The very first thing we read about human beings in the Bible is that we were created in the image and likeness of God. Quite how we’re made in the image and likeness of God has been the cause of a great deal of debate over the years. It’s usually thought to mean that we, human beings, in some way reflect some quality or characteristic of God but the question of how we do that, in what way we do that, is made more complicated because we, as Christians, believe that God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   

That’s quite in keeping with what we read in the first chapter of Genesis because the story begins with God, God’s Spirit and creation through God’s Word, which we believe to be God’s Son. And in creating human beings God says, 

“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…”  

And this is seen as a conversation within the Trinity, a conversation between Father, Son and Spirit. The problem is that we can’t really explain how God can be three distinct and separate persons and yet be only one God. We can’t explain how each of the three distinct persons of the Trinity can each be fully God in their own right and yet be only one God rather than three gods. And if we don’t have the language to explain this, to explain the nature of God, how can we explain what it means for us, as human beings to be made in the image and likeness of God? It is a problem but it’s one I think we can answer at least to some extent, by looking at what the Scriptures say about each of the three persons of the Trinity and how we are called to show in our lives, what the Scriptures say about them.  

In the creation story in the Book of Genesis, the first thing that God creates is  light. Now although both the Son, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God are active in creation, we always see the source of all things as the Father. So the Father is the bringer of light. Later in the Scriptures, in the prologue to St John’s Gospel, we read about the Father sending light into the world through his Son and incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. And Jesus spoke about the Father’s light on a number of occasions during his ministry. In teaching his disciples to love their enemies, he used the analogy of God’s created light; 

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good…”   

And urged them to,  

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

And he called on his disciples to bring God’s light, the light of truth and understanding to the world; 

 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” 

So when we love others, regardless of who and what they are or whether we like them or not, we’re being like the Father, because that’s something he does. And when we bring the Father’s light to other people we’re bringing glory to Father. What were actually doing is, by showing others what we’re like, we’re showing them something of what the Father is like. We’re showing them something of the image of the Father in ourselves. 

As Christians, our basic calling is to be like Jesus Christ, that’s what the name Christian really means. And so, if giving glory to the Father is showing others what the Father is like, then our basic calling as Christians is to give glory to Jesus Christ by showing others what he is like through following his teaching and example in our own lives. And by doing that we give glory to the second person of the Trinity because if our lives can be lived in the image of Jesus, then they’ll also be lived in the image of the Son. Jesus himself spoke about this in his prayer to the Father during what we know as the Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel.    

“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me….All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.”   

So through our faith in Jesus and our obedience to his words, we give him glory because we show to others who he really is, the Son of God. And through our faith in Jesus and our obedience to his words we show in our lives the image of Jesus, the Son of the God.  

That brings us to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, we read that, 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. 

and in his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul explicitly states that God’s wisdom is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.   

…we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: 
“What no eye has seen,  what no ear has heard, 
and what no human mind has conceived”— 
the things God has prepared for those who love him— 
these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. 

In St John’s Gospel, Jesus himself speaks about the Spirit as a bringer of understanding ‘the Spirit of truth’ as he calls him, and says,  

“…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”   

So wisdom, knowledge and understanding of God’s ways, and the fear of the Lord, reverence for God’s ways, are gifts of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.   

But Jesus said that the Spirit would also remind his disciples of everything he’d said to them. And in the Great Commission he gave to the Church, Jesus told his disciples to, 

“…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” 

So in and by the power of the Spirit who leads us into truth, we’re called to lead others into the truth. In and by the power of the Spirit who leads us into wisdom, into knowledge and understanding of God’s ways, we’re called to bring others to know and understand God’s ways. In and by the power of the Spirit who teaches us fear of the Lord, reverence for God’s ways, we’re called to teach others to have reverence for God’s ways. And when we do these things, in and by the power of the Spirit, what are we doing other than revealing in ourselves and in our lives something of the image of the Spirit, the third person of the Trinity?   

