At the Name of Jesus (New Year 2017)

On the Feast of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.

When I was a lad, I was not the most popular boy in the school. There were a lot of reasons for this, now I look back on it. I was tall and gangly, and had a face covered in acne. I was also the only musician in the school; very different from the rest of my rather macho classmates. I was also extremely allergic to sport...mainly because I was rubbish at it.  And to be honest, I was a bit of a ‘know-it-all’ – though I’m sure none of you would recognise that now!

As a result, I got called rather a lot of nasty names...very few of which are repeatable from a pulpit. My poor parents did their best to try to help me cope, including making frequent use of that old saying, "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me".

The trouble is, that old saying is a load of rubbish, isn't it? The reality is that name-calling does hurt, doesn't it? Our names are part of who we are...they are a key part of our identity. And when someone replaces our identity with a horrible word like "idiot”, it creates what psychologists call a 'dissonance' between who we think we are, and who others perceive us to be - and that dissonance physically hurts.

The names we use, and the names we call out do matter.

For example, when I think of the name 'Tom' it carries with it a whole load of associations...most of them positive. It’s the name that Clare uses to call me to dinner (which is always a positive experience for me!).   So, the word 'Tom' has a positive ring about it - it’s part of my positive identity…along with many other names that I use, like Dad, and Uncle.

‘Thomas’ - on the other hand - creates a rather different sense of identity. That's the name that Clare (and my mother!) use when I am in trouble. When I hear "Thomas!" from the other end of the garden, I tend to think "Uh oh; what have I done now?!"

So names are important - and they were even more important in biblical times. The bible is packed full of examples of people changing their names in order to mark a change or transformation in their deep-down sense of who they are. Perhaps the best example is that of Abram, the father of the Hebrew nation, having his name changed by God to Abraham. ‘Abram’ meant, simply, 'exalted Father' - a term of respect for an old man. But Abraham meant 'father of many', and was given as a sign that Abraham was to become the father of an entire nation.

Names in the bible, then, are much more than just a word which helps to sort out who is who. Names are words which contain a sense of the full character of the person being named. Today, we celebrate the naming and the circumcision of Jesus.  Circumcision was, of course, normal practice for a Jewish male-child.  By having him circumcised, Jesus’ parents were being faithful to the teachings of the Hebrew, or Jewish Bible.  It placed Jesus in his culture, and literally marked him as a child of Israel, and a son of David.

But it is his name which is most significant.

Interestingly, Jesus wasn’t called Jesus at all!  His actual given name was ‘Yeshua’ which essentially boils down to two words:  ‘Ye’…a contraction of YHWH, or God.  And ‘shua’ which is a noun meaning a cry for help…something like ‘save us’.  So Jesus actual name, the one his Mum would have called him at dinner-time, means ‘God Saves’.

Incidentally, I was once pounced on in a churchyard by a very angry woman of dubious mental stability.  She was adamant that we were not Christians at all, because we don’t worship ‘Yeshua’ by his proper name!  No matter how hard I tried to convince her that ‘Jesus’ is essentially an anglicised way of pronouncing ‘Yeshua’ – she wasn’t having any of it!

Some names were also believed to have power in and of themselves - because of whom they are attached to. So, to 'call on the name of the Lord' was to invoke the power of the Lord himself. (To see this most powerfully demonstrated, you only have to sit in on a service of our friends at the Redeemed Church of God - where every prayer is made, powerfully, 'in the name of 'Jesus'.)

To pray 'in the name of Jesus' is to pray in the presence and reality of Jesus – and to be convinced that it is God who saves, not we ourselves.

Names have power, and so do some particular words.  At this turning-point of the year, I want to ask you to consider the meaning of one more important word – and that’s the word ‘parish’.  We describe ourselves as ‘the Parish’ of St Faith, Havant – not just ‘the church’.  In fact, both are useful words – and we might take a moment to consider them.

Etymologically speaking, the ‘church’ is not this building at all.  The church is the gathered people of God, all those who own the name ‘Christ-ian’ – wherever we might actually worship. We could worship in the Hall at the Pallant Centre (as indeed we did last year) and we would still be ‘the Church’.

We are those whom Yeshua, the Saviour, calls to tell others the good news of how ‘God saves’.  And the place that Yeshua especially calls us, is ‘the Parish’ – the area surrounding our church-building, in which we have been called, placed, and equipped for his service by our worship.

And so, we make no apology for spending the resources that God gives us on more than just this building.  There is much we would like to achieve in this building in the coming year – you can read all about our hopes and aspirations in ‘The Big Build News’, available on the sides-table.  We want to finish the organ restoration, and improve our toilet facilities.  We want to upgrade our PA, and our audio-visual capabilities.  We want to deal with crumbling plaster, and the long-term need to re-roof the building.  We want this building to be the best and most fitting place for the worship of God that we can make it.

