Where prayer has been valid #Pilgrimage4

Bethesda...on a beautiful morning, with blue skies and warm sunshine, so easy to imagine the waiting invalids, hoping that today the waters would be stirred and healing come. The depths of the cistern suddenly makes sense of the reluctance of the paralysed man to risk those depths without help...
This feels like the place to pray for some friends who are dealing with tough health issues...and later I leave their names pushed into a crevice in the wall in the house where, maybe, - just maybe, Our Lady spent her early years. We try the glorious acoustic of the church of St Ann, our polite English voices turning out to be in no way a disappointment after the joyous exuberance of our Nigerian friends who have sung and danced in full gospel delight immediately before us, then in the silence go down to the 1st century house where Joachim and Ann could perhaps have made their home (this travelling down in to the past is a recurrent motif of the journey. Layers of history, hopes, fears and memories pressed The truth is actually deeply irrelevant. The prayers of generations of pilgrims have hallowed the place and I find myself deep in conversation with the Mother of God, my rosary settling comfortably into my hand where it remained almost throughout the pilgrimage.

I ask the elderly Franciscan on duty in the church for a blessing on the rosary - and he blesses not only the beads but the pilgrim. Out into the sunshine in a state of quiet joy...It's my turn to follow the Via Dolorosa.
Even in this off season, when again and we are repeatedly told that the city is "very quiet", it's hard to find the narrow thread of prayer, to follow it through the narrow alleys and up the acieht steps between the shops and food stalls, the purveyors of holy tat and pomegranate juice. Cats dart ahead of us into the shadows. They must have been there then...

Our journey is heavy on history, light on the sacred silence I crave, but nonetheless it brings us to the place we need to be, to the heart of everything, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where death and resurrection rub shoulders amid the competing worship of a fractured Church. 


Somehow, despite all the hubbub and the anxiety of Dahoud, our guide, who is determined that we will make the most of every opportunity to take short cuts, see all that we need in record time, this is the place where everything makes sense. I kneel to kiss the "Stone of Anointing", -  blessed by the love of so many pilgrims, their prayers blending with the sweet oils that are rubbed into the stone day by day in remembrance of the precious Body that almost certainly was never prepared for burial there...I join a queue, snaking around the sepulchre, passing the Orthodox Chapel with its holy icon...candles kindling warmth and drawing me briefly into loving contact with the face of Christ...then it's my turn to bend and enter the tomb, to fall to my knees and kiss the place where Jesus lay for three days before rising to change the world forever. I close my eyes, laying my head on the marble slab that protects the tomb itself...and feel the weight of prayer almost overpowering me. In that loving darkness the presence of crowds is irrelevant, the truth of history unimportant. I am at the heart of the Christian journey, the place where love and hope triumph always, and that love overwhelms me too.

Appropriately enough, that was Friday.

On Sunday, while it was yet dark, we women returned to the tomb. We were promised that things would "feel different" when the Church was only open to worshippers. Covering my head I knelt at the back as a Franciscan priest chanted Latin Mass within the Sepulchre itself..the place so changed by the absence of crowds and queues that it took me a little while to re-orientate myself. He was, incredibly, saying those words, praying that prayer in the place where Christ's Body had lain. Oh my!
Around me the sounds of other liturgies swirl, the bells on the thurible marking the route of Armenian monks censing the holy places as they do regularly throughout the day. We chant the Lord's Prayer together, the Agnus Dei, "Dominus non dignat..." "Lord, I am not worthy" and this is not my branch of the family - yet when I reach the front of the queue and bow my head for a blessing, the priest lifts my chin and places the host on my tongue.
Brokenness, human mess and muddle, and God's risen life all miraculously present in a moment of unexpected grace.

I kneel in my place again, Mass ends and within seconds the space is cleared, the clergy, stripped of vestments, taking lectern, candles, Missal away to replace them with the metal barriers that will later keep jostling pilgrims at bay. It's like the stripping of the altars on Maundy Thursday, but at double speed...Maybe that's how it is here. Each Mass the Triduum in minature...Would it be greedy to have another moment of Easter? The queue is so short, and God knows, I have plenty of work to do on my knees there.

This time, I keep my eyes open for long enough to allow the golden letters over the stone to burn themselves onto my heart.
"Anesti"
He is risen.
Not all the madness of a broken Church, intent on masking the truth it exists to proclaim by wrapping it in layers of ritual reverence can for one moment disrupt the work of Resurrection.

I walk back alone through a city full of golden beauty. 
On my Ember card 15 years ago I included words whose truth hits me all over again now
"One thing have I desired of the Lord. This is what I seek. That I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his Temple".

