Out of the Ordinary..

(From a sermon based on  Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2 and John 6: 35. 41-51)

Back in the summer, the Wood family spent a happy week in Cornwall and, as usual, I used this annual escape to indulge in a good read –  a little mind-stretching Philosophy, one of  my daughter’s A level English books, and a good stash of my own.

Among these was a book called “little Exiles”. This is a novel – a work of fiction – but based on the real life experiences of some of those who, as children, were shipped out to Australia to begin a new life. In the wake of World War 1, the “Children’s Crusade” rescued huge numbers of fatherless children from destitution, and took them to children’s homes in Australia (and later Canada as well) and prepared them to become farmers and farmers’ wives.

The reality was always a fairly tough one – but in the early days, the Crusade did meet a pressing need. The Children’s Crusade was founded with a high moral purpose and a clear intention of making life infinitely better for those who passed through its homes.

Little by little, however, a more high-handed attitude crept in – those in charge of the system knew best – children were permanently separated from their remaining family so that the new start was absolute – no looking back.

Any mothers who subsequently found their circumstances improved would be frustrated in any attempt to track down their own children: letters to or from home would not be delivered, no information would be passed on. Those in charge knew what was best for all concerned and they weren’t going to be budged on that.

And by the time of the 2^nd world war, the organisation had a momentum all its own.

Rather than a moral crusade determined to rescue waifs and strays from the murkier streets of Liverpool or London, it had somehow morphed into an institution that needed children in over to maintain itself. And with fewer genuine cases of absolute poverty, those in charge became rather skilful at manoeuvring hapless mothers into handing over their offspring, when with a little help, a little time to set things in order, a normal, loving home life could have been sustained.

Somewhere along the way, the original vision was lost – and instead existing to give children real opportunities of a productive and fulfilling life, the Crusade sought to preserve its own life by securing a regular flow of “little exiles” – even if that meant destroying families in the process.

Somewhere along the way, things went rotten.

Just about the same time that I was reading this novel, we heard about the closure of “Kid’s Company” – an organisation which has done a huge amount of good work, over the past 19 years, among some of the most disadvantaged and challenging young people in our society today.

And we were left trying to make sense of confusing allegations of financial mismanagement and worse.

Has the same thing happened, as with the Children’s Crusade? Has the original vision been lost within an organisation that simply became too big? Did those in charge of Kids Company begin to see themselves as so important they didn’t need to worry about finances – believing someone else would always be there to bail them out?

At this point it’s not at all clear – and we can only hope that over the coming weeks we will be able to make more sense of it and that something may yet be rescued from the good work they have undoubtedly achieved.

We can I think take due warning from the fate of both those organisations, however.

As Christians we also belong to a very large and very complex institution – the Church.

There is no guarantee that we won’t lose our way, or become so convinced of our own importance that we lose the plot. And so we need to be sure of our reason for existing – of the core purpose that we need to cling to in order to prevent the rot setting in among us too.

As always, we do well to start with the gospel and with Christ himself.

Jesus says :“I am the bread of life – the living bread that is come down from heaven – the bread which I will give for the life of the world.”

Jesus IS clearly making a claim to be special – in John’s gospel there are a whole series of statements beginning “I am”, each time rooting people’s religious needs in him.

“I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd, I am the light of the world, I am the resurrection and the life” and so on.

And yet the purpose of that specialness is life – and specifically the life of the world.

Jesus is not drawing attention to himself in  order to be admired but to point to the Father. He reveals the divine life within his own self in order that others may receive that divine life – bread is given and shared in order to sustain those who receive it.

And so back to us:

We say “We are the Body of Christ” –at every Eucharist we claim that divine life among us.

What we then do with that claim is the key point, I think.

If we start to think that Christ’s presence among us somehow sets us apart from – and makes us better than the rest of humanity (as some Christians do), then I think we have a problem.

That way lies the self-importance and self-delusion that enabled the Children’s Crusade to justify its actions.

In this Gospel passage (John 6: 35, 41-51 ),  the main thing that the crowds grumble about – the main accusation against Jesus – is that he is just the son of Joseph: they know his parents, they know who he is.

How can he claim to be special??

And perhaps that is the key point of this Gospel – in Jesus, God’s power and glory, God’s transforming grace, are revealed in flesh and blood – the extraordinary revealed in what is ordinary.

If we are the Body of Christ – are we then called to see ourselves simply as ordinary people graced by God’s presence? Are we charged with the task of revealing God’s presence in the ordinary and everyday events of our  common life?

Is our true purpose to be like Jesus – the living bread – always giving something of ourselves in order to sustain and bring life to others – and in doing so always rediscovering the richness of God’s life within us?

If that is so, then the key to our mission lies not in grand schemes, or structures; not in  seeking power and influence for ourselves, but in simple human encounter – honest and open and ordinary.

Let me return to Cornwall, and to another discovery I made there – an extraordinary idea that I discovered in a very ordinary place.

At Port Isaac, there is a converted Methodist chapel which has in it a very fine Café.

On the wall of their toilet their hangs a certificate – which reads: “This toilet is twinned with Latrine 439, Bangladesh.”

And there was a photo of said latrine – a sort of corrugated iron shed.

At first glance I wondered if it was some kind of strange joke – but there was a website listed at the bottom so I had a look. And no – it was certainly not a joke!

Toilet Twinning, I learned, is a way of sponsoring improved hygiene in a number of developing countries. Here’s the official explanation:

For just £60, you can twin your loo with a latrine halfway around the world, in a              country of your choosing.Your smallest room becomes the proud owner of a personalised certificate, complete with a colour photo of its twin and GPS coordinates so you can look up your twin on Google Maps.

Your donation is used by Tearfund to provide clean water, basic sanitation, and hygiene education. This vital combination works  together to prevent the spread of disease.             

Children are healthier, and able to go to school; parents are well enough to work their land and grow enough food to feed their family. With better health, and more ability to earn a living, men and women discover the potential that lies within them to bring transformation. 

You may be surprised that I could visit one of the most beautiful parts of the country and return obsessed with toilets – but I do think this is an excellent idea!

