Amazing Grace

 1 Corinthians 15.1–11 & Luke 7.36–end

This morning’s readings are intended to inspire awe in us.  Awe, because the focus of both readings is on the amazing grace of God.

In the first reason, while reminding his readers of the basic story of Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection, Paul confesses that he was a dastardly sinner.  He reminds his readers that he was a persecutor of Christians – which, in his day, means that he was no doubt responsible for death of many.  From the book of Acts, we know that he stood by watching, with approval, the stoning of Stephen – the first Christian martyr.  Paul had been a bad man – one whose religious zealotry was so certain, and so passionate, that he could approve of the public lynching of a man who spoke only of God’s love.

But as we know from Paul’s story, Jesus reached out to him, via a vision on the Damascus road.  He calls Paul to follow a new path.  He gracefully uses one of the fledgling Christianity’s most ardent opponents, and he offers him new life and new purpose.  Without a word of repentance being said by Paul, God reaches out through Jesus and saves him.

In the second story, a woman whose name we do not know, is described as ‘a sinner’.  Readers of the time would have understood that to mean that she was probably what we would call a sex worker.  (It says a lot about the morality of the time that a sinner is someone so desperately poor that they are forced to sell their body and their dignity to a succession of sweaty men).  This so-called ‘sinful’ woman falls before Jesus, and bathes his feet with her tears and then with ointment.  Jesus, again, acts gracefully towards her.  Without a word of repentance being said by the woman, Jesus offers her complete forgiveness of all her sins.

What might we notice about both these stories?  For me, both stories talk to me about how God reaches out to us.  That’s what Amazing Grace is like.  It’s why John Newton, the hymn-writer, was inspired to coin the phrase.  As you probably know, Newton had been a slave-ship captain.  Like the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet, and like Paul who tortured Christians, Newton couldn’t get over the fact that God’s grace was powerful enough, strong enough, loving enough to forgive even a ‘wretch’ like him.

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between ‘grace’ and ‘mercy’ – two of the most powerful descriptions of God?  Well, ‘mercy’ is when God withholds punishment that we deserve.  ‘Grace’ on the other hand, is when God gives us gifts that we don’t deserve.  (Let me say that again!).

In other words, mercy always precedes grace.  By rights, because of the way we all sin, and all fail, God would be within his rights to punish us.  But he doesn’t.  By his mercy, he withholds that punishment, and he instead pours out his grace.

What does this mean for us? How do these stories impact on us?

For me, the message is clear.  It doesn’t matter who we are, or what kind of life we have led.  Society may have labelled us a sinner.  Our lives may have been driven by hatred, or zealotry, intolerance or extremism.  We may have been selfish, or arrogant, or lazy or greedy.  Whatever our sin, God offers mercy, and amazing grace.  God invites each one of us, just as did for Paul, the chance to take a new road, and to co-operate with him.  He frees us from our past, and offers us a new future as one of his beloved children, invited to take his hand and walk towards to the light.

And that’s pretty amazing.

Amen 

Forgiveness

Readings: Genesis 50. 15-21 and Matthew 18. 21-35

You have to take your hat off to Joseph, don’t you?  He had been his Father’s favourite son. He was given a coat of many colours (I know you can all hear the song in your head!).  But then, he gets sold into slavery by his own brothers.  He spends years in an Egyptian prison, but then with God’s help, rises to the second most powerful position in the land.  His brothers, now penniless and starving come to him for help.  What a chance he had!  What an opportunity to get revenge on those who had treated him so cruelly!  But what does Joseph do?  He forgives.  He forgives his brothers, and promises to take care of them.

In so many ways, Joseph represents God in this story.  He lives out the very heart and nature of a God who freely offers forgiveness to ALL his children.   

As a priest, who has heard many a confession or life-story, I know that forgiveness is one of the hardest callings of the Christian faith.  How can someone be expected to forgive another who has abused them, or stolen from them, or falsely accused them, or hurt them in a myriad of ways?  Or how can we, as a society, forgive the bombers of 9-11, 19 years ago, or of Manchester?

