Trinity 19 Year A – Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14 All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place. These words form the refrain of a song we sometimes sing when we gather together from across the Kings Ridge parishes. One of the key Christian messages has got to be that ‘All are welcome’ A few years ago, someone snapped a picture of a sign at Coventry Cathedral and uploaded it to social media. The image was soon hailed as lovely and brilliant, you may have seen or heard it before, the sign read. We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, widowed, gay, confused, filthy rich, comfortable or dirt poor. We extend a special welcome to wailing babies and excited toddlers. We welcome you whether you can sing like Pavarotti or just growl quietly to yourself. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing’, just woken up or just got out of prison. We don’t care if you’re more Christian than the Archbishop of Canterbury, or haven’t been to church since Christmas ten years ago. We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome keep-fit mums, football dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome you if you’re having problems, are down in the dumps or don’t like ‘organised religion.’ (We’re not that keen on it either!) We offer a welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell or are here because granny is visiting and wanted to come to the Cathedral. We welcome those who are inked, pierced, both or neither. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down their throats as kids or got lost in the city centre and wound up here by mistake. We welcome pilgrims, tourists, seekers, doubters … and you! All are welcome. In our reading from Matthews gospel this morning, we heard a parable that Jesus told about the kingdom of heaven. When the invited guests failed to attend the wedding banquet of the kings son, even on the second time of asking, the king sends out his servants to invite people from the highways and the byways until the banqueting hall is full. The invitation is extended to everyone, the good and the bad … all are welcome. And if the parable had just stopped there, as indeed it does in Lukes gospel, we would be left thinking that’s great … everyone is welcome. But in Matthews gospel there is an unexpected twist in the tail, when the king spots one of the guests, who is not wearing the right clothing, the kings reaction is astonishing, as he throws him out, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Here the parable becomes quite puzzling, after all the man who attended the wedding feast was invited off the streets, how is he supposed to have the right clothes for such an occasion as this? As a teenager, it might surprise you to know I was quite rebellious. As children we went to church every Sunday with our parents, my dad played the organ, my mum helped with the Sunday school, I, along with my sister, was in the church choir my younger brother managed to dodge that, and every Sunday we wore our Sunday best. A dress, or a skirt which had normally been made by either mum or nana. As a teenager, I decided that I had had enough of wearing dresses, I wanted to wear my skin tight, stone washed jeans to church … I was a lot thinner then 😊. My mum was not at all impressed, but I argued back that, surely God is more interested in what is going on in my heart, than in what I look like on the outside … and to my great surprise I actually won the argument. So, off I went to church, triumphantly wearing my skintight jeans, straight into the vestry, where I got robed up and went out to sing in the choir. Quite frankly, I could have been wearing absolutely anything underneath … clearly nothing changes 😊 Our parable this morning however, might suggest though that my mum was right. If the king in the parable, represents God, then God is very interested in what we are wearing. But perhaps we need to understand a bit more about the culture of the day. A wedding feast in the time of Jesus would have been very different to a modern wedding. And one of those differences was that as you arrived, you were given a robe to wear, a bit like my choir robes as a teenager, or indeed the ones I wear today. It would have covered whatever you were wearing underneath, and made all the guests equal in appearance …. role and status becoming completelty irrelevant. The invitation was open … all are welcome. The feast was an unearned gift, and so was the necessary clothing which was provided for you. For the first Christians, the parallel was baptism. The early church placed robes on those coming out of the waters of baptism. The white robes were an outward sign of the inward grace of being clothed in Christ. Candidates for baptism were washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb as Jesus’ righteousness covered their sins. The wedding banquet in the parable is the judgment at the end of time, the robe expected of the guests was this baptismal robe. The grace is that the guests, both good and bad, did not have to provide the robe. The king wants the man to explain