Good in Parts

All Age Homily for Candlemass

2012-01-28T17:53:00.002Z

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness

Christmas is over...

Time to switch off the fairy lights, put the crib away and return firmly to everyday life, as most of the world has long since done.

The star no longer shines from our church tower...so I wonder if our neighbours and friends will even notice the church in the days ahead.

You see, as our building has stood here for almost 175 years now, it's surprisingly easy to overlook it. On the whole, most people don't notice the landmarks of their locality unless something happens to bring them to life...or something happens to remove them from view altogether.

We know we're here but I wonder if our presence really makes a difference to our community.

Perhaps we need to put the lights on.

Yesterday I had a wonderful time showing a group of Y8 students from Wycliffe round the church, explaining something of what we're about here, and answering their questions.

They were very intrigued by the idea of the parish system – that we continue, as a church, to exist above all for the sake of those who DONT come here to worship, and they wanted to know about some of the ways in which we interact and serve our neighbourhood.

Once I got started, you'll be encouraged to know that it turned out to be quite a long list.

And that got me thinking.

You see, there's no point in worshipping Christ in the manger if we ignore him in the streets, no point in celebrating the coming of Light into the world, if we still choose to linger in darkness.

And in the weeks since Christmas day, there has been a fair bit of darkness in and around this community, as in the wider world.

The darkness of death – for a tiny baby, for a dear friend from this congregation, for a one-time homeless alcoholic, who, almost miraculously, died in his own bed, in his own home, with a good friend nearby.

The darkness of loneliness for some.

For others, the darkness of poverty, illness, fear

We can't do anything to take away that darkness, even for those whom we most love...but we can shine the light of Jesus on all those dark situations, and that's what today is about.

Candlemass

We carry our candles, fill the church with their light as a reminder that Christ the light HAS come into the world.

But when we leave this building, - that's when the light we carry must really begin to act.

It's the light of faith and the light of good works.....the things we believe and the ways in which they lead us to live a different kind of life.

Light to be kindled with the flame of love...our love for God and God's love for us.

Light to show up whatever is grubby or broken or sad...but light that also, gradually, pushes back the darkness so that it is as if it had never been there.

That's the light we are each given to carry

Light that shines through our own acts of kindness.

Light passed on to others in a kind of loving relay, just as when we light our candles here we send the flame from one to another til at last the whole place is full of warmth and beauty once again.

The whole place full of warmth and beauty.

That's quite a goal, - for us, and for our community.

But I truly believe this is the point of our being here.

We do need to put the lights on...to so shine with the love of God that our friends and neighbours can't help but notice, and be drawn in their turn to warmth and beauty beyond anything that we could imagine or attain on our own.

Today Christmas is over – but the light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never put it out.

The light from the stable is indeed, as Simeon proclaimed, a light to show God to the nations, and to bring glory to God's people...

And that light is ours to carry into God's world every day of our lives, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

An answered prayer

2012-01-24T16:35:00.000Z

"Lord, redeem my foul-ups" is often a good prayer to have on your lips...and two weeks ago, when it seemed to me that said foul-ups were reaching hitherto undreamed of depths, I prayed it alot..and then some more!
You know that a week is going badly when the funeral for a still-born babe is not the hardest thing you have to cope with...but why I'm blogging now is because, most wonderfully, my fervent prayer was actually answered.

You see, two weeks ago I discovered that I had been living inside my very own version of the Christmas edition of Rev
In case you managed to miss this (honestly - the series is far too searingly close to the reality of clerical life to count as comedy - it's far closer to documentary, imho) , poor, wonderfully human Adam gets so seasonally harassed that he fails to visit an elderly parishioner - until it's too late.
In the week before Christmas I received a similar request - from someone who spends most of his life on the edge of society, having been homeless for a long time, and with most of the associated problems.
And being over busy, and rather nervous of the prospect of visiting a somewhat volatile guy and his housemate on their home turf, I tried to phone once, failed to get through, and moved on to the next item on the "seasonal busyness" list.

And, just as happened to Adam, I was shown the flaw in my prioritising when a very angry visitor at the vicarage informed me that his housemate was dead - and what sort of a sorry apology for a priest did I call myself anyway!
And of course he was right.
Fear prevented me from doing the right thing.
I took refuge in doing other things and let my needs trump those of the people I am here to serve.
So, I felt pretty wretched.

But the following day I was given another opportunity to respond - and got to a bedside in time.
And then, wonderfully, against all expectations, I found myself trusted to take J's funeral.

It happened yesterday.
Just a small gathering in church...a handful of volunteers and clients of our local homeless project; a community police officer; a wonderfully warm and gentle funeral director; and a sober and dignified friend.
The flower printed cardboard coffin which had seemed (if I'm honest) just a wee bit naff in the catalogue was reassuringly, delightfully homely and beautiful in reality. You could imagine it sitting comfortably in an ordinary room...not claiming false dignity or pomp...
"I'm here..part of life's reality you know...And it can be surprisingly beautiful".
I found myself touching it and interacting with it in ways that I rarely do with those highly polished coffins that seem to be set on hiding the truth of the death that lies within.
Somehow the beautiful fragility of the coffin, that mirrored the fragility of the life that had ended - a life of hardship, alienation, struggle and, I believe, acceptance.

J had loved flowers - and the church was still beautiful with the flowers left from a far grander funeral last week, which made me smile.
I wept too, as J's best friend read some wonderful words that J himself had written reflecting on his life, his future and his hopes.
A member of the "Marah" family talked of his memories and read to us from The Message
We sang and we prayed and we sat in silence.
Some of the language I use for more conventional funerals just didn't find a place...but the right words came from somewhere.
And then we followed J across town to the beautiful hillside cemetery and it was somehow incredibly right to be there, to take it in turns to throw handfuls of rich dark earth onto the coffin, to listen as S told us more about his friend, to delight as the sun broke through the clouds and the birds began to sing, a fragile chorus that promised spring to come.

We left S settling down with a drink in the sun...I pray that he'll be alright in the days ahead. Yesterday, we stood on holy ground together.

Words for J

2012-01-23T09:08:00.000Z

Today I'll take a funeral for J, someone whose life was harder than I can begin to imagine.
He had been homeless, cut off from his family, suffered great physical damage on his way through life...so his best friend reminded me very forcefully that the word "sad" had no place in J's funeral. Taking other constraints into consideration too, I struggled to find the words.
I hope and pray that these may do.

Jesus said “Don't let your hearts be troubled”
Trust in God and trust in me.
There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I'm taking."
Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?" Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!"

Don't let your hearts be troubled
That's not something that comes naturally to most of us.
We do worry...about what's going on in our lives, about the mistakes we've made, and the way that we may have been hurt or may have hurt others,about the here and now and about what might happen next.
Like many of you, I'm sure J knew a great deal about the importance of being on the right road, of finding somewhere safe to spend the night and, I'm told, he worried about whether he would have a respectable death....
but you know, dying in his own bed, in his own home with a friend close by is pretty much as good as it gets.
That was one worry that turned out to be unnecessary...and J had learned, along the way, that he could trust God for most things.
He knew where he was going, and was sure that a welcome awaited him...
Trust in God and trust me
There is plenty of room for you in my Father's house
Room for all of us, no matter who we are, where we come from, what is going on in life....there is somewhere that we can always be sure of, a home where we really belong.
That's something to look forward to, - specially if things are difficult here and now.

I guess that at times we all struggle with the meaning of life, and wonder if actually there's any point to our being here.
But Jesus tells us that there is a way to find meaning...the way that he took, based on the selfless, self giving love that lead him to the cross só he could SHOW us just how much God loves us.
That's the love that surrounds us and holds us no matter what.
I wish I could say that knowing about God's love would make everything easy for everyone, every day – but that's not how it works.
Believing in God does not often change our physical situation, won't automatically lead to a charmed life, though it may gradually change how we cope when things are hard, what we do when things are good.
When we can't feel God's love, perhaps we can try to trust in it anyway – in the same way that we continue to believe that the sun is still there, even on a cold and cloudy day when we cannot feel its warmth.

You see, God's love ensures that nothing and nobody is ever lost or wasted.
God's love meets us on our darkest days and carries us through the darkness to a safe homecoming
God's love, shown in Jesus, clears the road ahead for us, supports us as we travel and, in the end, is there to welcome us, as today God welcomes J.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory, loved by God and precious in his sight.

Water into wine

2012-01-21T23:21:00.000Z

Homily for 8.00 Epiphany 3

This Epiphany season is full of wonders...

We are invited to marvel at them in the liturgy for the feast itself, and then in the weeks that follow they are unfolded to us, one by one.

The star over the stable – proclaiming Christ's presence to the Magi

The voice at his Baptism – proclaiming his identity as God's beloved Son

And now the demonstration – of his ability to transform the ordinary, the workaday, into something amazing, full of joyous celebration.

Wonders that show us, and all humanity, something of the truth of God with us...

A birth story, a baptism and now a wedding

I have to say that, as one who spends a fair bit of time involved in the fine details of wedding arrangements, I find them very nerve wracking affairs.

So much seems to ride on the success of the day, there is such a longing for “perfection”, that honestly it seems impossible that any mortal couple could ever live up to their own hopes and dreams – let alone those of the bride's mother.

It's bad enough if the clouds gather, or the florist fails – but I would really really hate to be too close if the wine ran out.

But, of course, this is exactly what happens.

A wonderful day of celebration transformed in a moment into a day of shame.

Family honour at risk.

Disaster.

Despite the best planning, the many attempts to ensure perfection, a roomfull of guests is faced with the exciting choice of water or water.

Human resources have failed.

But luckily that bride and groom whose names we'll never know had the good sense to invite Jesus to be part of their celebration – and in doing so, had, against all their expectations, brought God directly to their marriage feast.

So, when all they could offer was water – Jesus intervened and turned it into wine – and not just supermarket plonk but the finest vintage ever tasted.

How did it happen? I can't help with the mechanics of the miracle, and sadly I don't know how to replicate it, but at the most basic level it happened because someone had the sense to ask for help....a useful reminder for all of us. God is waiting, longing to bless us – but too often we try to struggle on, claiming our independence even as we fall flat on our faces again and again.

The God who in Jesus took the ordinary things of life and made them extraordinary is the same God who takes ordinary people – you, me and the lady down the road – and blesses us to be signs of God's kingdom.

We are utterly ordinary, each one of us....nothing to recommend us, nothing to make anyone take a second glance

and yet.........and yet, we can and will be transformed by God, if we can only find the courage to ask God to work with us.

The water that we bring is blessed and transformed into wine..so that we too can be a sacramental sign of God's presence – for that is what the church is called to be.

In a little while we will, together, celebrate another Sacrament, another sign of that transforming presence with us as we share bread and wine and receive with it God's true self...the essence of God's life and self-giving love given to us to share.

Truly, this is the season of wonders, as we continue to celebrate God with us, - in the simple things of everyday, - in men and women, water, bread and wine.

Work in Progress

2012-01-13T19:22:00.000Z

"Not what thou art, nor what thou hast been, but what thou willt be beholdest God in his mercy".

I first came across those wonderful words in my childhood, when reading Rumer Godden's "In this House of Brede", - a book I loved partly because its landscape was the familiar expanse of the Romney Marshes (Brede was only a few miles away from my home, though the Benedictine community of Godden's work existed only in her imagination), and partly because I guess that even then a part of me was drawn to the idea of making my relationship with God the basis of my whole occupation...
Whatever the reason, I read a borrowed copy again and again and fragments lodged, unbidden, in my memory, to surface unexpectedly when needed.
These words, which I later discovered in "The Cloud of Unknowing", are a regular source of comfort as I fall into the gap between aspiration and reality in ministry once again.
Goodness, did I need them this week!

You see, sometimes even when we try our best, parish clergy get things horribly wrong.
We sleep through alarms and arrive at church 2 minutes late for an early Mass at which we are presiding.
We make choices based on what seems to be the wisest course of action, only to discover later that we should have headed in the opposite direction.
We say "Yes" to requests from people we respect, and find ourselves up to our necks in impossible situations.
We try to love all the people whom we encounter in the community where God has placed us, but some of them, specially when under the influence of drugs, scare us so much that we don't really want to visit them...so we don't, and then discover that it is actually too late.
We get tired and forget things that matter.
We get so overwhelmed by the urgent that the important slips past unattended to.
In other words, - we are relentlessly, irritatingly, human.

Being human has, for me, meant that the past week has been full of failures.
But in all the failures, I know that God hasn't given up on me, and that time and again God works to answer one of my most beloved, if not poetically satisfying prayers,
"Lord, redeem my foul-ups".

Even in a week like the one I've just lived through, I am confident that he does.

More about buildings

2012-01-09T18:27:00.000Z

Commenting on the last post, Still Breathing said
"The building should be there to further God's Kingdom which, of course, includes worship but it is a tool rather than an end product. Having said that just being there can, in itself, further God's Kingdom by being a visible sign of His presence"
and to that I'd want to say a huge Amen.
My experience is, always, that this is one of the major benefits of having a church building at all - and it is why I remain determined that such buildings should always be open, even if that means that their contents are stripped right down, to ensure that nothing vital goes astray.
When I was living and worshipping in the rural North Cotswolds, it seemed very clear that if a church were to close, there would be a general feeling that God was moving out of the village.
In a more urban context, it's harder to defend the concentration of church buildings, - though I'd argue that there is still quite a strong sense of place in more working class communities, so that the closure of a church building might well be a real bereavement, even for those who rarely cross the threshold.
I don't see any easy solution. The buildings both hold us back and offer us unique opportunities to offer Christian hospitality, so I continue to love them and wish they would miraculously disappear (without any hurt to those who love them).
It's imponderable, really - but it seems to me that all church buildings run the risk that confronted Peter on the mountain of the Transfiguration - that because they are places where we sometimes encounter God, they become in some troubling way almost a substitute for the encounter.
I found that I'd written about this some years ago, while still a shiny new curate. I don't think I've found a solution since....so I'd better head off to put the church to bed now.
Someone has to look after the building!

What about the building?

2012-01-08T19:33:00.000Z

In response to my earlier post "In defence of the Parish System" many, both on the blog and via other media, pointed out to me that what I was really celebrating was the opportunity to offer pastoral care -and the role of the church building in enabling and focussing that.

Of course you are right...but oh, church buildings are represent so much complexity.

This year sees the 150th birthday of one of my churches, and the 175th of the other...

And of course there is much to celebrate as we look as those beloved buildings, and imagine all those faithful worshippers who filled the pews before us.

Of course, there's always the possibility that they were as beset with doubts and questions - and felt as dwarfed by the building of valley church (designed to seat 500, til they thankfull removed the gallery, bringing it down to a mere 300) - as their contemporary counterparts.

But somehow as we remember our predecessors in faith, they seem to acquire a patina of holiness that may actually have only tenuous roots in reality.

We won't know the truth...and we don't actually need to.

All we know is that they kept those buildings weather proof, were, it seems, generous with both time and money (think of the number of commemorative gifts in any average English parish church!) - and handed on the buildings to the next generation, and the next....til they reached us.

Yes, there IS something to celebrate.

But there is, also, something to lament.

Neither congregation that I serve is huge or wealthy - and that, of course, means that taking our part in handing on the building in good repair can feel rather overwhelming.

Then there's the added bonus or burden of the particular artistic and architectural merit of Church on the Hill - which attracts visitors from far and wide and means that we really do have to take our responsibilities particularly seriously.

It's a lovely building, with amazing glass - but that in itself demands so much of our time and attention that it can be hard to hang on to the knowledge that the building exists to enable encounters with God.

The extraordinary fund-raising efforts, the welcome extended to endless parties of visitors, the beauty of the flower arrangements - all are pointless if we lose sight of that basic truth.

The church building exists for worship.

Full stop.

If caring for our buildings hinders our primary calling as Church - to love and serve God with all that is in us, and in loving and serving God to love and serve our neighbour - then we are in serious trouble.

If we can find money to maintain our building but not to give to those in need...

Well, you know all that.

So do I....but it's a constant challenge.

I want to celebrate these two church buildings as a symbol of God's presence in our community...

but I want to be able, too, to recognise God's presence in the lives of those who meet there week by week.

If I can't, if others can't - then, for all their beauty and all their heritage, those buildings are just a waste of space.

Let's pray that this year we can rightly celebrate the Church and the church both up hill and down dale.

Defending the parish system - part 1 in an occasional (maybe even sporadic) series

2012-01-03T21:27:00.000Z

Yesterday evening I had a phonecall.

