An Irregular verb: first person singular future active indicative

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 91, Revelation 12:1-3, 7-10, 13-17, Matthew 5:1-12 

Resurgam. 

Seen throughout the land on plinths and statues – which have had their share of hard knocks these last months. The latin is an irregular verb: first person singular future active indicative: 

I will rise.

I think most of us will not have had time to reflect on the impact of the past four months. It’s been more of a case of adapt and respond. Uncertainty over the future, with guidance in continuous flux, means that transition now seems permanent. Singing, eating and drinking, children – all fundamentals of church life – have all become difficult; regulations and guidance changes weekly. We have returned to church but things are not as they were and many, especially young families and our more distinguished in years, remain with us but in spirit. 

Renewal has been underway though! There’s a new sound system which, paired with the streaming system (completed on Thursday), will solidify the connection with new and old friends participating online.  There’re new choir robes and we’re supporting young musicians who remain in a sector devastated by the crisis. Our next stage of development, beginning with our signs and noticeboards, will look to rejuvenate our outdoor spaces, which have been a godsend to many young families and walkers, with our quiet enclosed space. 

Resurgimus! First person plural present active indicative: 

We are rising! Rising is a present continuous activity, we do together.

There’s a Southwark prayer list; and every day of the year a different church is listed to be prayed for. The list is arranged by area today the 19th we pray for St John the Divine, Earlsfield. We then come, just before the Parish of Putney, then Holy Trinity Roehampton and so on. By the strangest coincidence this year the day on which our church is prayed for throughout the diocese is tomorrow, the 20th July. In the church’s calendar for some seventeen centuries this is the day the Church has remembered St Margaret, on the day of her martyrdom.  At first I thought this must be deliberate – given that there’s only a 0.3% chance of it happening! but of course this is simply not possible. The list is arranged geographically. So as we celebrate our community this weekend we have this momentous sign that perhaps we too will emerge from the belly of the dragon to live again. It is the year of St Margaret!

Now today’s New Testament reading comes from the Marmite book of the Bible – Revelation. Notoriously difficult to read, with far flung interpretations from the mad, the bad and the evangelically keen. We hear it today for the echoes of the improbable tale of St Margaret, and perhaps it will help in understanding our saint. Occasionally I hear whispers in the congregation against her, Archly noticing that Margaret also happened to be the name of the daughter of an influential figure in our history; And it’s important to remember that we’re dedicated to a saint, and not some two-a-penny upper-class girl from South West London.

So we have these two archetypes fighting it out: the woman and the dragon. The woman is the easier figure to interpret. She is the new Eve, who began humanity’s struggle with serpents, losing round one. She’s also a figure of Mary, and you’ll often see the virgin depicted in art as described here. But John here principally intends this woman to symbolise the Church: she is clothed with the sun, who is Christ, she has conquered the changeable things of this world, signified by the moon under her feet. Her crown of twelves stars represent the apostles, who have taken the place of the twelve tribes of Israel. She’s in childbirth as she is constantly producing the mystical body of Christ – the new generation of the Church through baptism; and she and her children are at war with the dragon who has been cast down.

Historically people have had great fun in identifying the seven-headed dragon. He has been the rulers of ancient empires: the Persians, the Medes, Assyria and Babylon; seven Roman emperors most guilty of persecution from Galba to Nerva. The poet Spencer saw the woman as Elizabeth I and the dragon as the Pope, and actually an awful lot of not very ecumenically minded chaps have seen the dragon as the Bishop of Rome. In our apocalyptic times you could have your pick of people to be one of the seven heads. Disappointingly none of our artworks depicted this.

The point of the dragon, though, is that he is the figure of pure evil – seven being a perfect number – But also that this enemy is not clearly defined with his different heads – So we might equally think of him as the personification of temptation, evil, corruption, violence, weakness, infidelity and dishonesty. The battle that the church has with this is very real and always has been, but especially in times of persecution.

So Margaret lived through the Church’s worst persecution under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Famously he prohibited Christian worship. This has also stopped under our present administration, but much as Boris I think would quite like to be identified with a Roman emperor, I don’t think we can quite blame him for that disaster. 

The story itself has some fanciful details, but that young girls were killed, especially those refusing forced marriages, and that they suffered torture for their faith; this is certainly true. That such cruelty and such temptation to deny your faith is pictured as Draconian simply shows the inspiration the Church derived from the these martyrs, as it survived and grew though these dark days.

The Christian story is ultimately a story of faith, hope and love, overcoming fear, suffering and violence. Of this pregnant woman overcoming the devil. Our Old Testament lesson speaks of walking through waters and fire unscathed; of the protection of those called by name. Our Gospel spoke of the blessing upon those persecuted – for their reward is great in heaven. The pure in heart, like Margaret, who will see God. It’s not easy to find God in hardship, but the Gospel doesn’t promise that those who follow will be saved from it; that we will be kept out of harm’s way. But it does promise that when we are in difficulty; that’s when God is closest to us; and that is when we are closest to Christ.

The next months do not promise to be easy. Those affected by homelessness face a fearful winter. Unemployment is rising.  Schools will face great obstacles, the arts face paralysis and collapse. Many among us in recent weeks have suffered loss; have known illness and death. Our community remains divided by vulnerability. We will have to work hard and creatively in how we respond to an evolving situation. But we have already seen great generosity and kindness in giving and volunteering. If we can retain our faith and keep on in love we will not lose hope. And being St Margaret’s Day, we have this peculiar story, told this year in many examples of art from all ages of our community; of a young girl who at the Church’s darkest moment kept faith and was regurgitated – rising from the darkness of the dragon’s belly.  And in this she follows her Lord in that other peculiar story three hundred years before.  It’s the same irregular verb ‘resurgo’, but third person singular perfect active indicative: resurrexit! Margaret resurrexit! Christus resurrexit!  She has risen.  Christ has risen. That is the foundation of our hope.

Resurrexit. Resurgimus. Resurgam.

He has risen. We are rising. I will rise.

Redefining the Big Words: Fear, Peace, Love

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 55:10-13, Psalm 65:8-end, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.’

Language is peculiar.  Meanings of words slip and slide. Within a generation the meaning of a word may change entirely. The word “Broadcasting” for centuries, millennia even, was an agricultural term, and yet in less than a century this meaning was overtaken by radio and the BBC. “Streaming” was always about allocating children to classes, Sorting the wheat from the chaff (!) Or about sinus difficulties in a miserable cold. It’s still connecting with disease, but now it’s how we do church. 

Other words go further by having contradictory meanings – The word “quite”, means both “to a small extent” but also “completely” – “I’m quite miserable”/ “I’m quite miserable”; we also still hear of people who are “awfully nice,” and words like Ron Weasley’s favourite, “wicked”, confront social values by turning language upside down. ‘Cool’ was invented as slang in the thirties by the Jazz saxophonist Lester Young, Paris Hilton took the sentiment and turned it into her trademarked (literally) catchphrase ‘that’s hot’ in the noughties. Though she really was only stealing from Chaucer, who described Morgain as the ‘moste hotest woman of all Bretaigne and moste luxurious’. (Some years before Paris came on the scene.)

But even in the earnest language of the Gospel, the truth is rarely pure and never simple – and it’s often when we’re most certain that we understand, that we are furthest from the truth. So perhaps today you have fallen into error – You may have exchanged the Christian meanings of “peace”, “fear” and “love” for those of the World.

Let’s start with peace. The Gospel says two contradictory things about peace: we have all the expected stuff about being not troubled, but in today’s Gospel Jesus declares “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have come not to bring peace but a sword!” Surprising huh? Paradoxical? What do we mean by peace? Ask most people what they think about being at peace – they’d say something about being happy, surrounded by people who love and accept them, having the right job, enough money and a little extra, a nice boyfriend, a comfortable house. A better way to describe this peace is SECURITY:  a peace conjured by the range of insurance policies, social ties and conveniences that modern life allows us. But Remember: “Peace I give to you” but “I do not give as the world gives.” It’s to this peace, our sense of security, that Christ brings the sword; he’ll want to attack your boyfriend, hack up your sofa, rip out your kitchen, pull down your house, and steal your cat. And what’s more, you may be better off for it. Now I’m guessing you weren’t expecting that?  This is what comes from selective reading of the Bible. “I have not come to bring peace but a sword.”

So what is the peace that Christ gives to us? Well let’s first move on to fear. Fear we usually think of as the opposite of peace. A bad thing – fear stops us from being the awesome people we really want to be. Often the Christian message is not to fear but to have faith: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid”. “Do not fear those who kill the body”

On the other hand, what about “fear of the Lord”?  “The fear of the Lord leads to life”, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 19:23; 9:10). “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling”? (Phil. 2:12) a contradiction?  If the defining feature of non-Christian peace is security, the defining feature of Christian fear is our attitude to vulnerability.  Essentially, the fear of the Lord is about being vulnerable, and vulnerability scares us because it means we might have to change; we might lose something; it deprives us of security and calls attention to our frailty and weakness. In fact, fear of the Lord is vulnerability. Our fear, however, is mostly one step removed from this – It’s not being vulnerable that makes most of us afraid – we are mostly afraid of being vulnerable. This is the anxiety that Christ wishes to relieve us of because this fear is the barrier between me and God and between me and you. That fear should have died with sin and our old self. That fear disables our capacity to love.

In Martin Luther King’s well quoted speech he says, ‘a riot is the language of the unheard’. He condemns completely rioting and all violence. But equally he condemns the conditions that cause rioting, saying: ‘that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo, than about justice, equality and humanity’. Peace which stands as a barrier to love. 

Love is the last of my three misunderstood terms. People like to think of love as a possession, as security, as a validation of their significance:  They say things like, “We have each other – that’s what really matters”; “I got you, babe”; “Love lifts us up where we belong” But love is not easy. It involves risk and sacrifice – and not just in the beginning with all those coy glances across the bar and the “will he/won’t he” moments – but as long as you love. The Gospel is that God loves the world by becoming vulnerable to the point of death; that ‘there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’  ‘Those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. It’s more “Love will tear us apart” than “All you need is love”. And love is not a one way process –it’s as dangerous to receive as it is to give. Love interrogates us. It says: “I have done this for you. What are you willing to give?” So if someone tells you they love you – you have two options:  You can either say “I love you too”: be on equal terms. Or anything else. Anything else means “I don’t love you.” Or, again, imagine a person comes into your bedroom and takes off all their clothes.  [it might happen!] Essentially, you can either take off all your clothes or you get out of the building. It’s actually very hard to stay clothed next to a naked person. 

Love reveals itself in vulnerability but asks for a return of the gift –  you can walk out or you can get naked but you can’t ignore it.  Love is a risk and it demands a risk. But it’s not merely a possession or part of ourselves that’s offered in love – it’s the whole of you that is given – as the post-eucharistic prayers says – “we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice”. Christ is the gift of love – complete and perfect, fearfully given. Christ is naked and amongst us;  he is the gift –  the question is: do we dare to remove our clothes? This returns us to fear – if we are afraid of being vulnerable we will shy away from the gift, we will seek to remain independent with our security and our solitude. ‘Those who find their life will lose it’; but in shedding our clothes, in fearfully accepting vulnerability, in taking the risk, we allow ourselves to be fully known – and fully accepted. 

In these days we have had a heightened sense of vulnerability. We have learnt what it means to be house-bound. There has been the whiff of mortality. With this new vulnerability has been an outpouring of love and service that has not been seen since the Second World War. With this right fear, has come vulnerability leading to love. For some, this new love has brought a new peace. Not in personal security, but in being right – Right with God. Right with our neighbours. Right with ourselves. The world turns on a sixpence. Volunteering is waning. Generosity is receding. 2020 can be a wasted year, a year without entertainment, a year interrupted, or it can be the wake up call we needed. A reminder of our humanity, a call to love; the gift of greater peace.  Amen.

'Go and Do Likewise' - Thanksgiving for the NHS

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Ecclesiasticus 38:1-9, Psalm 91, Revelation 22:1-5, Luke 10:29-37

Why did Jesus teach in parables? It was because the law was no longer protecting people, or helping people to make good decisions, to be good people. Jesus taught that you cannot have hard-and-fast moral rules. That good decisions, good actions, are contextual. We have to understand the situation, the people involved, the story, in order to know what the right thing to do is. If the computer says ‘no’ – throw the computer out the window.

Today’s Gospel is the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus gives us the example of how to serve your neighbour. The first thing to notice is that the Samaritan is not bound. The priest, the Levite will be compromised if they act. Their role is in the temple, their purpose is prayer; we might raise our eyebrows – but if they are following their calling perhaps we should not judge them too harshly. And might they not suspect this to be an ambush? If they have no medical training, what can they really achieve here?

A senior officer in the army once described to me his four-part division of his officers. He said the capable and motivated were great. They were your future commanders. The capable and unmotivated, were fine – unreliable but under pressure they would do the job. The incapable and unmotivated were not a problem. They mostly avoided responsibility and made up the numbers. The officers he despaired of were the incapable but well-motivated. Hard to criticise them, being well intentioned and energetic; but without the necessary skills or ability, these were the people who caused disasters and loss of life.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions: just consider the well-meaning observer who seeing a car accident, runs to the vehicle and hauls out the driver, causing irreparable damage to their back and neck. The neighbour who seeing a fire in next door’s garden and turns his hose on it only to discover it’s an electrical fire. The president who hearing that detergent kills a disease, suggests to a nation that perhaps injecting detergent might cure people. Well-motivated incapable people are the world’s biggest problem. So don’t be too harsh on the fellow-travellers. It was reported at the beginning of the crisis that Archbishop Justin was volunteering at St Thomas’ hospital. Very laudable and humble, leading by example. But other voices then asked, ‘but who is leading the Church of England?’ Helping others is a wonderful way to build self-esteem; But going to the aid of others when we are ill-placed, ill-qualified and unable to maintain the promised support risks causing greater harm than cure.