Please can I stay here?

Holy moments, holy places #Pilgrimage 3

And so the pilgrimage began to unfold.
Utterly unexpected.
Blessings where I'd predicted nothing but a tourist circus, disappointment in spots that I had been certain would be deep in holiness.
Thankfulness every single day.

On that first day, like pretty much every other pilgrim, we stood on the Mount of Olives and looked across the valley seeing history, faith, culture compacted together into indissoluble layers which it will take a life-time to understand. Shining golden domes and towers. Ancient stones rediscovered, sometimes "enhanced" but always significant.


The serried ranks of the dead in the Jewish cemetery that spreads over the hillside, - ensuring, apparently, poll position for their occupants, come Judgement day. This is my first encounter with the power of stones...a theme that was to become very much part of my experience. I wonder about the people each stone represents...how many years these memorials have endured...Most memorials have their own pile of smaller stones, marking a visit to honour the dead.They lived and loved, Did they know that they would be included among the company of those who would lie within plain sight of the Holy City? Did that gladden their hearts on departure? And that today it is the cumulative impact of their memorials that was truly significant. "So many. I did not know death had undone so many"

 Down the hill, along the Palm Sunday route. Hard to imagine a joyous crowd gathering along this way, though the observation of our guide that given the sheer and slippery path, it would make good sense to cover the stones with cloaks, to give donkeys a wee bit of purchase for their hooves. I'm intrigued and delighted to be here, but have no sense of the sacred here...nor, to my sorrow, in Gethsemane. It is so SMALL! Even allowing for the ground that is now covered by the Church of All Nations, surely this space is too small to accommodate such intensity. I wonder why this was Christ's safe space. It wasn't the spacious, peaceful haven I had imagined, with quiet corners behind many a tree...yet here Jesus wrestled and came to terms with the huge reality of his calling. I had hoped to stroke the olive trunks, to whisper something of my own hopes and fears among their branches...but this, though beautiful, was tidy, even regimented...a perspective from afterwards, with nothing of the darkness and terror of Maundy Thursday.

The church was filled with a joyful crowd of Nigerian pilgrims whom we were to encounter again and again over the next few days. Mass was just beginning as we were shephereded away, - my first taste of a vague wistfulness that accompanied me around the city.Travelling with a group of not-yet-friends, there was often a sense of looking through the windows of the spiritual homes of others, watching their party from outside, hoping, perhaps, for an invitation.

Jerusalem is a place that calls forth the most visible expressions of spiritual allegiance, from ringlets and skull caps to cassocks, monastic habits and the amazing headgear of Orthodox priests...It is a place where it became very important to me to practice embodied prayer, as again and again the thought that this, THIS was the space inspired genuflection, though I longed, often, to stay kneeling, pause in that space where prayer had been valid.

Leaving Gethsemane, we find ourselves, (after the first of an apparently endless succession of the most wonderful salad selections) on the other side of the valley, looking at the place where we had previously been standing. We are on the site of the house of Caiaphas and Annas, a church now marking the spot...but downstairs is an ancient prison cell. Was this where Christ was held that night? This the place where Peter denied his master and heard the dawn heralded by an uncaring, oblivious cockerel? Layers of history weigh me down. Maybe this was the place, this the moment when fear and faith collided for Peter and mid the multi-lingual comings and goings of a public space at festival time. For us too, the church of St Peter in Gallicantu is awash with different voices, competing in their prayers and exclamations, with the call of the muezzin summoning the faithful drifting over all. It's bewildering, unsettling - until suddenly, we are brought up short by a flight of steps. Steps positively dated as 1st centure. Steps leading up Mount Zion from across the valley. The only route that would make sense for soldiers bringing a man arrested in Gethsemane, among the olives. Steps that Jesus walked on. God, with a weary human body, dragging his aching human feet up the hill just a few inches from where I stood. 

Time stopped for me, as it surely did for Peter, when he caught his Master's eye amid the crowd as the cock crowed.
Jesus looked at me.
I looked at Jesus.
The world held its breath.

Travelling hopefully #Pilgrimage 2

Driving to Heathrow, C & I talked about Chaucer's pilgrims. Who would we be, in that motley crew? Would our fellow-travellers be closer to Chaucer's saintly prioress or the scheming Pardoner? As two newly single women, would we find ourselves sliding into territory best left to the Wife of Bath?
As we queued for check-in, my thoughts turned to older pilgrimages...to Egeria, visiting the Holy Land in the 4th century, to all those who set out on perilous roads, facing violence, illness, unspecified dangers for the sake of a glimpse of the Holy Land. It was so easy for us. We simply had to step onto the plane and, unimaginably, after a few hours there we would be.

