Painting our way into the fold

Sermon for the first Sunday after Christmas

Wile E. Coyote has decided that the best way to catch Roadrunner is to paint a door on the wall so that Roadrunner will think it’s real and crash into it. You know what happens. Roadrunner runs to the painted door, somehow opens it, runs through it and closes it again. Wile E. Coyote’s jaw drops to the floor. Of course, when he tries to do the same, he ends up on the floor watching little birds fly around the two-foot bump on his head.

The rule is clear: you cannot enter through a painted door. And yet people try.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord is quite clear. Those who enter the sheepfold by climbing over the wall are sheep-stealers. He is, as usual, referring to those Scribes and Pharisees who don’t really worship God but rather want people to follow them so that they can look important. We see this time and time again. There are so many awful cult-leaders who bask in the worship of their followers and will happily lead them off a cliff to satisfy their delusions. They bypass the door to steal souls from the Church.

Only the Lord Jesus is the door by which one can enter the sheepfold. But it seems there are those who, like Wile E. Coyote, can paint an image of Jesus on the wall of the sheepfold and enter in that way. These are no less sheep-stealers than those who climb over the wall.

This poses a bit of a problem for the sheep. If someone comes in through the door, they know that it really is someone they can trust. It’s not so easy to spot someone coming in through a fake door.

How do we tell a real door from a fake door?

[PAUSE]

The answer must lie in being sure that it’s the right Jesus. This is why we still say the Creeds. This is why we have the Holy Bible. This is why we celebrate the sacraments. All these strengthen our attachment to the real Jesus Christ. The Church has always had these from the beginning. Yes, the Creed weren’t written until five hundred years after Jesus’ birth, but their contents have always been believed by Catholics. The books of the Bible weren’t finalised until three hundred years after Christmas Day, but their contents have always been recognised as testimony about the Lord from when they were written only fifty years or so after His Resurrection. The sacraments were started by Jesus Himself. The Church has taught the real Jesus from Day One and it teaches the same Jesus now.

Except…

[PAUSE]

We have always seen those who like to re-interpret the testimony about Our Lord for their own ends or to fit their own philosophies. These are the ones who paint the fake Jesus on the wall of the sheepfold and enter in. Their Jesus is their own invention. It may almost be a photograph. But it isn’t real. Church Teaching about Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Mission, His Death and Resurrection does not change. It is the same teaching that we have always received. If there is any change in Christian Doctrine, then it is to satisfy the egos of those who think they know best based on worldly concerns.

 By their fruits shall ye know them because their fruit will divide the Church rather than unite it. It is the one whose actions cause schism who enter in by painted doors. But the Lord is very clear. There is one sheepfold and there will be many sheep from other places who will enter in. It will be the real Lord Jesus Christ Who unites His Church. We will be one when we follow only Him rather than those who paint their own doors.

Blogday 2019: Chugging along

Today we are fourteen.

Well, I’m posting this a day early so as not to confuse it with tomorrow’s sermon. I find that if I do two posts in a day, one of them gets forgotten. While I don’t write in order to build up an audience, I do try to write to reach out to people in a spirit of evangelism and encouragement in the traditional Christian Faith. Numbers viewing are now down and decreasing steadily due to my renunciation of Facebook where I used to post much of my material. I have become so tired of the petty polemics that some seem to enjoy. I don’t miss those who criticise every detail of worship, every detail of Christian Doctrine and every detail of why I am not where I am supposed to be. Of course, it is important not to confine ourselves to echo chambers and engage in robust debate. The trouble is that we don’t get debate, but rather polemics in which we talk past each other and fail to understand (sometimes deliberately) what the other is saying. Perhaps I am guilty of this most of all.

I have noted that there are those who claim to be philosophers and theologians who try to win arguments for their point of view by demonising their opponents. There are those who challenge traditional Christian Doctrine by calling those who follow that doctrine backward or incoherent or worse. To my mind, to insult your opposition means an automatic loss of the argument. Perhaps it’s a good job that I wasn’t present at any of the Oecumenical Councils otherwise I wouldn’t believe anything!

I note that I haven’t posted as much this year. Well, that’s because it’s been a busy year. I am now a published author, albeit self-published through Lulu rather than a more established, professional publisher. I know that I am nothing in the academic world and that what I write will not reach the dizzying heights of SPCK or OUP, but then I do wonder whether that might not be a bad thing given the worrying tendency that many media outlets display in restricting content that does not conform to a politically correct worldview. There are things which we may not criticise at all, now. While I may tire of the constant cross-denominational nit-picking, I would rather walk away from it than demand that it be prohibited outright. It's best that they just get on with it and spin themselves into the ground like Abbott's king of Pointland. What I have written certainly seems to have appealed to some readers and I am very grateful for a couple of very positive reviews that I have received on Amazon. I am yet to receive the more critical reviews which I do dread, admittedly. Yet, a good Benedictine will receive the criticism in the same way as he receives praise and perhaps value it more highly. Something else I have to learn, it seems.

Nonetheless, my books have been on sale since the beginning of the year and so I don’t post as much here other than the sermons that I write on behalf of Readers. I have noticed that they have become more focussed on the issue of repentance, lately. They have also become more cerebral. I suppose that this is due to the fact that I am essentially writing for someone else and that means reducing the content which perhaps comes from my mannerisms and personality. Looking after my family means that I don’t have much time to sit and reflect as there is always someone who needs me right this second and no other second will do.

The biggest casualty has been my poor little Mission. Of course, this has been mothballed rather than written off completely, but it’s difficult to see how things change. Circumstances do change, however, and will change in ways that I don’t expect. I am still very settled as an Anglican Catholic and don’t anticipate that this will ever change. In writing Anglican Catholicism: Unchanging Faith in a Changing World, I rather think that I have eliminated any intellectual doubts that I might have had in being in a minority group. I am convinced of the integrity of Anglican Catholicism as, perhaps, the only coherent form of Anglicanism. Of course there are many more Anglican Catholics out there who aren't members of the Anglican Catholic Church but hold the same Catholic Faith as we do. The hand of friendship is happily extended and waiting for reciprocation.

The present time, admittedly, is very confusing for all who call themselves Anglican as the Lambeth Anglican Communion begins to fragment. I notice that one former Anglican luminary has departed for Rome because he can’t unite the different Anglican groups into one fold.  Quixote or sheer self-aggrandizement? Only God knows truly.

