Amidst the recent controversies that have surrounded the Church of England, there have been calls for the disestablishment of the Church. Whether that’s been because census figures show that Christianity is now a minority movement in this country or because the Church’s teaching shows that it’s out of touch with the prevailing attitudes and values of modern society, the question’s been raised, Why should the Church of England enjoy the benefits of being an established Church any longer?

Being an established Church though, that is, a Church recognised by law as the official Church of the nation and as such, one that is supported by the civil authorities, has always been something of a double-edged sword. Establishment does give the Church a direct input into the political life of the nation and what it says is given publicity that other organisations couldn’t expect. It also allows the Church to enjoy certain exemptions to state law where that comes into conflict with Church teachings. But establishment also ties the Church closely to the state. Too closely for many people, so closely in fact that, for many people, the Church is, if not part of the state, then at least part of the established order of things. But the Christian faith, and the Church that proclaims it has always appealed to what we’d now call the underclasses of society, the poor, the underprivileged, minorities, all those who seem, or at least they themselves think, are getting a raw deal from society. So it can’t be a good thing for a Church to be seen by those people as simply part of a society or established order of society that doesn’t care about them.

Whatever we think about the establishment of the Church of England though, one thing that no one can ever deny is that the Church has never been called to be part of any established order of society. How can it have been, or be, when Christ himself, the one who called the Church into being, said that his disciples, those people who make up the Church, are to be in the world but not of the world? How can the Church be part of any established order of society when we’re urged time and time again in Scripture to conform ourselves to Christ and not to the world? The Church has always been counter-cultural because the faith it proclaims is counter-cultural. One of the reasons the Church has been persecuted so often during its history is that its teaching, its values and its norms of behaviour, don’t fit in with those of the society it exists in.

The Christian faith and the Church are, to put not too fine a point on it, subversive because they openly proclaim that the world has got it wrong, badly wrong, and needs to change and do things in a new, different and better way. And we see this in our Gospel readings this morning.

Today is one of those Sundays when we have different Gospel readings in the lectionaries. At St Gabriel’s this morning, our Gospel is the story of the Wedding at Cana, whilst at St Mark’s our Gospel is that part of Jesus’ teaching at the start of his Sermon on the Mount that we know as The Beatitudes. But nevertheless, they’re both readings that show the Christian faith as something new, different and better.

The Wedding at Cana is where Jesus changed water into wine, the first of what St John calls the ‘signs’ that Jesus gave to reveal his identity as the Messiah and through which he called  people to faith. In the Old Testament we read that wine is a sign of God’s blessing, so that Jesus turned water into wine and the best wine, something better than the people had drunk before, shows that in Jesus, God was bestowing a very great blessing on the people, a blessing they hadn’t received before. So, although we can interpret this sign in various ways, what we see in Jesus changing water into wine is that, in Jesus, God is doing something new, something different and something better than had gone before.

St John tells us that this sign brought Jesus’ disciples to faith but being a disciple of Christ, being a Christian, is not just about giving our intellectual assent to his teachings, it’s about conforming our lives to those teachings. In other words, being a Christian isn’t just about believing in Jesus, it’s about doing what he taught us to do. Being a Christian isn’t just about proclaiming the new, different and better way Christ taught, it’s about living in that new, different and better way. And the Beatitudes tell us something of what it means to live as Christ taught. But not only that, it tells us just how very different that way is to the way of the world.

The first beatitude, or blessing, Jesus pronounces is on those who are poor in spirit, in other words, on those who know their need of God and who don’t have that ‘holier than thou’ attitude which Jesus condemned so often in the scribes and Pharisees. But what do we see in the world around us? Isn’t it true that the world today is awash with people who think that they know better than anyone else? Opinionated people who think they’ve got it all worked out and that everyone should agree with them and that anyone who doesn’t agree is wrong, and not only wrong but dangerous and needs to be ‘cancelled’ out from society so that the world can be a better place and everyone can be happy? And it’s not a new problem; how many people have we met who’ve said something like ‘I just tell it as it is’? when what they really mean is they tell it as they see it which may very well not actually be ‘as it is’.

