“I’m sitting at my desk on Friday morning, looking out into the garden. I need to mow the lawn for the 3^rd time in a fortnight, having largely ignored it for the entire summer; It was brown and is now mostly green with a few brown patches. My eldest son is busy with The Duke of Edinburgh Award (rather than doing it he plans and delivers it) My middle child has just purchased his first house and we will be helping him to move in over the next few days. My youngest is about to fly off to a conference somewhere in Europe (I lose track…) All this change seems, sometimes, to be overwhelming, and now the evenings are noticeably darker, earlier, Autumn is upon us – indeed the weather forecast mentioned the possibility of frost a few days ago! What on earth has this to do with our faith?

Well, change happens to all of us and it’s not always welcome, but in truth it’s usually necessary. The seasons and their accompanying change is important, children grow up and become adults, parents, and they need to spread their wings and encounter whatever life and the world may have in store for them. We all need to be ready to encounter change and challenge as we go through our lives.

I wonder what it was like being one of “The Twelve”; you settle down into a way of being, listening to the travelling rabbi teach the “way” of Love, trying to be more like him, trying to remember that gentiles and tax-collectors are the ones that Jesus wants to spend time with, just as much as he wants to minister to the “lost sheep” of Israel. We have heard about how Jesus “had compassion” because they were like sheep without a shepherd” and I wonder how the disciples felt, when Jesus gave them a new challenge – to go out into the surrounding towns and villages and heal the sick and cast out demons in His name. “That’s new; how on earth are we going to manage to do that?” (I’m sure they asked themselves) And yet they did manage it! There is no challenge that Jesus’ way of love will put to us, that we can’t handle, however difficult it may seem.

What is the biggest challenge? Is it “love God”? surely not! We love God simply by praying and thereby being in relationship with God. Is it Love your neighbour? Well, we pray into that, we give charitably, we donate our time or talents or both to community-facing projects (Remember, Church is one very big community project!) We often reach out to strangers and offer a welcome or a smile. Is it to love ourselves?

Well I wonder if the disciples felt loved? They knew that Jesus would go in search of a lost sheep, whether it was of the house of Israel, a prodigal son (a black sheep), a bleeding woman, a Roman Centurion’s slave, and in this modern age, as then, all the outcast and marginalised, The rainbow sheep, the struggling sheep, the searching sheep. But they (the Twelve) were there and being constantly challenged by their travelling Rabbi): – “You of little faith”, “Could you not stay awake just 1 hour?”, “You will deny me”. In the Gospels we read how they constantly misunderstand, and how they constantly under-estimate the power of love. We – As Christians – must learn to love ourselves (warts and all). We are made in the very image of God, we are designed for love not hate, and we know (deep down) that we are loved by God our creator.

Jesus gives his life for the life of the world- He is “the bread of life” He gives us of himself at every service of Holy Communion. Maybe the most radical change that we are called to (apart from remembering constantly that we are loved) is to go deeper into the mystery of Holy Communion. To remember that we are indeed sharing in a mystical experience when we take the bread and wine into ourselves. The idea is that we are taking Christ into ourselves.

That is radical, and I believe that many of us need to remember that the Eucharist is the opportunity that we have – whenever we share bread and wine – to come nearer to Christ, to connect with Christ, to allow Christ to work in us. To work his way of love in our hearts and minds, and in that mystical working, to change who we are, or rather, how we see ourselves.”