Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sunday Podcast


God is greater than our hearts by simoncutmore

God is greater than our hearts

Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Catholic archbishop of Manila who played a key role in the People Power revolution there, liked to tell the story of a woman who attended his weekly audience to inform him she had a been having visions and conversations with the Virgin Mary. He brushed her off several times, but she kept coming back. Finally he said, ‘We Catholics have strict rules governing visions and message from God. I need to test your authenticity. I want you to go back and ask the Virgin Mother to ask her son Jesus about a particular sin I recently confessed in private. If you ask Our Lady and she tells you the answer, I’ll know your vision is genuine.’

“The next week she returned and he quizzed her, a bit nervously, ‘Well, did you ask Our Lady to as her Son about my sin?’ ‘I did’ she replied. ‘And did she answer?’ he asked.  ‘Yes’ she responded. ‘What did she say?’ ‘She said that Jesus said that he couldn’t remember.’

St John writes: ‘...We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything...’

If we step outside the the life of love God calls us to, the good news is that God loves us back. If your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. If something we said offends someone, God is greater than that offense. If something we did hurts someone, God is greater than that hurt. If we let someone down, God is greater that that let down.

This morning’s Gospel reading reminds us of the close relationship that the Good Shepherd has with His sheep.  God loves us each intimately.  The whole of the scripture is part of a love duet that God tries to sing with humanity over millennia. The words are very simple - God sings to us again and again, ‘I love you, I want to be with you, will you be with with me?’  If your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart.  Such is God’s love for us that He does not hold sin against us, but forgives, forgets and renews relationships with His people.

Friends, you probably know that there are 3 sorts of love mentioned in New Testament - philio, love for fellow men and women, brotherly love if you will. It is love that builds community.  Eros, erotic love, sexual love. Love that builds families.  Agapé - self sacrifical love, love in action, love that goes thee extra mile. It is the love that takes off outer garments, wraps a towel around their waist and washes feet, even those of the one who betrays...

If your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart.  It is this transforming love that flows from an uncondemned, a forgiven heart transformed by God’s love for us and presence in us.

There was someone I was at theological college with who had spent quite a bit to time learning with and from the Mennonites. She is called Rita. For those of you who haven’t come across the Mennonites, they have a particular renown for teaching and living lives of non-violence and love. Anyway, after some time at the Mennonite centre in london, Rita and a member of the community were making their way across London on the tube. As they came down one escalator, they saw a man being mugged. As quick as a flash, desperate to put into practice what she had been learning - as the attacked man lay on the floor - Rita loved the mugger hard by beating him with her handbag. Much to everyone’s surprise though, the Mennonite brother she was with, didn’t do that same, but lay down on top of the other man, protecting him and getting a good kicking in the process.

This is the love of Jesus the Good Shepherd in action in the heart and life of another.  The love of the Good Shepherd sticks with us through thick and thin.  It is with this love that He knows and loves each of us individually and intimately. It is this love we are called to love and live. But that’s not good news.

How often are we ready or willing to love like that? To put someone else’s needs before our own? To love the extra mile? I really want that sort of love in my life. I want stories like that to be about me. Don’t you?  When did you last love like that?  Hardly ever? Never??  The good news is that if your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart.

We need heart transplants. When we cannot love others as we know we should; when we cannot love ourselves as He loves us. It is in those moments of utter failure and brokenness that we literally and metaphorically cry to The Christ the Good Shepherd whose heart is full of agapé, and it is He alone who can lead us from the barren landscape of our hearts into lush and living pasture of His love. Amen.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Sunday Podcast


Come Alive with Jesus! by simoncutmore

Come Alive with Jesus!

When Pepsi-Cola was launched in China, its marketing managers wondered why its famous slogan, 'Come alive with Pepsi ' was not achieving the impact that it had achieved elsewhere in the world. It was discovered that the translator had rendered it: 'Pepsi brings your relatives back from the dead.'

This is the shocking claim of this morning’s Gospel - that our brother, Jesus of Nazareth, has come back from the dead. All of us like a happy ending. The girl gets the guy. The guy gets the girl. The bad guys get got and everyone walks off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Yet the implications of the resurrection of Jesus are shocking...  For the man who was once dead now lives - he eats fish and understand the will and purposes of God! But the Easter message is not just one of resuscitation, of a dead man to life again, because then nothing would have changed - only the corpse.  Instead, this morning we hear and experience the power of the Resurrection - what God is up to in a world already changed by the Incarnation.

I have been priest in charge in the parish for some 285 days or so.  In that time I have have seen some very clear signs of what God is up to in this part of His world, already being changed by His presence here among us.

Over the last year there have been 28 baptisms, 10 weddings and 28 funerals, 8 of which were in the churches of the parish.  These are some of the most significant ways through which the Risen Christ is present in the lives of many within the wider community and I expect these numbers to rise as together we engage more with the wider community. We have already held a service of Thanksgiving for Marriage, which sits alongside the In Touch service and a soon to be launched Thanksgiving for Holy Baptism service, and these are crucial as ways to welcome back and to continue to support many within the parish.

These last months have been very much about me learning the lie of the land if you will, getting to know you and beginning to settle into a pattern of working and worshipping life together. You will remember that in the early days of my time in the parish I met around 90 of you in your homes in small groups. This was an opportunity for God to set the agenda of the next few years of ministry here. Out of those meetings three broad brush stroke themes - to renew and review our worship, to provide opportunities for study and spiritual growth, to communicate more effectively. In response to the desire to grow and learn we have run a Lent and Advent study course, both of which have been well attended and well received.  The communications work is a work in progress, but some of the fruit of that is a new parish website which for now is available here.  These 3 themes have become the basis of our Mission Action Plan - a version of which will be available to you in a few weeks - helping us to prioritize the work of God that we are doing together with Him.

These last months haven’t been about us standing still though either. Growing out of the God-given priorities you set in the parish profile, with others, I have been fostering our ecumenical links and have met the local Christian leaders. We worked together with MEB at their Light Party in October and they supported our very successful Good Friday Workshop.  I am hoping to be preaching at MEB later on in the Summer, and together we are working on the opening of a Community café and Food Bank based at the Community Centre here in Mill End.

Another key priority from the parish profile was to continue the growth of work with children, young people, their schools and organisations. We welcomed 4 Baptized Children to receive Holy Communion earlier this year.  I have been leading worship at Maple Cross and St Peter’s schools on a weekly basis for much of the last months, resourcing lessons at Maple X school and welcoming children to worship in our learn about the faith through visiting our church buildings. Behind the scenes my work continues as a governor and proving support and for especially the Heads of both schools.  I am now part of Diocesan team providing support to schools in this Archdeaconary working with schools that need help with bereavement and collective worship.  These school relationships matter as we seek to engage with the wider communities in which we are set.  And in Maple Cross especially those links are key as we begin talking with both the Church Urban Fund and the ASCEND Project based in South Oxhey about partnerships that will engage with the community in very practical ways and see St Thomas’ building used to the benefit of all.

Worship is the heart of what God’s church is called to. A little new liturgy has been introduced to help mark some of the seasons.  I am delighted that Richard Hickson has taken up responsibility as Organist and we are working closely together.  I am also delighted, as I am sure you are, at the growing skill and confidence of all who make music in the parish.  As you all know, we are in the process of discussing prayerfully our pattern of worship, following a parish-wide consultation. Some good progress has been made latterly and the PCC will discuss this again in May.  I was especially pleased that we took part in Back to Church Sunday this last year and will do so again. We have introduced a weekly Wednesday Eucharist at St Peter’s

The growing importance of pastoral care highlighted again this year and the church is indebted to ongoing and invaluable work of the In Touch group and the LMT especially in their ministry to the care and residential homes but also in supporting and caring for particular individuals.

These are only the headlines, for ahead of us with God lies so much more - growing churches, the setting up of a dedicated pastoral care team, new opportunities to deepen our faith through 2 specific things - This Is Our Faith and a Mission Weekend in the late Autumn, the opportunity to receive the ministry of healing for you and others, the launching of new church based toddler groups, a trainee Lay Reader, a new Curate. I could go on.  But, all of this is all only possible with your continued prayer and support and some of these things will only happen if we do them together - I need, the church needs, Christ needs you to give a little of your time and your talent.

The Risen Jesus appeared to those frightened disciples. They knew it was Him as he ate with them and as He opened the scriptures to them to reveal the plans and purposes of God finding fulfillment in Him.

Jesus calls us sometimes frightened disciples to continue bear witness to Him. We know that the Risen Jesus is with us as we see God’s plans and purposes unfolding around us and as we together meet to eat with Him at the Eucharist.  But to be a witness is not just to experience an event, to hear good things in church, but to willingly tell others about it.  Our call friends together is to continue to proclaim the Resurrection, to make known what God is up to in our communities, to help people within them to answer God’s call and to see their lives transformed by Him. Amen

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Easter Day Podcast

The Gospel According to Abigail Witchells by simoncutmore

The Gospel According to Abigail Witchells

On 20th April 2005 Abigail Witchells was walking in the village of Little Bookham near her home, with her 2 year old son Joseph.  She was attacked from behind and stabbed in the neck, paralyzing her and leaving her son unhurt but traumatized.

A statement was released on her behalf which read, "The staff here are wonderful and I am making progress every day. I have sensation over most of my body and the pain is less now. I can move my head, but as yet I cannot move my arms and legs. I can breathe and speak on my own for short periods. Please pass on my thanks to everyone for their support and prayers. God is doing beautiful things."

Much has been made of the Witchalls' strong Christian faith, and that of the whole family.  her attacker was publicly forgiven by her, her mother and her husband.  Her mother said,   “Just being with her makes me feel better and I am immensely proud of her and her husband, Benoit, and of how much I have learned from them.  Abigail's life is a triumph of the Cross. Not the world's usual triumph of strength, but rather one of vulnerability and love.

It seems to me that Abigail Witchells, along with Gee Walker (mother of Anthony murdered in Huyton), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Gordon Wilson (who’s daughter Marie died in the Enniskillen bombing) - all of whose stories (or parts at least) we have heard this week, have an Easter faith - a faith that trusts God to do, not just the improbable but the impossible.  Have we?
Easter to many people is about chocolate, hot cross buns, bunny rabbits and two long over due Bank holidays.  Easter is REALLY about Jesus Christ’s passion for a hurting world.  In recent days we have journeyed with Jesus into Jerusalem shouting our hosannas, to the Last Supper, to betrayal by kisses in Gethsemene, to trial and torture by Ciaphas and Pilate, and then standing watching the death of a traitor on a cross, dying the death of a failed man.  As a we stand close to the garden where the tomb is, where we have been waiting since last night, the sun gently pinking the early morning sky, some figures are seen making their way in the half light.

It’s Mary and the others.  These women, have been faithful to Jesus through it all - after desertion and betrayal - and here they are, after the Sabbath coming to the Garden Tomb to anoint his body as is the custom.  Although they are doing what they can to be faithful to Jesus, the women like the other disciples never really heard Jesus latterly, not really.  Here they are, despite talk of resurrection, coming to embalm a decomposing corpse.

They are chattering as they pass us, who will roll the stone away?  The women are clearly expecting to find what you would expect to find at a new grave.  The women are still live in a predictable world.  If you roll a stone in place on Friday it will still be there on Sunday.  These women demonstrate enormous courage and faithfulness coming ot the garden tomb, but they come expecting, despite what Jesus has said, that death still has the final word.

Throughout his ministry Jesus taught and revealed a new order that God was bringing in.  A new order where things are not always necessarily one of cause and effect but one where the topsy turvey values of the Kingdom of God break through.

As they near the corner of the garden, near the small outcrop of trees, where the tomb is located, this new order of things begins to break through.  As we follow them to the tomb, we all notice that the stone has been moved to one side.  Whilst there are many explanations for this, a sense of something just being wrong overcomes us all.

Out of concern?  Out of curiosity?  The women look, we look too - inside there is only a shroud in the tomb and no body.  What is going on?  ‘Do not be alarmed!’ says the young man sitting over to one side of the tomb.  Do not be alarmed?!  They were now terrified - was this the grave robber himself that they have disturbed?  ‘Do not be alarmed, you are looking for Jesus who was crucified - he has been raised, look here is the place where they laid him, ‘ he says as he points to the shroud.  ‘Go and tell the others he is going ahead of you to Galilee, and there you will meet him..’

If something as predictable and inevitable as death is not longer inevitable or predictable then the world has changed dramatically.  Frighteningly so.  The body has not been stolen but the grave clothes are lying there as if Jesus has just stepped out of them...  If stones can be rolled without help, if Jesus is really alive, what other certainties in life are now up for grabs.  Life is suddenly awe-inspiring and terrifying.  What else can and will God do in our lives?

One of the women with Mary said it later - that Jesus is now just loose in the world and coming to meet us, not on our terms, with our expectations, but on his.  We can no longer deal with Jesus compartmentalized as a dead body in a tomb, as a story told by Mary and the other women, but we meet him here as a living reality and there is absolutely no avoiding him in grief, sentimentality, in liturgy.  Business as usual in our day to day or Sunday lives is no longer safe because Jesus is here wherever we are, whatever we are doing calling us to be his disciples again and again and simply to come and follow him.

The women stand, as if suspended in treacle for a second that seems to last an hour, and then Salome screams.  She screams and screams and screams.  Immediately they are off in the directions of the four winds, running like they are being chased, running to who knows where, but not in the direction of Galilee.  Leaving us - at this strange and empty place.  They have seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears the truth of all that Jesus taught - he has been raised.

This easter story does not have a happy end so that we can all heave a sigh of Lent-is-over-relief.  Jesus’ Easter story ends where it began, in Galilee - back in the ordinariness of the everyday routines.  Our Easter story ends where it began, in this community - back in the ordinariness of everyday.  But it is now the Risen Jesus meets us in the ordinary and everydayness of things - on his terms, whenever and wherever he wants to, calling us to follow him.

The disciples abandoned Jesus to death in the garden as he was arrested and then crucified, and these women abandoned him in as yet unseen new life.  There is only one group of people who can take the news that Jesus is risen, back into the ordinariness of every day life - us.  But will we?

Maundy Thursday 2012

Geoff Thompson grew up in working class Coventry.  His mum always said that he had inherited her nerves. He was a sensitive kid, and felt the lash of depression from an early age. His first encounter with it was when he moved to senior school. The transition overwhelmed him. In a bid to win some courage I started training in martial arts.

He said: my martial arts instructor was a charismatic man who took me under his wing. I was in awe of him and one night he asked me and some of the other boys to stay over at the club to help fix the aikido mats. That night I awoke to the feeling of a hand on my bare leg. The level of the sexual abuse that followed was not extreme, I was not raped, but the level of betrayal proved to be catastrophic.

What this abuser taught me implicitly with his actions was that no one could be trusted, not even those who loved you. This, of course, had a detrimental effect on my malleable mind. An incident that puts you out by a small degree as a twelve-year-old, is enough to send you completely off the grid by the time you’re thirty. At 14, I was kissing a girl in the farmer’s field and her face contorted in to the face of a man.  As an adult I developed psychotic jealousy, imagining that every girl I dated was cheating on me.

At 28, I became a nightclub bouncer in a bid to mould myself a bit of spine. I was a man with a lot of underlying rage and I displaced my anger on anyone that stepped into my orbit. It took a decade of extreme violence before I realised that I was out of control.
During my violent days, I thought forgiveness was weak and meant letting people off. That changed when I started teaching forgiveness to my martial arts students. Certainly I understood forgiveness intellectually but I didn’t understand it in practice until, one day, I was sitting in a café and saw my abuser sitting on the table opposite. For a split second I was twelve again, quivering with fear.

But then I walked over to him.  I introduced myself and told him what he had done to me as a child and how it had affected me. He was a big man, and he tried to stand up and protest. I put my hand out and told him to sit down.  I told him that despite what he had done I was going to forgive him. He looked totally broken. It was as if my forgiveness shattered him. As I went to walk away, he put his hand out. I wanted to be free from this man’s memory and I knew that the only way to be free was to properly forgive him. So I shook his trembling hand. When I walked away from that café I felt the most powerful man in the world. I had taken all my power back from him.  Forgiveness is the only revenge. You can have your day in court, some people need that, but if you want total freedom, forgiveness is the only way.

Today is a day of unlearning. Instead of defining people by what they do, Jesus encourages us to define people by what we do for them. Don’t define people by what you have already made up your mind they will be.  Don’t seek dehumanizing revenge for those who wrong us, instead love and forgive into life. Tonight Jesus calls us to define all people by what they are - fellow human beings, made in the image of God, precious to Him from all eternity and therefore by the grace of God, forgiveable and loveable by you.

There is a double focus to today - on the one hand the reading from 1 Corinthians designates today as the day Jesus celebrated Passover before he was betrayed, tried and crucified. Through it He instituted what we recognise as the Eucharist. On the other hand in our Gospel reading tonight Jesus emphasizes that his disciples need to continue to unlearn all of the social rules.  Today is Maundy Thursday from the Latin mandatum, from Jesus’ words - a new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you... Jesus says eat bread and drink wine to remember his presence in our lives and in the world, but He also calls us to put others needs before our own and love, forgive and serve them in remembrance of Him.
Tonight we also need to continue to unlearn a way of being church, remembering that church is not something that is done to us but something we are as His body here. As we gather at His table for the family meal in the Eucharist, we do as His brothers and sisters. Here He is re-membered, He is literally present here amongst us - in each other, expressed by the quality of our love.

But we fail as his disciples if our remembrance of Him is forgotten as soon as we step away from His table.  For tonight Jesus gives us a new commandment - yes, listen to what He teaches, yes love God and your neighbour and yourself, but that only has any worth if we are practically showing love to one another as Christ himself has loved us.  Taking off his outer robe, Jesus picks up a bowl and towel and begins to undertake the task of the lowliest of servant. ‘Remember me’ says Jesus, ‘by demonstrating the quality of your love practically to others.’

We love as He loves every time we support a grieving family. We love as He loves every time we visit someone lonely. We love as He loves every time we play a part in encouraging people out of poverty at home or abroad. And we are able to love because he loved us first by touching the leper clean, by raising the dead, by socializing with tax collectors and sinners, & by taking a towel and washing our feet and dying for us.
It is not possible to make sense of all that Jesus does today and what he will do in us from Sunday onwards, without acknowledging what he will do tomorrow. It is Christ’s willingness to accept the Cross that makes sense of this self-giving love which we are offered and are to offer in return.
Today Jesus gives His disciples a new command as we remember Him - unlearning our ways of judging others, and as we follow Him learning new ways in forgiving love.

It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh and through it we are all called into deeper relationship in God. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh that reaches out and through it, God makes new disciples. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh and through it, and our changed lives, that whole communities can be transformed as we each unlearn how to be simply human, and learn from Christ’s loving actions how to become children of God. Amen.

Holy Week 2012 - Wednesday

In a speech, shortly following the setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela said, ‘The feeling of freedom that infuses every South African heart at last liberated from the yoke of oppression underlines the fact that we have all in one way of another being victim to the system of apartheid....  In no activity is this more lucidly captured than in the heart rendering evidence being led at the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission... It is only natural that all of us should feel a collective sense of shame for the evils that as compatriots, we have inflicted upon one another.  But even in the few days of these hearings we can all attest to the cleansing power of the truth.  It is to this that this Commission is committed.  We are committed to the truth so that we can all be free.  We are committed to the truth that we can all become reconciled one to another.  There is a very long road ahead.  We are only just starting...’

In the forward to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes, ‘We have been privileged to help to heal a wounded people, though we ourselves have been, in Henri Nouwen's profound and felicitous phrase, ‘wounded healers’.  When we look around us at some of the conflict areas of the world, it becomes increasingly clear that there is not much of a future for them without forgiveness, without reconciliation. God has blessed us richly so that we might be a blessing to others. Quite improbably, we as South Africans have become a beacon of hope to others locked in deadly conflict that peace, that a just resolution, is possi bl e. If it coul d happen i n Sout h Africa , then i t can certainly happen anywhere el se. Such is the exqui site divi ne sense of humour...’

Very powerful words reminding us that forgiveness is not just to be given and received between individuals, but if brokered carefully can be for the benefit of all, for the greater good of all, and freeing for all concerned into the future.
On Monday evening evening we reminded ourselves that Jesus teaches that forgiveness is something that must come from the heart - it must be freely given - over and over again.  It is not just a matter of forgiving or loving those whom we like, because even ‘sinners’ do that but forgiveness must extend to those whom we object to.  We must not judge or condemn, but forgive and we will be - not by our enemies - but by God.  We also remembered that the majority of the time Jesus talks of forgiveness in relation to sin.  Sin being the things that we do and say that build barriers between us, God and other people.  Jesus came not to rescue humanity from sin, but to complete God’s work of creation, as in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection the barriers that we build between us and God come down once and for all.  Forgiveness for Jesus it seems is about receiving assurance of that fact, repenting, and living this new way.

Last night we recognised that forgiveness is sometimes very hard to give.  We cannot do it under our own steam even though we know we should.  Thinking in relation to the story of the rich young ruler we remembered that  we can forgive no one, but for God all things are possible.  We looked again at the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, where he offers her living water springing up and giving eternal life.  We remembered that Jesus refers to this living water again in John 7 - whoever believes in Jesus shall have ‘streams of living water flowing from within them,’ clearly that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit which believers would later receive.  The forgiveness of which Jesus speaks in the Gospels, which we are to give, must flow from us like streams of living water - the new life of God.  In that sense forgiveness is not ours to give, but God’s forgiveness flowing through us because of the presence of the Holy Spirit given in the living waters of Baptism. 

Living the new way that Jesus inaugurates and allowing God’s forgiveness to flow through us is freeing and liberating for all.

In John 8, Jesus has been debating with some Pharisees about his ministry and teaching and some of them clearly believe him.  He assures them that if they follow his teaching they will know the truth of the presence of God in his ministry, and that will free them from the legalism of their own traditions into living the new life that God offer.  Jesus makes a clear link between seekers after truth and freedom - those who search out the forgiveness of God, the new life that Jesus inaugurates are freed from the effect of sin - from guilt and from pride, and freed to be people through whom God’s forgiveness can flow, not just to us but from us - reconciling us to God, but also us to each other.

Later in John 14, speaking to his disciples of his immanent death, Jesus links this search for truth to the idea of journey and of life.  If the truth of God, revealed in Jesus is to bring forgiveness and freedom to blossom in us we need to be ready to change.  As searchers after truth we are on the way towards God, moving from being the people we were to the people God is making us to be - forgiving, being forgiven, and free to live life.

An inability to forgive rests like a yoke on us, as individuals, as a community.  Yokes are used on animals and people in traditional communities when working the land.  They are heavy, and their burden restrains and directs us to walk one way or another.  The power of forgiveness is to lift those burdens from us - and if you have ever been forgiven you will know what a relief that feels like.  The forgiveness that Jesus offers - God’s new life - frees us from the oppression that divides us.  In Matthew 11:28ff Jesus offers to the weary, the sinful, those feel that they are unforgivable, another yoke in exchange for theirs - a light one - of love for ourselves and others.  This yoke of forgiveness, of new life, frees the wearer.  Instead of being bowed down with the weight of our burdens, only able to focus on them, constantly dwelling on their impact on our past and present, God’s forgiveness in Jesus liberates us to focus on God, and on our present and future with each other and Him.
We are all a work in progress - Christ’s forgiveness, his new life in us, enables us to be Christlike - to be reconcilers and to use Desmond Tutu’s words  ‘to help to heal a wounded people, though we ourselves have been, in Henri Nouwen's profound and felicitous phrase, ‘wounded healers’.  When we look around us at some of the conflict areas of the world, it becomes increasingly clear that there is not much of a future for them without forgiveness, without reconciliation. God has blessed us richly so that we might be a blessing to others.’

Holy Week 2012 - Tuesday

On July 7th 2005 bombs ripped through trains and a bus in London.  Jenny Nicholson, who was 24, had boarded the eastbound Circle Line train at Paddington station.  Moments earlier she called her boyfriend James White on her mobile.  Minutes later the train was blown up by suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan.

Her mother, Julie Nicholson was unable to speak at her daughter’s funeral, but someone read on her behalf -  "There are few human words that can adequately express what we feel about people who indiscriminately carry out apparent acts of senseless violence against innocent civilian populations and, unbelievably, do so in the name of God.  Such delusion, such evil, is impossible for us to begin to comprehend."  Since then she has been unable to forgive; unable to move on.  Her plight is all the more moving when you realise that she is ordained.

Rev’d Julie Nicholson has resigned her post in Bristol as since 7th July she has been unable to preach forgiveness.  She said, "It's very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist... and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself ... So for the time being, that wound in me is having to heal..."

On the same day, Maria Williams lost her son Anthony.  Reflecting on how she felt after the realisation that he had died sunk in, she said "Lord okay, I'm all done, and like you say good will come out of this, I leave it in your hands".  And that's how I feel.  He's a prince of peace and Anthony was a peace lover, he loved people, he loved to help, he was charitable, and as a test of tests I gave him up to God and I said "Lord take him to yourself and then use me as a vehicle of your peace.  Use me Lord, lead me, I put my hands in your hands, guide me, shield me and show me the way to go".

And all that I'm doing at the Anthony Williams Foundation for peace is the fallout of that.... and I'm saying why don't we wake up as well and act for peace, not by just sitting quietly, by doing?  Because we can't give out what we don't have.  Let's work out how we can make peace...

That's why my guiding philosophy is to recognise and have a common humanity.  I'm working for peace.  For as long as we don't recognise our common humanity and let our difference separate us and create this yawning gap of self and other ... so long will we have a problem.

Two grieving mothers responding to the same situation in different ways, demonstrating clearly how difficult it is it forgive as Jesus calls us to - even for Christians.

Yesterday evening we reminded ourselves that Jesus teaches that forgiveness is something that must come from the heart - it must be freely given - over and over again.  It is not just a matter of forgiving or loving those whom we like, because even ‘sinners’ do that but forgiveness must extend to those whom we object to.  We must not judge or condemn, but forgive and we will be - not by our enemies - but by God.  We also remembered that the majority of the time Jesus talks of forgiveness in relation to sin.  Sin being the things that we do and say that build barriers between us, God and other people.  Jesus came not to rescue humanity from sin, but to complete God’s work of creation, as in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection the barriers that we build between us and God come down once and for all.  Forgiveness for Jesus it seems is about receiving assurance of that fact, repenting, and living this new way.

Living this new way is impossible without God - we cannot try and do it under our own steam.  Look at the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19.  He asks Jesus what good thing he needs to do to get eternal life.  Jesus as usual turns the whole thing on it’s head - if he wants eternal life he should obey the commandments.  The man replies that he has done this; what else does he need to do?  Jesus tells him to sell his possessions and give to the poor.  The man leave downcast.  Astonished at this exchange, a little later the disciples ask, who can be saved?  Jesus replies that in our own strength no one, but with God all things are possible.

Christians recognise that forgiveness is one of the hallmarks of the new life that Jesus inaugurates.  So often we find that we cannot just give it, even though we may wish to.

Look at the story of the Samaritan woman again in John 4.  In their discussions Jesus asks her for a drink of water from the well, and offers her ‘living water springing up and giving eternal life.’  Jesus refers to this living water again in John 7 - whoever believes in Jesus shall have ‘streams of living water flowing from within them.’  Here John tells us clearly that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit which believers would later receive.

The forgiveness of which Jesus speaks in the Gospels, which we are to give must flow from us like the streams of living water - the new life of God.  Forgiveness is not ours to give, but God’s forgiveness flowing through us because of the presence of the Holy Spirit given in the living waters of Baptism.

Why is it sometimes so hard to forgive?  It is understandable after what these and countless other mothers have been through.  It might be to do with those we need to forgive or what they have done.  In times like these we can become the camel trying to pass through the needle - like the rich young man - we may know what God asks of us and yet be unable to exercise it.

More shockingly though it might be to do with us.  In times like these we need to become like the Samaritan woman listening to Jesus, and to ask God for living water to flow out even through us.

So who can forgive and be forgiven?  Jesus assures us that in our own strength, no one.  But with God, all things are possible.

Holy Week 2012 - Monday

Here follow the addresses I preached on Monday-Wednesday this last week...

On Sunday 8th November 1987, as people gathered round the Enniskillen Cenotaph, and IRA bomb exploded.  Eleven people died; there was extensive damage.  Gordon WIlson and his daughter Marie were buried in the rubble.  As they held hands, waiting to be freed, Marie died.  That same evening, Gordon Wilson  gave a spontaneous and memorable interview to a BBC reporter.  Some criticized him for what he said; others were amazed.  Later he wrote:

I’d like to think that it was the real Gordon Wilson who spoke to the BBC’s reporter... on the evening of the bomb, when I said, ‘I have lost my daughter and we shall miss her.  But I bear no ill will.  I bear no grudge.  Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back.. She was a pet.  She’s dead.  She’s in heaven.  We’ll meet again.  Don’t please ask me for a purpose.  I don’t have a purpose.  I don’t have an answer.  But I know that there has to be a plan.... God is good and we shall meet again.’

I did not use the word ‘forgive’, in that broadcast nor in any later one, but people understood that my words were about forgiveness.  Our Lord taught us to pray, “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’  We ask God to forgive us, but we are always subject to his condition that we must forgive others.  God’s forgiveness is ultimate, ours is the forgiveness of man to man.  To me the two become one.  It’s as simple as that.  My words were not intended as a statement of theology or of righteousness, rather they were from the heart, and they expressed how I felt at the time and I still do’

The call to forgive comes over and over again in the pages of the scriptures and is found many times on the lips of Jesus himself.  Jesus calls his followers are to forgive over and over again (yes even more than 77 or even 490 times!) Jesus says that Christian forgiveness must come from the heart - it must be freely given.  It is not just a matter of forgiving or loving those whom you like, because even ‘sinners’ do that (Luke 6: 35ff) but forgiveness must extend to those whom we object to.  We must not judge, condemn, but forgive and we will be - not by our enemies - but by God (see the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23ff)

Forgiveness for Jesus is not some sort of social project, but linked inextricably to God’s work in the world, especially in and through his life, death and resurrection.

Jesus talks most often about forgiveness of sins (at the Last Supper Matthew 26:28 and the healing of the paralysed man in Mark 2.)  Sins are the things that we do and say that build barriers between us and God and other people.  These barriers go up because we are proud and don’t acknowledge we need God.  We get into such a mess and despite knowing that God wants to lift us out - we shut God out.  We sometimes whether God can forgive us, the guilt eats us up - we shut God out.  In circumstances like these, we realise that God asks us to change, and yet either feel powerless or unwilling to - so we shut God out.  Sin offends God.  It separates him from the thing that he loves more than anything else in the whole world - you - and it breaks his heart enough to send Jesus; not in some sort of rescue mission, but to complete what he had undertaken at the beginning.  God acted so that we might fully understand him.  Jesus tells us all that we need to know about God and all that we need to know about ourselves.  When Jesus talks of forgiveness then, what does he really mean?

It is not about being a member of a religious community that worships a loving and forgiving God.  Christianity is the end of religion and of forgiveness.  Look at the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.  She asks him about the right place to worship God, seeing Jesus was clearly a prophet.  Jesus’ answer turns the whole thing on it’s head, he says - it doesn’t matter where you worship, but about how you worship; worship will be in spirit and truth and God seeks out people like these.  Christianity is not a religion.  Religion is only needed when there is a wall of separation and sin between God and us.  Christ in his life, death and resurrection breaks down that wall and inaugurates new life not new religion and does away with continued forgiveness.

Christian new life is about repenting.  Repentance is where we feel totally alienated from God, from real life.  It is about realising through my actions that I have defiled my spiritual beauty, that I am far from home, and that something precious entrusted to me is hopelessly broken in the very texture of my existence and my deepest desire to return home.

Christian new life is also about receiving assurance that God has (past tense) broken down the wall of separation between God and us through Christ’s death and resurrection once and for all, and having received that assurance, sharing that news, that ‘forgiveness’ with others.

‘I did not use the word ‘forgive’, in that broadcast nor in any later one, but people understood that my words were about forgiveness.  Our Lord taught us to pray, “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’  We ask God to forgive us, but we are always subject to his condition that we must forgive others.  God’s forgiveness is ultimate, ours is the forgiveness of man to man.  To me the two become one.’  Gordon WIlson is right in that sense.  Our forgiveness of others can only come from an awareness of God’s new life in us, which God longs to give, if we would only return home.