A Pope for Protestants too?

Reflecting on the significance of Pope Leo XIV for all Christians

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Trinity Sunday Sermon in response to the shameful defeat of the motion on Open Baptism at our recent General Synod

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Sermon for Trinity Sunday 2024

Trinity Sunday – It’s a funny sort of feast – It doesn’t celebrate any particular event in our faith story – It’s a celebration of a theological doctrine and immediately that makes a lot of people want to switch off!

It is however a very important doctrine – the heart of our faith  - which is implied throughout the biblical narrative and is intrinsic to our understanding of God and our relationship with God and indeed the whole of Creation.

I was looking for a fresh angle on the Trinity for my sermon today and I did a bit of reading of some commentaries on the theme and came across this from a contemporary theologian, Gerald Darring – The theology he articulates is completely orthodox but the way in which he presents it provoked a sort of lightbulb moment for me. This quotation is quite lengthy but I think quite helpful:
‘There is absolute individuality within the Trinity, for we believe that the Father is neither the Son nor the Spirit, nor is the Son the Father or the Spirit, nor is the Spirit the Father or the Son. Each person is distinct from the other two; none loses his personhood within the Trinity.
There is absolute equality within the Trinity. No person has something that the others lack, for each is God and each is all being. None is more God; all are absolutely equal.
There is absolute unity within the Trinity. God is one; the three persons are one. Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct persons, but they are persons in one God.
Ours is a Trinitarian religion. The Trinity is the source of our faith as well as the goal of our lives. We long to live for all eternity the life of the Trinity. Meanwhile, the Trinity is for us the model towards which we strive as a community: free individuals with total equality in complete unity.’

That last paragraph really hit home for me:

It hit home because I suddenly realised it addresses head on an issue which has caused huge hurt and damage within our own Church of Ireland and beyond in recent weeks. I’m referring to the defeated motion brought to General Synod which sought to encourage clergy not to refuse baptism to children based on the marital status of their parents. The motion was passed by the laity but narrowly defeated by the clergy, some of whom, for whatever reason seemed to want to be the gatekeepers to the sacrament of Baptism.

Lets look again at the last line of Gerald Darring’s commentary on the Trinity.

‘The Trinity is the source of our faith as well as the goal of our lives. …….the Trinity is for us the model towards which we strive as a community: free individuals with total equality in complete unity.’

How does that square with what happened at General Synod? It doesn’t I would suggest! The latter says we are a church with walls and barriers to keep out certain people – a church not of equality but one which likes to put people into categories of exclusion – a church which does not seek Unity but division – withdrawing itself onto an island of purity and rigorous and unforgiving rules which take away all freedom. It is a vision of Hell!

The Trinity on the other hand is a vision of Divine relationship which draws us in and welcomes us – What happened at Synod was the antithesis of this and flies in the face of who and what we are called to be.

I am not one for quoting huge tracts of Scripture out of context but I do make an exception for the words of Jesus which have a way of cutting across and through our prejudices and our hangups (and I think that is what was at play at Synod – some people far too wrapped up in their own theological systems and hangups that they could not see the fundamental principle at stake.)

These words of Jesus from Matthew 18: 1-5 are I think particularly relevant and instructive:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ ² He called a child, whom he put among them, ³ and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

I would defy anybody to interpret those words of Jesus in a way that could possibly justify turning away a child presented for baptism by its parent or parents regardless of their marital arrangements, their sex or sexuality or any other defining characteristic of their personhood.

If we are truly to reflect the vision of the Trinity in our church and in our lives then rather than creating a theological obstacle course for those who are seeking we should be the kind of community that reflects and extends the divine embrace and welcome to all who show up. We need to get over ourselves and realise its not about us but about a God who seeks to draw all people to himself and it is not for us to get in the way.

Infact the very next verse following those words of Jesus I just quoted from Matthew 18 says this – again the words of Jesus:

‘'If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.’

Strong stuff – I think the message essentially is – Get out of the way and let God be God!

God doesn’t need gatekeepers – The Church doesn’t need gatekeepers – I don’t know if you have noticed but people aren’t exactly knocking down the door to get in to our churches these days…….perhaps because we are perceived to be exclusive and inward looking – I know that’s not true in this parish or this church but can we continue to assume that those outside the doors don’t think differently. The public commentary following the General Synod made it quite clear that a lot of people had their opinions and prejudices confirmed. There is a lot of cynicism out there and its hard to say it isn’t justified! We cannot deny that the majority of clergy want to be gatekeepers and some laity as well – We have a problem and if we don’t address it our church will not be here in another generation.

I think this is a wake up call for us – Somehow we have to leave people in no doubt as to who we are and what we stand for because no matter what and who we think we are perception is reality. People have to know they are Welcome – No strings attached!

Some years ago at a vestry meeting we discussed  joining the Changing Attitude list of Open and Welcoming Churches in Ireland to LGBT+ people - Many of the parishes in this diocese (including some of our neighbours) are signed up to it but without consensus we didn’t pursue it further – I no longer believe it is a option – Yes I know that people of diverse sexuality are welcome in our churches but do those who might be outside the door and wondering will they be welcome know? Why can’t we make it easier for them? Why force them to guess or to make themselves more vulnerable by taking a risk? Why not be unambiguous and get out of the way of a God who doesn’t want or need gatekeepers. Sometimes by our inaction we make great gatekeepers!

