Category: Sermons

They were carved to adorn a papal tomb, but they never quite made it. Today – if I remember rightly – they can be seen in one of the churches or galleries of Florence. Four stone figures – carved by Michelangelo – with one unmistakeable characteristic: they are unfinished. Yes, a good deal of work has been done on them. The figures have shape and form. They possess a vitality, an energy, that is coming through; and – more than that – there is striving, something almost approaching pain, as though the figures are still tearing themselves out of the rough stone. There is the promise – a good deal more than just the promise – of what they might be. But they are still becoming.

There is something about those four figures that seems to me to be particularly pertinent. Pertinent – yes – at the beginning of a new term, of another academic year, but pertinent for all of us at every stage of the journey. Somehow they represent something of the truth of our experience. We are living, learning, questioning, growing. Stone figures bear the marks of the hammer and chisel. We bear the marks of our experience, and we are changed by it. We are – like the stone figures – unfinished, not complete, still becoming.

Those who are familiar with the stories of the Old and the New Testaments will know that there is something here in this understanding of ourselves that is to be found time and again in the pages of scripture. I think, for example, of Abraham, called to go from his country and his kindred and his father’s house to a land that God would show him. I think of the children of Israel, delivered out of slavery in Egypt, and discovering over long years in the desert their identity as a people, their faith, their law, their God. I think of Jesus, travelling with the disciples in the road to Jerusalem, aware – or was he aware? – of all that lay ahead; but still journeying, still travelling, still discovering for himself the meaning of his Passion. I think of the Apostle Paul who, mindful of all that he had counted as loss for the sake of Christ, could still say, “Not that I have already obtained or am already perfect, but ….forgetting what lies behind and striving forward to what lies ahead I press on towards the goal”. That’s it: straining forward, pressing on; living, learning; still journeying, still discovering – discovering that vision and the possibilities that are there within ourselves; changing; growing; unfinished, not complete, still becoming.

Many will say, Yes, of course. How can it be otherwise? But it is not self-evident as we look around that this is how people always see themselves. And even if they recognise in their personal relationships, in their working lives, the need to learn from experience, the need to change, to grow; it does not necessarily follow that this is how they approach religious faith and religious practice. How else do we account for the hard-line fundamentalism that we find in so many places, including at times some parts of the Christian Church? How else do we account for the quiet, untroubled acceptance of pieties and platitudes that are simplistic, nostalgic. How else do we account for the disregard, even the disdain, with which some people – in all other respects fair-minded people – treat religious faith?

What happens to that spirit of openness, of free enquiry, of adventure, that we judge to be appropriate – necessary even – in so many other areas of life? What happens to our critical faculties, to our honesty, to our awareness of mystery, to our sense of wonder, to whatever modest reserves of imagination, of patience, of courage we might possess? Why are these things so often left behind, abandoned, not thought to be relevant when it comes to faith, to prayer, to discipleship?

Perhaps what I am pleading for – and I go back to those stone figures – is a faith which is sufficiently honest, imaginative, self-critical, robust to live with incompleteness: the questions that we cannot answer; the ambiguities that life presents; the contradictions of our experience; the absence – certainly the perceived absence – of God. There is that marvellous sentence in Doris Lessing’s book The Golden Note-Book, in which she reflects that life is crude, unfinished, raw tentative. But then she insists that the “raw unfinished quality in my life was precisely what was valuable in it”. And what is true for life must be true for faith.

Of course, the rock on which we stand as we approach all these things is what we have seen of the truth and the grace and the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Some will say that for them faith is too tentative, too elusive; but I can only rely that I don’t know any other kind. And that’s why I go back to Michelangelo’s stone figure. They have shape and form. They possess a vitality, an energy, that is coming through; and – more than that – there is striving, something almost approaching pain, as though the figures are still tearing themselves out of the rough stone. There is promise – a good deal more than just the promise – of what they might be. But they are unfinished, not complete, still becoming. And there – in those words – I find the only approach to the Christian life that makes any sense to me: not just at the beginning of a new term, a new year, but at every stage of the journey.

Stone figures, I said earlier on, bear the marks of the hammer and the chisel. We bear the marks of our experience. And that is where God’s meaning is to be found: where we are now in the world. It is in the world that we find God. It is in the centre of life that we find the meaning of faith. And that is why we can say, “It is in the grit of earth that we find the glory of heaven”. Yes, our time is the present. Our place is the world as it is. Our first resource is the gospel. Our basic stance is of one faith seeking understanding.

Of course, we have no authority to speak about God unless it is with the mind and in the spirit of Jesus Christ. And, as we journey, dare we ask that we might claim for ourselves something of his integrity, something of the quality of his obedience, changing and being changed into his likeness, so that finally we might say, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”.

