The Real Presence of Christ

Last Wednesday was the last in our series of Lenten Studies on the Eucharist.  We were looking at the different approaches to the Eucharist developed at the time of the European reformation and then thinking about how we understand what is happening in the Eucharist when we celebrate it today.

It has become customary to contrast the Roman Catholic belief with the approaches of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin and despite some of the limitations of this approach and the generalizations that it leads to, this approach does have the merit of defining four broad views of the Eucharist.

The Roman Catholic view we discussed last week.  Essentially, at the start of the 16th century, Roman Catholics believed in the sacrifice of the Mass and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.  It was this that the reformers in their different ways were reacting to.

All three reformers were agreed in rejecting the idea of Christ being sacrificed in the Mass.  They also rejected the restriction of communion to one kind, that is to the bread, for the laity.  After this, as is well-known, there was much disagreement.

Luther was nearer Roman Catholic Church in the way he believed in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament.  While rejecting transubstantiation, he developed an idea that was much like it.  Transubstantiation is the belief that the outward appearance of the bread and wine remain the same, but that the substance, the inner reality, are changed into the body and blood of Christ.  Luther suggested, as an alternative, consubstantiation.  In this the outward appearance of the bread and the wine remain the same, as with transubstantiation, but the substance, the inner reality, is BOTH that of the body and blood of Christ AND the bread and wine.  Luther was extremely insistent on the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament and took the word 'is', when our Lord said at the Last Supper, 'This my body' and 'This is my blood', quite literally.

Zwingli in his rejection of Roman Catholic teaching went to the opposite extreme and opposed any real presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and the wine.  In his initial teaching, at least, the Lord's Supper was for Zwingli a symbolic meal.  The word 'is' for Zwingli in our Lord's words at the Last Supper meant, 'This signifies my body' and 'This signifies my blood'.  There is evidence of a more positive view of the Lord's Supper in his later teaching, but it is fair to say that Zwingli and Luther fell out over this in a big way with the result that Protestants were to be seriously divided over the meaning of the Lord's Supper, a division which remains to this day.

Zwingli's view has been caricatured as belief in the real absence of Jesus, which is unfair to Zwingli, but not to many of those who followed him.  It is a reminder that it is one thing to say what you are against, another to say what you are for!

It is to Calvin's great credit that he spent so much time in his writings trying to develop a positive doctrine of the Eucharist, focusing as much on what was happening as on what was not.  Like Zwingli, Calvin rejected the idea that Christ is in anyway physically present in the bread and the wine and so disagreed with Luther and his followers on this.  Furthermore, he was not afraid to say so!  Calvin, however, also worked hard to reach agreement over the meaning of the Lord's Supper with those who succeeded Zwingli and followed Zwingli's teaching.  His efforts were met with some success.

Reading Calvin, what comes across, to me at least, is that the Lord's Supper meant something to him on a more than intellectual level.  You get the impression that the Lord's Supper is very much part of his spiritual life and that without it he would feel spiritually impoverished.  He is not just writing in a theoretical way about Christian doctrine, but about something that is central to his experience of the Christian life.  This explains why for Calvin frequent participation in the Lord's Supper is so important.  Calvin alone in his day believed that the Eucharist should be celebrated and the sacrament received by believers on a weekly basis.  The Lord's Supper is something that for Calvin truly matters.

While Calvin agreed with Zwingli that Christ is not physically present in the bread and the wine, he rejected any idea that the bread and the wine were empty symbols.  He says that what they 'represent, they also present'.  He believed that Christ's body and blood are truly offered to us in the sacrament and that when we partake of the sacrament by faith, we spiritually feed on the body and blood of Christ.  Christ is thus really present in the sacrament albeit spiritually by faith.  We can describe the bread as Christ's body and the wine as Christ's blood because that is what they represent and what they offer the believer who by faith wants to feed on Christ.

I have said here before that for me this is the most helpful way of looking at the Lord's Supper.  If I may be so bold, however, I think I would like to go a little farther than Calvin at least in trying to explain our use of language.  At the reformation, the argument was very much over whether Christ's body and blood were present in the sacrament.  Again, at the risk of over-simplifying, some such as Luther said they were present physically and some such as Calvin, spiritually. There is still, however, a tendency to suggest that we must literally eat Christ's actual body and drink his actual blood whether we do this physically (Luther) or spiritually (Calvin).  Where I think Zwingli was on to something was in feeling uncomfortable with this understanding of the Biblical language.  I think his own understanding went in the wrong direction, but he is right to ask what the language means.

Surely the language of eating and drinking Christ's body and blood is metaphorical, that is, that what we are being invited to do when we are offered the body and blood of Christ is to participate in the benefits that Christ's death and sacrifice have obtained and made possible for us.  To focus on eating the body and drinking the blood whether we do this physically or spiritually is surely to stop at the sign and not to move on to where the sign is pointing.

Not for one moment do I want to suggest that nothing is happening in the Eucharist.  I believe absolutely in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and, to put it bluntly, that Christ is offered to us in the Eucharist in a way that he is not offered to us elsewhere.  The bread and wine by representing the body and blood of Christ, are presenting to us all the benefits of Christ's passion.  What we are being offered is not simply Christ's body and blood, in whatever sense, but an intimate communion with the person of Christ himself made possible by the body and blood of Christ.

In other words to stop at the idea of eating Christ's body and blood, perversely, is to limit the presence of Christ in the sacrament.  When Christ said in John 6:57 'whoever eats me, will live because of me' he meant far more than 'whoever believes in me will live because of me', but, surely, he also meant more than 'whoever has bite of my flesh and sucks my blood, will live because of me'.  Surely what he is referring to is a union between himself and the believer that is so real and intense that only the language of feeding on him is powerful enough to express it.

For this reason, I have no problem whatsoever in saying that, in the Lord's Supper, I eat Christ's body and drink his blood, but in saying this what I am saying is that Christ is so really and truly present that I am able to encounter him and receive him in way that transcends all speech and doctrine.

As Calvin said, 'I would rather experience it than understand it.'

From Real Meal to Medieval Mass

The Fourth Lent Study: Audio

After a short delay, I can now post the audio for last week's talk on the Eucharist: From Real Meal to Medieval Mass.  I should say that these are not live recordings, but recordings made after the talk.  Actually, they are recorded by me here in my study!  This means they sound more read than delivered!  In the version delivered on the night, I take breaks to explain and develop points more than I feel able to here.  I hope that they are, nevertheless, reasonably clear.

I am quite pleased that I am at least getting hold of the technology of doing this.  Please let me know if there are any technical problems - as well as, of course, any comments you may have.

This is the link:

The Eucharist - Study 4: From Real Meal To Medieval Mass

From New Testament Meal to Medieval Mass

It was the fourth of our Lent Studies on Wednesday.  This week, we were looking at the transformation of the Lord's Supper from a Real Meal in the New Testament to a liturgical celebration focused on the elements of the bread and the wine as it has become.

It was perhaps inevitable, given the behaviour of some at the Church's meals, that the Church would find it necessary to regulate how the Lord's Supper took place as Paul had had to do at Corinth.  In the Didache, written at the end of the first century, or at least at the start of the second, there is the beginning of guidance for a service rather than instructions for a meal.  It is clear that formal prayers to be said over the bread and wine are beginning to take shape.

It is still, of course, fairly basic at this stage, but by AD150 we see in Justin Martyr (103-165) a clear structure emerging to the service.  The President still, Justin tells us, prays freely over the bread and wine, but there is a definite liturgical pattern to what happens.  In another work, the Apostolic Tradition, there is an example of what we would call now a Eucharistic prayer. Traditionally, the Apostolic Tradition has been seen by scholars as having been written in Rome by Hippolytus at the beginning of the third century.  It is believed by some recent scholars to be a composite work of material from between the middle of the second and beginning of the fourth centuries.  Whichever view is right, this is the earliest surviving example of a formal Eucharist prayer. This prayer has served as the basis for one of the Eucharistic prayers in the modern Roman Catholic Mass and the Church of England Eucharist.  It is this Eucharistic prayer we use here at Christ Church.

