Let us while away the hours...

Sermon for the third Sunday after Easter

A little while 

and we shall not see Him.

And a little while

and we shall see Him.

We know that Our Lord

is talking to His disciples

hours before His arrest

and crucifixion,

and then His resurrection.

We get that.

Unlike the disciples

standing her

with Jesus,

not quite understanding

what He means,

we have the privilege of knowing

that they will not see the Lord

while He rests in the tomb

but they will see Him

in the locked room

in which He will show Himself

to be alive.

We're lucky to have

that hindsight.

But it's been more than

a little while

since we see Him

walking on the shore

of Lake Galilee.

With the disciples,

we see Him again

for a little while -

for forty joy-filled days -

and then He is gone,

ascending in glory

and promising that He will return

in the same manner that He ascends.

And it's been more than

a little while.

Two thousand years

and mankind waits,

waits for the return of the Resurrected.

[PAUSE]

At this present time,

the World feels weary.

It has seen wars

of titanic proportion.

It has seen almost

unimaginable cruelty.

It has seen things speed up,

so that life and death decisions

are made and executed

in the twinkling of an eye

and the click of a mouse.

The world is getting tired

and, although it denies it,

it longs for its Creator.

And we Christians

feel that longing

but we have hindsight.

We know where our rest,

our energy, our motivation

and our joy is coming from.

But we don't know when.

[PAUSE]

No-one knows.

No-one can know.

Sure, there are those

who claim to know

when Our Lord returns,

but the day passes

and embarrasses them.

We don't know when.

We shall never know when.

But then, perhaps "when"

is the wrong word.

[PAUSE]

"When" makes no real sense

to the One Who walks in Eternity,

for Whom each and every 

moment in Time is equally accessible.

For Him, the rise and fall of mankind

is both millennia and microsecond.

Our eighty-or-so years

are just a little while for Him

but they can also be an age for Him

as He inhabits every beat of our heart

every breath of our being,

every growth and death of 

our every cell.

And we wait for Him.

[PAUSE]

But our lives have not been

put on hold

while He is away from us.

We have to live our lives,

knowing that they mean something

to Him.

Not sit there waiting,

for then we get bored

and listless.

[PAUSE]

True. We see the world

do its best to go to Hell

in a handcart.

We can't stop that.

We see people 

lose so much:

their money,

their homes,

their justices,

their families,

their lives,

and we call out,

"How much longer?"

What reply do we get?

[PAUSE]

Like the saints under the altar

in Heaven,

we must wait a while longer.

It will hurt to encounter

pain and evil,

hurts done to us,

and hurts done to others.

But St Paul tells us to redeem the time

for the days are evil.

We redeem the time

by consecrating every moment

of our lives to God.

Not seeing this period

in our history as 

Time's waiting room,

but as a time to be alive

and make the difference.

Yes, the world is tired,

and we are tired,

and things always seem 

to be dark,

but we need to take time

to look into every second of our lives

every breath we draw,

every beat of our heart

and know that,

whether we feel His presence or not,

He IS here.

We might not see Him

but, as we still ourselves

and sit in His presence

we can still know

that He has not truly left us.

And in just a little while,

we shall see Him as He is.

Why doesn't the Anglican Catholic Church join the Ordinariate

 

Why Blessed Elzabeth Barton shows why the ACC cannot be part of the Anglican Patrimony within the Roman Catholic Church.

The voice of the shepherd

Sermon preached at the Cathedral Church of St Augustine of Canterbury on the Second Sunday after Easter

What noise does a sheep make?

Well quite!

How old where you when 

you were taught 

that sheep say baa

cows say moo

and chickens say cluck cluck cluck?

Incidentally,

there is condition

called bovilexia

which is that inexpressible urge 

to shout, "Moo!"

whenever you see a cow.

Now we have established

these most important facts:

if sheep say baa

and cows say moo,

what does the shepherd say?

[PAUSE]

We can imagine such things as,

"Out to the grass you go"

or

"Sheep dip time"

or

"Come here, you woolly wotsit."

But, any one of us

could travel to 

the next farm

and shout these things.

It wouldn't make us a shepherd.

We could learn all the dog calls

and whistles,

to round up sheep.

But it wouldn't make us

a shepherd.

To walk into a field and say

"Hello Flossy, I'm a shepherd"

isn't going to endear you

to the sheep.

