Willing perfection

Sermon for Quinquagesima

You know that Love is not a feeling. It's not an emotion that feels nice and warm. A man may crave a chocolate biscuit but, if he's diabetic, giving him the thing that he wants might hurt him badly. We can kill with kindness, after all. Love rejoices in the truth.

Love is not about making someone happy. If someone rejoices in lies, then loving them will hurt them for love rejoices in the truth. 

And you know this because God is Love and God is not an emotion. And God does not want to make us happy. If He does, then all the pain, sorrow and suffering would disappear. If God wanted us to be happy then there would be no sadness.

What sort of Love is this? Who would want Love like this?

[PAUSE]

We are always tempted to see things in the small without any regard for the wider context. Our lives are limited to about eighty years and to the places we occupy in those eighty years. We cannot know why God permits Evil - at least not fully - but we can trust Him to love us.

For God wants nothing less than our perfection. We are made to be perfect even as He is perfect. The fact that God wants us to be perfect means that there is a meaning for our lives. God intends you to become the perfect you. 

But Love does not insist on its own way. You are free not to become the perfect you if you want to, or even to have your own idea of what the perfect you is. But your idea of the perfect you may not be God's idea. We have taken that choice for ourselves when we took the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so that we can say what Good and Evil are  for ourselves independently from God.

[PAUSE]

God's love for us makes us sad because it confronts us with the truth that we don't want to hear. God's love for us makes us sad because it confronts us with the consequences of our decisions. We live in the tension between our good and God's good; we live in the tension of our love and God's Love; and we live in the tension between what we want for us and what God wants for us. 

Humanity is an orchestra which has God's music in front of it. Each of us can play what's written or we can choose to "improve" on it because we think we know better. That's why there is so much noise, so much out of tune and so much distress.

[PAUSE]

Lent is about confronting this tension and embracing the sadness of our lives. We are not perfect - yet! But repentance puts us back into God's plan of perfection. Lent is our chance, not for happiness, but for joy. We withhold from ourselves what we like in order to find what we truly desire. We stop looking at the smallness of our lives but rather embrace the vastness of lives lived with the Holy Ghost dwelling in us at the fullest. We stop looking at ourselves in Adam and we start looking at ourselves in Christ.

God bless your Lent and may it bring you closer to your perfection in Him!

Succeeding Matthias

 

How the Catholic Church understands the Apostolic Succession.

The foolishness of wisdom

Sermon for Sexagesima

Which fools do you suffer gladly?

Do you even know? 

Holy Scripture has a lot to say about fools, and also cautions calling someone a fool. What characterises a fool is someone without knowledge acting as if he does have that knowledge. The fool suffers from a surfeit of pride and too little sense of the truth. He often suffers much as a result. We hear that the fool and his money are soon parted: the fool invests his money in a project circumnavigating Switzerland, but he doesn't know that he is giving his money to thieves and crooks. Of course, this could happen innocently to any one of us, but the fool pridefully insists that he knows best and loses his money as a result.

Knowledge makes a difference between fool and wise, but which knowledge is best? Science has much to tell us about the physical world but it cannot tell us about the world that is not physical. If we rule out the existence of God to begin with then we will never find Him no matter how hard we look. Humility is a prerequisite here.

Fools are the object of ridicule. They are laughed at and mocked. The compassionate feel sorry for them and seek to help. But then the compassionate risk becoming fools themselves.

[PAUSE]

The Christian is supposed to become a fool for Christ. We are to be prepared to be mocked and hated for our Faith. We are to be seen as ignorant because we believe in God. Look at how daily we are laughed at because people think God doesn't really exist! These people think that we are fools because we don't know and they do. They judge us fools because they have superior knowledge.

The danger for the Christian is to look for truth apart from God. The world says that Love is an emotion, but we know that God is Love. If we accept the world's understanding of Love then belief in God is reduced to simply feeling nice. As a result, to love someone is to make them feel nice. The moment you make them sad, or offend them, or make them feel guilty, then the world says you are not living them. If we believe that this is what God wants, then we have to conclude that St Paul hates the Corinthians by making them sorry when he rebukes them for tolerating someone living an immoral life.

The moment a church allows the world to tell it what Good and Evil are, it becomes foolish. It is blind to its ignorance and insists on preaching ignorance.

We know that to love someone is to desire their perfection in God and to hate someone is to will their eternal imperfection and separation from God. It is because we love someone that we do not want them to be foolish. Foolishness is an imperfection - it is taking comfort in a truth that is not God. Our duty as Christians is never to be satisfied with our ignorance of God and to let our neighbour share in our search for the Truth that God is. If the world thinks we're foolish for seeking knowledge of God, let it! Let the world deride or pity! We will glory in the Truth of Christ.

