One Unity?

Sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.

How can there be

so many Christian groups

claiming to worship

the same God

and yet disagree about

issues of Faith?

It doesn't seem that

there is One Faith at all.

Divisions among Christians

make us look foolish

at one extreme

and murderously insane 

at the other.

The killing of Christians

by Christians 

is not just tragic

but it is perverse

and demonstrates 

a deficiency in our faith.

How can Christianity

be a true religion

given that it's members

don't love one another?

[PAUSE]

It is clear

that there is something

called Christianity.

There is,

at the very heart of it,

one Lord Jesus Christ.

To be a true Christian,

it is necessary

to believe that

there is a person called Jesus.

But that's not enough.

We have to believe

that this person called Jesus

is Divine and Human.

Human

because we know He is born.

Divine

because He claims

explicitly in the Bible

to be the Son of God

and then goes on 

to prove it

by rising from the dead

and ascending into heaven.

For us to be truly rational

about what we believe

we have to believe

that these are not just stories,

but that Our Lord's Incarnation 

is a historical fact.

And we have to believe Him

and His reasons for His Incarnation.

That He lives, dies and rises,

for our salvation

and reconciliation

with His Father.

But all this is contained

in the Nicene Creed!

A Christian

believes the Faith

as stated in the Creeds 

of the Church

even if they don't

explicitly use the Creeds

or use the language

of the Creeds.

This is one Faith.

[PAUSE]

Further,

a person must actively

become Christian, 

not by shouting "I'm a Christian!"

in the canteen,

not by making a Facebook post

or sending a tweet.

But by receiving the sacrament

of Baptism,

as a sign of Christianity

a sign which is recognised

throughout the whole world.

One Baptism.

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.

So why so many 

different Christianities?

[PAUSE]

All Christians 

believe in sin.

They recognise

their own fallibility

and shortcomings.

Lord, Faith and Baptism 

all point to the existence of sin

in each one of our lives.

We know sin exists

because Jesus comes to save us.

If there were no sin,

we would not need salvation.

The Divisions in the Church

are an exhibition to the world

that even the most devout life

is affected by sin

externally and,

with the exception of some,

internally.

It is the witness of the Church

that divisions will be healed in Christ,

for all Christians hold Him

as the One who saves.

While there is much

that Christians disagree on,

if we truly hold on

to One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism

then those disagreements 

must be resolved.

It means, then,

the we must be prepared

to stand with the Christians

who disagree with us most

and recognise them

as being Christians

even if we struggle to see 

how they are Christian.

We don't have to accept

the doctrine of their church

but we do have to recognise

that they are trying,

even as we are,

to hold to 

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.

We do, however,

have to hold to that One Lord,

our really historical,

really human,

really divine Jesus.

We do have to 

keep that faith

by keeping his teachings

and to love

even as He loves.

We do have to 

be true to our Baptism

through loyalty to the Church

into which we are baptised

and to her head which is Christ,

by allowing the Spirit of God

to grow in us 

through prayer, work and study.

We believe in 

One Lord

One Faith

One Baptism

so that we, too,

may be one in Him.

Anglican Catholic Authority

 

How does the Anglican Catholic Church understand the authority of the Church?

Resurrection now?

Sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

The son of the Window of Nain

is raised from the dead.

Why not her husband?

Why couldn't this poor widow

have her whole family back again?

Why does Our Lord

trivialise the death of 

Jairus' daughter by saying that

she's only asleep?

Why does Our Lord wait

until Lazarus has been dead

for four days

until raising him from the dead?

It seems that Our Lord has

a very cavalier attitude

to the death of people

around Him,

even those whom 

He counts as His friends.

Come to think of it?

Why doesn't He raise everyone

from the Dead?

[PAUSE]

Every day, 

we hear reports of

truly tragic deaths.

A bride dies in an accident

the day after her wedding.

A young father 

Is killed the day before 

his daughter is born.

A baby is killed

by a pet dog.

