Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension, 8th May 2016
Acts 16:16-34, John 17:20-26

We are marking today the 150th anniversary of the beginning of Reader ministry in the Church. As you know, I’m a Reader. You can tell a Reader in church because they have a blue scarf instead of the black one which ordained ministers have. Readers are lay people in the Church of England who are called by God, theologically trained and licensed by the Church to preach, teach, lead worship and assist in pastoral work, but not ordained. I don’t have a dog collar!

There are things which Readers can’t do; priestly things which I can’t do: those things where the minister is actually interposing himself or herself between us and the divine, mediating for us. I am leading the first part of this service, but I lead you as a deacon, a servant of the congregation and the Minister, just up to the point where the bread and the wine have to be consecrated.

The bread and the wine have to be blessed: and there only an ordained person, somebody who has had hands laid on him or her by the bishop, in the ‘apostolic succession’ from St Peter, will do. But a Reader can preach and be the deacon today – and it’s an honour for me to do it. Let us draw near to Lord in worship!

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Our Archbishops, Justin and John, have written to all the vicars in this country, calling for a ‘great wave of prayer for evangelism during Pentecost’: that as many people as possible in the church should pray, for the renewal of the Holy Spirit and the confidence to share their faith. They have declared a ‘novena’ – a word which is derived from the Latin word meaning ‘nine’ – a novena, a nine-day cycle of prayer, for this purpose.

In the United Benefice, between ourselves and St Andrew’s down the road, there is a programme of prayer events, under the title ‘Thy Kingdom Come’. They are all set out in the leaflet which you got with your pew sheet just now. I hope that you’ll find time to join in some of them. You might want to see the film ‘God is not Dead’ at Spiritual Cinema at 7 o’clock on Tuesday, at Church Gate House.

It seems very apt that, at a time when we are being asked to engage in a great collective act of prayer, our Gospel lesson today is actually a prayer by Jesus: it’s not the Lord’s prayer, not Jesus telling us how to pray, but Jesus actually saying prayers himself, for his followers and disciples, and also for people who would come in future and would believe in him. Jesus’ prayer comes in that part of St John’s Gospel called the Farewell Discourse. Jesus is preparing the disciples for what they will face when he is eventually taken away from them. Jesus will send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Advocate – a word which in Greek has the connotation of a lawyer in court, somebody standing up alongside the accused,representing and supporting them. So the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, will be God’s presence for us now that Jesus is no longer physically here.

And then in the Gospel reading which we are looking at today, the evangelist has Jesus turning from instructing his disciples to making an extensive prayer to his heavenly father. So it seems to be very appropriate that we should have a look at what Jesus himself said when he was saying his prayers. He was praying specifically for his disciples, his followers, ‘They know with certainty that I came from thee; they have had faith to believe that thou didst send me’ (John 17:8, NEB).

Jesus is not, on this occasion, praying for the world. (There’s a big distinction between the world on the one hand and the realm of God on the other). Jesus prays not only for his existing disciples but also for future ones: ‘May they all be one; as thou, father, art in me, and I in thee, so also may they be in us …’ It’s a very intimate prayer. It’s not the sort of prayer which we sometimes pray in our intercessions, although there’s nothing wrong with intercessions. He was not asking for poorly people to be made better or for peace to come in areas of conflict. Instead, this more intimate sort of prayer brought Him closer to God. So in this wave of prayer which the archbishops are proposing, what should we ask for?

I think there’s a clue to the answer in part of the prayer which we said at our Ascension Day service on Thursday night, when we prayed,

‘Hear us as we pray for those among whom we live and work,
Grant that we may be so aware of his presence with us,
that people may take note of us, that we have been with Jesus.’

That’s a quote from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4. Peter and the others were going around healing people and doing miracles. There was a query – actually a complaint – about how they came to be doing that. But then it was noticed, that they had been with Jesus.

I think it’s a wonderful idea to behave in such a way that people notice that we have been with Jesus. You might be a bit sceptical at that point and say, well, that is all very nice: the idea that somehow people will think that we have been with this bloke, who was last seen on earth 2000 years ago: I don’t think so!

The heart of Jesus’ prayer is the idea of unification, being at one with God and with Jesus. ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one’. The prayer is for unity, the unity between believers and their Lord. God in us, being in God, being in Christ: Christ in us.

