News From the Tower

Bell Fittings Restoration Project

A number of recent donations, added to funds already raised from various sources, has finally enabled the ‘bell fittings restoration project’ to get the go-ahead. This will take place whilst work on the tower is underway and due to start in March. The ‘Heritage Lottery Fund Grant’ includes the cost of lowering the bells to the floor of the bell chamber, and dismantling and removing the wheels and other fittings to facilitate the extensive work on the roof. They would then have been re-instated in their present poor condition. A professional inspection last year revealed considerable wear on bearings from the past seventy years of ringing, and also damage to some of the ‘clappers’ (hammers). It is for this reason that additional funding needed to be raised to replace all the bearings and some of the clappers. The scaffolding, which will encase the tower, will provide the ideal time to remove and replace the bell equipment and most importantly is included in the ‘Lottery Grant’.

The summer of 2018 will hopefully see the culmination of three important projects: the restoration of the tower, the bells and the tapestry, an even which will be well-worth celebrating!

Doug Lowther

Last Friday…

This sermon was preached at the St. Andrew’s 8am & St. Peter’s 11am Holy Communion services on 15th November 2015. The readings were Daniel 12:1-3, Hebrews 10:11-25 and Mark 13:1-8.

Our readings today direct our thoughts to the time when Jesus will return in glory to this world, His world. It’s appropriate for us to look at this today for a few reasons – next week we celebrate Christ the King, then enter Advent as we prepare ourselves for the coming of the King of Kings born into the world as a poor, homeless peasant child; and today we cast our minds back to this time last year as we bid our dear Ian farewell as he went on ahead of us to wait with Jesus for the end times.

Alongside that we have the devastating attacks that have taken place in Paris this Friday, where at least 129 people were brutally murdered while doing nothing more than enjoying an evening out.

At times like these it’s not unusual for our thoughts to turn to the end times – not just our own time, but the end of everybody’s time. On most days this seems so far off as to be inconsequential – but at others it seems so real, the line between this world and the next so thin, that we can almost touch it.

For some this is a comforting thought, for some it is downright terrifying. For some it would depend on what day of the week you asked them.

All three of our readings have elements of Jewish apocalyptic writing – a style that usually anticipates a great crisis to befall the world, but in light of a current crisis afflicting the people it’s written for.

It looks to explain what’s happening in the material world by talking of what is happening in the parallel spiritual realm, with everything happening on earth representing and matching up to a larger, heavenly struggle between good and evil. So it reads into earthly events cosmic significance, and anticipates future events on earth in light of the coming battle between the forces of God and the devil.

This attempt to make sense of current events and experiences by casting them in a larger, cosmic framework should, theoretically bringing comfort or reassurance to people who find themselves suffering or being oppressed. The problem with this style of writing comes, however, when the words are taken out of context and applied to any given situation being faced in a person, or peoples, lives. This is one of the biggest mistakes we make with the Bible full stop –  taking the words away from their original usage, meaning and intended audience & try to apply them with a large trowel to any situation we see fit.

This is not to say God does not speak to us through the Bible, that we won’t find passages that encourage, challenge, strengthen or comfort us, but to understand how they apply to us & what God wants us to take from them requires an understanding of why they were written in the first place. Otherwise it’s like taking the instructions for a washing machine & applying them to a tumble dryer – they’re both big white boxes with a window in the front, but they have different purposes despite their similarities.

And this is the point Jesus is making to His disciples in our Gospel reading today – not the thing about washing machines, obviously, but the warning not to try to lay specific words given for one situation over a different one, even if there are similarities.

To set the scene, chapter 12 of Mark’s Gospel has Jesus challenging the perceived authority of the religious elite at the temple.

Obviously Jesus is secure in the knowledge that God has supreme authority, but for his disciples to hear Him openly criticising the scribes and the Pharisees in public must have been a big indicator, a big wake up call, that their friend and teacher really was prepared to live and ultimately die to give glory to God the Father. With this in mind, I tend to hear the disciples acclamation about the wonderful stones and buildings in a tone of voice that says, “Teacher, have you seen this place. Are we seriously going to take this on?” In response to this, Jesus immediately plays down the perceived permanence of the Temple – after all, while the ancient holy place may have seemed immovable only God Himself is eternal, meaning everything else is temporary in comparison.

He then sits down with His closest companions and answers their very obvious follow-up question – when is this going to happen? To understand His answer again relies on knowing the context Mark was writing in. This Gospel is seen as the earliest of the four in the New Testament, probably written between AD 65-70, and is generally accepted to be the good news as recalled by Peter, which Mark wrote down. So, in light of the Roman-Jewish war of 66-70, which led to amongst other things the destruction of the Temple, this passage seems to be specifically addressing a given point in history.

Contrary to popular expectations in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic circles, war, catastrophe, persecution and the fall of Jerusalem and desecration of the Temple were not sure signs of the end of the world. Though these things had just occurred, ‘the end is not yet.’ The end of history is instead to be associated with the coming of the Son of Man in glory. From now on, for Christians, the return of Jesus replaces the Temple as the focal point of hope for the full realization of the Kingdom of God. The intention of the text is therefore to call the followers of Jesus – those sitting on the Mount of Olives, those reading the Gospel as the Temple was destroyed, and us sitting here today – to hope for the coming of the Christ the Lord.

You see, our situation today is similar to that of the first readers in at least one important respect: The historical signs which many people associate with the end of the world have occurred countless times by now, but the final coming of the Son of Man still lies in the future.

