Identity and Anglican Catholicism (Part 4)

 

What is and what is not part of our Eternal Identity?

Death and the Heart of Hosanna

Sermon for the first Sunday in Advent

We stand gazing upon the Man

riding into Jerusalem

and we hear the crowd shout

in jubilation,

"Hosanna"

Hosanna?

What does it mean?

[PAUSE]

The people of Jerusalem

shout, "Hosanna"

in their native tongue

meaning, "please save us!"

They recognise that 

the Man on the donkey

is the Messiah 

who has come to save 

Jerusalem from oppression.

At the very heart of the word 

Hosanna in Hebrew and Aramaic

is "yesha'"

and you see that word

in the Hebrew name Yeshua,

which we know as Joshua

and its Greek form is

Jesus.

In calling "Hosanna" the crowd

are calling the Name of the Lord.

They recognise 

that Jesus is the Saviour.

But saviour from what?

[PAUSE]

During Advent,

we think upon 

The Four Last Things:

Death

Judgement

Hell and Heaven.

The first of these is Death.

In Advent,

we remember that 

Our Lord comes

to save us from Death.

Death is the end of Life.

In Death we lose the power

to move ourselves,

to feel or express our thoughts.

In Death, we are slaves 

to our inability to control 

any aspect of the world around us.

In Death, we are utterly helpless.

Death enters the world

with the sins of Adam and Eve.

Because of Death, 

we sin,

and because of sin,

we die.

Sin separates us 

from awareness of God.

Death separates us

from the ability

to become aware of God.

Our Salvation

requires God Himself.

[PAUSE]

God is Life.

So He gives us Life

through His Son.

His Incarnation 

is the means for us

to live Eternally,

to be able to move and have our being

in God.

[PAUSE]

Of course,

the Incarnation begins

at the Holy Conception of Our Lord,

the moment Our Lady

said "yes" to God

at the Annunciation.

Once we know that

He's on His way,

we can prepare ourselves to live

we can prepare ourselves

by recognising that 

our ability to affect the world around us

is best lived in Christ.

[PAUSE]

We shout, "Hosanna!" 

with the crowds

because we can be sure that

at the Heart of that Hosanna

is Life itself.

Identity and Anglican Catholicism (Part 3)

 

Using Our Lady and St Cecilia to link identity with sacrifice and worship.

Branches in the East

Sermon for the Sunday next before Advent

So what happened?

It's fair to say that 

the history of the Middle East

has been far from peaceful.

Even while Our Lord 

walks in Galilee,

the land is oppressed.

After He ascends,

the temple is destroyed

and the Jewish people

are scattered.

The state of Israel

has only had some

stability since the late 1940s

and even then

it has been rocked time and again

by violence, hatred and bloodshed.

But if Israel has been turbulent

even in Our Lord's day,

how can Jeremiah say

that Israel will dwell safely

in the days of the great King?

[PAUSE]

The prophecy is clear:

"Behold, the days come, 

saith the Lord, 

that I will raise unto David 

a righteous Branch, 

and a King shall reign and prosper, 

and shall execute 

judgment and justice in the earth."

If the King is Jesus

then the prophecy has gone wrong,

hasn't it?

And what of this branch?

Ah! The branch may hold the key.

[PAUSE]

What is this branch? 

Branch of what?

As we approach Advent,

we think of the Root of Jesse

and the Line of David,

and we see Jesus born

as a member of 

the ancient royal family.

We think of Jesus' words

"I am the vine 

and ye are the branches."

And we see an image

of something growing.

But there is something else.

The Greek for "branch"

also means "a shoot"

and "sunrise"

the dawning of a new day.

So the branch here,

is budding 

it's just come forth from the stem.

And this is what Jeremiah sees.

When Jesus walks in Galilee,

He is the Branch budding.

Indeed, for all the time we know Him

from His birth to His death 

to His resurrection,

He is just budding.

His day is only dawning.

And it is still dawning.

