Red House stands in an unremarkable residential road in Bexleyheath, close to the principal corridors that connect London to the south-east. When William Morris moved into it in 1860, one year after his marriage to Jane Burden, its site was less cluttered. He had chosen it because the new railway meant that it was accessible from London and because it enjoyed an isolated, rural location. It was surrounded by an orchard of apples and cherries and afforded views of the Cray valley. But Morris did not conceive of the house as a romantic retreat for two. In its bricks and tiles he realized his vision of a great medieval dwelling reborn. Red House was built for friendship. Its doorways are wide and its porches spacious. Its bedrooms may be modest but its common areas are most definitely not. The grand dining hall, the airy drawing room, the long gallery and the wooden central staircase dominate. Morris was enchanted by Arthurian legends and by the myths of the high Middle Ages, and for his house he had in mind the castle keep in which the order of knights feasted, or the common home in which the band of artisans plied their trades.
So he gathered his friends, Burne-Jones, Rossetti and Swinburne, and for five years he played the feudal host. Games of hide-and-seek ranged around the corridors and mock battles were fought in the garden. The friends dined together and frolicked together, and they worked together too. It was out of their longing to fill Red House with beautiful stained glass and delicate embroidery that the company was formed that is still selling curtains and wallpaper to the home-owning public 150 years later.
Crucial to the house, crucial to the firm, crucial to the whole artistic movement of which it was the vanguard; crucial to Morris himself was friendship - the company of the like-minded with whom he consciously surrounded himself at every stage of his life.
Friendship is an overlooked theme, both of the life of Christ and of the celebration of this holy night. Rarely do we recall that around the table in the upper room there gathered a group that Christ declared to be a group of friends. Rarely do we preach about their friendship, rarely do we read about it, rarely do we think about it. Yet Christ never wrote a book or established an institution. He drew together that group. His ministry was exercised from among that group, and therefore friendship is surely a vocation that we are called to exercise, a vocation that we are called to proclaim and to live.
If I'm right, then it is a vocation that has been tightly squeezed. The Church has properly upheld the vocation of marriage and has properly upheld the vocation of celibacy, but, unhealthily obsessed with sexual practice, it has too often forgotten the primary vocation of friendship. And in the Facebook era this is desperately important. Today the architecture of friendship is disclosed not in Morris's bricks, terracotta, and brotherly horseplay, but in the idle click of a mouse at midnight. "Posner...has a host of friends, though only on the Internet, and none in the right name or even gender" as Alan Bennett shrewdly observes in The History Boys. So tonight, as we recall the last supper that Christ's friends shared, let us be recalled to the holy path of friendship.
Aelred, twelfth century Abbot of Rievaulx, asked whether a monk, called to be a brother to all in his monastery, could enjoy particular intimacy, and concluded that he could. Friendship's foundation is love, he writes, and it is sought 'not with a view to any worldly good, nor for any reason extrinsic to itself, but from the worthiness of its own nature, and the feeling of the human heart, so that it offers no advantage or reward other than itself.' Friendship is loving and it is disinterested. He goes on, writing 'My friend must be the guardian of our mutual love, or even of my very soul, so that he will preserve in faithful silence all its secrets, and whatever he sees in it that is flawed he will correct or endure it with all his strength.' Friends are stewards of one another's deepest and most sacred depths. And although in certain circumstances friendship cannot endure, still the love that underpins it must. 'If the person you love harms you, love him still. If he is such a person that you think your friendship with him should be withdrawn, still you should never withdraw your love for him...Never betray the secrets of your friendship with him, even if he betrays yours.'
Red House was sold when Burne-Jones failed Morris by refusing to live there and establish a permanent household of co-workers and friends. His plans dashed, Morris turned his back on the house that he had loved, and, bitterly disappointed, never went there again. The friends who sat at table with him failed Christ. Judas betrays him; Peter denies him; the inner circle fall asleep in the garden; they all abandon him. Only Christ is left, loving them with a self-forgetful love, comprehending the innermost secrets of their hearts, never neglecting them despite their neglect of him. Christ is the true friend, and his pattern of loving constancy is set before us tonight in Scripture and in Sacrament: we are called to be the friend he is to us.
'Even if he is chastised, even if he is hurt, even if he is handed over to be burned or is nailed to the cross, he who is a friend loves for all time' writes Aelred. In our faithfulness to God, in our fervour for the Gospel, and in our friendships with one another let us follow the Christ, our brother and our friend. Amen.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 25 April 2012
When I got to know Lillian she was in her early 90s. She lived on her own in Portsmouth's North End, not very far from the house where she had spent her childhood. Her family were Plymouth Brethren, but they used to attend Sunday worship at London Road Baptist Church, where they would sit in the gallery with the Callaghan family. She always remembered that in those days their son was known as Leonard.
I used to take Holy Communion to her. Her world had shrunk to one room, where she lived, ate, and slept. She saw her City Council carers every day; she saw me every month; and she received occasional visits from the niece who was all the family she had.
She was very unhappy. She had much to be unhappy about. I remember that one winter afternoon I arrived to find her sitting in almost total darkness. Four of the five lightbulbs in her room had expired, and her carer had told her that health and safety did not allow him to climb a ladder to change them. But over time I discovered that there was more to her unhappiness than the indignity of old age. She told me about the young man who had fallen in love with her more than seventy years previously. 'He was besotted' she said. Her family approved, and gave him every encouragement. He begged her to marry him. But Lillian couldn't stand him, and longed to be free of his attentions. Times were hard and the young man decided to emigrate to Australia. He would go, he said, only if Lillian would follow him and begin a new life on the far side of the world. Seeing her chance, Lillian agreed. She went with him to the dock at Southampton and waved him off, knowing full well that she would never keep her promise. She never saw him again.
Her family were furious and were determined that she would not be so headstrong again. They arranged for her to marry her cousin, and this time she had no choice. Lillian rarely spoke about her husband. I supposed that the photograph that sat on top of the television, of a man a gentle face and wavy hair, was of him. On an early visit I was surprised to pick up a teaspoon and find it emblazoned with a swastika. Her husband had been in the navy, she told me, and the teaspoon was a trophy he'd taken from a captured Nazi U-Boat.
But that was all, until one day when I was visiting another elderly parishioner, coincidentally also called Lillian. She asked after her namesake, and then enquired 'Has she ever told you about her husband?' 'No' I said. 'He was homosexual' she said 'he left her and went to live with a man'.
Suddenly the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place, and the picture the pieces revealed was of a hellish vortex. Lillian's fundamentalist Brethren upbringing; her deceit of that first suitor; her coercion into marriage; her husband whose sexual orientation would at that time have exposed him to prosecution, and would in street-fighting Portsmouth have endangered his life; his abandonment of her: all these combined to produce a toxic mix of shame, guilt, rage and disgust. She was unhappy, and her story remains one of the unhappiest I have ever heard. It is one of the reasons why I believe in redemption, which I understand as death and resurrection.