Of course, I had reckoned without the necessary caution of El Al's security. It's strange how the experience of being thoroughly searched, my entirely innocent hand luggage gone through with a fine tooth comb, my emergency undies "just in case" shaken out in case they might conceal - who knows what? - made me feel irrationally guilty. On one level, of course, such care is reassuring. They are determined to make flights as safe as possible, even in this troubled and troubling age...and yet, somehow, this evidence of extra care makes me very anxious, providing further evidence that the world is not the universally friendly, liberal-minded place my white privilege has experienced it as to date. Each of us was a potential terrorist til proven otherwise. As S said "Welcome to the world of young men of colour".

Visible security, armed police will be a feature of the trip. It's good to get used to it, maybe?

Take off...always anxious so my familiar ritual of a quick text to my children. "Just off now. Love you". Just in case. How terrible if I had left it unsaid!

And we flew. Safely, swiftly...in a way that our predecessors could never have imagined. We flew, we landed, were welcomed by a Palestinian guide with the surprising declaration, that somehow felt entirely right
"Welcome home".

We boarded our coach, drove along a dual carriageway that could have been anywhere in the world, but for a generous sprinkling of palm trees. Weary, we began to doze, until we stopped, unexpectedly - our first sight of the city's lights - a city on a hill cannot be hidden. We read psalm 22, and I found myself singing Parry in my head from then on til bedtime.
"I was glad when they said unto me
We shall go into the house of the Lord.
My feet shall stand in your gates, O Jerusalem"
MY FEET...here...today! Wonder of wonders! I was glad indeed...

Tis mystery all! Thoughts on a Holy Land Pilgrimage 1

It's just over a week now since I got home from my first visit to the Holy Land, - a visit that had been long years in the making, with several abortive attempts until, finally, the time was right, the flights booked, the commitment made. Together with two good friends and a assortment of others, I experienced that journey that was, for medieval pilgrims, the crown of life's achievements, treading in the steps not only of Jesus but of countless countless women and men before me.
And it was unexpectedly wonderful!

So, I've been processing the experience, weighing up what it might mean for me and my journey with God, and pondering how best to share, as it never feels as if any of these rich experiences are mine alone. While I was there I found myself imagining alot of the story through the eyes of the Virgin Mary, and prayed the rosary as I travelled with more devotion than for some years. I imagined each experience as a single bead, warmed in my fingers as I stroked it and became familiar with its surface, letting it take me to other times, other places.I wondered whether I could blog a rosary of experiences...sorrowful, joyful, glorious...but the moments refused to fall into tidy categories. Rather than a neat chaplet of beads they fell in a shower all over the floor, leaving me anxious that some would get lost altogether before I had time to notice them.

So, they're coming to you as they appear...in no particular order...If I wait til I've processed them, made them presentable, I'll never write at all.

I say "they're coming to you" but really, as always, this is for me...a driver to ensure that my thinking aloud actually happens, that I do some processing rather than simply have the experience and miss the meaning. I'm not assuming a reader...but you're welcome if you're here.

Vocation - a sermon with gratitude to Mary Oliver, preached at Evensong at Coventry Cathedral on 2nd Sunday after Epiphany 2019

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver the American poet who died on Thursday had the knack of seeing deeply and describing what she noticed in ways that spoke directly into the heart.

These lines from her poem "A summers day" include a question for us all.

What IS it you plan to do with your one, wild and precious life?

It's a question that we all need to engage with.

Life is too precious a gift to simply shuffle through it in our sleep.

There are things that each one of us needs to do, tasks that are ours and ours alone, sings that will remain silent unless we accept that they are ours to sing and launch into them with open  minds and hearts.

That's what vocation means.

It's not a particular agenda for people of a particular stamp...strange misfits who might look better in a clerical collar, super-spititual beings who know themselves called to a life of rarefied holiness.

Vocation is for each of us and actually it is, quite simply, the reason for our existence.

That sounds very glib, doesn't it...but sometimes it can take a lifetime to live into the calling, to claim it and make it part of our daily reality,

It's not always straightforward...sometimes anything but.

The call of Samuel which we heard about on our OT reading makes this ultra clear.

We might imagine that if God calls to us in the silent darkness of the night, amid the house, in essence of his Temple, it would be immediately and gloriously obvious not only who was speaking, but what we should do.

Samuel. Samuel.

Surely that voice is unmissable and unmistakable?

Except that it isn't.

