Holy Trinity Winchester Podcast

Why All This Stuff About Mary and the Saints?When new people visit this church, they sometimes have a question. It is a question that comes up quite frequently, actually, from people who are not regular attenders at this kind of church, let’s say. And the question that comes up time and time again is: What’s all this stuff about Mary? Specifically, it is always Mary—everyone wants to know about Mary—and there is a question that comes along with it: What about prayer to the saints? What about Mary? What about prayer to the saints?It is a very interesting question. It is a completely legitimate question to ask. Why all this stuff about Mary? Why all this stuff about the saints? And I think part of the concern there is that when people come to a service like this and they hear these kinds of things happening, they perhaps think that there is some kind of worship of Mary and the saints going on, or that we consider that Mary and the saints are a kind of barrier between us and God, and that we have to go through those people in order to get to God, as it were. They present a kind of barrier to us.Whilst I completely accept that these are legitimate concerns and it is a legitimate question, I think it actually relies on something of a misconception. For you see, we do not worship Mary and the saints, and we do not even pray to Mary and the saints in the sense that is often imagined. To Mary and the saints we give veneration, which means appropriate honour and respect, and we invoke Mary and the saints.Invocation: Asking for PrayerThe concept of invocation, even though the word is not something we use often in everyday speech, is actually quite a familiar concept to us. It means that we are asking the saints to pray for us. We are asking Mary and the saints to pray for us.And there is a simple logic to the invocation of Mary and the saints. It is the same logic that we would apply to one another in the course of our ordinary Christian lives together. The Book of James, for example, says that the prayer of a righteous person availeth much—or, to use slightly more contemporary language, the prayer of a righteous person has great power in its working.So I might ask you to pray for me; you might ask me to pray for you. Why do we do these things? Why do we ask one another to pray for us? It is because we value the prayers of other people. We might even value even more the prayers of people whom we consider to be especially holy. Maybe it is just that we ask people to pray for us if we think it is likely that they will remember to do so.And so that logic—us praying for one another and asking other people to pray for us—that is what invocation is. And this extends, in this view of things, not only to the living, but also to the saints who are in heaven and with God.Of course, in heaven we know that intercession happens in general, because Scripture tells us that Christ is interceding for us before the Father, and the New Testament even says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us also. So intercession continues in heaven. It is not just something for this world now; it is also something that happens in glory as well. And so we ask the saints to pray for us, confident that they will, confident that they are in God’s presence and that those prayers are meaningful.Communion with the SaintsBut this also raises the question of communion—communion with the saints. Because similarly, when I ask you to pray for me, or if you ask me to pray for you, a sort of connection is made. A sort of communion is developed. It is not just that I am confident that you will go away and pray for me; it is that in some sense I have shared something of myself with you, or you have shared something of yourself with me, and so this creates a kind of communion, a kind of bond, as it were.And so when we invoke the saints—when we ask the saints to pray for us—it is not just a sort of disconnected request, as it were, but it creates a kind of communion. It creates a kind of bond between us and the saints; it creates a bond between, if you like, earth and heaven, in that sense.As modern people, I think it is very easy to think of the saints and the holy people who have lived before us as simply historical characters: people who have lived in the past and have done incredible things; they have maybe lived holy lives or done really impressive things. But essentially to think of them like that—to think of them in the same way as we would think of just another historical character—is to say: that’s done, that’s happened; I can learn something from it; it may inspire me.But the idea of communion with the saints, the communion of the saints, and All Saints’ Day, is that it is actually something more than that. Yes, the history which we read of and which we hear and which we understand encourages us; it inspires us. But the deeper thing is that we actually share communion with the saints here and now. There is an interpenetration between earth and heaven, and we share together in communion. They give us encouragement; they give us hope. In a very real sense, they give us friendship and support. So it is not just that they were alive once and now they are in heaven; they are actually present with us now.That great scene in the Book of Revelation: we read about the way that the saints are in heaven with the angels and archangels, worshipping God—a countless multitude. And so, friends, as we gather together today, we join in with their worship. We join in with the worship of those who are in heaven.God gives us the Church on earth. We encourage one another by having this community here on earth that we can see, that we can experience in this kind of material and tangible way. But there is also a further community, a further communion, which is with the saints who are in heaven. And so this encourages us; this gives us support. Part of the liturgy says: in their holiness we find encouragement and hope; in our communion with them we share the unity of thy kingdom.An Antidote to Institutional DespairNow, another question that is often asked of me—this is another one that comes up quite frequently—is: What about the state of the Church? Why do you stay with the Church? What’s all this stuff to do with the Church of England? I will not go into any of the controversies, of course, but I am sure you can fill in the blanks. People ask me that question quite a lot.And the fact is that if we look at the state of the earthly Church, there are, of course, many things to be encouraged by. I am particularly encouraged when I consider my parish church and all of you and all of the wonderful things that the Lord is doing in this place. But nevertheless, there are controversies; there are failures; there are basic incompetencies; there are scandals; there are all sorts of things to be concerned about. There is a constant narrative of decline that we live with in Western countries: that Christianity is declining, that fewer people are coming to church, that there is apathy about Christianity, and so on and so forth. You could just go on and on with all of these kinds of things, and you could feel very discouraged.There is a lovely quotation in C. S. Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters, which is one of my favourite books. If you do not know it, it is about a senior devil writing a series of letters to a junior devil, giving him advice about how he might ruin a certain person’s Christian faith and eventually drag him to hell. And this is one of the letters. It says this:“One of our greatest allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, …

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OpeningWell, we have some wonderful Scriptures today, but I would like to make some comments on only the first part of the Gospel reading, just because it is such an important passage of Scripture.The Greatest CommandmentA lawyer comes to test Jesus and asks him, “What is the greatest commandment in the law? What is the great commandment in the law?” He is essentially asking Jesus: What is the most important thing to do in this world, in life?And Jesus’ answer is, as we have just heard: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And there is a second commandment like it, interestingly: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets, he says. In other words, the entirety of what we would call the Old Testament is summed up in these two commandments.Attention: Spotlight, Daylight, and StarlightI recently read a very interesting book about how the modern world is making it harder and harder for us to pay attention to anything for a long period of time. Our attention spans are shrinking, apparently. Towards the end of this book, the author talks about an interview he had with a former Google strategist whose name is James Williams. James Williams has apparently done some thinking about the nature of attention, and he has developed a metaphor for the different kinds of ways that we pay attention to things.To begin with, he says that attention can be like a spotlight. When we are really focused on something in particular, everything else is filtered out and our minds are fixed on one thing only—the kind of attention you may be paying to this sermon right at this moment, I hope anyway.Attention can also be like daylight. Daylight is a slightly more zoomed-out form of attention that helps us to take in information and gives us the capacity to make decisions about how we are going to order our lives in a practical way.And the third thing that he says attention could be like is starlight. Starlight is the kind of attention that helps us to make ultimate decisions about the nature of life and of our lives. It is not about daily choices as such, or specific things, but about the kind of attention that we are going to pay to life in general. And the author of this book writes: it is called starlight because when you feel lost, you look up to the stars and you remember the direction you are travelling. If you become distracted from your starlight, you start to forget where you are heading.I would suggest that today’s passage invites us to this kind of attention. It invites us to consider the ultimate nature and purpose of human life in the most general terms. Who are we, and what are our lives for? What are they about? How should we order our lives? What should be our ultimate direction? Where are we going?Loving God with All That We AreAnd Christ’s answer, in a way, is very simple—but when we start to think about it, it is also very challenging. He says that the first commandment is to love God with all one’s heart, one’s soul, one’s mind—in other words, with all of our self. And this, of course, means to attend to God, to worship God, to obey God, to commune with God in prayer, and to draw closer to God in the spiritual life. It means to orientate one’s existence towards God as we recognise him as the source and the end of our entire being. It means that God is, in a sense, the highest value that we possess. And it means that to put anything else first—whether that is money or relationships or family or career or work or pleasure or anything—is to make a kind of mistake. It is to put something that is not ultimate in the place of the one who is ultimate. And this is surely why Christ says that this is the first and great commandment: to love God.Loving Our Neighbour as OurselvesBut in itself this commandment is not complete. And this is