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Sunday, December 31, 2023

Parenthood, Childhood, Servanthood

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of the Nativity

St Paul seems to suggest
that we are parenting all wrong.

Children should be 
just like servants!

Excellent!

Set your toddler to work
grouting the bathroom.

You! Five year old!
Do the taxes!

Newborns should
be cleaning behind 
the sink unit
with their tiny, tiny hands.

Or perhaps that's not
what St Paul means.

[PAUSE]

St Paul's point is
that children
are not in a position
to be given authority
over their own lives
for the simple reason
that they are unaware
of the perils and difficulties
of being grown up.

To be fair,
many grownups
are unaware
of the perils and difficulties
of being grown up.

We have to learn to function
and live good lives
with other people.

We can't take what we want,
and we need to know why.

A toddler is not capable
of understanding this fully,
which is why 
the chocolate aisle at Morrisons
is littered with screaming children.

We can't do what we want.

We can't snatch something
from someone else.

We can't hit those
who upset us.

Children need to learn.

This means 
that they cannot take
control of their lives.

Just like servants.

[PAUSE]

The servant's job
is to do as told
in order for the house
to function.

A servant may not 
be in a position
to understand what 
their employer is trying to do
but must trust that
fulfilling the given orders well
will result in 
the best outcome for everyone.

Of course,
this depends on
the trustworthiness
of employers.

But a child's life
depends on 
the trustworthiness 
of the parents.

[PAUSE]

In being born,
Our Lord puts Himself
at the mercy 
of Mary and Joseph.

It is at Mary's knee
that Jesus will learn
about God and
the Covenant God has made
with the people of Israel.

She will teach Him
why the rituals are performed,
why some foods 
are not to be eaten,
and what the commandments are.

But Jesus is God.

He knows all these things,
doesn't He?

[PAUSE]

Our Lord chose to be born.

He chose to be a child
in full knowledge
that the lives of children
are subject to the will
of their parents.

So He allows Himself 
to be taught,
but, in Mary,
He has the best teacher.

His Divine nature 
prevents Him from error
but He grows in wisdom
and stature under
the loving kindness
of His Holy Family.

He is our example 
of humility
by being obedient
to our Human nature
as part of His Divine nature.

The King of Kings is
obedient to us as a servant
so that we might be
obedient to Him
as children
so that,
one day,
we might be fully grown 
into His Divinity
and live as true adults 
in Heaven.

To be childlike
is to accept humility
and limitation
so that we might
live like stars for Eternity.

[PAUSE]

As good parents
we discipline our children
so that they learn
to live well
and grow in virtue and wisdom.

They may not like it at times,
but then do we always enjoy
being obedient to God?

Friday, December 29, 2023

Blogday 2023: Disillusionment and Reconfiguration

This blogling is eighteen years old. In the UK, this would make it a legal adult which is quite remarkable for something that essentially began by accident. Here we are, nonetheless, and the changes that have happened, even in this little space of time are not insignificant.

One thing that would be a surprise to the me of 2005 is that I chose to have nothing to do with the Coronation of King Charles III. Back then I was an ardent monarchist; now I would be hard pressed to say that I had any positive feelings to the monarchy. 

This may be a great disappointment to my monarchist friends. In many ways, it is a disappointment to me - I want to be a monarchist, but I have become disillusioned with the British Establishment.

Disillusionment ought to be a very positive thing, really. Illusions deceive because they mask what is true in order to present and sustain a false reality. 

To me, the Coronation was a beautiful illusion which I could not get behind. It gave the illusion that things were in keeping with our history, our traditions and our faith. It gave the illusion that things are okay in British society. It gave the illusion of the respectability and authority of Parliament. It gave the illusion of the respectability and authority of the Church of England in matters of faith and morals.

But things aren't like that.

Parliament has been shown to be run by people who are using it to serve their own interests. The COVID enquiry is demonstrating very clearly that MPs have routinely breached the COVID regulations in order to live a comfortable lifestyle while others who kept the regulations were prevented from being by the side of dying relatives.

The Church of England has shown that it cannot truly make a clear decision because the bishops are disengaged from both the Christian Faith and the people they serve in order to toe a party line in order to meet an agenda determined by the secular society so that it can maintain its position as Established in a country in which Christianity is now a minority.