That is just one example – Others spring to mind. Obviously the current issue of open Baptism is something that we need to make explicit.

We have an annual pet service in our parish and there is one four legged regular attender all year around but do we need to say more publicly that we are pet friendly all year around…. Its not just pets but support dogs – I wonder is there somebody who would like to be a part of this community of faith but is not sure if their pet or companion dog is welcome…..

I could probably go on but that’s probably enough to consider for one day. I never thought a consideration of the Trinity would lead me down this road but I do really feel there is an urgency for us as a church if we wish to thrive and continue to live the vision of the Trinity as a welcoming and open community of faith to be much more explicit about what we stand for and indeed what we do not wish to see said and done in our name.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Patrick's Day Sermon - St Patrick the Immigrant

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Sermon - Christ the King and Reflections on violence in Dublin in recent days

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Locked out and Locked in the Setanta Q Park Dawson Street

Update - Have had a written apology and an undertaking to give retraining to staff concerned from Q Park and offer of some free parking.

Pleasantly surprised to get a prompt and positive response :)

So tonight I headed into the city for the first time in many months for a meeting and parked in the Setanta Q Park on Dawson Street – I have a toll tag which includes parking which saves the trip to the ticket machine when exiting. All went well on entering the carpark but leaving was a different matter! I arrived back at the pedestrian entrance to the carpark at about 7.40pm only to find the door locked. The only way to enter was to enter the last four digits of your parking ticket but as I had entered via toll tag I had no ticket! But there was an intercom which I pressed a number of times and nobody answered! But all was not lost – there was an emergency number which I dialled and a man answered and was bemused when I explained my predicament – However a few moments later another pedestrian exited the door and I was able to get in so all was well! Little did I know the worst was yet to come!

So I drove up to the barrier and expected it to lift as my tag beeped as usual but nothing happened – I reversed and tried again, and again, and again but no joy! So then I looked for the help button on the exit terminal but where it should have been was an empty hole and no sign of a button! At this point I reversed and drove back into the carpark and reparked and decided to search for a staff member. But there no joy either – Nobody was in the staff office! So I went back to the barrier and saw another motorist having the same issue – In his case he had prebooked parking and the machine would not recognise his ticket – He suggested we went back to the ticket machines and tried the intercom there which we both did and we both reported the missing help button on the exit terminal. Neither operator would accept our word and insisted multiple times that  the button was there as they had had calls earlier in the evening from it. We both persisted but they effectively said we were either liars or idiots! So we went back to the exit terminal and the other motorist managed to with great difficulty reach the call button which had fallen into the machine but he said it was gone out of reach – however miraculously it activated and he managed to get out and I then spoke to the operator and she asked for my reg which I gave and she told me to drive back up to the barrier – I did this but nothing happened and the button was beyond reach and so I reversed again and reparked yet again and then once again rang the intercom on the ticket machine. I got the same operator who again refused to accept my explanation that the call button on the exit terminal was gone and then accused me of being abusive – I was certainly exasperated at this stage and apologised not because it was warranted but because I did not want to spend the night in the carpark and she said she would dial into the exit terminal if I drove up to it again – I did this and as I was leaving I asked that she would report the issue with the missing call button but no reply except to lift the barrier – I can forgive technical issues but the dismissive and patronising attitude towards paying customers is not acceptable – Get your act together Q Park – This was an example of the worst of customer service!

Ascension Sunday Sermon with reflection on Navan Assault and Inch Migrant Blockade

 Ascension Sunday Sermon Video

In the wake of the Navan Bullying/Assault case - A Personal Perspective

 My heart aches for that young man in Navan so brutally assaulted - Bullying seems somehow an inadequate word to describe it and yet that is what it is and it needs to be taken much more seriously in all our schools. I speak as one who was bullied relentlessly for a period of 6 years in a very well known private Protestant Dublin school (4th class Primary to 4th Year Secondary) and where it was not taken seriously by those who had the responsibility of care for us the pupils. I was the new boy, the fat kid, the vicar's son and I became a target for the bullies - Every day I faced beatings, being spat on, a wedgie every time we had PE or sport and constant mockery - It was soul destroying and I did consider suicide more than once. They were the most miserable years of my life and only for a few good friends I would not be here today. It took me years to get over it and two years of intensive counselling right into my mid twenties before I was truly able to move on. That may all be ahead of this young man from Navan and I pray he has the support he needs to get through this nightmare. I changed schools twice more before finishing secondary school due to my father moving posts. Both (The first a Quaker school and the second a Roman Catholic Co-ed convent) were wonderful and so different. In neither case was bullying tolerated or was it allowed to flourish - It didn't and doesn't have to be this way!

Funnily enough I was invited back to my old school to talk about bullying by one of the teachers who knew my story and thankfully the culture had changed and I believe bullying was finally recognised for what it is: Potentially life threatening and definitely life affecting mental and physical abuse.

