Here's praying at you!

Readings for this Sunday (Proper 29...21st Sunday after Pentecost) - 17th October 2010. Jeremiah 31:27-34 and Psalm 119:97-104 or[Genesis 32:22-31 and Psalm 121]; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 ;Luke 18:1-8(-15)

This week many of Australia's Roman Catholics will be focussing on Rome

as Mother Mary MacKillop is 'canonised'

or added to the list of official saints.

One of the good things about being an Anglican has been that we have been freed from the bizarre process which seems almost impossible to endure.

Instead Anglicans have in, say, the last 50 years promoted local calendars

helping us to focus on individuals

who have led good Christian lives

without the need to be scrupulous about declaring them perfect

or, more controversially, without seeing the need to locate their sainthood

in a couple of impossible 'miracles'.

One RC sister commented on TV last week that she thought the process had gone a bit overboard

in focussing on miracles

surely a saintly life was more than just this.

What then do we imagine saints do?

Clearly a lot of popular focus and discussion

has gone into getting the saints to "answer" prayers.

Let's be clear that no church teaches that anyone other than God

answers prayer.

The idea that is being proposed

is that we invite the Saint to pray with us

to God for a particular cause.

So many people are asking Mary MacKillop just at this time

to pray to God for them.

This is a thoroughly Christian idea!

we say in the Apostles' Creed

I believe in the communion of saints (see another homily here)

To be blunt, the word 'saint'

is not an extraordinary word at all.

It is the word the New Testament uses

to refer to the members of the church

that is, all those who are baptised into Christ;

God's holy people (saint means a 'holy person')

It's you and me....so it is really close in meaning

to the Anglican idea of the local saint

rather than the almost supernatural figure .

Now saints, you and I, pray for each other

and for the world, and for the church.

It is our job, our duty, our core business!

Some of us are possibly quite good at this

I guess we notice some of these and they become larger than life!

When I want help I ask people to pray for me.

I am pleased when you do!

Some of us who are part of the communion of saints

have died, it doesn't mean that we have stopped living in Christ.

My mother, for example, and dear Alder Hall who we buried only last week

and certainly Mary Mackillop continue to live in Christ.

Our prayer is that their prayer joins ours!

Don't starve yourself of prayer support.

We join our prayers with the saints, and they with us.

In special times we are drawn to particular saints,

this is our human way

It is also the way of the Holy Spirit

encouraging us to pray and to be prayed for.

I don't care, just as long as we pray

and then pray

and then pray a little bit more.

The ovine tendency

Post for Sunday 25th April 2010 John 10:22-30

John 10:22-30

10:22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,10:23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.

10:24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
10:25 Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me;
10:26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.
10:27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
10:29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.10:30 The Father and I are one."

No image is fonder to traditional Christians than that of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Yet it is a foreign image which bears little relevance to most of us urban city dwellers. Even in this country (Australia) the intimacy of the image...one shepherd caring for a small flock of sheep...is not the way we look after sheep. They are in hundreds and thousands, largely left to their own devices until the time comes for them to be killed or shorn. So we need to look beyond the image and translate it to our modern times. A couple of pointers

being a sheep is about belonging It's only as we belong to Christ that we understand and believe

• This would suggest that the Good News is about the decision we make to be Christ's
• And not so much about intellectual knowledge.

  As important as doctrine and learning are, life in Christ is actually about being in touch with the person of the Risen Christ

• How might we be in touch?

  We need to maintain a deep commitment to personal and regular prayer. We will meet Jesus in so far as we encounter him in the early morning, and in the evening, this is a figurative way of looking at prayer of course. but we need to do it

  We will meet Jesus in the shared life of the Christian community. There are no solitary Christians...we are the Body of Christ, members of one another.

  in so far as we struggle with one another (difficult as we are) we are exploring the depth of relationship in Christ and coming to know Jesus in depth

• The spirit of obedience

  Jesus could not be blunter..We hear his voice, and we do what he tells us. What is Christ saying to me in my life? Do I respond by doing what he tells me to do?

  What does the life of the Body of Christ say to me about what Jesus invites me to be and do? Do I do it?

THIS WEEK

• Take some time to reflect on what I hear Jesus saying, through my prayer, through my life, through experience of community
• What 2 or 3 things do I seem to hear Jesus saying to me about how to faithfully follow
• What resistance do I have to obedience? What do I need to do about it?

The Spirit of Jesus

During Lent we are thinking about the Apostle’s Creed
Traditionally Lent has been a time to prepare for baptism and the renewal of baptismal vows. The Apostles’ Creed contains the basic statements of Christian faith that Christians have traditionally affirmed at their baptism
The Apostle's Creed has three sections and the last one reads

I believe in the Holy Spirit
The holy catholic church
the communion of saints
the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting

It may seem a curious hodge-podge of materials. Almost as if all of the left-over doctrines are just thrown in to make sure that the ground is covered!



But of course that is not what is going on.
Indeed the whole of the third section follows on in Trinitarian form.

I believe in God the Father
I believe in God the Son
and now
I believe in God the Holy Spirit

this church, communion, the promise of resurrection and the mystery of life in God
all flow out of the fact that we are born again (as Jesus promised) of the Holy Spirit


This third section is telling us about what God is doing now

and what God is looking to do in the future.
God is creating a universal community
(this is what the expression catholic church should be taken to mean)
open & inclusive
God is drawing together a community of chosen people the communion of saints
this is not an exclusive community, but an inclusive community (catholic)
of people who are chosen to be
what God wants them to be
the sign of this community is the resurrection of the body & everlasting life

At funerals I remind people that the Christian view of God and death
is not reincarnation, or oblivion, or meaninglessness
It is not that we somehow become a part of a universal spirit, and are assumed into God or the universe
We believe that we continue to have meaningful, unique and distinct life.
And just as God has cared for us and loved us since our conception (and perhaps before)
so, that care will continue into eternity
unique, distinct, personal.
this is The Life in the Spirit
It is what God is doing in us now and in the promise of the future

THIS WEEK

Take a little time to ask God to show you more about what the Spirit is working in you
What is it that God is calling you to be and do?
Can we pray to put aside our own limited view of life and embrace the vision and promise that God has for us?