Easter Vigil Sermon 2019

[Please note that this was not scripted and I have had to try my best to transcribe it.]

Well, I don’t know about you but I am very tired. It has been a very intense week, a very emotional week, and I know it has been for many of you because you have told me so, and made me even more emotional.

When we got home from the Good Friday liturgy yesterday, I put on a film and it was The Passion of the Christ, the Mel Gibson film. I am very fond of that film because I watched it in the cinema on the day that something profound happened. I am not going to tell you about it but it was something profound. It was just me and two nuns in the cinema watching the film that day. If you haven’t seen it, it is a very moving, powerful, but very graphic depiction of what happened to Our Lord on Good Friday. I won’t embarrass her too much but my mum was very upset by the film. (Had I known she would be, I wouldn’t have put it on.)

It’s an amazing film and there is a wonderful scene where Jesus is brought into Caiaphas’ place to be questioned. There’s the moment where Peter denied Jesus three times and then Jesus, who has been beaten and is knocked to the floor looks at Peter and Peter looks at him, and Peter weeps and runs away. In running away he comes across Our Lady, Mary, the mother of Our Lord, Mary Magdalene and John, the beloved disciple. He goes to his knees on the floor and cries because he has betrayed Jesus. Mary, the mother of Our Lord reaches out to him and he says ‘No, Mother, I am not worthy because I have betrayed him.’ We don’t really know what happens to him immediately after that. But what we do know, the only record we have is of three people, Mary, the mother of Our Lord, Mary Magdalene, and the beloved disciple. (Plus a couple of other women in some accounts.)

The question I have got is ‘where were the others’? What happened to them because all we know is that they were in the Upper Room, they were in the Garden of Gethsemane and when Jesus was arrested they fled. Did they go back to the Upper Room? Were they hiding there? Because that’s where Jesus found them after his resurrection. What were they doing? What were they saying? Because they all, like us, were in the same boat, because they, like us turned their backs on Jesus like we turned our back on Jesus on Maundy Thursday, abandoning him in the darkness.

We left the Church in darkness and then, on Good Friday, we faced the stark Church, bare of decoration. And I know that for many of you it was a very emotional experience to come and venerate the cross. But what were the disciples doing? That’s the question. I want to know and I know that I will never find out but I am curious because we, like them, turned our backs.

But what do we do next? We come together in the night. We gather in the night to welcome the new light of Christ. Even though we have turned our backs on him, he is risen from the dead and he will never turn his back on us.

For those of you for whom, like me, it has been a very emotional week, this is the joy that finishes it because without that pain and without that emotion, without that realisation of how Christ suffered and how he was betrayed, how he bled, naked and thirsty for us, without that realisation we cannot have that joy, without that realisation, we cannot have the joy—truly have the joy—of Easter because otherwise we simply go from welcoming him in on Palm Sunday with shouts of ‘Hosanna’ to celebrating that he is risen. But what happened in between?

We are here and we are here to celebrate that risen life. I don’t know about you but, as we were listening to those vigil readings, which are long, and it can be uncomfortable to sit through, but they remind us of this story of salvation that has been going since long before we were even here. We step into it. We step into the story of salvation and celebrate the risen Christ.

All that suffering, all that pain, is gone.

If Jesus had simply died on the cross, it would have been worth nothing. Hundreds of people were crucified. Hundreds. If Jesus had simply dies, he would have just been one of those hundreds but the fact that he is risen from the dead, the fact that he has defeated that which none of us can defeat, means that our hope is restored. Our faith is restored and, whatever we have been through, we can enter into that new life.

We are now going to reaffirm our baptismal promises. This is the moment in which we stand and we say ‘I want to enter into that new life’ and the holy water will be liberally sprinkled on each of you as you do so.

Let us stand and enter into that new life.

Sermon for Good Friday 2019

Sermon preached at Farington Moss St Paul

Isaiah 52.13-53.12; Hebrews 10.16-25; John 18.1-19.42

The Church is bare. It looks different. Everything is bare and there is no decoration. It is empty. It is as though all hope and joy is gone for ever.

The readings and liturgies of Holy Week bring the story alive for us. We ponder Mary pouring out her expensive perfume. Why? Because she wanted to give everything. We ponder the request to see Jesus, and examine our motives and the picture of Jesus that we hold. We ponder Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and Jesus’ inclusion of even him in those last words and events of Holy Week.

Last night, you watched as I watched the feet of twelve parishioners. We celebrated the Eucharist, trying to place ourselves in the Upper Room with Christ and his disciples. We then stripped the Church and kept a silent watch until midnight. Not everybody stayed of course but it was interesting to see people come and go during the watch. No words. No interaction apart from maybe a nod or a simple wave. No knowing why each of those people was there, except perhaps the call to be near Jesus. And then the moment when the candles surrounding Jesus were extinguished and we turned our backs and left the Church to go into the night. Deserting Jesus as his disciples deserted him.

Today we take our place with Christ on the Cross. It is not an easy place to stand. It is not comfortable. It is one of the most painful things that we can experience to watch a body, naked and bleeding, flesh ripped away by scourging, hands and feet nailed to a cross and hanging there, struggling to breathe for six hours.

It is horrible and our hearts cry out for justice, for some kind of sense to it all. But there is none. All we can do is stand and watch as Jesus bleeds and as Jesus dies. And yet what is his response to all this? How did he respond?