And so I wondered – could we make Toilet Twinning our Charity of the month sometime soon?Could we twin both our Church toilets? Could we then persuade our school to twin their toilet block with another school – or spread the idea to other groups in the town??

It’s a very unusual subject for the church to be raising! But then perhaps BECAUSE of the very simplicity of the idea, the very ordinariness of the question of basic hygiene – we might just make a real impact on people’s consciousness here and on the lives of those in other countries who need help.

St Paul urges us to be “imitators of God”. It is our calling to reflect both the generosity of God – who gives us life — and the humanity of Jesus who embraced every aspect of life, and who offered his life for us all.

There is nothing too ordinary for God or beneath his concern – there is nothing too ordinary or beneath the dignity of the Church or her members. We say, in our mission statement, that we strive “to reveal God’s love in worship and action” – let’s do so through every possible means, the more ordinary the better.

Website: toilettwinning.org

During the second half of 2015 our Parish, along with others in Chalke Deanery, is considering how to respond to Bishop Nicholas’ three questions:

• What do you pray for?
• Whom do we serve?
• How will you grow?

Last month I reflected briefly on Prayer.  And so on to the second of our questions – “Whom do you serve?” And, like the first, this question works on more than one level.

We serve, here, in the simple sense of “providing for” our neighbours – offering company or perhaps a safe meeting place for the elderly or the young, taking Communion to the housebound, helping in our schools or community groups, running the Wilton branch of the Credit Union.

But perhaps we also serve our neighbours in a broader sense – not only chipping in with things, but helping people to recognise for themselves just how much good work is being done around them – and so renewing hope” among them.

And, more distinctively, we can serve by providing the background narrative – the “God story” which gives real meaning to the life of our communities – and to own personal and family life, for that matter.

Like Amos, we may not think of ourselves as Prophets, and yet like him we may be called by God to prophesy to his people – to see what is already happening in our community – and where there are opportunities still to be explored – and to clothe it all in a clear vision of God’s purposes and God’s kingdom.

For now, let’s keep our feet firmly on the ground and try to answer the question            directly–“Whom do we serve, here?”

Our answers to that questions, I suggest, might fall into three main strands.

Firstly, although the Bishop specifically warns us against becoming a self-interested, self-serving institution – there IS an inevitable and important element of serving each other – of serving ourselves.   And that is in worship!

Our worship depends on servers, on readers, intercessors, clergy and very often on musicians and ringers. And, before we’ve even gathered for worship – the cleaning and decoration of the church, the preparation of weekly sheets and sorting of orders of service.

With the possible exception of the bells – none of that really benefits anyone else directly – it is “self-serving” – but, if our worship is going to inspire us and give us the energy to do God’s work in this place, then it is also essential. So we serve ourselves and each other directly, when we enable our worship together, and we trust and pray that the benefits will be felt by others as a result. That’s all in strand one.

Secondly, we serve our “other” neighbours in some fairly “churchy” ways:

We lead worship and tell Bible stories in our local school.

We contribute to events such as the Annual Tree lighting – engaging a growing number of residents, at least a little, in the Christmas Story.

We open our building at busy times – such as the Cycle Race – and encourage the increasing number of visitors here to use the Prayer guide – not just the potted history.

We take seriously our commitment to the many young families who come to us through Coffee Corner or Baptisms, and those who come here to be married.

And perhaps we demonstrate our concern for others through our charitable giving – our ongoing sponsorship of Richnaider Paull, for example, and our growing awareness of our fellow Christians in South Sudan.

That all takes time and energy – and may leave us feeling slightly frazzled at times – but that kind of service is also essential if we’re serious about engaging other people in the faith we share.

Thirdly, we already serve our neighbours in a number of ways that are less overtly “churchy” – but are just as much an expression of generosity and concern for our neighbours as individuals made in God’s image.

Many church-members are volunteers at the Community Centre – with groups such as the Stroke Club or Thursday Club. Some are volunteer drivers, or trustees of charities –  local or regional.

The work of the Middle School Trust – in providing a local Youth service and improving facilities for our local schools – is starting to be more widely recognised, and we shouldn’t be too reticent about that.

A very great deal of the voluntary work in Wilton does depend on us – and our friends at the Baptist Church. Glance down the photos of this year’s Carnival procession in the Salisbury Journal: organising the winning float from Kingfisher was one of our LPAs, gathering the group of Mayors was “our own” Phil Matthews, and shepherding the Scouts and Cubs were four adults ALL of whom are members of our 10.30 congregation. Between us we ARE serving others in our community, not just ourselves.

And, although I’ve mixed up the order, what I’ve just unfolded for you is the working out of our own Mission Statement!

We say that we strive To share our faith with others — that’s about doing the churchy things “out there”.

We say that we strive To seek Christ in all  people— that’s about doing the non-churchy things in the community, because we recognise all people as precious to God and mirrors of his image.

We say that we strive To reveal God’s love in worship and action. That’s about gathering together in church and what we’ll then go on to do when we go out among our neighbours.

Is there more that we could do and should do?

Yes, of course! In any of those areas there are other things we could do, other opportunities to be explored – if only our time and our  energy were unlimited.

But, of course, they’re not, and we don’t do anyone any favours by running ourselves into the ground and having to stop doing anything at all. So instead we are forced to choose.

We have to ask ourselves, realistically, what can we do and what do we have to let go? Whom are we serving well and who is being left out? It’s never easy knowing if we’re    making the right choices – that we aren’t being blinded by our own preferences rather than other people’s needs. And there will always be other people’s expectations of us – with their own sometimes quirky ideas of what Christians should and shouldn’t be doing.

There are plenty of people around us who will take whatever we’re prepared to give, without ever putting anything back or helping themselves – how do we best serve them?

For answers, I suggest, we need to go back to “Question one” and prayer.

Jesus taught us to love our neighbours, yes, but he also taught us first to serve God: we need to know and feel that we are furthering “God’s purpose” – not our own. We need to choose the things that will point most effectively to his presence in the community – rather than just doing what we think might be useful, or reacting to other people’s demands of us. Those choices may not make us popular with some of our neighbours – those who disapprove or are envious of the attention we give to someone else.

