THE MAGDALEN AND LASHER ANNUAL SERVICE 2021

THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD INNKEEPER

“Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” (Luke 10.35)

We’ve gathered this afternoon to give thanks for the remarkable work of the Magdalen and Lasher Charity, its benefactors, especially Petronella de Cham, Thomas Lasher, William Parker and James Saunders, those benefactors whose names are lost to history, the work of trustees and staff down the generations, and to remember its many beneficiaries.

Our first reading today from the Book of Leviticus reminds us that the moral life and charitable action go hand-in-hand.  I particularly like the command that, come harvest time, provision should be made for the poor and the stranger.  And our reading from St. Luke’s Gospel reminds us that some charitable actions are remembered for their dramatic and immediate generosity whilst other charitable actions, less dramatic but equally important, can go largely unremembered and often unrecognised.

If there’s one story from the Bible which remains in the general public consciousness, it is surely that Parable of the Good Samaritan, although I can remember having to tell it to some Sixth Formers to whom it was new.  Alas, we can no longer assume even a most general biblical literacy.

But we know the story.  We know what it means.  We know that it reminds us to follow the example of the Samaritan in being a good neighbour to everyone, whomsoever they might be, even an enemy.  It is a simple parable which, like all good parables, makes one point and one point only.

But here is a clever interpretation from St Augustine of Hippo, one of the very greatest of Church theologians.

Augustine understood it as being an allegory about salvation.  The man is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, from the heavenly Jerusalem to a city of mortality, the beaten man is Adam, the thieves are the devil and his minions, the priest and Levite represent the old ritual law that is unable to save the man, the Samaritan represents Jesus, the Innkeeper is the Apostle Paul and the Inn is the Church where the man is made whole.

Augustine’s allegory is ingenious.  Unfortunately, it completely distorts the meaning of Jesus’ story, turning a parable about being a good neighbour into an allegory of salvation. However, despite Augustine’s clever effort, the story remains a parable with that one simple point about how to be a good neighbour.

And the charity for which we give thanks today is certainly that: A good neighbour, seeking to assist anyone in our Borough who is in need.  As it was for the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable, need is the criterion, not race or religious or political opinion.   And unlike St Augustine’s clever interpretation which is far removed from the parable’s original intention, the charity keeps to the original intentions of its principal benefactors, Petronella de Cham in the thirteenth century and Thomas Lasher in the seventeenth.

But here is another simple interpretation of the parable, this time from a pupil when I taught at Bexhill High School forty years ago.  There was a class known in those days as a “remedial” class, in other words a class for the slowest learners.  I can picture them now, reading the parable of the Good Samaritan very slowly, followed by a very young version of me asking them questions about it. 

“So who was the neighbour?”  I asked Tommy Lake, a boy who liked to stand up in class and neigh like a horse from time to time.  “The Innkeeper, Sir” came the reply.  “No, it’s the Samaritan who is the neighbour,” I replied.  “But Sir,” pleaded Tommy, “the Innkeeper had to take all the responsibility, look after him and trust the Samaritan to come back and pay him.”

Well, Tommy had a point.  In all my years of knowing that parable, I had given very little thought to the Innkeeper.  The Samaritan provided dramatic and immediate and necessary help but it was the Innkeeper who had to continue the care, take responsibility and trust that the Samaritan would return to re-imburse him.

That intellectual giant St. Augustine was wrong and the remedial Tommy Lake was right.  It is commonplace to remember the charitable actions of the Samaritan and call on people to emulate him; Tommy was struck by the charitable actions of the Inn keeper.

We have an inn of sorts known as Old Hastings House that takes long-term responsibility for the welfare of its residents.  And our charity has over two hundred pensioners and funds two outreach workers who are able to have a long-term impact on people’s lives with their advice on social security benefits.  We have heard today about our Charity’s impact on the clients of Project Artworks and the Isobel Blackman Centre.

Petronella de Cham, Thomas Lasher, William Parker and James Saunders are our Good Samaritans but, in the 700 years since Petronella de Cham’s foundation gift in 1294, we have had many inn keepers too.  Our benefactors are many but most are unremembered by name. They are our innkeepers, together with our trustees and dedicated staff.

So dear old Tommy Lake, last seen by me many years ago as a waiter in the Bohemia Road Travel Lodge, still has a point for those of us privileged to be trustees and beneficiaries of this wonderful charity.

And Tommy’s point is this: A truly moral society needs good Samaritans but it also needs good innkeepers too.

PMH

© 2021

JAMES, THE APOSTLE   Sermon by Mrs Sandra Bentall, Authorised Lay Minister, for Sunday 25^th July 2021 at All Saints. Matthew 20:20-28.
   
Today is the Feast Day or Festival of James the Apostle. So who is this James?

There is often some confusion about James, because there are 4 people named James in the New Testament and two were included in the twelve apostles. There was James, brother of John, sons of Zebedee,  Another disciple James the brother of Jude who were sons of Alphaeus. Thirdly  a James who was the father of Judas (not Iscariot) , and then James a half-brother to Jesus who was not one of the believers in Jesus as the Messiah   until after Jesus’ resurrection which must have convinced him, and he is accepted as the author of the Letter of James in the New Testament.

Our man today, James the Apostle, is among the most prominent apostles of Jesus and we have more biblical evidence than for many of the other apostles or early followers of Jesus. He was a fisherman with his brother in their father’s fishing business which seemed to be successful as Zebedee owned boats and employed hired men, so probably the family was a little wealthier than some.  Fishing was a major industry in more than 30 towns around the Sea of Galilee and one day when the brothers were mending their nets, Jesus walked by. He had just invited Simon and Andrew and now called James and John to follow him and be fishers of men – in modern translations we read “to fish for people” – not quite as poetic a phrase.

This might seem impetuous to upsticks and leave their families and jobs, but we can read in Luke and John’s gospels that this was apparently not the only time James, John and Peter had met Jesus. So it is considered that these 4 would have been well aware of Jesus’ preaching, teaching and healing, so they knew what kind of man Jesus was and were now willing to follow and learn from him. But still a life-changing decision.

I imagine that James threw himself into his new life, which became a period of companionship with Jesus and like a probationer, listening and learning all he could from Jesus. He would have had much to learn – the gospels tell us about Jesus’ ministry, his parables and teachings, miracles and healings, and that following him is not always easy or comfortable.

Eventually Jesus, having prayed all night, summoned his disciples and selected 12 of them as Apostles whom he would send out under his authority to heal and as missionaries to proclaim his message. James is the third name listed, and only in Mark’s gospel Jesus refers to James and John as Boanerges or “Sons of Thunder”.  We’re not told why – perhaps he dubbed them this on account of impetuous and fiery tempers we’re told about elsewhere.  James’ aggressive tendency did not stop Jesus from drawing him into his inner circle of three closest companions.  Peter, James, and John were with Jesus on the Mount of the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and were the nearest to Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.   

So now we know who St James’s Day is about and we’ve heard some background about who St James the Apostle was.

Now I want to tell you a story for you to think about,  concerning the retirement of a Theological College principal, the most important person in the college, status-wise. It was only after he had left that it transpired that he had undertaken some of the cleaning jobs, now left undone by his absence.  People only realised some of the things he’d taken upon himself behind the scenes when they weren’t being done anymore.

In Parish life a lot goes on behind the scenes that perhaps some don’t think about. There’s a myriad of what might be thought of as “ordinary” jobs and it needs people to step up and do them. Such as brass cleaning – maybe we’d only notice when things didn’t shine as they used to. Church sitting – if church sitters didn’t come the church could not be open outside of services. Sweeping the porch of the sandstone that crumbles down – St Clement’s is like a sandcastle in our sea air.  Bundling up Parish Magazines ready to be delivered by many helping hands – or rather feet. Weeding flower beds and tending to plants. And so on.  There are many things which happen but so often we don’t know how or by whom, as they just get done by people willing to serve the parish and without looking for any recognition.

This morning someone must have prepared the font for the baptism, and put out the scallop shell which the priest uses to pour the water during baptism. This is one of the most common symbols of St James the Apostle who reportedly used a seashell to baptize converts in Northern Spain where he is believed to have travelled after Jesus’ resurrection to convert people into the Christian faith and baptize them. Scallop shells were plentiful on the beaches of Northern Spain. Today and for more than a thousand years pilgrims come from many different places to where it’s believed James’ body is buried, and many pilgrims see the lines on a scallop shell as a reflection of their many paths leading to one point.

So was James the humble servant Jesus teaches about serving others, or does it look like he had other ideas? Today’s gospel shows worldly ambitions of James and his brother claiming privileged places in Jesus’ kingdom, seemingly thinking of personal reward and recognition without personal sacrifice. They were standing with their mother and Jesus replied to her sons, not to her. “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink of the cup that I am about to drink?” “We are able” they said, and Jesus pointed out “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

I wonder, had they ignored or didn’t they understand Jesus’ several forewarnings that ahead of him lay inescapable sufferings and the Cross?  Did they still think the Messiah would be an all-conquering militant who would overthrow and release them from oppressive rule of the Romans, governing an earthly king-dom, restoring Israel’s former glory? It seems they had ambitions to be seen at the “top table” as it were.

James and his brother surely failed to understand the suffering Jesus had predicted he would endure. The “cup” was the suffering and crucifixion Christ faced.  Would they really drink of that cup?  
Well, we know now that James was not destined to the visible recognition given to Peter and John. His life for the Lord was to be a short one. Probably a dozen years after the death of Christ on the cross, James suffered as the first of the apostles to be martyred, to die for the gospel – King Herod Agrippa I had James executed with the sword, put to death for his faith. Thus James did fulfil Jesus’ prophecy that “The cup that I drink you will drink”.

The other ten disciples were angry and indignant that the two brothers had tried to seek prominent recognition for themselves. We’ve read before about all the disciples wanting to be the greatest but Jesus taught them that the greatest person in God’s kingdom is the servant of all.  True greatness comes in serving others.  We too can learn from Jesus’ lesson about discipleship, about what it means to follow Jesus. Rather than seeking to have our own needs met, we should look for ways we can minister to the needs of others.  Instead of using people, we are to serve them. Jesus’ mission was to serve others and give his life away. A real leader has a servant’s heart;  he appreciates others’ worth and realises he’s not above any job.  Remember the College principal I told you about?     So what does Jesus call us for?  Public recognition, or an opportunity for service?

Jesus said  “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
So the way up is down. The way to the top is at the bottom. The way to greatness in Jesus’ eyes is servanthood.

When we have the next hymn later, number 393, which we can hum behind our masks but not yet sing, I urge that we carefully contemplate the words of all the verses in our hymn books, that they come from our hearts, but for now I pray –   “Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you;  pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”   AMEN

Sandra Bentall, Authorised Lay Minister commissioned by the Diocese of Chichester for the Old Town Parish.

Sermon 18^th July Mark 6 30-34, 53 to end                                           Pat Lock, Diocesan  Reader

As Headteacher a parent told me about her children.  Her youngest son had celebrated his birthday on crutches, so he couldn’t carry his cupcakes into school without help, that mum had made for the rest of the class.  She asked the older brother to help him carry them.  “ I could,” he said, but I’d prefer not to.” Somewhat annoyed with this response her husband asked the brother “ What would Jesus do?” He answered, “Jesus would heal him so he could carry his own cupcakes.”    I had not worked out if the lad was being facetious or if he truly believed what he was saying.

But there is no question about the people in our gospel reading who followed Jesus to be healed and we are told that all who touched Him were healed.  Jesus showed compassion, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Mark. The big lessons, the big speeches, and the big miracles. And yet, our reading from Mark’s gospel this morning includes none of those things. At first glance, it seems like an oddly unnatural selection. It begins with the apostles returning from their mission, where Jesus sent them out to preach repentance, heal the sick, and cast out demons. But we aren’t given any details about their results, rather their success is hinted at by the crowds which recognise them.  But just as Mark is about to tell us about Jesus feeding the 5,000 and his walking on water, arguably two of his most spectacular miracles, we skipped right to the end of the episode where the crowds are again rushing to meet him, and he and his disciples are swamped with people in need of healing, renewal, and restoration.  It was about ten miles around that lake but only four miles across it. But if the wind was too still or blowing in the wrong direction, it was faster on foot to just run around to the other side than to take a boat across. These people hungered to hear more of the word of God and be in the presence of Christ. They didn’t let the distance deter them.

As we read the gospel of Mark  we see that Jesus showed great compassion on those around him. He was tired, the disciples were tired, they were all hungry, I don’t know about you but when I am tired and hungry I’m also grumpy.  But Jesus’ advice was that they head off to a quiet spot and put their feet up, rest for a while. So as a group they headed off to this quiet spot only to find the crowd had got there before them. Does Jesus send them away?  No he doesn’t, he shows compassion. Why, well Mark says “they were like sheep without a shepherd, they were lost and wandering, vulnerable, and uncared for. So Jesus began teaching them many things. Teaching many things takes time, takes effort and energy. Jesus showed compassion to these people, he taught them many things.

The term “compassion” is used throughout the Gospels, over and over again, to describe Jesus’ attitude toward human beings. “Compassion” literally means to “suffer with” – to be in “unconditional solidarity with others.”  Compassion  is from a Greek root word which means “to be moved with love in the deepest part of a person .

Compassion is truly the essence of  God. It’s Who God is. And because our attitude toward the world invariably mirrors our understanding of God- our ethics follow our theology, in other words – compassion is what Christians are called to have toward the world as well. Real compassion is not pity or empathy,  but suffering with the sufferer. Compassion is a very deep, gut-wrenching response to the suffering we see in others, making us suffer with them!

In life we are constantly faced by situations that we can either react angrily or even ignore people, treating them like they are of no value, or we can show compassion to people. We have all been like those who followed Jesus and the disciples that day, like sheep without a shepherd, in need.

How do we respond to those we don’t understand, don’t like, or don’t know, to the vulnerable needy people of this world? How did Jesus respond: by showing compassion, not just feeling sorry for them but by getting involved in the solution to whatever the issue might be that has left them lost and vulnerable?

