Facing up to fear

One of the things that I think all of us find difficult to face is anxiety and fear. Today (Acts 2:1-11) we hear how the God the Holy Spirit worked to conquer the fear that had kept the disciples meeting secretly in a locked room. From being trapped by fear, they became men and women full of courage who would now begin to spread the message of Jesus to the world. Great so far. Wonderful, to celebrate Pentecost when all this happened, what we now describe as the birthday of the Church. But when we are faced with fear, it doesn’t seem that easy to get rid of. If only it was!

Two things to say here. First of all, we must remember that the disciples, and the women with Our Lady, met “daily” for prayer, either in that Upper Room or back in Galilee, over seven long weeks till the Day of Pentecost came. So the coming of the Holy Spirit was not a sudden thing. Secondly, we know that they had the example from Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane on how to pray when full of fear. We now call that “the Agony in the Garden”. Jesus did not expect some magic quick-fix, and neither should we. What he did with his fear was to face it and to share it with his heavenly Father with great trouble and sorrow.

So we do not conquer fear by pretending that we are not frightened. No, it is by sharing such things with God and with others in prayer that we gradually receive the power to face it and live through it.

That word  “fear” appears in our 2^nd Reading too. (Romans 8:8-17) Paul speaks of the Spirit turning us from slaves full of fear into sons. And we are sons because, like Jesus in the Garden, and through him, we have been given the ability and the confidence to address God – the power underlying the Universe -  beyond all our imagining – to speak to God personally, as “Abba, Father”. 

But Paul thinks that we need to be freed by the Holy Spirit not just from fear, but from a lot more that enslaves us. He says that without the Holy Spirit working within us, we are slaves to all kinds of sins whether we know it or not.  Now that’s language that we post-modern 21^st Century people find hard to swallow. We see ourselves as basically in control of our lives, so that unless something big like sickness or death hits us, we easily do not see ourselves as needing to be freed from anything. We may talk about Jesus bringing us salvation, but most of the time we prefer to rely on ourselves rather than on God. Most of us are fairly happy with our lives, and find it hard to think that we need anyone to save us!

The advertisers view us very differently! They know just how easily desires beyond our control can make us spend our money! And they use such things without mercy to persuade us that if we are really to be happy then we need this or that object – from clothing to cars to the latest technological gadget – to make it happen. In fact they actually tap into another kind of fear, don’t they?  Fear that we won’t be happy unless… we have this or that or the other. Fear that other people won’t like us or accept us unless we have the same kind of things they have. Fear of being made fun of if we do not have the most up to date mobile, or clothing or lifestyle or whatever! 

God the Holy Spirit is sometimes described as the Comforter – which means the one who brings us strength and support – to face all these fears – and to live our life free from this enslavement to sin that St Paul talks about. This doesn’t mean that we cannot have new clothes or mobile phones, but it does mean that we must be open to God’s power to free us from enslavement to such things. In doing so, he is surely also opening our minds and hearts to things that are far more important – summed up by that little word “love”

If our life and our religion is just a way of propping up our own cosy little world – of making us feel a bit better – then we have surely missed the point. If we love Jesus, then as he comes to us in the Holy Spirit, he does not just release us from slavery, but, like those disciples, he sends us out in one way or another to spread his Gospel of love. That’s what Jesus says to us in our Gospel today (John 14:15-16.23-26) “If you love me you will keep my commandments”  I said to a young sportsman the other day that it was good that others had found out that he was a Catholic, and to remember to make the sign of the cross every time he scores. Whatever we do, let us make sure that it is one more way of spreading God’s love, so that all we do may be to his glory.

 

 

 

Affirming individuality – the work of the Holy Spirit

Frances writes on the readings for next Sunday :-  Large organizations, and even more so, strong states tend to rigid uniformity in matters of operation, belief and ways of performing duties. One thinks for instance of the reforms of Stalin which cost Russia dear in human terms, and the same can be said for modern Zimbabwe or places like Iran. What was distinctive about the early Christian communities scattered all over the Mediterranean and Near Eastwas the way in which individual national and linguistic needs were catered for. Justin Martyr (died 165), wrote that Christians conformed in dress, diet, habits and much of their behaviour to that of the country in which they lived. Certainly all Christians held common beliefs in the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, and seem early to have been taught and to have eagerly grasped the significance of the Christ event. ‘He became human that we might become divine’. It was the care and individual respect accorded to each and every Christian which was so significant, as our reading from 1 Corinthians (12:3-7, 12-13), points out. “In the one spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one spirit was given to us all to drink.” What formerly divided disparate groups and made them estranged was put aside in a community in which each and every individual was accorded mutual respect and significance. The eucharist was the occasion when differences of class, power and status were put aside; indeed St Clement, an early bishop of Rome, and one time slave of the imperial family was made Pope. What otherwise rigidly divided people in terms of access to legal rights or social mobility and access to political power was of no avail at the very heart of the Christian community, even though in other ways these things mattered a great deal.