I have over the years met many of my former bullies and most have never said anything about their former actions - Maybe they don't remember - Maybe they choose to ignore it - Or maybe they are so ashamed they can't bring themselves to mention it - I hope it is the latter not because I bear them any ill will - One of the things counselling taught me was that I couldn't let them live in my head - but because it is utterly shameful and damages and sometimes destroys lives. I do hope this is a tipping point and that bullying will no longer be tolerated in our schools where our children have the right to presume that they are safe.

Overcoming Negativity

 The recent wave of vile and senseless racist protests against the refugee community in Ireland is profoundly disturbing but in the last 24 hours there are signs of hope and an alternative and more representative narrative emerging as the newly formed Ballymun for All and Ballyfermot for All among others reclaim the recently hijacked voice of the citizens of this land and affirm that this is still 'Ireland of the Welcomes'.

It is so important that the wider local community in these and other places are fighting back against a small group of hate filled individuals who are misrepresenting the people of Ireland and spreading fear and hatred though zenophobic propaganda and misinformation.

Although those who promote this hatred are in a minority the power of negativity (The Negativity Bias) has long been recognised scientifically as much more enduring than its opposite of possitivity and in order to overcome this negativity we have to make a significant and disproportionate effort to overcome it.

I first saw this demonstrated some 20 years ago when I was a guest at the consecation of the first openly gay Anglican bishop in Durham, New Hampshire, USA. Bishop Gene Robinson who is a personal friend of mine and who faced death threats on the day and had to wear a bulletproof vest during the ceremony and bravely faced a very dangerous situation throughout the liturgy. His consecration was heavily protested by the notorious Westboro Baptist Church and I and all who attended had to walk through their vile and hateful protest but it was entirely mitigated by a counter and much larger positive protest by students from the University of New Hampshire who quite literally demonstrated how Love triumphs over fear and hatred.

This is what I was reminded of when I saw the local communities in Ballyfermot and Ballymun rising up to reclaim their voice and with it the priority of Love. They have set us all an example and we must follow by refusing to let hate win and to give overwhelming voice to the Love that is at the heart of true community. Otherwise if we leave a void it will be filled by hatred and negativity – We cannot be passive and assume that the greater good will prevail. Let us protest for Love and against Hate!

My Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension - 29th May 2022 - We are in Christ so lets live that reality!

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'The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one'

Unity or Oneness is a constantly recurring theme in the New Testament and it is especially emphasised in John's Gospel and most especially in the passage we heard today from John 17. Jesus desires and asks of his father that all may be one. For Jesus the goal is one of ultimate reconcilliation when all are united through participation in the divine Unity of God. Despite the misguided behaviour of so many of his followers then and now who seek to divide the World on the basis of those who are in and those who are out Jesus is conversely about drawing people together, creating a unity of diversity and also revealing the fundamental unity of the whole of Creation.

We have a long way to go to achieve that unity when we look at the state of our World today – The Ukraine is an obvious example where one side has denied any sense of common human identity or unity by the most terrible and gatuitous acts of murder which ignore the humanity of those they kill.

So too is the Texas school massacre of last Tuesday. We have seen displayed here once again the fundamental disunity in a nation which is at war with itself over its historic love affair with guns – And this is rooted in a mindset where the individuals right to bear arms trumps all other rights and responsibilities.

The tragic results of this and so many mass shootings before this is the most obvious demonstration of how exercising our rights with no regard for others or for any sense of unity can have very destructive consequences.

It is of course an extreme example and we rightly condemn it but it is not unrelated to the philosophy which underpins most western society which is the cult of the individual or in some cases one group of individuals over and against another group of individuals. Unity is not high on our agenda. We see that ironically as much as anywhere else in church circles where certain groups are more concerned about being doctrinally right than being in right relationship with others – we see it in our increasingly disfunctional and broken politics which is so often single issue driven and takes no account of other issues or people for that matter - we see it in the failure to respect the rest of Creation in the way we live on this planet and are now reaping the consequences in terms of global warming and climate change - we live in a world of THEM AND US and for many people that is not a problem – they see no issue with it – For me to succeed somebody else has to fail – Unity is not the goal but rather my personal realisation of my goals and God help anyone who gets in the way!

And that is the kind of world in which such tragedies as the Texas massacre will continue to take place – a world where my individual rights are both the route and destination of life – and this is the predominant philosophy in our world today and it is antithetical to any possibility of unity, reconcilliation or healing.

Where did this come from? Ironically Christianity had a large part to play in this and it goes right back to the events of that 1st Easter.

As you know this is the Sunday after the Ascension and the Ascension like many other events in Jesus life is depicted very clearly in art and iconography deriving from the Gospel stories – Indeed right through from the Annunciation to the Ascension all the key moments in Jesus life and ministry are recorded in the Gospels and by extension in art and iconography with the exception of one event which is not described in the Gospels but only its aftermath and that is of course Easter – the single most important event in the life of Jesus and the calendar of the Church.

However as the New Testament theologians John Dominic Crossan and his wife Sarah Sexton Crossan, in their book Resurrecting Easter, have observed it was inevitable that in the absence of any direct record of the Ressurection the Christian imagination eventually created a direct image of Christ's Ressurrection............In fact 2, one in AD 400 and the other around AD 700 but they were very different. The first focuses on Christ alone and is based on the empty tomb and is seen as part of the individual ressurrection tradition whereas the second is part of the universal Resurrection tradition because in it Jesus raises all of humanity with him. In it (and here I quote): 'he reaches out towards Adam and Eve, the biblical parents and symbols for humanity itself, raises them up, and leads them out of Hades.'

Although the universal image appears initially to be a later one, the Crossans also note that this universal concept was in circulation at the time of the earlier individual image as demonstrated in the writings of St Ambrose of Milan - this next extract written on the death of his brother in 379 - ' If Christ did not rise for us, then he did not rise at all, since he had no need of it just for himself. In him the world arose, in him heaven arose, in him the earth arose. For there will be a new heaven and a new earth'

..............and later they quote the Gospel of Nicodemus which is one of the Gospels that did not make it into the canon of scriptures: 'Why then do you marvel at the Ressurection of Jesus? What is marvellous is not that he arose but that he did not arise alone, that he raised many other dead ones who appeared to many in Jerusalem'

While some might dismiss this because it is not included in the canon of Scripture its basis is absolutely concrete and is found in two New Testament verses about which very little is ever said:

Matthew 27:52-53:  The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.

So it is clear that this much more unified and universal vision of Salvation is a genuine part of the Biblical and early Christian understanding of what happened at the Resurrection and the fact that the narrower concept of individual Ressurection and Salvation held sway in the Western Church had huge implications not only for our theology but for the whole of our Western society in its emphasis on individualism. It is important to note that the opposite is the case in the Eastern Orthodox tradition which is very much in the universal tradition.

And yet despite the triumph of this narrow view of salvation there is so much in the New Testament that points towards a more generous view and dare I say it and as the Crossans suggest in their writings a view that is closer to what Jesus intended and pointed.

In his recent book 'The Universal Christ' Fr Richard Rohr, who is I think perhaps the most insightful theologian at this time, has dealt with this very issue and I find his thinking exciting and compelling:

His treatment of Paul and his writings is especially helpful. Referring to Paul's conversion he says:

'The deep and abiding significance of Saul's encounter is that he hears Jesus speak as if theres a moral equivalence between Jesus and the people Saul is persecuting. The voice twice calls the people “me”! From that day forward , this astounding reversal of perspective became the foundation for Paul's evolving worldview and his exciting discovery of “the Christ”. This fundamental awakening moved Saul from his beloved, but ethnic bound religion of Judaism towards a universal view of religion, so much so that he changed his Hebrew name to its Latin form 'Paul'

Richard Rohr notes that the key phrase in Paul's writings is 'In Christ' which he uses more than any other in his letters, 164 times in total and Rohr summarises the meaning of this phrase: 'Humanity has never been seperate from God – unless and except by its own negative choice. All of us without exception are living inside a cosmic identity, already in place, that is driving and guiding us forward. We are all [in Christ], willingly or unwillingly, happily or unhappily, consciously or unconsciously.

Paul seemed to understand that the lone individual was far too small insecure and short lived to bear either the weight of glory or the burden of sin. Only the whole [Body] could carry such a cosmic mystery of constant loss and renewal. Paul's knowledge of 'in Christ' allowed him to give God's universal story a name, a focus, a love, and a certain victorious direction so that coming generations could trustingly jump on this cosmic and collective ride.

I don't know about you but the first time I read that it changed my whole perspective on Paul and his writings.

And its not just in Paul that we find this broader wider vision of fundamental unity. In St Mark's Gospel Jesus tells the disciples to proclaim the good news to “all creation” or “every creature” (not just humans) and Rohr notes that Paul takes this up in Colossians 1:23:

'if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. '

However we have sadly lost so much of this Biblical tradition – Richard Rohr comments that 'Paul's brilliant understanding of a Corporate Christ, and thus our cosmic identity , was soon lost as early Christians focussed more and more on Jesus alone and even apart from the eternal flow of the Trinity, which is finally theologically unworkable. Christ forever keeps Jesus firmly inside the Trinity, not a mere later add on or a somewhat arbritary incarnation. Trinitarianism keeps God as Relationship Itself from the very beginning, and not a mere monarch.

Rohr also places St Augustine within this more universal tradition which might horrify those who revel in his other legacy of the theology of Original Sin! In his 'Retractions' Augustine said this:

For what is now called the Christian religion existed even among the ancients and was not lacking from the beginning of the human race”

Any reading of the prologue to St John's Gospel tells us that Augustine was right:

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.   All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. 

In support of Augustine Rohr asks rhetorically:

'[Were] native peoples on all continents and isolated islands for millenia just throwaways or dress rehearsals for us? Is God really that ineffective boring and stingy? Does the Almighty one operate from a scarsity model of love and forgiveness? Did the Divinity need to wait for Ethnic Orthodox, Roman Catholics, European Protestants and American Evangelicals to appear before the divine love affair could begin? I cannot imagine! ....................Authentic God experience always expands your seeing and never constricts it.... in God you do not include less and less; you always see and love more and more.'

And so we come back to today's Gospel and that prayer of Jesus which I think speaks emphatically of a God of all things and all peoples, a Universal Christ who calls each one of us to live in the Unity that is already and always was a reality and so bring healing and reconcilliation to a World that is already in Christ.

‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

And finally today's collect for the Ascension reminds us that we are forever in Christ:

Mercifully give us faith to know
that, as he promised,
he abides with us on earth to the end of time;

How different would our World look if we lived this reality that Christ is all in all and we are all one in Christ? – That is our calling and it is never to late to start! Amen.

Easter Sermon 2022 - Easter after Bucha and Sligo

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Easter Sermon 2022

I am sure that I am not alone in finding this Easter more challenging than usual – A couple of months ago I was certainly looking forward to it – the first Easter in three years without the strictures of Covid measures and lockdowns was an exciting and joyous prospect. But then the war in Ukraine happened and with it our world has been thrown into yet another series of crises and a whole nation is fighting for its very survival in the face of unspeakable evil. The revelations about the horrible massacres in Bucha and other cities made me ask myself whether we should or could celebrate Easter while so many people were trapped in a long Good Friday experience.

And closer to home we have had the ugly spectre of hate crime and in particular homophobic murder come to the fore with the tragic events in Sligo. And I have to say as a Church of Ireland priest I am not comfortable with how our own church has in the past and still today discriminates against those of diverse sexuality and has played a part in feeding the fear and hatred that ultimately results in crimes like the murders of Aidan Moffitt & Michael Snee. So there is a lot of darkness...........

But we are here tonight/today and we are celebrating the Resurrection, as we must, because the alternative is to give in to the darkness and the hate and that is not an option.

When I shared my thoughts about the difficulty of celebrating Easter in the current context more than one of my friends wisely pointed out that it is always Good Friday somewhere on this planet. Its just that we are more aware of the plight of some than we are of others.

If Christ is not being crucified on the Streets of Bucha then he is in Aleppo in Syria, or among the Rohinga Muslims subjected to genocide by the Burmese military, or in the terrible conflicts in Ethiopia, Southern Sudan and the Congo.

And yet these tragedies do not impact on us in the same way as the Ukraine war has done and that is understandable if not questionable – We identify more closely with the people of the Ukraine because they are more like us – they are europeans in all but name and they look more like us – Of course it shouldn't be this way – All human beings of whatever race, ethnicity or religion are equally precious in God's sight and while our compassion as a nation for the Ukranian people is commendable it does raise uncomfortable questions about all those other situations where Christ is being crucified in our world and our response has been less than audible.

Turning to the Gospel from John that first Easter was mired in chaos and grief and bewilderment – The story was over as far as most of his followers were concerned – Jesus (their great hope) had died and now the final indignity the discovery that his body has apparently been stolen – the distraught plea of Mary Magdalene first to the disciples and then to the angels in the tomb captures the mood so perfectly:

They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ (the words of one utterly broken)

And it is then that Jesus reveals himself to Mary and she recognises him: when he addresses her 'Mary' and she responds 'Rabbouni' (Teacher) an acknowledgement that the story is not over – he still has more to teach her.

Easter is fundamentally about refusing to close the pages on our story and God's story – stories that are fundamentally intertwined and undergirded by the Hope that allows us to imagine the next chapter. That is not to say we can leave the suffering and hurt behind – There is no Resurrection without Good Friday but seen through the lens of Easter, Good Friday is not the last chapter which it may appear to be – There is more to come.

Our lesson from Isaiah 65 paints a wonderful picture of the unfolding of God's story and our story and it one in which justice and peace are central and one in which we are assured they will come to fruition:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
...................
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard.....or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labour in vain,
or bear children for calamity;*
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
.................
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,

says the Lord.

That is the story of which we are a part and that is the only story that can help us move beyond Good Friday to this Easter Sunday which we celebrate tonight/today. I cannot help but think of a wonderful sermon preached by Tony Campolo in which he spoke to this very issue – The Sermon was called 'Its Friday but Sunday's Coming' and I think in challenging times it is a motto to live by – Its Friday but Sunday's Coming' It reminds us that Easter changes everthing – We are people of Hope and Resurrection – people who believe that the story is not over – people who will not let Hate win but celebrate the unstoppable Love of God that will ultimately prevail.

Amen.

Thoughts in the light of the Bucha Massacre

 Easter is late this year but Good Friday has come early – Christ has been crucified again, this time on the streets of Bucha in the Ukraine and not just once but time after time as people of all ages lie dead in the streets with their hands tied behind their backs and a bullet in the back of their heads or strewn over a bicyle or shopping cart where they fell or in black sacks in hastily dug trenches. 

I can't get these images out of my head as I go about my daily tasks. They overshadow everything, as they should for this is all they have left on this earth and I cannot deny them that – I cannot turn away – I must see them and acknowledge that they too were only days ago like me living breathing people who even amidst the horrors of war had hopes and dreams of a better future. 

