2021 30th May. Sunday.

Isaiah 6:1-8 Psalm 29 Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17

How can one God be three Persons? How can three Persons be one God? The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity (or the “teaching about the Holy Trinity”) is always hard to understand. But perhaps that is where the problem lies: we try to understand the doctrine as if it were a problem in maths. We know that “3 into 1 won’t go”; we know that something cannot be one thing and three things at the same time; we know that if three share in one, each of the three gets only 1/3. We bring our intellectual brains and “O” level maths to bear on the Trinity and can make no sense of it; we read all that has been written on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and get even more confused; we try to explain the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and find that our words are not only confused, but heretical (if you are worried about falling into Trinitarian Heresy take comfort from the fact that many people have been there before you; it is unlikely that you will come up with anything new in the way of heresies!)

Perhaps our problem lies in our attempt to understand, define, explain. After all, if I asked you how you know your family or your friends, you wouldn’t attempt to understand, define or explain them, you just know them. You know them by how they look and what they say, what they do and how they interact with you. You just know them, and that’s enough.

Our readings today are really about knowing God. About coming into his presence and seeing how God looks, about opening our ears and hearing what God says, about looking around us and seeing what God does, about experiencing God and feeling God with us.

Isaiah entered the temple and encountered God. He saw God’s innate holiness and knew that what and who he had encountered was entirely God, the God who is Holy, Holy, Holy. The Psalmist hears and feels the power of God in nature, seeing how even the mightiest storm is dwarfed by the power of God. The Psalmist experienced God’s innate glory, and knew that what and who he had encountered was entirely God, the God who is Glory, Glory, Glory.

St Paul wrote to the Romans about his experience of God, that the Holy Spirit enabled him to name God, and the Son enabled him to live with God, and the Father enabled him to inherit from God. St Paul felt the love of God, and knew that what and who he had encountered was entirely God, the God who is Love, Love, Love.

When Nicodemus came to Jesus he came looking for answers: Who is Jesus? Where is God? How do I come before the presence of God? He couldn’t understand Jesus’ answer (can any of us understand this answer?), but Jesus shewed him that the work of the Father and the work of the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit are all one, and that by their work in us and on us and for us we know them, the Three Persons who are One.

We shouldn’t neglect the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as too hard for us to understand. We shouldn’t dissect the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as too complicated to make sense. We shouldn’t reject the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity as too esoteric to matter to the average Christian. Rather we need to experience the Holy Trinity through our worship, in our prayers, on the pages of the Bible. Then we can know the Holy Trinity, even as we can know our family, not through experiment, but through experience, an experience that draws us into the life of the Holy Trinity and draws the Holy Trinity into our life.

Image: Andrej Rublev: Icon of the Trinity.

2021 23rd May. Pentecost.

Ezekiel 37:1-14 Acts 2:1-21 Psalm 104:26-end Romans 8:22-27 John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry we read that the Holy Spirit drove him out into the desert. There he prayed and fasted and there tempted him in vain. Now the Holy Spirit has fallen on the disciples and driven them out too. Not into the desert, but into the market place, into the midst of people. We see the crowds gathering around the disciples, hearing the message of God’s transforming love revealed in the life and actions, the and resurrection of Jesus; what do we think about it all? Well, I suppose this year we think about the disciples all gathered in that upper room, and breaking Covid Bubble Rules, then speaking without facemasks to people who are not maintaining a 2m social distancing. We can’t follow the disciples’ example this year!

How does that make you feel? Are you relieved that we can’t all gather, that we can’t go out into the market place to proclaim God’s message, that we can’t invite people to gather around and listen in. The gift of the Holy Spirit and God’s power in us to do his work should feel like an awesome privilege, but it often feels like an awful pressure. The thought of having to stand up in front of strangers and tell them a story that they probably don’t want to hear is at the very least uncomfortable, and at worst terrifying.

But it’s what the Holy Spirit drives us to do and it’s what the Holy Spirit gives us gifts to do. We are not supposed to do it with our own resources; if we try, we will fail. Look at the story in Ezekiel of the dry bones. Could the bones stand on their own? Of course not. As Ezekiel said only God could remake the fallen human beings, and God did, giving them new tendons and veins, flesh and arteries, new life and spirit. And so it was at Pentecost. Fallen humans were filled with a new life which just had to come out in new ways. These men who spoke the good news they had come to know for themselves were suddenly not just the men they used to be, they were a new creation.

I wonder where the Holy Spirit is driving each of us? I wonder for what the Holy Spirit is resourcing us? I wonder what gifts we’ve each been given and what we will do with them? For some of us it is the gift of speaking and preaching, explaining the Gospel through sermons and reflections, writing and public speaking. But that’s not the only way to live out the Pentecost commission of spreading the news of the glorious Gospel of Christ across the whole world.

