An attitude of gratitude

2 Kings 5.14-17 Naaman the leper returned to Elisha and acknowledged the Lord.

2 Timothy 2.8-13 If we hold firm then we shall reign with Christ

Luke 17.11-19 No-one has come back to praise God, only this foreigner

 

 

‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’

 

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Our Gospel reading today holds up to us the nature of gratitude and shines a light on our appreciation of the abundance of God’s mercy and goodness.

 

It takes us well beyond the moral of politeness and courtesy because it relates to healing, holiness and salvation.

 

This is not just Jesus telling us to say thank you for something; this is not Jesus highlighting just how rude some people can be – think of the nine who never said thank you – rather it takes us deeper.

 

What we see in this well-known story of the healing of ten people with leprosy, or some such isolating condition, is the nature of gratitude, its absence in the nine who presumably just carried on, and its presence in the one who returned to give thanks.

 

We can go further, and say that we see both the response an outlook of scarcity, contrasted with an outlook of abundance which is unlocked by gratitude.

 

So, let’s take a look at both, and honestly assess where we fit in the spectrum of scarcity and abundance.

 

Scarcity expects the bare minimum and is grudging in the face of generosity.

 

Scarcity experiences little or no delight when good things happen.

 

Scarcity doesn’t look beyond its own horizons and preferences: its first question is ‘how does this suit me?’ rather than, ‘how does this benefit others?’

 

Scarcity is life shut in on itself, closed down and frankly miserable.

 

An attitude or culture of scarcity is not about being poor or being rich, it is a spiritual condition not an economic one.

 

Too often the attitude of scarcity is a feature of human life (and the life of churches) and it needs resisting, for we become locked into ways that are sterile and frankly dead, rather than generating and life giving.

 

Thankfully the young are good at resisting this attitude.

 

Scarcity is utterly remote from Jesus’ call to life in all its abundance (John 10.10).

 

And St Paul in his first letter to Timothy gives a vision of what transforms scarcity into abundance:

 

[You] are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for [yourselves] the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that [you] may take hold of the life that really is life. (1 Timothy 6.18-19)

 

What transforms our spirit of scarcity is gratitude; gratitude in God ‘who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment’ (1 Timothy 6.17).

 

Gratitude is deep level thankfulness for that which has not been created by us, that which understands there is a Giver and gift that is not something we generate.

 

Gratitude does not expect, but delights in the good, the beautiful and the true.

 

Gratitude is about both counting our blessings and savouring them and attributing them to the Giver of all good things; to God.

 

Gratitude is a spiritual disposition that moves us toward the action of that one healed, saved man, who attributes his salvation to the Saviour, to Jesus Christ.

 

Gratitude moves us towards abundance of life which is life imagined in the glorious Technicolor of God’s kingdom.

 

If your life is locked into a cycle of scarcity, lived in monochrome, then practice gratitude in the little things as well as the big things.

 

Ask yourself:

 

·        What am I grateful for in my life?

·        What things can I savour more?

·        Who have I failed to show gratitude towards and how can I appreciate them more?

 

The word Eucharist derives from the Greek word εὐχαριστία (eucharistia) which means ‘thanksgiving’.

 

So every Eucharist should be an outpouring of gratitude that moves heart, mind and body to the praise of the giver of all good things.

 

Every Eucharist has a harvest character.

 

It gathers in the fruitfulness of our lives that we offer to be received - fruits and gifts that we have been given in the first place – and what flows back to us in the body and blood of Christ is his life and presence.

 

If our lives are lived in scarcity then we will have nothing to bring, nothing to offer.

 

If our lives are transformed by gratitude then we will have an abundance of thanksgiving to offer and to share.

 

And remember this is a spiritual issue not an economic one.

 

Flowing from spiritual abundance - formed by gratitude - will be generous living.

 

It is no accident that Jesus speaks of ten lepers who were healed.

 

A tenth of them, one of the ten, returned to give thanks.

 

That speaks of the Biblical principle of the ‘tithe’ the offering back to God of a tenth of what we have received from him and his creation.

 

The farmer, the gardener, the cultivator knows well that a small seed that is sown will yield far more than they plant, so they ask God to bless and multiply what they have sown and they will be richly rewarded.

 

In gratitude we learn that when we give we receive, and when we give generously, lavishly, abundantly then we receive more than our hearts can desire.

 

Those ten men were healed; one returned.