We shudder at this

and it hurts

and we demand some

rectification of the situation,

some justice,

some resurrection.

But Jesus doesn't raise them

from the dead.

[PAUSE]

First, we need to understand

why it matters.

We weren't at the wedding.

We didn't know the young father.

The baby wasn't ours.

So why does it matter?

[PAUSE]

It matters because

we have compassion.

We can walk with those who mourn.

We have an idea of what should 

take place.

We care because we're human beings

and human beings

can't bear to see the innocent 

suffer

and die.

The fact that we recoil

from tragic deaths

is a sign of 

the love of neighbour

that God Himself

implanted in us

at our beginning.

It is precisely because

human beings are meant to be loved

that their death hurts us emotionally,

to the extent that some of us

never recover.

If Our Lord were to 

simply raise everyone from the dead

then we would never 

appreciate 

the sheer magnitude of

loss of a single life.

If Our Lord were to raise 

everyone from the dead,

then would it not trivialise

our humanity?

[PAUSE]

Yet, the Widow's son

and the widow,

Jairus' daughter and Jairus,

Lazarus and Mary and Martha

still die.

But that is not the point.

For Our Lord promises

that we shall be raised

from the Dead 

in a resurrection that 

is unlike what He is doing.

For, when He raises

the Widow's son,

Our Lord has not yet died, Himself.

The Cross is yet to come

and the bursting of

the gates of Hades

has not yet happened.

Only then we see Our Lord

as the Resurrection and the Life.

And, when we pass through death

we receive His life

for ourselves.

Our Lord shows that

Death is not a state of being

but an event -

an event in which 

we cease to be part of 

this world of shadows and pain

but part of the world

of justice,

righteousness,

peace,

truth,

light,

dignity

and love.

That is where 

the bride, 

the father

and the baby are,

beyond the reach of

Evil, Sin and Death.

While it hurts to miss them,

while we struggle with 

the way they die,

while we still grieve at their loss,

our pain, sorrow, tears and fury

convince us that we love

and that they are loved.

Our Lord says, 

"In your patience

possess ye

your souls."

In suffering death

we know what it is to live.

If we choose 

to suffer rather

than allow

the delights of the world

to numb us to 

the pains of love

then we take

possession of ourselves

as the person

God created us to be.

We don't need a resurrection now

for that would rob us

of opportunities to be truly human.

It is only when we are truly human

that we stand a chance

of sharing in Christ's divinity.

Anglican Catholic Evolution

 

How things in the Church change and develop.

72pt Arial Cross

Sermon for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Do you like

to stand out from the crowd?

Or would you prefer

just to fit in

and do just whatever

everyone else is doing?

For the most part,

there are times that

we want to stand out

and times when

we just want to fit in.

That’s natural.

How do we decide?

[PAUSE]

Our decisions are based

on what would give us

the most comfortable life.

We want to stand out

when we’ve done something

that others find amazing,

brilliant, funny

or heart-warming.

We want to fit in

when standing out

would make us look silly,

or make people look at us

with judgement

or even hate us.

We have to weigh up

the consequences

before we make that decision.

[PAUSE]

St Paul says

 it’s an important decision.

You can tell that

because he has taken the pen

from his scribe

and written part of

his letter to the Galatians

himself

in very big letters.

Think 72pt Arial.

His concern is that

the Galatians are allowing

themselves to be coerced

into following

the old Jewish Law

by Jews who are pretending

to be Christian.

The pressure on the Galatian Christians

to fit in,

seek a quiet life,

not stand out,

by receiving circumcision

kosher food laws

the old system of sacrifices

and the control of the Pharisees.

They don’t want to make a fuss,

so they roll over and accept

the rituals of the Old Law.

St Paul says “no!” very clearly

and doesn’t mince his words.

The Galatians are not

to follow the Jewish Law

for show,

or for the quiet life.

The Old Law was given

not only to allow the Israelites

to live in harmony with

God and each other,

but also to distinguish them

from the corrupt and disgusting practices

of the nations around them.