What is also interesting in the Apostolic Tradition is that provision is made both for a Eucharist with a prayer over the bread and wine and also for a Real Meal without the bread and the wine in a eucharistic sense.  This probably illustrates the point we have been making about how the Eucharist as a liturgical service separated itself from the Lord's Supper as a meal with the Eucharist becoming the main service and focus of the Church's worship.

For good or ill, the Meal eventually did die.  This was no doubt helped by the the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in AD315.  The Church was now able openly to aquire buildings in which to meet.  This led to a more formal celebration of the Eucharist with the liturgy for it becoming both more elaborate and fixed with additional prayers being added to it.  Some of these prayers we still use today.  Although it is important to note that there was not one liturgy everywhere, but rather different families of liturgies.  These had much in common, but there were also significant differences.  In the West, not surprisingly, the Roman liturgy would eventually become the predominant one for the celebration of the Mass.

Over what we call the medieval period other developments took place:

1.  The Mass was seen as a sacrifice being offered by the priest for the benefit of those present or even dead and absent.  Perhaps 'seen' is the wrong word as the offering took place away from the worshippers often behind a screen.

2.  The Mass thus became as much about performance as it did participation.  The benefit was there irrespective of whether the congregation ate the bread or drank the wine.

3.  In this performance of the Mass, the bread and the wine were believed to become the body and blood of Christ in a real way.  While there were occasional arguments about how this happened, there was no argument that it did happen.  The view, of course, that became most accepted was that of 'transubstantiation' most notably as was expressed in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).  It is worth stressing that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not so much an argument that the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood, but how they do so.

4.  This emphasis on the Mass as the performance of a sacrifice in which the bread and the wine were changed into the body and blood of Christ meant that not only did people not have to eat and drink the converted bread and wine to gain benefit, but that it was desirable for them not to as these were by their very nature holy and not to be taken lightly.  The consecrated elements became primarily not something to be eaten and drunk, but worshipped and reserved.  Ordinary believers would only take communion once or twice a year and even then only in one kind, the bread.  It was not worth the risk of spilling the wine.

Such then was the situation in 1500 at the beginning of the sixteenth century.  However, over the next 100 years or so the Church was to divide over its understanding of the Eucharist not just between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but between Protestants themselves.  The Protestants were agreed in rejecting the sacrifice of the Mass, the worship of the elements, and that it was wrong to deny the cup to lay people.  They could not, however, agree on what was happening in the Eucharist, if anything, and in what way, if any, Christ could be said to be present.

The extremely virulent dispute between Luther and Zwingli over this probably ensured that protestantism could not be a united movement.  Criticism of the Mass by Protestants in turn led to a hardening of attitudes within the Roman Catholic Church which at the Council of Trent reaffirmed traditional Roman church teaching.

This brings us then to our last study next Wednesday when I will ask what it is we think is happening and what it is we are doing when we celebrate the Eucharist each week.  To help us answer this I intend to look at the main approaches as they were developed in the sixteenth century and to study John 6.

I will post the talks from Wednesday in audio form here in a day or two!

Happy Monday

It is a public holiday tomorrow here in Hong Kong which is nice!  I am hoping to use it to write up my next study for Lent.  In the meantime, here is the link to last Wednesday's talk.  It is in two parts!

The Eucharist - Study 3: A Real Meal (Part 1)

The Eucharist - Study 3: A Real Meal (Part 2)

Happy Mothering Sunday

I am preparing now for our Mothering Sunday Services tomorrow.

Sadly, we are in danger of losing Mothering Sunday in favour of Mother's Day.  But Mothering Sunday is so much richer.  It embraces Mother's Day, but goes beyond it.  We remember, of course, our earthly mothers, but also our Heavenly Mother, the Virgin Mary and our Mother Church.

Tomorrow, I will be thanking my God, who mothers me, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who cares for me, my dear mother in the UK, and my wife, who always looks after me.  We will also be thanking all the countless mothers who are just being mothers, some who will be thanked and many who will be forgotten.

So for all our Mothers Everywhere, we ask our Blessed Mother to watch over them, keep them, and protect them.

Please Give Me Your Opinion

This is by request for some feed-back!

I have now found a way to put links to audio talks by me here on the blog.  Basically, you click the link and you are taken to a site hosting the talk.  All well and good, but a little bit pointless if no-one wants to listen to them!  Recording them so that they are 'listenable' to in this way does require a bit of effort on my part, which is no problem as long as I am not speaking into (virtual) space!

So if you listen to the 'trial talks' and find it in principle a good idea (I know it all needs refinement), could you post a comment or send me an email (I know that not everyone likes leaving comments)?

In our Lord's Day, if there were ten people who were willing to meet together on the Sabbath, there could be a synagogue.  The idea being that they would tithe (give a tenth of their income) to fund a Rabbi, who would then be in a similar income range to themselves.  Don't worry, there will never be appeals for money here, but if there are ten people who find it a reasonable idea.  I will go ahead and try to get better at speaking into the microphone!

Tune in at Easter to see the result!

Update on Lent Talks

I am trying to make some of my talks available through audio.  This is all a bit experimental at the moment, but here is the first attempt.  It is the second talk for Lent, 2011.  If it works, and there is any interest, I will add others!

The Eucharist - Study 2: A Violent and Bloody Sacrifice

Wait for One Another

At our Lent Bible Study last night, we were thinking of how the Eucharist in the Early Church was a real meal, so real that at Corinth some ate and drank so well that they became drunk.  The only reason we have Paul's extended piece on the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 is that he found it necessary to write to correct this abuse.

Early in the letter Paul had written to the Corinthians:

'Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.'  (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Not many, notice, but some nevertheless.  Some were well-educated, powerful and of noble birth and this is something that sometimes goes uncommented on.

Firstly, those who were rich must have been truly genuine and committed to the Christian message or else why join a movement that was mainly comprised of the poor, slaves, and those from a much inferior social class?  What was happening in the early Church was truly exciting: the rich were mixing with the poor as equals and as brothers and sisters in Christ and, whatever else we may say, this is much to their credit.

Secondly, their commitment to Christ expressed itself in the willingness of the rich to support the new movement in material terms.  Paul himself refers to the support he had received from Philemon.  We know that the first Christians met in the homes of rich people who were willing to open them up for the purpose.  It was here that the Lord's Supper and the church services took place.  To be able to afford a house big enough to accommodate a sizeable group of people would have meant that you were seriously rich.  That despite being rich, and therefore socially well-connected, you were willing to open your home to slaves and the like to come and eat in is really remarkable.

So before we rush into condemning the behaviour of the rich in Corinth - as we must and as Paul does - it is worth remembering all this.  So what was going wrong at Corinth?  Essentially, it seems that the Church would decide a time to meet.  The meeting itself took the form of a meal celebrating the Lord's Supper.  The rich being rich could get to the meeting on time without any problem.  After all, that's one of the advantages of being rich, you have control over how you live your life and when you can come and go.  The poor, especially slaves, have no such control.  They have to do as they are told and need the permission of others before they can do anything.

The problem at Corinth was that the rich, instead of waiting for the poor to turn up, got on with their gathering, sharing in the meal together, so that by the time some of the Church had managed to get there, there was no food left and so they left the meeting hungry.

At our study last night, I asked the question how would most Vicars, as advised by their Church Councils, deal with such a situation if something like it occurred today.  I suggested that 9 times out of 10 (if not more), the following approach would be adopted:

1.  Obviously, we must be careful not to appear ungrateful to the rich who are so kindly providing places for us to meet, generously giving to support the ministry, and even providing food and wine for us to enjoy at our meetings.  Where would we be without their commitment?

2.  We can perhaps keep back some food and drink for those who can't make it to the meeting on time.  Then there will be something for them to eat and they won't go away hungry.

3.  We should also encourage the slaves to be more responsible in their time-keeping and ask them to try harder to get to the meetings on time.

