If I were to ask what this morning’s Gospel is really all about, what would you say? I’m sure some would say it’s about Jesus being taken to the temple to be presented to the Lord, forty days after his birth, so that Mary and Joseph could perform the Jewish rites of purification that the Law said were necessary after childbirth, and in particular after the birth of a first-born son. Some would no doubt add that it’s about the Holy Family meeting Simeon and Anna who recognised Jesus as the Messiah and who praised God and spoke about the child. Some might even say that it’s the last Christmas story, which it is because it’s the last story in the Gospels about Jesus as a baby. And if you were to say any or all of those things, you’d be right. But what is this story really about? What lies behind the story and at the heart of the story? What is Luke trying to say to us through the story?

In that respect, I’m sure that many people would say that what lies at the heart of this story is the prophecy of Simeon.

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

This prophecy is central to the story in more ways than one. For one thing it comes right in the middle of the story so in terms of structure, Luke’s telling of the story leads up to Simeon’s prophecy about Jesus: that he is the Saviour, the Messiah: that he is the light of the world, the one who will reveal God’s truth to the whole world, to all people: the one who will both teach and show Israel and the world what it really means to be and live as God’s people. So, just like the story of the shepherds of Bethlehem and the story of the Wise Men, this is a story about revelation, about who this child really is. And then the story leads away from this and ends with the Holy Family going home to Nazareth.

But as important as Simeon’s prophecy is to the story, and as all parts of the story are in their own way, there’s another theme that runs through the whole story, from the time the Holy Family arrive at the temple, through the prophecy of Simeon and on to the time the Holy Family leave the temple to go home. And that theme is obedience to the Law, the Law of the Lord.

This is a short story really, only eighteen verses, but in those eighteen verses we’re told no less than 6 times that what happened in the temple that day was done in accordance with the Law.

So what Luke seems to be saying to us, perhaps above all, is that the Holy Family, the human family that God chose for his Son to be born into, to grow up in and to live as part of, is a family that was obedient to the Law. They were good, faithful people who lived their lives in obedience to God and did everything that God required of them. And that is the lesson for us and our own lives in this story.

Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple that day, as we’re told, to fulfil their obligations under the Law; for Mary to be purified after childbirth, for Jesus to be consecrated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice to God for these things. And at the heart of this was thanksgiving, giving something back to God for what God had given them. We might find what they gave to God in thanksgiving for the birth of their first-born son quite odd because their way of showing their thanks to God was to sacrifice two birds. Some, I’m sure will find it abhorrent even to kill animals as a way of showing our thanks to God. But I’ve said many times that we can’t and mustn’t judge these things according to our own views: we have to try to look at them through the eyes of the people of that time, and at that time, animal sacrifice was a very acceptable way of showing thanks to God. What we need to do is to try and understand why animal sacrifice was an acceptable way of showing thanks to God for the birth of a first-born son.

For the people of those days, the idea of animal sacrifice as a way of giving thanks to God was about giving something to God commensurate with what God had given them. So, in thanksgiving for a life, a life was given back. We read about the particular sacrifice made by Mary and Joseph in the temple on this day in the books of Exodus and Leviticus and in Exodus it speaks about redeeming the life of a first born with a sacrifice. So the Law gives the sense of animal sacrifice as buying the life of a first-born from God and paying for that life with a payment in kind: a life for a life. We see this idea elsewhere in the Law too don’t we, in the ‘life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ approach to crime and punishment. Jesus absolved us from the obligation to follow that particular aspect of law, and his death on the Cross absolved us from any requirement to make animal sacrifices to God, but he didn’t absolve us from our obligation to give thanks to God in a way commensurate with what we owe to God. But do we give thanks to God in this way?

Jesus was only 40 days old when he was taken to the temple so the Holy Family must have travelled to Jerusalem from Bethlehem. That’s a journey of about 10km, 6 miles, and they would have walked there, so it would have taken them about 2 hours. But how many people who say that they’re Christians and so presumably believe that they owe everything to God, won’t go to church if they can’t drive there or be driven there, even if the church is only a few minutes’ walk away? How many people won’t go to a church service anywhere else but their own church because they say it’s too far to travel, even if they are offered transport? How many people in fact, simply stop going to church completely if their own parish church closes down and they have to travel a little further to worship and give thanks to God? We know all these things happen, but how is that in any way commensurate with what we owe God for all he’s done for us? He sent his own Son from heaven to walk this earth and suffer and die for us and yet so many people can’t be bothered going to church to show their  thanks for that because it’s inconvenient.