We see the workings of this wonderfully laid out in our reading from Acts (1:1-11). It is well worth looking at an atlas of the ancient world to appreciate precisely just the size of the huge swathe of territory Luke included in his great sweep of the peoples now included in the Christian dispensation; literally covering thousands of miles. The story of the devout in Jerusalem who heard the Good News of Christianity; Jews and others open to the message of Christ, included those within the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire and those far out to the east, in the empire of Parthia, ancient Mesopotamia and Iran. The Elamites were those who reached right over to the Afghan border. It included ancient and formidable enemies of Romenever incorporated into its territory as well as conquered nations like Pontusin northern Turkeywith a proud history of resistance which had cost Romethousands of lives in the first century BC. Our passage from Acts insists that the visitors claimed that “We hear (the apostles) preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.” Far from insisting that everyone conform, it appears that Christian missionaries made immense efforts to speak to these foreigners in their own languages, according them a reverence and respect which was not ordinarily the case. In the ancient world Aramaic had been the diplomatic language for the inhabitants of the east and we know that by the first century AD Greek was widely spoken and understood throughout the Roman empire with Latin taking over as the legal and military language. Those who served in the Roman army had to learn Latin so that orders could successfully be given to all. Christianity however was different, in that it made tangible efforts to go out to peoples in the use of their own native tongues. The story of this early work has been lost to history but we do hear of St Augustine using Punic, the language of the native North Africans, in his arguments against Donatist heretics (who denied the sufferings of Christ and therefore his true humanity). We know of the great efforts of Cyril and Methodius in the 9^th century to translate the scriptures into the Slavic language which have inherited from them the Cyrillic alphabet. This work of translation of the scriptures into local dialects and languages still goes on, indeed my father helped with such work inAfrica in the 1930’s.

As our gospel from John (20:19-23) shows such work was and is essential for the gospel outreach and the fulfilling of Our Lord’s commands. We must never consider that the work of the gospel is finished and that there is no more to be done; for the work of the Spirit is continuous and enduring from every age, and its presentation in attractive and understandable form is still essential. If we stop for a moment to consider the ignorance of the real gospel message in our own country, where the faith is under constant attack and many fail to understand what it is really about, we will appreciate the need of each and every Christian in every age to respond to Jesus’ commission. The gift of the Holy Spirit was not a one-off event very long ago, but is ever present to each new generation of Christians and we are all its recipients, every Christian is ‘sent-out’ to take the gospel to others.

 

Being the Church not going to Church

Today I want to talk about the future of the Church. There’s an idea around in Europe (including Britain) that the Church is gradually dying – less people going to Mass and less priests to say Mass for them. But, of course, the Catholic Church is not shrinking at all. Worldwide, there are more Catholics every year, and there are more priests being ordained. So it is not the Church that is the problem, but Europe. Here in our Diocese we have been asked to look at this problem with special reference to our particular situation. What we need to do, if I dare use modern management speak, is to see this as a challenge rather than a difficulty.

This is, after all, a very Christian thing to do. Jesus warned us that we would have to face all kinds of difficulties if we follow him, and this is particularly relevant as we celebrate the Ascension this Sunday. Think how frightened the disciples were when Jesus died on the cross, and wonder at the transformation that took place in them through their experience of the real presence of the Risen Lord. So when Jesus says they will no longer see him physically they might have been scared again, but instead, as we hear in our Gospel (Mark 16:15-20) “They, going out, preached everywhere..”. And next week, when we celebrate Pentecost, we will hear yet more of the courage that they now began to show.

Remember, they were only a tiny band of people, who could easily have been obliterated, as all but St John were eventually killed. But they had a belief that God could use them to pass on this great message to others so that the whole world might know the mystery and the power of God, and his salvation and glory brought to us in Jesus.

So, as we think forward to a time when there will be far fewer priests available here in England, we need to see it as a wake-up call for every one of you to realise more fully your potential to be the Church of the future. It’s also worth remembering that although there are a growing number of priests in the rest of the world, there are many places where growing thriving churches only get a visit from their priest perhaps once a month, and the rest of the time they carry on without one. Indeed it is often places like this that are really growing, and producing more priests.

