On Being Catholic and Anglican

This is part of a talk to be given to a Lenten discussion this week about Affirming Catholicism of which I am the SA convenor
The Anglican Church has always seen itself as Catholic, though not particularly Roman Catholic.
The name tags of the past don't easily describe where we are today, and they often are filled with prejudice.
I grew up in an English town where it was known who was Catholic and who was not, I had never been inside a Catholic Church until I was 18. And I considered myself to be a Protestant.
I can still remember the quiet scandal when my mother's cousin Geoffrey married a Catholic, he was the first member of our quite large family to convert. (This is the late 1950s early 60s I am talking about)
I had to learn what being an Anglican Catholic was about, and discovered in it something which deeply resonated with me.

Affirming Catholicism makes certain key affirmations about the nature of the Church and Christian Practice

· A belief that God’sChurch is holy and catholic, and that all Christians are being drawn into that mystery

· Disciplined lives of regular prayer, study and worship

· Commitment to the social and moral transformation of the world

· Models of love and community for all seeking to follow the Gospel

· A living Catholic tradition to carry the gifts of the past into the future

Some of the key issues are:
A number Traditional Catholic Societies have been captured by people promoting a reactionary agenda which seems to be exclusive and hierarchical. They promote a view which is opposed to the ordination of women, it is often pseudo Roman Catholic, and seems out of touch with the modern catholic movement in the Church today
Affirming Catholicism would suggest that the insights of the catholic movement have been widely absorbed by Anglicans at large, and such privileges as weekly communion, rich imaginative liturgy and a community which is inclusive rather than exclusive and wishes to affirmn these as important to Anglican life.

We would say that catholic means universal, that universal means all, that all means : men and women, clergy and laity, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, and no discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation, or political affiliation.

This is, of course, not without controversy.

Beginning the journey

There is more than abundance of Scripture to read during this season.We begin Holy Week on 28th March with Palm Sunday. The Liturgy of the Palms which is a prelude to the main liturgy of the day ( Luke 19:28-40;Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29) and read as part of a procession before the service begins. The Liturgy of the Passion involves the reading of the Passion Story according to Luke (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49) Just take it slowly and read what you can /what you feel moved to but try to allow yourself to be drawn into the personal mystery of what God is doing for the world and in your life
Another Palm Sunday Homily is here

Is God so demanding that he will not stop until we are totally destroyed.
Sometimes it feels like that.
As Sunday begins with a "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem
we can spend time wondering what the nature of this event was
It is good to be accurate, but not good to nit-pick.
The truth is that the Gospels offer us variety in the accounts and insights of the last few days.
The Palm Sunday story is one full of hope and expectation
The Good Friday is one of confusion and desolation
The Easter story is one of excitement, uncertainty and expectation.

It is a journey to be travelled
we do not stand still
we are engaged powerfully
because this journey of hopeful expectation, of desolation and confusion
is exactly what our lives our like.
Whether it be our excitement at the birth of a child,
or our desolation when a child is miscarried.
Or a job that is exactly what we hoped for
but is cut short by a cancer diagnosis, or a debilitating car accident.
Even if it is only the hope that we have when we are young
that fails to be realised
when we are old

This is a journey that we all make

We are invited, too, by the Easter experience
to realise that dashed hopes, desolation and confusion
are only a step along the way
They are not the climax or the conclusion.
These stories fill us with a sense of excitement, challenge and expectation
that we are entering uncharted waters.

scrutiny
as we look at our life
where is the sense of hopefulness.
What do we long for, what fulfillment do we seek?
This is Palm Sunday.
We don't need to anticipate Good Friday yet.
What do we believe God is trying to do in our life
what do we want God to do?
What sense of excitement, hope, fear
do we note as we sense what God might have in store for us?
What encourages us forward,
what holds us back.

Allow this week to be a time of challenge and exploration
as we permit God to show us more of what there is in store for us
and pray for grace to respond.

Over the top

The readings for Sunday 25th March . Lent 5 (formerly known as Passsion Sunday) Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8

This story (John 12:1-8) in which a woman pours strong perfumed oil over Jesus, spikenard (here), always reminds me of an incident with our eldest child who one day aged 2 or three sprinkled a whole bottle of perfume over herself and through the house. The perfume was aptly name Poison

It helped me to appreciate a number of things:

• How quickly kids learn to emulate their parents without any fear of consequences.
• The difference between perfume and scent (not immediately obvious to men...other than by cost)
• And how children remind us of our stupid attachments. She was having fun...but I mindful of the cost noted how this could have been better spent on the poor!!
  

Yet is is not difficult to understand what is being said here. God is extravagant.
God pours out on us the costliest perfume there is...Jesus
And the "smell" totally fills our life and transforms us.
We can be scandalised by the waste and extravagance
but in the end...the gesture, the passion, the statement
are more important than the meanness
which we are so often given to.

This story is "over the top", extravagant, passionate...even poisonous
Because God is like that..."over the top" and passionate.
John's narrative invites us to share God's life
in the way that God shares life with us.

We use the word Passion to describe the climax of this story.
It is a word that is oft used and abused.
Our world almost uses is as a synonym for lustful.
Our "passionate" relationships
are filled with bodily heat, and risk
of daring and bravado.
Passion puts us in a place
where we usually do not like to be.
(Certainly not after the age of 30!)

As we go back to the linguistic roots
we discover that Passion
does not mean "hot steamy sex" at all
it means suffering
So this is why we refer to the stories of Jesus's arrest and crucifixion
as The Passion.

Connection
If we think this through then we understand something fairly important
about God, about our call to be like God,
and about the challenge to be passionate.
And it is that LOVE and SUFFERING
are so intimately connected
that they can't actually be separated.
If we are to Love Passionately then we will
we will Suffer.
The great theme of John's gospel
is that God Loves us
his people and his creation
so much so that he will give us a Son
who will be the total expression of his love for us
More than this, this Son
who is God's great gift
will be poured out over us, over the world, over those who believe, over humanity
with the same extravagance
that we witness in this story
of the most precious ointment
just being flung about
as if there is no tomorrow.

Do we get this?
or do we like Judas
stand back and see not the invitation to throw ourselves into life and love
and say...What a waste?

it is "a waste" certainly
but there is also a sense in which you cannot love any other way!
If you are to love
then you are to love passionately
if you love passionately then there will be pain.
This pain, this suffering
will in itself be redemptive
and open up our lives to a new way of being human.

This is risky and powerful stuff.

We need to scrutinise our own lives and relationships:
Are they passionate? Do we want them to be?
Where do we spend more energy protecting ourselves, holding back
so that we might not be hurt?
Are we afraid to share our thoughts, to discuss and admit our failures?
Can we admit weakness, say sorry, risk rejection?
If passion means suffereing then it will mean all these things.
We are not her talking about the relationships with acquaintances and people we don't really know about
this is about the relationships we want and need to work.
Do we wonder why things have gone cold, have we lost the means of being passionate,
the courage to risk being hurt or to be criticised.


This week
Where is God calling us to confront our own meanness in our human relationships? Can we open ourselves to being more passionate?

Pray for confidence to trust God's promises that through the Passion and Death of our Lord and Saviour, even though this means suffering, there is also redemption and a new way of living

JESUS, you love us passionately
as you are anointed with an extravagant gift of love
so you also anoint us with the passionate gift of your life

Grant me the courage to live passionately
give me the desire to live life as you show us how to live
let me live expansively in your Spirit
rather than narrowly in my smallness
for you are my Lover
you are my Passion
you are my Hope

Lost and found

Readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, March 18th, 2007. Joshua 5:9-12, Psalm 32 2 Corinthians 5:16-21,Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

God's unremitting action towards us is to bring about reconciliation.
To draw us closer to himself
To unite us to each other.
In a world that is at times harsh and difficult
we turn to God
because God is already there showing us the way back to wholeness.
The Hebrew Scripture readings through Lent remind us that people are slow to understand this about God.
They are constantly wandering off and separating themselves from God.
This indeed is a major theme, almost from the beginning of Creation.
And God moves to bring us back.
So we read one of these accounts in the passages for this week. (Joshua 5:9-12)
The theme is familiar, and recurrent.
We are called back by God, into fellowship with God.
It is not the first time, and it will not be the last.
And we are invited into the story of Jesus, par excellence, often called
The Prodigal Son.
I always note when talking about this masterly story
that it is a story about God
rather than about the two sons.
It would be better called something like The Reconciling Father.
This Father, who is of course God, is always ready to meet us at our lowest ebb.
This is an important point to grasp.
False expectations
We often think that in order to encounter God
that we have, as it were, to be on our best behaviour
but the Bible tells us
both in the Old and New Teastaments
that it is when we are desolate
when we are empty
when we cannot of ourselves
come to God
that God comes to us.
It is when we are hanging on the cross
that we are most open to knowing God.
This isn't easy to grasp
though maybe we understand the truth of it
better than we think.
As I reflect on my encounters with God
it is precisely at these points
when I am most sure of who God is for me
and what God does.

Experience
The good thing about the parable of the Forgiving Father
or as we call it the Prodigal Son
is that we don't have much difficulty placing ourself somewhere in the scheme of things.
Whether it be as that young man who desperately runs at life
and is ravaged by it
and ends up desolate and in despair
not knowing what to do.
Or whether it be as that self-righteous one
who sees the waistrel come back after having had a whacko of a good time
and being treated as though nothing had happened.
(This is of course not a true appreciation of the situation)
Well, we often think of ourselves like that.
So we can place ourselves in the story.
And of course as we see the forgiving Father
standing on the hillside
longing for his child to return
many of us know the pain of that too.

Reconciliation played out
As the story of reconciliation is played out
we see it abound in multi-various forms.
And we note how it happens.

1. Reconciliation happens sometimes when, often in our desperation,
we choose to act differently
The Son decided to put his pride to one side
and to come on home.
The opportunity thus created
the Father readily welcomes him back.
But the Father could not do so unless the son provided him
with the opportunity
Is there something in our life that needs us to pay attention
and create opportunity for reconciliation to happen?
It may be as simple as going to see someone,
or ringing, or saying sorry.

2.Reconciliation happens when we make ourselves open for it to happen
That Father stands on that hillside day after day and longs for the son to come home.
This is an image of God, of course, but it is also something of a pattern for us to follow.
Are we ready to let reconciliation happen
when it will happen?
So often we want people to stew in their own misery (and perhaps we want this for ourselves)
we feel hurt and rejected
and often even the prospect of reconciling
seems difficult.
Will we be opening ourselves to more hurt
will we be rejected once again
will the reconciliation be short-lived
will we be exploited?

And yet the Father stands waiting day after day.
In those places in our life where we know there is a need for healing, restoration
for reconciliation
Are we prepared to let it happen?
Can we put aside our own hurt
and allow the greater drama to transpire?

3. Reconciliation is always wider than we imagine
and entices us to greater reconciliation than we immediately conceptualise.
This story is not just about the father and the Prodigal
it is also about the Father and the Older Son
and the Older brother and the younger brother.
Again we resonate in this story
because this is often close to our experience.
Our sibling relationship are filled with fear and jealousy
doubt and insecurity.
I am ever mindful of the fact that my own parents tried as hard as they could
to love each one of their children
and not to allow us to say in that childish way
"Love me more!"
The older son is in ned of reconciliation
He cannot bear this brother
Hear the bitterness of the words:
"This son of yours..." he says to his father
and the father has to remind him
"This your brother was lost but now is found, was dead but is now alive"
The father, too, I suspect
and the older brother need to be reconciled
Does the father hear the older son's great hurt
at having to stay at home
it is easy to blame him as a caricature
but we can just allow that there is always more going on
and that reconciliation is very much a two way street.

This week
Where is God pointing you to be reconciled?
Where are the places in your life where we have to say:
This has gone on long enough! Things need to change.

Pray carefully for:
The courage to act differently, to move away from bitterness towards reconciliation.
Seek to deliberately construct opportunities for openness and healing.
Always be on the lookout for more from God than we asked for or imagined

JESUS, you are more for us than we imagine or deserve

Grant me the courage to live differently
give me opportunity and desire to be made whole
let me live expansively in your Spirit
rather than narrowly in my smallness
for you are my Hope
you are my Joy
you are my Life

Lord have mercy

Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

(readings are changed from earlier in the week as the wrong ones were posted)

In this season we have something of a focus on the need for repentance
Oh, said my colleague, are you going to preach about sin again.
No, I said, I am going to preach about repentance.!
The subtlety may escape us but repentance is not only about sin.
Repentance is about lifestyle.
It is about how we choose to live our life,
and the way we choose to live our life is about more than saying sorry for the things we have stuffed up.
The Gospel reading reminds us of this:
First it breaks the connection that we often make between disaster and sin.
In modern terms we might ask: Do those who get blown up by terrorist bombers
get caught in that position because they have been particularly sinful?
Do those who suffer the consequences of earthquake do so because they have done something wrong?
The answer to these questions seems obvious to us when put like this.
These things happen!
There is not necessarily a particular cause or connexion.
BUT, says Jesus, that is not to say that we should therefore not care about how we live our life.
These events are not punishments
but they do help us to call to mind
that life is fragile
and that we need to live our life as though it might end today.
Bceause indeed it might!
The tragedy is not a punishment.
But the call to repentance is constant.
The call to repentance
And what exactly is that call?
We could suggest it has two parts:
a positive and a negative.
Paul reminds us that there are things we do wrong,
some of those (and I stress only some) are sexual immorality,
testing God...we might call that using the certainty of God's grace and forgiveness
as an excuse to sin....Ah well God will forgive us us any way
This is classically called the sin of presumption,
But there are many other things we know about too:
if we were to list sins that people commit
we could easily get a Top 10!
So Yes! repentance is about saying No to these things,
but it is more than this too!
It is saying No!, seeking forgiveness, and choosing to live life in a different way.
I am not only going to try and control my anger
I am also going to try and nurture patience!
I am not only going refrain from immorality
I am going to work towards developing faithfulness and maturity in my relationships.

Digging
We dig ourselves into difficult places
and we can start to die
or become unfruitful
The gardening image of the fig tree says this
certainly dig out the rubbish
but you also need to ruffle up the soil
add a bit of fertiliser
So our life of repentance is like that.
Certainly get rid of that rubbish
Confession, apology,seeking forgiveness, making amends
these are some of the things we might do
BUT
we need also to ruffle and fertilise
how do I deal with my anger, my greed, my tendency to be judgmental
my selfishness?
Can I think, pray, read discuss with friends how to attack these questions?
are there positive things I can do
that will enable deepening
a chance to be more fruitful.
My repentance will not just be about saying sorry
as important as that is
I need also to make decisions
about how I live my life.