These Judaizers seek

to make Galatian Christians Jewish,

in order to glory in their control.

St Paul says that to follow his teaching

Christians must glory only in the Cross,

and allow the Cross

to distinguish them from

the corrupt world around them.

The trouble is

that, to the world,

the Cross

is a symbol of

pain, torture, humiliation

and death.

To the Christian,

the Cross

is peace, truth, glory

and life

- exactly the opposite

as to what the world thinks.

We choose the Cross

to fit in with Christ,

not the world

and that means the prospect

of much suffering and persecution

at the hands of those who would have us

see the Cross as a negative influence

because they want to glory

in their power over us.

[PAUSE]

The Gentiles become Christian

only with the requirements

that they abstain from

foods sacrificed to idols,

and from sexual immorality.

That’s still the case.

Christians must not be idolaters,

i.e. worship the created instead of the Creator.

And Christians must be sexually moral,

i.e. to see their bodies and the bodies of others

as outward expressions

of beloved children of God,

not as playthings to do with as they please.

This is our duty too,

and look how the World around us

wants us to forget them.

Every day, Christians are being tempted

and pressured to give in

to worship a false god or no-god.

Every day, Christians are being tempted

and pressured to indulge in

and sanction  sexual practices

which reduce human beings

to toys made out of meat and bone.

This is why St Paul writes

in 72pt Arial,

because what he says is important.

We must not be bewitched

by the world around us

but cling to the Cross of Christ

which is hard

and covered in sharp splinters.

[PAUSE]

The glory of the world

will pass away.

The false gods will rot

and fall apart.

Human bodies will age

and fall away to their dust.

But, shining through the Cross,

is our salvation

away from corruption and death.

Clinging the cross

will see us crucified with Christ,

and we shall certainly

stand out from the crowd

upon the crosses we bear.

But accepting that cross,

even venerating that cross,

will bring us through

into the glory of that cross

and into the life of Christ

in Whom is no corruption and decay,

no coercion and humiliation

but the purest, purest love.

 

Wanting to go downstairs

 

What does it say about Christians if people want to go to Hell

Pulling ourselves together

Sermon for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Have you ever heard a little child

who has been naughty say,

“it wasn't me!

My brain made me do it!”

We have a very strange relationship

with ourselves.

We talk of

“my body,”

“my brain,”

“my soul.”

But where is the “me”

which has body, brain and soul?

[PAUSE]

Sometimes we forget that

we are not just a body.

Sometimes we forget that

we're not just a soul.

If we did not have a body,

or if we did not have so,

we would not be a human being.

Human beings are made of

body and soul together.

Take one away and

we cease to be human.

This is the way that God has made us.

He has made us body and soul

to reflect His being.

We are made in His image

and this means that

we are meant to glow so brightly

with the presence of God

shining in our lives.

We are living beings

- we are rational animals.

God has created us

to enjoy His creation

and to understand His creation.

He has even created us

to seek after Him,

know Him

and love Him.

So how does one who hates God

try to undo His handiwork?

[PAUSE]

The best way

to undo God's handiwork in us

is to tear us to pieces.

The Devil's idea is simply

to make us

unaware of our bodies

or unaware of our souls.

The Devil wants us either

to think that we have no soul

or that our bodies don't matter.

And this is why he uses

the lusts of the flesh against us.

All of the works of the flesh

that Saint Paul tells us and the Galatians

make it seem either

that we are just bodies that need

“to eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die,”

or that our bodies are the playthings of our soul.

This is not what

the Holy Spirit desires.

For the Holy Spirit desires

that we should be truly human,

that we should be body and soul together,

fit for Eternal life in love with God.

This is the war between

the flesh and the Holy Spirit.

We, each one of us,

is a battleground between

the Devil and the Holy Spirit

as we try to live our existence

as God's creature

in the face of powers

that want to tear us from God.

Our bodies are not evil

– they are good.

