Parish OfficeThursday 3rd June 2010
Corpus Christi 2010
I think the feast of Corpus Christi really sorts out the men from the boys. It takes a real man to enjoy a good floral display and who can cope with such extravagance as using a parasol indoors. Make no mistake about it; the feast of Corpus Christi – the Body and the Blood of Christ - is hardcore religion.
Tonight in St Wilfrid's we gather all the usual suspects to celebrate a central article of faith in Catholic life and practice. We proclaim to ourselves, to the Church of England and to the world that Jesus Christ is present with us – body, soul and divinity – in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. From the moment of his Ascension to his return in glory, this is only means by which Jesus is physically present with his people on earth. And the Blessed Sacrament is even more than Jesus simply present with his people. It's Jesus present in his once and eternal act of self-offering to the Father. The Blessed Sacrament is the Lord Jesus Christ – present - as priest and victim; sacrifice and salvation for us.
All those who regularly handle the Blessed Sacrament, whether clergy or those who administer the chalice here in church, or those who take the Sacrament out to the homes of our community, need to work at holding the wonder of who it is we carry and share with his broken world. The Cure d'Ars advises all who receive Holy Communion to just spend time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament Reserved, simply in order to get our head around the wonder itself. We must try to come to terms with the amazing fact of our God present with us in such a humble, self-giving way. Here I am; turn to me, receive me and be saved. Salvation is no easy thing to achieve, but God couldn't make it any easier! The Catholic faith is in-your-face salvation.
When I was growing up in a Methodist church, Holy Communion would happen infrequently. Some would look at the local Plan and, if the Sacrament was listed to happen on a particular Sunday, they might say: Well, I can't be doing with that! They'd prefer a good sing and an entertaining sermon. It's a different story here (thank goodness) where the mass is all we seem to do; day in, day out!
And it's easy for us to think that we do this so often because we like a formal, choral and ceremonial worship experience. When people from other churches in Harrogate talk to me about St Wilfrid's, they either say they appreciate our formal style of worship or they say that our kind of ceremonial doesn't quite do it for them. Now if they're saying this and if we are saying this, then somewhere there's a cart a long way before a horse. Somewhere there's a tail wagging a dog.
Why don't I hear people complaining about or even lauding the faith we practice and live here? Never mind the style; what about the content? The way we worship here, especially on a Sunday morning is a result - an expression - of the faith we have here; the apostolic faith. All of this, virtually everything you receive through your senses, is secondary. What is primary is our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ whom we gather to proclaim with his own action: Do this in memory of me.
What is primary is our faith in the reality of the Christ event as the source of all that God wills to be. This is hardcore religion and, let's be frank, a lot of churches of many denominations simply don't have so specific an understanding of God or such a life of faith and practice which proclaims the authentic reality of Jesus. We do have such a faith and belief in the person of Jesus and the saving actions of Jesus; therefore we have a style and form of worship which expresses this faith. It's not the other the way around. This is why Anglo-Catholic churches sometimes have more in common with Evangelicals than we do with broad or liberal church culture. Our belief in the saving and particular reality and the uniqueness of Christ in theory clears common ground.
Do this in memory of me. The Eucharistic offering of the mass is the one thing Jesus asks his friends to do just for him. At the last supper - the last time Jesus has with those closest to him – he asks that they re-member him among them in a particular way. The mass has no other purpose than to re-member Jesus among us and to re-member him before the Father. What we often call the sacrifice of the mass is, in essence, just this.
I love this final paradox of the last supper. Jesus, the man for others; the man who did everything for others and nothing for himself. The last request he is free to make is a request for himself. Do this in memory of me. You see, Jesus loves his Father and he loves others because he loves himself. Christ is a fully rounded, balanced individual. He is nobody's victim. Jesus chooses how he behaves and he decides how and when to enact the great acts he achieves. Jesus loves others as he loves himself. Do this in memory of me. He wants his friends to re-member him among themselves for all time. Not just to recall him and to model themselves on him, but to remember him in particular. In this love is the heart of the Church's loving.
