Harvest Thanksgiving

Preached at Harvest Thanksgiving

Deuteronomy 26.1-11 I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.

Revelation 14.14-18 The clusters of the grapes of the earth are ripe for harvest.

John 6.25-35 I am the bread of life, says the Lord.

 

Do not let your hand be stretched out to receive

and closed when it is time to give.

(Sirach 4.31)

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Two fundamental principles undergird our celebration of harvest thanksgiving today.

The first is that everything we have – our possessions, property, life itself - is a sheer gift from God.

The second is that in response to the gift that is life, possessions and property, we offer something back to God to acknowledge his greater gift.

The tithe is the supreme example of this in the Bible: offering a tenth of our income to God.

This is applied by many in church, to give a tenth of one’s income to serve the mission and ministry of Christ.

Giving is good for us; generosity is a virtue that we need to make a habit of, in response to God’s generosity to us.

This is all captured by Job’s words when he meditated on the catastrophic loss of possessions and all that was dear to him:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1.21)

It’s no accident that those words are used at a funeral to express that all we have in this life is God’s gift: we mustn’t fool ourselves into thinking that what we have is by our merit and that we can take it with us, we have to relinquish control and ownership at some point!

Harvest, like a funeral, is also a time of accountability.

At harvest the farmer measures and weighs the fruits of his labour, just as at the end of life our deeds are accounted for before God.

But the work of harvest is not just about the end, but about how the land and its planting was prepared, cultivated, watered and tended.

So it is in our lives.

That’s why the old customs of rogation are so important – that’s actually when we ‘plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land’, not at harvest, despite the traditional harvest hymn.

The poet TS Eliot puts it more intriguingly:

Take no thought of the harvest,

but only of the proper sowing. From Chorus in The Rock

A good harvest takes long, slow, patient cultivation just like our lives.

We have God’s gift of life: how are we going to use it? How will we be fruitful? How will we multiply what God has given?

It is in our hands.

Literally.

Wheat needs human hands to be made into bread.

Grapes need human hands, or feet possibly, to be made into wine.

The gift of life is shaped by you and me; what does it become in your hands?

So, harvest thanksgiving is about giving thanks for God’s gift and giving in response.

It is also about thanksgiving for those people whose skills transform that gift into something we can make use of: farmers, craftsmen, brewers, cooks, workers: the human hands that transform the raw gift into something edible, beautiful, functional for our use.

Harvest thanksgiving subverts the human tendency to make everything into a transaction: to buy and sell, make profit, always looking at the bottom line.

The Eucharist is, in a mundane and eschatological sense, always a harvest thanksgiving.

In other words, it celebrates the fruit of the land and points us to judgement.

All is encapsulated in Jesus’ free, gracious, sacrificial offering of himself to us.

Our gospel reading speaks of the miraculous bread, the manna, given to the Israelites in the wilderness.

They did not deserve it, they hadn’t earned it, yet God provided it.

Jesus connects this to his own giving of himself, the Bread of Life.

Whoever comes to him will never be hungry, whoever believes in him will never be thirsty (John 6.35).

There: no transaction, no sale, but a free gift for salvation and life.

We stretch out our hands to receive that life in Holy Communion with Christ, the Bread of Life, mindful, I hope, of the sentiment of the book of Ecclesiasticus:

Do not let your hand be stretched out to receive and closed when it is time to give. (Sirach 4.31)

Finally, our reading from Deuteronomy spoke of the gift the Israelites were to give in response for their deliverance from Egypt.

Today we are invited to bring forward our own gifts for St Alban’s Foodbank and the Skylight Project for those experiencing homelessness.

Don’t trudge dutifully forward at the offertory but joyfully, recalling these words:

You shall set [your gift] down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 26.10)

It’s more than ‘helping out’ or ‘doing a good turn’ – and it is doing that – more fundamentally it is a freewill way of offering back to God all that you have had received from his abundance, in service of those in need:

Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house. (Deuteronomy 26.11)

 

 

 

Fr Michael and the angels

Preached at Choral Evensong on the Eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels and welcoming Fr Michael Walcott to the Parish of Croydon as Associate Vicar and Chaplain in the Whitgift Foundation.