British society is in the grip of a postmodern deconstruction whereby History is reduced to malleable narratives which mask the objective reality in order to legitimise differing viewpoints based on subjective criteria. Traditions are reinterpreted in order to be acceptable to everyone's narrative except those narratives which affirm a fearful "tyranny of the objective."

Oh dear, I do sound like a miserable party-pooper, don't I?

I rather hope that I am not. One of the realisations that I have had over the past eighteen years is that I am not a Nominalist: there is an objective reality that underlies existence. Well of course, that's God, you might say. Agreed, but where I differ from the postmodern Nominalists is that I believe that things have natures - that they possess a way that they should be. Having completed doctoral research on this has really allowed me to crystallise this in my mind. Having a nature means that we can tell a things purpose and where things have gone wrong. Masek's Maxim essentially says that if one can legitimately ask "what's wrong with that?" then there is a nature from which the thing might be deviating.

A penguin that can fly in air is going against its nature. We can tell something is wrong. This means that Sir David Attenborough can make coherent programmes about penguins. Likewise he can also point to the damage done to the penguins' habitat by showing that something is wrong with the way the penguins are behaving. Penguins have a nature that means that we can tell that they are penguins and not black-and-white ducks.

Likewise, medicine relies on there being a human nature. It is not natural for humans to be continuall coughing, so someone with a persistent cough needs treatment. It is not natural for human beings to be suicidal, so someone contemplating suicide needs someone to understand, be compassionate and help them.

The nature of a good Parliament is that it forms laws for the good of the people, and is itself consistent with the laws that it forms. 

The nature of a Church is that it worships God as Trinity and is consistent with the Gospel it has received once and must deliver that same Gospel to all people throughout Time and Space.

The nature of a monarch is to rule and govern fairly and wisely.

Of course, things fall short. I am not bewailing the imperfection of things. I am bewailing the denial that there is an inherent nature in things - a denial which seeks to give human beings an authority that they do not possess, namely to mould objective reality subject to their desire. This becomes dangerously close to Aleister Crowley's "'do what thou wilt,' shall be the whole of the law."

I believe that Anglican Catholics can play an important part in re-establishlishing nature by acting as a central thread around which society gets reconfigured. I have argued in my thesis that Anglican Catholics are Realists and not Nominalists. This sets us apart from the Nominalism that allowed the Reformation to go far too far. 

A senior Protestant clergyman once said that Anglican Catholicism was in danger of turning into Old Catholicism. I don't see anything wrong in that. If Anglican Catholics have recovered the Catholic faith of the pre-Reformation whilst not rejecting the need for that Reformation, then we are indeed old Catholics of a sort, though not as the type of Old Catholic that has become an episcopus vagante and falling into the morass of postmodern liberalism into which the CofE has fallen. The trouble is that Protestantism has embraced that Nominalism which has allowed it to fragment because, without the binding of universals and natures, there is nothing of substance to keep things together, not even the BCP.

People will say to me that I have missed out on history in steering clear of the Coronation. This may be so but there was nothing there any longer for me. I remember as a boy watching a replay of the coronation of Her Late Majesty and being enthralled by it. That, to me, was a danger because I know that I would not be enthralled this time knowing that the crown would be placed upon the head of the King by hands that have torn the CofE and wider Communion to pieces and witnessed by those who claim offices in the Church to which they are not entitled.

I have been enthralled by Papal elections and took comfort that the traditions performed had retained their reason. Will I be enthralled again when the present incumbent leaves office? I don't know. It depends on how much of an illusion the Holy See casts. 

Monday, December 25, 2023

Ikon of Christmas Dinner

Sermon for the Feast of the Nativity 

The feast of the Incarnation
is upon us.

For today, in many houses,
there will be joy,
fun,
laughter, 
overeating and drinking.

For today, in many houses
there will be misery,
fighting,
weeping,
hunger and thirst.

It seems that
the feast of the Incarnation
is no guarantee
of the good things in this life.

Indeed,
for many,
it is a day of anxiety 
and stress
in trying to make 
the perfect Christmas.

So intense is this pressure
that Christmas
loses all meaning 
in the attempt to
bring joy
into the lives of families.

What does this prove?

Does it show that,
perhaps, 
we should cancel Christmas
for the suffering
it inflicts in others?

[PAUSE]

We all want a happy Christmas.

If we are truly loving,
we should want everyone
to have the perfect Christmas,
regardless of who that are.

However,
the limitations 
of being human
are not removed 
even at Christmas,
even if we approach Christmas
on our knees
begging God
for a happy Christmas.