Valour and Valentine

 

The noble challenge of developing virtue.

For the Templar Knights Albion, please make a Facebook search of "Templar Knights Albion Information" or look in the latest edition of ACC-UK magazine available from anglicancatholic.org.uk for contact details.

Disengaging from ideological warfare

I have to admit, with the situation in Ukraine deteriorating, there seem to be dark times ahead. I suspect that, like all issues, one element of the situation is the entrenched rationalisation of views to the exclusion of the alternative.

I notice the same entrenched rationalisation in discussions about Anglicanism which rapidly become quite toxic. Over the past months, I have seen some ridiculously unpleasant arguments - and by that, I mean, arguments that would be laughable were they not so steeped in underlying disrespect and even approximating hatred. One individual I refuse to engage because, behind his apparent affability, lies a sneering self-aggrandizing attitude that seeks to belittle anyone who would dare challenge his questionable views. 

Now, what right have I to say that? Aside from the evidence of my own eyes and the corroboration of others, not much else. But, I must confess that there is a problem with this. Already, there is division into two camps based on how they are perceived. My antagonist will have his own tribe who may call me an intellectual coward for refusing to engage, or for being undignified in not arguing the desired manner. What is beginning here is another form of war - a battle of ideologies - and the casually of this war is simple basic charity. So I stop it at the onset.

I make no apology for removing comments that don't actually contribute anything except contribute to this warfare of ideas. The number of comments that begin with something like, "You're an invalid heretic!" I find, is astounding. What purpose do they serve other than an attempt to discredit me in my own house, as it were? I could engage, and the resulting exchange would degenerate and neither of us would budge an inch nor learn anything.

And that's the problem. Arguments don't change anything save only to entrench positions.

For some people that's not so bad. We Christians have to have a reason for the hope that is in us. To reason our faith through, to explore and discount possibilities is healthy and draws us to a surer framework of understanding God's Creation with God's grace. Yes, we are now being countered by atheists producing arguments designed to take down the Christian Faith by showing that it is unreasonable, unhealthy and untrue.  The intent is to dissuade people from becoming Christian and to become atheists like them. They are as proselyting as the door-to-door evangelical. 

If the Christian is living his faith properly, the need for combative argumentation is small. If we live a godly life, then the existence of God becomes tangible in us. We present our case, others are free to accept or reject. There will be those who stand against us, of course. The Bible is full of antagonists to Christianity. Yet, despite this, the Christian Faith perseveres, proof that it is not the quality of argumentation that matters but the Grace of God growing within a sincere heart.

What I see on the web are certain kinds of Catholics and Protestants ready to call each other heretic without realising that since before 1054, we have not just been talking past each other, we have been thinking past each other as well. Certainly, if we disagree as to what the Eucharist is then we cannot share it. Heresy may induce schism from the Church, but even the one ostensibly outside the Church who preaches salvation in Christ crucified is not against the Church. Oecumenical dialogue may not necessarily lead to intercommunion but it may end the warfare of ideas.

What we have to avoid are things like YouTube videos with titles such as "Oppy destroys Craig" or "Feser annihilates Hart". This is clickbait that incites the Christian soul to a warfare that separates the individual from living out the Christian life in the face of their personal battle to be holy. It transfers the war within us to turn to Christ in the fullness of heart outside to where the image of the enemy is transferred to human faces. That is true heresy, for the human face may only authentically bear the image of its Creator. Clickbait gives us the reason to transfer our interior battle to the outside where the Devil thinks he can win.

I remember my antagonists daily in my prayers and do so unreservedly and willingly. They are not my enemy: my enemy stalks within me whispering in my ear to take the forbidden fruit. I believe that this is the way that I can ensure that I am doing something to forgive them and love them even if God judges it ultimately to be insufficient. 

Likewise, I recognise in myself the temptation to engage in ideological warfare and I know I've mentioned it before. It's a besetting temptation that leads to sin. I therefore refuse to be drawn in debate. Of course, I seek to do my best in learning and teaching the Catholic Faith - that will involve honest and searching dialogue. I will answer honest questions as best I can but I will shut down any line of dialogue that will result in the warfare of ideologies. It doesn't edify anyone.

The value of labour

Sermon for Septuagesima

How much is your labour worth? It seems quite reasonable to be paid for what you do in your job. You cannot expect a plumber to do two hours of work for an hour's pay. And why are plumbers expensive? Well, some might be less reputable than others, but the majority have spent much on their training to become good plumbers: their pay is their recompense for that. 

