This is the text of the sermon preached by the Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth, former Bishop of Oxford, at the Flower Festival on 15 June. Readings for the service were: Exodus 19.2-8a, Romans 5.1-8, Matthew 9.35-10.8

The Gospel today records

The sight of the crowds moved him to pity: they were like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless. (Matthew 9.36)

And still today the plight of the world moves Christ to pity. As we know, it is a difficult time: climate change, threatened  water and food shortages, terrorism, poverty and oppression in so many countries and a financial slow down in the West. It has also been suggested, recently by the Bishop of Rochester for example, that there is now a moral vacuum in our own society which radical Islam is poised to enter.

Let us for a minute or two reflect on that claim-without moral panic and in as sober and honest a manner as we can. First, it seems to me that in the last 6o years there have been significant moral advances in certain areas. Women have more equal opportunities; we are less racist as a society and less homophobic. We are more aware of child abuse. There is less rigidity and formality and more emphasis on personal development. You could probably add to that list. Let me know afterwards what you think I have left out.

Secondly, there have been huge social changes. The time when I was brought up was one of full employment, with father out at work and mother on the whole at home looking after the children at home. Now both parents are probably working, the woman to pursue a career of her own and in order to survive financially.  So, if you take just one area, family life, women who find themselves in an oppressive marriage are not condemned to stay in it as they were fifty years ago, they can survive financially on their own. Another big change is that we are all living much longer. Until death us do part could now mean 60 years or so, and during that period we all undergo great personal  changes. Then of course, for good as well as ill, there is much more emphasis today on the importance of personal fulfillment. Those are just some of the huge social changes that have taken place in my lifetime, and again you can let me know what you think I have left out.

That being said, there is still a worry. The Nobel prize winning poet Seamus Heaney said this recently

I think we are running on an unconscious that is informed by religious values, but I think my youngster’s youngsters won’t have that.

That is a salutary thought. Until the 1960’s the Christian Faith provided a moral framework and foundation for our life together. Today it no longer permeates our society in the way it once did. So the question arises about how we should respond to this new situation. I don’t think it is very much use simply lamenting the fact, or slagging off the hedonism around us, vulgar though so much of it is. Help is given us from a surprising quarter-  in today’s first reading. There God is reported as saying to Moses

If only you will now listen to me and keep my covenant, then out of all peoples you will become my special possession; for the whole earth is mine. You will be to me a kingdom of priests, my holy nation. ( Deuteronomy 19, 5 and 6)

God is God of the whole earth and of all peoples within it. He cares for every single person and no one is without some trace of his presence. But in order to make his purpose better known he has wrestled with the history of one particular people; a people that through Jesus have been opened out to include us. We are a special possession. We are a kingdom of priests, called to be a holy people. We have, if you like, a special vocation.

Priests operate in two dimensions, horizontally and vertically. At the horizontal level they are called to enter into the experience of the community they serve, to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep; to celebrate the good and suffer with those whose lives are  blighted. Then they are called to lift all this to God in praise and pleading.

There is only one true priest, Christ himself: but he exercises his priesthood in and through his body, the church . Those who are ordained are called to share in that priesthood in an intimate way; but their task is to help the whole body, and all of us within it, share in our own special way with that eternal priesthood of Christ. For we are all called to share in it. As the text said “You will be to me a kingdom of priests.” But what does this mean in practice?

It means, first of all entering into the beauty and goodness and joy of the world, celebrating it and offering it to God in thanksgiving and praise. So on this Sunday, we have in this church some of the beauty of creation, and some of the expression of human creativity in the arranging of the flowers.

In Prayer G of Common Worship  we say

From the beginning you have created all things
And all your works echo the silent music of your praise.
In the fullness of time you made us in your image,
The crown of all creation.

You give us breath and speech, that with angels and archangels
And all the powers of heaven
We may find a voice to sing your praise.

Creation praises God in its own way, but it is a silent praise. In us creation finds a voice. We articulate both for ourselves and for the whole created order praise of the one whom St Augustine addressed as “Thou beauty most ancient and withal so fresh”.

But it is not only arrangements of flowers that we have in this church today. We have symbols of many aspects of the community around us. This too brings out a fundamental feature of our Christian life as a sharing in the priesthood of Christ. We lift the wider community to God in all its strength and weakness, its health and frailty, its goodness and sin. We give thanks to God for what is healthy and strong and good, and we plead before God for what is weak and frail and sinful. For the church does not exist for itself. Christ exercises his priesthood in and through us for humanity as a whole, for creation as a whole.

When we examine and reflect on the moral state of our society, it is impossible to say what will happen- Whether there will be a totally loss of values, whether there will be a widespread recovery of Christian faith in our society which will once again ground and inspire our moral values, or whether society will find another basis for moral values. What we can say for absolute certain, is that the wider society in which we are set will only be drawn towards the Christian faith again if they can see something special and attractive in the community of Christian believers. In a pluralistic society like ours people now find the basis of their values in many different ways. Some, like the new breed of militant atheists think that Christianity is not only untrue but immoral. We are being challenged to show that there is indeed something special,  enriching and deepening in what we stand for.

You do not of course have to be religious to have moral values. Part of what it means to be made in the image of God is that we have some capacity to discern right and wrong by virtue of our humanity. But the Christian faith grounds this in God who is good, all good, our true and everlasting good. This is a God who comes amongst us in Christ to bring us to our senses, break down all barriers of pride and motivate us to work for the well being of others. This is a God who through the Holy Spirit gives us power to overcome our innate egoism and selfishness. The Christian faith grounds, deepens and enriches our whole understanding of morality.

One of the ways in which it takes effect is through the way we share as a church and as individuals in the eternal priesthood of Christ, not just on this Sunday but all through the year, and not just in church but through our everyday activities and prayers. For we exist for the world, to let Christ through us, enter into the joy and suffering around us, and to lift them to the Father in both thanks and pleading.

When people walk or drive down Mortlake High Street and see the tower, what do they think? Do they associate it with a community that is giving thanks for them, which is praying for them and which in different ways exists for them? For this is what we are called to do. Still today Christ has pity on those who walk up and down Mortlake High Street; still today he exercises his eternal priesthood on their behalf, rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep. He exercises that priesthood in and through us, for we are called to he special, to be holy, to share in our own unique way in Christ’s priestly ministry for the community around us.