Law Abiding Christians

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent

There are Christians who object to Lent. They say that we don't need to fast because we don't need to obey silly man-made rules that don't affect our Salvation. Indeed, some folk seem to think that those of us who hold to liturgical rules and practices aren't doing Christianity very well. And they will say that St Paul agrees with them.

But does he?

[PAUSE]

When St Paul talks of Law, he is usually talking about the Jewish Law with all its complexity. This will include the kosher laws and the sacrifice system. St Paul is clear that we are not saved by the Law of the Old Covenant but rather that it exists to hold God's people together until the Messiah comes. Those who try to enforce the Jewish Law on Christians are missing the point, says St Paul. Those who try to force the Law on Christians are shown to be foolish by the very Law that they profess. They are like Hagar: slaves to the Law, unable to be truly free. They lack the life of Sarah which is free and in command of itself. It is in the life of the free that we become the people that we are meant to be. We become free to be excellent in the eyes of God.

[PAUSE]

Those who seek to impress the Jewish Law on Christians do so in the sense of being masters and signalling virtue. This is empty and devoid of true virtue because it is virtue for the eyes of men and not God. True virtue is obtained by sincerity to God. We obey the rules of the Church not to be seen to be good but to be good. But why is this different from those who impose the Jewish Law? 

Actually the real and more important question is how do we become good in the first place? Where does this goodness come from? Surely we cannot do good of ourselves. We cannot make ourselves good by ourselves.

[PAUSE]

Well, this is what the sacraments are for. Baptism and Confirmation welcome the Holy Ghost into our lives to give His grace - His active presence in our lives - to cleanse us and regenerate us into to the life of Christ. And the life of Christ is good.

 Further, in the Holy Eucharist, we receive the substance of God into our own substance. And Christ is good, so we are restored in His goodness. So by God's grace we can choose to do good things. And, because we are free in Christ, we can choose to do good of our own free will because the Spirit of God dwells in us.

But what of the rules? Why is it important to get the liturgy right?

[PAUSE]

Rules don't just regulate, they measure too. They help us to see the progress we are making. They represent a standard that we should try to achieve and from which we benefit. In observing fasts and feasts, we exercise our souls to align to Christ in Whom we are truly free.

To want to say our liturgy well is to express the value that God has in our lives. It shows God's worth in our lives - it is worship and we are commanded to worship for our greatest good - life in God Himself.

To follow the rules of Liturgy is to exercise God's gift to us. It puts us in mind of Him. It helps us see the goodness in which we live our lives and which ought to burn brightly in us. This is not Law and yet we keep the Law by exercising our faith in God.

[PAUSE]

The Jewish ritual laws of the Old Tests have no binding on Christians. But the Jewish moral laws do because they are rooted in the worship of God. Moral Laws are about our relationship with God and do not change. This is why the Ten Commandments still apply but the law of Circumcision does not.

Whilst we love Jewish brothers and sisters dearly, we are not bound by their laws. By accepting His Grace, we are bound to Christ in His Incarnation. By accepting the burden of our cross, we are bound to Him in His suffering and death. By accepting the truth, we are bound to Him in His Resurrection. That is what being Law-abiding Christians is all about.

A conception of the Annunciation

 

Why the Annunciation deserves observation.

A truly appalling homily!

Sermon for the third Sunday in Lent

There is a scene in "The Magician's Nephew" in which Uncle Andrew, whose selfish experiments have caused so much trouble, dresses up in all his finery to impress the strikingly beautiful witch-queen Jadis. All this finery gets covered with mud and soaked in water by well-meaning but confused animals. Whatever we consider to be beautiful is vulnerable to being damaged or dirtied.

We can see that in Church music turning into entertainment. We can see that in deforestation for motorways and commerce. We can see that in the institution of marriage being cheapened to a legal process and watch as couples get divorced and remarry again and again for the pretence of legitimacy.