In the week of prayer, what are the Archbishops asking us to pray for? It’s for evangelisation and witness; that people should be led to faith and that people should demonstrate their faith, should talk about it. I suppose allied with that is a prayer for people to feel a vocation, to feel called to ministry.

What sort of prayer should we be making? Does it make a difference that there are huge numbers of people praying at the same time – if that is what a ‘wave of prayer’ means? I don’t think it does. I don’t think it matters whether a million people pray, or just one.

Jesus clearly said that it was all right to pray by making requests. ‘If you dwell in me and my words dwell in you, ask what you will, and you shall have it.’ (John 15:7, NEB) That’s not the same as saying you can have whatever you want, however. ‘If my words dwell in you’ means, if you are on the same wavelength, if you are asking for something that is in line with God’s purpose, God’s design for His creation, then your prayer will be answered.

So the prayer that Jesus taught us, the Lord’s Prayer, is like that. We have reverence, respect: ‘Hallowed be thy name’. ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done’ is what I’ve just mentioned. We pray, that what God wants, God’s purpose, will be realised. Not what we want, but what God wants.

But sometimes – and I wonder whether this is at the heart of what the Archbishops are suggesting – we can’t just neatly put into words what we want to say to God, and perhaps He comes back to us in the same inarticulate way.

As St Paul said in his letter to the Romans, ‘In the same way the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. We do not even know how we ought to pray, but through our inarticulate groans the Spirit himself is pleading for us, and God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God’s own people in God’s own way; And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose’ (Romans 8:26-28, NEB, v. 29, KJV). ‘Inarticulate groans’ are all we need, to talk to God.

This is at the heart of what Jesus’ prayer for his disciples is about. It isn’t a request: no-one is poorly, or in trouble, except Judas Iscariot. He acknowledges that he can’t say any prayers for Judas. ‘Not one of them is lost except the man who must be lost, for Scripture has to be fulfilled’ (John 17:12). Jesus prays that they will be ‘in’ him, as he is ‘in’ the Father.

It’s not something you would say if you were talking about someone else, somebody sitting next to you, or on the other side of the church today, for instance. There’s no sense in which I am ‘in’ Godfrey. We are completely different, separate identities. But Jesus is saying something different. ‘As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, so also may they be in us.’ (John 17:21, NEB)

St Paul picks this up when he talks about being ‘in Christ’. It’s usually explained that this means, having Christ in you: having his words in your heart – somehow, being with him still, even though He has ascended from his human incarnation. It betokens a unity, a unity between believers and their Lord. God in us: being in God, being in Christ, Christ in us. Take Jesus’ words to heart.

If we ‘draw near with faith’, people may indeed take note of us, that we ‘have been with Jesus.’ Now that is really something to pray for.

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, 17th April 2016
Acts 9:36-43, John 10:22-30
Last Sunday I was in Bristol visiting my elder daughter Emma. I went to her local church, Saint Paul’s, Clifton, where I am always made very welcome. It’s a Victorian church where the University choir sings during term time and where there are some lovely mosaics, which are said to be of national importance. They have a congregation of all ages where all sorts of backgrounds and professions are represented.
Not all the congregation is human! There is a lovely dog called Bonnie, who comes with two older ladies and sits between them in the third pew. She is a sort of mix-up terrier and she is 13 years old. She is always very well behaved. She doesn’t bark and she wags her tail as you pass on your way to receive communion. Bonnie stays in for the sermon, but the children go out. They are called the Fishes.
As well as the Rector and a couple of curates, together with my brother Reader and now friend, Derek Jay, there are also a couple of retired ministers in the congregation, and it was one of them, Father Paul Hawkins, who took the service last Sunday. He has had a distinguished career in the church. He retired to Bristol from being vicar of St Pancras, Euston Road, where he ministered among others to the students and dons of UCL. Before then he had been chaplain at Eton and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
So our preacher was definitely someone who was used to addressing a congregation of reasonably learned people. The service was advertised as being a ‘creative Eucharist’. I should say to you straightway that St Paul’s is what I would call a ‘normal’ church. It’s middle of the road; fairly traditional, with 8 o’clock Communion according to the Book of Common Prayer, the Eucharist at 10:30 according to Common Worship (order one), and they regularly have Evensong and Compline. There aren’t any weird and wonderful services or worship songs, so far as I know.
So I was not quite sure what ‘creative Eucharist’ was. I debated with myself whether I could risk going, but in the end, based on all the previous times I have been to Saint Paul’s in Clifton, I came to the conclusion that it would not be too weird, and I went along. When I got the service sheet and the hymnbook and everything, I realised that it was a normal Eucharist, at least so far as the liturgy was concerned. Common Worship, order one, no problem.
Bonnie the dog was there as usual in the third row, and she seemed quite content with the idea of creative Eucharist. What was the creative bit all about? Well, of course, it was the sermon. To some extent we all had to create it.
Father Paul was preaching about the earlier part of Acts chapter 9, the end of which we had as our New Testament lesson today. Last week, just as we did, they had the story of Saint Paul being struck down on the road to Damascus, and the gospel was the story in Saint John chapter 21, the story of the disciples going fishing and not catching anything, until they were met in the morning by Jesus standing on the seashore suggesting – giving them the hottest tip – where they should cast their net.