Lillian was trapped. She was trapped by her guilt at her treatment of the man who had loved her. She was trapped by her belief that as a punishment she had been married to a man who could not love her. She was trapped by the conviction that she was quite alone in the world and she was trapped by the suspicion that everyone else was happy in a way she hadn't been since those far-off days at London Road Baptist Church, where the future Prime Minister's sister had played the piano for the Sunday School.
It is easy to dismiss the notion of redemption as a concept belonging solely to the market place, as a sub-Christian theology, unworthy of the God who is love. But Lillian was trapped by her guilt at her deceit, by her belief in her punishment and by her conviction of her isolation. She was powerless to free herself. She needed to be redeemed. She needed to take hold of her Baptism. She needed to believe that God had forgiven her her deceit of that young man. She needed to believe that her marriage was not a punishment but a tragedy, for her and for her husband. She needed to believe that she was not alone. But the belief that she had been forgiven, the belief that she had not been punished and the belief that she was not alone was, to Lillian, belief that was cross-shaped. For Lillian to believe that she was forgiven; for her to believe that she was not the victim of a cosmic punishment; for her to believe that she was not alone, she would have had to surrender the foundation stones that had constituted her identity for over sixty years. She would have had to die to self and be born anew. And that death and resurrection - that redemption - is, I believe, made possible only by the grace of God's Holy Spirit.
That is what it is to be redeemed. It is to give up whatever we cling to most closely, and to re-discover ourselves as nothing less and nothing more than the beloved children of God. It is to die and to be re-born.
I wish I could offer you a post-script, a happy ending to Lillian's story, but I can't. I often sat with her, longing that through the Scriptures, through the sacrament of Holy Communion, or, more particularly, through my wise words, she might take hold of her Baptism and might believe herself forgiven and beloved. But she did not. When I left Portsmouth she was still unhappy, and she died some years later. And this apparently unhappy ending taught me one of the things from which I need to be redeemed - the false vanity of priesthood which takes itself too seriously. I am still learning, even though there is unimpeachable precedent for the Lord being carried on the shoulders of an ass.
Of course I don't know how Lillian's story really ends, if it has ended, for it ends with the One with whom it began, with whom all our stories began. We have been plunged into the cleansing, killing waters of Baptism, there to die and to be re-born. We are redeemed. And the One who has redeemed us is faithful, and he will complete his work.
I used to take Holy Communion to her. Her world had shrunk to one room, where she lived, ate, and slept. She saw her City Council carers every day; she saw me every month; and she received occasional visits from the niece who was all the family she had.
She was very unhappy. She had much to be unhappy about. I remember that one winter afternoon I arrived to find her sitting in almost total darkness. Four of the five lightbulbs in her room had expired, and her carer had told her that health and safety did not allow him to climb a ladder to change them. But over time I discovered that there was more to her unhappiness than the indignity of old age. She told me about the young man who had fallen in love with her more than seventy years previously. 'He was besotted' she said. Her family approved, and gave him every encouragement. He begged her to marry him. But Lillian couldn't stand him, and longed to be free of his attentions. Times were hard and the young man decided to emigrate to Australia. He would go, he said, only if Lillian would follow him and begin a new life on the far side of the world. Seeing her chance, Lillian agreed. She went with him to the dock at Southampton and waved him off, knowing full well that she would never keep her promise. She never saw him again.
Her family were furious and were determined that she would not be so headstrong again. They arranged for her to marry her cousin, and this time she had no choice. Lillian rarely spoke about her husband. I supposed that the photograph that sat on top of the television, of a man a gentle face and wavy hair, was of him. On an early visit I was surprised to pick up a teaspoon and find it emblazoned with a swastika. Her husband had been in the navy, she told me, and the teaspoon was a trophy he'd taken from a captured Nazi U-Boat.
But that was all, until one day when I was visiting another elderly parishioner, coincidentally also called Lillian. She asked after her namesake, and then enquired 'Has she ever told you about her husband?' 'No' I said. 'He was homosexual' she said 'he left her and went to live with a man'.
Suddenly the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place, and the picture the pieces revealed was of a hellish vortex. Lillian's fundamentalist Brethren upbringing; her deceit of that first suitor; her coercion into marriage; her husband whose sexual orientation would at that time have exposed him to prosecution, and would in street-fighting Portsmouth have endangered his life; his abandonment of her: all these combined to produce a toxic mix of shame, guilt, rage and disgust. She was unhappy, and her story remains one of the unhappiest I have ever heard. It is one of the reasons why I believe in redemption, which I understand as death and resurrection.
Lillian was trapped. She was trapped by her guilt at her treatment of the man who had loved her. She was trapped by her belief that as a punishment she had been married to a man who could not love her. She was trapped by the conviction that she was quite alone in the world and she was trapped by the suspicion that everyone else was happy in a way she hadn't been since those far-off days at London Road Baptist Church, where the future Prime Minister's sister had played the piano for the Sunday School.
It is easy to dismiss the notion of redemption as a concept belonging solely to the market place, as a sub-Christian theology, unworthy of the God who is love. But Lillian was trapped by her guilt at her deceit, by her belief in her punishment and by her conviction of her isolation. She was powerless to free herself. She needed to be redeemed. She needed to take hold of her Baptism. She needed to believe that God had forgiven her her deceit of that young man. She needed to believe that her marriage was not a punishment but a tragedy, for her and for her husband. She needed to believe that she was not alone. But the belief that she had been forgiven, the belief that she had not been punished and the belief that she was not alone was, to Lillian, belief that was cross-shaped. For Lillian to believe that she was forgiven; for her to believe that she was not the victim of a cosmic punishment; for her to believe that she was not alone, she would have had to surrender the foundation stones that had constituted her identity for over sixty years. She would have had to die to self and be born anew. And that death and resurrection - that redemption - is, I believe, made possible only by the grace of God's Holy Spirit.
That is what it is to be redeemed. It is to give up whatever we cling to most closely, and to re-discover ourselves as nothing less and nothing more than the beloved children of God. It is to die and to be re-born.
I wish I could offer you a post-script, a happy ending to Lillian's story, but I can't. I often sat with her, longing that through the Scriptures, through the sacrament of Holy Communion, or, more particularly, through my wise words, she might take hold of her Baptism and might believe herself forgiven and beloved. But she did not. When I left Portsmouth she was still unhappy, and she died some years later. And this apparently unhappy ending taught me one of the things from which I need to be redeemed - the false vanity of priesthood which takes itself too seriously. I am still learning, even though there is unimpeachable precedent for the Lord being carried on the shoulders of an ass.
Of course I don't know how Lillian's story really ends, if it has ended, for it ends with the One with whom it began, with whom all our stories began. We have been plunged into the cleansing, killing waters of Baptism, there to die and to be re-born. We are redeemed. And the One who has redeemed us is faithful, and he will complete his work.
