Steven Croft

Think about all these things

The Bishop of Oxford gave the sermon at the Coronation Service of Celebration at Christ Church Cathedral on Friday 5 May 2023. 

In a few hours time, at the very beginning of the Coronation service, King Charles will come to his Chair of Estate on the pavement of Westminster Abbey. He will be surrounded by world leaders and dignitaries. The event will be watched live across the entire globe.

The opening words of the service will be spoken not by a Dean or Archbishop but by a child: Your majesty, as children of the Kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings.

The King will reply, quoting the very words of Jesus: In his name and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve. The whole Coronation and, we pray, the King’s life and reign will flow from that promise.

St Paul encourages us today to pay attention, to reflect, to think deeply in these moments in these words from our second reading: “Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things”

I wonder where your mind will be tomorrow as the nation pauses in this moment. There will be much in the Coronation which encourages us to look back, I am sure. The pageantry and processions, the costume, the Abbey itself. We will look back over a thousand years of our own history. We will look back further to the sacred kings of ancient Israel, celebrated in the Psalms, anointed with oil at the beginning of their reign: to Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet. The Coronation distils deep seams of divine and human wisdom on leadership in communities into simple acts of consent, disrobing, of anointing and prayer, of kneeling, of acclamation, of the acknowledging and the balancing of power. The words of the service reminds us of the blessings of stability and order and rule mediated through a person as well as an institution: a deep humanising of authority and justice.

There will be much which encourages us to reflect on the present. The service will be a testimony to a mature, multicultural, diverse United Kingdom: a unique moment in history. Different faith leaders and cultures will play their part as the monarch seeks to bind us together in humility and a generous inclusion. The different nations of these islands will each play their part, countering the forces of separation and division which have marked this last decade. The whole nation is invited to the party not only tomorrow but in the local celebrations which will follow in towns and villages celebrating volunteering for the common good, making memories and binding communities together.

There will be much, finally which helps us to reflect on the future. The words of the service paint a picture of a still better kingdom. A kingdom of healing and renewal in the natural world. The world faces environmental catastrophe in our own generation. Surely Charles is king for such a time as this. A kingdom of justice as inequalities grow wider. A kingdom of peace in a world at war, forging alliances across the world. A kingdom of welcome and a friend in need to the many who are in distress.

King Charles has prepared for all of his life for this moment. He is and will be a rich blessing to our nation and Commonwealth and the world. We know him better than any previous monarch because of the age in which we live. We know he will have a strong support and stay in Queen Camilla.

Whatever is good and honourable, think about these things says Paul. We will reflect on the past, the present and the future as the great liturgy enfolds us. We will reflect too, I hope on our own lives, on our own faith, on the part we have to play in building this nation and in building God’s kingdom.

In his name and after his example, let each of us come not to be served but to serve.

God Save the King.
Amen.

 

/by
Steven Croft

Lift up your hearts!

A very happy Easter to you and to your families. It’s good to be together to rejoice and to reflect.

Jesus was crucified. His body was laid in a tomb. On the third day he appeared to Mary Magdalene, to Peter and then to all the apostles. His resurrection brings deep joy and hope. His power and his Spirit give life to the Church throughout the world. Alleluia Christ is risen. He is risen indeed Alleluia.

Within a generation, the good news about Jesus has travelled from Jerusalem and through Judea and Samaria to every part of the Roman Empire. The resurrection of Jesus is not simply an event: something remarkable which happened to Jesus of Nazareth after his death. The resurrection is not simply a sign of the promise of eternal life for all.

The resurrection is something to be lived every day; something which affects every Christian, in every place in even every moment. An event which has the power to change our lives.

This is what Paul writes to the Colossians.

“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”
– Colossians 3.1-3

Think what Paul is saying here. Your resurrection and mine is not a remote event in the future which follows our death. Your resurrection and mine has already happened. We are living the risen life today.

The big, bold instruction which follows is for every Christian, every day but especially on Easter Day. As one translation has it: “Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground absorbed with things right in front of you. Look up”.

