Sacred Space - Dedication Festival

Sacred Space – Dedication Festival

“This is the house of God, and gate of heaven.” Gen 28.17 (Introit verse for Dedication Festival)


I Google Earthed the house I grew up in last night – 160 Old Shoreham Road, Shoreham-by-Sea – to see if the shed is still there. And it is!

I listened to the Third Programme in that shed, built radios, did my homework and said my prayers.

In the house, we four boys were in one room, my granny and my two older sisters in another, and mum and dad and my baby sister in the box room. The shed was a Godsend. It was a poustinia, a retreat, a place for a young boy to dream about another life.

Most humans have a strong sense of place. So returning to the place of their birth, or a place associated with their first love; a place of great happiness or a place of deep anguish - these places are more than mere geographic locations.

Through memory and its linked emotions, space becomes differentiated for us, divided by familiar tracks. It’s not homogenous, but interrupted by either memory, or in some places where we have never been before, by a sense of mystery.

On a Dedication Festival such as today, we are giving thanks for the building itself, but in so doing we are recognising that it is far more than the sum of its masonry. It is full of memory and mystery.

In today’s epistle, the writer to the Hebrews reminds Christians that when they gather together in earthly temples such as this, they are drawing on the collective memory of the church, and uniting in the unseen mystery of heaven.

He could have been looking at the angels and saints which are depicted everywhere in this building, and as his eye moves from the roof to the walls, to the cross, to the altar he declares:

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12.22-24)

We maintain this memory year after year in our liturgy, the Bible readings, the music and vestments and in the very architecture of the church.

The Baptistry is at the entrance, for Baptism is the sign of admission to the Church of Christ.
This is why we should have a stoup of Holy Water at the door – to remind us every time we enter that we have been baptized. Perhaps some of you can remember when ours disappeared?

The altar and cross is the obvious focus – the place where the Gospel is re-enacted.

The pulpit and lectern stand either side of the rood screen, for the reading of the word and the interpreting of the word, the pulpit on the north, nearer the barbarians who came from the north.

In New York last week I went round that wonderful mediaeval museum up at the top of Manhattan, the Cloisters.

It gave me two new ideas for St Paul’s: the great ivory liturgical comb, used by the priest to purify his hair before the mass; and the golden straw or pipette to help the faithful in receiving the wine. I don’t know how we’ve managed without them all these years!

So we could go on, using our collective Judaeo-Christian memory to differentiate this sacred space, following the writer to the Hebrews in re-ordering the world of human ‘things’ to reflect God’s order for salvation.

But a Christian church is not just about order and memory. It is also about mystery.

There are some Sacred Spaces of course that need no ordering: places and events that produce awe and a sense of the transcendent - the total otherness of a vast universe and the feeling that there is continuity and meaning to human life. And yes, even the feeling that there is a God.

Mountain tops and seascapes; quiet gardens and vast deserts; friends in candlelight; the beauty of music, poetry, art…

However, for a Christian, these Sacred Spaces, whether ordered or ‘natural’ bring the sense of mystery to a focus.

The general feelings of awe and transcendence, of longing and loving, and occasionally the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (Otto) - the compelling and fascinating mystery at the centre of life and existence - these feelings find particular focus in the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

This is the sacred breaking into the profane.

For Christians these sacred spaces - these houses of prayer - although they do not fully explain the sacred, nevertheless give shape and form to what we believe to be a Christian explanation of truth.

Many people in our post-Christian society today do not know how to use them. They are unaware of the meaning of the symbols.

They are even in danger of worshipping the created rather than the Creator; they follow the ‘line of beauty’ in a curve that turns in on itself. Sadly, they miss the living messages of a house of prayer, a gate to heaven.

We live in a culture where people don’t like Christian focus, because it brings responsibilities and duties. The answer to everything is a sort of blurry thing. The revelation of Christ as Lord of Sacred Space necessitates response and an effort to live differently.

This is the sort of focused, prayer-infused Sacred Space St Paul’s should be, and I believe, is. I hope you continue to support the daily offices and mass. This is at the heart of maintaining the Divine energy of this sacred space, the presence of Christ.

Yet we still have more work to do in helping people who sense the numinous here to take another step: to meet the risen Christ and be transformed by him.

And then another miracle occurs. Our reality of time and space is so infused by the presence of God, that we are caught up in the voiceless mystery of the love of Christ.

At the altar, as the priest raises the body of Christ towards the heavens, eternity touches earth and our bodies and souls are fed with manna from heaven. The sublime is made tangible.

We give most hearty thanks today for this Sacred Space, and for all the lives from around the world whom God has touched through it for over 165 years.

