Spotting the Deacons

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis, Rochester on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity 2012.

This was the text of one of my Canonical Examinations which I submitted to the Bishop. My Parish Priest thought it expedient to ask me to preach it here early in my Diaconate.

Other than here in this place, when was the last time you saw a deacon?

Serving food in a restaurant?

Behind the counter at the Post Office?

Helping you on with a jacket in Marks and Spencer’s?

 Perhaps you don’t recognise these people
                as being deacons,
                             yet in a very real sense they are.

What do you understand a deacon to be?

 

[PAUSE]

 

The modern idea of what a deacon is
                   seems to be that he is a trainee priest.

 He is ordained as a deacon for a year,
             learns his priestcraft,
                       and is then ordained priest.

 However, this doesn’t really do justice
                 to what a deacon really is.

 

 What the world understands as a deacon
             is very different from
                   how the Church sees the role.

 

The word comes from the Greek
           diakonos which translates as “servant”.

One of the earliest biblical uses of the word
          comes in the book of Esther
                   describing ministers of the King.

The word can rightly be applied to anyone,
           even you,
                   when you act as a servant to assist someone else.

Literally, diakonos means to throw oneself into motion:
        a command is issued and
                at once the servant scurries away to perform it.

 

We witness many diaconal acts within the pages of the Bible.

Most notably we see Our Blessed Lord
       washing His disciples’ feet[1].

 He speaks to them about serving one another
             and how a slave is not greater than the master.

But it is the King acting as the servant here.

There is much nobility in being a deacon!

However, it is St Luke’s account of the Acts of the Apostles
       that we find the beginnings of the deacon
                as an ordained minister.

 

Just think back to when the Church was really young.

More and more people are joining the Church daily,
       and this puts an awful lot of pressure
              on the Twelve Apostles
                    who are trying very hard to teach
                            and provide for the needs of their new flock.

Is it right that the ones
         who have spent their lives with Jesus,
                   listening to Him speak,
                            watching Him perform miracles,
                                  have to divert from sharing
              this wonderful teaching to deal with important,
                       but less specialised tasks?

The idea is clear: appoint people
        to perform the administration,
                 to throw themselves into motion
                     at the direction of the Apostles.

 

They choose seven men,
          Stephen and Phillip among them,
                    to act in this capacity.

What is very interesting is that
       they are not just appointed
            like picking a football team at school,
                but they are carefully selected
       and then the Apostles lay their hands upon them.

In Acts, this usually means that
          the Holy Spirit is at work making an important change.

Why are these men chosen?

St Luke tells us that the first deacons
         were men “of honest report,
               full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.”[1]

These deacons are men of Spirit
          and wisdom as well as men of action.

 

Later on
        as the ministries of bishop, priest and deacon develop,
             St Paul writes to St Timothy,
                 “Likewise must the deacons be grave,
                        not double tongued,
                              not given to much wine,
                                not greedy of filthy lucre;
        Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.

And let these also first be proved;
      then let them use the office of a deacon,
             being found blameless…

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife,
      ruling their children
                 and their own houses well.

For they that have used the office of a deacon well
         purchase to themselves a good degree,
              and great boldness in the faith
                  which is in Christ Jesus.”

 It is clear that God sets deacons apart for their service.

They may not all have the same gifts.

 St Stephen could preach
        and was called to die for his faith.

 St Phillip could also preach,
           baptise and explain the Gospels.

Baptising, preaching and reading the Gospels
     – these are things that deacons have been doing to this day.

However,
       Baptism really needs to be performed
              within the Church community
                   and it is proper that only the priest
                        as Father of that community baptises.

A Deacon may baptise but only in an emergency.

 

Now it’s important not to get confused here.

There are several others in the New Testament,
       like Phoebe,
            who are described by the word diakonos.

Remember that the word simply means
     a servant or assistant.

In order to understand how the Church views deacons
         we have to look at how the Bible was interpreted.

 If we read the Early Church Fathers,
           we see that bishops seldom went far
                    without deacons.

Bishops and deacons often get mentioned in the same breath.

When the bishops found that they needed deputies,
         they created the priesthood
                   and gave the priests deacons to assist them.

According to the Apostolic Constitutions,
       a deacon is “in all things unspotted,
           as the bishop himself is to be, only more active.”

We’re back to throwing ourselves into motion again!

So you see that these deacons are necessarily affiliated
        with bishops and priests.

 It is the job of the deacon to administer
         and to put into practice what he hears
                from the priest and the bishop.

 This is true even in the liturgy.

 In many of the old liturgies
          it is the deacon who tells you when
             to arise from prayer or that the Mass is ended
                  while the priest deals with more spiritual devotions.

 

 This is why it is a calling and why a deacon has to be ordained.

 Not everyone can be a deacon
           but only those whom God has called.

 St Ignatius of Antioch says,
       “let all reverence the deacons
                   as an appointment of Jesus Christ.”[1]

While anyone can serve
     – indeed Jesus tells us that we must serve
           – not everyone is called to serve in the way
                    that a deacon serves.

A deacon may indeed become a priest after a year
       and possibly a bishop after that,
               but the priest and the bishop never stop being deacons
                     and no ordained minister stops being a layman!

Women can be deaconesses,
    but never deacons because the deacon acts
         as an icon of Christ the servant.

[PAUSE]

Do you remember why deacons
       came about in the first place?

 It was because the Church was growing so much
       that the Apostles needed help.

So the deacon is a sign of growth,
       and we should be glad when someone is ordained
                 to the diaconate. 

At such an ordination,
      we should pray for these men that they receive energy
         in order to put the word of God into practice,
              understanding that they might read
                  and preach the Gospel clearly and with reverence,
                       wisdom that they may know
                          how to administer their time in service,
                            and joy that they might find fulfilment in what is,
                                   after all, a hard task.

Callings are always hard work,
        but they are good work.

