Matthew 25:31-45

This week is the final week of the gifts and gratitude season we have built around Harvest.

Over the last few weeks, we have thought about:

• God’s love for us, the source of all good in our lives and the inspiration for our own gratitude and generosity. We respond to God’s generosity with our own.
• The fact that God gives us gifts – some for all God’s children (love, forgiveness, the Holy Spirit) some just for us as individuals (spiritual and practical) These gifts are given that we might play our part in serving God’s world and it delights God when we use them.
• We spent Café church thinking about how our community is enriched by the different gifts we bring. No one is unimportant. Many good things could not happen or would be less if everyone didn’t play their part. However, we also recognised that it is important not to be pigeon-holed as the person who always does and limited from doing other things. Depending on the circumstances, some of us can do all sort of things.
• Jo then helped us think about how we might have a generous and healthy attitude to money. This was important as it can be hard to talk about money, but Jesus talks about it a lot. He wants us to use money for good not be scared or enslaved by it.
• Lastly we celebrated Harvest with a festival of gratitude and of gifts: financial and practical.

So this final week, I want to encourage you to make gratitude and gifts part of your every day life. A puppy is not just for Christmas and Gratitude and gifts are not just for Harvest! And to help you take these principles forward into your life – where from time to time situations change and you have to change what you can offer – I am offering this simple tool. A couple of questions

Where am I most blessed: time, talents or treasure?

Now what do I mean by that? Well, too often we worry about where we are poor, but why not think about where we are rich. In our first reading, Peter and John didn’t have even a few coins to throw in a beggar’s bowl. But they had time: they stopped and made the beggar look at them. They were available for an encounter, recognising each other as human beings, and then Peter used the gift or talent God had given him, to heal in Jesus’ name. Peter could have worried that he didn’t have the thing the beggar was asking for, but instead he said “I don’t have that, I will give you something better!”

At different times of our lives, we will have time, or talents – that is opportunities to use the things we are particularly good at – or treasure – our money and resources.

When the children were small and I was training part time at college for ministry, we had very little cash to play with. Almost zero treasure. But actually I was rich in time and availability. If someone needed a cup of tea and a bit of cheering up, I was your girl. If there was an event on that needed some supporting, so long as I could bring a buggy I was there. There wasn’t much opportunity to use my talents with three ankle-biters in tow and I had little financial treasure, but I had time, and actually time is a great gift to share. So if you are rich in time, how might you use it for God’s Kingdom. Could you have a cuppa with someone who is lonely? Could you turn up and swell the numbers at a coffee morning or concert or protest? Could you pray? Could you fold Christmas leaflets for the social committee? Could you man a stall or keep the church open for an event? Time is a valuable gift.

Now I am in the lovely position where I get to use the talents or gifts I have been given to serve the church and the parish. And I love it. But my free available time is much less. After the time I give to the parish, Diocese and my immediate family, there isn’t the same space to be available to a friend in a crisis or to mosey up at a community event. It is just a different season of life with its joys and drawbacks. So if you are working doing something where you get to use the gifts God has given you for good, but it means you can’t volunteer for a church rota right now, don’t beat yourself up. It is just a season in life. Give what you have – your talents to God’s service.

But not everyone has time or talents to offer. I once had a friend who was a high powered business man. He wanted to do more for the church, and he would volunteer for things that weren’t really his skill set, then get so frustrated if whatever he worked on didn’t go perfectly because he had very little time and felt it had been wasted or unappreciated. I tried to suggest to him that perhaps he could donate some of the money he earned when he was working so hard to help the church pay someone to do some of these things, then they would be done well and he wouldn’t be frazzled. He was poor in time and rich in treasure but wanted to act as if it were the other way round.

Now in reality you will probably find life frustrating if you are not giving to God in all three spheres, sharing your time, talents and treasure. It is certainly a good discipline to try to include a little of all three in what we offer to God. A bit like a healthy meal should include vegetables, carbs and protein and a healthy giving attitude will include something of our time, our talents and our treasure. But there may be times when you can offer more of one than another and that is okay. It can be useful to do a bit of a life audit every so often and ask ourselves. Where am I rich? Where have I less to offer? How can I make sure I am being generous with what I have in this season of life?

The final point I want to make as we draw this series of service to a close is to just to encourage you to do your part. Our gospel reading is not the most encouraging on the surface, but actually, I think there is much to help us. It reminds us that all of our kind acts towards others are seen by God and valued as if done for Christ himself. You can almost hear the bemusement in those on the right’s voices – really, me, righteous? I just helped where I could. Unlike those on the left who refused to do their bit.

Recently, I found this on the internet.

What the world needs is not a few people doing everything perfectly, but lots and lots of people doing a few things imperfectly. It continued…

‘To the person who uses metal straws to save fish but consumes animals, I’d like to say thank you. To the vegan who isn’t aware of our homelessness problem, thank you. To the climate change activists who aren’t attentive to fast fashion, thank you. To the girl who gives her old clothes to the disadvantaged but isn’t educated on sex trafficking, thank you. To the guy who picks up rubbish on his way home from a surf but isn’t well-informed about male suicide rates, thank you. To the people who stand up for horse racing concerns but are uninformed of the cruelty of the dairy industry, thank you. To the positive Instagram influencer who hasn’t cultivated a plastic-free lifestyle, thank you. To the grandparents who knit for sick children but aren’t up to date with current race and homophobic issues, thank you. To the students that stand up for bullying but are unaware of the constant domestic violence epidemic, thank you. To the peace activists, feminists, stray dog adopters, teachers, volunteers, foster carers, recyclers, givers, doers and believers, I say thank you. We are all on a different path and we all see through different eyes. Current world issues that you are passionate about, aren’t always what other people are trying to change… and that’s okay. It’s not everyone’s job to save every part of the world but it is everyone’s responsibility to thank every person who is doing THEIR part to save the world. Don’t critique, just appreciate. Don’t judge, just educate. We’re all trying our best. Thank you.’ Carla Borthwick.

Sharing God’s love and grace with the world is not a job a few of us can do all of. What we can all do is use our time, our talents and our treasure in the strength and equipping of God to care for God’s world and work for His Kingdom.

