A blood donor sketch

 

A reflection on the Precious Blood of Christ.

Putting things wrong

Propers for the fourth Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Trinity and within the Octave of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

St John the Baptist cries out that every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain. He's not the person that you would want to hear while walking the glorious hills and vales of Yorkshire. A landscape is often more beautiful and inspiring because of its hills and valleys. Is St John really suggesting that we take a bulldozer and road rollers to the lot?

[PAUSE]

Of course St John is referring to preparing the way of the Lord. There should be no obstacle for anyone to come to the Lord Jesus but often there is. Often there is something that looks insurmountable like a vast mountain ridge that will prevent people from coming to God.

Often that mountain has been put there, not by God, but by other people who have moved it out of their way to Jesus. They have moved it out of their way and into someone else's. In making their way straight, they have made someone else's way crooked. 

This is all evidence for one simple fact: human beings cannot truly put things right. We will always put things right in one place, only for it to cause trouble somewhere else. The reason is that our judgement for what is right has been impaired by our fall from God. That judgement has not been obliterated: we can still know what is good and what isn't, but our ability to put things right is deeply flawed.

We try to do good but we fail because we try to do good without God. 

[PAUSE]

Our Lord tells us that if we do not judge, we will not be judged. God is judge indeed but he judges to put things right, not to send people to Hell. If we try to take the judge's wig from God, then we will send ourselves to Hell because we are worshipping our own right and wrong, not the true good that comes from God.

We see this very much in our society at the moment. There is much judgement and little forgiveness. We can say something supremely stupid on social media in our teens and, twenty years later, we can be refused a job even if we have repented of of our stupidity publically. In our attempts to right the wrongs of society, we end up being more judgemental than the society we condemn. 

And Jesus tells us to put mercy first. Before judgement, there must be mercy. With judgement there must be forgiveness. Forgiveness does not stop the need to accept the consequences of a bad action, but it puts an end to that bad action.

As human beings, our ability to do good and judge good is flawed. Our Lord is clear that, for this reason, we need to cultivate both mercy and forgiveness. This will inevitably lead to suffering for Evil will always seek to ensure that human beings judge each other harshly and without full possession of the facts. Our suffering is a consequence of the evil that our first parents brought into Creation.

[PAUSE]

This makes Mercy and Forgiveness unappealing because they potentially let those who do wrong off the hook. Mercy and Forgiveness make the possibility of being hurt greater and more severe. They are costly and agonising.

But we know that! 

We know the cost of Mercy and Forgiveness. We see that cost all around us in our Church. We see Our Saviour nailed to the cross, not only crying out for our forgiveness but also that we must dare to be like Him.

[PAUSE]

Hunan beings will claim that we can be good without God. This is true. The Atheist can be kinder, more loving and more generous than the Christian. But Goodness is more than just an action. Goodness is found only in God.

We can certainly try and exalt valleys and lay mountains low but we will do so with bulldozers and cranes, and the result will be ugly. Instead of the rolling hills of green will be car parks of grey.

Far better that we learn to be good at the feet of God and allow Him to put things right than for us to put things wrong.

Making a prophet

 A reflection on the Nativity of St John the Baptist.

Satisfied with Pride?

Propers for the third Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the third Sunday after Trinity

What are you proud of? An accomplishment? Some aspect of your life? Your family?

And then you hear Our Lady say that the Lord scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

Are you prepared to have all your pride scattered?

[PAUSE]

There's something that doesn't sit right in this, isn't there? What's wrong with being proud of being autistic and overcoming the social difficulties that arise, or being proud of your son's first steps, or being proud of being a Christian.

The word "pride" here is being used to mean thankful, gladdened and satisfied deeply. We can be satisfied deeply and warmly with our acing the test, writing that book or our father's serving his country in the war. This all seems reasonable. We can indeed find satisfaction in what we do. We can see St Paul's pride in the people whom he has brought up in the Faith. He is proud of the Colossians, the Ephesians, and the Philippians. This pride forms an attachment; it develops relationships and draws the Church together. But this satisfaction - this pride - is born of humility. 

How can this satisfaction have anything to do with the sin of pride?

[PAUSE]

The sin of pride is an idolatry. It means that there is an aspect of yourself or of your life that you put over and above God. It becomes something you worship and protect before your duty to God. It is something created that you hold to be of greater value than God.

It means that the thing you are proud of most becomes you. You can be proud of being autistic but the moment you allow that to be the single defining issue of your life, you make yourself smaller - a self-caricature. You can be proud of your son's first steps but, the moment they become the best first steps over anyone else's, they become ridiculous. You can be proud of being a Christian but if you call yourself Christian and reject the teaching of Christ, it's a label and little more.

