Thursday 15 February 2024

Transfiguration and St. Cademon

11/02/2024 – Sunday before Lent Readings

 2 Kings 2 1-12 2 Corinthians 4 3-6 Mark 9 2-9 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 

Today’s gospel reading is the somewhat odd story of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes three of his disciples of from the rest for a walk up a high mountain. At the top Jesus suddenly turns blazing white, whiter than even Daz will get your laundry. Next Moses and Elijah appear and Jesus has a chat with them. Then there is a voice from heaven declaring this is my son, the beloved, listen to him. Not surprisingly the disciples are terrified. 

So, what is going on here? Moses and Elijah are perhaps two of the most important prophets of the Old Testament, and between then represent both the prophets and the law. Here, they are bearing witness to who Christ is, the greatest prophet of them all, the fulfillment of the law, the Son of God. The transfiguration reveals, beyond doubt, his true identity. 

We have just finished the season of epiphany, and here we have one final reminder of exactly who Jesus is as we turn to face the cross and begin our Lenten journey. 

 Today, is also the feast day of one of the lesser known English saints, St Cademon and his story is also one that can be seen as a form of transfiguration that allows the glory of God to be shown. 

Cademon lived in the second half of the seventh century. He was a cowheard that worked caring for animals at Whitby abbey, which at the time was under the leadership of St. Hilda. One night after the days work there was some music and singing taking place, but Cademon feeling that he had no musical ability and couldn’t sing or offer any poetry crept away to settle down with his animals for the night. Cademon went to sleep and whilst he slept he dreamt that someone approached him and asked him to sing a song about the beginning of created things. At first he refused but then he sang a short poem praising God as the creator. Now, I normally forget most of my dreams as soon as I wake up, but Cademon the next morning could still remember the song he had created, and even added to it. He told his foreman about this strange dream and the new ability to compose songs and poetry that he now seemed to have. His foreman promptly sent him to see Abbess Hilda. 

The abbess and her advisers questioned Cademon and then set him a test to see if this really was a gift from god. He was to produce a new poem based on sacred scripture or doctrine. Caedmon came back the next day with a new composition and Hilda asked him to take monastic vows and gave orders that he was to be taught sacred history and doctrine. Each day Cademon would turn what he had learnt into poetry in his native old english tongue. According to the historian Bede “by his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world and to aspire to heaven.” Like the transfigured Jesus, Cademon was also showing the reality of who Jesus was to the people around him. 

Wednesday sees the start of lent, as Fr Edward has spoken about in previous sermons it can be a time to think about trying a new religious activity, a new way of praying or spending more time reading the bible, fasting or confession. Whilst these things may be good for our own spiritual lives may they also lead to other things? 

When I first started to think about this sermon the line from The hymn Love Divine, all loves excelling, that talks about us changing from glory into glory, kept coming into my mind. If by deepening our own relationship with God, can that impact on how others see us? 

In the second letter to the Corinthians Paul talks about how the God of this age has blinded people so they can’t see the glory of God. What things might be blinding people today so that they cannot see the glory of God? The idea that we are rational human beings who don’t need any sort of deity to guide us? Look at the world around us, that's working out so well… or not. 

Social media and TV shows tell us that the path to true happiness is about looking or acting a certain way, except as fashions change the path is never ending and can instead lead to people feeling as if they have somehow failed if they don’t have the latest whatever the latest thing is, or the ability to look a certain way. I know I often look at clothes and think that looks great on a skinny model, it’ll probably look terrible on me. 

Wellness retreats promise that we can find ourselves if only we pay them a large amount of money for someone to help us do so. St Augustine on the other hand said “our heart is restless until it rests in you.” True peace, truly knowing who we are and true wellness can only come from our relationship with God. So as we approach Ash Wednesday I have a question for us how can we seek to be transfigured this lent and better show God’s glory to the world and show people the true path to inner peace in relationship with God? Amen

Tuesday 12 December 2023

Advent 2: Some Thoughts on Prophets and Prophecy

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-11 2 Peter 3: 8-15 Mark 1:1-8 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

 Later this morning we will be singing the words, Long ago, prophets knew, Christ would come, born a Jew. But did they really know? Is prophecy just about foretelling the future, I prophesy I will have a cup of coffee after this service! Well, prophecy is not always just about predicting the future. Prophecy in the bible can be seen as falling into two categories, the prophesy that seems to predict the future and the prophesy that takes the form of speaking truth to power. 