Readings: 1 Corinthians 12:4-19 and Matthew 25:14-29

I wonder if any of you know someone like my Auntie Mary. Now some people, when they are invited round for a meal, will bring a small gift – maybe some flowers, some sweets for after the meal or a bottle of something, which is lovely and more than is expected. However, my Auntie Mary is a great shopper and is always finding unusual and special things, so when she turns up for a visit, she will bring a small gift, but it will be a very personal thing chosen because it made her think of her host. She is quite remarkable and rather infuriating because it is impossible to do the same in return. But I was thinking about how that aspect of my Auntie Mary is very like God   When God is invited into our lives, when the Holy Spirit arrives in our hearts, God brings all sorts of gifts. Some gifts are for all who are children of God: love forgiveness freedom hope, but also some gifts that are just for you.

So what sort of gifts, just for you, just for me, does God give.

Some gifts God gives are natural gifts. They are there already in the way God made you, and God simply gives you a new way of using them. So the person who is naturally good at getting a party going will be brilliant at making people feel welcome. The person who is good at organising, if they offer that gift to God, will find themselves organising events or projects which bless others. The person who is good at listening will find they can offer help to people who need somewhere safe to open up

Some gifts are supernatural gifts which are beyond what normal humans might be able to do. Our Pentecostal sisters and brothers are good at recognising these, while in our branch of the Church of England, we are a bit more shy about talking about them. But they are true and some people have them nonetheless. People who, with God’s help can give just the right bit of advice that changes someone’s life. People who just know stuff sometimes, not in a creepy way but in a way that helps them love and helps others better. People who pray and see answers to their prayers for which there is no rational explanation. People who can cut through the noise and fake news and see the world from God’s point of view. People who can just spot what is good and true in confusing situations. These are like human skills plus – abilities that are a bit too wise and wonderful to be entirely down to the talents of the person.

I wonder who does the gift buying in your home. It is my job at the Vicarage and I love it. I honestly think it is better to give than to receive. For the true gift-giver, there is nothing we love more than seeing our gifts opened, enjoyed and even used. Unopened, unused unenjoyed gifts make us feel so sad! And I do wonder if this is how God feels about the gifts God gives us and we don’t recognise, use or enjoy.

So everyone has gifts and everyone has gifts that are just for them and God really wants us to use them because:

God loves us and wants us to be all we can be. It would be weird to travel through life using only one of your two arms. In the same way, if we only use some of the gifts and abilities God has given us, we don’t live life to the full.

God has designed his family to work best when all of us are doing the things we are gifted to do. Your gifts are given so that together we are blessed!

So if we all have gifts and they are good for us and for others, why don’t people open and use their gifts:

They simply don’t know what they are! We think the things that are specially ours are nothing out of the ordinary and that surely everyone can do these things. Terry or David can fix most things with a bit of head scratching and some things they find in their shed or garage. And to them, this is probably no big deal! To me, who can barely put up a picture hook without problems, this is nothing short of a superpower. We need encouragement from others to notice the things we do that are valued and special in our community. I think we are pretty good at this as a church, at thanking people for the things they do that bless our community and at encouraging people in the things they offer. What I suppose I am saying is keep doing this!

So, second reason people don’t use their gifts: for some people, the thought of using their gift is frightening.  I remember one childhood Christmas I was give roller-skates – I was so excited to get these roller-skates and couldn’t wait to go outside and try them out. So after Christmas dinner, my Dad took me outside to use my new gift. It was a nightmare. I was like Bambi on ice, sliding everywhere. Before we had got to the next lamppost, my Dad and I decided we had had enough and to go back inside. Just because I had a gift didn’t mean I was automatically brilliant at it.  I had to practice.  This was certainly my experience in ministry. I began my journey towards becoming a priest through a strong call to preach, but my first preach at a strange church was a complete disaster. At the end, my placement supervisor told me that the sermon wasn’t bad but that I was so quiet no one could hear me, those who could hear me would struggle to understand my accent and those who could understand would struggle to keep up because I went too fast. Furthermore, I was shaking so much from nerves they could all see the hem on my cassock fluttering. I was pretty crushed. But I just had to sit down and work out ways to compensate for or overcome these problems, and still do to this day, so I can use the gift God has given me.

Lastly, some people think that if they use their gift and get it wrong, God will be cross. This is a mistaken and warped view of God a bit like the third servant in the parable we heard earlier. The “talent” or “bag of silver” mentioned in the reading is not a small amount but actually about fifteen years wages. It is a mind-boggling amount of treasure to be entrusted to servants’ care. And when the first two servants do something with the resources entrusted to their care, there is fulsome praise, they are allowed to continue to use the riches they helped produce and the master trusts them even more. Then along comes the poor third servant, a servant who neither trusts their own abilities or their master’s kindness and who is too fearful to risk anything so hides the problem instead. If we are operating out of a place of fear, we can never use our gifts well. We need to return to what we thought about last week: the abundant, never-failing, overwhelming love God has for each one of us. When we can trust even a little bit in that goodness and love, we find the courage to begin to use our gifts.

In conclusion: we all have gifts, God is delighted when we enjoy them, the Church is blessed when we use them.  The things that stop us using our gifts for everyone’s benefit is not recognising them, being afraid of failure and of God being cross.  But back to last week, the root of all generosity and gift giving is knowing that God is a God of generosity and grace and YOU ARE LOVED!

Readings: Romans 8:31-end and Luke 23:32-46

I was sorely tempted to begin this sermon with an iconic clip from the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian.  You know, the one where Reg from the Judean Peoples’ Front asks a meeting of the group what the Romans have ever done for them?  There is a pause before people start saying “The aqueduct…the sanitation…the roads…”  Finally exasperated, Reg blurts out: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

It is a scene more funny because of its reflection on human nature than because of its historical accuracy.  The Roman Empire brought many advancements in their occupied territories but often at great cost.  I don’t think that the Monty Python writers, who after all made this film within a generation of World War 2, are celebrating occupation.  However, it was true then, is true now and ever shall be – until Jesus returns again – that human beings are very good at forgetting their blessings.  Actually, it is neurologically easier for us to remember negative things than nice things – over years of evolution, it is the way our brains are wired.  If you think about this from the point of view of an early hunter gatherer, it is probably more important to remember where the sabre tooth tiger lives – and avoid it – than where the pretty glen is with the lovely flowers.  It is basic survival.  But human beings were made for more than mere survival and we cannot live well and fully if we forget the good.  Counting our blessings, developing a mindset of gratitude, is essential to live kindly and courageously in our world.