Monday, 12 March 2012
The Third Sunday of Lent, 11 March 2012, Canterbury Cathedral
'Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified'.
David is a solicitor who works in Lincoln's Inn but lives in increasingly unaffordable Fulham. He is not a Christian or a member of any congregation. But one cold morning he walks boldly into the meeting room of a local church. Seeing his smart attire the Vicar, who is getting ready to address the parish Lent group, asks him if he is in fact looking for the Westminster School of Management, which is meeting next door. "No" says David. "I saw the poster for the talk about God. I'm here for that". He accepts a cup of unspeakable coffee, sits down on one of the uncomfortable chairs, and looks around the unheated room at the eight others who are in attendance. The Vicar proceeds to give his talk on the oneness of God and the goodness of God, and invites questions. "What I want to know" says David, very courteously, "is whether God is anything more than the sum total of what people think about him. I want to know whether there is a God".
It's probably time to come clean. I was the Vicar in question. The incident I've described took place last week. And I've spent a lot of time since thinking about it. I've speculated about what David was looking for when he wandered into the group. I've speculated about what his impressions were when he left. And I've speculated about whether he'll return.
What response should a community of faith make to an inquisitive stranger? There are parallels between David of Fulham's appearance in church, and Jesus of Nazareth's appearance in the Temple of Jerusalem. His cleansing of the Temple exposes the layers of activity that smother its true purpose. Jesus overturns the tables of the money-changers and drives out the dealers in livestock. He expunges the diversions and expels the easygoing customs that have accumulated over the years. This is his Father's house and he wants it to remain his Father's. It must have been uncomfortable for the Temple authorities.
David's questions were no whip of cords, but they too were uncomfortable. Under the scrutiny of an inquisitive stranger the diversions and easygoing customs of church are suddenly of no avail. There is no shared language in which conversation can happen. There is no script in which to take refuge. There is no polite deference or cloying niceness enabling the subject to be neatly sidestepped. Jews demand signs. Greeks desire wisdom. But what about solicitors from Fulham? What does the inquisitive stranger demand or desire? Signs, or wisdom?
When Moses ascends Mount Sinai there are signs aplenty to verify the divine presence. The mountain is wrapped in smoke. It shakes violently. God has descended upon it in fire. No one who witnesses it can have any doubt that this is the work of the Holy One of Israel. It is for unmistakeable signs such as these that the Jews ask Jesus; it is to unmistakeable signs such as these that Paul refers disparagingly when he writes to the Corinthians. Remembering this, people of faith could respond to the inquisitive stranger by reaching for signs: for artistic endeavour, beneficial social change, or the countless lives transformed that all point to the truth of the Gospel. Perhaps the stranger looks for a sign in response to his questioning, a sign that would settle once and for all the matter that is troubling him.
When Moses descends from Mount Sinai he brings with him ten authoritative Commandments, spoken by the very mouth of God and inscribed on adamantine stone. They adumbrate a complete ethic for corporate and individual living. They are wisdom. It is law such as this that the Greeks desire. Remembering this, people of faith might respond to the inquisitive stranger by reaching for wisdom: for Scriptural apologetics and deftly-deployed doctrinal niceties. Perhaps the stranger is looking for wisdom, for compelling logic, for elegantly constructed answers. Perhaps he seeks arguments that will answer his questions as conclusively and inescapably as would celestial fire.
"What I want to know" said David "is whether God is anything more than the sum total of what people think about him. I want to know whether there is a God". To the ears of many of us, of course, these signs, this wisdom - Scripture, doctrine, art, personal redemption and corporate transformation - cry aloud a deafening 'Yes' to his question. Yet the inquisitive stranger, bent on clearing the animals from the Temple, will dismiss signs and wisdom as ruthlessly as Christ drives out the cattle, as easily as Paul dismisses the demands and desires of the Jews and Greeks. And then, all that is left is foolishness. The foolishness of sitting on uncomfortable chairs in an unheated room drinking unspeakable coffee. The foolishness of worshipping a God whose sign, whose wisdom, is a man condemned to death. The foolishness of taking seriously a God who reveals himself in the crucified Christ.
This foolishness is our faith, and this faith is a risk. It must be. God has risked everything in the incarnation of his Son. He invites us to risk everything by placing our trust in him. Faith is a risk, just as walking into an unheated church room on a cold March morning is a risk. When we dare let go of signs, when we dare relinquish wisdom, when we dare to allow ourselves to be foolish, when we take the risk - then, and only then will we discover that God's weakness is stronger than our strength. Amen.
David is a solicitor who works in Lincoln's Inn but lives in increasingly unaffordable Fulham. He is not a Christian or a member of any congregation. But one cold morning he walks boldly into the meeting room of a local church. Seeing his smart attire the Vicar, who is getting ready to address the parish Lent group, asks him if he is in fact looking for the Westminster School of Management, which is meeting next door. "No" says David. "I saw the poster for the talk about God. I'm here for that". He accepts a cup of unspeakable coffee, sits down on one of the uncomfortable chairs, and looks around the unheated room at the eight others who are in attendance. The Vicar proceeds to give his talk on the oneness of God and the goodness of God, and invites questions. "What I want to know" says David, very courteously, "is whether God is anything more than the sum total of what people think about him. I want to know whether there is a God".
It's probably time to come clean. I was the Vicar in question. The incident I've described took place last week. And I've spent a lot of time since thinking about it. I've speculated about what David was looking for when he wandered into the group. I've speculated about what his impressions were when he left. And I've speculated about whether he'll return.
What response should a community of faith make to an inquisitive stranger? There are parallels between David of Fulham's appearance in church, and Jesus of Nazareth's appearance in the Temple of Jerusalem. His cleansing of the Temple exposes the layers of activity that smother its true purpose. Jesus overturns the tables of the money-changers and drives out the dealers in livestock. He expunges the diversions and expels the easygoing customs that have accumulated over the years. This is his Father's house and he wants it to remain his Father's. It must have been uncomfortable for the Temple authorities.
David's questions were no whip of cords, but they too were uncomfortable. Under the scrutiny of an inquisitive stranger the diversions and easygoing customs of church are suddenly of no avail. There is no shared language in which conversation can happen. There is no script in which to take refuge. There is no polite deference or cloying niceness enabling the subject to be neatly sidestepped. Jews demand signs. Greeks desire wisdom. But what about solicitors from Fulham? What does the inquisitive stranger demand or desire? Signs, or wisdom?
