I only see you when you smile - a sermon for Racial Justice Sunday, next before Lent Yr B 2021 at Coventry Cathedral

How’s your eyesight? Have you found that a year of live lived mostly through a computer screen has taken its toll? Can you see as well as you did, or is it time for an eye test? Clear vision is a gift which we shouldn’t take for granted. Today’s gospel relies on it, as we hear again Mark’s account of the Transfiguration. We hear of Jesus and his three best mates going up the mountain – and then, an amazing experience. “He was transfigured before them”…transformed in front of their eyes. I say “transformed” – but in fact, nothing about his reality had changed at all. His appearance, though, was altered enough for that reality to show through – and that experience changed forever the disciples’ perception of their Lord’s identity. He wasn’t different. They were. The American author Madeleine l’Engle put it this way in her wonderful book The Irrational Season "Suddenly they saw him the way he was; the way he really was all the time, although they had never seen it before, the glory which blinds the everyday eye and so becomes invisible. This is how he was, radiant, brilliant, carrying joy like a flaming sun in his hands. This is the way he was - is - from the beginning and we cannot bear it. So he manned himself, came manifest to us; and there on the mountain, they saw him; they really saw him, saw his light. Now, perhaps, we will see each other, too. Now, perhaps, we will see each other, too. Hold onto that idea. For the disciples that day, it just took a shift in perspective to see the truth. Like Peter, most of us would like to stay on the mountaintop – in that wondrous space, far from the trials of reality – where the air is clear and we can see the truth of God in all its beauty…but that’s not an option for us, any more than it was for him. The disciples had to follow Jesus down into the valley – and to hold on to that new vision, that fresh understanding of his nature through the heartbreak of Holy Week that lay just around the corner. They had seen the truth and then they had to share it – even when it endangered them. God’s truth still needs sharing – and on this Racial Justice Sunday, it may not be a comfortable process. It’s strking that our gospel today celebrates whiteness; connecting whiteness with holiness. “His clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them”. Miraculous, shining, splendid…repeatedly the Bible presents whiteness as something wonderful. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow…. Conversely, the word ‘black’ often carries more negative associations…reinforced in translation Dark skies become black skies, a portent of bad things. If you fancy it, have a look at the 18 times the word “black” appears in the Bible. You will find that it is rarely a term of approbation. “Let light shine out of darkness” says Paul…setting the two in opposition in a way that has, like it or not, shaped our collective psyche. That which is white is good, normative – the black, deviant, discomforting… Just think for a moment… He’s my white knight We live in dark times, It’s a black day for the nation … You get the picture. Black and white set in opposition to one another. It’s really not surprising that prejudice and xenophobia abound… Not surprising – but not what God intended. Let’s fast forward for a moment to Revelation, and the vision of those gathered before the throne of God ‘from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,’ THIS is how the Church, the Body of Christ, should be –living God’s future now, reconciled and reconciling… To be honest, I think we have a bit of a way to go., Here at the Cathedral there’s much to help us on the way… Our calling articulated clearly in the CCN principles: Healing the wounds of history Learning to Live with difference and celebrate diversity Building a culture of peace. We would do well to attend to them today. Remember Madeleine L’Engle? “Now, perhaps, we will see each other too” We cannot celebrate diversity if we don’t actually SEE it… Over the past weeks and months, since the death of George Floyd and the escalation of the Black Lives Matter movement, a group of us at the cathedral have been trying to educate ourselves, learning to recognise just how far from level the playing field of UK society really is for people of colour, trying to face up to our own unconscious prejudices and those which scar the face of the Church as well. We’ve been helped in our explorations by a book “Ghost Ship” by the black Anglican priest Azariah France-Williams, whose narrative is disturbing but illuminating. One passage has stayed with me, a description of the writer and two cousins at a church bonfire party. When the evening ended and it was time to board the coach home, the white youth leader couldn’t find the boys, though they were only a few feet away from him “We stepped forward into the light of the fire and he laughingly said “Because you are black and it’s dark, you lot are invisible unless you keep smiling. We all laughed and boarded the bus – this was a very familiar comment to me “Unless you smile, we cannot see you”. The book has helped us to see a little more. We have learned that to be colour-blind is not a virtue: in denying someone’s colour, you cut them off from their culture and refuse to see them as they really are..That’s no way to celebrate diversity. We have learned just how deeply implicated the Church of England is the slave trade – and discovered with horror that it was only in 2015 that UK tax payers finally paid off compensation to the slave masters inconvenienced when slavery was abolished in here in 1833. That’s a deep deep wound in history that we have preferred to gloss over…never the best way to achieve healing. We have realised, too, that the dominant voices of the Church of England, even in a diverse city like ours, tend to be white…and that the institution is still a hard place for people of colour to flourish. We have recognised the truth that we still see them best when they smile – when they fit in with our rules without making waves, when they conform to our ways…. . We have tried to see things – and to see ourselves and others, as we really are. And having seen, we have work to do. We have to BE the Church, you and me. We are called to go up the mountain, to stand in the fog and listen to strange, unfamiliar voices, saying things beyond our comprehension, sharing hard truths, teaching us to see. That may well be uncomfortable…but as God’s people we must risk being disorientated, being thrown into confusion, in order to be able to clarify our calling. In the turmoil of the pandemic, in this disorientation, in the rawness of truths exposed, we encounter injustice in our country and in the Church – in our past and in our present too. And once we have seen things as they are – we cannot keep silent. Our world has been bruised and battered in this past year. The pandemic, the climate emergency, black lives matter. Nothing will be helped if we try to hide the truths we have discovered. We must set aside our old certainties and risk our comforts to join God on that mountaintop, where truth is revealed…and where God speaks to each one of us “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Listen - and follow. Remember. Reconciliation is never a matter of burying uncomfortable realities. If it had been, we would probably have swept away the ruins, rebuilt as if the blitz had never been – but we know that’s not an option. We are called to honesty – to challenge injustice, prejudice and falsehood wherever we see them. To speak against systems which exclude, enslave and keep people down. Like Jesus, we need to spend time with the marginalised, learning from them, hearing their stories, learning to see them, whether they smile or not. Humankind cannot, we are told, bear too much reality – but if we run from it, we will lose the opportunity to look on the face of Christ, his likeness revealed in each of his children. Today, let’s ask for the courage to really see.

Address for Welcome to Sunday, on Green Communion Sunday 2021

Where have you seen God this week? I hope its not been one of those grim periods when God seens intent on hiding. I know it can be hard to keep on with faith when some of the regular practises of worship that have sustained us through a lifetime are currently not available to us, and we may well be exhausted by our heartfelt collective prayer Please God, make it stop, But nonetheless, let's take the fact that you've made it to Dining Room Church as a hopeful sign, on the strength of which I will dare to repeat the question... Where have you seen God this week? For me, throughout this whole season of struggle, sadness and stubborn hope, I've seen God more in creation than anywhere else at all. Last spring, when the threat of the virus was very new and real, I took comfort from the life force bubbling over in that most exuberant of springs. Watching nature renew itself in such beautiful profusion somehow comforted me as I considered my own mortality. For a while I really knew, in heart as well as head, that beyond my life and death, birds would still sing, buds open, lambs be born...and that somehow made my own sense of vulnerability easier to bear. I found myself singing Great is thy faithfulness around house and garden Summer and winter and seed time and harvest... and that did indeed help me to ask for and receive Strength for the day and bright hope for the morrow... God spoke to me and his message of love stilled my soul And this week as I saw snowdrops, catkins and even a cowslip begin to speak of spring, once again God met me in creation with the good news I needed. The Celts used to talk about the little book - that was the Bible - and the great book - that was creation, and they read God in both. The instinct to worship in response to the beauty and mystery of the universe is as old as the human story itself. The Psalm we read just now is a reminder that for thousands of years, people have looked at the world around them, and seen God as creator of heaven and earth, of the sea and all that is in them. The passionate outpouring of the Psalmist, in this, and in so many of the psalms, is a song of praise to God the Creator which echoes down the centuries and still resonates today. But even here we are reminded that all life is finite, that we are not rulers of our own destiny When you take away their breath they die and return to the earth. This past year has bought that home to us again and again. We had thought, for a while, we were unassailable, masters of the universe....only to find ourselves brought low by something too small to see with tbe naked eye...The very triumphs of human science and engineering that enable us to travel all around the world and experience it's winders, nonetheless also enabled a tiny virus to travel around too, wreaking dreadful havoc. We are clever, yes...but we are not in control. We too have limits. When all is said and done, full of potential as we are, we are created, not creator. Kathy Galloway once leader of of the Iona Community writes It’s a timely reminder, because as a species, we have not been very good at recognising our limitations with regard to creation, to the earth we inhabit, and share with other species and life-forms. It is one of the most painful lessons of adulthood, realizing how little we really know, and how much less we can command. The struggle to impose our will on everything around us, including the earth, causes grave damage to the environment, to other people and to ourselves. The need to get our own way, especially with regard to energy over-consumption, is really something that belongs to the ‘terrible two’ stage of infant development. Our tendency to assume that the universe is at our disposal, that it has no intrinsic worth other than its usefulness to the human species has made us dangerously, even criminally careless. I've just begun watching Sir David Attenborough latest series The Perfect Planet. As always, it is stunning in its beauty, but his message is stark. Our planet sustains life, is, as far as we know, the one perfect planet in all our galaxy because everything is held in balance. But humankind has gone all out to upset that balance. We have over reached ourselves again and again, and now, as ice caps melt, islands are covered by rising tides and species become extinct forever, we face the probability of a dreadful reckoning. The climate emergency may be the greatest act of human defiance ever. If we believe that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, if we seek and find comfort in our frailty as we treasure the rhythms of the seasons, then we need to be prepared to change. I've needed to hear God's voice speaking in creation. Don't let's drown him out with our toddler cries of "me, me, me"...but set aside the greed that destroys the work of human hands and lays waste the earth. Are you with me? It really is time for a change...