 

You might not think that you’re called to be a Deacon,
          but how are you being called to serve God?

 

Christian Homeopathy: Diluting the Doctrine.

With the NHS suffering rather from the budget cuts and enforced expense slashing, one might be forgiven for seeking out alternative medicine. Such an alternative medicine is Homoeopathy.

Homoeopathy claims to work by the repeated dilution of a given substance in water or in alcohol which apparently increases its potency. Forgive me if I seem harsh, but I find this a somewhat ridiculous notion. How can repeated dilution make a substance stronger? The human body would hardly find any efficacy from something so dilute that it simply passes through the system affecting only a few cells before being expelled. I cannot imagine the effect being anything other than placebo.

The same is also very true of the Christian religion. There are two ways in which the same homoeopathic mentality enters Christianity.

First, consider the Roman Catholic decision to move midweek festivals to the following Sunday (e.g. Corpus Christi and Ascension Day). Why is this done? Well, if it's a Holy Day of Obligation then it is a sin for people to wilfully miss Church. Yet many people either cannot get to Mass on a Thursday due to the pressures of their work (which is hardly a problem of willfulness) or just cannot be bothered to go out on a weekday. Far better, then, to prevent people from missing their obligation by moving it from Midweek to Sunday.

Well it certainly looks reasonable, but there is still a problem. If one cannot be bothered to go to church on a Thursday, then  the Church has just demonstrated its sanctioning of not going to Church for a midweek. Suddenly it's okay to find a midweek Mass as unnecessary and unimportant, just as it is suddenly okay to eat meat on Friday.  Yes, it makes things easier for a Christian to live a weekday life, but it also makes weekdays more secular and less sacred. What has happened is that sanctity has been diluted out of the week. We are now allowed to be Christians only at the weekend.

Second, consider modern liturgies. If something is too hard for people to understand, then it seems quite reasonable to rephrase it into a language which everyone can understand. In a culture where things are learnt in soundbites, it seems to make perfect sense to reduce everything we believe into short pithy statements.

I really struggle with this and I mean really struggle. This is yet another situation in which the exploration of the Divine is diluted down and down into ever more "easy to understand" chunks and what is lost is any depth, any struggle and any engagement with a life that is immeasurably more immense than ours. Human life is a struggle. It is unfair; it is incomprehensible; it is confusing; it is exasperating, but it is ultimately a ray of God's Light piercing the gloom of an otherwise meaningless Eternity. Any expression of Christianity that seeks to boil it down to its essentials, or reduce it to its component parts misses the point as easily as homoeopaths do when it comes to healing the human body through quantities that the human body cannot even detect.

I am often asked to explain myself: why I am an Anglican Catholic; what a Deacon is; why I believe XYZ. It isn't easy, especially when the questioner is expecting a single word answer. I cannot explain the Christian faith in a few short sentences. It takes a full lifetime in order to grapple with what Christianity is saying. The Problem of Evil is an enormous problem that keeps many from believing in God. One has to understand this very clearly. I have answers, but they do not convince me wholeheartedly - this is where I must put my trust in God, after all, I really do know next to nothing.The PoE is a very good objection to the existence of God, but it is not a knock-down argument as some philosophers would have it be. This is why God calls us to be patient, because we cannot possibly explain ourselves in any way that would water down what we believe.

In the same way, we should not try to reduce what we believe to soundbites despite the temptation of the modern world to demand soundbites from us. The Apostle's Creed is only the starting point for an explanation, not a complete statement of the Faith. The same is true of the other two Creeds. We have to take time to give an answer to people who ask us who we are, and we should not apologise if this takes some time. We should of course try to make that answer as engaging and as interesting as possible. If they listen well, then perhaps we may have made that important step in making them more curious about who we are and what we do.

Diluting the faith to suit the impatient and the superficial is just not the way forward. It promotes further superficiality, reinforces a sense of impatience and does not engage with the complexity of real living and the true immensity of Immanuel. There is nothing alternative about the Christian Faith!

Calling the un-tied!

Homily preached at Eltham College on 5^th and 12^th October 2012 following the Ordination to the Diaconate.

My first homily to the school after my ordination as Deacon.

It’s that little voice again.

You, know the one.

The alarm clock has just rung
         and the little voice is telling you
                “stay in bed a little longer,
                         just a little longer.
                               You’ve got plenty of time.”

The calling of that little voice
            is very persuasive,
                     and so another five minutes in bed
                             seems a perfectly reasonable decision.

Of course five minutes easily become half an hour.

When you realise you’re late, you’re up like a shot.

You’ve gollopped down your Chocolate Cheerios,
             cleaned seven of your teeth,
                    thus giving the mirror a spray tan with Colgate
                          and shot out of the house faster than
                                       Prince Harry from the billiards room.

However, you’ve made it in to the College on time
          thus avoiding that disapproving scowl of the Senior Master
                   reserved especially for latecomers
                                and detesters of Shakespeare.

As you catch sight of yourself
          in the reflection on a window,
                   you notice to your horror
                          that you’ve forgotten your tie!

It goes without saying
          that you happen to bump into each and every member of staff,
                  each of whom questions you
                           about your lack of tie.

Before you are issued with a spare tie
        which looks as if Groundskeeper Willie has used it
               to tie up the compost heap to keep it from escaping,
                           an explanation is demanded of you. 

What then do you say?

 The lack of a tie always demands an explanation.

[PAUSE]

Listening to a call of one of those little voices in your head
         can make a major difference to your life.

The mind is a warehouse for the Butterfly effect.

Just listening to what those voices say
             can make the difference between
                    studying Chemistry at Oxford
                          and Economics at Warwick,
                                  or even prancing about the stage trying
                                            to impersonate the Rizzle Kicks.

 Some perfectly ordinary blokes
         even find themselves called to be Deacons
                     in the Anglican Catholic Church.

[PAUSE]

Called?

Does that mean the onset of madness, hearing voices?

