Newly minted priest (almost) dancing down the aisle of Winchester Cathedral, 4th July 2015
I was Priested at Winchester Cathedral on 4th July, and celebrated the Eucharist for the first time on Sunday 12th July. Momentous events in my life (so much has been working up to this point), and it transpires in the lives of some of those whom I serve. As the dust settles, it is time to take stock of a little of what has been said, done and started.
Last Saturday, the day of my priesting, started with a deep sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and a ‘picture’ before we’d eaten breakfast! The night before +Tim had charged us to ‘yearn to burn’ with the Holy Spirit, referencing 1 Peter 1:13-16 and wanting us to imagine our finger tips burning. Yet as I sat there that morning, the image that came to me was of the coals in my father’s grate, flameless but glowing red hot, bringing far more heat to any room and for far longer, than the transient flames of kindling and wood. Here was the heat of the Holy Spirit I seek from God in my ministry as a priest – something that will transmit the burning love of God for and to those I seek to serve.
That image, and the attendant sense of peace stayed with me throughout a day that reminded me both of the fulfillment of my calling coming to pass, and my own inadequacy in fulfilling it – it will be nothing without God, and without the love that knits together in Christ as we grow to maturity. It was a privilege to read from Ephesians 4:7-16 at the service and voice this, and to be surrounded by so many very special people who have had key parts to play in my own journey of faith – some reading this will know, I hope that I am talking about them!
For a variety of reasons, not least the ordination and arrival of a new Deacon the next day to the parish in which I serve, it was to be a week before I presided for the first time at our weekly Sung Eucharist. Admittedly an incredibly nerve-racking occasion, I had been blessed by the gracious offer by my training incumbent of the opportunity to have a guest preach, and the willingness of a dear friend to fulfill that task, despite the Old Testament reference to David dancing, and the Gospel reading being that of the beheading of John the Baptist (2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Mark 6: 14-29)!
Dom Andrew, talked of our need, and my calling, to dance before the Lord, through the liturgical year in what he poetically described as a “Pavane for the Resurrected Lord”. It is the rituals that I have come to St. Mary’s to learn the steps of, and it is the richness of the liturgical year, the detail of which has been somewhat lost in previous churches in which I’ve worshipped and served, that I am coming to prize highly. It is a sermon I probably ought to read every time I am to preside at Eucharist, the sacrament which for so many is so incredibly important that I must learn the ‘steps’, both traditional and contemporary, often ritualised and sometimes something more raw, which reveal Christ to those present;
“…for it will reconcile to him all the broken and vulnerable children of God present in this place, enabling us to join together once more in the steps of the round dance of our love for him.”
A Triquetra (the symbol of the Holy Trinity) by whose power we live in the circle of life and love in this world.
The full text of Dom Andrew’s sermon can be viewed here on our parish website.
It transpired that my first, slightly flat (musically), slightly faltering, steps in the Eucharist dance were to be a special moment linking my mother, a ‘fighter’ for the ordination of women long-since gone to our Lord, to another mother, one who has helped nurture me through my diaconal year, and who until that moment, had never received Eucharist where a woman presided. Twenty and more years on from all that my mother was involved with locally, it is easy to forget that for some, this remains an incredible milestone.
There are a host of other special images of the day in my mind, not least the gift of a home communion set from the parish, and the most wonderful glass-work created by The Glass Maidens of the parish with the help of my husband and son. Again there were many friends that had come from a variety of churches to which I am linked, including Twitter! But, I think for now the important thing is to concentrate on learning and perfecting the steps of the dance that our Resurrected Lord wants to teach us all; the dance of love.
The Christian women of Old Basing decided some months ago that whilst the women of The Bahama’s had wanted an interactive reflection on John 13:1-17 (something of which I was unaware at the time), they would prefer to have the more usual speaker for this years World Day of Prayer, and asked me to speak. So today, I shared with them a few thoughts,… and gleaned some of theirs.
The jug, bowl and towel that St. Peter’s Yateley gave me as a leaving gift as a symbol of servanthood.
“Do you know what I have done for you?…
Do as I have done for you!”
This [jug and bowl] set, complete with small, matching towel, was a gift from my sending parish last Pentecost, when as a family we left in preparation for my ordination and coming here. It was very specifically given as a sign of the service I would be offering to the communities I will work in as an ordained minister, not just in my diaconate year, but always. The reference to the passage that is our Biblical focus today, is unmissable.
