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Bishop Laurie's pages

Contents

1. Sermon preached by the Reverend Lindsay Yates, Chaplain of Westcott House, Cambridge, at the Michaelmas Ordination in Chelmsford Cathedral, 20 September 2009
2. Sermon preached by the Right Reverend John Gladwin, Lord Bishop of Chelmsford, at the Bradwell Area Farewell Eucharist in the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Prittlewell, 15 July 2009
3. Sermon preached by the Reverend Philip Banks, Vicar of St Peter ad Vincula, Coggeshall, and Rector of St Nicholas, Markshall; Rural Dean of Dedham and Tey; and Co-ordinator of the Chelmsford Course in Spiritual Direction, at the Bradwell Episcopal Area Ordination of Priests, 28 June 2009
4. Building Utopia? Seeking the authentic Church for New Communities, SPCK, 2008, ISBN 978-0-281-05867-9
5. Sermon preached by the Reverend Canon Hugh Beavan, Vicar of Burnham on Crouch, at the Bradwell Episcopal Area Ordination of Priests, 22 June 2008
6. Sermon preached by Bishop Laurie at the Chrism Mass in Chelmsford Cathedral, 20 March 2008

Visit Bishop Laurie's website lauriegreen.org

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Michaelmas Ordination, Chelmsford Cathedral

20th September 2009

Sermon

The Reverend Lindsay Yates, Chaplain of Westcott House, Cambridge

It is comforting, I think, that so many great and celebrated people have struggled in various ways, not least with feelings of inadequacy. In our first reading this morning we encountered Jeremiah having a major wobble when he first heard God calling him to be his prophet. The way in which God calls him will seem familiar to a number of us. It appears to come entirely out of the blue to Jeremiah so that he responds indignantly “Ah Sovereign God, I do not know how to speak for I am only a child”. Yet he also hears God reassuring him that the call he is now receiving is entirely congruous with everything that has gone before; “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were appointed I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” There is present within this account of Jeremiah’s call both disbelief and a quiet acceptance that the call is truly from God; an acceptance that he is unworthy but also that everything that has ever happened to him has prepared him for this work. The call enables him to see that although he feels an unlikely candidate, God will be with him, and he will speak God’s words rather than his own. He feels he has nothing to say but we can see from the length of his book in the Bible that he manages to say really rather a lot; his lack of confidence was unfounded.

At the heart of this dialogue between Jeremiah and God is a wrestling match over who knows Jeremiah best; Jeremiah or God. This reminds me of conversations with my daughters where I am often heard to say “I know you better than you know yourself.” Something of this is going on here as God gently reminds Jeremiah that he, God, knows him better than he knows himself and wants him to do something specific for him.

What is important about the calling of Jeremiah is that it can shed light on our own calling. As human beings we need to make sense of our lives and hearing the stories of others can help us to do this. We are all unique and none of our stories is the same but what God says to Jeremiah in terms of being formed by him, known by him and set aside for a particular purpose he says to all of us.

Today we have come together for the ordination of Terry as a priest and Caroline and Paula as deacons in the Church. These are crucial vocations and roles which enable the Church to fulfill God’s mission to the world. God says to Jeremiah “You must go to everyone I send you to.” And in this morning’s Gospel reading we hear Jesus say to his disciples “As the Father has sent me so do I send you.” The priest and the deacon embody the Church’s mission; but the mission is the mission of the whole Church and every member has a crucial part to play. As St Paul said in our epistle reading “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service.” God knows each of us and has something distinctive and crucial for each of us to do in his service.

As they come to ordination today Terry, Caroline and Paula would be unusual if they didn’t feel nervous and in awe of what lies ahead. It is good for them to know that Jeremiah and Jesus’ disciples felt the same about the work that God was calling them to. It is also good for them to know that as well as calling these people, God also reassured them and supported them as they carried out their ministry. God says to Jeremiah “Do not be afraid, for I am with you and will rescue you” and Jesus says to his disciples “Peace be with you.” He says the same to you, Terry, Caroline and Paula.

And he says the same to friends and family who may also be feeling a little worried about the new roles their loved ones are taking on today. There may be feelings that ordination will somehow create a new person or change the person you know. I think that this morning’s readings can help us to understand that when a person is called by God something does happen to change them, to fit them for the task; if nothing happened there would be no point in going through all this. God tells Jeremiah that he will give him the words and that he will be with him. St Paul tells the Christians at Ephesus that they have been given the grace to carry out the task assigned to them and when Jesus appears to his disciples to commission them for the task of reconciliation he says to them “Receive the Holy Spirit”.

