Advent: Like President Trump speaking at a feminism conference

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Romans 16:25-end, Luke 1:26-38

My first job in the army, days after initial training, was to run the homecoming parade for the Theatre Logistics Group op. Herrick 20 – the last combat operation in Afghanistan – where I was pushed in front of a microphone for a few words from the padre.  Without doubt I was the least qualified person to speak. It was like President Trump speaking at a feminism conference. As is so often the case, though, one of the most visible people on show was in fact the least in the company present.  It might remind you of St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, when he says: ‘the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour.’ Clergy usually find themselves clothed with great honour –  which probably speaks truly to how indispensable and honourable they really are.

Something similar occurs with the Christian festivals. Easter, of course, is the big gig and the focus of the Church’s year with the great public events of the crucifixion and resurrection. Throughout the world processions and highly visible acts of witness. But then there is Christmas - which the world has seized upon for all its fairytale story, the magic of the season, the everyday miracle of the birth of a new life, and picaresque postcards of country churches in snow. Though if it snows on Christmas Eve we’ll really feel it this year. Nevermind, cold churches. We might also remember that Christmas hasn’t always been popular. Oliver Cromwell banned it and everyone had to go without presents for much of the seventeenth-century. So, despite everything, it could be a lot worse if the puritans were in charge.

But what should be the most important Christian festival is the story in today’s Gospel, nine months before Christmas.  Because if we celebrate God coming into the world at Christmas, that is only because God came into a woman sometime before that. The feast of the Annunciation slips quietly past us in the latter stages of Lent – though theologically it’s the most critical event in the history of the world. 

We have been running in Advent through the various prophecies that point toward Christ appearing. We started with the patriarchs – the great men of renown – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; then we move on to the prophets, foremost of whom is Moses, the law giver, but also the prophecy of Isaiah who looks to the restoration of Israel; then, last week, John the Baptist, the last prophet – pointing towards Christ: ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’. Finally though, this week, after all those men, it is Mary who comes as the culmination of these great figures,  a poor peasant girl who is to be the Theotokos – the God bearer – who will announce and through her body present Christ to the world.

So as we enter into Christmas week here’s a first Christmas thought for you – one which Christmas movies also gets. Christmas is about inversions and surprises. Scrooge finally surprises everyone when he turns himself around, repents his old life and becomes jolly and generous. I watched Scrooged on Friday Night and there is an excellent line from Bill Murray: ‘For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be. It's a miracle. It's really a sort of a miracle because it happens every Christmas Eve.’ In Love Actually each of the characters surprise – even perhaps themselves – by putting their real feelings in priority ahead of their career, their fears, in two cases ahead of friendship and marriage.  ‘Because at Christmas you tell the truth’, as the refrain goes. There’s a carnival aspect to the season – where what’s not normally acceptable becomes possible – for better and for worse. 

And we see it in today’s Gospel with that phrase: ‘nothing is impossible with God’ and with Mary’s song in the Magnificat:  ‘He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.’  You wouldn’t hear that in many party political broadcasts.

The message of the angel Gabriel to Mary is the message of a new standard - in which the world is turned upside down.  The powerful men of the world will be gazumped by a poor peasant girl. The rich palaces of kings replaced by a dirty stable. The courtiers and courtesans upstaged by shepherds and beasts. It’s here that God chooses to enter the world. It is strange, it’s a carnival. It should remind us that at Christmas God may surprise us; that we should perhaps look for God in the people and the places to which we would not normally look; and we should check ourselves, to make sure that we have not become too grand or too complacent for God and the messages of his angels.

Today, Mary is our model. Like her at the eucharist we take God into ourselves with a mind to offering God to the world, through ourselves, in thought word and deed. This is too grand a task for any of us but God usually works through unlikely characters. All God asks is that like Mary we listen and obey: ‘Be it unto me according to thy word.’   Amen.

Advent: where Memory meets Hope

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 40 1-11; Psalm 85:8-13; 2 Peter 3.8-15a; Mark 1.1-8

Advent is the season where memory meets hope.

We’re swiftly drawn into this by the annual surprise of December, which hits without warning, and the realisation that our Christmas cards will be late and that what already looked like a busy month at work - certainly for clergy – has now become impossible because of everything else that MUST BE DONE. Of course, this year is very different. Last week’s Advent Sunday lacked the usual toys and cavorting children, and was a little quiet in church. You may also have missed the Christmas trees, and jingle and mingle; There are a few pines here and there – evidence of the ghost of Christmases past – but we might, this year, add to the usual nostalgia, the memory of what were once called “parties”.

Not hearing the usual bombardment of Christmas music in shops through November, may also have increased your sympathy for ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘All I Want for Christmas’; Gluhwine for two has a special sweetness this year, and yes with the smell of Christmas trees, we can be drawn back into those childhood Christmases, perhaps in Wales, and the memory of innocence, yearning, wonder and excitement. The memory of joy is part of what it means to be Christian. The memory of the goodness of life, of hope; of finding in the beauty, truth and love of the Christmas message, the promise of Christmas future and the possibility that it’s all worth bearing with. ‘Comfort, O Comfort my People’ saith the Lord, Tidings of comfort and joy.

But it’s also a time when memory causes pain. It is the first Christmas without dear…  We cannot see … this Christmas. Even after all these years, this song, this reading, the smell of the air at midnight, reminds us that to be human is to suffer loss; It is to grow more frail; it is to make mistakes; It is to suffer and to know suffering. It is the frailty of a child born in a stable, It is the dark horizon that lies ahead of him.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

What are your memories at the opening of the new Advent Calendar? Are your memories of comfort and joy, or regret and grief? Are we entering Winter stoicism, or Christmas nostalgia? These memories are what make and define us. We bring them to each Advent in hope.

And we can see this in the themes of Advent, this Advent wreath calls us to. The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, carry the original promises of God, of land, freedom and descendants. The prophets carry the message of hope – since Moses – the promise of redemption; John the Baptist points to the one who is coming soon, bringing salvation. And Mary carries within her body that promise.

These figures escalate the presence of God with us, leading in to Christmas. The annual cycle is the attempt to return us to the excitement of the story; To see God’s plan of salvation in history, To return hope to our hearts.

The bells of waiting Advent ring, 
   The Tortoise stove is lit again 
And lamp-oil light across the night 
    Has caught the streaks of winter rain 
In many a stained-glass window sheen 
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green. 

And is it true? And is it true, 
    This most tremendous tale of all, 
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue, 
    A Baby in an ox's stall? 
The Maker of the stars and sea 
Become a Child on earth for me? 

No love that in a family dwells, 
    No carolling in frosty air, 
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells 
    Can with this single Truth compare – 
That God was man in Palestine 
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

And is it true? Between all the layers of years of memories, like strata in the rock; In our life and the life of our family; Running down into the ground in the life of St Margaret’s and the Church; All who have carried these promises, heard this hope, Believed, or tried to believe;

By Christmas we’re swept up in festivity. Advent gives us a chance to ask ourselves, where are we? Between the memory and the hope? Do we dare to believe the promises of God in the valley of the shadow of death?

Advent is also traditionally the season for reflection on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. These are things with which we have contended this year in a new way. Confronting those daily figures in the Newspapers –Ask not for whom the bell tolls – It’s like numbers sent back from a war – Yesterday 504 – another battalion wiped out on the Western front. Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days. O come quickly! Today’s hymn sings – Before this judgement is upon us.

But the reality of death, which is usually squeezed out of day to day life, is enough to remind us that matters of faith are not peripheral, to be fitted into 10 minutes of mute observance on a Sunday morning, but the central occupation of our lives. Sure you may distract yourself with meal times, and snacks in between meal times, and naps in between snacks. But you cannot forever evade the eternal question of:  what is your purpose and are you avoiding it?! This is the message of Advent. Lo, he comes! We cannot blame consumerism and individualism this year, so where are we between memory and hope?

What is it that we remember each year? What is it of faith that draws us back? What has called us here on this first Sunday after lockdown?

And what is it that we hope for? What will Christmas be for us this year? Where will we find God with us?

The vision of Isaiah prepares us for John, ‘a voice cries out, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” ‘  And so Mark speaks of John as: ‘the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” ’ Now the task of all Christians is ‘to prepare the way of the Lord’ to ‘make his paths straight.’

This Advent gives us a chance to apply ourselves. For many of us, this has been the most difficult year in living memory. That is no small thing. It may seem superstitious but I think many are praying to get to the first of January without anything else happening. Many have put up trees and decorations early to fill the emptiness of houses and diaries with a little razzle-dazzle. And it may well be that we will have to encourage memory a little harder to earn that hope. 

But of course history has known so many ages where the joy and hope of Christmas have seemed utterly fanciful in the difficulties of the present. Several people have spoken to me this year about the fact that our St Margaret bell tolls the hour. Perhaps it’s working from home, perhaps it’s the lack of airplanes. I find it encouraging that, as St Margaret sticks her nose out above the surrounding buildings, so also her bells sound to hush the noise of men of strife. Clearly poets have also felt the encouragement of church bells so I thought I’d end this morning with the words of the American Henry Longfellow, who writes of Christmas bells, in a very difficult context, of bringing forth the memory of joy and renewing hope:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound 
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
    "For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

 Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Advent Sunday: Active Waiting

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 64.1-9, Psalm 80:1-8, 1 Corinthians 1.3-9, Mark 13.24-37

You have a gift. There is something within you, that is waiting to change the world. You have a gift.

1Corinthians is St Paul’s angry letter. He’s got a church which is fracturing over who to follow, that’s competing in immorality to prove how much greater is the grace they’ve received, where the rich don’t look after the poor, where the old-hands mislead the new people; where the congregation boasts of its piety; where the externals are exaggerated and genuine faith dwindles.

This is Paul’s lead in. He’s starting gentle. God is faithful – He’s reminding himself. God is faithful, though in the church at Corinth anything goes. And then in an early hint of what will be a feature of the letter, he writes of the richness of grace they have received so that they are not lacking in any spiritual gift.

This is what I want to say this morning: ‘I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift.

It should be an exciting thing to hear. You are not lacking in any spiritual gift. The Corinthians were nothing if not enthusiastic. I’m sure they heard that with delight.

We are not lacking anything. And I say this because even as a nation the British are truly adept at playing themselves down, and I think we especially are people who just get on quietly with things. We wouldn’t see ourselves as people who change the world. Which is why I’m reminding you that everyone at St Margaret’s has a gift and is by degrees, in our way, changing the world. But I want you – just a little bit – to be excited about what we can do together.

2020 is unlikely to figure in anyone’s best years. Apart from Jo Wicks. But in times of crisis you learn something. You also unlock rare opportunities for change. A past US President, in the wake of the Wall Street Crash and Great Depression, said in 1933:

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits.

Financial crises present opportunities to re-evaluate. Our country is being drawn into one at present and we have not yet felt the full cost of this pandemic in those terms.

The same president continued:

[This generation of self-seekers] have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere profit.

It’s good to hear an American president talking about social values. I’m unsure about whether 30s America succeeded any better than the UK after 2007 in restoring the temple to ancient truths. But next year will be critical for many in how we look after one another.  Crises tend to turn some people out to widen their sphere of who must be cared for. They turn others in to defend themselves against the apparent threat. As Christians there is no question. To only look after our own interests is to have no vision and where there is no vision the people perish.

We are called to widen our hearts and widen our circle. We are called to build and share a vision. I want us – with all our gifts – to have a vision.

Now there are three ways of being a part of church. You can think that church is here to minister TO you. That church offers something to fill in that missing part of your life, that need, that gap in society. Or you can think that church is here to minister FOR you. That it fulfils some sort of role in society on your behalf. A service provider. But I want to say that church exists WITH you.  That we are the church; we are the body of Christ. That all of us from the smallest child to the most venerable elder are an equal member of the body of Christ – whether you’ve made it into this building this year or not, we are here to minister with each other. We are here to be Christ for one another; me for you, you for me. Now is the time to get involved in building this house, in building the kingdom of God.

People underestimate what a church can achieve. One person certainly has limits. It’s hard on your own. But it’s easy to blame governments as having all the power and being ineffective. That road leads to cynicism and as the theologian Jim Wallis said: ‘Cynicism is the buffer which permits us not to make the changes that we know need to happen.’ It’s easy to be cynical: Cynicism makes for pleasant conversation.

But I know that our church can change the world. We don’t have just to be a quaint members club, a Sunday sideshow. We are not lacking any spiritual gift. We are not lacking anything.

Advent is traditionally the season for waiting; but this is not a passive complacent hanging around, as our Gospel tells us: ‘keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight or at cockcrow or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.’ Are you letting a gift sleep? This morning, this season of Advent, is a moment to rediscover our gifts. No one is excluded from this. No matter how old or how young, there is a role to play. There are hearts to lift. Even at death’s door you can be an inspiration to someone.

Faith should teach us to have a longterm view. But Advent is not about simply waiting. The Christian life is not a retreat. But it is about having patience. About finding the opportunity within difficulty, the personal development within adversity, the spirituality that has room to grow in uncertainty and yes also suffering. A view – and here is the most difficult part – that might even stretch beyond the end of our own life.

Advent, like Lent, is usually a time for introspection. For self-discipline, improvement – a small retreat within the year. This year I ask you instead to be watchful. To keep awake. Not for yourself or the coming of the Lord. But for suffering and unhappiness. For the struggle of others. Let us look this year to seek out the lonely, the anxious; the distressed; those who are lacking in food, shelter or essentials. Make this a watchful Advent where we find those within our community who need support.  Let us be a friend, a community to those in need.