I suspect that this isn’t a problem with Anglicanism per se, but rather the Protestant nature of some aspects of it. The number of evangelical groups that are forming, all claiming to be Anglican, all claiming scriptural orthodoxy, all claiming allegiance to the XXXIX Articles, is rather baffling and I don’t understand why the Free Church of England’s Unity Forum hasn’t worked unless personality has got involved.

Of course, it may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. After all, didn’t the original Anglican Church of North America arising from the Congress of St Louis in the late 1970s split up along High Church – Low Church lines? What about the splitting of the Continuing Churches in the 1990s? I agree. These are a major embarrassment, but they are the fruit of their time and the product of men in whom the fires of outrage at the heresy of the Episcopal Church were still burning. It has taken us forty years, but we are coming together. We are all in communion. We have the greatest respect for each other. We share resources. We hold joint synods. We may be separate organisations but we are as we have always claimed to be – a small part of the One True Church. True Unity is Christ-centered.

And we all have some legitimate claim to the adjective “Anglican”. This does not lie for us within any confession, nor accident of history, nor the pages of a book, though these have shaped our Anglicanism and given it voice. For us Continuing Anglicans, Anglicanism lies within the totality of our heritage that comes from the Christianity which set foot on this rain-soaked archipelago sometime in the first or second centuries. It cannot be pinned down, but can only be lived out. Yes, the Book of Common Prayer is a vital part of our heritage. While I don’t use it explicitly for my private prayers, it is something that I will readily use for Morning and Evening Prayer and my Benedictine Breviary for my private prayer is centred on this central Anglican text and aspects of Sarum which also grounds the Book of Common Prayer. We have the Book of Common Prayer, but we also have the Missals and Breviaries that accompany it. The 1928 American Book of Common Prayer is a beautiful expression of Anglicanism within the American Church but it is American in its culture and therefore inappropriate for global use. In England, we have the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, though some of us use the American book.  There is, even within Anglican Catholicism, a breadth and latitude that perhaps embodies our Faith. What we do not compromise on is our faith – everyone believes the same core doctrine found in the Creeds.

To the CofE, that is far too restrictive. Their tenet is that you should believe what you want. There are atheist priests in the CofE. There are those who believe that the Resurrection is a purely spiritual event, not an historical one. Uniformity in doctrine gives a backbone to our lives. It doesn't mean that we don't think for ourselves, but rather that we have a mechanism which brings us to the feet of Christ as disciples, supplicants and/or mourners. Uniformity of doctrine is an antidote to the intellectual hubris that infects the Church in the West. Many of the hot topics are about inclusivity and diversity in which people are told they can live their lives how they want and God will pick up the pieces for them. Inclusivity is effectively infantilism in which the nobility of struggling with God is replaced with an anodyne existence save only to "call out" the bigotry of those who are prepared to struggle against this infantilism. The words that get bandied about in such discussion are "privilege" and "entitlement". These are words that arrive from envy but then I would hazard a guess that much of the left-wing philosophy being peddled today is a philosophy of envy. St Benedict saw this problem and called it murmuratio, the murmuring that Moses encountered from Israel in the wilderness. If the language that we hear most is empowerment then it is not of the charity that we read about in I Corinthians xiii.

What, then, are the aims for this year? Every year I do wonder whether I can keep this blog going or whether it will be the last. I am tempted to sink into silence through sheer grief at the destruction of sensible theological discourse in the "mainstream" churches and through sheer fear that my airing a controversial opinion could result in me being censored or even my poor innocent wife fired from her job. The injustice is that my wife has her own opinions and I have mine which are not the same. She is a member of the CofE and I most certainly am not. And yet, the toxicity promoted by social justice warriors aimed against my words could damage her. How is that fair?

I am still writing and have a book in progress, though progress is slow mainly through having to care for my family, and that the material is stretching my poor little understanding to its limit. Also, I continue to support the network of Readers in providing sermons. I will continue to watch the CofE dissipate slowly and call it out on its immorality as is my duty. What I do pray, however, is that I may have the time and opportunity to develop spiritually and not just intellectually as I fear that I am perhaps puffing up rather than building up. 

To the Holy and Undivided Trinity,

To the crucified Humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

To the fruitful Virginity of the blessed and glorious Mary Ever-Virgin,

To the whole company of the saints

be everlasting praise, honour, power and glory from every creature.

And to us may there be the remission of all our sins forever, world without end. Amen

Binding the spiritual

Sermon for Christmas Day

There are many people out there who say that they are “spiritual but not religious.” What do they mean?

These folk reject what they call organised religion in favour of seeking meaning within their own lives and spirits. Yet, lest anyone dare rush to condemn these folk, we should at least consider their reasons. Sometimes organised religion hasn’t served humanity very well. Most regrettably, there have been times when members of the Church have wounded critically the lives of men and women to the extent that they see the Church as an oppressive organisation. Sometimes, all the policies, patterns and procedures drive people away rather than encourage them. Sometimes, Christians just aren’t very nice people.

And yet, look how full the cathedrals and churches get for Midnight Mass, how carol services, nativity plays and singing are still really popular even with people who would not describe themselves as Christian. Why is this so? Why do people who are spiritual but not religious often find much comfort in observing Christmas Day?

Is it because the baby in the manger is so cute?

Is it because the baby in the manger is a sign of hope against poverty, victimhood, and oppression?

Is it because the baby in the manger is a good story being handed down from generation to generation?

Is it because of the baby in the manger at all?

[PAUSE]

There is within the human spirit a desire for light, a desire for nourishment and a desire for love and these desires hit us at the very heart of our souls. Darkness, hunger and cold are not part of the human condition and when we are overwhelmed by them, we start to shut down. For those who are spiritual but not religious, this resonates with them deeply.

Midnight Mass is where the Church stands up in defiance at darkness, hunger and cold. With candles and heaters alight and the old, old story proclaimed from the pulpit, the attention goes to the advent of the Lord in the sacrament. Whether or not the individual believes in the Real Presence, there is something there for them to think on.

And all goes back to the baby in the manger.

