Deep roots; flourishing canopy

A sermon preached at Croydon Minster on 2^nd Sunday after Trinity. Readings: Ezekiel 17.22-end; Mark 4.26-34

 

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What is the Kingdom of God like?

 

The Kingdom of God is a major concept in the teaching of Jesus. It sounds like a place or destination, but Jesus is clear it’s not like that. Or it sounds like a monarchy, the Kingdom of God, but it’s not to be confused with the trappings of royal power.

 

Perhaps the Kingdom of God is better thought of as the ‘reign of God’ or the ‘time of God’.

 

The time of God is both internal - within you – and external, a social and practical reality; it’s here already but yet fully to be revealed; it straddles earth and heaven: hence Jesus teaches us to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’.

 

In finding out what the Kingdom might look like Jesus gives us the parables. These are short stories and images from which we can extract deeper meaning. They speak to our imaginations and hearts first of all. Intellectual dissection of them deadens their impact. Just go with them!

 

The parables give us perspectives on the Kingdom and glimpses of it. ‘What can I compare the Kingdom to,’ Jesus asks, ‘what can I say it’s like? Well, it’s as if…’

 

A parable is Jesus’ way of saying ‘come with me into the reign and time of God’.

 

Today we’re given seeds; sprouting seeds; growing seeds; fruitful seeds.

 

Much of the growth of a seed is utterly unseen, hidden. Deep and sustaining spiritual growth happens hidden and unseen from the world, even from ourselves.

 

This deep growth is rooted in prayer and faithful understanding of God’s purpose. Like the seed underground it grows despite our activity, or lack of. It’s this spirit that monastic and religious communities adopt. It’s a feature of the monastic life. As a contemplative community of nuns, the Trappistines, says of their life: ‘ordinary, obscure, laborious’.

 

Our Church of England has been seduced, in recent years, into thinking that glitzy, eye-catching growth is what it’s all about. We have become a church obsessed with harvest and not with the sowing of the seed and the deep patient growth associated with it.

 

TS Eliot said, ‘Take no thought of the harvest but only of the proper sowing’. We’re not in a high yield results game, but about the Kingdom of God, and that needs proper sowing and cultivation.

 

Deep roots make for greater growth.

 

And at the end the harvest is undertaken, not by a ‘grim reaper’, but by Jesus Christ who celebrates the fruitfulness of the adoration of God, acts of love and mercy, moments of revealing the light and presence of God in dark and despairing situations: the time of God.

 

That fruitfulness comes from patient, prayerful growth: ordinary; hidden; unseen.

 

This first parable tells us that God’s Kingdom, and being part of it, is about growth with deep roots.

 

After all, a tree can grow a huge canopy, but without deep roots it has no anchor in the storm and it topples over or in a drought has nothing to draw on.

 

That’s true of each of us and the church. Without deep roots we topple over, we whither, and this leads to spiritual death. Prayer, faithful receiving of the sacraments, adoration of Christ deepens those roots.

 

The second parable assumes those deep roots but focuses more on the canopy of the tree.

 

But first it tells us that great things can come from small beginnings. We see that in Christ. The helpless baby in the manger, is the cosmic Saviour of the world! Twelve disciples propel the Gospel to the ends of the earth. St Therese of Lisieux encourages us: ‘do little things with great love’.

 

We also learnt that the canopy of the great tree doesn’t just exist for the benefit of the tree. Of course, the branches and leaves exist both to keep the tree alive – photosynthesis and all that – but they also exist to provide shelter to those outside themselves.

 

In the parable the birds of the air make nests in the shade of its branches. What a beautiful image of the hospitality the church is called to give to people, shading them from the heat of the day and scorching sun. Helping them find their place in the Kingdom of God.

 

How can we give shade in the scorching sun to the person who is a refugee, homeless, a spiritual searcher, a fugitive or someone whose life has messed up beyond recognition?

 

These two little parables speak of us being, like a tree, rooted in reality, in the earth, and yet reaching to the heavens.