Walk down any street and you will see many people shuffling along – often with their eyes glued to their devices afraid of missing anything yet actually missing everything. Set your minds on things that are above. In words which we will use later in this service: Lift up your hearts. To where will we lift them? Where else but to where Christ is. We seek to be born from above, to be filled with power from on high, to have our minds filled with wisdom from above. To gain and hold the perspective of eternity as we grapple with the problems of the earth.

Set your minds on things that are above. Start today. When we do that it is amazing what we can do.

I spent the best part of a year in 2021 and 2022 visiting every part of the Diocese of Oxford, from Olney to Hungerford, from Ascot to the Cotswolds. I met with all 29 clergy chapters and listened to thousands of people’s experiences of the pandemic. I heard of tiredness and exhaustion and illness and grief, the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine. I was expecting to hear all of that.

But in every single place, even at the darkest moments, I also heard so many stories of hope and rebuilding and transformation: extraordinary acts of kindness; food banks; visiting schemes; community care; meals for key workers; visiting asylum seekers; welcoming refugees from Ukraine; starting new congregations; rebuilding in person worship. The clergy and lay ministers of the diocese have been extraordinary, including in this Cathedral church. We have together seen a miracle. The same creativity and love has continued as life and strength has come back to the church after the lockdown.

How is that even possible that men and women find such strength and resilience and hope to imagine new things in the midst of so much darkness?

Because in every place, in every generation, in times of difficulty Christian people lift up their hearts. We set our minds on things which are above, not on the earth. As we look to Christ and the power of the resurrection, the impossible begins to look possible again and hope returns. From time spent in silence and prayer, strength returns to this Easter people. The alleluia’s we sing today give us the energy we need for works of mercy tomorrow and the next day. As one writer has it, resurrection people see grief turn into possibility; trial into opportunity and sorrow into dancing .

The cross tells us that God is with us in the suffering. In the last few weeks I have spent time with a congregation grieving the sudden death of their priest; another whose priest has been seriously ill; another struggling with division. But Easter speaks to us each day of new life and hope. I know that in each of those situations there are women and men who lift their minds and hearts to heaven and so the mending and the healing and the hope begin to bring change.

The world around us needs to hear this. It’s not easy in this generation to set your minds on things which are above. There are many distractions. We carry in our smartphones the anxieties and despair of the whole world. A think tank published a report just last week with the title Burnt out Britain. The reason for the burn out is not longer working hours but the exhaustion of distraction through technology leading to a sense of being overburdened and decreasing the time we give to civic life and volunteering.

Our own hearts and minds and those of our young people are being shaped and overwhelmed and harmed by the power and temptations of technology. Society needs much better regulation and oversight than currently exists. Online safety should be as much a human right as offline safety. The Online Safety Bill currently going through Parliament needs to be further strengthened to protect both children and adults from greater harm, from dragging our hearts and minds down to earth. Britain will need robust regulation of artificial intelligence to build public trust and confidence and to prevent further harm.

But all of us can begin to live the power of the resurrection today. Set your minds on things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above. Begin each week with worship. Begin each day with a quiet time of prayer and bible reading. Celebrate your resurrection each and every day. For the sake of the whole world, lift up your hearts.

+Steven
Christ Church, Oxford
Easter 2023

Picture: Stained glass window in the German Church in Stockholm Sweden (c) Shutterstock

/by
Steven Buckley

Our calling to be ministers of hope, of faith, of love

The Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd. Olivia Graham, gave the sermon at the Eucharist with the Blessing of Oils and Renewal of Ministerial Commitment at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on Maundy Thursday this year.

Today, we gather to remember God’s grace and his love in Jesus Christ; to renew our call to ministry; and to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Today in this beautiful and ancient space, we are glad to gather and look around at each other and marvel at what God has done and continues to do in our lives.

The oils that we bless today are a sign of the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. They are a reminder of the grace and the blessings that God has given to us through the sacraments, and they remind us of our calling as baptised Christians to share that grace and blessing with others.

And as we renew our ministerial commitment, our thoughts are naturally drawn to reflecting on our calling to ministry in God’s church. What is it to be called and how can we encourage others to think about it as a normal part of our relationship with God?