For, as St John tells us, the baby in the manger is there to combat all the ills of humanity and He does so by being the purest love in human form. This love is a thread that passes through all humanity from the beginning, and it binds us together in solidarity. As long as we allow this thread to grow and develop in our lives, we can be sure that we will be free of darkness, of cold, of hunger, of pain, of degradation and humiliation because this baby lies in the manger for each one of us, for you, you and you. No exception.

What we feel in our spirit that pulls us to Christmas is the thread of love that is knotted into our humanity in the person of the baby in the manger, a baby who will grow, and teach, and work wonders, and scandalise organised religion, and die horribly, and rise again.

We are tied to Christ in love. Which is interesting.

For the Latin for “tied” is at the root of words like ligature, ligament and obligation. And it is at the root of religion.

One cannot be Christian without being religious. It is true that we do not have to be tied to cruel and insensitive organisations, but the Church should not be such. There are so many people out there who need to see the truth of the baby in the manger who are drawn to that manger by something they cannot understand and we cannot let them leave that manger without showing them in ourselves that same love that he showed us.

The Church is not about power, system, and control and if people think that it is, then we’re doing something wrong. Christian Doctrine may be fixed, but it is fixed in love and not power for the salvation of anyone who desires to be free of darkness, hunger and cold. If people are put off the Church because of human sin, then it is our duty to repent and draw them back by the image of the baby in the manger meaning more in our lives than anything this dark world can offer.

We have no grounds at all to condemn anyone who says they are spiritual but not religious. We just need to show them that what ties us is that life-line that will pull us into endless joy and eternal Christmas Day.

The End of the Book of Life

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Advent

In this day of technology and information, there is still something to be said in favour of books. Their weight, their texture, their smell all contribute to making their words real. The computer screen doesn’t have that effect even if the information you see is more accurate. Books have a sense of permanence that computer information does not. You can’t accidentally delete a book with a click of a finger. To delete a book requires significant physical effort, or an ill-placed cup of tea.

As we stand with St John in his vision, we see what God wants him to understand. St John knows books and so he is shown books. How would God have given His revelation via a computer screen in this day and age? Would the great apocalypse to St John be played out in a YouTube video?

It seems that God still uses books too.

[PAUSE]

There is a Book of Life and St John has seen it opened.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

Once a book is published, its contents are fixed. And here is a bit of a problem. St John himself tells us that the Book of Life was written from the foundation of the world. Does that mean that our fate is sealed from before we were even born?

If God can see all of His Creation as a complete book, then surely He has written our fate completely. Perhaps Calvin is right, some people are predestined for Heaven and others for Hell. Or perhaps Origen is right, that a loving God would not allow His creation to go to Hell and so everyone must be saved from Hell.

Are our lives really a closed book?

[PAUSE]

These are questions that Christians have been wrestling with for centuries and there are no hard and fast answers. The reason is obvious: we cannot know the mind of God, nor can we know our fate after death. Christians have long been accused of declaring that a certain men are in Hell. These include the more obvious such as Hitler and Stalin, but then Christians have also condemned Luther, Calvin, and virtually all the popes. And yet, if you think about it, the moment that a Christian makes this judgement, he has written his own book of life.

Our Lord is quite clear, there is everlasting life with Him and there is everlasting fire in which those who find themselves there possess a worm – i.e. a gnawing pain – that will not die. Hell is a reality and it lies outside of the Book of Life.

So how can God create Man in His own image and yet allow him to end up in Hell?

[PAUSE]

God makes Man in His own image. In other words, whether we are sinners or not, whether we love Him or not, we reflect the being of God within our very selves and are therefore worthy of His love through that image. Yet, with the freedom to choose, Man chooses to sin and is therefore separated from God. Our Lord Jesus Christ is made man so that, by His death, Man can return to sharing fully in God’s Divinity. God becomes Man so that Man can become like God.

This means we are being given the opportunity to be truly alive and to live beyond Creation in the warmth of God’s love. In bearing the image of God, we exist beyond the simple understanding of the world we know and see and hear now. Indeed, we already exist beyond the whole confines of past, present and future. The question is whether we choose to unite that image with God or to say, “no” and keep away from being reunited with God.  

Since Love does not insist on its own way, the opportunity to be reunited with God must be able to be rejected and rejected Eternally. Hell is separation from God. It is therefore real and Eternal for those who refuse to reconcile the Eternal image that they bear with the One whose image it is. This is why Hell is so terrible. This is why Our Lord not only has to tell us how horrible it is, He has to show us through His teaching, through His healing of the sick and His death upon the Cross. It is to save people from the reality of Hell that the Apostles work so hard and live and die, sometimes horribly. This is why the testimony of the martyrs, virgins and confessors is a matter of life and death. Our Lord wants us to be reunited with Him and is giving us every opportunity for that to happen.

[PAUSE]

If our names are not written in the Book of Life, then the consequences are dire. We, in the Church, have a lot of work to do in bringing people to see the Lord in us. It is a big task, but God is with us. We have to be faithful and let His image shine in us. We have to stop condemning people to Hell but rather let God’s light in us lead those who stray back.

There is a Book of Life in which our names are written, and we have books of our own lives which we write ourselves. Is the image of the Lord on the cover?

Waiting for the Grapes of Wrath

Sermon for the third Sunday in Advent

We stand with St John looking at the working out of God’s plan for the Earth. The scene is that of harvest time, but a harvest time unlike any that we’re used to. We see Our Lord Himself, sharp sickle in hand, reap the Earth as if it were grain. Then we see an angel, sharp sickle in hand, reap the Earth as if it were grapes. The grapes are put into the winepress and trodden down, and blood pours out – a lot of blood!

It all sounds like something from a horror film doesn’t it?

[PAUSE]

Holy Scripture often presents us with confusing or even downright unpleasant images, and they are there for a good reason. God wants to make us think, for in thinking we take in what He is saying more deeply. Also, what He is saying cannot be expressed in simple language. A picture really does paint a thousand words, even if it is an unpleasant picture.

So what do we see?

[PAUSE]

We see the Sone of Man with a crown on His head. This can only be Our Lord Jesus Christ. He bears a sickle and so it is clear that He is going to reap the harvest. And now we need to think hard, because Our Lord uses a lot of farming imagery in His parables. Does He ever refer to Himself as one who will reap the harvest?