We should call Mark 13 to mind whenever we see news articles, hear broadcasts or even come across people or preachers brandishing calculations that conclude, “This is the time!…” When we read about the Paris attacks, when we see the news footage, it’s easy to believe the world is broken and it’s time to scrap it and start again. But this is where our historical situation is quite different from that of the first readers. The cosmos did not collapse, nor did the Son of Man come in clouds with great power during the lifetime of the Twelve, or during any of horrific events of the past, meaning our Gospel passage offers us a balance. It both gently corrects and reigns in apocalyptic enthusiasm on one hand, while challenging jaded scepticism on the other.

But more than that, this passage also reminds us that, in reality, Jesus will return. Maybe the trumpet is set to sound in about 6 billion years, when scientists predict the Sun’s core will run out of hydrogen, leading it to collapse then grow in size, consuming the orbits of Mercury, Venus and eventually the Earth as well. Or maybe the world will end tomorrow, or the next day – “No one knows when that day and hour will come” as Jesus reminds us in Matthew’s Gospel. So there is never a better time to seek to repair, restore, or even begin a relationship with Jesus – than right now.

This understanding of the need to watch, expectantly, for the return of Christ should help us realize that we really do need to be mindful of God’s presence in our own lives, and allow Him to act through them.

It may be that some of us here need to start believing, really believing, that actually Jesus really does love you; that He really did die for you and would have done even if you were the only person to ever have existed.

Some of us may need to realise that our sins can, and have, been forgiven.

Some of us may need to reach the conclusion that there will never be the ‘right’ time to have the conversation about faith with our friend, loved one or work colleague that we keep putting off, despite the Holy Spirit tugging at our sleeve like a toddler wanting a biscuit every time we see them.

But all of us need to realise that whatever we are facing at the moment, whatever trials or triumphs, pains or pleasures fill our waking and our sleeping, Jesus is right there with us through them, and is preparing us each day for the journey home to be with Him.

Friday’s atrocities may seem like the beginning of the end – in the apocalyptic narrative they serve as a reminder of the fragility of our earthly existence. But the Good News of Jesus Christ should remind us – should convict us – that no matter what happens in this world, the cosmic battle between good and evil has already been won. Death has been destroyed by the resurrection, so we can stand with confidence and proclaim that these terrorists, committing acts of evil while hiding behind a false interpretation of the Islamic faith, may at worst destroy our mortal bodies, but can never take our eternal soul.

The writer to the Hebrews captured this perfectly in our reading today.

“We have a great priest in charge of the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise. Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good. Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.”

Our hope is founded on the glorious reality that Jesus lived, died and rose again to set us free from sin and death.

We can confidently welcome the stranger, stand firm with the oppressed and marginalised, whatever their background or beliefs, and all because our hope does not rely on mortal men but on the grace and power of the eternal God.

An easy way “to help one another to show love and to do good” is by example, by the way we talk about those who are fleeing the very terrorists who are claiming responsibility for the Paris attacks, or by how we relate to those in our communities who, over the next few weeks, will find their lives made even more difficult purely because their faith has been hijacked, twisted and defamed by people looking for an excuse to kill and destroy.

As Martin Luther King Jr once said:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Our job, especially as we approach the reflective season of Advent, is to listen to Him, help those around us to do the same, and shine His light of love into the darkness of our world as we continually watch for His return in glory.

Amen.

Amazing Grace

This sermon was preached at All Saints midweek Eucharist & St. Andrew’s Evensong on Wednesday 1st July & Sunday 5th July 2015  respectively. The readings were 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13.

This week I heard two renditions of Amazing Grace within 12 hours of each other. Not a very dramatic opening, I know, being a vicar & all. The first was the amazing clip of Barak Obama, arguably the most powerful leader in the western world, breaking into a rendition of the hymn as he delivered the eulogy of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston who was among the 9 Christians murdered there recently. The second was the choir of St. Anthony’s school at the official opening of the groundworks at St. Peter’s on Monday.

The two renditions were very different. To say the President’s singing wasn’t in the same league is to underplay how good the young ladies of St. Anthony’s were – it’s more accurate to say they weren’t even playing the same sport. But what Mr Obama lacked in tuning he made up for in passion, using the hymn as a rallying point to call out the names of the others killed in the attack & speak of their faith & the Grace they had received from their heavenly father.

It was interesting to have these two experiences of the same piece of music – the President’s at the end of a period of great sadness and tragedy for a community, the students at the beginning of a new phase at St. Peter’s, hopefully bringing new life to our community.

And I guess hearing them so close to each other got me thinking – it’s inclusion in both these events reminds us of the amazing gift of grace we have available to us through a relationship with Jesus Christ. You see, however clichéd it sounds, we all know full well that throughout our lives we have highs and lows, times of great joy and greater sorrow.

We missed St. Paul out last Sunday, as he shares St. Peter’s feast day, but it is his words we just heard, written originally for the people of Corinth but echoing through the ages to ring true for us today, that remind us of the power of God’s grace in our lives. Whoever we are, however weak we feel, however battered we have been by life’s storms, however distant we may feel from God at times, He is right here with us.

That’s part of the story of the incarnation – God rolling up His sleeves and getting in amongst our pain, our struggles and sticking by us throughout, enfolding us in His undying love; God rejoicing with us in the good times & giving us the strength to find out and actively seek to be the people He has called us to be, and help others do the same.

