Responding to Joshua on Ready to Harvest

 

A few thoughts on this well-researched view from outside.

Rehabilitating the dead

Sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

When was

the last time

you visited

a cemetery?

They're not as busy

as they used to be.

These days

more and more people

are choosing to be cremated

and have their ashes

scattered to the four winds

rather than be buried

in a cemetery.

As a result, 

fewer people 

enter cemeteries

to pay their respects.

If that continues, 

the cemetery will become

a place where 

the dead are forgotten. 

Doesn't that strike you as sad?

[PAUSE]

Maybe you don't think so?

Maybe, 

ending up forgotten 

is just part and parcel

of our daily lives.

After all, 

we don't spend our days

wishing 

our great-great-great-great-great grandparents

were still here.

That's because

they died a century or two

before we were born.

We can't be expected

to remember those 

who died 

before we were born.

So it seems

our ultimate destiny

in life is to be forgotten. 

[PAUSE]

The trouble is

that the widow of Nain

faces the same fate.

With her son dead

she, too, is as dead.

She has no income

no one to care for her

in her old age.

No daughter in law

no grandchildren.

In taking her son

out of the city 

to the cemetery, 

she may as we stay there

among the dead,

after all,

everyone else whom

she has loved

and who have loved her

are there.

Yes, she comes out

to bury her son

with many people of the city,

many people mourning 

with her,

standing with her,

and showing compassion 

for her. 

But,

they will have to go back

to their own lives

and loves,

and leave this widow.

whose heart is buried

in the cemetery, 

silent and forgotten. 

[PAUSE]

As we watch this poor woman 

and the people of the city

walk solemnly 

to the place of the Dead,

we see another crowd coming,

bustling with wonder

and curiosity

about a man

who nor only preaches

wonderful things

but can heal people

even from a distance.

Their conversation 

is nor about death

but a new lease of life

that has been given to them

by this new rabbi.

Life meets death.

Our Lord shows 

that he does not just heal

but he raises the dead

and makes it look easy.

In a moment 

the funeral ceases to exist.

The journey to the cemetery 

is abandoned. 

And the cemetery itself

forgotten once more.

The place for the Dead 

does not receive 

another set of visitors.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord shows us

that cemeteries

are places to be forgotten. 

Let's not get confused.

In Christ,

the cemetery is forgotten 

because

they are empty

when the dead are raised to life.

Cemeteries

are just temporary arrangements

because we look for

the Resurrection of the Dead.

And all will be raised.

No-one will be forgotten. 

For God knows us all.

He remembers

even those whose graves

are unmarked

snd forgotten. 

And He will raise them

because He loves them

just as He will raise us

because He loves us.

God is not a God of the dead

because the dead

cannot respond to Him.

A dead body loves God

about as much

as a stone does.

God is God of ths living

so that the living

respond to Hiim

Love requires a response.

And so God makes sure

that all who have lived

will still be able

to respond to the love He shows them.

And if that means raising the Dead,

well, that's not a problem.

[PAUSE]

Our destiny

is not the cemetery 

or crematorium. 

God makes sure of that

and as a sign of that destiny, 

He gives the Christian funeral,

where the crowds of disciples

meet the crowds of mourners

in compassion for the loss 

but also as bearers 

of the witness that Death is not the end.

O Death, where is thy sting?

O Grave, where is thy victory?

In Christ,

the vistory of the Grave

is to be forgotten. 

There won't be anyone left

In there to remember.

Angels in the Darkness

 

Why, on Michaelmas Day, we need to be reaching out to the saints and angels for defence against the darkness.

Anxiety anxieties

Sermon for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity 

We human beings

are time-bound.

We are born,

we live and we die

and our lives are divided 

into past, present and future.

At every instant

we are aware of 

our circumstances now,

our histories then,

and our expectations to come.

Each comes with 

its own dreads.

We call the dread

of things happening around us

fear.

We call the dread 

of rembering the past

regret.

We call the dread

of things to come,

anxiety.

Each of these

stunts our lives

because dread

allows something 

to take control over us

and how we live.

Our Lord says very clearly

that we have a choice between 

two masters:

God and Mammon.

The one gives us life

and the freedom to live it.

The other controls our life

and takes living away from us.

It isn't that we serve Mammon

willingly,

though some do.

But rather that we allow 

material things 

to control us.

Dread is itself 

a sign that we trust more

in material things

than we do God.

[PAUSE]

Of the three dreads

anxiety is the worst

because it is so slippery.

Because we can't see the future 

we imagine what the future 

will be like

and our imagination 

can take many forms.

If our imagination

can take many forms 

then so can our anxiety.

This is why the Ghost 

of Christmas yet to come

is the most terrifying 

of the three spirits 

that visit Ebenezer Scrooge.

For Scrooge,

the terror of what might happen 

completes his redemption 

and helps him realise

that if he lives in love 

then love will live with him

in him and through him.

The genius of the Ghost 

of Christmas yet to come,

isn't that he instills anxiety

with some vague threat

but that he gives Scrooge

something clear to focus on

and avoid 

by changing his life.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord shows us the same thing.

He shows us lives

blighted by crippling anxiety

about what could happen 

in the future:

homelessness,

pain,

starvation,

loneliness,

misery,

pointlessness,

hatred,

exhaustion.

