Sermon (14 May)

Abide in me and I in you .
In the name of the Father , Son and Holy Spirit .
The sun news paper last week suddenly took on a spiritual dimension in asking its readers to pray .
Wayne Rooney the England football striker known as Roo whose broken foot was plunging England into despair was to be the focus of their readers prayer . The sun provided its own suggestion how to set about this act of prayer for Roo “The moment you wake up , before you put on your make up , say a little prayer for Roo .
While combing your hair now and wondering what clothes to wear now , say a little prayer for Roo .”
The next day the paper printed a pullout poster for readers to put in their window with the words “I`m praying for Wayne” A clever pun for a country suffering from a drought .
Even Sven-Goran Erikson , talked of needing a miracle if Rooney was to play in the world cup .
Now what is this saying about prayer ? Do we believe in a God who at our requests reorders events to fit in with our desires ? Or do our prayers contribute another dimension to the concerns we place before God .
By this I mean that when we pray for someone we love who may be ill in hospital we are opening up a depth of meaning to the event . What on the surface may appear to be a tragedy and meaningless can be changed into something life giving . Our prayer sustains them and perhaps opens up for them a new way of seeing their situation.
There have been countless people who have borne witness to the sense that have been supported by the prayers of others . Their situation may not have changed , but their response to it has.
However if what we pray for happens to come to pass then our prayer also has contributed towards it . It might not have made it happen but it played a part in it happening .
Praying for others is central to the Christian tradition . Jesus himself said “ Which of you , if his son asks for bread will give him a stone” God does want to give what is best for us , bread rather than a stone .
But prayer is more than asking .
“Abide in me” says Jesus. Through prayer we are called to develop a closeness with God .Abiding , abode being at home with .But this closeness abiding will slowly change us. Prayer is about transformation, being remoulded , remade.
In this closeness with God our desires our wants and needs are reordered . A reordering of our priorities takes place through prayer. What might have seemed so important to us , our self image perhaps doesn`t seem so important after all .
We begin to let go of lesser goals . We begin to long for things in our lives that really matter and we start to pursue them . We are slowly being changed .
This is no easy task , we all find the road to prayer difficult . We use the lack of time as an excuse but in fact we are just avoiding meeting this transforming God we forget that he is pure love , that we are held constantly in His loving gaze .
What difference would it make to our lives if we really began to believe that despite all our anxieties our sin and failure - we are still subject to this loving gaze a love which cares for the whole tangled bundle that makes us who we are?
And what difference would it make if we began to see that everyone around us , waitresses , tourists , cleaners , immigrants asylum seekers businessmen the people next door were also held in the same overwhelming loving gaze ?
And what difference would it make if we believed that this love made no distinction between people more worthy or less worthy , no distinction of race , religion , age , innocence strength or beauty rather it was a lavish and indiscriminate love , like the sun sharing its warmth's with all creation .
It is easy to say these things but to believe them to let this truth percolate down through all our layers of resistance is what prayer is about .
In prayer , by just being still , not doing anything in particular just gently putting aside all our immediate pressing concerns and sharing in the company of God for his sake alone and not what we can get out of him we are opening ourselves to His loving gaze .
And the fruits of this prayer is that we will begin to see the world through God`s eyes . We begin to see ourselves through his eyes . Our vision is changed .
We begin to have a sense that we are called to gaze out into our world with the same disposition that God gazes out towards us . And this is not our activity or our work it is God`s activity his work in us .
In prayer we allow God to work on us we give him space to slowly chip away everything that prevents us from reflecting his love .
So time in prayer is not an option , it is life giving . It changes us and the world around us .
Well what about the Sun`s newspaper request for prayer .
Of course God loves Wayne Rooney but maybe the miracle God has in store is that England may still win without him .

Sermon (29/01/06) - The Rev'd Paul Holland

And he fell to the earth. In the name of the father son
I love being on the water, and last Friday morning at eleven o`clock I took the boat from Westminster bridge to Greenwich .I missed seeing the whale that had suddenly made an appearance. I was making a journey by boat to see the picture of St. Paul found above the altar, in the chapel of the old royal naval college, in Greenwich. The artist Richard Lawrence was paid 50 shillings per foot for it. The picture measures 25 ft by 14 ft. please do not spend the rest of the sermon working out how much he was paid.
The artist depicts St Paul immediately after being shipwrecked in Malta, holding a snake that had just bitten him and to the amazement of those around him surviving.This picture combines the themes of water, and healing appropriate to a naval college and the hospital for sailors which the chapel served.
Today we celebrate the conversion of St Paul, and I have always regarded this moment in his life falling of his horse as a kind of mid -life crises. Suddenly on the Damascus road Paul`s life falls apart. Everything he believed in, hoped for, aspired towards, was thrown into question .To his horror he has discovered he was persecuting the truth rather than propagating it. There had to be a change of direction. The future, his future which he was so sure of has suddenly become shrouded in darkness he can no longer see the way ahead. Paul has to rethink his entire understanding about god.
He had now a choice , of either deepening his faith in a new direction or loose it altogether. All of us like Paul, will have moments in our lives, when, due to some kind of crises , we have to deepen our faith, take it more seriously, engage with it in new and imaginative ways or loose it.
Our relationship with god like all relationships is one of change and growth. We may have first attended church for the sake of our children in the desire that they hear and absorb the Christian stories. As that need changes the habit of attending is slowly broken.

To keep that journey alive our journey we have to ask ourselves afresh what is in it for me what are my needs that worship and prayer can now inform and enliven my life.In middle age we sometimes go through the toughest experiences that throw our faith into question. We may have become divorced, or have to face a serious illness or our parents die. The shock of these losses can be so overwhelming that we find the faith we have had does not seem to bear or contain them in a creative and life giving way.It may be the love and care of the congregation at this time, the sense of belonging, that holds us in place.

And that is wonderful but it can only take us so far. At such times we may be looking for a god who will take away our pain and sense of loss. We may be looking for that vicar who will explain the problem of evil and pain but he is not there and we feel abounded. So often the spirituality of the church is one of abundance and celebration celebration of the opportunities in life.

The focus can be on building relationships, the birth of children, the strengthening of family life, that thankfulness that we have achieved career goals. Life can seem to be one long, logical progression towards some restful and peaceful state of plenty. Ten like St Paul we fall off the horse.
Some shattering experience throws everything into question and we wonder if we ever had a faith in the first place. The issue here for me is that so often what is missing in people`s lives is that due to all the other pressures around them they have not accessed their inner world, the life of the spirit. They have not paid attention to themselves and their deepest needs for it is in this area that we can discover resources and strengths that will see us through. A time of crisis is an invitation, to pause, step back and listen, listen to one`s own inner voice. And we can do this in countless ways.
I love being on the water for it is always a reminder that for all our sense of certainty and security we are always vulnerable to change, change we cannot control. But last Friday being on the water I made time to travel in a particular direction to satisfy a need in me. I wanted to see this chapel and this picture. And in so doing I was strengthening, nourishing my inner world. I returned to Westminster Bridge a different person, refreshed by my experience. This is what the life of the spirit is about.
Now each of us will nourish our inner world in different ways. We may want to take up tia che or a yoga class. We may want to join the rugby club, write a short story or take up singing. We may want to deepen our understanding of scripture and find a course to help us explore that need.
Some will choose to deepen their understanding of Christianity with its reliance on traditional language , liturgy and familiar images of god while others will want to let go of it all and start again simply with the teachings of Jesus and try to apply them to their lives without all the para-finalia of doctrine and belief. In all these ways we are strengthening our inner world.
We are being true to our deepest selves. And it is here that we are also nourishing our inner world the life of the spirit god’s life within us. Our inner world is his world a world that will hold us and enable us to move forward in creative and life giving ways. But we have to listen and give that world time to breathe, surface and live within us.
Conversion is a constant turning, a journey, a pilgrimage, it is not won in a day it is a life time exploration. We are all called to embark on that journey and keep moving, changing and rediscovering our faith in new and surprising ways.
In the end we are called not to be religious but human, human with a humanity that is deeply self accepting and embracing of others.

This journey begins by listening to the voice within, the most human voice of all who calls us each by name and simply longs for us to discover who we are and draw us confidently into communion with him and others. It is also a voice we can learn to trust in whenever we may fall of our horse. Amen.