Ken Howcroft: Recent Episodes
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Sermons, talks etc at Solihull Methodist Church UK; Ponte Sant'Angelo Methodist Church, Rome; and elsewhere
"Blessed are you..."
Bible readings: Psalm 46; Matthew 5:1-12
A Baptism. An Act of Remembrance on Remembrance Sunday. Communion. They are linked together in the experience of blessing. Bringing someone (in this case a child) for baptism is a sign of hope, a commitment to a future with a loving God in response to the fact that God is always with us. "All this for you" we say to the person being baptised "before you could know anything of it". On a wider canvas, the Psalm reminds us of the peace and blessing that comes to us in our daily lives, in society, in the city, in the world when we dwell with the God who is already dwelling with us. Yet when the Psalmists think of how God brings about that peace in the world, they can only do so in terms of a violent, powerful war-lord God who annihilates enemies. In the New Testament we find a deeper understanding demonstrated in the story of Jesus. Jesus is not gentle, meek and mild in the sense of being a "wimp". There is a steel in him. But he is able to absorb into himself all the violence and evil that is around him or that people pour on him, and trusts that God will create order out of chaos, and life out of it - because that is what God is like. The Beatitudes in Matthew's Gospel describe someone living in Jesus's way. They are not just saying that "things might be awful now, but will be reversed in the future". They are saying that the people who mourn, who hunger and thirst for things to be right in the world, who seek to make peace are blessed now whilst they are doing those things - and, by the way, things will be alright in the future as well. So as we remember those who have died as a result of warfare, we remember the death of Jesus; and as we gather round his table, we become one with him in his way of bringing peace, life and hope to the world around us.
Prayer, Care and Making Disciples
Bible readings: Ephesians 4:7,11-13; Mark 6:30-44
"On our disordered spirits move, and let there now be light" sang Wesley. Is this a place where we can be honest like that about what it is to be human? Some people here are finding life very hard at the moment; some in ways that we know about, and some in ways that we do not. Sometimes we come to church simply seeking to hang in there with our faith, with our lives; looking for ways of getting through the next week, the next day. How as a community do we help and support each other in all that? How does it affect the way we pray, and what we do? The gospel provides some clues. The disciples see a problem, and try to alert Jesus to it. But they are seeking to hand all responsibility over to Jesus and, in effect, demanding a miracle. Jesus, though, hands the responsibility back, calls them to become part of the solution to the problem, and then enables them to do it. He shows them that they are wrong just to see other people (the crowds in this case) as walking bundles of needs, and not notice that the same people already have God-given resources among them. By recognising those resources, offering thanksgiving to God for them, and encouraging the sharing of them, they somehow become sufficient to meet the needs.
World Church Sunday
Bible readings (including the Gospel for 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B): 1 Corinthians 1: 1-3; Mark 10:35-45
Paul send greetings to the Christians in Corinth encouraging them to grow in holiness. As part of that they have to recognise that they are connected in Christ with people in other places who call on the name of the Lord. Together with people in other places they have to become more Christ-like, seeking to serve and not to be served. What might that mean for the way, for example, we deal with the refugee or migrant "crisis"? We are part of the largest trans-national, trans-cultural organisation in the world. It is not a matter of 'us' and 'them'. In Christ we are all "us".
"Facing the darkness"
Bible readings for 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Mark 10:17-31
There have been two significant deaths recently in this community. Sometimes it feels as if we can only see death, that we are always looking at disaster, and we do not know how to cope. Sometimes it feels as if God has gone missing. Like Job we would like to be able to put our case to God, to think it out with God. That is what Job feels. But Job does not give up on God, even if he cannot sense God. If God is in the darkness, he will go into the darkness to have the conversation with God. Jesus too knew what it was like to feel that. He cries out "My God, why have you forsaken me?". In Mark's gospel we hear Jesus trying to help people make sense of all this. He wants the man who approaches him to pay attention to God rather than to himself. He wants us to pay attention to what we are holding on to instead of letting ourselves go into the darkness with God. The Christian community can be a surrogate family for people who have lost everything. We will not be released from the hard times, but carried through them.
A hard saying?
Bible reading for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): Mark 10:2-16
What are we to make of divorce? What did Jesus make of divorce? What is God's hope or intention for human relationships? What provision does God make if we fail to live up to that intention? Does it make a difference if we cease trying to put ourselves in control of everything, and if we cease being judgmental about others: and, instead, experience things like little children. That way, we might be well blessed.