As anyone who has read Harry Potter will know, understanding prophecy can be a tricky thing. We can read into the words what we expect to find there, which may not be how the original speaker or listeners would have understood the words. The words we heard from Isaiah this morning, have often been linked to Jesus, as the coming Lord who will make paths straight. However in Judaism prophecy is seen more as God declaring his current concerns to his people. The listeners at the time , might have interpreted it as referring to the coming of, the Persian King Cyrus who, when he defeated the Babylonians, allowed the Jews to return, from captivity in Babylon to their homeland. 

Down the centuries Jews and Christians when facing terror or hardship have reapplied these words to their own situation, situations the original writer could never have conceived off. 

Biblical prophecy shouldn’t be seen as prophecy in the fortune telling mystic meg sense of the word. We would maybe like to know what the future holds for us , as long as it is good, we may be less willing to know if it is bad. 

The problem with reading prophecy as fortune telling is that it can’t be true because the future is determined by our actions now, by choices that we are free to make. When we try to follow prophecy in a fortune telling way, we become enslaved to it and lose the freedom God gives us to choose our own path. 

What the prophets like Isaiah did do was give people, people that may feel they are waiting in the darkness, hope. It can still offer that hope today even as this advent the world around us may feel in a dark place. There is that hope that the light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not in the end overcome. 

Prophets of course aren’t just in the Old Testament. Mark starts his gospel by quoting our friend Isaiah, but then introduces a new prophet, a prophet of the New testament, John the Baptist. John is perhaps more the second type of prophet, who speaks truth to power. He goes around in his wild way, telling people look here is the truth. He dares to speak the truth to those in power, and loses his head for it. Whilst I hope we will not all be called to lose our heads like John, maybe we do need to have a little bit of John the Baptist in us. 

To call out those, anybody, but maybe especially those in positions of power or influence who do not stick to their promises. Those who present information in a misleading way in order to stir up hated and violence towards others. We need to show people there is a better way. It can be very easy in the heat of the moment when our emotions have been stirred up, by a post on social media to quickly hit the re post button, without checking the source of the information, and the message the original poster is trying to put across. 

Video and audio clips can be edited, to put across a certain viewpoint, that may not accurately reflect reality. We should pause before hitting the re-post button, check the source and if something is misinformation, then maybe still post about it, but point out the problem. 

Be like John the Baptist.

 Advent is also a time of waiting, and it can seem like we have been waiting a long time, over two thousand years. After waiting this long it can be easy to give up, to drift away, from living as God intends us to. Peter, in his letter today, reminds us that how we see time and how God sees time may not be the same. God is not slow, he just wants to give everyone time to find the right way. Some people might need help to find that way, and that is where we come in. Peter calls us to live lives of holiness and godliness whilst we wait for the coming of God. To be lights in the darkness ,and lead others to the hope and promise of God, through the prophetic way we live our lives as children of God. 

So, how should we interpret prophecy today? Well we can use the writings of the biblical prophets to comfort and to challenge us to repentance and a turning to a better way. The prophets are also though, calling us to follow their lead, to comfort where comfort is needed but also to challenge and live in a way that speaks of God. 

At this time of year church life can feel as if it’s operating on a different time zone to the rest of life. We are here in Advent waiting and thinking of prophets, of calls to repentance. The rest of the world out there, has already got their Christmas tree up and is eating mince pies. By the New Year, they will be pulling everything down, saying Christmas is over, our celebration of Christmas will still be going on. This can in itself be a prophetic act, a way of saying to people, look there is more to this than parties and turkey and presents, something which is deeper and longer lasting than a bit of tinsel on a tree. Come and see, come and hear the deeper truth and find the deeper joy, and we like the prophets of old must have the courage to speak out and deliver the message. Amen

Monday 9 October 2023

Sermon for 8th October 2023

Readings: Isaiah 5:1-7 Philippians 3 4b-14 Matthew 21 33-end .

 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 Well, Isaiah seems a bit moody this morning. He starts of in a good mood. He tells us how God built the best, the most perfect vineyard. The owner of the vineyard has lavished it with love and attention. He found a good position on the hillside with good soil, he cleared out the stones, choose the best vines and built watch towers to guard over them. He built a good wine press ready to make the most perfect, delicious bottle of wine, mmmm, my mouth is starting to water just thinking about it. 

