The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Luke 1 : 39 - 55

The hill country of Judea is the last place you would expect to find a prophecy fulfilled or a miracle revealed.  This land does not offer spectacular views. It does not produce great riches. It is, in fact, a rather forgotten place, a land of high plateaus cut by deep gullies.  The land is rough, secluded, sometimes unforgiving.  It is about the last place you would expect to discover God.   Yet, surprisingly, no matter where we walk, we will find that God has been there ahead of us.  God’s name is written everywhere, even in the midst of an apparent wasteland.  Go to the place called barren.  Stand in the place called empty.  And you will discover God is there with you. 

And it was Elizabeth who knew all about the place called ‘barren’.  She stood for years in the place called ‘empty’.   In a culture where the only real purpose in a woman’s life was bearing and rearing children, what good was a woman like Elizabeth?  She must have wondered - ‘What’s wrong with me?  For most of her life, her family and friends saw her as forsaken, abandoned by God; an object of pity.  And then, one day, long after her body was able to conceive naturally, she miraculously became pregnant, not quite like Mary, but a miracle all the same.  What was impossible in the natural realm was possible only through God.  In that land of high plateaus and rugged valleys, the one who was barren became fruitful and the emptiness was filled.  Read more

Fire and Good News

Sermon for St Mary’s Sanderstead ,

3rd Sunday of Advent, 13th December 2009

Fire and good news

Readings:

Isaiah 12:2-6 (Canticle)

Philippians 4:4-7 Luke 3:7-18

May my words and our thoughts lead us further into the peace of God which passes all understanding.

Do you remember Martyn Lewis, the newsreader who said we ought to hear more good news?

He was thought a bit odd for that. And the headlines on the BBC news website yesterday were about the Iraq war, arrests at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, and the charging of the estranged husband of a mutilated woman with her murder. So they haven’t taken his advice. No good news there.

We might face a similar struggle, at first hearing, to find any good news in the fiery warnings of John the Baptist. Luke, at the end of today’s gospel, tells us that, ‘with many exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.’ But where is the good news?

This story might more readily conjure up fearful scenes of hellish medieval art, or cold, harsh, judgemental pseudo-Christians we have known.

Certainly, John, living up to his billing as the last of the Old Testament prophets, is a long way from the warm, nice, ineffectual English clergyman offered to us by the comedians of the last generation.

Not for John ‘Good morning and welcome’ to the people who came out to him; no, he gets straight in there with

‘You brood of vipers!’

Read more

Repentance (Luke 3:1-6 & Philippians 1:3-11)

Lord, open our hearts so that you can move within us in a new way.

As Christmas nears and the television Christmas jingles gather momentum, with those adverts promoting a gift experience constantly stealing our time, we need to be aware that the website is there for all our shopping needs!  And your favourite department store is near for the traditional Christmas shopping expedition - so that you can feel a sense of having done something more personal towards Christmas.  But, one retailer solves the problem altogether because their e-mail reads, ‘Don’t wait until Christmas, why not treat yourself today?’
So how are we supposed to balance this Christmas build up with emptying ourselves to be ready to come close to Christ? In the era of technology and virtually endless noise symbolised by the ever-present ipod, mobile phones, and incessant music in public places, it is even more essential that we and our communities recover a sense of balance between words and silence so as to safeguard our hearts and bring in a more genuine way of being with others. Read more