And yet Jesus calls us to forgive those who trespass against us…as much as seventy times seven, he says metaphorically to Peter.  

As always, context is everything.  Peter and Jesus are talking, on this occasion, in the context of a church fellowship.  Note that Peter’s original question is ‘if a member of the church sins against me, how many times should I forgive him?’.  The original word here is ‘brother’ (not ‘member of the church’ – but inclusive language is highly valued these days.  But the discussion is focused on how a lack of forgiveness can completely wreck a church fellowship.  

And I guess we’ve all at least known people who have been affected by an inability to forgive in churches, as well as other social institutions.  The classic conflict often seems to arise between flower artists and vicars, resulting in the classic joke, often repeated in vicaring circles, ‘what’s the difference between a flower artist and a terrorist?  (Answer:  you can negotiate with a terrorist!).  I have to say that our flower artists are nothing like that!

But the reality is that sometimes, an inability to forgive some slight, or careless action by another member of the church can so often, sadly, lead to long-term pain and a continuing and deep sense of hurt.  But Jesus suggests a radical alternative….

To forgive someone is, quite literally, to give up one’s right to feel aggrieved or hurt by another.  When we do that, we actually deny the person who has wronged us any power over our own emotions.  We take away their ability to hurt us, or damage us in the longer term. Altogether.

In fact, true forgiveness means giving up the right to feel hurt before the hurt even has a chance to take root in one’s soul.  To forgive is to give up the hurt before it can take hold.  

But does this mean that the person being forgiven gets away with whatever they have done wrong?  Well, perhaps – especially for the little things…the annoying word, the careless insult.  By forgiving someone for that, we recognise them for what they are…symptoms only of that most common of diseases…the disease of being a failing human being.  Just like us.

But what about the really big things…the systematic abusers, the scammers, the murderers, the suicide bombers?  Well, for such people, Jesus offers further advice. In Matthew chapter 10 he advises that we need to be ‘as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves’.  If I know that someone has the potential to cause great harm to another, I have a duty and a responsibility to do all I can to prevent that harm.  So it is only right that I must, and should, involve the appropriate authorities in stopping them.  But never out of revenge.  The gentle dove releases the hatred.  But the wise serpent makes sure – as sure as they can – that the wrongdoer is prevented from causing further harm to anyone else, and suitably punished for the wrongdoing they’ve already wrought.

This is why we have a justice system, after all.  Having forgiven the wrong-doer, so that they no longer have the power to hurt us, we hand over the responsibility for punishment and correction to the society in which we live.  There, appropriate punishment is meted out, without passion, without hatred.  A just punishment is handed down, hopefully, but not by the person who was harmed.  Not least so that the harmed person is not further damaged by committing some act of violence or retribution themselves.

So, may you find the strength to let go of the hurt that others have done to you. As Joseph did, and as Peter was encouraged to do, may you release your heart from the resentments it holds onto, so that your heart may fly free, and straight into the heart of the forgiving God of Love.  

Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  

Amen.

Love your enemies? Really?

Luke 6.27-38

Love your enemies.  Love your enemies?  It’s one of the more apparently batty statements that Jesus made, isn’t it?  I mean, surely we should batter our enemies?  When an enemy comes at you with an army, or a suicide bomb, or a nuclear missile, loving him isn’t going to be much of a defence is it?

It’s just this kind of namby-pamby rhetoric from Jesus that gives religion a bad name, isn’t it?  Christians are so easily dismissed by a population who lived through the rise of Nazism, or who watched the Twin Towers fall.  People say to themselves ‘why on earth would I follow a religion which has such an impractical message at its core.  Love your enemies?  Preposterous!

But to dismiss Jesus’ teaching so contemptuously would be unwise.  History is full of examples in which conflict has ultimately been solved by Love.  The history of Europe is just such an example.

