Henry Martyn - a short but astounding life

Texts: Isaiah 55.6–11 & Mark 16.15–end

Do you ever wonder what on earth you can do, personally, about the troubles in the world?  I know I do.  I’m an anxious consumer of news.  I listen to the Today programme every day.  I can’t have my lunch without the 1 o’clock news, and I check the headlines again when I go to bed!

The recent news of events in Palestine and Israel has drawn the world’s attention away from the horror of Russian’s attempted conquest of the Ukraine.  Largely unnoticed has also gone the recent earthquake in Afghanistan, and other natural disasters.  A man shot three people in Brussels this week – but the event barely got a mention.  The world is going to hell in a handcart, but you and I are largely powerless to do anything about it.  Aren’t we?

That could have been the attitude of Henry Martyn, who the Anglican church commemorates today as one of our outstanding Christians.  Born in Truro in 1781, Henry Martyn went up to Cambridge at the age of sixteen. He became an avowed evangelical and his friendship with Charles Simeon led to his interest in missionary work. In 1805, he left for Calcutta as a chaplain to the East India Company. The expectation was that he would minister to the British expatriate community, not to the indigenous peoples.  But, in fact, he found that there was a constant fear of insurrection among the ex-pat community.  They lived, somewhat as Israelis live today, under constant fear of violent uprising by those whose lands had been taken over.  Even the recitation of Magnificat at Evensong was forbidden, lest ‘putting down the mighty from their seat’ should incite the natives.

Henry’s response to this situation was notable.  He could have kept his head down, and quietly carried on ministering to his ex-patriate community.  But, instead, Henry – being a gifted scholar - set about learning the local languages so that he could share the Gospel with them, following Jesus command at The Great Commission.  One assumes that his motivation was a belief that converting the natives of India to Christianity would be a means of bringing the British and the Indians into a new fellowship with each other. 

Having learned their tongues, Henry then supervised the translation of the New Testament first into Hindustani and then into Persian and Arabic, as well as preaching and teaching in mission schools.  Many of those schools, and also some hospitals, were built out of his own funds.   He went to Persia to continue the work, where his translation of the New Testament was warmly welcomed by the enlightened Shah.  But, unfortunately suffering from tuberculosis, he died in the Turkish mountains, in modern day Armenia, on this day in 1812 – having only spent seven years in his task of translating the Scriptures.

In just seven years of his missionary life, Henry Martyn succeeded in spreading the Gospel among millions of people.  He was a famous and noted preacher, who engaged in public debate with scholars from other religions, and who gained their respect.  This was at a time when tensions between religions were rather less than they are today…a time when religious leaders didn’t claim, by and large, to have the monopoly on truth. 

What, I wonder, does Henry Martyn’s life have to say to us today?  Few of us, I suspect, have the intellectual skills to become bible translators…I know I don’t.  The world today is a far more fractured place than it was for Henry – and missionary work is no longer carried out (in the main) by British people going out to convert people of other nations.  Much has changed.  And Henry had some very particular skills and opportunities. 

Nevertheless, his short but brightly lit life teaches us that even in seven years, a great deal can be achieved, by those who have the faith and the courage to serve.  Henry’s life, of course, mirrors the life of Jesus who, as far as we can tell, only had a ministry of three years, and yet managed to set in motion a world-changing movement.

So the question that Henry Martyn leaves for each of us to ponder is this:  in the life that each of us has left (whether we have years or just months ahead of us) how are we going to be salt and light to the world in which we are placed?  Henry Martyn sought to make his corners of the world into a better place, by the light, the teaching and the example of Christ.  He brought the Gospel to those who hadn’t heard Jesus’ teaching of love.  He provided schools and hospitals for thousands.  He worked to break down barriers between religions and national identities.  

How are you and I going to do the same and perhaps even more, in the time that each of us has left on earth?  You and I are not likely to be able to do very much about the global conflicts currently shaking our world – except perhaps to direct our charity towards those who are suffering.  Henry Martin tackled the issues before him in Calcutta.  How are you and I going to bring the good news of Jesus’ life, teaching and example, to the people of Havant, Bedhampton, Emsworth and Hayling?  They are our mission field.  And it is first of all to them that we are called.  Amen.

Wilfred, Elizabeth and Edith...

Today, the church marks the death of three prominent Christians, Wilfred of Ripon, Elizabeth Fry and Edith Cavell.  As you know, I quite like using these Thursday sermons to learn something about those who have believed before us.  So with three famous names in our view, let’s hear their stories.

Wilfrid, or Wilfrith, was born in Northumbria in about the year 633. He was educated at the monastery of Lindisfarne, but disapproved of what he judged to be their Celtic insularity. Remember that at this time, the Celtic church had been thriving in the years since Rome retreated from the British Aisles.  But from 597, when Augustine of Canterbury was sent on a mission from Rome by Pope Gregory the Great, Rome had been steadily re-asserting its influence.