I can guarantee that at every Church I have known that this would be the basic approach.  So how does Paul deal with the situation?  We need to remember that he is normally very diplomatic when dealing with pastoral issues.  In Romans 14 and 15, for example, his advice is a model of diplomacy, tolerance, and compromise.  Here, however, his reaction is one of absolute outrage:

'What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!'  (1 Corinthians 11:22)

He is not in the least intimidated by the wealth and power of the rich.  He is not prepared to compromise what he believes to be central Christian truths to keep the favour of the rich.  After this expression of outrage, he then goes on to describe the Last Supper Jesus held with his disciples drawing this conclusion:

'Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.'  (1 Corinthians 11:27)

He continues to tell them that it is because of their unacceptable behaviour at the Lord's Supper that some have become sick and died (11:30).  This phrase 'an unworthy manner' has been taken to mean that each of us as individuals should not receive Communion if we have sin in our lives.  It has caused much angst and soul searching.  It is, of course, right that each of us take receiving Communion seriously, but we need to see that what Paul meant in using this phrase was that the rich should show respect to the poor.  Receiving in an unworthy manner in Paul's terms is less about sin in our personal life and more about failing to show respect to a fellow member of the Body of Christ.

That Paul is talking primarily about our relationship with one another rather than our individual relationship with the Lord is confirmed by the conclusion that Paul himself draws at the end of this passage:

'So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.  If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation.'  (1 Corinthians 11:33)

So simple: wait for one another!  You are in this together regardless of whether you are rich or poor.  In Christ who you are, where you come from, which school you went to, what job you do, how much you earn, how popular you are, all count for nothing.  Wait for one another!  No-one is more important than anyone else.  Wait for one another, make sure you value all equally, for only then will you be eating the Lord's Supper in a worthy manner.  Any celebration of the Lord's Supper then that doesn't include every member of the Body of Christ, whatever their age or background, is not the Lord's Supper and is to put at risk the physical and spiritual health of all who take part.

All that Paul writes, of course, only makes sense if the Lord's Supper was a real meal. It is also worth noting that as Paul founded the Church at Corinth and was its pastor for its first 18 months, it must have been Paul who established the practice of having the Church's meeting over a meal.  Ironically, however, the consequences of what Paul writes here were that the Lord's Supper became less about sharing a real meal and more about what the meal signified.  Probably this was a right and necessary development, but we should not forget that originally the Lord's Supper was a real meal that all could share in as had been the Last Supper itself.

The development of the Lord's Supper from being a real meal to the Eucharist in the liturgical form in which we now celebrate it, will be the subject of our next Lenten Study! 

The past few weeks have been especially challenging for me.  I am hoping that now the waters leading up to Easter will be calm ones!   I am, then, thinking about Easter and preparing for the services over it.  The coincidence of reading Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, and delivering a series of Lent talks on the Eucharist as a preparation for Easter has brought home to me how there exist two very different approaches to the death and resurrection of our Lord at work in the Church.

1. A Vindicated Martyr for Truth and Justice and an Example for All

The first sees Jesus' death as the inevitable outcome of his life and teaching.  How he lived and what he taught inevitably brought him up against those in power who had to silence him.  Jesus, however, refused to be silenced, but proclaimed the Kingdom of God accepting death as the consequence.  God, however, vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead, thus demonstrating that Jesus was right all along, defeating death in the process.

Jesus thus sacrificed his life for the Gospel and God brought life out of death by the resurrection.  Jesus died as a martyr, but God did not abandon him.  We now are to follow the example of Christ trusting in the God who raises the dead.

The advantage of this explanation of the death and resurrection is that it is entirely intelligible and makes sense providing, of course, that you are willing to believe in a God who resembles the normal Christian understanding of him.  After all, we know of modern examples of people who have stood for truth and justice, often at great personal cost, even suffering death as a consequence.  True they may not have been resurrected in the way the Bible describes Jesus as having been resurrected, but it is not so great a leap of imagination to believe that God could raise Jesus and anyone else for that matter.

A further advantage is that it is a positive message that resonates with us.  It is victory over death and the triumph of truth: an example of how we too should live trusting that God will look after us as he looked after Christ.  The emphasis on this view is on the resurrection as sign of hope.  It is a call to follow Christ in his life and sacrifice trusting that God will not abandon us either.

On this first view the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is essentially that of someone sacrificing their life for what they believe.  There can be no doubt that there is that to it.  Nor can there be any doubt that in the New Testament Christ's life and death is held up as an example of how we also should live our lives and not be afraid of the consequences of standing for the truth.  But is that all there is to it?

2.  An Offering for Sin and Victory over the Powers of Darkness

Not according to the second type of approach.  On this view, Christ's death was not just the sacrifice of a martyr giving up his life, but was an objective sacrifice that achieved something in and of itself.

The trouble with the first view is that it moves too quickly on to the resurrection.  Those who take the second view argue that Christ wasn't simply dying because of what he believed and how he lived, nor was he dying simply because of the human sin of those who crucified him, he was dying for our sin and behalf of our sin in an objective sacrifice offered to God to obtain the forgiveness of sin and to defeat the forces of evil which controlled the world and held all in their power.

This, in other words, was not an ordinary death.  It was a unique, one off death that forever changed the nature of reality.  God did indeed vindicate that death in the resurrection, but the death itself was where the primary action took place.  This is why we still preach Christ crucified.

The problem with this view as opposed to the first is that it is much harder to explain to people today.  It is certainly not easy for us to understand.  In the ancient world, sacrifices were normal and understood in a way they are not today.  However, I am certain that the second view is the foundational view of the New Testament.

The question, of course, is which should be foundational for us today.  I imagine that this Easter most will go with the first.

Whether we are right to do so, however, is another issue altogether.

A Violent and Bloody Sacrifice

What perhaps got the 16th century protestant reformers more upset than anything else when it came to the Roman Catholic understanding of the Mass was the suggestion that in the Mass a sacrifice was taking place.  The Sacrifice of the Mass was something that they rejected altogether.

I am aware that protestants often caricature Roman Catholic teaching on this, and I certainly don't want to be guilty of that myself, but it is clear that many did and do believe that in the Mass Christ is being offered again to God and that this sacrifice can bring benefits that can be applied to people or situations.  This is where the idea of masses 'for the dead' came from and why the Mass had value even when people didn't actually partake of the bread and the wine.  The benefit lay in the event itself.

The reformers, however, believed that Christ died 'once for all' and that his was an unrepeatable sacrifice.  The idea that Christ was being offered again by the priest seemed to them completely to undermine the sufficiency of the work of Christ.  They not only then rejected any such thought, they rejected any practice that might even suggest it, and so out when priests and out when any talk of altars in churches.  I have known many Christians today who get very upset when we call the table at the front of the Church, an altar.

It is surely right that we should reject any suggestion that Christ's death is anything other than perfect and sufficient for our salvation.  Maybe, however, we shouldn't be quite so squeemish about talk of altars and maybe we should be careful of rejecting the association of the Eucharist with a sacrifice altogether.

Last night in our second Lent Study, we saw how the Last Supper was a Passover Meal and how the Passover commemorated the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt.  They were commanded by God to slaughter a lamb and put its blood on the door post so that the Lord would pass over the Israelites homes and spare them the death of their first born in the 10th plague.  In the Last Supper, Jesus institutes a new Passover celebration to remember the sacrifice he is about to offer of himself.  There is to be a new covenant in his blood.  A deliverance this time from slavery to sin.

The Lord's Supper then is about sacrifice and death, about blood and a new covenant to save us from sin.  At the Eucharist, we may not be offering a new sacrifice, but we are remembering a sacrifice without which we would not have any hope of life.  The Eucharist is about a death that brings life to the dead.

Many talk about the Eucharist as celebrating the gifts of God in creation.  They see it as a thanksgiving for all that God has given to us and an offering of ourselves to his service.  It is a celebration of life.  It is right that there is this to it.  It is, however, far more important in the Eucharist that we focus on the death of Christ for us - for that was rather our Lord's point.  We remember what he has done for us by his death in the past, we seek the benefits of his death in the present as we ask forgiveness for our sins, and we proclaim, as Paul puts it, his death until he comes.

Seen like this, the word altar seems to be entirely appropriate!

Love Wins, and Loses

I am preaching at the services tomorrow and my intention had been to focus on the Epistle reading from Romans 4, which fits nicely with what I plan to say on Wednesday at the next Lenten Bible Study.  However, when I sat down to write the sermon (I am still one of those who write his sermons out by long-hand), it became obvious that there was only one reading that I could focus on and one verse in it, that is, the Gospel Reading and John 3:16:

'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.'