But if our Christian service is going to mean anything –  if it is going to bear any lasting fruit – then it HAS to be rooted in that clear sense of furthering God’s purposes. And so we need to be guided primarily by him.

The Diocesan strap line just now is:  Pray Serve Grow.

For now let’s concentrate on the first two and let our common aim be to Pray, Serve, Pray some more and Serve better!

A Prayer of St Ignatius Loyola

Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve;                                                                            to give and not to count the cost;                                                                                                      to fight and not to heed the wounds;                                                                                                to toil and not to seek for rest;                                                                                                           to labour and not to ask for any reward,                                                                                       save that of knowing that we do your will.

Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul – Sunday 28^th June

(Based on Matthew 16: 13 – 19)

I’m not always a great fan of “Vicar jokes” – but I heard one the other day which I quite like – not only because it’s short, but because it possibly has a grain of truth behind it!

A vicar goes to see one of his elderly parishioners who’s not been well for some time. The signs are not good and, sensing that time may not be on her side, he decides it’s time to ask some serious questions. “My dear”, he says, “do you ever ask yourself about the hereafter?” “Oh yes,” she replies, “all the time! Three or four times a day I make my way upstairs –  and when I get to the top I stand at the window, and look out at the world spread out below me, and say to myself ‘now, Edie, what have I come up here after?!”

The grain of truth that I deduced in that all that was the tendency that we sometimes see among clergy – and the Church as a whole – to want to ask deeply serious questions, things WE think are really important, while failing to recognise that for most people there are far more immediate things on the agenda.

This morning’s gospel contains one such crucial question, from the lips of Christ himself “Who do you say that I am?” That is a serious question – a profoundly important question: the way in which we answer and shape our lives in response to that question is what defines us as Christians, and separates us out from Muslims, or Jews or any other kind of religious believer. Ultimately, ALL of us will need to answer that question for ourselves – but it’s probably not a good starting point in conversation with someone just beginning to explore our faith.

And at the end of our gospel reading there’s a really peculiar statement, addressed to Peter – “whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.”

That’s quite a claim to authority for the early church, and one that doesn’t sit too well perhaps in our age.                 There’s certainly no presumption today that the Church has a God-given right to be heard – still less that her teaching is to be accepted without question.

Pope Francis – who generally has a good treatment in the media and is generally well liked I think – is only presented as an authority figure when he says things that newspaper editors already agree with. When his words are more controversial, or challenging to the status quo, he’s suddenly “out of touch” and backward.  And so even the Pope can’t command real “authority” in the direct sense of guiding and changing the general mindset.

But if it’s true that people do not want to be told how to live their lives, I think it’s also true that very many of them DO want to be shown how to cope with life – and that they are more than ready to allow the Church to help them with that.

Again it’s a question of starting places – recognising that people who want to make sense of  the “here and now” will see little relevance in questions about the “here after”!

Within the last 48 hours, there’ve been two large gatherings here – one the funeral of a woman in her 80s, who lived at one side of the crossroads, the other the wedding of a woman in her twenties, who has a business just the other side of the crossroads.

In both cases there were conversations with friends and family of those involved: memories of other family events here, and a real sense of connection. Fascination with the architecture, or the decoration or the organ playing or the sense of history.

You’ll have noticed that those conversations neatly skirted round the subject of God, or faith, – things which were confined to the services themselves – and I honestly don’t know how much of that any of those individuals took away with them.

As is so often the case, I can only be glad that they wanted to come – that they were prepared to listed – and then to trust that God can go on nurturing whatever stirrings of the soul may have been initiated here.

I referred obliquely to that process on Wednesday as our Deanery Meeting launched into a six month project of “Renewing Hope”.

Our own PCC chose to celebrate three aspects of our mission here as signs of hope.

Firstly, the work of the Middle School Trust – which, through targeted giving to our communities, enables us to signal that ours is a life-affirming faith, that we are interested in the fullness of live, not just in questions of personal morality or religious theory.

Secondly, the success of the Coffee Corner in attracting a considerable number of young mothers and toddlers over the course of the year. And also the challenge that has now arisen from that, of how we follow on and provide something for those mums who’ve returned to work, or whose children have moved on to nursery and school – but who desperately want a gentle way to stay involved here.

Thirdly, our working jointly with other Christians – specifically the “open the Book Group” and the increasingly Nativity at the Town Tree lighting ceremony. There we celebrated not only the ability of the churches to work as one and to be SEEN to do so, but the fact that many other people clearly do want to hear the stories of the Bible.  On their own terms, perhaps – where they can be safely anonymous and with no commitment to anything yet – but it seems they do want to hear and be reminded of something older, something more than just the here and now.

In common with all the parishes of the Diocese, we’re being asked to consider three questions posed by Bishop Nicholas.  And, again, we may think of this as yet another clergyman asking serious questions when we have more immediate things on the agenda!

But let’s give him, and them a chance – and see where it might encourage us to sharpen our thinking and deepen our faith.

The Bishop asks us:

What do you pray for?

Whom do you serve?

How will you grow?

Over the next few months I’ll be exploring those questions with you in various ways. And we’ll see where they lead us in our thinking and in our attempts to tell and live out the Christian story here in Wilton, and so to give new meaning to other people’s lives.

We need first to ask the serious questions of ourselves – and not only the Bishop’s three questions, I suspect, but others that arise from them – before we can learn to recognise the questions other people are asking, or be confident in guiding them to a satisfactory answer.

And if we can all engage in this process of questioning our own thinking, and working out what we can do next, then, God willing, we will find ourselves with a renewed sense of hope and purpose in doing God’s work here, and more able to inspire and renew hope among our neighbours.

It’s through that prayerful thinking, and loving service that we, and the Church as a whole, can hope to show true relevance to people’s daily lives and to speak with TRUE authority.

Over the past few days, I’ve spent more time than usual in here, and I happened to notice that our Visitors book is almost full – itself perhaps a good sign of hope!

