This sanctuary of my soul

Posted on 26/10/2014 by Rambling Rector

We were in Hugh’s truck on the way from San Antonio to Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country. A day out. Muzak was oozing from the speakers. Quite without warning Mozart’s C minor Mass Kyrie began. I can’t quite find words for the effect it had on me at that time in that place, but it was something like being jolted by an electric shock in an instant into the fullest sort of life imaginable.

‘This is the best thing he ever wrote.’

‘They used it in A Very British Coup, with Ray McAnally.’

‘There’s a bit in the Sanctus that quite bowls me over.’

‘Doesn’t it all?’

University Methodist Church, San Antonio

The following Sunday we were at the local church. Plush, wealthy, comfortable, striking modern stained glass, acolytes in albs, candles to gladden my heart (yes, Methodist candles!), a lovely two-manual mechanical action organ by Rosales of Los Angeles—and they let me play it. The church orchestra featured. I must say, though, it was rather like a diet of honey both musically and theologically. Not soporific exactly, but certainly tending to make me wonder if I was in Stepford.

The contrast between the two musical experiences was remarkable. Mozart electrifies, muzak stupefies. Mozart—that Mozart in particular—exposes in an instant that central vacuum in my being that longs to be embraced. It tears apart the layers of ‘show’ that collect like dental plaque. It brings home to me, yet again, that all ‘this’ is vanity. It explains, yet again, why my best sermons are written under the influence of music, for it’s not long before whatever comes through the headphones bypasses conscious hearing and unlatches the sanctuary of my soul. The sad thing is that it is so expensive of emotion and self that I don’t do it often enough. My kingdom is an inner kingdom.

I was 13 when I first heard Patrick Hadley’s I sing of a maiden. ‘However long I live’, I thought then—as now—’I shall never be able to produce anything quite so concentratedly beautiful.’ I wonder what it felt like to be Patrick Hadley—actually, quite fun by all accounts, for there are lots of stories about him. I wonder what it felt like to be Mozart.

Fair perceptions

Posted on 06/10/2014 by Rambling Rector

S Modwen’s in the background

Today I blessed Burton’s Statutes Fair. A 600-year history I gather. The Mayor spoke, I blessed, children from Holy Trinity School prayed and cut the ribbon, and I splashed a lot of Holy Water about. There was no need of this actually, for plenty of the natural stuff was dropping as the unstrained quality of mercy.

On my way to the ‘green room’ beforehand I bumped into the President of the Showmen’s Association of Great Britain who pointed to the showmen’s prayer on the back of his card. I was wondering what I would say at the grand opening, having left my preparation in the hands of the Holy Ghost, and so this was a gift from heaven. ‘Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous’ Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, so this happenstance must prove that there is a God and that she was listening to my concerns.

The quote about coincidence is also attributed to Lauren Pederson, of whom I had not heard. Is it another name for Einstein? or vice versa? I wonder if Lauren and Albert were ever in the same room at the same time. Would that have been coincidence?

Anyhoo, back to the plot. The circus owner, who had himself been President of the Showmen’s Association, told me the story of how that prayer came to be. At an Association meeting in Rome, members were told gather in a certain place at a certain time. They were taken in a bus with police escort to the Vatican and in due course issued into the Presence. Lengthy and enthusiastic conversations ensued, and the chain of office much admired by His Holiness. That is where the prayer comes from, a product of Pope John Paul II.

Chatting to civic dignitaries after the Fair blessing, I was sounding them out about increasing the profile of S Modwen’s in the town, and how best to make it known that the church was at the service of the town and everyone in it. After all, the building is in the Market Square, and it’s a real shame that it’s locked most of the time. The dignitary was sympathetic and helpful, but agreed that we are up against the widely held perception that the church as a whole was standoffish and stuck up. The same thing was said to me in similar circumstances in Portlaoise about the Church of Ireland.

I remember the first time that it really dawned on me that perceptions were often more important than facts, because it’s perceptions that we have to deal with. It was at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland when a colleague and I were discussing some issue that was causing great student unrest. My colleague was holding to facts, while I said facts didn’t much matter because what we had to counter were widely held perceptions.

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An’ foolish notion:

What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,

An’ ev’n devotion!

We have work to do.