 Then comes the time for the harvest and want a disappointment. The grapes are rotten they smell awful and taste even worse. Why? Asks Isaiah why, when I did everything I could and gave the vines the perfect conditions to grow and produce good fruit, why have they produced this horrible, poisonous mess?

 Not surprisingly, Isaiah feels a bit annoyed with the vineyard and threatens to undo all his hard work and destroy it. He won’t care for it anymore, he will knock down the walls so any one that wants to can trample on his vines, wild animals can dig them up and destroy them. 

The people listening to Isaiah must have bee wondering where he was going. Isaiah doesn’t hold back, you he says, you are the bad vines. God gave you everything you needed to build a community where justice and righteousness were seen as the normal way of life and instead there is injustice and blood shed. The people have failed to live according to God plan and disaster is the result.

 Now, it’s would be quite easy and comforting to think Isaiah was written for the Israelites and they are about to get their punishment in the form of exile to Babylon. We’re not really a bad as the Israelites are we?

 A few hundred years or so later and we have another man preaching to a group of people on a hillside in Israel, and his teaching starts in a similar way. There is a vineyard, a good vineyard like the previous one and it also has defenses to protect it from damage. This vineyard however is been looked after by tenants whilst the owner is absent. It can take 2-3 years before the vines will start to produce a good crop of grapes. So, the tenants had possibly been living and working there for a few years without needing to pay. Then the owner suddenly decides the grapes should be producing a good harvest now, he wants his return. 

He sends his slaves to collect the payment due and the tenants decide they don’t want to pay and beat up and kill at least one of the slaves sent to collect payment. The owner sends some more slaves, the same thing happens. So then the owner sends his son. Now the tenants seem to lose all common sense at this point. I am not an expert in first century law, but I suspect that killing the son of your landlord is in no way going to lead to you inheriting any property, but the tenants seem to think that it will and kill the son. 

Now with the two thousand plus years of hindsight that we have, the meaning of this parable can seem fairly obvious. The vineyard is the earth, the pharisees are the tenants and the Son is Jesus. 

The pharisees clearly did not see it that way as when asked what the punishment for the tenants should be they suggest putting them to death and giving the vineyard to new tenants. Jesus makes it clear to them that they have got it wrong, and that they are the ones that are to lose. He then goes on to quote the psalms saying the one they have rejected will become the cornerstone, that is the one stone that is vital to hold everything else up. 

So where does all this talk of vineyards leave us? I would like it if it left us with a bottle or two of good wine, but I’m not sure that it does. If we are the vines in the vineyard, what is the fruit we are producing? A quick glance at the news headlines suggest that justice, righteousness and peace are not on the list. 

Closer to home there has been a thread on twitter this week which has called for people to be thrown out of the church for not agreeing with a certain theological viewpoint. I may not agree with the viewpoint in question but I can know, work with and respect those hold a different view. 

It could be argued that one of the greatest strengths and one of the greatest weaknesses of the Church of England is the variety of views that we try to hold in one organization. This however does also give us the chance to model to the world how we can live in peace and even respect those we may disagree with on some issues. 

However this can be easier said than done. It is so easy to be sure that we are right, they are wrong and they should change to agree with us and if not we must fight against them. St Paul in our reading from Philippians today admits that he might have been a bit like this. He was a zealous persecutor of the church, of those he disagreed with. Imagine what he would have been like on social media!

 But then he has his encounter with the risen Christ and suddenly, everything changes, the things it seemed important to be right on and to attack those who disagreed with you, their not important anymore. What is important is Christ, and knowing Christ. By knowing Christ and seeking to live like Christ righteousness will follow. 

However, Paul makes the point that this is an on going process. He isn’t there yet and neither are we. Faith is an on going journey and like all journeys it will have it’s ups and downs. There will be the times when life is good, it’s easy to be nice to everyone and following Christ can seem relatively straight forward. Then there are the times when life is a struggle, nothing seems to be going the way we went. We may be stressed, tired, in pain, feeling hurt physically and or emotionally. Then being nice to others, especially when they annoy us or we disagree with them is a lot harder, trying to attain the ideals of Christ can seem impossible. Paul knew this and writes words of encouragement to keep going, to press on towards the goal. 

