Of all the things that we have to endure as Christians, perhaps the most tiresome is having to listen to people telling us that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. Sometimes that happens when we’re trying to talk to someone about our faith, and perhaps especially when we’re asking them to come to church, but it can happen too when we’re simply accosted by someone who just wants to spout off about what they see as the faults of the Church or of individual members of the Church. I’m sure it’s something we’ve all had to endure at times and I’m sure we all know people who espouse that view. But when someone tells us that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, what can we say to them to in answer, to counter that opinion?

Let me start by saying that I don’t think there’s very much you can say to them that’s going to change their mind. If we think about the statement ‘You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian’, it reveals a few things about the people who say it. First of all it shows that they believe that they are Christians, because someone of another faith or an atheist, would have no reason whatsoever to speak about being a Christian at all would they. It also reveals that the person speaking has made a conscious decision not to go to church, in effect, they’ve chosen not to join with other Christians in prayer and worship. But it also shows that the person speaking thinks that they know better than you, or anyone else who thinks that being a Christian does involve going to church. And, as I’m sure we all know, you can’t argue or in most cases even have a sensible discussion with a ‘know-all’, let alone get them to change their mind because they won’t accept that they can ever be wrong.

But even if we can’t get those who think you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian to change their minds, what we mustn’t ever do is allow them to change our minds. We mustn’t ever let them convince us that they’re right because they’re not: they’re completely wrong. In fact, I would say that someone who’s decided that they don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, isn’t a Christian at all. That doesn’t mean to say they’re not good people, but they’re not Christians. I want to make it clear that I’m talking here about people who’ve made a conscious decision not to come to church because they think that they don’t need to. I’m not talking about people who want to come to church and would come to church if they could but who can’t for some reason. I’m speaking about those who could but won’t and won’t simply because they think they don’t need to. And I say that they are not Christians because they’ve freely chosen not to follow the example of Christ, to ignore his teachings and commands and, to all intents and purposes, say that Christ was wrong and that they know better than him. That’s a very strong thing to say and I’m sure a lot of people won’t like me saying it, but I think it is a justifiable statement, and we can see something of why in the story of Jesus’ baptism.

This morning, we read St Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism which follows St Mark’s account very closely. But in St Matthew’s account we read this:

‘…Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.”’

Righteousness is what’s right in God’s eyes so fulfilling all righteousness is doing all that God requires of us and for Jesus that included being baptised. We have to remember that John’s was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. Those who went to John were being baptised to show their sorrow for sin and their commitment to turn from sin so that they could be forgiven by God. And John was right, Jesus had no need for that kind of baptism. But nevertheless Jesus allowed John to baptise him because it was what God required of people and so it was the righteous  thing to do.

But how many people think they can call themselves Christians, followers and imitators of Christ, whilst at the same time only doing what’s right in their own eyes? But when someone thinks that they’re being a Christian simply by doing what they think is right, aren’t they, in effect, saying that their eyes are God’s eyes? Aren’t they then guilty of the same blind self-righteousness that Jesus was so critical of in the Pharisees?

For many people, the most beautiful expression of Jesus’ teaching, of what God requires of us if we’re to fulfil all righteousness, is found in The Beatitudes. And the very first line of that teaching is,

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

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the humble, those who know and accept their need of God. Not the proud and self-righteous, those who think that they know better than the rest, who know it all because they see and understand better than anyone else. Jesus said of people like this,

“If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see’, your guilt remains.”

He called them ‘blind guides’ and warned us not to follow them because,

“…if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

So we can’t allow the blind guides of the ‘You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian’ brigade to lead us astray. And if we call ourselves Christians and think we don’t need to go to church, we have gone astray.

Jesus wasn’t a Christian; he was a Jew. But our Christian faith is founded on his teaching and example, teaching and example that are founded on his faith as a Jew. Ultimately, they’re founded on the law of Moses. At his baptism Jesus said it was right to fulfil all righteousness, to do everything that God requires of us. He also said that he’d come to fulfil the law. So fulfilling the law and doing all that God wants us to do amounts to the same thing. And so we can see Jesus’ whole life, as a fulfilment of what God requires of us. His teaching tells us how to fulfil all righteousness, and his example shows us how to fulfil all righteousness. And we know that Jesus example was to join with others of his faith in public prayer and worship. We read that in the Gospels;

‘…he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day…’

Jesus knew better than anyone what it means to do what God requires. He knew better than anyone what it means to live a life that’s pleasing to God. And he went to the synagogue every sabbath. And if this was Jesus’ custom, it must also be the custom for anyone who wants to be his disciple, his follower. For Jesus, the place where the faithful met for public prayer and worship was the synagogue. For us, for his followers, for Christians, it’s in church. So coming to church is something Christians must do because if we don’t, we’re not following Christ’s example. And for those who say they don’t need to come to church to be a Christian, they are quite deliberately not following his example so how can they be Christians? Or do they think they know better than Christ himself?