After the First World War, the Allies imposed punitive sanctions on Germany.  War reparations were demanded from the German people, and as a result, their economy went into freefall.  The Allies effectively continued to ‘hate’ their enemy, even after the Armistice was signed.  The result of this hate-filled demand for retribution led directly to the rise of Adolf Hitler.  He was able to tap into the poverty of the German people, and their festering resentment against the Allies, to promise a rise to greatness.  He promised to ‘make his country great again’ (where have we heard that phrase recently?). 

After the Second World War, the victorious Allies realised that punishing Germany again – continuing the hate – would not achieve the aim of lasting peace.  Instead, the Marshall Plan was devised – by which the United States donated the equivalent of 5% of its gross domestic product to the rebuilding of the shattered cities and lives of Europe – including what was then West Germany.  Whilst other political issues were also at play – such as the pushing back of communism – essentially the Marshall Plan was a practical attempt to ‘love enemies’, and to ‘do good to those that have hurt us’.  The end result was the creation of NATO, and ultimately the European Union, which has preserved peace and fostered co-operation for over half a century.

Perhaps Jesus wasn’t such a crackpot after all?

And Jesus’ advice works on an individual level too.  How often do we hear stories of neighbour going to war with neighbour?  It’s usually over some trivial matter – at least at first.  I know people who have fallen out over paint colours, or the mis-placing of a boundary marker, or the cutting down of a tree.  Hatred and enmity builds in these circumstances, as each side justifies their own bad behaviour towards the other.  Whole families can get drawn into such disputes…and sometimes whole communities.

Into such arguments, the voice of Jesus cries out. ‘Love your enemy!’ he pleads.  For he knows that the ONLY answer to the healing of such disputes is love.  

But let no-one imagine that this is namby-pamby easy stuff to do.  It’s often much easier to roll with the hate…however much stress that induces.  It’s in our human nature to be compelled by conflict, motivated by it, energised by it.  Anyone who has ever found themselves in the middle of a legal case will know exactly what I mean.  Seeking the defeat of one’s enemy is both stressful and exhilarating – all at the same time.

But it takes a truly courageous person to choose the path of love.  The Loving path doesn’t seek to win.  In the words of St Paul from 1 Corinthians 13, the path of love is patient and kind.  It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.  It always hopes.  It always perseveres.  It always seeks the good of the other.  And it’s hard work.

Which is why we should all pray, constantly, for the strength, the wisdom, the fortitude and the commitment to Love our enemies.

Amen.  

In the name of Jesus?

Matthew 18.15-20 (compare with John 14.13-14)

What’s in a name?

In the name of Jesus.  In the NAME of Jesus.  In some churches, you’ll hear that phrase used over and over again – all through the prayers they say.  It’s a kind of magic phrase which some have come to believe will make real whatever the prayer is about.  ‘Father God we pray for wealth and health, in the NAME of Jesus.  Abracadabra!’

But is this what Jesus meant for us to do when he taught, in John’s Gospel, that whatever you ask in his name he will do.  Or, as we heard in today’s Gospel, ‘whenever two or three gather IN MY NAME I am there with them.

What does it mean to pray, or gather, in the name of Jesus?

In western culture, names are thrown around without a great deal of thought.  We tend to give names to children because we like the sound of them, or because they are the name of a much loved family member.  (Or in the case of the Brombley family, apparently, because girls names start with ‘s’, and boys names start with ‘f’.  That’s right, isn’t it, Sarah, Summer, Sky.  And Freddie and Frankie?!)

In older times, parents would choose names which they hoped would be worked out in the behaviour of the child as it grew.  So, names like Grace, Chastity or Patience were especially popular in Victorian times.  The stained glass windows in our choir stalls have three lovely ladies in them, called Faith, Hope and Charity.

A few years ago, I was accosted in the churchyard by a dear lady of somewhat dubious mental health.  She harangued me for quite a while about the fact that we don’t, in fact, call Jesus by his proper name.  Actually, she was right.  The name he was given was in fact ‘Yeshua’ – which is anglicised to Joshua.  Over time, through translations from Aramaic into Greek then into English, the consonants and vowels got changed – leaving us with the modern rendering of his name: Jesus. Yeshua is what Jesus would have heard when his mother called him for his dinner.  And it means ‘God saves’.