In our 2^nd reading (Ephesians 4: 1-13) we hear of some of the things we Christians are called to do. It names “apostles” first, and that means Bishops (the successors of the apostles) and, by extension, the priests. But then it names “prophets”. Some of you are certainly that. The person who suggests some new project for the Church is being prophetic. The person who has the vision of the church supporting the poor of our area is also being prophetic. “Evangelists”. I know of quite a few people here who have brought someone along to Mass and thus drawn them into the faith, or back to the faith if they had lapsed.  Perhaps we need lay people to organise this more effectively in their particular village?  Pastors and teachers? Well we have quite a few here in the teaching and caring professions – a very Christian thing to do – and some use these gifts actually in the service of the Church teaching the children and the young or visiting the sick and housebound.

In another place St Paul mentions gifts of administration. and that is certainly an important area where churches without resident priests will have to make sure there are lay people available to lead and run the Church.

What we all need to do is to have a wider vision of the Church than just the little bit we are familiar with. I am always astonished when people apologise for going off to Mass in another local Church.  It is nice to be told, but there is absolutely no need to apologise. The important thing is that you were at Mass somewhere

I often go on at you, begging you not to treat Mass and the Church as something put on for you like a kind of entertainment.  We do need to realise that the Mass is us, the Church, offering ourselves to God together. You all need to ask how you can be a more significant part of that Church, what can you do to be the Church rather than simply go to Mass.

When people tell me that they don’t need to go to Church to be a good Christian, I am just astonished at what they are saying. Of course you do not need to go to Mass to be a Christian, but you do have to be the Church, the Body of Christ, and part of this is not going to Mass but being the Church at Mass which is something very different. This is something that people understand much better when there isn’t a resident priest in their Parish and they really have to be the Church whether they like it or not.

One day this may be the case, but I have great confidence that in really lively Parishes, like St Peter’s Eynsham, people will rise to the challenge when it comes, so that the Church here will continue to be a vibrant centre for bringing the Gospel to the people of this part of Oxfordshire.

 

No longer faceless nobodies

Frances writes on the Ascension :- It seems to me that these readings for the Ascension provide the real antidote to the rubbish of the Da Vinci Code. There, if you remember the important thing is finding the ‘blood-line’ of Christ. But what the Church knows and knew from Jesus’ first resurrection appearances and in his ascension is that we are all his blood-line, made in his death and resurrection. Christ leaves no personal family line with his genetic trait precisely because we are all his family, his heirs, and his holy people. It is about our baptism, the bestowal of his grace, his Holy Spirit upon us all, as we see in our reading from Acts 1:1-11. Quite clearly even in those fresh and early days it was possible for disciples of the Lord to misunderstand what he was talking about. “Lord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” They were still earthbound, looking for power and the overthrow of the Romans, rather like the writer of the Da Vinci Code, whereas Jesus had and has, a more demanding and altogether more exciting understanding of his Kingdom. “You will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.” With the ascension, our faith in Jesus has become universal. It, and we, are not stuck in some time warp based in Jerusalem or indeed any other individual city; Christ has gone out to the world and we must needs follow.

This message is reiterated in our gospel from Mark 16:15-20 with Jesus’ commission: “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved.” Jesus speaks to a group who have now gone beyond fear in their utter conviction of his identity and their acceptance of the task he has given them; hence all that strange stuff about imbibing deadly poisons and snake bites without coming to harm. We have to remember that after Jesus’ death the disciples were thoroughly dispirited, hiding in fear of the Jews and convinced it had all been a colossal mistake. It was the resurrection which turned them from total losers’ into a fighting force for the truth. The ascension marks the point at which they are no longer reliant on the bodily presence of the fleshly Jesus, but are rather empowered by his bodily departure and fitted by the gift of the Holy Spirit for evangelisation. It was what took the gospel out to the world, rather than making it a small local affair rooted in the body of someone who survived crucifixion, which is not what the resurrection and ascension are about at all.

In our reading from Ephesians 4:1-13 we begin to appreciate what this meant to one very early Christian community about 1,000 miles from Palestine. This would have been a mixed Jewish and convert pagan Christian community; a tiny fraction of the large population of this bustling imperial capital, with its port and many gods and multiplicity of beliefs. In a way it is a pity that we have not had included in this reading an earlier part of the letter, that from 1:3-14, which affirms what the Christian is; namely a being destined for ‘adoption as children of God’; heirs to the mysteries of God himself; sharing the Father’s will for humanity; given in the Holy Spirit a participation in his glory. God, Paul says “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” Now no longer the pawns of malevolent deities, we are now intimates of the one true God. In this truly electrifying opening of this letter, we see the impact of the resurrection and ascension on new believers in Christ. Whereas formerly they believed in gods for the well being of the state and hoped for divine assistance for specific things: childbirth, voyaging, and cereal crops, but always acknowledged the fickleness of pagan divinities, here, suddenly in Christianity a wholly new vision of man’s relationship to God opened up for them, something they could never even have dreamed possible.

