Patronal Festival Sermon

A sermon on the Patronal Festival, commemorating St Faith of Agen (our 'patron saint).  Texts: 1 Kings 8.22-30 & Matthew 21.12-16

There are many so called holy places in the world.  They are those places where, somehow, the veil between our mortal world and the spiritual world seems more fragile.  Some people call then ‘touching places’, or ‘thin places’ – places, that is, where one seems to be able to reach out and almost touch the out-stretched hand of God.

According to the Hebrew scriptures (or the Old Testament as Christians call it), Bethel was one such place.  After his prophetic dream, Jacob called the place ‘House of God’ (which is what Beth-el means.  (El was one of the early names for God).  For many generations, it was one of Israel’s holiest shrines.  The Ark of the Covenant was kept there, until it was transferred to Jerusalem.  Prophets and leaders would go to Bethel, to seek God’s wisdom and instruction. Ironically, though, for such a holy place, no-one can say with certainty today where Bethel actually was.  History and time did their work, and now that holiest of places is gone – just like so many abbeys and great churches in our own land.  Buildings are temporary – no matter how much they are loved.  God is immortal, and God’s immortal spirit lives in us, not in these stones and tiles.

We humans have a fondness for place, don’t we – and especially for ‘thin places’.  Stonehenge still attracts millions of pilgrims, even though they have no idea what actual ceremonies were practices there.  The modern-day druids who gather there at the Solstice are really only making educated guesses about what their ancestors did there.   For devotees of our patron Saint, Faith of Agen, the abbey-church of Conques, France is another such place.  There, the bones of the young martyr are laid – cruelly murdered under the rule of the Roman emperor Diocletian, because she refused to renounce her faith in Jesus Christ.  Ask Bishop John and Janet Hind for their account of the place – for they visited it only a few years ago.

In this morning’s reading from the book of Kings, we note that King Solomon himself, at the grand opening of the first Temple acknowledged that God didn’t live in the building.  “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” he asks.  “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!”.  Rather, Solomon prays that God’s eyes may be open night and day towards the Temple.  He essentially asks God to make the Temple a ‘thin place’, a ‘touching place’ where God may especially hear the prayers of his people.

Where is your ‘thin place’?  Where is that you find that the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is somehow made thinner?  For some, it may be a beautiful natural landscape.  For others, it will often be a building, in which hundreds of years of prayer and worship have somehow soaked into the stones.  Perhaps this is your thin place.  Or maybe it’s St Albans, for those who live and work in West Leigh.  Perhaps these are the places where God feels especially present – to which God’s eyes are open, day and night.  No doubt Jesus felt the same about the Temple in Jerusalem – which is why he was so incensed by the way it was being used to cheat and defraud pilgrims.  The crooks were charging extortionate prices for pilgrims to convert Roman money into Jewish coin (the only tender that the Jewish authorities would accept).  They were also selling doves at inflated prices for sacrifices.

In fact, as Jesus found, holy buildings can sometimes get in the way, and they can certainly be abused by unscrupulous men.  In Jerusalem, despite Solomon’s prayer, human priests created a holy of holies – a place in which God was said to actually dwell.  It was a place so holy, that the High Priest could only go into it on one day of the year, after elaborate rites of purification.  The New Testament tells us that the curtain of that ‘holy of holies’ was torn down at the death of Jesus.  It was not a helpful picture of God.  It had to go.  Now (as the book of Revelation has it), God’s dwelling place was with people – not locked up in a back corner of a temple. In fact, you and I are now where God dwells…not in buildings of stone, but in living flesh and blood.

Even our own beautiful building has some challenges – it’s High Altar can make God appear distant and aloof.  It’s stained glass windows of a decidedly romantic, English-looking Jesus are not particularly helpful either.  But, as we shall sing in our Offertory Hymn, here are symbols to remind us of our lifelong need of God, and of God’s grace.  As Fred Pratt Green’s words go on: “Here are table, font and pulpit, here the cross has central place.  Here in honesty of preaching (I love that line!) here in silence as in speech, here in newness and renewal, God the Spirit comes to each.

Those who steward and care-for this church throughout the week will testify, the building has immense value to all those who enter its doors throughout the week, seeking solace, peace, or a place to seek God.  That is why, for all its theological confusion, I think that our continuing efforts to refurbish this place are worthwhile.    Its very age and architectural idiosyncrasies are precisely what draw in those seekers of a thin place, a touching place.

But at the same time, we must not forget that this building is not ‘the Church’.  It is only a shell…at the end of the day, a shelter from the rain in which the actual church can gather.  Fundamentally it is no different from the church of St Nicholas in the parish of Nswam, Ghana – which I visited in 2015.  A few palm branches, spread over a bamboo frame.  Just a shelter from the elements.