This Advent: Let us find Christ in the heart of our neighbour, and let us be Christ to the person we meet.

Christ the King: Oaths of Allegiance

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Ezekiel 34.11-16,20-24, Psalm 95.1-7, Ephesians 1.15-23, Matthew 25.31-46

If you’re in the Church, the Armed Forces, the police or parliament; judges, magistrates and notaries, scouts or guides, if you become a British citizen, you will swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen.

I have sworn it at least five times.

Parliamentarians have occasionally limply protested: Several have crossed their fingers, Dennis Skinner reputedly added under his breath ‘and all who sail in her’,  cunningly suggesting his fidelity was in fact to HMS Queen Elizabeth II, presumably out of a steadfast devotion to sailors.

But Britain operates on a system. The Queen is the symbol of the system, so however you’re paid the queen’s shilling, you’re bought into her. Your passport allows you to travel in her name, and given that she owns 10% of the country, you can’t get very far here without stepping on her land – whether it’s Hamley’s or the Apple Store, Regent Street is all hers. 

So even if the monarchy is not your thing; if you squirm at the omnipresence of the established inequality that is the cornerstone of this nation, aristocratic privilege, from the very top down, you can’t very well get away from it. To be British is to be a subject of the crown. In our state, no one promises to uphold democracy. No one promises to uphold human rights. No one to defend liberty. But to bear true allegiance to the Queen and her successors is everything.

Now, if you ask most people who is the head of the Church of England, they will tell you immediately:
(thinking of Henry VIII): the Queen! But no – monarchs are merely supreme governors. Like Andrew Bailey is the governor of the bank of England. Governors are always less interesting, though Dr Bailey’s PhD thesis, prior to his career in banking was: ‘The impact of the Napoleonic Wars on the development of the cotton industry in Lancashire.’ A racy title for someone who was to go into banking. But no, once again, the go-to Sunday School answer proves right, the head of the Church of England is Jesus. And in this festival of Christ the King, we are admitting our twin fealty to Ma’am and the Lord.

But before we complain of divided loyalties, let us first consider the nature of Christ’s kingship. The key text here is in Philippians. Very likely this is Paul quoting perhaps the earliest of Christian creeds, when he instructs us:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 
who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited, 
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, 
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross. 

Christ’s kingship is revealed on the cross, as Pilate writes in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, Jesus Christ King of the Jews, though his crown is of thorns.

It is ironic. When Israel decides it wants to be like the other nations and have a king in the Old Testament, God warns them that a king will take their sons for his armies, their daughters to be servants, their produce and their labour. God is not a fan of kings. But the people insist. Christ’s kingship, on the other hand, is something else. it is not exploitation, or governance. Christ’s first decision as king is to empty himself, to make himself a slave.

And irony involves parody. Christ the king makes other kings look bad. All your wealth, your power, your entitlement, your privilege. That’s actually how not to be a king. And if you emperor, you khalif, you prince, you raja, are the opposite of the true king, then you deserve pity or contempt, and not honour.

But Christ’s kingship is not merely negative. He has redefined what it means to be anointed, to be Messiah: it is to serve; to suffer for the people. 

The early creed in Philippians continues:

Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name, 
so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father. 

Now, here is the danger. If we remain in the mindset of earthly kingship we read this as a happy reversal. Yes, Jesus had a bad week. Well actually just a bad couple of days. Palm Sunday was great and we’d all like to have dinner with a dozen of our close friends. But if we look at the resurrection as an overturning of the crucifixion we miss the point. If we think every knee will be forced to bend; to confess under the almighty power of the returned king; we have not heard the Gospel.

It’s not just the crucifixion. Jesus’ entire life is a critique of power. It begins by divesting itself of power: in poverty, as a refugee, complicated parentage, born among animals. In its content his life is given to healing the powerless, teaching against received wisdom and authority, serving, and challenging power. Execution is a natural end for one who wishes to expose the injustice of politics.

The point of the resurrection is not to turn defeat into victory. Jesus doesn’t come back to judge and destroy Pilate, the pharisees and priests. Even to make them realise how wrong they were, and bend the knee. The resurrection is the sign of hope that promises God’s restoration of everything that eschews power for love. 

Jesus’ kingship remains one that serves instead of ruling; that loves and does not harm; that gives and does not exploit. The judgement of the Gospel is that such who follow this kingship who share that mindset of Christ, will know truth, justice and love. And in doing so will grasp eternity, which knows only these, and nothing of fear, violence and self-concern.

There have been those who have read Christ’s kingship as the great retribution. ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.’ But when we look to the whole work of Christ, To the first martyr who calls for forgiveness of his persecutors: Of the beatitudes and Romans: ‘Bless those who persecute you. Why would the character of God be opposed to that of Christ and the Christian ethic?

We do well if we remember that today’s Gospel is a parable: they aren’t real sheep and goats, so why should we insist that the fire and eternal punishment is prepared by the God who has revealed himself as love? Who has emptied himself of power in order to show humanity how to live.

No but to follow our king is to feed, to give shelter, to comfort, to clothe, to visit. But not only to follow but to know him in those we serve, and so to touch the cloak of something eternal. While those who care for wealth, power and prestige will see those go up in flames with our transitory world.

The British monarchy, for what it’s worth, is no stranger to this kenosis, this emptying. We have not had an empress of India for some time, and by miles and inches the monarchy has rescinded its place in the world. And the faith of service of our Queen is at least beyond reproach. But to follow our King requires a shift of values. To seek generosity not wealth; care of others, not security; humility not prestige; love and not power.

You’d get a better lunch with the Queen. But it is an eternal banquet with our King. Amen.

Perfect love casts out fear

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11, Matthew 25.14-30

Today’s Gospel is the vindication of capitalism. You can imagine, Jesus, St Matthew and Dominic Cummings meeting together, discussing the future church: Dominic says: ‘we need a line that’s going to get some big hitters on board. At this point, we need investors.’ St Matthew: how about ‘to all those who have, more will be given… but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away’.
St Matthew, previous career, tax collector. Judas roars with laughter and slaps his thigh. Jesus quietly “that’s not what I meant”. But this parable – Double your returns! Show me the money!  God encouraging usury and banking – seems a little surprising, at first glance. As Jesus said, ‘give them to me young, hungry, and stupid. And in no time, I will make them rich.’ Oh wait, that was Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been slowly moving to the end of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew’s Gospel. Next week we have the parable of the sheep and goats, (usually enough to terrify any Christians in doubt of their salvation) and the end of Jesus ministry, before the passion begins.  All this section of the Gospel is about the End Times. So we’ve had prophecies of destruction – specifically of Jerusalem, of the return of the Son of Man. Last week we had the ten virgins, and the returning bridegroom; next week is the return of the King and the final judgement. This parable too concerns the master who has gone away, entrusting his property to others, before his return and judgement. The vibe is apocalyptic. So no – that great day when you stand before the Lord, he’s not going to say to you ‘Well. With all that I gave you, did you make much money?’

But we also mistake the meaning if we think – ‘Lord, I’ve been given all these opportunities and resources, I’d better get doing stuff, making the most of what I’ve received.’ The Gospel is never about doing things to earn your reward.

The key to understanding these passages is to understand that for the Church the world exists in a finite time between Christ and Judgement. St Paul thought the time was short. In today’s epistle, the writer defers when the day of the lord will come – but insists it will come as a thief in the night. In this Gospel, completed perhaps 50 years after the death of Jesus, it’s clear that this may prove an extended period. Last week the bridegroom was away, the virgins were still waiting. This week the man has gone on a journey. We don’t know when he’ll return. Next week the sheep and goats will do well or badly without realising it, before the time of judgement.

The call, the example, the lifting up of Christ on the cross, is the banner to which God calls his people. In Christ’s return, which meets each of us in our bodily death, which forms the closing bracket of life, We will understand our vocation, our calling and our faithfulness to it.

The Gospel understands the crucifixion and resurrection as the moment of crisis in history. At this point, God’s meaning becomes clear. For all of us who come after, it’s our response to this crisis that determines our character and faith. And maybe we can understand this better now as we’re currently living in a crisis.  Going to the supermarket, going to church involves risk. We’re better placed now to understand our priorities than in the normal stream of life. When you can’t go to church; when church is restricted; hymns, sacraments, community – Does it matter? Are you missing something? Right now, what does Church mean to you? A crisis is revealing. Revelation.

Last week’s parable of the stockpiling virgins asks if our faith has the endurance to persist. Do we have enough oil in our lamps to keep us burnin’, even through a crisis? Next week’s parable asks have we loved our neighbour? Have we reached out to support those in need – even in a crisis, when our thoughts are on our own vulnerability? This week’s parable asks, are we living our faith?

If we are living our faith then it will grow. By however much we are able to put out there, it will come back to us double. But if we bury it, it will die. Faith, hidden from the world, unexpressed, ceases. It’s not that we’ll be judged on how much we’ve done with what we’ve been given. That would be a salvation by works, where we justify ourselves; but our faith must be open, part of our lives. It has to breathe.

The understanding of why this faith gets dug in, buried, is clear in the parable. The servant believes his master to be ‘a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.’ It’s fear that drives his faith into the ground. There is a mystery to God and the ways of this world, that can easily make someone fearful. The judgement of both God and other people can make us fearful, just as a crisis threatens our security and so accentuates fear. ‘There is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them!’

The epistle of John, on the other hand, tells us that ‘perfect love casts our fear.’ The great heroes of the church, St Peter and Paul, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Bonhoeffer, Stein, Kolbe – You could write a song about this –But they were none of them restricted by fear. This is really the key to this parable. Christian love is not afraid; not possessive, inward-looking, concerned with itself. It’s honest, open-handed. It trusts. It will suffer but it will endure. It will take risks, any amount of risk, not for its ego, or to be seen to be doing something, but for the sake of the beloved, yes.

In next week’s Gospel, the sheep and the goats, we see how those who have not loved – have not fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those in prison, come under judgement. This week helps us to understand the cause – fear; whether that’s through insecurity, fear of physical harm (and Matthew is writing for a persecuted church), or fear of loss of security – protecting our own resources – fear of looking stupid, of incompetence, fear of rejection, of not being wanted; fear is the major impediment to love.

But here fear is also the block to experiencing the love of God, creating in your own mind a fearful and violent god; faith is based in what is unseen. Fear trusts only what I can see and count: money, the praise of others, being liked, pleasure. I’ve noticed taking funerals that one of things people are most keen on is to say that ‘he enjoyed life’ ‘she had a good life’. What most people want for their loved ones is happiness. This gives a sense of meaning: their life was worthwhile, if they found happiness: in career, in marriage, in children, in retirement. But how much more should we think of someone who eschewed happiness for their faith? Who embraced suffering for truth or justice? Happiness in itself provides no meaning, although it’s the only form of meaning for those who don’t believe in anything. But happiness can also be found in finding meaning – in doing what you know to be true and kind, in the following of faith.

So St Paul instructs the Christians of one of his churches to ‘widen your hearts’: ‘Now is the day of salvation! … We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you.  There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to children— open wide your hearts also.’ 

Perfect love casts out fear. And the riches that have been given to each of us will only increase as we are able to step out of fear into love. So no this parable is not about wealth creation. If anything it’s about the realisation that none of our wealth belongs to us, and must come and go freely. But it is about living in a time of crisis. Of knowing that the moment that matters is now; the kingdom of God is here: ‘let us not fall asleep as others do’; And of taking up the challenge of letting go of fear and embracing love; of keeping the faith; maintaining our hope; and serving our neighbour. Amen.

Remembrance Sunday: Friendship is Theological

We are cutting against the grain at the moment. We are told constantly that we must cut out everything that is not essential. Don’t leave home, don’t go on journeys, unless absolutely necessary. Nothing should happen that does not contribute to the economic life of the country. We are, in lockdown, absolutely homo economicus.

It’s pragmatic – like those wise virgins. People have to feed their families, pay their rent, their mortgage. The nation must keep on, but keep safe. We’re constantly told of the difficult playoff between keeping the economy going and our preventing more deaths. And who would blame any politician for having as his priorities:
1.   Keep deaths as few as possible.
2.   Keep the economy alive.
Who would argue with that?

But we humans are not homo economicus. There are things that matter more than risk. I think I wouldn’t be alone in thinking back in July that the people who wouldn’t be coming back to church would be our more elderly, more vulnerable,  But it turns out that, for many, society, music, church is worth the risk.  It is those with children, worrying over harm caused, that have kept away.

Now I am not encouraging anyone to take any risks. I worry constantly, and feel the pressure between what can be done, what should be done, how to make life richer, more beautiful, better, more meaningful, and the risk that may arise. How as Christians church is the most important thing we do, and yet as Christians, our first concern is to protect the vulnerable. But I know that the soul needs feeding as much as the body. People need company. They need a reason to live. They need to know there’s a bridegroom coming, and a feast to attend. Sometimes the non-essential is also the difference between life and death.

Of all the stories I encountered in the army – and there were many – The one that stays with me was from the battle of Arnhem. 2PARA have a strong sense of history and while I was with them, veterans from the Falklands war came to share their experience with the battalion. Among them was Chris Keeble who took command of the battalion after the Commanding Officer was killed in action at Goose Green. One of Keeble’s stories, however, came not from the Falklands but from meeting a veteran from Arnhem, where the battalion suffered enormous casualties including the padre and CO, as documented in ‘A Bridge too Far’ – with the late lamented Sean Connery. The man was asked: ‘What made you go on fighting when the battalion had been largely destroyed, the cause lost, and defeat inevitable?’ The man paused and replied quite simply: ‘they were my friends’.