Because of this great vision, the Church made clear what was expected in terms of human behaviour from its adherents. “Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience.” The Church was set on building a wholly new community, with different work for its various members; ways of being quite alien to former pagans; a collaborative ministry based in the selfless giving to others as imaged in the life of Christ. In the end, its promise was immense: “In this way we are all to come to unity in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God, until we become the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.” If this is a tall order for us, imagine what those words meant to the first believers in Ephesus, the riff-raff, poverty ridden and ignorant of ancient cities, those obsessed with fears of demons, illness, famine and early death who were now promised equality with God himself! If this were not enough, every Christian was told that they had a part to play, an essential part in the coming of God’s kingdom, in the life of the Christian community. No longer faceless nobodies’, everyone now had a new identity, belonging and purpose and was essential to the proper functioning and well being of the whole. What we can be quite sure of is that in Paul’s churches as in the wider Christian community no one was insignificant, just a popper-in-to mass and a quick-exitter thereafter; belonging meant doing your bit.

Floating in God

6th SUNDAY of EASTER 2012

 

Prayer is a bit like swimming. When I first learnt to swim I spent all my time desperately trying to stay alfloat. The idea that I could simply relax and let the water support me was beyond my understanding. Yet, even then, like God, the support was there, even though I didn’t know how to use it. Finally, in my 20’s, someone taught me to float, and my whole approach to swimming and to water changed.

 

Prayer is sometimes talking to God, but the most important part of prayer for every Christian must not be talking to God, but allowing God to talk to me. Of course, God does not usually talk to us in words. God, like the water in the swimming pool, is all around us, and prayer is simply realising his presence and discovering how much more we can do if we use the power that is there – the power we normally call God the Holy Spirit.

Now if you’re not a swimmer you’ll have found all this talk quite baffling, just like atheists can’t really understand those of us who believe. So think of another image of the Holy Spirit, as the breath of God. The air is all around us, and we breathe it in and out without realising its power, until we run for a bus and find ourselves really having to breathe hard, and then discovering how much we need it.

These two images explain why Jesus in today’s Gospel (John 15:9-17) doesn’t just tell us to love God and our fellow human beings, but more important to “remain” in his love – perhaps better translated as – abide – live – float – in his love. And then, he says, his “joy” – something much deeper than surface happiness – will be in us. This is where the swimming and breathing images fail, because once we can swim or breath, we never lose it. But in prayer, although there are times when we can simply float in God, relax in God, there are other times when the cares of the world flood in and all we can do is fidget. I was reminded of this during the week when at the end of one of our half hour times of silent prayer here at St Peter’s, I shared with some of the others that I had found half an hour’s silence that particular morning really hard going. “So glad you said that Father” said one of the parishioners “To know you have the same difficulties in prayer as I do is really comforting.” “How strange” I thought to myself “I thought everyone would know that we all struggle with prayer at times. I better make sure I share it.” So that is what I am doing now.

The other thing that might help us in prayer is also in the Gospel. Jesus calls us “his friends” Sometimes we try so hard to reach God as if he’s far away, and forget that he’s very close and that he understands us as a really good friend does. You may not have the time I have as a priest to spend half an hour or more each day in silent prayer, but even a few minutes just being quiet in the presence of God is valuable for all of us. Some people like to shut their eyes, but I recommend some visual focus – a crucifix – a picture – a candle – or just something beautiful – even the view out of the window of a tree – or the glory of the sky.

When we have our times of silence here at St Peter’s, we always bring out the Blessed Sacrament and use that to help us realise his presence. The Church calls this “Exposition or Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament” and it is certainly a wonderful way to practise the presence of God with our fellow Catholics, even our fellow human beings, and to discover (as some did last Wednesday) that everyone (even the priest) has times when prayer seems very difficult indeed.

Of course, what we have to remember then, just like swimming or breathing, is that God is with us and around us, even if our mind is wandering and we keep fidgeting – be it in times of silent prayer, or at Mass. What a relief it is to know that the heart of our faith, as in our 2^nd Reading (1 John 4:7-10) is “not our love for God, but God’s love for us” We may wander in our minds far from God, but Jesus our friend is always around us and within us as the Holy Spirit whatever we feel like.