Nothing remotely unusual about that...even when I've not just sat down with a large drink...but this wasn't an absolutely standard request.

B. was phoning on behalf of his grandma, who had recently moved into the sheltered flats opposite valley church.

Today was the first anniversary of her husband's death, and she wanted to spend some time with her grandson in a quiet place, praying and remembering.

Would the church be open when he was free to take her, after work?

Of course, I said it would be no trouble at all to delay locking-up time, explained where the votive candles were, and we parted amicably.

Except that, by one of those weird quirks of fate, though I warned everyone who might normally be expected to lock up in a fit of enthusiasm, I'd forgotten that there was a plan afoot to begin to take down the Christmas stars this evening..so the message didn't go nearly far enough.

Thus, just as I got in from the evening dog-walk, the phone rang: B & his grandma were down at church, but the door was locked.

When I met them, they were both ridiculously, unnecessarily, grateful...telling me that I was much too kind, that they appreciated it so much, that they just needed somewhere special to remember.

And no matter how much I tried to assure them that they were simply using the church for its prime purpose - as a place for people to get close to God - they seemed to feel that there was something remarkable about my willingness to open the door on a stormy January evening.

But the point is, the building was THERE...and they knew who to contact to ensure access.

A long time ago, I wrote of another church, that the community who live and work around it recognised, in their ancient building with its open doors, a reminder of the God who always welcomes us, and another place that they could call home.

And I don't know how to begin to assess the value of that.

You live and learn

2012-01-02T20:47:00.000Z

Once upon a time, when I was Readering in a rural benefice in the Cotswolds, I have to admit that I was distinctly sniffy about "C and E" worshippers.

They, of course, are those who attend their parish church regularly - once or twice a year..

Perhaps it's Christmas and Easter, or maybe Mothering Sunday and Remembrance, or even (randomly) Palm Sunday (because of the donkey??) and Christingle...

They probably describe themselves as ""C of E on forms, identify the church and its priest as "theirs" but otherwise ignore all that goes on there through most of the year.

From the lofty superiority of a Licensed Ministry I felt qualified to cast all sorts of nasturtiums at "people like that"...

Now, as a real live vicar, it's startling how different I feel.

As I stood shaking hands at the door after Midnight Mass I was (and am still) genuinely delighted at the number of people who joined us for worship that night.

Families I knew through weddings or funerals, faces familiar from dog walks in the park or conversations at the Co-op, people whom I'd never encountered inside the church before.. but all apparently feeling thoroughly welcome, even at home in their parish church.

Those who stopped to talk said that they felt that they'd been doing something important...had touched base with something of value

Some even emailed me to say so

We really enjoyed the Mass of the Nativity on Christmas eve gave us the opportunity to reflect and we both left feeling really positive.

Positive feedback! How often does THAT happen in parish life?

If the church exists to serve those who are not yet members, then the same is true a thousand-fold for the clergy. Living as we do in the kind of interesting times that throw the whole nature of the parish system into doubt, and recognising that there are only so many ways to configure the deck-chairs on the Titanic, it's hard to know what to do with this.

At present my parishes, even working together, are only able to pay a little less than 2/3 of the cost of my ministry (and that's before you even consider the 2 NSM curates who work with me here).

We may be growing in faith, hope and love (I truly believe we are), our links with the local schools are stronger and healthier than ever, and there is a general warmth towards the church in the wider community that I couldn't put a price on....BUT for all that, I'm often run ragged and spend way too much time knowing that I ought to be in several places at once...

I have to choose, every day, where to use my time and my energy

Do I try to build up the life of the church, recognising that most of my core congregation are a long way from embracing mission as anything beyond an invitation to "come and see"?

Or do I do what I can to nurture the green shoots that may be emerging tentatively in the wider community?

Do I spend more time in school or in hospital visiting?

Perhaps, if we had world enough and time, those "C and E" attenders might get round to visiting a little more often. Once a month, and they'd find themselves chairing the PCC!

But in the meantime, I hope there will be a place with open doors, a place that they can visit in search of holiness, a place where, however loosely, they feel they belong.

I'm SURE that's what we're for...

A Janus moment - looking forward, looking back.

2012-01-01T19:04:00.000Z

Tea-time on New Year's Day (not that I need to eat tea - I probably never need to eat again after all that has been consumed during the 8 days of Christmas which have already passed).
Time to see if I can actually revive this blog, and make it once again something more than just a holding place for sermons (though I suspect that the days of regular reflective blogging have been and gone).
Time to look back on the delights of Christmas and forward to the hopes of 2012.

Christmas first...
One of the things that I've found most confusing since I became a notionally grown-up vicar here, almost 4 years ago, is the huge variation in numbers attending worship. We can dip to under 40 or suddenly find ourselves soaring into the 80s with no apparent trigger for either extreme. We normally have a larger congregation for "Together at Ten", our informal Eucharist (which we used to call "All Age" til it was pointed out that calling one particular service "All Age" implies that all ages are not really welcome at other times)...but beyond that, there's very little rationale that I've been able to grasp.
Last Christmas, with snow and ice abounding, we were expecting tiny congregations - and were pleasantly surprised by the numbers, though startled that almost none of our "regulars" made it through the doors. Reflecting afterwards, I decided that if you come to church pretty much every week then there's much less incentive to turn out in bad conditions......whereas if you only ever do church on Christmas Eve, it may take rather more to keep you at home. Who knows?
This year came the great excitement of a queue - a genuine QUEUE of real people trying to get in for the Carol Service at church in the valley, and the joy of looking from the sanctuary at a church lit by their candles - and church on the hill was also crammed to the rafters.
In contrast, both Crib service and Midnight up the hill were very quiet: perhaps holding their carol service on 22nd, those "C & E" attenders had had their fix already, and decided that twice in 48 hours would be too much of a good thing, though down in the valley the numbers held up well on both Christmas Eve AND Christmas morning, and I was delighted that a large majority of those at Midnight Mass actually received Communion too.
Oh, such things are balm to a vicar's soul!
When I realised that our "exit chocolate" consumption had risen from 1 tin in 2008 to almost 3 in 2011, my joy was complete.

And then, I came home to snuggle by my own fire, with beloved family, pets, and a huge and wonderful pile of books. Of such treasures are Christmasses made.

But after a week of blissful suspended animation/hibernation today saw me back in vicaring mode, and wondering if anyone at all would brave worship on New Year's Day.
Another lovely surprise - many regulars, two families returning to have candles lit on the anniversary of their baptism, and a couple of complete newcomers who "just felt like starting the new year by coming to church".
After great deliberation and dithering, for various reasons that seemed good to me (and still do) we celebrated Epiphany. Bitter experience tells me that there is NO chance of families turning out for a midweek evening service, even if I could be certain of a goodly number of the older congregation (which I can't)...and it's far too lovely a feast to miss, - so it was out with the gold, frankincense and myrrh...the latter a wonderful surprise gift from someone who turned up at the vicarage one evening just before Christmas, offering me gifts that she had brought back from the Holy Land to enhance the worship of local churches.
We talked about the way in which the best gifts reflected both the giver (these were expensive presents from wealthy men: travelling from Persia was not to be done on a limited budget) and the recipient...Wondered what on earth would prompt anyone to give such very strange presents to a newborn baby, and agreed that they would not have been appreciated by our very own resident baby, B, and thought about the clues that they offered to Jesus' true identity as priest, king and sacrifice.
Then we moved on to think about the gifts that we could bring to Him...gifts that reflected ourselves and our God....gifts that He had given us, which we could use to serve others....
And thus we found ourselves making New Year resolutions on behalf of our church.
Ways in which we could become signs of God's love for and presence in our community
Gifts to reflect the Giver and the recipient.
And the list is terrifying - because it so clearly comes from the heart of God.

So.......2012 is to be the year of Youth Work.
How, I don't know....but at last the absence that has been troubling me seems to be making itself felt among a much wider circle.
Time, then, to listen even harder to God as we see how to take this forward.
Prayers and inspiration welcome - indeed, anxiously sought.

Resolutions collected and presented at the Offertory, we took ourselves outside to chalk the doors.
What? you ask...
Listen and I'll explain (this is lifted from my text for this morning's worship...please don't mind)

The Wise men were, as you'll know very surprised when they saw where the star had brought them….it didn’t look like the right sort of place for a baby King to be born and and there was nothing special about the man who led them inside and introduced them to his wife Mary and her little son.

But, when they saw Jesus, they knew that he was the one they had been looking for all along.

They found God in that baby boy…and so they realised that they could find God in many unexpected places and many unexpected people. They learned to look for him not just by following a star, but by looking for the light of his love shining in other people….and they carried that light themselves.

And that’s where we come into the story.

The light of that star showed the wise men where Jesus would be found…and today Jesus is found among his people. That means us…both as individuals and as a church family.

Jesus is found in this place...and so we mark the door of our church and the doors of our homes as a reminder.

In an echo of the sign the Israelites marked on their lintels at the time of Passover, to ensure that the angle of death did not visit their homes, this sign on the door shows wise travellers that they will find Jesus inside.

20 C + M + B 12

We use the initials traditionally given to the wise men C(aspar), M(elchior), B(althazar), together with the date of this new year...

The letters can also represent a blessing on our homes

"Christus Mansionem Benedicat"

and act as a reminder that that, transformed by our own encounters with God, we are to be signs of his presence in this community.

So, we pray

O God, you once used a star to show to all the world that Jesus is your Son.

May the light of that star that once guided wise men to honour his birth, now guide us to recognize him also, to know you by faith, and to see you in each epiphany of our daily life.

As the Wise Men once sought your brilliant light, O Lord, so may we seek to live and work in your splendour.

O God of Light, bless this house and this family.

May this be a place of peace and health.

May each member of this family cultivate the gifts and graces you have given us, dedicating our talents and works for the good of all.

Make this house a shelter in the storm and a haven of rest for all in need of your warmth and care.

And when we go out from this place, may we never lose sight of that Epiphany star.

As we go about our work, our study, our play, keep us in its light and in your love.

May we be Christ's light in the world. Amen

Then I send everyone home with some chalk to mark their own door.....and the amazing thing, for me at least, is that this simple action transforms the vicarage front door into a constant reminder of God's presence - in the same way the the holy water stoup at the church door reconnects me with my baptism as I come and go there.

If I can remember Christ's presence whenever I leave or return to my home, 2012 should surely be a good year.

Instead of a Christmas card

2011-12-24T12:01:00.002Z

As is fast becoming traditional, this year has seen a very patchy success rate in sending Christmas messages to all those whom I love. But, for me at any rate, it's really all about the baby. May you all know the peace and joy that is His gift to us...

In other words -

HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

Salus Mundi - Mary Coleridge

I saw a stable, low and very bare,

A little child in a manger.

The oxen knew him, had him in their care,

To men he was a stranger.

The safety of the world was lying there,

And the world's danger.

Light looked down and beheld darkness

2011-12-24T10:33:00.002Z

Thither will I go said Light

That’s the most important journey, of course…the journey we are here to celebrate…the journey that makes all the difference to everything….

But St Luke’s account of the nativity is full of journeys.

Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem,

The angels come from heaven to the shepherds

The shepherds hurry to the manger.

It’s as if even at his birth Jesus is intent on stirring us up, on moving us out of our familiar ways, taking us out beyond our comfort zones.

Ironic, then, that we’ve transformed our celebrations of his birth into the epitome of traditions. We dream of Christmasses “just like the ones we used to know” and exclaim in distress if an “essential” carol somehow gets missed from the Midnight Service or too many features of our own ideal festivities are altered without permission.

Ironic because that baby is born to challenge and to change us…

The shepherds went on their journey – they saw the good news story with their own eyes – and then they had to go home and demonstrate that the baby’s birth really was good news for the whole world. Once the angels had stopped singing and gone on their way, the good news depended on them. Who would have believed their wild stories of a sky filled with angels if the events of that night had not changed the shepherds so that they began to live a new kind of life?

They turned from people who had been on the receiving end of good news, - who had heard it and seen it, - to people who were good news themselves.

And now we are invited on the same journey…called to travel even to Bethlehem

We’re not there just to see, marvel and return home to the status quo.

We go, just as we are, because we have no other option.

That‘s the only way that we can go.

No possibility of white-wash or self-deception here, since the Opne we go to visit is our God, our creator, a helpless baby swaddled against the night air.

But though we are all of us welcome as we are…we are called there to be changed.

There’s another journey to make…from self interest to love, from anger to peace, from despair to hope…

As we stoop to enter the stable, that cramped space that contains Someone greater than the world and all that is in it, we are invited to change….to offer our poverty, our inadequacy, our disappointment, our fear and to receive back riches, strength, comfort beyond all expectation.

We come as we are and are changed till we are as He is….

LIGHT looked down and beheld darkness.

‘Thither will I go,’ said Light.

Peace looked down and beheld war.

‘Thither will I go,’ said Peace.

Love looked down and beheld hate.

‘Thither will I go,’ said Love.

So light came, and shone.

So peace came, and gave rest.

So love came, and gave light.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Waiting for the present: a reflection for the 2011 Carol Service at St Matthew's

2011-12-18T16:47:00.002Z

I wonder what you really want for Christmas, what you most long for as we look forward now to the coming festivities.

I know that if this were a congregation of children, everyone would have their hands up by now...but I'm not expecting that.

Instead I'll do some guessing.

Perhaps what you really want is your family gathered safely around you?

Or maybe health and security in the New Year?

Perhaps you dare only to hope for a pair of woolly gloves or some gift-wrapped cosmetics?

Those readings we heard from Isaiah are full of longing...for something quite different.

I wonder what you thought as you listened. Isaiah's prophecies, messages from God that look into God's future – are writings that were old long before Christ was born.

Perhaps you wondered why we had to listen to something that seems so far removed from the reality of daily life in 2011?

After all, that glorious vision of peace that is described here seems to be still just a vision: even as we prepare to celebrate the birthday of the One who came to make true peace a reality for all the world.

It's not easy, waiting...

It never has been.

It wasn't easy for Isaiah – we can hear the longing in his writing as he speaks of that day when the world will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

And still we wait.

We look at the news and see greed and violence, cruelty and injustice – for ours is a world that bases its behaviour pretty much on “Me first and bad luck to those who stand in my way”..

No sign, then, of the lion lying down with the lamb – in our world or in our churches.

And it's easy to lose patience...to turn our back on God, or dismiss his promise of peace and transformation as just a pretty story to share with the children...something you grow out of when no longer look your best in a halo made of tinsel.

But nonetheless, we keep on celebrating – idealists and hardened cynics, the deeply faithful and the frankly sceptical...because life without hope is unbearable, and even the most hardened atheist can see that things could be better than this.

We need a Saviour – though we may not much like the one we are given.

You see, the God whose birthday we celebrate does not come to us in an unmistakeable demonstration of divine power...wading in to put everything right, however much we may wish that is what he would do!

Instead he creeps into the world, squeezes in where there is no room prepared – just another baby born in poverty, crying in the night with no proper roof over his head...

He does not come with all the might and splendour of a king, but begins his life as a refugee, fleeing from the terrible violence that Herod stirs up in his jealousy and rage....and of course the end of his life matches the beginning, as he hangs on a cross, with criminals on either side and a jeering mob at his feet.

I doubt if we would have chosen that sort of Saviour...because, of course, his way of life and even his way of death are what God invites each one of us into.

Jesus shows us, from the moment he finds a bed in the rough, dirty straw of the stable, that our own comfort, our own desires, are never part of the picture.

He doesn't offer us the easy life

BUT he does offer us hope.

Christmas and Easter are two sides of the same coin.

We believe in a God who loves us so much that he chooses to share EVERYTHING that we experience as human beings...The joy of family life, that we sang about in our opening carol, but also the effects of sin and strife that we've just remembered...

The choir's lullaby reflects this, combining soothing pictures of angel wings and considerately silent lambs with the shocking violence of all that lies ahead

“Full woes in store for thee, for cruel men thy death shall plan and nail thee to a tree...”

Yes, we believe in a God who brings peace – at the cost of violence and death to himself.

We believe in a God who makes a gift of Godself to us, even if we seem to prefer plastic toys or gift wrapped cosmetics.

And we believe that actually, God's peace can be ours even as we wait...

and that we can be the agents of peace and goodwill in our own community...that as we come to worship the Christ-child in the stable, we can turn our worship into action, as we take our part in brining about that wonderful vision of which Isaiah spoke.

