SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY IN THE OCTAVE OF ALL SAINTS

Preached at the Church of All Saints, Blackheath

at Parish Mass on November 3rd, 2019

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Readings: Dan 7:1-3, 15-18, Eph. 1:11-23 and Luke 6: 20-31

‘Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father X,

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.’

INTRODUCTION

If this were a Russian, Greek, Romanian or any Orthodox Church that’s how this Mass would have begun.  And, in so doing, we’d be reminded that, through this Liturgy – this great work we offer – we enter the Kingdom of our Three-Personed God. 

We may be in Blackheath but the curtain is being opened into heaven and we offer this sacrificial work of prayer and praise for God and the well-being of all Creation.  It expresses the mystery of our union with the place where saints and angels dwell; the mystery of Jesus’ work of reconciliation; that all things might be brought back into their right relationship in God.  And it places you and I who gather here in that most intimate relationship with the Reign of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, to which we cry: Amen – so be it! 

And that, sisters and brothers, is why we gather here.  That is what we are baptised into; it’s the work we’re engaged in, in this Liturgy.  What Jesus invites us to realise through this and every Mass – to enter into the Life-giving Mysteries of the Kingdom.  Here, right now, we stand in the presence, not only of God but also the whole company of heaven, and today’s continuing celebration of the Feast of All Saints is a specific reminder of that truth.  And to draw our attention to the fact that this is a foretaste of what is to come, the church in which I last served, like many others, had above its entrance doors these words from the book of Genesis:

‘Hic Domus Dei est et Porta Coeli’

This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven! (28:17).

For this and every building where the Liturgy is celebrated symbolises that new heaven where God dwells with his people, and all that is done here needs to focus our attention on that one simple mystery – the relationship of all people, living and departed, with God. And each of you are also Church, your whole body the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  You have the gate of heaven within your heart – open and enter it!

THE BEATITUDES

That kingdom is rooted in the teachings of Jesus’ which we heard read – the Beatitudes.  These ‘instructions’, these observations, are of such importance that, in the Orthodox Church, they are always sung as the Book of Gospels is carried into the church through the iconostasis, that great screen portraying the saints surrounding Christ in heaven – of which this is a reminder.  So let’s just reflect on the Beatitude’s for a moment. 

I’m sure you’ll recognise that they are somewhat counter-cultural – and always have been.  They speak of how to live a blessed life, a life which brings us into the right relationship with God and our neighbour.  A life which is the opposite of our aggressive, violent, winner-takes-all, make-as- much-money-as-you-can culture; but they will enable us to become what we are created to be: fully human.  It’s only Matthew and Luke who record them in their gospels.  They form the basis of Jesus teaching which he wanted to impress on His disciples – they’re His Mission Statement, if you like.    

CONDITION AND RESULT

Each consists of two phrases – a condition and a result.  Luke’s beatitudes concern physical, rather than spiritual, conditions – the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are hated.  And, in so doing, reflects his profound concern for social justice.  So his ‘woes’ are aimed at those who experience the opposite – those who have too much; who think life’s a joke, who lack that most important virtue – humility – and each are warned of woes to come.  They gave rise to the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy enjoined on all Christians: 

Feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty;

clothe the naked; shelter the homeless;

visit the sick and those in prison;

- and bury the dead.

BEATITUDES and KINGDOM OF GOD

Now, if I were to ask you what you really, really wanted in life, I wonder what you’d say? …  For some it’s all about ‘eat, drink and be happy’.  But is life really about getting as much as you can?  Doing what you want?  Feeling important … successful …  Are these the goals and values we want to impress on future generations?  That make us human?  Or are there more important ones at which to aim?

The ‘Beatitudes’ are unique to Christianity; they point to how we might live a truly content, complete, worthwhile life – a life that’s a source of blessing.  Which is why they are offered today – this is the way walked by the saints, the way of – holiness.  For Luke, faith has to have a practical application; and if it doesn’t then, ultimately,  we’re the losers.  But if we heed the teachings of Jesus then we will come to be at one with our Lady and all the Saints in glory and share with them in the Beatific Vision of God.  This is our destiny and we’re to live out the Reign of God here on earth as it is in heaven. 

THE DEPARTED – ALL SOULS

But what about all the others?  Those who didn’t quite make it?  Well, yesterday, we remembered the Souls who have passed from this life and who wait to be part of that glorious vision. 

November, traditionally, is dedicated to the Holy Souls with Masses offered for them whenever possible.  We don’t often talk about the departed: most of us have lost loved ones and it can be a painful matter for some to have to consider death.  But, at the heart of our Faith lies this simple desire – that with all the Saints we might be re-united with our Maker in the love and joy and wonder of heaven.  That’s the promise that awaits you and I!  We know that, when we die, we will be rewarded in accordance with our faith and our works – as St. John of the Cross said: ‘At the end of our days, we shall be judged by our loving.’ 

So we believe that before we can enter into the presence of God there’s a time of preparation just as there would be when we go to a party.  Just how long that will last, depends on the individual, but as the psalmist said:

To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and gone,
no more than a watch in the night. (Ps.90:4)

That’s why we pray for the departed and offer Masses on their behalf.  For us, heaven is to be at one in love with the Trinity and all the Saints.  Scripture speaks of this state in images: life, light, peace, a wedding feast, the Father's house, the heavenly Jerusalem, Paradise:

"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him."  (1 Cor.2:9 cf. Is.64:4) 

But these are all images – metaphors – which try to express the inexpressible; as Peter Abelard wrote in the 12th cent. and which we’ll sing during Communion:

O what their joy and their glory must be,
those endless Sabbaths the blessèd ones see;
crown for the valiant, to weary ones rest:
God shall be All, and in all ever blest.

So at our death we may pass immediately to a life with the saints in heaven or spend time being prepared for that life. 

CONCLUSION         

But for today we celebrate all who share in that vision of God which St. John the Divine wrote about in his great Book of Revelations towards which baptism is the first step – entrance into the death and resurrection of Christ who lives, now, in the glory of heaven.  That state of being we’re open to every time we celebrate Mass; where, with  our Lady, the Apostles and Martyrs and that ‘great multitude which no one (can) count from every nation’ stand around the altar-throne of God, as St. John describes.

So let me end with a poem by Fr. Malcolm Guite for Halloween, the Eve of All Saints, which reminds us of this calling:

Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards

Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light,

It glances from the eyes, kindles the words

Of all his unknown saints.

The dark is bright

With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed,

The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed.

Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing

He weaves them with us in the web of being

They stand beside us even as we grieve,

The lone and left behind whom no one claimed,

Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above

The shadow of the gibbet and the grave,

To triumph where all saints are known and named;

The gathered glories of His wounded love.

SERMON for the 12th SUNDAY in ORDINARY

Preached at the Church of All Saints, Blackheath

at Parish Mass on June 23rd, 2019

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Readings: Isaiah 65.1-9, Galatians 3.23-29 and Luke 8.26-39

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‘As many of you as were baptised into Christ 

have clothed yourself with Christ.’ (Gal.3.27)

X

INTRODUCTION

I always feel sorry for the pigs …  After all, they’d done nothing wrong, just that they are unclean in Jewish – and Muslim – eyes so were an appropriate means of disposing of those tormenting demons.  Poor pigs. 

              But after I'd stopped worrying about them my attention was caught by the way the man they had plagued suddenly ceases to be naked and becomes ‘clothed and in his right mind’ –  it recalled, for me, the way in which Paul wrote to those Galatians of the importance of being ‘clothed in Christ’.  Today we might say that the man was suffering from a mental illness and have him committed to a psychiatric unit to stop him from self-harming.  ‘There’s something wrong with his head’, as my mother might have said.  But then he was diagnosed as being possessed by demons – something affecting us at a far deeper level than the head.  

