Southwark Cathedral: Chrism Eucharist Maundy Thursday 2025
Isaiah 61. 1-9; James 5. 13-16; Luke 4. 16-21
My beloved brothers and sisters, it is a joy to gather together for the Chrism Eucharist in which we shall renew our commitment to the various ministries to which we have been called, and shall receive the Holy Oils which the Church provides for the ministries of anointing. Following my injuries at the end of September I was anointed twice in close order, first by my chaplain in the middle of the night and several days later, on the eve of the surgery, by the chaplain at King’s College Hospital. The combination of the oil for the sick and a brilliant surgical team seems to have done their work quite effectively, and I remain immensely grateful for the great wave of prayer throughout the Diocese which sustained me during my convalescence and recovery.
Last year, I was here with two of my episcopal colleagues: Bishop Rosemarie and Bishop Martin. This year, we are joined by Bishop Alastair and we give thanks that he continues to serve the Woolwich Area, now in episcopal orders. The more observant will notice that this year the Bishops are renewing their commitment to ministry first, and will also join with the priests, who will then together join with the deacons, so that we all recall that the Diaconate is the bedrock of ministry.
A Diocese the size of Southwark is subject to a certain inevitable churn, which means that colleagues move on to new roles, or retire, and also that new colleagues arrive in their stead. I give thanks for those who have served God in this Diocese faithfully over so many years. And I give thanks, too, for those who have come into the Diocese to take up the baton. God is gracious and provides for his people. As I look from the pulpit today, I see in your presence the answer to the prayer of the Embertide collect: ‘inspire by your Holy Spirit the hearts of many to offer themselves for the ministry of your Church, that, strengthened by his power, they may work for the increase of your kingdom and set forward the eternal praise of your name’. For this, I give my personal and heartfelt thanks.
It is a source of great joy and thanksgiving that this year all Christians of the Eastern and Western Churches will be celebrating Easter on the same day. It is particularly fitting and providential that this is happening in the same year that we celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Of course, one of the main objectives of those who gathered together in Nicaea under the patronage of the Emperor Constantine was to state definitively that God the Son is in no way subordinate to God the Father.
A creed recited and owned universally, visibly joins us in the proclamation of our common faith and nourishes the soul. When we pray the Nicene Creed, as refined by subsequent Councils, we honour the God who acts and reveals himself to us in Three Persons. It enlarges our understanding and banishes misconception and misunderstanding by distilling a remarkable amount of doctrine and biblical narrative in a succinct selection of phrases – in a form that is easily recited and committed to memory. It is the place of unity where we walk in the ready expectation that all who do likewise make the same profession of faith. Saying the Nicene Creed, especially when our parish communities of faith gather together Sunday by Sunday, is not an optional extra. Rather it is the credo of our life together in Christ.
My brothers and sisters, let us pray earnestly for the full unity of the Church, East and West, and for our own small contribution to unity of the universal Church as the Church of England which has retained its Catholic heritage but is also Reformed. It is as we continue to discover a very long road to full unity. But it is an irreversible journey in obedience to Our Lord’s desire that we should all be one, and a very good next step would be to agree a common and universal date for Easter.
In our Gospel today, Jesus declares that the prophecy made by Isaiah is fulfilled. ‘Today,’ he says to those worshipping at the synagogue, ‘this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4.21). Our Lord himself was the fulfilment of that prophecy, not another. He is the one who comes to bring good news and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour: Jesus, the gift of God to a needy world, the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the source of our liberation, freedom, and healing.
The grace of Holy Orders draws its life and energy from participation in Christ’s own ministry. And that means we must make a gift of ourselves after the pattern of Christ to the parishes, institutions, and contexts we are called to serve. I have said before that the parish is the bedrock of the Church of England and we celebrate this above all else in the Diocese of Southwark, each parish being in its own particular way a school of Christ. Chaplaincies and other specialist ministries are essential to enhance our outreach – but parishes endure in a distinctive way. They are places of stability where the sacraments are administered, where pastoral care is offered. They are a focal point for community where we are taught the Faith, learning to be Christ centred and outward focused. Of course, in chaplaincies as much as in parishes, none of this can happen without faithful clergy making a gift of their lives to those they serve.
On Passion Sunday we heard the story of Jesus’s anointing at Bethany by Mary – in the presence of her sister Martha, Lazarus her brother, and Judas Iscariot. This extravagant gift, given freely and from love, touched Jesus deeply as his feet were covered with costly ointment and then wiped with Mary’s hair. But yet its extravagance – or more precisely, the depth of love signified by it – are not accepted by one member of the party: Judas Iscariot – a man who is not at peace with himself and so cannot allow good to happen to others.
As we watch the scene unfold, we see the gift given freely and received in complete freedom, for Jesus was the only person who was ever completely free. Jesus understands the gift’s significance in the order of love, and what it foreshadows in the order of salvation. He is not embarrassed by it nor is he indebted to it – freedom ensures this. So it is significant that Jesus tells Judas to leave Mary alone (John 12.7). That is, ‘let her be free’ – free of your assumptions and prejudice, free to make her offering to God and free to fulfil her particular vocation. We know well there is no one road to holiness. God gives each of us what we need in the particular condition of our need: in our home life and in our working life, in our parishes and chaplaincies, in every other place he puts us – and we are called to holiness where we are. Martha had her vocation and Mary had hers. Each complements the other and makes space for us to perceive God‘s action in the world.
I recently had the great joy of accompanying a sizeable group of our curates to the Seven Churches of Revelation. If circumstances had been different, we may well have journeyed to the Holy Land. As it was we were greatly blessed in this pilgrimage by the opportunities it gave us for fellowship and for reflecting on and praying the Scriptures in their geographical and historical context. I must confess that I had previously focused almost entirely on the Church in Laodicea, my greatest fear being that the Church of England might be perceived as being neither hot nor cold. Anglicanism can indeed for some be dismissed as a rather lukewarm endeavour – at least when it is not arguing internally with itself, when as we know things hot up considerably! I encourage those who deride the Church in this way to come and see for themselves all that is happening so wonderfully in our parishes. That apart, I have to say I came home with a different focus. As our happy band of pilgrims saw for ourselves, peeling off the layers of history and walking round the surviving monuments, temples and pillars of those seven cities, the overwhelming odds which our early Christian forebears faced – small numbers, persecution, majestic imperial power – we came to realise that their only strength was the strength of faith. And this is why the words to the Church at Ephesus should resonate so powerfully as we face different challenges today: ‘I have this against you,’ says Jesus to the Church at Ephesus in Revelation, ‘that you have abandoned the love you had at first’ (Revelation 2.4).
It is essential that we do not allow our love for God to grow cold. It is essential that we return again and again to our first love, the love of the Lord who has called us into his service. We should keep fresh in our memory the joy we first knew in forgiveness, the peace we find in discovering our divine purpose, the mercy that is ever new as we walk by faith.
My dear friends, in ministry as in life, if we withhold ourselves from God, we shall only find ourselves diminished; but if we give ourselves to God, we are by a great mystery given the gift of God’s own life in return – free, and generous, abundant and joyous. To be a gift to others in a world where the intensity of need threatens to overwhelm us, we need to give ourselves again and again to God. For the grace, wisdom and fortitude we need are not our own. None of us can carry the weight of our calling in our own strength. We need God’s anointing to make us into a gift for others. This is the movement from God to us, and then from us back to God, that makes everything possible. A gift – freely given, freely received – that integrates us, make us whole and free, that gives purpose and allows us to rejoice with others in the Good.
My brothers and sisters, let this be the message we take to heart today. Amen.