[PAUSE]

The Day of the Lord

is still coming,

though it is

for the faithful now.

The dark and troubled world

full of hatred and work

won't see this yet,

but we do.

Christians see

the Day of the Lord

when they come to Mass.

[PAUSE]

Christians all over the world

gather together

to meet Our Lord in the Sacrament.

We meet in our here and now

but are gathered to 

the Lord's table in His here and now.

In the Mass, we find peace,

we find stability and joy,

for in the Mass,

the Heavenly Kingdom 

touches our world

and we see beyond 

into the Day of the Lord.

[PAUSE]

We should not expect

to understand Jeremiah's words

with our concept of Time.

The Creation of the World 

took six days

and on the seventh day

God rests from His labours.

But the world is still being created.

New plants, 

new animals,

new stars and planets.

New people are being born

every day.

We have not yet reached the Seventh Day,

but it has begun to dawn,

the branch has begun to grow,

and the promises of God

are met.

Next Sunday begins the new year

as we wait for the coming

of Our Lord.

Let us be patient!

Identity and Anglican Catholicism (Part 2)

 

Why are we so concerned about our identity?

Love in head and heart

Sermon for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity

What's the Bible for?

How do you approach it?

Clearly Holy Scripture

tells us about God

and our relationship with Him.

It teaches us

and we learn much

about the Truth of God,

but is that all it tells us?

[PAUSE]

We trust St Paul 

as one of the foremost teachers

of the Christian Faith.

We hear his telling us

about the truth of God

and helping us to know

what to think.

Did you notice that

he also tells us how to feel?

[PAUSE]

It's very easy for us 

to get the relationship

between our thinking

and our feelings

completely wrong.

We focus on one 

at the expense of the other

and you can see this in the Church.

If we forget about people's feelings

then the Doctrine of the Church

becomes a stick to beat people with,

control them,

make sure they think the right thoughts,

and judge them if they don't.

If we forget about sound thinking,

then we let our emotions rule,

forget that the truth 

is outside of us

and say that we can believe what we want

as long as it feels right.

The Church has been damaged

by both extremes.

So what's right?

Thinking or feeling?

Answer: both and neither.

[PAUSE]

The answer has to be Love.

Love stands at the centre

of our thinking and feeling.

Love is not an emotion.

Love is not a theory.

God is Love.

He is what it means to love.

He is perfect

and He wants us to be perfect

in the way that He intends us

to be perfect.

And this is what love is:

to love someone

means to desire their perfection,

every good thing possible

for them.

And God is their perfection.

You cannot love anyone properly

without God.

That's why in the world without God,

we simply do not love anyone

as properly

or as fully

as we should.

[PAUSE]

Listen how St Paul

begins speaking

to the Philippians.

Hear him rejoice

hear him thank and praise Almighty God

for bringing the Philippians

to the Faith

and beginning in them a good work.

He is over the moon for them

and his love for them

pours out in every word

of his letter.

It truly is a love letter.

But St Paul's love for his spiritual children

pours out of every word of every letter,

even the most difficult letters

to understand.

This love is not an emotion

nor is it a theoretical construct

nor is it some far-off ideal 

that we could never really hope to reach.

Love is something that St Paul does

in his heart and in his mind

in his inward life 

and in his outward dealings

with others.

Gone are the days 

when his love for God

saw him persecute the Church.

In seeing the light

St Paul understands

that Jesus stands with His Church

always, in all places at all times.

And in seeing Love in action

St Paul is able 

to show love for others

not by accepting them for who they are

but urging them to see themselves

in Christ standing with them,

seeing their need for perfection

not as an offence against who they are

as fallen, weak and erring individuals

but as a goal, a challenge, a hope

for transformation into their

true selves.

[PAUSE]

And St Paul loves us.

The truth of Our Lord's Resurrection

tells us (at least) three things.

St Paul still lives.

St Paul still loves.

And that it is our destiny to live and love even as we live and are loved now.

