Address for the Sunday next before Advent

On Jeremiah 23.5-8, appointed for the Epistle in the Prayer Book:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Birmingham Six were wrongly sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975, for bombing two pubs. In 1991, they were released and given compensation for what came to be seen as one of the twentieth century’s most notable miscarriages of justice. When there is obvious injustice, there is rightly a response of concern and anger. Perhaps that is why Jeremiah’s vision, appointed for the Epistle this morning, is so appealing.

Jeremiah is told by God about a time to come when a righteous descendant of David will be king. There is a promise of justice for everyone. No more will bad things happen to good people. The people of God will be rescued: Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.

The obvious question is: who is the king of this kingdom? Who is the righteous Branch of David? Jeremiah tells us: his name shall be called The LORD Our Righteousness.

First of all, the king will be the LORD, the God who makes promises to his people and keeps them. Only God can bring about a society where there is no injustice. The New Testament reveals that this king is Jesus Christ: by the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

Secondly, the king will be the Righteousness of the people of God. The injustice caused by unrighteousness will be done away with, because the people of God will be given the righteousness that belongs to God alone. Again, the New Testament reveals that it is in Christ that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

But if Jesus Christ is the king, why do we still suffer the pain of injustice? Well, Jeremiah looks forward to a time when the people of God shall dwell in their own land. The promise is of a new heaven and a new earth, when the Holy City will come down out of heaven from God. The kingdom which God has revealed to us through the prophet Jeremiah has been inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and will be fulfilled when he returns in glory.

On that day, there will be no more miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six suffered. Rather, God’s King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth.

To him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory now and for ever.

Address for Trinity 22

On Philippians 1.3-11, the Epistle in the Prayer Book:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It was in 2003 on the eve of the Iraq War that Jeremy Paxman asked Tony Blair whether he and George Bush had prayed together about the decisions they had made. Tony Blair’s response was ‘No’. Perhaps things might have been different had they done so.

By contrast, the apostle Paul commanded the Romans to be constant in prayer. He commanded the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. It is often hard to know what to pray for ourselves; it is even harder to know what to pray for others. This morning’s Epistle shows Paul practising what he preaches. Paul is praying for the Philippians.

We see, first, the CHARACTER of Paul’s prayer: he prays with joy. His joy arises from his relationship with the Philippian Christians: he has them in his heart and he knows that they have fellowship with him in the gospel. They share with him in the defence and proclamation of the Gospel; and so, Paul prays with joy for them. That is the character of Paul’s prayer.

We see, secondly, the CONFIDENCE of Paul’s prayer: he is confident that God will complete the work he has begun in the Philippian Christians. He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God is faithful to his promises to us. That is the confidence of Paul’s prayer.

We see, thirdly, the CONTENT of Paul’s prayer. He looks forward to the day of Christ. With the return of Jesus in mind, he prays first for their intellectual improvement, for their knowledge and judgement. He prays secondly for their moral improvement: for judiciousness, that they may approve things that are excellent; for steadfastness, that they may be sincere, and without offence, till the day of Christ; and for diligence, that they may be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. That is the content of Paul’s prayer.

The character of Paul’s prayer is joyful. The confidence of Paul’s prayer is in the gospel. The content of Paul’s prayer is to do with the day when Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. May we follow Paul’s example as we pray for one another.

The chilling reality of the Police State

This morning, on the wireless, there was a programme (featuring the splendid Diarmaid MacCulloch, among others) about the Anabaptist movement in sixteenth-century Münster, and, in particular, John of Leiden’s part in its government. His ‘reign’ (he claimed messianic authority to rule the world) was characterized by the forced redistribution of property (with exceptions made for notable people), dictatorship and institutionalized polygamy. It was suggested this morning that the régime was essentially Fascist in twentieth-century terms. Professor MacCulloch helpfully suggested that Maoism might provide a closer parallel.

This all sounds a far cry from the day-to-day life of a suburb in north London. But authoritarianism is in evidence even here. In the run-up to All Saints’-tide, signs appeared in shop windows explaining that the Metropolitan Police had requested shopkeepers to refuse the sale of flour and eggs to people under sixteen years’ old. (Apparently, it has been the custom for them to be used in minor acts of civil disobedience.)

If the Police can regulate trade, an important boundary has been removed. The measure might sound reasonable, but what if it were alleged that a racial minority had been responsible for the misuse of flour and eggs? Would it then be reasonable for the Police to prohibit the sale of flour and eggs to people of that race? The idea is, of course, sickening.

Today, the prohibition of the sale of flour and eggs to young people; tomorrow, perhaps the return of the principles of John of Leiden. If we care about maintaining a liberal society, we will care about free trade and the elimination of such sinister discrimination.

Address for S. Luke the Evangelist

On 2 Timothy 4.5-15, the Epistle in the Prayer Book:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It was Oscar Wilde who said, as he was about to die, ‘Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.’ Our Epistle this morning contains not the apostle Paul’s dying words, but words he wrote as he was preparing to die.

He is able to write with confidence, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. And so, conscious of his imminent death, he encourages Timothy to emulate his faith, to carry on the ministry of the gospel.

The faith which Paul has kept is faith in Jesus Christ. This Jesus is the one of whom the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, wrote in their Gospel accounts. Our attention is drawn today to the Gospel according to Luke. Indeed, Paul writes, Only Luke is with me. One commentator notes that “[i]t is a touching testimony to the unflinching loyalty of the apostle’s companion and ‘beloved physician”.

Luke the Evangelist wrote his Gospel for someone called Theophilus, to be, as Luke writes, an orderly account of the things that have been fulfilled among us. Luke also reveals his purpose: he writes so that you [Theophilus] may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. It is this certainty which enabled the apostle Paul to write with such boldness: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. When Christ shall come again as Judge of all, those who have been looking forward to his return will stand in the judgement and be rewarded.

The Gospel message of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus is what enables Paul to approach his death with confidence. But it is also what Paul commands Timothy to pass on to others. Timothy is to do the work of an Evangelist. Just as Luke passed on the gospel message through his orderly account, so Timothy is to pass on the gospel message in his own way.

It is a challenge which is also given to each of us. If we are to keep the faith as did the apostle Paul, we are also to pass on the faith to others. As Charles Wesley wrote,

Happy if with my final breath

I may but gasp his name,

preach him to all, and cry in death,

‘Behold, behold the Lamb!’

May our final words refer not the wallpaper, but to the good news about Jesus Christ.

Address for Trinity 14

On Galatians 5.16-24, the Epistle in the Prayer Book:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

At the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, many people assumed that the war would be ‘over by Christmas’. It was Lord Kitchener who vocally dissented from popular opinion: he warned that the war would be decided by the last million men that Britain could throw into battle.

The overriding theme of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is the doctrine of justification by faith – the good news that God declares us in the right with him by his grace alone when we put our trust in Christ. And many Christians assume that, having been justified, or declared in the right with God, by faith, that struggles will be no more and the Christian life will be one of ease. They want to ‘Let go and let God’, as pietistic Victorians put it. Or ‘Don’t wrestle, just nestle!’

But the apostle Paul, in this morning’s Epistle, does a Lord Kitchener. Paul says instead that the battle is not over, but only begun. We read that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Everyone who has been born anew by God’s Holy Spirit experiences the conflict between what we, in our sinful nature, want, and what God wants. You might say that every Christian is a war-zone.

J C Ryle was the first Bishop of Liverpool and he wrote a book on this very subject called Holiness. In it he wrote that ‘True Christianity is a fight.... The true Christian is called to be a soldier, and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death.’

Paul’s list of ‘the works of the flesh’ is grim. But none of us can say that we have not been guilty of them all in one way or another. Elsewhere in Scripture we read that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

For that reason, Paul warns us that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Those whose lives are characterized by unrepentant sin are not true Christians.

But there is a better way. Those who have been justified by faith produce the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.

Never imagine that when you became a Christian the conflict was finished. Lord Kitchener knew the First World War would last a long time. Paul reminds us that as Christians we are in for the long-haul, too. In Bishop Ryle’s words, ‘May we never forget that without fighting there can be no holiness while we live, and no crown of glory when we die!’ Amen.