Of course, to show the image of the Trinity more fully in our lives, we’d have to be one as the three persons of the Trinity are one, as Jesus prayed we may be. That we, though we are many, might be one body, as we pray each and every time we break bread together in the Eucharist. Sadly, we don’t seem to have become quite that wise, or that close to the image and likeness of God just yet. But nevertheless, in spite of our failings and in spite of the difficulty we have in describing God as Trinity, we can show in our lives at least something of the image and likeness of God as Trinity, through showing in our lives the image and likeness of the three persons of the Trinity. We can show the likeness of the Father by bringing light to the world. We can show the likeness of the Son by our obedience to Christ’s teaching and example. And we can show the likeness of the Spirit by leading others into the truth to which we ourselves have been led.   

Amen. 

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The Propers for Trinity Sunday can be viewed here.

During her coronation 70 years ago, Queen Elizabeth II was anointed with oil by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Because this part of the coronation service was regarded as so sacred, it was hidden from the TV cameras and the public’s view behind a golden canopy. And so too the archbishop’s words at the anointing were said in secret. What actually happened is that the archbishop poured the holy oil on the Queen’s head with a spoon and, as he did, he whispered these words:      

“Be thy head anointed with holy oil: as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be you anointed, blessed and consecrated Queen over the Peoples, whom the Lord thy God hath given thee to rule and govern.” 

The symbolism of this was that at the anointing and through the anointing, the Queen was set apart to carry out the role and duties of Queen, she was blessed by God with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, to do these things. And I think we have to say that, over the 70 years that have passed since that moment, Elizabeth II has been very good at carrying her role and duties as our Queen. Whatever people may think about the monarchy itself, or individual members of the Royal Family, the Queen is widely admired and respected for her hard-working devotion to her duties. In that, the Queen is an example to us all, and not only in hard work and devotion to duty, but also in what it means to be given and use the grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.   

One of the things we often hear said in the Church is that God doesn’t give us tasks to suit out gifts, rather, he gives us gifts to carry out the tasks that we’re faced with. And yet how many things that need to be done in the Church, perhaps in a parish church in particular, are left undone, or added to the list of duties and responsibilities of those who already have more than enough to do, because people are so unwilling to take on any role, duty or responsibility? How often, when people are asked to take on a role in a parish do they refuse and say it’s because they don’t know how to do it, or aren’t very good at things like that, or have never done anything like that before? So, as with so many things, while Christians may profess a belief that God gives us gifts to carry out whatever tasks we’re faced with, very often it’s a belief that isn’t backed up by action.   

Something we all know, and that I’ve often said in sermons, is that the Christian life isn’t an easy life. And this is one of the ways in which it isn’t easy. As Christians, we believe that at our baptism, and confirmation too if we’ve been confirmed, we were blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.  

We were consecrated to God, set apart as one of his people, and we were anointed with oil to symbolise these things. We believe too that the Spirit gives us gifts enable us to live as Christians, to live the life we’re called to live as one of God’s chosen people, and to build up the Church. But all this doesn’t really amount to very much unless we’re prepared to do our bit too. The gift of the Holy Spirit doesn’t make much difference to the way we live our lives if we don’t or won’t listen to what the Spirit says to us. We waste the grace of God, the gifts that the Spirit gives us, if we aren’t prepared to use them. And, if we aren’t even prepared to try anything new or difficult, we can’t even know what gifts the Spirit’s blessed us with.   

As the words the archbishop of Canterbury spoke when he anointed the Queen at her coronation service tell us, anointing with oil is something we find frequently in the Scriptures. In the Old Testament, prophets and kings were anointed to symbolise their holiness, their call to be dedicated to God’s service, and their reception of the Holy Spirit and the gifts to enable them to carry out the role and duties they’d be chosen for. But we also know from the Scriptures that anointing was simply the beginning of what God had called them to and that carrying out the task that God had chosen them for involved a lot of hard work, and often great danger.  

One of the best examples of this is the story of Saul and David. Saul was chosen to be the first king of Israel and was anointed by the prophet Samuel. But his reign wasn’t an easy one, he had to fight frequent wars against the neighbouring nations. Later, because he didn’t do what was asked of him, Saul was rejected by God, at which point David entered the story. David was the most unlikely of people to replace Saul as king, and yet he was the one who was chosen, and he was anointed by Samuel. But David’s rise to the throne wasn’t easy and his life was often in danger because Saul recognised that David was a threat to him and plotted against him. And even when David did become king, after Saul died, his life was far from easy. He didn’t always behave as one of God’s anointed ones should and so, through Nathan the prophet, God told David that the sword would never depart from his house.   