 

May we in our lives turn our backs on scarcity, open up our imaginations to the ways of God’s kingdom and return to the one from whom all blessings flow: God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

'Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth' - An Evensong sermon

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;

break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the LORD has comforted his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted. (Isaiah 49.13)

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Shortly I will admit two new head choristers N and N.

Their role is to be responsible and a good example to fellow choristers in the life of the choir working under our Director of Music's direction contributing to the life of this church, its music and worship.

And we will pray for them in their task.

Our first reading tonight gave us a lovely verse for any musician but frankly any Christian, any believer in God.

It calls on the heavens and the earth - the whole creation – even the mountains to break into song, not just God’s human creatures.

It is a beautiful image the whole created order, the cosmos, breaking into song to praise the Creator.

Song is one of the gifts that God gives us; that’s why singing matters in worship and why choirs and musicians matter in the way we seek to worship the Lord.

And if mountains can sing so can we all!

First and foremost, our song is deployed in praise of God.

The great ‘song’ of Evensong is the Magnificat - Mary’s Song - ‘my soul magnifies the Lord’.

In other words, in my song my soul both enlarges and focuses my sights on God my Saviour.

Song expresses so many things: the psalms themselves reveal this, and they are the other sung building block of Evensong and Judeo-Christian worship.

The psalms are the songs of the Hebrew Bible; psalms are there to be sung, and we sing them in many and various ways, at Evensong we would sing them as tonight by Anglican Chant, or sometimes the ancient Plainsong or sometimes with a congregational response or in metred verse like a hymn.

Psalm 137 asks the question, ‘how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land?’.

Sometimes song does not come easily; the Israelites I their exile in Babylon could barely get out the songs of home, the songs of the Temple in Jerusalem.

But what the Israelites discovered in exile was that the way they would sing their song was in lament.

Lament, praise, thanksgiving, joy, penitence: we sing the Lord’s song in many and various ways.

In our tradition the task of leading this song falls to a choir, but that is not to absolve the rest of us from uniting our voices in praise and adoration of God; we can’t subcontract our worship.

Rather, we use our gifts, and the gifts of others, to create a symphony of praise to the Lord: we even join the mountains and the trees of the field, as Isaiah puts it elsewhere, in praise of the Creator.

The verse from Isaiah that I have alighted on comes in a passage that celebrates the restoration that God gives to his people: in times of trouble and testing, when all seems desolate and oppressive, the Lord restores his people and renews his creation.

Singing the Lord’s song is not to be confused with musical ability.

This week make your life a song – be it lament or celebration, sorrow or joy, pleading or praise – for when you know the restoration of the Lord you will know how to sing the Lord’s song.

And let us give thanks today for all who lead God’s praises in singing, and pray for N and N now to be made Head Choristers of the Boys’ Choir of this Minster Church of St John the Baptist, our patron saint who, echoing the Prophet Isaiah, cried out in the wilderness, ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, for all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord’.

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;

break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the LORD has comforted his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted.

 

St Michael & All Angels

Preached at St Michael and All Angels, West Croydon, 2nd October 2022.

Daniel 7.9-10, 13-14 His robe was white as snow

Apocalypse 12.7-12 Michael with his angels attacked the dragon

John 1.47-51 You will see heaven laid open, and the Son of Man

  

Thanks be to God for your patron saints: for St Michael the Archangel, for St Gabriel, St Raphael and all the heavenly host!

 

What a beautiful dedication and patronage you have in this church: savour it as you worship Christ and glory in his holy angels.

 

It is an honour for me to have been invited by Fr Tim to preach today. And I bring greetings from your neighbours in the Parish of Croydon, those of us at Croydon Minster and St George’s, Waddon.

 

In the presence of the angels I will bless you, O Lord. Psalm 137 (138)

 

 

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When angels are present we know that the Lord is coming close to his people and his people close to him.

 

When the Lord is present we can be sure the angels are present too.

 

The scriptures highlight times when angels are ministering most obviously.

 

When the Word becomes Flesh - ‘for us men and for our salvation’ - it is Gabriel the archangel who announces God’s call to the Blessed Virgin, who responds to the archangel with her Fiat, her ‘be it unto me according to thy word’.

 

God is present: the angel is there.

 

We rehearse that angelic encounter every time we pray the Angelus.

 

In the heat of the spiritual and cosmic battle against the forces of death and sin, Michael the archangel is to be found because the battle and victory is Christ’s: as the voice proclaims from heaven: ‘Victory and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for Christ’ (Apoc. 12.10).

