Sermon – Consider the Lilies

Sermon: Attitude of Gratitude

Given on 12th October 2025 at St Mary’s Church (Iffley, Rose Hill, Donnington)
Luke 17. 11-19

One of the games I remember playing as a child, that we played when our children were little was Happy Families (we still play it sometimes!).

The traditional Woodland version (unquestionably the best version) has families of animals – moles, mice, hedgehogs, shrews and they are they are shuffled and mixed up and you have to bring the families together by asking each other if they have Mr, Mrs, Miss or Master shrew, hedgehog etc.

The twist to our family games is that if when you are given the card you didn’t say thank you, you had to hand it back again. This meant that your competitor knew what cards you had and so you then invariably lost the game.

It was a very clever way of teaching us a lesson in manners and in learning the importance of saying thank you.

Thank you.

The first phrase most of us were taught as children. We have been drilled into us the importance of saying our p’s and q’s – (please and thank you’s) – I bet every single one of you said thank you when given an order of service when you arrived. It’s an automatic response and so we don’t often think about it very much.

In our Gospel reading we heard the story of the thankful leper. It could be read as a moral tale about the politeness of one leper over and above the other nine, seemingly rude lepers who don’t bother to say thank you to Jesus who had brought about their healing.

“Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?“

We could read it as Jesus being rather like the grandparent being a bit affronted that they haven’t received a thank you letter three weeks after Christmas.

But this is not a story about the polite leper. It is not a moral tale about the importance of being a good citizen.

Let’s look at the passage.

The Cleansing of the Ten Lepers, c. 1035-1040, Codex Aureus Epternacensis (Wikipedia Commons)

Jesus is on a journey towards Jerusalem and as he goes on his way he is confronted by ten people with a skin disease. The bible gives them the generic term ‘leprosy’, but this wasn’t what we understand that to be now ‘Hansen’s disease’ – it was a term that covered a whole range of skin diseases.

These conditions were considered impure by Jewish law and so these people were outcasts from society, separated from family, unable to go to the temple to worship.

These 10 lepers kept themselves apart (as was lawful) and so when they saw Jesus they cried out to him from a distance.

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”

We often read this and think that the lepers here were asking for Jesus to heal them. They weren’t. They would have had no expectation that they would ever be cured from the disease. In the New Testament Lepers are not healed, but made clean. It is an important distinction. There was no understanding of healing for leprosy. You either had it, or you didn’t. If you had it, then you lived as if you were dead. It’s why lepers often lived in the tombs or in the uninhabited parts of cities. If you didn’t have it, then only Priest could declare you clean and you could enter back to society.

The lepers who cried out to Jesus weren’t asking him to heal them. They were asking for mercy. For kindness. They saw in Jesus someone who might be kind to them, even though they were outcast, feared, sick, alone.

And Jesus sees them, and tells them to go back to their community, to go and show themselves to the priests. (Note: did they feel dismissed by Jesus at this point I wonder?).

And as they do as Jesus says, they are made clean. They are restored from living as if they were dead, to being fully human again – with family, community, companionship.

We don’t get to know what happened to the nine lepers. They do just as Jesus asks of them.

But one leper seems to be aware of the magnitude of the kindness he had experienced that he turns back to Jesus – “He prostrated himself at Jesus’feet and thanked him”.

“And he was a Samaritan”. Samaritans were the outsiders and so this man was the outside of the outsiders. Perhaps this is why he was so thankful – because he knew so deeply what Jesus had done for him.

And in turning back to Jesus in thanks he is told that:

‘your faith has made you well’.

‘Made well’ in Greek is – σῴζω (pronounced sod-zo) – it can be translated as “made well,” in the sense of being healed. But it can also be translated as “saved,” in the sense of being brought through mortal danger. And it can be translated as “made whole,” in the sense of being completed and made to be what you were meant to be all along.

The Samaritan is ‘sodzo’. He’s blessed by being made clean and then when he turns to Jesus to give thanks he’s blessed again: he has been physically healed, but more than that – he has been made whole, he’s come back from the dead, he’s fully alive again. And he can’t help but respond in thanks.

Thanksgiving is such an integral part of the Christian life. Not just politeness, but recognising all we have is gift. Not just in the good times. The psalms are full of prayers of thanksgiving in the midst of troubles and difficulties.

I’d like to tell you the story of a Lutheran pastor named Martin Rinkart

Rinkart served in the German city of Eilenburg during the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War — a time of violence, famine, and plague. In 1637, when the plague swept through the city, he was the only surviving pastor left. That year alone, he conducted over 4,000 funerals, sometimes fifty a day — including the burial of his own wife.

And yet, in the midst of such sorrow, he wrote the hymn “Nun danket alle Gott” (Now thank we all our God) that we still sing today:

Now thank we all our God,
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who from our mother’s arms
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.

Rinkart’s thanksgiving was not naïve. It was defiant faith.
Like the healed leper, he turned back in gratitude — not because life was easy, but because God was still good.

We are not, I hope, going through anything like as grim as the plague in C17^th Germany but we do go through times of struggle and hardship. Can we develop lives that have thankfulness at it’s core – an ‘attitude of gratitude’?

Not just because this is known to be good for us, but because it helps to make us more whole.

Social researcher Brene Brown found in her study of people who lived what she calls ‘whole hearted lives’ that:

“without exception, every person I interviewed who described living a joyful life or described themselves as joyful actively practiced gratitude and thanksgiving”[1]
She goes on to say:

“It’s not joy that makes us grateful; it’s gratitude that makes us joyful”.

So let’s embed gratitude into our lives.

Imagine you hare having a meal given by a great friend. Everyone enjoying each others’ company, when there is a pause and someone decides to toast the person who provided the meal and thanks them for all they’ve done to support them over the year. It changes everything doesn’t it. It makes that other person feel seen and valued.