how he is improperly attired after having been offered the garment needed for the feast. He was given the team jersey for the Kingdom of Heaven and had refused to wear it. It wouldn’t fit with the rest of Jesus’ teachings to decide that the point of the story is that we already have our baptismal robes and therefore can afford to be smug. No guest to the wedding banquet should enjoy seeing others who were invited failing to join the feast. The cost of the free gift of grace is too high for us to feel self-righteous and to show no concern for others. The gift is to see that even after having his gracious invitation rudely rejected, the king continues to invite others to the banquet. The feast is not reserved for the perfect, but for those willing to be perfected by the generous offer of the host to cover our imperfections with his own robes of righteousness. Far from making us arrogant, this is cause to be humble, knowing that we neither deserved nor earned our invitation. But as the last line, “Many are invited, but few are chosen” hangs in the air, we also see that those who have been robed in Christ are to live into that new life of grace. Having been perfected in Christ does not give us license to continue unchanged. We are to respond to God’s call by conforming our lives ever more closely to Jesus’ life. To enter the Kingdom of Heaven, you just have to receive the gift freely offered and then live into the life to which God has called us. As I close, let me use the words of another hymn as our prayer: Let’s pray Only by grace can we enter only by grace can we stand not by our human endeavour but by the blood of the lamb. Into your presence you call us, you call us to come. Into your presence you draw us, and now by your grace we come, now by your grace we come… Thank you Father, thank you Jesus…. Amen
Through the written word and the spoken word, may we know your living word, Jesus Christ our Saviour. If there is one thing that we as British people excel at, it is talking about the weather, it is our national icebreaker, our reliable conversation filler, our default small talk. But this past summer the weather stopped being small talk, it became the main story. We lived through weeks of scorching heat, parched fields, cracked garden soil and the return of hosepipe bans across the country. For many, a hosepipe ban feels like a mild seasonal inconvenience: we cannot wash the car, the lawn turns brown and the garden looks the worse for wear. Yet if we pause to listen, that notice dropping through the letterbox carries a much deeper message, it gently confronts our illusion of control. It reminds us that water – the very life blood of our fields, our crops and our bodies – is not an unlimited commodity on tap, it is a fragile, precious gift. Today as we celebrate our Harvest Festival alongside the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, two realities cross paths. We give thanks for the soil and the food on our tables, while, St. Francis, the Patron Saint of Ecology, invites us to look afresh at our relationship with the earth. St. Francis famously spoke of Creation as a family, praising God for ‘Sister Water’ who is very useful and humble, precious and chaste. When ‘ Sister Water’ becomes scarce, our human instinct is often to panic, to hoard and secure our own boundaries, but our Scriptures today offer a radically different way to live – shifting our focus from fear to patience and from bigger barns to overflowing rivers. In our Gospel reading from ‘Luke 12’, Jesus tells the story of a farmer who experienced an extraordinarily successful harvest, his fields produced more than expected, but notice his immediate, internal response. He doesn’t look up to offer thanks to God, nor does he look around to see which of his neighbours might be hungry but instead engages in a self-absorbed monologue. “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops --- I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, there I will store all my grain and my goods”. The rich farmer viewed a good harvest, not as a blessing to be shared, but as a private asset to hoard against an unpredictable future. He was driven by a fear that there would never be enough and that his ultimate security lay in the height of his barn walls. In our New Testament reading James issues a sharp prophetic warning to those who operate with this exact mindset. He confronts those who hoard wealth while withholding fair wages from the labourers who reaped their fields. James warns us that when we hoard, exploit or over consume, Creation groans and the vulnerable suffer. When drought hits, heatwaves bake the land or fossil fuel pollution degrades our atmosphere, it is always the poorest communities and most fragile Ecosystems that bear the heaviest burden. When we live life like the rich farmer – treating the Earth’s resources as private property to extract and exhaust – we break our Covenant with God, with our neighbour and with creation. So how do we break free from this anxiety and greed? James offers an answer, that feels directly relevant. Who has stared at a cloudless