Our armed forces are an unusual case. War – especially total war – is the unusual case. But for the generations we are remembering today neither money nor health was the highest priority. Love of country makes people do remarkable things. But it’s friendship which most often makes people capable of the most remarkable sacrifices. Friendship is prized, held above all. Greater love hath no man than this – that he lay down his life for his friends. This love is never commonplace but certain generations have proved the truth of this in ways and to an extent that few of us will ever be called to.

It’s the crucible in which the Church was formed since Jesus called his disciples not servants but friends. Friendship for Christians is theological. It comes before money, health and risk. Rarely, is it required of a nation but it was in the Wars we remember today, and today, in these different but difficult times, it challenges us to look after our neighbours in a way that honours the generations we succeed. To be a friend, where we are able.  That is all the Gospel.  Amen.

***

Act of Remembrance Introduction

Until the Second World War the national acts of Remembrance were held on 11th November each year. During the war they moved to the Sunday before so as not to disrupt the vital war effort. After the war they moved to the second Sunday of November as a commemoration for both wars.

Perhaps it’s the passage of time and peace in Europe that has made remembrance less urgent; perhaps it’s the diminished role and size of our armed forces; it’s notable, though, that even under the threat of Spanish Flu, rockets and bombing, this year is the first that has curtailed commemorations of the Armistice. Despite the severe terror threat and COVID, it is at least unlikely that we will be threatened with rockets this morning.

But despite our small event, with a scattering of spectators, I would not wish a year to go past without the acknowledgement of what we owe those generations, who at war and at home endured hardships we still cannot know, despite our present difficulties.

Remembrance is about retaining the memory of who we are; which is a people built on the faith, the work, the suffering of generations untold. In all this grimness we are learning what really matters, what we prioritise, what can we do without. We are here this morning to say that this does not include remembering the sacrifices of former generations.

Thanksgiving for the life of Ann Fell

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: John 1

Anne is at home. She’s at home here in St Margaret’s, surrounded by friends, by happy memories. She’s at home in this service, surrounded by beauty, and readings and music. She’s at home, and at peace with her Lord.

It’s funny how services come together, but there’s often a strange pull, where themes come together, and a certain song suggests a certain reading. Quite late on Rachel suggested the reading from John 1. But this Christian account of creation, resonates immediately with the hymn Immortal, Invisible, speaking to the transcendence of God, and of the light that shines in the darkness and is not overcome. Equally, Blake’s little lamb is being taught of her creator, and just as John 1 is traditionally read at Midnight Mass, we hear from Blake how ‘he is meek, and he is mild/ he became a little child.’ How many Christmases has Ann heard that reading, from these choir stalls and congregation?

Our Gospel reading also hearkens back to Genesis, starting with those same words ‘In the beginning’. Ann loved nature and her walks with Alan. You can see her collage of a bird next to Rachel’s mosaic in the library, entries for this year’s St Margaret’s Day Art competition, birds: ‘filled with such delight as prisoned birds must find in freedom winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark green fields; on – on - and out of sight.’

Her last service here, the day before she was taken into hospital, was Creation Sunday, held in the garden. The service finished with Ann dancing along to the piece this service will finish with. ‘Walk the dog’.

Ann knew herself to be a child of God. She was mild, a gentle lovely soul. And she knew the beauty of the creative arts and how they reflect their creator. Many here today have sung with her. And she had in her such life;  life she passed on to her children David and Rachel, but also to all who met her.

Today is her birthday. If you’ll excuse the indiscretion of revealing a lady’s age, She is 87 today. It’s also All Souls’. The day the Church throughout the world remembers all those we love and see no more. I know she would have loved the requiem last night and she was remembered by a great many of us there, Just as while we have our small service here, and others watching online, still more are thinking of her today.

Part of what it means to be a Christian is to have one foot in this world and one in the next. One ancient Christian prayer talks of this life as ‘our exile’; Our final hymn calls not for something new, But that we would be finished, restored, in order to take our place.

No life is free from pain, free from difficulty. With the loss of Alan earlier this year there has been a great deal of sorrow for this family. But Ann did receive grace upon grace. She was a person of peace, of love, of faith, of hope, of light and joy. These are now finished in her, and we can trust in heaven, where she is restored to those waiting for her, there will be singing, there will be delight, there will be perfect peace.

On a further shore.

In a greater light.

All Souls: in our victim is our hope

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Wisdom 3:1-9, Romans 5:5-11, John 5:19-25

When we think about justice; when we think about the judgement we might expect, or deserve, as the prelude to our eternal fate, we very likely have a particular idea. Shaped by the Good wife, Ally McBeale, LA Law or Judge Judy, our vision of judgement takes a particular form. Most of us see ourselves coming before the throne of an almighty, all good, all powerful abstract Father who knows the secrets of our hearts, and will weigh our thoughts, words and deeds, setting us at the level to which we’ve achieved.

Justice is fair.  It’s even. We will get what we deserve.

Our legal system is based on a sort of top-down model. The complainants come before the judge, a senior, respected figure, ‘your honour’, and this expert, this untarnished figure, will with the power invested in him by the state decide the terms of your case. If it turned out your case was being tried by Chloe Steward or Jack the Ripper, you’d have some reason to be uneasy. We need upstanding figures like Charles Atkins or Amy Coney Barrett.

But justice does not fair well in the Gospel. Christ betrayed, Christ deserted, Christ crucified between two thieves, is the ultimate symbol of false justice.  The victim of human power. Except in the parables, you don’t find a good judge in our Gospels.

Later, when Saul, persecutor of the first Christians, hits the road to Damascusm blinded by the fierce white light, the voice he hears from the heavens says, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”  The risen Christ identifies himself with the persecuted.

And Jesus tells a parable in which the sheep are divided from the goats according to whether they have treated the poor, the naked and the hungry well or badly - because, as he says, “as much as you have done to these, you have done it to me.” Jesus identifies himself with the victim. 

Now we’re told in today’s Gospel: ‘The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son’ So our judgement doesn’t come from the top. From the Senior staff settling the disputes of the little people; Instead, Christian hope is to recognize our victim as our judge. It is to see in our victim, our hope.

Now the world is not populated by oppressors and victims. Would that it were so easy to tell the good from the bad. Oppressive behaviour is still everywhere, but playing the victim can also be one of the most outrageous forms of oppression. Parents not infrequently torment their children with guilt – not visiting, not calling. And how many relationships end because one party crushes another with the sense of always being wronged, or ignored, or not getting the attention they deserve?

And we’re becoming more and more aware of the oppression within society.  From Me too to Black Lives Matter, oppression is a rot throughout society. But, at the same time, we can also sentimentalise the marginalised, and suddenly every white man is an evil oppressor, to the innocent victims of the rest of society. Treating people as victims can also be an instrument of oppression. 

But Christ is in the world as pure victim.  He’s not passive aggressive as ‘oppressive victim’.  When he’s condemned he offers no resistance and does not even condemn his murderers.

We should not think of Christ as good and his accusers as evil, preferably to be wiped out. It’s important that his disciples betray and desert him, precisely because we cannot identify with Christ, but as men and women of violence ourselves we must identify with the conflicted humans who allow an innocent man to die.

But we’re told that “the Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son.”

Judgement, then, does not come down from on high like we expect, from the judge in his box; but comes from below, from the crucified victim.  We don’t ultimately stand trial before a great source of impartial, imperial power. Our judge is among us as the innocent victim who condemns no one. As we heard in Romans: ‘while we still were sinners Christ died for us’. 

What this tells us is that Christian justice is not about the punishment of evil people, still less about the overpowering of one group by another, nor yet is it about accepting defeat. Christian justice is about reconciliation, which asks us to look into the face of our victims and oppressors and speak the truth. 

To recognize that if our hope is in our victim we must recognize our own violence and our collusion in violence. Because unfortunately to be human is to be involved in violence. Mostly the sort of violence that is simply thoughtless in skipping over someone, or petty in diminishing someone because of our own insecurity, or absentmindedness. We usually prefer not to see it, or seeing it find ways of justifying it. It can easily become a consequence of our work, or a necessary sacrifice, “for the best”, it can be “them or us”, or “it’s not you, it’s me”.  But in all our failed friendships and relationships there is a mixture of violence and victimhood, and so often it’s easier to walk away than face your pain, or the guilt and pain of someone else, that you’ve caused. 

Every act of oppression, every hurt inflicted or sustained entails a diminishment, a loss. To be human is to be incomplete.

Now in celebrating a requiem mass we’re giving thanks for and praying for the dead, in the hope of the resurrection: we pray: “grant them rest eternal and let light perpetual shine upon them.” This belief in the resurrection, and the future hope of all people, in the significance of life after death, is the cornerstone of Christian belief.  It’s only in the resurrection of Christ, the pure victim, that judgement is handed over to him.  Only in the resurrection of the one on whom injustice has fallen, that we can hope for redemption. 

Christian hope is about having our victim returned to us precisely so we can be reconciled to them; precisely so we can rest in peace. If death is the end; if there is no resurrection then there is no forgiveness;  there is no reconciliation.  If there is no resurrection there can be no justice and no meaning to all the conflict we experience.

The resurrection is the promise that we will be made complete, reconciled to God and each other.  And while it’s anathema for some Christians to pray for the dead, sometimes this is the only way in which we are finally able to face up to some of the most conflicted relationships we have.

Life after death is not about floating away into the ether, nor is it about a total shrugging off of the past to something entirely new.  It is rooted in our valued human lives and is a redemption of the past as well as the future. Christ calls us, then, to reconcile ourselves to our past as well as our present; facing up to our more complicated relationships. Seeing our oppressive behaviour with ruthless honesty.

This is also a service of Holy Communion though. And as Jesus’s body was broken we acknowledge our own brokenness and broken relationships,  The church is the body of Christ. But that is a broken body awaiting its full reconciliation. And in the sharing of communion, and as we light our candles, we remember Christ’s resurrection and our own participation in that, partial as it may be now, but awaiting eternity.

Finally, as a Mass, which has the same root as the word “mission” and is literally from the word “sending” or “sent out”, we leave this place in peace, leaving behind past conflicts, our wounds and our losses, in the faith that we do ‘not come under judgement, but have passed from death to life.’ ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.’ In our victim is our hope. 

Grant them rest eternal, Lord our God, we pray to thee; and let light perpetual shine upon them. 

All Hallows

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Revelation 7.9-17, Psalm 34.1-10, 1 John 3.1-3, Matthew 5.1-12

People sometimes get a little funny about churches having events on Halloween. I think the concern is that Halloween is the time of the enemy. A celebration of the devil and all his works. I’ve not myself known any ‘worship’ to happen on 31st October, and I think it would require a strange attitude to children dressing up and hunting sweets to see something truly satanic. Though by 6 o’clock Oberon has usually lost his generally cherubic disposition. The date is also the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, the symbolic start of the Reformation, and commemorated widely in Europe as “Reformation Day”. I’m sure our Roman Catholics friends would have something smart to say about that.

But no, despite certain protestations, I think it would be hard to see a significant threat any longer coming from paganism, monsters or the diabolic in this regard. In fact, I suspect something rather the opposite, that Halloween, even in its commercial Americanised guise, is an entry point to faith, rather than an enemy.

The great enemy of faith, today, is not perverseness; it’s not magic, idolatory or other religions, it’s materialism. It is disenchantment. And I don’t mean shopping. Just that solid, stubborn view that if I haven’t seen it with my own two eyes, I shan’t believe it.

And I also don’t mean science. A great many scientists have faith; have an inspired sense of wonder. I read a rather lovely essay from a Professor of Developmental Genetics, who’s also a priest, describing how viruses are ‘a rather beautiful and clever part of God’s wonderful creation’. It was a sort of defence of COVID-19, not in an insensitive way, but making the point that viruses are integral to the entire created order. And, of course, as much as we might be a bit down on viruses at the moment, mosquitos kill around 3/4 million people a year, and even the majestic hippopotamus has blood on his hands killing 500 Africans a year.

But no, it’s not science that is the enemy of faith, it’s scepticism.

Scepticism it seems to me suffers from two major faults. First, is a lack of humility. People of faith rarely claim to have all the answers. To believe in God is to acknowledge an otherness we cannot comprehend; a dimension of life that is largely inaccessible; the fallibility of the human condition. To have faith is to see through a glass darkly. But the sceptic believes she has the answer. She believes she sees the world as it is.

Scepticism’s other major fault is a lack of wonder; a lack of imagination. To believe in a world purely of empirical, describable things; to reduce personality, spirit, the human condition, to DNA, chemical reactions and biological impulses, creates a sad, world without heroism, beauty, or goodness.

You are simply a placeholder in the middle of a chain reaction. Though I’m quite sure Diana Ross wouldn’t see it that way.

Which is why at Halloween we are in the realm of Christianity. If you’re identifying evil, it means you can also identify good. The actions of monsters provoke the responses of heroes. The otherworldliness of the wicked, may remind us of the spiritual forces which shape creation. But, more, even in the joy, the imagination, the thrill of the night terrors, the artistry of becoming something else, points to the wonder and imagination that might lead us to God.

If we live in a world that is in some way enchanted, if there is more, if there is good and evil, we have begun a journey of faith.

