A Long Engagement

Propers for Palm Sunday

Thoughts for Palm Sunday

Today, it is customary to let the Long Gospel speak its profound truths for itself.

Rather than hear a sermon, perhaps it is better to prepare ourselves to hear the message of the Long Gospel by looking at how we react to its words.

1) If we wave our palms with joy at the triumphal entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem, how do we then stand with the crowd and shout, "Crucify"? How does this happen?

2) How does Pilate make us feel? Do we see a governor pressured into killing an innocent man, or do we see one whose political ambition blinds him to the Truth standing in front of him? What would it take for us to come to the opposite conclusion? What would it take for us to forgive Pilate?

3) As we walk with the Lord to Golgotha, what do we hear from the crowd? Are these voices heard in our lives? Are these voices heard in our own hearts?

4) As we watch the Lord being crucified and hear His words of forgiveness, how far does our ability to forgive really extend? What is its limit? How often do we pray to go beyond that limit?

5) As we watch Our Lord die, how do we see our own death approach? Are we ready to go? If not, why not? If Death comes tomorrow, are we ready?

6) As we watch Our Lord being buried, are we willing to bury someone we love in the tomb we have prepared for ourselves?

When the present predates the past

Propers for Passion Sunday

Sermon for Passion Sunday

Today is a day of revelation. Today we find the answer to two questions which still are asked today. These two questions have the same answer and you know that answer for you hear it from the words of Our Lord Himself.

First question: why is Jesus killed?

Second question: who does Jesus think He is?

The answer: "Before Abraham was, I AM."

[PAUSE]

This one sentence from Our Lord brings out the murderous side of the Jewish leaders. Stones are picked up at the ready. Faces are contorted in incredulous anger. Fingers are stuck in ears in a vain attempt to shut out those terrible words.

"Before Abraham was, I AM."

Jesus has revealed the truth.

Jesus is God.

In one little sentence any idea that Jesus is just a good man, just a wise teacher, just a social revolutionary, are all overturned. 

"Before Abraham was, I AM."

[PAUSE]

You can tell that there is something odd about this sentence because it doesn't make grammatical sense. And then your ears are drawn back in time and you hear the same voice calling out of the burning bush, "I AM THAT I AM". 

This is the most holy name that God gives Himself to Moses so that the Jews might know Him. This is the Name that accompanies the God of Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. This is the Name that goes right back to the beginning. At the beginning of it all, before anything exists, God is.

And Jesus is saying that His present predates the past. His Now comes before our Then.

There is only one way for this to happen. Jesus Himself has always existed beyond Time. Not even the angels can say that. For now, for our sake, Jesus is made lower than the angels and soon, in our time, He will be crowned with thorns and spitting.

Still later on in our time is He risen, ascended, glorified, crowned with glory and honour above the angels.

[PAUSE]

A good man cannot predate the past.

A good teacher cannot predate the past.

A social reformer cannot predate the past.

Either Jesus is mistaken.

Or He is lying.

Or He is deluded.

Or He is telling a parable.

Or He is telling the truth.

The miracles He performs, His resurrection from the dead, His appearance to five hundred people after His death show very clearly that He is telling the truth.

Jesus Christ is God indeed!

It is for this truth that He suffers.

It is for this truth that He dies.

It is this truth that He came to us in the first place, to give us His good news.

Jesus is God and He loves us.

Do not be deceived by those who say that Jesus never claims to be God. 

"Before Abraham was, I AM"

You can't get clearer than that!

Findings your tradition with St Joseph

 A reflection on how we seek stability in our walk with God.

A mother's covenant

Propers for the fourth Sunday in Lent

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent

What's the difference between a contract and a covenant?

It's easy to get bogged down in legal terms here, especially in a day and age in which everything we do is accompanied by a list of terms and conditions which we have to sign. Even accepting cookies requires a statement of consent. 

In many ways there is little difference as they produce more or less the same effect: an agreement between two parties.

The real difference between contract and covenant lies in how it affects the relationship between two parties. A contract exists only as a legal entity. It consists of an offer, the acceptance of that offer and the considerations of the implications of that offer. If the terms in the contract are met then there is nothing beyond it.

A covenant sets the context of a contract. A marriage may be legally expressed in terms of the contract but those terms carry with them the relationship between husband and wife with all the emotional details, the love, the kisses, the arguments, the better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness and health. The covenant is the stage on which the contract plays out.

And this is where Sarah and Hagar cone in.

[PAUSE]

St Paul uses these two mothers to illustrate the difference between the ways which we approach God's covenant.

