Imagine the birth. Mary pushing, shoving, moaning, yelling. Imagine the placenta, umbilical cord, blood, fluid. Imagine for a moment that the stable and animals are not fiction. Imagine the noise, the animal dung, the smells, the hay getting places it shouldn’t.

Imagine the mess.

The nativity is messy. The infant is born into mess. My life is messy. Your life is messy. If you say it’s not, I don’t believe you. Being human is messy. But being human is what the nativity is all about.

People try to clean up Jesus. People try to clean up God. But the truth is that God is not present only in things that are cleaned up. God does not demand tidiness or purity. God does not demand cosmetics or fig leaves to cover up bits of us that we would like to be hidden away. God does not demand that we pretend. If God were to demand anything (which it doesn’t), it would be that we hide nothing – that we accept the reality of the mess we’re in.

God is present in you and me, in your mess and mine — the mess of the world. God works with mess: disorder to order, chaos to cosmos. We have no need to pretend. Pretending is exhausting. I have no energy left to waste on pretending. As it says at the beginning of St John’s Gospel, every single one of us is a child of the Divine. I am. You are.

The message of the incarnation is that you and I are like Mary — agents of the divine. Let Jesus grow in you as Mary let it grow in her. As it says in verse 4 of “O little town”, O holy child of Bethlehem … be born in us today. Everything you do to make life a bit better for somebody else is you acting as God’s agent. Everything you do to make life more difficult or unpleasant for somebody else is you acting as Satan’s agent. Choose well.

You will make mistakes. You will get things wrong. You are not perfect. Get over it. Enjoy being human. Help others to enjoy being human. Help others to glimpse joy and delight, even if only for a moment. Then, you are letting the holy child be born in you again and again.

The Christmas message is not about making yourself sick on chocolates, or stuffing your face, or arguing about what to watch on TV, or about reliving your childhood. The Christmas message is about bringing joy to the world — and helping others do likewise.

Happy Christmas. Mess is made divine,

Homily for Advent 4 2022 at Horninglow

I’m always dismayed to hear Christians say they don’t bother with the Old Testament. Many say just that. 

I’m always shocked when I hear clergy say much the same. Some do. Whatever this says about their education and training, it speaks of a kind of dementia, one in which memory has vanished, leaving them disconnected from their history and family.

When a snowball rolls down a snow-covered slope, it starts small but as it goes on its way the snow it rolls over sticks to it so it gets bigger and bigger, its history, as it were, accumulating around it. You and I carry our history with us in the form of genetic inheritance, learnt experience, memories of good and bad. This is vital: we need to remember what’s life-threatening and what’s safe. It’s a matter of survival and species preservation. 

We can’t really understand where we are unless we understand where we come from and how we got here. 

So it is with the Jesus story. We can’t properly understand it without knowing something of its background. This is particularly so in Advent as we encounter the prophecies of Hebrew Scripture—the Old Testament.

Hearing that the young girl shall conceive makes no sense without the prophecy of Isaiah. The animals at the crib (not in the gospels) make more sense when we recall another prophecy of Isaiah. And though not relevant to Advent, the prophecies of Zechariah are essential reading for a proper understanding of Holy Week. 

Of great relevance to Advent are the images from Hebrew Scripture that we sang of in the first hymn “O come, Emmanuel”. They give us a glimpse of the redeemer that the Jews awaited—and still do: wisdom, leader, descendant of Jesse, David’s successor, morning star, king of the nations, the Divine within. They passed into the Christian church as plainsong antiphons—texts sung before and after Magnificat at Vespers or Evensong in the last week of Advent.

I am always moved by these chants. I first heard them—sang them—as a choral scholar at Carlisle Cathedral, fresh from somewhat puritanical rural Methodism. It is as if they wrap me in timelessness, bringing the past into the present in anticipation of the future.

I shall sing the first one.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Today’s readings tell of Mary. In Luke’s gospel she gives us a startling use of Hebrew Scripture. You might think that Magnificat was Mary’s invention. Not so. She, a teenage girl learning of her biologically impossible pregnancy, uses the song of another woman told of an another biologically impossible pregnancy—that of the very postmenopausal Hannah when she learns she is pregnant with Samuel. You’ll find it at 1 Samuel 2: 1-10.

Here are extracts: My heart rejoices in the Lord; I smile at my enemies because I rejoice in Your salvation. Let no arrogance come from your mouth, For the Lord is the God of knowledge; and by Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, and those who stumbled are given strength. Those who were full have to earn their bread, And the hungry are fed. The Lord raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory.

These are revolutionary texts. They come from the lips of women astonished to be told they are pregnant. Let’s consider two bits of Magnificat.