His words in St John’s Passion reading are words of love and care. ‘Woman, here is your son.’ ‘Here is your mother’. Words of tenderness and love and care. And then those words that speak of the very real and human experience that Christ went through: ‘I am thirsty.’ ‘It is finished.’ The terrible thirst of hanging on a cross in the heat of the midday sun.

In the other Gospels, Jesus goes even further and prays that God would forgive those who cause his very real and physical suffering, because they do not know what they are doing. Such tender love and forgiveness even to those who bring him such pain. Such love and forgiveness shown right up to the last moment.

Why didn’t he speak up? Why didn’t he defend himself? Why didn’t he display his power? Why didn’t he, who was the very word of creation not put a stop to all this suffering and pain?

Today, we have to be the ones who realise that we are the ones who have betrayed Christ. We are the ones who have driven the nails into his hands and feet. We are the ones who have cast lots for his clothing. We are the ones who have turned out backs. We are the ones who cannot help ourselves. And what is Christ’s reaction?

‘Father, forgive them, for they do not  know what they are doing?’ Every little sin that we have committed has hammered the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet. Every little white lie, every moment of gossip, every moment when we have preferred our own comfort to the life that God calls us to. We are the ones. ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?’

So often we do not know what we are doing and we are in this position. We are all people slowly trying to figure out what it means to be God’s people. We are all trying to adjust our lives in order to live as God calls us to live. We do not know what we are doing, but in our ignorance and weakness Jesus says those same words ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’.

One of the people crucified with him mocked him; the other saw that Jesus was innocent of offence and asked to be remembered in his kingdom. Two people, both guilty, as we all are. What was the difference? The response to Jesus on the Cross. As we come to the Cross, we too ask to be remembered.

Today is the day that the Cross has to become real for us. We have to see Christ on the Cross and we have to allow this sight to touch and move our hearts. Will we mock? Will we tell ourselves that it was all a load of rubbish? Or will we see that Jesus died an innocent man and yet did so willingly to show us, in the fullest way possible, how to love? Will we too ask to be remembered in Jesus’ kingdom?

We watch, in our imaginations, as Jesus dies. We see his lifeless body hanging there and we begin to see the darkness that so often seems to overshadow our world. We see the darkness in our own lives, the darkness of our own sin. We see that death is the punishment for our sin and watch as an innocent man, the Word made flesh, submits to this experience of death. He is taken down and laid in the tomb.

The very source of life, which is the light of the world, that light which the darkness cannot overcome, willingly descends into the darkness of death. Satan trembles as Jesus releases God’s people from the grave. We tremble as we wait in the emptiness and darkness of these next two days. The whole earth trembles as we await the victory of Christ.

This death that we watch, with tears and broken hearts, is simply the beginning W    e know that our Redeemer lives, and that he will bring us to God’s kingdom and raise us up at the last.  We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, for by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Sermon for Maundy Thursday 2019

Sermon preached at Lostock Hall St James

Exodus 12.1-14; 1 Corinthians 11.23-26; John 13.1-17, 31b-35

‘Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world’. What would you do if you knew that your hour had come to depart from this world.

It is very interesting to talk to people who are approaching death. Several times I have had conversations with people who say, “Father, I am ready”. In one sense, it is a very painful thing to hear but in another it is one of the most beautiful. Very often, it is a time of last words, where families can become reconciled. Sometimes mistakes are left in the past and people wait.

Jesus chose to love. Jesus chose to serve. Jesus chose to wash the feet of his disciples, even knowing that one of them would betray him. His love was so deep, so genuine, so real, that even the one who would betray him was included in his last words and actions.

Washing people’s feet was the job of the lowest servant: so menial and so dirty was it considered. Imagine the time and place: men walking around in sandals, feet covered in the dust of the ground. I remember how dirty my feet got, walking around in Africa.  We are not just talking about a little freshening up: we are talking about removing all the dirt and dust that would have accumulated. It was not a pleasant task.

We are very self-conscious about our feet. So many of us do not like our feet to be seen, to be smelt, to be touched, to be kissed. Only in the most intimate of relationships are our feet seen and touched, or by medical professionals, or perhaps by servants whose job it was to wash them.

Their feet would have been dirty. They may well have been smelly. There could be no more pretending. Nobody could pretend that their feet were not dirty and smelly. It would have been plain for all to see. There was no more hiding from the fact.

I wonder whether the disciples were thinking about who was going to wash their feet. We know that they spoke about who would be considered the greatest. There is, however, no record, that they had a conversation about who should be the one who would wash the feet of the others. Were they thinking about this?

Then Jesus removed his garments. (It is plural in the Greek, suggesting that Jesus did, in fact, remove his clothes.) Jesus then took water in a basin and washed the feet of his disciples. I wonder whether the disciples were embarrassed by this. I wonder whether the disciples were thinking that it should be they who was the feet of the others—not their teacher, their leader, their rabbi.

And so Jesus comes to Peter who objects. ‘Are you going to wash my feet?’ There is a sense in which this was wrong. It should have been the other way around.

‘You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter’s objection was perhaps understandable and every year, when I ask twelve people to let me wash their feet, I get the same questions, the same objections, the same sense of embarrassment. ‘Father, are you going to wash my feet?’ Most of the responses I get, when people say ‘yes’, are a rather hesitant agreement.

For me, it is a moment when, in a very real and profound way, I remember who I am and what I am called to be as a priest. I am called to be an icon of Christ, to speak Christ’s words to his people, to serve them as Christ served his disciples. Of all the moments in the year, it is one of the most emotional and most moving.