For, as St Peter says, we are “living stones…built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood”.  We are the church – not these stones.  We could – if the Diocese would let us! – tear this whole place down.  That would not mean that the church was gone.  The people who make up the church would still be here (if a little damp, when it rains!).  The church is the holy house of spiritual people, with heaven in their hearts, and the needs of the world on their mind. People with so much faith, that they too, if ever called upon, might also demonstrate the certainty of purpose and belief of our own patron, St Faith. Amen.

The Politics of Jesus

Texts: Nehemiah 8.1–12 and Luke 10.1-12

Picture the scene.  The leaders of the people have returned from Exile in Babylon, led by their new Governor, Nehemiah.  For the 70 years that the leaders have been away, the ordinary people have gone about their lives, under the watchful and influential eyes of the Babylonians.  Three or four generations have come and gone.  The people have become disconnected from their past, and from the Law of Moses which their ancestors knew.  They have intermarried with other tribes.  They have taken on Babylonian ways and laws.  No doubt, many have started to worship Babylonian gods as well.  

But now, the leaders are back.  Nehemiah, the Governor is there.  And so are the Levites – the religious leaders, and their High Priest Ezra.  They are all scrubbed and polished and standing on a great platform in front of the crowd.  And they have brought with them the five books of the Law – the Torah.   These books are precious relics.  They tell the story of the first Jews, of Abraham, and Moses and Judah (from whom the Jews for their name).  They also contain the very laws of God, which Moses brought down from the mountain during the long march to freedom.  These books have been edited and polished by the Scribes, during the Exile.  Toiling away during the dark nights in Babylon, they have argued and debated which stories to include, and which to leave out.  They have blended different and sometimes competing narratives into one seemless story, which also contains all that the leaders wanted their newly formed people in Jerusalem to hear.  

Ezra, the High Priest, stands up before the people.  This is his big moment.  Like Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party conference, this is Ezra’s chance to put his stamp on the future.  If he gets this right – he will re-ignite the almost lost Jewish faith, for centuries to come.  He will give back to the people their common story, and their laws for living well as the chosen people of God.  How will the people receive this message – a message which pulls at their ancestral roots, reminds them of their national identity, and puts the former leaders back in power?

Thankfully, for Nehemiah and Ezra, the exercise succeeds.  So much so that when the people hear the laws of Moses being read to them, and interpreted by the Levites, they break into tears.  The account in Nehemiah’s book doesn’t tell us why they cried.  Perhaps it was from joy, at hearing their national story being told to them again.  Perhaps it was for sorrow, for all the ways that they had, often unknowingly, broken the laws of Moses?  Perhaps it was for terror, that their law-breaking would bring God’s wrath down on them again?

The laws of Moses were political laws – they set systems of justice and redress in motion, they legislated for how complaints would be settled, how foreigners and strangers would be received, how land and possessions should be shared – all subject to the heavenly rule that Jesus called ‘the Kingdom of God’.  Jesus sent his followers, 70 of them according to Luke, out into the villages and towns, to declare the advance of the Kingdom – a Kingdom which contained all the holy principles of the Law of Moses, but with a new emphasis on issues such as loving God and neighbour, caring for the poor, forgiving the sinner, refusing to use violence to settle scores.  There was a huge amount of political commentary in Jesus’ teaching, just as there was in Moses’ laws.

People react differently to political speeches, don’t they?  The crowd who heard Nehemiah and Ezra’s passionate, well-prepared speech began to weep, perhaps for sorrow at the political system and spiritual culture they had lost.  For the people who heard from Jesus’ canvassers – those 70 disciples sent out with his message – there was a range of reactions.  Some welcomed the canvassers warmly.  Some hated their message, no doubt because it threatened some aspect of the way they lived.  Those people drove Jesus’ canvassers out of their towns, so that the disciples had to shake the dust from their feet as they left.

You see, political messages, whether specifically linked to a religion or not, often provoke a mixture of reactions.  But first come the questions.  What does this policy or idea mean for me?  Will have more or less money, more or less freedom?  Secondly, we might ask what this or that policy means for those closest to me.  Will my relative get the care they need?  Will my children get the best education?  Then wider questions of society creep in.  Will my local library stay open?  What about the rivers, the environment, the very future for my descendants on the earth?  All these – and many more – complex questions are weighed in our minds, often in just an instant or two.  

Then, the politician seeking to persuade us throws us some motivation to trust their policy.  Ezra did exactly that, by reminding the people of their history, and effectively claiming that his new Government was built on the glories of the past.  Some politicians will blame immigrants, or other foreign governments – just as Ezra did (a little later).  He did it by demanding that all the pure Jews in Jerusalem should divorce any foreign wives and cast them out of the city.  Such politicians make a play for our emotional support, by reminding us of our history, by flying flags and other patriotic tokens behind them as they speak.  Even Jesus wasn’t immune from calling his people to remember the past.  It’s the way politics is done.

