December, 2017 | The Irreverent Reverend

NYE: Von guten Machten Sermon & Reflection

Happy New Year! Wishing everyone much faith, hope and love in 2018. As today is of course a Sunday I am preaching this morning. The following is both a sermon and a reflection on what has past and how we can face the future together. I am in the great debt of my friend Sybille Seemann for sending the Bonhoeffer poem – ‘in case you need inspiration for a New Year’s service’. This was a move of the Spirit!

St Mary’s 8:00 P&P
Christ the Worker 9:30 P&P
31/12/17

Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:15-21

Just as I sat down to work on this sermon, my wonderful German friend Sybille sent me the poem ‘Von guten Machten’ – the English translation ‘By loving forces’ by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. She did this in the event that I was looking for inspiration for a New Year’s service. I can only describe this as a move of the Spirit because I was indeed looking for inspiration!

Every year Sybille loves to read this poem – in German of course – as she finds herself blessed by it. On my first reading of it – I felt very blessed by it to. I have a great hope and prayer that you find it a blessing too.

By loving forces silently surrounded,
I feel quite soothed, secure, and filled with grace.
So I would like to live these days together,
and go with you into another year.

Still matters of the past are pressing our hearts
and evil days are weighing down on us.
Oh Lord, to our souls, so scared and sore,
give rescue, as it’s that you made us for.

And when you pass to us the bitter chalice
of suffering, filled to the brim and more,
we take it, full of thanks and trembling not,
from this, your caring and beloved hand.

But if you want to please us, over and again,
with our shining sun and wondrous world,
let us muse on what is past, and then we shall,
with our lives, in all belong to you.

Warm and bright be our candles’ flame today,
since into gloom you brought a gleaming light,
and lead again us, if you will, together!
We know it: you are beaming in the night.

When silence now will snow around us ev’rywhere,
so let us hear the all-embracing sound
of greater things than we can see and wider,
your world, and all your children’s soaring hail.

By loving forces wonderfully sheltered,
we are awaiting fearlessly what comes.
God is with us at dusk and in the morning
and most assuredly on ev’ry day.

Bonhoeffer wrote this poem while he was imprisoned. He sent it to his family for Christmas (the one to be his last) bring hope and reassurance to them. If today, on the last day of 2017, are in need of hope, reassurance and encouragement I hope these words bring some to you.

As the clock runs out on 2017, as Bonhoeffer said ‘let us muse on what is past, and then we shall, with our lives, in all belong to you.’

2017 has been a tough year to downright horrendous for many people that I know – both inside and outside the church. Relationship breakdowns, addiction problems, illness and disease that have seemingly come out of nowhere. Death has visited many this year too.

I know that many people in my parish have had similar experiences. As we came into Christmas these events and experiences didn’t seem to let up either. In fact, they can be compounded during the holidays.

Equally, there are people for whom 2017 has been a good year, a great year! Bless them! We are to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Doing this helps us to maintain some balance and perspective.

It is years and times like this that can make us more aware of our need for the loving forces of God.

Despite his circumstances, Bonhoeffer ‘felt quite soothed, secure and filled with grace by the loving forces’ he was silently surrounded by. I can appreciate that silence can be hard for some people.

Especially when that silence seems to come from God. When our prayers don’t seem to be answered, our situations don’t change and the darkness of our thoughts and emotions close in.

Bonhoeffer addresses this too – ‘still matters of the past are pressing on our hearts and evil days are weighing down on us’. It is not in avoiding these matters that we find comfort – it is when we acknowledge them – ‘take our souls so scared and sore’ to the Lord. He will rescue us – that is what He does! It is what we were made for – to be rescued from the darkness. The darkness of sin and the darkness of ourselves.

Whatever we are facing today – we do not face it alone however alone we may be feeling. We all from time to time, as Bonhoeffer puts it ‘get passed the bitter chalice of suffering, filled to the brim and more, we take it.’

It can be cold comfort that we all suffer sometimes – in different times and seasons and for different reasons. As a church family we do it together. We can be loving forces to each other.

I think this might be why Bonhoeffer only briefly starts this poem with ‘I’. By the second stanza he talks in ‘us’ and ‘we’. Bonhoeffer strongly emphasized the need of every person to be of a community. He founded a religious community himself. He would also have lived in a community in the concentration camp – a community of great suffering.