 

The cross on which Christ died is similarly planted in the earth and yet reaches to the heavens. Christ’s humanity and divinity laid bare before us.

 

The arms of Jesus Christ stretched out on that cross, become like branches that invite us to shelter under the canopy of God.

 

His loving, Sacred Heart wounded and bleeding for us is revealed to the world so that ‘Christ may dwell in [our] hearts through faith – so that being rooted and grounded in love, [we] may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God’ (Ephesians 3.17-19).

 

This reality and mystery we meet now in receiving his body and blood in the Blessed Sacrament and so doing we are standing in the Kingdom, the reign, the time of God.

 

Here are some words of the prophet Jeremiah to conclude:

 

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

   whose trust is the Lord.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

   sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

   and its leaves shall stay green;

in the year of drought it is not anxious,

   and it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17.7-8)

 

Bitesize Catechesis - Fasting and Abstinence

‘Bitesize Catechesis’

I wonder what the words fasting and abstinence mean to you.

Perhaps what Muslims do in Ramadan springs to mind; and how impressive that is amongst the devout, fasting between sunrise and sunset and breaking the fast with prayer and communal celebration.

It seems that Christians have long drifted from the ascetic sense of what fasting and abstinence are.

Although that’s not true for all Christians, certainly outside Western Europe.

I was once very chastened when a student at the University of Surrey, a Jordanian Christian, asked when English Christians begin fasting before Christmas. That prompted a fair bit mirth. After all, the Advent fast is less about preparation for a great feast, and more about mince pies, mulled wine, parties and over-indulgence. The secularised Christmas fast is ‘Dry January’ and ‘Veganuary’.

What she described was the Little Fast - in Advent and before Lent, the Sundays known as Septuagesima, Quinquagesima and Quadragesima -of abstaining from meat, and then the Great Fast – Lent - which is a meat free, dairy free diet.

That sounds very remote, but there are remnants of it still. After all, we say pancakes are eaten the day before Lent because they use up all the ingredients that are going to be given up; except the next day we carry on as normal.

Interestingly for Anglican Christians the same rigour is picked up in the Book of Common Prayer 1662 that speaks of days of fasting and abstinence.

And boy, is it rigorous.

I have done a rough tally that there are 122 fast days which include the eve of feast days, the 40 days of Lent, Ember days and every Friday of the year, unless it’s Christmas Day.

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That says something about practices of fasting. But let’s just get our terms clear first.

Fasting and abstinence. But which one’s which?!

Both refer to renunciation, the act of giving something up. Fasting applies to the amount we eat; abstinence to what we eat.

In other words, fasting is going easy on something; abstaining is giving up it up all together.

So when I fast I reduce the intake of all foodstuffs; but when I abstain I remove a particular foodstuff from my diet.

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So we’ve thought about fasting practices, what they are and how people might do them. But why do Christians fast?

We fast because Jesus teaches about it.

When Jesus teaches about it he’s absolutely clear about three key points:

1.      We only fast in his absence, as part of our expectation for his coming and return; (Matthew 9.14, 15; Luke 2.37);

2.      Fasting is not an excuse for showing off, a ‘look how marvellous I am’ approach; it’s about our interior journey with God; (Matthew 6.16, 17);

3.      Fasting doesn’t earn you any heavenly brownie points unless accompanied by penitence and sorrow for sin; (Luke 18.12).

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So where does this leave us? Is it all too overwhelming? How might fasting connect with us and we with it?

One response is for people to say that they are not going to give up something for Lent but instead take something up, a good work, for example.

Perhaps fasting sounds too old-fashioned or traditional or demanding. Fasting and abstinence can sound uncomfortable in relation to eating disorders, body image issues or controlling habits. Certainly health should be taken into account around fasting practices, especially if you’re taking medication.

Taking something up sounds much more active; you’re doing something. The danger is that we take refuge in doing rather than being.