Jesus lays aside his garments and takes up a [towel] or apron, kneeling at people’s feet, as a slave would. He, the once and for all Messiah, [pours water] onto soiled, dirty, feet, making them clean. The symbolism is spelled out clearly in the scripture – as Jesus has served his disciples, has become a slave to their needs, so they should go and do likewise!
The connection to the slavery and service offered by the ancestors of many in the Bahama’s is also obvious. Equally, many of us have given much of our lives to serving others – service perhaps of our country, almost certainly of our church; service to various charities, to neighbours and friends in crisis; we will have served our family with an outpouring of love wherever possible, whether it’s been reciprocated or not. Those acts of service hopefully continue, and it is through them that we rightly offer spaces for God’s blessing of the lives of others.
So, as we re-visit this probably familiar passage, what more does Jesus want of us?
Jesus was preparing to lay aside not just a few moments of his life in the service of others, nor the length of natural life in enforced slavery as did so many during the height of the slave trade, and sadly still today in some places of the world. We know Jesus gave up life itself, willingly, freely, as a sacrifice for the whole of God’s creation. It may have been the ultimate freely given gift of grace, but it was given with the anguish of God’s broken heart as well as a broken body. There was pain in these Jesus’s actions among friends in the Upper Room knowing that one would betray him, the anguish of his submission to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, in which he also knew his Fathers’ anguish that it had to be this way, and then heaped on this, the physical suffering of the cross. In it all Jesus was conscious of his divine origin and destination, and that this was the most critical task laid on his place in this world by God.
When he bled on the cross – the action we remember in the Eucharist alongside his other command to ‘do likewise’ by sharing in bread and wine – When he bled on the cross, it was a cleansing from sin and our tendency to ‘fall short of the mark’ as Fr Alec put it in this months “Basinga”. It was the ultimate act of love of the Son of God for every other child of God, then and now.
Christ’s was a sacrifice for the future of God’s Kingdom, a drawing not just of his own generation into relationship with God, but the ‘supreme work’, a once and for all sacrifice so that all people in all places of the world, from the Bahama’s to Old Basing, might recognise God’s love for them, acknowledge their shared humanity in Christ’s image, and proclaim it to each forthcoming generation.
‘Christ’s blood’ poured out to cleanse us.
So let us change the footwashing image slightly. Let us take a more ordinary jug and bowl, one that we might use daily to prepare food rather than place on the mantle-piece, and think for a moment how it might be if we poured [our blood*] out over one another.
Our blood is our life, we can’t carry on without it, we lose too much of it and we pass out. Healthy blood also contains cleansing properties, fighting off the bacteria of those bugs and diseases that can cause us harm. The DNA markers that we find in our blood, can be found in future generations of our family, however distant, to mark them out as having a shared heritage. Our blood can on occasion be donated to save the lives of others.
Slaves who died, did not do so willingly as Jesus did. They died because of people’s inhumanity to their fellow humans, a lack of recognition as to a shared place in God’s creation.
Sacrifice is much more about freely giving up something important to us, something we hold dear, more-so than straightforward acts of service where we might enjoy the effort and be happy to give up the time involved. Sacrifices include those things where we may be less likely to see the benefits of in the lives of others, or within our own lifetime – they are an act of faith, designed to give life, focused on the future.
We may feel that we have already made sacrifices in our lives. Perhaps we have given up a career for our family, or some of our family life to take forward a career or calling. But our focus this morning, and this passage in particular, asks us how radical and sacrificial can our love for those around us be today, and in every future day?
What can we sacrifice, from which we may not gain any benefit but which would enable others to more fully experience the love and forgiveness of Jesus? How do we pass on our Christian heritage, including that of this Women’s World Day of Prayer, pouring out our faith-blood like we might donate our actual blood and DNA, to future generations?
I’m going to invite you now, in a few moments of silence, to consider those questions. But I don’t want you take away your answers in silence. It would be lovely if we all knew what they were. So, whilst we are having our refreshments after the service, if I may, I would like to interrupt us briefly**, so that we can talk about what sort of sacrifices we feel we are able to make. Whether or not they are directly related to Women’s World Day of Prayer, we can think about how we might make them happen, because Jesus wants us to follow in his footsteps, to “DO as he has done to us”!