Many would no doubt say what they mean is, that you can be a good person, a loving neighbour, without coming to church. Well yes, you can. But being a good person doesn’t automatically make you a Christian. Following the teaching and example of Christ is what makes you a Christian. And if Christ’s example of attending the synagogue isn’t enough to convince someone of the need to come to church in order to be a Christian, the fact that there’s a Church at all should seal the deal. If the Church wasn’t necessary, why did Christ bother to call it into being at all?

Strictly speaking, ‘Church’ is a poor translation of what Jesus called into being. The word ‘church’ comes from the Greek kuriakon, something dedicated to the Lord. What Christ called into being is the Ecclesia which means ‘those who are called out’. It’s a word that refers to an assembly of people, not to individuals. And we can’t be part of an assembly if we don’t join together with what the rest of the assembly is doing can we? So how can we be part of the people Christ called to be his disciples and apostles if we cut ourselves off from that people by refusing to meet with those people in prayer and worship? The answer, quite simply, is that we can’t. If we want to be part of the Church, the Ecclesia that Christ called into being and called to himself, we have to join in with what the Church is doing, and that includes coming together in church for public prayer and worship. We can’t call ourselves Christians if we cut ourselves off from the assembly of the Church and so neither can we call ourselves Christians if we don’t come to church to be part of the assembly of the Church.

So what can we say when someone tells us that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian? Well, you could try explaining some of these things to them to help explain to them why they’re wrong. They might listen, but I doubt it. But even if you don’t want to do that for risk of getting into an argument with them about it, or you do try and they won’t listen, at least you’ll know why they’re wrong and you’ll have good reasons for not allowing them to convince you that it’s you who’s got it wrong and leading you astray and away from church and the Church.  

Amen.

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Propers for The Baptism of the Lord, 12th January 2025

Entrance Antiphon
After the Lord was baptised, the heavens were opened,
and the Spirit descended upon him  like a dove,
and the voice of the Father thundered: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

The Collect
Almighty and ever-living God,
who, when Christ had been baptised in the River Jordan,
and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him,
solemnly declared him your beloved Son,
grant that your children by adoption,
reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,
may always be well pleasing to you.
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 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm: 104:1-4, 24-25, 27-30
Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Post Communion
Nourished with these sacred gifts,
we humbly entreat your mercy, O Lord,
that, faithfully listening to your Only Begotten Son,
we may be your children in name and in truth.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

If I were to ask most people what today’s feast, the Epiphany of the Lord was all about I’m sure I’d get quite a few blank looks. Perhaps a few people would know that it has something to do with the visit of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem and the baby Jesus, but I’m sure that a lot of people would have no idea whatsoever what the day is about, many probably wouldn’t even that the day exists at all. Maybe some would say that it’s the traditional day for taking down Christmas decorations but I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t even know that because if you take notice of the media and what goes on in the supermarkets these days you’d think that the Twelve Days of Christmas begin on December 13^th and that Christmas ends on the stroke of midnight on December 25^th. In fact I have heard people in the media express exactly that view. And as we all know, if you go into a supermarket after Christmas Day the only hint you’d get that Christmas had happened at all are a few Christmas goods on sale at cut prices because the shelves that had been stacked with Christmas goods up to Christmas Eve have been emptied and re-stocked with Easter Eggs.

But it wasn’t always like that. At one time everyone would have known that the Twelve Days of Christmas referred to the twelve days of celebrations that began on Christmas Day and ended on Feast of the Epiphany. In fact, it could be said that the celebration of Christmas actually built up over the twelve days and culminated with the great feast of Twelfth Night on or on the eve of the Feast of Epiphany. And that’s a measure of how important a feast Epiphany was once held to be. But that doesn’t seem to be the case even in the Church these days where the secular view of Christmas seems to have crept in too. For example, I was being asked in November when the Christmas Tree could go up and when the Crib could be set up, but then, within days after Christmas Day, people began to ask me when the tree could come down and how long do we have to leave the Crib up before we can take that down and ‘get back to normal’?