Jesus then pronounces a beatitude on the gentle, those who show no malice or belligerence towards others and don’t look to exert their will over others but who are kind and considerate towards others. But doesn’t the world laugh at such gentleness? Doesn’t the world operate on a ‘survival of the fittest’, ‘be strong because only the strong survive’ mentality? Doesn’t it often work on a ‘put yourself first and if that means stepping on a few people along the way, so be it, that’s just too bad for them’ mentality?  But isn’t this exactly the kind of thinking that leads to people like the Nazis?

Then we have the beatitude on those who mourn. But who on earth offers comfort to those who mourn any kind of loss? Family members and friends usually, but who else? Isn’t it true that the world very often offers only superficial comfort to those who mourn, a kind of ‘ saying the right words’ kind of comfort rather than ‘doing the right thing’ kind of comfort? And isn’t this because people are too busy with their own problems and chasing their own happiness to be truly concerned with the mourning and suffering of others?

Jesus next pronounces a beatitude on those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Strictly speaking, this refers to those who want to see God’s will  done, those who want to see the reality of God’s kingdom on earth, but how many people don’t care about what’s right in any objective sense of the word? How many people only care about themselves, their ‘rights’ over the rights of others, having their own way regardless of whether their way is right or wrong and regardless of the consequences to others of them having their own way? How many people in the world today seem to view their opinions as the truth, even when the facts clearly show their opinions to be untrue?

Next we have the beatitude on the merciful, on those who are compassionate and forgiving. But how much compassion and forgiveness do we see in the world? Isn’t it true that an awful lot of the trouble in the world is caused because people are vengeful and lacking in compassion? Isn’t it true that problems persist and are made worse because people can’t or won’t let go of the past but cling to old resentments and harbour grudges. Isn’t it also true that when people do this and say they simply want ‘justice’ what they really mean is they want someone to pay for what’s happened to them, or even what they think has happened to them? And what is that but seeking revenge?

The next beatitude is pronounced on the pure in heart, on those in whom there is no deceit or corruption. But in the world, aren’t such people laughed at and trodden down by others in so many areas of life? Because, as we look at those who rise to the top in the world, don’t we so often see that their rise has been achieved on the back of deceit and corruption? Don’t we find that so many people speak fine words and make grand promises to climb the ladder of success, but then discard all those things, and the people who helped them, once they’ve got what they want?

Jesus then pronounces a beatitude on the peacemakers. We know what peacemakers are, and in a world as troubled as ours they should be regarded as great people, but are they? As we look at history, isn’t it true that the people we regard as ‘great’ are all to often warmongers rather than peacemakers? What is the reason we call people like Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and the like, great men? Isn’t it because they were conquerors who sought nothing but their own glory and power and in the process of achieving it cost the lives of millions of people? And yet we call them ‘great’!

Finally we have the double beatitude on those who are persecuted for righteousness and for their faith in Christ. Here, Jesus links righteousness to faith in him. So we can see this as a statement by Jesus that those who are faithful to him are also being faithful to God. Jesus also says that we should rejoice and be glad for such persecutions for this is just what people have always done to God’s faithful, people like the prophets. This is perhaps one of the most counter-cultural of all Jesus’ teachings, that we should rejoice if people persecute us for our faith because then we’ll know that we are being faithful. But this is nothing like the way of the world is it? The way of the world is to be rewarded for doing right and punished for doing wrong. But in a world in which what’s right and wrong seems to be coming increasingly dependent on people’s own opinion, what’s right and what’s wrong is never certain. And this brings us to the difference between being blessed and being happy.

Happiness on the world’s terms is very subjective; it’s about what makes us happy, it’s about my happiness and doing what makes me happy. But being  blessed in the way Jesus means in the Beatitudes is something very different. Being blessed is about being happy because we’re in a right relationship with God, or perhaps that God will make us happy because we’re in that right relationship with him. So happiness in this sense isn’t about being happy on our own terms, it’s about being happy on God’s terms. And the world doesn’t seem to be interested in that kind of happiness. But for us, it’s the kind of happiness that we should want above all other kinds of happiness. And it should be the kind of happiness we want above all others because it’s the only happiness that will truly last. The kind of happiness the world offers is fleeting and temporary. The world’s kind of happiness comes and goes, and it comes to an end when our earthly lives come to and end. But being blessed is eternal. If we can live in a right relationship with God we can be happy whatever happens in the world, and our happiness won’t end when our earthly lives end; it will go on for all eternity in heaven.