But our Samaritan is free to act. He is not bound by other responsibilities. He also has some medical knowledge. The story is specific in detailing his application of oil and wine, the former for therapeutic, the latter for its antiseptic, properties. He also has the means to convey the injured man to the inn, and the funds not only to serve his immediate need but also to cover further costs as they arise. Finally, he understands his limitations. He leaves him in the care of others who are better placed and skilled to help, where he can receive more sustained professional care. I could run around doing everything this morning. I could play the organ – I could sing the psalm. But you know what? I think Rhiannon and Nick probably did it better than I could.

So it might seem at first, it’s the Samaritan’s spontaneity that is to be applauded; that he sees need and goes to help. But just as important is his actual ability to genuinely help. And also his restraint, that he doesn’t perform for his own gratification, but knows when to step back and use others to better serve the man’s need. He’s not merely feeling useful, or acting to receive praise, Still less he avoids the pitfall of using service as a power grab – that awful expression of having someone in your debt, using your service to vault yourself above someone. It’s not for nothing that in serving his neighbour, the Good Samaritan does not remain to collect a reward, or receive gratitude. Actually, here’s the hard truth: it’s not enough to be kind. We must know our abilities, our limitations, our own need for praise.

Parables, as I said, are there to convey the moral truths of which rules always fall short. They’re also there to clear away self-deception. We can appear good without actually doing any good. We can appear good to reassure our insecurity. We can appear good for the praise or the control of others. None of these is the service of our neighbour.

Now this Sunday is the 72nd anniversary of the NHS. The three core principles of the NHS are: that it meet the needs of everyone, that it be free at the point of delivery, and that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay. In a very real way the NHS is the attempt to permanently fix the Good Samaritan in the life of every person in this country. 

The point is that it’s universal – that anyone and everyone has access to it. Without debt, without power, without lack or want, in their time of trouble, there is a professional able to help everyone; that this help will last as long as the need is there; that it will be suitably qualified and understand its limitations. The NHS has put the Christian principle of service at the heart of our national life, and it’s something we should never take for granted.

Today, we are more aware of its importance than ever. This crisis has reinforced our knowledge that our health is held in common – It’s a national, an international matter, where the actions of others affect me; where despite my wealth or poverty, I am involved in my fellow citizens. The NHS has been described as the national religion. As the embodiment of the Good Samaritan alongside us, who would complain about this description? The liturgical praise of Thursday evenings through the crisis, giving thanks for those who come among us as one who serves,  represents the kind of incarnational theology that Christian has always proposed.

This is not to say that the NHS has replaced God, or that doctors and nurses are our new priests. But we can see in them the same vocational taking up of the cross that the Gospel commands. We can rejoice that this crisis may increase the vocations to research, nursing, pharmacy and medicine. We can be inspired by those who dedicate their lives to the service of others.

 It’s a great joy to come back to church today. I have been privileged to witness great examples of service over the last four months and, having been to surgeries and hospitals with Oberon and parishioners, have received care without cost that should never cease to amaze and inspire. We enjoy today the hard-fought privilege won in the past. And we have promised in darker times to use this crisis as the basis for making society better; to find ways of extending the service this country offers in breadth and depth. As we come together to celebrate again the phenomenal achievement of holding our fragile National Health Service together, we should continue to think on what more we can do to instil the model of the Good Samaritan at the heart of our public and private lives. Putney’s most famous son Clement Atlee said that it’s ‘the greatest task which lies ahead of us all […] to see to it that the citizen’s sense of obligation to the community keeps pace with the changes effected in society. We need to stress duties as well as rights’. 

The future hope of Christianity is a city. A city with the tree of life at its centre. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. For 72 years the NHS has made this a reality for the people of this country. We are commanded to continue in this ministry to the people of Putney. As Jesus tells us: “Go and do likewise.” Love your neighbour. Have mercy. ‘Go and do likewise’. Amen.

St Peter and St Paul

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 12:1-11, Psalm 125, 2Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18, Matthew 16:13-19

St Peter and St Paul give us the two great figures and examples of Christian leadership. In both cases, their leadership, their ministry is built on personal failure. In both cases this experience, together with an encounter with Christ, led them through humility to a broader vision of faith. Both were tested to their absolute limits and in time died for their faith, which is why the colour of today is red for martyrdom. As the original leaders of the Christian church these two are credited after Jesus with the shape and direction of Christianity. But as people they also offer insight into Christian leadership today.

To understand Peter and Paul we have to begin with their experience of personal failure. Peter continually got it wrong, misunderstanding Jesus. The Gospels document it forensically to his everlasting embarrassment. He denied Christ three times; failing the test at the crucifixion, as a friend and a disciple, to his everlasting shame. But in today’s Gospel Peter is the rock on which the church is built. He has the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Per ardua ad astra, his failure does not foreclose his future. St Paul is an accessory to murder,Involved in faith-based lynching, and inciting hatred. But this apostle, untimely called, takes Christianity from a beseiged Jewish sect to a global audience. He is probably the most widely read author of all time.

And there’s nothing new here. God has a habit of choosing unlikely characters. Gideon, youngest child of an unimportant family in a small tribe David, the youngest of his brothers, a ruddy shepherd. Mary, a poor peasant; the shepherds are first to the cradle; at the cross on either side are criminals. ‘He hath brought down the might from their seat and exalted the humble and meek.’ ‘blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth’. Time after time, God chooses what is little and ill regarded in this world.

And because they have learned humility, because they are formed in difficulty and failure, they have a wideness of heart, a generosity of spirit. So Peter and Paul, following Jesus, are great liberals when it comes to faith. From Jesus’ interpretation of the Law to the benefit of the people; St Peter has a vision that ends the Kosher prescription; St Paul argues successfully for the end of circumcision and ceremonial Law, opening the faith to Gentiles as equals before God. And the Church becomes a religion of women, slaves, outcasts, the orphans and widows, the leprous and cursed. And without the limitations of race, gender, nation, or wealth, without the privilege of power, Christianity is freed from cultural and national ties.

These leaders demonstrate that failure can produce humility, and humility generates generosity, and generosity can transform the world.

Now I have called Peter and Paul liberal because they found freedom in Christ. We live in a liberal society today. There are certain accounts of liberalism though that bother me. Frequently in recent years we’ve seen people pillaried in public for some tweet they’ve made fifteen years ago. Jobs have been withdrawn or lost; shame and condemnation mounted. There is a purity to today’s liberalism that closes freedom of speech and seeks to eradicate all who challenge it. The safe space of liberalism becomes intolerant of free speech. That’s liberal but it’s not generous. It does not come from humility and it does not know forgiveness.

Those who would seek to erase from public memory all taint of error, will not find anything in our history uncontaminated, including that history itself. All human striving for purity ends in violence.

But even worse, political correctness can easily become more about public expressions of right-on behaviours than justice. We were aghast two years ago when Rhiannon received an email after an audition. It boldly stated that the panel had been very impressed and felt that Rhiannon had given the best audition, but had decided that because she was pregnant they didn’t feel the job was appropriate for her. It’s somewhat incredulous to read such a concrete statement of discrimination.

I was reminded of this recently when a young ordinand, who has been praying with us online these past months, received a letter from the diocese of St Albans. They wrote that they did not feel there was a ‘sufficient match’ between him and the parish he was looking to serve in because, I quote, ‘the demographic of the parish is monochrome white working class, where you might feel uncomfortable’. But what was even more galling was the so-called ‘unreserved apology’ that followed when the outrage followed. The sender wrote: ‘I quickly recognised and regretted my poor choice of words and I am very sorry indeed that what I said was hurtful… I still regret my choice of words.’ Not the decision, the thought process, the thing they regret is ‘the words.’ Not that a decision had been made about how someone should ‘feel’, and on what working environment is appropriate, based on colour of skin. We can master the art of politically correct writing, but still be corrupted by prejudice. And these are I’m sure good liberal people in roles of responsibility in the arts and the church, writing letters of open discrimination. True inclusion begins from repentence and humility.

 St Paul does not succeed very far in being politically correct, but he understands that the Gospel is for everyone and he is quick to recognise his own errors. It’s easy to forget how radical his statements are, but worth trying to grasp just how revolutionary it is for a first century church leader to say: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’ This is a world-changing generosity born out of the humility learned by one who had failed badly but himself met with grace in the person of Christ.

I want to take a moment here, in this hopefully final service taken in our homes, to reflect on where we are as a church. I spoke on what would have been the AGM at the beginning of lockdown, about the highlights of 2019; and how the most significant of these was the service we had provided for people affected by homelessness. And that this project had connected us more closely with people of other churches and the community as a whole. Through this venture we have been able to lead the community in the service of the community.

We have over the past 15 weeks had another opportunity to lead the community. I estimate that we’ve given away around £3000 worth of food, completed around 300-400 deliveries of essential items, delivered up to 80 portions of cake and soup to isolating households each week, collected puzzles and books for those in prison, and housed a young man with no options. That’s just what I know about. People have stepped up in looking after one another; and in both our efforts to support those struggling, and maintaining the church, which has lost its main sources of income, we have achieved a great deal.

There are many we have not been able to reach and poverty, unemployment and isolation are increasing; but we can take some consolation that we are increasingly an outward looking church. As St Peter and Paul were not content to look to the needs of their own people, but took the Gospel into the world, we will continue to extend our service where we can. Even as we return to our beloved building, services will be different; not everyone will return with us, but we will continue to gather together, both in person and online. But we must also think of how we can serve our wider community. There has been a strong desire for a fairer better society, But it will be easily lost in the striving to get things going. Many will struggle to maintain a sense of hope. It’s hard for most of us individually to make this happen, but we can as a church have a wider impact, especially on Putney. Churches in this country used to offer a leading voice, especially on issues of justice, education and the arts. I would like us to think how we can achieve that. The church has shown in recent weeks that it continues to fall short in discrimination. St Peter and St Paul remind us that even where we have failed we can come back stronger. They remind us that God chooses unlikely characters, and that despite being a small tucked away church, we can make a profound difference. They remind us that everything we do must begin in humility and end in generosity. And in the words of St Paul, ‘that Faith, hope and love, abide these three, and the greatest of these is love.’ Amen.

Double Meanings

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Jeremiah 20:7-13, Psalm 69:8-11, Romans 6:1b-11, Matthew 10:24-39

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.’

Language is peculiar.  Meanings of words slip and slide. Within a generation the meaning of a word may change entirely. The word “Broadcasting” for centuries, millennia even, was an agricultural term, and yet in less than a century this meaning was overtaken by radio and the BBC. “Streaming” was always about allocating children to classes, Sorting the wheat from the chaff (!) Or about sinus difficulties in a miserable cold. It’s still connecting with disease, but now it’s how we do church.

Other words go further by having contradictory meanings – the word “quite”, means both “to a small extent” but also “completely” – “I’m quite miserable”/ “I’m quite miserable”; We also still hear of people who are “awfully nice,” and words like Ron Weasley’s favourite, “wicked”, confront social values by turning language upside down. ‘Cool’ was invented as slang in the thirties by the Jazz saxophonist Lester Young,  Paris Hilton took the sentiment and turned it into her trademarked (literally) catchphrase ‘that’s hot’ in the noughties. Though she really was only stealing from Chaucer, who described Morgain as the ‘moste hotest woman of all Bretaigne and moste luxurious’. (Some years before Paris came on the scene.)

But even in the earnest language of the Gospel, the truth is rarely pure and never simple – and it’s often when we’re most certain that we understand, that we are furthest from the truth. So perhaps today you have fallen into error – You may have exchanged the Christian meanings of “peace”, “fear” and “love” for those of the World.

Let’s start with peace. The Gospel says two contradictory things about peace: we have all the expected stuff about being not troubled, but in today’s Gospel Jesus declares “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have come not to bring peace but a sword!” Surprising huh? Paradoxical? What do we mean by peace? Ask most people what they think about being at peace –  they’d say something about being happy,  surrounded by people who love and accept them,  having the right job, enough money and a little extra, a nice boyfriend, a comfortable house. A better way to describe this peace is SECURITY:  a peace conjured by the range of insurance policies, social ties and conveniences that modern life allows us. But Remember: “Peace I give to you” but “I do not give as the world gives.” It’s to this peace, our sense of security, that Christ brings the sword; he’ll want to attack your boyfriend, hack up your sofa, rip out your kitchen, pull down your house, and steal your cat. And what’s more, you may be better off for it. Now I’m guessing you weren’t expecting that?  This is what comes from selective reading of the Bible. “I have not come to bring peace but a sword.”

So what is the peace that Christ gives to us?  Well let’s first move on to fear. Fear we usually think of as the opposite of peace.  a bad thing – fear stops us from being the awesome people we really want to be.  Often the Christian message is not to fear but to have faith  “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid”.  “Do not fear those who kill the body”

On the other hand, what about “fear of the Lord”?  “The fear of the Lord leads to life”,  “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 19:23; 9:10).  “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling”? (Phil. 2:12) a contradiction?  If the defining feature of non-Christian peace is security, the defining feature of Christian fear is our attitude to vulnerability.  Essentially, the fear of the Lord is about being vulnerable, and vulnerability scares us because it means we might have to change; we might lose something; it deprives us of security and calls attention to our frailty and weakness. In fact, fear of the Lord is vulnerability.  Our fear, however, is mostly one step removed from this – it’s not being vulnerable that makes most of us afraid –  we are mostly afraid of being vulnerable. This is the anxiety that Christ wishes to relieve us of because this fear is the barrier between me and God and between me and you. That fear should have died with sin and our old self. That fear disables our capacity to love.

In Martin Luther King’s well quoted speech he says, ‘a riot is the language of the unheard’. He condemns completely rioting and all violence. But equally he condemns the conditions that cause rioting, saying: ‘that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo, than about justice, equality and humanity’. Peace which stands as a barrier to love.