Everyone experiences suffering in their life – to different degrees of course. It is important to remember that we will all experience suffering differently – depending on how we cope with life in general. It is both dangerous and unhelpful to compare the sufferings of others with our own. Suffering is not a competitive sport. I believe that paying attention to the suffering of others can help bring perspective to our own suffering; but it won’t lessen our suffering.

Why – you might want to ask, looking around this morning – these ‘we’s’? We need each other – church! We were made to be in relationship with God and with other people.

We see an example of the need for others in the Christmas story with the arrival of the shepherds. I wonder what Mary & Joseph initially thought about that? The shepherds didn’t bring anything, didn’t appear to be in anyway practically helpful. But maybe they weren’t meant to be. Perhaps the arrival of the shepherds was to help Mary and Joseph confirm what – up to now – had been their own secret?

Maybe it was a relief – that all that they had been through – God was faithful to his word. God is faithful to his word. Always. What a relief that is. In this uncertain world and in uncertain times – we can look to the manger and know that God is faithful! Maybe some of us here this morning need to know this again.

Bonhoeffer describes ‘by loving forces wonderfully sheltered, we are awaiting fearlessly what comes’. God will be faithful. We wait fearlessly together for what comes next. We wait by loving forces silently surrounded and wonderfully sheltered.

God is our shelter and our refuge. Psalm 18: ‘The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.’

By loving forces God is with us at dusk and in the morning and most assuredly on every day.

Love and prayers to you as we walk together by loving forces into 2018.

Amen.

Christmas Day: Not-named Jesus, Angels & Shepherds

I am posting my two morning sermons from Christmas Eve & Day. They don’t particularly overlap (except for the introduction) but the style is similar. I decided to read slowly through Luke’s Gospel telling of the First Christmas and let various aspects fall on me in a new way. I then did some exegesis to unpick some of the ‘new’ aspects.

St M 8:00 P&P
St F 10:00 P&P
Christmas Day
25/12/17

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20

God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.

One of the many things that I love about this season is how the story of the first Christmas comes alive. We see it in the pictures on Christmas cards; we hear it in the words of Christmas carols; we see the drama played out in Christingle and Crib services.

Even in the commercialization and secularization of our society the story of that first Christmas does get told – not always in words but in the symbols and pictures; seen if we pay attention to the world around us.

We know that many people who do not normally darken the door come to church for Christmas services. Why is that? Tradition and ritual? Just the done thing?

Maybe – naively on my part – they want to hear the first Christmas story told again in a way that is familiar, comfortable. The church tells the story of that first Christmas through our worship and liturgy.

But sometimes it can be easy to over-look things when we are familiar with the story. As I was preparing for this morning, I came across two aspects of Luke’s account that I want to share with you.

Now this morning we are here to celebrate the of Jesus. Amen!

But I wonder if you noticed that his name is not mentioned anywhere in the Luke reading? I really hadn’t paid attention to this before now. The name Jesus is not said in those first 20 verses of Luke 2. He is there of course – he gets noticed as an unborn child (verse 5); then he is ‘her (Mary’s) child’ and ‘her firstborn son’. The angels tell the shepherds of ‘a Saviour, who is the Messiah.’ Then they go to see ‘this child’ and ‘the child’.

It is interesting (at least to me) that Luke doesn’t use the child’s name – after all he was careful enough to name the Emperor Augustus and the Quirinus the Governor of Syria. Why their names and not the name of Jesus, the name that will go on forever?

One explanation is that by including Augustus and Quirinus the historical evidence is strengthened – to ground the birth of Jesus at a particular point in history.

The name of Jesus will go on forever though! In fairness to Luke, he is the one who for the very first time proclaims our Saviour’s personal name – ever – from the beginning of time. Jesus.

He does that in the first chapter of Luke when Gabriel appears to Mary to give her the news that she will conceive and bear a son whom she will name Jesus.

Jesus. The very name at which one day every knee will bow.

Jesus. The very name at which every tongue will confess.

Jesus. A name with no parallel in any vocabulary.

Jesus. A name with power like no other name?

Gabriel tells Mary ‘He will be great’. Oh yes he is.