We may not feel worthy of this grace. It’s OK, we’re not. If we were – if we could earn our salvation solely by ourselves, we would not have needed Jesus sacrifice made once for all upon the cross. You see, President Obama’s singing was beautiful and inspiring not because of his voice but because of the heart and message he was conveying. Our lives are blessed by God, not because we are perfect but because we are the crown of His creation and as long as we seek to live in Him He lives in us; as we look to forgive we ourselves are forgiven; as we seek to bring people to know and love Christ our knowledge and love of Him deepens.

“Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see!”

Amen.

Blue, Peter?

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 9:30am Eucharist’s on 28th June 2015 as we celebrated the feast of St. Peter. The readings were Ezekiel 3:22-27, Acts 12: 1-11 & Matthew 16:13-19.

I’m currently reading through an excellent book called “More TV Vicar” by Revd. Bryony Taylor, curate at St Michael & All Angels in Houghton-Le-Spring. Now, I’m not just saying this because she’s a friend, but it’s a great little book about the portrayal of Christians, mainly clergy, on television through the ages – leading to nostalgic reminisces of some characters & a desire to look up (or in the case of some of the ‘bad’ ones, massively avoid) some of the shows and folk depicted.

But interestingly, this little trip through the archives of British pop culture has reminded me just how much easier we as human beings relate to somebody if we can immediately find common ground with them. Think of some of the clergy characters you can remember from TV or radio over the years. People loved Geraldine Grainger, the Vicar of Dibley, because she was above all else very human, with failings and vulnerabilities there for all to see, and played to great comedic effect by the irrepressible Dawn French. People find other characters distasteful or unpleasant precisely as they are drawn to show a lack of humanity, making them harder for us to understand or find a mutual understanding with – again, created that way by writers looking to achieve certain emotions from their audience.

I think this is why so many of us feel drawn to St. Peter. He is undoubtedly my favourite disciple, probably because I can really relate to his efforts to try to be the man he thinks Jesus wants him to be, to try & approach everything with complete trust and faith – and yet always manages to mess it up somehow.

The lectionary has very kindly let us focus today on Peter’s great declaration of faith in Jesus – the great reveal of who Jesus really is, the ‘hinge’ point of Matthew’s whole Gospel. But if we were to begin the second half of the Gospel we would see things go sour rather quickly. Matthew explains in verse 21 how

“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Peter’s first act is to do something completely understandable but also completely wrong. Six verses separate Jesus heaping praise on Peter’s discernment and rebuking him for his focus on human things over the divine. We go from

“‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”

to

“he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’”

So Peter is the very epitome of the phrase “God loves a trier.” And this is what makes him so endearing. But more than that, he gives us as God’s people, Jesus disciples here in this place hope and encouragement that even we, even I, have a special place in God’s kingdom & can achieve His works, fulfil His calling in our lives.

Jesus knows us inside out. He knew Peter inside out. He knew what was in Peter’s heart, the confession of Jesus as Messiah, and gave him the chance to let it out, to test if he had it right. He also knew Peter would say something stupid about His passion & crucifixion, that Peter like all the other disciples would not get what He meant when He spoke of dying and rising for the salvation of all human kind, that Peter would deny Him when He was arrested and taken away despite swearing he never would. And yet Jesus still says to him, as we just heard,

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

From here on in plain Simon the fisherman is The Rock, Jesus right hand man and the church’s unique foundation, yet still servant to all his fellow disciples.

Both Luke in his Gospel and Paul in his Epistles back up Peter’s role as first among equals among the apostles – Luke, in the same passage Jesus predicts Peter’s cock-crow cock-up, records Jesus telling him

“once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers and sisters,”

while Paul writes in Galatians that he sought out Peter first after his call and conversion, and notes Peter was the first of the twelve to see Jesus when He was resurrected in his first letter to the Corinthians.

Peter is regarded as the chief apostle because of his powerful living faith in Jesus – but I also think Peter is regarded as the greatest apostle as he not only represents each one of us in scripture but voices our fears, anxieties and even doubts directly to Jesus, yet is still loved and welcomed.

So despite Peter’s many failings, despite his background and upbringing, despite his tendency to open his mouth before his brain had fully kicked in, Peter’s faith, his deep love for Jesus, set him up as an example for all to look to.

And what an example. Repeatedly stepping out in faith, repeatedly trying again in the face of seemingly horrible mistakes and, eventually, being tasked with the keys to the kingdom.

And it is this final point I feel we really should seek to be inspired by. It’s perfectly natural to see Peter sitting by the pearly gates letting in the good and seeing off the bad, like some kind of heavenly bouncer. But in reality, Peter was called to be chief missionary of the Easter message, to unlock the gates of heaven through his preaching and helping clear the way for us, the gentiles, through his experience with Cornelius as recorded in Acts 10.

Dare we allow ourselves to approach Jesus as Peter did – fully trusting Him despite his own doubts as to what some of His message meant; willing to make mistakes and take chances for Him in the sure and certain hope He will be there to help and guide us; ready to turn back in true repentance when we really mess up; and to actively seek with all our hearts the lost, whatever their background or understanding of the faith we proclaim, and guide them through the gates that lead to eternal life? Because if we do, we too could rock this world.

Amen

“More TV Vicar? Christians on the Telly: The Good, the Bad and the Quirky!” is available now from all good bookstores, including Eden & Amazon.

Just a Sunday School story..?

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 8am and All Saints 10:30am Eucharist’s on 21st June 2015. The readings were 1 Samuel 17:32-49, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 and Mark 4:35-41.

FEE-FI-FO-FUM! I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN ENGLISHMAN….

David and Goliath. The ultimate sporting cliché, a true underdog story, one of those Sunday School classics – the ugly mean giant, the handsome little lad, the stones and the slingshot – we can close our eyes and let this one just wash over us, we’ve heard it so many times.

