, those who are disabled, those struggling to make a living and raise a family, those who have known great loss and tragedy, and those asking the deep questions of life. All have encountered the living God, arriving at a place of holy ground; where they must, metaphorically at least, remove their shoes in acknowledgement of God’s holiness.

For some the idea of giving up their shoes for this project seemed amusing and culturally odd. For others it was costly to give their only pair of shoes in exchange for another. For some it was an honour to be featured in this way, to have their story told to represent others from their situation. For many, it was an expression of thankfulness to be able to share their stories with others.

At the burning bush, God said to Moses, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3/2-5). Similarly, acknowledging God’s holiness is the beginning of life as a Christian. What, I wonder, would your story be of metaphorically taking off your sandals in acknowledgement of God’s holiness?

Here is a very different figure; this time a sculpture by the Canadian artist David Robinson. “Dressed in his finest uniform (suit, tie, pants perfectly pressed) the bronze figure would blend in well with the teeming businessmen of the city. He is tidy. His hair is groomed. Not too young, not too old, he is in his prime, at the top of his game. One expects his head to be held high and it is. Is he, like everyone else, focused on the horizon of his ambition?

Thousands might note in passing that this is no hero, no grand general and no great statesman; in fact the crowds of the morning rush might not find him notable at all. Yet, though in business there is never a minute to spare, allowing him even a moment’s notice would pay off a hundredfold. Would some turn aside and see that he is not rushing as they are? Would anyone take time to look at his hands, to look at his feet?

Bare feet. What has caused this perfectly dressed businessman to humbly remove his shoes? In the stillness of the erect figure, face looking upward, we do not see what he sees but we can perceive a heavenly and personal encounter. Perhaps it is a gesture of repentance that he holds his shoes so lightly?”

These details should bring to mind that “man of another era who similarly, while busy at his workday job, had an encounter which changed his life forever.” As we have heard, “while minding his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert, this man came upon a contradiction: a green bush aflame but not consumed. He could have hastened on his way but for some reason did not.”

“As the story goes, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, he called to him from out of the bush by name, saying, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” David Robinson’s sculpture says that, under the bare feet of this everyday man, there is holy ground.

Reflecting on this sculpture Irena Tippett concludes, “So here is the truth: There is no time or place immune to the intrusion (if you will) of the living God. Even in a city strident with buying and selling, God is able to reveal himself to people.” 

American Pastor Rob Bell makes a similar point: "Moses has been tending his sheep in this region for forty years. How many times has he passed by this spot? How many times has he stood in this exact place? And now God tells him the ground is holy?

Has the ground been holy the whole time and Moses is just becoming aware of it for the first time?

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fast and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?" (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

So, in the words of Woody Guthrie:

“Take off, take off your shoes
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The spot you’re standing, its holy ground

Amen

True love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give

Here's the sermon that I have shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Peter's Nevendon today:

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25 - 37), don’t we? And we all know what the story is about? It’s very clear, isn’t it? It’s a call to kindness, a call to care, a call to help others, unlike those who passed by on the other side. We know all that, don’t we? So, there’s really no point in my reiterating what we already know and therefore I can just leave you to reflect on the calls to kindness that you experience in your daily life. How do you meet those? How do you respond?

There isn’t really anymore to say, so I’ll just leave it at that for today. Or, is that actually the case? Is there perhaps something more to this parable that isn’t generally spoken about? Might there actually be an aspect to this parable that is generally overlooked?

Let’s think for a moment about the hero of the parable – a Samaritan. Samaritans were contemptible people, as far as the Jews of Jesus’ day were concerned, considered as social outcasts, untouchables, racially inferior, practicing a false religion. While Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. The Samaritan’s had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. They also claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile.

Samaritans were of mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry, claimed descent from Jacob and worshipped the God of Israel. So, Samaritans were close to the Jews in their birth and beliefs but they were also different in significant ways, a volatile combination in any era. As a result, Samaritans and Jews engaged in bitter rivalries, which in Jesus’ day could lead to political hostilities that, sometimes, required intervention from the Romans.

Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders seem to have taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter each other's territories or even to speak to one another. Jews avoided any association with Samaritans, travelling long distances out of their way to avoid passing through a Samaritan area. Any close physical contact, drinking water from a common bucket, eating a meal with a Samaritan, would make a Jew ceremonially unclean - unable to participate in temple worship for a period of time – this may be part of the reason why the priest and Levite don’t stop to help.

The artist Dinah Roe Kendall painted a version of the parable of the Good Samaritan which set the story in South Africa at the time of apartheid. Doing so, seems to me, to be an accurate parallel with the kinds of emotions and cultural practices that were at play in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans and it shows up clearly the twist in the tail of Jesus’ story.

Jesus, as a Jew, didn’t illustrate his point - that people of every race, colour, class, creed, faith, sexuality, and level of ability are our neighbours – by telling a story in which a Jew was kind to someone else. Instead, he told a story in which a Jew receives help from a person who was perceived to be his enemy. The equivalent in Kendall’s painting is of the black man helping the white man, who represents the people that have oppressed him and his people.

So, Kendall’s version of the story brings out part of the twist in the tail that Jesus gives this story; the sense of receiving help from the person who is your enemy. What her version doesn’t deal with, however, is the idea that the enemy who helps is someone of another faith. The Jews were God’s chosen people and a light to the other nations and faith, so what would have been expected from this story would have been for the Jew in the story to bring the light of faith to the Samaritan. But that is not how Jesus’ story unfolds. Instead, the person who is one of God’s chosen people receives help from the person of another faith.

For Jesus to tell a story in which a Samaritan was the neighbour to a Jew was, for the reasons we have been considering, deeply shocking. We can sense this in the story as recorded for us by Luke, as the lawyer in the story is unable to bring himself to utter the word ‘Samaritan’ in answering Jesus’ question. The story is doubly shocking because the Jews in the story, the Priest and Levite, do not act as neighbours to the man. And trebly shocking, because it was probably their expression of devotion to God that prevented them from being neighbours. Priests were supposed to avoid impurity from a corpse and Pharisees thought that one would contract impurity if even one’s shadow touched the corpse. It was safer, therefore, not to check than to risk impurity.

Perhaps we can get a sense of how shocking this was by asking ourselves who, in our own day, are we least likely to think of as neighbours? Who do we think of as those least like us? Who do we think of as enemies? Who do we think of as contemptible? The point of the story is that Jesus says our neighbour is not our own people but those we think of as enemies or as contemptible because of their birth or beliefs. The least likely people, the people least like us, these are the people that Jesus calls our neighbours.

To find a contemporary equivalent for this aspect of the story, we have, perhaps, to think about relationships in this country between Christians and those of other faiths, and within those relationships, recognise that relationships between Christians and Muslims are often those which are currently most conflicted, with some Christians believing that Islam represents a threat to the Church and Western civilization. Within this context, the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges Christians as to what we can receive from those of other faiths and, particularly, those who we might view as enemies. Jesus says to us, through this parable, that loving our neighbours is not simply about what we can give to others but also about what we receive from others.

Our neighbours, understood in this way, are those to whom we should give – “go and do likewise”, Jesus said to the lawyer - and they are those that we should love as we love ourselves. They are also those from whom we should receive because it was the Samaritan in the story who provided help, not any of the Jewish characters. So, we need to ask ourselves how we can receive, grow, learn from and be blessed by those we think of as enemies or as beneath contempt because of their birth or beliefs.

You see, if our focus is just on what we can give, then we are in a paternalistic relationship with our neighbours or enemies. If our focus is just on what we can give, then what we are saying is that we hold all the aces and we will generously share some of them with you. In other words, we remain in a position of power and influence. Immediately we acknowledge that we can receive from our neighbours or enemies, then the balance of power shifts and we make ourselves vulnerable. In this parable, Jesus says that that is where true love is to be found and it is something that he went on to demonstrate by making himself vulnerable through death on the cross.

