'Witnesses of these things' - A homily for the Third Sunday of Easter

 Preached at Croydon Minster on the Third Sunday of Easter 2021. Acts of the Apostles 3.12-19; Luke 24.36b-48

‘You are witnesses to these things’

 

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Do you ever wonder what you are being asked to do when, at the end of the Eucharist, the deacon or priest declares, ‘Go in the peace of Christ’ or ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’ (to which in Eastertide we add the joyful ‘alleluia’)?

 

These closing words are profoundly important and they are not just an afterthought to the Eucharist. Just as the tide of the sea washes in and washes out so the Holy Spirit leads us into the church and washes us back out.

 

We are drawn in to ‘taste and see’, to immerse ourselves in the scriptures, in the life-giving power of the sacraments, to know Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, recognising him in the breaking of bread.

 

And then we are washed back out into the world in which Christ rose from the dead. And this morning’s gospel points us to the task: ‘you are witnesses to these things’.

 

In other words, when you go in peace from here you are implicated as a witness to what you have heard, seen and tasted.

 

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A witness is really important in relating the veracity of events. We are all familiar with the witness in a court of law. As the trial of the policeman accused of the killing of George Floyd is showing at the moment witnesses are called for both the prosecution and the defence of the accused.

 

Some witnesses will say contradictory things; the jury must decide.

 

Some witnesses will have a genuinely different account of the same event. The important thing is that the witness does not violate the 8^th Commandment: ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’.

 

That demands truthfulness and integrity. After all, the Greek word for witness is μάρτυς, from which comes the word ‘martyr’. A true witness can be costly.

 

When it comes to their testimony, the witness must be convinced and convincing.

 

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So when we leave the church on a Sunday morning we go out as witnesses to what we have met and encountered here in this holy place, meeting Christ in word and sacrament. And this is some task in a world that is not readily open to the Christian gospel. ‘Twas ever thus: yet the witness to Christ has filled the world!

 

The first disciples were convinced and convincing witnesses that Jesus Christ had died on the cross and was now alive and risen and eating and drinking. Theirs is an ‘in person’ encounter.

 

It would not be world changing to testify as witnesses that they had seen a ghost, or that they had seen a disembodied spiritual hologram, or that they were inspired by a memory of a charismatic leader.

 

What convinced and convinces the world is that God leads us from death to life in Christ. That is the apostolic message. The disciples had met ‘that message’ in person! That living, breathing, risen body they met now – Jesus Christ, crucified and risen - lives on in his church, in the sacraments, in you and me.

 

We have received that testimony from witnesses who have gone before us: the saints, our parents, godparents, Sunday school teachers, priests. And we see, hear and taste Christ’s body in the Eucharist.

 

That is what we are witnesses to, real and ‘in person’, in our lives. The challenge, the question to leave hanging for you this week is how will you do that? How will you be a witness?

 

Here’s a thought as you answer that:

 

Our world needs now, more than ever: the example of lives flowing with faith, hope and love; pledged to simple and generous living; not caught up in worldly achievement; sustained by the ‘lively life that deathless shall persevere’ drawn from sacramental grace; nourished by a life of prayer; all shaped by Jesus Christ.

 

That might just be the beginning of the life of the witness.

Unlock: An Easter Call to the Church

First preached as a sermon on the Second Sunday of Easter at Croydon Minster, also the Sunday of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting. Text: John 20.19-31.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

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Over the last few months the nation has become wearily familiar with the Speaker of the House of Commons, after another vote in the House, bellowing, (and I won’t do an impersonation!) ‘unlock!’

Well, this morning’s Gospel reading is saying the same thing: it’s time to unlock!

Unlock your hearts. Unlock your minds. Unlock your bodies. Open up. Then step out into the world in faith, hope and love.