Love is the last of my three misunderstood terms.  People like to think of love as a possession, as security, as a validation of their significance:  They say things like, “We have each other – that’s what really matters”;  “I got you, babe”;  “Love lifts us up where we belong” But love is not easy.  It involves risk and sacrifice –  and not just in the beginning with all those coy glances across the bar and the “will he/won’t he” moments – but as long as you love. 

The Gospel is that God loves the world by becoming vulnerable to the point of death;  that ‘there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’  ‘Those who lose their life for my sake will find it’. It’s more “Love will tear us apart” than “All you need is love” And love is not a one way process –  it’s as dangerous to receive as it is to give.  Love interrogates us. It says: “I have done this for you. What are you willing to give?” So if someone tells you they love you – you have two options:  You can either say “I love you too”: be on equal terms. Or anything else. Anything else means “I don’t love you.” Or, again, imagine a person comes into your bedroom and takes off all their clothes.  [it might happen!] Essentially, you can either take off all your clothes or you get out of the building. It’s actually very hard to stay clothed next to a naked person. 

Love reveals itself in vulnerability but asks for a return of the gift – you can walk out or you can get naked but you can’t ignore it.  Love is a risk and it demands a risk. But it’s not merely a possession or part of ourselves that’s offered in love –  it’s the whole of you that is given – as the post-eucharistic prayers says –  “we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice”. Christ is the gift of love – complete and perfect, fearfully given. Christ is naked and amongst us;  He is the gift –  the question is: do we dare to remove our clothes? This returns us to fear – if we are afraid of being vulnerable we will shy away from the gift, we will seek to remain independent with our security and our solitude. ‘Those who find their life will lose it’; but in shedding our clothes, in fearfully accepting vulnerability, in taking the risk, we allow ourselves to be fully known – and fully accepted. 

In these days we have had a heightened sense of vulnerability. We have learnt what it means to be house-bound. There has been the whiff of mortality. With this new vulnerability has been an outpouring of love and service that has not been seen since the Second World War. With this right fear, has come vulnerability leading to love. For some, this new love has brought a new peace. Not in personal security, but in being right – right with God, right with our neighbours, right with ourselves. The world turns on a sixpence. Volunteering is waning. Generosity is receding. 2020 can be a wasted year, a year without entertainment, a year interrupted, or it can be the wake up call we needed. A reminder of our humanity, a call to love; the gift of greater peace. Amen.

Trinity 1: The Kingdom of Heaven has come near.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Exodus 19:2-8a, Psalm 100, Romans 5:1-8, Matthew 9:35-10:8

“The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 

 Today’s Gospel speaks to the mission of the church. The empowerment of the disciples – Jesus gives them authority over unclean spirits; The sending out of the disciples: sent to proclaim this kingdom that has come near, and to bring healing to the people.

If we are to take up this commission we first of all have to believe in this kingdom, which is a little bit like swallowing the blue pill in the Matrix. CS Lewis said that faith is not a spectacle to look at, but a pair of spectacles to see the world. To see the kingdom of God we have to put on these spectacles. But this isn’t as odd as it sounds. We’re more aware than ever today of the complication in trying to see the world well. I say well, because we’ll never see it perfectly, but we can see it better and worse. At the bottom end, for all our cleverness, there remains a good section of the world ensnared in cults and conspiracy. I was horrified in the army by the proliferation of flat-earthers. Nothing to do with any religion, there’s just a growing number of people in the world who through fake videos and nonsense believe the earth is flat. But even if we avoid the obvious pitfalls, the internet is a swamp of fake news and lies, and social media is peppered with echo chambers, click-baiters and distraction. Even science is wielded now as a weapon of politics and becomes a confusion. Do we see the world as it is? No, but we strive to see it better.

Consider the recent democratic movement of statue removal. We are right to deplore anyone involved in the slave trade, but how far back should we expunge? All the way to antiquity? And what of execution? Exploitation? Should we remove statues, paintings of all Emperors and kings? We do very well to consider who are our heroes, our role models; who is celebrated publicly. But subtracting misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, we might-0= find ourselves with very few art galleries, museums and public artworks left. And if Gone with the Wind is removed from public, could we legitimately protect the Bible? My favourite poets, artists, composers and, yes, theologians are all on the offenders-list. These people all saw the Kingdom of God, but they did not see it all.

The philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote: ‘There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.’ The removal of barbarism may entail the removal of civilisation.

 And I wonder how we will be judged. Will they think in centuries to come: I cannot believe these people thought abortion was acceptable! They called it ‘pro-choice’ like it was a good thing! Or: ‘She was a great artist but she actually ate other animals, the monster!’ Or: ‘Can you believe they didn’t allow people the universal basic human right of the right to die? So much suffering – so antiquated!’

I’m not suggesting a moral equivalence of misogyny and eating meat, but it’s a warning for us that former generations would be surprised by the standards they are judged against.  The Norwegian poet Olav Hauge put it well when he wrote:

Don’t give me the whole truth, 
don’t give me the sea for my thirst,
Don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,
But give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote
As the birds bear the water drops from their bathing
And the wind a grain of salt.

Emily Dickinson did even better with:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Success in circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –

 (with apologies for the gendered last line. Other genders are available.) Both these poems remind me John’s Gospel, where Jesus says:  ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth’ Only the Spirit comes very gradually.

 So where is the kingdom of God and how can we see it, how can we proclaim it. Well it helps if you can raise the dead. But I’m trying to suggest that more than anything it means pursuing the truth. Jesus came to the man born blind and healed him. He also set him free from the wrong idea that sin had caused that blindness. He ate with tax collectors and other people deemed unclean. He surprised everyone rewarding the faith of the Gentile as beyond how own people, He told the story of the Good foreigner, against the leaders of his own people. He taught sick people that the Sabbath was made for them, that they also were part of the complete work of God’s creation. He gathered women and slaves as his closest disciples, counting them equal before God. The truth that Jesus teaches is that you cannot write off people: the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the foreigner, the untouchable, the wayward woman, the reformed extorter, the slave. The truth is contained in the voice of all these people. And even, according to Isaiah, ‘the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.’ We are all somewhere on the scale between flat-earthers and fully woke – but we should strive to see the world more fully and understand, respect and support the experience of others better.

And this is not just about identity politics. We are even more likely in our everyday lives to be shutting out the voices and needs of those around us. And I think, especially in the present crisis, where temperatures are running a little high and patience a little thin, the little voice in your head that says, ‘but what about you? What about your needs?’ can become very strong, very persistent. When the lens of our spectacles turns myopic to see the world in terms of the injustices I suffer, the lack of care I receive, the unfairness that is put upon me, the goods I am entitled to; at the cost of our family, friends and neighbours, we will never see the further shore of the kingdom of God. There are many who have been unable to see beyond the privilege of their own gender, ethnicity and class. There are many unable to see beyond their own nose.

 The kingdom of God is a horizon in which there is perfect justice, perfect love, perfect peace. We only ever glance at it slant, through our wonky spectacles. Faith, and especially the words and parables of Jesus, should help us to see better but these glints and dewy wisps are but corrections on our winding path towards perfect love.

 In my first year of ordination, a priest came in to talk to us about self-care. His advice stayed with me. He said our calling is to work ourselves to death. But he recommended we do it slowly.

So it is with the kingdom of God. When we believe we see the world aright is when we should be most cautious. If we are full of fear and anxiety over offending, for saying the wrong thing, I also believe we will not get there. But the more we are drawn to ourselves, to people like us; the more people we leave outside, the further we are away. The work of the kingdom is to open our hearts gently and humbly and to extend our love as far as we are able. The kingdom of heaven has come near: ‘As the birds bear the water drops from their bathing/ And the wind a grain of salt.’

Trinity Sunday: Mount up with wings like eagles

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 40:12-17, 27-end, Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians 13:11-end, Matthew 28:16-20

“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Today’s Old Testament lesson is a reading I’ve preached on probably more than any other. It’s the preferred reading of the Parachute Regiment, so at any funerals, remembrance services or battalion field services, it’s what they like to hear. I watched my former brigade’s service of Remembrance for D-Day yesterday and it was read by a General I’ve been to Normandy with several times; this year less glamorously held in Colchester. You might also remember this reading from Chariots of Fire, hearing the drums and synthesisers of Van Gellis in the background, with the trials of British Olympians running and falling over. Perhaps next week we’ll start introducing film clips into our services! Eric Liddle reads it in a packed church in the film, illustrating his principled stand on not running on Sundays, truly now a relic of a forgotten world. But the PARAs love Isaiah because it speaks of keeping on, through adversity, and when all others fail. The Commanding Officer of 2PARA while I was with them, Duncan Mann, was unaffectionately known as the Mangrenade because in his two years he put us through some hellish long marches – 25 miles over rough terrain on the Scottish borders and the Brecon Beacons and then a 50 mile march in under a day on the North Downs way. He wasn’t loved for it but his thinking was simple. If we go to war fitness and resilience will save lives.

The real reason the PARAs love that passage though is the reference to wings. ‘they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint’. What marks out the regiment is their wings. They’re earned through a brutal fitness course and then parachute training. It goes to their purpose in dropping in to enemy territory and marks them out as different from other infantry. It’s a symbol of pride. And if the PARAs have a creed it’s the words of Field Marshall Montgomery, one of the great heroes of the Second World War, who wrote of them:

“What Manner Of Men Are These That Wear The Maroon Beret? They are firstly all volunteers and are toughened by physical training. As a result they have infectious optimism and that offensive eagerness which comes from well-being. They have 'jumped' from the air and by doing so have conquered fear… They are in fact - men apart - every man an emperor. Of all the factors, which make for success in battle, the spirit of the warrior is the most decisive. That spirit will be found in full measure in the men who wear the maroon beret.”

Monty was a Christian and famously said he would sooner go in to battle without his artillery than without his chaplains, believing that it is morale above all that wins battles, the spirit of the warrior.

I wonder how our morale is doing today? I know there are many who have been isolating – more or less completely – for over three months now. Our Thursday cake and soup run is intended more for morale than sustenance, and this week I heard reports that there are some visibly struggling with this continued isolation. It should remind us that our isolation may be different to others. It matters a great deal if you are alone. It matters a great deal if you have no outside space. It matters a great deal if you have poor health anyway. It matters a great deal if you don’t have the internet. It matters a great deal if it is days, weeks, months between a friendly face visiting. But above this some are also not built for isolation. And they may appear to have it easy, but in their souls they feel a devastating disquiet. How is your morale today?

Watching the brigade service live with 200 other people I was struck by the esprit de corps. Many watching may have just done a few years national service back in the 50s, but the sense of brotherhood made concrete in the symbols – the maroon beret, the wings, and the shared words: every man an emperor, the shared experience of hardship and jumping out of planes, is a bond for life. 

Today is Trinity Sunday. More than any other Sunday, this Sunday celebrates the unity of the church based in the Christian belief in the Triune God. As St Paul writes: ‘agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.’ We then have the trinitarian grace and in the Gospel the injunction to baptise in the name of the Trinity.

This belief in God, in the revelation of Christ as God with us, and the gift of the Spirit of God alive in the church, is what defines Christianity and maintains a core of unity across nations and cultures. The words of the creed always seem to me the driest part of the service, especially the longer Nicene creed, but they are what connects us definitively through the ages back to the faith of the early church and across the world. These statements matter because as Christians they are a mark of our identity. Part of my belonging, my sense of self, our sense of being St Margaret’s, or Church of England, or Christian, is related to a shared belief, in God, in Jesus, in the Church. I couldn’t find the quotation but someone once said: “in the Church of England you can believe in anything, though of course very few people do” and Elizabeth I promised she would not make windows into men’s souls, but having some shared beliefs is what brings us together. 

But that’s not the whole story. Churches and communities are also built on shared experiences. These last few months, how we have pulled together, and where we have not connected, will be remembered for a generation. We’re still finding people who have struggled along with little support. If people are ever going to believe that their local community, their church, has something to offer them it’s now. If the war taught a previous generation the importance of nation and solidarity, then I pray this experience reminds us that we live alongside people who are vulnerable, who need support and neighbourliness; and that there’s great joy to be had in community and service.

Finally, churches and communities are based on commitment. Commitment to look after one another, commitment to making the world better, to not giving up and not losing hope. Earlier this year our church made a commitment to be inclusive; to not discriminate on the basis of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, age or sexuality. The riots and protests now echoing around the world, the data on who in our society has been worst struck by COVID-19, point to inequalities and injustices that demand our attention. Black lives matter. The lives of those mired in poverty matter. I believe as a church and community we have made a contribution in this crisis, we have caught some who may have otherwise struggled more. But we are not an emergency fund, or a pop-up charity. St Margaret’s has been a community for over 100 years and our pastoral care and service, must continue through and after this crisis. It must go deeper and broader. If the Church of England becomes a club for the needs of its members it has lost its vocation. Our commitment is to all of God’s children in Putney and it is lifelong.

There are certain things that bind people together. Beliefs, experience and a shared vision. This sense of belonging, this identity can be powerful in raising morale, in creating a sense of purpose, a fellowship. The church has always offered that possibility to be part of something bigger; something that stretches across millenia and nations, time and space. The Christian faith is odd in that it doesn’t begin from a point of unity, but from a trinity – a comm-unity, a communion. It begins with three coming together; so as we come together this morning, some of us will be down at heart, some at peace, some near, some far away, but we come together with these shared beliefs, shared experience and shared commitment, with the desire to share God’s love with all people. We may not have jumped out of planes together or have fought our way through Normandy; but we are a fellowship. We have friendships which trace back our community over a hundred years. And in these friendships, these beliefs, experience and commitment, I pray that we can find the strength to overcome today’s challenges: to renew our strength, to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. Amen.