So, in this Political Party season, how are we to judge wisely, among the political choices we are offered? When we begin to understand that all our reactions are variable, and related to some very basic, instinctive survival instincts, how shall we sort the wheat from the chaff being thrown our way from the podiums?  They only answer a Christian can give, I would argue, is to only support those policies which can be seen directly reflected in the political manifesto of Jesus Christ.   That means acknowledging, as we must, that Jesus had a spiritual message, but also a profoundly political one too.  G.K. Chesterson once observed that the great pity about the Christian Kingdom was that it has never actually been tried.  And as I've observed before, anyone who doesn't think that Jesus had a political (as well as spiritual) message has clearly not read the same Bible that I read!  

To the politicians who jostle for our vote, the Christian asks, ‘what would society be like if the meek truly inherited the earth?’.  At present, about 90% of the land of the United Kingdom is owned by private landowners, the government, the military, the churches, agriculture and the national parks.  Only about 10% of the nation’s land is available for you and me to build a house upon.  What would it really look like if the meek were to inherit this earth, and if the mighty were cast down from their seats (and yachts, and castles, and private airplanes)?    

To the politicians who jostle for our vote, the Christian asks, ‘what would the world look like if we took seriously the command of God to Adam and Eve, that they should ‘take care of the garden’.

To the politicians who jostle for our vote, the Christian asks, ‘what would our society be like if the poor were truly blessed, if peacemakers were properly honoured, and if the wealth of the nations were equitably shared?’

These are all idealisms of course.  But so is all politics.  The trick is to discern the patterns, to be aware of the mind-games being played on us, and to test all political manifestos against the teaching and experience of the Scriptures.  For as Ezra and his people discovered, there is wisdom there, available to all.  If we would only have ears to hear.  Amen

Walking the Walk - using our money wisely

Texts: Philippians 2.1-13 and Matthew 21.23-32

There’s a saying, among preachers, that all the letters of St Paul can be summarised with three sentences:

 Greetings in the name of Jesus.

Stop messing about.

Blessings on you.

That’s because, when you start to examine them, it’s obvious that Paul was writing, usually, to correct some abhorrent behaviour on the part of new Christians in the churches he had planted.  His letter to the church in Philippi is no exception. 

Imagine, if you will, that I went away on an extended break, but that while I was gone, you receive an open letter, from me to the whole congregation.  Imagine that letter said things like “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, regard others as better than yourselves.”  You would soon conclude that I had heard that some people were acting up in my absence!  That is exactly what Paul is doing, when he writes these letters. He’s trying to steer his distant congregations along a straight course – along the Way of Christ, we might say.  But he knows that is a tough ask, so he tactfully dresses up his criticisms with greetings and blessings.

This tells us something important about the early church.  It’s easy for us to imagine that the early church was somehow purer, or more holy than us.  But following the Way of Jesus has always been hard work.  10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration, as the old saying goes. Jesus himself called it ‘the Narrow Way’ – a path that is easy to fall from, or to stray from.  Let no-one tell you that the Way of Jesus is a path to glory, or to riches, or to guaranteed good health.  The Way of Jesus requires us to surrender selfish ambition.  It is the path of the servant, the Way of the Lord who washes his own disciples’ feet.

It is also a path that is easy to begin, but not always easy to follow through – which is the point of this morning’s Gospel reading.  It’s part of a clever debate between Jesus and some of the chief priests of his day.  These are wealthy men of great status.  And they like to think they are clever too.  But after neatly shutting them up over a question about John the Baptiser, Jesus tells them one of his fabulous stories.  ‘Imagine’, he says, ‘that a man has two sons – and he asks them to go to work in the fields.  The first son says he won't go, but then does so.  The second says he will go (initially), but then does not.  Which of these two sons did the will of their Father?’. 

In other words, Jesus says, we are judged not by what we say, but by how we live and the choices we make.  We can sing all the hymns, read all the prayers, receive the holy food for our journey – but unless we walk the walk of the Christian, we are like the son who said ‘I’ll go’, but then failed to do so.   For Jesus, the prostitutes and tax collectors (who actively and purposefully followed The Way) were much preferred.  Certainly they were preferred to the chief priests who wore the right clothes, said the right prayers, even taught the right theology, but whose way of actually living fell far short of the Way of Christ.  Which is a cause of some reflection for those of us who wear the fine robes!

Some of us might be confused, at this moment.  I can see a question burning in some of your eyes!  “But I come to church!  I say my prayers!  I give to charity and the church!  I even study the Bible sometimes! Are you saying that I am not walking the walk on the Way of Christ?!”  As uncomfortable as that challenge may be, it is a challenge that Jesus himself lays down.  Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 7, to be precise)  Jesus says ‘Not everyone who says Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven.’  In chapter 25, Jesus describes the separation of sheep from goats – two groups of people who look remarkably similar from the outside (especially considering the similarity of Middle Eastern sheep and goats).  But the life-choices of those two groups, and especially their decisions about how to love their neighbour, mark them out as either true or false followers of The Way.