 

God is present: the angel is there.

 

When the Lord’s healing balm is offered to people who seek healing and salvation we can be sure Raphael, ‘the healing presence of God’ is there.

 

And of course, there are more than three angels attested to in scripture.

 

The multitude of the heavenly host fills the skies at key moments, such as when they call the shepherds to the manger of Bethlehem: Michael is joined by his angels in the heavenly battle (Luke 2.13; Apoc. 12.7).

 

And just as when Gabriel came to Our Lady in Nazareth, or when an angel came to Zechariah in the temple to announce the birth of John the Baptist, or when an angel came to Joseph in a dream or an angel led Paul our of prison: angels don’t just come in multitudes, but also in directly personal angelic encounters with human beings. (Luke 1.26; Matthew 1.20).

 

Angels are concerned also with the likes of you and me.

 

To speak of our Guardian Angel reminds us that God cares for each of us, individually and personally.

 

Today, 2^nd October, is also the memorial of the Guardian Angels which we wrap into our celebration of all the angels today on this, the Lord’s own day.

 

In your own trials and tribulations or when God wishes you to hear and discern his call to you, your Guardian Angel will be present, indicating that God is present with you.

 

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When angels are present we know that the Lord is coming close to his people and his people close to him.

 

Angels thread heaven and earth together, lest we think the two are remote.

 

Jacob saw that in his vision of angels ascending and descending: how awesome is the place where heaven touches earth.

 

And here in this place – St Michael’s Church - heaven touches earth in the bricks and mortar, but more than that we taste heaven on earth in the banquet in which we share now.

 

In the sacraments in general, and the Mass in particular - when the Lord is with his people and his people drawn close to him - the holy angels are in attendance.

 

Immediately before we sing of the holiness of God in the Sanctus the priest says:

 

Through [Christ] the multitude of Angels extols your majesty,

and we are united with them in exultant adoration,

as with one voice of praise we acclaim: (Preface of the Angels)

Holy. Holy. Holy…

 

The angels spin ethereal threads that weave us into the holiness of God.

 

As the Eucharistic Prayer puts it:

 

In humble prayer Almighty God: commend that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty, so that all of us who through this most holy Body and Blood of your Son, may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing. (The Roman Canon)

 

The angels are the threads connecting heaven and earth because Christ connect heaven earth, divinity and humanity in his Incarnation.

 

So Jacob saw a ladder reaching into heaven; and heaven reaching down to earth.

 

Jesus says, ‘you will see greater things than these; angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’.

 

What does that tell us?

 

It tells us that Christ - ‘the fair glory of the holy angels’ – is the route by which the heavens are opened to us, is the way to the Father, and is the fullness of God.

 

If you ever wonder if you have encountered an angel, test it by this measure: was my heart moved to Christ; was my heart moved to the mysteries of God; was my heart moved to the beatific vision, the vision of heaven touching earth, when God is all and in all?

 

If that is where your heart was moved then be sure the Lord was present and his angel was there.

 

And what a blessing that is.

 

May the angels prompt us to proclaim:

 

In the presence of the angels I will bless you, O Lord. Psalm 137 (138)

 

Address to the Civic Service for Croydon for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Romans 8.28-39 God’s love in Christ Jesus

Proverbs 8.1-16 The gifts of wisdom

 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

   his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;

   great is your faithfulness.

‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,

   ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

(Lamentations 3.22,23)

 

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This evening we have gathered from across this Borough of Croydon to commemorate and give thanks, before God, for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Tomorrow the whole world gathers, virtually, with our United Kingdom and the Commonwealth for Her Late Majesty’s funeral service in Westminster Abbey.

The intention of services like this one, taking place in Cathedrals and Civic Churches throughout the land, is to enable communities to come together to pray, reflect, mourn and gives thanks for our Late Queen before tomorrow.

This was always a hope of the Queen in the plans for the events that would mark her death.

In death, as in life, she is a focal point for bringing disparate people together, which was surely part of her genius as our Queen.

In a richly diverse Borough such as ours we know just how important it is that people come together, trust one another, celebrate all that builds up the Common Good: the Queen embodied just that.

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These last 10 days have been a most remarkable time.

We have been mourning the death of our Queen, sometimes surprised just how raw it has felt; we have been acclaiming the Accession of our new King; we have been acutely aware of the sadness of the Royal Family - she was their mother and  grandmother –and many have queued to file past her body lying in state.