To be a Christian is to be counter-cultural and even subversive because we’re called to be what the world doesn’t want us to be. We’re called to be different. What we have to do, as Christians, is ask ourselves whether we’re prepared to be like that. Are we prepared to proclaim and live the new and different way that Jesus proclaimed and lived, even though that will put us at odds with the world? If we are then we will be proclaiming and living a better way than the world can offer. The world won’t like that, or us for doing it, but in the end, we will be blessed by God for it and enjoy the eternal happiness that Christ’s new, different and better way brings.

Amen.

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The Propers for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Epiphany 4) can be viewed here.

Among the members of my family is a lady who has a great liking for jewellery. Rings on each finger, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, she wears them all, and all at the same time. At one time she used to wear 3 different necklaces together. Now, you might think there’s nothing so unusual about that but the three necklaces she wore were all religious symbols. There was a six-pointed Star of David, a crucifix, and a cross. These symbols are often seen as having particular meaning. The Star of David is a symbol of Judaism. The crucifix is often seen as a symbol of Catholic Christianity. And the cross is often seen as a symbol of Reformed Christianity, or in common understanding, Protestant Christianity.

I remember one occasion, during a family night out, someone looking at these necklaces, then pointing to them and saying to the lady in question,

“Can’t you make your mind up?”

The lady glanced down at her necklaces, looked at me with one of those ‘Are you going to hit him or shall I’ kind of looks, and then looked the person who’d asked the question with a rather withering look and said in an equally withering tone,

“I’m a Christian, but you can’t have this,” slightly raising the cross,

“without this.” And lifted the crucifix.

“And you can’t have either without this.” And lifted up the Star of David.

“But this is the most important.” And lifted up the crucifix again.

After a few seconds, the other person asked,

“So are you Catholic then?”

To which the lady giving the same looks all round again, answered, in the same tone,

“No, I’m Church of England but this” and lifted up the crucifix again, “is more important than that because the man on it is more important than that.”

That is a true story, and it happened quite a long time ago now, well before I’d even offered myself for ordination, but I’ve always remembered it. I’ve remembered it because of the look on the lady’s face, both the way she looked at me and at the person who’d asked the questions. I’ve remembered it because it was a spontaneous yet brilliant answer, the kind of answer that proves Jesus’ words. That we’re interrogated about our faith,

“…do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

And I’ve remembered it because it also shows just how mixed-up people can be about faith and religion. How they can miss what’s really important about faith because they don’t look any further into it than what’s in front of them. How they can make assumptions about faith based on their own knowledge and understanding, which is very often only limited knowledge and understanding, and even on their prejudices. And about how people can make damning statements about the faith of others based on their own prejudices and lack of understanding.

When we speak about our faith, we mustn’t ever lose sight of the fact that it is the Christian faith. It’s called the Christian faith, or Christianity, because it’s a faith based on Jesus Christ; the clue is in the name. And so Jesus Christ must be the ground and centre of our faith. Without Jesus there is no such thing as the Christian faith and if we side-line Jesus in any way, if we make other people in the story as important or more important than Jesus, whilst we might still have a faith, it won’t be a truly Christian faith. And this morning’s Gospel shows that centrality of Jesus Christ in our faith.

The Gospel begins by telling us that Jesus’ ministry begins after John had been arrested. Later in the Gospel, Jesus calls his first disciples. And so we see Jesus in the centre of the proclamation of the Good News of the kingdom – first John, who prepared the way for Jesus, then Jesus himself, who proclaimed the kingdom, then the disciples, who followed Jesus and continued to proclaim the kingdom after Jesus had returned to the Father. And whenever we think about our faith, we always have to remember this order. There were those who came before Jesus, those who prepared for the coming of Jesus, and there are those who come after Jesus, his followers, those who carry on Jesus’ work through time. But both those who came before and those who come after, point to Jesus who is the centre of our faith. Or at least that’s what should happen.

