Will you Luke at that?

Sermon for the Feast of St Luke

Have you noticed that St Luke doesn't appear in the canon of the Mass?

We have the apostles, including St Paul.

We have early bishops of Rome, like St Linus, St Cletus, St Clement and St Xystus. We have other bishops and martyrs like St Cornelius and St Cyprian, St Barnabus, St Ignatius, St Lucy and St Anastasia, even St Chrysogonus!

But no St Luke the Evangelist.

Granted also that neither does St Mark appear, nor even St Joseph.

Why not?

[PAUSE]

It does seem odd that the Church does not include the writer of the most historically detailed Gospel. St Luke is a magnificent historian of his time. Modern historians such as Ramsay, Harnack, Cadbury and Sherwin-White class St Luke as being of great importance and value. His Gospel is history, biography and theology rolled into one.

Yet he is not good enough to include in the canon of the Mass.

No, that's not true, and St Luke himself shows why.

How many disciples are there?

"Twelve, if you count Judas," everyone says enthusiastically!

Nope!

St Luke points out that there are at least seventy who are being sent out to spread the Gospel of Our Lord's presence among us in the neighbouring towns and cities.

Do we know their names?

Possibly there are lists out there with their names including that of St Aristobulus.

Who?

According to second century sources, St Aristobulus was sent to Britain after the day of Pentecost which means that the Church in England has existed from the first century.

But he seems to be forgotten too.

There are more names than we can.handle. We can't recite all the relevant saints or we would distract ourselves from the business of the Mass itself. We have to limit whose names we read out.

But we also have feast days like St Luke's today where we can thank.him and thank God for him and his witness to the Truth.

He is certainly not forgotten. Morning and Evening prayer contain those most important Gospel canticles which St Luke recorded: the Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis. He is there in the Litany listed among the apostles and evangelists. It is not an insult that he is not in the canon of the Mass for St Luke himself wants us to focus on the mystery unfolding before our very eyes - the same mystery that he bears witness to in his Gospel.

And yes we are allowed to think of St Luke as we read his words. He is a saint worth getting to know as he tells us categorically not just of what he witnessed but the people he associates with. He introduces us to Our Lady from whom he tells the story of Our Lord's birth. He introduces us to St Peter and St John who tell us of the events of the Gethsemane and the words spoken at the cross.

He introduces us to the closes circle of Our Lord's friends who themselves draw us in further to meet the Christ Himself.

[PAUSE]

St Luke doesn't need his name in the canon of the Mass. He just wants us to meet Christ which is exactly what the Mass is for.

GENEROSITY in Anglicanism

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Minding the open book

Sermon preached at the Cathedral Church of St Augustine of Canterbury on the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Tubbo the Clown

is performing at Mia's party.

He gives Mia's mummy

a pack of cards

and asks her to pick a card

memorise it

and put it 

back in the pack

without telling him.

After some over theatrical

moans and groans,

waving of hands 

and a rubber chicken,

Tubbo says,

"eight of diamonds!"

"Yes!" exclaims Mia's mummy

Cue much applause

and bowing and tripping over

big clown shoes.

How does he do it?

Can Tubbo really 

read minds?

[PAUSE]

The more sceptical of us

might suggest that

he can't.

We would probably say

that he is using 

a rigged deck of cards.

He might be using 

the reflection

in Mia's mummy's glasses.

Or perhaps,

he is using some

deep psychological trick.

[PAUSE,]

Mind reading acts

these days

rely on careful observation

of a person.

Knowing how 

people act normally

and how they react

unconsciously to 

various events,

can give a gifted observer

a good idea of what

people are thinking.

Just subtle little mannerisms

can expose to an eagle-eye

what we are thinking.

Poker players call these 

little signs 'tells'

because they use them to

tell if someone is bluffing.

We're very used to this

with the people closest to us.

"That face" on a parent

usually means 

that you have done something wrong.

[PAUSE]

What, then, are we to make 

of Our Lord

knowing the thoughts

of the scribes

who are watching Him

heal a man with the palsy.

Is this an act of mind reading,

or has He seen "that face"

on the scribes

when He forgives

the paralysed man

his sins.

Do the scribes

have a "tell"?

We can understand

if this is the case.

We can see the sneers,

the raised eyebrows,

the hands balling 

into fists.

And we can tell 

that they are taking issue

with Our Lord's authority

to forgive sins.

We don't need to read minds

to know what they are thinking.

So perhaps Our Lord

isn't a mind reader at all.

Except...

[PAUSE]

He is.

But the minds being read

aren't just

the minds of the scribes.