why Christ says that there is a second that is like it. And that commandment, as we have already heard, is to love your neighbour as yourself.I would like to step back and ask ourselves what this word “love” means. What does it mean?I have already said that the word love as it applies to God must mean that we obey God, that we have communion with God. But what about our love for our neighbour? How does our love for our neighbour express itself, particularly in this context?Well, there are a couple of things at least we could say about this. We are commanded to love our neighbour by God, and so in a sense obedience to God—and therefore love for God—is fulfilled in the way that we love our neighbour. But perhaps that is a bit of a thin way of thinking about it.We might also ask ourselves: How has God expressed his love for us in Christ? And there we would of course think about the gospel and the way that the gospel is spoken about in Scripture. For example, in the First Letter of the Apostle John: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”In other words, if we wonder what it means to love, let us look at Christ and the way that he has loved us: how he divested himself of his glory in heaven, came to live among us, to be a servant to the poor, to heal those who were sick in body and in spirit and in mind, to teach the ignorant, to liberate the captives, and ultimately, of course, to give his life as a sacrifice for our sin. This is how God has expressed his love for us in Christ.The Apostle John continues: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” So God has shown his love for us in Christ; he calls us to love each other in a similar way; and in a sense this is how God’s love is manifested in the world. And we see that pre-eminently, of course, in the Church and in the community of the Church. This pattern has been laid down for us. We know what love is, because God has shown it to us in Christ.When Jesus says, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” what could this mean? Well, I will say something about who our neighbour is later on in this sermon, but I would like first to answer the question specifically: What does it mean to love our neighbour as ourselves?The point here appears to be that as we naturally care for ourselves—by feeding ourselves, by clothing ourselves, by washing ourselves, in general seeing to our own good—so we are to extend the same concern for our neighbour. And of course that raises the question of what it really means to love ourselves and to love someone else.Of course, sometimes we love ourselves by indulging or experiencing things which are pleasurable or nice. But self-love often involves discipline and sacrifice. And it may be that sometimes our love for our neighbour involves similar things. So love for our neighbour is not just indiscriminate charity in that sense—thoughtless charity. It is actually paying a careful regard for our neighbour’s welfare and a commitment to help where and when we can. We might think there of Thomas Aquinas’ famous definition of love, which is to will the good of the other—not just the other’s comfort or pleasure, but the good of the other.What Does This Mean for Us?So that is something about those first two commandments. But what does all of this mean? What does it mean for us?I said earlier that this passage is like starlight: guiding principles that provide a general direction through life. How can we apply what Christ says here to ourselves? Well, some thoughts on this.Firstly, these commandments speak strongly against a disembodied and purely spiritual construal of our faith. What I mean by this is that Christ does not teach here something which is a kind of spiritual retreat from the world and a lack of concern for the people in it. He does not teach here that progress in the faith can be measured by, if you like, spiritual experience or visions …

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An Extraordinary Model of MissionThere is, I think, something rather striking about the instructions that Jesus gives to the seventy-two disciples in today’s Gospel. They are sent out with almost nothing: no money, no bag, no travelling equipment, not even a spare pair of sandals. They are not to linger in conversation on the road, we read. They are not to waste time worrying about where they may stay. They are simply to head out, enter a home, pronounce peace, accept hospitality, eat whatever is put in front of them, heal the sick, and announce that the kingdom of God has come near.By any stretch, it is an extraordinary model of mission. It is certainly not the sort of strategy that would find favour with most management consultants—or, dare I say it, even many in the Church. There is no organisational infrastructure, no carefully constructed communications strategy, no branding exercise, no five-year plan. There is just a group of people sent out in vulnerability, carrying the most extraordinary message of peace and of healing.And on this Feast of Saint Luke, it is good for us to take a little time to reflect and think on this.Saint Luke and a Gospel That Takes FleshAs I know that you know, Luke occupies a distinctive place in the Christian imagination. He is traditionally remembered as a physician, an evangelist, and the author of the Gospel that bears his name and of the Acts of the Apostles. He is associated with a Christianity that is attentive to the human person in all of their particularity: body as well as soul; in suffering and in hope; in poverty and in wealth; in exclusion, and also in belonging.As we read through his Gospel, we might note that it is full of those who might otherwise remain at the margins of society: the poor, the Samaritans, the sick, sinners, strangers, and those whose lives have been rendered invisible by the assumptions of respectable society.As we read through, we note also something profound in Luke’s understanding of the gospel: that it is not an abstract proposition about God, but something that happens to people. It takes flesh in human relationships, in the healing of bodies, in the restoration of dignity, in the sharing of meals, and in that most wonderful and unexpected discovery that God is already at work in places that we may well have overlooked.And so, in true Anglican style, there are three things in today’s Gospel which seem particularly important: the nature of peace; the relationship between healing and proclamation; and the extraordinary vulnerability of Christian mission.The Nature of PeaceSo let’s begin with peace.Jesus instructs his disciples that whenever they enter a house, their first words are to be: “Peace to this house.” It might come across as a conventional greeting, a polite expression of goodwill. But of course a fuller, more scriptural understanding of peace as shalom is far more substantial than that. Peace not simply as the absence of conflict, nor a private and inner feeling of tranquillity, but rather the full restoration of right relationships: with God, with one another, with the whole created order, and with ourselves. This thing that is to be pronounced is a declaration of the condition in which human beings can flourish, because all is well and as it should be.We notice that this peace is not something the disciples are called to manufacture. They do not arrive with a plan and a programme for making people peaceful. Rather, they bring with them a peace which precedes them—which is, of course, God’s gift: a gift which, having received, they are then invited to offer and share with others.There is something worth pausing on here, I think: that Christian mission does not begin with anxiety about our church’s survival, nor with a desire to make itself relevant, nor even with the conviction that it has something important to say. Rather, Christian mission begins, ultimately, with the prior action of God.Rowan Williams—who, if I am being really honest, I slightly hero-worship (I am conscious this is being recorded, so he may well hear that, as I am sure he listens to the livestream, Jamie)—has repeatedly drawn attention to the importance of learning to see the world differently through the eyes of Christ. In Being Christian he describes the Christian life as fundamentally a life of receiving and listening: a life of learning to become sufficiently attentive to hear what God is communicating to us through the Scriptures, through the Church, and through the lives of other people.That, I think, as we reflect on the nature of Christian mission, is important to bear in mind—and an important corrective to a Church which can sometimes be rather too quick to speak before having taken the time to hear.And so perhaps the first task of the Christian is not to make an announcement, but to become attentive: attentive to the presence of God; attentive to the needs of our neighbour; and attentive to the possibilities of grace that are already present in the world. Because to offer peace is, first of all, to make room. It is to make room for another person—to resist the temptation to turn them into a problem to be solved, or an argument to be won, or a project to be managed, but simply a person who is in need of the gift of God.This has, I think, implications for the Church. The parish becomes a place in which people encounter something of this peace of God—not because it is a place without difficulty, or without disagreement, or complexity, but because it is a place in which people are received as persons of infinite worth and value. This peace that we proclaim becomes recognisable in the way that we live our life together.Healing and Proclamation TogetherSecondly, from our Gospel reading this morning, we note that healing and proclamation belong together.Jesus gives the disciples two instructions: cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has drawn close to you.” The order of this, I think, matters. The proclamation of the kingdom is inseparable from the practical and day-to-day work of bringing wholeness and healing.Because the gospel which has transformed us is not simply a set of ideas about the world, nor is Christianity merely an intellectual account of human existence and the wider universe—however compelling that may be. It makes claims about the world as it actually is: about whole people; about bodies that sometimes suffer; about lives that are sometimes damaged; about relationships that sometimes break down. And it says that in the midst of this, the gospel offers the possibility of restoration.It is a wonderful thing, is it not, that the kingdom of God is not simply a future place to which we aspire or lean, but is, in its fullest sense, God’s transforming presence breaking into the here and the now—whatever the here and the now may be.Tom Wright has written fairly extensively about the kingdom of God as the central announcement of Jesus’ ministry. In How God Became King he argues that the Gospels tell the story of God’s reign arriving in and through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus—not to offer spiritual escape from the world, but that God’s action might establish itself right in the very midst of it.And in this context, wholeness and healing do matter. The Church cannot announce that God’s kingdom has drawn near while being indifferent to the wounds of the world. It cannot reduce the gospel just to social action either, as though the Christian faith were simply a more elaborate form of humanitarian concern. Rather, both must live together. We