This is where we as a church community come in, to support and encourage each other in the tough times, even though we might disagree on some things. If we are to support and encourage each other it means we have to be honest with each other. Most of us here are British and when asked how are you British people tend to answer along the lines, I’m fine, can’t complain and other such things, even when we are on the edge of collapse, struggling to cope with arms and legs falling off! Maybe we need a change of perspective, rather than seeing being honest and open as to how we really are as in some way admitting to failure or weakness, we should consider it an opportunity for others to help us and in doing so grow in their quest to become more Christ like and for us to grow closer as a community of faith and become vines that produce the good fruit that the world so desperately needs right now. 

Amen

Saturday 17 June 2023

Some thoughts on Corpus Christi

 Corpus Christi Sermon 2023


In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.


Corpus Christi is the day when we think about the Eucharist, and for the preacher it is the day they have to try and explain what is going on with bread and wine turning into body and blood.

Now I did consider taking the easy way out and saying it's a holy mystery that we can never understand, amen, and sitting down. 


Whilst some of you might have preferred, that I was recently reminded that only around twenty percent of our communication is done using words. So I decided to take a look at what the actions in the Mass communicate about what we believe.


Firstly we have a rather long introduction of prayers, readings and hymns. This helps get us in the right frame of mind to engage with something holy, it gets us focused on God.


The prayer of confession and the absolution are key. It is saying that what is coming up is something holy and we need to be cleansed of our sin before we can receive it. 


The peace is also important in expressing that we are at peace with our neighbour. 

In Matthew's gospel Jesus says that if you bring a sacrifice to the altar and remember that you have fallen out with someone, go and be reconciled with that person first. 


What we are doing at the altar is such a holy act that we need to be in a state of holiness, reconciled with God and each other. Sharing the peace reminds us of this.


Then the action, moves from the body of the church to the altar. The altar is traditionally seen as the most holy place in the church. Many of the first altars were the tombs of the martyred saints. 


Whilst the body of the church may be used for secular activities such as fairs, markets, concerts etc the altar is kept only for the most holy of activities. 

So the movement of action from the body of the church to the altar is a way of saying get ready, we're getting to the really important bit now.


When the bread and wine, the gifts of the people, are brought to the altar from the back of church they are escorted by the candle bearers with lighted candles. 

Now, back in the day, there may have been a practical reason for this, So people could see where they were walking. However it also shows that these gifts are something important, something to be honoured.


Once the bread and wine are on the altar, they are censed with the incense, as they are about to be transformed from everyday bread and wine into the most holy sacrament of the body and blood. 

The people are also censed as we will also become changed and become holy through receiving the sacrament.


In the eucharistic prayer we remember God's saving actions and give thanks for them. There are two parts of the eucharistic prayer that are especially significant. These are indicated by the ringing of the bell to make sure we are all paying attention.

These are, firstly, at the epiclesis where the Holy spirit is called down upon the gifts of the people. 

The second time is at the words of institution, when the priest elevates the bread and the chalice for all to see.

This is also the point at which the priest will genuflect, indicating that bread and wine is now transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Extra censing is also done which indicates that this is now something special and holy.


When we come to receive communion we kneel, if able to, to show our acknowledgement that this is something special.

Tonight because we are especially celebrating the sacrament we will go further in our adoration. 

After receiving communion the sacrament will be processed around the church before being placed back on the altar and acting as a focus for a time of prayer. 

This procession can sometimes take place outside where it can also act as a way of witnessing about our faith to the wider community.


The procession of the sacrament allows us to show our respect and adoration for God, and our belief that he is in some way truly present in the sacrament. 

The short service of benediction that follows allows us to worship God and shows that we believe him to be really present in the sacrament, in a way that is different to how we sense his presence in our normal daily lives.


So whilst expressing what the real presence in the sacrament means in words can be quite hard, our worship helps us to express our belief in the real presence through our actions. 

Expressing our faith in this way can also be an important way of communicating with those who may not have the ability, for whatever reason, to understand the spoken word. 

Through the actions of our bodies, the use of movement, bells and incense to highlight important moments, all can gain some understanding of complex parts of our faith.