The other aspect of Halloween is that it’s really the flip side of the All Saints coin. The word even comes from All Hallows’ Eve – the Evening of All Hallows – All Saints. It’s the Carnival side of Christianity – The night of darkness before the victory of day. The restless dead that points to the eternal peace of Christ. The fear that is cast out by perfect love.

In a sense then, Halloween reminds us of our present darkness. Of the suffering that this world is heir to. And one of the unifying aspects of sainthood is the endurance they have shown. This might be through poverty like St Francis; through illness like St Julian; through church politics like St John of the Cross, who was kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured for months by a rival group of monks; through the great many forms of torture and death endured by the martyrs at the hands of politicians, war criminals and terrorists – still today. One has only to look at what’s happening in the South of France; to the Easter Day bombings in Sri Lanka; the fearful lives of Christians in the Middle East; to be reminded that faith has always carried risk, and for some great cost.

‘These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’

This is part of our world which lives on the Eve of All Saints’ Day, a celebration of all the lives that make up the body of Christ. A day that celebrates the triumph of the Church. A day that celebrates the victory of good over evil, of perfect love casting out fear.

Again, the coming weeks look gloomy. Winter really is coming,  and with this Halloween announcement, the threat of the White Witch cancelling Christmas, we’ll need all our resources of faith, hope and love, to endure as we must and bring everyone with us to the Eucharistic morning. So though the night be dark and full of terrors, against the cold wind of secularism, let us keep the faith of the Church, with All the Saints of 2000 years who have shown us the courage and compassion, the humility and child-like wonder, that are the hallmarks of following Jesus Christ. And with perfect love let us cast out this fear. Amen.

How not to read the Bible

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Nehemiah 8.1-6, 8-12, Psalm 119.9-16, Colossians 3.12-17, Matthew 24.30-35

It’s Bible Sunday so I thought today we might think about the most important aspect of Scripture: How not to read the Bible.

Now lots can be said about how to read the Bible and we’ll come to that in time, but no one who’s been watching American politics, attended a University Christian Union, or dealt with the many religious eccentrics in the world can deny that we cannot be too clear about how not to read the Bible.

One of Rhiannon’s favourite things to tell people is how until she met me she didn’t believe Christians could be intelligent. It’s not that I’m super smart, but she had met a lot of Christians who didn’t know how not to read the Bible.

So let’s get on with it.

Firstly, deceptively, the Bible is not a book. Ironically, the word comes from the Latin Biblia, which literally means ‘Book’. However, the Romans were tragically always short on culture, plundering everything they could from the Greeks. Biblia, then, is in fact a stolen word, only in Greek Biblia is the plural form of Biblion, and so means ‘Books’. Only of course that’s anachronistic because books didn’t exist, so really it means ‘scrolls’. But the plural form is right. It’s not a book. It doesn’t have a start, middle and end. It’s not a single narrative. And, yes, it’s very laudable, as some do, to try and read the Bible cover to cover. But it’s not how it’s intended to be read. You’re not starting with the oldest even, the first book. And many of the books are collections themselves. The psalms is a song-book. Not many people would just read through the collected lyrics of Lennon & McCartney. The Beatles are over-rated. And even the epistles are not single letters, but edited collections of letters; so not intended to be read all in one go.

On the other hand, there are some who, looking for inspiration or guidance, will simply open a Bible and read a verse. You also come across Bible notes, or little pamphlets with a verse for the day, where you get a sentence – out of context – and allow it to speak to you. This practice – widespread in the church – is really not that different from reading horoscopes. There’s a heavy reliance on chance; we’re taking a verse out of context; we’re reading in to Scripture; I’m not saying that God couldn’t speak to you in this way, but he might also speak to you while you’re doing a crossword or listening to Giles Fraser. It’s not how to read the Bible.

There are then people who read the Bible because it’s interesting. I know.  Actually large parts of the Bible are quite dull: no-one gets excited about a reading from the Book of Numbers, Jeremiah is fine in small doses, but after a while gets a bit ‘complainy’; but there are some good bits. And it’s old, ancient even, there are languages, and people have and still do disagree passionately about it. But the Bible is not history. It refers to historical events. Certain books intend to try and set down some events as they happened.But it’s never just history. Also, if we read it because it’s interesting we’ll miss the point. Faith isn’t about the accumulation of facts. The winners of the Sunday School Bible Quiz don’t necessarily make the most faithful Christians. And part of the danger of just approaching the Bible because it’s interesting is that so much within it is contested, complicated, miraculous, a matter of faith. To read out of interest suggests a detachment, which means the stories will never truly come alive, or speak personally to you.

Next, the Bible isn’t a code that is only becoming relevant now. For all those Dan Brown aficionados and biblical conspiracy theorists: The seven crowned dragon is not an apache helicopter; the six-winged angel is not the Star Wars missile defence system. The horseman of pestilence is not COVID. Do not read the Bible to predict the end of the world. It’s been done before and we’re still not at Armageddon. There’s at least 3 horsemen still to come.

Finally, do not read the Bible to justify your own actions. That includes not clearing out a crowd in front of a church to have pictures of you taken holding said Bible, hoping to imply you’re a good Christian with God on your side. You could justify a great many things with the Bible, and they would not make the world a better place.

So now I’d like to turn to a couple of positive ways in which we should read the Bible. Firstly, own it. I don’t mean buy your own. I’ll lend you one if you need it. But own it as your identity, as your people, your history. It’s hard enough to relate to events thousands of years ago, but if you don’t think on some level that these are people are like you and me, that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, then it will never speak to you.

So yes, like Ezra we have our wooden platform, Ezra blesses the Lord, and the people answer “Amen”; there are readings from the scrolls and an interpretation. And yes, I want you to go away with joy, despite the weather, despite the current madness, because you are a child of God, just like the people of Israel in today’s reading from thousands of years ago. These are your people. Own the Bible. Own its stories. They are your stories.

And if some seem like you wouldn’t want to own them, just remember that 200 years ago the British were still trading slaves; that when I was born it was illegal to be gay in Scotland and Northern Ireland; that America may still vote in Trump for two terms.

Humanity is a work in progress.

Secondly, we have to believe that there are universal truths. Not that every single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife. Wrong Bible. But we must clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience; that we live better if we forgive one another; that love is the highest virtue and ideal; these are truths that we can hold on to whether we’re living through the fall of Rome, enduring the Black Death, struggling to make sense of the pattern of the stars, exploring new continents, fighting a distant war in Japan, trying to find ways of regulating the internet and social media, considering when to help and when to stay at home during a pandemic; these universal truths have carried the Church through every generation and country without alteration.

Finally, we have to engage personally with the text. The Scripture we heard earlier was not written with today in mind, but part of what it means to be a Christian is to engage with these stories, to wrestle with them and allow ourselves to be transformed by them. We should feel admonished hearing God’s Word, but more, we should find joy in it, especially when we hear it together, knowing the love God has for us.  I would like everyone to be sanitising their hands with more joy as they walk out than when they sanitised their hands on entry. If you let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, you will know to forgive those you struggle with, that you’re called in one body with the people here; you will find a moment in this service to be thankful, you will try a little to let the peace of Christ find your heart; and you will have confidence that when Christ comes to gather his elect, you will be with your people. If you only find time to read the Bible in church that’s okay.  The layering of Old and New Testament, with psalm and Gospel and an interpretation, even from one such as myself, gives the model for how we read. Though there’s more for when the time comes. But do not read the Bible as a single story. Do not read it as spells and horoscopes. Do not read it as a quasi-history or interest-piece, as a code for the future, or to justify your own prejudice or make yourself look better.

Own the Bible – it’s your heritage. Know that there are universal truths which have guided humanity to better ways of living for centuries. And engage with it.  Allow it to speak to you, to transform you, to help you find more and more in yourself, what Adam found near the beginning, that as the word of God dwells richly in you, so does the image of God.  Amen.

Martin Calderbank First Mass Requiem

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 1Peter, John 6

Yesterday, I visited Gil Whyman who is finishing a votive candle stand in time for All Souls’ Day, so that people on coming to St Margaret’s through the winter will be able to light candles for loved ones. Our happy situation is that he has been working with one of the foremost glass artists in the country Sally Scott, who designed the glass West Doors of Westminster Abbey and an amazing 9 metre representation of Jacob’s ladder for Leeds Minster. Gil on seeing a preparatory piece with the face of an angel on glass, immediately volunteered it for our structure.  I’m delighted with the work but particularly pleased because the image of Jacob’s ladder, stretching between heaven and earth has always spoken to me. Its strength, for me, comes from the fact that there are angels ascending and descending; mediating heaven to earth, but also raising creation up to God.

Now, very likely, Martin has heard a number of presentations on priesthood from more distinguished and well-informed clergy, not least his learned incumbent. The Anglican model of priesthood is complex, though. Cranmer, and so the Prayer Book, is most influenced by Calvinism, and the church has felt the pull of many directions, ranging from a view of ontological change – that ordination has changed Martin in his very being, not dissimilar to certain views of the Eucharist – to a more Protestant affirmation of the priesthood of all believers, where Martin’s role in the priesthood of the church has changed, not in himself. I leave it to those closer to him to determine how deep the change has gone.

The Church of England has generally preferred the language of ‘vocation’, of ‘calling’. The Greek word for church is ‘ecclesia’, which derives from ek and kaleo: ‘Out’ and ‘to call’ – so ‘to call out’. We are all called out – come on down, the price is right! But some are called out to a specific ministry.

And from the most ancient ordination rites we are advised: ‘Let a bishop be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people’ In our individualistic and hubristic times we often think of a calling as coming from God, on the direct line. The reality and the testing of vocation is usually if it comes from the people of God. It is then a very happy event that Martin has returned to celebrate in his priestly calling here, at a place which has been fundamental to the recognition of that calling.

But there is a separation, a further calling-out that priesthood is heir to.  I have known priests who following ordination have returned to their sending parish, and it hasn’t worked. Ministry requires a certain emotional separation, which is hard to develop when people know you very well; when they have developed that familiarity. For the same reason, I always advise ordinands to work hard to maintain friendships from before they are ordained, because those people will keep you grounded, and help you maintain your humanity, and defend against the prevalent feeling of isolation from which many clergy suffer.

So I wouldn’t advise Martin to return to minister here full time, but I hope that we will maintain the bonds of friendship that would support him and his family throughout his ministry. It is his calling as a priest to bring in Word and Sacrament the things of God to the world; but in prayer and friendship we all sometimes need lifting up to God.

Perhaps the place where this calling-out remains most marked in our informal society, is in ministry to the dying and bereaved. Nowhere does the priest more represent Christ, and so nowhere is the priest’s fallibility more visible. I recently befriended a man who, near death, turning to a priest, was told he did not meet the criteria of a particular church.  Were this man the most worthless, intractable criminal, he should not have met this response; would not have met this response from Christ; and yet a person whose failing health could not disguise a plenitude of life and love and faith – could miss the reassurance of the Gospel, if we fall short of this calling.

And in a year when I have done too many funerals, and felt the emotional impact of this, which has also burdened my family, the priest remains called out. For all that the priest will empathise, will love those he ministers to, especially in accompanying those final journeys; a priest must remain resilient, must find the words of faith, communicate the enduring and eternal truths; must look beyond the pain that is felt, that is perceived, that is shared as humans do share pain, but must like Jacob’s ladder continue to always point the way to the Father, as a walking sacrament of hope, even through the valley of the shadow of death, or as is often the case, Putney Vale.

This is a ‘testing by fire’, but as has been the case with the imperishable, undefiled and unfading witness of the lives of friends of St Margaret, which have so recently come to Christ; they reveal Christ and so often serve as a confirmation of the living faith that binds the Church together. These faithful lives, the Fells, Delphine, Elizabeth Worth, Gordon Winter, are lives that show us the angels ascending to heaven.

I don’t think there is anyone who regrets the bringing forward of the altar here into the nave. There is one thing though that is lost in the priest facing West – or here because of the odd heritage of this building South; that is the turning as the priest in an Eastward facing Eucharist, at times stands with the congregation, and at times speaks in the person of Christ, words of absolution, benediction, consecration, peace.  In reality, this is the whole ministry of a priest. Both to show the face of Christ to every person he meets, but to remember that he is human and, facing the same trials, has all the same needs of reassurance, love and hope. And to know with humility that those he serves may be closer to the path our saviour trod.

It is apposite then, in this requiem mass, that we receive the ministry of Christ, in absolution, in sacrament, in benediction, a ministry he has been called to, and a vocation which St Margaret’s has recognised and nurtured;

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

But together with him we give thanks for the lives of the faithful that have maintained this church, and the lives of the faithful that have maintained our hope and strength, and we pray with them for the journey and the ministry that remains ahead of each of us. Amen.

Prison Sunday

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Jeremiah 29:10-14, Ephesians 2:1-10, Matthew 25:31-end

When describing the process of reading, the great German philosopher, Hans Georg Gadamer, described it as ‘a fusion of horizons’. His point was two-fold. First of all, Scripture is not facts. It’s not a list of true statements. All Scripture has a history – a past; It’s written by people, so it has a present – the circumstances and situations, the education, the mindset of its authors. And it has a future, a horizon – the expectations of the people of God. Hope, judgement, redemption.

And, we are on a journey. We have a past, experience; a context in family, education, upbringing, society. We exist in this fine, turning world, with its present preoccupations, which will be as impenetrable to those who follow, as the Great Wars are to most of us. And we have expectations, dreams, hope.

Secondly, the way we read, the effect what we read has on us, our ability to relate to what we read, is given by the fusion between the horizons of our journey and that of Scripture.

Sometimes this takes imagination. We can all enjoy a pirate story without ever having been a pirate. But the stories, the truths, that will really speak to us are those that most resonate with us. When there is that psychological connection, when we can fall in step with Scripture.

These are not necessarily the happiest, most charming moments. It’s a bit like all those teenage boys listening to dull, moody bands. ‘I need to hear some sounds that recognise the pain in me’ sang a depressive Northerner in the 90s. But it’s at that point of connection that either Scripture will speak to you, or it will sound foreign, antiquated, irrelevant or untrue.

Now to read any story that is more than 2000 years old requires a leap. To have faith you’ve also got to have a little imagination. Fortunately, the Bible has all sorts of characters with which we might identify, and do at different stages of life. At Christmas, every child has related to a baby Jesus or a shepherd girl.  Every parent has looked down and seen a little angel or a little sheep. There are the busy dwellers of Bethlehem, the young couple, a wicked king.  Any Herod’s out there today? Some ancients from afar, some weary animals. Truly something for everyone.

But Scripture is biased. There is a preferential slant and it’s not one you’d expect. It’s not toward Europeans who barely figure, still less to Americans. It’s not towards men, who while unsurprisingly dominant, are not wholly so, and in the New Testament are scandalously usurped at some of the most crucial times.

Scripture is biased; but it’s towards the poor.

The Law and the Prophets are unanimous in calling out the nation on its care for orphans, widows and the poor.  In the Torah these groups fall under the protection of God himself. Deuteronomy: ‘Cursed be anyone who deprives the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow of justice.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’ In Job and Psalms it’s the evil man who oppresses the poor. In proverbs: ‘He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.’

So in the New Testament we should not be surprised to hear: ‘Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. But even more than this the Incarnation, in a mean and lowly stable, in poverty and infamy, God is revealed in, God chooses, the lowest place. God is the saviour, the deliverer, the protector, not of the rich, but the poor. It’s the have-nots, not the have-yachts.

So it’s only when the good man Job is reduced to rags and boils that he beholds the glory of God; St Paul can say: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.’ Christ reveals God in suffering, humiliation and execution.

There will always be those who hunt for God in riches #blessed, but they will not find God, though they may find something else.

Poverty comes in many forms. St John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul can be read as a theology of depression. Julian of Norwich’s visions came out of illness and withdrawal from the world. The Desert Fathers took themselves to the desert. The religious revivals of the nineteenth century sprung out of the Church going into the slums.

I do not want anyone to feel guilty for living in Putney, for having a job, for owning a house. One may very well be materially wealthy but poor by way of isolation, mental health, age, mobility, persecution, or other forms of limitation. And our wealth is part of our resources for service. But if God is with the poor, we shall have to encounter poverty to find God. We may do this through lockdown. We may attempt this in Advent or Lent. But ‘pure religion’ we heard is to support the vulnerable and those in need.

And for those of us with wealth it may be harder to read Scripture; harder to find that fusion of horizons, When God is first and foremost for the poor. it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Today’s Gospel, though, is a message for everyone. It shows us a horizon of justice that any of us can imagine as we look from our lives to eternity. And in this parable of judgement we have heard where we can find God: God is the man that is hungry. God is the woman who is thirsty. God is the stranger who needs shelter God is the child who needs clothing. God is the sick man in need of medicine. God is the woman in prison without a visitor.

The Gospel asks us to see the suffering that is in the world and to see God. To see human need and take it as our highest priority,  Our sacrifice and praise. Not to cut ourselves off from the homeless, the destitute, and especially on this prison Sunday, from those truly quarantined in prison.

Churches have one overarching job. To help people find God. As you know, God is everywhere. Let us seek him where he may be found. Amen.

The Wedding Feast

Sermon by Anne East, Reader
Readings: Isaiah 25: 1-9, Psalm 23, Phil 4: 1-9, Matthew 22: 1-14

“Go into the streets and invite everyone you find  . . both good and bad”

St Margaret’s likes to party. Food is quite a feature of life here. Even in Covid times there has been cake and soup. Jesus liked sharing food too: there was the picnic on the grass with five thousand people, the dinner in Bethany where there was criticism about the cost of the perfume, the breakfast of grilled fish on the beach after the resurrection. 

One of the hard things about the current restrictions because of the virus is that we cannot open our homes and invite friends to our table, we cannot have large celebratory events. 

Food is significant. We cannot exist without nourishment. The first thing a mother does after giving birth is to put the baby to the breast. Meals are more than food. Breakfast initiates the day. Midday lunch replenishes the body, evening supper  - or dinner – draws the day to a conclusion. Celebratory meals: events marking milestones in our lives: Christmas, Easter, Birthdays. A Wedding feast celebrates the love of a couple, their marriage covenant, the support of friends and family. A Funeral wake celebrates the life of the deceased, their continuing legacy among the people whose lives they touched.  

So it’s no surprise that when writers are seeking to express the relationship between God and humankind, they use this metaphorical language – picture language – of a feast.  

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23, probably the best known psalm in the bible. 

Throughout Scripture ‘the table / the banquet’ repeatedly serves as a metaphor for God’s activity.

Today’s we have a feast described on the mountain top in Isaiah 25, and the wedding banquet in Matthew 22. 

How did you draw up a list of guests for a wedding you might have had to organise? (Pre-Covid of course – in some ways it’s easier these days, although still challenging.) It can be a fraught business. There are the people you want to be included. And those you feel should be included. There are those your fiancé wants to include. And those your fiancé thinks ought to be included – although they don’t particularly want them. (And that’s without even starting on the in-laws’ list!).

In the case of my daughter Mala, the only wedding I have had to organise, it was easy. Anyone over here who was prepared to fly to Sri Lanka to join us was very welcome. And over there – well you just invited the whole village, because that’s what they do. You didn’t leave anyone out! 

Let’s look at our banquet on the mountain top: the context of this reading from Isaiah 25 is grim – it was likely written close to the end of Israel’s tragic exile to Babylon, and the previous chapter ends with a prediction of terror and trembling for the entire earth, affecting even the hosts of heaven. It forsees a cosmic calamity that afflicts all of the world’s inhabitants. This is what is called ‘apocalyptic writing’ – writing about the ‘end-times’. Such texts often include a catalogue of hardships – wars, famines, plagues, earthquakes. The prophet can still affirm, even in the midst of pain and confusion, that God is worthy of praise. 

“O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.” verse 1

The prophet recalls God’s faithfulness: “You have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.”  The table, spread before us, is a reminder of the past, God’s graciousness and provision, and a symbol of promise for the future. ‘Great is your faithfulness’ like the hymn we sang last week.

And who are the invitees? Well, everyone: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filed with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.” No detail spared! 

The king in Jesus’ parable in Matthew chapter 22 had also done his pre-planning. He’d obviously sent a ‘save the date’ message beforehand. You know how these days you send a ‘pre-invitation invitation’? Well that must have happened in first century Palestine too. 

However, the original invitees don’t show up, don’t take it seriously. When the time comes they’ve got other things in their diary. But the king has all these wonderful foods and wines to offer, so he sends out for other people to be brought in: “invite everyone you find . . .the good and the bad.” 

This allegory of the banquet and the first guests who refuse to come is usually taken to refer to the people of ancient Israel, invited into a special relationship with God. The prophets were sent to bring them in but were rejected. And then this remarkable new invitation – to everyone. Note that, you don’t have to be on a special invitation list. You don’t have to earn the right to be there. The door is open. That’s the graciousness of God’s hospitality.

My father was brought up in a village in Cornwall called Connor Downs and when I was a little girl we’d pass through there on the way to Hayle Towans or the beaches of St Ives. We’d often stop at a small terraced house where two elderly sisters lived – Beatie and Janie. (They had worked for my grandparents and had known my father since he was a boy.) We could never let them know when we were coming, they had no telephone and this was long before the days of mobiles. We simply turned up, pushed open the front door and walked in. We’d find a warm welcome, a pot of tea, and a slice of saffron cake. Gracious hospitality, freely given. 

By God’s grace, we are drawn into God’s company. “Go into the streets and invite everyone you find  . . both good and bad”

The invitation is only the beginning: being called to God’s table leads to a transformed life. What about the man who got thrown out because he wasn’t wearing the right clothes? 

St Augustine suggests that the reason the man is ejected from the banquet is that the garment he is not wearing is the one essential for the kingdom of heaven: Love. He is not wearing a garment of Love. It is an image we find in other places. Paul exhorts the church at Colossae “ Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Above all clothe yourself with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” 

One of the wonderful things about meals that we have shared together here at St Margaret’s is that there is always plenty – and more. We bring and share and contribute. When Jesus talks of the welcome feast we are invited not simply to take our places but actively to prepare it with him – to begin the work of building up his kingdom in our own lives and in the world in which we live. 

To be continued….              Amen. 

Harvest Thanksgiving

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Deuteronomy 8:7-10, 2Corinthians 9:6-15, Luke 12:16-21

I have a harvest story for you today from Vietnam.

A long, long time ago Vietnam was ruled by a good king, Hung Vuong the Third. He only had one daughter, so took in a poor orphan from a nearby island. The child was called An Tiem and the old king raised him as if he were his own, deciding as An Tiem grew wiser and stronger that he must marry his daughter and continue his line. The daughter, while having very little say in all this, by chance, fell in love with him and, while conscious of the patriarchal subjection of women, decided not to let it affect her personal happiness, and they were very happy.
 Being a good wife, but conscious of the environmental impact of her species, she produced for him two little children.

However, as with any king’s court, there were some bad people who envied the young couple and spread lies and rumours of how An Tiem cared nothing for the king and wanted to rule on his own. The old king got worried, and consumed by suspicion and fears, and having never read King Lear, exiled An Tiem and his family to a desolate island.

The island was a terrible place with fierce winds and cliffs that the waves smashed against. The princess was very unhappy at this reversal of fortunes; for the first time having to work, and with none of her delicious treats, jars of ointments, or Amazon Prime. But being a good wife she remained devoted to her husband, comlaining hardly ever, and together they became an effective team on that barren island.

Then one day with very few planes in the air An Tiem noticed birdsong and some odd yellow sea birds pecking among the rocks. Climbing up the cliffs for a closer look, he saw them picking at black seeds, some of which fell close to An Tiem’s feet. Scooping them up and scurrying away, locked down on this terrible island, like many he turned to gardening. He planted the seeds. Even though nothing else seemed to grow on this barren island — He thought perhaps these just might…

The family tenderly nurtured the seedlings. Soon little shoots grew, then turned into vines. Buds emerged, then flowered, then came fruits. The fruits grew larger and larger, first like a plum, then an orange, then a grapefruit, bigger and bigger, till they were larger than An Tiem’s wife’s head, covered with smooth green skin. Finally An Tiem sliced one open, discovering beautiful moist deliciousness and many more seeds. It was worth the wait. 

He called the fruit “dua do”, but his wife, listening to the birds who’d led them to the seeds said — “they’re singing ‘Tay Qua, Tay Qua’…” Which means ‘water melon’.

They packed the fruits away carefully, planting more and traded them with sailors for delicious treats and ointments, as well as food and toys for the children.

Then one day, An Tiem’s wife was looking towards her homeland and had an idea. Gathering some watermelons she wrote her name on them and sent them out to sea in the direction of home. The king’s servants discovered the fruits bobbing at the royal harbour and brought them in. The king was filled with joy when he remembered his wonderful family, and tasting the delicious fruit understood that they’d survived and flourished through great adversity. Realising he’d been stupid to send them away, he brought them back and there was a great feast of celebration. And ever after, the people of Vietnam have told the story of the birds and their magical black seeds and the delicious sweetness of An Tiem’s gift: the watermelon.

***

In all times and all places; for all faiths and all peoples, harvest is a time of thanksgiving. For watermelons, for corn, wheat and barley, for rice, humans have given thanks for the weather, for the soil, for the crops, that have given them the security of food through the winter.

The beginning of farming, around 10,000 years ago, changed human culture.  After centuries following the migrations of food sources, humans took root and ownership of land. Storable food made trade and wealth possible. Being resident, and not having to constantly chase food meant leisure, which gave time for reflection, for the development of art, music and language. And, of course, recorded religion. Adam is told on leaving the garden of Eden that he will toil the land, and his children, Cain and Able, are the archetypes of the arable and dairy farmer respectively. And so began civilisation.

But farming also put us at the mercy of the elements, rain and drought, ice and wind; no culture is without its gods of harvest because all who are involved with agriculture understand that we are dependent creatures; that fickle nature can fructify our crops or reduce them to nothing. And this year, perhaps we are realising again how dependent we are as creatures — Despite our neatly packaged food industry, human kind is always at the mercy of the elements. And that includes viruses and wicked stockpilers.

But the thankfulness that Harvest is connected with does not take the simple attitude of human thanksgiving. Harvest is celebrated every year in good and bad harvests — with great joy, hard toil, or meagre offerings. It’s not thanks that our harvest is better than theirs — or better than last year. We still celebrate harvest despite the hellish wreaking of devastation in other countries, famine and drought. We simply give thanks for what we have, share a little, and pray for the needs of others.

And sometimes, some years we might ask, really why should I give thanks this year?  Who would give thanks for 2020? When I went to Auschwitz a few years back I saw Eucharistic vessels that had been smuggled in for priests to take forbidden services. Eucharist means simply ‘thanksgiving’. You might well ask — how do you give thanks in a place like that?

Thanksgiving is an attitude. You can list things your thankful for; you can weigh up and measure whether you’re lucky; compare yourself to Ed Sheeran (who I heard made over £100k every day in 2019 – excessive), the king of Vietnam, poor Donald Trump, this might make you grateful, or bitter — but thankfulness is an attitude that looks at everything in life through the prism of ‘gift’. That we have nothing, hold on to nothing, but we who are alive are daily given inestimable gifts with which to do our best.

My mother calls me Pollyanna — based on some literary figure I have never read. Apparently, she is always optimistic. I don’t believe in PMA, and I find optimism shallow; I deliberately try and curb my optimism as it usually leads to bad decisions. I’d rather expect the worst than be surprised by it. But I do believe in looking for the good, for the opportunity in every moment and every person. And for giving thanks for any victory however small. For trusting that whatever the situation, somewhere there is grace working.

In our Gospel the rich man does not believe himself to be dependent. He believes he is self-sufficient. He is also greedy for more and more despite his considerable wealth. He is not thankful. Paul in contrast writes of the cheerful giver, the one who is blessed with generosity and becomes a blessing to others. And always in Paul we have his appreciation of the surpassing grace of God: ‘Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift’

Our Vietnamese prince and princess didn’t grow bitter over their fortunes but found those little seeds where grace grew. Even on a bitter windswept island they found a way to make a harvest and to give thanks. Your list of thankfulness maybe very long, it may just have one very special thing, but it pays to always remember we are dependent. On nature; on the people around us. And to remember that there are always things to give thanks for and grace to be found. So let us give thanks for what we have, share a little, and pray for the needs of others. Amen.

State of the Union Address September 2020

Address by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-end, Philippians 2.1-13, Matthew 21:23-32

Friends. St Margaret’s. Countrymen. Lend me your ears.
I come to bury 2020 not to praise it.

 But no, sadly, 2020 will stagger on these next months as the nation’s, the world’s, annus horibilis. Winter is coming. The students are cowering in their halls, Care homes pull up their drawbridges. Now is the winter of our discontent. And not even a new Archbishop of York can make it glorious. Is there then any encouragement in Christ? Any consolation from love? Any sharing in the Spirit? Any compassion and sympathy to make our joy complete?

Fortunately – to give us a breather for a moment – we are concerned this morning principally with 2019. Let us call it the year of plenty. Church attendance rose by 30% Our Easter figures doubled, Christmas services rose by over 100.  After 2018 ran at a deficit of £45,000, 2019 ran at a surplus of £40,000. But we also connected so much more with the community. We built relationships with 9 different schools and nurseries, with Ashmead Care home and DHERA; we opened up for recitals, recordings, concerts and films, music classes, art classes and playgroups. We have raised money for Christian Aid, the British Legion, the Foodbank, the Children’s Society, Sure-start, Regenerate-Rise, Trinity Hospice, SPCK and Glass Door, but most importantly we have built personal relationships with most of these charities and we are focussed on local issues.

No more is this evident than in opening our first Glass Door shelter.  Helen has driven this to become inordinately successful, as an ecumenical and community-wide venture, involving fundraising, pastoral care, volunteering experience and providing a tangible benefit to the lives of many. I think it’s not too much to say that we are now one of Glass Door’s favourite and most pro-active churches.

In our ethos we made clear decisions in two areas to become more open and outward, joining Inclusive Church, committing ourselves to stand against all forms of prejudice and to being more accessible, and eco-church, in moving forward in promoting, educating and behaving in ecologically sustainable ways. 

My first priority on coming to St Margaret’s was to simplify our worship with a clear consistent structure so people would know each week what they were coming to. With Mark’s excellent apron, decorated by Sonja, our worship has become more gathered and inclusive, especially with the addition of the ramp.  The new sound system, with extended loop system has brought a great improvement and, once again, Mark has outdone himself in building an intricate and beautiful cupboard for it. Mark has not received payment for this; it is one example of the incredible generosity in giving of time, talent and resources that enables our church to flourish.

Musically we have graduated from Mark, through some excellent stand-in organists, to Rhiannon leading the carol service, to our now embedded director of music Nick. Nick’s enlarged our worship with the use of psalms, a broader hymnody and new services, and has increased our musical output and reach with silent film showings, recitals and concert series, which at present provides a much-needed boost to morale and support for the Arts. We also have new choir robes and at a safe point will start to use them.

Too many people contribute to the life and worship of St Margaret’s to mention, but it would be remiss not to mention Deborah’s flower team, which has been really so wonderful this year, and Gill’s remarkable addition to Christmas with his wonderful nativity figures. The Sunday School has also had a fine year under the leadership of Bryony and Ben with Jo. A particular highlight was their engagement during creation season a year ago, which continues this year, and we have also been able to expand to cover the older age-group through Jo Beasley and Helen Speedy with our new inbetweens.

There have been various education courses in the last year but it’s been a particularly good year for collaboration. It was a great pleasure to run confirmation classes with Holy Trinity, Roehampton leading up to our hosting of the Confirmation service here; But it was also very good to lead the Churches Together in Putney in returning to a shared Lent course, which was struck down by COVID but will certainly be returned to in years to come. 

It’s hard to pick highlights for the year, but an excellent Epiphany carol service, too many concerts to choose from, the 2019 St Margaret’s Day which now seems like another world, the dog blessing, Merry Opera’s Messiah, a packed Jingle and Mingle surrounded by trees, a superb Christmas carols and sweet Nativity Play, and my induction as vicar are just a few examples of a wonderful year of celebration and joy.

The last six months has been a very different story. It was preceded by the loss of some wonderful friends: Christopher Trott, Elizabeth Miller, Ralph Bonnett, Alan Fell, Ian Lechmere and Elizabeth Worth. But since then we have faced an unprecedented cessation of services,  Most of our income streams dried up over night. Meanwhile pastoral need grew exponentially and we needed a new way to connect and express our spirituality. In 2020 I have taken 34 funerals, which is not far off the number I took in my previous 10 years of ministry. We gathered a team of 100 volunteers, and have done hundreds of deliveries. When the foodbanks closed we redistributed food to many households and have tied in with the council, GPs, help the aged and others in finding those in need. For morale and sustenance we sent out soup and cake across Putney and received the most wonderful messages in reply.

Meanwhile, our services went online. Nick came into his own and by trial and error our crude attempts improved and on an Easter that for many churches passed as an empty tomb, we came together. It wasn’t the same but I don’t think we’ll forget it. We have said prayers twice a day and, still, up to a dozen are meeting, where Morning Prayer previously had only been the vicar. We even tried to do a children’s church segment. It proved quite popular but mostly, I think, with adults who enjoyed Rhiannon’s impressive selection of puppets. And we had great suggestions of activities and challenges from Sunday School to actually keep our children connected. By streaming we’ve reconnected with some who are unable to make it to our building, and others who have moved away, or are family from a distance. We promised we wouldn’t leave them behind again and have successfully streamed our services since returning to church.

And we continue to press on. I’m sure our St Margaret’s Day Art competition will be repeated,  Again, wonderful to see the talents of both our children and adults. And we’re sure to see another festival concert in the garden. Our weekly recitals are providing some help to young musicians and at a time where everything is difficult and fraught with anxiety, we are doing our best to facilitate community and hold our fragile society together as safely as is possible.

This lean year, 2020, is not over. We are better prepared now for what may come. We have networks of volunteers and of those at risk.  We know we can provide soup in large numbers. We are ready to bring aid to those affected by homelessness – that begins next weekend and Helen has already raised over £1000. We know we can take Christmas online if we have to.

Is there encouragement in Christ? Yes. Consolation from love? We have pulled together as a church and a community. Sharing the Spirit? God is certainly doing a new thing, and next year’s figures won’t show it, but we’re better connected than ever. Is there any compassion and sympathy to make our joy complete? There is difficulty ahead. We have not said goodbye to our last friend, and we will not be able to say goodbye as we would like. But this is a church where people look after one another and as some move to the completeness of joy found in Christ, we will be there for one another in compassion and sympathy, and in the fullness of time will celebrate the lives of all whom 2020 has taken.

Before the Second World War, the Church had a huge role in education, welfare, care of the elderly and the near death. After the welfare state many in the church were afraid it would lose its sense of purpose, but they quickly realised that in any large bureaucratic system there were gaps and the church must find those gaps. Until recently the system seemed so slick those gaps had shrunk in many people’s eyes. This virus has exposed unprecedented needs in our society. We cannot expect the state to solve the problems. The whole charitable sector is already reeling from the crisis. This is a time when we can make a difference. The shadows of unemployment, mental health, marital strain, loneliness, poverty and despair lie in the wings. These are the demons of our time. We cannot stop Brexit, and I don’t know of anyone in vaccine research at St Margaret’s, but we can make a difference in Putney.

When you are first ordained in the church you are made a deacon. The commissioning of the deacon tells us: They are to search out the poor and weak, the sick and lonely and those who are oppressed and powerless, reaching into the forgotten corners of the world, that the love of God may be made visible. For the next 6 months, we as a church are called to this ministry: to reach the forgotten corners of the world, that the love of God may be made visible. This is a ministry in which we all now share. Good luck and God speed to all of us.

In catching mice and chasing cats

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Genesis 2:18-25, Psalm 8, Revelation 5:11-14, Matthew 18:15-20

We can approach God in three ways: In worship and prayer. n the intimate connections found between people. In creation.

I’ve spoken before about the twentieth-century Jewish theologian Martin Buber, but the simplicity of his argument is a very helpful way into thinking about God, and in such a way that can make sense to anyone, and breaks down some of the more opaque dogmas and contingencies of religion.

SO the divine is found in three ways: in worship, in relationships, in the created world. But his central point, again helpful in its simplicity, is that in order to connect with the divine, we must approach each of these in a specific way:

as a ‘Thou’ and not an ‘it’.

I hope you already grasp this. It’s not specifically about traditional language; though I think the reason many people prefer the old words is that sense of reverence, holiness, that we ought to speak to and of God in a special way; that by connecting with language that’s hundreds of years old, we might be better prepared for a reality that’s older than time. I’m reminded of the old lady who on being asked what she thought of the modern translation of the Lord’s prayer, remarked that it was all well and good, but it wasn’t the words OUR LORD used. Not quite accurate but there is something about resonance and the historical weight of words and phrases that builds over centuries.

But Thou has a respect, a seriousness, a humility in the speaker, it is a word of awe, a word for queens and angels, of a child for a parent. But more simply it’s personal. When we talk about an it, or even a he or a she, especially a ‘them’, there’s a distance. Whether it’s ‘the cat’s mother’, or a group of people we don’t belong with, there’s an abstraction that goes with the third person. To speak of Northerners, the Welsh, Europeans is impersonal. ‘You’ is personal – I’m not reducing you to a label, a stereotype. You is specific. ‘Thou’ is specific, personal and honoured.

If we’re looking for God as a thing, an ‘It’ far above or beyond us, through a cloud of incense; if God has become abstract; an idea; we won’t find God. If we address God as Thou, seeking God within, around, present to us, we will find God. Seek and ye shall find.

In worship through music, through prayer, through the intensity of being alongside one another with a common goal, through words spoken over centuries across oceans, words to comfort, to heal, to praise, to sanctify, to cry out. Worship brings us into the presence of God. We may not always feel it, but we are promised that where two or three are gathered in his name, God is there.

But even without this context in the connection that can be found between two people, this divine spark, this energy can be found: not when we’re learning the facts about a life; the biography; the job; the income; when we’re hoping to meet someone useful, or entertaining; when we’re trying to impress or charm. But at the moment we are vulnerable, when we reach out in love or in pain or grief; when heart speaks to heart.

Many of us will have felt a deeper loneliness in the last 6 months, the absence of touch; the meaning that comes with our social role, the relationships that bring us alive; it’s not obvious why quarantine or isolation should be so destructive to some of us, so damaging to mental health, but humans are not machines, and in the connection between two people is a divine force of recognition and energy that is more precious and missing now than ever.

Today, though we’re concerned with the most basic point of connection. Our createdness. People will often say nice things like – ‘I find God in a beautiful sunset’. Or in the vastness of the ocean, the unforgiving desert, the perfect golden curls of a child’s hair. William Paley famously made this an argument for the existence of God. That if he on a walk stumbled upon a mechanical watch he would rightly assume that this clever machine had a maker with a purpose. So much more, he argued, with the complexity and interconnectedness of nature do we see intelligent design. But God is not just found in the complexity and miracle of things and of life; it’s that within our shared createdness, whether it’s a grain of sand, the pleading eyes of a greyhound, the beating heart on a sonogram, we find a connection by the hand of God that has fashioned these things. It’s in empathy, in love, in the knowledge that this is not simply a cold thing before us, in the hallowed givenness of the world before us; that we may experience the divine. ‘O Lord our governor, how glorious is your name in all the world.’

We have to treat all manner of thing as ‘its’. We have to be detached. The government will be judging acceptable losses of human life and economic cost, treating people as statistics, in its coming decisions. Science will be doing what it can do eradicate the peculiar form of life that is COVID-19, regardless of its claim to have a place within creation. Mice must be trapped; cats must be chased. But the greatest evils of history have occurred when people are reduced to ‘its’, to statistics and we know the damage done to creation by centuries of treating creation simply as a resource to be used.

 Our Genesis reading reminded us that the animals are all created as companions – for relationship, while Revelation spoke of how all creatures are involved in divine worship; worship is not the provenance of man alone; and in our Gospel, not only does Jesus share his triumphant entry with a colt, we are told that ‘the stones themselves are ready to proclaim the triumph of Christ’.

 Since I arrived, the tagline of St Margaret’s has been ‘Reflect, Connect, Grow’. This organic trilogy, points to how we may find God in worship, in our humanity, and our natural world. But this morning is a chance for us to speak that ‘Thou’ to nature; to recognise that before we built churches, God built this temple; to find eternity in a grain of sand; in the rushing wind, the burning sun, the flowers and fruits; the unbreakable bond between a dog and his owner; even the lowly cat; in the baffling knowledge of a new life growing within you; and look again for that glimpse of a united creation praising its creator with one voice. Amen.

Merit and Grace

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Genesis 50.15-21, Psalm 103.1-13, Romans 14.1-12, Matthew 18.21-35 

Last week the very eminent American professor of philosophy Michael Sandel gave a lecture on the tyranny of merit.

He follows another distinguished American professor of Law, Daniel Markovits, in a recent attack on the well-loved idea of meritocracy.

Their essential argument is that the idea of a meritocracy is very attractive.

It suggests a just world, in which those who have talent and work hard are rewarded.

The tireless army chaplain receives the comfortable parish in leafy Putney.

The world is fair and efficient and people get what they deserve.

It’s the idea that underpins the American Dream, it was a pillar of New Labour’s vision:

Equality of opportunity.

What these two professors find is the case, though, is that more than ever a person’s chances of success are dependent on their parents’ income and social group. 

But more importantly, the idea of meritocracy is one that makes people dreadfully unhappy.

For the ‘winners’ the idea creates a sense of entitlement – 

I deserve my wealth, 

but also of anxiety – needing to maintain success for self-worth,

and exhaustion – highly paid people now work more hours than ever before in history and busyness, hard work is seen as virtuous.

Those who are not successful, meanwhile should blame themselves; lack of ability or application;

Leading to low self-esteem and shame for low-paid work.

My income is the measure of my success, is the fuel of my self-worth.

More than ever in this crisis, it’s clear that if, as a child, you don’t have your own room, access to a computer, the internet, outside space, a good diet, you may have something of a disadvantage.

But under the ideology of merit, the smart people with degrees and suits have earned their place in society by hard work and application,

And we all clap along at graduations, and celebrate our justified successes.

We are creating a stratum of people who are entitled, anxious and exhausted,

And another stratum of people who feel worthless and powerless.

We have a problem.

It’s an interesting problem and you can read plenty more about it.

I bring it up though because historically it’s related to a Christian heresy that continues to needle its way into the church and our journeys of faith.

This is the damnable heresy of justification by works.

Surprisingly, this is a British heresy; 

its leading exponent was a fourth-century British monk.

It’s also a leading cause of the Reformation eleven centuries later, and like a weed crops up surreptitiously when the church isn’t looking.

So let’s be totally clear about this.

There’s nothing you can do to deserve salvation.

You can’t earn God’s love.

You can’t win at church.

As far as your immortal soul goes, and your eternal fate, it’s not something to be achieved.

Whether you’re kind or selfish in no way impacts God’s love for you.

Which is to say you cannot earn;

you cannot merit salvation.

Now we know this.

We have the word grace.

It gives us gracious, gratuitous, gratuity

Salvation, eternal life, God’s love, God’s spirit within us, is quite simply a gift.

Free.

Unearned.

Unmerited.

This is, if you like, the first rule of Christianity.

Eternity, peace, reconciliation is the free gift of God to creation.

But most people don’t believe it.

I suspect part of it is that need to be liked, to gain approval.

Children learn this very quickly.

Oberon now knows all the animal noises, including the octopus, the ant-eater and the cheetah.

You can test him if he’s ever allowed back to church.

Part of the joy comes in getting it right, seeing the smile, the echo of the same sound.

Most of us are constantly looking around – to friends, neighbours – for acceptance, approval.

We want to be able to earn God’s approval.

And we also frequently think of life as a game, a challenge, a contest.

We want to be winners.

To succeed.

Perhaps, to exceed our peers.

My family for years had ‘the golden child’.

You could earn this sobriquet by outperforming your brothers in achievement or filial duty.

There’s a part of us that wants to be that golden child,

And it’s not good enough to be loved, to be good;

We yearn for the comparative:

To be ‘better’, to be ‘more loved’;

Best of all to be most loved.

To win the prize.

I blame the parents.

So God is not a meritocrat.

There is not an elite, a true church, that has earned salvation.

I’m reminded of the joke where St Peter is showing a newcomer round heaven, when they notice a high wall with a lot of loud singing behind it’

When she asks, Peter says: “Shhhh. That’s Holy Trinity Brompton – they think they’re the only ones in here.”

Grace is the free gift of all creatures.

Though for all of us, it may be a journey to recognise that we are each loved and of infinite significance.

You matter.

This is the undisputed truth in Christian teaching, but salvation by works is always creeping in.

So even in some of the most reformed churches people would become obsessed about living pious lives in societies that looked like a Handmaid’s Tale, in order to prove they were among the elect, the chosen of God.

Their reasoning was that good works don’t earn merit, but a life of good works is good evidence that God has chosen you.

That’s really merit by another name.

You cannot earn salvation.

God has chosen you and I know this because God has created you.

He thought it worth the time.

You are loved and you have all eternity before you to learn and enjoy that.

Now I bring this up because of today’s Gospel on forgiveness.

Part of the principle of any system of merit is about counting.

So to calculate who is the golden child you multiply the number of good acts by the effort taken and impact of those acts.

You then subtract the corresponding intensity of bad acts.

It’s like tokens on cereal pack: collect 10 tokens and then send in a self-addressed envelope.

This is also how justice operates.

Justice is usually depicted as a set of scales.

So the good and bad are weighed up – as the prophet Daniel says: ‘we are weighed in the balance and found wanting’.

So Peter asks today, ‘how many times should we forgive our brother’

Jesus’ answer is effectively that you can’t put a number on it.

Forgiveness is not quantifiable.

It’s not measurable.

It doesn’t keep count.

It is not earned.

It’s not merited.

As St Paul says elsewhere: “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Like Joseph earlier forgiving and looking after his brothers.

And as we see in the parable, it has nothing to do with the one who has wronged you.

The slave of the king does nothing to earn that forgiveness.

He is a slave.

He merits nothing.

Neither does the fellow slave.

Forgiveness is everything to do with the one who is wronged. 

It proceeds freely from the heart of the king.

It is absent in the slave.

But what the parable also reminds us is that as forgiveness belongs to God,

As Portia in the Merchant of Venice argues – ‘it is the attribute to God himself’,

So we can find this divine quality in ourselves when we are also able to forgive.

When we forgive we participate in the divine love.

This doesn’t merit for us forgiveness.

That has come first.

But as we come to understand ourselves as loved, forgiven creatures so will we discover within ourselves the ability to love and forgive.

So if you’re feeling successful, by which I mean entitled, anxious and exhausted, it’s Sunday – take a break – you don’t have to earn your place here.

And you’re not higher or lower than anyone else, whether it’s your first time here, or you’re churchwarden. 

And if you’re feeling ashamed and worthless, welcome.

Today is the first day of your eternity.

You are loved.  You are forgiven.

Go and do likewise. Amen.

A Sentinel for the House of Israel

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Ezekiel 33.7-11, Psalm 119.33-40, Romans 13.8-14, Matthew 18.15-20

So you mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel.

No one who’s been through the army in any capacity will have fond memories of being a sentinel; guard duty – stagging on, as it’s known.

Everyone, soldiers and officers, spends hours staring into the gloom, utterly tedious, uncomfortable, waiting for hours and hours and hours.

And yet, should you fall asleep, even in training, it would be catastrophic; 

and when something happens, it just means hours more in the dark and the cold, awake, with loud bangs going off here and there.

When I think of being a sentry, I think of cramped, cold, tired nights, hallucinating figures out of trees, getting through multiple packs of haribo to stay awake, thinking: ‘the night is far gone, the day is near’

‘the night is far gone, the day is near’.

Being a sentinel.

Unhappy and bad for your teeth.

Now, while the last centuries have seen mostly low-level dug in, hidden sentries; 

in Old Testament terms, they usually have the high ground.

They have vision.

It’s a pop-psychology truth that your focus when you’re walking shows your mindset.

If you’re eyes are up, you’re able to think long term, imaginatively or abstractly.

If you have immediate concerns, anxieties, your eyes will more than likely not get above your feet.

The danger with that is that you walk into things.

The prophet’s eyes must be up to warn the people; 

to keep in mind the long-term goals, the values, the questions of eternity;

to see where God is moving in the world.

But it’s not just distance, it’s also in the detail of the present. 

By the metaphor, most people are asleep, or busy with other things, but the prophet-sentinel must be alert to the truth of the situation;

In 1942 highly trained British observers failed to notice on radar the entrance of the German warships, the Scharnhorst and Geneisenau, into the English channel.

They were not away from their posts, it wasn’t a lapse of concentration; chatting over a cup of tea; 

the failure came from prolonged intense concentration.

They had simply become fixed by their anticipation of what they expected to see.

Or, more simply, think of those times you’ve been searching high and low for the salt but, wait, it’s right there on the table in front of you.

Sentinels, prophets, must see behind the complacency, the accepted, the unnoticed prejudice, the cares of the world.

The deepest needs of society are not so well disguised.

But it’s easy not to see them. 

The kingdom of God is very near.

But we see mostly what we expect to see.

The kingdom of God is unexpected.

But like the men-of-war in the English Channel, it won’t go unnoticed forever.

Finally, no one wants an alarm.

We’d rather pretend not to hear the call, even die in our sleeping bags getting an extra five minutes shut-eye, than having to draw ourselves out again into the miserable night.

Sentinels are not popular.

The prophet must see through what is expected, the clamour of the majority, the easy and the comfortable.

The prophet must have imagination and courage.

And courage is vital.

Isaiah on the subject of sentinels famously proclaims ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news’.

Quite. 

But no one likes bad news.

Rhiannon has several crooked witchy toes, curled like snail-shells, with thick nails like sedimentary rock;

 – and she won’t even touch mine – calls them “scaley” – 

These are the feet of the sentinel – who calls alarm; 

who gets you out of bed.

It’s scaley feet that announce violence and bad news.

And so watch out the sentinel who speaks that bad news to those in power.

It does not go well for the prophets.

Vilified, exiled, beheaded, crucified.

So our Sentinel job spec:

Uncomfortable, boring, unhealthy, dangerous work.

Must be able to maintain long term vision.

Must expect the unexpected.

Must be prepared to be disliked, ignored and murdered.

On a side note, I think the thing that best prepared me for guard-duty was contemplative prayer.

Hours of sitting quietly in semi-darkness.

But then guard-duty was a perfect preparation for parenthood.

Staying awake for days, remaining still in uncomfortable positions. 

At least with babies you can watch television.
We will have to have another so I can get through seasons 7 to 9 of Suits. 

I tried watching it before 2 in the morning but it wasn’t the same.

In all of these what’s most required of us is our attention.

Prayer, being a sentry, the care of the vulnerable means being attentive in the moment.

Now the prophets speak frequently of being a sentinel.

Ezekiel today: for Israel to turn from their wickedness and live.

St Paul speaks of being far into the night, and we hear elsewhere from Paul and Jesus how we must stay awake;

Watch and wait.

To be a Christian is to be a certain kind of sentinel.

Hopefully you’re not too uncomfortable, or bored;

St Margaret’s is not good for your teeth, but hopefully it’s not dangerous.

But sticking with prayer, fasting in Lent, Annual General Meetings, lengthy organ voluntaries, can be testing. 

Trying each day to love your neighbour, especially now they’ve got your number on a street Whatsapp group – sometimes requires gritting it out.

And to keep one eye on eternity – the far-distance – can be costly, takes effort.

Holding our attention to catch the unexpected.

To see the signs of God, to catch within ourselves prejudice and failure of love; taking people close to us for granted. 

And under pressure, do we just go with it?

Relax our faith-commitments, ignore the moral itch at work, the opportunity to be generous; the trial of loving someone when it is very costly?

Are we sentinels?

Prepared to challenge those around us?
To call them to action?

To point out in us, in others injustice?

It’s a strange September.

Children are returning to school after six months.

When did Summer start and end?

Are we progressing out of the abyss, or are we tip-toeing around the cracks?

A lot has been said in the past six months about strengthening society.

About how we look after each other.

We’ve had a national awakening about race.

In a year’s time the memory of our common vulnerability will be lost.

Humankind cannot bear very much reality – 

It’s the role of the sentinel to alert us to danger and to vulnerability.

So as we return to work, to school, to all those areas of our common life, now is the moment to look around.

Who is in danger?

Who is afraid?

Where is help needed?

Who needs encouragement, laughter, friendship, time?
Where can you make a difference?

What is the area of your life you need to address?

Do you need forgiveness?

Do you, at this time, need grace?

I was once on exercise in Germany.

My sleeping bag took a week to get to me so it had been a cold, difficult time. 

I was at the Regimental Aid Post, managing the hypothetical dead and after an attack we were all stood-to, watching, waiting.

Quite suddenly, unexpectedly, an enemy tank appeared 50m away in the forest.

They’re large and move surprisingly quickly.

The words of Jamie Lawson came improbably to mind:

“I wasn’t expecting that.”

But it was awesome.

And kind of terrifying.

We must be alert to the needs of others around us.

We should keep a watch on our own souls.