need both embodiment and announcement; the word and the sacrament; the proclamation of salvation and the practical restoration of human dignity.This may be particularly significant to reflect on today, on the Feast of Saint Luke, traditionally honoured as a physician. Medicine and theology, of course, are not identical, but they do share an important concern: the integrity and the value of human life.And so perhaps we have to resist the temptation to separate the spiritual from the material, because Jesus does heal bodies. Jesus does restore people to communities. Through his Church he feeds the hungry and gives dignity to those who have been excluded. Salvation is never just “in here”; it is lived out there.It is wonderful to come to a church which thinks so deliberately sacramentally. We know, do we not, that God works through the material things of life: water, oil, bread and wine, the touch of a hand, the spoken word, the gathered body of the Church. The incarnation means that matter matters. And all of this is not an escape from the physical world, but its consecration: bread and wine becoming the means by which we receive the life of Christ; the ordinary materials of creation becoming the instruments of extraordinary grace.If we receive the body of Christ at the altar, then as Christians we cannot remain indifferent to the bodies that are hungry, lonely, frightened, sick, or neglected just beyond our doors. The altar, our worship, and the world belong entirely together.The Vulnerability of MissionThirdly and finally, there is the extraordinary vulnerability of the disciples in this call and sending out.Jesus sends them out as lambs into the midst of wolves. They are not sent as conquerors. They are not given the means to compel people to listen. They are not equipped with power to impose their convictions. Rather, they travel lightly. They depend on the hospitality of others. They simply accept what is offered to them.It strikes me that that is a very different vision of Christian influence from the one which has too often characterised the history of the Church. We have sometimes confused the gospel with the power to secure its own success. We have assumed that if we have enough resource, sufficient influence, enough authority or control, then the kingdom of God will somehow be more securely established. But Jesus seems to suggest that that is not the case.The d

I would like to begin today by making some comments about that wonderful New Testament passage, Philippians chapter 4, in which the Apostle Paul says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”Rejoicing in a Hard WorldIt is interesting that Paul says this in that letter. All the way through the book of Philippians he is constantly speaking about rejoicing and telling the Christians he was writing to—and through them, us as well—to rejoice. At that point in his life he was languishing in a prison cell, facing possible death in the arena, being torn apart by wild beasts. So it is an interesting thing for him to say to the Philippian Christians: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, Rejoice.”And of course it raises the question for us: How can we rejoice? How can we rejoice when the world is so filled with pain, with injustice, with anxiety, with difficulties, and of course with the inevitability of death? All of these things are a reality for us.We can ignore them, of course—or at least we can try to—but it is not particularly easy, and it is not really a long-term solution, because they will all catch up with us eventually, in one way or another. We can allow the problems, the difficulties, the pain of life to destroy us, to overcome us, and we can simply yield to them—but then, of course, we are destroyed; we are overcome.Personally, I am yet to come across a better answer to this question than the one the Apostle Paul provides in the book of Philippians—and what we might call, broadly speaking, the Christian answer. This is because I think that Christianity acknowledges the problems we face in this life. It does not try to minimise them, it does not try to say that they do not exist, and it does not give answers which are too easy. The Christian answer provides us with an ultimate hope in God—ultimately in Christ—and it gives us peace and joy in our relationship with God as we wait for that hope to be realised.Again, I would like to be emphatic: this answer acknowledges the fact that there are serious, painful, difficult problems that we face in life, as we suffer, as we die. Even if we have come here this morning and are feeling very happy in our lives at the moment—if we are in a good moment personally—there will still be anxieties and difficulties that surround us of which we are aware.As I have reflected upon this passage this week, I notice that I am anxious about different things now than I used to be. When I was younger, things which seemed incredibly significant to me—insurmountable, maybe—were anxieties about my personal future, about questions of identity, what I was to do, who I was to do it with, and so on. As I have grown up a bit (I hope, anyway—at least as I have got older), my anxieties are now more around fulfilling my personal responsibilities to other people, to people who are dependent upon me in one way or another, and also concern for those around me who are growing older, perhaps less well, and are drawing closer to their inevitable ends.Of course your anxieties will be different from mine, but you will all have them. This is the world that we live in. As I say, the Christian view does not deny any of it, but takes it seriously. These things are real, and they are significant. But the Christian view does not give suffering and death the last word. Rather, the Christian Scriptures and the Christian gospel hold out hope to us in Christ.The Kingdom as a Wedding FeastWe see something of this today in Christ’s description of the kingdom of heaven in that marvellous parable we have just heard. He says that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. The kingdom of heaven is like a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.That comparison between the kingdom of heaven on the one hand and a wedding feast on the other is repeated in various different places and in various different ways in the Scriptures. For example, in the book of Ephesians Paul says that the natural union of a husband and a wife is a mystery that refers to Christ and the Church—Christ as the groom, the Church as the bride. And we see the fulfilment, if you like, of this image in the book of Revelation, at the very end of Scripture, in which that relationship between Christ and the Church is once again compared to a groom and a bride in the context of a wedding feast.I would like us just to think about that for a moment. Consider what a wedding feast is like. I would say there is actually nothing more joyful than a very well-organised and happy wedding day. They are not all like that, but many of them are. And a joyful wedding followed by a feast—well, it is hard to imagine anything happier in this world.When that happy day arrives, the bride is never lovelier; the guests deck themselves in their finest clothes; and then the bride and groom are sacramentally united in the presence of God, and a great celebration with eating, with drinking, with talking and fellowship and dancing follows. And of course no expense is spared for that day, because it is the most special day. You would not spend that sort of money usually, but you do on your wedding, because it is so special. And as I say, there is nothing happier than a day like that.We recently went to a very good wedding, I would say. The food was lovely, there was wonderful dancing, and everybody was incredibly happy. I am sure we have all had experiences like that.Scripture compares this sort of thing to the kingdom of God. Scripture says that the new world that God is preparing for us is something like that. What we have to look forward to is filled with life and laughter and joy and happiness. The end is not destruction and death and inevitable nothingness, but the end is like a wedding feast, with Christ as the groom and the Church as the bride.Death Swallowed UpIn our reading from Isaiah chapter 25 we see this spelled out in another way. Isaiah sees this mystical vision of a mountain on which the Lord of hosts makes for all peoples a feast of rich food and of well-aged wine. And he even goes so far as to say that on this mountain he will swallow up the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. The Lord will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.So, friends, in that text we see another aspect of our ultimate hope: that life will reign eternally. And of course this side of the resurrection we know this is because of Christ and of what he has done for us.That is something about our ultimate hope in God. But again, that raises a question in itself, does it not? Because we have to live in the world now. We have to live in this world. We may have hope, but we also have a life, and we have to live it now. So what should we do? How should we live now?How Then Shall We Live?I would like here to turn back to the Apostle Paul in that chapter of Philippians, Philippians chapter 4. Again, remember the context: Paul in prison, facing death in the arena, with all the horror that that would entail—or may have entailed. It did not actually happen that way for him, but it could have done. And yet he says over and over again: Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. So he thought it was a possibility.What does he say next? He says: “Let your reasonableness”—that word could also be translated as gentleness—“be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”Notice here that the Apostle Paul does not simply say “Do not be anxious”—that would be a very, very difficult thing to hear. Rather, he says, in effect: turn those anxieties over to God in prayer. Do not be anxious, but turn those anxieties over to God in prayer. Pray; supplicate (which means ask for things); give thanks for the good things that God has given to you; and let your requests be made known to him.In everything—in all things—God has opened up for us a channel of communication whereby he offers to share our burdens with us. It is not to say that he will take all of our burdens away. But it is to say that he will be present in them and through them and with us, and we can share them with him. Do this in everything, the Apostle Paul says.So then the question for us today is: How are we going to do that? Do we do that? And could we take more advantage of the fact that this wonderful resource of prayer is open to us?The Peace That Surpasses UnderstandingAnd then there is this beautiful phrase, which is so famous: “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.I remember my mother saying that phrase to me as a child, and it having an impression upon me. What does it mean? Well, surely it implies that there are some things that we will simply not understand in this life. Of course there are. There are many things that we will not understand: why we suffer as we do, in the way that we do; why there is so much pain and difficulty in our world. God does not promise to explain everything to us so that we can comprehensively grasp it, but he does promise us peace in and through it—a peace that surpasses understanding, a peace that will be present even when we do not understand.Whatever Is True, Whatever Is HonourableAnd finally: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things… and the God of peace will be with you.”I think these words are in some ways more relevant—more challenging, let’s say—to modern people than perhaps even to those who lived in the first century. And I think this is because there are simply so many options for us in terms of what we turn our minds to. Those of u