At each step, pride makes your universe, your life and your very self smaller. To take one aspect of your life and demand that everyone else respect it, submit to it and worship it is to make yourself less of the person that God made. The noise of those who make such demands on others is the roaring of the Devil seeking whom he may devour.

The only antidote is humility.

[PAUSE]

Humility makes us bigger people. Humility helps us to realise that those things that give us that warm and deep sense of achievement are just a fleeting fragment of who we are. Humility helps us to see that we don't even know ourselves sufficiently and that there are greater accomplishments in life which require us to submit to the will of God and leave behind what we have done before. Humility helps us to see that, if we seek to define ourselves, we become very small indeed.

[PAUSE]

It is fine and good to be proud of being autistic or producing a piece of fine art or of the little drawing that your son has done, for God delights in these, too. And God delights in you too, not the you you say you are, but the you He created for Himself. Accepting this means seeing all pride scattered until only the humble and beautiful truth remains. 

Telescopes and Microscopes

 

A reflection on how we have to be able to look at the big and the small simultaneously.

Refusing God

Propers for the second Sunday after Trinity

Sermon for the second Sunday after Trinity

God is love.

This is something that St John takes great pains to tell us. And he would know. 

St John, together with St James and St Peter, has spent his time so close to Jesus that he knows Him so well. He hears Him teach; he sees Him heal; he sees Him die and rise from the dead. Also, St John is entrusted with the care of the Virgin Mary, Our Lord's Mother, after the events of Easter. Of all people, St John knows that God is Love.

But he also knows that people do not love. He has heard the swearing and cursing of the Holy Name of Jesus. He has heard the jeering laughter as Holy healing hands are pierced with nails and then lifted on high in agony. St John himself suffers at the hand of those who hate as they try to boil him in oil at the Latin Gate.

St John knows love and he knows hate.

Hatred is a absence of love. If we choose not to love our neighbour, we choose not to love God. 

Can we choose not to love God?

[PAUSE]

St John hears Jesus tell of those who refuse to come to the great banquet and thus give place for those who did not know they were invited. Those who refuse are those so preoccupied with worldly living that they regard the banquet as not worth their time. And when the banquet happens, they do not go in. They have refused love. They have refused God.

[PAUSE]

The act of being indifferent to love is just as bad as hating. St John sees a person in need as a chance to make God apparent to them by the act of loving them. If we say that we love but don't actually love, then we are preventing those in need from receiving God at our hands. Of course, God will present Himself to anyone in need some other way. But it is the one who only pays lip service to love who refuses God. He who fails to love loses Eternal life.

We are free to choose to love. This means we are free to withhold love. This means we are free to walk away from the banquet of God. We are free not to enter into Eternal life with God.

[PAUSE]

This is a terrifying thought. The act of our will not to choose God means we miss out on Eternity. The first word of Our Lord's ministry is "repent!" It is a call to turn back to God. It is a call to enter through the narrow gate of the Cross in a commitment to loving our neighbour as ourselves. Failure to do so means the outer darkness with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[PAUSE]

The absence of love is hatred and there is no place for it in God's kingdom. All sin is a form of hatred of God and neighbour and even oneself. As long as we hold on to sin, we hold on to the outer darkness. 

If we hold onto the Cross then we cannot hold on to sin. If we, through love, are nailed to the cross we bear, we cannot hold on to sin. St John sees that most clearly when he begs us to love one another. Love is costly and hard work, full of pain, struggle and sorrow. Sin is easy, sickly sweet, comfortable and snug.

[PAUSE]

The struggle of the cross is the sign of true love. Choose the cross and you will not refuse love. Refuse love and you refuse Eternal life in God. St John says it is that simple.

Ten years: grief and joy

Today I celebrate ten years since I joined the Anglican Catholic Church. In leaving the CofE behind, I left behind much of what I loved. I miss the buildings, the choral tradition and the sense of being a part of English history and establishment. I also very much miss being in communion with old friends.

In many ways, though, it was me that was left behind as the CofE showed me clearly that our paths were markedly different. A DDO said of me that I was "loyal to a church that had passed away." I have come to realise that he was right. So, when the last straw fell onto the most preponderous pile that had grown, and I was forbidden from proclaiming the incarnation of the Lord - the core doctrine of the Church - at Evening Prayer in the words of the Angelus by a Rural Dean who was clear in her desire to eradicate all dissent, I finally allowed the CofE that I loved to pass away from me.

Joy always involves a death somewhere along the line: a moment of realisation that heaviness and heartache are not permanent and that we can be free to live. That moment of liberation in joy is exhilarating and terrifying. 