Preparing for harvest

Posted on 04/10/2014 by Rambling Rector

A homily for Proper 22, Trinity 16, Year A Isaiah 5:1-7. Psalm 80:7-15. Philippians 3:4b-14. Matthew 21:33-46

Here is the prophet doing what prophets should do: speaking unpalatable truths. Here is Jesus doing what Jesus so often does: speaking unpalatable truths.

The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.

The Lord provides the means for the vineyard to grow good grapes. But it’s a bad harvest of wild grapes and so the vineyard is destroyed. The Lord provides the ingredients for the Kingdom of God. How do you respond? The Lord gives life. How do you respond? It’s up to you.

A gift is only a gift if you accept it as a gift. You have to stretch out your hands to take what is on offer. You have to respond. You have to act. Refusing to accept, refusing to act, amounts to rejecting what’s on offer. We throw the gift back in the donor’s face. We exclude ourselves from the generosity. Jesus talks about people being excluded from the Kingdom. The Lord does not exclude us, but by our standoffishness and refusal to dance to his invitation, we exclude ourselves.

I’ve been here three months now. A quarter of a year. I’m wondering how best we can thrive in the next decade or two. How best can we serve the town? Let us imagine that Our Lord comes here. What does he find?

He finds that a church built in his honour is locked most of the time.
If he comes at a time when the building happens to be open might see people who in world terms are reasonably well off. He might wonder how they serve the people of the town who are less well off.
He might notice that people seem to communicate with smiles that often hide inner sadnesses that they feel unable to speak of.
He might wonder how we tell each other of our deepest darkest fears, to allow the transformation of ‘the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory’.
He might notice that the building is a temple to the past.
If he comes to a PCC meeting, he would hear that much of the energy and interest is with money, and with keeping the building looking as it did in the past.
He might wonder why all decisions are made by older people for a future that few of them will see.

Let us imagine that Our Lord now looks around Burton.

He might see a lot of people sitting alone watching a flickering box in the corner of the room.
He might see people at night around the church injecting fluid into their veins.
He might see men and women hitting each other.
He might see children being hit, and still going to school the next day.
He might see young people’s bodies being exploited for the sexual gratification of those who should know better.
He might see people knocking on Vicarage doors for food and drink, and sleeping outside in boxes.

Our Lord might look at all this, and look at us here in this building, and think, ‘ah, they come for spiritual refreshment so that they can go out into the world and be my ears, my eyes, my hands, my feet, and my mouth, to heal the sick, to free the captives, to tend the poor, to bind the lame, and to restore creation.’

Or would he? Would he hear moaning and criticism and Chinese whispers? Would he think that we come here simply to keep us happy in the prisons that we have made for ourselves, ‘inclosed in our own fat’? Would he perhaps think that our coming to this church for an hour or so once a week was a hobby like going to the gym, the golf club or the sewing circle?

We have some serious thinking to do about the future. At this time of year we know well enough that the harvest is plentiful only if the ground has been disturbed and seeds have been planted. Leaving things as they are means that soil becomes more and more stale, with the inevitability of death.

I would like to set up a Survive and Thrive group to get going with planning. Not a group that talks, drinks tea, and complains about the Vicar, but a group that gives serious consideration to what this church and church community must do, and how to do it. If you wish to serve on this group, write your name on the sheet at the back of church. I hope that someone might offer to convene this group—it needs to be run by someone other than me.

Vicars come and go, and initiatives and planning for the future have to come from you rather than be imposed by me. I’m embarking on trips to other town churches nearby to see how they do things. Stoke, Wolverhampton and Birmingham are fixed, and Tamworth and Derby are possibilities. If any of you would like to come along, please see me afterwards.

We have been given all these ‘talents’. What shall we do with them? The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom

Living on borrowed food

Posted on 29/09/2014 by Rambling Rector

Harvest Sermon 2014 by Mr Rod Prince

Can you remember where you were on 22 November 1963? Or 11 September 2001?

Where were you on 7 August 2014? It was not a notable day in most people’s diaries. It probably went unremarked. Nevertheless, it was an important date for the UK. If the UK relied solely on the food it grew, then supplies ran out on that day. The National Farmers Union have stated that despite our farmers being better placed to produce more food than at any time in the past our ability to feed ourselves has dropped 2% every year since 1991 to just 60%.

National problems and their solutions begin with individuals. Not only can we consume more locally grown food but we can also cut back on the food we waste in staggering quantities. Here are some figures: About 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes. We throw away about 7 million tonnes of food and drink and more than half of that we could have consumed. Wasting food costs the average household £470 a year rising to £700 for a family with children.