Which makes Jesus an extraordinary name for a child to be given, because there was an expectation that he would live up to the name he was given and go on to genuinely save people from their sins.

There’s no mention in the bible of Jesus having a surname, but that isn’t hugely surprising. At the time Jesus lived, an individual would be known by their given name, and then perhaps the place they were from. Jesus of Nazareth would be good example. Perhaps their occupation - like Matthew the Tax Collector; or maybe who their father was, like James son of Zebedee.  What is certain is that Jesus’ surname wasn’t ‘Christ’.  No-one approaching him in the street would have said ‘Good morning, Mr Christ’.  That wasn’t his surname – but rather it is a Title…a word which means ‘saviour’.  So, if you like, you can call Jesus Christ ‘Yeshua Saviour’.  Certainly the old lady in the churchyard would be much happier if you did!

Giving people a title is another way of renaming them, to describe something about them.  Ken Dodd, of blessed memory, sometimes referred to himself as the ‘Chief Tickler of Britain’.  And then there are the plan daft titles which are creeping into the world of work.  Recently I heard of someone called the ‘Chief Wizard of Light Bulb Moments’.  Turns out he was a Marketing Director.  And I rather like the title of ‘Grand Master of Underlings’…which turns out to be a Deputy Manager! 

There is one title, however, that we can all aspire to because of Yeshua Saviour – Jesus Christ.  The whole point of Jesus living among us was to show us what God is like.  Jesus wanted us to see God differently than how he has been viewed in the past.  Jesus showed us that God wasn’t a distant deity, perched on a mountain-top or a cloud, viewing the world from a distance.  Instead, Jesus gave God a new title – the title of Father…or, actually, the title ‘Abba’ – which means ‘Daddy’.  Jesus, born as a child himself, invites us to view God as a parental figure…the Daddy, or the Mummy, who cares about their children.  And so, we are offered a new title – the title of Child of God.

I’ve had many names and titles throughout my life – Tom, Dad, Grandad, Rector, Reverend, Canon.  Idiot.  But the one which matters most to me is the simplest of all, the one modelled by the baby in the manger…child of God.

I am Tom, child of God.

And Sandra is a child of God.

And Lucas is a child of God.

And everyone here…we are all children of God.

That title is one which every member of the human race can claim.  We are all God’s children.  The only choice we have to make is whether we choose to be part of the family of God as well.

And if we do, if we choose to bind our self to the names of God, and especially to the name of Jesus Christ, then we will surely desire to live and to pray in the ways that he lived and prayed.  To pray, or to gather, in the NAME of Jesus, means to align ourselves to Jesus’ will for the world – revealed to us in the Scriptures.  

What was his will?  We see it worked out in his prayers, and in his teaching.  We willed that we should Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  He willed that we should love our neighbours as ourselves.  He willed that all his followers should be one, and that the hungry would be fed, the prisoners cared for, the sick healed.  He willed that the whole community of people who call themselves after Christ – the Christians – would bear his light to the world.  By our actions, by our generosity, by our commitment to our community, by our prayers…all of us bent towards the transformation of the world in which we live.

Now that’s a prayer for which we can pray, and for which we can gather, in the name of Jesus!

Take up thy cross

Text: Matthew 16.21-28

HEALTH WARNING…the first three paragraphs are a parody…to be read in a phoney American accent!

I have great pleasure in announcing last night, I had a vision! The Lord God Almighty spoke to me. He said to me..."Pastor", he said, "Pastor - I have good news for you! I want to shower you and your congregation with abundant blessings. (Praise the Lord!) I am going to make yours a church of millionaires! You are going to become so wealthy, so full of miracles, so full of powerful acts of God Almighty, that the whole of Havant will flock to your doors!

All your congregation has to do is to show that they trust me. They simply have to sign over the deeds to their houses to the church. Then I will know that they trust me. Then I will bless them with riches from heaven. Then they all will become millionaires, and all their problems will disappear". (Praise the Lord!)