I think we, in the Church, need to get back to celebrating Christmas in the way we once did. We need to get back to starting our preparation for Christmas on Advent Sunday and using Advent as a time to prepare for Christmas rather than as a time to start our Christmas celebrations. And we need to get back to celebrating Christmas during Christmas, during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. And we need to get back too, to celebrating Epiphany as it should be celebrated. Not simply as the day when we can finally take the Christmas Trees and Cribs down, and ‘get back to normal’, but as the great feast of the Church it is and always should be.

And Epiphany is a great feast of the Church. The visit of the Magi to the Christ-child marks the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles and so it marks the day when we, who were once not God’s people, realised that God had offered us the chance to become his people. And we become God’s people by recognising who the child born in Bethlehem really is and following the example of the Magi in coming to him, offering  our gifts to him and worshipping him.

Of course we don’t have to offer the exact same gifts to Jesus as the Magi did and we can’t offer any gifts to Jesus in the same way they did anyway because Jesus isn’t physically here on earth now as he was then. But we know what their gifts were, and we can offer to Jesus what their gifts symbolised. Gold, a gift fit for a king. And we can offer Jesus a gift fit for a king by treating him as our King, by listening to his words and obeying them as commands. Frankincense, an offering to God. We can offer Jesus that kind of gift by treating him as our God, by treating him as though he not only has power over us in this life, but in the next life too. As though he has power over our lives both now and in eternity, power over us body and soul. And myrrh, a gift for healing and embalming the dead. And we can offer this kind of gift to Jesus by turning to him in prayer for healing in our lives and in faith that he will heal us in this life and raise us to eternal life when this life comes to an end. So we can all offer Jesus the gifts of the Magi by recognising him as our King, our God and our Saviour, and treating him as all these things. But there’s more to the example of the Magi than offering these gifts.

I think one of the ways, perhaps the main way, in which we all fail to live up to the example of the Magi is in our lack of commitment. In the last verse of the Christmas Carol, In the Bleak Mid-winter, we find these words;

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb;
if I were a wise man I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

And to give our heart to Jesus means to give him everything, just as the Magi gave Jesus much more than gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They put their all into searching for him and finding him. They looked for signs and found a star. We think that they probably came from Persia, modern day Iran, and so the journey to Bethlehem would have taken them about two months. But we know from Herod’s questioning of them that it had been about two years between the Magi first seeing the star and arriving at Jerusalem, so it was a journey a long time in the planning. The fact that they went to Jerusalem means that, when they set off, they weren’t even sure exactly where to go. And after having spent so long travelling to Jerusalem, only to find they’d gone to the wrong place and still had further to travel, they didn’t give up, they set off again. And in spite of the fact that they’d been told by Herod, a king who seems to have had no qualms whatsoever about doing away with anyone who crossed him, to return to Jerusalem and tell him where the child was, they didn’t because they knew that Herod’s stated wish to worship the child was a lie.

How many of us are so committed to Jesus? How often do we miss opportunities to meet Jesus or to allow him to enter our lives simply because we’re not looking for him in our lives? How often do we dither about doing something or going somewhere in connection with our faith? And if you think people don’t do that, try to organise a pilgrimage! I’ve been doing that for over twenty years now and I’ve never yet taken all the people who, at one time or another, have told me they want to go, or even are going to go. I want to go but the dates aren’t convenient, it’s too far ahead to plan for, the journey’s too long, I’ll go if I can have an en-suite room, if I can travel with this person, if I don’t have to travel with that person. And so the list goes on. But it’s not just when it comes to making that kind of journey that we dither. How many times do we miss going to church on a Sunday or other day of obligation because we’ll have to make a bit more effort than usual to go? If we’re away from home for work or on holiday, for example, and we can’t go to the church we usually go to there will be a church, or perhaps a few churches that we could go to but how many of us actually take the trouble to go and find one?

And how easily are we put off by what people say and do and how often do we use what others say and do as an excuse for not doing what we know we should be doing? The Covid-19 lockdown that forced us to close our churches is almost five years ago now, but how many people are still using Covid as an excuse for not coming to church? In this benefice the churches stayed open until we were told we had to close them, and we reopened them as soon as we could. But how many churches seemed to use Covid as an excuse to remain closed long after they could have re-opened? One of the most appalling things I heard with regard to this was from a priest who said that the churches should not reopen because that gives people the message that we in the Church think things are back to normal and they’re not. So we should keep the churches closed so that we can identify with the brokenness of the world. But by that reasoning surely we should never open the churches, ever, because when is the world anything but broken in some way? If a member of our congregation can’t come to church because they’re ill and in hospital, does that mean we should suspend services until they’re well enough to join us in church again? If a church in Ukraine, for example, is bombed to destruction, does that mean we should close our church until that church is rebuilt and reopened for worship?