Those who allow me to wash their feet actually teach me who I am and what I am called to be. They, actually, are the ones who help me to become what Christ has called me to be. Without them, my priesthood would be less real, less authentic, and so I thank them. I have asked twelve people to allow me to wash their feet, symbolic of the twelve disciples. Once I have washed their feet, if any others of you wish to have your foot washed, please do come forward when those twelve have left their seats and it will be my honour and privilege to wash your feet.

For the disciples, whose feet would most likely have been caked in dust and dirt, it was a lesson in humility and a lesson in grace. It was a lesson that taught them about God’s love and grace.

It was a lesson that taught them that Christ would be the one who would remove the stain from their lives. It was a lesson that taught them that they had to allow Christ the room in their lives to make them clean. They had to allow Christ in and put aside their pride, and even their sense of shame and embarrassment.

We cannot make ourselves clean. We too must allow Christ to touch our lives in the most secret and intimate places. We must be prepared to lay ourselves bare to Christ, that it is he who will cleanse us, that it is he who will raise us to be what God has created us to be.

Tonight is one of the most powerful and the most emotional experiences of the Church’s year when, if we allow it to, the truth of what Christ did for us can become very real to us. We find ourselves in the place of the disciples, having our feet washed, receiving Christ’s body and his blood, but then we will strip the Church and we desert Christ, as he was deserted by his disciples. A watch is kept until midnight. You can go home and come back later, as many times as you wish. You can stay for ten minutes or the whole three hours. It is our experience of sitting with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, fighting our need to sleep as we keep watch. We then leave, knowing that tomorrow we will take our place at the foot of the cross.

May these events become real to you this evening. May we all be brought close to Christ is his passion and death, that we may celebrate the great Paschal feast with renewed life and joy.

Wednesday of Holy Week 2019

Sermon preached at Farington Moss St Paul

Isaiah 50.4-9a; Hebrews 12.1-3; John 13.21-32

What would you do if God spoke to you and told you that you would have to suffer in order to do God’s will and lead people to God? Would you be willing to do it? Would you be willing to sacrifice yourself for everybody else?

The problem is that we are designed to protect ourselves at all times. The workings of our brains make us avoid danger. Faced with certain stimuli, certain dangers, our brains set off a whole process where adrenalin rushes through our bodies and we prepare ourselves either to fight or fly. This whole process happens in milliseconds. We come pre-wired, as it were, with all sorts of self-protection mechanisms.

Because this, of course, is how we survive. The world is actually a very dangerous place, full of dangers and threats to our well-being. We probably don’t realise it because so much of that which protects us and takes us away from danger happens without us necessarily being aware of it. We don’t go towards danger, towards suffering, we avoid it.

And if we know that somebody is a threat to our wellbeing, we tend to avoid them, to hide from them. If we know that going to a certain place, even if we always go there will put us in danger, we will often go somewhere else. We avoid danger.

Jesus came to supper with his disciples. The Scriptures tell us that he knew that one of the disciples would betray him and that he would be beaten and put to death. More than this, the Scriptures tell us that Jesus even knew who would betray him. What would you do? I think I would probably exclude that person. I would probably make sure that I was safe and protected. Most of us probably would because that is how we are wired—to protect ourselves.

John’s Gospel is the only one that tell the story in the way we have heard it tonight: that Jesus specifically gave a piece of bread to Judas and told him to go and do what he was going to do. The other Gospels simply tell the story of the Last Supper and that Jesus simply said that one of the disciples would betray him. However it actually happened, it is clear that the disciples didn’t know at the time that Judas was going in order to betray Jesus. Otherwise, they would probably have tried to stop him.

So what was going on when Jesus gave him the bread? Was this the same bread that Jesus broke and gave to his disciples saying ‘This is my body, which is given for you’? This was a holy event. This is the event that has led the Church to celebrate the Mass, the Eucharist, Holy Communion for two thousand years. We do this in remembrance of Christ and in remembrance of this event in the Gospels. It is a holy event that we should rightly take very seriously indeed. It is a holy event for which we should prepare ourselves and examine our conscience and make confession of our sins if that is what we need to do.

There are many things for which the Church, historically, has banned people from receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion. I remember once going to a Church where a woman was not allowed to receive Holy Communion because she was living with her boyfriend. She was not counted worthy of receiving these most precious gifts of Christ’s body and his blood.

If anybody was not worthy of receiving these holy gifts, it was the person who would betray Jesus and hand him over to the people who would beat him and nail him to a cross to die, bleeding, naked, and alone. And yet, to read the other Gospels, it would seem that Jesus included even Judas in the sharing of his body and his blood. It would appear that Jesus washed even his feet. It would appear that Jesus still loved him to the end, even though he was going to do such a horrible thing.

Why did Jesus include him? Why did Jesus do this? Why did Jesus not do something to protect himself?

Isaiah 50:5 says that ‘the Lord God has opened my ear’. Christians have interpreted this part of Isaiah as being a prophecy about Jesus. The phrase ‘to open the ear’ suggests that it was closed. You don’t open something that is already open. It suggests that what was heard was not in the hearing of ordinary people: there had to be another, special opening. In other words, it could perhaps be translated as ‘God has enabled me to hear things that nobody else can hear’.

It was this hearing that came from God that enables the servant in the prophecy to give his back and his cheeks to those who would hurt him. This is not just a submitting because there was no escape: this is an active giving of his back and of his face because of this special hearing that God has granted to him, because of knowing that ‘the Lord God helps me…he who vindicates me is near’.