We should apply this to our actions not just our prayer. Trying desperately to be kind and loving is not really very Christian, like when I was desperately trying to swim but didn’t know how to float. Living, even floating, in God’s love and kindness and being empowered by God’s Holy Spirit in all our actions is something very different. 

Love comes from friendship with God

How can we be ‘commanded’ to love? “What I command you is to love one another.” Indeed, earlier in our gospel, (John 15:7-17) Jesus says; “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” First of all, the word ‘love’ here is the Greek agape, not the eros or erotic love we mistakenly apply to just about any relationship. Agape is truly the solicitude, friendship and self-giving which enables both the self and others fully to flourish. Quite apart from eros; it is absolutely essential in marriage where the daily trials of life put enormous pressures on even the best relationship and old age may try one almost beyond enduring. No doubt it’s the same for religious or even house sharers, indeed; for fellow workers and close friends. In agape you do not always need to ‘feel’ great affection for the other at all times, what you have to have is the warmth and commitment required to make this and any true relationship productive and then ultimately happy, a delight.

Some may think that this paints a picture of hanging on with gritted teeth; not so; for when one is truly devoted to a project it becomes something all consuming, what one ‘lives for’. In such a relationship even hard and difficult things have their reward – just as seeing a baby grow through stumbling to confident walker, or the teenager develop from awkward person into confident young woman, able to face the world and contribute to it; just as the tutor delights in the truly outstanding student they know will ultimately outshine them. Anyone who has been through these experiences, or similar ones, will know the ‘cost’ and the joy of the love (agape) that went into them. What is a feature of this love is precisely the self-gift and sharing that goes into these relationships. They are immeasurable, god-like, precisely as that between Father and Son: “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love”.

Significantly in this discourse, Jesus remarks, “I shall not call you servants any more, because the servant does not know his master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father.”  Divinity then, becoming god-like, is not about being a genius; or performing unimaginable feats, it is about becoming truly, really human in the outgoing of the self to others. Of course, that’s quite a big ask, and for most of us who are yet beginners, still very much work in progress, but; intimates of the divine, it is achievable in His grace.

This is surely too the gist of our second reading (1 John 4:7-10). Written in Ephesus, for the new Christians of this sharply divided society, with its grasping social climbers in this bustling imperial capital of the Province of Asia; with its port and many businesses, including a thriving slave trade; John’s message has nothing to do with sentiment but a great deal to do with the new demands of the Christian life. John’s readers and hearers knew heaps about erotic love, it was in your face throughout the city on wall paintings, graffiti and statuary, in brothels and private houses. What they had to learn was the art of agape, how to be truly human and thus god-like and fitted for the companionship of God in an empire which had some very different values. “God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him.”

This is something which both Jew and Gentile had to learn, as we see in our reading from Acts (10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48), in which Peter justifies the acceptance of converts from paganism into the Christian fold without requiring their conversion to Judaism. Surely here what he is speaking of is that friendship with God Jesus talks about in John’s gospel. Friendship made by God and for God; a kind of equality with the divine which is not something we of ourselves can ‘make’, but is of the Holy Spirit and of grace and defies convention and social boundaries. It is about the outpouring of God’s love (agape) for his creation, transcending cultural boundaries and ones of class and race, and we should never forget the demands it made on the first Christians, Jews who followed Christ, and the suspicion and separation in which their former faith indoctrinated them. Jewish Christians had to transcend the colossal boundary their history placed upon relations between Jew and non Jew. Part of the missing verses from Acts, verse 28, actually stress how the Jewish law forbade contact with non-Jews and required sacrifice against their evil and contaminating influence. It would have been their understanding of agape which enabled them to make that great leap of faith, and which allowed belief in Jesus to go out to the world, jettisoning the Jewish law with all their purity separations for love of Christ and their fellow men and women irrespective of their former origins. For the Jewish Peter, and the Christians of Jerusalem whom he had to convince; as for Cornelius and his household, converts from paganism; the new message of Easter would be what made the new community and we too need continually to re-examine our outreach to others.

God is still yet always active

Plants are clever things aren’t they? They are always active and yet we can’t see them move. So the image of Jesus as a Vine today, (John 15:1-8) with us as the Branches, reminds us that God is actually an active force in the world today- in us – and in everything that he has created. This is one of the reasons why I sometimes use sport as a great example of God at work, where someone uses their body actively in the best way they can to achieve excellence in their chosen field. But our bodies are actually still on the move even when we are not moving, as the heart pumps away and the other parts of the body do their work. The brain too is never still, for sleep experts tell us that it is active, in a different but essential way, even when we are asleep.