As always I was intrigued to see what people had written there – had our VISITORS noticed just fine architecture, or might they have sensed something more than just beauty or history?

This week, I have two favourites: from Charles and Joanne Hill of Folkstone, we had this “A striking church and a living community”. And Paul and Calista Simmons, from Brisbane, wrote only 2 words “Just lovely!”

If only all those who gather here for our various services could go home with those same sentiments – a striking church, a living community, and all just lovely – then we could be confident that this church will grow.

Let’s hope and pray for the gifts to make that happen!

17 May –  The Ascension   It feels slightly odd to be in a post-Election Britain – after weeks of anticipation and all the predictions and jockeying for position in a hypothetical “new-look House of Commons” a rather different reality is kicking in. And those surprise results, a little over a week ago, resulted in a series of “farewell speeches” every bit as intense as Jesus’ words to his disciples – although, in the case of one Party Leader the “second coming” seems to have happened rather quickly! And, while the new government takes its first steps, among those who failed to win power, there has been some very public squabbling over “what went wrong”. Despite surprising many in his party and others by the strength of his presentation in recent weeks, Ed milliband is now accused of misreading the mood music – of taking his party too far to the Left of British politics – and ignoring the aspiring middle classes. And Nick Clegg – the only Liberal leader to bring his party into power for decades – is accused of putting the national interest ahead of his own party. You might think that was a good thing to have done – but the price he paid for it is clearly a high one. And for the Green Party and UKIP – it’s other people who are to blame – or rather the system in which we operate. If only we had Proportional Representation, they can say, the make-up of the House of Commons would look very different. I’m not going to go any further with all of that, you may be relieved to know! It’s just that, with Ascension Day falling a week after the election, I found myself making an analogy between departing leaders and comparing the way that WE in the Church “do business” when things aren’t going so well. There are similarities with the political parties I think. Faced with declining church attendance we may well blame other people – or blame the “system” in which we operate. “If only we had stood firm in the 1980s and resisted pressure to relax Sunday trading rules: there are just too many alternatives to Church on a Sunday morning these days.” The logic of that argument – which I do hear surprisingly often – is that If only life were more boring, more people would be inclined to come to Church.  And yet, I’m not quite convinced of that. There are plenty of people who don’t shop or play sports on Sunday – but who enjoy reading the paper over a leisurely breakfast, or spending time in the garden or just time with their families. It would take more than a change in trading laws to bring them to church. We grumble about the media – the way that Christianity is portrayed, or more often ignored. But actually it’s what the churches do “on the ground” – the face to face contact with real people in our own local communities – that really has an impact on the way that the Church’s message is received. And we DO argue about “strategy” – we DO squabble -just as publicly as the disappointed politicians who’ve filled the news broadcasts this week. We blame ourselves – or perhaps more accurately other church-members – for the fact that people are not buying into our message. And there are a variety of arguments in circulation: “We should never had abandoned the Prayer Book” some say – “that was the beginning of the slippery slope..” “We’re too old fashioned” others say – “we’ve just been left behind. The Church’s teaching is now irrelevant”. And there is of a course a very strong voice – from those who are very modern in style but very conservative in social teaching – who would WANT us to set ourselves apart from everyone else… to see ourselves as “the saved” and anyone who won’t listen as lost and without hope. It’s that same internal wrangling that lies behind the story which has appeared in our local paper recently – of Christ Church, Salisbury – a congregation that calls itself Anglican, but not part of the Church of England, meeting in a local school and completely against the wishes of the local Bishop.  For those Christians, the Church of England has strayed too far from traditional teaching. A different strategy is needed in order to bring people in. To me, this all feels a very long way from the words of Jesus to his disciples as he prepares to leave them behind. Yes there ARE a few broad statements elsewhere that sound like strategy – “Go, make disciples of all nations”, for example. But the words we heard today are very much about unity of purpose and unity with God – not about tactics for effective communication or internal church politics. Jesus prays to the Father that, as he is no longer in the world, the Father will protect his disciples “that they may be one, as we are one” (as Jesus and the Father are one).  I spent much of Ascension Day, last Thursday, in the company of Revd Nadim Nassar – the only Syrian ordained in the Church of England.  And he challenged us very firmly about how we understand authority in the Church – and argued that many of our divisions are caused by too much concentration on the Bible and our differing interpretations of what the texts mean. Christians should not behave as if they are “people of the Book”, he said. That’s for Muslims: for them there is no alternative but to focus on the Koran – Mohammed is a dead prophet – buried and gone, so all they can do is preserve the words he delivered to them and try to be faithful to what they read. But we don’t believe Jesus is just another dead prophet like Mohammed, he said. At the heart of our faith is the belief that Jesus is risen, ascended, glorified – the living Lord. And HE is the ultimate source of authority for us. Yes of course Scripture is there to help us understand – to make sense of who we are and to make sense of what God is like – that’s why we parade the Gospel stories with such ceremony each Sunday! But the Scriptures are words – not God himself. Our leader, Jesus, HAS gone from our sight, but has not left us to struggle alone. At least once on a Sunday I in church and and say “The Lord is here” and the congregation respond ”His Spirit is with us”: It’s that dynamic presence – of Christ here with us –  that can nudge us in the right direction, in our thinking and in the way we live out what we believe. Of course there are dangers in leaving behind the apparent security of clear biblical teaching – how do we KNOW what Christ wants if it’s not written on the page? Faith IS a risky business – we will get it wrong sometimes – but the alternative of stagnation and irrelevance is hardly more attractive. The important thing here is that we rely on each other as well – we help to shape each other’s understanding by sharing our experiences and perhaps also our doubts and confusion. St Paul – speaking of Christian Wisdom (1 Cor. 2) – reminds us that “We have the mind of Christ”: importantly he says not “I have” but “we have” the mind of Christ. It’s when 2 or 3 are gathered together in his name – that Christ promises to be among them. For us then – community is at least as important as what we read and learn by ourselves. Our leader is not just an historical figure from another age, he is present in all of human history and beyond. Our faith is not about withdrawing from the world, to some golden age of the past, it is about transforming the world – sharing in Christ’s ongoing work of salvation. As Jesus ascends to the Father, he leaves his disciples the task of witnessing to the unity of God himself – Father Son and Holy Spirit – and to their own unity in him. Today we are called to that same task, in a world which is anything but united and where many do not know how to recognise Christ. And so, as we commemorate Christ’s ascension, let us pray for all who call themselves Christians that we may be empowered by His Spirit to rise to the challenge –  with open minds and generous hearts.