But when the authors put together the narrative history of Israel’s transition from a marginal company of tribes to a centralized state, as found in the two books of Samuel, they weren’t looking to tell fantastic tales to entertain the kids while the adults got on with the ‘real’ theology – and if we take the time to look again at this part of the story we find subtleties in the way it is written and a real depth of meaning that can help us in our role as God’s people, the Body of Christ, today.

Coming in at this part of the story misses out some of the important pointers for our journey.

At the start of the chapter we see that Saul, first and reigning king of Israel, is failing in his one primary task – to keep the Philistine threat at bay. This threat is then embodied in the description of Goliath himself – not a ‘giant’ in the Jack and the Beanstalk mould but still around 6 foot 9 of intimidating, arrogant Philistine muscle, a huge man for that culture, and dressed to kill in the literal sense, with the author taking his time to describe every last detail of his kit. No wonder the Israelite troops are left “dismayed and greatly afraid.”

So, enter David. The young, handsome eighth son of Jesse, who last week we heard has been anointed king in succession to Saul but is still very much under the radar, and left tending the sheep and serving his older brothers. He appears on the frontline with supplies for the fighting men, but is taken aback by both the sheer front of this oversized enemy shooting his mouth off and the terrified reaction of his fellow Israelites.

“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’” he asks – an innocent question of youth, befitting of a Sunday School setting maybe, yet one that reveals a great truth. The army of Israel, full of men supposedly bigger and stronger than David, are immobilised by fear as if the living God is irrelevant to the battle. David is not afraid precisely because God is never irrelevant in the lives of His people – it takes the innocence of youth, the boy described earlier in 1 Samuel as “after Yahweh’s own heart,” to be the one to state this deep theological truth. Maybe unsurprisingly, however, those older warriors – given voice by his own brother Eliab – don’t want to hear him. They rebuke him, ignore him, try to put him back “in his place” – but, in the case of his siblings, forgetting or deliberately avoiding the fact that his place since Samuel anointed him is as the chosen King.

So this is where we come in. David’s words are repeated to Saul, now a desperate man clutching at straws, willing to give an audience to a youth who, for all he knows, was just flapping his gums.

There must be part of Saul that is delighted to find even one boy in his camp, an army defeated by their own lack of faith, who still holds dear the innocent dream of the “living God” that Saul once swore to uphold.

David speaks first. Surely Saul, as king, should drive the conversation, but David is the chosen one, and our narrator wants to remind us again that David is now called to lead. His words are a declaration of salvation and solidarity, showing he is both Saul’s servant and willing to give his life for God’s people. Remind you of anybody?

At first Saul dismisses the idea – looking at David’s outward appearance, he judges him too young, too small. But as we heard last week, God is interested on what is on the inside – what is in our hearts – meaning the smallest of things can contain enough power to make a great difference. David is prepared to state his case, painting a picture of a brave shepherd in the face of wild bears and lions, delivering his flock from the assaults of the enemy. But then he does something amazing.

He shifts the emphasis from what he has done, to what God has done through him. Up to this point nobody has had the courage, the faith, to invoke the name of the living God, but David does now – The Lord, Yahweh, has delivered him from the bear and the lion, and Yahweh will deliver him, and His people, from Goliath and the Philistines. As it has been, thus it will ever be.

David’s faith moves Saul – even giving him the courage to speak the name of the Lord – but still Saul wants to do things on his terms. He hasn’t grasped yet how radical David’s trust in God is. Saul wants him fit for battle, to dress and behave like any other soldier in any other army. But David refuses, and walks out in faith – leaving the comfort and protection of armour and tradition behind to stand in the light of the Lord with just five smooth stones rattling in his bag and the fire of God’s love blazing in his heart.

Unsurprisingly Goliath is less than impressed. He has been playing the crowd so long he is not going to back down to this cheeky bairn. He runs his mouth like an American wrestler cutting a promo before a match – calling on his gods, explaining in detail how little of David will be left when he’s finished with him.

Imagine being an Israelite soldier standing on the front line, seeing little unarmed David stride forward, hearing again Goliath’s terrifying, graphic declarations of his power. You’d give David seconds before he was nothing but a smear on the landscape.

But David’s speech is better, more compelling. He shows no fear in his lack of conventional weapons, no doubt that he will not just defeat but humiliate his enemy, and evokes memories in the Israelites around him of God’s faithful rescues of the past.

“It isn’t me you are insulting, but Yahweh. It isn’t any army you face, but God’s chosen people. And God will be glorified throughout the world when he saves his people again – not by the conventions of human warfare but by his own mysterious ways.”

Basically it is David the missionary, urging Israel to rediscover their faith, turn back to the living God and begin walking in his light once again.

Then, after all the, build up, the fight itself is almost an anti-climax. One smooth stone from a little creek bed hits Goliath on the head – whack whack sword cut off his head, the giant now is dead.

Yet this is the bit we are used to focussing on. This briefest of sections runs through popular culture – as we said earlier, everyone knows a David and Goliath story when they see it. But as we noted with the Holy Trinity a few weeks ago, the common perception wildly misses the point. Without the speeches and the backstory it is just the little guy getting lucky, or being brave, or displaying amazing intestinal fortitude, and sticking it to the big man. When you scratch the surface, it is the final act, the cherry on the icing on the cake, of a long reminder of the power and presence of God with His people, and His great saving love for us.