But we are also called to serve God, and bring his ‘salvation’ to the wider parish.  That’s why we will continue to invest in The Pallant Centre – the place where we have perhaps more connections than anywhere else with the people of the parish.  In the Pallant Centre, young parents have a café in which to gather for friendship.  Alcoholics, gamblers, drug addicts, and ex-service-personnel all find advice and support.  Young people are stretched and given the space to develop, through Dynamo.  Artists have space to paint, archers have space to exercise.  The Solent Male Voice Choir has space to exercise body and voice, and find friendship and fellowship.  And many more besides.

We do all this, with your help, in the name of Yeshua – the God who saves.  We serve the God who saves us from death by the cross.  But he is also the God who saves us from loneliness, and isolation.  He saves us from idleness and from addiction.  He saves us from selfishness, and calls us to lives of service to others.  He saves us from mediocrity, and invites us to become all that we can be, in his service.

It is Jesus we serve; he whose name is above all names.  We set out, into this new year, confident that in his name, we can overcome the negativity of so much that is present in our nation at the present time.  We believe and declare that the time is coming when the message that ‘God saves’ will be in every heart and on every tongue – when at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow!

Amen.

Christmas Sermon 2016: Meditation on John 1

John 1. 1-14  Christmas Sermon

Everyone loves a story.  Stories are powerful ways to communicate – which is precisely why Jesus used parables, and why we all love movies and books.  I wonder what stories you will enjoy this Christmas.  A bit of Sherlock perhaps?  Some new awfulness on the Eastenders Christmas special?  For me, I know that Christmas is finally here – in a secular sense – when I settle down to the Doctor Who Christmas special!

The Christmas Story is sometimes referred to as ‘the greatest story ever told’ (though others argue that the story of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus should be given that epithet).  But what a good story the Christmas story is!

The Gospel writers, Luke and Matthew give us different perspectives on the same story.  This is a story they have heard, and which they then tell in their own way, decades later.  Each of them has a different perspective.  Luke’s faith in Jesus is fired by the way Jesus reached out to the poor and the oppressed.  So he gives us the story of how a bunch of shepherds, outsiders, are invited to be front and centre at the coming of the Messiah.  Matthew, on the other hand, is fired by Jesus’ message that God’s love is meant for all humanity – so he focuses on the coming of Wise Men from Eastern Lands.  These are non-Jews, outsiders, who are brought into the fold of God’s love.

But John, writing his Gospel some decades after Luke and Matthew, is not interested in shepherds and wise men.  Scholars tell us that John wrote his Gospel in his old age – after a lifetime of spreading the message of Jesus.  No doubt the stories about wise men and shepherds were already circulating widely.  John didn’t need to re-hash them.  So he goes deeper.  After a lifetime of teaching and learning, John wants us to grasp the enormity of the Christmas event, the coming of Jesus, what scholars call the ‘Incarnation’ – a posh word which has nothing to do with tinned milk or the flowers often worn at weddings!  ‘Incarnation’ describes the in-dwelling of God in human form.  The ‘Incarnation’ is that moment when God, who is Spirit, takes on human flesh.

There are two words which John especially plays with, in his poetic Gospel introduction.  The first is ‘Word’, and the second is ‘Light’.  Let me see if we can’t break them down a little.
‘Word’ is the English translation of ‘Logos’ – a Greek word from where we get the word ‘logic’.  John is saying that the incomprehensible being we call God is many things – spirit, love, a creative force that binds the universe together.  But he is also mind.  He has thoughts.  He has desires and intentions for the world that he has created.  God’s thoughts, God’s logic, God’s reason – these are his ‘Logos’ – his ‘Word’.  “In the beginning was the Word” – the Logos – “and the Word was with with God and the Word was God”.  It’s one of those great big thoughts that we human beings struggle to get our tiny brains around – that God can be thought of as having different aspects, but each of them is also fully God’.  So, God’s reason, his Word, can be part of who God is as well as being completely who God is.  “The word with with God and “was God”.

And, John is saying, that ‘Word’ is the aspect of God which became human and dwelt among us.  Again – incomprehensible, isn’t it.  How can an aspect of God become human, while not dividing God up into different people?  If God is on earth, in the form of Jesus, how can he also be still in heaven?  And how come Jesus (God the Son on earth) prays to God the Father in heaven?  Is he talking to himself?  It’s enough to make your brain explode!  And that’s ok.  We are limited, created beings.  We cannot ever really grasp the reality of God.

So John paints a different picture.  He uses a metaphor.  He has stated the truth as clearly as he can grasp it, by talking about the ‘Word’ dwelling among us.  But now he chooses a different tack, and begins to talk about ‘Light’.

Ah!  That’s better.  ‘Light’ we can understand.  We know about Light.  We see its effects.  We know that even a tiny spark of light cannot be extinguished by the darkness.  We know that if this church was completely darkened, save for one candle, all our attention would be focused on that single solitary light.

“In Jesus”, says John, “was life, and that life was the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”.