When God calls, he equips those he calls and this does change them. Before he received Christ’s commission and the gift of the Spirit Saint Peter, for example, was full of guilt and fear. If you remember the story, Peter, Jesus’ right hand man throughout his ministry, ran away just as Jesus was arrested and then denied that he knew even him. He betrayed him as Jesus predicted he would. Yet the gift of the Spirit enabled him to receive Jesus’ forgiveness for having deserted him and to lead his Church through many a change and challenge. Peter did not have a perfect past by any means but God is wise. The fact that Peter understood himself as a forgiven sinner is one of his qualifications for leadership in a Church which is to have forgiveness at its very centre; “If you forgive anyone their sins; they are forgiven” Jesus says to his disciples. We see within Peter an embodiment of this forgiveness which is at the centre of what it means to be a priest.

Those God calls are changed. But they are not changed into another person. They do not become someone else; rather they are changed more and more into who God has created them to be; they become more fully who they truly are. Jeremiah, for instance, is initially prevented from being who he truly is through fear; he says “I can’t do it”; God reassures him that he can and that he will help him; he lifts the burden of fear from him. Peter is prevented from fulfilling his vocation through fear and then through guilt; again he is liberated from this burden. And so the Christian life and ministry in particular is about becoming more and more who God calls us to be. We are all unique and this uniqueness is not lost when we become Christians.

Just as the media have caricatured the clergy through various television programmes so we can also be tempted into thinking that priests should be a rather uniform bunch and that this uniformity is a charism received at the point of ordination. This expectation can be very burdensome especially when the expectation is coming from the priest or deacon themselves.

On our retreat we spent some time thinking about our call to be open to Christ. We looked at Mary as an example of one who was totally open to God and to receiving the gift of Christ. She opens up to God and the result is the presence of Christ within her as a physical reality. During the nine months that he is growing in her womb it is she, her body, as well as the Holy Spirit that is nurturing his growth. It is she who gives birth to him, who feeds him and from whom he learns what it means to be a human being. Many pictures of Mary show her with Jesus sitting on her lap as if she is presenting him to the world. The Christ that she presents to the world must have resembled her in so many ways; he probably looked like her and spoke like her. Like Mary and all Christians, priests and deacons receive the gift of Christ and are called to present him to the world but they will all present a different picture of the same Christ. They will present Christ but within the form of their own unique person created and hallowed by God.

When the bishop ordains Terry, Caroline and Paula today the Church declares and makes real its belief that God is calling them to their new roles; that being a priest and/or a deacon is what they were created to be and that everything that has happened to them in their lives so far and all their gifts, their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies will be used by God to prepare them for what lies ahead. This is a matter of faith as it has been for all those who God has called into his service throughout the ages and to whom he has said “Do not be afraid; for I am with you.”

 

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Bradwell Area Farewell Eucharist, St Mary the Virgin, Prittlewell

15 July 2009

Text of the service

Sermon

The Right Reverend John Gladwin, Lord Bishop of Chelmsford

2 Corinthians 4

“We do not lose heart”

Twice the Apostle says it as he deals with the rather tricky situation with these Corinthian Christians. One of the things that I have really appreciated in this amazing diocese is the resilience of the clergy and lay people in pressing on with the great ministry that God has entrusted to us.

It may, at times be very difficult. It is often costly. But, says Paul, it is by the mercy of God we are in it. It is that sense that God is in all of this that gives us inner strength and, whatever the challenges, we do not lose heart. There is no greater killer of ministry than its servants losing heart.

What makes it especially dismaying – as Paul knew – is that the church can sometimes be the problem! So, as the apostle says, not only does he get beaten up for preaching the Gospel and thrown into prison and attacked by his old compatriots in Judaism but he gets attacked by those who are meant to be on his side.

But we know nothing about that do we!

You are never good at judging yourself but people have said that I seem to cope with conflict reasonably well. That maybe because I was brought up in a loving but argumentative family. I had my title in a wonderful parish which I recall with huge affection. But there were times when it felt as if the trenches in the First World War were more peaceful places than the pews in Kirkheaton Church! I learnt that change and conflict are close allies in the hard business of responding to the new life of the Kingdom of God. Not that we were always right or got it right – but the ministry was rooted in the grace of God.

It is a hard lesson sometimes for us to learn that our ministry is by the grace of God and does not belong to us. It is not ours! My ministry, my diocese, my parish – suddenly it becomes a possession. It really is liberating to hold on to the truth that Paul is all about – we have this ministry by the mercy of God. Where does God place the trust of the Gospel ministry – into earthen pots – ordinary human lives with all the ordinariness and even brokenness of what it means to be human. God has chosen you because you are fallible and vulnerable people into whom he can pour the treasure of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hold on to that purple passage of Paul v 7ff….

It is always the case that God chooses the wrong people! Look right through the Bible. It happens time and again.

How many times does the responsible older son get passed over? Esau – doing his duty but God chooses the devious Jacob instead!

Rahab the harlot.

Joseph that self-opinionated youngest and adored son. David the ruddy faced shepherd boy preferred over all his older and more experienced brothers. Peter, Andrew, James and John. Mary Magdalene. 

That is the apostolic succession! This is God’s ministry. God chooses in the mystery of love those who are open in their life experience to be entrusted with the amazing treasure of the Gospel.

