Category: Sermons

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. (Mk 13.33)

This evening we might be said to be sitting uncomfortably between two points of perspective. On one hand, we are at the end of the church’s year: we are in the week of the feast of Christ the King, when we celebrate the eternal reign of Jesus Christ in heaven over all things. On the other hand, in our readings and in our hearts and minds, we are looking forward to Advent, the season when we prepare to commemorate the incarnation of that King who, despite a royal ancestry, was born in a stable and laid in a manger by the humblest of earthly parents. The church year begins, we are reminded, not with the Christmas story, the remarkable birth of God made man in Christ, or with any other grand episode of God incarnate, but with anticipation.

God can seem very far away from us at times, a point emphasised frequently in the Old Testament, both in our first reading and in the Psalms: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Ps 13.1) and the prophet Isaiah: There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. We live in a fallen world full of evil and unhappiness, famine, war, and distress; a world where a propensity to acquire wealth and spend it is met by vitriolic, self-congratulating criticism from those who seek to position themselves on moral high ground yet alienate themselves from the society whose morals they are trying to uphold. Sometimes our world seems irreconcilable with the world we know to have been saved by a loving God who gave of himself for our salvation, in which all Christians seek the coming of his kingdom on earth.

In previous years during the carol service – itself an anticipation of the rest of Advent – the choir has sung the text which begins I look from afar, and lo, I see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering the whole earth. This is a text which our medieval predecessors sang every year on Advent Sunday: the first in a long series of musical reflections on that day of the season to come. As Christians we know what is to come: in our own immediate future the joy of Christmastide, the time when we commemorate the coming of God WITH US – Emmanuel – and in the time to come, the appearance of the Son of Man in glory, at the end of our lives and at the end of the world. The arrival of a Messiah was long anticipated by Israel: O that you would tear open the heavens and come down writes Isaiah. But rather than gratification in an instant, we, like Israel, are compelled to wait. The medieval Cistercian St Aelred of Rielvaux preached that the season of Advent was instituted to allow Christians to experience the longing of those generations who had not known a Redeemer. In the light of Christ we can pray that through this four week meditation on his first coming we may have an even greater longing for the return of our Redeemer who has already come, and whom we know will come again.

This sure knowledge is the bedrock of our faith, the ‘already’, if we can use the awkward division of salvation history into the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’. And our comprehension and hopes for the ‘not yet’ are in clear knowledge of the ‘already’. We are not at the end of God’s relationship with creation. To paraphrase a well known prime minister, we are not even at the beginning of the end. We may be, in this knowledge of Christ’s incarnation and assurance of his return, at the end of the beginning.

As Christians, our daily lives are always already in anticipation of the coming of God’s kingdom on earth: we pray: our Father… thy kingdom come… a kingdom which we are working for, an end which is desired and the consequences of which are already known, but which is perpetually to come. Christ’s rule over us and over all things is never more in our minds than in this week when we celebrate his kingship. We already make memory of the incarnation of Christ in the sacrament of his body and blood, a material sacrament for a material world. But the coming of Christ’s kingdom in the end of the world does not seem for us, as it did for St Paul and the early church, a material reality which is likely to manifest itself in the near future. Yet, Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.

Today’s Gospel from St Mark relates the last words of Jesus to his disciples before the Passion narrative, when he was betrayed by those for whom he came. Those words tell them, and us, that the Son of Man shall come to judge the living and the dead at a time unknown to us. All who hope to meet the master of the house when he comes must keep awake. We might be reminded here of the agony in the garden, when Jesus wakes Peter and asks, Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Mt 26.41).

Like the disciples, we are not good at waiting around, being patient and watchful. There are many burdens on our time and it is very easy to say, even as someone who professes to be a follower of Christ – like the disciples – ‘Oh, yes, Jesus Christ is Lord’, and be done with it, failing to realise the responsibilities which we acquire from that assertion: responsibilities which must pervade the ways we live our lives in the knowledge of God made man, inspired by his teaching and ministry.

So perhaps we can come up with three ways to keep alert this Advent.

First, we might anticipate, with great concentration, the anniversary of the Nativity. This is very easy, as there are many reminders to do it: whenever we see or hear something which proclaims the impending arrival of the Christmas season, we can remember what that arrival means, and why it appears every year, and so strive to keep Christ’s coming in mind.

Second, we might make ourselves ready to come before that incarnation of Christ by leaving ourselves open to means of grace, namely through prayer and worship. We might develop a discipline in addition to our usual spiritual diet which will help us focus on the remarkable concept of God made man in the world. This may come clear in a particularly special way in the Eucharist, which is the way we remember his presence among us in reality.

Third and finally, we must prepare ourselves through the first and second ways to meet our Lord at the end of our days and at the end of time. Both may seem equally distant in our busy, preoccupied lives, but we will all die, and some of those whom we know will die before us. We must accept death as soon as we are born. But God has made the ultimate sacrifice of self-giving love: a death which has forever destroyed death, made possible through birth into our flesh, where his shelter was a stable and his cradle was a stall. All this we know. It is why we anticipate the coming of the Kingdom.

Advent is a model for Christian living. In the middle of the journey of our life, we must wait for the predicted coming of Jesus Christ, bolstered by the Eucharist and meditation on the Nativity, in the assurance of the presence of God among us, even in God made man, who died and rose for us, and in the anticipation that he shall come again and place us at his right hand in heaven. The assurance of Christ’s coming to us is the assurance of life everlasting.

The Word became flesh – and dwelt among us. As we approach the altar and so through grace behold his presence, let us pray for strength, discipline, and wakefulness in the coming season of Advent, that we may we ever be near him, dwelling now and in the fullness of time with him, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour and glory, world without end.

Matthew Cheung-Salisbury
23rd November 2011

Remembering the dead in war takes many forms. Some memories come unbidden: men who fought in the trenches or were imprisoned in the camps have woken drenched in sweat as they re-live in dreams the horrors of what they once suffered, once did, see again the faces of lost companions. Other memories are framed and preserved. Parents, widows, lovers treasure letters, photographs, or lockets. And while these are personal memories, tokens of love in grief, a nation forms and guards a collective memory in its memorials and museums, its poetry and novels, from high art to Downton Abbey, its biographies and historical analysis, while it pays respect to those who died in the ritual of Remembrance Day.

Tonight’s Gospel invites us to set such personal and communal memories in a further frame of remembrance. This Gospel is set not amid the violence of war, but is taken from Christ’s farewell discourse at the Last Supper, as violent forces of evil close in on the figure of Jesus. Those forces will scatter the community of disciples gathered around him, as soldiers first arrest Jesus, then mock and torture him, before he is taken to judgement and an excruciating death. Yet all is not lost. The disciples are not to lose heart. For the Spirit they are to receive from the Father will enable them to remember and so keep to His teaching. What is more, in that act of remembrance they will find a new peace which comes from the presence of Father, Son, and Spirit, a communion with God.

These are startling, perhaps bewildering promises. We may not at first see why it takes the Spirit for us to remember what Jesus said and did – until we reflect, that is, on the forces which shaped Roman politics and history, the narrative of imperial power in which this holy man was held a criminal; and until we realise that keeping the commandments is a matter of both heart and head, requiring insight into what is truly good, and courage to pursue that good. For ours is a world where love of God and neighbour sets us at odds with injustice, collusion in deceit, indifference, and sin in its myriad forms. Doing good is not so easy.

At this point, we may wonder even more how the Spirit could bring us peace. It appears on the contrary that such remembrance will set us in conflict with powerful forces which could do much to destroy our comfort. And that’s surely right. Those who speak out for justice are often brutally silenced – like the Catholic bishop in Guatemala battered to death with a concrete post for speaking out against abuses of human rights, or the religious sister killed in the Amazon for her opposition to illegal logging.