We have in our heads,
in our cards, carols 
and Christmas dinner
an idea of what the perfect Christmas
looks like.

But we cannot reach it.

The one thing 
that would truly make 
the perfect Christmas
is sharing our celebrations
with Christ Himself
sat at our dinner table.

Or would it be better
for us to be sat 
at His Christmas dinner table?

[PAUSE]

Again, 
we see the Incarnation
for what it is.

Christ becoming like us
so that we can become
like Him.

His humanity
comes to complete
our humanity.

His grace perfects our nature.

It perfects our nature.
It doesn't destroy our nature.

This is important.

[PAUSE]

Christ promises us
a feast
and rejoicing in Heaven.

This means 
He perfects our feast 
and rejoicing on Earth.

Our Christmas celebrations
become an image,
an ikon,
of the Eternal feast in Heaven.

It means 
we are not only permitted
to make merry on Christmas Day
but we are encouraged by God
to make merry on Christmas Day.

Our work and preparations
need to focus 
on making that 
ikon of Christmas celebration
visible to everyone
by first ensuring
that we have invited Christ
to be with us
and then consecrating
our decorations,
our food,
our games,
to the worship of the God of joy.

This doesn't mean being 
austere and serious and pious;
this means being your best self
the person that God created
with all the faults and frailties
and failures of being human
but a human nonetheless
bound for the joys of Heaven
in God.

Yes,
Christmas this year
may be miserable
but it is still possible
to see even in
the most impoverished,
the most distressing,
the darkest Christmas,
the meagreness
of the stable,
the manger,
the hay,
the smell of oxen, asses
and camels,
the pain of the birth,
the agony of the future Crucifixion
as foretold in the gift of myrrh.

Christ can be there
in sadness, fear and confusion,
because He of His Incarnation
in which He sanctifies
sadness, fear and confusion
so that they can become
vehicles to Heaven in Him.

[PAUSE]

God bless your Christmas Day
and be present with you
in its successes and failures,
the perfect sprouts, 
the burnt turkey
or the nothing-at-all
and bring a glimpse of Heaven
no matter what happens.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Heaven and the Incarnation

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Advent

This year,
the fourth Sunday in Advent
coincides with
Christmas Eve.

This is fortuitous!

As usual,
we have been looking at
Death,
Judgement,
and Hell.

These all seem 
very negative but,
as we have seen,
the fact of Our Lord's Incarnation
makes them make sense
and, ironically, 
gives us a positive view
and basis for hope.

Last week,
in thinking about Hell
as exclusion from
the awareness of 
the Divine Presence,
we remember that,
just as Evil is the absence of Good,
knowing that 
there is evil in the world
means there must be good.

If there is evil,
then there must be a good
that is absent.

In the same way,
if we know what Hell is like,
the state from which 
we are saved,
then Heaven must be 
the result of being saved.

It is everything
that Hell lacks.

[PAUSE]

This is why today 
being the fourth Sunday
and Christmas Eve 
is so useful.

Today is the last day
before the Incarnation.

We are here,
awaiting salvation,
awaiting Our Lord's return,
awaiting Heaven.

The Incarnation is Heaven on Earth.

We see God as we are.

We see the One
Whom we love,
Whom we desire,
Who gives us Himself
so that we can live
in the light,
in the truth,
in the peace which passes 
all understanding.

While we see the Holy Baby
grow into a man
to teach us,
heal us
and die for us,
His very presence with us
and His promise 
to be present with us again
show us what Heaven is.

[PAUSE]

Even His last words on the cross,
"it is finished!"
show us that in Him
all is complete,
we are complete.

It is not just the crucifixion is over
it is that Jesus
has completed all things 
by reconciling us
to God
in the fullness of His Incarnation.

In a very real sense,
because of Him,
our lives are eternal now 
because He is present with us now.

Our Holy Eucharist
is our God-given way 
of continuing our relationship
with the Incarnate Christ.

He gives us Himself
under the appearance
of bread and wine
in order for us to 
receive Him as God Incarnate 
to our health and wholeness.

This is why our Mass 
should look like Heaven
because Christ is made present to us again,
just as He was present 
in the manger two millennia ago.

It is why we take our liturgy
seriously, gravely
and yet with passion
and joy.

[PAUSE]

The Incarnation
is Heaven
because we shall be like Jesus
for we shall see Him as He is.

