Sermon for the Third Sunday before Advent, Yr C

With my thanks to my dear friend Songbird, and the contributers to the "Desperate Preacher" site...This week I surely qualified there!

November with dark nights and dreary mornings, with fallen leaves and bare branches, is a fitting season to contemplate life, death and the hereafter – and the church provides many opportunities to do so. Last Sunday, All Saints, we reflected on our calling to be saints here and now – filled with and transformed by God's presence in our lives...then on Tuesday, All Souls, I read aloud 241 names – the beloved dead that we remembered before God in that most moving of services. Next week we'll think especially of those who die in war...Wherever we look at this time of year, questions of life and death are there...Death, the elephant in the room, is shifting around, refusing to be quiet só that we can ignore it.

I'll never forget taking a funeral for an elderly lady in the early months of my ministry...Her grand-daughters, a few years younger than me, were the chief mourners and we celebrated their grandmother's life, the gift she had been to them and the difference she had made to the world, and stood together as we entrusted her into God's care. They laughed and cried and the service was a wonderful mix of honesty and idealism, as funerals só often are.

But afterwards, as we sat over a glass of wine, the younger sister turned to me and said

“I know that God is looking after Gran – but what I want to know is.......where is she now”

And that, of course, for all my training, I simply could not answer.

Every generation and every culture has wondered about what happens when life as we know it ends and there have been all sorts of attempts to make the unknown bearable...from the ancient Egyptians, filling their tombs with every possible physical essential, só that the dead will be fully provided for as they continue on their journey...to those who see life as cycle of death and rebirth, until finally we reach the freedom of nirvana. The Saducees, questioning Jesus, have no concept of resurrection, of life after death....so their question is at best mischievous. They don't really want to know what is going to happen to that poor, much married woman.

But I think that we often try to domesticate eternity by envisaging it according to the world that we do know, the experiences that are our daily lot. We imagine it as a sort of upgraded earth, where all the things we wish were different will indeed be put right.

But, as we are reminded in Scripture, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"--

in other words, - we just don't have a clue!

Heaven is completely different so the two big pillars of the argument -marriage and death- make no sense at all in heaven's terms. Marriage is for now – not for later. Death is for now as well– there is no dying then.

This is something that Moses understood as he recognised that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were alive with God – só he chose to call the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. He could simply have described him as “my God”, but that would have been to limit himself to the present....Instead he widens his horizon, bringing the past into the present and asserting that ancestors who are dead are alive with God.

Alive – but not in a way that simply continues and improves upon the existence we know right now.

We are not the same after this life. Resurrection is not the same as ressucitation.

Jesus was nothing if not honest with us. He assures us of a resurrection, but not of a repetition of our earthly lives. For some of us that’s a loss. But in many ways, and for many people, it may be a relief, too. Christ's own life, as it came to a human end, contained disappointment and betrayal, being let down by his friends and cruelly killed by his enemies.Jesus understood the pain of being human and he understood too the pain of dying.

“Now God is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to God all of them are alive.

Jesus calls us to trust in the God of the living, and focus on our life here and now... and let God look after the next life. The how remains beyond us, as it did for Job when he proclaimed his confidence in the paradox that asserts

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God”

That doesn't make any sense, from our time-limited, material frame of reference – but imagine those words as set by Handel...and you will, I'm certain, understand their deep and lasting truth. For the moment it may be only through the lens of great art that we can have an inkling of what is to come...só i'm afraid I would still have no helpful answer for Victoria and her sister – but I hope that i would be slightly less embarassed by this failing.

I know that my Redeemer lives......and that God is the God not of the dead but of the living.......so I can, ultimately, trust him not just with my own life and destiny but, even more, with that of those whom I love most...both living and departed.....for to God all of them are alive.

Stepping Stones

Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life”

Though I may sometimes wander from the straight and narrow of Common Worship, when I lead the bearers into church or crematorium chapel at the start of a funeral service, I always begin with these words. For me, it matters hugely that as we enter that space, with that particular task ahead of us, the first word that I speak is Christ's name.

Whatever may happen in the next half hour, for me this has the effect of planting a standard...It balances the moment when, in the baptism service, I anoint the candidate with the sign of the cross and claim her for Christ. It is, I suppose, a moment when we all need to know that God is a God who keeps promises.

But recently I was part of a discussion which included a priest whom I know, love and trust deeply. Our topic was resurrection...those resurrection moments when the world seems transformed (the morning after the Berlin Wall fell was one example, the day Mandela was freed another)...and trying We tried among ourselves to decide whether these were really resurrections – doorways into a new kind of life – or epiphanies – moments of recognition of underlying hidden truth. The conversation ranged far and wide, along many and fascinating roads...and I threw in to the mix that certainty that I always feel when I speak those words at a funeral service, that here is something quite different, quite, quite new...

My friend said that she no longer uses those words, because of their insistence on belief...which makes them, potentially, too harsh a measure against which to judge the eternal destiny of a much loved relative.

“What does it say,” she wondered “to those who feel themselves to be without belief?”