As we heard St Luke's account of the greatest gift of all, we listened once more to the message of the angels

“Glory be to God on high and on earth peace”

Peace and goodwill

That's something WE can bring about, in our community – as we turn away from old grudges, reach out to neighbours and strangers and open our eyes to notice the forgotten, those whom nobody includes, those whom it is hard to get along with.

It's not easy...peace making is always costly but if we really tried, we could make ourselves into a gift for this community ...a gift that reflects God's love and is full of the hope of God's kingdom, not just at Christmas but on every day of the year.

Highly favoured? a sermon for Advent 4B

2011-12-17T23:17:00.000Z

Behold the servant of the Lord

May it be with me according to your word.

It seems to me that, on a bad day, teenagers fall broadly into two categories. There are those who are world-weary beyond their years, whose only response to startling news of any kind is a characteristic shrug and a sigh of “Whatever”

And there are those who seem to think that we're all intent on making life hard for them...because, after all, it's all about them.

Their response to almost any announcement is an outraged

“You've got to be joking!”

and it seems to me that often, in our behaviour towards God, there's more than a touch of the teenager about us.

We seem to be quite good at assuming WE know best how he should run things...and to descend into something quite close to the mood swings and slammed doors of teenage life if God doesn't fall into line with our expectations of just how our own pet deity, God in a box, should behave.

It's as if we thought that God existed just for our benefit – to smooth OUR way, to care for those whom WE love...

As if God was not just a personal God but OUR personal God...

I guess that must be part of human nature – perhaps part of what is unfashionably known as sin...We so place ourselves at the centre of the universe that our own agenda becomes the only thing we can really focus on.

David, certainly, was no stranger to believing it was all about HIM.

If you need any evidence, just think of the way he indulged himself with Bathsheba – and read some of the emotional outpourings of the psalms..

What's more, as befitted one of the greatest kings of Israel, he was absolutely determined to cement his place in history by being the one to finally pin God down – or at least to enthrone him – to be the one remembered for building the most magnificent Temple of all time.

Because, of course, if he was the one who built the Temple, he was in effect acting as God's host....and thus had God firmly and conclusively under his thumb.

God in a box once again.

His arguments sound good and plausible.

It's not right for me to be living in a palace of cedar when the Ark of God is in a mere tent...

But there's another agenda at work, for David knows that if he is the builder of a Temple, he will control the religious life of his people.

God, though, has other ideas, and is always greater than even the most amazing shrines we create for Him.

Ours is a God on the move...not one who wants to settle in a Temple...one who is out and about, at work amid his people.

It's impossible, I think, to read this passage without seeing the image of a great Cathedral – a house dedicated to the glory of God – and that ramshackle encampment of tents set out before it.

And, with that image in mind, it's impossible not to ask questions.

Where would we most naturally expect to find God?

In the beautiful buildings dedicated to his glory?

If God worked according to our rules and conventions, that would be the only possible answer......but God's agenda is utterly different and so we must expect to be taken by surprise, again and again.

Ours is, famously, a God of surprises

He won't play by David's rule, won't be confined for the benefit of one man, or one family.

He has a larger scheme in mind

Ours is also a God who makes covenants.

Having put paid to David's ambition to win lasting fame through his architectural endeavours, God captures David in a covenant, which enshrines their relationship from then on and paves the way for all that follows...but never quite as we might expect.

For when God does pitch his tent on earth, it is not within the golden splendour of the Temple...nor in the palace of the King of Israel.

Instead God settles in the womb of Mary, - who is thus transformed into the ark of the new Covenant.

Amazingly she, an ordinary teenager in a small town, is able to offer a response of obedient hospitality that eludes most of us.

You'd expect confusion, even indignation.

You've got to be joking! What do mean I'm going to have a baby? I'm not married!

And later......what do you mean I have to travel on a donkey while I'm almost ready to deliver?

What do you mean I have to have my baby in a stable with animals? What do you mean I have to up and leave with my new baby and travel to Egypt of all places? What do you mean I have to watch my son
die? WHAT????? You've GOT to be joking.

But remember, though David's offer of accommodation for God was also an attempt to control God's self, Mary's response is something very different.

Behold the servant of the Lord

May it be with me according to your word.

Being 'gifted by God, highly favoured' is no guarantee of security or peace....

Whenever we reflect on Mary I'm reminded of some words spoken to God by Theresa of Avila

“If this is how you treat your friends, it's not surprising that you have so few of them”

Who knows what Mary would have answered had she known what lay ahead...what her childlike confidence in God would really entail.

But somehow she is enabled, by God's grace, to set aside the teenage certainty that “It's all about me” and to make room in her heart, her body, her life for God's transforming presence.

It's not easy, even then, for her.

She is perplexed “How can this be?” - but nonetheless she is able to cede all control to God – and so finds herself intimately involved in the outworking of God's agenda for the world.

We too may find ourselves much perplexed – longing to have faith, to co-operate fully with God, but holding on too to that “all about ME” agenda that constantly gets in the way.

God's idea of what it means to be “highly favoured” is that the favoured ones are fully involved in God's work in the world...

Fully involved in alot of pain,in a spear piercing the heart, in that process of self emptying that is both at the heart of incarnation, and part of our daily discipleship...

God doesn't call us as self-absorbed teenagers, convinced that it's “all about ME”

He calls us as children, prepared to trust those we love to ensure that all shall be well...

He will undoubtedly surprise us, subvert our expectations (we might be wiser to look for him in the camp than in the Cathedral), will take us along roads that we would never have chosen, to places we don't much want to visit......

BUT

If we can offer the hospitality of our hearts and our lives, then God can do great things in us too.

Can we, dare we, pray today with Mary

“Behold the servant of the Lord. May it be to me according to your word”

Good news on Advent 2

2011-12-03T20:54:00.000Z

With thanks to Revd Anne le Bas, whose sermon said most of what I had hoped to convey, with a fluency and coherence I was failing to match. Part of this sermon is a direct quotation of her words.

Where's the good news this morning?

Mark says that he is beginning to tell it, but it's not that easy to recognise at first, as we listen to our two prophets.

At first glance they might not seem to have much in common.

First we have Isaiah with his message that, for me at least, comes always with the music of Messiah pouring a liquid perfection that offsets the impact of the words...

“Comfort, comfort ye my people...”

Or then again, there's John.

A wild man striding towards us out of the desert...beginning Mark's gospel without any preliminary niceties...bringing us straight up against our need to do some serious work if we want to be ready for the coming of the Lord.

Isaiah sounds a much safer bet as we curl up by the fire in anticipation of the cosy pleasures of a 21^st century Christmas.

But actually, they share the same message.

We need, I think, to remember that comfort means, literally, give strength....fortitude...for our readings, though good news, are comfortable only in the sense that we meet the word in one panel of the Bayeaux tapestry, where we encounter Harold “comforting his troops” by nudging them with the point of his spear.

Nothing to do with warm slippers and chestnuts roasting on an open fire...but all the same, these ARE tidings of comfort and joy – though not quick route to an easy life.

You see, though we try, year on year, to focus on keeping Christmas safe and unchanging, that's not what Advent invites us to.

Listen to those prophets

Prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

Every valley lifted up...every mountain made low...that sounds very much like an earthquake...something that changes the landscape so drastically that nothing can ever be the same again.

Prepare a highway for our God...

Nobody ever welcomes a new road, however much they may use it afterwards...

Whenever one is mooted, the press is full of stories of protestors anxious not to see valleys and hills levelled, and the natural contours altered beyond recognition. No matter that a greater good may be evident, - perhaps an historic market town will be freed from the impact of streams of heavy goods vehicles, threatening the foundations of houses that have stood for centuries.

We don't like change...

Neither change in our surroundings, nor, I suspect, change in ourselves.

That's unfortunate, because unless we change, we won't ever be truly ready.

That's the message of Isaiah AND of John

We need to change, to repent because the kingdom of heaven is arriving.

That's why we find ourselves surrounded by purple at this season

Because Advent is a season for repentance

Now is the time for us to recognise the ways in which our lives are off course and to turn again.....

It's the only way

You can’t set things right if you don’t admit first that they are wrong.

The trouble is that most of us really hate doing that. We don’t like to feel
guilty or ashamed – feelings that almost always go with owning up to sin and
failure. In fact we’ll often do almost anything to avoid those feelings...

Even in our weekly Eucharist, we don't, I suspect, take the time to really look at ourselves in that short rite of penitence at the start of the service.....though that process of recognising our failures and our sins is crucial to our entry into the new life that Christ offers. Of course,traditionally the Church of England hasn’t insisted on individual confession to a priest on a regular basis, as the Roman Catholic Church has – though that option is available and valued by many who take their Christian lives seriously.

In any case, a corporate act of penitence is there in most of our services, and there with good reason.
Firstly, the fact that we begin with confession reminds us that we need to come out of hiding when we come to worship. If our relationship with God isn’t based on honesty then it is not going to get very far. And secondly the regular practice of confession tells us that it is safe to come out of hiding, safe to be ourselves, safe to present ourselves to God,
warts and all, and that’s where all this gloomy talk of repentance becomes a
message of good news.

The first letter of John tells us that “If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he who is
faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all
unrighteousness.” Let’s hear those crucial words again. “He who is faithful
and just will forgive us.” That’s not a maybe or perhaps; it’s a definite.
“He who is faithful and just will forgive us. “ Often we find it hard to
repent, hard even to acknowledge there is anything to repent of, because
deep down we think there is nothing that can be done about it anyway. We
think that it’s unforgiveable, irreparable. No wonder we want to hide it. We
are afraid it would overwhelm us if it came up into the light. We claim to
believe in God, but actually we don’t. We only believe in us, in our own
ability to set ourselves straight. If we can’t think of a way to deal with
our sin, we assume that God won’t be able to either, so it is best to keep
it all firmly under wraps and hope it stays that way.

Mark tells us, though, that this is not the case. There is good news. It isn’t that we are just fine and dandy as we are. It is that God is not defeated by our sin – not even by the sins of those who nail Jesus to the cross. The love and forgiveness that seems quite beyond us – to give or to receive - is not out of God’s reach at all.

We just need to recognise ourselves as the flawed and failing people that we are...to have the courage to engage with the road-works, to prepare the way in our hearts and our lives and then.....well, then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all people will see it together.

Good news indeed.

Sermon for Advent Sunday Yr B at St Matthew's & All Saints

2011-11-26T20:35:00.000Z

Happy New Year!

Today we begin another cycle of prayer and worship – flavoured this time by the words of the evangelist Mark.

Today we being once again to look forward – to the celebration of God breaking into our world as the babe in Bethlehem and to that final resolution and remaking of all things in accordance with God’s will, which we know as the Second Coming.

We look forward – and so do our neighbours outside the church,

For once we seem to be looking in the same direction as everyone strains to see what lies ahead…but what are we expecting? What are we waiting for?

For our children, it’s pretty straightforward.

The first window of countless Advent calendars will be opened on Thursday, and so the Christmas countdown begins…

Not far ahead for the children lie presents… celebrations in school and at home, nativity plays and carol concerts, coloured lights and starlit magic.

For their parents, though, there is a chill in the anticipations…

Will there be jobs by January? Can Christmas be managed when there is so much less money around? Dare we look forward at all?

It's hard to be hopeful when the news is full to overflowing with tales of greed and misery, death and disaster.

But this is Advent Sunday, and the first candle on our Advent wreath represents hope for all God’s people.

So let’s try and lift our eyes from the headlines, to think about why we are here this morning.

Perhaps it's just habit, but I'd hope that there's something more going on.

After all, despite the pain of a broken world, we DO Have something to look forward to.

Advent is a time when we look again at how our lives fit into the big picture of God's relationship with God's people, past and future. We are drawn, in a heightened way, into what it really means for God to come to us and be present with us…with us here in Selsley and Cainscross…in this year of economic anxiety, natural disaster & political upheaval which is, nonetheless, the Year of Our Lord.

Our Lord.

God with us…not removed from our reality but immersed in it…sharing everything that we lament, all the pain which we struggle with.

Isaiah cries out in desperation for a dramatic intervention

O that God would rend the heavens and come down….and I guess that is the sort of cry that many would identify with.

We want to be reassured that someone is still in control, that things are not as chaotic as they seem…God seemed to be active in the past – and we want more of the same.

In the good times, of course, we feel no need to call upon God.

We’re in control of our incomes, our lives, our politics.

We feel safe, self-sufficient…why would we want to bother ourselves with a God who asks so much of us?

But at the moment, the world is full of frightened people, people who can see the darkness stretching ahead of them and are desperate for any potential source of light.

O that God would rend the heavens and come down

God rending the heavens….coming to us through brokenness…

The brokenness of our lives, and our world

The brokenness of the bread at the Eucharist

That is our route to God.

And, of course, it is one we’d choose to avoid if we could

Nobody wants to experience brokenness…

But remember, we are looking forward, aren’t we?

Advent is good news, right?

Right!

God is coming…God is with us…

But we need to remember that God with us has neve been just an easy option…The experience that Mark sketches for us in this "little apocalypse" may help us understand what’s going on around us now.

The church in which he wrote was dealing with the fall of Jerusalem, the end of the world as they knew it…and they were expecting Christ’s return in a matter of moments. But as they waited, things weren’t easy.

Perhaps each generation, in one way or another, faces what it sees as “the last days”, times when the landscape of their lives is radically altered, when valued certainties are swept away.

Here in the church, we bewail the way our neighbours and our children are no longer part of the worshipping family...We long to recreate past times, when things seemed more stable, more certain – but live in a post-modern world where everything is provisional, where truths are seen as relative.

Despite this, we are not called to nostalgia but to invited to look forward.

Keep awake

Look forward, not back.

No, we don't know what lies ahead for us...nor when Christ will come, but I don't think that matters. One way and another, all things will come to and end. We don't know when that end will be – for each of us as individuals, or for this beautiful, broken planet that we call home, but we do know that we can’t carry on as we are forever.

We don't need to know the timetable.

Jesus makes it clear that attempts to work out when the end might come are simply a wasted effort. Much better to use the time now…for what matters is to be awake, alert, ready.

When I was ordained a friend gave me a mug inscribed

“Jesus is coming...look busy!”

It was meant as a joke – and I greeted it with a smile – but it's also a reminder.

While we wait for Christ's coming, there's so much to do to , because we are called to be signs of the kingdom, good news ourselves, agents of hope amid the augurs of destruction.

Our waiting is not to be passive.

Time is a gift to be used in God's service – and these four weeks of Advent there as gift too – not for shopping, stressing, planning and buying but for waiting, expecting, hoping.

We know that there is much that needs to change in our world – there is injustice to be fought, greed to be challenged, cruelty to denounce and that is part of our Advent work as well.

We stand here on Advent Sunday and cry, with all God's people down the centuries,

“Maranatha – Come Lord Jesus”

We stand in the darkness, but we know that the light will soon be here.

And so, truly, we are looking forward.

Forward to new life that will overcome the pain of death!

Forward to a change in the way that each of us lives our lives.

Forward to the coming of the One who makes all things new.

Yes, Jesus is coming – and of course it’s in no way to be taken lightly – but surely, SURELY, that inspires joy and not panic.

This is JESUS.

The one who ate with outcasts and sinners, who touched untouchables and healed the broken

The one who meets us as we are and transforms us through his love and grace.

So don't panic. Panic spoils your concentration just as much as sleep does.

You need to focus, to be ready to respond to another person, to meet them with love.

Don't panic when someone tells you about suffering in the present or suffering to come: keep watch, and respond with love.

Stay awake, keep looking forward and respond with love.

There will be earthquakes and wars and famines, recessions and riots, as well as more personal catastrophes of betrayal, but there is nothing that can derail this train,

Jesus is here, and Jesus is coming.

Maranatha.

Come, Lord, come.

Sermon for Christ the King: Year A.

2011-11-19T23:58:00.002Z

Kings and kingdoms.

A recurring theme in Scripture and in the parables of Jesus.

A sensible image to take us into a deeper understanding of what it might mean to call ourselves Christians

The obvious topic for us to consider on this feast of Christ the King.

Or so it would appear.

Kings and kingdoms.

We all know what they are – don't we?

Maybe not.

It's not just that I've never sung “God Save the King”, that throughout my lifetime coins and stamps have borne a woman's image, that when I use the beautiful altar book presented to one of my parishes in the 1950s I have to substitute "Elizabeth our Queen" for the printed "George our King"...