Very Rev’d Dr. John Moses, Dean Emeritus of St Paul’s Cathedral
8th October 2006

Ezekiel 1:4-10, 22-28a; Mark 1:1-13

If two people get married, it is invariably the case that they employ a photographer for their wedding day, either a professional at great expense, or a friend. In either case, it is not uncommon for the photographer to ask the couple, at some point during the day, to pose looking at each other. If you are a budding photographer or plan to take photos at a wedding in the future I would recommend that you ask this of the bride and groom, because what you will probably capture is that very special look of love between the two people – amongst all the finery, food and festivity, there comes a moment when the two lovers look at each other, encapsulating the essence of the event – the celebration of love.
When St. Augustine was trying to find the words to describe the mystery of the Godhead as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he remembered this most unique of human experiences – a loving gaze- and saw how it could express something of the divine community of love. Just as the lover and the beloved gaze at each other in mutual love, so God the Father looks at God the Son and the love, which passes between them is God the Holy Spirit. Three persons made one through their love.
To use this unique experience of the uniting power of love between two people as an analogy for the Trinity is very helpful but it does highlight a profound difference. Each one of us has, not only a deep capacity to love but also a need to be loved. People often talk these days of the importance of “loving oneself” as if it is impossible to love another or receive love unless one first loves oneself. There is some truth in this but experience teaches that invariably we are unable to love ourselves until we learn to love another and receive their love in turn. To be able to love we must look outside ourselves, only then is our true need to love and be loved fulfilled and life takes on a richness and vulnerability, which was not there before.
Christian theology says that this need has been met and fulfilled within the being of the Godhead. As William Vanstone writes:
“In the dynamic relationship within the being of the Trinity, love is already present, already active, already completed and already triumphant, for the love of the Father meets with the perfect response of the Son. Each, one might say, endlessly enriches the other and this rich and dynamic interrelationship is the being and life of the Spirit. Therefore, nothing beyond the being of God is necessary to the fullness or fulfilment of God.”
That dynamic interrelationship is evident in this evening’s reading from Mark. Even at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry the Father proclaims Jesus to be his beloved Son, with whom he is well pleased, and the Spirit moves Christ into the wilderness.
God is not like us who must look beyond ourselves to another who, by responding, will satisfy our need to love. Within the mystery of the divine being there is present both the power to love and the triumphant issue of love in the response of the beloved.
If this is so then it has profound repercussions for how we see our relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as when we look upon couple is love and feel as if our presence makes no difference at all to their love for each other, so we must look upon the Trinity of love and know that we and every other created being are not necessary to the being or fulfilment of God. God is complete in himself and is not reduced or unfulfilled or even incomplete if we did not exist. In no way can we claim that without us, without our being or without our response, God is in any way unfulfilled. God needs no response from us, or anything in creation to be divinely fulfilled, for he is whole, complete, satisfied within himself the Trinity of love.
If God has no need to look outside himself to have his love made whole and fulfilled than the fact that God loves us is pure gift, which flows from the fullness of his being of love. It is not the kind of love, which springs from need or emptiness but from an overwhelming generosity. It is the kind of love, which a family has who, united in mutual love, take an orphan into their home. They do not do so out of a need but in the pure spontaneity of their triumphant love. Nevertheless, in the weeks that follow, the family, once complete in itself, comes to need the newcomer. Without him the circle is now incomplete; his absence now causes anxiety; his waywardness brings concern; his goodness and happiness are necessary to those who have come to love him: upon his response depends the triumph or tragedy of the family’s love. In spontaneous love, the family has surrendered its own fulfilment and placed it precariously in the orphan’s hands. Love has surrendered its triumphant self-sufficiency and created its own need. This is the supreme illustration of love’s self-giving or self-emptying, that it should surrender its fullness and create in itself the emptiness of need.
In the revelation of such love cannot be easily understood by humans beings, nor readily described as to be comprehensible, as our reading from Ezekiel this evening demonstrated. The awesome, terrifying vision Ezekiel called the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. All he could do was fall on his face. More awesome still is the fact that, if God has taken us, and all creation, into the perfection of his community of love, then who we are and what we do matters. It matters to God if we are absent or not, if we are wayward or not, if we are good or not. Our response to God’s love affects God himself.
This does not mean that God is like Big Brother watching, judging our every move, but that you and me and all creation, are part of that divine look of love. To know this and experience it is to be fulfilled and for life to take on the richness and vulnerability of knowing that we are looked upon in such love and that love in turn, turns our eyes towards him and all he loves so that we are lost in wonder love and praise.
Amen.

Rev’d Dr. Jonathan Arnold
11th June 2006

Today is one of the most important festivals in Christendom. Pentecost, also known as Whitsun. The day when the story of the Holy Spirit coming upon the men and women of the early church is told and retold. It can seem a remote, supernatural even spooky story with its metaphors of flame and wind and speaking in tongues. But the receiving of the Spirit by the early believers is a way of understanding the Church’s call to engage with society in a distinctive way.
This evening I would like to reflect for a few moments on the Pentecost story and consider what it teaches us in relation to a topical question about which there is much debate: human rights.

Christians, while supporting the concept of human rights often feel anxious about the language. In the recent debate in the House of Lords over assisted dying, bishops argued successfully in the end, that life was not so much a right as a gift; and this basic standpoint informs Christian engagement on this subject. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted in 1945, French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) observed, “We agree on these rights, providing we are not asked why. With the ‘why,’ the dispute begins.” Those of all religions and none will have different rationales for supporting human rights, but I would like to suggest that Pentecost is where we should start to look for the Christian.

A life of faith asks that the orientation of a person is that of one seeking God, acknowledging that our lives are lived in response to the numinous, a basic orientation that searches for meaning, that receives life itself as a gift and lives in response to that gift. The hallmark of a Christian life is one lived in response to the love of God and the continuing presence of the Spirit.

It is the Spirit, in Hebrew – ruah – or breath – of God, who brooded over the waters at Creation, who brought order out of chaos, who made the dry bones in the valley live in the book of Ezekiel, who gave speech to the apostles at Pentecost, who turned Peter, from the frightened follower who denied he ever knew Jesus, into the orator who speaks from the pages of Acts in our second reading tonight.

The Pentecost story is literally vital in helping the church define its character and purpose in society. It is an enlivening story, of empowerment, of mutual accountability, of communal experience and shared vision.

We are called to discern the movement of the Spirit, to read the signs of the times, and to speak about it like Peter.
The story of Pentecost tells us several things about ourselves in relation to God; The Spirit did not come to one lone disciple asking him or her to bear the weight of the mission alone; the Spirit was poured out onto the community And this revelation of what God is like – showing us the 3rd person of the Trinity, gives us a model of personhood that governs our common life in the world.

And this is also where we start to engage with the modern, mostly secular language of human rights.

There is much controversy surrounding human rights in our public debates; in response to heightened fears about terrorism, the nature of human rights and at what point they are qualified is part of our political conversations. The mistake in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menendez last year after the 7th July bombings in London, the proposals for identity cards, legal arguments over the detainees in Guantanemo Bay all in the arguably still early years of human rights language post 1945 means that the Church can make its own distinctive contribution to the public debate.
And this springs from our celebration of this festival of Pentecost.

First, the engagement in debate at all. The pouring out of the Spirit on the apostles had the effect of making them able to speak, in a way that their hearers could understand. The Spirit enabled a translation from the language of faith to the language of the marketplace and the effect of Peter’s message, on the crowd, we are told cut them to the heart.

Second, the fact that the Spirit was poured out onto the community and in a way that affected them physically is a sign of the presence of God and the characteristics of that presence.

Third, the revelation of the third person of the Trinity, the revelation that God is three persons, that God is somehow the space between the persons as well as the persons themselves gives us a model for engaging with society’s anxiety over human rights.

The Spirit dignifies and ennobles us, the Spirit inhabits us, stretches and draws us out.

With these principles, we can draw from the Pentecostal experience that human rights as far as the church is concerned are not so much individualist but personalist.