If we stopped wasting food the benefit for the planet would be equal to taking one car in four off the road. The foods we waste the most are fresh veg (not if you grow it!) salad, drink, fresh fruit and bakery products. We throw away more food than packaging in the UK every year.

Before you become too depressed, the good news is that between 2007 and 2012 avoidable food waste reduced by 21%. Is there a link with the economic downturn?

To keep us going from 7 August until the end of the year we bring our food, out of season, from across the globe. Two years ago I played a game with some children at a harvest festival service. I told them that I had planned a valentine’s dinner for my wife. Being a child of the 70s it was prawn cocktail, roast lamb and an exotic tropical fruit salad washed down with a bottle of Australian wine. The prawns came from Bangladesh, the lamb from New Zealand and the exotic fruit salad from all over the globe. We went through the menu and they guessed where it came from and the distance from the country of origin to the UK. To reach my dinner table the food in the meal had travelled a total of 50,000 miles or twice round the circumference of the earth.

In “A picture of Dorian Gray” can be found the following quote “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Supermarkets bombard us with adverts and bogofs. Turn on the TV and it won’t take you long before you know the price of the bargains in store for the week. We know the price of everything from bread to strawberries but do we know the value of food?

This year our village Parish Council opened an allotment for the village. It is easy to see them as just another amenity, a place where people can indulge in a hobby, but the allotment movement throughout the country plays an important role in raising awareness of the value of locally grown food. As with so many activities in life it is not until you have undertaken it for yourself that you appreciate its value. If I offered the people on the new allotments twice the amount of produce in return for their home-grown produce I’m not sure that many would accept. When you invest something of yourself, your time, your care, your backache into growing some of your own food you begin to look at the food you buy in a different way. You begin to value not only the produce itself but the labour of those who produced it.

Harvest reminds us of the value of creation, its beauty, its fragility, its bounty and of our total dependence on it for our wellbeing. Harvest reminds us of the value of food; its importance in providing, not only essential nutrition but for promoting healthy relationships within families and communities. Harvest reminds us of the value of those who produce food for us no matter where they are in the world; of our dependence on them for our basic needs and their dependence on us for a just reward for their labour. Fair Trade is not about food it is about ensuring a right relationship with our brothers and sisters around the world. Harvest reminds us of our dependence on the grace of a loving, bounteous God who has provided enough resources for all; a God who creates, sustains and cares; who brings us into life and is there for us in the life beyond life.

Christians are called to live a life that rejects that assertion from Oscar Wilde. We are called, not to know the price of anything but rather to acknowledge the value of everything and everyone.

Let earth and heaven combine

Posted on 28/09/2014 by Rambling Rector

A Homily for St Michael and All Angels 2014 by Fr Phillip Jefferies

Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it! Genesis 28: 10-17. Revelation 12: 7-12. John 1: 47-51.

The Old Testament is often not a nice place to be. And Jacob, the younger twin son of patriarch Isaac, and Rebekah his scheming mother, are hardly nice people. Isaac, father of Esau and Jacob, could have been in the original Specsavers advert … the myopic shepherd who can’t distinguish between the sheep and his sheepdog and shears the lot. Isaac should have gone to Specsavers: with the connivance of Jacob’s mother he blesses Jacob instead of the older twin Esau, so Jacob gets Esau’s inheritance.

Jacob is not in a good place. Physically, he’s alone in a barren wilderness with only a stone for a pillow. Morally his position is woeful. However, Jacob has this glorious dream: a ladder reaching up from the cold and isolated place, where he is, up to glory of heaven. And on that ladder is a two-way traffic: angels going up, and angels coming down—and that is important to note. The ladder isn’t a way of escape, but provides, rather, an enrichment of the place where Jacob finds himself—enrichment with the angels of God, no less.

What angels do is announce the presence of God. Greek angelos = a messenger. You might think that they would get a pretty good press; there is, after all, that beautifully poetic description of Gabriel in the carol (The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings of drifted snow, his eyes of flame). Simon Barnes, in his The Bad Bird Watchers’ Guide begins with the robin, and describes its natural habitat: Christmas cards. We might give the same natural habitat for angels … or look in the north nave of S Paul’s, over there, at the glorious Archangel Michael, his wings spread wide, his lance striking home. He shall defend thee under his wings and thou shalt be safe under his feathers: his faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler! What could be more welcome, what could be more attractive?