“Those who believe in me, though they die shall live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die”

I guess that could indeed sound harsh, exclusive to mourners struggling with the painful reality of loss and I have sometimes curtailed the reading from John 14 which is so often chosen, because, I suspect, of it's cosiness, it's soothing reassurance that we are on a journey home...

“Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life...”.

I stop before the final sentence:

“No one comes to the Father except through me”

Is that dishonest?

Am I selling the gospel short?

Should I be handing in my license with immediate effect?

I really don't think so.

Do I, then, believe Christ's words?

Yes, absolutely....but I DO NOT believe that this means that those who never commit themselves to Christ are lost.

God loves us far too much for that.

Yes, Jesus opened the one and only gateway through death...He IS the Way...and it is only in him that we can see what it means to live a life fully in God's presence...only in him that we understand what humanity should look like...

But I'm confident that when people seem to reject Him, it's because we've failed to present the Truth in all its Beauty. They aren't rejecting God, but the limited imperfect version of God that we, whether in the Church or outside it, have offered to them.

Sometimes, wonderfully, God finds a way through the cracks...and people come to recognize God despite our inept presentations, our inadequate lives, our leaky theology.

I've written before of the impact that C.S. Lewis had on my world view in childhood – and those influences are as strong as ever.

I know, as far as I know anything, that there will be many who, like the Calormene soldier in The Last Battle, find themselves bemused and startled that their lifelong quest has brought them to a destination that they had never imagined.

I imagine countless souls gasping in wonder, and saying

“Now I understand. I never realized it was like this...”

But funerals are not the time for theology...for deep discussions and persuasive arguments.

They are a time to assert with all the faith and conviction that can be mustered that all is well, that nothing is lost, that love is truly stronger than death.

What matters more than anything is that as the priest leading the service I can believe for everyone there...that when I say

“Confident of Christ's victory and claiming his promises, we entrust X to your mercy...” I do indeed have perfect confidence in that victory, those promises.

So, for me, those sentences that begin the service are important...They are beacons of hope that shine through the maelstrom of emotions...stepping stones that we can rest on, fixed and firm amid the sinking sand of doubt and despair...

Like so much of the liturgy they are truly words of power, transforming people and situations so that the heartsick battered little group that gathers in a crematorium chapel becomes, as it needs to, a community of faith...clinging with desperate conviction to the promise of the cross and empty tomb.

Blogging along

Once upon a time I had a blog that I visited nearly every day.

We did our thinking together, worked out something of what the mad dance of ministry as a curate might entail, tried to make sense of the glimpses of God we noticed along the way.

Then things changed.

I became an incumbent, no longer working in partnership with WonderfulVicar but in a new place, with different patterns of life and worship, different expectations of the clergy and more responsibilities than I had ever imagined.

Blogging took a back seat as I realised that thinking aloud might sometimes be unhelpful, even, occasionally, dangerous...

I did still glimpse God along the way – though perhaps not quite as often – but it seemed wiser to keep most of my daily doings to myself.

Busyness took over.

I was still at my computer more than I'd ever expected at vicar school, but much of my time was taken up with rotas, publicity, papers on this and responses to that...even a parish magazine.

Blogging felt like rather a luxury, as did time spent reading the blogs of others.

This made me sad for I love to write, and love still more the web of connections with friends far and wide that my blog wove for me.

But somehow, even when something was aching to be blogged, it rarely happened.

I've made so many false starts, so many declarations of an intention to return – and I guess I know that the days are gone when writing here seemed an essential element in my emerging ministry...but I can't bring myself to pull the plug and abandon the blog forever. I'm frustrated with myself, recognizing that it's far too easy to miss the God moments if I'm not sharing them with anyone...indeed, as an extrovert, experiences are never absolutely real unless they are shared...

Wonderful things are still happening. Terrible things are still happening. Often I find myself walking a tightrope between the two, not entirely sure of my destination until I arrive....finding joy, un-looked for, as I visit a funeral family...or disillusion and emptyness even as a community gathers to celebrate.

And I need to write of it somewhere because, it seems to me, part of the priestly calling is to keep on telling the story...the story of my communities, of the men, women and children with whom I'm travelling day by day....and the great God Story in which our lives are swept up. My calling, surely, is to build bridges from the one to the other...to journey with my eyes open so that I can try and point out to my fellow travelers the signs of God at work.

For the moment, this blog, neglected, almost forgotten, is still part of the process – a tool that encourages me to stay alert.

Clearly not a luxury, after all.

Reflection for All Souls

Whenever we gather around the altar in obedience to Our Lord's instruction to share bread and wine it seems to me that the veil between earth and heaven is very thin.

When we join in the song of the angels in heaven “Holy, holy, holy...” I'm certain that if we cannot hear the angel voices, it is only because we aren't listening hard enough....but today, as we gather to remember our own beloved dead that great community is closer than ever.

Odilo, abbot of Cluny, gave us this feast of All Souls and fixed November 2 as a commemoration of “all the dead who have existed from the beginning of the world to the end of time.” So we pray for them, for ourselves and our children, and our children's children.

From the perspective of eternity, that barrier which we call death is non- existent. Where there is no time, no past, present or future, then there can be no endings or beginnings...as the hymn would have it

“All are one in thee, for all are thine”

We pause to remember and to pray for those whom we love but see no longer, knowing that the ties that connected us in life, that made us pray for them and they for us, remain un-broken.

