Sunday 18 January 2009

Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 18 January 2009

Last week we had the story of the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptist, an event which marked the start of Jesus’s ministry, and here we have in today’s Gospel what happened the very next day, the calling of the first disciples. The other Gospels have Jesus walking by the lake of Galilee and calling them from where they sat by their fishing boats mending their nets, but John remembers it quite differently- for him the first encounter is by the river Jordan, where two disciples watch Jesus as he is walking by and are fascinated by him- encouraged by John the Baptist they start following Jesus, and Jesus turns round to see who they are.
What happens as John describes it is something that is deeply theological, something in other words that speaks to us of God and mankind’s relationship to him. And here we have the first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel, “What do you want?” This is the question that Our Lord puts to everyone who shows any interest in him, in following him, in becoming a disciple of his- what is it that you are really looking for? What is it that you need? It is a question that touches on the basic need that is in every human being, a need to turn to God, to have some kind of intimacy and friendship with God that will put meaning and contentment into our lives. The answer of the two disciples is very interesting, they say “Where do you live?” or, in the better translation of the RSV, “Where are you staying?” The Greek word that John is using here –menein- does mean live, but it means stay, dwell, abide, words that have an idea of permanence about them. As humans, we live with the fact that nothing stays, nothing stays the same- “change and decay in all around I see” as the old hymn has it. One of the factors that is built into the human condition that cause us so much distress is that we live in a world of change, change and death, and we long to find something, someone, to grab hold of that will not change, that will stay the same no matter what. Alas, there is nothing, no one, that will not change- only God is the changeless one, never bored with us, never cross with us, never trading us in for a younger model, never abandoning us! An old hymn reminds us that “earthly friends may falter and change with changing years” – it is only Jesus who is the “friend who never faileth”, the one who is as St Claude la Colombière used to call “le seul, le véritable ami”, the one true friend. So the disciples are voicing this great yearning of all mankind, for something that is lasting, for a connexion of some kind to the eternal, for God. And Jesus responds to this desire with the invitation to join him in the place where he stays, in the permanence of his friendship- “so they went and saw where he lived”. And, such was the bond between them, so much was this the exact answer to their longings, that John says “they stayed with him”- they had come to stay in his friendship for ever. That is what our Lord has come to earth to offer mankind, the possibility of returning to an easy relationship with God, to enjoy his favour, to be at peace with him, and to stay in that peace.
The Gospel passage goes on to show us what is the natural, inevitable development that follows on from our entering into this new closeness with Our Lord. One of the two disciples we have been talking about is named here as Andrew, and the first thing he does is dash off to tell someone else about Jesus, who he is and what his message is- he goes to find his brother Simon Peter. That is part and parcel of being a disciple isn’t it- we become apostles too, people who go out to find others and bring them in to the circle and influence of our loving Saviour, so that they too can find in his friendship the peace and the permanence we crave in all the changes that swirl around us and bewilder us, mislead us and disappoint us. And notice what happens when we do evangelise, when we do our bit to explain the faith, to bring people to Our Lord. In explaining it, we enrich ourselves, in teaching- as any teacher knows- we deepen our own understanding. When Andrew first meets Jesus he just calls him “Rabbi”, just recognising that he is a great man, a great teacher, nothing more- at least, nothing he is sure of, even though he may have a few glimmerings of the glorious truth of who he really is. But by the time he is telling his brother about him, he is saying “We have found the Messiah”. So it is that as we try to explain our faith we find we grow in it and fresh and deeper insights come to us- I know I find this myself constantly on the RCIA programme.
And when Jesus meets Simon, as we all know, he gives him a new name- Cephas in Aramaic, or Peter in Greek. This is not a real name as such, it means Stone or Rock and so it is a nickname, like calling someone “Rocky”. We have had a lot in the press lately about nicknames. One of the stupidest sayings in the English language, I always think, is “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. Rubbish! We all know that cruel unkind words can do far more harm to us than anything else, and their wounding impact stays with us far longer than any bruise. And sometimes nicknames are nasty, aren’t they, a sly way of insulting us. But in their proper use, they can be a great sign of belonging, being part of the group, one of the family and so on. They can also be a deliberate attempt at forging a new identity- hence all the tags young people use on the street and the internet and so on. That is what is happening here- Jesus is giving Simon a nickname to show Simon is now a particularly close friend, an intimate, and of course also to indicate his new identity, his special function in the group, which Matthew has Jesus spell out- “the rock on which I shall build my Church”.
And so in this Gospel today we can see the evangelist telling us that Jesus has come to satisfy all those deepest spiritual needs of men and women, for something, someone that will not change, in other words, for God. He shows us Jesus inviting us into the place where he dwells, into the eternal, lasting friendship that is the life of God, letting us stay with him, calling us by terms of endearment and giving us a new identity. When shortly Fr Chris holds up the consecrated host and tells us “This is the lamb of God” he will be echoing John the Baptist’s words in this scene. May we respond as those first two disciples did, and come to communion to accept Our Lord’s invitation to come and dwell with him, as he comes to dwell with us, and may we stay in his friendship for ever. Amen.