And as again we offer gifts of bread and wine; we offer prayers of thanksgiving and wonder, or sometimes of anxiety, pain, bewilderment; but we remember with faith and hope that

“This is the house of God, and gate of heaven.” Gen 28.17 (Introit verse for Dedication Festival)

Catholics, Alpha & Growth

Catholics & Alpha

"So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?" Acts 11.17

I was at a very evangelical wedding yesterday – and a very good day it was – but whenever I said to anyone that I went to a church in Knightsbridge, they assumed it was Holy Trinity Brompton. It is famed abroad, even in Baptist circles.

The question I want to address this morning is this. Within the Church of England in London, why are Anglo-Catholics unable to produce the sort of thriving communities that we see in Holy Trinity Brompton, All Souls Langham Place or St Helen’s Bishopsgate?

Well part of the answer is explained in Rose Macaulay’s novel, The Towers of Trebizond, with that wonderful character ‘the Revd the Honorable Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg’ whom she describes as ‘an ancient bigot who had run a London church several feet higher than St Mary’s Bourne Street’. The narrator says:

“I too am high, even extreme, but somewhat lapsed, which is a sound
position, as you belong to the best section of the best branch of the Christian
Church, but seldom attend its services.”

And for a variety of reasons, many of our electoral role seldom attend the church.

The famous Alpha course is a part of the growth equation (although All Souls & St Helen’s use their own courses).

It originated 25 years ago in HTB - the course was actually written by Charles & Trish Marnham. He was then a curate, and is now Vicar of our neighbouring parish of St Michael’s Chester Square.

It is a method of introducing people to the Christian faith by way of informal discussion in groups of about a dozen, focused around a shared meal and some teaching input. It takes one evening a week for ten weeks and includes a weekend houseparty.

It is fashionable to slate Alpha, despite the fact that over 3 million people around the world have taken part in it. The British never like obvious success.

I led a course in my first church - in fact an Alpha+ course, designed for Catholics, with more on the sacraments, more quotes from the Fathers; and the Holy Spirit weekend replaced by a pilgrimage to Walsingham. Roman Catholics widely use Alpha as it stands, and then add four weeks at the end with specifically Catholic teaching.

In St Edmund’s it proved an excellent opportunity for Christians in the church (making up 75% of the group) to grow in their understanding of the faith; and for those on the fringes of the church to take a step closer to becoming followers of Christ.

Of course there is nothing new in the formula: a good meal, a few glasses of wine and a convivial group of people - this has always been conducive to discussion and personal revelation.

But success breeds success and the charismatic personalities of Nicky Gumbel & Sandy Millar at HTB, together with a well thought out programme has proved itself to be franchisable. This is why some have referred to Alpha as The McDonaldization of the Church (John Drane, DLT, 2000).

There have been a number of attempts to produce a more Catholic equivalent to Alpha, such as Emmaus, with varying degrees of success. Some have suggested that Fr Alan and I should don designer jumpers and create a course somewhat further down the Greek alphabet - a Pi group perhaps?

And after last week’s successful dinner, rather than the McDonaldization of the Gospel, we could pioneer the Mosimann-ization of the Church...

I would like to venture some generalisations on why there are no large Anglo-Catholic churches in London.

Firstly, there is the issue of what sort of church we are bringing new people into. Anglo-Catholic liturgy and devotion is not easily accessible to the completely unchurched – and that is now the majority of contemporary society.

And for traditional Anglo-Catholics such as St Paul’s and St Mary’s (as distinct from the modern Catholic liturgy of say St Peter’s or St Matthew’s), we fish in the relatively small pond of high culture, rather than the broad ocean of popular culture. There will always be more at the football match than at the opera.

Secondly, Anglo-Catholicism often lacks immediacy of experience.

Evangelical immanence is easier to convey than Anglo-Catholic transcendence – although both are part of authentic Christian experience. This is perhaps why for many Christians, a more Catholic expression of the faith is something they move to, rather than somewhere they start. Immanence is an easier way into faith.

If you go to HTB or All Souls, you can be swept up into a feeling of corporate joy and enthusiasm; the presence (immanence) of the Lord. You leave church with popular songs ringing in your head and a sense that you are part of a successful, growing movement. The feeling is infectious.

And that raises another point. In London Catholics are spread much more thinly. If you take our own Deanery as an example, there are about 20 broadly Catholic churches and two evangelical. If our 20 congregations got together one Sunday, there would be well over a 1000. We might arguably do better with fewer, larger congregations. But that is not the history of the Anglo-Catholic movement.