That is why Harvest is such an important Christian festival.  It should not simply be seen as some hangover from the days when we were all farmers – although it remains an important time to remember and be thankful for those who work in this vital industry.  Stopping each year to be grateful is of life-giving importance to us as individuals and as a community.  It is also profoundly countercultural.  The baseline concept in our capitalist society is scarcity – you all need more, it constantly tells us.  You don’t have enough!  Have one telly – you really need two!  Been on one holiday this year?  Book another – you are missing out!  Got a warm, comfortable home – well, wouldn’t it be better if it was more fashionable, bigger, had a hot tub!  Got a healthy body?  You’d be better with a skinnier, fitter, better dressed and ideally younger one!  You are always one purchase away from a better life, and this message is so pervasive that we can miss how it shapes our thinking.  But this mindset is a fearful one – if we never have enough this makes us afraid to be generous, afraid to take risks, afraid to be reliant on each other in case we lose our ability to get the next thing we are told we need.  The antidote to such frightened thinking is to be grateful and to make regular gratitude and generosity part of our living and thinking and acting.

Now, over the next few years, we are going to have to be very brave and kind and generous in our living, because we have a dream to grow this church.  As we approach our church’s 200^th birthday in 2024, we want it to go into its third century equipped to continue sharing God’s love with this community for another hundred years.  We know that the best thing any church can have if it wants to serve its community – something even better than a brilliant parish centre or a wonderful hall – is a group of people who love God and love their neighbour.  So that is why we are trying to build our congregation – a congregation of 200 people by our 200^th birthday is our aim.  And, yes, it is a daunting one.  If I didn’t believe this was God’s idea and not ours, I would be out of here!

But just as Harvest was a time for the early farming communities to stop, take stock and thank God for God’s goodness before the dark and demanding days of winter; it is important, as we begin our 200 x 200 challenge that we take stock before God, thank God and go into this new adventure (which will have its moments I am sure) secure in the knowledge that God will provide what we need.

Take stock.

Give thanks.

Go forward.

So, today we are beginning by taking stock. Why are we grateful? To paraphrase Reg from the Life of Brian, what has God done for us? Our thankfulness is about so much more than tins and veg. God has given us a Harvest, yes, but God has given us so much more. A bit like Reg, we sometimes have lived so long with the benefits of being a child of God, we forget what they are, so let’s remind ourselves of what they are.

Now, if I were to list all the good things God gives us, this would be a very long sermon indeed, so I am going to stick to two main things.

The first is that God loves us. Utterly absolutely loves us no matter what. The other night in the Vicarage, a child who shall remain nameless was being something of a pain. This was pointed out to her. “Oh well,” she said blithely, “God loves me!” And she’s right. God does love her, more than even her exasperated Mum and Dad do. It is not love we earn or deserve. It is love that is utterly for us, longs for the best for us and will never ever leave us.

You. Are. Loved.

All of you. No exceptions. God doesn’t just love the rest of the congregation and grudgingly put up with you. God’s love isn’t conditional and it isn’t fickle. It is never ending and NOTHING can come between you and God’s love in Jesus.

Ah, yes, Jesus. If you ever doubt God’s love, you only have to look at what that love led God to do. The Old Testament is centuries of God loving and leading and warning and disciplining and forgiving and blessing and loving his friends and chosen people. He hoped that through them, all the world may learn of God’s love. But it wasn’t working. Misunderstandings and sins WERE getting in the way of God’s love and something needed to be done.  Too many people were falling for the serpent’s first lie in Eden: does God really want the best for you?  Does God really love you?

I love RS Thomas poem, The Coming, which imagines the conversation within the Trinity as they looked upon a hurting world that needed to know more of God’s love:

[Read the poem – for reasons of copyright we cannot reproduce it here]

Let me go there. God’s first act of love, in Jesus, was to come to us. To enter our hurting world, our limited human experience and become one of us that we might know God. But of course, it didn’t stop there. God spent three decades amongst us, not as a privileged leader, but as a ordinary person leading a precarious life, bringing truth and healing and love wherever he went. And when that truth brought him into conflict with those who preferred lies, he was murdered, a criminal’s death. He could have called legions of angels to his defence, yet he let humanity do its worst. Because we needed to know. He went through humiliation and pain and loneliness and betrayal; he gave everything he was. Because we needed to know. We needed to know that the worst we could do could never overcome the love of God. We needed to know that there was always hope, always forgiveness, always always love. A love which could not be held in a tomb, could not be beaten by death, a love which upended the laws of time and space and returned Jesus to his friends, scarred but glorious.

You are loved with a love worth having. A love beyond imagining. A love which offers forgiveness from mistakes, freedom from fears. A love which welcomes you as a precious child. A love which will one day welcome you home.

This is what God gives us and what we have to offer others. How badly does our hurting world need that love?

What has God ever done for us? Everything and more. And as St Paul asks, if God would not even withhold his own Son from us, how much more will God give us what we truly need. It won’t be easy, it won’t be without struggle, but we will always ALWAYS be held in God’s love.

Inside your pewsheet are some points to ponder this week. The first – John 3:16-17 – I hope you will have heard before. The second is somewhat more obscure? T.D. Abe “If you are forcing it, you are doing it wrong”! Abe is not some Christian theologian, rather a Ju Jitsu practitioner who applies some of its principles to other areas of life.  I like this soundbite for its application toward gratitude and generosity.

Generosity and gratitude are not things we are to force. They are not things we have have to drag together the dregs of ourselves to perform in the hope that God will love us. Rather, when we know that God loves us, when we let that truth land in our hearts, then gratitude and generosity flow from us in response. That is the gratitude that God that God desires from us, not a gratitude of duty or fear, but a gratitude that is the fruit of knowing God loves us. So if you find yourself having to force your gratitude or generosity, pause. It is time to spend a bit more time receiving God’s love.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to look at some of the ways we might show gratitude and generosity to God and use our gifts in God’s service, but we will keep returning to here – you are loved – because that is the starting point from which all else follows. And so in preparation for the coming weeks, I invite you to spend a bit of time with the points to ponder, and maybe even the readings from the service.  Take time to remember God’s love for you.  If you find this easy, pray for those among us who find it hard – depending on our life experiences, it is not always easy to trust in God’s love.  But it is true, and it is real and it is for you. Amen.