Standing in God's closer presence, I know they are still praying for us...as we for them.

We pray not to rescue them from the bonds of hell – our God offers unconditional love, welcome and forgiveness and our 1^st reading spoke truth

" The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and there shall no torment touch them”

Rather we pray with thanksgiving for lives that have enriched our own and with confidence in the God whose Son destroyed death forever, and showed to the world that there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from God's love.

Friends on earth and friends above...all one in Christ Jesus.

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
  into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of thy glory and dominion,
world without end.

Music for All Souls

The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.

They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.

Music for All Saints

Yesterday morning I was lamenting the fact that I'm unlikely to find myself part of a church where this sort of music is on the menu, at least in the immediately forseeable future...
Imagine my thoroughly un-Christian feelings (overwhelming envy would just about describe them) when my youngest, the Dufflepud, announced that he was off to sing it at Lancaster Priory last night.

I'm not sure where I first sang it, but for me it remains one of those windows onto heaven that fill me with longing

Oh how glorious is the kingdom 

wherein all the saints rejoice with Christ

Clothed in white robes they follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

Happy New Year - a sermon for Advent Sunday, Yr B

With grateful thanks to Dylan, and to my colleagues and friends on the PRCL list, I preached something along these lines at our United Benefice Advent service in the Scout Hall on the Hill this morning.

Happy New Year!
Today we begin another cycle of prayer and worship 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 tomorrow, 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?

After a week of terrifying violence in Mumbai and unrest in Thailand, of continued financial turmoil and massive job losses, the concept of a “Happy New Year”, whether now or in January, looks unlikely to say the least. 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. Let us even attempt, perhaps, obey Paul’s command and give an account of the hope that is in us. 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 and international terror which is, nonetheless, the Year of 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 avoid if we could.
Nobody wants to confront 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 never represented the easy option…
The experience that Mark sketches for us in this "little apocalypse" helps 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”. Certainly there are people today who feel with the collapse of the housing market, the potential loss of their homes, of jobs and pensions, that the end might as well come now.
Everything looks so different.
Certainties are swept away
Is this what God’s coming will look like…?
Wars and rumours of wars, all sorts of signs of the times…We could, were we so minded, label many of our recent headlines as clear apocalyptic proof. Actually, though certain Christians will claim with each fresh disaster that this is THE proof that we are living in the “end times”, I’m not sure that really matters. One way and another, all things will come to and end… We can’t carry on as we are forever - at some point the game is up. We don’t, though, need to worry unduly about whether that ending comes for the whole planet, or simply for each of us as individuals…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.
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 a recognition that our anxieties are second-order issues…because our deepest certainties lie with the One who does not change, whose love is constant through every twist and turn of our daily lives…

Yes, I know that some will speak of the day of the Lord as something to dread – and of course it’s in no way to be taken lightly. But we know something they seem to have forgotten. The person we call “Lord” is none other than Jesus of Nazareth, who taught and healed, who welcomed the outcast and broke bread with anyone willing to eat with him. Jesus who shows us, at each and every moment, that God is love, and that love drives out fear.

So don't panic. Panic spoils your concentration just as surely 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.
That's our task today and throughout Advent.
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 and seismic shifts in our families and communities, but there is nothing that can derail this train, Jesus is here, and Jesus is coming.

In his Advent message Archbishop Rowan wrote this:
In Advent, Christians have for centuries thought about death and judgment, about heaven and hell. They’ve thought about the way in which when we’re up against the truth for the first time, when we really see what the reality of God is like, it will be a shock to the system.

I guess that for many, current events are precipitating that sort of reality…and yes, it is shocking and painful, but it can be joyful too. We need, each one of us, to confront the truth and allow ourselves to be changed by it…

The ABC continues
“God forbid we say `no we can’t cope with the truth, we’d prefer our own darkness'. And so part of our self-examination during Advent is looking into ourselves and saying, ‘Well can I get myself to the point where I can look at God and say well there’s truth and there’s beauty and light and love and it’s painful for me, weak and stupid though I am, to face that, and yet I’d rather be there with the truth, however much it costs, than be locked up with myself?’ During Advent, we try to get ourselves a bit more used to the truth - the truth about ourselves, which is not always very encouraging, but the truth about God above all which is always encouraging. The One who comes will come with a great challenge. It will be like fire on the earth as the Bible says. And yet the One who comes is coming in love. He’s coming to set us free. And that’s something well worth waiting for.

Happy New Year….
We’ve so much to look forward to, - so let’s be awake to make the most of it

The wiles of Santa

On one of those random, slightly pointless trawls around the net recently I happened upon this, at GraphJam Rather to my surprise, the comments there were dominated by angry dyslexics who felt that this represented willful misunderstanding and insensitivity towards them, though I was hearted by one whose comment included another dyslexic joke "I didn't realise I was dyslexic till I went to a toga party and realised I was the only person there dressed as a goat".