Personal rights are inalienable and come from our understanding of ourselves as created in the image and likeness of God, and also our acknowledgement that an essential element of the flourishing of a person is within community.

The concept of personhood comes from a Christian understanding of God: not a man with a beard on a throne, not a despot, albeit benign, or a CS Lewis’s type vivisectionist God experimenting on his creatures, nor a watchmaker God who winds up the world and watches it run itself down; but a Trinitarian God; God in the Christian tradition is three persons and one God. God is relational, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. From this doctrine combined with the Incarnation; the belief that God became human in Jesus Christ, comes a strong platform of human dignity and right relation on which to rest the notions of justice, and human rights.

If at the centre of a circle is Human Dignity, then springing from it is a series of concentric circles

First circle we might say contains personal rights (inalienable)
Second Social rights
Third Instrumental rights (mediated by institutions)

Bodily rights, political rights, rights of movement, associational rights, economic rights, sexual and family rights, religious rights, communication rights.

Bodily:
Personal is RIGHT TO LIFE AND BODILY INTEGRITY
Social is RIGHT TO FOOD, SHELTER, REST, MEDICAL CARE
Instrumental is SECURITY IN SICKNESS, INABILITY TO WORK, UNEMPLOYMENT (ie Welfare Sate)

Associational rights;
Personal: RIGHT TO SOCIAL INTERCOURSE
Social; RIGHT TO ASSEMBLY AND ASSOCIATION
Instrumental: RIGHT TO FORM SOCIETIES AND ORGANISATIONs

A Pentecostal definition of human rights will recognise not only that a person has the right to self determination, but that that person is unique and mysterious. That the person has a soul not just a body and a mind.

Our acceptance of the spiritual dimension to our lives, our lives lived in response to the quickening presence of the Spirit mean that this primary relationship with God turns us outwards from ourselves and from our church towards our neighbour; whoever that may be. Our interpersonal relationships flow from this one primary relationship. The quality of our spiritual relationship with God is an inescapable function of how well we treat our neighbour.

This can be summarised in the Christian commandment: Love God, you’re your neighbour as yourself.

An appreciation of human dignity derives from our resting in the Creator: we are made in the image of God. Personal inalienable rights flow from this as human nature has been taken into the nature of God in the incarnation; human experience has been made sacred by God becoming human. The concept of a person as social flows from an understanding of God as Trinity. Social and instrumental rights flow from our reading of Pentecost; a communal, ordered inspirational experience of God.

Pentecost illuminates and envigorates the current rights debate to the extent that it will always turn us first to God and to our neighbour in whom we will find God. We will then be able to name the lie that an individualistic understanding of society or rights teaches us: I don’t need you, I deserve the possessions I have, I owe you nothing; I can do what I want; anything is possible if I try hard enough.

There is no security in such mantras, there is no peace in possessing the whole world at the expense of your soul. There is conflict and even war at the end of the conversation that begins with I don’t need you.

There is peace, security, justice and right relationship in knowing that we belong to God, the source of our being and we belong to one another.
This central theological question will inform our attitude to rights: to whom do we belong, in whom do we trust, to whom do we return?

The Spirit teaches us an obliged freedom; an absolutely unfettered liberty that is at once bound in service of others. A Christian human rights ethic is one which mirrors the action of God in the world; God’s life poured out into JC; kenosis and at Pentecost, the Spirit poured out into the life of men, women and children. As Isaiah reminds us, this is the Spirit who, when upon us, will send us to bring good news to those who are oppressed, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and comfort to all who mourn.

The Spirit teaches us a dynamic definition of human rights, relational, biased towards those who are marginalized, dependent on the belief that God created each person. The Spirit teaches us that when we approach another human being, we act justly not only in order to receive justice ourselves; but we approach any other human being in the knowledge that in doing so, we approach holy ground.

Amen.

Canon Lucy Winkett: Precentor, St. Paul’s Cathedral
4th June 2006

This short period between Ascension and Pentecost is always an interesting time to consider how the Holy Spirit can lead us in our own lives. On Easter Sunday we celebrated the resurrection, which was an event that nobody saw happening, that happened at night or at early dawn, that was only predicted obliquely. And after the resurrection, the disciples still met behind locked doors, for fear of the religious authorities.

But the ascension as written about in the Acts of Apostles happened in clear sight, “he was lifted up before their very eyes.” But before he was lifted up Jesus said “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”. The mood of the disciples was very different: they confidently went back to Jerusalem, waited and prayed, and actually went to work to choose a new apostle to replace Judas. And sure enough on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to them as a community, something we will celebrate next week.

So this is a time of waiting and expectation for something we can be sure is going to happen. It’s rather as if we’ve done our exams and in fact we’ve been tipped off we are going to pass, but we’re just waiting for the public announcement. In these few days, we can imagine we know that the Holy Spirit is going to come to us, and it is a period of waiting where we can consider how the Spirit will lead.

Jesus already had a reputation as a preacher and teacher, so it isn’t surprising that the people in his local synagogue asked him to read and preach on this occasion. There probably wasn’t a fixed lectionary, so the preacher would have had to look in the scroll for the passage he was going to read. The one he chose (at least approximately) is that we ourselves heard, the prophecy of Third Isaiah written about 500 years previously, of the coming of the messianic age, the kingdom of God.

We’ve only heard the part of the sermon that the congregation liked. “Today in your hearing this text has come true.” It’s not surprising. This was an obscure place in an occupied and oppressed country, with poor people living a hard life, so what would be more welcome than the carpenter Joseph’s son proclaiming the fulfilment of the old prophecy and the old hope: good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, the year of the Lord’s favour. We all want that, don’t we, especially if somebody else will do it. Later, when the penny dropped that Jesus was talking about a complete turn around in their way of thinking and their way of life, they got rather angry and wanted to throw him off a cliff, but fortunately for me there isn’t much high ground round here.

It would do us no harm to consider how the Spirit will call us, to consider our own vocation, as individuals, as a society, as a Church and indeed as a College and a University. The Isaiah passage has these interesting two verses: “Foreigners will serve as shepherds of your flocks, aliens will till your land and tend your vines, but you will be called priests of the Lord and be named ministers of our God. You will enjoy the wealth of nations and succeed to their riches.”