How shall we know?  How do we know whether we are sheep or goats?  Or the first or second son?  Or whether St Paul would write to us to tell us to ‘stop messing about’?  The most persistent and easily-grasped indicator, according to Scripture, is the way we use our money. 

The Church of England has designated this as ‘Generosity Sunday’ – a none-too-subtle plea for generosity, after the contemplation of God’s generosity to us during last week’s Harvest Festival!  I’m a bit cynical about such national church initiatives, and I hate talking about money – especially in the middle of a cost of living crisis.  But today, I’m going to conclude this sermon by doing precisely that, because my friends, you may not know that, at present, only 27% of the costs of running this parish – this branch of the kingdom - comes from me and you.  The rest comes from the generosity, the grants, and the generous legacies of past generations.

 There are essentially two attitudes we can have to money.  The first – and most common – attitude is to think of it as our money.  We have earned it.  We saved it.  We deserve it.  We have a right to it, and a right to use it as we see fit.  The second, and rather more Christian attitude is to think of it as God’s money, of which we are merely stewards, and for which God gives us the responsibility of how it should be spent wisely, in the business of the kingdom. 

“But I earned my money, Rector!”  Did you?

You see, if you have earned your money through a well paid job, or a family inheritance, it is because you were blessed to be born in a certain class of society, in a certain country, to a certain family.  You were probably given an education which you didn’t pay for, and the opportunity to earn, or receive the money you now possess.  Your wealth is directly related to where, and in what circumstances you were born – it is a gift from God.  Do you honestly believe that if you had been born in a desert, or a jungle, a thousand miles from the nearest city, that you would be as wealthy as you are?  Everything you have has been given to you.  Even if you live on nothing but a state pension and housing benefit.  It is not yours to play with.  It is yours to steward. It is for the sacred, holy task of building God’s kingdom here on earth.  Take what you need, for the essentials of life, and the awful costs of living.  That is God’s gift to you too.  But give what you can, for the work of the kingdom. 

In this week’s Fortnightly News, you will find two articles about how to give money, tax-efficiently and regularly, to the work of the kingdom through this church.  I’d like to encourage you to read them carefully, please.  Read them with the Christian attitude to money in mind.  Read them while hearing St Paul say, ‘stop messing about!’  Read them while inwardly acknowledging that everything you have, whether large or small, comes to you as a gift from God, or at least from the accident of your birth.  For to those to whom much has been given, shall much be required.  Amen.

Living well but dying inside

 Texts: Haggai 1.1-8, Luke 7.12-17

The Church of England, in its infinite wisdom, has designated this as ‘Generosity Week’.  The less-than-subtle idea is that on our Harvest Festival, we should focus on all the things God has given us, because “it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand”.  Then, this coming Sunday, we Vicars are encouraged to encourage the people to every greater heights of generosity, in response to God’s generosity to us. 

Those who know me well will understand that I’m a bit of a cynic about such initiatives.  I hate asking people for money, especially as I know that for so many, the recent cost of living crisis has left many people poorer than ever.  It seems a little tone deaf of the church to be encouraging even more generosity, when so many can barely pay their energy bills.

But, I’m forced to acknowledge that generosity, from God and to God, is a consistent theme of the Bible.  And so, I try to lay my cynicism aside, and look at what the Scriptures have to say to us.  Let’s start with today’s reading from the opening verses of the prophet Haggai. 

Haggai was a minor prophet (which means he only has a short book).  He was writing and prophesying about 20 years after the return of the Jewish leadership from Exile in Babylon.  The first Temple, built by King Solomon centuries before, had been razed to the ground by the Babylonian conquerors, roughly 600 years before Christ. Just a pile of rubble was left.  Haggai believed that the Temple should be rebuilt – as a tangible sign that God had generously led the people home, and provided food, clothing, and even the luxury of ‘panelled’ walls in their homes.  Walls, lined with wood panels, would have been a real luxury in the period about 500 years before Jesus.

A prophet is not a fortune-teller, or someone with a vision of the future – though that is sometimes what prophets appear to be doing.  Rather, a prophet is someone who tells people ‘how it is’.  A prophet’s job is to be a mirror to the people – encouraging or warning them of the consequences of the way they are living today.  Haggai looked at the way people were living, comfortably, without a care in the world – but spiritually dead.  They were fed, but still hungry.  They drank, but were still thirsty.  They made money, but it dribbled away from their purse, as though the purse had holes in it.  Haggai is describing a people who are living well, but dying inside.  He could be talking to Western society of today, couldn’t he?

