Deny Yourself, Take up your Cross and Follow Me. A Sermon for Lent 2

“If any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  (Mark 8.34)

We stand – or in your case, sit – in a very ancient place.  According to the histories I’ve been reading in recent days, Christians have worshipped here for at least a thousand years – and possibly a lot longer.  And throughout those years, I’ve no doubt that one of Jesus’ most famous sayings has rung around these walls time and time again:  “If any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me”.

As I say, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of sermons on this text – so I hope you won’t object if I now offer you my own take on this saying.

Let’s first breakdown this saying into its constituent parts.   Jesus says, boldly, that if anyone wants to be worthy of the term disciple, they must do three things:  deny self, take up a cross, and follow him.  Let’s examine each of these in turn – meaning of course that I have a nice three point sermon for you!

1.  Deny Thyself.   One advantage that we modern worshippers have over our forebears is that psychology has taught us a great deal about ‘The Self’.  In fact, the notion of ‘self’ is a very ancient idea.  Eastern religions have known for centuries that what we call our ‘self’ can be a tricky thing indeed. Our sense of self – our desires, our personal feelings about things, our perceived needs, wants, fears and angers – these can separate us from God and from the world around us.  We can become too wrapped up in our self to notice and appreciate what is around us.  

Psychologists have taught us the Greek word ‘ego’ – but that has become a problematic word.  Tell someone that their ego is too big, and they will think you are calling them arrogant.  Whereas what is really meant is that a person’s sense of their own importance in the great scheme of things is blinding them to reality.

The Catholic Theologian Richard Rohr might be able to help us to discover what is truly meant by the term ‘self’.  He separates our sense of self into two constituent parts – what we might call the ‘small self’ and the ‘true self’.  Another short-hand for this is the notion of our Spirit and our Soul.

What do we mean when we talk about a person’s spirit?  We might talk about them as having a spirit of kindness, or a spirit of anger.  Our spirit is our ‘small self’.  It is our ego.  It is what life has made us.  It is influenced by all the things that have happened to us…our challenges, our joys, our fears, our wants.  It is also the identities that we have built around ourselves…the titles we have given ourselves.  Our spirit can dictate the kind of people we are – it can drive us to do wonderful things.  It can drive us to do terrible things.

When someone insults me, or fails to give me the respect I think I’m due, it is my small self, my spirit, that is wounded.  The spirit is the place where pride resides.  It’s the place where hurt pride resides as well.

But our soul…that’s another thing altogether.  Our soul is our ‘True Self’.  It is the self we were given when we first entered the world.  Our soul is the part of us that is unsullied by life, the part that is connected to God from our birth. Our true self is the pure essence of who we are…a son or daughter of God.   The danger of course, is that our soul can be polluted, corrupted and changed by our spirit.  When we talk about saving our souls, we mean that we need our souls to be washed, purified of the effects of our spirit, our small self, our ego.  We need to return to our ‘True Selves’ – the beautiful, divine spark that is within us, unencumbered by the effects that the world has had on our ‘small self’ – our spirit.

So when Jesus says that to be his disciple we need to ‘deny ourselves’ – this is what he is pointing to.  We need to be ‘born again’ – that is reborn spiritually.  We need to allow our world-affected spirit to recede, and let our True Self as a pure son or daughter of God emerge, washed and purified.  In the language of last week’s call to repentance, we need to wake up to who we are – and how we have become who we are.  We need to develop our understanding about who we are and why we do the things we do, think the things we think, act the ways we act.  These are usually dictated by the small self.  Rarely do we find the grace to act out of the beauty of our true self.

But how shall we do this?  How can we begin to find our true selves among the noise and chaos created by our ego, our small self, our spirit?  This brings us to the second part of Jesus’ three point plan!  He calls us to ‘take up our cross’.

The cross has many meanings – many of which we will explore together during Holy Week and especially Good Friday.  It may surprise you to know that the Cross is a much older symbol than Christianity.  For many ancient religions, including for the Eqyptians and the Hindus, the Cross was a simple symbol that points us to an eternal truth…the truth that we live in the middle of a great battle between the spiritual and physical worlds.  The arms of the cross signify the physical plane on which we live.  East – West…we live on an apparently flat plane of existence.  But the vertical slash of the cross intersects that plane.  The world is infused by God, and by the spiritual realms that are unseen, and yet present with us.  Our task is to live in the mid-point of the intersection.  We need to learn how to live at the very centre of the cross, to find the balance point between heaven and earth, between the spiritual and the physical.