* After a Twitter conversation, the ‘blood’ was cheap tomato ketchup, watered down a bit, with added red food colouring. I was told it was reasonably authentic!
** I carried out my threat to interrupt them. The feedback centred around the need for health (excercise specifically I think) to be more closely associated with social welfare, and the levels of isolation experienced in the community, I think particularly by elderly (who were well represented in the congregation). I challenged them to have done something as a community of Christian’s about one of these issues by the time they gather for next years WWDP.
I sat in the congregation at a friends ordination service recently, for the first time in three months. I was in a church I’d never been in before. I didn’t have to do anything, other than simply worship, and listen, and pray; no choreographed moves, no desperate search of the memory bank for what I needed to do next, no sense that stuff was expected of me, only the sense of expectation that accompanies the knowledge that God was there. I even got to sit next to my husband, and hold hands during the Bishop’s excellent sermon!
The occasion brought sharply into focus some of the changes that I have experienced since my ordination. One of these is that in my new church, I’m always sat in the curates stall, and not among the people. They’re all able to watch me, if they feel so inclined, and I can see some of them, and watch their expressions if I so wish. In my sending parish, where I led worship often as a Reader, this was only sometimes the case, not always.
In the curates stall, I’m isolated. There might be a server sat behind and to one side of me out of sight, but partially tucked behind the pulpit and across from the vicar, there isn’t anyone nearby. From here, I suspect that I’m possibly missing out on the spiritual hum, that hopefully exists within any Christian worship, because I need more than simply my eyes to sense it.
I can’t hear the stifled, swallowed gasps or giggles at the preachers jokes or references – only the ones that escape out loud. I can’t feel the hands or the hair of the person behind me brushing the back of my head as they pray. I can’t see the physical tremors that speak not only of possible infirmity, but of spiritual encounters with our Lord. I can’t catch the eye of a friend, and raise an eyebrow in shared, unspoken comment on something in the proceedings – or at least, I don’t feel that sat up there in curates stall that sort of behaviour is really appropriate. Any sense of expectation of, or reaction to what God is doing, is confined to the bowed heads, reverently lined up at the altar rail, hands outstretched to receive the elements at Eucharist.
My pinata-headed training incumbent stills the target for the children to attack during our Harvest celebrations in September – about as close to part of the congregation as I’ve got so far in our main morning service.
That underlines the heart of the difference I suspect – I only get close to people at the Communion rail, or occasionally on the floor with the children in front of chapel altar in smaller services. Here is the isolation of the ordained minister that I had been warned of before ordination, and for which the antidote is the occasional offices with which we encounter people, often, though not exclusively, those outside of our regular congregation.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons why in more catholic, Eucharistic worshipping communities, the value of pastoral visiting is heightened? Is this the experience of others who have migrated between traditions, or am I making more of the significations of this ministerial isolation than I need to?
For Winchester Diocese, like Portsmouth, ordination retreats are held at the beautiful Park Place and Wickham in the Meon Valley. Last week was my Diaconal retreat, shared with those being ordained to the priesthood in our diocese. There were periods of silence, reflection and free time to restore the soul and focus on the role to which I am called.
Anna Norman Walker, Canon Mission of Exeter Cathedral was our excellent retreat conductor, and for me managed just the right balance of humour, Biblical reflection, personal stories, poetry, images and music. Using the ‘scaffolding’ of the Eucharist our 5 reflections focused on the words “take”, “thanks”, “blessed”, “broken” “shared”. I would particularly commend the poetry she used, which was by Gerard Kelly (“Spoken Worship” was the recommended title – something I shall be buying for future use).
Anyway, before succumbing to a lurgy that meant I would have to be nursed with prayer and paracetamol through the ordination day itself, I took a couple of lovely walks in the afternoon free time we were given, along the edge of the neighbouring Wickham Park Golf Course and down to the River Meon at the bottom of Wickham itself, before winding back along the disused railway line to the golf course and pastoral centre. The golf course, it’s bramble and grass lined edges and it’s water features in particular, were a haven for wildlife, and alongside the insects shown below, I also saw Ringlet butterflies, Beautiful Demoiselle damselflies in courtship chases by the Mean, an Emperor dragonfly and a Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly that took a Meadow Brown butterfly on the wing over a pond before taking it high into a will to shuck it’s wings and eat it!