What is your understanding of the word compassion? ? I’d like you to take a moment to think about it because it is an important word in the Christian lexicon. As we read in today’s passage, Jesus felt compassion for the people, so he began to teach them many things. If we are to lead lives in imitation of Christ, then we also need to feel compassion. We all suffer, but we can use our suffering for the good of others. All it takes is compassion. As we look around our community, do we see sheep without a shepherd who need to be gathered in?     Jesus’ compassion for the world is radical. It is what prompted Him to heal the sick, touch the lepers, hang out with prostitutes, tax collectors and all the other outcasts of society. Have you, have I, really got a handle on just how radical it is to live Jesus’ kind of compassion in a world that is so lost, desperate, harassed, helpless and broken? “. Sheep cannot defend themselves, nor can they effectively run away. Without someone to protect them, they are easy prey. I would say that with the pressure of rising prices, stagnant wages and the ever-present spectre of terrorist activity, that is how many people around us feel. Add in Covid and all its implications and people are looking for a safe haven. When we look at the spiritual picture, we see beliefs under attack on every side. We see institutions that people have always relied on for stability tottering and falling. Throw in a pandemic and people are starving for a rock to cling to. God has entrusted us to be the Body of Christ – the hands and feet through which God’s work is done in this world. God works through people – people like you and me. And in doing so, God changes our perspectives and allows us the great privilege of, if even for a moment, seeing humanity the way God sees humanity.

Contemporary theologian Douglas Hall writes: “Christians must ask not only whether we have grasped the full radicality of belief in a compassionate God, but whether as the Church we are ready to live that compassion in our profoundly threatened world.”

The Lord Jesus never distanced Himself from anybody who sought Him or needed His compassionate presence, so what is our excuse if we claim to be His followers and do nothing in these times of fear and despair.       

At the end of our reading the people of Gennesaret made Jesus and His disciples feel at home. They knew about Jesus, and they knew about the mighty works which he did where ever He went, and that He was a willing healer, – and that He usually did not stay very long in any one place; therefore they knew they needed to move fast to take advantage of this opportunity to benefit from His visit. They hurried through the whole region, and began to carry the sick on their beds to Jesus, because they knew He would heal them. They laid them where He might pass by and touch them, and they begged Him to just let them touch the hem of His garment, like the woman with the issue of blood did. She was probably the first to be healed by this method. As far as we know, they did not desire to be taught by Him; only to be healed.   And Jesus healed them all. We are told that everyone who touched Him was healed. When we mix faith with the word of God, and believe it, and depend upon it, and submit to it, we touch the hem of His garment. And when we touch him, we are made whole. Those are His terms, and it can be truly said that He heals freely.

And finally, Jesus recognises the need to rest and pray.  To re-equip and re-charge our batteries. Jesus went from crowd to crowd renewed, refreshed and reenergized because he stepped aside to pray. Just as you need air, you need prayer and you need rest. An archer’s bow needs its string periodically loosened or it will break. A woodsman can chop more wood if he stops occasionally to sharpen the axe. Top of FormBottom of FormIn this week ahead think about what God is calling you to do, listen for his still small voice and act out of the love and compassion He has given you.  For there are many outside these doors who are going through life like sheep without a shepherd.

“For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison.” (Mark 6.17)

(Sixth Sunday after Trinity, 11^th July 2021, All Saints’ Hastings)

What were you doing, I wonder, on Thursday, 14^th April 1988?  My collection of Covent Garden programmes tells me that I was at the Opera House, attending a memorable performance of Richard Strauss’ great opera Salome.  The conductor that evening, incidentally, was Christoph von Dohnanyi, nephew of the martyred theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

It was the first – and only – time that I have ever seen a woman strip completely naked in public.  This came at the end of the seductive dance of the seven veils and the soprano, Maria Ewing, directed by her husband Sir Peter Hall, rolled naked down a flight of stairs before asking her step-father, Herod Antipas, to honour his promise to give her anything up to half of his kingdom.  And Salome asks for the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

It is a dark, uncomfortable and disturbing opera, shocking even by today’s standards, 116 years after its first performance.  Based on Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome has become the temptress, the femme fatale, seeking John’s head because he has not succumbed to her advances.  In the most recent production, the opera reaches its terrible climax when Salome kisses the severed head and Herod, in reaction to the horror he has unleashed, orders her execution.

But this is not in the Bible and it is very easy to fall into a trap of reading the original biblical account in the light of the later interpretation of Salome as the wicked temptress. The figure of Salome has attracted artists and writers for a thousand years.  She has danced before our imagination and become a temptress in the line of Eve and Adam and  Potiphar’s wife and Joseph and Jezebel and Ahab and Delilah and Samson, all seeking to lead the righteous man astray.  This is a common archetype and we might reflect on the injustice caused to women down the ages by this projection of male innocence and female guilt.

But the historical Salome is rather different.  Unamed by the Gospel writers, we learn from the first century Jewish historian Josephus that Salome was the grandaughter of Herod the Great and that her mother Herodias had contracted an illegal marriage to Herod Antipas while her current husband Philip was still alive.  Philip was the brother of Herod Antipas and so Salome’s step-father was therefore also her uncle.

To refer to the Herod family as dysfunctional, to use modern parlance, is an understatement.  Almost certainly in her early teens, we should view Salome not as a femme fatale but, given that the appearance of a female member of the Royal Household at a male banquet would have been seen as disgraceful, as someone who has been exploited and degraded and manipulated by her mother and uncle.  Salome is, I suggest, more of a victim than we might usually suppose.

Not so Herod Antipas, often seen as the victim of his wife and step-daughter. The responsibility for John’s execution is his, despite the manipulative behaviour of Herodias in using Salome to bring about John’s death.  The desire for John’s death comes from Herodias but the power to bring it about comes from Herod.

Herod is weak and he allows John to be killed rather than admit and recant his mistaken boast in front of his courtiers to give Salome up to half of his kingdom.  He knows deep down that he is wrong.  “Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him.  When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed , and yet he liked to listen to him.”  (Mark 6.20) But his pride in not wanting to lose face in front of his courtiers will not allow him to refuse Salome’s request.

We know that he has a guilty conscience about John who had preached against his illegal marriage.  He is haunted by John’s death for when he hears about Jesus he thinks that Jesus might be John the Baptist.  “But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.’” (Mark 6.16)

Herod Antipas is a weak man, tortured by his conscience.  Deep down I suspect that he knows that it is he – not Herodias, not Salome – who has killed a righteous man. 

To some extent we all share something of Herod’s experience.  In thinking about Jesus rather than John, we too know that he was a righteous and holy man.  Perhaps we too are perplexed and disturbed when we hear the Gospel but nevertheless like to listen.  How do we react when faced with the question “Who is Jesus?” in front of non-Christians?  Are we weak and conform to what we think they want to hear?  Or do we speak from the depths of our conscience?  Despite his recognition that John is a holy and righteous man, Herod Antipas is prepared to see him beheaded, thereby condemning himself to imprisonment in his own guilty conscience.  Despite our recognition of Jesus as a righteous and holy man, do we not sometimes give Him up for execution to save the embarrassment of acknowledging Him as Lord and Saviour in front of our friends and neighbours?  

“For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John.” (Mark 6.17) True.  But imprisoned by his own deeds and guilty conscience about John, he had really arrested himself.

© Paul Hunt 2021

“He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.” (Mark 6. 8-9)

(The Fifth Sunday after Trinity, 4^th July 2021, All Saints, Hastings)

Having had my trip to Leipzig cancelled last month – and what better holiday can there be than three Wagner operas on successive evenings? – I’ve now learnt that my trip to Transnistria in September has also fallen victim to the pandemic.  Transnistria, in case you are wondering, is a breakway republic in Moldova and is one of the last living relics of the Soviet Union.  Lenin statues and Soviet posters abound.  Wagner and Lenin: I believe that holidays should always be for pleasure.  And so my suitcase sits forlornly in the corner of the bedroom and looks at me in its empty, unused, useless and ignored state.  I suppose that it might be described as a case of emotional baggage.

“He ordered them to take nothing for their journey.”  There is no need to pack for the twelve disciples for their mission and ministry in the villages around Nazareth.  They are to preach the need for repentence, cast out demons and heal the sick.

That’s a tough mission and we might reflect that Jesus spends more time telling them about their luggage than the mission message itself.  The standard first-century suitcase items – two tunics, bread for the journey, no bag, no money are forbidden.  In Matthew and Luke’s version of this narrative, the staff is also not allowed.  And in Matthew’s version even sandals are denied to the Twelve.

But why?  Why does Jesus forbid these items? 

The Twelve are not being sent on holiday to a Wagner Festival in Leipzig or to view statues of Lenin in Transnistria.  They are being sent on a mission for the Kingdom of God.  And going on holiday and being sent on a mission are not the same. 

The disciples do not need a lot of equipment because they are the equipment in the promotion of the Gospel.  It is they who have been commissioned to preach and to exorcise and to heal.  The mission depends upon them and not upon what would ordinarily be considered essential for a journey.  There is a sense of urgency in this passage. Fussing about what to take can get in the way upon the singlemindedness of their ministry.

There is a lesson for us in this otherwise somewhat perplexing set of instructions from Jesus.  How often is it that non-Christians, sympathetic to the Gospel or not, will judge Christianity by the authenticity of our lives as professed Christians?  The baggage of traditional church life can so often, if we are not careful, become a substitute for living truly as a Christian.  Church-going is essential for the Christian – you cannot be a Christian without it – but church-going is not the same as being a Christian.  Like the Twelve, we are the equipment in the promotion of the Gospel.  The bottom line is that mission depends upon us – how we live and how we exercise whatever vocation and ministry is given to us so that (as our collect today reminds us) in our vocation and ministry we may serve God in holiness and truth.

Being a Christian is an existential gamble; we are either for or against Jesus Christ.  There is no middle way.  The notion that Jesus was no more than a first century Jew who preached a message of love may be attractive.  It may even be true.  But it is not the message of salvation preached by the Incarnate God.  We are either for or against Jesus the Christ.

As with the Twelve in their mission and ministry in the villages of the Galilee, our Christian journey is an act of faith.  We take either the road of Jesus Christ or the road which leads away from Him.  There is no middle way.  Stripped of the usual essentials, the Twelve must rely on the Master who has commissioned and sent them.  His words are their only security.

It is simply human for us to want security, a guarantee that all will go according to plan.  In a time of immense societal change and fear of the future – the pandemic, the environment, terrorism, dangerous regimes – the world seems ever more hostile to Christian faith.  “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you..shake off the dust that is on your feet.” (Mark 6.11)  There is a lot of dust to be shaken.

In our quest for security in the face of uncertainty, it is human nature to cling to material goods.  They speak to us of our success in the world, they speak to us of comfort and provision for the future.  They are our spare tunic and bag and bread and money for the journey.  In terms of church life – and I plead absolutely guilty here – they are our buildings and liturgies and hymns.  I love the security and comfort which comes from Cranmer’s glorious liturgy.  These are good and helpful things in themselves but they must never become a form of security blanket that prevents us from seeing clearly and, even worse, become a substitute for faith.  Like the Twelve, it is we who are the fundamental equipment in the proclamation of the Gospel. 

And what about that staff, allowed by Jesus in Mark’s version which is the earlier form of the narrative?  Perhaps we might think of it metaphorically as a reminder that we may need to prod one another from time to time lest we become too reliant on material security – church or non-church – rather than upon our commission, given at baptism, and which comes from God to shine as lights in an uncertain and fearful and hostile world. 

We may feel weaker without our modern day equivalents, in church and out of church, of tunic and bag and money for the journey but it exposes our gamble of faith and throws us back upon the authority of Jesus Christ for our mission.  In this we can, paradoxically,take comfort in the words of the Lord given to St. Paul and recorded in today’s epistle: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

If, like the Twelve, we can be brave in seeing life’s material props for what they are, then we shall indeed be strong.

© Paul Hunt 2021

“If I touch even the hem of his garment, I shall be healed” (Mark.5.28)

(The Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 27^th June 2021, All Saints, Hastings)

I don’t know about you, but I often feel terribly inadequate as a Christian, and not simply because I’m not very good at being one.  I think that much of my sense of inadequacy goes back to my undergraduate days at Durham when I first came across other Christians whose relationship with Jesus Christ seemed so much easier and more intimate than mine.  They were very much at ease at being, literally, on first name terms with the Lord Christ in whom I stood in awe.  Their form of Christian faith seemed so easy for them whereas for me it was, and continues to be, a struggle.  Now it is very easy for us to suffer from spiritual intimidation, intentional or otherwise, and so I would like us to think for a few moments about the different ways in which we encounter Jesus Christ and the forms of faith – note the plural – that it can entail.   And this morning’s Gospel reading from St Mark – the stories of Jairus and his daughter and of the woman with the haemorrhage – offers, I think, some pointers.

So how do we encounter Jesus?  First, we need to look at the context of this passage from Mark.  Jesus has just returned from a visit to the land of the Gaderenes, a Gentile area on the eastern shore of Lake Galilee. 

There he had encountered the man possessed by the legion of demons.  The story is well known.   Its main point for us this morning is that it is Jesus who takes the initiative.  He expels the demons and, in Mark’s version of this story, the man is left sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. 

Imagine that man sitting there and gazing out from the cliff top over the Sea of Galilee.  If he had been able to choose some words from a hymn, they might well have been these:

“Drop thy still dews of quietness,

  Till all our strivings cease;

  Take from our souls the strain and stress,

  And let our ordered lives confess

  The beauty of thy peace.”

That man’s encounter with Jesus is dramatic.  In a few moments his life is changed by Jesus from a disordered existence disfigured by evil into one in which he is at peace with himself and with God.  His conversion is sudden, it is unexpected, it comes from a direct face-to-face encounter

initiated by the Lord of life.  Such a dramatic first encounter with Jesus Christ has been the experience of many Christians down the ages.  It was so for Matthew, sitting at his place of toll; it was so for St Paul on the road to Damascus; it was so for the slave ship captain John Newton turned priest and hymn writer; it was so for a former teacher of mine who left school on a Friday afternoon as a communist party activist and returned on Monday morning as a Christian.