Bonnie, the faithful dog, is ready for the sermon, at St Paul’s, Clifton.

 
The disciples suddenly recognised that it was Jesus. Peter put his clothes on and jumped into the sea. (Previously he had not been wearing anything. I’ve always thought that this was rather strange because I thought usually you take your clothes off to go swimming, rather than the other way round. Be that as it may.) The people with Saint Paul on the way to Damascus were speechless. They could hear the voice speaking to Paul but they could see no one.
The point was that in St John’s Gospel and also in the Acts of the Apostles, there are a number of instances where people do not recognise that it is the risen Jesus who is present. Think, for instance, of Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, thinking that Jesus was the gardener.
Then came the creative bit. Father Paul asked us all to turn to our neighbours – even to people we didn’t know, which was pretty revolutionary for normal Anglicans – well, certainly creative – and to talk about whether we could remember any occasions when we had been conscious of being in the presence of the risen Jesus. He gave us five minutes.
Then Father Paul went round with a microphone asking people to share their stories. Pretty terrifying – but fortunately, he didn’t pick on me. Actually he didn’t pick on anyone – there were enough keen ones putting their hands up anyway.
What would you have said? I had the rather prosaic thought that I can’t really imagine bumping into Jesus Christ these days, for example in Waitrose. He’s been dead for 2,000 years. Yes – I know. ‘Dead’ as we would understand it in the normal way.
The congregation’s views were pretty varied. Another retired minister in the congregation put his hand up and said, ‘This is a pretty difficult question.’ Father Paul said, ‘Okay, let’s move on’. But he did let his colleague say a few more words! But for other people, it was clear that they commonly did feel the presence of the risen Jesus, even in commonplace circumstances, such, indeed, as in the supermarket.
I have to confess that my mind went a complete blank, and I was saved by Derek, my fellow Reader, who was sitting behind me. He too was thinking about Waitrose: but he had a lovely story of a customer ahead of him in the checkout queue, who was perhaps a little mentally disturbed, or who was at any rate rather muddled, and who was beginning to hold up the queue. Before anybody could say anything, or become impatient or rude, the lady manning the checkout gently took over emptying the person’s basket and totting everything up, in a kindly way, so that the slow-moving customer was not embarrassed. She made her feel that nothing was wrong and that what she had been doing was perfectly all right. You could see the face of Jesus in that checkout bod.
It seems to me that this question is such a big question it is well worth carrying on looking at it this week, in the light of today’s Bible readings as well. St Peter was perhaps a bit like one of those super Christians who put their hands up in the service last week. No doubt in his mind: no doubt in theirs.
No doubt in St Peter’s mind. Tabitha, Dorcas, was a leading Christian. She was described as a disciple. All those people, who suggest that the church should be led only by men, should remember Dorcas. She was one of the leaders of the early church, one of the innermost circle, the disciples. Her name in Greek means ‘gazelle’: you imagine her to be a gracious and graceful lady.
But she had been seriously ill and had actually died. The story is very like the story of Jairus’ daughter whom Jesus raised from the dead in rather a similar way. He said, ‘Talitha cumi’, which is Aramaic for ‘damsel, arise’ – or, if you must have it in the stumbling prose of the New Revised Standard Version, ‘Little girl, get up.’
‘Talitha’: very like ‘Tabitha’ here. And the story is rather similar. Jesus and Peter are both doing roughly the same thing. Both are doing something miraculous, raising somebody from the dead. We have no idea how it worked. But you can say that God was at the heart of it.
‘Talitha, cumi.’ ‘Tabitha, arise’. ‘Damsel, arise.’ Compare Mark chapter 5 with our reading from Acts, chapter 9. So do we meet the risen Jesus, and if so do we recognise it? Well, things happen, and you realise that God is in them. My fellow reader, Derek in Bristol, was much better at doing the creative sermon than I was. He realised that, in the kindly face of the lady at the checkout, you could see the face of Jesus.
Then again, there is this rather strange story about the Archbishop of Canterbury which came out this week, that a newspaper thought that it is terribly important that they should find out who his natural father was. They persuaded the poor old Archbishop to have a DNA test which proved that his natural father was not Mr Welby but someone else. I can imagine that it must have been very unsettling, to say the least, especially since the whole story was played out in the full glare of publicity.
But Archbishop Justin took it all in his stride. This was perhaps not because he was, or rather is, some kind of superhumanly strong individual, but simply because he quietly told us that, for him, the most important parent is his heavenly father, and the most important family for him was the family of Jesus Christ, the church. What a nice man. But is it, also, another of those moments where perhaps we can glimpse the face of Jesus himself?
I am not going to make you be creative today, because I am sure that you are all much better at it than I am. But the church moved from the experience of those early disciples, the ones who had actually encountered the risen Jesus face-to-face, including Mary Magdalene, St Paul and doubting Thomas and the disciple whom Jesus loved and St Peter, recognising Jesus on the shore; for them it was straightforward. If a preacher had come up to them and asked whether they had experienced the risen Jesus, they could say ‘Yes’ to that.
We could understand that without any kind of explanation. But then Jesus eventually left, at the Ascension, and then came Pentecost, Whit Sunday, when the Holy Spirit came among them. Now is the period when we are looking forward to those huge steps in the life of the church.
We are a bit like those early church members in Joppa – and we are a bit like the Jews that Jesus encountered in the portico of Solomon, who didn’t get who he was. ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the messiah, say so plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, but you do not believe.’
It’s not something that everybody can see. It’s not something which is easy to understand. It needs people like Archbishop Justin and my friend Derek Jay, the Reader in Bristol, gently to point out how Jesus is really still with us. St Paul called it being ‘in Christ’. What he meant was, having Christ in him.
Remember what Christ himself said in Saint Matthew’s Gospel. ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you, or thirsty and gave you a drink: A stranger, and took you home: naked, and clothed you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and come to visit you?’ And the king will answer, ‘I tell you this, anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did for me.’ Jesus is there. He is there for us to meet. You do not need to be particularly creative. You just need to keep your eyes open.

