How would you go about calculating the value of a human life? How about the value of your life? That's a hard question to answer. We all assume that we're valuable, but are you valuable because of how much money you make or what you contribute to society through your job? Are you valuable because of how many people consider you a friend? Are you valuable because you have a family? The question makes us feel uncomfortable and the answer's even more, because if our worth is calculable in those ways, we could easily find ourselves worth not very much. Money, jobs, friends, even family can come and go.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains you are worthy. You are valuable, not because of what you do, or how much money you make, or who loves you, or what relationships you have. In fact, your worthiness, your value is totally out of your hands, just like the worthiness of the person sat next to you.

For you and for them and for all people everywhere, Jesus has looked at you in your totality and decided that you are worth his life. How you respond is up to you.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? These words echo through Good Friday. They're raw, violent, terrible.

They're the silence which follows a question everyone was too afraid to ask. The heartbreak of a child crying in fear and pain. The wailing of a bereaved parent.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains the events that occurred in the lead up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and that those who followed him until this day and through all days would be able to know the fullness of joy of being in the presence of the Father, led by Jesus the Son, empowered by the Spirit. In the hope that overcame his fear, our fear was saved. His fear gave way to the surety of the life of the Trinity, the goodness of the Father, the power of the Spirit.

In him our fear gives way to him. He who has gone before us has proven himself our good shepherd. And now, even when our path leads through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, because his rod and his staff will guide us where he has already gone.

We are sure that goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Thanks be to Jesus that he was afraid for us.

Yet when they made beings in the universe who could choose to reciprocate that love, those beings chose not to. We humans chose and continue to choose selfishness more than love, power more than generosity, riches more than contentment, the ability to dominate more than the ability to serve. Of course it would be easy to lay these traits at the doors of people like President Trump but truthfully they lie within all of us.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters invites each of us to love one another as Jesus has loved us. This is to dedicate ourselves to love so much that we have to share it. We have to share it with people who don't understand it, don't appreciate us, don't thank us for it, even hate us for it, but who need it just like we do. This Maundy Thursday as we prepare to walk with Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death, knowing that he goes in our stead, may we ask for his grace to love as he loved, to love so abundantly that kings and emperors are shamed by it.

I regard everything as loss, because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I

may gain Christ. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters invites each of us to ask ourselves the all important question as we approach Holy Week. How do you give urgently as part of this community? What gifts do you give so that this body can worship at all times and in all places as it is called to do? How do you work so that other people can live their lives just as they work so that you can live yours? Because together we give the most costly thing we have.

Together we spread the message to the ends of the earth.

Together we are St. Paul. Together we are Mary of Bethany. Together we worship God Almighty

always and everywhere as urgently as he requires.

There are a few days in the year which are a joy to very many people but a challenge to some.

Christmas especially can be difficult after the loss of a loved one and it can feel very lonely.

Valentine's Day for those who yearn for a relationship but haven't found their right person can

be likewise.

Mothering Sunday also very much falls within this category. For many, Mother's Day, as it's

called outside this building, is a lovely day. It's a day of flowers and cards and cake and a very

early morning if you're in the rectory.

Today isn't Mother's Day at St John the Baptist. It's Mothering Sunday, as Laurie told me when

he looked at the cards I produced for the children and got very grumpy at me about the fact

that they said Mother's Day. The words Mother's Day and Mothering Sunday might sound

familiar but the meanings definitely aren't.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains that every person in this room is called to be a spiritual mother, to love as Christ the mother hen has loved us, just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another.

As a Christian, as well as as a priest, it has been my experience that one of the biggest barriers to people coming to faith, or even exploring relationship with the church, is the fear that they aren't and can't be good enough. People who don't have much familiarity with Christianity often assume that Christians live by some impossibly high moral standard, one that they expect not just of themselves but of everyone else. I've lost count, for example, of the number of times I've gone into the local pub in my dog collar only to be asked if I'm even allowed to be in there and whether I'm allowed to drink alcohol.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains that Paul was no stranger to sin. Before he came to Christ, he was a violent man persecuting the foundling church. It was he that stood by holding the coats as the crowd lynched St Stephen.

He knew that he was sinful. St Paul knew that he was saved by grace. He knew that he owed everything to Jesus because Jesus forgave him.

And so he knew that the Christian community was and still is full of people who make mistakes and need forgiveness. He, as he called himself, the chief amongst sinners, led a community of sinners forgiven. St Paul also knew that following Jesus meant being transformed.

He knew that Jesus wasn't harshly judgmental but nor did he ignore sin. He called people to repentance. Repentance, that Greek word metanoia, which means not saying sorry but turning around and going in the opposite direction, embracing a new kind of life.

Christianity is not about adhering to some impossible moral standard and holding everyone else to that same impossible moral standard. It's about accepting that none of us are worthy, but we are loved, and that love changes us into worthiness. And so, as we travel through this season of Lent, ask yourself, am I one of those people that is guilty of making the church an impossible place to be? Where in my life am I lifting others up? Where am I tearing them down? Am I helping others to grow in faith, or am I standing in the way of their transformation, perhaps even without realising it? Where am I holding myself to an impossible moral standard? Where am I expecting it of others? Where am I shaped by God's love? Where am I sharing that love? St. Paul's transformation reminds us that no one is beyond God's reach.

There can be something greatly troubling about the reality of the human heart. Human beings are, of course, capable of love, justice, and acts of great self-sacrifice. And yet there seems to remain within us a deep-seated inclination to turn away from the path of life and flourishing that God has set before us.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains how in scripture the Israelites in the wilderness had seen firsthand the miraculous works of God. They had seen the plagues.

The question this Lent is, will we allow him to do his work within us? Will we admit that we do create idols all the time of power or of wealth or of self-will? And will we submit to the love which has the power to change us? Or will we hear Jesus's words of lament spoken over us as they were spoken over Jerusalem? Let us not be a people who had the chance to be healed but refused because of our stubborn hearts. This Lent, let us grasp our fresh chance to decide. Let us be gathered under his wings as a hen gathers her brood.

Will you take the path that Christ has already opened for you? Will you begin by admitting that you do sin? You have made mistakes as Adam and Eve made mistakes. Will you ask Christ to help you resist temptation because he beat temptation in the wilderness? And then will you follow the path that he laid for you? Yes, a difficult path, but one which leads to the joy of complete freedom.

Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters explains that Lent is not about misery, but rather freedom. Because although we know these temptations and although we fall to them time and again, in fact, they have already been beaten in Jesus. And Lent is our opportunity to realise the victory, to realise the freedom that is already ours in him.

The practices of Lent aren't rules for their own sake. They are a path into the joyous freedom that Jesus won in the wilderness, into relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.