More than that, the experience of monarchy in the 21^st century west is utterly unlike that which we would have encountered at the time of Christ.

Our monarchs are essentially powerless figure-heads, whereas there was nothing nominal about royal power then, and the character of the king was só integral to the ethos of the kingdom that it was almost as if his DNA was written, too, into the fabric of his realm. His word was law – and alot more besides, só that the everyday life of his subjects was affected, for good or ill, by the royal priorities, the royal agenda. What the king says, goes.

Something to think about, perhaps.

If you prefer another analogy, in ancient Israel, the language of sheep and shepherd was often applied to kingship

Ezekiel underlines this as he proclaims God's promise to search for the wounded and the straggler – as much as to judge between sheep and sheep.
You see, even as they set out to follow the shepherd, some sheep just don't care whom they hurt in their search for good pasture...and then the shepherd changes from gentle leader to agent of justice and judgement.

Perhaps that sounds a bit more like what we expect from a king...but if we're still not sure, then perhaps the internet can help. I find it often does!

Earlier this week, I was updating my parish website and searching for suitable images to accompany publicity for this Sunday - the feast of Christ the King.

You might like to try that - it's quite an interesting exercise.

As you'd expect, there are pages and pages to choose from.

Ultra pious, rather saccharine depictions of the Infant of Prague, unexpected links to churches dedicated to Christ the King and a whole galaxy of icons, from across the Orthodox Tradition.

Apart from the photos of church buildings, all these pictures feature a predictably regal Christ - crowned, on the throne, and often bearing orb and sceptre.

This is the king beloved of hymnody, the king "all glorious above" about whom we'll be singing through Advent...but I'm not sure that this is the king of today's gospel.

Oh yes, that king is present at the start of the reading

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

This is the court of judgement ...the place where we will hear our final destiny...truly a place of awe.

But if we aspire to belong to the kingdom in the meantime, then there are more important truths for us to hear today, even than the verdict on our lives.

To live in a kingdom is about far more than standing to wonder at the majesty of the king as he makes his grand entrance...and we may be in real danger of missing the essence of the kingdom and the king if we focus too much on the set-piece, deus machina moments that will complete our drama.

It's an easy mistake to make – one that we hear about again and again in the gospels.

Think of the Magi, eyes fixed on the star, dazzled by its brightness into calling at the obvious place – the royal palace of Herod – while the king they seek, like a subversive character from pantomime, waits in the least likely shelter....

Think of the Palm Sunday crowds who seem to speak prophetic truth as they shout “Hosanna to the Son of David” but whose expectations of uprising and messianic triumph are disappointed by the events of Good Friday.

Then think of the ways in which Jesus chooses to explain the kingdom – a mustard seed, a hidden treasure, some leaven mixed with dough - and remember just how close king and kingdom really are...

Not a matter of heralds with trumpets, of unmistakeable majesty after all....but of recognising the king where he is always to be found – with those on the edge.

Suddenly the question of judgement and choices comes close to home...as we realise that it is OUR judgements, our choices, that will make all the difference.

And those judgements, those choices, will be governed by our allegiance – to Christ the king or to other rulers, other ways.

If we want to live in the kingdom, then Christ the king is the one who sets the standards, who shows us what kingdom life will be life.

Christ, who chooses to spend his time with the marginalised, the oppressed, the forgotten.

Christ who is utterly committed to those whom nobody values, nobody respects,

Christ who identifies himself só completely with “the least of these” that when we look at them, we know we are seeing him too.

The hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner...

People who NEED us, who need very specific care – not just a generalised expression of good will...

People we probably won't be at ease with, people who may demand things that we find it very hard to deliver.

People we might not like, but are called to love.

People in whose faces we should expect to see the face of Christ.

Thomas Merton observed that the kingdom of God is not one that preaches a particular doctrine or follows certain religious practices, it is the kingdom of those who love. That's what lies at the heart of our parable – and at the heart of the kingdom.

The great commandments of Love.

To love our King is to love what he has made...children, men and women, joyous,broken, hopeful or despairing...

To love our neighbours is to love the One in whose image they,we, are made...and to recognise the divine image not on stamps or coins but in their faces, wherever we encounter them.

That's what it means to be true to the kingdom...to love, and love again.

The DNA of King and kingdom are one...so that Bonhoeffer's question 'how may Christ take form among us today & here?' is both a mystery to be solved – as we look for Christ among those whom we encounter – and a challenge to be embraced as we consider how we can BE Christ...Two sides of one coin,

We may not realise, in our active loving, that we are serving Christ – and só the parable offers a wonderful surprise for those who didn't recognise that in loving service of the outcast they were offering loving service to the king...

But those with ears to hear are given insider knowledge in this parable, that if we want to serve the king we will inevitably HAVE to offer loving service to the outcast.

You see, there is, in essence, just one commandment, the commandment of love, and real love is always manifested in action. And, when it comes down to it, it is living lives of love that will build the kingdom of God here on earth.

We aren't asked to decide who might be sheep or goats...all we are asked to do is to carry on loving – wildly, indiscriminately, just as Christ our King does.

Homily for Remembrance Sunday 2011 St Matthew's at 8.00

2011-11-12T19:57:00.001Z

They will beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.(Micah 4:3)

Today in this church and at memorials across the country we will gather to remember those who have died in war. Some will remember those lost in battle more than half a century ago – but still loved and missed.Others will focus on much more recent events...Today I'm remembering M,a young soldier whose wedding I conducted in this church just 3 summers ago.How smart he looked in his uniform that day, as he knelt here beside his bride...now a widow with a little daughter who will grow up not knowing her Daddy.

Today we're united in our thoughts as we give thanks for selfless sacrifice, confess that we too are part of a broken sinful human race that still follows paths of destruction, and pray for peace on earth & an end to the madness & waste of war.

Micah predicts terrible times of war for the people of Israel. But then he goes on with this amazing vision – the day when peace will replace warfare and swords will be made into ploughs.

Well, after 2700 years we are still waiting! Bad news.

In the years since the end of World War 2
there have been only 26 days
when there has not been a major war raging somewhere on the planet.

With the psalmist we might well cry “How long, oh Lord, how long”

Of course ultimate peace and justice and joy will come only at the end of time in the Kingdom of God.But it is never too soon to start cultivating the oasis of peace in the desert of our war mongering world.

In the words of Mahatma Ghandi,
“Peace is not something that you wish for.
It is something that you make, something that you do,
something that you are, something that you give away.”

And if we really want to honour those who died in war,
we can do no better than by building a more peaceful loving world
for their children and ours.

Micah’s vision may not be fully realized, but as Christians we are called to make peace – to turn swords into ploughshares - again and again and again...We know that there is nothing that cannot be transformed by God...and as we wait for the ultimate transformation of our battered world, there are smaller transformations going on...each of them a sign of hope.

So, let me tell you a story...It comes from Christian Aid.

Senhor Sousa Manuel Goao,
was born near Maputo in Mozambique.
In 1981, aged 23, he was kidnapped at gunpoint
by anti-government rebel troops
and forced to march 150 miles to a training camp in the bush
near the border with South Africa.

'They made us march barefooted
so we couldn't run away.
Anyone who did try and run was lined up in front of us and shot,'
says Sr Goao. In order to survive, his unit would hunt wild animals,
raid farms or attack civilians.

When the cease-fire was agreed in 1992,
United Nations troops were meant to disarm both sides.
They collected some weapons but most remained hidden.

But in 2001 Snr Goao handed over 5 guns -
four AK47s and an automatic rifle.
He gave them to a small church-based charity
supported by Christian Aid
called the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM).
In return he received a sewing machine -
he had two already which were given to him
in exchange for guns he had previously handed in.

CCM is a small organization
working with a couple of old trucks that keep breaking down –
but the organisation has collected and destroyed
more than 100,000 guns, grenades and rocket launchers.

Those who give up their weapons are given tools -
ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines.
In a land where many struggle to make enough money to eat,
a simple plough can be the difference between life and death
The Mozambique government supports the operation.
It knows former rebels would not hand in weapons to the authorities
for fear they would be prosecuted.

The weapons are cut up in CCM's compound in Maputo
and the pieces are handed over to a group of Mozambican artists
who turn them into sculptures.
They even make chairs and coffee tables out of cut-up Kalashnikovs.

“It is a practical solution based on the Bible”,
says Mozambican Bishop Dinis Sengulane.
”I say to people that sleeping with a gun in your bedroom
is like sleeping with a snake -
one day it will turn round and bite you.
We tell people we are not disarming you.
We are transforming your guns into ploughshares,
so you can cultivate your land and get your daily bread.

We are transforming them into sewing machines
so you can make clothes.
The idea is to transform the instruments of death and destruction
into instruments of peace and
of production and cooperation with others.”

(Christian Aid)

Peace and co-operation...

Ideals to cultivate even for we who are spared the horror of living in a war zone.

For, you know as well as I do that the seeds of war come from within....that each of us has the potential to hurt and destroy or to mend and heal.

So, pause for a moment. Think of those things in your life...old resentments, pointless irritations, habits of intolerance or lack of love...

Know that these carry the potential for violence or destruction, that they destroy peace and harmony, within you even if they do no harm elsewhere.

Offer them to God....Lord, remake me...transform and transfigure me, so that I may become a peacemaker, blessed as a child of God.

Reflection for "Journey On; a service of remembrance and thanksgiving"

2011-11-05T21:59:00.002Z

First of all, I need to congratulate each one of you who is here today

You are making one of the hardest journeys that we ever have to manage– and whether the losses that bring you here are recent and raw or quite distant in time now, you'll know that each day you keep on going represents a victory for hope and courage.

But you'll know too,that however much you are surrounded by the love of family and friends, this journey of grief can be a lonely one...especially as days turn to weeks, and weeks to months.

After a while, you may feel that you really ought to stop crying – that you should be pulling yourself together....

Probably, you know, you shouldn't.

If you still need to weep, then weeping is good...

And it seems very likely that those whom you worry you are worrying are still more than willing to be there beside you, come what may.

But I know as well as you that it can be hard to believe that when you wake in the small hours to an emptiness that it seems that nothing can fill...

It may seem that your grief is something that you HAVE to go through alone...that actually, nobody much cares how many hours of your life you spend in weeping, how many oceans of tears you may shed

But, you know, in reality you are NEVER alone in your sadness.

David, the king of ancient Israel who was no stranger to grief at the loss of a child, discovered that even when he felt most lost and abandoned, God was still there.

He wrote

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book. (NLT)

I love the image of God keeping all our tears in a bottle. The sadness that each tear represents matters as much to Him as it does to us...The tears of the families bereaved in the M5 crash, and those bereaved through terrorist violence.

The tears we weep for those we've lost and those we weep for hopes disappointed, for broken dreams.

It is hard to fathom God collecting every single one, but He does. He notices and He records each tear, each lament...and mingles them in one bottle with the grief of his own Son, the tears shed by Jesus.

Jesus wept! Its the shortest verse in the Bible but there's such a weight in those two words.

Jesus wept when he learned of the death of his friend Lazarus. Knowing that death was simply the ending of one chapter – with a whole wonderful story still to look forward to...perhaps even knowing that for Lazarus at that time, death would be transformed by resurrection in a matter of hours.....knowing all that, still Jesus wept.

He wept, I think, not so much for the loss of his friend but because he recognised and shared the pain of the mourners, because in his compassion he felt the overwhelming grief of humanity as we lament our own tragedies and losses.

For Jesus, as for each of us, those tears are a sign of love. It's love that is the meaning of our message in a bottle..and the things of love are always things to treasure.

So weep if that feels right...and even if you remain dry eyed, know that the feelings of love and loss that you are dealing with are so precious to our God that he stores them forever, close to his heart....and know, too, that the day is coming when God will wipe all tears from our eyes, when there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.......for all these things will pass away.

2011-10-29T15:56:00.000+01:00

The communion of saints…that’s our focus today.

The communion of saints, the glorious company of the faithful who stand around God’s throne and cry glory…

We probably think we know what they look like.

They come in two gothic varieties, male, with a page-boy haircut, or female with long flowing tresses. They wear long white robes, carry some incongruous object or other – a wheel, a gridiron, - and can be recognised above all by their haloes.

They are, after all, simply two-dimensional characters, bright in their stained glass shrines…Men and women frozen in perfection, finished products from the beginning of their lives…

If that sounds just a little unlikely to you, I’m profoundly relieved.

If the saints were like that, you see, they’d be no use at all, either to us, or to God. Rather than remembering them with delight, we’d forget them with relief as their only effect would be to discourage us from ever trying to be holy.

But rejoice.

The truth is something quite different.

The saints are real, utterly real…Women and men who tried and failed, and tried again. People whose life experience was the same mix of faith and doubt, of despair and hope that we all recognise.

Ordinary people, in fact.

People just like you.

And me.

The communion of saints.

Ordinary people?

Surely not.

They seem to be extraordinary…and have been adopted as role models by Christians for many generations because they seem to be somehow different, set apart by some distinctive feature of their lives or their faith...

So, what then makes a saint?

A saint is someone who shows God to others.

It’s as simple as that.

We look at the lives of the saints and see God in them

There’s a well worn and apocryphal story of a small boy who was called out from his Sunday school class to explain to an All Age service just what a saint might be.

Casting about desperately for an answer, he caught sight of the stained glass that surrounded him as he stood at the front of the church and blurted out

“A saint is someone that the light shines through”

It might be a funny story, except that it is profoundly true.

A saint IS someone the light shines through…

A flawed, imperfect human being whose life is made beautiful by the presence of God.

On that evaluation, you may not have to think too hard before you realise that you know a few saints yourself…though if you told them, they’d surely be horrified, or amused.

You see, I very much doubt if saints are sufficiently self-conscious to notice their own holiness.

My suspicion is that most real saints struggle day after day with a sense of their own unworthiness.

They would laugh outright to hear themselves described in these terms…

Even the greatest saints struggled constantly with their own failures.

Think of Peter, the founding saint of the church…commissioned by Jesus to be the rock, the firm foundation on which the Church would stand.

Peter the impulsive “have a go hero” who dived in where angels fear to tred, and shed blood among the olives in dark Gethsemane.

Peter, the frightened man who was quick to deny his friend and master.

Peter, who ran headlong to the tomb but couldn’t believe the evidence of his eyes on the morning of the Resurrection.

I very much doubt if he thought he was specially holy!

Or there’s Mary of Bethany…so emotional that she dared even to lay into Jesus for his neglect of her family

“lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died”

and perhaps so blinded by her tears that she didn’t recognise her risen Lord until he called her by name.

Do you think she believed that she might become an example to us, someone to follow, an inspiration through the centuries?

But I see I’m in danger of suggesting that REAL saints lived long go and far away…and that’s far from the case

Let’s reflect on one of the most famous Christians of our time, Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

Recently her diaries have suggested that she had all but lost her faith, that the light of God’s presence was almost obliterated by the troubles and tragedies of the world.

But despite this, there are so many who already revere her as a saint…for though she may have struggled with an overwhelming sense of God’s absence from her life, those around her saw God’s light shining through all that she did and said in his name.

So…that’s the role of the saints alive…People who share our struggles but through them all show us the Father. I know many saints like that, - indeed, I’d rarely make it from one Sunday to the next without their love and their encouragement

But today above all we celebrate the saints in glory…the multitude without number whose hope was in the Word made flesh, those who join with us whenever we sing together

“Holy, holy, holy Lord”

That shining circle who stands around the throne of God is still very much part of our story…for we worship together, our prayers and praises connecting with theirs across time and eternity.

When I first presided at the Eucharist, the day after my ordination as priest, I was completely bowled over by the overwhelming presence of that heavenly company….MY saints. - the people whom I’d known and loved, who had shaped my journey…and those who had died long before I was born, but whose words or deeds had inspired me. They were all there, standing beside me at the altar – and when I’m properly attentive, they are there still, week on week, singing with us, lending power and life to our song. Pause to listen for their voices yourself, this morning, and be thankful….

So, where does this leave us…the people who gather here week after week? Again and again in his letters Paul talks to “the saints in” a particular place…and those saints are neither more nor less than the ordinary body of believers in that place.

You are among the saints in Cainscross

You may not think of yourself as holy in any way…but actually, by virtue of your baptism, holiness IS your calling.

We are, every one of us, set apart for God…called to be saints, just as we are.

Flawed, imperfect people, but people through whom the Light of the World is content to shine.

I believe in the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins,

The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. AMEN.