He does indeed refer to God as one who harvests in the parable of the talents. Remember the man with one talent who buries it in the ground because he is afraid of the master. This man says to the Master, “Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed.” And this is something that the Master confirms. He does indeed reap where He has not sown and gather where He has not strawed.

We are beginning to understand what St John is seeing in his revelation now, but there is one further question to ask.

Surely God has created everything. He has sown every seed, hasn’t He? What can there be that God will reap that He hasn’t sown?

The answer is simple.

[PAUSE]

God has not sown evil. That’s what the Devil has sown in us. There, in the Garden of Eden, the Devil sows evil into our very being by tricking us to accept evil in the guise of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. God did not so that seed, but He is certainly going to reap it!

This is why the grapes that are reaped by His assisting angel are the grapes of God’s wrath.

We must never understand that God’s wrath is like the wrath of Man. It’s clear that God’s wrath is directed with pinpoint accuracy at every Evil inflicted on mankind, and this wrath is fierce and terrible. This is why we will all tremble, for while there is Evil within our nature, God’s wrath will be directed at it.

Thus, the fruit of Evil is placed into the winepress and crushed outside the city, and blood comes out – a vast quantity.

But where do we see blood in relation to Our Lord and Evil?

What we are witnessing here is the way that the wrath of God conquers Evil, for this winepress is the Cross, and the blood is the Blood of Christ poured out for the New Covenant, poured out for the whole Church throughout Time. Remember that Our Lord is dragged out of the City of Jerusalem to be crucified. He is crushed and broken, but the glorious fact is that as His body is crushed and broken, He bears on Himself the weight of our sins. All the sins of the world are placed upon His shoulders and die with Him.

With St John, we are standing on the outside of History looking in. We see the events of the Crucifixion unfold from a different viewpoint. Yet, as we leave our worship to go back into our busy lives, we find ourselves waiting for the effects of this reaping of Evil to happen. We still see so much evil, so much horror, unkindness, selfishness, violence against the innocent. And we are sick of it all.

But we see that God is sick of it too.

We wait for the coming of Christ in the Mass by which we receive the Blood shed for us to cleanse us from our sins. We wait for the coming of Christ to make things new. We wait for the coming of Christ so that His light that burns inside of us will become visible in the World. We wait for the wrath of God with fear, trembling, and utter joy. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Thousands and thousands

Sermon for the second Sunday in Advent

The question is there for all to see. If you’ve managed to bind up the Devil in the bottomless pit for a thousand year, what would possess you to let him out again?

The Revelation to St John is a very difficult book to understand. We’re dealing with the vision of a man who sees Heaven and lives in a culture very different from our own. This culture has symbols and metaphors and cultural references that we have lost. We have to understand that. Our descendants will have the same problem. If we look at our mobile phones the icon we touch for “phone” is an old handset from a telephone that has been practically obsolete from the turn of the twenty-first century. In a thousand years, that icon will confuse our descendants.

This doesn’t answer the question. Why must Satan be released in a thousand years?

[PAUSE]

First, we do need to look at this business of what “thousand” means here. Is it a literal thousand years? The answer is no.

If we look at what St John is saying, the pattern is as follows.

Satan gets bound and put in the pit. Then the faithful are raised and reign with Christ for a thousand years in the first resurrection.

After the thousand years, Satan gets loosed from the pit to deceive the earth and war is made but it seems that he is quickly beaten and thrown into the fire for ever together with those whose names are not written in the book of life.

The clue which tells us that this thousand years is not literal is the fact that Our Lord does not reign just a thousand years, but reigns for ever. His kingdom shall have no end.

[PAUSE]

Time in St John’s Revelation is just as symbolic as everything else. What’s does a thousand years symbolise? Well, here’s the thing. According to the Jewish scholars of St John’s time, a thousand years before the Lord’s birth is the beginning of the reign of King David. Thus the thousand years mark the years of Jerusalem with all its ups and downs, with all the rises and falls, the captivities and freedoms, and the great temple. All this ends with the coming of the Lord at His birth in Bethlehem.

The first thousand years represents all the prophecy that points to Christ. It represents the rule of David and the Old Covenant. The second thousand years must therefore also point to Christ, especially the witness of His reign and the New Covenant. This is why God says, “Behold, I make all things new.”

While Christ is King, Satan is bound. But a king is only a king for as long as the people accept his rule, and the same is true for Our Lord. Our Lord does not force us to accept Him as our king, even though He most definitely is the King of Heaven. Satan remains bound for as long as people accept Christ as their king. The moment they reject Him, they are in the clutches of Satan. That’s when the rule of Christ ends for them. This is when the thousand years ends for those who reject God. There is only one fate for those who do reject Him: the second death – the permanent death.

It is not God who sets Satan loose. It’s us, and this is why he must be set loose for those who willingly and firmly refuse to recognise Jesus as King. In writing to the Corinthians, St Paul reminds us that there are times when we need to let the unrepentant go their own way. He says that we need to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Sometimes, that is the best we can do and hope that the prodigal son will return to the kingdom of Our Lord. Love can never insist on its own way.

In Eternity, Time means nothing – this is why the Book of Revelation is so confusing. We may live in times when respect and love for God are waning. We can rest assured, though, that while our time is short, the Kingship of Christ is always near us. While the Church stands, while the sacraments are available, and while the Gospel is preached, Christ is with us.

And one day soon, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.

Stumbling Scholarship

Sermon for the first Sunday in Advent

How many true gods are there in the Old Testament?

You will, of course say, just one. However, some scholars will say that there are lots.  Some will say that there is no one true god called Yahweh but that the Jewish people believe in different gods at different times in their journey. Some scholars will even point to the existence of a Mrs God who mysteriously vanishes.

These scholars will look at the words of the prophet Isaiah and say that this is evidence of God being one mountain god among many.

If these scholars are looking at the same text that we are, surely with all that training and study and translating and discussion, these scholars must be right.

Why aren’t they right?

[PAUSE]

There is a worrying trend in modern Bible scholarship which says that the Bible is a book like any other and is therefore open to the same methods of criticism as any other book. There is a whole academic industry out there which seeks to say, “Oh this bit of the Bible was added later” and “these words of Jesus are probably not authentic.” These scholars reject miracles on the grounds that they defy modern science and therefore could not possibly have happened.

These Bible scholars have forgotten one thing: it all starts with Jesus.

[PAUSE]

Here we are at Advent Sunday. This is the beginning of our liturgical year. Why do we start here? We start here because of Jesus. We start here just where the Jewish people started, waiting for the Messiah to come. We look to the places where God has already revealed Himself: Mount Sinai, Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel. Yes these are mountains but God is highly exalted. He is higher than the mountains. Not for nothing does the Prophet Isaiah say:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

We look for God on High and we await His coming, His Advent.

And He presents to us a man, a baby lying in a trough, so far removed from the heights of the mountains.

And the scholars will look at this baby lying in the manger and sniff, “oh it’s just a baby in a manger. That’s all. Nothing higher than that.”

[PAUSE]

They have eyes and see not.

This Jesus we see with the benefit of history, but a history wrapped up in tradition, passed on faithfully by Christians from the first until the last. Each Christian knows the truth and seeks to pass on the truth faithfully knowing that, if we deviate from the truth, then we lose it completely. This is why we have the Holy Scriptures written by different people each bearing witness to the same thing. This is why there are many different copies of the original texts of the Bible so that, if one were deliberately altered, we can compare it with the others.

And it all begins with Jesus.

[PAUSE]

Jesus bears witness to God. Being a Jew, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour affirms the Old Testament and spends his earthly ministry showing us how we are to interpret it. There is only one God, not a pantheon of gods of different mountains. There is no Mrs God. If there were then Jesus would have borne witness to her. Jesus, the humble son of the Carpenter and little Mary from Nazareth, no degrees or doctorates, no training in contextual criticism, no intention of being one of the established scholars, scribes and Pharisees, He alone shows us what the Bible says because it is all a witness to Him.

If you are confused, or if you just want to see how the Bible works, start with the Gospels for these are the eyewitness accounts of Who Jesus is and what He does. Hear His words. Then see how the Disciples take His words and form the New Testament. Look back at the Old Testament and hear Jesus speak there too. And hear Jesus speak through the Fathers of the Church, too, who base their understanding on the same Holy Scriptures.

[PAUSE]

It all begins with Jesus. All scholars worth knowing will start with Him. Bad scholarship always seeks to denounce the faith of good Christians who have gone before us. Good scholarship will affirm the Faith that we have received in the Bible, the Church Fathers and the Creeds. Good scholarship will begin with Jesus as He is.

Here we stand waiting for His coming for yet another year. We stand looking up on high for we believe that is where we shall see Him. We stand longing for Him to come back. And we know that if we are faithful then we shall see Him in the glories of Christmas Day.

It is in the manger that the Truth of Holy Scripture lies. And no scholar can take that away from you.

The immediate future of the Mission of St Anselm and St Odile

Things never quite go according to plan.

 My work over the last year has taken on a particularly unusual turn as I find myself involved more in writing and assisting my Diocese in its administration. That and my duty to my family means that I have reluctantly asked my bishop to put my provisional mission of St Anselm and St Odile aside for the time being in order to play to my strengths and be more effective for the development of the Church. He has kindly agreed and so I find myself as a non-parochial priest with permission to officiate.

This has been a difficult position, especially in a culture when a priest has to be priest of somewhere. My Church does not have the pattern for oratories or internal oblates, though we do have Religious Communities around the world. The size of the Diocese of the UK prevents these rather, and the fact that I am happily married does prevent me from setting up a Benedictine Monastery here.

Of course, there is nothing to stop me from living in a Benedictine manner: my community is my family and I am still linked to the monks in Salisbury formerly of Elmore and Nashdom. My superior is my bishop – that has to be so. One of the dangers of having Religious communities in Dioceses that are too small for them is that those religious folk become laws unto themselves. This is true of the last two professed members of the Diocese who both left at different times, both in a fit of pique because they couldn’t get their own way. The exercise of humility is to rejoice when one doesn’t get one’s own way and carry on – tough to do sometimes but very good for the soul.

My hope is that, one day, we shall have the resources and time to take the Mission of St Anselm and St Odile out of its mothballs. It will still sort of be in existence as I will be saying my Offices and celebrating the Mass early on a Sunday morning. However, in order to develop those resources, I need to pitch in with assisting the Diocese in developing its resources. We are growing and this growth means taking seriously the need for infrastructure and grounding. I have tried to produce a contribution to the theological grounding of the Anglican Catholic Church and to the administration of my Diocese and my commitment must be there before I can hope to build a more personal ministry in my locality. Given that, in general, the diocesan model is becoming less geographic due to social media, it makes sense to step back and see where the true needs lie.

Of course, I beg your prayers that I may serve the Church faithfully and effectively.

Moving to Vespers

Last year, I made the decision to supply Readers with sermons for Mattins and Evensong and I have spent this year devoting my Sunday sermon posts to preaching for Mattins.

From next Sunday, being the start of a Liturgical New Year, I will be providing Sermons for Readers based on the readings from the Revised Lectionary for Evensong

I hope that this has been a useful exercise so far.

On a planet far, far away...

Sermon for the Sunday next before Advent

Astronomers now are detecting solar systems around stars that are so far way that they may no longer exist by the time the light from them has reached us. The way that we detect planets so far away is by looking at how the light from each star is being affected by gravity, or by changes in brightness or frequency. What astronomers are not doing is observing these planets directly through a telescope. As far as we are concerned, these planets exist only as measurements stored on pieces of paper or within the hard drive of a computer.

By faith, astronomers discover these far-off planets.

[PAUSE]

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

What does that mean?

We can certainly understand Faith as the evidence of things not seen like the astronomers never see those planets and yet have some evidence to show for why they believe that. But what does it mean to say that Faith is the substance of things hoped for?

As Christians, we know that there are three things that will last forever: Faith, Hope and Love. We hope that we will be raised from the dead. We hope that we shall enjoy Eternity with God. These are articles of our Faith and we can find them in our Creeds.

That’s not all we could hope for.

We could hope that Time will run backwards so that we didn’t shut our fingers in the door last Saturday. We could hope that our computer will start behaving itself after we belt it with a sledgehammer. We could also hope that we will be served breakfast in bed tomorrow by trained kangaroos on hoverboards. What makes these hopes different from the hopes set out in the Creed?