In John's Gospel Jesus promises that the Father will love his friends because they love him. In a short while, Jesus – not me – Jesus will invite you to receive himself fully into yourselves under the appearance of bread and wine. This is the action of the God-man who loves himself and who loves you. Each of you is eternally valuable to God; make no mistake about that. Jesus gives us the permission and the imperative to love ourselves too, just as he loves us, so that we can then love others, just as he does.
Sunday 16th May 2010
Ascension Day 2010
A lot has happened in the worshipping life of the Church in recent days, though it might not seem to be much to shout about which is unusual. However, some special things have happened and they are all linked.
Thursday was Ascension day. On Ascension day we celebrate the departure of Jesus – a strange thing to celebrate – but a departure which is also an arrival for him; an arrival in heaven to be with his Father. So, after 40 days of appearing risen to his disciples, Jesus ascends – goes up - into heaven
Thursday was also our confirmation day this year, when the Bishop of Beverley came to lay-on hands and anoint 22 candidates. Those confirmed were made full members of the universal Church; the Church of all times and places. Our candidates didn't become members of St Wilfrid's; they became members of the universal, or Catholic, community of Jesus Christ.
Friday, yesterday, was the feast day of the apostle St Matthias. He's the first apostle to be appointed after the departure of Jesus and it's an amazing coincidence that, this year, his feast day is right after the Ascension. A place among the 12 was left vacant with the departure of Judas and so his place needed to be filled. The 11 choose a couple of men they reckon to be suitable and they then pray and draw lots. Matthias is chosen.
Has anyone ever wondered why Jesus himself didn't appoint a replacement for Judas before his Ascension? Why leave this to the remaining 11 and why is the figure 12 important? We can have a go at the second question quite easily because the figure 12 is representative of the 12 tribes of Israel; in the Christian Church we have the new Israel; the fulfilment of all the OT promises to God's chosen people. 12 is complete figure; it's numerologically sound; it's a foundational figure. When we think about apostles we think about foundations; foundations of faith.
So why didn't Jesus himself appoint another apostle? Well, I wonder whether this is a sign that, from now on, the Church is given the authority to appoint successors to the apostles, because the Church has done so ever since. On Thursday night, in Bishop Martyn, we had such a successor here among us.
Bishops wear mitres for a reason. They remind us of the flames of fire which descend upon and move among the apostles gathered in the upper room at Pentecost. Between now and Pentecost, this is what Our Lady and the apostles are doing. They are gathered in prayer waiting for the coming of this mysterious thing which Jesus calls the Advocate; the Counsellor; power from on high.
Can anyone remember the qualification required when the 11 were choosing a successor to Judas? What did this man need to have been witness to; what did he need to have experienced? When we talk of apostles, we talk of foundations. In the earliest days of the Church, the qualification required to be an apostle was the living experience of the resurrection. Witness to Jesus.
The core of the Christian faith remains this adherence to Jesus in his life, death and resurrection. Love of Jesus through the experience of him. In John's Gospel, Gethsemane, the disciples are promised that the Father will welcome them because they love Jesus.
The apostles are to be the foundations stones of the Church by their very faith and experience, and so Matthias is a candidate because this is his faith and experience. He is charged by his office – and later empowered by the Spirit – to begin to make these known in all the world.
The faith of the apostles is our faith. At a confirmation, it's not just the individual candidates who present themselves to the Bishop. The faith we practice and live as a community here in this place is confirmed each time the Bishop comes among us, for the Bishop is meant to represent the universal Church to the local.
The Holy Spirit comes both to guide us in our faith and he comes as a result of our faith in the Lord Jesus. Always, the Spirit comes upon us to empower us to be the disciples we are called out of the world to be. Let's pray for the grace to receive him fully into our lives.
Friday 25 December 2009
With one thing and another, I was a bit overdue in cleaning out my hens last week. The hen house was in a bit of a mess. My wife eventually told me to get out there in the freezing ice and sort it all out. "Get out there", she said, "and clean out those hens! Remember: a chicken's not just for life; it's for Christmas!"