Such a sudden and unexpected encounter with Jesus Christ may have been the way to Christian faith for some of us.  This dramatic form of faith is literally life changing, almost in an instant.  It is one that we might envy but there are other forms of faith, equally appealing and no less challenging, upon the sea-shore.  I refer to the sea-shore because, as the great and sadly neglected theologian, Ulrich Simon, once wrote: Forms of faith are like shells on the sea-shore – their number is innumerable and only some take our fancy.  Sometimes we will discard one shell for another.  Each shell is unique, just like the way in which we appropriate faith.

So how else do we encounter Jesus Christ?  What about Jairus, the synagogue official?  Unlike the man possessed by demons, it is Jairus who takes the initiative.  He approaches Jesus directly, falling at those very feet where the madman had sat not so very long before.  He begs Jesus to come and heal his twelve year-old daughter who has just died:

“My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hands on her, and she will live.”

Are these words of faith or are they words of desperation?  Perhaps the distinction is a false one.  For sometimes faith comes when we are desperate, when all seems lost, when we are totally powerless and can turn only to God.  Jairus, the synagogue official and desperate father, is asking the Lord of life to come into his life.  Jesus responds but the initiative has come from Jairus in his desperation.  And that, too, has been

the experience of many Christians down the ages and, again, that will have been the experience of some of us here this morning.

If we had to choose some words from a hymn for Jairus, we might perhaps settle on the second verse from Nahum Tate’s fine hymn Through all the changing scenes of life:

“O Magnify the Lord with me.

  With me exalt his name;

  When in distress to him I called,

  He to my rescue came.”

Jesus approaches the madman of the Gadarenes whose life is changed in that sudden and dramatic way.  Jairus calls on Jesus in his desperation.

But is there yet another way, another form of faith, another shell upon the sea-shore, that speaks of  our encounter with Jesus?  What about the woman with the haemorrhage?   Ill for twelve years, for as long in fact as Jairus’ daughter had been alive, she had given up on the hope that doctors might cure her.    Ritually unclean, she was an outcast, especially so since her illness would have been viewed as a punishment for sin.  Not for her a sudden conversion encounter as with the madman of the Gadarenes.  Not for her a very public demonstration of an appeal to the power of Jesus to heal as with Jairus.

“If only I can touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed.”

The hem.  This was the most sacred part of the garment, the corner, the tassels, the fringe.  Both Luke and Matthew refer explicitly to these tassels, commanded in Numbers and Deuteronomy, as a reminder to the people of the commandments.

As one person in a crowd, anonymously, she touches that hem, touching it perhaps more in hope than faith.  She, the ritually unclean woman, reaches out for that which is holy.  And Jesus Christ does not disappoint. 

She approaches Jesus indirectly but Jesus still responds.  “Who was it who touched me?”

And so the woman is forced to come to Jesus, trembling and, according to Mark, falling down at those same feet where the madman and Jairus had also been.  And she declares her trembling but deepening faith by explaining why she had touched that hem.  “If only I can touch the hem of his garment, I shall be healed.”

“Daughter, your faith as made you well; go in peace.”

The healing shows that the woman’s sins have been forgiven for in the New Testament the same Greek verb used for ‘making well’ is also used for ‘saving from sin’.

 “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” 

“Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The woman’s approach to Jesus was tentative, was indirect, was almost embarrassed.  But from that encounter came faith in Jesus the Christ. 

And that, too, has been the experience of perhaps the majority of Christians down the ages and will undoubtedly be so for many of us this morning, myself included.  It is easier to approach Jesus in a crowd, a crowd in which we are able to pluck up the courage to metaphorically touch that hem of Jesus’ garment.

“Just as I am, though tossed about

 With many a conflict, many a doubt,

 Fightings within, and fears without,

 O Lamb of God, I come.”

So how do we encounter Jesus?  Perhaps we are a curious mixture of all three – of that madman possessed by that which is opposed to God and so Jesus has to come to him, of Jairus in his desperate plea for answered prayer begging for healing from the Lord of life, of that woman conscious of unworthiness and sin and approaching the Lord in fear and trembling, thinking that she can remain hidden in the crowd.

One thing I know.  That when we approach the Lord’s Table this morning and fall to our knees like the madman and Jairus and the woman, that when we stretch out our hands to receive the Holy Communion, that when we ask God for his blessing, we shall be stretching out to touch the hem of his garment.  And if we have any sort of faith in Jesus, we too shall be healed.

© Paul Hunt 2021

(This is a revised version of a sermon preached at King’s College, Cambridge in 2001 and St Barnabas, Clapham Common in 2012.)

Natalie Broomfield-Hill (Authorised Lay Minister)

What is 27 + 48?

Actually what I want to know is how do you add up 27 + 48? 

Have you been doing it in your head?  If not have a go!

Are you adding the 7+8 then the 20+40?  

Or rounding the 2 numbers up so 27=30, 48=50 then subtract 3 and 2? 

Those are the two methods I thought of but you may well have thought of a different one or you might have not even had a go because you’ve been told over the years that you are no good at numbers!

Well you might feel relieved or sad but we’re not just doing sums!

 I don’t want the answer.           I’m interested in the method!

I wanted to remind us that we all think differently, our brains process information in different ways.  Even adding up. 

We all bring our own lived experience whether positive or negative, vast or limited. 

And IF we all have different ways of adding up, which is a relatively simple concept,

then what happens when we come to those complex things that affect us all?

 not simple, or straightforward, that can’t be made tangible by 27 oranges and 48 apples ?

 Things we can’t see like    love,    pain,    grief,    loneliness,    kindness,    greed

how do we make sense of life when these things affect us,

how do we know how to behave in the world or even just how to ‘be’ every day?

As humans we’re always trying to make meaning of our chaotic lives in whatever way we can. Telling ourselves stories. Ordering our lives using lists, diaries, rotas.     Anything that helps us feel like we might be in control. 

This is why Jesus teaches us using parables including stories, examples, analogies, comparisons, narrated conversations because it’s the way in which we learn.

Jesus uses parables to help us make sense of the more complicated aspects of our lives and relationships.

They make us look at ourselves and consider our responses within certain situations.          

After all Jesus knows.                             He is involved in the messiness of humanity.                                            He is fully human.                        His mission is to teach us about his Good News.              Everything He stands for.                   As the Son of God He is fully divine.   

Jesus uses the parables to speak the Word to his followers, as they were able to hear it, as much as they could understand.   (Mk4.33) 

Jesus uses examples from the Biblical visual, working, living landscape.  Of course that is not our reality in a seaside town on the southern edge of the British Isles.  Nor is subsistence farming or slavery the working norm – though it’s still around.

But the beauty of stories is they transcend space and time and we can relate to the feelings, the emotions, the dilemmas. 

And Jesus’s use of parables works on so many different levels.  As both simple explanations and an invitation to think more deeply, beyond the obvious answer. 

They can be giving us a scenario where none of the answers seem right such as the parable of the talents (where you either break the law to make money or bury it in the ground) because we are being invited to think about what our response might be. 

How would we react in the same situation?

How do we react when there are no obvious right answers?

What Mark’s Gospel gives us in today’s parables of the Mustard Seed and the Growing Seed are examples of the tangible and the intangible, the physically knowable and the mysterious, all that is seen and unseen.

Jesus speaks the Word through his parables teaching us about the Kingdom of God.     That certainly belongs in the complex things category, if not its very own category. 

Jesus asks us with what can WE compare the kingdom of God? 

We are not asked to sit back and ear the answer but to engage with the big questions,

 to think for ourselves,             to work out what this might mean for me and how I live my life.  becoming more Christ-like in our words and in our deeds.

Jesus asks us with WHAT can we compare the kingdom of God?  The mustard seed.

The tiniest of seeds that grows into the greatest of shrubs. 

The tiniest spark of love that grows into the greatest of relationships. 

The tiniest spark of faith that grows into the greatest of journeys with God.

The Kingdom of God is both to come and is already here and it starts, and is seen, through the tiniest of inconsequential things. 

The mustard seed.                       Something that falls between the cracks. 

We can barely see it amongst literally everything else on the floor and amongst everything else in our lives.  

If a seed with such potential fell, would we notice it gone?  Would we bother to look for it? Search for it? 

What about if it were a diamond or a speck of gold, a favourite earring, a screw from a pair of reading glasses, a hearing aid battery?   Are they more precious, more important, serve more of a purpose?

What if that tiny seed were the last one?  Or what if it was your faith?  Your love for God?

Your love for yourself?  Your love for others?  Would you search for it then?

Jesus doesn’t teach us using a precious item but a humble mustard seed, considered a weed in the Middle East.

And just as dropped seeds have a special way of showing they haven’t been lost by sprouting up between cracks in the steps,

God does not forget or neglect us however much we might forget or neglect Him and the people of His Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is the seed, the potential, the promise of what is to come and the Kingdom of God is the tree, the fruition, what the kingdom already is:  Sustaining life, opening its arms to shelter the birds who feel safe enough to make nests, make homes to bring up their young in the embrace of its branches.

 It is never-ending, as the tree sends out its own seeds and the cycle starts again.

This knowledge of the Kingdom of God gives us all the potential to grow like that tiny seed into something as sustaining and nurturing of old and new as the mustard tree… individually and together as the Old Town Parish, as the Universal Church, as the Body of Christ.  

Why does Jesus spend all this time and effort helping us confront and understand life as a human being? 

Why does he think of all these parables, specifically honed to each group of people he meets and to the message that they need to hear?  

Because of love.  Because He loves us.  Because God loves us so He comes into our lives as the Son so we can reconcile our lives back to the Father.

That reconciliation requires the changing of our hearts and minds which we cannot do without Jesus’s help.  

We can keep learning how to live as followers of Christ through engaging with the lessons of the parables:  returning to them as our experience and faith feeds into our understanding. 

So, let us not ignore or disregard the tiny because God doesn’t.

 A tiny gesture from one can mean something hugely significant to another. 

A tiny start can grow into something more than we can ever imagine. 

And let us never assume that only big people with power or wealth can make a difference. 

No matter how tiny we feel or how overwhelmed we are with the dilemmas of the fallen world there is a Kingdom beyond, which we occasionally catch a glimpse of, where each and every one of us matters and is loved beyond measure.

All Saints 6^th June   Mark 3 vv 20-35

Dr Pat Lock (Reader)

After reviewing their finances, a husband and wife decided it was time to tighten up, to spend less and save more. A day later, the wife was out shopping and found the dress of her dreams. It cost way too much, but she had to have it. When she showed it to her husband, he exclaimed, “After all we said about spending less, how could you?” She replied, “The devil made me do it.” The husband asked, “Didn’t you tell him, ‘Get behind me, Satan?’” “I did,” the wife replied, “but he said, ‘It really looks great from the back, too!’”

The devil made me do it – an expression often heard but usually meant in jest.

I’m sure you’ve all seen people do some far-out wacky things and have thought to yourself, “These people must be out of their minds”. Have you ever accused someone of being out of their mind?  Probably.  We are not unaccustomed to making such a statement about people we know today.  A friend of yours takes a bungee jump off a high tower, and you ask, “Has he gone out of his mind?”  Another friend takes a sky diving lesson and jumps out of a perfectly good aeroplane, and you ask, “Has she gone out of her mind?”  There are lots of more everyday situations in which we might ask that question of someone we know – are they insane – mad – nuts – crazy – or with a new phrase  “are they a few tomatoes short of a salad”.  But we are shocked when someone asks that question of Jesus.  In verse 21, we learn that people were saying, “He is insane.” I believe this shocking statement can help us to understand the ways some people viewed Jesus during his early ministry.  Our text tells us that some people were quite alarmed by Jesus’ behaviour.

First, we find that his family was alarmed.  The text says, “when his friends heard it, they went out to seize him: for they said, “He is insane.” He’s out of his mind (20-21). Jesus had been teaching in the synagogues and was healing the crippled and demon possessed. Word got out and he began to attract big crowds of people. Wherever he went the crowds followed. They became so enamoured with Jesus that it interrupted his daily living. When his family got word of this they made a decision, probably out of genuine concern, to come and take him away. They concluded that he was out of his mind. Jesus purportedly lived at home and had assumed Joseph’s carpentry business. He was a known, skilled and respected young man in town. And then he suddenly hangs up his carpenter’s apron, locks his shop and hits the road as an itinerant preacher.

Even Jesus’ earthly family and friends didn’t understand his ministry. They didn’t understand that he was the Son of God. To the people of Nazareth, he was just the son of Mary and Joseph-earthly parents. The family had a total lack of sympathy for the nature of Jesus’ ministry.  In fact, we read in John 7:5, “His brothers didn’t believe in him.”  But what has happened to those Christmas angels, the shepherds and the Kings – this baby that both Mary and Joseph knew was special.  What happened to Mary “pondering all these things in her heart”.

Perhaps it befuddled them why he left his humble life of carpentry and took off into the wilderness and then started travelling around teaching and healing. Maybe they thought he was out of his mind for socialising with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. Perhaps they had heard the rumours that he was breaking the Sabbath and breaking the traditions of the elders. Considering all that was happening they surmised that he had gone mad.  He’s possessed (22-30). Christ was performing miracle after miracle, healing the diseased as well as the demon possessed. People were amazed at his teaching and the works he performed and his popularity was growing at an alarming rate. Some were astounded and saw it as proof that Christ was the promised Messiah. This troubled the religious leaders, who also witnessed what Jesus was doing. Because the Pharisees did not understand what Jesus was doing, they accused him of being possessed by the devil – the devil made him do it

Sometimes we can’t understand Jesus and his ministry. Sometimes it’s hard for us to understand who Jesus is, what he does and why he does what he does. But at least we have the benefit now of all the New Testament  to try and make sense of it all.

The teachers of the law acknowledged that Jesus was casting out demons but since they weren’t willing to believe that Jesus was God’s Son and therefore working in accordance with God’s power so they had to draw another conclusion-it had to be Satan’s power. They also had it out for Jesus and wanted to discredit him with the people. Convincing them that Jesus’ ability came from the devil would do that.  Again, the devil made him do it. By accusing Jesus of using the devil’s power to cast out demons, the Pharisees rejected the work of the Holy Spirit and they willingly rejected Christ as their Saviour.