New Year's Day 2009

Homily for New Year’s Day: Mary the Mother of God 1 January 2009 The first impulse of the Church at the start of each new year is to confide ourselves afresh to the maternal care of Our Lady and to ask for her prayers to assist us as we make our first steps into the unknown- and not for many years has a new year seemed so unknown as this, when we face the colossal financial uncertainties in which the whole world is gripped. I try to read nowadays the business pages of the newspaper every day to see if I can understand what’s going on, but even the so-called experts who write the articles seem never to agree on how bad things are going to be or what it is going to feel like or how long this recession is going to last. And of course there is no shortage of religious people also wading in with their own predictions, their own take on these financial developments. Most of what they write annoys me I must say- I don’t like being told that being poor is going to be good for me! We will get our priorities right, they seem to suggest, once we are broke. Well, maybe….I find all that rather patronising, for who wants to be told that this is going to be good for you whether you like it or not? So now here I am this morning, yet another religious person, but not a patronising one I hope- and what is my take on all this? Well, I have no take actually. But one thing I do want to share with you, and that is a message that I have found this Christmas striking me with a new urgency in the familiar Gospel stories of the birth of Christ. You know of course that only two of the Gospels give us accounts of Jesus’s birth: Matthew and Luke. Let’s recall what Luke tells us first of all. Luke begins his Gospel not with the birth of Our Lord, but with the conception of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus who will be his herald, the last of the prophets announcing the coming of the Messiah, the one whom our Orthodox brethren call simply “John the Forerunner.” Elizabeth, barren and past child-bearing age anyway, is suddenly pregnant, and the angel Gabriel comes to John’s father Zechariah to tell him this astounding news. When he sees the angel, standing by the altar just as he is about to perform his liturgical duties, he is of course frightened- Luke says “fear fell upon him”. But Luke goes on to say that the angel speaks to Zechariah and his opening words are “Do not be afraid!”- “Do not be afraid, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness”. Do not be afraid- this is the refrain we hear no less than three times in the infancy narrative of Luke. You remember that this is what Gabriel also says to Our Lady when he greets her “Hail, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!” Mary too, like Zechariah, is bewildered by this sudden apparition, Luke tells us that “she was greatly troubled….and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be”. At once the angel says to her “Do not be afraid, for you have found favour with God”. And the third time we hear this saying is when an angel appears to those humble ordinary people, the shepherds, who were on duty that cold dark night, out in the fields watching their flock of sheep. They too were scared stiff- Luke says “they were filled with fear”. What does the old carol say? “Mighty dread had filled their troubled minds”. And what is the first thing the angel says to them? “Be not afraid” - “Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people”. And when we turn to Matthew’s Gospel we find the same thing. Where Luke has concentrated very much on Our Lady and showing us everything from Mary’s point of view, Matthew instead concentrates more on the person of Joseph. (One reason he does this is that he is anxious to show how Jesus fulfils all the criteria that the prophets had given through the centuries about the Messiah, and of course one thing they all agreed on was that the Messiah would come from the House of David, and Joseph was a descendant of David). Matthew begins his account by telling us that Joseph and Mary have got engaged, and that Joseph at first doesn’t know what to do when he finds out that Our Lady is pregnant. He thinks, doesn’t he, that maybe the best thing will be to divorce her privately. Matthew goes on to tell us “but as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream”. The angel explains that Mary is with child by the Holy Spirit- and he begins with the words “Joseph, son of David, do not fear”. “Do not fear to take Mary your wife”. And so you see no less than four times in the Christmas stories we hear the angels saying “Do not be afraid!” They are saying that to us too this Christmas if we will listen- at this holy season as my favourite carol says there are “angels bending near the earth to tune their harps of gold”. The carol goes on “But man at war with man hears not the love-song that they bring”. That is the risk we run when we are so consumed with all our worries about the future, that we do not listen! There are many people, many insistent voices, clamouring for our attention, especially now with news coming in every day of this or that bank collapsing, this or that firm laying off its workers, this or that politician promising all kinds of solutions and blaming everyone but themselves. We need to stay calm in all this maelstrom that is surging around us. We need to do two things, it seems to me. One is to use our brain, to use the brain that God has given us, to try to think as clearly as we can about what’s happening and how it will affect us personally. That is what Zechariah did: once he had heard Gabriel’s message he began thinking- “How shall I know this?” And it is what Our Lady did: she was thinking fast from the moment of the Archangel’s greeting when “she considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be”. Luke says “And Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I have no husband?” The other is to listen and take to heart the angels’ message to us- “Do not be afraid!” “Hush your noise” as the carol says “hear the love-song that they bring”. Let us advance into this year of grace 2009 in a spirit of confidence, inspired by the message that the angels bring us. Let us listen to the voice of God in our lives, those promptings of the Holy Spirit that will come to us in the quiet of our prayers and in our reflecting on the Word of God in the Scriptures; let us be like Mary in this, and “treasure all these things and ponder them” in our hearts, and then we may be like her in this too, that “we have found favour with God”. As we listen to the angels announcing to us the good news, of “peace to men who enjoy his favour” let us put aside our fears as the angels bid us, and may God “be gracious and bless us” as we walk into the unknown in the company of Our Lord and his Blessed Mother. Amen.

