Welcome this holy season

Lent begins with much to think about. At home the state of the economy, the strikes in the public services, the continuing cost of living crisis, all remain unresolved. Abroad the war in Ukraine seems far from resolution, the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is palpable; it seems that we are being challenged from all sides, with solutions a long time arriving. Our faith, and its place within the interplay of all these issues, must speak loudly to us as a guide and a response which directs our Lenten practice. Ash Wednesday spoke to us clearly and unequivocally. The mark of the ash on our foreheads must be more than a symbol. The gospel message of fasting, prayer and alms giving needs to be put into practice as much as we can in these coming days. So how can we engage in such a way as to make our witness both meaningful and visible?

All three are in one sense a demonstration of our solidarity with each other. What we are experiencing we do so together and not in isolation. We come together to pray, we share our experiences with the community and with the Lord. Nowhere is this more visible than at the Eucharistic celebration, the “source and the summit” of our Christian witness. It is before the Eucharist that we fast as we open ourselves up to the grace of the sacrament. Into the space we create, comes the animating and inspiring power of the Spirit. It directs our prayer in opening our eyes and ears to the needy and the disadvantaged. It moves us to act as we are sent out to announce the gospel of the Lord, through our deeds of generosity and relief. In doing so we share Christ’s love beyond the confines of our own comfort, causing us to reach out and become aware of others whose want is so great.

This is the challenge of Lent. Let us listen carefully to the gospel on each Sunday and then, during each week, let us pick a day in which we can do our best to live out one of those three actions of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. This Sunday the gospel features the temptation of Jesus in the desert. As we go through this week, let’s make a concrete effort to resist temptation, let us pray about the impact it will have upon us and of how it may change us, to act in a way that helps us to give ourselves more freely to the work of Christ, in the healing of our wounded world.

Our Father

I think it is interesting to note, as it is not widely appreciated, that the prayer which Jesus taught us to pray each day, is part of his teaching that is included in the Sermon on the Mount. Over these last four weeks, the gospel readings have been from this momentous section of Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus unfolds for us a panorama of images that act like a landscape for the Christian life. We are being instructed how to live in the light of these realities, and as we look back over these gospels, we should be mindful of what we are being asked.

The beatitudes themselves have their own context. It is the kingdom of heaven. When we try to define that term, do we assume that Jesus is us calling us to consider a quasi-utopian reality which for many people is simply beyond their grasp. Think of the thousands who are struggling with the circumstances of their lives, be it the cost of living crisis, or the lack of food and shelter. The devastation of war and conflict, or natural disaster, and simply find it inconceivable to imagine how such situations can ever be overcome. Yet at the heart of the ‘Our Father’ we make a petition, that the kingdom for which we long, be made visible and sustainable here on earth, within in the confines of all those difficult and horrible circumstances and conditions. It seems so incongruous but that is what the prayer evokes, and it is what makes the prayer and the whole of the Sermon on the Mount so radical. The idea of turning the other cheek, of going the extra mile and of loving enemies are no longer fanciful expectations, but concrete expressions of the true identity which the Christian faith is about.

From its very beginnings the hallmark of the Christian community was the way in which it sought to offer comfort to those who mourned. Compassion for those in strife, such that it hungered for what was right, notwithstanding the persecutions it suffered. Doing so, because the community and each member of it, knew it was the pathway by which the kingdom was to be made present. It is what Jesus still calls upon us to undertake, each day, evidenced by acts of kindness and generosity, through forgiveness and blessedness. it is sustained for us by the bread of life which feeds us. So when we pray the prayer, we recognise the centrality of the Father’s love, in which we are all blessed.

Let us make this love the driving force of our desire to build the kingdom in all its fulness, beauty and glory.

Light and Salt

Without a doubt these are two necessities of life. Light, generated from the sun gives us warmth and heat, and salt, the compound produced from the two elements of sodium and chlorine, is required in some amount to ensure the survival of all animals and plants. You might then call them essential necessities, so, when Jesus refers to them in the gospel today, we should open our ears and listen to what he tells us. I think he is telling us that our discipleship is identified by association with these two necessities. Light as a means of illuminating a pathway, and salt as a means of adding richness and flavour. But we may ask, where is the pathway leading us to and what is the richness and flavour that is to be brought into play?

In the prologue of John’s gospel, we read that the Word was the true light that enlightens all people...and the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. If we are to be light illuminating a pathway, it must be a pathway that leads all people to Christ. Therefore as disciples, our challenge as followers of Jesus, is to walk this pathway ourselves, encouraging others to take up the same challenge. We cannot therefore allow the light to become submerged or dimmed by our own failure to keep it shining brightly in our lives. The light of Christ has been given to all of us at our baptism. It was lit for us from the Paschal Candle as a reminder that the Risen Lord is now the light that illuminates our journey through life. To be true to our calling we must always support and encourage each other to keep it shining brightly.

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus begins his mission with the word “repent”. It is a word which means “change” as in change your way of doing things or change your way of living. The agents of change in the chemical world are known as catalysts, of which salt is a well-known example. Sprinkle salt on your chips and you will certainly notice the difference! Jesus is identifying us as catalysts of change in the world, agents of reaction and transformation. We are to be proclaimers of the great reagent of change, the gospel. We are to spread its joy and to sprinkle it around liberally and generously so that it transforms our lives and the lives of those around us.

The pathway we walk is to be illuminated by and enlightened by the change from what we were, to what we now are. Through Christ we have become “new creation”. Our eyes have been opened and our lives transformed. We are alive in his life. Let us share this life and show the world how wondrous and beautiful it is.

Praying for Christian Unity

How many of us know that we are in the middle of the week set aside by the Church for prayers for Christian unity? I would guess that it passes most of us by without a great deal of thought. This is of course a great sadness, because we know that for Jesus, one of the things which he prayed for during the Last Supper was that we may all be one. He prayed this prayer in order that our witness as his disciples, should be testament to the world that it was the Father who sent him. These words are his final ones to his disciples gathered together before his goes to his fate. What are we to make of them?

I think that we have become a bit blasé about the whole concept of Christian Unity and tend to treat it as something which is no longer high up in the order of importance in matters ecclesial. We have we contend, more urgent issues to think about within our own denominations, and that the larger and wider topic of ecumenism can be left for a little while longer, for a time when our own concerns within the context of our own communities have been resolved. Well maybe, but it does us no good to disregard what Jesus himself prayed for, and so, one week in the year is the least we should be prepared to offer in the cause of true and faithful ecumenical action. The very word ecumenism refers to a “sense of renewal of the house” which as Christians we all inhabit together, by virtue of our common baptism. However, as we read in the Second Reading at Mass this weekend, we have from the very outset of the Church been prone to prioritise our own preferences and thus create differences. St Paul reminds us that at the heart and centre of our faith are the deeds and words of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and we must never neglect or forget this. Of course, doctrinal and liturgical differences matter, and we strive with all our resolve to heal the wounds that have so bruised our fractured unity. We pray that with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the clear desire on the part of our Church leaders to steer the barque of Peter in the direction of unity, such wounds can and will be healed.

But what of us here now? What can we do? Well, we can make the effort to become involved in the work of ecumenism. As our new parish emerges shouldn’t we also be reaching out to our fellow Christians in common mission and discipleship which can be achieved by becoming closer and more united in our witness? Perhaps a group of parishioners might like to start up such a collaboration. If so let me know and we can see what can be done. As for celebrating this special week we are invited to prayer at Kingswood Methodist Church, Lambourne Drive, Wollaton at 6.30pm on Sunday. Let’s make the effort and help steer the barque.

The Chosen One of God

We have begun the new liturgical year and next week we will dive into Matthew’s gospel with the narrative of the call of the first disciples. But before we do, on this Second Sunday in Ordinary Time the Church always gives us an offering from the Gospel of John. In year A it is the exchange between Jesus and John the Baptist. In year B it is the encounter between Andrew, Simon and Jesus and in year C, it is the Wedding feast at Cana. The Church uses these Second Sundays to continue the “epiphany” theme and as it were, so as to “tag” the forthcoming gospel year, be it Matthew, Mark or Luke, with a Johannine sub-heading, which puts into our minds a particular feature about the nature of Jesus. In year C we are told that Jesus let his glory be shown. In Year B we are invited by Jesus to come and see and be taught by him and in Year A, as we will read this weekend, Jesus is identified as the Chosen one of God.

In Matthew’s gospel this theme of Jesus as the Chosen One is specifically addressed by Matthew who quotes from the prophet Isaiah, equating Jesus with the Servant of the Lord. Here is my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, the favourite of my soul (Mat Ch 12 v 18). It makes us call to mind the voice of the Father on the mount of the Transfiguration: This is my Son, the beloved; he enjoys my favour. Clearly Matthew is identifying Jesus with the figure of the servant, as the one who will be the light to the nations so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Indeed, Matthew will close his gospel with these very words, endorsing the truth that Jesus is the one who has been given the authority to command the apostles to go and make disciples of all the nations.