The words of In the Bleak Mid-winter urge us to emulate the part of the Wise Men by giving our hearts to Jesus. They urge us to do as the Wise Men did and show our full commitment in looking for Jesus, searching for him in our lives and in worshipping him as our King, our God and our Saviour. The Feast of the Epiphany reminds us of what they did and so it should remind us of what we need to do. But it can’t do that if we don’t treat this feast as it should be treated. The Feast of the Epiphany can’t remind us of these things if we treat it as little more than a reminder that it’s time to take our Christmas decorations down and get back to normal. So let’s treat it as it once was treated as the culmination of our celebration of Christmas, the time when we realise just who the babe of Bethlehem really is, our King, our God and our Saviour whose birth gives us the opportunity to be God’s people.

Amen.

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Propers for the Epiphany of the Lord, 5th January 2025

Entrance Antiphon
Behold, the Lord, the Mighty One, has come;
and kingship is in his grasp, and power and dominion.

The Collect
O God,
who on this day revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations by the guidance of a star.
Grant in your mercy that we, who already know you by faith,
may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory.
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 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12

Post Communion
Go before us with heavenly light, O Lord,
always and everywhere,
that we may perceive with clear sight, and revere with true affection,
the mystery in which you have willed us to participate.
Though Christ our Lord.
Amen.

It’s no secret among people who know me that my favourite Christmas story is Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. There are quite a few film adaptations of the story and it’s always part of my Christmas to watch a few of them, but my favourite has always been the 1951 version in which Alistair Sim plays the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Having said that, there is one thing about that version, and others too it must be said, that I do find a little annoying because it’s so strikingly incongruous, and that is the upper-class accents of the Cratchit family. I mean, the Cratchits are supposed to be a rather down-trodden, poor family from Camden Town. They hardly have two ha’pennies to rub together, and yet they speak with the kind of aristocratic accent that’s taught at Eton or some other very expensive boarding school.

It may be that the incongruity of the Cratchit’s accent was a deliberate dramatic device to show that the Cratchits are actually much better people that their lowly estate would suggest. But whatever the reason for it, what I think it does show are the prejudices of our society.

Many of us, I’m sure, will be able to remember when it was quite unusual to hear regional accents on the TV and almost everyone in British films, probably up to the 1960s, spoke like a 1930’s BBC announcer unless, that is, they were playing a rather dubious character. It was almost as though rough, uncouth people or criminals spoke in one way whilst nice, well-educated people spoke in a completely different way. But as the famous playwright, George Bernard Shaw once said,

“It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.” 

And of course, we’re not supposed to hate and despise the Cratchits, and so perhaps this is why, on film, they speak in the way that ‘nice’ people speak.

Such is the power of accents, the way we speak, to define in the eyes of others the kind of people we are. It’s prejudice and bigotry, plain and simple, but it’s a fact of the society we live in. And it isn’t only the way someone speaks that affects the way others think about them is it?

People are prejudiced against others because of where they come from, where they live, their family background and their social and economic status, not to mention their faith, their race and the colour of their skin.

It would be nice to say that we don’t find such prejudice and bigotry in the Church, but sadly, we do. Individual Christians can be every bit as prejudiced against others as anyone else, and the Church as an institution can show prejudice too. That’s understandable in one sense because we all grow up surrounded by the prejudices of the society we live in and to some extent the Church can’t help but reflect that society. But that isn’t the way it should be. As disciples of Christ we, as individuals, should show no prejudice against others and so the Church which is made up of individual Christians, shouldn’t either. And if we ever are tempted to look down on other people for any reason, we should take a moment to think about our Lord Jesus Christ and his earthly family, first.

Who were the Holy Family? What were they? First of all, Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth in Galilee, and that wasn’t a particularly well-respected part of the Jewish world. Galilee was predominantly Jewish in their day, but it was a largely rural, agricultural society surrounded by Gentile nations and to the more urban and urbane, the more well-educated and wealthy Jews of the south, Galileans were seen as country bumpkins, ill-educated peasants. Nazareth itself though, seems to have been a predominantly  Gentile town and even other Galileans looked down on Nazareth. Hence Nathaneal’s question,

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” 

But Mary and Joseph were forced to come out of Nazareth and travel south to Bethlehem where people would have looked down on them, perhaps even hated them simply because of where they came from. And Mary was forced to give birth in a stable, an animal house because she and Joseph couldn’t find anywhere else to stay. Was that because there was no room at the inn, or because no one would give them room because of who and what they were? We know they didn’t have much money because when Jesus was presented at the temple, their offering to God ‘a pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons’ was the offering the poor were expected to make. So they wouldn’t even have been able to pay a bit over the odds to get a room. And what would people have made of and said about the fact that Mary had to give birth in a stable, and that her son’s first bed was a manger, an animal trough? What kind of parents would do that?

