Last Tuesday, we celebrated the feast day of St Mark the Evangelist. In my sermon then, I spoke about how St Mark can be a shining example to us in these difficult times for the Church. I said that because, as we read St Mark’s story in scripture and in the Church’s traditions, we find echoes of our own story. St Mark’s story is one of someone who was filled with enthusiasm for the Christian faith but who, after experiencing hardship and persecution on account of the faith, turned back from the work of mission and evangelism. But St Mark’s story is also one of someone who, in the end, found the courage to go out into the world to proclaim the Gospel again. I said that St Mark is such a shining example to us because most of us will have gone through the first two stages of St Mark’s experience, an initial burst of enthusiasm, which will have subsided when we realised just how difficult proclaiming the Gospel really can be. The problem for us, and for the Church, is that we seem to find it so difficult to find the courage that will allow us to go out again and proclaim our faith so openly as we did at first. I suggested that many of us reach that turning- back stage of our faith journey and become stuck there, and the Church too seems to be stuck in that turning-back stage because of what amounts to a lack of courage.

If we think about the Church today, and individual Christians too, we can’t help but come to the conclusion that they’re filled with fear. Not fear of the Lord, as we should be, but fear of everything and everyone else. We’re afraid of people of other faiths. We’re afraid of people of no faith. We’re even afraid of each other. We must be. How can we conclude otherwise when so many people in the Church are prepared to turn a blind eye to un-Christian behaviour in the Church, or even collude with it, rather than challenge it? Every single one of us must have come across someone in the Church acting in ways that are incompatible with the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. But how many of us have had the courage to challenge that behaviour? To tell that person, or people, that what they’re doing and saying is wrong? The example I gave on Tuesday evening was that of the anti-Roman Catholic bigotry in the Church of England that so many people are willing to collude with. But that denominational bigotry exists in every denomination of the Church and goes equally unchallenged in every denomination. But there are so many other examples of this kind of cowardice. During my ministry, I, personally, have been on the receiving end of all kinds of un-Christian behaviour from people in congregations.

People have known what was happening was wrong and yet so many times they’ve simply looked away and said nothing. Or they’ve spoken to me privately about how appalled they were about what happened, but still didn’t challenge it. And so many times too, people have said that they couldn’t say anything because the other person was their friend. But how many scandals in the Church have been caused simply because people have been unwilling to challenge un-Christian behaviour when they’ve known about it because the perpetrator was a friend?

It seems to me that people are more afraid of each other than they are of the Lord. But Jesus said, 

“…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

In other words, disciples of Christ, Christians, we, should fear God more

than we fear other people, whoever they are. And this is what we see in our readings this morning.

We can start with our Gospel reading where we read the story of Jesus appearing to the disciples on the sea shore after his Resurrection. Just like St Mark, and just like us, the disciples had been through that great rush of excitement and enthusiasm, probably even more so because they were eyewitnesses to all that Jesus had done. And yet, when it all seemed to go wrong on Maundy Thursday, most of them had run away in fear, and they’d been hiding, for fear, since. And what must Peter have felt as he came to shore and found Jesus by a charcoal fire? He must, surely, have been reminded of that Thursday night when, as he warmed himself by a charcoal fire, he’d denied three times that he even knew Jesus. Certainly, he was overcome with excitement to see Jesus because he threw himself into the sea to get to shore more quickly, but he must have been apprehensive at least as he came to Jesus, wondering, worrying what Jesus might say to him about his lack of courage. But he needn’t have done because Jesus simply asked Peter three times, to mirror Peter’s three denials, if he really loved him. And because Peter could answer,

“Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”

Peter’s failure was forgiven. He was given another chance, as were all the disciples.

And our reading from Acts tells us that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they were able to find the courage to go out and proclaim the Gospel no matter who opposed them.

It’s a pity that we don’t read more of Acts 5 this morning to help put what we do read into context. But as we only have this short excerpt, we need to remember that Peter and the Apostles had already been imprisoned for going into the temple to teach people about Jesus. We need to remember too that they’d been imprisoned by the very people who only a few weeks earlier had arrested Jesus and condemned him to death. And yet, having escaped from prison they went straight back to the temple to proclaim the Gospel again. And their fear had gone, or at least their fear of what other people could do to them had because, as we read;

‘…the high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.’

And that so enraged the High Priest and the council that they wanted to put the Apostles to death. But a rather wiser Pharisee, Gamaliel, urged caution in words that we’d would do well to listen to as well;

‘…keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”’

And so the council were content to have the Apostles beaten and then let them go with another warning not to speak about Jesus. Which the Apostles took no heed of whatsoever, In fact,

‘…they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.’