Pentecost: stop trying to be Christian

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:26-end, 1Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 7:37-39

Jesus did not write a book. It’s a striking fact. I think a lot of people want to write a book in order to leave a mark. To feel there is something permanent left behind when they’re gone. Material things get lost easily, everything is subject to decay; But a book can convey a lot – personality, ideas, humour; It can be reprinted. Downloaded onto a kindle, or from the cloud onto a tablet like the ten commandments A book represents a certain sort of immortality.

Perhaps you’ve taken this lockdown as the opportunity to complete your memoirs, the Great British novel, your guide to raising children, or the complete recipes of St Margaret’s, Putney; a book is your legacy for the future. But Jesus did not write a book.

Take even the Gospels. Not written by Jesus. Not authorised. Certified. The official Jesus Christ Sticker album of ’33. They are personal impressions. They’re written from the experience of men and women who felt the impact that one man had on a generation. Jesus wrote no book. He left as his witness a body of men and women who would change the world. A body of men and women on whom he breathed Spirit.

 This matters. We don’t meet the Jesus of history. It is always the Christ of faith.

And we meet Christ through his Church. As Jesus passed the Spirit on to the apostles, so they reached a new generation. Then with Paul and the evangelists, spirit pushed the church further. And generation has passed the Gospel to generation, now for a hundred generations, Spirit breathing on each generation, with no regard to social distancing. And each of us encountered the Gospel through a person, through a church, A human connection. It would make a pleasing, if large, work of art to see stretching out of hands showing through whom the faith has passed. Jesus at the top, with the disciples, St Paul, the Maries and many others – With hands touching Christ and stretched down through the evangelists and early church, down and out through time, across continents, 100 generations to today and each of us in our homes. Hands reaching up to our parents, pastors, friends, down to our children and those we have met along the way. A great chain of faith.

‘It is by the faith of others that our faith is kindled’ That is Spirit. And that is how the Spirit of the Church remains free, discovered afresh in each generation. Christian faith is not limited by hard and fast rules. It is first and foremost about personal encounter and the telling of the story, between friends, within a family.

When you look at a religion from outside it looks like a lot of things. There’s a series of propositions you have to sign up to – They’re called doctrine – which makes belief sound like it’s chiselled in stone. There are the very large buildings that need visiting weekly. There’s all the accessories people get so hung up on – The clothes, the gold and silver. Heaven forbid you build a new cupboard in a church. You would of course need a faculty, another thing, And, of course, it requires the approval of the hierarchy and the committees, the synods. All the stuff of religion is so very cumbersome, the church is very heavily weighed down with it, trapped beneath pews, and legislation and an entire house of bishops. Goodness.

 Even the Spirit. The Church always talks about the Holy Spirit. One part of the Trinity. Calling it the Spirit makes it a thing. It’s specific, definite with the definite article: we know what it is. But actually Jesus doesn’t say: “Receive the Holy Spirit” in today’s Gospel. There’s no definite article. He simply says “Receive Holy Spirit” Not something definite but limitless and free.

Jesus didn’t write a book. He wasn’t concerned with what is fixed and definite, with things or all those things that give us certainty, and tell us we’ve got it right: The right church, the right liturgy, the right doctrine. He found people, whom he loved, and breathed on them Spirit; commanding them to do as he had done.

So three things about the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Firstly, it’s passed between people. Faith, vision, is always passed between people. Spirit is interpersonal, it’s caught: Keep alert – the Spirit spreads and everyone shows symptoms.

The second thing is that we can do nothing without the Spirit. This I think is a step people find difficult. Humans tend to be active, they like doing, achieving. We love to think we are the masters of our fate, the captain of our soul. But it’s a trap.

It might seem grands, independent, strong, free to be the captain of our soul. In truth, it is just a whole lot of pressure we don’t need. In truth, it isolates us, makes us think we have to do all the work, have to ourselves make the world, forge our destiny. In truth, it’s a lie – spirit is passed between people. We are born, live and die in an interconnected web. Those connections make us, shape us, and have the gravity to tack us to port and starboard. At the beginning and end we will know our dependence. But most importantly, spirit does not belong to us – it belongs to God. And we can find immeasurable freedom if hand back this responsibility to God. There’s a reason the 12-step programme begins by acknowledging our dependence, our weakness, and our need for a higher power. It can be a profound liberation to stop the Herculean task, and let God be God. We can do nothing without the Spirit. So stop trying to be a Christian. Stop trying to be good. And let God be God.

So the Spirit moves between people. There is no faith and no response to God without the Spirit. 

The final thing I want to say today, is that the Spirit is there strengthen us. St John calls the Spirit the Paraclete, which is tricky to translate. It means something like the advocate, the advisor. It is the Dominic Cummings to your Boris Johnson. John 3:8: ‘The [spirit] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.’ Wycliffe, one of the first translators of Scripture into English, translated Paraclete ‘comforter’. But his understanding of this came from the Latin ‘confortator’, which we understand better as ‘strengthener’, rather than ‘consoler’.

 It’s very difficult to live a Christian life on your own. If our faith is not wholly ours but God’s, and if the Spirit moves between people, this shouldn’t surprise us. But we have the church to strengthen us. We’re here to encourage one another and to be encouraged.

The things we’re doing at the moment can feel like a poor imitation of our actual coming together. Worshipping on screens, Zoom coffee from kitchen tables, playgroup song time in your own homes; telephone calls and meeting in parks; sending out cake to houses; but it is a point of connection. God’s work of keeping spirit in circulation. There’s a psychological toll to isolation that some feel more than others, but it affects everyone. So there’s a part for everyone in this work, as frustrating as it is.

In the last week there’s been a real shift. We’re receiving fewer requests for help, but also less response from volunteers, less donations to the vicarage food bank – which for space in our hall is a bit of a relief. Now is a crucial time though in not overlooking those for whom nothing is changing. And as things begin again, as our buildings are re-opened and people find ways of coming together, We must not leave behind those who need this connection the most. Hopefully we are moving now into a new phase where parts of the church’s life may be restored. But as the body is one and has many members (and all the members of the body, though many, are one body), so we cannot move forward without retaining this connection to those members who are not yet out of quarantine, and find themselves still excluded from our buildings.

Jesus did not write a book. He didn’t raise a building. But he did gather people together. A body of men and women. He did love them. And he breathed on them Spirit. Let us pray to keep that Spirit in circulation, and to comfort, encourage and strengthen one another in the days to come. Amen.

Sunday after Ascension: we have changed

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 1:6-14, Psalm 68:1-10, 1Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11, John 17:1-11

When the congregation of St Margaret’s had come together, they asked the Archbishops and the government ministers, ‘Lords, is this the time when you will restore the opening of the parish churches?’ They replied: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that Boris and Archbishop Justin have set by their own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Science has let us know.”

This short period between the Ascension and Pentecost, between the last of the resurrection appearances and the gift of the Spirit, is in keeping with the present mood – of waiting for the ease from lockdown and the coming of freedom and autonomy. The epistle even told us to “Keep alert!” – Our adversary like a roaring lion prowls around, looking for someone to devour, while ‘our brothers and sisters throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering’. Together we wait for Christ to ‘restore, support, strengthen and establish’ us. Perhaps this will be on the next government poster.

We are with the disciples at this point. They do not know what’s coming, or when it’s coming. They feel ill-prepared; uncertain about the future. They have had a mixed run to date; will they rise to meet the challenge? So they wait. Jesus is gone. They’ve not yet received the Spirit. I’ve said before that secularisation flattens time. While religions have festivals; reflective seasons and celebratory seasons, days of penitence, prayer and fasting; secular time moves more and more to make every day the same. Germany is less secular – they’ve protected their Sundays as a ‘family day’; you get a telephone call if you hang out your washing or mow your lawn.

Rhiannon and I nearly got caught out with a disastrous New Year when we learned very late that by midday on New Year’s Eve almost everything is shut. Ill prepared, we had little more than a can of tonic in the house. Luckily Rhiannon had been baking biscuits and our neighbours from Uzbekistan reciprocated with some delicious skewers of meat. The Lord will provide. But here we have 24hr shopping, 365 days of the year in cities that never sleep. This is very convenient when you realise you’ve got nothing to eat for dinner, but humans need shifts in mood and focus. It’s unwelcome but this epidemic has returned seasonal behaviour: A very long Lent or Ramadan – like Winter in Game of Thrones. ‘COVID is coming’, people will say in years to come. It’s striking how many people have told me things they’ve gained since lockdown. The absence of the usual distractions, gaining time, being forced back to the local, realisations of community, even noticing what we miss; can be life-giving; creative, liberating. Religion has served humanity since its origins to follow seasonal patterns, where we lie fallow, rush into business, fast and feast; rest and play.

So this week, the Church would have you wait and pray. Something that we at last have time for. We’re no longer disciples of the master, following Jesus. We’re not yet sent into the world. Now is the time to gather our energy, think and pray on what is to come.

So as the disciples begin this transition to becoming apostles: literally speaking, from being followers to being sent, we have a transfer of authority from Jesus to the Church. Frightening stuff, especially for the Church of England. Pentecost is where the Church comes of age; We take responsibility for teaching, for ministering, for helping people find the kingdom of God.

So Britain, the church, we are waiting. Waiting for what comes next; but to whom are we looking? Boris? Scientists? Dominic Cummings?! Or are we looking with faith, discerning the movement of the Spirit, asking where God may be found? That may sound pious, but to put it another way: What is the right thing to do here? How might I serve my neighbours here? How must I change to adapt to this new reality? What would Jesus do if he were in my shoes?

Walking the dog and the baby – they both have leads now – People are keen to share their politics. The schools must go back – someone hollers to me from 2m; my children are not going back till September another firmly states. We are all facing these significant questions. Should I drive 260 miles with my symptomatic wife? Should I risk leaving the house at all?

St Margaret’s will soon face similar decisions: should we open our doors? What more can we do to serve our community? How can we adapt to become the key point of connection we have been sent to become? Between God and his people? Between the Church and the world?

 At our Ascension service I shared the Bishop of Leeds’, Nick Baines’, four questions. Questions we should ask ourselves and St Margaret’s: What have I lost that I need to regain moving forwards? What have I lost that should remain lost? What have I gained that must be kept moving forwards? What have I gained that can later be put to one side?

I didn’t hear the sermon – lovely Anne East sent me that distilled message – but it strikes me that it misses the most important question: It’s perhaps typical of the church that all those questions deal solely with what is already happening. The most significant question, the hardest question, is: what is it that we have not yet taken hold of that we will need moving forward?

My weekend paper ran an article on how religions have benefitted greatly from the crisis. Communities have tightened, online worship is reaching many more people; priests reported a deepening of their own prayer life. I have felt the same. Having been used to saying daily prayer on my own; Often quickly, distractedly, on the go, now I have up to a dozen praying along with me; I’m excited to share that day by day journey with you. And I’ve heard that some are joining our services who through age and mobility had been excluded; we have, by accident, found an area where we’d become exclusive: shutting out those who needed us most. We have seen how we can galvanise a community and bring food and medicine to those in need.

But zoom can be frustrating, and there is no substitute for gathering in person; and funerals are very hard; all the most difficult aspects are exaggerated; the separation, the difficulty of saying goodbye, while the celebration of life, the gathering of family and friends, the wake, the full telling of a life is all absent. And while death is mourned, the celebration of love in birth and marriage is deferred.

We have changed. That makes us more adaptable, more resilient. We must be ready for more change. Personally, in our families, in our church. All change involves loss. All change involves gain. The kingdom of God only moves forward with the withdrawal of the risen Christ, to enable the coming of the Holy Spirit.

So from next Sunday the die is back in our hands. We have now this season before the Spirit, before we begin the slow return to public life, to think and pray and prepare. But we are not left comfortless. In these days we are not preparing for life alone, nor are we choosing what is best for us. We must be attentive to the Spirit, whither it blows; people of God, do not stand looking up towards heaven – the harvest is ripe, even if the labourers are few. Come Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen.

Ascension Day: Out of Time

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 1:1-11, psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-end, Luke 24:44-end

The Ascension is something like a coming of age story. It is a clear marker in the story of the transformation of the people of God.  It was a bit of a jolt to me when I suddenly realised it was Ascension Day. It marks the end of the forty days of Easter. Now since the lock-down time has been doing strange things. Days and weeks are more fluid and measuring time is more difficult. Most people have lost elements of structure. The sense of crisis means people have been permanently switched on, And the nature of employment has often meant that either people are constantly working, or they’re never working. I was reading a book on memory recently, and the argument of the psychologist was that we measure time differently forwards and backwards. When we’re busy, time is perceived as passing more quickly; we’re more distracted.

But when we look back at time our perception is measured by ‘time posts’. Our brains create markers for significant memories. If there are lots of them it makes periods of time seem longer. So a year full of significant events – teenage years, for example, where we go through many new things, or years in which we go through a number of jobs and relationships, moving house etc. will seem like long years. If we’re hacking away at the same job and every day is much like another, looking back, our brain will contract the memories to what feels like a short period of time. So you might feel – wow the 90s really flew by!

 At present with weeks and weekends merging, without social engagements and nights out, everyone’s time will have collapsed and most of the nation probably feel that this season of Easter has both dragged in the passing, but seemed to have gone in a flash in retrospect. In St Margaret’s church the boards still read Lent 3. It’s almost as though Easter didn’t happen. And now we’re at Ascension. The direct presence of Easter, the joyful season, has passed. In our disorientation we may well feel we’ve missed it. For most of the Church of England, Ascension slips by unnoticed; A pleasant Thursday in May, when, in prediluvian days, choristers would sing madrigals from the towers at St John’s College, Cambridge. I suspect it’s not happening this year, though I guess if they’re each in different towers, maybe it is possible.

But it is a holy day of obligation. A crucial feast in the story of Jesus that the Church tells. It is a memory post in the Church’s year, which should shift the attitude and direction of our souls. We no longer look back – back to Jesus, back to the resurrection. We are no longer spiritual infants. We are no longer disciples looking to our master. We are no longer followers.