A response to Anon

2011-10-23T19:01:00.000+01:00

When I logged on this morning, I discovered that this post had generated one fairly fierce, accusatory comment, which I'm not about to repeat here - though it might be helpful for you to go and read it now, before continuing... You see, it contains a painful degree of truth, and so deserves a response - though I'm not generally happy to debate with someone who hides behind anonymity.

However, the point is well made.
I talked about all that we have and all that we are coming to us from a generous God - and was taken to task for having much, myself, while others have so little.It seemed to me that Anon was, using the fact that I can have a comfortable life as a reason to question God's part in the whole - though I may be misreading him/her...I'd question the logic of that. Blaming God for the failures of God's children isn't going to get us anywhere much, I fear.

I'm more than willing to admit that I am less generous, more fearful, more focussed on scarcity than in my heart I would like to be.
God provides enough for all, but we mostly (and yes, that most definitely includes this left-leaning, failing-more-often-than-not Gloucestershire vicar) forget to trust God's generosity. Instead we panic,we hang on to stuff for ourselves, hold back from being fully human, from being generous in response to God's generosity,- because this is a broken, messed up world, inhabited by broken messed up people.

I ALWAYS preach stuff I NEED to hear...
I don't speak from a position of superiority, thinking for a moment that I've got it sorted. I'm just holding up an ideal to which I want to aspire, and inviting others to consider whether they want to join me in trying to get it less badly wrong. I'm hoping that nobody assumes that preachers are speaking from a moral high ground.
Rather I'm preaching from a consciousness of my own failings, and my own need of God.
If I only preached about things that I had got right, I'd never ever enter the pulpit again...but I also think that I'd run the risk of offering bland words, with no roots in a real experience of faith and struggle.

Yes, I'm blessed to live in a beautiful place...though I longed to come to this particular spot because I was drawn to walk away from the privileged communities that had nurtured my vocation in the more recent past.
But I don't think I need to apologise for my address, or even for the fact that I was able, for a few years, to make my home somewhere that embodied all my childhood dreams of a house in the country with an apple tree and a porch full of gumboots. I am thankful for that (though the struggle to make ends meet as a self-employed family living in a Georgian house with Georgian drafts meant that for several years charity shops were the only place that I could shop at all)...but I don't think it defines me.

Well-intentioned but damaged, veering between faith and fearfulness, helpless and hopeful, aspiring to things I know I'm still far from managing...another child of God who needs bushels of grace just to get through...
That's the sort of definition I could own.

Bible Sunday Yr A sermon for St Matthew's and All Saints

2011-10-22T23:17:00.000+01:00

Bible Sunday

A day to celebrate the book that is, says the psalmist, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path

One of the four pillars on which Anglican Christianity rests

And – even today – the world's number 1 best seller

But I wonder if, just sometimes, you marvel at that and ask yourself why this collection of ancient writings, dating from times so utterly unlike our own, is still given such power, such credibility in the contemporary Church

Whether you even question its relevance.

Don't panic if you do......you wouldn't be the first – nor will you be the last.

You see, it all depends on how you look at the Bible

At a rather splendid training event I attended on Thursday, someone compared the Bible to a picture frame

When the frame is empty, you simply look through it at what is there....actual historic events – the building of Solomon's Temple, the fall of Babylon, the great Roman census

There's no denying their veracity...things that really happened, preserved for those who came after.

Or you might find a picture inside your frame...a view painted by a particular artist, standing in a particular place, with a particular perspective. Much of the Bible is written with a purpose, be it to offer the good advice of Proverbs, to create a strong national identity through the body of laws in Leviticus or, in the New Testament, to convince readers of an important truth

As John puts it

“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

That view is inevitably going to be partial and specific...No good looking at a picture of trees and lamenting that it doesn't show the seaside.

It's one view...with one purpose.

But most tellingly, that Bible picture frame might actually contain a mirror....for this is, famously, the book that reads us even as we read it, the book that makes us ever more aware of the reality of who we are.

Think of David, enjoying his relationship with Bathsheba, having got away, quite literally, with murder – but brought to the dock through the story of the rich man who takes the one ewe lamb of his poor neighbour.....

As David listened to the prophet Samuel telling him that story, it was easy for him to see where justice lay – and, at last, to recognise the enormity of his own sin in stealing his neighbour's wife...and realising that God's justice demanded that he should pay for his offence.

In the same way, though perhaps less dramatically, we can find ourselves again and again in the Bible's stories......Are we afraid to be known as Christians? We find ourselves allied with those disciples who forsook Jesus and fled

Are we trying hard to evade God's call on our life? We can team up with reluctant prophet, Jonah, as he takes ship for Joppa, to avoid his mission to Nineveh

Are we always jumping to the wrong conclusions, expecting God to act one way when in truth he is acting another? Simon Peter is our man....jumping in with both feet again and again,

The Bible creates a template against which we can measure ourselves, as we “delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night”

The idea is not that we should learn every word, every line of Scripture but that we should become so aware of it's overall shape that we can match our life to that template.

A good friend, preaching in another place this morning, lent me this image...which takes us right to the heart of what it should mean to read the Bible.

Imagine for a moment that, in a dream, you are attending a theatre and watching a play. The play is reaching the climax when suddenly an actor is taken ill. The director steps forward and invites not just anyone but you to play the role. What could you do? You would have to improvise in the light of all you knew about the play so far – the plot, the characters and perhaps what you had read in the programme about the end. Today, as we give thanks to God for the scriptures, we are reminded that one way to understand the Bible is that through it, God invites us to play our part in his drama, applying all we know of his plans and words to our own often unexpected situations.

If that sounds scary, then take heart.

The Bible DOES need us to live its message. ~It's words live as our lives reflect them, but that message we are called to live can be distilled so that it is straightforward, if not exactly easy, to take our part in the drama

That distillation is there in our gospel today,

This is the Scripture of the Scriptures that trumps everything else

God’s word is quite simply Love, says Jesus.

You are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And no less important, you are to love your fellow human being with the same love you have for yourself. Jesus has given us the key to understanding the Scriptures, interpreting the Bible for our time and all times. It is love, God’s love, our love, everybody’s love. If we keep love in our hearts and lives, we show the true character of God to the world we live in. Love is the fulfilment of everything that God wants to say, the ultimate truth of God’s word. That word of God, God’s word of love, is found above all in Jesus himself, who lived and taught and died a life of love, that the love of God could be a reality for everyone. And in Jesus’ rising from death, God showed that love is the greatest power in the world. This is the beginning and end of the Scriptures: it is on love, human and divine, that the future of the world, God’s world, depends.

Because our God is one who longs to communicate, words are there for God to make himself known to us,.. Each word holds an infinity of meanings, and however much we meditate on each phrase, day and night, there is still more meaning to be discerned, but the overarching meaning is, always, non negotiably, love.

Thus, whenever we approach Scripture it should be with the expectation that we will be changed by the encounter, that the story of those men and women of long ago will become our story…and that, like them, we can be swept up in God's great love story, through which he woos humanity.

That’s our task this Bible Sunday. The Bible is precious, priceless, inspired.

It deserves our best attention for behind the words on the page is the living reality of the Word made flesh.

Let’s, then, join in with the story.

Let’s not be afraid to get things wrong, for errors are part of learning.

The Bible needs us, if it is to have any existence beyond the sterility of the page.

We need the Bible, if we are to gain insights into the ways of God for it is a book that will lead us to God and help us to engage with God in bringing in His kingdom.

It is a gift, to be savoured and celebrated, for it comes laden with the love of God.

Thanks be to God!

Proper 24Yr A - 8.00 at St Matthew's

2011-10-15T18:24:00.000+01:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that nobody loves a tax demand – however much we may appreciate the benefits that our taxes fund. If we're rich enough, we move to an off shore haven, pay advisers handsomely to help us reduce our bill and would undoubtedly celebrate wildly if we could legitimately claim religious exemption from paying our dues. However I don’t think that the chief priests and Pharisees were really hoping for an official “get out clause” when they cornered Jesus in the Temple that day…

They had something quite different in mind.
Over a period of some weeks, Jesus had been preaching seditious stuff…We heard some in our gospel last week as Jesus talked about wedding guests who won’t accept their invitation, leaving the way clear for outsiders to replace them. He ended that story
with the portentous words “Many are called but few are chosen”.
Chosen…an essential element in the identity of the Jewish people.
They are God’s chosen…
But here, as in other places, Jesus has suggested that they might yet be superseded– that the line between insiders and outsiders, between chosen Jews and passed-over Gentiles might after all be rubbed out. Not something that the Jewish authorities would enjoy hearing. So they set out to make trouble, to win a debating point of their own.
“The Pharisees … plotted to entrap him.”
They weren’t just testing Jesus. On the contrary, they tried to trick, him by their question, first softening him up with a compliment "Teacher, we know that you are sincere.”
then moving in for the kill
“Tell us what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the
emperor or not?"

The problem was not only that the taxes were being paid to the Romans, the hated occupying forces, but that the coins with which they had to be paid bore an image of the head of the emperor, the emperor regarded as divine.
This broke the commandment not to make graven images – a fundamental of Jewish law.
So good Jews found themselves with a dilemma – should they obey Jewish law and bring down the wrath of Rome, or keep their heads down,obey Roman law, and thus flout the Torah

There was no easy answer – no way of squaring the circle.
Those who questioned Jesus knew exactly what they were doing . Whatever he said could be used against him, for the question would force him to upset either Jewish leaders as a collaborator, or Romans as a revolutionary.

However, in the event they weren’t quite as clever as they had imagined. When Jesus asked them to show him a coin, at least one of them was able to reach into his pockets and produce one…There, in good Jewish hands, was a graven image – and what’s more, that graven image of the Roman emperor had been brought into the Temple, the most sacred place in the Jewish world.
Cue some embarrassed Pharisees, flushing and shuffling their feet...discomforted just as they had hoped to discomfort Jesus.
Jesus could just have left it there – but he needed to remind them, remind us, of another important truth..

"Give Caesar the things that belong to him" says Jesus.
But then he goes on "and give to God the things that are God's".

Game, set and match to Jesus – in one simple clause.
The coin is the emperor's - it bears his image to state that very clearly. But it's not just the emperor's image that Jesus sees before him. He also sees something that bears the image of God.
Remember Genesis?
"God created humankind in his image, in the image of God
he created them. Male and female he created them."
Whoever we are, wherever we come from, whatever we have done, we each reflect God in some way.
We heard that in our epistle too.
We bear God's image, just as much as the coin bore the image of Caesar.
Give to the emperor what bears his image, says Jesus, but give to God what is his, - nothing less than the whole of us, body mind and spirit.

The psalmist reminds us that the earth is the Lords and everything in it…but it suits us better to gloss over this.
We know that we literally owe God everything but we forget again and again.
We think of things as “ours” or “mine” and wonder how to increase our profits
We separate faith from work and play and sometimes from our brains as well, because logic and faith don’t always go hand in hand. We compartmentalise our time: time for working, time for eating, time for playing, time for family, time for exercise, time for God (about an hour on Sundays, on the whole).
We compartmentalise our money: money for housing, money for food, money for clothes, money for children, money for fun, money for God’s work.
But that’s not how it should be.
Everything – all that we have, all that we are, comes to us through God's generosity.
Made in God’s own image, we belong to the God who calls us by name, each and every day.
Give to God the things that are God's.

The image of God

2011-10-10T18:09:00.001+01:00

Another thought from last Thursday's lecture....probably blindingly obvious to most of you, but not something I'd really considered myself.
As we are made in the image of God - we carry a responsibility.

Do you know, I'd really not seen it that way.

I'd understood that the glimmer of God's reflection in us enabled us to love and to create.
I'd understood that we were even able to cry with God at the world's pain.

But I'd not thought of myself as acting as God's ambassador just because I'm human, in the way that I feel myself to be an ambassador for Christ by virtue of my baptism, or for God's church through the grace of my ordination.

Made in the image of God - so what can I do to polish the image, to enable the reflection to be clearer....
Perhaps it doesn't call for a radical change of direction (though John Donne might have thought so) so much as an additional consciousness...and prayer, always, always prayer

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face

"In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye..."

2011-10-09T18:07:00.000+01:00

Our neighbouring catholic Anglican parish has been hosting a rather splendid series of lectures this year, to celebrate the 400 years of the King James Bible...We've heard bishops and deans, former MPs and current Canons - and one way and another it has all been very good.
Usually, though, I've listened with interest, learned something new - and that has been it.
Not so on Thursday, when our speaker was a palliative care specialist, who just happens to be married to our diocesan bishop.
Her topic "Medicine and the Bible" could have gone in many directions and indeed we covered alot of ground in the course of under an hour.
But two things have stayed with me, which I need to reflect and blog on - and somehow, so help me, I WILL find the time before they fade.

The first is that idea represented by the title....that in a split second, as they hear a diagnosis, people's lives are changed.
Someone who isn't feeling that ill goes to collect their test results - and their world is turned upside down.
In the west, we seem to spend an awful lot of our time living in our futures....planning what we will do when X.....saving for retirement (or fretting because saving just doesn't seem to be manageable)....dreaming of the next holiday....
And suddenly, all that is gone.

Alison spoke of the contrasting two-thirds world view...that the future is highly provisional, that the question "What will you be doing in 12 months time?" is almost meaningless, in a context where the fragility of life is taken for granted, and demonstrated day by day. She spoke, too, of the joy that seems to characterise this approach, which leaves you focussed almost entirely on the present. Her words reminded me of the saying I heard again and again in India
"In the west you have clocks - in India, we have time".

Among her hospice patients, she said, that joy is sometimes rediscovered, as the future is contracted into maybe the next day, the next few hours - and hopes, too, become simpler, less demanding...
"Perhaps when I wake I'll feel less sick......My family will be here......The sun will be shining"
It might seem an impoverishment to live in the present simply because you are deprived of the future you imagined....but to really let go of tomorrow and savour today is surely a gift, not a deprivation.

This morning when he arrived at church, my delightful new godson was on very smiley form - and his grins lit up my world. His mum commented that she's very aware, this time round, of the simplicity of his needs...food, sleep, love....and we reflected together on the fact that his contentment comes in part from living in the present.

At both ends of life, then, we learn to sit light to time.
I wonder if this helps prepare us for eternity.

Homily for Trinity 16 A

2011-10-08T22:59:00.002+01:00

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.

You prepare before me a table in the presence of those who trouble me

Come...everything is ready..come to the wedding banquet.

It's all about feasts today.

The feast we are invited to here and now, as we gather at the Lord's table to receive our Saviour in bread and wine, and that great feast for all people, that will be shared when the kingdom comes.

But there's another feast first, a royal wedding no less.......and lots of people invited.

Weddings, whether royal or otherwise, are all about the future.

We celebrate with the couple, not just because they have found one another but because they are going to spend the rest of their lives together....and if that couple happen to be a prince and his bride, well then their future will include big changes for all the people in their kingdom. It's exciting to be in at the beginning...but, as our Common Worship marriage service reminds us, those who turn up on the day are committing themselves to “uphold the marriage, now and in the years to come”

They are signing up for the long haul.

So, I wonder what we make of those who are invited at first and refuse their invitation?

Matthew has a particular agenda when it comes to God's chosen people, Israel, so I guess this might be just another dig at those observant Jews, the scribes and Pharisees, who believed they were definitely on the “A” list, but refused their invitation to the feast when it came from a rag-tag Messiah with the sort of friends that they'd spent most of their lives avoiding.

But I don't think we can safely confine our reading of the parable to them alone.

I suspect there are wider implications, which we'd be foolish to ignore.

In pretty much any book, it's pretty stupid to refuse an invitation to a royal wedding – and in an era where kings ruled with a rod of iron, it was practically suicidal....

but nonetheless, those invited first had their own plans, their own agendas – and elected to stay away....a decision that cost them dear.

I don't for a moment believe that we're supposed to see their fate as indicative of the way God might act – ..but it IS supposed to make us think.

After all, if we are honest, we often choose to put our own agendas before God's invitation....and our excuses are pretty threadbare, even though we tend to stop short of actual murder.

God invites us, and we have better things to do.

So we find ourselves irritated, angered by the voices that call us to join in a party with guests whose table- manners we can't vouch for, still less their pedigrees.

On the whole, we'd prefer to stay at home.

We couldn't enjoy ourselves if we're expected to sit down beside THEM.

And it IS our choice.

We don't have to share in the feast....but if we won't come, then there are many others who are less fussy...