Amen



Friday 7 April 2023

Why is it called Good Friday?

 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Jesus said it is finished, but we all know with the benefit of hindsight, that there is an encore still to come. But what was Jesus doing while waiting for his final on stage appearance? If it really was finished, mission accomplished, you would think there would be a celebration dinner with the father and the spirit. 


There is a story on social media that a bishop once asked a group of children what they thought happened when Jesus died.  One child answered he went looking for his friend Judas.

Where would Jesus look for Judas, well in the apostles creed it states that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, he then descended to the dead. In Jewish belief the place of the dead was called Sheol. It was a place of torment because it was a place of complete separation from God. Man has separated himself from God by his actions. According to the gospel's Judas killed himself after Jesus' arrest. What man could be more separated from God than Judas? So Sheol the place of the dead, was where Jesus would have to look for Judas and it wasn't just Judas that was there. The souls of all the dead from Adam and Eve onwards would have been there, the good, the bad and the ugly.


One of the questions I have sometimes been asked about faith was what happens to people who died before Christ, they have never had the chance to know Christ so do they miss out on salvation? Christ's activity after death is what allows for their salvation. By descending into hell he carries salvation to all those that have been trapped there.


In orthodox iconography, icons for Easter often show Christ's descent into hell in order to lead the souls trapped there to freedom. In these icons the souls of the dead led by Adam and Eve are shown being led out of hell. Meanwhile satan is shown either crushed beneath the broken down gates of hell or chained up in his own fiery pit. 


So, Jesus' death on the cross allows him to descend into hell and let glory fill it and the souls of those who never had the chance to know Jesus can be redeemed and led to freedom and leave  Satan defeated.


However the harrowing of hell as it is called has further implications than just redeeming those already there who had never known Jesus. 

The child I quoted at the beginning said Jesus was looking for someone who had known him, his friend Judas. His friend who had also betrayed him. 

We are not Jesus, which means that at some point we also will all fail to act the way that Jesus would want us to and betray him. To an extent we are all Judas. However, The harrowing of hell tells us that Jesus will still keep looking for us in order to bring us to salvation despite our betrayals and failures. 


At the moment of Jesus's death in Matthew's  gospel account, the curtain in the temple was torn in two. The curtain was there to keep people out of the most holy place in the temple, the place that was seen as where God dwelt on earth. Only the most holy people, the priests could access God.  The splitting of the curtain changes that. Direct access to God is available for all, not restricted to the holy few. God no longer dwells in one specific place on earth. Rather he dwells within each of us. 


I have recently read the novel Grantchester, which is a prequel to the Grantchester novels that the TV show is based on about the crime solving vicar of Grantchester, Sidney Chambers. The novel opens with the 18th birthday celebrations of Sidney's best friend Robert. However within a few months they are in Italy fighting in the second world war. There is a priest attached to their regiment, Rev Nev as he is known. When asked how he manages to keep faith with the misery of the battlefield all around him he responds by saying Christ descended into hell, therefore Christ knows what suffering is. 


Whilst thankfully most of us have never had to fight in a war, we do all experience suffering of one sort or another. To be alive is to love and lose, to feel happiness but also pain and despair. Jesus has lived, suffered and died as a man. God is not some wonderful person sat on high who has never known what it is to feel hurt and pain and loss and despair. God in Jesus has known and felt all that and more for our sakes and so he can strengthen and support us to deal with it in our lives.


Why is it called Good Friday when the events are so bleak? Because by facing death and suffering Jesus brought about a new relationship between man and God.  It is the day when Satan thought he would celebrate victory dancing in the fires of hell and instead finds himself sitting in cold ashes and ruins.


Amen

Sunday 18 December 2022

Sermon for Advent 4

Readings: Isaiah 7: 10-16

Psalm 80 :1-8, 18-20

Romans 1: 1-7

Matthew 1:18-25


Advent 4 is traditionally a time to think about the blessed virgin Mary. I wonder what comes to mind when you think about Mary? As a child I must have seen Mary as a figure of some importance as I can remember the excitement I felt the year I was chosen to be Mary in the school nativity play. However some of the first things that come to mind when I think about Mary are terms such as meek, mild and obedient. Yet when I consider things more deeply I realise that these are not really words that sit well with Mary when we really consider her story.