Wilfred’s sympathies lay with Rome.  He believed that Rome was the mother church, even though she had left her daughter-church in the British Isles to it’s own devices for a couple of centuries.  Wilfred journeyed to Canterbury and then to Rome. He spent three years at Lyons where he was admitted as a monk. He then was appointed Abbot of Ripon and took with him the Roman monastic system and Benedictine Rule, which he immediately introduced. 

Wilfred played an influential role at the Synod of Whitby, in around 663.  The Synod was called, essentially to decide whether the Anglo-Saxon church of Northumbria would follow Celtic or Roman church traditions.  Wilfred’s dominance of the debate was largely responsible for the victory of the Roman party over the Celts.  Later, when he was elected Bishop of York, he went to Compiègne to be consecrated by twelve Frankish bishops rather than risk any doubt of schism by being ordained by Celtic bishops. 

There were upsets first with Chad and then with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, but the Roman authorities took his side and he was eventually restored to his See. After further disputes, he resigned the See of York and became Bishop of Hexham, spending his remaining years at Ripon. His gift to the English church was to make it more clearly a part of the Church universal.  But it has to be said, his manner and methods were not such as to draw people close to him at a personal level. He died on this day in the year 709 and was buried in Ripon.

I find this period of British church history really interesting.  It shows that spark of independence from other nations which still dogs the British mindset today.  We are an island nation, and we don’t take kindly to being told what to do by other nations in Europe.  We never have done.  Henry the Eighth’s split with Rome was another example, and of course Brexit is the latest occasion when we have pulled up the drawbridge to Europe.

Wilfred also serves as a reminder that even the Church Universal, with its headquarters in Rome, has rarely managed to maintain a unified stance on anything.  The British Schism of the 600s, the Reformation, and the Great Schism with the Orthodox church at the turn of the first millennium – all these historical events remind us that unanimity on all matters theological and ecclesiological is a rare thing indeed.  The Catholic Cardinals are currently having another Synod, in Rome – and there are many issues up for debate there, too.

In the last week or so, the Bishops of the Church of England have voted to approve prayers which may be used at the blessing of same sex marriages.  This is a major shift in policy by the church, and it is warmly welcomed by so-called progressive and liberal clergy, like me.  On the other hand, those of a more conservative view are incensed by this move.  Many are calling the present House of Bishops a bunch of ungodly heretics!  The battle over same-sex blessings, and perhaps one day marriages, is but the latest ‘big issue’ to get in the way of Unity – and dire predictions of schism in the Church of England are rife once again.  In the past we’ve argued over where Authority lies, slavery, the rights of women, the ordination of women, and the authority of Scripture.  And no doubt we’ll find things to argue about in the future – just as Wilfred and others did in the past.  But through all these debates, the godly men and women of the past have continued to witness to God’s love in the world – whatever the theologians and bishops were arguing about!

I’m thinking, for example, of Elizabeth Fry. She was born at Earlham in Norfolk in 1780. At the age of twenty, she married Joseph Fry, a London merchant and a strict Quaker. She was admitted as a minister in the Society of Friends and became a noted preacher. The appalling state of the prisons came to her notice and she devoted much of her time to the welfare of female prisoners in Newgate. In 1820 she took part in the formation of a night shelter for the homeless in London. She travelled all over Europe in the cause of prison reform. She was a woman of a strong Christian and evangelistic impulse and this inspired all her work. She died on this day in 1845.

For another example of someone whose faith drove them on to great works, today we also remember Edith Cavell. was born into a clergy family at Swardeston, also in Norfolk, in 1865. After life as a governess, she trained as a nurse, ending up working with the Red Cross in Belgium in 1907. On the outbreak of the First World War, she became involved in caring for the wounded on both sides. She refused repatriation and then began smuggling British soldiers from Belgium into Holland. In 1915 she was arrested and brought to trial. Protecting those who worked with her, she was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on this day in the year 1915. She went to her death calmly, forgiving her executioners, convinced she had been doing her duty as a Christian. 

A quick comparison of the lives of St Wilfred, Elizabeth Fry and Edith Cavell leads one to conclude that although Wifred is the only canonised Saint, of the three, he was perhaps the least ‘saintly’ of them.  By all accounts he was a miserable and argumentative so-and-so, who nobody really liked, and who spent most of his life arguing about which branch of the church was the most authentic.  In comparison, Fry and Cavell poured out their lives in the service of others – caring for the prisoner, the homeless and the sick.  I wonder which of these three each of us would rather emulate?  In the spirit of today’s Gospel reading, I wonder whose dogged persistence we would most like to copy?

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.