Sunday Sermons

Sermons from recent Sundays and major festivals will normally be available here.

Tony Dickinson's sermon for the Presentation of Christ

This is one of those mornings when we find time telescoping, with past, present and future coinciding here and now. In particular the things that we have heard about in our two readings from the Bible are finding all sorts of echoes in what we are doing today.

For example, two thousand years ago or thereabouts a young couple brought their child to the place where their people worshipped God. They brought him, according to the custom of their people, to present him before God and to make the offering for his life which the rules of their faith required.

Today Susan and Stuart have brought Lucie to this place of worship, to present her before God. There are, it must be admitted, some significant differences. She is neither male, nor a first-born. Joshua wins that one on both counts! More importantly, the offering of life which we will make in the waters of baptism is not an offering for her life. That offering has been made already by the child of Joseph and Mary, who gave his life so that we might live for ever in God’s love. Today we are joining her life to his as she becomes, with us, a part of the body of Christ, the totality of all Christian believers.

What is not different is that Lucie has a special destiny within the purposes of God. She, like each one of us, is God’s unique experiment in being human. She will be loved. She is loved – loved, not just by her parents and her big brother, but by the God whose love surrounds us like the air we breathe. She is loved with a love from which nothing can separate her. However Lucie’s life may develop, whatever her circumstances may be, God’s love enfolds her and indwells her – and happy is she if she realises that and lives it!

Sometimes living it will be painful – painful for her, perhaps, or painful for those who love her. Every mother knows something of that heart-piercing sword which the old man Simeon prophesied for Mary.

Sometimes it will be filled with joy, as she discovers the reality of God’s love and as she reflects the light of God’s love to those around her. The name, Lucie, after all, means “light”, as we were reminded before Christmas, with the celebration of St Lucy’s day providing a gleam of light at the darkest time of the year.

At the end of this service each of us will carry our light to the place of baptism, as a reminder that we who have been baptised into the body of Christ are called to bear the light of Christ out into the world. We are called to bear that light into a world like the one the prophet knew, where people know the price of everything and the value of nothing, where they manipulate others for the sake of wealth and power, where the successful feel no responsibility for those less fortunate, where those who are old and those who are less able are despised and abused, a world full of noise and frenzied activity – at whose heart there is a dark, icy, silent emptiness.

Against the values of that world, we are called to bear witness to another set of values, the values of self-giving love, the love which shows itself in a concern for justice, for peace, for the integrity of God’s creation. Nearly seventy years ago in Germany, at another baptism, there was no sermon, because the preacher was in prison. The mother’s uncle, who should have played a leading part, was the pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in gaol because of his involvement in the anti-Nazi resistance. Unable to be present, he wrote words for others to read: “Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world. Our earlier words are therefore bound to lose their force and cease, and our being Christians today will be limited to two things; prayer and righteous action among people.” On this day of your baptism, Lucie, we pray that your life may be marked by both these things, so that you (and we and all God’s people) may truly reflect the light of our Lord Jesus, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of [God’s] people Israel.”

Bede Gerrard's sermon for January 22nd

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts, be now and always acceptable in your sight; O Lord, our hope and our redeemer.

Today’s readings are a mixed bunch with seemingly little connection. What they do have in common, though, is change. The priest-king Melchisedek changes the relationship between Abraham and God. When we read the Letter to the Hebrews we hear Paul’s complicated explanation of this very action, in which he likens the priesthood of Christ to that of Melchisedek, and how the coming of Christ has changed all relationships.

In the book of the Revelation to St John the Divine we have the account of the marriage feast of the Lamb. Marriage is a change in relationships that has lasting and, in the truest sense of the word, ‘catastrophic results’. Catastrophe meaning a change such as has never been before, a change which results in a new beginning.

Having just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary, Jenny and I had a celebration in church two Sundays ago. We could only invite a limited number of people, as the venue for the ‘eats’ afterwards had an upper limit of people which ‘Health and Safety’ did not permit to be exceeded. We found looking back over 40 years of marriage that it had encompassed great changes in both our lives, and realised that it was the changes that had kept our marriage vibrant and alive.

The wedding service itself expects changes to happen, and warns those taking part in the sacrament, that it is ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health…’. This expectation of change shows us how important it is to be open to change. And how the wisdom of the Church helps us to expect changes.

And the third reading today, from the Gospel, presents to us the story of the wedding in Cana of Galilee where Christ’s first miracle was performed. And what a miracle! A miracle of what one might almost call ‘pointless joy’. Although, of course, joy is never pointless. If you have read the book ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de St Exupery; you will know that the prince says of his rose that ‘it is the time you have wasted (spent) on someone that shows their importance to you’. We must take care that we don’t just spend time on those we love; we must also be prolific in the amount of time we give. For that is how God is, prolific in the amount of time he gives us: a whole eternity-ful! And so it ought to be for those seeking the oneness of the people of God, and that means us.

The theme for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is the ‘changing influence of Christ’. The Christians of Poland chose as their thematic text a passage from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians Ch. 15: vv. 51-58. To paraphrase: ‘Listen. I will tell you a mystery – we will all be changed; in a moment; in the blinking of an eye! - we will be changed – this body must put on immortality. Death has been swallowed up in victory. God has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So stand steadfast! Excel in the work of the Lord.’

Change! This is our Lord’s command to us all.

Change is something that usually we like less and less as we get older. ‘Change is all right if you are young, but I’m too old to change.’ You can almost hear the words passing through our minds and coming from our lips, and those of our elders and betters.

Why are we so averse to change? It can’t be because we know we have got everything right: can it? Surely it is more likely that we have found a comfortable place which we find ‘less threatening’.

So it probably is in our Church-life. We don’t want change for the sake of change, but neither ought we to remain unchanged just because we have always done something that way. We have all used the phrase ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’. But what we know about the state of the Church as we experience it, is that it is, if not broken, certainly very shaky. We have so many denominations, and denominations who call themselves non-denominational, and; I would have thought, within a town the size of High Wycombe there are probably over thirty different traditions. In Oxford, with its more cosmopolitan population, there are at least sixty and probably more. How can this be right? We all need to embrace change. It does not mean dropping the essentials of the Christian Faith, but allowing people to be more relaxed.

As an Orthodox Christian, I am aware that many western Christians find it difficult when they see me venerating icons. For me, it is a way that brings me closer to God, and to the saints of God represented in the icons. I know that due to background and culture, some people do not find icons helpful. All the Orthodox Church asks is that no-one forbids the veneration of icons.

For me, the veneration of the icons is an affirmation of the Incarnation – and it is that affirmation of the Incarnation that is of the essence of Christian belief. There are other examples I could give, and you probably have your own experiences of people who have not seen beyond an action to the truth that it affirms. (e.g. Making the sign of the cross; turning east to say the creed, bowing the head at a doxology etc.)

We need to change our attitude so that we do not deny anything that brings a person to God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity, so long as you are not forcing them to perform an action which has the effect of distancing them from God. Perhaps our touchstone for any theological proposition should be: ‘Does it affirm the Incarnation and bring me closer to God?’. It is true to say that there are sometimes things that I find helpful, which other people find distracts them from God. Does this mean that I ought to stop doing those things? Does it mean that I ought to take care and not do those things that distract others who are there? Probably not.

Let us change our hearts. Let us, like the servants in the Gospel reading, wait for the appropriate time and then ‘Do whatever he tells us to do’. When the servants were told by Jesus to take the water to thechief steward at the feast, they did not know that the water would become fine wine. They did it because it was the Lord’s command. In our rationalistic Western culture we encourage questioning. But is it always the correct thing to do? In the sayings of the Desert Fathers’ there are many instances of the benefits that flowed from instant unquestioning obedience. Once Abba Moses called the monks together and then their cells were inspected the manuscript of one novice had been left with the final letter on the scroll incomplete (the monk had immediately responded to the abbot’s call). We learn too, how that novice went on to become a shining example of Christian life. We all need to find the correct balance between questioning everything and questioning nothing.

We have examples in modern times too of people who have accepted the need for change. Bishop Bell of Chichester, preaching at the end of the War, said ‘the world is too strong for the Church to remain divided’. He appreciated the need for change, the need to ask the questions about what it is that is so important that it continues to keep us separated from our fellow Christians. Can it be right that I am not allowed to receive the sacraments of churches not my own? Can it be right that I insist upon having my bishops blessing to do a good work, but refuse to do it if it is your bishop who is giving the blessing?

I can remember when, as part of the editorial group for the worship for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we were writing a litany of repentance. I had suggested the petition ‘For all the sins that tear apart your Church, the body of Christ, forgive us, Lord.’ I had thought it quite reasonable, but one member of the group said he could not pray that. He said that in the 19th century the founder of his particular tradition, had been ‘raised by God to form the new church’ and so that particular split could not be considered to be sinful.

I belong to a Church some members of which claim has never strayed from the original unity of the Gospel. I would not say that it is without sin or responsibility for the divisions within Christendom.

But, if we have not presented the Church as attractive and welcoming to all, we have sinned. If we have driven some people out of our tradition because they did not have the same political allegiances as us; then we have sinned. If we have made the theology so esoteric and unintelligible to others that they have drifted away; then we have sinned.

We all need to pray that we can recognise our sinfulness and so be prepared to change. Change, so that once more the people of God may live in communion with each other. Pray, that this year there may be such a ground-swell demanding change from the grass roots, that the leaders of the many traditions have to take notice, that the people of God want to be the one people of God.

Tony Dickinson's sermon for Epiphany 2

You don’t normally find the words “Church Council” and “exciting” in the same sentence, but I think it would be fair to say that the Church Council meeting on Thursday was probably the most exciting in my seventeen years as Vicar of this parish. We started off much as usual with apologies, the minutes of the last meeting, matters arising, and so on. Then somebody said something which sparked such a lively discussion that we junked the agenda for pretty well the next hour and let the discussion go where it would.

In the course of that hour we shared our anxieties, our feelings of inadequacy, lots of big questions which the restoration project and the largely disappointing attendance figures over Christmas had brought to the surface. Ultimately it boiled down to one big, and very challenging, question: what’s the point of raising money to restore this building if we’re not sure that there will be anyone worshipping in it twenty years from now?

All of that was tied in with other anxieties – not just about our own church and this parish, but the Church of England nationally and the other denominations. We talked about the ways in which the dominant stories in the media portray the Church as homophobic, misogynistic, rotten with child abuse and generally full of flakes and weirdos. Somebody talked about the questions they faced at work – questions which were occasionally hostile, but more usually baffled. “Why does an intelligent person like you go to church?”

In a sense, the answer to that question is provided by Philip in this morning’s gospel. When Nathanael squashes his excited assessment of Jesus with the words “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip doesn’t try to argue with him. He simply says “Come and see.”

That same answer might be the best response when someone asks us “Why do you go to church?” or “What’s the point of being a Christian?” Don’t try to argue with them. Simply send the ball back into their court. “Come and see.” “Come and see.” Come and experience what it is that draws millions of people around the world to gather Sunday by Sunday. Come and hear God’s word to his people, the record of a conversation that has been going on for more than three thousand years. Come and taste “how gracious the Lord is”, literally. Taste God’s self-giving in the bread and wine of the Communion.

Now someone may say – as somebody did say on Thursday – “But we can’t compete with St Andrew’s or Holy Trinity, Hazlemere. We aren’t as lively. We don’t have the same razzamatazz. We don’t use as much technology. We use more hymns than contemporary worship songs. We cater for an older age-range.” But God doesn’t call us to “compete”. God isn’t calling us to maximise our market share. God is calling us to spread the good news of his Son Jesus the Christ – and God does that by every means available. We aren’t a branch of the entertainment business. Our task is to enable people to catch a glimpse of heaven. Our task is to reflect something of the worship of heaven which John the seer described in our second reading.

Now I’m not saying razzamatazz can’t play a part in that. God still speaks “in many and various ways”. What I am saying is that razzamatazz isn’t essential. What is essential is the sense that this is where heaven touches earth; this is where the incarnate Lord reveals his presence in bread and wine and where people are transformed as they respond to God’s call in the words of young Samuel in our first reading: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening”.

But, actually, those words of Samuel don’t tell the whole story, though they make a good beginning. For the last two Sundays we’ve been reminded that we are not servants but children, God’s beloved children. When we come together it isn’t to receive our orders but to share attentively in the mealtime conversation with God our Father and Jesus our brother.

Three summers ago, on a Sunday evening toward the end of September, I was in a chapel out in the French countryside, eight miles or so from the city of Dijon and a mile and a half from the nearest village. That chapel was full. There were no empty seats in a building which held more than 80 people. They were there because they knew that they would encounter God there.

The music was simple. The service (a modern French Catholic mass) was formal but unfussy and, above all, prayerful. In that place there was a sense of what Jesus was talking about when he told Nathanael “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” It happened there in the middle of nowhere. It could happen here. Sometimes it does happen here. I could name occasions – probably you could, too – when there has been a particular quality of silence and an attentiveness to God’s presence among us.

If we are to play our part alongside St Andrew’s and Holy Trinity, we don’t need to be bouncy; we don’t need to be in-your-face to fulfil the task to which God calls us. And the task to which he calls us, I believe, is to reveal his presence by a depth of prayer, a depth of love for the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us – a depth which is reflected in our worship and in our relationships. As Brother Roger Schutz, the founder of the Taize community used to say, “Where there is prayer, people will come.” We are called to join the elders and the four living creatures as they fall down in adoration before the Lamb who was slaughtered and who by his blood has “ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

We are God’s beloved children. We are also in Christ his royal priesthood, a sign of his kingdom bursting through here on earth, a people who lift up the needs of this world to heaven. Once we have grasped that in the depths of our being, we don’t need to worry about our inadequacies and our failures. We can trust God to work through them as he does through our triumphs. That is something that was hinted at in our discussions on Thursday. Nathanael asked “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” On Thursday we were faced with the question “Can anything good come out of Terriers?” In both cases Philip’s answer points us to Jesus, who is not only the one “about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote”. He is also the heart of our life, the eternal point of intersection between heaven and earth. What’s the point of being a Christian? “Come and see.”