And so, even in the midst of death, I dare to rejoice because ten years ago I found my new home, and it looked like the old one. I found new friends and a new reason to carry on worshipping in the way that I was used to. I look back and realise that I have grown so much in those ten years. All has changed and for the better - well, not everything has changed. The Church has not changed and the ACC reflects that. 

Despite the lack of buildings, despite the fewness of members, despite the lack of choirs and concomitant triumphant pipe organs, it is the Church of England that I was once part of. It is the Church of England that I was told had passed away. My studies and research show that it is built upon surer and sounder foundations than the CofE.

I still look back and mourn the passing of the church that I once belonged to. Mourning is important because it shows that one still loves what has gone, and love is the key to living.

But, for the Christian, there is also the challenge, the almost obscene double-dare to rejoice in the face of grief because of the fact of Resurrection. The Christian lives with conflicting emotions and is almost torn apart by them: we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. We weep through love of neighbour, we rejoice through love of God.

As I watch my old church tear itself to bits, turn its churches into theme parks, close its choirs and allow the words of other religions to be read in its pulpit, I am sorrowful because I remember what she was and want my son who loves "church" to have the same experiences that I had and loved. I grieve with others who grieve, especially with those who have lost so much more than I have.

On the other hand, I rejoice because ten years ago, I was given hope and growth and a new potential to actualise. I have seen Missions open and close, but still the Anglican Catholic Church remains despite me being in it. I have studied it with the little faculties of reason God gave me, and it makes sense - more sense than the church that passed away from me. 

So, in the midst of hard work, in the midst of loss, in the midst of painful sacrifices, I rejoice heartily because I have much to be grateful for and much to look forward to.

One day, the double doors of the horizon will be flung open for me and its bolts unlocked. That will mean the same pain at leaving and the same joy of the great hereafter. My Church preaches that hope, and I rejoice in that.

Finding your direction

 

A reflection on the decline of Spiritual Direction and a call to reverse this decline.

When chicken soup and beef steak become lasagne

 

A reflection on the Eucharist and relationships between Christians.

Giving thanks for scotch eggs?

Propers for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi

It's not exactly a feast, is it? A little wafer and a little wine. 

"Of course it is!" you say with vigour. How do you know that you are right?

[PAUSE]

What can we expect of feasts? The image that we have is a lot of people gathered together eating a lot, drinking a lot and generally enjoying each others' company with music and fun.

Oh dear. That sounds a million miles away from going to church.

Yet, certainly at the beginning, this was how the Eucharist went. The Mass was the culmination of the agape meal. This meal did get rather rowdy, as St Paul testifies. People are getting drunk. People are eating too much. Others aren't getting any food because the plates are bare. There is more concern over the quantity of scotch eggs than the Body of Christ.

St Paul effectively puts an end to the agape meal by redirecting its focus. How can we be discerning the Body and Blood of Christ if we are acting as if He is not with us? How can we be present at the wedding feast of the Lamb if we ignore the Bridegroom Himself?

[PAUSE]

As a result of what St Paul says, the rowdy behaviour, the drunkenness and the gluttony are ended. But has this killed the feast? How can we call the Mass a feast of it's nothing like a feast?

"But it is a feast," you say. And you are right.

[PAUSE]

Is there music? We sing hymns and psalms. There is a whole tradition of Christian choral music of all flavours and tastes. 

Is there good company? We have our brothers and sisters, some of whom we see every week, others once in a while. There are some who come for the first time. There are others who come from other countries and cultures who, having left their church behind, nonetheless find here the same family worshipping God.

Is there food and drink aplenty? The eyes of the World say no. But we say yes. For we discern the Body and Blood of Christ and His grace is sufficient for us. We see the Lord's miracle of the feeding of the multitudes with a little bread and a few small fish, and we see people having enough to eat and there is food left over in baskets. 

Is there rejoicing? Yes! It's the Eucharist! We come to give thanks. There is no hilarity because someone has gotten drunk and has managed to fall into the swimming pool. There are no silly games and contests. But rowdy behaviour is not the only way to enjoy yourself. The joy we get at the Mass needs to be discerned like the Body and Blood of Christ. It is there as we look with gratitude at our lives. Of course, Life can be hard and dark and cold, but the Mass is the one place where people who feel that life isn't worth living should be able to come and know that God does love them and thanks Himself for making each and every human being that ever was, is and ever will be.

[PAUSE]

We simply cannot look at the Eucharistic Feast in the same way as a party. It's better than that. We have to leave our worldly expectations at the door along with the booze and the scotch eggs.