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Saturday, September 30, 2023

One Unity?

Sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.

How can there be
so many Christian groups
claiming to worship
the same God
and yet disagree about
issues of Faith?

It doesn't seem that
there is One Faith at all.

Divisions among Christians
make us look foolish
at one extreme
and murderously insane 
at the other.

The killing of Christians
by Christians 
is not just tragic
but it is perverse
and demonstrates 
a deficiency in our faith.

How can Christianity
be a true religion
given that it's members
don't love one another?

[PAUSE]

It is clear
that there is something
called Christianity.

There is,
at the very heart of it,
one Lord Jesus Christ.

To be a true Christian,
it is necessary
to believe that
there is a person called Jesus.

But that's not enough.

We have to believe
that this person called Jesus
is Divine and Human.

Human
because we know He is born.

Divine
because He claims
explicitly in the Bible
to be the Son of God
and then goes on 
to prove it
by rising from the dead
and ascending into heaven.

For us to be truly rational
about what we believe
we have to believe
that these are not just stories,
but that Our Lord's Incarnation 
is a historical fact.

And we have to believe Him
and His reasons for His Incarnation.

That He lives, dies and rises,
for our salvation
and reconciliation
with His Father.

But all this is contained
in the Nicene Creed!

A Christian
believes the Faith
as stated in the Creeds 
of the Church
even if they don't
explicitly use the Creeds
or use the language
of the Creeds.

This is one Faith.

[PAUSE]

Further,
a person must actively
become Christian, 
not by shouting "I'm a Christian!"
in the canteen,
not by making a Facebook post
or sending a tweet.

But by receiving the sacrament
of Baptism,
as a sign of Christianity
a sign which is recognised
throughout the whole world.

One Baptism.

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.

So why so many 
different Christianities?

[PAUSE]

All Christians 
believe in sin.

They recognise
their own fallibility
and shortcomings.

Lord, Faith and Baptism 
all point to the existence of sin
in each one of our lives.

We know sin exists
because Jesus comes to save us.

If there were no sin,
we would not need salvation.

The Divisions in the Church
are an exhibition to the world
that even the most devout life
is affected by sin
externally and,
with the exception of some,
internally.

It is the witness of the Church
that divisions will be healed in Christ,
for all Christians hold Him
as the One who saves.

While there is much
that Christians disagree on,
if we truly hold on
to One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism
then those disagreements 
must be resolved.

It means, then,
the we must be prepared
to stand with the Christians
who disagree with us most
and recognise them
as being Christians
even if we struggle to see 
how they are Christian.

We don't have to accept
the doctrine of their church
but we do have to recognise
that they are trying,
even as we are,
to hold to 
One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.

We do, however,
have to hold to that One Lord,
our really historical,
really human,
really divine Jesus.

We do have to 
keep that faith
by keeping his teachings
and to love
even as He loves.

We do have to 
be true to our Baptism
through loyalty to the Church
into which we are baptised
and to her head which is Christ,
by allowing the Spirit of God
to grow in us 
through prayer, work and study.

We believe in 
One Lord
One Faith
One Baptism
so that we, too,
may be one in Him.



Monday, September 25, 2023

Anglican Catholic Authority

 



How does the Anglican Catholic Church understand the authority of the Church?

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Resurrection now?

Sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

The son of the Window of Nain
is raised from the dead.

Why not her husband?

Why couldn't this poor widow
have her whole family back again?

Why does Our Lord
trivialise the death of 
Jairus' daughter by saying that
she's only asleep?

Why does Our Lord wait
until Lazarus has been dead
for four days
until raising him from the dead?

It seems that Our Lord has
a very cavalier attitude
to the death of people
around Him,
even those whom 
He counts as His friends.

Come to think of it?

Why doesn't He raise everyone
from the Dead?

[PAUSE]

Every day, 
we hear reports of
truly tragic deaths.

A bride dies in an accident
the day after her wedding.

A young father 
Is killed the day before 
his daughter is born.

