The readings for today are different in the Missal which we use at St Mark’s and the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) used at St Gabriel’s. For that reason, there will be a different paragraph which corresponds with the Gospel being read at that particular church. Each of the paragraphs have been highlighted in bold and labelled.

One of the things that a parish priest is called to do, is to identify the gifts and talents that people in their congregations may have, and to encourage people to use those gifts and talents in the service of God and his Church.

Sometimes this is expressed as ‘fostering vocations’ but I think that really limits what a parish priest is called to do in this respect, at least in the minds of many people. When we speak about vocations in the Church, we’re usually talking about a calling to the ordained ministry and so ‘fostering vocations’ is often seen as encouraging people to offer themselves for ordination. But whilst that is a very important part of a priest’s duty with regard to identifying and encouraging people to use their gifts and talents in the Church, it’s only part of it. The ordained ministry is just one particular calling, or vocation, from within the general calling or vocation of all Christian people. The ordained priest is someone who has received a call to that particular vocation within the many that exist in general vocation of the universal priesthood of all Christian people.

So there’s much more to ‘fostering vocations’ than simply looking for likely candidates for ordination and encouraging those people to put themselves forward for it. I think we find a much better way of expressing what a priest is called to do in terms of fostering vocations, or at least a more comprehensive way of expressing it, in the words that the Bishop uses during the institution of a priest as the incumbent of a parish or benefice. Towards the end of the address to the congregation in which the Bishop sets out what a parish priest is expected to do, we find these words:

“Guided by the Holy Spirit, they (the priest) are to discern and foster the gifts of all God’s people, that the whole Church may be built up in unity and faith.”

I think that makes it very clear that a priest’s duty to foster vocations, is about much more than simply looking for and encouraging potential priests.

One of the problems I’ve found in fulfilling this duty of fostering vocations though, is that people are often very reluctant to use their gifts and talents for the Church. That’s sometimes because they’re worried about the level of commitment that’s involved in what’s being asked of them, but more often, it’s because people simply don’t recognise their own gifts.

One of the best examples of that, in my experience, was a conversation I had with a group of people not long after I’d offered myself for ordination. We were talking about vocations and I suggested to them that it wasn’t only me who had a vocation in the Church, they did too. But they didn’t see it that way. Now all of these people were on the PCC, and they all did other things in the Church and for the Church too. Most of them were in the Church Choir. Most of them were on the Parish Social Committee. Some of them were Altar Servers. Some of them were licensed Eucharistic Ministers. Some of them had an authorised ministry in the parish as Lay Pastoral Assistants. And yet they didn’t see any of that as fulfilling a calling to God’s service or as a vocation. And when I asked them what they did see it as then, they just looked at each other and eventually one of them said,

“It’s just what we do. It’s not a vocation.”

But then I don’t suppose I was any different myself at one time. I’d never given a moment’s thought to the possibility that I might have a vocation to the ordained priesthood until the parish clergy and a few other people in the parish said that they thought I did, and ought to give it some thought!

We’re sometimes not very good at seeing in ourselves what others see in us are we? Whether that’s the good or the bad. But if that’s how we are, we’re not alone and we can find lots of examples in the Scriptures of people who were just like us in that respect.

This morning we heard about the call of Samuel. God called Samuel three times, but he didn’t answer because he didn’t realise God was calling him. In the end, it was Eli who understood that God was calling Samuel and told Samuel how to answer when God’s call came again.

(The following paragraph will be read at St Mark’s)
And in our Gospel reading, it was John who recognised Jesus and pointed him out to two of his own disciples. Jesus asked them both to follow him, but it was only Andrew who answered the call, and the first thing he did the very next day was to go and find his brother, Simon, so that he could hear Jesus’ call too. And when Jesus saw Peter, he recognised Simon’s gifts, his potential to be Cephas, Peter, the ‘Rock’ on which to build the Church.

(The following paragraph will be read at St Gabriel’s)
And in our Gospel reading, Jesus calls Philip, who hears and answers.  We know that because the next thing we’re told Philip does is that he goes to find Nathaniel so that he can hear Jesus’ call too. And when Jesus sees Nathaniel, he recognises Nathaniel’s gifts, his honesty and integrity, and his potential to be one of the twelve people to whom he’ll entrust the carrying of the Gospel into the world for the building up of the Church.

