Take up your cross

 First preached as a sermon at Croydon Minster on the Second Sunday of Lent, 2021

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A story goes that during a persecution of Christians in first century Rome their Bishop fled. The Bishop was none other than the Apostle St Peter. Christians were being crucified like their Lord and Peter was running away. As he did so he saw the risen Jesus walking towards the city. Peter asked him, ‘Quo vadis?’ (where are you going?) to which Jesus replied, ‘Romam eo iterum crucifigi (‘I am going to Rome to be crucified again’). From that encounter Peter gains the courage to continue his ministry and returns to the city, where he is martyred by being crucified upside-down.

 

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There is a bitterly poignant moment deep in the heart of Holy Week. Jesus has been arrested and brought to the High Priest’s house; his death on the cross is imminent.

 

In the crowd that’s gathered Peter is recognised as one of Jesus’ followers, but Peter flatly denies it. As St Luke records:

 

The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22.61,62.)

 

Having heard this morning’s gospel there’s an eerie inevitability that it would come to that with Peter.

 

Throughout the gospels Peter wrestles with himself: he recognises Jesus as the Christ and is devoted to him; but also he can’t bear the cost of what this all means.

 

Peter is a man of contrasts:

Peter is the Rock on which Christ will build his Church (Matthew 16.18) and he is the denier;

Peter is praised by Jesus for his declarations of faith and, as we see in today’s gospel, also rebuked by Jesus as ‘Satan’, an adversary, opposing Christ’s purposes.

 

We all have an inner Peter: at times we can be passionate about our faith in Christ and at other times deniers. We can’t just look at Peter and shrug or tut; it is ourselves we see.

 

So what’s Peter’s problem? Or rather what is your problem? What’s the Church’s problem?

 

The issue is being so earthbound that we don’t, won’t or can’t see the Cross as the path to life.

 

Peter was so scandalised by the reference to the Cross – suffering, rejection, death - that he even took Jesus aside and rebuked him. It was too much for Peter to stomach; perhaps he saw what was coming, that the way of discipleship is the Way of the Cross.

 

Peter’s denial of the Cross means that he has set his mind on earthly concerns and not heavenly ones. In St Augustine’s terms Peter is preferring the Earthly City and not desiring the City of God.

 

Peter has yet to grasp St Paul’s phrase in the letter to the Colossians, ‘Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth’ (Colossians 3.1-4).

 

Peter’s mind is set on Peter, not on Christ. There’s the challenge for you and me today: setting our minds on Christ publicly and proudly.

 

Martyrdom is the most extreme outcome of setting your mind, and living your life, in Christ: and there are Christians around the world who are living that, now, today.

 

Do you find yourself wondering why they don’t just keep quiet about their faith, keep their heads down? If so, that’s your inner Peter coming out.

 

Martyrdom is a remote prospect for us, but there is much in our culture that assails the Gospel today, that calls us to walk the way of the Cross.

 

Christianity is routinely ridiculed, caricatured, diminished and pushed aside in our culture. The vision of the reign of God is being replaced by the reign of self, the culture of ‘me first, me alone’. A culture of grievance, shame and blame is flourishing: the things of earth, rather than reconciliation, forgiveness and peace; the things of God.

 

Our culture is not beyond redemption. There are many people of goodwill, but the signs of the times show that people’s concerns are with themselves first and God a distant second. (Remember, though, Jesus described his generation as ‘perverse and adulterous).

 

Now is the time to witness to the way of Jesus Christ more than ever: proclaiming faith, hope and love; being of service to our neighbour out of love for Christ; honouring the body, cherishing the young and the frail; drawing people into worship that sets their minds on the stuff of heaven; handing on the Faith humbly and confidently.

 

Now is the time to reorient our hearts, minds and lives: setting our bearings and compass to be followers of Christ, who died for us and for our salvation.

 

Will you walk, with Peter and with the Crucified and Risen Lord, on the Way of the Cross back towards the City of God?

Christ in the wilderness

 

Preached as a sermon at Croydon Minster, the First Sunday of Lent, 2021

‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;

repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1.15)

 

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This is the third time since Advent Sunday that we have been given this passage of St Mark’s gospel.

 

At its heart is the Baptism of Christ, but we have come at it from different angles.

 

First, in Advent, we read it through the lens of the ministry of John the Baptist; then on the Feast of the Baptism of Christ we pondered the mystery of Christ’s Baptism itself; and now, in these forty days of Lent, our focus is on what happens after his immersion in the waters of Baptism, when he is driven out into a place where there is precious little water: the wilderness.

 

The whole scene is dramatic. It begins with the almost violent image of the heavens torn open, ripped apart like a piece of cloth.