"Staying salty together"
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Bible readings: Psalm 19; Mark 9:38-50
What does it mean if people who have always exercised power over us ask for our forgiveness? Is it possible to forgive people for what their predecessors did to ours? But if we cannot forgive are we not allowing ourselves to be trapped in our history and our past? Yet if we do forgive what happens to our own sense of identity which we so often define in terms of who and what we are against, and according to attitudes about others that we have inherited? Jesus told us not to ignore or prevent people from working for God's kingdom simply because they did not belong to 'our gang' or would not do what we tell them. We should be worried about our own holiness, not that of others. Otherwise we cease to be salt that seasons the world.
"Being the last of all and the servant of all"
Bible readings for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B): James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a(NRSV); Mark 9:30-37
Over the years the Troubles in Ireland have been attributed to disputes between Roman Catholics and Protestants, even when matters of faith do not seem to have been the point of dispute. More recently there slowly appears to have been progress towards living more in peace. In Italy, Pope Francis has recently asked for forgiveness for the ways in which the Roman Catholic Church has treated the Waldensians for over eight centuries. In British history, Catholics and Protestants have brutally executed each other in order to uphold their own understanding of faith. More recently we have perhaps come to see that whereas killing people for an understanding of faith is always wrong, being prepared to die for it provides a powerful witness; and we might therefore find common cause with our former 'enemies' in a shared experience and understanding of martyrdom. Why is it that people of Christian (and other faith) are able to profess a God of love, mercy, peace and unity, and still separate themselves from others, and treat them viciously and cruelly? It is an expression of the human condition which we all share (what we might call original sin). Yet if we open ourselves to the love of God shown in Christ, God is able to start to transform the mess of our lives. We may then start to become more like the little child of whom Jesus spoke, acting as the last and the servant of all. if we start to live in that way, we shall have something to offer the fractured world.
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (I Cor. 3:16)
A sermon at the Re-dedication of Solihull Methodist Church following a refurbishment of the sanctuary.
Bible readings: 1 Kings 8:22-30; Luke 4:16-21.
What a wonderful space! What a magnificent achievement! We rightly echo the words of Solomon. But like Solomon we have inherited the project from those who have gone before us. Our Church (buildings and people) is being refreshed to serve the present age. We Methodists are perhaps more comfortable thinking of ourselves as a tabernacling people than as a temple people, but we too have to resist the temptation of making the things that point us towards God more important than the God to which they point. When we worship and express our love for God we find ourselves being drawn into loving what God loves - the whole world and the people in it. Jesus said that when the Word of God about releasing people from all that oppresses them and clouds their vision was read and he was there, it became real. He is with us when we read the Word, and it must become real through us, his body in the world. So we dedicate our building and ourselves as we seek to worship and serve God in the future. We praise God for all that is past; and trust God for all that's to come.
Ken Howcroft “My Lord and my God!”. Today is a time to reflect on the significance of the great events we celebrated last Sunday. Is it easier for us to cope with the events of that first Easter than it was for those first disciples or more difficult? They must have been overwhelmed by what was happening and incredibly confused. Thomas is our link to them. He was not physically there when Jesus first appeared to the others, but he arrives at the deepest understanding of what is happening in the resurrection and of who Jesus is. John’s Gospel has Jesus speaking to Thomas but it is as if he is looking over Thomas’s head at you and me and saying “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” That is you and me. We did not physically see him before he was crucified. The resurrection appearances as recounted in the gospels came to an end with Pentecost. We meet him now but not in the same way. Blessed are you who have not seen him like Peter and Mary and the others, and yet have believed – and have started to act on that belief, sharing his self-giving love in the world. A sermon for the second Sunday of Easter. The readings were Acts 4:32-35 and John 20:19-31.
Ken Howcroft. “Christ is Risen!”. Why have we come here today? What are we looking for? If you are looking for irrefutable evidence that Jesus has been raised which will enable you to say “Oh thank goodness for that, now I know that it is true” and then enable you to walk out of this place and then live the rest of your life just like you did before, you are going to be sadly disappointed. The resurrection is not something that you can argue people into believing. The early Christians experienced it as true. The Easter message they pass on to us is a call to follow Jesus, to say the sort of thing he said and do the sort of thing he did; to be his body in the world. It is then that we shall know him. We are called not to believe 600 impossible things and strange doctrines before breakfast but to commit ourselves with all our weaknesses and failings to follow Jesus as best we can, knowing that as we do he will be with us and that he is risen indeed! A sermon for Easter Sunday, when two members of the congregation were confirmed. The readings were 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and Mark 16:1-8.