We often protect ourselves from the need to engage with, learn from or show love to those who are different from us by using aspects of the Bible to justify our lack of contact or compassion. But Jesus rules this approach out for his followers by giving us the examples of the priest and Levite. George Caird has written that “It is essential to the point of the story that the traveller was left half-dead. The priest and the Levite could not tell without touching him whether he was dead or alive; and it weighed more with them that he might be dead or defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care.”

This is religious rule-making justifying a lack of compassion. Caird says that, “Jesus deliberately shocks the lawyer by forcing him to consider the possibility that a semi-pagan foreigner might know more about the love of God than a devout Jew blinded by preoccupation with pettifogging rules.” Who do we, as the Church, stay away from because we are afraid of contamination or defilement? What aspects of scripture do we use to justify our lack of contact?

Jesus told this story in order that we reach out across the divides and barriers that people and groups and communities and nations construct between each other. He told this story so that Christians would be in the forefront of those who look to tear down the barriers and cross the divides. To the extent, that we fail to do this we are more like the priest and Levite in this story that the Samaritan who was a neighbour to the person in need.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the sting is in the tail, the deepest point is that one of God’s chosen people receives help from his enemy who is of another faith. Jesus is taking us deep into the heart of love and saying that we will not truly love our neighbour until we understand and accept that we have much to receive from those that we perceive to be our enemies. In other words, true love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give.

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The Secret Chord

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

In Psalm 33. 1-4, 18-end, the Psalmist encourages us to:

Praise the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
Sing to him a new song;
play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

When Peter Banks and I wrote our book ‘The Secret Chord’ we took the title phrase from the song “Hallelujah” which is now one of the most-performed rock songs in history. Leonard Cohen's song ‘Hallelujah’ makes the claim that the Biblical King David had found a secret chord which, when played, pleased even God himself.

The opening words to Cohen's song are extrapolated from the account in 1 Samuel 16: 14-23 of how King Saul asked for a skillful musician to be found so they could come and play to soothe Saul's troubled soul. It is clear that David was both a competent musician and also a prolific composer. According to the Scriptures, he would go on to curate and compose many of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible which survive in multiple translations as part of religious worship today. What Cohen surmises is that whatever David played, or, most likely, improvised, would have also pleased the Lord and the children of Israel's God, as well as calming down King Saul.

Cohen's romantic hypothesis is that David had actually stumbled across and therefore deliberately employed a particular chord that has this mysterious power. A chord is a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony. Arthur Sullivan in a song called ‘The Lost Chord’ wrote: ‘It seemed the harmonious echo / From our discordant life. / It linked all perplexèd meanings / Into one perfect peace.’

Music is a performance in which harmonies echoing from our discordant lives link all perplexèd meanings into one perfect peace. Music, in performance, is an unrepeatable moment in in which all things come together enabling us to feel God's pleasure. In this sense the Secret Chord, about which Cohen writes, is indeed pleasing to the Lord.

Peter Banks remembers this occurring for him on 15th September 2001 when American conductor Leonard Slatkin led the BBC Orchestra in a dramatic rendition of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings at the BBC Proms. This was a change added to the usual program of jingoistic ditties that is regularly played at the Last Night of The Proms. Proximity to the tragedy of 9/11 helped to make it spine tingling for those present in the Royal Albert Hall at the time, as well as those viewing on TV. This was not an aggressive response to 9/11, but a truly spiritual one, with everyone experiencing something of God through the pain and suffering. There was a coming together of music and context which created a performance that took on greater significance after the actual event as time passed and as its cache built through word of mouth.

As a result of this linking of the echoes from our discordant lives, Cohen’s Hallelujah includes both the sacred and the sinful – the holy and the broken Hallelujah. It doesn’t matter which you heard, he suggests, because a blaze of light is found in every word and he will be able to stand before God – the Lord of Song – presumably at the Last Judgement and simply sing Hallelujah itself because both the holy and the broken are encapsulated in the one word and one chord.

This is to say that distinctions between sacred and secular are false divides as all of life and all music is holy. Cohen once said, 'This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can transcend the dualistic system and reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by "Hallelujah".'

That’s also why Arthur Sullivan could write:

‘I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.’

Ultimately, music is a symbol of the means by which God created, and the musician is a partner with God in the creative process. Therefore, we can pray, with the singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, to be a little of God’s creative breath as it moves over the waters of chaos to bring all things into being. In other words, to see and hear life as God sees and hears it and to articulate something of that unitive vision. Amen.

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Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah.

The Kingdom of God has come near you

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

In the National Gallery in 2013 you could find a St. Francis without a head and with a candy-grabber crane that went inside his body and which, if you were lucky, pulled out a T-shirt saying chastity, obedience and poverty; another St. Francis was mounted on a donation box and, when you put money in, he hit himself over the head with a crucifix. Michael Landy’s large-scale sculptures consisted of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with old machinery, cogs and wheels, meaning that visitors could crank the works into life with a foot pedal mechanism.

They sound like pieces designed to mock St. Francis and other Saints represented and yet Landy is an artist who is fascinated by the renunciation and kindness that Saints like Francis have shown through their lives. Landy is best known for two works. The first being an installation in a former C&A store on Oxford Street, where over a two week period, he destroyed all his possessions except for the clothes in which he stood. The second being ‘Acts of Kindness’ where Landy asked members of the public who had witnessed or taken part in acts of kindness while travelling on the tube, to write about them. So, as at least one of the art critics reviewing the show at the National Gallery, has noted while enjoying the jokiness of the lucky dip St. Francis, “you also sense that Landy thinks Britain could do with a little of St Francis’s spirit.”

St. Francis lived out his faith and that is what today’s Gospel reading (Luke 10. 1 – 11, 16 – 20) is all about. This passage from Luke’s Gospel gives us Jesus’ inspirational team talk just before sending his disciples out to be his advance guard preparing those in the towns and other places to be visited by Jesus shortly after. He gives his disciples a message to share – “The Kingdom of God has come near you” – but his main focus is on the behaviour and attitude of his disciples; the way in which they live and act.

He instructs them to live simply (“don't take a purse or a beggar's bag or shoes”); to be focused (“don't stop to greet anyone on the road”); to be peace givers (“whenever you go into a house, first say, ‘Peace be with this house.’”); accept hospitality (“stay in that same house, eating and drinking whatever they offer you”); bring healing (“heal the sick in that town”); share your message (“say to the people there, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near you.’”); and move on when not accepted (“the dust from your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you”).

These instructions of Jesus became a model for itinerant preachers throughout Church history including St. Francis and his followers. The words “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words” are often attributed to St. Francis but, while certainly reflecting something of what he said and did, that is not a phrase he actually used. ‘Francis did focus on proclaiming the word in deeds – as well as in words. And if you have ever read any of Francis’ own writings it is easy to see that Scripture is infused everywhere in his words, his life and his being – and his actions. It is easy to see where the oft-quoted phrase came from; for example, the Legend of the Three Companions’ includes this inspirational team talk from St. Francis:

“Calling together the six brothers, Saint Francis, since he was full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, predicted to them what was about to happen. “Dearest brothers,” he said, “let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments”’ (http://friarmusings.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/preach-the-gospel-at-all-times-if-necessary-use-words/)

But what has all this to do with us, as we are generally not being called by God to become itinerant preachers? The answer is very simple, that our actions, as well as our words, speak powerfully about our faith. Negatively, this is the reason why Christians are often criticised as being hypocrites; others look at what we do and complain that we aren’t practising what we preach. When our actions and our words come together, however, then our witness is powerful; to see that we only have to think of examples provided by Saints like Francis or more recent followers of Christ like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jnr, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, among others.