There is so much in this morning’s readings that we, and the Church, need to take note of as we look to proclaim the Gospel today. The need to be courageous in proclaiming our faith in the face of opposition. The need to fear God rather than being afraid of other people, whoever they are. But perhaps especially the words of a Pharisee, Gamaliel. Because if what we do is of God, it will not fail. And what we do is of God, it must be because we’re proclaiming the Gospel of his Son. So if what we’re doing isn’t succeeding, it must be because we are doing something wrong. To be more explicit; the Gospel we’re proclaiming can’t be wrong because it is of God, so our proclamation of the Gospel should succeed. So a lack of success in proclaiming  the Gospel must be down to human factors. So perhaps the problem is that we, both as individuals and as a Church aren’t proclaiming the Gospel as we should be. And I think that is exactly what the problem is, we’re not proclaiming the Gospel as we should be, and as we’re called to. And we’re not doing that because we’re too frightened to do it. We’re too frightened of people of other faiths, of no faith, and of each other, of the un-Christian elements within our own ranks to stand up for our faith, to even defend it and speak up for it, let alone shout it from the roof tops. And when we don’t defend our faith from attack, when we don’t stand up to those who drag our faith and the Church into the gutter because of their un-Christian behaviour, when we keep quiet about all these things for fear of other people then, to all intents and purposes, we’re opposing God, so is it any wonder that we fail?

I’ve been quite forceful in what I’ve said this morning, but I don’t intend it as an admonishment, but rather a wake-up call. The Church has had things far too easy for far too long in this country and we’ve become lazy. I went to a state school, but we had Bible lessons in class, daily prayers and assemblies with hymns. The only faith we were taught was the Christian faith. But I’m probably of the last generation who had that kind of Christian teaching in school, at least in a state school, and I’m now a grandfather. We can’t rely on the state to take responsibility for teaching the Christian faith anymore; that party is over. Now, it is up to us, both individually and collectively, to proclaim the Gospel as we always should have done because it’s what we’re called to do as Christians. But we won’t do that unless we can lose our fear of other people, including those un-Christian elements within the Church itself, who may well be our friends and neighbours, but who do our faith and the Church so much harm.

In his Letter to the Romans, St Paul asks,

If God is for us, who can be against us?

We have Christ’s assurance that God is for us, what we have to decide is whether we are for him. To put it another way, who do we fear, God or man?

Amen.  

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Propers for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, 4th May 2025

Entrance Antiphon
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth;
O sing to the glory of his name.
O render him glorious praise, alleluia.

The Collect
May your people exult for ever, O God,
in renewed youthfulness of spirit,
so that, rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption,
we may look forward in confident hope to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Acts 5:27-32, 40-41
Psalm 30:2, 4-6, 11-13
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

Prayer after Communion
Look with kindness upon your people, O Lord,
and grant, we pray,
that those you were pleased to renew by eternal mysteries
may attain in their flesh
the incorruptible glory of the resurrection.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

One of the things that people in the Church often complain about is the alterations that are sometimes made to the words of hymns. That does happen a lot nowadays and, as with so many changes that are made to traditional things these days, the reason for the changes is often said to be to make hymns less offensive. But one of the great problems with doing this is that, unless the changes are made very carefully and with regard to scripture and theology, the meaning of a line or verse in a hymn can be completely changed. And one very good example of that is the well-known Advent hymn, Lo, he comes with clouds descending.

In the second verse of that hymn, the original words are,

Ev’ry eye shall now behold him

robed in dreadful majesty;

those who set at nought and sold him,

pierced and nailed him to the tree,

deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,

shall the true Messiah see.’

But in many modern hymn books, the word ‘those’ has been changed to ‘we’. And the reason given for that is that the original words are ‘antisemitic’ because they blame the Jews for Jesus’ betrayal arrest and crucifixion. Well, I’m sorry if people don’t like that, but the Gospel says the Jews, that is, the religious leaders who plotted Jesus’ downfall, Judas who betrayed him, and to some extent even the disciples who abandoned him, were the ones who set at nought and sold him. But surely it was the Romans, Pilate who unjustly, and knowingly so, condemned him to death by crucifixion, and the Roman soldiers who carried out the sentence who were responsible for piercing and nailing Jesus to the tree. So if the words of the hymn are antisemitic, by the same reasoning they surely must be anti-Roman too. And in fact, when we see this, we can understand that what the original words of the hymn are saying is that all people, both Jew and Gentile were responsible for Jesus’ betrayal, arrest and crucifixion. And that is what we find in the Gospel. The Gospel tells us that they all laid hands on him which in itself is a Jewish symbol of the transference of sin from the people to the scapegoat. So the original words are both scripturally and theologically correct: the Jews betrayed him, the Gentiles put him to death, and the sins of all were transferred to Jesus.

