Advent 1 Evening sermon

Advent 1—Evensong and Benediction, Little S. Mary's, Cambridge

Readings: Joel 3:9-end; Revelation 14:13-15:4

 

As Fr Andrew said in his sermon this morning, it is very easy to get drawn into the hype and sentimentality of Advent—or rather not so much 'Advent' but more 'Winter Wonderland'. But our readings this morning were of the kind that gives us a good deal of hope, that if we trust God and keep watch, we will not be disappointed at the end. This evening, the readings seem much less easy to read on first contact. Images of roots springing up to bring deliverance are not found, nor are encouraging writings from S. Paul. There isn't much looking forward to pleasant images of the non-threatening baby Jesus that we all like to coo over, whilst enjoying that lovely warn sensation that goes with it—or perhaps that is that one sherry too many. Here is judgement executed in the last days: those who have gone against the Lord punished. Such imagery can be offensive to our modern, mostly liberal and tolerant ears. "We don't like to talk about such things," we might say. I certainly would rather not be faced with such readings when I am preparing a sermon! We don't really have this choice though and the 'recovering evangelical' in me is unable to completely disregard the lections for this evening in order to speak about something altogether more pleasant.

The prophecy of Joel comes when the people of Judah, who had been taken into exile, were allowed to return to their homeland. Imagine the experience of exile: being conquered by a foreign nation, ripped from homes, taken away. Picture the violence, even hatred that leads one nation to conquer another and try to take away its own identity. Think about the violence of language used in 2 Kings 18 when the people of Judah are told that they will have to 'eat their own dung' and 'drink their own urine'. Hear these passages with the mindset of an oppressed and downtrodden people.

The imagery of our two passages is that of war. Imagery of war and violence is not something completely new and foreign. The nations are told to prepare for war: or 'make holy' in the Hebrew. This is no ordinary preparation: this is no ordinary war. This has the sense of a holy war, the scale of which is so great that they will need to beat their ploughshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears. They will need all the weapons that they can get hold of. This is a reversal of the prophecy of Isaiah in which swords are beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, which was written before Joel's prophecy. There is a message of hope in Isaiah, that there will be, for the people of Judah, peace and safety but this is now contrasted with the fate of the nations who will be engaged in this holy war, in which the Lord will exact vengeance 'for the violence done to the people of Judah'. The victory of the Lord is total, with the image of a harvest being used. When a field is harvested, everything is cut up and taken away—nothing is left. The nations are told to beat their pruning hooks into spears but the people of the Lord are told to beat their spears into pruning hooks.

Our reading from Revelation takes up this prophecy in its imagery. Here it is Christ—one like a son of man—who holds the sickle, as well as the angelic beings. To a people who, at various stages, were undergoing persecution, this was a message of hope. Christ would, as they believed, return soon and repay all their sufferings and exact his vengeance. They would be left praising God without fear, without pain and without fear of death. Though they were suffering, the day of the Lord would come. We are faced with the idea of two distinct groups of people: one for whom this means peace and safety and one for whom this means punishment and destruction.

All of this is a long way from sickly-sweet advent calendars, the counting down to Christmas. All of this is a long way from the nativity plays that deep down, though I hate to admit it, I enjoy because they bring back all these memories of childhood innocence—with the twee sound of children's choirs singing Away in a Manger and other such delights. It is all too easy for us to seek to romanticise and sanitise the story without really engaging with the darkness and the mess: to make God the sweet little baby in a manger that we can somehow contain and control: a safe God who, at this point at least, will not interfere too much in our lives, because we like to hold onto the belief that somehow, we are still in charge. But this is no romantic or sentimental story. This is a story of occupation, being forced to—if Luke's account is accurate—make a long journey to your place of origin to be counted on a piece of paper: a number, a statistic. This is a story of wandering around as you go into labour seeking a place to give birth only to have all the doors closed in your face—alone and rejected. This is a story of the agony of childbirth—not in a sanitised room with expert medical staff at hand. This is a story of birth surrounded by mess, filth, being reduced to the status of animals, having nowhere to place your baby but in a feeding trough. But this is also a story of the filth, the rejection being sanctified—the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

This is the story of just how far God was willing to go to demonstrate his love towards us—meeting us in the very real and actual mess and also meeting us in the darkness of our fallenness and brokenness. This is the story of God becoming what we are that we might become like him. God came to that which was his own but his own 'knew him not'. As is so often the case, we are blind to the truth and we fail to recognise the presence and working of God. All this God has done to redeem us from our captivity—to set us free: 'free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight, all the days of our life'.