 In some way, we all “hear” voices in our heads
                – little chattering things that give us ideas
                             and suggestions from the depths of our minds.

We sometimes find ourselves presented
            with strange impulses that seem to come from nowhere. 

“Go on, have a bacon sandwich.”

 “Go on, play five more minutes of Assassin’s Creed.”

“Go on, trip up Fred as he runs past.”

 “Go on, don’t buy Drake’s latest album,
          get One Direction’s instead because Harry looks fine.”

Some of these voices do actually give you
            good ideas and spur you on to greater things.

 “Why not try out for the first XV?”

“Why not Oxbridge?”

 “Why not ask for help with your chemistry homework?”

Indeed, many people have gone on
           to do great things because of listening to
                     some insistent impulse deep within them.

But! Other voices are less so.

 “Why not put off revision to the night before the exam?”

 “Why not stick your finger in the Bunsen burner?”

 “Why not get that tattoo of Harry Styles on your arm?”

 With all this chattering inside it is often difficult
          to separate the good voices from the bad voices,
                  especially when some voices are making you consider
                            some of the great choices in your life.

There’s no point in trying for Oxford
           if you know in your heart of hearts
                  you aren’t going to make the grades,
                      but how do you find out
                            what’s in your heart of hearts
                                in the first place?

 Likewise, if you know that Hockey is your game
         and not rugby,
                  trying out for the first XV might seem rather daft.

 Then again, it might be the best decision of your life!

You need time to consider what these voices are saying.

 

 There has to be careful listening,
          consideration of all the consequences
                   and whether this decision is right for you.

For the Christian,
            there is the added belief that God is calling you.

For Moses, the call comes
     in the form of a voice from a burning bush.
 
For the prophet Elijah it is a still, small voice.

 For the Prophet Samuel,
          there is a voice calling him in the middle of the night.

God’s voice will be one of the many
        that we hear in our lives
                  but it will not necessarily be a loud call.

It is highly unlikely that your mobile will ring
        and the voice of the Divine will
           bellow the answer down the phone.
             “Become a Deacon!”

The fact is that we are simply not likely to receive
           dramatic calls of Biblical proportions.

We are more likely to hear our call
         in human voices or find an internal sense
             of purpose or passion
                  that convinces us that we are meant to do something.

For the first Christians
       such as St Peter, St James and St John,
              the call comes from an itinerant Rabbi,
                       a teacher who was influences the world
        with common sense teaching and yet
                     suffers an agonising death on the cross for it.

St Benedict is called to transform peoples’ lives
          through monasticism and his rule is still used today.

 It is St Benedict that we have to thank
          for the system of schooling that we have today.

Blessed Theresa of Calcutta is called to feed the poor in India
                    and her work continues long after her death.

All of these receive what they perceive as a call from God. 

For each of them
      there is a long period of listening
            to the voices around them.

[PAUSE]

Like all of these folk,
          you too have decisions to make in your life
                     based on who you believe yourself to be.

You will need to take time and find space
            to listen to all the voices that you hear in your life.

The ideas that are good for you will persist.

These are the voices that are not satisfied
         with anything superficial
              but create a passion
                    or a nagging insistence
                         at the very heart of your being.

Your calling will be something
        that will both exhilarate you
               and frighten you at the same time,
                     but it will be something that will transform you
                               into the person you want to be.

Answering the call takes time,
       a good ear,  
             wise companions,
                  and much patience.

How exactly are you going to discern your calling?

 

A Questionable God?

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

 You make your way across the floor to the black chair. As you sit in it, sinking slowly into the upholstery, you feel the bright spotlight hot in your face. Through the light and out into the darkness, you can just about make out the face of your inquisitor. Name? Occupation? Your specialist subject?

What would your specialist subject be on Mastermind?

[PAUSE]

There are some people that thrive with having questions fired at them left, right and centre, but for most of us, it’s an ordeal. Think of those called to give evidence in law courts. While the media rejoices in making the courtroom dramatic and even glamorous, the truth is that it is not as fascinating as one might be led to believe. However, the witness must still answer every question put to him by both the prosecuting and defending counsels. Why is it such an ordeal? If we’re telling the truth, then surely there isn’t a problem. We just answer the questions honestly, and we are allowed to step down and leave.

Things, of course, are very different if you are not just the witness but rather the one on trial too. In this case, you are afraid that one wrong answer will send you to gaol. That’s a problem far worse than not knowing the principal currency of Vietnam at Mastermind. The whole interrogation becomes a deadly game between you and your accuser who is trying to trap you into convicting yourself. How much better if you were able to silence him?

[PAUSE]

These days we face a very similar problem from a more aggressive and anti-Christian society. Have you ever had someone ask you some difficult questions just in order to catch you out? “How can you believe in God. You can’t see Him?” “There’s no evidence for God, why do you still believe that rubbish?” “Aren’t you sexist for not letting women be priests?” and of course the biggie, “If there is a loving God, then why all this suffering in the world?”

St Peter may remind us to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. This is fine, but some of these questions have been argued by some very wise philosophers, so how on earth can we ordinary folk possibly answer them?

[PAUSE]

It’s clear that there are and always have been people out to discredit Our Lord’s teaching by trapping him into saying something that either is outright blasphemy or that shows him up to be a fool. They watch him like a hawks looking for some gap in his teaching so that they can swoop down and catch him out!

“Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”

THE great commandment? You might as well ask to sum up someone’s entire life in one single word, to teach an entire law course in half an hour or fit an entire rose garden into a flowerpot.

This is not a genuine enquiry. You can tell simply by the way it’s asked that he is trying to force the Lord into saying something foolish. If Jesus were to pick just one of the Ten Commandments and proceed to justify His decision, then the Pharisees would say, “well, what about the other nine? Isn’t that important enough?” In fact, the Rabbis around Jesus are deeply divided as to which Commandments are greater and which are lesser. If Jesus were to answer one way or the other, then it is going to cause an almighty ruckus among the Jews, and Jesus would be caught for stirring trouble.