The truth must hit us that Jesus willingly and actively went to his suffering and death for us. It was so actively and freely done that even the one who would betray him was included in the last words and actions of Jesus. It was not a passive going to death: it was chosen. This is why even Judas could be included, because Jesus knew that this was God’s will. More than this, Jesus knew that this was the very reason he took flesh and became man.

As I look at some of the pain and suffering I have endured in my life, I can begin to see how it has all been part of God’s plan. God worked through Christ’s suffering. God can also work through ours. It is not, I believe, that God wants us to suffer or experience pain, but God can use every situation and use it for good—even when we suffer and die.

If even Judas was included in the Last Supper, there is hope for all of us. Whether we feel ourselves worthy or unworthy, there is a place for us at the Lord’s table. Let us not hesitate to come. Let us receive Christ’s body and blood, so freely given for us.

Tuesday of Holy Week 2019

Sermon preached at Lostock Hall St James

Isaiah 49.1-7; 1 Corinthians 1.18-31; John 12.20-36

The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.

When I was interviewed for this post, one of the questions I was asked was ‘why are you a Christian?’ At first I thought it was a daft question, the kind that makes me want to roll my eyes, but actually, the question and the answer I gave have stayed with me ever since and I have been thinking about it a lot.

I talked about the very first time I ever—to my knowledge—went to Church. My mother and I worked out that I must have been 9 or 10. It was a pretty ordinary Church of England parish in a predominantly working class area of Bristol. It was neither very high nor very low: what we might call ‘middle of the road’. I don’t remember the hymns that were sung. I don’t remember what the sermon was about. What I remember is that I had a deep sense inside of me  that I was supposed to be there.

When I was around the age of 14, I had joined the Church choir and had turned up early—as I usually do—for Choir practice. The back door to the Church was unlocked and so I went in but there was nobody there. I climbed into the pulpit while nobody was there and looked out over the Church, slightly afraid that I would be caught. I had that same feeling. I was supposed to be there.

When I was confirmed, I was given a Good News bible. At one point I read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel every single day. I remember thinking that that was how I wanted to live my life and that if we all did, then the world would be a better place.

A few years ago, after I was ordained, I met up with a friend of mine that I was at college with for lunch in Lancaster. We were talking quite personally about our faith. I said to him that where I wanted to be was in the place of the beloved disciple, reclining next to Jesus at the table, with my head on his breast. In my holier moments, I still feel that way now.

As I look back, and the more time goes on, it feels more and more that I was born for what I am doing now. That’s not to say that it is always easy. I have very human moments where I want to stray and do my own thing. I have very human moments. I like the verse in the hymn, O Jesus, I have promised that says:

Oh, let me feel Thee near me; The world is ever near; I see the sights that dazzle, The tempting sounds I hear; My foes are ever near me, Around me and within; But, Jesus, draw Thou nearer, And shield my soul from sin.

In many ways, I expect that I will always be tempted to go my own way but when I come back to myself, that same sense remains that I want to be near Christ.

When I read that the Greeks said to Philip that they wanted to see Jesus, I feel something of that sentiment in my heart. I too want to see Jesus and I want to be near him.

But if we want to see Jesus, what does it look like? What is it like to be in the presence of Christ? What is it like to recline with him at the table? What is it like to see his face?

Perhaps we all have very different images of Jesus. Do we see him as the Lord enthroned at the right hand of the father? Do we see him as the friend of sinners? Do we see him naked, exhausted, bleeding and suffocating on the cross? What does the Jesus you want to see look like?

Some people in the time of Jesus wanted the Messiah to look like a mighty warrior who would free the Jewish people from the Romans and restore God’s kingdom and rule over it. Some people wanted Jesus to be the person who would confirm and approve of all their rules and regulations. Still others wanted Jesus to be the person who would maintain the status quo and not disturb their lives too much.

The problem was that for many people, Jesus didn’t fit the picture that they had of the Messiah. Jesus spent time eating and drinking with sinners. He spent time speaking to those who would listen. He threatened their comfort when he called out the hypocrisy of the religious establishment of the day. He did miraculous deeds, even if it was on the Sabbath. His message threatened a lot of people.

Perhaps this is why so many people took exception to him. Perhaps this is why he was betrayed by one of his disciples. Perhaps this is why he ended up dying on the cross.

Perhaps it does all seem like foolishness. Perhaps the real message of who Jesus was—the one who gave his life for us on the cross, the one who chose self-emptying rather than self-exaltation—is not the message that we always want to hear. Because if that is the message, then it is also what we are called to in our own lives.

What we are called to is the same life shown to us by Jesus, where we stoop to wash each other’s feet, where we are prepared to spend time with the people who are less attractive, less successful, less wealthy. What we are called to is to empty ourselves as Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming obedient to death on the cross. What we are called to are lives of weakness, lives of sorrow where we walk where Jesus walked, where we speak as Jesus spoke, where we love and heal as Jesus loved and healed. It is not an attractive picture to many people but that is the picture of the Jesus we are called to follow.

The picture of Jesus we are called to have is the picture of him who said to his disciples, ‘This is my body, which is given for you’ and ‘This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins’. This Jesus is the Jesus who places himself in our hands, in our mouths.

This Holy Week is an amazing time in which we are invited not only to see but also to walk with the real Jesus. As we seek to do so, may the real Jesus take root in our hearts that we may live like him.

