Chrism Masses 2010

‘Today’, Jesus said, ‘in your very hearing this text has come true.’

Luke 4 v21

As many of you will know, before becoming Bishop of Beverley, I served happily for just over six years as Bishop of Burnley. East Lancashire is largely overshadowed by Pendle Hill, famous for its supposed witches. The locals soon gave me good advice: Bishop, if you can’t see Pendle, then it’s raining. Bishop, if you can see Pendle, then it’s about to rain. Dry days, needless to say, were rare events in East Lancashire. So it was that I was also soon given one other piece of useful advice about the weather. Bishop, whenever we get a fine day we drop all our plans and just enjoy it. Some folk just do not seem to know how to have a good time even when it is given them on a plate. I have a friend who loves to buy new clothes but seems very reluctant ever to wear them. She tells me that her new clothes are far too good ever to be worn, except for best. And, best only ever seems to come round for family funerals.

Today, Jesus said, ‘in your very hearing this text has come true.’

Jesus stands up in the synagogue at Nazareth and reads aloud that wonderful promise from the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah says that the day is near when God’s people will enjoy the year of the Lord’s favour. For Isaiah that meant that, very soon, all the constraints of being a people in exile and so unable to enjoy their old lives will be taken away. They are soon to have a way of life in which everyone will once again be at peace with each other, where there will be healing for the sick, sight for the blind and the lame once again will be able to walk. There is going to be some good news at long last for the poor. The people who have been completely broken by what they have experienced in the horrors of their lives are going to be set free from the effects of having been torn apart. To a people who were part of an occupied nation Isaiah’s promises of everything coming good in the very near future must have sounded as reassuring as any politician’s hollow promises that the economy is going to pick up just a few days after a coming election.

Yet Jesus stands up and says:

In your very hearing this text has come true.

For Saint Luke’s Gospel Jesus can make it no clearer that He is the one who makes present God’s Kingdom. Jesus is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus brings in the new age. He is the Messiah. Wherever Jesus is folk can enjoy the new age. God’s Spirit has anointed Him to tell of these things and to give people the experience of them. So it is that Saint Luke’s Gospel gives us the picture of Jesus ruling the sea and calming the storms; of Jesus, enabling the blind to see and the lame to walk; of Jesus able to forgive someone his sins and so take away every sense of brokenness and pointlessness in his life.

Today, in your very hearing, this text has come true.

That is what you and I are celebrating today. These things are true in our hearing, in our presence. Jesus lives today in His Body, the Church. Some of us will know of that great missionary bishop called Leslie Newbiggin. He served for much of his life in India where a vigorous Christian church still made up less than five per cent of the population. Bishop Newbiggin gave a great deal of thought as to why it was that the Church existed in the first place. He came up with what has in many places become a famous threefold answer. The Church is here, according to Bishop Newbiggin, to be a sign, an instrument and a foretaste of God’s kingdom. In other words the Church to which you and I belong is to stand in this world as Jesus did in the synagogue at Nazareth, revealing to anyone who will see it, that God’s kingdom is present. You and I are a real presence, wherever we gather as a church. We might gather in one of the more deprived and struggling communities of a vast city or former pit village, or in the seemingly more comfortable surroundings of a country town or pleasant suburb. We might gather as the church in a hospital or a hospice, in an airport, a prison or a school. Bishop Newbiggin reminds us that each of our communities is still a sign of the presence of Christ. And, where Jesus is God’s kingdom is present. You and I have been set aside, anointed, for that purpose.

Jesus, though, was not just present in the world of His day. Jesus also made things happen. Jesus showed God’s concern in actually telling people about the Kingdom. Jesus healed the sick. Jesus challenged the moneychangers and those who exploited their fellow human beings. He lived so much for other people that the climax of His life was to give His life for other people. If you and I are to be Christ’s hands and feet in today’s world then, following the lead of that great bishop, Leslie Newbiggin, we have also to be instruments of change. We have to become people through whom God works in order to make a difference, to make His kingdom more recognisable. It is common sense really. It is no good for you and I to rant on about injustice in the world if we opt out of supporting Christian Aid. There is little value in complaining about global warming if we are not prepared to take on governments that view pollution as a secondary problem when compared to making the largest financial gains possible here and now. Like Jesus you and I are anointed to be agents of change.

Today, in your very hearing, this text has come true.

All the talk of making change, however much for the better, is to look forward to the future. Perhaps the greatest news is that you and I can experience the new life of God’s kingdom here and now. Jesus says that it is today that you and I can experience what it is like to live in God’s kingdom. You and I are having the experience here and now. Jesus is here speaking to us here and now, not least in the words of Scripture. Jesus is here breaking down every barrier that would divide one human being from another. Here, whenever the Church gathers together to celebrate the Mass, you and I can have a foretaste of God’s kingdom here and now. Here everyone is equal in God’s kingdom. It does not matter whether we are rich or poor, black or white, male or female, ordained or lay, academically able or contributing from our learning difficulties, a long distance runner or having some physical disability. It is hard to think of any other activity in the world that breaks down barriers and unites us in one, other than the Mass. When you and I are caught up in the activity that we are celebrating today then you and I are experiencing a foretaste of what the world is destined to become. Jesus was anointed to give that foretaste of the Kingdom. We are called to be the Body of Christ in the world of today, anointed by God to be, in this very moment, the foretaste of His Kingdom.

This year, as many of us already know, is part of a very special one for my brother priests. This year is declared by Pope Benedict to be the Year of the Priests. Brother priests, this Chrism Mass reminds us all that those of us who share in the ministerial priesthood are anointed to stand in the place of Christ, ministering to His Church so that

Today in your very hearing, this text has come true.

We priests, by all we say and do, or to be more precise, through all Jesus Christ says and does through us, serve to make the encounter with Jesus deep and authentic for all to whom we minister. So it is that the Body of Christ is fed with the Body of Christ and becomes better equipped for its ministry in making the presence of Christ’s Kingdom ever more tangible for the world in which all of us are called to serve. That is the ministry to which we commit ourselves now both with excitement and in humility. And that is the ministry in which all God’s faithful gathered here today seek to support us as we all come, once again, to the Altar of the Lord who ever comes among us in this Holy Sacrament.