Fasting is a way of doing something without activism. In other words what we do is give up control by relinquishing a particular pleasure so that we come to appreciate what we have.

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I hope that fasting becomes less of a remote practice, because in that way we become a less controlling, less self-indulgent church and a church that turns a way from self-preoccupation and focuses on Christ.

And we can be creative. I know one 17 year old who has given up Instagram for Lent, and believe me that’s a life-changer for him! Another, 15 year old, is omitting lunch on Fridays; he’s doing that prompted by the impressive example of his Muslim friends, and he wants to reconnect with his own faith and its tradition.

So what might all this mean for you?

That’s for you to ponder. And as you do here are three final positives to consider:

1.      Fasting and prayer. Prayer is what gives ballast to fasting and abstinence; they’re empty practices unless accompanied by prayer: Jesus is abundantly clear about that. Fasting clarifies prayer, intensifies prayer and turns prayer away from ourselves and back to the heart of God. One practical way to combine fasting and prayer is to skip a meal and use that time to pray; fasting without prayer is a diet!

2.      Fasting and the body. The great thing about fasting is that it connects our bodies and spirit. When people talk about ‘spirituality’ it can be very removed from the body. And Christianity is nothing if it is not about body and spirit together. Our spirituality always has to be embodied in physical practice – fasting is a great example of that;

3.      Fasting and consumption.  Fasting gives a deep perspective on our relationship with food. Fasting is a great antidote to food waste and it gives us solidarity with the hungry because giving something up makes us appreciate it all the more. The fast God desires, says the prophet Isaiah is all about justice, freeing people and lifting the yoke from the poor; (Isaiah 58). One way to live this out is to give away the amount we would have spent on the meal we’ve omitted to give; that’s what our Lent lunch on 29^th March is about, as we give to the Bishop’s Lent Call for Zimbabwe.

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Fasting and abstinence: what it is, why we do it and how we do it. Happy Lent!

Move on from the weather: worship; pray; love.

A sermon preached at Croydon Minster on the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (18 August 2019). Reading: Jeremiah 23.23-29; Luke 12.49-56.

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I don’t know about you, but just about every conversation I have had recently has begun with the major topic of the day – not Brexit, not Trump, not even England’s performance in the cricket or the return of the Premier League  – but, yes, the weather!

And haven’t we had a great deal to talk about: unseasonal deluges and, only a few weeks ago, a heat wave and record temperatures.

Of course, the weather has become a rather more serious business than it used to be because of the related climate issues that it highlights.

That said conversation about the weather is often a distraction. An item on BBC Radio 5 last week explored how when we talk about the weather it is often a social nicety before a proper conversation; but it can also be a way of avoiding a deeper conversation altogether. Certainly inhabitants of the British Isles have plenty of weather related topics of conversation.

In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus rails against superficial conversations about the weather and dodging the questions that go deeper.

⁵⁴ Jesus also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

We read some signs, usually meteorological ones, and ignore the ones that point to the heart of things.

There are huge questions here: how do we interpret the ‘present time’? What are the signs of the present time that we should be noticing?

Let’s just remind ourselves that the gospel passage began with stark words that still have the capacity to shock: Jesus speaks of fire coming to earth; of stress; of division; of setting people against one another.

We can set this alongside words of John the Baptist, our patron saint, (who denies being the Messiah) and says: ‘one who is more powerful than I is coming…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire’. (Luke 3.16b) Or in Jeremiah: ‘Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’ (Jeremiah 23.29)

But what of this division that Jesus says he has come to bring?

There is a great shaking up going on: disruption and turmoil. This is not ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’.

Jesus, like the prophets before him, is presenting a direct question in dramatic terms. The question is ‘what are the relationships that are most precious to you, and what do they look like?’

Is it your biological relationships? Is it the people you identify with because of race, class, political outlook, religious belief? Or is it the person who is different, disturbing or disfigured?

Taking discipleship seriously, being a follower of Jesus Christ, means we have to face those questions if we are to play a part in heralding the coming Kingdom of God.

