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By padre.will, 22 January 2012 09:14

Jonah 3:1-5, 10;  Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31;  Mark 1:14-20.

It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.  On the one hand, I don’t know how anybody prepared a sermon before the mid-1990’s.  And, yet, on the other hand, I also have no idea how you determine the truth of anything any more; there’s so much information, misinformation, counter-information, urban mythical information out there.  And you can look it all up on Google with just five spare seconds.  And here’s what I found today.  I found out—I have no idea whether anybody’s confirmed it—but I found out that a long time ago, around the third and fourth centuries, the earliest Germanic Christians—right back when they first got Christianity—and the Roman Empire was starting to crumble—these Germans, before they’d come into a Church, they had a habit of leaving their weapons at the door.  It was a wild place and a wild time, and so they carried weapons as a matter of course—usually clubs—quite crude—but they were pretty good at putting paid to anybody or any animal that came across the wrong end.  So, basically, you’d walk up to any Church in that day and age, and what you’d find was a big pile of wooden clubs right at the back.  Eventually, this pile became, in itself, a sign that the people gathered there were called to leave behind their violence and animosity.  And, of course, the heart of the Christian message is just that:  we come together each week to the Lord’s table to share—just for a moment—God’s perfect peace, promised for his kingdom.  But where it gets interesting is here:  they didn’t just stop there.  Human beings like a bit of ritual and tradition—and where there is none, we often invent some.  And that’s what these guys did with their clubs; eventually, they made a game out of it.  After worship was over, as they were on their way out the door, the tribes would gather, and they’d set their clubs up in piles, and they’d take turns throwing big rocks at them as a sign of rejecting their sins—and when it was all said and done, whoever ended up the day with the most clubs knocked over, well that guy was the one they said had left the most sins behind him at Church.  And that, my friends, is why the internet is worth every penny I’ve ever paid for broadband:  because if it weren’t for the internet, I wouldn’t know that ten-pin bowling is all about Christian repentance!

So there we go:  we get to the point of today’s readings:  repentance.  And y’all have heard me say time and again that I don’t do hellfire and brimstone.  But that isn’t to say that we don’t have plenty of things to set aside.  We all do—and not only individually, but as a society.  And social justice y’all have certainly heard me do!  That’s my call to repentance.  Truth is:  human beings are remarkably imperfect creatures.  The Christian promise is that God is going to build a Kingdom out of his creation—that, the further we come to it, the more Christ-like we can and should seek to become.  And, yet, I look at history—and hear the calls to repentance from prophets and preachers throughout the ages—and it all seems so similar throughout the ages.

Look at the readings for today:  there’s Jonah:  worst prophet ever.  Don’t get me wrong; I love Jonah.  He’s a grumpy old cuss, and that suits me down to the ground.  But a more flawed prophet you just don’t get.  God sends Jonah to call to repentance the great, and decadent, city of Ninevah—capital of the Assyrian Empire.  Jonah doesn’t want to do it—and we all know the story of how he runs off in the opposite direction, ends up getting himself eaten by a great huge God-sent fish, spat back out, and sent back to Ninevah to behave himself and do what he’s told.  Oh, yes, my friends: he preaches the message—and, unlike me, Jonah’s got no problem at all with a bit of brimstone—and, sure enough, the Ninevites turn to God—so says the Bible.  But that doesn’t stop the rest of the world from churning on.  And, for that matter, it doesn’t even stop Jonah from sulking at God.  We hear today how the people of the great city repent.  But the rest of the story is that, after they turn, Jonah goes off and pouts about it.  What he really wanted—for whatever reason—was to see the city destroyed.  And he didn’t get it.  And the book ends with God telling Jonah to wind his neck in.

Then comes the Psalm, likewise ancient—speaking, in great hope, of God’s faithfulness—but also pointing out that, if we’re to be saved, there are things we should be saved from.  “Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.  Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this:  that power belongs to God, and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay to all according to their work.”  There’s no doubt here that God expects a turning away from our wrongdoing and selfishness and a turning towards his great and generous love.  God’s grace is free, said the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer; but it’s not cheap.  Together with the promise that a Kingdom is coming—that God will build true justice in the world—that he will free the oppressed—that he will right all wrongs—is the call for human beings to turn.  “Put your faith in God,” says the Psalm, “not yourself.  And certainly not your stuff.”

Paul tells us, too, that the ills of the world are passing away—and that God’s Kingdom is at hand.  He speaks more of the expectation than the turning.  But he won’t have missed the context that Christ, too, speaks of how we stand at the cusp of God’s Kingdom coming to be—and that the first step towards that is repentance.  Turn away from these things that pass into nothing:  possessions, riches, selfishness, power, greed, injustice—turn away, turn away—and come to God.  “Follow me,” says Christ, “and I shall make you fishers of humanity”.

And the point is:  we find ourselves in a society that is not perfect.  We debate, time and again, whether our wars are right—for example.  Here’s the thing:  those Germans may have invented ten-pin bowling; but, once it was done, they still took their clubs back away from the Church building and ran off and sacked Rome.  We argue amongst ourselves whether money or healthcare is more important.  We fight tooth and nail over the welfare state, privatisation or nationalisation of banking and industry.  And we all know—do we not—that, whatever side we’re on, sometimes human failings and greed get in the way.  In that sense, we’re no different from Ninevah—as a society.  And—as a matter of fact—it’s not unusual for religious leaders to be a bit like Jonah:  ultimately, he preferred his sense of moral superiority over and above the actual transformation of the world into God’s Kingdom.

And I say all this simply to point out that—what with human nature being what it is—we are looking to God for a miracle, not to ourselves.  As a priest, I get the question all the time from people—both Churchgoers and non-Churchgoers—about whether or not the Church is really making a better world, or whether it’s just full of hypocrites.  That whole thing with St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Occupy Movement is a prime example:  there are many different ways of looking at that problem.  My own sympathy was with the protesters; but—let’s make no mistake—there’s a case to be made that a Church well-placed with the bankers is in a very good position to influence their behaviour—if we’d be prepared to wield that influence.  The point is:  we sound today very much like Ninevah of three thousand years ago—and Jerusalem of two thousand years ago—and Rome and France of one thousand years ago—and London of one hundred and fifty years ago—because we are human beings.  Repentance—a turning from our failings is crucial.  But, even more crucial is that repentance isn’t just about what we’re turning from, but about who we’re turning to:  and I call you—and me—and our nation—today—to be clear that we’re turning to God.

A Kingdom is coming—and it’s not one that, off our own back, we’ve been able to build.  In fact, looking at how similar human nature remains throughout the ages, it can be very hard to see, at times, where it’s being built at all.  But make no mistake:  the Kingdom is coming.  And that, too, is a message that has been proclaimed through the ages:  that’s what God sent Jonah to tell the people of Ninevah:  that his reign is sovereign.  That’s what Isaiah predicts to the people of Israel:  that a Saviour is on his way.  That’s what Christ turns out to be:  “a light,” as old Simeon said in the temple, “to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of his people, Israel.”  And that’s the direction to which Paul turns our faces, as he looks to the future.  He looks in hope—and believes in a miracle.  And calls us to action and faith, like Christ before him.

There may be some preachers who do hellfire pretty well—and I’m not even going to complain about that.  It can be over-done, sure.  But I guess it has its time and place.  What I’m quite sure, though, is that humanity needs God to get it right.  And we are called, first and foremost, to look positively and hopefully to God.  The words of the Psalm today open with hope—and conclude with God’s fulfilment of his promised through his perfect, never-ending, faithful love to his creatures.  And that’s the message I want us to walk away with today:  the message that, whatever are our struggles, God’s love conquers.  We are called—as Christ’s disciples—to call the world and ourselves to repentance.  The active engagement of the world is an activity we’re called to join.  But, most of all, we are called to know that repentance is far less about heaping guilt upon ourselves and our nations—but rather is more fundamentally about looking to the Kingdom and, with God’s involvement, becoming better selves and nations.  Till one day—soon, I hope; as Paul hoped before me—the turning will all be done, and—by our love and communion with God and each other—we will wake up and find that the Kingdom is complete—and, unlike the tribal inventors of bowling, we can leave our clubs and weapons, disused, and laid outside the gates of heaven forever.

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By padre.will, 15 January 2012 10:22

1 Samuel 3:1-20; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51.

Right—do you know the origin of name—not how you got your name—but how many of us know what our names actually mean?  I’m sure we know that children are still named David after the great King of Israel three millennia ago.  We know of John the Baptist and John the Beloved Disciple and often name our children after them.  What about less obvious names?  Here are a few from my congregation …

• Rodney = Hroda’s Island; Hroda = old germanic word for fame.  Originally a surname.
• Bridget = from Brighid, pagan Irish goddess of fire, poetry, wisdom.
• Lillian = 16th century origin. Originally a diminutive of Elizabeth; related to Lily.
• Catherine = said to mean “pure” (from Greek); but actually so old that the origin can’t be determined.
• Denise = female form of Denis. St. Denis, 3rd century, credited with converting the Gauls to Christianity.
• Robert = from Hrodebert = “bright fame”.  Therefore, related to Rodney.
• Michael = from ancient Hebrew.  It’s a question:  “who is like God?”
• Christopher = “Christ-bearer”. Medieval legend of St. Christopher tells of a man who took a stranger child across a river, and it turned out to be Christ.  Patron saint of travellers.
• Rosemary = exactly what it sounds like:  a combination of Rose and Mary—and, interestingly, Rose is related to Hroda and Hrodebert, so there’s a third one.  (And apparently the Germanic name came before it was associated with the flower—but don’t quote me on that.)

Finally, William—from the German Wilhelm—means “forceful protector” or some such thing.  And I leave it entirely to y’all, my good friends, to decide whether or not the name fits.

But—now here’s the thing:  get beyond historical meaning; let me put to you a really important question: what do our names mean to us—what do they mean those who love us—and what do names mean that we have given to the people we love?  I want to suggest something very important here:  that our names aren’t just a combination of letters to distinguish us from the other seven billion people on the planet; they’re not just something tied to a national insurance number for the Inland Revenue’s convenience.  I want to suggest that, actually, our names are deeply intimate—a crucial part of our identity—and hugely endowed with meaning.

Take a moment’s pause.  Think.  What does your name mean to you?  No need to share with the rest of us.  But—to take my own as an example—I share my name—in that American sort of way that doesn’t happen much in Britain—with both my father and grandfather.  Some of y’all will know that my daddy died when I was 20 months old—so, for me, having the name William has always meant that, though I missed out on knowing my dad, still I was able to carry something of him with me.  That’s a bond that meant a lot to me down the years—and, indeed, to my granddad, also.  It was a bond that he shared with his son—and, in turn, a particular bond that he shared with me, too—uniquely amongst his grandchildren.  He was proud of that; not, of course, at any of my cousins’ expense; he wasn’t the kind of man to play favourites.  But he was proud of it, all the same.  the thing about Granddad was that, actually, he wasn’t a man given to strong expressions of emotion.  In fact, I can’t recall that he ever said “I love you” to me—not even once.  But y’all know what he did do?  Just before Granddad died at the age of 103, he gathered up every· single· item· in his possession that had his name engraved on it—including the sign from a primary school named after him(!)—so, that, when the moment came, there would be no mistaking who would inherit those particular things.  And, friends—there was a sign of love.  And with that kind of love, no words are even necessary.  I have it all in print.  As long as I live, my Granddad’s name—and, by it, his love—lives in me.  This is what I mean when I say that names are deeply intimate; they’re not just what we’re called.  They are integral to our story—all of our names—inseparable from the depths of who, at heart, we are.  Take time to reflect on that, my friends.