Jesus is not taken in for a moment. He does not launch like the Pharisees into some great speech into what makes a commandment great. He puts the Pharisees and Sadducees to silence by careful quoting of Scripture: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. This is Deuteronomy vi.5, one of the books of Moses revered by the Pharisees. But Our Lord doesn’t stop there! Without drawing breath or pausing so that the Rabbis can jump in and say another word, we have the second commandment. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. That’s Leviticus xix.18 Another book revered by the Pharisees. In one fell swoop Our Lord has not just answered the question, but given a great guiding principle for human life

Before they can even reply to this, Jesus turns the tables. He asks them a question from their very own scriptures, and they are stumped. They cannot answer.

[PAUSE]

How can we answer the big questions of Life? It seems that the people of this world want Christians to answer all the questions in one short sentence. It may not even be possible for Our Lord to give us a verbal answer to all the big questions in one short sentence. After all, the Lord Himself says, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” We do not even understand the language of our own reality to begin to understand the language of God’s knowledge.

That’s not to say that the Lord cannot give us an answer to the problem of Evil. It is the very Life, Suffering and Death of the Lord Jesus that answers the question but not in a way that leads to an earthly answer and His Death is the inexpressible, wordless, unutterable “No” of God to all things Evil and “Yes” of God to Humanity.

Yes, we may be occasionally be stumped by the questioning of those who hate Christianity. We must give the best answer that we can, but not allow ourselves to be pressured into thinking that because we can’t answer a question, our Faith is worthless. Quite the contrary, how can so great a faith be expressed in words alone?

Deaconed: a grammatical exercise.

Is "Deacon" really a verb, or should one always resort to the proper grammar of "making someone a Deacon"?

You can't go wrong with proper grammar unless you are communicating with those who do not understand proper grammar in the first place. However, I'd like to make a case that being Deaconed is at least a very spiritual proper grammar.

The root of the word Deacon is "kinesis" from which we get the word "kinetic". The word is based fundamentally on the idea of movement, being in motion, doing. Think back to the Early Church with Bishops being virtually inseparable from their Deacons. The Bishop, the spiritual father of the community bids something happen and the Deacon puts it into practice. The Deacon throws himself into motion to ensure that the work of the Church happens well and in good order at the direction of the Bishop and then to the Bishop's deputies who are now what we know as our priests. For the Church, the Diaconate represents the sense of purpose of the Church being put into action. As ikons of Christ the servant, Deacons demonstrate by their ordination the sanctity of God's work in the world.

The modern Church has practically lost its Diaconate by delegating its work to all and sundry. While many church workers are well trained and dedicated to their tasks, their lack of ordination belies the lack of sacramental sanctity, the Real Presence of God in the world. It's true that Readers, Pastoral Assistants, Evangelists and Communian Assistants et c do some marvellous work, and have their services of inauguration and installation, but these are not services of Sacrament. There is no indelible mark of Holy Order etched into their souls.

For many lay folk, this is a good thing. They may be able to do a Deacon's work, but they are called by God to live as Christians in the lay field. They perform their works of service to the greater glory of God. However, the ordination of a Deacon is about the Church and the Sacramental life of the Church. Deacons and Priests are given the title "Reverend" but this does not refer to the person but rather back to Christ who is represented in the Deacon and the Priest in the manner of an ikon. A church that loses its sense of sacrament quickly loses its sense of the Reality of Christ present within its community.

So, from a spiritual point of view, "to be Deaconed" makes much sense when one is given a Divine Mandate to become a verb for Christ. Thus "to Deacon" at Mass is also part of the grammar of the spirit when the Divine activity participates with human activity in bringing God and Man into a Mystical union. We shouldn't then be too quick to insist on good Grammar

On a personal note, I am very grateful to all those who have wished me well following my ordination last Saturday. I may have been on a long journey to get where I am now, but I rather feel myself to be at the beginning of a longer journey who knows where. However, now I have folk with whom to share much of this journey and I am grateful for their kindness.

Francis and the Diaconate

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

This prayer, attributed to St Francis of Assisi, doesn't actually date before 1912. That's not to say it isn't a Franciscan prayer. From what we know of this colourful and yet simple man, these words could easily have poured from his heart. These words are perhaps overused by popular spirituality. Yet they are worth reflecting on.

Can we honestly pray this prayer in full?

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, let me sow pardon;
where there is doubt, let me sow faith;
where there is despair, let me sow hope;
where there is darkness, let me sow light;
and where there is sadness, let me sow joy.

The question that is now posed to us is how we go about our lives as this instrument of the peace of God. There is pure activity here: a Quietist would be dreadfully uncomfortable praying this prayer because it speaks of human activity that does the will of God.

Our Christian lives abide in a great tension between being and doing, and this tension has indeed gone some way to splitting the Church. Perhaps it's fair to say that being isn't a passive activity either but rather a way of communicating that being to others. While there is such a disfigurement in the human condition by which we are drawn to sin rather than sanctity, human beings are still bearers of the image of God Himself. It is something which every human being has in common with every other - even with our worst enemies!

We cannot get away from God in ourselves. In the 139th Psalm, the Psalmist demonstrates that whether we go up into heaven or into Sheol, or to the East or West, we cannot get away from God. God is within! Not spatially, but beyond what we understand as space. After all, in God we live and move and have our being.

Whether this is a prayer by St Francis or not, we can still understand the depth of his awareness of God in all things. Take the Cantico di fratre sole from which we get the hymn

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

Refrain

O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou rising moon, in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening, find a voice!

Refrain

 

Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
Make music for thy Lord to hear,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright,
That givest man both warmth and light.

Refrain

 

Dear mother earth, who day by day
Unfoldest blessings on our way,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
The flowers and fruits that in thee grow,
Let them His glory also show.