Pale, female, Meadow Brown at rest
Freshly hatched I think – a Marbled White. There were literally dozens of these on the edge of the golf course.
Pair of Small Skippers – lots of these common but often un-noticed butterflies around.
Male Meadow Brown – much darker than the female
Large Skipper – a first for me, at least of a confirmed photographed sighting. Slightly bigger than it’s small cousin and with more marbled wings.
Azure Damselfly – but you can only tell this by looking very closely at the markings after taking the photo and downloading it!
Unexpected update: delighted that this post appears to have inspired Archdruid Eileen to the most wonderful parody of the wild life to be had on ordination retreats; Ordination retreats and their wildlife
Eucharistic table after alternative worship celebration at Oxford Ministry Course Summer School 2013
This morning I preached at our first Summer Sunday combined service, to those of St. Peter’s Yateley who hadn’t yet left for New Wine, or otherwise gone on holiday. It forms the last of a sequence of sermons on the story of Jacob and Joseph, and brings together thoughts about reconciliation and Eucharist.
I wonder how many of us feel trapped in some way by the past?
We’re doing our best to work through the challenges life throws at us, when some circumstance comes along and reminds us of our own past mistakes, our folly, or of the unexpected consequences of some innocuous comment we made a long time ago. Many of us live with these occasional and uncomfortable reminders of broken relationships; we set them aside and get on with life, but unless we can forge circumstances whereby a meeting takes place, reconciliation is impossible. Graham and I know only too well in our family how painful that can be; its like a kind of bereavement – every so often something happens to remind you how painful it is.
For Jacob’s family in today’s Old Testament reading, drought and hunger might be their most pressing concern, but they still live with the consequences of their past actions, now twenty years behind them.
Jacob, has a paranoid fear of losing the second son of his beloved wife Rachel, given that their older child Joseph has been, supposedly, lost to the ravages of wild animals. Benjamin must, at almost all costs, be protected from danger, even at the cost of remaining at home in famine conditions. Jacob still has his favourites!
That of course must remind Benjamin’s older brothers, Leah’s sons, of their own complicity in the so called death of Joseph, and the lies they have woven to hide the truth. Something they continue to have to cover for when faced with the accusation of spying by Pharaoh’s awe inspiring Grand Vizier! When they declare that “one brother is no more” the English translation hides a whole packet of intense emotions that are suggested at in the Hebrew!
I guess the face paint worn by Egypt’s ruling elite must have hidden Joseph’s emotions at this first meeting: not only does he remember his dreams and their role in bringing him on a painful journey to his current exalted position, but he also remembers the part played by his older brothers, now prostrate before him!
If we read back in Genesis 41:51 we find Joseph called his first-born Manasseh, as an acknowledgement that it was because “God had made him forget his trouble and his Fathers’ house”, which actually only goes to show that really the contrary was true! He hadn’t forgotten at all! The naming of his second son, Ephraim, suggests rather, that the real truth was he’d simply learned to live with different blessings in the land of his suffering.
In his book on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa, Desmond Tutu talks about different types of “truth” people experience:
There is something called forensic, or factual, truth. This, if we read on through the conclusion of this fascinating story of Jacob’s family, is the type of truth that tells Joseph’s older brothers that somehow the silver they thought they had paid the Pharoah’s Vizier for their first shipment of grain, has been mysteriously returned to their possession. They do not understand why, or how, but the forensic truth is that the silver is there in their sacks in Genesis 42 v28; which only adds to the discomfort at having to leave Simeon behind as hostage against their eventual return with young Benjamin.
It was a different type of truth, a social truth, that finally enabled the political powers of South Africa to bring about the end of apartheid between 1990 and 1994, giving all people equal rights to democratic process and freedom of speech, regardless of colour or race. I guess the social truth in this Genesis story, is the starvation that drives migration and brings together different cultures, the Hebrew and the Egyptian. We see so much such economic migration today, and the social changes and challenges it brings, that it shouldn’t be too hard for us to recognise!
But it is personal truth, what Desmond Tutu writes of as the truth of wounded memories, which is being most prominently featured in these closing chapters of Genesis, that I do encourage you to read as we conclude this series of sermons today. Personal truth, says that when one person is encouraged or allowed to speak their memories, in the context of being heard and respected by those intimately involved in them, healing can be found. Personal truth was what formed the basis of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it followed from the social truth of equality. The reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers’ starts with Joseph’s discovery that they are repentant for their actions of twenty years previously.