So, as both Saul, David, and many others we read about in the Scriptures found, being anointed in God’s name is only the beginning. To be and do what God calls his anointed to be and do involves a lot of hard work and it often means making hard choices and doing difficult, even dangerous things. And as we read through the Scriptures, we find that it’s the same for anyone who’s anointed with the Holy Spirit, regardless of the means of the anointing.  

In all the Gospels, we read about the Holy Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove and coming to rest on Jesus after his baptism. We see this as an anointing because as the Prayer over the Water that we use in our baptism services today says,  

In water your Son Jesus received the baptism of John 
and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, 
to lead us from the death of sin to newness of life. 

But immediately after his baptism and anointing with the Spirit, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted for 40 days. And we know that Jesus’ life wasn’t an easy life. On the contrary, it was a hard life, a life of hard work, a life in which he was in frequent danger from those who plotted against him. It was a life full of difficult decisions about whether to do what God had called him and anointed him to do, or to do what was easier and safer. And ultimately, because Jesus chose to make those difficult decisions and do what he knew he’d been called and anointed to do, it was a life that led to his betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane and his death on the Cross.  

And it was a very similar story for those who were anointed with the Holy Spirit in the form of wind and fire on the Day of Pentecost. Despite the fact that at least some of those who were there that day had seen the risen Lord, and had witnessed his Ascension, they must have still been frightened. And why wouldn’t they be? They’d also seen Jesus crucified and that would have been something that none of them would have wanted to go through themselves. But nevertheless, as the Spirit gave them the gift to speak in different languages, they were willing to go out and publicly proclaim Jesus as not only their Lord and Saviour, but the Lord and Saviour of anyone who was willing to come to him in faith. And we know that was a difficult and dangerous thing to do. We know that as the Apostles and others who came to faith went out and used the gifts the Spirit had given them, they had a very hard time. We read in the Scriptures that they were arrested,  imprisoned and beaten. We know that they had to flee for their lives, that they were exiled and that some of them were executed for their faith. But despite all these things, we also know that they were willing to use the grace of God, the gifts God had given them through the Holy Spirit to make Jesus’ name and teaching known, and to build up the Church everywhere they went.   

For them, as for all of us, anointing with the Holy Spirit was only the beginning. It was the beginning of a new life in which they’d use the gifts the Spirit gave them in the service of God and his Christ, of his anointed one, and of his Church. It wasn’t an easy life but a hard and often dangerous one, but it was a life that they knew would lead to eternal life and so it was a life they were willing to lead despite the hardships and dangers.  

I think, when people in the Church today are so unwilling to take on roles and responsibilities, they’d do well to think about these things. I think when people are asked to take on roles and responsibilities in the Church, before they say, “I can’t”, “ I don’t know how”, “I’m not very good at things like that”, “I haven’t got time” or any of the other reasons people often give for not doing things in the Church, they might take time to think about their own anointing with the Holy Spirit at their baptism and confirmation. They might take time to think about the lives of the people we read about in the Scriptures who were similarly anointed in God’s name, and what they did with the grace God gave them through the Holy Spirit. Perhaps in particular, they might take time to think about what those who were present in that house on the Day of Pentecost did after they were anointed with the Holy Spirit. To think about that and to remember that, if those people hadn’t been prepared to use the gifts of the Spirit to do what was hard and even dangerous then, we wouldn’t even have a Church to belong to now.  

Anointing in God’s name which symbolises our reception of God’s grace through the gift of the Holy Spirit is always, only, ever a beginning. The Queen is respected and admired because, for her, it was the start of 70 years of devoted service to the role she was called to carry out. For Jesus, it was the start of a public ministry that led through hardship, danger and death to the glory of the Resurrection. For those disciples who were present on the Day of Pentecost it was the start of a hard life of devoted service of God, Christ and the Church, and for generations of Christians since, their anointing with the Holy Spirit at their baptism and confirmation has been the start of lives of similarly devoted service to God, Christ and the Church. It’s only because these people were willing to live these lives of hard working, devoted service that have a Church to belong to today. So, when people are asked to take on a role or responsibility in and for the Church, before they say ‘No’ perhaps they should take time to ask themselves, what use then are they going to put the grace of God and the gifts of the Spirit they’ve received? And perhaps they should also try to answer these questions; if they aren’t going to do these things, who will? If they aren’t willing to do these things, who do they expect to do them? If they aren’t willing to use the Holy Spirit they’ve been anointed with for the building up of the Church today, whose fault will it be if there is no Church to build up tomorrow?  