Sunday 8th September 2019 Not so much a sermon as a description of our Family Service!

This year, as part of our Family Service, we held our first Livability Sunday service at St Paul’s. St Paul’s has always tried to be a church where all people feel welcome and Livability is a charity which helps churches become places where people of all abilities and circumstances can flourish. All of us have things we can and cannot do. Some of us are born with disabilities. Some of us develop a disability throughout our life due to illness, accident or aging. However, each of us is precious to God and a gift to one another.

During our service, instead of a talk, we watched this video, where 14-year-old Becky Tyler uses eye gaze technology to preach a stonking homily to 6000 people at Greenbelt.

Despite being unable to do so many things that many of us take for granted, God used Becky to bring a message of love and hope, of challenge and comfort. Too often we think that “we” (the able bodied) are supposed to be helping “them” (those who experience a disability). The reality is that we need the gifts and insights of all our sisters and brother to be most fully the family of God. In the Kingdom of God, those the world perceives as weak or poor are often the ones with strength and riches to share.

(If you want to hear more from Becky, do follow her YouTube channel “EyeGazeGirl”)

Recognising the different ways people communicate, we also decided to introduce some simple BSL signs into our liturgy. We were indebted to Rev Katie Tupling, the Disability Adviser and Chaplain to the Deaf Community in Oxford Diocese for producing this YouTube video at no notice, first thing on a Sunday morning, so we could use BSL responses in our prayers.

Hopefully, Livability Sunday is just one step on our journey to being a church family where all God’s children are valued and can flourish. We believe that our differences are something to cherish and celebrate and look forward to all we can learn from each other!

Some people say that religion should stay out of politics.  Such people clearly have never read much of the Bible, nor studied the life of Jesus Christ.  Politics, at its core, is simply how we choose to organize ourselves and how we choose to treat one another in community.  Therefore, a religion which tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves is profoundly political.  And in a week where we observed the most remarkable political turmoil, and in a week where the readings were Jeremiah 18:1-11 and Luke 14:25-33, it was impossible for Rev Kate not to preach a sort-of political homily…

If I had one message for people in these turbulent times, it would be “How you live matters!”  The world can be overwhelming at the moment: our country is engulfed in a political crisis, the Bahamas are devastated by a hurricane, the Amazon is on fire, a glacier in Greenland is about to melt, the refugee crisis continues… It is so tempting to hide under our duvets and try to block it all out.  To say “My little life cannot change anything so it is okay if I just stick my fingers in my ears, sing lalalala and wait until it all goes away.”  However, this is a temptation which we must resist.  How we live, the choices we make, the things we say and the way we treat people matters.

Our reading from Jeremiah is clear.  How things turn out depend both on God’s actions and ours.  Projected disaster can be averted if people live virtuous lives; peaceful prosperity destroyed by poor choices.  As our reading from Jeremiah concludes “do what is right”!

As for our gospel reading, this is traditionally one of the hardest readings to preach upon.  What on earth is Jesus doing, this Jesus who is supposed to be all about love, telling people they must hate their families and even life itself?  Thankfully, the political events of the past days are the perfect parable.  I am sure I am not alone in watching the events in parliament in utter disbelief.  Twenty four Conservative MPs have resigned or have been thrown out of their party since 3rd September, but there have also been changes in other directions too. Three previously Labour MPs joined the Lib Dems this week, and who knows what further changes lie ahead.

An MP’s political party is much like their family.  Indeed, many of them will have had parents and grandparents who shared their political views. Sir Nicholas Soames, who voted against his party for the first time in his political career this week, is Winston Churchill’s grandson.  Jo Johnson, who resigned as a Cabinet minister and Conservative MP, is our current Prime Minister’s own brother. Many will have grown up in the party as campaigners, researchers, local politicians and now national leaders.  They will have built up years of party loyalty.  What on earth is prompting these resignations and rebellions?

The thing is that any MP has three loyalties.  They are – in this order – loyalty to their country, loyalty to their constituents and then loyalty to their party.  Normally, this causes no conflict because they genuinely believe that their party’s policies will be what is best for the country and their constituents.  However, at times of crisis, their first duty is to do what they think best for their country and the constituents they serve, and if that means voting against, or even leaving, their political party, that is what they have to do.  It is a costly and painful decision.  Many MPs’ careers, built up over decades, are over.  Friendships are strained or broken.  But they have to do what they believe to be right.

This is the point that Jesus is making to those who want to follow him.  To be a disciple of Christ means that our first loyalty is always to Christ and the Kingdom of God.  This is the Kingdom of God which says blessed are the poor, the meek, those who long for righteousness, those who mourn, those who work for peace (Matthew 5:1-10).  This is the Kingdom of God which turns human priorities upside down (Luke 1:46-55).  This is the Kingdom of God which preaches good news to the poor, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:18-19).  This is the Kingdom of God which embraces the outsider (Luke 10:25-37), learns from those who are different (Mark 7:24-30), remembers that people matter more than money.  This is the Kingdom of God which proclaims that hate and hurt and darkness will not win, but that the life and love and light of Christ will always have the final word.

Like our politicians, we have multiple loyalties: loyalties to our family, to our friends, to our work or voluntary commitments.  There is nothing wrong with being loyal.  There is nothing wrong with loving our families, our friends and what we do. In fact, God delights in the love we share with others and the gifts and work we offer.  But when the chips are down, when our loyalties don’t all pull in the same direction, our first loyalty needs to be to the Kingdom of God.  Sometimes that will be incredibly difficult and sometimes that will put relationships under strain.  Jesus wants us to know this in advance – as a friend once said, this reading should be in the small print on our baptism certificates!  Because, if we are clear about the cost, when the bill comes in, it may be a struggle but it won’t be a surprise.