For God is bigger than any of the giants we face, any of life’s storms. That can be really hard to believe sometimes, especially when you are caught in the middle of them – but, from experience, I can tell you He truly is there.

Just as David did we need to let our relationship with the living God inform and impact how we face all life throws at us. Take the families of our Christian brothers and sisters brutally murdered at a Bible study in Charleston just a few days ago. They have gone to great lengths to rise up through their pain and anguish to speak words of forgiveness to the man accused of the killings. And this comes as a surprise to many people, making as many headlines around the world as the hate crime itself. But it really shouldn’t. The BBC quoted Dr Alton Pollard III, Dean of the Howard School of Divinity, in their report –

“God is always greater and because of that, even in horrific conditions, we can still be faithful… Because of faithfulness, we have the capacity to forgive.”

Chris and Camryn, the children of murdered Sharonda Singleton, summed it up simply –

“Love is stronger than hate.”

When we stand in faith, when we have the courage to let God strip away the things the world says are important, the things we hide behind or even battle to uphold, and just give ourselves over to the Lord in love and trust, it changes the game. It does not make the situation just go away. It may not make it less terrifying or less painful or at all ‘easier.’ But all three of our passages today show God has brought those who have faith in him through many, many battles and storms – and that same God is with us in ours, surrounding us with His great love and inspiring us to show the same to all who we meet, to bring them to faith in Him who will save us and take us home at the end of our final chapter.

Not bad for a Sunday School story, eh?

Amen

God looks at your…

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 8am Eucharist on 14th June 2015a and All Saints 10:00am Eucharist on 17th June 2015. The readings were 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 11-13, 14-17, Mark 4:26-34.

Many of you will know that, not long after I came to faith I travelled to the North East of Brazil to work as a volunteer with the Baptist Missionary Society. Part of the role was, on our return from 6 months overseas, to tour the UK for 3 months speaking in churches, schools, youth clubs – anywhere that would have us really – encouraging people to support prayerfully and financially the work of the organisation, and to look at the mission possibilities in their lives, both overseas and on their doorstep.

In one school we took a lesson with a group of primary age children, and decided to write out some of the words, albeit in a different translation, that we heard in our Old Testament reading this morning. 1 Samuel 16:7b:

“man looks at your outward appearance, but God looks at your heart.”

A group of children each had a board with one of the words written on it, and the remaining bairns had to arrange them, one move at a time, to form the complete passage. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Each move I read out the resulting sentence with great gusto – which was fine until, too late, I realised they had arranged it so it read

“man looks at your outward appearance, God looks at your but(t)”

– howls of laughter followed.

So that verse has stuck with me ever since. But that’s quite a fitting way to remember it, I think. It seems to me that now more than ever before the world wants to judge people, especially women, by their outside appearance. The advent of social media and the internet as a whole has fuelled this, but advertising, TV, films, newspapers, gossip magazines all seem obsessed with “the body beautiful,” dismissing personality, intellect or emotional skills to focus on mammary glands and posterior parts, hair, teeth and eyebrows of any female who puts her head above the parapet and dares voice an opinion. As a father to three daughters this worries me, as I don’t want them to see how you look or dress as they key to happiness. As a father to a son it worries me, as I don’t want him to fall into the trap of looking at women that way & missing out on the depth of relationship both they and he deserves.

As Christians we can sometimes outwardly judged ourselves. We are stereotyped as boring, irrelevant, mad even, for declaring a faith in God, or coming to church. Some of us may even feel tempted to keep our heads down and avoid the gaze of others, lest we stand out & are ridiculed.

But as a church, we too need to be wary of how we look at those we meet. It’s easy to raise an eyebrow at the hair and hemlines of those who come to us for wedding and baptism services, to be put off or even scared of people who dress differently, behave differently, who are just….different. How can we communicate the Gospel to them – they won’t be interested, they won’t understand…

God looks at your heart. God looks at their heart too. As God’s children we are blessed by the Holy Spirit, empowered to share the good news to whoever we meet, however young or old, however different they seem.

By showing love not fear, warmth not distance, care not judgement, we can be the first step on somebody’s journey to faith – or even the last step on their making a commitment to Christ. After all, although I’m everyone in this room dressed sensibly, never listened to loud ‘unsuitable’ music, behaved impeccably and understood all there was to know about Christianity and Jesus love for the world just like that (finger snap) from day one… I didn’t – and if it wasn’t for the love and acceptance of Christian folk who were different to me, I never would have.

David was written off because he didn’t look the part – too young, too small. Look where he ended up. As the current Bishop of Durham says, “Never underestimate the small.” Our small actions, our small prayers, our small acts of love, driven by what we may even see as the smallest amount of faith can and will be the big difference in somebody’s life, the tiny mustard seed which grows into the massive tree of life, spilling out from us to our neighbours to their neighbours to our world.

Paul urged the Corinthians – urges us – to “walk by faith not sight.” Because, he says, “from now on…we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

Let us always strive to show all our neighbours, those we welcome into our church and those we go out to meet, the chance to find that fresh start, that healing touch, that amazing love made available to us by the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen

How do you solve a problem like the Trinity…

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 8am and All Saints 10:30am Eucharist’s on 31st May 2015 – Trinity Sunday. The readings were Isaiah 6:1-8, Romans 8:12-17 and John 3:1-17.

I have here a bag of crisps. I am a huge crisp fan – they’re kind of my Achilles heel when it comes to healthy eating. Everything in moderation…

But these didn’t really do it for me: “Tyrrells summer butter & mint flavour. According to the back they comprise “the finest spuds, a dab of butter, a snippet of mint – summer’s holy trinity.” I’ll let you tell me at the end of the service if you think they live up to the first part of that billing as we’ll share them over coffee, but isn’t the “Holy Trinity” bit interesting?