You see, if we read through Genesis 42 v21-23, we see that Joseph comes to understand that they see their current trouble as relating to their past treatment of him, a form of confession that brings to light the information that the eldest, Reuben, spoke up for him at the time. Perhaps that is why it is in fact Simeon, Leahs’ second son, and not Reuben, who becomes Josephs’ hostage.
Some of you may have heard me talk before about the African theology of “ubuntu”. It may have become a word that describes a computer system, but even that derives from the theology popularised by Desmond Tutu, that a person is a person, through other people. To live with broken relationships, with other people, or with God, is a kind of death because we are created by God to be in relationship, healthy relationship, with other people. Ubuntu says that supporters of apartheid were as much victims of the vicious system they implemented, as the murdered, widowed, beaten and ostracised of the townships.
By being confronted by a situation where they were reminded of, and forced to acknowledge, the arguments and dehumanising behaviour they had exhibited towards Joseph in the past, the older brothers’ started the process of gaining Joseph’s forgiveness. It is personal truth, Reuben’s outburst of honesty, that sparks Joseph’s tears in Genesis 42 v22. And, if we read on into Chapter 44, on their second visit to Egypt, this time with Benjamin, it is the proof of repentance for their past actions exhibited in their honesty and truth telling under the pressure of new situations in which they feel totally out of control, that enables Joseph to finally complete his own generous acts of reconciliation by finally making himself known to them, thus enabling his reunion with Jacob in Genesis 46 v29. In the long run, it brings the family together in Egypt where they can prosper and grow in number and in their understanding of themselves as the people of God.
Here in the story of Joseph and his brothers being reconciled, we see the same as Jesus teaches us in our Gospel reading this morning. Jesus is teaching us, his disciples, that the starting point for our prayers and mission as his people, is to be reconciled to one another. The familiar words of what we know as the Lord’s Prayer includes the practice of forgiveness, a daily awareness of our ongoing need for forgiveness by God for those times we stuff up, that is compromised if there is not a corresponding practice of forgiveness on our own part. It is a teaching of Jesus that we read elsewhere, for example in the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18 v23-35, and in Luke 6 v37 where it says “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” The biggest challenge of all is that, throughout his ministry, and most obviously in his journey to and in his words from the cross “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), that Jesus also gives us a living example of what it means to forgive those who exclude, condemn, and torture, without understanding the personal truth of what they are doing wrong, making any confession or seeking his or anyone else’s, forgiveness.
Admitting fault, confessing wrong thoughts and actions before others, and before God, is not about earning forgiveness, or about putting the right coin in God’s vending machine to trigger forgiveness, but a response to God’s sacrificial abundant love in Christ. Offering forgiveness to those who speak their own personal truths honestly, and with an integrity to their actions, is a response to both God and to such openness. Complete reconciliation should be a celebration of the basic idea that God is over-flowing with his own self-giving love, and has made us to have Ubuntu, to be in right relationship with each other.
Joseph’s reaction to being reunited with his younger brother in Genesis 43 v29-34, is a celebration meal which he serves himself with great generosity, and at which he makes his final reconciliation with his older brothers. What we call Holy Communion, which we will share later in this service, is something that celebrates our God given freedom of relationship with him, and with each other. It is a moment of Eucharist, which means to “give thanks”, the ultimate celebration meal that should grow out of willingness to confess before God the deep personal truths of our lives, our desire for forgiveness, our ability to forgive and the quest for right relationship, for ubuntu, with each other and with God.
I didn’t have a photo that seemed particularly appropriate to this item, so here’s a pink New Forest Primrose currently flowering against the odds in my garden.
About ten years ago my husband and I were delighted to become Godparents to the child of some old college friends, and co-Godparent with their close friend who happens to be a lesbian Christian. We had no problem with this, but I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t something I particularly advertised among my Christian friends back at home in our reasonably evangelical church.
There, at about the same era of our lives, I heard at least one sermon deliberately advertised as and preached against homosexuality. I still have the notes that went with it somewhere on file upstairs. I couldn’t agree with it, but somehow felt unable to argue against it, through lack of knowledge and lack of nerve.