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Tonight, we begin the celebration of the feast of St Michael and All Angels.

In the ancient custom of the Church a celebration starts on the eve of the feast.

Tonight we celebrate Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael and all the angels of God, his messengers.

To speak of angels can sound a bit weird and whacky, even New Agey, something you might think that rational Christians left behind years, if not centuries, ago.

Except we’re faced with the presence of angels in the scriptures and in the liturgy of the Church, and so they can’t be readily dismissed.

And what we see there is that the angels are protectors and connectors: they protect us from Satan (a fallen angel) and connect us to God.

Our first reading may have sounded obscure but it accounts for the beleaguered king of Israel facing the rampaging army of the king of Syria.

Nothing can save him now, until through the prophet his servant sees something he would not otherwise have seen.

The Lord opens the servant's eyes, and he sees that the mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha.

Thus is revealed God's invisible, protecting, and powerful heavenly army.

As a protector, we name the archangel Michael, as protector against the armies of Satan.

Think of the Book of Revelation:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon fought back, but he was defeated…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. (Revelation 12.7,8a,9)

What a powerful protector!

And, as our second lesson, told us, Jesus speaks of the protection of children whose angels see the Father’s face in heaven.

These are often termed our Guardian Angels.

They protect and connect personally: they protect us from evil and connect us with the vision of God.

And that connecting role of angels is at the forefront in the birth of Christ.

Think of the involvement of the angels in the connecting of heaven and earth in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

That’s when the archangel Gabriel comes to Mary to announce to her that she is chosen by God to be Mother of the Lord.

It’s when an angel says to shepherds, in a glorious and luminous presence:

Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2.11)

And then ‘a multitude of the heavenly host’ - angel upon angel - fills the skies praising God and singing:

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those

with whom he is well pleased. (Luke 2.14)

It’s no accident that in the ceiling of the quire of this church, and moving towards the sanctuary, are figures of angels, recalling that our earthly worship connects to the heavenly worship.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist we praise God, and join in the worship of the heavenly Temple (cf Isaiah 6.3):

Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts;

Heaven and earth is full of thy glory!

Hosanna in the highest.

Angels connect us with the worship of heaven, because they are heavenly bodies, not human ones.

But angels are not remote from human beings.

Angels and human beings are all creatures of God; they are part of the God given order of things in creation, and they’re on our side.

As our collect for this great feast prays:

O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men [humans] in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth.

Still, the angels are distinct from us, which is why the question, ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’? is a pointless one (excuse the pun!).

One person can’t dance on the head of a pin, but given what we know of the multitude of the angelic host, they probably can, because they are not embodied as we are.

And their strongest message is of the dignity of the human body - as worthy of protection from evil and connection with God - that is most powerful, and why they are so associated with God taking human flesh in Jesus Christ.

On this feast we are delighted tonight to welcome a priest.

And his name is auspicious: Michael Angelo Walcott.

A priest has, in a sense, to be angelic – not to be prissy and remote, or off the set of a nativity play - but as a protector and connector: someone who presents God to his people, and his people to God.

Angels are powerful indeed, and all too often churches want a priest with the combined talents of the archangels; but priests are also human beings.

God gave us Fr Michael, not St Michael!

God works through our humanity to be the face of his Son today: that is how we can be ‘angelic’.

Fr Michael mustn’t be laden with over expectation, but to use his priesthood to place God before God’s holy people, and God’s holy people before the Holy God, in the presence of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

Fr Michael, may the Heavenly Father, send His angels to watch over you and your loved ones. Guard you from all harm, danger, and evil, and cover you with Your divine protection, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

God or Mammon: it's one or the other

Amos 8.4-7 Against those ‘who buy the poor for silver.’

1 Timothy 2.1-8 ‘Prayers should be made for all people to God, who desire all people to be saved.’

Luke 16.10-13 ‘You cannot serve God and money.’