[PAUSE]

The answer is Faith – the evidence of things not seen. We have no evidence that Time will ever run backwards. We have no evidence that computers that are smashed with sledgehammers run at all, let alone run smoothly. We have no evidence that hoverboards can exist, or that kangaroos can be trained to serve food. We cannot hope for things which we cannot believe will happen.

We have evidence that when we see a shadow that there is something that causes that shadow. From this evidence we are justified in believing that planets can exist orbiting stars far, far away.

Faith underpins what we can reasonably hope for. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and it is by Faith that all the people whose lives are recorded in Holy Scripture do such remarkable things.

[PAUSE]

Many people will tell you that having faith is the opposite of being reasonable. As we see, scientists have their faith that the laws of physics are what they have experienced and believe continue to govern how the Universe works. We Christians have evidence that God is Who He says He is. The very fact that your coffee cup doesn’t suddenly change into a rabbit, or that your arm doesn’t wink out of existence, and that events can be predicted, shows a Universe which makes sense to us and this is evidence that God exists to make the Universe make sense. Our understanding of how History works shows that there is evidence of Our Lord Jesus Christ and that there is evidence that what He says and does is true.

Our understanding of how we have come here to worship God is evidence that something has happened in the lives of countless Christians through the centuries for us to be here now.

[PAUSE]

We have plenty of evidence for Our God and Lord Jesus Christ and we are justified in living our lives according to this Faith. As we close our Liturgical Year, we find ourselves ready to begin again at looking at why we believe and taking heart that what we believe will bring us to the throne of God when He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

By Faith, our hopes in Him will come true.

By Faith, pain and sorrow will end.

By Faith, our suffering will be shown to mean something truly wonderful.

By Faith, all wrong will be made right.

By Faith, we will see the Advent of our King.

Come, Lord Jesus.

The "wound" of Mutual Flourishing

I notice that a Dr Gabrielle Thomas has published an article in Ecclesiology about the fact that CofE Women Ministers believe "mutual flourishing" to be damaging to their ministry and feel that they are assumed to be flourishing automatically. They feel that they have to be the ones to make sacrifices so that a minority within the Church of England who cannot accept the ordination of women can flourish.

There is a lot of talk of victimhood, of unkind rejection and active hatred displayed towards Women Ministers by those who disaffirm their ministry. What I hear is appalling and demonstrates a lack of Christian charity. That needs to stop.

However, I am concerned that organisations such as WATCH play the victim card in order to score the emotive point while, at the same time, never addressing the actual issue: if someone does not believe that a woman can minister in the CofE how can that one worship with a woman minister if to do so means affirming that which they cannot accept.

The point is that there is victimhood on both sides. A woman minister finds her ember cards torn up and placed in her pigeonhole. A non-affirming Reader finds himself compelled by the female Rural Dean to affirm her ministry in an hitherto unknown "renewal of commitment". A woman minister receives "hate mail". A minister of SSWSH is labelled "sexist" and "bigot". A women minister feels that "Mutual Flourishing" means "being grateful and keeping quiet". A non-affirming suffragan bishop is prevented from becoming Diocesan by those who think that he can never be a focus for unity for those who affirm women's ministry.

It all sounds like six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, doesn't it?

Of course, the victimhood of the straight white male is inferior to everyone else's victimhood. Interesting that ending victimhood means pushing it all onto the straight white male. Why not seek to end it wholesale?

What is utterly clear is that Dr Thomas is absolutely right. Mural Flourishing is anything but. It is a compromise that pushes underground the battle for the Catholic Faith in the CofE. The sad fact is that the Catholic Faith in the CofE is to all intents and purposes extinct. Forward in Faith is now an elephant's graveyard where the Catholic Priesthood has come to die. Every time WATCH open its mouth, there is silence from SSWSH. 

If the CofE truly wanted mutual flourishing then it would have told FiF that it could walk away with buildings, parishes, pensions and the blessing of the CofE. At least women ministers could be protected and Catholic parishes allowed to thrive apart.

However, I would still very much like to hear how forcing people of differing views on women's ministry to worship together would encourage flourishing. I have never heard WATCH answer that question, mainly because it seems that they simply cannot countenance the possibility that someone does not accept that women can be priests. If only they would stop forcing women to be perpetual victims and actually address the issue head on.

The Papal Temptation

I posted last year on Pope Francis' decision to re-word the Lord's Prayer when he says that God doesn't lead us into temptation. I made the case that Our Lord was led into Temptation as part of His participation in our suffering as human beings. To be human is to face trial, test and temptation and to suffer the agonies therefrom which are caused by the conflict between the flesh and the spirit. It is an agony which we should not want because we want to follow Christ wholeheartedly and it is our human frailty whereby we do not do so.

Pope Francis is not a father: his communion forbids this of priests. Not one celibate priest will know the agony of serious illness in their child. Not one will experience that moment where one's faith is tested to the limit at the prospect of losing their little one. Yet, we know that faith must be tested if it is to be of any worth and refined. Faith is not an anodyne theoretical concept, but must be lived.

Children die every day: some die in the womb, others suffer an agony which they are too young to express. Seeing a little boy lying in a gurney as his life ebbs painfully away causes us to question God. And it is God Who has led us here to present us to the facts of the human condition. It is God Himself Who has led us here to this point as our human compassion rips us to shreds. And the temptation is to turn to Him and tell Him to get stuffed.

Our faith is as weak as we are and we are not always strong enough or capable to cope with the reality of our life and death. We must recognise this weakness in humility rather than some cavalier bravado which will result in our faith crumbling under our own hubris.

In changing the Lord's Prayer, the Pope removes the statement of our humility, that we cannot face the temptation into which God would lead us in understanding His world and the consequences of its suffering. Only He has been able to bear all this on His shoulders upon the Cross. While we have crosses to bear, and must venerate those crosses, we must remember our breaking point and trust God not to bring us there.

"Lead us not into temptation" is a statement of humility, a recognition of the misery of the human condition, the truth of its sanctification upon the Lord's Cross, and the hope of its transformation in the Life Eternal. Change that, and you rob yourself and others of the participation in the great good that God can work in all things for those who love Him.

When the car keys just don't want to be found

Sermon for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity

You were holding them in your hand just a moment ago. And then you put them down. And now they’ve gone. And you can’t think for the life of you where they’ve got to.

Sound familiar?