This is who and what we are to celebrate this morning. Jesus and his greatness.
It is easy to get caught up in the busyness of this season – there are lots of lovely things happening – don’t get me wrong. But if the focus is not ultimately on Jesus – the true meaning gets lost.

The second aspect that I had overlooked was the three mentions of the manger. Luke very deliberately mentions the manger and the child lying in it in three separate verses. Yes of course he was lying in the manger – no crib for his bed and all that.

Mary laid her firstborn son in a manger.

The angels tell the shepherds about the child lying in a manger.

The shepherds went with haste and found the child lying in the manger.

The manger, appropriately enough, was the sign to the shepherds. It told them which baby they were looking for. It showed them that the angel knew what they were talking about. It was important to give the shepherds their news and their instructions.

Why does this matter? It was the shepherds who were told who this child is. This child – the Saviour, the Messiah, the Lord.

Yet the manger isn’t important in and of itself. The manger is a signpost – a pointing finger – to the identity of the baby boy who’s lying in it.

The shepherds’ arrival may have helped Mary and Joseph to confirm what had been their own secret up to now. I thought about this in a new way too – what would it have been like for Mary and Joseph as the shepherds arrived? The secret is now out!

I am not sure if you have had the experience of a secret being let out! It can be quite shocking and uncertain – what happens next?! Who knows!? Maybe it was a relief – that all that they had been through – God was faithful to his word.

God is faithful to his word. Always. What a relief that is. In this uncertain world and in uncertain times – we can look to the manger and know that God is faithful!

We also need to look in the manger – not just at it. Many people – Christians too – come to see the manger – but they never look in it. For some Jesus remains the baby forever. A baby that is easily contained in the manger that gets brought out once a year – looked at – and then put away again.

I have a small nephew who asks a lot of questions. Just after he turned 5, he and my sister had the following bedtime conversation:

‘Mom, how old are Great Grandma and Great Grandpa?

My sister replied ‘They are both 90.’
‘Mom, when will they go to heaven?’

My sister replied, ‘I am not sure but Jesus will be waiting to greet them when they go.’

‘Mom, how old is Jesus?’

My sister, ‘well, he was born 2000 years ago but he doesn’t age. He has always been around.’

In a very defiant voice my nephew declared, ‘Mom, Jesus is a baby!’

It is quite easy to take this view whether we are 5 years or not. Jesus is not meant to be contained to the manger. Isaiah 9:6 – For a child has been born to us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders. Now I don’t know about you – but I have not heard that said about many newborn babies. A baby may be a good eater sleeper or pooper but has authority rests upon its shoulders?!

Jesus did not just appear one night in Bethlehem as if out of nowhere. He has always been around – part of the Trinity. Always more than a baby!

As we celebrate today – we can spend a little more time at the manger worshipping the baby born to us. The baby who becomes the Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

I love these names – I can identify with each of them as titles for the Child that has been born to us. He is my Counsellor when I struggle; Mighty when I am weak; Everlasting when unwanted changes come my way; the bringer of Peace when I am distressed.

I hope that you will know and experience the great love God has for you this Christmas.

Not just at Christmas but at every moment of every day of your life – when things are calm and happy but more so when you are stirred up throughout.

I hope that you will know the Lord’s favour upon you.

I hope the name of Jesus falls sweetly on your ears and off your tongue.

The Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace lead you and guide you always.

Advent 4: The Things We Miss (sometimes): Gabriel & Mary

Christ the Worker 9:30
St Mary’s 11:00
Advent 4
24/12/17 (Morning Services)

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Psalm 89
Romans 16:25-end
Luke 1:26-38

Even in commercialization and secularization of our society the story of that first Christmas does get told – not always in words but in the symbols and pictures; seen if we pay attention to the world around us.

We know that many people who do not normally darken the door come to church for Christmas services. Why is that? Tradition and ritual? Just the done thing? Maybe – naively on my part – they want to hear the first Christmas story told again in a way that is familiar, comfortable. The church tells the story of that first Christmas through our worship and liturgy.

But sometimes if or when we pick up the Bible to read it – we can lose the sense of awe and wonder. I was aware of this as I sat to read all of Luke’s First Christmas account as I was preparing for this weekend. Sometimes when I read familiar passages I like to get behind the story. Go slowly through it and see what is going on behind it. It helps me to do undo some of the assumptions I may have developed. Helps to regain my awe and wonder of the words.