 

From that fissure comes the tranquillity of the Spirit, just like a dove, who rests on Jesus, as he is told by God the Father, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ (v11).

 

Then, just as a breeze can pick up and blow hard as a mighty wind, so the Spirit’s breath picks up and drives Jesus out. Into the wilderness. Immediately. No hanging about.

 

The relationship declared at the Baptism – of intimacy between the Father and the Son - is now to be demonstrated in the driving power of the Spirit out in the wilderness.

 

The wilderness is by any terms, and certainly in the scriptures, a place of challenge, devoid of life. But Jesus brings life to the wilderness, so he is not alone and without comfort: ‘he was with the wild beasts, and the angels comforted him’ (v13). The beasts are not a threat, they are with him.

 

There are echoes here of the Garden of Creation, where the ‘creatures of the field and birds of the air are created’ (Genesis 2.19). In that Garden Satan comes to disrupt, humanity colludes and sin enters the world. In the wilderness, by contrast, Satan is faced down, humanity in the New Adam, Jesus Christ, rejects the Prince of Darkness, and the power of sin is annulled.

 

From the Garden of Creation flowed mighty rivers. Life flows from Christ. At the heart of the garden was a tree; at the heart of the Christian life is the Tree of the Cross.

 

And all this, the Church proclaims, is Good News! It’s the Good News of water flowing in a wilderness; light shining in the darkness; life triumphing over death.

 

Many of us are in a wilderness at the moment. It may be a wilderness brought on by the pandemic, or brought on by quite different circumstances.

 

In our wilderness, Christ is with us, bringing life to us, generating within us a New Creation, saying ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me’ (John 7.37). And as St Paul declares, ‘If anyone is in Christ, there is a New Creation!’ (2 Corinthians 5.17). Good news indeed.

 

As the Israelites were fed by God with miraculous manna from heaven as they trudged round the wilderness of Sinai for forty years, so may we be fed, in our wilderness, with the bread that comes down from heaven so that we hunger and thirst no more.

 

Make me a clean heart: A homily for Ash Wednesday

 

Preached at Croydon Minster, Liturgy of Ash Wednesday

‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12.34).

 

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The gospel reading we have just heard, read in the context of Ash Wednesday, calls us to almsgiving, prayer and fasting, which, along with penitence, we know as the traditional features of Lent.

 

And it calls us to ponder deeply what we really treasure, because that will be a sign of where our hearts truly lie.

 

This is what acts of piety are, and what their outcome is meant to be: getting our hearts right with God; righteousness.

 

And this task of practicing our piety, our righteousness, is for the private sphere. You could almost say Jesus calls for ‘piety distancing’.

 

For those Christians given to be highly sociable, activist and extravert that is really rather hard to get their heads around. Privacy sounds very individualistic – me and my God - privacy is what they crave at out of the way early morning services, isn’t it?

 

This isn’t about a worship-style choice or temperament, but the heart of righteousness.

 

Piety, as taught by Jesus, is unshowy, seeks no flattery or admiration from others but rather focuses on the intensity of our relationship with our Maker and Redeemer.

 

The refrain throughout this passage is when you give alms (charitable giving), when you pray, when you fast, do these things for ‘your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you’ (vv4, 6, 18)

 

We have all been driven out of public spaces into the private realm by the lockdown. That has been uncomfortable for so many people. People are finding it hard to live with partners, family members, or households.

 

Or perhaps it’s just they find it hard to be with themselves, whether living alone or in company.

 

No wonder there is such widespread poor mental and spiritual health, and not just because of the pandemic.

 

The hardest person to confront is yourself. The hardest place to enter is one’s own heart.

 

Lent is the time for ‘spiritual audit’ and a deep heart check-up.

 

What in my faith has nourished me in the pandemic? Where have I found myself bereft? Ask those questions, and if you want help with them, be bold, ask: that’s is what I and your priests are here to offer, and there are other wise fellow Christians you can speak to amongst our number. What are the ‘tools of the spiritual life’ as St Benedict calls them, that you need now?

 

One outcome of the pandemic must surely be for us to re-learn the disciplines - the structures if you prefer - of our lives of prayer. (And that’s for now, not just when Boris says it’s okay to mingle again).

 

Ultimately in Lent we are invited to go deep into the chamber of our own hearts. It is an invitation into what the mystics call the ‘interior life’. That is what the action of penitence is all about: as tonight’s psalm says, ‘Make me a clean heart, O God : and renew a right spirit within me’ (Psalm 51.11)

 

And what do we find in our hearts? Perhaps it’s anger, bile, frustration, vitriol; perhaps it’s faith, hope, love, endurance, gentleness. Perhaps it’s some of all of those.

