Sunday, May 29, 2022

Always nigh

Sermon for the Sunday after the Ascension

Repent! 

For the end of the world 
is nigh!

Heard that before?

The end of the world is nigh.

It's always nigh.

Worrying about the world
is something that
has plagued mankind
for centuries.

St Peter sees the end of the world
as being imminent in his time.
Even before him, 
many have worried 
about whether all things
will end in some catastrophe
in their time.

What is different from their time
and ours
is that we have a pretty good idea
of how the world might end
and what will cause it.

Unlike St Peter,
we can see the world
and what's happening.
We have good reasons 
to fear and worry
especially about our children
and our children's children.

There is a key difference
in how we see the end of the world
and how St Peter sees
the end of the world.

[PAUSE]

It seems that we look at
the end of the world
with fear and trembling.
We dread the horrors of the future
the pain and suffering
and the destruction
of all that is familiar.

St Peter has that future.
Rejection. Persecution. Crucifixion.
His Jewish heritage destroys itself
by hating him 
and throwing him out of the synagogue.
His stability of life in the fishing village
is taken away from him.
His life ends on a cross
upside down
in agony.

St Peter goes through
the end of the world
but he welcomes it.

We fear the end.
St Peter looks forward to it.
So do all the other saints.
They long for the end -
not because they want destruction -
but because they know
that what comes next
will exceed
any joy they can imagine.

[PAUSE]

As we stand 
and watch Our Lord
ascend,
body and soul,
into Heaven,
we are told that
He will come again
in the same manner.

We have nothing to fear.

But we do fear.

[PAUSE]

We fear because
we are still attached to earthly things
and earthly things will be destroyed
even our bodies.

God tells us not to cling to 
earthly things
but we do.

What do we do, then?

The key is holiness.

[PAUSE]

Holiness is about separation.

Whatever is separated
out for God is called holy.

God is holy because
He is separate from His Creation
and anything that is
separated for Him
shares His holiness.

And we are to share His holiness.

We have to be separated out,
set ourselves aside,
for God.

This is how St Peter
faces the end of his world,
trusting not in anything he has,
but that God has called Him out
into a better, more glorious world.
St Peter is holy, 
which is why he is called Saint.

Our lives, too,
must be set aside
from the purposes of the world
for the purposes of God.

We are always close
to the end of the world -
it could happen any minute -
but that's not a reason to be afraid,
or to give up
living for God.

Lives of prayer,
of devotion,
of seeking God in Creation,
of living the best lives we can
according to what is truly good,
of bearing our cross
as Christ bears His,
this is the path to holiness.

[PAUSE]

We are meant to be holy,
for God is holy. 

Not even the end of the world 
can stop us 
if we turn to Christ in love.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Asking for reality

Sermon for Rogation Sunday

What are you asking God for?

Our Lord tells us that 
whatever we ask the Father for 
in Jesus' name, 
He will grant us.

It sounds like 
a licence to print money,
but you know that it's not.

St Paul is in prison.
If God would give Paul
whatever he wanted,
then he might be free from prison.

If God gives us what we want,
then why is St Stephen stoned to death?

If God gives us what we want,
then why does He not take 
the cup of suffering from 
His Only Son,
even when His Only Son
begs Him 
to let the cup pass from Him?

[PAUSE]

We worship God 
and that means
not treating Him 
like a genie.

We may ask for 
the things that we want,
but we cannot expect 
our prayers to be answered
in the narrow prison
of our own desires.

We can expect 
our prayers to be answered.
We should expect 
our prayers to be answered,
but they will be answered in a way 
that makes us more real.

St James tells us
that it is not enough
to say the words.
We have to do the work.

Doing the work
makes what we believe
obvious.

Doing the work 
takes our faith from
the vague clouds
of fact and theory in our heads
and shows the world
that we do have faith in God.

We are not saved by faith alone,
because faith is never alone.
A faith that exists just in the mind
does nothing for the body.
And we are to be saved Body and Soul.

Faith is the gift of God.
Free will is the gift of God.

And free will makes 
what is in our mind
become real.

Faith and free will go together.
And Faith also comes with 
Hope and Charity.
And it is Our Lord present
in body and soul
Who saves us 
Body and Soul.

If Faith saves
then it never saves us alone.

[PAUSE]

Whatever we ask God for 
requires faith in God,
but faith must be worked out.

Faith is the paper on 
which God has written 
His covenant with us
in the blood of His Son.

That covenant needs working out.
We need to play our part.
And God will play His.

And what does God promise us 
in this Covenant?

[PAUSE]

He promises
our hearts' desire.