Recently I mentioned on Facebook Sara Miles’ autobiographical ‘Take this bread’ as being ministry changing. A friend rang me some days later having bought and read the book. She commented that she kept expecting Sara to deny her lesbian sexuality as she came to understand more about Christ, and that this was one of the things she had found most challenging about the book, because it didn’t happen. I realised that this simply hadn’t been an issue for me, I was far more interested in the challenge of the hospitality of the Eucharist and Baptism! That’s for another day, but it showed me that perhaps I ought to share more openly what I think about homosexual relationships and how I hold my views as having integrity with my Christian faith.
Now seems an appropriate moment for asking forgiveness of my few homosexual acquaintances for my silence, but I admit I only do so, because someone else has done the hard work of expressing their thinking on the subject, far more eloquently and comprehensively than I would. Suddenly I don’t feel so alone, and can unashamedly and lazily quote them.
Then, this week, even better, was Steve Chalke’s excellent article ‘A Matter of Integrity’ which talks about responding hermeneutically ‘in thoughtful conformity to Christ’ to the matter of homosexuality and particularly homosexual relationships. I probably ought to find something to argue with him over, but I’m afraid I’ve failed. I’m either that bad, or he’s that good, you decide.
I have always disliked inconsistency, especially in myself, so hiding what I think hasn’t always been as comfortable as it might be. Before my BAP I was advised to work out what I thought about the ministry of homosexuals and homosexual relationships, in case I got quizzed on what I thought. I wasn’t, but the preparation was still useful.
Possibly Steve Chalke would see my thinking as a twisted exegesis, but looking back at my notes, my studies suggested that Leviticus 18 seems to be about not unthinkingly copying the behaviours of those people live among and keeping the purity of our relationship with God. Leviticus 20 asked people not to defile the sanctuary of God with any inappropriate behaviour, and I noted today we wouldn’t condone the death of anyone for the offences mentioned. In the New Testament, the use of the word translated ‘perverts’ in 1 Tim 1:10 comes from a Greek word the meaning of which is unclear, whilst there was a commonly used word for gay men that Paul hadn’t used (I can’t blog the Greek, sorry). Paul’s teaching here is directed at the goal of being pure in heart, of good conscience and sincere faith (1 Tim 1:15) which is what I was trying to work through to in this context!
So to have Steve Chalke articulate where his study (which includes these passages among others) has brought him to on this issue, has been very helpful. It has also finally made clear to me the difference between Biblical exegesis and hermeneutics – the former is just one tool among others for speaking about and living out the latter. Hermeneutics is basically what Sara Miles grapples with in her book, as in the midst of unexpectedly eating Christ she tries to grapple with what it means to try and live out God’s hospitality.
If doing hermeneutics means looking at the Biblical revelation of the nature of Christ, in a way that ‘encompasses verbal and non-verbal communication of the wider culture’ then and now, then that’s what I see myself called to do now, and in the future as a priest. Sharing truths that might challenge others in their faith, is going to have to be part of the deal. I might not like the arguments that result from this, but that’s the next challenge I have to live with I guess.
So, there’s me then, coming out all hermeneutical and proud of it.
Following on from my previous reflections (here and here) written in the last few weeks before my BAP, re-reading the following written some months earlier I find that there have been several echoes of my reflections on what Bishop Jonathan Frost (Bishop of Southampton) asked me to read during my Diocesan Panel Interview with him in November 2011.
It was a book called ‘Dare to Break Bread – Eucharist in Desert and City’ by Geoffrey Howard, that had been published in 1992. It focuses on the work of a priest (the author) in the light of the Eucharistic liturgy (the words Christians use at Holy Communion.) The following is a copy of my letter to Bishop Jonathan in January 2012 responding to the three tasks he gave me in connection with the book, and forms a review and reflection of it:
The first part of your charge to me I failed, as I did not achieve it before Christmas; the festive demands got in the way I’m afraid. Actually this confession of failure almost seems appropriate to the book. Within it the author shares so much of his burden of guilt for what he seems to feel is constant failure. I found myself wanting to hold him before God (as he does Harry at the start of the book) so that he might find absolution.