These are days of waiting, days of prayer. It chimes with the national mood, as the nation waits for the first steps in easing lockdown on 1 June, the day after Pentecost. Pentecost marks the coming of age of the Church. We will be no longer disciples but apostles; Sent out into the world. Here God is doing a new thing, and we must be prepared for it.

This year our Pentecost takes on a most significant meaning. Once again we are sent – to proclaim the Gospel, to teach, to baptise, to share bread and wine, to minister to and serve God’s people. But we are making this transition from crisis into this new age.

Anne send me a thought from Bishop Nick Baines, which asks us to ask ourselves four questions:

1.    What have we lost that we need to regain in the weeks and months ahead?

2.    What have we lost that should remain lost?

3.    What have we gained that must be retained in this new age?

4.    What have we gained recently that can be laid aside as we transition to the new thing.

This is what we should be thinking and praying about in these 9 days to Pentecost. It is an unprecedented moment in history right now. Things have happened in church, society and in people’s lives which offer new opportunities, new connections, new ways of operating. But there will be a huge gravitational pull back to earth. “Let’s return to how things were” (only of course there will be a huge number of displaced people suffering.)

That would be an anti-ascension.

But if we are able to hold on to what has emerged, new connections, new awareness of the people around us, heightened community and solidarity, new technology, There is the opportunity for a spiritual awakening. In the depth of our faith and in the reach of our church; We might see the Spirit move in this time and place. In the word’s of today’s hymn: ‘mighty Lord, in your ascension we by faith behold our own.’

God is doing a new thing. We are no longer following, but are sent. No longer disciples but apostles. In these days we are waiting for the Holy Spirit. ‘stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ Do we have that expectation, that readiness to receive the vision? Are we ready to change the world? to transform our parish? ‘Brothers and sisters, why do you stand looking up to heaven?’ God is doing a new thing. Amen.

We can be heroes

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 17:22-31, Psalm 66:7-end, 1Peter 3:13-end, John 14:15-21

I’m not really one for heroes. The Financial Times, in a moment of nostalgia, has started a section on fantasy dinner parties, where their writers think of who from history they might invite and where and what they might eat. Something to discuss, over Sunday lunch, if it’s not too depressing, and if you can remember any restaurants outside Dominoes. But I would struggle on who to bring. Most religious figures would be pretty heavy going. Most musicians too decadent. Most intellectuals too dull. Perhaps I’d invite the original St Margaret, and see if she really did get eaten by a dragon.

Nevertheless, there are those moments in history where people have shown such courage that you can’t but be moved. Having served with 2PARA, I immediately think of the battalion on the bridge at Arnhem, completely surrounded and under continuous fire from all directions. Their last radio transmission, which didn’t reach the British, but the Germans intercepted: “Out of ammunition. God save the king.” The last speech of Martin Luther King, where he seemed to predict his own assassination the following day, and passed the mission to others to complete without regret, can’t help but send a shiver down the spine.

 But the most moving story I know is Maximilian Kolbe. Kolbe, a Polish Roman Catholic priest, by coincidence is now the patron saint of amateur radio broadcasters, so especially relevant for us today. Ora pro nobis Max. [If you’ve been home schooling Latin this week you’ll know that means ‘pray for us’] Kolbe’s story is extraordinary. At the start of World War 2 he organised a temporary hospital in his monastery. He refused to sign the NAZI document which would have given him the rights of a German citizen. His monastery gave shelter to, among others, 2000 Jews; he published anti-NAZI publications and eventually landed himself in Auschwitz. After a prisoner escaped, to deter others the deputy camp commander chose 10 men to execute by starvation. When one of the selected men cried out ‘My wife! My children!’, Kolbe elected to take his place. Kolbe outlived the other nine and was murdered after 2 weeks by lethal injection. The man he saved survived the war and lived till 1995 aged 93. It’s a grim story. I only tell it because it tells us something about love.

 The prevailing ethics of our day is what philosophers call ‘emotivism’. That means that when people make moral claims they’re simply expressing their opinion. Your view on eating meat, capital punishment, abortion, nuclear weapons, the environment, is really just a lifestyle choice. We can chat about it but ultimately it’s opinion and yes Americans want to have guns and the French think adultery is okay but really, people are just different and that’s alright. Think of it as psychology. You’d never expect a psychologist to say – ‘that was wrong’. Or ‘don’t you think that’s a bit selfish?… you mustn’t do that!’ The psychologist is amoral – importantly not immoral – although there are some pretty #metoo stories about Freud and Jung – but psychology bypasses morality. No judgement here.

Any time I say anything controversial, Rhiannon likes to add ‘in your opinion’. But she’s a millennial and they’re the worst. The most striking thing about millennials is that they feel very strongly – they’re anti-trump, feminist, vegan, pro-choice eco-warriors, but they don’t have an account of truth. Just very strong opinions.

And perhaps the thing that most gives away society’s emotivism is that we’re looking for leaders with strong personality; honesty and integrity are less important than someone who puts their position loudly and clearly. It accompanies all those reality TV shows where we’re told the most important thing is to be true to yourself, to believe in yourself, to live your life; you are exactly where you need to be; you are the most important person in your life; it’s your truth; here are four hundred-and-thirty-two personality tests on buzzfeed that will help you think more about yourself. Which Harry Potter spin off minor character’s familiar are you? Like, follow, subscribe.

Love in this context means following your feelings. We can measure love by how authentic it is; how it leads to self-fulfilment. How are we growing? How has this love helped me become the person I’m meant to be? Today, loving means being the best possible you helping someone else be the best version of them. It’s not a terrible vision of human fulfilment.

An older view of love, captured by the words ‘charity’ and ‘altruism’, is of a detached love. To love we need to put all emotion to one side. Love is not about self-fulfilment. It’s about seeing the situation objectively. What can I do here which will have the best possible effect? If I were a neutral observer, what would I choose to happen? Disinterested action to produce the greatest benefit to the greatest number. It was very a la mode in the nineteenth century with all those up-tight Victorian gentlemen. If you’re not home-schooling French – a la mode means ‘in fashion’.

You will have some idea of where your own ethics sit, if you think of any story of a hero you’ve found inspiring: Did you think – wow that’s the perfect expression of what he was about? So authentic! I feel inspired. Or did you think – wow, she had no regard for herself there but simply cracked on in the circumstances at great personal cost. I think that’s incredible.

The Christian view of love is not either of these. Love is not a feeling – it’s not finding your true self. It’s not an abstract calculation – a rational evaluation of the best-case scenario.

I want you to think about the expression: ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’ This isn’t self-fulfilment. It’s in him, not in ourselves. Our being is in another. Love is being for another. And so it’s not about feelings. Our feelings are about ourselves. Love is about another.

 But we’re also not trying to be abstract. Trying not to care in order to be objective. To be rational. This starts from care. If I don’t care for another, my being will not be in another. The rational approach is still self-centred, just ignoring its feelings. We are asked to live and move and have our being in him.

And who is him? It’s Christ. But as Jesus makes clear, he is the least of our brothers and sisters. He is the stranger, the widow, the orphan. He is the wounded man at the side of the road; He is the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned. Christ is in each person we meet.We have followed Christ, if we are able to approach each person each day – thinking ‘in her and in him I live and move and have my being’. If I can truly be for that other person.

And if this seems more like humanism than Christianity to you, consider the doctrine of the Trinity. It’s God giving everything into the hands of the Son. Then Jesus, the Son, giving everything for creation in return to the Father. And the Church came to see this self-giving, as the Spirit. The God-with-us that helps us live for others. The love given by which the Father lives in the Son, and by which the Son lives and breathes and has his being in the Father.

 All this may sound very abstract. But God is not some great Father figure watching over us like a judgemental Victorian gentleman. God is love. But that doesn’t mean he’s a feeling, or impartial; God is the act of living and moving and being for another.

When Maximilian Kolbe chose to give his life for another, he didn’t do it because he liked him or felt strongly about him. He didn’t choose starvation out of self-fulfilment. He didn’t do because it was the rational thing to do. He did it because he understood that his life was in this man’s life, and he was so able to find himself in others That he was able to let go of himself. That is extraordinary. That is the perfection of love. We begin simply by trying more and more to understand, empathise and care for the people we meet on the way. This is the simple heroism that our world needs; and may even get us invited to more dinner parties – at least fantasy ones. And so may we learn to live and move and have our being in Him, who loved us enough to give his life to show the world that God is love. Amen.

We'll Meet Again

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 7:55-end, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16, John 14: 1-14

There’s a line, which I’ve probably shared with you before, that has become a fixed idea — a command even — lodged in my brain. A fall back position in seeing the world, when things are hard. I first came across it reading a writer called Gillian Rose. She’s the most difficult philosopher I’ve ever had to read, which is probably why this line in its simplicity stood out: The words came from a monk at Mount Athos, Staretz Silouan, writing down Christ’s voice in an answer to prayer: ‘keep your mind in hell and despair not.’

It doesn’t sound positive. But for me it’s reassurance; It builds my resilience in difficulty. The words of Christ answering one man’s prayer: ‘keep your mind in hell and despair not.’

In today’s Gospel we had this typical conversation, where the disciples are stressing their eagerness to follow Jesus, to accept the risk of the Gospel. But doubtful Thomas says — ‘Lord we do not know the way’. Philip — ‘Lord, show us the Father’. Remember James and John — ‘let us sit at your right and left in your glory’. It’s Peter who shows the reality of our best intentions: fear, insecurity and self-preservation will keep us from the point of danger.

We step back from the cross. We will do almost anything to avoid hell.

And yet, Jesus says today there are those who will do greater works than his. And while Philip asks to Jesus’ incredulity and frustration: ‘only show us the Father and we will be satisfied’; St Stephen in our other reading, the first Christian martyr, looks to heaven and sees the glory of God with Jesus at God’s right hand. Stephen, unlike Philip, has found the place from which to see God; but it’s a very costly place.

Now there’re plenty of places where being Christian puts your life in danger. There are fewer posts where this is true, though, in the Church of England. The Church Times rarely states: ‘excellent opportunities for persecution, with great potential for martyrdom.’ We tend to be more ‘sherry before evensong’ types.

Christian Aid, for which we’re raising money this week, does step into those places. This appeal will go to combat the Corona Virus but in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, educating, bringing health facilities and training, food and protection for victims of domestic violence. More than most charities, Christian Aid will struggle this year; We have always stepped up to support it and I hope we will this year.

But the Gospel demands all Christians put themselves at risk. There are though different kinds of risk.Many of us have spent some time with homeless people in the last six months. It brings out an edginess in people. What if this person asks too much of me?  What if I have nothing to say to them, will they think I’m an idiot, that I don’t deserve what I have?  Will they think I despise them, will I say the wrong thing? It’s a risk to spend time with anyone you feel different to. And part of what’s uncomfortable is that in a personal meeting, we not only confront the difficult facts of their life; We also see what we look like from another person’s viewpoint, which might be more critical than our Facebook friends, Or our fellow sherry-drinking worshippers at evensong. And what if they share some intimate detail. Some threat they’re living with, some trauma in the past;  What if they tell you how they’re really doing? To force yourself to be involved with someone when they disclose what’s on their heart is risky, because it demands something from us. We become morally complicit if we hear of suffering and do nothing. It’s a hell we’d mostly rather avoid.

In our present darkness, there are a great many hells which are coming to light. Suddenly the risk of knowing our neighbours, the risk of coming to those in truly dire straits one block away has become necessary. When we’re through the worst the temptation will be to celebrate, to move on, to open the shops and forget the various hells come to light: To let the risk go. To abandon those in hell.

Of late the army has been on my mind, mainly for digging out some high waisted Khaki trousers to wear accompanying Putney’s Sweetheart singing “We’ll Meet Again.”  As an army chaplain, there was a varying degree of risk. There is though some understanding that padres may not quite fit into the usual army expectations, and actually we get away with quite a lot. In my final exercise at Sandhurst we were advancing up a gully in preparation for an attack. The Company Sergeant Major asked for someone to pass him a smoke grenade. Remembering that I had one in my pouches, I reached in and began to throw it towards him when I realised that I had selected the wrong pouch and inadvertently pulled out a thermos. More tea Sergeant Major? I bet he loves to tell that story now.

Training with the Parachute Regiment I was co-opted into five and a half weeks of running up and down hills in Yorkshire with no organ music to sustain me. Part of the charm of it was that, as chaplains don’t carry weapons, I carried a rifle-sized iron cross on my back instead. This was particularly appropriate since it was Lent; each day I literally took up my cross. That probably was among the worst experiences of my life. This isn’t the sort of risk I’m talking about though.

But on Monday mornings at 2PARA I’d walk into a staff meeting, literally, a room full of trained killers. The conversation usually revolved around closing in and killing the Queen’s enemies. In an emergency we were on six hours notice to move anywhere in the world. The average age of the men — and it is men — is 17 to 23. Not the usual CofE demographic. In the middle of that is a priest.Not always a comfortable place to be. As a chaplain you are there as a guide: pastorally, morally, spiritually. And you have to love them, help them, and stand by them without losing yourself or the Gospel.

Here is a risk. Risk that you go native — become just another officer. A yes man — a holder of coats. Or risk that you refuse and say there are places where the presence of God can’t be found. Either is to abandon the difficult situation. Philip refused. ‘Only show us the Father.’ Even Peter was unable to follow. But Jesus will risk hell for others. Stephen’s last thought is for the absolution of his murderers. There are those risks we take for self-aggrandizement, to be noticed by others. There may have been some unnecessary risk-taking this weekend. But then there are the risks we take on behalf of others.

Some people object to the idea of military chaplains. Are we sanctioning, blessing, justifying violence? It’s part of the genius of the Anglican Church though to put chaplains in every part of public life. There’re even shopping centre chaplains — But isn’t the presence of God everywhere? And isn’t it actually more necessary, the darker the place? Perhaps it’s only in hell that Christ can truly be found.