What peace can there be amid such violence? We need to reflect more on the teaching which Jesus would have us remember. For that teaching wasn’t only nor first a list of moral ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s. It was a message of forgiveness, of the love extended to us by God in Christ. It is an invitation to discover ourselves as loved by God with the infinite love that the Father has for His Son, and an invitation to love God in return with the infinite love that the Son has for His Father. What is more, Jesus did not only teach by what he said. He taught by what He did and suffered for us. And through the Gospel we remember and learn how the Father raised Him from death at the resurrection to eternal glory.

To recognize such love, to enter upon such a communion, does not disengage us from the political or economic mess around us. It does not shield us from the horrors of war or terrorism. But it reveals the deepest meanings to the conflicts in which we are caught up, as we see what love of God asks of us amid these difficulties; and peace which Christ gives flows from the knowledge that nothing but sin can separate us from that love of God. That love may cost us dear in different ways; it costs the martyrs everything. But there is nothing we can suffer which cannot be redeemed as we share by grace in the risen life of Jesus Christ.

The modern university may stress the value of cutting-edge research, of new discoveries and technologies, of enlarging our scientific understanding of the world. This is in itself may be well and good. But such advancement of knowledge is not itself the wisdom which we need to think well about our mortal lives, to come to terms or grips with the changing world. This hunt for new knowledge alone cannot equip us to deal with the memories of past wars, or square up to present climate change and to an unknown future. Christian remembrance does offer such a wisdom. It directs us to Christ as one who can share with us that spirit promised by the prophet Isaiah, of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. In its central liturgy or rite of Holy Communion it remembers the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and recalls the final Kingdom in which every tear is to be wiped away, where ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’ Directing us thus to our final destiny, may it enable us by the grace of God in the power of His Spirit to honour those who have fallen and to think and act well in this present life.

Fr. Richard Finn, Blackfriars, Oxford
13th November 2011

I gather that your rota-ed preacher of two Sundays ago, Canon Mark Oakley of St Paul’s Cathedral, had to cancel his preachment – no great surprise with the way in which events at St Paul’s Cathedral have dominated the headlines in the last two weeks.

I was going to preach on the Wisdom literature of the Bible – a sample of which gave us our first reading tonight. The Bible – especially the Old Testament is frequently thought of as exclusive rather than inclusive and sometimes even apparently sanctifying ethnic cleansing and genocide: the Books of Joshua and Judges for example. But the Wisdom books are the opposite: they are inclusive and universalist: and are as much a part of the Canon of Scripture as any other. Well that’s the summary of the sermon I am not preaching tonight because the St Paul’s Churchyard occupation deserves some serious Christian reflection, reflection I hope you will engage with and continue, whether you agree with my ‘slant’ or otherwise. I was a Canon of St Paul’s as Precentor from 1989 – 1996 where I first met Jonathan your Chaplain as a Vicar Choral. I have been biting my tongue up until now as it is a good rule to refrain from commenting about your previous posts when you have moved on – though I note bishops have not always abided by this wise rule.

I asked for the ‘render unto Caesar’ passage not because it gives us answers to questions Jesus was not asking, but because it does indicate that Jesus took the economic systems of the day seriously:
Bring me a denarius and let me see it.
And there it was, with Caesar’s head.

A very Orthodox Jew would have considered himself defiled by using a Gentile coin. That’s why the Temple had money-changers, so the Temple tax could be paid in ‘pure’ coinage. Jesus doesn’t seem to be worried about such defilement but draws a lesson even out of the secular economic systems of the day.

I am always suspicious of the argument ‘what would Jesus have done?’ The only answer is that he would have surprised everybody. So blanket condemnation of ‘capitalism’ and ‘banking’ is not a serious lesson to draw from what has happened. But – neither is a sort of docetic Christianity which thinks that no worldly, economic, real life, income, welfare state questions are of concern to God or the pious – who is only interested in things ‘spiritual’. A docetic Christianity, in which incarnation was taught to be spiritual rather than ‘in the flesh’ (so not in fact a real incarnation) was condemned centuries ago by the Church. Some interpretations of Jesus’ answer in today’s story have however been pushed this way – as also St Paul’s. The result was, for example, a German Church in the early 20th century which did not have the theological resources to challenge the rising pagan ideology of the Nazi State. Caesar was left to Caesar – not surprisingly Heil Hitler was the result. Returning to economics, there is an integrity to financial systems but the Market Place must never be idolised. It must always be open to public, economic, philosophical, political and theological criticism.

There are plenty of clues as to what a theological critique of economic systems would look like from a Judeo-Christian – and Islamic – perspective.

The Old Testament encourages lending – though not at interest. John Calvin’s Geneva carefully argued – as the Swiss would – that reasonable interest rates could be justified by the Church. Of course there is always debate about what is ‘reasonable’. But not too much disagreement when we see ‘loan shark’ companies raking in a huge percentage. And what about credit card debt? Banks still encouraging personal loans clients have no realistic hope of repaying and then 20% and more interest in some cases. That is not the spirit of the Bible, which stresses the duty to lend to the poor, our neighbour, for the common good.

One supplemental set of Commandments in Exodus says this:
If you lend money . . . to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor. If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pawn, you shall return it before the sun goes down, for it may be your neighbour’s only clothing. (22:25)

St Luke’s Gospel actively encourages the Christian to lend to a neighbour (6:35) but not to extort. The so-called early ‘communism’ of the Acts of the Apostles is more like a Common Welfare Fund than a political system or class ideology

And profits? Are they gods without regulation or control? Some years ago at the Bank of England’s Tercentenary celebrations there was a concert at the Barbican. The Chief Cashier – who originally used to personally sign the earliest banknotes – the Chief Cashier of England of the day was both a practising Christian and a lover of music. He arranged for the concert to include William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. An irony there – which he was well aware of – as the King of Babylon toasted in the stolen vessels of the Jerusalem Temple to ‘the gods of silver and the gods of gold’ – and then ‘the writing on the wall’.

In that much maligned book Leviticus what does it say about harvesting and total profit?
When you reap the harvest of your land you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes . . . you shall leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God. (Lev. 19:9)

The regulation that modern banking ethically requires will be very different to the ethical regulation of lending and agricultural profits in the Old Testament – of course. But there are some principles: principles relating to neighbour, about the poor and about the common good.

A tale of two banks. Some years ago, you may remember the collapse of Barings international bank in London. Behind the collapse lay the unregulated activity of just one trader – Nick Leeson. He had borrowed and invested with the expectation of a rise in the Tokyo market. It did not happen. Undaunted, he did what he had done before: he singlehandedly raised the Japanese Stock Exchange. The only thing that went wrong was – an earthquake. Theoretically, that kind of entrepreneurship cannot now happen but is the spirit of Nick Leeson dead? (see Grace and Mortgage, Peter Selby, DLT, 1997).

The reasons for the iconic collapse of Lehman Brothers are complex and to some extent still disputed: but the story suggest that that casino spirit was not dead in New York or elsewhere in 2007-8. The Sub-prime mortgage crisis was at least in part caused by the bank believing it could and should make bigger and better profits ad infinitum. Then Lehman’s – according to the court examiner in 2010 – used cosmetic accounting to cover up its financial weakness. Just before the collapse, management rejected a proposal for its executives not to receive multi-million dollar bonuses. The proposal was intended to send a constructive message to employees and investors that the Bank was not shirking accountability for its disastrous performance. From Lehman’s failure followed the global recession and collapse in financial confidence we are far from through yet.

In the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Financial Times article last week Rowan Williams encourages a debate on a ‘Tobin’ tax on speculative financial transactions. This would no doubt be dismissed as Marxist by the Daily Mail, were it not for support from very successful capitalists such as Bill Gates. Mr Cameron has given a cautious welcome to the exploration of the idea – more supported in the rest of Europe than in the City of London. This would create reserve capital as a buffer against a financial crash. The Vickers Report also has firm recommendations about the separation of savings from casino-style speculation: Investment banking to be separated from High Street banking. Both these devices would have their pros and cons, but discussion of them both is surely in line with theological and biblical principles relating to the ‘common good’.