So, my brothers and sisters, our Treasurer, Sister Shelley, will be standing by, at the ready, with forms for you to sign at the end of our service. Just sign over the deeds of your house to the church, and the Lord God Almighty, in the glorious name of Jesus, will give you your heart's desire! A-men, brothers and sisters. A-men!

It's a bit frightening to think that there really are churches like that in the world.  They feed on people's misery. They create an image of the world which is so pumped up with future hope, that gullible people really do believe that God is in the business of making them wealthy...but they are tricked into making their preachers wealthy instead.  Remember that TV Evangelist I talked about last week – with his massive house on a hill.  Hmmm…perhaps I’m in the wrong branch of the church?

According to today’s Gospel text, modern-day prosperity preachers are not the first people to have got the wrong end of the stick.   Verse 21: "From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed,"

You can just imagine Peter's reaction can't you? He has just confessed Jesus as the Messiah (as we heard last week).  He’s just been told that on him – Mr Rocky – Jesus was going to build his church.  And now…Jesus is talking about having to suffer and die.  Peter probably thinks that Jesus has gone nuts.  Perhaps the Messiah has been working too hard?  "Never, Lord" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" (Matt 16:22)

But Jesus is adamant. He tells Peter off with really startling words: "Get behind me, Satan!" Pretty stern stuff.  And then Jesus goes on, in verse 23: "You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things". In other words, "You are thinking like a man, but by now you should be starting to think as God thinks...to see things from God's perspective".

And then – here comes the ‘drop the mike’ line: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (verse 24).

So what does it mean to embrace suffering as part of the Christian life?

Let me introduce you to my friend Lucy (not her real name).  She had spent all her life serving others through the church. She had been at coffee mornings and fundraisers, and served on the PCC, and made endless cups of tea. She had truly denied herself for others.  And yet, Lucy now found herself bed-bound, and unable to serve others anymore. She even had to rely on others to help her to the bathroom.

Lucy’s body was failing her but not her mind.  She said to me, "perhaps God is teaching me that there was still a bit of pride in me.  I’m learning that I need to let others serve me for a change. Perhaps I'm learning that in the end, we all must rely on God, and on other people.  That none of us can exist in isolation."

I was intensely moved by what Lucy said.  After a life-time of faith God was teaching her something deep, something profound, about our need for each other, and for God.  There was, for Lucy at least, a purpose in her suffering.  She learned to gladly take up her cross, for what it would teach her and others, even as she neared the end of her life.

This does not, of course, explain all suffering.  To even begin to explore the place of suffering in God’s plan would take a lot more time than I have today!  And it does little to explain the awful and apparently senseless suffering of so many.  But I suggest to you that Jesus offers us a clue.  Jesus had to suffer, and indeed to die.  But through death, came resurrection.  There is hope at the end of all tunnels of suffering, for those who trust in God’s essential goodness.  And for those who are open – like Lucy – to hearing God’s voice in the midst of suffering.

So, may you come to know the power of God that is often revealed in suffering. May you come to know the power of denying self, and taking up the cross that is offered to you.  May you come to know that God's power is so often revealed in and through weakness - our own weakness, as well as the weakness of those we encounter and serve.

And it’s alright…you don’t have to sign over the deeds of your house to Sister Shelley!

Amen

Who do you say that I am?

Matthew 16. 13-20

Who do you say that I am?  That’s the question that Jesus asks Simon.  And it’s an important question – because identity matters.  

If I asked you the same question, I imagine that many of you would reply ‘You are the Rector’.  But that’s only because you know me primarily in this role, at this time in my life.  In other places, and in other times, I’ve been a youth worker, a housing officer, and a charity chief executive.  I’ve been a government advisor and a shop-floor salesman of microwaves and stereos.  I’ve been a passport writer, a singer, a piano-player and a trumpeter.  I’ve been a student, and a roller-skate rink attendant.  I’ve been an ice-cream seller, a burger-flipper and a farm labourer.  I still am a priest, and a deacon, and a Canon, a teacher, and a social entrepreneur.