Jesus  alarmed the Pharisees, but we are much more familiar with their negative reactions.  The Pharisees from Jerusalem had made the considerable journey to Galilee to look into this Jesus sensation.  They said his power was not a good power.  He had been taken over by Beelzebub, an unclean, satanic, demonic spirit.  They warned the crowds about him.

But Jesus blew their ridiculous claim out of the water and exploded their argument (23-27) “If a kingdom is divided against itself it cannot stand”. When we are living for Jesus, those who oppose us may make some pretty lame claims against what we’re doing. They will accuse us of having ulterior motives, we will be accused of thinking we’re better than everyone else; we will be accused of being narrow or closed-minded. We will be accused of being haters. Just like Jesus was accused of evil though he was doing good so will we be. Jesus warned us in John 15:18 when he said, “If the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first”.

1. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, “ A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher.  Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

At the end of our passage, Jesus turns again to address the issue of family when he asks, “Behold, my mother and my brothers?”  In his reply, Jesus offered a redefinition of family, and in the process gave a great definition of the church.  He portrays a vision of the family of God.  Jesus acknowledges that discipleship may cost our old, natural family ties.  But if we do the will of God, we will discover ourselves as members of the new family of God. Despite Jesus’ disappointment that his family and the scribes rejected him, he proclaims the good news that all who do the will of God will be accepted into the family of God. Jesus’ statement moves the value of human relationships beyond the physical to the spiritual.  I believe he is saying that as important as physical relationships are, they are not as important as spiritual relationships. Who is my mother?  Who is my brother?  Those who do the will of God.  Those who love like Jesus loved.  Those who, regardless of their biological relationship, capture the spirit of sacrificial love that God clearly demonstrated in Jesus Christ. In a world where there is so much opposition to the Christian faith, and where our homes and families demand so much of our time, our one priority is to love one another wherever we are, and with every breath of our being. When we unite with fellow believers, the power of the spirit can flow . And that power is the awesome power of God!   And in that power the devil cannot do it!

OF FAITH IN THE HOLY TRINITY

(Trinity Sunday, 30^th May 2021, St Clement’s, Hastings)

“There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things visible and invisible.  And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” (Article One.)

Those words are the first of the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion which, together with the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible, form the sources of Church of England doctrine.

But do we care?  Are not such statements just gobbledegook which get in the way of Christian living?  Isn’t the doctrine of the Trinity in particular impossible to understand and a stumbling block to would-be believers?

Well, yes we should care.  Doctrine is the life-blood of the Church and the real stumbling block to would-be believers is our inability to articulate it.  The current doctrine-lite or believe-almost-what-you-like Church of England drones on about mission but mission strategy is empty unless it conveys Christian doctrine.

But let me lighten the tone with a non-doctrinal question:

“Are you tidy?”

Some of us are tidy by nature; most of us are tidy by aspiration.

• A tidy home, especially if visitors are coming
• A tidy desk, not necessarily a sign of efficiency
• Tidy finances, especially as we grow older
• Tidy lives, with a proper balance between work, leisure and our domestic life.

Churches can also be tidy.  When I was Vicar of St. Andrew’s, Southgate in North London, the Church was so tidy that if you put something down and turned your back for a moment it would either be tidied away, thrown away or available for purchase at the Christmas Fayre.

Trinity Sunday, the only Feast Day which celebrates a doctrine rather than a biblical narrative, is a reminder that we should not and cannot be tidy about God, hard as we might try to fit Him neatly into theological systems of our own devising.

We cannot “manage” God

We cannot adequately imagine God

A god whom we can hold in our minds like a multiplication table would not be the God of the Bible.

The only thing which must be tidied away – indeed thrown away – when we eventually encounter God face-to-face will be our pictures and images of Him.

And so to the Doctrine of the most blessed and Holy Trinity which we celebrate today.  We have a tidy formula (Three in One and One in Three) which is paradoxically untidy…. for it speaks of God.

As Christians we can often sound defensive, if not simply embarrassed by the doctrine and so here are six reasons why we should embrace it wholeheartedly and celebrate it this day.

Reason One: The doctrine is biblical, despite what Jehovah’s Witnesses might tell you. It is not simply the very rare explicit Trinitarian verses like Matthew 28.19 – the commission to baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – which make it biblical but whole passages which are Trinitarian in sweep.  Read Genesis 1 in which God creates by His Word and the Spirit breathes upon the face of the deep or Ephesians Chapters 1-2 or think about today’s epistle and Gospel readings.

Reason Two: The doctrine preserves theological balance in our liturgical and spiritual life.  Without balance we can worship a God who is only a remote father figure or focus on charismatic signs of the Spirit as the only genuine mark of being a Christian or treat Jesus as our best mate forgetting that he is also our judge.  As an evangelical friend of mine once said, “If I hear ‘Jesus, I love you’ one more time, I think I shall go off him.”

The doctrine pulls us back into liturgical and spiritual line.

Reason Three: The doctrine links God to His creation.  God is both transcendent – that is to say, beyond our everyday experience – and yet is also immanent – that is to say, involved in our everyday lives.  The doctrine protects against the idea that God is like a remote cosmic watchmaker who sets the world going and then stands aloof from it and at the same time protects us from New Age notions that God is identical with His Creation.

Reason Four: It protects against the idea that we encounter God wearing different masks or in different roles.  The current vogue of thinking of the Trinity in terms of Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer is heretical – the technical name for this heresy is modalism – because it sells us short in our desire for salvation.  The big question is this: In Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, do we really meet with God Himself?  Or do we simply meet with a role that God has played?

Reason Five: The doctrine is a reminder of our mutual inter-dependence.  The usual social division is that between the individual and the collective or wider community.

But to be truly an individual requires participation in community.  We develop as an individual through and because of our interaction with others.  And you cannot have a functioning community unless it is composed of functioning individuals.  We are who we are because of what we give to others and receive from others.  No man or woman is an island.

We need to think of the Trinity not as three individual gods but as three beings who are in such perfect communion that they are truly one: Three in One and One in Three.

Reason Six: The doctrine preserves the mystery of God. The doctrine protects us against blasphemous, over-simplified theologies which seek to make tidy our understanding of God.  The final court of appeal is not human reason but divine revelation.

Far from regarding today as a bit of a liturgical embarrassment or a stumbling block for would-be Christians, we need Trinity Sunday badly.  It saddens me the doctrine of the Trinitarian God, totally sovereign and free, is so often replaced with a comfortable, folksy and manageable God.  A tidy God for a tidy doctrine-lite Church.

The Doctrine we celebrate today is biblical; it preserves our theological and spiritual balance; it reminds us that God is linked to His Creation; it reminds us that in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit we encounter God Himself; it reminds us of our mutual inter-dependence; and it preserves the mystery of God.

“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!”

When it comes to God – How tidy are you?

© Paul Hunt 2021

(This text is based on sermons previously delivered at St Andrew’s Southgate and St. John’s, Upper St. Leonards.)

“They are filled with new wine” (Acts 2.13)

(Whit Sunday, 23^rd May 2021, St Clement’s, Hastings)

What sort of parish are we?  When I was a vicar in North London – and be not afraid, this isn’t one of my travelogues – I used to think of parishes in terms of wine.  We were bordered by three parishes: One I called the Chianti parish.  Italy was the destination of choice for its wealthier parishioners who could be described as medium bodied, ageing with a touch of spice and hint of nuts. The even more upmarket parish to our north I called the Sancerre parish.  France was the destination of choice for its parishioners, some of whom had second homes there.  The congregation was noted for having a certain degree of acidity and a subtle aroma of nettles waiting to be grasped.  Our other neighbour was hard-line evangelical and I gave it the name of the Leibfraumilch parish, simply because it was beyond redemption.  And my own St. Andrew’s?  We became a perfectly  chilled Muscadet, dry but with a hint of sparkle and zest and sufficiently versatile to be paired with most things.  So what about the Old Town Parish?

Today is Whit Sunday when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, often considered to be the birthday of the Church.  Naff parishes will doubtless be singing “Happy Birthday” and drinking warm lambrusco.

A question: Have you received the Holy Spirit?  In some Christian contexts this can be a threatening question: Unless you speak in tongues like those gathered disciples on that first Whit Sunday, you haven’t received the Holy Spirit and you are therefore not a true Christian.  I have been at charismatic meetings and unable to speak in tongues and have felt distinctly uncomfortable.

But the New Testament views the workings and gifts of the Spirit to be much wider.  St Paul provides check lists in I Corinthians 12 and in Galatians 5.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are also gifts of the Spirit.

A second question: Are you feeling yourself today? It’s a question asked of us by others and by us of other people.  It’s a question asked when people don’t seem to be acting as we might expect, given their usual behaviour.

And this is essentially the comment made by the sceptics about those one hundred and twenty Christians on the Day of Pentecost.  “They are not themselves today – they must be drunk.”  “They are filled with new wine.”

It is not, of course, just alcohol that can effect a change in our character: health, friends and enemies, events (private and public), the weather even, can all cause us to behave differently. Many things may have the effect of not making us feel ourselves: happier or sadder, more or less confident, better or worse.

That we change is part of what makes us so likeable and interesting and infuriating as human beings.  External forces can act upon us for good or ill; we are not like portraits in a gallery.  And this means, of course, that we are open to receive the influence of the Holy Spirit.

So in answer to our first question – “Have you received the Holy Spirit?” – think of those occasions when our actions and responses have been better than we might have expected.  When perhaps we haven’t been our usual selves and demonstrated more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control than than naturally lies within our all too human nature.

“Come down, O Love divine,

Seek thou this soul of mine,

And visit it with thine own ardour glowing.

O Comforter, draw near,

Within my heart appear,

And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.”

So how should we describe the Old Town Parish in terms of wine?  Chianti, Sancerre, Muscadet or Liebfraumilch?   Let’s keep it simple.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if those outside of St Clement’s and All Saints simply said of us, “They are filled with new wine”?  That our proclaimed faith as Christians meant that we were not ourselves as found in our usual human nature but were inspired by the Holy Spirit to the lives to which we are called by the Triune God.

May the words of the nineteenth century cleric and classicist Edwin Hatch be our prayer on this Whit Sunday so that others will indeed say of us “They are filled with new wine”:

1. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   Fill me with life anew,
   That I may love what Thou dost love,
   And do what Thou wouldst do.
2. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   Until my heart is pure,
   Until with Thee I will one will,
   To do and to endure.
3. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   Till I am wholly Thine,
   Until this earthly part of me
   Glows with Thy fire divine.

© Paul Hunt 2021

“So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias.” (Acts 1.23)

(Sunday after the Ascension, 16^th May 2021, St. Clement’s, Hastings)

Strange things can happen during church services.  Many years ago I was taking a service in an extremely high church where the recently departed vicar had held a referendum about women priests, split the parish down the middle and left for Rome.  I was chaplain at Mill Hill School at the time and the Bishop of Edmonton had asked me to look after the parish for a few months and try to bring the parish together.  Anyway, just before the invitation to communion one Sunday, I noticed that one of my shoe laces had become undone.  Rather than distract the kneeling communicants from their devotions with my dangling shoelace, I knelt down behind the altar to tie it.  Impressed by my previously unsuspected devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, everyone in church duly genuflected en masse; no pun intended.

That Church was dedicated to St Matthias whose day in the calendar is the 14^th May and who is remembered in today’s reading from Acts as the disciple who replaced Judas.  We know almost nothing about his life.  Although legends abound, Matthias is mentioned nowhere else in the New Testament.

But we do know that he was chosen by God after prayer and the casting of lots.  “And the lot fell on Matthias.”  We may imagine his feelings: awe perhaps, humility, gratitude, excitement, apprehension – perhaps a mixture of all these responses.  Perhaps he felt pride and pleasure too.

And what about Joseph called Barsabbas who was also known as Justus?  He is very much a forgotten character in the New Testament, even more so than Matthias, and so I would like us to reflect briefly on Justus this morning.  Justus had exactly the same qualifications as Matthias which were that candidates to replace Judas had to have been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry and been witnesses to the Resurrection.  And yet it was Matthias who had been chosen and it was Justus who had been rejected.

Rejection hurts.  That is a feeling we all share with Justus.  Whether it be in love or friendship or when applying for a job or a course or in so many other ways, rejection can hurt.  I’ve just finished reading the latest biography of Barbara Pym and read about how she felt when she had countless manuscripts for novels rejected by a host of publishers.  Rejection hurts. We can try and rationalise our feelings and put on a brave face to the world but rejection can still gnaw away at us in our innermost being.  It is possible, of course, that Justus was able to recognise God’s will at work and rejoice for Matthias.  We don’t actually know his reaction, outwardly or inwardly, because he disappears completely from the narrative after the choice of Matthias. But even the holiest of us can feel ignored and not valued.  Who was it who said on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But has Justus been rejected and ignored and not valued by God? Perhaps it just feels like that. Perhaps it was simply a matter of God calling Matthias and Justus to different vocations.  As with Matthias, legends abound and one of them describes Justus as a bishop and a martyr and he is venerated by some as a saint.  The historical evidence for this legendary vocation might be described as less than convincing to put it gently but that rather misses the point.  Whatever it may have been, God was calling him to a vocation other than that of replacing Judas as an apostle.

And there is a lesson here for everyone of us.  I am disheartened by the way in which some younger clergy talk about having a career in the ministry and the media talks about becoming a bishop as a promotion. This is not to say that older generations of clerics have not been ambitious; far from it.  But pay differentials amongst the clergy and fancy titles seem far removed from the New Testament idea of the Body of Christ.  We can be called to a different function within the church, within the Body, but not to a different rank.

As St. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome:

 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;  the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

(Romans12.4-8)

This is why collaborative ministry is so important and it goes beyond the Ministry Team as we rather grandly call ourselves.  Vocation comes in many forms, not least in earnest prayer and quiet service behind the scenes.  Collaborative ministry involves every single one of us in a myriad of ministries.  People sometimes ask me why I went “into the Church”.  But we all enter the Church, the Body of Christ, by means of our baptism.

