Devil's Advocate

Sermon for the first Sunday of Lent

Let's play Devil's advocate.

How would you bring Christ down?

Yes of course, 

as Christians,

we know Christ to be God.

We couldn't bring Him down

even if we tried

and we don't want to try.

Sadly,

others do.

So how might they do it?

Well they need to show

that Jesus is not God.

They need to show

that He is not all-powerful

that He is not all-knowing

and that He is not all-good.

If the Devil 

can convince us

of just one of these things

then he has us.

And because Jesus is a man,

this should be easy.

If the Devil 

can convince us

that Jesus is only a man

then it's job done.

So how do we start?

[PAUSE]

Showing that 

He is not all-knowing

is tricky.

We might try

to show that 

He is not all-good.

But let's show

that He is not all-powerful.

That's easiest

That means we need 

to show that He is weak.

And He is weak too.

Look at Him

all hungry.

If He doesn't eat, 

then He'll die.

If He's God,

then He can change

these stones into bread

and feed Himself.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, 

but by every word that proceedeth 

out of the mouth of God"

Now,

is that more

or less powerful

than changing stones to bread?

Ah!

But if He does change

stones to bread

he can be fed

and show us that He is God.

He refuses!

So He's not all-powerful.

But what if he's right?

What if it's not the bread

that makes us live,

but the words of the mouth of God?

If He speaks the truth,

then changing stones to bread

would be needless

and, in the circumstances,

show us that He bows

to temptation.

So not turning stones to bread,

that's actually more powerful

and we still have no evidence

to show that

He is not all-powerful.

But we have no evidence

that He is all-powerful.

[PAUSE]

If He says

that we live by every word 

that comes out of His mouth

then let Him show it.

Let Him give proof

that He is all-powerful.

Send Him up

to the top of the pinnacle.

If He lives

by every word of God,

then, if He throws Himself down,

God's word will summon the angels, 

because Holy Scripture says,

"He shall give his angels 

charge concerning thee, 

and in their hands 

they shall bear thee up, 

lest at any time thou dash thy foot 

against a stone."

But if He does,

the He will not have seen

through the trick.

He will not know 

that He is being.deceived

into proving His word.

If He throws Himself down

then He might prove

that He is kept by God's word

but He will also prove

that He can be manipulated.

It will show that

He is not all-knowing

and not all-powerful.

[PAUSE]

"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

So, He's not stupid.

He's not being fooled

by the clever ploy.

Last chance for now. 

Tempt Him

with everything

on the conditon

He stops worshipping God.

Every man has his price.

So offer Him

everything,

absolutely everything

to turn from God.

If He does,

He won't be all-good

because He doesn't worship God;

He won't be all-knowing

because He won't see through this trick,

He won't be all-powerful

for the riches of.the whole world

control Him.

And then we are done.

[PAUSE]

"Get thee hence, Satan; 

for it is written, 

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 

and him only shalt thou serve."

And that's the best we can do.

The Devil can't show that 

Jesus is not all-powerful

nor that

Jesus is not all-knowing

nor that

Jesus is not all-good.

To be fair,

Jesus hasn't shown

that He is all-knowing, 

all-powerful and all-good.

But He doesn't need to.

Watch.Him.

Watch what He does.

Watch Him.heal.

Watch Him forgive.

Watch Him teach.

Watch Him raise the dead.

And

Watch Him die.

Watch why He dies.

And watch Him rise in glory.

The Devil can

and will do his worst

and God shows us

why playing Devil's advocate

only leads us to see

the glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

To Him be honour

and glory unto the age of ages.

A literal Creation for Anglican Catholics?

 Is it necessary for Anglican Catholics to believe the Science of Creation?

Two blind, two see

 

Sermon for Quinquagesima preached at the Cathedral Church of St Augustine of Canterbury

How's your eyesight?

Some of us are lucky

and have perfect vision.

Some of us

can discern that 

one of the altar candles

is adrift from upright

by one twenty-seventh

of a degree,

or an n dash from an m dash

at 100 paces.

Lots of people wear glasses these days.

Is that because

watching too many screens

is making our eyesight bad

or is it because

opticians are now very good 

at picking up

subtle problems with 

our eyesight?

We can now correct

all manner of problems

with spectacles

or contact lenses

or even low-level surgery.

What do you think

is the most difficult

problem with our sight

for us to correct?

[PAUSE]

Have you gone for 

the most obvious answer?

Not having eyes at all?

Absolutely.

Trying to fit

an earthworm 

with contact lenses

is raising futility to a high art.

Yet we know

that Our Lord heals the blind.

That includes those blinded

by diseases,

and it also includes those

born blind.