Fourthly, Anglo-Catholics form very open communities. Like evangelicals, we believe in propositional truths, such as we will affirm in the creed in a moment. But we don’t press too hard for adherence to those truths.

There has always been plenty of room for the Anglo-Agnostics, for the doubters, for the eccentrics and, let’s face it, for those completely off the wall.

Now it is a well-known sociological fact, that the more sect-like a religious movement is, the more chance it has of success. Sects have clearly defined dogma - you are either in, or out. They have clear moral boundaries - you are expected to adhere to the ethical code.

They are usually emotionally addictive and therefore very hard to leave. You join by a clear point of decision, rather than by drifting in. There is often a distinct moment of conversion, as there was for those Gentiles in the Acts reading today.

Evangelicalism exhibits all these features much more clearly than Anglo-Catholicism. Although nineteenth and early twentieth century Catholicism also exhibited these sect-like features during its period of rapid growth.

Fifthly, Anglo-Catholics don’t always give enough opportunities for people to integrate into a church community. This is partly because we tend to be people whose social centres are primarily outside of church. Our clubability is often exercised beyond the congregation, and we often only meet for Sunday worship, and even then hurry off after the service.

This often means for those exploring faith and the spiritual life, that there is little opportunity to get to know the way ordinary Christians apply their faith to everyday life; there is little opportunity for dialogue about the spiritual life. They could suppose that being an Anglo-Catholic was more to do with whether you liked the music & the liturgy than whether you loved and served Jesus and the people of God.

Sixthly, evangelical churches make fairly clear demands on people in terms of commitment to the church by attendance and giving. This is seen as a part of Christian discipleship. For fear of being too dictatorial, Anglo-Catholics have often become very undemanding. Take up the cross, but only if it suits you and you don’t have too much else on at the moment...

And seventhly, there is something in the training of Catholic clergy and the structuring of their churches which inhibits growth. This is a subject in itself that I will address on another occasion.

Now these 7 generalisations are not excuses, but they do explain in part why we are unlikely in the present cultural climate to see the emergence of Anglo-Catholic mega-churches.

And so we return to our text. The early church needed some convincing that the Gospel could be expressed in different ways and different contexts – the Gentiles, who didn’t use Jewish worship, were thought to be beyond the pale. God had to convince Peter that they were not, that they too could exhibit the presence of the Spirit, through the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit.
Whether we grow huge churches or not doesn’t matter so long as individual churches, like St Paul’s, are playing their part in the Dominical mandate to take the Gospel into all the world.

Are there ways in which we could be more welcoming, more supportive of those who are embarking upon a spiritual journey, so that they don’t wander in and wander away still hungry for truth? We need more ‘veni, vidi, velcro’ - ‘I came, I saw, I stuck around.’

And of course our Lord makes clear in today’s Gospel yet again, that loving acceptance is the hallmark of the Spirit’s presence, whatever the outward form. So we must beware of writing off those in our own communion who worship God in a different way – the gentiles next door! We must work with them in that same spirit of loving acceptance, playing our own distinctive part as the body of Christ.

For if we do not, then we are in danger of preserving religion and running a club, rather than proclaiming the Kingdom of God and working for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We must learn from each other and pray to see God at work among all is people.

"So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?" Acts 11.17

Deep Church

Deep Church

From today’s Epistle: “ that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3.17-19

In America - this could never happen in England! - there was a feud between a good Catholic priest and his very evangelical organist, who loved Moody and Sankey Gospel hymns.

The first hint of trouble came when the priest preached on the need for change and the organist chose to sing "I Shall Not Be Moved."

Trying to believe it was a coincidence, the priest put the incident behind him. The next Sunday he preached on the need for increased giving, and was not amused as the organist led them afterwards in the hymn "Jesus Paid It All."

Sunday morning attendance swelled as the tension between the two built. A large crowd showed up the next week to hear his sermon on the sin of gossiping. The organist struck up with "I Love To Tell The Story?"

There was no turning back. The following Sunday the priest told the huge congregation that, unless something changed, he was considering resignation. The atmosphere was electric as the choir set out on the old Gospel standard "Why Not Tonight."

Other local churches were empty the following week as people crowded into the church to hear the resignation sermon. The priest explained that Jesus had led him to the church and now Jesus was leading him away. The organist could not resist it: "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

Divisions in a church and divisions between churches are all too common and, despite the jokes, are really very sad. They are a major hindrance to the mission of the church.

In 1952, CS Lewis wrote a letter to The Church Times standing-up for the supernatural basis of the Gospel which he felt strongly was being undermined by what was then called modernism.