That’s one example of how changing words can distort what was originally meant and written; how doing that can even distort scripture. But we have another example of that in this morning’s Gospel.

When Jesus appears to the disciples for the second time and shows Thomas the wounds in his hands and side, Thomas responds with a great profession of faith,

“My Lord and my God!”

But what was Jesus’ reply? In the translation we read today, Jesus said,

“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

But many translations change the word ‘blessed’ and have Jesus saying ‘happy’ instead. So which is it? And does it make any difference? Well yes, actually, it does make a difference.

The problem is the Greek word here ‘makarios’ can mean both blessed and happy but that doesn’t mean that we can translate it either way and still mean what Jesus meant. There are reasons why we might translate it one way or the other, but I think it’s sometimes translated as ‘happy’ because people understand what that word means whereas they might not necessarily understand, or at least understand so well, what ‘blessed’ means in a scriptural context.

We all know what it means to be happy, it means to feel pleasure or contentment, or to be cheerful. It can also mean to experience a sense of trust or confidence in person or situation. But while being blessed can include those things, there’s also a divine element to blessedness. In the Scriptures, there’s an element of gift and offering in being blessed. So people can bless God by offering him praise and worship. And God blesses people by giving them his favour and protection. So when it comes to people being blessed, we can sum up the difference between happiness and blessedness by saying that to be blessed by God is to be happy because God has done something for us or given us something or will do these things for us. And one of the places in scripture we see this most clearly is in The Beatitudes.

The word ‘beatitude’ means ‘blessing’, a supreme blessing actually. And The Beatitudes are sayings of this ‘happy because of what God will do for us’ nature. So in the first Beatitude, for example, Jesus says,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”   

And who can give us the kingdom of heaven but God himself. So what we see in this Beatitude is a gift of God to the ‘poor in spirit’, which makes them ‘blessed’. Or does it make them happy?

I ask that because, as I’m sure we all know, The Beatitudes themselves are sometimes translated as ‘Happy are’ rather than ‘Blessed are’ but doing that can distort the meaning of Jesus’ teaching because saying ‘happy are’  gives the sense of limiting that happiness to the present time. ‘Happy are’ means to be happy now doesn’t it? If we’re talking about future happiness we’d say ‘Happy will be’ or ‘Happy shall be’ wouldn’t we? And many of The Beatitudes do speak of something that God will endow us with in the future. The third Beatitude, for example, says,

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

‘Shall’ is the future tense. So whereas ‘happy are’ suggests a present state of happiness, ‘blessed are’ suggests a state of happiness that is timeless; it can be in the present and in the future and both. So in The Beatitudes, Jesus can say the reward of the kingdom ‘is’, that is, ‘it is now’ because the kingdom is both now and yet to come, but that other rewards ‘shall’ be, that is, they will be in the future. So what did Jesus mean when he answered Thomas; that those who believed without seeing are ‘happy’ as some translators would have it, or that they’re ‘blessed’ as the translation we read this morning says?

I think we have to conclude that he meant ‘blessed’ because those who haven’t seen the risen Lord with their own eyes, yet who can still acclaim Jesus as their Lord and God, can be happy both now and in the future. They can be happy now because they believe that Christ is risen and so they can believe that all he said was and is true. They can have that deep sense of joy, of happiness, that I spoke about in my sermon last week; and they can have that now. That is God’s gift to them, and to us, now, the gift of faith. But that happiness will never come to an end because, as Jesus told us, and as we believe,

“…as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

So whilst we can be happy as Christians, we must also, as Christians, be blessed because our happiness can never be taken away from us. God makes us happy now through his gift of faith and the reward for our acceptance of his gift of faith is the blessing of a happiness that shall be ours for ever. So let’s count our blessings and thank God for them. Let us bless God by offering him our praise and worship for blessing us with the means of our present and future happiness. For sending his Son into the world to save us from our sins and for the gift of faith in his Son so that we can be raised to eternal life and to a happiness that shall never end.

Amen.

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Propers for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, 27th April 2025

Entrance Antiphon
Like newborn infants, you must long for the pure, spiritual milk,
that in him you may grow to salvation, alleluia.

The Collect
God of everlasting mercy,
who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast
kindle the faith of the people you have made your own,
increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed,
that all may grasp and rightly understand
in what font they have been washed,
by whose Spirit they have been reborn,
by whose Blood they have been redeemed.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Acts 5:12-16
Psalm 118:2-4, 22-27
Revelation 1:9-13, 17-19
John 20:19-31

Prayer after Communion
Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that our reception of this paschal Sacrament
may have a continuing effect in our minds and hearts.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.