This present time sees divisions based on suspicion, oppression, rampant nationalism, supremacism, casual racism, greed. Our time sees people left behind because of an inability to find a home in ‘mainstream’ society, unable to live life to the full because of anxiety about debt, housing or having a meaningful job. That’s true globally, nationally and locally.

How do we interpret all that?

Allegiance first to Jesus Christ means we see all our relationships in a different way. Jesus is clearly not about smashing up our precious relationships with those whom we love, but he is saying that the love we share for our family should spill out beyond and not be restricted just to them. As he says in regard to his own nearest and dearest, ‘My mother and my brother [and my sister] are those who hear the word of God and do it.’ (Luke 8.21)

Doesn’t all that move us away from talking about the weather?

Jesus, like the prophets, disrupts and shakes us up. That is deeply uncomfortable, but it is the beginning of turning our hearts back to the LORD and his Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God and the renewed creation is a Kingdom ‘of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit' (Romans 14.17) says St Paul.

And we know that the Holy Spirit is not the spirit of division and enmity, but rather of binding men, women and children of all 'tribes and peoples and languages' around the throne of God (Revelation 7.9).

From the disruption and division of which Jesus speaks emerges - like gold from a crucible - the precious, foundational essentials of life in the Spirit.

So how do we respond?

We worship. We pray. We love

We worship. As followers of Jesus Christ we patiently gather in worship at the altar of God where we find that we are brothers and sisters of one another, and of the saints who have gone before us, especially when we are of different tribes, peoples and languages. Our worship, echoing the worship of heaven, models the relationships where love spills out to all around us and a symphony of praise swirls to the throne of grace.

We pray. Not to avoid the realities of the world but to be instruments of transformation, being open in prayer to be transformed by Christ, so that we can live as those who read and interpret our present time and act in Christ’s healing and reconciling name.

We love. We love when we are loved. Love is always transformative; transforming relationships, situations and ourselves. And, as St Paul reminds us, when all is shaken up, divided and stripped away, God’s love never ends (1 Corinthians 13.8a).

The message today: move on from the weather: worship; pray; love.

'A new heart I will give you'

A sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral 13th May, 2018, on the launch of the Cathedral's new mission & vision statement & annual meeting.

Ezekiel 36.24-28; Acts 1.15-17, 21-26; John 17.6-19

‘And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.’ Alleluia.

(Ezekiel 36.28b)

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Last Thursday, on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, we recalled that Jesus Christ ascended into the heavens promising to ‘send power from on high’ upon the embryonic church comprising his mother, Mary, some other women and the eleven disciples.

The Ascension is the hinge moment between the life of Christ incarnate, crucified and risen and the era of the sovereignty of Christ, our King, who reigns in the power of the Holy Spirit – the power from on high - who brings Christ’s presence to us now.

The Ascension begs the question of what life in the ‘power from on high’ – life in the Spirit - looks like without Jesus physically present with us, his disciples.

This era of ‘life in the Spirit’ is not over! We still live equipped by power from on high. What each church has to discover is what that looks like here and now today, and not just in Jerusalem half way through the first century AD.

This time, living in the life in the Spirit, was then and is now always a time of discernment and openness to God’s will; a time of seeking what it means to say personally and corporately, ‘thy will be done’. It throws us to our knees; it opens our hands and hearts in prayer!

This way of discernment asks how particular gifts are nurtured within the church and ministries fulfilled. We see this in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Following the death of Judas a new member of the Twelve is chosen, Matthias, whose feast is tomorrow as it happens. Discernment in action.

This way of discernment opens us up to the searching of the Holy Spirit and seeing God’s movement in our lives, in the Church, and in our world.

So, to what is God calling you and me? It’s a question Canon Paul posed from the pulpit a couple of weeks ago and that we’re all following up now: what is the call and claim of the Good Shepherd upon your life? This is the question of discernment, not just in tasks we might do at church but who we are and how we are as disciples of Jesus Christ.