So who was Mary? She was the daughter of Anne and Joachim, but according to the legends she was no ordinary daughter. Anne and Joachim were a reasonably well of couple but had no children. Joachim went into the wilderness for 40 days to pray and was rewarded with the birth of a daughter Mary. This story has parallels to those of Sarah and Abraham and Eli and Hannah, and would have marked Mary out as a special person.


However we don’t really know that much about her background or upbringing. The gospels tell us that she was betrothed to Joseph, who was a carpenter, a skilled craftsman. All probably fairly normal for a middle class girl of her age in that time and place.


Then along comes an angel. Now I don’t know about you but if I was just getting on with life, washing the dishes or whatever one day and suddenly there’s an angel wanting to speak to me, I would probably be a quivering heap on the floor. However in the accounts we have Mary appears remarkably calm. When the angel tells Mary God’s plan, Mary’s first response isn’t to say yes. It’s more of a hang on a minute, can we just have a quick chat about this. She answers back to the angel and questions him, that’s not been meek and mild, that’s more brave and bold.


Of course, as we all know, Mary did agree to God’s plan, but that in itself was yet another brave and bold act. With that yes Mary must have known she was signing herself up to nine months of ridicule, of being the main topic of gossip among the local population. Just imagine what the women would have been saying when getting their water at the well, have you heard about that Mary, got herself knocked up and is saying it was an angel and God doing it? Who does she think will believe that?

And then there was the impact on her relationship with Joseph. As we heard in today’s gospel reading Joseph’s first reaction is to dump her and cancel the wedding plans. Mary has gone from a nice middle class girl to someone shameful that he no longer wants to be associated with. Then Joseph gets his own angelic encounter, although in this case it is in the form of a dream. There was maybe a heavenly assumption that an actual angel may have been too much for Joseph to cope with!


Matthew’s gospel is the only one that records Joseph’s angelic dreams, it is also the only one that tells us anything at all about Joseph’s reaction to Mary’s news. I always feel a bit sorry for Joseph, the bible writers don’t seem to include him much at all. Yet his life must have been turned upside down as much as Mary’s by this unexpected pregnancy.


Both Matthew and Luke give a genealogy of Joseph, although they differ in their details both show Joseph to be descended from King David. In Matthew's gospel Joseph gets to have two more angelic dreams, one telling him to flee to Egypt and one telling him when to come back, and that’s it. In Luke’s gospel he is in the story of the journey to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, the return to Nazareth and the story of the 12 year old Jesus getting lost when visiting the temple, and that's it. It is assumed by his absence that Joseph had died by the time Jesus starts his earthly ministry.


However, I think Joseph like Mary was a very brave man. Not only was he risking the ridicule of the local gossips by standing by Mary and caring for Jesus as his son, he was possibly risking his business as well. After all people may think twice about ordering their new dining room furniture from that Joseph whose gone a bit funny in the head , claiming to have dreams of angels even dragging his whole family of to Egypt on the basis of a supposedly angelic dream. What if he does that when he’s half way through making my table and chairs?


To do the task that God called them to, to be the earthly parents of Jesus, Mary and Joseph had to be far from meek and mild, they had to be bold and brave, to potentially risk everything, family, friends, financial security, and their social status. The young Jesus couldn’t have had two better role models to help shape him and give him the strength for his future ministry.


Their bravery and boldness was rooted in their faith and they can be an example to us today. In a world that is increasingly secular, or even hostile to religious faith, we all may need some of that courage if we are to follow the command of Jesus to make disciples of all men. The great thing is, that we are not alone in this. We are supported by the great cloud of saints including Mary and Joseph. In a few minutes we will be asking Mary to help us, using the words “Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

I for one, can’t think of anyone else I would rather have on my side.


Amen

Sunday 27 March 2022

Mothering Sunday Sermon



Readings: exodus 2 1-10

Colossians 3 12-17

John 19 25-27

May I speak in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost.