We all struggle with it! It is not just the delicate issues in our church that God seems to have chosen women for ordained ministry, and people of many and contrasting cultures and dare one say Gay and Lesbian people – it is coming to terms with the truth that God has called us! There is that classic bit at the end of John’s Gospel where Jesus is testing out Peter. In the end Peter bursts out ‘what about him?’ pointing to John. You leave him to me – you get on with following me.

There is a real danger for all of us that we spend our energies fussing about others. We miss the wonder that, whatever our own weaknesses and fallibilities, God has called us!

This is true of all ministries in the church – churchwardens, pastoral assistants, whatever. It is by the mercy of God that we are entrusted with these sacred tasks.

And none of us as Christians must lose heart!

We maybe faced with widespread secularity and indifference and the task feel really tough to get a hearing among the people for the Good News of Jesus.

These are days of opportunity. We are all having to face the unsustainability of our economy, our culture and our lifestyle. The consumer model for human life cannot deliver. People are anxious, some are in denial and many confused. This is not a time for the church to be tied up arguing with itself about matters that few people out there care a button about. This is a time for us to have the courage, in the name of our Lord and rooted in the mystery of the love of God, to be challenging. That is prophetic ministry. Not only challenging but caring and building ever stronger means of offering the broken and folk at times of crisis real support and a better vision for the future. 700,000 young people leaving school and university will be looking for jobs this Summer. It is probably that over 50% of them will not succeed. The Gospel alone brings people hope and a vision for the future which reshapes personal lives and offers our society a different future.

We have people. We have buildings. We have a Gospel.

Whatever the challenges facing us and the continual pressures within the church we must not lose heart and always remember that the trust God has placed within us – priceless treasure in clay jars – is by the mercy of God. Then together – across all our diversity – we can be a sign and beacon of hope for the Kingdom of God in our time and for all that is to come.

 

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The Ordination of Priests, All Saints, Writtle

28 June 2009

Text of the service

Sermon

The Reverend Philip Banks, Vicar of St Peter ad Vincula, Coggeshall, and Rector of St Nicholas, Markshall; Rural Dean of Dedham and Tey; and Co-ordinator of the Chelmsford Course in Spiritual Direction

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Theologian, c.200

Words from our first reading, the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 7:

“May God grant me to speak with judgement, and to have thoughts worthy of what I have received.”

Believe it or not, I am in the middle of a sabbatical. I’ve not long returned from walking a one hundred-mile section of the ancient Christian pilgrimage route, the Camino, to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Santiago became a hugely important destination for Christian pilgrimage, after the followers of St James the Great (Sant-iago - Spanish for St James) claimed to have brought his body there for burial. 

Now – whether St James the Great’s remains (or even one of the other St James’ remains!) are really there in that reliquary or not, and whatever your thoughts are about the concept of pilgrimage or ‘touching the source’ (for the early pilgrims there thought that they were getting as close to Jesus as they could by touching the remains of one of the apostles), doesn’t really matter: because it’s the walking there – the pilgrimage, that’s more important: “to travel hopefully is better than to arrive¹” - the joy is in the journeying  not in the destination. It was a wonderful and spiritual and spirit-filled experience! Often on the journey I had to cross motorways full of rushing lorries and cars. The speed of my legs and the speed of traffic seemed like worlds apart – but, as a pilgrim, “slow was beautiful”. And I met some amazing people on the way, including a woman in her 70s who had travelled from Brazil in order to walk the Camino.

Above the Cathedral’s pilgrim entrance is a medieval carving of the ‘Alpha & Omega’ (Revelation 22: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end”, says the Lord). It is a nice carving - except that…  the Alpha & Omega are carved the wrong way round! And, no, it is not an accident or joke on the part of the stone-carver: it is carved that way round to remind pilgrims that, although their long and exhausting journey to Santiago has finally ended (Omega), their Christian pilgrimage of life starts afresh again – a new beginning – (Alpha). 

And that medieval carving – not Alpha & Omega, but Omega & Alpha – seemed to me very apt as a symbol also for you, Carol and Dave and Susan and Michele and Stephen and Marion, being ordained priest today. For today surely is an ‘Omega & Alpha’ moment for you: Omega, the culmination of years of discernment, disappointments perhaps; of selection and theological study; of serving as a deacon in the last year. Today is an end of a long and no doubt exhausting and challenging journey. But today is also an ‘Alpha’ moment, a beginning, for you – your ordination as a priest in the church of God – it is the beginning of an exciting (and sometimes a scary, yes) ministry – and a ministry, let there be no doubt, that is precious and God-graced, and holy.

Today in the church’s calendar is the celebration of another saint – St Irenaeus, from the 2nd century – he is one of those who were the very next generation of Christians after the first apostles such as St James. Irenaeus is best known for his defence of the church’s teachings against Gnosticism, one of the earliest church controversies.  We could do a whole study series on Gnosticism, but suffice it to say that they had some very odd ideas. Including the notion that Jesus had had two doctrines: one fit for us ordinary people; and aother, a secret teaching fit only for the spiritually elite, reserved for a tiny handful in any generation who are spiritually advanced enough for it.