 

‘You cannot serve God and money.’

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The Bible is really quite black and white on many matters.

For example, in the book of Deuteronomy we hear, ‘today…I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.’ (Deut 30.19)

The direction is to choose life and blessing not death and curse.

It is often noted that Jesus adopts this either/or approach too.

So, in today’s gospel reading the Lord makes a hard-hitting point: you cannot serve God and money.

It’s one or the other; it really is a black and white, binary choice.

That doesn’t often sit well with Anglicans, and there are some times when creative ambiguity or lack of precision in some matters is helpful: but not here!

Of course, people have tried to fudge the ‘God or money’ choice over the ages.

We fool ourselves into thinking that we can serve God and money, or ‘mammon’ as the older translations put it.

Mammon. It’s a good word, for a bad thing!

Mammon is not just about having money – we all need money and at its best make it work for the good - but mammon is wealth that becomes a distraction and corrodes the soul.

It’s not just cash and gold that distract us from God.

We’re talking here about the sin of avarice - one of the seven ‘deadly’ ones - which is an extreme, obsessed greed for material wealth.

The sort of mantra that came from the financial markets in the 1980s, and lives on: ‘greed is good.’

When we’re in that territory, and that is the master we serve, then Jesus is clearly quite right: we cannot serve God; in fact we’ll despise God as a brake on what really drives us.

And when we do that then we despise the poor, because we start to believe that they are contemptible because they have neither money nor the power to make choices that we, the rich, have.

The poor - to which we might add the young, the old, the disabled, the ‘unproductive’ - then are a burden on the rest of us making money and living our cosseted lives, and why would be give a thought to them?

This goes further in the dangerous, frankly heretical, path known as the ‘Prosperity Gospel’, which connects material wealth with spiritual power and links more money with more blessing from God: that is plain wrong! it is contrary to Jesus’ Christ’s Gospel!

Not only does Jesus say that serving money takes us away from God, but the prophet Amos reminds us that money is not simply to serve ourselves; it is also to serve the poor.

What we receive as a gift and blessing is of true value when helping the poor and those in need.

Money is a necessary but dangerous and highly toxic part of human life and society.

Money empowers, but power can corrupt, and when it becomes an idol we worship, then God disappears off our radar.

So: life or death, blessing or curse, money or God?

The choice, as they say, is yours.

Identify the Highest God and pursue it single-mindedly.

This choice, this decision, comes before us today in Holy Baptism.

Baptism for each of us, and today for Mya-Rose and Asharn, offers blessing, life and God.

In baptism we turn away from sin the world and the devil, which we see in the deathliness, curse and allure of material wealth and acquisition.

As Jesus says, do not seek ‘treasures upon earth, which moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal’ (Matthew 6.19) but seek the eternal treasure.

May that be our quest, in the words of the psalm, ‘The law of your mouth, O Lord, is dearer to me than a hoard of gold and silver.’ (Psalm 199.72)

Mya-Rose, Asharn, everyone: may that be the treasure for which you yearn; the endless abundance of life in God’s presence.

 

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Evensong on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14th September 2025.

Isaiah 63.1-16 ‘It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save.’

1 Corinthians 1.18-25 We proclaim Christ crucified

 

‘But far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ (Galatians 6: 14).

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I am currently reading a book by a Greek Orthodox writer called ‘The Crucifixion of the King of Glory’.

The title of that book would have been a mystery to the both Jews and gentiles at the time of Jesus’ death, and it is pretty mind boggling to many people today who, if they think about it all, see the cross as a piece of branding or a sign to represent Christians and the Christian faith.

The Romans would be astonished: crucifixion and crosses were for executing common criminals, slaves, rabble rousers and those who weren’t Roman citizens.

A noble Roman execution - yes, they thought of it that way, noble and ignoble – a noble Roman execution, would be to be beheaded by sword.

That was the fate of St Paul, author of our second lesson, at his martyrdom, because he was a Roman citizen.

