Tag team Trinity

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

Hooray for the simple pulley!

You pull one end down

and the other comes up.

Or you let your end pull up

and the other end goes down.

Fantastic for building sites

for hauling bricks up to the top floor,

and letting down the bucket of sludge 

from the roof in a controlled manner

rather than flinging it from the shingles

all over an unlucky foreman.

One end can only come down

if the other end comes up.

Is God like that?

[PAUSE]

For a few weeks now,

we've been sitting with the Disciples

listening to Our Lord speak

on the night He is arrested

and handed over for crucifixion.

We know that He is going to His Father,

and that He does so

in order that the Holy Spirit can come.

Is there a pulley system 

to get into Heaven?

Or is this like a wrestling match

in which the Holy Ghost

can only enter the fight

when He has been tagged

by Our Lord?

Why can't we have both?

Why not Our Lord 

and the Holy Ghost

together?

Why does one only come down

while the other goes up?

[PAUSE]

Our Lord is telling us

something of the Holy Ghost's mission.

The Holy Ghost comes

to correct the world

about sin, righteousness 

and judgment.

That's why the Holy Ghost 

is coming:

to correct and confirm.

To bind us more closely

to Christ.

It is because Christ

puts on our humanity

that we are saved.

Our humanity matters to God,

Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Our integrity as individuals

with the ability

to think for ourselves

and make our own choices

is part of what it means 

to be human.

Let us suppose

that Our Lord stays on Earth.

What happens?

Everyone listens

to the One raised from the dead.

He is revered 

and eventually

He is made king over all the world.

But we know

that's not what Our Lord wants.

Every time they try 

to make Him king

He escapes away.

Miracles are done

in private.

The Resurrection

is only for those

who love Him,

not those who are

unwillingly pressured 

into loving Him.

If Christ remains on Earth,

He will be made King of the Earth

and we lose our freedom,

our integrity as human beings

and our opportunity to know

Our Lord as ourselves

in the community of His Church.

There is no point

in sending the Holy Ghost

if the Son is to continue

to reign on Earth.

[PAUSE]

So the Son is to ascend

and thus free us from

the obligation to be Christian

sincerely or insincerely.

And the Holy Ghost

is to descend.

And He corrects the World on Sin

because the world does not believe

Our Lord's message about

whaf sin is and how we can be saved by Him.

He corrects the world on Righteousness

because Our Lord goes to the Father

and the World won't believe that He is

righteous.

And He corrects the World on Judgement

because the World believes 

it is above judgment.

But this correction

does not come from 

Our Heavenly King.

It comes from the Holy Ghost,

within us and upon us,

showing those who love God sincerely

from their hearts

how to continue to live

lives of love, of righteousness

and of justice.

[PAUSE]

When, one day,

when we stand before Christ the King,

He will look at us to see

if He knows us.

If He sees the Holy Ghost with us

then He will know us.

And then we shall be like Him

for we shall see Him as He is.

Sex and the Anglican Catholic Church

 

Why is the Church "hung up on sex"?

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.

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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.