But crucially, as Jesus showed us, this is where we also have to die.  On the cross, in the intersection between heaven and earth, we learn how to die to self, and live for God.  There, where Jesus died for us, we need to let our small selves die too…so that we can be reborn with him.

How?  How can we die and yet live?  This is where the third part of Jesus’ three point plan comes into effect.  We die to self by following him.  Jesus is our leader, our Lord, and our King.  It is his rules that we are called to follow.  It is his way of loving self-sacrifice that will save our souls from the effects of our spirit.  We need to give up the false claims of the world, dying to any idea that having a nice house, or a new car, or money in the bank will have any impact whatsoever on eternity.  A wise man once said that no matter how big your house is, your grave will be the same size as everyone else’s.

We who claim the title of disciple are called to a completely new way of being.  It’s a way that has been preached for a thousand years in this building…but it is a way that I suggest we are only just beginning to truly grasp.  We need to come to Jesus, and follow him and his ways, in order to find rest for our very souls.  

That is what disciples of Jesus do.

Against the Motion that ‘God is Dead’

Today (27th Feb 2015) I have been given 2/3 minutes to speak against the Motion that 'God is Dead' at the Havant College Debating Society.  Here's what I plan to do with my three minutes.  Does my (very brief!) argument persuade you?  Do comment below.

I’ve been invited to speak against the motion that ‘God is dead’.

My response is this:  it all depends on what kind of God we are talking about.  Or perhaps I should phrase that as a question to you: ‘what do you think God is like?’

Many people, sadly, think of God as some sort of white bearded Heavenly Headmaster, who sits on a cloud, dispensing rules and handing out favours to his favourite students.  I hope that kind of God is dead.  That is the Santa Claus God – the Hollywood God - the kind of God that some footballers thank when they score a goal.  That is the sort of God who one might equate to a vending machine.  Put in the right prayers, and get the answer you seek.  I’m glad that he – and it always seems to be a ‘he’ – is dead.  HE deserves to be.

But that is not the kind of God that religions (and thoughtful religious teachers) have been speaking about for thousands of years. The Alive God is neither male nor female.  The Alive God is what many Anglicans and Catholics refer to as ‘the Ground of our Being’ – the creative energy that connects and sustains the whole Universe.  The Alive God is the one of whom the Bible says ‘God is Love’, and who Hindus revere as the Supreme Spirit, the Brahman.  Unknowable.  Perceivable only by experiencing that God’s action in the human soul.

Can I prove that such God exists?  Not in the way that a scientist can prove that this chair is solid.  But science itself is constantly discovering that there is more to reality than meets the eye.  This chair is not actually solid.  Energy waves and certain molecules can pass right through it.  The fundamental particles of which it is made might well be in two places at once, depending on whether one is looking at them.  And it might be only one copy of the same chair that exists in billions of parallel universes.

To those who would easily dismiss the whole idea of God that I advocate, let me conclude with this thought:  there are 7 billion people in the world.  And around 6.5 billion of them believe in something that is deeper, greater, higher, lower and beyond than the everyday reality we experience.  Some call that something ‘God’ – and 6.5 billion people think of that something as very much alive.   My life mission is to uncover all I can about that kind of God…and I invite anyone who is interested to join me.

Repent! A Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent

One of the real delights about moving house is that you tend to discover just how dirty your home is.  You have much loved items of furniture, which you’ve lived happily alongside for years – and then you move them.  Suddenly, you see all the dust and grease that has accreted around them.  No longer the loved items of furniture you’ve happily lived with…they are festering piles of goo…and you have to overcome the urge to take them all to the tip and start again!

Take my freezer, for example.  I have been cheerfully loading and unloading bags of food from my freezer for years.  But it was only this week that I noticed that all around the edge of the door, a dirty film of filth has accumulated.  How did it get there?  It’s not as though I’ve been wiping lumps of ice-cream up and down the edge of the door every time I use it!  But there it was, a great sticky mass of slime,  that had to be scraped off with a knife, and one of those green washing-up pads. 