Everything I do today seems hollow and empty – I am in the supermarket choosing something for dinner and I wonder were some of those lifeless bodies out looking for food when evil men on a whim decided to end their lives. I am not sure what I bought in the shop and it doesn't really matter because it seems somehow wrong that I should take pleasure in eating food that others may have died in the pursuit of. 

 I consider going for a walk and perhaps to take a few photographs of some of the beautiful countryside near where I live but I realise that this is not a day for beauty – I and we have to live with this terrible brokeness and horror – While these bodies lie on the street there is no beauty anywhere! – There is but a terrible darkness and for a time I and we have to be in this darkness alongside our sisters and brothers who are still being murdered and raped and tortured by the forces of evil. 

I want to see an end to this Good Friday and look forward to Easter Hope and Resurrection but at the moment that seems a long way off and too soon to contemplate – While this slaughter continues part of me wonders would it be blasphemous to celebrate Easter in less than 2 weeks time? 

Can we proclaim the Resurrection while children and women and men are being slaughtered on our doorstep? I truly do not know how to do that and yet honour those whose corpses lie rotting on the streets of Bucha, while they and their families are still living Good Friday.

A tale of two women - Ashling & Mary (A response to the murder of Ashling Murphy)

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Text of Sermon

It would be very difficult to stand in any pulpit in this land this Sunday and not mention the horrific murder of Aisling Murphy. We wanted to move on from the monotone of Covid conversations but this event is not what any of us anticipated or imagined – It is just too awful to contemplate! And yet we must – we owe at least that and a lot more to Aisling Murphy.

And while this very specific kind of event is rare the fear felt by women on a daily basis is clearly far greater than many of us imagined and I include myself in that – It has been a sad revelation to hear women talk of how when alone they carry their keys between their fingers to use in self defence (my own wife told me this week that she does this), how they consciously avoid going out in the dark or walking alone because of the possibility that they may be attacked, raped and or killed by a man. And their fear is justified – It rarely happens in plain view but as we are finally acknowledging attacks and assaults by men are the real experience of a very large number of women.

Also very sobering is the realisation that casual sexism and objectification of women is part of the same problem - yes at the lower end of the graph but any behaviour which demeans or mocks women and makes them lesser human beings than their male counterparts does in a subtle way contribute to the mindset that taken to its extreme allows a man to attack, rape or kill a woman.

And of course there is also that characteristic of a Patriarchal society that is inclined to write women out of history and the church has ben especially guilty of that in ignoring the significant role of women in the early church, often glossed over and even hidden. That too is part of the same problem as it takes identity and agency away from women and makes them lesser beings.

Sometimes these failings seem quite innocent but their significance cannot be underestimated in creating a culture where women do not feel safe.

Some years ago I was conducting a wedding (in my previous parish) and it was inter-church and I was assisted by a Roman Catholic priest who was a relative of the grooms family. As is my practice I shared as much of the liturgy with him as possible and among the things I invited him to do was the introductory preface of the service.

You will probably recall the line in the preface which is inspired by today's Gospel story: 'Our Lord Jesus Christ was himself a guest at a wedding feast in Cana' – At this point my ecumenical colleague added with pronounced emphasis these words 'As was his Mother Mary'.

I smiled to myself at what I assumed to be him putting the stamp of his own tradition on the service – I was probably one of the few people who noticed it but on rereading that Gospel story of that event and in the light of the tragic death of Aisling Murphy I realise now that intentionally or not he had done something very important in recalling Mary's presence at that event because she wasn't simply a bystander – she was infact the driving force of the story – without her it wouldn't have happened!

We tend to get fixated on the miracle itself – All the old jokes about inviting Jesus to your party and getting him to turn water into wine are wheeled out.

But the story is not simply about the miracle itself … it is something far more profound and every bit as controversial. In simple human terms, Jesus did what he could to help his neighbours in their hour of need….and it is an example worth following. Of course it is also a sign of who he was. He was a young man from Nazareth but he was much more than this. He was the Messiah, God’s chosen One, sent to advance God’s Kingdom on earth.

But as I said already without Mary's role in this story we not have this revelatory event.

Even before this miracle Mary obviously believed that her son was different, other, special. However it is only after they had seen his power in action that the disciples believed in him.

Not so Mary - With faith in herself and in him it was Mary who challenged the young Jesus to meet the need of the situation in which they found themselves. This was a wedding party and it was going to always be remembered as the party when they ran out of drink unless Jesus could do something to rescue the situation.

Jesus responds in this “the first of his signs” as it is described in the Gospel and in so doing “revealed his Glory”.

But Mary took a big risk – she did not know what Jesus was going to do and yet she recognised in him the gifts of God and encouraged him to use those gifts.

We do not possess the same power as our Lord but we do all possess gifts and very often we go through life without using them. Sometimes this is because we are too lazy or we couldn’t be bothered. Other times and more often though it is because we do not recognise our own gifts. Maybe we are insecure, shy, modest, doubtful of our own giftedness?