And take time to reflect on the scripture, too.  Because what I want to suggest is that, when we look at the stories from scripture, the names mean something—not for the sake of any definition that we can give to the words Samuel, Philip, Nathaniel—but, rather, because God, in speaking each name—even in sending others to speak and call it—what God is actually doing is opening a door into each of these people; he’s beginning to engage very deeply indeed with what actually makes them tick; and, once that name is called, and once that calling is actually received and understood, then suddenly a life is changed:  the richness and depth of that calling is unmistakable and irresistible.

The child Samuel—given by his parents at a very young age to go live and serve in the temple—the child hears a voice calling his name.  This would not have been unusual; he was servant to Eli, a very old priest, and no doubt he’ll have heard many times a voice calling out in the night, “Oh, Samuel—you wouldn’t mind getting an old man a drink of water would you?” or “Samuel—will you please go check the lamps are still lit before the altar.”  Then, one night, the voice comes; Samuel turns up at his master’s bedside as he has done so often—only this time the old man had not called.  Then a second time, the voice rings through the dark, “Oh, Samuel.  Samuel.”  And, again, the old man has said nothing. “I did not call you, my son; go back to bed.”  A third and a fourth time the voice comes; and this time, Eli himself figures it out:  “it must be the Lord, Samuel; next time, when you hear your name called, tell him ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”  So that’s what Samuel did—Samuel whose name itself means God has heard—and we find that God has indeed heard.  God has been watching Samuel, and listening; he has heard who Samuel is.  In speaking the boy’s name, God calls not the ear, but, rather, the spirit.  Samuel went on that night to bring God’s prophecy to Eli—unfortunately a sad one—but nonetheless, from that moment on, Samuel was known as a prophet.  In fact, tt was Samuel who grew up to anoint the King of Israel—first Saul, and then great David himself—whose family line gave us the Messiah.  All because God spoke a name—Samuel—and Samuel heard and and answered God’s will and purpose.

Likewise, too, we find Philip and Nathaniel seeking and searching at the outset of Christ’s ministry.  Suddenly, Christ flags them up by name—and when that happens, we have a life-changing experience.  “Nathaniel!”, cries Philip.  “I have found the Messiah!  Listen, bubba; you’ve gotta see this!”  I love Nathaniel’s response:  “Oh, get real:  can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  You could hear him in South Wales today:  ‘What kind of Messiah d’you reckon’s gonna come out of Newport?”  Turns out, it was the kind of Messiah who, just by speaking a name, could put paid to that petty little act of prejudice in two seconds flat.  In other words:  the kind of Messiah who knew what Nathaniel needed to hear and responded accordingly.  I love Christ’s response; I can just see the sly grin: “Welllll,” he says, “hey, I’m honoured; now here is a true Israelite!  I hardly feel worthy, Nazarene that I am.”  “How did you know who I am?”, says Nathaniel.  Christ responds: “Saw you under the fig tree, my man—I know you, Nathaniel—and if you think that’s a fancy trick, boy, howdy, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”  And, again, we’re talking about a moment when God speaks not just a word; he speaks into a person—he pierces through the window of name to the soul and spirit beneath.  Confronted by that reality, Nathaniel finally had no choice, but to turn from what he’d said before—indeed to blurt out with, apparently, no self-consciousness whatsoever—“Now I have seen you for myself; I have been looking so long for the likes of you; and you are the Son of God.”  The story doesn’t end there, though; as with Samuel, Nathaniel and his eleven friends were all called not just to God’s side, and not even simply into community—but, crucially, they were called to discipleship:  they were called, by name, to take upon themselves faithfully—and deeply—and richly—and visibly—God’s saving presence in the world.  My brothers and sisters:  so, too, are we.

I have a final story about names—and y’all listen up:  there was once a man born in Atlanta, this very day in 1929—a man named Michael King—who, just like me, had a daddy who carried the same name—and, unlike me, was the son of an ordained Christian minister.  When Michael was five, he and his daddy travelled to Germany to see the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation—and, so inspired was Michael Senior by what he found—the honesty and the integrity of the great reformer Martin Luther—his bravery in proclaiming his faith, whatever the cost—that Michael Senior changed not only his own name, but that of his little boy, too, to Martin.  And, as I say, it’s our names, just as much as our eyes that are windows to our soul; how powerful of Martin Luther King, Senior, to take upon himself a name pregnant with such a sense of calling to action, and calling to devotion to making God’s great holiness present in a world so desperate.  It says a lot, too, for what that man wished for his son.  And, of course—as we know—the son rose to the task.  Today is a day that—in Churches all across the United States—men and women, both black and white—will remember the name of the Rev’d Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, and how, from his deep awareness of God’s justice and God’s utter grace—an awareness shared so fully with his great namesake—Dr. King, Jr., served as a voice for millions and set the United States on a path out of its deep, deep prejudice and hatred to a point where they now have, in Barack Hussein Obama—a Christian man with a Muslim name—as the first black president of the United States.  And at about the timescale that Martin Luther King predicted—without any sign or evidence that it might ever be true.  Thanks be to God.

So there we go, y’all:  when God calls us by name, it’s a calling that goes to the core of our being:  and today I stand here and proclaim to y’all that, indeed, God himself has spoken our name.  To us.  And we, right now—you and I—are left with only two choices in the end:  flat-out rejection … or else or running headlong into Nathaniel’s and Samuel’s—and Martin Luther King’s—proclamation of faith.  We all have names, my friends, and, make no mistake:  God knows them.  I am not just preaching this morning to a congregation in general—to y’all, the plural you.  Who I’m preaching to is you—and you, John—and you, Cath—and you, Russ—and you, Pat—and in fact, to me, William.  You have been named, not only by your parents—but by God; like he knows Nathaniel, he knows you.  What he may be calling you to, of course, only you and he can say.  But I can say this:  as in the days of Samuel, as in the days of Philip and Nathaniel, as in the days of Martin Luther, as in the days of Martin Luther King, Jr., God will have holiness—he is here—in this place—this morning—and it is we, his Church, whose names he speaks.  And it is we, who must then go on and speak the name of others—those around us—gathering them, and speaking God’s holiness and freedom and grace into their names—so that, one by one, they too may hear the Lord calling their soul.  And it is thus—and it was only ever thus—that the Kingdom of God will be built.

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By padre.will, 8 January 2012 21:40

Genesis 1.1-5;  Psalm 29;  Acts 19.1-7;  Mark 1.4-11. 

It probably won’t come as a surprise to y’all to know that Christians didn’t actually invent baptism.  We have owned it for ourselves, of course.  Baptism is completely central to what we do as a community—and the way we form ourselves as a community.  Christ explicitly despatched his disciples to go baptising in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—and, thus, for the earliest Christians, from the very first days, baptism in God’s threefold name became the one and only means of proclaiming publicly our affiliation with the Lord.  Consequently, it became the only way of proclaiming publicly our affiliation with his Body, his People, the Church.  So … we baptism our own, with its own unique significance.  But it’s also quite true that ritual washings have played important roles in several religions throughout both history and the world—and, in fact, our own concept of baptism has its roots in a very traditional form of ritual washing in the Jewish faith, a bath called the mikveh which prepared the worshipper to meet God in a clean and pure state.

And so—with all that in mind—on this day on which we commemorate Christ’s Baptism, the question is:  what was it about his baptism—and therefore what is it about ours—that brings something unique to the world?  We say every week in Church that we have Good News to proclaim.  And we claim that the two greatest signs of that Good News are baptism through which we are brought into the Church—and the Lord’s Supper, through which we celebrate God’s grace to his children.  But signs always mean something—that’s the whole point of having a sign.  If I want to go to the King’s Head pub, I look for the one with the little picture of a crown hanging outside.  Or if I want to go to Bristol, I follow the sign that says M4-East.  Otherwise I end up out in Cardiganshire on a one-track road, waiting forty-five minutes for a big herd of sheep to finish crossing in front of me.  (Not that there’s not a place for that; Cardiganshire is fantastic.)  But, just like signs, that’s what baptism does:  it points us somewhere.  And to see where, we’ve got to look at what’s being said—and try to understand it, too.  Because that road sign’s not going to get me down to Bristol if it’s written in Japanese; I can’t read Japanese script.  And that pub sign’s not going to get me to the King’s Head if I just look at a slab of wood and think “pub”—but fail to notice that it’s a got a lamb-and-flag on the picture, not a crown.  I’ve got to look at the sign, and I’ve got to see what’s going on, before I can really hope to learn what that sign-painter wanted me to know.

So there’s baptism.  Christ goes down into the water—then he comes up.  Spirit lands on his head like a dove—and the voice of the Father calls down from heaven:  “This·· is my beloved Son,·· in whom I· am· well· pleased.”··  Something quite unique is happening—something very special is happening for Christ—something that, in the end, is the model for our own baptism.  But, to understand that, it helps to know just how strange it was—and why it was strange—that Jesus came to his cousin, John, for baptism in the first place.

Because John understood:  in Matthew’s Gospel John actually protests when Jesus comes to be baptised.  Because John knows that baptism in the Jewish faith—full immersion in the mikveh—meant actual bathing, bodily and fully, as a way of way of cleansing oneself before God and the community—and this is what John’s baptism was based upon.  How odd it must have seemed to John, then—who knew that a Saviour was to follow him—how strange when that Saviour turned up in his crowd, asking to be baptised.  He didn’t know what to make of it then—and, to be honest, even the best Christian scholars hardly know what to make of it now.  Christ, we teach in the Church which bears his name, was without sin—the Son of God who came to save us from our own selves—why would he want this cleansing?  We just don’t know the answer to that question.  But the fact that he did—and the fact that such an amazing thing happened when he did—that tells us that something quite important—namely, that by taking baptism for himself—by owning baptism before the world—Christ brought about a transformation of what baptism is and does.

And, yes—y’all—let’s be quite clear:  we still teach, in the Church, that human beings are and should be baptised for the repentance of sins: Christ may be sinless; we are not.  We are imperfect and fallible.  So we come for baptism as a sign before God that we are turning from our failures—and the hurt we do to one another—and turning towards him.  We take baptism as a sign that we wish to be made clean before our Father—and one another—and that we wish to make that stick.··

But when Christ was baptised, what we found, even more importantly, was that God was involved.··  Deeply involved.  Right at the core.  Active.  Not just observing what we’re saying through the sign, but—but doing something about it.  John says to Jesus:  “Hey, I don’t need to be baptising you; you ought to be baptising me.”  And Jesus replies:  “Dude.  Listen.  Do it anyway.  This needs to be done to fulfil all righteousness.”  So, when John then took Jesus down into the waters—and when he brought him back up—we suddenly found that the person doing all that fulfilling was God’s Spirit himself.  Now, this was new—very new.  This was different—very different.  Because, whereas beforehand, people came and washed themselves as a way to become clean before facing God and others—as a way to make themselves worthy of facing God—what was actually going on here at this baptism was that the Father himself was already present—making the judgement himself about worthiness.  The Spirit was already present—sustaining Christ in his worthy relationship with the Father.  And the Son—Jesus Christ—well, he was present, to embody that amazing worthiness that God was and is working out in all of humanity—a foretaste of what God has in store for us all.