The rational mind takes over, asserting that if Eli and Samuel are alone, sleeping in the Temple compound, then it MUST be Eli who speaks. After all, there's nobody else there!

Even Eli,   knowing he has said nothing, takes a while to wake up to the reality that the God whom he is called to serve has decided to stir himself (remember the word of the Lord was rare...there were not many visions), calling in the night in the hope, I suggest, that this is the one time when Eli and Samuel  might be free from the white noise of daily distractions.

God speaks.

Persisting in the face of incomprehension til at last he hears those receptive words

  "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening"

And no, the call is not a welcome nor an easy one. If God plans to work through someone to change the course of history, it's never likely to be a comfortable experience. ..but to turn your back on your calling is to turn away from life itself.

And through all that happens from then on, Samuel knows that the Lord is with him. This is a new chapter, a chapter of struggle and blessing, of a long obedience....

All well and good, you may think, but Samuel died centuries before Christ and there are not many visions in these days either. How do I discover where my calling lies, how do I follow Paul's direction "to lead a life worthy of the calling to which I have been called"?

Paul speaks wisely here, presenting a whole gamut of gifts which we might have received, to build up the Church, Christ's Body on earth...and of course, there are more. Often your calling will turn out to be something that makes your soul sing

Frederick Buechner writes of "vocation as the point at which your deep gladness and the world's deepest hunger meet"

So pay attention to those things which give you real joy

They may not be excessively active...a calling is often to BE as much as to do.

But be conscious in orientating your life towards God and expect to hear God's voice. If you find there are big choices to be made, talk to someone you trust and get help in discerning God's  voice amid competing options.

But whatever you do, stay attentive.

There IS something for you to do, be assured of that, something that is yours alone. So don't worry if you are called in a different direction from your neighbours. In this week of prayer for Christian Unity it's important to remember that God is active throughout God's Church,  and we're not necessarily called to imitate our brothers and sisters, though we can always learn from them.

So, listen and respond. 

The hope of our calling is, quite simply, that we will grow into the full stature of Christ, or, to give it a local twist, that we might begin to "build a kinder, more Christ child like world" starting from now.

Considering Collects: Advent 2

O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power

and come among us,

and with great might succour us;

that whereas, through our sins and wickedness

we are grievously hindered

in running the race that is set before us,

your bountiful grace and mercy

may speedily help and deliver us;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,

be honour and glory, now and for ever.

Only a week into Advent and I'm losing the momentum already.                                                                                                                               There is all the usual tide of seasonal busyness as we offer our own liturgical journey towards Christmas, while the city's schools descend upon the Cathedral in droves for Christmas services, awards evenings etc, on the nights when we're not hosting concerts or a multitude of other events. This year there are also 3 significant funerals (of course EVERY funeral is significant, each life eternally precious, each bereaved family worth of infinite love and support) - 1 for a much-loved member of the Cathedral's own family, the others, for the wider city, involving the management of large crowds of mourners. It's really hard not to get bogged down, to lose sight of all that "standing on tip-toe" joyous expectation that we find in the daily antiphon "Look towards the east, O Jerusalem, and see the glory that is coming from God".


This year and every year, I so easily get stuck - which is why this collect is such a gift for Advent 2, inviting God to take the initiative as only God can.                                                My dictionary informs me that "succour" finds its way to us from Latin via Old French:succursus - God running towards us, intent on rescue "when we were yet far off", mired in our own sins and wickedness, that trip us up at every turn so that our forward momemtum is negligible.
Advent can feel like an assault course, particularly for those working in our churches, whether as clergy, musicians, teachers, mince pie makers or "just" welcomers - one of the most vital ministries of all. Turns out its actually an obstacle race, in which we create our own hurdles, tunnels and wobbly bridges...but the One to whom we are making our hesitant, half hearted way is already running to meet us, and won't rest til we are safely home.


That, my friends, is Grace  in action!

Advent 2 C at Coventry Cathedral

On Monday this week due to an unexpected cancellation of all the trains from Coventry, I found myself driving to Haydon Bridge and back in a day. It wasn’t a bad drive at all, despite dreadful weather, until on the way back I left the A1 in search of affordable petrol, hit an overnight diversion – and found myself traversing the byways of Nottinghamshire for mile after mile.Then, to make it worse,  with my petrol levels now pretty much vapour level only,the diversion signs disappeared – so it was back to googlemaps, who wanted me to return to the Motorway without delay. I did get home eventually, but it was a long day and I did wish the signage had been clearer. I wasn’t sure where I was going, so it was really challenging to get there!

Our gospel this morning is full of routes and bypasses.
Here we are on the second Sunday of Advent, with the world outside already dashing headlong towards the culmination of weeks of manic shopping.
We must be heading somewhere, but where?
Almost every conversation I’m part of at the moment includes the familiar formula
“It’s your busy time, I suppose….” with the inevitable follow-up question
“Well, are you ready then?”

Are you ready?
That’s exactly the question that lies behind this morning’s gospel, though the preparations that John views as necessary have very little to do with a shoppers’ jamboree. Are you ready? Ready for Christmas  - ready to engage with the reality of Christ’s arrival in our world as a helpless baby…or with his return as King and Judge?

Are you ready to travel through next year in conscious relationship with God, - or will the feelings of deep devotion so real in the candle-lit darkness of Christmas Eve get lost amid the seas of torn wrapping paper the following day?

Being ready takes time, effort, energy.

There are many distractions and diversions…Together here today, we are at the very least putting ourselves somewhere we can hope to concentrate on the coming reality…but maintaining that focus through the week is so often a challenge. That’s part of why I’d love us all to experience the Retreat in Daily Life that’s being offered in the New Year. Making our relationship with God an explicit priority may look rather scary…or laughably impossible (let me tell you, I’m already anxious about how I’m going to fine 30 whole minutes every day…I mean, that’s HALF AN HOUR!!!)…but actually, if we believe, with Augustine, that “Life is for love and time only that we may find God”, how could I possibly use my time better?

And I do want to be ready…I really truly do.

So, having identified the destination it’s up to me to begin to clear a road in my life, fit for the king who comes to meet us.
Dirt tracks and potholes might be OK for lesser travellers, but for royalty something better is needed, a smooth clear road, going directly to its destination…
Travelling as we generally do on roads which are maintained to a pretty good standard, it’s hard for us to really imagine the image of radical land clearance that lies behind the Old Testament prophecy John the Baptist recalls.
But 12 years ago in the week before Advent I travelled by coach several hundred miles from Bangalore to Kanyakumari at the southernmost tip of India.
The journey was memorable for many reasons but the road itself was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
It headed out of the city in a promising way, but we’d only gone a few miles before the trouble began.
You see, it really wasn’t ready.
It still needed a lot of work….parts had been washed away in recent floods, parts had never actually been finished, and where responsibility for roads shifted from one state to another there was often no connection at all, so that often we’d find ourselves bouncing and jolting over rough ground for several miles, until, for no apparent reason, suddenly there we were back on a metalled road again.
It existed in theory, when you looked at a map, but not in any real terms, when you tried to negotiate it.
In fact, it was much like the route to salvation that God had provided in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was there in outline, but nobody was doing particularly well at travelling the length of it.                                                                                 For centuries the prophets had tried to point out its whereabouts, crying
“Here is the way, walk in it”, but people seemed determined to veer off course, to take paths that were easier, smoother, more attractive. I suspect they wouldn’t have been keen on finding a half hour a day to focus either.
Enter John the Baptist, but only after God has bypassed a whole host of important-sounding people, Tiberias, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Caiaphas, Annas. These, surely, are the movers and shakers, the ones who can actually make a difference to the way people travel.
Nonetheless when it comes to preparing the way, God looks not to Jerusalem or even to Rome but out to the wilderness, to the unprepossessing figure of John,.
So even at the beginning of the Jesus story, our expectations are subverted.
The messenger sent to prepare the way speaks without the authority of State or Temple. He’s not in the centre of things at all…but he’s the one entrusted with the message. It is his voice that awakens us to our condition, as he reminds us of all the debris that needs to be swept out of the road way, the sins that we need to repent.

Prepare the way of the Lord.

It seems that our Advent preparations should really have more to do with discarding than with stock-piling. Extraneous baggage must be abandoned, and Malachi assures us that we will be refined…our impurities burned away until we are able to offer an appropriate gift in righteousness.
Righteousness - things as they should to be….a world running according to God’s ultimate plan.
That sounds like a pretty radical levelling of the rough places…
the same process that we are promised in Mary’s Magnificat.
He has put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble and meek,- just another way of expressing the promise of Isaiah,
Every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill be made low.  T
the landscape shall be smoothed out, until there are no barriers to prevent us from seeing the salvation of our God directly, for ourselves…
All that is evil will be brought to righteousness and struggles will be transformed into victories.
Then, and only then, we shall all see the salvation of God.

But there is more.

It’s not the messenger in the wilderness who actually does the work of preparation. He alerts us to its need, but in the event, it is the Lord himself who will roll up his sleeves and set to, to straighten the roads, lower the mountains, fill in the valleys.
God will act in order to make us ready to receive him, God will act to create a level playing field for all of his creation, a world of equal opportunities realised in equal shares for all, a world built on justice and peace.
The King is not going to travel along the royal highway in a chauffeur-driven limousine…rather he is going to seize a shovel and clear the way himself, for he is determined to make it possible for each of us to reach our destination.

The message of Christmas time is above all that God does not choose to remain aloof from his creation, sending others to do his work, waiting, with fingers tapping impatiently, for all to be ready for his coming. He doesn’t ask if we are ready, he has worked decisively to ensure that we are. God chooses to enter directly into our experience of chaos and devastation…
God elects to travel with us along our shockingly imperfect, unfinished road, transforming it as he does so until by God's grace we can each one of us travel safely home.

Homily for Advent Sunday Year C, 2nd December 2018

Reading the news these days is an increasingly sobering experience.

Many things that seemed safe and certain have become uncertain as we negotiate the interminable, tortuous loops of the Brexit process…

Working people are not earning enough to feed their families, so that many of the clients at our foodbanks are not those without work but those on low wages.

We hear that if we don’t act decisively NOW to address climate change, it will very soon be far too late – and yet when politicians attempt to encourage us to change our approach to the earth’s resources, people respond with angry riots…

The signs of our times are decidedly depressing.

And those of which Jesus speaks don’t seem to be much better.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that so many people seem to

pend their lives anxiously scanning the news for each and every hint of disaster. Today’s gospel positively encourages it.

But is that ACTUALLY what Jesus wants of us?

It’s Advent – the time of watching and waiting…but should we wait with fear or with hope?.

Listen to Jesus…(you’ll find it’s often a really good thing to do)

Now when these things begin to take place, STAND UP AND

RAISE YOUR HEADS BECAUSE YOUR REDEMPTION IS

DRAWING NEAR!"

In other words, however many people scour the news for evidence that Creation itself is destined for disaster, God made the world for a different purpose, and is faithful in bringing that purpose about. Apocalyptic texts (those looking forward to the end times) take a serious look at everything going on in the world -- all the suffering and fear, all the fireworks and skirmishes between the powers that be -- and see within them all the true and final destiny for all Creation.
So the message of today’s gospel is
When you notice all these disasters in your life and in your world – DON’T panic.

Though the odds may seem stacked against you, this is not the end of everything but the beginning of redemption.

An online conversation about fig trees this week reminded me of the fact that though we notice buds in the spring time, they actually grow during the previous summer and are set in the autumn, waiting through the cold winter until the warmth of spring wakes them to new life. So even when all looks dead, pent up life is just waiting to spring forth.

Even where there seems least hope…where all the signs point in a very different direction.

Remember, it’s all too easy to misread the signs.

As we begin another Advent, this season is itself is a sign.

A sign for our beleaguered church

A sign for our war-torn, despairing world.

Christ is coming!

We need to remember that for us as Christians Advent is always experienced in the light of incarnation.
Though we recall those who awaited the Messiah through centuries of Old Testament history, our waiting is qualitatively different.
We know that Christ has arrived… we celebrate the 'time of waiting' in the knowledge of the God who dwells with us. Thus we celebrate Advent within the context of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter! We know, on one level, the end of the story…though we continue to look anxiously to see how it will end for our planet, for the whole of this world that God loves so much.

But we know one truth.

Christ is coming soon.

We proclaim this week by week

“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”

“When we eat this flesh and drink this cup we proclaim your death Lord Jesus, until you come in glory”

The signs are very clear.

We look not at a dead-end, a cul-de-sac, but at a cross roads.

The point of God's intersection with us….the moment when our human time meets with God’s eternity… the day of resurrection!

But as we live at this point of intersection, we need to be alert to recognise the signs that tell us not just that the Kingdom is nearly upon us, but that it is already here

Remember that fig tree, that bore its buds for long months before the conditions were right for them to spring into new life.

Hope may seem dormant but Jesus urges us to "be on guard," "be alert," "stand up and raise your heads" so that we don't miss out on all the wonderful things God is already doing, or forget to look out for those God has in store.

So this Advent, let us celebrate hope in all its elusive beauty

Let us cling to the clearest sign of all, the sign of the cross, where Love demonstrates for now and for eternity its power over all those other signs that scare us most

And let us celebrate together that foretaste of the Kingdom, a banquet spread for all God’s people.