This time of living in the power from on high is always a time of transformation and re-creation: God’s people constantly being transformed into being God’s people. As St Paul puts it, it’s about being, ‘transformed into the [image of the Lord] from one degree of glory to another’ (2 Corinthians 3.18a).

This transformation is initiated principally on the Day of Pentecost – the day that we will celebrate next Sunday. After all, as St Paul continues to say, ‘this [transformation] comes from the Lord, the Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 3.18b).

Life in the Spirit is a time of growth. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that the embryonic church of Mary and the Eleven grew: ‘and day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved’ (Acts 2.47b).

And the growth is seen too in the quality of life of the Church: ‘they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (Acts 2.42).

Now is the time! Now is the time of discernment, of praying for the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit’s fruit will be seen in the life of the Church.

Discernment. Prayer. Transformation. Growth.

These features of the early Church, along with worship, are in the Church’s DNA and we neglect them at our peril.

So, we have been responding to those features in our own context here in Guildford. Over the last few months we have pondered, in an enquiring and appreciative way, what characterises our life here and what we dream it might look like in the years to come.

The discernment has led us to speak of our aspiration, under God, that this Cathedral is a ‘warm-hearted community’. This draws directly from the language of the prophet Ezekiel - through whom God speaks in our first reading - ‘A new heart I will give you, and new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh’. (Ezekiel 36.26)

That heart, pumping God’s life around this cathedral and her congregations, is brought us by the Spirit, so that, in Jesus’ Name, we are open to God and open to all; so that we are open to growth and open to transformation.

It is down to each one of us to make that a reality.

And discerning, praying, transforming, growing is a programme for the Christian life and the life of every church community including this one.

This is the challenge: to embrace and adopt - in every aspect of our life as a Cathedral Church community - what it means and what it looks like to be a warm-hearted person and church, what it really means to be open to God and open to all, open to growth and open to transformation.

Life in the Spirit means knowing Jesus Christ. It is what we pray for and appeal to every time we break bread, as we do now: ‘grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood’ (Eucharistic Prayer A). Here is the beginning of the answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this sermon: what does life in the ‘power from on high’ – life in the Spirit - look like without Jesus physically present with us, his disciples?

It is seen in individual lives and in a community that knows Jesus Christ and makes Christ Jesus known to all. It is in knowing Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit that we share in the life of the Holy Trinity, that communion and fellowship of love.

That is the source of all Christian vision, life and hope. Let us embrace that here with ‘power from on high’.

‘A new heart I will give you,

and new spirit I will put within you;

and I will remove from your body the heart of stone

and give you a heart of flesh’.

(Ezekiel 36.26)

Lord, teach us to pray

First preached as a sermon at Guildford Cathedral on Sunday 24^th July 2016.

Luke 11.1-13

‘Lord, teach us to pray…’ Luke 11.1

+ In nomine Patris…

Prayer is not unique to Christianity. It is not even unique to the teaching of Jesus. John the Baptist was already teaching about prayer, and the Old Testament is full of it: after all, Jesus’ disciples asked, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples’.

Prayer is a basic human desire and practice, deeper than religion, which takes many and various forms. Prayer and versions of it are visible in contemporary society.

For example, it is interesting to see how the practice of Mindfulness has taken off in the last couple of years. It seems so very similar to Christian prayer, especially of the contemplative, meditative type. Mindfulness looks like prayer very well branded! And it is very popular.

A similar bubbling up of a form of prayer is also to be seen in public vigils and the lighting of candles in corporate acts of grief, as we have seen all too vividly in Paris, Nice and Munich.

We also see the discipline of frequency and posture of prayer offered by Muslims in submission to God.

Prayer is one of those things that is essential to the Christian life, yet for so many Christians, at least in the West, is problematic.  It often seems so unspecific and ethereal, perhaps not rewarding enough or associated with clunky phrases or a burden. We become suspicious of prayer.