Anyway, as we try to mark Buy Nothing Day I am pledging myself to stand firm against the temptations of Santa.
Year after year, I panic that I haven't actually ammassed enough "stocking fillers" for my children, and year after year there are at least 3 strange and silly items that simply can't be crammed into the stockings, try as I might.
Since both economics and principles dictate that this is not the time to fritter finances away on plastic racing snails, glow in the dark eyeballs or any of the usual stocking fodder, maybe this time I really will revert to the "1 edible, 1 readable, 1 silly and 3 sensibles - plus a sugar mouse and a satsuma in the toe" approach that my parents perfected. I never remember feeling remotely disappointed.
Burrowing under the bedclothes to read the (newly unwrapped) "The Land of Green Ginger" by the light of a (newly unwrapped) ladybird torch remains one of my all-time favourite Christmas memories - even if it was 5.00 in the morning.

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.

In an extension of the Thanksgiving theme, for this week's Friday Five Singing Owl has invited us to
"list five people for whom You Give Thanks to God and maybe tell us why they are significant."

Five.
Just five.
That is such a struggle.
I'll immediately disqualify my children, about whom I write with disturbing frequency (and whom I was thankful for on this very blog only yesterday)...
I'll disqualify, too,the majority of my girlfriends, who were so very much in my thoughts as I gave thanks for friends in general yesterday.
To choose anyone seems invidious...but....here goes....

My father - about whom I have blogged before, when marking anniversaries.
I never knew him in adult life (he died 3 weeks after my 18th birthday) but throughout my childhood he was the great constant, the source of unconditional love and approval...the one for whom I tried my hardest to "achieve" and who took the greatest delight in my achievements...the one with whom I could share my joy in music making...who took me for country walks and showed me beautiful places. He was also the one who got up in the night if I had a bad dream, who took on much of the every day running of our home (Mummy was in very poor health, waiting for heart surgery till I was 12 and then slowly recovering from it) who always, always put his own needs and interests last.
My strongest warmest memories are of burying my face in the navy blue jumper he always wore at home (I guess there were a succession of these - in my mind, the same one lasted all my days) and enjoying the feeling of complete safety and love that all parents long to pass on to their children...and of watching him standing at the sink wearing a striped butcher's apron, washing up after supper night after night. As long as Daddy was in the kitchen, the world was surely OK...

E - again, I've written about her here before. My "honorary mother", the one who cared for me when Mummy's spells in hospital would have created chaos for my father, as he tried to balance my needs with those of Mummy in ITU 2 hours away in London and hold down a job as well, the one who cheered me on through my teens and twenties, who provided a home base where I could spend time whenever I wanted, after my parents had died...who became the perfect honorary grandmother for my children...who is the person I'd most like to become in retirement...serene and loving, enjoying everything that life offers but demanding nothing. Age is beginning to hit her memory...which I can't quite bear to think about at the moment, so my thankfulness will focus on those lovely summer holidays when my children were small.

(This is becoming a bit of a sob-fest. Looking back to be thankful is fine, but let's change focus now for some gratitude more firmly rooted in the present)

Wonderful Vicar, of course...Wise colleague, caring friend, someone with whom to pray, to share ideas and worries, to laugh wildly (I'll never be able to read Jeremiah without incipient hysteria rising to the surface. Why? The story is here)
I can't think there could be a better training incumbent - working with him was a real blessing, which I was conscious of even as I experienced it (but even more so now I bumble along as an incumbent myself). I do hope my successor appreciates him - I'm sure she does.

Best SpirDir Ever - who manages to circumvent the received wisdom that friends cannot be spiritual directors, keeps boundaries beautifully defined but remains the person to whom I can say anything...and who also reminds me to laugh when I'm in danger of forgetting to

Scarily Cool Friend, whom I'd never have dared to speak to had I met him irl before we became friends on-line. We met via Greenbelt, of course, but it was getting to know S that made me realise that internet friendships could become every bit as real and sustaining as those with people living just round the corner.(look where that got me....sisters I'd never have met, trips to the other side of the Atlantic and so much more)
He makes me think really hard before opening my mouth, which is always a good thing...and has an unnerving way of getting to the core of whatever it is that I'm trying not to deal with...Not always welcome, but undoubtedly valuable!

There are, of course, so many people whose presence in my life makes me smile happily...so many that I could and should have blogged about...This isn't a "top five" - I am thankful for so many wonderful souls - I'm pretty sure you are one of them.

Thankfulness

Each year as the last Thursday in November approaches I find myself gazing rather wistfully across the Atlantic.
It's not the turkey (heaven knows, there will be enough opportunities to consume far more turkey than anyone could ever desire during the coming weeks);
it's not the cosy family time (I'll enjoy that when it comes, in the peaceful days between Christmas and New Year);
it's not even the opportunity for a break in the headlong dash towards Advent (well, actually, maybe it is - but that's not the whole story)
Rather, it's the opportunity provided by the US calendar to spend a day consciously being THANKFUL.
Actually, this hasn't been a particularly great week - just too many things going on at once, and a slight strain in a collegial relationship with one of my neighbours which feels more significant than it probably is because I'm a little stressed and weary.

All the more reason, then, to pause and be thankful...