Let’s do this this week. Not just being polite, but really thankful. Find someone we are really grateful for and let them know. Tell them, write them a card, call them on the phone. I assure you it will bring you, and them, joy.

And let us be thankful to God for all the blessings we have in our lives.

We are about to come to the Eucharist meal in just a moment. Eucharist means thanksgiving. When we come to this table we are not just saying ‘thank you’, we are living it.

The Eucharist reorients our lives towards Jesus again. As we share in this thanksgiving meal we, like the thankful leper, are turning towards healing, wholeness and sodza.

End with the words of the hymn:

Now thank we all our God,
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;

Amen

[1] Brene Brown, Gifts of Imperfection

Sermon: Guiding Light

A reflection at Eventide – February 2025
Revd Clare Hayns

John 1. 1-7
The Bright Field by RS Thomas

I’d like to tell a little story as we think about the light in the darkness.

When my son Simeon was 15 years old my sister took him and his younger cousins on a challenge. They set out to walk the three peaks of the British Isles within 24 hours. Ben Nevis (Scotland), Scarfell Pike (Lakes), Snowdon (Wales). In order to do this in the time, one mountain – Scarfell Pike – has to be scaled at night-time. They set off but at some point got disorientated. They were near the top on a section with small hills on top of which were piles of stones (cairns). But to the side was a steep drop, so they needed to follow the course of the hills and the stones.

But it was really dark, and they couldn’t make out their steps to stop tripping or going off course. So, they came up with a plan. Simeon offered to go on ahead of them to the top of the next hill. And he stood by the cairn and shone his torch back towards the rest of the group, and they all then made their way safely (they also made it with 15mins to spare!)

I remembered this because we’ve been thinking about light and darkness throughout this Eventide season. Last month we turned off all the lights in church and reflected on what was dark and difficult, confusing and disorientating.

Much of life can seem like stumbling along a hillside in the dark wondering what on earth it’s all about, and not quite sure of the way ahead, or why we’re here, or where we’re heading.

John’s gospel begins in a way which mirrors the creation story of Genesis. Which begins with darkness, formlessness, and void:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1. 1-3

And John’s gospel begins:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning. ³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1. 1-5

This is a profound theological statement. That Christ was there right at the beginning of all things, when light was created out of darkness. And that this light was now to be seen in the person of Jesus who was born as a child in Bethlehem, and that through his spirit, each of us is given that same light.

You may have read Richard Rohr, if not, I encourage you to. I heard him speak at Greenbelt once and he told us that Christ is not Jesus’ last name, not his surname! It is a description who he is. Which is why in John’s gospel we get these ‘I am’ statements, which seem almost boastful.

Jesus says, ‘I am the Light of the world’. Remember, light is not so much what you directly see as that by which you see everything else.

Simeon’s light enabled the hikers to see everything clearly. One of the challenges of the Christian life is to learn to see as God sees. In other words, we have faith in Christ so we can have the faith of Christ. That is the goal.

So often what we first see as disaster can turn out to be an opportunity.
What once seems darkness, turns out to have a crack of light as Leonard Cohen sings in Anthem (“there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”)
What seems to be death, turns out to be life.

Contemplation is one of the ways we can align ourselves more closely with Jesus so that we can learn to see.

Richard Rohr says: “Most people do not see things as they are because they see things as they are, which is not to see at all”. And he says: “We need to look at Jesus until we can look out at the world with his kind of eyes”[1]

I will end with the words of the beautiful poem The Bright Field by RS Thomas which invites us to stop hurrying, to turn aside, to look towards the light which will stop us from stumbling in the darkness. This light is revealed to us most gloriously through Jesus, the light of the world:

Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
RS Thomas, A Bright Field

Prayer in the Wilderness

A sermon for Advent 2
Mark 1: 1-8

I wonder if you can think back to a time when you were lost, really lost. That sense of wandering around alone waiting to be found.

It might be a time as a child when you lost your parents in a supermarket; on a hiking trip when your map reading skills failed you, or stuck in a strange city with no data left on your phone so you can’t use google maps.

I remember being lost in Clapham Common in the days before mobile phones. I was 19, at that time I didn’t know London at all but had gone to see a friend. I was early so I stopped off to go for a walk in the common. I parked my car, spent an hour or so walking around and enjoying the afternoon, and then I went back to my car.

I had no car keys. I’d dropped them somewhere, and my wallet was locked in the car. I had no money, and was alone in a city I didn’t know. The sun was going down.

I retraced my steps. Nothing. I searched high and low. Nothing. I wandered round and round in circles and eventually sat down in the middle of the park, in the dark, and cried.

Wildernesses come in all shapes and sizes. Not many of us have experienced a physical wilderness, or true desert. Clapham Common is hardly a wilderness! But we do know what wilderness feels like. That sense of being lost, out of control in the unknown, of being without bearings.

Wilderness is an uncomfortable place.

Mark’s gospel opens dramatically in the literal wilderness with John the Baptist appearing as if out of nowhere, looking wild with his camel-hair clothing and honey and locust diet.

The gospel begins with words from prophets Malachi and Isaiah:

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his path straight.”
Mark 1.3

There had been prophetic silence for around four hundred years before this moment when John the Baptist bursts onto the scene. The last prophetic voice recorded in the Hebrew bible had been that of Elijah’s in the book of Malachi and since then, pretty much nothing.

And throughout that wilderness time of silence God’s people were waiting for the one they’d be promised, who would free them from oppression: The Messiah.

In the Bible, time in the wilderness isn’t to be feared; it’s a place of learning, transformation, and growth.

In Scripture we see over and over again of God’s people being led into the desert or wilderness in order to be taught something important. We remember Moses and Miriam leading the Israelites through the wilderness years as they learn to trust God’s provision; Hagar who hears God’s voice whilst sitting in desert in despair; Elijah, who is led into the wilderness before hearing God’s still small voice in the silence. And of course Jesus himself is led there after his baptism.

Miriam led the women in singing and dancing once they reached the safety of the wilderness having escaped Egyptian slavery. (Exodus 15) – Image by ©MicahHayns

And so it’s from wilderness that John bursts onto the scene proclaiming Good News.

Mattia Preti – San Giovanni Battista Predicazione, circa 1665

Someone is coming who is greater than I
Get ready for him
Turn around and make a path for him

Back to my story in Clapham Common

It was dark, I was vulnerable and alone. I had a very new Christian faith and realised I needed at this time, in that place, to exercise it.

So I sent up a quick ‘God, what do I do now’ prayer. And I had the strongest sense that what I needed to do was to get on my knees and pray. So, in the middle of the park, in the dark, I got on my knees and prayed. And as I did so I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my keys had been found. I knew it was going to be OK. And what I needed to do was to turn around and go back to the car.

So I walked back to the car and as I did so I saw a man walking towards me calling out to me: ‘Excuse me, Miss, are these your keys’?

He’d seen me wandering around from the upper window of nearby flat, had come down from his home, and had searched around the undergrowth, and found the keys.

And in doing so had not only given me the means to get home, but also strengthened my faith at a time when I really needed it, and for years to come.

Advent is a time when we recognise our lost-ness, that we can’t find the way on our own, that we so often wander round and round in circles not quite knowing where we are heading.

In the biblical wilderness people are never left there for ever. They are called from the wilderness into something far better – into deeper faith, clearer vision, stronger resolve.

God, the creator of all, didn’t remain silent, and doesn’t just watch us wandering around from his high tower. Instead he came amongst us, as one of us, in the form of a child, to enter into our lostness and to show us the way through the dark. This is the Good News of Jesus Christ that Mark proclaims in his gospel.

Jesus was ‘God with us’ (Emmanuel) in human form for a while, and remains with us through his Holy Spirit until the time when he will return. And John the Baptist, like Elijah before him, and Isaiah before him encourage us to prepare the way for him.

God is with us, and is coming to be with us. How do we make a clear path for him? That is the task for Advent.

Repent. Stay awake. Clear out the obstacles which get in the way.

If you are in a wilderness stage of life, feeling like you are wandering around in circles, you are not alone. Perhaps we are invited to welcome the wilderness, to hear what God may be saying to us within it, or to listen to how God might be guiding us through it. God doesn’t always sent an immediate answer to prayer in the way that happened to me on Clapham Common – in fact I don’t think I’ve experienced anything quite as clear since then. But it sustains me nonetheless.

And so, this Advent, let us prepare the way to welcome Jesus, perhaps by getting on our knees to pray (maybe not in the dark in a park!), being prepared to sit in silence, by turning around…

and by being willing to be found.

Amen

Not what we might expect

Sermon given at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
3^rd September 2023
Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
Revd Clare Hayns, College Chaplain

Exodus 3. 3-15; Romans 12. 9-21; Matthew 16. 21-28

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me
Matthew 16.24

A couple of weeks ago I joined a group from the Diocese of Oxford, with some students from ChCh to spend a week in Taizé in France. You may have heard of it? It’s a Christian community near Cluny established as a place of peace and ecumenism after the Second World War. It’s now a place of pilgrimage and prayer for thousands of predominantly young people from across Europe. As Chaplain at Christ Church I joined with a small group from the university.

There was much of what you might imagine from being with several thousand 16 – 25-year olds. Late night singing in the bar, some strange game that looked a little like twister on benches, and lots of intense conversations and discussions about issues such as climate change, the challenges of mental health, and sexuality and gender.

Three times a day a bell sounded out and everyone there stopped what they were doing and gathered in the huge hanger-like chapel, joining in with the beautiful chants that are the communities’ particular charism*, and in the middle of which, for 10 minutes three times per day, we all sat in total silence.

The depth of prayer was palpable and hard to describe. We were on holy ground.

And on the Friday, the cross is taken down and laid on the floor in the centre of the chapel, and hundreds of young people silently lined up and then gathered round it, bowing their heads to the wood of the cross, some staying for a few moments, others for a long time.

Some young people bowing before the cross in Taizé, France

It was awe-inspiring to see and unexpected, perhaps because we are so often led to believe that young people aren’t interested in faith any more, that the Christian faith is in decline, and that devotion of this kind is something relegated to past times.

I want to share that with you as we reflect on what it means to follow Jesus, to be a Christian, in the light of this mornings’ readings. If we began with the reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans we might think it’s about being good, decent human beings and loving one another. But is there more to it?

Following God might not be quite what we expect.

Rather than starting with Paul I’d like to look at both Moses and Peter and see what these two men can teach us about what it is to follow God. Both men are called for a particular purpose, both argue with the one that calls them, and both are led to a place they least expect.

For Moses, following God’s call means to first encounter God in the awe and holiness of the burning bush. Just before this passage in Exodus, Moses had fled Pharaoh’s palace after having killed an Egyptian in a fight and is now living as a shepherd in the mountains of Horeb. And it’s here on the mountain that he encounters God who reveals himself within the fire of a burning bush and calls him from within the fire. ‘Moses, Moses’. Moses realises he is on holy ground, takes off his sandals and hides his face in awe. And from that position of worship Moses is called to go the very place he’s fled from. He’s to go Pharaoh, to plead for the freedom of the Israelites and to lead them into that freedom.

His reaction? He reminds God that he’s just a normal human being:

who am I that I should go
Exodus 3.11

He later argues that he’s not eloquent enough, he doesn’t know what to say, and that he won’t be believed. All his pleas are simply answered with:

I will be with you
Exodus 3.12

For Moses, following God’s call was to first encounter God, and to then be prepared to obey the call to lead the Jews into freedom and away from their oppression.

Following God might not be quite what we expect.

For Simon Peter, following Jesus had been going pretty well until this point. In the passage directly before this Peter had been on his own personal mountain-top. He had publicly recognised Jesus to be the Messiah, and as a result Jesus had given him a new name ‘the rock’, a new mission ‘on this rock I will be build my church’, and he had even been promised the keys to the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16. 13-19). He must have been riding high.

And so can blame him that when Jesus starts talking about imminent suffering and death that Peter strongly objects:

God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you
Matthew 16.22

Suffering and death wasn’t part of Peter’s plan for this Messiah he had found. Surely Jesus was going to save the Jewish people and lead them into freedom from the oppressors of the day. Surely Jesus would be like Moses and would lead them into a promised land.

But this wasn’t God’s plan. And for speaking up like this Peter the rock, had suddenly become Peter the stumbling block. Jesus even calls him a Satan, rebuking him strongly with ‘Get behind me, Satan’. We often think that Jesus here is calling Peter the Devil, but that’s not quite right. A Satan (here it is a noun not a proper name) is better translated as ‘the adversary’. A Satan is someone who opposes, normally an opponent in a court setting. Peter at this time was opposing Jesus. Peter was standing in Jesus’ way, being like the tempter in the desert.

And so for this Jesus rebukes him with ‘get behind me’. In the light of what Jesus then goes on to say about following him I wonder if Jesus’ rebuke to Peter is a reminder to Peter that he needs to follow BEHIND Jesus, rather than from in front of him.

Following God might not be quite what we expect.

For Peter, following Jesus would eventually lead to glory and a promised land, the kingdom of heaven, but the way to that wasn’t what he expected at all. The way was through a Messiah who suffered, who denied self, who was taken through the streets of Jerusalem with a cross on his back, and who was nailed to that cross.

So, what does all this mean for us?

Following God might not be quite what we expect.

I think it’s unlikely any of us will be called like Moses to speak to an oppressive ruler to liberate a captive people. Or will be called, like Peter, to be the foundation of the Church.

So what does following Jesus’ way mean for ordinary people like us, with ordinary lives, ordinary struggles and ordinary challenges that come our way?

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
Matthew 16.24

To ‘deny yourself’ doesn’t mean forgetting about yourself, debasing yourself, or being a doormat for others to walk on. But it does mean putting Jesus first which is practice means not putting ourselves at the centre of everything, and putting others’ needs before our own.

One of the nation’s favourite songs for funeral services is Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’. You know the verse:

‘And more, much much more, I did it my way’.

It is the direct opposite of this! We are not called to do it our way, we are called to do it Jesus’ way.

We are not alone. Jesus led the way for us. Jesus denied himself, refused to be tempted by Peter away from his call, and took up his cross, and with it he took all that is painful, sinful, wrong with the world, and it was nailed with him on that cross.

That is what I think I was seeing when I watched all those young people on their knees at the cross in the Taize Chapel. They were connecting their own story with God’s story. And from that place of reverence and awe, they, like each one of us, were sent out to live. To live lives shaped by the cross.

And this is why we end with Romans 12 rather than begin there. Because this passage in Romans is a wonderful description of what denying self, taking up our cross and following God looks like.

It looks like ‘genuine love’, honouring one another, persevering in prayer, and living lives of radical hospitality.

So, when it comes to following God what should we expect?

Like Moses, we should expect God to challenge our view of ourselves in light of His call.
Like Peter, we should be challenged to set aside our own fixed ideas of who Jesus is.
And we should expect to live radical lives of service as a result, in the knowlege that Jesus is with us walking ahead of us on the way.

Amen

* This chant ‘Herre, visa mig vägen’, was a favorite of our group.

Life as a grander thing to be lived

A sermon for the 4th Sunday of Easter at College Communion, Christ Church
Given by Darian Murray-Griffiths, History and Politics
30th April 2023

Acts 2. 42-end
John 10. 1-10

Lord, hear me and inspire me, that I may be ever faithful to your service. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd tending his flock. He tells his confused disciples and listeners that:

I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.
John 10.9

St John tells us that ‘Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them’ (John 10.7). And, 2000 years later, we may equally find ourselves compelled to re-read and re-understand this passage. I remember in this very Cathedral hearing a priest preaching that Jesus positioned himself in direct contrast to shepherds throughout the ages who loved and tended their flock out of pure self-interest. A well-tended flock, fattened and healthy, make for the best meats that the shepherd will eventually sell or consume himself.

Jesus here is the Good Shepherd, the antithetical Shepherd, who cares for us so much that he willingly took upon himself the burden of the Cross.

Attributed to Jean Baptiste de Champaigne (1631–1681)

The man who preached sociability and charity was instead condemned to being the centrepiece in a spectacle of public entertainment, where masses were drawn together not by love or goodwill but by the desire for cheap entertainment, obedience to the naked display of authority, and the mindless contemplation of that thing they called ‘justice’. That burden Christ took upon himself is one which countless Christians, in varying circumstances and ages, have also taken upon themselves ever since. And one which rightly should inspire us today in our struggles, and stall aggressors to check themselves in their volleys of scepticism.

Truly, Jesus was the Good Shepherd, who in his moment of truth, decided to sacrifice not his flock, but himself. He decided not to sell out or cash in, but to accept his fate, so that we may be saved. It is a decision that two millennia has perhaps dulled in our minds in the constancy of its retelling.

In this Gospel Reading, we see Jesus at pains to intervene against the odds, to disrupt the cycle of human vanities and natural instincts, and to interpose in its place a new conception of life. Jesus says to his audience words which are profound: ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10)

I do not see this as Jesus simply saying that he saves us from Death or at least the early grave. I see this as something which I hear every time at Evensong in this Cathedral and stirs and reinforces me personally: he is talking about: ‘that peace which the world cannot give’ (John 14.27). In talking of not just life, but a life in abundance, Jesus is talking about the way in which life itself does not solely have to be a dreary march from pillar to post, from resting point to resting point, or even, for us students, from bed to library.