Ruth's words reminded me of the comedy show Absolutely Fabulous, which we used to spend a lot of time watching. I think Ruth identifies mostly with the sensible character Saffron, the only level-headed person in the whole thing. We still have debates about who I should identify with: Saffron's dizzy mother Eddie or her friend Patsy. I guess it comes down to the choice between a champagne-swilling bimbo or a champagne-swilling diet freak. Sadly, I don't really qualify for either.
When Eddie thinks about buying a family pet, her air-headed PA, Bubble, delivers the classic remark. I'll try to do the Lancashire accent: "Remember – a dog is not just for life, it's for Christmas".
Well, it might sound fairly obvious, my friends, but Jesus is not just for life; he's for Christmas. It's not simply a newborn baby we rejoice over tonight, but the Lord Incarnate; God as one with us. Nevertheless, in order to be with us; an infant he was born for us. This is no ordinary child but at the same time he was an ordinary child. The baby Jesus was not meek and mild and, as an infant, he certainly would have cried and made a fuss. It's quite normal; it's how babies communicate and that's important. For God did not just appear to become a human being; he really did.
In the chaos and squalor of that stable on that night, something incredible did happen. Something incredible happened on that night. A wonder on a very different level to the fluffiness and the soppiness of the secular season, which we so often see in popular Christmas. God's countless angel hosts - his heavenly warrior armies – lay down their celestial battle array and come in peace to the shepherds by night. The angels of glory - devoted to the will of him who sits in the highest - come to those not worthy even to see them and live to announce the far greater glory and hope born for all not so very far away. Don't be afraid, they say, Come and see! Come and see how God loves you!
The shepherds represent the simple of the world; not the proud or the great and good; the religious officials of the day. In time do come those who are wise in the ways of the world – indeed the great and the good – and they come from far lands to adore, bringing those 3 great gifts, which we'll speak about at the Epiphany in week or so. But it's the shepherds to whom God first shows his new born Son; to those who having little are most open the great and mighty wonder.
The God of all things, the creator, places himself – helpless, messy and noisy - into the hands of 2 human beings; 2 people of his own creation. Why? Why does he do this? Because God wants to know us better; he wants us to know him better. God comes to put right the mess we make of our lives; to repair and to renew the relationship we were made to have with him. And I think people generally get the sense of this, at Christmas time. In our culture and society, the idea is to get together and celebrate and build on our relationships with each other.
Key to Christmas is this concept of Immanuel – God with us. The Incarnation of God is crucial. God himself born and living as a man; a human being like all of us here tonight. God sharing in the life of his own creation so that we can share in his life - which is not of creation - but which has always existed. The night before he went to the cross, Jesus knew that he would rise again. He knew that he would appear in risen glory to his disciples and that they would never doubt again. But the way in which Jesus asked his disciples to remember him tells us of a particular priority.
"This is my body" ... "This is my blood". Even after the resurrection, and down through all the ages of the Church, this is the way in which we are commanded to remember Jesus. Remember that I have taken life as a human being, Jesus says. Remember that I really live and breathe. Otherwise, it would be too easy for Christianity to descend into a concept; a nice idea about God but confined to the purely spiritual. Many forms of Christianity today appear to operate like this. The Incarnation, and the Church's continuing living Eucharistic faith, on the other hand, lead us deeper into the truth about God.
God wants to know us better and he follows this desire with action. God wants us to know him better and he's made the first move for us in Jesus Christ – Jesus, who has now risen and ascended to the Father with the same body and blood he was born with. This is why the Church particularly honours Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin, because through her we see Jesus; through her Jesus comes and Jesus is. He calls us – his continuing, living community - to the same destiny which is his: life for all of us together, forever, in the peace of God's kingdom.
Sunday 25 October 2009
From our Gospel for today, "And Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" And the blind man said to Him, "Master, let me receive my sight." And immediately he received his sight and followed Him on the way.
When I lived in Singapore there was, on the wall behind Post Office counters, a notice. It read, "Men with long hair will be sent to the back of the queue. "So, as you can see, I was never in any danger! But Cliff Richard, who in those days sported long hair, was refused entry to Singapore at the airport. You may ask, "Why?" What was it about young men with long hair? For the Singapore government all men with long hair were, somehow, connected with drugs. They were either users or traffickers. So they saw a man with long hair not just as, a man with long hair, but as a danger to their well-ordered society. They looked, they saw, and what they saw spelled danger.
Looking and seeing are a bit like that. Of all our senses sight is, I guess, the one that we most fear to lose. Sight is the sense by which we gather most information, what do they say? "A picture is worth a thousand words". In the case of Singapore looking and seeing were not infallible processes. We don't always see what's there, but rather what we expect to be there. Pilots in aircraft, when asked by air traffic control if they have the appropriate signal on their instrument panel to indicate "wheels down", have answered "Yes." Only to land "wheels up"……….Whoops! In other words they saw something that was not there at all.
Looking and seeing in the spiritual life can, in practice, work in much the same way. As a Christian I am given the gift of sight in a special way. Sight from the point of view of my relationship to God through Jesus, and my connection to Him, through my Baptism and the life of faith. Or, as St. Paul puts it, God has brought us out of darkness into His marvellous light. Therefore I should see clearly, correctly and at depth. My sight, my vision is given new scope, new clarity, by my growing up into Jesus. I look at things, not as a casual observer, but as one who is in the process of becoming like the Saviour. So, a new look, a more open and glorious seeing, a new perception? Well, like the song says, "It aint necessarily so." Like the authorities in Singapore, I look but fail to see what is truly there.
Let me tell you what I mean. Here at St. Wilfrid's we are blessed by having a beautiful building lavishly decorated with religious symbols and icons. Paintings, Stations of the Cross, the Rood Screen, the "Descent of the Dove" above the font, holy images. You can see them for yourselves. You look at them Sunday by Sunday; you have done so, and will do so, this morning. At one time all churches and cathedrals were decorated like this, some even more beautifully and lavishly. Then along came Henry VIII looking for another wife, and money to finance his army and, almost overnight, it was all gone. Buildings razed to the ground, images smashed, paintings scraped off or painted over. The beauty of holiness destroyed, to be replaced by the new iconography, the funeral monuments of the great and the good.
But here we are blessed. No visitor, even from the planet Zarg, could fail to see and understand something of what we are and what we are about. But there is a question. You look, but what do you see? Are the decorations, images, pictures just a kind of religious art gallery for the good people of Harrogate. Is that what you see? What to you see when you look at the image of the Mother of God? Plaster and Paint? Or the reality behind the image? A simple Jewish county girl chosen by God; a girl who's "Yes" to God changed the whole direction of human and cosmic history. What do you see when the Book of the Gospels is processed? A book, cardboard, paper, ink? Or do you see an icon of the Saviour whose glorious good news is printed there for all to hear, or read? When the priest raises the Host and proclaims, "Jesus is the Lamb of God", what do you see? A man holding a lump of inanimate matter? Or the food by which Christ feeds His faithful people, His own Body and Blood? We may look with the eyes of faith and see God communicating Himself to His faithful children. Or we may see just a bunch of religious artefacts, the look of the casual observer.
But, what and if instead of looking outwards I direct my gaze inwards to look at myself? What do I see? The great Scottish poet Robbie Burns wrote, "Could the power some giftie gie us, Tae see ourselves as ithers see us." Indeed so, and what a learning experience that might be. For often we fail, dismally, to see the us that those around us see. Those parts of our life, hidden to us, but open to others. Don't try looking in the mirror to see what others see, for our mirror image is not what they see at all. I may go through life fondly believing that I am one kind of person, when what I actually project is something quite different. That I am as they say, "All gong and no Dinner." My vision of me, my sight of me, is often warped and distorted and, in reality works against me. The truth is that I need to change for my relationships are stunted because I fear to acknowledge the need to change. I may say, "I'll change," but what I mean is, "I'll change as long as it doesn't make any difference."
Because, do you see, change demands courage. For so often it is fear, fear of being real, fear of showing the world what I really am, fear of allowing my weakness to show that's what makes me buttoned up, that prevents me opening myself up to self critical analysis. The sight that faith gives enables us to look at ourselves and to change what we are into what Jesus wants, and wills, us to be. In the Gospel Bartimaeus was asked, "What do you want?" He answers, "My sight," and that is what he gets. Yet we need to be careful what we ask for. If my limited sight stops at the paint and plaster, or the paper and ink, or the bread and the wine and fails to move beyond that to the ultimate realities they proclaim, then we are in trouble. Our faith can become a dry and sterile thing, which demands only cerebral assent and no real feeling or action. If I discover the real way in which the world perceives me and fail or fear to act upon it, I remain stunted and eternally self satisfied. So, what to do? Change, of course, but it is hard. It is a fearful thing to launch out into the deep, even if the Saviour is there before us, and holds out His hand and whispers, "Fear not."
Bartimaeus asked for sight, and that is what he got. Upon receiving his sight he immediately, and that is what the text says, immediately, he left everything to follow the Master. If we ask for sight that God gives, the sight that gives us glimpses of the ultimate realities, even behind the most obvious things. If we ask Him to let us see ourselves as we are, so that we may really become like Him, and both of these gifts are granted. Then as May West said, "Fasten your seat belts, you're in for a bumpy ride."
Sunday 6 September 2009
Before I start I would like you to know that this sermon has caused me a good deal of aggravation. I tore up the first three drafts, and by the time I get to the end of this you may well be saying, "Well really Father, you would have done us all a favour if you had torn up the fourth!" So here I go.
Today's Gospel provides us with an odd happening. A Greek Gentile woman whose daughter was sick approaches Jesus for help. She wants Jesus to heal her little girl. In spite of the fact that she is outside the mainstream of Jewish life, she has heard of this itinerant healer; this caster out of demons and her eyes are fixed on Him. Her hopes are pinned on His actions. She trusts that, He is the one who will meet her expectations and needs. He is the one who can perform the act by which her life will be changed. She has faith. And what happens?
Jesus rejects her request, even though, as the text has it, she falls at His feet and "begs" Him for help. Indeed He goes further, adding what we would think insult to injury by saying, "Let the children first be fed. It is not right to take the children's' bread and to throw it to the dogs." To our ears this sounds remarkably like racial discrimination of the very worst kind. No doubt in our culture the woman would have been off to the Race Relations Board; she would have consulted her lawyers. No doubt she would have been off to the Court of Human Rights, and for all I know consulted Health and Safety. However, no, such is her hope, her faith, her trust and above all her sense of humour that she turns Jesus words around on Him. She says, "Yes Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's' crumbs." That is to say the house pets eat the chunks of bread, used to wipe greasy fingers at the dinner table. Her tenacity and perseverance, all signs of her faith and trust in this man, were such as not to allow her to lose faith, or to let go. For such she was rewarded. "The devil has left your daughter", says Jesus, and she returns home to find the child safe and well in bed.
There is much in the actions of Jesus to speculate about in this story. However, I want simply to concentrate on what we actually know from the text about the woman's character, her persistence. She had faith in Jesus, faith in the man and what she believed He could and would do. Nothing, not even his apparent rejection of her request, which amounted to a rejection of her as a person, was going to put her off. He was the one; He was the man who could answer her needs. Her eyes were fixed on Him; her ears were open to His words; her hopes were fixed upon what He could do. Her life itself was held in the power she believed that Jesus had to heal her daughter at a distance. Therefore, in the face of a categorical, "No," and no matter how the commentators try to spin it, couched in very rude terms, her faith, hope, and expectations persist. She simply will not give up. She is indeed the very model for words of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel, "He that shall endure to the end shall be saved."
She is indeed the model of persistent faithfulness for us as well. It's not easy being a Christian at any time, it never has been. To live the Christian life; to model ourselves on Jesus. Not easy to believe, to trust and to hope. So much of our 21st Century culture seems to be set against all of that. Much of the world looks on with incomprehension at those eternal truths we try to make objective in our lives. Some of the world, and increasingly so, is positively hostile to what we are, and that to which we lay claim. Some of the words they spout and the stereotypes they erect, the better to knock them down, are positively grotesque. None more grotesque than the scientist, airing his anti Christian stance in an interview on the Beeb, who actually said, when challenged that he might just be a bit arrogant, "There's nothing wrong with being arrogant when you know you're right!" You couldn't make it up.
No, the fact is that we face indifference and increasing arrogance and hostility. In the face of this we are called to exhibit, as our woman in the Gospel exhibited, faithful persistence, or do I mean persistent faith? We are called not to give up. Not to trim our sails to the prevailing winds of our culture. Not to marry ourselves to the spirit of the age for, as someone said, "He who is married to the spirit of the age will find himself a widower tomorrow." Rather, like the Gentile woman, we are called to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus. To renew our hope in His persistent love for His world, and us, even if sometimes it appears distant. To trust in His power to change and renew our lives, and His world.
At the consecration of Fr. Mark to the episcopate the preacher, in his sermon, outlined what we expected of our bishops. Not once but 3 or 4 times the preacher addressed the following words to the soon to be bishop. "Fr. Mark," he said, "Show us Jesus." That was the challenge he issued to the new bishop. I have to say that, it is a challenge to all Christians not simply bishops in general, or bishop Mark in particular. We are called to look persistently at Jesus as the fulfilment of all things. Our hopes, our expectations, the resolution of our fears and failures; for our very life itself. Then the rest of the world may look at us and see how well, or how badly, we reflect back onto that world the gift we have been given in trust. They have to see how our hopes and expectations are met, our lives changed and how we are conformed to Jesus and His Will. God is saying to you, "People of St. Wilfrid's, show the world Jesus." It's not good pointing them to some learned tome on the Christian Faith. No tract, no text will do the business. There are no "one size fits all" solutions. There is only you and me, us. But, but, not by ourselves, we shall fail. Not on our own, we shall get it wrong. We can only do this connected to Jesus by our baptism, the persistence of our faith in Him, who loves us so persistently it hurts.
Therefore, people of St. Wilfrid's show the world Jesus, in and by your lives, in what you are and in what you do. Persistent faith does not mean that we behave like Little Jack Horner who sat in his corner and said, "What a good boy am I." Rather our call is to live out the life of faith in service to the world, loving, caring, self-sacrificing, service. St. James, in our Epistle gives us a clue as to what this means."Show no impartiality," he says, "Treat everyone the same and as an equal." You wish! He paints the picture of the well dressed, and well-heeled man, all Armani suits and a wallet full of credit cards being shown to a front pew in church. While the poor man, all torn jeans and armfuls of the Big Issue, is shunted into a side aisle and at the back, well away from the "quality". When we act in that way, or if we even think it, St. James says have, "Become judges with evil thoughts." I leave it to you to work out what that might mean fro St. Wilfrid's, both now and for the future.
St. James leaves his best line until last. He says, "So, faith by itself if it has no works, is dead." So there! That is not to say we may substitute the one for the other. We cannot get right with God by piling up the so-called good things that we do, no matter how high the pile. That's a knot the Church of England has got into by substituting programmes of social action for holiness of life. What St. James is saying is this. You may shout your faith from the housetops; your adherence to Anglo Catholic practice; your confidence in the latest and most modish expression of the Christian faith. You can enjoy incense, Our Lady of Walsingham and all the rest of the paraphernalia, but unless you cooperate with God and become as St. Paul puts it, "Fellow workers with Christ." Unless you become like our Gentile woman persistent in all of this, then, our faith amounts to, as they say, to use the vernacular, "Half the square root of not very much."
The action and drama of this Mass assures us of God's persistent love for us and His creation, for, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Our response to this persistent love that God has for us is nothing more, or less, than our persistent faith in Him and His purposes for us. Faith, allied to good works, shows to the world our witness to the love of Jesus in our lives.
Sunday 12th July
Trinity 5 | Mark 6: 7 – 13
We all know that Fr Mark will only be Rector of St Wilfrid's for one more Sunday after today. So, as Rector, this will be the last sermon he will have to hear being preached from this pulpit; he is to preach on his final Sunday next week.
Like our patron, he is to leave Harrogate – to leave God's own county - to go to preach the Gospel to the people of West Sussex. But unlike St Wilfrid, I don't think Fr Mark will find that all the people in that part of the world are pagans – well, maybe some of them !
So, before he goes, it is worth us all being remind of part of the Gospel that we heard read last Sunday – St Marks account of what is often referred to as "The Mission of the Twelve".
