And really will return to some sort of decent blogging one day soon, here's the text of my homily for the 8.00 tomorrow...
I'm not excited by it, but it's late and starting the first Sunday back at work in a state of exhaustion feels like a bad idea, so I'm leaving it for tonight and will see what actually emerges in the morning.
Meanwhile...
Dumbing-down is a phenomenon that seems to be discussed by many people in many places these days.
We hear critical voices complain that everything from A levels to Radio 4, and even the liturgy of the Church of England is not what it once was…
That can be hard to deal with if you know young people who are waiting anxiously for exam results...or if you are trying to reach out to people who are struggling with all their might and main to understand quite what goes on when we gather for worship in these strange stone buildings that we call churches, places that seem to speak of earlier times, different lives….
You may have gathered, then, that I’m one who feels that we have, in the churches at least, a duty to make our teaching and our worship as accessible as possible.
If that leaves us open to the charge of “dumbing down” then so be it.
Fortunately, God’s grace is not limited to those of a particular intellectual bent…His love is as available to those who will never learn to read as it is to Doctors of Divinity…
Faith, indeed, is a great leveller…and I guess at one level we could describe the incarnation, Christ’s coming into all the confusion of our world, as the greatest dumbing-down of all time.
But in this morning’s gospel it sounds as if this wasn’t quite enough for some people
“This teaching is difficult…who can accept it?”
That’s a problem we still have – reluctance to accept the things that challenge us…
But why now? Perhaps all these references to bread have finally become too much for the group gathered around Jesus.
Or perhaps they are just rather tired of them
Not MORE bread…
It’s hard for us to imagine the impact of words about eating flesh and drinking blood on those whose world-view has been shaped by the Torah, with its outlawing of all blood sacrifices, and its strict dietary codes.
We hear them softened and filtered through our own experiences of coming to Communion week on week…
We say to ourselves
“Yes, yes…of course we need to share Christ’s body and blood…”
and our thoughts move on…For us, this is perhaps abstract theology and not practical reality.
But it IS a hard teaching.
Small wonder that the early Christians were often vilified on the mistaken grounds that they practised human sacrifice.
You can’t really blame would-be disciples those who found it All Too Much and went home.
After all, it sounded for a while as if they weren’t really wanted anyway
“No one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father”
so it would seem that those who don’t come CANT come
Hard teachings indeed.
But, when you come down to it, at the core of all these teachings is the simplest of processes – the human need to be nourished, to be fed.
We all know the saying
“You are what you eat” and here Jesus promises that if we eat his body and drink his blood, we shall share his life…if we eat THIS bread, we shall live forever.
What we eat normally becomes part of us…
When we eat THIS bread, we become part of it.
Feasting on God, we are transformed to live a whole new life ourselves.
On Thursday I was part of an audience of several thousand listening to the band U2…Though they are not a band that plays overtly Christian music, 3 out of 4 musicians is a professed and active Christian and often their songs reflect this.
At one point during the evening, we all found ourselves singing along to an early hit
“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” –a song that reflects a process familiar to those who followed Jesus from the beginning, and to those who still seek him today.
That search for answers, search for hope, search for meaning is another core human activity…
I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…
As so often in the gospels, Peter’s words speak directly into our own experience.
Here is another searcher.
One who speaks with a kind of desperate weariness
One who has struggled to make sense of the teaching of his friend and rabbi.
One who wishes that things were simpler, that Jesus would offer an easy beginner’s model of discipleship that would attract rather than deter followers.
Peter has longed to go home, to settle down and get on with ordinary life without the troublesome demands of the man who seems intent on rewriting the Law
Now he has no control over events, but is caught up in them despite himself, propelled in just a short time from a life of comfortable anonymity on the shores of Galilee to a dubious status as the known associate of a wanted man. I’m sure that there were a few unvoiced regrets along the way for each of the Twelve. But they have found themselves drawn irresistibly by the person of Christ, and even if they don’t always understand him, they know that he is speaking the deepest truth they will ever hear.
So, no escape. Nowhere to go. You have the words of eternal life
Once you have really engaged with Jesus, nothing else ever compares.
Yes, for us as for Peter, the way may often be hard. There will be countless times when living as a disciple seems just too much effort. If only we didn’t have to bother about justice, freedom, mercy. If only we weren’t called to love so much. Couldn’t we just forget all about it and get back to normal?
But then we realise that we’re on a one-way street, with no u-turns possible. That we simply have to follow the road, for it is the only one that will bring us safely to our destination. In our own time, so many still haven’t found what they’re looking for. But, ultimately, it is the voice of Jesus who calls us - by whatever name we know him. It is Jesus who invites us to come to him. Jesus who speaks to us the words of eternal life
Jesus, the living Word…the one who shows us what God’s life looks like lived out in humanity, the One who shows us how we are to be…and who feeds us, week on week, so that we too may live forever.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
This week
We have been working on our slightly battered narrowboatPolyphony ...Removing and replacing windows, applying more mastick (sp?) than I knew existed to every conceivable joint, and beginning (in between showers) to cover her weary red paint with a rather pleasing blue.
On Friday, we are downing tools and taking her off for a cruise somewhere down the Severn or thereabouts (she is currently moored at Tewkesbury, so we're having to learn the unfamiliar ways of rivers, after the relative simplicity of canals).
Whatever else happens, I don't plan to spend much time online for the next few days. It's extraordinarily good to have all my children in one place, - so forgive me if I just concentrate on enjoying them.
See you on the other side!
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Sunday special - high farce on the hill.
A good morning at both churches today.
Several groups of visitors, who were more willing to offer feedback than the regulars are - and were indeed distinctly complimentary
The return of a newcomer from a week or two back, who expressed her intention of coming again and didn't bolt when I suggested that I might drop in and see her after the hols.
A sermon that somehow carried within it (for the preacher at least) the friends who had been part of its production - making them feel very close throughout the morning.
And - the highspot of the day - the most fantastic offertory at Church on the Hill!
You remember that we are in the grip of all sorts of anti flu procedures?
Communion in one kind, a really thorough wash in warm soapy water and a quick squirt of hand gel before I consecrate.
So the sacristan up the hill asked me when I would want the water - and I said
"Oh, at the offertory...I'll just wash in the same place that I would normally do the token lavabo".
Cue an offertory procession comprising the elements, the gifts of the people AND a large red plastic washing up bowl.
The Herring and I both lost it completely for a few moments - it's amazing how long even the shortest aisle can seem as you battle with hysteria.
When the Archbishops' guidelines were first published there were some rather wonderful nonsense emails circulating about the correct liturgical use of gel etc
This morning, we enacted one of them!
Thank you God, for the gift of laughter :-)
Several groups of visitors, who were more willing to offer feedback than the regulars are - and were indeed distinctly complimentary
The return of a newcomer from a week or two back, who expressed her intention of coming again and didn't bolt when I suggested that I might drop in and see her after the hols.
A sermon that somehow carried within it (for the preacher at least) the friends who had been part of its production - making them feel very close throughout the morning.
And - the highspot of the day - the most fantastic offertory at Church on the Hill!
You remember that we are in the grip of all sorts of anti flu procedures?
Communion in one kind, a really thorough wash in warm soapy water and a quick squirt of hand gel before I consecrate.
So the sacristan up the hill asked me when I would want the water - and I said
"Oh, at the offertory...I'll just wash in the same place that I would normally do the token lavabo".
Cue an offertory procession comprising the elements, the gifts of the people AND a large red plastic washing up bowl.
The Herring and I both lost it completely for a few moments - it's amazing how long even the shortest aisle can seem as you battle with hysteria.
When the Archbishops' guidelines were first published there were some rather wonderful nonsense emails circulating about the correct liturgical use of gel etc
This morning, we enacted one of them!
Thank you God, for the gift of laughter :-)
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Drawn by God - a sermon for Trinity 9B
What draws you to church?
You come here faithfully, once a week or once a month, and I can’t help but wonder why.
I guess that on one level at least there will be as many reasons for being here as there are people in this congregation – and for many of us it may be hard to work out exactly what is the prime motive that brings us together.
Perhaps you are drawn by long habit; you come because you always have – you simply cannot imagine yourself anywhere else on a Sunday morning.
Perhaps you are drawn by beauty – by lovely words and familiar music, by rituals and patterns that seem to make sense of things beyond the reach of rational thought.
Perhaps you are drawn by loneliness: you come from an empty house, in search of companionship.
Perhaps you are drawn by need: you are seeking authentic community and see it breaking down in the world beyond the doors
Perhaps you are drawn by anxiety; you come because church represents a place of safety and comfort in a changing world.
Perhaps you are drawn by love, your love for God.
I pray you are, that you come for an encounter with the living God, the God who can sweep you off your feet and set you down again facing in a completely different direction, the God who surprises and challenges, the God who feeds us, week by week, on the bread of life.
It is worth pondering why you come, because, of course, you will soon be asked to invite others. As we prepare for Back to Church Sunday next month it’s good to consider the place that Sunday church has in our own lives. Now is a good time to begin to think about whom you might invite to our worship that day…and also to pray, since we can be certain that God will already have prepared some of our friends for the invitation. We are told that there are 3 million people in Britain today who would come to church if only they were invited. 3 million! Some of those will be people we know, people in this community who are ripe for an invitation, because they have already been disturbed by an insistent disquiet, that kind of gentle nudging that is a sign of God at work…
Augustine wrote, long ago
“Lord you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless til they find their rest in you”
and though we may be very slow to notice and acknowledge this, it remains true.
God is now and always at work drawing people to him…
Whether we know it or not, we are, all of us, drawn by LOVE – God’s love for us.
God is constantly at work drawing us into his love…. – but we have our part to play, for we too are invited to co-operate with the process.
We are asked to be agents of his mission, to bring the whole of creation into relationship with Him. [Ephesians 1:9-10 according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up ALL things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.]
That is the underlying purpose not just of BTCS but of everything the Church attempts – we exist to share God’s love with the world.
Imagine that love as a great magnet, drawing us towards God. Then think of how things that are in contact with something magnetised behave. It’s fun, isn’t it, making a whole chain of paper clips dance in the wake of a single magnet… Those far away are still affected as the magnetism passes from one to another…
God’s love is the strongest thing in all creation, an unstoppable force that has drawn us…and, please God, will work through us to draw others.
“Be imitators of God, beloved children, and live in love…”
Is that what we see in our churches?
That question has extra point as positions are polarised and barricades manned across the Anglican Communion – where there is plenty of bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling and not a little slander at the moment. It’s far too easy for any institution to get side-tracked, and lose sight of core values, essential foundations…
We can, and must, pray that this will change but for now let’s concentrate on our own local context.
When we gather here week by week, I certainly hope that it is for more than just a social event.
If the church building vanished, if the organ imploded, if your familiar friends and neighbours all moved away, if you lost patience with the vicar, fell out with the Bishop and despaired of the whole Anglican Communion, you would still have a calling to be the Church, imitators of God, sharing the love you have received.
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another
That’s our blueprint for behaviour here.
In other words – in our church community we practice the love we are to share with everyone…for it’s that love that will make a difference, that love that will draw others.
As I talked about this sermon with a friend, she asked
“How will people know that God loves them, if those gathered in God’s name don’t show them?” while another friend, on the eve of leave-taking before a big and difficult move, found time to bring me back to the heart of things, to the Bread of Life once more.