When Moses ascends Mount Sinai there are signs aplenty to verify the divine presence. The mountain is wrapped in smoke. It shakes violently. God has descended upon it in fire. No one who witnesses it can have any doubt that this is the work of the Holy One of Israel. It is for unmistakeable signs such as these that the Jews ask Jesus; it is to unmistakeable signs such as these that Paul refers disparagingly when he writes to the Corinthians. Remembering this, people of faith could respond to the inquisitive stranger by reaching for signs: for artistic endeavour, beneficial social change, or the countless lives transformed that all point to the truth of the Gospel. Perhaps the stranger looks for a sign in response to his questioning, a sign that would settle once and for all the matter that is troubling him.
When Moses descends from Mount Sinai he brings with him ten authoritative Commandments, spoken by the very mouth of God and inscribed on adamantine stone. They adumbrate a complete ethic for corporate and individual living. They are wisdom. It is law such as this that the Greeks desire. Remembering this, people of faith might respond to the inquisitive stranger by reaching for wisdom: for Scriptural apologetics and deftly-deployed doctrinal niceties. Perhaps the stranger is looking for wisdom, for compelling logic, for elegantly constructed answers. Perhaps he seeks arguments that will answer his questions as conclusively and inescapably as would celestial fire.
"What I want to know" said David "is whether God is anything more than the sum total of what people think about him. I want to know whether there is a God". To the ears of many of us, of course, these signs, this wisdom - Scripture, doctrine, art, personal redemption and corporate transformation - cry aloud a deafening 'Yes' to his question. Yet the inquisitive stranger, bent on clearing the animals from the Temple, will dismiss signs and wisdom as ruthlessly as Christ drives out the cattle, as easily as Paul dismisses the demands and desires of the Jews and Greeks. And then, all that is left is foolishness. The foolishness of sitting on uncomfortable chairs in an unheated room drinking unspeakable coffee. The foolishness of worshipping a God whose sign, whose wisdom, is a man condemned to death. The foolishness of taking seriously a God who reveals himself in the crucified Christ.
This foolishness is our faith, and this faith is a risk. It must be. God has risked everything in the incarnation of his Son. He invites us to risk everything by placing our trust in him. Faith is a risk, just as walking into an unheated church room on a cold March morning is a risk. When we dare let go of signs, when we dare relinquish wisdom, when we dare to allow ourselves to be foolish, when we take the risk - then, and only then will we discover that God's weakness is stronger than our strength. Amen.
Monday, 30 January 2012
Candlemas 2012
Some of you may have heard the atheist philosopher Alain de Botton talking on Radio 4's Saturday Live yesterday morning. Unlike some of his non-believing confreres de Botton has a lot of time for religion. He's not quite sure why, but he's quite sure that ecclesiastical architecture, ritual and sacred music all add value to human life.
He'd be very welcome to join us, and I hope he'd feel at home here. Like him, we believe that what we do, what we say and what we sing - and the place where we do it, say it and sing it - adds value to our lives, to our children's lives and to the life of that rather nebulous entity we call 'the community'. Like him, we are well disposed towards the benign effects that church has.
This generous disposition is a credible and unobjectionable stance, indeed, for many it's the first stage on the journey of faith. It's mirrored in the first stage of the Liturgy of Baptism, the stage called The Decision. There we, or our parents and godparents, are asked to turn to Christ and reject evil, in other words, to orient ourselves towards light and away from dark. An atheist with a poetic streak in his heart such as de Botton would probably have no difficulty signing up. But he's admirably clear that this is not the same as having faith. Churchgoers like him - and, the cynics have long claimed, Church of England-goers like us - don' t actually need faith.
Faith asks more of us than a general orientation and a general disposition - it asks two things more of us. First, it asks that we move beyond generalities. Most of the world would agree that Christ is good: only the faithful agree that Christ is God. The journey of faith mirrored in the liturgy of Baptism asks that we publicly profess the truths enshrined in the words of the Apostles' Creed.
Second, it asks that we allow ourselves to be baptized, and the moment of our baptism not only launches the journey of faith; it also encapsulates it in its entirety. Remember how powerless we are at that moment, as the water cascades down upon our heads, or as we are plunged beneath it. That moment sums up what it is to have faith. It is a moment of absolute trust, a moment when we allow God to act, a moment when we place no reliance in our own strengths, whatever they may be. It is a moment we return to time and time again in our lives of faith - every time we offer prayer into the seeming void; every time we raise our voices in a song of praise; every time we shriek with pain at our imagined abandonment; every time we lift our hands to receive bread and wine that we believe are more than bread and wine.
Think of Mary. The Gospels recount little of her inner life. They are not modern biographies. But she has been told she is to give birth to God's Son. The angels fill the sky with song and shepherds rush to the manger. And then sharply, starkly, as she presents her firstborn in the Temple of the God whose Son she believes him to be, she hears Simeon's words: " this child is destined to be a sign that will be opposed...and a sword will pierce your own soul too". Being the mother of God's son is not just about kingly gold and priestly frankincense - it is about the bitter myrrh of cross and tomb as well. How can Mary live but by faith in God's promise and through trust that the life of her darling son will not end in agony and tears? How can Mary live but by allowing God to act and placing no reliance in her own strength?
The last time we worshipped together, in October, we committed ourselves to following the Way of Christ mirrored in the Liturgy of Baptism as we approach our twentieth anniversary in May, and we spent Advent considering the Decision. Now, at Candlemas, when Mary discovers that even greater reserves of faith are going to be needed from her, I invite you to move beyond generalities, to commit yourselves to journey "farther up and farther in" as Reepicheep the Mouse memorably insists. I invite you to re-visit the words of the Creed, to feel afresh the waters of your Baptism, and to celebrate your redemption though them. Our Lent sermons will consider Redemption - what it means to allow ourselves to be immersed in Christ's love. Our Lent conversations, Inhabiting God's Story, will give us the opportunity to examine faith's demands - God, Jesus, Bible, sacraments. Our Lent challenge is this: dare we stop being churchgoers and become instead disciples?
This is a challenge that your Church Council has spent seven months considering, and in the next week or so you will receive a summary of the Mission Action Plan that we believe should be our response to it. It is not a plan for churchgoers. It is a plan for disciples and for making disciples. We want to extend our work with children and the young both within the church/school community and within Victoria exponentially, and employ a member of staff to help us do it. We want to find ways of drawing us into new relationships with one another and with God, relationships that will form us in faith and open us to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We want to make an impact on our neighbourhood and beyond, seeking out the lonely, working for prisoners of conscience, reducing our environmental footprint, and allying ourselves with the like-minded in groups such as London Citizens. We want to reimagine this building, enhancing the worship space, refreshing the public rooms and creating a new one for Youth on the second floor and a cafe-style facility in the Welcome Room and on the portico. Achieving these ambitions will require every ounce of the talent and energy with which we are so richly blessed, and will make demands upon us all.
But this is the vocation of disciples. We can stay and stagnate in a world where church is nice, where church is an extension of the school playground, where church is probably good for us when kept in its proper place, where we philosophize over dinner, and do only that. Or like blessed Mary we can allow ourselves to be immersed in the one whose Son will take us to the cross and beyond, so that the world can be won. Amen.