Candlemas Hope, a reflection for Welcome to Sunday 31st Januaary 2021

Candlemas for Welcome to Sunday What are you hoping for? If you were invited to describe your dream of tomorrow – for yourself, your family, your church, I wonder what you'd say. I know we are all longing for hugs and family reunions, for the freedom to go out and about as we wish, maybe to walk by the sea or mooch in a bookshop, or to sing our praises to God with all that is in us. It feels like a long hard journey since we could last plan for tomorrow and expect our plans to be fulfilled. Now we're in a different landscape, and a darker one. Time to light a candle perhaps. If like me you're currently very much in survival mode, so that hopes and dreams feel much too risky really, well then today's gospel might just be for you. Come with me to the Temple, to the outer court where crowds ebb and flow, and stallholders cry their wares “Come buy – a kid for your sacrifice?” “Doves – turtle-doves....only the best” Watch the bustle, the purposeful activity of the market-place. Is this what you expected of the house of God? Pause for a while, look about you Watch for islands of stillness amid the surging throngs. See that man standing quietly.....thoughtful..... hopeful? Ah yes...hopeful indeed, for this is Simeon. Simeon the one who waits. Who knows for how many years he has stood in hopeful expectation – the eyes of his heart straining to glimpse the “consolation of Israel” that the Messiah – the one anointed, chosen by God, would offer when he came. Simeon, clinging to the assurance that he will not die before he has seen and known that Saviour. Looking around him, he sees much need for consolation. Israel is an occupied country once more, with a corrupt king and little to celebrate. Though there is freedom to worship, there is no question but that Rome is in charge. There is oppression and poverty even in the heart of Jerusalem – and it's here in the heart of Jerusalem that Simeon waits. Still the crowds come and go, their faces swimming in and out of focus as Simeon continues his vigil. Some look anxious – perhaps they come to the Temple to pray for healing of body or for peace in their family Some look desolate – perhaps they come to mourn their dead. Some look proud and happy – especially those carrying babies...Young fathers walking with a spring in their step, stopping to buy a sacrifice then going on into the second courtyard...Mothers, carrying their precious first-born sons – their gifts from God, to be presented to God once again. And it's as one such group moves through the crowd that Simeon steps forward. There's nothing, really, to distinguish this little family from many another. Certainly they come without pomp and circumstance, with none of the trappings of wealth or status. Just a man, a woman and a baby – and 2 turtle doves. Yet as he moves towards them Simeon is sure. THIS is the moment. HERE is the promised salvation...seen as he takes the infant into his arms and praises God. For Simeon, salvation looks like a baby boy, just 40 days old. It would have been só easy to miss that family in the crowds...so easy to doubt that God's answer, the hope of Israel, might lie in that tiny fragile body. I wonder if Simeon was, for a moment, disappointed. He had waited for só long – had such high hopes – and now God's answer was this baby.... Hard to believe that here could be, in truth, the hope of Israel Perhaps it's that way for us We wait in hopeful longing – and then we miss the moment of salvation because our gaze is turned elsewhere, because we never expected it to look like this. We wanted something bigger and bolder – something unmistakeable, that would convince all the world.......but God offers us a very different resolution. Or perhaps we no longer have the courage to wait in hope; we doubt if we will ever see a new order, a world transformed by God's intervention Should we extinguish our candle? Not yet For now, let's turn our attention to another figure in the tableau that our gospel presents. Here is Mary, proudly bearing her first-born, still trying to make sense of all the extraordinary events, the incredible words, the outlandish visitors that have somehow been part of his birth. Here she is, doing what seems right...just as countless parents now bring their child to baptism, not because they are sure of their faith but because, doubting themselves, they want to place their precious baby where God's love will surely fall upon him. She brings her child, in nervous expectation.......and is greeted with these amazing words, unlooked for, and probably not that welcome. It starts alright..”Lord, now let your servant go in peace...My eyes have seen your salvation” but as Simeon turns his focus from God to the scene before him the music shifts into a minor key “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed......and a sword will pierce your own soul too” Who would choose to stand with Mary at this axis of joy and pain? And yet, this is só often where we can expect to see salvation. In the past year birth and death have jostled one another, and our world has been changed in ways we've not yet begun to grasp. So many have been pierced with that sword of grief. So many parents have been bereft. And yet, as we stand mid way between crib and cross, we remain people of hope. We know that beyond the shadow of the cross,resurrection dawn still beckons. The night may be long but day will return. You may well be familiar with the proverb “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness” Every time we choose hope, every time we proclaim salvation, however vague and uncertain it seems, we each of us light a candle. You may have lost track of your own hopes, for this community, for yourself or for your loved ones......but the light that shone in the Temple that day remains with us. Today Christmas tide comes to an end and Lent looms large, with its particular memories of events a year ago, and all that has happened since. We maycnot dare to look forward. We feel inly pain when we look back. So, in this present moment, let us light candles...many many candles and proclaim “A light to reveal God to the nations....and the glory of your people Israel” Those candles are our daily reminder of God with us.......Emmanuel.......with us in the joy of the Birth day but with us too when hopes seem to vanish, when we've lost sight of all purpose...even when we're too weary or short sighted to recognise His presence. What are you hoping for? It may seem incredible – but in that child, lying peacefully in Simeon's arms, all our hopes are realised, all our fears put to flight... Here is salvation – fragile, uncelebrated but utterly non negotiably real. It may not match our expectations – but it is all the salvation we are going to get, and, thanks be to God, all we will ever need.

Epiphany 2 B 17th January 2021 at Coventry Cathedral John 1 43-51

Epiphany 3 2021 at Coventry Cathedral As we have so often observed, liturgical time is quite extraordinary. Not yet a month since we celebrated Christmas yet we have gone from birth to baptism – or, if you find yourself in John’s Gospel as we do today, from the mighty, majestic prose of the Prologue, confirming Christ’s identity for all eternity, to the very specific encounters that set the scene for his earthly ministry. Epiphany, of course, is the season of recognition – of seeing the truth and of responding to it…and that theme is a constant, but our gospel this morning speaks too of the importance of being seen I’m struck by how often friends online use the phrase “I feel so seen” as a way of conveying that they recognise the truth of a particular statement, and are applying it to themselves. Being seen – being known – is hugely important for us To be unrecognised, passed over, ignored is deeply painful. It can make us doubt our value as a person, undermine our human dignity. If you’re in any doubt, when it is safe to do so, have a talk with one of our homeless friends, the beggars of our city. Ask them what they find hardest about the process of begging and I’m willing to bet that “being ignored” “the way people look away and pretend not to notice me” will feature in the conversation. We look away because it’s too uncomfortable...or we don’t think we should give any money...or we haven’t got time to stop. But to acknowledge our shared humanity – even with th This is what persuades Nathanael to set aside his inherent suspicion of anything coming from Nazareth. He isn’t persuaded by amazing teachie speediest of greetings in passing. I have found that is nearly always received as a gift. We NEED to be seen.ng or world-changing miracles but by the moment when Jesus says “I SAW you” and tells him, there and then, what lies at the core of his being. Jesus sees him, knows him, affirms him. And, to truly thrive, I think we all need to be known. Though the Victorians used the text “Thou God seest me” as something of a threat, worked in cross stitch on the hall of many a home to encourage good behaviour among children and servants and those who might think of stepping out of line, the truth is surely that to be seen by God is grounds for celebration. To be seen with all our abilities and all our flaws is truly one of the greatest of gifts – and it’s a gift that God offers us all the time. It’s this Paul celebrates in the climax of the hymn to love that is 1 Corinthians 13 “then I shall know – EVEN AS I AM FULLY KNOWN” God sees me...Sees you...Sees the truth of who we are, and who we long to be as surely as Jesus recognised Nathanael’s integrity “an Israelite in whom is no deceit” God looks at us with love, with mercy, not with blame “Not what thou art, nor what thou has been, but what thou wouldst be, beholdest God in his mercy” wrote the anonymous mystic who gave us “The Cloud of Unknowing” In other words, God looks at us not through rose-coloured spectacles but with utter clarity, seeing into the depths of our hearts, and recognising our hidden longings, our most cherished hopes and desires – and loving us right to the core. God sees us. God loves us. Perhaps that’s all we need today...We are known and loved by God. If you are struggling, and find that hard to hear, then stay here and rest in that knowledge. At this very moment YOU are known and loved by God. But Jesus is not the only one SEEING in this passage. Philip’s invitation to Nathanael is surely the prototype for all evangelism Come and see What an invitation It reminds me of the way a child might grab you by the hand and drag you off to see something they think is truly exciting..that joyous urgency which should be the hallmark of all our invitations into faith. I wonder who first offered it to you, and began that journey which has brought us all to this morning. I wonder to whom you’ve handed it on – reaching out your hand to draw them in to the wonderful, perplexing adventure that is the Christian life. Come and See – well, what exactly? What do we hope that those who join us here to worship will see, experience through our words and our music, our building and our story, our art and our community? Surely we must hope that they might somehow glimpse the one whom Nathanael, at his own moment of epiphany, recognised as the Son of God. And if they look at us, as his ambassadors, - what might they see then? A group of people trying with all their might and main to model God’s self-giving love A congregation committed to really seeing everyone with the same compassionate gaze which we rejoice in for ourselves...And secondly, that ‘come and see’ are among the most important 3 words in the gospels. A A community modelling through everything that we do and are, just what it means to accept the invitation to life in all its fulness...so that the invitation that we offer is also a demonstration of the all-inclusive, all-consuming, all-powerful love of Christ. If we believe in that, and live into it, then we will surely draw others to come and see for themselves what it means to be known and loved in their turn… An Epiphany, as we know, changes everything.