In my private life, I have been (and am) many things too.  I’m a husband, and a son.  I’m a brother, an uncle and a best friend.  Now I’m a grandad.  

But there are other things about my identity which could be used to describe me.  I’m tall.  I’m big.  I’m hairy around the chin.  I’m Caucasian (or white), I’m straight.  I’m middle aged - just, and I’m a cardiac patient.

All of these words and all of these descriptions are summed up in the one word…Tom.  But all these words, all these descriptions, only scratch at the surface of who I really am.  Because I know the secret ‘me’.  I know the internal conflicts I live with.  I know the thoughts that rage through my monkey mind.  I know the temptations I have to fight.  I know the things that give me pleasure, and the things that stress me out.  They are all part of me too.  They are what I’d have to try to describe if you really wanted to understand who I am.

SO imagine, the panic that must have crossed Simon’s mind when Jesus asked him the same question!  ‘Who do you say that I am?’  What answer could Peter give which would sum up succinctly all that he already knew about this man.  He could have said, ‘You’re Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph the carpenter.  You’re the brother of James and Joses and your other siblings.  You’re the teacher, the wanderer, the story-teller of our time.  You’re the preacher, the prophet, the man of wisdom’.  But Simon used none of these descriptions of Jesus.   

‘You are the Messiah.  The son of the living God’.  

Messiah – Saviour.  The one whose coming has been long-expected.  The one who would offer the path of salvation to the Jews and to the whole world.  And the very son of God.

Jesus was delighted.  I imagine him throwing back his head and laughing!  ‘Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah!  You’ve got it!  You’ve understood the essence of who I am.  And that’s a revelation that could only have come from God!’.

‘And you, Simon, you are a rock!  That’s what I’m going to call you from now on…Rocky.  Petros.  Peter.  Because you, with all your mistakes and gaffs, are open to what God teaches you.  And it’s on that kind of openness, and attentiveness to God that I’m going to build my church. Alright?  Rocky!’

You see, Simon wasn’t all that his description said he was.  Any more than the word Messiah described all that Jesus was.  It was a nickname.  An epithet.  A way of getting a handle on Simon Peter.  It said nothing about his failures. Nothing about the times he completely got things wrong, like denying Christ, or lopping off the ear of a High Priest’s guard.  Or that time when he thought he should build some shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain.  

Simon, as I said a week or two ago, is ‘everyman’.  He’s you and me.  With all his failures, he sticks straight to the path of faith.  He is determined, and he wants with all his heart to follow where Jesus leads.

But his nickname doesn’t say all there is to say.  Nor does ‘Messiah’ say all there is to say about Jesus.  Nor does ‘Rector’ say all there is to say about me.

It’s supposed to be a Native American saying, that you should never criticise another, until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.  Simon Peter had walked more than a mile in Jesus’ shoes.  He’d lived alongside him, got to know him, heard him, listened to him – and at the end of that experience, he found that he could after all, describe him in a single, powerful adjective:  Messiah.

Jesus had walked a mile or two in Simon’s shoes too.  He’d sat with him, listened to him, laughed with him, eaten with him, watched him fail, watched him grow.  And at the end of all that, he had a an adjective – a nickname – for Simon too.  Rocky!  He was going to call him Rocky.

Here’s a final question to ponder…

How do you think others would describe you?  What nickname would you like be given by someone who has walked a mile in your shoes with you?  Gentle one?  Courageous one?  Prayerful one?  Faithful one?  Generous one?  Resourceful one? 

How would you like to be summed up in one word?  

And how can you live in such a way, that such a nickname becomes yours?

Amen.

An Address for the Funeral of the Reverend Douglas Bean

Saturday 22 August 2020

I’m very sorry indeed that I only had the chance of meeting Douglas, briefly, on one occasion – and that, I think, was at the end of a Christmas service here at St Faith’s, when I customarily get to shake about 400 hands.  Not really the best time to make someone’s acquaintance.  