Bill and Bob are plumbers. They graduated in the same class at Plumber School with the same grades: they are both equally skilled and experienced, and so have the same hourly charge of labour. Suppose you hire Bill and set him to work for eight hours, and then you employ Bob for one hour. You pay Bill the rate that he's due, and then you pay Bob exactly the same amount. Bill gets eight hours' pay for eight hours' work. Bob gets eight hours' pay for one hours' work. So what's wrong. Why does this feel wrong, or unfair on Bill?

[PAUSE]

It does look as if you value Bob's labour more than Bill's. You may have paid Bill what he expects but, in paying Bob eight times what he is expecting, it just seems as if you like Bob more than Bill.

In one way, it's completely fair: Bill and Bob get what they are owed. In another way, it's completely unfair: Bob is preferred to Bill.

Is this how God works? Well, Jesus says it is. Does God show favouritism?

[PAUSE]

God is not fair in human terms: He is generous. Even Jesus has best friends among His disciples: it's always Peter, James and John and never Thaddeus, Simon and Philip. God is King and kings have courts, lords and ladies.

Even then, this is not what God is saying to us. The true labour of Man is not buying and selling. The true labour of Man is not working to make ends meet. Man's true labour is to return to God.

[PAUSE]

Adam and Eve disobey God and the result is that they have chosen to fend for themselves. God puts them out of Eden to do just that. Man must labour and toil in order to live. But Man's true life is with God. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Our labour is the labour of repentance - of struggling to turn to God. God is our reward. God is what we are owed. God is the true payment of our labour. It doesn't matter, then, what we do in our labour of repentance. It doesn't matter even when we start our repentance. The fact is that, in knowing God, in receiving His grace to live, in keeping our eyes on the prize of Eternity with God, we each gain true and full Life in Him. We gain that life together.

The point is that we are not valued for our labour, we are valued for who we are. Bill and Bob get the same wages, not because of what they do, but because of who they are. The fact that they have laboured means they deserve payment.

Likewise, the fact that we labour to return to God is enough. It is because we exist that God wants us to be with Him - not because of what we do, but because of who He has created us to be. We are the end product of our labour.

But we must be careful. We cannot work our way to Heaven. In order to repent, we need God's grace to direct us, strengthen us and motivate us. We labour with God for our salvation.

[PAUSE]

God gives what He gives as He pleases. There are those to whom He has given the privilege of sitting on His right hand. There are those whom He has not. It is His choice to give just as much it is for you to pay your plumbers over what you owe them.

Ultimately, generosity is better than fairness. With God, we haven't seen anywhere near the limits of His love for us.

Choosing the Chosen

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Epiphany

If you are lucky enough to live in a democratic country then you might be looking forward to the next election. That way you get some say in how things are run. Or else you might enjoy the drama of the build-up to the vote. On election night there's always a lot of celebration by the winning candidate. Why? What's to celebrate? 

[PAUSE]

We elect someone for some purpose. If we elect a politician then we usually do so because we agree in some way with their vision of how things should be run and trust them to have your interests at heart. There is some appeal that they have which influences our decision. Of course, some people vote at random and others don't vote at all. Still others are undecided but will put a big cross in the box against the name of someone they really don't like, just to let the counters know. There is always a reason why someone is elected and there is also a purpose too.

We aren't the only ones who vote in elections. Our Lord says to His disciples they did not choose Him but He chose them and they will bear fruit that shall last. What does this mean? Does God choose the people who will enjoy eternity? Does He choose the people who will go to Heaven? Does He choose the people who will not?

[PAUSE]

Yes. As far as salvation is concerned, God is the only one registered to vote. He has that right because He is our Creator. We do know that He wants everyone to be saved as St Paul tells St Timothy. Not everyone will be saved as Our Lord makes clear to those goats who depart on His left. St Paul tells the Ephesians that God's choice is made before the world begins. What he means is that, as far as God is concerned, our life is present to Him all at once. He sees all the choices that we make. He sees us live our lives all at once, where we succeed, where we fail, where we sin. And He chooses us based on how we receive His grace and live with it in lives of repentance and worship - how we respond in faith to the love He first shows us.

St Paul tells us that we are elected to show to the world in our lives how to be merciful, kind, humble, meek, patient, forgiving and loving. In short, we have been chosen in order to reflect God to a world that is separated from Him. We do not get to choose our salvation; we get to choose to be someone whom God can save.

[PAUSE]

Elections can be very traumatic processes as the candidates present themselves and their ideas to the voters. There is usually much argument and, these days, a great deal of unpleasantness, especially when people don't get the outcome they expect.

With God, we can trust His judgement completely and know that He will always make the right choice. Since He has created you and given you His Grace to know Him, you have been chosen to reflect Him in your life. Do so, with your hand in His, and you will have His vote into eternity.

Lords and ladies in Heaven

 Why restoring deference and humility matters.