It has come to us in many ways. It might have been that we felt a niggle, experienced a thought that wouldn’t not go away, sensed a nudge. It might be that a word that kept coming back to us, or a series of ‘co-incidences’ took place which triggered us to wonder whether something was going on. It have might been the ‘have you ever thought about?’ question, asked by one person, and then maybe repeated in some form by others. Other people often see in us what we can’t see in ourselves, notice the gifts we have been given, or the way our hearts are inclined. And maybe it was none of those things, but simply an experience of getting more and more drawn in until it seemed like a natural next step.

Just occasionally it is a voice. Maybe God’s, maybe our own. My own sense of calling began a decade before I was ordained. I was working for Oxfam in Somalia., One hot sticky night, during a routing power cut and by the light of a pressure lamp, I sitting with an oddly assorted group of people who were doing the same kind of work as I was, we began to tell each other what we thought we would be doing in 10 years time. When it got to me, I heard a voice saying ‘I think I will be ordained’. To this day I don’t know where it came from. It was my voice, but not my words, because I had never voiced this idea, had never even formed the thought in my head. But sure enough, 10 years later, I was ordained in this Cathedral.

We will all have a story to tell of how we were called into the flow of the Kingdom of God.

Imagine perhaps a stream emerging from a dark, underground, invisible place and flowing out into the daylight, through woodland; a stream contained by banks down which leaves and twigs tumble and are swept along in the flow. Each of us who becomes conscious of God’s call on our lives, at that moment tumbles into the stream and is carried along by it. It has no beginning and no end, although we experience the passage of time and the sense of a journey. Our journey is unique, but it’s in company with others, and born along by the irresistible current of God’s eternal love.

Christ walks the earth among us, calling, calling, who will go for us and whom shall we send? At some point we have said ‘Speak, for we are listening. Here I am, send me’. And we have tumbled into the stream, and begun a journey of discovery.

What we discover is the part we are called to play in God’s Church and God’s world as we witness to God’s wonderful story of salvation through Christ; as God continues to forge his relationship of love with the creation.

Vocation, for all of us, begins with getting to know ourselves. The quest to gain an ever greater understanding of who we are, is one which should underpin our lives, and this has been recognised from ancient, pre-Christian times. The great message of the Oracle at Delphi was Know Thyself. It’s a lifelong quest well known to secular philosophy and psychology.

But for us as Christian disciples, vocation begins with knowing our belovedness in God’s eyes and God’s heart, and becoming aware of who God intends us to be. This entails growing in holiness and becoming more Christ like. We are who we are, and all that we are, in Christ, who is our beginning and our end.

But it will also entail shaping our lives in a particular way for a particular purpose. And when we discover, by whatever means, a course for our life which is the right fit, then we have a sense of ‘Yes, this is who I am; this is what I am for’. And we experience a sense of the rightness of it. In Christ, fully in Christ, we are a new creation – the old has gone, the new is come.

We are here today, in this Cathedral, because we have heard the voice of this calling in the Church of England. We may have always been in the CofE; we may have joined it at some stage, and there may have been a moment of decision when we said, OK I’m in.

We’re here because we’re committed to this imperfect, sometimes confusing, sometimes troubled expression of the Body of Christ; because it feels like home. It’s often infuriating and slow; it’s often fractured; it can be bad-tempered. It emerged out of a King’s marital difficulties nearly 500 years ago; it was founded in statecraft and pragmatism, on differences held in tension, and reconciled disagreement; it is underpinned by historic formularies; governed by Canons and Measures and served by the ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons as well as lay people in licensed ministries. It is a big, complicated old thing. And within it, and the ministry it offers, there are abundant moments and examples of real holiness, humility and self-giving love, as God-filled Christians incarnate the Christ of the Beatitudes, and through the astonishing reach of the CofE into all corners of our society and nation, tend and serve and love human beings in every kind of need, and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

Why me? Why any of us? Simon Peter, when brought face to face with the realisation of who Jesus was through the miraculous catch of fish (in Luke 5) fell on his knees and said, Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.

Who among us is not? We’re all horrible, miserable sinners. We get it wrong daily, hourly. We judge, and misjudge, and fail to love and show compassion, and think we know best. We are hard of heart, and we lack hospitality and generosity; we mis-use power. But the gospel story in Luke 7 gives us hope. The irony of this story of course is that the woman, who is introduced as ‘a sinner’, makes her extraordinary display of love and contrition, and is forgiven. But Jesus makes it clear that Simon the Pharisee, who is quick to label and condemn her, is no less a sinner, perhaps the more so because he does not recognise it; and his lack of love stands in sharp contrast to the woman’s extravagant display.