Mothering Sunday is a day for thinking about the role of mothers in our lives. Mothers often play an important role in the Bible, not least that of Mary the mother of God. However motherhood in the Bible, as in modern life, can often also involve great sacrifice and tragedy. In our first reading we have the story of Moses and his mother. Moses was born at a time when the Hebrews were ruled by the Egyptian ruler Pharoah. Pharoah like many dictators became a bit paranoid that the Hebrews would rebel against him and so ordered all hebrew boys born to be killed. Moses's mother Jochebad comes up with a very risky plan to save him. She places him in a basket in the river when Pharaoh's daughter is coming. She is risking that the daughter of her enemy will have pity on a small child. The risk pays of, and even better Jochebad is able to offer herself as wet nurse to her son so she can still be with him. When reading this story I couldn't help thinking of the pictures and stories from Afghanistan and Ukraine of desperate mothers handing their children over to strangers as it seems their only hope of survival. Mothers across the world today are still taking great risks to try and protect their children. It can be seen that one aspect of being a good mother can be to protect their child.

Another aspect of motherhood that can be seen in the Bible is the role of mothers to be supportive. This is perhaps most clearly seen in Mary and her support for Jesus and his ministry. Mary still loves and supports Jesus even when others mock him and right through to his painful end on the cross. Loving support that must have cost Mary so much. My own mum always offered me her support, even with activities that when I've talked to her about them as an adult, I've discovered she thought I was bonkers to do. Without that support though I might not have the confidence to be up here talking to you today, of course you might not think that a good thing!

We are more used to thinking of God as father. There are however, also references to God acting as a mother such as sheltering Jerusalem like a mother hen shelters her chicks. God as mother is often seen as a protective role. But I think God also shares some of the other characteristics of being a mother. He supports and encourages us. In Hosea God says it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I who took them up in my arms. He protects us, in Deuteronomy he is described as like an eagle that hovers over it's young, He spreads wings to catch you and carries you. In Isaiah God says as a mother comforts her child so I will comfort you.

God is also prepared to suffer for us and with us. The theologian Jürgen Moltman says that "when we feel pain we participate in His pain." God suffers most obviously through the cross. However he also like a good mother shares in our suffering. There are many other examples in both the old and the New testaments where God is described as being like a mother.

The mystic Julian of Norwich also talked about God as mother. She wrote 

"Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true mother. We received our being from him and this is where his maternity starts, and with it comes the gentle protection and guard of love which will never ceases to surround us"

We can see that God has within his nature many aspects that we associate with motherhood. He provides shelter and nurture, protects us, guides us and shares in our suffering.

 Motherhood is an important theme in many of the biblical stories. However many stories also have the lack of motherhood or the giving up of a child as a key theme, from Sarah and Abraham, through Hannah who gives her much wanted son, Samuel to serve the lord, to Elizabeth and Mary. The sad truth is that in the world today not everyone is able to have a good relationship with their mother, and not everyone that wants to be a mother is able to be one. A mothering relationship though, does not necessarily have to be a blood one.

Jesus from the cross gives Mary and the disciple John a new relationship, although John I am sure would never replace Jesus in Mary's heart, it gave both John and Mary a new and deeper relationship. This is something I think we as a church today need to think about. We are in relationship with each other as the body of Christ. There may be those among us, who for whatever reason need to be mothered and those among us who are good at providing that mix of support, advice and comfort that a good mother would. We may at different times in our lives be in both groups. However I am not sure we are always very good at either giving or receiving this support. Some may find it difficult to reach out and admit they might need something, others may worry that if they offer something they will be rejected. As a community we need to try and be conscious of the needs of others and also be willing to accept help, support or just a friendly person to talk to when it is offered.

As Christians we are called to try and live our lives in a way that reflects something of the nature of God. This includes the nature of God as mother. This means offering support, advice and comfort in times of need. It also means standing up for and defending those who are weak or unable to defend themselves. Saying that this is what we should do is easy, working out how to do that in practice might be a bit more difficult. Maybe we need to start by building relationships among ourselves that are supportive and nurturing. Our second reading today gives us some ideas for how to do this. Be compassionate and kind, that's the easy part and then it gets harder, be humble, meek and patient, and finally the big one, forgive each other. If someone has upset us, caused us a problem or had an opposite view to us about some aspect of church or our life together, it can be very hard sometimes to forgive. Lent is a season of penitence and for confessing our wrongs and asking forgiveness, we need to remember that sometimes we need to forgive. Paul tells us how to do this put on love and give thanks to God.

Mary and John developed a new relationship and a church based on comfort, support, encouragement and hospitality. This is the model we need to follow today, both as a church and as individuals in our relationships with each other.


Amen