So, to think of crucifixion, kings and glory in the same breath is a bit of a stretch until it is considered through the eyes of faith.

That’s the point St Paul made in our second lesson as he speaks of the message of the cross appearing to be foolishness to Jew and Greek alike; but to those who hear the proclamation that Christ crucified the cross reveals, no, is, the power and wisdom of God.

As Paul says in another letter, the one to the Galatians, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6: 14).”

Something is transformed on the cross; the logic of power and the extent of love as understood and operated by you, me and human history is overturned.

This how St John Chrysostom, the fourth century Bishop of Constantinople, saw it.

In a phrase attributed to him says of the Crucified Lord on the Cross, ‘I see him crucified, I call him king’.

Above each crucified criminal the Romans would write the accusation against the victim.

So, we read in St John’s Gospel:

Pontius Pilate [the Roman Governor of Palestine] also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. (John 19.19,20)

You see this above a crucifix to this day: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum, the Latin letters INRI.

And in this crucifixion is a proclamation.

This proclamation transforms the instrument of death.

As a prayer in Holy Week, the time when we are intensely re-living the passion of Christ, puts it:

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.

By Christ’s suffering for us, an instrument of death becomes the means of life; folly becomes wisdom; a stumbling block becomes a foundation – that is why we can speak of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, why we exalt it in our proclamation and in our hearts.

In this transformative proclamation, there is something important we can learn from our Orthodox Christian siblings when it comes to the cross.

In the West we have tended to emphasise the pain, agony and disfigurement of the cross and what crucifixion is, and we are not wrong to do so: it was real; it was horrible; it was torture.

Nevertheless, when the Orthodox represent Christ on the cross, they proclaim more than an agonising death: they portray Christ serene, stately almost, and priestly.

‘I see him crucified, I call him king’.

Instead of INRI over his head - which is what it said - they place what we proclaim: Ὁ Βασιλεύς τῆς Δόξης (Ho Basileus tēs Dóxēs): The King of Glory.

This is the one who is glorified on the cross, the cross that becomes his throne of glory.

That’s what we’re about when we talk about the cross.

It’s not a bit of branding, or an accessory, we bear the cross because we rejoice that something so terrible should have been transformed into a means of redemption for the whole human race.

‘But far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ (Galatians 6: 14).

Prefer nothing to Christ

Wisdom 9.13-18b ‘Who can discern what the Lord wills?’

Philemon 9b-10,12-17 ‘Have him back no longer as a bondservant but as a beloved brother.’

Luke 14.25-33 ‘Anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciples’.

 

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It’s fair to say that based on our Gospel reading today, Jesus never ever promised that being a Christian, a disciple of his, was going to be easy!

That’s actually been the consistent message for the last few Sundays.

He spoke of the division he would bring, pitting even those who are closely related against each other (Luke 12.49-53, 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time).

He spoke of the narrow door through which we must enter the kingdom, by shedding the baggage that we carry of our own pride and vanity (Luke 13.22-30, 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time).

He spoke of the need to be humble in order to sit at his banquet, before being called to a higher place (Luke 14.1,7-14, 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time).

Today it’s about taking up our cross and renouncing everything, even the people and relationships most precious to us.

Really?

Great crowds followed Jesus and what did he do?

Did he revel in the cult of celebrity; get wowed by all his followers; say smooth and seductive words to keep people on board with his ‘project’?

No.

Quite the contrary.

This is what he actually said:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14.26,27)

That’s not out of the ‘how to win friends and influence people’ playbook.

You can’t accuse Jesus of playing to the crowds; indeed the crowds eventually turn on him and shout ‘crucify him’.

He did not come to please, but to walk the way of the cross, and walking the way of the cross revealed it to be none other the way to life in all its abundance, inviting us to walk with him into the loving, generous heart of God.

The community of Jesus, his family, the Church he brought into existence, is formed by the cross.