Haggai’s solution was that the people should turn their face towards God, through the tangible act of rebuilding the temple.  The Temple would stand, as any great worship-building stands, as a sign and a token that there is more to a community’s life than eating, drinking, and decorating their homes.  By giving generously to the task of maintaining the house of God, the people of God honour their Creator, they give praise for the Creator’s gift of life, and they also awaken their dead, spiritual lives by coming together, working together, being together, in the house of the God who is togetherness personified – in the person of the Trinity.  Living well physically can lead to living well spiritually – if our energies, and our wealth, are directed in the right directions.

Today’s Gospel reading, with its story of the feeding of 5,000 men, reminds us of God’s over-flowing generosity to all humanity.  In fact, the passage only records 5,000 men – it says nothing of the women and children who were doubtless also present. So perhaps 15 to 20,000 people were fed by God, through Jesus, on that day – from two little fishes, and five loaves of bread.  When we turn to God, making him the focus of our day – as those crowds did when they followed him into the desert, we can expect to be ignited, spiritually, by God.  Our response to God’s generosity, in lighting up our dying souls, has to be to offer God all that we have in return.  It’s an ever-turning virtuous circle that the Bible is describing.  The more we dedicate ourselves to God and the ways of God, the more God pours out spiritual gifts, and spiritual life on us.  So the more we give back to God, and so on…

I’m reminded of the Sunday School song about this story – do you remember it?

"Two little fishes, five loaves of bread,

Five thousand people by Jesus were fed,

All this could happen ‘cause one little lad

Gladly gave Jesus all that he had.

All that I have, all that I have.

I will give Jesus, all that I have."

When I was at Sunday School, that song was usually sung just before the collection was taken up – no doubt to persuade me to give up the shilling my parents had put in my pocket for the occasion;  to give ‘all that I had’ rather than spending it on sweets!

And perhaps it would be no bad thing if we did something similar.  I wonder how many of us are a little bit like Haggai’s people.  We eat, we drink we decorate our homes. We earn money that we fritter away on frivolities, as if there was a hole in our moneybag.  We may be living well, but dying inside.  Perhaps, for any of us who feel that way, the remedy of Scripture is not something to flee from, but to embrace.  Whether we give to the church - to maintain this building and its ministry to our community, or whether we give to charity, the remedy of Scripture is that it is in giving we receive.

Amen.

A sermon for Harvest-time

Readings: Joel 2.21-27 and Matthew 6.25-33

Looking back on it now, I had a very privileged child-hood.  I grew up in the countryside of Devon and Somerset.  In the summer holidays, I worked on a local farm, tossing hay-bales onto trailers, looking forward to the reward of a cheeky glass of cider with the Farmer at the end of the day.  In my home churches, Harvest was a time of great abundance, with goods from fields and gardens displayed in complete profusion all over the place.

It is perhaps only those of us who have sweated in the fields to bring a harvest in, who can really understand the sense of satisfaction at a job completed.  In past times, the celebration of Harvest was as much a sense of relief, as anything else.  Relief that drought had not visited the crops.  Relief that there were no injuries to farm workers, this year. 

All is very different today.  Harvest now takes place every day of the year.  If we can’t grow the food we want in England, we buy it from other parts of the world.  Labourers are still needed, but mechanical systems of picking food are taking over.  No-one tosses hay onto trailers anymore.  The word ‘Harvest’ just doesn’t have the resonance that it once had.

And yet, at the same time, the world of nature has perhaps never been more in our minds.  We are far more aware than we were in the 1970s of the interconnected nature of all living things.  On our TV screens we witness the destruction of the rain-forests, record breaking temperatures every year, and forest fires across the globe.  We watch the melting of the glaciers, and we build our heightened sea-walls against the rising of the seas.  Ironically, there has never been a time when we have been less connected to the land, and yet more affected by it.

The last few decades seen a marked shift in the way we think about God’s relationship to creation and harvest, too.  In a short while, we will sing that ‘we plough the fields and scatter’, and celebrate that our crops are ‘fed and watered by God’s almighty hand’.  But actually, I doubt that many of us really believe that anymore.  In fact, we have far more faith in the science of weather-forecasting than we do in the idea that God sends the rain – despite the number of parishioners who ask me to pray for good weather when their birthday party is taking place!

Now you might think that I’m sorry about that.  After all, isn’t this loss of faith in a God who sends rain a dangerous thing for the church?  Surely, if people stop praying to God for rain – or any other need – the churches will empty?

Well, perhaps they will…or at least they will empty of those people who think of God like some kind of genie, or fairy godmother, who will grant wishes in return for the right words.  My hope and observation, however, is that with the advance of our understanding of creation and the harvest, we are in fact growing up.  We are moving away from the medieval God in the sky, who granted – or refused - the wishes of his farmers.  Instead, we are beginning to glimpse the God who is the energy at the centre of all things: the God who inspires us to use our intellects to shape and control our own environments.