4 May – Saints and Martyrs of the English Reformation

If you were to take a guided tour of central Oxford, it’s likely that you would be shown the Martyrs memorial – an ornate stone structure, in mediaeval style, commemorating 3 martyrs of the English reformation – whom the Church of England commemorates tomorrow. And if you were unlucky, you would have as your guide a slightly bored student with a sense of humour.

Alongside the memorial is a set of steps leading down beneath the pavement – and there is a long tradition of trying to persuade the more gullible tourists that the martyrs memorial is in fact the spire of Oxford’s magnificent underground cathedral – and that, for a small fee, you can enter the exquisite marble halls beneath….  Anyone who actually did go down and put 50p in the turnstiles would actually find themselves in the tiled splendour of the Gents toilets!

Around the corner, in Broad Street, a black cross is marked on the ground– looking for all the world like a treasure spot on a pirate’s map. In reality it marks the place where those same three martyrs, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Bishops Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake – having been condemned of heresy during the short reign of Queen Mary.

An altogether more stark reminder, then, that the kind of religious intolerance we see today – in the brutal antics of ISIS and other extremists – is actually part of our own past. And that, if we are not alert to the dangers, those same powerful emotions – that self-righteous condemnation of others – can surface and take hold rather too easily.

Given the struggles of our own past – the turbulent relationship between Church and State and the changing religious affiliation of successive monarchs – and the shifting tides of fundamentalism today, we can perhaps see why some people prefer to turn their backs on religion altogether. It was perhaps those same dangers that led to Alistair Campbell’s declaration that the Blair administration didn’t “do God”. Safer, perhaps, to keep religious belief as a private matter – and to let public policy be played out in a neutral, secular arena.

And yet, we can’t really go along with that.

The imagery of the Vine in this morning’s Gospel, [John 15] reminds us that it is futile to attempt to work things out in isolation from God. “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself – neither can you unless you abide in me”, says Jesus.

If we are cut off from the life-source – we can’t continue to flourish. Like cut flowers – we might look splendid for a short while – but the end result is inevitable decay.

Perhaps that’s a good thought to have in mind as we sift through the range of promises being made to us just now – in the run up to Thursday’s General Election. Those promises are made in the hope of political success – and they have little hope of becoming reality, or of promoting the common good, unless rooted in the even greater scheme of God’s purposes.

As we ponder where to cast our vote – we need to be looking beyond particular proposals, particular promises, to the greater narrative that lies behind them.

In my own thinking at present, I seem to keep coming back to narratives – to the idea of stories.

And stories are powerful things – they help to shape our sense of identity – they help to build a sense of belonging. And those things are important both in our national life, and in our churches.

The stories we tell can bring people together – or they can further entrench divisions between us.

In the recent referendum on Scottish independence – there were two very different stories being told –  the “Braveheart” vision of Salmond and Sturgess and the neo-Churchillian, one-nation rhetoric of David Cameron. Two different version of reality –                         each trying to effect a different outcome – and those tensions are still very much alive as we head to the polls this week.

And, as we approach Friday’s 70^th anniversary of V.E. day – celebrating peace in Europe – we are being offered some very different accounts of our own relationship to the rest of the European Union.

Again we need to be alert to the motives of those who make those differing claims – and weigh up which route seems to reflect our Gospel values, rather than political expediency.

The most convincing of story-tellers are not necessarily reflecting the truth – as any Oxford tourist will tell you after they’ve tried to visit the underground cathedral!

So much for politics, and back to the saints and martyrs.

The particular story that we tell of our Christian faith – can be just as enriching, or just as destructive as any other.

Oxford’s Martyrs memorial was built in the 1840s – partly in reaction to the rise of Catholic tendencies within the Church of England – especially in Oxford itself. So – the memory of the reformers was brought back to mind as an attempt to nudge things in a more Protestant direction again. The inscription there praises Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer as “bearing witness to the sacred truths they maintained against the errors of the Church of Rome”

No lack of clarity in the sentiments behind that then!

Equally, it’s unlikely that many in the Church of England will give much thought to English Catholic martyrs like Edmund Campion – a faithful Jesuit priest brutally executed at Tyburn – a quarter of a century after Cranmer.

And yet as recently as 1970, Campion was beatified – declared a saint by Pope Paul VI – and to many English Roman Catholics that tradition of catholic martyrs, is still a powerful one. And in that particular tale, WE are the baddies.

I can remember, as a teenager, belting out the hymn “Faith of our fathers in distress” – recalling the persecution of the Catholic minority and ending with the repeated lines “we will be true to thee till death, we will be true to thee till death”.

It’s all very powerful stuff – and just as tribal as any nationalist political campaign.

And while that may indeed build a strong sense of unity within a particular congregation – it also reinforces the barriers                      that separate one denomination from another. And so the church’s story becomes a negative one.

If we are going to deserve a voice in public life, and if we are going to obey Christ’s commands of loving service, then we need a common story which reflects the image of the Vine tree – with the several branches of the church securely rooted in the one stem. Otherwise, if we insist on cutting ourselves off, we can only wither and die.

Each year, on 4^th May, our church’s calendar very deliberately urges us to commemorate the “saints and martyrs of the Reformation” – not Protestant martyrs or Catholic martyrs – but all whose determination and faith was tested in that turbulent period of our national life.

Their personal stories were vastly different, they opposed much of what their accusers stood for – and yet, they all died for love of the same Lord – in imitation of Christ – who himself died for all of us.

In that reality lies the prologue of a new story of true Christian unity. It’s that story which our nation and our churches need to hear.