Sermon for the Epiphany 2021

How have things been for you this Christmas time? I know many things have felt very different. For me, who first started singing in church when I was 8, it was quite extraordinary to travel through Advent and Christmas with barely a note passing my lips.It turns out that it is singing, even more than the presence of those I love most, that really makes Christmas happen for me. I wonder what it is for you? Is it attending Midnight Mass, and then coming out into the star-filled night and knowing that Christ is born once again? Is it joining your friends to worship God in a beloved building? Or getting out the boxes of decorations that link us each year with Christmases past? Perhaps its the smells – of pineneedles as the tree is brought in, or hot mincepies or the spicey steaminess of wine mulling on the hob? I wonder what we could leave out, and still have all the Christmas we need? Perhaps Christmas 2020, so radically different from all the years that had preceded it, might have been the year we found out. Music aside, I was startled by just how important it became to me to get presents to all the beloved people I would not be seeing as usual. The day after covid burst our Christmas bubbles I suddenly found it imperative to research ways to get parcels swiftly to London. Of course I knew full well that Christmas is not, and has never been, all about the presents – but somehow all my love and longing and sadness at separation needed somewhere to go and became focussed on the necessity for absent family to open something from me on Christmas day. When my email pinged to let me know that parcels had arrived safely I felt a joy which, I suspect, far outstripped that of the recipients who were, after all, largely getting the books they had asked for. So I’ve been thinking about gifts and giving as we come to this feast that celebrates the Magi and their intrepid journey to deliver the presents that came laden with added significance, but which must have seemed SUCH a disappointment to that beleagured little family in backstreet Bethlehem.. You will know the old joke, that wise women would have arrived prepared to clean up the house, and brought practical gifts including a casserole...but that’s not the point, is it. Those presents are there as pointers for us – to tell us something not about the givers but about the recipient. They are a set of clues pointing to the identity of the child. One of our unsung carols makes this clear as we see the child reflected in the gifts: as royalty, worthy to be crowned with gold; as one to whom prayers could be directed – Let my prayers rise before you as incense; as one whose mortality, as a body to be embalmed one day, was as much part of his nature as is his divinity. Matthew’s account of the coming of the magi is full of prompts for us, who travel so far behind them...but for those first travellers what was the point of their adventure? Were we there for a birth or a death, ask T S Eliot. Certainly the encounter would be life-changing...as it still is for us. When we come face to face with the reality of God as a human baby, our ideas about what matters most must be turned upside down. Those things which had seemed all important are revealed as trivial. The things we thought we knew are swept away as we enter a new reality. And yet, for us as for the Magi, that moment of encounter, of epiphany – of knowing that we are seeing the truth of God’s love present in a tiny child – will often come without fanfare or fireworks or wild excitement. Eliot tells us that “finding the place was, you may say, satisfactory”...It might seem a strange word but this encounter is truly enough, leaving them, leaving us, wanting and needing nothing more. God is here and we are here. The whole world contained in that moment of revelation. All our senses can desire, indeed. And that sense of having enough – or being content to be ourselves before God, exactly where we are may perhaps be a gift we can consciously take from the struggles of 2020. To know God is with us whatever life has thrown at us is to know that we have everything we really need. Certainly, though we cannot safely gather together to worship Christ in our Cathedral today there is no virus on earth that can prevent us from kneeling in love and awe exactly where we are, and exactly as we are, right here and right now. And – we can offer our gifts. But – what would he like? What should we bring? Another unsung carol, Peter Cornelius’s setting of “The Kings”, suggests an answer. “Gold, incense, myrrh thou canst not bring. Offer thy heart to the Infant King” Offer thy heart. What does that mean in practice for you and for me? Sometimes faith seem more of head than heart – which is nonsense, of course, because in some ways faith makes no rational sense at all. Nevertheless, its practice really can feel like a barren, intellectual exercise at times– and during the perplexities of the past year I have encountered many for whom that has been true, who have struggled to reconcile what they believed they knew about a loving God with their experience of grief and suffering. I have tried to reassure them that feelings are a very poor guide to reality, since they can be as changeable as the weather...so that the warmth of certainty can be as apt to vanish as the sun on a cloudy day. But, in the same way that we know that the sun still shines, even if we do not experience its warmth, we can know that those truths in which we believe continue their reality whether they FEEL true or not. But if faith is to make its way from head to heart, if we are serious about offering our heart to Jesus, what does that mean? One thing, I suppose, is that our hearts are places of honesty. If we speak from the heart, then we do so without any pretence or concealment. If our hearts are wounded, even broken, that’s part of what we bring with us to the Christ child. Always, surely, we bring our love – but to express that we may need to turn from the manger to meet Christ in yet more unexpected places. The Magi imagined that their destination would be a royal palace – that they would celebrate Christmas, if you will, amid all the panoply of majesty and power – but found themselves in an obscure back street with a deceptively ordinary family. They discovered what they could miss out and yet have all the Epiphany they needed. As we find ourselves at home once again, may we learn to recognise and to love Christ there...to offer him our hearts through acts of kindness to tiresome neighbours, frustrating delivery teams, exhausted checkout staff. If we can learn to love him in the ordinary and the broken corners of our lives and of our world then each of us will have all that we need to sustain our relationship no matter what the year ahead may bring. And that will be, you may say, satisfactory.