The Christian Gospel is about acceptance rather than rejection.  However much rejection we may experience in our lives, God accepts us.  Whatever Jesus may have thought on the Cross, whatever Justus may have thought when Matthias was chosen instead of him, whatever we may sometimes feel, we can never be rejects in the sight of the God who values each one of us.

Our vocation, our calling within the Body of Christ may be different from what we may have chosen for ourselves or what others may imagine for us.  But we are not rejected and we are called; each of us has a vocation.

As we think today of Matthias and Justus, we will do well to consider our vocation within the Body of Christ and to remember that God never rejects us.

It is only we who can reject that vocation and the God who calls us to it.

© Paul Hunt 2021

The Ascension Day

Thursday, 13^th May 2021

Risen, Ascended, Glorified

Did Jesus have big feet?   Some people have thought so.  Because if you go into the chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, you will be shown what is supposed to be the imprint of Jesus’ right foot (the imprint of the left foot having been taken to the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in the Middle Ages).  The imprint is said to mark the spot where Jesus’ feet last touched this earth before ascending into the skies on Ascension Day.  If so, Jesus must have taken a size thirteen and fresh meaning is brought to that line of William Blake: “And did those feet in ancient time.”

Feet are one thing.  Statues are another.  Had we been able to travel on the continent today, we might have seen a statue of Jesus hoisted mechanically into the roof of a church in a re-enactment of the Ascension.  “Hail the day that sees Him rise/Glorious to His native skies.”

There is, of course, a serious danger in becoming too literal minded in our thinking about the Ascension.  I remember once showing a video (which rather dates me) of a dramatised version of St Luke’s Gospel to some sixteen year olds as part of the GCSE Religious Studies course.  The acting was rather wooden to put it kindly and, when we came to the Ascension, it became embarrassing.  There was Jesus physically rising up into the clouds with the disciples looking mildly surprised and waving cheerio as though he was Gracie Fields on her way to war-time safety in the USA.

So what are we to make of the Ascension?  We need to be clear at the outset and say that it is an essential part of the Christian Gospel and that in the New Testament it cannot be separated theologically from the Resurrection which Luke tries to do chronologically.  In today’s epistle from Ephesians, Paul writes of the Ascension in these terms:

“God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.  And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”  (Ephesians 1.20-23)

We may note that Paul does not use the picture language of Luke.  It is Luke alone amongst New Testament writers who depicts the Ascension – by which we indicate the exaltation and kingship and authority of Jesus – in the form of a physical rising up into the heavens.  Concentration on the literal picture, with the inevitable questions which arise in our minds about what actually happened and where Jesus went, can cause us to miss what Luke and Paul and the other New Testament writers are actually proclaiming to us.

They are proclaiming that Jesus Christ has been exalted and glorified.  Whereas the Resurrection affirms that Jesus has defeated death, the Ascension affirms that Jesus is not simply alive but that he is alive in his glorified state and reigns over all things in heaven and earth.  In his novel The Trial of Jesus, John Masefield expressed it in this way: Pilate’s wife asks the centurion whether he thinks Jesus is really dead.  “No, lady, I don’t,” comes the reply.  “Then where is he?” she asks.  “Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.” This is the Jesus of the resurrection appearances, no longer bound by human constraints of time and space.

To insist on a literal acceptance of Luke’s pictorial description of the Ascension is a position of faithlessness.  In Luke’s own narrative in Acts, the question posed to the disciples by the two men in white is also posed to us:

“Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” (Acts 1.11)

To spend our time wondering where Jesus went once he got above cloud level demonstrates not faith but the lack of it.  Rather than spend our time gazing up into the skies wondering where Jesus went and when he will return, the disciples were told to be witnesses, preaching to all nations in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Like Paul, Matthew does not use Luke’s picture language but he does have the Ascension message of Christ exalted and triumphant.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28.18-19)

As disciples who acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of Christ and which we celebrate at Ascensiontide, as followers of the Jesus who has been let loose in the world where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth, we do not have time to spend looking up into the heavens debating how and where Jesus went beyond the clouds.

For we show faith in the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ not by gazing up into heaven but by proclaiming the Ascension message: Jesus Christ is the Lord of all.  Risen-Ascended-Glorified.

© Paul Hunt 2021

Sermon given by Mr Keith Leech, Authorised Lay Minister

Well here I am then. I always wondered what it would be like standing here.  How many times have I thought I could do better than this, but listen to out of politeness?  How many times haver I nodded off? Or lost the thread?  Now it comes to it I recognise it’s not so easy.  Whatever I do, for some it will be the best thing they have heard, for some it will be they have heard that all before and for others it will be… I disagree.

We were told that the first thing to do is to go to the texts for the day and read them, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us… I hope it won’t be endless battles in the Book of Kings or even worse the Book of Revelation.

No its 1 John, Acts of the Apostles and The Gospel of John…  God is for all, God is for the Gentiles, not the just the Jews… and Gods commandment is for us to love each other… Nicely crafted by those who put the lectionary together to give us a narrative for the day.

Look up notes on preaching… ‘Do not whatever you do say that we should Love God and be nice to each other everybody knows that, that is why they are sitting in front of you in the first place’….It’s a cliché and needs a theological basis.  But that’s what todays texts are… Oh come on God give me a break.

Sit down, pray,  look around what signs is God sending you? What text leaps out at you?… Ok here goes….

John 15.13 ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’.

How many times have I read this? I think on every war memorial I have ever been to.  There it sits as a comfort to those who mourn neatly hiding the complete horror of war.  For if everybody truly practiced Christian love I genuinely believe that there would be no war. If Christian love is being truly practiced by all people war becomes an impossibility.  From 1 John today ‘ for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith’  I see Christian love as a kind of vaccination against evil. This is partly why I am passionate about mission, or some would say evangelism…The act of bringing people to Christ… I really don’t mind how. If it is seen as unorthodox so be it. Does it expose people to the Gospel in such a way that they can be helped to find Christ?  If yes then do it, if no then don’t.

It also does mean that we who profess to be Christian should display that love spoken of in the text so that people can see it and think  …’I want some of that’. If we do not display that love we lay ourselves open to charges of hypocrisy and we do the cause of bringing people to Christ no favours.   This isn’t new…Tertullian quoted a pagan opponent of Christianity as saying (mockingly) “See how these Christians love one another” in reference to Christian in-fighting. I don’t mean being perfect, we are after all human and as open to temptation as the next person. In fact we are probably more open to temptation because if there is one thing the devil does not want is more people coming to see the Gospel.

I don’t like Bible verses taken on their own, they are part of a narrative and can be used too often to convey a meaning completely different to that intended.   So let’s take a look at what else Jesus said in that narrative. ‘If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love… My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.’  The initial verse is about Jesus Christ laying down His life for us all. He is talking to the disciples who were with Him, but as we are all disciples He is talking to us. He is telling us what to do. To follow God’s commandments, and to love each other as much as he loved us. How much is that?  He was crucified for us. That is how much He loves us. That’s how far God wants us to go if we have to, and many of those disciples did just that. As a far as we know Peter, Andrew, Philip and James were all crucified.  Jesus goes on to say to the disciples … ‘go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: Love each other.’  …. A commandment from Christ Himself.

This is no small thing the more you consider it the more it becomes apparent that we are (if needs be) being called to make great sacrifices for others.  Here we need to refer to the Old Testament where sacrifice was not only burnt offerings,  but was also giving.  St Paul says because of Christ, we no longer have to bring a sacrifice, we become one. We’re not a burnt offering, we are a living one. We come before God and offer our complete self in gratitude and thanksgiving.

John 15.14 says ‘If you are my friends you will do what I command’… and in our other reading 1 John  ‘And his commandments are not burdensome’. I personally find this a challenge.  We are speaking of some sacrifices that I am personally not sure I want to give. This goes way beyond just being nice to each other… fluffy good feeling Christianity.  It is a big ask and are any of us if we are being honest are up to it? Fortunately for us it is usually more about giving things up that we would like to have or doing things we would rather not ‘his commandments are not burdensome’

We are now slowly emerging from a pandemic, a life changing event for the whole world. Other than a tiny few of us nothing as big has happened to the whole world in our lifetime. During the pandemic we have all witnessed great acts of love, from simple getting of shopping to overcoming fears to get vaccinated for the common good, to those in the NHS who really did lay down their lives for others.

The question is how do we learn from this?  How do we keep that Love flowing?  We all want to get back to ‘normal’ but was it really the best way? Was it God’s way? Was it really showing true love for each other?  It exposed many flaws in society it showed us inequality, injustice, and the capacity of nature to pose a threat beyond the power of any one country to face. It showed us that love for each other extends beyond any human boundary our love has to cover the whole world. Neither nature nor God recognise national boundaries.  We should all be aware that no matter how good a vaccine, unless it is used equally across the whole planet it will fail.  This isn’t only the case with the virus it is the case with many things, not least climate change. Are we going to learn from this experience of a threat to the whole planet, or squander it?

In his recently published book ‘Reimagining Britain’ Justin Welby sums it up well “If we do not learn the lessons and act on injustices of ethnic discrimination, lack of solidarity, neglect of the common good and most of all the even greater danger from human caused climate change then these already terrible results of Covid-19 will seem as little compared to what is to come. We must learn together or suffer and even perish in our differences.” He goes on to say “The danger is of having a rootless and self-protective society without generosity, arising from a lack of confidence and an inward-looking and self-centred reimagining of what it is to be British.”

We are not isolated, as individuals, as families, as towns as countries, we are part of God’s whole planet and creation. As John Donne said ‘No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…’ So it is not just how well we conduct our lives and love those we know and come into contact with, (our direct friends and neighbours),  but how we love those we don’t know and are never likely to meet on the other side of the world. It isn’t just about us, it about the kind of society the kind of world we as a whole shape, locally, nationally and internationally.  Are we prepared to make sacrifices for those in other places on the other side of the world, even if we think they don’t deserve it? Are we prepared to work together internationally and forget our differences? What is our attitude to for example foreign aid?  Or to migrants?  Are we prepared to give up air travel for the sake of future generations? Are we prepared to be sent from this place as a living sacrifice?

As the Bee Gees said ‘How deep is your love?’  Is it confined to loving God and being nice to each other or does it extend beyond? How much of our lives, of our comfort, of the things we have, the things we enjoy, of our lifestyle are we prepared to give for others? What will you sacrifice this week for the good of others who may be on the other side of the planet or future generations?  Perhaps the world could be a much better place if we did as we are commanded.

Jesus commanded us to  ‘Love each other as I have loved you….. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15.5)

(The Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2^nd May 2021, St. Clement’s, Hastings)

A warning: You are about to be treated to another of my travelogues.  The last time I preached I reminisced about a wonderful meal in La Maison du Cygne in Brussels; today I begin with a visit to the Arctic Circle.

Back in the 1980s I used to travel regularly to what was then the Soviet Union and even taught in a Moscow school – School Number 35 – for a few weeks during the period of glasnost – openness – at the end of the decade.  On one occasion, in 1985, I think, I boarded an Aeroflot plane in Moscow bound for Leningrad with its beautiful buildings, wonderful art and opera and ballet.  Instead, for reasons that never became entirely clear, the flight was diverted  to Murmansk, some 125 miles inside the Arctic Circle.  There was hardly anything to do or see there, but it didn’t matter very much given that it was late December and the murky daylight lasted for less than five hours.  It was also extremely cold.  Compulsory entertainment in the hotel by the Great Patriotic War Women’s Labour Group Veterans’ Choir did little to improve my mood.

But the next day I found a church which was, apparently the most northerly in the world.  I wandered in, eager to get out of the cold as much as anything.  Inside the modest wooden building there were women cleaning and sweeping and polishing.  It is a scene familiar in churches throughout the world.

I lit a candle, made the sign of the cross and prayed.  And when I opened my eyes, one of the women was standing next to me, offering me a tiny orthodox cross.  I have it with me this morning and will place it on the altar for the eucharistic prayer.  This woman, like the others busy cleaning the church, had survived decades of hard persecution under various Soviet leaders and I was profoundly moved.  I thanked her profusely and, in an unintentional act of irony, she wrapped the cross in some paper torn from Pravda, the Communist newspaper.  And pravda is Russian for ‘truth’.

I did not know her name and she did not know mine – but we both knew the name Jesus Christ.  Separated by different experiences of life and by nationality, age and gender and by our different Christian traditions, we nevertheless had fellowship in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is indeed the true vine and we indeed are the branches.  How different it is from the pretend communities that people invent today in an attempt to invoke a sense of fellowship that doesn’t exist.  The most absurd example that I’ve heard recently was that of a presenter on the Today programme referring to the “Intelligence Community”.  I can’t think of anything less communal that the world of espionage and the secret service with its inevitable use of deception and false identities.  Think too about the vogue for workers wearing name badges to make things seem personal, be it Nadia in Nationwide, Barry in the bank or Crystal in the Co-op.  But if you say “Thank you, Crystal”, she will look quite startled because in reality you are a stranger.

Christian fellowship depends upon one name only: That of Jesus Christ.  For cut off from him we cannot have fellowship either with Him or with other Christians.  So it is that Jesus bids His first disciples and – us to remain in the Vine.  The word ‘abide – ‘remain’ – occurs no less than seven times in seven verses, giving what is, to me, almost a sense of urgency about Our Lord’s command. For “Apart from me you can do nothing.”  But as part of that True Vine, the fellowship offered by that church in Murmansk exists whenever and wherever Christians gather.  The old woman who gave me the cross will have died decades ago but, as part of the Communion of Saints, she is part of the great company of heaven with whom we join in worship this morning.

One further reflection: So what may we say about the divisions which exist between Churches? How do our divisions square with the notion of one true vine, composed of stem and branches?  Is it not a scandal that we are here and yet have brothers and sisters worshipping a few yards away at St. Mary Star of the Sea?