EASTER DAY 2015

There are three key words, or themes, that seem to jump out from this morning’s readings: “waiting”, “Amazement” and “All” (in the sense of everyone and everything).

“This is the Lord for whom we have waited”, says the prophet in our first reading. For centuries the Hebrew people have longed for the living God – have found him, have then taken a wrong turning or two and lost him again – only to look back and recognise that he has been there all along – patiently waiting for them, with the same longing.

And so for us, “waiting” is part of the search for God’s presence. If someone challenged us to prove that God is real and here now – we simply couldn’t do it. We have to learn to recognise the signs of God’s life and love around us, and that takes time.  Just as human relationships need time and attention to develop – so our awareness of God takes patience and persistence.

Very often for us too, it’s only as we look back over our lives – or at a particular chain of events – that we recognise that God has been with us, steering us through.

It’s in our Gospel reading that we read about an overwhelming sense of amazement – as the women make their way to the tomb. The amazement they feel is coupled with terror – not because they are horrified to find the tomb empty, but because they can’t take in the enormity of what has happened. Presumably that’s why, in this version, we’re told that the women went away and “said nothing to anyone.”   How could they describe what they’d seen?

That kind of reaction is not really that strange to us: we’re probably all familiar with the clips from old news reels from the time of Elvis Presley, or the Beetles on tour – with rows and rows of women (mostly young) who are screaming uncontrollably – not because they were terrified, but because the experience of being close to their idols was just too overwhelming.

And that kind of reaction is not exclusive to the fairer sex, either: despite the stereotype, teenage boys can actually be highly articulate – especially when they’re feeling hard done by! But should the girl of their dreams enter the room and somehow the power of speech seems to just evaporate into a meaningless babble, or a blushing silence.

Again, the sense of wonder seems to run too deep for words.

In a more profound sense, we can experience those same sensations in our own fleeting direct encounters with God. Such moments can fill us with such intense joy that we can hardly make sense of it – let alone explain it to someone else.

And therein lies a problem!

Our first two readings tell us that God is Lord of all nations and all peoples.  And if the good news of Easter is for everyone – then someone has to tell other people about it.

Evidently, those first visitors to the empty tomb DID in the end find a way to speak about what they’d found – otherwise WE wouldn’t be here two millennia later, reading about them!

And if, for us, God is a reality too amazing, too overwhelming to put into words – then our best hope of pointing other people towards him is by demonstrating the change God has made, and continues to bring about in us.

Sadly, we know that when people think about the Church – it’s not all good: there’s too often a hint of self-interest or a whiff of hypocrisy that somehow undermines the message of hope.

And it’s no use blaming those other people – the onlookers – for noticing what’s there before them.  It’s down to us to keep working at making the changes God calls from us.

If we are honest – we will recognise within the church both the loving service of faithful followers of Jesus AND also those elements of self-interest and apparent hypocrisy that draw such criticism.

In reality, all of us are busy trying to be “faithful, loving followers of Christ”, but – being human – we will sometimes lapse into selfish, hypocritical ways.

The key thing is that we keep on trying – assured that there is forgiveness in Christ’s name, no matter how many wrong turns we make along the way.

And it’s in the progress that we make – in learning to serve both God and our neighbours – that we demonstrate the reality of God’s presence within us, among us and around us.

The story of Easter is one of waiting for joy, of being amazed by joy and of sharing that joy with anyone who will listen.

May that joy be ours this Easter – may it overcome and transform us – and may it strengthen us to proclaim the good news of the living God.    Amen.

[Readings: Isaiah 25: 6-9, Acts 10: 34 – 43, Mark 16: 1-8]

PASSION SUNDAY – 22 March 2015

Back at the beginning of Lent, I invited you to prepare for Holy Week and Easter by going back and looking at the four gospels – at how the four writers summarize the events of Jesus’ last days on earth.

I’m not sure how you’ve got on with that – or IF you have got on with it, but in any case I have a confession to make: with a slight pang of guilt I reached last Thursday and realized I hadn’t actually done it myself – but I have now!

And I do recommend it. As you re-read what we think of as familiar passages of scripture – there’s a compelling sense of certain ideas, different ideas, leaping out from the page. And reading all four gospels in close succession gives a very clear sense of the differences – the tweaking of details, the different emphases that the four writers give. Even with something as simple as the entry into Jerusalem – that we will next week on Palm Sunday – the four gospel writers can’t even agree on the number of donkeys involved, or whether they’re tame or not.  And when we read the accounts of Jesus’ death – only Luke is topical enough to mention a total “eclipse of the sun”.

And so one result of this exercise – of reading the 4 gospel accounts together – is to remind us that the Bible is not a history book. It IS a record of God’s dealings with his people throughout history – but an historical fact file it is not.

As we attempt to mark Holy Week and Easter in a meaningful and compelling way, then, perhaps we need to be clear that we are not simply trying to stage a re-enactment – to recreate the events of Holy Week “as they really happened” – because, actually, it’s rather difficult to say exactly what happened when.

What we are invited to do – what the gospel writers have attempted to do – is to enter into the story of our faith: to sense the power of the disciples’ raw emotions, the power and mystery of Jesus’ own words and actions that are reflected in those accounts and then, in the rich symbolism of the Church’s liturgy, to encounter that same strength of emotion and that same compelling mystery for ourselves.

This morning I want to focus on the two key events – the Last supper and the discovery of the Empty Tomb. As with much else – there is disagreement among the gospel writers about the nature of the Last Supper:  Matthew and Luke agree with Mark – the earliest Gospel writer – that the disciples were gathered to celebrate the Passover. John, on the other hand, says very clearly that this was “before the Passover”. What is clear is that Jesus knew this last meal was coming and would be significant – in busy Jerusalem, bursting with pilgrims, the room would presumably need to have been organised in advance.

There is a common sense of scandal in all four gospels – that Jesus could be betrayed by one of those sharing the meal with him – a serious breach of hospitality.  And in John’s gospel, this upset is taken further as Jesus leaves the table and starts to wash the disciples’ feet – something the slaves would normally do before the meal began. And having overturned expectations in this way, he then tells the disciples that’s the way they should now behave – setting as his legacy to them a model of service, not power.