A baby is killed
by a pet dog.

We shudder at this
and it hurts
and we demand some
rectification of the situation,
some justice,
some resurrection.

But Jesus doesn't raise them
from the dead.

[PAUSE]

First, we need to understand
why it matters.

We weren't at the wedding.
We didn't know the young father.
The baby wasn't ours.

So why does it matter?

[PAUSE]

It matters because
we have compassion.

We can walk with those who mourn.

We have an idea of what should 
take place.

We care because we're human beings
and human beings
can't bear to see the innocent 
suffer
and die.

The fact that we recoil
from tragic deaths
is a sign of 
the love of neighbour
that God Himself
implanted in us
at our beginning.

It is precisely because
human beings are meant to be loved
that their death hurts us emotionally,
to the extent that some of us
never recover.

If Our Lord were to 
simply raise everyone from the dead
then we would never 
appreciate 
the sheer magnitude of
loss of a single life.

If Our Lord were to raise 
everyone from the dead,
then would it not trivialise
our humanity?

[PAUSE]

Yet, the Widow's son
and the widow,
Jairus' daughter and Jairus,
Lazarus and Mary and Martha
still die.

But that is not the point.

For Our Lord promises
that we shall be raised
from the Dead 
in a resurrection that 
is unlike what He is doing.

For, when He raises
the Widow's son,
Our Lord has not yet died, Himself.

The Cross is yet to come
and the bursting of
the gates of Hades
has not yet happened.

Only then we see Our Lord
as the Resurrection and the Life.

And, when we pass through death
we receive His life
for ourselves.

Our Lord shows that
Death is not a state of being
but an event -
an event in which 
we cease to be part of 
this world of shadows and pain
but part of the world
of justice,
righteousness,
peace,
truth,
light,
dignity
and love.

That is where 
the bride, 
the father
and the baby are,
beyond the reach of
Evil, Sin and Death.

While it hurts to miss them,
while we struggle with 
the way they die,
while we still grieve at their loss,
our pain, sorrow, tears and fury
convince us that we love
and that they are loved.

Our Lord says, 
"In your patience
possess ye
your souls."

In suffering death
we know what it is to live.

If we choose 
to suffer rather
than allow
the delights of the world
to numb us to 
the pains of love
then we take
possession of ourselves
as the person
God created us to be.

We don't need a resurrection now
for that would rob us
of opportunities to be truly human.

It is only when we are truly human
that we stand a chance
of sharing in Christ's divinity.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Anglican Catholic Evolution

 


How things in the Church change and develop.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

72pt Arial Cross

Sermon for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Do you like
to stand out from the crowd?

Or would you prefer
just to fit in
and do just whatever
everyone else is doing?

For the most part,
there are times that
we want to stand out
and times when
we just want to fit in.

That’s natural.

How do we decide?

[PAUSE]

Our decisions are based
on what would give us
the most comfortable life.

We want to stand out
when we’ve done something
that others find amazing,
brilliant, funny
or heart-warming.

We want to fit in
when standing out
would make us look silly,
or make people look at us
with judgement
or even hate us.

We have to weigh up
the consequences
before we make that decision.

[PAUSE]

St Paul says
 it’s an important decision.

You can tell that
because he has taken the pen
from his scribe
and written part of
his letter to the Galatians
himself
in very big letters.

Think 72pt Arial.

His concern is that
the Galatians are allowing
themselves to be coerced
into following
the old Jewish Law
by Jews who are pretending
to be Christian.

The pressure on the Galatian Christians
to fit in,
seek a quiet life,
not stand out,
by receiving circumcision
kosher food laws
the old system of sacrifices
and the control of the Pharisees.

They don’t want to make a fuss,
so they roll over and accept
the rituals of the Old Law.

St Paul says “no!” very clearly
and doesn’t mince his words.

The Galatians are not
to follow the Jewish Law
for show,
or for the quiet life.

The Old Law was given
not only to allow the Israelites
to live in harmony with
God and each other,
but also to distinguish them
from the corrupt and disgusting practices
of the nations around them.