Here then is something that we can all focus on. As disciples ourselves, chosen by the Chosen One to be advocates of his message of diaconal service, we can by keeping these thoughts in our minds, pick up on the challenge of living out our own service of the word in our daily lives. Our understanding of what this means and implies will be deepened and widened by what we hear Sunday after Sunday in our reading of Matthew’s Gospel. That the example of servant leadership which Jesus lives out can become the model that all leaders, both religious and secular, strive to express. As we discover anew and explore the treasures of the Matthew’s gospel, we must be willing to open up its store of delights, to be shared amongst us, so that each one of us can find that what is being offered to the words are pearls of greatest value.

Arise, shine out for your light has come

Friday’s feast of the Epiphany and today’s celebration of the Baptism of Jesus have much in common. Both are experiences of revelation. Both present Christ to the world. Both display the divinity of Christ as a ‘showing forth’ of the Word or Logos. Both express Christ as incarnated and made present amongst us. It is our response to this reality which marks us out as Christian. The challenge we have, as we begin this new year of the Lord 2023 is this: are we going to respond?

The Epiphany is the great feast of ‘lambent beauty’ as the hymn puts it. The light of Christ shines forth to illuminate and enlighten our minds. The magi came to find the Christ child and having found him, they offer him their gifts. In return they themselves are given something precious which is revealed to them, and the pathway of their lives is changed. Are we able to come to Christ in a similar way? Are we prepared to give to Christ the things we regard as most valuable so that he can in return change them and provide us with a new and more profound pathway of understanding, by showing us how to use them in a different way?

The Baptism of Jesus is a moment of radiance when John is illumined in mind and heart and sees and understands the awesome reality of what is happening. Jesus takes his place with us and alongside us as ‘Emmanuel’, God with us, emerging from the waters of the Jordan to take on the mantle of the Servant of the Lord. The one who will bring forth a new covenant, a light to the nations. Can we see ourselves as taking up this call to be servants to each other and if so in what capacity?

We have a new pathway to walk as our new parish emerges. It will be a pathway along which the treasures and gifts of renewal and recommitment will enrich and strengthen our understanding of how our Christian witness is to be received. Each one of us will have our part to play in this renewal and we must allow the Spirit to stir up in us the desire to make God’s presence known. We must bring our gifts and have them transformed. We must take up the calling which our baptism invokes and shed our reticence, realising that we are beloved by God and endowed with his grace and his truth to proclaim his gospel.

The message of these two great feasts of the Epiphany and the Baptism of Jesus must not pass us by. They must be revealed in us and through us and make each one of us arise and shine out, so that the light of Christ is to be seen, transforming pathways and encouraging us all to walk in the light of the Lord. 

Thinking of Family

The Feast of the Holy Family was yesterday and today we have the celebration of Mary Mother of God. This short reflection ponders on them both. The thoughts of a new mother for her child are full of hopes and expectations with a richness that soars beyond what reality tells us to expect, and it is only when the hard facts of life hit home, that reality becomes the landscape in which the challenges of life emerge as the learning experiences which define us.

Whatever Mary pondered in her heart for her son, reality would always rear its head to intrude and to interrupt with its sharp edges and harsh necessities. Whatever the reality of life in Nazareth was like, the basics still needed to be done, and what this involved above anything else was love. The things which Mary treasured were, as with any other young mother for her child, fashioned out of a deep instinctive love for her son. Jesus had to grow up, he had to learn, he had to be told off, he had to be praised and made to feel an essential part of the family. In essence, his life was shaped, and his thoughts were formed, by the love that was poured into him by his parents. Without doubt that involved learning about God, and the importance of understanding that what nourished and nurtured his upbringing was the ease with which God’s presence, through the love of his parents for him, was evident to him. This truth, of making the presence of God’s love the bedrock of his life, was fashioned and shaped in him by his parents, by the community in which he was brought up, and by his wider family.

To make the love of God the bedrock of our family life may not be a bad resolution for the New Year. Jesus was born of a woman; his parents taught him what to value and how to sense the essential goodness in people. They taught him that what mattered was to heal and to restore, to make whole and to forgive. Essentially, they taught him how to love. Into this experience, divine revelation was born, and because of this experience, divine revelation was made comprehensible. The more we are able to touch this experience, the more we are able to accept it. The more we are able to accept it, the more it will fashion us and shape us into fathoming the depths of our humanity so as to access the inexhaustible heights of the Divinity, because the Son of God was born of a woman, who treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.