Sermon for Evening Prayer for the Prayer Book Society, Guildford Branch, on Saturday 12th March 2016 at the Founders’ Chapel, Charterhouse Jeremiah 20:7-18, John 11:17-27

Jeremiah said,
Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame? (Jer.20:18)

What happened to the covenant, the special relationship between the Lord’s chosen people and their God? They are held captive, exiles in Babylon. Psalm 137: By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept.

It was a time of sad reflection. Had their God abandoned them? What would look like an exile from the Promised Land today? It’s difficult to empathise with the exiles in the Old Testament, not only because there’s a gap of nearly 3,000 years, but also because we aren’t in exile: in fact, we are very much at home. In Surrey we can almost pretend that we are in the Promised Land.

But does it mean that we can’t feel something of what Jeremiah was crying out against? Is the whole world like the Promised Land today? It’s sad, but it’s not. There are even parallels with the mass exile of the chosen people, of the Jews, in the current mass migration and refugee exodus from Syria and other troubled parts of the Middle East and Africa.

The Babylon into which the Jewish exiles went was, just as we are, relatively stable and affluent. But it didn’t feel that way. The mere fact of being in exile was a bitter fate.

And then we have heard, in our second lesson, the most complete answer to such a time of despair. If the logical implication of an imperfect life, a life of suffering, is its eventual death, then victory over death is its antidote, the confirmation that the suffering was not in vain.

Lazarus has died. Both his sisters, Mary and Martha, are distressed. Jesus doesn’t arrive until Lazarus has been dead for four whole days.

Both sisters clearly believe that, if Jesus had been there in time, he would have been able to stop Lazarus dying. That in itself is a remarkable thing to believe: but Jesus had demonstrated amazing powers of healing already.

And indeed, even though Lazarus has been walled up in the tomb for four days, Jesus calls him out, and Lazarus comes back to life.

But you know all this. What has it got to do with us in Guildford Diocese today, enthusiasts for the BCP as we are?