Instead of a Father Christmas God, to whom we cry for solutions to our problems, we are confronted instead by the actual God of Scripture.  This is the God who, according to the great Genesis myth, creates a beautiful garden and then gives it to his children with the command that we should ‘take care of it’.  That was my message to last week’s Green Festival, at the Pallant Centre.  I argued that the stories of religion give us a framework for action in the face of the climate catastrophe.  I asked them to consider taking up a new slogan:  “take care of the garden”.  I suggested that, as a slogan, it has deep religious roots for those who want to excavate them.  It also contains a sense of command, of imperative, that human beings really need to hear.  “Take care of the garden!”

Our abuse of the planet doesn’t only result in heatstroke and loss of agricultural land to drought and fire.  It also has huge effects on the populations of countries who are worst affected by these changes. That in turn leads to wars over resources – including Putin’s present war to capture the grain fields of Ukraine.  Wars, and famine, lead to mass migration – as people desperately search for hope in other places.  Such people become targets for modern-day slave-traders, who will promise migrants a land of milk and honey, if they will “just step into this van, or cargo container” and be transported around the world.  On arrival, these people find that there is no milk and honey, after all.  Rather, they find they have been sold into illegal slavery – as labourers, factory workers or as sex workers.  Can you imagine what it feels like to leave your home and family, promising them money to tackle their poverty, but then finding yourself as a slave without any power over your life?  The Medeille Trust exists to help such people, when they are liberated, to get their lives back on track.  And that’s why we are supporting them today.

 I do not mourn the passing of a belief in the Weather-God, or for any idea of a god who, in response to the right words, said in the right way, will supply all our needs – like a sort of heavenly vending-machine.  I wonder how many modern-day slaves pray to such a god, only to find that no answer comes?  How many people in Bangladesh or the Pacific Islands pray for relief that never comes, as their homes sink beneath the rising seas?   Rather, I pray for a new understanding of God – the insistence of God who is the creative heart of all creation, the love which binds us, inspires us, and teaches us, through prophetic speech and powerful stories, to “take care of the garden” and to share the bounty we possess for the good of all. 

This is the God to whom Jesus directs us in our Gospel reading.  After telling his disciples not to worry about clothes and food and drink, he says this:  “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness: and all these things will be given to you as well”.  Jesus is calling the world to hear the cry of the Kingdom:  feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and set the captive free to “take care of the garden”.  If only humanity would embrace the teaching, mythology and commands of the Kingdom!  If only justice would flow like rivers, and the inequities of humanity were washed away.  Then, as the prophet Joel says, “the threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil, and then you will know that I am the LORD your God, and never again will my people be shamed”.  Amen.

The Pursuit of Wisdom

Text: Proverbs 3.13–18

Happy are those who find wisdom,

   and those who get understanding,

for her income is better than silver,

   and her revenue better than gold.

She is more precious than jewels,

   and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Long life is in her right hand;

   in her left hand are riches and honour.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness,

   and all her paths are peace.

She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;

   those who hold her fast are called happy.

The pursuit of Wisdom

A few years ago, during one of our marathon clean-ups of the church, I was making my way round to the outside store cupboard, loaded with good and chattels.  Fumbling for the lock, I managed to drop everything I was carrying with an enormous crash.  Just then, I noticed a man of the road, sitting and watching me with a bemused smile from the bench in the churchyard.  Once I had gathered up the junk I was trying to store, and gathered up some of my dignity, I decided to sit and have a chat with the man.  

His name, it turned out, was ‘Bowler’ – no doubt because he sported a rather fine bowler hat, festooned with badges he had accumulated in his life.  Bowler told me that he enjoyed his life on the road.  Every year, he would walk from Brighton to Penzance, little by little, stopping for as long as he wished at town like Havant along the way.  His life was free of stress.  He begged a little, when he needed money, but mainly he lived out of what he could scavenge from fresh food waste in supermarket bins, or from hedgerows along the way. 

I found myself comparing my rather frantic and busy life with his. And I found myself wondering whether, in fact, Bowler may have been the wisest man I had ever met.  He had found a balance in his life which gave him an aura of real serenity.  Just as I was wondering about this, Bowler held out his hand, with some bird seed in his palm.  And a little robin hopped out of the lavender bush, and landed on Bowler’s fingers.  As they enjoyed breakfast together, the robin and Bowler, I was certain that this was indeed a very wise man.

Wisdom, of course, comes in many varieties.  In our first reading, from the book of proverbs, we heard what we presume to be King Solomon’s hymn to wisdom.  Solomon thought of wisdom as female – and he extolled her many virtues.  She is more precious than jewels, and she is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her.  The accumulation of wisdom was the highest ideal for the Jewish mind, as well as for much of the ancient world, exemplified in the great philosophers, like Plato and Socrates.  Wise people were venerated.  Their teachings were soaked up.  Their ideas for living well were followed by millions.  

How very different from our own time.  As a society, we tend to prioritise celebrity, entertainment, novelty and fashion over the pursuit of wisdom.  The word ‘philosophy’ is a Greek word meaning, simply, ‘the love of wisdom’ – and true wisdom takes years to accumulate.  

