Earlier this year (May 8th), many of us paused to mark the 100thbirthday of Sir David Attenborough. For generations now, his voice has accompanied our viewing of the natural world, revealing its beauty, complexity, fragility, and wonder. Through astonishing cinematography, programmes such as Planet Earth have allowed us to see the world afresh, the hidden intricacy of forests, the movement of oceans, the delicate balance of ecosystems, the miracle of life unfolding often unnoticed around us. I suspect many of us, watching such things, have felt something deeper stirring, not only admiration for nature itself, but wonder at the mystery behind it all and as Christians, we see creation speaking of its Creator. Today’s readings invite us into precisely that kind of reflection. Isaiah speaks of rain and snow falling upon the earth, watering it, “making it bring forth and sprout.” Jesus sits beside the sea and tells stories of seed and soil, growth and fruitfulness and Saint Paul, in the passage from Romans, describes creation itself as longing, groaning, waiting for fulfilment and renewal. The whole of creation, scripture suggests, is alive with possibility. Perhaps that is why, inspired partly by those nature documentaries, I decided earlier this year to grow some flowers from seed in my own garden. It seemed straightforward enough when I opened the seed packets, but I quickly rediscovered something I had forgotten, growing things takes care, attention, patience. Not every seed I planted germinated, some seemed promising, only to droop unexpectedly. Once or twice, I nearly lost them altogether before hastily watering them back from the brink. Gradually I realised how much hidden labour lies behind the beauty we often simply admire. In July we delight in gardens full of colour and fragrance, we walk past borders alive with roses and lavender, bees moving lazily through the afternoon warmth, and we receive it almost effortlessly as beauty. Yet none of it appears by accident, somewhere, someone has planted, watered, pruned, tended, and deeper still, beneath all human care, lies the prior gift of God, He who gives growth, life, seasons, sunlight, rain in the first place.I think Jesus understands this deeply, which is why so much of his teaching emerges from the ordinary patterns of everyday life and creation. The crowds gathered around him would have known immediately the uncertainty of sowing seed. Some ground was shallow, some thorn-filled, some hardened by the sun or countless footsteps, I should think that farming in Galilee was difficult and precarious work. Seed was precious, to lose it mattered and yet the sower in today’s parable seems extravagantly generous, scattering seed widely, almost recklessly. Some falls on the path, some among rocks, some among thorns and some on good soil. At one level, the parable asks us about receptivity, what kind of soil are we becoming? What do we allow to take root within us? But perhaps there is something else here to, something about the patience of God, because as I learnt growth is rarely instant or easy. We live in a culture shaped by speed and immediacy. We expect quick results, visible outcomes, measurable success. But both nature and faith tend to work more slowly than that, seeds disappear into darkness long before they break into life, roots form invisibly before flowers appear. Much of God’s work within us happens quietly. Let me explain, as a little boy, I remember being fascinated by my grandmother kneeling beside her bed to say her prayers at night. I can still picture it now, there was nothing dramatic about it, no performance, no great explanation, just faithfulness, her faith expressed by reverence and daily habit, shaped by love of God and care for her family. At the time, I doubt she imagined that simple act would remain with me all these years later, but it has, a seed was being sown. Perhaps many of us could say the same, a parent bringing us to church, a teacher who encouraged us, a hymn sung at the right moment, an act of kindness shown during grief, a candle lit in prayer. Tiny seeds, easily overlooked, yet somehow taking root deep within us. All of this is important, because often we underestimate the significance of the small things. The Kingdom of God frequently grows in hidden ways, a conversation, an example we set, a prayer whispered almost absent-mindedly, a life lived gently and faithfully. We may never fully know what takes root because of them. Saint Paul takes this further in the reading from Romans, creation itself, he says, “groans in labour pains.” It is a striking image, not meaningless suffering, but the pains of something struggling toward birth, toward renewal, toward becoming what God intends it to be. I find Paul’s vision hopeful, ours is an incarnational faith, God enters creation, blesses it, dwells within it. Bread and wine themselves begin as seed, scattered, buried, dependent upon rain, sunlight, patience, and careful tending. Wheat once growing in fields, grapes hanging upon the vine, now gathered into the Eucharist. The work of earth and human hands, as the offertory prayers remind us, taken up into the mystery of God. Even here, in these things, growth and transformation are at the heart of faith Perhaps that is why Jesus teaches through parables of sowing and growing, because the spiritual life is not separate from the rhythms of creation but reflected within them. Often, we know this instinctively, there are seasons in life, times of flowering, times of watering and waiting, times that feel barren and times when growth is happening beneath the surface, though we cannot yet see it. Some of us this morning may feel fruitful and hopeful, others may feel weary or dry, uncertain whether anything much is growing at all. Yet today’s readings remind us that God is patient with growth, the seed is sown and earth slowly yields its fruit. So, this week, in these hot summer days, you might take a moment simply to notice... a garden, a tree moving in the wind, birds at dawn, the scent of flowers after rain and through them, hear again the deeper invitation of Christ, for as we read in scripture, the creation waits with eager longing. The poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Maybe faith begins there, learning again to notice, to nurture, and to trust that even the smallest seed, lovingly tended, may one day, bear more fruit than we could ever imagine.
I used to love watching ‘Yes, Prime Minister’, especially the eternal playoff between Sir Humphrey and the Prime Minister. It usually ended with Sir Humphrey getting exactly what he wanted and making the Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, think he had got what he wanted. It was a complex interplay, with many people on the side of Jim or the side of Sir Humphrey pulling them in different directions. I found myself in the Mayors Parlour last Sunday before walking out to lead the Armed Forces Day service and the Mayor was having a picture taken of himself next to someone and he asked, with his tongue in his cheek, ‘did I look taller than him’ which he plainly did not, so I just sad ‘yes, Mister Mayor’ with my tongue firmly in my cheek as well. It is certainly the case that most of us prefer to surround ourselves with people who agree with us and who tell us that what we’re doing is right and good. We know really that it would be better for us to have around us someone who would tell the truth about us, challenge us, help us to face our faults and mistakes, but most of us are not brave enough for that, which is why so many people do not read the Bible, or believe it to be some kind of buffet. And it was ever thus. The rulers of the Jewish people preferred the false prophets, who told them what they wanted to hear, to the true prophets who told them what was uncomfortable and disturbing and, unfortunately for them, true. They preferred flattery to the ruth, and, again, it was and is ever thus. We have little idea what the false prophets ever said, nobody appears to have recorded it, while the true prophets were often persecuted, at least until people realised they were telling the truth. I assume the reason the true prophets’ writings ended up being preserved was because events proved them true. Today’s first reading from the prophecy of Zechariah, though, is not so much bad news as strange news. It might, indeed, look like good news to us with the gift of hindsight, but not at all the sort of good news that would make any ruler feel comfortable. Earthly rulers, with a few notable exceptions, believe in symbols of power. Ballrooms, cloaks, palaces, torture chambers, armies and secret services. They might expect a king who is victorious, triumphant, to enter on a war horse, with a great retinue. The king in the prophecy of Zechariah today comes riding on a donkey, which is not the same as a Lear Jet at all. Most earthly rulers trust for their security in strength of arms, armies, nuclear weapons, misinformation and so on. The king in the prophecy banishes chariots from Ephraim, horses from Jerusalem, banishes the bow of war and speaks the truth to power so insistently that, as we know, He is killed for it. Why did people preserve such a prophecy? Certainly not because they could understand how such a world could come about, it seems as impossible as he thought of love conquering death, of a God who takes the form of a servant, of us still hearing this thousands of years later. Truth has an uncanny ability to be heard and to remain, and amid the mire of disinformation around us, we would do well to hold on to the uncomfortable truth that the King did indeed arrive on a donkey, and that He will indeed come to judge the living and the dead at the end of time. And for us it is not possible humanly to see how this prophecy could begin to come true and more than the people could hear Zechariah and believe that. They would have been silenced, ridiculed, and sidelined, but they know that their God would come and we know He will come again. The experience of the people of those times came with a belief that safety came from swords, walls, defined borders, wealth and armies, but Zechariah came to tell Israel that real strength came not from this, but from the plan and will of God and the keeping of His commandments. So it was then, so it is now. The King on the Donkey came, and people began to believe again, and the King will come again and it will be too late, which is why the Church of God preaches repentance, hope and salvation in season and out of season, and we need more people to do just that, to join with us, to grow the Kingdom with us. Our strength though is not in numbers, but in faith. Today’s Gospel is no different. Jesus brings freedom. We might expect that will involve that he will ‘break every yoke’, as God tells us through Isaiah to do. Human wisdom tells us that freedom is a solitary thing, me against the world, refusing to submit to those who would control me. As in so many things, it takes the foolishness of God to teach us that true freedom is to be had through being yoked to Christ, of being part of His Holy Church, His Holy Family here on earth and those who wait for us in the Kingdom yet to come.
We celebrate today the feast of the Apostles Peter & Paul. Foremost among the followers of Christ. But what is it precisely about these two men that caused God to exalt them so? On the surface there is much that separates these two saints. St. Peter was a poor and simple man, unlearned and uncultured; St. Paul was a Roma citizen, “a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee” one educated at the feet of Gamaliel. St. Peter was with our Lord from the very beginning of His public ministry and spent years at His side, witnessing all the events of the Gospel; St. Paul, on the other hand, did not so much as glimpse Christ while He walked on this earth prior to the ascension — St. Paul’s experience of our Savior was heavenly, rather than earthly. And so it was that St. Peter became the first of the apostles to confess Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God”; St. Paul, however, became the last, as he is counted as an Apostle.Of course, there is much more that unites these two saints than separates them. The most obvious trait they share is their great zeal for God. St. Peter constantly showed his readiness to cast aside everything and follow Christ, from his first encounter with the Lord at the Sea of Galilee to the last; neither did he hesitate to lay down his life itself at the end. St. Paul, for his part, cast aside absolutely everything for which he had spent his entire life labouring before he met Christ, and thereafter lived with such zeal that nobody could doubt him when he proclaimed:‘I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung’Indeed, without such zeal their preaching could scarcely have had the power to “turn the world upside down” and to bring so many to the knowledge of Christ. And unless we ourselves learn to imitate their zeal, neither will we be able to become participants in their apostolic labours in our church. After all, if the love of Christ has not yet been able to utterly transform our own lives, how can we possibly expect to be able to help bring such transformation to the lives of those around us? And yet there is a hard truth here, and one that we must always keep before the eyes of our hearts. Even such great zeal was utterly unable to keep St. Peter from denying his Lord, out of fear of a simple serving girl; it was likewise unable to keep St. Paul from his bloodthirsty persecution of the very Church of Christ. In fact, it was not only in spite of their great zeal that these two saints each suffered their most terrible fall, but it was even precisely because of it. St. Peter’s zeal was what led to his false boast that nothing could ever cause him to deny or abandon Christ; St. Paul’s zeal was, of course, the very reason he went to such great lengths to hunt down and destroy every Christian he could possibly find, whether in his own city or in any other. And so we must take to heart these lessons: that zeal is absolutely necessary for us in the spiritual life, and that nevertheless — at least on its own — it is also wholly insufficient.It was through their own personal experience that each of these saints became able to confess: “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptations, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief”. Zeal without repentance is nothing and it was through the power of this confession — the power of their profound repentance — that they went on to become the greatest preachers of the Gospel of Christ that this world has ever known. Because they both knew that if the Gospel could save them, then the Gospel can save anyone – and save me, can save you, can save us all from the corruption that surrounds us. It is unavoidable that we should suffer falls; as we have seen, even the greatest of the apostles themselves could not avoid them. But what will come next? Will our sins cause us to hide from the face of God, as did Adam at the first, as did Judas at the last? Or will our sins cause us to run to Christ in repentance, as did St. Peter, and as did St. Paul? This is the great choice — and truly, the only choice — of our lives on this earth. And to make our choice rightly, we need precisely such profound humility and such unshakeable faith as they. Let us not hide from the knowledge of our own sinfulness. But let us also never forget the boundless love and mercy of our God. Let us hold both of these two truths together, so that — when we inevitably suffer some fall — we will be able to run not away from God, but straight towards Him. If we can muster the faith and the humility and the courage to do this, then Christ our God will without any doubt turn even our worst defeats into victory — no less than He did for St. Peter, and no less than He did for St. Paul.
This morning, as I am in York, Fr Lawrence will be presiding and preaching at the Masses at St Stephen’s, and I am very grateful to him for doing so. As I do not wish to repeat what he (might) be saying, I instead offer a few thoughts on this month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in which we celebrate the very great love that Jesus has for us. This month we find ourselves faced with the Holy truth of His great love for us and finding ourselves the object of this love, we try to return it, ever asking that our own hearts may become more and more like His, part of His. No one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. The world and the news is full of terrorists, from Palestine to Isreal, Iran to North Korea, the USA to Northern Ireland. Many of these people believe themselves to be devoutly religious. But certainly they have no knowledge of the Son, and clearly their understanding of God is seriously distorted. They think they serve the Lord of Heaven and earth by spreading terror or hate in his name. As an expression of their religious zeal, they carry out sectarian killings; they train suicide bombers who will target innocent civilians; they intimidate, kidnap, enslave and destroy.The contrast with Jesus, meek and humble in heart, could scarcely be more complete but unfortunately there are quite strong secularist forces in our society who want to bracket all religions together. They would restrict the liberty of Christians to practise or teach their faith. For them, religion, of itself, is a threat to society, and to the common good.We may start our comparison by accepting a degree of common ground held by in principle by Christianity and Islam. Christians and Muslims agree that it’s the duty of every human being to give due honour and worship to Almighty God. With all Muslims, including the Islamic terrorists, we hold that God is Great, a belief we also share with Christian terrorists and Jewish terrorists. We differ though in our conception of God’s greatness. As we see it, the terrorists especially fall far short. They seem to think that God needs the protection of their guns and their bombs; that he is somehow harmed by blasphemers or non-believers; that without the help of his militant warriors he would be lacking in glory and honour.But we know that God needs nothing from us; certainly not our protection; certainly not our acts of violence in his name. We agree that blasphemy is a bad thing, but not because it could somehow harm God. Blasphemy is bad because it must harm the blasphemer, and those influenced by him. But of course there’s more. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is wounded. On Mount Calvary a spear was thrust through it. That spear somehow summed up all the sins of the world, my sins and your sins, as well as the sins of the avowed enemies of Jesus. This month we contemplate that wound in the Heart of Jesus with deep sorrow and profound awe. We understand that it calls us to repentance and conversion, to replace any acts of un-love with acts of love. As we do this, we come to understand ever more clearly that the meaning of Christ’s wounded Heart is above all Mercy. Jesus, who was pierced through for our sins, does not call for revenge. He does not seek to assign blame or impose guilt. He does not ask us to wage holy war on his behalf – either a Crusade or a Jihad or a Milḥemet Mitzvah. Instead he gently issues his invitation: Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. The yoke I offer is a yoke of goodness and mercy and love. Yes, this yoke must appear threatening to those whose lives are immoral, or godless, or even just self-centred and comfort loving. Those who accept it will spread not indifference, and not terror or war around the world, but only peace. But the yoke of Christ is not one of an oppressor, and it is one that binds us to Him, therefore we must never be asked to relinquish it, for it is worth more to us than life itself.