But if we think our bodies are evil

then what are we saying

to the face of Almighty God

Who declares publicly that

they are good?

If our bodies are just playthings

to be used and abused

for gratifying whatever desires we have,

then where is the dignity that Almighty God

has given our bodies in union with our souls?

[PAUSE]

The way that God wants us

to live our lives

is to recognise that

we are body and soul together

and that we need to keep them together.

This means that the body

needs to be disciplined

so that its desires don't take us away

from the Holy Ghost.

This means that the soul

needs to learn humility

in recognising the need

to look after the body,

to accept and even love its limitations,

and to recognise the needs of other people.

To love means to desire the perfection of others.

This means we need

to desire the unity of body and soul

of other people.

Only in being body and soul united

can we be perfect in

the eyes of Almighty God.

If we look at the fruit of the spirit:

love, joy, peace,

long-suffering, gentleness,

goodness, faith, meekness

and temperance,

we see that these are meant

to unite body and soul.

They keep us together,

not just as individuals,

but as a community of individuals.

They stop us from treating ourselves

with contempt

and show us the dignity of being

a human being.

God has created

each and every human being

with a dignity that

cannot be taken away.

The trouble is that

we can be deluded into

thinking that it can.

In living the Christian life,

we grow in love and

therefore in perfection.

In rejecting activities

that try to deny the body,

or deny the soul,

or to treat the body as a plaything,

we find ourselves closer

to the person God created us to be.

We are still being created,

and we have been given by God

the dignity of taking part

in our own creation.

[PAUSE]

Our lives may well be

the battleground between good and evil.

What we mustn't forget

is that the war has already been won.

We have been given

the opportunity to take part

in that victory.

All the more reason

to love the selves

as God has created us to be

and to love our neighbours likewise.

Back to school

Why indoctrination is not education.

Humans being

Sermon for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

Why are we so pleased 

with the Samaritan?

Why are we not so pleased 

with the priest and Levite?

We know that

the Samaritan acts

as a neighbour

to the man

more than either 

the priest and Levite

but is our condensation

of those two who didn't help

justified?

[PAUSE]

Notice that Our Lord

does not condemn

anyone.

He simply states that

it is the Samaritan

who is doing the work

of Eternal life.

It is the Samaritan

who is the example

of loving the neighbour.

It is the Samaritan

who realises that

he is a neighbour to the man.

It doesn't matter to him

whether this victim of highway robbery

is Jew, Gentile or Samaritan.

At this very moment,

one man is naked and bleeding

and the other is there,

right next to him.

At this moment,

the Samaritan ceases

to be a Samaritan

and becomes

a willing helper.

[PAUSE]

Maybe

the Priest could not cease 

to be a priest at that moment.

But the man does not need 

a sacrifice offered for him

at this moment.

Maybe 

the Levite could not cease

to be a Levite at that moment.

But if the man does not 

need a priest,

then he certainly does not need

a priest's assistant

to help him offer the sacrifice.

The man needs a neighbour.

The Samaritan is willing

to lay aside his identity

as a Samaritan to help this man.

The Samaritan is willing

to lay aside

all the cultural assumptions,

all the bad blood with the Jews,

all the expectations

of insult and injury

in order to see another human being

in need.

[PAUSE]

If the priest stops

trying to be a priest,

if the Levite stops

trying to be a Levite,

and concentrate

on being a neighbour

- concentrate on the fact

that they are right next to -

a man needing help

then they would be

better examples of 

people who love their neighbour

and

people who love God.

[PAUSE]

Often,

we try to narrow what we can do

by clinging to the person

we believe ourselves to be.

The opportunity

that God gives us 

to be a good neighbour

is an opportunity to see ourselves

as the people He wants us to be.

Any Christian bishop

knows that he is still a priest,

and any priest

knows that he is still a deacon,

and any deacon

knows that he is still a layman

with all the duties that being 

a Christian entails.

No Christian clergyman

is exempt 

from being a good neighbour.

But then

neither are you!