So what Irenaeus did (and this is his gift to us from all those centuries ago) was to proclaim firmly the opposite²: the truth that the Christian Gospel was for everyone at all times, and never were there bits of Jesus’ life or words reserved just for a chosen few. The church, the gospel, the things of God, Jesus, is for everyone. And that is what we proclaim still today! Jesus is the one who offers his loving arms to all humanity, whatever our status or race.

“Where do you look”, Irenaeus asked, “for Christ's authentic teaching?” “Nowhere other”, he said, “than in the congregations that were led and founded by the apostles, whose task it was to pass on the news of Jesus to future generations through carefully chosen successors”³.

Today you are to be ordained priests, as ‘carefully chosen successors’. How are you going to rise to that, and be equal to the task? Well, let’s get one thing out of the way. You aren’t! There is plenty of collected wisdom here this morning, laity and quite a few clergy – but none of us (I speak for myself, ordained for 16 years) have all the answers! In fact standing here I feel a little bit like someone demonstrating how to boil an egg in a room full of Jamie Olivers or Delia Smiths! But I do want to offer you two reflections, challenges, from the scripture readings today, which might just be a good starting place. 

First (and you’d expect me to say this as co-ordinator of the Chelmsford SPIDIR Course), don’t ever let your time for prayer get squeezed out because of a busy life. I say that to me first – I have to be better at praying and better at finding time for prayer. The Wisdom of Solomon: “I prayed and understanding was given me; I called on God and the spirit of wisdom came to me.” Prayer first. Without a discipline of prayer, how can I know what God wants of me? How can I expect a glimpse of God’s wisdom? How can I lead people into the ‘quiet place beside still waters’, if I myself am in perpetual motion? I can’t give to others what I haven’t got myself. Evelyn Underhill (we can lay some claim her as ‘ours’ in Essex because of her time at Pleshey in the 1920s) she wrote this about prayer: ‘To go up alone into the mountains and come back as an ambassador to the world, has ever been the method of humanity's best friends’⁴. (I also love another wise saying of hers, not about prayer particularly: ‘You don't have to be peculiar to find God’!). Don’t let prayer get squeezed out of a busy life.

It was a favourite theme of CS Lewis that ‘only lazy people are busy’! What he meant was that by lazily abdicating the essential task of deciding your own goals, and establishing your values – including setting time aside for prayer – if you lazily abdicate on that, then other people will do it for you. If that happens, you’ll be overtaken by [what Eugene Petersen describes as] the twin perils of ministry – “flurry and worry: flurry dissipates energy; worry constipates it!”⁵   I’m sure clergy colleagues here today will say ‘Amen’ to that, and the notion that authorised ministries such as priesthood are not there so that everyone else may sit back and pass the buck to you! I don’t need to tell you that the priest who does everything doesn’t help others grow and develop their own confidence.

Gregory Dix, in ‘The Shape of the Liturgy’, writes this: “There is a little, ill-spelled, ill-carved rustic epitaph of the fourth century from Asia Minor: ‘Here sleeps the blessed Chione, who has found Jerusalem for she prayed much.’ Not another word is known of Chione, who lived in that vanished world. But how lovely if all that should survive after sixteen centuries was that ‘you had prayed much’, so that all the neighbours who saw your life were sure that at death you had found the heavenly Jerusalem.” ⁶

So – that’s the first challenge – prayer: don’t let prayer get squeezed out because of the ‘busy-ness’ of your priestly ministry.

And the second challenge I want to suggest to you is this. Always live out and speak out the values of the kingdom of God. Isn’t that what Jesus asks of us in today’s gospel reading? “No-one lights a lamp and places it in the cellar where it is hidden. Instead, place it on a lampstand, so that all may see its light”. How do we speak of our beautiful, wonderful, merciful God who is always more vast, immense than our limited, human horizons?

Have you noticed the literary, loquacious labels we get on wine bottles these days? The blurb that on the back that goes something like: ‘This pert, sexy little rosé from the rocky and infertile slopes [of such and such], is a delicate little number with scents of elderflower but with the promise of the flavours of fruit & nut chocolate, and a strong aftertaste of burnt toast and cow dung’. Why have wine label writers taken over - even from health & safety manuals - as the writers of extraordinary nonsense? Isn’t it because they are using one form of communication, words, to try to describe an experience which is entirely another form of communication - taste and smell. If words fail on wine bottle labels how much more do they break down when they seek to describe the creator of all the wonderful wines in the world, and everything else in it?