The royal servants are commanded to invite any Tom, Dick and Harry they find standing around the streets and soon the king's hall is filled with people – good and bad, says the parable.

Remember – a feast for all people...

The only thing these guests have in common is that they want to be there and to share in the future they are being offered.

They are prepared to leave their own business and accept the invitation to join the royal celebrations........and engage, too, with the future they herald.

Great.

Let joy be unconfined.

but then Matthew introduces a further complication, absent when this parable appears in Mark & Luke, where we end with general rejoicing.

Not this time.

This time, the king spots one guest who isn’t wearing a wedding robe and, furious, has him ejected from the feast.
That's troubling for us in many ways.

Is wearing the wrong clothes really grounds for expulsion, to the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth?

We no longer find ourselves bound by dress codes on the whole...and it's very hard for us to understand what could be so dreadful in any outfit that it would warrant explusion from the feast.

Often, for grand celebrations, suitable clothes were provided as part of the invitation (this still happens at grand weddings in India, where female guests are routinely presented with wonderful saris to ensure that they are all equally splendid on the great day)....so in turning up in inappropriate clothes, the guest is apparently snubbing his host, the king.

There's no need for him to appear in workaday clothes, but he just can't be bothered to change...

In other words, though he's physically present, he's not really committed to the celebration, or to the future that it heralds.

He won’t get changed, literally, and that shows the king that he isn’t going to be any use practically as the work of the kingdom gets under way. He’ll come to the party, but he doesn’t want what it celebrates to make any difference to his life.

Matthew’s version of this story tells us that being a Christian is not simply about getting a ticket to the banquet, a seat at the table. It is about being involved in the making of God’s kingdom – being part of his work. And that means being prepared to get changed, not physically into fine clothes, but by letting God transform us inwardly, showing us where we need to grow, where we need to repent and make amends, where we need to learn to
love and to be loved, to forgive and be forgiven, to give help, and to accept it. It doesn’t matter how old or how young we are, how sorted or how messy our lives are, when we stop getting changed, we stop growing. If you
are the same person as you were a year ago, or ten years ago, if you are still carrying the same resentments, repeating patterns you know aren’t healthy, if you know no more of the Bible now than you did then, then there is something that needs changing...perhaps through prayer, perhaps through talking to someone you trust, perhaps through some decisive action you have havered over for many years.

We all need to get changed.

“To live is to change” says the proverb “and to be perfect is to have changed often”

But, you know, despite the implications of our gospel, I refuse to be pessimistic.

When it comes to it, I don't honestly believe that any of us will refuse our invitations.

We may postpone our decision

We may try hard to find a better place to be, a more entertaining party.......

but when the kingdom comes, when all tears are wiped from our faces, when all disgrace is taken away........then, I believe that through God's grace, and at his Son's expense, we will all sit down and eat

the rich feast he has spread for all peoples.

(I'm indebted to a colleague from the PRCL list for both kick starting me with this, and providing the substance of the penultimate paragraph. Thank you, Anne)

I have a dream

2011-10-02T13:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the children from Valley Church School gathered in the church for their Harvest Festival. The service, planned entirely by the school, though with a slot for a "word" from me if I felt so moved, was just lovely.
Readings, prayers, songs were all presented beautifully and a good crowd of parents turned up to support their children, and obliged the vicar by sharing in the inter-active story telling with the appropriate actions and sound effects.
Believe me, 200 assorted adults and children all being trees and waving their branches in the breeze is a sight to behold!

Towards the end of the service, the children sang "I'm going to paint a perfect picture"
a song that I first met when the vicarage children were primary aged themselves.
"I'm going to paint a perfect picture
A world of make-believe
No more hunger, war or suffering
The world I'd like to see"

There was a slot immediately after this for "Prayers and Blessing" - so I asked the children whether they thought that the world they had sung about had to be make-believe - or was it something they could help to create? A smattering of hands suggested that some still believed they could make a difference.
Then I asked if they'd LIKE to make a world like that.
All the children's hands went up...which was a help when we began our prayers.

But what shocked me most was that, even when I asked again, barely a dozen adults thought that the world of the song was worth hoping for, working for, believing in.
They were so sure that there was no possibility of such a dream becoming reality that they weren't prepared to invest even a token gesture of hope in it.

Simply heartbreaking.
I know life isn't easy here in the valley - but to have completely lost sight of a better future...
I came home and wept for them.

For my godson

2011-10-02T00:09:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow, Benedict John Timothy, you will be baptised by your godmother at church in the valley, where your father is a curate.
His will be the words we will hear then...but I wanted to record here how significant your Baptism is, not just to me but to the whole church community here.

The joy of welcoming you into the family of the church is tremendous.
So often, I baptise babies, knowing that it is unlikely that I'll see them again for a good long while....and the precious, beloved god-children I've been trusted with up til now have mostly lived too far away for me to see much of their growth in life or faith.

Benedict, by God's grace, for you it will be different.
Before you were born, we prayed for you and I blessed you in the womb, asking God to bring you safely and smoothly into the world.
Since your birth, you've been with us for worship week by week.
We've watched you become ever more responsive, so that last week at Messy Church your presence alone would have kept the teenaged girls content and engaged all afternoon.
Tomorrow, I will ask the congregation
"People of God, will you welcome Benedict, and support him in his new life in Christ"
knowing that there is a real possibility that we will be able to do just that...to pray for you, to take you for walks when you need to be rocked, to play with you as you turn from baby to toddler, to little boy...

The liturgy tomorrow says all that we will need, but your namesake, Benedict wrote not just a Rule that has influenced countless men and women through the centuries, but a prayer that could hardly be better for you as you begin your journey in faith.
I'm praying it for you tonight

Gracious and holy Father,
please give me:

intellect to understand you;
reason to discern you;
diligence to seek you;
wisdom to find you;
a spirit to know you;
a heart to meditate upon you;
ears to hear you;
eyes to see you;
a tongue to proclaim you;
a way of life pleasing to you;
patience to wait for you;
and perseverance to look for you.

Grant me:
a perfect end,
your holy presence.
A blessed resurrection,
And life everlasting.

Homily for Proper 22 A - All Saints BCP & Evensong

2011-10-01T21:24:00.000+01:00

Who do you think you are?

That's a question that I found myself asking with some anxiety yesterday afternoon, as I attended the induction of a new pastor at Ebley Chapel...

You see, the Christians of that denomination have very clear ideas about the role of women and those ideas do not include any element of leadership.

Having been invited to attend as the leader of their neighbouring place of worship, I duly turned up in my dog collar – and realised that they had probably been praying quietly that I wouldn't come.

I felt that it mattered that I was there...but nonetheless as the service progressed it was hard not to at least ask the question

“Who do you think you are?”

It's a question that both epistle and gospel might bring to mind.

Paul, of course, starts off by declaring his credentials – and they are impeccable.

It sounds for a few moments as if he's committing that unforgivable social sin of blowing his own trumpet – but then, in verse 7, everything changes.

We are suddenly brought up short – just as he himself was once brought up short on the road to Damascus.

A line is drawn under all those proud accolades of birth and education

It may have sounded good but, says Paul – it is without value, rubbish

whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ

It's that heart-stopping moment that we may experience, perhaps, when we first fall in love...The moment when the whole landscape of our world changes and we realise that what looked like hills are now valley, while the dips and troughs are transformed into lofty peaks....when we realise that nothing we knew before really mattered.

Transformation.

Who do you think you are?

It's a question worth considering.

Is your first answer something to do with those bits of yourself that others see....the successful businessman, the loving parent, the community servant?

Of course those identities matter – for they are part of the way in which you serve God in the world

But there's a danger in them too...if they divert you from your primary calling, to be a child of God and disciple of Christ, knowing and known by your Saviour.

The problem with the tenants of the vineyard in Matthew's parable is not that they weren't working well in the vineyard but that they'd lost sight of their identity as tenants.

They wanted to believe that the vineyard, and all its harvest, belonged to them.

They had forgotten who they were and abandoned their relationship with the Landlord so thoroughly that they thought nothing of beating up and killing his emissaries...even his Son.

That way, they thought, they could be independent forever.

We all like independence...it's a cardinal virtue in today's world...but it is only ever an illusion.

Like all those other things that Paul lists, the sources of pride that he might have clung to, it has no eternal value at all.

Nothing does, nothing, beyond that amazing love affair that God has with us, and that we can have with Him.

Who do you think you are?

You are the one whom God calls to share in the death of his Son, so that you might also share his resurrection.

Who do you think you are?

You are a tenant in God's vineyard, called to bear fruit for Him, and Him alone.

Who do you think you are?

You are God's beloved – and as such, you have infinite value, value beyond anything you could ever hope to achieve by your own efforts or your wildest dreams.

So, together, let us press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Harvest rethink - a sermon for Songs of Praise at All Saints, 2011

2011-09-17T21:04:00.000+01:00

When I first read the hymns you'd chosen for today, I have to confess I was a tiny bit disappointed.

Not that your suggestions were lacking in any way-but simply because I had rather hoped we might get to sing another – that's been popular with children for most of the past 3 decades.

It celebrates a whole multitude of joyful things...autumn days, a sporting victory, the song the milkman sings...and each verse ends with the chorus

“We mustn't forget to say a great big thank you.....”

And that's surely the message today.

We MUSTNT forget.

Unfortunately, we generally do.

We look at the world, at all that we have to enjoy, and we take it as our right.

We no longer see God in it..

Yes, it CAN be hard to see God in a tin of chopped tomatoes, a loaf of bread or a pizza.

But God is there.

If we open our eyes, wherever we look in creation, we see signs pointing the way to the creator.

Creation is so much more than a gigantic supermarket, a mine from which we extract what we want, using or discarding to suit ourselves as if nothing has any value.

Creation is, rather, part of the love song of our God who delights in creating…our God who looked at all that was made and declared that it was good.

But we do forget, don’t we.

We’ve come along way from the garden of Eden and we rarely look back over our shoulders.

It’s a situation foreseen by Moses in our 1st reading.

He, like me, was preaching at a Harvest Festival….at a time when the children of Israel were invited to give thanks for God’s generosity –the gift of land which produces food abundantly, a land “flowing with milk and honey”.

Moses urged the people to be thankful – and he recognised the danger that lurks embedded within any successful and affluent culture…the risk that success might encourage us to believe that we are sufficient unto ourselves.

By the grace of God, we are given many gifts – and it's absolutely right and proper to rejoice in seeing them well exercised.

Yesterday's fete, a wonderful celebration of the life of our community, was a brilliant example of gifts used co-operatively to benefit others...

but we need, as Christians at least, to go a bit further.

.The great medieval mystic, Meister Eckhardt, once said,

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough."

I’m not sure, though, if I quite agree.

Saying thank-you is important, certainly. It’s a great thing to recognise one’s blessings and say so from the heart.

But on another level I would say, SAYING thank you is only a small part of the full meaning of what thanksgiving is all about.

We need to DO our thank yous too as Paul reminds us in the letter we heard as our third reading.

We are the recipients of God’s ceaseless, overwhelming generosity – so we should give with that same generosity.

Think for a moment about how wildly profligate God is in creation.

Thousands of thousands of seeds, each with the potential to create a whole new life.

Myriad creatures so small they can only be glimpsed through a microscope.

God's life and love overflowing, no limit to his goodness which floods creation with unconditional love...

so it follows that our response should overflow, unconditionally…that the more we receive, the more we can open our hands to pass on the gift.

It seems to me that my own besetting sin is the fear that there might not be enough.

I want to give, I want to be generous…but at the back of my mind a little voice says

“Have you made sure you’re saving enough for old age…

What if NONE of the children can find work when they graduate?

If the Church of England goes bankrupt tomorrow?

What then?”

Instead of trusting that with God there is always enough and to spare, I wonder and worry and lapse into protective meanness.

Let’s face it: we don't need everything we have to live abundantly. Indeed perhaps the more we have the more cluttered our spirits become.

That’s a general truth but perhaps we are also at a stage in history where we'll be forced to face certain realities- that our economies cannot and should not grow forever, and that we may have to be content with what we have, or maybe even less.

“Tis a gift to be simple…” says the old Shaker song…but it’s a gift that we are strangely reluctant to grasp even if we remember the second line “Tis a gift to be free”

We seem determined to shore up our fragile selves with all sorts of material props…we focus not on thanksgiving but on thanksgetting…like a child who asks his friend on Boxing Day, not “what did you give?” but “what did you get for Christmas?”

But at harvest festival we have a chance for a rethink.

We come together to celebrate all that we have received, and we express that celebration by giving of our best, our first fruits, just as people have through many centuries.

Harvest festival sounds cosy, reassuring, a link with the golden days when churches were full and summers were hot.

But I’d like us to use our harvest festival as a challenge this year.

If you and I can remember that we are celebrating thanks-giving, and not thanks-getting, if we can live lives that reflect the boundless generosity of God, then we can honestly say with Meister Eckhardt that a simple prayer of "thank you" expressed in word and in deed, will be enough. In fact, it will be more than enough, abundant and overflowing with grace and love made manifest. And so let’s thank God, for life, thank God for food, family and friends, thank God for the opportunities of living in a rich land flowing with milk and honey, and thank God for being able to express our gratitude in acts of love, sharing and giving. Amen.

Trinity 13 A Homily for 8.00 at St Matthew's

2011-09-17T21:01:00.002+01:00

It's a scandal!

It's an outrage!

So sing the worthies of Oklahoma in Rogers & Hammerstein's splendid musical – and I rather suspect we might all like to join in with their chorus as we reflect on the gospel for today.

If we were in danger of hoping that Christianity was in any way an acceptable ethical system in the eyes of the world, this parable dooms us to disppointment.

If you stand Kingdom values and secular ethics side by side there's pretty much no common ground.

We are told that our faith is counter-cultural...and here's the evidence.

You see, we live in a world that, at its best, would like things to be FAIR

It's an instinct rooted deep within most of us...Just listen to a class of primary school children who have noticed that one of their number seems to be specially privileged...or, on a better day, seems to be missing out.

It's not FAIR they cry...

And as we grow up, we cling to that same idea of notional equality – tempered, of course, with a suppressed desire to protect our own interests,- even at the expense of our neighbours, near or far.

We like to believe that equal effort deserves equal reward (unless the effort is our own – in which case, we're pretty sure that our work is worth just a little bit more) – that the harder we work the more we should get – that there is a natural order to things, which ensures that those at the front of the queue will get the best.

And now here is Jesus, upsetting all our cherished ideas of how things ought to be, casting aside our received wisdom, asserting that our vision of how things ought to be is simply too narrow, missing the point altogether.

Where's the justice in that?

Justice,- well thereby hangs a tale.
At one point during the alarming assault course that is the selection procedure for training for ordination in the C of E, I found myself well and truly cornered by an interviewer. We had been talking about my life so far, and she had wanted to probe and explore all sorts of uncomfortable topics, including my attitude to God after the death of my parents, and during the period of my life when I seemed to be constantly pregnant and constantly miscarrying.
Finally, the selector asked me “Has God been just to you?”
The more I protested that for me, justice simply wasn’t an issue, the more she drove the point home.
Of course, my first reaction to the question was to look at it from the wrong angle. I imagined that she wanted to hear me say that I somehow “forgave” God for what had happened along the way. Sure, he hadn’t been as kind as I might have expected,- but I recognised that this wasn’t actually something that disturbed me any longer…so I kept on avoiding the question for as long as I could. But that selector was relentless.
Had God been just to me?
Finally, the penny dropped.
No, I said, thankfully God had not been just to me at all.

He has been wildly, extravagantly generous – accepting my half hearted gifts of time and energy (gifts that are God's in the 1^st place) – receiving my broken, willful self at his table – and giving me, in exchange for my grubby offering, HIS own life, HIS overwhelming love – and a place in HIS Kingdom for ever.

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?

He asks

You are mine – each of you...and I choose to respond to all that you are not with anger but with goodness,

not with justice but with generosity

The justice of this world is completely floored by the boundless grace of God...

Yes, God can do what he likes with his own and what he likes is to show them,- show us, wild, extravagant generosity and loving kindness. There is no justice in sight at all,- or our fate would be decided long since, and would not be something to celebrate.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Some thoughts on forgiveness for Proper 19 A

2011-09-10T20:46:00.001+01:00

How many times must I forgive my brother? Seven times?.......

To find ourselves confronted with the issue of forgiveness on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 might seem to be an almost impossible co-incidence...or perhaps are very pointed reminder of just how hard we find this thorny business, which is an absolute non negotiable part of our Christian life.