It’s a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless, that much of the division in the Church, is caused because people don’t keep Jesus at the centre of our faith. There are those who put too much emphasis on those who came before Jesus, and unfortunately, that’s often centred on the Blessed Virgin Mary. There’s no doubting Mary’s importance in the story of our salvation; she was the one chosen by God to be the mother of his Son, the mother of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour and the ground of our faith. But some people in the Church would like to see Mary much more highly exalted than she is already.

There are those who call her the Mediatrix of all graces and think all Christians should do likewise. This refers to an understanding that Mary mediates divine grace, God’s goodness and gifts to us, from the side of his throne in heaven. The obvious objection to this is that Christ is our mediator and our advocate, but those who hold Mary to be Mediatrix place her  between us and Christ, to use a business analogy, Jesus is the supplier of graces, but Mary is the distributor of those graces. Now this is clearly not Scriptural and even Pope Francis, in 2019, said that we should not got lost in such foolishness. 

But there are those who, in addition to Mediatrix, would also have Mary as Co-Redemptrix, or Co-Redeemer. By this they don’t mean that Mary is equal to Christ in his role as Redeemer of the world but rather that, through being his mother, her faith and obedience, and as Mother of the Church, she co-operates with Christ in his redemption of the world to a greater extent than all others. But the clear meaning of the prefix ‘co’ implies equality doesn’t it? And so when people begin to go down these avenues, whilst they might not mean to go so far, people will inevitably misunderstand what they mean and go further than the proposers intended. And before we know where we are, in popular thought at least, we end up in a murky world where we’re not really sure who is at the centre, is it Jesus, or is it Mary?

And of course, those who disagree with this exaltation of Mary can go completely the opposite way in response. I met and spoke to a lady just this last week who is vehemently anti-Mary. A lady who said there should be no statues or pictures of Mary anywhere in any churches because, and I quote, “Mary has nothing to do with it.”

When I pointed out that, as Jesus’ mother and so the source of his humanity, Mary has quite a lot to do with it, the reply was,

“That doesn’t matter. SHE has nothing to do with it.”

I wonder what Pope Francis would say about that, because that also is clearly unscriptural and clearly and undeniably, foolishness.

But if attempts to exalt Mary ever more highly have the potential to shift our focus away from Jesus and too much towards those who came before him, what that vehement anti-Mary attitude also clearly and undeniably shows is how we can shift our focus away from Jesus and too much towards those who come after him. In other words, towards the traditions of men that we usually refer to as denominations of the Church.

The clear fact of the matter is, that if those who’ve come after Christ had always kept him at the centre of all things, we wouldn’t have different denominations of the Church; there would be one Church, as Christ intended there to be. Because what is the cause of our divisions other than those who exalt their own teaching and their own ways above the ways of Christ?

I mentioned a few moments ago about the meaning of the prefix ‘co’ and the potential for that to be misunderstood when applied to the proposed Marian title ‘Co-Redemptrix’. But so many arguments and divisions in the Church have been caused by such simple misunderstandings. One person interprets a word in one way, another person interprets it differently. They argue about it and, because they’re both so pig-headed and stubbornly pedantic they fall out and go their separate ways. It’s happened in the Church, and it’s caused divisions in the Church, major divisions that persist to this day. The Great Schism of 1054, the formal split between the Catholic West and the Orthodox East, was caused by arguments about whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as the West argued, or simply from the Father, as the East argued. About whether unleavened bread should be used at the Eucharist, as the West does, or leavened, as the East does. And about who is in charge of the Church, does Rome have universal authority, as the West believed, or does Constantinople have equal authority, as the East believed? And these arguments were made worse because the West spoke and wrote Latin and the East spoke and wrote Greek. Mutual ex-communications, insults and accusations of heresy followed, each side blamed the other, the Church split along Western and Eastern lines and is still split in that way today.