Ken Howcroft. “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord”. A sermon for Palm Sunday, the second Sunday of the Passion. Have you heard the rumours that Jesus is coming to Rome this weekend with some of his friends? How will you recognise him amongst all the tourists and pilgrims? He will not look different to the others, just like he did not look different when he rode in to Jerusalem. He came in as an ordinary pilgrim, doing what pilgrims do. There were clues there as to who and what he was, but you had to work it out for yourself. Who do we say that he is? It is as we think and pray that we shall start to recognise him. We will see the love that makes him give himself away for God and for others. We will start to feel that love that makes himself give himself away for you and me, and for others. As we gather round his table later on we have the chance to take into ourselves his life, his way of living, his way of being human and of embodying God’s love – and what we eat today we shall become tomorrow, more Christ-like in our everyday lives. The readings were Philippians 2:5-11 and Mark 11:1-11.
Ken Howcroft. “We Want to See Jesus”. Do the Pope and Fidel Castro want to meet when the Pope goes to Cuba? Intermediaries are doubtless going to and fro trying to make the link. In the Gospel reading we hear of Gentiles who are interested in God as known by the Jews at the time of Jesus, but who are not able to take part in Jewish sacrifices. They try to reach out to Jesus through intermediaries. They turn to Jesus because they begin to recognise that they can see God in Jesus and know God in Jesus, because you do not need sacrifices to be at one with God. When Jesus prevented animals being sold and money changed in the Temple, he was not saying that people were cheating but that this way of religion has come to an end. Something as dangerous radical as that was bound to take him to a cross. In a sense he is replacing any need for animal sacrifice with his own self-sacrifice in love. He becomes a new bridge-builder, a new priest if you want to think like that, between earth and heaven. It is all about love. The challenge for us as for those Gentiles in the reading is “Do you really want to know that love? Do you really want to see Jesus?” Because if you do, he is here. Amen. A Sermon for the 5th Sunday in Lent, the first Sunday of the Passion. The readings were Hebrews 5:5-10 and John 12:20-33.
Ken Howcroft. “God So Loved the World……”: readings Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21. A sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent, preached whilst the Rome Marathon was going past the door of the Church! The children of Israel were on a marathon journey through the wilderness. They were tempted to make themselves the centre of their universe and complain about God, just like the first humans had been tempted to do by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It became their downfall. They began to be bitten by snakes. But if they looked at a representation of that tempting, serpent-like inclination in their hearts and acknowledged it to God, they were able to survive. The same tendency in us means that when we encounter God’s love for us in Jesus, we try to obliterate it. But the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus show that God is able to absorb all the evil we can do to him and still go on loving. These are difficult readings, which stretch our minds and understandings to the limit and beyond. But the basic thing to hang on to is that no matter what we are like, God does not abandon us but still loves us. If we are able to acknowledge who we are, what we are like and what goes on inside us, and if we are able to offer that to God, God is able to transform us. Rather than being creation going into reverse, the world will start to go forward again.
Ken Howcroft “Taking up your Cross and Following”. What on earth can we say about what is going on in Homs in Syria? It begins to feel like a situation without hope. All we can do is hold people before God and believe that somehow God will be able to redeem the mess, and bring hope out of despair and life out of death. That takes a lot of faith. Again and again when he did not know what to do or what was going to happen, Abraham hears the call of God to step out into an unknown future. That means that you cannot know or decide in advance what God will do. We have to be prepared to go along with God no matter what happens. That is what Peter has to learn when Jesus rebukes him for tempting Jesus to be God’s son but not in God’s way. Peter has to learn that it was both through the hardship of the crucifixion and the joy of the resurrection that God brought new things, new life, to the world through Jesus and through his followers. Today let us pray that we may have the courage and the trust to put our commitment in Jesus, the same sort of trust that Abraham had in God. A sermon for the second Sunday in Lent. The readings were Romans 4.13-25 and Mark 8.31-38.