Between them, they made real the love that I’m trying to talk about, the love that draws us not just to this place, but, -which is far more, - the love that draws us to its source.
When we come to worship we come to give thanks to God for all his blessings, to celebrate his love and to be nourished and transformed as we encounter God in Word and in the Sacrament.
And it’s to that encounter that we should invite our friends.
Ultimately, it won’t matter if visitors choose to stay and become family here…
We’re not inviting our friends because we are setting out to fill our churches – rather we are inviting them because we want them to experience the limitless, unconditional love that we have received.
So our love for them must be no less without condition…
Martin Luther once described evangelism as “one beggar telling another where to find bread” – and as we seek to make God’s love real for our friends and neighbours, we know that here we are nourished by the Bread of Life.
We come together because we are drawn…lured by God.
Lured into God’s presence, lured into community, lured into hope.
And when we come, we receive all that we need, the living bread in whom all our hungers are satisfied
Christ himself, the bread of life, present not just not as we kneel for Communion, but present too in the friends around us – and in those people with whom we struggle.
Christ himself not confined to the sanctuary but close to us amid the mess and muddle of everyday life – where we spoil relationships, grapple with tiredness, mean well and do worse.
Christ constantly present, working his loving purpose that all should be drawn to Him, all redeemed, all raised up on the last day.
You come here faithfully, once a week or once a month, and I can’t help but wonder why.
I guess that on one level at least there will be as many reasons for being here as there are people in this congregation – and for many of us it may be hard to work out exactly what is the prime motive that brings us together.
Perhaps you are drawn by long habit; you come because you always have – you simply cannot imagine yourself anywhere else on a Sunday morning.
Perhaps you are drawn by beauty – by lovely words and familiar music, by rituals and patterns that seem to make sense of things beyond the reach of rational thought.
Perhaps you are drawn by loneliness: you come from an empty house, in search of companionship.
Perhaps you are drawn by need: you are seeking authentic community and see it breaking down in the world beyond the doors
Perhaps you are drawn by anxiety; you come because church represents a place of safety and comfort in a changing world.
Perhaps you are drawn by love, your love for God.
I pray you are, that you come for an encounter with the living God, the God who can sweep you off your feet and set you down again facing in a completely different direction, the God who surprises and challenges, the God who feeds us, week by week, on the bread of life.
It is worth pondering why you come, because, of course, you will soon be asked to invite others. As we prepare for Back to Church Sunday next month it’s good to consider the place that Sunday church has in our own lives. Now is a good time to begin to think about whom you might invite to our worship that day…and also to pray, since we can be certain that God will already have prepared some of our friends for the invitation. We are told that there are 3 million people in Britain today who would come to church if only they were invited. 3 million! Some of those will be people we know, people in this community who are ripe for an invitation, because they have already been disturbed by an insistent disquiet, that kind of gentle nudging that is a sign of God at work…
Augustine wrote, long ago
“Lord you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless til they find their rest in you”
and though we may be very slow to notice and acknowledge this, it remains true.
God is now and always at work drawing people to him…
Whether we know it or not, we are, all of us, drawn by LOVE – God’s love for us.
God is constantly at work drawing us into his love…. – but we have our part to play, for we too are invited to co-operate with the process.
We are asked to be agents of his mission, to bring the whole of creation into relationship with Him. [Ephesians 1:9-10 according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up ALL things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.]
That is the underlying purpose not just of BTCS but of everything the Church attempts – we exist to share God’s love with the world.
Imagine that love as a great magnet, drawing us towards God. Then think of how things that are in contact with something magnetised behave. It’s fun, isn’t it, making a whole chain of paper clips dance in the wake of a single magnet… Those far away are still affected as the magnetism passes from one to another…
God’s love is the strongest thing in all creation, an unstoppable force that has drawn us…and, please God, will work through us to draw others.
“Be imitators of God, beloved children, and live in love…”
Is that what we see in our churches?
That question has extra point as positions are polarised and barricades manned across the Anglican Communion – where there is plenty of bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling and not a little slander at the moment. It’s far too easy for any institution to get side-tracked, and lose sight of core values, essential foundations…
We can, and must, pray that this will change but for now let’s concentrate on our own local context.
When we gather here week by week, I certainly hope that it is for more than just a social event.
If the church building vanished, if the organ imploded, if your familiar friends and neighbours all moved away, if you lost patience with the vicar, fell out with the Bishop and despaired of the whole Anglican Communion, you would still have a calling to be the Church, imitators of God, sharing the love you have received.
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another
That’s our blueprint for behaviour here.
In other words – in our church community we practice the love we are to share with everyone…for it’s that love that will make a difference, that love that will draw others.
As I talked about this sermon with a friend, she asked
“How will people know that God loves them, if those gathered in God’s name don’t show them?” while another friend, on the eve of leave-taking before a big and difficult move, found time to bring me back to the heart of things, to the Bread of Life once more.
Between them, they made real the love that I’m trying to talk about, the love that draws us not just to this place, but, -which is far more, - the love that draws us to its source.
When we come to worship we come to give thanks to God for all his blessings, to celebrate his love and to be nourished and transformed as we encounter God in Word and in the Sacrament.
And it’s to that encounter that we should invite our friends.
Ultimately, it won’t matter if visitors choose to stay and become family here…
We’re not inviting our friends because we are setting out to fill our churches – rather we are inviting them because we want them to experience the limitless, unconditional love that we have received.
So our love for them must be no less without condition…
Martin Luther once described evangelism as “one beggar telling another where to find bread” – and as we seek to make God’s love real for our friends and neighbours, we know that here we are nourished by the Bread of Life.
We come together because we are drawn…lured by God.
Lured into God’s presence, lured into community, lured into hope.
And when we come, we receive all that we need, the living bread in whom all our hungers are satisfied
Christ himself, the bread of life, present not just not as we kneel for Communion, but present too in the friends around us – and in those people with whom we struggle.
Christ himself not confined to the sanctuary but close to us amid the mess and muddle of everyday life – where we spoil relationships, grapple with tiredness, mean well and do worse.
Christ constantly present, working his loving purpose that all should be drawn to Him, all redeemed, all raised up on the last day.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Thanks be to God
for a touch of sanity...
13 groups in the Church of England have now responded to ++Rowan's disappointing "Communion, Covenant and the Anglican Future" and their words are the ones I'd been longing to hear.
We wish to reaffirm our loyalty to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures, our commitment to the Anglican way, and our celebration of and thanksgiving for the tradition and life of the Church of England. Above all, our concern is for the mission of the Church in our world. We have no doubt that the Church of England is called to live out the Gospel values of love and justice in the whole of its life; these values are intrinsic to the calling of Jesus Christ to follow him and it is out of this context that we speak.
I'm glad that 2 groups to which I belong are represented (Inclusive Church, and WATCH of course) but slightly perturbed that Affirming Catholicism is missing from the list of signatories...I'd be very sad indeed if they felt unable to sign up to this.I've emailed to find out what is going on - the fact that there is a Catholic & Contemplative Fresh Expressions day scheduled for the middle of the Inclusive Church conference The Word on the Street worries me slightly too - as I'm pretty certain I'm not alone in believing that catholicism and inclusion should be synonyms. It may of course simply be a case of overloaded diaries, but I'd really prefer not to have to choose here - and I suspect there are others who are in a similar position...
Still, despite worries, this statement is an excellent expression of the views of so many. Now we must simply pray that it is heard.
13 groups in the Church of England have now responded to ++Rowan's disappointing "Communion, Covenant and the Anglican Future" and their words are the ones I'd been longing to hear.
We wish to reaffirm our loyalty to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures, our commitment to the Anglican way, and our celebration of and thanksgiving for the tradition and life of the Church of England. Above all, our concern is for the mission of the Church in our world. We have no doubt that the Church of England is called to live out the Gospel values of love and justice in the whole of its life; these values are intrinsic to the calling of Jesus Christ to follow him and it is out of this context that we speak.
I'm glad that 2 groups to which I belong are represented (Inclusive Church, and WATCH of course) but slightly perturbed that Affirming Catholicism is missing from the list of signatories...I'd be very sad indeed if they felt unable to sign up to this.I've emailed to find out what is going on - the fact that there is a Catholic & Contemplative Fresh Expressions day scheduled for the middle of the Inclusive Church conference The Word on the Street worries me slightly too - as I'm pretty certain I'm not alone in believing that catholicism and inclusion should be synonyms. It may of course simply be a case of overloaded diaries, but I'd really prefer not to have to choose here - and I suspect there are others who are in a similar position...
Still, despite worries, this statement is an excellent expression of the views of so many. Now we must simply pray that it is heard.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
The unknown god - a sermon for Evensong, Trinity 8 Yr B
As we enter an unpromisingly damp August, the height of the great British summer, I wonder if you are dreaming of far away places where the sun always shines… Imagine, then, that you are transported unexpectedly to Athens. I wonder what you would choose to do first. Retsina and stuffed vine leaves in the sun, or perhaps a spot of sight seeing? Athens has attracted visitors for centuries, and it’s the sort of place where past and present seem to blend into one another.… Tourists in the city tread in the footprints of generations – including the apostle Paul He too arrived there unexpectedly, thanks to a necessary deviation in his preaching itinerary. He had literally made the town too hot for him after his last preaching engagement…and was diverted to Athens for his own safety. At a loose end he wandered around, enjoying all there was to see….and casting a professional eye over Athenian places of worship. This is his starting point for a sermon notable because it’s the only one of his that appears to have been recorded fully…a sermon often held up as a model of good preaching. To start with, the venue is significant. Paul does not place himself in a synagogue with a band of the gathered faithful…. The message he has to share is too important for caution, or even discretion. Rather he goes for maximum challenge, in the hope of maximum impact. He takes his message to the place of greatest influence in all Athens. .The "Areopagus" is both a place, a small rocky hill northwest of the Acropolis (Greek for "hill of Ares" or in Latin "Mars Hill"), and an institution, the most prestigious and venerable council of elders in the history of Athens In Paul's day it was a place where matters of the criminal courts, law, philosophy and politics were adjudicated. Paul, who had been publicly proclaiming the Way of Jesus, was ridiculed by these movers and shakers as a "babbler" who advocated "foreign gods” But the Athenians loved a good discussion, and so they invited Paul to speak for himself at this most important venue…and Paul makes the most of the invitation. . He begins by making connections with his audience.He sets out to win their confidence, to build bridges so that it seems that they may have something in common after all as he admires their city, and compliments them on their religious practice… It’s a good technique. Instead of being on the defensive, they are likely to drop their guard, to trust this man despite his foreign ways. Wherever he goes, Paul sees signs that the citizens of Athens are intent on spiritual matters, with a shrine for every eventuality and even one to spare. The story behind the shrine to the unknown god is in itself worth considering, with its underlying message of the need to hedge your bets in matters of faith and worship. Sometime in the sixth century before Christ, the city of Athens was being devastated by a mysterious plague. When no explanation for the plague could be found, and no cure was in sight, it was assumed that one of the city’s many gods had been offended. The leaders of the city sought to determine which of the gods it was, with a view to appeasing him. This was no easy task, since the city of Athens had literally hundreds of gods, and was pretty much the “god capital of the world,” a place so full of gods that (says one commentator) the Athenians “must have needed something equivalent to the Yellow Pages just to keep tabs on the many deities already represented in their city.” When all efforts failed to discern which god had been offended, an outside “consultant” was brought in from the Island of Cyprus, Epimenides. He concluded that it was none of the known gods of Athens which had been offended, but some, as yet, unknown god. He proposed a course of action which, if it worked, would at least provide a possible remedy for the plague. He had a flock of choice sheep, kept from food until they were hungry. On the appointed day, he had these sheep turned loose on the verdant pastures of Mars Hill. A flock of hungry sheep was bound to graze – but Epimenides was on the lookout to see if by any chance any decided against this. To the amazement of onlookers, several sheep did lie down, ignoring the lush grass beneath their hooves. Altars were erected at each spot where a sheep lay down, dedicated to an “unknown god.” On those altars, - by a cruel twist of pagan logic, the sheep concerned were sacrificed.