As many of you will know, we are a bit Harry Potter daft in our household.  At the end of the first book (spoiler alert – but really, you should have read them already!) the goofy, nerdy, never-wins-at-anything Neville Longbottom gets ten house points enabling his House to win the House Cup.  Neville’s friends have been on wild adventures and battled all sorts of monsters – all he did was challenge his friends and try to do what he thought was right.  In praising him, the headmaster, Dumbledore, says “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”  Sometimes, in our loyalty to the Kingdom of God, in trying to do what we believe to be right, we may have to stand up to our friends.

This is a challenging message but there is always grace.  As ever, know that you don’t face these challenges alone – God’s Holy Spirit is with us, guiding us when we are not sure what to do for the best, comforting us when we find ourselves in conflict.  And lastly, returning to Jeremiah and where we began, know that your costly courage – however small it may look to you – is seen by God, matters to God and in God’s Kingdom always makes a difference.  How you live matters.  Live well.  Live lovingly. Live as a child of the Kingdom of God.  Amen.

After a summer break from sermons, this sermon was preached by Rev Kate on Sunday 25th August as we dedicated our new hymn books. The readings were Isaiah 58 and Luke 13:10-17.

How many of you learned Latin at school?  Has it come in useful?

Amo amas, I love a lass…

In picture est puella nominee Cornelia.  First page of Ecce Romani in my first Latin class thirty years ago. I have to admit that I didn’t learn an awful lot more. My teacher was somewhat eccentric and I soon found that my Latin class was a great place to do my Maths homework!

We find bits of Latin in the liturgy we use each week: Agnus Dei, Gloria etc. Ha – did you see what I did there? Et cetera…

And of course, Latin has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years informing many of the names and spells in JK Rowling’s world of Harry Potter.

Nox, Accio, Expecto patronum – many phrases are either Latin phrases or plays on them.

Well, today, we are going to learn some Latin together:

Lex orandi

Lex credendi

Lex vivendi

Translated they mean the law of worship, the law of faith, the law of life.

This was a saying the emerged in the early church.  It started with just the two first phrases and you could put them in any order lex orandi lex credendi or lex credendi les orandi.  Because the two were like a constant circle of one leading to the other.  And what they meant was Lex orandi – how we worship, what we regard as being right worship – influences Lex credendi – what we believe, what we regard as true faith – and what we believe – lex credendi – influences how we worship – lex orandi.

Simple.

Well maybe not, but it is true.  How we worship God together week in week out – the prayers we use, the songs we sing and the way we read and think about the Bible – do a lot to shape how we think about God.  They influence how we think about following Jesus and what life well lived may look like.

But in the same way, how we think about God and our experiences in life influence how we come to worship.  It is a two-way process.

Later, a third phrase was added: lex vivendi – the law of living.  How we worship God influences how we think about God and life and in turn that influences the choices we make, how we treat ourselves and others and the lives we lead.

It struck me as I was preparing that these three phrases are not a million miles away from the three-part Diocesan Vision Statement which we have here in Coventry.  As a diocesan family, we say we are here to worship God – lex orandi – make new disciples – lex credenda – help people have faith, and transform communities – lex vivendi, help people live their lives well as part of healthy happy communities!

Now, today’s Bible readings might not seem like the most helpful readings to have at a service where we dedicate our new hymns books. In each of them, aspects of the worshipping life of the community at the time are criticized.  In Isaiah, God lambasts the people for fasting – not eating for spiritual reasons – and thinking they were doing what pleased God, while doing nothing to help people who were mistreated in their midst.  In Luke, Jesus challenges the synagogue leader for regarding keeping the sabbath special as being more important than bringing healing to someone who has been ill for many years.

Reading stories like this in the Bible, people sometimes undervalue worship.  What we do together on a Sunday doesn’t matter, they say, so long as we are helping the hungry and working for justice.  This can go further into criticisms of churches for spending resources on worship when they could be used for social action instead.

But the Bible never says that worship is unimportant or unnecessary. Worship is hugely important in the Bible.  There are entire chapters and  books of the Old Testament devoted to it – whether it is decided who will take responsibility for worshipping life, deciding how to create a worship space, deciding how and when the people will worship or even in the book of Psalms providing a song book for the people of God which still brings inspiration and comfort three thousand years later.  Jesus regularly went to worship. One of the last things he did before he died was give us the liturgy of breaking bread and sharing wine which we do in worship to this day. Before he went out to Gethsemane, he sang a hymn. In the Book of Revelation, we are told that worshipping God will be central to our shared life together in eternity.  Worship is vital to Christian community. Worship itself is not the problem.

The problem is worship which becomes an end in itself; which has become detached from the law of faith and the law of life.  Worship is vitally important, but it has to be worship which shapes our faith and how we think about God and which shapes our lives and how we live them with God and neighbour.  Worship of God is only right worship if it inspires a right faith in God and helps us live our lives right.

Lex orandi

Lex credendi

Lex vivendi

And that is why these hymn books matter.  Songs are a vital part of our worshipping life together.  If I ask you to tell me about sermons you heard in your childhood, you might be able to recall a couple of particularly good or bad ones.  If I ask you to sing the songs – many of you will be able to sing them still.  Words and phrases from hymns will stick with you in ways that my carefully crafted sermons won’t.  If you are going to remember the songs, it is important that they are good ones.  Ones that reflect what we believe about God.  Ones that we can understand. Ones that capture what we believe following Jesus is all about.  Because hopefully as those songs shape how we see God and they world, they will help us to live more and more as God wants us to.  That, in being worship that helps us grow in faith and live well with God and neighbour, it will truly be worship pleasing to God.

After twenty years of regular use, our old hymn books were falling apart; some of the hymns were in such old-fashioned language people – well, to be honest, I – would struggle to understand what was being sung and they didn’t include some of the newer hymns we have enjoyed together.  And so it was time for some new ones.  It wasn’t a light decision – we were picking the hymn book that would accompany us hopefully for another twenty years.  A new set of hymn books for a church this size doesn’t come cheap. But this is a sign that we are taking our worshipping life seriously. And at this point, I do want to thank everyone who contributed to the cost of the books – the congregation have paid over half of the total costs in donations alone and that is quite remarkable.