Sermon for Monday of Holy Week 2019

Sermon preached at Farington Moss St Paul

Isaiah 42.1-9; Hebrew 9.11-15; John 12.1-11

If I were to ask you why you came to Church, what would your answer be? I am not going to ask for your answers but I want you think about what you might say. I don’t want to know what you think the right answer ought to be—what you think might be the right reasons for coming to Church—but I want you to think about what your answer would be if you were being really honest.

Or perhaps if I were to ask you why you have come this evening, what would your honest answer be? Because the vicar said that you ought to come as much as you can during Holy Week? Because you like the time to think and reflect? Because you’re the verger and you see it as your job to set up for the service? Because there was nothing better to do? What would your answer be?

The truth is, of course, that we all come for different reasons, and sometimes different reasons at different times. Some of us might come out of some sense of duty. Some of us might come to see other human faces. Some of us might come because we are searching for order and meaning in our lives. Some of us might even come because we have had recent experiences of being touched by God’s grace and wish to respond to that, to learn more, to go further in our journeys of faith.

The reasons we come to Church are important because, to some extent, they determine how the experiences will be for us. Our response to the services, the sermons, and everything else that happens, is largely dependent on why we have come.

If we have come because we like to hear sermons, then we will either be pleased or disappointed with the sermon. Any preacher can have an off day or an off week but if that is the reason we have come, we will not enjoy the service so much.

Or perhaps we come because we like liturgy and ceremony. We will be pleased or disappointed according to how well the service was conducted. But if the person leading the service is having an off day, forgotten something that we think is important, or if the children are making too much noise, or if the person next to us cannot find their way around the service book and we have to help them, we can find ourselves distracted.

Or perhaps we have come because we have a role in the Church community and see it as our job to do certain things. Well, what then if somebody else hasn’t done their job, or something happens that mean we can’t do our job? Do we go home because we are no longer needed? Do we sulk? Do we feel disappointed, especially if we have done some preparation?

Perhaps we don’t even really know why we are here. Perhaps it almost feels as though we have just ended up here and we don’t know what to expect.

In today’s Gospel reading, we have two different people, with two very different attitudes, with two very different ways of behaving.

Judas is the parish treasurer if you like. He is the one, according to the reading, who keeps the purse. He is the one who knows how much money they have. He probably has very complicated spreadsheets to manage their accounts. He cares about how the money is used. Whether or not it was true that he stole from the purse—after all, this was written long after it became clear that Judas betrayed Jesus and so this could have been added in to further shame him—his focus was on their resources.

Because of this, his reaction to Mary’s extravagance was one of criticism. We don’t know how much money they had. Perhaps things were dangerously tight. Perhaps he genuinely thought that the perfume should be sold so that they would be much more comfortable. We don’t really know and we are unable to ask Judas. But his reason for being there affected how he responded to what he saw.

But what of Mary, who, after all, was the one whose actions made this story worth telling? She was the one who had sat at the feet of Jesus while her sister was rushing around. She was the one who was taking in Jesus’ every word. She was the one who was hungry for his words. Her brother had been raised from the dead. Her whole life had fallen apart with the death of her brother and yet Jesus had brought him back.

It was in response to this listening to Jesus, to seeing what Jesus had done for her, to seeing that Jesus had given her back her life and her security. After all, with the death of her brother, she would have had nobody to provide for her.

It is in that moment that we lay aside our tasks, our roles, our busyness, and simply come into the presence of Christ, that we too might begin to see what it is that Christ has done for us. It is seeing what Christ has done for us that our hearts too will be moved by Christ’s love and grace.

I don’t know why you come to Church, or why you have come this evening, but I hope and pray that it is because you want to come into the presence of Jesus. I hope and pray that it is because you want to walk the Way of the Cross with Jesus. I hope it is because you want to go deeper into the story of what Jesus has done for us. I hope and pray that the story of this Holy Week will become personal for you.

I hope and pray that you will be so moved by what Christ has done for you that your response will be to pour out the precious perfume. I hope and pray that your response will be not to care what other people think but to pour out your love to Christ, who poured out his love for you.

I hope that you will hear Christ’s voice saying to you, ‘This is for you.’ As we receive Holy Communion each day this Holy Week, I pray that you will hear his voice saying to you, ‘This is my body, given for you.’

The Parable of the Prodigal Son talk 4: the Father's love

Introduction

I feel like we have been on a rather deep journey with the Parable of the Prodigal Son. As I keep saying, it has been something of a labour of love for me and I hope you have enjoyed these talks as much as I have enjoyed preparing them.

I have spoken about the nature of sin, the consequences of sin, and the very normal and human journeys that many of us have taken in our lives, often away from God, whether we have always realised or not that this is what we are doing.

In last week’s talk, I spoke about the process of making the journey home. For many of us, when we find that we have strayed, that we have sinned, it can be extremely hard to swallow our pride and make the journey home through the gifts of the Sacraments that Christ gave to his Church. Baptism, for those not already baptised, is the gift of being cleansed and being able to start again. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession, is the gift given to the Church for those who are baptised who have strayed, as we all so often do.

We have spent much time reflecting on our side of the story: our sin, repentance, and coming home. Today we turn our attention to God on what God is doing when we stray, when we sin. We will look at a few parts of Scripture to help us think about this. Ultimately, it is, or should be, more about God than about us, if we really seek to go deeper in our journey of faith.

Ultimately, God needs to become the very centre of our lives, rather than the centre of our lives being ourselves, our own desires and temptations.