Perhaps your gift is the gift of empathy, sitting beside those in trouble and helping them with your wisdom and kindness, able to explain that you do this, not in your own , but because the Holy Spirit of God enables you to listen and to hear, to speak, encourage and comfort.

Perhaps your gift is the gift of busy-ness, working for the foodbank, a help centre, caring for neighbours who can’t care for themselves, knowing and able to let others know that you don’t do this because you are or , but because God’s Holy Spirit strengthens you to do the work that builds a good society in troubled times and troubled places.

Perhaps your gift is bringing up a family - your children or grandchildren, your own family or an adopted or fostered family, always able to explain that your reserves of love come from the Holy Spirit who fills your heart to be more like the loving heart of God.

The Holy Spirit drives all of us out of ourselves into engagement with people outside our narrow circle, sometimes outside our comfort zone. The Holy Spirit equips us to do the work he sends us to. The Holy Spirit renews and refreshes, resources and restores us. The Holy Spirit fills us with God and remakes us in God’s own image.

Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, changed time, eternity, history and the future. Whatever we do, we do not do alone, for we do it with the Holy Spirit and in the footsteps of Jesus.

Image: El Greco 1541 – 1614 Pentecost c.1600 Museo del Prado, Madrid

2021 16th May, Seventh Sunday of Easter.

Ezekiel 36:24-8 Acts 1:15-17, 21-end Psalm 1, 1 John 5:9-13 John 17:6-19.

Today we are in a strange in-between sort of place. Jesus has ascended into heaven and is seated in glory at his Father’s side from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead at the end of time. The disciples meanwhile are waiting for something to happen and we are waiting with them. The whole ten days between Ascension and Pentecost should be as exciting as Christmas Eve for a child, waiting and waiting and waiting and a full stocking and the knowledge that HE came! But, somehow, we don’t have the excitement: maybe it’s because we’re grown up, or maybe it’s just the wrong time of year, but instead of ten days of anticipation this in-between “waiting Sunday” always reminds me of Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie”. After his first day at school he complains “They never gave me the present!” What present? asked his bemused family. “They said: ‘You’re Laurie Lee ain’t you? Well you just sit there for the present.’ I sat there all day but I never got it.” Somehow we feel as if we’re waiting but not getting anything or anywhere.

Endless waiting without getting anything or anywhere - surely that’s the definition of Christmas Eve when you’re little, watching the clock tick interminably round to bed- time! And this is a season of waiting. There is nothing we can do, it’s all up to someone else.

Ezekiel first promised it to a people waiting in exile in Babylon. There was nothing for them to do, but God promised that he would come and give them a new heart and a new start in life; they just had to wait. Jesus expanded the message of waiting for what God would give as he prayed in front of his disciples, asking his Heavenly Father for the perfect gifts for his followers: truth in their hearts and protection at their backs, asking his Heavenly Father to care for the disciples as he’d cared for Jesus, and as Jesus had cared for his friends.

So, is that all there is to this Sunday, sitting around, waiting for the clock to strike the magic hour, waiting for next Sunday and Pentecost. Is this just a day to mark time or even kill time?

Although our Old Testament and Gospel readings are all about the promise of future good things, the reading from Acts and the Psalm are all about what to do while we are waiting. In Acts we see an election to fill a vacancy in the Twelve Apostles caused buy the unfortunate, if inevitable, loss of Judas. This is a most apposite reading in our season of APCMs and elections for Churchwardens and PCC members! In Psalm 1 we read how to lead a good life in waiting, walking away from the wicked and the scoffers, meditating on God’s word and drawing on his goodness as trees planted by a river draw up good water. And this is probably also an apposite reading for those preparing to stand for office, or for the newly elected!

Waiting-time is an active time of getting ready. Making sure that when the Holy Spirit falls on us and drives us out to do God’s work we’ve got our metaphorical shoes on so we can go out, and we’ve cleared our path so we won’t trip over anything!

As children, our waiting on Christmas Eve was passive; in this season of waiting for the Holy Spirit, our waiting should be active, getting ready to respond. There is nothing we can do to hasten God in his work, there is nothing we can do to compel the Holy Spirit to do this or that. It is God who sends the Holy Spirit where he will; it is God who gives us both the gifts and the opportunities to use those gifts. But we need open hands and hearts, and ready tongues and feet to respond.

So, now is the time for us to be on our knees, praying to be ready to respond. It’s not long now, Pentecost is nearly upon us. Watch and pray that we will be ready to enjoy that present when it comes.