Simon thinks of himself as a good man. He is an alpha male; he is a Pharisee, an influential religious leader. He has power and status (and frankly, thinks that Jesus is in a lower class). He thinks of his life as being correct and feels justified in taking the moral high ground. The woman with no name is outcast, with sexual sin implied – probably that of selling her body to satisfy the market for sex without responsibility demanded by her male clientele, and repeated down the centuries. Who knows why she does it? Maybe she is forced into it; maybe she just needs to eat or support her children. She has no power or status; and she is labelled by a hypocritical religious elite. A sinner.

When we recognise how much we have all fallen short, and turn back to God with love and longing in our hearts, we are forgiven. In the face of love, there is no moral high ground. We are astonishingly equalised, and forgiven in the measure that we love. And as we are forgiven, we are made worthy – as the Eucharistic prayer puts it – to stand in your presence and serve you.

And this is the only way that we can be credible ministers of the Gospel.

Today, conscious of our failings, conscious that we dare not judge others, we renew our commitment as ministers of the gospel, to God and to one another. Tomorrow is Good Friday: when the body of Christ is broken for each one of us on the Cross. And beyond it lies Easter Day. And with that front and centre, let’s remember our calling to be ministers of hope, of faith, of love. In the service of Jesus Christ.

/by
Steven Croft

Christmas Day 2022

A Sermon for Christmas Day
Christ Church, Oxford
11am, 25 December 2022

Available to view on livestream and catch up

A very happy Christmas to you and to your families.

There has been a famine of good news in 2022. It is true that COVID has receded in the UK. This time last year I was confined to bed. But the lockdown years have given way to new anxieties: a bloody and costly war in Europe and elsewhere; economic hardship; the challenges of migration; political turmoil in a year of three prime ministers; the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth; inflation; and as the year closes, strikes in our public services. There have been wildfires, heatwaves, floods, storms, extremes of weather disrupting the lives of millions.

How is it possible even to say Happy Christmas in the face of such a year? How do we hear the angel’s message: ‘Do not be afraid, for I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people’?

Christmas has to be more than a few days of eating and drinking and terrible television. Christmas has to be even more than precious time with family and friends. Each one of us is invited today to kneel at the manger and hear the good news for all the people.

“…to you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord”.

It’s hard to see a single candle in a floodlit stadium. But in a Cathedral by night, that single flame burns brightly and gives light to the whole room. It’s hard to kneel at the manger and hear good news when we feel rich and prosperous and need nothing. But when I truly understand that I am wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked, that’s when I begin to see the gift of Jesus, Saviour, Messiah, Lord. The greater the darkness, the more clearly we need this light and this day.

Many of us here will know what it is like to hold a newborn baby. Ann and I have been blessed with two new grandchildren this year (bringing our total to eight). Nile was born in August and Benji just a few weeks ago. To hold them is to give thanks and to wonder at their beauty and potential and all the years to come.

But to kneel in the stable in Bethlehem this morning takes our wonder to a different level, caught by the carols we sing this day. We dare to believe that this child is both fully God and fully human. In this child the glory and wonder and wisdom of the maker of heaven and earth is distilled into a baby.

This child is our Saviour. See how salvation runs through each of our readings. Isaiah 62 proclaims “See your salvation comes”.  Titus reminds us of the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour; that this God saves us not because of our good works but simply through God’s mercy.

According to the angels on the hillside this Saviour is for all the people: the whole world in every age. The salvation this child Jesus brings is first of all forgiveness and a new beginning. Forgiveness at the end of this year for all our sins and mistakes and they will be many. Forgiveness which holds such rich potential for healing in families and churches and communities and nations. Forgiveness which holds the secret of new life.

This Jesus will live a life which embodies God’s strong and determined kindness. This Jesus will give his life on the cross so that our misdeeds and shortcomings can be cancelled and forgiven. So that today, in this place we can leave our heavy burdens here and walk free. So that we can live new lives of grace and joy and peace. This is good news indeed.