The scene at the crucifixion is of Mary and the Beloved Disciple entrusted into each other’s care:

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

Rowan Williams described the Church as being, ‘A community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

In other words, it is allegiance to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, embracing and bearing our own cross, that defines the Church in the first instance: that’s what Mary and John at the cross of Jesus represent.

All the other allegiances we have in life have to be put into that perspective.

St Benedict puts it like this:

Prefer nothing to Christ. (Rule of St Benedict 4.21)

The other allegiances and things we prefer: status, influence, power, money, whatever it may be that we depend on, other than Christ, are not to be preferred.

And that even is about our nearest and dearest.

But I don’t want to hate the people who are closest to me.

So I need to read this right.

Jesus deploys a very typical way that Rabbis speak: he overstates his point, in the negative, to elicit a response.

The point is not about dismantling the family and making relatives hate one another, but to prompt us to examine what life lived preferring nothing to Christ actually looks like; to understand what the family really looks like and how love of Christ flows out in love of neighbour, of one another.

What if I really preferred nothing to the love of Christ?

How would that look in the way I live my life?

What would be the ways I would have to live that I am not doing now?

Do my possessions, or possessiveness, even something darker, actually possess me?

In his letter to the Christians of Philippi, St Paul put it like this:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3.7)

In fact, he goes on:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3.8)

Because he prefers nothing to Christ, he counts everything that was his previous priority, obsession and allegiance as rubbish – in fact, the Greek word in the original text is a little fruitier – everything that he had before is like dung, compared to what he has in Christ!

What freedom, what liberty!

The essence of today’s gospel is ‘prefer nothing to Christ’.

And it has bearing on our lives and relationships, be that in our family or household, amongst friends at school or at work.

Jesus does not come to destroy families, and human relationships, but to shape them into being microcosms of the church lived out through the home every day of the week.

When we are preferring nothing to Christ we are not exalting ourselves above others; we are not exalting ourselves even above God, for God is not in competition with us, but wills our good.

The Church is indeed ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

May our families be ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

May our church schools be ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

May our nation look like ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

The cross can be said to represent north and south, east and west, heaven and earth, horizontal and vertical, all coming together, and at its centre and heart: Christ.

Beware though: preferring nothing to Christ, Christ as the centre of your life, will not be without cost: it is the way of renunciation, but its rewards are abundant and eternal.

The narrow opens to glory

Isaiah 66.18-21 ‘They shall bring all your brothers from all the nations’

Hebrews 12.5-7,11-13 ‘The Lord disciplines the one he loves’

Luke 13.22-30 ‘People will come from east and west, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.’

 

‘Strive to enter by the narrow door’. (Luke 13.24)

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The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is a very big church and holds lots of people: it makes this one look quite modest in size.

At its heart is the birthplace of Jesus Christ.

It is one of those places where there is a palpable sense of a meeting point between things earthly and heavenly: and, of course, heaven and earth met, in Bethlehem, at the Incarnation of Jesus.

Heaven and earth meet here, in our lives, when we open our hearts, minds and bodies to his transforming and converting grace, especially when we stretch out our hands to receive him in the Eucharist.

So, back in Bethlehem, is this large, capacious church, that can hold all-comers, pilgrims from all around the globe.

But at the same time its entrance is tiny, about four feet high by two feet wide; in metric, that’s 120 centimetres by 60 centimetres: enter by the narrow door, indeed!

Some say it’s that size for practical reasons: the door was made so small to prevent armed horsemen from entering the basilica during the Ottoman period. 

Others say it’s for spiritual reasons: the tiny door causes everyone who enters to stoop before they come in, as a check to our own pride and egos.  

Either way anyone entering the church must disarm, and humbly lower themselves to enter.

It’s easiest, of course, for little children to get in.

So that ancient church is a parable, in stone, of the invitation, demands and promise of entering the Kingdom of God.

“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” (Luke 13.24)

In the Kingdom of God there is room for everyone; but entry is by ‘the narrow door’.

Strive to enter, says Jesus.

The original Greek of the Gospel says, Ἀγωνίζεσθε, (agōnizesthe) which means to strive, to struggle, to agonise.