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”May I speak now in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Amen.Friends, we have wonderful and interesting readings this morning. I am going to begin with Isaiah chapter 5.The Song of the Vineyard“Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard:My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.”This great passage from the book of Isaiah is speaking about the relationship between Yahweh, the God of Israel, and his people. You will know, of course, that Yahweh brought his people out of bondage in Egypt, that they wandered in the wilderness, and that they were brought into the promised land and given the land of Israel. God desired a covenant relationship with his people—pictured here as a love song. It was to be a relationship of covenant obedience and faithfulness. Yet his people time and time again broke that covenant with their God.This is, in many ways, the story of the Old Testament: God’s calling to his people to be faithful to him and to his covenant, and their decision time and time again to turn away from him, to sin against him, and to commit idolatry—unfaithfulness with other gods. That is what this parable is about. He looked for it to yield grapes—the grapes of faithfulness, of covenant faithfulness, of obedience—and yet it yielded wild grapes.“And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? … And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.”By this point in their history the nation was divided. There was the northern kingdom (somewhat confusingly called Israel) and the southern kingdom, Judah. The northern kingdom had already been invaded by the Assyrian empire, the superpower of the day. This was considered God’s judgement on the northern kingdom. Here in Isaiah 5 there is a warning to the southern kingdom that the same fate could befall them.A Different Kind of UnfaithfulnessWhat was the situation at the time of the Gospels? How does it differ from the situation implied in Isaiah?We do see a number of differences. Take the religious class, for example—the religious elite, the ruling class we encounter time and time again in the Gospels: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the elders, the lawyers. Their attitude is very different.In the Old Testament we see covenant unfaithfulness, sin, idolatry, and the breaking of the law again and again. The attitude here is quite different. The religious rulers had become fastidious about keeping the law. They had become so zealous that they invented many other laws to protect the law given by God. Why? Surely, in large part, because they had learned the lesson of the past. They did not want another judgement as there had been before. They wanted to keep their land. They did not want to incur the judgement of God or another national disaster. In a sense they were reformers; in a sense they were arch-conservatives looking to enact a kind of national repentance by returning to the law and being zealous for it. That is, of course, a good thing as far as it goes—to want to be faithful to the God of Israel.But it did not seem to be working in the way it should have been. That is what we see in the Gospels time and time again.The Parable of the TenantsSo when we read Matthew 21, Christ tells a parable that is, in many ways, very shocking, because it is a reiteration of the song of the vineyard from Isaiah 5.Christ says: “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.” There is the introduction of the tenants. It is all the same, except now there are tenants in the story.“When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.” These are, of course, the prophets of the Old Testament, who came and prophesied in the name of God, calling the nation of Israel back to repentance. But the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. That is the story of the Old Testament: prophets sent by God to the people and to the religious rulers, calling them back to repentance, and time and time again that message being rejected.In many ways the audience Christ was speaking to would have accepted what was being said. They would have agreed: that was bad, and we should not have done that. But Christ continues.“Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”Christ asks them: “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They reply: “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”Jumping to the end of the parable, we see that Christ is applying this, of course, to the people who are listening—to the Pharisees and the religious class of the time. He ends by saying: “I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.”The Shocking IronyThe shocking irony for the original audience is that they would have considered themselves completely different from the audience of Isaiah 5. That passage was addressed to those who were breaking the covenant, committing idolatry, and breaking the law. As far as the Pharisees were concerned, they were not law-breakers. They were the ones who kept the law. They were the guardians of the law. And yet Christ is telling a parable taken from Isaiah 5 that applies directly to them and to their behaviour.On the one hand, in the Old Testament, you have people breaking the law. At this later time you have people who are fastidious for the law—and yet Christ is critiquing the latter alongside the former. What is going on here is somewhat paradoxical.I think we might put it this way: on the surface these attitudes and sensibilities look different, but when we look slightly deeper they are simply two ways of rejecting the purposes of God. Ultimately they are two manifestations of a certain type of self-reliance.Think back to the Old Testament. God essentially says to the people, “Do one thing,” and they do another. Why? Because they prefer their way to the way of God. Moses goes up the mountain, receives the Ten Commandments—one of which is “Do not make any graven images”—and comes down to find someone making a golden calf. It is fairly straightforward. The people prefer their way to the way of their God.In the New Testament, what is going on? It is not that people are flagrantly breaking the law. Rather, they have become obsessed with the letter of the law. They have become reliant on the law and on their religious status in regard to the law, and they have forgotten what the whole purpose of the law is: to maintain a covenant relationship with God. They have become proud, hard-hearted, and as a result condescending and critical of other people. Their religion had become something that took them away from God. In many ways they were in a worse spiritual condition than the tax collectors, the prostitutes, and the sinners. We see that dynamic time and time again in Scripture.The Same Dynamic in UsThis dynamic can, of course, be applied to our own lives. Often we sin; often we break the law; often we distance ourselves from God in ways that are very obvious. The answer is simple (it may not be easy, but it is simple): repentance—coming back to God.But there is a subtle, insidious pride that can creep in when we are making an effort to walk with the Lord and to be faithful: a religious pride, a hard-heartedness, something that can eventually end with us looking down on other people and considering ourselves superior to them.Something like this had happened to the Apostle Paul. We read about it in the great passage from Philippians today, where Paul goes through all the reasons he had for confidence in the flesh: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”Of course, persecuting the church is not a good thing. But all those other things are, in many ways, good things. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, of the people of Israel, a Hebrew, a Pharisee as to the law (at the time a religious reform movement—a good thing). He was zealous; he was righteous under the law. But something was not right with Paul. Something was not right with his heart. He was self-sufficient; he was self-reliant. Ultimately his heart was closed to the purposes of God. That is why he rejected Christ and persecuted the church—until, of course, Christ appeared to him, and everything changed.But the sensibility is the same: self-reliance, hardness of heart, an unwillingness to open oneself to the purposes of God—specifically because of his religious inheritance, his status in the religious establishment of the time, his knowledge of the Scriptures, and the righteousness he perceived he had as a result of all these things.From Self-Reliance to Trust in ChristIn this passage Paul contrasts this self-sufficiency, this trusting in himself, with faith in Christ. Faith does, of course, mean belief—believing in Christ—but it also means trusting in Christ: findin

Opening“You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”Creation Is More Than What We Can SeeI would like to start this evening with a small bugbear about the modern Church of England. There is a lot of talk about creation in the modern Church of England. There is Creationtide, a season to do with creation. There is even a Festival of Creation now, which I think has already occurred this year. I must have missed it.The bugbear I have with these festivals and seasons is that a lot of the time, when the word “creation” is used in the modern Church, what is meant is only the natural and visible world: the world we perceive with our eyes, the world we interact with through our senses. That is actually quite a reductive way of thinking about creation.Of course, creation does consist of the natural world, the visible realm that we can see. But Scripture reveals to us also the invisible world of God and the angels—an awesome reality which, in many ways, is hardly imaginable for us. Even as Christians, particularly living in the modern secularised West, we can be unaware of this invisible world. We can be unmindful of this spiritual reality.Feast days like today—the Feast of St Michael and All Angels—exist to help us remember: to open our eyes to the reality that underlies the reality we see every day with our eyes and hear with our ears.“O Lord, Open His Eyes”I was reading this morning in my Book of Common Prayer lectionary a wonderful story from 2 Kings 6. Elisha and his servant are surrounded by the horses and armies of the king of Syria. Elisha’s servant is dismayed, lacking spiritual vision, and he says, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” Elisha replies, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then he prays, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” And his eyes were opened, and he saw: the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire.So, friends, as we gather together this evening, let us pray that God may open our spiritual eyes—that we would be like Jacob at the end of that reading from Genesis, and say: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.”Conflict in HeavenBut we also read in the Book of Revelation, our New Testament reading, not only about the invisible world, but about a disturbing element of that reality: there is conflict in the heavenly realm. There is conflict between angels who are loyal to the purposes of God and angels who are in rebellion against him.Those loyal angels are headed by the archangel Michael, whose feast we celebrate today. The name Michael is a beautiful name. It means “Who is like unto God?”