The quote I began with, as I said, is the most important spiritual advice I’ve taken on: Keep your mind in hell and despair not. It embodies what’s known in the military as the Stockdale paradox. Stockdale, an American pilot, was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven years. He noticed that the prisoners who broke the quickest were the ones who believed that they were going to be rescued any day. The optimists, who refused to believe in hell. But those who gave up hope didn’t last either; The despairers. So his paradox was that you had to be brutally realistic about your situation without losing hope, losing the belief that you would sustain. In other words, keep your mind in hell and despair not. Don’t ignore or remove yourself from the difficulty you find. Don’t give up believing it can be made better.

The disciples couldn’t anticipate the crucifixion, despite Jesus’ telling them. They couldn’t be realistic about the situation. So even at the end they were asking to be shown the way, to be shown the Father. It’s Stephen who first looks up and sees the glory of God. It’s Stephen in imitation of Christ who risks everything for the love of others.

You’re probably aware that today’s Gospel is the most common Gospel for funerals. I heard it read just days ago. Which reminds us that it’s our job, as Christians, to show to people whose minds are in hell: hope. And to help people, who’ve made their beds in hell, see the glory of God. 

Last week Mark and I put up John Marston’s cross outside church.  The Easter garden is slowly growing. On VE Day I put up a sign “We’ll Meet Again.” It’s nostalgic. But it encompasses a longing felt across our nation today. In divided families, between friends. And more than that — is it not the message of the crucifixion? Hope? Despite this present hell, Despite what separates us; Despite everything that lies ahead. Despite denial, despair and death; We’ll meet again. Amen.

Life in Abundance

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 2:42-end, Psalm 23, John 10:1-10

I have been reading Psalm 23 often recently. It’s read as a standard part of the funeral service. After the Lord’s Prayer it might be the most well known passage of Scripture. In part I think it’s the pastoral imagery that appeals to the British: Green pastures and still waters are familiar to us, opposed to the deserts and wildernesses that dominate the Bible. There’s no shortage of sheep here – in Wales they outnumber the Welsh 4 to 1, And we’re treating ourselves to lamb for lunch today on that table ‘spread before us’. It’s also a favourite for poets and composers: There’s the well known tune for the Lord’s my shepherd, Then there’s a modern version we’re singing with the children later. The poet George Herbert retranslated it as ‘The King of Love my Shepherd is’, as a good impersonation of Yoda, And of course, it featured as the theme tune for the Vicar of Dibley.

I think part of its beauty is its simplicity. The metaphors are familiar; The shepherd is kind rather than grand; The reward is a massage, a meal and a glass of wine. It could have been written for the people of Putney.

It is grounded. And it’s intriguing it finds its home liturgical in funerals because the literal translation of the last line, ignoring today’s liberal translation is: ‘Let but goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for many long days.’ Not forever. The psalm is concerned with the here and now. The singer is looking forward to the equivalent of many more barbecues on the lawn of St Margaret’s. Time in the security and peace of our church.

So this psalm, this song, is about happiness in this life. It falls within what’s known as the wisdom tradition, And the basic premise is follow the LORD, love God and your neighbour, and you will have a good life. If we remember that the Hebrew Bible shows very little sense of life after death, this makes sense. Even the line we have earlier, ‘he shall refresh my soul’, is better translated, ‘My life he brings back’ – nefesh (I always think Hebrew sounds a little bit like clingon) nefesh refers to breath and so life – there is no soul/body dualism in Hebrew. On occasion we might think uncomfortably that it strays close to prosperity theology – that God wants you rich: One can imagine David tweeting this song with hashtag-blessed.

But the Hebrew Bible has always had another tradition recognising that the ways of God are inscrutable. Job, perhaps the earliest written of Biblical texts – though no one could speak to the age of the stories themselves – Job gives us the counterpoint where the righteous man suffers terribly, wrestling with God to try to make sense of it.

Christianity is new with its proclamation of eternal life. The early Church almost welcomes suffering, as suffering helps them to identify with Jesus; It is to pass on the same road of discipleship; And as St Paul tells us: ‘we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.’

Suffering is not obviously the road to the green pastures and still waters, but it may be the sharpening force to being us to repentance, grace and the life eternal. But perhaps both are more complicated than this. Psalm 23 does not promise a life without suffering; It also speaks to character: ‘my life he brings back’ ‘I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’ There are ‘those who trouble me’, better translated ‘my enemies’. And Christianity has always had one eye on this life, as Christian Aid puts it: ‘we believe in life before death.’

So in today’s Gospel, you might have heard it first as being about salvation. Jesus is ‘the good shepherd’, ‘the door’, Connecting to ‘the way, the truth and the life’ The means of salvation, our path to the Father. But it’s more than that. First of all, the sheep are together. The flocks are mixed up; as was the practice of the day, various shepherds would bring their flocks into safety together in the pen outside a house for shared security. The sheep are living side by side. This isn’t a story of individual salvation. It’s about the flock and who is calling them.

Secondly, the sheep know their master. This recognition is something that is learned. It takes time. These sheep have come to know their shepherd. They recognise him. ‘They will not follow a stranger’. But finally, ‘whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.’ The sheep come and go through this gate, which is Jesus; They go out and find pasture, and then they come back.

Jesus is speaking about now. He’s kind of speaking about church. It’s not that we will pass through some pearly gate to be admitted to the Good place. But as we come and go in Jesus, we will find that pleasant pasture; We may have life, and have it abundantly. That doesn’t mean that the Gospel is all about this life. It means that eternity starts now. Eternity is present in every moment. As Blake talked about ‘a World in a Grain of Sand/ Hold[ing] infinity in the palm of your hand’

As we may have known time stop in love and grief; Jesus is saying that it is possible to seize the eternal right now; To discover the eternal truths of love, beauty and peace now; To own the simplicity of selflessness now; To find the love of the world rooted in your affections and actions. To forget yourself. This Gospel is really about the Church. It is about the life of the church today. Are we passing through the gate of Christ? Are we finding those green pastures? Do we have life, and have it abundantly?

That is what I want. There’s nothing more appalling to me than church controversies. And even in this current crisis I have endured the bickering of friends and colleagues appalled by the Archbishops saying vicars can’t use churches for streamed services. Personally, I will be quite happy that we return to St Margaret’s together. But what concerns me is that we’re coming and going in Christ. That we’re finding the green pastures. That we have life, and that we’re people who give life, abundantly.

In our reading from Acts we hear of how they distributed their possessions to all, as many as had need. They spent time together in prayer. They ate with glad and generous hearts. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Do you know, for the first time, every day, people are gathering online with Anne and I to pray. Every day I get donations of food from people across Putney. Every day we give out food. There is a generosity alive today that has not been seen in 75 years. We might be trapped at home, But I feel we are more and more passing through that gate. I see the call of the Good Shepherd to love thy neighbour taken up by those you wouldn’t expect. People keep saying that the world has changed and there is no going back. I’m not sure we believe it yet.

But St Margaret’s has changed. We have taken on new responsibilities and we will not forget them. We have found new ways of reaching people, and we will not abandon them. We have made new friends and we will cherish them. In Putney we are the lucky ones. We live by green pastures and still waters. On a good day, we might still get a decent meal and a glass of wine, though we might have to wait a little longer for the massage. But perhaps the new quiet of this lockdown will enable us to hear the voice of the Good shepherd a little more clearly. Perhaps without cars and commuting we will find the gate for the sheep. Perhaps now we will distribute to those who have need, being glad with generous hearts. Perhaps now is the moment we will come to have life and have it abundantly. Amen.

A time to love.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 2.14a, 36-41; psalm 116:1-3, 10-17;cLuke 24.13-35

We are one month into the present darkness. Already the former things seem a distant memory. Already the director of music, Nicky’s 30th birthday party, a Ceilidh held on the thin-ice days before lockdown with some uncertain partner swapping – seems either ill-judged, or the perfect last hurrah of a pre-lapsarian world. No tanks have rolled in. This is neither 1956 Hungary, nor 1968 Czechoslovakia; But I wonder if now some of the wartime-spirit, the solidarity, galvanising the country is feeling thin. A friend of mine reported feeling choked at watching people on television in coffee shops and bars; The gloomy death toll is read each day, a numbed reminder of the real harm underlying, but with little reality to us: We might feel cheered that only 600 people died in hospital, not 800, as it sounds like things are getting better. If your exercise has taken you to Wimbledon Common you might have seen the palatial temporary morgue, twice the size of St Margaret’s, Yani, a local funeral director, reported to me a 400% increase in deaths. I will be taking another four services this week. 

A common reading at funerals is Ecclesiastes 3, popularised in the 60s by the Byrds: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance’

Now is a time to mourn. I don’t mean to wear black, or stare into the middle distance, still less to become self-absorbed. We may know people who have died and mourning is fiercely difficult; it is disenfranchised; unresolved, incomplete. There will be a time for this, but now it is deferred and that is damaging. But, for everyone, this is a time of loss. Loss of freedom, Loss of space, Loss of the anticipated future, Loss of friendship, and so many things that bring joy, Loss of peace of mind. It is a time of grief, a time of loss.

And it may be, that we’ve been so proactive, so busy, so concerned for others, so anxious, so busy on social media, That we’ve not fully registered this loss. Neither examined nor allowed for this new poverty in our lives. The difficulty is not equal, not even, but no one is unaffected.  So take a moment to accept that for all your efforts to keep the ship running, to be a working home-schooling dad, to chivvy morale, to engage with your street whatsapp, to help old Doris, to volunteer, Life is more difficult and less interesting. Has anyone else noticed that there is no news? People will soon be staging Zoom Brexit debates just to talk about something else. ‘oh’ they’ll say, ‘remember 2019, the good old days?’

The disciples today are treading the road to Emmaus. They’re grieving. Their friend has been taken from them in the most violent manner. Their dreams, their future, has been taken from them. They are anxious, fearful. perhaps they are considering giving up. Matthew 26:31, quoting Zechariah: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” The flock will be scattered, isolated.

I’m reminded of a scene early in the film Gladiator. Russell Crowe is with a ragtag bunch of criminals sentenced to death in the Arena, and normally this type are picked off easily by the pros in chariots with better weapons. They’re strangers but Russell pulls them together in tight formation.  In this square they’re able to defend one another, keep each others’ backs. And as they hold their line and pick off the enemy, what is it that Russell Crowe keeps shouting? “As one” Isolated they’re picked off. As one – they overcome the enemy.

The disciples are treading this road to Emmaus. But there is a stranger with them. In the last month I have met many strangers. Strangers who live among us. Many have stepped forward as volunteers. Many have phoned asking for assistance. I feel like we have a second church woven around us, drawn in by our shared trouble and our shared humanity. There is the one, fallen, treading this road, There is the Good Samaritan, Bound by need and compassion; Has Christ ever been so amongst us? It is as if we’re in a flood and now staying in cabins on the ark waiting for the waters to drop – only we have some extra guests, staying with us on this journey.

So the disciples tread this road together, in their grief; In their shared loss, With this stranger. And they’re asking what does it mean? Why has this happened? And the stranger explains that this is who God is. This is the love God has for the world. And as the stranger goes on suddenly they look back on those difficult three days; They look back on that period of loss and grief; And the scales fall from their eyes. And they experience the joy of resurrection. And it’s not that the loss is taken away. Christ was still executed; he has disappeared; they carry with them failure, and pain; betrayal and grief. Where is the redemption of Israel now? But this experience makes them see differently. The scales fall from their eyes. ‘their eyes were opened’ ‘were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road.’ So amid the loss, the grief, is there a stranger opening your eyes? Who is making your heart burn within you?

Now, I want you to understand something difficult. Scripture says ‘God is love’, The ancient hymn, ‘where there is love and charity, there is God.’ And we say, isn’t that nice. Isn’t it a nice metaphor. Accessible, inclusive, liberal. No.  It’s not a metaphor. No more than saying Jesus is Lord. God is love. God is not some bloke above us, She is not some great woman-spirit occupying the earth. When you know love, when you give love, when you receive love, That is divine. That is the reason we exist, That is the revelation that Jesus brought. That is the meaning of the world, not 42, but love. That is what the Bible says, That is what the cross conveys. It’s simple really. We are most of us too holed up on the idea of a person watching over us to see the reality that God is all around us. Or we’re too frightened or intimidated by the world to look for it, Or we’ve had too many knocks to accept it. But that is the Gospel, and when we finally accept that we’re loved,  And loved infinitely, when our hearts burn within us, Then we will find an infinite source of love to bring to the world.

So yes, that girl in the pretty summer dress leaving cake on your doorstep, was God; Yes, when you left that food for a neighbour, you were doing it for love, You were doing it for God; That is God within you; that soup, that cake, was a sacrament. ‘he took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised Jesus.’ 

People always say in difficult times, quoting unknowingly the psalms: Where is now your God? I look at my spreadsheet. The volunteers. Those in need. I hear how people in church are doing – people keeping in touch; Helping one another; There is my God; love in a time of COVID-19; Treading the road to Emmaus with me; A stranger and a friend.

This could have been very different. If people had been a lot more scared, they might have retreated. Protected their own. Stockpiled and bought a shotgun. That has not happened, And this may be a warm up for next time. But what I think, is that there’s a lot more love in Putney now than a month ago. And that means there’s a lot more God. Now is a time to love. Amen.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 2.14a,22-32; psalm 16; John 20.19-31

Why do people come to faith? And why do they lose it? I was a very rational nine-year-old and have a very clear memory of going to an older brother with a crisis of faith, feeling that my Sunday school religion couldn’t possibly be true.  He wasn’t interested, and I lost interest in God. When I came back to the church at 19, though, it was for emotional reasons. You see, viewer, I had fallen in love. 