Refrain

 

And all ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part,
O sing ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care!

Refrain

 

And thou most kind and gentle Death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.

Refrain

 

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!

Refrain

Perhaps we can see why the prayer to be an instrument of God's peace is so Franciscan. It tries to forge the connections between human beings. We cannot be truly human if we seek only things to happen to us, but rather if we make things happen for others then is our true humanity exposed.

Of course, biologically, we share much with the animal kingdom. We may indeed have an irrevocable affinity with God's creation, but we go beyond it with that reasoning that asks "why?" and that questions our very being. This does not mean we can ever separate ourselves from either the animal kingdom nor from our affinity with the angels. God's Creation is a whole. Human beings are called into stewardship to take care of this world. It is fair to say, we are not doing the greatest job.

The moment we realise that we should not expect the world to come to us, the closer we are to finding God within ourselves. We seek first the kingdom of God by the observation of His rule and all good things are added unto us as we perceive the truth of what God has done in His Creation. Then with a greater understanding of His work, we find the true peace of God which will pass our understanding.

The truth is we can only find God's peace if we are prepared to be instruments of it. But what will we sow?

Fruits of the biological machine?

Sermon preached on the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 9th September 2012 at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis

As you walk down Rochester High Street,
 just before you reach the turn off to the Corn Exchange
you see a pillar, about 13’ high and 2’ wide.

 On top of the pillar
 you see a man dressed in rags and tatters,
hair unkempt,
long straggly beard.

It’s clear that he’s been there some time.
 Of course, you’re interested.
 “Hello!” you shout, “greetings friend!”

 The chap looks down
and decides that you are worth
 breaking his silence for.

 “Hello down there!”

In the exchange of introductions
 you find yourself introduced to St Simon Stylites,
 the saint famous for spending
a great deal of his life doing
what you see him doing
– standing on a pillar all day and all night.

Of course, you naturally ask him why.

 Simon explains,
 “I’m mortifying my flesh
so that I can live in the Spirit.”
Mortifying his flesh?

That sounds positively barbaric!
 Something that went out in the dark ages!
 Does this really do anyone any good?

[PAUSE]

We tend to cringe at the thought
 of any form of over-exuberance in this country.
 So someone  standing on pillars,
wearing hair shirts,
 or deliberately beating themselves up
with whips and chains
in order to discipline their bodies
are people that may horrify us,
or at least make us cross the road.

We often regard folk like that
 as being in desperate need of psychiatric help and a wide berth!

 Then again, most folk in this country
find the idea of a Lenten fast as something
 too enthusiastic or obsessively religious.

 It seems terribly overmuch even
 to go without something for 40 days.

What’s wrong with going along
 with what our bodies tell us to do
rather than treat them so harshly?

Many biologists tell us that
Mankind is nothing more than an intelligent ape
– a biological machine.

If this is so
then this would explain our natural desires,
the need to eat,
to sleep,
to mate
and to avoid pain.

Every living organism has these needs
and so it is quite reasonable for human beings
to have instincts for
eating,
sleeping,
mating
and avoiding pain.

This is why it appears unnatural to go in for fasts,
 to say prayers in the middle of the night,
 to live lives of celibacy
or even to go in for acts of physical endurance.

So, why do people balk
at this self-discipline of the religious
in the light of the Olympic Games?

 After all,
athletes withdraw from
eating, sleeping, and many other things
 and put their bodies through some terrible pains
 to become more than physically fit
to achieve something.

To become an athlete is something that our society praises.
Such folk get knighthoods
and honorary doctorates for winning a race,
but people standing on pillars or spending hours
 in prayer and fasting are regarded
as cranks and crackpots
even if the same people
go on to help those in need.

 But then Athletes win Gold medals, don’t they?

What does the self-disciplined Christian get?

[PAUSE]

It is quite clear that we are more than just biological machines.

Our athletes demonstrate
that there are things in life worth striving for
 and that we have things to prize
beyond the basic maintenance of our bodies.

We have other sensations too.

A biologist might ask, “such as what?”
Well, St Paul would say:
 “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”

If you’ve ever had to feed a cat who hasn’t eaten
for half-an-hour,
you’ll know that cats can’t do patience.

There’s certainly no temperance
with Bonobo Chimps,
David Attenborough will tell you that! 

And yet we know that human beings
can be just like animals too.

 Look at the ten lepers that Our Lord heals.

Nine of them care only
that their misery is relieved and go away.

There is no need for gratitude
when all you are concerned about is
 the continuation of the basic biological necessities.

 It is the one who looks beyond
his physical comfort to see God
 who finds himself truly healed. 

He is healed at the level of his spirit as well as his body.

He is a human being made whole.

Christians aren’t disciplining
 themselves for some physical,
palpable recognition or achievement.

 We are cultivating our awareness
 of the spiritual which
 is intensely difficult in a world
biased towards the physical.

In order to be aware of the health of our spirit,
we have to turn away our attention
from the constant crying
of our bodies to be satisfied.

We hear St Paul remind us that
 “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh:
and these are contrary the one to the other:
so that ye cannot do the things
 that ye would.”

 He is telling us that
 there is nothing more defeating
to the health of our spirits than constantly sitting,
fat and contented,
watching “Murder She Wrote”
on the telly.

We cannot become aware of God
whose existence is not material
 if our lives are constantly focussed
on the material.

 [PAUSE]

Of course,
our bodies do need food, sleep, love and healing,
 and for their maintenance
we need to take care of these temples
of the Holy Spirit.


But if we want to grow the fruits of the Spirit,
if we want to cultivate
 “love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
 gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance”,
then we have to struggle
and experience some pain caused
by denying our bodies the comforts
 that they all too readily receive these days.

[PAUSE]

If we are not aware
 in ourselves of our struggle
between our flesh and our spirit,
then one of them has clearly won the battle.

Flesh or spirit, which one is it?