We Christians then must never think that by being still we are closer to God. Stillness – times of prayer – are important of course, and we can at such times get glimpses of inspiration. I heard a neuro-scientist last week saying that creative thoughts in us humans are more likely to come when we are relaxing our mind than when we are thinking very hard. But activity is also an equally important way in which God works in us and speaks to us and through us.

Take Mary as an example as we remember her in this month of May.  God speaks to her when she is told that she will have this special baby, and almost immediately rather than sitting still and thinking about it she is off to visit her cousin Elizabeth who lives some 60 miles away – 3 days walking!  When we hear of Our Lady later in the Bible she is busy encouraging her son to begin his work at the Wedding Feast, and then, of course we hear of her again standing at the foot of the Cross.

That last event can seem to be a moment of stillness but really it isn’t that at all. Mel Gibson’s Film of The Passion of Christ shows Mary in a very interesting way. As Jesus carries his cross and falls to the ground, Mary remembers the way she would run to him if he fell and hurt himself as a little boy, and Mel Gibson shows Mary running behind the crowd trying to find a moment when she can come forward and comfort her son in his suffering. Another film, by Pasolini, shows Mary moving in distress and agony as she watches him dying on the cross. Both films show us a young active woman filled with the Holy Spirit, and show us how we too need to be active in our response to God. Finally we hear of Mary with the disciples in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit comes on them.. and what do they do? Sit there in contemplation? No! They open the doors and run outside to pray and speak of the glory of God whatever the consequences!

No wonder that St John in his Letter that we heard today (1 John 3:18-24) reminds us that “Love is not just to be words or mere talk, but something real and active.” That’s precisely why the Mass is called the Mass from the same root as the word “mission”. So Mass ends, not with an encouragement to sit around and contemplate, but to “Go forth”, and put God’s love into practice.

 

This is why I get a bit irritated with people who say they haven’t got anything to confess. How can that be when there is so much for us to do, and so much that we fail to get done?  How dreadful that we think of “sins” as bad things we do, and fail to see that often our worst sins are when we have not done some of the things we should have been doing to bring God’s love in one way or another to our little part of God’s world.

Yes, we are the branches, not the Vine, but this means, as Jesus says, that we are meant to bear fruit. But note that our activity must be focussed. That’s what pruning does to a branch, stopping us proliferating all sorts of different activities and encouraging us to concentrate on a few. So being active for God does not mean going into overdrive because, as I said at the beginning, the activity of a plant is slow and steady, not visible to the naked eye. So surely, as branches of the Vine, we should be the same.

 

 

The Easter Community

Frances writes :- It is said that once the Romans understood how to make concrete there was no stopping them. Certainly from that time they knew how to built stable roofs over vast expanses, techniques which would have to be rediscovered by medieval church builders as they learnt how to place keystones in an arch to give the downward and outward thrust which keeps the entire structure in place.

What is clear is that Luke, the writer of Acts (4:8-12), had observed this construction process and was immediately inspired to use it as a metaphor for the Christian community, borrowing from psalm 118, referring to mutual dependence and sharing. Jesus, he said is the stone rejected by you the builders, but which has become the keystone. In other words, unlike the pagan builders of many a temple, the Jews had not appreciated the way in which Judaism was simply the walls, the outward structure, awaiting the keystone (Jesus) who would keep the entire edifice in permanent position.

The sense of mutual dependence this conveys is continued throughout our readings, as we see in the gospel, (John 10:11-18). Jesus compares himself to the shepherd/owner of a flock; insisting on his absolute commitment to the flock, even to the point of dying for it; as indeed, a shepherd might in defence of the flock against a wolf pack.Palestineat this time was not the well cultivated, benign country of the rural Cotswolds, but was still inhabited by wild animals, lions, bears, wolves and other pack hunters, so we can appreciate as did the original hearers of the words the power of the metaphor. True shepherd and flock in this story are inseparable; bonded together, mutually dependent, which perhaps explains why shepherds in ancient times were a bit of a race apart, strong, determined and alert. The true shepherd really did ‘know’ his sheep, he was easily able to distinguish one from another, recognising their needs and ministering to them.

Jesus will stretch this metaphor far further than expected however, applying it to the relationship between himself and the Father and then his relationship with us; his flock; the Christian community. Let’s just allow his words to seep into our minds. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. What a mutuality of understanding and belonging is expressed here!  The intimacy, awareness and commitment existing between God the Father and Jesus, his Son is what we too, members of the Christian Church are sharers in. Total union; grafted into the divine, each believer is a mutual sharer in the community of the Trinity, in the life of God himself.