He'd be very welcome to join us, and I hope he'd feel at home here. Like him, we believe that what we do, what we say and what we sing - and the place where we do it, say it and sing it - adds value to our lives, to our children's lives and to the life of that rather nebulous entity we call 'the community'. Like him, we are well disposed towards the benign effects that church has.
This generous disposition is a credible and unobjectionable stance, indeed, for many it's the first stage on the journey of faith. It's mirrored in the first stage of the Liturgy of Baptism, the stage called The Decision. There we, or our parents and godparents, are asked to turn to Christ and reject evil, in other words, to orient ourselves towards light and away from dark. An atheist with a poetic streak in his heart such as de Botton would probably have no difficulty signing up. But he's admirably clear that this is not the same as having faith. Churchgoers like him - and, the cynics have long claimed, Church of England-goers like us - don' t actually need faith.
Faith asks more of us than a general orientation and a general disposition - it asks two things more of us. First, it asks that we move beyond generalities. Most of the world would agree that Christ is good: only the faithful agree that Christ is God. The journey of faith mirrored in the liturgy of Baptism asks that we publicly profess the truths enshrined in the words of the Apostles' Creed.
Second, it asks that we allow ourselves to be baptized, and the moment of our baptism not only launches the journey of faith; it also encapsulates it in its entirety. Remember how powerless we are at that moment, as the water cascades down upon our heads, or as we are plunged beneath it. That moment sums up what it is to have faith. It is a moment of absolute trust, a moment when we allow God to act, a moment when we place no reliance in our own strengths, whatever they may be. It is a moment we return to time and time again in our lives of faith - every time we offer prayer into the seeming void; every time we raise our voices in a song of praise; every time we shriek with pain at our imagined abandonment; every time we lift our hands to receive bread and wine that we believe are more than bread and wine.
Think of Mary. The Gospels recount little of her inner life. They are not modern biographies. But she has been told she is to give birth to God's Son. The angels fill the sky with song and shepherds rush to the manger. And then sharply, starkly, as she presents her firstborn in the Temple of the God whose Son she believes him to be, she hears Simeon's words: " this child is destined to be a sign that will be opposed...and a sword will pierce your own soul too". Being the mother of God's son is not just about kingly gold and priestly frankincense - it is about the bitter myrrh of cross and tomb as well. How can Mary live but by faith in God's promise and through trust that the life of her darling son will not end in agony and tears? How can Mary live but by allowing God to act and placing no reliance in her own strength?
The last time we worshipped together, in October, we committed ourselves to following the Way of Christ mirrored in the Liturgy of Baptism as we approach our twentieth anniversary in May, and we spent Advent considering the Decision. Now, at Candlemas, when Mary discovers that even greater reserves of faith are going to be needed from her, I invite you to move beyond generalities, to commit yourselves to journey "farther up and farther in" as Reepicheep the Mouse memorably insists. I invite you to re-visit the words of the Creed, to feel afresh the waters of your Baptism, and to celebrate your redemption though them. Our Lent sermons will consider Redemption - what it means to allow ourselves to be immersed in Christ's love. Our Lent conversations, Inhabiting God's Story, will give us the opportunity to examine faith's demands - God, Jesus, Bible, sacraments. Our Lent challenge is this: dare we stop being churchgoers and become instead disciples?
This is a challenge that your Church Council has spent seven months considering, and in the next week or so you will receive a summary of the Mission Action Plan that we believe should be our response to it. It is not a plan for churchgoers. It is a plan for disciples and for making disciples. We want to extend our work with children and the young both within the church/school community and within Victoria exponentially, and employ a member of staff to help us do it. We want to find ways of drawing us into new relationships with one another and with God, relationships that will form us in faith and open us to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We want to make an impact on our neighbourhood and beyond, seeking out the lonely, working for prisoners of conscience, reducing our environmental footprint, and allying ourselves with the like-minded in groups such as London Citizens. We want to reimagine this building, enhancing the worship space, refreshing the public rooms and creating a new one for Youth on the second floor and a cafe-style facility in the Welcome Room and on the portico. Achieving these ambitions will require every ounce of the talent and energy with which we are so richly blessed, and will make demands upon us all.
But this is the vocation of disciples. We can stay and stagnate in a world where church is nice, where church is an extension of the school playground, where church is probably good for us when kept in its proper place, where we philosophize over dinner, and do only that. Or like blessed Mary we can allow ourselves to be immersed in the one whose Son will take us to the cross and beyond, so that the world can be won. Amen.
Monday, 23 January 2012
The Baptism of Christ 2012
It may have been the seventeenth century Puritans who actually abolished it, but if it had been up to St Mark the Evangelist Christmas wouldn't be half as much fun as it is. The reader who scans his Gospel for traces of shepherds and angels, for stables, donkeys and wise men, even for a glimpse of 'baby Jesus' does so in vain, for there are none. Mark's Jesus strides into the Judean countryside and meets his kinsman John as a fully-grown adult. It's not that Mark has any doubts about who he is: 'The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God' he writes. But he needs evidence for his assertion, and there are no heavenly hosts, virgin births or bright stars to assist. Instead he finds his evidence in his account of what happens when Jesus meets John on the river bank. A heavenly voice speaks and conflates at least two Old Testament sources who will be familiar to Mark's audience. 'My Son' is a reference to the Psalms and marks Jesus out as a member of a royal household. 'With you I am well pleased' is a reference to the Prophets and marks Jesus out as the servant of God who will suffer in his master's cause. Thus Mark makes his case. Jesus is the scion of royalty; he is the suffering servant; he is the Son with whom the Father is well pleased. The Baptism of Christ establishes the identity of Christ. The reader is in no doubt about whose story Mark is to tell.
Nor can the reader be in any doubt as to the cosmic significance of the story. Mark wants us to understand that what has been unleashed upon the world at the the baptism is a new epoch in history. Water has a particular meaning in the iconography of the Old Testament, as the reading from Genesis very nearly reminded us this morning. 'Very nearly' because it abandoned the Creation narrative part-way through. Had it gone on just a little longer than it did we would have been reminded that God's first act in creating the universe was to part the waters over which his wind swept in the very beginning, thereby creating a space in which life could flourish. Water means chaos, and it is out of chaos that God draws order, a new order, a new chapter in his story. So when Christ emerges from the River Jordan, we are assured that a page is being turned. If that were not enough we have also the evidence of what happens in the heavens. They are torn apart. In other words, God is speaking to his people as they have longed for him to. The channels of communication are blown open. And in the descent of the Spirit there is yet a further sign. The prophet Joel speaks of the days to when God's Spirit will be poured out upon earth. Look, says Mark, it is happening. The Son is here: a new era has arrived.