Communicating Catholicism

The trouble with adjectives is that they can become malleable in meaning. I'm yet really to get into the philosophy of nominalism and discussions about what it means to mean something in my amateur sojourn through the philosophical universe. I notice from Fr Hart's blog that there is a big discussion about the confusion as to what "Catholic" means. From Anglican Papalist quarters, there is the question of what it means to be Catholic when one isn't in communion with the Pope. Indeed when many people hear the word, their mind immediately leaps to Roman Catholic.

Now, the Holy See officially denies the appellation "Roman Catholic" because it believes itself to be THE Catholic Church and all who refuse to be in communion with her to be non-Catholics. Yet for those outside, particularly in the Orthodox and Anglican Churches, the "Roman" epithet is quite reasonable because of the affiliation of the Holy See with the Patriarch Bishop of Rome. It is possible that one could hear of the Antiochene Catholic Church or the Alexandrian Catholic Church, et c, only for these they feel no need to stress the idea of Catholic. It's already part of their make-up.

The squabble is mainly over the ownership of the word "Catholic" and who has the authority both to define it and to make the judgement as to who or what is Catholic and who or what is not. So what does "Catholic" mean?

Many of you who read this will have a better understanding of what the word means than I do and I would be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs were I to make statements that "Catholic" comes from the Greek kath holos meaning "concerning the whole". Again, many of you will be familiar were I to mention the Vincentian Canon that the Catholic Faith is "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est." Catholicism is to do with wholeness, what the whole Church has always believed everywhere and yet, as Fr Hart notes, the word in Anglican circles is used to separate the "Catholic" High Church from the "Protestant" Low Church. That which is supposed to unite actually divides.

The Church to which I belong is the Anglican Catholic Church. This causes a great deal of confusion to people. Am I a Roman Catholic? Does my Church exist to act as a holding bay for those taking up  the Ordinariate? Shouldn't that be Anglo-Catholic? Are we Anglicans or not?

But look carefully. If my church confuses people by being called the Anglican Catholic Church, then those people ask questions. If they ask questions, then they have started a dialogue with me and with my jurisdiction. I can then talk to them about the beliefs that I share, not just with my Bishop, my priest and my Diocese, but with all Christians who accept the Apostolic Faith as laid down in the Scriptures and in the Church Fathers and the first seven truly Oecumenical Councils. That confusion has been a great vehicle for me to talk to people, to listen to them and what their understanding of things is. I can strike up a friendship, or not, but at least there is an interaction.

Many people want words to mean the same to everyone. They want to say "I'm a Catholic" and for everyone to know what that means. The trouble with carefully defined adjectives is that they end conversation. No-one debates the meaning of what it is for a triangle to be "right-angled" because the definition is precise and pertains to an object which possesses an abstract reality rather than a physical reality.

On the other hand,Human beings are notorious for blurring boundaries of definition, often deliberately. So what a word such as "Catholic"means to one person can be very different from what it means to another. There are calls for Anglicans to fight to take back possession of the meaning of the word. But why? First, with the large number of Roman Catholics, that's rather tilting at windmills to get everybody in the world aware of the fact that we Anglican Catholics are just as Catholic. Second, it's a bit silly when many in the world are unchurched and don't really care what the word means in the first place. Thirdly, and this is my point, to make everyone aware of what Catholic means destroys the possibility of communicating with another person stone dead. The conversation becomes:

A: What religion are you?
B: I'm an Anglican Catholic.
A: Oh.

rather than

A: What religion are you?
B: I'm an Anglican Catholic?
A: Anglican Catholic? Don't you mean Anglo-Catholic?
B: Well,....
or

A: What religion are you?
B: I'm an Anglican Catholic?
A: Are you CofE then?
B: Well,....

or

A: What religion are you?
B: I'm an Anglican Catholic?
A: Is that possible? How does that work?
B: Well,....

The Anglican Catholic Church believes herself to be as properly Catholic as the Roman Catholic Church. We certainly do not believe that we are THE Catholic Church, but merely a visible part of it. Our sister churches of UECNA and APCK have similar beliefs but they are as much part of THE Catholic Church as we are and many other good Catholics who come under many polygrammatic acronyms. We are proud to have the word "Catholic" as part of our name and if this causes confusion among people, then good! We then have something to talk to them about, and, if we're good Christians first, we will talk to them in a way that is kind and generous and more interested in them than perhaps they are in us. Perhaps that way, we can show our Lord Christ according to the whole of our lives and not just in our intellects.

Living Tradition and Dead Faith.

“Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.” Jaroslav Pelikan

The other day, I overheard someone describe Anglican Catholics as people who want to preserve the English Missal in aspic. It was quite clear that they identify Continuing Anglicanism with Pelikan's traditionalist. This person certainly regards us as having a dead faith. Indeed, I was told by a former Director of Ordinands in the Established Church that I was loyal to a church that had passed away.

So is our Tradition dead? Are we merely observing traditional elements for the nostalgic sake of it? What growth can there be from something so fixed?

I argue that the Anglican Catholic tradition is not only living but living very healthily. There are 7 criteria for determining biological life: regulation of the internal environment, corporate organisational union, metabolism, growth, adaptation to the environment, response to stimuli, and reproduction. While these are biological criteria, it seems very reasonable, given the organic nature of Christianity and its association with a central biological entity (to wit: the Body of Christ), to apply these criteria correctly interpreted to Traditional Anglicanism.

1. Corporate Organisational Union
St Ignatius of Antioch gave the basic organising principle in "Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." There are distinct organs within church which function according to the needs. Every Anglican Catholic, like every Christian, is a unit which belongs to the Church and makes present the reality of Christ in the world.