The judgement and vengeance that we read of in Joel and Revelation is, at heart, not so much about believing in Jesus Christ per se or being amongst the elect—an 'us and them' mentality: it is much more about judgement against injustice. It is judgement against those who live and work contrary to what God has decreed and himself done. The covenant is an inclusive one: it was never an exclusive one. God said to Abram in Genesis 12 that in Abram 'all the families of the earth will be blessed'. In the Nunc Dimittis, the salvation of God was to be a 'light to lighten the gentiles' and 'the glory of thy people Israel'. Jesus is the crowning glory of God's chosen people and a light to all nations: the climax of the story of God's dealing with humanity. The judgement prophesied in Joel and Revelation is a judgement against those who have reversed, or attempted to reverse, what God has done for his people. God sets a people free, and his judgement is pronounced against those who then oppress or persecute them.

These passages are not meant to lead us into a type of triumphalism that says 'we're saved: you're condemned'. The judgements, if we bear in mind the contexts of exile and persecution, are against those who work contrary to God's plan for humanity. It is also a challenge to us: how often do we act, speak or think in ways that are contrary to God's plan? Advent is a penitential season: a time for reassessing our lives and coming back to God before the big celebration of Christmas—the celebration of what God has done for us. We have been called to be a holy people: witnesses to the light of Christ, but how often do our lives live up to that? Now is the time to come back to the Lord.

It is most fitting that we finish this service with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Advent is about readjusting our lives, and putting Christ back in the centre. As we kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, remember Christ coming to meet us in this world, in all the filth and darkness. See him exalted on the altar and reflect upon the glory that is now his with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Above all, allow this light to shine into our hearts to illumine all of our darkness, in all humility and love; and let us all go in peace to love and serve the Lord, living according to his plans, that on the last day, we may be free to worship him with all the company of heaven.

Amen.

Christ the King Sermon

Sermon for Mass—Trinity Hall Chapel

The feast of Christ the King—22^nd November 2009
Readings: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

We have now arrived at the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year, on which the Church observes the feast of Christ the King. Next week we move into a new liturgical year: beginning with the period known as Advent, when we both prepare to celebrate the Incarnation of Our Lord, and also think about his Second Coming. Having celebrated the feast of All Saints—all those who have gone before us in the faith—we now, at the end of the year, acclaim Christ as King. This marks the completion of the story of Christ. He is now risen, ascended and glorified.

Our first two readings provide us with two different visions: one of the prophet Daniel in Babylon, and one of S. John on the isle of Patmos. Our Gospel reading from S. John's Gospel recalls part of Our Lord's encounter with Pontius Pilate before he was handed over to be crucified. We are probably fairly familiar with the passages, but sometimes our familiarity with passages and different biblical pictures can preclude us from seeing the real point, or from allowing ourselves to think outside of what we already think we know. Somehow, biblical texts and images become so separated from their original contexts and times that we fail to see the original point or intention of them.

Daniel was one of the many Israelites taken into exile to Babylon. It is here that we have the two famous accounts of the fiery furnace and the lions' den. We are probably fairly used to the reading that we have heard this morning: a favourite among Christian preachers I have known and interpreted as a messianic prophecy. They like to use it to prove that the Hebrew Scriptures point towards Jesus. Now, I am not saying that they are wrong because I do think that this is a messianic prophecy. But, the danger we often walk into is thinking that this is a prophecy about Jesus and that is all we need to know. What of the context?