As we gather for this Eucharist, today the Second Sunday of Eastertide, the day of our Annual Parochial Church Meeting, the Gospel tells us that doors that were locked can be flung open; there is nothing to fear in being witnesses to the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The disciples locked themselves away ‘out of fear’. The keys to the Kingdom that Peter had been given by Christ had locked the door; when really they are for unlocking.

So Jesus Christ unlocks the doors of that room, where the disciples were fearfully huddled, in a threefold way: through peace, forgiveness and faith.

Peace. First, he extends his hands: ‘Peace be with you’ he says. Shortly we will share the Sign of Peace, and in Eastertide the introduction to the Peace draws directly on this morning’s gospel scene: ‘then were they glad when they saw the Lord’.

The exchange of the Sign of Peace is not to prompt backslapping bonhomie, or to catch up on old titbits of news, or even enquire after someone’s wellbeing: that is the behaviour of the locked away, the introspective and the clubbish.

The exchange of the Sign of Peace acknowledges the Peace that Christ brings dispels fearfulness such that we disarm ourselves and look out beyond ourselves.

The gift of peace to the disciples also turns them into being apostles, for they are sent in peace, to bring peace, to be peace-full. An apostle is one who is sent: ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you’ (John 20.21).

That’s what the final commission of the Eucharist is about: ‘Go in peace’! Flow out from here like life giving water - unlocked - bearing peace on your way.

And that’s the second gift there is: forgiveness. Christ the Unlocker breathes the Holy Spirit upon the apostles with the breath of forgiveness. The apostles are to be a forgiven and forgiving community.

There is immense power in this. Jesus is not giving them a power to withhold forgiveness, or not, as if it were their own to bestow. Rather, the power to forgive sins goes with the power of being forgiven by Jesus. Without forgiving others you will never know yourself to be forgiven; without knowing yourself to be forgiven, you will never forgive others.

Forgiveness in the Name of Jesus unlocks: it unlocks intractable situations (reconciliation - personal, corporate, international - flows from forgiveness). Forgiveness unlocks tangled up lives that have turned in on themselves; forgiveness unlocks and releases.

Confession of our sins, not the retention of other peoples’ sins, unlocks and unblocks our relationship with God and other people.

Peace. Forgiveness. Faith.

Faith unlocks. Faith, the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, is ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (Hebrews 11.1). It is faith that gives hope for the future, for the future is filled with things not seen.

What can give us assurance is what was tangible for Thomas. In the wounds of Christ we see, feel and touch the passionate love of God for us and the world. In his resurrection, the wounds of crucifixion don’t go away but are transformed into glorious signs of Christ’s commitment to us.

Faith, then, unlocks our imaginations and opens us up to the capacity that God has for renewal and transformation: the renewal and transformation of our personal lives, our relationships, our church, our world.

Peace. Forgiveness. Faith. Three signs of the presence of Christ, the One Who Unlocks.

So what locks you in? For many people what locks them in is fear: fear of failure, fear of being exposed for being some sort of fraud; fear that being true to one’s own convictions will expose one to ridicule, embarrassment or shame.

If you’re locked in, someone else is locked out. Being locked in creates divisions. You can see that in individual lives, amongst self-identifying groups and communities and between nations.

All this can be true of a church community too. Churches can go into spiritual, and physical, lock down. (After all, that’s what the embryonic church, the band of Christ’s disciples, did). We can look in on ourselves. We can keep things ticking over. We can take comfort in the familiar and what we can control. We can ‘batten down the hatches’. We lock ourselves in and lock others, including Jesus Christ, out.

In that situation Christ calls: ‘Unlock! Receive my peace; be forgiving and forgiven. Have faith’.

I know that is our heart’s desire here at this Minster Church: to unlock and open up.

That is about our spiritual disposition, what you could call our culture, and it’s about physical posture, in other words, our practice, what we do.

I detect a great yearning for this church to establish itself afresh as the ancient and enduring spiritual heart of this community of Croydon, not in splendid isolation but working with all who seek the Common Good, to be a symbol of God’s faithfulness over the centuries, God’s commitment to the present, and hope and faith for the future.