The name Jesus means Saviour. It is the name given by the angel to Mary before his conception in the womb. But according to the angels he will be known by another name which is also a title, the Messiah, Christ, the Lord. This Jesus is the one anointed by God to bring order and peace and justice to our lives and to God’s world. This Jesus in his ministry will call us to follow him and share his work of building God’s kingdom on earth. This Jesus will one day come in glory, to set right all that is wrong and to make all things new.

No matter how bad the headlines, no matter how dark and cold the world, there is good news in the angel’s song:

Do not be afraid. I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah the Lord.

So take a moment this Christmas time whether you are at home or in this Cathedral to reset your life and your faith. Seek God’s forgiveness afresh in Christ for all that has gone wrong. Lay down those heavy burdens you carry at the font or at the altar. Make a new confession that Jesus Christ is Lord in your own life and in the life of the world. Come as you are: poor, wretched, pitiable, blind and naked and seek his gold, his new clothes, his medicine for the soul.

In the words of our carol, let each of us invite Jesus Christ to be born in us today.

Hear the good news of great joy. O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Immanuel.

Amen.

 

+Steven Oxford
Christ Church Cathedral
Christmas Day, 2022

/by
Steven Croft

Rising to the challenge

Bishop Steven preached at the patronal for St Andrews Headington on 29 November. His sermon focused on the Census 2021 findings and how the Church should respond…

Congratulations on your 900th birthday and all that’s been achieved through the marking of that. It’s good to join the celebrations this St. Andrew’s day for your patronal festival.

St. Andrew is the patron saint of mission and evangelism and today seems a very good day to remember Andrew, who brings his brother Peter to Jesus. The banner headline in the i newspaper shouts out for our attention today following the release of the Census 2021 information yesterday: UK Christians in minority for first time since the Dark Ages. According to the census, less that half the UK population identify as Christian for the first time in 1,500 years – certainly for the first time since there has been a Church in Headington. The Express leads with the same story: less than half of population is Christian. The broadsheets carry the story and question the Church’s role. In case you think it’s everywhere, the Mail leads with Xmas Turkey Shortage Fear. The Mirror stays with the football with the headline BISH, RASH, BOSH, which I thought at first was an episcopal story but is actually about England’s victory over Wales in the world cup.

I wonder how we should respond to the census news on this St. Andrew’s Day. We’ll all have a mix of feelings:

Resignation and helplessness the decline in nominal Christianity is nothing new, though the milestone is significant.

Excuses: this has been a slow decline for many years, after all. Blame the church: if only the Church of England would… [insert your favourite simple solution or prejudice].

Or blame the culture: people are consumers, thinking only of themselves and faith can’t flourish in such a climate.

St. Andrew and St. Andrew’s day points me to a different response. We need to mark this moment as one of challenge and rise to it. I think this is a watershed moment for us as a Church though it’s been coming for many years. How we respond should affect the life of every local church, every diocese, and every part of the life of the Church of England. My prescription is in essence very, very simple. It is that, following Andrew, we place telling other people about Jesus at the heart of our common life and at the head of our priorities.

The church has a beautiful word for the business of telling people about Jesus: it is the word evangelism, telling the good news of Gods love in a wounded world.

From Isaiah 52:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news, who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’

From Romans 10 and quoting Isaiah 52:

‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?
And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?

And most simply of all from our gospel reading in Matthew, words spoken to Andrew and Simon and to all of us: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

How should the Church respond to becoming a minority again for the first time since the Dark Ages? Only by resetting the life of the Church around the disciplines of evangelism and setting the disciplines of evangelism again at the core of the life of the church. It’s a journey we’ve been on for a generation but it’s not yet complete.

Evangelism has suffered as a word in recent years. It is easily dismissed and caricatured and mocked. But only a church which recovers these deep disciplines will flourish in the coming years.

Evangelism or evangelisation is not a single thing. The Church cannot flourish with a thin, emaciated concept of what it means to tell the Good News.

There are at least seven disciplines of evangelism, as I see them. Evangelism is rooted first in contemplation, in prayer and worship, in catching a fresh vision of Christ in word and sacrament and stillness. It is only as our own lives are transformed by the love of God that we will want to share Jesus with others. Evangelism is second rooted in our actions and our lives: in living out the gospel, in incarnational mission. Local churches are centres of service and support to their local communities because we want to love our neighbours as ourselves and this is the beginning of our witness to Jesus.