So our reading today are all about hearing and answering God when he calls us. But in addition to that, they’re also about listening to others when they see and recognise things that we haven’t or don’t see or recognise. They’re about listening to others when they see that God is calling us when we haven’t or don’t recognise God’s call. They’re about listening to others when they recognise gifts, talents and potential in us that we haven’t or don’t see. They’re about listening and then acting on what we hear by using our gifts and talents in answer to God’s call. And they’re about doing this for the building up of the Church, the Body of Christ, as St Paul calls it.

All these things have always been important to the Church, especially for building up the Church because we all have a part to play in that. St Paul’s analogy of the Church as the Body of Christ is a very good one in this sense because a body functions best if all it’s members are fully functioning. And it is becoming more important than ever in these difficult times for the Church, that everyone in the Church does play their part by hearing and answering God’s call, and to do that by using their gifts and talents for the Church, to the best of their ability. 

As you all know, there are some major changes being proposed to the way the Church operates in the diocese of Manchester. I’ve spoken about this both in church and at PCC meetings in the past, and these changes are due to start being implemented in the second half of this year. Although there is still some consultation going on, what these changes are expected to mean is that, by 2025, the number of stipendiary clergy, that’s full-time, paid clergy, in the diocese will have been reduced from just over 200, as it is now, to 160. The existing Deaneries will be formed into 7, larger Deaneries, each under the oversight of a full-time Area Dean. And each Deanery will be split into a number of Mission Communities, each under a Missional Leader, who will work with a team of stipendiary clergy and other ‘named focal leaders’ such as lay leaders, licensed readers and self-supporting ordained ministers, to minister to the parishes in their own Mission Community.

As I understand things, what this will mean for St Mark’s and St Gabriel’s, is that, by 2025, we will be in a Mission Community of 7 parishes, covered by 3 stipendiary clergy. To cope with the reduction in clergy numbers, it is a requirement of these plans that there will be an increase in lay ministry and lay leadership in parishes, so that, as the Briefing Document on the Proposals for Mission Communities puts it,

“Between them, the lay and ordained, paid and unpaid members of the team, will cover all the necessary roles and functions – liturgy, mission, social action, administration, buildings, links with schools – working across generations with children and adults of all ages.”

In other words, whilst we’re assured that there will be training and on-going support provided for everyone who takes on a role or function, the laity will have to take on more roles and functions, and more responsibilities, to cover for the reduction in clergy numbers.

How all this will work out, only time will tell. But these changes are coming, and this is the way the Church is going to operate in this diocese. So the role of fostering vocations has perhaps never been so important as it is now and will become in the future. But not only for the parish priest. In these changing times it’s important for all of us to foster vocations. It’s important for all of us to recognise the gifts and talents we have, both the gifts and talents of others and our own gifts and talents, and then to be attentive to God’s call so that we can use them in the best possible way, both in his service, and in the service of his Church. 

Amen.

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The Propers for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Epiphany 2) can be found here.

One of the great misconceptions that many people have about the Church and the Christian faith is that the sacrament of Holy Baptism is the same thing as a Christening. But, if you’re one of those people, I’m sorry to disappoint you, it isn’t. When people either bring their children to church or come to church themselves to have water poured on their heads and to be anointed with holy oils, they come to receive the sacrament of Holy Baptism, and they are being baptised. A Christening, on the other hand, is simply a naming ceremony. If the person being baptised is an infant, or an older child or adult who’s being baptised decides to take a new, or additional name at their baptism, which is usually the name of a saint or ‘Christian name’, that part of the baptismal service is the christening. The service itself, the rite, is a sacrament of the Church called Baptism.

Perhaps some of you are now thinking, ‘So what?’ ‘What difference does it make what people call it?’ ‘What’s in a name?’ Well, actually, in this case, I think there’s an awful lot in a name.

When people contact me to enquire about having their children baptised, they almost invariably ask for a ‘Christening’ and when I start speaking about baptism, quite a lot of them get confused, because they think I’m talking about something they haven’t asked for. Well, I suppose I am in a way, but that’s because they haven’t asked for what they actually want; they’ve asked for a Christening when what they really mean is a Baptism. In fact, this misunderstanding is so widespread that the Church of England now refers to infant baptism, which as you know is what we usually do in the Church, as ‘Christening’ and ‘Baptism’ as something for adults, as though they were two different things (and if you go on the C of E’s website, you can see that for yourself). I think that is a great mistake because it encourages this misunderstanding people have of what Baptism is, and what it’s all about.