It seems to me that our fellowship in Christ can only be damaged when our different traditions and emphases become more important than the God to whom they should point.  Let there be no mistake: Theology is vital for a healthy church because it prevents sloppy thinking and provides the underpinning, intellectual as well as spiritual, for all that we do.  But we must always remember that the word theology literally means ‘words about God’; it is not God Himself.  It is all too easy, as Christian history shows all too sadly, for Jesus’ disciples to exalt their particular understandings and ways of doing things at the expense of exalting the Lord Himself.  The way in which I made the sign of the cross in that church in Murmansk was very different from the way in which that unknown Russian woman did so – but it is a sign of the same faith.  And we both knew it.

Perhaps, and this is an old Anglican way of looking at this, the so-called branch theory of the Church, we should see each different church as but one branch of the same vine. “The branch cannot bear fruit by itself,” said Jesus.  Cut off from him we can do nothing and, as Christian history demonstrates, such churches wither and die.  The Church’s one foundation can only be Jesus Christ her Lord.

Perhaps as Anglicans we can offer a particular witness.  I despair at the the theological and ecclesiological mess in which our world-wide Communion finds itself with its divisions over homosexuality and the role of women and what has become, in effect, a battle for the soul of Anglicanism between liberals and evangelicals. But back in 1936, Michael Ramsey, later to be a great Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote this:

“For while the Anglican church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to Gospel and Church and sound learning, its greater vindication lies in its pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment.  Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and travail in its soul.  It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic.  For it is sent not to commend itself as “the best type of Christianity,” but by its very brokeness to point to the universal Church wherein all have died.”  (The Gospel and the Catholic Church, SPCK edition, 1990, p.220)

Our fellowship as Christians is based, not upon words about Jesus Christ but upon Jesus Christ Himself who commands us to love one another as He has loved us.  He is the Vine, we are one of His branches and we are told to abide in His love.  True Christianity does not depend upon uniformity of tradition or understanding, important as these may be, but upon common recognition that Jesus Christ is Lord and the obedience to His command that we love one another.

For at our baptism we were baptised not into the Church of England or into the Church of Rome or into the Russian Orthodox Church.  We were baptised into the Body of Christ which is the Church dispersed throughout the world.  Baptised into a fellowship that stretches not just from Canterbury to Rome, from Hastings to Murmansk, but into the loving fellowship of God Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

© Paul Hunt 2021

“I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15.5)

(The Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2^nd May 2021, St. Clement’s, Hastings)

A warning: You are about to be treated to another of my travelogues.  The last time I preached I reminisced about a wonderful meal in La Maison du Cygne in Brussels; today I begin with a visit to the Arctic Circle.

Back in the 1980s I used to travel regularly to what was then the Soviet Union and even taught in a Moscow school – School Number 35 – for a few weeks during the period of glasnost – openness – at the end of the decade.  On one occasion, in 1985, I think, I boarded an Aeroflot plane in Moscow bound for Leningrad with its beautiful buildings, wonderful art and opera and ballet.  Instead, for reasons that never became entirely clear, the flight was diverted  to Murmansk, some 125 miles inside the Arctic Circle.  There was hardly anything to do or see there, but it didn’t matter very much given that it was late December and the murky daylight lasted for less than five hours.  It was also extremely cold.  Compulsory entertainment in the hotel by the Great Patriotic War Women’s Labour Group Veterans’ Choir did little to improve my mood.

But the next day I found a church which was, apparently the most northerly in the world.  I wandered in, eager to get out of the cold as much as anything.  Inside the modest wooden building there were women cleaning and sweeping and polishing.  It is a scene familiar in churches throughout the world.

I lit a candle, made the sign of the cross and prayed.  And when I opened my eyes, one of the women was standing next to me, offering me a tiny orthodox cross.  I have it with me this morning and will place it on the altar for the eucharistic prayer.  This woman, like the others busy cleaning the church, had survived decades of hard persecution under various Soviet leaders and I was profoundly moved.  I thanked her profusely and, in an unintentional act of irony, she wrapped the cross in some paper torn from Pravda, the Communist newspaper.  And pravda is Russian for ‘truth’.

I did not know her name and she did not know mine – but we both knew the name Jesus Christ.  Separated by different experiences of life and by nationality, age and gender and by our different Christian traditions, we nevertheless had fellowship in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is indeed the true vine and we indeed are the branches.  How different it is from the pretend communities that people invent today in an attempt to invoke a sense of fellowship that doesn’t exist.  The most absurd example that I’ve heard recently was that of a presenter on the Today programme referring to the “Intelligence Community”.  I can’t think of anything less communal that the world of espionage and the secret service with its inevitable use of deception and false identities.  Think too about the vogue for workers wearing name badges to make things seem personal, be it Nadia in Nationwide, Barry in the bank or Crystal in the Co-op.  But if you say “Thank you, Crystal”, she will look quite startled because in reality you are a stranger.

Christian fellowship depends upon one name only: That of Jesus Christ.  For cut off from him we cannot have fellowship either with Him or with other Christians.  So it is that Jesus bids His first disciples and – us to remain in the Vine.  The word ‘abide – ‘remain’ – occurs no less than seven times in seven verses, giving what is, to me, almost a sense of urgency about Our Lord’s command. For “Apart from me you can do nothing.”  But as part of that True Vine, the fellowship offered by that church in Murmansk exists whenever and wherever Christians gather.  The old woman who gave me the cross will have died decades ago but, as part of the Communion of Saints, she is part of the great company of heaven with whom we join in worship this morning.

One further reflection: So what may we say about the divisions which exist between Churches? How do our divisions square with the notion of one true vine, composed of stem and branches?  Is it not a scandal that we are here and yet have brothers and sisters worshipping a few yards away at St. Mary Star of the Sea?

It seems to me that our fellowship in Christ can only be damaged when our different traditions and emphases become more important than the God to whom they should point.  Let there be no mistake: Theology is vital for a healthy church because it prevents sloppy thinking and provides the underpinning, intellectual as well as spiritual, for all that we do.  But we must always remember that the word theology literally means ‘words about God’; it is not God Himself.  It is all too easy, as Christian history shows all too sadly, for Jesus’ disciples to exalt their particular understandings and ways of doing things at the expense of exalting the Lord Himself.  The way in which I made the sign of the cross in that church in Murmansk was very different from the way in which that unknown Russian woman did so – but it is a sign of the same faith.  And we both knew it.

Perhaps, and this is an old Anglican way of looking at this, the so-called branch theory of the Church, we should see each different church as but one branch of the same vine. “The branch cannot bear fruit by itself,” said Jesus.  Cut off from him we can do nothing and, as Christian history demonstrates, such churches wither and die.  The Church’s one foundation can only be Jesus Christ her Lord.

Perhaps as Anglicans we can offer a particular witness.  I despair at the the theological and ecclesiological mess in which our world-wide Communion finds itself with its divisions over homosexuality and the role of women and what has become, in effect, a battle for the soul of Anglicanism between liberals and evangelicals. But back in 1936, Michael Ramsey, later to be a great Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote this:

“For while the Anglican church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to Gospel and Church and sound learning, its greater vindication lies in its pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment.  Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and travail in its soul.  It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic.  For it is sent not to commend itself as “the best type of Christianity,” but by its very brokeness to point to the universal Church wherein all have died.”  (The Gospel and the Catholic Church, SPCK edition, 1990, p.220)

Our fellowship as Christians is based, not upon words about Jesus Christ but upon Jesus Christ Himself who commands us to love one another as He has loved us.  He is the Vine, we are one of His branches and we are told to abide in His love.  True Christianity does not depend upon uniformity of tradition or understanding, important as these may be, but upon common recognition that Jesus Christ is Lord and the obedience to His command that we love one another.

For at our baptism we were baptised not into the Church of England or into the Church of Rome or into the Russian Orthodox Church.  We were baptised into the Body of Christ which is the Church dispersed throughout the world.  Baptised into a fellowship that stretches not just from Canterbury to Rome, from Hastings to Murmansk, but into the loving fellowship of God Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

© Paul Hunt 2021

Sermon given by Mrs Sandra Bentall, Authorised lay Minister

“I am the good shepherd.  I know my own, and my own know me”   John 10:14    Sunday 25.4.2021  

Our journey through the 50 days of Eastertide continues   and the 4^th Sunday of Easter is always Good Shepherd Sunday.  If our service had included the Psalm appointed for today there are no prizes for guessing it would have been Psalm 23  – perhaps the most well-known psalm many of us reflect on in personal prayer times, times when we are distressed, or need words of comfort, and the psalm most read at funerals. It is known as a prayer of trust in God who cares for us, now and for ever.    What a wonderful and serene scene this psalm paints for us – stillness, quietness, flowing water . . .  But also mentioned is the rod and staff, not instruments of calm contemplation  but designed to keep us on the right path, perhaps with more than a gentle pull or push by our shepherd.  Here is comfort with the knowledge that God will pull us back if necessary or prod us, to keep us going in the right direction.

We have listened to our readings today, around Jesus being called The Good Shepherd.  Every year we hear a different part of John’s gospel chapter 10;   today is the 2^nd part of that chapter which commences “I am the good shepherd”.  Then in verse 14 he says  “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me”.   So Jesus knows us, he knows us well, he knows our name – earlier in the chapter Jesus says “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” (v3)

What’s in a name? asked Shakespeare’s Juliet.  Well, more significance really than she thought.
The name of God was never pronounced by the Hebrew people, it was too holy, too sacred. It could be written down with an initial letter but never spoken in full.  What is perplexing for us is that in ancient Hebrew, the written language showed no vowels. The name we say as YAHWEH was actually just 4 consonants YHWH. We don’t really know how to pronounce it as we don’t know which consonants should be there. However, most scholars agree that YAHWEH is the most accepted way to say it. Scholars have guessed at vowels, using them from the Hebrew word for Lord, “Adonai” but we just don’t know.  It’s also been pronounced as “Yehova” in Hebrew as a substitute word   but we don’t actually know how it should be pronounced  as it was never pronounced!   Traditionally, religious Jews today would not say the name aloud because it is believed to be too holy to be spoken.  But they often use substitutes when referring to the name of God, such as “Ha Shem” meaning “The Name”.  This could have been from what God said in the Ten Commandments – “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”. (Ex 20:7)

English Bibles translate Yahweh as “I AM” which is the best possible guess because there simply is no English word that captures all that Yahweh means.    King James translators expressed Yahweh – the name of God – as Jehovah.
You may have noticed that in many Bible translations today   we can always tell where the original Hebrew refers to God as Yahweh   because our Bibles translate it as L-O-R-D,   and LORD is printed all in capital letters.  

The name was first revealed to Moses at the burning bush.   For his mission to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, he realised his name would not carry much weight and people would not listen to him. So he wanted to know God’s name so that the Hebrew people would know exactly who the God of their ancestors is, who sends Moses to them.
God calls himself “I AM”  “I AM WHO I AM”. I AM HAS SENT ME TO YOU” Here we see the sovereignty of God (Ex 3:11-15)  There is much of interest around names in the Old Testament. Change in a name could indicate a person’s status with God.   Abram became Abraham after his covenant, and Sarai became Sarah.   Many names end in –el  which was one of the old names for God.     Names were often occupational names and got passed over in the son’s name.

Today we are looking at the name – The Good Shepherd.     Jesus said “I AM   the good shepherd – surely a deliberate echo of the divine name taking on prophetic images of the Messiah pictured in the Old Testament, a declaration of his divinity. In many conversations with his disciples, Jesus spoke about being the shepherd of his sheep.  People were familiar with shepherds who were considered lowly in status and had to spend long periods away from home, so had uncomfortable lives in the semi-wilderness. 
Family groups generally kept a small flock of sheep which were raised especially for their wool, milk, and producing more sheep.   Only a few were used for sacrifice and they weren’t usually eaten at other times.  It was normally the task of one of the sons to care for them, go ahead of the sheep and lead them to pastures where there was good grass, protect them from danger, from wolves and thieves at night, keep them away from cliff edges and rocky crevices and hook them to safety if they couldn’t scramble out. Shepherds got to know their sheep very well, which ones liked to walk at the back and which at the front, and when lambs were born they might have given them names getting to know them in the flock and the lambs got used to knowing their shepherd and hearing his voice calling their name.  Sheep needed 24/7 care so shepherds could not have a day off   and were seen as disreputable and scandalous because they had to break the Sabbath Law. 
Yet Jesus was identifying himself as a shepherd.  How outrageous that would have seemed!  Temple sheep were also herded around Jerusalem   as sacrificial lambs and sheep   used for worship in the temple.  In speaking to his disciples about being the good shepherd   Jesus says he lays down his life for the sheep. (v10)  He says he lays it down of his own accord (v18), that he has the power to take it up again.  Once again he was foreseeing his death and resurrection – perhaps again confusing the disciples who did not yet understand.  Jesus says it is the good shepherd who offers himself as the sacrifice. He is fulfilling God’s plan.

                                                                                          – 2 –
Our reading from the Book of Acts today takes us to when Peter and John had healed a man lame from birth “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth”(3:6,7).   They had annoyed the religious leaders in Jerusalem for teaching that in Jesus there is resurrection   which was against the Sadducees’ beliefs and who saw this as refuting their authority.
When asked by the council of religious leaders  by what power or by what name had they done this,  Peter spoke boldly, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, that it was “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth”.  Also that “there is salvation in no-one else, there is no other name under heaven   by which we must be saved”.

I want to take you briefly back to our Easter Sunday gospel  – Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, saw the stone rolled away from the entrance, and in her distress and confusion mistook the risen Christ for the gardener. 
How did Jesus get through to her?   He just said “Mary”.   He called out her name.    

NAMES are important to us, aren’t they? Where would we be without them?
For most of us we’ve had our name since we were babies. Perhaps names were discussed, but then a final decision had to be made.  We also had a family name, our surname.  My mother told me I was going to be named Gillian but then they didn’t want a name that would likely be shortened so I was baptised Sandra.
Little did she know then   that I’ve often been called San.  