Almost immediately, we are told, the plague began to subside. Over a period of time, the altars were forgotten, with just one preserved, in commemoration of the removal of the plague by calling upon the “unknown god.” Who would have thought that centuries later, a foreigner named Paul would refer to this altar as the starting point for his sermon on Mars Hill?
That, you’ll be thinking, is a good story – but what does it have to do with us. After all, we are the products of a far more sophisticated age… We’d never indulge in that sort of behaviour. The sheep of Athens would be safe with us. Ummmm
Are you quite sure?
Look around you…open your newspaper, turn on the television.
There are all the overt spiritual adventures beloved of New Age devotees, of course – and we don’t have far to travel to encounter those…
There are crystals, tarot and all sorts of meditation systems…or you could sign up to be a Jedi if you prefer…
Beliefs that range from the slightly off-course to the wildly implausible all have their adherents.
But there are also any number of other belief systems that attract worship today. Wealth
Celebrity
Youth
Family
Security
Maybe good in themselves (though not always)…but all of these are transformed by anxious searchers into ultimate goods – things to be treasured and affirmed as the answer to all our needs… Gods, in fact – though gods whose power to sustain and transform is so limited that it is, in fact, non existent….
And perhaps as we gather in this lovely building, which has gained so much support from people far and near, we ought also to consider another potential danger…
24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything,
We love our holy places, and rightly so…but they carry with them a risk Listen to a friend of mine, Justin Lewis Anthony, writing recently in the Guardian
“Orthodox Christianity teaches us that God is everywhere; equally present at the high altar of Salisbury Cathedral as he is in the open-cast gold mines of Brazil. However, human beings are not very good at realising this. We seem to see God, know God, better in certain places than in others. We explain this away, by saying that "I'm more open to God in the beauty of nature" or "the veil between earth and heaven is somehow thinner here", and so the custom of pilgrimage grows up: places become hallowed by the recognition and prayers of others: it is possible to know God better in this particular place, and we divide the world into holy and profane.”
It is so horribly easy, I fear, to find ourselves confused…To treasure beautiful buildings for their own sake, instead of recognising that they are at best only signposts to the beauty that is beyond all human skill and art. But God cannot be confined in even a grade1* PreRaphaelite dwelling God is at large in all of God’s world – unpredictable, challenging, exciting…
God is at large – but God is also closer than we think, more intimate than we can imagine.
There is no chance of concealing our true serves, of hiding behind our best faces from the One in whom we live, move and have our being. We may feel safer if we assume an idealised version of ourselves as we come to worship…- and it’s tricky, because God does indeed recognise and honour our aspirations to be different, better – but God isn’t fooled.
Not for one moment.
So we need to be honest with ourselves about just who we are, - and we can take this risk without any fear because God knows us inside out…and still God loves us
God loves us because …ALL of us….regardless of colour, creed, race or sexual orientation are God’s own children.
In the same way that we cannot proscribe or limit where God may choose to dwell, we cannot limit those to whom God relates.
Everyone is related…everyone is invited.
No limits.
That’s a message that is both radical and exciting, a message that challenges each of us as we reflect on our tendencies to worship with like minded souls in ways that we find congenial.
We have other family members whom we ought to know and delight in.
Others who share the inheritance of love and glory that is God’s gift to his children.
So where will we find God?
Not among the sites of Athens, nor among the shrines that throng our streets and dominate our homes today.
We will find God wherever we seek God– for the whole world is a sacrament of God’s presence. Our God is not unknown…
For in Christ Jesus God meets us where we are, and invites us to join him where He is.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Here I stand (with further thanks to Henri Nouwen)
So often the email from the Henri Nouwen Society says exactly what I need to hear, just when I most need to hear it...This is no exception.
Lifted Up with Jesus
The death and resurrection of Jesus are God's way to open for all people the door to eternal life. Jesus said: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself" (John 12:32). Indeed, all people, from all times and places, are lifted up with Jesus on the cross and into the new life of the resurrection. Thus, Jesus' death is a death for all humanity, and Jesus' resurrection is a resurrection for all humanity.
Not one person from the past, present, or future is excluded from the great passage of Jesus from slavery to freedom, from the land of captivity to the promised land, from death to eternal life
And let the people say "Amen"!
Lifted Up with Jesus
The death and resurrection of Jesus are God's way to open for all people the door to eternal life. Jesus said: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself" (John 12:32). Indeed, all people, from all times and places, are lifted up with Jesus on the cross and into the new life of the resurrection. Thus, Jesus' death is a death for all humanity, and Jesus' resurrection is a resurrection for all humanity.
Not one person from the past, present, or future is excluded from the great passage of Jesus from slavery to freedom, from the land of captivity to the promised land, from death to eternal life
And let the people say "Amen"!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Learning from Wilberforce
Today the Church invites us to remember and celebrate the life of William Wilberforce, whose work as a prophet so challenged the accepted ethics of his day that they were changed forever, and so at the Eucharist this morning I found myself reading
"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus..."
Wonderful, inspiring, beloved words....but painful this week, when divisions seem to loom in all directions...
There have been some thoughtful and helpful posts (try Rick's Green Grass - and the commments too - or With a Song... for expressions of bafflement and disappointment, or more philosophically A Church for Starving Artists to name but 3) as well as a huge upsurge of anger and grief in response to Archbishop Rowan's comments on General Convention...
I'm struggling to discover where the Rowan Williams I've long loved and admired has gone to...and what can possibly be the right way forward for those committed to an inclusive church but still working within the ever harsher reality of the Church of England.
I have not an heroic bone in my body, but I can't see where people like me belong (straight, married, "safe" in every way except for my convictions...)
Will there be an inclusive C of E, with alternative ArchiEpiscopal oversight? ...
How have we found ourselves so far off course that it is possible to even begin to imagine a world in which ++Rowan might find himself aligned with the churches of the Global South?
I am not sure whether I'm more sad than scared or vice versa - while recognising that for the majority in my congregations this whole thing is a complete non issue, so remote from their own concerns that they'd not begin to understand that it might be a make or break matter for their priest....
And as if that wasn't enough, this week we've heard (here for example) that Blackburn Cathedral has decided to offer two versions of the Sacrament at Sunday Mass. If you prefer your Communion with no risk of female taint, then it is possible to join a queue for elements from the Reserved Sacrament, guaranteed to have been consecrated by a man even when the President at the Sunday Mass is a woman.
What price Galatians 3 now?
eta Thanks to Sarah for alerting me to a very helpful reflection by Scott Gunn here
I'm not sure how much better it made me feel, but at least it offered a respite from some of the vitriole I've encountered on the net this week.
29
"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus..."
Wonderful, inspiring, beloved words....but painful this week, when divisions seem to loom in all directions...
There have been some thoughtful and helpful posts (try Rick's Green Grass - and the commments too - or With a Song... for expressions of bafflement and disappointment, or more philosophically A Church for Starving Artists to name but 3) as well as a huge upsurge of anger and grief in response to Archbishop Rowan's comments on General Convention...
I'm struggling to discover where the Rowan Williams I've long loved and admired has gone to...and what can possibly be the right way forward for those committed to an inclusive church but still working within the ever harsher reality of the Church of England.
I have not an heroic bone in my body, but I can't see where people like me belong (straight, married, "safe" in every way except for my convictions...)
Will there be an inclusive C of E, with alternative ArchiEpiscopal oversight? ...
How have we found ourselves so far off course that it is possible to even begin to imagine a world in which ++Rowan might find himself aligned with the churches of the Global South?
I am not sure whether I'm more sad than scared or vice versa - while recognising that for the majority in my congregations this whole thing is a complete non issue, so remote from their own concerns that they'd not begin to understand that it might be a make or break matter for their priest....
And as if that wasn't enough, this week we've heard (here for example) that Blackburn Cathedral has decided to offer two versions of the Sacrament at Sunday Mass. If you prefer your Communion with no risk of female taint, then it is possible to join a queue for elements from the Reserved Sacrament, guaranteed to have been consecrated by a man even when the President at the Sunday Mass is a woman.
What price Galatians 3 now?
eta Thanks to Sarah for alerting me to a very helpful reflection by Scott Gunn here
I'm not sure how much better it made me feel, but at least it offered a respite from some of the vitriole I've encountered on the net this week.
29
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Opportunities?
to take your congregation back to their roots aren't always apparent in parish life, even when you suspect it might be a Very Good Thing for all concerned.
And, if I'm honest, I'm so wary of appearing to adopt a Father (Mother?) knows best approach that I don't engage in half the teaching I should, preferring to adopt the role of an ever-optimistic bouncy dog (yes, I do have a model in mind) bounding through the undergrowth, sometimes a little ahead of my congregation, sometimes off at a tangent, but always trying to share the excitement of discovery along the way.
Most of the time this works perfectly happily, but every now and then it can lead to a feeling that you've rather missed an opportunity.
For example, today I had to tell the congregation that, in obedience to the Archbishops' recommendations, we have for the moment suspended our use of the common cup at the Eucharist.
My colleague, who has a medical background, filled them in on the science behind this and I gave them a VERY brief theological reassurance that the fulness of the Sacrament was present in either bread or wine...
That, I thought, should do it.
Except that at the door afterwards it became very clear that while half the congregation hadn't registered the announcement at all (and were still wondering how we'd managed to forget to bring round the chalice) the other half had been completely baffled by pretty much everything I'd said.
So..is this the time to unroll my theology of Eucharist, while trying not to scare those whose views are radically different?
Of my two parishes, one is a classically middle-of-the-road village church, where any attempt to voice ANY sort of explicit theology would be seen as the height of bad manners...The other was presented to me as "on the kind of liberal catholic spectrum" - and certainly the Sacrament is reserved (could I have gone there otherwise? almost certainly not), vestments are worn and as for the most part those aspects of catholic faith and practice I've suggested have been well received.
But now I'm wondering if anyone has any idea WHY?
And if, as I suspect, the answer to that is "No" - then what might happen as I try to suggest some possibilities...?
Oh dear, I do wish I were rather less of a wimp.
Pleasing all the people is never going to be possible but I'm always appalled at the way the sacrament of unity can cause so much division...and I hate the thought of being the one who highlights those divisions in this place.
But there's never going to be a better time, is there?
If we try and explore our theology of Eucharist now, then we can work on our practice in the weeks before the Herring of Christ's priesting next year.
That sounds OK...but makes me feel very nervous.
Really, I'm quite hopeless.
And, if I'm honest, I'm so wary of appearing to adopt a Father (Mother?) knows best approach that I don't engage in half the teaching I should, preferring to adopt the role of an ever-optimistic bouncy dog (yes, I do have a model in mind) bounding through the undergrowth, sometimes a little ahead of my congregation, sometimes off at a tangent, but always trying to share the excitement of discovery along the way.