—rhetorically meant: nobody is like God. That is the meaning of that great name.Against Michael we are told that the dragon—Satan, the devil, the accuser of the brethren, the deceiver of the whole world—and his angels fight, and are in rebellion against God.Scripture says various things about this being—Satan, the accuser, the devil—and we can piece a good deal of it together. But I think the heart of the issue is this: the great sin of this angel who rebelled against God was pride, and the desire to usurp the place of God.The great medieval theologian St Bonaventure said that the devil and his angels, being so great, so luminous, so lofty and exalted, became so dazzled by contemplation of their own perfections that they refused to worship God and worshipped themselves instead. They refused the purposes of God. They refused to be obedient, and so were puffed up with pride in themselves—Satan most of all.The Same Battle on EarthWhat that reading in Revelation reveals to us is that this cosmic battle between Satan and St Michael, which takes place in the heavenly realms, is also taking place in our world today. There is an interplay between the invisible world and the world we inhabit. And that great sin of Satan—the sin of pride, the desire to put ourselves in the place of God—is the same story we live with in our lives and in our world today.If you have ever wondered what the true essence of Satanism is, it is not very complicated. It is simply putting myself at the centre instead of God: my purposes, my way, my view of things, my self. Not God’s way, not obedience to him, not humility, but my way. This is the way of God’s enemy, and this is the way God’s enemy would have us live today.So one of the things we are called to do as followers of Christ—especially as we remember it on this feast day—is to fight on the side of St Michael and his angels.How do we do that? Mostly it is not flashy. It is everyday obedience to God; holiness; growing in the fruit of the Holy Spirit; humility before God and one another; and, of course, a growing desire to worship God, to give him our praise, to put him at the centre of reality—and not ourselves.We Have an EnemyThese readings also call us to recognise that we have an enemy: that the world we live in is not neutral, but that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. As the sixth chapter of Ephesians tells us: we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.Consider the names of the devil in Revelation 12: the deceiver of the whole world; the accuser of the brethren; full of wrath because he knows that his time is short. The Apostle Peter tells us: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”Friends, we have an enemy. We have an enemy who wants to deceive us, to tell us lies and have us believe them. We have an enemy who wants to accuse us as Christians—that we are not worthy of coming to know God and of having communion with him. The devil will attack us in the places where we are most vulnerable.Let us ask ourselves this evening how the devil is seeking to wreak havoc in our own lives—and resist him. When I hear people’s confessions, I often say to them that in the same way God has a plan for your life, so the devil has a plan for your life. The devil has got plans for you—make no mistake. See to it that those plans do not come to fruition.So let us pray above all this evening for humility, for the grace of obedience, and for the ability to fight with St Michael against the devil.We Do Not Fight AloneBut we might ask ourselves: how do we do this? How do we engage in this cosmic battle?Here I say the most important thing I can say this evening: we do not do these things alone. We do not do them in our own strength. We do them with the help of our brethren. We do them with the assistance of the angels of heaven. But above all, we fight through and in and with Christ, and because of the gospel.This is what we are reminded of in John chapter 1 today. Jesus impresses Nathanael with a prophetic insight, and Nathanael is overwhelmed: “Rabbi, you are the King of Israel.” But Jesus, I think with a smirk, reminds him that this is the least of what is about to happen. He says to him: “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”This is, of course, a reference back to that reading from Genesis—to Jacob’s dream, when Jacob saw a ladder extending up to heaven and angels ascending and descending upon it. Jesus is saying, in effect, that he is the bridge between heaven and earth; that he is the gateway to heaven.Friends, Jesus Christ has rent the curtain of the temple in two and made a way for us to enter into the presence of God.By the Blood of the LambThe Book of Revelation tells us how this is the case: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”You see, friends: Satan does accuse us. He accuses us of sin, and sometimes he may be correct in his accusations. But the thing we must remember is that we do not come into God’s presence through our own righteousness, pleading our innocence. We come through Christ and through his sacrifice, made on our behalf, so that we might enter into God’s presence forgiven and cleansed of all our sin.The power of Christ’s blood, the power of Christ’s broken body, is something we cannot possibly imagine. But we do know that it has power to overcome all the assaults of the enemy, all the power of the hosts of darkness, all the wickedness that besets us, all of Satan’s accusations, all of his lies. The power of Christ’s blood is greater. This is how we approach.And supremely, this is how we approach as we come to the Holy Eucharist. We approach through the grace of God, and we approach by the sacrifice of Christ. In the Book of Romans the Apostle Paul says that through Jesus we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.Jesus Christ is the bridge between heaven and earth. He is the ladder upon which angels ascend and descend. He is the gate of heaven. He is the one who has made a way for us. Friends, put your trust in him.So let us avail ourselves of the means of grace, supremely as we come in faith to the Holy Eucharist this evening. Let us take our stand in the ranks of the holy angels. Let us offer Christ our worship above all.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.Amen.

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Two Kinds of AuthorityToday I would like to talk about the Gospel reading we have just heard from Matthew, and also that great text from Philippians chapter 2. I will come to the latter in a little while. First, the Gospel.The chief priests and elders, as they often do, challenge Jesus. They ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?” Where do you get the authority to carry out this ministry, these signs, these miracles, to say the things you have been saying?It becomes clear over the course of the narrative that the religious officials have a very different idea of authority from Christ. They believe authority comes from status, from title, from position. Of course, in our world there is a certain type of authority that comes from these things. But Jesus possessed a different kind of authority altogether—an authority that ultimately came from above, from God. That is where Christ’s influence lay.In that situation it did not really matter that the scribes, the elders, the chief priests and the Pharisees had a badge, as it were—a title, a position. The important thing was where true authority lay, and it lay in Christ, because it came from God. The problem, of course, was that they would not acknowledge this authority that Jesus possessed.The Parable of the Two SonsSo, in the course of this narrative, Jesus tells them a rather incendiary parable. A man has two sons. He says to the first, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” The son answers, “I will not.” But afterwards he changes his mind and goes. The second answers, “I go, sir.” He even says “sir”—sounding very pious and respectful—but he does not go. He says he will; he says all the right things; yet he does not go and work in his father’s vineyard.Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of the father?” They reply, of course, “The first.”The point Christ is making is that it is worse to say you will do something and then not do it, than to refuse at first and later obey. And of course he is applying this directly to the chief priests, the elders, and the religious officials: “You are like those who say, ‘Yes, yes, yes—look at me, I follow God, I have a position in the religious infrastructure of the time, I keep the law, I do all these things’—but then you do not actually live in line with your profession.” In the context, this is evident in their rejection of the authority of John the Baptist and of Christ himself.Meanwhile the sinners—the tax collectors and the prostitutes—the ones who at first said no, but then repented, changed their minds and went—it is they who will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Those who said no, but then went and did.The Real Problem: Pride and HypocrisyThe issue with the religious officials was not that they were making this profession and trying their best to live up to it and simply failing. That would be more forgivable; that would be far more understandable. It was rather—and we see this again and again throughout the Gospels—their arrogance, their high-handedness, and their constant criticism of other people. “Why do you eat with sinners and tax collectors?” In other words: “We are godly people; we keep to ourselves; we keep the law—unlike those people over there.” They were proud, they were hypocritical, and they looked down on others.This is given to us in the Gospels time and time again so that we might examine ourselves—so that we might recognise this sensibility, this temptation, as Christians, as followers of Christ, as those who come to church on a Sunday morning. It is a temptation to think ourselves respectable, to think ourselves good, to think ourselves holy, and then to become proud and critical of other people who we think do not match up to our standards.Work Out Your Own SalvationIn that beautiful reading from the New Testament, Philippians chapter 2, Paul says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” He does not say, “Work out somebody else’s salvation with fear and trembling.” This is repeated in various ways time and time again in the New Testament: look first at yourself and not at other people. Remove the log from your own eye before you look at the speck in your brother’s.Friends, it is not for us to go around speculating about who is a good Christian and who is not, who might be saved and who might not. The parable and others like it are given for us—so that we might examine our own profession of faith and whether we are living in line with it.This is also a warning for those who are in positions of religious authority—those who have been given positions of responsibility and power over other people. Unfortunately, the same question Christ was asking the religious leaders of his time still needs to be asked today by all who hold positions of responsibility in the Church. Across every denomination