It’s funny, but across our now supposedly ‘secular’ society it’s a phrase that still gets heavily used. A few months ago a headline read “Businessman buys £3m ‘Holy Trinity’ of supercars.” The paper explained that “Paul Bailey is believed to be the first British car enthusiast to own a McLaren P1, a Ferrari LaFerrari and a Porsche 918 Spyder.” Lucky boy. A quick Google showed me people’s opinions on the holy trinity of rock, holy trinity of advertising techniques and even a Sun headline that read “Historic picture shows holy trinity of 3 Popes together” – Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, in case you were wondering.

I find this fascinating. Common parlance seems to show that a ‘holy trinity’ – note it is always a ‘holy’ or ‘unholy’ trinity, not just a trinity – is three similar things, or at least three things linked in some way – Cars, foodstuffs, pontiffs. And there is a danger when speaking of THE Holy Trinity that we Christians fall into the same trap.

It’s understandable – someone like me gets tasked every year to stand up and speak on Trinity Sunday, trying to proclaim afresh this great declaration of our faith, one we repeat every Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed. And over the years I have heard many ideas on what the Trinity is ‘like.’ This is nothing new – St. Patrick supposedly used a shamrock in his attempts, meaning he is also Patron Saint of All-Age worship services. Some of us may have heard it explained as like an egg – shell, yolk & white yet still one egg or, and this could be my favourite, the Jaffa Cake – chocolate, sponge & smashing orangey bit.

The problem is, although analogies can be a good thing in this case they are always found wanting – and actually lead us down the well-trodden path of believing ancient heresies instead.

But it seems that we need something to hang concepts and experiences on to. When we eat unusual food we don’t say “I just had frog – it tastes of frog!” We say “It tastes a bit like chicken,” (which it does!) When Jilly Goolden tasted wine on Food & Drink – remember that? – it would be “Oh, I’m getting liquorice, I’m getting pear drops, I’m getting used petrol from a 1984 Ford Capri, I’m getting right on your nerves aren’t I?!”

Yet this is God we are talking about – the fact is nothing is truly ‘like’ God. We cannot ever truly comprehend the divine this side of heaven.

A story, credited to Edward J Yarnold, a Jesuit scholar:

St. Augustine of Hippo, the fourth century Bishop and theologian who wrote among other things the huge treatise On the Trinity, was pacing the Mediterranean shoreline of his native North Africa when he noticed a young boy scooping seawater into his small hands and carefully pouring it into a hole he had hollowed in the sand. Puzzled, Augustine watched as the bairn repeated this again and again. Eventually, curiosity piqued, he went over to introduce himself and ask the lad what he was doing. “I’m emptying the ocean into this hole,” came the reply. Augustine was dismissive – how could such a vast body of water be contained in such a small hole? The boy was equally dismissive in return – how could Augustine expect to contain the vast mystery of God in the mere words of a book…?

So, how do you solve a problem like the Trinity? Is it a leap of blind faith which we need to just accept & move on, or ignore & hope nobody asks about? Or are we approaching the whole thing from the wrong angle? If we view the Trinity, as 20^th century theologian Karl Barth appears to, as an explanation of God’s revelation of Himself, we find that instead of being a problem to be solved, the Trinity becomes a framework which puts our efforts to understand something of God into a proper perspective. Rather than seeing the Trinity as a concept or idea about God, if we see it as God’s way of revealing Himself to humanity, God speaking to us, our questions move from “how do we understand the Trinity” to “what is God saying to us – to me – through His being Father, Son and Holy Spirit?”

John 3:16, possibly the most famous verse of the New Testament, is bound up in Jesus revealing it takes a Trinitarian God to work out our salvation, to repair our relationship with our creator & restore in us the promise of eternal life. By being born again in the Spirit we enter the kingdom of God the Father. We are born of the Spirit by faith in Jesus, the Son sent by the Father, who dies and is raised for us, lifted up to be gazed upon in faith and trust as was the bronze serpent that saved the Israelites from earthly, physical death in Moses time.

Each of us probably feels more drawn to, more able to ‘get,’ one of the persons of the Trinity over the others. That again is human nature, and says more about us than it does about God. Hopefully we use this starting point to explore the whole of God in Trinity, not just the person of His revelation that we feel most ‘comfortable’ with, which will then deepen and strengthen our relationship with Him.

But I think if allow ourselves to believe, as the Athanasian Creed so aptly puts it:

“we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal…”

we find ourselves on the right track. Just because we cannot fully explain something does not mean it doesn’t work – I can’t explain how my laptop works but I wrote this sermon on it, so it must.

Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13 that

“now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

God has chosen to reveal himself to us in Trinity. If that’s good enough for Him, it’s good enough for me.

Amen.

 

A Birthday to Remember

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 9:30am Eucharist on 24th May 2015 – Pentecost Sunday. The readings were Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:22-27 & John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15.

Tomorrow is a big day in our house. No, I’m not just talking about the events that will unfold at Wembley Stadium as my beloved Canaries seek to re-join the great escape artists of Sunderland in the Premier League – it’s also my middle daughter’s 7^th birthday! Where does the time go?!