How do you feel if your name is mispronounced, or you got stuck with a different name? 
I have a name that can be pronounced two ways so, over the years, I have got used to “the other way”.   
Because I am one of them, when I meet someone and we share that name   I ask which way they like to be known – and try and remember their choice.  What if you’ve habitually been called the wrong name?  Someone told me that when he was teaching, for years he called the school caretaker Gary until one day Gary plucked up the courage to tell him his name was actually Graham.  A mishearing at the outset continued for several years. 
But regardless, they both knew who was being referred to!

Some people are not happy with the names they were given and they will sometimes use abbreviated forms of their name,   or even change their name.   None the less they have a name, albeit a new name,   and surely everyone likes to be known by their name. Doesn’t it show that someone has taken the effort to remember it? 
Jesus knows our name and he knows us.  He knows our innermost being.

But what about when we are known  NOT by our name?  Times change but do our feelings? 
How often are you identified these days by a number?
At the bank we have account numbers   And PIN numbers to access those accounts.  Our bank cards have different numbers.   The tax department identify us with our tax file number.   We have an NHS number.   Phone the doctor and they look you up after asking your date of birth.   When we enquire about our electricity or phone bills, the first thing we are asked is what is your customer number.   You might not have experienced this but if someone is pulled over by the police for speeding, the officer is interested in numbers – driving licence number, car registration number,  oh, and of course,  he shows you the number on the radar gun!    Numbers are so impersonal. 
But isn’t it nice when someone has taken the care   to actually remember your name!

OUR NAMES!  Jesus says he knows our names.  We are named at our baptism,   we are named in confirmation,
we are named in prayers when we have a need for help,   we are named in thanksgivings for God’s healing and blessing upon our individual lives.   We are finally named at our funeral.

How privileged we are that Jesus knows us, and knows our name – however it’s pronounced, or abbreviated.
How privileged we are that Jesus is our shepherd,  and leads and guides us.

Today’s theme is also very personal to me in that my mother’s maiden name was the Anglo-Saxon name Sheppard,
one of several spelling variations of this occupational name. (Shepherd)   It also brings back many memories – From the mid-1970s we lived in a place called Amanzimtoti, a long Zulu name meaning place of sweet waters, so often abbreviated to Toti.   The congregation there outgrew its old church of St John’s   and a new round or roundish church was built.  We were privileged to have been part of that congregation  which was asked what they would like the new church building to be named.   By far the highest votes were for the name The Good Shepherd. 
That name was never abbreviated – perhaps we weren’t suited to being called just The Good!  

By referring to himself as the good Shepherd  did Jesus infer there were BAD shepherds?   Well, yes, he spoke about the hired hand who does not own the sheep,  he is just doing a job for personal gain, his wages,  and not for the sake of the sheep at all. When he sees a wolf he thinks only of himself and runs away, leaving the sheep to be snatched and scattered by the wolf. But our shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.  And he knows his sheep. Bad shepherds that Jesus used as a metaphor for the Pharisees, were in it for their own interest and didn’t care for the sheep. Pharisees were just concerned for themselves and didn’t want to break out of their self-righteous comfort zone.

Jesus also says he has other sheep who are not in the fold  but he must bring them in as well & they will listen to his voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.   Jesus was referring to non-Jews – he came to save Gentiles as well

                                                                                          – 3 –
as Jews in his worldwide mission.  God’s flock is one of great diversity. Jesus emphasised “There will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16)   So also today;   there will be black sheep,  cream sheep,  spotted lambs,  crippled ewes,  rams with broken horns,  long haired sheep,   sheep with short curly hair,  white lambs,  majestic beasts –  There is no distinction in God’s flock. One shepherd – with ONE flock encompassing all.

Jesus was not the first to use the image of the shepherd. That image of a shepherd has been there in the long tradition of Israel.  In the Hebrews scriptures in the Old Testament the image of the shepherd is used to refer to the leaders of the people of Israel.   The prophets referred again and again to the leaders of Israel as shepherds, and to God  as the true shepherd of the people.

Sheep are mentioned more than 500 times in the Bible, more than any other animal. Sheep were important to the agricultural life of the Hebrews and similar peoples. Sheep are also used throughout the Bible to symbolically refer to God’s people. Those who were given special leadership tasks by God in the Bible were literally shepherds and this prepared them for the great mission.    Early in the Old Testament, Moses was tending his father-in-law’s sheep and was holding a shepherd’s staff, his tool for controlling his flock, guiding them, hooking them out of danger in rocky crevices, and so on, and the staff was then given new meaning by God as a symbol of leadership, authority, and the power of God. (Exodus 3:1, 4:2). David was not just a shepherd boy, but when the people of all the tribes of Israel went to David at Hebron to anoint him as their king, they said “The LORD said to you: ‘It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be leader of Israel’ “ (2 Sam 5:1-3)

And of course we have seen that in Psalm 23 David paints a perfect picture of God as a good shepherd who cares, nurtures, and protects his sheep.  Yes, leaders in the Old Testament are seen as shepherds;  however, the Jews had a dream of a good shepherd who is to come, as was foretold by the prophets. (Ezek 34) 
What Ezekiel expected to be exercised by God   is now accomplished in Jesus. 
A shepherd takes great care of his sheep because they can’t take care of themselves well enough on their own.  
The shepherd leads his flock from the front,   he does not drive from behind as cattle herders do. 
And what distinguishes Jesus as the good shepherd is his humility, patience and tolerance.  
Jesus loves his sheep to the point of giving his life for them. He shepherds his flock at the cost of laying down his own life for them.  Sacrificial love took Jesus to the cross where he died for his flock.

So what are the implications for us here?  Jesus says that his sheep know him. The shepherd and his sheep have spent time together, getting to know one another.  As we have seen, his sheep know him from his voice.
He says to us that we should be able to recognise his voice when he speaks to us, even among all the other voices we might hear. Sometimes we hear Jesus’ voice in the things we hear at church and the things we read about him in the Bible. Sometimes we hear Jesus’ voice speaking directly to us, and perhaps we need to practice listening to it.

Christians need to spend time with Jesus in order that they may know, trust and follow him. Not just once a week in church, but during the week as well. Do we spend enough quiet time with our Lord, talking with him, praying, reading the Bible learning to listen so that we recognise his voice?  Are our lives too busy to hear him?  When our conscience says “Don’t do that” or “Don’t say that”, we hear our conscience and know our deed or words might harm someone, but we ignore it.   
That’s when our Good Shepherd can reel us back in, using the shepherd’s crook of his voice and calling our name.    But are we listening?    It is so easy to stray, and end up in need of help.   
When we realise our need for a helping hand, and if we look around and cannot see the shepherd,  and we cannot
see other members of our fold, then what we need to do is simply call out to him, because the good shepherd is
looking for us, and our voice will help him find us faster.  
Jesus knows everything about each one of us and, wonder of wonders, he STILL loves and accepts us!
His love is unconditional; we do not have to earn it, although it must make a difference to our lives.

What is our responsibility?     Just as Jesus looks after us, so we are to look after each other. 
We are called to be as caring – as he was. To be as caring for others – as he was. To be open to others – as he was. 
We have one shepherd and we should be one sheep herd.   
In the epistle today from 1^st John (3:16-24) we are reminded to love one another, not in word and speech, but in truth and action.
We are all called to be shepherds!     We can strive to be good shepherds by loving others  in truth and action,
and especially knowing Jesus more  as his own.        

HOW  GOOD  A  SHEPHERD  ARE  WE?         Amen.

                                                                                        Sandra Bentall  for Good Shepherd Sunday 25^th April 2021 in St Clement’s.

“They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.” (Luke 24.42-43)

(Third Sunday of Easter,  St. Clement’s, Hastings, 18^th April 2021)

What’s the most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten? Mine is most probably a meal eaten over thirty years ago at La Maison du Cygne on the Grand Place in Brussels.  I was leading a school trip and a generous parent had arranged for the four members of staff to dine there on his account.  So while the pupils went off to McDonald’s – unsupervised in those pre-risk assessment days, of course – the staff went to dine in the grand fashion.  I remember to this day the most wonderful caneton aux peches – slices of roast duck interwoven with braised peaches – accompanied by several bottles of a rather stunning pinot noir.  The bill came as a bit of a shock – 38,750 Belgian francs which was about £650 for the four of us – and this was in 1989.  I signed the bill quite happily for later payment by the parent.  “I hope you had a good evening,” he said to me when I next encountered him. It would appear from a quick read of tripadvisor that, over thirty years on, the restaurant has lost its reputation as one of the top restaurants in Brussels.  It seems that they let in anyone these days.

“They gave him a piece of broiled fish.”  It’s grilled fish for Jesus not caneton aux peches.  Have you ever considered just how much eating happens in the Gospels?  There is, of course, the Last Supper.  Then there’s the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the breakfast – fish, again – by the Sea of Galilee described in John 21.  There is dining with the likes of Zacchaeus and the Pharisees accuse Jesus of dining with tax collectors and sinners. 

And in the Old Testament there is also a lot of eating: Passover, manna in the wilderness, Abraham and the mysterious visitors at the oaks of Mamre and, lest we forget, the whole drama of salvation began with Adam biting off more than humanity could chew.

Meals can be enjoyable for reasons apart from the food itself.  They can deepen friendship, demonstrate generosity, express gratitude.They can also be significant in our memories – perhaps a dinner party where we first met someone of great significance in our lives – or even a last supper with a loved one before they died.

It’s not without good reason that the Bible pictures the Kingdom of Heaven as being like a banquet.  “Many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 8.11)  That is God’s promise and invitation to us.

The Holy Communion reminds us of that promise.  It reminds us of the Last Supper with a loved one before tragedy struck.  It reminds us of the heavenly banquet to come.  It reminds us of generosity, that God so loved the world.  It expresses our fellowship, our communion, with Jesus Christ and all our fellow Christians, be they counted amongst the quick or the dead.

We are called to be guests at the Lord’s table.  We’ve said that sharing a meal is also an occasion for showing gratitude.  To what extent do we do that?  Is it by careful preparation and prayer?

I have been in churches in which some people chat to each other as they wait to receive and thank goodness that this is not the case here.  The Corinthian church, as we know, would not have been one for a first-time incumbent.  St Paul’s words to them have lost none of their power: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.  Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink the cup.  For all who eat and drink unworthily without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves.”

 (I Cor.11.27-29)

By now you will have realised that, by preference, I am very old-fashioned when it comes to liturgy.  It is simply that I find much modern liturgy to be too light on human sin, barely a glancing acknowledgement in some cases.  I hope that in due course we will be able to incorporate the Prayer of Humble Access into any new service booklets because none of us should presume to come the table of our merciful Lord trusting in our own righteousness.  We can only trust in His manifold and great mercies.

We’ve come a long way from a piece of broiled fish in an upper room or caneton aux peches in La Maison du Cygne but we are invited to a meal this morning which reminds us of a past meal, provides communion in a present meal with both the quick and the dead and points to a future meal in the Kingdom of God.

So draw near with faith.  Receive the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee and His Blood which was shed for thee and feed on Him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.

© Paul Hunt 2021

St Clement’s

Low Sunday (11^th April 2021)

Thomas

During Holy Week in the preaching we
followed the theme of people in the Easter story – Caiaphas, Peter, Pilate and
Judas. Not surprisingly Jesus took the subject of Easter Day and now we turn to
Thomas.

A few years ago I went on a trip to India
and visited The St Thomas Basilica, built on St Thomas Mount close to where he
had been martyred. It is commonly accepted that Thomas became an evangelist to
India. He was also a skilled carpenter and was given money by one of the Kings
to build a palace.  The story goes that
he gave all the money to the poor and when eventually the king realised there
was no building site, put Thomas in jail.  Years later a group of non-believers
confronted him and demanded that he deny his faith in Christ. The one- time
doubter said, “I will never, ever, renounce Christ.” His accusers responded by
driving spears through his body. The remains of his bones are in the crypt of
the Basilica behind the High Altar. 
There are many writings about Thomas, not least the gospel of Thomas
that did not make its way into the Bible. But this one-time doubter was now committed
enough to die for his Lord and his God. Why the difference? Because He knew
without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus really is alive!

We know the story well!  For even though we follow a three-year
lectionary, the Gospel lesson for this particular Sunday is the same every
year. On this Second Sunday of Easter, we repeat the story that places Thomas
in his role as doubting the witness of the other disciples to having seen the
risen Christ.
Of course, to forever brand Thomas as an unfaithful doubter of our Lord’s
resurrection, is unfair as he is pictured as being a faithful disciple of Jesus
prior to his crucifixion, and  proved to
be a faithful apostle of our Lord, following his resurrection.  Our reading tells us that the disciples of
Jesus, with the exception of Thomas, had gathered together on Easter evening.
But instead of celebrating the news of Christ’s resurrection, we are told that
they had gathered behind locked doors, in fear of the Jewish authorities. But
why were they afraid? What did they fear? Matthew’s Gospel gives us a hint. He
tells us that the Roman guards, assigned to guard the tomb of Jesus,
experienced the earth quake, saw the stone sealing the grave moved by an angel,
and in awe and fear, fell to the ground and pretended to be dead.  Then Matthew tells us, that some of the guard
went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. But
instead of receiving the news with joy, they bribed the guards to report that
they had fallen asleep, and that the disciples had come and stolen the body of
Jesus. The guards took the bribe, and did as the Scribes had said. Their report
quickly spread throughout Jerusalem. And so, the disciples huddled behind
locked doors, because they were being sought for stealing a corpse and
perpetrating a hoax, a crime punishable by death. But the locked doors could
not keep the risen Christ from entering the room.  Jesus came and stood among them, with a
greeting of peace.

But Thomas was not with the disciples that
day, or for several days, as far as we know. So when Jesus appears again who
was Thomas to believe? What was he to believe? 
This poses the question to each of us, who have come to worship on this
second Sunday of Easter. Who do we believe? What are we to believe? Do we
believe that the disciples have pulled off one of the biggest hoaxes in all of
history, by taking the body of Jesus out of the tomb, reburying it in some
undisclosed location, to portray the myth that Jesus had risen from the grave?
Or do we truly believe the witness of the disciples, who have testified that
they saw Jesus risen from the dead, on that first Easter evening?