Most of the time this works perfectly happily, but every now and then it can lead to a feeling that you've rather missed an opportunity.
For example, today I had to tell the congregation that, in obedience to the Archbishops' recommendations, we have for the moment suspended our use of the common cup at the Eucharist.
My colleague, who has a medical background, filled them in on the science behind this and I gave them a VERY brief theological reassurance that the fulness of the Sacrament was present in either bread or wine...
That, I thought, should do it.
Except that at the door afterwards it became very clear that while half the congregation hadn't registered the announcement at all (and were still wondering how we'd managed to forget to bring round the chalice) the other half had been completely baffled by pretty much everything I'd said.
So..is this the time to unroll my theology of Eucharist, while trying not to scare those whose views are radically different?
Of my two parishes, one is a classically middle-of-the-road village church, where any attempt to voice ANY sort of explicit theology would be seen as the height of bad manners...The other was presented to me as "on the kind of liberal catholic spectrum" - and certainly the Sacrament is reserved (could I have gone there otherwise? almost certainly not), vestments are worn and as for the most part those aspects of catholic faith and practice I've suggested have been well received.
But now I'm wondering if anyone has any idea WHY?
And if, as I suspect, the answer to that is "No" - then what might happen as I try to suggest some possibilities...?
Oh dear, I do wish I were rather less of a wimp.
Pleasing all the people is never going to be possible but I'm always appalled at the way the sacrament of unity can cause so much division...and I hate the thought of being the one who highlights those divisions in this place.
But there's never going to be a better time, is there?
If we try and explore our theology of Eucharist now, then we can work on our practice in the weeks before the Herring of Christ's priesting next year.
That sounds OK...but makes me feel very nervous.
Really, I'm quite hopeless.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Dreams for the church
At the moment, you don't have to look too far to find evidence of all sorts of unhappiness within that part of the Body of Christ that is the Anglican Communion (though as always, even as I prepare to wring my hands and consider despair, there's fresh evidence of God at work and I wonder how I dared to question...) so yesterday's Friday Five, which was all about the five marks of a perfect church, would have been distinctly apposite. However, I can't dream church dreams without hearing the words of others...the first a posting from WATCH a couple of years ago and the second from the ever wonderful Kate Compston. I certainly can't improve on these - and they are very much my dreams too.
I'm dreaming
about a church of sensitivity and openness,
a church of healing and welcome.
I'm dreaming about a community of friends
that celebrates differences and diversity and variety,
a community that is forgiving, cherishing, wide open.
I dream of women and men
who minister life and laughter and love;
of men and women who minister healing and harmony and hope;
of women and men who minister to each other
and minister to the crying needs of a world that hurts.
I dream against the rough climb still to come,
against expectation, against pessimism and despair;
I dream, I dream of the clear panorama
of the vision of light right at the top of the mountain.
I dream of a church that joins in with God's laughing
as she rocks in her rapture, enjoying her art:
she's glad of her world, in its risking and growing;
‘tis the child she has borne and holds close to her heart.
I'm dreaming
about a church of sensitivity and openness,
a church of healing and welcome.
I'm dreaming about a community of friends
that celebrates differences and diversity and variety,
a community that is forgiving, cherishing, wide open.
I dream of women and men
who minister life and laughter and love;
of men and women who minister healing and harmony and hope;
of women and men who minister to each other
and minister to the crying needs of a world that hurts.
I dream against the rough climb still to come,
against expectation, against pessimism and despair;
I dream, I dream of the clear panorama
of the vision of light right at the top of the mountain.
I dream of a church that joins in with God's laughing
as she rocks in her rapture, enjoying her art:
she's glad of her world, in its risking and growing;
‘tis the child she has borne and holds close to her heart.
I dream of at church that joins in with God's weeping
as she crouches, weighed down by the sorrow she sees;
she cries for the hostile, the cold and no-hoping,
for she bears in herself our despair and dis-ease.
I dream of a church that joins in with God's dancing
as she moves like the wind and wave and the fire;
a church that can pick up its skirts, piroutting,
with the steps that can signal God's deepest desire.
I dream of a church that join in with God's loving
as she bends to embrace the unlovely and lost;
a church that can free, by its sharing and daring,
the imprisoned and poor and then shoulder the cost.
God make us a church that joins in with your living
as you cherish and challenge, rein in and release;
a church that is winsome, impassioned, inspiring;
lioness of your justice and lamb of your peace.
But of course dreams are of very limited value if they remain simply that.I'm in optimistic vein tonight, after some experiences of church that fit rather wonderfully with the dream - so I'm off to do some praying now, recognising that work may well be part of the package too...
Rivers and re-creation
In obedience to lots of good advice (and even a sermon preached to myself) I've just spent a very restorative couple of days...On Thursday I had a yummy pub supper with a friend, whose parishes run down the eastern bank of the Severn - and she took me to see my first Severn Bore.
It was a lovely calm evening, with the river flowing gently towards the sea (as rivers are, after all, wont to do) when the flow was broken by the wave of the bore coming upstream...Even from some distance we could hear it (though it was more a loud purr than the sort of roaring that Thomas Hardy described) and to watch it was quite extraordinary. Something in the contrast between the calm of the evening and the inexorable progress of the wave up the river was irresistable. Some surfers caught the wave and rode upstream for a while, and though I was assured that this was just a two-star bore, so not that remarkable, I was really delighted by it. No drama, no hype - it just was!
The following day the holiday continued, as I caught a train to London to catch up with friends. The very act of getting on a train takes me back to childhood expeditions, so the whole thing felt like an adventure from the start. Add to that the joy of being in a special place with lovely people, absolutely no responsibility for anything beyond being there and open to happy things and the result was just blissful.
A long long time ago, when I was busy working my way round the Greater London Choral Circuit I would take Sunday afternoons off to sit in the congregation at St Paul's. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing there, but knew I felt more human afterwards. Even on the busiest summer afternoons, there seemed to be a quality of space and stillness from which I derived strength without really knowing why.
Later I attended ordinations there, struggling (this was the late 1980s, and I was a long way away from those who were praying and working, campaigning and praying some more so that doors might be opened to enable women to respond as God called them to priesthood) with a sense that somehow this connected to me. This morning I attended a beautiful early Mass and all was very good.
Best of all, the sense of calm and deep happiness has accompanied me all the way home. Typically after a retreat, it runs out by the time I've unloaded the first lot of laundry and realised that nobody has got round to doing the dishes from yesterday breakfast. This evening, I'm still purring gently.
Thank you, God.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Words I never expected to say
"I must get organised"Regular readers will know that I make it a point of honour to be almost a caricature of my MyersBriggs ENFP profile, avoiding planning (dreaming is different), leaving everything til the last minute if not later and generally running scared of anything that looks remotely like a schedule.
That worked quite well in curacy days...The main things were laid out, daily and weekly, and though I could bounce chaotically from one to another, there was no danger of essentials being overlooked or spoiled through lack of preparation, because the ultimate responsibility was not mine.
Now, of course, it's a very different matter.
I'm the one responsible for ensuring that those fixed things that held me on course actually happen.
I'm the one responsible for ensuring that I achieve such necessary things as Time Off (interesting - WonderfulVicar struggled with this one too; though he was very good at safeguarding my day off, his own was a different matter)
I have total freedom to organise my days, and my diary, - or to let the diary organise me instead.
I guess I took my diary's supremacy for granted til last week.
I would write in appointments, thinking "That clear slot on Tuesday afternoon will be just perfect for rewriting the Baptism intro leaflet" - but then someone would ask to see me and I'd offer them Tuesday afternoon, because it seemed rude to postpone them when I could fit them in and only inconvenience myself.
In fact, any time a real person hove in sight, I'd squeeze them in to the diary no matter what...which meant that always, the long-term desirables were postponed and the short-term essentials were often completed only by excessive burning of the midnight oil.
It just didn't occurr to me that the diary was MINE to control...til in conversation with a friend, another cleric, I discovered that he has perfected the art of apportioning time in ways that make sense.
For example, by Tuesday I owe the parish mag editor all kinds of copy.
I've known this for a while, but trusted that a slot would appear in which I could work on it...With no such slot forthcoming, I'll be working late tomorrow night
D., however, would have identified some time weeks ago in which he would work on the magazine and no matter what came up, he would stick to it.
One crucial difference is that he's part of a team, and doesn't hold overall responsibility for the life of his church, but (pathetic though it seems) this was truly the first time I had dreamed that such an approach was possible.
With the Herring of Christ to encourage, I can't afford to be heading into weekends with things still evolving around me. It's simply not fair when he's learning the job to force him to engage with a constantly shifting landscape as well...so whatever else, worship prep needs attention. It would be good to know by Thursday night who is doing what, and how, on Sunday morning...
The problem is, the one slot I can see in this week's diary is late on Sunday afternoon.......
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Sermon for Trinity 6, 19th July 2009 Mark 6:30-34& 53-56
With grateful thanks to Annabel, whose sermon on PRCL gave me both the kick start I needed, and some helpful sentences too.
It has been an anything but quiet week at the vicarage.
On Monday we had the joy of travelling to Cardiff for Lucinda’s graduation. Tuesday saw a service of Holy Communion in one of the sheltered housing complexes in Cashes Green, some pastoral visiting, a clergy consultation group and a training evening designed to help us to think about the welcome we offer in our churches. Wednesday saw a school Assembly, two more services of Holy Communion, a study group, more visiting and a retirement celebration, Thursday yet more Communions, a chapter meeting, another meeting in Cheltenham and a Baptism preparation evening, while Friday featured the Leavers’ service for St Matthew’s school, a spot of essential admin, another Home Communion and the interment of some cremated remains here at All Saints.
I wish I could say that last week’s timetable was atypical, but I’m ashamed to say that I can’t. I did find time for some much needed dog walking, but even with two out of three children home, time for family meals and space to enjoy each other’s company just hasn’t been feasible.
I’m telling you this not in a bid for sympathy, or because I want to win some award for overworking cleric of the year, but simply to illustrate an all too prevalent pattern in contemporary life.
Most of us, whether consciously or not, are spending our days as if we were called to be not so much human beings as human doings.
As you’ll probably know, full time clergy are not paid a salary, a reward for hours worked, but rather a stipend – an allowance that is designed to free us to take time to follow God’s agenda for the communities we serve, without anxiety about where the next meal might be coming from.
But even clergy are leading increasingly driven lives.
Training is often focussed on management issues as priests who were called as pastors find themselves charged with maintaining the church life of growing numbers of communities.
That’s not a bad thing – until it forces us to break the fourth commandment, the one that requires us to keep sabbath.
I’m not about to indulge in a frantic rearguard action to reclaim Sunday as a day of universal rest (and, if I recall correctly, not a little tedium at times) BUT I do think there’s something very wrong when we try to operate at full capacity 24/7, 52 weeks of the year.
We need space.
Space for families
Space for re-creation.
Space for God.
If you’re in any doubt, in our frantic society, that this is the way forward, look again at our gospel reading.
As I began to think about my sermon earlier in the week, I couldn’t help giggling. I’d come home from meetings thinking
“Now some time to breathe” only to encounter a red-hot phone and a whole raft of emails….and I began to understand more and more clearly how it felt for Jesus and the twelve as they sought solitude, only to find the crowds pursuing them relentlessly.