That is where our Christian faith has such power for us to proclaim. This faith - which we are called to put on a lampstand (and not hide in the cellar) - is about the immensity and the love of the God whom we know - and whom we know we cannot ever fully comprehend. That’s what was proclaimed by the apostles and their successors like Irenaeus. That’s what you’re called to proclaim in your ministry. Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark, puts it like this about God: “We cannot ever pin him (or her) down! Of course we can’t, because our brains are his creation and less than his immensity. But our task is to deepen that knowledge which can release us to a level of living on an entirely more exalted plane, which we can then offer to others.” ⁷

Priests are to be, as John Donne puts it in the sixteenth century, “God’s Remembrancers”. And we live in an age where many people have come to see the ways of the world as deeply flawed, and that the global crisis is a result of too much reliance on a worldly way of going on. It is a time of great opportunity for the church to show another way, a different voice when so many are searching for meaning and truth. 

So - Always live out and speak out the values of the kingdom of God. It is a huge task for any of us to be engaged in. For as priests you represent the church to the community in which you are set. Sometimes it is not easy to show that other way, that different voice. Irenaeus spoke out about the values of the kingdom into a controversy – that’s his gift to us. And we need the boldness and the wisdom of the apostles to know into what situations we should speak of the values of Christ’s kingdom. For instance – here’s something controversial for you! – were you, like me, worried by the European election results when they were announced a couple of weeks ago? We could have anticipated the lack of support for the three main parties after the MPs expenses saga. What shocked so many was the extent to which people were prepared to vote for the fringe parties – or if not actively vote for them, to allow them to be elected in the void that was left in our politics. And of course, like many Christians, I was particularly shocked that two candidates from the British National Party, the BNP, were elected as MEPs. Surely it was a sad day in our political life. For, whatever it says about itself, the BNP does not represent the Christian faith, does not reflect the nature of our church.

History shows that in times of political and economic crisis peoples baser instincts too easily rise to the fore, and people make decisions out of another kind of motivation. But the Christian faith which Irenaeus upheld, and which we celebrate to this day, make it clear that we’re not part of that world view; that Christianity cannot embrace such views. For the gospel is inclusive, it is embracing. Christ died for all without distinction; Christ brings in a new order which leaves behind old, baser ways of thinking. The Church is a place for every person, whoever, whatever they are. And we gather where we know that we’re wanted, where we know that we’re welcome and forgiven, where we know that we’re loved simply for who we are. That is the good news that, as priests, you’re called to proclaim. That is the good news that Irenaeus defended all those years ago against the Gnostics who wanted to make Christianity an excluding religion. And we need much wisdom to know how best to respond to those voices today who want to tell a different Christian story – for those who try to hijack the gospel for their own non-inclusive ends – whether in politics - or in the Anglican communion over the differences of opinion over human sexuality and the role of women in the church.

So: two challenges for you: first to lead a prayerful life – which will undergird the second: have the boldness and wisdom to speak to the world of God’s values, of God’s kingdom. And don’t forget the gift to us of the saints of the past like Irenaeus and the apostles. Don’t forget that for them it was very hard indeed: starting out on the ministry of the church: where to begin; all the opposition which faced him and his contemporaries, both from the state and from the religious leaders of the day. Ultimately martyrdom. They will have had doubts and fears:

Am I ‘good’ enough/Godly enough? Will people accept me? Will I be a success? Will people like me? Will I be up to this task of Christian ministry?

I have no doubt that those same questions have been floating about for you, the six of you, as you have been preparing for priesthood today. They are questions which should come to all of us in ministry at different times.

The answer to such doubts lie simply in what is to happen here today. You don’t need to “do” anything at all! (apart, perhaps, from remembering the answers to the bishop’s questions!). The Holy Spirit of God will do the work. When the bishop, and the gathering of us fellow priests here with him, lays hands on you, the Holy Spirit will give you the strength you need for the task ahead.

And let me end with this story: be comforted by the tale of the first Archbishop of Canterbury – you may know it well: As he made his way across France and got near the Channel, he heard what dreadful people the English were. How they were wild and uncivilized! Augustine was frightened, and so went back to Rome, and told the Pope that he couldn’t go through with the mission. The Pope was not at all pleased – but seeing the genuine fear in Augustine’s eyes, he said: “Go back to your task of taking the Gospel to the English; but this time, when your chaplain precedes you with the cross of Jesus, get him to turn it around, so that the figure of Jesus on the cross is facing you. That will remind you that the Jesus who died for you is with you in your mission”.

Well, on this day of new beginnings (of ‘Omega & Alpha’), you can’t go far wrong in your life’s journey, and in your journey as a priest, with the cross of Jesus before you. In the cross, our lives are linked with each other, and with Christians near and far, in Jesus’s birth, death and resurrection. And – you may sometimes have times of doubt about your own self worth as your ministry unfolds. But never forget that you are called by God and set apart by God as a priest – and God is, and will be, active in you as a priest.

Carol and Dave and Susan and Michele and Stephen and Marion: what you are given in your priestly ministry today - it is of God. And the things of God are precious. Holy. None of us here is ‘playing at religion’, or engaging in some eccentric pastime (I hope!). We are dealing with the things of God: beauty for brokenness, healing for hurts, life beyond life. Salvation; New Life; Eternity; Truth. In short – God. If you believe in a God who is here amongst us, and here within us - then you believe in a God who is active and alive and effective through all of us who are members of the body of Christ, the church. Priests, you now amongst them, are part of that body of the church – there to be its servant.