These Judaizers seek
to make Galatian Christians Jewish,
in order to glory in their control.

St Paul says that to follow his teaching
Christians must glory only in the Cross,
and allow the Cross
to distinguish them from
the corrupt world around them.

The trouble is
that, to the world,
the Cross
is a symbol of
pain, torture, humiliation
and death.

To the Christian,
the Cross
is peace, truth, glory
and life
- exactly the opposite
as to what the world thinks.

We choose the Cross
to fit in with Christ,
not the world
and that means the prospect
of much suffering and persecution
at the hands of those who would have us
see the Cross as a negative influence
because they want to glory
in their power over us.

[PAUSE]

The Gentiles become Christian
only with the requirements
that they abstain from
foods sacrificed to idols,
and from sexual immorality.

That’s still the case.

Christians must not be idolaters,
i.e. worship the created instead of the Creator.

And Christians must be sexually moral,
i.e. to see their bodies and the bodies of others
as outward expressions
of beloved children of God,
not as playthings to do with as they please.

This is our duty too,
and look how the World around us
wants us to forget them.

Every day, Christians are being tempted
and pressured to give in
to worship a false god or no-god.

Every day, Christians are being tempted
and pressured to indulge in
and sanction  sexual practices
which reduce human beings
to toys made out of meat and bone.

This is why St Paul writes
in 72pt Arial,
because what he says is important.

We must not be bewitched
by the world around us
but cling to the Cross of Christ
which is hard
and covered in sharp splinters.

[PAUSE]

The glory of the world
will pass away.

The false gods will rot
and fall apart.

Human bodies will age
and fall away to their dust.

But, shining through the Cross,
is our salvation
away from corruption and death.

Clinging the cross
will see us crucified with Christ,
and we shall certainly
stand out from the crowd
upon the crosses we bear.

But accepting that cross,
even venerating that cross,
will bring us through
into the glory of that cross
and into the life of Christ
in Whom is no corruption and decay,
no coercion and humiliation
but the purest, purest love.

 

Monday, September 11, 2023

Wanting to go downstairs

 



What does it say about Christians if people want to go to Hell

Saturday, September 09, 2023

Pulling ourselves together

Sermon for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Have you ever heard a little child
who has been naughty say,
“it wasn't me!
My brain made me do it!”

We have a very strange relationship
with ourselves.

We talk of
“my body,”
“my brain,”
“my soul.”

But where is the “me”
which has body, brain and soul?

[PAUSE]

Sometimes we forget that
we are not just a body.

Sometimes we forget that
we're not just a soul.

If we did not have a body,
or if we did not have so,
we would not be a human being.

Human beings are made of
body and soul together.

Take one away and
we cease to be human.

This is the way that God has made us.

He has made us body and soul
to reflect His being.

We are made in His image
and this means that
we are meant to glow so brightly
with the presence of God
shining in our lives.

We are living beings
- we are rational animals.

God has created us
to enjoy His creation
and to understand His creation.

He has even created us
to seek after Him,
know Him
and love Him.

So how does one who hates God
try to undo His handiwork?

[PAUSE]

The best way
to undo God's handiwork in us
is to tear us to pieces.

The Devil's idea is simply
to make us
unaware of our bodies
or unaware of our souls.

The Devil wants us either
to think that we have no soul
or that our bodies don't matter.

And this is why he uses
the lusts of the flesh against us.

All of the works of the flesh
that Saint Paul tells us and the Galatians
make it seem either
that we are just bodies that need
“to eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,”
or that our bodies are the playthings of our soul.

This is not what
the Holy Spirit desires.

For the Holy Spirit desires
that we should be truly human,
that we should be body and soul together,
fit for Eternal life in love with God.

This is the war between
the flesh and the Holy Spirit.

We, each one of us,
is a battleground between
the Devil and the Holy Spirit
as we try to live our existence
as God's creature
in the face of powers
that want to tear us from God.

Our bodies are not evil
– they are good.