It's there every time we say the prayer we know best

“Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US”

In other words – we can expect to receive forgiveness in the same measure that we offer it....so it's in our interests to think quite hard about what that might mean.

The theory, of course, is fine...We know we should forgive – that's what Christians do...

“Forgive and forget” said Sister Theresa, my form teacher when I was 8...and some of us keep on trying to do just that, in an 8 year old kind of way that has more to do with sticking a plaster over a huge septic wound than it has to do with any real healing. Glib slogans are great until we're personally involved, but once we are, though we may try to pretend that we've not been hurt...to say “It's fine...The past is over. I've moved on” and actually believe it, still the words of our mouths and the thoughts of our hearts have very little in common.

I once knew a woman, a devout Catholic, whose 4 year old son was killed by a drunk driver as he played outside their home in a quiet village street.

She knew, in her head, that she had to forgive...She felt that her faith demanded it of her but though she spoke the words of forgiveness, they were accompanied by a qualifying clause

“I forgive him, but I never want to see him or hear his name as long as I life. I'm going to bury all my feelings along with my son and pray God that they can rest together”

That kind of forgiveness is surely only half the story – and yes, I do truly understand that we can celebrate forgiveness as a route to health and happiness – until it's our child that has been killed, our home destroyed, our country attacked.

Then we find out for ourselves just how costly forgiveness really is.

The story goes that a peasant in a far-away land once applied to join the communist party. Not everyone’s cup of tea. Still, as a part of the process, he needed to appear before the local party secretary to answer questions as to his worthiness.
“If you have two cats, you will give one of them away?”
“Yes I will.”
“And if you have two tractors, will you give one away?”
“Certainly.”
“And if you have two houses, you will give one away?”
“Absolutely.”
“And if you have two cows, will you give one of those away?”
“No, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why on earth not?” he was questioned.
“Because” the peasant said, “I actually HAVE two cows.”

In other words, it's much easier to practise an intellectual discipline than to get on with living it, day after day.

And to forgive does not, in any sense, mean to condone.

Terrible acts are perpetrated – and we need to acknowledge and name them....But having done so we have a choice...

We can cling to our wounds and allow the one who wronged us to continue the damage whenever we revisit our hurts.

We can seek vengeance – and so entrap ourselves in an endless spiral of violence and retribution

We can continue to blame those who have wounded us as we protest that without repentance there can be no true forgiveness

Or we can begin the arduous process of allowing forgiveness to move slowly from head to heart, from intellectual exercise to real transformation.

That may take 490 attempts...or 4,900...or even more....

But it's a choice to be made as often as it needs to be...for, like love, it is not a feeling but a decision – and one that needs to be made again and again...as long as it takes.

And it's a decision God keeps making.....though it costs God dear as well.
If for us forgiveness is a journey, for God it is a constant state - the counterpoint to the love that holds us in being.
And the forgiveness we give and receive is only possible because God bears the cost himself.
All that we need to forgive, all that we need to be forgiven, can be safely left with him.

" Look Father, look on his anointed face

And only look on us as found in him;

Look not on our misusings of your grace

Our prayer so languid and our faith so dim

For lo, between our sins and their reward

We set the Passion of thy Son our Lord."

The Debt of Love - homily for Proper 18:Yr A

2011-09-03T23:11:00.002+01:00

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves one another has fulfilled the law

Love and obligation might seem, at first glance, to be uneasy bedfellows.

Love, we think, is all about positive feelings – warm, spontaneous, instinctive, untrammelled, - whereas debt, - well that has quite different associations.....

On that basis, the concept of a debt of love is hard for us to engage with.

We might understand the need to love when we ourselves are loved, in an kind of fair exchange, an enhanced version of the principle that “one good turn deserves another” , but it seems to me that Paul has something quite different in mind.

To owe a debt to someone is to recognise what is their due, so we are forced to consider whether or not all people are “due” love...and it would be hard indeed to argue that they weren't.

Jesus is very clear about this – we are told straight out to love our enemies...and, by implication, everyone else as well.

In other words, it seems that Love is a universal debt, which we have no option but to pay.

Sometimes, of course, this is very easy..

When confronted with family and friends, our duty to love matches our loving feelings and the debt is paid gladly and freely.

But, as I tell wedding couples time and again, love is a choice and not a feeling.

It's a choice to consciously seek the other's good with all your heart and mind and strength....

It is not the same as always being “nice” to them....for love can be challenging and uncomfortable for lover and beloved alike.

Those on the receiving end of “tough love” may not recognise the genuine love that is present – but it's there all the same....

Love is not a passive process...Rather it is active and risky, relentlessly seeking the good,
the better, the best for others, and trying to achieve that, come what may.

Paul describes love as the fulfilling of the law.

If we truly love, then we will do all that God asks of us, recognising that love is the embodiment of the life that God wants for all creation.

Our love for each other flows from a deep well of faith, through which we make real God's desire for our lives.

Our loving others is not a recompense for the way God loves us (we're not paying off a debt of love to HIM!) , but it IS our loving response to that love.

God's love is truly unconditional – no matter how patchy or inadequate our response!

There is nothing in the world that we can do to make God love us more or less...and nothing can separate us from that love...

But to truly recognise this is to find ourselves called to love in return.

“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”......

God's love for me stirs up my love for God and that stirs up my love for all people....

a virtuous circle that can, quite simply, transform the world.

If that all sounds rather comfortable – believe me it shouldn't.

This is nothing to do with loitering among like minded people, lost in mutual admiration.

It's all to do with grasping the nettle of loving the unlovely and unloveable....so that they too might become lovely...and it's urgent.

This passage is, literally, a wake up call!

The night is far gone and the day is near...so we must be ready.

The life we live in Christ is not of this world...

We are called to be radically different, to live the way of light even though it is still dark outside.

It won't be easy but as children of the day we are to get on with the task of radical love here and now, to live into eternity in the every day.

So - we believe that salvation is within reach – nearer now than ever before...

We CAN make poverty history, end war, cure HIV/AIDS...Not “one of these days” but in our time, through our efforts...

We believe, too, in living honourably...not choosing to invest all our energies in the next feel-good treat, nor in fussing, fighting and jealousy but investing, instead, in those things of lasting value...

And we can manage this radical transformation, live out this way of love, only because we clothe ourselves in Christ...covering the naked inadequacy of our human wills, our clamouring egos, with that overwhelming love that can sweep us off our feet and take us to places that we never imagined...

Because, of course, that is what being a CHRISTIAN means.

We are to be little Christs, our lives modelled on his, our failures transformed by his victory, our weakness perfected by his strength.

And, clothed in Christ, we can learn his way of love...and recognise that we owe our debt of love to each and every human being...whether we like them or not.

Hmmn....I'm not sure that holidays are good for my preaching

2011-08-20T22:04:00.000+01:00

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect.

One of the best things about the narrowboat holidays that have been part of our family life for almost 10 years now is the almost infinite opportunity to catch up on reading. This past fortnight I've worked through a huge pile of fiction – some excellent, some less so, and also creamed off a few titles from the huge pile of books that waits, teetering, in the study.Among these was “Jesus Freak” by Sara Miles – a follow-up to her earlier book “Take this bread”. Both tell a remarkable story of a remarkable woman, whose faith is absolutely central to everything that she says, does and is.

It wasn't always that way, though.

She was a confirmed atheist when she wandered into a San Francisco church one day.

Listen to her own words

One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans — except that up until that moment I'd led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This was my first communion. It changed everything.
Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I'd scorned and work I'd never imagined. The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer at all, but actual food — indeed, the bread of life. In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to reach for and become part of a body, I realized what I'd been doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed people.
And so I did. I took communion, I passed the bread to others, and then I kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what I'd experienced. I started a food pantry and gave away literally tons of fruit and vegetables and cereal around the same altar where I'd first received the body of Christ...

Extraordinary, yes?

But actually not so very different from the process that should be going on in each of us.

We are called to be different...

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern the will of God

Just think about that for a moment.

We are all, whatever our denomination, invited to be non conformists...to stand out from the crowd...to march to the beat of a different drum

And that non conformity has its roots in a new way of thinking, the renewing of our minds til we discover God's agenda for each one of us.

It's as if, through the years, the truth of who we are before God, and of what we are called to be gets overlaid by the complexities of our everyday lives.

In the same way that the inscriptions on the older stones outside in our churchyard can be almost illegible, thanks to the growth of lichen that threatens to blot out the letters, so our own identity as God's children is sometimes barely recognisable.

There are so many things at work to obscure those true selves whom God calls...

Fear, of course...for it takes courage to risk going out on a limb

Self doubt...Is there really anything that I can do, any way in which I can contribute to God's purposes here?

Self interest ...a comfortable, affluent life-style is hard to set aside, even if I have an uneasy sense that my comfort is bought at the expense of others, in poorer countries, poorer communities

And so, gradually, the layers of lichen grow deeper and that fundamental identity as a citizen of God's kingdom is all but obscured from view.

At the same time, the church, that should be a sign of God's radically inclusive Kingdom seems, instead, to be more like the religious branch of the local golf club...full of morally upright, well-meaning people who could blend into the crowd with no trouble at all.

If this is a picture you recognise, then you will have heard our epistle today as a wake-up call.

It's time to scrub off the layers of lichen that have covered the surface of the living stones of God's church.

Time to think straight about where you belong in God's vision for the world...

To consider afresh what part of the body you are?

For everyone, no matter how small and insignificant they feel, has a real and vital role to play.

To those Roman Christians, living in a society where it was very clear the some people were worth more than others, Paul speaks the revolutionary message that all are of equal worth , that we belong together, united in common purpose as we respond to God's gracious love.

Paul speaks of prophets and ministers, teachers and givers, leaders and carers...all essential to the life and health of the body of Christ.

Maybe none of those callings resonates for you – but that doesn't mean that Paul's message has lost its meaning.

Here and now, in Cainscross/Selsley in 2011, we too are show what the Kingdom of God will look like when it is revealed in all its fulness.

As our minds are renewed, they will lead us into the future God plans for us...

As we are transformed in our inner thoughts, we will live the grace filled lives that are God's will for all his children – and find out what our own particular calling may be.

For Sara Miles it is to feed the hungry...

For Mother Teresa to tend the dying...

For you – isn't it time to discover.

For you are remarkable, gifted, created by God to live out a particular purpose, called out from the crowd to live a transformed life as a sign of the Kingdom.

Many years ago a man called Rabbi Ben Yosef was dying. Being a respected member of the Jewish community, many community leaders and other friends came to visit him in his last days. During the course of one of those visits, a man asked, "Rabbi, what will heaven be like?" He thought for a moment, and replied, "I do not know what heaven will be like, but this I do know; when I get there, I won't be asked, 'Why weren't you Moses, Why weren't you Abraham?' What I will be asked is, 'Why weren't you Ben Yosef? Why weren't you fully you?'"

That is our fundamental calling...To be fully ourselves, offering all that we are, our gifts, strengths and weaknesses to God, so that God can transform us, renew our minds, transform our way of thinking and our way of being, so that we too may live out God's will, as signs of his Kingdom.

Healed, restored, forgiven.....walking the Labyrinth once more

2011-08-19T22:03:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how many years it has been since Gloucester Cathedral took to hosting a labyrinth in August - nor how many times I've made the journey there for a Taize service at the end of a long day...

Each year, it seems to be the prayer experience I most need.

Each year, I take away something different from this precious encounter.

This week, at the end of a rather stress filled first day back at work, it brought me peace and reassurance in ways I would never have dared to imagine.

That morning at Mass,having heard the parable of the workers in the vineyard, I'd said something about our incorrigible tendency to judge ourselves in comparison to our neighbours...to consider their triumphs and disasters mostly in relation to our own journeys, to lose track of the beauty of our own surroundings and the grace that we are offered because we are too busy looking over our shoulders to check that our fellow travellers haven't had a better deal.

That evening, I was given a wonderful encouragement to focus on my own journey and never mind what my fellow travellers were getting up to.

Walking a labyrinth in company is always a potentially anxious task for me.

I worry that I will adopt the "wrong" pace, that if I fall over my own feet or wobble as I turn a corner, I will somehow make things harder for anyone walking nearby.

I worry that I'll be in the way, that I'll want to spend too long in the centre....

Or at least that has often been my experience in the past.

This time, though, was quite different.

Yes, I was very much one of a group (more people there than in past years), seeking to cover the same ground, following the same pathway with the same intention....but instead of anxiety that there might not be space enough for us all, that somehow we would hinder one another, I found myself drawing strength and inspiration from those who walked around me.

There was the buttoned up bachelor, taking his shoes off hesitantly, self conscious as he began his journey in black stockinged feed

The small boy, keen to whizz round at his own pace ,but equally determined not to upset anyone else, who gave me a radiant smile as, whispering, I invited him to overtake

The woman who lives nearby, someone with whom I'd shared significant moments in our respective faith journeys....how lovely to find her walking that same path

And M., the wonderful priest whose ministry had so inspired me when I worked with him during my training. As I walked, I remembered sitting cross legged on the floor of his inner-city church, singing Taize chants quietly by the light of a single candle - and the blanket of peace that had fallen over me

There were many others too...but there was space enough for us all

When I reached the centre, I sat for a while, as the chant continued around me....gaining strength and confidence as other voices grouped around me, lending me courage and assurance by their presence....my felow-travellers, whose pilgrimages matched my own

"Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life"

Homily for 8.00 30th July

2011-07-30T22:04:00.002+01:00

It began with a handful of grain – scattered carelessly in the field...

Not a big handful you understand...you wouldn't have noticed it falling on the soil - but nonetheless, through the grace of the Creator it sprouted and grew and in time there was a patch of corn...

Not a whole field, but a good few ears, which when harvested produced enough to grind to make a sack of flour

Not that much flour – nobody would have struggled to carry the sack home from the mill – but still it was enough for a family to thank God as they made their bread for a few months

Nothing spectacular in all of that.

The stuff of ordinary life.

You'd wouldn't bother to turn your head to look...not at the grain, nor the corn, nor the flour...not even at the fresh baked bread which made the whole kitchen smell so good.

5 loaves, wrapped up to make a picnic for a child...a child off exploring in the hill country, running free, but pausing, his attention held by the man telling wonderful stories to the crowd.

Just one small child

And one packed lunch

Nothing spectacular here either...

But when the moment came, when there WAS no food for all those gathered....that one ordinary boy dared to offer himself, with all that he had, to the Teller of Tales

That small basket, packed with a small boy's lunch – fruit of the earth and work of human hands – was taken, blessed, broken open and distributed

And somehow, beyond all expectations, by the grace of God it was enough.

So it is with us.

We bring nothing spectacular to God's table...

Ordinary people, bringing ordinary hopes, ordinary fears and broken dreams...

Nothing to offer, really – but if we dare....if we truly offer ourselves, with all that we have and all that we are

Then, we too can be blessed, broken, distributed....and find ourselves transformed beyond all hopes and expectations...

Blessed by God as we meet Him in the bread and wine of Eucharist

Blessed to go out and be a blessing in our turn

Augustine said to his confirmation candidates, as they brought bread and wine to the altar at the Offertory - “there YOU are on the altar...You are to be taken, blessed, broken, distributed so that the work of the Incarnation may go forward”

The best I can do tonight...

2011-07-23T22:21:00.000+01:00

Proper 12A – Romans 8 & Matthew 13

Another week when the news has been anything but good.

Corruption and scandal at home, famine abroad and then late on Friday night the news of the horrific events in Norway....the bomb in Oslo and the shooting of so many young people off at a summer camp in an idyllic island setting.

Truly the stuff of nightmares – and just as things seemed to be at their worst news began to spread across the internet – the gunman, Anders Behring Breivik, was described as a fundamentalist Christian.

Suddenly, I realised without any stretch of the imagination how the majority of peaceable, devout Muslims must feel as they read the often hysterical references to Islamic fundamentalists.

I was distraught as it appeared that none of those reporting could see the contradiction between the horrific violence that claimed só many young lives and the label of “little Christ...Christian” that had been attached to it.

I wanted to rush out into the road shouting

“No.......No..........You've got it all wrong. Christianity isn't like that....Nobody who is following Jesus could ever act in that dreadful way”

I wanted to – but I didn't.

Because I started thinking about the way that I live out my baptism....the ever present gap between the person I'm called to be, the one whom on my best days I aspire to be, and the thoroughly ordinary, hurt and hurting Kathryn who repeatedly fails in her quest to follow Jesus.