Right at the beginning,

all we see is a paralysed man

being brought to

Our Lord by friends.

We see their faith in Jesus.

What we don't see

is that the man 

needs forgiveness

in order to be healed.

Our Lord is the first to admit

that not every illness 

is the result of sin.

But equally, 

some illnesses

might be the result 

of sin.

How does Our Lord know

that forgiving this man's sin

will heal him?

[PAUSE]

Our Lord knows his thoughts.

And He knows the thoughts

of the scribes.

He knows our thoughts

because He knows us.

He knows our "tells".

He knows our triggers.

He knows our deepest

darkest thoughts.

Got a deep dark secret?

Sonething you want 

to keep hidden?

Something which would 

mortify you if someone else knows?

Well, sorry, 

Our Lord knows it.

Does that make you 

uncomfortable?

Why?

[PAUSE]

If God knows our shame,

why is that a problem?

What we see here in front of us,

is a God Who doesn't raise 

His eyebrows,

doesn't tut-tut,

doesn't condemn,

but seeks to heal.

He wants to make us better.

He wants to forgive our sins.

But we need to come to Him

or be carried to Him

in order to find

the healing of our souls

through the forgiveness

of our sins.

We are sinners.

We know that

and we have a tendency

to scold others

or sneer at others

or avoid others 

because of their sins.

But God is not like that.

And He doesn't want us to be like that.

This is why priests

cannot reveal

what is told them in confession.

God wants us 

to confess to Him

and not be ashamed

of coming to confession.

We should be ashamed

of sinning.

We should not be ashamed

of repenting

of confessing

of wanting to be healed.

Because God is not

ashamed of creating us

as the Incarnation,

Death and Resurrection

proves in spades.

[PAUSE]

God reads our minds

because He knows us.

The converse is also true.

If we know God,

we know His mind too.

We can read the Mind of God

if we choose to.

But that means a life of 

searching for Him

and seeking His "tell"

which can only be found

in the Word of God.

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Thank God for chicken sandwiches!

Sermon for harvest festival

How much is 

a chicken sandwich, 

these days?

Would you buy one for £1? 

Okay if it's one of 

Mrs Miggins' sandwiches 

at a fundraising lunch, 

but not if it's from 

Scabby Joe's cart 

behind the bins at Tesco's. 

£2? 

£5? 

£10? 

That would have 

to be a good one!

What about $1500?

Would you buy 

a chicken sandwich 

for $1500?

[PAUSE]

What's it made from? 

Bread made 

at the hands of 1000 dusky maidens  

(or handsome young men, 

if you prefer)? 

Chicken directly descended 

from the court of Henry VIII? 

Butter from 

the real Ermintrude the Cow 

from the Magic Roundabout?

But a chicken sandwich 

does cost $1500 

and this has been proved.

[PAUSE]

A man 

- a youtuber - 

has shown that 

the cost of making 

a chicken sandwich 

from scratch costs 

that amount of money.

He bought the wheat, 

sowed it, 

grew it, 

did all that farmers do 

to make it grow 

into normal wheat. 

He reared 

and killed a chicken, 

himself. 

He made the butter 

from a cow he milked himself. 

He even added 

all the sweetners 

and preservatives 

that go into a chicken sandwich. 

All this cost him $1500.

What does this tell you?

[PAUSE]

We rely so much 

on the labour of others 

for the fact that 

we can go to the fridge, 

take out a chicken sandwich 

and eat it 

without sparing a single thought 

for all the work 

that has gone into

getting that sandwich 

into our fridge in the first place.

And then we moan 

when we have to go to work.

[PAUSE]

We see here 

the sheer complexity 

that forms our economy. 

No longer are we 

subsistence farmers 

eking out a meagre existence 

through days of back-breaking labour 

in order to have 

only just enough 

to eat in the evening.  

But our labour is hard, today. 

We still have to worry about 

getting enough money 

in our pockets in order 

to put food on the table. 

That worry is not just 

in terms of physical produce, 

but streams of 

data, cashflow 

and numbercrunching.

And, as we are finding 

in our sophisticated digital age, 

whatever we produce 

is still not immune 

from the effects of 

the weather, war or robbery. 

And we worry. 

We become anxious 

about the work we do, 

whether it's enough, 

whether we can cope 

with the demands made on us 

for our labour.

As good Christians, 

we bring our worries 

and the worries of the world 

to God. 

And what does God say?

[PAUSE]

He shows us lilies 

and sparrows.

"Ah! It's alright for Him, 

He doesn't need to eat. 

He can just magic up some food!"

"Why doesn't He magic up 

some food 

for us all?"

These folk have missed the point.