But it is now one week later and Thomas is
there standing in the same room and announces that he will only believe if he
can touch Jesus’ hands and side. Here is a disciple being an absolute stinker.
Why is he behaving this way? Some of his response might be accounted for by his
personality. He is an analytical person by nature. He doesn’t just go along.
Without condemning or scolding, Jesus invites Thomas to examine the truth. He
didn’t call him a “Doubting Thomas.” That’s a name we’ve invented. Jesus
invites him to touch him. But there is no recollection in the Bible of such a
scene actually happening because Thomas recognises Jesus and says “ MY LORD AND
MY GOD!” It is Thomas who is the first to say to Jesus after the Resurrection,
“My Lord – and my God.” I love Thomas’ response. Regardless of his
failings in the past this is his finest hour. Hear the awe in his voice as
Thomas addresses Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” The doubter has become the
worshipper.[25] He has surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. He has
acknowledged the divinity of Christ with absolute clarity. What a powerful proof
of the divinity of Jesus this scene is. There can be no mistake about it.
Thomas is declaring Jesus to be his God and Jesus is receiving that.[26] This
is where we all must be in our commitment to the Lord. He has to be both.

Actually, it would have been unacceptable for Thomas to have done anything else
but express doubts. There is a difference between trust and gullibility. There
is a difference between being a person of faith, and a sucker. So Thomas, the
doubter, makes the most profound confession of faith in the entire Gospel of
John. Jesus then responds to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen
me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

These words of our risen Lord form the climax of John’s Gospel. These words are
intended for us, those of us who continue to carry on the Good News of our
Lord’s resurrection, as it has been handed down from those who were privileged
to witness our risen Lord’s presence, from generation to generation.
Thus, this story of Thomas doubting the news of Christ’s resurrection, gave
voice to the doubts of every generation and his doubts are our doubts.  Thomas represents each one of us. He’s real –
he’s human , he expresses his thoughts out loud. To Thomas, that is what the
scars of Jesus meant — the Resurrection is real. To Thomas, the scars meant evidence
of the Resurrection.  He gets it. Not
only does he get it, but he gets in a deeper and much more profound way. Jesus
who was once just Lord has now become Lord and God.

What do these scars mean to us? For us, it serves as a reminder of the humanity
of Christ. There is something about scars that seems to make a person
“more human”.  We are sometimes
suspicious about people who seem to be “too perfect”: about children
who don’t have some signs of scraped knees, about teenagers who don’t show any
signs of acne, about models whose hair is perfect. There is something about our
scars that makes us real, believable, trustworthy. Maybe it is because we know
that life hands out its damaging blows to all people of all ages, of all
backgrounds. It is sometimes easy for us to accept the divinity of Christ, and
to forget the humanity of Christ. But Christ was both divine and human.

In Philippians, Paul said (2:6-7), Jesus, being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”   
Like Thomas, there are times we will be challenged. We will doubt and in our
time of doubt we will search, examine, question, and we too can gain a stronger
and deeper understanding of faith, of God, and of our relationship with him.

And so, on this second Sunday of Easter, we are invited to bring our doubts
into God’s presence, into the fellowship of the faithful, and  to allow God’s Spirit to strengthen our faith
in our Lord’s resurrection victory over sin and death. Yes, it is an incredible
story that we are called upon to believe and trust. It defies logic and sane
reason.   Yet, that is the witness of the
church. Those early disciples gave witness with more than their words. Peter
was crucified,  many of the other
disciples were also martyred for their faith. Stephen was stoned to death, Paul
was beheaded.

Can you join with Thomas today and say “My
Lord and my God”

Pat Lock (Reader)

Rolling Our Stone Away

“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb and as she wept, she stooped to look inside” (John 20.11)

The bones of Jesus have been found.  The skeleton of a crucified man, found under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, has been positively identified as that of Jesus.  So what does this mean for us as Christians?  Does it mean that our Creed should finish with the words “crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and was buried”?  For it is there that the Gospel story now ends.  What are we to make of those words of St. Paul:

“If Christ be not raised from the dead, then your faith is in vain”? (I Cor.15.14)

Well might we, like Mary Magdalene, weep at the entrance to the tomb.

But be not afraid.  For it is now Easter Day, and the story of the discovery of the bones of Jesus belongs to a novel by the Roman Catholic writer Piers Paul Read.   The alleged discovery of Jesus’ skeleton forms the basis of his novel On the Third Day and a splendid novel it is.

But what would be the result of such a discovery in real life?  There would, I suspect, be two reactions.  One would involve a radical re-writing of the Christian faith.  Jesus would be respected as an inspired man but no more and who was put to death for his beliefs.  Talk of resurrection would only mean that he and his teachings lived on in the memory of his disciples.  This is BBC Christianity.  The second reaction would be more honest and that would be to suffer a complete loss of faith.  For if Christ be not raised from the dead, then truly is our faith in vain.  With Mary Magdalene, we could indeed only stand at the entrance to that garden tomb and weep.  Weeping for the loss of a loved one but weeping, too, for the loss of meaning in our lives, for the loss of a faith  that has sustained us over the years and our loss of the resurrection hope.  Our faith would indeed have been in vain and, as St. Paul also says, of all people we would be most to be pitied.

It is something like this which happens to the main character in Piers Paul Read’s novel.  Andrew Nash is a twenty-eight year old novice monk who is about to take his final vows and dedicate his life to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He also happens to be an archaeologist whose great mentor has been responsible for identifying the crucified skeleton as that of Jesus.  Andrew is in despair at the discovery: His life has collapsed and is empty.  He weeps, both for himself and for the world which has no saviour.  He is to live in a permanent Holy Saturday, forever caught between Good Friday and an Easter Day without a resurrection.

Holy Saturday is important, that time when grief and bereavement and weeping follow the death of someone we love.  But how often do we as Christians think about the events of Good Friday and about the events of Easter Day without pausing to think much, if at all, about that Holy Saturday?  How often do we think about Good Friday from the vantage point of Easter Day, paying lip service to Good Friday sorrow in the assurance that everything will be alright in the end?

But the experience of Holy Saturday is crucial to Christian faith, for without it we cannot Experience Easter Day as the day of true resurrection.  The modern habit of calling yesterday Easter Saturday is not simply liturgically incorrect.  It is a failure of understanding and a failure of imagination too.

On Holy Saturday Jesus is dead.  The disciples’ faith is dead, buried with that battered body in the tomb.  Their prayers remain unanswered.  Their hope for the future has vanished.  They have lost not only their teacher, but also the God to whom he pointed.

Holy Saturday is above all a day of darkness, a day of despair.  That is something we should understand.  The nineteenth century hope of humanity’s perfectibility and the belief in our essential goodness died in our self-crucifixion on the Somme and in Belsen, on the ground at Hiroshima and in the twin Towers and in the terrorist horrors since.  Humanity is living in a Holy Saturday of its own making with no sign of an Easter Day.  Just look at the faces of refugees from various countries and listen to the stories they tell.

And, like Andrew Nash in the novel, do we not also have our own personal Holy Saturdays?   That time of personal tragedy, that time of unspeakable loss, that time of doubt that all shall be well, that time, perhaps, even of a loss of faith.  That time when our prayers seem to go unanswered and the spirit is dry.

We can also build our own tombs and bury ourselves in a slough of despond or in anger or hatred or fear or addiction or guilt or aching regret or disappointment or in any of the many other conditions which eat away at our lives and ultimately destroy them.

Do we not sometimes, outwardly or inwardly, weep outside our own tombs?

In the novel Andrew Nash loses his faith and enters the tomb of despair.  But he experiences resurrection too, for it transpires that the alleged skeleton of Jesus is but a clever forgery, deliberately designed to undermine the Christian Church.  His faith is restored, is resurrected, but in a deeper way than before, having shared Holy Saturday with those first disciples before emerging into the light of Easter Day.

I am always somewhat disturbed by Christians who tell me that they never experience any doubt.  That claim comes very close to blasphemy, to claiming a permanent hold on God, as though it is we who control Him.  One of the wiser characters in the novel speaks of an Almighty God who retires from our lives momentarily – what the Bible refers to as the hiding of God’s face – to remind us that we are lost without Him.  With Him we are not lost, for Christ has been raised from the dead and faith is not in vain.  The essence of the Christian Gospel is that there is an Easter Day which swallows up all our Holy Saturdays.

Mary Magdalene, St John tells us, came to the tomb when it was still dark.  Like her, we too can stand weeping in the darkness outside of the Lord’s tomb and weeping secretly in the darkness outside of our own Holy Saturday tomb.  But like her and the other women, we need the courage to look into the Lord’s tomb which is now empty.  Jesus spoke to her gently: “Mary”.  In the darkest moment of her life the Resurrected Jesus called to Mary by name.  And if we will only listen, we shall find that he is calling us too and that the stone in front of our own tomb has also been rolled away.

Original version preached at St John’s, Upper St Leonards on Easter Day 2019

Revised version preached at St Clement’s, Hastings On Easter Day 2021

© Paul Hunt 2021

Tab Content

DARKNESS AT NOON

 “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2.8)

What would we have thought about Jesus had we watched Him enter Jerusalem on that spring day some two thousand years ago?

We would have seen a man riding upon a donkey.

We would have seen some people spreading their garments on the road in front of Him.

We would have seen others cutting down palm branches and waving them as He passed.

And we would have heard the cry of many: “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

So what would we have made of Jesus had we seen Him on that spring day?

We are sometimes told that the story of Palm Sunday illustrates the fickleness of human nature, that those who cheered Jesus on that spring day would soon be calling for His death on Good Friday.  Doubtless there was an element of that but the Gospels make a distinction between the spectators who cheered and those who did not.   The battle lines had already been drawn.

Would we have joined with those who cheered?  Or, if we are honest, would we have joined those who watched and waited and wondered?

Whatever our response, we would have seen that entry into Jerusalem as nothing less than a triumph.  Along with thousands of other Jews at Passover, Jesus had journeyed to Jerusalem but He alone had arrived to messianic greetings and a royal welcome.

He arrived as a king.  For the donkey, that poor misunderstood creature, was a noble animal ridden by kings in times of peace.  To see the donkey – incorrectly – as a creature for the poor and humble is to miss the point.  Jesus arrives on a royal beast, as a king, a king of peace.  Contrary to what we are often told in devotional literature, Jesus is not demonstrating his humility by riding that donkey and contrasting Himself with the rulers of this world and their magnificent horses.

No, Jesus arrived as a king.  Those who cheered thought, not unreasonably, that the road into Jerusalem was the path to a triumphant kingship; but the throne at the end of the path was a cross, and the crown was of thorns.  And darkness would cover the earth.  Jesus knew that; but those who cheered did not.

Do we not sometimes inwardly cheer for ourselves in our own little successes, our own mini-triumphs, whatever they may be?  It is comforting to think that we can plot and follow a path that leads, not to Jerusalem and Golgotha, but to our own triumph, however we may define that.  But however much we may plot and plan and scheme, we can never tell what the changes and chances of this fleeting world may demand of us.  And in these days of what is known as “Building a C.V.”, how often is it the case that having achieved material success in career or riches or both, life is found to be empty of meaning?  For truly, we bring nothing into this world and can take nothing out.  Our cheer may ring hollow.

And think of the famous whose exploits or speeches we have followed in the media or on the radio and television.  “How are the mighty fallen!” exclaimed David in his lament.  We can all think of tragic or flawed heroes in literature or of people in public life for whom a loss of respect or prestige in one form or another follows their triumph.  We sometimes even speak of it as a “fall from grace”, literally a fall, like that of Adam, from a right relationship with God.

For such people, the fall represents their nemesis, the final crumbling of their worldly triumph and the tearing down of their illusory splendour.  There is no room for tragedy on the path to worldly success.  How often do we follow the story of someone’s rise to fame or success in play or book or film in which we know that unforeseen tragedy awaits?  We say to ourselves, “If only they knew…”   Perhaps we have cause to say of our own lives, “If only we had known…”

Jesus knew.  He knew what awaited him in Jerusalem, He knew that tragedy would follow triumph, and therein may be found the difference between Him and the fallen mighty. 

What about ourselves?  For much of our lives we are comfortable, secure in the illusion that we can control our destiny. We have domesticated the cross and reduced it to little more than a piece of jewellery.  But Jesus calls us to take up the cross and to follow him on a journey in which we abandon our egos, abandon our desire to succeed, abandon our desire for the acclaim of others, abandon our desire for the world, the flesh and the Devil.  In following Jesus we travel to the cross in imitation of Him who humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.  We are invited not to broad sunlit uplands but to darkness at noon.  The glory of Jesus Christ who, even though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, comes from what He voluntarily offers up and not from what He might want.  And so the cross is no nemesis, however the world might judge it.  For it reveals the depth of the moral grandeur which is of the very essence of God.  And that is why God the Father has highly exalted Him so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.

Let us picture Jesus as He enters Jerusalem as a king on his donkey.  We wave our palm branches and cheer.  He is acclaimed as the Messiah who brings salvation to Israel and who reveals God’s power to the Gentiles.  But He is not riding to an earthly triumph and success such as will be applauded by the world.  He is riding to Golgotha and is calling us to follow Him there.  He is calling us to be failures with Him and to put ourselves completely into the hands of the God who accepts us for who we are rather than for whom we imagine or wish ourselves to be, humbling ourselves even to the point of death upon His cross.

What do we see as the chief end of our lives as we wave our palms in triumph this Palm Sunday?  We have our palms like those who cheered in the crowds but they had branches and we have crosses.  Do we really understand what Jesus is saying to us?  As Holy Week begins, the battle lines have been drawn between belief in Jesus, however weak, and unbelief, however reluctant. 

What is our response?  Is it to follow the path in life which we have mapped for ourselves with a little religion along the way to ease our conscience?  Or is it to offer up ourselves, our souls and bodies, into the hands of God and to follow Jesus Christ to the Cross, and, by faith, enter into that darkness at noon?

Original version: St. John’s, Upper St. Leonards, Palm Sunday, 14th April 2019

Revised version: St Clement’s, Hastings, Palm Sunday, 28th March 2021

© Paul Hunt 2021