We don’t just walk into the Kingdom of God upright carrying all our personal baggage.

That’s why he continues, ‘Many will seek to enter and will not be able’.

What chastening words these are for those who would enter on their own terms; and encouraging words for those who wrestle with faith and salvation: entry is promised, but not without cost.

We need to seek the narrow door, and knock on it: God’s will is that it is opened; but it is narrow.

There is a live, and sometimes antagonistic, debate across the Church in the West today about the language and practice of inclusion in the Church.

On one hand there are those who argue that God’s welcome is so expansive that anyone can enter the Kingdom of God; there are no significant boundaries or barriers.

On the other hand, there is the narrow interpretation that God only calls certain people, the ‘elect’, into his Kingdom.

 

Reflecting the Gospel, the Church is neither wholly inclusive nor wholly exclusive: rather the Church proclaims the abundant love of God for everyone in such a way that also makes clear that to be a follower of Jesus Christ is a demanding and costly way, a way that means we are shaped in his image, not making him in our own.

‘[Jesus] opened wide his arms for us on the cross’ (Common Worship: Eucharistic Prayer B).

It’s an embracing welcome, but on a cross.

No one is beyond Jesus’ call and his mercy: throughout the Gospels he sits down and eats with sinners; he calls the excluded of society; he prioritises the nobodies, which is how society of his day saw children; and he counted women as his disciples, unheard of before his time.

After all, ‘some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’ (Luke 13.30)

So, what of striving to enter by the narrow door?

The narrow door is our turning away from sin and turning to Christ, as being baptised commits us to.

Our liturgy does the same thing: we confess our sins as our worship begins, not to be miserable or downbeat, but to say that we are taking off the baggage of sin, so that we can ‘enter his courts with praise’.

To enter through the narrow door is a struggle, something to strive for: we have to take off the things that we become all too comfortable with, they’re named in the Litany as, ‘pride, vanity and hypocrisy… envy, hatred and malice… hardness of heart and contempt for [God’s] word and [his] laws’ (Common Worship: The Litany).

But, cast off all that and we enter through the narrow door into the abundance of God’s kingdom.

To strive for something means we really want it; really desire it.

The free gift of grace costs everything.

The great Lutheran theologian and Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, knew this, wrote about it and lived and died it.

He went through the narrow door, such that it led to his execution by the Nazis.

And he rooted that in his conviction of ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ (the title of one of his books).

In it he speaks of ‘cheap grace’, the way we reduce the demands of the Gospel to make it attractive or acceptable to those who want to enter through a wider door:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. (Part I, Chapter 1)

That narrow door – through which we strive, struggle, agonise to enter - opens onto a limitless vision of God, so that:

Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 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 you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3.17b-19)

May we enter by that narrow door and never lose hope in God’s mercy. Amen.

No scorpions, no serpents

Genesis 18.20-32 ‘Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak,’

Colossians 2.12-14 ‘God made you alive together with him, having forgiven all trespasses.’

Luke 11.1-13 ‘Ask, and it will be given to you.’

‘Lord, teach us to pray’

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The Lord’s Prayer, the ‘Our Father’, is the model and pattern of all Christian prayer, given to us by Jesus Christ himself.

It is the starting point, and the destination of all prayer.

To have this Gospel reading given to us by the Church today is providential because we are baptising Esther, a new member of the Body of Christ who becomes an adopted child of God, and who can call God her Father, as much as he is mine and yours.

This prayer is the one that Esther, and all Christians must know and use.

The early Christian text known as the ‘Didache’, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, says we should pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day – in the morning, at noon and at the close of day.

The Lord’s Prayer is a great gift to teach the new Christian so as to learn to know God's holiness, his will, provision, mercy, and protection: it’s all there.

Christian parents, godparents, catechists and nurturers should all pray the Lord’s Prayer themselves and teach it to the young in faith.

We must all be men and women of prayer to encourage and teach others in prayer.

As the Gospel told us, the disciples needed to be formed in prayer by Jesus.