You see, I couldn’t just leave it there.  I had been alerted to a new reality.  No longer was my freezer the bright shiny receptacle for lovely things that I had always believed it to be.  Suddenly, I had been given a very different view of it…I had to wake up and smell the coffee. I had to get real. I had to turn around the way I looked at my freezer, and embrace the reality of the situation.

When Jesus came along, and cried out ‘repent’ – he meant something similar.  He wasn’t thinking about freezers, of course!  The word he used was ‘metanoia’ – which has many complex layers of meaning.  But those meanings coalesce around the notion of turning around, facing in a new direction, changing one’s mind about things.  Our English word ‘repent’ doesn’t really do justice to metanoia.  Repentance is about feeling sorry for past actions.  It’s a Middle English word with a Latin and Old French root – paenitere (pen –i-tere) – which was all about feeling remorseful. 

But Jesus was calling for something rather more radical than just feeling sorry.  In fact Jesus didn’t seem to be all that interested in remorse.  To the woman caught in adultery he simply said ‘Your sins are forgiven.  Go and sin no more’.  Rather, Jesus was calling for a complete change of mind.  He wanted his followers to wake up and see the world for what it really is.

You see, most of us go around with quite a complex set of delusions, about the world, about other people, and about ourselves.  Jesus’ radical notion was that we should begin to see those things as God sees them; not as we limited human beings perceive them through our limited eyes, ears and brains.

Jesus had a short-hand for the way God sees the world…he called it ‘God’s Kingdom’.  When we begin to glimpse the world, ourselves and other people as God sees them; then we begin to live as people of the Kingdom.

Let’s do a little thought-experiment together.  What do you think the world is like?  The answer you give to yourself will depend a great deal on your experiences of the world.  If you have only every lived on a tropical island, with food hanging ripe from every tree, then the world will seem a pretty wonderful place.  If, on the other hand, you have lived in a dry desert, or had your house torn apart by a tornado, your view of the world will be something quite different.

The reality, of course is that the world is something else altogether.  We need to look realistically at the world.  God didn’t create the world to give you and me a luxury dwelling, and a guaranteed safe future:  he made it to offer us challenges, to help us grow spiritually and emotionally, as we learn how to care for each other, for other species, for the very environment of the Earth as much as God cares for them.

Let’s try another thought experiment.  Picture in your mind someone who really annoys you.  They might be a family member.  They might be a church member!  Hopefully, on my first Sunday, none of you are thinking about me yet!  Let yourself, just for a moment, feel some of the anger that you have about that person.  Aren’t they just so annoying?!  They are so smug!  They always think they are right!  They never say sorry!  They have no concept of how much they hurt me that time!  And now…Stop.

Stop and wonder how God sees them.  Could it be that God sees them as a Father sees a child?  Could it be that God sees them as still needing to grow into all that they can be?  Could it be that God sees all the things they’ve been through in their life that has made them like they are?  God was watching when they were taught how to behave by a dysfunctional parent.  God was there when they were abused, or bullied, or deprived, or used.  God saw how the character they have today is a result of all that they have been through and the environment in which they first grew. 

And how does God react to them?

God loves them.  Those ‘other people’ – especially the ones who really rile you – they are not saints.  But that doesn’t stop God loving them, nor caring for them, nor wanting them to grow as human beings to become all they can become.

And that’s also how much God loves you!  With all your faults and human weakness.  God loves you.  Get rid of that delusion that you are somehow perfect…that weird delusion that you’ve never done anything to upset anyone (which is where your anger about other people comes from).  In the eyes of God, you and I are no better than anyone else…and possibly a little bit worse than some.  

Yet he still loves us.  By offering us the free gift of forgiveness, he restores our self-respect.  He removes the need to justify ourselves.

In Lent, Jesus encourages us to ‘Get real’ about ourselves.  Only when we’ve learned to see ourselves as God sees us, and learned to see the world as God sees it, will we ever truly understand what it means to ‘Love our neighbours as we love ourselves’. 