They do not know you.

They do not know your voice.

They will know 

that you are not a shepherd.

And that's crucial

for their survival.

Sheep are prey animals.

They are suspicious of anything

obviously strange

and will react whenever

something new enters their field.

Admittedly,

sheep are not very bright

and will follow the flock.

Doesn't that sound like us?

[PAUSE]

We might object

to Our Lord comparing us

to sheep,

but, to be honest

we behave like them.

We're suspicious

of whatever disrupts our routines.

If anyone offers us anything

immediately we think,

"what's in it for them?"

Our lives are driven

by routine and social convention,

even when that routine

and that social convention

lead us into dangerous territory.

We will follow the flock

unthinkingly

until it's too late.

We are prey 

to sin, the world and the Devil,

however much we think of ourselves

as being above the lowly sheep.

If we are going

to be truly safe 

we are going to need

to know the.voice

of the shepherd.

Have you ever heard 

the voice of the shepherd?

[PAUSE]

There are people

who certainly have.

Aside from the Disciples

and the women

who surround Our Lord,

we know that

St Paul hears the Shepherd 

speak to Him directly.

There's no mistaking it.

For us,

we can hear lots of voices.

Some come from those around us,

from the people we meet,

friend and family,

employers and co-workers,

from social media,

the television and radio,

from Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Indeed,

there are a lot of voices

telling us what to do,

telling us that eggs are bad

but steak is good

or that steak is bad 

and eggs are good,

or that eggs and steak 

are both as bad for each other

or blowed be steak and eggs

and bring on the cake.

There is just so much noise.

And there is so much noise

inside our heads

as different voices

criticise us,

confuse us,

misdirect us,

and make us unhappy.

How do we expect

to hear the voice of the Shepherd?

[PAUSE]

The fact is

that you have already heard Him.

What happens when the Gospel finishes?

"This is the Gospel of the Lord."

It isn't the Gospel of Trump

and Starmer,

nor the Gospel of the Left

or the Right.

It's the Gospel of the Lord.

If you want to know

if a priest is preaching the truth

it's there, in the Gospel.

[PAUSE]

And you will hear the Shepherd's voice again.

"Take and eat ye all of this, 

for this is my body"

"Take and drink ye all of it

for this is the chalice of my blood..."

Those are the words of God

giving us of Himself

to eat and to drink.

These is the voice of

the Good Shepherd

and we know it.

We know it because

we've always heard it.

We should not expect Him

to speak to us

out of the blue,

 but that's not to say he won't.

We should not expect

to hear anything,

at least not with our ears.

We hear the voice of the shepherd

whenever we gather in His Name.

We hear Him when His word is preached

or when we are given Godly advice

which tallies with the voice

we have come to know in the Church.

And when we are alone

in silence and in prayer

we might hear Him

not in words, but in that silence

when He puts His mouth

to the ear of our soul

and reminds us of the love

that He has for every single one

of us 

[PAUSE]

The bleating of the sheep

may be loud,

but we can always listen out

for the voice of The Shepherd 

An Anglican Catholic view of the witness of Holy Scripture

 

Is eye-witness testimony reliable? What about what is included in the Bible?

Is eye-witness testimony reliable? What about what is included in the Bible?

Breathing marks

Sermon for Low Sunday

There's something

a little bit disturbing 

about being breathed on.

There's the hygiene issue -

getting breathed on

is how diseases

like coughs and colds

and the flu are spread.

And there is something

invasive about it.

We say that we don't want

someone breathing 

down our neck.

We shudder with the person

who picks up the phone

to a "heavy breather."

Yet, for those of you

present at the consecration

of Holy Oils,

or who attended 

the blessing of the baptismal font

at the Paschal Vigil,

it appears bishops have to learn to

be heavy breathers.

Would you really want

to receive the oil of Chrismation

knowing that the Bishop

had subjected it

to a bout of heavy breathing?

But then, 

during Confirmation,

the Bishop puff into the face

of the recipient of the Sacrament,

so you can't escape 

the Bishop's breath!

[PAUSE]

Yet, here, behind closed doors,

where confused and 

disoriented disciples dwell,

Our Lord appears and breathes on them.

Disgusting?

Germ spreading?

Invasive?

What do you think?

[PAUSE]

You say to yourself,

quite naturally,

if Jesus is doing

the heavy breathing

then it must be alright.