Perhaps this is part of the appeal of Mindfulness. It uses many the techniques common to religious prayer but doesn’t seem “religious”. However whilst commendably paying attention to the body and posture it also totally fits the Enlightenment notion, I think therefore I am. It is the modern fallacy: I can conquer things with my own mind and from my own resources. It is in this sense that it is not Christian prayer. Let me be clear that Mindfulness is not bad, but Mindfulness is therapeutic and makes us dependent on self-will, whilst prayer takes us out to seek the will of God.

Another suspicion about prayer is that it can seem manipulative: we hear it in phrases such as, ‘I have prayed about this and decided such and such’ which leaves little scope for dissent or challenge. And how can it possibly work for us to ask for something in prayer?

So it’s  little wonder we ask again, with Jesus’ first disciples, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…’

So prayer may not be unique to Christianity, but prayer as offered by Christians is distinctive and particular. When we ask ‘Lord, teach us to pray’ we are asking that the human urge to pray effects, affects and reflects our relationship with our heavenly Father.

This is what takes us out of ourselves. Christian prayer begins in the simplicity of a relationship with God that can be understood in a generative, intimate way: ‘Abba, Father’. Not my Father, but Our Father.

This prayer takes us to the heart of the mission of Jesus Christ which is incorporation, being grafted, into the very life of God. It is what Eastern Christians term theosis or divinisation. That’s not divination, the reading of signs and omens, but divinisation which is growth into the image and likeness of God; God who gives us the capacity to become who God made us to be.

Prayer is how we seek out the wellsprings of God’s sustaining life and power. Just to say ‘Our Father’ places us into a relationship with the source and wellspring of life, and to drink from that life. This is not formulaic; it is not divination, where spells and ceremonies give access to some divine knowledge; it is not tranquil introspection but rather it is more like divining, the action of seeking springs of water that already exist.

Likewise prayer should never be an echo chamber of our own prejudices, manipulation or self-justification; but is a place where we lay bare before God the very depths of our hearts. We cannot do that alone. This is why St Paul speaks of the Spirit praying deep within us, ‘with sighs too deep for words’.

To use a now outdated image we might think of a radio set that needs to be tuned in to receive a signal. God is the transmitter and the transmission. The signal, God, transmits all the time, and our place in prayer is to tune in to receive that signal.

‘Lord, teach us to pray’ was the disciples’ request and is ours in our own day. And what Jesus offers is a pattern of prayer, and an actual formulation of prayer, against which all our prayer is measured and through which all our prayer flows.

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus invites us into the relationship that he has with the Father so we say with him, and with one another, ‘Our Father’.

There are many books describing and explaining the Lord’s Prayer. They trace its Jewish roots, its style and shape and vocabulary. Yet, what we do day by day and Sunday by Sunday is to pray it and to breathe it such that it shapes who we are as persons in relationship with God in Jesus’ Name.

We are then drawn in to God’s inner life, such that we can make our requests known to God, so that we can be persistent in prayer, and accept that prayer will change us more than we can ever think we have changed God’s mind.

The ancient document known as the Didache, or the ‘Teaching of the Twelve’, says that we should pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day (VIII.3). If your life of prayer seems barren, unrewarding or confusing, that would be a very good place to start.

The techniques of Mindfulness - attending to your posture and breathing - are a good way in, but then to pray meditatively and reflectively the words that Jesus taught us. In doing so you place yourself in God’s presence as a precious child of God; you hallow God’s holy Name; you yearn for his kingdom and his power to sustain you day by day. You ask to be shaped and schooled in the ways of forgiveness and to be spared the ordeal of your own making and vanity.

Little wonder then that this prayer, which we delight in calling the Lord’s Prayer, is at the heart of the Christian life and our celebration of the Eucharist and receiving our daily bread: it is the source and summit of Christian prayer; prayer to Our Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

‘Lord, teach us to pray’.

© Andrew Bishop, 2016