He talks of life as a grander thing to be lived, if only we may halt ourselves in our tracks, and calmly contemplate. He bids us to stop up the fears and vanities, the half-truths we tell ourselves, and the arrogant presumptions we cling on to for matters of prestige and hierarchical self-assertiveness. He bids us, in short, not to live half-lives. To be, as I have long told friends, ‘our true best selves’. Indeed, that abundancy of life comes not from licence or delinquency or selfish abandon, but from the moral abundancy that we may find in the wisdom of Christ’s teachings.

This is, as I have said in a previous sermon, not just a philosophy, but a way of life. And what is this way of life? Well, we see in our first reading today, the utopian vision that Jesus inspired the early Christians with: one where meals are eaten together, and people are charitable. What a lovely vision. All are gathered together, achieving that value which has eternally escaped and passed by many generations: happiness; true, long-lasting happiness. Joy found not in having conquered the world but having conquered some part of themselves. Joy found not in extravagance, but in simplicity.

Note that the circularity of life and death, of struggle and sacrifice, or of hardship and want, has not disappeared. But their centrality to life has. God has not promised an end to all struggles. But God has promised, I think, something greater and more difficult to accept: that we do not have to face our battles alone. That we are loved, despite all our weaknesses, and failures, and frailties. And that we do not have to retreat from the world in order to prosper in it.

The Christian spirit and message do not promise us a free lunch. It asks of us something which has failed many before us, many now, and, I have little doubt, many in the future. It demands of us vigilance, perseverance. And, above all else, courage. The courage not just of bravery in the field, but of a moral courage. Today, that courage is needed. The late Queen, who as many of you know is a source of very deep inspiration to me, in 1957 said:

Today, we need a special kind of courage, not the kind needed in battle but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right…We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics.
Queen Elizabeth 11

We are often the makers of our own miracles, but it is the spirit and drive we are given by God, amongst others, which will drive us forward to conquer our demons, overcome our obstacles, and live fuller lives. It is a daunting challenge, but it is one that we should accept. God is not simply the dispenser of good and evil, to be embraced or rejected as the fortunes of our lives vary. Often, God is something we cannot always necessarily discern.

And life itself may very well feel like a country driver facing intermittent weather, where the satnav has died. We may feel that God is like the radio signal, coming in with great éclat, going out with a drivel of quiet, faltering noise. We may curse it. We may dance melodiously to it. But there the radio is still. On this country drive, we would never blame ourselves for the quality or our skill. But blame others. It is by far the easier thing to do. We may stress ourselves out, fearing we shall never reach the intended destination. And in the great fire of our stress and our anger, we may fail to see the beauties of the green fields and new sights that we behold. Sometimes, in the great heat of our struggle to find our way out of the morass, we may need to apply gentle pressure to the brakes. We may even need to do that thing which any competent driver may dread, for fear of looking weak or inexperienced: we may need to pull over. We may need, in fact, to recalibrate and be still. Be still. And discern God in the distances striding to our rescue. We may need that space to discern him better by actively letting go of our struggles and our anxieties, and allowing him to take over, to direct us, to steer us, to embrace us. We may then get back on with our drive. Later, we may even try and erase that memory of when we needed help, perhaps through embarrassment, but God will not judge harshly, he will not reject us like the spurned lover.

What I’m trying to say is that the Christian faith, indeed life itself, requires vigilance on our part. I know this because I too, despite outward appearances, have found God, in the end, to be the most reliable of constants in this abased world. I have learnt harshly what it means to be alone or to feel abandoned by the passing forces of this earth, and to have felt as if I alone can fix things. I have sometimes even tried to deny God by inserting myself in His place, the mover and shaker of all things. But, as my young life has stretched out before me and maturity has dawned, I have accepted what is hard to accept for any proud or just human person: that there are some things which we need help on, some others whom we must turn to. And I am so very grateful to have such great friends who have helped me to realise this and be there for me.

Like the country driver when things are going wrong, it is the very act of acceptance and confident belief that has improved and shaped me, even rescued me from others and from myself, as with so many others.

Churchill once mused about whether history only teaches us the constant of the unteachability of Man. Well, perhaps he had a point. How many times have we, have I, trusted in those things which are not stable or durable: in the fool’s gold and decomposing promises of fellow beings, of fitness quick fixes, or of moonshine mercurial manifestoes of eternal ease and minimal effort. Amidst it all, though He may at times be hard to discern, I have found myself trusting in God. It has taken time, sometimes too much time for my liking, to find out what He has in store for me. He often gave me the most unexpected of boosts, as well as of lows. But He reassured me that right would come through.

And in that process, I became imbued with that thing rarer than hope: confidence. Confidence not just in the Church or society, but even rarer, in myself. It may falter at times, but it has derived from the rock and refuge of Christ, not the shifting sands of Man or of man-made structures.

So, what was Christ, the supposed Good Shepherd, saving us from? Was it war or strife? Possibly. But I think the Good Shepherd saved us from something far worse: he saved us from ourselves. If we choose to follow the teachings of this mighty faith, we are offered the chance of ourselves reborn and resurrected.

As you may have gathered from this morning’s sermon, religion (like many other things) is not just philosophy, not just a way of life either. Religion is psychology too, I think. The questions of life: how we might better ourselves, how we might better others, how we might save ourselves from despair and cynical fatalism, how we might trust that things might turn out okay. All are met in the empty tomb of Christ resurrected.

Throughout all the challenges and changes of life, not all bad, not all good, I have come to a stage where, thanks to the confidence I have in the teachings and bolstering support of the Christian religion, I too may say in the words of Pilgrim’s Progress:

and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now will be my rewarder.
John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

Now, for many of us, a term of great momentousness beckons. It shall not be easy. And at times we may feel that we are incapable or unworthy of the challenge. I pray for you all daily that you may find time, like the country driver, to accept that we are not alone, that we are not helpless, and that, though great difficulties may attend us, we shall reap fully our rewards. Things will come aright! But, to do all this, one needs constancy, vigilance, perseverance. That is not just the foundation of hope, but indeed of confidence, self-confidence, too.

I have found that trusting in God has led more and more to trusting in self. That God-given confidence I pray you may all find in your own way and in your own time. In the tranquil calm of this Cathedral, where a thousand ancient stones tell their own stories of countless peoples’ struggles and battles, I pray too that you may find truly what Christ promised: that peace which the world cannot give. Amen.

Glimpses of Glory from the Mountaintop

Sermon at Christ Church Cathedral, 19^th February 2023
Transfiguration of Jesus
Sunday before Lent

Exodus 24. 12-end; 2 Peter 1. 16-end; Matthew 17: 1-9

“The Lord said to Moses ‘Come up to me on the mountain’”
“Jesus led Peter, James, John up a high mountain, by themselves”.

In 1950 a French climber called Maurice Herzog led the first expedition to summit and return from Annapurna, the Himalayan peak in North Central Nepal. It was one of the most dangerous expeditions ever completed and was the first 8,000 meter peaks ever successfully climbed. Herzog wrote about it in a book Annapurna in which he recounts a mystical experience at the peak of the mountain.

“I felt as though I were plunging into something new and quite abnormal. I had the strangest and most vivid impressions, such as I had never before known in the mountains. There was something unnatural in the way I saw Lachenal [his climbing partner] and everything around us. I smiled to myself at the paltriness of our efforts, for I could stand apart and watch myself making these efforts. But all sense of exertion was gone, as though there was no longer any gravity. This diaphanous landscape, this quintessence of purity–these were not the mountains I knew: they were the mountains of my dreams[1].”

Those of us who aren’t mountaineers, but who love a hill climb, will know of the wonder, awe, and sense of achievement that we get when we reach the top and the world opens out in front of us. Some of us may have had some kind of mystical experience, or sense of the divine in those occasions.

And if we have, we’re not alone in this.

It was on a mountain the Moses encountered God in the flames of the burning bush where God revealed his name and commissions him to go to Pharoah and release the captive Israelites; And it was on another mountain, in the reading we have this morning, where Moses encounters God again in the glory of the cloud and is given the tables of the covenant.

One of the words for God in Hebrew is El Shadai ‘God of the Mountain’

And so it’s not surprising that it’s on a mountain that the full glory of who Jesus is revealed to his disciples.

Rather like Maurice Herzog’s experience on Annapurna, the transfiguration has a dream like quality to it. Jesus’ face shines like the sun, his clothes glimmer, a bright cloud overshadows them. He’s joined by Moses who represents the law, and Elijah who embodies the great prophets, and into the scene there is an audible voice from heaven.

Tranfiguration of Jesus by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890)

The disciples fall over in fear.

It’s a moment when the boundary between heaven and earth seems to open up and intermingle. The other moment like it is at the moment of Jesus’ baptism. And almost the same words are heard:

‘this is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased: listen to him’.
Matthew 17.5

It’s a moment when Jesus’ divinity is shown in all its glory. And it’s fleeting because almost as soon as they experience it, it’s gone.

It’s unlikely that many of us will be able to say we’ve had a mountaintop experience anything like as dramatic as that experienced by Peter, James and John.

But we may be able to recall times when we have experienced something of the Glory of God. Not as dramatic. But wow moments. Probably just glimpses, as St Paul says ‘as through a glass darkly’ or ‘reflected in a mirror’.

The sense of deep peace when at prayer or listening to a beautiful piece of music
A eureka moment when suddenly you hear the answer and can’t quite explain where it came from.
When a person pops into our head, we later find out they needed help at that moment.

We get glimpses of the glory of God in these ‘mountain-top moments’, and we are to be thankful for them as they can sustain us, especially in the dark times, in the wilderness times.

But we can’t capture them or hold onto them.

On seeing the glory of God on the mountain top Peter wanted to capture the moment, build tents, hold on to the moment; ‘it is good for us to be here’. We know that feeling when we’re on holiday or in a wonderful place and think ‘wouldn’t it be great to stay here forever’.

But that’s not what that moment was for at all. It was good, but it couldn’t be contained in that way. Jesus brought them up so they could witness who he truly was, his divinity would be revealed and this would sustain them for what was to come.

And what was to come was the journey to Jerusalem, Jesus’ arrest and death, and each of them would be challenged in their faith.

Moses came down from his mountain to find that the Israelites had forgotten everything they’d been taught and had built golden calves. He had work to do. At the foot of the transfiguration mountain there was a man having seizures who needed healing.

The Christian life is not to be lived out on the heights but in the depths.

Rowan Williams writes that the life of the Christian is:

‘in the depths: the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need – but also in the depths of God’s love; in the depths where the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing human life as God meant it to be’. [2]

Maurice Herzog says of his experience on the mountain top:

‘Annapurna, to which we had gone empty handed, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With this realisation we turn the page: and new life begins’.

I believe that down the mountain we need people who have this treasure, who shine with God’s radiance. People who are transfigured into radical bearers of God’s inclusive love.

Who love their neighbour
Who use their gifts fully
Who are fully alive, with faces that shine with life
Who are hope filled
Who care about creation

Today is the Sunday before we enter into the season of Lent. The wilderness season of the Christian calendar. As we enter into Lent it’s good to remember the glimpses of glory we’ve been given, as these will sustain us.

A question we might ask ourselves as we move into Lent is:

How might we model our lives so that we might pay attention to these glimpses of glory?

Because they are so easy to miss. We’re busy. We’re distracted. We have things to do.

I have two suggestions.

Firstly, by making space to notice, to listen, to pay attention. Peter in our second reading says ‘you will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place’ (2 Peter. 19) We can’t do that if every waking moment is filled with screens, work, social media updates. I’m speaking to myself here. The forty days of Lent are a good time to create a new habit or let go of one that’s destructive. Or to add in space alone with God.

Secondly, by paying attention to where we feel most alive. Where do we think our eyes shine and our face glows? That might be really simple things. Like listening to beautiful music, painting, baking a cake, speaking up about something we care about.