But I don’t want us to focus on the demands that Jesus faced in his own ministry, but rather on the solution
“Come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves and rest a while”
Jesus himself was in dire need of some time out.
Mark’s favourite word is “immediately” – and his gospel conveys the non stop hustle of those days in Galilee.
Jesus moves from teaching to healing, from miracle to wonder, with barely time to think…
Barely time – but he makes that time a priority.
“Come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves and rest a while”
And his time out differs in quality from so much of mine, and perhaps of yours too.
It’s not a question of slumping on the sofa, watching mindless television…or of copying those stressed city executives who can only find relaxation with the aid of drink or drugs.
The rest that Jesus invites us to is the same that is recognised by the psalmist as he worships the God who
“leads me beside the still waters and restores my soul”
This is quite a confessional sermon, isn’t it – so let me share one more difficult thing.
When I’m very tired or hard pressed, time with God is one of the first things to get squeezed out.
But Jesus shows us that it is just when we are tired that it’s most important to turn to God to be refreshed and resourced.
It’s interesting how many Christians struggle with this.
Perhaps we were only given one model of prayer as we were growing up – something to do with public worship or with “Saying prayers” at the beginning and end of each day.
Perhaps that has never really worked for you, but you have carried on dutifully, because you know it OUGHT to be helpful.
If that is the case, take heart.
There are as many different ways of spending time with God as there are people to spend them.
In fact, there are whole libraries of books out there explaining
different ways of praying, from the “lectio divina” of the Benedictines, reading and meditating on a Bible passage, allowing God to speak to you through it, via the “sanctified imagination” of the Ignatians, where you imagine yourself into the scene, right up to just sitting and being in God’s presence. Not just letting your mind wander, but staying focussed, being aware of your body and your breathing, and of God’s presence, and using a Christian mantra – perhaps something like “Maranatha – come Lord Jesus” as a focus for prayer.
If you are someone who likes to keep busy, you might find a rosary or Anglican prayer beads a good way to pray, since this approach occupies both hands and mind. You can develop your own way of using these for prayer, perhaps praying a Bible verse on the larger beads, and then something like “Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, Saviour” on the smaller ones. You might like to mark the start of your prayer time by lighting a candle, and focus on its flame…that can be wonderfully calming in a busy day.
And, however predictably, I must remind you of the role of music…everything from hymns, and choral music, to plainsong or Taize chant. It can still your thoughts and refresh your soul
The point is, prayer is a bit like exercise – one size doesn’t fit all.
The practices that inspire me may leave you cold, and vice versa. You know that the best exercise for you is the one you like and will
actually do, and the same applies to spiritual exercises. It’s well
worth spending some time exploring different ways of prayer that different groups of Christians have found helpful, so that you can really be refreshed by your time with God..
It doesn’t actually matter how you pray! Whether you use your own words, or other people’s, or none at all; whether you paint your prayers, or engage with icons, whether you listen to music or sing to yourself; whether you use a rosary or prayer beads or whether those do simply nothing for you. What matters is that each of us spends time with our Lord, that we go by ourselves with him to a quiet place and rest awhile. You don’t have to be an ordained minister, or some sort of super-holy freak to gain huge benefit from time out with God. You may be surprised to learn that, in what is billed as an age of creeping secularism, retreats are a growth industry –perhaps because the busier we are the more we need to rest with God.
As we grow and change –for I hope we’re all growing and changing, and allowing God to mould us into the people He created us to be – a way of prayer that was perfect for us some years ago may no longer suit quite as well, while something that seemed not even to be prayer back then might turn out to be the exact thing your spirit has been craving! So it’s really worth making time to explore new directions, or simply to sit and let God set the agenda.
“Come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves and rest a while”
If you’re struggling with all this, feeling way out of your depths and wondering if I’m actually speaking English- well, though your clergy might not have the answers, we’re only to happy to spend time with you exploring the questions.
But please remember, there are no experts in prayer...Though our souls need it, in order to breathe and live, there really is no default option that we can all revert to. All that is certain is that each of us needs to make space to allow God to restore our souls.
How that happens will change day by day, and year by year
What matters is that we pray, not how!
And may God the Holy Spirit help us and guide our prayers.
It has been an anything but quiet week at the vicarage.
On Monday we had the joy of travelling to Cardiff for Lucinda’s graduation. Tuesday saw a service of Holy Communion in one of the sheltered housing complexes in Cashes Green, some pastoral visiting, a clergy consultation group and a training evening designed to help us to think about the welcome we offer in our churches. Wednesday saw a school Assembly, two more services of Holy Communion, a study group, more visiting and a retirement celebration, Thursday yet more Communions, a chapter meeting, another meeting in Cheltenham and a Baptism preparation evening, while Friday featured the Leavers’ service for St Matthew’s school, a spot of essential admin, another Home Communion and the interment of some cremated remains here at All Saints.
I wish I could say that last week’s timetable was atypical, but I’m ashamed to say that I can’t. I did find time for some much needed dog walking, but even with two out of three children home, time for family meals and space to enjoy each other’s company just hasn’t been feasible.
I’m telling you this not in a bid for sympathy, or because I want to win some award for overworking cleric of the year, but simply to illustrate an all too prevalent pattern in contemporary life.
Most of us, whether consciously or not, are spending our days as if we were called to be not so much human beings as human doings.
As you’ll probably know, full time clergy are not paid a salary, a reward for hours worked, but rather a stipend – an allowance that is designed to free us to take time to follow God’s agenda for the communities we serve, without anxiety about where the next meal might be coming from.
But even clergy are leading increasingly driven lives.
Training is often focussed on management issues as priests who were called as pastors find themselves charged with maintaining the church life of growing numbers of communities.
That’s not a bad thing – until it forces us to break the fourth commandment, the one that requires us to keep sabbath.
I’m not about to indulge in a frantic rearguard action to reclaim Sunday as a day of universal rest (and, if I recall correctly, not a little tedium at times) BUT I do think there’s something very wrong when we try to operate at full capacity 24/7, 52 weeks of the year.
We need space.
Space for families
Space for re-creation.
Space for God.
If you’re in any doubt, in our frantic society, that this is the way forward, look again at our gospel reading.
As I began to think about my sermon earlier in the week, I couldn’t help giggling. I’d come home from meetings thinking
“Now some time to breathe” only to encounter a red-hot phone and a whole raft of emails….and I began to understand more and more clearly how it felt for Jesus and the twelve as they sought solitude, only to find the crowds pursuing them relentlessly.
But I don’t want us to focus on the demands that Jesus faced in his own ministry, but rather on the solution
“Come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves and rest a while”
Jesus himself was in dire need of some time out.
Mark’s favourite word is “immediately” – and his gospel conveys the non stop hustle of those days in Galilee.
Jesus moves from teaching to healing, from miracle to wonder, with barely time to think…
Barely time – but he makes that time a priority.
“Come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves and rest a while”
And his time out differs in quality from so much of mine, and perhaps of yours too.
It’s not a question of slumping on the sofa, watching mindless television…or of copying those stressed city executives who can only find relaxation with the aid of drink or drugs.
The rest that Jesus invites us to is the same that is recognised by the psalmist as he worships the God who
“leads me beside the still waters and restores my soul”
This is quite a confessional sermon, isn’t it – so let me share one more difficult thing.
When I’m very tired or hard pressed, time with God is one of the first things to get squeezed out.
But Jesus shows us that it is just when we are tired that it’s most important to turn to God to be refreshed and resourced.
It’s interesting how many Christians struggle with this.
Perhaps we were only given one model of prayer as we were growing up – something to do with public worship or with “Saying prayers” at the beginning and end of each day.
Perhaps that has never really worked for you, but you have carried on dutifully, because you know it OUGHT to be helpful.
If that is the case, take heart.
There are as many different ways of spending time with God as there are people to spend them.
In fact, there are whole libraries of books out there explaining
different ways of praying, from the “lectio divina” of the Benedictines, reading and meditating on a Bible passage, allowing God to speak to you through it, via the “sanctified imagination” of the Ignatians, where you imagine yourself into the scene, right up to just sitting and being in God’s presence. Not just letting your mind wander, but staying focussed, being aware of your body and your breathing, and of God’s presence, and using a Christian mantra – perhaps something like “Maranatha – come Lord Jesus” as a focus for prayer.
If you are someone who likes to keep busy, you might find a rosary or Anglican prayer beads a good way to pray, since this approach occupies both hands and mind. You can develop your own way of using these for prayer, perhaps praying a Bible verse on the larger beads, and then something like “Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, Saviour” on the smaller ones. You might like to mark the start of your prayer time by lighting a candle, and focus on its flame…that can be wonderfully calming in a busy day.
And, however predictably, I must remind you of the role of music…everything from hymns, and choral music, to plainsong or Taize chant. It can still your thoughts and refresh your soul
The point is, prayer is a bit like exercise – one size doesn’t fit all.
The practices that inspire me may leave you cold, and vice versa. You know that the best exercise for you is the one you like and will
actually do, and the same applies to spiritual exercises. It’s well
worth spending some time exploring different ways of prayer that different groups of Christians have found helpful, so that you can really be refreshed by your time with God..
It doesn’t actually matter how you pray! Whether you use your own words, or other people’s, or none at all; whether you paint your prayers, or engage with icons, whether you listen to music or sing to yourself; whether you use a rosary or prayer beads or whether those do simply nothing for you. What matters is that each of us spends time with our Lord, that we go by ourselves with him to a quiet place and rest awhile. You don’t have to be an ordained minister, or some sort of super-holy freak to gain huge benefit from time out with God. You may be surprised to learn that, in what is billed as an age of creeping secularism, retreats are a growth industry –perhaps because the busier we are the more we need to rest with God.
As we grow and change –for I hope we’re all growing and changing, and allowing God to mould us into the people He created us to be – a way of prayer that was perfect for us some years ago may no longer suit quite as well, while something that seemed not even to be prayer back then might turn out to be the exact thing your spirit has been craving! So it’s really worth making time to explore new directions, or simply to sit and let God set the agenda.
“Come away to a deserted place, all by yourselves and rest a while”
If you’re struggling with all this, feeling way out of your depths and wondering if I’m actually speaking English- well, though your clergy might not have the answers, we’re only to happy to spend time with you exploring the questions.
But please remember, there are no experts in prayer...Though our souls need it, in order to breathe and live, there really is no default option that we can all revert to. All that is certain is that each of us needs to make space to allow God to restore our souls.
How that happens will change day by day, and year by year
What matters is that we pray, not how!
And may God the Holy Spirit help us and guide our prayers.
Following on...
From my pursuit of a coherent expression of my baptismal theology, here's the sermon I offered at this afternoon's baptism in Church on the Hill. Here the congregation was, as expected, young professionals, well versed in acceptable behaviour in churches. They listened politely, as the parents had during our preparation time, and superficially at least it seemed that they had got the message. As to its long-term impact, - that's not, thank God, for me to define.
I'm posting the sermon simply because of the ongoing struggles outlined below...Comments sincerely welcomed. The readings (unusually both chosen by the parents) were from Mark - Mark 1 9-11 (I often use this account of the Baptism of Christ) & Mark 10:13-16 (Jesus welcomes children)
Famously we’re told that a picture is worth 1000 words, - and our two Bible readings today give us very vivid pictures.