But if we think our bodies are evil
then what are we saying
to the face of Almighty God
Who declares publicly that
they are good?

If our bodies are just playthings
to be used and abused
for gratifying whatever desires we have,
then where is the dignity that Almighty God
has given our bodies in union with our souls?

[PAUSE]

The way that God wants us
to live our lives
is to recognise that
we are body and soul together
and that we need to keep them together.

This means that the body
needs to be disciplined
so that its desires don't take us away
from the Holy Ghost.

This means that the soul
needs to learn humility
in recognising the need
to look after the body,
to accept and even love its limitations,
and to recognise the needs of other people.

To love means to desire the perfection of others.

This means we need
to desire the unity of body and soul
of other people.

Only in being body and soul united
can we be perfect in
the eyes of Almighty God.

If we look at the fruit of the spirit:
love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness
and temperance,
we see that these are meant
to unite body and soul.

They keep us together,
not just as individuals,
but as a community of individuals.

They stop us from treating ourselves
with contempt
and show us the dignity of being
a human being.

God has created
each and every human being
with a dignity that
cannot be taken away.

The trouble is that
we can be deluded into
thinking that it can.

In living the Christian life,
we grow in love and
therefore in perfection.

In rejecting activities
that try to deny the body,
or deny the soul,
or to treat the body as a plaything,
we find ourselves closer
to the person God created us to be.

We are still being created,
and we have been given by God
the dignity of taking part
in our own creation.

[PAUSE]

Our lives may well be
the battleground between good and evil.

What we mustn't forget
is that the war has already been won.

We have been given
the opportunity to take part
in that victory.

All the more reason
to love the selves
as God has created us to be
and to love our neighbours likewise.

Monday, September 04, 2023

Back to school


Why indoctrination is not education.

Saturday, September 02, 2023

Humans being

Sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

Why are we so pleased 
with the Samaritan?

Why are we not so pleased 
with the priest and Levite?

We know that
the Samaritan acts
as a neighbour
to the man
more than either 
the priest and Levite
but is our condensation
of those two who didn't help
justified?

[PAUSE]

Notice that Our Lord
does not condemn
anyone.

He simply states that
it is the Samaritan
who is doing the work
of Eternal life.

It is the Samaritan
who is the example
of loving the neighbour.

It is the Samaritan
who realises that
he is a neighbour to the man.

It doesn't matter to him
whether this victim of highway robbery
is Jew, Gentile or Samaritan.

At this very moment,
one man is naked and bleeding
and the other is there,
right next to him.

At this moment,
the Samaritan ceases
to be a Samaritan
and becomes
a willing helper.

[PAUSE]

Maybe
the Priest could not cease 
to be a priest at that moment.

But the man does not need 
a sacrifice offered for him
at this moment.

Maybe 
the Levite could not cease
to be a Levite at that moment.

But if the man does not 
need a priest,
then he certainly does not need
a priest's assistant
to help him offer the sacrifice.

The man needs a neighbour.

The Samaritan is willing
to lay aside his identity
as a Samaritan to help this man.

The Samaritan is willing
to lay aside
all the cultural assumptions,
all the bad blood with the Jews,
all the expectations
of insult and injury
in order to see another human being
in need.

[PAUSE]

If the priest stops
trying to be a priest,
if the Levite stops
trying to be a Levite,
and concentrate
on being a neighbour
- concentrate on the fact
that they are right next to -
a man needing help
then they would be
better examples of 
people who love their neighbour
and
people who love God.

[PAUSE]

Often,
we try to narrow what we can do
by clinging to the person
we believe ourselves to be.

The opportunity
that God gives us 
to be a good neighbour
is an opportunity to see ourselves
as the people He wants us to be.

Any Christian bishop
knows that he is still a priest,
and any priest
knows that he is still a deacon,
and any deacon
knows that he is still a layman
with all the duties that being 
a Christian entails.

No Christian clergyman
is exempt 
from being a good neighbour.

But then
neither are you!