sky during a dry summer – Patience. “Be patient brothers and sisters until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crops, patiently waiting for the Autumn and Spring rains.” A wise farmer knows that you cannot force the soil to produce on command, you cannot command the rain to fall, nor can you rush the seed in the ground. Agriculture demands humility, rhythm and trust, it requires us to recognise that we are not the masters of creation but it’s stewards. This is where St. Francis becomes our guide, St Francis did not look at the natural world as a collection of resources to be burned, bought or be stockpiled. He saw Creation as a choir of praise. He called the sun his brother, the wind his brother and the earth his mother. Today caring for creation means translating Franciscan love into modern action, when we pray for the healing of the earth our prayers must have feet and hands. Moving away from polluting petrol and diesel toward clean electric transport, harnessing the power of ‘brother sun’ through rooftop solar panels, turning of ‘brother wind’ through offshore wind turbines, retro fitting our homes and churches with clean heating. These are not political choices or engineering tasks, for the follower of Jesus they are acts of Worship. They represent a moral commitment to stop burning up our children’s future and to live in peaceful harmony with God’s Natural Order. While the rich farmer in Jesus’ parable builds bigger barns, Ezekiel gives us a breathtaking vision of what true divine abundance looks like. In Ezekiel 47 we go from water trickling out from under the temple and flows East towards a dry rift valley, it grows deeper and wider from ankle deep to knee deep, to waist deep until it becomes a river so vast it can only be crossed by swimming. When it reaches the Dead Sea, the dead salty water is transformed into a thriving Eco-system, teaming with fish. “Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river, their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail, every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them, their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” Human harvests are seasonal, fragile and subject to drought, but the river flowing from God’s presence never runs dry. When we root our lives in God’s Spirit, we no longer need to live like the rich fool, building bigger barns, instead we become like the trees planted along Ezekiel’s river. We draw from the inexhaustible source of Grace, allowing God’s Blessing to flow through us, to bring life, clean air, nourishment and healing to the world around us. This Harvest Festival, as we reflect on the dry summer behind us and the produce gathered before us, we are faced with a fundamental choice: We can live like the rich farmer operating out of fear and scarcity, trying to build bigger barns to safeguard our lives, while turning a blind eye to our neighbours and the cries of a warming planet, or we can choose the path of St. Francis and the prophet Ezekiel – learning to wait patiently on God, treating Creation as our kin and opening our hands so that God’s river of life can flow through us. Let us this day be channels of Grace rather than reservoirs of greed. Let us share our bread with the hungry through our local Foodbank. Steward God’s energy with care, advocate for clean renewables and live as Faithful Guardians of this beautiful Earth that our Heavenly Father has entrusted to our Care. Amen
Trinity 18 year A – Phil 3:4b-14; Matt 21:33-endOver the last couple of weeks, in Bishop William Ward school, in Great Horkesley, they have been focusing on Perseverance, one of their school values. And so I have lead a couple of collective worships themed around Perseverance, and we have thought about Noah, and the perseverance he would have had to have shown, building the ark, especially when you consider how big it needed to be, and how long it must have taken, after all there was no B&Q on the doorstep, Amazon deliveries available 24/7 or powertools to work with, and of course he did all this, with his neighbours most likely thinking he was completely mad. But he carried on … and on … and on and eventually built the ark and after the floods had subsided gets the promise from God in the rainbow, that he would never send floodwaters like this again. And then this last week, we were back on the water, and thinking about Paul and the shipwreck, and the one thing that Paul continued to do, as he travelled from place to place, town to town, village to village, whether he was free to travel, being shipped to prison, or under house arrest. He carried on telling others about Jesus and encouraging others in their faith, he never gave up, he always persevered. And we have also been into the school, to run a Prayer spaces, and one of the activities was entitled ‘Perseverance trainers’, as the young people were given a trainer to colour in, they were encourage to think about something that they might be struggling with at the moment, something that they are needing to really keep on going on with, and think about how they might ask God to help, as they then placed their trainer onto a running track. And as we did this prayer activity, we were thinking about the verse in Hebrews which says, ‘And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.’ Perseverance – let us keep on running. And so as I read the passage for this morning from Philippians, I was reminded of this image of perseverance, as Paul writes in verses 12 – 14; ‘Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.’ And I was reminded of a very famous race, the athletics meet had reached a critical stage, one of the final races was left to be run: the 440 yards (the old version of todays 400meters). The athletes were bunched together as they came to the first bend, and one of them was pushed over and fell right off the track. Quick as a flash he was back on his feet, as though electrically charged by the incident, caught the other runners with a few paces to go and overtook them to win on the line. It was a famous victory, which features now in the film, ‘Chariots of fire.’ I wonder, what would I have done, what you would you have done in similar circumstanced? Most of us, I suspect, would have accepted from the moment we fell, that we were out of the race, with no hope left. We might be feeling angry, but there would be nothing we could do about it. What had in fact just happened would keep us enslaved, with no hope of going on to what might have happened. With the athlete in question – the famous Eric Liddell – it was just the opposite. It was as though he had been reading this passage of Paul: forget what’s behind, strain every nerve to go after what’s ahead, and chase on towards the finishing post. Keep on going on, keep on pushing towards the goal. Persevere Yes, the past is useful in shaping our future, in helping us not to repeat past mistakes, but we can’t dwell in the past, we need to keep our eyes fixed on what is before us. For us, not simply the finishing line, but the promise of eternity with God in heaven. Paul, for all his credentials, as listed at the beginning of our passage from Philippians today, reminds as that true maturity means knowing that we haven’t arrived and that we must keep on pressing forward towards the goal. The seasoned athlete knows that the race isn’t won and lost until the end has been reached. To imagine that because you find yourself out at the front of the pack you can slack off and take it easy, ‘having arrived’, would be disastrous. But perseverance, can sometimes feel difficult, carrying on carrying on, takes energy, and can be emotionally draining, particularly when it feels like you aren’t getting anywhere. Our Christian journey is not meant to be a gloomy struggle, we keep on pressing onwards, for that which Christ took hold of us. All of our efforts, take place within the context of God’s grace: King Jesus has grasped hold of us and what we now do, is a matter of responding in love to the firm hand of Christ we have on our shoulder. I wonder where we might be feeling the strain of perseverance at this moment in time? perhaps as we face change? perhaps we are feeling uncertain, wondering about how we can carry on. Can we offer it up to king Jesus, knowing that he is the author and perfecter of our faith, and trust that he will keep our feet on the right path, as we keep our eyes focused on him. Amen
A firm place to stand It could be said, that in many aspects of life today, we face uncertain and in some cases difficult times. The world is troubled, there are tensions rising between nations, distrust, fear and anxiety, which bubbles up into violence. This last summer has been extremely hot and dry and we have seen wildfires sweep devastatingly across swathes of land, destroying precious ecosystems, and we are being warned that the El Nino will bring storms and rain this autumn, and potentially an even hotter summer next year. So what do we do when life seems difficult? Whilst walking the Camino, one of my hardest days, was a very steep, rocky descent from the highest point, into the town of Molinaseca, the path was treacherous, and at one point, I found myself walking alone for what seemed like ages, I could see no one in front and no one behind. I had started the day, reading a couple of verses from Psalm 40: ‘I waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heart my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.’ As I walked I found myself crying out to the Lord, asking him to give me a sign, that I wasn’t alone, that if I fell, someone would find me! Immediately, from behind I heard the familiar and unmistakable sound of a second set of walking poles, it was as if, though not literally, my feet had been set on a rock, and I had been given a firm place to stand. I had the reassurance I needed, that I was not alone, indeed that I am never alone, God is always there, before, behind, beside, above and inside me. We don’t need to feel overwhelmed by the troubles of the world, we just need to wait patiently on the Lord, knowing that he is with us, he has not abandoned us, he will set our feet on the rock and give us a firm place to stand. May God bless you Reverend Heather