Considering Collects 1: Advent Sunday

It has been dark at both ends of the working day for a little while now and as the days of November remembrance slip past, there seems to be darkness of a different order falling on our community.
We are dealing with all kinds of change: some beloved friends moving away, to be closer to their families, others confronting mortality, and these losses, actual or anticipated, cast a shadow.
On the world stage, too, there seems to be a gathering dusk as anger and prejudice are ascendant, 
as those with little learn that they can expect even less, as families set forth in tiny rubber dinghies, so desperate to find a "better life" that they risk losing even the lives they have on the stormy waters of the English Channel.

There's darkness aplenty, then...and so it makes sense when the garish lights of city centres are joined by an ever-expanding blaze of Christmas lights transforming quiet suburban streets into something close to fairground attractions. At this season, apparently, it's fine to ignore all the wisdom that says "You're wrecking the planet" and larger electricity bills won't need to be paid til next year.

Fear of the dark is ancient and well-established and so humanity does everything in its power to drive it out. This is the darkest season and so strain towards the light, only to find that the Light is already reaching out to us, surrounding us, coming into our darkness to transform it.
That presence means that we need no longer be afraid, that touched by the Light we are both protected and changed, so that we can become creatures of Light ourselves.

On Advent Sunday we wait in the silent dark until, from far away in the depths of history a voice sings out
"I look from afar, and lo, I see the power of God coming and a cloud covering the whole earth.
Go ye out to meet him and say "Tell us, art thou he who shouldst come to reign over thy people, Israel?"."

Almighty God,

give us grace to cast away the works of darkness

and to put on the armour of light,

now in the time of this mortal life,

in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;

that on the last day,

when he shall come again in his glorious majesty

to judge the living and the dead,

we may rise to the life immortal;

through him who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

A year of Collects

I miss regular blogging - I really do - and though experience suggests that I'm unlikely to actually manage to return to the habit (I thought I was busy in the past, but was sadly deluded) I wanted to encourage myself to at least attempt some kind of weekly reflection...
Sometimes, - often - I find myself with so much I'd like to write - but the stories aren't mine to share
Or, once in a while I actually have time and space - and can think of nothing to say.

So, as a new church year begins, I wondered about attempting to write something about the Collects - those liturgical gems, the seasoned and seasonal baskets in which we gather all the prayers of the faithful week by week .
They bring together the attributes of God and the felt needs of humanity in prayers of such beauty that simply to read the words is to begin the process of feeling those prayers answered, and like a sonnet their form is so clearly defined that there is no danger of rambling on in "vain repetitions".
They are the antithesis of those lengthy extemporary prayers whose the use of "just" seems to have no impact in breaking the flow of words with which the Almighty is bombarded.
Collects are refined and focused, each word selected and polished with loving care  - expressing something of the liturgical theme of the day and launching the congregation on a journey which will last for the rest of the Eucharist.

Here's the wikipedia definition (I love "for one thing only and that in the tersest language")....but it is, unsurprisingly, the poetry that draws me and makes the praying of the Collect a joy.

A collect generally has five parts:^[1][3]:250

• Invocation or address: indicating the person of Trinity addressed, usually God the Father, rarely God the Son
• Acknowledgement: description of a divine attribute that relates to the petition (often qui ... - who ... )
• Petition: "for one thing only and that in the tersest language"^[3]:249
• Aspiration:
  • The desired result (begins with the word ut - in order that)
  • Indication of a further purpose of the petition
• Pleading:
• Conclusion indicating the mediation of Jesus Christ.
• Response by the people: Amen

We start the new year tomorrow with one of the most beautiful Collects of all.
It may be the only one that I write about - but let's see.
I've always been a great one for MAKING new year resolutions...

Sermon for the Cathedral Eucharist, 2nd September 2018 Proper 18B

“Spiritual but not religious” is an increasingly popular description for many who’ve turned their back on the traditional, institutional practices of faith but who still acknowledge that they are more than simply bodies and brains.

Even the “Coventry welcome” that graces the cover of your order of service proclaims a measure of distaste for “organised religion”...(I guess it would be cheating to claim that I’m much too DISorganised to be in danger of any such thing myself) – though it would be hard to think of anythign more symbolic of religious institutions than an Anglican Cathedral congrgation busy about its Sunday worship.

One way and another, religion is getting a pretty bad press these days – and perhaps that’s understandable.

After all, ours is an age that values personal choice and freedom above almost everything else...yet the very origin of the word “religion” is all about binding “Obligation, bond, reverence” says the dictionary definition, before reminding us that the word comes from the Latin “religio” - to tie...from which we also get ligature, ligament etc.

If you’re a free spirit believing passionately in the autonomy of the individual then why WOULD you choose to be tied into a way of life that might seem to be all about restictions, about the law of “thou shalt not”…

What possible benefit could there be? How could such practice help you to grow?

At first glance it seems, actually, as if Jesus might agree with this view. The Pharisees, who are the supreme practitioners of the RELIGION of Judaism, have come from Jerusalem to investigate what’s going on around this charismatic itinerant Galilean...And their first criticism is that his followers are sitting light to their religious obligations. Those Pharisees are very very anxious that the disciples are neglecting personal hygiene – you can imagine them saying to one another “It’s the slippery slope! If we let this go, they’ll have broken every one of the commandments by tea-time”. They’re great ones for the minutae – but in their focus on the details they’ve lost sight of the big picture. They have clung zealously to all the demands of the torah, but not to the purpose behind it – to create a people set apart in a special relationship with God…

If that’s not the main agenda, - if that relationship is not reflected in every aspect of life, - in our words AND in our deeds– then we’re practising the kind of religion that is simply not worth the paper it is printed on. Jesus has lots to say about the ways in which our behaviour reflects our state of inner being...the truth of our hearts. It’s just not possible to conceal that, long term – from one another, from ourselves and of course from God. Even, or maybe especially, if that truth is ugly – spoiling our cherished self-image – it cannot be evaded for long. That’s what defiles. So the message is that our aspirations to practice true religion will achieve nothing if we’re not actually connecting with God.

This is the situation Jesus presents to the Pharisees. He recognises the good intentions behind their adherence to the law. These are not his natural opponents, but rather brothers who’ve become distracted along the way.

Jesus knows that they WANT to be in a right relationship with God – but that’s not the way they’re living. Instead they’ve used obedience to the letter of the law as a substitute for living into its reality of love.

“This people honours me their lips but their hearts are far from me...” - and what’s in those hearts cannot but leach out, spoiling all their aspirations, defiling them even as they engage in a relentless pursuit of religious purity.

James makes the same point “Be doers of the word...”

Religion exists not to create ties that restrict us from really living but to give us a trellis which supports us as we grow in faith and love…

For James there seem to be two opposing forces competing for our time and energy...and that time and energy comes as a gift from God, an outpouring of grace give to us that we might bless others.

This is the essence of true religion.

Not the observance of rituals, not obedience to laws for their own sake but time used in loving service…

Put like that it sounds so simple – and so obvious. You’ve known it for years.

To choose the good is to practice pure religion, a reflection of the goodness of the Father of Lights from whom all good things come...to tie ourselves thoroughly into our relationship with him and to allow God to transform us as we respond to grace at work in us.

Easy!

But somehow it never is.

As a friend said, It’s not WHAT you know, but what you DO with what you know.

We may know that when we fail to “walk the talk” - when we hear the word but let it slip from our minds immediately, changing nothing in ourselves, we’re falling tragically short...but that doesn’t always inspire us to do something about it.

But I’m very much afraid that ACTION is not an optional extra. Really, it’s not.

When I was quite a small child I remember going out one Sunday with a school friend’s family – who were, rather startlingly in the cosy middle England of the early 1960s, not practising Christians. As we passed a church, the congregation were pouring out and my friend’s mother said, without a trace of irony, “Look at the good people”. It seemed natural and easy to equate the practice of religious observance with a matching life-style then.

5 decades on, immured as we are in investigations into historic sex abuse, conscious of the weight of institutional imperfection, I can’t imagine she’d have made the same connection…

“BE DOERS OF THE WORD.

Walk the talk. - or there’s no point to any external observance of our faith.

It is the Gospel in ACTION that will make our worship pure and vital...will transform empty ritual into life-giving encounter.

Without that, we might just as well stay at home with the papers.

So, let me say it again. True religion can be measured in the impact of Sunday’s worship on the working week. If there’s no visible difference in the way we respond to the needs of a broken, hurting world...if we worship Christ in Word and Sacrament on Sunday but ignore him in those troubled and troubling people whom we meet on Monday morning...then we’ve overlooked the vital ingredient and got stuck with the superficialities as surely as those who glance at themselves in the mirror but fail to really see themselves at all.

We receive richly from God – so that we can give generously in response to God’s grace. Remember, the point of religion is to bind us, one to another, and fix us firmly in our relationship with God.

Left to myself, I know that I’m easily distracted, prone to wander off course – so actually a few ties to keep me heading in the right direction are entirely welcome, even necessary.But it’s the direction that matters – the orientation of our lives towards the God who is wholly, and eternally LOVE – with no variation or shadow of change...