              These days we’re suspicious about such claims and regard the mind as controlling much of our behaviour.  We like to consider that we live in a rational society yet it’s clear we’re driven by far more visceral things.  You only have to look at the way the world reacts to so many issues to know that such re-actions have nothing to do with the rational but are driven by far deeper conflicts – conflicts centred in what we call the ‘heart’ – not the beating organ in our chest, nor simply the feelings we have, but that indefinable place within which is the centre of our being – where our thoughts, emotions and beliefs meet and from where we – unthinkingly – respond and react.  The society in which Jesus lived realised that only too well, and the scriptures are full of reminders of the need to create a ‘new heart’.  So, in the Book of Proverbs we read:

                        ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.’ (Prov.4.23)

And “Blessed are the pure in heart”, said Jesus, “for they will see God.” (Matt.5.23)  Sadly it’s clear that, for many people, rational appeals don’t work – you have to appeal to the heart – which can easily become corrupted – ‘create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.’  That’s why Christ – who descended from the Heart of God and reached into the world’s heart – speaks into that place, rather than the head – to that place where, if we ‘sit’ there, we can learn the deepest truths.

CHRISTI AND SACRED HEART

I mention all this because today lies between two of the great, but often neglected, feasts of the Church, Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart.  Both speak into the consequence of being ‘clothed in Christ’, which happens at our Baptism, for they invite us to give attention to the real presence of Christ – Christ before our eyes in the Blessed Sacrament and Christ reaching out into our hearts from His own Most Sacred Heart.  It’s one thing to take on the mantle of being a Christian, to say ’I believe’, but what we then need to do is to ask to be drawn deeper into Him.  

THE SACRED HEART AND ANGLICAN DEVOTION

We all know the importance of the image of the heart – from those printed on Valentine’s cards to one’s made with your fingers to express a feeling:

In spite of that, the Church of England ignores the great Feast of the Sacred Heart even though it’s been the object of inspiration and devotion for centuries, not least in medieval English devotion.  Back in the early 11th century St. Aelred of Rievaulx, the great Cistercian, wrote extensively about ‘Spiritual Friendship’ and maintained that the highest kind of friendship, that friendship which God invites us into, is a selfless communion of hearts (1.45)  Later, in the 14th century, Julian of Norwich – who lived in a cell attached to a church in that city and the first woman to write a book in English – described, in ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, how Jesus showed her, through his pierced side:

              ‘a fair, delectable place,

              and large enough for all mankind that shall be saved

              to rest in peace and in love.’ (Rev. 10) 

              And that place is His Heart.  That’s what makes this week’s Feast so important for it concerns the way in which the heart of each of us needs to be re-made, re-shaped and re-focussed into the Heart of God.  That’s where we are called to live out of – God’s compassionate, loving heart.

THE STORY OF THE SACRED HEART

Devotion to the Sacred Heart began to flourish more widely when, in 1673, a young French sister of the Visitation Order, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, received a number of revelations concerning Christ’s love.  In a vision she was invited to rest her head on the Heart of Jesus and, in so doing, gave fresh impetus to that devotion which quickly swept the world, a devotion to which this month of June is dedicated.  Yet for many all this talk about Sacred Hearts and the art often associated with it seems very flamboyant, distasteful even.  We don’t do emotion.  And that was a particular problem after the Reformation until some began to realise that in ignoring the heart, Christianity was suffering.  Then along came John Wesley. 

              It was consequent to his heart being “strangely warmed” that the Evangelical Revival could be said to have blossomed.  That ‘warming’ occurred when he heard a description of the change God works in the heart through faith in Christ.  There’s evidence that Wesley was drawn to devotion to the Heart of Jesus, not least because he arranged for the re-printing of a book about the Sacred Heart by Thomas Goodwin, a famous 17th cent. puritan (well, famous in the 17th century …).  Fifty years later one of the most popular hymns we sing was published which contain these lines:

ALL ye who seek a comfort sure
In trouble and distress,
Whatever sorrow vex the mind,
Or guilt the soul oppress,

Jesus, who gave himself for you
Upon the cross to die,
Opens to you his sacred heart;
O to that heart draw nigh.

These words help inspire the first, lasting community for women in the Church of England to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart.  From their members Florence Nightingale chose four sisters to nurse in the Crimea – but the name proved too controversial and was eventually changed. Fifty years later, in 1897, a group of men, under the inspiration of St Francis, dedicated their community to the Divine Compassion, which is another way of speaking about the Sacred Heart, but one which is far more acceptable to some Anglicans!

One of its members was Fr. Arthur Shearly Cripps who became a mission priest in what is now Zimbabwe.  He had such a deep sense of compassion for the black Africans amongst whom he lived that he became known as the ‘S. Francis of the African Countryside’ and wrote this moving devotion to the Sacred Heart:

O Heart of Jesus, Sacred, Compassionate,

Anguish it was, yet anguish that was bliss,

To love them heart to heart, each selfish heart,

To clasp them close, and pray in utter truth –

‘Father, forgive, they know not what they do.

COMPASSIONATE HEART OF JESUS

Recently someone wrote to me about the way she realised her heart was growing harder: 

              ‘About six years ago’ she said, ‘I became troubled that my heart was becoming like stone, and I made a conscious choice to change this situation.  I knew that   only God could help me on this one, and He did.’  She went on to observe: ‘I’ve noticed that, as some people get older, they become increasingly bitter and resentful about what life hurls at them.  They may even choose to  have hatred running in their lives.  It sort of energises them and keeps them going.’

              I had noticed something similar in some people’s attitudes towards those of other nationalities – and especially towards refugees and immigrants – following Brexit, so was heartened to read Pope Francis assertion that:

“Jesus’ only judgement is one filled with mercy and compassion.”

              Yet re-making one’s heart isn’t easy, which is why the need to do so lies at the heart of our faith and why, for example, St Benedict made ‘conversion of life’ one of the Vows of his Order.  You and I can find we have a stubborn heart which can refuse such a conversion until we simply say – I abandon myself to you, my God. 

CONCLUSION

In the end devotion to the Sacred Heart is simply about making my heart – the centre of my being – like Christ’s, nurturing within oneself His love and compassion.  I’ve sometimes heard people speak in a rather smug and disparagingly way about the bright red image of the Sacred Heart.  But crowned by the cross, surrounded by fire and encircled with the Crown of Thorns it offers an image of costly, Divine Love quite at odds with Valentine’s hearts.  Yet some people say: how tasteless! Too explicit; too graphic – especially when Jesus is shown holding it out for our gaze.   Even so it clearly touches and provokes a response in hearts that are simpler and unbiased. When, for example, during a school retreat a child was asked why Jesus’ heart should be shown outside His body he simply replied: “Because he loves us so much, he can’t keep it in.” 

              Ours isn’t a faith primarily determined by logic or rationality, but by Godly love: ‘By love can He be gotten and holden,’ wrote the author of the important 14th century English work, The Cloud of Unknowing, ‘but by thought, never.’  You and I are called to ‘stand before God with the mind in the heart and to go on standing before him unceasingly day and night until the end of life’ (Theophan the Recluse: 1815-1894)

              Stand in the mystery of our heart and the Heart of Christ, something we ignore at our peril.  We may not celebrate the Feast, but we need to be centred in the Heart of Christ, the Heart of God, if we’re to have ours re-made.  If we are to be the men and women we have the potential to become, a potential that’s like a seed in the ground, then we need to cultivate the heart, the heart of our being, and not just our brains!  I wish there were a Shrine to the Sacred Heart here and in every church!  An image to which children – people – could be taken and told: Behold, our Faith!  An image that would challenge us to ask ourselves – what would it be like to have a heart like His?  How can my heart become more “sacred”?  For, in the end, the Sacred Heart is about understanding Jesus’s love for me and all people and inviting me to love others as He did. 

O dearest Lord, thy Sacred Heart

with spear was pierced for me; 

O pour thy Spirit in my heart

that I may live for thee.