Get real, in Lent.  Turn around, and see the world as it really is.  Wake up and smell the coffee.  Then, you will be eager to love your neighbours.  Then you will be eager to pass on some of the love you have experienced in Christ. 

The kingdom of God has come near.  Turn around, repent, and believe the Good News.  Get real about yourself, the world and others.  Forget the dream world of self-created fantasies, and join in with God’s activity in the real world he created – which is the only place where true joy can be found.    Amen  

Ash Wednesday 2015

Homily for Ash Wednesday 2015 - My first sermon to St Faith's Havant as Rector

It is still horribly cold…but the days are beginning to lengthen at last!  And that’s where we get the word ‘Lent’ from.  The old English word ‘lenten’ means the time of lengthening and growing days. For centuries, that time of growth has been a pointer to the idea of spiritual growth and renewal.

Traditionally, spiritual growth and renewal has always been assisted by penitence, fasting, giving to the poor, and prayer.  None of these ideas are only about self-denial.  Like anointing with oil, fasting was believed to be a purifying and strengthening challenge…a preparation for some challenge yet to come.  And the idea of giving things up for Lent was always balanced by the requirement to give something out to the poor:  for we surely cannot claim to love the God whom we have not seen if we do not love the poor at our door that we do see.

That is why each year our Bishop invites us to participate in his Lent Appeal.  This is an extra call on our purses – at a time when we are encouraged to think most deeply about what it means to be a follower of a Lord who gave up everything for us.  This year, Bishop Christopher is inviting us to contribute to two causes: one at home, and one abroad.  At home, we will be called on to support work among those suffering from mental health issues; abroad, we will be supporting the work of the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation, which provides surgery and rehabilitation for victims of violence.  Pat, our curate, recently spent time in the Holy Land with other curates, where she visited BASR.  We’ll be hearing more about her experiences later in Lent.

This is a time for tidying up and preparing for Spring and Easter. Having just taken over the enormous grounds of Meadowlands, I’m especially conscious of the need to clear away dead leaves, trim the bushes, plant new seeds.  I’ve especially had fun mowing down the two-foot high grass that was left by the last tenants!
This is a time for tidying our spiritual lives as well.  In a moment, I will invite you all to receive the sign of the cross, drawn in ashes and olive oil on your foreheads.  This is a sign of repentance…a sign that we recognise ourselves to be human beings who fail – and who seek the forgiveness of our heavenly father.

This then is the heart of Lent…growth and spiritual renewal stem from an appreciation of who we are…failing human beings.  We are like a plant that needs the sun.  We cannot grow without the love, wisdom and power of our heavenly father.  That’s why, alongside the Bishop’s Lent Appeal, we also invite you to participate in a Lent Course.  The Christians of Havant are combining their resources to provide a course on almost every day of the week during Lent.  Let me encourage you to sign up for one of those course…take the chance to deepen your understanding of the wisdom and power of God to transform and change you.

As we receive the Ashes, today, we will be reminded that we are ‘but dust…from dust you came and to dust you shall return;’.  To the modern ear this sounds a rather morbid thought…but actually it’s intended to remind us, very simply of what we are…

We are made of dust.  Stardust, in fact…our atoms once burned in the heart of the Universe before they became grouped together with the ball of rock we call Planet Earth.  From the nutrients, atoms and molecules of that planet, each of us came forth.  Our mothers ate what the planet provided, and we came forth.  We are the product of a physical and biological process.  But what else are we?

Christians proclaim that yes, we are made of Stardust…but we are also given life by the Spirit and Power of the living God.  It is his power that sustains us, his wisdom that guides us, and his forgiveness which frees us to become all that we can become as Children of God.  From dust we came, and to dust we shall return…but thanks be to God:  our Spirits will sing, and our souls will be set free.

So let me invite you to receive the Ash cross this year, as a sign of your commitment to carry on growing in God…to reach beyond the dust from which you were made, to become the child of God you were destined to be.

Amen

The Baptism of Christ - Last Sermon to The Parish of North End Portsmouth Team Ministry

Last week, during our midweek Mass, we heard the story of Jesus walking on the water.  Today has a watery theme as well, with the story of the baptism of Christ.  Both stories remind me of the cartoon that I saw on Facebook this week.  It was a religious cartoon…but not of the prophet Mohammed.  Rather, it showed Jesus as a toddler, standing on the water of his bath-tub, while his mother Mary pointed to the water and said ‘in’!  I hope no-one decides to shoot the comic who drew that cartoon!  Je suis Charlie!