We have chosen these hymn books in the hope that the songs within will inspire us and help us and guide us and challenge us in our shared worshipping life.  We receive them as a gift from God and from the wider church who have written and shared these songs.  We use them however knowing that they will only have done their job if we grow deeper in faith and more committed to living well in God’s world.

Lex orandi, lex credeni, lex vivendi.

Right worship, right faith, right living.

Help us Lord, we pray and to you, always be the glory. Amen

Matthew 16:13-23 and 1 Peter 2:9

This week we are celebrating Jo’s ordination as priest alongside eight other curates at Coventry Cathedral. It is a very very special time. But some of you may be wondering at all the fuss. It’s lovely for Jo, and all that, but do we need to make quite such a song and dance about it? And if that thought has crossed your mind, you are not alone. Plenty of people have been a bit sniffy through the years about the celebration of priesthood when other ministries in the church and wider world are equally important. However, I think such reactions come from a misunderstanding about priesthood. We celebrate priesthood because it belongs to all of us.

Let me explain. In the Church of England, we have three orders of ministry: deacons, priests and bishops, and you become a deacon, priest or bishop by being “ordained”. At an Ordination service, a bishop will lay hands on the person to be ordained and pray for them. In, if you will forgive me, what could be seen as a sacred game of pass the parcel, this practice of laying on of hands and prayer has been a gift passed down throughout the generations of Christian believers. While some quibble at the idea of an unbroken line going back to the apostle Peter, it is certainly a tradition which goes back to the earliest days of the church (see Acts 6:6)

In the Gospel Reading, we hear the tale of the beginnings of the Church. Jesus says to Simon “You are Peter, the Rock, and on this rock I shall build my church”. Peter was undoubtedly the leader of the little band of disciples, and tradition holds that he went on to be the first Bishop of Rome. The more Catholic wing of the Church will believe it is the authority given to the apostle Peter which is passed down from generation to generation by the laying on of hands and prayer when we ordain people, in particular, to be Bishops and Priests. However, I come from the Church of Scotland, never met a Bishop until I was in my twenties and didn’t have a clue what they were for until I was into my thirties, so while accepting my Catholic friends’ perspective would add another point of view.

What if what Jesus says to Peter isn’t just for him alone? What if that authority isn’t given to one person to be handed on like a parcel? What if, instead, Peter stands for every person who gets it right, then promptly gets it wrong, who is passionate and imperfect, yet – by the grace of God – knows Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. On you, and such as you, shall I build my Church, says Jesus.

I find it interesting that it is in the first book of Peter, a letter attributed to this apostle, or at least his school of teaching, that the writer is quick to declare that all believers, all followers of Christ, are a holy priesthood. We are all priests!

But what might that mean?

It is helpful at this point to look at what Jo will now be able to do as a priest in the Church of God. She can pronounce God’s forgiveness. She will declare God’s blessing. Finally, Jo will gather us around the holy table, break bread and wine and tell us again the story of God who gave everything that we might know God’s love, a God who in being broken for us transforms our brokenness.

Jo’s priestly ministry is an effectual sign – something that both points towards our calling as a community of believers and helps make it possible. As Jo pronounces God’s forgiveness, we are freed to go and live forgiving and hopeful lives, letting people know that nothing they have done is beyond God’s love. As Jo blesses us in God’s name, we are to go and bless the world with our words and actions, finding the holy in the everyday. As Jo breaks bread at the Eucharist, we are to go amidst the brokenness of the world saying “this isn’t the end of your story – transformation and glory can yet be found because of Jesus”.

Jo is a priest so that we all may fulfil the priestly calling of the whole people of God. We rejoice in her Ordination as a gift to us all. We celebrate her Ordination as we reaffirm our commitment to our own priestly ministry in God’s world.

One final word, remember that all this is made possible by our great High Priest, Jesus Christ. He is the one, by his life, death and resurrection,who makes us holy to serve God and God’s world. And by the gift of the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, we will be given the grace we need to live out our priestly calling. So may we all celebrate! Amen.

A sermon by our curate Jo Joyce, the week before she is ordained priest.

The Bible Reading was 1 Kings 19:1-15

Before she started, Jo read this poem called Priestly Duties by Stewart Henderson

https://povcrystal.blogspot.com/2010/06/priestly-duties-poem.html

I wonder what we expect our priests to be, all things to all people, gracious, holy, able to do a multitude of things, listen to a million hurts and grumbles and still smile beatifically and rise above it all?

I thought I would explore priesting a bit today by looking at some differing expectations. I wonder what you think of when someone says the word priest, is it a person or maybe a character? There are lots of TV ones most of them completely unrealistic, from crime fighting ones in Grantchester, who really do very little vicaring, to Christmas dinner eating ones like in the vicar of Dibley.Often, they are slightly hapless or fairly benign or in Father Ted just plain ridiculous. 

Some of the reason I think for all this ambiguity is Priests remain a recognisable role in society, but fewer people know quite what they do so they become a good figure to project something onto. Those in church see them as “our person” who is for “us”, when sometimes what they mean is “for me individually” rather than us corporately. Outside church well it can be whatever you want…

But, even amongst would be priests the role description varies depending on a person’s background and tradition. We had a training session recently with a number of different possible job titles, a priest is a; prophet/social activist, parson, pastor, minister and priest and each person identified with different aspects of those titles. Priesthood in that way is very personal. But it is also very public, the perception and understanding of what a priest is may depend on your past experiences good and bad, and it is not unusual for people to project those expectations onto those around them. 

This week someone for the first time called me Father, and asked if I minded – of course I don’t, because they are trying to find language to communicate in some way how they see the role of a priest, even as if it is a bit odd.

If some of this seems negative, then it really isn’t. It’s just that the call to priestly ministry is not an easy one, and it’s not always obvious what people think it is. When I met with the bishop he encouraged me to read not just the words of the ordination service that we will hear next week, but also the words for the ordination of priests set out in the book of common prayer, which remains a legal rite of ordination in the church of England and sets it out fairly starkly, here is just a small part;

‘Have always therefore printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his spouse and his body. And if it shall happen the same Church, or any member thereof, to take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue. Wherefore consider with yourselves the end of your ministry towards the children of God, towards the spouse and body of Christ; and see that you never cease your labour, your care and diligence, until you have done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in life.’

