Fr Harry's Sermon – Sunday 16th January 2005

Before you're very eyes this morning you find a badly dressed priest. I possess one Alb which has a hole in the back that was patched up, due to an over-zealous person in Morcambe who washed Albs and things and was a bit too heavy with the iron. It's patched up with what looks like a bit of discarded sheet. Anyway the point is, it fits me and like this. So if anybody can cast light on my disappeared Alb I would be very very grateful.

Peace Sunday, that's what were celebrating today, and how do you celebrate peace. In our bidding prayers in a minute were going to be praying to God and asking God to open our hearts and our minds to his plan for peace. Peace for ourselves first of all, and peace for our families and church community, and then for our world.
More often than not what you here on this day is a world tour of all the black-spots where, its Palestinians and Israelis or whatever, it used to be in the Balkans, it shifts year to year doesn't it? Not unnaturally most sermons concentrate on conflict and war, but that's not the only thing when we think about peace.
In the second reading at mass Paul wishes his young church in Corinth new Christians, grace and peace, and this morning when Paul, our Paul (Kelly) read that reading, Paul (thee Paul) also wishes you and me grace and peace. What does it mean, grace and peace? Someone said that grace really is a glimpse of the God given in everything in our lives and the world around us. God-given. We have nothing that isn't God given. It's the ability to see God in that. That's what Paul is meaning when he is talking about grace, wishing them grace and peace.
The Christians in that church in Corinth were very very unlike us. They didn't meet in a vast church like this one. They didn't have a church. They only been Christians they'd received Christ into their lives about two years before. And Paul is saying to them, he's wishing them a sense of that God giftedness in everything around them. Have you ever been to Corinth? What a fantastic place, it really is. As you look north you look over the Gulf of Corinth across the mainland Greece and mountains, great mountains. As you look inland Corinth is on the Northern tip of the Peloponnesian, North tip actually. All around you are great big mountains, spectacular. And that's the background incidentally to when he says, even if we have the faith to move mountains but you lack love, waste of time. That's the background, and that's where these people lived.
Ok in Ansdell, what can we compare with that? Not a lot you say. Well, hang on, hang on, hang on. I won't claim that the view across the Ribble, even though on a fine day you can see the tip of North Wales, is a patch on the view across Morcambe Bay. Now I'm talking about my old parish aren't I. I'm not really; I'm talking about a view and what a fantastic view that is across the bay with the mountains of the Lake District all across then over to the Westland fells all over to the East, spectacular and the bay itself is quite something when the tides in. I lived there for about three years before I realized that the tide did come in twice a day. But anyway, that was my lack of knowledge of the area. So ok, what can we throw up against that here? Paul's mission of grace, perhaps that sense of God-giftedness in all things.

Well I want to let you into one of my finer moments, in fact I think my finest moment since I joined you. I was lying in bed, this was probably October, and I woke up as I usually do long before my alarm. I was lying there and the sky started to lighten up and then I heard a noise. So curious that I am, I went to my window, and it was a beautiful pink sunrise sky, fantastic. And the noise was coming from a flock of geese, in a fantastic V formation; there must have been 60 or 70 of them. And up above them were the vapour trails from not 1 but 7 airliners. Way above the sunrise there were white trails. Now that's something, something I never saw even when I went to Corinth. And my little mind started to think about that. I thought yeah, what a fantastic sight that is, the fight of geese squawking away as they go and above them these man made things above them bombing along. What a fantastic achievement that is. What's little old me doing? Where am I going? The geese know where they are going, so do the pilots I hope. Where am I going?
Ok it's not a great revelation or anything, but it's something that made a big impact on me on an occasion where I could honestly say "yeah, I can see what God has given to us". So what about Peace? What is Peace? We all seem to have an idea on peace. Someone summed it up by saying "it was the conditions in which to enjoy the wonder of things, the wonder of being alive in the first place, the wonder of life, and the wonder of love between two people who join in being co-creators with this God who gives peace. We need peace for that, to appreciate that.

One of the things that really got to me on the Tsunami disaster, were the pictures on the television. One was of a mother who saw one of her children swept out and lost, she rescued one of her children. Hardened celibate that I am I was reduced to tears. And in that image on the box was an echo of what every single person wants. A simple break, a chance to live a normal life, a life of peace. That's what Paul was wishing for the Corinthian Christians, and is wishing to you and me this morning, grace and peace. Today is really a time to take stock. What had happened in Corinth? Paul had arrived in Corinth with the risen Christ, and that's exactly how the Greeks look at it. "He'd brought the risen Jesus to Greece". The people who'd received the risen Jesus into their lives weren't wealthy people in the main. Most of them were of no account he says in his letter, but they were very much of account with God. They'd only been Christians at the very most for two or three years, upon receiving this letter from Paul. They took stock and were still taking stock today. Lining up how we live with one another in relation to everything in our lives and the world. It's a reality check in a way.

Are we really Christians in our attitudes and values? Nobody can answer that except, each individual. But just two or three quick questions to ask. If we really are Christian in our attitudes, like towards our enemies do we love them? That's what Jesus says - "Love your enemies". Do we forgive those who harm us, who hurt us, who offend us? That's what Jesus says we should do. Are we really concerned about those on the fringe, the marginalised, those who are excluded, and those who suffer? These are the questions we should be asking ourselves this morning, on Peace Sunday
We're praying in a minute for God to open our lives, for peace. We pray to be open to Gods plan of peace for ourselves, for our families, for our church community and for our world. Whatever else we do in this mass, however distracted we are, pray. Pray like you've never prayed before, for grace and peace, the very things that Paul wishes you. That we do work together, that we do create a life here in our community, where family life does flourish, where people matter and count. Where we don't put up with the marginalised, but bring them in and encourage them like the good Shepherd did. That's the attitude of Jesus. So I'll end there or I'll ramble on and on and on.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

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