It affects us because

we are so aware of the germs

that can infect us

by being breathed in.

And perhaps

we can appreciate

why this couldn't be done

any other way.

In breathing on His Disciples,

Our Lord becomes

the vehicle for 

the Holy Ghost 

to begin His mission

in building the Church.

This is not a germ-ridden breath:

it's the Breath of Life,

pure, incorruptible

life-giving, empowering

and disinfecting.

Disinfecting?

Absolutely.

"Whose soever sins ye remit, 

they are remitted unto them; 

and whose soever sins ye retain, 

they are retained."

Sin is our infection

which we spread 

from the brokenness of 

our hearts and minds and souls

in our thoughts, words and deeds.

Just as we breathe out

infectious diseases from our bodies,

so do we breath out

infectious sins from our fallen nature.

And yet, 

here is the Holy Spirit of God

poured out upon the eleven disciples

for the purpose of 

remitting and retaining sins.

This is the same promise by Our Lord,

first made to St Peter in Matthew 16,

then to all the disciples

two chapters later in Matthew 18.

Here,

the promise is delivered

by a breath.

This Holy Ghost

ignites on the Day of Pentecost

when the Apostles become 

the first Bishops

each one with the power

to bind and loose,

remit and retain

through the authority

and power of the Holy Ghost

Who makes His dwelling 

within the Church.

Just as we breathe on glass

in order to see through it

more clearly

so does Our Lord

breathe on the disciples

to polish them up

for the purpose

of cleaning all those

befouled by the sins of the world

as they enter God's Church.

This is our salvation.

It is also why

we should rejoice

to have Jesus

breathing down our necks.

Paschal Post Mortem

 

How was Lent?

The Man of the Cloth

Sermon for the Feast of the Resurrection

Making your bed

is supposed to be

the sign of maturity.

Taking the time

to refluff the pillows

and fling the duvet out

so that it covers the bed

ready for tonight

is often seen as a chore

by teenagers, 

and by those in a hurry.

But why?

If you live alone,

no-one else will see

an untidy bed,

so it won't matter.

You're just going to

get into it again

tonight.

Besides,

leaving it all rumpled

airs the bed a bit.

[PAUSE]

If you don't live on your own

or share a bed,

then making it

seems a courtesy.

It shows that

you want to keep things nice

for someone else.

It's an act that says

that we want

the other person 

to feel at home,

to feel comfortable,

to feel that everything is in order,

to feel looked after.

Does Jesus make His bed?

[PAUSE]

Peter and John 

are looking in the tomb.

They see the linen clothes

that Jesus was buried in

lying in the tomb.

The napkin that was

about His face,

is lying wrapped together

in a place by itself.

The Greek word

that is used for "lying"

is the same word

used when,

at Christmas,

we see the baby

lying in the manger.

The linen cloths

have not been tossed aside

they are lying

set in their places.

The napkin

is rolled up

and put aside.

Jesus has made His bed.

[PAUSE]

This is significant.

People stealing a body

would do so

as quickly as possible.

They would take the linen cloths

with the body,

or cast them aside

leaving them 

where they fell.

They would not have time

to roll up a napkin.

They would not have time

to gently place the linen cloths

in the tomb.

Indeed, 

if they were in a rush

the napkin would not

be in a place by itself.

No, the body was not stolen.

Jesus gets up,

makes His bed

and leaves.

[PAUSE]

But Our Lord

makes His bed

for a reason more

than an assurance

that He is truly risen.

We make our bed,

when there are others

that might sleep in it.

Jesus makes His bed

because we shall all

sleep where He slept

after His crucifixion.

We shall all sleep

when we face our own death.

It's that one terrible fact

that we must face.

It's that one terrible sadness

that we encounter

with our loved ones

as they pass from us.

Jesus makes His bed

knowing that we must sleep in it

at the end of our lives.

But He shows us

that we too will be making our beds

when we rise through Him.

By making His bed in the tomb,

Our Lord has shown

that Death is not for us.

Death for the Christian

is not a state of being,

it is an event,

just a thing that happens to us

and doesn't stop us

from being ourselves,

because God Himself

keeps us alive in Him.

At our Death,

we sleep until we are woken

by Eternity's sunrise.

And it will be Christ

who bids us rise with Him

into the glorious morning in the garden.

But let us make our bed first!