May your priestly ministry be blessed today. And as God blesses and touches you, may you truly be a blessing to others, today and always. Amen.

Notes:

¹ R. L. Stevenson Virginibus Puerisque

² James Kiefer’s Christian Biography – Irenaeus

³ Robert Grant Irenaeus of Lyons, 1997

⁴ Christopher Armstrong Evelyn Underhill 1975

⁵ Eugene Peterson The Contemplative Pastor, Erdmans 1993

⁶ Gregory Dix The Shape of the Liturgy

⁷ Colin Slee Trinity Sermon, Southwark Cathedral website

 

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Building Utopia?

Seeking the authentic Church for New Communities

Edited by  Laurie Green and Chris Baker, Research Director of the William Temple Foundation and part-time lecturer, University of Manchester. The contributors include Michael Fox, John Perumbalath, Sue Hutson and Bishop Brian Castle.

The new urban areas are reshaping much of Britain. Those who live, work or minister within them are not only at the cutting edge of new forms of built environment, they must also discover new ways of being community and contemplate new expressions of Church. All this demands careful and bold analysis and creative theological reflection. While powerful global economic forces are changing our landscapes, human beings have to wrestle with themes of belonging and identity. The gospel engages with these human narratives, driving and shaping a Christian search for alternative perspectives and practices. What are the appropriate building projects, mission programmes and lifestyles that will be effective in meeting the challenges of these urban settlements? How should other areas respond?

The writers of this book have worked together as a group, mapping the new situation, analysing their findings and drawing out those themes which demand attention, making it possible to reflect theologically about the challenges of our newly built urban developments.

Review by The Right Reverend John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford:

This book was written before the banking crisis and the subsequent start of what may prove to be a deep recession. That has made it all the more pertinent because it is raising critical questions about the developments going on all around us. The collapse in house building might just give us some space to have these questions addressed in the public forum.

Essex and East London are on the front line of plans for huge development. Bishop Laurie, supported by Michael Fox and others have used their huge experience of ministry and theological thinking in the midst of all of this to challenge what is going on. Not that they have any fixed blue-prints. They do have real concerns rooted in their Christian faith and experience of ministry on the borders of emerging communities.

Readers in this diocese will know of the voices and contexts spoken here. The Thames Gateway, North Harlow, Colchester and Chelmsford are all in the midst of the demand for substantial new housing. The church is struggling to know how to be present in such places and what to say about the shaping of new community life and the needs of the people. This book gives those people voice and then enables us the readers to think from our faith into their experience.

Governments talk easily of ‘sustainable communities’. Political and economic orthodoxy believes in the infallibility of the liberal market economy. Christians are drawn into accepting these norms. But do they work? For whom do they work?

What sort of future community life are we shaping? Will people flourish and grow in these contexts? Will they be good for human life and will they be able to speak of the mystery of God and of Divine Love?

The present crisis is cracking our confidence in the orthodoxies and even idolatries of the past decades. Our friends have given us a book to make us think again. Read it and join in the search for a genuinely Christian vision to shape communities of tomorrow. 

 

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The Ordination of Priests, Holy Trinity, Rayleigh

22 June 2008

Sermon

The Reverend Canon Hugh Beavan, Vicar of Burnham on Crouch

Words from today's gospel Luke 5: 1 - 11 Jesus said to Simon: 'put out into deep water ... do not be afraid.'

Sometimes clergy are invited into a class in a local school where the children have prepared some very thoughtful and demanding questions about their life and work ... what has been your most amusing or funny experience? what has been your most extraordinary experience? what has been your most terrifying experience? I can answer that last one very easily - the thought of having to preach at an ordination service! But thank you, Bishop Laurie, for your most gracious invitation and for the tremendous honour you have bestowed upon me.

Actually, I think my most terrifying experience was to discover I had to drive the minibus to take the Confirmation group away for a weekend in my second curacy parish, close to the Elephant & Castle in South London! I was terrified because I had never driven anything bigger than a Renault 4 and because we would be leaving at the height of the early evening Friday rush hour! Talk about having to put out into deep water! ... but I have to say that by the end of that weekend I was really enjoying driving that minibus!

And my most bizarre or extraordinary experience? managing to play the parts of Judas Iscariot AND Pontius Pilate in the same passion play in two different parishes!!

Those of you being priested today will already have realised that there are many times when we have to leave behind the security and familiarity of the shallows and put out into deep waters. You will be more adventurous than my generation of clergy - we are stuck with trying to do better the old ways of being church. You will be more open to new ways of being and doing church, 'fresh expressions' ... you are truly signs of hope, hope for a renewed church and for a better world.