Evangelism is third rooted in apologetics, defending and commending the Christian faith through reason, argument and persuasion, through identifying and removing objections to belief. Is there a conflict between faith and science? How can we understand a God of love in a world of suffering?

The fourth discipline is personal witness and initial proclamation: finding ways to tell the Christian story to our neighbours, as will happen in powerful ways this Christmas time, and also finding ways to let people know what that story means. It has been wisely said that her late majesty, the Queen, was one of the very best evangelists in the Church. In her Christmas message year by year the Queen told the story for faith but also said what it meant to her. How will those around us encounter the love of God which so transforms our lives in this coming season.

The fifth discipline is teaching the faith to enquirers and new believers, those preparing for baptism and confirmation – a traditional discipline in the season of Lent. The Church calls this discipline catechesis: helping new believers discover and live in Jesus through community and love and scripture and prayer.

The sixth is building those new believers into the community of the Church so that they grow and mature in their discipleship and find their own calling before God. The seventh is to go out beyond our existing congregations to those unable to connect with the life of the Church and begin new Christian communities, new congregations for those who may be out of reach of our traditional church and to do all of this in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I thank God for the ministry of St Andrews across this 900 years and especially in the years I have known it. The census information yesterday was indeed a significant moment – but one we can see as a challenge: to deepen our practices in these seven disciplines and set the telling of the good news more and more at the heart of our common life.

Follow me, says Jesus, and I will make you fish for people.

 

+Steven
29 November 2022

Notes

/by
Steven Croft

St Mary’s Banbury Festival 200

A Sermon for the Civic Service of Thanksgiving marking the end of St Mary’s Festival 200.

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/by
Steven Croft

May Elizabeth our Queen rest in peace and rise in glory

A Sermon for the Service of Memorial and Thanksgiving for the late Queen Elizabeth.

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/by
Steven Croft

Wisdom and Humility

The Queen has founded her life of service on humility and on wisdom. Long may she reign. God save the Queen.

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/by
Steven Croft

Sermon from Christ Church

Sermon from Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, preached by the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, Bishop of Oxford, at Holy Communion on the 6th of February 2022.

But by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me has not been in vain (I Corinthians 15.30).

A reluctant prophet and poet. A persecutor of the church. An impetuous fisherman. Today’s readings profile the kind of people who are called by God to service in the life of the Church. The profiles stress neither their gifts nor skills. No-one is placed on a pedestal or called a saint. Rather each, in their own words and from their own mouth, confess their guilt, their inadequacy, their weakness.

We know very little of the prophet Isaiah before his encounter with the holiness of God in the temple in the year that King Uzziah died. We discover only a little about him from the beautiful narrative of his call except this. That when he is granted a vision of power and beauty, of God, Isaiah is overcome with a sense of the holiness and majesty of God and of his own inadequacy.

“Woe is me” he cries, “I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6.5).

The prophet’s confession is personal. He speaks about himself before he speaks of others. I am a man of unclean lips.

Paul’s pathway in ministry is not to claim great things for himself but the very opposite. Paul points away from himself and towards Christ. Where Paul does refers to himself, he confesses his weakness and the wrong turns his life has taken.

“For I am the least of the apostles”, he writes, “unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. But it is by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me has not been in vain”.

Paul’s persecution of the Church of God was not a light thing. Some of it is described in Acts. There is no doubt that Christians were arrested, imprisoned and put to death by Saul before his conversion.

Simon Peter’s encounter with Christ in the boat on Lake Galilee is similar to Isaiah’s in this one sense only. There is no temple, no vision of angels, no heavenly choir, no incense. Just tiredness after a night’s fishing and wonder at a miraculous catch. But Simon Peter’s response echoes that of Isaiah 6: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”.

Encountering the goodness and the greatness and the love of God in Christ shows us all up for who we are. Our hearts are unclean. Our hands are unprepared. We are not fit even to eat the crumbs from under his table. And yet…..