I have preached on this verse many times, but what gives preaching on it added significance this week is Rob Bell's book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, and the furore surrounding it that some are calling Hellgate!  I have already mentioned it in the blog this week.  As I have said, I am surprised that people are surprised that this is where Rob Bell is coming from.  Perhaps they are just annoyed that he has raised the issue at all.

One of my favourite TV series at the moment is Outnumbered.  There is something of a running joke in it about the 'elephant in the room': something large and significant, but about which we do not speak.  Universalism, and more particularly a rejection of hell or any idea of it, is the 'elephant in the room' of the Church.  We don't talk about it, but it is there, and universalism and a rejection of anything that passes for hell is the default position of most pastors, priests, and preachers regardless of their particular brand label.  Even if we prefer, for whatever reason, not to talk about it.

(A Question for Anglican Vicars: have you ever told anyone who has asked you about what has happened to their loved ones who have died that they haven't just slipped away and that they might not just be waiting for them in the room next door?)

Rob Bell's book, even if this was not his intention, is making people come out of their own particular closets.  Me included.  A lot depends, of course, on what you mean by hell.  For some it is a place and for others, a metaphor, but even a metaphor must be a metaphor of something, and, even on the most benign, understanding it cannot be something very nice.  Certainly, it must mean that for some people the future is not one of heavenly bliss, but of hellish consequences.

Now Rob Bell is very clever.  He asks whether we think Gandhi is in hell.  But Gandhi is one of those nice non-Christians that we all like.  What about Hitler and Stalin and Mao?  The fact is we can all play this game and we would be wrong to do so.  The question of who is in hell, wherever or whatever it is, is not for us to judge.  After all, we may be going there ourselves.

But because we shouldn't speculate on its occupants, doesn't mean it doesn't exist (whether literally or metaphorically).

I personally deplore those who have labelled Rob Bell a heretic and a false teacher.  (How many people have you brought to faith in Christ this week?)  But that doesn't mean he is right.  In fact, I believe he is seriously wrong, not in the questions he asks, but in the answers he implies.

It would be lovely to think that, ultimately, we were all going to cuddle one another in heaven rather burn in hell, but if cuddling each other is our destiny, then rather than appealing to those parts of the Bible we like, we should just get rid of it altogether, and admit we are making the Christian faith up as we go along and hoping we get it right.

However, for anyone who wants the Bible to play an authoritative role in what they believe, there is no escaping the consequences of God loving us, consequences which, because the set reading tomorrow stops at John 3:17, we won't be told of in our services, but which can be spoken of in places like this:


'Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.'  (John 3:18)

God's unconditional love for all of us has very serious consequences.  It is that some of us will be won and also that some of us will be lost.

Lent 1

We had the first of our Lent Bible Studies last night.  It is always hard to attract people during the week here, for good reason, so it was encouraging to see those who did come!  As I have said previously, this year we are thinking about the Eucharist and its meaning.  Most of our services at Christ Church are Eucharistic and follow a set liturgy.  Given this, it is all too easy to become mechanical in our worship and to fail to pause to meditate on the significance of what we are doing.

One of the questions, I want us to ask during these studies is about what is happening when we receive the consecrated bread and wine.  Is anything happening that can only happen in this way by this means?  Do I receive something tangible from God that I would not otherwise receive?  And if so, what?

I spoke last night of my own developing understanding of the meaning of the Eucharist.  I began my Christian life in a context in which Communion was peripheral and unimportant.  At Bible College, I came to believe, through studying the New Testament, that partaking of the Lord's Supper should be the focus of our gatherings for worship.  As a curate on the Wirral in the UK, I increasingly came to believe that Communion was something that we did together.  This is important because very often people focus on their own private Communion with God to the exclusion of their Communion with each other.  I found the book by Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, very helpful in thinking this through.

When I left the Wirral, I had, then, a strong view on the central importance of the Eucharist for Christian worship and a belief that it was a communal celebration.  I still, however, saw it fundamentally as something we were doing because our Lord had told us to, something that encouraged us to look back to what he had done for us rather than something that had real benefit in the present.  To put it another way: while there are always blessings that are to be had from obedience to God, in principle there was nothing to be received in Communion that could not be received by other means - through praise, prayer and preaching, for example.

It was only after my return to parish ministry in Scotland that I found myself focusing more intensely on what was happening when receiving Communion.  Was it only because our Lord had commanded it that we did this?  Was its only benefit that it helped us to look back to what Christ had done for us?  It was here that Calvin proved especially helpful in my thinking.  To cut a long story short: I came to see Communion as conveying what could not be received by any other means and that something very real truly is present when we receive Communion.

I thus came to the place from which I approach these Lenten Studies with three basic convictions:

1.  Worship should be Eucharistic, that is, the Eucharist should be at the heart of our life together as the Church.

2.  Communion is both about our Communion with each other as fellow members of the Body of Christ and also about our Communion with Christ himself.  In the Eucharist, there are thus two key moments: at the Peace when the Celebrant says, 'We are the Body of Christ', and at the administration of the sacrament when the minister says to the Communicant, 'This is the Body of Christ'.

3.  When we receive the consecrated bread and wine, we really are feeding on the body and blood of Christ, truly present in the sacrament and this feeding is vital to both our spiritual and physical health as Christians.

Next week, I want to look at the Eucharist as a violent and bloody sacrifice.  This week, I looked at my own developing understanding over my ministry of the Eucharist as something that conveys real benefits to the believer in the present.  I want now to begin to look at the nature of these benefits by looking back to the context of our Lord's institution of the Eucharist.  It is for very good reason that we call the place where the bread and wine are laid an altar.

Can't buy me love

Pastor Rob Bell of Mars Hill Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan has been creating a stir in the United States with a book, Love Wins, that reportedly supports belief in universalism: the doctrine that God's love will save all.  I first heard of it when a friend in the UK phoned and asked whether I had heard that Pastor Mark Driscoll had become a universalist.  My friend had, of course, confused the Mars Hill Churches.  Mark Driscoll of Seattle coming out in favour of universalism really would have been a story!

(A good account of the controversy is in fact available via a link on the Seattle Mars Hill web-site:
A Chronology of Rob Bell )

My own confusion, however, is different to that of my friend.  I can't understand why anyone remotely familiar with Rob Bell would be surprised that he lent towards universalism.  If you build your ministry on the idea that God welcomes everyone always, you are hardly likely to believe that he will change his attitude when you die.

My confusion extends to the reaction in the media, on blog sites, and facebook.  Most Christians I know gave up believing in God punishing people after they die a long time ago.  I don't simply mean us Anglicans whose God is just such a cuddly teddy bear he couldn't possibly hurt anyone - or do anything else for that matter - but even most evangelicals who lay claim to the Bible.  I don't mean they have stopped believing in a God who judges in a theoretical sense, it's just that the belief has no practical implications for how they preach or minister.  It's a belief that like Mrs Rochester is embarrassingly kept hidden away in the theological attic and is not allowed out or admitted to.

My suspicion, and it's just a suspicion, is that part of the commotion surrounding Pastor Bell's book is that he has stated in plain terms what most preachers and ministers pretend and imply to their congregations and the outside world that they believe.  There is, in fact, a very simple test to find out whether we are universalists to all intents and purposes.  It is to ask ourselves when was the last time we told someone that the consequence of not turning to Christ is that they will not be saved.

Whatever we think of Rob Bell's book, Rob Bell challenges us to be honest and to sign up openly to the universalism we imply by our lives and teaching to be true or to start telling it as it is.

Lent

It's the first Sunday of Lent and I have just returned from our early morning Eucharist and am enjoying a coffee before our main morning service.  I quite like the liturgical change that Lent brings. For us at Christ Church no flowers in Church, more reflective hymns, and an emphasis on self-examination and abstinence.

I notice, however, that some churches rather than encouraging people to 'give up' things for Lent are encouraging people to 'take up' things for Lent.  This fits well with an age that doesn't think it should ever have to do without anything.  Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course.  Our Lord did without food and took up prayer, but I don't think that's quite what those talking about by taking up something up for Lent mean.

Although the liturgical emphasis maybe on quiet and reflection, Lent here at Christ Church is actually quite a busy time of year.  For me lectures at Ming Hua, our theological college, a series of Lenten Bible Studies, the Church AGM and a raft of important meetings beginning tomorrow with our Church Council meeting: the last before our AGM.

The Lenten Bible Studies this year are going to be on the Eucharist. This is at the suggestion of a member of the congregation after the Lenten Bible Studies last year.  Our worship here is Eucharistic, but it is easy to assume that people understand why and what it is we are doing when we come to Communion.  It is also the first time for a while that I have led a series of talks on the subject and I am quite looking forward to it.

I have written about my own experience and how I approach the Eucharist on this blog (see under Eucharist) and this will be the approach I will be following in the talks.

On Wednesday, I intend to begin by talking about my own experience first as a non-Eucharistic evangelical, and then the discovery of its importance while studying the Bible at Bible College, through to celebrating regularly as a priest.  I then want to look at its background in the Passover Feast, particularly its violent and bloody background.  We often forget the significance of the language of the Eucharist as a sacrifice followed by drinking blood.  This is perhaps why some prefer to focus on the Eucharist as a celebration of the gifts of creation - so much nicer than thinking about sharing in a death!

Calvin believed that Christians should receive Communion regularly and that the Lord's Supper should be at the heart of the Church.  Many Calvinists subsequently ignored this aspect of his teaching.  I hope over Lent that we can think at Christ Church about why it really is so important that we keep the Eucharist at the centre of our worship.  I will keep you informed.

Have a good Lent!

Happy New Years

Christmas has been and gone so has New Year and Chinese New Year.  So many big occasions in such a short period!  Now things begin to get more reflective as we prepare to enter Lent.  These contrasts are, I think, important giving rhythm to the year.  Last night, I went to hear Bach's, St Matthew Passion conducted by Mazaaki Suzuki.  This was one of the opening performances for the 2011 Hong Kong Arts Festival.  I am not musically literate, but I can tell when I am in the presence of a composer of genius and a performer of greatness.  It is quite a long work to sit through on a Monday night especially after coming from a deeply frustrating School Council meeting.

Growing up, I had little interest in classical music.  My childhood and teenage years growing up in Liverpool were dominated by the Beatles and what was known then as the 'Mersey Beat'.  The first 'record' I remember buying was a single by Adam Faith!  When I became a Christian, I became part of a culture that was deeply suspicious of  'pop' music, and I stopped listening to anything but Christian attempts at it: some reasonable, some ..., well, let's just say, less good.  This was the era of the 'Come together' experience.  Anyone remember that?  We still sing 'Freely, freely you have received', which comes from it.

As I rejected the dualism implicit in this sort of approach, I started listening to non-Christian pop again and enjoyed it though was never a big enthusiast.  I much preferred the spoken word on BBC Radio 4, which now, thanks to the internet, I can still enjoy here in Hong Kong.  Classical music, however, remained very much outside my horizons.  I had heard Church Choirs sing Bach and organists play his organ music before and after Church services and, frankly, did not care for it very much.  This was both personal taste and ideology.  It was after all the time when the cry was for the Church to be relevant.  Whatever that meant.

My first serious encounter with classical music was at a concert I went to, which must have been around 1978.  It was at the Royal Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, given by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.  A friend had invited me to go with him and I had no reason for not going.  The Hall itself I had been in before.  It was where my School Speech Day was held.  The first of the two secondary schools I went to being just down the road.  I seem to remember they were playing Elgar, although I don't remember which piece.  I do very clearly remember thinking, in a moment of enlightenment that has stayed with me, that this was altogether different to what passed for music in popular culture.  What was more the musicians had real talent  and ability that went way beyond thumping away on a guitar.  I didn't give up listening to popular music, but I did begin listening to classical music.  Not knowledgeably, I freely admit, but for pleasure, nevertheless.

Ironically, I now find myself having done something of a circle and thinking that my young Christian self may have had a point when he rejected much popular music as the work of the Devil.  Certainly the values it promotes seem hard to justify from anything like a Christian position no matter how much fun they may or may not be to dance to.

Whatever, I wish the Hong Kong Arts Festival every success as it brings great artists like Mazaaki Suzuki to Hong Kong and, hopefully, introduces more people to the genius of composers like Bach.  Maybe one or two may even stop to think about the words!

Happy Christmas

I am just about to go over for the Christmas Midnight Service.  We had the Christingle and Crib service earlier!  It doesn't come more challenging than that, does it?  I was worried that the sheep (aka Sunday School children) carrying the Christingles were about to do their version of roast mutton!  All are safe, I am happy to say.

I hope that wherever you are and whatever you are doing that you have a very happy Christmas.

Thank you to all who sent good wishes for Christmas.

Love to all.

Let the Fun Begin ...

Well tomorrow is the first of many Christmas and Carol Services for me.  The Christmas trees are in place and the decorations are all up - and I love it!

I think the Christmas tree here at the Vicarage is the best we have had, so all credit to 'Sophie's Christmas Trees' who I bought it from!

I know that there are many Christians who are ambivalent about Christmas, and I am sure we are right to want to present the Christmas message over the next couple of weeks.  We do have to remember, though, that it was us Christians who decided to celebrate our Lord's birth at the time of a pagan festival, so we can't really complain that people just want a good time.

Maybe, while people are relaxed and having a good time, we can invite them to think about what can give long term joy as opposed to short term happiness.  I hope so.

I continue to work on the Christmas Eve sermon.  I am focusing at the moment on this phrase from John 1:

'The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.'

I am not sure I have ever known what it means.  Having spent today with the commentaries, I am even less sure.  All suggestions gratefully received!  Oh, and please don't tell me that it means that Jesus' coming means we will all live happily ever after.  I, for one, am sure that is NOT what it means!

I hope all your own preparations for the Nativity of our Lord are going well.

It's Monday morning and a chance to catch up after an especially busy weekend!  A highlight was the Graduation Ceremony and Eucharist at Ming Hua Theological College where I teach Christian Ethics.

Last Sunday at Christ Church was Pledge Sunday, the Sunday when we ask church members to commit themselves and their resources to God for the year ahead.  I was preaching and below is the text of the sermon I preached.  This is produced from the sermon notes and hasn't gone through too much editing.

The epistle for the day was Romans 15:4-13 and I used this as the basis for the sermon.

Pledge Sunday - Sunday, December 5, 2010

Two dates are especially significant in the history of Christ Church: dates, which, I think are of some significance for us as we celebrate Pledge Sunday today.  The first date is September 2, 1933 and the second, October 29, 1938.

September 2, 1933 first.  Many people do not realize that Christ Church has a history that goes back before the Church was founded in Kowloon Tong.  Christ Church is a rebirth of another Church: Saint Peter’s, West Point.  St Peter’s had been built in 1872 as a mission church for seamen.  It was supported in its work by large shipping companies.  Their support for this work stopped in the years after the First World War.  As many of its congregation had moved to the newly developing area of  Kowloon Tong, the decision was made to open a church in Kowloon Tong and close St Peter’s. 

A church house was acquired at 3 Duke Street.  Worship at St Peter’s stopped in August, 1933 and the church house was consecrated by Bishop Hall on Saturday. September 2, 1933.  Worship took place in a large room in the house.  The altar and furnishings were those of St Peter’s.  At this stage, the church was known as the Kowloon Tong Anglican Church.

Secondly, October 29, 1938.  Subsequently, the decision was made to build a church.  The site of the present church was chosen in January, 1936 and, with government assistance, a church was built.  The consecration service was held on October 29, 1938 and the Kowloon Tong Anglican Church became Christ Church.  Our church bell came from St Peter’s and it is rung before every service and at the moment of consecration during the Eucharist.  The bell is a reminder to us of our origins.  In the mission to the Seamen’s Club in TST, the Mariners' Club, there is the Chapel of St Peter: a reminder and a continuation of the work of the former church.

Since then, both Kowloon Tong and Christ Church have been through many changes.  What has not changed has been our commitment to serve Christ here in Kowloon Tong.  That we have been able to do so has been because of the commitment of members of Christ Church over the past 77 years.  Today it is important to pause and say thank you to God for all those who have both pledged their support and honored that pledge in the past. Their faithfulness has enabled us to be here today.

Our epistle this morning describes God as the God of steadfastness and encouragement.  Some versions translate the Greek word for steadfastness as endurance.  Christ Church illustrates this.  Our ministry endured even when Christ Church was taken over by the Japanese army during World War II and used as a stable for their horses.  It has endured during huge physical, geographic, political and economic changes in Hong Kong.  And from this we gain great encouragement.

At this point, doubtless, you are probably expecting me to encourage you to pledge your financial support to Christ Church today so that we can continue this ministry.  And yes, I will do that, of course, but first I want to ask what it is that we are pledging to.

Turning to our epistle again, I would like to read the verses which come before the set passage, that is, the first four verses of Romans 15.  Paul is writing to the Church at Rome, which, like Christ Church at the beginning, did not meet in a church building, but in a house or rather several houses.  These were pioneering Christians and Paul speaks enthusiastically and positively about them.  As is common and understandable, these Christians tended to get on better with some rather than others.  As a result, the Church could be divided roughly into those from a Jewish background and those from a Gentile background.  Again, as is common and understandable, those in one group argued for what they thought was right and how the church should behave, and the other group for what they thought was right.

This is typical, not only in churches, but in any human group or institution.  There are always going to be decisions to be made and problems to be dealt with.  There is nothing wrong with this: it’s just inevitable.  The way that these decisions are normally made is by one side campaigning for what they want, and another for what they want.  We have seen this just this week with the decision about where the World Cup will be held in 2018 and 2022!  You see it in schools, businesses, clubs, even the family.  It’s what democracy is all about!

In Rome, the Gentile Christians were arguing their case; the Jewish Christians theirs.  Today we would settle such a dispute by taking a vote at the Church Council or a church meeting.  Paul, however, argues for a much more radical way of tackling the issue: ‘We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.  Each of us must please our neighbour for the good purpose of building up the neighbour.  For Christ did not please himself …’

Paul tells them that instead of trying to get what they want, even what they think to be right, they should instead ask what will build up and strengthen my neighbour: my fellow Christian in the body of Christ.  We do this to follow the example of Christ.  For the Church is not ours, but his, and his way of doing things is different to that of the world.

Paul prays, ‘May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus …’

The Church is to solve any disagreements and make any decisions, not by one side getting its own way, nor even by popular vote, but by a coming together in harmony.  By asking, not what do I think is best, but what is best for the Church and my fellow Christian in it?

Now unity is not the same as unanimity, nor is it the same as uniformity.  We are all different with different likes and dislikes, outlooks and opinions.  This is what enriches our life together.  It is not whether we are different, but how we handle those differences.

Paul tells the Romans: ‘Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you.’  Rather than letting our differences push us apart, we are to use them to bring us together.  We are to welcome and accept one another even if there are times when we don’t particularly like one another!

When people come to Church, they should come to a place where people accept one another and so accept them.  We are not to be a place where people feel judged, but welcomed: everyone is welcome because Christ welcomes everyone.

This is an important reminder to us of what the Church really is.  The Romans met in a house just as our first members did.  ‘We are the body of Christ.’  Not the building or the place where we meet, but us, the people.  We need to get this right first.  Yes, the building matters.  Yes, we value and thank God for it.  But it is not the building that is holy; it is the person sitting next to you: your fellow member of the body of Christ.

But this is not all.  Our harmony, unity and acceptance of one another are not an end in and of itself.  It isn’t so we can feel nice when we are come together on a Sunday or whenever.  Paul does indeed write:  May not the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, but why?  He continues:

‘So that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v6)

And this brings us to what today is about.  Pledge Sunday is not in the first place about money.  First and foremost, today is a challenge to us to pledge that we won’t seek to please ourselves, that we will take Christ as our example and welcome and accept one another so that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ here at Christ Church, Kowloon Tong.

For unless we have this as our goal and pledge, then instead of being the Kowloon Tong Anglican Church, we will simply be the Kowloon Tong Anglican Club.  And there is already a perfectly good Club in Kowloon Tong!

Having made this Pledge to seek together to serve Christ and glorify God, God, of course, also invites us to commit our resources: our time, our abilities, and, yes, our money to make what we have committed ourselves to happen.

As your Vicar, today I want to pay tribute to all those who have given in the past so that we can worship together today.  I want to thank you for all you have given in the past year, and invite you on this Pledge Sunday to go on giving that we may indeed with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Chris.

Our service will include an Act of Commitment, please take it seriously!  We will close our service today with the hymn by Charles Wesley that expresses what it is we are committing ourselves to:

            ‘Ye servants of God, your master proclaim,

            and publish abroad  His wonderful name;

            the name all victorious of Jesus extol:

            His kingdom is glorious and rules over all.’

Amen.

Most people will by now be aware of the publication of a huge amount of 'secret information' on the wikileaks web-site.  Listening to Hillary Clinton describing it as an 'attack on the international community', I was reminded of the words of Lenin:

'It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.'

The reaction of governments, especially western democratic governments, to the leaks has been one of universal condemnation. There seems to be some irony here.  America and Europe have been lecturing the rest of the world for some time now about freedom and democracy, extolling the values of free speech and  a free press.  And yet now the same governments are arguing, in effect, that there are some things it is better in a democracy for the people not to know.  Interesting.

I do not doubt the importance of secrecy and confidentiality in government.  The wikileaks affair does, however, illustrate something that I have been arguing for a long time now and this is that there is a huge difference between democracy and freedom.

Freedom, of course, means different things to different people.  If you are a young single mother living on crime and drug ridden housing estate, freedom is more likely to be about not getting mugged and your child not growing up a drug addict than it is about which distant politician happens to represent you in congress, parliament, or wherever.

If you live in a parliamentary democracy like the UK, for example, you have more chance of a good education and health care if you live in one part of the country to another.  Freedom from illness and freedom to vote are very different types of freedom.

Don't misunderstand me.  I am not saying that democracy is necessarily wrong just that it is not the same as freedom.  How much freedom you have once a government has been elected will depend on a variety of factors.  All governments limit freedom of speech, movement, and knowledge, doubtless with good reason.  The freedom most of us value, though, depends as much, if not more, on how much we earn, where we live, whether we can access adequate healthcare, and if our children can get a good education or even just an education.  Quite simply, democracy is a system for allowing a population some say in who governs them.  No more and no less.  It may or it may not lead to greater freedom.  Hitler, after all, was elected to power.

Why does this matter to Christians?  It matters because, I think, we are in grave danger as the Church of baptizing a system of government as though one system has more right to be called Christian than another.  We have done this in the past, of course.  When Constantine became a Christian and was, eventually, baptized a whole system of power was baptized with him.  We have had Popes who have been secular as well as religious rulers, Holy Roman Emperors, Kings governing by Divine right, classes of people claiming to be born to rule, and Presidents of the United States, all of whose power has been justified by reference to God.  Now we are doing the same with democracy.

By all means argue and campaign for democracy, but please let's stop acting as if it is a divinely sanctioned system of rule inherently superior to and more 'Christian' than all others.

Christmas is Coming

It's official we are now in the run up to Christmas!  As I suspect many of you did in your churches yesterday, we lit the first of our Advent Candles on the Advent Wreath, I have begun writing Christmas cards, and the Christmas tree arrives on Thursday.  Readers of this blog will know that I love Christmas and I am really looking forward to it this year with all that goes with it - even the mince pies!  (For my previous comments on Christmas, see under the label Christmas.)

I don't know what your favourite moment at Christmas is.  For me, it has to be the Midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve.  But herein lies a paradox.  I have preached at this service for quite a few years now both here and, previously, in Scotland, but I have never been happy with my sermon.  I don't just mean in the 'we can always do better' sense, rather I am always left feeling that I just didn't quite get there.  The sheer wonder of the occasion seems to demand so much more than certainly I have been able to achieve.