There is a desire to unlock, roll up our collective sleeves and serve our locality because “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” (Gaudium et Spes, 1)

I hope that our annual report is a reflection of all the wonderful things that happen here and an indication of all that can be unlocked here.

In the coming weeks we will have a chance to do some self-reflection, through the short questionnaire that you’re encouraged to complete, through praying for our church and gathering on 15^th June for a time when we can map out our vision as a church community.

That is not us being introspective or locked in, but being renewed to step out afresh, going in peace to love and serve the Lord.

In the coming months, leading to the autumn, the Church Council and I will be working on a new Mission Action Plan. That plan will have been deeply informed by our vision day in June. It will help us identify what you can call our ‘greater “yes”’, as we look towards God’s future with hope.

That Mission Action Plan will be our tool to unlock and open up our renewed vision, mission and purpose. There is so much we would love to do. Yet under God, a plan will identify the things that we say ‘yes’ to and embrace, and the things that, at this time, we need to say ‘no’ to. And it will ask us to identify the resources we need to realise it.

Knowing our ‘greater “yes”’ is what will unlock our energies and passions not for ourselves but for the sake of the Kingdom.

Unlocked living is about living life in all its abundance (cf John 10.10).

May that life, received in Word and sacrament, be an enduring feature of this church and all who pass through her doors, unlocked, for the sake of all people and the Kingdom, such that we go from here in peace, forgiven and forgiving, filled with faith to love and serve the Lord.

Running to the Tomb: An Easter Day sermon

First preached a sermon at Croydon Minster on Easter Day 2019 at the Principal Eucharist of the Day. Readings John 20.1-18

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

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Mary ran. Peter and John were running. John outran Peter. There is a great deal of running on that first Easter morning!

Mary ran from something and Peter and John to something. It was of course the tomb in which Jesus’ dead, bloodied body had been laid.

I imagine that far from running to the tomb early on that first day of the week as it was still dark, May Magdalene perhaps walked slowly and ponderously, heavy of heart and heavy of feet.

Her Lord, the one from whom she had received healing and forgiveness, love and acceptance, was dead.

Why was she going to the tomb? She was doing what many bereaved people do. She went to that place just hoping that by proximity to her Beloved’s body, even if dead, she would somehow draw some inspiration, some sense of presence, some rekindling of a memory.

But the tomb was empty. All she knew for certain at this stage was that the tomb was empty. Now even the body of her Beloved was gone. The experience of relatives of those who have been ‘disappeared’ by tyrannical regimes, or those whose body is never found, bears out Mary’s shock and anguish. To grieve well we need a body.

A human being is body and spirit together; neither is more important than the other. That’s why the dignity of the human body matters to Christians; that’s why the wellbeing of the human spirit in each person matters. Jesus’ death would have had no redemptive power were it not for the fact that he had a body, was real flesh and blood and really died.

It’s contrary to the early heresy of Docetism, which suggested that Jesus was so divine that he only appeared human, but could not really have been. So his death appeared to be a death but was not. So, he could not possibly have died ‘for us and for our salvation’.

That denies the Resurrection. Jesus, fully God and fully human, died.

Dignity for the body in death is as significant as the dignity of the body in life; hence why Christian practice reverences the body in funeral practices; is not like an old pair of shoes discarded when the essence of someone carries on spiritually. This is at the heart of the Christian teaching of the Resurrection of the Body: as St Paul puts it we are given a new and glorious body.

Mary though arrived to find no body. Little wonder, then, that she ran to tell the disciples.

Mary ran away from the tomb, shocked, disorientated and bewildered. And they ran back there.

Perhaps, like men often do, they thought that this poor woman had got it wrong, or was willing him not to be dead, or was just plain confused. There is even a macho reference to one disciple, the author no doubt, who outran Peter, but let Peter, the rock of the apostles, look in first.