Address for Trinity 12

At our 8 a.m. Communion Service, we have a short address, normally about three minutes. This one is on 2 Corinthians 3.4-9:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In this week’s Spectator, Justin Marozzi writes about a colleague, a retired senior army officer, who is going to buy property in Amman.

“Jordan has everything you want in a country,” he says. “First of all, a monarchy. Second, there are no speed limits. Third, no smoking ban, so you can light up wherever you like.”

What the retired officer is valuing is freedom. The apostle Paul valued freedom, too, and it’s freedom he wrote about in this morning’s epistle: he contrasts the letter with the spirit; the ministration of condemnation with the ministration of righteousness.

The ministration of condemnation was the law which Moses addressed to the people of God. It brought conviction of sin to the people of God and made clear their need of a Saviour. It does the same today. When we hear the Summary of the Law at the beginning of the Communion Service, we realise we have failed to live up to God’s standards.

What the law cannot do is save us. The letter kills. What is needed is a new covenant, a new testament. In Christ, God gives us just that. As Jesus dies on the cross and rises from the dead, he fulfils the law and ushers in a new age: the age of the ministration of the spirit. And the spirit gives life.

Christians are those who are convicted of sin by God’s grace, and forgiven that sin by God’s grace. And so we live in freedom: not frightened of God’s condemnation, but rejoicing that God has given us his righteousness through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Charles Wesley identified the need both to be convicted of sin and to be forgiven in one of his hymns:

That blessèd sense of guilt impart,

and then remove the load;

trouble, and wash the troubled heart

in the atoning blood.

The retired army officer wanted to move to Jordan to experience freedom. But as those who have had our guilt removed by faith in the blood Christ, we are much more free even than those who live in Jordan: we are free from guilt, free from God’s condemnation, and free to obey God’s law.

To God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be glory now and for ever. Amen.

Urban Mass

My long essay for my MA is on liturgy and mission in urban contexts. This is a tentative attempt at a Eucharistic Prayer which gives expression to some urban concerns. It is tempting to produce a Prayer which could only be used in cities. This has been resisted: common prayer demands that liturgy should be of use to the whole of the Church. Nevertheless, perhaps this would resonate with city people in a particular way?

Prayer Y

The Lord is here.
His Spirit is with us.

Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give thanks and praise.

God of love and power,
good Father to your children:
you have created a people for your praise.

You rescued us from slavery;
you fed us, taught us and showed us your ways.

We celebrate the hope you have given us
and long for your future of mercy,
justice and joy.

Hear us as we join the song of the eternal city,
where countless multitudes praise your glory:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

Father, you show your holiness
in your Son, the Word made flesh,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
He shared the life of the despised,
ate with sinners, fed the hungry,
and brought light to those in darkness.

On the night before he suffered and died
at the hands of those in authority,
he gathered his apostles
to celebrate the freedom of your people.
He took bread, gave you thanks,
broke it and gave it to them, saying:
Take, eat; this is my body, which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.

After supper he took a cup of wine.
He gave you thanks and gave it to them, saying:
Drink this, all of you;
this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me.

And so, with this bread and this cup
we proclaim the saving death your Son endured
outside the walls of Jerusalem.
He died with criminals as one without sin.
He rose from the dead as Lord of all.
We long for his return in glory,
when your people will be welcomed
in his perfect kingdom.

Christ has died:
Christ is risen:
Christ will come again.

In your generous love, send your Holy Spirit
to bring hope and healing to the world.
As we eat this bread and drink this wine,
feed us with the body and blood of your Son.
Give us a foretaste of the day
when evil is no more
and all your people rejoice to sing your praise.

By your Spirit, open our eyes
to see your transforming presence
in the people and places around us.
Send us out to proclaim the good news,
that all nations may know your power to save
in Jesus Christ our Lord;

by whom, and with whom, and in whom,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
with all who stand before you in earth and heaven,
we worship you, Father almighty,
in songs of everlasting praise:

Blessing and honour and glory and power
be yours for ever and ever. Amen.


Again, this is (obviously) not authorized for use in the Church of England!

When the Son of Man comes, will he find Faith in the City?