Can you imagine what it feels like to be taken into exile? Can you imagine being ripped from your homes, your villages and towns and transported miles away to a foreign land? Everything that you knew and loved of home is now gone and you are now in a place where everything is strange and you don't understand what is going on. You had always been taught to think of yourselves as the chosen people of God, and that God himself had given you the land that you lived in. You believed yourself to be his chosen people, but now look at you! Where has this god gone? Was any of it real? Everything you had been brought up to believe is now being challenged by this experience. You feel lonely and abandoned and wonder if anybody cares for you. Your god has been defeated and has become powerless to you, because you cannot see how the god you believed in can still be working as he seemed to work for your ancestors.

Now, hear the words from Daniel again: 'As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne… I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven…to him was given dominion and glory and kingship… His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away.' Can you imagine what it must have felt like to hear these words when they were first uttered? God, who seemed to have been defeated, is in fact highly exalted and his kingdom is declared to be an everlasting kingdom. Surely, this means that you can start to believe again that somewhere, somehow God is in control and will not utterly forsake you!

Now let us go to the 'revelation of Jesus Christ…to …John'. If we go to the verse following the verses that we read this morning, John says, 'I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution.' Again, our verses read this morning speak into a context of persecution. You have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, you have 'given your life' to Christ: you are a part of the Church. You have accepted the Gospel. However, people who believe with you are being arrested, tortured and killed for belonging to the faith you proclaim. If you read accounts of the early martyrdoms, some of the things that these people go through were awful: skinned alive, roasted on a spit alive, red hot metal plates placed at the most 'tender' parts of the body. Although Jesus warned of trials and persecutions, you might be beginning to wonder if it is, in fact, all true. The more zealous of you embrace death, speaking of suffering as Christ suffered, and seeming to suggest that they felt closer to him somehow. But surely God wouldn't allow the people who love him to endure such suffering! Surely God could stop this from happening and give you some safety in which to try to follow Christ!

Hear the words again: 'He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail… "I am the Alpha and the Omega", says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.' Surely the Lord has seen your sufferings and knows what you are going through! He sees and he is coming and all those who persecute you will wail, but you will rejoice for you Lord has returned to take you to the Father. Hallelujah!

Finally to our Gospel: Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" It is Jesus' reply that I wish to focus on for a few moments. The NRSV reads: 'Do you ask this on your own…?' The Greek here reads: 'Ἀπὸ σεαυτοῦ σὺ τοῦτο λέγεις;' I read this as a question that goes, literally: "from yourself you this say?" Any Greek scholars among you may feel free to challenge this interpretation after this service. To me, it is as though Jesus can see right through to Pilate's heart, and cuts right to the chase. It is surely a rhetorical question. When I read in the Gospels of Pilate, I rather think that, actually, he did everything he could to try to realise Jesus but in the end was too scared of the mob. I wonder whether he believed in Jesus and saw something of the Divine in him. I love this scene in the Passion of the Christ, when Jesus suddenly switches to Latin to speak to Pilate. I rather think that Jesus saw into his heart and was challenging him. "Have you, yourself, come to this conclusion?" The translations are fascinating:
NRSV: 'Do you ask this on your own…?'
KJV: 'Sayest thou this thing of thyself…?
NIV: 'Is that your own idea…?'
REB: 'Is that your own question…?
The NIV and REB seem to have come to the same conclusion as me. How much of what we say and sing in Church or in our own private prayer lives are 'of ourselves' and how much 'from others'?

Now, we may not have been carried away into exile or enduring hard persecutions, but sometimes the experience of study, particularly in such a prestigious place as this or 'another place' can leave us wondering where God is. We can feel rather lost and alone: stressed certainly, depressed perhaps. We, like Daniel and John on Patmos, may be dealing with very similar questions. Allow their words to speak into your hearts and lift your faith, and when we speak of Jesus, Christ as King, let these words be truly 'of ourselves'.

Amen.

My wife—not we, but she—is pregnant.

I can now formally and publicly announce that my wife is 12½ weeks pregnant. I have been so eager to blog about it but have tried hard (and succeeded) to heed the advice of not being too public before 12 weeks. We had already told much of our families, some close friends and quite a few people here at Westcott House, partly because we wanted some people to be 'in the loop' should anything go wrong.