we see this pattern reoccur time and time again: people saying one thing and doing another; making a profession of faith; purporting to be persons of influence and importance in the Church—and then something comes out: some scandal, some hidden sin. The pattern is well established, and it happens again and again, unfortunately.So the point is that all Christians need to ask themselves whether this is true of them, but it is especially true of those who hold positions of responsibility in the Church.If I were to summarise the point, I think you could say: it is not just what we say; it is what we do. This is what Christ is getting at. What we say is actually less important than what we end up doing in our lives. We come here on a Sunday morning, we say certain things, we appear to be Christians—but do these things we say match our lives? Do they match the way we live during the week?Life and Liturgy as OneWe participate here in the liturgy of the Church. The liturgy is given to us—why? Not so that we might just say it on Sunday morning, but so that we might live it the rest of the time. This prevents the liturgy from being a dead work—something we just say that makes no difference. If we say the liturgy in a meaningful way, and if we intend to carry it out in our lives during the week, then the liturgy becomes more alive for us. It becomes more meaningful—not something fake, not something put on for Sunday, but something that permeates the rest of our lives and engages our wills.There is a beautiful line from a twentieth-century Anglican systematic theologian, a great man called E. L. Mascall. In one of his books he has this wonderful phrase: the ideal is that our life and our liturgy may be one—that our life and our liturgy may be one thing. We might broaden that out and say that our life and our speech become one thing: the way we act, what we do, what we say, and who we say we are—that these become the same thing, and that we are people of integrity.Avoiding Hypocrisy—and Going DeeperWe could look at this reading in at least a couple of ways. One of them I have already spoken about: avoiding the hypocrisy that Christ highlights in this parable. We do not want to go around boasting, talking about how great we are, preaching one thing and practising another.Again I repeat an important distinction. We are not talking here about those who are struggling with sin, struggling with difficulties in the Christian life, whilst honestly seeking to be faithful. That is a different thing, and it is a normal thing. That is a situation we are probably all in if we are seeking to live the Christian life in a serious way. That is very different from knowingly professing what we have no intention—or no real or serious intention—of living out. That was the problem with the religious officials of the day. We do not want to be like that. We want to avoid that.But there is also a more positive thing to say. The spiritual life, the Christian life, is not simply about not sinning. Of course, not sinning and not being hypocritical is a good start. We should aim for that as much as we can. But that is not all there is. Our lives in Christ are a journey into a deeper and deeper knowledge of God and communion with God. And of course God is eternal, so we can never come to an end in the depth of that relationship—knowing him, growing close to him, growing in holiness, and growing in communion with Christ.So the question is not just “How can I not sin? How can I not be a hypocrite?” but “How can I live in a way that is more and more congruent with my profession of faith?” And as we understand our profession of faith more fully, this calls us into an ever deeper commitment to Christ and relationship with him.The Mind of ChristHere I come to that great Christological hymn in Philippians chapter 2—surely one of the high points of all Scripture. The Apostle Paul, probably repeating a hymn that was sung in the early Church, says:Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant… And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.Christ, who was in the form of God, did not have to do this—yet he did. He divested himself of the glory of heaven; he gave up equality with God, we are told. Why? In order to save us, in order to serve us. He emptied himself and became obedient to the Father, even to the point of death.It is striking when you look at what Paul says immediately before that hymn. He says a number of things, and then: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” In other words, Christ laid down a pattern for us to follow—and then there follows that great hymn. Christ became a servant; Christ emptied himself; Christ became obedient to God the Father—and that is the pattern you are to follow in your lives.Specifically here Paul is talking about relationships in the Church: be of one mind, agree with one another, humble yourselves before one another, seek to meet the needs of other people before you meet the needs of yo

The Madman in the MarketplaceThe great nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche told a story about a madman running into a crowded marketplace and anxiously announcing the death of God. Everyone in the marketplace was going about their normal business—buying and selling things—and they thought he was insane (hence the title “The Madman”). But the irony of the story is that the madman was really the only one who saw things clearly.What Nietzsche meant by this is that belief in the Christian God was dying out at the time, and therefore everything that people’s lives and their society had been built upon was about to change drastically in radically unforeseeable ways. One of the questions this story asks, then, is: What happens when the story that tells us who we are and why we live the way we live disappears? What do we found our lives on then?These themes are relevant to our Gospel reading this morning.The Master Who Keeps CallingChrist says the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out into the marketplace to hire labourers. The master of the house several times calls these labourers throughout the course of the day to fruitful service in his vineyard. As we have just heard, some came right at the beginning of the day, some came part of the way through, and some came right at the end of the day.All of this represents, of course, the way that God calls us—calls men and women to himself. He calls us into the Church, and he calls us into a life of fruitful labour in his service. Some people respond at one time; some people respond at another.The Same Wage for AllIn the story, the master pays the workers a denarius for their service. This has often been taken to represent the reward that God offers to those who respond to his calling: everlasting life, eternity, the promise of an eternal life with God.I’m sure you all noticed the interesting twist in the parable: although people responded to the master’s calling at different times, and therefore did more or less work, at the end of the day he gave everyone the same amount. He gave everyone a denarius—even those who had laboured only for a few minutes.What can this mean? How are we to understand it?I think it must mean that the so-called “payment” we receive from God is not a payment in the normal sense. At the very least, it does not correspond to the number of hours worked, or to the moment at which we respond to God, or to the amount of things we do for him. We might go further and say that this is not really a payment at all, but a gift of God’s grace.Another way of thinking about it is to say that God gives us our lives, he gives us a calling, he gives us the ability to respond to that calling, he gives us the capacity to labour for him, and he gives us our reward. God gives us everything, and so we cannot put him in our debt. Everything is a gift from him—our lives, our very existence, everything.The Danger of Comparison and EnvyWhen we return to the parable and put it in this context, the response of those first workers becomes inappropriate. On receiving their denarius and seeing that others were paid the same, they grumbled at the master of the house and said, “We have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” They were implying, of course, that they deserved more than those others.In a sense the master does not really enter into their quarrelling. He simply says: We agreed. I do as I choose with what is mine. Do not begrudge my generosity.Friends, I think here we are to see a warning against comparison with other people and what they receive—and particularly against the sin of envy, especially in the context of the Church. It is a very human thing to think—in many ways a very natural thing—that because I have been a Christian for a long time, because I have done so much for God or for the Church, I am actually a far more significant person in his kingdom, and therefore I deserve a lot more than these newcomers who have done so little and know so much less than I do. It is a very human way to respond.But this envy that we are sometimes tempted towards can take our joy and our happiness away from us. The workers who laboured longer still received a denarius; they still received payment. In spiritual terms we might say we still receive eternal life from God. But those workers took less pleasure from it than they might have done. They enjoyed it less because they were so focused on what other people were getting rather than on what they themselves possessed.Similarly, God gives us so much in our lives. He gives us so many gifts. He promises us eternal life in Christ. If we compare ourselves to other people, that takes away the enjoyment of God’s gifts and his goodness to us.So we are invited by this parable to consider the point that Christ is making: not to compare ourselves with other people and what they have; not to struggle with—or at least not to give in to—envy. Envying other people, and maybe even feeling bitter towards them and towards God because of what they have, robs us.Friends, let us ask ourselves whether we are perhaps preoccupied with the gifts, the position, the status, or the opportunities that somebody else has—perhaps in the Church, perhaps elsewhere. We have an opportunity as we gather together for Mass this morning to name that struggle before God, to ask him to give us grace to repent, and to cultivate gratitude in our hearts instead of envy. Gratitude is, in this sense, the antidote to envy: saying thanks to God rather than being bitter and angry that he has given gifts to others that we wish to possess.For Those Who Arrive LaterThere is, of course, another category that is relevant: the workers who come later on, or perhaps even at the last minute. We might take these to represent people who have spent much of their lives outside the Church. Perhaps they have responded to the calling of God later in their lives—perhaps in middle age, perhaps even later than that. Some of us here this morning may be in that category.With people in that kind of situation there may be a sense of wasted time, a sense of regret, a sense of unworthiness—and all of that, again, is very understandable.One of the things I would say about this is that it is for us who have been in the Church for many years to provide a place of welcome and help to those who are only just entering. And I must say I think this church is a very welcoming place. I would like to commend the congregation for that sense of welcome, and to encourage you in