 

Lent gives us grace and space to turn in and examine our hearts and the places we don’t really want to go, because as Jesus says, later in St Matthew’s gospel, ‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12.34). After all, he says, the place where what you most value, what is most you and where what you treasure is, it is there your heart will be also…

Light, life & glory in the face of Jesus Christ

First preached as homily at Croydon Minster, Sunday 7 February, Second Sunday before Lent (Sexagesima). Colossians 1.15-20; John 1.1-14

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God is the creator of all things, the heavens, the earth and ‘all that therein is’ (Psalm 24.1); and yet the same God, humbles himself, takes human flesh and shares our existence. That is the wonder of the Incarnation; something absolutely fundamental to the Christian faith.

 

And that is how St Paul can say in our first reading, ‘Christ is the image’ – in Greek ‘the icon’ – ‘of the invisible God’.

 

Our God is made visible in the in the person, in the body of Jesus Christ.

 

In response to that visibility of God we might say, with the psalmist, ‘My heart hath talked of thee, Seek ye my face : Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ (Psalm 27.9).

 

It’s hard to see faces in a sea of face coverings!  And yet God is unveiled to us; we seek God’s face.

 

Gazing upon the face of the human Jesus Christ is to gaze upon the very face of God.

 

What do we see in the Divine Face of Jesus? We see the face of God and we see a human face with its characteristic features and contours; essentially a face like yours and mine.

 

In that Divine Face we see both Christ and our potential.

 

The wonderful thing is that to be made in the image of God does not impose upon us passing aesthetic values of beauty, perfection, fashion or an ideal; the image of God goes much deeper than that.

 

For the Christlike face is the face that reflects God’s light and life: whether that face is male or female; young or old; Black, brown or white.

 

So we gaze deeply upon the Divine Face of Jesus; in that face is life; in that face is light; in that face is glory.

 

As the psalm puts it, ‘For with thee, O LORD, is the well of life : and in thy light shall we see light’. (Psalm 36.9), and St John says ‘and we have seen his glory’ (John 1.14)

 

Life, light, and glory are hard to glimpse at the moment in time of lockdown. Yet let’s not think they exist only at the end of a tunnel. For the eyes of faith life, light, and glory are visible now, glimpsable now, in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

On my retreat last week, which I participated in at home online from the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, I was able to spend time during what is known as ‘Holy Hour’ simply to gaze upon Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.

 

It was as if gazing upon the Face of Jesus Christ, Word made Flesh, God visible in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

 

There is Word made flesh: Christ visible and present in our midst as he is in the Eucharist.

 

That hour paused, as it were, the moment of hearing the words of Jesus - ‘this is my body, this is my blood’ – and enabled a sustained, fixed gaze upon the face of Christ.

 

That is way of contemplative prayer, placing oneself in the presence of the Creator in his earthly presence as Word made flesh, simply to be gazed upon, adored, beheld and loved.

 

Let us seek to gaze upon Christ, the Word made flesh: and may we each see his life and light, his grace, truth and glory. 

On Being Present: A Candlemas Homily

Preached as sermon at Croydon Minster on the transferred feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

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The feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, the scene described in today’s gospel, ends the great liturgical cycle of the Incarnation - from Christmas to Candlemas - 40 days of intensive focus on the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Mary.

 

At the heart of today’s gospel is presentation and reception. Christ is presented by Mary and Joseph; received by Simeon and Anna.

 

That action repeats in the liturgy of the Eucharist: Christ is present in word and sacrament and presents himself to be received by us who present ourselves in the temple to receive him.

 

But being present in the temple these last 10 months is not open to everyone. For very good reason some are present but in a virtual way.

 

The ideal is always to be physically present in church receiving the Body of Christ, being the Body of Christ, just as Jesus Christ was present in the flesh as Emmanuel, God with us.

 

But being present is not only about physical presence.

 

In the world of work and in schools a well-known problem is the opposite of being present and that is absenteeism. If you’re absent you cannot produce, you cannot engage.

 

There is another problem at work, at school, and in church, which is rather different but has the same effect. That is known as presenteeism. That’s when you’re present but not attentive, not engaging, or as they might say, ‘the lights are on but no one’s at home’.

 

In a pandemic being present, physically, emotionally, spiritually is hard.

 

This is desperately hard for us all at the moment. I know it myself some days, and I know others do too. As a spiritual condition it’s known as akedia of which some features are: listlessness; the inability to get motivated or engaged; putting off what could be done today to an indeterminate tomorrow; a vague questioning of God’s presence with us; lack of confidence about what the day will bring and what its point is.

 

There’s so much more to this than ‘Keep calm and carry on’. This is a spiritual issue demanding a spiritual response. It is about looking for moments fulfilled, not just ticking off the days on the calendar or clock watching; it is about seeing each new day as a gift to us and living it as far as we can to the full: you could use the opening words of Morning Prayer each day:

 

As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you, now and forever. Amen.