And then, of course, we musn’t underestimate the strangeness – the horror even – of Jesus’ command to eat and drink bread and wine. “This is my body” – “this is my blood”. That’s pretty weird on any level – it’s especially weird for Orthodox Jews who don’t consume animal blood, let alone human blood. We can’t really be surprised that the earliest Christians were sometimes accused by their Pagan neighbours of being cannibals. Taken literally, Jesus’ words are rather odd. And yet – that is part of his legacy “do this to remember me” – and yes, we are in the middle of doing just that. But let Maundy Thursday remind us of the strangeness of what we do – to see it with fresh eyes, and perhaps to understand what our neighbours struggle to comprehend.

However we understand the Eucharist – what we share with all Christians is a conviction that we are responding to Christ himself and that, by doing so, we are brought closer to him: that it is his new life that now pulses through our veins with every heartbeat, as we are gradually remade in his image. Quite a bit to reflect on and in our celebration of Maundy Thursday then. And we’ll attempt to do that by meeting in a strange place. Rather than celebrating the Eucharist in church, we meet in the Community Centre for a shared meal – and then to share Communion in a way that will feel “different” and strange – and that I hope will give us a sense of the emotional journey onto which the disciples were pitched by Jesus’ actions.

Jumping ahead now, in the gospel accounts of Easter morning, we are told variously that those who went to the tomb did so “late in the night after the Sabbath”(Matthew),  “in the deep dawn”(Luke),  “on the first day, while it was still dark” (John)  and “extremely early [when] the sun had already risen” (Mark). Strange that I had THAT final image in my mind all along – but many of you (who completed the Easter survey) had latched onto Mathew’s night-time account. That again shows the value of reading all four versions!

And so to our Easter celebrations. This year we’re going to try to capture the powerful sense of finding light in the darkness – starting our First Eucharist at Midnight as tip from Easter Eve to Easter Morning.

The final hour of Holy Saturday will be marked with a vigil – readings and silence, over on the Community Centre, which will provide us with a warm gathering point for the midnight service. At midnight, in the darkness behind the church, the Easter Beacon will be lit – as the light of the Resurrection breaks through. From that blazing new fire, a single flame is carried round to the main doors, where the new Paschal Candle is blessed and lit. And as we enter the church, still in darkness, the symbolism of that single light piercing the gloom will be made even more profound by the contrasting darkness of night.

Gradually then, as the church is filled with more and more light and the first Alleluias are sounded, we move on to take bread and wine again and perhaps understand more deeply what Jesus was asking of his disciples at the Last Supper – and feel more deeply our share in the new life that was revealed to the disciples that first Easter morning.

And as we emerge once more, into the darkness of the early morning, perhaps we might be reminded that ours is a Gospel of Hope, not complacent self-assurance. We might have a renewed sense of the light of truth shining in a world that is still far from perfect, where Christ’s example of service to others is still as strong as ever if the gloom of sin and suffering is to be dispersed.

I realize that the midnight service, in particular, is not going to be possible for everyone. And there will, of course, be other celebrations of the Eucharist on Easter morning – in all of our churches.

But if you possibly can – do come and try both of these new ventures – on Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday – not only to refresh your own understanding but also to help others here in experiencing Easter afresh.

A final thought, and a look back to today’s gospel. (John 12: 20-33)

And, in John’s gospel, this episode really is the beginning of the end: Here, among the hoards arriving in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, are some Greek-speaking Jews, who approach the disciples asking to see Jesus.

Their earnest desire to see him leads on to Jesus’ own reference to “The Son of Man” who must be “lifted up” –   and, in the passage which follows, their struggling to make sense of his words.

And as Jesus speaks of the ear of grain that can only bear fruit if it first falls into the earth and dies, we are in no doubt that he is talking of himself and of what lies ahead for him.

And I think the key point to keep in mind when we do finally enter Holy Week is this.

No matter what shape our services take, no matter which ones most of us get to,  our journey through Holy Week should be filled with that same longing to see Jesus – to encounter the living God in everything we do.  Our celebration of Easter should be filled with the knowledge that, having died once and for all, Christ now lives for ever and the joyful expectation that he can and will bear much fruit in us.

As we prepared for Lent, I asked our regular worshippers at Wilton to think about how we usually mark Holy Week and Easter and to think afresh about the Biblical events and experiences that we are trying to capture in our services, to see if might be able to do so more effectively.

Thanks to the 40+ who took the time to write down their thoughts for me: alongside the things I’d more or less expected there were some fresh insights that I wouldn’t have thought of. Inevitably, it’s going to be quite a challenge finding a sensible course between some very different view-points! What emerged, however, were some broad themes and ideas that I hope will help steer us towards something more “do-able” for some and more profound for all of us.

It seems to me that there are five main strands within the answers you have given: Devotions, Fellowship, Walking together, Children, and Music and meditation.

Firstly then, devotions: A number of you would like to see Stations of the Cross and “Experience Easter” as clergy-led groups activities. And, by contrast, a number of people mentioned the creation of a Prayer Labyrinth and other opportunities for private devotions. The notion of Contemplative Prayer – of simply “being still in the presence of the Lord” – also has an appeal to some of you, if we can find the right time.

Secondly – Fellowship – and in particular eating together. Some kind of shared meal on Maundy Thursday was suggested by a surprising number of you. It was further suggested that this might include some of the elements of the usual service, such as the washing of feet to recreate Jesus’ actions, and could possibly end with a simple Eucharist. The appeal of walking together appeared in various guises: to those of you who made the Midnight Pilgrimage last year, I have to say that 3 of you really enjoyed that experience and wish to repeat it – whereas for the rest of the group, once was enough – AND, in some case, MORE than enough! The desire to do something like it is clearly expressed, however, and somewhere within the Easter season we might a more rewarding route and time to do this..