[PAUSE]

Losing things is part and parcel of cluttered lives. Lose fifty pence and it’s a source of irritation. Lose your car keys and that irritation turns into some vigorous searching. Lose your car keys five minutes before your important meeting and that’s when the panic really sets in.

And then your car keys walk up to you and say, “here I am! I’ve come back!” and you’re ecstatic.

Except that this doesn’t happen, does it?

[PAUSE]

This seems to be the problem with the Lord’s parables. It’s all very well comparing the joy of the shepherd finding the lost sheep with the joy in Heaven over the repentant sinner. It’s all very well, comparing the relief of the woman who lost a piece of silver with the relief that the angels have when we turn back to God. Perhaps this is all the parables say to us – just a simple message of how happy God is when we turn back to Him. So why does the Lord choose these parables to show how happy He is when we repent? Why not go with the father rejoicing at the return of the Prodigal Son? Or with a story of someone saying, “I’m sorry” and being reconciled with another?

After all, the sheep didn’t choose to be found, neither did the coin. Does that mean that we are all going to be found like a sheep, or a coin, or the car keys? If so, where does repentance come in? Why bother repenting of our sins?

[PAUSE]

In each of these situations, there is always the possibility that things have gone for good. When you hunt for your car keys, there are always these horrible thoughts like, “oh no, someone’s stolen them!” or “oh no, I’ve locked them in the car!” or “oh no, I left them on the wall outside.”

Until you’ve found it, your sheep could be in the jaws of a wolf. Until you’ve found it, the coin could be in the pocket of a thief. There is always the possibility of loss.

This is where human beings differ from coins, sheep and car keys. We can make choices. We can choose to be found. We can choose to hide. We can choose to wander off and we can choose to come back. We have this capacity to choose otherwise we wouldn’t be urged to repent at every turn.

And this repentance means that we have to choose to hate our possessions, our families, our friends, our very selves.

Hate’s a strong word, isn’t it?

[PAUSE]

We know that God is Love and we are to love God. We know full well that to love something in God’s place is idolatry. This means we have to love everything else less than God. We also know that hatred is the absence of love. If we are to love God most of all, then we must have less love for other things which means we must hate them more.

The hatred of which the Lord speaks is not an absolute loathing, it means loving less. We are to love our possessions, our families and our selves less than God. We are to put God first before all that we hold dear. If God is comparing Himself with a shepherd who loses a sheep, or a woman who loses a silver coin, and then goes overboard in celebrating their return, then He is demonstrating very clearly the concern He has for finding us. We remain lost while we choose not to repent and the moment we do, He finds us, scoops us up and cries out with joy, “it is finished!”

[PAUSE]

Repentance costs a lot – even our very lives – and the Lord bids us look at the cost carefully. After all, what is the cost of Him finding us? Hint: the answer’s on the altar.

The heart of worship

Sermon for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity

We are often accused of worshipping our ikons, holy pictures and statues. We are often accused of worshipping the Blessed Virgin or one of the saints. We are often accused of worshipping the Book of Common Prayer, or the old language, or the old hymns.

Is this true? Are we worshipping these things?

There is a sense in which we are, but this needs careful thought.

[PAUSE]

Perhaps you remember that the word “worship” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning “worth-ship”, that is, the act of giving something worth. It means that anything we give any personal value to, that thing we worship. There are fifty-pence pieces with Peter Rabbit on them and, to some, these are more valuable than fifty pence. They are of greater worship to collectors. A photograph of our family is of greater worship to us than to someone who does not know our family. Worship is a very personal thing.

So yes, an ikon of the Blessed Virgin Mary is of greater worship to the Catholic than a picture of Rita Ora. The Book of Common Prayer is of greater value to an Anglican than a copy of His Dark Materials. But is this the worship that goes against the Second Commandment?

[PAUSE]

English is often a very poor language in comparison to Greek. There are three words in Greek that mean worship, dulia, hyperdulia, and latria. We might translate them as veneration, profound veneration and full worship. Only God is worthy of latria, that is, full worship. The Blessed Virgin is worthy of profound veneration, and the saints and angels worthy of veneration. Essentially, the Church says that we value the Blessed Virgin, the saints and angels, holy objects, and the rest, because we value God most. God is the source of our worship, and so the things He touches, we value more highly than those He does not.

We look at an ikon or a religious statue and our hearts and minds are drawn to whoever is depicted. If it is an ikon or statue of a saint then we allow them to point us to God. God must be the source of our veneration. He must be the reason why we venerate.

The trouble happens when we displace God from being the centre of our worship.

[PAUSE]

Whatever we worship more than God is an idol. If we value something in itself rather than because it points to God, then we have set up an idol. An idol need not even be a physical thing. God tells Ezekiel to speak out against those who have set up idols in their hearts. We can certainly see that this is true with money. Money doesn’t even have to be a physical thing anymore since many places are going cashless. Do we value money because we worship God? The very existence of money comes from a lack of trust in other human beings. If humanity truly valued God more, there would be no need of it as we see in the early Church forming Acts of the Apostles.

Idols of the heart need tearing down as much as any physical idol. This include ideas, thoughts, opinions and feelings. As soon as we create an idol, we separate ourselves from God. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. We can and should value human rights, seek to save the planet, feed the hungry and poor, but we do them because we love God first. It’s when we say that God must love these causes because we love these causes that the problem begins. Which comes first? God? Or the cause we feel passionately about?

The Creeds of our Church are ikons of the heart and need to be used as such. We see so many Christians falling away from the Faith because they have made idols in their hearts of things of this world. There are Christians rejecting the Creeds because they value modern thinking rather than what the Church has always believed. Are the Creeds idols of the heart? How can they be? They were written in order to paint a picture of Who God Is. No, they do not give a complete picture of God, but they are not wrong because they have been forged from what God has revealed to us about Himself. Take away any little piece of them, and we have a flawed picture of God. Hold onto that broken Creed, and it becomes an idol because it have been broken by us to fit our own sense of what is worthy.

[PAUSE]

One day, the Creeds will vanish away because the fulness of God will come and burst them with His truth like a wineskin. But we don’t value the Creeds for themselves: we value them because we love God. When He comes, we won’t need them. Our ikons can fall and burn and break and it must not matter to us because the Source of our worship remains whole and glorious in His Majesty. It is those who cling on to their idols who will be thrown away because they will not let go of something that is perishing.