And that, ultimately, is the message of Christmas.  Darkness is all around us.  The darkness of war, and famine, and poverty, and homelessness and selfishness and consumerism and racism and fear of the stranger and all hatred and rebellion against the reason and logic of God.  “But the light shines in the darkness”.

In Jesus, through his teaching, his life, and yes even by his death, life is offered to the world.  That’s why, on this night of his birth, we are nevertheless going to mark Jesus’ death in a few minutes.  Jesus’ whole life is offered to us, by John and the other Gospel writers, as The Way to life.  His way of living – generously, lovingly, wisely is offered to us as an example of what God’s logic and reason look like.  Jesus’ way of dying – sacrificially, trustingly are still more examples of the Logos of God.  These are signposts for us.  Lights in the darkness.  Clues to how we too should live, if we truly want to find life.

All these things are mysteries.  All of them take a lifetime of thought, reasoning, logic to even begin to grasp – as John himself knew in his old age.

Let tonight be a turning point for you.  Let the light of Christ illuminate and inspire you.  Draw from the spiritual energy he offers around his table, in bread and wine (his body and his blood).  Follow and pursue the light of life every single day from this point on.  It’s what wise men did, 2,000 years ago.   And it’s what the wisest men and women today still do.

Amen

Repent or Repent?

Matthew 11.2-11

John the Baptist is one of the stranger characters of the New Testament. He wore clothing of camel hair – which I imagine was rather itchy – who seems to have lived exclusively on locusts and wild honey. I imagine that getting wild honey out of a wild honey-bee hive is rather a tricky thing to do. So poor old John was probably covered in bee-stings as well.

John was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He followed the tradition of living apart from civilisation, and of calling people to repent of their evil ways. So, let’s picture the scene – picture a rather dirty fellow, who has probably never visited a barber, dressed in camel-hair, covered in bee-stings and with honey stuck to his shirt, munching on a locust...and declaring at the top of his voice “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

I wonder what our reaction would be if we met someone like that in the streets of Havant – or even here inside the church. I think we’d probably try to get him sectioned – for his own good!

But there was something about John that attracted people to him. There was something about his message that had people coming out to him in the wilderness from “Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region along the River Jordan” (Mt 3:5) And let’s remember, these weren’t Sunday drivers out for a laugh at the strange fellow in the desert. These were people who would have travelled many hours, and in some cases many days – to hear for themselves the amazing – even scandalous - things that this man of the desert was saying.

John was not a man to mince his words either. He called the religious leaders of the day a “viper’s brood” (Mt 3:7) He warned them against the complacency of their religion. “Just because you are Abraham’s children,” he would say, “don’t go thinking that gives you an automatic right to heaven” (Mt 7:8 - paraphrased).  He warned them to be afraid of the Messiah who would ‘put an axe to the tree’ of their systems and laws.

There are a number of strange inconsistencies about John. First there is the fact that he didn’t join up with Jesus. Why didn’t he set aside his baptising, and become a follower of the Lord? And then there’s the fact (as we’ve just heard in the Gospel reading) that when he was in prison he sent word to Jesus - to ask him if he really was the Messiah...despite having recognised him as such by the Jordon at Jesus’ baptism.

It seems that John had a different vision in his head of what the Messiah would be like – he seemed to expect a Messiah who would be full of swift judgment against the evil people of the day. See what he says in Matthew’s gospel, in chapter 3:

“...he [that is the Messiah] will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”. (Mt 3: 12) John’s mental picture of the Messiah was based in the language and concepts of the Old Testament. He expected the ‘great and terrible Day of the Lord’. And when it didn’t happen quite as he expected, he perhaps proved more reticent to join up with Jesus. Maybe that’s why he sent word from his prison – saying to Jesus, “are you really the Messiah?”.

But Jesus has a subtly different agenda. He also speaks of the coming day of judgment, and the separation of sheep from goats – later in Matthew’s gospel in fact. But Jesus places that event at some distance in the future. First, he has work to do – to call as many people as possible to repentance, and to give the greatest possible opportunity for people to choose God’s way of living over their own.

There’s a difference, you see, between John’s angry, passionate cry of ‘repent’, and Jesus’ loving invitation to ‘repent’.  The emphasis that we put on words really matters, doesn’t it?  John’s cry of ‘repent’ is angry, frustrated, and intolerant of the world he sees around him.  He is motivated by anger, and longs for the vipers and the chaff to be burned up in unquenchable fire!  But Jesus has God’s perspective on the world.  He looks on the mess of the world with compassion and love – like a parent looks on a wayward child.  He preaches tolerance, forgiveness and peace, and even prays for forgiveness for those who crucify him – “for they know not what they do”.  Jesus is prepared, with God’s longing patience, to give time to the establishment of his Kingdom.

He is so committed to that path – and so reluctant to embark on the eventual task of judgment - that he is prepared to give up his own life so that we might find our way back to God.