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. A better phrase for “imagination” would be “devices and desires”, since the Greek word translated as imagination implies deliberate self-seeking. It means “I did it my way”—the me, me, me boast of the super-confident who believe they alone have the ear of God, the boast of all who are above themselves and who forget that pride is followed by fall. In Eugene Peterson’s wonderful translation of Luke’s beatitudes: “it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you’ll ever get”.

Note how God scatters the proud—not by bossing and lording it over others with displays of power, but as one who comes as one of us. And this even at his death, when much as he would have liked to have been spared, he put his ego-self aside. Peterson again:  “It’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long”. Selflessness trumps selfishness.

I could go on, but I don’t want to stray too much from the Advent theme.

Over the next few days, see if you can set aside a few minutes to consider the images in that great hymn “O come, Emmanuel”. See if you can set aside some time to consider the revolutionary Magnificat and ask yourself “what can I do to help make God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven?”. See, in short, if you can come up with ways to use your past to enrich the present and future for the common good.

The divine embryo is growing in Mary’s belly. Mary is one of us—we are all Mary. Let the divine embryo grow in you, then in a few days’ time you can sincerely sing “O holy child of Bethlehem … be born in us today.”

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Homily for Remembrance Sunday 13 November 2022 at Horninglow

In the mid 1980s I visited Moscow and what was then Leningrad. I learnt that the Russians lost more people in WW2 than the UK, US and Germany combined. I have a granddaughter in the US. I see how US society values its servicemen and veterans. It puts us to shame. I have a daughter, a son and many dear friends in the Republic of Ireland and I worked there for 19 years, three as a Church of Ireland rector. Their focus on 11 November is different from ours. 

So not surprisingly, I have confused attitudes today. They include 

• embarrassment that we’re raking over the past, and keeping open the wounds, revelling in jingoism.
• incredulity that we English delude ourselves thinking that we won WW2 unaided.
• anger at the waste of life.
• recollection of the camaraderie that bad times can bring. It’s understandable that people feel that the war years were the best of their lives—if they survived.
• shame at our involvement in war, particularly in Ireland—and that is not over yet.

But whatever is buried away in our minds, today we recall those who have died in what is called the service of their country. Those who obeyed orders. 

Now, let’s not restrict this to the two world wars of the 20th century. Let us not forget that our women and men have died in Korea, Balkans, Falklands, Cyprus, Middle East, Egypt, Africa, Ireland. Iraq and Afghanistan, where a poppy has a different meaning. 

Let us not forget people of every race and tongue who have died and continue to die in war:  Syria, Ukraine, Africa—in fact just about everywhere.

Let us not forget those who wait. It was a woman of Derbyshire and Staffordshire who brought home to me the effects on those who wait at home. Vera Brittain of Buxton and Newcastle under Lyme lost her fiancé, brother, friends, So let us remember too the bereaved mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, lovers, friends.

We sanitise war by thinking of the dead. It is easier. It costs nothing. We don’t have to provide medical care for the dead like we do for the maimed. We don’t have to worry about the lacerations, the amputations, the psychological scars when we consider the dead. Who was it said, if you want to forget about the nastiness of an event, arrange an act of commemoration and then forget about it? Let us not forget that behind the ceremony today there are countless stories of real continuing human tragedy. 

Are we just going to stop at remembering? Are we going to pray that things will change? Do we expect a sky pixie to sort problems that we humans have brought upon ourselves?

Perhaps it is we who need to change. 

What causes warfare is the notion that we are right and others are wrong—that we must impose our will on others. Individuals fight. Groups fight. Nations fight—all because one side wants to impose its will on others. And at the root of this is pride and vanity—not just theirs but yours and mine too. It’s unfashionable to use the word sin, but sin is what it is—the sin of the individual and the sin of the world. 

There is a solution. Micah told us what it is: do justly, love mercy, walk humbly. Or in the words of another translation, “do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love.  And don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously”. Don’t misunderstand “humble” or “humility”. They’re not about grovelling, they’re about being realistic in knowing your strengths and weaknesses, recognising your failings and—yes—not taking yourself too seriously. 

Micah spoke, Jesus showed.

“Simple” you might say, but oh how difficult it is to quash egocentric pride that makes us justify our views at the expense of those of others.

You might say “surely we should fight oppression and injustice, with weapons if necessary”. And as it happens that’s what I say—that fighting for justice is love in action. But others would not, for it’s possible to use Christian doctrine to support both points of view.

I leave you with a thought. If I say I am the best, the greatest, people call me ridiculous. If we say we are the best, people call us patriots.

