Sermons for 2025
Ash Wednesday – 5th March 2025
As we began our observation of Lent, in whatever way we have decided on, or been led to, I would like to make three brief points. The first is inspired by our Old Testament reading: at a moment of great national danger, what Joel calls the Day of the Lord, “even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart,with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning”. That is to say, there is a strong connection between our individual repentance and public outcome. What goes on in our hearts has an effect on what goes on in the world.
Secondly, self-improvement, pulling ourselves up by our own boot strings, is not easy. We need the help of the Holy Spirit – we need God’s grace. However, one of the desert fathers, Evagrius, gives us some useful advice: rather than trying to be perfect, try replacing a bad habit with a slightly better one. He taught that each of the 8 common vices or negative behaviours could be replaced, could be converted into their matching virtue (yes, Evragius came up with a list of eight deadly sins and eight saving virtues, rather than the traditional seven): hence, over time, and with God’s grace, he can learn to replace gluttony with abstinence, anger with blessing, avarice with generosity, self-pity with praise, lust with compassion; accidie or slackness with a focus on God’s will in each moment; vanity with honesty; and pride with humble service. I would like to suggest that we think of our own recurring vice and work on cultivating it’s opposite.
Finally, I would like to end on a note of hope. The word Lent is related to length and lengthening. It is the old English word for Spring, the time of the year when the days are getting longer. So although Lent is a period of penance, of prayer and fasting, it is also our springtime, a time when the light gets in. Our Lenten observations lead us on, eventually, to Eastertide.
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
The Transfiguration Luke 9.28-36 – Sunday 2nd March 2025
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. Now here is a
curious fact: the Transfiguration – the day when Jesus climbed a
mountain with Peter, James, and John (his inner circle disciples) and
they saw him shining with God’s glory and conversing with Moses and
Elijah – this Feast is the only event in our Lord’s life that gets celebrated
twice a year in the Anglican liturgical calendar. And though I am sure
there are far more urgent things to say about the Transfiguration than to
explain away this Anglican muddle, that’s where I want to start and finish
my talk this morning.
The first time we celebrate it is today, the Sunday before Lent, and
the second time is at the height of summer, on August 6th. The August
date is easy to account for: the Feast of the Transfiguration was moved
to this day by Pope Callixtus III to commemorate the Battle of Serbia in
1456 – a battle in which the Christian forces of Europe defeated the
advancing Ottoman Empire. Whereas today’s date for the celebration
reflects a much older tradition that the Transfiguration occurred 40 days
before the Passion, a tradition that was revived in the Lutheran church.
But, regardless of the date, what are the urgent, the important things
that we need to know about the Transfiguration? I would like to suggest
three. First, that what Peter, James, and John saw that day, and what
we should be looking to see this day, is what Jesus looks like after the
resurrection: this is a foretaste of the Lord Jesus in all his glory, in all his
divinity: it is a vision of Jesus as the Christ, the annointed one, the light
of the world. Secondly, that as Christians, we belief that our future too is
to shine in glory; as St Athanasius famously put it, ‘God became
man so that man might become god.’ In the Transfiguration we see
God’s glory not only as it shines in Christ, but as it radiates out from the
saints, and as it will one day shine out from every redeemed Christian.
But how on earth do we get there? How do we become the shining, perfect versions of ourselves that God intends us to be? Or perhaps how
I should say, how in heaven – how in heaven do we become transfigured
human beings, shining with glory and with light? I want to say more
about that in a minute, but first, let me mention the third point:
Transfiguration is not the same as transformation. IOW, when he went
up to the top of Mount Tabor that day, our Lord didn’t turn into something
different, he didn’t change, it wasn’t that the three disciples were
suddenly confronted with a Jesus on steroids. What changed was all in
the disciples; it was their vision, their understanding that changed – not
Jesus.
Afterwards, the disciples had to leave the mountain top, and follow
Jesus to Jerusalem and to the foot of the Cross. We, too, have to leave
our mountain top with its wonderful vistas, and trudge back down into
the Valley – dare I name it? – down into the valley of the Shadow of
Death.
There is one sense in which we stand here every Sunday, about to go
back down into the trenches of the workaday week. But today, as we
stand on the mountaintop of the Transfiguration, we look ahead to the
next glorious mountain peak, which is Easter, which is the Resurrection,
when we are to meet Jesus again, and again shining with the Light of
God’s glory, but by then he will have wounds in his hands, and in his
feet, and in his side. To get from here to there we have to cross a
wilderness. We have to walk for forty days through the valley of Lent; so
before we leave this place, I urge you to give that journey some thought.
What was it that Jesus did immediately after he came down from
Mount Tabor? He cured an epileptic boy whom his disciples were unable
to cure. And when these disciples asked our Lord why they hadn’t been
able to cure the boy – Jesus replied that this kind of evil spirit can come
out by nothing but prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting – these are the very disciplines that Christians are called to undertake in Lent.
Now there are many ways to pray and many forms of fasting: you
might pray by sitting quietly with a passage of scripture every day, or by
saying the Jesus prayer, or just by sitting quietly; you may fast by giving
up meat, or by giving up wine, or by going without solid food one day a
week. If you reflect on this today, while you are surveying the view from
the mountaintop of the Transfiguration, I am sure you will know what rule
of prayer, and what rule of fasting, God is calling you to this Lent. And if
you are not sure, by all means ask for advice. What I would urge you to
do, though, is to make a decision today about how you are going to fast,
and how you are going to pray during Lent – which starts next
Wednesday.
Mountain tops are wonderful places, both real and metaphorical,
whether we are thinking of peak experiences, or of actual mountains we
have climbed. And of course, living in Liguria, in this beautiful city of
Genoa, we are lucky enough to have very real, very beautiful mountains
nearby to climb. So my suggestion to you as Anglicans in Italy is to use
this first celebration of the Transfiguration to climb a spiritual mountain:
to take stock, to look at yourself, to imagine yourself as the saint God
intends you to be; more especially, to peer into the shadows of the valley
of Lent, and to ask what it is – what specific forms of fasting and praying
God is calling you to undertake between now and Easter. Then, on or
around August the 6th go out and celebrate the Feast of the
Transfiguration a second time by walking up a real mountain. And in
both these of celebrations, inward and outward, physical and
metaphysical, may God bless us all and begin to bring on that Glory with
which he has promised to clothe us through his Beloved Son. Amen
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
Sermons from Autumn 2024
24th November 2024
Christ the King Sunday
Jesus proclaimed his kingdom on the Mount of Beatitudes overlooking the Sea of Galilee. It is a place of great beauty and calm but sadly not peace in today’s Holy Land. In this place He spoke of those who would inherit the kingdom of God: the poor in spirit, the humble, the meek, people who work for justice, the peacemakers, those who suffer for their faith and do good. They seem an unlikely group of people who will triumph over time and become a strong and powerful kingdom in contrast to those whose power is violent and harsh.
In the Gospel Jesus tells Pontius Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world but is a kingdom that bears witness to the truthfulness of who people are, the goodness of relationships, and is a place where people show mercy to those in need. In this kingdom people look after one another and care for one another. They are generous to those who are poor and share their goods with others. Jesus speaks of bearing witness to the truth that each person is created good by God, given the gift of human freedom, and called to love others in rich and strong relationships. Jesus witnesses to this kingdom in forgiving those who have sinned. He washes the feet of his friends to show them the example of love. His kingdom is of service in which the power of love shines out. We call him our servant king and may think of the words of a well-known hymn, “This is our God, the Servant King.”
On this feast of Christ the King, we are called to examine our hearts in the light of the attitudes and action of Christ.
The invitation of the servant king is to become a person who serves and reaches out to others. When we examine our emotions, we may find some deeply hidden difficult attitudes towards other people, to groups of people whom we don’t like, to people of other religions. We are called to discover the truth about ourselves and offer this to the healing grace of God.
When we find these attitudes, then we can ask the Lord to show us his mercy and to heal our hearts. Advent, which begins next week, is a penitential season of preparation when we can become better followers of Jesus Christ and celebrate of our Lord’s birth at Christmas. We all need to ask for help in our endeavours to serve his kingdom better and to His glory.
Praised be Jesus Christ – now and for ever. Amen.
Gordon Bond (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
17th November 2024
2nd Sunday Before Advent
“When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed.” (Mark 13:7)
Illustration
“It’s not fair!” Lottie was bright pink as she stamped her foot. She might only be five years old, but she knew what was fair and what was not, and she was the victim of a massive injustice. Her big brother Tom was going to a party, and she had not been invited. Dad said he would take her to the swings instead, but that was not the same. Tom would get to play games, there would be crisps and cake, and presents to bring home, and Lottie was missing out. She was very cross. She had been a good girl all week, even when Tom had been nasty to her, and she was the one who deserved to go to the party.