He promises 
the one thing 
that will give us true joy
more than cars 
or money
or health
or wine, women and song,

more than 
freedom from prison,
freedom from persecution,
freedom from a painful, miserable death,

He gives us the one thing.

Himself.

And, in order to give us Himself,
He makes us more real
than we can know,
so that we can
enjoy his presence
for Eternity.

[PAUSE]

But this means
seeing the things that we desire
as not being the things 
that will make us happy
but as being the things
which show us 
what we really need from God.

If we want a fast car
then we might really want
a sense of exhilaration
of fresh air
and speed. 
It's not really the car
we want, 
it's the experience that
having a car might 
give us.

If we ask Him,
God will give us
His Holy Spirit
to thrill us,
give us a blast of the clean air
from Eternity
and the sense of His power
rushing through Creation.
But this means 
that we must 
be prepared to go 
wherever the Holy Spirit
leads us.

If we want to be healthy
then we might really want 
a life free from pain.
But God can give us this life
through His Son
in our own resurrection
from the dead.
But this means we cannot
be satisfied with 
our own relief from pain
and must work to relieve
the pain of others.
Their pain must become
our own pain.

If we want the company
of a pretty woman or handsome man,
then we might have a longing
for the company of someone
who truly loves us
and whom we find able to love.
God loves us
and, if we ask Him,
He will show us His beauty
which will go beyond anything
created.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord Jesus Christ says that, 
if we ask,
we shall receive.

We can ask for the universe.

But we cannot be satisfied with that
because we can have
the Creator of the Universe
Himself.

What do you really, really want?

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Grace and favour

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Easter

What is grace?

You hear a lot about grace 
in the Church, 
from the Gospels, 
in the sacraments 
and from the pulpit. 

Have you ever stopped 
to think about what 
grace actually is?

[PAUSE]

Tuesday's child is allegedly full of grace.

A good ballerina is graceful.

What does that mean?

Is it because she has 
complete control over her limbs?

Is it because she can
display the music in her body?

Or is it because we find 
her movements beautiful?

[PAUSE]

The Greek word 
we translate as grace 
can also mean favour. 

If something is graceful 
then it is favourable, pleasing, fitting.

Grace is not something
the ballerina possesses.

It's something we see in her,
something good.

[PAUSE]

The Angel tells Mary that 
she is full of grace.

Actually, he says something stronger 

In a single Greek word, 
Gabriel says 
not only that she is full of grace,
but that the act of filling her with grace
is complete, finished, done.
She is perfected in grace.

She has God's complete favour.

She is completely good!

This sounds very alien 
to ears two thousand years distant
and two thousand years sinful.

How is Mary good?

Only God is truly good.
So where good is, God must be.

"Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee!"

[PAUSE]

If God finds favour
in something He has created 
then He is present with it.

We now know that grace is 
nothing less than
the active presence of God.

Grace is a good gift,
and a perfect gift
that comes down to us 
from the Father of Lights.

It is something He wants us to have.

Mary has it 
because she chooses to receive it.

And we need to receive the gift, too.

Every sacrament the Church possesses
is a means of grace,
and gives the active presence of God
to all who receive it.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord enters the waters of the Jordan
to be baptized by St John.
His active presence in the water
means that the water in the font
is transformed into the same water
in which He bathes 
and washes away our sin,
and draws us into his family.

Our Lord breaks bread and says,
"This is My body".
This means that the bread is transformed
 into His body, and the wine, His blood.
And we are given His active presence
to nourish us
and prepare us for life's journey.

Our Lord blesses a marriage 
with His presence
and so sanctifies every marriage.

He is handled by His apostles,
and so gives them the power 
to bestow the Holy Ghost
for confirmation and ordination.

He is anointed with oil for His burial.

He forgives sins and tells His disciples to.

It is the active presence of Christ
in each of these actions
that make the sacraments 
not empty symbols,
but real displays of God's favour
and desire to be with us,
live with us,
love us,
forgive us,
heal us
and perfect us.

[PAUSE]

St James says:

"Every good gift 
and every perfect gift 
is from above, 
and cometh down 
from the Father of lights, 
with whom is no variableness, 
neither shadow of turning. 

Of his own will begat he us 
with the word of truth, 
that we should be 
a kind of firstfruits of his creatures."

God does not change and so
God's grace does not change.
The sacraments that we receive
are the same sacraments
that are received by 
St James,
St Paul
and anyone they give them to,
provided that 
we do not change how 
these sacraments operate.

God's grace begets us
with His Word of Truth
because 
Christ is the Word of Truth.

To be favoured by God
is to have Him with us
as we live our lives.

The Church is the means
by which every human being
may receive God's grace.
That is her purpose.