Part of the problem - only part of the problem, mind you - is that by Christmas Eve, I always feel completely drained.  Like having a Ferrari with no petrol in it.  No matter how hard you put your foot on the accelerator nothing is going to happen.  Another part of the problem is simply finding the words to describe the Word, the Word that did not stay a Word, but became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

This year I am going to go back to basics and work through the Christmas Gospel, that is, St John's Prologue to his Gospel in chapter 1 which tells of the Word becoming flesh.  I have read it so many times and preached on it often, but have never really felt that I have got to the heart of what St John is saying.  So to begin with, I am going to try reading and understanding the Prologue again.

Anyway, the sermon preparation for Christmas Eve begins in earnest now.

A New Liturgical Year

I am more than a little embarrassed at how long it has been since I last posted.  It has been so busy this term and the trouble is that once you get out of the habit of posting regularly, it tends to get squeezed out.  But no excuses!  Thank you to those who have been reading older posts and sending comments, you have encouraged me to get back in the saddle.

So what's been happening here?  All the normal things, but rather a lot of them.  We have experienced quite some numerical growth over the past year, which resulted in the largest congregation in our history a few weeks ago.  It is hard to identify any one single reason for this growth, we are, of course, encouraged by it, but it does also pose challenges not least in terms of space.

By far the greatest challenge, though, for me is getting to know the congregation.  How do you get to know so many people in any meaningful way and, more importantly, how do you minister spiritually to them?  Spare a prayer if you are reading this!

Last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King.  I have written about this occasion in the past.  To save you having to look it up: it is also our anniversary celebration.  Christ Church was officially 77 years old.  Our Bishop was with us for the service, a good number of people were confirmed, and we had a Parish lunch back at the Vicarage.  The weather was really kind to us dry, sunny, and not too hot and many came both for the service and the lunch.

I wrote in the last post about different new years.  That was at the start of the academic new year.  This week it is, of course, Advent Sunday and the start of the new Church liturgical year.  I can't believe we are back to Year A and Matthew's Gospel.  It only feels like last year that I bought some new commentaries on Matthew to help preparing sermons in Year A.  From a preaching point of view, my two favourites are Craig Keener's and Ben Witherington's.  I am going to make use of France this time around as well, and will be interested to see what he has to say.  I generally like France, even if he did once turn me down for a job!

I have enjoyed Luke this year, though.  I have found myself regularly turning to Darrell Bock's large two volume commentary and Craig Evans' much shorter volume, which I have found surprisingly helpful given its size. What always strikes me reading Luke's Gospel is how different it feels to Acts.  Obviously, you might say, given the change of location, but it is more than that.  From the moment Acts opens you feel things are different.  I don't mean in a literary way and it's hard to put into words.  It is just a completely different world in every way.  Maybe there is a sermon there in itself.

Thank you again to those who are still interested in this blog.  I make no promises except to say I'll do my best to do better.

Have a great Advent!

A New Year

Well, I hope that you have had a good Summer.  Everything has started up again here as I imagine it has where you are too.  I commented in Church on Sunday on how we have the Church's year beginning at the end of November, the New Year on January 1, Chinese New Year at the end of January, the financial New Year on April 1, but that for me September and the start of the new academic year was, for me, the significant one.

It is partly because of my involvement in education and partly because in the UK where I grew up, September was when the weather seemed to start to change - for the better, as far I was concerned.  Whatever the reason, this new academic year brings some interesting anniversaries for me.

I was inducted as Vicar of Christ Church, Kowloon Tong on September 10, 2000 so Friday will mark the tenth anniversary of my time as Vicar here.  I was born in 1955 and so in October I will be celebrating my 55th birthday, and then towards the close of this academic year at the end of June, it will be the 30th anniversary of my ordination.  Quite a few milestones then and obvious cause for reflection, but, hopefully, not too much introspection.  Don't worry I won't go on about it much in these posts or anywhere else for that matter.  However, I thought I might be permitted to at least mention it here!

I also wrote a bit here about my feelings on reaching my 25th anniversary as a priest.  My feelings haven't changed.  My overwhelming emotion as I reach these various milestones is that I wish I had done more and achieved more.

When I was first a curate I found myself taking many funerals.  The hymns were nearly always the same: 'Abide with me' and 'The Lord's my shepherd'.  I wasn't too fond of 'Abide with me' in those days, but over the years it has become one of my favourites.  We don't sing all the verses that Lyte wrote for it nowadays.  One of them, however, seems particularly apt:

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

My hope is that the close is a good while off yet and that regrets about the past will spur me on to try to do more, if God spares me, in the years ahead.

It is really wet here today and a rainstorm warning has just been posted.  Heavy rain always brings problems in older buildings such as ours.  We have already discovered a couple of new leaks.  They are a nightmare to get fixed especially in this weather.  I thought it might be fun to post the notes of the sermon on Communion and Confirmation I mentioned in my last post.  They are notes and I have resisted the temptation to edit them too much!

I am pleased to say that after some technical problems, it is possible to hear sermons form my Church again very clearly via the web-site (www.christchurch.com.hk).  Yesterday, I was preaching about the Law, Christian freedom and ethics!

Today is the First Sunday after Trinity.  The Church’s calendar is rather imbalanced! For the past few months, we have been celebrating all the major festivals of the Church:  Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and, last week, Trinity Sunday itself and with them the seasons around then.  Now we have stretched out before us the many Sundays of Trinity.  One poet wrote in a poem:

We have done with dogma and divinity
East(er) and Whitsun past,
The long, long, Sundays after Trinity
Are with us at last.

Before, however, we settle into counting the Sundays of Trinity over the Summer.  I want to delay the count by a week to think today of the meaning of a special day that was celebrated by many Christians on the Thursday just past.  If you lived in places like Brazil or Austria, on Thursday you would have had the day off work, because in the Roman Catholic Church, for example, Thursday was the Feast of Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi is Latin for the Body of Christ.  As the Church developed its liturgical Calendar for worship, it was obvious that there were going to be special days for celebrating of Lord’s birth, death, resurrection and ascension.  It was not until the middle of the Middle Ages that demand arose for a special day to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It is true that on the Thursday in Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Christians remembered how Jesus ate his last Supper with his disciples.  But we also remember how he washed the disciples’ feet and commanded us to love one another.  What Christians wanted was a day specifically to focus on the sacrament itself.

Not all Christians celebrate Corpus Christi, Roman Catholics do, some Anglicans do, the rest do not.  This perhaps illustrates the division and confusion amongst Christians about the meaning of what we call Holy Communion.  For us the Eucharist (another name for Holy Communion) is the central part of worship each week as it is in many Churches around the world.  For Roman Catholic Christians, the Mass (another name for Holy Communion or the Eucharist) is so important that it is celebrated daily.  Yet even for us who celebrate frequently, it is not always clear either why or what it means.

In the 16^th, there was an attempt at Reforming the Church in Europe associated with names such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin.  But even these reformers couldn’t agree with each other as to the meaning of Holy Communion.  Luther and Zwingli fell out bitterly over it and the division, sadly, remains today.  Even in the Anglican Church, there are real differences as to the meaning of Holy Communion.

There is not enough time to go into details this morning about the meaning of the Eucharist.  Although can I pause advertise the Lent Bible Studies next year, which I provisionally intend to be on this subject.  I am responding to a suggestion after this year’s Bible Studies!

Basically though, the differences are between those who think that something is actually happening in Communion and those who see it more as a visual aid to help us remember Christ’s death for us.  Roman Catholics, for example, believe that the bread and wine quite really do become the body and blood of Christ.  Many evangelicals think nothing happens at all.

What we can be absolutely certain of is that the last thing Jesus did before he was arrested was to have a meal with his disciples that he commanded them to continue.  It wasn’t the Church who came up with this idea, but our Lord himself.

And while there is much that we do not know about the Early Church, we do know that they took this command of our Lord’s ‘to do this in remembrance of him’ very seriously, so seriously that we also know that in the mid-50s just 20 years or so after our Lord gave the command to his disciples, Christians in Greece were keeping it and celebrating the Eucharist.  And so it continues today. 