The second part of your task I have now accomplished. With shoes off and candle lit in a wonderfully silent room at Alton Abbey, I read the whole book in a day. Now I am returning to my notes and thoughts as I read it, I once again appreciate the gift of that space, indeed any quiet space, within ministry. Geoffrey Howard wrote the book in a space within his ministry. It is from these spaces with God that perhaps we see most vividly the true “colours” of how we connect with God in people and draw people to God.
"Jesus, remember me, when you come into your Kingdom." Luke 23:42 (Painting by Kari Juhani Hintikka by permission of Alton Abbey)
This letter completes the third part of the challenge you set me, that I write to you with my reflections. The book emphasises that the role of a priest is not restricted to the Lord’s Table or any other sacramental liturgy. Blood is truly shed, and the body and soul broken in day-to-day contact with those in whom we recognise Christ. We come alongside people on God’s behalf, yet we must expect Christ to be revealed to us in every encounter – the Christ who holds the pain and sacrifice of our failures nailed with him to the cross.
The word that struck me as I concluded the book, and has stuck with me in the days since, is “vulnerability”. By offering to serve as priests we make ourselves vulnerable in several ways. In the simplest sense, and with our families, we make ourselves vulnerable to unwanted interruptions, ‘reduced circumstances’ and spiritual attack. We will also have repeated occasion to make practical and spiritual sacrifices and make ourselves vulnerable to acts of aggression – verbal, material and physical. It’s like in the very act of being “gospel” we offer people the right to metaphorically nail us to the cross next to Christ – whether they do so deliberately or we do it to ourselves in our responses, both visibly and invisibly.
If we understand the Eucharist as a sacrament of community (“sharing the bread of common experience”) then this book seems to emphasise its’ place as the culmination of all that proceeds it through the days or week of other “sacramental activity” that precedes it. Our connection with Christ in the Eucharist should therefore lie in what we bring to it, not that which we expect to receive from it.
Perhaps in this lies some of the differences and tensions between the Eucharistic worship of evangelical and catholic traditions. Is there any truth in the idea that for many of a more evangelical persuasion, the Eucharist can be a place from where people take the Gospel message out into the community, rather than the place of Resurrection to which those of a more catholic persuasion bring to Eucharist both the burdens and joys of the Gospel message in community? For if Christ had not been raised from the dead, we would and could not share in the remembrance of the broken body and blood of Jesus; so we must first have shared in that sacrifice through our living and preparation for Eucharistic worship.
The thing that truck me as liturgically most significant, and something I’d like to know more about, was the question that Howard poses early on: where is the freedom of unconditional forgiveness in our Eucharistic liturgy? Beyond the reason of tradition, I don’t know why the liturgy maintains a stance of repeatedly seeking God’s mercy after the absolution, which seems on the face of it to conflict with a Gospel of abundant grace.
Thank you for making this book part of my journey to understanding a calling to ordination. It leaves many questions unresolved in the readers mind, but then I don’t think it set out to answer any, only to highlight that there is no black and white in our faith, and how we are called to live it out. Instead it highlights the many tensions that a priest draws from the community they are called to serve, and is required to hold as a humble offering before God.
One of the things that meant that Greenbelt has for the last 25 years been the one Christian mega-gathering that I REALLY wanted to experience ‘one-day’, is the fact that it is a really inclusive event, which seems to have always wanted to engage people in ideas and new, or emerging forms of worship.
God's forgiveness can fill any space!
So, it seemed right that I started my Greenbelt experience, with something “Blessed” shared by Fr Simon Rundell of St. Thomas the Apostle, Gosport and Robb of ‘Changing Worship’ and ‘Metanoia’ (both of whom are a great follow on Twitter and their blogs!) – a Eucharist that was really designed to “Wake me up inside.”
It did just what it said on the the label!
The full liturgy is here, and the video is here – and I really would encourage you to take a look, especially if you like rock music, blowing bubbles, and really meaningful liturgy.
Without wishing to repeat a blow by blow account of the whole thing, what was it that meant the most to me?
The theme for Greenbelt this year was ‘Dreams of Home’ and two things struck me particularly about the way Fr Simon had designed the liturgy and visuals to fit this theme:
The use of different rooms of the home as elements of the Eucharistic celebration enabled us to really engage with the movement that lies with in this most poignant of sacraments. For the ‘Penitential Rite’ (Confession and Absolution) we were in the Bathroom, including the bubbles of God’s forgiveness that were able to fill the space of a Big Top.