So this is new:  God himself comes down to proclaim a human being worthy.  What’s happened, as Christ comes out of the water, is that the entire Trinity appear together—and the Spirit, who binds together the Father and Son in love—is visible, tangible—and the voice of the Father is clear and booming—and it declares in words, completely simple and utterly unmistakeable, what Christ’s relationship to the Father actually is.

Meanwhile, for us, what’s newest and best of all is grace—pure grace.  Amazing grace.  Because, just as it is for Christ, so too for us—we who gather as a community in his name.  The Trinity appears—we name them in the very act of baptising—we name the Father, Son, and Spirit.  We enact the baptism that Christ took upon himself—we sign the person with in oil of chrism, as a sign that theSpirit has come upon them and placed them in a kinship with God the Father, just exactly as Christ is.  And, when we do that, it is a sign that—like Christ—we are received.  Baptism is a moment when, having come to the font to “fulfil all righteousness”, God declares that we, too, are his beloved sons—and daughters—in whom he is well pleased.  We are not baptised in order to get right with God before we see him; we are baptised because, in the very act, God himself comes and makes us right—makes us his own—publicly and visibly.  Amazing grace indeed.

Thus, unlike in other faiths, Christians are baptised only once—for, once God has declared us his children—well, then, frankly, what else is there to say?  Baptism in the mikveh is repeated from time to time.  After birth, for example.  Or on the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  The Mandaeans—the religious descendants of John the Baptist—baptise themselves weekly as a crucial part of their regular worship.  And, actually, I don’t even think this is a bad thing; it keeps the mind focussed on living in his God’s will.  There is certainly something that we Christians could learn from that—and, in fact, we use holy water in a similar fashion—as a reminder of our constant need to turn to God.  And yet … baptism in the Christian Church, is given only once—and valid forever.  Because in Christian baptism, God declares us his own children—children who stand side by side with Christ himself.  God has acted upon us with his very own grace, declared us whole—belovèd—not for what we have done (or failed to do)—but rather, for who we are—his own creation—and for who he himself will cause us to be one day when his kingdom shall be complete.  You cannot top that—and you cannot make it better, nor more current, nor more perfect—by adding more upon more.  What God has declared once, he has declared forever—and in our baptism—he has declared us his.  The appropriate response, then, is thanksgiving—and love.  Pure and simple.

But—there is yet one more part of this great sign of Christ’s baptism—since I bring up the word response—because an incredibly crucial thing is that this was the act that kicked off our Lord’s public ministry.  The declaration of his identity—the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father—that was, on the one hand, the most crucial thing required for him to exercise his authority.  Throughout his ministry, Christ would be challenged to state where his authority came from—and the answer was always—from my Father in heaven.  This is the moment it was declared.  His authority came from his baptism.  And, on the other hand, baptism was also the moment that Christ’s calling became complete.  Once the declaration was made—well, then, how could he possibly return to anything else?  The Son of God must have the freedom to be the Son of God—to make God’s will known on the earth.  And so, too, must we, who have been declared God’s children in his footsteps.  We too are called—with Christ’s authority—to declare the Gospel of divine grace and the coming of the Kingdom.  We have the obligation to exercise that authority.  Yes, we must go about our daily lives—and yet, by virtue of our baptism, our very lives themselves are never the same again.  As followers of Christ, are called to act that way—to strive every day to live in more perfect love with one another; and to bring that declaration of God’s love, made public in our baptism, to a world that sorely needs it.

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By padre.will, 1 January 2012 10:03

Dear friends and followers:  I cannot say whether y’all have missed my blogging and sermons in the last few weeks and months, but I’ve certainly missed y’all.  Home life issues have kept me further away from the keyboard than I might otherwise have been, and for those who’ve loved me and my family and kept us in your prayers, I am grateful.  God blesses us, first and foremost, through various forms of community, and, in 2011, I have been deeply grateful for mine.  Here’s hoping that 2012 will be bring us all a little closer to his Kingdom.

Love and blessings to you all.

Isaiah 61.10-62.3;  Psalm 148;  Galatians 4.4-7;  Luke 2.22-40. 

So.  How many of y’all have already broken your New Year’s resolutions?  Go on, hands up!  See, I have found an incredibly simple and easy way to deal with the whole New Year’s resolutions thing.  See, what used to happen in my household was that I’d drag my lazy butt out of bed, all bright and perky for New Year’s Day.  And then I’d think about something—like smoking—that my life would probably be a whole lot better without.  Then I’d swear off it for life.  After that I’d go downstairs, eat a big ol’ bowl of Hoppin’ John.  Y’all know what Hoppin’ John is?  It’s food; it’s a New Year’s tradition in the Deep South:  you take a big stock-pot; you throw in a big bunch of black-eyed peas, bunch of rice, bunch of spices—and if you’re me, you throw in a bunch of lovely green chili peppers to round it all out—and when it all cooks up, what you’ve got is Hoppin’ John.  And this is what you must eat every New Year’s Eve at midnight, so you’ll have lots of good luck in the coming twelve months.  I have no idea why eating black-eyed peas should bring you luck.  But it sure is good.  And it’s even better when you eat it next morning for leftovers.  So that was my New Year—wake up, swear off smoking, leftover Hoppin’ John, cup of coffee.  Then, about half an hour later, I’d step outside—without a hint of remorse—for perhaps the finest cigarette I’d ever smoked.  And that was my New Year sorted out till the next time the first day of January rolled around.

But, see, what happens now is that I’ve cut out the middle man.  Gave up smoking two or three years ago—and, may I say, not one single moment before I felt like it.  Took a good long look at my other—many—character flaws and quickly determined that a half-hearted annual swearing-off really wasn’t the right medicine.  So that’s how I finally resolved to give up making resolutions.  It’s the only one I’ve ever in my life managed to keep—that, and giving up Christmas cards for Lent.  But it makes life a whole lot simpler.  ‘Cause now I can just skip all the introspection and self-recrimination and go straight to breakfast instead—and let me assure y’all:  there ain’t nothin’ in the world quite so good for what ails you as a big, hot bowl full of Hoppin’ John.

For all that, though:  the New Year is still a crucial time for Christians to be thinking about new beginnings, because, as we move through the twelve days of Christmas—towards the Epiphany—what is revealed to us, as the story progresses, is the thoroughly amazing tale of a new beginning for all of humanity.  Those beautiful words of Simeon—words spoken each week at evensong—in some places each day—personally, I find these words to be some of the most powerful, most excellent words ever spoken in the English language:  “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.  For these eyes of mine have seen· thy· salvation,·· which thou hast prepared before the face of all people—a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people, Israel.”  They are also some of the most telling words in scripture—for they get right at the heart of just what it is that actually happened just seven days ago on Christmas Day.  And it might not be exactly what you expect.

‘Cause, see, what usually happens on Christmas Day is that we hear all about the birth of the baby Jesus.  We hear how it is that a God who, like that old Southern song says, he holds the whole world in his hands—a God “wthout whom nothing was made that was made”—poured himself out into a human life—not just a human form—not a costume—but true· human life.  And what a miracle(!) that he who created the universe became a baby as weak and as vulnerable as any of our own children or grandchildren were at birth.  What a miracle that God himself had to learn to walk, and talk, and speak.  When you think about it, that really is something to get your head around.  But there’s there’s also more to that miracle.

See, in our culture, in our we think of God as big—that the fact he created the universe and holds it together—continuously—that says something about his size.  I suppose this is exactly why we tend to think of the whole Baby Jesus thing as amazing:  it is incredible to suggest that an infinite God could find it even possible to be so self-limiting.

But—y’all:  listen up, now.  Here’s the wild thing about God.  It isn’t so much that he’s big.  What he is—actually—is beyond measure.  Which is not really the same thing at all.  Here’s what I mean:  an elephant’s big.  I’ve got a cat flap in my back door, because I’ve got a cat.  But she’s not the only cat in the neighbourhood.  So it’s entirely possible—and has happened on occasion— that I could come into my house one day and find a strange cat sitting in my laundry room.  But I’ll never see an elephant sitting there.  He’s just too big.  Wouldn’t fit—see?  Y’all know that old joke about how to get five elephants in a VW Beetle—two in the front, two in the back, and one in the glove box?  In real life, it doesn’t work that way.  And here’s the point:  you can’t change that.  Likewise, my cat—try though she might—she wouldn’t have been nearly so useful to Hannibal’s Army 2500 years ago when they were crossing the Alps into Rome.  They needed elephants for that job.  And, again, it’s not something you can change.

But the fact that God is beyond measure—well, what that means, actually, is that size is simply not a limit in any sense—that when we Christians say, as we often do, that God is present in all things—we really mean that he is present in all things.  It is God, on the one hand, who set in motion the planets ‘round the Sun and sustains them in their courses.  It is equally God who set in motion the electrons ‘round the atoms and sustains them in their courses.  Down to the very last detail, God is present—and loving—his creation.  So, when we talk about the miracle of God making himself so small as to become human—yes, it is in one sense amazing—but in another sense, perhaps not so much—because, in the Baby Jesus, God has taken his presence in creation to a logical extreme; and yet, it is still entirely in character.  Coming to dwell on earth was not some clever plan that he thought up in the middle of the night.  Actually, it was precisely the moment he made creation for.

But the point that we usually miss is the flip-side of that coin.  Because what is absolutely astounding—and I want y’all to think about this, really think about it, for just one second— is that God created our frail human form, and he took it to himself—and what that means is that, and he actually made it capable of housing eternity—humanity housing the divine—humanity housing God, himself.  Utterly astounding, my brothers and sisters:  God took that which he was not—and he made it into himself.  See, what I’m trying to tell y’all is that, when Christ came to earth, God exalted humanity, he exalted the very nature of humanity.  What a glorious paradox:  by his self-limiting act of being born, God actually opened the fabric of humanity out—made it something greater than it ever had been before—and, indeed, through the Spirit’s power, he opened out the possibility of that same greatness for us all.