Monday, December 18, 2023

Letting the Os in

 



Why the Great O Antiphons are so important.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Hell and the Incarnation

Sermon for the third Sunday in Advent

Hieronymus Bosch
has a lot to answer for.

Have you seen his paintings?
They are  usually of 
souls of the damned
in Hell
being tormented by
grotesque demons
bent on making Eternity
as unpleasant as possible
for those who deserve it.

If this were the case
then we can justly ask
"How can a loving God
send someone
to be tormented for Eternity?"

[PAUSE]

The trouble is,
Our Lord is quite clear 
that we need saving from something.

"For God sent not His son
into the world
to condemn the world
but that the world through Him
might be saved."

Saved from what?

Whatever it is,
it is dreadful enough
for Our Lord to take on our flesh
and be made man.

Whatever we need saving from
is worth Our Lord's suffering
and death upon the Cross.

The Incarnation
is evidence of Hell.

[PAUSE]

The vision of Hell 
that Our Lord gives most 
is that of outer darkness
where there is wailing 
and gnashing of teeth.

It is a state 
of being 
shut out from joy,
shut out from the wedding feast of the Lamb,
shut out from being fully healthy,
shut out from being what we were created to be
shut out from eternal awareness of God.

Jesus is made man
not to condemn the world.

This means that it is not God
Who sends us to Hell.

We choose Hell
by desiring the world
instead of God,
by desiring the fleeting
instead of the permanent,
by desiring darkness
instead of light.

Our actions influence our desires
and our desires influence our actions.

In being able to think
and make free decisions
we actually have a hand 
in our own perfection.

But, we cannot become perfect
from our own actions.

We need Christ,
the Incarnate God,
to bring us to perfection
through the sacrifice
of His own humanity.

But having a hand
in our own creation
comes at a price.

We get to choose,
God's idea of our own perfection
or our own idea of our own perfection.

If we consistently reject God
then, as Love does not insist
on its own way
we are given what we want.

Eternity with fleeting things.

In Hell,
we are given what we want
except the awareness of God
but knowing that
 we are missing something wonderful.

And we watch everything
rot, fall apart, disintegrate
until all that is left
is just us alone in the utter darkness
knowing that once there was love
but now there is none.

The torment of those in Hell
is precisely the love of God
allowing His children to reject Him. 

It is He who hangs onto them
in the darkness
so that they do not fall
into nothingness
but their rejection of Him 
causes them 
the torment of hellfire 
that Our Lord warns us of.

[PAUSE]

Of course,
you might be tempted to say
that you could never be happy
if you knew your loved one
was in Hell.

Yet it is God's love
and yours giving them 
what they desire.

But we shall find 
all that we desire 
in the face of Almighty God
and perfection in Him.

Thus, His love
becomes our love
and we shall see those in Hell
with no less love for them
than can be given.

As God hangs on to them,
so do we hang on to them,
for even in Hell
there is love.

And we shall not lose joy
for those in Hell,
for the Lord has promised 
that if we have given up
even our family
even our fathers, mothers,
sons and daughters,
husbands and wives
for His sake
shall receive an hundredfold
in His glory.

Whatever joy is lacking
will be supplied in Christ
In superabundance
even if we don't understand it now.

[PAUSE]

Those in Hell
are shut out from 
experiencing 
the joyful presence of God.

But they have shut the door
from the inside.

Monday, December 11, 2023

An Anglican Catholic addresses some Roman Catholics

 



Why it is not helpful to bash each other across the Reformation.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Judgement and the Incarnation

Sermon for the second Sunday in Advent

How do you see
the Day of Judgement?

Do you have
the idea of 
some kind of court house?

If so,
who do you see 
as the judge?

Who do you see 
to be the counsel 
for the defence?

Who do you see
to be the counsel
for the prosecution?

Is there a jury?

Are there bailiffs?

[PAUSE]

Of course,
that's a very
twenty-first century
view of a court.

But the question
of Judge, Prosecution and Defence
seems very important.

If you remember your Te Deum
you'll remember the phrase
"We believe that 
Thou shalt come
to be our judge "

So, therefore 
Jesus is to be our judge
on the Day of Judgement.

Who is to be our Prosecutor?

That ought to be Satan
for "accuser" is the meaning
of Satan.

What about our 
counsel for the defence,
our advocate,
our mediator?

Well, 
that's Christ.