As time goes by, all of us in ordained ministry, by the grace of God, grow in competence and confidence, in 'wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and people', and in a deepening sense that 'underneath are the everlasting arms'. And yet ... there will still be times, however long we've been ordained, when we will feel anxious and terrified as we face some seemingly impossible demand upon us. For example, just over a year ago I had to conduct the triple funeral of a father, mother, and 25 year old daughter who were all killed instantaneously when their plane crashed into a Scottish mountainside (the father being a very well known local politician). And the first funeral of this year was of a popular young taxi driver in the town who had shot himself just before Christmas.

But it is as we venture into these sorts of deep water that we discover the all-sufficiency of God's grace, that we have indeed been 'carried on eagle's wings', and we discover the truth of Paul's words in today's epistle: By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me has not been in vain. (1 Corinthians 15: 10)

St. Mark describes the call of Simon Peter and the first apostles as something that happens immediately Jesus appears 'on the scene'. St. Luke, by contrast, tells us it happens later after Jesus has already made himself known and published his memorable manifesto in the synagogue at Nazareth.

As with earlier stories in Luke e.g. the angelic visitations to Zechariah, to Mary, and to the shepherds, God steps in while ordinary people are quietly going about their ordinary, everyday business, in this instance while the fishermen are cleaning their nets. And in all these incidents the coming of God's power into their lives frightens them. But the words addressed to them are the same: 'Do not be afraid ', for this power is not going to destroy the world but remake it.

But our Old Testament reading (Isaiah 6: 1 -8) suggests that it is in times of worship and prayer that we will experience God's presence. So Isaiah has an overwhelming experience of God's power and presence when he is at worship in the Temple, surrounded by the beauty of the architecture and carvings, the music and the liturgy, the beauty of holiness, or as Michael Ramsey better described it 'the holiness of beauty'. And certainly if worship is, in the words of William Temple, the purifying of our imaginations by God's beauty, the nourishing of our minds by his truth, and the opening of our hearts to his love then we should have such an expectation.

But our Gospel reading strongly encourages us to look also for God's presence, power and love in the course of our everyday lives and work. For the clergy this means not only when we preside at the Lord's table and handle the holy mysteries and when we administer the sacraments of the new covenant, but also when we are in people's homes, in hospital wards, hospices and care homes, in the ITU ward and the Special Care Baby Unit ... when we are privileged to minister to those who bear great suffering, often without bitterness or resentment, the chronically sick, the terminally ill, the dying, the sorrowful and bereaved, the senile and confused, those who travail and are heavy laden ... in such situations we will discover we are indeed standing on holy ground.

'Put out into deep water' says Jesus to Simon i.e. into the frightening and unfamiliar places where you have not been before. For Luke is the historian of the Church's launching out beyond the home waters of Palestine, Temple and synagogue. Peter, James, and John form a trio representing the Church. We meet them again at important moments in the gospel story. Here they are model disciples who give the call of Jesus absolute priority over their own exhaustion, weakness and limitations and, in the end, we are told, 'they left everything and followed Jesus'.

We are not asking those of you being priested today to leave everything behind. You are not entering the religious life, taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. But there will be a 'leaving behind' which will differ for each of you ... there will be sacrifices ... a 'letting go' of the past in order that you may let God become more and more the absolute priority in your lives.

As you did a year ago so today you are saying again 'here am I take me'. And as you put out again into deep water, not knowing what lies ahead but quietly confident that 'He who calls you is faithful', we pray that you may hear the words addressed to Zechariah, to Mary, to the shepherds, and to Simon Peter ringing in your ears 'do not be afraid'.

May God bless your ministries abundantly and make you a blessing to others. Amen.

 

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 The Chrism Mass, Chelmsford Cathedral

20 March 2008

Sermon

The Right Reverend Dr Laurie Green, Bishop of Bradwell

“We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.
Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.”

We gather as one body on this day when our Lord gave us this eucharist of bread and wine. And, in the midst of this sacrament of unity, we are to bless oils for healing & baptism.

The blessing of oils in the Chrism Mass is an exquisitely early rite first described in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus in the Year of our Lord 215.

The Maundy Thursday renewal of vows, however, dates back only to when I was a young man - and that was not in the time of Hippolytus. I was in my late teens when there was a mass exodus of traditionalist priests and lay people from the Roman Catholic Church. They could not stand the modernising that the bishops of the recent international Vatican Council had decided upon. The Pope therefore suggested that we all be brought back to our vocational roots on this day in order to underline our unity amidst our differences.

The Church of England has never been ashamed to pinch a good idea from anywhere, and so incorporated the new rite of renewal of vows into our own Lenten calendar.

And this renewal, for laity as well as the ordained, goes well with the blessing of oils in this present time, for the oil of healing and refreshment was never more needed than now for a broken world and a disunited church. Today’s disunity in the Church is no longer just of academic concern. We’re feeling the distress of it quite personally. I hear people saying, “Other so-called Christians don’t even believe in the same God I believe in.” I’ve said it myself -“This is not the same Church I joined when I first made my ordination vows.” But of course the truth is that this is the very same church which I joined years ago - it’s just that I never knew just how diverse it is. I never even thought of myself as Anglican - I was just ‘Church of England’.