 

There is so much more to say on this theme, but for today let’s turn back to the Gospel reading to see what is going on. Simeon and Anna - tired, blurry eyed and feeling time was running out on them - are both patient yet eager eyed for God. Their hearts desire. Their hope and expectation is fulfilled. And they are ready to ‘move on’ fully trusting that God is present with them, in living and in dying.

 

May this Candlemas be a time when our spirits and sight are renewed and, knowing Christ to be present in our lives, may we present ourselves to him in faith and hope and love.

 

'Come to the Feast of Love and Transformation'

 First preached as sermon at Croydon Minster on the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Gospel: John 2.1-11)

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The wedding feast at Cana is the setting for a most wonderful miracle of transformation and new possibilities. In a celebration of love, a wedding, Love himself, Jesus Christ the source of love and life, is present as the true Bridegroom coming to be united to us his church.

 

St John calls what happens at Cana a ‘sign’: a sign points to something beyond itself.

 

So where does this sign of the miraculous transformation of water into wine point us today?

 

Water transformed into wine is startling and amazing to us now as much as to the guests at the wedding; it is a sign revealing God’s glory, prompting belief in the disciples.

 

The sign of water and wine points to our life in Christ as his disciples. In the water of baptism we are cleansed and born anew. The wine signifies the wine of the Eucharist, the blood shed for us on the cross for our salvation and transformation, in which we drink – in normal times – the life of Christ.

 

The sign of water and wine points us to the Cross, where we will see Jesus glorified, and water and blood flowing from his loving heart. His Mother, Mary, stood faithfully by that cross, seeing the water and blood – a sword piercing her own heart too.

 

And Mary herself is a sign pointing to her Divine Son. At Cana she spoke four simple words to prompt Jesus’ action: ‘they have no wine’. On one level Mary is simply observing the practical reality that the wine at the feast has run out. She is also speaking more deeply, recognising lives not lived to the full – they have no wine - and pointing to the heavenly feast, the Eucharist, where Christ is present and transforming lives.

 

In Christ lives are transformed. The lives of the saints bear witness to that. And closer to home, as a priest I have been privileged to witness moments of transformation in people’s lives and to walk with them as their lives turn around. Those moments are as miraculous in some ways as water turned to wine, as a person puts the darkness behind them and walks into the light as a servant of Christ.

 

The sign points us to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ. Mary says ‘do whatever he tells you’. That is a call to service. It is the servants, not the principle guests, who first knew what had taken place at the wedding feast. That calls us to remember it is those who serve the purposes of God in their lives in simple ordinary ways of everyday holiness, who first glimpse his glory.

 

So, the sign of water and wine points us beyond the incredible or unlikely into the possibility of transformation. The sign points us to see God’s glory revealed in Jesus Christ whose hour is now coming when he comes as the Bridegroom to woo, us his people, back to his loving, transforming heart. The sign tells us that we are invited to the wedding feast of love and transformation.

'Come & See'

 First preached at Croydon Minster on Sunday 17 January, 2021. Gospel reading John 1.43-end

‘You will see greater things than these’ (John 1.50b)

 

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St John’s gospel is wonderful! It’s full of connections, links and allusions. It begins with everything distilled into 18 pregnant verses, known as the Prologue, that are fleshed out through the next 21 chapters.

 

Take today’s gospel reading. Philip and Nathanael are invited by Jesus to see so much more than they could believe possible about themselves, God and the ways of heaven.

 

A couple of verses of the Prologue seem to encapsulate Nathanael’s encounter with Jesus:

 

‘The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’ (John 1.17-18)

 

As Jesus said, Nathanael was an exemplary Israelite, and knew the law given through Moses (cf John 1.47). He had never seen God – no one ever had - but what Philip, Nathanael and we will see – and now have seen - is grace and truth in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

When they meet, Nathanael discovers that Jesus had already seen and known him. Seeing Nathanael goes beyond spotting him by a fig tree; this is deep knowing.

 

Nathanael is amazed, ‘How did you come to know me?’ The answer was given in our psalm this morning:

 

‘O LORD, thou hast searched me out and known me : thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising, thou understandest my thoughts long before’ (Psalm 139.1).

 

Jesus beholds him and knows him; he beholds you and knows you, because in beholding you, he loves you.

 

And beholding, knowing and loving you he invites you to ‘come and see; taste and see’.

 

‘It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’

 

Come and behold; come, feast your eyes, and you will see even greater things than these - says Christ, the Bread of Life - and in knowing me, and feasting at my table, I will open to you the very heavens, the very depths of the mystery of God full of grace and truth.