And lastly, in this, the first episode of Jesus's ministry that he records, Mark also sets out the pattern for what is to come. He sets out the pattern for the final episodes in Jesus's ministry, for in the Baptism are the death and resurrection foreshadowed. As before the Sanhedrin, we find Jesus is in the company of sinners. As at the court of Herod the king, he is silent. As in the courtyard of Pilate's palace, he submits to the actions of men. And as at Golgotha, it is at this point, when he is surrounded by sinners, when he is silent and submissive, it is at this point that God acts - at the Baptism, to affirm him, and on Easter morning, to raise him up.
So Mark is clear about the meaning of the Baptism of Christ. It establishes his identity; it announces a new era; and it prefigures his destiny. What is less clear is what the Baptism of Christ means for the Baptism of us. If the familiar ingredients of the primary school nativity play are missing from Mark's Gospel, then the familiar ingredients of Christ's Baptism were probably missing from our Baptism. The heavens were not torn apart; a dove did not descend; and had a heavenly voice thundered then the vicar would probably have dropped us in the font.
Yet although these ingredients were probably missing, our Baptism had the significance for us that Christ's did for him. Voice or no voice, our Baptism established our identity as beloved children of God, of unique and eternal worth. The cross marked in oil on our foreheads has disappeared but the one whose badge it is will never disappear. Torn heavens or no torn heavens, our Baptism inaugurated a new era for God's church. Its ranks were swollen; heaven was enlarged, the great chorus sounded just a little louder, and all the baptized gained a new brother. And the more we allow ourselves to trust, the more we allow ourselves to listen, the more we allow ourselves to wait, the more we allow ourselves to be immersed in the divine life, the more will the life of the divine servant, baptized, dead, and risen, grow in us. Amen.
Nor can the reader be in any doubt as to the cosmic significance of the story. Mark wants us to understand that what has been unleashed upon the world at the the baptism is a new epoch in history. Water has a particular meaning in the iconography of the Old Testament, as the reading from Genesis very nearly reminded us this morning. 'Very nearly' because it abandoned the Creation narrative part-way through. Had it gone on just a little longer than it did we would have been reminded that God's first act in creating the universe was to part the waters over which his wind swept in the very beginning, thereby creating a space in which life could flourish. Water means chaos, and it is out of chaos that God draws order, a new order, a new chapter in his story. So when Christ emerges from the River Jordan, we are assured that a page is being turned. If that were not enough we have also the evidence of what happens in the heavens. They are torn apart. In other words, God is speaking to his people as they have longed for him to. The channels of communication are blown open. And in the descent of the Spirit there is yet a further sign. The prophet Joel speaks of the days to when God's Spirit will be poured out upon earth. Look, says Mark, it is happening. The Son is here: a new era has arrived.
And lastly, in this, the first episode of Jesus's ministry that he records, Mark also sets out the pattern for what is to come. He sets out the pattern for the final episodes in Jesus's ministry, for in the Baptism are the death and resurrection foreshadowed. As before the Sanhedrin, we find Jesus is in the company of sinners. As at the court of Herod the king, he is silent. As in the courtyard of Pilate's palace, he submits to the actions of men. And as at Golgotha, it is at this point, when he is surrounded by sinners, when he is silent and submissive, it is at this point that God acts - at the Baptism, to affirm him, and on Easter morning, to raise him up.
So Mark is clear about the meaning of the Baptism of Christ. It establishes his identity; it announces a new era; and it prefigures his destiny. What is less clear is what the Baptism of Christ means for the Baptism of us. If the familiar ingredients of the primary school nativity play are missing from Mark's Gospel, then the familiar ingredients of Christ's Baptism were probably missing from our Baptism. The heavens were not torn apart; a dove did not descend; and had a heavenly voice thundered then the vicar would probably have dropped us in the font.
Yet although these ingredients were probably missing, our Baptism had the significance for us that Christ's did for him. Voice or no voice, our Baptism established our identity as beloved children of God, of unique and eternal worth. The cross marked in oil on our foreheads has disappeared but the one whose badge it is will never disappear. Torn heavens or no torn heavens, our Baptism inaugurated a new era for God's church. Its ranks were swollen; heaven was enlarged, the great chorus sounded just a little louder, and all the baptized gained a new brother. And the more we allow ourselves to trust, the more we allow ourselves to listen, the more we allow ourselves to wait, the more we allow ourselves to be immersed in the divine life, the more will the life of the divine servant, baptized, dead, and risen, grow in us. Amen.
Monday, 9 January 2012
The Epiphany, Sunday 8 January 2012
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
for a journey, and such a long journey
The ways deep, and the weather sharp:
The very dead of winter.'
Over the years the twelve verses of Matthew's Gospel which tell the story of the visit of the Wise Men to Bethlehem have had to bear an immense weight of creative interpretation. They have been painted and sculpted. They have been stitched into tapestry and represented in mosaic. They have been reproduced in film, set to glorious music, and immortalized in verse.
These interpretations have often sought to fill in the gaps in Matthew's narrative. The nameless three were named about five hundred years into the Common Era - as Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar. At about the same time they were given nationalities - Babylonian, Persian and Arab. The uncertain status conferred on them by the Greek word 'magi' was resolved - they were kings. They have been provided with camels; their number has been added to ('The Story of the Fourth Wise Man'); their relics were reputedly brought to Constantinople by Constantine's mother and have since the twelfth century rested in Cologne Cathedral. Numerous attempts have been made at uncovering their later history. What became of them after they return from Bethlehem and disappear from the pages of the biblical narrative?
All these elaborations point to the essentially sparse nature of Matthew's account. He does not give the reader much detail; not, that is, except in one particular. For he is quite specific about the three gifts that the mysterious strangers from the East bring with them: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So it is at least arguable that this is what Matthew wanted his readers to remember about the Wise Men; that this is what he believed was significant about them. They are the men who give to the infant Christ: in their journey they give of their time; in their worship they give of their love; in their gifts they give of their resources. They are the men who give.
This does not appear to have satisfied later generations, from St Helena of the Holy Places to TS Eliot, who with countless others have added to the story all the accretions I have mentioned, and more. Why is that? Why have we not been satisfied with Matthew's belief that it was their giving that was important and their giving that should be their memorial? Why have we insisted on more?
In his recent Christmas message the Bishop of London considers the harsh economic times in which we live, and finds in them the possibility of spiritual renewal. History has not ended, as some confidently predicted it had twenty years ago. Instead its drama continues to unfold. The author of this cosmic drama is God, and while its plot and script do not shirk the darkness they contain the promise of hope. 'We need to hear and receive a meaningful narrative about our civilization' writes the Bishop 'which does not shrink from what is happening but which contains the promise of hope'.
The financial crisis has compelled us to re-discover (or, perhaps, to discover) that economics and ethics are linked. To be truly meaningful any narrative about our civilization must address that link. What we earn; what we owe; the power we wield; the responsibilities we bear; unemployment; homelessness; despair: none of these is morally neutral; none of these can be viewed in isolation; none of these can be excluded from a meaningful narrative about who we are. The Gospel has something to say about all of them.
