Christ the King

There were good reasons to look forward to this weekend: it is the great feast of Christ the King today, and locally we had the privilege of baptising baby Olivia Kosisochukwu Ejim into membership of the Church at St Matthias this morning.

For me, another thing hotly anticipated was the 50th anniversary Dr Who, The Day of the Doctor, broadcast yesterday (and on i-player here until 1st December). In the run-up to this there had been all sorts of press speculation about the contents, numerous programmes about Dr Who on the telly, and a definite buzz on social media. Dr Who has become popular, which is both pleasing and odd for someone like me who liked it as a child, at a time when this was deeply unfashionable.

Why is this peculiar sci-fi drama suddenly so trendy? Why were people without an ounce of the geek about them glued to their TV screens yesterday evening? One reason, I think, is that the new version of Doctor Who presents us with companions to the Doctor who are very much like us, ordinary people, who you can imagine meeting on any bus or tube train. Unlike the cardboard characters from the old version, these companions have depth, they have families, relationships, loves, and hates. And these things matter, and continue to matter after the companions meet the Doctor. These ordinary people get taken into absolutely extraordinary situations: exploring time and space, meeting species, planets, cultures, and realities beyond our wildest imaginings. This appeals to us: it speaks to an urge to explore, to cross boundaries, to live live fully and richly, to - as I said - be extraordinary, whilst still remaining the ordinary people we are.

Now, at the risk of sounding like the worst sort of preacher in the entire world ever - the sort of person who talks about something which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian faith, and then throws in the casual line "Jesus is a bit like..." ("Jesus is a bit like football", "Jesus is a bit like spaghetti bolognese") - the Christian Church is in the business of making the ordinary extraordinary. Today's feast celebrates Christ the Universal King, the king of everything, Lord of all that exists. This man from Nazareth, killed by the Roman Empire, possesses an empire of which Caesar could only ever dream - an empire extending over everything that is, everything that has been, and everything that ever will be. Yet it is not an empire built on conquest and oppression, but one built out of love, the love of God victorious on the Cross.

Christ, the ordinary man who is also God, does not simply reign over us. He invites us to reign with him. We, children of God by God's grace, come to share in Christ's reign, not only for this life, but eternally. To share, that is, in absolutely everything that matters. And if that is not a case of the ordinary being made extraordinary, I don't know what is. It is certainly what we claimed for our new Christian today through baptism.

In one of my favourite Dr Who episodes, a character with the fabulous name of Elton Pope says this,

When you're a kid, they tell you it's all grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid, and that's it. No, the truth is the world is so much stranger than that, so much darker, and so much madder. And so much better!

To which the only Christian response is 'Amen'.

Remembrance Sunday 10th November

Remember Me
(The voice of the dead)



Remember me


Duty called and I went to war


Though I'd never fired a gun before


I paid the price for your new day


As all my dreams were blown away



Remember me


We all stood true as whistles blew
And faced the shell and stench of Hell


Now battle's done, there is no sound
Our bones decay beneath the ground


We cannot see, or smell, or hear


There is no death, or hope or fear



Remember me


Once we, like you, would laugh and talk


And run and walk and do the things that you all do


But now we lie in rows so neat


Beneath the soil, beneath your feet



Remember me


In mud and gore and the blood of war


We fought and fell and move no more


Remember me, I am not dead


I'm just a voice within your head

Harry Riley

All Souls Day

Today is All Souls Day. Mass will be celebrated for all the departed at both of our churches at 12 noon.

Welcome, Lord, into your calm and peaceful kingdom those who, out of this present life, have departed to be with you; grant them rest and a place with the spirits of the just; and give them the life that knows not age, the reward that passes not away.

Amen

All Saints Day

Happy feast day! Today the Church celebrates our fellowship with the saints in glory.  As Christians we don't simply 'remember' the saints, looking to them as past examples of Christian life, from whom we can learn. This is important, of course, but it's by no means the whole story. Rather, we believe that the souls of the saints continue to pray for us, and exist in fellowship with us. They are our heavenly family, our friends, who encourage us onwards in our journey through life.

Reflection for the 20th Sunday After Trinity

"Thanks be to God", "let us give thanks to the Lord our God" - the language of thanksgiving permeates the Church's worship, as it does the prayer life of many Christians. When we say grace, for example, we give thanks for our food. Today's gospel reading picks up the theme of thanksgiving - the Samiritan leper cured by Jesus gives thanks for his healing.

Saying thank-you is an essential part of our lives as Christians, and we should make deliberate efforts to include thanksgiving in our daily prayer. This is not because God needs our thanks, or relies on it, or gets upset if we don't say 'thank you', as though God were like one of those people who only does good things for others to get thanks, audibly huffing if no thanks is forthcoming. Rather we need to thank God, because as we get into the habit of doing so, we are transformed.

As we become people who regularly give thanks we train ourselves, with the help of God's grace, to see the world in a new way. We learn to see the world for what it really is, a gift of God, given out of love. And to recognise the world as this is to recognise ourselves as loved by God, and so to be open to receive more fully from him.

The Feast of our Lady of Walsingham

Today the Church in this country celebrates Mary under the title of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Many people in our congregations have a strong attachment to the shrine at Walsingham in Norfolk. In particular, every year a group of young people from our churches go on the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage.

To find out more about the shrine, see the website here. You might like to consider joining the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham here.

O Mary, recall the solemn moment when Jesus, your divine son, dying on the cross, confided us to your maternal care. You are our mother, we desire ever to remain your devout children. let us therefore feel the effects of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ. make your name again glorious in the shrine once renowned throughout England by your visits, favours, and many miracles.

Pray, O holy mother of God, for the conversion of England, restoration of the sick, consolation for the afflicted, repentance of sinners, peace to the departed.

O blessed Mary, mother of God, our Lady of Walsingham, intercede for us.

Amen.

Reflection for the 17th Sunday after Trinity

Today's gospel presents us with a stark choice: you cannot serve both God or wealth.

Why not?

The problem with wealth is that it gets hold of us and takes control of our lives, not just individually, but as communities, as a society. This is particularly obvious in a capitalist society of the sort that we inhabit. Our whole way of life is dominated by making money for people - relatively few people, it should be said, although that is not the only problem with the situation we find ourselves in. Everything else comes second to making money. Education, family, leisure, the worship of God and the fellowship of his Church - all of these things have to slot into whatever gaps are left after work and the pursuit of profit have had their share of our lives.

More than that, we are taught from childhood onwards to want wealth, to desire it. But the thing is, no matter how much we have, we're taught, we're formed, to want more and more and more. Nothing is ever enough: wealth ceases to be a means to an end, becomes an end in itself. Money, created by human beings, ends up ruling human beings. Our livelihoods, our food and shelter, our sense of who we are and our worth is entirely at the mercy of something we ourselves have made.

But look at what has happened here - we, who were created to have our desires fulfilled by the endless love of God (today's collect echoes Saint Augustine, "our hearts are restless until they find rest in you"), endlessly desire wealth which can never fulfil us. We, who have been given dominion by God over creation, are controlled by something of our own making.

Wealth acts as a false god. It has a dynamic of its own, which takes hold of us and which prevents us from living with God, whose service, as Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer puts it, is perfect freedom. Wealth entraps us, enslaving us to its dominating worship at the expense of the liberating service of the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

This cannot be acceptable. We were created for something better than this and have, through Jesus Christ, already been set free from the sin of which this idolatry of wealth is a particularly glaring form. As Christians we have promised at our baptism to serve God rather than wealth. We need to learn how to do this on a day-by-day basis. This is a slow and painful process, as we - under God's grace - gradually lose the old way of seeing the world, focused on the accumulation of wealth, and learn instead to see the world in the light of the gospel.

Bit by bit we can refocus our desires and our attitudes, away from the wealth-orientated views of our newspapers and television screen - the views that blame the poor for their own plight whilst praising wealth, that reduce the infinite worth of human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, to a bank balance - towards the vision of the gospel, for which the world is a free gift of a loving God, who wills that "everyone be saved.. and come to knowledge of the truth", and in whose Kingdom the hungry are fed and the poor lifted up. Through receiving the sacraments, prayer, the study of scripture, learning about our faith, and Christian fellowship, we can learn to see the world anew, to desire anew.

And who knows, maybe then we might show those around us that there is something better on offer than the world we presently inhabit.