I want to highlight a few parts of this amazing story this morning.

The angel Gabriel. 4 words in! Gabriel is a fascinating character; he is a Messenger of God. In any depiction, Gabriel looks to be tall with huge white, feathery wings. He often has a trumpet or a lily in his hand. Angels are created beings of God – as we are. They are not made – as it has been popularized – out of dead human beings. There is no biblical evidence for this – however comforting this notion might be.

Gabriel appears in the Old Testament as he was sent to explain the visions that the prophet Daniel was having. Gabriel has been around for a few hundred years at least.

Gabriel is now back on the scene – six months before greeting Mary, God sent Gabriel to Jerusalem to foretell another unexpected birth – this one to an elderly priest named Zechariah whose aged wife would Elizabeth would bear John the Baptist. On that occasion Gabriel was sent to Herod’s temple – one of the wonders of the civilized world. This time Gabriel is going to a backwater town called Nazareth.

Does he fly? He has wings after all! Does he cross the sky like a shooting star? A rocket?

Prior to these visits approximately 400 years had passed since God had sent any message to earth. Then twice in 6 months Gabriel is called into service with life changing news for the most unsuspecting of people.

Now we move on a few verses and turn our attention to Mary. Mary the Virgin, maybe 13 or 14 years old, engaged to be married to that bloke Joseph. He wasn’t a local though as his family came from Bethlehem, the house of David. Bethlehem is about 80 miles from Nazareth – takes about 2 hours to drive between the two places. Would have taken about 5-6 days to walk. How and why did Joseph’s family end up in Nazareth? It wasn’t exactly a desirable place to live. People on the whole didn’t tend to move around very much – you stayed where you were from.

Doing well – 3 verses in now. Gabriel’s opening to Mary of ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you!’ I wonder what Mary was doing at that moment – she was alone. Was she in her bedroom or our carrying water?
It sounds nice doesn’t it – you can read it as a positive message, friendly even. A large, friendly, winged man with a trumpet or a lily in his hand approaching a 13-year-old girl. Nothing weird about that!

But seriously – Mary is perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. There is a lot of meaning here – Mary is deeply agitated – she is taken aback, disturbed, anxious. One explanation that I particularly liked was ‘stirred up throughout’ – by this appearance of Gabriel.

Some of us here know what it is like to be ‘stirred up throughout’. I know a lot of people who have been stirred up throughout this year. That news that comes unexpectedly that moves adrenaline at lighting speed – good or bad that shakes us to the core.

It is not just by Gabriel’s appearance – it is his greeting, his words that have caused her reaction. Mary’s reaction could be that she knew that this greeting was coming with an overwhelming challenge.

Paula Gooder in her Advent book ‘The Meaning is in the Waiting’ writes, ‘Gabriel’s greeting is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Chinese proverb ‘May you live in interesting times’, which can be seen as either a curse or a blessing. In the same way, Gabriel’s greeting can either be seen as good or bad: to be in receipt of God’s favour, especially beloved and granted his presence, can only mean that Mary’s life is about to be turned upside down. She is surely right and sensible to be disturbed by this greeting.’

I think that being a Christian is sometimes an overwhelming challenge. Forget being a priest – just the act of being a Christian is daunting! Doing what God’s asks of us is often hard, it is inconvenient, it is messy sometimes.

The giant winged Angel-man then declares ‘Do not be afraid!’ Yeah okay! The phrase ‘Do not be afraid’ appears 366 times in the Bible. One for each day of the year and an extra for Leap Years.

Do not be afraid is then followed with the sweet words ‘you have found favour with God.’ How did she do that? A 13-year-old girl from a poor, back water town. What was it about Mary?

We can do all the religiousy, churchy stuff in the world – but this doesn’t mean we have found God’s favour. It isn’t in what we do – it is in who we are. We were created by God out of God’s love for us – despite everything about us that is unlovely. We can still find God’s favour. What we do should be an offering back to God – out of our love as thanksgiving for his love.

Mary then gets the news that she is going to conceive and bear a son whom she will name Jesus.