That was the year, that was

This time a year ago, the house was full to bursting with creativity as my gorgeous daughter hosted the annual party for her group of friends who met first in their teens at Kilve Court...Their bond is so strong that it has survived assorted marriages, a separation or two, some time living on different continents...these are very much the founder members of my Weasley clan, the extra kids who have become such an important part of my life in the past decade - and it was delightful to spend New Year's Eve together. We talked, among much else, of my exciting plans for 2020. A sabbatical. A big birthday (which was to feature an enormous party for everyone I loved but had never dared to mix together). A once in a lifetime safari, and we decided that even though it wouldn't really be our turn to host again so soon, it might be worth spending New Year in Coventry in 2020 as we plunged into the excitement of our year as City of Culture. Oh goodness. We couldn't have known but our plans, our ideas were so wildly out. As someone who really HATES making plans, it had been a challenge to orchestrate the sabbatical, but by January this year the main blocks of time were in place, the writing goals established and I started counting down the days. I was tired. VERY tired. 16 years in ministry and some major life changes will do that to you. It was definitely time for the break of some kind. But first - there were three months to emjoy...Theatre - "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" - a wonderful night of springtime hope after the endless days of "always winter, never Christmas" Music - a perfect evening of flawless singing from The Sixteen, performing Acis and Galatea at St Mary's Warwick The Blake Exhibition - bringing so much joy as February brought the first signs of spring... By now there were anxious rumblings about the new virus that was spreading across China...but China is a long way from Coventry. I defiantly ordered a takeaway for Chinese New Year, realising that some of my neighbours were choosing to stay away from our local restaurant in case the new virus might be transmitted via a prawn chow mein... So, our next exhibition was rather less relaxed - but I'm oh so glad I got to it. When I was a child, most of my friends went to see the big Tutankhamun exhibition which took England by storm - but it arrived in the same year that my mother had major heart surgery, so that kind of outing waa just not possible...We had tickets for 6th March and took more care than usual not to spend too much time in close proximity to others. By now the news from Italy was frankly terrifying and it felt as if we were standing at the top of a very high mountain, knowing that there was only one way down, and it was step and very very dangerous... I cried as I said goodbye to my son and his partner at the end of that day. "We'll be up for Easter" they said, cheerfully - but by then it really didn't seem likely. The unthinkable happened: Public worship was suspended. On that last Sunday as I communidated the elderly cathedral congregation it was so hard not to listen to the voice that said "You'll not see them again this side of glory"... An extraordinary week, with the cathedral open for private prayer and used as almost never before...so many visitors dropping in to be quiet, to cry, to light candles and to join with fervour in the hourly prayers I led, which felt, somehow, as if they might just be the most significant thing I had done in ministry. A last drive along the A14, carrying part of my recent delivery of "Who Gives a Crap" loo-rolls and a 5k bag of pasta from my Brexit cupboard, a walk across an almost deserted Cambridge and a final picnic in the Botanic Gardens, trying to stockpile hugs and smiles to last for a good 12 weeks (in my innocence, I guessed that would surely be long enough...) Then came the day when I left the office to take a funeral, feeling pretty certain that I wouldn't be back. I took some of the essential books from my desk, grabbed a cassock alb as it didn't seem wise to wear a cassock when we were told to wash everything we'd worn in public on a hot wash the moment we got home...and that was it. That night the Prime Minister made his announcement "You MUST stay at home". Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives" and I, who had always believed myself an off-the-scale extrovert, found myself suddenly home alone. And, do you know what, that part was absolutely fine! Of COURSE I missed friends and family...The inability to hug those I love most was a regular physical ache and I would wake up with my cheeks wet with tears as another round of good-byes had filled my dreams...but that spring was so beautiful, and the stillness such a gift. The daily walk, shaped by what Libby the elderly retriever could manage, was nonetheless a positive joy. War Memorial Park took on the feeling of real countryside as the hawthornes bloomed and the birds sang and sang and sang. And, after the utter dread that had gripped me when I assumed that I would not be allowed to celebrate the Eucharist as a single person alone...the special permission given by the bishops was such a glorious gift and my house was transformed by "Dining Room Church", where I found myself connecting with people I'd never met, who became the most faithful of daily congregations...and Christ was present in them, and in Scripture and in bread and wine as surely in the aweinspiring grandeur of the Cathedral. Holy Week and Easter cemented this and the days passed gently, as I learned new ways of being a priest to a dispersed community, while at the same time trying not to pick up all the collective fear that was flooding into every corner of life online, to compound our own anxiety. It was, mostly, pretty much OK. I didn't transform the garden or learn Russian. I didn't even read The Brothers Karamazov as I'd hoped. I did read more poetry than I had for years, sustained by words chosen sparingly but with such care. I found myself praying the rosary with a dogged determination, reflecting that Our Lady had to live through those mysteries from a purely human perspective, that her "pondering" may well have included a measure of anxious bafflement along the way. And I cuddled my dogs and zoomed with colleagues, friends and family and no, it wasn't the same, it wasn't as good as actually being together - but you know, it was SOMETHING! My 60th birthday, like my sabbatical, was subject to some drastic rearrangement - but so many people were concerned that it might be a hard day to spend alone that I felt overwhelmed with love through the whole day, and beyond, as I mourned the death of two cats just 12 weeks apart. With horizons shrunk to the domestic, it seemed unthinkable that I might survive more than a week or two in a catless house - and so the two Babes from the Wood, Sorrel and Bramble, feral kittens rescued with their mother from Walsall Woods were passed on to me, just a couple of days after their rescue. The early weeks with them were hard. I had tripped at work and torn a ligament, making movement really painful and almost impossible - so I couldnt sit on the floor and engage with them at a safe height. For weeks I barely saw them except at meal times, though they were soon ready to eat from my hand...but gradually, gradually they became braver. They became my project, and I was able to give them the time and patience that I would never have managed in a normal year. As lockdown eased there came the possiblity of hugs and snuggles with my Cambridge family, a support bubble that remains the most glorious gift - a tiny glimpse of normality and of actual human contact to sustain through the depressing news that lockdown had not got the virus under control, that there had been too many people ready to return to normal too fast. There were precious days with my London children - exploring the Cathedral of Trees near St Albans, consoling ourselves for the lost safari with a day at Woburn Safari Park, walking and talking along the Thames near Richmond. There was even a mini Greenbelt, when for the first time all year there was laughter and conversation and even singing in the house, and a bottle of wine we had been saving for something special was opened and enjoyed. Again, reserves were built up, sufficient for the autumn and winter when as infection rates soared, restrictions were tightened anda fresh lock-down was announced, just as I fell victim to the virus myself. I barely noticed this second lock-down, to be honest. Though I was by no means seriously ill, November passed in a kind of sleepy half-life, in which days blurred as I snoozed on the sofa with a kitten or two curled up in my lap and the dogs close by. I emerged in time for Advent - but an Advent without singing turned out to be unimaginably hard. The words we proclaimed were still true - but it was so much more difficult to feel their reality without the music Ithat gave them life and beauty. And Christmas was even harder A lifetime of singing, decades of candle-lit carols at home as much as church, and now - silence. Of course it was wonderful to awake on Christmas morning when Miss E arrived in my bed for a snuggle even before she went downstairs to retrieve her stocking. It was joyous to have the house filled with excited giggles and triumphant squeals, to enjoy M's teetering first steps and the snuggly delight of sharing The Mousehole Cat and Christmas at Exeter Street with Miss E. It was all very lovely and happy - but really not quite Christmas with only 2 services, no Midnight Mass, and no moment of starlit wonder on the way home. Now, with some relief, we change our calendars and embrace a new year. It's arbitrary, of course. Neither the virus nor the weather is aware that we've passed a man-made boundary, and are looking for a new narrative with hope that is close to desperation. But 2020 was not all loss, though I am horribly aware of those families for whom things fell out very differently. 2020 reminded me more than I would ever have chosen that we are not in control, not the brave, self-reliant species we might wish to be. I was confronted in a new way with my own vulnerability and the vulernability of humanity. But it taught me, too, that I have so much that I need here in myself and in my life at home, that home is a place of contentment, even when it doesnt contain the people I love most, whom I would have always beside me. It prompted me to considerthe fact of mortality without fear, as I exulted in the wonders of that long and perfect spring, knowing that spring would continue, its wonders be cherished and celebrated long after I have ceased to be. That realisation was, and remains,oddly consoling. I am very weary, like almost everyone I know, particularly clergy who feel themselves responsible for the well-being of their communities as much in emotional and even physical as spiritual terms. I'm wrung out by the ups and downs of a coronacoaster that has turned us all upside down again and again and I will be heartily glad when the vaccine has changed our status so much that we can go about without fear, can hug and be hugged, decide to do something without wading through the labyrinths of risk-assessment. I have high hopes of 2021 - but no plans. I was always plan-resistant - and thanks to 2020 I think I'll stay that way.

And Mary said....Sermon for the Cathedral Eucharist Advent 4 2020

Mary was perplexed… I’m sure she was. In fact, my guess is that her internal reaction might well have been expressed by a pithy "You WHAT?!" Or even WTF? The angel might have been sent by God – but that didn’t mean his arrival was going to make things easy for Mary. Not one little bit. Beyond the immediate dilemma of how to tell Joseph – and her parents too, this perplexity must have been the hall mark of her life from there on in. The Authorised Version talks about the way she “pondered things in her heart” - and that sounds lovely and reflective and very very holy….but I’m not sure it was always like that. I’m sure that on a good day she could and did treasure all the moments of joy…the time when John the Baptist, in utero, recognised Jesus and leapt for joy and Mary’s praise flowered into the prophetic wonder of the Magnificat ever noticed that the first person to recognise Jesus was a baby! What might that suggest to us about how we value the contribution of babies, toddlers, children in our life and theology?) That amazing night when angels sang and shepherds knelt…the day when strange visitors brought stranger gifts… Those were moments to remember and pour over on dark days… But my goodness – the dark days were many… Did she know about the massacre of the innocents? I’m sure she did – and maybe felt that mixture of relief and guilt that we know when someone dear to us has just escaped disaster by missing the train that crashed or staying at home from work because they had a bit of a migraine… Then there was the time when her first born son refused to see her because somehow the woman who had given birth to him was less important than the crowd who’d gathered to hear him teach. “my mother and brothers are those who hear and obey God’s word”… Particularly tough on Mary, whose obedience to God is celebrated… “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me as you have said...” But apparently that’s not good enough. WHAT?!?! At that point, I think I might have been tempted to storm in and give Jesus a lesson in basic manners. Oh yes, there were many many moments of perplexity – of that I am convinced. Think, if you would, about the statue of Mary in our Lady Chapel. If you’re a visitor and don’t know it, I’m afraid it’s a bit inaccessible right now – but let me tell you, it’s a statue that is placed facing away from those who come into the chapel. Mary’s eyes are only on her son – but this is not the baby in the manger whom she could cradle and keep safe but her adult son, and she is gazing at him as he hangs dying on the cross. If you follow her eyes – and indeed, if you stand beside her in the space, that is what you see. Just the agony and desolation. “Stabat Mater dolorosa” And you see, here’s the thing. Mary experiences the life of her son Jesus from a completely human perspective. She can do nothing else. She is inextricably involved in God’s plan to reconcile the world to himself – but she can’t see the big picture at all. Just as from the viewpoint of the statue, as it were, you are oblivious to the towering figure of Christ in glory that dominates the cathedral from another perspective, so she, highly favoured though she may be, is no more able to glimpse the overarching sweep of God’s story than any of us are as we travel through this year of storm and challenge. But her ignorance, her perplexity doesn’t matter at all. Her part in the story is to be the God bearer...it is through the Holy Spirit AND the Virgin Mary that Christ comes into the world ...and the fact that she cannot see the way ahead in no way alters her significance in God’s work of love. There’s a song popular in some parts of the church “Mary did you know..” which takes Mary on a guided tour of the life of Christ, asking if she grasped the significance of all that was going on around her stage by stage. It is a bit too redolent of mansplaining for my taste...but it does clarify an important point. Despite the message of the angel, Mary DIDN’T know. Not for sure. She pondered things in her heart...but she dealt in faith, not knowledge. We’re in a different place as far as her story goes. WE know, from the perspective of 2 millennia, what emerged, against any human hope or expectation, from the foreshortened life of Mary’s son. WE are the ones sitting in the nave who can see Christ in glory on the tapestry and know that even the pain of crucifixion is swept up in the triumph of God’s love over sin and death forever. But Mary didn’t know. Mary just had to ponder – and weep and agonise...just as, in this year of challenge and loss and change we have watched and wept and felt utterly utterly helpless and sometimes hopeless It is not a coincidence that I’ve found myself praying the rosary more this year than ever before. It has helped me hugely, as I’ve tried to pray into all the pain and mess around us, to feel that another woman who had experienced times far harder, grief far greater, would pray beside me, with me, for me. As I prayed, each bead became part of a lifebelt, and on a good day I knew that the other end was held secure by God. On bad days, my prayers had more in common with a certain cartoon currently circulating online which shows a figure kneeling in prayer at bedtime. Above their head is a bubble “God. WTF” If that’s where you are today – you’re not alone From the perspective of the here and now, it’s almost impossible to see anything but anxiety, sadness and confusion. We just want the pandemic over and to stagger back to some of the things that seemed so normal only a year ago. But there’s something from Mary’s story for us here too. Regardless of how blinded we may be by tears, how wearied we are by the changes and chances of this fleeting world, there IS another perspective. Mary DOES know now. She sees the glory that was there from the beginning...the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth...and understands that her role as God bearer was essential, even when it seemed to be all folly. And, of course, each of us is to be a God bearer too – in a world that needs us to make God’s love real more than ever before. As to the big picture - We wont see that or understand our part in it very often. We may see very little at all. But we can nonetheless continue, whether in faith and hope, or in doubt and perplexity, rmembering that even in 2020, there IS a bigger picture and that the God who came into the mess and muddle of our world 2000 years ago, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, will not rest til all is reconciled, all made new. If that’s too much to believe right now – let’s return to the message of the angel. With God, nothing is impossible.