First we have a snapshot of Jesus’s own baptism.
It’s quite an interesting group….Jesus’s cousin, the drop out, John, with his camel’s hair coat and leather belt…standing waist deep in the river, while crowds line the banks, and head one by one into the water….Then the close up of the young carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth going down into the waters, and emerging to his own personal affirmation from his heavenly father.
“You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased”
Here, God is expressing the truth that has always existed…That from the very beginning, before ever Jesus taught, healed, died and rose, God looked on him and loved him.
That truth applies to C too – and to each one of us here.
What we are doing for C today will change nothing on God’s side.
God won’t love her any more because she has been baptised – there’s nothing that she, or any one of us, can do to make God love us more…because God already loves us completely and unconditionally.
Just as we are.
A while back, I had the joy of baptising D. A lively toddler, he wasn’t content with the rather half hearted little drips of water that I poured on him, and, as I held him he began splashing in the font, till he, and many of the rest of us were a lot more than just damp. His mum was hugely embarrassed and kept apologising but actually it seemed to me that D was the only one of us who had the right idea. If the waters of baptism are one way in which we represent God’s love and grace available for each of us…well, that’s not something poor, mean and limited.
It is boundless, overwhelming. Something that can flood our whole lives and change every part of us, if we only let it. For that reason, maybe those who baptise by total immersion have the right idea – for you can’t ever have too much of God’s love – but God never forces it upon us.
Our response is a choice…
What happens today can be a one off,- a celebration of love, a welcome – but it carries the potential to be so much more…
Baptism is only a sign, true enough, but it’s one that speaks of our readiness to accept God’s love and forgiveness that is so freely given, and to take its impact seriously. To accept forgiveness means too, that we recognise that there are things within us that are imperfect or destructive– things we need to change. That may not seem very real in a little one like C, - but the same genes that ensure our survival can lead to unbridled selfishness, to damaged lives and damaged relationships.We can't curb those tendencies on our own.
The cross which we’ll trace on Chloe’s forehead in a moment is an invisible badge, that announces exactly who she belongs to…and what shape of life she is called to. The cross, after all, is the way of costly self-sacrifice, perfected by Christ but reproduced in our own stumbling efforts to follow his way.
So as we sign C with that mark we commission her to a new kind of life. It is, if you like, our version of the moment of adoption that is represented in our other reading, one of the best known in Scripture, the account of Jesus welcoming children.
Perhaps as you heard that story you imagined Jesus cuddling clean and photogenic children, children a bit like C herself – but from what we know of 1st century Jewish society, it seems more likely that the children brought to him were street kids, fatherless, homeless, outside society. In placing his hands on their heads, Jesus used the ritual by which men would acknowledge paternity. He was publicly adopting each one of those urchins as God’s children, and declaring them citizens of God’s kingdom on earth. Today, that Kingdom is represented (however imperfectly) by the Church – so at baptism we celebrate Chloe’s adoption into that family, her church birthday.
We’ll look for signs of a family likeness, as N & M teach C what being a Christian really means, and help her to live a life that is modelled on the life of Christ. That’s what the other name for baptism, “Christening” represents…It’s the way in which we begin to become Christians, little Christs, called to carry his light, his love and his joy into the world every single day…
and our prayer must be that this will be true for C, that the promises made for her today will bear fruit so that she can grow more like Jesus all her life long, as God looks down on her in love and confirms
“this is my beloved child…I’m well pleased with her ”
I'm posting the sermon simply because of the ongoing struggles outlined below...Comments sincerely welcomed. The readings (unusually both chosen by the parents) were from Mark - Mark 1 9-11 (I often use this account of the Baptism of Christ) & Mark 10:13-16 (Jesus welcomes children)
Famously we’re told that a picture is worth 1000 words, - and our two Bible readings today give us very vivid pictures.
First we have a snapshot of Jesus’s own baptism.
It’s quite an interesting group….Jesus’s cousin, the drop out, John, with his camel’s hair coat and leather belt…standing waist deep in the river, while crowds line the banks, and head one by one into the water….Then the close up of the young carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth going down into the waters, and emerging to his own personal affirmation from his heavenly father.
“You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased”
Here, God is expressing the truth that has always existed…That from the very beginning, before ever Jesus taught, healed, died and rose, God looked on him and loved him.
That truth applies to C too – and to each one of us here.
What we are doing for C today will change nothing on God’s side.
God won’t love her any more because she has been baptised – there’s nothing that she, or any one of us, can do to make God love us more…because God already loves us completely and unconditionally.
Just as we are.
A while back, I had the joy of baptising D. A lively toddler, he wasn’t content with the rather half hearted little drips of water that I poured on him, and, as I held him he began splashing in the font, till he, and many of the rest of us were a lot more than just damp. His mum was hugely embarrassed and kept apologising but actually it seemed to me that D was the only one of us who had the right idea. If the waters of baptism are one way in which we represent God’s love and grace available for each of us…well, that’s not something poor, mean and limited.
It is boundless, overwhelming. Something that can flood our whole lives and change every part of us, if we only let it. For that reason, maybe those who baptise by total immersion have the right idea – for you can’t ever have too much of God’s love – but God never forces it upon us.
Our response is a choice…
What happens today can be a one off,- a celebration of love, a welcome – but it carries the potential to be so much more…
Baptism is only a sign, true enough, but it’s one that speaks of our readiness to accept God’s love and forgiveness that is so freely given, and to take its impact seriously. To accept forgiveness means too, that we recognise that there are things within us that are imperfect or destructive– things we need to change. That may not seem very real in a little one like C, - but the same genes that ensure our survival can lead to unbridled selfishness, to damaged lives and damaged relationships.We can't curb those tendencies on our own.
The cross which we’ll trace on Chloe’s forehead in a moment is an invisible badge, that announces exactly who she belongs to…and what shape of life she is called to. The cross, after all, is the way of costly self-sacrifice, perfected by Christ but reproduced in our own stumbling efforts to follow his way.
So as we sign C with that mark we commission her to a new kind of life. It is, if you like, our version of the moment of adoption that is represented in our other reading, one of the best known in Scripture, the account of Jesus welcoming children.
Perhaps as you heard that story you imagined Jesus cuddling clean and photogenic children, children a bit like C herself – but from what we know of 1st century Jewish society, it seems more likely that the children brought to him were street kids, fatherless, homeless, outside society. In placing his hands on their heads, Jesus used the ritual by which men would acknowledge paternity. He was publicly adopting each one of those urchins as God’s children, and declaring them citizens of God’s kingdom on earth. Today, that Kingdom is represented (however imperfectly) by the Church – so at baptism we celebrate Chloe’s adoption into that family, her church birthday.
We’ll look for signs of a family likeness, as N & M teach C what being a Christian really means, and help her to live a life that is modelled on the life of Christ. That’s what the other name for baptism, “Christening” represents…It’s the way in which we begin to become Christians, little Christs, called to carry his light, his love and his joy into the world every single day…
and our prayer must be that this will be true for C, that the promises made for her today will bear fruit so that she can grow more like Jesus all her life long, as God looks down on her in love and confirms
“this is my beloved child…I’m well pleased with her ”
Baptism boom hits Gloucestershire
Recently, my phone has been red-hot as all over parish in the valley, parents have decided that now is the acceptable time to baptise their offspring.
Fantastic!
Time and again, the opening gambit
"Vicar, I wanted to find out about getting my daughter done..."
We've so many on the books that I'm baptising on Saturdays as well as Sundays, have long since abandoned suggesting of baptism at the Eucharist except for church families (we'd never have an ordinary Sunday at all - & it seems to me to demand too much of the huge crowds of supporters who've never set foot in church before) and even briefly entertained the idea of baptising two candidates at the one service (something I've never considered before, as it seems to me horribly easy for that to turn into a conveyor-belt experience - bad for everyone).
If even one in ten of this summer's candidates became a regular part of the church family, there would be a noticeable impact on our congregations - but my suspicion is that this won't happen,that though the parents are genuinely seeking "To do the best thing" for their child, they don't expect baptism to really change anything.
Of course I believe that in baptism, as in all the sacraments, the initiative is God's - that regardless of what happens once the bridesmaid's dress or tiny waistcoat have been put away, baptism celebrates something of profound and eternal significance - our adoption into Christ's family.So my views are light years away from those of a colleague in the diocese who once described the sort of baptism I engage with regularly as "a waste of time".If the initiative lies with God, it's not up to me, as a minister of God's church, to attempt to erect barriers, though I work hard to combine inclusive welcome with a culture of awareness that what we are engaged in really matters. So I spend alot of time in preparation sessions encouraging parents to reflect on the baptismal promises, and always say that I cannot think of anything worse than making that sort of declaration in public with one's fingers crossed. I make sure that we watch the First Steps DVD together and talk through the points it raises (faith is a journey, baptism the first step - you can't expect your child to continue on the journey alone so if you're not heading that way yourself, maybe thanksgiving would be the best option). I explain the ways in which we, as a church, are striving to make it easy for parents to keep those promises and I comfort myself (and possibly the parents too) with the recognition that is built into the service that we can only hope to stay faithful to our baptism
"with the help of God", that "Today we are trusting God for their growth in faith".
I don't, then, feel that I have a problem with my baptismal practice in terms of who I baptise- but I am increasingly challenged as to how to make the service feel meaningful, but welcoming - accessible but significant. Even pared down as best I can, the CW text is quite daunting for many of the families who come along.In the valley, it's pretty much unknown for baptism congregations to join in responses, & they are clearly often at sea despite all I can do to make them feel at home, though the typical response at the door is "You made us feel really welcome.." which has to be a step in the right direction. Another colleague uses only the barest of essentials, modelling her service in church on the rite for emergency baptism - but that's not strictly "by the book" - and, despite my longing to outgrow it, I'm congenitally compliant.
So the content of the talk seems to matter hugely.
My main points can be summed up as
1. Baptism is an ongoing process not a one off event (I AM baptised, not I WAS...)
2. Faith as a journey with/towards God
3. Nothing changes on God's side...Unconditional love there from the beginning, - we can't do anything to change that
4. Baptism recognises this & is our first response - but should change everything
5. To accept God's forgiveness, we need to recognise that there are things that need forgiving
6. Cross shaped lives are challenging - we're programmed for self interest, but called to something different. Christening = becoming little Christs...we can't do that alone.
7. Community of faith to share the journey & offer support...Birthday into new family, the church
You'll not be surprised by any of that, I know...but I do struggle mightily to present it in a way that is meaningful for a congregation restless for the celebration. I know I can't say it all, so I tend to major on unconditional love - but then fret that I've not paid sufficient attention to the demands of the Christian life. I don't want by any word or action to encourage abuse of God's hospitality, but I do want everyone to hear that they are, as the New Zealand prayer book reminds us, "Deeply loved and need never be afraid" .
I'm not in the business of changing lives, but I AM in the business of facilitating encournter with the God who can and does.
How do I convey THAT in a 2 minute homily?
Fantastic!
Time and again, the opening gambit
"Vicar, I wanted to find out about getting my daughter done..."
We've so many on the books that I'm baptising on Saturdays as well as Sundays, have long since abandoned suggesting of baptism at the Eucharist except for church families (we'd never have an ordinary Sunday at all - & it seems to me to demand too much of the huge crowds of supporters who've never set foot in church before) and even briefly entertained the idea of baptising two candidates at the one service (something I've never considered before, as it seems to me horribly easy for that to turn into a conveyor-belt experience - bad for everyone).