But Christ is the judge.

That can't be right.

And we have further problems.

We are guilty of sin,
so we must be punished.

And then some will say
that Christ takes the punishment
of our sins
upon himself.

So the judge is 
our advocate
and receives the penalty
for our guilty verdict
while we go scot-free.

Confused?

Well, we have just 
stretched an analogy
to its breaking point.

[PAUSE]

If we see our salvation
purely in terms of a law court
then we miss 
some very important details
which make Our Lord's Incarnation
very powerful and awe-inspiring.

We know that
we need salvation
because we are fallen from God
and separated from Him.

We cannot see Him.
We cannot hear Him.
We cannot tell right from wrong
without Him.
All because we are born in sin.

This is not the state
in which we are created
- not the state that God wants for us.

Our salvation consists
of putting this fallen state right.

This is at the 
very heart of Judgement.

The Incarnation
of Our Lord Jesus Christ
is our judgement.

He shows us that we are fallen
and then seeks to reconcile us to God
with a new covenant
sealed in His own blood.

But God's blood 
is His life.

To take His blood into us
rejuvenates us.

To take His body into us
repairs and nourishes us.

To receive the Body and Blood
of Our Lord Jesus Christ
is to receive
communion with Him
life in Him
reconciliation to Him.

Jesus says,
"unless you eat
of the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink of His blood
you shall not have life within you."

Incarnation makes
Christ physically present
and this allows us
to find that reconciliation in Him.

This is Christ's judgement
and it is judgement
for all who want to receive it.

To recognise our sin
shows us that we need Him.

To confess that sin,
to accept His covenant
and receive His Grace
brings about God's judgement upon us
and we are saved.

[PAUSE]

We believe that Christ shall come
to be our judge.

This means
we have nothing to fear
from the Day of Judgement
for perfect love
casts out all fear.

Wednesday, December 06, 2023

The Advent of Faith, Hope and Love

 



Why the Church is built around the Theological Virtues

Sunday, December 03, 2023

Death and the Incarnation

Sermon for the first Sunday in Advent

In Advent,
it is customary 
to think on 
the Four Last Things,
Death, Judgment,
Hell and Heaven.

We do so 
in preparation
for a great mystery:
Word made Flesh
God made Man
Divine made Human.

A seemingly impossible
happening.

The immortal
becomes mortal.

Why?

Why not just become
an immortal human being?

Why bother to die?

[PAUSE]

We know that 
sin and death are 
two sides of the same coin.

We sin because we die
and we die because we sin
as St Paul tells the Romans.

But Jesus doesn't sin.

So why does He die?

The Problem is
that we don't necessarily die
because we sin. 

Look at the Holy Innocents
who die 
before they even commit 
a sinful act.

They die
because of someone else's sin
- Herod's murderous paranoia.

Human beings die
because of sin
and Our Lord
chooses not to be an exception
to this.

He embraces full humanity,
empties Himself 
even of immortality
relying on the grace of His Father
to be fully human
and live the human life.

And that means 
openness to death.

But He need not have died.
It is possible that He didn't have to.

The problem is
that we killed Him.

[PAUSE]

Of course,
it is the perfidious
rulers of the temple
and Jewish religious leaders
who are directly responsible
for Jesus' Death.

They use the crowds 
as an instrument
in their cry of "Crucify!"
and thus the crowd sins 
through ignorance and weakness.

But God knows.

God sees all this
in His Eternity.

And, 
knowing that Jesus dies,
God uses that death
as a means of life.

This is the genius
of Almighty God
to use the Death of His Son,
whom the Pharisees 
chose to murder
freely and without coercion,
to undo the power
of sin and death
and give life to all 
who would seek 
to live in Him.

[PAUSE]

In Adam,
we are separated from God
and at the mercy of a world
corrupted by sin
and, in our weakness,
we die.

Look at the news
and see the connection
between sin and death.

Then look to Christmas Day
and see God Incarnate
born to end sin and death
by making death
a gateway to Eternal Life
in Him.

The world may indeed
go to Hell in a handcart
as the saying goes,
but that is not the fate
of the Christian.

While we may 
be devastated by 
the levels of sin, death,
depravity and decay around us,
we can still look into the manger
just as we have done for 
two thousand years
and see the same hope
that sin and death will pass away
because the Word of God
will never pass away.

The Incarnation does not end in Death:
it ends in our life into Eternity.