But not so fast. What angels consistently generate in those to whom they go, however, is not safety—far from it: it is fear.

Mary, above all, is greatly perturbed by Gabriel’s annunciation. The archangel had to encourage her not to be afraid, as did the leader of the angelic choir that appeared to the shepherds watching their flocks by night. At the other end of the gospels, the various visitors to the empty tomb are thrown into turmoil and fear by the presence of these emissaries of God, these ambassadors of heaven; just as Jacob was in the Genesis story.

Why?

Jacob is between a rock and a hard place. Not just physically—cold, alone, with rocks for his head and his feet—but personally, for he has yet to face his elder brother whom he cheated, and suffer the consequences of his actions. Jacob has to face the truth. The ladder between heaven and earth is not an escape route from his situation, but it provides a sign that heaven will come down to him, and the truth will somehow set him free.

This hard-headed and down-to-earth understanding of the meaning of angelic presence belongs to a non-tacky celebration of our faith. God knows, there’s enough of the other: the sickly sweet escapist religion within easy reach, encouraging us to climb up, up and away from the rock and the hard place into the fluffy clouds of never-never land. But, this is not the land of Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree; and, as the reading from the Book of the Revelation reminded us, there is war in heaven anyway, just as there is in all of us.

What we have to do is grow up in our faith and into confrontation with the truth, just like Jacob, and see that his ladder has its feet set firmly on the earth, not for escape, but so that angels can descend. We find our salvation where we are: the glory of heaven comes to earth – as it always has and as it always will.

Let earth and heaven combine, Angels and men agree, To praise in songs divine The incarnate Deity, Our God contracted to a span, Incomprehensibly made Man. (Charles Wesley)

Immanent and transcendent

Posted on 24/09/2014 by Rambling Rector

Some Burton church ‘leaders’ met yesterday. Of about 20 people there, over a half were from churches under the broad Pentecostal banner, with seven of us from the C of E.

Despite a rather self-congratulatory tone, it was impressive to hear of churches with big budgets and lots of people laying on programmes of social action, support groups, food banks and the like, that fill gaps gaping ever wider as the government obsesses about the Daily Mail vote (I wonder how many volunteers vote for the policies that result in the conditions they are volunteering to address). I hope, though, that there’s something more to church than being busy. If not, I’m doomed.

Five or six years ago I would have come away from such a meeting feeling inadequate. I’m blessed with faithful and lovely people but we certainly don’t have a critical mass of volunteers, though I know my parishioners give in their own sweet and quiet way to voluntary programmes throughout the region. And as for funds, the buildings more than eat up our money.

I was pondering this all afternoon. Then in the evening two couples contacted me about baptisms and a wedding at S Paul’s. They had been inside (we must keep churches open) and they had been ‘blown away’ by it. ‘A church should bring you to your knees’, said Sir Ninian Comper. And it does. Even if we humans are not active in the community, our buildings certainly are. Thank the Lord for those that built them, those that beautified them, those that handed them on to us. They may be long dead, but they’re still at work. I count it a privilege to have them in my care.

I can’t compete with the busy-ness of some churches. But I can have buildings open and available; I can be seen around town myself, open and available. It’s terrific that churches are able to lay on extensive programmes of social action, but if that’s all they do there’s something missing. The Immanent is all very well, but without the Transcendent, churches are simply an arm of social services.

We are privileged to be able to offer something else: the Transcendent. We offer space, silence, beauty, the numinous. In our worship we can offer a glimpse of otherness, a glimpse of heaven. And it is that that recharges the batteries so that we can go out and serve each other.

Like I say, once I would have come away from yesterday’s meeting feeling inadequate. But I’ve grown up a bit since then.

Singers and farmers

Posted on 24/09/2014 by Rambling Rector

Primary School Harvest Festival this morning (not a church school). I thought, my goodness me, the children sing well. Suddenly, the volume faded. It rose again. It faded. It rose. Then I saw a teacher fiddling with knobs on the machine. It was all recorded. When the volume was down it was clear that they were not singing at all. Grunting. Is this deception common? If so, what does it say about the state of music and of singing in state primary schools? I made the same mistake with the congregational singing at Holy Trinity, The Rock in my Irish incumbency. I told them I thought they were fantastic singers, and they fell about.

