Yesterday wasn't just Sunday, it was the day on which St M's celebrates its festival of dedication. We are 817 years old (and sometimes, I feel that way)...Interesting to celebrate while we are once again in the grip of a building project. Work on the removal of pews front and back has already given us a taste for how lovely it will be once the space is fully ours to use...but meanwhile the mess, muddle and disruption is beginning to weary some people, and yesterday was the first Sunday when the main west door was inaccessible, so that our traditional procession, with assorted banners (not all of them belonging to living groups in the church today) just couldn't happen.
And of course, this saddened many people - specially those who are unconvinced that the changes will really be worth it in the end.
2 years ago, FabBishop preached at Dedication - and commented on the slightly questionable symbolism of a procession that is actually more of a circulation, since it doesn't lead you on to a new place, but brings you back to where you started.
Yesterday, my good friend the Canon preached a stormingly good sermon - and likened the sounds of St M's gearing up for worship to a locomotive getting up steam...The question was, and is, whether this train is going to be simply another exhibit in a "Living Steam" museum...lovingly polished but never allowed to actually travel anywhere ( - or worse still, a model locomotive on one of those elaborate indoor layouts, doomed to go round and round in circles forever -)...or whether we might after all be heading off in search of the Christ who has already gone before us into...Galilee, the precinct, Beeches Road - wherever we least expect to find him.
Meanwhile, the changes so far are encouraging people to sit closer to one another, and they also enabled us to share cake and wine in the church after the service - which felt great to the curate, at least!
1 comment:
Cake and wine after service? Oh I like! We 'piscopalians could use to get the coffee out of our veins. Sounds like exciting changes and I love that your church is over 800 years old, here I was feeling like mine had been around a long time at just under 150. :)
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