While we are with her,
we do receive God's grace
- grace which we can give
to those others
who dearly need to know
not only that they are lovable
not only that they are lovely
but they are also truly 
and completely
loved.

Sunday, May 08, 2022

Mirror, Mirror on the wall...

Sermon for the third Sunday after Easter

What do you expect to see 
when a mirror is broken?

It depends 
how badly it's broken, 
doesn't it?

It might be completely broken, 
glass shards everywhere, 
but you will still see yourself
 in any single one of those shards.

What if it's just cracked?

Well, then something 
interesting happens.

 If you look at yourself in 
an uncracked piece, 
you will appear normally. 

But, if your reflection 
goes across a crack, 
or even a missing piece, 
then there will be distortion 
or even gaps in your reflection.

 It's only when there is 
a crack or a warp in the glass 
that your reflection looks odd 
and doesn't behave in the way 
that it should.

What a broken mirror doesn't do 
is show a reflection of anyone else
other than the person looking into it.

[PAUSE]

When something is broken, 
it does not behave in the way 
it's supposed to. 

If it's just cracked, 
then it may well work 
reasonably normally for a time 
until something widens that crack 
and bits break off. 

The same is true for us. 

We are broken because of Sin. 

There are cracks in our being 
and we do not work properly. 

Look at our wills. 

If there is a crack in our will 
then it causes a split in 
what we want to do. 

We can want to do good and, 
yet, 
at the same time 
want to be utterly selfish. 

St Paul recognises this fracture 
when he sees in himself that 
he doesn't do the good 
that he wants to do
and that which he doesn't want to do, 
he does.

This is why even the very best of us 
are confused by 
our own sinfulness. 

This is why the people 
whom we revere most 
fall and sin and disappoint us.

Essentially the problem comes 
when the reflection of God in our lives 
falls over our cracks 
which distort our view.

[PAUSE]

It's seems as if we have two wills, 
but we don't. 

One part hunts for the things of the Spirit, the other for the things of the World. 

Both bits of your will 
want the same thing 
- to be happy, 
but you are confused as to 
how to get there. 

But, the more we follow 
our lust for worldly things, 
the bigger the crack gets 
and the more the reflection distorts.

Whose reflection?

It isn't yours!

[PAUSE]

Each one of us is 
supposed to be a reflection of God. 

The more we sin, 
the more the crack 
in our being widens. 

When we confess and repent, 
the more we focus 
on the unblemished part 
of the reflection of God in us.

 What we cannot do 
is close and repair the crack. 

That needs God's creating Grace. 

The will of the Flesh pulls away 
from the will of the Spirit. 

So St Paul tells us to focus on 
that part of our will 
that seeks the spirit 
because we can still see God 
reflected in that bit, 
despite our fragmentation. 

The more people see 
God reflected in us, 
the more will they see 
how to be good 
and seek the things of God. 

The more we recognise 
the will of the Flesh and reject it, 
the more will we show up the world 
for being silly and foolish 
- not by violence, ridicule or shouting, 
but by simply being obedient 
and quiet for God.

[PAUSE]

God looks at you 
and sees Himself. 

That surely is a wonderful 
and frightening privilege. 

Rejoice and reflect Him 
as best you can 
for the world needs it!



Tuesday, May 03, 2022

Sunday, May 01, 2022

Firing the Synod

Sermon preached at the XXXth Synod of the Anglican Catholic Diocese of the United Kingdom

The planet Jupiter
is fascinating
for many reasons.

It is the largest planet
we know
in our Solar System.

The Great Red Storm
on its surface
is more than
twice the size of our planet.

It has the largest number of natural moons
that we know of
and a magnetic field that probably
helped shape our Solar System.

Its gravity is enough
to trap the larger rocks into its orbit
thereby saving planet Earth
a bit of a bashing.

However, the planet Jupiter is a failure.

Despite its vast size,

it hasn't enough gravity
to compress and combust
the gas that forms it.

Jupiter could have been another star,
but it failed to ignite. 

[PAUSE] 

Ten virgins,
all pure as the driven snow,
all chaste,
all demure,
all socially acceptable,
all preserved from stain.

Yet only five get to go into the wedding feast.

The other five failed to ignite
because they didn't have enough oil.

What do we see here?

The pattern should be familiar to you:

it is not the following of social rules
that gets you into Heaven.

It's not the impression of sanctity
or holiness that cause our Salvation.

It's more than that.

There may be something important lacking.

Something internal.

Jupiter lacks enough substance
so it cannot burn.

The Virgins lack oil in their lamps,
so they cannot shine their light.

Having the appearance of the right materials
is not enough for the fire to start.

What is lacking?