The “Wealth of Nations” is of course the title of the book published by Adam Smith in 1776 which is seen as a foundation text of modern economics and the market economy. Smith explored the consequences of a plural economy where people did different things, and he saw that often this could be a win-win situation. He criticized those who act purely out of self-interest and greed, and warns that, “[a]ll for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”

In that context, Isaiah’s little picture is truly prophetic, because it portrays a world where other people, foreigners and aliens, people somewhere else, guest workers and asylum seekers, do all the work and we reap the benefits and have a “holy” life doing higher things. At the risk of being thrown off that cliff, I’m almost put in mind of the Fellows of an unnamed College voting themselves a pay rise on the back of a windfall gain.

What’s particularly interesting is that Jesus didn’t mention any of this. He quotes Isaiah rather selectively. The holy life he calls us to is not one of separating ourselves from the world. He sets before us the outward looking motivation we should have whatever we do:

· To bring good news to the poor: Do we seek out and follow opportunities all the time to help those who are poor in all sorts of ways?

· Recovery of sight to the blind: Do we help others and ourselves to look outwards not inwards, and to see good and liberating things that we ourselves have seen?

· To proclaim release to the captives, let the oppressed go free:
A major cause of imprisonment was debts. Do we release those financially indebted to us? Perhaps more importantly, what about those emotionally imprisoned because of our inability to mend broken relationships where a word of forgiveness or reconciliation on our part might be a step towards healing?

· To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour: the biblical jubilee year was probably an ideal rather than something that actually happened. It needed everyone to work together to bring in the signs of God’s kingdom.

Is there any chance that today this might happen in our hearing?

Rev’d Prof. Bernard Silverman, Master of St. Peter’s College, Oxford
28th May 2006

§ Take
– the top tailors from Saville Row
– best consultants from Moorfield’s Eye Hospital
– add the Governors of the Bank of England
– and group them round the Water Springs at Bath Spa
– and you have a picture of Laodicea
– a famous financial centre renowned for its wool and clothing
– its medical school with a specialism in eye salve
– drawn from the tepid lime laden sickly waters

NB: the colony the 7000 Jewish males who had managed to keep their culture
– so rich that after an earthquake in AD60 rebuilt their city and economy without a Roman subsidy or loan
– resilient, self reliant, autonomous, sustainable
– and what does Jesus say to the church in this place
– how does he react?
– What is his criticism / assessment?

1. We see Christ sickened by their self opinionated manner

– “I know your works; you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were either hot or cold. Because you are luke warm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing. You do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

– They were smug, complacent and Jesus seems sickened by this
– nominal religion “in extremis”
– it is so nauseating to Jesus Christ that he even preferred cold to tepid
– these Christians in Laodicea lacked whole heartedness
– rather reminiscent of much Christianity today
– respectable nominal, rather sentimental, skin deep religion, a Christianity which is flabby and anaemic

§ Christ makes the case he wants us to be either hot or cold
– the idea of being on fire for Christ will undoubtedly strike some as dangerous emotionalism
– surely we are not meant to become hot-gospel fanatics
§ If by fanaticism you really mean whole heartedness, then Christianity is a fanatical religion and every Christian should be a fanatic
– BUT
– whole heartedness is not the same as fanaticism
– fanaticism is an unreasoning and unintelligent whole heartedness
– it is the running away of the heart from the head

QUOTE Conference on Science Philosophy and Religion, Princetown University, 1940, USA
“Commitment without reflection is fanaticism in action but reflection without commitment is the paralysis of all action”

– surely what Jesus Christ desires and deserves is the reflection which leads to commitment and a commitment which is borne of reflection
– this is the meaning of wholeheartedness

QUOTE Lord Melbourne 19th Century Prime Minister once said:
“Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life”

e.g. South aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral
large monument to Thomas Middleton Fanshaw first Protestant Bishop in India; who when consecrated and sent was commissioned to “Preach the Gospel and put down enthusiasm”

– The truth is unless the Christian, and indeed the Christian church, is on fire for Christ we stand rebuked by him

2. Jesus Christ strives to save them from themselves v18/19

“Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.”

– Because Christ loves us he rebukes us and disciplines us
– Christ is striving to save us and so he has to be blunt
– “I counsel you”. This is the Lord God, the creator of the universe, stars, heavens
– he could order, demand obedience, command us… but what does he do?
– “I counsel you”
– they say I am rich, I prospered, I need nothing
– Christ says, “I counsel you.. take a look at yourself, wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, naked”
– He respects the freedom which he has given us
– Christ by his spirit confronts and counsels

– Christ is sickened by the self opinion
– Christ strives to save them

– Christ strikes at their conscience

v20: “Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”

§ “Be earnest and repent”
– Christ the Holy Spirit says to each and everyone of us “be serious, reflect, face up to reality”
– To repent is to turn with resolution from all that is known to be contrary to God’s will
– Like the Laodiceans, we have to renounce the whole life of easy going complacency
– Smug self satisfaction is not appropriate in those who would bear the name of Christ
– Shallow piety never saved anyone
– We have to break with these things

§ If the first need is repentance, the second is faith
– This is what Christ describes
– “here I am standing at the door of your heart and life knocking”
– this is very much a personal appeal although the words are addressed to the church
– they apply obviously to individual members of the church

§ This is a visit from the Lover of our Soul
– The love scene in the Song of Songs echos:
– “listen my lover’s knocking… open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one… my lover thrust his hand through the latch opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my lover”.
[Song of Songs 52-5]
– this, of course, is the iconography of Holman Hunt’s famous painting – the original in Keble College – a famous copy in St Paul’s Cathedral, London

e.g. Mrs Corbachova / Dean Eric Evans

1. Jesus sickened by self opinion
2. Jesus strives to save them
3. Jesus touches their conscience

4. Jesus Christ Shares with us
“If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”

§ Eating, as the Greek word shows here, is not breakfast nor lunch but supper
– the main meal of the day
– the notion is of dining
– long relaxed in the intimacy of friendship
– the sharing is not just in the present of such friendship but also the future
– “I will give a place with me on my throne”

§ Here are great alternatives facing every thoughtful person
– to be half hearted, complacent, intermittently or casually interested in things of God is to prove ourselves not indeed a Christian at all and to be so distasteful to Christ as to be in danger of vehement rejection
– But to be wholehearted in devotion to Christ having opened the door and submitted to Christ is given the privilege both of supping with him on earth and of reigning with him in heaven
– Here is the choice – surely no choice at all

Rt. Rev’d George Cassidy, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham
21st May 2006

Earlier this month I went to see a production of the musical ‘Half a Sixpence’.