As Christians we believe that God is with us always. We believe in Jesus’ promise to be with us until the end of time. We believe that God sent the Holy Spirit to us to be our guide and comforter. We believe that God is with us at every moment of our lives from the cradle to the grave and beyond, that he knows us and loves us eternally. And yet how many people who confess that belief seem to think that they’ve done enough to show their thanks to God in return, simply because they spend an hour in church on a Sunday morning? How many people refuse to do more because they’re ‘too busy’ or ‘don’t have time’? How many won’t do more because they have in the past and say that they’ve ‘done their bit’ and think it’s about time ‘someone else had a go’? How is that commensurate with what God has done and does do for us? Does God only love and care for us while we’re in church, or only on Sunday morning? Is God too busy holding all creation in the palm of his hand to be bothered with us as individual people? Did God send his Son to offer himself on the Cross once and for all and then say,

‘Well, that’s it, I’ve done my bit, it’s up to you now’

If we really do believe what we say about God and his care for us, how is the part-time commitment people so often show in response in any way proportionate to his eternal commitment to us?

One of the ways we’re asked to show our thanks to God is through our giving, through our financial support of the Church and our parish church. I have, in the past, spoken about what people need to give ‘on average’ to adequately support their parish church. But I have never and will never tell anyone what they, as an individual, should be giving. I don’t know people’s individual circumstances, they do. I don’t know how much they can really afford to give, only they know that. But what I will say is that each and every one of us should give serious thought to what we can afford to give.

You’ve probably all heard me use a prayer when the collection plate is brought forward at the Offertory on Sunday. It goes like this;

Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power,

the glory, the splendour, and the majesty;

for everything in heaven and on earth is yours.

All things come from you,

and of your own do we give you.

That’s a prayer in which we state our belief that we owe everything we have to God, and that we offer back to God something of his own goodness towards us; it’s very much in the ‘life for life’ mould. And yet, whilst I don’t know what any individual gives to their parish church, I do that some people don’t take that commitment seriously enough to give what they give serious thought. I know that some people have stewardship envelopes but rarely if ever use them. I know that some people never increase what they put in their envelopes, and probably never have done since they first took them 20, 30, 40 or however many years ago. I know that some people simply put their hand in their pocket on a Sunday morning and throw in whatever loose change they happen to have. Perhaps those who do this think,

‘Oh, that’ll do.’

But if we’re talking about giving something back to God commensurate with all that God has given and does give to us, in thanksgiving to God, that simply will not do. How is a handful of loose change in any way a fitting ‘Thank you’ to the God who has given so much to us and to his Son whose Church we belong to and that he gave his all, even his very life for, and for us?

If we want to be the people of God we claim to be, then we have an obligation to give thanks to God for all he has given to us. And our thanksgiving should be commensurate with what we’ve received. So if all we can be bothered to give to God is a handful of loose change while we spend an hour in church on Sunday morning, so long as we don’t have to travel too far to do it, that is, what does that say about the depth of our thankfulness? What does it say about the value we place on all that God has done for us and has given us?

The Holy Family did all that was required of them by the Law of The Lord. We, in the Church, are called to be part of that family because  Jesus himself said that those who do the will of God are his mother and brothers and sisters. So let’s be part of his family and like Mary and Joseph let’s do what’s required of us and give the thanks to God that’s befitting him for all he’s given to us.
Amen.

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Propers for The Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas) 2nd February 2025

Entrance Antiphon
Your merciful love, O God, we have received in the midst of your temple.
Your praise, O God, like your name, reaches the ends of the earth;
your right hand is filled with saving justice.

The Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
we humbly implore your majesty that,
just as your Only Begotten Son
was presented on this day in the Temple
in the substance of our flesh,
so, by your grace,
we may be presented to you with minds made pure.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalm 24:7-10
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

Prayer after Communion 
By these holy gifts which we have received, O Lord,
bring your grace to perfection within us,
and, as you fulfilled Simeon’s expectation
That he would not see death
until he had been privileged to welcome the Christ,
so may we, going forth to meet the Lord,
obtain the gift of eternal life.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

I don’t know how many of you watch F1 racing but even if you don’t, I’m sure that there can’t be many, if any, of you who haven’t heard of Lewis Hamilton. And it’s quite understandable that even people who don’t watch, or even particularly like F1 racing, or motor racing of any kind should have heard of him because he’s a very good and successful racing driver. He’s won a joint record seven drivers world championships, a record he shares with another very famous racing driver, Michael Schumacher, and he holds the record for the number of F1 Grand Prix race wins with 105 victories. He’s so good and successful a driver in fact, that many people regard him as the GOAT, the greatest of all time.

I used to be very interested in F1 racing, though not so much these days, and I always think it’s a rather pointless exercise to say that this or that driver is the GOAT because times change, technology changes and as it does, so do the cars that racing drivers drive. And as the cars change, driving styles change too. Also, the F1 drivers of today drive in many more races than they used to and, thankfully, they have a much better chance of surviving than they once did. But even taking all those things into account, it’s still rather pointless to say who is the greatest racing driver of all time because no racing driver, no matter how talented they are, would ever have much success if they weren’t part of a great team. How much success would Lewis Hamilton have had, for example, without the people who designed and built race winning cars for him to drive? How much success would he have had without the people who look after those cars and make sure that they’re reliable enough to last a full race distance? How much success would he have had without the people who analyse conditions and performance to make sure that his car was at its best on race day? How much success would he have had without the people who get him in and out of the pits in just a few seconds during races? The fact is, that without all those people, and probably many more besides, all doing their jobs very well, Lewis Hamilton nor any other racing driver would ever have much success; they’d hardly ever, if ever, win a race let alone a world championship. They’d never get within sight of breaking and holding records and their names would never even be mentioned in the greatest of all time debate. The driver may get the glory for winning a race or a championship, but they’d get nothing if they weren’t part of a great team.

And I think that’s a good, modern analogy for what St Paul is saying about the Church in the reading we’ve just read from his First Letter to the Corinthians. As we know, St Paul calls the Church the ‘body of Christ’ and compares the individual Christians who make up the Church to the different members or parts of a human body. But the point he’s making is that, although each of us have different gifts and although each of us have a particular role or function in the Church, we are all part of the same Church; we’re part of the same team, and we can’t and won’t achieve the results our combined talents make us capable of if we don’t all work together as a team. And I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that one of the great failings of the Church, probably the greatest failing of the Church, is that we constantly fail to work as a team.

There are so many ways we do this but perhaps the most obvious example is seen in the divisions within the Church, whether that be divisions along lines of denomination or tradition. The very fact that the Church is divided in this way screams out that we’re not working as a team. We see so much  rivalry between denominations and traditions in the Church, so much animosity and at times even hatred between denominations and traditions in the Church.

‘We’re right, you’re wrong.’

‘We’re not doing anything with that lot because they’re Catholic.’

Or Protestant, or Low Church or High Church or whatever the difference may be. Even that those of different denominations or traditions are

‘Not proper Christians.’

Which can only mean that in the opinion of those speaking, those who aren’t like them aren’t part of the Church.

To use St Paul’s terminology, it’s like a foot saying to a hand,

‘You’re not a foot so you’re not part of the body’

You’d expect to hear this between F1 teams,

‘Don’t share this with them because they’re Mercedes and we’re Ferrari’  for example, because they are rivals and in competition with each other, but not between people in the same team where everyone is supposed to be working together to get their driver over the finishing line in first place. And aren’t we all supposed to be on the same team in the Church? Aren’t we all supposed to be one in Christ Jesus, all on his team and all supposed to be working together for the common goal of seeing the Gospel proclaimed and the growth of God’s kingdom on earth?

But we see this in parishes and congregations too. All of us, I’m sure, want to see our own parish church doing well. We want to see more people coming to our church and see our church grow and thrive. But if that’s what we really want, then we all have do our bit, play our part in trying to make it happen. But how many people don’t and won’t play a part in helping to make that happen because they think they can’t? How many people say,

‘I can’t do that, don’t know how to do this, have never done it before’

or something similar and so won’t even try? But, and to use the F1 analogy again, at some point every race or championship winning team had to start by doing things they’d never done before. People who’d never designed a built a race winning car had to learn how to do it. The team had to learn how to make a car fast enough to win a race reliable enough to finish a race. They had to learn how to analyse conditions to make sure that their car was performing in the best way possible on race day. Pit crews, people who can change all four wheels on a car in 2 seconds or less don’t simply appear, as if by magic, they have to be put together, and they have to learn how to work together so that they can do it. So to say that we can’t, don’t know how or have never done it before, is no reason not to do because we can all try, and we can all learn.

Just a few days ago, I was at a Clergy Chapter meeting, and one of the things that almost everyone there was, and is, concerned about is the fact that there is so much that needs doing in their parishes but so few people who are willing to do it. Everyone in a parish congregation wants to see their church grow and thrive, but it seems that so many also want to sit back and let other people do all the work in trying to bring that about. But what would happen in an F1 team if some people decided that they wanted their team to win races and championships but that they didn’t actually want to play any part in achieving success? That they wanted to wear the teams outfit so that they could bask in the glory of being part of a successful race team, but then go AWOL when the time came to get down to the hard work of being part of a race winning team? What would happen if, for example, Lewis Hamilton was leading a race but when he pulled into the pits for new tyres, he only found half the pit crew waiting because the rest of the team had gone for a brew or were too busy watching the race on TV to be where they were supposed to be during the pit stop? Or were simply too comfortable sitting with their feet up to be bothered to get up and get to work?

The answer is, of course, that it would take too long to change the tyres, if they could be changed at all, and the race would be lost. The individuals in the team wouldn’t have worked together as a team and there would be no success and no glory for anyone involved.

Any team who had people like this would very soon find that there were no race wins or championships to celebrate, no glory to bask in, and they’d soon be out of the racing business altogether. And it’s the same with the Church. If we want the Church and our parishes churches to survive then we all have to pull our weight and work together as a team to make what we want to happen, really happen.

And this is what St Paul is driving at too. Just as all the members of a human body work together for the good of the whole body, so every member of the Church has to work together for the good of the Church. Just as all the members of a human body serve different functions, so everyone in the Church has their own part to play in serving the Church. But St Paul makes it quite clear that each member of the Church does have a particular role to play; we don’t all have the same gifts, and no one has all the gifts necessary to do all the things that are necessary. So it’s not right to expect a few people to do everything. Where is the teamwork in that, that being called a body implies?

St Paul says tells us that God wills each and every one of us in the Church to care for one another and that,

‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.’

One very real cause of individual suffering in a church is the unrealistic expectation and burden that’s placed on the few people who are willing to do, by those who won’t do. And that does cause all to suffer because it inevitably means that some things that need to be done aren’t done because the few can’t possibly carry the burden that all should be sharing. And if one is honoured for what they do for the body, how can those who’ve simply left them to it and not helped, rejoice with the body? It would be like someone claiming part of the glory for a Lewis Hamilton win when all they’d done is walked around wearing the team shirt.

Amen.

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Propers for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary time 26th January 2025

Entrance Antiphon
O sing a new song to the Lord; sing to the Lord, all the earth.
In his presence are majesty and splendour, strength and honour in his holy place.

The Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
direct our actions according to your good pleasure,
that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works.
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
Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10
Psalm: 19:8-10, 15
1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Prayer after Communion
Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that, receiving the grace by which you bring us new life,
we may always glory in your gift.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

When I was going through the selection process for ordination training, one of the priests who was advising and helping me once asked me which was my favourite Gospel. And without hesitation I said,

“John.”

But the priest then said that this was a question I was almost certain to be asked at a Selection Conference (which I was) and he advised that if I was, It’d be far better to say that one of the synoptics was my favourite rather than John. Obviously, I asked why, and he said that I’d be asked to explain why John was my favourite and the problem with doing that is that John is so full of hidden meanings that, in trying to explain what I liked about John’s Gospel, I could very easily show how little I actually understood it. So I took his advice and when I was asked that question at my Selection Conference, I ‘ummed and ahhed’ a little and eventually said,

“Mark.”

Nevertheless,  and although all the Gospels are wonderful in their own way, if I had had to choose a favourite now, it would still be John. But that priest was right in what he said about John’s Gospel; it is so full of hidden meanings that, if you try to explain what you like about the Gospel, or even about a particular part of the Gospel or story in it, it is very easy to show how much of it you don’t understand, how much of the meaning you’ve missed. And this morning’s reading is a very good example of that.

On the surface, the story of the Wedding at Cana is a simple one; Jesus is at a wedding with his mother and some of his disciples and, when the wine runs out, at the request of his mother, Jesus turns some water into wine. And at the end of the story, John tells us what it’s about:

‘This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.’

But even if that is the overall meaning of this story, and the reason John tells the story, there’s so much more going on in the way John tells it than at first meets the eye.

To begin with, we’re told that this wedding took place ‘On the third day’ . For us, as Christians, the third day immediately draws our minds to Jesus’ Resurrection. But the third day is significant in many ways in the Scriptures. Very often we find that some great revelation of God’s power, or even of God himself takes place on the third day. So in starting the story in this way, John sets the scene for the glory of God to be revealed in some way at the wedding. And given that John has already told us at the very beginning of his Gospel that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, in this instance he perhaps intends to draw our minds to the Book of Exodus when, on the third day, God himself appeared to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. He seems to be saying to us that, as God showed his glory on the third day then, so now, on the third day, God’s Son will show his glory too.

John then tells us about some of the people at the wedding:

‘…the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.’

It’s noticeable that John makes a distinction here. Jesus’ mother was ‘there’ whereas Jesus and his disciples were ‘invited’. At this point in the Gospel, Jesus’ ministry hadn’t really begun; all he’d done at this time was call his first disciples and Jesus’ mother, Mary, wasn’t named as one of them. So this hints to us that this is a story about faith and discipleship too. We don’t know why Mary was at the wedding, but she was simply ‘there’ whereas Jesus’ and his disciples were ‘invited’ it’s almost as though some people at the wedding were called to be there to witness what was about to happen, while others simply happened to be there when it happened. And if we look at it in this way, it helps us to make sense of what happens next.

One of the most difficult things to understand about this story is the abrupt, off-handed way that Jesus speaks to his mother. When Mary tells Jesus that the wine has run out he says,

“Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

On the face of it, that does seem like a very strange way for a son to speak to his mother. But Jesus words are very reminiscent of something we find in St Matthew’s Gospel when he drives some demons from two possessed men. The demons say to Jesus,

“What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

We know that Jesus’ ‘time’ refers to his death and Resurrection, the time when his true identity will be openly revealed to the world. Until that time, his identity is only revealed to those who have faith in him. We also know that only those with faith were given the privilege of seeing his glory, witnessing the signs he gave of his true identity. So Jesus’ question to his mother can be seen as a question about her faith. The demons were not Jesus’ disciples and so they asked what Jesus had to do with them, at this time before his glory was to be openly revealed to all? In asking Mary what her question had to do with him, in essence he’s asking her, “Why are you bringing this to me at this time when revelation is only for those who believe in me? Do you have faith in me? You’re here at this time, at this wedding, but can you be invited as my disciple? And Mary’s response is an unequivocal ‘Yes’ because she demonstrates her faith in Jesus by telling  the servants, 

“Do whatever he tells you.”

One of the ways the Church sees the Wedding at Cana is as a revelation of the new creation in Christ. And we see that in what happens next in John’s story. Jesus tells the servants to fill six stone jars with water and he then turns the water into wine. In other words, he creates something new from the water. And this mirrors what we read in the creation story in the Book of Genesis;

‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.’

We’re not told that God created the heavens and the earth from nothing, but from ‘the waters’. God takes the waters and gives them new form. And it was a better form because when he looked on what he’d created,

‘God saw that it was good’.

We know from the Scriptures than wine was seen as something good too. It was seen something given by God as a sign of his goodness and favour towards us, something to gladden men’s hearts, as it says in Psalm 104. So wine was part of the goodness of God’s creation. But John tells us that the wine that Jesus created from the water at the Wedding in Cana was better than the wine that people had already drunk. So what John seems to be saying here is that the new creation in Christ isn’t only new and good, it’s better than what was before. He could be hinting here that Christ is ushering in the new creation prophesied by Isaiah, but he could also be speaking about the Church.

In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul speaks about Christ’s disciples as a ‘new creation’. He says,

‘…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’

The Church is the people of this new creation. And we see so much of the Church in St John’s telling of the Wedding at Cana. Water for the baptism through which we become members of the new creation. Christ himself, the incarnate Word of God who reveals himself to us in church through our reading of the Scriptures and gives himself to us under the form of the bread of Holy Communion. And wine which we receive in the sacrament as the blood of Christ. As the first verse of the hymn puts it,

The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.
She is His new creation by water and the Word.
From heaven, He came and sought her, to be His holy bride.
With His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died.

If we think about those words in the light of this morning’s Gospel reading, we find so much imagery in them that connects with St John’s telling of the story of the Wedding at Cana. And we find so much more in that story if we scratch beneath the surface and try to understand what John is trying to say and to tell us through the story.

I don’t know how many of you would also say that St John’s Gospel is your favourite, perhaps not many of you because I know it isn’t the easiest to read and it is hard to understand in places. But even if you do find it difficult, don’t give up on it: stick with it and try to get your heads round it. John doesn’t always make that easy but if you can do it, you will find it well worth the effort because you’ll find so much hidden in its depths that is good, and new to you, that isn’t always apparent if you just hover over its surface.

Amen.

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Propers for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, 19th January 2025

Entrance Antiphon
All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you,
shall sing to your name, O Most High!

The Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
who governs all things, both in heaven and earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times.
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
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm: 96:1-3, 7-10
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
John 2:1-12

Post Communion
Pour on us, O Lord, the Spirit of your love,
and in your kindness make those you have nourished by this heavenly Bread,
one in mind and heart.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.