And I wonder whether we ourselves can sometimes be a bit like John. Certainly, as a human race, we have often been guilty of making God in our own image.  How many wars have been fought in the belief that God approves of them? How many acts of cruelty have been perpetrated in the belief that God is somehow being served through them? Are there ways in which we conduct our lives which are inconsistent with the reality of Jesus – and the way in which he calls us to live?

I wonder if you’ve seen that bracelet that teenagers sometimes wear.  It has the four letters “WWJD”. They stand for “what would Jesus do” – of course – and it’s a phrase from the 1970s (at least!) which has perhaps become dulled by over-familiarity. But it’s still a good question. What would Jesus do in the face of the rampant poverty of the developing world? What would Jesus do in the face of corruption among leaders of so many nations? What would Jesus do when faced with the commercial pressure to ‘spend, spend, spend’ at this time of the year? What would Jesus do in the face of globalisation and climate change?

My daughter once had a t-shirt with the question WWJB - “Who would Jesus bomb?”... but that’s a subject for another discussion altogether!

During this time of advent, the story of John invites us to prepare for the coming of Jesus – the true Messiah – who will probably be nothing like we expect him to be.  We are invited to prepare for the Lord who says “love one another”, and who shows us what real love is like through radical self- sacrifice.  The story of John reminds us that our understanding of who Jesus was, and is, needs to be re-interpreted.  It needs to be seen in the light of Jesus’ advent as the forgiving, accepting, non-retaliatory suffering-servant-king – whose strength is precisely in his meekness.

May you know the peace of Christ as you prepare to celebrate his coming once again this year. May you know the reality of who Jesus really was and is.  By soaking up the stories about him in the Bible, may you deepen your understanding of who he was and what he stood for. And may that knowledge transform you. Day by day.  So that you may truly know who you are...a loved child of God, gently and loving called to repentance.  And by depending that knowledge, may you come to know what you stand for too.

Amen.

Slaves for Jesus

Luke 17.5-10  Slaves for Jesus

From time to time, people wonder where I got the title of Canon…well let me tell you.
A few years ago Clare and I gave hospitality for a couple of years to a priest from Ghana, who was studying in the UK at the time.  When his time with us was over, the Bishop of Cape Coast conferred the title of Honorary Canon on me, as a gesture of thanks.  Subsequently, I was made a Canon of Ho as well…after supporting the work of Bishop Matthias there.  So you get two Canons for the price of one with me!

One of the privileges of being a Canon is the right to preach at the Cathedral to which one is attached.  So, a few years ago, I found myself in the pulpit of Cape Coast Cathedral – looking out over a sea of Ghanaian faces.

Cape Coast Cathedral is a very moving place.  The building is, in fact, the former Garrison Church of the British Army, from the days of the slave trade.  It is built just a few feet from the walls of Cape Coast Castle, where so many West Africans were sent out in awful slave ships all around the world.  I will never forget visiting the Castle, where the guide pointed out the door to the slave dungeons, in the courtyard.  Above the doors to the dungeons was a small, white building.  The guide asked “DO you know what that building is?  It was the very first Christian Church in Ghana!”

I’ll leave you to imagine my emotions.  There was I, a recently invested Canon of the neighbouring Cathedral, standing with a crowd of tourists in my clerical collar, being told that the very first church in this country had been built over the doors to a slave pit.

Then, the next day, I stood in the pulpit of that same Cathedral.  It would once have been filled with white faces and British Army uniforms.  But now, I was the only white face in the place.  I couldn’t help reflect what a remarkable transformation God had achieved in that place.  I was grateful, of course, that it was ultimately Christians who brought about the end of the official slave trade.  And grateful too that the ancestors of those slaves had been so blessed with God’s grace, and filled with loving forgiveness, that they could make me – and ancestor of their oppressors – a Canon of their Cathedral.  It was a humbling moment, I can tell you.

Slavery is, of course, a key metaphor of today’s Gospel.  At the time of Jesus, slavery was a normal part of human life.  Even though later Christian writers, like St Paul, were destined to speak against slavery, Jesus didn’t get into that particular inhumanity to man.  Jesus was concerned with all inhumanity to man – and prescribed love for one’s neighbour as the remedy for all the evil we do to each other.  But Jesus also used the world around him, as it then was, to draw out stories to teach his followers.  So, in today’s Gospel, he uses the analogy of a slave.

Jesus describes how no slave could possibly expect to be able to come in from the fields and expect to flop down at his master’s table.  Instead, he would fully expect to keep on serving his master – carrying out the functions of a servant.   Jesus is saying, effectively, ‘don’t expect time off for good behaviour when you are my disciple!’.  Being a disciple of Jesus is not a part-time occupation.  We don’t get to decide to be a follower of Jesus one day, and then to ignore him the next.  That isn’t what the life of faith is all about.

Faith, even as small as a mustard seed, can bring about incredible transformations.  But what kind of faith is this.  Later this morning, in Café Church, we are going to be exploring what the words ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ actually mean.  I will be suggesting – for discussion – that faith is not about believing a set of ideas about God.  It’s something very different indeed.