In fact, 

if you look at that

instance where Our Lord

heals the man born blind

we can reasonably infer

that the man was born without eyes

or eyes so deformed 

that they actually need

to be re-created 

which our Lord does do

with the dust of the earth,

demonstrating clearly

that He is the Creator.

What is interesting today

in St Luke's record of the Gospel,

we hear of two blindnesses

but only one that is healed

- at least only one 

that is healed straightaway.

[PAUSE]

St Luke tells us of the situation

in which Our Lord lets 

His confused disciples know

that He is going to Jerusalem

for the last time. 

On that last trip to Jerusalem

they encounter a blind man at Jericho

who is calling to the Son of David 

to have mercy upon him.

He shouts out in his blindness,

recognising

that there is one near

who can restore his sight.

He sees wirhout seeing.

His faith saves him,

and by 'save' here, 

we can understand the word 'heals'

for 'salvation' and 'health' 

are two sides of the same coin.

So there's one blindness.

Did you spot the other blindness?

[PAUSE]

There, right at the beginning!

Our Lord tells his disciples

that He is going to Jerusalem

to be crucified.

They do not understand.

They do not see.

And they won't see,

not until the events of Good Friday

are played out

in front of them.

Only when

they see Him appear to them

in the flesh

do they understand Him

- they see what He is on about.

There is a sight of the eye

and the sight of the mind's eye.

The blind man sees 

Christ in his mind's eye

but not with his fleshly eyes.

The disciples see

Christ with their fleshly eyes,

but not in their mind's eye.

The Lord heals both.

As Our Saviour

- our restorer to our full health

in God,

He reveals His love

in revealing to us

the God to Whom 

we have been blind

since our Fall 

in the Garden of Eden.

Yet we still hear

the Atheist say to us

"Show us your God!

Show Him and we will believe.

Seeing is believing!"

What do we do then?

How do we respond?

Especially when

we do not see Our Lord

among us.

[PAUSE]

We might point

to the Eucharist

where we see Our Lord

under the appearance

of bread and wine.

But, as St Thomas Aquinas points out

Our Lord is truly present,

Body, Soul, Humanity

and Divinity,

but that He is seen

with eyes of faith.

He is not seen 

through microscopes,

telescopes,

oscilloscopes

or periscopes,

or even kalaidoscopes.

He is present with us

for us to see

with our eyes of faith,

- the same eyes

with which the Apostles

see Him

until their last earthly breath

and their first heavenly breath.

Those who do not believe

will not see Him

in the Most Holy Sacrament,

because they are blind.

For them to ask us

to show Him to them

is impossible

for their mind's eye is blind.

All we can do

is just bear witness to 

what we see,

what the Apostles see,

what the Church sees

in the hope that the eyes of faith

may be opened 

in the eyes of those 

whose mind is blind.

And what do we see?

[PAUSE]

We see a man,

a healer,

a teacher,

a preacher,

a giver of faith, hope and love.

We see a man,

mocked,

spat on,

flogged,

and crucified

for the love of each one of us.

And we see a tomb,

an empty tomb,

and, with our eyes of faith

we see Him who

once occupied it.

That is what we see

and that is what we show the world

in the hope that

that which is now blind

may soon see.

An Anglican Catholic meets Hypatia

 

Why the conflict between St Cyril of Alexandria and Hypatia has far-reaching consequences.

Sowing a tale of two Kingdoms?

Sermon for Sexagesima Sunday

What is the Kingdom of God like?

We know that 

when Jesus utters these words,

He is telling us something

about the way

God rules His Kingdom.

As we hear 

His parable of the sower,

are we being told

something 

of the Kingdom of God?

[PAUSE]

It seems that the answer is, "no."

First, we see Jesus

addressing the crowd,

and He begins straightaway,

"A sower went out 

to sow His seed..."

He does not begin

with "The Kingdom of God is like..."

Is the parable of the sower

about the Kingdom of God?

If not, then what is Jesus 

telling us?

[PAUSE]

It's after talking to the crowds

that the disciples ask about 

this parable,

and Jesus tells them

that this is about 

the Kingdom of God.

He tells them

that it is for them

to know the mysteries

of the Kingdom of God,

but for the others

they may only know the parable.

Why is that?

Listen to the parable of the sower.

A sower sows seed.

Some goes by the wayside

and gets trodden on and eaten by birds.

Some goes on rock

and withers away through lack of soil.

Some goes into the thorn bush

where it is choked up.

Some goes into good soil

where it thrives.

What is this telling us about

the Kingdom of God?

What is this telling us about

the way that God rules

His kingdom?

[PAUSE]

Turn the focus 

on the sower.

He sows seed.

He sows it everywhere.

Everywhere He can,

He casts seed

giving it every opportunity

to grow.

Jesus tells us

that this seed

is the Word of God.

It's Him.