It has been quite a scary time, I think. Every time that Toni rang me when I wasn't expecting a call, I assumed the worst and started to panic. I have never prayed so fervently about a single thing, which I found interesting. Now I am so relieved that we have got to the twelve week watershed. I feel that I can relax quite a lot.

I have been thinking about a few things. One of them is the realisation that we are all absolutely helpless before the fundamental issues of life and death. Nothing we can do can guarantee that our child will survive. Of course we can do things that will help the healthy growth of our baby but we cannot really assume anything. That reality really came home to me during these last twelve weeks. All life comes from God: that 'spark' (for want of a better word) that sets all the organs, lumps of meat that they are, in motion. This has made me more committed to continually praying for the life of our baby and giving thanks for each day that I wake up alive.

Going to the hospital for the scan was a nerve-racking experience. Would the baby be ok? Would they find some problem? I really didn't know what to expect or how I would react. I rather thought that I would be overcome with emotion, and perhaps a little (joyfully) tearful. However, when we went into the room for the scan, the stenographer put the scanner thing on Toni's abdomen and immediately a crystal-clear image of our leanbh beag [pron. lya-noo bag—Irish for 'little child'—the nickname I seem to have adopted for our baby] appeared on our screen. Legs and arms moving seemingly excitedly. Was he/she aware of what was going on? Was he/she as excited to be seen as we were to see? I guess we will never know. When the image appeared, I simply took in a huge gasp of air—the kind that a leanbh beag makes when something unexpected but immensely exciting or pleasurable happens.

Now, I look at this image that I have of our leanbh beag and stare in wonder at the life that my wife and I together have long willed, and God created and thus far sustained, and give thanks to God, who gives life—a precious gift that cannot be valued.

Oh, and by the way, I hate all this talk of 'we are pregnant'—what a load of trendy bull! She is pregnant and I have largely felt like a stranger to the whole thing. Nothing has changed for me in the way it has for Toni—that is, until I saw my leanbh beag moving on screen! Now I get the feeling that nothing will be the same again!

Anyone going to Rome? or Where is the love?

Much attention seems to have been given to the invitation of the Pope to Anglican priests to come into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church.

As somebody who tends to identify myself as Anglo-Catholic, it has been interesting to think about the invitation from a Catholic perspective. Being an ordinand in a college which, though it has always striven to avoid labels, tends to be placed in the 'liberal Catholic' category can be an interesting experience. I came here because I felt that it would be healthy to be in a more broad and diverse atmosphere than somewhere which might be 'more my cup of tea'. I have no shadow of a doubt that I am in the right place but I often find myself frustrated with some of the thinking of this place and have found myself becoming more and more 'conservative'—at least in the eyes of the liberals. I think that it has just exposed that which was already there under the surface.

You see, I don't like much of the more liberal side of the Church. I, so far, have agreed with the ordination of women. The issue of the consecration of women to the episcopate is a much more complicated issue as far as the Church is concerned, and in terms of what it could end up doing to the Church. All this liberal nonsense about inclusion, equality and justice completely misses the point. They don't, as I see it, seem to realise that it is about much greater issues than these: it is about the being and shape of the Church—not whatever trendy nonsense they wish to bring about and make normative in the Church.

If Ignatius of Antioch envisaged the Church gathered around one bishop and Clement rebukes those who do not accept the ministry of their bishops/elders [and are right in doing so], this was for the preservation and healthy life of the Church. It may not have been what everybody liked but it was [perhaps] for the greater good. No traditionalist that I have talked to sees questions of women's ordination/consecration in term of inclusion/exclusion or justice/injustice or equality/inequality. It is, surely, rather about the nature of the Church and the ordained ministry and the distinctive roles of men and women. It is not so much about deliberately excluding women from ministry as it is about seeing the ordained ministry as a distinctively male role and believing that the roles of women are different. I can't abide the liberal arrogance that so belittles the traditionalist part of the Church with crass questions of exclusion, sexism etc.

The ordination of women to the priesthood was, as we all know, a contentious issue and structures were put in place for those who could not accept their ordination or ministry. After all, such people had faithfully served the Church for years and why should they be utterly excluded by a Church that has decided to do something which was not with unanimous agreement? The potential future consecration of women to the episcopate will only exacerbate this division and will, inevitably rip the Church in two. Can people not see how and why those of a more traditionalist theology/ecclesiology would feel utterly betrayed by the Church that they have loved and served. So much of the rhetoric seems to be about going ahead with this and 'if people don't like it then they can leave': it doesn't show much love, grace and humility.

My ecclesiology says that I should trust the structures of my Church (i.e. Synod, Bishops' Advisors etc.) and trust that the Holy Spirit is working through them but I have begun to wonder whether it is less about discerning the way forward that the Holy Spirit is leading us into, and more about whose shouting is louder and whose rhetoric persuades better (on both sides of the debate). Is democracy really an effective way of discerning the will of the Holy Spirit? How representative is the membership of the General Synod?

Don't misunderstand me, I am for the ordination of women, and I think I am nearly (at least in theory) in favour of the consecration of women to the episcopate. For me, it is not about whether they are men or women but about the calling and equipping of the Holy Spirit. As an ordinand in training, after years of being sure that I was being called and wondering why the Church wasn't as sure, I am now part of the way through my second year of three and now not quite so sure about my vocation but trust that God has me in the right place, training alongside men and women. I have begun to recognise that none of us are worthy or deserving of this ministry but we are all broken, sinful people just trying to follow obediently as we discern the Holy Spirit leading us. Of course, I am in the fortunate position of nobody challenging whether or not I can or should be ordained, though only a couple of decades ago I might not have been allowed to train because of inadequate education or being from the wrong stratum of society! What I am fed up of is a distinct lack of grace and love in much of the rhetoric: we seem to be vilifying each other, caricaturing each other and seeking our own will in the Church. Where is the love and grace? Where is the inclusion, which the liberals never cease to go on about, when it comes to listening to the traditionalist voices?

In my view, I don't blame any of the more traditionalist catholic part of the CofE who feel that they have no choice but to accept the invitation of the Holy Father, and I wish them well and that God may continue to bless them and lead them in their ministry. As for me, I will continue where I am and pray that we might find a way, within the Church of England, to listen to each other with love, grace and humility praying first and foremost for myself that such characteristics might be more and more found in me. I know that I have a long way to go but is it that impossible that we might begin to lay down our own agendas and seek the unity of the Church that Our Lord prayed for?

The way blogs work

Having just posted about not having written for two months, I decided that I would check Google Analytics—which tells me who has visited my blog, when and what they read—and found out that only three times in the last three months has nobody visited my blog.

What really surprises me is that people are still reading things that I posted two years ago: namely about the experience of going to a Bishops' Advisory Panel and a criticism of UCCF—which I stand by, by the way, even though they are easy pickings. I guess that I always assumed that people would find my blog and follow it to keep updated with what's going on—when I bother to update it—but it appears that people also do random searches which keeps up the interest in things that I wrote two years ago.

So whoever you are, thanks for dropping in and do keep coming back and leaving comments if you'd like to.

…2 months on…

It has been two months since I last wrote anything on this blog. I keep thinking that I ought to do it but never quite get round to it. I am sure that many of you will be able to relate to this situation. Good intentions and all that…

This last week has been interesting: I came down with something that had all the hallmarks of 'swine flu'. I had had a cold for a little while, which is perfectly normal for this time of year in a place like Cambridge when all the students arrive. Suddenly, on Tuesday night, my temperature went over 38° and so I consulted the pandemic website and found that I had some of the symptoms of swine flu. The fever itself only lasted a couple of days altogether and since then it has just been a case of a tight chest and cough. Coughs tend to outlive colds/flus anyway so I am not unduly worrying about the coughing but, of course, am making an effort to make sure that I cover my coughs and sneezes.