But from what I’ve heard about Douglas from Teresa and Alan over the past few weeks, I have no doubt at all that I would have enjoyed his company immensely.  It seems we had quite a few things in common – not least a love of music, and of encouraging others to play music in ecclesiastical spaces.  It was ironic, to me, that just as I was beginning to think about re-starting our lunchtime concerts season here, I heard about Douglas’ efforts as a musical impresario at St Paul’s.

What I am not going to do, however, is try to do justice to Douglas long life and ministry – his two primary ministries of being both a priest, and a family man.  I don’t know about you, but I usually find myself rather dissatisfied at any eulogy by a minister who never really knew the deceased.  The rather more interesting question for me, as a priest, is to ask what Douglas wanted you, his family, to remember him by.  The answer to that question is found in the choices that he made about the readings and hymns we are using in this service.

Many such choices, made for funerals, are frankly usually pretty arbitrary.  They tend to consist of distantly remembered childhood hymns (which is why ‘The Lord’s my shepherd’ remains so popular).  Scriptures chosen tend to be either those suggested by the church, or again, dimly remembered passages about ‘my father’s house has many mansions’.  But the choices of a priest, who has lived and breathed these Scriptures and these hymns throughout his life, are choices worth contemplating.  What messages might Douglas have wanted to convey, through these Scriptures, and through these words?

The first hymn he chose, of which we only heard the tune, reminds us of the sacrifices of the Saviour, on a green hill far away – clearly the foundation of Douglas’ hope and life.    The second hymn asks for the guidance of the Great Redeemer to every pilgrim through the barren land of world in which God’s Kingdom is yet to be fully established.  It asks for nourishment along the journey, through the Bread of Heaven.

The first reading, is a long discourse on forgiveness.  Perhaps there have been people in Douglas’ life who he found it hard to forgive.  Perhaps he guessed that others struggled to forgive him.  I know that I frequently have to ask my own family for forgiveness, especially for those times when I let my ministry as a priest take precedence over my ministry as a husband, father and grandfather.  Perhaps Douglas asked for your forgiveness too, through this reading?

Then, through the reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Douglas offers us advice.  Rejoice!  Rejoice in everything that life throws at you.  And always focus your thoughts and intentions on things that are true, lovely, honest, just and pure.  Perhaps in these days when our television sets are filled with half-truths, false news, dishonesty and impurity, these are words we do well to heed as we live the rest of our lives?

Then comes the psalm.  Psalm 139 – a deep and penetrating sense of God’s deep and penetrating knowledge of each of us.  For some, this notion can be discomforting.  For those with secret sins, or blackened hearts, it can be an arresting notion to realise that God knows us intimately, and has known us since we were formed in our mother’s womb.  But for Douglas, after a life lived in search of God, I suspect there was joy in the invitation to “Search me out, O God, and know my heart”.

The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is the colloquial name for the last hymn we shall sing today.  But I suspect that for Douglas, it held before him a glorious vision of the end of all things, when the Son of Man returns to earth, when the Kingdom is fully established, and when all humanity can sing together ‘Glory, glory, halleluiah!’.

And all these thoughts, and all this depth, is summed up in Douglas’ last hymn choice – the tune of which we will hear as we finish our service.  Written by Sydney Carter, whom I suspect was Douglas’ friend, ‘the Lord of the Dance’ reminds us that in Jesus Christ, all things hold together.  He is the dashing dancing-partner, who invites us to take his hand on the dance-floor of life.  Through all the ugliness of the cross on a green hill far away, for all the barren land through which we need the guidance of our Great Redeemer, through all the lies and impurity of our messy human lives, Christ invites us to dance with him.  “I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me…I am the Lord of the dance, says he”.

You will all have your own memories of Douglas, of Dad, of Grandad.  And I hope you’ll enjoy sharing them which each other today.  But let me encourage you not to miss his final words of encouragement and hope to you – mediated through the choice of these hymns, and these readings, today.

Amen.