Which brings me back to the Wise Men and to our apparent unwillingness to remember them as the visitors who gave to the infant Christ. It's as though generosity is not regarded as an adequate summation of their life, or, perhaps, of any life. I'm not sure I've ever heard a eulogy which remarked on the deceased's giving as the touchstone and hallmark of his existence. We look for more. In the case of the Wise Men, we look for exotic names, exalted ranks and anguished interior ponderings; today, we are likely to scan the obits pages and look for career highs and lows, relationships failed and successful, and comments sage and incendiary.
The Wise Men travelled many miles, and gave of their time; they knelt before the infant Christ, and gave of their love; they opened their treasure chests, and gave of their resources. They were in the presence of the King of all kings, and their grateful response was to give. We are their successors and we stand in the same blessed presence. What will be our memorial? Perhaps we crave fame for ourselves, the sort of fame that has been created for them. Perhaps we want our names to be remembered, our occupations to be honoured, and our families to be celebrated.Perhaps we are concerned that we should be known everlastingly as the people who we really were. Or perhaps we are we ready to acknowledge we, like the Wise Men, are recipients of a gift beyond price. And perhaps we are ready to give everything that we have and are, and to be remembered only for that. Now - there's a meaningful narrative for our civilization. Amen.
Just the worst time of the year
for a journey, and such a long journey
The ways deep, and the weather sharp:
The very dead of winter.'
Over the years the twelve verses of Matthew's Gospel which tell the story of the visit of the Wise Men to Bethlehem have had to bear an immense weight of creative interpretation. They have been painted and sculpted. They have been stitched into tapestry and represented in mosaic. They have been reproduced in film, set to glorious music, and immortalized in verse.
These interpretations have often sought to fill in the gaps in Matthew's narrative. The nameless three were named about five hundred years into the Common Era - as Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar. At about the same time they were given nationalities - Babylonian, Persian and Arab. The uncertain status conferred on them by the Greek word 'magi' was resolved - they were kings. They have been provided with camels; their number has been added to ('The Story of the Fourth Wise Man'); their relics were reputedly brought to Constantinople by Constantine's mother and have since the twelfth century rested in Cologne Cathedral. Numerous attempts have been made at uncovering their later history. What became of them after they return from Bethlehem and disappear from the pages of the biblical narrative?
All these elaborations point to the essentially sparse nature of Matthew's account. He does not give the reader much detail; not, that is, except in one particular. For he is quite specific about the three gifts that the mysterious strangers from the East bring with them: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So it is at least arguable that this is what Matthew wanted his readers to remember about the Wise Men; that this is what he believed was significant about them. They are the men who give to the infant Christ: in their journey they give of their time; in their worship they give of their love; in their gifts they give of their resources. They are the men who give.
This does not appear to have satisfied later generations, from St Helena of the Holy Places to TS Eliot, who with countless others have added to the story all the accretions I have mentioned, and more. Why is that? Why have we not been satisfied with Matthew's belief that it was their giving that was important and their giving that should be their memorial? Why have we insisted on more?
In his recent Christmas message the Bishop of London considers the harsh economic times in which we live, and finds in them the possibility of spiritual renewal. History has not ended, as some confidently predicted it had twenty years ago. Instead its drama continues to unfold. The author of this cosmic drama is God, and while its plot and script do not shirk the darkness they contain the promise of hope. 'We need to hear and receive a meaningful narrative about our civilization' writes the Bishop 'which does not shrink from what is happening but which contains the promise of hope'.
The financial crisis has compelled us to re-discover (or, perhaps, to discover) that economics and ethics are linked. To be truly meaningful any narrative about our civilization must address that link. What we earn; what we owe; the power we wield; the responsibilities we bear; unemployment; homelessness; despair: none of these is morally neutral; none of these can be viewed in isolation; none of these can be excluded from a meaningful narrative about who we are. The Gospel has something to say about all of them.
Which brings me back to the Wise Men and to our apparent unwillingness to remember them as the visitors who gave to the infant Christ. It's as though generosity is not regarded as an adequate summation of their life, or, perhaps, of any life. I'm not sure I've ever heard a eulogy which remarked on the deceased's giving as the touchstone and hallmark of his existence. We look for more. In the case of the Wise Men, we look for exotic names, exalted ranks and anguished interior ponderings; today, we are likely to scan the obits pages and look for career highs and lows, relationships failed and successful, and comments sage and incendiary.
The Wise Men travelled many miles, and gave of their time; they knelt before the infant Christ, and gave of their love; they opened their treasure chests, and gave of their resources. They were in the presence of the King of all kings, and their grateful response was to give. We are their successors and we stand in the same blessed presence. What will be our memorial? Perhaps we crave fame for ourselves, the sort of fame that has been created for them. Perhaps we want our names to be remembered, our occupations to be honoured, and our families to be celebrated.Perhaps we are concerned that we should be known everlastingly as the people who we really were. Or perhaps we are we ready to acknowledge we, like the Wise Men, are recipients of a gift beyond price. And perhaps we are ready to give everything that we have and are, and to be remembered only for that. Now - there's a meaningful narrative for our civilization. Amen.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Christmas Day 2011
“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”
In A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens, the bicentenary of whose birth is celebrated next year, tells the story of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is transformed from a man described as “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, and covetous” in the opening pages, to a man described as “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew” in the closing pages.
Set as it is on Christmas Eve it is Scrooge’s opinion of the festivities that surround him that serves as the benchmark of his transformation. At the beginning that opinion is crystallized with admirable clarity in one unforgettable word. Christmas is humbug. “If I could work my will” says Scrooge “every idiot who goes around with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly though his heart”. At the end that opinion has changed. Out on the London streets he “regarded everyone with a delighted smile” writes Dickens. “He looked so irresistibly pleasant…that three or four good-humoured fellows said, ‘Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!’ And Scrooge often said afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears”.
Scrooge’s early opinion of Christmas is forged by his analysis of its costs and benefits. Christmas brings no profit and it impoverishes those who indulge in it. “What reason have you to be merry?” he asks his kindly nephew. “What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer?” But by the end that analysis is abandoned. Scrooge despatches an impossibly large turkey to Bob Cratchit’s family, increases his salary, and gives liberally to the poor. When we meet Scrooge he knows his own mind. When we leave him he is beginning to know his own heart.