This is also one reading of the message which Jesus gave his disciples to proclaim. Do you remember what it was? It was not quite the message that we might have expected or anticipated. The disciples weren’t given the message that ‘God is love’ or to ‘repent and believe’; instead they were told to say that “The Kingdom of God has come near you.”

What did that mean? The disciples were the heralds for Jesus’ imminent arrival in that place, so it would certainly have meant Jesus is coming and the Kingdom of God arrives where he arrives. But, because the disciples were also 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. This can still be true for us today. 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.

That is the challenge of this passage for us today and so, in the words of St. Francis:

Dearest brothers and sisters let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments.

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Big Star - The Ballad Of El Goodo.

Travelling Light: A Service for the Third Sunday after Trinity | The Church of England

Here's the reflection that I shared in today's national online service for the Church of England:

Cliff Richard once sang that he had no bags of baggage to slow him down, no comb and no toothbrush, nothing at all to haul. He was travelling light because he just couldn’t wait to be with his baby that night. I wonder whether Eugene Peterson had that song in mind when he translated this reading in ‘The Message’, his version of the Bible in contemporary language. His version of Jesus’ charge to his disciples starts like this: “Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage.”

Travel light. Jesus was calling the 70 to an itinerant ministry (Luke 10.1-11, 16-20). Their focus was on going ahead of Jesus to prepare people for his coming and his message. So, they took nothing unnecessary with them, they weren’t distracted by small talk along the way, they welcomed hospitality when they received it but they simply moved on to the next place and the next person whenever they were not made welcome. No distractions, just a clear focus on their task and their message.

We also need to travel light in our individual lives and our corporate Church life in order that we are focused on our core task of sharing the good news about Jesus in actions and words. But there is also a second reason for travelling light which is to do with the footprint that we leave on the world. By sitting light to possessions and by accepting hospitality as it was offered to them, the 70 imposed as little as possible on the people, villages and areas through which they travelled. In our society, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, we have done anything but. Our footprint has been heavy on our world as we have exploited its resources for our own gain and we are still struggling to realise the consequences.

John V. Taylor's book, ‘Enough is Enough’, kickstarted the simple lifestyle movement. ‘Live more simply that others might simply live’ was their slogan and it is one that Eugene Peterson sees as coming out of the instructions that Jesus gave to his disciples before he sent them out on their mission: “Don’t load yourselves up with equipment,” he writes, “Keep it simple; you are the equipment. And no luxury inns – get a modest place and be content there until you leave.” Keep it simple. Travel light. These are the key messages of Jesus’ instructions.

Why? To keep us focused on our message and mission and to tread lightly on the earth as we do so.

Travelling light / without / a purse / without / a bag / without / shoes / without / equipment / you are / the equipment / you are / all you need

Travelling light / no / special appeals / no / luxury hotels / no / looking / for the best / cooks / keep it / simple / keep it / modest / be / content

Travelling light / don’t stop / to make / small talk / with those / on the road / move on / reach / your destination / the harvest / is great / but the / workers / few

Travelling light / do stop / to bless / the homes / in which / you rest / for all / you receive / give thanks / and peace / don’t create / when made / unwelcome / shrug / your shoulders, / wipe / your feet / move on

Travelling light / don’t / fill your barns / simply / to eat, / drink / and / be merry / don’t / store up / riches / simply / to rust / and decay / don’t / store up / riches / simply / for others / to steal / your heart / will be / where / your riches / are

Travelling light / do / store up / acts / of love, / hope / and faith / do / store up / the things / that remain / do / store up / treasures / in heaven / your heart / will be / where / your riches /are

Here's the earlier service that we recorded at St Andrew's Wickford in January:

My recorded sermons for the Diocese of Chelmsford's Weekly Sermon series can also be viewed below.

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St Martin-in-the-Fields - Morning Song.