Amen.      

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The Propers for Pentecost can be viewed here.

As I’m sure you’ll have noticed that, during the Easter season, our usual cycle of Sunday readings changes in that, instead of an Old Testament reading, we have a reading from the Acts of the Apostles, and the reading after the psalm is always taken from the Book of Revelation. And there’s a very good reason for that. After Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension, his ministry and mission passed to the Church, to the Apostles initially, and so during the Easter season we read about the acts of the Apostles, what they did in the very early days of the Church. And we read from the Book of Revelation because this book contains revelations that were given to the book’s author, John, for the benefit of some of the early churches. As we read this morning,

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches.”

And during the Easter season, we also move away from the Gospel of the year and read from John; readings that are very much concerned with Jesus’ teaching the disciples and through them, passing on that teaching to the Church.

And so, as our readings during the Easter season are so concerned with the Church, this morning I want to speak to you about the Church, and in particular, about something we profess to believe about the Church week by week in the Creed, and yet something that’s caused so much argument and division in the Church; our profession that we believe the Church to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

First of all, what do we mean when we say the Church is ‘one’? As we look at the Church, as it exists in the world, what we see is a Church that’s very far from one don’t we? I’m not sure of the latest figures but in the year 2000, it was reckoned that there were about 140 different denominations of the Church and, if all the independent groups and congregations were taken into account, perhaps as many as 34,000 different Churches in the world. Most of these divisions have come about because people in the Church have argued and fallen out with other people in the Church they once belonged to and so, either the Church has split into different denominations, such as happened between the Orthodox East and the Catholic West in the 11^th Century, and at the Reformation during the 16^th Century, or individual Christians have set up their own Churches, which is where the small, independent congregations come from. So how can the Church be one?

Well, we have to start by saying that there is only one Church, should only be one Church and can only be one Church because it’s Jesus Christ’s Church. He called the Church into being and he only called one Church into being. And, as we heard in this morning’s Gospel, Jesus intended the Church to be one, and prayed to the Father that it might be one.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

And it’s clear from Jesus’ words in this morning’s Gospel that the source of this ‘oneness’, this unity, is love because his prayer to the Father continues,

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

So there is only one Church because Jesus only called one Church into being and the Church he called into being is founded on love. The Church Fathers, the Church leaders who came after the Apostles, believed division in the Church to be the worst of all sins because it is always caused by a failure of Christians to love one another. I think they were right. And so I think we can say that the Church is one where there is love between Christians and conversely, that where Christians fail to love one another, we step away from the one Church that Jesus called into being and that’s shown in the fractured, divided Church we see in the world.

But Jesus prayed that the love between Christians should be the same as the love between himself and the Father. So, in addition to loving one another, to be part of the one Church Jesus called into being we have to love God too. And that’s where the holiness of the Church comes in.

I’ve spoken before about holiness, and I’ve said that most people seem to equate holiness with moral or spiritual perfection, but that’s not what holiness is. Holiness is simply about dedication to God. So the Church is holy where it’s dedicated to God and that means where the Church’s people are dedicated to God.

The Church is holy where it’s people love God and live according to his commandments. We know that above all, we’re called to love one another and so we could sum up both the holiness, and the oneness, of the Church up by saying that the Church is both holy and one where the Church’s people follow the great commandment to love God with all their heart and soul and mind and to love their neighbour as themselves. And conversely, that where the Church’s people don’t love God, the Church falls from holiness and that’s most often shown in that failure of the Church’s people to love one another that leads to division and disunity; to a loss of oneness. 

That brings us to what we mean by the catholic Church. This is perhaps the most controversial of all the four marks of the Church, as these things are known, in which we profess our belief in the Creed. We have to start by saying that nowhere in the New Testament is the Church described as catholic. So unlike the other marks of the Church, we can’t base our understanding of its catholicity directly on the Scriptures. What we have to do is to look at the earliest reference to the catholic Church to see what it meant then, and the earliest reference we have to the catholic Church is in the writings of St Ignatius of Antioch.