Original hearers of this gospel would have been forcefully reminded of the words of Ezekiel the prophet, speaking for God as he lashed out against the false shepherds, the rulers of Israel, who led the people astray and into destruction and slavery (Ez 34). Now, in his life and death on our behalf, we finally learn in Jesus, the extent of God’s commitment to us, his absolute and irrevocable taking of us to himself in the sufferings of Christ. At the end of our reading this is enforced again by Jesus’ remark this is the command I have been given by my Father.

Our reading from 1 John (3:1-2) gives us a further insight by which we ordinary Christians are to understand and ponder on God’s relationship with us. Our translation says think of the love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children. Actually, this word lavished is absent from the Greek and a better translation is the simpler ‘see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God’. This latter wording makes clearer the sense which John is trying to convey, since it reminds us of God’s relationship with the world – ‘God so loved the world…’ that is, this is the manner, the How of his being God, that he gives himself in the Son. Here in 1 John, this is reiterated, we are reminded that God gives us himself, not something else which might indeed be expressed through a ‘lavish’ gift. God in Christ has loved us with the love that is of his own essence, his being, quite literally promising that we shall be like him because we shall see him a he really is. What an immense promise! What a thrill this must have been to John’s first hearers in western Turkey, poor men and women, often freedmen and women, some still slaves, but frequently people with something of an identity crisis, looked down upon by the wealthy and the elite of their cities and who lived surrounded by so many representations of the pagan gods. Here at last, in Christ they were given a new identity and status, a sense of infinite worth, sons in the Son, heirs of God’s kingdom, a certainty amidst a world of uncertainty with famines, wars and earthquakes and centuries of disparagement. Belonging; that was the key to the Christian community and it’s our heritage too. Our mission is to enable it to become a reality in the lives of our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.

The spiritual and the physical are interconnected

We sometimes forget that how we think affects how we are, and how we are affects how we think. So, for example, we feel better and more relaxed in our minds if we actually relax our bodies. If our body is all tense then our whole being will be tense too. Try this one.  Frown as if you are angry or upset…. got it?…..  and then let the frown go as you relax your face. Do you feel better? Well I do!

There was a time when I didn’t realise this, so I thought that prayer (an activity of the mind) could affect our minds, but I didn’t believe it affected our bodies. Then I prayed for someone who had a stroke, thinking that my prayer would help her with her distress in the mind, only to discover that as well as taking away her distress, it actually took away much of her paralysis as well, and the next morning she could walk!

If we look at the Resurrection story, that we have just heard this morning, (Luke 24:35-48) we see Jesus teaching them this same truth. So, the disciples thought that their experience of the Risen Jesus was just in their minds – they expressed it as “they thought they were seeing a ghost”. This was a fair enough assumption wasn’t it, because in his risen body he did appear and disappear like a ghost; and yet the risen Jesus was much more than a ghost. His body was transformed and so was not subject to normal physical constraints, and yet he could still be touched and felt. So Jesus showed them that this was the case, and then went one step further and did one of the most ordinary physical thing possible  – he ate the equivalent of a fish finger!

As Christians, we know that this physical experience of the Risen Jesus was given to the disciples for a fairly short time to really convince them that Jesus had defeated death, but that after this, they, and we, have to be content with a spiritual rather than a physical presence :- the knowledge that the risen Jesus is with us in our minds and our hearts; in the love and goodness of others; and in the sacraments – most especially in the most Holy Sacrament that we will soon have before us in the form of bread and wine.

But that doesn’t mean that this spiritual presence of Jesus in our lives only affects us spiritually. No, we too can be changed in all sorts of ways by the way we think – by linking ourselves spiritually by faith to the risen Jesus.

Our 1st Reading shows us this (Acts 3:13-19). We humans do not find it easy to forgive, and certainly not to forgive people who torture and kill someone we love. But in this story we see Peter saying quite clearly that these people who tortured and killed Jesus, can see a miracle can take place in their lives – that they, the very people responsible for the death of Jesus, can have their sins wiped out.

How can this take place? Peter says they must “repent”. But remember that “repent” does not mean just being sorry for our sins. No, no, much more important is our turning to God. If I am sorry for my sins, and then say, “And now I am going to grit my teeth, and try extra hard to change myself and be a better person.” , then I have missed the point.  Repentance actually means changing the way that I think about myself, no longer relying simply on my own efforts, but accepting that without God to help me I will get nowhere fast. So St John says in our 2^nd reading (1 John 2;1-5) “Jesus… is the sacrifice that takes our sins away, and not only ours, but the whole world’s.” Praise be to Him!