All these nebulous fears

about what could happen 

take control 

and stop us from living.

That's not what God wants.

[PAUSE]

Jesus is so clear.

Only God knows the future.

But God values you, yes you,

so much 

that He is willing to die

for your salvation,

eternal happiness

in a good eternal home,

eternally free from pain,

surrounded by those who

truly love you,

eternally refreshed,

eternally nourished and enriched,

and eternally fulfilled.

Even in this life

God knows what we need.

He even knows our anxieties 

and their cause

and their effect

and He wants you

to give Him control,

not to enslave you

but to fulfill you.

He isn't going to guarantee 

a future without hardship 

but He does guarantee 

that whatever hardship we face

will not define us,

will not control us,

will not last forever.

But we have to trust Him 

on that 

because our little lifespan

cannot cope 

with the presence of Eternity 

just as a balloon 

cannot cope with being

filled with the entirety of the sea.

[PAUSE]

The Cross is the proof 

of Jesus' words that 

we are each one

not only lovable 

but actually loved.

We cannot let our expectations 

of the future rule us,

nor can we allow the fear

of disappointment 

cause us to turn way from God.

Through prayer,

and living the Christian life,

we come to learn

to recognise the voice of God

so that,

when things get too dark for us to see

we can hear Him call

and guide us through

into His marvellous light.

The future might be a frightening place,

with anxieties and dreads,

but Eternity with God

is longer lasting

and more certain,

and this wonderful state

promised for us,

causes Dread to dread

and gives Anxiety anxieties.

Why do Anglican Catholics get so hung up on Liturgy?

 

The Liturgy is just a means to an end, isn't it?

The hunger of an apostle

Sermon for the Feast of St Matthew

When and where

do we first meet 

St Matthew?

We might think

that we see him first,

sitting at his table of custom.

But, in a strange sort of way

we first meet St Matthew 

at Christmas 

when we begin his Gospel.

"But all the Gospels

are anonymous!"

Well, that's what 

those who somehow

want to depersonalise 

the Gospels say.

They say that

to undermine 

the reliability of their message.

They want to make them

anonymous 

so to take away 

their authenticity

and their authority

in our Church.

The problem is

that St Matthew's gospel

is credited with being

St Matthew's Gospel

from the earliest times.

And St Matthew

is the first voice we hear

of the New Testament 

sounding out

the news of the Incarnation,

connecting Our Lord

with Abraham and David.

We don't see St Matthew first,

we hear him.

St Matthew's first words to us

are of Our Lord's place

in History,

in a family

and in a royal dynasty.

That's where we first meet him.

Only later

does he tell his backstory.

[PAUSE]

We first see St Matthew 

sitting at the seat of custom

as a tax-collector. 

Even if he were an honest tax-collector 

and not extorting extra money 

from his own people,

he is still a collaborator

betraying his people,

his family,

his heritage in the Jewish race

by working with 

the oppressors, 

the enslavers of Israel,

the new Egyptians,

the Romans. 

That's why many tax-collectors

charge more

and cream off the profits

just to make the job worthwhile 

in the face of such hatred.

Is it worth it?

[PAUSE]

Well, clearly not.

Just like the fishermen,

all Jesus has to say is

"follow Me!" 

and St Matthew is up

and after Him

seemingly immediately.

Like the fishermen,

St Peter, St James, St John,

St Matthew sees something in Jesus

that he hungers for,

something that will 

take him away from

this wretched job

that he was enticed to do

and which has brought

such hatred upon him.

He follows and,

with other tax-collectors and sinners,

he sits down to eat

with the One

Who preaches love 

and not hate,

Who seeks to reconcile 

and not ostracise,

Who seeks to feed and nourish

rather than throw money

and hope that will 

solve all the problems. 

[PAUSE]

St Matthew's discontent

with his life is clear 

and he embraces life with Christ 

and death for Christ

rather than betray 

his own humanity 

and his own heritage

by continuing in sin.

In choosing to become 

a tax-collector, 

St Matthew loses

his place in society,

his heritage,

his history and 

the connection with God

upon which 

the Old Covenant was built.

In seeing Christ

he realises how hungry he is

how empty,

how separated,

how lonely he is.

And then,

eating a meal with Jesus,

he finds himself

becoming whole again

part of a new society

part of a new heritage

part of a new history

- new but old.

For nothing is really changed

it is renewed,

restored,

mended,

healed.

It is the sick that need the physician

for there is nothing to heal

in the healthy.

St Matthew's Jewish heritage

is completed in

the Jewish heritage of Jesus

and extended

into the heritage 

of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

- the Church in which

he becomes an apostle 

- the Church which is built 

upon his Gospel

and testimony of his redemption 

and salvation

in the Divine Humanity of Christ.

[PAUSE]

St Matthew hungers

and thirsts for righteousness 

rather than accept

a life of discontent

and contempt.

And he urges us

not to live lives

of dreary, hopeless nothingness 

but receive the fulness

of our belonging to Christ

and our salvation 

in which we are growing

day by day.

Whatever we hunger for

in this life

we might never receive. 

If we hunger for the true Christ

to whom St Matthew points,

then we shall receive Him

in abundance eternally.

Anglican Catholic, quiet and proud?

 

Why soap box evangelism is not the Anglican Catholic way.