Let us not forget that war comes from within the human mind—yours and mine. Kyrie eleison.

A homily for Proper 22 Year C

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4. Psalm 37:1-9. 2 Timothy 1:1-14. Luke 17:5-10

In Greek the word in today’s New Testament readings that’s translated as faith is pistis. Faith often linked with hope and charity, in Greek pistis, elpis agape; in Latin, fides, spes, caritas.

You might think that linking Faith, Hope and Charity was the inspired invention of St Paul. Not so. It’s much older that that: he: stole it from Greek culture. Faith, Hope and Charity were three minor goddesses, personifications of different aspects of human “good behaviour” – good in the sense of helping you to live a life that contributes to the wellbeing of the community, bringing honesty and harmony among people.

When we study Scripture, therefore, we should think of faith, pistis, not as we have come to use the word, but in terms of what it would have meant two thousand years ago to the people of the eastern Mediterranean – to Paul, to Luke, to Jesus. 

For many of us, faith has been presented almost as a state of anxiety – the more you have, the more likely you are to earn nectar points for a better cabin on the after-life cruise ship. If you have lots of faith, God grants your requests, but if not, hard cheese – it’s your fault and you deserve to suffer. So the longer you’re on your knees, or the more Hail Marys you knock out, or the more masses you attend, or the more you say you adore Christ – whatever that means – the better it’ll be for you on board. You’d better do as the priests tell you.

This is pernicious rubbish. 

Faith is about what you believe in, they say. But what does believe mean? North Koreans believe that Kim Jong-il was born in a cave on a mountainside and that a bright star appeared in the sky to mark the event. They believe that because they’re brainwashed. When we say I believe in God the Father Almighty … is it because that’s what we were taught, and that if we don’t affirm it we’ll get a terrible deal in an afterlife? If so, we’re allowing ourselves to be brainwashed like North Koreans.

Another problem with the word believe is that it often implies an element of doubt. When you repy to a question with “I believe so” you’re often adding “but I could be wrong”. And of course the word believe has been utterly devalued by its use by politicians and other creatures of the night who say they believe in things that quite patently they do not.

What a quandary! But fret not. Another translation of pistis comes to our aid. Instead of I believe, think I trust. Trust is much better and I suggest that every time you come across the word believe you replace it with trust. It works for me.

Now look at today’s gospel. It’s a pity that it begins at verse 5 for verses 1-4 set the scene. Jesus is saying “look guys, there are bad times just around the corner so be ready for them. Don’t be swayed by them. Stick to your guns.“ The disciples want more faith but Jesus says “you don’t need more, you just need to trust what you’ve already got, and great things will happen. Persist.”

Persist is another idea that pistis incorporates. At school in what was then Cumberland our exercise books had the county crest on the front with the Latin motto Perfero. Being an inquisitive child I had to find out what that meant. It was Latin – whatever that was – for I bear, I carry through, I complete, I persist, I endure. All aspects of pistis. This is what Jesus tells the disciples. I’ve always known there was something truly Divine about us Cumbrians.

Habbakuk warns people not to be distracted by the ways of the world but push on with what’s right. Psalm 37 in the Coverdale translation (the proper one) begins “fret not thyself because of the ungodly, ignore them and let them stew in their own juice” (I paraphrase slightly).

Athletes in training know that the most pernicious enemies of achievement are doubts: thoughts that they are not good enough, thoughts that lead to loss of confidence. These are some of “the ungodly” of the psalmist, the distractions that Habbakuk and Jesus urge us to ignore.  “Push on – just do it” they must tell themselves. The sports clothing brand Nike knows Greek. Nike is the goddess of victory, The firm’s motto, “just do it”, is none other than our friend pistis.

Just do it is a pretty good motto. Perfero. Stop shilly shallying and allowing yourself to be distracted. Be resolute, determined and fearless. When you believe in something you don’t just sit in a chair and think fine thoughts about it – you act. Get off your backside and just do it.

Faith is not about what you believe; faith is about what you do and how you do it. Faith is action.

This is all very well, but I look into my heart and ask myself “what has it to do with church?” and answer came there “next to nothing”. As a priest I should have been just doing it following the example set by Himself of feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, comforting the oppressed, fighting injustice, and so on. Maybe I did a little bit of that but I regret to say that most of my time was spent providing life support to a dying patient – the institutional church – titillating and pandering to the prejudices of the reasonably affluent that make up church congregations. I look at my colleagues and see that they too are trapped in this dreadful prison, one that is at odds with the reasons most of them entered pastoral ministry. It so easily leads to despair. I know of some people who do sacrificial work for the poor and needy largely in urban centres here and the third world, but I know personally only one. I used to work with him here in Burton, but now he’s a priest in Stevenage doing what he was ordained for spectacularly well.