It was after they had seen Jesus praying and, remembering that John the Baptist’s disciples had seen him pray and been taught how to pray, that they were ready to ask Jesus how to do it: ‘Lord, teach us to pray’.

Now you might ask, how do I teach my child, grandchild, niece, nephew, friend to pray?

Seeing you pray and praying with you are the most effective ways.

That means embedding prayer in your daily life.

In prayer give thanks for the gift of a new day; for the food you eat and meals you share; ask for guidance in how to live; bless God at the close of the day, for your ‘creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory’ (Book of Common Prayer: A General Thanksgiving).

So, what is prayer?

Prayer is the way we grow into closer union with our heavenly Father, with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer draws us into the divine love and presence, which is the goal of the Christian life.

Prayer forms our dependency on God who is the generator of our lives.

And from that deepening communion you can ‘in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.’ (Philippians 4.6)

That’s St Paul’s way of saying that it is not just okay, it is fundamental, to ask things of God in prayer.

Abraham repeatedly asks things of God in our first reading, where he pleads on behalf of the righteous people for all those left in a sinful city.

Yet Jesus warns that we must be careful about what we ask for, as he did to the apostles James and John who asked for prestige in the Kingdom of God: ‘you do not know what you are asking’ he says. (Matthew 20.22)

They want glory, but it will be glory revealed in suffering.

We cannot know what God’s answer will be to our prayer.

We can be sure, though, that we will not be tricked – no scorpions or serpents - even if God gives what we do not expect:

 ‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (Luke 11.13)

It may not be what you want, expect or hope for, but God’s answer will be good and beautiful and true.

‘Lord, teach us to pray.’

The disciples ask - and they learn - that prayer is the ability to walk and talk with God in the way that Moses did: ‘Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.’ (Exodus 33.11)

And we speak to God as a loving, concerned, accepting parent: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’.

When you pray, pray like this, says Jesus: he is my Father and yours, he is ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5.6,7)

 

 

 

Waiting on God

Genesis 18.1-10a ‘O  Lord, do not pass by your servant.’

Colossians 1.24-28 ‘The mystery hidden for ages but now revealed to his saints.’

Luke 10.38-42 ‘Martha welcomed him. Mary has chosen the good portion.’

 

On God alone my soul in stillness waits;

from him comes my salvation.

(Psalm 62.1)

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Our first reading today is known as the Hospitality of Abraham (better titled the Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah) when a mysterious visitation happens and they offer to their visitors the hospitality of their home.

It is a puzzling scene, because the first verse tells us that the Lord appears to Abraham, and then it is three men who are at his door.

This scene has been famously captured in an icon by the Russian iconographer, Andrei Rublev, and is often known as the Icon of the Holy Trinity.

It is little wonder that this has been understood by Christians as a glimpse into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the One God revealed in Three Persons.

Rublev depicts the three persons as angelic figures, seated at a table, on which there is a golden, chalice-like bowl containing a roasted lamb.

So it becomes an image of the Mystical Supper, the Holy Eucharist, the place of hospitality and receiving the presence of the Lamb of God.

There is much more that can be said, another time, about Rublev’s sublime icon, and how it represents the eternal character of the Godhead.

It probable that the author of the letter to the Hebrews had Abraham’s visitors by the Oaks of Mamre in mind when he writes, ‘do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares’ (Hebrews 13.2).

There is a powerful Biblical imperative to be hospitable; think how many parables and actions of Jesus are set in places of hospitality, and how often he condemns when hospitality is neglected.

Our first reading and our Gospel text open up for us fresh ways of perceiving how we welcome Jesus Christ spiritually and actually into our lives.

Both readings appear to illustrate the same thing: be hospitable to strangers because you never quite know who they are; they might be God in disguise.

But there is something different going on in the Gospel.

Jesus enters a village, which new can assume to be Bethany, for elsewhere in the Gospels we learn that this is the town in which Jesus’ friends Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus, live.