But if we try to look at these things impartially and objectively, isn’t the real root cause nothing more than human pride, a ‘we’re right and you’re wrong mentality’, a refusal to back down or compromise, and anger and hatred because of all that? And yet didn’t Jesus say we shouldn’t ‘Lord it’ over one another, but be humble and loving and forgiving? And, if we look at these things in this way how can we see them other than a shifting of Christ from the centre of our faith and putting our own traditions there in Christ’s place?

Think about in this way, how often have we in the Church’s history and do we still today talk about the Catholic faith, the Orthodox faith and the Protestant faith, as though these were completely different faiths? But aren’t we all supposed to be of the same faith? And isn’t that called the Christian faith?

Amen.  

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The Propers for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Epiphany 3) can be viewed here.

According to the Roman Catholic way of marking the Church’s year, today is the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, in other words, the second Sunday in the Church’s year when we’re neither celebrating a particular feast day, nor are we in a specific season of the Church’s year. The Church of England, on the other hand, regards the time between the Epiphany of the Lord until the Presentation of the Lord at Candlemas, to be the season of Epiphany and so, in the Anglican Church, today is the Second Sunday of Epiphany. And I must say that, in my opinion, this is one of those occasions when the Church of England has got it right.

The word ‘epiphany’, as we know, means revelation, and as we go through this time between Epiphany and Candlemas, our Sunday Gospel readings are about various revelations of Jesus’ identity, so this time is one when we’re very much concerned with revelation and coming to understand just who Jesus really is. On the Day of Epiphany itself, Jesus is revealed as King, God and Saviour of the nations. In the story of his baptism, Jesus is revealed as the Messiah and Son of God. And in our Gospel this morning, in which St John alludes to Jesus’ Baptism, Jesus is revealed to be the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world, and the Chosen One of God. But in this morning’s readings we also see another side of this season of revelation, a side that speaks to us about what we are called to reveal to others about Christ.

In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, we find four passages that we know as Songs of the Servant, songs that describe the Messiah. This morning’s reading from Isaiah is part of the Second Song of the Servant and in it we read that the Messiah (who is the personification of Israel) will glorify the Father. To glorify someone really means to say something good about them, so what Isaiah is saying here is that the Messiah is the one who will reveal the Father; first to Israel, but not only to Israel because, Isaiah goes on to prophecy that the Lord has said,

“I will make you as a light for the nations,
    that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

So this is a prophecy that the Jewish Messiah will also be the Gentiles’ Christ, which is a prophecy we see fulfilled in part, in the coming of the Wise Men on the feast of Epiphany itself.

But Jesus said that his followers, his disciples, are also to be lights in the world didn’t he. And he also gave his disciples a commission to take his teachings and commandments to all nations. So Jesus called and then commissioned his disciples to carry on the work that the Father had sent him to do.

A disciple, as I’m sure we all know, is a follower and in our case, as Christians, we’re called to be followers of Christ’s teaching and example. So we’re all Christ’s disciples. An apostle, on the other hand, is an authorised messenger, someone who’s sent out to pass on a message on behalf of the one who wants the message to be delivered and heard. So, as lights of the world, called to proclaim and spread the Gospel, we’re also Christ’s apostles.

But if we’re going to take a message to someone, we obviously have to know what that message is. And if we’re going to pass on a message accurately, we have to pay close attention to the message before we pass it on; we have to know exactly what the one who’s sent us out with the message wants us to pass on. We could say that we have to make sure that we follow the instructions of the one who’s sent us so that we know not only the words of the message but the meaning of the message too, the intention behind the message we’ve be asked to pass on. So we have to be followers before we can be messengers or, to put it another way, we have to be disciples before we can be apostles. And if we’re going to be good, faithful apostles, we have to be good, faithful disciples first. But what does it mean to be good, faithful disciples so that we can be good, faithful apostles? I think this morning’s Psalm can give us a few helpful pointers.

It must be said that this Psalm, Psalm 40, or 39 depending on how you want to number them, isn’t the most straightforward to understand. It seems to be split into two distinct parts, and that’s led some people think that this was originally two psalms that somehow became joined together as one. Through Jewish eyes, the part we read today is a song of thanksgiving to the Lord for deliverance, either of an individual Israelite, or the nation, that was interpreted by the early Church as a messianic prophecy. But however we read it, it can help us to understand what it means to be a good disciple.