But we shovel off our wisest and more experienced politicians to the House of Lords, and give the management of our country to the new kids on the block.  We require our priests to retire at the age of 70.  We have little interest in what the elderly have to teach the young – but instead we tease and belittle them for not being able to operate the remote control, or a mobile phone.  

Now I realise, given the average age of today’s congregation, that I am undoubtedly preaching to the choir here!  You are all very wise, aren’t you? Given the amount of grey hair, you certainly should be!  But here’s the thing…

Despite the accumulation of years, and of grey hairs, some of us never do manage to accumulate wisdom along the way.  We can be too easily blinded by the very same things that blind the rest of society.  Celebrity, novelty, entertainment and fashion, the pursuit of short-lived pleasure, the attraction of wine and food and travel, these and many other things society offer us can so easily distract us from the pursuit of real wisdom.

Later in the book of Proverbs, in chapter 9, Solomon says this:  “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.  The word ‘fear’ in that translation means something like ‘reverence’ and ‘respect’.  It’s part of the tradition, that Jesus repeated, of putting our love, reverence and respect for God at the heart of our lives.  In the words of the Hebrew Shema:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might and with all your strength.  This, as Jesus said, is the First Commandment.  This is where our focus should be, if we are ever to aspire to be those called wise.

For it only when we bend our desires towards the things of God, and towards actively loving and seeking God, that all the other distractions of life begin to fade away.  When we put God first, we suddenly find that we become less concerned about missing an episode of Coronation Street.  Time is created, by our willingness to let go of earthly pleasures – time for thinking, for reading the wisdom of others, for studying the scriptures, and for growing in wisdom. And that is a goal worth pursuing for, in Solomon’s words: “Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue is better than gold.  Amen.

Multi-cultural Sunday

Here are the notes of the sermon I preached at the Redeemed Christian Church of God this morning, during their 'multicultural festival' at St Faith's Pallant Centre. I did depart a fair way from the actual text - because of such an enthusiastic congregation! It was lovely to preach in a very different style to my normally measured tones! Lots of alleluiahs and amens drove me onward to some fun stories and rhetorical heights. It was great fun - though I don't think my normal congregation is quite ready for it! These notes, however, contain the basic message of my talk.

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Thank you for inviting me to share a few words with you today, on Multi-cultural Sunday. I count it a real privilege. And I’m delighted to be able to worship with you again, after what has been a rather long time!

You might well wonder what my credentials are for speaking about multi-culturalism. Especially as I stand before you as the epitome of a white, middle class, member of a former colonial nation. I had much the same reaction about 13 years ago when I was made a Canon of a Cape Coast Cathedral in Ghana. (For those who don’t know, ‘Canon’ is a title, given to priests as an act of recognition or thanks because of some service or sacrifice which has been rendered. On that occasion, it was to thank me and Clare for having given accommodation to a priest from Cape Coast for about three years, in our home).

But let me get back to the story. There was I, standing in a Cathedral stuffed to the walls with shining, black Ghanaian faces. I was the only white man – probably for many miles. Furthermore, the Cathedral building was formerly the garrison church of the British Army, from the time when they protected the West African slave trade. When it was built, it would have been stuffed full of British military types, but now, I was the only white man in town. It was quite a reversal – and one that I was delighted to be present, to see.

I thank God that I have had a lot of multi-cultural experiences in my life. In the late 1980s, for example, I ran a 300-bed hostel in South London, very near Brixton. There I got to sample a lot of West Indian culture, especially that which came from Jamaica. The hostel I ran was for refugees, most of whom came from East Africa – victims of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the civil war in Somalia. I came to know many of those people very well, while I helped them to assimilate into British culture. In fact, I’m still in touch with a few of them – one lovely Somalian woman in particular, who ended up marrying my brother!

I remember one important cultural lesson from that time. One day, I was working on the Reception desk, and a man came up to the counter, and said “Room 353”. I remember thinking ‘how rude!...why doesn’t he say ‘please’?. So, as I was the one with power in that relationship (because I looked after the keys) I stared at him – with an especially hard stare – and I said “Room 353 what?”. The poor man looked surprised and confused. But he thought for a moment and then tried “Room 353 sah!”. I shook my head, and decided I would have to teach him how to ask properly in English. “Listen” I said, “Would you be so good as to kindly give me the key to room 353, please?”. The poor man tried very hard…but it really was too much for him. We both laughed at his attempt, and I handed him the key. It was then that a much more experienced member of staff took me to one side and said “You have to remember that not every culture has a word for ‘please’, or even ‘thank you’. In many cultures, you simply state what you want, and accept that you either get it, or you don’t. Whatever happens, once you’ve stated what you would like, is God’s will.”