Mary was right. The tomb was empty. Peter inspected. There was order and purpose in this empty tomb. The linen wrappings were still there. The cloth that covered his dead face carefully rolled up. This was not the scene of a break-in or body snatchers. Yet the two men went home.

It was Mary who stayed, simply being present. Her running was not activism but a deep, contemplative yearning after Jesus Christ. St Paul speaks of this yearning in terms of running in his letter to the Philippians. He describes of what is lacking in his faith and in his life, and then says ‘but I am still running, trying to capture the prize that first captured me’ (Philippians 3.12).

Mary’s coming to the tomb is evocative of the lover in the Song of Songs searching for the Beloved around the city, asking strangers ‘have you seen him?’ The spiritual life is about yearning; an aching desire for the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives to bring us healing, forgiveness, peace, abundance of life and his presence.

Yet Mary stood weeping at an empty tomb: profound absence. No-body.

In St John’s gospel initially we don’t get more detail than that. It is the other gospels that tell us of the myrrh bearing women who went to wash and anoint Jesus’ dead body, as was the custom of the day. It is the other gospels that tell of an angelic presence describing what had taken place: that Jesus was risen. That comes later in St John.

St John gives us other beautiful details. The first day of the week; that’s code for the being the same day as the creation of the world, the day when God spoke out of the darkness the words, ‘Let there be light’. The dark night in which Mary had arrived in was giving way to the dawn, suggestive of a New Creation. As John refers to in the Prologue to his Gospel, ‘the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’.

The Easter Proclamation is the proclamation of light overcoming the darkness: life overcoming death. Last night at the Easter Ceremonies, the light of our Paschal Candle was kindled and borne aloft into a dark church as we sang, ‘The Light of Christ: Thanks be to God’. The light was shining in the darkness, as in the beginning, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

At Baptism each newly baptized person is given a candle lit from the Paschal Candle and is told, ‘Shine as a light in the world, to the glory of God the Father’. Just as Charles was told after he was baptized last night.

Because of her patient, attentive, faithful presence: a faithful loitering at the tomb Mary met a stranger, and, through her tears, asks, ‘have you seen him?’

Christ is no stranger and names Mary into being. As God named the sun and moon, the sky and earth, the animals and even Adam – humanity - into existence, so now he names this woman into fullness of New Life: Mary.

Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden: Jesus and Mary Magdalene are in the garden of the New Creation.

We find ourselves in the Garden of the New Creation today, in this church.

It matters little if you ran here this morning, if you trudged here, or were dragged here: you are here! You are present and you are opening yourselves afresh to hear Christ speak your name, to call you into existence and fullness of life.

And you don’t come to an empty tomb with no-body around. You are with your brothers and sisters in Christ, the Church, the Body of Christ, and you will receive the very presence of our Incarnate, Crucified and Risen Lord as you feed on his Body in the Sacrament of the Altar, his offering of his life that you may live.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

The Angel of the Annunciation; the Angel of the Resurrection

Preached as a sermon at the Sung Eucharist for the Annunciation of the Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary, 10^th April, 2018 at Guildford Cathedral.

The angel of the Lord brought tidings to Mary and she conceived by the Holy Spirit. Alleluia.

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

The Annunciation to Mary 

The arrival of Gabriel - whose name means ‘God is my strength’ - begins an encounter between the archangel and Mary that we know as the Annunciation, the announcement of the Incarnation of the Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

‘God is my strength’ could also be Mary’s motto as she says ‘yes’ to taking on a way of potential shame and ignominy and yet a way of willing response to the Creator God, her maker and redeemer, and ours too, drawing strength from the angel’s words, ‘Do not be afraid’ (Luke 1.30).

What Gabriel announces is the Incarnation in hidden form; the Eternal Word of God dwells deep in the womb of Mary gestating.