It is quite a charge so I thought it would be helpful to look too at what God’s expectations might be by reflecting on the story of Elijah. Elijah wasn’t a priest, but he was a leader of God’s people. In the first book of Kings in the Bible we read the story of Elijah fleeing. He was afraid, threatened, and he runs for his life. Eventually he is exhausted, he has enough, but God doesn’t scold him rather he provides food and rest and after a couple of days Elijah feels better and travels on to Mount Horeb. This is a holy place. It is believed to be the same mountain on which Moses received the ten commandments. It is a place where others have met God before. Now Elijah was to have his own experience of meeting with God.

When he gets there, God asks what he is doing. Now I was pondering this, surely God knew after-all? But perhaps it is important for Elijah to express it himself. Afterall, God knows our prayers, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pray them. For Elijah has spent himself on his ministry. He has been zealous for God, but the people of God haven’t just been disobedient, they have been downright hostile, rejected God, torn down their places of worship and killed all the other prophets, only Elijah is left. It’s not surprising he ran away!

What I think is really interesting is how God responds. He does not immediately pronounce how dreadful this is and how he is going to resolve it. The first thing he wants to restore is Elijah’s faith. To help him to have an experience of worship that enables him to cope with the challenges ahead, because he will have to go back and face the warring people of God again, but first he needs to meet with God and remind himself of why all this is important.

When Elijah experiences the presence of God, it is surprising and gentle and quiet. God is not in the big scary things, not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire but in the whisper. Elijah, understandably afraid to look God in the face, covers his face and steps into the presence of the Almighty. God is so holy that when the priests went into the temple into the holy of holies, they went with a rope tied around their ankle, just in case they should die in God’s presence and need to be pulled out. This holy God who created the universe makes his presence known and speaks with Elijah.

This is the challenge that priests face still, to bring that sense of the presence of God into the ordinary, the quiet, the mundane into the whisper of our daily lives. Elijah had left his home, had given out all that he could until he could do no more. But he was restored by worship. That too is the call on priests today, restore the people of God by calling them to worship, helping each other to meet and experience God in new and unexpected ways. To grow faith, faithfulness and expectation, to draw people into the mystery of God and to rely on God to sustain them too. Sometimes priests today will have also given much, travelled far from home (hopefully not had the people of God misbehave in quite such a profound way), but nonetheless faced challenges and perhaps need time themselves to rediscover the mysteries of God.

And of–course from our gospel, alongside this is love, to love others as we have been loved, to share that love, to others because Jesus loved. In fact, the ordination service includes precisely this: ‘With all God’s people, they are to tell the story of God’s love.’

My expectations

We have thought about how priesthood is viewed by all sorts of people so I expect you might be wondering what I think. Well, I value the sacramental aspect of priestly ministry as being really important, this is what makes it distinctive from being a deacon. A deacon ministers to people, spreads the gospel serves practically but doesn’t take part in the precious and holy things such as communion or the anointing of the sick in the same way that the priest does. So, I did choose priest as a description last week, but also pastor because I think in ministry there is a significant calling to guide the people of God, to care for and shepherd them, as well as to lead them in worship. 

But there is of course more than that, because it’s about more than a job description. This something I have felt called to for a long, long time and so there is both the anxiety and excitement of stepping into something that has been on my heart for many years. It is daunting in responsibility, but more than anything there is a sense of overwhelming privilege and joy to be able to do what I have been called to for so long. So do pray for me as I prepare and pray for Kate for her ongoing ministry. It’s not an easy calling, but it is a precious one.

 

Preached by the Rev’d Jo Joyce. The Bible Reading is Luke 13:1-9 and Isaiah 55:1-9

Sermon Lent 3

Why do bad things happen? 

It’s a question as old as time. Here we have the disciples asking about the Galilean pilgrims who were murdered by Pilate at the temple, or the people from Siloam who died when the tower collapsed on them. It could just as easily be us asking Jesus about the many people who died this week in the cyclone in Africa, or the terrible shootings in Christchurch.

We long for an explanation. Our sense of justice demands to make sense of the world, we don’t think bad things should happen if no one has done anything wrong. This was the disciples reasoning and is often ours today. There has to be a reason, when things go wrong, otherwise where is the justice or fairness in the world. Now of course as any young child is told, the world isn’t fair, but that doesn’t mean as adults we still don’t expect it to be.

Here the disciples are asking Jesus about two tragedies, Pilgrims innocently making offerings at the temple, murdered by Pilate. In fact, some commentaries suggest they may not have been quite as innocent as all that, indeed they may have been revolutionaries. And 18 people who were quite innocent, who died when a tower collapsed. Why Jesus?

Isn’t it a question we often long to ask? Why?

Now common belief at the time was that if something bad happened, either you, or your parents had sinned and the bad thing was a consequence of God’s judgement. But Jesus refutes this. He says these people were no worse sinners than the rest of us. We would say today that all people will face the judgement of God, but God is just, he doesn’t on the whole arbitrarily strike people down, particularly those who are innocent. 

Now it’s easy I think to look down on the disciples and their reasoning. But I think we can still do the same today. We marginalise the suffering of others because they are different to us, so it doesn’t count. We see it all the time in the media. A young girl on a night out gets attacked, its her ‘fault’ because of what she was wearing. There are those who seek to argue away Islamophobia on the grounds that they ‘brought it on themselves.’ That’s why for the New Zealand Prime Minister to say of those who were attacked in the Mosque, ‘they are us’ is so powerful, because it stops that distancing, that othering, that says that somehow because they aren’t us they must have deserved it.

We cannot explain why some terrible things happen. We can say the evil sin of racism led to the attack in Christchurch, but what of those stranded by the Cyclone in Mozambique? Well climate change and the greed that contributes to it around the world may well play a factor, but for those caught in it that’s no easy answer. We can say for definite that the people harmed are not the people who have done wrong.

So where does it leave us? Firstly, we are not to judge others when misfortune befalls them. 

I think its perhaps also worth mentioning as an aside that we are not to judge ourselves either when things go wrong. ‘Why me’ is not a helpful question. We do the same as we are tempted to with others and question if God is judging us somehow, or if he doesn’t really exist or care about us. Perhaps we have been singled out for special misfortune, its not fair. But Jesus’ response would I think be the same, no when difficult things come they are not a sign of judgement. Sometimes there is no reason. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond, and thorough the trials we can grow. 

