Candlemas – rooted in prayer and worship. Sermon for Adel Parish Church, Jan 30th 2022

Candlemas – rooted in prayer and worship. A sermon for Adel Parish Church, Jan 30th 2022.

Luke 2: 22 – 40

I wonder what picture comes into your mind when someone mentions Nuns or monks? These days maybe ‘Call the Midwife’, but otherwise perhaps pious, probably elderly, men and women who spend their time praying – and have little connection to real life.

In November I went for two nights with my college prayer group to Sneaton Castle in Whitby, home to the nuns of the Order of the Holy Paraclete. The only other guest was a journalist looking at the convent way of life and its relevance today…she asked us for our opinions.

We’re all clergy. Exhausted by the continuing challenges of covid, on top of normal parish life, we spoke of the joy of going to a place where there’s a constant cycle of prayer. Of being able just to slip into that, be held by it. But also of being reminded that we, and the world we worry over and struggle with is held daily before God…even when we don’t find the time to do this.

Pre-covid, I went each year to Fairacres convent in Oxford for a personal retreat. I found the same river of prayer that swept me along with it. But I also found wise women with whom to explore the worries and challenges of my life. In my limited experience, nuns are steeped through and through with the problems of the world.

Their life often involves working with the forgotten of society – in prisons, in schools on deprived estates, in developing countries. But even when they retire from active physical engagement – all that time spent in prayer, with God, means they have a perceptive and detailed picture of the world’s problems, and God’s actions in the world. And you know that what’s shared in the convent stays in the convent!

Today is Candlemas, the day the baby Jesus was brought into the Temple to be presented, offered, to God. It’s also a story of the importance of prayer – of waiting on God.

To most of the people in the Temple that morning, this was just another poor couple celebrating the safe arrival of a baby…no different to hundreds of others. But two people, Simeon and Anna, saw in that baby God’s promise of salvation.

Simeon was ‘guided by the Holy Spirit’ to be there that day. We’re told he was ‘devout’, I suspect that means he spent enough time in the Temple, with God, to recognise the Holy Spirit’s guidance when it came.

Anna was an elderly prophet. She never left the Temple – but spent her time worshipping there day and night. She too recognised God’s work when she saw it.

I feel very much that the religious life has a place in today’s world…the existence of people focused on prayer and worship somehow supports us as we seek to follow Christ here. It also serves as a reminder that the Christian faith starts and ends in worship.

It’s by spending time in prayer, song, silence, with Jesus that we give him chance to speak into our lives. Spending time with God in worship means that, like Simeon and Anna, we’re more likely to recognise his voice amongst the everyday.

People often talk about how it’s possible to be a Christian without belonging to a church. It is of course – but I know I couldn’t do it. For most of us, being part of a worshipping community is how we gradually root our lives in Christ.

Today is Candlemas – there’s a lovely Candlemas tradition of the people bringing their candles for the rest of the year into church to be blessed. This was in the days when candles were the only lights they had. So this meant bringing the thing that enabled them to see, that guided their lives, into church to be part of their worship. A reminder that time spent in church in worship is part of our everyday life. We may still have ‘Sunday best’ clothes, but we don’t need ‘Sunday best’ selves – everything can be brought to God in worship.

But of course, once the candles were blessed, they were taken home to be used. Some were kept for times of special need – Candlemas candles were lit in times of anxiety, when people were ill, to light the final journey of the dying. But others were used to light mundane everyday tasks.

We have a different relationship with candles today, but the tradition has something to teach us…that we need to bring ourselves, our whole lives into this place of worship, and we need to do it whenever we can. We need regular time with God, and God’s blessing if we’re to live as Christians in our increasingly complex world.

And having received God’s blessing – we don’t leave it here, but take it back into every part of our lives. If we let him, Jesus will light our anxious moments, our illnesses, our death beds. But even more – he will light our everyday lives, our family relationships, our jobs, our leisure…and they will be better for it.

There are two things I’d like to end with.

If you have the chance, think about going ‘on retreat’; and perhaps think about finding a religious house to visit. I’m going to Sneaton on my own for part of next week – to spend time with God. It’s a wonderful way to regain perspective, to allow yourself to be ‘guided by the Holy Spirit’.

And for the rest of our year, or if a retreat’s not possible at the moment, let’s remember those Candlemas candles. Let’s bring our lives – joys, sorrows, decisions, anxieties and all – into church in worship as often as we can. And then let’s take that worship out into the rest of our week – to sustain us and light our way.

Candlemas is a time when we turn from the crib to the cross. We can do that because, like Simeon and Anna, we find in Jesus the light and salvation that makes sense of life.