I want to acknowledge this morning the deep pain which surrounds the disputes of recent years in Christ Church which affects many people and which cries out for healing and for grace. This is not the moment and this pulpit is not the place to offer any kind of commentary on events save this: that many who take very different views of the situation will have some sense of being disappointed in others for one reason or another. Those feelings are deep and real and there is a long road of reconciliation and healing ahead.

Disappointment in others is a feature of many parts of public life at present. It’s not wrong to have high expectations of those in positions of responsibility. But we will often be disappointed particularly in an age of 24/7 news and social media. It is a remarkable thing that our beloved Queen has reigned for 70 years today and retains her dignity, respect and integrity, one of the most remarkable women of this century and the last. Long may she reign.

But what should we do when we find ourselves in that place of disappointment and disillusion? Nothing is the work of a moment, but it may help to begin with Isaiah and Paul and Peter and their own sense of unworthiness before God in the temple, on the road to Damascus and on Galilee.

For each of us, the heart and the life we know best is our own. Over thirteen years as a bishop, I think I have seen my share of difficult situations and of human weakness, pride and fallibility as well as much that gives me cause for joy.

But insofar as I know my own heart and life, I am not able to judge others. I know that I am often stretched beyond my resources by internal and external drivers and temptations. I know my reservoirs of compassion and energies are finite. I know I yield often to vanity and temptation. I know my wisdom is limited, my prayers often weak, my faith sometimes not even a grain of mustard seed, my love faint. I know that I make mistakes and will often fall short in the ministry to which God has called me and will need to seek forgiveness.

And I know that when I find the place of Isaiah and Paul and Simon Peter and acknowledge both God’s glory and my own weakness, that is the place of grace.

It is there that I discover as they discovered that repentance is the place of forgiveness and healing, undeserved and offered because of what Jesus has done. The Lord of Hosts in the temple does not rebuke the reluctant prophet. He sends an angel with a coal to touch his lips and to restore him and commissions him to new ministry. Saul is not disqualified from serving Christ by failure: rather through his failures he discovers deeper reservoirs of grace and passion. Simon Peter admits to his inadequacy but immediately is given a commission: Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.

Each of them is enfolded in different ways in the love and grace of God. Each of them is forgiven. Each of them is called to new and deeper ministries. These are the ways in which God moves in human lives.

And it is in the same place of weakness, as I understand I am forgiven, that I will find the courage and the ability, in time, also to forgive and to trust again and to love. The journey is seldom short or easy but it is a path of life and healing.

Christ invites us in this Eucharist and every Eucharist to come to him just as we are with all of our inner conflicts and disappointments. His love is infinite, beyond understanding. We will hear again in this service the song of the seraphs: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.

The president will issue the invitation to all of us to come:

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
Blessed are those who are called to his supper.

And we will respond, echoing Isaiah and Paul and Simon Peter:

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you
But only say the word and I shall be healed.

So let us come.

Today’s collect again as we pray together:

O God, you know us to be set
in the midst of so many and great dangers,
that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright:
grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers
and carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

 

+Steven Oxford
6 February 2022

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/by
Steven Croft

He set a child in the midst of them

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus sets a child in the midst of his disciples and invites them to reshape their priorities. What would happen if we did that today in the public square?

It was good to be at St. Michael at the Northgate on Sunday for the Patronal Festival and to mark 50 years since St. Michael’s became the civic Church of the City of Oxford. The service was attended by the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Mayor of Oxford and members of the Council. The Bible Readings for Michaelmas were Revelation 12.7-12 and Matthew 18.1-11.

A sermon given by the Bishop of Oxford on Sunday 26 September 2021:

It’s very good to mark today the 50 years in which St. Michael at the Northgate has been the civic Church of the city of Oxford. It is good to express thanks and appreciation to those who have served as City Rectors in that time, including Anthony, and to all those who have served and serve as Mayors, Councillors and officers. Thank you for your leadership and care and especially in the challenges of the last twenty months.

St Michael’s became the City Church in 1971. We are looking back today over fifty years. By coincidence the new ITV series of Endeavour, the Inspector Morse prequel, is also set in 1971: a good reminder of some of the changes over the last two generations. The line that stays with me from last Sunday’s episode is the taxi driver charging 75 new pence for a ride from the station to Summertown.