So here it is....address for Carols by Candlelight at Coventry Cathedral, 19th December 2020

So many things are different this year. For one thing,it's tough to have a carol service without singing, and I'm guessing that for some of us even a song in the heart may be very hard to find. A just last when I looked out at the packed congregation for this service, it was like lookung at a colony of glow-worms – I couldn’t see any faces, but each person present was represented by the light of the candles they were holding. I reflected then that Christmas can make the ordinary beautiful – and I think thats no less true today. Even this evening, we are not left in the silent dark. But I cant deny that one way and another it has been a bitch of a year. As we closed the Cathedral and went into Lockdown in March, it felt like the end of so much that was beloved and precious. Would people even remember to come back, when we were allowed to? Would we be able to carry on worshipping together though apart? How would we manage to share and make real the message of God’s love? It all looked overwhelmingly dark and difficult – and yet, we found a way. We discovered the unexpected pleasure of online worship, where we connected not just with our regulars but with many who would not have found their way to the Cathedral in normal times. We made new connections with those living closest to us and took care of one another as best we could through difficult times, learning to share love in new ways, by phone, by zoom, from the bottom of the drive or through the window We adjusted to a simpler life and a slower pace and found ourselves able to hear birdsong in our gardens as the noise of traffic ceased. Of course, all these moments of blessing were set against a backdrop of hard news, of the reality of fear and loneliness, grief and death – but they were blessings all the same… And now we find ourselves confronted with a need to do Christmas in very different ways ...with different people, or altogether alone, in different places, without many treasured aspects of our own personal traditions, the things we always do It's not simply that the mistletoe market has crashed as a quick kiss in passing is strictly taboo Christmas IS going, to be different this year, and for most of us, that's not great news. I guess much was different about the first Christmas too. Though God’s people had been waiting for centuries for a Saviour, a Messiah, his coming was not at all as they’d expected. I’m sure Mary pictured herself giving birth at home, with mum and aunties there to support her – but found herself far away, without much of a roof over her head. Not what she would have chosen. The shepherds, rough, uncouth, were the LAST people to hear most things: they were among the marginalised and overlooked. You wouldn't dream of making them your confidantes – yet the angel brought the world-changing news to them. It was only common sense that those wise men from the east went first to the palace – where else would you expect to find a king…but he wasn’t there. Nothing looked quite right for the arrival of a Saviour – and yet nonetheless, there he was. God as a baby, born miles from home in a grubby corner of an occupied country. There he was – and here he is – Here among us, bringing light and hope into the darkest corners of our world...to the fear-laden loneliness of the covid wards, where exhausted medics do all that they can to fight against disease and death to the families kept apart, and those weeping as they see an empty space at their Christmas table, to those collecting the basics of their Christmas meal from the Foodbank and those facing the cold reality of unemployment when furlough ends. God with us. Emmanuel. With us now as we come together in this holy place – but with us too as we go on our way, no matter what disappointment, what sadness we are going out to Whatever is different, unexpected, unwelcome this year – God’s love is unchanging...and though you may not carry a candle in your hand tonight , you can, and you should shine with the light of his love . That love is here as surely as it has ever been. Here to strengthen and support you Here to be shared so that each of us can make the ordinary beautiful – in our homes and on our streets, online and in person…. Because God is with us And that changes everything for the light shines ieven in our deepest darkness and the darkness has never put it out And it never ever will. Thanks be to God

Some thoughts on healing in community. Isaiah 35:3-6 for "Welcome to Sunday" on St Lukes Day 2020

I love that reading so very much.Usually I read it hearing Handel in the background, every sentence pointing towards the coming of Jesus and the moment when "he shall feed his flock like a shepherd", but today, as we celebrate St Luke and the ministry of healing, I’m wondering how we might make it our mission statement too, what it would mean if we tried to live into it day by day. Because, you see, there are many different kinds of healing. We are far too apt to equate healing with cure...and then to feel defeated when we pray for healing for those whom we love, but see no physical evidence that anything has changed. It’s a mystery why sometimes, against all expectations, prayers are answered immediately and obviously – but at others, those same prayers, offered with the same fervent intensity, seem to fall on deaf ears. We beg God to intervene, - but our sick friend gets sicker...and it makes no sense. Sometimes, though, we can recognise healing even when we find ourselves disappointed in the specifics of our hopes and prayers. I think of Tony, the first person whom I was privileged to accompany through their final illness and on towards death. He was so very scared in the first weeks after his cancer diagnosis, that even the most general enquiry as to how the week had been would see him shrink in to silent despair...He couldn’t bring himself to talk to his two sons, or to anyone else for that matter, so the weight of unspoken sadness burdened everyone. He was a much loved member of the church family in my curacy parish, and so we all prayed...and prayed...and Tony grew weaker and weaker...but somehow along the way, his faith and his courage returned. He and his boys found ways to say what they needed to one another and on Christmas day they shared a bottle of champagne and laughed as much as they cried. He went into the hospice that evening, and died two days later – restored to himself, whole in heart and mind, his fear gone, and replaced by love and peace. That was not a cure but I’m sure, so very very sure, that it WAS healing. And right now, of course, there is sickness in the very air that we breathe...both the virus itself and the way that it has robbed us of so much joy and hope, set communities against one another as we are asked to make agonising choices between life and liveliehood, separated families, left loved ones to die alone… And yes, we can and we should use today to pray for our health service – to give thanks for all those who tend the wounds of body and spirit, to ask that God will send wisdom and insight for those seeking prevention and cure for the virus...but while that very specific work of physical healing may be the preserve of those duly qualified, we ALL have a vocation to heal as God’s people, inspired by God’s spirit. We may be sad and have fearful hearts – but if we can look beyond ourselves, we can be part of God’s work of healing even now. We are called to be a community of hope...people who can see beyond the even the apparently insurmountable challenges of life in a pandemic, the signs of God’s kingdom breaking in. Another story, of going with my supervisor to see a wonderful elderly lady while I was on placement during training. She was utterly crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, and her house was a perfect timecapsule from the 1920s when her parents had moved in,. She had always been an invalid, never been able to get about, , had only rarely been able to attend the parish church which my supervisor and I represented, and yet she had an incredibly strong sense of commitment to that community, as it did to her. Judy, my supervisor, asked her to choose a Bible passage to hear, and passed it to me to read...the words we heard just now,. As I read I could feel the sense of hope getting ever stronger. It felt as if God was using my voice, Isaiahs worda, to speak directly to her. We all recognised that we were standing on holy ground, and after Communiin Iris said You see, that's what the church does for me, It strengthens my knees so I can pray, opens my eyes and my ears so I can understand the truth, and the speaks it, God IS coming. We WILL be saved. I dream of being part of that kind of church...where we can support one another to find healing in community, recognising that truly we are journeying together, dependent on each other, that only in community can we become agents of Gods healing today. So, how might we live to set the world free from whatever binds and restricts , tying neighbours down to be less than their true, God-given selves?... How might we open one another's eyes,, to recover sight and regain perspective, as we try to regain perspective ourselves.? One day I will need you to speak those words of hopee to me , perhaps the next I can speak them for you We all need God's healing, for body, mind and spirit, and together we carry the hope that this healing will come. So as in community we celebrate the good news that God is still at work, we can join with that work of the Spirit, so we too become physicians of the soul through the wholesome medicine of the gospel. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees There is good news which can refresh our world, so that desolate places, desolate people can flourish again as water springs up in the wilderness. Healing is so much greater than cure, and it's is healing that our God offers to us and to all creation.

Reasons to be cheerful? A sermon for the Cathedral Eucharist, 11th October 2020, Proper 23A

There is a cartoon doing the rounds on social media which really resonates with me. It shows a slightly anxious-looking couple walking together, one of whom announces "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane". It's a point of view with which I have tremendous sympathy. I am once again making sure that I head up to bed before the 10.00 news, as experience has taught me that hearing the latest Covid statistics at the end of the day is a sure recipe for a sleepless night. If you add in the grim findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, published this week, which brings much that is broken in the Church of England into painfully clear view, the many cries for help articulated on World Mental Healthy Day and the lingering sadness of Baby Loss Awareness Week, it might be tempting to close the curtains and retreat under the duvet, waiting for better days. But for the most part, that seems a little impractical - and in any case we are supposed to be people of hope...so let's go in search of it. Our Epistle seems to have plenty on offer. First, though, I want to say loud and clear that there are seasons when, whatever Paul proclaims, we may find ourselves living our life and expressing our faith in the minor key of lament. There is nothing, anywhere, that says that it is somehow more Christian to pretend that everything is wonderful when the reality is very different. We are in no way failing God, or selling our faith short if we admit to vulnerability or sadness - quite the reverse. Being real matters. If we are followers of the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, then clearly personal integrity - being honest about the challenges as well as the blessings of life - is of foundational importance...as is having the courage to ask for help if life's struggles threaten to overwhelm you completely. PLEASE hear that! And yet - and yet - Paul exhorts the church in Philippi to see things in a rather different way...though he engages with messy reality too. I love that this passage starts with a quiet reference to a disagreement in the Christian community. Some things don't change, do they. The funny thing is, we have no idea what divided Euodia and Syntyche - simply that they are at odds with one another, and need the help of the wider congregation to sort things out. Whatever it was that seemed so important to them has long since been forgotten but they are remembered because Paul wanted the church to engineer their reconciliation. I suspect their issue wasn't so very important really...and it's always worth trying to take the long view. Some things may be worth falling out over, - but the majority probably aren't. I very much doubt if many of the causes of distress or faction in the local church are going to be on God's check list of hot topics when we stand before God on the last day. How we have DEALT with them just might be - if we have sought to silence or exclude others, or have turned them into commodities to suit our own needs, perhaps. But that's not for us to decide. It's all a question of perspective...and God's is always wider, more generous, than ours. And that's where this exhortation to rejoice comes in. Rejoice in the Lord always I mean it. I'll say it again REJOICE ‘Don’t you realise, Paul, how tired we are now? How much we’ve faced over the last few months? Has no-one told you about the closure of our churches, about the fear gripping the world, about the recession and the mental health crisis, about the risks of infection? Has no-one told you that we are not even able to sing? This is your message for us in the midst of a pandemic?…’ Nonetheless, says Paul, REJOICE. I'm not talking about superficial happiness, emerging from the pleasures of the moment. I’m not exhorting relentless cheerfulness in the face of all the evidence. I'm pointing you towards something richer by far. No, We are not being invited to thank God FOR our trials and tribulations, for the hardship, the grief, the death. We are allowed to name those as the struggle that they are, to be honest with God and with one another. But we are challenged to look deeper...to see our lives founded on God and so to change our focus that we can see joy amid all the mess and pain and fear. In all of that we are not alone. THE LORD IS NEAR. We are never abandoned in a hostile universe. God is here - and that presence should be enough to help us shift our perspective, to keep us both from cynicism and from fear. The Lord is at hand, as the Authorised Version puts it...even now we just have to reach out and we can touch God...and though there may seem to be no rational grounds for peace or for joy, God's presence brings with it that peace that is beyond understanding, beyond logic... The invitation is to learn to take the long view - and as we shift perspective, to use our joy to power our rebellion against all the darkness and pain, to make it our own act of subversion against the powers and principalities that threaten our peace day by day. We aren't supposed to be relentlessly cheerful...God forbid! But we ARE to focus not on the darkness but on the pinpricks of light...and Paul gives us a strategy to enable this. Focus on the good things. "Whatever is is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable" Do try to avoid the trap I just fell into of thinking, grumpily, "Well, that won't take long today." I'm not denying the darkness - but, with Paul, I'm inviting you to choose to focus on the stars, even if you do so lying on your back in the gutter. Because that turning towards joy IS always a choice, and sometimes it isn't an easy one Telling God if that's the case for you right now is more than fine. Don't worry - but let your requests be made known. Honesty, remember. Say it as it is. God can cope! I'm struggling with joy...and I really could use some of your peace...and to be honest, I don't mind if I understand it or not. I just want to feel it. But be alert for the signposts, those glimpses of joy that direct your gaze to God even now, even if it's very hard So, let's be practical. Where might you look? I'm confident that you can, without too much difficulty, come up with some ideas. Take moment to notice any prompts to joy around you now. Reflect on those things that are good and true for you. Turn them over in your heart as a miser might turn over his treasure by night. Let yourself luxuriate in their beauty and the hope that they represent. For us in the Cathedral this morning, a prime focus must surely be the gift of music that Kerry has enabled throughout his time with us - and which expresses the truth and beauty of God in ways beyond words again and again. I often talk about its power to open windows onto heaven - because that has been my own experience. The beauty of choral Evensong in a college chapel communicating so clearly the beauty of the God that inspired it that I could do nothing but submit to love and joy then and there... Something to remember with gratitude as the music of other places and other times performed that same work of blessing. So we can thank God for Kerry - and for the way that he has used his own gift to enable the gifts of others, to ihspire, encourage and transform, And we can look forward in hope to all the gifts that Rachel brings with her. As we think of our musicians - there is so much that is worthy of praise. And the music of joy that awakens in our hearts resounds long after the air is silent again...a treasure that cannot be taken from you. And if music isn't your first language, there are many many others. God wants us to know God is close...wants us to experience that peace beyond understanding. As we close, let me share the experience of a friend, who was driving back to a place she doesn't much want to be, having said goodbye to someone whom she struggled to leave behind. She was in no way filled with joy...but as she drove, she saw the most stunning sunset in her rear view mirror - and ahead, amid the gathering dark of storm clouds, a double rainbow of great beauty. That gave her the joy she needed to drive onwards - trusting that God was there ahead of her. Where might you glimpse him today? IN such things are are true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing....think on those things and the God of peace will be with you.

"Hark, hark my soul, angelic strains are swelling..." - a reflection for Michaelmas

It’s Michaelmas…the festival that celebrates angels, archangels and all the company of heaven - and for this part of my journey I'm based in cathedral dedicated to St Michael - but, sadly, not to "All angels"...though our building is awash with them, from the mad, dancing cohorts of the West Screen to the majestic Angel of the Agony, whose wings overshadow me when I preside in the Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane. I wish it were the other way round. Michael is hard to get a grip on. Did he really eject Satan from heaven for all time, or is there (as another Michael, Michael Sadgrove, who knows our building better than most suggests in a wonderful reflection on the Sutherland tapestry) a hope that he is not pushing him out but trying to grasp his hand and enable him to stay? And, of course, he is absolutely the right patron for us, with our calling to the ministry of Reconciliation "Send thine archangel Michael from thy presence, Peacemaker blessed, may he hover o'er us, hallow our dwellings". I love that when the medieval parish church of St Michael was built, the vocation of the cathedral that would replace it centuries later was already enshrined...and the angels, well, they are beings of poetry and wonder, pointing to something far beyond our comprehension, reminding us of the overwhelming beauty and mystery at the heart of God - though we often try to domesticate them, just as we try to domesticate Godself.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Bless the bed that I lie on Four corners to my bed Four angels there be spread One to watch and one to pray And two to bear my soul away In the bedtime prayers of my childhood there seemed little difference between the evangelists – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and the shining guardian angels whom I was certain were my overnight companions.... I loved those angels, believed in them implicitly – and still, as this feast day of St Michael and All Angels approaches, I find myself dreaming happily of wondrous golden beings, trying to glimpse them amid the golden light of late September as the leaves turn. ""Angels of Jesus, angels of LIGHT...this feast, just after the Autumn equinox, asserts that light will endure though the evenings are drawing in - and in this year of loss, anxiety, fear, we need it, need them, more than ever. Of course, even before the pandemic, angels have been hugely popular - angels divorced from any particular belief system. Gift shops can rely on selling any number of angel trinkets, books of angel stories walk off the shelves at a time when public interest in more mainstream expressions of faith seems at a very low ebb. People LIKE the idea of heavenly beings charged with taking care of us....a reassurance that we are not on our own in a hostile universe. But, you know, the Biblical experience of angels is really rather different. Often their arrival seems to be anything but reassuring – and perhaps that's why every angelic appearance in the New Testament opens with the words “Don't be afraid” Annunciation, Resurrection, Ascension... Heaven in all its dazzling splendour breaks into our world. Time is interrupted by eternity. Angel appearances are never remotely mundane - and their messages tend to stop us in our tracks as thoroughly as the angel stopped Balaam's ass. Just think of the most famous angelic appearance of all.....Gabriel's mission to Mary. Imagine yourself as that teenage girl, minding her own business in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire. Hear those words spoken to you. “Do not be afraid Mary – for you have found favour with God. You will bear a son” BEAR A SON! Me?!?! No wonder Gabriel feels the need to begin the conversation by speaking reassurance. “Do not be afraid...” Words that suggest that he knows he has already lost that particular battle! And so often that's how it seems. Angels break into our world as messengers of heaven – and their tidings turn the world upside down. Like a stone dropped into a pond, their messages ripple outwards, touching and changing many lives in ways we could never imagine. Well, at least that’s what they did in Bible times. But what of that persistent belief that God STILL sends messengers into this world, to remind us of God’s continuing commitment to humanity? Despite my eager searches, I’ve never seen a shining being clothed in white, with maybe the hint of wings in the brightness around them – but I have had to experiences of angels, I think. One was on Low Sunday in a little Cotswold church, part of the benefice where we lived when my children were small, the place that fostered my vocation to ordained ministry. It was a happy church, a church that understood community – but it was also a very elderly church. I and my children were generally the only ones present who were not well into retirement – and the last thing that would EVER happen there was dance… Except, on this one day, the recessional hymn was, wonderfully, Lord of the dance…and still more wonderfully as we reached the chorus at the end of the first verse, 2 strangers stepped out of the pew behind us, took my older children by the hand and pulled them into a wonderful, joyous grand chain that stretched the length of the aisle, and in which, somehow, we were all caught up without knowing how or why…so that when we reached the final verse “they cut me down but I leapt up high, I am the life that will never never die I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me, I am the Lord of the dance said he”…there was not a vestige of doubt anywhere in that church. It was, as I say, the Cotswolds. We were used to people appearing at the parish Eucharist while they were staying in the village – except that afterwards, these people seemed to have disappeared. Did they just slip out before the final Blessing? Probably…but…I’ll always wonder, because they rekindled the resurrection hope so very powerfully that day. Ten years later I was in my second year of curacy, loving so much of parish ministry but sometimes frustrated at the way the Church seemed to get in the way of simply introducing people to God’s love. My title parish was at the "friendly catholic" end of the spectrum – liturgy mattered, the Eucharist was absolutely central, and if was very important that we prayed the Daily Office no matter what. But Morning Prayer was always an insiders' service – not something to which I could ever imagine inviting one of the young mums from Toddler Church…I enjoyed praying the Office with my training incumbent but really struggled with it when I had to pray alone# That morning my TI was away so I went up to church somewhat reluctantly, and wandered into the Lady Chapel for the Office. To my surprise there was a young man there already, someone I definitely didn't recognise. We chatted for a bit, and he asked if it would be alright if he stayed for Morning Prayer. Alright? I was thrilled. We prayed together, and I offered many and repeated apologies for the need to dart back and forth, to follow the leadings of the multi coloured ribbons in a distracting maypole dance, to engage with a lectionary that seemed set, that day, to offer absolutely NOTHING to inspire or comfort at all. Despite this, to my delight, he stayed to the end, and afterwards he told me that just a few months before he, an atheist with no grounding in faith at all, had had such a powerful experience of God that he had been checking out churches ever since. He told me of his various visits around the diocese…and my heart sank as I imagined how we might compare with some of the more dynamic congregations he had encountered. "They are all SO DIFFERENT he marvelled …isn’t it wonderful….and I have met God in every single one of them. EVERY SINGLE ONE" If ever a message, a dose of unexpected good news was needed, it was that morning… And the angel departed from me – having sowed seeds of encouragement that I have returned to time and again in the years that followed. Once again, the angel (a very ordinary, if unexpected young man) brought good news… Perhaps my childhood self wasn't that far out in confusing the saints and the angels of that poem-prayer! Beings whom the light shines through...sent to encourage, to remind us to look up, to set our sights on God's wider landscape when we are in danger of getting bogged down in our own struggles with life and faith. Onward we go for still we hear them singing "Come, weary souls, for Jesus bids you come!" And through the dark their echoes sweetly ringing The music of the gospel leads us home. Angels of Jesus, angels of light, singing to welcome the children of the night

Proper 18A A reconciled community?

Where do you go to find community? It’s a question that has been more pressing this year than for a very long time, as many of us have found ourselves locked down alone, isolated from friends and relatives, dependent our varied technologies, from telephone to iPad, to connect us to the others whose easy presence we had taken for granted just a few months ago. Some of us have been living alone for years, whether by choice or by chance – and may have expected to find it not so very different. Others are natural extroverts, who thrive on sharing the details of life with others – I’m one of those, and believe you me, my dogs and cats have had to listen to an awful lot of external processing of life’s trivia as the weeks crept on. But wherever you fall on the scale of introvert/extrovert, whether you live alone of have faced the different challenge of suddenly being confined for an extended period with partners or families whom you usually see only in the evenings or at weekends, “community” has looked and felt very different this year. I guess that was the genius in the Thursday night ritual of clapping for carers. It reminded us that we were living alongside our neighbours, whether we know them well or not...That despite the isolation that was necessary for our safety we were going through this whole experience together, and that, whatever our faith and our politics, when we fall ill we are all alike dependent on the skill and compassion of our health workers. It provided a moment of connection that was badly needed as days became weeks, became months. But what of the Church in all this? That’s a question that has many many different answers. In the early weeks I have to admit that I rather envied my colleagues in parish ministry, able to wave to their parishioners as they did their daily walk, to run errands for the housebound who lived just down the road, to throw open their churches for food banks to operate. It seemed much easier to maintain a community rooted in the local than one drawn together by a particular place, from whose beloved beauty we were all excluded for a while… But as the weeks passed I began to notice something else happening, something that was in no way dependent on the various attempts I had made to keep us all together by hook, crook or telephone tree. Something that filled me with hope, together with a degree of embarrassment that it had not been the first place I had looked to foster community. As we got gradually into the rhythm of online worship, our daily offering of Morning Prayer with Communion plus the Litany, I realised that the group who appeared there, cathedral stalwarts, friends from past parishes and total strangers from the diocese and beyond were really attentive to one another, and were really swift to respond if one of them shared that they were having a bad day, week or month...Strangers, drawn together by God, were experiencing the absolute truth of those words from this morning’s gospel, knowing God’s presence with us as we worshipped, physically apart but united in a greater depth of fellowship perhaps because we were having to do without our cherished landscape, and the aids to prayer that our building offers. Again and again, after grumpy, sleepy mornings or at frazzled midday, I experienced the truth that Jesus WAS with us as we met in his name, and that knowledge inspired us to lower our guards with one another, to try out in cautious stages the steps towards a deeper level of connection, so that we could assert with confidence that the Church was indeed alive and well despite the closure of our buildings. You could, of course, argue that it was easier to form connections in isolation, as it were. Most of us had no past history with one another, no sense that so and so didn’t quite approve of our attitude to such and such, or had disappointed us that time when we’d really needed a good friend...That made it easier to drop our guard but the truth is that if that online community survives, as I hope it might, we are BOUND to upset one another at some point, because, you know, the Church, whether in person or online, consists of fallible human beings who have an inbuilt ability to mess things up despite our best intention. BUT as Church we’re called to deal with those failures and disappointments in a different way. Rather than taking umbrage and walking away, to seek a better, more congenial or more holy community… Rather than clinging to an illusion of niceness by sweeping discord and disagreement under the carpet, we are actively invited to engage with our fractures wherever we meet them. We are to deliberately seek out those with whom relationship is damaged – to own the truth of the situation and to undertake for ourselves and IN ourselves the work of reconciliation that is so central to us here in Coventry. That can feel very risky – but it’s really not optional. Perhaps like me, you’ve been almost relieved that so much of our ministry of reconciliation was, in the past, carried out by experts, heading off to deal with broken relationships at a safe distance, but leaving the rest of us to celebrate the work without having to engage with it. I think that feeling is natural enough – but that doesn’t make it OK. Jesus doesn’t suggest that we appoint experts to resolve differences in other communities. On the contrary, he’s very clear that reconciliation begins at home...and that the tangled relationships of life may remain tangled in eternity if we don’t make the effort to address them. You see, as the Church we are called to keep short accounts. To own our past errors and seek to put them right...not to carry that baggage into our current relationships, within and beyond our community, but to seek, with God’s help, to wipe the slate clean, to cancel old debts and old enmities so that we can travel forward together as people renewed and restored. I believe that is what reconciliation could and should mean for us here and now. Coming to terms with our own failures (sometimes the work of reconciliation will be primarily within ourselves: this summer I’ve had to confront the inherent racism that creeps in, undetected, alongside the benefits of white privilege) Confronting the failures of our community. Finding the courage, by God’s grace, to name them and repent of them. Then helping one another to put that load down and re-imagine the future together. . 2020 has forced us to stop for a while, invited us to take stock, to reflect on where we are and who we are as individuals and as the Church. In the flickering light of pandemic uncertainty, we have reflected on what matters most, and what we can safely let go of. We may have been surprised at some of our discoveries, inspired to recognise and live by new priorities so that the things that had seemed so essential in January are of little account in September...or we may have come to a fresh understanding of why we value the things we cherish. Come what may, the one essential, the only debt we are to owe, is the debt of love. If we have learned nothing else this year, we must surely have come to realise that life is finite, time is limited, and that we cannot know how long we have to perfect our relationships, to love more and better day by day. The night is far spent and the day is at hand. Wake up, then. Smell the coffee, recognise that love must be the hallmark of our community...and let us use that love to shape and hold our community, so that, to quote the Collect, we may together proclaim the good news of God’s love and all who hear it may be drawn to him.

Nevertheless, she persisted - a sermon for Trinity 10A at Coventry Cathedral, 16th August 2020

"Preach about what you know, about your own experiences of the life of faith", said one of our tutors an alarming three decades ago when I was training as a Reader. But todays gospel immediately puts me in a situation of which I have absolutely NO experience, and demands that I engage with it. I have never, to my knowledge, been excluded from anything that I sought on the grounds of my raceDoors have opened for me before Ive even noticed they were there. Encouraged by friends and family, Ive been able to pursue dreams almost effortlessly not because I am remarkably able but because I am remarkably privileged. That doesnt mean that Ive led a charmed life, with everything falling easily into place, but rather that as a white woman Ive never had to consider whether race might impede me in any wayAnd Im guessing thats true for many of you listening this morning. To quote one contributor to We need to talk about race, a book some of us have read this summer If youve never considered your colour, thatll be because youre white. Over the weeks since the Black Lives Matter movement took centre stage, I have become daily more conscious of the layers of white privilege that have protected me from so much in life from the risk of a stop and search, through the possibility of being denied a job interview, to the increased likelihood of my falling seriously ill with Covid 19 and much more besides. Whether we recognise it or not, it seems that our society is constructed to silently, imperceptibly benefit those of us of white British descent. We who are white are the unconscious beneficiaries of an far from level playing field and if I have learned nothing else from our reading, it is that attempting colour blindness does nobody any favours. All of which may seem to have little to do with todays gospel, with Jesuss encounter with this Canaanite woman, one of the first nations indigenous people who were supplanted when the Children of Israel reached and claimed their Promised Land. We need,then, to take a closer look at the dialogue between Jesus and that tenacious, outspoken woman who dared to cross cultural divides in search of healing for her child. Today, surely, shed be one who wore a t shirt emblazoned Nevertheless she persisted and her persistence achieved the unthinkable. Through her, Jesus himself received a lesson in the wildly inclusive love of Godthrough, unbelievably, a woman, one on the fringes, one who was pushing her luck in approaching him at allone he really should have avoided, for the sake of his reputation. Of course, we know that reputational risk is rarely a priority for Jesus he delights in spending time with outsiders, but as he begins to live in to the message of radical inclusion that lies at the heart of the gospel, its not easy, even for him. Today, Jesus is on retreat, seeking some down-time after his run-in with the Pharisees Here, in Gentile country, he might expect a break from the demands of ministry, but real people with real needs just cant be put on hold. His space, his silence is disturbed by a woman driven by that most compelling force, parental love. She will not hold her peace, demands a hearing, for she is intent on claiming the healing that she believes her daughter deserves. Like so many others, she throws herself on the mercy of Jesus. Kneeling at his feet she entreats his help. And what happens? If I were asking that question in a school assembly I can confidently predict the answer. What happens? “Jesus makes the child better Thats what wed all expect. Jesus goes about doing good, healing, rescuing,- surely thats the essence of his earthly ministry. Of course Jesus is going to comfort the mother and heal her child, without further ado. Except that he doesnt. It's as if he doesn't even see her. He looks away. He did nothing Not at first. First, we find ourselves thrown off balance, our expectations flouted by words that seem frankly racistwords of such staggering rudeness that they are almost unbearable. Jesus, JESUS of all people, tells that frantic mother that she and her child are no better than dogs.and I dont think were under any illusion that he meant much- loved and cherished pet spaniels. He is saying without compunction that as Gentiles, the woman and her daughter are not fully human. Ive encountered that approach too often in the chronicles of black oppression Ive been nervously exploring...Its the mindset that made it possible for the Church to condone slaverythat somehow black lives were of a lesser order, black pain less real, black freedom ours to command. But the one place that I would never look to encounter it is here, HERE, in the gospels Was Jesus a racist? And if so, what do we do with that? “Its not right to take the childrens bread and throw it to the dogs no blacks, no Irish, no dogs Whoohto meet those attitudes in Jesus is almost intolerable! This isnt our Jesus We long to hold on to our soft focus image of him Jesu, thou art all compassion and this abrasive stranger shakes us to the core. Nevertheless, she persisted This Gentile woman is made of sterner stuff than I, and refuses to go away quietly. She isnt bothered who she upsets. Like Jacob two weeks ago, she will not let go til she has received her blessing, and she responds to his put-down in like vein, picking up Jesuss words and turning them back on him in quick-witted repartee.. We may be dogs, but surely youre not so mean that you begrudge us even the left-overs. She refuses to take No for an answer And in doing so, she stops Jesus in his tracks. Against his own expectations he is forced into really seeing her, not an annoying, impertinent woman of another race but simply a human being, a child of Godand this makes him change his mind in a radical way. Is that idea too startling? Its tempting to believe that as Gods Son, Jesus must be perfect there is no shadow of turning with thee. But he is fully human, and surely learning is part of what that means. Even Mrs Alexander was prepared to accept that Jesus went through all the normal stages of physical development day by day like us he grew So too, surely, he learned and grew in relationshipHe learned, he grew, and sometimes he changed his mind. Theres so much more going on here than just an exchange of banter, for surely Jesus is forced to rethink the scope of his mission, to enlarge its scope, sent not simply to the lost sheep of the house of Israel after all. This should, I think, serve to correct our own tendency to arrogance, to hardness of heart. Its so tempting to believe that we dont need to listen to others, because we already know the truth, and our perspective is, of course, the right one..In that respect, perhaps, its hard not to sympathise with the Jews, who believe themselves to be the insiders, on a fast track to Salvation. In our society, and in our church, we can sadly identify behaviours that match theirs. The wideness of Gods mercy is sometimes just too much for us, so we shrink it to something we can deal with more easily. We enshrine those false limits long after the time has come for them to be deconstructed so we can rebuild on foundations of justice, in kinder, healthier ways, but if we take Scripture seriously, our limited view is inevitably challenged. Here we meet a God who listens and changes their mind, whose unlimited love almost surprises Godself. Here we encounter a God who is changed by relationships, a God who is moved by the prayers of Gods children, and acts in unexpected ways to answer them. Here, above all, we meet a God whose love and grace are inexhaustible. Of course, this particular gospel story lies behind the much-loved Prayer of Humble Access “We do not presume to come to this your table O merciful Lord Trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercy “We do not presume Well, thank God that sometimes we do! Thank God for those who dare to persist, who challeng and draw us into a landscape of larger hearts and wider compassion. Thank God for this woman, the outsider, the second class citizen who refuses to go away but demands that Jesus recognise her right to engage with him. Thank God that she stops him in his tracks, forcing him to see and recognise her humanity and forcing him to own that manifold and great mercy which is always so much greater than our worst inadequacies, our most glaring failings and faults. Here, as everywhere with God, love wins. The mothers love, a passion that drives her to take risks that she would probably never have contemplated for her own benefit. The Fathers love, Gods love, stronger than the divisions that scar society and church, the hatred that divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class. Stronger than unconscious privilege and all the institutional structures that support itStronger than our own fear of outsiders and our anxiety that we might find ourselves outsiders in our turn. So today, can we find the courage to look hard at ourselves, and at Gods Church, to ask Gods help to root out the unconscious bias that may sometimes hold part of our hearts and minds hostage and to ask that WE may be healed so that we can love more fully, and work together to enable the flourishing of all.

Risky discipleship in stormy waters Matthew 14:22-33 for Welcome to Sunday, 9th August 2020

I grew up by the sea, and miss it dreadfully – both on the hazy days of high summer, when the entire world seems to be heading to the nearest shoreline, regardless of the need for safety and social distance, and if possible even more when the storms hit and the waves are high, breaking onto the promenade, flinging shingle onto parked cars, changing the whole shape of the beach overnight… My father loved the sea too – but, having served 6 years in the Navy, with the experience of Atlantic convoys for ever branded on his mind, his love was balanced by a sense oplayf great respect which he tried to pass on to me. I might treat the sea as a beloved friend – rushing down to talk to it if we had been away for a couple of weeks, leaping around in the shallows as if the sea were a kind of oversized family pet…but he had seen the full fury of Atlantic storms, had helped rescue men from the water after their vessel had been torpedoed…The sea, for all its wonder, was a place of risk…not to be trifled with. I never got to talk theology with my father…He died when I was 18, a long time before the God story began to be the most compelling story of all for me – so I don’t know how he felt about the gospel we’ve just heard. I’m certain that, as an introvert, he’d have been absolutely with Jesus on the need to take time out to regroup after over populated days…but what would he have made of the storm on Lake Galilee, and Peter’s foolhardy challenge to his Lord – “If it you, command me to come to you on the water”. I mean – what was that even about? Was it a desperate need to be sure that he really was an insider, able to do the very thing that he had just trembled to see Jesus doing? Was he trying to prove to himself that his decision to abandon his own work as a fisherman was not going to leave him high and dry? It all feels a bit bonkers, really – and I’m sure Jesus was tempted to respond “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. But he doesn’t. He lets him take the risk – that step of faith that gets Peter out of the boat, and walking, incredibly, on those very waters that just a few minutes before had battered the boat so fiercely…And of course all is well, as long as he keeps his gaze on Jesus. When he’s distracted, when he notices the wind and the waves again, then it all goes horribly wrong again. And one perfectly valid reading of this passage would simply be to remind you to hold on, to focus on the things of faith, to hear for yourself Jesus’s words “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid”. That might be what you need today…if the week has been tough, if corona worries have kept you awake at night and economic anxiety perplexed you by day…then do just hold on to that assurance that Jesus IS there in the storms…that he won’t let you drown, but will reach out a hand to help you, and will walk you back to safety in the boat… But it feels impossible this week to consider those in danger in small boats on big seas without reflecting on the families who have taken a different kind of risk – in stepping INTO a boat, an inadequate rubber dinghy perhaps – and launching out on to treacherous waters. We know their motivation at least: they truly believe that what they are leaving behind is so bad that it’s worth risking their lives – and the lives of their children – in a desperate attempt to reach somewhere they believe will be better. That isn’t a decision anyone would take lightly. It’s a tremendous risk and we know that most of those travelling will have paid everything they have, staked their all on that journey. For them this small island, with its rising unemployment, denuded Health Service and increasingly inhospitable approach to immigration, still looks like the promised land. I cannot imagine anything that would currently make me take that kind of risk…so perhaps God is inviting me to notice that, however leaky my boat might seem, it’s still afloat and actually, I’m not really even slightly damp. In other words, as I pray for those braving the Channel day by day, I need to take time to count my blessings, to notice and be thankful that amid all the fear and frustration, life is beautiful and full of love. Perhaps, too, there is an invitation. If, as God’s Church, we are Christ’s Body here on earth, are there things that we should do – ways in which we should move forward to take those desperate travellers by the hand and walk with them to a place of safety? That’s a real question, not a rhetorical one – because I recognise that open borders look uniquely threatening at the moment, that on the whole there is no general will to offer hospitality no matter what it costs. But though it’s a real question, I think I’ve found the answer for myself at least. You see, the trouble is that I think we’re SUPPOSED to be counter-cultural…That if we’re serious about following Jesus, we need to remember where the road took him… It’s going to be costly – true hospitality means sharing til it hurts, and then continuing anyway… More, its going to be risky after all…though not in the way I’d imagined. It turns out, you see, that we are going to be taking exactly the same risk as Peter…in leaving our place of safety to get closer to Jesus. That’s what discipleship looks like. Taking the risk to stay close to our Lord. Scary, as the waves rise around us…but actually the only choice worth making. It may take a while to commit to it…And there may well be times when we fear that we’ll drown, but you know, it’s going to be OK. Truly, he IS the Son of God – and he will walk with us til we too reach safety