But we should also be watching for the unexpected movement of God around or within us.

‘for salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.’

We do not live in a mechanistic universe.

There is plenty out there to baffle and surprise us.

And if we have eyes to see, there is also the movement of God, sometimes near, sometimes far off, but with the power to break, to heal and to change the world.

Love and Do what you like.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 55.1-5, Psalm 145.8-9,15-22, Romans 9.1-5, Matthew 14.13-21

Ending relationships is not easy to do well. I’m not totally sure though whether it’s better to be the breaker of hearts or the broken.

Being conflict-averse, I once (in my callow youth) spent a long angst-and-tear-filled afternoon telling someone it wasn’t them, it was me. That evening I got a furious call around midnight from the same girl, who was at a party with a friend of mine who’d said to her how sorry he was to hear we’d broken up. Apparently, despite an exhausting four hours I’d somehow failed to convey the essential fact that it was over. Dreadful.

My most memorable experience of the other end was at university, when a girl decide the appropriate moment was on my birthday in MacDonald’s immediately before we went to see Titanic at the cinema.  We still saw the film. That was quite a traumatic experience (for a number of reasons). We got back together later but she went on to break up with me another 7 times over the next year, before I perceived she might have a problem with commitment. 

And I suspect that more than ever we live in a commitment-averse society. No longer do we expect people to remain in a single career their whole life; neither do we expect them to stay in one house, one city or even one country. Political allegiances have been changing overnight, and hopefully will soon in America.People choose the church that suits them at that moment – especially when church goes online – life is more prone to the swinging tides of fashion than the firmer ground of tradition. People marry later, and are more likely to dissolve their marriages. Even children now divorce their parents. I couldn’t tell you exactly what Oberon is thinking at 5:30pm when his pasta isn’t quite cooked and he’s been tap-dancing for a solid 3 hours but it certainly seems quite negative. Singers, of course, are notoriously flighty. But she hasn’t given up yet.

And all of this is a homage to the great virtue of contemporary Western society: freedom. Our culture loves more than anything the possibility of making free, independent decisions, of being able to walk away from anything, and being able to spontaneously act according to our desires. The perfect freedom of our society is the freedom of the happy child.

I know this because I see it in myself. Since I met my current wife, she’s insisted on collecting expensive things like furniture, and pianos, greyhounds, children and recently has demanded I chauffeur her round Sussex looking at flats. Having grown up in the 90s I’m reminded of the film Fight Club and the line: ‘the things you own end up owning you.’ We’ve cleared the crypt now but I don’t think we’re quite ready for bare-knuckle boxing. But as a society we venerate freedom, this happy-child freedom, and are warily suspicious of its opposite: the heavy yoke of commitment.

This Sunday’s Gospel relates the story of the feeding of the 5000, in which the followers of Jesus are fed with loaves and fishes. As Christians we cannot hear this story without thinking of the Eucharist. He blesses, breaks and distributes the bread prefiguring the later act at the Last Supper. All the readings this Sunday point to the food, spiritual and physical, of the people of God. Our psalm echoed the words most commonly used in graces: Oculi omnium in te sperant Domine: Tu das iis escam eorum in tempore opportuno: The eyes of all look to you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. Isaiah – Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which does not satisfy?  This bread of heaven is the Word that satisfies body and soul. And it’s there in abundance. When all have eaten their fill there’s still 12 baskets of bread left over.

For Scripture, the symbolism of bread goes further, though, as a primary symbol of liberation, of freedom. When the Israelites fled from pharaoh, they took with them unleavened bread, the IKEA of baked goods, to sustain them during their flight. In the wilderness they received the manna, bread from heaven, bread to go, sustaining them until they reached the Promised Land.  The place of bread in the liberation story is remembered in the Seder order, the Passover liturgy: the template for today’s Eucharistic liturgy, as we remember Jesus celebrating the Passover on the night of his arrest.

So when Jesus gives the people bread he’s deliberately using a symbol of his people’s liberation.  And as the “bread of life” he’s claiming that he is the means to finding freedom.

Now, as I said earlier, we tend to think of freedom as glorious, responsibility-free non-commitment. The life of a cat, lazily drifting through summer days. Whereas Christ’s claim is that commitment leads to freedom:  whoever comes to me, whoever believes in me will have life in abundance. How can we reconcile this?

Well, consider romantic comedies and all those clichés about perfect relationships. They’ve existed since Plato, who gives us the myth of soul mates as souls that are cut in two and spend their lives looking for their other half.  More prosaically we have lines like “you know me better than I know myself”, “you make me want to be a better person”, “you complete me”.  And this is because, when we’re committing to a relationship, we’re incorporating someone into our sense of self:  saying that we belong together. This sort of commitment isn’t about drawing boundaries and saying no but expanding our sense of self outwards so that our narrow self-interest incorporates another person. It is about stretching our sense of who we are to include others. And this is what we believe God in Christ demonstrates by extending his love to include all people. So Jesus who embodies the principal of loving others freely gives himself entirely for love of the world.

St Augustine famously declared “Love and do what you like”.  Not love God and do what you like, as he’s sometimes misquoted, but just love and do what you like.  And this is Christian freedom: That right living isn’t about rules and codes of protection for self and society, such as the Pharisees embody, but the simple principle of loving one another. And the first step in loving someone is saying, we belong together.

Even if the virus keeps us at a 2m distance – this is what we believe at St Margaret’s – that even though we’re different we belong together.  And that beginning with the people closest to us, with our families, with our friends, with our neighbours, with this little part of London, we will try and expand the borders of who we include, who we love, and with whom we say we belong.  And when we share this meal, this bread, that’s what we’re enacting – that we’re one body in Christ. But this is also about freedom – because the Eucharist remembers the Passover meal. And I suppose that’s what Christian freedom is really about – not the freedom to do anything we like at any moment, to satisfy each momentary whim; but the freedom to discover who we are as the people of God, which comes from belonging to a community. The Eucharist is a sign of our commitment in sharing a meal as we continue our journey together.

So perhaps we need to change the way we think about freedom: Not as a childish freedom of autonomy and fulfilling our own desires, to the freedom to be ourselves alongside the friends we’ve made here.

Most beauty we recognise is given shape by form: poetry in sonnets and villanelles, music in sonatas and symphonies, fine art in landscapes and portraits, movement in the steps of waltzes and tangos. In the same way freedom is given shape by commitment. Commitment without freedom would be tyranny, but freedom without commitment would be chaotic. Christian freedom is given shape by our sense of belonging, by our starting point in love. So Love and do what you like. Amen.

Prayer: breaking the Anglican taboo

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 1 Kings 3.5-12, Psalm 119.129-136, Romans 8.26-39, Matthew 13.31-33,44-52

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”

One upside of lockdown is that people had more time to pray. And apparently they did! Here we started saying morning and evening prayer together and have up to a dozen people each day gathering online, which will continue through August in mornings. August usually offers a slower pace of life so, led by our readings, I thought today is a good day to speak about prayer. In the Church of England private prayer is rarely talked about; It’s almost seen as something slightly embarrassing; Everyone does it, of course, but it’s very much private and personal; it would perhaps be bad taste to talk about it.

You couldn’t cover the subject in ten-minutes, but in true Anglican-sermon-tradition I’ll give you three things that prayer isn’t. And three things prayer is.

So what prayer isn’t: Prayer is not magic. Prayer is not “entering the void”. Prayer is not something we do.

So firstly, prayer is not magic, which is sort of how we often explain it, and have it explained to us as children, which of course leads to a lot of disappointment. I mean by this that it’s not a power by which we change the world with our minds. Most of us have been affected by tragedy, and if prayer were simply a means of invoking God’s intervention then we might right now be asking some big questions. Prayers are not spells.

Rhiannon told me the other day that crafts and buying craft materials are two separate hobbies. I have to remind myself that reading and collecting books is the same. And, importantly, that buying a book is not the same as reading it. It’s also possible to collect prayer materials – bibles, books, rosaries, icons, books of ancient prayers, candles, incense – to learn techniques with impressive names: lectio Divina, the Jesus Prayer, glossolalia (praying in tongues); these can help – like yoga blocks and belts can help you stretch further, but prayer is not an arcane art. It’s not that our force of will, our spiritual energy, changes the world. But having said that – do pray for what you want. What God does in the world is not always easily explained. And as our intercessions in church are there to remind us of the needs of our community, we’ll not find praying very helpful if we pray for things we don’t want.  Solomon wanted to be wise. Be honest in your prayers. If they’re ridiculous, narcissistic and selfish you’ll know, and that self-knowledge is worth something. The jarring sensation of praying to Christ for vengeance, should wake us to spiritual weakness. Praying by saying what we think we should say is just a waste of time. Prayer should hone our desires.

Secondly, Christian Prayer is not about ‘entering the void’. People sometimes talk about ‘clearing the mind’ and ‘thinking about nothing’. There are religions which suggest there’s no reality to either our transient world, or to ourselves. These are not Christian practices. Christian prayer always focuses on something – it may be as simple as your breathing, the light of a candle, a simple one-line prayer. But the point is to achieve focus, not dissolution.  ‘A higher state of consciousness’ is an irritatingly high pitched 90s house dance track by Josh Wink, not the goal of Christian prayer.

Thirdly, prayer is not something we do. It will not aid us a great deal if we sit down for 60 minutes of prayer and spend that time striving to achieve something – whether that becomes memorisation, the ability to kneel a long time, or an hour without speaking, which may well be an achievement, warmly encouraged by your friends and family, but has little spiritual benefit.

All we can do in prayer is set the conditions where God may speak to us. That may feel fruitless. Prayer often feels like a waste of time, especially if we’re very active souls. Who actually has half an hour to do nothing? You could use that time much more productively watching an episode of Friends. And, of course, one of the astonishing things about the show is that, like God, at any time on some channel, an episode of Friends is playing. Omnipresence, they call it. But, be warned, it’s also often the most active, and the most easily distracted, minds that benefit the most from time spent in prayer. Prayer is something that God does. Not us. ‘It is Christ Jesus [who] intercedes for us.’

Enough negativity. So three positive things about prayer. Prayer is discipline. Prayer is discovery. Prayer is direction.

In prayer, discipline is everything. When you start running everything is heavy and wobbly. Various parts of your body protest, You can’t get your breathing right. You’re heart pounds. You’re heavy on your feet. If you haven’t run in a while, you’ll feel no benefit, only discomfort and pain. Prayer is the same. If you want to know how easily distracted you are, try and sit for twenty minutes thinking only about your breathing. It’s like an assault. Before you know it you’ve compiled a groceries shopping list, an amazon wish list, and a directory of people you should must email immediately. Our minds are crowded, noisy places. The ability to hold our attention, to gently place each distraction as it arrives to one side, is not achieved overnight. And even once the various distractions have been put to bed, then our minds, sensing stillness, will seize the opportunity to engage sleep mode.

Rhiannon loves to point out that some of my time in prayer seems very similar to napping. To the uninformed eye, they can appear similar… Being still and alert, for most of us, will feel wholly unnatural to begin with. Here’s where the practical things really count. Don’t pray lying down. Don’t pray when you’re hungry. Don’t pray somewhere you’ll be disturbed. Always set a time limit and an alarm. This is particularly key. Anyone who’s been in a counselling role will tell you that very often it’s the thing a person says when their hand is on the door handle to leave, that’s the reason they’re really there. The same is true in prayer. It is often what occurs in those last 3 minutes when you’re desperate to move, eat and watch television, that define the experience. Always stick to the parameters you set at the beginning.

 And if we do persevere, and stay awake, prayer is one of the best ways to discover who we really are. Prayer should be a form of self-discovery, of self-understanding. A cynic might think of it as therapy for one, but whether we’re reflecting on the day that has passed, or the day to come; If we’re seeking forgiveness, or testing the desires of our hearts; In considering the stories of the wisdom of the past, Or reflection on current events, Prayer is a time to think through our motives and actions. To understand and confront how we have behaved and what are the forces at war in our hearts.

 To follow our instincts, our habits and our desires, within the space of our social contracts is what makes us animals.  And we are animals. To take time to reflect on what makes us who we are as a person, on where we have gone wrong, and how we might do better; that is the peculiar liberty of being human. Prayer is the Christian method self-discovery, and the means of achieving freedom from our unconscious programming, which St Paul called in last Sunday’s reading ‘the glorious liberty of the children of God.’

But discipline and self-discovery are little worth if they don’t lead to direction. Prayer’s primary purpose is to orient us towards God. I don’t mean this in a pious way. We know that God is love. Directing ourselves towards God means allowing the barriers we raise to certain people (mostly not like us) drop away. It means trying to keep on when we’re tired or hungry. It’s reminding ourselves again and again that this world, every part of it, and every person in it, is loved by God. That excruciating act of trying to put other people before ourselves, that can seem so natural to other people, but is so exhausting.

 But if all that sounds like too much hard work, it’s worth remembering that there’s no point in going anywhere if we’re not facing the right way. That there’s no more rewarding task than uncovering the person we are and are meant to be. That is a pearl of great price. And if you have known the joy of running, of finding the steady state, where the body and mind flow effortlessly, if you have experienced in playing or listening to music that synergy, that sense of rightness, you may also in prayer have found that equanimity, or that still small voice that is the basis of conviction. The metaphors Jesus uses in today’s parables are all about something great coming from something that almost passes without notice: A mustard seed, yeast, something buried, underwater. Prayer is the gift of God to unlock what is small and buried: from silence and wasted time, to bring forth the kingdom of God. Amen.