Hagar represents the covenant of the Law. Everything is expressed in terms of a contract, the "thou shalt"s and the "thou shalt not"s. For the Pharisees, the Law is everything and any meaningful relationship with God is pushed to one side in order to fulfill what the Law says. But, when the Law is fulfilled there is nothing left. It is done and dusted. When the Law is not fulfilled then there is sin and punishment and sanction and condemnation. The Law can do nothing about the effects of sin. All it does is say what sin is.

[PAUSE]

Sarah represents the covenant in which the Law is set as an expression of God's love for His people and how He desires a relationship with His people. He gives us His blood of the New Covenant in order to drink into our bodies His life and love. In Him the Law means something - a contract that we love Him and our neighbour in order to deepen that relationship and rid ourselves of the evil that threatens our very existence.

Notice, it is God who starts the covenant. In each case, it is God who makes the offer, sets the terms and allows us to accept or reject those terms. We cannot begin to do what is good without first knowing what good is. And we cannot know what good is without God first showing us what it is by showing us Himself. This is the grace He gives us in a covenant which we didn't ask for.

[PAUSE]

You often hear the petulant teenager shout, "I didn't ask to be born!" This is true. We have a covenant put upon us by just being born. We have a covenant with our mothers simply by their pregnancy with us. They have a duty to see that pregnancy to the end. We have a duty to honour them and look after them in their old age. A mother's covenant is very powerful.

God's covenant is more powerful still for it is His Will not only that we come into being but that we should continue to be. But this covenant is expressed through Mother Sarah rather than Mother Hagar. We may not ask for this covenant but the benefits that it gives us are more than we can ever dream. 

In this covenant we are loved, we are sought, we mean something, we have a value beyond our wildest imaginings. And the contract of this covenant is written upon the Cross on which God is crucified and which we receive in the Sacrifice of the Mass through our membership of Mother Church.

Your opinion is not that important

 

A reflection on the nature of our opinions and how they relate to the worship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Shutting the door on Sin

Propers for the third Sunday in Lent

Sermon for the third Sunday in Lent

How many temptations have affected you today? Have you kept count of them? Do you know what the biggest ones are?

[PAUSE]

Lent begins with the recognition of temptation in our lives as Christians. The Lord confronts the Devil who tries to tempt Him using His bodily needs, His mission to proclaim the Kingdom of God and His relationship with His Father. 

Every aspect of ourselves can be used for sin and we often find ourselves with "secret faults" - sins that we fall into that we don't recognise as sins in the first place. The trouble is that the Devil is very convincing and will use every means at his disposal to destroy us and those whom we love.

We can see this in the Pharisees who denounce Our Lord as possessed by a devil. They are steeped in the Holy Scriptures and fulfil all that the Law demands but this doesn't protect them from the temptation to be proud. They value their own observance of the Law above the worship of God. Pride knocks at the door of their hearts and they let it in because it has a familiar face that pleases them. 

If temptation didn't have a pleasing face then we wouldn't let it through the door of our hearts.

This is why Lent is hard.

[PAUSE]

Isaiah says of Our Lord that He is not beautiful to look at that we should be drawn to Him. He knocks on our door but He does not have a face that will allure us into opening up. He is concerned with what is true, not what looks good to us. He might not look beautiful but He looks true, authentic, the real deal.

He does not worm His way into our hearts with vain promises of fulfilling our hearts' desire. He wants to give us more than that but we can be so focussed on feeling comfortable that we simply do not appreciate the spiritual worth of Our Lord's love. 

Christianity is hard work and it is only after we put the effort in, make sacrifices and reject what is good for something better that we begin to see a glimpse of its true value.

[PAUSE]

The Devil will try to persuade us using vain words that we are not being tempted really and taking what we want is okay. He may even reason from the Bible! He will present something easy and immediately gratifying. However, his argument will always have a falsehood. 

You may even see churches fall into temptation and away from God. They have been tricked by arguments in which the values of today's society are being read into Holy Scripture. They have forgotten that the Church has been given the moral values to live by - values with which modern society struggles with. St Paul tells us that we have to walk apart from all those who are disobedient to God and seek to turn others to their way of thinking. That does not mean that we should stop loving them. This does not mean that we denounce them as being of the Devil. This does not mean that we browbeat them until they come back.

It means we pray for them, do all that's good for them, respect their free will, try to see Christ in then however marred. But we do not walk with them, preferring to stick to what the Church has always taught. 

[PAUSE]

Above all, we need to check carefully who is knocking at the door of our hearts. Sins have beautiful faces which they push right up to the peephole. But we recognise them as sins because God has told us that they are.

Then we lock, bolt and batten down the door and turn to God who is already here in our heart waiting for us to look for Him.

Standing up and being counted for the Love of God

 

Why Christians need to risk the "cancel culture" to promote the message of God's love.