Sunday 30 September 2012

A Christian in Community

Combined service with Methodists – 30 September 2012

Reading James 5.13-20

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Sermon

Brought up evangelical – monthly communion – choruses – extempore prayer – informal worship. Non-sacramental environment. Thought of anointing sick with oils only for Roman Catholics – extreme unction

St George’s Campden Hill – Anglo-Catholic – genuflecting – incense – exposition of blessed sacrament. Caused some strife – Mary Mason’s funeral – holy water – incense – Shine Jesus Shine.

Here in Cheddington – no tradition – no label – middle-of-the-road. Danger lukewarm – neither one thing nor other – get run over.

I prefer to think – best of each tradition. Baptism – signing with sign of cross in oils. Anointing sick – home communion.

If anyone questioned – point to scripture. James – emphasis on personal responsibility in moral issues. James follows tradition of Deuteronomy – singles out Elijah as example of good man whose prayers were answered because he prayed earnestly. Yet he was just a man like us.

James is certain his prayer leading to healing and anointing with oil done in the name of the Lord. Following example of Jesus himself. Or think of Mark – sending out of disciples on mission. Mark 6:13

12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed with oil many people who were ill and healed them.

Anointing with olive oil widely used in OT – Leviticus 14 e.g. in relief of leprosy. Anointing if kings – like modern day ordination – set apart to be holy or for a sacred purpose. Other examples you can think of.

2 weeks ago – email. In hospital – finding it hard to write because I haven’t been to church for a while – but I’m in trouble and badly need your prayers. In people’s minds – some sort of link between sickness and wrongdoing. Why has God done this to me and my family?

Job – all about sickness and trouble – whose responsibility? Job’s friends are convinced his misfortune must be result of his sin. It isn’t – but even though unpalatable to modern sensibilities, surprisingly there is an explicit link in James between anointing with oil and forgiveness of sins.

Perhaps we should do healing services in Cheddington? When people come up – stand in line – two members of congregation pray for them – priest anoints both hands with oil – folds hands together in gesture of receiving healing – heal you of all that harms you.

We might be sensitive about charismatic healing – too many perversions and TV evangelists seeking donations to their Toronto-blessing style ministries. James is clear this is not so much a personal charisma, but a community ministry by church members.

He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

So the sick are not left to pray for themselves, but the community joins in the effort on their behalf. I read an article last week about a young man diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – a form of cancer. He listed help from his friends that he did not find helpful.

· Some things are meant to be – God’s plan

· Long battle against cancer – as if he fought it

· Berating God in prayer – always happens to nicest people

Best intervention from retired priest – no responsibility to pray for yourself – we are church family – we take on that task for you. Individual faith is commendable – but the plight of the gravely ill should not be made worse by feeling they are alone in their fight.

What then of link between healing and forgiveness? Did Jesus not pronounce forgiveness of sins before he healed? We are not Christ – but his body the church. If someone wanders from the truth says James it’s for us as a group of church members to bring him back. The link is clear – a community of support is to pray for a sick person – and a community of support is to care for those who have gone astray. We bear a mutual responsibility for each other.

The more we retreat into our own homes; the more we communicate only through email and social networking; the less we meet each other face-to-face – harder this becomes, and less effective. I sometimes think it’s harder to ask for help than to offer it. But love for others is essential component in Christian journey. Journey we make together, side by side. Like pilgrimage. We are all involved in each other’s lives, helping each other in our physical and spiritual journeys, and that’s the nub of the text from James.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.Amen

Friday 28 September 2012

Wishing the Olympics would last for ever

View from the Vicarage – Village Newsletter

There are not many things in life we really don’t want to end. A memorable holiday. A run of fine warm and sunny weather. The Paralympic Games. A great concert. A family celebration. We all have our own list.

There’s a sadness when it’s time to move on. These past few weeks have been a case in point. Even those who had no interest in sport were caught up in the excitement of this most remarkable summer. We didn’t want it to end.

The question now being asked in various forms of media is What now? Will there be a lasting legacy? Will our attitudes towards disability change for good? Will the way we now feel about ourselves as a nation be transformed for ever? Fans of Andy Murray will say yes. Followers of cricket may not be so sure.

As with so many other aspects of the Christian life, wish fulfillment is turned on its head. We believe there is a transformed life to come. However good we feel about the here and now, or however bad, we look forward to what is to come with joy and hope.

It wasn’t always this way. When the early church spoke of the coming of Jesus Christ, they thought of a day of judgement. Nowadays, images of judgement are eclipsed behind our picture of a loving, compassionate God. Yet when we hear Jesus knocking at the door, should we not ask ourselves “Are we rightly prepared? Is our heart capable of becoming God’s dwelling place?”

The wartime theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said ‘We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God's coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us.” Bonhoeffer went on to say that only when we have felt the terror of the matter can we recognise God’s incomparable kindness, cleansing and sanctifying us in the midst of evil and death. “God makes us happy, as only children can be happy.”

Bonhoeffer’s words came from a well-known Advent sermon. For him, Advent is a time of waiting, of self-examination, or preparedness. But Advent is not just an annual event running though December until Christmas. Our whole life is waiting for a new order, a new heaven and earth. We are not reluctant to move on, but full of hope.

When will this come to pass? The first disciples asked Jesus, and received no answer. Down the ages, countless people have asked the same question. The Bible talks of the Kingdom of God coming in like a thief in the night.