What ikons do we have in our heart? How do we know that they are not idols?

The Death of Analogy

Sermon for the twentieth Sunday after Trinity

You probably already know that the first recorded word of Our Lord’s public ministry is, “repent”. Of course we understand that this is really a very positive commandment. We are to be like compass needles. Whenever we are shaken by sin, we spin round and turn back to God. Always we seek realignment to God. This is what repentance is.

But why? Why do we need to repent? Surely, when the time comes, God, in His Almighty Love for us will meet us where we are.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord points to two disasters that have befallen some people from Galilee. Some have reportedly been murdered by Pontius Pilate during their sacrifices. Others have been killed by the falling tower of Siloam. In each case, Our Lord is very clear. These people were no greater sinners than anyone else. However, if we do not repent, we shall be like unto them. There is no mincing of words here. 

Repentance matters.

What does the Lord mean when He says that we will be like those who died under tragic circumstances if we do not repent of our ways? What He is doing is using death as an analogy for what happens. We know that Holy Scripture contains many and varied violent deaths. We can point to those that perish in the flood. We can point to the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites. We can point to Sodom and Gomorrah, to Sisera, Jezebel, Saul, Absalom, those who perish in the captivity of Assyria and Babylon. What we see in each is that their fate is the fate of the unrepentant

Again, the Lord calls up a parable about a fig tree which does not bear fruit and is given a last chance before it is cut down. . God uses the analogy of death in this life to point to the second death, the death that follows the resurrection of all human beings in preparation for the Day of Judgement.

This Second Death sounds rather permanent, doesn’t it?

The Lord Jesus Christ is showing us precisely what He is here to save us from. Our Lord Jesus Christ comes to us, is born as one of us, lives and teaches among us, suffers and dies for us so that we might be saved. The cost to Him is huge so what He must be saving us from must be pretty huge as well. He saves us from Eternal Death – a fate we must accept if we choose to reject God.

How can a Loving Almighty God condemn us to an Eternity of Hell?

Simply put He doesn’t. As St Athanasius says, God became Man so that Man might become a god. St Athanasius is thinking of St John’s words here.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

 What God wants is for us to partake of His Divine Nature just as He partakes of our Human Nature. If He respects our Human Nature so much that He takes on human free-will as well, then He must value our choices even when they reject Him. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.

Our Lord warns us of the sin that shall not be forgiven. If God forgives all who truly repent then this unforgivable sin must arise from a wilful refusal to repent. If it is unforgivable then the sin will always remain and, if the sin will always remain, separation from God is permanent.

[PAUSE]

Christians should fear Hell and we should fear it because we should want to be with God for all Eternity. And, further, we need to share in the urgency of bringing people to Christ so that they do not suffer the same fate. This is why spreading the Gospel is so vital. And the Gospel is very simple. Repent: turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and enter Eternity with God in pure love.

Punishing parties

Sermon for the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Have you ever been to a party and had the experience where you’re not entirely sure that you are in the same conversation as the people around you? You’ve somehow managed to be standing sort of near a group of people and there is a discussion going on but you’ve missed bits of it. Are you near enough into the group so as to be included or not? It’s a bit of a social dilemma.

Perhaps, then, you can sympathise with Samuel who has come to the house to hear this Jesus fellow and finds the place rammed full of people. He see Jesus there and he seems to be having a discussion with those who are closest to Him. Occasionally He says something to the crowd and then, at other times, Samuel can hear words which he is not sure are meant for his ears. You can understand that he gets a little confused.

He is rather grateful, then, when one of the disciples, a largish chap with a big voice and whose tunic appears to be covered in fish oil asks Jesus who He is talking to. Jesus doesn’t seem to give an answer to this question. Clearly, some people hear what He says, and some people do not.

Why is this?

[PAUSE]

We have to understand that, when Jesus wants to be heard, then He will make sure that everyone He’s talking to is actually able to hear Him. He gets in a boat to talk to a crowd of people who are desperate to hear the word of God. He speaks to them on a hill side so that they can all hear. They may not be able to understand what He says, but it is clear when He is talking to them. This is why we have been given the gift of the Holy Scriptures, so that we, too, might hear the words of Jesus.

But here we are with Samuel, only half-hearing what is being said.

We seem to be hearing two things. The first is the need to be watchful and vigilant for the Son of Man is coming. We remember that Our Lord tells us the parable of the wise virgins and the foolish virgins. The wise virgins are ready for the Bridegroom’s arrival and enter into the feast. The foolish virgins are unprepared and are shut out from the feast. Clearly Jesus has said this out loud and St Peter is confused as to whether Jesus means to tell this to all around.

The second thing we hear is that stewards who have been given charge over the household must also wait faithfully for the return of the householder. Those who do are rewarded with greater responsibility and honour. Those who do not are punished. Those who listen to God and do not do His will are punished severely. Those who do not know God’s will are punished less severely.

Why are we only half-hearing this?

[PAUSE]

The second parable is meant for the Apostles and for those who serve the Lord as leaders of His flock. These words are for the clergy, the bishops, priests and deacons. If we hear those words apply to us, then perhaps this is a sign that God is calling us to serve Him and His people as clergymen. This is why not everyone can receive this. Not everyone can be a steward, but all are servants of the Living God.

We all have to be ready for the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and this means hearing His will for the Church and then carrying it out. Those who do not, those who squander their lives as children of God in the service of their own bellies will not be allowed to enter the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

Those priests, however, who do not listen to God will be cut asunder. They will be punished most severely. The priests who do not know the will of God will be punished, too, but in a way that corrects and brings them back to God. The punishment that priests receive will be much, much greater than the people they lead astray! It will be better for them to have a millstone tied around their necks!

[PAUSE]

If Samuel hears these words in the second parable then He has received His vocation. The ways of the world are to be resisted and the way of the Cross embraced. This is hard and Jesus is uncompromising but with good reason. He wants everyone to enjoy the Wedding Feast of the Lamb and not shut out from it permanently. If the way is hard then we must be diligent in prayer for each other. The priests of God also will be very grateful for each and every prayer offered up for them on their behalf. The good priest wants to serve. It is every Christian’s duty to help him do so.