And for those who can’t walk far – there’s the indoor pilgrimage of Experience Easter. Other powerful comments related to both the Palm Sunday procession and also to the Good Friday Procession of Witness – and meeting together with the Baptist congregation at both. There’s clearly a strong sense among many of us that, in stepping out into the public eye – witnessing to our faith and risking whatever reaction we provoke – we in some way identify ourselves with both the loyalty of those who stood by Jesus to the bitter end and also the inadequacy of those who fled. Lots of things kicking around there – and plenty of food for thought.

On to children – and how we make some sense of it all for them. We DO already in fact attempt to relate the Easter story not only the 130 something children at our school but also the Beavers and Cubs. But what about families coming together? Although Palm Sunday last year was rather more “inclusive” than previously – with its focus on joyful expectation, rather than the gloom of the long Passion Gospel – there was really nothing else geared towards parents and children together, until Easter Sunday morning. Room for improvement there I think.

Music and meditation are intertwined – not least because the one service that drew almost universal appreciation was the “Last Hour” on Good Friday afternoon. Here it was the combination of good music, sung by the choir, of Scripture and the opportunity to reflect and to feel close to God that really helped a number of you: I have heard loud and clear that the previous format – with the veneration of the cross – was not what many of you wanted to see: and in any case, the Cathedral can do that so much better! So why compete when we can offer something different?

All those elements need to find their way into what we do this Eastertide – and I’m already working towards what I hope will be a better shape for our services and devotions this year. Of course I – and you – will be relying on other people to make it all work – choir/servers/readers/ringers/clergy/sidespersons and I need to have a number of conversations before I can gauge quite what will be possible. A definitive overview of services and events will be published mid-March. I deliberately called this survey “Journey towards Easter” – so that we could see it as a preparation for Easter, not just a reciting of personal preferences. And of course that journey has begun.

Lent, we heard on Ash Wednesday, is a season of self -denial and self-discovery, as we recall Jesus’ time in the wilderness. And, as we engage with that process of preparation, it’s worth taking a moment to think back to this gospel from the First Sunday in Lent – and Jesus’ baptism. As he comes up out of the water, we read, “the Spirit immediately drives him out into the wilderness.” That’s a strong phrase – to be driven out. And the original Greek verb εκβαλλει is even less delicate – suggesting him being thrown out, or hurled into the wilderness. We’re more used to thinking of the Spirit as “the comforter” – one who sustains us in our weakness – not one who drives us into the hard places. So perhaps there’s an important point being made – that sometimes, in order to understand ourselves – and in order to understand God’s will for us – we DO need to be taken away from what we know – certainly from what we know we like or think we depend on.

As we journey towards Easter then, perhaps we could make good use of the time to ask ourselves what we really do know – about the events of Easter and how they inform our faith. How well do we understand what it is we are trying to re-create and experience in our church services? How well do we really know the gospel accounts – and how much do we only half-know from hymns or Sunday school stories of long ago? Could we all make time to look again at the gospels this Lent – to re-read the four different accounts of the events leading up to Easter? And perhaps to make a note of where the different gospel writers agree or disagree with each other – then to see if we can understand what they were getting at. We might also begin to get a better picture of the human beings who marked those final days and weeks with Jesus – and so begin to understand what they can teach us about him and about ourselves.

And if we can find time to do that – to read, think and pray our way through the four Gospel accounts – then I hope and pray that, whatever schedule of services we end up with, we will enter Holy week with a deeper understanding, with greater expectations and with a greater sense of journeying together –  and that the joy of Easter will then shine in and through us all.

At the end of last year, I asked the PCC to look at ways of refreshing our worship, including the range of music that we sing.

And we began to consider afresh just what our own “expectations” are of our shared worship.

Do we expect to encounter the living God in all his wonder?

Or are we more focussed on meeting our neighbours?

(Both are important but they are not alternatives!)

Do we expect to be challenged and inspired by worship?

Or are we happy just to settle for the comforting and “safe”?

I expressed my own feeling that our worship was in danger of becoming rather “stale” – due in no small part to the rather restrictive nature of our hymn books. And while it may seem an odd to think about changing hymn books at a time when money is tight, unless we are going to settle for the safe and uninspiring there is a pressing need for something better.

So what exactly is the problem? On the one hand our hymn books contain only a narrow choice of hymns—new or old –  with only about half the number of hymns that most other books include. IT was impossible, for example, to get through the four Sundays of Advent   without repeating at least a couple of hymns —there simply aren’t enough to choose from.

Secondly, having been published more than a quarter of a century ago, “Songs of Praise” contains nothing from the wealth of new hymns that have appeared during that time.

Consequently, not only are we failing to benefit from the fresh inspiration that has produced those hymns, but we are becoming further and further removed from what most Anglican congregations around us would regard as “normal”!

Of course, all of us have our favourites – hymns that speak deeply to us in various ways – and we certainly don’t want to lose those.

But, to confine ourselves only to a narrow pool of the safe and familiar IS to risk growing stale and predictable in our worship – instead of   expecting to be inspired by it to live out the “good news” we are called to proclaim.

Just as the combination of people who make up our congregations has changed beyond recognition over the past few years, so our worship needs to keep evolving — to recognise the arrival of new experience and new perspectives among us and to enable all of us to feel caught up in our “common worship”.

In our singing, as with everything else, we need to look beyond what we already have and refuse to settle for less that the best we can offer.

St Catherine’s have already benefitted from a “new” set of hymn books – donated by the congregation of St Mary’s Gillingham, who have recently replaced theirs.

At the Parish Church we would hope to be able to purchase a set of “Ancient and Modern” – the latest (2014) version of the classic Anglican hymn book that many of us remember in the dark purple 1950s version!

Our aim is to raise sufficient funds to purchase a whole set in one batch so that we will benefit from a 25% discount on the total.

The newest tome includes many traditional hymns that are not in our current book, as well as newer music – new words to familiar tunes, Taizé chants as well as completely new compositions.

Having risen to the huge challenge of last year’s Sound Appeal this new goal (a little under £3000 would be needed) seems relatively modest. If we can do it, however, the impact on our worship would be just as great.

The PCC have suggested a number of events targeted at raising these specific funds with the aim of having them in place for this year’s Harvest.  Let’s see what we can do!