That is an emotional roller coaster for us, and how much more for King Charles and the Royal Family.

We must keep him and them all in our prayers.

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The words of the scriptures this evening speak of ancient and enduring wisdom – ever old and ever new - and the conviction of the power of God’s love.

The first reading was from the book of Proverbs, a text of Hebrew wisdom literature shared by Jews and Christians.

The passage praises wisdom as ‘better than jewels’, as the key to a good life, truthful living, prudent decision making and resilience, and states,

By me [wisdom] kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me [wisdom] rulers rule, and nobles, all who govern rightly.

The Bible is consistent in saying that however bejewelled a crown; the monarch is nothing unless crowned with the wisdom that flows from God.

In challenging times, at all times, wisdom is profoundly needed in public and personal life.

That’s what we saw our late Queen who lived a life of wise insight.

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The second reading was from a letter St Paul wrote to the earliest Christians in Rome.

It reflects on God’s purpose in human lives and our trials and tribulations.

‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ?’ he asks.

He concludes, in beautiful terms, that nothing in all creation ‘will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

This springs from St Paul’s conviction, shared by Christians to this day, of the deep hope of the resurrection: the conviction that life triumphs over death: light overcomes darkness: hope transforms despair; that death has lost its sting.

Her Late Majesty, a Christian, shared this faith and hope that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the definitive statement of God’s boundless love and salvation.

It was for her the rock and inspiration of her life; something of which she spoke so powerfully in her Christmas broadcasts.

In an Easter message during Covid she said: ‘"As dark as death can be - particularly for those suffering with grief - light and life are greater."

That sprang from her Christian hope.

The Queen’s Christian faith was serious, committed and sincere and the deep roots of her faith gave her the grace to be hospitable and always open to those who faith or belief was other than hers.

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As a Borough, in all our richness, we commemorate her and give thanks for her.

Tonight, books of condolence have been placed before the altar and, in a few moments,  candles will be lit, prayers offered and then the Bishop of Croydon will commend the Late Queen to God and we pray her on her way.

The evening comes: the evening of the day, the evening of life: tomorrow a new day dawns.

Tomorrow the mortal remains of our beloved Late Queen will be brought to a holy place; prayer will be offered and then she will be committed, beyond our sight, into the hands of the Eternal God, her maker and redeemer, and ours, before whom we all fall silent.

Support us, O Lord,

all the day long of this troublous life,

until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,

the busy world is hushed,

the fever of life is over

and our work is done.

Then, Lord, in your mercy grant us a safe lodging,

a holy rest, and peace at the last;

through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Entranced by God; not in thrall to money

Amos 8.4-7 I will never forget your deeds, you who trample on the needy

1 Timothy 2.1-8 Pray for everyone to God, who wants everyone to be saved

Luke 16.1-13 You cannot be the slave of both God and money

 

‘You cannot serve God and wealth.’ (Luke 16.13)

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It’s pretty blunt.

‘You cannot serve God and wealth.’

If you are in thrall to wealth, you cannot serve God.

If you truly serve God, then wealth and the acquisition of money for the sake of it cannot be on your radar.

It’s often heard as a condemnation of the rich, but that is not what is said.

Jesus does not say, ‘you cannot serve God and be wealthy’

Rather he says, ‘you cannot serve God and wealth.’

If we think this is just about the rich we miss the point.

The rich can of course be obsessed with wealth, and so can the poor, and so can those in the middle.

This is about our spiritual disposition.

The question is: what really drives your devotion? Where do you invest your value and meaning?

It is the case, as Jesus puts it elsewhere, ‘where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’ (Luke 12.34).

If what you treasure is money and the acquisition of money then God will be far from your heart.

Is money your master? Or do you have mastery over money? Are you a servant of wealth or do you use what you have to serve others?

We must be realistic; money is important; money enables things to happen, from the basics of buying food and clothing, to the ability to have a treat.

Jesus does not condemn that!

And let me say that worrying about money when money is short is not what we’re talking about here.

The cost of living crisis and escalating fuel bills will make us all more worried about money than perhaps we have been before.

That’s the case on a personal level; it’s true for the church: how the church has to resist thinking just about money and not about the treasure of the Gospel!

Still, whether we have a lot of money or very little, Jesus’ blunt saying asks us to see beyond wealth and material gain to what true treasure is.