St Ignatius is thought to have been born in about 35AD, so shortly after the birth of the Church, and he was a convert to Christianity and possibly a disciple of the Apostle, St John. He’s thought to have succeeded St Peter as the bishop of Antioch and he was sent to Rome, where he was martyred  around the year 107AD. On his way to Rome, Ignatius wrote a number of letters to various Churches he’d visited including one to the Church in Smyrna, in modern day Turkey. And in that letter we read this:

Where the bishop is to be seen, there let all his people be; just as where Jesus Christ is present, we have the catholic Church.

That doesn’t tell us very much about what Ignatius meant by the ‘catholic Church’ but if we read Ignatius’ letters as a whole, we find that, for Ignatius,  the catholic Church, the Church where Jesus Christ is present, had a three-fold order of bishops, presbyters and deacons; that it included all Christian communities under episcopal oversight, that is, all communities who recognised the authority of their bishop; that it celebrated the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, and Ignatius denounces in the strongest terms all those who deny that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ;

that it adhered to orthodox teaching and faith, that it practiced charity, in other words, it’s people loved one another, and that it adhered to the Scriptures, though at this time we’re not certain just what the Christian Scriptures were. I’m sure many of you will have heard that the word ‘catholic’ means ‘universal’  but more accurately it means something like ‘in general’ or ‘according to the whole’ So what Ignatius seems to mean by the ‘catholic Church’, the Church where Jesus Christ is present which, I think by definition must also be the one, holy Church, is the Church that’s made up of all those Christian communities who believe in and adhere to, all these things that the Church as a whole, holds sacred, believes in and practices. Which is a very different understanding to the one held by those who say that, because the word ‘catholic’ means universal’, anyone who claims to be part of the one, holy, catholic Church does, regardless of what they believe and do.

Finally we come to the fourth mark of the Church, the apostolic Church. Again, this is something we don’t find in the New Testament. And, yet again, the first reference to the apostolic Church is something we find in the letters of St Ignatius of Antioch, this time in his Letter to the Church at Tralles, another Church that was in modern day Turkey, in which Ignatius writes,

In apostolic fashion, I send the church my greeting in all the fullness of God, and wish her every happiness.

The term apostolic is hardly ever used, anywhere, in anything other than a Christian context and so it’s something that is very much a Christian idea. And in Ignatius’ and in early Christian writings generally, it has one of two meanings; it can either mean ‘like the Apostles’ or ‘directly linked to the Apostles’.  So the apostolic Church is the Church that, through its beliefs and practices, is in continuity with the Church of the Apostles, the one, holy, catholic Church that Jesus called into being.

Now, whilst we don’t find this in Scripture, we have to take what the Church Fathers say very seriously because people like Ignatius of Antioch were the second generation of Christians and Church leaders; they were taught by the Apostles themselves and so we have to assume that what they wrote, especially in these very early days of the Church, was what they were told by those who were taught by Jesus himself.

Unfortunately, the idea of apostolicity has become another source of disagreement and division in the Church because it’s become bogged down in arguments about the ‘Apostolic Succession’, the idea that the apostolic Church is one in which the bishops can trace a direct line of succession back to the Apostles. But apostolicity is a much broader and deeper concept than simply that. It’s about the faith and the whole life of the Church and its people. The apostolic Church is the Church that believes and does what the Apostles believed and did. And so, a Church that doesn’t believe what the Apostles believed and doesn’t do what the Apostles did, can’t be an apostolic Church.

If we think about these marks of the Church seriously, it’s not too hard to see that they’re complimentary and that we can’t really have any of them if we don’t have all of them. If we want to be part of the one Church that Jesus called into being we have to love one another. We will love one another if we’re dedicated to God and to obeying that great commandment to love him and love our neighbour as ourselves. Then we’ll be part of the holy Church. If we love God and each other, we’ll be far less likely to be the cause of or even part of that greatest of all sins, division and disunity in the Church; we’ll be able to remain in the main part of the Body of Christ which is the catholic Church. And if we can be like the Apostles, holding to the faith they received from Jesus and following the example they received from Jesus and passed on to those who came after them, we’ll be part of the apostolic Church.

In the Creed, Sunday by Sunday, we say we believe that the Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. This is what it means to say that; it only remains to live it out.

Amen.  

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The Propers for the 7th Sunday of Easter can be viewed here.