The story is, at heart, quite a simple one. A young man, called Arthur Kipps, and his girlfriend, Ann Pornick, go through all sorts of ups and downs. But they each keep one half of a sixpence that Arthur has managed to file into two pieces.

The half sixpences are ‘a token of their eternal love’, as one of the songs puts it. When apart, Arthur and Ann can each look at their own half, and think of the other person as they imagine the whole coin joined together.

One of the hazards faced by Arthur, who is a mere apprentice shopman, is a mysterious advertisement in the newspaper. It reads: ‘If Arthur Kipps, son of Margaret Euphemia Kipps, born on September 1st 1880 will communicate with Messrs. Watson and Bean, he may hear something to his advantage.’

Sure enough, Kipps inherits a fortune – enough to build a new house with eleven bedrooms. But for a while it looks as though the sixpence is destined never to be made whole again. Arthur, with new-found fortune, gets engaged to another much grander lady, and Ann flings her portion of the coin down on the ground before him.

Of course, it being a family show, everything turns out well in the end – the sixpence is reunited – and I enjoyed the production very much. But it set me thinking about the significance of inheritance.

Whenever we inherit something – maybe a fortune like Kipps – or maybe something much more personal – we are connected into a kind of dynastic succession; a list of owners. An inheritance connects us with those who have gone before; but it also depends upon our predecessors having faded from the scene.

Our reading from Deuteronomy this evening, if we were listening carefully, contained within it reference to three of the great Old Testament themes.

The context is God’s gift to His people of the statutes and ordinances that are to govern their collective life. This is the Old Covenant – the Law. (v. 11)
Secondly, the point of reference, looking backwards in time, is the Exodus – the escape from Egypt. (v. 8)

And then, thirdly, there is the future promise, the land that God will give to his people; literally, ‘the promised land’. (vv. 12-13)

It is this promised land which is the Israelites’ inheritance. It is almost as if, like Arthur Kipps, they were to read in a newspaper, ‘If the Israelites, descendants of Abraham, will communicate with the Lord, they may hear something to their advantage.’

And just as any inheritance depends upon the demise of a predecessor, so too the promise of the land depended upon the previous owners fading from the scene; hence Jericho and the rather blood-thirsty conquest of the promised land.

As Christians, we look back to these three great Old Testament themes – covenant; exodus; promised land.

But we understand them in the light of Easter Day – in the light of our risen Saviour.

So it is that we talk of a New Covenant, made in Christ’s body.
And we see the exodus as foreshadowing Christian baptism, when we come through the dark waters of death and discover the freedom of life in Christ, just as the Israelites escaped to freedom through the waters of the Red Sea.

But what of the promised land? What of the inheritance? What does ‘inheritance’ mean in the light of Easter?

Because if Easter means resurrection – if Easter means that death is conquered – then that old style of inheritance, which depends upon the death of a predecessor, is impossible.

Resurrection destroys material inheritance, just as it destroys all varieties of dynastic succession.

In ‘Half a Sixpence’, Arthur Kipps loses his fortune. The brother of his grand fiancée, who is supposed to be looking after Arthur’s money, speculates rashly.

Arthur and Ann fall back on the symbol of their love for one another – the two halves of the coin. They find a new kind of life, rooted in something much stronger than an inherited fortune.

And that story of Arthur and Ann is a kind of parable of the promise that God makes to us through our baptism into the risen Christ.

As we receive the promise of the resurrection life, we let go, like Arthur Kipps, of any worldly inheritance which depends on death, and we gain instead a different kind of inheritance – an inheritance with all the saints in God’s kingdom.

Somehow we must be able to turn away from the attractions that the mysterious newspaper advertisement holds, with its tempting message of death and inheritance. As we renounce those temptations, we discover the fullness of life with Christ.

Even the sixpence itself, made one again, can act as a parable of the wholeness and peace of the resurrection life in God’s kingdom to come.

That is the promise we have, by God’s grace. It is the promise that we affirm whenever we proclaim our faith in Jesus Christ, raised from the dead. It is the promise that we affirm when we say in the creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the body”.

Above all, it is the promise that we affirm as we give God the glory in our lives, each and every day.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed; alleluia!

Rev’d Edward Carter, Priest in Charge, St. Peter’s Didcot
30th April 2006

Readings: Isaiah 26, 1-9,19; Luke 24, 1-12.

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

There was once a wealthy millionaire who held a big party for his friends. In the grounds of his mansion was a swimming pool. During the course of the evening he made an announcement, setting a challenge for his guests. To whoever can swim one length of the pool he would grant anything in his power to give. A simple enough task for such a great reward, his friends thought, until the host added, with a warning, that the swimming pool was also home to his pet shark. Well, nobody ventured in, as you can imagine, for obvious reasons and, as the evening wore on, the millionaire began to give up hope of his challenge being met when, SPLASH! Looking over to the pool, they all saw a figure swimming as fast as he could across the length of the pool with the shark in hot pursuit. The onlookers watched in gripped excitement to see if the anonymous daredevil would make it. The crowd roared with delight when the swimmer finished his length and emerged, unharmed and dripping wet, from the pool.

“Wonderful”, cried the rich man. “I said I would give anything in my power to the man who took up my challenge and succeeded. What do you want?”
“I’ll tell you what I want”, said the wet swimmer, breathing heavily, “I want to know who pushed me in!”

I hope that none of us has had to go through such an ordeal. But even if we have not, we may have found ourselves in new, unusual, unsettling or perhaps scary places. This service marks the beginning of a new term. The observant among you will have noticed that I am not Emma Pennington, Chaplain of Worcester College, but Jonathan Arnold, Emma’s husband and, for this term, Acting Chaplain, whilst Emma is on maternity leave, expecting our second baby in around two weeks – I’ll keep you posted. It is perhaps worth saying at this point that I will be occupying Emma’s room in Nuffield 11, on the same phone line and on Emma’s email, and am happy to talk to anyone at any time about anything.

So, in this Easter season, we are expecting new life; the countryside and gardens are budding with new life as we enter the Trinity Term. It is an exciting time. But along with this newness, excitement and anticipation, comes a certain amount of apprehension, of what will happen over the next few weeks, how is life going to pan out, and how are we going to deal with it, be it tutorials, essays, theses or exams, or whatever makes up our day-to-day lives. How are we, in this family of Worcester College, going to relate to each other? We feel, perhaps, mixed about the future.