Birthdays are a funny thing really, aren’t they? We long for them as a child, maybe squashing down a bit of jealousy when a friend or sibling has theirs but anticipating the gifts and celebrations to come on our special day. Then as we get older, we maybe don’t relish them as much as we used to – possibly they’re just a reminder of another mile on the clock, another year older and hopefully, but not necessarily wiser. But if we allow ourselves, birthdays can afford us a good opportunity to look back over the life of ourselves or a loved one and see how far we’ve come, how we’ve grown, what made us who we are today.

I guess this fits in nicely with our Pentecost celebration today, as we read once again Luke’s account of the birth of the Church as recorded in Acts.

But his account also serves to help us look back at the real birth of Christianity – the birth of Jesus Himself. Luke spends more time describing the beginning of the Incarnation, the word becoming flesh, than any of the other Gospel writers – he wants us to see that in the origins of a person there is an indication of the direction that person’s life will take. With this in mind, there are parallels between the opening chapters of Luke’s Gospel and the opening of Acts. Both stories begin with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, though in both the Spirit seems to be at work in the period before. In both the promise given is contrasted with John the Baptist. Knowing Theophilus and any other readers will have seen his original Gospel, Luke is indicating to us we can expect to learn much from this second infancy narrative – that of the first community of believers, our Christian ancestors.

It’s important to hold this in our minds as we explore Pentecost – Acts is very much rooted in what is written in Luke, and the dramatic events of Pentecost are bound up with the events recorded in Luke 24. Pentecost follows hot on the heels of our Ascension celebrations, and inside the Easter season, because all three are inextricably linked to one another. At the Emmaus road encounter, Cleopas and his colleague reported Jesus was “made known to them in the breaking of the bread,” and that he “opened their eyes to understand the scriptures.” Afterwards he told his disciples to “stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high.” At Pentecost we remember that same power of God, made known at the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, is given to the people of God – his closest disciples, the Jews from every nation who hear them preach the Good News and listen to the message, even to the Gentiles. Yes, even to the gentiles, us, allowing us to also have an encounter, to be strengthened, healed and empowered by the Holy Spirit of the living God.

Because a good birthday celebration is not just about looking back, living in the past. We need to also look forward, to our future, to what is to come, what we feel God is calling us to do next, how we can develop to be the person or people God has created us to be – how we can be the Church, the Body of Christ, that God has called us to be. And this part of Acts shows us that anything is possible in the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke highlights this in a very subtle way, a way that even those of us who are long in the faith can miss. The story of Peter in this chapter shows that wherever we feel we are with God, however powerful or insubstantial we feel our faith to be, a relationship with Jesus and the awesome power of the Holy Spirit can truly transform us into the person the Father sees as He looks at us. This same Peter, who could only follow at a distance as His great friend was taken away, who denied even knowing him to the maid who insisted he must, and who left the courtyard weeping, broken and in the full knowledge of his betrayal – this same Peter is the first to raise his voice, to confront those who wish to pour scorn and derision on the amazing display of God’s grace and love occurring in front of them, and to boldly proclaim those word which only weeks before he could not bring himself to quietly say to a lowly serving woman in the dark of night.

In the beginning, Genesis 2:7 tells us the Spirit of God breathed life into dust and made a human being. In Acts 2:1-4 this same Spirit breathes life into a broken and cowardly disciple and creates a new, emboldened and empowered man, who cannot restrain himself from sharing the Good News that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is the promised Messiah, that Jesus is the Christ who takes away the sins of the world and has set us, each one of us here free – free to live, free to know God, free to be loved.

Anything is possible in the power of the Spirit – and we have access to that same Spirit right here, right now. And that can seem a bit, I don’t know, a bit scary. Because in Acts we see the Spirit move by wind and fire, making the church visible and public, reaching out, changing lives, provoking wrath and confusion in some and bringing hope and empowerment to others. The crowd respond to Peter’s words, crying out “what must we do to be saved?” And everything changes. Their little group suddenly expanded massively. But, if we look further into this chapter of Acts, people set aside their differences and unite for the common good, living as those who love Jesus above all else. As I’ve said before, John reminds us perfect love casts out all fear. If we faithfully call on the Spirit He will move afresh in us, in our church and our parish, and He will help us once again to bring people to that knowledge of the love of Jesus Christ that will make their lives complete.

So let’s make this birthday our best birthday ever – our re-birthday. Let’s unite in calling on the Holy Spirit to once again fill our hearts, fill our lives, fill our brothers and sisters who we are with here today – and ultimately fill our Church with our brothers and sisters who do not yet know the risen Lord. We, like Peter, can be changed, strengthened and empowered to carry that amazing Good News out with us and proclaim it to all – today, tomorrow and forevermore.

Amen.

 

More Questions than Answers?

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 6pm Evensong service on 17th May 2015, the Sunday after the Ascension. The readings were Acts 1.1-11, Ephesians 1.15-23 & Luke 24.44-53.

I was once told there is no such thing as a stupid question – only a stupid person. I don’t subscribe to the latter part, but I think one of the great things about our Christian faith is we have the ability to – are hopefully encouraged to – ask questions about it.

You may not be surprised to hear I often end up chatting to people – in the street or at the school gates or wherever, and something that has been asked a couple of times is how I as a Christian avoid doubt, or can have “blind faith.” But I don’t think doubt is the opposite of faith – fear is the opposite of faith, just as it is the opposite of love. And as we explored a few weeks ago, perfect love – agape, God’s divine, self-giving love – casts out fear. But questions are healthy, as they hold us to account and stop us getting too blasé about our faith, too comfortable in our small Christian bubble, and encourage us to explore God’s understanding and perspective of things instead of just ours and our friends.