It is our labour together 

that means that chicken sandwiches 

do not cost $1500. 

If we choose to invest our work 

with the work of others 

then we reap the rewards 

which we can share. 

Our labour is not worth nothing.

It certainly is not worth nothing to God.

[PAUSE]

Work became hard for us at the Fall. 

God did not arbitrarily curse us 

with hard labour 

when we ate of the fruit 

from the tree of knowledge 

of good and evil. 

We effectively cursed ourselves 

by injecting laziness, 

cheating, 

fraud, 

corner-cutting, 

avarice and theft 

into our work. 

How much of our work exists 

just in order 

to protect ourselves 

from each other?

[PAUSE]

And God shows us sparrows 

to remind us that 

He does care and, 

if we seek Him 

and His righteousness first, 

we will have more than we need.

He shows us lilies 

to remind us that 

His Creation is beautiful 

and, 

perhaps, 

we should bask 

in its beauty so as 

to want to work 

to keep it nice.

God gives us motivation 

to invest our labour in His creation 

for love of Him, 

and that He promises 

what the world cannot 

- a huge return on 

that investment.

Often, 

our attitude to labour 

needs careful and serious review. 

Here, 

at our harvest festival, 

such as it is,

we give thanks to God 

for His goodness 

in providing the harvest 

as well as blessing those 

who gathered that harvest. 

This is right and proper.

But do we see 

the part we play in that harvest? 

Is there a part we should play 

in that harvest?

Alcohol and Anglican Catholics

 Why a hemina of wine really is enough.

Entitled to High Church?

Sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

They say that a bad tenor is a form of piracy, being murder on the high Cs.

Why do we think that one note is higher than another? It's not as if we can see them - they are sounds, not sights. Yes, indeed, we may write notes as being higher or lower on the page, but why not left or right? Do we think that one note is higher than another because of how they are written, or is it something else?

[PAUSE]

It's interesting that different cultures have thought of notes as being high or low regardless of how they write the music down. Many think that it's because of where the notes feel in the body as you sing them. Low notes are in the belly and take less effort. High notes feel in the head and take more effort.

Indeed, it is the sense of effort that makes us think of climbing a ladder. Walking uphill takes more effort than walking down. 

You might now look and see why we're often called "High Church". We go to a lot of effort in decorating our churches and in the way in which we perform our liturgy. Low Church has a simple table with a white cloth. High Church has the Big Six on the altar with an appropriate frontal. The more ornate, the more effort, the higher church.

Low Church tend to put their effort into words and interior contemplation. High Church tend to put their effort into the decoration and engaging the senses. There is room for both.

To be high up in anything requires effort and people indeed put in the effort so that they can go up higher. The trouble comes when people think two rather pernicious things. They first think that their efforts entitle them to the high places, the best positions, the ring-side seats. They then think that, because they are in the high places, the best positions and the ring-side seats, they must be better than those who aren't.

And that's the problem.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord presents us with a wedding with lots of rooms. These days, we think of tables at the wedding breakfast. The better tables are those closest to the bride and groom.

If the Archbishop were to come in and demand a seat between Bridegroom and Bride just because he is the Archbishop, we know that something is wrong.

The archbishop would be entitled to sit in the top place here and now, because he is the Archbishop and his high office would entitle him to take this position. His effort and position means that he has authority here. 

But a wedding isn't like that. "High" and "Low" at a wedding don't mean the same as "High" and "Low" in church authority. To think that because we have a high position in one way, doesn't mean that we have a high position in every way. We cannot presume on our sense of entitlement.

Our Lord is demonstrating the danger of presuming entitlement which effectively comes from worshipping entitlement.

And people do worship entitlement.

[PAUSE]

Some people seem to think that, just because they have put the effort in to achieve something, doesn't mean that they are entitled to have that achievement recognised universally.

Some people seem to think that, just because they think they have put the effort in to achieve something, doesn't mean that they are entitled to have that achievement recognised universally.

It doesn't work like that.

High Mass is as valid as Low Mass. What matters is how we approach the sacrament.

At the wedding feast, it's not what you have achieved that determines your place, it's your relationship with the bride and groom.

And the Wedding Feast of the Lamb is no different.

Those who believe that they entitled to sit in the higher room will be disappointed.

Those whom the Bride and Bridegroom recognise will be invited to go up higher.

[PAUSE]

The more we value Jesus, the less we value the entitlements of this life. The more we learn to approach Him in reverence at His altar, and the more we learn to take Him away with us in our hearts, in our minds and in our lives, the less we need for the trappings of pride and reputation.

We are entitled to Heaven, but only through the love of Christ.