Reading of Luke 15:11-32

Talk

²⁰ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

We often think of repentance as an instantaneous moment but it is, in reality, more often a journey home that we have to take. This is not because God needs us to do anything before God can forgive us: rather the journey has more to do with our own states of being and needs than God’s. Let us remember that God doesn’t need anything from us. If God needed anything from us, then God would cease to be God. We, however, need everything from God.

Because I am so passionate about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I absolutely believe that it is an essential part of the life of the Church. It is perhaps Christ’s greatest gift to the Church, to those that are baptised, but it is one that the Church—at least the Church of England—makes so little use of. I think that this is because we misunderstand so much about it.

For some people, it is because we see it—wrongly, in my opinion—as Catholic. In one sense, it is Catholic in the true sense of Catholic, meaning universal. It is a gift to the universal Church and, as I mentioned last week, even the very Protestant Book of Common Prayer emphasised the importance of self-examination and receiving absolution after the laying bare of one’s sins by some learned minister of God’s Word.

For others, it is perhaps a sense of pride that stops people making use of it. The sense that we don’t want to tell anybody else the things that we have done wrong. It is pride that gets in the way of coming home. The sharing of sins to a priest in Confession is not about the priest knowing your secrets; it is about naming those sins through which process they lose their power over us.

For others it is a kind of intellectual or theological argument that we go through. As I had argued before I personally discovered the treasure of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we argue that we have only one mediator between us and God, Jesus Christ, and don’t need any further mediators. But we forget that Christ gave authority to his disciples to absolve sins. Why did he do this? I think the answer is that he knew that we would need it. It is the process by which we ‘set off’ home and I have never found something that works so powerfully to release me from the mistakes that I have made.

While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.

Part of our fear with the whole subject of repentance and confession is that we sometimes fear that perhaps the things we have done are too bad, beyond forgiveness. We have sometimes spent so long hiding in the bushes away from God and from each other that we really fear coming out in case God is really angry with us.

What the Parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us is that God see us while we are still far off. The ‘while he was still far off’ is important because it teaches us that God’s heart is to forgive us and welcome us home. God is not waiting for us to get home: God is already waiting, already looking for us. God never stops looking for the lost. God’s compassion is limitless. God looks at us and our lives and is filled with compassion.

I like to picture the father in the parable at the gate, constantly scanning the horizon to see whether his son is coming home. Perhaps the father would have been entitled to be angry with his son and completely disown him. After all, the son was the one who decided to take what was to be his and leave home as though his father was already dead. Nobody could have blamed the father for being angry.

The father is, of course, a metaphor for God. When we really think about the things we have done wrong, we too have to admit that God has every right to be angry with us. God is perfectly and justly entitled to be angry and punish us. It is what we deserve because so often we stray from God and go our own way.

We don’t like to talk about the wrath of God. We avoid talking about it. But, if you think about it, justice demands that our sins be punished. Justice demands that people face the consequences of their sins. The more I have reflected on sin and judgement, the more I have come to believe that it is not so much that God punishes us as much as it is we ourselves who choose this separation from God, in which there is no eternal life. It is not God’s choice but ours.

Because we all tend to have that sense of justice, we look at the evils of the world, or the sins and crave justice. We crave punishment for the sins of others. When we look at the horrific stories in our news, we want the perpetrators to be punished. We want justice. Perhaps this is why we sometimes think that God will punish us. If we become aware of our sins, then we realise that God has every right to punish and so we come to God on our knees seeking to be the least in the Kingdom of God.

he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him

What actually happens, as the parable illustrates, is that the father rushes towards the son, even before he has made it all the way home and embraces him. This is what God does to us when we take those first steps towards God. God runs towards us and embraces us. God does not wait for us to sort things out, or get everything in our lives right or perfect. God runs to us, exactly as we are, when we begin to make that journey home. More than that, God puts his arms around us and kisses us. It is almost as though we had never run away. Except that the fact that we have run away means that the Father’s love for us is much stronger because he simply wants us to come home.

⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

This verse from St Paul’s letter to the Romans tell us that God acted for us ‘while we were still sinners’. In other words, while we were still lost in our sins, God did what was necessary for us to come home. God does not wait for us. God acts while God is waiting for us to make that journey back towards God.

¹⁸ Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

This verse from Isaiah 1 shows us something more of God’s heart. There is an acknowledgement that we have done wrong. There is an acknowledgement that we have sinned. Our sins are like scarlet. You cannot hide scarlet: it is there for all to see. It is one of the most powerful and vivid colours that our eyes are very quickly drawn to. We cannot take them away ourselves. We cannot take away the stain of sin: the scarlet stain. God’s promise is that if we come to him, they shall be white. We will be made clean and whole. We will be made as soft as wool.

²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

These verses from Ezekiel 36 show us that God himself will do the cleansing. More than that, he will replace our hearts. Our hearts that have sometimes grown so hard towards God will be made soft. This means that we may be prone to tears as we reflect on our sins and what God has done for us but that is absolutely right. You cannot reshape stone: all you can do is break it or chip away at it. Flesh can be changed and reshaped.

The best part of the Parable is that the father threw a party for his son who had returned home. It was in that moment of reconciliation that God’s goodness is shown. It is in that moment of love and compassion that the light of God shines.

One of the most powerful depictions of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in art is the painting by Rembrandt. In it, light is shed on the repentant son, whose father has put his hand on his son’s shoulders and welcomed him home. I don’t want to focus on the elder son, because this talk is about the father’s love but the elder son is hiding in the darkness. He was the one who, perhaps with good reason, was annoyed that he had served his father all those years without straying and had nothing but his sinful brother returns and he gets a party. Perhaps we too look at others’ lives and feel like the elder son feels.