What Gabriel and the multitude of the heavenly host proclaim in nine months’ time is the birth of the Eternal Word, now unhidden, so that we proclaim, ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory… full of grace and truth’ (cf Luke 2.8-14 and John 1.14, ).

Today inaugurates the Incarnation of the Word and shapes the lines of the Nicene Creed speaking of Christ, for which customarily one bows because of its enormity:

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,

was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and was made man.

We bow down to the Divine Name, at which name ‘every knee should bend’ (Philippians 2.10), who nestles in his mother’s womb, as one of us, and yet is also ‘eternally begotten of the Father’ (Nicene Creed).

The Annunciation of the Lord to Mary is the definitive encounter between a human being and God and the exemplar of how to respond.

Mary has been called Mother of the Church, because where Mary is found in the Gospels is where the whole Church - you and I - is called to be.

In the Holy Gospels Mary is found pointing others to Christ: ‘do whatever he tells you’ she says (John 2.5); Mary stands patiently at the foot of his cross, with the Beloved Disciple (John 19.25b-27), the foundational relationship of fellowship and love in the Church; Mary waits attentively and expectantly for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, her prayer, with them, shaping the nine days of intercession between Ascension Day and Pentecost (Acts of the Apostles 1.14); and in The Revelation to John Mary, identified with the Church, is the woman clothed in the sun, pregnant and bringing a child to birth (Revelation 12.1-6).

Where Mary is - in proximity to Christ - we are called to be.

Also the manner of her open and active response to Gabriel is one the whole Church – you and I –are called to make, so that the power of the Most High will overshadow the Church to grow into the image and likeness of Christ.

This prompts us to prayer and, with Mary, to ponder these things in our hearts (cf Luke 2.19; 2.51).

Each day the bell of this Cathedral Church rings out before morning and evening prayer in a pattern known as the Angelus. It heralds a prayer that uses the Annunciation encounter as its model. The first words of the prayer, Angelus domini in Latin, recall the angel of the Lord coming to Mary and her conception by the Holy Spirit.

The Angelus continues by focusing on Mary’s obedient response, in spite of the cost, ‘let be unto me according to your word’; and then moves to the heart of the matter: ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’. The prayer is interspersed with the Hail Mary, which is a fusion of Gabriel’s salutation, and Elizabeth’s declaration, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus’ (Luke 1.28, 42).

This young woman, of which prophets speak, who will bear Emmanuel – God with us – receives, through Gabriel, strength from on high: ‘God is my strength’.

On this day of the Annunciation the Church prays to know that ‘God is my strength’.

We pray that we may respond to the Lord after the example of Mary, so that the way in which Mary responds shapes and prompts our own response to God, as a Church and as persons baptised in his Name.

We do this to the end that Christ gestates within us and that we bring Christ to birth in the world. This is the task of the Church. This is about an intense knowing of who Christ is - Incarnate, Crucified, Risen and Ascended - who prays for us at the right hand of the Father.

God calls: and the Holy Spirit makes possible what is to be.

The proper date of celebrating the Annunciation is 25^th March, exactly nine months before Christmas, the length of a pregnancy. This year it fell on Palm Sunday so is transferred to today, following Easter Week.

It is not every year, then, that the Annunciation falls in Eastertide; so this year we can reflect too on the presence of the Angel of the Resurrection. At the empty tomb it is an angelic presence that declares Do not be afraid: he is risen (cf Matthew 28.5-6; Mark 16.5; Luke 24.4-6; John 20.12).

Can we, as a Church, draw to courage, heart and strength from that angelic declaration? We are successors of the first witnesses of the resurrection; heirs too of the promise of the archangel to Mary. We worship with angels and archangels, with Mary, apostles, martyrs and all the company of heaven.

The angel has left the doorway of the empty tomb to point out Christ in the world; in places of darkness and despair, in places of celebration and rejoicing, indeed throughout the cosmos, the whole created order.

