Sunday 1st JulyTHE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH

Fr David Cherry

1 Chronicles 29 : 6 – 19 ; Ephesians 2 : 19 – 22 ; John  2 : 13 – 22

“But you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God”, words from the epistle this morning.

“If you only knew what God is offering” John 4 : 10

I’m told by a friend who has done an MA at Heythrop in pastoral liturgy that making anything of the offertory in the mass is now out of favour among liturgists.  I have yet to read his thesis, but so far I have gleaned that the mass is to be seen as God’s offering to us.   

This is a serious and important corrective to the thinking that what we do in our relationship with God is of prime importance.  It is important that we realise and come to a sense of what God is offering to us.  But – you can probably suspect – I am resisting an ‘either…or’ situation in this liturgical debate.

There is a religious society of sisters who took as their theme for an international conference the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman :  “If you only knew what God is offering”  (John 4 : 10)

So there is a real chicken and egg situation here.  The chicken is God the Creator at work in us, offering us ‘life in abundance’.  The egg – well the fact that without the Creator at work in me and in you we would not be breathing, speaking, listening, thinking, praying.

So all that we offer to God is in response to what God is offering to us.  In mass we offer bread and wine, what God has given us and human hands have made, so that it may be returned to us as the Body and Blood of Christ.  We offer our money for the upkeep of a real building and for the maintenance of a worshipping People – all in a response of thanksgiving – so that God may bless us more.

In the first lesson there is this tremendous sense of ‘wow’ at the wealth assembled for the building of the Temple.  And exaltation – even a sense of privilege:  David says
But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly?
And David goes on:  For all things come from thee, and of thy own have we given thee.  For we are strangers before thee…. And all this abundance for building thee a house comes from thy hand.

And our offering to God is a response of awe: that sense of ‘who am I?’ The words of the Introit to mass this morning begin with a cry of wonder: “How dreadful is this place - how awesome in this place - this is the house of God, and gate of heaven!” (Gen 28: 17)

And our offering comes from a sense of privilege, the privilege of being so wonderfully blessed by God to be in a position able to offer anything in response at all.

Now the world has changed drastically since the days when there were huge benefactions, legacies.  A hundred years ago we were building churches; now we’re conserving them or making them redundant. Gone are the days when dowagers gave jewels for chalices and endowed churches for beautiful ornaments for the glory of God.  This is now regarded as rather indulgent and there are more important needs.   There are better things to spend your money on.

The Marxist critique of religion as well as consumerism has invaded our thinking: Poor people giving generously in medieval times for the building and adornment of churches is interpreted either as manipulation by the clergy or as a superstitious giving in order to secure a place in heaven.

The mood has changed.   Archbishop Rowan Williams in his latest book, Tokens of Trust – an introduction to Christian Belief, (which I heartily recommend) speaks of how our society has become suspicious.  We don’t know who to trust.  We find ourselves suspicious of institutions, suspicious of authority, suspicious of almost anything, a suspicion which is often healthy.  But it leaves us with a feeling of:  ‘Who can one trust?’  ‘Where can I commit myself and belong?’  ‘What is true?’

It seems to me we have also become a society which is less grateful, more dissatisfied and more sure of what we’re entitled to, more sure of what we deserve.   It takes real tragedy to stop us in our tracks and – by God’s grace – very soon after, the innate goodness and compassion of human nature is revealed.  

If a culture of entitlement is growing in society at large it is not surprisingly also found among Christians.  I once amused a friend of mine who had had a similar experience, preaching in a certain church (which thankfully I can’t remember), by saying that it was like performing at an eisteddfod before connoisseurs, experts who expected to be entertained.

The basis of being a People of God, a Eucharistic People – that’s the clue – is that we are those who have received blessing upon blessing.  “If you only knew what God is offering”.  Our starting place is from a sense of thanksgiving for what has been given us. If you like, we are those living stones being built into a Temple and one of the chief ingredients of the cement is gratitude, a sense of ‘wow’, how blessed we are.  Celebrating the eucharist, our great Thanksgiving, over and over again, is meant to cultivate a sense of growing thanksgiving in us over the years.

Remember that children’s book: Heartbread.  What was my most favourite time today?  For what am I grateful?  I was once complaining about the incompetence of a colleague to a friend of mine, He shut me up by asking:  And what is he good at?
What am I grateful to St Cyprian’s for?  What am I grateful to you for?

It is from this thanksgiving we offer to God our praise and love and worship.  It is from a sense of thanksgiving we plan our giving to this church, commit ourselves to work for it to make every possible improvement.

True gratitude leads to personal responsibility, a responsibility exercised in a faith community.  

In that same book by Rowan Williams, he quotes Etty Hillessum who died in Auschwitz.  She coined a phrase: ‘taking responsibility for God’.  Etty, in those terrible circumstances discovered her vocation was to be there for God : the God in the midst of violence and pain; the God who is able to take the blame and suspicion and accusations; the God who is always Emmanuel with us, the God who is for us, for all his world.  

A new generation needs to receive from you and me a love for God and for the things of God ; to be growing in the ways of gratitude and in the rejoicing of the tradition of the church; to take responsibility for God and for his Church.   Shoppers need to become shop-keepers.

So we keep solemn festival, rejoicing, giving thanks.  We offer to God what God has given us, praying that more and more we will be generous towards God and responsible for God as living stones, in a society feeling under threat; a society ready to discover the Love that generates all goodness and compassion.  

We thank God for this Temple and pray that we and all who come here – who ever they may be - will discover, with us, themselves “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God”.  Amen