Today we celebrate the Baptism of Christ, which for Jesus marked the beginning of his public ministry.  The irony of the moment is, of course, that at the same time we are marking the conclusion of my public ministry here in this parish.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I am not equating myself to Jesus!  One of the stranger facts about his baptism is that Jesus chose to be baptised despite being sinless – so there’s definitely no comparison with me there!  Why did Jesus choose to do this?  Why go through a ceremony which implied the washing away of sin, to mark the beginning of his ministry?

Baptism was then, and is still now, a symbol of new life.  It was one of the ways that a gentile could convert to the Jewish faith.  It was, and still is, a powerful symbol of making a fresh start, and of starting along a new road of faith.  I think Jesus wanted us to see him as someone who is prepared to walk that same road with us.  By subjecting himself to baptism, Jesus identifies with us.  He declares that he is our brother, and that he will walk along faith’s road with us.

As I look back over the last six and a half years, I am in no doubt that Jesus has been walking along our road of faith with us.  Today is a good day to give thanks to God for all he has accomplished among us as he has walked with us.

We might give thanks for lives sustained and needs met through the community café, or through our pastoral visiting team.  We might give thanks for the music and laughter we’ve enjoyed together at countless social events, barn dances, quiz nights, choir concerts, and Songs of Praise.

We might give thanks for the funds we’ve raised together to touch the lives of people beyond this parish – some of whom will never know we even exist.  Just think of the funds YOU have raised for
Christian Aid,
the Children’s Society,
Isubilu’s work with sex workers in Zambia,
Bungokho’s rural development work in Uganda,
the Portsmouth Women’s Refuge,
the tons of food you’ve gathered for the Portsmouth Foodbank,
the Roberts Centre,
the annual appeal for vouchers for Churches Homeless Action,
Bishop’s Lent Appeals,
and latterly, the work of the church in Ghana.

Incidentally, Bishop Matthias was hoping to be with us today…but problems with his Visa have prevented it.  It comes to something when a Bishop of the Anglican Church struggles to get to England, doesn’t it?  I wonder if we are becoming just a bit too paranoid about foreigners coming to our country?  Bishop Matthias has asked me to send you his love and his greetings – and his promise of prayer for you in the coming months as my successor is identified.

But let’s get back to fundraising.  The list I just read is really only scratching the surface and of course it makes no mention of the regular sustained, committed giving and fundraising that you have done to maintain our three churches as beacons of the Kingdom in this area.

We might give thanks for the growth in faith that we have seen among so many lives.  All around us, Christianity is under severe attack.  A tide of consumerism, mixed with secularism, atheism and apathy has led to the closing of many churches.  In this parish, with the exception of the Roman Catholic church and the tiny Quaker meeting house…every other major church denomination is gone.  Our Anglican neighbours on either side are struggling…numbers have been falling at every neighbouring church.  But we have been blessed.  Across our parish, we have managed to maintain and even grow our congregations, and our finances are in good shape.

Yes…my friends.  We have much to be thankful for.  How many parishes of our size could maintain three church buildings and four community halls, with plans well advanced to bring a fifth hall back into use?  How many parishes of our size could run:
a daily community café,
and a Pre-School nursery,
and a music group
and a robed choir,
a Grade one pipe organ,
and a messy church,
and a café church,
and a monthly Evensong,
and fish & chip lunches,
and Ladies Breakfasts
and The Rock,
and two 8am communions,
and four midweek services,
and regular study courses?

How many parishes of our size would have so many organisations linked to them? –Everything from Alcoholics Anonymous, to the Brownies and the Scouts, martial arts training, a male voice choir, a line dancing class and five slimming and weight-watching classes!  This parish is a truly remarkable place – and we have so much to be thankful for.