If even one in ten of this summer's candidates became a regular part of the church family, there would be a noticeable impact on our congregations - but my suspicion is that this won't happen,that though the parents are genuinely seeking "To do the best thing" for their child, they don't expect baptism to really change anything.
Of course I believe that in baptism, as in all the sacraments, the initiative is God's - that regardless of what happens once the bridesmaid's dress or tiny waistcoat have been put away, baptism celebrates something of profound and eternal significance - our adoption into Christ's family.So my views are light years away from those of a colleague in the diocese who once described the sort of baptism I engage with regularly as "a waste of time".If the initiative lies with God, it's not up to me, as a minister of God's church, to attempt to erect barriers, though I work hard to combine inclusive welcome with a culture of awareness that what we are engaged in really matters. So I spend alot of time in preparation sessions encouraging parents to reflect on the baptismal promises, and always say that I cannot think of anything worse than making that sort of declaration in public with one's fingers crossed. I make sure that we watch the First Steps DVD together and talk through the points it raises (faith is a journey, baptism the first step - you can't expect your child to continue on the journey alone so if you're not heading that way yourself, maybe thanksgiving would be the best option). I explain the ways in which we, as a church, are striving to make it easy for parents to keep those promises and I comfort myself (and possibly the parents too) with the recognition that is built into the service that we can only hope to stay faithful to our baptism
"with the help of God", that "Today we are trusting God for their growth in faith".
I don't, then, feel that I have a problem with my baptismal practice in terms of who I baptise- but I am increasingly challenged as to how to make the service feel meaningful, but welcoming - accessible but significant. Even pared down as best I can, the CW text is quite daunting for many of the families who come along.In the valley, it's pretty much unknown for baptism congregations to join in responses, & they are clearly often at sea despite all I can do to make them feel at home, though the typical response at the door is "You made us feel really welcome.." which has to be a step in the right direction. Another colleague uses only the barest of essentials, modelling her service in church on the rite for emergency baptism - but that's not strictly "by the book" - and, despite my longing to outgrow it, I'm congenitally compliant.
So the content of the talk seems to matter hugely.
My main points can be summed up as
1. Baptism is an ongoing process not a one off event (I AM baptised, not I WAS...)
2. Faith as a journey with/towards God
3. Nothing changes on God's side...Unconditional love there from the beginning, - we can't do anything to change that
4. Baptism recognises this & is our first response - but should change everything
5. To accept God's forgiveness, we need to recognise that there are things that need forgiving
6. Cross shaped lives are challenging - we're programmed for self interest, but called to something different. Christening = becoming little Christs...we can't do that alone.
7. Community of faith to share the journey & offer support...Birthday into new family, the church
You'll not be surprised by any of that, I know...but I do struggle mightily to present it in a way that is meaningful for a congregation restless for the celebration. I know I can't say it all, so I tend to major on unconditional love - but then fret that I've not paid sufficient attention to the demands of the Christian life. I don't want by any word or action to encourage abuse of God's hospitality, but I do want everyone to hear that they are, as the New Zealand prayer book reminds us, "Deeply loved and need never be afraid" .
I'm not in the business of changing lives, but I AM in the business of facilitating encournter with the God who can and does.
How do I convey THAT in a 2 minute homily?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
I am vicar, hear me roar :-)
Today has been Sunday all day, with the usual blend of highs and lows that this entails in any vicarly life...
Among the highs was a very good first ordained sermon from the Herring of Christ (TM) (and the happy realisation that I'm going to be working with said Herring for a minimum of 3 years - something which makes me feel very smiley both for myself and for the parishes) and a tiny moment, that will have been invisible to anyone but me.As we processed out from the 9.30 Eucharist at Church in the Valley I realised that I was concluding the procession because I had presided, while immediately in front of me were two male colleagues, one our curate, one my associate, who had Deaconed for me...and it hit me for a moment how far we have come as women ordained in the Church of England. We've a goodly way yet to travel, but for a moment or two this morning I looked back at the way we've come, and celebrated.
Lows were to do with my lifelong desire to please all the people all the time, which often leads to my finding myself in places I would never have chosen to stand. So this afternoon church in the valley was filled with all sorts of military types, resplendent in uniform and medals, for a service to lay up the standard of the local Royal British Legion branch. Only my own disorganisation has prevented my becoming a paid up member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship - but on the other hand, the gentlemen of the Legion whom I've encountered locally (in particular at funerals) have been unfailingly charming and delightful - so despite my reservations, in many ways it was a privilege to host the service.
I did, though, baulk somewhat at the insistence that, along with all forces clergy of whatever persuasion, I should be branded "Padre" for the afternoon.
Despite my catholic leanings, I've mostly resisted being called "Mother" thus far...so to find myself an honorary father seemed, in all honesty, a bridge too far.
All part of the rich tapestry of parish life, I guess...
Among the highs was a very good first ordained sermon from the Herring of Christ (TM) (and the happy realisation that I'm going to be working with said Herring for a minimum of 3 years - something which makes me feel very smiley both for myself and for the parishes) and a tiny moment, that will have been invisible to anyone but me.As we processed out from the 9.30 Eucharist at Church in the Valley I realised that I was concluding the procession because I had presided, while immediately in front of me were two male colleagues, one our curate, one my associate, who had Deaconed for me...and it hit me for a moment how far we have come as women ordained in the Church of England. We've a goodly way yet to travel, but for a moment or two this morning I looked back at the way we've come, and celebrated.
Lows were to do with my lifelong desire to please all the people all the time, which often leads to my finding myself in places I would never have chosen to stand. So this afternoon church in the valley was filled with all sorts of military types, resplendent in uniform and medals, for a service to lay up the standard of the local Royal British Legion branch. Only my own disorganisation has prevented my becoming a paid up member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship - but on the other hand, the gentlemen of the Legion whom I've encountered locally (in particular at funerals) have been unfailingly charming and delightful - so despite my reservations, in many ways it was a privilege to host the service.
I did, though, baulk somewhat at the insistence that, along with all forces clergy of whatever persuasion, I should be branded "Padre" for the afternoon.
Despite my catholic leanings, I've mostly resisted being called "Mother" thus far...so to find myself an honorary father seemed, in all honesty, a bridge too far.
All part of the rich tapestry of parish life, I guess...
Friday, July 10, 2009
MADUganda
Once upon a time, when I was a curate, The Dufflepud and his friends spent one evening at Youth Club planning a dream trip to Madagascar. They were all Explorer Scouts at the time, and as they talked the dream began to seem possible as part of a challenge known as the Explorer Belt.
Lots of conversations later, the whole thing foundered because that little core group were so keen to include the Dufflepud, but thanks to his August birthday, he would not have been 16 in time for the expedition to take place.
A year later, though, the scheme surfaced again...This time it was to include Explorers and other Scouty types from across the south west of England, and in no time the Dufflepud was signed up, together with that little group of friends. They started planning, fund-raising, working at horrible hamburger joints with large yellow logos, and the months ticked away.
Then suddenly Madagascar, which had been conspicuous by its absence from international news for decades, hit the headlines with all sorts of political unrest following an election. Suddenly it was on the FCO's list of countries unsafe for inessential journeys. The Scout association announced that they could not countenance a trip and insurers refused to cover it. Disaster.
We felt terrible. After all, if the Dufflepud had been only 2 weeks older, the whole expedition might have taken place last summer, before the trouble began.
Reprieve!
The expedition leaders spent the best part of a week phoning, emailing, making arrangements in all directions and lo, the expedition has a new destination..Uganda (renamed in true colonial style) MADUganda.
The essential elements of the "Explorer Belt" - a 10 day trek in the bush in small groups (3 UK and 2 Ugandan Explorers) remain intact. The original plan to spend time working in an orphanage has had to be jettisoned, but instead there will be white water rafting down the Nile, an opportunity to straddle the Equator, and (this is where I get seriously jealous) 5 days on safari in the Masai Mara in Kenya.
I would post his sister's reaction to this, but we have just agreed that this is a clean blog, with no carbon emmissions...so I can't.
What I can say is that, even after despatching 2 other children on gap years abroad, to destinations that they had arranged themselves and about which I knew pretty much nothing, it's somehow even more alarming to have signed all the detailed consent forms that are part of a highly organised Scouting expedition. I have agreed to all sorts of sensible responses in all sorts of continencies that I devoutly hope are most unlikely contingencies. Now I'm watching him reconsider his packing, which is demonstrating the Scouting motto "be prepared" to a ridiculous extent, and trying not to imagine situations in which he might actually need all those first aid essentials...
He's only away for 28 days, he'll be with good (and pretty sensible) friends (indeed, in many ways he's pretty sensible himself) and he's part of a highly organised and well-led expedition....and I Still Don't Like It.
Normal service will be resumed once I've stopped jittering.
Lots of conversations later, the whole thing foundered because that little core group were so keen to include the Dufflepud, but thanks to his August birthday, he would not have been 16 in time for the expedition to take place.
A year later, though, the scheme surfaced again...This time it was to include Explorers and other Scouty types from across the south west of England, and in no time the Dufflepud was signed up, together with that little group of friends. They started planning, fund-raising, working at horrible hamburger joints with large yellow logos, and the months ticked away.
Then suddenly Madagascar, which had been conspicuous by its absence from international news for decades, hit the headlines with all sorts of political unrest following an election. Suddenly it was on the FCO's list of countries unsafe for inessential journeys. The Scout association announced that they could not countenance a trip and insurers refused to cover it. Disaster.
We felt terrible. After all, if the Dufflepud had been only 2 weeks older, the whole expedition might have taken place last summer, before the trouble began.
Reprieve!
The expedition leaders spent the best part of a week phoning, emailing, making arrangements in all directions and lo, the expedition has a new destination..Uganda (renamed in true colonial style) MADUganda.
The essential elements of the "Explorer Belt" - a 10 day trek in the bush in small groups (3 UK and 2 Ugandan Explorers) remain intact. The original plan to spend time working in an orphanage has had to be jettisoned, but instead there will be white water rafting down the Nile, an opportunity to straddle the Equator, and (this is where I get seriously jealous) 5 days on safari in the Masai Mara in Kenya.
I would post his sister's reaction to this, but we have just agreed that this is a clean blog, with no carbon emmissions...so I can't.
What I can say is that, even after despatching 2 other children on gap years abroad, to destinations that they had arranged themselves and about which I knew pretty much nothing, it's somehow even more alarming to have signed all the detailed consent forms that are part of a highly organised Scouting expedition. I have agreed to all sorts of sensible responses in all sorts of continencies that I devoutly hope are most unlikely contingencies. Now I'm watching him reconsider his packing, which is demonstrating the Scouting motto "be prepared" to a ridiculous extent, and trying not to imagine situations in which he might actually need all those first aid essentials...
He's only away for 28 days, he'll be with good (and pretty sensible) friends (indeed, in many ways he's pretty sensible himself) and he's part of a highly organised and well-led expedition....and I Still Don't Like It.
Normal service will be resumed once I've stopped jittering.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Children - for a change!