So there’s a part of me that loves the confusion in the ascension story. The disciples, the people who have been closest to Jesus throughout his ministry, the guys who have listened to all he’s had to say, seen the miracles he has performed, grieved for his death and celebrated his resurrection and have now been taught by Him for an extra forty days still have questions – still don’t seem to really understand. After all He’s said and done, they can’t quite believe He’s leaving without doing the big Messiah thing they had expected right from the start.

“Lord,” they say, “all the other stuff sounds brilliant, but is this the part where we start the revolution & overthrow the Romans? After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?!”

It’s quite comforting really – to think that 2000 years ago those who were the first to hang around with Jesus were still left scratching their heads in a similar way to us as he rose into the clouds, dust trickling from his feet and his final instructions ringing in their ears.

And there a chance that, in our enlightened times and with the benefit of hindsight, we could think it was a bit of an odd, even a daft question. But I’m wondering – if it would have been us standing there, listening to Jesus and contemplating His impending departure, what would we have asked Him? I’m not going to put anybody on the spot, but what springs to mind?

“Lord, how do we respond to so much need in this world?”

“Lord, did you really mean that love your enemy thing?”

“Lord, are Sunderland going to stay up?!?”

Because, if we’re honest, there is a fair chance we would find ourselves asking about things that are more specific to our lives, our immediate concerns.

“What is the future for our church?”

“Why didn’t you heal my friend, loved one…”

“If this Church grows again will it change – will I feel a stranger in my own pew?”

These are all perfectly good questions – I’m sure that the many, many more flitting around your heads like butterflies right now are equally as good. And the example of the disciples shows we are justified in asking them. The amazing thing about our relationship with God our Father through Jesus His son in the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us is we are allowed to come to Him with whatever is on our hearts – whatever troubles us, excites us, builds us up or destroys us and lay it at the foot of His cross in prayer.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” says the Lord.

The trick, as they say, is then to stay around and listen for the answer. Because one thing I think many of us have experienced is that prayer is not always answered in the way we expect, or the way we would have planned or chosen. In this instance, Jesus answers the disciples question with what appears to be a frustrating vagueness – but notice He does not deny that the kingdom will be restored, and backs up His earlier promise of help. What He does ask them to do is wait…

Luke uses two languages in Acts to describe what has happened to the world in and through the incarnation, God becoming man, word becoming flesh. One is the language of resurrection, of victory over death; the other is ascension, of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. Next week, when we celebrate Pentecost, we see these two motifs meet in the life and power given to the disciples in the Holy Spirit. But for now, the disciples had to be patient – and as we wait with them to mark the outpouring of the Spirit, let us give thanks that we have a God so mind-blowingly awesome that He can transcend life & death, time and space, yet merciful and gracious enough to listen to us, to walk amongst us, die a cruel, torturous death for us, and reside with us in our hearts this day and always.

Amen.

Surprises in the familiar

This sermon was preached at St. Andrew’s 8am Eucharist on 10th May 2015. The readings were Acts 10:44-48, 1 John 5:1-6 & John 15:9-17. 

“This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.”

One of the things I find exciting about being a Christian is spotting things I haven’t seen properly before – a verse or a phrase that stands out all of a sudden in a book or letter that I’ve read countless times, that moment when it seems God is speaking afresh to me through the scriptures. Some of us may find this when we try Lectio Divina, the Benedictine method of prayerfully meditating on the Bible. Some of us may just be flicking through scripture & be drawn to a certain section, or be reminded of a passage we once read by a hymn, song, piece of music or just in everyday conversation.

That enigmatic verse, the beginning of the end of John’s First Epistle, caught my eye as I was looking through today’s reading during the week. It may sound a bit like a riddle at first glance, but I find it gives an intriguing snapshot of the importance of two of the great sacraments we have been gifted by God – Baptism and the Eucharist.

The author seems to presuppose an understanding of Jesus life, and as some see this Epistle as almost a commentary on the Gospel of John that is understandable. So think of the two bookends of Jesus earthly ministry. His baptism in the River Jordan, the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove, witnessed by and testified to by John the Baptist in John 1:29-33. His crucifixion and death, his side pierced so water and blood poured out, witnessed by and testified to by an unnamed man in John 19:31-35. These two hugely significant events in Jesus life, given extra credence by John recording witness statements to ensure people saw their truth, and now handed on to us as Christ’s body on earth. And they are now hugely significant moments of our earthly walk with Jesus – but like so many things, repetition and familiarity can make their significance, I don’t know, fade or seem diminished. I need, and I think we all need, to remind ourselves of the importance of Jesus life and death on a daily basis.

To recall our own baptism, or our first communion, may not be easy in the literal sense – most of us will have been a mere bairn when we got ‘done,’ and with weekly Eucharist’s our first becomes one of many, especially if it wasn’t given the same prominence it would receive in the Catholic Church. But every time we reaffirm our faith in the words of the creed we remember our participation in the death and resurrection of our Lord through our baptism. Every time we drink the cup we remember his torturous, agonizing, life-giving death for each one of us. And each time we gather together, each time we spend time in prayer, each time we open the Bible, we can call upon the Holy Spirit to testify that this is the truth – that Jesus lived and died and rose again to bring us life in all its fullness, to the glory of God the Father.

As we gather around the table this morning, let’s ask the Sprit to move afresh in us, in our Church, to encourage and excite us by His presence once more. He will speak to us in the liturgy, in the scriptures, this day and every day, if we have ears to listen and a heart to love.

And through us He can, and will, restore our faith and revitalise this Church, this city, this fallen world. Yes, through each one of us. After all, “Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Amen