Image: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 1606 – 1669 Passion series: Ascension — 1636 Alte Pinakothek, Munich

2021 Thursday 13th May. Ascension Day.

Daniel 7:9-14 Acts 1:1-11 Psalm 47 Ephesians 1:15-end Luke 24:44-end.

In the great Easter Season, this is the latest Red Letter Day, the latest high point in the story of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and our transformation from those who die to those who live.

It’s a strange sort of day in many ways. Although it is a major festival, it is often overlooked, a worrying reminder of how often we “do God” only on Sundays. Although the resurrection of Christ means that he cannot be parted from us by death, yet today we are celebrating his departure from us. Although we rejoice that Jesus lived on earth and went about among us, today we remember that he did not continue to go about among us, but returned to his Father

When artists try to depict the resurrection, whether they use words or imagery, their efforts are often a little strange too. How can we imagine someone ascending from earth and entering the heavens - especially now that we have sent vehicles, cameras and people up above the earth’s atmosphere? This painting by Andrea Mantegna is fairly typical example. A crowd of disciples looking upwards at Jesus standing on a cloud; the disciples look bemused and Jesus looks a little awkward. This image has a small host of angels supplying power for the upward motion; some images shew a cloud with Jesus’ feet dangling through it. Although this is a serious and holy day, the images can move us to unseemly mirth!

Whatever do the painters think they are doing? Whatever did St Luke think he was doing with his little account of the Ascension in his Gospel and his longer account in the Acts of the Apostles?

When we compare Luke’s accounts with the vision in Daniel 7 of one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven and receiving dominion, glory and kingship so that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him in his everlasting kingdom that cannot be destroyed, when we read St Luke and Daniel together we can see a theological point being made. Jesus is the one who came from heaven and who returns to heaven. He is not just a kind man, good teacher, gentle healer, but he is equal in power and authority, equal in divinity and holiness with God the Father, for he is truly God of God, Jesus is God the Son.

But there is another theological point to make. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he ascended as a human being. Jesus was fully man and fully God. Although he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself and was born in human likeness, yet here on earth he did not cease to be God. And now in heaven, he does not cease to be man. Jesus has gone before us in his resurrection to eternal life and that eternal life is for living, for he is living it in his human body. We, who are human will be welcomed into heaven, not as memories, spirits or ghosts, but as fully human beings, even as Jesus is fully human.

Today may be the forgotten festival, but it is a vital day, a day of promise that Jesus’ work has been completed and all who follow him will be redeemed, will be restored, and will be themselves here on earth as they will be in heaven.

Image: Andrea Mantegna 1431 – 1506. Ascension of Christ. Uffizi Gallery, Florence

2021 9th May, Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Isaiah 55:1-11 Acts 10:44-end Psalm 98 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17.

If last week we were wondering what fruit to bear and where to bear it, this week the call of the risen Jesus to live his risen life comes to us louder and clearer than ever. For here is Jesus saying “you are not my servants, you are my friends; I have chosen you to bear fruit that will last, so go out and bear fruit.” I don’t know how you feel when you hear those words, but I think we can all feel a sort of pride (not arrogance, but pride): Jesus has chosen us, Jesus calls us his friends. We are proud, not in ourselves, not in our own strength and power, but because of Jesus. He has noticed us, seen something in us that maybe we haven’t seen in ourselves. He knows he can work with us and we can work with him.

That calling, that working together, that bearing fruit is all wrapped up in love: the love that the Father and the Son share is the love that embraces us and fills us. Just as we read in the account from Acts, the love of God is poured out on those who hear and receive the good news about Jesus’ transformation of humanity and his redemption of our sorry lot, his love is poured out in the gift of the Holy Spirit, God with us, in us, filling and changing us.

It is we who are transformed by our encounter with God and our experience of the Holy Spirit. It is not enough just to hear, to understand, and to believe, we must be changed and enlivened by that experience. The problem with saying that is that if, like me, you’ve grown up knowing God and can’t really put a finger on the moment you truly believed, the occasion you were first filled with the fiery power of the Holy Spirit, the experience of receiving the eternal life of Christ, it’s all too easy to wonder if we really have been transformed by our encounter with God. Is all this real?

So, this is where we look outside ourselves to . We will know that God’s Holy Spirit is at work within us transforming us into the likeness of Christ by our actions. When we obey his commandments to love other people, not just to think nice things about people, but to perform acts of loving kindness that change lives (whether that’s with our time or talents or treasure), then we will know that we are Jesus’ friends, chosen by him, bearing his fruit.