The problem is, that because people think in terms of Christening rather than Baptism, they think that once they’ve ‘been done’, as many of them say, they’re Christians. It’s as though they come to church on a specific day, once in their life, usually as a baby, to have water poured on their heads and ‘Hey Presto’ they’re a Christian for life and that’s all there is to it. So, because they think that, they never have to do anything else about it. They never have to come to church again, at least until they perhaps bring their own children to be Christened. Once they’ve been done, they’re a Christian and always will be. But that is not what being baptised is all about.

Being baptised does not make anyone a Christian. Being baptised makes that person a member of the Church. Being a Christian is something that takes a lifetime of hard work because it involves a lifelong commitment to living as Jesus Christ lived and taught us that we should live. And it’s as a member of the Church where people learn about what that means and how to do that, because it’s in the Church where those things are taught.

So, to be a Christian, rather than someone who’s simply been ‘Christened’, or even just baptised, we need to do what Jesus did and taught us to do, and that obviously means that we have to know what Jesus did and said. And so what we need to do, before we can start becoming Christians, is to listen to Jesus.

In the Gospel this morning, we read about Jesus’ own baptism. Today, we read the story as recorded in St Mark’s Gospel, but it’s a story that we find in the Gospel’s of St Matthew and St Luke too. As we come to expect of them, each of the evangelists that the story in a slightly different way but, if we read them as a whole, and in the context of the Gospels as a whole, these stories of Jesus’ Baptism tell us so much about what the Church is doing when we baptise people today.

We know that John’s baptism was for repentance: it was for the forgiveness of sins and a change of heart and life in the baptised, and today the Church baptises for the forgiveness of sins, and the promises that are made at baptism are all about a change in the way the baptised, or their parents and godparents, will live. John baptised in water, and so does the Church. We believe that, through the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit is given to the baptised to guide and strengthen them as they begin this new way of life. And in the stories of Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descends on him in the form of a dove. And immediately after this, Jesus goes into the wilderness to prepare for the beginning of his earthly ministry. Of course, we don’t have doves flying around in church when we baptise people, but we symbolise the Spirit’s presence in, and with, the newly baptised through anointing with oil which is another sign of God’s favour we read about frequently in the Scriptures. In obedience to Jesus’ command, we baptise in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And all three are all present in the stories of Jesus’ Baptism. Jesus, the Son, is there; the Spirit, in the form of a dove, is there; and the Father, who speaks from heaven, is there.

So what we do in the Church in the sacrament of Holy Baptism is very much in accord with what we read about Jesus’ own baptism by John in the River Jordan. But, as we think about what Baptism signifies and the kind of life it calls us to, perhaps the most important thing we learn from the story of Jesus’ Baptism is found in thinking about the Father’s words. Perhaps not directly, but certainly in the context of the Gospels as a whole because the words of the Father at Jesus’ Baptism remind us very much of the Father’s words in another story about Jesus we read later in the Gospels.

As well as the story of Jesus’ Baptism, another story that the Gospels of Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke share, is the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration.  In both stories, Jesus is revealed as the Son of God by a sign and by a voice from heaven, and in both stories the Father’s words are very similar. At Jesus’ Baptism, the Father says to Jesus,

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

And at Jesus’ Transfiguration, the Father says to Jesus’ disciples,

“This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

So in these Gospel stories, God the Father, proclaims Jesus as his ‘beloved Son’, with whom he is ‘well pleased’, and he tells his disciples to ‘listen to him’. And the message for us is unmistakable. Jesus is the beloved Son of God. The Father approves of what Jesus says and does. And if we’re going to be disciples of Jesus, if we’re going to be Christians, we’re called to listen to Jesus. And, if we think about it, isn’t that what the baptismal promises are all about? Aren’t promises to turn to Christ as Saviour, to submit to Christ as Lord and to come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life, all promises to listen to Jesus and do as he says? And aren’t promises to reject the devil and all rebellion against God, to renounce the deceit and corruption of evil and to repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour, all promises to do what Jesus taught us to do and live as he lived? And when we think about it in that way, isn’t it obvious that being baptised and being a Christian is about far more than simply coming to church on one day, usually very early in life, to be ‘done’?