Christmas Eve 2008

Homily for Christmas Eve Vigil Mass 2008 As we processed it to church for this Mass, it was a joy to see so many dear and familiar faces, all smiling at the approach of this holy night, but chief among them I am pleased to see my old friend Solange, here in row A- she is nearly 89, and housebound, this is the first Christmas she has managed to get to Mass for many years but I dragged her here tonight. Soyez la bienvenue! Solange enchants me with her fund of stories about her childhood on a farm in the Vosges, in Lorraine, in Eastern France. I particularly enjoy her reminiscences about those village Christmases eighty or so years ago, when as midnight approached you could see from all the neighbouring farms each family set out for Mass, and come trudging along the paths at the edges of the fields, each with their own lantern swinging in the night, all those lights bobbing along, each one a family group muffled up against the cold, making their way to the village church while the bells pealed out in the frosty air. And there, in that ancient church as the Mass began, the choir- and Solange was in the village choir as a little girl- would belt out that charming old French Christmas hymn, “Minuit Chrétiens!” which we know in translation as “O Holy night”. It has a lot of theology in it, like all the old hymns do, and the second verse has a particularly striking line, I think: speaking of the birth of the Redeemer it asks “Qui lui dira notre reconnaissance?” Who will tell him our gratitude? How are we going to show our gratitude, how are we going to express to Our Lord how grateful we are that he came into our world, into our flesh, and dwelt among us? My Aunt, who brought me up, was big on manners- saying the right thing at the right time. But words, as I often found out, were never enough to satisfy her. If I had done something wrong, and said sorry, perhaps a bit too easily or a bit half-heartedly, she would say sceptically “Well, you don’t look sorry!” And so I learnt to act sorry! But that wasn’t enough either- to show I was sorry and meant it, I had to do something, to do something nice to the person I’d upset, to try to put right whatever it was I’d done wrong. And so it was with being grateful- just saying thank you was a start (I used to think as a boy that if I didn’t say thank you the ceiling would fall in, my Aunt’s eyes so often were raised to it!). Being grateful, like being sorry, had to mean more than just words, it had to involve action. And so it is with us tonight, when we consider how we are going to answer that question in the old hymn- how are we going to thank God for his precious gift, the gift of his only Son, the baby in the manger who has entered our world and taken on our humanity? Words are a start but we will want to do more than just words. An advert on TV has given me an answer- I wonder if you have seen it. It’s for the famous chemist’s that we have a branch of in the shopping centre here, and it takes place in an office where all the staff-mostly women- are taking part in a “Secret Santa”, and are secretly wrapping up the presents they have bought for the name they have drawn- a shaver for the man with the unruly beard, tweezers for the girl whose eyebrows meet in the middle, and so on. And there is one young woman who has a crush on the man whose name she has drawn, and she is busy wrapping herself up in a whole roll of Christmas paper and when the time comes for them all to go down to the tree and put their presents round it, there she is, try to hop her way down the stairs all done up as a present herself! She is the present, she is going to give herself, to some lucky man! Can that be us tonight? Can we make of our lives a present? If we stop and think about ourselves, and how we conduct our lives, and how we behave to those around us, are we a gift? Are we really much of a gift? Can we try to be a gift, a gift and a blessing, to our loved ones, to our neighbours and friends, to our work colleagues? We can ask Our Lord to help us become such a gift, so that we are better gifts, real presents to those among whom we live. At every Mass the priest takes the unconsecrated bread on the paten and says one of a variety of prayers: sometimes in Canon II he says “Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy”- those words you know apply to us too- “that they may become for us the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. You see, we too must change with the changes that are wrought on the altar, we need to be made holy, we too need to be changed into the Body of Christ, to become more and more like Christ so that we can be his body in the world. In Canon III the priest says “May he make us an everlasting gift to you”. Our Lord is a gift to us, and we in our turn want to be a gift to him- this is the exchange of gifts that the old missal called “a wonderful commerce”, that God shares our humanity and we share his divinity, which is in the prayer that the deacon makes as he mixes the chalice to hand to the priest. Tonight we use the ancient Roman Canon, in which you will hear Fr Sean say “Bless and approve our offering, make it acceptable to you, an offering in spirit and in truth”. When we hear those words, let us place in our imagination ourselves and our lives on that paten next to the bread, so that it is of ourselves we are speaking- bless me, approve of me, make me acceptable to you, make my life an offering in spirit and in truth. Then our lives will be changed- if we allow ourselves to co-operate with the graces that come to us at this holy Mass tonight- and we will be able to be the gift to our family that we want to be, the blessing to those with whom we live and work. And so we answer that old carol’s question – who will tell him our gratitude? – we will! Dear Lord Jesus, let you spirit come upon us this Christmas night to make us holy, to make us acceptable to you, to make us an everlasting gift to you, as we bring to the manger the gift that is our very selves, an offering in spirit and in truth. Amen.