2. Growth
The fact of Apostolic Succession (i.e. that there is a historical episcopacy according to Biblical principles) forms a principle of organic growth according to the Ignatian principle. This means that the Traditional Church does not grow by simply accreting matter (i.e. people who just call themselves Christians) , but that there is a principle by which the organisational structure of the Church replicates through the formation of parishes and missions. Priests are ordained according to Tradition and unified by adherence to the Church's traditional doctrine. But this is a little theoretical. We have a pattern for growth to occur, but is that growth actually occurring? The answer is yes. In the Eastern Province of the ACC and the African Dioceses there is indeed marked growth. Even in the tiny Diocese of the United Kingdom, there has been a decent growth for several years. The growth is real.

3. Homeostasis
This means that the internal environment of the organism is regulated to maintain a constant state. According to Traditional Anglicanism, the internal environment is maintained through corporate worship. The Gospel is preached and the sacraments administered as they always have been. The fact that people are receiving the same sacraments as the first Christians gives a good genetic link which gives the Church her character and identity.

4. Metabolism
What nourishes the Church and what does the Church reject? An organism requires the ability to take in nutrients by breathing and by ingesting. and then by excreting that which is waste or poisonous to the system. From the outset, the Church has drawn on the Breath of God, to wit the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost inspires but does not contradict what He has given us in Scripture and Tradition. The nourishment of course comes from the Mass and we receive nourishment from being part of the Vine that Christ spoke of. This Vine reaches throughout Christianity and the Lord explains how we need to be part of that Vine if we are to receive nourishment. The Traditional understanding of the Real Presence gives us that nourishment.

But the Church also rejects. It rejects Evil - full stop! The Traditional Church knows what Evil is because it trusts in what has already been revealed to it. A church which starts confusing what to accept and what to reject starts ingesting toxins which slowly poison the life of that church.

5. Response to Stimuli
When a child is born, it is embraced into the Church and incorporated into it through Baptism. When someone sins, they can find comfort in God's forgiveness through Confession. When a man falls in love with a woman, they are united in Holy Matrimony. For every life, the Catholic Church has something to offer: counsel and advice from the storehouse of ages, Sacraments to offer for the comfort of the soul, a Canon for living to help individuals find stability of life and a wealth of teaching to help one on the quest for the Divine. For every stimulus, the Church can make a response from its Tradition.

6. Adaptation
The critics of the Anglican Continuum would see this is where we might fail and the cause of our imminent demise. However, let us consider what it means to adapt. Adaptation means making an appropriate response to the external environment. One can look at History and see how the Church has responded. In many cases, the answer has been "not very well" and the reason for that "not very well" comes from a rejection of Tradition especially that vitally central part of Tradition of "Love thy neighbour" which comes straight from the mouth of God. However, this is where the Church has the potential of making more appropriate adaptation. However, this adaption cannot be radical. A cat cannot immediately adapt by becoming a dog when it finds itself trapped in a dog kennel. One doesn't open the windows to air the room in the midst of a roaring gale. The tenets by which the Church can adapt are at its heart. If those tenets are kept, there will be no be no further Crusades nor witch-hunts.

But the Traditional Church has had to adapt especially when it has been shunted out of the mainstream and Established Churches. Since Traditional Faith does not rely on impressive buildings and stipends, nor on robes, birettas and cruets, it can thrive wherever the will to do so exists. There is a will to do so. Anglican Catholics may find themselves worshipping in Cemetary Chapels and in housegroups, but those chapels and houses quickly become fitting places for the sacraments. There is adaptation in the Traditional Church, but without abandoning those traditions.

7. Reproduction
Ah the Church is sex mad! Well of course it is, though "mad" seems a bit of a misnomer, but then "sex-sane" doesn't sound so meaningful. The Church celebrates life, and life is brought forth through sex. Sex is a real part of humanity and the Church is real. The fact of the matter is that with human reproduction comes the great miracle of life that the Church celebrates. For the Church, there is great joy in seeing a tiny bundle of humanity brought into being out from the warmth of mum into the cold air of the world. What comes next is the responsibility - a hard, but potentially very joyful responsibility - for the nurture, development and happiness of that tiny little person. The Church is capable of reproduction via evangelism, but more through the development of family life. There is no better evangelism than presenting healthy and happy families who live out their faith. Again, is this happening? The answer is yes! The greatest growth in the Traditional Church comes from families. Many atheists would call this brainwashing, but why isn't what the atheists do called brainwashing? The Church that promotes healthy human sexuality can grow. The Traditional church binds together, and does not split things up in some kind of reductionist fallacy.

It seems to me that far from being dead, Traditional Anglicanism is actually alive and life-giving through the grace and provenance of Almighty God..

A traditional game of pass the parcel.

Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.

It’s Tessa’s birthday party
and you’re sitting in a circle
ready to play pass the parcel.
Tessa tells everyone that
 this is a very special game of pass the parcel
 as the final prize is very unique
and very valuable.
Considering that her dad is a billionaire,
you can be sure when Tessa says “valuable,”
she means valuable!

So the game starts
and after about 6 or 7 goes,
the parcel lands in your lap
 just as the tortured strains
of the Birdie Song stops.

 However, 
just before you take off the next layer of wrapping,
you notice that it looks as if
someone has tampered with the wrapping paper.
 There seem to be some tears in the paper already – big ones!

Of course, you play your part
and take off your layer of wrapping
but, just as the music starts up again,
you notice that the next layer shows
 the same signs of tampering.
Those tears in the paper
may go all the way down
to the box containing the prize.

How confident are you that the special,
valuable prize is still there?
Can it have been stolen
or lost or replaced,
or is it just that the wrapping paper is torn?
How can you tell?

[PAUSE]

It would not be unreasonable
to lose confidence in this game of pass the parcel.
Your enjoyment of the game is a little tarnished
and the possibility that there is no prize at the end
spoils the point of the game.

What has caused you to lose confidence
in the first place?
Well, surely it is those tears
in the wrapping paper.
They are signs that something isn’t
as it should be.
They break with our expectations.

