16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) : Homily / Sermon

As Jesus stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. (Mark 6:34)

So, in today’s Gospel, Jesus and the Apostles go on holiday!
Just like the school children and the teachers and so many others, they set off for a bit of a break.

Last week, in the Gospel we heard about the urgent, almost frantic mission which Jesus gave to his apostles, to go out two by two, to preach to all who would listen, to move rapidly from place to place shaking the dust off their feet as they went. And now, the mission successfully completed, it is time to go off to a quiet place for a bit of relaxation. ‘You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while,’ Jesus says (Mark 6:31). Their mission had been a bit too successful, and they were pressed by the crowds, and just had to get away.

Except, of course, it all goes wrong. The crowd guess where they are going, and get there before them. And the work continues …

Of course, it won’t be the first holiday, the first break, to be disrupted or broken into. I don’t doubt there are many here who have had a long or short break disrupted by a family crisis, or unexpected visitors or a sudden need to attend to an urgent matter from work.

And nowadays, with the mobile phone, it is almost impossible to get away. Many years ago there used to be appeals on the radio: “Here is an urgent appeal for John Smith, last known to be holidaying in Norfolk, to contact the nearest police station, for important information …” Nowadays of course, you’d just get a text …

This kind of disruption is a particular risk for the priest, just as it was for the apostles. We live “over the shop” and are easy to find.

I remember once walking on the beach at Southport in Lancashire. Now if you know that lovely resort you will know that the beach is extensive, and you need to walk miles to reach the sea. It was a midweek break and I walk arm in arm with my wife, not a person in sight, then a voice, a child’s voice I think, rang out “Fr Peter!” I looked in every direction - but could see no one!

Of course, for many caring professionals, unlike priests, it IS possible to switch off from responsibilities, and have the calls diverted to someone else. The Doctor, the Lawyer, the Social Worker, (perhaps even the police officer!) can take a break, safe in the knowledge that someone else is looking after their caseload, and the urgent calls are forwarded elsewhere. The priest, however, is a bit different. Any priest can administer the sacraments, but parishioners often don’t want any priest, but their priest. And even when the priest is away he may be recognised, or be called upon to defend the faith in some way, or … like Jesus and the apostles in the Gospel, realise that there are people in need who are like sheep without a shepherd … it is impossible for a priest, a good priest, someone called by God to this caring ministry, just to walk away.

But of course - priests are not unique in this. Do not compare the priest to the Doctor, Lawyer, Social Worker, the “caring professional”. Compare the priest rather to the Mother, the Father, the Son or Daughter, the Brother or Sister, because … to misquote the story of the brothers Cain and Abel … I am my brother’s keeper. Family ties, can and do overrule holidays, and our own quiet time. … 

No - this is not a Gospel that teaches us about the caring professions, about high professional standards, at all. It is a Gospel which is about compassion, about mercy, about generosity, about love, love of our neighbour, even love of those who do not love us. It is about humanity, and about Christianity in which all are our brothers and sisters. Despite the words in todays readings about the Shepherds, this Gospel is not even about priesthood … But it is about what it means to be Church. About the mutual caring for one another, about valuing and nurturing every member of Christ’s flock.

And so, it is about Baptism. The Baptism we, all Christians share in Christ. Already a children of God through our humanity, we became one of the redeemed through baptism, one of his precious flock, a member of his family. We are joined together in the Unity of the Church, and also in its mission of compassion and love. Like the Apostles, following the example of Christ himself, we are called to care, beyond the responsibility of the moment, as a duty throughout life. May we always be blessed by God, and strengthened by his Grace to live out our responsibilities, as brothers and sisters in Christ.

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At St Catherine’s, Birmingham at Sunday Mass 19 July 2015. 

15th Sunday of the Year (B) : Homily / Sermon

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out … so they set off to preach repentance. (Mark 6:7,13)

There’s been a lot of bad news in the press in the past few days. There always is, of course. Bad News always seems to be more interesting that Good News. But the past few weeks have been exceptional. There has been the terrible terrorist attack in Tunisia, and now the flying home of all British people who remain there. There has been the ongoing saga of the financial problems of Greece, and the extra-ordinary difficulties they are encountering by the closure of the banks and the shortages of medicines and other essential items. And this week there has been the considerable anxiety caused by the proposed changes in the budget and the pressure this will put especially on working families on low income. There will certainly be more need of, and more recourse to the food banks and other forms of assistance. Bad news all round.

So what would we think of as being “Good News”?

Well, we could think of many examples. Good news is the surprise lottery win, the announcement of a birth or a forthcoming marriage, being given the all clear, England winning the Ashes, (though not - this year at least, Wimbledon), getting the grades for a university place or success in a job interview. In many cases, these are the deserved results of our own efforts, yet in all of them Good News is also a pleasant surprise, a blessing, something that happens to us, it is gift, it is grace.