Identity and Anglican Catholicism (Part 1?)

 

What do we mean by our identity? How does it figure in our Christian conversation?

Believing is seeing

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of All Saints

Why do you believe what you do?

Is it because you 

have been told that it's true,

or have you seen that it's true?

The heart of our faith

is the Resurrection of 

Our Lord Jesus Christ.

If that didn't happen,

then there is no point

in being Christian.

But how do we know it happened?

[PAUSE]

If we want to know

what happened last week,

we look at the news,

read newspapers

or look at the internet.

If we want to know 

what happened a long time ago,

then we read history books

or we learn to read the original sources.

Which is more reliable though?

The News or the History Book?

Many will say the news 

is more reliable

because people have

direct experience

of what is currently happening.

But we can't experience

the past,

can we?

[PAUSE]

Did the First World War happen?

We can be confident that it did,

because we are still affected by it.

We have families that 

are shaped

when a great-grandfather

comes back from the trenches

with only one eye and one arm

or a village

loses all its young men

and village businesses

change hands

or disappear.

We don't need to smell the smoke

or hear the gunfire

or see the dying

to know that it happened

and was dreadful.

We don't need signs and wonders.

[PAUSE]

Did the Reformation happen?

We can be confident that it did

because we are still affected by it.

There is a reason why 

there are different groups of Christians

who don't see eye-to-eye.

We don't need 

to sit next to Pope Leo X

or Martin Luther

and watch them write

and condemn each other.

We don't need to be present

in the battles

and arguments

and murders

to know that the Reformation is real.

We don't need signs and wonders

to know that it happened.

[PAUSE]

What about the Resurrection?

We Christians can be confident

that it did happen

because we are still affected by it.

The Church exists

because something happened,

and the evidence is found

in the Bible.

Indeed that's why the Bible exists

because the Church

gathered the testament

to the truth.

But it isn't just history.

It's more than that.

Look around you.

Look at the church

the people sitting by you

all seeking and finding

the risen Christ.

They are here because

something happened

and still happens.

We don't believe because

we have seen signs and wonders,

but because we can see

in the faces of Christians around 

we can hear in the words of the Bible

we can smell in the incense

we can taste and touch the sacraments.

The Resurrection

is an extraordinary event

but it doesn't require

extraordinary evidence,

just the evidence

of faithful eye-witnesses

who have no reason

to lie.

Einstein is wrong sometimes!

We don't need signs and wonders.

We need to trust those around us.

[PAUSE]

There is something extraordinary

about the evidence, though.

The people who bear witness

are still with us.

Christ is the Resurrection

and the Life.

If we come to Him

even if we die

we shall live forever.

The saints come to Jesus

and, though they die,

they live forever.

Indeed, they see Christ

so they are like Him

because they see him 

as He really is.

If Christ is still with us,

if Christ still hears us,

if Christ still responds to us

then so do the saints

and so they still bear witness to Christ

for us.

They still interact with us

we have Communion with them.

They still hear us ask for their prayers;

they still bless us

and pass on God's grace

through the good deeds 

that they have done 

and still do.

[PAUSE]

There are those 

who deny that this is possible.

They demand Bible verses

to support this

but they fail to see that

Holy Scripture

is a testament by the Church

for the Church

and is filled with the presence

of the saints who write 

the words of God to us.

The words of the saints live

because they share the Living Word,

and, sharing the Living Word,

the saints themselves still live.

The lives of the saints

their commitment,

their striving,

their pain, sorrow, agony and dying

make the words on the pages of the Bible

live in their lives

with the life of Christ.

[PAUSE]

There are times 

when we can be very sceptical

about our faith

especially when things seem heavy.

But we need to trust God

and those whom He sends to us

to tell us the truth.

The saints are there

to do just that for us.

They are the cloud 

of witnesses

who tell the stories

that join us to what happened

and keep it alive in us

so that we, too, can live out

the true story

in our lives

and become the saints 

we are meant to be

in Christ Himself.