Jeremiah is all about a people who had abandoned their covenant with God, had become separated from God, eventually literally: they were driven out of the Promised Land into exile after Nebuchadnezzar had captured Jerusalem for a second time in 587BC.

The story of the raising of Lazarus has a metaphorical significance (leaving aside the question exactly what happened), that it is one of the occasions when Jesus said ‘I am’ something. Here, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. Death has no more power.

Jesus is God’s sign that we can come back from our spiritual exile. If we believe, we will no longer be separated from God, and we will have eternal life.

Can we know what happened? It’s striking that it’s made very clear that Lazarus had definitely died. Jesus knew that was the real position. Lazarus wasn’t just asleep. Nevertheless Jesus delayed going to him. When he finally arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. The body would have begun to decay, and to smell. Lazarus was emphatically dead; but equally emphatically, we are told that he came alive again out of the tomb. Lazarus was among the guests at the dinner party for Jesus where Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with pure nard. Lazarus was definitely alive. We have to understand it as best we can.

You might think that such a message, or such a phenomenon, would have been a cause for universal rejoicing. But it wasn’t. The Pharisees said among themselves, ‘If we let him thus alone, men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation’. The Romans had devolved to the Jews the day-to-day government of Palestine. If the people, the Jews, honoured Jesus rather than the Chief Priest and the Pharisees, the Romans might take away from the Pharisees the job of administration of the country.

I have to observe that this important passage in the lead up to Christ’s passion looks rather artificial, if it’s meant to be an eyewitness account. If Jesus had indeed raised a man, who had died and been in the tomb for four days, back to life, surely what the Romans might or might not do with the local government would seem to be of relatively minor importance. It does seem that what this story, of the raising of Lazarus, signifies, is much more important than just the minutiae of provincial government.

What Lazarus’ story really signifies, is that God is present with us. We are not alone, we are not separated. We’re no longer in exile.

Never mind what the Pharisees did: we can respond, we can respond to such a wonderful revelation, in several ways. The first is worship. This little congregation is gathered together because we want to uphold and support the use of the Prayer Book in worship: we think we will have better words with which to approach the Almighty, if we use the Book of Common Prayer.

And if that brings us together in fellowship, that’s good. ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them’, (Matt. 18:20). We could say that the Prayer Book, for us, is a kind of conduit of God’s grace. As we meet together and worship, using Cranmer’s ancient and beautiful words, we pray for God’s grace.

Nothing we can do can earn that grace, that eternal salvation, but we have the assurance that if we believe and trust in Him, we will be saved, we will receive the grace of God.

And the way we will receive God’s grace will be through the Holy Spirit coming among us. How can we tell? How can we tell if the Holy Spirit has in fact, come among us?

Remember what St Paul wrote to the Galatians.
‘But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;’ (Gal. 5:22-3). Our Lent reflection today should be whether we do exhibit those qualities – and how as Christians we are dealing with the opposite of the works of the Spirit, the works of the flesh.

A person called Jack Monroe Tweeted this week:

‘Does anyone else get overwhelmed?

….

Hope too much?

Calais, welfare reform, ESA, food banks.

My heart is just broken.’

ESA stands for employment and support allowance, the benefit which has replaced incapacity benefit. ESA is a much harder benefit to claim than incapacity benefit, primarily because the medical test – the work capability assessment – is very much harsher. The government has just announced that it is going to make it even harder for disabled people to claim this benefit, and thereby to save over £1billion – that is, £1billion will be taken away from the already reduced amount given to disabled people.

Incidentally, in my work as manager of a food bank, I recently came across a statistic, that over 2,000 people have died after being declared fit for work and denied disability benefit under this new regime. 2,000 people: fit for work: dead.

Where does that all fit in? Fit in with our salvation as Christians, I mean. What are our various churches doing? Are you happy about the cuts in benefits for disabled people? What about Calais? Are you following the Diocesan links to Guildford: People to People and the other charities coordinating help for the refugees? Perhaps we should have a PBS collection for Calais. What do you think? Let’s talk about it over tea in a minute or two.

The link that I’m trying to follow is that our love of the Prayer Book is fine, and very understandable, but it ought to be seen as something which leads us to God’s grace, grace in our worship. Worship which is just ‘having a nice time’ isn’t proper worship, and isn’t worthy of the Almighty. Let’s exhibit some of the fruits of the spirit as well.