The use of images from glamorous, expensive home magazines contrasted nicely with the state of the world today, where so many are homeless, either through poverty, war/insurrection, or a society that simply wont understand.
The other piece of liturgy that I found particularly moving, and made me feel more than a little bit uncomfortable, was the Lord’s Prayer – first prayed together and then followed up with a series of “Don’t say… if you…’s”. The pace was also just right – it stopped you getting comfortable. It reminded my that I can not pray, without understanding the consequences of those prayers!
There was also something really, really special about sharing The Peace with complete strangers – I had truly come home to Greenbelt, in God’s presence.
Later on Friday evening, I experienced true Greenbelt serendipity. There I was, up in the Grandstand, having checked out The Tank (so I knew what to do when the phone needed charging) and wondering as the rain came down what on earth to do before I trekked back to my tent.
There was something called ‘Homebound – Molten Choral Medititation” in a venue called Hebron. I hesitated, totally ignorant of what it might involve (I’d not yet had time to read the Greenbelt Guide). Then the rain came down harder, and I heard some rather wonderfully harmonious choral singing, so I took the plunge. One of the best spur of the moment decisions I made in the time I spent at Greenbelt.
Accord, a group of 6 singers who I can’t find anywhere on the internet except at Greenbelt, created a beautiful blend of a capella choral music that drew recognisably from contemporary worship songs, traditional choral music (a lovely kyrie) and then completed the worship with something that I can only describe as choral beat-box! (If anyone can point me in the right web-direction of this group I’d be delighted.)
Molten Meditation who led the meditation in a full venue, asked us to consider the three steps (which we turned into 3 simple actions, and repeated twice during the ‘service’) we expected to make during our journey ‘home’ during Greenbelt. Their use of pace, and action, and what I’ve learnt is called ‘ambient’ music was excellent. It held our attention brilliantly in short bursts, including using some Charles Spurgeon quotes. I was so engaged that I remained so in the spaces filled by Accord’s music.
But what caught my attention, imagination and made me sit up and think the most was a story. They called it “There is such a thing as forgiveness”. Presented as what I hope might be termed a video/audio montage, I am really, really grateful that they released it on their YouTube site (click the link above) It used part of this (I think) Radio 4 interview recorded in March 2010, to explain how one man was asked to pray for another, and for the forgiveness that is being found through those prayers, not just for those two men but for a whole community. I have never, ever been so startled to see the face of Ian Paisley.
So, you see, despite the problems I encountered in myself and with camping, Greenbelt was definitely not a wasted experience! Just from that first evenings worship, I have been given much to think about, and many ideas to try in my own worship contexts in future.
Following some previous thoughts about the Eucharist stemming from my placement, and now dwelling on some thoughts appropo of stuff being discussed around St. Peter’s, I read, as prompted by Rosalind, from Timothy Radcliffe’s “Why Go To Church – the Drama of the Eucharist” pp196-8 some notes:
He identifies the end of the Eucharist as not so much it’s conclusion “as it’s consummation”.
As we come to Eucharist we come as individuals “with our own private dramas, our hopes and hurts, but we are sent out as a community, members of the Body of Christ… we are sent so as to come back.”
“This rhythm of gathering the community around the altar and then sending it away belongs to the oxygen of the Church’s life-blood.”
There is no ‘Amen’ after the Eucharist, because it s part of the church breathing.
My thoughts:
If the Eucharist IS part of the way the church breathes, how often does it need to inhale? Some churches I know maintain a weekly eucharist for each congregation. Some, like St. Peter’s have communion available each week, but for most congregations twice a month (roughly). Do we suffer as a result? What form does our suffering take?
And what about the practicalities: if we need to breath more often, and perhaps more often corporately across the whole church (of 2-300), how do we manage this if we have only one priest diving himself among 5 congregations (miniumum) and no space big enough to hold us all?
Too many questions and not enough answers: story of my life at present!
I’ve also discovered a contact is writing a thesis on “Fresh Expressions in Eucharist” and am deeply intrigued as to what he has to say… but apparently I shall have to be patient.
I’ve been sent this by one of my All Saints Basingstoke friends, in response to my enquiries about Eucharistic theology. It is a worthy reminder that no single view should be valued above any other, but each has a personal significance that draws us close to God.