We know then that this is something our Lord wanted us to do and that from the beginning it is something that Christians have done.  In the first few centuries of the Church, Christians look it so seriously that they excluded people from receiving Communion who weren’t baptized or in good standing with the Church.  So if someone was a known sinner, they would be excommunicated that is, forbidden communion.  The Roman Catholic Church still continues this practice.

Nowadays, Christians who take the Eucharist very seriously go out of their way to include people pointing out that Jesus himself ate with sinners.  Judas who was to betray Jesus wasn’t excluded from the first communion.

All of which brings me to Anglicans and to our own Church.  Historically, Anglicans have attempted a middle way in all this.  I will talk more about this in Lent next year.  We have sought to avoid extremes.  Anglicans in the past have said that anyone who is confirmed may receive Communion.

Let me pause for a moment to talk about Confirmation.  With the rise of infant baptism in the Church, the need was felt for a way for adults to confirm the faith into which they were baptized as a child.  At Confirmation, the Church confirmed God’s acceptance of that person.  It as at this point that people started receiving Communion.

Nowadays, the Church doesn’t demand Confirmation for a person to receive communion.  The trouble is this has led to confusion over the meaning of Confirmation and over when people can receive Communion.

Here at Christ Church many do not receive communion, but come forward to be blessed instead.  Also here at Christ Church, many have chosen not to be confirmed.  It so happens that we are now looking forward to our Confirmation service in the Autumn.

Now let me be clear.  Here at Christ Church we fully respect everyone’s privacy and right to decide for themselves whether and when they take Communion.  We also respect people’s right to decide for themselves whether they are confirmed or not.  Could I today as we remember Corpus Christi, however, ask this of you?

Please would you if you don’t receive Communion, think about why you don’t.  And if you haven’t been confirmed, could I encourage you to at least consider it.  Classes will be held before hand to help people think it through with no obligation to go through with it if they decide not to.  Communion and Confirmation are important to us and we would like to explain why.

For today I would to conclude simply by saying this.  Being a Christian is hard.  Life itself is hard.  Jesus knew this and gave us a means to find strength and sustenance.  We need physical food and we need spiritual food.  It is this that we believe God provides us at Communion as we receive the body and blood of our Lord.  Please think seriously about it and consider your own participation!

Communion and Confirmation

It is now very much the Summer season here in Hong Kong.  We get many visitors to Christ Church from all over the world and they often ask me how I like living in Hong Kong.  There is no problem answering.  Hong Kong is my home and the place I believe I am called to work and minister.  If, however, I was to be asked the one thing I find hardest to cope with living here, without hesitation I would reply: the heat and humidity of the Summer.  It really does get hot and even a short walk outdoors leaves you dripping wet!  Fortunately, nowadays, we have air-conditioning!  I have no idea how the British who came here in the days before air-conditioning coped, especially when I see pictures of them in very formal dress.

Yesterday, I was preaching on Communion and Confirmation.  It was Corpus Christi last Thursday and we are planning a Confirmation service for the Autumn.  One of the biggest issues for me before officially becoming an Anglican was the issue of infant baptism.  For years I struggled with the question of whether it was legitimate to baptize babies or not.  So much baptismal theology simply doesn't work when applied to infants.  In the end, I decided that historically the Church had baptised babies and that it shouldn't be an issue to keep me from being ordained an Anglican priest.

As I have wrestled with the issue in the years since ordination, while I have come to believe that it is valid to baptize babies, Biblically valid, paradoxically, I still don't think that what the Bible says about baptism can be applied to the baptism of infants.  To put it simply: adult baptism is not the same as infant baptism.  I don't think there can be any getting away from the fact that in the New Testament baptism is a choice made by the person being baptized, something that by definition isn't true when a baby is baptized.

It is to get over this that Churches such as my own have a Service of Confirmation when a person previously baptized can confirm for themselves the vows made on their behalf at baptism and when the Church can confirm God's acceptance of them.  The practical, pastoral problem here for me is that I can't persuade people to come to Confirmation.

To an extent this is a problem of our own making.  It used to be the case in Anglicanism that we would only admit to Communion those who had been confirmed.  There was then some incentive to be confirmed, although it is also true that we never saw many of those who were confirmed after they had been confirmed.  It was treated as a passing out parade.  Anyway, we decided as Anglicans, rightly in my opinion, that baptism was sufficient in order to receive Communion and so we now encourage anyone who has been baptized, whatever their age, to be receive Communion.

This means that many simply don't feel the need to go through Confirmation.  They confirm their faith each week by being part of the worshipping community and taking Communion.  The question then is, does it matter if people don't get confirmed?  It certainly matters to some in my Church who still think that Communion should only be given to the confirmed.  However, as I point out to them, that is now no longer an option. It also matters to Bishops for whom confirmation is one way of underlining their authority given that it is the Bishop who must confirm.  The actual answer, however, is, I think, yes and no!

Yes, it matters precisely because, as I said at the beginning of this post, infant baptism is not Biblical baptism.  It is perfectly valid on its own terms, but, in the New Testament, Christian faith requires a commitment - a public commitment at that.  Confirmation, then, provides a means to make up for what is lacking in infant baptism.  Indeed, it could be argued that Confirmation is New Testament baptism without the water.

But no, there is nothing to say that this is the only means for making the public commitment that the New Testament requires.  If a person has made a decisive decision to turn to Christ in faith and repentance and is open about that in their life and witness, it is very hard to see why Confirmation should be a requirement.  Of course, this doesn't mean it can't be encouraged by the Church as a way of demonstrating that commitment liturgically.

It does mean that it is quite difficult to persuade people to join the Confirmation Service we are planning in the Autumn!

Having written about politics yesterday and in this the day of the General Election in the UK and as I look over my polling card for a totally pointless election in Hong Kong on May 16, I thought I would post an interview with one of the politicians I most admire in the world.

I don't always agree with her, but I always feel she knows more than me or most people anyway, and I would trust her as a person whatever her politics.  So sad she doesn't want to rule anywhere.  Here is a very recent interview with her.

BTW: anyone who can help me meet her let me know.

Condoleezza, respect!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArUKdqzLJYs

I have had a bit of a holiday from blogging for the past month.  Easter went well and we are now turning our attention at Christ Church to Ascension Day and Pentecost when there is quite a bit going on.

I was at Ming Hua, our theological college, yesterday, where the subjects under discussion were the Christian attitude to those in authority and to war.  Living in Hong Kong and coming from the UK, gives different perspectives on these issues.  The UK is, after all, at war in Afghanistan and Iraq and is going through a general election as I write.  While in Hong Kong, there is much argument and debate about attempts to change the way the Chief Executive is chosen here.  How involved, then, in politics should the Christian be and what should be our attitude to the various political issues of our day?

There are, I think, two extreme positions.  On the one hand, there are those who think that Christians, or at least the Church, should not be involved in politics at all.  As politics is about how the society in which we live is governed and organized, this seems to be an impossible position for anyone who takes the Bible seriously to adopt.  However, on the other hand, there are those who engage in politics wholeheartedly and think the Church should do the same, but whose approach is no different to anyone else involved in politics.  You wouldn't know they were Christians in other words.

What both these positions have in common, ironically, is that effectively they both leave God out of the picture. The first thinks that belief in God and involvement in politics don't mix.  The other keeps belief in God and political involvement separate.  If we see this world as God's world and if we believe we should love our neighbour as ourselves, it is hard to see how we can keep either God or ourselves out of politics.

But our starting-point, our ideology and presuppositions will be very different to those of the non-Christian, even if we end up voting with those who don't believe what we believe.  The Christian will never forget that this age is transient, under the judgement of God, and that all human endeavour, even at its best, is tainted with sin.  We will never, then, be able to give ourselves completely to any human political system or philosophy.

This is something that Christians in the west especially need to hear for there is the somewhat strange notion amongst some western Christians that freedom in a political sense and democracy are one and the same thing.  Consequently, if the Christian supports freedom, they should also support democracy.  I have often said I feel more free in Beijing than I do in London.  I can walk the streets of Beijing without fear of attack, for example, in a way I can't walk the streets of London.

Democracy is a voting system for deciding who should govern us.  It is not the same as freedom nor does it guarantee it.  It may be a good system, but to absolutize it is as wrong as it was in the past to absolutize the divine right of Kings.