Our word faith has its root in the Latin words fides and fidelitas – from which we get the word ‘fidelity’.  We normally use that word today to describe the faithfulness between two people in the bond of marriage.  But it has resonance for the bond between us Christians and our Master, too.  To follow Christ is to be faithful to the person of Jesus, and especially to his teachings.  It means trusting that Jesus’s words and teachings have the power to save us from ourselves.

Take the example of Jesus’ attitude to wealth.  Time and time again Jesus warned us of the dangers of accumulating too much wealth.  “Make treasure for yourselves in heaven, where it cannot rust or be stolen”.  “Don’t fill up your barns with wealth – you can’t take it with you when you die”.  “If you have two coats, give one to a brother or sister in need”.  And yet, we – the slaves of the Master – all have a tendency to only follow his teachings so far – don’t we.  I know I do.  We say to ourselves, that ‘a little bit of charity is ok…but let’s not go overboard.  We might not be able to afford that expensive holiday we fancy, or that new luxury car, or that upgrade to our kitchen’.

There’s a story I like, about a rich man who wanted to show his young son what it was like to be poor.  So he took his son to live for a few days on the farm of a poor shepherd.  At the end of their time, the father asked his son what he had noticed about the differences between his life, and life on the farm.  The son replied:

• “I noticed that I have one dog in my house, but farmer has a whole flock of sheep and three dogs.
• I noticed that I have a swimming pool which takes up half our garden, but that shepherd had a whole lake at the bottom of his.
• I noticed that we have lights in our garden at night, but that Shepherd had all the stars of heaven
• I noticed that we have high walls around our property to protect us, but the Shepherd had friends coming and going all the time, who would protect him if he was ever in trouble.
• I noticed that we are poor, and the Shepherd is very rich”

I’ve seen just such things in Ghana.  My very good friend, Bishop Matthias, is a poor man.  He drives a car that is 15 years old, and (as I discovered coming down a mountain last year) has broken brakes.  (I’ll tell you that terrifying story on another occasion).  He lives in a very modest house, and has to scrabble-around every month for enough money to keep the lights on.  And yet, his house is always full of children (many of whom he adopts), and the door is constantly being knocked by friends – from all over his Diocese, his town, and the world.

And so, finally, in the midst of all the wonderful work that is going on at the moment in our parish – from the clocks to the re-wiring, from the weathervane to the floodlighting, from the new Play Café to the hall toilets…I have to wonder why it is that we spend so much of our time, as a congregation, raising money from outsiders.  Why do I spend as much time as I do chasing funds from local councillors, the National Lottery, trust funds and organising fundraising events?  Why is so much of our progress made using volunteers who are not members of our congregation – whether they be charity shop workers or volunteer builders?

In other words, why can’t we…the core congregation of this church, simply pay local tradesmen for the work that we know needs to be done for the good of God’s mission here?  Could it be that we, the slaves of our Master Jesus, haven’t yet fully understood what following him really means?  Could it be that some of us think that following Jesus is a part-time occupation – something we do on Sundays for a couple of hours, but something that doesn’t actually touch our lifestyles, and our wallets, during the rest of the week.

How shall we – each of us – judge ourselves and our faith?  How shall we each weigh the level of our commitment to being slaves of the Master?  Well, quite simply, if you want to know what a person’s priorities are, find out what they do with their money.  The choice we make about where we spend the wealth God has given to each of us is the clearest indication of the depth of our faithfulness to the Master.

Amen.

What do you believe?

Hebrews 11 – Faith: What do you believe?

Over the last few months we have been grappling with the challenges of this ancient church building, and our buildings in the Pallant.  As we’ve done so, I have been reminded time and time again of the generations of Christians who have worshipped in this place before us.  Sometimes we have uncovered evidence of them, in the walls or in secret corners.  For example, a few weeks ago we removed a heating flue from the old toilets in the Pallant Centre, and we discovered a pencil drawing of Adolf Hitler on the back of the pipe – with the words ‘he is here’.  No doubt this was a joke, at the time that rumours were circulating about Hitler not having really died…but quite disturbing for a moment.

Then on Friday, I was poking about in the organ chamber, and I came across a whole load of signatures, scrawled in pencil on one of the old monuments back there.  I guess they were previous organ builders who wanted to leave their mark.  Again, when installing the refurbished weathervane on top of the tower on Friday, I noticed the number of names that are carved into the cement at the top of the tower steps – quite probably from when the tower was rebuilt in the 1800s.

All these encounters with the past have impressed on me that we are but the latest generation of people who have worshipped here, maintained and improved our buildings, and been witnesses for God in this community.  More than that, we are the inheritors of the faith which they have passed on to us down the ages…the faith which we will declare again together in the words of the Creed – in a short while.

But faith is a slippery thing, isn’t it?  Something I discover more and more as a parish priest is the wide range of things that people believe in.  Some believe in aliens, and some in fairies.  Some believe that the end of the world is coming any day now, and others believe there is a conspiracy of ancient masonic powers who are really governing the world.  Within the Christian church there are also a huge range of beliefs to grapple with.  You pays your collection – and you takes your choice.  Let me ask you to think for a moment…what do you believe about some of the following questions?

• Is the Bible the inerrant Word of God, a guide-book for every human decision, or is it a collection of writings about how our ancestors sought to understand God?

• What exactly happens at the Eucharist?  Is it simply a memorial to the death of Jesus, or does the bread and wine actually (or just spiritually) transform into the body and blood of Christ?

• Is God really three-in-one?  Does the Spirit really ‘proceed from the Father and the Son’ or does he only proceed from the Father?  (That, by the way, was an issue which split the Catholic and Orthodox churches around the year 1000).

• How does Jesus save us from our sins?  Does he ‘redeem’ us – by paying a ransom to the Devil?  Or does he take our punishment for sin from an angry God?

• Is there such a thing as a Devil?  Or is the Devil a metaphor for the sinful things we humans do?

• Is baptism meant for babies, or only for adults who can confess their own faith?

All these questions, and many more, are part of the ‘inheritance of faith’ that we Christians have received.  Before us, generations of Christians have argued, fought and even burned each other at the stake over.

Why is this?

Why has it become so important to believe in certain ideas about God, and reject other ideas?  When you think about it, this is actually a rather odd notion.  It suggests that what God really cares about is the beliefs in our heads – as if believing the “right things” is what God is most looking for, as if having “correct beliefs” is what will save us.

I prefer to think of faith as being more like a trampoline – a flexible canvass platform that is held up by a lot of different springs.  The springs are ideas – ideas which together give the platform its stability.  It is quite possible to take off one of the springs from time to time, without the whole thing collapsing.  One can examine the spring – see how flexible it is, see if it is still working.  Perhaps one might need to grease the spring, or repair it – before putting it back in place.

One of the reasons why we have got into such a pickle about ‘faith’ is that we use the one word to describe what, in the original languages of the Bible, were rather more complex images.  The most common way that we tend to use the word is captured by the Latin word ‘assensus’ – or assent.  We give our ‘assent’ to a certain idea, whether or not there is any evidence for the idea at all.  This is about ‘faith in the head’ – what we choose to believe about God.

But there are many other ways of understanding ‘faith’ – ways that I would argue are far more accurate, and far more liberating.  If ‘assensus’ or ‘intellectual assent’ is ‘faith of the head’, what about faith that is ‘of the heart’.  Such faith is ‘fiduciary’ faith – or faith that is based on trust.  That’s the kind of faith that Abraham had.  He trusted God’s plan for his life, and left his home to follow God’s Way all across the deserts.

Faith as trust is like floating in a deep ocean.  The Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard suggested that fiduciary faith – trusting faith – is like swimming in a deep ocean.  If you struggle, and tense up and thrash about you will eventually sink.  But if you relax and trust, you will float.  Just as in Matthew’s story of Peter walking on the water with Jesus.  When he began to be afraid, when he worried with this brain about what was happening, he began to sink.

Another Latin word often translated as ‘faith’ is ‘fidelitas’ – from which we get our word ‘fidelity’ or faithfulness.  Faith as fidelity means loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of the self at its deepest level, the commitment of the ‘heart’.

Then, finally, another word for faith is ‘visio’ – or ‘vision’.  This is faith as a way of seeing…a lens through which to see the world as God’s place, in which God is working his purpose out.

I wish I had time to explore these ideas some more – but the clock is against us.  Suffice to say that if you would like to think more about these different understandings of faith, that’s precisely what we will be doing at Café Church, later on this morning.

For now, let me leave you with this thought:  true faith is much less about what you believe, and much more about how you believe.  I don’t really mind if you believe in angels or not, or exactly by what mechanism Jesus is the Saviour of the world.  If you are able to see the world as God’s world, if you are able to trust that God is working his purpose out through his people - the Church, if you are able to be faithful to that vision for the world and for Havant, then you are my brother, you are my sister.

Amen.

Sermon on the Occasion of Worshipping together with the Redeemed Christian Church of God

Below is the sermon I prepared for a joint service with our friends at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (who normally meeting in one of our parish buildings).  The actual sermon was delivered 'off the cuff' - but the broad strokes of what I said are included here.

Deut. 30.9-14, Col 1.1-14 and Luke 10.25-37

Ever since we realised that we were going to need to move our worship into the hall, this Sunday, I’ve been so excited.  I’m excited because it finally gives us the opportunity to do a couple of really important things…

First, I’m delighted that the congregation of the Redeemed Christian Church of God are able to be with us today.  For about a year now, Pastor David and his team have been leading worship, Sunday by Sunday, in the Upper Room over in Church House.  It’s an absolute delight that worship is taking place there, and, I detect, really exciting to see congregation growing in numbers and confidence.