What’s more, I am certain that God has amazing things yet in store for this parish.  Thanks to the help we’ve been receiving from our Bishop and Diocese, not least in helping to pay for Dave, our Parish Development Officer, there are some really exciting new plans coming down the pipe.  There is the very real prospect of a redevelopment of much of the St Nicholas site, with a new hall and refurbished church to ‘Connect Copnor’.  At St Mark’s, there are concrete plans taking shape to ensure that ‘every square inch’ of the building is used effectively for the mission of the church – and that the dreadful ramps finally consigned to history!

Last year, at our Annual Meeting we set a vision for ourselves…a vision summarised on a noticeboard in each church.  Our vision was intended to guide us in five key areas:
1) grow deeper into our spiritual foundations,
2) grow younger by reaching out to the next generation.
3) tell God’s story with more passion and clarity,
4) serve our local community with even more love and devotion, and
5) provide even better buildings as vibrant signs of the Kingdom.
That’s the vision that you agreed last year, and it’s a vision I encourage you to keep on following.  Keep reminding yourselves of it…LOOK at the noticeboard from time to time!

Let’s get back to our reading!  This Sunday, this Feast of the Baptism of Christ, can be a baptismal moment for us too.  Today we remember how in a simple act of ritual washing, Jesus symbolically embarked on the most vital period of his ministry.  We too are about to engage in a simple ritual act together…around this table…the act of receiving God’s gift of spiritual food for our spiritual journey.  Let’s make this act of coming together an act of commitment to God, to one another and to the future.

My personal journey is leading in a different direction – something that I am both excited about, but also sad.  There is sadness because I’ve grown deeply attached to so many of you…and I shall miss you.  Sad, because I won’t get to experience first-hand all that I know God has in store for this parish in the coming years.  But I also leave with gratitude in my heart.  Gratitude for all that God has taught me here, about myself, and about the kind of priest I’m called to be.  But gratitude to so many of you too.

So thank you, for all that you are and all that you have been.  Thank you for the hours of rehearsals or administration, or cleaning or gardening or maintaining, or sitting on committees or serving in the Café.  Thank you the prayerfulness, and for the companionship you have given to so many parishioners in their homes and over tea-pots and toasted sandwiches.  Thank you for your unstinting faithfulness in fundraising and in caring for one another.  Thank you for being steadfast in worship, and in giving.  Thank you for being hopeful and joyful.

I am certain that God has so much yet in store for North End.  I wish you joy in his service.  Amen.  

Epiphany 2015 – Last Sermon to St Mark’s Congregation

Epiphany 2015 – Last Sermon to St Mark’s North End

Matthew 2: 1-12

Matthew is our only biblical source for the story of the Wise Men – and he doesn't tell us very much. Even their names are handed down to us by tradition, not from Matthew’s gospel. Neither do we know how many of them there were. They certainly weren't ‘we three Kings from Orient are’.

Matthew calls them 'Magi', from which we get our word 'magician' - but that's not the full meaning of the word. The Magi were, as far as we can tell, learned men from another culture. They studied the stars, and no doubt studied the ancient texts of many religions too. They put that knowledge together came to the startling conclusion that a new King of the Jews was being born.

Actually, they were wrong. Jesus never was the King of Jews...despite the ironic poster that Pontius Pilate had nailed over his Cross.  In fact, according to John's Gospel, when Pilate asked him point blank whether he was the King of the Jews, Jesus replied "My Kingdom is not of this world".  No, the Magi were wrong. The stars were not predicting the birth of the King of the Jews.

Another accident of the Magi was in their timing. According to Matthew’s account, they actually arrived up to two years late. Matthew notes that Herod enquired of the wise men when they had seen the Star appear.  Then, based on that information he slaughtered all the boys in Bethlehem under two years old.  It’s also notable that Matthew describes the wise men visiting Mary and the child in the house where they were staying, not in a stable.

So, the ‘wise men’ were perhaps not all that wise. They failed to correctly predict the timing of the birth of a new King of the Jews - and they were two years adrift even of Jesus birth. Their coming seems to have been a happy accident…and example of God using a crooked stick to draw a straight line, as God so often does.

So, to those who say that our future can be read in the stars, there is a warning here. The stars do not foretell our future, any more than they did for the Magi. We would be wise not to place our future in the hands of star-gazers – and especially astrologers - too.

And yet...and yet...