Bonhoeffer’s sermon ended with the words “Yes – come Lord Jesus.” He was not even 40 years of age when he died. In the last few days of the war, Bonhoeffer met his end at the hands of the Nazi regime.

Robert Wright

Sunday 23 September 2012

Wisdom and Humility

Sermon at St Mary Mentmore – Sunday 23 September 2012

Reading James 3.13-4.3,7-8a

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Gospel Mark 9.30-37

When the Gospel is announced the reader says
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

Choice of name for Olympic volunteers was telling. They were ‘Games Makers.’ When I first heard the description, it sounded overblown. How could group of untrained volunteers ‘make’ the Games? How could their contribution be so significant?

Many I know were well qualified: I met a man who had spent 30 days at both Games, spent £1,000 on travel, and was a skilled coach who worked with the athletes in their training and warm-up facilities. But the ones who were praised and lauded for their contribution were not the unseen ones, but those who directed the massed streams of humanity coming in and out of the Park, entertained them with singing and witticisms, and smiled. Yes they smiled and laughed a lot. Another man I met said his hands stung from all the high fives with children.

What does it mean to be a VIP? To be important. To be admired by others? The Church Times runs a weekly feature interviewing one person about their aspirations. One question is always “Who would you choose to be locked in a church with?” The answer is rarely a banker on a £2m salary; or a political leader; or even an Archbishop. Usually people choose a person who is not ‘important’ in the eyes of the world, but with who they could have an unending and fascinating conversation.

If I had been Lord Coe, or one of his colleagues who had taken all the risks and worked hard for 7 years to make the Games happen, I think I might have been just a little miffed that others who directed traffic got such high praise, and those who had the concepts and delivered the aspirations were given scant recognition. Yet that’s the way the book of James says things should be for a Christian.

Who is wise and understanding among you? asks James. Not the boaster. Not the person who harbours bitter envy of others. Not the one with the selfish ambition. Not someone who conceals the truth. Such wisdom, he adds, is earthly, not spiritual.

Just like the Games Makers who ‘made’ the Olympics and Paralympics for so many others, these people are Peace Makers. They are ‘peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.’

Many people don’t get what they want because they rely on themselves and not on God, or they ask with selfish motives. Peace Makers get what they want without the need for quarrelling or disputes, but by listening and aligning their wills to what God wants for them, and not what they think they want for themselves. Their kind of peace is the peace of the Lord. The kind we wish each other at every Communion service.

It’s hard to be counter-cultural. To run contrary to the established ways of the world. Our children are trained to be self-sufficient. To yearn for success by standing on their own two feet, getting ahead of others on the ladder, influencing other people rather than making friends of them.

Wasn’t this just what the disciples were arguing about on the road to Capernaum? Who would be the most important and influential in this new kingdom Jesus was talking about? Jesus stopped them arguing. He turned the conventional wisdom of self-help books on its head. “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

When he took a little child as a live illustration of what he was saying, Jesus did not advocate here that his followers should become like little children. No – he says we should not be so important in our own eyes that we have no time for simpler folk, and that we take time to welcome them, for whoever welcomes little children in his name welcomes Jesus himself.

Back in the 1970’s there was a popular TV series called The Good Life. Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal played the young couple who produced their own food. Paul Eddington and Penelope Keith were their pretentious neighbours. The message was simple: those who think they are above others are actually below them.

For James, and for Jesus alike, submission, humility, childlike trust, charity and mercy represent the Good Life. The Christian way.

Submit yourselves, then, to God, says James. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Amen

Thursday 13 September 2012

Love actually

Thursday Midweek Communion at St Giles

First Reading I Corinthians 8

8 Now about food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.

4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘An idol is nothing at all in the world’ and that ‘There is no God but one.’ 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12 When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.

Gospel Luke 6

When the Gospel is announced the reader says
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.

Love for enemies
27 ‘But to you who are listening I say: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Judging others
37 ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

Easy to modernise gospel for kids. If someone steals trainers, give them iPhone as well. Reaction outrage. No respect for anyone acting like a doormat. Anyone can walk all over them. Be strong. Stand up for self. Show what you are made of. Reject abuse and bullying.

Is this really how we are to behave? Jesus did, during arrest, trail and execution. But what about encounter with moneychangers? Exchanges with Pharisees and religious leaders? Was he not robust?

1. This is personal code – does not apply to countries and organisations. Invasion of Poland and resisting Nazi domination does not come into it.

2. Peaceful resistance not necessarily pacifist. Not always negative. What about Gandhi, Mandela, Bonhoeffer? Did Peace and reconciliation not achieve more lasting and real peace, because not based on being a doormat but on real and genuine repentance.

Perhaps more than pacifism, this philosophy of life is a rejection of the me-first generation. Do unto others – the golden rule. Love for enemies, as heading suggests. Not acting as others in the world act – but being recognisably different. Counter cultural.

In the Kingdom, the invited guest sits in the lowliest place. But he doesn’t stay there. He is promoted – invited to move up to a place of honour. He conquers through humility. And the Jesus movement starts that way, by rejecting the values of his day. Choosing to die for the cause, rather than live a lie. Who knows – in most cases turning the other cheek does not invite another slapped face, but puzzlement and a desire to find out more. To be reconciled.

love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Amen