This is where we need other people – to see us as we cannot possibly see ourselves and to identify in us the gifts that we have to offer to the community of faith. That is what Mary did and she deserves the prominent role she has in this story. Ironically we often describe the scriptures as patriarchal but in John's Gospel Mary's fundamental role is explicit and undeniable and yet in the preface to the wedding liturgy it is we in the contemporary modern church who by the sin of omission loose the oportunity to proclaim a very important truth in acknoledging her presence and agency.

How much good is left undone because nobody has the vision to see another person’s potential for good and to call it into action?

When someone (such as Mary) does they are helping to fulfill the will of God and helping the other person to live up to their God given potential – to be the best human that they can be.

And the corollary of that is equally true – when we demean or mock the inate giftedness of another human being we are frustrating the will of God and we are damaging the potential of the other.

Aisling Murphy died because some depraved individual did not recognise or acknowledge her full humanity, her giftedness (not just as a talented teacher and musician whose work involved uncovering and enabling the gifts of her students) but as another human being into whom God breathed life and a potential that she had the right to hope to fulfill.

We may never know the who or the why of this profoundly disturbing event but we might ask ourselves – What started her killer down a road that would lead to a hate filled murder? – What shaped his attituide to women that allowed him to cross that line? What part did the casual sexism that too many of us (mostly men and myself included are guilty of) what part did that play in the early days of his journey into misogony and murder? What gave him permission as he saw it to exercise power over a woman to the point of extinguishing her life?

I don't have all the answers and there is a huge job of work to be done by all of us (especially us men) at every level to rid society of endemic sexism and violence against women, but I think in the example of Mary in today's Gospel we have a very helpful starting point. Look for the gifts in each other and draw those gifts out by encouragement – acknowledge the sacred humanity in each other and resist the urge to demean and undermine one another. Sometimes we do this unconsciously and pass it off as a bit of fun.

Most of us will never go further than what we see as fun and banter but we have a responsibility to create a society and a world where women have the right and the expectation to feel safe and secure and so we have to begin at this very basic level. Too much of our human identity is built on knocking each other down – That is not the will of God and as we remember Aisling Murphy before God today let us do all in our power to end this evil which took her life and robbed so many people of her gifts and her love. To do nothing is not an option and gives permission for this to happen again. For her memory and for the sake of our shared humanity let us resolve to be agents of this necessary and long overdue change.

What the Dog taught me about God! My sermon for Advent Sunday 2021

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Advent Sunday Sermon 2021

Intending to raise cattle, a family from New York bought a ranch out West. When their friends visited and inquired about the ranch’s name, the would be rancher replied: “I wanted to name it the Bar-J. My wife favored Suzy-Q, one of our sons wanted the Flying-W, and the other liked the Lazy-Y. So we’re calling it the BAr-J-Suzy-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y.”

“But where are all your cattle?” the friends asked.

“None survived the branding.”

That is a perfect example of the consequences of disagreement and a lack of unity. The longer I live the more I believe that Unity and Oneness is essential to living productively and faithfully on this Earth. The growing crisis of climate change is teaching us that and there is an urgency to find a true unity of purpose that acknowledges our unity interdependence on one another and for us as Christians on God.

One of the consequences of believing in the fundamental unity of all things and the centrality of Unity to the message of the Gospel is that one is inclined to look for and discern moments and experiences in everyday life where we are given a glimpse of the Sacred/Holy in our World, where that fundamental unity is demonstrated most explicitly.

One that occured to me recently comes from my experience as a doggie person. Anyone who has a dog (especially a male dog I'm told) knows well the twin dreads of dog ownership.

The first is that bark at 3am on a freezing winter night which means that I/you have to get out of our lovely cozy bed and go out into the garden so that the dog can do his business.

The second flows from the first and that is standing there freezing while your dog does everything but do his business and spends his time sniffing every square inch of the lawn or chasing cats or hedgehogs as you wait interminibly for him to finally circle in on the chosen spot and do the necessary so that you can go back to your lovely warm bed before you become hypothermic.

All very well but where you ask is the glimpse of the Sacred/Holy in that?Particularly as yours truly may have uttered some very unholy words while waiting for the canine parambulations to end?

But that same experience seems to me to present so well two sides to the experience that we all share throughout our lives and that is the process of WAITING.

First the anxious wait for something that we do not want to happen and then the impatient waiting for something that we want to be completed or fulfilled.

Advent is a time of Waiting and it two has both those aspects:

If we understand Advent not simply as a preparation and a lead in to Christmas but as the expectation of the return of Christ in Glory then there may be a sort of trepedation or anxiety about that long anticipated event – we may be in no hurry for this life or this world as we know it to come to an end and in the words of St Augustine may be thinking:

'Give me Chastity – But not yet!'

We have plans and are not quite ready for Jesus' return!

Or alternatively we be counting the days till the end of Advent which will signal the arrival of the infant Jesus on Christmas day and the joy and happinness that comes with the Incarnation.

The reality is that we have to live with that tension – Waiting is a part of our witness – Waiting is a part of our human condition and waiting is intrinsic to the Gospel.

We live in an inbetween world and an inbetween time – we see glimpses of the Kingdom in our lives and it is those glimpses that give us the strength to live in the moment and to acept the tension and sometimes even the seeming contradiction in our lives. But to that we must seek the Unity that is all around us and be reconcilers and healers in a world which is so divided by those who would deny that unity and interdependence.

That I believe was and is fundamental to Jesus message as articulated in his prayer to the Father in John 17:

20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,[a] so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

I want to finish with another prayer written by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ who was a very influential theologian and died in 1955. He had a particular understanding of the inate sacredness of Waiting and his prayer may be helpful to us as we wait, not alone for Advent and Christmas and Christ's return in glory but also I am sure I speak for all of us an end to the pandemic which has cast such a long shadow on our lives:

Patient Trust—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete. AMEN.

COVID19 - NO SURRENDER!

Like most people I am utterly fed up (that's putting it very politely) with COVID. It has sucked the joy and pleasure out of life. It is like a dark cloud hanging over our lives and even on the brightest Summer day that cloud is there – It may not be visible but you can feel its presence nontheless. I would consider myself relatively compliant when it comes to the necessary public safety restrictions – indeed I previously argued publically that the churches should not be lobbying for an early return to public worship.

However the recent bad news re the D variant and the pulling back from planned easing of Covid measures caused something to snap and I took to social media and had a rant about what I called the 'Stockholm Syndrome' that appears to be affecting our national psyche. When I cooled down I had to acknowledge that caution is required at this point and that until most of the adult population is fully vaccinated it is probably wise and necessary to hold back on indoor dining and other social pleasures that we once took for granted. In saying that I am hugely cognisant of the high price that those in the hospitality sector have paid and continue to pay due to these measures. For them especially I long for a return to 'normality'.

What disturbs me most though now is the common response when I or others express this desire to get our old lives back and usually it goes like this: 'O but this is the new normal – you'd better get used to it' – Or when I say I am looking forward to ditching the face mask I have heard the response from more than one person that they quite like the mask and are in no hurry to stop wearing it – 'At least it keeps the colds and flu at bay'! I find this not only mind boggling but also very sad. For me it signals a loss of Hope and a resigned acceptance of the status quo and I for one am not prepared to go down that road – Hope is a vital component of our humanity and when we give up on that I think we may as well give up full stop.

As a Christian priest Hope is also central to what I do – I try to witness to the Resurrection, Hope not only to that of Jesus and our own ultimate destiny but also to the hope of a better tomorrow and the hope that our yesterdays and today's do not determne or limit our tomorrows.

That same hope is what keeps me going as I currently witness my 24 year old son with special needs rapidly going blind – I hope that if not a miracle in the short term that in the longer term medical science will provide a way for him to regain that most precious gift of sight. I don't know but I will contine to hope till my last breath on this earth.

Covid may not have taken our sight away but in many circumstances it has deprived us of the sense of touch which is equally essential to our humanity. The skin is the biggest organ in the human body and it is made for touch as we are made for touch. That touch may be everything from a handshake to a warm embrace, the exchange of the Peace in the liturgy, a hug of comfort for the bereaved or the passionate embrace of a lover. The contemporary author and poet Margaret Atwood said of touch: 'Touch comes before sight, before speech - It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.'

I still hope for that truth and I still hope for a return to the messy, tactile, touching and cold and flu-ridden world that I took for granted and I will never give up on that hope. I know for now I must be patient but I will not surrender my life to Covid 19!

The New Puritanism! Throwing the Statues out with the Bathwater

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/shelbourne-hotel-removes-153-year-old-statues-of-slave-girls-from-its-plinth-1.4315733

This strikes me as a classic example of the increasingly pervasive Neo-Puritan iconoclasm (mostly but not exclusively focused on statues) which while well motivated runs the risk of turning into a Talibanesque random destruction of the artifacts of history and culture which like the society from which they have sprung will always contain ambiguities and even things that are unpleasant and uncomfortable. That however IS our history and our heritage, a mixture of good and bad, light and dark, appropriate and inappropriate. Any attempt to airbrush it is like the common contemporary practice of photoshopping model's bodies (mostly women) in glossy magazines. It is false, dishonest and only results in alienating those who do not conform to increasingly narrower criteria of acceptability. I wonder how many of us would have stood up against slavery when it was the accepted norm in certain parts of the world? We are products of our time and to impose our modern enlightened standards to the art, architecture and iconography of another time is a mono-cultural fundamentalism no more helpful or wise than trying to read the Bible as literal history - indeed if the same logic that provoked the removal of theses statues was applied to the Bible or the Koran for that matter then both would be banned if not burned! There is of course the additional argument that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. The original Puritans while also well intended in overturning the excesses of the pre-Reformation Church threw away much of the richness and aesthetic beauty of church life and worship and created a form of Christianity that was strict, sterile and monochrome.It is only in latter years that some forms of Protestant Christianity have rediscovered the importance of the aesthetic in worship - Some still haven't! Let's be very careful before we throw the baby out with the bathwater again - he or she may not survive this time!