As a species—we know more about ourselves and our purpose and our nature—simply because, in Jesus Christ, God is born.  Before he ever taught—or even spoke—a word, the Baby Jesus is a “light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of [his] people, Israel”.  For, in him, we understand that our human lives can touch upon the divine in a way that we never knew before.  In him—in Christ, the perfect human being, God of God and flesh of flesh—we suddenly can see what God meant when he created the human race.  The Messiah that Old Simeon had been awaiting—when he finally came, he was not simply a military or a political leader to liberate Judaea from the Romans—but, far greater than that, he was the God who would liberate the whole world from sin and failing and weakness and limitations—and even from death itself.  He was a God who would set in motion the liberation of all his creatures to live with himself—and in himself—eternally.  In old Simeon’s words—the Nunc Dimittis—we hear a powerful prediction of our coming freedom—not freedom from our humanity—but freedom as human beings—freedom to become the perfect creatures that God built us to be, that he wills us to be, and that, in Christ and his Spirit, he has made us capable of becoming—individually, and as a society.

My brothers and sisters, we are called to witness this miracle of Chirst’s birth—and his presentation in the temple—and, as we take it in—as we begin to understand what that means for us, both collectively and uniquely, God asks us to seek his Holy Spirit—to ask for his presence—that he may work his perfection and calling out in us—that we, too, may shine before our fellow human beings as beacons of hope—and, more than that, as beacons of God’s promise that his own, eternal life is not so far from us as we might think.  We are called to live the Gospel in the world—in our lives.  Like Anna, who at first merely stood nearby as Simeon held the baby Jesus—like her, we are asked to take on board what has been offered, and then in our own right—each of us in our own unique way—to proclaim the Gospel in our words and deeds towards those around us.  So we begin by praising God, together with Anna, in our worship for today—as we break bread together at the Lord’s table, and we taste for ourselves the miracle that he set in motion so many centuries ago.  So, friends, let us pray that, like Anna, we too may come to rejoice in the magnificent meaning of this holy child’s birth—that we may truly hold that miracle in our hearts till, one day, like Simeon, we too are called home.

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By padre.will, 16 October 2011 22:04

Isaiah 45.1-7;  Psalm 96.1-13;  1 Thessalonians 1.1-10;  Matthew 22.15-22.

One of the little treasures I found when I moved into the Caerwent Vicarage was a pair of little metal boxes that my predecessor’s widow had left behind in my office amongst the various papers and bits of Hugh’s that she thought I might need or find useful.  There several years old, these boxes—well, several decades, actually:  the one probably dates back to the 1970s, maybe the 1980’s; it used to contain communion wafers.  The other goes easily back to the 1930’s, possibly a lot further back, and it had Player’s Navy Cut rolling tobacco in it when it was bought.  Now, when I opened them up, what I found was that they were both filled with old Roman coins that had been dug up during various digs in Caerwent—starting, as best I can tell, in about 1912; that’s when the south aisle extension happened in Caerwent Church.  None of this is too surprising to the people of Caerwent; see, they all grew up with a Roman-built wall surrounding their village.  Roman coins—shards of pottery—things like that are pretty commonplace around here; people dig them up in their gardens and regard it as a nuisance.  But for a New World boy like me—well, it was all pretty cool.  So—anyway—a lot of history in those two little boxes—both Roman and recent—because, as best as I can guess, it looks to me if my predecessor himself probably inherited these coins down the line of previous vicars.  But, in any case, as I say—this was certainly a treasure for me to find—history buff that I am—and, given today’s Gospel reading, quite timely.  More on that in a minute.

First, it’s probably worth giving you a little background info—I don’t want to bore you with a history lecture—I know perfectly well that the best way to turn off a congregation is to start a sentence with “in the original Greek it says …”.  All the same, though:  it’s worth knowing that the Pharisees and the Herodians made very strange bedfellows.  What you have to remember that, when Jesus walked the earth—the people of Israel had lived, with only one brief exception, consistently under the rule of other peoples—in varying degrees of freedom and oppression—never in charge of their own destiny—in fact, not really in charge of it till 1948, and even then always at the centre of controversy—and, unsurpisingly, living like this caused them to chafe—and the Pharisees most of all.  See, the Pharisees worked very hard—at following God’s law—the Law of Moses—and really when you get right down to it, they believed that accommodating these Gentile Romans was more or less blasphemy.  To the Pharisees, God had established a law already; he called the children of Israel to live under that law as his own people.  By comparison, the Roman occupiers were pagans—they demanded other, rather different allegiances of their subjects—including certain token religious requirements.  And the Pharisees had to draw a line there.  They simply were not prepared to give this kind of allegiance.  By contrast, the Herodians, as the name implies, were loyal to the House of Herod—the Kings who ruled Judaea during Jesus’s time and served at the Romans’ pleasure.   Put bluntly:  they were collaborators—so … politically and monetarily quite well off, but hated in equal measure by their countrymen.  Back to the point: strange alliance here when they approach Christ.  But what they had in common was this:  they both feared him—they both had good reason.  Christ’s teachings did not cast either group in a particularly good light—and he was popular with the crowds.  Therefore he was a threat.  And then, one day, between them, the Pharisees and the Herodians finally hit on a challenge that, they reckoned, he couldn’t win if they put it to them.  So they came to Jesus; they said:  “O, great teacher—we know you’re a man of truth; and we know you’ll speak God’s word to us without fear—so speak to us:  do, pray tell, advise us:  is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?”  Problem is:  if Jesus says, “yes”, then the Pharisees can have him up for blasphemy.  And if he says “no”, the Herodians can nail him for civil unrest.

But Jesus knows better than to play this game; so he says:  “Lads … gimme a coin.”  And they hand him one over.  Probably looks rather a lot like this one:  I have here, from my little stash, a Roman denarius—about a day’s wage for a field-hand in those days.  Look how small it is.  This is probably not an especially fine example; but neither is it in bad condition: you can see quite clearly that it bears the face of the Emperor Theodosius.  Put yourself in the scene.  So Christ holds a coin just like this in his hand, and he says to his challengers, “Look; whose face is on this coin?”  And they say “Caesar’s, of course.”  And Christ says, “Well … that’s simple, then, isn’t it?  Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give unto God what is God’s.”  And they all went away shame-faced.

Y’all—that’s a wonderful story—I always love it when Jesus outfoxes his enemies—because there’s usually such a great simplicity to it.  It’s always so obvious—the solution—obvious in such a blatant way that his enemies, for all their scheming, just completely overlook it.  Of course:  if it’s got Caesar’s face on it, then it belongs to Caesar.  And—y’all—seriously—what would God—he who made the world from scratch—what would he need with a few badly-minted coins, anyway?  What good would they do him?  Brilliant answer.  But … in some ways, not as simple as you’d think.  Christ certainly made quick work of those who wanted to show him up in front of his followers.  But, actually, the words do leave us with rather a lot to ponder.  Here’s why:  it’s because it raises the question:  what exactly does belong to Caesar, and what exactly does belong to God—and, more to the point:  what is the Christian’s obligation in the midst of it all?  Simple enough to answer when you’ve got a coin in front of you with the King’s head on it—or the Queen’s, in our case.  But not so easy in all instances.

There are certainly those who take away from this story the notion that God’s children live a split existence under split authority:  the earthly world and the world of worship—and that if we just attend to the worship properly, there’s no skin off our nose if give the government only that which is required to keep it off our backs.  We may support what goes on in London—or Brussels—or Washington—or we may have our problems with the civil authorities.  But, either way, as long as we pay our taxes and keep politics out of the pulpit, we’re good.  Even Jesus says to Pilate just before his crucifixion:  my Kingdom is not of this world. Therefore—so it is said—as long as we, personally, are faithful and of good, upstanding morals, then that’s quite enough.  In fact, some would go so far to say that it’s quite unseemly to talk politics from the pulpit—our eyes are supposed to be on holier things.

I have to admit, though, that I do not share this particular mindset.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I mean, on the one hand, I don’t think that the Church should be about stumping for any one given political party—God is for the whole of his creation and the whole of the political spectrum; and we are called as Christians to bring them all in.  But … on the other hand, when Jesus begins to talk about ‘whose image is stamped on this coin?’ the question of where God’s image is stamped—give to God what is God’s—that can hardly be avoided.  So, yes, the image stamped on the coin—the coin that we all have held today—is certainly the image of Caesar and, yes, by all means give to him what came from his own store.  So, too, with our own Queen and the money that she has stamped with her likeness.  But Jesus knew—and the Pharisees knew—and, no doubt the Herodians, too, for that matter—that the Book of Genesis teaches that we all were made in God’s image.  Where God has stamped his image … is in us.  So, yes, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s—but, in the end, we dare not render unto Caesar that which belongs to God alone.  Truth is:  human beings weren’t built to live a double-life between this world and God’s Kingdom; we were built to be whole—with God’s breath of life within us.  What’s more:  we live in a world that God the Father has created—that, in Jesus Christ, he chose to become a part of.  We live in a world that, through his Holy Spirit, God plans to redeem—to transform, eternally.  Acting on his own, and acting in us, God will transform this world into his Kingdom; this we are promised:  a new heaven and a new earth.  Eternal life doesn’t just start when we die:  it starts now and continues when we die.  And what that means—I think—is that God means for us to be involved.  Certainly, we’re allowed—indeed encouraged—to discern which political matters do no harm to the Kingdom and not to waste our time.  But giving to God what is God’s—ultimately, that’s a lot bigger share than Caesar ever had.  And sometimes that will, indeed, involve resistance to what Caesar demands.

It is down to God’s children to protest exploitative foreign policies—from Labour and Tory and Lib Dem governments alike.  It is down to God’s children to question our health policies when people are going sick and unnecessarily so.  It’s down to God’s children to ask whether huge supermarket chains like Tesco are using their weight and might and power to abuse small farmers—at home and abroad.  It’s down to us to question racist immigration policy.  Pay attention to what is God’s—and we can make a difference—as God demands.  Three years ago, for example—200 years after the end of the British slave trade, 150 years after slavery ended in North America, the United States finally became ready to have a black man lead the nation.  And, make no mistake:  rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is all well and good, but Mr. Obama would never have got that far if Martin Luther King—and the Christians both black and white who followed him—had been prepared to render unto Caesar what was God’s.  See what I mean?  Matter of fact, I think that we Christians in this country, looking across the sea, I think we would do pretty well to ask ourselves whether Great Britain, in fact, has yet become ready to have a Prime Minister of black or Asian origin.  To be honest, as someone who grew up in the death throes of the segregated South, and someone who knows the British immigration system up close and personal, I don’t see that we are.  We can have a white woman prime minister in Britain, but not a black man.  We can have a black man as president in America, but not a white woman.  And that’s exactly what I mean:  rendering unto Caesar gives us permission—as the Pharisees did not have—to be good citizens of our country; but rendering unto God gives us the obligation—as the Herodians did not have—to form a higher allegiance to God’s Kingdom—and from that allegiance to speak out, to ask awkward questions—and, make no mistake, I ask them of Mr. Obama as well—he hasn’t ruled as I would have wished.  Sometimes I want my vote back—so I can give it to Hillary Clinton.  Our allegiance requires us to build a world where justice and mercy and compassion and integrity hold the greater sway.

I have here another coin from my stash that I’d like you to see—and this one tells us a bit about Caesar, too.  Truth be told, I can’t tell you much about this coin:  it’s not a denarius; it’s too big.  But more than that, I don’t know.  Why?—because this one is corroded beyond recognition.  You can’t see whose face is on the front; you can’t see the image on the back; because, down the centuries, this coin has been weathered beyond its tolerance.  It’s melded together with bits of other coins around it, maybe some petrified dirt and minerals that are now stuck to it forever.  It’s of no value to coin collectors.  It is, for all practical purposes, just an old chunk of metal.  This, too, is what belonged to Caesar—what at some point in history was rendered unto him, no doubt—and indeed it has gone the way of Caesar—the whole Roman Empire.  And all empires.  Because human empires are fleeting.  Jesus must have known this, too.  What loss is this coin to God if it ended up in the imperial treasury of Rome?  And what good could it be to him now?  But God’s Kingdom?—well … that goes on.  Two thousand years now.  Countless Empires have come and gone—including our own British Empire—the Church has gone on—sometimes rendering truly unto God—and sometimes not so much—but always with God’s image stamped there—and always issuing the call for us to live in this world as his children, building his Kingdom.  It is the call we hear today, too:  render unto God what is God’s.  So let the response we make be faithful.

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By padre.will, 8 October 2011 21:05

Isaiah 25.1-9;  Psalm 23;  Philippians 4.1-9;  Matthew 22.1-14.

Now—here’s the thing, y’all.  We’ve got a three-year cycle of readings, and it’s been three years since I first arrived in this parish group—has it really been that long?; just seems five minutes ago to me!—and, as I go through the lectionary, I keep remembering how many truly painful readings I got landed with for my first few sermons.  Last week it was the Parable of the Wicked Tenants—first sermon at Newchurch.  Llanvair, too.  And—y’all—thing is—yeh, I know it’s in the Bible.  I know we’ve gotta talk about these things sometimes.  But, for a guy that ain’t typically very hellfire-and-brimstone, I can assure you it wasn’t where I wanted to be when I was planning for the Llanvair Discoed family service!  Got through it.  Then the next week comes—and we get the Parable of the Wedding Banquet—which starts off good—real good, in fact—“send your men out into the highways and by-ways and bring ‘em all in—let ‘em taste the magnificence of my feast!”  If it stopped there, we’d all be just fine.  But, friends and neighbours—that ain’t what it does.  Where it all goes pear-shaped is the bit about that dude who doesn’t come dressed up well enough—what happens to him?  “Sling him out!”, says the lord of the manor.  “Cast him out into the pit, where there will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth!”  So, once again—at least at first glance—not really the tone I was going for.

See, the thing is:  that phrase “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth”—I’ve got a history with that phrase—a story a friend of mine told me at least a dozen years ago—so it’s never Jesus I think about when I hear those words; it’s Ian Paisley.  See, there he was, so we’re told—Ian Paisley, standing before a crowd, railing against his enemies, political and religious, pounding on the pulpit—this was in the days when he was at the very top of his game—and he’s telling ‘em all about the bowels of hell “where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of tee-ith!”  And a little voice comes from the back of the crowd:  “But I haven’t got any teeth, Dr. Paisley.”  “Teeth?”, the firebrand yells back, “Teeth will be provided!”

To add to that, this really is one of those passages where you’re really gotta wonder what Jesus is playing at, anyway.  You get these weird ones turn up from time to time—one that just doesn’t sound Jesusy.  Guy turns up not dressed right—gets kicked out and sent to hell.  What?!  Doesn’t that go straight up against everything we’re supposed to know about Christ’s teaching?  “Sight to the blind, liberation to the oppressed, freedom to the captive, good news to the poor?”

Funny thing is, though:  as I was reading up on this passage, I did a bit of nosing around on the internet, and I found out something interesting that I’d never known before—something that you wouldn’t know just from reading what’s on the page.  And that’s this:  St. Augustine tells us that at a wedding banquet in that day and age, it was the host who would have provided the wedding garments—for everybody—guests included.  Now, if Augustine is right, then the key here is:  that man who didn’t have the proper robes—it wasn’t because he was just some undesirable scallywag who’d come in off the streets—actually, that description fits everyone there—that’s what the master had told his servants to do:  go; sweep the streets; bring everyone you can find.  The reason that man didn’t have his proper robes was because he hadn’t bothered to put ‘em on.  What we’re seeing here isn’t some innocent, well-meaning bystander getting hard-done-by.  What we’re seeing is a man who has made a conscious decision to reject the generosity that’s been offered to him freely and graciously and consciously and thoughtfully.  He takes that hospitality, and he does nothing with it.  Not even a thank you.  And knowing that, of course—well, for me, anyway—it changes the whole shape of the story.  So I want to invite y’all, then, to come with me, and look back at this story again with this new pair of glasses.

The King throws a wedding feast—and in those days, my friends, a wedding feast was a lavish affair—took days, it did.  As it happens, we have a feast in our Church, too.  We have one every week, when we come together—as we do—to partake of the sacrament—to share in the Body and Blood of Christ—we have a feast—offered by God—freely—a feast in which we taste and feel—just for this wonderful moment—a foretaste of that perfect communion which God has promised us in his Kingdom—the Body and Blood of Christ, brought near, brought truly into ourselves by God’s grace.  A feast to which people are invited, far and wide.  And so the King sends out his servants to gather his friends—and they won’t come.  One has to tend his farm; another has to tend his business; another just can’t be bothered; still more go out of their way to scoff.  And perhaps this shouldn’t be terribly surprising.  We, too, as I say, have a feast, right before us.  And there was a time, we like to tell ourselves—I’m not really sure how true it is—but there was a time, we say, at any rate, generations back, when our feast was quite full of a Sunday.  Whether or not that’s true may be immaterial in any case; what’s certainly true now is that—just as it was with that King—people don’t really need an excuse not to come anymore.  They may say “I can’t, because that’s when the kids’ football match is”; or “I can’t, because there’s this thing I want to watch on the telly.”  But, truth is:  they just have no interest in joining the meal.  There’s a banquet to be had for free; but they want to eat at McDonalds.  We only have to look around to see those who have dismissed the banquet out of hand.  We don’t have to go searching any more than the King’s servants did in the parable.  One day, of course, I’d like to turn that around; I’m not saying all this to be pessimistic; we’ve all got a job to do in opening that invitation wider—that’s part of what generosity is all about.  But you know as well as I do that what I’m saying is true, also.

Still, though, does the King give up?  No—quite the opposite.  He does not give up.  Instead he flings the doors wide.  He opens his banquet to all and sundry—friends and strangers—the merchant in the street as well as the urchin—rich and poor alike—the good and the bad alike—“Wherever they are,” the King says, “go and find them.  They who will come,” he says, “let them in.  Let them all in.”  And so we gather—all of us who are here—we gather around God’s table—to receive the gift of God himself.  Not because we’re respectable or otherwise—not because we’re rich or poor—not because we’re good or bad—not because we’ve deserved it—but simply because we’ve been chosen.  We gather here today because God has declared it, and for no other reason:  he will have us here, and he will be generous.  That’s the kind of God he is.  That’s why he made a creation in the first place—to give life—to be generous.  That’s why he joined us in this life when he took humanity upon himself in Christ—he came to tell us that, by his gracious will, we—finite and imperfect as we are—we have something to do with him—that he, the perfect God, the source of life itself, belongs to us, and we belong to him.  We did nothing to deserve our place at this most wondrous table; we did nothing to deserve the garments we wear to his feast.  Rather, we have ite because God declared that this is how it would be—that we should benefit from every blessing the he has to bestow—just because he decided that that would be a pretty danged good idea.

Which brings us back to that chap without robes.  And, yes, a big chunk of Christ’s parable today is about judgement—all that gnashing of teeth stuff—and, no, you’ll probably find one day that I’m not afraid to preach a sermon on that, either.  People who know me will tell you I’ve certainly been known to drop a clanger into the mix on a Sunday morning when the Spirit moves me.  But that’s not for today.  What I want to say about this guy today—and what I think he’s reminding us of today—is that, even with all of God’s great generosity, there’s an element of choice, here.  Christ is telling us that the robes are there—supplied—but that we have to put them on.  We Christians are called to take it in mind that we want to share the blessings that God has to offer us—that the peace of Christ is not ours to hoard, but to give away; that’s what makes it strong.  That’s a big part of why I preach—time and again—till I am blue in the face—till y’all are bored to tears—that you and I—and I and you—and you with each other—and you in the community—that we must belong together.  That’s a big part, too, of why I don’t intend to give up on all those people who’d rather be watching television this fine Sunday morning, or out walkin’ the dawg.  It’s because our participation in God’s banquet is not a passive thing—that’s not our calling.  Our calling—as Christ says elsewhere—is to give as freely as we’ve received.  It’s fundamentally active.  Putting on the robes means opening our hearts, our lives, so that God may transform them from something profoundly normal into something profoundly rich.  The richness of fellowship and love, one with another, the richness of love thousands, millions of years old; love that these old stone walls can symbolise, but never can contain;· light that shines out from this building every time we gather—light that bids them all around to come to the banquet, too—not because they deserve it—but because God wills it—and because, if God wills it, then so must we.

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By padre.will, 5 October 2011 20:07

Slight delay on the post. Had this ready and preached it last Sunday. Forgot to blog it. I am famously disordered and easily confused. But here y’go. Better late than never.

Ezekiel 18.1-4, 25-32; Psalm 25.1-9; Philippians 2.1-13; Matthew 21.23-32.

Now, I want to tell y’all a little bit about rotten timing, if y’all don’t mind. Here’s what it is: three years ago — just about this time of year — in fact, I’ll give y’all the date: 5th of October 2008 — I did my first Sunday service in Newchurch — I’d just been licensed to this parish group nine or ten days before — it was the first service Newchurch had held since then, and what did I get for a Gospel reading?: the parable of the wicked tenants!·· Oh, how dreadful. What a totally miserable selection to have to start out a new ministry with! “Boy, howdy, I’ll tell you what,” says Jesus—that’s the Texas vernacular translation of “verily I say unto thee”—“Boy, howdy, I’ll tell you what: the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” First sermon in a new church? Not really what you want.

Of course, given the people surrounding him, I s’pose Jesus had a point—and, truth be told—y’all know by now—I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenging or even a controversial sermon sometimes, if I thought that was in order. There is a time and there is a place, I can assure you. But, to be perfectly honest, the plain-sense reading of this scripture wasn’t really the message I was looking to convey right out of the starting gate. Nor is it the message that I want to convey at the harvest festival. To be sure, this parable is about a harvest of sorts. But I rather prefer last week’s story: the parable of the two sons in the vineyard. Or the one we had a couple of weeks ago about how the eleventh hour labourer got that full day’s wage. (Must have had a good union rep.)

Really the most important kind of thing I want to say is what I’ve been saying at all the harvest services this year: that, as Christians, we are called to belong together—and that not only do we belong together, but also that we have a distinct calling, as Christians, to enrich the world around us and the people who dwell amongst us—to enrich them by our love—and by our lavish generosity—because that is how God has treated us. He created a world that he wanted to see redeemed—nurtured into an eternal Kingdom; and that nurturing is now what Christ, in his spirit, entrusts to us. That’s a good harvest message; and, I must admit: the reading from Isaiah, the parable of the wicked tenants: these don’t seem to lend themselves to that message, not at first glance.

And, yet: here comes St. Paul to the rescue. (Not often you hear me say that, actually; I’m not always Paul’s biggest fan.) And, in truth, Paul’s message, too—although perhaps not quite as harsh as Isaiah’s or Christ’s—nonetheless, is pretty serious business, too—speaking as he does about past religious history, now deemed irrelevant; and, for that matter, the threat of death which hangs over him as one of Christ’s followers—a threat which, tradition tells us, came to pass. And yet there is in this passage these most wonderful lines: “I want to know Christ,· and the power of his resurrection … . Not that I have already … reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Jesus Christ has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Now there, my brothers and sisters, is a message that I want to give you at harvest time: pressing on—looking to the future—looking to the true eternal harvest: God’s promise that, in Jesus Christ, and the power of his Spirit, we will one day find eternal redemption and perfect wholeness. These are powerful words, my friends, and a powerful teaching which the Church has held in trust for the world since its earliest days.

Powerful words because they speak of God’s overwhelming generosity towards his people and the creation around them. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks, as I do each year, celebrating the harvest with each of my congregations. And the fact that, awkward words or otherwise, we do have yet another reading—two, in fact—about the growing of fruit from the land—that situation contains within it, as it must do, the basic assumption that the land is, in fact, capable of growing something good, and that God desires it to be so. This is what we celebrate at harvest time: that, notwithstanding our own labour in our fields and gardens—which is, of course, important—the nature of life and growth, ultimately, is God’s to give—and God has been faithful. Life is rich—deeply rich, deeply abundant—because God has willed it so. And so we give thanks. But, of course, the readings we’re talking about today take that assumption one level higher: for the gardens we’re talking about here—the ones to which Christ and Isaiah both point—are the gardens of God’s Kingdom: eternal life, not just out there in the clouds somewhere, but a life that starts now. A life that started the moment Christ rose from the grave—rose from the grave as a sign of that magnificent perfection to which, in his name, we are all called—the redemption and wholeness to which, in his name, all creation is called. And so it is: that, just as growing our own fruit and veg in the garden requires both God’s generosity and our faithfulness, likewise God’s Kingdom is not something that just happens to us—but, rather, in God’s Spirit, we are given power, and authority, and responsibility to take up our role in building the Kingdom—to “press on”, as St. Paul says, “towards the goal, towards the prize of God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

Now, truth is: when you get to talkin’ about gardens—real gardens—I am not what you’d call a natural. I have a magnificent talent for killing put-near every plant I lay eyes on. Thankfully, though, I’m not actually employed to look after my own garden, but rather to look after God’s—or at least to help out a bit in my patch. But the truth of the matter, of course, is that this task is not something entrusted just to the clergy—but, in fact, each in our own way, God calls us all. Today’s readings are all about that, actually. Harsh words from God—and, sorry, but if I’m not going to highlight them, I’m not going to apologise for them, either—but they’re harsh because they’re important. They remind us that the things of God are to be cherished—the gifts he gives us are to be treasured—and this is why he is so angry when it doesn’t happen. It’s because he feels so strongly about it.

Now, I have no desire to shake my fist at a congregation whom I love and who have loved me—and, truth be told, I don’t think that y’all are the people that Isaiah and Christ are having a pop at. But … at the same time … don’t ever let us forget that how easy it would be to slip into that mode. And don’t ever let us forget that, before the world was ours, it was God’s—and it still is. It was a world, Genesis tells us, that was designed because God relished the act of creation and “saw that it was good”. It’s a world that, John’s Gospel tells us, was created for Christ to come into and take his seat at the centre. It’s a world that, the Book of Revelation tells us, was made to be redeemed and ultimately to be brought eternally—lock, stock, and barrel—into the very life and love of God himself. That was the plan. From the moment of the Big Bang, that was always the plan. And that’s why God demands we take it seriously.

This is why I think we have to look around at what we do to the environment, for example—not just as people, but as a society—and, for that matter, as a Church: because God has entrusted the wholeness of his creation to us. “Oh, what is man,” says the psalm, “that you have made him only the tiniest bit lower than the angels?” Oh, what is humanity, that he has given us charge of all that we survey? We bring our harvest before God today—and it is the right thing to do; because, from God comes life—and from faithfulness to God we find that life enriches not just us, but those around us.

This is why I think we have to look around at what we do for our neighbours, as well—not just those down the street—but those across the nation—those who have no food or heat in the coming winter (and there are plenty of those in the UK, despite our national wealth)—and those across the world—those who starve because of our agricultural policies—i.e., our harvest—those who suffer for their faith—Christians and non-Christians alike, actually—those who suffer and lose families for wars that we fight against poorer countries, but never on our own land. We bring our harvest before God today—and we look at the richness and the beauty of the flowers—we give thanks for the abundance and the variety and the bounty of the food—and what God tells us is that this places upon us the solemn obligation to listen and to hear what he aims to make of them—a world made whole, made perfect, redeemed—and then to do something about it.

It is not a matter of irrelevance what goes on in this world. Christianity is not—and never has been—about pie-in-the-sky in the sweet by and by (as the old southern phrase goes). It’s about a God who came to us—became us—because he so longed to be with us and for his creation—his children—to be a part of him. That, when it becomes complete, will be his harvest. But, for now, we are called to work and start putting the building blocks in place.

We mustn’t forget the parable of the eleventh-hour workers—oh, no. In fact, I speak of them every single Easter Sunday at the sunrise service precisely because the lesson is so crucial: God’s harvest is every single thing he’s made—made perfect—made fully and completely what he meant it to be. But precisely because this is so crucial, today’s lessons warn us to take it all seriously. We’re to be the hands and feet of God, the eyes and ears of Christ, the dynamic love of the Holy Spirit—we are called to be that here, now. Till Christ comes again. He’s not giving us the option, if we’re to follow him. He is giving us the call. And I pray that we will have the strength to respond. For from this call comes joy and hope and life more abundant—God’s true harvest—forever.

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By padre.will, 25 September 2011 23:58

Ezekiel 18.1-4, 25-32;  Psalm 25.1-9;  Philippians 2.1-13;  Matthew 21.23-32.

Right.  It’s Harvest Festival season now—each one of my Churches does things a little different—so that gives me a bit of variety—but it also definitely keeps me busy!  And I’m always at a bit of a handicap preaching harvest sermons because—as I keep telling my congregations over and over and over again—I could lose a weed-growing contest, if it really came to that.  I used to have a garden back in Rogiet with a lovely little rhubarb patch; that was excellent—and the rules were simple:  just keep me entirely out of its way till it’s big enough to hack down, and the reward will be rhubarb crumbles all summer.  I’ve got blackberries now.  Can’t control ‘em for toffee—grow all over the place and ugly as sin—but there’s almost nothing I love more than a handful of perfectly ripe blackberries fresh off the vine.  Wonderful.  Y’all, it’s the simple pleasures that make life worth it.

People quit bothering to give me advice in the end.  They gave up.  When I first arrived in Monmouthshire—city boy without a single growing season to his name, I had no end of tips from proud local gardeners.  I got visits from parents and in-laws who grew up on farms, and help get it all in order.  And, on a good week, I can sort of keep it all tamed.  But—y’all know what?  Seven years on, the vital truth still remains, unchanged, unaltered:  I still kill put’near every plant I lay eyes on!  See, mowing the grass—that is something I can do.  Cutting down our very large hedge with a petrol hedge trimmer—that is something I also can do.  But those activities involve taking very sharp blades and applying them to vegetation.  Implements of destruction—I am all about those.  Actually getting the vegetation to grow in the first place, though?—well, that’s a whole nother thing.

Thankfully, I’m not actually employed to look after my own garden, but rather to look after God’s.  But the truth of the matter, of course, is that the task of looking after God’s garden is not something entrusted just to the clergy.  In fact, each in our own way, God calls us all.

Christ’s parable in today’s Gospel speaks of a landowner with two sons.  He asks each of them to go out into his vineyard and work—to which the first son replies no, but very quickly has a change of heart.  So he goes out and makes a day’s work of it all—doesn’t even seem to say a word to his father.   He just goes out and gets the job done.  Tends the grapes.  Waters them.  Digs up weeds.  Turns the soil.  Prunes where pruning is required.  And, y’all know what?  Come the day, his grapes will grow.  The second son, in contrast, comes off all enthusiastic:  “Of course,” he says.  “Of course, I will, Daddy.  I’ll go out and help you with your vineyard.”  But he never actually gets around to it.  He spends some time in the morning watching telly.  Goes out in the afternoon to play rugby with his mates.  Then, come the evening, he nips off to the pub for a swift pint; rugby’s thirsty work, you know.  So … by the end of the day, nothing’s done.  And then it’s too late.  So what else is there to do but head off to bed?

Now, which of these, says Christ, has truly done his father’s will?

Well, the answer we all know.  Bit of a give-away, really.  But this, quite simply, is what God asks of us all—that we do our Father’s will—that we go to tend his garden, and not just say we will.  But the question still remains:  what does this mean for us?  And I think there are three points to be made here.

The first—though it might seem a bit obvious to say it—is that there is, in fact, a vineyard to be tended—and, more importantly, and perhaps less obvious:  it’s not here.  The vineyard is not the Church.  Make no mistake—the Church needs to be tended, too—and it needs to be tended well.··  But that’s not gardening.  That’s housekeeping.  See, if I want to go tend my garden—if I want to make things grow, it doesn’t do me any good to sit on my couch putting my nice cool drink on a coaster so the water doesn’t stain the table.   If I want my garden to grow, I need to be outside—pulling weeds and turning soil and cutting the grass.  I need to be out doing those things.  Likewise, there’s an actual plot of land that God wants cultivated beyond our doors—a land beyond this true home that we call Church—and you can find that patch all over, because it is, in fact, the whole of his creation.  If there’s one single message that I’ve tried to get across in the time that I’ve been ordained, it’s that God is completely and utterly engrossed with his creation—and he is completely and utterly—wildly—ridiculously—generous with redemption.  He wants all that he has made to come to him in the fullness of time, and we—his people—his body—are core to that plan.

This was precisely the point that Christ was making to the religious authorities in today’s Gospel reading:  it’s all well and good, he said, to stay inside the safe confines of the synagogue and temple—performing the sacred rites—reading the sacred texts—debating the finer points of theology and religion.  It’s what they did then; it’s what we do now.  And—hey—that may well be a sign of salvation—if we’re really thirsting to know and understand God’s message—but it is not in itself the work of salvation.  The work is done, rather, when we go out into the world—when we go out to meet those who have not known God—when we show our love to those who have fallen away from our community here— when we stop distinguishing between those who are respectable and those who are not—when we begin to see that our voice is needed to cry for justice and mercy in this world—when we look for those who are alone, and empty, and searching—and when we plant within them the seed of God’s love—by what we do—by what we say—by how we live in their presence.  The garden is there—so who among us will tend it?

This brings me to my second point—that faithfulness counts.  In fact, in the end, it’s all that counts.  Because, in the parable, even the second son could do lip-service.  But the first son was the one who did God’s will.  Whatever he may have said to his father, in the end, it was he who went out and tended the garden—who worked the land.  It was he who made it thrive.  And the truth is, if the Church is to be here in a few generations—if the Church is to be here when my boys want to get married—then we have a task pretty much cut out for us:  we have a garden of our own to grow.  Now, don’t worry—I’m not suggesting y’all should all run out and become missionaries or priests.  But the reality is:  it’s not going to make a difference, us coming to Church every Sunday, week on week, if we’re not looking around—if we’re not seeing the people around us and asking ourselves what we can do to bring them some sort of Good News.  For, if we do not, there will be no harvest to be had.  The vineyard must be watered with the word of God.  It must be fed with his love—the same love that we so freely have received, we must give.  The soil of God’s garden must be turned from time to time—so that the people out there will not see the same, dry old landscape that they’ve always seen, but rather that they can see it in a new light.  It must be turned so that God’s love can grow in a fertile land for all to taste.  And so the apostle Paul tells us in his words to the Corinthians that, just as the good gardener has his tools—his hoes and rakes—so, too, each one of us has a gift—that the Spirit has given us gifts.  The call to faithfulness means simply that we must look inside ourselves—deliberately.  We must seek from God to know what tools we have—and then we all must pick up these tools—so that when we meet God’s children in his garden, as we no doubt will do, then we can give them what they need, that they may grow into his Kingdom.

And there’s my final point—the Kingdom itself—because there is our true harvest, which we celebrate today.  You all have known for years—and, certainly, I am quickly learning—that the whole point of the garden is not just the work involved, but the harvest it yields.  What we give to our garden comes back to us, year upon year:  the marrows, the beans, the carrots, the tomatoes, the cucumbers—we feed on them, when our work is done.  We feed on them, and they fill us—they replenish us—and they keep us safe and healthy—and they kit us out for our work next year.  Even the flowers are a harvest—and indeed they remind us that God’s great act of creation and redemption is not just grey and practical, but that, in God’s world, beauty counts.  It matters.  The garden is a cycle in which life affirms life.  And so it continues down the years—enriching us all the time.  This harvest that we bring before God at harvest season—we are richer for it; we are made more whole.

And, just the same, God sets aside the sabbath day that we may rest and enjoy the world he has built for us—that we may come into this Church, our true home, and taste the goodness he has on offer—that we may taste the life of God himself.  But it is in our harvest that we taste it most—the harvest in which we bring one another—and the world beyond—before God.  For God teaches that to live his Kingdom, we must live it together—in love with one another—and in love for the world he has made.  Which is to say:  those folk amongst whom we have laboured, those to whom we offer God’s love—those whom we have sought to bring home—in God they join into this great divine cycle, in which life affirms life.  Through their fresh experience of God’s saving grace, we too become that much more whole.  We come to a place—each Sunday—where God enables us—you and me—and them—to give life and love to one another—a place where we refresh one another as we begin to prepare ourselves once again for the next year’s work.

So let us give thanks for this harvest.  And let us pray for the great harvest of God’s kingdom to be with us just that little bit more as we go about our work in his vineyard  each day, throughout the year.

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By padre.will, 18 September 2011 20:50

Jonah 3.10-4.11;  Psalm. 145.1-8;  Philippians 1.21-30;  Matthew 20.1-16. 

Once upon a time there was a monastery way out in the middle of nowhere.  Carthusians—very strict order of monks.  Carthusians live a very regulated, closely timed life of prayer; they do good honest hard work in the times between—some of you may have tasted the very fine wines they make.  Most importantly, they are a silent order—strictly so.  On a day-to-day basis, they do not talk; they spend the whole of their lives in deep contemplation, and silence is a key part of the discipline.  But there was one exception in this monastery: the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  On that day, the monks gathered in the evening for a large, roast feast—and they were allowed to speak for a minute or so following the meal.  This year, it was Brother Thomas’s turn, and so he stood up and said, “Guys, you know what?  It may not sound like much, but I just love these mashed potatoes that we have every year on this night.  They are buttery and they are creamy—I find them absolutely delightful, and I think we all ought to give thanks to God for the little blessings, like these, that we have in life.”  And that was it for a whole ‘nother year.  Well, 365 days later, it was Brother Paul’s turn, and so he rose from his seat and he said, “Thanks for what?!  These potatoes are awful!  They are always cold; they’re always lumpy; and there’s never enough salt in them.  I despise them.”  And then he sat back down.  And that was it for a whole ‘nother year.  So, finally, 365 more days passed, and it was Brother Michael who rose this time, and he said, “Dude—guys—I just want y’all to know:  I have absolutely had it up to here with this constant bickering!”

And the Lord said to Jonah:  “Is it right for you to be angry?”  This is the phrase that kept leaping out at me when I read this morning’s scriptures.   “Is it right for you to be angry?”  Good question.

Anger is one of those emotions that has a bit of a mixed rap in scripture.  On the one hand, it is a root-level human emotion—an emotion that God created us to feel right along with all the rest.  We come to Church with this idea that Christians are supposed to be happy and smiley at each other all time; live in peace and all that; anger shouldn’t happen if you really live in love.  But, in fact, when anger is put towards the work of God, we see it put often enough to very good effect.  We have, for example, the very righteous anger of Christ when he turns over the tables of the money-changers in the Jewish temple.  He is utterly—and quite rightly—incensed that these people have turned their nation’s greatest house of worship into an outlet for profit and greed.  Likewise, we have several of Paul’s letters—not least to the Corinthian Church—where the Apostle makes his annoyance with his flock very, very plain indeed:  “here,” he says to them, “I have brought you Good News of New Life in Christ—and yet you behave as if nothing had happened:  you fight amongst yourselves; you make no attempt to amend your lives before God; you place more importance on loyalty to your favourite Apostle than to the Christ who named them Apostles and saved you from yourself.”  And, then his second letter to the Corinthian church starts out with—anyone know the opening line?—“I told you once … .”  One or two chapters in, and it’s not at all difficult for us to understand why Paul finds himself so very angry with an amazingly childish flock.  And yet, on the other hand, the Lord demands of Jonah:  “Is it right for you to be angry?”  And the answer there unequivocally is no.  So what makes the difference?  Well, I tend to believe it’s all in the attitude—the approach.

Now, truth be told—secretly, of the old Hebrew prophets, Jonah has always been one of my very favourites, because he pouts so wonderfully well.  Jonah is a sulker—through and through.  And I came from a family of world class champion sulkers—mind you, he didn’t have a patch on my grandma—but I can totally see what he’s about.  God calls Jonah to go preach repentance to great pagan city of Ninevah—and he doesn’t want to—so he pouts and runs away.  So then God decides to give Jonah a few days resting in the belly of a giant fish—just to think things through—and this makes Jonah a little more inclined to go preach like he’s been told to do.  But it doesn’t make him any happier about it—so quickly we find that, once the people of Ninevah have, in fact, repented, Jonah stomps off into the desert to sulk.  And that’s where we find him today—out in the desert acting as melodramatic as a teenager!  “Oh, God,” he says, “it’s all so horrible; it’s all so unfair; why have you done this?  I’d be better off dead!”  So God, in his love, gives Jonah tree for shade.  And then it dies.  And when that happens, Jonah has just one more reason to keep throwing his tantrum.  So God says, “Oh, c’mon, Jonah; aren’t you going a little overboard with this?”  Well, “noooo,” says Jonah—howling his little head off—“you took my tree!  So why don’t you just kill me now and get it over with?!  I have no tree; you’ll be sorry when I’m dead!”  Wonderful melodrama—absolute gem of a story!  I laugh every time I read it.

But what’s missing—what’s really missing here—as God quickly points out—is any spirit of love or generosity.  Yes, Jonah preached the message as he was told—in the end—but he didn’t have the heart for it.  It was God who loved Ninevah so much—a city populated by Israel’s worst enemies—and God still loved them so much—and even their animals, the book says.  He loved them so much that he wanted to save them; he wanted to bring them home to himself.  It’s the self-same problem that we see with the labourers in the vineyard in today’s Gospel:  God will· save· who· he· will.·  For that is the nature of God.  And we who have laboured in the vineyard—many of us all our lives—we do not get to choose who it is that God will lavish his grace upon.  We do not get to choose who deserves it or not—because, in the end, God is always generous.  He was generous to us.  We know he was generous to us.  Which one of us is perfect enough to deserve heaven?  And, just so, he will be generous also to others.  And we—like Jonah—are called not simply to preach his message, but to extend his generosity to those whom he has declared fit.  Doesn’t matter whether or not they are fit.  God has declared it, either way.  And we are called to love—first of all.

Now, in that context, as I’ve said, there are priests who will say from time to time that anger is never a good thing—that Christians should avoid it at all costs.  I am not one of those, because I think that that approach is entirely unrealistic and unhealthy:  I don’t believe that human beings are capable of just shutting down a chosen emotion at will.  It doesn’t make sense.  God created us—each of us—to hold within us huge tapestry of emotion—and I believe we are all the richer for that.  I can no more choose to shut down my occasional anger than I can choose to shut down my love for my friends, my family, for my flock.  It just can’t be done—not successfully, at any rate.  To the extent that we try—and try far too often—we just end up bottling it all up—which invariably does more harm than good—because in the end, however we may pretend that anger is someone else’s problem, not ours, still all the while it eats away at us from the inside.  Better, I think—and far more honest to the way God created us—if we learn to deal with anger openly.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to keep anger in a healthy place; quite the opposite:  we all have some kind of experience that shows us how dangerous anger can be—not least, spiritually so.  But the thing is:  we have to be able to acknowledge our anger, when we have it, if we are ever to have any hope of applying the divine corrective of love and generosity to it, so that it may be properly directed.   Indeed, we have to acknowledge our anger before God, so that he can make of it what he wills.  So, God asks of us, as he asked of Jonah:  “Is it right that you should be angry?”  Hear that:  is it right?  Is your anger right?  And each of us has to work this out with God;  I have to work this out with God.  Y’all have known me for some time now.  Y’all have heard me preach many a sermon.  You’ve sat with me in your homes and at our gatherings, and we’ve chatted about your lives, mine, the life of this community, the life of the Church, the life of the greater world.  I’d be very surprised if you weren’t aware of at least some of the things that wind me up.

I am very keen on social justice, for example, as many of you know.  If I go to look at the news, or if I go to the internet to check up on what the bankers and politicians are doing, I’ll get het up very quickly.  It makes me angry that, for the sake of a pound or two, we in the rich Western world impose artificial trade barriers on impoverished countries that could benefit from our trade—that could stop children from dying when my little boys get free treatment on the NHS.  It makes me angry that these were the same countries that we subjugated—and now that we’ve cut them loose, we refuse them the very tools that could help them pull themselves up to our level with dignity.  That makes me angry.  It makes me angry when the same politicians who impose these wicked trade restrictions—and start wars against civilians armed with sticks—when these same politicians then go on to use Christianity and Christian morals to score points with the electorate—to keep themselves in power.  That makes me angry.  And I do not especially believe that it is wrong for me to be angry about that.   Anger can accomplish change.