[PAUSE]

We remember today St Catherine of Siena.

She is a noted Doctor of the Church.

So what is her diagnosis of those
who cannot start a fire?

What does she say is lacking?

She says quite clearly,
"be who you are meant to be
and you will set the world on fire!" 

Is she right? 

Many would say, "yes!"
but for precisely
the wrong reason.

We know full well that the Church isn't
about being who you want to be.

That’s the mistake the World makes.

The person of the world says,

"I am who I say I am.
Accept it, or else!" 

Listen to that again.
"I am who I say I am!"

You can really hear the problem, can't you?

Only One can say,
"I am that I am!"
and He rules the Universe.

It precisely this reason that
Traditional Christian Religion
is not popular at the moment.

It is precisely this reason
that some Christians
are trying to change the Church
so that it will say,
"you are who you say you are
and God loves you for that."

That is, of course, unbiblical,
unfounded
and unmitigated rubbish!

[PAUSE]

God loves you for who you are
- this is true.

But loving you means
a burning desire for your good.

God loves you
so that you shine as the person
He created you to be.

He desires your good.

But what is your good?

Nothing less than your perfection in Him.

We are to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

The Church is about
you being who you are meant to be.

Who you are meant to be
is God's decision, not yours.

Only God gives meaning.

Now, God created you
but He also allows you the freedom
to shape your life as you see fit.

That is part of the glory of being human:
we get a say our own creation.

We are indeed free
to be whoever we think we are.

But, leaving God out
of our lives of self-creation
means we will never be
who we are meant to be.

We cannot be perfect without God. 
 
[PAUSE]

In trying to become who we want to be,
we do set the world on fire.

The fire we cause destroys.

We burn up the world around us.

We burn up our environment,
our community,
our family and friends
and even ourselves,
just to get our own way.

We want what we want and,
literally,
to Hell with the consequences!

Just to become the person
that we want to be,
we cut off our noses to spite our face
in glorious vindictiveness
against God Himself
Who tries to show us who we really are
in His love.

We would rather burn up than let God ignite us.

We would rather disintegrate
into the ash of our own making
rather than shine like stars for all eternity.

[PAUSE]

But we needn't destroy.

Look at the burning bush
– aflame with the glory of God,
burning with a fire that illuminates
the sight of Man
to see God once more.

But the bush is not consumed.

It does not burn away,
and Moses catches fire from it
and he does not burn away.

 His face shines so that
people cannot look at him
for he burns with God's fire
and yet he does not burn away.

That is what we are meant to be.

This is what the Church is for.

We are the lamp for the world
set upon the hill for all to see.

We are like Abba Lot.

[PAUSE]

The desert father, Abba Lot,
goes to see the elderly Abba Joseph
and says to him,

 “Abba, as far as I can I say my Little Office.

I fast a little.

I pray.

I meditate.

I live in peace and,
as far as I can,
I purify my thoughts.

What else am I to do?”

Abba Joseph, in his great age,
stands up,
stretches his hands towards heaven
and his fingers become like ten lamps of fire,
and he says to Abba Lot,

“If you will, you can become all flame.”

We have all the ingredients to burn:
we have the Catholic Faith,
a Catholic Bishop,
a Catholic Liturgy.

We have Bible, Altar, Font.

We have the Church Fathers,
the authority to remit sins,
the Holy Sacraments, 
the Word of God Himself!

We have everything we need to burn.

We just need to be
who we are meant to be.

We just need the humility
to accept who God means us to be.

We need to struggle and be prepared to struggle because of this discrepancy
between who we really are 
and who we want to be.

Like Jacob, we wrestle with God
over our own existence
until, out of love,
He puts our hips out of joint,
so that we might understand
and accept ourselves in Him.

And who are we meant to be?
 
[PAUSE]

We are the Anglican Catholic Church
and we are meant to be exactly that.

As a part of the wider Catholic Church,
we are meant to bear the Faith once delivered to the saints,
the Faith that applies
at all times, in all places and for everybody,
to the English-speaking and English-cultured people.

We are to help people struggle with Life,
in the midst of our own struggles with Life,
so that all might find God.

This is what we are meant to be
and this is how
we are to set the world ablaze.

We can only do so if we hold together
in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
living our lives alongside the saints,
 like St Catherine,
who only appear to have died
and whose lives still burn brightly with God.

We can only do so if we are humble before God and each other.

If we shame the world by laying aside
our own hobby-horses,
our own selfish desires,
 our own self-importance
in order to share the same
Communion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
and thus further the burning love of God
for mankind in a world
that is growing cold.

[PAUSE]
 
Do you know who God means you to be?

How will you set the world on fire?