The same is true for our churches. There has been a spate of church vandalisms in the news. Statues have been defaced, crosses broken, churches set ablaze  Even in our little Diocese, we have not been immune when, some years ago, the boot of a vandal crushed a full ciborium. Even the Body of Christ is not immune from being sullied!

[PAUSE]

If this distresses us then we can take heart. 

Ask yourself this: why are you distressed by the damaging of beautiful things. Why does the desecration of a church bother you?

There are two answers and we need to learn the difference.

The first is that we are distressed because we like the beautiful things, the painting, the decorations, the finery. And we like them because we're in love with the things themselves. That way lies idolatry but we don't always get that far.

The second is that we are distressed because of the dishonour it shows God. The One Who truly loves us is having His gifts to us thrown back at him smeared in hatred and cheapness. We are offended on His behalf.

And yet, if the sight of the Body of Christ trodden under foot appalls us, then already we have begun to recognise the indignity Our Lord suffers on the way to the cross. What we must realise is that the reason why Our Lord suffers this indignity is precisely because you have been sullied by Sin. If you are appalled at how Man treats Our Lord then realise now that this is nowhere near how furious God is that His creation has been damaged. His wrath is so great that, to do something about it, He is made man in order to suffer and die and, in doing so, become the means to our restoration.

In Christ, we are beautiful again!

So how do we proceed?

[PAUSE]

St Paul tells us that we should stay away from those who live lives that seek to desecrate the dignity of being human. We must never lose that sense of being appalled at the way that the beauty of being human is treated at the hands of those who will not see it. We must recoil from the children of disobedience and walk as children of light behaving in a way that reflects the light of Christ into the darkness. That's not to hate them. We can walk apart from the children of disobedience but we can still pray for their good. If we are truly appalled then we must be appalled on their behalf and pray hard for their attainment of Heaven at our side.

[PAUSE]

If you are appalled at the treatment of  church property then rejoice, because it means you care about shining light into the world. It means you value God. It means that you are responding to His love.

Be appalled but rejoice at being appalled!

Binding St Patrick

 

To what should we be bound this day?

Back together again

Sermon for the second Sunday in Lent

Fornication is not something we like to talk about in church, is it? And with good reason.

For many of us, it's a dirty word and makes us feel uncomfortable. For others, it conjures up images of being made to feel guilty about our intimate relationships with other people.

But St Paul is clear and, no matter how embarrassing it is for a priest to preach about it from the pulpit, the subject must not be swept under the carpet because it does affect us - it affects us all, even the most chaste of us. 

[PAUSE]

What we have to remember is that fornication is not the only sin but it is a sin that can do us untold damage. St Paul tells us that we cannot expect to be sanctified - be made holy - if we cannot "possess our vessels" by which he means "control ourselves". But, as usual, it is the Devil who likes to focus on one thing without getting at the real issue. The endless debates about sexual activity that are raging in the Church are a smokescreen for one important fact that we are being encouraged to forget.

What do the people say to the Church when it tells them that fornication is a sin?

"It's my body. I can do what I like with it!"

Do you hear that? What is this person really saying?

[PAUSE]

People who say things like that see themselves as separate from their bodies. To them, the body is an instrument or a plaything, but an instrument or plaything of what? The soul? The mind? Something else? Who is the "my" if we take the body out of "my body"? Is there anything left if the body is removed?

Well, yes, there is the soul but it's incomplete. There's something wrong with souls without bodies. The soul is what makes a body alive. If there is no body then there is nothing to do the living. The soul needs the body in order to be a complete human being. A body without a soul is just a corpse; a soul without a body is like an ocean without water.

And this is the problem. We are being tempted to tear ourselves apart in order to destroy the image of God that we bear. As soon as we start thinking that our body is just a toy then we miss the very fact that any thing which affects the body also affects the soul. And whatever affects the soul affects the body. 

Fornication, along with greed, hatred, gluttony and sloth, distorts the natural way that our bodies work in order to obtain some temporal pleasure. Here is a grotesque irony. The more we think of the body as our plaything, the more the soul becomes a plaything of the body. The worst of this is that we don't even notice. We lose our soul by gaining the world! 

It gets worse. In seeing our body as a plaything, we also see the bodies of others as playthings and thus deny them their God-given humanity. Further, if we see the body as a plaything, then we can start seeing children as an inconvenience and an obstacle to gratifying fleshly lusts. Thus, the very act designed to bring a loving family into being becomes, by fornication, a means of hating the family.

[PAUSE]

Lent is about reuniting body and soul. The fast is a very simple way of doing so because the bodies desires become linked once more to the desires of the soul. Denying the body a little food means that we become aware of its true needs in God, and we become more attuned to what we need to stay together, body and soul. Fasting helps us to recognise our excesses and expose other ways in which we treat our bodies as separate from ourselves. It helps us learn respect for ourselves as things of body and soul inseparable.

[PAUSE]

Fornication is a deadly sin against the self, let us be clear on that. It is, however, utterly forgivable for those who seek forgiveness. One day, God will transform us into who we are meant to be - body and soul, neither one without the other. Until then, we should try to stop ourselves from coming apart.

Does suffering mean anything?

 

Where is God for Ukraine?

Lying in the easy way

Sermon for the first Sunday in Lent

When you've just had a nasty fall, there is confusion, pain and indignation as you sit there rubbing your knees, wondering how this fall happened, and scolding yourself for falling in the first place.

One thing you don't feel is strong? How on earth can you feel strong after this?

[PAUSE]

The big problem that human beings struggle with most is Misfortune. Misfortune makes us distrust our senses, our beliefs, even our trust in God. How many people walk away from God because of the great calamities that they have suffered. The one thing you don't feel in the face of Misfortune, Calamity and Tragedy is strong. You feel powerless and unable to cope. And just where is God in this?

Where is God in the Pandemic?

Where is God in Ukraine?

Where is God in the face of Climate Change?

These are all important questions and ones that we have a right to ask. God has given us minds to ask that question and to make choices in the face of insurmountable odds.

But what we cannot do is expect to know the mind of God. Either we believe that He has a supremely good reason for allowing us to suffer, or we believe that He has not.

St Paul believes that his sufferings mean something. He believes that when we are weak, God uses his strength to bring good. Just look! All the terrible things that have happened to the Apostles have brought more people to Christ. They have seen their own suffering in the faces of the persecuted Church and they see that salvation is not only possible but guaranteed through Jesus Christ. This is because the suffering of the Apostles has exposed a lie. The strength of the Devil is lies and lies vanish when there is truth.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord is hungry and the Devil tempts Him with the easy way out: turn stones to bread.

Our Lord is away from home and the Devil tempts Him with the easy way to prove that the Father still loves Him: jump off the temple and the angels will come.

Our Lord is uncomfortable in the wilderness and the Devil tempts Him with the easy way back to comfort: worship him and have all the riches of the Earth.

The lie is always the easy way out. The Devil says to you, "if God loved you, He wouldn't let you suffer! So give up on God and you won't have to struggle with this problem any more!" Indeed, to blame God or to call Him out for our misfortunes is the easy way out. If we take it then we find some fleeting comfort, but we cannot grow. Lose God and any meaning or reason for our suffering is lost. Lose God and there will be no answer for our pain. Lose God and gain numbness - feel nothing ever again - and the warmth of love is extinguished.

[PAUSE]

We have to remember that the Devil deceived us into falling away from God in the first place. We have to take responsibility for being deceived and for turning away from God but it is the Devil's continued lies that we are struggling to get away from, and that hurts. It hurts because we are too comfortable with the lie to receive the truth after our Fall from God. But getting back to the truth is precisely what is good for us.

[PAUSE]

Lent is about picking ourselves up after our Fall and continuing our journey back to God. It is a long journey of repentance, full of hardship and struggle to separate ourselves from deception and ignorance but, whether we see Him or not, God is faithful and our growth to maturity in Him will help others to find God in the joy of His Resurrection.

Walking a Lenten Path

 What is the point of Lent, really?