MIDNIGHT MASS 2020
READINGS: ISAIAH 52:7-10, HEBREWS 1:1-4, JOHN 1: 1-14
Welcome to the celebration which transforms our lives, the Birth of Jesus Christ. And in a year in which so much is different this remains the same – our bedrock, our part, present and future. This is our USP, without which we are nothing. This Midnight Mass I'd like to speak about 2 things - Receiving and Giving – not very remarkable, you might think, at a time of giving and receiving gifts. But what has helped me in this reflection is language – letters in the Hebrew alphabet have numerical value and the letter Khaf in Hebrew has the numerical value of 20. This letter has something to say to us as we leave 2020.
The letter itself looks like outstretched arms, with one hand receiving and the other giving. The hand pointed upwards receives, and the hand pointed downwards gives or dispenses. As we leave behind the year 2020, we are in a world of turbulence and chaos, where older established orders crumble, and fear is all around, especially in the UK, where we feel like the lepers of the world, and nobody wants us. I spoke about this letter last Christmas, and I use it again now. At Christmas 2019 I spoke about the unknown future ahead as we entered 2020 – little did we know then that we would receive the Coronavirus pandemic in all its destructive force. And this pandemic clearly revealed two other pandemics with which we live – racism and inequality – both highlighted by the virus. And as people of faith on top of this hill, we have tried with all our strength to meet the challenges of all three. At a local level, we have been blessed with the strength and vision which comes from our faith, to meet all the challenges. The story has been less happy for the way in which the Church of England responded at a higher and national level, and I do believe that history will have a harsh judgement on how the Church was seen to visibly retreat at the beginning of the pandemic. Banging the doors shut was a mistake and a catastrophe, which we tried to put right here on a local level. I apologise for this leadership failure which we experienced. But we have moved on and here we are, meeting the challenges we face full of faith. When we are open to receive we never know, of course what is round the corner and what we will receive. We are well placed to speak about challenges in this church, home to many converts from Islam (especially Iran and Afghanistan), refugees, asylum seekers, and trafficked people. It would be very odd if we were not, as the population of those on the move globally is estimated by the UN at around 65 million – roughly the population of the UK. Immediately after Christmas, I hope to be travelling to Iraq for the ordination as a priest of a deacon from the Chaldean Catholic Church in that country. This is the deacon who spent 3 months with us, whose home and entire earthly goods had been destroyed by Da’esh. He is a picture of radiant, joyful, healthy faith. Those who have the least often give the most, which we have seen throughout this pandemic. Christians have been described in a report of the UK government as “by far the most widely persecuted religion.” The birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas, gives a natural focus to these things, as shortly after his birth we hear of the massacre of the innocents and the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt as refugees themselves. The refugee points us to a central truth about humanity – that we live in a world of radical insecurity, but also a connected world as the spread of the virus has shown us. This is the context in which we raise our empty hands to receive blessing from God – and we do, in spadesful.
But as we receive, so we are called at the same time to give. Grace and blessings don’t really work if they are horded or stored. Picture ourselves as water barrels – water flows in, but if it is to be useful, it needs an outlet to water the earth. So the downward pointing hand of the khaf dispenses grace and blessing to all around us. We are simply channels or vessels of God’s grace. I know this to be true, and I do believe that the life of this Church over the past decade has shown it. Giving requires an outward focus, and we have held on to this resolutely – not only preparing ourselves to be more resilient in the year ahead, but also responding to the needs of our partners in the Gospel in India and the Philippines through our support for them. They are far more challenged by the reality of the virus then our own society is. We are, I believe, well set for the year ahead. We are four times larger than we were a decade ago, twice the income and twice the expenditure, three new worshipping communities launched, new facilities offering a welcome and meeting place for a myriad of groups of all types and sorts, a renewed and renovated worshipping life, particularly music, but most of all becoming a beacon of inclusion and diversity which both mirror and energise our local community. I thank God for all of this, and I thank each and every person who has played their part to make this happen, both living and departed. The symbiotic energy of the individual acting for the greater good in the community will make impossible dreams happen.
So, with one hand receiving God’s grace, and the other dispensing to all around us, this will set us fair for the year ahead, whatever it brings. We embrace the future with assurance and confidence. We may lose security, health, comfort and family, but we will receive far far more in blessing. I am saying Yes to whatever the future holds, and I invite you to join me in this energising and beautiful work. As we trust ourselves to the hands of each other and to God in the year ahead, everything is possible.
The birth of Jesus Christ changes everything, as we live it year by year. John our Patron wrote “Behold, I make all things new” May this continue to be true for all of us as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ who turns our water into wine, and our mourning into dancing. God gives us blessing at Christmas which we receive with open hand and give with open hand. A Blessed, generous, and overflowing Christmas to all.
Comment 0 Likes Share
JOHN THE EVANGELIST 2020
January 20, 2021
READINGS: EXODUS 33:7-11, 1 JOHN 1, JOHN 21: 19-END
We celebrate today our Patronal festival of John the Evangelist, whose actual feast day is December 27th. I feel very privileged and very happy to be serving under the patronage of St John the Evangelist in Notting Hill. John the Evangelist is a particularly good patron to have. Much better than Stephen, for example, whose feast day falls the day after Christmas. But also, because the literary output associated with him is considerable, so we can be expected to have an insight into what he might give us as a Patron. So to do this today, I want to use the visual image of St John the Evangelist on the reredos of this Church to speak about three things which might be useful for us at St John’s, as we end 2020 and look forward in hope and faith to 2021. I have used the images before, but this time it’s different!
The reredos of this Church, which has been the subject of a recent and extensive paint analysis, was executed by the woman sculptor Emmeline Hulse in 1888. The reredos pictures St John at three stages of his life - as you look at it on the left (North) as a young man with his fishing nets in the boat, in the middle as a mature man at the foot of the Cross, and on the right (South) as an old man on the island of Patmos, his place of exile. If you look at these images, I think it’s fair to say that they represent energy, mature commitment, and wisdom of these three life phases. And it’s these three things I want to speak about. Energy, commitment, and wisdom.
First, youthful energy and enthusiasm. All churches need this. We are blessed at St John’s with a continuous stream of new Christians of all ages and backgrounds. Most recently, we seem to have many people seeking baptism as adults, especially those who have come from other faith backgrounds, particularly Islam. Many, many more people are coming for baptism than one decade ago. This is a source of energy and hope for us, in the same way as those who come to this sacrament can expect to be blessed and energised by it, as we are today by the baptism of Iyla and Paddy. For our part in the church, we need to be careful to welcome this new life and energy, and where we can, to harness it into the work of the Church. If this is approached correctly and wisely, we will find that people are very willing and able to give of their time and energies in a constructive and generous way. The response people give, on the whole, will probably be determined by the welcome they receive. All groups, all churches, need to constantly reinvent themselves if they are not to atrophy, so this youthful energy and enthusiasm is most important. In the first reading today, we have a picture of Moses whose face is shining from his encounter with the Lord. This is enthusiasm and vision. On its own, of course, it is not enough, and this youthful energy will need to pass on to mature commitment. The youthful St John, with his teddy boy hair do, is not the mature man in pain at the foot of the cross. He has moved from enthusiasm to commitment.
Now, commitment. Let’s take really simple and obvious things first. A Parish Church, as opposed to a congregational chapel, cannot have Class A and Class B parishioners. An effective electoral roll will also help us to organise our giving of money in a systematic and planned way. This we call stewardship. Every church needs to be able to plan and budget its resources, and it cannot do this through the unplanned giving of church collections, generous as they may be. No family could live like this, and no church should either. For this reason, throughout 2021 we will be praying and working for generous commitment, including money. Ours, like most Parish churches, is entirely dependent on volunteer help to do the 1001 ordinary jobs, which make this place work. Over recent years, our numbers and activities have grown dramatically, but this cannot be sustained without the load being shared. You do not need me to list the different ways people help. Suffice it to say that our doors do not remain open by magic, with all that that entails. This is an aspect of mature commitment. As it is in a family, where this middle generation share most of the burden of looking after the young, and caring for the elderly, so it is the same with us. This is not without cost, and you will notice that the mature St John at the foot of the cross is more than a bit care-worn.
Now wisdom. I hope that if I am spared for old age, I might have some of that wisdom which I meet in some older people. But as this may come to some individuals, so it may be the case for Parishes and communities. This Parish is no exception. We have a history since 1845 to draw on. In the year 2002, the Parish was given a unique opportunity to re-invent itself, as the previous structure was dissolved. As an independent Parish of St John, some of these older roots and identities were drawn on, as we set ourselves up for the third millennium. Take our style of worship for example. The re-introduction of daily worship, and a more celebratory liturgical style has marked this new Parish’s life. 2021 will see the restoration and development of many of our activities. Believe me. But we will remain rooted in the only wisdom we have, which is our sacramental worship in person. We have jealously guarded this from those who have attempted to close it down - Bishops and politicians equally. Zoom is not the future. It is the past. So guided by the past, we will enter 2021 reinventing ourselves with confidence and joy. This is the wisdom of the past guiding our policies for the future. The old St John on his island rock has far seeing, raised eyes. We need this.
So enthusiasm, commitment, wisdom. As we end 2020 and move forward into 2021, if we have all three in good measure we will be well set. Our location will help, which is second to none. Set in the wealthiest part of the country (yet with the UK’s widest gap in life expectancy in the two political wards of our Borough) set on top of a hill in a confident setting, blessed with a growing number of fine people and the makings of superb facilities including a new nursery, a new cafe and wonderful grounds - if we can’t be aspirational with all this, then who can? This should lift the spirits and raise the eyes. If we take our Patron John as our model, and keep close to Jesus at his supper, this will give us the energy of enthusiasm, the stability of commitment, and the hope and fearlessness of wisdom. For all that has been, and for all that will be, Thanks be to God.
Comment 0 Likes Share
ADVENT SUNDAY 2020
December 02, 2020
Readings: Isaiah 64:1-9, 1 Cor 1:3-9, Mark 13:24-end
We begin a new liturgical year today, as Advent Sunday, today, is the beginning of the Church’s year. Advent is the period of four Sundays leading up to Christmas, and the traditional themes of this period are Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell – cheerful themes for this time of year. These traditional themes are ones which are part of life and part of the Gospel, But I’d like to distil those traditional themes into two areas which I understand as themes coming out of them – faithfulness and preparation.
Faithfulness. All Christians and all Churches are required to be faithful. This may take many forms, and it certainly has different manifestations. Faithfulness may be demonstrated in our keeping faith with the wellsprings of faith. For example, I believe it would be impossible to continue as a Parish Priest without the daily offering of public regular, disciplined, prayer. Good days, bad days, up days, down days, Prayer is there at the root of the tree. If the roots are not nourished, the whole tree dies. So it is with us. We need to remain faithful to our roots through regular prayer. That’s why coming together week by week to be nourished by the sacrament matters more than we can easily explain. This is also the reason why we do not believe that any Government in any time or in any place has the power to stop corporate worship with access to the sacraments, as we will demonstrate from this week onwards. Our worship gives us our identity and our vision. We are often told that without vision the people perish. So it is in this matter of faithfulness. As a Church, we must remain vision driven to be faithful to our origins. We know that Churches which slip into maintenance or virtual mode, delude themselves, and are probably in all reality in decline. The same is true with our bodies. If we don’t look after them, they go into decline- which they will do quickly enough anyway, without any help from us. In this process of faithfulness, we therefore need each other, because there are times when I can lend support and help to you, and times when I need that help and support from you. This church has a special vocation with persecuted Christians. They have much to teach us, now that we too know what it is to live in a country where worship has been criminalised. They help us understand faithfulness, as does how we spend our money. You could therefore also argue that the income of a church is a manifestation of its faithfulness.
Now, Preparation. Advent, which begins the Christian liturgical year, is a time of preparation. Spiritually, we go back to our roots to prepare ourselves for the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is a coming like no other because it will have an effect on all our lives. Advent helps us to get the spiritual balance right. Traditionally, the time of Advent is a time for reflecting on the things which we would actually rather push away to the back of our minds. Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell. The last things, the end of time. All our religious tradition teaches us that to live in a state of preparedness represents being spiritually awake. Anyone who works with me will tell you that I am allergic to lastminute.com and find it stressful when forced into that mode of work. I recently had to lead a Bible study for a clergy gathering and the passage they chose for me was the foolish virgins. You will remember that five were prepared and had enough oil in their lamps to welcome the bridegroom and five didn’t prepare and ran out of oil and couldn’t therefore join in the celebration. My Bible study was short – and went like this. “They were too late. Too bad. Tough” That was it. Or like those who say “Oh, my phone ran out of battery” as though it happened by magic and was not connected to the fact that they had not charged it. The Gospel set for today reminds us that we need to be prepared and ready at all times, and that, mercifully, we are spared any knowledge about the end of things. We just don’t know. The Christian tradition is, in this sense, the opposite of that most widely read woman in England, Mystic Meg, with her horoscope in The Sun newspaper. Hear this, “And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” My grandmother, who brought me up, told me that we should always change our underwear, for we never knew if we might be involved in an accident. Preparation, keeping awake, being ready. There are many ways in which the life of a church will demonstrate this readiness, and one manifestation will be a church’s expenditure. How we spend our money will not only demonstrate our priorities, but also our preparedness for the future. So, what has happened in 2020? We have kept our expenditure down by controlling costs and spent where we must. In addition to the Common Fund payment, there are all the regular bills- utilities, keeping the church open, insurance, running the office and paying those who work for us, which is the bare minimum to function. At the same time, the level of our activities increases daily. Improving our facilities and being ahead of the game is also a manifestation of being prepared and ready- not just for the now, but for the future. We are fortunate in the PCC of this Parish, who have prepared a faithful budget for 2021, both realistic and challenging at the same time. This was real leadership in the things of God. I’ve used this quotation before, but I use it again. It is Archbishop Justin Welby who says, “Everything to do with money is simply theology in numbers.”
So, as we enter this season of Advent may it be a time for all us of faithfulness and preparation. It’s also true to say that with this in mind, much of the physical preparation for Christmas, which we make as a Church and community, as families, and as individuals becomes less stressful. These twin towers of faithfulness or income and preparation or expenditure will encourage us as we start another year. It’s pretty simple. It isn’t rocket science, but if we are able to live it, it will transform our lives. The Apostle Paul can often be a stern and gloomy moralist, but today he encourages us in this final word from his letter to the Corinthians, “God is faithful” In faithfulness and preparation, may all of know God’s blessing this Advent, as we prepare to welcome Jesus the Christ into our lives. Maranatha – Come, Lord Jesus.
Comment 0 Likes Share
BEFORE ADVENT, NOVEMBER 15TH
November 17, 2020
READINGS: ZEPHANIAH 1,7,12-END, 1 THESS5:1-11, MATTHEW 25:14-30
The readings for today, the second Sunday before Advent and the penultimate Sunday in the Christian year, have a quality that matches the season – growing darkness, with a heavy overtone. As we attend the daily services of Morning and Evening Prayer (at present by Zoom) , the daily readings are the same- dark, apocalyptic, foreboding, especially from the Book Daniel and the Revelation to John. As I listen to the Revelation to John, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther, who wished to have it removed from the Bible. We like our religion, like our coffee, to be light and frothy, undemanding stuff that simply increases our feel-good factor. Part of the Christian tradition is like that, but an inescapable part of the deposit of our faith is apocalyptic, endtime, and frankly heavy. Today’s readings emphasise this feel and this character.
First, the reading from Zephaniah. As a type of literature, it is apocalyptic, which means that the writer believed two things – firstly that the end of the world, the eschaton, was about to happen, and also that God was working through the historical process. Another characteristic of apocalyptic is the cosmic battle between good and evil. Reading apocalyptic material, the first impression may be that this stuff is a million miles from our contemporary concerns, but actually, beneath the surface differences, there are stark similarities. Our own times have a darkly foreboding feel, and some of the language about the end time of creation through global warning is apocalyptic. “In times of anxiety and stress, listen. Listen to the inherited wisdom of the faith community.”
What do these end time passages mean? Here we see the contemporary conviction about the Parousia, to use the Greek word. Parousia is the belief in the second coming of Christ, in which God will bring the creation to an end and establish his Kingdom of justice and righteousness. This reflects the prophetic conviction, expressed in dramatic language and images, that God would one day bring the present corrupt world order to an end, establish his sovereign rule, vindicate his servants and eliminate his enemies. This is the belief about the end time in the New Testament that they inherited from their Jewish forebears. The second reading from 1 Thessalonians puts it like this, “ The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” The emergent Christian community clearly belied all this, and they further believed that the appropriate response was in silence and waiting. Zephaniah says, “Be silent before the Lord God!” That’s why we have the phrase from Ignatius of Antioch, written in the apostolic era, “A Bishop never resembles Jesus Christ more than when he has his mouth shut.”
And finally, the reading from the Gospel of Matthew. The master of the slaves comes back unexpectedly to check how they had stewarded their resources. This, too, is apocalyptic in the right sense. Here again, the figure of Jesus in this Gospel passage gives sound advice “To all those who have, more will be given”. This sounds like some Government’s monetary and taxation policies, but in fact it speaks of the resources of faith. In times like this, in a global pandemic, we need the resources of faith more than ever – which is why we hope that this Government will not continue to be both blind and deaf to the universal benefits of corporate and public worship. Unlike the last lockdown, we are not about to disappear behind closed and locked doors. No more kitchen table Eucharists! In other words, listen to the words of Jesus. So all this rather strange apocalyptic end time stuff has one simple message really. In times of anxiety and stress, rely on the traditions of your faith, and above all, listen. Because in listening lies the way of discernment. And of course, we cannot listen if we are always opining, a la chattering class. Listening can sometimes produce bold new initiatives, in the midst of difficult times. No retrenchment to the margins, especially for us here on top of this hill – we are called to shine and shine we will do, as the hours of darkness increase.
So in the midst of difficult times, we do not pretend that our Christian faith is some Pollyanna quick fix solution. It isn’t. What the Kingdom of God proclaims, is that we are challenged, as people of faith, to work through the economic realities of life to reach bold decisions and live by them. For it is through them that we usher in the values of the Kingdom, which we proclaim. This is a theology of abundance and sufficiency, by which we all need to live, whatever our age.
And in the midst of these gloomy readings and at a dark time of year, we also celebrate the passage of time and age. It was a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsay, interviewed on BBC Radio on his 80th birthday by a rather gushing presenter who asked, “ Your Grace, what is like being 80?” to which he replied “Not exactly marvellous, and probably nobody should live to be 80.” But he was speaking about anno domino, chronological years, not the life of the spirit and faith. I’ve always believed, rather piously, that priests should also be exemplars of ageing – elegantly, or even disgracefully. And some even are – exemplars, I mean. I was taught to preach by one of these exemplars, and he always said “keep the personal out of sermons. Nobody is specially interested anyway.” I know Yeats said that we are tattered things upon a stick as we get older, but for me, I want to use words of a woman who has always interested me. You may know of the life of Jane Digby, eighteenth century traveller and adventurer, - married five times, with her last marriage to a Bedouin Sheikh, proficient horsewoman, fluent in Arabic. On her 80th birthday, she wrote this, “If I had neither mirror nor memory, I would think myself eighteen years old.”
So there it is. The Kingdom season, in which we are reminded that everything passes – the world, good, bad, and our own ageing. In the end, what we proclaim is that through good times and bad, through difficulty and disaster, through celebration of human life, God’s coming reign can be seen. But in order to do this, we need what classical Christian spirituality calls discernment of spirits, we need to listen, with our eyes open, we need to believe in the rule of God, and we need to act with dedication, commitment, boldness, and joyful abundance. This is the Kingdom. Welcome to it.