‘…and they left for their own country by a different road…’ changed by the encounter? Sermon for Epiphany – Adel Parish church

Matthew 2: 1 – 12

‘…they left for their own country by another road.’

And so they leave our story, those 3 wise men, kings, magi, magicians…12 verses in Matthew’s gospel the only evidence we have of their existence. But those few words hold so much possibility, so many unanswered questions.

By another road…on the face of it, just a way of avoiding awkward questions from King Herod…but was that other road shorter or longer? Did it take them on familiar paths or through uncharted, perilous lands? Or was this ‘other road’ more about the way they travelled, how they interacted with those they met, was it more about the people they’d become?

Their meeting with the holy family lasts 2 verses in Matthew’s gospel…how long did its effects last, I wonder?

‘When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy’…not relief that the journey was finally over, but joy. Somehow, I think, they knew they were on holy ground.

On seeing the child Jesus, they knelt. I don’t suppose they understood; how could they, all they saw was a baby. But somehow, they knew.

I don’t know what they knew…perhaps their response tells us something. ‘Opening their treasure chests, they offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh’. These gifts have since the 4^th century been given a significance as part of Jesus’ story…gold for a king, frankincense for our God, and myrrh, used for embalming bodies, said to foreshadow Christ’s death.

But what if the wisemen knew only what the verses in Matthew suggest? What if they didn’t know the rest of Christ’s story. What if they were seekers, led by a star, but also, just by the feeling there was more to life than what they had? Their wisdom told them a new king was born – I suppose they expected a grand palace, but the apparently ordinary baby they found filled them with joy, and with awe.

What they knew I don’t know – but it prompted them to kneel and open their treasure chests. Strange gifts they offered – but maybe they tell us more about the magi than about Jesus. Maybe this encounter made them re-examine their own lives, consider what needed leaving at Jesus’ feet so they could become their true selves.

Gold, represented their economic interests, their security…perhaps gained by demanding money in return for wisdom, prophecy, knowledge. Perhaps it usually remained locked in those treasure chests, given only in order to gain power or reputation.

Frankincense may have been part of their magic show, preserving a sense of mystery and power, helping them reinforce their own importance.

Myrrh is used to preserve dead bodies. It keeps things as they are. The magi had a good life, they’d grown rich and important on it. Maybe they’d carefully preserved it – and didn’t want new and strange life breaking out and bringing change.

Then suddenly, in an ordinary, humble house, they’re filled with joy, and find themselves kneeling before a baby. And as with every encounter with Christ – they are changed: fearfully, wonderfully and uncomfortably changed.

And then perhaps they’re ashamed of their locked treasure chests. Perhaps they resolve to hold less tightly to their wealth; perhaps they’re less comfortable with the ways it’s been gained.

Perhaps they’re moved to lay down the incense behind which they’ve hidden their true selves – ready to face God and the world as they really are.

Perhaps they feel the new life of Jesus breaking into their carefully preserved lives, scaring, challenging, changing their way of viewing the world…and decide to accept the challenge…and lay down the myrrh.

‘…they left for their own country by a different road…’

I wonder, did that road involve sharing their wealth and knowledge with those they met? Did it involve no longer holding themselves aloof, preserving an air of mystery…but sharing the hopes and fears brought about by that encounter?

I’d like to think so. They knelt at the crib; they encountered their incarnate God…Epiphany we call it – a moment of great realisation…hard to imagine they were not changed.

As we kneel at the crib with those mysterious strangers who come so briefly into the gospel story…we too should be prompted to open our treasure chests. What do we keep in there, locked out of sight? What is it that we should leave at Jesus’ feet?

Gold for us too represents home, job, security, safety…perhaps the awareness that we hold it too tightly for our own good…perhaps the knowledge that its hold on us makes us less generous, less tolerant.

Incense is traditionally a sign of prayers going up to heaven. We don’t use it here, but we have plenty of other ‘props’ to help us worship. They can be wonderful and holy, but are we ready, if necessary, to lay them down in order to encounter the living God in new ways?

Or are we resisting the new life offered by Jesus, by preserving our faults and sins in myrrh; keeping the dead bits of our lives because we’re scared of the transformation we’re offered?

Epiphany! The baby in the manger is revealed afresh as the Christ, the Word made flesh who comes and dwells among us. If we glimpse what God is doing in that manger, we too will be changed. We will open our treasure chests.

As we begin 2022, what is there in our lives that needs to be left at the crib? What transformations are waiting to take place? What encounters will the Christ child lead us to if we let him?

‘And they left by another road.’