In verses 6 -8 of the Psalm, we read,

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,

but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering

you have not required.
Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.” 

What we read here is the prioritising of listening to the Lord and of offering our lives to the Lord through obedience to his will over ritual sacrifices and offerings.

These verses also suggest that delighting to do God’s will, making that our priority and our joy, comes from being so conversant with God’s words, through listening so attentively to them, that they become our own words. In other words, if you’ll pardon the pun, we become so steeped in God’s words that his ways become our ways. And in the Psalm, this leads to the proclamation of God’s ways to others;

I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.

So what we can see in this psalm is good, faithful discipleship leading to good, faithful apostleship. And it’s important that we go get our discipleship right first before we attempt to go about the business of being apostles. Because if we’re poor disciples, if we don’t listen properly to the words of the Lord and if we don’t at least try to live out his commandments to the best of our ability, how can we pass his words and commandments on to others? If we don’t know what the Lord said, how can we tell others what he said? If we don’t try to live out the things the Lord taught, how can we ask, let alone encourage others to do that? And if we don’t know that Lord’s words mean and don’t apply them to ourselves by trying to live out his commandments, but then try to proclaim these things to others, what kind of message, what kind of Gospel are we really passing on? I think it’s only a matter of logic and common sense that if we try to proclaim a Gospel we don’t understand and don’t at least try to live out, we’ll pass on a distorted version of the Lord’s message and give people a distorted idea of what it means to be a Christian. Poor, unfaithful disciples can only, ever, make for poor, unfaithful apostles.

And yet isn’t this what we so often see? Because what are our arguments about denomination and tradition other than arguments between people who are putting their own ideas about ritual before the words and ways of the Lord? And don’t the people who do this, quite openly and knowingly, pass on their ideas about these things as the truth, as the message and even as the Gospel? But aren’t the people who do this ignoring the Lord’s words about love and forgiveness and unity and encouraging others to do the same? 

How many people believe that they’re Christians simply because they come to Church?

And how many people like this pay little, if any, attention to the Lord’s words and ways either when they’re in church or in their daily lives? How many people have we met who are like this but who think they’re so much better than other people who go to church? People who say things like,

‘Oh, I don’t go to a parish church, I go to the cathedral.’

And

‘WE don’t just have a vicar; OUR vicar is a canon.’

What is this but spiritual pride, the very first sin which Jesus himself implicitly warns us about in the first Beatitude and so often condemned in the scribes and Pharisees? What kind of distorted version of the Lord’s message do these people pass on to those who hear and see them and the way they speak and act?

How many people deliberately distort the words of the Lord, or ‘re-interpret’ them so that they make the Lord say what they want the Lord to say? But aren’t those who do this making their words and their ways the Lord’s rather than making the Lord’s words and ways theirs, as good, faithful disciples should? What kind of distorted version of the Lord’s message are these people passing on to others? In fact, doesn’t the Church we belong to seem to be in danger of following this way as a Church? Doesn’t the Church we belong to seem, as a Church, to be in danger of re-interpreting the Lord’s message in the light of world, rather than taking the light of the Lord’s own message to the world? What kind of Christ do those who do all these things, and many others that are in keeping with neither the Lord’s words nor his ways, really reveal to the world? And if the Christ who’s being revealed to the world is not the Christ who came into the world to save it, how can any of this be to the glory of God?

As Christians, we’re called to shine as lights in the world and to proclaim the Gospel to all nations, to all people. So in this season of Epiphany, this season of revelation of Christ to the nations, lets try to remember that the Christ we reveal to the world will be the Christ who’s words and ways live in our hearts. If we have a distorted image of Christ and his words and ways in our hearts, that’s the distorted image of Christ we’ll proclaim and reveal to the world. We’re called to be Christ’s disciples so that we can be his apostles. So let’s be good and faithful disciples, followers who listen to his words and obey his commandments, so that we can be good and faithful apostles who carry and deliver his message, and his message alone, to the world.

Amen.

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The Propers for the 2nd Sunday (Epiphany 2) can be viewed here.