- for my family, especially my children, who continue to surprise and delight me with their perspectives, their gifts, and their friendship - and who always offer a hug, even before I have time to ask for one

- for my friends (however we first connected), who are wonderfully understanding when I fail to make time to see them, who respond with love when I need it, who make me laugh and let me cry

- for a job that is so much more besides, that sustains all those parts of me that are worth most, that allows me to be and to pray and to listen and to sing and to feed and be fed

- for wonderful people who want me to "succeed" in ministry here and are offering support in so many ways...including an offer to run the parish office for a couple of mornings a week. Deo Gracias!

- for a home that is warm and friendly and full of books and muddle and things I love

- for the wild welcome of the dogs whenever I return home, and the warmth of the cats curled on my lap to remind me that I don't always have to rush out again

- for words and music and the creativity of others, and the courage to create in smaller ways myself

- for the way the world has opened before me in the past decade - for the opportunity to travel to places I never dreamed I would see and for the friendships cemented there

All this, - and heaven too!

T H A N K Y O U

When things get desperate

you can always play a blog game.
Cal produced a very impressive map of the Indian states that she has visited, and having so loved my own Indian adventure I had to follow suit.My map is much less exciting (I only had one month, after all)...and my Indian geography is so poor that I am still pondering what state it is that is represented by that teeny bit of white on the east coast - but here we go.


visited 4 states (11.4%)
Create your own visited map of India or try another Douwe Osinga project

The states I know I have visited are
Karnataka
Andrha Pradesh
Tamil Nadu
and Kerala.
Can anyone help me with that blob?

eta Cal is quite right. Pondicherry (aka Pudacherry) it is. Oh how I long to colour a little more of the white areas red....but not in the current climate, that's for sure.

Something I didn't borrow

for Sunday's sermon, but only because I didn't find it in time.

Mother Teresa once asked some visitors to hold up one hand.

"The gospel," she said, "is written on your fingers."

Then holding up one finger at a time,

she accented each word,

"YOU DID IT TO ME!"

She then added,

"At the end of your life,

your five fingers will either excuse you or accuse you of doing it to the least of these.

You DID It To Me."

It does rather make the blood run cold, though.
The concept of "good goats" feels more real by the second, as I contemplate the world of needs that is just outside my window...And of course, the danger is that there's so much that I could engage with that I end up engaging with none of it. Paralysis by overload is, I suspect, a very real occupational hazard.
Just across the road from here is a fairly large estate where people are often viewed as "the least".
My neighbours include:
parents who found school a deeply damaging experience are passing on that damage to the next generation;
teenagers who don't see anything to look forward to in life, so that drink/drugs/joy riding seem attractive option;
elderly people who are (probably needlessly) terrified of the world outside their front door...

There are so many practical needs - and it's tempting to feel that in trying to address those I might somehow "earn" the right to explore a spiritual agenda with those in the community who would never seek me out- but there is every chance that instead of making a difference I'd simply be overwhelmed. Not helpful.
In some ways the current recession provides a route for the church to resume a 19th century persona as the source of good works...We are, for example, launching a "Help Yourself" food cupboard at Church in the Valley, which we hope will be a useful resource for those whose budgets are now strained to breaking point.
That feels like a sensible response to a genuine need which is there on the doorstep.
But the "priest as amateur social worker" model doesn't hold water, does it?...and the days of the great AngloCatholic priests who gave their lives to working in the East End of London and the poorest quarters of other cities have now passed.

So, how do I practise incarnation here and now?

What does it mean to "hold the cure of souls" for these parishes, - so many thousands of people to whom the church is barely present, let alone relevant...some living happily, some leading lives of quiet desperation?
The Church would say that as parish priest I am responsible for each of them under God...and much of the time, that feels very real...though I can imagine, too, the outrage with which my most secular neighbours would view that sentiment. It can sound so patronising, if interpreted as part of the culture of "Father knows best"...but I love the fact that there is someone tasked with loving and praying for every single person in this community - even as I tremble to realise that person is me.

Back to those five fingers. I'm pretty sure that using them to type is not precisely what Mother Teresa had in mind...
So I'll depart to do some visiting, wondering all the while what God really requires of me in this place.
Unsurprisingly, Micah's answer seems as good as any
"To do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my God..."

Bonus post

I'm breaking my self-imposed NaBloPoMo rule of only one post a day (thirty days is quite a long time, otherwise) because today is Hugger Steward's birthday.
The last time we were apart on 24th November, I was in India - and it felt unbelievably strange not to hug him in person.
This time he is much closer at hand, in the grip of an essay crisis in Cambridge...so once again the birthday hugs will have to wait for a few days.
But I'm thinking about him so much - about all that he has done in the year since his last birthday, about his hopes for the coming year, and mine for him too.
I don't know if the year ahead will include such a dramatic achievement as climbing Kilimanjaro...so, in case of doubt, let's publish the evidence of that once again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HS. LOVE YOU LOTS.

What I made of the lendings - A sermon for the feast of Christ the King, Yr A

Imagine, if you would, that you’re the first person to arrive here one morning.
You open the door and go inside –to discover that, contrary to your expectations, you are not alone.
A distinctly smelly and obviously inebriate man is making his way up the aisle towards the sanctuary…
What happens next?