Jesus. Do you realize that this was the first proclamation of our Saviour’s personal name since the beginning of time? Jesus. The very name at which one day every knee will bow? The very name at which every tongue will confess? A name with no parallel in any vocabulary? A name with power like no other name? Jesus.

Gabriel tells Mary ‘He will be great’. Oh yes he is.

Gabriel then carries on with some details of what is to happen. On closer reading, these details are not as shocking to Mary as the first appearance and greeting of Gabriel were. Paula Gooder again writes, ‘For Mary – the message that God has chosen her is far more frightening than what he has chosen for her to do.’

Not sure about you – but if a winged-man angel appeared to me and started to discuss my womb and its imminent call to service – I would have a little more to say!

Mary’s concern is for the practicalities – she obviously knew were babies came from. We see something of her innocence too. Gabriel has the answer for Mary – ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’. Come upon here means ‘to arrive, invade, resting upon and operating in a person.’

For nothing will be impossible with God says Gabriel. This was in one of the readings at Morning Prayer this past week. It is a verse that I remind myself of frequently. But sometimes it just comes in a new way.

Nothing will be impossible with God. I sometimes laugh to myself when I hear people resisting change or offering up a list of excuses about why something can or can’t be done. If it is of God – nothing is impossible.

Imagine for a moment if Doreen/Peggy/Joan – lovely Doreen/Peggy or Joan – came to church pregnant! It could happen! It happened to Elizabeth in her old age. This is the impossible thing that was made possible that Gabriel is referring to!

Sometimes it is us who need a little more courage or imagination.

It is after she heard ‘that nothing is impossible’ – that Mary says ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ I seriously wonder what our lives, our families, our community and our world would look like if this was our response to God. ‘Here am I’.

And not just when the news is good or happy or the request is something that we really want to do. When about when the news is uncertain or just plain hard, comes with a price tag we don’t want to pay. Or the inconvenience doesn’t seem worth it. ‘Here am I.’

Then the angel departed from her. As I am about to depart from you, I hope that you will know and experience the great love God has for you this Christmas.

Not just at Christmas but at every moment of every day of your life – when things are calm and happy but more so when you are stirred up throughout.

I hope that you will know the Lord’s favour upon you.

I hope the name of Jesus falls sweetly on your ears and off your tongue.

The Lord is with you. Nothing will be impossible with God.

Do not be afraid – The Lord is with you.

My Advent Reflection for 2017…

I do realize it is Advent 4 today. But it is still Advent for a few more hours and therefore not too late to post something of a reflection. The season has felt short – I spent the first part of it at home in Calgary before coming back home to Slough.

It has felt a bit disjointed in some ways – trying to maintain the dignity of the season at the same moment as preparing for the Christmas services. As I sit here this morning my Christmas Day sermon is only about half written. I have 5 services to participate in today – 2 preaches this morning, narrating the Crib Service, leading the Reflective Service and presiding at Midnight Communion. With friends over for dinner in between. Phew!

I went to Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford last night for Nine Lessons and Carols – Merry Christmas to me! This was a bit of an indulgence of time – but so necessary and an invitation I didn’t want to refuse. It gave me some ideas of where to take my Christmas Day Sermon – will post that once it’s written!

The journey to Oxford was a smooth one – little traffic, trains were on time and had few passengers. I have done the journey to Oxford many times over the last 3 years by all manor of transport – it is a well worn path for me. Some journeys have been better than others.

The theme of journeys and paths came up in two of my three Advent sermons this year. John the Baptist brings the message of hope for the coming of Jesus the Messiah. John also wants us to prepare spiritually for this coming. There are two things, according to John that we need to do.

Firstly, we need to clear a path for the Lord and secondly that path is to be straight. The original Greek word for paths means ‘a beaten pathway’. By this I mean a well-worn path, a path that has seen some use, it’s been established. In a personal way God wants us to prepare a path.

What does that path look like? Is our path to God straight? I know that mine sometimes is more of a meandering path – taking the long way!

Have we made a path for Him to come and do a major and powerful work in our lives? I trust that God wants us to make a beaten pathway to Him. Come to Him over and over again. We also need to clear that path of debris – this can be anything that standing in the way of God being able to work in our lives fully.

I hope that your path is clear and straight – I know that mine could use a little maintenance.

Much love.