Faith requires action

What strikes me about this weekend’s readings is their great combination of confrontation and instruction. Clearly the first Christians, who were made into proselytising communities by their experiences of the risen Christ, were neither timid nor woolly thinkers but rather alert and active, intent on telling others about their faith in the risen Lord Jesus, and determined to spread this great news of salvation.

We find this in Acts (3:13-15, 17-19), in which Peter, in Jerusalem for Pentecost, addressed the crowds there for worship. They had just seen how Peter and John had healed the crippled beggar in Jesus’ name; and Peter then takes the amazed crowd to task, insisting that all the Jewish scriptures had promised the coming of Jesus through the work of the prophets and yet, true to form, just as they had betrayed and killed the prophets, they had done the same to Jesus. Peter; representative of the love and mercy of God, makes the point that this evil act was done in ignorance; and yet their very persecution and martyrdom of Jesus proved the fact of his divinity. Now, forgiven by his grace, they must repent and be reconciled.

Quite clearly then, as now, many people, even those who think themselves well informed about the faith, are actually very ill informed. Ancient writers record the problem of even knowing where to start, with so many coming from paganism to Christianity or from a Judaism which they did not study or know at all. Many a modern convert too, comes to the faith with only the haziest background knowledge of the faith, and indeed, many a Christian, schooled in the modern age and defeated by the onslaughts of Dawkins and the like, feel quite incapable of arguing for the faith. Clearly Peter very early on realised the significance of studying and understanding the scriptures so that converts could have a real perception of what they were doing.

In our second reading from 1 John (2:1-5), we see this significant issue raised once again, albeit in a different form as John writes of sin within the Christian community. He begins this short but electrifying letter by spelling out what the Christian is heir to – “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands – the eternal life that was with the Father and has been revealed to us.” (1:1-3). Heirs to so great and divine a gift, he then goes on to spell out the absolute necessity of knowing oneself; of turning away from one’s old life of sin, to a state where: “Anyone does obey what he has said, God’s love comes to perfection in him”. Conversion is neither automatic nor everlasting, but a process which has to be worked at daily by souls continually renewing their commitment to the risen Lord and his ways. Given divine life in the Lord, we are now set on a trajectory which orientates us to God. Perfection is not something injected into us at baptism, it is a journey to perfection which we must work at; it is a promise worth seeking and longing for, and can only be achieved by effort. I once counselled a man who said that he had ‘lost his faith’ because it was not like it was when he was seven. I responded by remarking that the faith one had at seven was hardly adequate for that required for one in their forties, and that we wouldn’t do this in any other area of our lives after all, would we! He wasn’t best pleased.

We all need to be reminded of the meaning and origins of our faith; continually refreshed, least our faith senses become dulled. This is what we see in our gospel, Luke (24:35-48). Here Jesus commands his dumbfounded disciples to reawaken their belief in him by physically touching his wounds and he then confirms his real bodily presence by eating some fish. Having done this, he takes them back to their bible to the promises given to Moses and the prophets and psalms, and, just as Peter did in Acts, makes clear to them how those ancient texts are fulfilled in his own life. They, we, it seems need a continuing and continual education in the faith. We need it for our own sakes, lest circumstances deprive us of our passion for God; we need it so that we can argue our faith persuasively to others and are equipped to present the faith in a sound and meaningful way, confounding some of the rubbish that people think we believe. There are many who quite mistakenly think we believe in a god who is an old man on a cloud; we don’t; they think we worship God out of fear; we don’t; they think that our beliefs should protect us from harm and that when it doesn’t that it has ceased to ‘work’. Just as Jesus had to remind the disciples that his suffering and death was foretold in the scriptures, and that that was God’s way of redemption and the confounding of evil, so too, we have to take on pain and suffering as an inevitable part of life in a world still in process of redemption. Our faith in the risen Jesus is not a panacea against suffering, it is the only way the Christian can make sense of it, in the knowledge that this is part and parcel of thekingdomofGodin process of redemption here and now and that in eternity we shall be fully united with him. The tragedy is that we spend hours reinventing ourselves in health clinics and sports activities; we re-hone our computer skills frequently and are not at all averse to taking on new careers or activities, yet do not apply the same diligence to our belief in Jesus. Rather than New Year’s resolutions, we need Easter resolutions, commitment to the development of our faith and the daily exercise which will in the end bring it to perfection by his grace.