And the challenge is to see him in bread and wine, in his holy word, in one another, in the broken, disfigured and unlovely. This is what the Annunciation unleashes, seeing Christ - Incarnate, Crucified, Risen and Ascended - in all things and all people: for he is ‘all in all’ (Ephesians 1.23; Colossians 1.17)

Tonight in this sacrament we receive Christ into the depths of our lives, his body absorbed into our bodies, nestling deep within us. Every time we receive the Body of Christ, we are receiving what Mary received through the message the angel brought: Christ gestating within us, so that we come to share the intimate knowing of Christ that blessed her life.

The angel of the Lord brought tidings to Mary and she conceived by the Holy Spirit. Alleluia.

Walking in step with the Crucified & Risen Lord

First preached as a sermon at Guildford Cathedral on Easter Day 2018 at Solemn Evensong & Procession.

Luke 24.13- 35 ‘The Walk to Emmaus’

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the delights and excitements of the English beach holiday – apart from guessing the weather – is going rock-pooling. And when you wear shoes a lot walking barefoot on rough ground brings you quickly to realise just how soft and pampered your feet are. I have childhood memories at the beginning of beach holidays treading through rock pools being scratched by barnacles, shivering in cold sea water, jabbed by rocks, burned by hot sand.

Tonight on the shiny floors of this cathedral there will be an Easter procession; not a journey of penitence but a journey of rejoicing. Holy Week and Easter is characterised by a surfeit of journeying – Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, the Way of the Cross; and just last night the confirmation candidates journeyed to the font to recall their baptism, echoing the journey of the people of Israel from their slavery in the darkness of Egypt, to freedom, light and liberty in the Promised Land. Led by incense and making our way to the Paschal Candle our procession deliberately evokes the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that led the people of Israel from their slavery to freedom. All these journeys are an embodiment of a life metaphor.

So now a new day has dawned: Christ is risen! And still journeys. The journeys of the first Easter morning are of the myrrh bearing women, coming to anoint Jesus’ dead body, and of Mary Magdalene coming to weep at the tomb. From the empty tomb Mary begins the first Christian missionary journey as she goes to pass on the news of the resurrection to the Apostles, what we know now as the apostolic faith. Mary hands on that which reaches us today. Peter and John respond by racing to the tomb. Tonight’s Easter procession is a response in movement around the Cathedral: it is a rather more stately echo of the journeys of the women, of Mary Magdalene and of Peter and John - with no overtaking - to and from the tomb: we make their journey tonight.

Easter can seem like we have finally got it, we have arrived at our destination; journey’s end. And all too often the resurrection is told as simply the happy ending of a sad story. But the resurrection of Jesus is a junction not a terminus; it is a point of departure that takes us on and beyond our expectation. It recalibrates our vision and the possibilities of God; we are left asking ‘who is this Jesus? Where is this Jesus?’ and we see him and find him in the simplicity and depth of the breaking of bread; which is itself, day by day, a glimpse of resurrection and then we see him no more.

In his poem ‘Emmaus’ Archbishop Rowan Williams describes a stranger – Jesus - as completely out of step with our familiar world. Jesus walks to a different rhythm, padding in the gaps between our uncertain footsteps, across the terrain and contours over which we are called to walk, like the feet of the little boy who has removed his shoes to walk across the rock pools.

Before the Resurrection we were shod with the expectation that death is the final word, that we can live only for ourselves, that we are essentially alone. We take off those shoes to walk barefoot, walking the same terrain as before but, like with shoes off in the rock pools, with a more vibrant appreciation of God’s abundant life, our bonds with others, and that we live no longer for ourselves but for Christ. Tonight we begin resurrection walking again, tentatively and yet attentively, walking with him, step by step into his rhythm, he who is everything we are, and everything we are to become.

Those two dejected disciples walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus in the dimness of dusk and with uncertain footsteps. They walked into the dark night with the stranger who walks with them and breaks bread for them, as he has before, and now they walk on and into the light.  

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia.