Sermon St Peter&Mary 7th August 2022  Trinity8 P14         Transfiguration
Daniel 7v9-10,13-14                        Psalm 97 Responsory                         2Peter1v16-19             Luke9v28-36
Let us pray:         May God the Holy Spirit open our hearts and minds to hear His voice.

The Lectionary celebrates the Transfiguration of our Lord yesterday on 6th August, but as it is such a significant festival I wanted us to look at it this morning. No wonder the Gospel reading that we have just heard is one of my favourite passages, so let us take a quick look at it.

We have presented here the description of the Transfiguration of Jesus, which most likely took place on the lower slopes of mount Hermon now on the Israel-Lebanese-Syrian border. It is a picture of the majesty of the one true and living God, a God who is surrounded by a Holy Glory; the God of creation who desires justice and mercy, and who we as Christians worship and serve.

Jesus had taken his closest three disciples Peter, James and John with him to pray on the mountain, and from that time they spent with him we can draw  an important lesson. When we pray we have to be prepared for God to reveal to us deep insights into His person, to take us into his presence, and even to touch us with the light of His glory. Such is the importance of prayer as we seek to develop our Christian lives and live as disciples following after our Lord Jesus. I have to confess that even after 50 years as a Christian I still need to place much greater emphasis on prayer, and I do not find that easy.

From that encounter on the holy mountain the three disciples were left in no uncertain terms as to just who Jesus was. Just a week earlier, in the pagan region of Caesarea Philippi, a region dominated by the pagan god Pan, Jesus had asked the disciples a searching question, “But who do you say that I am”
It is a question that we have all had to ask of ourselves, just who is Jesus.
You will remember that Peter answered Jesus saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”, a response I trust we all here can also echo.

Our story then takes place on that ‘holy mountain’ where in the presence of Moses and Elijah, Jesus is transfigured and surrounded by the glory of God, a glory so often depicted as pure bright light. Moses and Elijah were there to affirm the testimony of the Jewish law and prophets to Jesus as Messiah.
Then as if to reinforce Peter’s answer at Caesarea Philippi, God speaks from the cloud “This is my beloved Son; listen to him”.
And that is perhaps the most important lesson we can ever learn during our Christian lives, to listen to the voice of Jesus, a voice that is confirmed to us by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and through the scriptures that we read and the people that we meet.

We saw a few weeks ago how Saint Thomas is often painted in a poor light as ‘doubting Thomas’, although the testimony of his life has so much more to say to us, and Peter in this encounter also receives poor press from his comment, ‘let us make three tents for he did not know what to say’. In fact I think that there was more behind Peter’s comment than is generally credited.

When we know the context of the story, that it took place not long after the Jewish festival of booths or tabernacles, a time you will remember when the people dwelt or tabernacled in temporary shelters. That festival was to remind them of their 40 years travel across the wilderness as they escaped from the bondage and slavery in Egypt. So perhaps Peter had that recent festival in mind, and it was that which prompted him to make the comment, and for his desire to build three temporary shelters?

It also reminds us that when we have put our faith and trust in Jesus as Messiah and Saviour, our bodies become a tabernacle, a temple for God’s Holy Spirit, and that should transform the way we live out our lives. For through our belief in Jesus we have now left the bondage of sin, and as we  journey through the wilderness of this world, we have also become members of the household of God with a joyful hope in God’s coming new creation.

The transformation of our Lord ends with another wonderful picture. We read that as Moses and Elijah vanished back into heaven, and Jesus was once more back in his earthly glory, the disciples ‘saw only Jesus’. And that should be our hope and experience if we are to navigate a successful pilgrim path through the distractions of our every day lives. We need to cultivate a walk where we too ‘see Jesus’ as our way, our truth and our life, as we seek to follow Jesus alone, showing to our family, friends and neighbours the transforming grace that Jesus alone can bring to all of our lives.

Let us pray: Merciful God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things that pass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love towards you that we, loving you above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord and coming King.                  Amen

Sermon St Eustachius 8 & 9.45 Sunday 24 July 2022   Trinity 6  P12 Prayer  (Sea Sunday)
Genesis 18v20-23            Psalm 138 (as responsory)            Colossians 2v6-15 [16-19]             Luke 11v1-13
Let us Pray: May I speak in the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.            Amen
Do you ever struggle with prayer? Or does prayer come quite naturally and easily to you? For me prayer is an essential part of what I understand as our Christian life and walk with God, but that does not mean I find prayer easy.

Mother Teresa also believed prayer to be an essential part of our Christian lives and walk as we need to learn to hear from God if our faith and service for him is to grow. She firmly believed that it was in “the silence of the heart that” God speaks, saying “If you face God in prayer and silence”, in other words ‘give God time to speak’, “God will speak to you”. But in the midst of this busy and frenetic world in which we all now find ourselves, do we make that time, and do we prioritise prayer? In fact, do we believe it to be necessary?

I wonder what the pattern for each of our Christian lives is? Do we believe, that as believes, as followers of our Lord Jesus, our lives need to be different, even radically different, from those around us? There are many, but one simple litmus test is given to us by Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans (12v12). “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer”.

With our hope in God, with our faith and trust placed in Jesus our risen Lord, our hope is of an eternal life in the coming new creation. With all the chaos around us in today’s world, that hope should give us a joy beyond measure as we look to the things promised that are beyond our imagination. Our walk is not promised to be an easy one, but as we remain faithful in prayer, we are also assured of God’s continual presence with us through his Holy Spirit.

Paul also tells the Christians in Philippi (4v6) that ‘we have no need to be anxious about anything’, echoing our Lord’s words from the sermon on the mount (Mtt6v25) not to be ‘anxious’ about our lives, ‘but in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God’.

This seems to be very much the experience of the seventeenth century Carmelite lay brother Lawrence. He is remembered for his intimate relationship with God writing, ‘There is no greater lifestyle and no greater happiness than that of having a continual conversation with God’. In other words, being in prayer with God. I wonder, would you agree with him?
Do you look for, hope for and desire, that sort of relationship with God our Father, and with our Lord and Saviour Jesus? It is a relationship soundly based on prayer as we daily walk our pilgrim path as disciples and followers of Jesus.
As Rosie reminded us a few weeks ago, ‘Prayer is the life blood of the Church’, and prayer should be our guide in all that we seek to do.
That sort of intimate relationship with God was also the experience of the patriarch Abraham that we read of in our Old Testament (Gen 18v20-32). Abraham whose faith was reckoned unto him as righteousness, was not afraid to talk to God in an intimate way, but also to argue with God in order to get God to change his mind over the destruction of the unholy people of Sodom, and he almost succeeded. Sadly not even ten righteous people could be found among the population, and so the ‘judge of all the world’ had no choice but to deal righteously with the remaining population, and destroy the city once lot and his family had escaped.
There are perhaps times when each one of us has felt the need to argue with God, but, ultimately we have to bow to God’s sovereign will and accept that the ‘judge of all the earth will do what is just’, and for our good.
In psalm 99 God is described as the, ‘Mighty King, who loves justice and will establish equity and who will execute justice and righteousness’.

Do you recall a parable that Jesus told us concerning prayer recorded later in Luke’s gospel (18v1-8). A widow kept going to a judge who neither feared God or had any respect for people. She wanted justice against an opponent but for a while he refused her request. Then because the widow kept ‘bothering him’ with her continual coming, he granted her request for justice.
In that parable Jesus recognises that we may not all find prayer an easy discipline to practice, but he reminds us to be persistent, and of our ‘need to pray always and not to lose heart’.

And that is the same point Jesus made in today’s reading, where we are to be like that man going to a friend at midnight and to be persistent. Maybe like me there are times when we are easily tempted to give up on prayer, but brothers and sisters, do not lose heart, and continue to be persistent in your prayers.

Perhaps this little story may help us in that respect.
We have just passed through the time between the ascension of our Lord and Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A time for the past few years  designated by the Church as a time of prayer to pray ‘thy kingdom come’. It is a time during which we have especially been encouraged to pray for five people to become Christians. But that initiative is not in fact a new idea.

Have any of you heard of George Muller? He established a group of homes in the Bristol area towards the end of the nineteenth century for orphan children. He ran those homes by prayer and faith, looking to God through His people to meet their everyday needs. But from the age of 35 he started to pray each day for five of his friends to become Christians. In fact the last two of those friends did not become Christians till after Muller’s death at the age of 92.
So what does that teach us?
Yes, to be persistent in our prayers, not to lose heart, and to trust that God will work out his purpose in due time.
Prayer can take much of our time but as Martin Luther said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

And for me, I believe that the time now seems so ripe for the next move of God across this community, this country and across many other nations as well. I wonder if you feel the same? Would it not be wonderful to see the grace of God revealed as in the former Welsh and Hebredian revivals experienced last century? Now is the time to recognise just how far we as a nation have strayed and moved away from the ways, the commandments and ordinances that God set out for this our world to flourish. So what will it require for us to see revival and a return to the ways that God purposed for human kind?
Prayer, prayer and even more prayer.

It has been said by many Christian leaders that, ‘There is no great movement of God that has ever occurred that does not begin with the extraordinary prayer of God’s people’, and we see that has been true from the very beginning of the early Church. After our Lord’s ascension we read in Acts that, ‘all these’, the disciples, ‘with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers’. And what followed? Pentecost. It has been the same ever since down through the ages.

The American evangelist Jonathan Edwards is credited as the man behind a great awakening in the US in the nineteenth century when over one million people turned to God. He said, ‘Be much in prayer and fasting, both in secret’, that is individually, ‘and with one another’.
If we wish to see that same sort of awakening, a revival, and a return to God in this country, we would do well to take heed of Jonathan’s words.

Perhaps when the disciples saw how Jesus often woke early to pray, or when they saw how he went out all night to a lonely place to pray, it spurred them to ask the question of Jesus we read of in our gospel, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples to pray’.

Perhaps the disciples were starting to realise just what a significant part prayer had to play in Jesus ministry as Jesus sought to follow the will of God. If prayer was necessary for John the Baptist’s disciples and for the disciples of Jesus, it is certainly necessary for us his twenty first century disciples. And as we pray our Lord’s prayer shortly, let us make it a sincere prayer, and a real desire of our hearts as we say together, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done’.
The psalmist, in psalm 141 (v2) has a wonderful way of describing our prayers saying, ‘Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice’.
You will remember that worship in both the Tabernacle and the Temple celebrated morning and evening prayer at the third and ninth hours, that is at 9 in the morning and at 3 in the afternoon, and at both of these times incenses was also offered, bringing a beautiful smell before the Lord.

Saint John also takes up that picture for us believers (Rev5v8, 8v4) describing  the result of our prayers in heaven saying, ‘The 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints’.
So let us rejoice with the company of the heavenly host over the wonder of our prayers, and perhaps you would consider joining in with our regular services of daily morning and evening prayer.

But in the meantime, as we wait earnestly for the realisation of God’s kingdom here on earth as described by the prophets, let us also show forth how that kingdom is already breaking through to this our present generation through the way we live our lives, and in the work’s we are called upon by God to do for His glory in this our needy world.

And on this sea Sunday, we can do much through our prayers, and maybe also through our financial support, to further the work of ‘the mission to seafarers’, and also to encourage all those working among seafarers in these difficult times.
If you wish to help support this work there will be a retiring collection as you leave church this morning.

So, Let us pray:- A prayer of St. Ethelwold ‘Trinity’
May God the Father bless us,
may Christ take care of us,
the Holy Ghost enlighten us all the days of our life.
The Lord be our defender and keeper of body and soul,
both now and for ever.         Amen,

Sermon St Mary St Peter 3 July 2022  Trinity 3 Year C  St Thomas
Ps 66 Responsory         Habakkuk 2v1-4         John 20v24-29         Ephesians 2v19-22
Let us pray:

If I ask you what is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of the apostle Thomas, what would it be? Probably that he is universally known as ‘doubting Thomas’. But is that really a fair description of him for there is so much more to lean from him, so let us take a quick look this morning.

First, he referred to in all of the gospels. He is actually mentioned some eight times in the New Testament, whereas some of the other apostles only get a passing mention. Thomas is listed with of all the apostles by Matthew, Mark and Luke, and also by John in the list of the seven disciples by the sea of Galilee in one of Jesus resurrection appearances.

He is named as Thomas called Didymus, meaning ‘twin’, but despite much speculation we have no real idea who his twin brother or sister was.

John gives us four occasions when Thomas is engaged in conversation. The two that we have read of in this morning’s gospel and from which the description ‘doubting’ comes. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe”. But is that not a natural human response after being told the impossible, ‘Jesus has risen from the dead’. Would not you and I have responded in a similar cautious, even sceptical manner, whoever heard of one rising from the dead after three days? Well, there was a precedence of course, Thomas must have seen Jesus raise Lazarus after four days, but could Thomas take the risk of letting his hopes be dashed?

I wonder what God has asked us to believe in the past, or even now, and could we take that risk of letting our hopes be shattered? Perhaps with all the chaos and uncertainty in our present world order, or lack of it, with all the pain, suffering, poverty, famine, etc., can we really believe that there is a time when our Lord will return and set up that new order in creation promised so long by the prophets?

But look at the transformation in Thomas’s response when one week later the Lord appears again but with Thomas present. When Jesus invited Thomas to ‘put your finger here and see my hands’, what now was Thomas’ response? A response that I trust we can and have all echoed, “My Lord and my God”. No longer any doubting but a firm acknowledgement as to just who Jesus was and still is, Lord and God of all the created order. O, that more people would like Thomas come to that same recognition today.

No wonder our Collect for this celebration today frames Thomas in a positive light, ‘God for the firmer foundation of our faith, allowed Thomas to doubt the resurrection of your Son’. We may all have doubts at times, but they can lead us into a surer and firmer belief and hope in the promises that God has for each one of us.
And as Jesus went on to say, “Blessed are those, that is you and me, who have not seen and yet have believed’.

Then we also have in John’s gospels (11v16) an account of Thomas’s words that paint him in the most positive of lights, and gives to each one of us a real challenge, a challenge that many of our persecuted sisters and brothers face daily.
When Jesus received a call from the sisters Mary and Martha to return to Jerusalem to heal their brother Lazarus, Jesus was in the Galilee for safety, having a little while before been threatened to be stoned when last in the Holy City. In response to that call Jesus, and knowing what was to lie ahead says, “Let us go to him”.
And what was the bold and brave response from Thomas to all the other disciples? “Let us also go, that we may die with him”.

Is that a response that you and I could, and would, also make? How strong is our faith and belief in Jesus as the risen Son of God? The one who has promised to us that this life is not the end, but just the start of an eternal journey with the everlasting God and our loving heavenly Father.
If we were placed in the position of our present day persecuted believers, in the position of so many of the martyred saints down through the ages, and the position that all the apostles eventually found themselves in, could we say, “Let us die for Jesus”?
But of course we know that there is a hope for us who believe that transcends any such fear. And that hope follows from the final question that John records Thomas asking of Jesus during the last supper  (14v5).

Jesus told us that as we believe in God we should also believe in him, as he was going to prepare for us a place in paradise to be with him. Thomas, with his searching mind, quite naturally asked Jesus ‘where was he going’ and ‘how could we know the way’. Jesus reply is one of the most famous and encouraging verses of the whole bible, a verse which for us Christians is the foundation of our hope. Jesus replied to Thomas, and to all the disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

It is that statement alone that sets the Christian faith apart and above any other belief.
It is the statement that we who have put our faith and trust in Jesus gives to us the full assurance of our eternal future, for it shows the encompassing love of God our Father to reconcile us to himself.
It is the embodiment of real love, of that love of God which John in his first epistle tells us, ‘perfect love casts out fear’ (1Jn4v18).

There is so much more to the life of Saint Thomas that sadly we do not have time for this morning. His mission journeys eventually took him to south India where tradition has him reaching Kerela in AD 52, establishing churches, and finally being martyred near Madras, now Chennai, in AD 72. There are still many thriving churches of Saint Thomas in India today.

So if necessary, let us revise our picture of Thomas, of one who doubted for a reason, to one who went on with a strong faith to serve the Lord as an evangelist almost to the ends of the earth, and lost his life in his faithful adherence to our Lord Jesus.

Let us pray:

Lord our God, King of the universe and source of all truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, united in prayer and the breaking of bread, and one in joy and simplicity of heart, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen