Christ the King Yr C

The past week has been a good one for royalists.

On Sunday we gathered here in our church, to remember those who died “for Queen and Country” ….

Then on Tuesday came the news of a royal engagement....and even those who have reservations about the monarchy seemed disposed to celebrate. Suddenly the media was full of the trappings of a state occasions, inviting us to dream of pomp and circumstance, the gold State Coach, and an engagement ring with a painful history. They invite us to invest in the fairy tale, even as we recognise that it is at best a diversion from the painful reality of a country struggling for economic survival.

Now, today, the Church too invites us to consider kingship...but with the kind of twist that we should be used to by now.

At first glance it may seem strange that at this culmination of the church year we find ourselves back in the events of Passion-tide. Already, encouraged by the pressures of the world outside, we are straining forward to glimpse the baby in the manger, yet today we find ourselves taken back to Golgotha, the place of the skull.

We're asked to salute the kingship of Christ, but we look at the gospel and see not a coronation procession but a ride to the scaffold...

Today Jesus holds centre stage, but he takes that position in complete vulnerability, for it is hard to imagine greater powerlessness than that of a man fixed to a cross with nails through hands and feet...There are a lot of people talking about kings and kingship in this story of the death of Christ, but most of them are speaking only in mockery.

Above his head the sign reads “This is the King of the Jews”, sentence and proclamation in one.

The irony is intentional.

There’s no kingly glory here, no jewels or gold, just a squalid painful death.

Some king, some leader...with not a follower to his name.

Leaders are called to be strong, commanding...worlds away from the helpless man who has no option but to listen to the taunts of the soldiers, their raucous invitation

“If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself”

We know, with the benefit of 2000 years of Christian teaching, that saving himself is not part of Jesus' agenda.....though salvation is indeed being won as the crowds gawp and mock.

If we were there, I wonder what part we would play in the drama...

On the whole, we might rationally prefer to ignore the crucifixion.

Even our epistle could tempt us to do so, with its lyrical celebration of Christ's divinity

“He is the image of the invisible God...in him all things in heaven and on earth were created...in him all things hold together...”

Here we are celebrating the cosmic Christ...the one whose rule is obvious, non negotiable...It seems incredible, as we listen to Paul, that anyone anywhere could fail to submit to his rule...It is transcendent...written into the fabric of creation from the very beginning.......but the route to reconciliation is hard won...

“By making peace through the blood of his cross”.

A costly kingdom founded on paradox...peace through violence...new life through a terrible, bloody death.

Do we truly want to be part of it?

There's huge pressure to join the crowd – there always is! And here common sense as well as self preservation might well encourage us to do so...It certainly persuades one of the two who hang beside Jesus.

I guess the thieves feel they have nothing left to lose...so the first criminal takes some small vicious pleasure in joining in with his own executioners as they deride the man who hangs beside him. Perhaps he has been a lifelong bully..perhaps he has always tried to ally himself with the powerful, if the opportunity presents itself.

Certainly he can see nothing to be gained by supporting Jesus.

In extremis, though, there can be a clarity of vision...Inessentials are stripped away as our time runs its course – and there is space to see things as they really are. As the saying goes, there are no atheists in fox holes, - and not that many on crosses.

Thus the second criminal recognises and articulates something wonderfully true.

Despite all the ironic mockery, despite the weakness and humiliation, the man beside him is indeed a king, so he turns to him in supplication

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”

There is no coercian. There never has been.

Jesus hasn’t used his power to dominate and manipulate during his ministry, and he isn’t going to start now. His way has been one which set people free, giving them their own status and dignity. He has formed them into a new community where they are each responsible for each other, commanded to love, not to lord it over one another.

This is the king who kneels to wash his servants' feet before they feast...the king who chooses not a war horse but a workaday donkey to carry him into his citadel, the king who constantly gives away power in order to empower others.

It is the kingdom and its values that matter to Jesus - not his status as the king...

His rule is founded on peace, justice and transformation...on making the broken whole...and so it is peace and wholeness that he promises to the repentant thief.

“Today you will be with me in Paradise”

There on that hillside, the drama of salvation is played out...the three crosses representing the daily choice that confronts us all.

Love stronger than death holds Jesus there...the man in the middle, with a dying sinner on either side, trying to decide what his message, what his kingdom, means for them.

We have to decide as well.

There's a chorus, popular at confirmations, that asks

“Will you ride, ride, ride with the king of kings

will you follow our leader true

Will you shout hosanna to the lowly Son of God

Who died for me and you?”

We can only celebrate today if our answer to that is a resounding “Yes”...expressed not just with our mouths but with lives truly subject to the rules of his Kingdom.

May we all crown him King of our lives and hearts, now and always.

Remembrance Sunday

I'm grateful to colleagues on the PRCL site, in particular Anne LeBas, for thoughts, words and more help than it's comfortable to admit to....I really struggle with preaching on Remembrance Sunday, and this year seems particularly impossible...

God is light and in him is no darkness

Today is the 70^th anniversary of the bombing of Coventry. Just a few weeks ago I conducted the funeral of a lady whose earliest memories included being taken outside by her parents one bitterly cold night to watch the city burn....miles and miles away, but somehow very close to home as she huddled in her nightclothes and watched that silent, sinister firework display. The flames of the city illuminated the reality of war, there, on the doorstep – interrupting ordinary lives, changing the world forever for people who had never signed up, people who wanted nothing more than to carry on as usual...people like us.

Fast forward to just one month ago in this church (All Saints church) when, on an evening entitled “Faith under Fire”,we heard from two clergy – one an army chaplain, one a parish priest, - about the impact of war today. The chaplain told us about conducting a wedding for a young man before he went out to Helmund province.....then conducting his funeral just three months later. It made the cost of war feel very real – even here amid the tranquility of the Gloucestershire countryside. Once again the reality of war was illuminated, brought close to home...inescapable, non negotiable.

So I found myself reflecting on the change that has taken place during my life time. When I was growing up, each year the veterans marching past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday got noticeably older until the last WW1 veterans disappeared and their place was taken by the veterans from the 2nd WW...For a while, there was a feeling that remembrance might not be necessary for too much longer.....that when the last survivors of the second world war died, the custom of remembering our war dead might die with them. It was too long ago and far away, no longer part of our daily world.

Then, of course, everything changed.

Today there will be young men marching past the Cenotaph.....men who have seen active service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yesterday I had lunch with a clergy friend......she was slightly late and apologised for this because, she said, she had been seeing a wedding couple. Nothing unusual there – til she told me that they were anxious to get married immediately because the groom, aged 19,was about to go to Afghanistan.

Once again, it brought reality home to me.

We know about the boy soldiers of the 1^st World War...the hundreds who falsified birth dates to meet the minimum age requirements. A sixteen year-old later told of how he was able to join the army: "The recruiting sergeant asked me my age and when I told him he said, 'You had better go out, come in again, and tell me different.' I came back, told him I was nineteen and I was in."
Another, John Cornwell was just sixteen when he won the Victoria Cross for bravery. Cornwall was on board the Chester when it was attacked by four German light cruisers. Within a few minutes the Chester received seventeen hits. Thirty of her crew were killed in the bombardment and another forty-six were seriously wounded. Cornwall remained at his post on one of the ship's guns until the attack was over, but later died of his wounds.

Thankfully, 16 year olds are no longer able to bluff their way onto the battlefield – but 19 is not so very much older...Just think. A levels one month, basic training and mobilization the next.

War isn't something long ago or far away...

Today we are here to remember.

Re- membering is the way in which we bring the past into the present, reunite the pieces of broken history and learn their lessons.

Or not.

The choice is ours.

You'll know the proverb “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness” and as we gather to remember, that opportunity is ours.

     The light of the bombed cities can clarify things for us, too, if we will let it,    and we can set against its harsh glare another, gentler light.

Of course, war is not simple. There is no easy solution to it. Sometimes justice and peace seem to be mutually exclusive...but when ethics fail us, we can still stand for hope.

The truth is that if ordinary people like us don’t think about war, care about its impact, and do what we can to counter the conditions which give rise to it, then the peace that we long for will never come to pass. We are called to play a part in building God’s kingdom of peace, close to home, through the words we speak to one another, the care we take of one another, by rejecting suspicion and hatred, by daring to take the risk of love.

Today we remember. We remember those who have been crushed under the
heap of heartache that is war, and those who are being crushed under it still.
We allow the reality of war to come home to us, so that peace can come
home to us too and take root in our lives. And as we do that, the promise of
God is that the tiny lights which our small acts represent become part of that great light that no darkness can put out.

God is light and in him is no darkness...

There is another way, and by God's grace we will find it – so that we no longer have to watch youthful veterans march past the Cenotaph as we gather to remember.

Sermon for the Third Sunday before Advent, Yr C

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stepping Stones

Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stop before the final sentence:

“No one comes to the Father except through me”

Is that dishonest?

Am I selling the gospel short?

Should I be handing in my license with immediate effect?

I really don't think so.

Do I, then, believe Christ's words?

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

God loves us far too much for that.

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

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

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

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

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

I imagine countless souls gasping in wonder, and saying

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogging along

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

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

Then things changed.

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

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

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

Busyness took over.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clearly not a luxury, after all.

Reflection for All Souls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music for All Souls

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

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

Music for All Saints

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

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

Oh how glorious is the kingdom 

wherein all the saints rejoice with Christ

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

Address for "Journey On" 2010

Psalm 46

1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.

…...

10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

My father spent his early years in Charlton, London SE7...It was a part of town so close to the river that it was heavily bombed during the blitz, and I grew up with stories of the family emerging from the air raid shelter to a world that seemed quite different. A neighbour's house received a direct hit and was flattened as though it had never been, while in my great aunt's house windows were blown out, ceilings collapsed – but, amazingly, a Bristol blue glass decanter survived intact on the dining table. But what intrigued my father, and me in my turn, were those houses which had one wall ripped out by the blast, but continued to stand. You could, he told me, look straight into those homes, in the same way that you see inside a dolls house when you remove the front...

I imagined sitting in one of those ravaged drawing rooms. If you looked away from the damage, you could pretend everything was normal....only a draught from the missing wall to give things away.

But if you turned to look directly at the 4th wall – the wall that wasn't there – well then you would grasp just how total the devastation that had hit this family as they went about their daily lives.

All jagged edges, chaos and rubble.

I think that all of you who are here today will have some idea of what that experience feels like.

You may have spent many days trying to focus on the things that are still the same...the dear friends and beloved family who are trying to support you...you may have tried to return to familiar routines but found that somehow they just didn't work.