As we’ve seen, hospitality to strangers was, and remains, a hugely important part of Near Eastern culture, so the action of Abraham and Sarah, Martha and Mary meets cultural norms and standards.

Except, actually, Mary’s behaviour doesn’t.

Mary doesn’t do what Abraham and Sarah and Martha do, which is show hospitality by urgently preparing food and serving it to the guest.

Mary brings no food, is not frenetic in the panic of hosting an unannounced visitor.

Mary knows a different way of hospitality.

In fact, it may well be that she is the woman who turns up at the house of Simon the Pharisee when the hospitality she showed was in stark contrast to the host: he gave no customary welcome, but she gave lavish devotion to Jesus, washing his feet with her hair and anointing him with fragrant and expensive perfume, highlighting, amongst other things, Simon’s lack of hospitality (cf Matthew 26.6-13; Mark 13.3-9; Luke 7.36-50).

Here in her home Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and, even despite Martha pleadings and apologies, there she stays.

And here’s the bombshell for Martha - and for those of us who like to be busy rolling up our sleeves and doing - Jesus tells Martha that, ‘Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her’. (Luke 10.42)

In other words, Mary’s action is the one of deep hospitality which goes beyond being busy or frantic, but simply delights, silently, in the presence of the guest whom she recognises to be the Lord.

Verses of Psalm 62 could have been written for this scene:

On God alone my soul in stillness waits;

from him comes my salvation.

Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul;

for in him is my hope. (Psalm 62.1,5)

Martha receives Jesus in a matter of fact way; a guest to be catered for, as did Abraham and Sarah when receiving their three visitors.

Mary is commended for welcoming Jesus in a radically different way of hospitality, paying attention to him, silently and in stillness, listening to his word.

Jesus sees that Martha’s activity is driven by anxiety and inner trouble: “Martha, Martha” Jesus says “you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.” (Luke 10.41,42)

It echoes his words in St Matthew’s Gospel: ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you’ (Matthew 6.33).

Disciples prioritise Jesus; from which all flows.

These friends of Jesus must learn to be his disciples.

We must learn to be his disciples, sitting at his feet, contemplating and adoring.

This is a call to prayer; learning to pray, becoming men and women of prayer.

It is first in wonder and contemplation that we welcome Jesus Christ the guest to our lives.

Mystical encounter precedes active doing.

Recall Moses at the Burning Bush, he first encountered and contemplated the presence of God before he could go and lead his people from their slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.

Of course, a balance is to be struck between doing and being.

The Epistle of James reminds us, ‘be doers of the word, and not only hearers’ (James 1.22) reminding us not to become introspective and turned in on ourselves, but always looking first to Christ.

So today’s gospel has both a practical and a spiritual application.

First, we are to welcome strangers and friends as treasured guests.

The Rule of St Benedict nails it:

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt 25:35). (Rule of Benedict 53.1)

The spiritual application is that the first guest is always Christ, to be welcomed into our lives, worshipped and adored.

When we are invited to come and receive Holy Communion we find he is the host and he is the guest: he invites us to his supper, to the banquet of the Lamb of God, and we respond in humility:

‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, [not worthy for you to enter under my roof] but only say the word and my soul shall be healed’.

This is Mary of Bethany’s spiritual posture.

She knows she is not worthy to receive Jesus into her home, and indeed, into her life, but first allows Him to speak the word to bring her healing and peace through his presence.

She is silent in this passage not as a passive, silenced woman, but as an engaged model of discipleship, to which women and men should aspire.

The priority is to fix our gaze and attention on God, from which all else flows.

If our active life dominates our contemplative life, we need to hear Jesus’s words to Martha, ‘you are anxious and troubled [distracted] about many things’.

We live in a distracted and distracting world.

Mary of Bethany has chosen the antidote, ‘the good portion’.

Let’s sit with Mary at the Lord’s feet, to pray, to listen, to learn, to receive, to set aside self to learn from him, for therein lies true hospitality:

On God alone my soul in stillness waits;

from him comes my salvation.

Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul;

for in him is my hope.