There are conflicting emotions reflected in this evening’s readings. A contradiction exists between the truth of God’s action and the human response to it: the fact of Christ’s resurrection, for instance, and the reaction of the women and disciples. Whichever gospel writer relates this story, it is always dramatic because of this inherent juxtaposition of fact and faith.

The shortest and simplest of the gospel resurrection accounts comes from Mark, who has Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome encounter the empty tomb. They flee, saying nothing to anyone because they are terrified. In Luke’s account, Salome is replaced with Joanna and there are other women there too. Luke has two men in shining garments explaining the significance of the death and resurrection of the Son of Man, so that the women ca begin to comprehend the incomprehensible. The disciples are incredulous, but Peter, characteristically rushes to the tomb, only to be left with feelings of fear and wonder. In all the gospel accounts, those who encountered the resurrection first hand found it hard to understand.

Indeed it is hard for us to preconceive the afterlife now. A hell and brimstone sermon was once given by a zealous preacher. “In the afterlife there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” he declared. “Ain’t got no teeth” a confident old woman declared from the front pew, smiling top reveal her toothless gums”. “Teeth will be provided” the preacher retorted! I hope this is not our idea of eternity. It is, naturally, inconceivable.

Perhaps for us, therefore, it is hardly surprising that we find it hard to fully comprehend that, by our baptism, we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection. For, as St. Paul tells us in Romans chapter six, if we are baptized, that is, if we believe, then we are baptized with Christ death. Our old self has been crucified, so that we are free from sin and now live with Christ for all eternity. Isaiah’s words pre-echo the Pauline theology “The dead shall live together with my body”. This is an awesome thought to carry with us through the term. Whether we fully understand it or not, it is a reality now nevertheless, so that we can declare with joy, for ourselves and our loved ones, that Christ is Risen.

As we enter this new term with many different feelings, concerns and hopes for the future, let’s take reassurance from the fact of Christ’s resurrection, from our bond with that resurrection through our faith and keep with us the words of Isaiah for our comfort:

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.”

Amen

Rev’d Dr. Jonathan Arnold
23rd April 2006

Thank you for your kind invitation to join you for Evensong in the College and for your generous welcome. And thank you also for setting me a rather interesting challenge to preach on such a topic as “Sloth” in your series on the Seven Deadly Sins.

I have to admit that my first reaction on receiving the invitation was to ask myself, “Oh, can I really be bothered to say yes”: my next thought was “And why exactly has Emma asked me preach on this particular sin” (as no doubt some of your other preachers this term may also have asked!). I guess the answer to my question could be provided by my initial reaction: you have probably invited me as an expert on the subject.

But what exactly is the subject of sloth. Even more than the word sin, sloth is not the kind of word one often hears even in an Oxford college, let alone in Cornmarket or (supposing you could hear it being spoken) in one of the clubs along the road to the station. In most places it means a two- or three-toed small mammal from the forests of south America which eats, sleeps and mates upside-down, and all at a sluggish pace, though apparently it is quite a brisk and good swimmer when it can be bothered to get into the water.

So quickly recapping on the Christian moral tradition about sloth, it appears in the list of the seven deadly sins assembled by Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome and former consul or governor of Rome (a well-organised and unslothful man, if ever there was). He names it, interestingly, in Latin tristia, “sadness”, and more of that definition shortly. Moving on through history briskly and with no hint of sloth, Dante places sloth in his hierarchy of sins slap bang in the middle, an appropriate spot for a sin, I suppose, if you don’t really want to make a big effort either way. Sloth for Dante is more vicious than avarice but less vicious than anger: he describes it in this way, as “a failure to love God with all one’s heart, all one’s mind and all one’s strength”.

And what about the current moral view? Putting the word “sloth” into Google, I was led to the Seven Deadly Sins website, and then straight to the Merchandise page which told me “With fascinating full colour depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins, these shirts, mugs and mousepads may be the most important products you buy in the new millennium” a statement which may be an illustration of pride above all…. So I moved on and was then led to contemporary depictions of the seven deadly sins in unlikely literature, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which Roald Dahl’s characters represented at least four, Augustus Gloop for gluttony, Violet Beauregarde for pride, Veruca Salt for greed and finally Mike Teavee for sloth itself.

Fortunately, as I thought, I then discovered that the University Press has come to the rescue by publishing among its recent series of books on the seven deadly sins, a slim volume on sloth. But this finally crystallised one of the problems about any discourse about sloth in our kind of culture and society. The book turns out to be mostly in defence of sloth as an act of moral agitprop against the prevailing tide of hyperactivity, overcommitment, workaholism, intemperance and “getting the max” which characterises the life most of us observe and to some extent all participate in, not least in Oxford. So is sloth a problem, or is it actually a solution to the work/life balance, a slower pace of living?

At one level there is some wisdom in this. Sloth as an act of countercultural negation of the shallow contemporary worship of speed, especially in the developing of relationships, would have a good deal to commend it. But that would be to diminish the meaning of sloth to something like laziness and it seems to be more interesting and rich as an idea than that.

Let’s try going into the subject from the point of view of the corresponding virtue, which is generally taken to be zeal, promptness, readiness to engage in activity and with people. In terms of attitude rather behaviour this is about something deeper than just activity. Returning to that interesting early understanding of sloth as “sadness”, sloth seems to have something to do with a kind of resignation, and at the deepest level, resignation about oneself: a modern commentator has called sloth “sadness, deliberately self-directed” which leads to not doing, not knowing and not finding out what one must do. Strangely, it is therefore possible to be both busy, even hyperactive, and also slothful, if we have no sense of what is meaningful and purposeful in our busy activity. For example, it could be described as slothful to continue busily and expensively producing goods, services and wealth while neglecting to think about the meaning of the signs of climate change. It could also be said to be slothful to want to make a personal fortune at the expense of knowing why and what effect it will have on me or those whom I love.

There is no time to go into the psychological roots and springs of slothful behaviour, though there is little doubt that Freud and more than a century of the practice of pschoanalysis has something to tell us about what stops many, if not all of us, from the kind of engagement which goes with psychological and spiritual well-being, particularly in late adolescence and in middle age.

However, the problem and the dilemma are age-old, even as far back as St Paul. For he knew that “ I do not understand my own actions: for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”. The remedy also seems to be age-old: for discipline and determination can only go a short way to remedy sloth without deepening the despair. It is the bond of peace and of all virtues, love itself which seems to be the remedy for sloth and the source of the good life which is made up, as someone put it to me recently of the maximum of work and the maximum of pleasure. Sloth is conquered by love of self, love of our neighbour and love of God.