I never knew that around the other side of the world, God had Anglican children who thought it was perfectly Christian to have two or more wives, or that the bible said you could oppress black people or deny women their rights. I never needed to know about all these challenging differences. But God always knew the church was like that - and God knows it still is. We’re only now finding out - with the advent of international communication and ease of travel - that people really don’t think the way we do - and yet call themselves Christians - even ‘Anglican’ Christians. And what a challenge it’s turned out to be! Does this really mean that those gun-toting Americans of the bible-belt who shout “Kill a commie for Christ”, are my Christian brothers and sisters? And if you can find it in your heart to link arms with groups like that, I’m sure I can hand pick just for you a group of Christians from around the world who would bring you up sharp.

Our Diocesan Synod was recently reminded of the Hebrew story about King David. He wished to make a thank offering to God. He looked for a site to build his altar and chose the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. “My King,” said Araunah, “let me give you the land to build your altar.” “No," said the king to Araunah, "I shall give you a price for it; I will not offer Yahweh my God burnt offerings which have cost me nothing.” In today’s globalised world, when we at last know that there are Christians who believe in things we find repugnant, we no longer live in a world where unity will cost us nothing. To make an offering to our God of our unity, here in this Cathedral today, it will cost us. Unity is easy for the authoritarian or imperialist: demanding that all be united around what they themselves believe. But that is no worthy offering.

To realise first, that we have deep differences. And then to acknowledge that those differences are important - differences to be treasured. And then to be prepared to sacrifice these treasures on the altar of our unity in Christ - now, that will be a worthy offering - worthy, because it will cost us. King David said, “I will pay a price for it. I will not offer Yahweh my God offerings which have cost me nothing.” To acknowledge heart-felt differences and still love one another and covenant to work together? An offering indeed!

Christ Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane struggling to offer his sacrifice. The name ‘Gethsemane’ means ‘The Oil Press’. It was the place where the most precious olives were thrown together into a heap and squeezed until they gave up their precious juices - the oil for anointing. In Gethsemane, precious Jesus being squeezed, under pressure, for your sake and for mine.

But how far can we be squeezed? Under pressure I find myself arguing, “isn’t truth more important than unity?” To stand for what is correct even if it breaks our togetherness? Isn’t that a nobler way? But as I ponder the words of Jesus in those last precious and pressured days of his earthly life I am led to wonder - am I not mistaken? - Is not unity itself a truth? I see Jesus sacrificing himself to bring me into relationship - into unity with God and my neighbour. For Jesus, truth is a relationship. Truth is the unity which holds together all our struggling differences. Truth is a family of differences - a family. And I know myself to be in his one family of different and conflicting children whom he cherishes with equal and undivided love.

And isn’t an awareness of that fact the genius of Anglicanism? To know that I am not saved by my own opinions, or even our opinions, but by God’s gracious gift of unity across our diversity. To be an Anglican one has to be courageous. You priests and deacons who sit here now, you who bring immense and varied gifts to your ministry and offer them week in and week out, you have the courage and grace to love even in what can sometimes be trying situations - I know this. You bring healing to a broken world. And we all here, laity and ordained alike, thank God for you - courageous Anglicans.

And we do so, knowing that not everyone will have what it takes to be a real Anglican. They argue like good Anglicans, but then they don’t stay in the family. Perhaps it’s not their vocation. But for us, 21st century globalised Anglicans, togetherness in diversity is our vocation, our calling. It is our anointing.

Jesus does not offer his God anything that has cost him nothing. He kneels in the oil press of Gethsemane, sweating blood, anointed with his own blood, trying to hold it all together. He has just walked from an upper room, where he made his offering of bread and wine to his friend Judas. Offered to be in communion with his betrayer. And the Lord is here, bidding his disciples again to love one another even that much. To lay down the burden of the truths we have made for ourselves, those that we have so heavily treasured, in order to be anointed together with the oil of gladness.

The Oil of Exorcism, driving out those old ghosts of arrogance and self-justifying opinion. The Oil of Healing, binding up the wounds and scars of old battles. The Oil of Chrism, conditioning us as athletes for the challenges of the race together. How we need that anointing. And Jesus, the anointed Christ, there in the threshing floor, there in the Oil Press of Gethsemane, saying, “Not my will, but thine.” And we echo: “Not my opinion, but thine,” “not my church, but thine,” “not my priesthood, but thine.” “Not my little truth, but your truth which says, “You see what I have done for you? Then you also must wash one another’s feet.”

Let us not offer to God an offering which costs us nothing. For the truth is neither my opinion nor yours, but the truth is the divine space that God gives us within which we can struggle and disagree, whilst yet always knowing that, “we who are many are one body, for we all share one bread.” AMEN.

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