I had already chosen to study philosophy and theology out of a compulsion to make sense of the world, which had at least answered some of my nine-year-old questions. But I went to church for the first time in ten years because a very pretty girl asked me to.I find it hard to explain what happened next. All I can say is that I had an overwhelming sense of the presence of God; not far from terrifying, not far from discovering your wife has made you a great pile of bakewell tarts; not far from your first crush at a school disco: it was a calling. Looking back, that moment has been the most decisive experience of my life.

After being a victim of the best-selling evangelism strategy of ‘flirt to convert’ – and people like Jesus and St Paul must have had some charisma to attract such a following – I naturally questioned my experience.  I’ve seen destructive spirituality, where ‘religious experience’ turns quietly into manipulation and abuse; enough to be sceptical; but I have also seen how faith can change people; can lead them to remarkable things.

 Our spiritual journey may be barely perceptible, may look like a steady walk, may be a sprint and hide, may all be done at high velocity going backwards. It will have different phases related to what’s going on in our lives. Through my mid-twenties I only went to cathedral evensongs because I found that there I could engage with ‘the beauty of holiness’, but avoid the two things I hated about Christianity – bad sermons, especially long bad sermons, and other Christians, who after all can be unfriendly, judgemental and above all dull.  This was somewhat ungenerous but eventually I did find a church which I fell in love with, and felt I belonged, and again experienced that sense of calling, this time to serve as a priest.  If I’m going to have to listen to long, bad sermons I can at least give them myself. 

Now St John’s gospel has an odd character. He’s never given a name but referred to just as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, or the ‘beloved disciple’.  He’s usually understood to be St John, one of the 12 apostles, and author of the Gospel.  What is clear, is that for the original readers of the Gospel, the beloved disciple is the hero and the disciple with whom that particular church had a personal connection. When the church read (red) of the beloved disciple they identified with him as the founding father of their church. As a follower of Jesus, there at the last supper, the crucifixion, running to the empty tomb (as we heard last week), it’s his testimony that’s the basis for the gospel and the faith of this particular church where the Gospel was written. 

 But there’s something funny going on here. In today’s reading we have Thomas, one of the twelve who finally meets the risen Christ in the most physical way:seeing and touching the wounded body, proclaiming: ‘My Lord and my God!’ But what does Jesus say? ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

This is the original end of the Gospel, where the point of the book is laid bare, that reading you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God and so have life in his name. St John’s Gospel is written as the generation of original witnesses to Jesus’ life and resurrection comes to an end. The testimony of these disciples is recorded for future generations. We have here a transition where we’re moving from Christianity as people who followed Jesus, to the Church that will spread across the entire world; and there’s a new kind of encounter with Christ, through word and sacrament. But how will Christianity continue when we no longer physically meet Jesus?  It’s a little bit like the question Christians are asking themselves today across the world: What is my faith without buildings, sacraments, after-church-coffee and real people?

Jesus answers here, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’, The non-experience of the new believers is superior to that of the apostles. This is the new faith. If your faith can live beyond the show of church, the polished singing, the impressive lectern, the high ceiling; the familiarity of sacraments, then you are truly blessed.

 And in last week’s Gospel there was an even stronger endorsement. If you remember the Marys have all gone to the tomb to prepare the body and found it empty. Upon hearing this Peter and the beloved disciple get their daily exercise, running to the empty tomb. Being the hero for this community, the beloved disciple, outruns Peter. And then we’re told ‘Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed’.  He saw and believed. But what did he see? He saw an empty tomb. He saw nothing. ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’.

By the time this Gospel is written Jerusalem and the temple have been sacked and burnt to the ground. The centre of the new Church, the Jerusalem church, has also been destroyed, the apostles martyred.  This community of the beloved disciple, away from the centre, possibly in Ephesus, stands at the beginning of a new age, a growing network of churches, Jews and Gentiles who have never been to Jerusalem and were born after the death of Jesus. No wonder then that their hero is one who has not seen and yet come to believe.

Each one of us here has a different story and a different experience of faith. We may have an experience sometime in the past that we draw a quiet assurance from, we may feel regularly, or occasionally, touched by the presence of God, through music, sacrament or the Word.  It may be David Cameron’s patchy reception of Magic FM in the Chilterns. We may never have had any experience of God but still follow what we cannot see because we know it’s right, because of our love for our fellow creatures, or because our partner does.  But in times of doubt it may comfort us that the hero of the most spiritual and theological gospel has not seen and yet came to believe. That it’s the empty tomb that is the first scene of revelation in all its ambiguity, that does not seek to prove God but asks us to trust him.

 Much of what is most important in the world is what is not seen; from oxygen and gravity to our hidden desires, music played from a window to encourage the neighbours, and the invisible God.  Right now, we may already have forgotten what the inside of St Margaret’s looks like; for some it’s the longest you’ve ever gone without receiving bread and wine. It may seem foolish to base one’s life on things that are not seen; it can be a struggle, and involve sacrifices. And yet all the things that raise us above being mere animals are connected to this realm of the unseen.  The community of the beloved disciple has spread throughout the world, but it remains a contested community, whose experience and belief is always questioned. As we find ourselves once again in the Easter Garden, the empty tomb raises its perennial challenge: is it the scene of death or of life? The Gospel answers with its 2000-year-old benediction: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

The Victory of the Cross (Easter Sunday)

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Psalm 118:14-24 Acts 10.34-43, John 20.1-18

I am an accident-prone runner. I was on a treadmill some time ago, but there was a mirror, badly aligned to the right of the machine. Perhaps it was vanity, wanting to see my graceful athletic form in motion, but I stepped off to the right and was thrown twisted in a bruised pile 10m back into the gym. Somewhat embarrassing.

 Another time in Hyde Park I tripped over my laces, landing in a dishevelled heap at the feet of some woman walking her dog. A friend of mine pointed out that I should have immediately looked up at the woman and said “I imagine you have men falling at your feet all the time.” Unfortunately, I was feeling too sorry for myself, licking my wounds like a cat, and embarrassedly apologizing to the woman for such a gratuitous and unseemly act of spontaneous self-harm. Unnecessary apologizing is a particularly silly habit of the British.

Anyway, I know what you’re thinking, how could such dreadful things happen to such a godly, prayerful young man. Well, given the fact that God sewed on my feet at unusual and impractical angles and gave me the sense of balance of a one-legged rhinocerous, I think it’s fair to say that God is culpable.       

You might though argue that some good will come out of it; that I will receive the consolation of my friends that the wounds will make me stronger. But when I somewhat dramatically registered my humiliation on facebook; my brother “liked” my status; and several other friends lambasted my stupidity for exercising in the first place. And I didn’t get stronger, I just got grumpy.

C.S. Lewis wrote of creatures, that they “cause pain by being born, and live by inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die. In the most complex of all the creatures, Man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason, whereby he is enabled to foresee his own pain which henceforth is preceded with acute mental suffering, and to foresee his own death while keenly desiring permanence.” The philosopher Thomas Hobbes was more concise in describing the ‘life of man’ as ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. I like to think that no more than three of those words apply to me. Luckily for half the congregation, both those writers were apparently talking about ‘man’.

What is perhaps even more strange about Christians, though, is that every year they insist on telling in forthright detail the account of a betrayal by a close friend, a lynching, a show-trial, torture and an execution. One can complain about video games, horror movies, Sky News and Come Dine with Me; but telling the Passion is apparently done for our spiritual benefit. But it’s this story of death and life that is the heart of our faith. The three days from Good Friday to Easter, today, are the pivot of history, because the way we look at them determines how we see life.

If we remain in Good Friday - the world in which God is dead - the cross is victorious. For sin, victory is violence it is power, keeping the lucky few in place; and so the cross is victory. But If we make it to Easter the cross is still victorious. Because, for love, victory is overcoming yourself and giving yourself for others.

Good Friday, the cross, is ‘the figure of judgement in the reality of victory’. Either we are for violence or we are for love. Either we believe that violence wins the day, or that love does. The fact that we are here celebrating Easter is a declaration that we believe in a thing called love.

But this is not a simple transition to make. The whole purpose of Lent and Holy Week is to try and condition ourselves first of all to the reality of sin. We enter the desert – suffering and temptation. Resisting biscuits and cupcakes. On Palm Sunday and Good Friday we hear the long story of the passion. We know the story, but unless we enter into it again our hearts grow cold to it. It becomes a fairytale, or worse - history - something that happened to other people a long time ago.

Rhiannon and I gave up television for Lent. This went out the window during isolation. But do not be afraid of failure. Failure helps us to enter the story, because as we arrive on the Easter morning, all the disciples have betrayed him. All have abandoned him. All have failed. ‘God will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.’ We can only approach Easter from this position - with guilt chocolate smeared fingers, with a rough hangover, guilty goggle eyes besmirched by Ozarks, from the foot of the cross; the weakness of the flesh; the victory of violence.

And we see this in the disciples on Easter morning. The beloved disciple is hesitant to enter the tomb. They go home not knowing what has happened. In some gospels they’re terrified. Mary weeps with grief. As disciples, our lives, our consciences and our bodies, are suddenly spotlighted. The world is dominated by violence. Right now it’s the violence of disease.

And this virus highlights the plight of those we prefer not to think about. Now unemployment, boredom, financial insecurity, medical insecurity, fear has become mainstream, ‘gone viral’, we know better the plight of those society is failing. And most of us are not cramped like sardines in tiny flats. Right now, the world is replete with suffering. Everything’s not ok. When a hen is hurt the other hens will rush upon it, attacking it with their beaks. And even if we’re not deliberately attacking the weak, we’re stockpiling to protect our own, We’re out enjoying the parks to viral delight.

Worse is when we ourselves face affliction. If we’re not careful we become complicit with it. We stop trying to improve our situation and don’t seek to escape it, or find help – it becomes a parasite living off us, happy with our unhappiness. This is the victory of sin. It is the darkness at noon of Good Friday.

But those who can make the passover to Easter morning, will encounter the victory of love. Mary, standing outside the empty tomb, is beside herself with grief. So much so that she doesn’t recognise Jesus.

When the soul is caught in affliction its first reaction is to hold on to it, even at the cost of shutting out the world. For the afflicted, then, love’s victory is surprising.And Easter should surprise us. Because Easter is just pretty words and empty bubbles of champagne unless we can adjust the way we see the world. The philosopher Simone Weil wrote that ‘love is a direction and not a state of soul.’ Which is to say that no matter the situation, love faces forward towards Easter and not back to good Friday. At the foot of the cross it looks up and sees the power of compassion, and not a humiliation. When we see someone suffering how do we feel, what do we do? Serving someone in need has the order of a sacrament; it is to wash their feet;

In the last month I have seen volunteers I don’t know help local people I don’t know in so far maybe 70 trips to shops and pharmacies. We have clapped for people we know cannot hear us; we have got to know our neighbours and helped, and been helped, as we can. And if we see our own suffering from the perspective of love, it can be transformed into empathy with others and solidarity with Christ, which has the order of prayer.

 I miss our church. I know many of you do. All around it are the memorials of people who lived, worked and died in Putney. Churches are the only buildings where you are physically surrounded by the dead. On tablet and boards, in the rose garden. If we’re still at Good Friday that makes our church a creepy, hellish place to be, reminded of inevitable, lonely suffering. But if we’re looking towards the Easter morning, we see ourselves with our loved ones, our families, and all creation, rejoicing in the love of God.

 Let us put off being grumpy from our aches and pains, our enforced separations; the memory of what we’re missing; let’s have a glass of fizz; and let’s keep looking to Easter and the victory of love. 

 Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.  Alleluiah.

Perfect love casts out fear (Easter Vigil)

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: genesis 1:1-5, 26-31; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13; genesis 22:1-18; Exodus 14:15-31; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 31:1-5; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10

‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.’

Celebrating Easter means confronting fear. “Feeling the fear and doing it anyway.”

I am arachnophobic. Really quite badly. It began when I was 7 after getting bitten by a spider. In a moment of childhood depravity that St Augustine would have delighted in, I was pulling its legs off at the time, so it was well-deserved and my suffering has lasted longer, with less intensity than the spider’s. In school I was once chased around a classroom by another depraved child clutching a money spider; and I have had many panic attacks provoking instant mindless fleeing, crawling into a ball, and violently and hysterically flailing. Just the sight of a cobweb can make me imagine that my hair is full of spiders and give me nightmares, sometimes for days (nights).

 In a particularly hellish moment after hiking up a mountain in Australia, I turned a corner to see a cobweb the size of a door with a spider, literally the size of my head, demonically suspended in the centre. I mindlessly sprinted all the way down and plunged myself into the deadly-jellyfish infested sea to cleanse myself from ‘the horror, the horror’.

 But the odd thing about this phobia is that although it is irrational, inconvenient - especially once when I was forced to sleep on the couch because a house-spider had selfishly taken over my bedroom, I don’t want to be cured of it. I’m attached to this fear - I feel like the fear protects me – I’m actually afraid of losing the fear.

Now there’s a lot of fear and horror in today’s service. Noah’s flood turns properly apocalyptic. When I read our Abraham story on Good Friday, I felt almost overwhelmed with emotio reading it for the first time as a father; we have the sacrificial lamb whose blood is smeared on the door posts while the angel of death sweeps up the Egyptian first born. In the valley of the bones we have something like the white-walkers rising up; and after Jesus' grizzly torture and execution he returns baring his wounds like a Hammer-horror zombie.

 The resurrection is about the joy of a returned friend, but the accounts are all peppered with fear and trembling at the return of the dead. And, if you can forgive the anachronism, it is not too much of a stretch to see in the resurrection the beginning of the modern genre of horror.

 Horror villains all in different ways exemplify what mainstream society rejects. So vampires come from Transylvania in Romania (also, where Paul comes from), where the civilized West borders the barbarian East. They bring with them the dreaded fear of immigration, and the uncivilised world. From their beginning with Bram Stoker in 1897, they’re also portrayed with unacceptable sexuality – camp male vampires and sexually aggressive females, when demure and submissive was all the rage. More generally, villains of horror are associated with the mentally ill, the criminal, the physically deformed, the unnatural and above all the dead. All those who are pushed or forced out of polite society but return with violence.