Secondly, being here gives us an opportunity to reflect on all the fantastic work that goes on here in the Pallant Centre.  Last night, Clare and I attended the latest concert by our friends from the Havant Orchestra.  Fantastic, high quality music from an orchestra who we give rehearsal space to every week.

Next week, I hope all of us are going to buy tickets for the Dynamo production of the Roses of Eyam.  There is no better way of encouraging our young people than to turn up to see their efforts.  Watching some of the rehearsals this week, I just know that you are going to be bowled over by them.

And that’s just the tip of the Pallant Centre iceburg.  We have the Solent Male Voice Choir, rehearsing every week.  We have the Hayling and Havant Bowmen, honing their skills throughout the winter months.  We have the St Faith’s art group, every Tuesday.  We have a Mumbaba group.  We have the fantastic Brownies and Rainbows, who provide high quality learning experiences for young people. We have a whole host of self-help groups – including Alcoholics Anonymous, Al Anon, Gamblers Anonymous and our latest new group, Narcotics Anonymous.  We provide a hope to SSAFA, the armed forces charity – supporting any serviceman or woman – or their families - who has served for as little as one day for their country.

Thirdly, I’m delighted that it gives the St Faith’s congregation a chance to see the work in progress here in the Pallant Centre.  I hope that while you are here, you’ll take the chance to wander around the building and see the changes that have taken place.  Much of the change is currently ongoing.  In many ways, the whole place feels like a building site at the moment.  But, it is impossible to make an omelette without breaking a few eggs…and over the next few months, some really radical changes are going to be taking place.  Work is now well underway on the new toilets for the hall.  In the old Nursery rooms, we will be opening a Family Café in September.  That’s going to be a place where parents and children can gather in an atmosphere of creativity and fun – using the courtyard garden as well.  It’s going to become the place in Havant for young families to be.

There are still some big challenges that we have to overcome.  In the garden, over by Church House, you will undoubtedly have noticed that we are installing new drains…that’s to stop all the rainwater from the car park and from the roof of church house from soaking into the brickwork.  We have a structural challenge to overcome in the small Nursery room – where a warped support beam has to be held up with steel girders.  We still need to install a fire escape from the Upper Room, and we are installing a central heating system for church house in the next few weeks.  There’s certainly plenty to do!

And that is not all that we are seeking to achieve through our Big Build Campaign.  Over in the church itself, there’s going to be a whole lot going on in the next few months.  New wiring and lighting will be installed.  The clock faces and weathervane are being overhauled – and our heritage pipe organ is about to be completely restored.

The question that often hovers on lips is ‘why’?  Who would we do all this work?  Why not just sell all these buildings – even our crumbling old church – and just meet for singing and worship in a school hall somewhere.  Life would be an awful lot simpler if we did!  Why not let someone else have all the worry and the challenge?

Well, to get close to an answer to that question, let me take you back to Jesus’ summary of the law at the beginning of today’s gospel reading.  A lawyer asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life…and Jesus tells him to do just two things…Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself.  This summary of the law was actually something that other teachers of Jesus’ time were using as well.

There’s an old story about a Jewish Rabbi called Hillel, who was challenged to stand on one leg, and recite all the law.  So Hillel lifted up one foot off the ground and said:  “The whole law of God is this:  Love God, and Love your neighbour as yourself.  All the rest is commentary”

In other words – as Jesus would have concurred, I’m sure, Rabbi Hillel was teaching that all the little laws about what we should eat, and when we should pray, and when we should rest, and how we should treat strangers, the fact that we shouldn’t murder people, or steal from them, or covet their possessions – all of this was just commentary on the central teachings of the faith:  Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself.

So why are we embarked on our Big Build Campaign? – because by improving our church, we show our Love for God, by making the house of worship as precious and beautiful as we can.  By improving this Pallant Centre, we show our love for our neighbours – by making it as comfortable and useful to the whole community as we can.  It’s as simple as that really.

There’s one more thing I want to say – to everyone here.  And that’s to underline how delighted I am to welcome the Redeemed Church to our worship today.  The Redeemed Church has its roots in West Africa – and as a result, many of its members are not from the UK by birth.  Right now, after the Referendum, there’s a danger that some of our African friends here today might fear that the whole country is against them.  Well, I want to say, on behalf of the whole St Faith’s community – that’s not the case for us.  You are welcome here.  We are delighted that you are here.  You bring new ways of worshipping, new ways of thinking.  You bring skills and talents…and today you bring food to share as well!  Please believe me when I say that we are glad to have you as our neighbours – and we hope that this last year of sharing this building with you will be the first of many, many years together!

To quote, finally, St Paul’s words to the Colossians:  “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father!”

Amen!

Sermon on the Arrival of Vickie and David Morgan

Readings: Galatians 6.1-16 & Luke 10.1-11, 16-20

Once again, the Lectionary speaks uncannily into a very present situation.  Luke 10, verse 1:  ‘After this, the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.’