There have been many changes over that time. Our first reading from Revelation uses the language of war in heaven and describes the conflict between good and evil as a battle.

As we look back we can see that battles have indeed been fought and won. Our city is more inclusive. Town and gown are better integrated, each more appreciative of the other.

Oxford is described by its poorest residents as a compassionate city; a place of safety for the most vulnerable. Women are better represented in our leadership. The church and faith communities work well together. The city has been able to welcome and to integrate into its life migrants from all over the world and to celebrate diverse cultures.

Year by year we welcome students, academics and scientists and help equip them for global leadership in the arts, the sciences and the social sciences. The influence of our city extends across the world.

St. Michael and all Angels is part of this social fabric in its role as a city church: as a place of prayer and worship; in the role of the City Rector as chaplain to the Mayor and Council; as a symbol of our City’s deep Christian heritage; as a witness to the Christian values of integrity, service, humility and safeguarding the vulnerable which flow through our gospel reading.

The Church, of course, makes no claim to perfection: we are often slow to change ourselves; we continually fall far short of our ideals; we are sometimes on the wrong side in these great battles. We are called continually to repentance and to renew our commitment to Jesus Christ ourselves as the only safe foundation of our message to those around us.

Greatness in the kingdom of heaven does not lie, Jesus reminds us, with politicians or religious leaders but with little children. Both politicians and religious leaders will be judged by the ways in which the interests of those children have first place in our decision making and in our actions.

Anniversaries are a good moment to look back and measure the journey we have travelled together. But they are also a moment to look forward. What are our hopes for this city as we look ahead now to another fifty years: to the year 2071. What battles lie ahead in the great war being fought in heaven and on earth? What will the Church dare say to the City in this next, uncertain chapter of our life together?

To put the question a different way: if Jesus were to place a child in our midst this morning here in Oxford in 2021, what battles would be uppermost in our minds as we look to safeguard the well-being of that child through the next generation? What needs to change?

Three are uppermost in my mind. I will be interested to know if they match your own.

The first is undoubtedly the battle being fought over the earth’s climate. The world faces twin emergencies of climate change and biodiversity loss. Science tells us clearly that the next ten years will be decisive in that battle and will determine the future of life on earth. Will the child Jesus sets in our midst inherit a world in which all can flourish?

For Christians, we are stewards of God’s good creation. How can our city make a significant, world changing contribution to this great challenge of our age through our policies and example and convening power and the priorities we set? How can this City Church lift up and support the green agenda as part of our God given mission to the city?

The second challenge faced by the child Jesus sets in our midst is one of health and safety and especially mental, emotional and spiritual health. A child or young person growing up today will face immense pressures, many arising from the misuse and exploitation of technology.

COVID has revealed a tidal wave of mental health pressures on the young which has been building for decades. How can our city increase resources directed to the mental, emotional and spiritual health of the young through harnessing the churches and faith communities, the third sector and the health and social services? There is a battle here for investment and of priorities. How can this City Church be an advocate for children and young people as we imagine the child Jesus sets in our midst?

My third challenge for the next generation is the challenge of rising inequality: the gap between rich and poor which again has been revealed and has increased through COVID. Oxford as a city is a tremendous generator of wealth and innovation. The City anchors and will help drive the Oxford-Cambridge arc which will be an engine of the UK economy in the coming decades.

But we are also in danger of becoming a segmented city in which the gap between rich and poor grows wider to the detriment of all. How is it possible for us to become a fairer city in terms of access, health, transport, work and housing? Is it time for a fairness commission which can look at the future of our city through the lens of inequality? How can this City Church continue to set out a vision for justice and fairness for all as a core part of its role as the civic church of Oxford?

There was a war in heaven, says Revelation. As we look back over fifty years we give thanks for battles fought and won and for the role this Church has played in the civic life of this great city. We give thanks for all those who contribute to that civic life today.

But as we look forward we know that there are battles still to come and great resources to meet them both seen and unseen. Christ sets in our midst a little child and challenges our priorities for the future. Together as a city we are called to have a vision for a greener, more sustainable world; for a healthier world; for a fairer world.

We commit ourselves, imperfect as we are, to these great challenges. In this Church dedicated to St. Michael, we too, every single one of us, are called to fight on the side of the angels.

/by