The second year at Westcott has started. Everybody has arrived and we are now 3 full weeks in. I am slightly surprised at the difference in the way it feels being a second year. I have even so far—flu aside—managed to spend time in the library doing reading but ended up in quarantine for the supervision I was reading for. Still, I am hoping that now that pattern of working will continue. I certainly appreciate the evenings more when I have spent all day working.

Anyway, I thought I had better write something as it has been two months. I hope that somebody will come back and read this. I shall attempt to develop a regular pattern of updating this blog when I have something interesting—to me at least—to say.

Do pop back soon and check!

The things people say

My wife and I attended Mass at S. Bene't's Church in Cambridge last weekend. After the service, we were having coffee and talking to our neighbour and his wife when a lady from the Church came to speak to us. She started speaking about something that sounded a lot like a student meal that they do and proceeded to take my neighbour's and my wife's e-mail addresses, but not his wife's or mine – presumably assuming that we weren't students. Anyway, she then went on to say that she would contact them by e-mail but that she is normally around at the Church on Sundays but that she is 'a bit irrational in the summer'. I resisted the urge to laugh and reply with 'Just the summer, madam?'

It is a healthy sign, I think, that somebody in the parish wants to welcome people who they assume are students, but that is one conversation that I shall not forget.

At the start of the summer holidays

Well, I have done an absolutely rubbish job of keeping this blog regularly updated during my first year at Westcott House. I hope that those of you who follow my blog faithfully will forgive me. As I am sure you will appreciate, theological college is a busy, hectic and frantic old time that leaves little energy or motivation for self-indulgent blogging.

This first year has brought many changes. One of the things that Westcott House is very good at stressing when you arrive is that sense of letting go. When I arrived and first heard people talking about this, I just kind of thought, "Yeah, yeah, of course we have let go – it is obvious." However, it is such a truth that has taken nearly this whole last year to even begin to sink in. At my 'sending parish', I served every week even being head server for the last few months. I preached once a month and led Choral Evensong. In a lot of ways, I felt as though I had a lot of things under my belt. When I arrived at College with a community of 84 ordinands (at the start of the year) plus their partners and children, suddenly I was just a small drop in a big ocean again. Then I began a parish attachment and preached just once a term and received a lot more feedback on the sermons and felt as though everything I had done before meant nothing anymore. This is not really what people said to me but just a reflection of the way that such experiences made me feel. The letting go really was a painful process; it is one in which we completely lay down who we have been and what we have done and attempt to concentrate on the people that we are becoming. As somebody here said, it is the move from private to public Christian. If I am honest, I think that perhaps I was a bit too arrogant to listen to many people around me. The letting go is not trying to pretend that nothing that went before has shaped you or been important to you but rather is recognising that in arriving at theological college a whole new different stage of the journey is beginning. In attending classes on preaching, we are not being told that any preaching we did before is irrelevant or rubbish but rather we are being encouraged to look at things from a different perspective and learn from each other. One of the greatest experiences of this year for me was being part of a small group who wrote sermons and preached them to each other and gave each other feedback. I found that I learnt such a lot and we really got to know each other a little more.

One of the big temptations when you arrive at theological college is to set up camp as it were and divide yourselves into separate camps who all squabble with each other. This, I believe, is just human nature but it is not helpful at college. It was as though I said to myself, "Right! I am going to be a Catholic and live in the Catholic camp and anybody who doesn't agree is wrong!" I even found myself sitting in the same part of chapel for a long time. I found that I had to start to sit in different places with different people to try to free myself from this and I found that the experience was very valuable. Although I am still as Catholic as I was when I arrived, if not more so(!), I have started to see the merit of not setting up camp too firmly with all the borders and walls that can go with that. If anything, I am learning the value of relaxing and just being myself. I am who I am with certain things that I believe, and most people can tell these things, but the experience of college is a lot richer when a certain loosing of the boundaries is achieved. It is not compromise or pretending that that which is important to you is not: it is rather a willingness to learn and be challenged. Of course, there are lots of disagreements but these must be seen to enrich rather than threaten.

Well, here are just two reflections from this last year. If I think of anything else important, I shall add them.