But the question is:  what do I do with that anger?  Am I going to be Jonah?  Or am I going to be Christ’s disciple?  Like Jonah, it is far too easy for me—for us all—to condemn.  God says to Jonah:  “why are you pouting?”  And Jonah says he says, “because I knew that you were a generous God, and I knew that you would save the Ninevites—and I did not think they deserved it.”  Well, there’s some honesty for you, and good on him for it.

The question, though, that that this story demands that I ask myself, however, is this:  if I am angry about social justice, it’s all well and good, but do I really want it to get better?  Or is it more the case, that I actually enjoy feeling self-righteous when it doesn’t change?  That’s one of the great things about righteous indignation:  that wonderful feeling of moral superiority that you can wallow in every time you look at the offender, if that’s what you choose.  But the godly way—the way of loving the enemies into the Kingdom, just as God loved Ninevah—that’s a lot harder.  And that is the challenge to me when I look at the misuse of power in the world.  Sinner that I am, am I any better?  And forgiven as I am, can I seek to change things, but with forgiveness?  From the moment of our birth—when many of us came to the Church for baptism—we find that is that God is generous; God offers free grace through these cleansing waters—waters that he has called me as priest to pour out on his children.  And, hey, there’s another something I get cross about:  the dozens of baptisms I’ve done and maybe only a handful of children have I ever seen in Church since!  But we also share the sacrament of his table each week, likewise—because he has poured out himself on us—for our sake.  The question is, then:  am I going to take with one hand, and then fail to give with the other?  Or am I going to offer love freely, like God offered me?  Am I sufficiently generous to keep the door open when those outside decide to walk in—or those who have gone decide to return?  Because they do, you know.  Sometimes.  Baptisms we have—all the time—and yet very few extra children in Sunday school for it.  And, yet, every year the Church has many adults confirmed as we have children.  And why?  Because somewhere inside them, they looked for God, and that was all that was required—and so their baptism was indeed effective within them—not by my grace, but by God’s—years later—decades later—and as Christ’s parable reminds us, it is God’s grace only that matters.

So let me encourage you, as I also seek to encourage myself, that when faced with anger, we should not look to shut it away, but rather to hear God’s voice:  “Is it right for you to be angry?”  For, in the end, the only answer to our anger—whether righteous anger or sinful, whichever it may be—the only true answer ever lies in God’s great, great generosity to all.

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By padre.will, 11 September 2011 09:34

Gen. 50.15-21;  Ps. 103.(1-7), 8-13;  Rom. 14.1-12;  Matt. 18.21-35.

My brothers and sisters, I suspect that nearly every Christian preacher in the English-speaking world will be touching on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 today.  In fact, it strikes me as deeply meaningful that the anniversary itself falls on a Sunday this year.  We’re not just marking a near-by anniversary.  We’re marking ten years to the day—almost to the hour and minute.  And this is important—not just for the sake of remembering the tragedy that happened on that day—all those who died, or lost loved ones, or suffered wounds from which they’ll never completely recover.  It is important that we remember them.  But it’s also important that we reflect, as well, on how the world has changed—by which I mean:  how we have changed.  I look at the news, day in and day out, and then I look out my window here in Caerwent; and I see the hay growing in the field across the road and the cows grazing there—and that seems light years away from New York City.  In fact—actually—most of the time Caerwent seems light years away from London, much less New York!  But we have changed, too:  the way our politics now revolves around endless wars (though maybe that was always the way), the way our conversfations analyse Islam in a way they never did before (and, often, without actually asking Muslims!), the endless and ever-more-paranoid and intrusive security checks for our holidays abroad, the sons and daughters and husbands and wives and children and grandchildren whom we send into battle—there is very little of our public discourse in the West these days that cannot in some way be traced back, either directly or indirectly, to the attacks that happened on 9/11.  I’m not trying to be over-dramatic; I realise that the cows in that field across the way from me don’t much care and the farmers still have to milk them like they’ve had to do for generations.  But, truly, a lot has changed.

And not necessarily for the better:  we are a more fearful society today.  Even here in Caerwent we have our moments; everywhere we do.  We’ve given up lots of liberties in the name of security.  We look at neighbours from foreign places (or at least some of them) with more suspicion than we used to.  We accept it when politicians play up our differences—or newspapers for the sake of selling a few more copies.  We fail to notice the struggles of others in foreign places with strange names—struggles that our own political leaders are, rightly or wrongly, responsible for creating.

So I want to suggest that, as we call it all back to mind—we should take a moment to remember three things:

First, please let’s stop for a second to remember how it was on the day, not after.  We have plenty of time to reflect on what we’ve got right and what we’ve got wrong in the ten years after the planes crashed into the towers.  And we should reflect on that—hard, if you ask me.  But—just like the Kennedy assassination—just like Tiananmen Square—there are moments when we can remember exactly what we were doing when we heard.  And perhaps its useful to take a moment to remind ourselves what it was like.  I was actually watching the news when it happened:  I was writing at my desk in London—working on my doctoral thesis—and I often had the news on nearby when I was working.  So I managed to watch all the reports from the beginning.  And I can remember Heidi walking in and me motioning to her to be quiet—just watch this.  The first plane came, and we didn’t know if it was an accident; and then the second came, and everyone then knew that it was all planned—by someone.

And that’s when something very interesting happened—just for a brief window—that I noticed only because I’m an expatriated American.  What happened was, at just that moment, I suddenly found myself having conversations with British folk where I wasn’t always having to explain my way around American foreign policy.  For the first time, when people were asking me about America, and about what was going on, they were really asking.  Londoners are remarkably cynical about Americans—that’s less the case here, I should point out (though it’s not entirely absent).  I’m very used to having to answer for every crazy American politician that comes down the pike—every American in Britain is, actually—but, on 9/11, just for that one moment, people forgot what whatever had been annoying them most recently about the United States—and me, too, for that matter—and instead they suddenly remembered that there are real people involved—real people living real lives—and suffering real pain.  It happened with Hurricane Katrina, as well—and it happened on 9/11.  I didn’t lose anybody in 9/11 (nor Katrina, for that matter).  But, as people asked me about it, their concern was not conditional; it didn’t matter who I’d voted for; it only mattered that I might have family involved.  And I was moved beyond words that they did care.  That was a lesson to me.

Which leads me to my second point:  grace and mercy.  This is what was shown to me, here in this country—and to so many Americans here after the explosions.  And that is the right place for our hearts to be.  Because what Jesus says in his parable today is that when there was a human need, then God gave to us not according to what we deserved, but solely according to his love.  When we ask for God’s love and grace—as indeed we do every week when we come for worship—God will give it—consistently—evermore.  But because of that gift—again, the parable clearly shows it—we who follow God, are equally obliged to give—and to give generously—of spirit, and love, and talent, and even money—when we see our fellow human beings in need.  We are to treat them with grace and with mercy.  Because God thus treated us first.  We’re not to ask about deserving:  mercy is the thing we ask first and foremost.   In fact, Jesus describes a God who not only expects mercy, but arises with great anger—fuming at the sense of injustice—when we do not give it.  “I forgave all that debt”, says the lord of the manor, just “because you pleaded with me.  And should you not have had mercy on your fellow slaves as I had mercy on you?”  And then he hands the unmerciful servant over to torture in prison.  Strong image.  We should take note.

And here’s the kicker:  we should take note not only for our brothers and sisters in the West, but for those in the East and Middle East, too.  In fact that’s even more important—because, touched as I was by the compassion people showed on 9/11 to the Americans—it’s critically important to remember that Muslims in this nation and abroad have suffered greatly—both on that day, and after.  And our political leaders may be able to justify it to Parliament and to Congress.  But, for Christians like me—for Christians like us—God demands mercy.

And, you know what?  That’s every bit as true for Islam.  Yes, of course, there are those who will kill in the name of religion—that’s been true for as long as there’s been religion—and it’s just as true for Christianity as it is for Islam.  You need two sides to have a war, and that’s just as true of holy wars as any other.  But, my brothers and sisters, did you know that one of the most basic, essential ways of opening prayer and praise to God in Islam is to say “All praise be to Allah”—God—“the most beneficent, the most merciful”.  Mercy is an attribute of God that is called to mind in Islam every single day.  And we Christians—we would do well to remember that.  We’ve had 10 years of fighting as a result of what happened on 9/11.  And perhaps we should turn now to finding what we have in common with our Muslim brothers and sisters who, at the end of the day, like our Jewish brothers and sisters, all worship the self-same God in their mosques and their synagogues that we do in our Churches all over the world this very morning.

There was a Sri Lankan Muslim teacher and mystic, Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who gives us these words about the teachings of the Qur’an:

We … must delve into the depths of the Qur’an … . As we look deeper and deeper, we will see the Messenger of God … .We will see the light, and if we look through that light … we will understand our life and our death; we will understand the Day of Judgment, the Day of Questioning, and the ninety-nine attributes of Allah.  Once we have this understanding, we will see that all men are our brothers, just as the Qur’an teaches us.  To truly see all people as our brothers is Islam.  If we see anyone who is in need, we must offer him the water of the mercy of all the universes, the water of absolute faith, and the affirmation of that faith, the kalimah.  That water must be given to everyone who is hungry or thirsty.  We must embrace them lovingly, quench their thirst, and wash away their dirt. We must offer them love, compassion, patience, and tolerance, just as the Prophet did. This is what will satisfy their needs and dispel the darkness in their hearts.

 

How much, my friends, do those words resonate with the love of Christ that we know—the peace to which we are called—each time we gather for worship—each time we pray—each time we come to God’s altar and taste his body and his blood in our holy sacrament?  “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these,” Christ reminds us, “you have done it also unto me.”  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”, says the prophet Isaiah about the Messiah, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed.”  That is Christ’s calling—and, by the terms of the Lord’s parable, that must therefore be our calling.  How very much alike are the proclamations of these two great religions, when you get past the failings of humanity—and delve into the depths of God’s love.

And that brings me to my final point:  St. John, in the first of his letters, reminds us that “perfect love casts out all fear.”  Bawa Muhaiyadden exhorts his flock to delve into the depths of the Qur’an to find that perfect love.  And I suggest to my flock that, delving into the depths of the Bible, we will find the same:  the perfect love of God, which—my friends—my brothers and sisters—is capable—more than capable—of driving away all the fear and hatred and mistrust of the past ten years.  Yes, all praise be to God—the most beneficent, the most merciful—he is calling us today to turn to him, just as he did ten years ago—and a thousand—and a thousand before that—and a thousand before that.

It is time to remember—to be sure—all those who were lost—and all those who have been lost since that fateful day.  That’s for today.  We do our mourning today.  We remember how much our world has been changed and transformed.  And then tomorrow, let us wake up—Christians, Muslims, Jews—all of us—let us wake up not just out of bed, but out of our fear and into God’s love—so that, walking forward, shoulder to shoulder, we may look to the next ten years—and the eternity beyond—with the aim and the hope and the prayer and the determination that, in us, God’s mercy will be the first rule and the last—the Alpha and the Omega—and will be the foundation of his Kingdom for evermore.