That was an important lesson for me, in my youthful years. I learned then that the culture in which we are born teaches us ways of interacting with each other. But when we are removed from that culture, a whole new set of rules and practices have to be learned.

I’ve also learned a great deal about the way that some cultures impose themselves on others – especially the British Empire of the past, and the American Empire today. This was brought home to me very starkly during one of my visits to Ghana, when I was touring around the churches with my friend, the Bishop of Ho. First of all, I noticed that the form of the service, the way the priests dressed, the music they sang was all pretty much as they had inherited it, 150 years previously from British Anglican missionaries. We, here in England, have moved on from many of the things they wear, the words they say, and the hymns they sing. But because tradition was so important to the people of that region of Ghana, very little indeed had changed. In some ways, it was like stepping back in time.

I also noticed that all the pictures of Jesus on church walls were of ‘British Jesus’. He had white skin, and often had blond hair. I asked my friend why this was. Didn’t people realise that Jesus wasn’t a white man from Hampshire? My friend agreed, but he then explained that tradition meant it was impossible to change the pictures. He feared that his congregation would strangle him if he got rid of the pictures of Jesus they were used to.

I learned some other lessons too. In that particular part of West Africa – in Eastern Ghana – the Twi nation has very strong traditions about the complementary roles of men and women. In Twi culture, women are honoured as life-givers, because they bring children into the world. Men, who by tradition were the hunters, are the life-takers. So far, so good. But what happens when a woman feels called to become a priest? In Twi culture, only a man can be a priest, because part of his role is to commemorate the crucifixion and death of Jesus. It is a man’s role only, because men are the life-takers. But as a life-giver, a woman should never be so dishonoured as to participate in a killing action – even a metaphorical one.

These are just a few examples – and I could tell you many more! But my point is that we do well to remember that the culture in which we are raised is just one of many cultures. And as we move between cultures, we need to adapt, and to live in new ways, some of which can be quite challenging. Learning to listen to each other, and learn from each other, is vital if we are ever to understand each other.

One of the sharpest divides between African and English culture, right now, tends to be over the issue of same-sex attraction. I’m not going to say much about this – don’t worry! (Not least because children are present). But I would just make this observation: British culture has always embraced new ideas and innovations enthusiastically. It is what made the British, for a while, one of the Masters of the World. We embraced new technology, like steam engines, then petrol machines, and then computers. We love novelty and gadgets, and we tend to embrace new ideas – which is why our Christianity tends to be fractured into so many different factions and churches. We tend to turn our back on tradition, in favour of what new and exciting things might happen if we embrace something new. If you want a clear picture of an Englishman, imagine a very pompous old man (like me) standing up and saying “Now please listen while I teach you about the importance of tradition….oh look! A new robot hoover for my carpet”

Other cultures, are more embedded in their traditions. Traditions give them an anchor to hold onto, amid the ever-shifting tides of change in the world. That’s been my experience of Africa, mainly – although I do notice that there is a young generation coming through who are being increasingly tempted towards the novel and the new things of western culture.

But what can the church offer, to both traditional and more experimental cultures? I think it is this. Culture informs and dictates many of the ways we act towards each other. As Christians, we have a higher allegiance than to our own culture. It’s an allegiance to the Kingdom of Heaven, which is a counter-cultural phenomenon. The Kingdom of Heaven stands against all human cultures. It analyses and comments on all cultures. It turns many cultural ideas on their head. What do I mean?

I like to remind my congregation, from time to time, that the Kingdom of Heaven is a topsy-tury Kingdom. It was founded by the Lord of the Universe, who was born in a stable. The King of Creation, who lived in poverty. The commander of armies of angels, who required peace and non-violence. The Word incarnate of God, who allowed himself to be executed.

The radical teaching of Jesus. and the Kingdom of Heaven he announced, stands in complete contrast to so much of what we take for granted. To those who shrug their shoulders at the poor, God says ‘there shall be no poor among you’. To the rich man who accumulates treasure, Jesus says ‘you fool, tonight you die’. To the one who is struck on the right cheek, Jesus says ‘offer your left’. To the man forced to carry a load one mile, Jesus says ‘take it two miles’. To the war mongers who conquered his land, Jesus gave himself up to die – to show them that the ultimate result of violence is that you place the Lord of the Universe on a tree, outside your city, outside your culture, outside your life.

Ultimately, then, our identity as Christians doesn’t rest in our personal cultures, however rich and wonderful they may be. Rather, we are given a new identity, and a new culture, by the Lord who inspires ALL culture. He gives us the identity of Son or Daughter of Heaven. He gives us brothers and sisters from every corner of the World. He brings us together as one family, with one heavenly father. He makes us citizens of heaven – the greatest culture there will ever be.

So on multi-cultural Sunday, let us be glad and grateful for the cultures in which we were born and raised, celebrate the other cultures we have experienced along life’s road, but never lose sight of the culture God gives us, through Jesus Christ, the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven!