Sermons

A recent survey of websites in the Greater London area produced a significant result when it comes to  addresses, sermons and homilies already on individual websites. The London Internet Church promises to gather links and provide the vehicle for a wider distribution of such sermons and addresses, and hopefully more.  Please submit sermons for SELECTED SERMONS

If you know of any churches where such an on-line facility is offered, please inform us. Regular entries from Peter Delaney and Jim Rosenthal from Walbrook will be included.

St Paul’s Cathedral - Ordination of the Deacons 2010.

Sermon by the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres

Speak Lord for your servant is listening.

Tom Hollander in an interview with the Scotsman says, “Stories about Vicars are always being told because they are at the heart of our society. Vicars touch all parts of the community and see life in all its extremity.”

Well today we have 41 wonderfully diverse examples of the real thing not actors. We honour them for responding, like the young Samuel, to the call of God to serve him at a time like this when –“The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

It is a time when we might take up the horrified lament of the prophet Hosea: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”.

Instead of the knowledge of God we have an illusion that the world is a boundless theatre of human desire and willing. This has led to the present global turbulence. The project of “growth without limit with no end in view beyond the process itself” has scarred the earth and we have forgotten that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.

We have been living with illusions and the consequences are serious.

To reject God, once all the oxygen generated by the Christian centuries in our country has been used up, leads in time to a collapse of personal and social righteousness; to a disabling reticence about what is to be regarded as good and true and beautiful.

A society like any living organism depends for health and vitality on the proper integration of parts into the whole. If society is organised around ignorance and illusion then the moral quality of citizens declines and disintegration follows.

Christianity is tolerated if it is presented as a harmless lifestyle choice like vegetarianism but beloved deacons, you are being called in our time to a much more demanding and even perilous life of service in which you will strive to read the signs of the times with the compassion that comes from keeping company with the Jesus Christ who wept over Jerusalem. Then using your best talents of love, intellect and imagination you are called to teach the knowledge of the living God – it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. You are to teach  with the humility that comes from the constant prayer that dispels illusions and by turning day by day to contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ and obey his command that we should love and serve him in one another.

Graham Tomlin, the Dean of St Mellitus College  recently sent me the results of some fascinating research. Londoners were asked whether they were concerned to introduce other citizens to their world view and convert them to it. The largest group who professed such a concern were Christians. The third largest group intent on conversions were Muslims. They were in third place because of their relative size as a proportion of the whole population of Greater London. In second place as actively concerned to convert others to their world view were atheists and agnostics; those who deny the existence of God or believe that nothing can be known about ultimate reality.

You are called to godly, clear eyed ambition; Christ centred but outward facing to a turbulent world much of which lives in the illusion that human beings have outgrown God; a world in which human beings have instead made gods of their own wills. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

As part of your ministry to promote reconciliation of the whole human race with God and with one another you will work for the unity of the one church of which we say that we are a part. “The Church of England is part of the One Holy catholic and Apostolic Church.” There is only one body of the Lord Jesus and there can only be one church.

Child development theory recognizes three stages in the evolution of play. There is solitary play; then parallel play and finally co-operative play. The pre-oecumenical stage was solitary denominational play. We have passed through the stage of parallel play expressed in bureaucratic church unity schemes; now we are being prepared I believe for more co-operative play and you will be leaders in this period.

A firm foundation with attention to God’s horizon can relieve us of so many of burdens of defending entrenched positions taken up in the broils of the 16^th century. It remains true as St Augustine said that our Christian life should be characterized by three affirmations – in fundamentals - unity; in disputable matters - freedom but in everything - love.

Be Christ centred; centred on his sacrifice on the cross but look to the horizon on the third day and you will discover many surprising allies and the unity that Christ has already given to us.

Also remember that you are being called in the mature stage of spiritual development to “co-operative play” in which you are charged to work with fellow ministers and with the bishop as knots in a net which binds the whole church as a living organism together.

Together we are to re-member Jesus Christ in the present. We are not merely to recall what he said and did but to re-member him in our life together as opposed to dis-membering him. We are to constitute his body in 21^st century London in order that we may together serve God’s mission in the world with more joy and effectiveness.

Jesus Christ calls us not to a new religion but to a new life for the sake of the lost and the suffering. He says to us “Truly I tell you that just as you reached out to one of the least of these who are members of my family you embraced me.”

This is in some ways a hard call. Sir Ernest Shackleton, the explorer is said to have put this advertisement into the newspaper –“Wanted for Hazardous Journey, small wages bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful; honour and recognition in case of success.” 5,000 people are said to have responded. You have also responded; you have presented your bodies as a living sacrifice but thank God you are journeying in company with Jesus Christ who renews us by his spirit; inspires us with his love and unites in his body – Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Picturing the Spirit

Fulcrum Newsletter, May 2010

by Bishop of Sherborne Graham Kings

21 May 2010

How do you depict the Holy Spirit? Doves, flames of fire, and trees bending in the wind may come to mind. For me, Jonathan Clark’s maquette – a small scale model - of his Ely sculpture, ‘The Way of Life’, is powerfully intriguing. The final version of his aluminium sculpture in the Cathedral is over 30 feet high, on the north wall, just inside the great west door. It has one path, winding up to the shape of a cross.

The maquette, however, has four river-like paths within the one way, meandering up to the disciples and Christ in glory. This also is designed to be viewed from below: but what happens if we view it upside down, from above? Maybe it could be seen as the ascended Christ pouring out the Holy Spirit on his disciples at Pentecost, who then travel on a journey outwards in mission in various interweaving paths?  

‘Are you full of the Spirit?’Dwight L Moody, the American evangelist, was once asked. He replied, ‘Yes, but I leak’. At Pentecost, we celebrate the overwhelming gift of God’s Holy Spirit to the first disciples and to countless Christians across the ages and the world today. Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ has the Holy Spirit (as Paul explains in Romans chapter 8) and is called to be filled again and again (Ephesians 5).

Praying for people to be filled with the Spirit is part of the ministry of all God’s people, and also shapes the role of a bishop in the service of Confirmation. Last Sunday afternoon in Dorset, the Rector of Canford Magna, Chris Tebbutt, and I baptised five people in the River Stour, next to the parish church. The water was considerably cold but a friend had kindly procured a wet suit, which I wore under my white robe. Several adults and young people also reaffirmed their baptismal vows. After a short break for some changing of clothes, the large congregation went into the church to continue the service.

21 adults and youngsters from Wimborne Minster, St John’s Wimborne and Canford Magna churches, and three young people from Canford School, were confirmed. For three of the adults, it was a sort of ‘Alpha graduation’: their faith had come alive during the Alpha course I led at the Minster for local churches earlier in the year.

Some prayers hardly seem to be inspired by the Spirit, such as ‘Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?’ This plaintive song by Janis Joplin, from her 1971 album 'Pearl', was used in the famous car advert in 1995. On the other hand, some prayers are so in line with the desire of God in his Scriptures, and echoed in the hearts of friends and relatives in the congregation, that God delights to answer them. Such is the prayer in the confirmation service for the renewed infilling of the Spirit, ‘Confirm, O Lord, your servant, with your Holy Spirit’.

But how do you describe the Holy Spirit? Profoundly personal and not a simple force, using the pronoun 'It' is not appropriate. Beyond gender, God’s Spirit is traditionally referred to as ‘He’ but sometimes, as in the poems of the 4^th century Syrian theologian St Ephrem, ‘She’ has been used. After returning from a parish weekend away, which focused on the Spirit, I thought I might try out, as an experiment, using the pronoun ‘She’: the following interweaving descriptions flowed.

"She bubbles like a spring, tumbles like a waterfall, meanders like a river and welcomes us like the sea. You may as well try to bottle the wind as capture her. She is wild and unrestrained, surprising and unpredictable, yet true to her character and utterly reliable. She is reticent and reflective, giving glory to the Son and the Father.

Like the wild desert wind she drives and scorches. Like the oil of the olive tree she heals and soothes. In a still, small voice she speaks and questions. The contemptuous proud she resists and brings down. The humble poor she supports and uplifts.  Our imagination she enlarges and stretches. Our humdrum existence she enlightens and enlivens. Who can resist the draw of her calling to come to Christ and delight in God?

She does not force and manipulate, but coaxes and draws. She inspires, enthuses, interprets and invigorates. She warns and reminds, convicts and convinces. She brings joy and delight, depth and sorrow, a feast in want and fasting in plenty.

She does not ingratiate but delivers grace. She does not calculate but risks adventure. She does not rest on her heels but is fleet of foot. She is not sedentary but agile, not ponderous but quicksilver. All who know her, love her, for she loves the Son and the Father."

 Dr Graham Kings is Bishop of Sherborne and theological secretary of Fulcrum

ANGLICAN ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU AT ABBEY

Easter 7, 2010: Bumper Sticker Culture

Canon Mark Oakley, Grosvenor Chapel, London

If you have ever travelled in America –or, indeed, if you have ever lived or live there – amongst the many things you´ll notice day to day is the huge amount of bumper stickers on the back of cars, giving you, the car behind, a bit of helpful advice or an observation, to presumably help keep you going on those long roads. My favourites that I have seen are: God created man first – you need a rough draft before a masterpiece and That money talks I won´t deny, I heard it once it said goodbye. I once saw a very grumpy looking old lady driving like a bat out of hell and on her bumper it said alarmingly ”if pigs could fly this town would be an airport”. But my favourite was the very flash red Porsche I saw with its bumper sticker telling us ”my other car´s a Porsche”.

We live at a time when there is too much of a bumper sticker take on life – bumper sticker politics, bumper sticker pyschology, theology, morality, relating. All being done with a desire to have quick, easy answers that wrap it all up in a fast-food type package of convenience – convenience because this way we don´t have to be patient, we don´t have to listen, we don´t have to imagine what it is like to be someone else. Convenient because my little prejudiced bumper can drive quickly away from you if I don´t like you.

That is why a great breakthrough takes place in relationships, whether it be in your family or between nations, when instead of a clash of stickers or badges, we instead take it upon ourselves to tell and listen to each others´stories. Our full stops change into commas, we realise there is more to learn. Our lives, if we take the time, can be full of such stories – the meal plates pushed aside we stay at the table telling stories; gathered after a funeral when the shock begins to melt, there is a flood of stories about the one who has gone; children won´t sleep until they hear one, old friends put up with hearing our old ones, newspapers tell you ones who may forget an hour later, myths and novels can tell ones that humanity never forgets. These stories can reveal the underlying landscape of how the world really works, they take us into the dark unknown shadows where our minds are really at work, where our past is showing itself for what it is. Stories are the laboratory and communicator of the soul. To hear my story is how you might begin, with patience, to understand me. Jesus was a story-teller.

One of the most memorable bumper stickers I ever saw was actually quite stark. It simply said: ”The one who dies with the most toys wins”. It was both shocking and yet refreshing finally to have a very dominant message of our Western culture spelled out with clarity. The one who dies with the most toys wins. The message is clear – life is a contest, a game, a time to accumulate goodies (whether needed or not) that we can climb up on and look down on people. Life is your one chance to get a lot of things. Drink Pepsi, said one recent advert, and get a lot of stuff.

Well, here is one of my stories and it is true. When I was a young curate I was asked to take the funeral of a man who had been on the radio a lot. He was a bit of a personality in his time and his daughter told me that as she grew up as a girl her dad had had to go away a lot of work and she hated it, she hated him having to leave so often. And so her father did something: everytime he got to the door he kissed her and took out a five pound note and he ripped the note in half and gave half to her. You keep this, he said, and then when we see one another next you can have my half and we can go and spend it together on  something really fun. Years later, and after some difficult years in which father and daughter had to work very hard to keep understanding one another, when her father died his daughter went to see her father lying in his coffin before the funeral. I had the privilege of being there with her. She kissed him very tenderly and then took a five pound note, ripped it in half and placed half in her father´s hand.

I tell you this story because for me it reminds me that the cheap bumper stickers just will not do for this world. Nor will greedy messages telling us to buy and feel better. Nor by the way will religion that centres around me and ignores the rest. No, nothing matters except for our relationships, our relationships with those who matter most, with those who share our life, our church, our communities. Our relationship to those we have never met but who are in need when I´m OK. Our relationship with ourself and how we look after our self, ignore it or attack it. Our relationship with God, the one relationship in which we feel the tune of everything else. That is why I believe the church should be a school of relating – nothing else matters. If we learn how to relate, if we take a bit more time to listen, a bit less time to condemn, we discern where the true treasure in this life is to be found and instead of life being a matter of having what we want it becomes more the joy of learning to want what we have.

We were told in that story from Acts that when Paul and his friends were put in prison, at the point we are told when other´s hope of making money was gone, when they were behind bars and at midnight in the dark – they sang. Is that what you would do? Would living by the story of life the adverts and stickers tell us make you sing out in that cell? What story was so in their hearts, in their make up, in their way of being human, that made it possible for them to sing at such a despairing, fearful time? It was the story they were travelling with and passing on, the story of God painting his self-portrait in Jesus and showing, with the startling upturning beauty of love, how much he longs for us to be changed from deathly competitive lives to lives that drink from the deepest wells. Singing this story brought the prison bars tumbling down. How I pray it will bring the prisons I am in down too –and yours too – because I know that all the other stories of life as a game, as a contest, as a gladitorial or humiliation arena as so many tv shows reveal, as a fast car race with our bumpers enforced with prejudices, are fake and phoney and will destroy us all – whether souls or bodies. Let us seek to be not consumers of the world but citizens of the Kingdom of God.

Nothing matters apart from our relationships: that is why we must take them a little more seriously if we call ourselves Christian – and not just your parent. partner or child say, but all those with whom you have to do. Where there is a rift begin today to try and heal. Nothing else matters and that is why, as Jesus´s death approached, John made it clear what he prayed: ”I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”

The City is a Beloved Community!

A Sermon for St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Hong Kong

by The Very Reverend Sam Candler
The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, Georgia USA
The Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2 May 2010

Grace and peace to you in Jesus Christ our Lord!

It is a delight and honor for me to be in Hong Kong, a great city of the world; and I especially thank the Reverend Chung Ka Lok, for inviting me to preach today; and I thank Joey and Madeleine Fan, for their hospitality, and for making it possible for me to be here today. Blessings and grace to you!

I am Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA; and I bring you grace and peace especially from that parish. I bless you from another of the world’s great cities, Atlanta, Georgia. It is not as big as Hong Kong; but, it too, is a wonderful and great city!

Atlanta, where I live, is known for many things, and I want to mention two of them today. One is  Coca-Cola! Atlanta is where Coca-Cola was developed, and it is where the Coca-Cola Company flourished.  People here in Hong Kong have told me that Hong Kong loves to advertise. Even the currency of Hong Kong, the dollar bills, have the advertising of banks on them.

Well, Coca-Cola also loves to advertise. One of their advertising songs was the truly memorable song, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.”  When I was growing up, the great Coca-Cola ad slogan was the phrase, “the pause that refreshes.” Coca-Cola tried to refresh people!

That is a great slogan. So, today, like Coca-Cola, I want our gospel of Christ to refresh people. I want the Christian Church to proclaim a gospel that is refreshing! We are not supposed to be a complaining church; we are supposed to be a refreshing church!

The other notable feature for which Atlanta is known is that we are the home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, certainly one of the great civil rights activists, and one of the great lovers of peace, of our time.

He had a dream of reconciliation and unity that brought tribes and races and nations together in peace; and he went to the mountaintop. One of his recurring images was “beloved community.” He talked of creating “beloved community,” as a vision for both church and city.

The same gospel of Martin Luther King, is the gospel I want to proclaim today. The Christian Church is a beloved community. When Jesus told his disciples at that Last Supper night, “I give you a new commandment, that you love another,” Jesus gave the Church a new definition of community; the church would be a beloved community, refreshed always by love. He said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Thus, we, the Christian Church, were meant to refresh the world with love.
 
Our scripture lesson this morning comes from a controversial book of the Bible, the Revelation to St. John. There are some of us who are sceptical of this book, right? There certainly are some Episcopalians in the United States who dismiss this book! We open its pages and read about strange images and horses and vials. Historically, major Christian scholars have wondered why the Revelation to St. John is even in the Bible.

But I believe that the Book of Revelation should be in scripture. For one, it tells us what people are doing in heaven. Have you ever noticed what people are actually doing in heaven when the Book of Revelation speaks about them? They are worshipping and singing!

Look at our scripture from Revelation today. The people are saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power to our God,…Amen. Hallelujah!"  A great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, is crying out, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.” I say this to everyone who complains to me about singing in church, “You’d better learn to sing, because singing is practice for the kingdom of heaven. According to the Revelation to St. John, everyone is singing in heaven!”

The other reason I like the Revelation to St. John is that it tells how the story ends! Despite its gory symbolism, Revelation also has a tremendous conclusion! People often become distracted or scared or confused about the end times, and about all these cosmic battles. But I say, “Don’t be distracted. The point is this; God wins!” In the last book of the bible, God wins! No matter what battle you are facing, the lesson of the last book of the bible is that God wins.

Consider the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In Genesis, the Bible begins in a garden.
The garden of Eden was a place of peace and paradise!

Consider, now, how the Bible ends. In the Revelation to John, the Bible ends in a city! Our story, the Christian story, begins in a garden, and it ends in a city. We, the people of God, are meant to be progressing toward the city of God.

I believe in cities today, because I believe that cities, at their best, are supposed to be growing toward the city of God. Every city in this world, whether it be Atlanta, USA, or Hong Kong, China, is meant to be growing closer and closer to the true city, the kingdom of God.

And the kingdom of God is love. The challenge of every city, from Atlanta, Georgia to Hong Kong is to become what Martin Luther King, Junior, called the “beloved community” of God. The challenge of every city is to become a community of love.

In the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, John says “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.” (Revelation 21:2-3).

Yes, the holy city, the city of God, will be a new city.

I have noticed something about Hong Kong. There is always something new! My own city, Atlanta, is also not very old. It started in the 1800s, and much of Atlanta was destroyed in a war.
But that destruction actually gave Atlanta a chance to start something new.

My understanding is that Hong Kong is relatively new, too. One of your citizens said to me a few days ago, “There is always re-development going on in Hong Kong. There is always construction of something new.”

That is what healthy cities do. They re-create and grow. Something in them becomes new. The challenge for every city is for the “new” to be the refreshing and beloved. The challenge for every city is to become a beloved community.

I am a lover of music and an amateur jazz pianist, so I love it that the saints in the Book of Revelation are always singing. The people of God love to sing.

Singing is a good image for the beloved community; for, when we sing, we use different voices. We even sing different melodies, but we create harmony together. God creates a beloved harmony with our voices.

Sometimes, when we sing, our notes seem unusual to other cultures. People exclaim, “This is not music! The harmony is not right!” But another culture might understand that harmony very well!

Yes, different cultures sing in different languages and different notes. But the music is beautiful to God! If we can appreciate different music in the same way that God appreciates it, we learn something new and lovely about God himself.

I believe this is why God calls us to cities and to “beloved community.” We are supposed to learn from people who are different from us. What fun I have had in Hong Kong learning from people who are different from me! When I learn something about you, I learn something wonderful and lovely about God, too! For that, too, is what the Revelation to John said: “the dwelling of God is with mortals!” The dwelling of God is with human beings in cities!

God calls us to cities, to beloved community, and to church. Yes, I believe Christians need church, because Christians need community.

Have you heard the phrase which is popular in the United States these days? It is the phrase, “I am spiritual, but I’m not religious.” Unfortunately, Americans often use the phrase as an excuse not to go to church.

But I think it is impossible to be spiritual and not religious. Spirituality is wonderful, but it is useless if it stays inside us. The moment our spirituality touches someone else, then we have religion. In fact, the moment our spirituality touches someone else, then we have community. The moment our spirituality touches someone else, we have love. In Christ, we have beloved community.

It is hard to live in community, for sure. In that lovely garden of Genesis, Adam and Eve ended up blaming each other. One of their sons ended up murdering his brother. We have to learn how to be spiritual with other people. We have to learn how to love. We have to learn how to grow toward the new city of God, where God actually dwells with humanity, the beloved community!

I rejoice in this beloved community today! You are different from me, and I love how God dwells in you. I can see that God really does love you. God loves you enough to dwell with you, in love and refreshment. I honor the Christian beloved community in Hong Kong, and I pray that God will lead us all—from Atlanta to Hong Kong—to that heavenly city of God, the beloved community of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

AMEN.

LECTURES, TALKS, ADDRESSES FROM HTB LONDON

Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, home of the ALPHA COURSE  CLICK HERE

ALL SOULS LANGHAM PLACE SERMON ARCHIVE

First recordings of All Souls sermons date back to 1966, (including many sermons preached by the Revd Dr John Stott) establishing an audio archive which has grown to well over 3,000 audio recordings.

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