An awful lot of people do think that they come to church on the day of their baptism to be Christened, to be somehow miraculously transformed into Christians. An awful lot of people speak about being Christened as being done, and the very word itself suggests that people think once they’re Christened, they’re then finished in some way; that being Christened is some kind of completion. In fact, the day of a person’s baptism is simply the beginning of a lifelong journey towards becoming a Christian and if people ever do want to complete that journey, they’ll have to spend a lifetime thinking about the promises they made, or that were made on their behalf; thinking about how to fulfil those promises and listening to Jesus to find the answers.

So, if you’re thinking of bringing a child to church to have water poured on their heads or know someone who’s thinking of bringing a child to church, or coming themselves, for that reason, please remember, and explain to others, that you, or they, are not coming to church to be Christened or to be done, but to receive the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Please understand and explain to others what that means and involves. And for those of us who aren’t in either of those situations but who are already on the journey towards becoming Christians, let’s remember that it’s up to us, all of us, to encourage the newly baptised, and their parents and godparents to take Baptism seriously by coming to church where they can listen to Jesus and learn what he has to teach us about how to be his disciples. And let’s make sure that, if they do come to listen and learn, we do teach them, not only in words, but by our own example.

Amen.  

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You will find the Propers for The Baptism of the Lord here.

Well, here we are once again at the start of another new year. Traditionally, this is a time for making new year’s resolutions, so it’s a time for looking forward. But the turn of the year is also a time when we tend to look back too. A time when we look back over the old year, to think about what’s happened during the year that we’ve just left behind, to take stock of the year, perhaps to think about what we could have done differently or better, so that we can make that new year’s resolution and resolve to do or be better in the coming year.

But, as we look back over 2020, regardless of how the year has been for us personally, I think all of us will see it as a year unlike any we’ve ever known before. The coronavirus pandemic meant our lives were very different during 2020 than they have been in any other year we’ve known. Our freedom was restricted because of lockdowns and tiers, and all these things caused tears of a different kind too as people were separated from their families and friends and the pain and suffering that caused, not to mention the pain and suffering caused by the illness and death that the virus brought into the lives of so many people. So I don’t think 2020 will be a year that many, if any, of us will be sorry to see the back of. But even as we head into the new year of 2021, we know that we can’t really put the past year behind us properly, just yet, because coronavirus is still with us, our lives are still restricted, and so many people are still suffering and dying because of the virus.

If we were to look at the past year as a journey, certainly since the first lockdown in March, we’d probably see it as a journey with lots of twists and turns. It’s been a journey that we seemed on a few occasions to be coming towards the end of, only to find that we weren’t and that we still had a long way to go to the end of the journey. That’s been true generally, and it’s certainly been true of our journey through the year as members of the Church. When we were told we had to suspend services in March, I’m sure we were all hoping it wouldn’t be too long before we could be back in church to worship the Lord, together, again. But, when we were allowed back, it was to services that were very different to the services we had before the lockdown. Then, a few months later, we were right back to the start of the journey because we had to suspend services again.

We’ve had to cancel baptisms and weddings. We couldn’t have funerals in church. And even though we can do all those things again now, we’re very much restricted in how many people can be in church for them, and in how we actually do the services. And it’s the same story for our worship. We only need to look around to see how different things are. It’s almost 9 months since we’ve been able to sing during our worship. And all this seems set to carry on well into this new year. When all this started, I don’t think anyone thought we’d have to celebrate Christmas in Covid-19 secure churches and in services without singing, but now, I think we’re all just hoping that we can at least celebrate Easter in church this year, however we have to do that, because we couldn’t do that at all last year. So it’s been a long journey with lots of twists and turns, and it’s a journey that isn’t over yet, we still have some way to go before we reach our destination which is a return to something like normal life both in church and in our daily lives.