This is where the next part of our gospel today comes in. Jesus tells the story of the barren fig tree. Now at first sight it seems a bit odd. How does this gardening metaphor fit with this? Why do these two stories fit together?

For me I think the story of the fig tree is primarily a story of second chances. The fig tree isn’t doing its thing. There are no figs. It’s taking up precious space, time, effort and water to no good effect. Surely the sensible thing to do is chop it down, dig out the root and start again with a new tree that might produce some fruit?

But the gardener says no. Give it another go. Feed it care for it, maybe it will be better next year. Give it another chance. I see God as being a bit like that. Offering to care for us, to give us another chance. Earlier in our reading when the disciples are asking about the disasters Jesus tell them to repent of their own sin. We cannot know what each day will bring, we are to be prepared to meet with God, sometimes bad things do happen. In other–words turn around, turn away from your sin, start again. Its exactly what the gardener pleads for the fig tree. Give it another chance, feed it, care for it, see if it bears fruit.

That is to be our response to sin. We are not to spend all our time calling sin out in others, instead when we are tempted to do this, we are to look at ourselves. Not in a self–pitying, why me, God no longer loves me way, but in an honest way we are to look at our lives and own up to those things we do that are wrong. Things that are against who God calls us to be. We are then to turn away from them, to feed and care for our faith, our relationship with God and our neighbour. And, like the gardener with the fig tree, this will bear fruit and the tree will be spared. If we don’t respond in this way then we should realise that Jesus is quite clear there are consequences of not dealing with the sin in our lives, to not repenting. 

So where does all this leave us?

Well as our reading from Isaiah tells us, God is a God who forgives generously. There is hope for us, just as there is hope for the fig tree. We will never understand fully the ways of God. God’s ways are not our ways, in the same way we can never fully understand this side of heaven why bad things happen. In the end we will be judged rather on the way we respond, we all have the second chance the fig tree was given, we can all reflect, repent and try again.

So what do we take from our readings today? Well don’t try and minimise the sufferings of others or blame them in anyway. We cannot sit in a place of judgement. Secondly instead of looking for the sins in others look instead to our own lives and where we could do better and finally, have hope, there is good news, God is the God of the second chance.We can never understand the ways of God, but we can always trust in the goodness of God.

This sermon was preached earlier this year by our curate, Jo. She has kindly allowed us to share it here

Sermon 2nd Sunday of Epiphany year 3 – Jesus turns water into wine, John 2:

(Have a sign to be held by a member of the congregation that points to Jesus.)

Signs are important in the gospel of John. This gospel is slightly different to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke in how it is arranged. Rather than starting either in Bethlehem or at Jesus’ baptism, John begins with talking about Jesus as the Word of God there at the dawn of creation. John then goes onto talk of signs and stories pointing to WHO Jesus is rather than the more what-he-did chronological approach of the other gospels.

Turning the water into wine in the wedding at Cana is the first of these signs.

Now I would like you to picture the scene. You got all dressed up came here, perhaps travelled a few days, you have spent a few months organising what will happen, you have had the wedding everyone has had the first glass of wine and is at the mildly merry stage, when the barman comes and taps you on the shoulder… there’s no more wine.

What do you do? Arrgh! I suspect the organisers had a bit of a panic at that point, and I am pretty sure it would be the same today – although at least we could pop to Aldi.

Jesus had joined his mother there, perhaps it was a family friend or someone they knew from the village. It doesn’t seem like she was organising it. Perhaps she just heard a rumour or maybe the organiser came to her. When she speaks to Jesus she doesn’t say sort it out, rather she just comments to him. He doesn’t seem too bothered, now we can take this in a few ways, either he is just saying, why are you worrying about that, its not our problem, or maybe he is saying, why are you worrying about that it is easily sorted.

Either way Mary must have had an inkling he would do something, because she warns the waiters to do as he asks. Something I think is interesting about this is that very few people seem to know that a miracle has occurred, there were the servants, Mary, Jesus and I suspect a somewhat bemused organiser wondering what on earth had happened, and probably the bridegroom wondering who would pay for it all!

Jesus wasn’t there it happened, which must have been between the jars being filled and the chief steward, the master of ceremonies testing it. And there was a lot. 20 -30 gallons is 90 – 136 litres of water, so the jars would have been enormous, I might have even fitted inside! It’s a lot of water or wine. 

Something I think in this tale it is useful to learn from is the faith of Mary. Mary who had know Jesus grow up, who had watched him become head of the household after the death of his father, who perhaps realised his time was coming as he began to gather a small bunch of followers. Mary whom we rarely talk about or hear of, but who is there in the background watching, wondering what will happen. Its easy to read this story with hindsight and think of course a miracle will occur, and Jesus will do something, but he hadn’t done anything before then, he’d had an amazing start to life, got lost in the temple but otherwise things were pretty normal until now. 

And I reckon all the time Mary was watching, waiting, wondering when God would fulfil the promise that her son would be used in an extraordinary way, and trusting in Jesus that one day, the promises which had been spoken about to her by the angel would start to take effect. The question for each of today is how much can we trust Jesus ourselves, do we like Mary look for the times when he might work in our own lives?

One of the key parts of this story is the extravagance, the abundance with which God blesses the wedding and the couple, a good party is held and the celebrations can continue. This is one of the themes of John’s gospel. Later he tells stories of how Jesus has come to bring life in abundance. When God blesses the wine, this isn’t a small taster or enough to go around, it is extravagant, far more than could ever be needed, like the magic porridge pot of Grimmsfairy tales. I suspect many more people were blessed by that wedding than would ever have been normally, and I suspect that God delighted in blessing people.

As we read in our psalm today: ‘They shall feast on the abundance of your house, and you have given them a drink from the river of your delights.’ Next time you are tempted to think of God as being a bit grumpy or mean and unapproachable, I would encourage you to stop, and remember the wedding at Cana. 

Remember a wedding celebration blessed so extravagantly, remember Mary faithfully trusting Jesus, without any reason to expect anything, and remember that God delights in blessing people, wildly, extravagantly, and look at the sign pointing to Jesus saying, stop, look – who is this really?