St Peter once encountered a man sitting outside the Temple in Jerusalem who could not walk and was begging.

What could Peter give him?

‘Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ (Acts 3.6).

We may not be wealthy, but we still have treasure to give.

Ultimately money, whilst vital, cannot save.

The treasure we serve is not the treasure of gold or silver but a treasure deeper and richer than anything we can imagine; that is the power of God and promise of heaven.

For the Church, and personally, this means seeing the abundance in what we have and not always seeing scarcity wherever we look; seeing abundance in a creation - a spirit of gratitude makes that possible.

In turn we need to know ourselves to be treasured by God; that is why his own Son gave up everything out of love for us.

Flowing from the awareness that each of us is precious, Christians have always treasured those who society does not value: the unborn, the distressed, the disfigured, the dying.

Serving God not wealth, means that we don’t see people as economic units, either net contributors or recipients, rather all people are the people God’s treasures.

‘You cannot serve God and wealth’ says the Lord.

Serve wealth and bow down before it and you will imperil your soul; use wealth in service of God and his people and your treasure is in abundance of life in this world and the next.

 

A sermon preached on the Sunday following the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

 

Preached on the Sunday following the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

 

This is indeed the will of my Father’ says the Lord, ‘that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

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The Christian hope is in the life of the world to come; that nothing is lost and all is redeemed.

What that means in practical terms is that we live our lives knowing that heaven is real, that our identity is not extinguished at death, but rather fulfilled, and the crowning of the Creation is to be a New Heaven and a New Earth.

We believe, in the words of the Song of Songs, that ‘many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it’.

We have this hope because Jesus Christ has conquered death.

To live the Christian hope is to anchor our lives in the worship and adoration of God, made known in Christ Jesus and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

For Catholic Christians this means faithfulness in receiving the sacraments; perseverance in a careful life of prayer; deep attention to the Scriptures; and living lives that are not turned in on themselves but look outwards in service of others and, in so doing, serving Christ himself.

That pattern is something of what we know of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

It would be hard to have missed over the last three days or so, the outpouring of words expressing memories, tribute and praise of our late Queen, and one of the key features is her sense of service and duty.

Those characteristics didn’t come from nowhere; they came from being anchored in the Christian Faith of which she was, as her son now is, Defender.

Our late Queen, for all her life in palaces, surrounded by servants and a Royal Court, understood that she was a servant.

It isn’t always a given that kings, queens and leaders should be like that.

Jesus said of the leaders of people that they ‘lord it over others’; it is a verity that leaders generally incline to be tyrants and despots.

We see it in our world today as much as in history; there are national leaders who do not see themselves as servants of their people, in fact quite the contrary.

The idea that Kings and Emperors could trample over everyone is broken only because of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, declares himself servant of all.

Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews); his throne is the cross, his ‘palaces’ are all the places where forgiveness and salvation is brought and where the Kingdom of God is proclaimed.

Jesus set this pattern at the Last Supper, he washed his disciples’ feet, the origin of the Royal Maundy ceremony, and called us to the banquet where we share his life.

In the light of Jesus Christ kingship and majesty cannot be conceived in the same way again.

Not all British monarchs have lived this out; not all Christians, including priests and Popes, have lived this out, yet that is what we are called to: service of God, service of our neighbour

Yet many have understood this call to service.

It’s beautifully captured in the phrase of St Gregory the Great, who was the Pope who sent Augustine and his companions to re-evangelise the English nation.

Gregory aspired to be, in his native Latin, ‘servus servorum Dei’: ‘servant of the servants of God’.

Elizabeth II was formed by that example and is an inspiration because of it.

We give thanks to God for this Christian woman, called to be a monarch, who was at her anointed her baptism and confirmation, like us all, and then, unlike any of us, anointed Queen.

This echoes Psalm 23, a Psalm of David, the shepherd king of Israel, ‘you, LORD, have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over’.

King David continues, ‘Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever’.

Goodness and mercy followed our late Queen all her days; and our Christian hope is that she now dwells in the house of the Lord for ever.

She lived her life in that hope, and may we all be inspired similarly.

Our sadness will pass; the storms of Thursday and Friday have literally passed, and the sun is shining again: in that light hear again the words of the prophet Isaiah:

And the Lord God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces. (Isaiah 25.6-9)

There is Christian hope: in living scripture.

And today, in the sadness of Her Late Majesty’s death, we can draw deeply too from the comfort of Psalm 23, which promises that the LORD will ‘spread a table before us’; this points us to the Eucharist in which we share and the banquet of heaven which it prefigures.