Children develop a sense of fairness at quite a young age. They protest when they think they are being treated unfairly, and they soon begin also to protest on behalf of others unjustly treated. It seems that the principle of fairness is a fundamental part of our human nature. Even as adults we continue to protest when justice is not done.
Gospel Teaching
That is what gives an edge to what Jesus tells his disciples in today’s Gospel reading. The Messiah has come. The disciples have left everything to follow him. It is the dawn of a new age, with God’s representative finally on earth. This time has been prophesied and dreamt of for many centuries, a time when God would rescue his people from all oppression and reign over them in Jerusalem.
So what Jesus says seems really unfair. They have waited so long and so patiently. They have committed themselves to the vision. They have taken the chance of believing that Jesus is indeed the promised one. They have good reason to expect that the fulfilment of all their hopes is imminent.
“Do not be alarmed,” Jesus tells the disciples. But how could they not be? What could be more alarming than “rumours of wars”? The prospect of enemy armies turning up, who knows when. They have endured enough of that. It is really not fair. And so it has been, down the centuries since the days of Jesus. We are approaching the season of Advent, when we think about Jesus’ final coming. Jesus talks of “the beginnings of the birth pangs”, and we cannot help thinking that it has been a very long beginning. Jesus’ coming was meant to herald a new age, when God’s justice and peace would spread over all the earth. So where is it?
We have our own “wars and rumours of wars”, brought into even sharper relief when we contemplate the situation in the Holy Land today and we feel that there is no escape from conflict and terror anywhere in the world. We have our own earthquakes and famines, and the threat of the effects of climate change. The world can feel a dangerous place. God’s world should be better than this, we might well think. It isn’t fair.
Soon we will be faced with the Advent themes: heaven, hell, death and judgement,. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. However long it takes, we have faith that, in the end, love and justice WILL triumph, the Lord WILL reign and the world WILL be fair.
Praised be Jesus Christ – now and for ever. Amen.
Gordon Bond (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
10th November 2024
In today’s reading we have gone back to the beginning of Mark’s gospel, back to the opening chapter: we have just heard Jesus picking up on John the Baptist’s call to repent as he recruits his first disciples.
Mark’s gospel kicks off with John the baptist: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins – that’s verse 4.
There is important to notice here: our walk with Christ, our journey back towards God, begins with repentance, not with faith. Repentance, in Greek metanoia, is a turn around, it is a change of heart; it is setting our life in a new direction. And why would anyone do that? Because they’ve run out of road, they’ve come to a dead end. Until you get to that point, until you get down on your knees and say ‘I’ve messed up, Lord, I’ve tried to do it my way and it just hasn’t worked out’, you aren’t ready to hear the gospel.
Faith comes later. You will sometimes hear people say, ‘I’m not really a Christian, because I don’t have faith’ – well you don’t need faith – not to begin with. Faith comes later, when you start following the Lord. It’s not part of the starter kit. But repentance, that desperation for a new start, to become a new person, that’s the starting line.
John the Baptist’s message of repentance struck a cord with the people of Israel, yet now he’s gone; he’s in prison. Now it’s Jesus’s turn: After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. But notice how this message is subtly different: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. We still have the emphasis on repentance, but there’s a note of optimism too: this is good news! Jesus dangles a carrot of hope. So often John the Baptist comes across as the stern waver of a stick – he was, after all, the last in a long line of OT prophets. John the Baptist makes threats such as every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. But Jesus’s message is more gentle, and sweeter: Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Jesus offers us the embrace of a loving friend, rather than the warnings of an angry teacher.
And there’s something else that’s different too: this talk of a new Kingdom: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.
To understand the Kingdom of God we have to go back to Moses, and to the Prophet Samuel. Moses led Israel out of slavery in Egypt and he gave them the Law. The Law wasn’t just a moral code, the ten commandments: it was also a new way of organising society, unlike anything that had ever been seen before, where widows and orphans and the stranger in their midst were cared for – the stranger in their midst (that’s us, BTW, us immigrants). This new society was designed to prevent any Israelite from falling into economic slavery: every 50 years there would be a redistribution of wealth known as the Jubilee: you can find all of this in the Book of Leviticus, especially ch.25. Whether this new society was put into practice or not we don’t really know, but we do know that after some 200 years the people of Israel came to the Prophet Samuel and demanded that they give them a king. In other words, they wanted to be just like everyone else. ‘What?’, said Samuel, ‘You want a king? Do you even know what that means? Do you know what you’re asking for? For you sons to go and serve in the king’s army, your daughters to work in his kitchens – or worse?’ ‘Yes, they said, we would rather have all that and be a powerful nation among powerful nations, than be God’s special kingdom.’
That was Israel’s great tragedy back then and it is humanity’s tragedy now: the dream of belonging to a great and prosperous nation, led by a strong king – whether it’s King Putin, King Netanyahu, King Trump, or King Xi Jinping. This is the tragedy of believing that our nation, our tribe, our faction is more than human – that it is divine, or at least has God’s special blessing – while every other nation, tribe, or faction is less than human. Such beliefs lead to conflict, and to slaughter. These kingdoms of the world, these powers, lead to the countless dead whom we are honouring here this morning.
It is right that we should honour them: all those whose lives have been cut short by war. But at the same time let us not forget that we have been called to another, higher kingdom, a kingdom of peace, service, love, and reconciliation. This is the Kingdom of God that Moses proposed, and which Jesus proclaimed. Just as Jesus called those humble fishermen to leave their nets and go after the Big Fish, so he is calling us to become subjects of the kingdom that is above every earthly kingdom. Follow me, Jesus calls, for the Kingdom of God has come near.
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
3rd November 2024
Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints, when we remember the lives of exemplary Christians, both living and dead. And I want to take this opportunity to talk about the place where I grew up – and you will see why in a minute.
I come from Cornwall, in the South-West of England. It is one of the Celtic regions of Britain, and like Wales, Scotland and Ireland, it is reknowned for its Celtic saints. Indeed there are 140 saints known in Cornwall alone, and there is a saying that there are more saints in Cornwall than there are in heaven. Some of them were historically validated Christian missionaries who founded churches and monasteries: St Petroc is an example of one of these. He came from Wales, reputedly crossing the sea by riding on a dolphin, and founded religious houses in Padstow and Bodmin; others, however, were legendary figures, having much more to do with Celtic myths than with genuine Christianity. For example there were 24 brothers and sisters (12 men and 12 women), the children of the Welsh King Brychan and all of them became saints. For the vast majority of the Cornish we have only a name, but nothing has been recorded about their lives.
All that remains of most of them is a handful of pious and often fanciful legends. I would like to tell you one which will give the flavour of all the rest: St Sithney was supposed to be the most holy of all the saints of Cornwall; but he was also extremely bad-tempered. One day God sent an angel to Sithney with a proposal. Landing next to where Sitheny lived on the bank of a river, the angel said ‘Listen Sithney, our Almighty Father has noticed that you are the holiest of all the saints of Cornwall, so he would like to make you the patron saints of young women, as they more than anyone, need a protector. What do you think of that?’ ‘Young maidens,’ said Sithney, ‘they’re more trouble than they’re worth! No one can be expected to keep them under control.’ and the saint picked up a stone from the river bed and threw it at the angel. As she flew off, Sithney said, ‘There, you can tell God that’s what I think of that!’ The next day the angel came back. ‘God has sent me with another proposal,’ she said. ‘How would you like to be the patron saint of stray dogs?’ ‘Stray dogs?, said Sithney. ‘Aye, that’ll do nicely’ And so it is that in Cornwall if you lose a dog, it would be to St Sithney that you pray. Incidently, the Australian city of Sydney is named after him.
But to get back to the feast of All Saints, which was actually on Friday, the 1st November: it is one of the church calendar’s great ironies that the day before that, 31st October, is celebrated as Reformation Day, as it it was on 31stOctober 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. That was the event that sparked the Reformation. Ultimately, the Reformation also swept away many of the shrines, and much of the memory of the saints in my native Cornwall.
But make no mistake, the Reformation was a necessary corrective to the superstition and priest-craft of the late medieval church; it was the Protestant reforms that brought back a Gospel-based faith. There is a danger in too much saint worship: even this city of Genova, because of its role in carrying knights to the Crusades, has amassed an almost embarrassing collection of saintly relics. Just to give one example of how exaggerated the cult of the saints had become in late medieval times, St Apollonia was one of the virgin martyrs murdered by the Romans for her faith, and she was tortured by having all her teeth pulled out. Consequently she became the patron of all those suffering from tooth-ache and also of dentists. Christendom boasted many relics of St Apollonia; it is said that King Philip II of Spain, an avid collector of such things, alone managed ‘to amass all 290 holy teeth from the mouth of Saint Apollonia’.
It is a double irony, BTW, that 31st October is now celebrated in secular Europe, as it is is in North America, not as Reformation Day, but as Halloween – the Evening of All Hallows, or All Saints, although the day when we traditonally commemorate the dead is All Souls, the day following All Saints, on 2nd November.
Forgive me, this morning I have meandered, and I have told quaint stories of dogs and teeth and talked about the calenday instead of preaching the Gospel. What is my justification for this? Especially when our gospel reading has been the story of the Lord Jesus calling Lazarus out from the tomb. Many of us come to faith by meandering routes: childhood ritual and chance encounters affect us long before we reach any real understand of the Gospel. In my own case the names, and then the legends of the Celtic saints, planted a seed in my imagination long before I encountered the Jesus of the New Testament. We are a fallen race, half-blind, and ignorant of God’s heaven, God’s righteousness and God’s light. So any means that God uses to draw us back to himself we should be grateful for.
Should we worship the saints? Certainly not. We retain our worship for God alone; for God the Father, for God the Son, and for God the Holy Ghost. Should we remember the saints and commemorate their lives? Absolutely yes: we Christians must never forget our history, because we are children of a God who works in history and through history. [He will even be working through the American election later this week.]
The saints are like stained glass windows, and in their exemplary lives we can see the refracted glory of God shining through, in a myriad wonderful colours. As we sang at the beginning of this act of worship:
For all the saints, who from their labours rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest: Alleluia!
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
27th October 2024
‘All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness’, Paul tells us in his letter to Timothy.
As today is Bible Sunday, his morning I want to talk about the importance of reading scripture, of getting to know your Bible; I also want to suggest some practical ways we can this.
But first a quiz, a few questions for you. (I actually wrote a much longer quiz, printed out 30 copies, but then left them on my desk in Pavia; sometimes God is merciful). So here goes; just a few question; put your hand up if you know the answer.
- How many books are there in the Bible? A), 2 B) 66, C) 93
- How many kings came to visit the infant Jesus? (Three, though a trick question: the Bible doesn’t give a number, doesn’t call them kings)
- Which OT book was set to music? (the Psalms)
- Now some questions about the four gospels – remind me, who wrote them?
Which one:
- Is short & was written first?
- contains the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son?
- contains the Sermon on the Mount?
- Is different from the rest?
Which two:
- tell us the story of Jesus’ birth?
- wrote other books in the NT?
- How many laws did Moses bring down from the mountain?
- How many wives did King Solomon have: 30, 300, or 700?
- How many rules/laws did the Pharisees have to follow: 66, 99, or 613?
- And the last question: which two rules/ laws does Jesus tell us to follow?
Now, let me ask you a different kind of question: if we have Jesus, and if he has promised to send us his Holy Spirit, why do we still need to study our Bibles?
Firstly, because Jesus himself submitted to the Scriptures as his rule and guide for life: his teachings, his prophecies, and his prayers are saturated with the words of the Old Testament. We never here him dismissing the Scriptures but, as he says in the Sermon on the Mount, I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it.
Secondly, because although it is true that we can know the Lord Jesus in our hearts, and though we have been promised the Holy Ghost – it has been given to each of us in baptism – we can very easily follow an imaginary Jesus, and an imaginary God, ones suited to our own likings. We have to read our Bibles to keep us grounded in truth.
And thirdly, God will speak to you through his Word. By reading the Bible you will be inspired to love Jesus, you will receive God’s peace, and you will receive the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
And lastly, let me quote from the introduction to the Gideons Bible, because they they describe the Bible in a memorable way (if you don’t know it, Gideons International is an organisation that has placed over a billion Bibles in hotel rooms and other places, all around the world). They say;
It is supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, divine in authorship, infallible in authority, inexhaustible in meaning, universal in readership, unique in revelation, personal in applications and powerful in effect.
I would like to finish with some practical advice on how to get the know your Bible better. Indeed, this was all written down on the quiz I was supposed to bring in today – so please pick up a copy next Sunday, and you can have a record of these suggestions:
- Read whole books of the Bible, not just isolated passages
- Find out which books are being read on Sundays and read them
- Download a version of the Bible to your phone
- Sign up for free daily Bible readings: (https://www.christianweb.org.uk/free-online-daily-bible-reading-notes-resources/)
- Listen to the Bible (try David Suchet’s recording)
- Get a lively modern translation like The Message by Eugene Peterson
- If you are learning a foreign language, read short passages in the language, comparing them with a familiar version.
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
20th October 2024
The reading from the letter to the Hebrews which we have just heard talks about priesthood and that’s what I want to talk about this morning. The epistle compares the high priest of the Jerusalem Temple with the priestly role of Jesus, bringing out some of the similarities and some of the differences. The role of priests is to form a bridge between the people and God; they are to bring gifts and offer sacrifices; another point to notice is that they do not choose themselves but they are chosen by God. Among the differences are the sinfulness and weakness of the high priest, which meant that he had to offer sacrifices again and again, compared to the sinlessness of Christ, who made his one sacrifice – giving his own life for us upon the cross – just once.
So what about Christian priests? Where do they fit in? Indeed, what do we even call them: priest, pastor, Minister, or just ‘hey you’, the guy in the funny clothes?
Actually, I think I’m going to begin with the clothes. The first thing to notice is that some of the things that are priest wears are deeply symbolic: others are accidental – they just happen to be what a well-dressed gentleman would have worn in the late Roman Empire or in Victorian times. Let’s begin with this [DOG COLLAR]: who can tell us what it’s called?PAUSE Dog collars, in themselves, have no particular religious significance: it’s just a fashion from the 19th-century which we have come to associate with the clergy. According to Canon Law a clergyman, or clergy woman, should always be recognisable as such when in public, and this dog collar serves that purpose. It has another purpose too: look at the shape – it’s a smiley face; that should remind its wearer what people want most in their priest is that they should be good-humoured.
To celebrate the Eucharist, the first thing a priest puts on is this – PICK UP AMICE. I don’t know how many of you know what this is, or what it is supposed to represent. Until I was ordained a deacon I had never seen anything like it before. This is known as an amice PUT IT ON. Originally, you’ll never guess what it was: it was an executioner’s hood. It’s purpose is to remind whoever wears it, as they celebrate the Eucharist, that they too are responsible for Christ’s death. The priest as Our Lord’s executioner: now there’s a thought! Certainly it reminds me that there is a touch of the hypocrite, the Pharisee who wants the best seat in the synagogue, in me whenever I dare to assume this role.
Next is this long white garment, called an alb. It is similar to the long white garments worn by choristers. In general the symbolism of long white garments goes back to the long white robes which newly baptised Christians would put on when they came out of the water. So it is a symbol of baptism and of the new man, the freshly transformed person, which our baptism confers on us and who we are called upon to become.
Then there’s this – HOLD UP STOLE – which is called a stole. Again, it is highly symbolic. St John tells us how, on the night before he died, Jesus washed his disciples feet, and then he dried them with a towel. This represents that towel: it is supposed to remind us of Christ’s humble service, and of the humble service we Christians are called upon to render to one another and to the world.
Finally, there’s this, the highly decorated over-garment known as a chasuble. It’s origins, however, were far more humble: it began as shepherd’s cape, a simple woolen blanket that could be put on over the head, similar to the poncho. The symbolism of the celebrant dressing up as a shepherd should be self-explanatory.
The next question is what do you call your clergyman – or perhaps I should say clergyperson. The answer to that rather depends on which end of the protestant/catholic spectrum you come from. The Roman church has no problem with the the title ‘priest’, and addressing him as ‘father’, and the more catholic end of the Anglican communion follows suit. The protestant Reformation, however, reminded us that there are no Christian priests in the NT, only deacons and bishops, and that Matthew ch.23:9 specifically forbids us to call any man ‘father’, except our father in heaven. Hence Protestants prefer terms like pastor and minister. Furthermore, Martin Luther pointed out that while we only have one High Priest in heaven, all baptised Christians are called to perform various aspects of the priestly role: to proclaim the gospel, to respond to those in need, and to guide and shepherd our neighbours.
If you ask me how I like to be addressed as a clergyperson, I’d probably encourage you to use whatever comes naturally, thought I often say ‘just call me Robert’. If I’m honest, however, I do have a preference. I like the term parson: the parson is a Middle English title, and form of address, for a priest, and it just means ‘a person’ – a rather anonymous, general sort of anybody. So calling your clergy person the parson, is a bit like saying they are one of the guys: ‘morning, dude’, ‘morning bro’, ‘morning parson’ – it’s all pretty much the same thing. And very useful if you can’t remember the vicar’s name.
So here I am, your parson – at least for now – hiding inside the hood of my own shortcoming and sinfulness, with this towel around my neck as a sign that I am willing to serve you, and clad in a shepherd’s cloak. It is indeed to privilege to be dressed like this, and to preside over our Lord’s Supper. But when you look at a priest strutting around in such a fancy outfit, I hope that each of you will be reminded of your own failings, of Christ’s call to all of us to serve, and that we are all also called to shepherd and guide our neighbours. After all, each one of us is called to ‘the priesthood of all believers’.
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
13th October 2024
The young man who comes and kneels before Jesus, to ask what he needs to do to inherit eternal life, seems like a thoroughly decent young man. He is deferential, earnest, and well-intentioned. Like many of us, he has been doing his utmost to be a good person. Yet Jesus rejects him. Indeed, he is the only would-be disciple whom Jesus rejects in the whole of the NT. Why? Because he is rich – that’s the obvious answer. And because, as Jesus goes on to say, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Ouch! So nobody with money can be a follower of Jesus? Do you have to give away all your money to have a chance of entering the kingdom of heaven? The church has been struggling with this question for the last two thousand years. To start with, it has come up with excuses for why we don’t have to take Jesus’s words at face value. For example, it is sometimes said that the eye of the needle was the name of one of the gates in the old Jerusalem city wall: a gate so narrow that a camel could hardly squeeze through, especially if it was heavy-laden. But Mark’s remark is meant to be taken seriously, even if it is both humorous and sarcastic; as someone said more recently, it is like getting “Nelson Rockefeller through the night deposit slot of the First National City Bank”!
Other arguments I’ve heard are that attachment to his wealth may have been this particular young man’s defect, and that greed and an obsession with money was this particular man’s vice, but that just because it applied to this young man, it needn’t necessarily be taken as a general rule. Yet another argument is that neither Jesus nor the disciples were particularly poor. Jesus was a carpenter, a builder, so he had a trade; Simon Peter and his brother Andrew owned their own fishing boat… then there was Joseph of Arimathea, who gave his prime-site tomb for Jesus’s body to be laid in, and Nicodemus, the rabbi who comes to Jesus by night, both of whom were clearly wealthy and well-connected followers of the Lord, as were some of his women followers. So wealth, in and of itself, doesn’t seem to be the problem.
But let me come at this question from a different angle and say a few words about my own education in Christian finances.
When I started coming to church for the first time, this was fifteen years ago – this was after several decades of giving my childhood Christianity a wide berth – I ran into a somewhat eccentric, and rather bad-tempered clergyman. That first Sunday when I went to church, he was angry with his congregation for not putting their hands in their pockets, and not putting their money in the collection plate. After the service, for some reason, he took me aside, perhaps because I was a complete stranger, and treated me to private sermon – more of a harangue – about the relationship between a person’s faith and their wallet. I don’t think I ever saw him again. However, that brief encounter had a profound effect on me: I realised that as a mature Christian I had to set aside a small, fixed percentage of my income every month for tithing & donations.
Now, what I am not going to say is what the hucksters say: hand over 10% of your income to the church and God will shower down financial blessings on you; what I am saying is that, yes, in my opinion – and experience – God does makes a pretty good accountant. With hindsight, I can see that the conversation that Sunday morning led me to a more responsible attitude to money generally, and laid the foundations of future financial stability. Indeed, the path of Christian discipleship is to trust God enough to hand over more and more areas of our lives to Him: our wallets, our career, our love life, our marriage, even, eventually, our identity and sense of who we are – and ultimately our life itself.
Anyway, to return to our rich young man. Financial justice is part of the Biblical vision: it is there in the Jubilee practice of the Old Testament, where wealth would be redistributed every 50 years, and it is to be found in the early church – just look at Acts 2:44-45: All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. By the way, sometimes religion has called for financial justice, and at other times it has been in cahoots with oppressive economic systems that concentrate wealth in the hands of the few; at other times it has opposed them.
However, in Palestine, in Jesus’s time there was great financial injustice: many of the poorer farmers had been forced to sell their land and were reduced to poverty, while others were able to buy up this land cheaply and profit from other people’s misery. Quite possibly, the rich young man who came to Jesus was just such a person; we are told that he had many properties. In other words, it wasn’t the fact he was rich that was the problem: – it was where his wealth came from.
So what have we learned from our meeting with the rich young man? Firstly, following Jesus involves our wallets: we are called on to be generous to those in need, and we are called upon to use a part of our finances for the common good. Secondly, the call for a fair economic system is built into the Christian Gospel: as Pope Francis himself has said “Without the preferential option for the poor, the proclamation of the Gospel … risks being misunderstood or submerged.” And thirdly, despite all our efforts and all our wishes, the chances of building a globally just distribution of the world’s resources may look very bleak indeed; and yet we must have hope, because, as our Lord Jesus reminded his disciples, For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)
Harvest Festival 2024
Good morning, in my day job I am a teacher, which is why I want
to begin my words to you this morning with a test. I am going to give
you four statistics and then I am going to ask you what they have in
common. Are you ready?
- 3 million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa
- On average, women say 20,000 words a day, whereas men
say only 7,000 words - Only 1 in 10 Americans have passports
- The most common phrase in the Bible is ‘Do not be afraid’; in
fact, it occurs 365 times – once for each day of the year.
What do those “facts” have in common? PAUSE They are not
true! Each of them is an exaggeration, and the numbers have been
invented to make the claim sound more plausible.
However, it is true that some variation of ‘Do not be afraid’ is
very common in Holy Scripture: in the NIV the expression “Do not
be afraid” can be found 70 times, while in the KJV it says “fear not”
71 times. My favourite is from Isaiah 41: 10 Do not be afraid, for I
am with you. Do not be anxious, for I am your God. I will fortify you,
yes, I will help you, I will hold on to you with my right hand of
righteousness.’
What Jesus is saying to us this morning is slightly different: ‘do
not worry’ – do not worry about the food on your table, or about the
clothes on your back. Yet worry, anxiety, fear they merge into one
another…
So why is Christ telling us not to worry? I think for three reasons:
the first is that the Gospel, his good news, has come to set us free –
we must trust that both life and death are the gifts of a loving God –
ultimately, as St Paul says in Romans, chapter 8, nothing can ever
separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels
nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about
tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s
love. At the end of the day, God has got our backs, But, and this is
the second reason: not many of us have cultivated that level of
trust, we don’t even have even the faith of a mustard seed. So
here’s the thing: our anxieties, our consistent preoccupations over
the little things, are the devil’s chief strategy in keeping us enslaved.
Keep your head down, keep your hands in your pockets, worry if
there’re enough coins in there, or a hole… No, says Jesus, that is
what the Gentiles do. He calls us to be a new people, his people,
the ones who strive first for his Kingdom, and for his righteousness.
Instead of worrying about ourselves, He calls us to be
concerned for others. Instead of worrying if we have got enough, he
tells us to celebrate what we have. But here’s the real secret: if you
have a habit of worrying, as so many people have, you must
replace it with a better habit: the habit of giving thanks.
Today we celebrate our harvest thanksgiving. Once upon a
time, the harvest was a crucial moment in the year: to start with,
nearly everybody worked on the land and harvest meant the end of
weeks of back-breaking toil; and if the harvest was good, you knew
you would have enough food to get through the coming winter.
Perhaps it is only people who come that close to survival who can
know immense elation – perhaps that includes some of you. Look at
the ecstatic words of relief and joy in our psalm: When the Lord
restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with songs
of joy.’ This was written when the Israelites were released from their
captivity in Babylon.
In a few minutes we are going to share our thanksgiving lunch.
And although our harvest is largely symbolic – few of us, I imagine,
have spent the last week toiling in the fields, and we expect there to
be panettone in the shops this Christmas – I do hope it becomes a
moment of thanksgiving: a moment to share food and celebrate our
stories, just as the Eucharist – which means ‘thanksgiving’ by the
way – is a moment when we share in the story of our dear Lord
Jesus. May our mouths be filled with laughter and our tongues with
songs of joy! Amen.
Robert Morley (Locum Chaplain, Holy Ghost Genoa)