‘Why are you here?’ ‘Why are you here?’
Are you here as a visitor who has just popped in and found a service going on? Perhaps you are here to see what this new bishop is like? Or you may be here as this Chrism Mass marks a significant moment as we enter Holy Week.
I remember being asked that same question on my first Sunday as a curate. ‘Why are you here?’ And as I looked at the two women asking me that question, I began a journey of seeking deeper understanding of the community to which I had been called. You see I didn’t fit. I could tell there was a certain amount of resentment towards me. Who did I think I was coming here to share my Biblical knowledge and offer them spiritual guidance? Did I understand what it was to be an immigrant? Did I know what it was like to not have enough to feed my kids? Had I ever struggled to gain educational qualifications?
Over the 12 years I remained there as curate then priest-in-charge, it became clearer to me that I had more to learn than I ever had wisdom to share.
Sisters and brothers, we are here this morning, as ministers both lay and ordained, to renew our commitment to God’s call on our lives. For some of us the call has been life long, for others much more recent as we discovered for ourselves the grace of God in love and forgiveness and responded to His call.
For some of us this is the place we have always known, where our roots are deep, and our passion strong. For others, we have followed where God has taken us to unfamiliar territory, where we have found that God is at work and have joined in with the mission Dei in evidence.
This Chrism service allows us all to hear once again God’s call to us, to follow Him and to serve Him wherever and whatever that means.
The words of Isaiah spoken some 700 years earlier, are repeated by Jesus in the Gospel we heard read. As he begins his public ministry, Jesus is setting out his stall and pointing to the fact that he is the fulfilment of the hopes and dreams of the people of God over the centuries. They have been waiting long. Theirs has been a story of oppression and slavery, conquest and struggle. Now here is Christ, the hoped-for Messiah, declaring:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Not much in the way of good news in the world today. Hearing of the bombing of the Anglican hospital in Gaza yesterday was yet another horrendous assault on all that divides humanity and feeds hate. Our news feeds are filled with disaster upon disaster. Global markets tumbling,… and impacting, as ever, the poorest in society. Conflicts escalating,… inflicting pain and loss on the most vulnerable. And then there is all that is closest to our own experience, the loss of loved ones, the breakdown of health, and the fracture of relationships which matter.
So why are we here? Well, I think it is because we have some sense of the hope that can be found in Jesus. He is the one who has shown us the way to live life and invites us to join him on the road. The one who shared in our experience, through his own humanity. And the one who has shown us what real service and ministry looks like. It took him to death on a cross, but it also showed us the prospect of what lies beyond.
Brothers and sisters, we know that this has been a difficult time for us all within the Anglican Church and particularly so here in the Liverpool diocese. Recent events have caused a loss of trust in those who are called to lead. It has become hard for some to hear the good news of the gospel without it being tarnished by the Church’s failure to live up to all it proclaims.
We can’t ignore the harms done or gloss over the pain inflicted. Rather we have to face it and own our part in some of that failure. Failure to speak out against injustice and wrong-doing, failure to admit our own mistakes, failure to safeguard and protect the innocent and vulnerable. We each bear some of the responsibility just as we are each called to carry the cross in our walk with Christ.
On Christmas day 2023 a few weeks after joining Coventry diocese, I was presented with this pectoral cross I now wear. It is known as the Cross of Nails and is worn by Bishops and Cathedral clergy and is a sign of the ministry to which we all have been called, one of costly service.
It was a Christmas Day in 1940 that Provost Howard, spoke to the nation following the destruction of Coventry’s old Cathedral during heavy bombing, 6 weeks before. He declared that when the war was over we should work with those who had been enemies ‘to build a kinder, more Christ Child-like world.’
The new Cathedral was dedicated in 1962 from where you can look out upon the old ruin from which came two significant remnants, which stand today within the new. A cross made from two charred roof beams and the cross of nails made from three medieval roof nails.
The cross of nails has become a symbol for a world-wide community of reconciliation based on three principles.
- Healing the wounds of history
- Learning to live with difference and celebrate diversity
- Building a culture of justice and peace.
I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on what those three principles mean for me and what they mean for us as the Church. We cannot just allow them to remain as words of intention but rather something that we are willing to enact even at cost to ourselves.
For Coventry, healing the wounds of history meant recognising not only the damage inflicted upon themselves but that which we as a nation had inflicted on Germany.
In the Church of England, we can see that we are also broken, that the structures of what we have known are crumbling, just as the physical walls of the Temple began to fall of old. What should this teach us about our life and witness as Christians?
We are only just beginning to face the realities of the harm and further damage we have inflicted upon those abused. When will we move from mere words of shame to restorative acts of healing? How will we own our part and bring about change?
As a nurse I learnt that deep wounds don’t just heal by placing a plaster over them but often by a painful process of granulation. Chronic wounds indicate poor blood circulation or a weak immune system. As a Church we need to attend to our structures and our culture. To break down what is unhealthy and rebuild upon the firm foundation of the Christ we follow.
We need to change. We need to acknowledge the brokenness of our systems and ways of behaving so that we can truly live in love and faith with one another. How can we do that when we fail to value those who are different from us? How can we reflect the love and mercy of Christ when we defer to power? How will we become more Christ-like in the way we operate as a Church and as individual Christians?
It requires us to recognise our failure, our sin and repent. God’s self-giving in the person of Christ is both our model and our means. His acceptance of the child in the midst, the last and the least amongst us, reminds us how we can embody that same Spirit.
In a few minutes we will renew our vow to follow Christ as his disciples, and to serve him in whatever way he has asked of us. As we prepare ourselves to do just that, we will take some time of reflection as we hear the anthem and litany sung. They remind me of the words we say in morning prayer during passion-tide…
‘May we walk this day in the way of the cross and always be ready to share its weight.’
But we do so with our eye to the horizon which offers something more. Isaiah’s words, Jesus’ words, speak of proclaiming good news to the poor, freedom for captives because this is the ‘year of the Lord’s favour’.
We can know freedom from the sin which binds us. We can inherit the riches of God’s grace and we do so through discovering that God wants to bless us.
This is the year of the Lord’s favour. Not once in 50, a jubilee year. Every day is a day of the Lord’s favour because of the reconciling work of Christ on the cross. Forgiveness and fresh starts are ours. All we need do is ask.