The Magi embarked on a journey of faith. They thought they knew where that journey would lead. They assumed it would lead them to a royal palace in Jerusalem.  But God has a way of using the journeys we plan for ourselves, and turning them into something much different, much more profound.

You see, wise men (and women) are open to what the Journey will bring. Wise men, and women, embrace the possibilities for change and growth which arise whenever we put our journey in the hands of God.  And some of the best journeys are the ones we take with other companions …those who travel with us along the road.

Over the last seven years, I have been blessed to have had some very special companions on my own journey.  I feel that I have learned a lot about myself while being your priest… I now know far more about what gives me joy, and what makes me stressed…even to the point of a heart attack!

I've also learned something of how God works in some of the most surprising places and people. God has spoken to me through homeless people, and people with fragile mental health – as well as through sublime music and liturgical beauty.  I've rejoiced to see some people embracing faith and the profound healing it can bring.  But I've also cried and worried over those who have given up on the challenge of the journey…those who have been lost along the way.

There is something profoundly challenging about the Christian journey – or ‘the narrow way’ as Jesus called it.  I have lost count of the number of new people who have been warmly welcomed to St Mark’s…but also, sadly, of the number who have drifted away again after some months or years.

This has saddened me…but it has not surprised me.  No journey with God is easy…and we should not be surprised when it proves just too difficult for some.  It was not easy for the Magi, who traipsed across deserts and mountains to find Jesus.  They had to give up their home comforts, their family life, the things they wanted to do in favour of the things God was calling them to do…the journey God was calling them to make.  Our journeys are no different.

God calls us to give up our warm comfortable homes, our favourite TV programmes, our comfortable familiar surroundings in order to belong to something greater – the community of people called the Church.  In that community we are called on to sacrifice – to give up on the calls of our own desires, wants and even our own egos, in favour of the desires of the whole community.  We are called to journey from The Self, and into the Great Unity of God, expressed through the people around us.  Some people are just not ready for that kind of radical self-giving.  They need more time for the Spirit of God to strengthen their resolve, and to call them again back into community, and away from the transient, fickle Self.

My own journey will soon take me in a different direction.  And I know that for some of you that is a scary prospect.  But let me encourage you to take heart.  Among those of you who have stayed the course, throughout the last seven years, I have seen some remarkable changes.  In the past, some members of this congregation were at logger-heads with each other.  I've seen such people learning how to give up the demands of the Self, and learning instead the power of forgiveness, reconciliation and community.  I've seen others who used to spend most of their days at home alone devoting themselves to the community around us, through the Café.  I've seen people learn new skills, and take up new challenges.  In conversation with many, I've seen new and exciting theological ideas begin to take root and grow.

So, my encouragement to you this Epiphany is to continue to be open to the journey.  Make a new year’s resolution, right here, right now, that you will be more alert, more open to what God is doing in your life as a person, and in your common life as a church.    Make a pact with God that you will listen to him more, search the scriptures more, worship more, give more, receive more.

God led a bunch of mystics across deserts and mountains to encounter the living Lord Jesus.  God can certainly do the same for us, whether we are called to North End or Havant.

But we have to be ready to go on the journey.     Amen

The Holy Innocents

The First Sunday of Christmas

The Holy Innocents

In the midst of the joy of the Christmas season, today’s Scripture can feel rather perverse.  While we celebrate the coming of our Lord, as a baby, Matthew points out one of the most horrific ironies of the whole story…that Jesus’ birth inadvertently caused the murder of every male child under two years old in Bethlehem.  The church refers to these children as ‘the Holy Innocents’.

That mass slaughter was, of course, ordered by Herod the Great – the local King – who wanted to defend his throne from what he saw as the threat of Jesus, the King of Kings.  It is of course tragic that Herod did not realise that Jesus was not interested in taking any earthly throne.  As he later said to Pilate, his Kingdom was not of this world.  But Herod did not grasp this profound truth…like so many men of power, he saw a threat, and reached out to crush it.  He killed defenceless children, in order to defend his own throne.

For many people who struggle with the whole idea of God, human suffering is one of their greatest stumbling blocks.  This is especially true, perhaps, for those who have lost a child. One of the first questions to come to mind is often ‘why?’ or rather ‘How could a loving God stand by and let this innocent child die?’  Perhaps there were mothers and fathers in Bethlehem who had seen the star, and then the shepherds and the wise men arrive.  Perhaps they understood that this child born in their stable was indeed a special, Godly child.  I wonder what they thought of God when the soldiers arrived and murdered their sons.   

And I wonder what the parents of the Pakistan school children think of God, as they continue to mourn their children slain by the Taliban last week.  I wonder what the parents of young Ebola victims think God is doing in West Africa at the moment.  10 years after the Boxing Day Tsunami, in which around 250,000 people lost their lives, emotions are undoubtedly still red raw for many.  Where is God in all this suffering?  If he is a good God at all, how could he stand by and let all this suffering go on?  

The Archbishop of Canterbury was confronted with this same question during the last week, when he was interviewed on ‘Desert Island Discs’ on Radio 4.  The interviewer asked him to talk about the time when he lost his 7 month-old daughter in a tragic car accident.  He was asked whether that gave him a point of connection with other people who have lost loved ones in unexplained suffering.  His response was fascinating.  He said (and I paraphrase from memory) that he didn’t claim to understand the reasons why such suffering is permitted by God.  But instead he tends to point people to the young man who was nailed unjustly to a Cross.  For the Archbishop, it seems, God in Jesus, completely enters our world with all its messiness and ugliness.  He shares in our suffering.  He identifies with it.  He takes it on…and ultimately defeats it.

Is that then the purpose of suffering?  Does God allow suffering in order to use it…to use it as way of demonstrating his greater power over even death?  Perhaps that is part of the picture.  But the issue of suffering is like one of those jigsaws that many of us received on Christmas day.  We’ve already begun to put the pieces together…we might have already found the edge pieces and stuck them in place…but the main picture itself is only just beginning to become clear.

Some of the pieces of the jigsaw of suffering include certainly the kind of ideas that the Archbishop pointed us towards on Desert Island Discs.  God is certainly able to take suffering and transform it. The stories of Jesus’ coming, his teaching, his death and resurrection point to all of that.  Countless followers of God can testify that their own suffering, or grief, have been transformed by God’s love and power.  And we believe with all our hearts that the suffering of this ‘mortal coil’ has been wiped away for those we have loved who now ‘rest in peace’.  

But there is a danger that we must guard against in any discussion about suffering.  It’s the danger of believing, as some in Christianity and other religions sometimes do, that everything which happens is ‘the will of God’.  Was it God’s will that Herod should order the murder of the Holy Innocents?  No.  That was Herod’s will. Was it God’s will that hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern children would spend this winter as refugees all over the Arab world?  No.  That is the will of the politicians and war-lords of the Middle East, as they compete for power with their guns.   

It all comes down to the question of our will, not God’s.  The only sense in which God is involved is in his generous granting of free will to human beings.  God gives humanity the freedom to choose which will to submit to.  He gives a simple choice, a choice in biblical language used at the time of the 10 commandments, between a blessing and a curse.  We either choose to live God’s way, and to be blessed beyond measure.  Or we choose to live our own way, and up cursing ourselves.  Why does he give us this choice?  Quite simply because, like any parent, our Father wants us to choose to love him.  Any other kind of love would be unreal, and pointless.

The notion of free will is a simple explanation for things like the murder of the Holy Innocents.  But does it explain the suffering of Ebola, or that of the Tsunami, or any number of natural disasters.  I think it does.  I think that the jigsaw picture is capable of coming into focus even about such issues.  It is not natural disasters themselves which cause suffering..it is the human response to them.  West Africans are dying from Ebola at the moment because they are too poor to have the right medical equipment in place, or too poorly educated to understand how to remain safe around it.  That poverty is not the fault of West Africans…it is the fault of all human beings who refuse to share.  The boxing day Tsunami killed so many people because the nations affected lacked early warning systems, or the wealth required to defend their homes and cities against a known threat.

A blessing from God.  Or a curse brought about by man.  The choice which God has always given his people remains our choice today.  It’s the choice of all human beings everywhere…on the international stage, as well as in the local parish.  It’s the choice which you and I face every moment of every day.  Will we live God’s way?  Or will we choose our own?  And how many more ‘Holy Innocents’ do their need to be before we make up our minds?

Amen.