This is where God is.

Not just on a mountain top. God is with us when we are filled with his Spirit and living lives that are fully alive.

Have the mountain top experiences, but be prepared to then be sent down into the planes to serve.

There’s a book on prayer which a title that I love: ‘After the Ecstasy, the Laundry’ [3]

And I will end with a quote from CS Lewis in his sermon ‘weight of Glory’ – ‘heaven beckons but meanwhile there’s Monday morning’.

[1] Annapurna: the first conquest of an 8,000 metre peak, by Maurice Herzog, Vintage Classics, 2011

[2] Rowan Williams: Being Christian, SPCK, 2014

[3] After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield

The Groaning of Creation: lament is not despair

A sermon by Canon Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Theology, Christ Church Cathedral
12th February 2023, Second Sunday before Lent

Readings: Genesis 1. 1-2.3 and Romans 8. 18-25 and Matthew 6. 25-end

All this week I have been haunted by a scene caught on a television camera in a northern Syrian town following the earthquakes, and the voice of a desperate man standing at the edge of a vast pile of shattered concrete as darkness descended. “I hear them,” he shouts. “I hear them crying out from the rubble and no one comes. No one comes to help us.”

And the blocks he stands beside are immense and impossible to lift. It’s the stuff of a nightmare and neither that man’s voice nor the buried voices he heard will go away. It is not my personal trauma, but the images will remain with me. They have left a permanent imprint, just as scenes of the Twin Towers collapsing on the 11^th of September 2001, and the people jumping from the top of them. These images will never be erased. The one a natural disaster, the other a human atrocity. And always, caught up in these events, so many ordinary people trying to scrape livings and livelihoods together.

The wars in Syria have left the people in that country on the very edge and in winter living on that edge is almost unbearable. And yet devastation overtakes them in their exposure and vulnerability. It’s hard. It’s very hard. And then I read the passage from the Book of Genesis that the lectionary prescribes for today: the story of a magnificent creation, and we part of its whole design. And God, having finished the work of creation in all its teeming, cosmic vitality, saw it was “very good”. And ‘good’, in Hebrew, is rich with the sense of all things being well, ordered, peaceful and beautiful. Then there’s the passage from Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus tells us not to be anxious about food and clothing for God knows what we need and if we set our minds on God’s kingdom and his justice before everything else “all the rest will come to you as well.”

What can we say? Here is a human situation that amplifies Jesus’ statement that “each day has trouble enough of its own” and here is Scripture. And the tension in trying to bring one to bear upon the other is painful. But if I duck out of addressing this tension, avoid speaking about this tension, then how can the Word of God in Scripture and preaching relate at all to the Word of God received in the Eucharist? The stakes are high because if they don’t relate, then I’m just sugar-coating, and that won’t assist or be redemptive for you, for me, or for any of those suffering as a consequence of those earthquakes.

What I can’t do is explain. Explanations can be comforting. Explanations help us to understand and understanding allows us space for reassurance. But I have none of that space for reassurance. The gospel is on the line in the face of natural disasters and the immense pain human beings experience. Dying may be a great deal easier that living on with the pain of the inexplicable. How do those traumatised by the earthquakes – the children, new born babies, adults all hauled from under the debris after days of being buried – how do they live on and make sense of what has happened to them? How do they continue to live lives that aim at some modest flourishing and well-being?

In this situation, I can only turn to the Cross. Not for an answer, but as a display of crucified love. God’s love. Our reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome zooms out from the cross to the fabric of the cosmos: “the whole creation has been groaning in travail…and not only creation, but we ourselves…groan inwardly as we wait for…the redemption of our bodies.” We cry out and that crying is sacrificial. And by sacrificial what I mean is: this defeats our comprehension. This is not time for comfortable words, but a time for a deeply Jewish and liturgical lamentation.

There is one portion in the eucharist that increasingly gains my attention. It comes just after the consecration of the bread and the wine and the acclamation that this is an offering in which praise and thanksgiving are sacrificial. The bread is broken and we all confess both that brokenness and our unity in the body of Christ: “Though we are many, we are one body because we all eat of the one bread.”

On Sundays, like today, the Agnus Dei that follows is sung. During in the week, it is said and, in my priestly training, the priest bends over the consecrated elements and knocks his or her clenched fist against his or her heart. It is an ancient liturgical gesture.

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace.”

As for sin, I don’t know where that begins or ends. Blaming can be a way of avoiding the truth rather than facing it. And where do you even begin the blame-game when it comes to the devastation of these earthquakes and the human suffering they have brought? No, ‘sin’ is no easy answer; and judgement lies beyond mortal comprehension. So, we’re left with the phrase written deep into liturgical lamentation: “Lord have mercy upon us.” And that is all of us. The entirety of the human race over which the crucified God rises.

Whatever racial, religious and national differences, the people of Turkey and the people of Syria (every single one of them) belong to that ‘us’. They and we are parts of the one broken body of Christ, sacrificed for our salvation, for their salvation. We stand before the cross sharing in their trauma saying to the body of Jesus hung there, “we are the ones for whom you died. Have mercy on us.” We acknowledge the groaning of all creation for the redemption of the body in our incomprehension.

Many of you know of my long friendship with the Jesuits. Yesterday morning I heard directly from Father O’Riordan who is working in Aleppo. He spoke of the fear in the people who have survived, the terror of darkness and the inability to feel safe. Nothing seems secure. The very surface on which they stand and scrape together a way to survive now seems fragile. “We pray,” he said, “for God’s Spirit to enter the trauma.”

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2023-02/jrs-syria-aleppo-earthquake-fr-oriordan-humanitarian.html

Amen to that. While he profoundly laments with the bereaved and devastated, hope comes in the enormous efforts to help made internationally and the outpouring of compassionate support. “Where earthquakes abound,” he said, adopted a phrase in Acts, “grace superabounds.”

Lament is not despair. Incomprehension is not atheism. From the cross, redemption flows, even from the wrists and feet and side of Christ lifted high. Love will be outpoured, sacrificially.

With huge thanks to Canon Graham, my friend and colleague, for allowing me to publish this sermon here.

Advent Sunday: there is a light, don’t let it go out

Sermon given at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford on 2nd December 2018

Revd Clare Hayns, College Chaplain, Christ Church

A few weeks ago we took ourselves off the 02 arena in London to see the rock band U2. For those of you who haven’t heard of U2 (!!) they are one of the world’s best selling rock bands, selling over 170 million records worldwide. It was an incredible concert with 15-20,000 people, loud (of course), visually engrossing with an enormous ‘barricage’ (a barricade cage) the length of the arena on which vast screens bombard the audience with imagery before the band emerge from within it. It was a fabulous concert.

The final song of the set was a complete contrast to what had gone before.

The noise, bright lights and flashing imagery stopped.

The whole stadium was immersed into darkness: all the screens had gone; there were hardly any instruments on the stages; the band had been dismantled.

We were just left with the lead singer, Bono, on stage with a faint light marking his steps. And he sung of darkness and fear.

And if the terrors of the night
Come creeping into your days
And the world comes stealing children from your room

When all you’ve left is leaving
And all you got is grieving
And all you know is needing

Hold on, Hold on

What I found so moving about this moment in the concert was that for a few minutes we were invited to recognise the darkness, to acknowledge our fears, ‘the terrors of the night’, and to be truthful about the shadows.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. A season of calendars, chocolates, and consumerism. But amidst all of that, a season where we are invited to acknowledge the darkness, see it for what it really is, and look with hope towards the light.

And we begin the season with the reading from Luke’s Gospel:

‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves’. (Luke 21:25)

There is fear, fainting and foreboding. Images that begin Advent aren’t of swaddling clothes, twinkly stars, fleecy lambs, but of reality of the world as it is. Jesus was warning his disciples of hard times ahead. Luke was writing to a people who were living in uncertain times. In AD 69 there was the threat of war in Judea, the Romans had laid siege to Jerusalem, the city faced civil strife and starvation, the Emperor had died. All the fixed points had been removed.

And so this imagery best described the tumultuous times of the world as it really was, and is.

Thankfully we aren’t living through war or siege, but we are living in uncertain times. We don’t know what Brexit will bring, or what the result of the MP’s vote on 11^th December will be. We hear rumblings in our news every day about the political and economic turmoil that may or may not be ahead of us.

Someone wrote that ‘Advent is not for the fainthearted’.

It’s a season where we are invited to dwell on the darkness and the shadows and not turn the light on too quickly. Advent is a time when we acknowledge the darkness of the world we live in: the sin, the suffering, the poverty, the greed. This is why our Advent Carol Service this evening will begin in darkness. It is because sometimes song, imagery and drama can help us to understand the theology, in ways that are far more powerful than merely words.

Generally speaking, we don’t like focussing too much on the dark things in life. Someone asks how we are and we say ‘fine, thank you very much’, regardless of whether or not that might be true.

Often when faced with challenged and dark times two reactions are common.

One is that we run away from them: we distract ourselves. There are endless ways we can do this. Social media. Shopping. Drinking. Planning parties. Countless ways in which we can turn on all the lights on and ignore the darkness.

The other is that we give in to the dark and begin to believe that this is all there is. We give up. We get cynical and lose hope, in ourselves, one another and in God.

Jesus speaks to both of these reactions when he says: ‘stand up, raise up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near’ (Luke 21:28)

There are signs of God’s kingdom here and now. Jesus points us to notice those signs of hope all around us. Look at the fig tree, he says. Look at all the trees. Next Spring’s seeds are already germinating in the dark winter soil. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

In Advent we can acknowledge the shadows but have hope that the light has already come into the world.

In amidst the darkness and uncertainty of our world we have hope, because as Christians we have the audacity to believe that God, the creator of heaven and earth, came amongst us, took the form of an infant child, lived, healed, taught and then died, taking upon himself all the darkness that the world could throw at him, and then rose again, heralding a new way:

‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it’ (John 1:5)

We don’t need to either hide from the dark, or give into it. We can face the dark, in the knowledge that we are not alone and that these times are not the full story. We can face it with hope…

Hope is not about false optimism – head in the sand, it will all be OK. Hope is about ‘a conviction concerning the future which transforms our present in such a way that we feel secure in the here and now and ready for God’s future’. (Bishop Sarah Mullally, A Good Advent).

Confident that Christ will save us, that the best is yet to come, that his kingdom of justice will ultimately triumph. We can then live in the light of that hope.

Can we be people of hope in the world? People who are alert to what is good. Who look out for buds of Spring. People who don’t give in to the dark.

The collect today is:

‘Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light’

Let us put on the armour of light, stand up, raise our heads, our redemption is drawing near.

While we still wait for Jesus’ complete redemption, we have good work to do in the meantime. And we undertake the good work of being Jesus’ disciples in the world:

The work of compassion for those who are hurting; encouragement to those who are afraid; solidarity with those who are oppressed,; resistance to evil; forgiveness for those who have wronged us.

Paul’s prayer to the Thessalonians:

‘may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you” (1 Thessalonians 3:12)

At the U2 concert when Bono was singing about the darkness in the world a single oversized lightbulb was lowered so that it hung by its flex at about head height just over the stage. He then pushed it so that it swung back and forth and around the stage and over the heads of the audience.

The song is called There is a Light and was written in memory of the Manchester bombing.

If there is a light
We can’t always see
If there is a world
We can’t always be
If there is a dark
Now we shouldn’t doubt
And there is a light
Don’t let it go out

Hold on, Hold on.

And with that Bono left the stage, the concert ended and we were left with the lightbulb swinging silently.

Here is a clip of U2 playing There is a Light at the 02