Look at the painting though: the elder son is in the darkness. The light is where there is love and compassion, the shedding of tears, and the unconditional welcome back that the father offers. The father is simply glad that his lost son has come home.

I think it was Bishop Jack Nicholls that once said that this parable should not be called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Rather, it should be called the Parable of the Loving Father. I agree with him. God’s love is so amazing, so beyond our comprehension, and the focus is always on God’s love and mercy, never on the sins. That would give the devil some credit. The Father’s love, God’s love, is above all things and much more powerful.

As we now come to the end of these Lent talks, I want to thank you for coming and for your attention. My prayer is that you may all come to know that infinite, generous, and perhaps even wasteful love of God for yourselves. You are beautiful and beloved children of God.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son talk 3: going home

Introduction

At the last talk, I spoke about what happens when we sin, or rather, what is really happening to us when we sin.

The younger son had left him home, where he belonged, to live a life of pleasure, thinking that in doing do he was free, whereas, in fact, he had placed himself in a position of slavery and servitude. He had chased the illusion of freedom.

Temptation is like a voice that whispers in our ear, promising us all sorts of things. But the voice of temptation is a lie: it promises all sorts of things but delivers something else. It delivers, more often than not, loneliness and isolation, and feelings of guilt and shame. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when we sin, we want to hide in the bushes, hoping that we won’t get found out. Our instinct is to hide our sin. We lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that it doesn’t matter, often with the thought ‘I am only human’.

The problem is that so often the voice of temptation becomes the voice of accusation. The same voice that tempts us then reminds us of what we have done. It is this same voice that tells us to hide in the bushes away from God. It reminds us that we are not worthy. It reminds us that we have all made mistakes. It accuses us. The Hebrew word for the accuser is Satan. He is the adversary: the one who stands against. It is he whose mission it is to try to keep us away from God.

And yet, when we hide, like Adam we hear the voice of God calling out ‘Where are you?’ God comes to find us because God wants us to come to him. God, like the father in the parable wants us to come home.

Reading of Luke 15:11-32

Talk

He squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

We see the younger son in the parable at his lowest point. As I said in the last talk, he had become lower than the low. He was the one feeding animals that his own people considered unclean. Perhaps he felt that he had no choice. Perhaps he realised that he had done wrong and thought that the best thing to do was stay where he was and try to make the best of things. Perhaps he thought to himself that he had made his bed and so he had better lie in it. How often do we say such things to ourselves? How often do we say them to other people? ‘You’ve made your bed: now lie in it.’

And so we stay where we are. We try to make the best of the situations we find ourselves in and do our best to carry on. We try to put the feelings of guilt or shame aside. We try to keep things hidden inside our hearts and minds. We may even think that we become quite good at doing that. We may think that we have done a good job of putting these things to one side but they have a habit of coming to the surface of our minds, often in those quiet hours where we are alone. And so we press on. We feed the pigs and we accept the lives that we have made for ourselves.

¹⁷ But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

‘When he came to himself’ is an interesting phrase. Some English translations offer words along the lines of ‘when he came to his senses’ or ‘when he realised what he was doing’. What I like about the phrase ‘when he came to himself’ is that it is about identity. Being the son of his father was his identity, whose rightful place was in the household. Being a servant, feeding the pigs, was not his true identity.

The problem is, of course, that we so often label people because of their mistakes in life, or because of their sins. ‘He’s the pig-feeder’. ‘He’s the alcoholic’. ‘She’s the divorcee’. ‘She’s the single mother’. ‘He’s the one who cheated on his wife.’ Whatever the sin, this is what we so often find ourselves doing to other people: we label them because of the sins they have committed, the mistakes they have made, and even, sometimes, because of things that might have been beyond their control. If we don’t do it outwardly, we certainly do it inwardly. Even worse though is that we sometimes label ourselves because of our own mistakes.

But what if we started to focus not on what others or we ourselves have done but focussed instead on who we are meant to be? What if we began to say ‘that man or woman is a beautiful child of God’? What if we looked other people in the eye and said directly to them ‘you are a beautiful child of God’? I think it would transform not only our own lives but the lives of those around us because when we ‘come to ourselves’, we are no longer afraid of our sins. Put another way, we are no longer making ourselves hide in the bushes: we come out from hiding and stand as children of God.

Why is this so important? Because the enemy’s main tactic—the devil’s main tactic if you like—is to try to make us hide and keep us away from God. Whenever we stray, God is always out there searching for us, saying to us, as he said to Adam: ‘Where are you’? If we stay away from God, the devil wins. If we come out from hiding, remembering who we are, God will embrace us, and the devil loses.

¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’

Two things are happening here: firstly, we make a decision to return home. It is that moment when we realise that we are not where we are supposed to be. If the devil’s voice is the one that accuses us, God’s voice is the one that calls us home. This is crucially important because guilt and shame do not come from God, because that is not how God has created us to be. Guilt and shame come from the devil because guilt and shame tend to keep us in hiding and, as I have said, that is the devil’s main tactic. God’s tactic is to draw us out from hiding to stand in his presence.

The second thing that happens is that we admit to ourselves, to God, and to some extent to each other that we have sinned. We realise and admit that we are not worthy to be called God’s children. How many people in our Churches hide quietly at the back because they are still held captive by their sins? How many people in our Churches are afraid to take on roles in the Church because they think that they are not worthy or that they are not good enough?