it.But there is also something valuable to say to those who are struggling with regret, or perhaps even shame, about wasted years, about lost time, about a refusal to respond to the voice of God. I put it like this:In a sense the earlier workers—the ones who worked all day long and are angry—are saying to God, “Look at everything I have done. Look at my works, look at my achievements, look at my sacrifice.” They are essentially saying, “You owe me more. You owe me more than them.”But those later workers, perhaps struggling with shame or regret—those who have been in the Church only a short time—might be saying something like this: “I have not done enough. I have wasted my life. I am not worthy. I don’t deserve as much—or perhaps I don’t deserve anything at all.”Notice, friends, that in both those responses everything is about me. It is all focused on me: what I deserve or what I don’t deserve. The position of envy says, “Look what I have done.” The position of shame says, “I have not done enough.” But God’s grace says to us: not “Look at what I have done or what I haven’t done,” but “Look at what God has done. Look at what God has done in Christ.” It is all his grace to us. Don’t look at yourself, don’t look at your achievements, don’t look at your lack of achievements—rather look to God and his grace in Christ for everything that he has done for you.Always CallingAnd so this is my encouragement to you this morning. Don’t look at your many works and be proud. Nor look at your wasted years and be ashamed. Look to God. Understand also that he has always been calling you. Do you notice that in the parable? The master is always calling. He comes several times. He has always been calling us, whether we have responded to it or not. Some heard earlier than others in the parable, but all of it ultimately came from him. His calling was constant.A significant person who responded to God’s call slightly later in his life was the great theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo. In his Confessions, his story of his life, Saint Augustine looked back and summed it up in a way that I think is quite perfect. He said in a prayer to God: “You were with me, and I was not with you.” You were with me, and I was not with you.That would be true for many of us here in this place today. In fact, it is true for me for many years of my life. You may have arrived later on in this place, but God has always been with you. He has always been calling you. It’s just that you’ve only just realised it—just recently, perhaps, or a short while ago.But in either case, it is all his grace, and we still have time to respond. We still have time to make the best of the time that is left available to us.The Eucharist: Thanksgiving, Not AchievementAnd so, friends, in a moment we come to the Mass, as we call it here—what is often called the Holy Eucharist. Some of us may know the origin of the word “Eucharist.” In Greek it is eucharistia, which means thanksgiving.In the Eucharist we do exactly what I have been suggesting we do in general: specifically in our liturgy we take our eyes away from ourselves and fix them on Christ, giving thanks for all that God has done for us in him. We do not present our works, our experience, or our track record in exchange for God’s reward or his favour. Rather, we come to receive. We come to receive Christ’s broken body and his shed blood, and we receive that as a gift that exceeds every debt we have incurred be

Peter’s Question and Jesus’ Radical ReplyLast week we considered Christ’s teaching on what to do if a brother sins against you. “Go and tell him his fault,” Christ says, “and if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”In our passage this morning, Peter— as he often does— has a question about this. As we might, because it rather implies that we accept our brother’s apology and therefore want to be reconciled with him. “Lord,” says Peter, “how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”The biblical number seven implies wholeness, completion, fullness. So Peter believes he is saying something very great and magnanimous. Others may forgive once or twice, but I am going so far as to suggest that we may forgive up to seven times.Jesus’ response, though, is far more radical than he was anticipating: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”Lamech’s Vengeance and Christ’s AlternativeWe should be cautious about taking Jesus too literally here, because to Peter and the observant Jews who were present and listening, they would most probably have recognised the reference to the Book of Genesis— what we would call Genesis 4— and a particular character called Lamech, who comes after Cain in his line.Lamech is said to have taken two wives, and he boasted to them:“Ada and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”In other words, if Cain wreaked a certain amount of destruction in killing Abel, Lamech says he will wreak far more. Notice also that Lamech’s violence is taken in vengeance for wrongs done to him. “If I am wounded, I will kill. If I am struck, I will destroy.”And that, of course, friends, is the normal way of humanity. It is the instinct that we all recognise, that we all to some extent possess: to hurt, to wound, even to kill, when somebody hurts us. This is vengeance.Many of you will have seen the film in the cinemas at the moment— Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. Homer’s story, his epic poem, culminates in an act of brutal and pitiless vengeance, which is depicted as just and heroic. The evil and wicked suitors got what they deserved.However, it seems that Christ came to show us a different way, and that this is what those numbers— seven and seventy-seven— point to. Christ is comparing his way to the way of Lamech, and to a certain extent with the way of the rest of humanity. If Lamech is saying vengeance and destruction without limit, then Christ is saying forgiveness and reconciliation without limit. He is not saying “count to seventy-seven and then stop.” He is actually saying: stop counting. Don’t count. Don’t keep a record. Just forgive— and go on forgiving.The Parable of the Unforgiving ServantThen Jesus tells a story. He says there was a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. One servant owed a huge amount of money— a colossal, extraordinary amount. In our day we might say he owed billions of pounds. It was a debt he could not possibly pay.So he begs the king for mercy, knowing that he and his family are about to be sold into slavery. And amazingly— amazingly— the king has pity on him and forgives this enormous debt.Then that servant, forgiven so much and so lavishly, so easily, goes and finds a fellow servant. That second servant owes something a lot less— still significant, but a lot less: ten thousand or something like that. Still a lot of money, but nowhere near billions. The first servant starts choking him, will not listen to his pleas for mercy, and throws him into prison until he should pay every penny.Then comes the twist. Some other servants see all this happening. They are greatly distressed and go and tell the king. The king summons the first servant and says: “I forgave you all that debt, and yet you would not forgive your fellow servant something so much less than you owed me.” And he casts him into prison.Jesus concludes: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”The Point of the StoryThe point of the story is of course that the king is like God, and that we all owe God an immeasurable debt which we cannot possibly pay. God has pity upon us and forgives us for all our sins against him. And yet when our fellow servants sin against us— even though they owe us much less— we do not offer forgiveness to them.The fellow servants in the story who see all this are greatly distressed, and rightly so. The reason is that the mercy shown to the first servant should have changed his heart, should have changed his perspective. For us also, the mercy that God has shown to us in Christ ought to change our hearts, our perspective, our attitudes.The great patristic father John Chrysostom said on this passage that even forgiving your brother continually is like a drop of water compared with the boundless sea of God’s mercy. The point is not even that God has forgiven us a certain amount; it is that God calls us to repentance and offers us forgiveness continually, constantly, regardless of how many times we have fallen in the past and without limits. He offers that to us all the time, and he calls us to have the same attitude towards others— to show the same mercy that we have been shown.The Seriousness of UnforgivenessNotice also the seriousness of what Christ says. If you do not forgive your brother from your heart— in other words, in a deep and serious way— then you will not be forgiven. After teaching the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, he says the same: “If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”I have to say, in my experience, this is a single piece of teaching that Christians find hardest to obey— and in many ways it is understandable. It is very hard to forgive somebody who has seriously wounded us. It is a process that most of the time takes time, and it is even harder to forgive somebody who continually hurts us and is going on hurting us.Feeling Hurt vs. Holding a GrudgeIt might be helpful here to introduce a distinction. On the one hand, we may feel hurt and anger, and we may need to wrestle with those feelings as we seek to forgive. Even if the hurt and the anger remain, we are still doing our best before God and by his grace to obey the teaching of Christ. It is not a sin to feel wounded and hurt.On the other hand, however, we may simply choose to hold on to those feelings, to hold a grudge, to justify it in all sorts of ways— and those ways can have a veneer of Christian spirituality. “He hasn’t been a very good Christian… He hasn’t fulfilled these duties and expectations… She’s been so callous, and her attitude is evil…” There are all sorts of things we can say to ourselves. But at the end of the day, if there is no effort to forgive, then we are being disobedient to the teaching of Christ, and we risk what Christ says here: if you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven.The simple lesson, then— simple but not easy— is this: regardless of how many times a person has wronged you, or how seriously, forgive and go on forgiving without limits. Stop counting how many times.Forgiveness and Reconciliation: An Important DistinctionIn all of this there is, however, a challenging question that has to be answered. What about when people do not ask for forgiveness? And what about when there is no possibility of reconciliation?If you were here last week, you will remember the previous passage. Christ speaks of a brother who will not repent and is put out of fellowship with the Church. So this must be a possibility. What about situations like that? There are many situations in life also in which a person has wronged us and not asked for forgiveness, or the person may have died, or may not be contactable. What are we to do?The answer, it seems to me, is that as Christ says here, we must forgive always— but we cannot always be reconciled. There is a very important difference, a distinction, between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is commanded by Christ in all circumstances. Reconciliation, however, although it may be a good thing, is not always possible.There are plenty of times in the New Testament when we are told to forgive if somebody repents— the story we have heard today is like that. But there are other times when we are told to forgive without any mention of somebody repenting. Christ says in the Gospel of Mark, for example: “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” And we might also think of the example of Christ when he died upon the cross, praying for those who were crucifying him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In these instances there is not necessarily a mention of repentance or the possibility of reconciliation— just a straightforward command, and in the case of Christ’s death, an example to forgive.What then can this mean? It must mean that whether we are able to be reconciled or not, we let go of bitterness, of hatred, and of the desire for vengeance. We are to love even the one who has hurt us. And love, friends, is not some vague sense of emotional warmth, but— to use the words of the great Thomas Aquinas— that we will the good of the other person. That we want good for the other person, even if it is a desire that that person repents, turns from their evil, and is reconciled to Christ. So we pray for the person who has sinned against us, and we will the good of that person, even if that is only something we can do in our hearts personally.Again, we may be entirely right— a hundred per cent in the right— and the other person may be a hundred per cent in the wrong. Even so, we are commanded to let this go, to love, and to forgive.As John Chrysostom says: “Nothing makes

A sermon on Matthew 18:15–20Opening“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I among them.”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.Amen.The Church as the Place of Christ’s PresenceI think the reason I am where I am and do what I do is at least partly because I love the Church. What I am about to say may sound slightly extreme, but I do believe that the Church holds out the only real hope for this world. I do not believe this because of the greatness of the Church as we see it here on earth—far from it—but because of the presence of Christ in the Church.Christ seeks to bring healing, joy, reconciliation, and peace: between God and humanity, and between men and women and children. The Church is the principal place, the principal forum, in which Christ has promised to manifest his grace in this world.Of course we get it wrong so much of the time. Of course we do. Yet it remains the promise we have from Christ, as we heard in our reading today. The Apostle Paul says elsewhere in the New Testament: “We have this treasure in jars of clay.” It is a very powerful image—jars of clay. We are fragile, feeble, sinful, vulnerable, and easily broken. And yet, in a very real way, Christ entrusts the message to us; and in a very real way he also entrusts himself and his presence to us.Christ’s Teaching on ReconciliationOur Gospel reading begins with advice from Christ about reconciliation in the Church. How do we bring about reconciliation when relationships are broken? The point of the whole passage is that the unity we share together as a Church has heavenly significance. The unity of prayer and concord that we share is a manifestation of Christ in the world—and that is why it is so important. That is why Christ gives us this advice for trying to win back someone who has sinned.“Go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,” says Christ—presumably because it is easier to persuade someone when it is just the two of you rather than when many people are present. If this does not work, Christ says, bring some others along and see if he listens then. If he still does not listen, tell it to the Church—the assembled congregation. That is a fearful proposition. And if he still does not listen, let him be to you as a tax collector and a Gentile—not meaning someone completely cut off (Christ himself spent time with tax collectors and Gentiles), but someone outside the fellowship of the Church and therefore in need of further calling to repentance.This is Christ’s teaching on bringing about restoration. It is worth pointing out that the explicit aim of what he says is to bring about healing in relationships and therefore unity in the Church. Even the treating of someone as a tax collector or Gentile is spoken of by Saint Augustine as a kind of medicine to cure the soul—to cure the one who will not listen to rebuke.Honesty, Humility, and Personal ResponsibilityThe teaching of Christ reveals that there is something healthy and right about being open and honest with other people, especially when they have hurt us or done something wrong to us. It is of course easier to internalise our anger; it is easier sometimes to speak behind people’s backs instead of confronting them honestly. We gossip and slander to others—perhaps simply to offload our grievances, or perhaps to get others on side in a kind of campaign against the person who has hurt us. This is the temptation when things go wrong. All of it is toxic: toxic in the Church, toxic in any organisation, toxic among any group of human beings.So Christ tells us: if someone has sinned against you, go to that person (if it is appropriate to do so) and speak honestly. If you need advice about how to do this, I was once told that the best approach is first to state the effect the other person’s behaviour has had upon you, rather than making a direct accusation about their personality or patterns of behaviour. “When you said or did that, I felt concerned… I felt upset… I felt anxious… I felt annoyed.” Something to that effect. It stops the conversation from becoming a personal insult.Equally, what do you do if someone comes to you with a legitimate grievance? The implication of the passage is clear: have humility, listen, and if the grievance is legitimate—as it may very well be—apologise. Why be defensive? We all feel like being defensive, but why? As Christians we believe that Christ died for our sins. Christ would not have had to do that if our sins were not serious. And if Christ had to go that far for us, why would we assume that we do not still make mistakes, get things wrong, and even do bad things?I would also point out the emphasis in this passage on personal responsibility, which is clearly implied in what Christ says. It is very easy to make excuses and to blame other people even for our own behaviour. We can blame the way we were raised, the disadvantages we have faced, or all sorts of other factors. There may sometimes be some truth in these things; there may be some degree of excuse. But we cannot blame other people and external factors all the time, and we cannot blame them for things we have actually chosen to do ourselves. Choices entail responsibility. All of us are under certain kinds of pressure. The measure of our virtue is the extent to which, by God’s grace, we are able to make godly decisions even given the pressures and difficulties we face in our lives and environments.If I may offer a further word: I think one of the difficulties we face a good deal of the time is a certain sense-of-humour failure. We ought to learn to laugh at ourselves a little more. We take ourselves too seriously and are unwilling to admit that a lot of the time we simply do stupid things, make mistakes, and need to say sorry for them. I remember my grandfather saying to me on a number of occasions that there are five magic words in a marriage: “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” I do not know why he said that to me so often, but it is a piece of advice I remember. We would do well to remember the words of Proverbs 30:2: “Surely I am too stupid to be a man.” It is a good thing to say to ourselves from time to time—or a woman, of course. When we do stupid things, we ought to admit them, and admit them without shame. Why would I expect to be perfect? Would I not expect to make mistakes from time to time? Friends, let us humble ourselves and say sorry when we have done what is wrong.The Authority of the Church and the Presence of ChristWhen Christ says, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,” this must mean that when the Church is acting in line with the will and purposes of God, the judgement of the Church is ratified by the judgement of God. If the Church puts someone out of fellowship, this has implications for that person’s relationship with God. It is a very real authority which Christ has given to the Church.The significance of this is spelled out in what Christ says next: “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” This verse is often taken out of context. The point is that this is what is at stake in the Church. This is why the unity of Christians and of the Christian Church is so important: that unity of fellowship and of prayer calls down the blessing of God and is itself a manifestation of the presence of Christ. This is true even—and especially—in the difficult context of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation.What does it mean when Christ says that the Father in heaven will do anything we ask if we agree on it? Clearly this cannot mean that we can ask God for literally anything, regardless of what it is, and he will do it as long as we agree. How nice that would be! We have already noticed that the Father is said to respond when we ask in agreement with one another. But we must also heed the further words of Christ: “when two or three are gathered together in my name.” I think we must take this to mean something like “when we ask in accordance with the will of Christ.”The Church as It Is Called to BePutting all of this together, we gain a picture of the Church as we are called to be: together in unity and love, in mutual reconciliation and forgiveness, with all of us living in holiness and obedience to Christ. When the Church is like this, Christ is present in her midst. It is worth repeating: Christ is present when we live together in unity, in love, in mutual reconciliation and forgiveness; when we live together in holiness and obedience, Christ is present in the Church.That is why it is so important that we seek to bring about healing in our relationships when sin has brought brokenness and division—because it is the very presence of Christ in the Church that is at stake.A Practical CallThere is a practical outcome to this sermon. I encourage you to ask yourself whether there is something you need to say to someone: perhaps to tell a brother or sister his or her fault, so that you can bring about reconciliation and healing. Maybe that person simply does not know that he or she has done something to offend or hurt you. Or it may be that you need to say sorry for something you have said or done: “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”As the song says, “Sorry” always seems to be the hardest word—but “sorry” is also the word that can bring healing and life when it is spoken. It can bring about the restoration of relationships that have been broken for years or even decades. It is such a powerful word. So, friends, if you need to say this word to somebody, keep short accounts and say it quickly while you have the chance.Remember the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 13, our New Testament reading today: “The one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” In other words, there is no point keeping all the commandments of God to the letter if we fail to love our neighbour—for this is the point of the law an