[PAUSE]

It is important for us to be able
 to be confident in our Christian belief.
 Every eleventh Sunday after Trinity,
St Paul hands onto us
that which he has received.
This is the blessing of possessing
 the Holy Scriptures as we do:
we are passed a most valuable prize,
 the Good News of Jesus Christ.

However, there’s a little problem with this Gospel.
 St Paul writes in Greek, not English,
so how do we know that the Gospel
has been translated properly?
Of course the translators of the Greek
passed on what they received
and produced the Gospel
in a language we can understand.

They did not tear the wrapping paper!

 They were steeped in the same Tradition
as St Paul and the Gospel writers,
 passing the parcel faithfully.
The prize is still there and intact.

 This is the beauty of our Tradition.
 If we are faithful to it,
 then the Word of God can go out into all lands
and to the end of the world His message.
Yet things aren’t as simple as that.

[PAUSE]

Every year,
usually around Easter or Christmas,
 there is some archaeologist
or Biblical translator coming in
pushing forward a new interpretation
 of the life of Lord Jesus.

Some will deny that Jesus was ever born;
others will deny that Jesus regarded himself as the Messiah,
and still others will claim
that He married Mary Magdalene,
was crucified and died
without resurrection. 

Whom can we trust?
Are these scholars passing onto us
what they received intact
or are there tears in the wrapping paper?
 Is the prize still there?

We also are faced with the temptation
to change what we believe by making the liturgy
more understandable,
 by taking out the difficult bits of the Gospel
 which others think
are tricky to understand,
are not politically correct or,
to others,
 seem downright offensive.

We are also faced with the temptation
to reinterpret the Gospel to be in line with
modern thinking.

Many Christians do just that and,
 in doing so.
 fail to pass on all that they have received.
Are these all just tears in the wrapping paper,
 or has the long-awaited prize been lost?

[PAUSE]

Our Lord Jesus says to each one of us,
“Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God”.

 How can we see God
 if we have muddied
the pure, clear waters of our Tradition?
St John tells us that
we shall be like God
for we shall see Him as He really is.
How can we be like Him
if we have completely changed the way we see Him
from what we have received
from the Christians who have gone before us
 in order to make Him fit
our way of thinking?

Can we be sure that our god
is the same God as for all the Christians
who came before us?

It is a fine and marvellous thing
 to hear God speak to us in our society
and in the context of our modern lives. 
It is quite another
to try and interpret His will
to fit our modern thinking and expectations.

Some modern scholars look down
on the thinkers of the past
and give thanks to God
for being more enlightened than they were.
But then. the modern thought trumps
 the thoughts of the past, doesn’t it?

Yet, the Pharisee looks down on the Publican,
and who goes home justified before God? 

Followers of the Gospel of Christ
are convicted of sin by that Gospel,
 but find in that same Gospel
the love and forgiveness of God
in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

In following the Traditions
and the patterns that God laid down for us,
we find ourselves receiving
 the prize of Christ Himself.

It is our duty then to pass
on to the next Christians
what we have received
with care and diligence.
Anything that we add or subtract may be
evidence of hubris and a complete lack of humility
 before God.

If we are faithful to what we receive,
 we will find ourselves
in the presence of the One
 whose Gospel we have spread.
There is no greater prize than that!

[PAUSE]

One day we shall peel off the last layer
of wrapping paper from the parcel.
What will we find beneath it?

St Benedict's Priory Salisbury 2012: Service and Humility

As usual, I spend my retreat with the Monks formerly of Elmore now based at Salisbury. Although, I'm no longer technically in Communion with these gentlemen - one of the casualties of the CofE's break with Tradition - I received much kind hospitality and shared much with them in their Offices and in their day-to-day running of the monastery.

This year, with my ordination imminent, it was seemly that I make the focus of my retreat the nature of Christian Service and Humility. The trouble was that I didn't get much in the way of retreating. With Dom Francis away on holiday, I found myself insinuated into washing up, running errands and playing roles in the saying of the Offices. To be honest, I thought nothing of it until I began to write these words, but it strikes me that the best way is not to think about Christian Service at all but to do it and thank God for it afterwards. Perhaps too often, I think about what I should be doing than actually doing it and perhaps you do too. We can plan grand schemes for our lives based on our qualifications and experiences, but perhaps our greatest ever accomplishment in our lives will be to give a cup of tea to a lonely old soul, to wash up after a monastic tea party, or to make an anonymous donation to a charity.

It is clear that we are not saved by works, i.e. not by what we do. We are saved through the Grace of God and by cooperating with that Grace willingly. If we are given the package of salvation, then we do need to open it! What brings us to God is that we do works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal. This does rather sound that I am rather making more of my kitchen duties than perhaps I should: where's the humility in that?

Well, quite.

My main point is that we do not know what will be our greatest accomplishment in life in the eyes of God. God's vision of us is completely different from our own and levels our accomplishments so that the ones we think are least important turn out to be most so and vice versa. Our humility must be in recognising that we are limited even in the things we think we do well, but it also must be that we have the capability in every limited action of seeing God transfiguring that action into something dear to Him. It's not what we do, it's that we do.

Yesterday was the Feast of St Laurence the Deacon. When told by the wicked Roman Prefect to turn over the riches of the Church, St Laurence brought to him the poor and needy of the region explaining that these people were the riches of the Church. Tradition has it that this is the reason that the holy deacon ended up roasting on a gridiron for this effrontery.

But the point is clear. Things do not have worth in themselves. Money is just metal and paper, gold just a metal, possessions just things - all will disappear when the Sun goes nova. Likewise all the values that we hold, our degrees and knowledge, our sporting prowess, all will die with us. Our worth is extrinsic - it comes from bearing the image of God in our very selves. If we deliberately blind ourselves to this fact that we are of infinite value to God, then there can be no salvation from death.
Likewise our actions, what we do, can be given a worth more than we understand by allowing the Divine Will to consecrate them.

So what are you going to do now?