We often make a very fundamental and crucial mistake: we sometimes believe that we have to somehow earn God’s love or God’s approval. When we say that we have sinned, we are not saying that we have to leave the Church. When I say that I have sinned, I am not saying that I have to leave the priesthood. What we are saying when we say that we have sinned is that we are fallen human being who have done wrong but we are no longer afraid. When we begin to say ‘I will get up and go to my father’ and that we have sinned, we do so knowing that God himself has given us the very means by which we can make that journey home: baptism, and the sacrament of reconciliation, commonly known as confession.

Last week I went to the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield to talk to my Spiritual Director and make my confession. As I have probably said before, at each junction of the M61, M60 and M62, I was tempted to turn back because a part of me was afraid, as we are all afraid, to kneel next to a priest, a monk, and tell him all the sins that had been weighing on my conscience. I wanted to hide, except for one thing, which I will come onto in a moment.

I have said that this process of writing these talks has been a labour of love, and if I am doing any good teaching in the course of writing and giving these talks, I am teaching myself in doing it. What I am saying to you I need to hear just as much for myself in my own life. The Parable of the Prodigal Son has begun to take root in my life in a very profound way.

As I was talking to my Spiritual Director before I made my confession, I said that, for one reason or another, I have felt so lost, especially with having to go through this process of applying for my post. This has affected me in many ways that I was not quite prepared for, both emotionally and spiritually. It has been very much a wilderness period for me. The problem has been that I have had to keep going and doing the normal things that need to be done and I have been struggling, not least with organising my diary! But what I kept saying to my spiritual director again and again in our conversation was ‘I want to go home’: not from the monastery, but to my home with Christ. I wanted to be the person that God has created me and called me to be: not because I deserve it. I don’t. But because that is what God has created and called me to be.

The moment we are baptised, all of our sins and mistakes are washed away and we get a wonderful chance to begin again. It is the most exciting thing, and one of the reasons I love doing baptisms so much, especially the baptisms of adults. I get to talk to people and tell them that any sins, any mistakes that they have made are washed away and they get to begin again. Time and time again when I have baptised adults, I see either eyes full of tears, or a stunned silence as the reality of what God has done for us hits home.

But when we have sinned after baptism, we find ourselves back in that place that we didn’t want to be in: away from our true home with Christ, hiding in the bushes.

Reading of John 20:19-23

Jesus breathed his Holy Spirit on the Apostles and gave them authority to forgive sins. That same authority, through the laying on of hands, and anointing with the oil of chrism has been given to bishops and priests since that time, to forgive sins in the name of the Church and in the name of Christ himself.

Jesus himself gave to his apostles the way to bring people back into relationship with God and since then the sacrament of reconciliation, when practised properly, is one of the greatest sources of healing that God has given to the Church.

Somebody told me recently that the problem with confession is that many people in the Church who have never done it before don’t know what to say. I know that fear because it is a sacrament that I have only made use of in the last 15 or so years, and used to be part of  Churches where it would have been frowned upon.  The first time I went I was so nervous and I didn’t know what to say. I am not sure that it was a very good confession: I was too vague and general. In time, I grew in understanding and experience of it.

If you come to confession, it begins with a prayer, which is printed on a card, in which I ask God to help you make a full and true confession. Then you say a prayer similar to the one we use on Sundays, in the middle of which you have an opportunity to tell me any and all of the sins that are weighing on your mind. This isn’t so that I know what you have done and I certainly would not judge anybody for their sins. This is so that you can come out from hiding, with nothing holding you back. I will most certainly not be shocked and I may not be surprised. The point of confessing your specific sins to a priest is not, actually, about the sins, per se, but about the coming out of hiding, the letting go. When sins are confessed out loud to a priest, they no longer have any hold on you. There is no more pretending, no more hiding.

If you are wondering what you would say, then simply know this. If, in your heart of hearts, you know that there are things that you have thought, said, or done, that you know to be wrong, say those things. Do not be afraid: just say them because, in saying them, they lose their power over you. If things pop in your mind from time to time that bring back unpleasant memories of mistakes or sins that you have made, just say those things, and say them without fear.

When you have done that, there is a short prayer to finish off your confession and then the priest will talk to you about some of the things you have shared: not to make you feel bad, but to help you understand what happened, and help you to find a way forward. The emphasis, at this point, is not on the past, but on the present and future. The priest, prayerfully, will try to give you some advice to help you. The priest is not there to judge you. The priest is there because the priest desires nothing more than for God’s children to come home. When I go  to confession, I sometimes have this silly fear that the priest who hears my confession will throw me out of the room we’re in and tell the Bishop everything I have done. That hasn’t happened yet, because confession is about the present and future. It is not about the places to which we have strayed, it is about finding the journey home.

When all that is done, the priest will give absolution and will say, ‘I absolve you of all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ while making the sign of the cross. At that moment they are washed away. It restores us to our rightful place as children of God and we are free. It restores to us the grace of Baptism, through which we become children of God. There is no more guilt and shame and whatever has been shared in the confession is also completely gone and can never be shared, not even discussed at a future point with the person who has made a confession. And I can assure you, if it helps, that priests who hear confession leave the sins confessed at the foot of the cross. It is then, in the priest’s mind, as though the conversation never took place.

Through baptism, and after baptism confession, we find the path to the Father’s House and we see the Father waiting for us, running towards us, no matter how bad we think we have been.

We are brought into the Father’s embrace, but more of that next week.