So as a church community ask yourselves “what can we do to follow the Master in a realistic and practical way?”.

Homily for Proper 20 Year C

Amos 8:4-7. Psalm 113. 1 Timothy 2:1-7. Luke 16:1-13

The trouble with Bible readings in church is that they’re usually from a translation that may be accurate, but doesn’t sound like the way we speak today. It is somewhat stilted and therefore the meaning is not always as obvious or forceful on first hearing as it should be.

Here is part of the the Amos reading in a modern American version, one that I think quite wonderful, The Message by Eugene Peterson:

Listen here, you who trample all over the weak, who treat poor people as less than nothing, who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming so I can go out and live it up? How long till the weekend when I can go out and have a good time?” Listen here, you who give little and take much, and never do an honest day’s work. You exploit the poor, using them—and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

And they say that religion should have nothing to do with politics. Ha!

“Ah but,” you say, “that’s from the Jewish Scriptures, not Christian. “Well”, I respond, “Jesus was a Jew. Furthermore he was well capable of being narky, rude, abrupt and provocative. As I said last time I was here, he was not an agreeable man”.

Here is the essence of today’s gospel as if from The Message.

The rich man realised that his manager was on the fiddle. He’d used his position to siphon off money for himself. So he sacked him and said “before you go I want a complete audit of your books.” The manager said to himself, “What am I to do? I’ve lost my job. I’m not strong enough for labouring, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan.”

One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his boss. When someone said he owed a hundred jugs of olive oil the manager told him to write fifty. When someone else said he owed  a hundred sacks of wheat the manager told him to write eighty. And so on, the crafty guy making friends for his new life.

Note Jesus’ comments. He commended the crooked manager. “He knows how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to survive, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behaviour.”

In short, if only we put as much effort into working for the Kingdom as we do into trying to avoid the washing-up, or ironing, or hoovering, or cheating the taxman …. Today’s Gospel tells us to be crafty:

• Use the ways of the world to further the cause of right.
• Take risks like the steward—he was commended for his audacity. 
• Don’t be lazy, or take things lying down.
• Make good use of what comes your way. Don’t moan because it’s not what you expected or wanted.

It’s a call to action, and to shrewd action, planned action, cunning action. Use your brains and think before acting.

Amos gives us a focus for our craftiness:  to wage war against oppression. Isn’t Amos just wonderful? He is utterly blunt, never minces his words. Quite un-Anglican. In my ministry I have been incumbent of two churches that particularly need to hear Amos. But they didn’t and won’t. They are little more than social clubs for the respectable, for many of whom church is treasured because it reminds them of the security of childhood and a life gone by. What church is really for, of course, is to stir people up—excite is the word—to fight injustice. Instead so often it’s about cosy complacency and gossip.  That’s the trouble when Christianity becomes respectable. I’ve done my best to bring it back into the gutter but people don’t listen to me any more than to Amos.

So: be crafty for Christ. Work for the kingdom. And for this church community, working towards cooperation with St Paul’s under one incumbent, this command has particular immediacy.

It would be easy to come together in a way that requires minimal change: the odd tweak here and there, this a bit later, that a bit earlier, and things can continue more or less as now.

The trouble is they can’t. This generation, our generation, is dying off and each loss is not matched by a gain. There is no steady state, and soon there will be no critical mass of people for all the tasks.

If you take the gospel and Amos seriously you will stop trying to keep things much as they were. It’s like a dying patient on life support. You will instead try some imaginative thinking. Jesus laid into his disciples for not reading the signs of the times – and this is exactly what you need to do. 

Ask yourselves:

• What will this part of Burton look like in 10 years time? 
• How many C of E churches will still be open, and how many will have weekly services?
• What are the likely forces that will shape society?
• How can we build a church community to serve this part of Burton?
• Is it right that decisions about the future are taken largely by people who won’t be around to see it?

Ask yourselves:

• Why do you need a mass in each church every Sunday? Why not one in each church alternate Sundays with non-Eucharistic services on other Sundays?
• Is holy communion the right hook to grab people? Weekly mass is a fairly recent feature of the C of E. 
• Will people be attracted by the music on offer? the welcome of strangers? 
• Is the church warm and are the seats comfortable?
• In short, is church worth getting out of bed for?

If you treat church as a private club, then it will die, and it deserves to. If you heed Amos and as a church community love your neighbour as yourself by fighting injustice, I suspect people will come. 

Jesus said he wanted us to be smart like the man on the fiddle—but for what is right—using every means possible to stimulate us to work for justice and the common good.