I realised that Christianity isn't that much like my life either....That though I may long to spend my time as a sign of God's Kingdom, I sometimes find myself pointing in a very different direction.

And I'm probably not alone.

Because, I guess, each one of us betrays the Kingdom of God in só many different ways.

We may do só by failing to care enough – by ignoring the cries of the hungry children of Africa or the loneliness of the troubled old lady down the road.

We may do só by a disproportionate focus on the interests of our own kind – our own family, perhaps even our own church family...

We may do só by the choices we make in our shopping trips – to save ourselves money at the expense of others, far away out of sight and thus out of mind

We may do só by staying silent in the face of injustice or by the simple hypocrisy that leads us, like the Pharisee in the Temple, to thank God that WE are not like other people.

Though perhaps none of those betrayals is as flagrant or as cataclysmic in its immediate impact as the probable actions of Anders Breivik, still each reflects our failure to truly live the cross-shaped life that we're called to in baptism.

Too often when I read a report of the latest mad or bad cleric, the sillier discussions at General Synod, or the minor selfishness of a small community that thinks that “charity begins at home” means “US first – everyone else can just wait their turn” I want to exclaim

“No...you've got it all wrong...Being a Christian isn't like that”

But sadly, that's often all the Christianity that people see.

Is there no hope, then?

If even the best of us fall over our own feet again and again, should we say, as one rather weary friend lamented earlier this week, that “the Christian project has failed”.

Certainly if we look at the lives of those who profess themselves Christians, there is lots of ground for disappointment...We don't seem to be bringing in the Kingdom, do we? The world is every bit as broken and enslaved as it has ever been.

But wait.

How does Jesus describe the Kingdom, that state of being in which God's will is done on earth as in heaven?

He doesn't, you'll notice, talk about overnight revolutions – about the world turned upside down, and everything made perfect in an instant.

Nor does he talk about our working our way into the Kingdom...It's nothing to do with us qualifying by our behaviour.

The images of the Kingdom that he gives us in our gospel today are all about gradual growth, delayed gratification...

A seed, só tiny that you might drop it without even noticing, that grows slowly, imperceptibly to become a home and shelter for many

Yeast, that takes it time to work within dough...that cannot effect change unless the conditions are right...but that cannot BUT change everything with which it has contact

A treasure buried in a field...buried so deep that few people suspect that it is there...but something of such value that it is worth all we could possibly pay and more....

A priceless pearl – worth more than we can imagine...the sort of jewel you might spend a lifetime seeking...

Nothing quick, easy or dramatic here...but also nothing that depends on us.

The Kingdom, - where God's love rules regardless of our failures, our intransigence, our stupidity....that Kingdom will come.

It will come because there is nothing that can stop it.

Not human sin

Not the powers of evil

Not the things of time, nor those of eternity.

God's love is inexorable...

It will find its way through our rebellions, our apathy, our feeble attempts to live as Christians and our petulant refusals to let God be God...

It will even find its way through the pain of those who are weeping for lost children today...

That's what love does.

It does not eliminate pain...so it is right and proper to lament, to cry out with all that is in us “Oh God – why”......knowing that as we do so, Christ allies himself to us in our weeping and in our longing for redemption.

Love comes with us into our darkness, shares our desolation, cries in our tears, but is not overcome.

Even Paul, who was undoubtedly a fundamentalist Christian in that so much of our theology is founded on his writings, never doubted that.

“Love never ends” he said, to the Christians in Corinth......and then, as he looked at the trials and terrors that surrounded the new-fledged church in Rome he wrote still more powerfully

I am confident that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christianity does not depend on us.

Hope does not depend on us.

We fail, again and again, but always, always God's love wins...and as we recognise and begin to respond to this, so the task of following, of becoming signs of the Kingdom, becomes, step by tiny step, that bit more possible

So – despite the grief of the world......Despite the shame that I feel when I measure my own Christianity against the fulness of God's kingdom, despite all that casts shadows across our lives I can say

“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.

I believe in Love, even when I do not feel it

I believe in God, even when God is silent”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Mission Shaped Kathryn?

2011-07-16T14:40:00.000+01:00

Off and on through the past year, though far less regularly than I'd hoped, I've been part of a group exploring "Mission Shaped Ministry". The course finished just a week ago, and I've been reflecting on its impact on me and the ministry of the church in my parishes.

At the same time, I've been part of other conversations around the work of our Deanery pioneer minister, - so the mission theme has been bubbling away quite close to the service this week.

We're blessed with a very able pioneer minister working as a curate in a nearby parish, but also giving 50% of his time to developing a Fresh Expression of church in the town at the centre of the deanery.

This neighbouring town* is a wonderful mixture...some very down to earth people born and bred here....some spiritual explorers with alot of energy and commitment to alternative spiritualities...many devotees of Rudolf Steiner....lots of artists, thinkers, askers of Big Questions.

Altogether, it's an extraordinary place where it's never hard to find something interesting and thought-provoking going on, but sadly the Christian presence does not, to my mind, really seem to connect with the essence of the town. We've tended to hide in our churches, or to offer an attractive but specific model of evangelism through "Churches Together" - which has, I think, depended heavily on inviting people to some well-organised events, sometimes with big-name speakers. Of course, this approach does bear some fruit, just as it always has - and there are thriving independent, Baptist and evangelical Anglican churches about the place who are deeply committed to it, and who draw in good numbers through Alpha, "Praise in the Park" and, no doubt, through last year's Deanery mission.

Regular readers in the "glory days" of this blog may not be surprised to hear that this isn't quite where I am. I felt called to these communities for a ministry of incarnation - offering practical support, sharing where I can with the struggles and joys of life on the estates of my parish, above all trying to encourage people who rarely look up, to dare to lift their gaze and notice God at work in and among them every day. I also felt a vague tug - nothing as clear as a call - towards the spiritual explorers of the neighbouring town. I love being with those on the edge, always have.It was, actually, the one thing that made my much-loved title parish frustrating at times - for life was so comfortable and certain for the majority there. I'm famously keen on multi-sensory (aka touchy feely?) worship, on tea-lights, pebbles and plainsong in a darkened church, -so, when it came to the mission last year our contributions in the valley were based on helping to reclaim the community centre FOR the estates community and offering a labyrinth, as a toe in the water experiential prayer opportunity for those who will never engage with the black and white certainties of evangelical Christianity.

No - we didn't,as a result, bring lots of new Christians to baptism but both ventures were valuable in quite different ways, and connections were made on which we continue to build.

You see, for me it's all about community....About affirming the communties that do exist and helping them to see God in one another...About doing all that I can to help build community where there seems to be isolation and struggle (Messy Church is an important part of this)...About remembering again and again that God IS community - the community of the Trinity...into which we are invited. The vacant seat at the table in Rublev's icon.

At the heart of my calling as priest is the need to invite others, wherever and however I can, to experience the hospitality of God - in ways in which that will be recognised and welcomed.

I love inherited church. It has formed me, given me a route to ministry, sustained and supported me through a whole host of life crises (and been noticeably missing at others) - but even at my most optimistic I can't say that I expect it to "work" for a majority today.

So, I also love the climate of exploration and discovery that has emerged in the wake of "Mission Shaped Church" but the thing that really excites me most is the invitation "to find out what God is doing and then join in".

I'm pretty sure that while God is undoubtedly at work in and through God's Church there's an awful lot more to God's mission than our limited, church-shaped imaginations will allow. I wonder what God is REALLY doing among those alternative seekers...and how best I can join in and celebrate.

*our boundaries touch - til I lived here I believed that valley parish was part of hippy dippy Town...now I know better :)

What a timely Friday Five

2011-07-01T10:04:00.000+01:00

After a particularly stressful June, and an amazingly helpful time with my ever-wonderful Spiritual Director, I found myself writing 2 blogs in the space of 12 hours for the first time in months...I remembered how helpful I used to find the process of writing reflectively for this space, the web of wonderful connections that emerged, the fact that most of my best writing is here. And I felt wistful. I spend alot of time on twitter & have new & treasured friends there too - but the medium is utterly different, and I do feel the loss.

But ironically, it was a RevGals tweet that sent me over to look at the Friday Five for the first time in - well, a year possibly....

This was what I read, from my good friend Kathryn - one of those whom I really miss now I no longer spend my free time wandering through my blog reader.

A friend and I were lamenting recently about the good ol' days of blogging and memes. Certainly there are still some very active blogs around our web ring, but the days of the Friday Five getting 50-70+ responses are in the past. We lamented that the Friday Five is the equivalent of the women's guild of RevGalBlogPals.

I am one of those who went from blogging just about daily to periodically at best. Unfortunately, the number I routinely read has gone down as well. What about you?

1) Have your blogging (writing/reading) habits shifted since the days of yore?

Goodness, yes! I used to find time to blog well nigh every day - sometimes more than once. It was a huge part of how I learned in ministry during my curacy, a place to try out ideas, to receive encouragement and challenge, as I explored what it meant to be a priest and a parent, how to balance my own expectations and those of other people with the emerging reality of parish ministry...I loved this blog at its best and am sure that I was a better priest, more alert to God's presence in the everyday, because I was engaged in constant reflection here.

Then I became an incumbent in two very different but quite challenging parishes. I still look for God's presence in the everyday, but too often I'm galloping through life at such speed that I don't really engage with it. The weight of expectations has increased, as has the need for reticence and circumspection if I am writing about the parish. So, inevitably, my blogging has declined - and as for my reading.....When bloglines, the reader I'd used from 2004, announced it was about to vanish, I wasn't even sure that I needed to find a replacement...I now depended on a tweet to alert me to updates from friends - and so I often missed important news, the minutae of daily life that we'd once shared on our blogs. I can't imagine a return to my former practice - but I'm hoping, with the help of a few wise friends, to engage in some serious rebalancing of my life this year...and I know that, as part of that, it would be good for me to return to a regular process of reflection here if I can manage it.

2) Do you have some favorites that you miss?

Far too many....Some are still there, but I just don't get time to read them. Some have changed character (rather as this blog has) to become more of an official voice, less a personal journal. Some have gone for good...My friend and colleague HopefulAmphibian was one of the first to vanish, as he moved from curacy to incumbency...On the far side of that same divide, I now understand why....but I still miss his voice, along with many others, here.

3) Are there some blogs you still put in the 'must read' category?

When friends tweet about a blog update, I'll usually try to drop in to catch up - but I barely look at my google reader so I guess that means "no". How sad. Perhaps now is the time to change this...

4) If we gathered at your knee, what would you tell us about those early days of blogging?

I had no idea, when I first began to blog (as I found myself reading and responding to the writing of a small group of Greenbelt friends) that I would ever MEET anyone this way...But in being as honestly myself as I knew how to be, as I explored my first beginnings in ordained ministry, I found frienship, support and my voice as a small time theologian and began to believe that I really WAS the priest whom others seemed to see. Blogging changed my self-understanding and widened my horizons beyond all my wildest dreams. I'm certain that, if I'd not begun to build friendships all over the world, the life-changing trip to India in 2006 would quite simply have looked too frightening to contemplate...And I know that I'd never have crossed the Pond without RevGals reaching out to me, to share in the first Big Event. I guess that means that blogging changed my life...which sounds over dramatic, but is, nonetheless, absolutely true!

5) Do you have a clip or a remembrance of a previous post of yours or someone else's that you remember, you know an oldie but goodie?

This weekend I'll celebrate the 6th anniversary of my ordination as priest, and on Sunday I'll preside at 10.00 in my lovely valley church, remembering my 1st Mass at St Mary's, on 3rd July 2005. This is what I wrote then...and it remains so true, an inextricable part of who I am

Off to Mount Moriah

2011-07-01T08:39:00.001+01:00

The Eucharistic lectionary yesterday featured that story that strikes dread into the heart of children's workers throughout the world - the (almost) sacrifice of Isaac...
As my curate read it to the small Thursday congregation gathered up the hill, painfully conscious of the high cost that some clergy families are paying right now for the sake of vocation, I was almost speechless...

Why THAT reading today?

What could I possibly say about it?

It didn't seem to me that there was the option of ignoring it - it's not the kind of Bible story you can gloss over or expect the congregation to forget.

So I waited for inspiration.
Nothing.

I read the Gospel.
Nothing stirred.

We said the Creed (BCP service, this).
Still nothing.

Too late now. No escape..

"Please sit down.

What are we to make of this story?

What does it say about God? how could we ever share it with our children?"

And suddenly I found myself answering my own questions - not just for Abraham and Isaac, but for my own children (who have undoubtedly felt themselves offered as a sacrifice on the altar of my priesthood from time to time) and for the families of all my friends who have asked, from time to time, whether this mad, wild and sometimes wonderful calling is really worth it.

Because, of course, in the end God DIDNT demand that sacrifice.

The point was not that God wanted to take back the gift that had been given, nor that some ghastly blood-lust should be assuaged.

God wanted Abraham to confirm his that relationship that had enabled him to leave his father's house and venture into the unknown at God's invitation.

I'm pretty certain that this is what it's all about, really.

Even at my darkest, most disillusioned moments I've always known that God cares about my children even more than I do...because God's perspective is total. My recurring problem is actually trusting in my heart that God will deliver the care that, in my head, I know I can rely on. So, I make contingency plans, try to protect my loved ones just in case God fails to turn up, struggle with herding a whole flock of sheep and rams up the mountainside so that there's absolutely no danger that one of my most precious, beloved children will be sacrificed on the altar of my ministry - or in any other way at all.

And in doing that, I limit both my expectations of God and God's opportunities to act - because, in my experience at least, God just doesn't wade in unasked.

I don't think this makes things feel any better, when you seem to be stuck in the wilderness with nothing to rescue your children from all sorts of painful sacrifices...but it does, perhaps, offer a further reassurance that, as FabBishop always says as he shares the cure of souls with a new incumbent, we can honestly

"put our trust in God. He is faithful"

And of course, the ending of the Abraham story gives us something huge to look forward to....for he is, famously, blessed to be a blessing. I know that will be true for my friends who are stuck on the mountain as well.

Transitions

2011-06-30T18:23:00.001+01:00

I was one of those fortunate women who have very easy labours. Perhaps this is why I never stopped hankering after "just one more baby" - or perhaps that was simply because I didn't really want to grow up. Who knows? However, I could guarantee that even in the shortest and most straightforward of labours (my longest lasted a cool 4 hours) there would be one stage in which I would become thoroughly miserable and unreasonable, ask if I could call the whole thing off and generally rue the day that I ever contemplated motherhood.

This stage will be familiar to parents as transition........and since then I've realised that I don't much enjoy other transitions either.

I don't think many people do.

Currently, I've several friends and family members who are in that threshold space. My beloved daughter Hattie Gandhi returns here this evening, leaving the city that she has loved since her arrival as a 1st year undergraduate. With 2 degrees to her name, she has certainly made the most of her time there in every possible way - and I know it's hard for her to head back to the vicarage, which has never been home for her, with no idea of what comes next.

Meanwhile, a dear friend is waiting to begin a new ministry in a new place and going through all the uncomfortable adjustments that this entails - coupled with the awful bereavement that seems to be part of leaving any parish, at least until the next chapter really begins...and others are on their ordination retreats, contemplating stepping through the door into a completely different world.

Another has just announced that she will be leaving this country and heading across the Pond...And I spent yesterday morning at the Cathedral with the year 6 from valley church school, as they attended the diocesan Leavers' service.

And so it goes on.

Transitions wherever I turn.

So - for all of these dear dear people, specially those who are struggling with what comes next, a prayer by beloved John O'Donahue, from "Benedictus"

For the interim time

When near the end of day, life has drained

Out of light, and it is too soon

For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline

Makes everything look strangely in-between,

Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.

In a while, it will be night, but nothing

Here seems to believe the relief of dark.

You are in this time of the interim

Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;

The way forward is still concealed from you.

The old is not old enough to have died away;

The new is still too young to be born.

You cannot lay claim to anything;

In this place of dusk

Your eyes are blurred;

And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart

And you can see nowhere to put your trust;

You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.

Do not allow your confusion to squander

This call which is loosening

Your roots in false ground,

That you might come free

From all you had outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind

And it is difficult and slow to become new,

The more faithfully you can endure here,

The more refined your heart will become

For your arrival in the new dawn.

PS. Oh - and for the record - after transition came the hardest work of labour - and then three joyful deliveries. Well worth enduring for!