During Advent at St Peter’s, conscious that the lives of disciples begin with the decision to follow Christ, we reflected Sunday by Sunday upon how decisions are made, and, consequently, upon the deployment of knowledge in the making of decisions. In A Christmas Carol we encounter two kinds of knowledge, the knowledge of the mind, and the knowledge of the heart. We encounter their relationship, and we encounter their conflict. This encounter is a theme emphasized and re-emphasized by writers on prayer. Augustine of Hippo writes of the lower part of the mind, that reasons, and of the higher part, reserved for the contemplation of God. Evagrius of Pontus distinguishes between the reasoning mind that makes use of concepts, and the dimension of the mind that comes to knowledge directly, without their mediation. The mind knows facts, figures, and forecasts. The heart knows pains, pleasures and personalities. The mind understands information. The heart understands others. It is the heart that is the sphere of God’s communication with us and God’s activity within us. It is in our hearts and through our hearts and with our hearts that we are drawn to God, we respond to God and we love God.
This is not to relegate God and faith in God to the far reaches of emotive speculation, where the late Christopher Hitchens and his supporters long to locate them. The human mind can take human beings great distances along the road of faith. Scrooge’s nephew gives us an example. “Christmas time” he says “is the only time I know of…when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good”. In other words, he assesses the objective benefits that the observance of Christmas brings and concludes that such observance is worthwhile. But what changes in Scrooge, and what changes Scrooge, is the disposition of his heart, a change effected by the visitation of the three Spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows him the lonely child he once was. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows him the generous affection that warms the home of others at Christmas. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him the squalor and loneliness of his approaching death. The Spirits do not argue with him. They do not seek to convince him or make a case for him to answer. They hold up a mirror in which he sees his life and the life of the world. What he sees there speaks directly to his heart. What he sees there changes it, and that change in his heart changes his mind.
The knowledge of the heart and the knowledge of the mind have to be balanced. The nineteenth-century Russian monk Theophan the Recluse, canonized in 1988, writes “You must descend from your head to your heart”. What I think he means is that if our restless, questioning, calculating minds are joined to – or perhaps reined in by - our open, trusting, loving hearts; that if through persistence and effort, trial and error, mistake and mishap we learn to subject all our certainties, all our convictions, everything we think we know to what Almighty God longs for us to know; that then and only then will we stand a chance of becoming Christlike, as, perhaps, did Ebenezer Scrooge
Like him, we have awoken on Christmas morning and come to Church, where our eyes fasten on the crib and on the figure of the One who:“…came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all”. We’ve sung it countless times and this morning we celebrate it: the humble descent of the divine to the mortal, and their union in the Christ-child. And we who have come in spirit to Bethlehem, we too must make a humble descent, the descent from the mind to the heart. We too must seek a union, a union of mind and heart, so that in all our thinking and acting and speaking we show forth the Word who is made flesh for our sake. It’s what Phillips Brooks meant when he wrote these words:
“O holy child of Bethlehem
Descend to us we pray,
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today”.
Be born in us today. God bless us, every one. Amen.
In A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens, the bicentenary of whose birth is celebrated next year, tells the story of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is transformed from a man described as “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, and covetous” in the opening pages, to a man described as “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew” in the closing pages.
Set as it is on Christmas Eve it is Scrooge’s opinion of the festivities that surround him that serves as the benchmark of his transformation. At the beginning that opinion is crystallized with admirable clarity in one unforgettable word. Christmas is humbug. “If I could work my will” says Scrooge “every idiot who goes around with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly though his heart”. At the end that opinion has changed. Out on the London streets he “regarded everyone with a delighted smile” writes Dickens. “He looked so irresistibly pleasant…that three or four good-humoured fellows said, ‘Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!’ And Scrooge often said afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears”.
Scrooge’s early opinion of Christmas is forged by his analysis of its costs and benefits. Christmas brings no profit and it impoverishes those who indulge in it. “What reason have you to be merry?” he asks his kindly nephew. “What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer?” But by the end that analysis is abandoned. Scrooge despatches an impossibly large turkey to Bob Cratchit’s family, increases his salary, and gives liberally to the poor. When we meet Scrooge he knows his own mind. When we leave him he is beginning to know his own heart.
During Advent at St Peter’s, conscious that the lives of disciples begin with the decision to follow Christ, we reflected Sunday by Sunday upon how decisions are made, and, consequently, upon the deployment of knowledge in the making of decisions. In A Christmas Carol we encounter two kinds of knowledge, the knowledge of the mind, and the knowledge of the heart. We encounter their relationship, and we encounter their conflict. This encounter is a theme emphasized and re-emphasized by writers on prayer. Augustine of Hippo writes of the lower part of the mind, that reasons, and of the higher part, reserved for the contemplation of God. Evagrius of Pontus distinguishes between the reasoning mind that makes use of concepts, and the dimension of the mind that comes to knowledge directly, without their mediation. The mind knows facts, figures, and forecasts. The heart knows pains, pleasures and personalities. The mind understands information. The heart understands others. It is the heart that is the sphere of God’s communication with us and God’s activity within us. It is in our hearts and through our hearts and with our hearts that we are drawn to God, we respond to God and we love God.
This is not to relegate God and faith in God to the far reaches of emotive speculation, where the late Christopher Hitchens and his supporters long to locate them. The human mind can take human beings great distances along the road of faith. Scrooge’s nephew gives us an example. “Christmas time” he says “is the only time I know of…when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good”. In other words, he assesses the objective benefits that the observance of Christmas brings and concludes that such observance is worthwhile. But what changes in Scrooge, and what changes Scrooge, is the disposition of his heart, a change effected by the visitation of the three Spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows him the lonely child he once was. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows him the generous affection that warms the home of others at Christmas. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him the squalor and loneliness of his approaching death. The Spirits do not argue with him. They do not seek to convince him or make a case for him to answer. They hold up a mirror in which he sees his life and the life of the world. What he sees there speaks directly to his heart. What he sees there changes it, and that change in his heart changes his mind.
The knowledge of the heart and the knowledge of the mind have to be balanced. The nineteenth-century Russian monk Theophan the Recluse, canonized in 1988, writes “You must descend from your head to your heart”. What I think he means is that if our restless, questioning, calculating minds are joined to – or perhaps reined in by - our open, trusting, loving hearts; that if through persistence and effort, trial and error, mistake and mishap we learn to subject all our certainties, all our convictions, everything we think we know to what Almighty God longs for us to know; that then and only then will we stand a chance of becoming Christlike, as, perhaps, did Ebenezer Scrooge
Like him, we have awoken on Christmas morning and come to Church, where our eyes fasten on the crib and on the figure of the One who:“…came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all”. We’ve sung it countless times and this morning we celebrate it: the humble descent of the divine to the mortal, and their union in the Christ-child. And we who have come in spirit to Bethlehem, we too must make a humble descent, the descent from the mind to the heart. We too must seek a union, a union of mind and heart, so that in all our thinking and acting and speaking we show forth the Word who is made flesh for our sake. It’s what Phillips Brooks meant when he wrote these words:
“O holy child of Bethlehem
Descend to us we pray,
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today”.
Be born in us today. God bless us, every one. Amen.
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