Then the family were forced to leave Bethlehem and run for their lives out of Judea and into Egypt; they became asylum seekers. Whether they were ever granted what we’d now call refugee status with rights and legal protection, we simply don’t know. What we do know is how much prejudice there is today against asylum seekers and refugees. We know that there was a Jewish community in Egypt at the time the Holy Family travelled there, but how happy would they have been to accept a family running from Herod, the puppet king of the Romans, the very same people who also ruled Egypt at that time? And even if people didn’t know that was why the family had gone into Egypt, they were still Nazarenes and what kind of reception would the community have given to a family from Nazareth? It wasn’t as though they could hide that because on the night of Jesus’ arrest, wasn’t Peter given away as a disciple by his Galilean accent?

We also know that Jesus faced opposition during his ministry because of his background. When Nicodemus tried to defend Jesus during a dispute about whether Jesus was the Christ or not, the Pharisees insulted those who believed in Jesus for their ignorance of the law and insulted Nicodemus too;

“Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

In other words, “Are you an ill-educated peasant who doesn’t understand the law too?” In fact, prophets did arise from Galilee, Jonah and Nahum were both from Galilee, so the Pharisees were probably just assuming  people’s ignorance and playing on the widespread prejudice against Galilee and Galileans to try to discredit Jesus.

But it didn’t end with prejudice against Galilee and Galileans. People also brought up the controversial nature, shall we say, of Jesus’ conception to try to discredit his teaching. When Jesus said that true children of Abraham wouldn’t be seeking to kill someone who spoke God’s truth to them, they insisted that they were Abraham’s children and said,

“We were not born of sexual immorality.”

And you can almost hear the unspoken ‘unlike you’ that’s implicit in that statement.

The lives of the Holy Family, were filled with so many things that cause prejudice today and must have caused people to be prejudiced against them in their day. Prejudice because of where they were from. Prejudice because of the nature of Jesus’ conception and the poverty of his birth. Prejudice because of their social and financial status, and of how they spoke. And prejudice because they were asylum seekers.

As he grew up as part of this family in Galilee, Jesus must have been aware of all these prejudices against his family. And the prejudice Jesus suffered from during his ministry must have impacted on his earthly family too. And yet, as unworthy and unsuitable for such a great vocation this family might have seemed in the eyes of other people, this was the family God chose for his Son. This family of poor, rough speaking country bumpkins was the family God chose our Lord and Saviour to be born into. And this is something that we should never forget.

We believe that the Son of God became man in order to save the world. So that he could show by word and example what it means to live as God’s people. So that he could make on the Cross that one, full and sufficient sacrifice for sin that takes our sins away. But more than that, we believe that he had to be fully human so that he would fully know what it is to live as a human being, to suffer the trials of human life and to be tempted as we are and yet not sin. And we should never forget that in order to do that, the Son of God wasn’t born into a high and mighty family of great wealth and high status. He wasn’t born into a family who looked down in contempt on others, but into one that was looked down upon with contempt. He was born into a family that suffered from the prejudices of society. And so whenever we feel the temptation to look down on others because of where they’re from, how they speak, how much money they’ve got, where they live or any of the other things that society thinks are so important in defining a person’s worth. Before we look down on someone because of the situation they find themselves in, such as the asylum seeker or the refugee, let’s pause for a moment to remember that Jesus and the Holy Family found themselves in just these situations. And before we utter a word in prejudicial judgement on them, let’s ask ourselves, who is standing in Christ’s shoes, those who show their prejudices against others, or those who suffer because of those prejudices?

Amen.

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Propers for Holy Family Sunday, 29th December 2024

Entrance Antiphon
The shepherds went in haste,  
and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in a manger.

The Collect
Holy Family
O God,
who were pleased to give us the shining example of the Holy Family,
graciously grant that we may imitate them in practicing the virtues of family life,
and in the bonds of charity,
and so, in the joy of your house,
delight one day in eternal rewards.
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
1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
Psalm: 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10
1 John 1:1-2, 21-24
Luke 2:41-52

Post Communion
Bring those you refresh with this heavenly sacrament,
most merciful Father, to imitate constantly the example of the Holy Family,
so that, after the trials of this world,
we may share their company for ever.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.