You will recall the story: Jesus sends out the apostles in pairs. They are to take nothing with them. They are to stay where they can. They are to proclaim that all should repent. But if the people refuse to listen, the apostles are to shake the dust of the place off their feet.
In fact they were being given a short period of practical training – a type of training course.
I only hope that, unlike today, on their return they did not have to complete a 5 page Ministerial Development Review Questionnaire before having a 2 hour Appraisal Interview to discuss their performance !
So Jesus decides its time to send the apostles out - and Christianity is always like that. It is never something to keep to ourselves. It always involves reaching out to other people, for without that element it would not be Christianity.
Up to this point the Apostles had been with Jesus and He had been instructing them. But they had originally been chosen for a mission – a mission to help spread the news of the kingdom of God. Now the time had come for them to get involved in that work. He sent them out in twos so that they could support one another and He empowered them to speak and act in his name.
Remember this was only a short, temporary mission, and limited to the surrounding Jewish towns and villages. The final commissioning, in which they were to be sent to the whole world, was still in the future.
And what was their mission ? Well, in the first place it was a spiritual one – to preach repentance and the imminent coming of the kingdom of God. But it was also concerned with physical and mental healing. This shows us that Christianity is concerned with spiritual well-being and physical well-being. In other words, Christianity is concerned with the whole person
Next, the Apostles were not to take material things with them to give to the people. In any case they probably didn't have anything. But there is always the danger that if missionaries come loaded down with material gifts the message may be accepted for all the wrong reasons. The message must be accepted principally for spiritual reasons.
In fact, the apostles are to witness to poverty by their detachment from material things. They are instructed not to take anything with them; "no bread, no bag, no money". They show their solidarity with the poor by sharing in their poverty.
But the Apostles main task is to preach the message. Yet they are warned that they wont be able to control the response of the people, nor should they try to do so. They have to respect the public's freedom to respond and they have to expect that some will refuse to listen.
So, if their preaching is rejected they are to react with only a symbolic gesture – shaking the dust from their feet. This was a highly symbolic act for the Jews of that time. The people would have known exactly what it meant. It meant that the Apostles were disassociating themselves completely from them. However it was also meant as a gesture of concern, a gesture to make the people think again about what was being offered to them To make them think about the consequences of their refusal. It demonstrated the fate of those who refuse to accept the gifts of God.
So it is obvious that this Gospel passage has great relevance for us all today. The Gospel still needs to be preached, and it needs those who hear to accept it. Jesus instructions are still relevant for all His followers today. Though conditions have changed, the basic principles remain the same. They challenge those whose task it is to preach the Gospel and those to whom it is preached. Above all, it shows the importance of being open to the word of God.
And this is our great challenge - to be active, not passive followers; not only to be receivers, but also givers. Not barren or dead branches of the Vine, but living and fruitful ones.
The twelve Apostles were called away from their ordinary work to preach the message. We are not. Only a few are called actually to preach the Gospel. But all of us are called to witness to it. We do this principally by living it. By being disciples of Christ in fact as well as in name.
Fr Mark is one of the few who have been called to preach the Gospel. But he will have the added responsibility, as a Bishop, of "teaching, guiding and enabling those, who serve with him, to fulfil their ministry." I am sure this will mean that his new life will be very full and busy.
So, when things in our lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the "mayonnaise jar and the 2 glasses of wine theory"... a theory I am sure a number of you will have heard before.
A professor stood before his philosophy class with some items on his desk in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "YES."
The professor then produced two glasses of wine from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed !
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends, and, above all, your faith - the things that if everything else was lost, and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are other things that matter to you - like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff.
If you put the sand into the jar first", he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the good things that are important to you.
Therefore, pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your family. Ensure there is time to meet your friends. Take your partner out to dinner. Have time for hobbies and outside interests. Make sure there is time for relaxation and holidays. There will always be time to clean the house, polish the car, or do the gardening.
So, take care of the golf balls first; the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the wine represented.
The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of glasses of wine with a friend."
Fr Mark, as you go down to Horsham with our best wishes, our love and our prayers, always make sure that, however busy your life, there is room for a couple of glasses of wine with Ruth at the end of the day.