The Ven. Julian Hubbard, Archdeacon of Oxford
5th March 2006

I welcome the opportunity to preach on greed – or what the Authorised Version of the Bible and the BCP call ‘covetousness’. I confess that I have never coveted my neighbour’s ass, for the record; but I have had my eye on his Aston Martin DB7 – a very desirable car, by any measure. Greed: that word which describes insatiate longing; covetousness and avarice; desire that possesses us so that we can longer see or think straight. Rapacious appetites that will not be satisfied until the hunger is fully sated. Voracious, intense, ravenous – whenever we think of the word, we think of excess; desire unbounded.

It would, of course, be a bit of a cheap jibe to say that much of consumer-based culture is desire-driven to the point where greed is what we feed. Many of us are more than aware of this. Greed is something that has possession of us. The object we seek is, in fact, the object that has us; we can be imprisoned by desire. Like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, we do not understand that excessive desire can actually destroy us. Or consider the studied characters in the recent film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – superbly hammed-up by Johnny Depp playing Willy Wonka. In Dahl’s moral fable, we meet the virtuous Charlie Bucket, a poor but kind-hearted child who is the antithesis of greed; he is open-hearted, generous and self-sacrificing.

But in some ways the real grit of the tale lies in the write-ups the other characters receive. Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous kid who stuffs his face with sweets; Violet Beuragarde, a champion trophy gum chewer; Veruca Salt, a spoiled rich girl; and Mike Teavee, a kid who spends more time watching TV and playing video games than anything else. Each of them is a study of greed and possession. Rather like the novel of the same name (i.e., Possession) by Patrick Suskind, desire has long ago turned to all-consuming greed, which distorts and dominates all the relationships it touches.

Make no mistake: greed is a subtle, insidious sin. In questioning it, we are required to go deep into our hearts and minds, and to challenge our own motivations and desires. What really drives us? Why do we really want this or that for ourselves, or for another? We are called to a life a discernment – to split the atom, which is a fusion of selfless love and deep desire. Our English word ‘greed’ comes from a fairly innocent source. You can trace the use of the word back to early Saxon times, and find the root of the word amongst the Germanic tribes that one dominated Northern Europe. All the word means is ‘desire’ or ‘hunger’ – but disproportionate. The word suggests that the very things we long to consume, may instead, consume us.

This is, after all, the genesis of those early folk fables – like that of Midas, who longs for wealth beyond compare, such that all he touches will turn to gold. But such stories easily translate. The company or corporation that longs for global dominion. The university department that longs for the top international accolade. The person that longs for a position or recognition. Such things can be fine. But in excess, the greed for reward that they produce corrupts all other relationships, and distorts our humanity and sociality.

So like Midas, we must be careful what you wish for – which is the moral of the tale – for what you most desire to possess actually may become your possessor. We can be trapped by unconstrained desire; by hunger that has no discipline. It imprisons us. Sp just in case you are starting to feel a little smug, let me remind you that there can be such a thing as spiritual greed, or even a kind of distorted Christian greed – a desire for perfection and knowledge that leads to false elevation, and draws us away from wisdom. A longing and a lust to be ‘more-holier-than-thou’ which distorts the very object of desire, and clouds the judgment of the person pursuing the path of righteousness.

Indeed, many apparently laudable desires can turn into a kind of distorted greed. I remember working in an organisation some years ago that longed to repeat its award for achievement – it had achieved two awards for international excellence, and badly wanted the hat-trick. But this desire to reach this goal was also corrupting. People who contributed to that goal differently, or less single-mindedly, were quickly marginalised. That which the organisation longed to possess, in truth, already possessed that organisation.

Small wonder, then, that the first time Jesus appears, in the first gospel, the first instruction he gives is ‘Repent’. He asks us to self-examine; to turn around; to forsake. To not get consumed by our desires. The very things we want to consume can end up by consuming us. So Jesus warns: ‘repent’.

Interestingly, many Christians think that repentance is about a kind of ‘kill-joy’ severity; a life-sentence of abstinence. But in fact, most of the early Christian literature on repentance is about the rightful control of desires, and about setting the heart aright. It is not about setting aside desire, but about desires being redeemed. Woody Allen has a nice line on this. Question: How do you make God laugh? Answer: Tell him your future plans. It is not that the plans themselves are bad, per se. It is, rather, that the desires we have for our lives always need redeeming, and placing in line with God’s higher purposes. Life is not about ‘my career’, ‘my goals’ or ‘my fulfilment’; it is about service, which is perfect freedom. And in such a context, greed has no place, because is the language of excess and self-absorption, not of self-emptying love and service.

Our first step, then, is to decide where we want to go. If we are resolved to move daily further into union with Christ, we must be ready to face the very conditions that enslave us; the things that hold us back, and to let God begin to heal them. Repentance is the way back to the Father. It is both the door and the path to a new life. It is the door to a new freedom.

So, greed has to go. But it’s more insidious nature needs to be recognised as well. Challenging the greed inside us is, in the end, about recognising that all the glitters is not gold. And to have the heart set on God is to choose wisdom, and to follow him who calls us. Not to a life where desires are fulfilled, but to one where the restless heart is finally set at ease and at peace. R.S. Thomas, in his poem ‘The Bright Field’, puts it well:

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I have to posses it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Desire then, is good. But can we learn to turn aside from the object of desire itself, and examine our motives. They will, invariably, be mixed. That is alright, however, for we are all human. But faith asks us to probe deeper, and examine real motives for real ends, and perhaps ask that most awkward of question, which faces everyone – the priest, the academic, the lover, the worker and even the student. Does our hunger for glittering prizes sometimes consume us, such that we are possessed? Can we see something deeper in our desires that needs examination? And perhaps repentance?

Remember what Jesus says: ‘for where you treasure is, so will your heart be’.

The Rev’d Canon Prof. Martyn Percy, Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon
26th February 2006

‘Lord Sandwich is best known for putting a piece of meat between two slices of bread; more remarkably, he kept a mistress who was murdered by a clergyman, an unusual occurrence, even in the Age of Reason.’

