Sermon for the 16th of November - Confirmation - Bishop Michael Colclough
Don’t blush because we’ve all done it. We’ve overheard or listened into someone’s conversation and been amused, surprised, perhaps shocked even, by what we’ve heard. My words this morning are addressed primarily to George, India Jane, Joe, Coco, Luca and William, our candidates for Baptism and Confirmation, but I invite you all to listen in, because it’s a day for all of us to think and thank God for our own Baptism and Confirmation, no matter where or when they took place.
As you are Confirmed, I will draw a cross on your head with the holy oil of Chrism. It’s the same holy oil with which King Charles was anointed at his coronation. It signifies the Holy Spirit of God being given to you as you make new commitments to God and set out as Baptised, Confirmed members of Christ’s Church.
That cross of oil also reminds you of the gift of God’s love for you and all that Jesus has done for you – in St Paul’s words, “The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me”. And, of course, that cross reminds you that you are answering the call to follow Jesus as his disciple. Today you are opening your hearts and lives to God’s love so that you can love people as Jesus did and share God’s love in your daily living. You are to be vessels, carriers of God’s precious love. A wonderful calling but quite a tall order: how do we go about it?
When we worship we are called to listen to the words read to us from the Bible, to listen attentively. Listening, expecting Jesus to speak to us through the words of scripture. Today Jesus and St Paul offer good advice about living and loving like Jesus in our daily lives. Let’s look at St Paul first.
Writing to the Christians in Colossae, an ancient city in modern day Turkey, St Paul starts off by telling us that, because we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” we must get dressed for God: “Clothe yourselves”, says St Paul. Why should you have new clothes? Because, Paul reminds us, Christians have a new identity as God's children. Yes, we are “God's chosen ones”. Special clothes are needed for special people, for you, people chosen by God.
But what are these new clothes? A warning here that they are not necessarily seen as chic along Kensington High Street. The clothes St Paul wants us to wear are: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Think about those: not headline-grabbing lifestyles but these are the very qualities and characteristics that transform us as people to help transform our communities and our world. “Have peace in your hearts”, says a holy man of Russia, “and thousands around you will be healed” (St Seraphim of Sarov). Don’t underestimate your power of influence as you live lives of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.
Another warning: these qualities commended by St Paul can have a cross shape to them and can be very costly. Like continuing to be kind to someone who is ungrateful or being humble when someone deliberately tries to put you down, or being patient with someone who seems determined to be awkward. These characteristics reveal lives that are not self-centred but Jesus-shaped lives centred on other people. And you find that knowing the love of Jesus in our hearts helps us not to be battered or beaten by other people’s lack of love.
Jesus is, of course, the key to living such lives: St Paul advises us to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”. If we live lives that are truly thankful to God then our lives will automatically have that Jesus shape, Jesus flavour, to them.
All that’s quite a challenge. How can we do it? Jesus gives us a hint and a lot of encouragement in today’s Gospel reading, verses from St John’s Gospel that have been very important in my life since I heard Jesus speak to me through them 29 years ago. I’d been invited to be the Bishop of Kensington. Rather than being flattered, I was frozen by the thought of the enormous responsibility of being a bishop compared with my own inadequacy. I thought about it, prayed hard about it, I struggled with all that I assumed I would need to face. And, in the midst of my fretting, I was given moments of encouragement, reassurance. Whenever I prayed, these words from today’s Gospel reading came into my mind and calmed my heart: “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”. Those words helped me to say “yes” to Jesus and to my new challenge. Not surprisingly, they became very precious to me. Why? - because they reminded me that for all my worries about ability and responsibility, the strength that I would need for the new tasks ahead would be given to me – so long as I remained close to Jesus. “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit”.
Today marks a new embracing of God’s love in your life, a fresh stepping out on your journey as disciples of Jesus, answering his call. You are not alone. As I lay my hands on you, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God’s love, is poured into your hearts and lives. You are not alone: you are at one with Jesus. With Jesus here at God’s altar where we meet Jesus in bread and wine that are alive with the same divine life that people recognised in Jesus 2000 years ago by the Galilaean lake and the streets of Jerusalem. The Jesus who today bids you, “Abide in my love” and promises, “I am with you always”. Amen.