‘When aa were a lad’ it was Singing Together or Rhythm and Melody on (I think) Monday mornings, led by William Appleby of the BBC. Our ears were glued to the crackly wireless. The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls sticks in the memory not because of tune or words, but because of the picture of the fairy tale castle in the accompanying booklet.

At today’s Harvest the children from urban Burton sang a song about what jolly good fun it is be to be a farmer, and how they’d all love to be one, working outdoors with animals and tractors and all the jolly-what-ho of Farmer Giles. I thought of the VAT returns and the quotas and having ones hand up a cow’s vagina and the environmental inspections and the risks of methane from slurry tanks. And the loneliness.

Pastoral letter, October 2014

Posted on 15/09/2014 by Rambling Rector

Lady Chapel

Lots of small things have been happening at S Paul’s recently, and one big one. The big one is the Lady Chapel floor. This has been in the offing for quite a while, and I guess it will take a long time to be dealt with. John Woolley and Chris Hill have been hard at work taking up the tiles in such a way that they can be replaced correctly in due course. The Lady Chapel itself was furnished as a chapel by G F Bodley in the late nineteenth century, and it’s a lovely and intimate place for being still. It cries out for a votive candle stand, and I hope that we can have one there when the floor is finished. The candle stand at the foot of the statue of Our Lady outside the chapel is not well placed—it’s too public: you need to be able to sit or kneel a bit tucked away, and that is not a bit tucked away. But slowly, slowly, we will get there.

Slowly is not something that comes naturally to me. I am not a patient man. With the help of Peter, John and Mike, clutter has been dealt with. Vestments have been tidied up. The High Altar has been beautified with more candlesticks (it looks wonderful of a Sunday with 12 candles flickering), and others bought to replace those now on the High Altar. The large icon of S Paul has been hung on one of the tower piers. The All Souls chapel has been tidied up: the carpet has been stored elsewhere (I hate carpets in churches – they are the spawn of Satan – and they ruin the acoustics), tatty banners likewise, and stone statues that were a safety hazard are now in the crypt. There is more to do. Cupboards in the vestry are yet to be attacked. There are about 148 cupboards that contain flower arranging stuff. Come on, girls, you don’t need all that rubbish. If you haven’t dealt with all that before November, then I’ll deal with it. That’s a bargain.

S Michael with Pongo the Dragon (from old S Margaret’s)

Back to the All Souls Chapel. This is a wonderful place for weekday masses, and with the Lady Chapel we are fortunate to have a choice. There is a beautiful banner which looks to me as if it might be by someone famous (I must get a colleague to give us an opinion). I see that there’s a window with an image of S Margaret. I see that there’s some furniture in church from the now closed S Margaret’s. I know that some of you came from S Margaret’s. I propose, therefore, that the All Souls chapel be rededicated as the Chapel of S Margaret and All Souls. I shall put this to the PCC (I shall tell them their opinion) and then if they agree I shall see if a bishop can come and splash a bit of water about and waft a bit of smoke and say a few words in a portentous voice. (Actually, I’ve already done that and the computer says yes, but we have to wait to fix a date). ‘Simples’ as the meerkats say.

What else has been happening? A few new posh frocks for clergy, daily Morning Prayer at about 8.15 (come and join me), church open from then until 2 pm. AND A NEW WEBSITE AND FACEBOOK PAGE for the three churches. It’s no good techoluddites saying that you’ll have nothing to do with such stuff: most of the rest of world does, and it’s passing you by. It’s not about you or me, but about living in the real world as it is, not as it used to be. Have a look at the website (http://theburtonthree.com) and tell me your ideas about what might be added. There are some wonderful photos by Rob Shephard that Fr Paul organised before he left, and Rob has given us permission to use these for postcards and Christmas cards that could raise a bit of money as well as raising our profile.

On a local level I’ve been hobnobbing with the YMCA, with Andrew Griffiths MP, with the local Imam and with various other worthies. We must get people into church to see this wonderful building. I would like the young folk in the YMCA hostels to use it, and us, for support and sustenance, and I’d like to get the politicians on board so that not only can they use what we have, but also we can prevail upon them to listen what we have to say.

You might not like what I’m doing but you can’t say I don’t care. S Paul’s is a wonderful building with riches that should be better known. That’s really what all this is about: if you’ve got it, flaunt it. I’m sure Our Lord said that somewhere.

God bless.