This past weekend was busy, exciting, challenging - and other things too....and as I reflected wearily last night I realised that almost every aspect had something to do with children.It started with Saturday's Children for a Change festival at Gloucester Cathedral. Once upon a time, these festivals were an almost annual event, an eagerly anticipated date on the calendar, which was worth organising holidays around. I have very vivid memories of my own children engaging in a huge variety of wonderful activities to which they could never have had access in our small Cotswold village, of the excitement for all of us as we realised that we were involved in such a huge and creative diocesan family, of the sheer delight of watching the Cathedral turned upside down by invasions of under 11s...For a long time after one such festival, family visits to the Cathedral included a trip to one particular corner of the north aisle that, we swore, still sparkled quietly, thanks to a liberal application of glitter glue after I was let loose with a craft station of my own.
That was in the early to mid 90s, rather a long time ago now.I don't know why there was such a hiatus in the festivals (though I'd be willing to guess it might have something to do with funding) but Children for a Change was well worth waiting for. As we gathered by the statue of Robert Raikes in Gloucester Park, it didn't feel as if the turnout was particularly splendid, but once we began marching through the streets of Gloucester we realised just how many churches were represented..a long line that spanned a couple of blocks. Once we reached the Cathedral, it took ages to get us all through the doors...and I began to realise just how many were actually there. To see the nave cleared of chairs but packed with people was quite stunning. Such a fabulous space...so well used.
The Psalm drummers launched us into a really great day (do you think there's a market for "praise aerobics"?I'm sure I must have burned at least enough calories to balance the fabulous ice cream I enjoyed later)...A small but enthusiastic contingent from the valley church school explored everything from martial arts to climbing-walls, from handling snakes to poker work, with story telling, circus skills, wood turning (to produce fantastic spinning tops) and macrame along the way....We explored corners we would never normally have noticed...bumped into old friends around every corner and generally had a fantastic time.
I was sad that it hadn't been possible to encourage more families to come along - those who feel that the church is remote and inaccessible might have been wonderfully surprised...but I'd tried, really I had, and those who did come clearly enjoyed themselves.In time honoured fashion, Sunday followed Saturday, and this being the 1st Sunday in the month we offered All Age worship at Church in the Valley. As we were also welcoming the new curate I thought it would be good to talk a little about the distinctive calling of the diaconate, and we looked at different bits of the ordinal and tired to work out what that might mean for M, and for all of us in our own ministries too. At the end of the talk, he and I washed the feet of a gaggle of willing children, an exercise which I found incredibly moving and powerful.Those tiny pink toes...I wondered where those feet might travel, prayed that as a church we might do all in our power to welcome and to serve these little ones, and prayed with all my heart that they might always feel as happy and loved within the church as they do now. It was earlier in the talk, though, that things very nearly went off the rails. I'd been trying to get the children to explore what being a herald might mean and one in particular was heading cheerfully in the right direction, when a lady of a certain age, whose enthusiastic participation makes her a great ally on All Age Sundays, announced with great firmness
"No...a herring isn't a messenger. It's a kind of fish!"
So now you know. The curate will, from henceforth (until an alternative suggests itself) rejoice in the bloggy pseudonym
"The Herring of Christ".
What else are deacons for...?
The Herring of Christ (TM)is thoroughly good news for all sorts of reasons, - including the family he brings with him. Youngest herring (small fry?) is a very charming baby who all but undid me yesterday at Communion. I'd given the Sacrament to his mum, who was holding him to face me for a blessing. Youngest herring gave me his habitual beaming smile and reached out both hands to take a host from the patten.
Yes I know he didn't know what he was doing...(just as he didn't know what was being done on his behalf at baptism a month ago)...but still, he was reaching out towards Christ and I, a minister of Christ's Church, was constrained to gently push him away. It won't have hurt him, I'm sure - but it didn't do much for me.
My committment to inclusive church is total - and my sacramental theology has no problem with offering our Lord to the children who long for Him (not that I could stand it their way if I tried, really...)So why do I insist on toeing lines that pretty much nobody else present would even have noticed were there?
"Children for a Change", the theme of the diocesan festival, carries with it a dual message...that our focus should be on children for once, and that children can of themselves bring about change. Small Fry has certainly made me reflect once again on our attitude to the Sacrament...and pray and dream and long for change there.
"For everyone born a place at the table..."
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Power made perfect in weakness - a homily for the Eucharist, Trinity 4B
As you’ll know, later this morning we’re going to gather at St Matthew’s to welcome M, as he begins his new ministry among us.
This time last week, I’d imagine he and his fellow ordinands were both excited and apprehensive as they prepared to leave for the Cathedral, for one of the most significant days of their life.
It was an amazing service, with 16 new deacons presented to a packed Cathedral whose ancient stones have seen such celebrations countless times before…As the choir sang Palestrina, friends and family gathered from the four corners of the Kingdom and beyond and we worshipped God together and together celebrated the news ministries that began that day.
So much joy, so much love…on my own ordination days, I know it felt like a foretaste of heaven.
But, of course, Monday always follows Sunday – and for M last Monday saw a return to his office, to what my grandmother used to describe as “old clothes and porridge”.
Paul had a similar experience, it seems - though his was far beyond our imaginings.
Even an ordination in Gloucester can’t really compare with the glories of heaven but the pattern is the same...An experience of intense and awe-inspiring holiness, and then.......woomph.........down to earth with a bump.
The glory departs, and we are left to deal with our own workaday selves…
And, for Paul, that workaday self was afflicted in some way…though we don’t know exactly how.
He’s as enigmatic about his “Thorn in the flesh” as he is about his description of his experience of heaven.
We’re left wondering whether it is a physical defect of some kind, or perhaps an individual who makes his life miserable..
We can’t be certain – but we do know that his appeals to God for relief were denied.
That must have been so hard…
Paul praying in all the fervour of his new found faith…and the NO
God told him, in as many words, that this was a gift...a way of ensuring that he, Paul, would not become a celebrity himself but would remember constantly his dependence on God.
"My power is made perfect in weakness"
I’m reminded of times when as I’ve shared in the last weeks of a long and painful illness, and seen a new quality, a shining joy, an unshakeable calm transform the final days. Freed from the need to prove themselves, freed from the need to be anything but vessels for God, those approaching death often demonstrate the truth of Paul’s words.
Once we have the courage to let go of our selves, of our ideas about who we should be, and how we might control our lives…why then we will see God acting in ways that amaze and delight.
That's the same agenda that we find in the gospel, as the twelve are sent out, empty-handed, to begin their ministry.
Last Sunday, the new deacons each left the Cathedral with a Bible…and their friends and families will surely have laden them with any number of stoles, prayer books and all sorts of holy accoutrements.
We seem to need a lot of equipment in order to share the gospel today…
We have vestments and Communion sets, PCCs and Deanery synods, Grade 1 listed churches and Father Willis organs.
We have so much…we ought to be the most effective missionaries of all time.
But somehow, it doesn’t quite work that way.
Instead of the tools enabling the work of ministry, they threaten to become almost a substitute for it.
Concern for ensuring that all the equipment is running smoothly almost obscures the reason for its existence.
Something for us to be wary of perhaps, as we enjoy our beautiful and beloved building…
What if we could set out like the 12, empty handed
“no staff, no bread, no belt, no money”
I can’t imagine that any PCC Treasurer would rejoice at that approach – but what if we had the courage to try it…
What if we dared to set out, wholly dependent on God.
Could you just go – trusting that God would supply your needs?
Could you?
On balance, I’m glad that M and his fellow Deacons have been showered with gifts, because of course those gifts speak of love and support…of friendships sustained and prayers remembered over many months and years…
But I know too that really, all he needs, all any of us need as we reach out in love and service as the Church of Christ, are those gifts that God has already given us.
Where we feel inadequate, we need not fear…for the words that Paul heard so reluctantly still hold good today,
It is as we become weak that God’s power can most truly be seen at work in us – so let us pray for the faith and the courage to let go, to stop pretending to a control that is at best illusory…
Let us pray that we will allow ourselves to be weak, so that, in us, God may be strong.
This time last week, I’d imagine he and his fellow ordinands were both excited and apprehensive as they prepared to leave for the Cathedral, for one of the most significant days of their life.
It was an amazing service, with 16 new deacons presented to a packed Cathedral whose ancient stones have seen such celebrations countless times before…As the choir sang Palestrina, friends and family gathered from the four corners of the Kingdom and beyond and we worshipped God together and together celebrated the news ministries that began that day.
So much joy, so much love…on my own ordination days, I know it felt like a foretaste of heaven.
But, of course, Monday always follows Sunday – and for M last Monday saw a return to his office, to what my grandmother used to describe as “old clothes and porridge”.
Paul had a similar experience, it seems - though his was far beyond our imaginings.
Even an ordination in Gloucester can’t really compare with the glories of heaven but the pattern is the same...An experience of intense and awe-inspiring holiness, and then.......woomph.........down to earth with a bump.
The glory departs, and we are left to deal with our own workaday selves…
And, for Paul, that workaday self was afflicted in some way…though we don’t know exactly how.
He’s as enigmatic about his “Thorn in the flesh” as he is about his description of his experience of heaven.
We’re left wondering whether it is a physical defect of some kind, or perhaps an individual who makes his life miserable..
We can’t be certain – but we do know that his appeals to God for relief were denied.
That must have been so hard…
Paul praying in all the fervour of his new found faith…and the NO
God told him, in as many words, that this was a gift...a way of ensuring that he, Paul, would not become a celebrity himself but would remember constantly his dependence on God.
"My power is made perfect in weakness"
I’m reminded of times when as I’ve shared in the last weeks of a long and painful illness, and seen a new quality, a shining joy, an unshakeable calm transform the final days. Freed from the need to prove themselves, freed from the need to be anything but vessels for God, those approaching death often demonstrate the truth of Paul’s words.
Once we have the courage to let go of our selves, of our ideas about who we should be, and how we might control our lives…why then we will see God acting in ways that amaze and delight.
That's the same agenda that we find in the gospel, as the twelve are sent out, empty-handed, to begin their ministry.
Last Sunday, the new deacons each left the Cathedral with a Bible…and their friends and families will surely have laden them with any number of stoles, prayer books and all sorts of holy accoutrements.
We seem to need a lot of equipment in order to share the gospel today…
We have vestments and Communion sets, PCCs and Deanery synods, Grade 1 listed churches and Father Willis organs.
We have so much…we ought to be the most effective missionaries of all time.
But somehow, it doesn’t quite work that way.
Instead of the tools enabling the work of ministry, they threaten to become almost a substitute for it.
Concern for ensuring that all the equipment is running smoothly almost obscures the reason for its existence.
Something for us to be wary of perhaps, as we enjoy our beautiful and beloved building…
What if we could set out like the 12, empty handed
“no staff, no bread, no belt, no money”
I can’t imagine that any PCC Treasurer would rejoice at that approach – but what if we had the courage to try it…
What if we dared to set out, wholly dependent on God.
Could you just go – trusting that God would supply your needs?
Could you?
On balance, I’m glad that M and his fellow Deacons have been showered with gifts, because of course those gifts speak of love and support…of friendships sustained and prayers remembered over many months and years…
But I know too that really, all he needs, all any of us need as we reach out in love and service as the Church of Christ, are those gifts that God has already given us.
Where we feel inadequate, we need not fear…for the words that Paul heard so reluctantly still hold good today,
It is as we become weak that God’s power can most truly be seen at work in us – so let us pray for the faith and the courage to let go, to stop pretending to a control that is at best illusory…
Let us pray that we will allow ourselves to be weak, so that, in us, God may be strong.
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