It is such a pleasure to be able to finally welcome David and Vickie formally into their new ministries among us.  They come to us as a pair, sent by God, just as Jesus sent out those seventy disciples in pairs.

What is it about pairs?  What is the significance of Jesus sending out his disciples like that – two by two. not one by one?  I find my mind taken right back to God’s assessment of Adam’s circumstances at the beginning of Genesis.  Then, he said “it is not good for the man to be alone”.

I know that my own Clare would agree wholeheartedly with that statement.  We are closing in fast on our 30th wedding anniversary…and I have no doubt that she often says to herself “It is not good for that man to be alone”!  Left to my own devices, I would undoubtedly eat chocolate for breakfast, and chips for dinner every day.  My clothes would never be ironed, and I would be late for every meeting!  Clare – as the opposite side to my ‘pair’ – provides balance.  She helps with the tasks I need help with.  She reminds me of what I need to do and where I need to be.  She nudges me towards good choices about food…never nags, just nudges!

The fact is that when Jesus calls us, he calls us into a series of relationships – first with God, and then with one another.  We are called out of ourselves, out of our mistaken belief that we don’t need anyone else to help us function.

It is of course a complete fallacy to imagine that we can live our lives in total isolation.  Some of us dream of doing so…I confess that there are very busy days when I dream of running off to live in a wooden cabin somewhere!  But even then, in order to get to such a cabin, I would need to drive on a road built by others, in a car made by others, to build my cabin from tools manufactured by others.  If I wanted even the most basic of amenities – running water or electricity – they would be supplied by others.  If I became sick, I would need others to care for me.  No, it is all but impossible for any of us to function for any length of time without the companionship of others along the way.

This has always been the case.  Adam was given Eve – both created in the image of God who is himself defined by the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Noah had his family.  Abraham had Sarah.  Moses had Aaron.  Elijah had Elisha.  Even Jesus drew companions and friends around him – not just disciples to be taught, but friends whom he could love and who he could lean on.

So Vickie and David come to us, as newly minted curates, already with that inbuilt support-structure of a family life, and their own marriage to sustain them.  Our task, as their new church family, is to add to that support structure.  Our task is to help them grow towards, and then into, the ordained ministries to which the church believes they have been called.  And their task is to offer themselves to us – offering the gifts and talents God has built into them for the good of this community.

St Paul, writing to the Galatians in our second reading, reminds us of what the character of a Christian community should be like.  To the Galatians, he says “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ”.  It’s worth just pausing for a moment and thinking about that instruction.  Paul tells us that to fulfil the law of Christ, the sovereign instructions of our Master and Lord, we should ‘bear each other’s burdens’.

Here then is a call out of our comfort, and into the messiness of all human life.  We are to be there for each other – each supporting the whole body of Christ as best as we can, with the talents and abilities we have.  For some, that means bearing the burden of leadership – such as sitting on the PCC and helping to steer the whole community into the future.  For others it is the burden of caring for our buildings to be able to better serve the whole town into which we are called.  For others, it is bearing the burden of visiting the sick and the lonely – those whose physical circumstances deprive them of the fellowship and companionship that every human being needs.

We do these tasks together – bearing each other’s burdens.  None of us can do all the tasks that are required.  I frequently find, for example, that bearing the burden of leadership leaves me precious little time for bearing the burden of someone else’s loneliness or illness.  So I rely on our Pastoral Care team for that.  David and Vickie will find too that there simply isn’t time to do all the things one would like to do in ministry.

But that’s ok.  None of us are called to do the whole work of the people of God.  If that were so, what would be the point of being the body of Christ?  But each of us, ordained or licensed, lay person or Reader, we are all called to play our part…to be a hand, or a foot, or an eye, or an ear, of the body of Christ.  To quote again from St Paul, writing to the Galatians: “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”

Today, we joyfully celebrate the arrival of new ministers into our midst.  We give thanks that they have heard and responded to God’s call on their lives – the call to enter even more deeply into the loving service into which God calls us all.  Their offering of themselves can be an inspiration to each one of us.   Each of us is called too…out of our individualism, and into community.  What are the ways in which each of us could respond?

This is not just a calling to do more in the immediate community of the church – though more burden sharing would be greatly appreciated!  It is also a calling to bear the burdens of our neighbours – those we encounter in our workplaces and social clubs, in the post office queue and the foodbank.  There are a million and more ways in which our community could become more like the Kingdom of God, if the people of God would roll up their sleeves and live out the calling of God.

If there is anyone here today who would like to think through what such a call might mean for them, I encourage you to get in touch.  Come and chat with me, or indeed with David, Vickie, Damon, Sandra, Mike and Bishop John – and we would be glad to think and pray with you about God’s call for your life.

In the meantime, Vickie and David, Jake and Freddie too – welcome!  It is good to have you with us.
Amen.