Ken Howcroft. “Transfiguration: transforming the way we see”. The story of the Transfiguration is not about Jesus changing from something he wasn’t into something else. Jesus was always filled with the glory and the love of God. What the story is about is the change in the way the disciples understand Jesus, the way they see him and recognise what God is doing through him. God says “If you want to hear me speaking, listen to him”. And the first place we hear Jesus speaking is not through some mystic new communication, but in his words recorded in the New Testament. Yet somehow we do not want to pay much attention to the words of Jesus, and we do not really want to see what God was doing in Jesus and still is doing in Jesus in the world. It is as if the social conditions, the ways of thinking of our age dim our eyes, put curtains across our understanding, says St Paul. But God has said “Let light shine out of darkness”. God therefore can light a light in our hearts, the light of the love and glory of God that you see shining in Jesus, which as you respond to it and accept it, starts to glow in your own life, in your own heart. And other people will start to hear God speaking through you, will start to feel God loving through you - and you probably won’t even know that it is happening. The Transfiguration is a transfiguration of us. May we all be committed to be followers of Jesus and start to glow with the love and the glory that we see in Christ. A Sermon for the Sunday before Lent. The readings were 2 Kings 2.1-12; Mark 9.2-9 and 2 Corinthians 4.3-6.
Ken Howcroft. “You can make me clean”. Think of the things you would not expect Jesus to do for you, because “you do not deserve them” or because “you are not good enough”. Then hear Jesus saying to you like he said to that man in the Gospel reading “I am angry that you think that I am not going to be bothered with you. I am angry at the system that has made you think like that”. And in your imagination feel Jesus touching you, and telling you that you are free, that you are holy, that you are OK. And thank God! A sermon for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (after Epiphany). The readings were 2 Kings 5:1-14, Psalm 30 and Mark 1.40-45.
Ken Howcroft. “Praying, Proclaiming and Evicting Evil”. A sermon for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (after Epiphany). When Rome has its worst snow for 25 years and grinds to a halt, and you are trying to get a guest to the airport, you have to become like the Romans, react like them and go with their flow to get anywhere. If you are not to be duplicitous, that takes integrity. Last week we heard in Mark’s Gospel how Jesus burst into Galilee with an integrity in which what he said, what he did and what he was were all of a piece. This week we hear how he sees and responds to everyone’s deep need. He comes from the synagogue into Simon’s house ready to talk and eat with his male disciples and notices that all is not well with Simon’s mother-in-law. He notices her and touches her. It is true that he does not ask her to sit and talk, but rather than healing her in order for her to resume a subservient role in the house it is more likely that he frees her from what is stopping her from doing what she wants to do to help him. Mark then gives a typical day in the ministry of Jesus in which he preaches and frees people from the problems and forces and evil that prevents them flourishing. He refuses, though, to be trapped just in one activity or one place. E takes time to pray, reflecting on what is happening, seeking guidance, looking to do God’s will. And he is driven on by the restless energy of God. It is the praying that produces the integrity. St Paul knew that. He discovers that to avoid getting trapped in old arguments that would prevent people encountering Jesus, he has to approach them within their own culture and ways of behaving as much as possible. But that takes integrity. And that takes prayer. The readings were 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 and Mark 1:29-39
Ken Howcroft. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”. Is it alright to take things from other cultures (food, statues and images, Christmas trees, festival dates etc) and make use of them as Christians? And if it is, what do we do about those people who have doubts or scruples about doing so? Paul says that we have to be true to what we believe to be true. We have to be true to ourselves and to them. That requires a sort of loving integrity. Jesus appeared in his early ministry teaching and acting with an authority that came out of the core of his being – an integrity in which what he said, what he did and what he was were all of a piece. A disturbed man recognised that integrity but was frightened of letting go and stepping forward into a life free of the things that had oppressed and restrained him from becoming his true self. Jesus’s love enable him to take that step. He offers the same to us. The readings were 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 and Mark 1.21-28.
A sermon for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by Ken Howcroft at the weekly Tuesday lunchtime eucharist at the Anglican Centre, Rome. It is published here by kind permission of The Very Revd Canon David Richardson, who is the Director of the Centre and The Archbishop of Canterbury's Representative to the Holy See. The service also commemorated St Francis de Sales. The readings were 2 Samuel 6. 12-15, 17-19;
Psalm 24. 7- end; and Mark 3. 31-end.
A sermon for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the service organised by Churches Together in Rome and hosted by Ponte Sant’Angelo Methodist Church. The preacher was Dr Donna Orsuto, a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University and Co-founder and Director of the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas, Rome. The readings were Habbakuk 3.17-19; 1 Corinthians 15.51-58; John 12.23-26.