Jesus is being sown

- sown everwhere.

Everyone has the opportunity

to receive the Word of God,

but many receive Him

on their terms

and not God's.

Some just let the Gospel

get trodden underfoot

and taken away by the Devil.

They hear the Word of God

and say, "who cares?"

Some receive the Gospel,

but don't pay it any real attention.

They say of Jesus, "oh He's nice!"

and then give Him not a further

sensible thought.

Some receive the Gospel

and try to turn it

into a thing of the word,

tangling it up

with politics, ideologies,

capital, finance,

social justice

and liberation.

They choke the meaning

of the Word of God.

They have their salvation,

and then they lose it.

All of these hear the Gospel

preached in a parable

because they have

only their agendas

and reject the Kingdom of God.

Something else rules them.

But notice 

how they still hear

the Gospel preached

because the Heavenly Sower

still wants them 

to hear the Word of God.

The seed is there for them

to receive,

and it is upto them

to let it grow.

[PAUSE]

We are given this opportunity

to receive the Kingdom of God.

If we are given a parable,

do we want to know what it means?

If we do,

if it niggles us,

if it confuses us,

if it makes us want

to come to Jesus and say,

"Please Lord, explain it to us!"

then it has done its job.

It has done its job

because it has given us

the opportunity to become

a member of the Kingdom of God,

by bringing us

to the King Himself.

If we accept His rule

and allow His love

to grow within our lives

then we will bear fruit

and enter into His courts

bringing our sheaves with us

rejoicing.

This is the seed 

that is sown in us

and we are here

in church

to let it grow.

God's generosity

means we get to 

hear His Word,

but does it matter enough

to us

to want to

understand it

- really understand it?

An Anglican Catholic makes a presentation

 

Why Candlemas is an.enlightening feast.

Liking the Kingdom of Heaven

Sermon for Septuagesima

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like..."

Our Lord says these words

several times,

but He usually goes on

to compare the Kingdom of Heaven

to something that doesn't 

seem to make sense. 

The Kingdom.of Heaven

is like workers working in a vineyard.

But it's also like a grain of mustard seed.

It's like leaven in bread dough,

treasure in a field,

a merchant man seeking goodly pearls,

a net cast into the sea,

a householder with treasures old and new,

and a marriage for the King's son.

Eight times Our Lord

tells us what 

the Kingdom of God

is like

and all only in

St Matthew's Gospel.

We hear Our Lord

describe a situation

in a parable

nut leaves us looking

for where the Kingdom of Heaven

actually is.

Look at this parable 

of the vineyard,

we see the labourers

some come at the beginning 

of the day

agree a fair price

and start work.

We see some labourers

coming in the middle of the day

even at the eleventh hour

and getting the same wages.

This is what 

the Kingdom of God is like,

but it's a struggle to see

where it is.

[PAUSE]

We can see the King,

that's clearly the owner

of the vineyard.

But who are his subjects?

The labourers?

Does that mean

that the Kingdom.of Heaven

contains people

who are invited in

to do some work

for wages?

Does that mean

that the Kingdom of Heaven

contains people

who complain about

how much they are being paid?

That doesn't ring true

with the idea of 

the Kingdom of Heaven

being a place of everlasting joy.

In this parable,

we see the king

but where are his subjects?

[PAUSE]

Perhaps we're looking

at the wrong thing.

We have an idea

of there being eternal joy

and bliss 

in the Kingdom of Heaven,

but perhaps

in these eight parables,

these eight ways of saying

what the Kingdom of God is like

we aren't actually looking at it

like a place on a map.

We aren't looking about

who is the king

and where is his castle

and what the Lord Chamberlain

had for breakfast.

Perhaps these parables

are more about 

how Our Lord

governs His Kingdom.

[PAUSE]

This makes sense

for this parable of the vineyard.

The focus is not 

on the labourers

it's on the fact that

the Owner gives

the same fair wage

to those who came late.

It's about his fairness

(no one gets diddled)

and his generosity

(he can use his money how he likes).

This is what we can expect

the Kingdom of Heaven

to be like.

The generosity of God

is so great

that it is scandalous

to those

who have a worldly way

of thinking.

The invitation for us

to enter Kingdom is there

and our work for that Kingdom

will not go unrewarded.

It is interesting to note

that only those

who complain about their wage

get told to go their way.

In refusing to see generosity

and accepting that

this is the way things are,

they find themselves 

out if the vineyard

with their wage

but none of the appreciation

of the Owner's willingness

to give good things.

[PAUSE]

God shows us

how He rules His kingdom.

He shows us the terms

that we can expect

and the price of entry,

but also how warm it is,

how full of love and joy.

We accept it 

on His terms,

not ours.

He is King

after all,

and Who is like Him?