Of that mystery Christ says, ‘This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

Her Late Majesty held that hope and shared it with the nation and world.

She was an evangelist, a sharer of the Glorious Gospel of Christ.

May the Lord draw her to himself, anoint her with his love and draw her to the banquet of heaven. And in His Majesty the King’s words, ‘May “flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest”‘

 

Putting down possessions to take up the Cross

 

Wisdom 9.13-18 Who can divine the will of God?

 

Philemon 9-10,12-17 He is a slave no longer, but a dear brother in the Lord

 

Luke 14.25-33 Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple

 

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Our gospel begins with Jesus travelling on the Way.

 

This is a ‘way’ in the sense of a path, a road, a direction of travel; think Purley Way, but transfer that to the Holy Land!

 

But it’s even deeper than that.

 

The word ‘Way’ is a code, because before we were known as ‘Christians’ we were known as followers of the Way; the Way of Jesus Christ.

 

So it’s not the Purley Way; it’s the Jesus Way; the Way of the Cross.

 

Our gospel is a meditation on what it means to follow the Way of Jesus Christ, and it hinges on the Way of the Cross.

 

When we are baptised, before the life-giving water is poured upon us we are anointed with oil in the sign of the Cross: ‘Christ claims you for his own. Receive the sign of his cross.’ (Common Worship: Pastoral Services)

 

We are marked out, literally, to walk in the Way.

 

Jesus Christ walks the Way of the Cross and says ‘Come. Come, follow me. Walk with me’.

 

And in Baptism there is a decision to be made: ‘do you turn to Christ?’ In other words, will you come and follow him?

 

When someone turns to Christ it is an act of human will; but it is also an act of letting go into the will of God.

 

‘What man indeed can know the intentions of God? Who can know the will of the Lord?’ asks the Book of Wisdom.

 

St Paul gives some pointers to those ancient questions in his first letter to the Corinthians:

 

¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

   and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?… ²³…we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. (1 Corinthians 1.18-20,23)

 

The will of God is seen in the Way of the Crucified One, Jesus Christ; this is the way today’s gospel invites us to follow.

 

‘Are you going to walk this way? Are you going to follow me?

 

And it is dramatic in what it presents.

 

The Gospel text today drives towards the concluding words, ‘so in the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his possessions’ (Luke 14.33).

 

That is blunt speaking!

 

Unless you can let go of your possessions and preoccupations you can never take up the Cross.

 

To pick up the Cross is to put down the other things we carry when we go our own way.

 

The problem with possessions is that they tend to become obsessions.

 

Obsessions are things we have to the exclusion of everything else.

 

It is easy to see how that is true of some things: when someone is obsessed by money, luxury, celebrity, sex, alcohol, drugs, and become dependent on them, it is easy to see how their hands, and hearts, are too full to pick up the cross.

 

But Jesus says we can also become obsessed even by good things: family ties, tribal obligations and close relationships; these too can become obsessive; when that is the case it means that hands, and hearts, are too full to pick up the cross.

 

Even aspects of church life can become an obsession when they are not fully rooted in the Way of the Crucified One, and we distract ourselves by tasks and activities that divert us from the Most High.

 

Obsession with things puts me at the heart of my own drama – my ‘ego-drama’ – rather than putting myself in the drama of salvation – the ‘Theo-drama’, or God-drama, as it has been called.

 

Ultimately what so we really want? What is your deepest desire?

 

Human beings are creatures who desire.

 

So often we misdirect our desires.

 

Clinging to possessions and being possessed by our obsessions is one form of desire, but ultimately it is a self-destructive desire.

 

Jesus’ tough and almost brutal words in today’s gospel should shock us; shock us into seeing clearly what crowds God out of our lives, so that we cannot carry the cross and walk in the Way of the Crucified.

 

Do we really desire to journey in the Way of the Cross?

 

For the baptised the sign of the cross is marked upon us and we die with Christ and are raised with him; in the Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist, we share in the life-giving sacrifice of Christ on the Cross; when we confess our sins we reorient our desires to Christ, and him alone.

 

We’re on for all of this?!

 

And how we know we need God’s grace to complete what we have started, and to do that our prayer might be:

 

Lord, may I possess nothing that becomes an obsession to me, but may I be possessed by you, whom I desire in my deepest being, and to whom I already belong. Amen.