 Society has always had its margins - those it prefers to keep out of the way. And we are good at keeping our margins out of sight. So the very elderly, the mentally ill, the very sick and dying live at a slight remove, while vagrants and criminals mostly get locked up or moved on. Good society after all depends upon keeping its margins in the margins. The margins raise fear and trouble our security. Beyond good society the rules change and it’s this anxiety that horror plays upon. What if we fell into this world? What if this world rose up and consumed polite society?

 These questions are at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus associated with prostitutes and poverty. He was himself homeless and somewhat eccentric. He was tried as a criminal. He was mutilated and killed.

 But then he was resurrected. He returned to society bearing wounds that show the violence that good society’s anxiety is capable of. Where he deviates from horror is that he’s not out for revenge. Figures of horror want their pound of flesh - they want Old Testament justice. But Jesus stands among those who had betrayed and deserted him and said ‘peace be with you’. Jesus puts himself in solidarity with the marginalised in order to bring to conflict a resolution – to raise up the poor in such a way as to end both suffering and anxiety.

As Christians we try and live in the hope of this promise; to refuse the boundaries that make people feel excluded or rejected, whatever their misfortune or their choices – to end suffering and anxiety.

 It requires considerable effort not to make assumptions about people, or to close yourself to the needs of others. Above all this means not reacting to people with fear. We can think that being fearful of people will protect us, that we are right to be generally distrustful of people different from us. But while caution is sometimes appropriate, fear gives in to what is irrational, to prejudice. As with my phobia we become attached to our fears, we believe they protect us we don’t want to let them go. But Jesus said, “Do not be afraid”. Let go of fear.

 Easter night, like Christmas Eve, is a liminal time - an in-between time, whether the late evening, or the pre-dawn. It is a time when we’re more aware of our fears and anxieties; when we hear more clearly the voice of our shadow, our unconscious, with its repressed anxiety and fear.

 Following Christ to the cross means confronting this shadow, realising our weaknesses; facing our fears. The resurrection is the promise that we will not be left in the shadow world to which society pushes the ill, the dying, the bereaved, the mentally unwell, the homeless; the fearful figures of horror; that madness, sickness and death are not the end of us all. 

The resurrection though is not the obliteration of what we fear. Christ keeps his wounds. He’s part Zombie, part superman. God is not about perfection; redemption is for all creation. But fear will pass away. Because fear is the refusal of the hope of resurrection, the peace of Christ. ‘Perfect love casts out fear.’

Easter is reconciliation – in confronting our fears, as the angel of death passes over, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death - we have the assurance of God’s love with us and the end of it all will be Christ’s peace. So as we contemplate our own fears, phobias and anxieties, Jesus says: “Do not be afraid”. Our life is hidden with Christ - and if God is on our side - of what then can we be afraid?

 In this virus Good Friday is all around us – it has raised in us anxieties.

What if we can get no food?
What if we cannot leave the house?
What if we are utterly depleted by illness?
What if we lose our job?
Become destitute?
What if we reach the point of death?

All society has been dragged into the margins and we will do well only if when we come out we bring those who were there all along with us. 

Easter is the promise of hope. When we say “Jesus is risen. Alleluia!” we are affirming Christ’s victory: of good over evil, of life over death and of hope over fear. Of the margins returning to the centre. Perfect love casts out fear. Amen.

All too human (Good Friday)

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 52.13-53:end, Psalm 22, John 18:1-19:end

Good Friday does not require a sermon. The liturgy of Good Friday and the reading of the Passion, the centre point of the Christian faith, convey the meaning of the day in plain language. I pause here then only briefly to make a few notes specifically about the Passion of St John, that I hope may aid our reflection on the events we remember today.

St John wishes to confuse the reader. When she thinks she is hearing of Jesus’ humanity, she is really discovering his divinity. And when she thinks she is hearing of his divinity, she finds his humanity.

So as Jesus’ miracles reach their zenith in the raising of Lazarus, Jesus wields the power of life over death, we have the climactic shortest verse of the King James Bible:
“Jesus wept.” Where we expect power, we have compassion. Where we expect frailty, we glimpse the divine.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Passion. While the other Gospels portray an increasingly out of control rag-doll Jesus as the authorities encircle him like a gathering darkness; in John, Jesus remains in control. There’s no agony in the garden here; he can say to Pilate — ‘You have no power over me unless it had been given you from above’; on the cross he calmly arranges for his friend to take care of his mother. In the other Gospels, here Jesus is most like us as his life is taken from him, with the saving postscript in the divine moment of resurrection on Easter morning. For John, the cross is the hour for which Jesus has come. Here God is revealed, with his purpose, his mission: the revelation of God’s love for the world. But having said that, there is no miracle. No display of power, other than endurance and love. John wants you to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, not because of the resurrection, but because of the crucifixion. Not because of a miracle, power, but because of love, service, sacrifice.

The So-What of this concerns first how we see divinity and power. Our instinct is to first think of God as mighty, powerful. Philosophers of religion talk about divine omnipotence. We see God in miracles, from creation to the parting of the red sea to the raising of the dead. When we are faced with tragedy, the death of a friend, a worldwide pandemic, we ask — like the media — where was God in this? Because it’s all too human.

John wants us to think differently. Here, Christ has been lifted up as the revelation of divine love. There is folly. There is suffering. There is no miracle. But nowhere in history is God so very present and visible. God is here, not in power, but in love. 

We hear this in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice when Portia argues:

       [The Monarch’s] sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
       The attribute to awe and majesty,
       Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
       But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
       It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings
       It is an attribute to God himself;
       And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
      When mercy seasons justice.

The world sees more folly and suffering than miracles. Can we though look on this and see God? See it through the lens of this Passion? Find in our own agony and crucifixion God’s love? But more, are we able to reflect that divine love through the darkness we are inhabiting; to remain faithful, hopeful and loving, despite the absence of the longed-for miracle. Despite our suffering, and that of those we love?

Most of us, most of the time, exist between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, not tested beyond our powers and yet still short of the glory of the resurrection miracle. But these are strange days and our humanity, our vulnerability, is before us like never before. Good Friday reminds us that God is closest too us in our frailty; that through patience, endurance and love we will find God. Amen.

Let's Get Physical (Maundy Thursday)

Sermon by the vicar, the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Ex 12:1-4, 11-14, Ps 116:1,9-end, 1Cor 11:23-26, Jn 13:1-17, 31b-35

Is it possible to love someone without touching them?

 Maybe you’re think of Pyramus and Thisbe, as told by Ovid, or played in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the basis of Romeo and Juliet, where the lovers are separated by a wall and whisper their sweet nothings to one another, with all that teenage tension.

 Or maybe you’re thinking of the great romances spun out by letter writing; Right now, in our Blitz mentality, we might be thinking of those War romances, letters back home from the trenches: ‘We’ll meet again’ as Queen Vera once sang.

 Maybe you’re thinking of the love you are separated from at this moment by the dreaded lurgy. Rhiannon reported to me advice given on the radio to a young man, at the beginning of all this, who was enquiring whether he could still meet up with his girlfriend for some furtive kissing, The presenter’s reply with all the real politic of agony-aunts was to suggest that now might be the time to take their relationship to the next level and move in together. Judging by the divorce spike in post-Covid China that’s not necessarily a helpful suggestion.

 Perhaps we need to narrow the question: Is love physical? The answer is yes. And I don’t just mean in the way Olivia Newton John sang of in 1981: “Let’s Get Physical”.

 Maundy Thursday is the festival in which we are most clearly celebrating the Christian ideal of love, and it’s a very physical service. Of all the services planned for this weekend, this feels the most difficult to celebrate in separation, because in all its elements it depends on physicality.

 So for centuries the church has practiced foot-washing. This is the quintessentially unBritish ordeal of having parishioners doff the socks and shoes, like a holiday trip to Blackpool, while the vicar already in hyperbolic liturgical dress, dons an extra-large bath towel and awkwardly gives a pair of arthritic feet a cursory rub.

 It’s one of those situations where no one wants to be there. Usually, there’s one person who’s very keen.But it doesn’t really make sense, as foot washing now is hardly part of our culture. If anything we associate feet more with fetish than with servility. We don’t very much tread the long dusty roads in our sandals. Some churches now do hand-washing, but that’s even more bizarre – who washes other people’s hands? Perhaps we should go round church offering people paper towels and a range of perfumes or colognes, but then all that’s shot out the window anyway with our social distancing. I’m fairly sure the government’s advice did not suggest washing someone else’s hands for twenty seconds.

 But there’s no denying that foot-washing is very physical. Intimate. Bodily. It requires contact, connection, vulnerability, trust. And in the meeting and the openness of those two bodies it is spiritual. Part of why we feel so awkward about it is because it’s intimate, uncomfortably so.

And what would the choir have been singing or chanting for centuries and centuries? ‘Ubi caritas et amor, deus ibi est.’ Where there is love and charity – there is God.  So when we get to the great commandment at the end of today’s Gospel; foot-washing is the illustration. ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’ Love is physical. It demands intimacy, vulnerability, trust, connection, contact.

 We were already nervous about physical touch. Respecting physical boundaries is a dominant theme in today’s society. COVID-19 has taken that to a new 2m level. Have we lost a piece of Christian love?

 As I’ve mentioned before there are no sacraments directly discussed in John’s Gospel. The Christian rites here are kept firmly implied. But everything in the foot-washing is suggestive of baptism. ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share in me’. Baptism is physical. Immersion in water. Anointing with oil. Touch.  Love is physical.

And of course, we are commemorating tonight the Last Supper. Eating and drinking. Bread and wine. And this is something we can relate to. If we love someone we take them out to dinner. Our favourite way to spend time with those we love is over food, or maybe cocktails. If you want to see how well a date’s going in a restaurant or a bar, watch how closely they put their glasses next to each other. The nearer the proximity the greater the better the date’s going.

And what is this sacrament about? ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you… Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.’ That is Jesus saying ‘let’s get physical’. We must take his flesh, his blood inside us, to have life. There is nothing very abstract about Christianity. It is literally flesh and blood. A sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible presence: a physical demonstration of what we believe. And as we will see on Easter Sunday, it is a physical resurrection, into whose wounds the disciples are invited to press their hands, their fingers.

 Now my point is this. There have been those throughout history who have insisted that Christian love, altruism, charity should be impartial, abstract, objective; detached; that we must make decisions in the least bodily way, abstracted from emotion, attachment, from our humanity. This I think is unchristian. In a world that is largely run by systems, we all know the coldness, the frustration of being put on hold, held in a queue, told we don’t qualify.

What is more Christian is the American idiom ‘Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes’; the understanding that until you truly connect with a person you simply cannot love them. Unless you are there physically with them, in their clothes, their home, eating their food, touched or untouchable as they are, you cannot know.

 So what does this all mean in a world where the physical is prohibited? First of all we can still get alongside one another. I’ve been arranging shopping trips, errands and pick up for people across Putney, people I’ve never met, the volunteers have never met. We have never depended so much on the kindness of strangers in my lifetime. And all for our physical, bodily needs. People have picked up medicine for our boy Oberon, delivered much needed cake and vegetables to us; we have heard the voices of neighbours hitherto unknown. We cannot touch but we can physically help others facing constraint.

But also we have remembrance. Proust started off the world’s longest series until Coronation Street, with the memory based on the smell of a cake. Physicality is lodged in the memory. And as Christ calls us to the sacrament in memory of him, It is by memory that we evoke and celebrate God’s love.

 But also as every lover knows, the physical is not limited to touch. We have thousands of ways to communicate, through smiling, a nod, a telephone call, the gift of a cake, a letter.

 What we see as the Passion unfolds is the isolation of Christ. He is taken away from his friends. He is silenced. He is set apart like the scapegoat. He is taken outside the city. He is raised up from the earth. He cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”; the cry of a man truly alone. But in all of this we have a physical account. A bruising, murderous physicality. A physicality of love through endurance As by his stripes we are healed.

 So while we continue in our isolation, waiting for that Easter morning when we can truly meet again. Let us remember how to love, and how to serve; and find those ways of maintaining physical connection; a desire to connect, to be vulnerable; to trust; to protect; to provide for; In a world that is more and more pulling people apart. Amen.

Introduction to Palm Sunday

There is no sermon on Palm Sunday, as we have the full reading of the Passion from St Matthew’s Gospel. What follows is the short introduction to the service:

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. It begins a journey, starting with this triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the Death Star of the Gospel; it begins with the cheers and celebration of the crowds; cheers that will soon turn to jeers.

Normally we would process from the Pleasance to Church. Today we have processed, more impressively, from Yorkshire to Putney. And we will move through this week to the upper room, like where we celebrate the Eucharist today, where the disciples gather for the last time; to the garden of tears at Gethsemane; then arrest, trial, execution on a lonely hill outside the city; and then a week today we will celebrate his final triumph over death in Easter resurrection.

This is not a Disney last minute turn around. This isn’t the joyful discovery that Baloo was not dead; the recount that snatches victory from the jaws of defeat; Harry Potter falling off his broom but swallowing the golden snitch.

The resurrection does not undo the crucifixion. The bread that we share is broken, the crucified body is a broken body. The church now more than ever is a broken body, separated in our communion from one another. We meet as the first disciples met, anxious, many afraid.

But we meet with trust in Jesus who has shown us the way. We meet in the hope of the resurrection that is to come. That does not undo our suffering, does not prevent illness, injury and the death of the body; but in faith gives us hope that the love we bear witness to this week is a love that will never die; that lives eternally, as Christ does, with our father in heaven.

So in anticipation of that joyful feast let us raise our palm crosses, if we have them, and simply our hands and our hearts if we don’t, praying for God’s blessing.