And in this, I think we’re very much like the Magi, the Wise Men, who followed a star to bring gifts to the Christ-child. We don’t really know too much about the Magi, but we can tease a few things out of the little that we read in the Gospel. The name Magi suggests that they were from Persia, modern day Iran. They followed a star that they’d seen rising so we think they were astronomers or astrologers, and unlike today, there was probably no difference in those two terms at the time of the Magi. That suggests they were from Babylon which is in modern day Iraq. The gifts they brought, especially frankincense and myrrh, suggest they came from Arabia. So they were probably Parthians because the Parthian Empire covered all of those areas, and many others, at the time. So they made quite a long journey to find the new-born king of the Jews. We also know that they didn’t know exactly where the new king would be born. So their journey was broken as they made enquiries and tried to find out where to go, and what their final destination was. We know from the Gospel that, from the time they first saw the star rise, it took the Magi two years to reach Herod in Jerusalem before they finally found their way to Bethlehem where they could present their gifts to the Christ-child. So just like us, as we journey through the coronavirus pandemic, the Magi made a long journey, full of twists and turns, a journey they must have thought they were coming to the end of, but weren’t, before they finally got to where they wanted to be. 

When we think of the Magi, we perhaps think most easily about the gifts they brought to Christ. We see these gifts as gifts fit for a king, and we see their spiritual significance. Gold as the gift for a king, frankincense as an offering to God, and myrrh as an ointment for embalming the dead, symbolising Christ’s destiny to die on the Cross. And we often think about the way we can offer similar gifts to Christ in our own lives. The gold of our time and talents, not to mention our financial support of his Church. The frankincense of our worship and our prayers. And the myrrh that symbolises our faith in him as our Saviour, the one who died and rose again from the dead for us, and the healing his life and resurrection brings to us and to the world, and that we’re called to bring to the world in his name. But today, as we journey on through the coronavirus pandemic, whilst not forgetting those gifts, I think we should really think about something else that the Magi offered to Christ.

In one of the seasonal blessings we end our services with during the Christmas season, we pray for a number of things associated with the story of Christ’s birth. We pray for the joy of the angels, the faith of the shepherds, the obedience of Mary and Joseph and the peace of the Christ-child. But when it come to the Magi, we pray for their perseverance, and their perseverance is something that I think we really do need at this time.

I don’t think these past months have been the best time of anyone’s lives, but some people have found them very difficult indeed, and difficult from a point of view of their faith. Speaking to people, I know that some don’t want to come back to church until things have returned to normal, but we don’t know when that will be. Some have decided, for various reasons, that they won’t return to church even when things return to normal. Some people have struggled, and are struggling, to keep their faith. Some have struggled, and are struggling, to pray. Now, I’m not denying that things have not been easy on this journey, and they’re still far from easy as we continue on the journey, but it’s now that we need to show the perseverance of the Magi so that we can keep going and make it to the end of the journey.

We might not be able to do what we usually do in church or for the Church at this time, but we need to persevere in doing all the things we have done, and would do again, in better times. We need to persevere in giving our time and talents the Lord, and our financial support to his Church, in whatever way we can, and to whatever extent we can through these hard times. We might not be able to worship the Lord in the way we want to at this time, but we need to persevere in worshipping him, however we can, at this time. We might find hard to pray as we, and the world goes through this difficult time, but we need to persevere in prayer, nevertheless. And it doesn’t matter if we can’t find the words to pray at this time: don’t the Scriptures tell us that at times like this, the Spirit who knows the thoughts of our hearts, will intercede for us with sighs too deep for words? We might find it hard to see the end of this journey, but it will end. And amidst the pain and suffering that the world has gone through in the past year, and is still going through now, we might find it hard to understand where God is in all this. But we have to persevere in faith that he is with us, that Christ, who endured the pain and suffering that human life can bring, and died for us, will never abandon us; that he is true to his promise to be with us always, not only along this hard road and to the end of this hard road, but to the end of the world itself.

One of the signs that we’re on a difficult journey at the moment, is that we’re keeping this feast of the Epiphany of the Lord on 3^rd of January rather than on the twelfth night of Christmas, the 6^th of January, which is when we usually celebrate it. What that has done is moved the celebration a little closer to the turn of the year, to that time of looking backwards and looking forwards. So, as we look back on a difficult journey through 2020, and forward to an uncertain journey into 2021, perhaps today is a good day to make a new year’s resolution. And perhaps a good resolution to make would be a resolution to persevere in faith regardless of what lies behind us on the road or may lie ahead of us on the road.

A resolution to travel on, with God, towards the end of this hard journey and onward into the better times ahead that will come.

Amen. 

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You will find The Propers for the Epiphany of the Lord here.