That is often hard to do. It is often hard to do more than think nice thoughts, or worry about other people, or put some spare cash in the collecting pot for some good cause. It’s particularly hard when the people we feel we ought to help aren’t as keen on our help as we’d like them to be, when they don’t seem grateful, or when, however grateful they are, they carry on just as they were before and don’t seem to be doing any better than they were before we waded in to help them!

It’s also hard when we’re tired, or busy, or feeling needy, bored or stressed ourselves. When doing God’s good work, even if we’re doing it with him, just feels like too much hard work.

We can’t always manage to live up to Jesus’ choice. We all fail to obey Jesus’ commandments and we all fail to go out and bear fruit at least some times. So, here is another reason for coming back to these readings in the Easter season. These readings remind us that just as we are sent out to bear fruit, so we are called in to receive the refreshing experience of God again and again and again. In Isaiah that refreshing experience is likened to receiving the best of food and drink and not having to pay because it is God’s gift to strengthen us. Isaiah talks about an everlasting covenant (first made with King David) that will promise God’s everlasting love for us, and will enable us to be everlasting witnesses, workers and givers-away of God’s love. And once again, that promise of a calling in and a giving of all we need sends us to look out at the world: where will we take God’s good gifts, where will we join in with his work, where will we experience the proud privilege of being Jesus’ chosen friends helping others to experience his life and helping others to choose him too?

Image: Christ the True Vine, 16th century Greek icon

2021 2nd May, Fifth Sunday of Easter.

Genesis 22:1-18 Acts 8:26-end Psalm 22:25-end 1 John 4:7-end John 15:1-8.

It’s still Easter, so what are we supposed to do about it? Yes, Easter is the most important festival in the Church’s year; Easter is the most transforming event in the world’s life; Easter marks the beginning of a new age and a new experience of God, but even so, this is the fifth Sunday of Easter, and we’ve got a few more to come. So, what are we supposed to do about it? Is it enough just to continue admiring the Risen Lord? Is it enough just to continue marvelling at the of God’s life over the death of sin? Is it enough just to bask in the reality of eternal life beginning now and never ending, or do we need to do something?

Over the Easter period we survey all the Easter readings, and then we go back to what Jesus said before he died. We go back so that we can learn how to go forward. We hear again what Jesus said so that we can hear afresh what he is saying to us now. We revisit the past so that we can reimagine the future.

Today we hear Jesus say “I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me and produce much fruit, for in this the Father is glorified. If you do not produce fruit, the Father will prune you away and you will no longer abide in me but be cut off from me.” That is what Jesus said to his disciples before he was arrested, tried and put to death, long before any of them had any understanding of his resurrection and his gift of eternal life. However, when Jesus first said these words he had already been talking to them about his impending death and departure, and the gift of the Holy Spirit who would be God with them always. When Jesus first called his followers to abide in him and bear fruit for him and like him he was always pointing to a future where God’s life in his followers would enable them to live God’s life in their world. He looked to the past to speak out of the present into the future.

Today this reading is partnered with the terrible reading about Hagar and Ishmael which I explored with you last year, and also with the reading about the baptism of the first convert, the Ethiopian Eunuch, with the hymn of praise at the end of the terrible Psalm of loneliness, Psalm 22 and with St John’s instructions to live in love, for in love God lives in us and we live like him. How can all these readings work together and how can they speak to us today for now and the future?

All of them are about bearing fruit, the fruit that looks a little bit like Jesus and tastes a little bit like Jesus, that grows in us when we are a little bit like Jesus and that nourishes all who encounter it to be a little bit like Jesus. Hagar’s story is a reminder that the world often does not model the love of Jesus, it often casts out the weak and those who do not adhere to its preferred ways; Psalm 22 is a reminder that the world can be a lonely place and that we may feel bereft even of God in it, and yet at the end of both these readings there is a realisation that God can grow incredible futures out of disastrous pasts. This is not to deny the sheer nastiness of Hagar’s experience of the true loneliness of the Psalmist, but to recognise that God’s love for each person and for the world cannot be overcome by the stupid and cruel things that people do to each other, nor the senseless and meaningless disasters and accidents that can befall us.

Whatever our doubts, troubles, pasts or presents, we can grow fruit like Christ, and St John says that this Christ-like fruit will be seen in love for our brothers and sisters, care and service for those around us. This long season of Easter invites us to eat of the fruit that Christ offers, to grow into the likeness of Christ and to bring forth fruit like his to feed our world.

The challenge I face, and perhaps you do too, is to grow and share that fruit, to look at the world around me and hear God’s call of love from the place where he is at work, so that I will go and work there too. If I abide in Jesus and let the Father prune me, I will grow the fruit that is needed in a world that is hungry for God’s love.

Image: detail from the Corporal Acts of Mercy. All Saints, North St, York