Today, we hear, Jesus sends out the Twelve in pairs to preach the Gospel. The Good News. [The word “Gospel” is a very old English word meaning “God’s word”, or “Good News”. It translates the Greek word ευανγελιον, “Good Message”, - from which we get the English “evangelist”, the name for the writer of the Gospels]

Yet what sort of Good News is this? To be sure, the Apostles come to give comfort and healing to the sick. Yet here, in this Gospel, the message is a hard one - one of repentance, contrition, sorrow for sins. It is not unremitting joy, at least not at first. It challenges us - something we have to do, and something which is painful - to admit our own fault, to confess our sins, to acknowledge our failures, our impatience, our dishonesty, our unkindnesses and cruelties. It might be necessary - but how can this be a message to preach. How can this be Gospel? How can this be Good News?

Well it can - it is - of course it is - because what the Twelve are sent out to preach with such urgency is not the wickedness of the world, not the darkness of man’s inhumanity to man, not financial crisis or hardship - but greatness of God’s mercy.

They move from house to house and place to place rapidly, wasting no time with those who do not want to here because they are there not to condemn but to give the offer of a Great Gift, the Gift of Forgiveness, a Gift which is freely given by God to everyone who embraces it, and this gift heals minds and hearts, casts out anxiety and soothes infirmity.

It is a Gift that is easily refused, yet easy to accept. Because all we need to do to receive this great gift of God, the Gift of Forgiveness, the Gift of Healing, the Gift of Peace - is to accept that we need to be forgiven, we need to be healed, we need to welcome into our troubled hearts this promise of Peace.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) : Homily / Sermon

“A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house” (Mark 6:4)

Fame is a fickle thing. It comes and goes. It damns but rarely blesses. So called “reality” TV shows make celebrities of people who have really done nothing apart from appeared on such programmes.
Fame celebrates not achievement, or merit, or even notoriety, but simply fame itself. And it recedes, like a great wave, even more quickly than it arrived.

Fame can lead to both adulation and rejection. As we hear in today’s Gospel, when Jesus returns to his home town, his fame works against him.

Yet fame has always been much a matter of chance - capricious, volatile and variable. Great figures of history - as we reckon them - were not necessarily great in their own time. Shakespeare was one playwright amongst many. Van Gogh died in poverty. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was unknown in his lifetime. The war poetry of Wilfrid Owen too, was mostly published after his death. The singer Eva Cassidy, who died in 1996, became an international star about 4 years later and had 3 numbers ones from recordings not released in her lifetime. Many other popular musicians performers have gained great fame, greater fame after their deaths than in their lives.

And it works the other way too. There are composers, authors, political figures who were giant while they were alive, but who are now barely remembered. And I guess, if we dig deep we may remember some of these, who are now hardly noted. There is even a website - OnceFamous.com - dedicated to forgotten celebrities. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2003 - which probably says it all!

And of course, even in life, in the present moment, the line between celebrity and anonymity is very thin. Those who knew famous people before they were famous are often able to say how unremarkable they were. Ordinary. Unassuming.

In today’s Gospel it is something of this which Jesus experiences. “A prophet is only despised in his own country” he remarks. His own people lacked faith. They knew him a little too well. He was no one great, they said, no one extraordinary. What on earth is all this we have heard about him? He is one of us. The carpenter. The son of Mary. One of us.

And of course, without realising it they hit the nail on the head. He is one of us. He was born amongst us. He lives with us. He works with us. He shares our sorrows and our joys. He carries our sins and our sufferings. He celebrates alongside us. He turns our water into wine, and our mourning into hope. He is part of our families, part of our lives.

The Ordinariness of Christ, and his relative insignificance in his own time, is precisely the most important thing about him.

This is expressed so well in this famous passage

One solitary life ...

He was born in an obscure village 
The child of a peasant woman 
He grew up in another obscure village 
Where he worked in a carpenter’s shop 
Until he was thirty 
He never wrote a book 
He never held an office 
He never went to college 
He never visited a big city 
He never travelled more than two hundred miles 
From the place where he was born 
He did none of the things 
Usually associated with greatness 
He had no credentials but himself 
He was only thirty three 
His friends ran away 
One of them denied him 
He was turned over to his enemies 
And went through the mockery of a trial 
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves 
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing 
The only property he had on earth 
When he was dead 
He was laid in a borrowed grave 
Through the pity of a friend
Twenty centuries have come and gone.
All the armies that have ever marched 
All the navies that have ever sailed 
All the parliaments that have ever sat 
All the kings that ever reigned put together 
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth 
As powerfully as that one solitary life 

God shares and touches and embraces our lives. The one who made everything, who made us, is one of us. He is with us.