We’ll come back to that scenario later but for the moment, I want us to return to more familiar territory – the text of today’s gospel.
We know this story so well that we refer to subconsciously in every- day life as we talk about sorting out the sheep from the goats. We speak as if that’s an easy distinction, as indeed it is if you think in terms of the sheep and goats we know from our own farming landscape. Granted they are both ruminants, but there the visible similarity ends. They look quite remarkably different. It would be seriously perverse if you couldn’t distinguish between them.
Sheep are sheep and goats, well goats are different.
You can tell by them by the beards, the horns, and the smell.
Not so in southern Europe or Asia, where floppy ears and wicked yellow eyes seem common to both groups…
Unless you spend a lot of time with them, it would be hard to tell the difference.

And that, I think, is the point.
According to an article in the Jewish Heritage magazine online, though both sheep and goats could be used in Temple sacrifice, goats were seen as "armed robbers who would jump over people's fences and destroy their plants." While Sheep graze at a fairly consistent ground level, goats not only graze at the ground but can also tear leaves, buds, fruit off trees, and notoriously, washing off lines, and are thus far more destructive.
But you have to get close to see a difference in how they behave... And that’s the crux of the story, isn’t it.
How they behave, How we behave.
Are we sheep, or are we goats?
It’s an interesting question – and once again, it’s not that straightforward.

The American spiritual director and author
Dennis Linn asked a group of retired nuns,
"How many of you, even once in your life,
have done what Jesus asks and fed a hungry person,
clothed a naked person or visited a person in
prison?" All the sisters raised their hands.
Dennis said, "That's wonderful! You're all
sheep."
Then Dennis asked, "How many of
you, even once in your life, have walked by a
hungry person, failed to clothe a naked person, or
not visited someone in prison?" Slowly, all
the sisters raised their hands. Dennis said,
"That's too bad. You're all goats."
The sisters looked worried and perplexed. Then
suddenly one very old sister's hand shot up. She
blurted out, "I get it! We're all good
goats!"

A contradiction in terms, or an accurate reflection of the reality of life?
Certainly in my experience nobody is wholly good or wholly bad. As we strive to follow in the steps of Christ we may become ever more conscious of our own failures. As Paul reminds us, “all fall short”…but there are times when we get things right as well.

So perhaps what divides sheep and goats is not so much behaviour as motivation…

As Jesus tells the story, it doesn’t seem that the righteous were going out of their way to Do the Right Thing to satisfy the demands of their absent ruler….they simply went on doing the next thing, what needed to be done…They acted from a compassion rooted deep within them…a compassion that showed that they were, whether they knew it or not, clearly citizens of the Kingdom.

On the other hand, the ones who find themselves on the left of the throne seem to have been keeping a tally…To me that’s the subtext of their question
"Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry...and did not take
care of you?
“I’m sure I have evidence to prove you got that wrong.
I’ve been keeping track. See all the good things I did."

But they were doing the right things for the wrong reasons…
From a sense of obligation, perhaps, or in hope of a reward.
Not from love.
They were always going through the motions, always performing rather than living out a compassionate reality…

I guess, then, that this passage is addressed to people like us.
People who would see themselves as part of the body of Christ…good people who go to church on a Sunday and try to practise their faith for the rest of the week as well.
People who, if they only recognised him, would absolutely and unquestionably set out to help the Christ in need.
Whether sheep or goats, both groups would have clothed the naked if they had only known.
Both would have visited Jesus in prison.
Both would have offered food.
BUT only one group did so…and they did so without recognising whom they served.

When Jesus returns even the most cynical or lukewarm of believers will surely be eager to offer a cup of water or a warm coat.
Knowing that we might just meet Jesus in the stranger, we try to prepare ourselves for that encounter too…but it’s not always easy.
Sometimes the strangers are just too strange…uncomfortable, challenging, positively threatening.
They don’t look Christ-like at all.
But that’s not really the point at issue.

The question is not really how we identify the Christ in our midst, but the extent to which we have been changed by his love, God’s love, so that we respond to human need - even though the one in need is the least Christ-like person we can imagine.
How clearly do we show the characteristics of the Kingdom to which we claim to belong?
Are we recognisably Kingdom people?

It’s an uncomfortable question to contemplate – so I think I’ll finish that story instead.

The unexpected visitor in the church went on to urinate in the sanctuary before settling down to sleep off a heavy day’s drinking during Evensong, coming to during the Magnificat and encouraging the preacher with a good few shouts along the way.
The church Hamish visited was, as you might have guessed, my former parish of St Mary’s Charlton Kings….and to my utter amazement and joy the congregation accepted his presence that November evening, offered him a bed for the night (an offer he scorned, since he told us proudly that he hadn’t slept indoors for many years and wasn’t about to start now) and provided bacon sandwiches and flasks of strong coffee in the morning.
They welcomed him on his terms…as the person he was.