Professor Richard Jenkyns is writing about the 18th century society of Dilettanti. ‘The members’ interest in the fine arts’ he comments, ‘was often of a salacious kind. One of them was painted caressing a bronze Aphrodite, another as a friar adoring the Medici Venus in a blasphemous parody of the mass. Sexual rebellion, licentiousness, and that strange species of religious revolt which is almost a sort of religiosity, fired by a prurient fascination for the object of its attack, were features of English Hellenism that were soon to disappear; or rather to lie dormant, for lubricity and a febrile religiosity were both to be elements in the decadent and decaying Hellenism of the later Victorian age.’

Well: the tradition of lurid prose writing is alive and well and living in Oxford! The clashing contrasts in the Age of Reason that Professor Jenkyns sketches are echoed by the duality in Haydn’s motet, which we have just heard, where the swirling storms of self-doubt in d minor yield to the Elysian calm of F major.
Insanae et vanae curae invadunt mentes nostras,
Foolish and groundless cares assail our minds,
Saepe furore replent corda, privata spe,
Often with madness they fill our hearts, bereft of hope,
Quid prodest O mortalis conari pro mondanis,
What does it profit you, O mortal, to strive after earthly things,
Si coelos negligas.
If you neglect heavenly.
Sunt fausta tibi cuncta , si Deus est pro te.
All things are favourable to you, if God is with you.
Even in a world of classical order, with Palladian houses and the music of Mozart and Haydn, there is a dark, sensual underside. ‘What’s new?’ you may comment about our life today. Here among the dreaming spires is conducted the ordered pursuit of learning, an induction to the ladder of intellectual endeavour, while beneath the surface of the beautiful young things – and indeed, some not so young things – the ancient serpents of slimy self-satisfaction are entwined around licentious passions and bubbling hormones.
At least, that is how our inherited Christian tradition, particularly since Augustine, has often described it. From early times, sex has been suspect. It was, of course, all the fault of the woman. As the panel in the ceiling above my head illustrates, from the moment that the serpent beguiled her, and she ate, sin entered the world. As for the man, he was too wet – or bedazzled by her glamour? – to say no. And, says the writer in Genesis, their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked. So they sewed themselves fig-leaves, and made aprons, or – as one rare and remarkable version has it – breeches; and ever since, man has lusted after what is so suggestively concealed.
Certainly it’s true that from that time on, the mainstream Christian tradition has appeared to offer us an almost Manichaean, dualistic choice, rather as Haydn does musically in Insanae et Vanae Curae: the body, gripped by swirling sensuality, is bad, and the mind, freed from earthly passions, is good. Powerfully reinforced by the latent neo-Platonism of much English educational theory, such a divorce between body and spirit has come to pervade our art, our culture and even our basic presuppositions about what it is to be human.
But there have always been other voices. Instead of the rigid dichotomies between spirit and body, good and evil, intellect and passion there have been those who do not believe that things are intrinsically good or bad in themselves, but that it’s how we use them that introduces the moral quotient. The human heart, suggests Irenaeus, is a battleground between the forces of good and evil; it’s how you use your bodily passions, how you use your emotional energy, how you use your mind that counts towards your formation, as we try and grow up to become the people that God has called us to be.
It’s more like a game of snakes and ladders: both are there on the board, as they are in the early books of the Bible. There, serpents are the agents of destruction, whether in the Garden or the Wilderness. They trip us up in our attempts to clamber up the rungs of self-satisfaction and we slide down into the dust. And what about the ladders? In Genesis of course, the ladder is only a dream. On the run from his brother, whom he’d cheated, Jacob lay down with a stone for a pillow and dreamed that there was a ladder linking earth to heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descending on it. One day, please God, there will be link between earth and heaven. But it needs to be real – to have both ends secure: if there’s nothing at the other end, ladders fall flat.
St John picks up this image in his Gospel. To an astonished Nathanael in Chapter 1.43 Jesus says, ‘You will see greater things than these. .. Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’ If for Jacob the ladder was only a dream, in Jesus we can see it for real: he is the ladder that links heaven to earth; set your feet on those rungs, and you will find yourself drawn up into the life of the Godhead. As Jesus says in John 3.13-15, ‘No-one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.’
So, if it is a world of snakes and ladders, and we are all playing the game, how do we set our feet on the ladder, and avoid the serpents?
The sign of healing is a bronze serpent on a pole; the sign of redemptive love is the crucified one on the cross; type and antitype are very close, as the twined serpents of Aesculapius, the god of healing, or an Orthodox bishop’s pastoral staff declare, and the human body equally can be the agent of either love or lust.
The Christian faith says that we belong to one another like limbs and organs in a body, and that we are made for one another and for God. His purpose for us is union with him, and we are to model that by our union with one another. What is the difference between this love, and lust?
First, ours is an incarnate faith: our bodies are temples, says St Paul, of the Holy Spirit. It’s how we use them – their passions, emotions and physical longings – that counts. We can use them to build up or to destroy; to create bonds of affection or to gain our own self-satisfaction.
Second, lust belongs to a world of partial concealment, and febrile imagination, like Edwardian piano legs. It gains its power from the serpents of self-referential imagination, not from confessed adoration. To be drawn into the worship of the Father by the ladder of the cross is to come out of the shadows of self-concern into the light of Christ.
Third, love – the subject of Pope Benedict’s first Encyclical – is a gift, not a possession. Try and keep it to yourself, and it withers and dies. It’s a dynamic energy, not a static substance, and demands to be shared. It’s a transparent force: you can’t do love on your own.

Love – the love that moves the sun and other stars – is the eternal dance of the persons of the Trinity. God gives it to us, and draws us into his life.

By way of postlude, and to put a different complexion on the 18th century to where we began with the Dilettanti in pursuit of their own version of the Greek myth, here are some verses of one of Charles Wesley’s finest Eucharistic hymns, reflecting on that divine banquet which is already ours by grace.
Victim Divine, thy grace we claim
While thus thy precious death we show;
Once offered up, a spotless Lamb,
In thy great temple here below,
Thou didst for all mankind atone,
And standest now before the throne.

Thou standest in the holiest place,
As now for guilty sinners slain;
Thy blood of sprinkling speaks and prays
All-prevalent for helpless man;
Thy blood is still our ransom found,
And spreads salvation all around.

We need not now go up to heaven
To bring the long-sought Saviour down;
Thou art to all already given,
Thou dost e’en now thy banquet crown:
To every faithful soul appear,
And show thy real presence here.

The Rt. Rev’d David Stancliffe, The Bishop of Salisbury
12th February 2006