Questions about investment regulation, and radically asymmetrical incomes which are surely divisive of the ‘Big Society’ (and I must include footballers as well as investment bankers here) have suddenly arisen in a ‘forum’ outside and now, by invitation to a debate by the Bishop of London, inside St Paul’s Cathedral. What began disaster for St Paul’s – claiming the ministry of two good clergy – has now become a marker that the Church can be a forum (a forum amongst others, including Parliament) for an overdue national discussion about the ethics of the market-place.

The sociologist Dr. Grace Davie said some time ago that the churches had become places where the nation expected a ‘vicarious’ Christianity to be practiced on its behalf: ‘I don’t go to Church but some people ought to’. Has St Paul’s Churchyard – not a stranger in history to great debates of the times due to outdoor sermons at St Paul’s Cross, some of which fed the Reformation and others inspired significant philanthropy and education of the poor – has St Paul’s Churchyard become a place for a ‘vicarious’ debate about ethics and the market place? Can the Church of England in service of the ‘common good’ of the national community be a sacred and safe space for such a wider debate? Why not?

Rt. Rev’d Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford.
6th November 2011

The central drama in Tolstoy’s great novel Anna Karenin is provided by the love of the passionate Anna for Count Vronsky. At one point Tolstoy writes

Vronsky was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what should and should not be done. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but in return the principles were never obscure, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment’s hesitation abut doing what he ought to do. This code categorically ordained that gambling debts must be paid, the tailor need not be; that one must not lie to a man but might to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult but may insult others oneself, and so on….Vronsky felt at ease and could hold his head high.

Hearing that read, questions immediately arise in our minds. Surely the poor hard working tailor should receive priority over gambling debts to rich friends? Surely if it is wrong to lie, it is as wrong to lie to a woman as a man? And so on. We see at once that Vronsky’s moral code was the product of his class and circle and by our standards was deeply flawed.

Yet we all have a moral code which is the product of our upbringing and the circle we move in now. How will future generations regard it? I would like to suggest that the Christian faith both affirms the principles and values that have have gone into making us what we are now, and at the same time gives us a critical distance from them. God is in our early upbringing, shaping us through the love and support of those who cared for us, who share with us their values. God is in our growing up, and the standards imparted to us by our schools and any role models we were fortunate enough to have there. God is continuing to form us now, in this environment, through books and friends, teachers and colleagues. To much of this Christianity says a resounding “Yes” whether or not we have had a religious upbringing. At the same time there is a “No”, for the Christian faith gives us a critical distance from all that has gone into us, however much good there is in it. It is not, definitely is not, a question of black and white-but of moral discernment-and to grow in the Christian life is to grow in the capacity for moral discrimination . What is there in the influences that have gone into the shaping of me about which God says a resounding “Yes”. What is there that I am beginning to question?

If we take the teaching of Jesus, the critical distance in which he stands to all other moral codes is very great. It is true that the reading set for this evening ended with a moral injunction common to all religious traditions, “Treat others as you would like them to treat you” but what about the earlier verses? Love your enemies..pray for those who treat you spitefully…turn the other cheek and so on. And what are we to make of verses like Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep: and cursed are the rich, the well fed, those who laugh now? The teaching of Jesus, lived out to his cruel end on the cross, puts a huge question mark against every human code.

Then we have to face the fact is that the church in all its forms has struggled with that teaching and in what way it applies to life now, and has never come up with a wholly satisfactory answer. We have recently had a vivid example of that struggle in what has happened at St Paul’s Cathedral in relation to the protestors. Read tonight’s lesson again if you would, and you will see what I mean-how difficult it is to understand how this should be worked out in what you might call common sense living. Yet would it not be a strange Christian who did not feel herself or himself continually haunted by that teaching and the question mark it poses against so much of what we take for granted?

How did Vronksy come to get it all so wrong? One reason clearly was the set he moved in. Amongst rich high stake gamblers paying debts does come top of the priority list. Tailors are little people who don’t count. Another reason is put by Tolstoy in the words “He never went outside his circle”. For the fact is that we take on the values and outlook of the circle we move in and if we stay in that circle long enough we lose sight of the fact that we have done this, and assume, like Vronsky, that these are absolute, certain principles.

Some of the most formative times in my own life, when I have been led me to question the standards I live by, have been when I have moved outside my own circle. One was when I had the great good fortune to spend time in and around Soweto at the height of the struggle against Apartheid in the early eighties. The courage, the faith and the joy of the churches there, epitomised by Desmond Tutu of course, significantly raised the bar of what I thought the Christian life involved. Another time was when my wife and I visited a squatters camp for some of the four millions rural landless poor in Brazil. Again, their extraordinary courage, faith, joy and dignity of the life they shared with one another, made gave me a glimmer of understanding into what Jesus meant when he said “Blessed are the poor”

Some of you have done a gap year perhaps teaching or working on a project in the developing world and you will know what I mean. Those who find it is possible to do something like this when you go down will discover a great truth.

All this poses a big problem to anyone who is seriously interested in following a Christian way of life. To put it starkly, the New Testament seems to suggest that the Kingdom of God belongs to the poor. How on earth can I who lead such a comfortable life possibly be said to be one of the poor to whom that Kingdom belongs? It is an unsettlling question.

There is a partial way into an answer by realising that when the Bible talks about the poor it does not simply refer to the materially poor. It refers those who lose out in the world as it is now, but who nevertheless put their faith in God and hope for the coming of his Kingdom. More of that meaning comes out in the other version of the Beatitudes in Matthew Chapter 6. This for example talks about “Blessed are the poor in spirit” or “Blessed are those who know their need of God.” However, this should not lead to the other extreme of taking the word poor in a purely spiritual sense, as some have done. It means more that this.

What it suggests I think is that even if we are not someone who is losing out in the world as I is now, we are called to stand beside those who are: imaginatively, prayerfully, economically and politically. For example, to ask about the outlook and policies of our own government or of Europe, what their effect will be on those least able to work the system to their own advantage? The word solidarity is not heard so much these days , but it can still work to express what is required of us-standing alongside those who lose out now, prayerfully and practically aligning our faith and hope and endeavours to theirs.

So at every stage of our life we have the task of moral discernment and to grow in the Christian life is to grow in Christian discriminadtion . For there will be that which has gone into our making, our outlook and values for which we will want to bless God. At the same time Jesus sets us at a critical distance from so much in every culture ; and he invites us to stand with our faith and hope and action beside those who are pushed to the edges in the world as it is ordered now; alongside those last, whom Jesus said are first in the Kingdom of God.

Lord Harries of Pentrgarth
30th October 2011

Freedom! What a wonderful thing! This year, we’ve seen it fought for and greeted with rapture across North Africa. Those of us who are older can remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And someone seriously old like me can just recall the strings of faded bunting and the jam sandwiches with which we celebrated liberty in 1945. We all respond to scenes of liberty because we yearn for liberty ourselves. Holidays are liberty. And what are universities? For the dons they are a place of freedom to study and enquire, for students that too, but just as important, an acceptable way of escaping from Mum and Dad. This university began as a bid for freedom. It was set up by teachers and learners themselves, not by any authority, and they came to Oxford because it was the furthest town in England from meddling Church authorities. Even this college started its life as an escape route for monks to leave their monasteries and study at, but not too near, a university, which explains why Worcester, compared with the other old colleges, is so inconveniently situated.
The joy of liberation shines through today’s Old Testament reading. In 597 the Babylonians captured Jerusalem, abolished the kingdom of Judah, and destroyed the Temple – the centre of the worship of God. Many of the people of Israel were moved away from their lands and scattered through Babylonia, and outsiders were brought in to take their places. It seemed that nothing could give the people their freedom again, but fifty years later something did: as unexpectedly as in 1989 or 2011. Up in the mountains of northern Iran, an obscure prince named Cyrus was on the move. First he conquered the Medes, then in 539 he swept down on Babylonia and conquered that too. But he came not only as a conqueror; he brought liberty. He let the people of Israel return to Judaea, he allowed them to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. No wonder the writer of Isaiah saw Cyrus as God’s agent, although Cyrus did not know God. God works through people who do not know him as well as through those who do.
Of course, the freedom Cyrus gave was not perfect freedom. He remained the lord of the Jewish people, and for most of the rest of Biblical history they were under emperors of one kind or another. And the joy of freedom in Isaiah eventually wore off. By the time of Jesus, the Romans were in power, and people grumbled about it, as they do in today’s gospel reading. Should we pay tribute to Caesar? The question was a good way of challenging Jesus. If he says, yes, he’s a Roman collaborator. If he says no, he can be denounced to the Romans as a trouble-maker. So Jesus asked for a coin and held it up. Some of the coins of the Emperor Augustus which were going the rounds in the time of Jesus had the emperor on the front and an altar on the back, so by turning the coin round Jesus could have made a good point – render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and then, showing the back – to God what is God’s.
The words of Jesus may seem to lie a long way away from those of the Book of Isaiah. Jesus seems to be talking not about freedom but about obligations – things we have to give to Caesar, things we have to give to God. We no longer live in the Roman Empire, but there are still a lot of Caesars in our lives. In your case, the provost. The director of music. Your teachers and tutors. The government, and the forces of law and order. All these Caesars expect us to render them things: attention in the choir, essays on time, good behaviour in college, payment of taxes, and so on. But if they are good rulers, they offer freedoms in return: the freedom to study, to walk about unmolested, to receive health care, to drive on the roads. And Jesus approves that: render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and you will get these back.
God’s kingdom is like that but better, in that earthly kingdoms are shadows or partial resemblances of the kingdom of heaven. On earth you have to belong to the political system in which you are born, unless you get permission to move. God’s kingdom is open by invitation – it is based not on compulsion but on love. Going into it involves harmonising yourself with it, so to that extent it involves obligations: to love God and to love your neighbour. But whereas Caesar’s kingdom is limited in its freedoms – roughly speaking you get out what we put in – God’s kingdom offers unlimited ones. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus uses a string of colourful metaphors to express this. The kingdom of heaven is like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a substantial bush. It is the yeast that makes bread expand and lighten. It is a treasure lying in a field. A fine pearl. A net full of fish. A cupboard of stores, old and new. A man who forgives what is owing to him. An employer who employs everyone. And so on.
These are vivid ways of describing how generous God’s kingdom is, how enabling and fulfilling it is for those who come in. Just think how much more you gain by loving God than by not doing so. Loving God gives you someone to talk to, someone to ask for help, to heal and forgive what is wrong, to give you guidance. Just think how much your own life improves if you love other people. Loving them lifts you up above your own preoccupations, gives you greater understanding and wider horizons, enables you to be sociable, to help those in need. In fact the obligations of God’s kingdom turn out to give you far more freedom and capabilities than you had before. The old Book of Common Prayer expresses it in the words God’s service ‘is perfect freedom’. The Latin from which the Prayer Book was translated says ‘to serve is to reign’.
God’s kingdom exists back to back with the kingdoms of earth, like the two sides of the coin. It isn’t somewhere else, or something for the future when we die: it is close by us now, and if we love God, we can enter it now. Whatever kind of life you lead, entering the kingdom enriches that kind of life, and makes it more fulfilling than before. So, to use the metaphors of Jesus, the kingdom for you at university is the treasure in a field, or the beautiful expensive pearl, for which, Jesus says, you have to spend everything you have. Clearly he was foreseeing student loans! But the treasure and pearl of learning are still worth the money – wisdom, says the Book of Proverbs, is worth more than rubies. And then, the kingdom for you is the store cupboard out of which you take things new and old – well that’s the Bodleian, or the college library. It is the net that you put in the sea which comes up full of fishes, good and bad, that you have to sort out. That’s research, learning how to choose what a great heap of books and websites, and how to reject what is worthless. And finally, the kingdom for you is the tiny seed that grows into a large bush. That’s the progress you make, the knowledge you gain in three years.
So your studies, like other worldly things, are a shadow or map of God’s kingdom, and I pray that like a map they may show you the way into his kingdom. May you all find the kingdom, may it give you the freedom that is perfect, and bless you and enrich your lives now and for ever more. Amen. 1,319

Canon Prof. Nicholas Orme
16th October 2011

I want to welcome you all to Chapel tonight – welcome back students, boys, parents, staff and fellows, and especially to welcome new SCR members, Freshers and, of course, our new Provost, Jonathan, Paula and their family. This is a wonderful occasion and, I always feel, the beginning proper, of the new academic year.
All of you who have come here have done exceptionally well, whether as school pupils, or graduate students, or Junior Research Fellows or senior academics. But, do you ever find that, just when you think you’re getting somewhere, when you’ve passed some exams or got a new job, when you’ve really got to grips with life, that someone comes along who is cleverer, or richer, or has more status than you?
There’s a Mitchel and Webb sketch set at a drinks party, probably not unlike some of the drinks parties you may have been to even this week. As people sip their cocktails and champagne in walks Lionel with a swagger and is offered a drink by the host. He walks up to a couple and proclaims ‘Parking’s an absolute nightmare around here isn’t it. You have to reverse into the tiniest of spaces. Still, I managed it. I mean, it’s not exactly brain surgery is it … and I should know’
‘Why’s that?’, asks the woman, ‘are you a doctor?’. ‘Careful’, admonishes Lionel, ‘not a doctor, a brain surgeon. BIG difference. Brain surgeon. So what do you do?’ he asks.
‘I’m an accountant’, the man replies.
‘Oh, that’s good’, Lionel replies patronisingly, ‘Yeah, I could do with an accountant. Filling in those tax forms can be really confusing can’t it? Still, not exactly brain surgery is it? Are you an accountant too?’, he asks the woman.
‘No, I work for a charity’, replies the woman
‘Oh, that’s a very selfless job isn’t it?’ Lionel exclaims, ‘I really admire you. I don’t think I could do what you do. I say that because it’s emotionally draining, not because it’s hard. I mean, it’s not exactly brain surgery is it?’
Now in walks Geoff and Lionel makes a beeline. ‘So how do you make a crust?’ he asks Geoff.
‘Well, I’m a scientist’, answers Geoff, ‘I work mainly with rockets. It’s pretty tough work. What do you do?’
Lionel cannot resist the bait. ‘Well, I don’t mean to boast but I’m a brain surgeon’.
‘Brain surgery?’, considers Geoff as he takes a sip of champagne, ‘not exactly rocket science though is it?’
The sketch is a salutary lesson about boasting about one’s status, and I hope you don’t meet anybody like that in Oxford, and especially not here at Worcester College. For tonight’s bible readings speak very clearly about genuine status and about how, in God’s economy, everything is upside down. The writer of Proverbs tells us that wisdom and understanding are better than silver, gold or jewels or any worldly power, status or treasure. What is that wisdom? It is keeping God’s commandments of love, loyalty and faithfulness. In the gospel, the rich man has kept all these commandments, and yet he cannot let go of his status in wealth, even to find freedom with Christ. How hard it is for him, says Jesus, and indeed for anyone who gives up their worldly potential or power, status and wealth, in order to gain a greater peace and freedom. In God’s kingdom it is the one who serves who most to be honoured. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
How can this be illustrated in reality here at Worcester College? Well, this college was founded in 1283 as a Benedictine monastery and so here is a Benedictine story, which might indicate how we are best to live together, at least for the next eight weeks.
There was once a monk who was abbot to a small community. Things had not been going well. A lethargy had fallen on the brothers so that saying their prayers together had become a trial rather than a delight. The brothers were finding it increasingly difficult to get on with each other. Squabbles had broken out and monks who had been friends for years found each other annoying. Few guests came to visit the old monastery and no one had joined their community for years, so the small community felt dejected and lonely. The abbot was worried and sick at heart to see the brothers he loved so much tired and depressed. He had heard that there was a very wise nun who lived many miles away and wondered whether she could give him some advice as to what to do. So he set out on the journey, which took many weeks, during which time he travelled over mountain, through desert and across the sea. At last he came to the convent of the wise nun who was mother to her community. Tired and exhausted after his long journey he asked if he could see the Mother superior and she brought him into her room, laid food before him and insisted that he rested before he was able allowed to talk. After a good night’s sleep he asked if he could see the Mother Superior once again and was shown into her room. This time she silently listened to all his troubles and concerns. When he finished he asked he if she would be able to help, to offer any advice. She said, ‘Yes. What I am about to tell you, I will say only once and then I will never repeat it. Take what I say back to the brothers, say it to them one time only and then it must never be said again’. The Abbot leaned forward in anticipation of her words and she said very softly, ‘One of you is the Son of God’ The Abbot looked at her stunned and perplexed. He left the convent the next day with his head full of questions but he knew that the wise nun would never answer them.
On returning to his monastery the monks came to greet him, eager to hear what the advice was that he had been given. True to his word the abbot gathered everyone together and said ‘I will only say this once and then it must never be spoken of again’. Every member of that community leaned forward, straining to catch every word. ‘Among us is the Son of God’.
There was silence and the brothers looked at each other, wondering. The brothers went back to their daily chores and regular round of prayers. It was as if nothing had changed. But as the days and weeks and months went by, the brothers started to notice that an imperceptible change came amongst their little community. The daily office of prayer became a delight once again. As the brothers continued to wonder which one of them was the son of God, the began to see each other with new eyes and a deep reverence and respect for one another descended on the community. The brothers became more eager to serve one another than to find fault. The abbot found peace and others gradually began to join the community again and it became renowned. No one could say why, but it was often said of them that, there, one felt as if one was in the presence of Christ.
The story raises many questions that linger in the mind. But my question this evening is this – in the community, the family, of Worcester College, does one feel that one is in a place that respects the same values that Christ stood for? Is there kindness and gentleness? Is there generosity, patience and humility and keenness of service that seeks to help others? Do we find reverence for each other and diligence to see good prosper here? For these qualities are the values of the kingdom of God and are more precious than all the riches in the world. One act of kindness can transform our lives, whether we give it or receive it.
So welcome to Worcester College, and may we all, this year, consider one another as children of God, each created as uniquely precious to him. Amen.

Rev’d Dr Jonathan Arnold
9th October 2011

I wonder if any of you have read a recent study of why people ‘deconvert’ from Christianity? It was intriguing. Those surveyed were between 20 and 50, and from different Christian denominations. There were three main reasons. A key one was ‘intellectual and theological concerns’. Science, hell and human suffering made people ask how a loving God could be worthy of such devotion. Another reason was unanswered prayer. Here it was acknowledged that God existed, but some felt they had done so much for God – praying, attending church, leading a moral life – yet experienced God doing little for them in return. The broken relationship was even described as a ‘divorce’. The third reason was frustration with the beliefs and actions of other Christians: sincere questions of doubt about the Bible and about the Church were too often given trite and unhelpful answers, whilst ‘rule enforcement’ dispensed with an element of hypocrisy were also too much to take.

The Christian life is never easy, and many of the teachings of Jesus make it clear that not everyone will stay the course. As we near the end of the academic year it makes me think of where we’ll all be in, say, ten years’ time. How many of us might ‘de-convert’ – whether gradually or suddenly? Being in the comfort zone of this wonderful chapel and with the richness of Christian resources at Oxford is one thing; embracing the new and unfamiliar is quite another.

As I reflected further, the words of a Prayer Book Collect kept coming to mind. The prayer is for the 4th Sunday after Trinity, and because this is usually a Sunday in late June or early July, we never hear it in term-time. This is a shame: like so many of the Prayer Book Collects, it is rich in theology and spirituality.

O God, the Protector of all who trust in Thee, without Whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; increase and multiply upon us Thy mercy; that Thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake our Lord. Amen.

I want to focus on the phrase ‘that we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal…’ This is a clever juxtaposition of ideas: it suggests that we can actually find the eternal within the temporal: it’s not something we wait for at the end of life’s journey. So often we think that we have to travel on through the temporal, until we arrive at the eternal at the hour of our death. But I don’t think this is what this Collect means, and I don’t think it’s what some of the New Testament teaches either. And yet a foretaste of the eternal within the temporal could be sufficiently compelling to support us whatever the threats to faith might be – whether intellectual, experiential or social.

One of the greatest reminders of our ‘temporality’ and transience is change. From our early childhood onwards all of us have had to learn how to come to terms with change. Throughout our lives – at school, university, or whether working, parenting, retiring – we are constantly faced with the fact we are constrained by the temporal. Some of us might remember our first day at school: or moving house and losing close friends; or moving up to secondary school; or a family break-up and broken relationships. Some of us will have vivid memories of leaving home; or the illness of grandparents and even parents; or of our first job and first home; and perhaps the loss of work, or financial troubles, or difficulties of being parents or spouses; and then there is the life-changing prospect of retirement. Transitional psychologists tell us that in each case several responses are possible. We could simply deny it is happening to us. We could fight it and be angry. We could ‘negotiate’ by making small changes which give us the impression that we are really in control. We could sink into depression, feeling we cannot go on. But we could move into a state of acceptance, and adapt ourselves to it.

So how do we learn such acceptance and stability? How do we pass through things temporal without losing the things eternal? And how do we find the eternal within the temporal?

There is a partial answer to this within our Old Testament reading tonight. There we heard how the prophet Elisha had to come to terms with transience and change as he witnessed the ‘passing on’ of his master, Elijah, a great prophetic figure, whose ministry in many ways foreshadowed that of Jesus of Nazareth. The story of Elijah being taken up to heaven might remind us of the account of Jesus being taken up to heaven which we reflected upon last Thursday, Ascension Day: it is vividly depicted in the stained glass window immediately to my left. In our reading today, Elisha, Elijah’s disciple, had to learn to say farewell to the familiar and embrace something new and unfamiliar: he was soon to be a prophet on his own. Note his cry of despair as he watches Elijah disappear: “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horseman” meaning – “What will I do and what will God’s people do without you in our midst to guide us?” Elisha’s response is so like that of the disciples at the time of Jesus’ Ascension: the disciples’ last words to their master, just before his being ‘taken up into the heavens’, was about how the kingdom was to be restored to Israel – again, meaning – “What will we do and what will God’s people do without you in our midst to guide us?”. The disciples, like Elisha, had to learn how to say farewell to the familiar and embrace the new and unfamiliar: they too had to learn how to be disciples without the earthly presence of their Master.

This reading of Elijah and Elisha has been deliberately chosen to follow Ascension Day. Note how Elisha was promised a portion of the Spirit of the Lord who had worked through Elijah of Gilead; so too the disciples of Jesus were promised a portion of that same Spirit who had worked through Jesus of Nazareth. And just as Elisha was then equipped to perform miracles and speak the prophetic word through the power of the Spirit, so too those first disciples were equipped to perform miracles and preach the Gospel through the power of the Spirit. So in each case neither Elisha nor Jesus’ disciples were left on their own to face the new and unfamiliar: in each case the Holy Spirit becomes the bridge between their temporality and the eternal presence of God still in their midst.

The problem with applying both the Elijah and Ascension stories to our own situation is that we could claim they are about exceptional periods in the history of the People of Israel and the history of the Christian Church; and because nothing quite this dramatic happens to us, we cannot apply this to the vicissitudes of life in the twenty first century. In a way, this is right. Those were exceptional times.

And yet there are clear connections, too. We all face constant challenges where transition reminds us of our temporality. And we, like them, have been given the Holy Spirit as a reminder of the eternal within our midst – actually a theme we will be thinking of much more next Sunday when we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost.

So it is appropriate to ask: how can the Holy Spirit be a bridge between the temporal and the eternal in our lives today? How does the Holy Spirit enable us to pass through things temporal, so that we do not lose the things eternal?

It is important to realise that, even within Scripture, the Holy Spirit is not only seen as that mighty force which impelled Elisha and the first Christians to perform miracles and speak with power, but he is experienced as ‘a still small voice’ as well. Elijah himself discovered this on Mount Horeb, when he found that the voice of God was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in a ‘still small voice of calm’. This is what is being referred to in the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’:

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!

And, not surprisingly, this is also what Jesus Christ also discovered in his own earthly ministry. The same hymn says it far better than I could:

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!
So let us focus on what is possible: how can we, like Elijah and Jesus, experience the eternal through and within ‘the changes and chances of this fleeting life’?

The first and most obvious way is in prayer. However, if a ‘still small voice’ is speaking, then we have to be listening: if we too are speaking, we will drown it out. How often, I wonder, do we fail to hear God’s Spirit, and so fail to experience the eternal now, because we spend more time talking to God than listening to Him? The art of finding the eternal as we pray is to listen first and, perhaps, to speak later.

A second way of discovering the eternal in the temporal is through learning to listen to Scripture. As someone who critically analyses Scripture as a profession, I know how vital it is to learn to listen as well as to question, dissect and evaluate. Just as a score of music both has to be taken apart, and then heard through performance, so to Scripture has to be studied analytically and listened to as well.

A third way of experiencing the eternal here and now is through the worship and sacraments of the Church, and most especially through the Eucharist (or Holy Communion, or the Mass). Here, as the bread and wine are offered to us, by Christ and through the priest, we have to be receptive. There is nothing we can do other than accept the gifts offered to us. Kneeling or standing on the chancel steps, here we are given another opportunity to taste eternal life – through physical elements.

A fourth way is through the preaching of the church, where God’s Spirit works through the spoken word of a sermon as it interprets the written word of Scripture. This is another time when we are in position simply to receive whilst the preacher (however imperfectly) seeks to be a medium of the Spirit and in another way incarnate the eternal through the temporal.

A fifth way is through the gift of music, particularly sacral music. I would be surprised if there was anyone here tonight who had not at some stage been touched by the eternal Spirit of God as they listened and responded to the music of our Choir. Tonight we have been reminded of the Kingship of God in their singing of Psalm 47; had the psalm been simply said, we just could not ‘feel’ the words of the psalm in the same way. Similarly the triumphant singing of Purcell’s ‘O God the King of Glory’ can touch us far more profoundly through music than the recitation. .

A sixth window onto the eternal is through the power of art. Many of us have found that the bizarre iconography of this Chapel is actual a creative aid to worship; it might be through the skilled walnut carving of the animals on the pews, or the delicate frescoes against the windows, or even the windows themselves, where we can see the intersecting of the temporal and the eternal in the themes of the life of Christ. ‘Imaging eternity’ in art stirs our imaginations in manifold ways.

And the seventh is through the beauty of Creation. We have to be fairly hard of heart not to be touched when we leave the Chapel and see the summer evening sun playing on the wisteria and on the stonework of the cottages. And as we leave the church for the world, we realize that the Spirit of Creation and the Spirit of the Church are one and the same. Whether it’s in the scent of the roses as we walk down the north side of the quad, or of the cut grass after a summer shower, we are offered so many glimpses here at Worcester of the beauty of eternity captured within time.

And so this is my own ‘reworking’ of the seven gifts of the Spirit. You might have noticed how this involves all our senses – what we hear, what we see, and what we touch and taste and smell. All that is required of us is that we stop, and listen to that ‘still small voice of calm’ and hear ‘the silence of eternity, interpreted by love’. To pass through things temporal, without losing the things eternal, is not just something which saints learn to do. It is a challenge for all of us: we have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. And by practicing it here we can create a way of life which will prevent us ‘de-converting’ when life might seem more – bleak.
A man may look on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleases, through it pass,

Dr. Susan Gillingham, Fellow in Theology and Lay Minister, Worcester College
5th June 2011

‘I’m going fishing’ was my father’s way of signalling to us that he was feeling stressed and that he wanted some space. He usually decided to go fishing for one of two reasons: either he was under a lot of pressure at work, or there had been a family disagreement and he felt that, for a day or two at least, it would be wise for him to maintain a low domestic profile. He never told us which of these two circumstances applied on a particular day, but we could tell what was going on from the tone of his voice. If he had been under pressure at work, there would be a listlessness in the way that he said ‘I’m going fishing’: but if there had been an argument, ‘I’m going fishing’ would have a stronger sense of determination about it.

At the beginning of this evening’s second lesson Peter said ‘I’m going fishing’ (John XXI,3) and, true to his word, that’s precisely what he did, with six of the other disciples: but what we cannot tell from the text is how Peter was feeling when he said that, or what tone of voice Peter used, because ‘I’m going fishing’ can be interpreted in several different ways.

‘I’m going fishing’ might indicate that Peter was feeling under pressure as a result of the first two appearances of the Risen Christ. Perhaps Peter needed somewhere quiet and peaceful to think about things, and to make up his mind? That’s quite possible because, while it must have been a wonderful experience for Peter to see the Risen Christ in Jerusalem, it must also have been a thoroughly confusing experience for Peter and for all the disciples on both occasions; so where better for them to go and sort it out than Galilee – their home – the place where they had first met Jesus, and where their great adventure with him had begun three years earlier. So Peter might have been feeling the strain of it all, and wanted to spend a night back home, quietly fishing on the lake and collecting his thoughts, hoping (almost beyond hope) that the appearances of the Risen Christ were real and true. That’s one way of looking at it.

Or perhaps Peter said ‘I’m going fishing’ because wanted to escape – because he was so fed-up and disillusioned. Everything that he had hoped for had come to an end when Jesus had been arrested and executed: and the resurrection appearances of the Risen Christ had been so strange and unworldly that they could have seemed like nothing more than a bad dream. Perhaps Peter felt that his three-year adventure with Jesus of Nazareth had come to a tragic end, and so he decided to go fishing to try to forget the whole episode, and to put it behind him. After all, fishing can calm the soul as well as the body: it can soothe a tortured mind and refresh a tired body. And let’s remember that, after the terrible traumas of Holy Week, the disciples were not in good shape – they had been hunted men, who had gone into hiding for fear of their lives; so we can understand Peter’s sense of needing to escape.

Looking at it another way, ‘I’m going fishing’ may indicate that Peter had recovered sufficiently from the trauma of recent days to take up his old job fishing on the Sea of Galilee, and that he was trying to lead the other disciples back to fishing as a way of life. Peter was a natural leader and he probably realised that the others would look to him for an example and for encouragement, if they were to rebuild their shattered lives after the Jesus experience.

On a different tack ‘I’m going fishing’ may indicate quite simply that the disciples were hungry and needed some food: and what could be more obvious than for professional fishermen to go out onto the lake to catch fish. Of course, throughout their three years with Jesus the disciples had not had to worry about finding food – the women who followed Jesus had gathered and provided food for Jesus and his disciples: but, now that everyone had been scattered, the eleven were left to fend for themselves once again, and it’s certainly possible that they were hungry and were short of the money that they would need to buy enough food to eat.

Well, there we are: four quite different (but equally plausible) interpretations of just four words of Holy Scripture ‘I am going fishing’. As I am sure you will agree, ‘I am going fishing’ is not one of the most significant phrases in the New Testament, but it is a splendid example of the need for us to look carefully at each sentence in scripture and then try to imagine what was going on in the hearts and minds of the characters in the story.

Now I cannot tell you which of the four interpretations I gave you might be the right one: none of them may be correct, or perhaps they all have an element of truth in them – in a sense, it doesn’t matter too much. What is important is that, having thought through all the possibilities, the story that we heard as this evening’s second lesson has become much more alive and interesting for us: it has become less flat and more three-dimensional, and so it becomes much more engaging as a result. That’s the first point that I want to make this evening – the importance of using our imagination when we read the bible, so that we bring the text to life in our minds and in our hearts.

The second point that I want to make follows from it, in that, once we have brought the text to life, we need to listen to what the Risen Christ is saying to us today through his word of Scripture. So let’s return to the lakeside for a moment to illustrate what I mean.

Until that night’s fishing on the lake, the Risen Christ had appeared to his disciples only in Jerusalem. And that raises an important question: why did the disciples leave Jerusalem, if that is where the Risen Christ was appearing? We cannot be sure of the answer to this question, but I have a suspicion that Peter and the disciples were overwhelmed by their Easter experience and that they were trying to run away from the consequences of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead – running back into their old jobs – back to their former way of life. And what could be more natural? It is true of even the greatest saints that there were times when they wanted to give up practising the faith and to turn their back on their particular calling. Perhaps the same is true for some of us here today? There may have been times when we were tempted to give up the Christian way of life: times when we have made a serious mistake; times when we have faced what appear to be overwhelming difficulties; times when we are feeling tired or even desperately weary.

Peter and the other disciples must have been facing just that kind of dilemma in those first few days after the Resurrection of our Lord. Peter was still painfully conscious of his forthright denial of Jesus and of his inability to stand by his promise to lay down his life for Christ. This experience of failure had a profound effect on Peter: it shattered his illusions about himself. No wonder Peter left Jerusalem and returned to familiar home territory: he was ready to give up following Jesus. But even though Peter might have been ready to give up on Jesus, our Lord was not ready to give up on Peter: and so the Risen Christ made an appearance in Galilee – miles away from Jerusalem – in order to seek out Peter, to assure Peter of his renewed life and presence after crucifixion, and to recall Peter to the task of being a fisher of men and women.

Peter’s experience, then, is a lesson for us today: a lesson from which we learn that acceptance of our failures is an essential part of our growth in the faith. As we look back over the decisions and events of each day, we have two options. Our first option is to allow our mistakes and failures to lead us into depression and disillusionment, or to run away from our calling. Our second option is to allow these painful experiences to turn us humbly back to Christ, who will lead us to a more mature and realistic faith and to a greater love of God. The fact that we are gathered here this evening suggests that, by the grace of God, we are inclined towards the second (and more constructive) of those two options.

As we do so, let us pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and call on the Risen Christ to be present with us in our lives today. Let us ask our Lord to bless us as we go out to cast the church’s net to fish for men and women of all ages, for that is the task to which he calls you and me each and every day.

Canon Andrew Piper, Precentor, Hereford Cathedral
29th May 2011

Lord may this word be spoken so that it is your voice that is heard and your name that is honoured. It’s a great pleasure to share your worship this evening and a privilege to give this address.

Our reading from S Luke’s gospel tells of Jesus’s final approach to Jerusalem. He knew full well what this meant, whatever the success of his public ministry in the north, in Galilee he was now going to the heart of the spiritual battlefield, Jerusalem, the city which stones the prophets, and as he climbs towards it from Jericho he knows that a Rubicon has been crossed. There is no going back.

With his disciples he stands on the Mount of Olives and looks across the Kidron valley to the city of Jerusalem and its magnificent temple, and Jesus and his party from the north, provincial folk, like virtually every visitor to Jerusalem must have caught their breath at the beauty of it all.

The temple was one of the wonders of the world. And the man responsible for that most remarkable of religious buildings was king Herod. He was not a pleasant man – indeed he was a mixture of contradictions.

He’d had been imposed on the Jewish people by their Roman overlords as King of Judea, but he was never really a king of the Jews, because he never won their hearts & minds – they feared him at first, & then they hated him.

His behaviour confirmed their view. He was a tyrant, adamant, ambitious, imaginative, merciless – a highly volitile mixture of policy & passion. He built cities whose foundations lasted into the 21st century, yet his name became a byword for cruelty. In fits of insane rage he slaughtered his own wife & two sons, whilst, S. Matthew’s gospel tells us of the babies he slew in trying to kill the infant Christ, whom he, mistakely assumed would be a rival for his earthly power & pomp.

A developer of massive projects Herod transformed the appearance of Judeah’s cities & the money for all this came from harsh taxes – he razed to the ground any town or village who refused to pay, & sold their inhabitants into slavery. His temple project, replacing that built after the return from exile in Babylon, was designed to be his crowing glory.

But under Herod, even the priesthood in the temple had become corrupt, with the office of high priest being bought & sold, so when he decided to rebuild the temple, the priests became suspicious – they protested, but they were overcome. Herod proceeded with his grand design. He allowed nothing to get in the way of his project.

The priests said that their faith required that no sound of hammer or chisel could be heard in the temple precincts during the construction, clearly requiring a miracle. Herod had the stone quarried & worked upon elsewhere & carted in silently.

The priests said that only they could undertake the work, & unfortunately they had no skills as artisans – Herod set up a civil engineering training programme for the priests, & before long a thousand of them were employed in construction.

The result of their labours was an architechtural triumph. It was said that from a distance, because of the profusion of its white marble, the temple glittered like a snow covered mountain.

It was this wonderful human construction over which Jesus stood on the hillside and wept to the bemusement of his friends and enemies as he spoke the scandalous, ridiculous words, “not one stone will be left upon another.” Such challenging words and actions the following week took him into conflict with the powers that be, religious and political, until the people of Jerusalem crucified this latest prophet.

“Not one stone will be left upon another.” Jesus said, Was he mad? Not in the judgement of history for the years following Jesus’s execution saw the land beset by difficulties, with a series of rulers who had little knowledge of Jewish ways, and who cared less.

It had always been a troubled land – in Galilee a rebel army had sacked two roman legions & were punished in the Roman style – 2000 men nailed to crosses but some thirty years after Jesus’s death things came to a head. In Judeah for four years the Jews fought the Roman forces, then in the year 70 ad four legions laid siege to Jerusalem for five months, the city was reduced to starvation. Its inhabitants died in the streets. Jewish zealots made the temple their last fortress, but the Roman forces stormed in, & burned it to the ground. There was nothing left of Herod’s temple but ashes, not one stone was left upon another.

Christians, as much as Jews were horrified by this desecration. But as they reflected upon all this, incidents & words from the earthly life of their lord & master began to take on a new significance.

They remembered how Jesus had been horrified at all the materialistic activity in the outer courtyards when he had come to the temple. How he had turned the tables of the money changers over & drove out the traders, “my house is to be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.”

They remembered how Jesus, when approaching the city from afar & seeing the great temple glittering in the sunlight had wept over it all, “oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that murders the prophets & stones the messengers sent to her. How often have i longed to gather your children as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not let me.”
But above all they remembered how he had said mysteriously, “destroy this temple, & in three days i will raise it up again.”

Now the temple which had taken 46 years to build was dust & ashes, but Jesus from Nazareth, crushed & crucified, was in their belief, Jesus the Christ, risen, ascended, glorified – the foundation stone of the Christian church. A different sort of temple was being constructed.

The first epistle of St Peter put it like this, “come & let yourself be built as living stones, into a spiritual temple,” And it was this temple of living stones which planted itself in every city and town around the Mediterranean sea, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ bringing forgiveness and reconciliation to the people of a broken world.

A former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, when preaching at the opening service of a Lambeth Conference in Canterbury cathedral, pointed to the stone arches supporting the roof of the magnificent nave and chancel.

He asked us to look up and note that each arch was made up of many blocks of stone and that each block was both supported by a neighbour, and was holding up a neighbour. It was this framework of reliance and support, he maintained, which provided the flexibility and strength of the whole edifice.

And so it is for us. In our life of service of others, in this community called church we need to both lean upon our Christian friends and help support and encourage them and by so doing we create a community which is both good for itself and a blessing for others.

As we’ve heard, we have a good opportunity this week to give expression to this network of faith and service, for Christian Aid Week begins today, when the churches of Britain put aside any doctrinal or historical differences and work together for the good of others, helping people in poverty to move out of poverty

Around the globe today it’s estimated that there are one billion people living in poverty. One billion. If we started to count them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on, it would take us 32 years to reach the final figure. Put that way bringing people out of poverty seems to be a hopeless task. Why even try?

“Well I always reflect upon the two companions walking along the sea shore on an African coastline after a severe storm had stranded tens of thousands of small star fish. The fish lay dying on the beach under the hot tropical sun. As they walked and talked one of the companions kept stooping down and picking up a star fish and throwing it into the sea. After a while his friend said, “I don’t know why you’re doing that, it can’t make any difference, you can’t rescue them all.” His companion bent down and picked up yet another creature and threw it into the sea. “No,” he said, “But it makes a difference to that one.”

And so it is with global poverty. It will take the political will of people and leaders at national and international levels to impact upon the enormity of the challenge. It will take skills of financial and development management hardly yet seen to impact upon the scale of poverty growing worse in times of financial crisis and climate change. And nothing we do in support of Christian Aid week should excuse us from being involved in such political and economic challenges, and some of you, I hope, may spend your professional lifetime so engaged.

But this Christian Aid Week in Britain some 22 thousand churches will be working together. Some 350 thousand volunteers will be visiting a fifth of the households in Britain. And the result of their efforts will be the raising of some 15 million pounds to help combat poverty.

It will make a difference to that one and that one and that one, and it will be an indication that the community called church which meets for worship Sunday by Sunday is also prepared to meet in the service of suffering humanity. In that way the spiritual temple made up of the community of hearts and souls, meeting for worship in beautiful buildings of stone such as this chapel, becomes also a spiritual temple reflecting the saving holiness of God.

People of God, may God bless you and your own efforts for the common good, this week and long into the future. Amen

Rt. rev’d Tom Butler, Former Bishop of Southwark
15th May 2011

When the chaplain gave me the topic of sloth in this series on the 7 deadly sins I wondered for a moment if this was a bit of sub-conscious type-casting. I ought therefore to confess at the start that I am not immune to the temptation and I have not always resisted it. I am not claiming to be an expert but I will give you three thoughts: the character of sloth, the causes of sloth and the cure for sloth. In the culture of today sloth may seem a relatively minor character defect but hardly a “deadly” sin. After all, given the modern definition of sin, it doesn’t hurt other people; it may not help them very much but it doesn’t harm them. It is simply a “life-style” choice, different rather than evil.
So why is sloth a sin? First we should identify it and distinguish it from tiredness, or even a symptom of depression. Such physical or mental states that affect our functioning are not moral defects. They are best dealt with by rest or counselling aided when necessary by medication. But sloth is that attitude of mind that tells us life is not worth the effort. It is when looking at the blank piece of paper as we start that essay for Tuesday’s tutorial that we feel, “We just can’t be bothered”.
It is not however simply mental or physical laziness – it goes deeper than that, and it is deeply corrosive. Its foundation is the premise that life is pointless. It is also the endpoint of a circular argument – if you choose to believe life has no meaning or purpose, then life will become pointless. But let’s not deceive ourselves that modern science has shown us that life is nothing but a freak, meaningless accident in a random universe. Science tells us no such thing – it is not equipped to make such value judgments or reach such metaphysical conclusions. It is intellectual laziness that accepts uncritically an atheist interpretation of science. This may simply suit our inclination to believe that we will not be held to account for how we have used the precious gift of life.
Sloth corrupts all that is good and true and beautiful. It breeds a cynicism that sees only the worst in people. It leads to self-deception and unwillingness to face the truth about ourselves. It develops a spiritual crustiness so that we fail to be inspired or ennobled by beauty in art or music or persons. It robs life of joy. It denies life itself. It is the ultimate insult to God the Creator. It says to God “Maybe, maybe not, you created a universe of awful majesty and immensity and peopled one small corner with creatures that could be conscious and aware of your power and glory. You shared this human experience, suffered and died as one of us in what they say is a saving act of love … but so what, I don’t give a damn.” Yes, sloth is a sin. It wilfully misses the point of life. The slothful can’t be bothered to find out if life has a point. So sloth enslaves us and robs us of freedom and joy in life.
Sloth may be most obvious in those who are physically inactive but mere activity is not the anti-dote. If sloth is a sin because it misses the point of life it is possible to miss the point also by misdirected activity; by busyness, by driving ambition, by pursuit of material wealth and security. A headless chicken can look convincingly busy, for a while! Perhaps that is why Luke places Jesus’ parable of the watchful servants in the context of his master’s teaching about materialism. The true servant of Christ has his loins girded and his lamp burning, actively serving his master. The wise and faithful steward is the one who understands that this life is not all there is. It is part of a longer story, a larger picture, a work in progress. Therefore he or she is active in doing God’s work. That is the real meaning of zeal. It is enthusiastic, hope-full working for a purpose – showing God’s love in the world. It energizes men and women to give up riches and security and to serve others as Christ’s hands and Christ’s feet.
But what are we to do about it? What is the cure for, and the prophylactic against, sloth? Dante offers a purgatorial vision of endless running as the penance for a life of sloth. But this is not “headless chicken” running. It is an urgent desire not to waste time –
“Quick, quick! Let not the precious time be lost for lack of love!” “In good work strive till grace revive from dust”.
The moral is clearly directed to us to be active before death and we are turned to dust. It is not however much help to be told that the antidote to inactivity is to get active. Getting active is the problem – if I could do that then there wouldn’t be a problem. What can I do, if I lack the willpower?
The immediate context of Dante and Virgil’s encounter with the penitent slothful is a discourse on love and free will. Firstly Virgil points out that we are created with a capacity to love and love leads to action to obtain the beloved. Dante asks if there is then any virtue in what we do if it is simply the result of what God has put within us. To this Virgil replies that however we are made, we have the capacity to choose – we have free will. This is where it begins – with a choice.
So the remedy for sloth is built in and available to each of us. We are made to respond to grace. When we choose to accept God’s help then things can begin to change. When life seems empty and pointless and not worth the bother – it is because there is an empty space inside us, – a God-shaped hole – that only God can fill. The opposite of sloth is enthusiasm for life, eagerly reaching for all the joy it can give as from God. Enthusiasm comes from two Greek words: en theos, a god within. That is what the Christian has. He or she is one who has chosen to receive God’s Holy Spirit into their very being. It is not willpower we need to overcome sloth, it is just the will, God will give us the power.
My job then, as a Christian, is to do God’s business and as C S Lewis says, “Joy is the serious business of heaven”. It was Jesus’ reason for coming for he said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
So our life becomes an exciting adventure. A life enthused, empowered and enabled by God himself to fulfil his purpose for us. His Spirit within energises our self-discipline and encourages us with love and joy and peace. So with God’s strength we can be set free from the slavery of sloth and become masters of ourselves that we may be servants of others. We look forward then, not to purgatory, but to meeting our Master and to hear his greeting, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Prof. Paul Ewart
13th February 2011