Nobody pretended to feel comfortable around him, but nobody allowed their own feelings and prejudices to interfere with their instinct to offer practical love without judgement.
They set aside their worry that he wouldn’t know how to treat the holy space of the church “properly”…they disregarded the instinct that told them that his alcoholism meant that any help would be abused, that he was trapped in a self destructive spiral.
They stopped judging according to common sense and pragmatism, and judged, instead with the Kingdom’s eyes of love.
They began to live as citizens who were truly at home in the Kingdom, because they were modelling their life on the King.

And that of course is the answer.
What we need is to allow the transforming love of Christ to change us so that we see the person and their need and respond without thought of any ultimate gain.
We won’t, after all, find ourselves facing some kind of Spiritual or Moral Exam at the end of time – there really is nothing we can cram for.
As a colleague in one internet preaching group said
“The point of our Lord’s teaching is not the moment of Judgement: the facing up to our past and the horror-filled realisation that we have repeatedly ignored Christ sick, naked, imprisoned…
The point of this most fundamental teaching is that the Kingdom of God extends far beyond polite society.
It encompasses not just people like you and me, but lots of others whom that society deems unpalatable.”
The Kingdom of God has nothing to do with comfort and convention and everything to do with love in action…
We probably are, for the most part “good goats”, our actions and motivations a complex mixture of generosity and anxious selfishness…but as we strive to follow Jesus, to act in accordance with God’s gracious love, we will be able to let go of the goatier motivations and focus instead on the greatest motivation, the longing to help to make God’s kingdom our reality.
We all know how to be sheep…but let me remind you..

I was hungry and you gave me … FOOD. I was thirsty and you gave me…DRINK. I was a stranger and you …WELCOMED ME. I was naked and you…CLOTHED ME. I was sick and you took…CARE OF ME. I was in prison, and you…VISITED ME. When you do these things to the least of people, you do them to…ME.

“Go then,” and as he taught us, “do likewise…”

Something old, something new...

and above all, something borrowed.
That seems to be the construction of most of my sermons at present.
For various reasons, to do with poor time-keeping, worse boundary management and simply Too Much To Do, my sermon preparation time is being cut to the bone at present.
I read the texts on Monday or Tuesday...think a little....make great plans to read round, to walk the texts over the next few days, to pray and pause and pray some more...and then somehow, appallingly, it's Saturday afternoon and I am due to be somewhere else by early evening and I have not one coherent sermon thought to my name
So I read feverishly. I read Jane Williams and Tom Wright. I read the Church Times. I read the New Interpretters.
I read the sermons posted by my friends and colleagues on PRCL and at the 11th hour Preacher Party
I read the comments and discussions at Desperate Preacher
I look to see if wonderful wonderful Dylan has attacked this passage and then, THEN, I truncate all the good intentions into about 5 minutes of frantic prayer as to which direction of all those I've read and been impressed by, God might actually want me to take.
Sometimes it's so hard to re-present and re-formulate an idea that my presentation of it sounds pretty much like a quote from the original
Sometimes, (though with proper attribution where I'm aware of it) I don't even realise I'm quoting directly till I re read the whole thing moments before I fall into bed
Mostly I borrow and reframe...I use some bones provided by others, some bones that I seem to find lying about the place here, and am enabled to flesh them out with my own words and thoughts, all by the light of the midnight oil.
But it's so very far from the way I want to preach.
I want to engage with the texts, to explore and to contemplate, to present old truths in creative ways...instead I seem to be serving up an endless diet of "ready meals" cooked in a microwave.
The fact that people seem to find them satisfying is very small consolation.
Really working with the word is one of the ways that I grow, but it doesn't seem to be part of the picture at all.
I need to sort this out...but I need time to achieve that.
So, when would that be?

Hail, bright Cecilia

Today the church celebrates Cecilia, virgin martyr and accidental patron of music...
It being a Saturday, no doubt hundreds of concerts will have been held in her honour in churches across the world - and I was more than slightly disappointed to discover that there is nothing even remotely resembling a Collect for her in Common Worship.
At the moment, neither of my churches has a strong enough choir to make this feast day something we can celebrate in house, but it was through Choral Evensong as much as the poetry of Herbert and Donne that I found myself awakened to faith, and I've always known the deep truth of Augustine's words
"(S)he who sings prays twice"
So here, with gratitude for all those who make music in our churches and those who dedicate their creative gifts to produce music in tune with the songs of heaven, is the prayer of the Royal School of Church Music.
Next year maybe I'll take time to write my own

We give thanks to God for all his blessings.
We give especial thanks for the music of the church in this place
and for the work of the Royal School of Church Music throughout the world.

God our Father, supreme Creator
we give you thanks
for the skills and imagination
to shape sound and silence into music.
Enriched by your Holy Spirit,
may our song always tell of your love and saving power,
and may our lives be ever committed to your service.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Stirring times

This coming Sunday was known for many a year as "Stir up Sunday" because of the words of the collect...which was popularly believed to be an injunction to get on with making the Christmas pudding, if it hadn't been maturing gently for the past year anyway.
As a domestic disaster, I've never even thought of making my own Christmas pud, though I do attempt a cake every few years. I do, though, wonder what the collect might encourage me to do.
I'm so good at procrastinating. Again and again, things linger undone because though I know I ought to get on with them, I just don't have the will to do them.
Mostly, I think, those things I neglect are administrivia - but I'm sure there are other more significant omissions, things that would really make a difference if I could actually get on and do them. One risk of having much too much to do is that you can lapse into inertia. Knowing you can't possibly get it all done, you detach yourself from the process of trying to do any of it...Time, surely, to pray the Collect that has been set for the last Sunday before Advent ever since Cranmer's prayer book.
Plenteous fruits and plenteous rewards are surely quite encough justification for a little bit of stirring...

"Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded."

Well, well, well

"Never" they said to me at vicar-school "never, EVER accept a job at a church with an open church-yard".

But when the time came, of course, I was so madly in love with the parishes that such wise advice was forgotten. Just. Like. That.
So since April I've been the slightly anxious custodian of not one but two well-used and fully functioning church-yards...which, as I've yet to be involved in any major dispute, still seem to be a price worth paying for the joys of ministry here. - particularly as they do, in themselves, provide such a valuable way of connecting with people who would otherwise have very few encounters with the church.

However, the words of my elders and betters echoed loudly one day last week as the playgroup leader and I stood looking down into a Very large hole in one of my churchyards. It had started so innocently - a small depression in the grass, a few feet away from the tarmacked path that goes round behind the church, and is well used by anyone who wants to turn a car and make good their escape. That was on a Thursday.
After a wet weekend, the small depression had become a small hole...nothing to worry about really. Maybe it had been there all the time and I had just failed to notice it. Really, I am shockingly unobervant....
But by Wednesday there was no denying it...a very substantial hole...and as we peered down into it, we could see a smallchamber, with brick walls...to whit, a vault - thankfully empty of any occupant.
Apparently at one stage there must have been a "buy one, get one free" option offered by the Victorian gravediggers...this was, according to our architect, provided as an overspill to a nearby family vault "just in case you ever need it".
Clearly it never was needed, but sat there - a great big hollow space, for over a century...until, one wet day in November 2008 the vibrations of traffic only feet away became just too much.

So there it is - our very own trap for heffalumps, which must be filled in (at a rather alarming cost, just to get rid of a hole) before anyone else starts making jokes about "the vicar looking into it".

I suspect that despite this denouement, I will still fail to listen to the next helping of wise advice. After all, how many empty vaults can there be in anyone's ministry?

Still thinking

A couple of interesting (to me, anyway) observations from yesterday's training.

We were asked to reflect on the women who have influenced us along the way...and I was struck by the indirect, almost negative influences which were as strong as the positive ones for me.
Most notably, my beloved mother was an invalid throughout my childhood...so she tended to do very little. I, though being very like her in many ways, struggle instead with the need to do EVERYTHING....as if I have to live my life twice over in compensation for all the things she was never strong enough to achieve.

A colleague and friend who is rather younger than me found the whole question of attention to gender issues and our unspoken focus on the stained glass ceiling very very irritating...whereas those of us who spent the first part of our adult lives in a church that did not ordain women had a very different approach...even if we in no way considered ourselves to be ardent feminists.
For her, inclusive language and opportunities to spend time as women together were very much non issues....As we drove home, we concluded that although we are ministering only a few miles apart in a diocese that does a great deal to encourage and promote women's ministry, my view was conditioned both by my awareness of the contest going on around me 18 years ago and also (this one surprised me) by the fact that 25 years ago I was one of only the 2nd year of women undergraduates at my Cambridge college. Even though I was barely aware of that, those 3 years of pioneering must have left an inerasible mark, which just isn't there for the next generation, praise be.

A lovely day

Clearly the impact of Sunday night in terms of boosting confidence and morale in my churches is spilling over into the week...I'm having a really good time.
Yesterday featured two excellent visits, some useful paperwork (getting rid of things that had been hanging over me - including the discovery of the Long Lost Notebook containing vital notes from meeting in September, and the transformation of said notes into reliable minutes of the meeting...Hallelujah) and a burst of domestic activity as I tried to deal with the huge box of apples that a local funeral director kindly sent my way. It was strangely pleasing to have several tubs full of pork and apple casserole to consign to the freezer...maybe there is a wee bit of me that rather misses being "just a mum", and smiles when that sort of box gets ticked.

Today was quite different...A training day for women in ministry, called (punning cheerfully) "Taking responsibility for ourselves"
The blurb about the day spoke of the speaker's passion
"She explores continually how to set limits that satisfy others’ needs whilst enabling re-creation and abundant life."
It was good to spend time with someone who acknowledged and understood that double bind that so often besets women (not just in ministry)...to keep everyone else happy while recognising that we do have needs of our own that deserve attention. It was good to be given some helpful suggestions that might make it easier to handle difficult situations (we spent a while in the dreaded "small groups" planning our approach to a specific potentially tricky encounter which might come our way in the near future - and unhappily, I had one all dressed up and ready to go. It was splendid to be instructed to choose 3 specific ways of building up our reserves of self-worth (mine featured having supper with a good friend, writing a retreat into the diary here and now and planning a second proper dog walk every day). But the best thing was being in a safe group of colleagues...
I do know some wonderful women.