People will have encouraged you to focus on the three sides of the room that are still intact...but always, always you have been conscious of the gap.....where someone vital is missing...

The architecture of your world has been destroyed and, even on the best days, there's a chill wind blowing in.

But the amazing thing is that, like those blitz ravaged homes, you have managed to survive.

You may have wished sometimes that this was not so...have wondered why you kept on keeping on, when the journey seemed so much harder and darker than you'd ever imagined.

But you have survived.

And, whether you've been conscious of it or not, I'd say that God's love and God's strength will have been a huge element in that survival. The writer of our psalm was clearly familiar with some pretty cataclysmic changes in his life and that of his nation

though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

That sense of being swept off your feet, of losing all the familiar landmarks can be utterly overwhelming...and nobody would want to minimise that...BUT, says the psalmist, there is another power at work too

To set against the destructive waters of grief and loneliness

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God”

You have had to deal with powerful feelings – the flip side of that most powerful feeling – love - and it seems to me that our psalm can be applied to both the experiencing of loving and of losing. You could choose, of course, to shut away your feelings...to turn away from love because it carries, always, the risk of pain...but to do this would be to allow part of yourself and your humanity to die as well.

But to embrace love, with all its dangers, is to allow that other river – the river that makes glad the city of God – to carry you along once more.

And then you'll find it's not all up to you.

You do not have to rebuild the ruins of your life single handed, even if there doesn't seem to be anyone among your friends and family who truly realises what you are going through.

You aren't alone...because that river is the tide of God's own love for you.

Be still and know that I am God

God at the beginning

God beside you on the days of golden gladness

God so close to you that you cannot recognise His presence when times are tough.

For Christians, where there is water thoughts of baptism are never far away .

When I baptise an adult or an older child I say these words

“ God has touched you with his love

and given you a place among his people.

God promises to be with you

in joy and in sorrow,

to be your guide in life,

and to bring you safely to heaven.”

I know, as I speak them, that our God always keeps his promises...that he will never desert anyone who call to him for help, whether formally part of his family through baptism or no.

In a few moments you'll be invited to come forward to light a candle as your own quiet act of remembrance...

You might choose, too, to dip your finger in the water here and mark your hand, or perhaps your forehead, with a cross, and to take a paper heart from the basket.

When you do so, focus for a moment on that tide of love that can carry you through no matter what life sends you...

though the fabric of your world may be torn and broken

though things will never be the same again

yet you are not alone and you will reach home safely.

The LORD Almighty is with us – with you - today

May he bless you on your journey.

Sermon for All Saints Sunday Yr C

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened you may know is the hope to which he has called you, what the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.

While it's not always easy to love St Paul, I come closest to it when his own passionate pastoral love for those he has brought to faith shines clear in his writings. Conscious of his own direct experience of Christ on the road to Damascus, of the way his life was turned upside down, never to recover (what price Saul, the respectable lawyer, Pharisee and citizen?), he is ardent in his hope that everyone in the young churches he has founded will find their lives equally transformed, the eyes of their hearts enlightened.
You'll see it again and again in his letters – the fervour of the true missionary, which still sets hearts on fire almost 2 millennia afterwards.

Paul knows he has struck gold, - and he's burning to share it with everyone.
So he casts about for ways to convey the overwhelming gift that is on offer – and, ever the lawyer, opts for the familiar currency of wills, and inheritance.
Through inheritance the treasure accumulated by one is passed on, free and gratis, to another.
Through inheritance family titles and dignities move down the generations...Through inheritance those with little to hope for may acquire wealth beyond their wildest dreams...
without doing anything to earn it.
This, says Paul, - this is what God offers...,in the words of the old acronym for grace - God's Riches At Christ's Expense.
This is our inheritance as Christians – and today as we commemorate All Saints, we thank God for those men and women who have grasped their inheritance and have passed it on through the centuries...those whose lives help us to recognize what grace really means.

You see, when we consider the lives of the saints, what strikes me first is how very ordinary most of them were, at least at first....from that clutch of Galilean fishermen to a consumptive French nun,from a wounded soldier who spent most of his time dreaming of damsels in distress to a forthright Albanian with a genius for spotting Christ in the slums of Calcutta. None of them looked in the least remarkable – they didn't start out as super-holy beings, nor, I suspect, did any of them spend their days with heads surrounded by a heavenly glow. They didn't even aspire to outstanding holyness – but, like Paul himself, they recognized the value of the inheritance on offer and seized it with both hands.
And, as they accepted the gift of grace that God offers to all of us, they found themselves transformed.
All Saints Day....A wonderful festival – but one that could make us feel at least a little nervous...
I'm sure you can see where we're going, can't you? Ordinary people grasping the gift of God's grace??
No?
Then let Paul furnish another clue.

Again and again he addresses his letters to “the saints” in a particular community
“to all God's beloved in Rome, called to be saints”
“to those who are made holy in Christ, called to be saints”
“to all the saints in Philippi”
and as he writes, it's very clear that he's not focussing on some inner circle of specially holy people.
He's writing to the whole church – and often, to a very troubled church at that – but still he addresses “the saints”.
In other words, every one of us, brought through baptism into the family of the church, bathed in God's grace, is called to be a saint.
There's no escaping it
“to all God's beloved in Selsley and Cainscross, called to be saints”

Does that fill you with joy?
Or with panic?
Quite possibly both...
If saints are ordinary people who respond to God's love with all that is in them – then surely, it's only right to aspire to sainthood.
As Isaac Watts wrote in his wonderful Passiontide hymn
“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”

When you come down to it, anything less is probably a cop-out.

But I'm personally very aware that I give God at best a token allocation of my time and my energy. I'm congenitally fond of my own way and, to be honest, I'd prefer to not to have my life shaped by the template for holiness that Jesus presents in the beatitudes that we heard morning.
I don't want to be hated and excluded. I like being loved and secure.
I may not consider myself rich (though you may remember that when I checked my stipend in the global rich list a while ago I discovered I was in the top 5% income bracket for the world) – but I certainly don't like worrying about money.
I'd rather laugh than weep, rather eat than go hungry – and goodness, I like to be approved of.
Jesus has strong words for people like me, doesn't he.
“Woe to you” he says...
Not much hope of sainthood then.

So, is everything lost? Perhaps not.
One of the many Catherines whose stories have acted as a spur to my own faith, Catherine of Sienna wrote long ago
“We are not called to perfection but to infinite desire” while the unknown author of that wonderful medieval work “The Cloud of Unknowing” suggested
“Not what thou art, nor what thou has been, but what thou wouldst be, beholdest God in his mercy”
In other words – to recognize our shortcomings and sins isn't the end of the story. That inheritance is still there to be claimed, that overwhelming love is still on offer

Living a life of contagious holiness has never been easy...but it is at least straightforward.
Jesus doesn't mince his words, but nor does he demand that our feelings always have to match our actions...Always, in the Bible, love is a doing word – solid, practical, nothing to do with passing emotions
We probably won't feel warm and fuzzy towards those who make our lives difficult but we can try and act in their best interests.
Praying for those whom we struggle with is a huge challenge – but one that can often transform a relationship.
Letting go of material wealth is easier when we realise that if we stand with empty hands, God will fill them with treasure we can barely imagine.

That's the secret of sainthood.
To empty ourselves so that God may fill us.
For some, that process is instantaneous. They fall in love with God, and from that moment nothing else really matters.
For others, - and I'd guess the majority, - emptying ourselves, getting our own desires, our sense of self importance out the way, - is the work of a lifetime.

But we're called to be saints – and our presence here today is a sign that we want to try, at least, to take our calling seriously.

I began with Paul speaking from the heart to his children in Christ...the Ephesians.
Listen to his words again, let him speak across the centuries
“to all God's beloved in Selsley and Cainscross, called to be saints”
“I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened you may know the hope to which he has called you, what the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”

Sermon for Bible Sunday Yr C

What did you think as you listened to the news reports on Wednesday?

Perhaps the Spending Review didn't seem to affect you too much at first – but as I listened I found myself visualising all sorts of people whom I know and love, or work with in the parishes, whose lives will be substantially harder when the cuts kick in.

There are members of the education department whose jobs with children excluded from school will simply cease to exist...Elderly parishioners who will no longer get the “social care” that has made such a difference to their ability to cope in their own homes.

I say this without, I hope, making a political judgement.

Times ARE hard – but Wednesday night seemed bitterly cold, however you look at it.

However, the sun rose on Thursday morning and a few of us gathered, as we do each week, to celebrate Holy Communion.

Actually, in my head what we did, and what we do, is to celebrate Mass. This isn't because I'm trying to haul you all by the scruff of your necks into the arms of Rome – that would be a non starter for all SORTS of reasons. But I do love the way referring to our service as Mass reminds us that what we're doing is not just about forging community together, as God's children gathered at God's table...(that, after all, is the root of Communion)...nor is it simply about being thankful, (as the word Eucharist reminds us)

No...This amazing sacrament in which we experience God week by week exists as an expression of God's ongoing Mission – and of our Mission - in the world. That's what the word “Mass” means – taking its name from the final words of the deacon, in Latin, “Ite, missa est” - Go, you are sent!

On Thursday, the small congregation was uncharacteristically late, so that I was afraid for a few minutes that the service wouldn't happen...and I minded. Hugely.

It seemed important to me, in the wake of all the upheaval and anxieties of the day before, that we should celebrate together...It seemed, and still seems, as if that short space of time around the altar should make a difference in important and material ways.

Let me try to explain.

When we gather for the Eucharist, we encounter God first of all in the Word. We engage with the story of God's people in the Hebrew Scriptures, and build bridges to our own situations, our own time.

We stand to hear the Gospel as a sign that we are ready at once to go and live out its commands...Later we encounter Christ embodied in bread and wine, receive God's own life and are sent out to live it...

That's the action of the Mass, week on week on week.

Today, of course, is Bible Sunday – which gives us an extra reason to consider the impact of our engagement with the word.

That process of hearing God speak and then living his word is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. As we read the Bible daily, as it is opened up to us during worship, we will find ourselves opened up in turn, shaped, gradually transformed by these ancient books to which we must still pay full attention today.

Sometimes this process takes months, even years.

Sometimes the impact of the word will be immediate and obvious.

That's clearly the process we heard about in our gospel reading.

We can imagine Jesus reading Isaiah's words, already centuries old, and realising as he did so that they were for him...that he was the embodiment of this mission.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel...”

The words take on a life of their own as he realises that this is what he is for..

We, in our turn, are blessed to have that interplay of written word – Scripture- and living Word – Christ himself, always before us.

We know what God's word looks like in action, for we have seen it in the life and ministry of Christ, and we are called to live it too.

If we read the Bible assiduously and do nothing then the words are empty and lifeless.

If we let them work on us, if we open our lives to them, then they can become our mission statement...and it is up to us to discern how best to live it in the months ahead.

Whatever your politics, you'll surely recognise that the coming days will be dark and difficult for all too many.

Paul exhorts us to steadfastness and to hope.

Already I am receiving invitations to involve our churches in social action as never before in my lifetime.

Let us, then, be truly people of the Book and live out Isaiah's mission, perfected in Christ.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind...to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Think Twice

If it weren't so sad, it would be quite funny how long it can take me to get the message...This morning I can hear God's laughter quite clearly, as one penny at least has finally dropped - til the next time!

Let me tell you about it.

The summer after I arrived here, my parishes became part of a new Deanery, created by merging two existing one, under the leadership of gifted and enthusiastic Area Dean. Chapter suddenly became substantially larger, task groups were created ideas began to buzz, and before long we were piloting all sorts of diocesan courses and initiatives, - and then somebody said brightly

"Let's have a mission!"

Cue ambivalent feelings. Of course as a Christian and as a priest I believe passionately in mission.

It's what I'm for, whether defined as "finding out what Jesus is doing and then joining in" (ABC in "Mission Shaped Church" or (the statement adopted by one parish that I know and love)

"Cherishing and working with this community in God's name".

Those are very much about incarnation...about God's love made flesh and "moving into the neighbourhood".

But this Deanery is quite an evangelical place - so I knew that their ideas of A Mission might be rather more geared to proclamation...

As always, being me, I had to work through a good deal of the ludicrous internal conversation that goes something like

"Well, they're the real Christians...Their idea of mission must be right...We ought to do it their way....Help! Who do I know who'll be happy to give a challenging 10 minute talk that brings people to the point of committment...? What NOBODY??? Call yourself a vicar......."

It happens every time.

I tie myself in knots over the fear that those churches where evangelical certainty is the order of the day are somehow more authentic, that I'm letting God and my congregations down by my inability to do things that way...and then give myself a good shake and carry on.

Actually, as the plans unfolded, I began to feel increasingly comfortable with them. Under the badge "Think Twice", each parish in our deanery was asked to stage some sort of event to which non-church-going friends might be invited, and at which they might be inspired to "think twice" about Christianity - though not, praise the Lord, via an altar call. With plenty of time to plan, some wonderful ideas have come into being..

Debates "Think Twice about Money" "about the Environment" "about Assisted Suicide"....

exhibitions "Harvest of Talents", antiques evenings "Think Twice about what you throw away"...And many churches have used the three week mission period to hold an extra special Harvest Festival.

Church on the Hill, a community that includes many of retirement age, and a good few with a military background, chose to explore "Faith under Fire", and invited a former curate from the benefice, now Priest in Charge of Wootton Basset, and a serving army Chaplain to reflect on the impact of war on faith, and of faith on way. They spoke movingly, though they chose to take a different direction from the one I'd originally envisaged...The church was full (though very few were not at least occasional worshippers) and the curry supper provided was delicious. But (you can guess where this is going, can't you?) I went home saying to myself

"That was a really good evening...but it surely wasn't mission!"

Church in the valley was predictably less well organised (mostly because the organisation was down to me)...We made a fair stab at going OUT, as we worked with some members of the local youth and community centre to hold a "Community Harvest" there. We ate fish and chips, a few people talked about the harvest of their year (my chickens featured heavily) and we auctioned gifts to raise money to be split between the Pakistan appeal and the renovation project of the community centre. Attendance wasn't great, given the constituency - about 30 in all - but there WAS a blend of church attenders and others, and some happy conversation all evening. God barely got a mention (apart from a wonderful reading about apples, where God crept in almost unnoticed) but this felt a bit better...We were at least going where we were sent!

Finally came our attempt to "Think Twice about how you Pray"

As I sat in the candle-lit church, soaking up the peace and the plainsong, this seemed altogether good and necessary, for me at least...and those who walked the labyrinth that evening seemed to appreciate it. But there were just 2 who weren't part of the Sunday congregation, and though I've no way of knowing who, or how many might have walked the labyrinth while the church is open every day, and when I'd got home and the enfolding peace began to diminish I felt a little indignant.

Perhaps we'd opted for the wrong events (though we'd done our best to involve and consult with others, the reality was that beyond clergy and Reader there hadn't been many who'd wanted to contribute even ideas to the venture)...Perhaps everyone had good reasons for staying at home...Perhaps (mounting panic here) they didn't think that anything we offered would be worth inviting a friend to...Perhaps (internal scream) they just don't care about mission at all, have decided that "church is fine for us,- we like that sort of thing - but there is no need to worry about those who don't"

It's complicated, isn't it? Because actually, I believe that this is true. I don't, when the chips are down, believe that the ultimate destiny of anyone will be hugely affected by their appearance or not at a certain time on a Sunday morning. I am passionate about my calling to help the people of these communities to encounter God - but I'm not particular about the location of that encounter. Of course I'd like to be "leading a growing church" - partly for the feel-good factor for all of us, but also because a growing church is an exciting and energising place to be, and presents more opportunities for service than a church that is weary and disspirited....But I don't believe that on the Day of Judgement my usual Sunday attendance figures will be a compelling part of the evidence offered for or against me (actually, I'm not sure that I have that sort of picture of the Day of Judgement anyway "For lo, between my sins and their reward, I set the Passion of your Son, our Lord"). Full churches are good - but not a make or break issue.

BUT (that's a huge "but", in case you'd failed to notice) I DO think it matters if my congregations don't care that their friends may not be meeting with God. If they (the congregation) don't feel that our churches are the best place to do this, then perhaps we could talk about how we might do things differently...but if the congregations honestly don't wonder or worry, don't long for their communities to be transformed into signs of the Kingdom, then things are more than a little off course.

That's where I'd got to by the time the BCP Mass had ended yesterday morning. I'd moved from anger to sorrow (so some improvement there) and I then returned to the vicarage to "get on with things". A detailed list of tasks was, in the event, left almost untouched as a result of assorted phonecalls.Too many lives are currently unravelling in the valley community and though there are limits to how welcome "the church" might be in some of these situations, there are enough real people who like to talk to me to mean that this particular bit of the church is quite involved really.

And this morning, the penny dropped. Here and now, what I'm sent to do is to be with those who are hurting and try to show that they are loved by God...That's mission, for my context today.

I'm glad that God made me think twice...

In which God reminds me of priorities

The first part of this week, as we approached our patronal festival, was spent very much focussed on that one service - on making the church building beautiful, on ensuring that the liturgy was "right" and the service booklets accurate...All went well, in a slightly unhinged kind of way, and I believe that the impact of such a celebration will continue to resource us for a good while to come. To have seven confirmands making that significant step in faith surrounded by friends, family and at least a sprinkling of their church family too was a truly wonderful thing.

But I suspect that God thought it was time to remind me of my calling to the whole parish, not just those who gather within the church building - even for such joyous celebrations...

You see, the very next morning I was booked to take a funeral - the stuff of everyday life, of course, but with added complications in the family that has been left behind.

I also heard of great and traumatic upheavals in the life of a beloved friend.

Next day another parishioner arrived to talk about a crisis that could derail her life just when it seemed to be coming together and yesterday the phone rang with another huge and unprecedented event that has blown apart somebody's world.

Fortunately nobody expects me to wade in and fix these situations - most of them are beyond short term fixing, and for those that aren't, there are others with far greater expertise already at work. But, simply by virtue of being "the vicar" people still believe that I should be involved. They believe, even when I doubt it myself, that there is something I can bring to their situation which that situation needs. 

They may not put it that way, but they need to know that God is involved in their lives, even when those lives seem most chaotic, least directed.

And, without exception, all of them hope that I will continue to pray for them through whatever comes next.

Never mind the state of the study - the office and work of a priest is a privilege beyond words.

"This is a proper church"

my bishop teased me gently on Tuesday, noting the thurifer getting organised and the diminutive acolytes standing waiting...
Thus at a stroke he confirmed both how easily he reads me and also how much my perspectives in ministry have been shaped by his influence.

You see, in hosting my first ever confirmation service this week, I felt as if I'd reached some sort of milestone on the way to becoming a "proper vicar" of a "proper church". Remembering an earlier (and not altogether unjustified) remark of his about a certain family likeness between valley church and a jumble sale, I'd spent a silly amount of hours preparing for the service - revamping notice boards,tidying odd corners, begging and beseeching those with the power to do so to remove the mowers from the back of the church.Together with the admirable Dufflepud I had also wrestled with the order of service, til it was in a nearly perfect as we could make it (of COURSE there was one stupid line break in the wrong place - but at least no huge and obvious typos). I knew I could do nothing about the size of congregation beyond encouraging all and sundry to attend...a patronal festival on a weeknight is always going to be a bit challenging, even with a bishop thrown in.
 Finally, having absolutely used up all my worry quotient, I accepted that I'd done my best - and suddenly it was 6.15, the bishop was here, and we were "in the slips" waiting to begin.


Enter the character known to some of you as "cage man" - a resident of the parish who has such issues with drug and alcohol abuse that he no longer has much of a foothold in any sort of reality. He's quite fond of me, and thus sees valley church as his particular pet project - something which has both positive and negative implications. On Tuesday he felt that he could best serve by yelling abuse at those who were coming in to the building, while periodically coming in himself, - whereupon he became quieter, if no more rational...He engaged FabBishop, his chaplain and me in earnest if mostly unintelligible conversation, being deeply disturbed at the fact that we were robed, and taking a great deal of convincing that the bishop was the bishop at all. G., one of the confirmands, who has a commanding presence, stationed himself close by, just in case we needed a rapid response - but all was well. The congregation coped admirably with the tirades directed at them, FabBishop managed to deal with signing registers and certificates while paying proper attention to the rather random conversation and God heard my fervent prayer that "cage man" should vacate the building before we began the service...He departed having given me a large hug and told me that he did love me really. Ummmm........


After that, the service went pretty much exactly as  I'd hoped. Great hymns were sung with gusto.  We enjoyed singing the round (based on the collect) which a gifted friend had written specially for the day. FabBishop pitched his sermon just right and gave all seven candidates things to take away and reflect on....and they were duly baptised (in one case) and confirmed. At Sunday's Messy Church we had all cut out footprints and created a path from the door past the font to the altar and there was such a sense of journey, of significant steps taken, of new horizons glimpsed....I found it all quite ridiculously moving - specially when the cluster of candidates aged 12 to 62 stood at the head of the nave, carrying the candles I had just lit for them from the Paschal candle and we commissioned them to 
"Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father".


The thing was, it was a very real expression of who we are as church. Long before Lucy More launched her brilliant idea, "messy church" applied beautifully to church in the valley. Here, a guidedog in training is a regular member of the choir, and our acolytes include adults with learning difficulties from a nearby unit. Even without their help, Tuesday had its own messy moments. The charcoal refused to stay alight so that when the time came to cense the altar, even the best efforts of FabBishop failed to produce the faintest flurry of smoke...The sacristan somehow failed to expect extra communicants so the wafer box was empty when FabBishop needed to consecrate more...
Nothing was polished in any way...and above all, we started the service with "cage man", reminding us that we are here to welcome, love and serve those who really don't fit in anywhere else.


Maybe, then, we ARE a proper church...or at least getting there.
Will we arrive? 
One day "With the help of God, we will"

Sermon to celebrate the completion of the roofing project, All Saints, Selsley

It began with a few gathered around a table with bread and wine. They heard the words of Jesus. Jesus’ words changed the bread into the food of heaven and the wine into the cup of life eternal. Time passed. Those few did the same thing again. Others joined the table. And the peripatetic church grew. Over time, a large gathering put down roots. Walls rose from the earth. Beams spanned the space. Roof held back the elements. And these places were dedicated and consecrated as holy places. Within these places, there was water for baptism, a place for Jesus’ words to be remembered. And a table were the heavenly banquet would be glimpsed on earth as it is in heaven.

It happened once upon a time. It has happened through many centuries – and it happened here not quite 150 years ago. A church was built, and a community gathered to meet with God in his Word, in bread and wine and in one another – and as they gathered, they found themselves transformed, blessed by their encounter and sent out to be a blessing to others.

Today, then, is a good time to count our blessings. Sometimes we think of blessings as rather abstract, intangible things - the love of our family, our health and strength, the freedoms we enjoy. But today we're here to celebrate blessings in a far more solid form...the visible, beautiful blessing of a church restored and the still more precious blessing of a dedicated community whose efforts secured that restoration.

You see, though we've just sung “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” - under God a variety of human circumstances – outworkings of providence- have combined to make today possible.

All Saints is blessed indeed...blessed with three kinds of resources:

money from an army of generous donors from all over the world,

the love and dedication of the whole local community

and a whole battery of skills that ensured that those gifts of loving commitment would bring about all that we longed for.

The work that has led up to today is in itself an act of both gratitude and faith...The people of Selsley, looking at their beautiful building, recognised that such a gift should be treasured – and thus they expressed their gratitude to the past...But having looked back they looked forward too– forward with a vision of the church living on to serve future generations, as a place where children and grandchildren might encounter God, and emerge, blessed, to be a blessing.

That's what the concept of “stewardship” is all about...building on a vision that is solid, adding to the heritage of the past with dedication and commitment to the future, even when we have no idea of what that future might hold.

Let me share a story that expresses for me the essence of this stewardship across the centuries. When New College Oxford was founded in the late 14th century, the roof of the college hall was supported by huge oak beams, 5' long by 2' square. In other words built to last! In the nineteen century, it was discovered that the beams were infested with death-watch beetle. But where would the timber be found to replace them? Someone suggested contacting the University forester, and a deputation was duly sent to find him. Their tentative enquiry produced an unexpected response

“Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’.”

You see it turns out that when the college was built a grove of oaks was planted to replace those beams in the hall when they became beetly, because oak beams always become beetly in the end. The plan was passed down from one forester to the next – stewardship indeed!

As we celebrate the fruits of our own stewardship , perhaps I may sound just the gentlest note of caution. This is a truly beautiful building in an equally beautiful place. And if we are not careful, we could all turn this church building into something of an idol. But we must remember that it IS only a building and not the church...

The church is, of course, all of you gathered here...all who have built their lives on the rock that is Christ Jesus...all who are temples in which the Holy Spirit is pleased to dwell.

All Saints is a building dedicated and consecrated for God’s holy purposes It stands as a signpost, a reminder to this community and to the many was they pass by, that God has not left us alone to muddle along as best we can...but is completely committed to us, sharing our humanity in Jesus and calling us to fresh visions of a world turned upside down.

May this building be a touchstone and not a millstone.May the blessings made concrete here continue to nurture the spirit and mission of this church. May the walls echo with the sounds of praise. May the light from its many windows illumine our lives. May we find here shelter from the storms of life. May we here find a place to grow in wisdom and spirit.

A little sheepish

Today was one of those days at church in the valley.

You know? the ones where half your regulars are away, for all sorts of good reasons, and none of the occasionals appear, and you find yourself at the head of the nave staring down at a half empty church?

Actually, it was a bit worse than that. I found myself staring down at an acceptably occupied south side of the nave - and a north side that was completely empty except for - yup, that's right, the last 3 rows.

Now these pews are occupied by some of my very dearest parishioners....ladies whom I respect, admire and love.....people to whom I would turn without hesitation for wise advice or a sympathetic ear at any time...but I did get cross with them this morning. Pleas, both good humoured and a bit more desperate, have no effect. .

It just doesn't seem to occur to them how lonely it feels standing at the front gazing out upon row upon row of empty pews...nor does it worry them in the least that those same empty pews create a deserted waste spanning the distance between them and the altar.

All this is by the way, really - except that it meant that I started the Eucharist feeling a bit disgruntled, and with a particularly clear sense that there were people missing, that we in no way matched my vision of a "successful" church on this particular Sunday morning.

Yes. I know. I know. It's not about the numbers.......but sometimes that's hard to believe - particularly if you feel that people beyond the parish may have an unrealistically positive view of the health of your church.

So, I stood there and looked at the gaps, and felt a bit miserable, really....but hey, it's Sunday and I get to preside at the Eucharist.....and that's really what I'm for - so the miseries didn't last long.

And so it was that half way through my sermon I heard my own words as I looked down at the people scattered about my larger-than-necessary building...and I realised that actually, THIS is what the church is like....what she has always been like.

A rag-taggle collection of people of all sorts and conditions, older and younger, highly educated and with learning difficulties, happy and sad, weary and enlivened, faithful and wavering.

Ridiculous, really, that this should be Christ's Body here - that, to this little flock, it is the Father's good pleasure to give the Kingdom.

Here's what I said in the sermon (with thanks to colleagues on the PRCL lists, who kick started me in a most helpful way)

I hope you’ll forgive me if I begin by acknowledging an open secret about life in the vicarage. Despite my best endeavours, I’m one of those chaotic people who works on the principle of a place for nothing and NOTHING in its place, so that not a day goes by without an anguished cry from the study
“Has anyone seen my keys?” Or my phone?Or my diary?
On a really bad day it might be all three!
Generally, of course, they are there amid the debris and it only takes a moment for my discerning offspring to produce them triumphantly. Sometimes, though, things go missing for a longer period, during which anxiety mounts at first but then, perhaps, I abandon the search and replace the item - at which point it appears, in the most unlikely place. So, when it comes to losing things, I guess I’m something of an expert, and can empathise with the shepherd in the parable. However, one important thing to do when hearing a reading from Scripture is to decide whereabouts in the story you find yourself…it may not necessarily be in the role of the narrator. 

Let's think of the three viewpoints we're offered...

First, of course, there's the wandering sheep....After all, if she hadn't strayed, there wouldn't have been any parable. But imagine going down in history as the LOST sheep...Not the sort of image any of us would choose to cultivate.
I'd imagine she tried to justify herself.
“The grass really was greener over the hill, - until I got there - but when I reached it, it was the same scrubby mixture as before, so I kept on going...until, suddenly, I realised that I was lost. I hadn't a clue which way was home – so I went blindly onwards. If I had rested, even for a moment, I would have had to face my fear – and I simply couldn't do that.
I guess I might have gone on like that til I could go on no further – but a voice stopped me.....a voice, through the darkness, calling my name.
I almost wanted to hide – I felt so stupid, having to be rescued ..but my need got the better of my pride, so I called out in return – and then he came. The shepherd. He came to the very place where I was huddled and picked me up on his broad shoulders and carried me all the way home – and suddenly I didn't feel stupid and scared but loved and special and so very safe...safe in the arms of the shepherd.”

That sounds like a good place to end up...
I know I can recognise quite a lot of myself in that sheep – heading off on a deceptively attractive path that leads nowhere – unwilling or unable to admit my folly, and my need til it's almost too late. 
Yes, there's alot of me there.


But I can see myself among the stay-at-home flock as well, though I rather wish I couldn't.
They are the ones who have got things right, who are behaving just the way sheep are supposed to.....so I'd imagine they might feel quite indignant at the shepherd's quixotic behaviour. With 99 perfectly good sheep all lined up awaiting his attention, he's turned his back and gone off after just ONE.
What's so special about her, then?
Why does she get all the attention when we're all here, bleating in concert, minding our manners, maybe just a little smug – because, after all, we know we're safe – and we don't really feel the need to fret about those left outside.
I don't want to admit it, but there are times when I feel like this.
I look at the lives of those who, by pretty much any standard you might choose, are well and truly lost – and I'm so relieved that I'm not in a similar state, I don't honestly care if anyone takes the trouble to rescue them at all. 
Actually, with an attitude like that, maybe I'm the one that needs saving – once again.

Whereabouts are you in the story??

Then, of course, there's the shepherd. What ought he to do? Recount? Pretend he hasn't noticed that there's one missing?
The sensible thing would be to stay with the flock and just chalk up
the loss as natural wastage, just one of those things…But a shepherd is paid to care – to look after the flock – all of them.
How could he balance competing needs? Should he opt for the safe and sensible course of action – staying with the 99, closing his eyes to the gap in the corner...? that's surely tempting....but remember this is a story told by Jesus – so we are in the upside down world of God's kingdom, where one sheep is worth just as much as 99......and where a shepherd will take any risk at all for the sake of that one sheep.
Well versed in the ways of parables, we know, do we not, just who that shepherd really is.

So – if the shepherd is Jesus, we are assuredly the sheep.

Remember, I wanted you to consider where you are in the story.

If Jesus is somewhere out there on the margins, hunting for missing sheep,
where should we be?
Shouldn’t we be out there with him?
If one sheep is WITH the shepherd, - who's actually lost?
Could it be that the 99 are in the wrong place?
Surely the most important question for each of us is not
“Is Jesus with me?” but “Am I where Jesus is?” for we can trust him to lead us into new pastures, among people and situations we would never have chosen...
We can trust him to keep us from harm, and indeed to lay down his life for us.
That's what the good shepherd does.
Thanks be to God!