To a layman it seems obvious that what unites the Evangelical and the Anglo Catholic against the "Liberal" or "Modernist" is something very clear and momentous, namely, the fact that both are thoroughgoing supernaturalists, who believe in the Creation, the Fall, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Second Coming, and the … Last Things. This unites them not only with one another but also with the Christian religion as understood ubique et ab omnibus.

The point of view from which this agreement seems less important than their divisions … is to me unintelligible. Perhaps the trouble is that as supernaturalists, whether "Low" or "High" Church thus taken together they lack a name. May I suggest "Deep Church", or if that fails in humility, Baxter’s "mere Christians"’.

Lewis's understanding of ‘Deep Church’, or ‘mere Christianity’, was not limited simply to a concept of supernaturalism.

The Latin tag ubique et ab omnibus alerts us to the fact that to talk of Christianity as believed ‘everywhere and by everyone’, is to appeal not only to the miraculous foundations of the Christian faith, but also to a common historical tradition of belief and practice that has been for centuries normative for Christian experience.

The Anglican church in London has grown fairly steadily over the past ten years, and the two major players are the broad Anglo-Catholics and the open evangelicals. As always, these groups have their fringes.

There’s the Black Mafia who carry out a weekly inquisition of the Catholic faithful over their gins and tonics, weighing up the relative unsoundness of All Saints Margaret Street compared with St Mary’s Bourne Street.

And there are those evangelicals who have such a perfect grasp on the interpretation of Scripture that they are happy to consign to the flames the majority of the church for the majority of the Christian era. They are definitely not sure about Holy Trinity Brompton, have serious reservations about All Souls Langham Place and would like Our Lord to clarify one or two points before they can accept him into the ranks of the faithful.

For many of us, like CS Lewis, all this seems nonsense: fiddling while Rome burns; rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

Bishop Richard has encouraged Professor Andrew Walker of King’s College - a Russian Orthodox layman who grew up in the pentecostal church, and others of us from the Anglo-Catholic grouping and the evangelical constituency, to explore together Deep Church.
The name doesn’t really matter, although it is intended to be an evocative title, even if, as Lewis thought, it might suggest a lack of humility. Another name suggested is ‘generous orthodoxy’.

Professor Walker has written:

“Deep Church, as its name implies, is spiritual reality down in the depths – the foundations and deep structures of the Faith – which feed, sustain, and equip us to be disciples of Christ.”

It is about engagement with God, and not just engagement with forms of worship that we like. In our own Catholic tradition, it is the acknowledgement that ascesis, spiritual discipline and denial is part of the joyful mystery of our faith. As we said the Rosary yesterday, we were remembering the joyful mysteries of faithful Mary - all tinged by suffering and self-denial.

And it is about concern for those outside the church and for broken communities and hurting people. This is how and why all these Anglo-Catholic churches around here were ‘planted’ in the 19th century.

I remember visiting the first Vineyard Church in Anaheim, Los Angeles, back in the 1980s. It was a lively charismatic ‘new church’ that has since replicated itself around the world - there are a number in Locoman.

There were about 5,000 people in a warehouse, presided over from an electronic keyboard by the charismatic and loveable John Wimber; there was an excellent 5-piece band, made up of ageing hippy session musicians (not a bit like our own choir,,,); no Christian symbols (if you exclude the overhead projector); no sacraments at most services, no historic liturgy, nor hymns older than a decade.

It was ahistorical. Apart from a brief Bible reading there was nothing obvious to link this church with 2,000 years of history. It was deep in the Spirit and existential fervour, but shallow in its connection to the sustaining flow of God’s salvation history.

Many evangelicals, including Vineyard leaders and Holy Trinity Brompton church planters, have come to realise that there is an enormous reservoir of deep Christian experience in the fathers and mothers of the church; in the Celtic tradition; in the saints before and after the reformation; in orthodoxy; in liturgy and music.

But sadly, at just a time when we need them, too many within our own tradition have only kept these historical insights alive by becoming curators of a museum - rearranging the lace and polishing the thuribles. Anglo-Catholicism has lost its spiritual edge, and in many places, its spiritual nerve.

In other words, we need each other in this broad alliance of Deep Church. Not to merge into some lowest common denominator - Anglo-Catholics in designer jumpers will never work! - but to reinvigorate and deepen our distinctive traditions.

God has seen fit to suggest to us, that in the longer term - say 50 years from now - unless we move on together we will become but another footnote in history.

This has become increasingly clear to many Anglo-Catholics. Evangelicals, on the other hand, now account for over 70% of ordinands training for the priesthood in England. They are generally in buoyant mood.

But many of those evangelicals who have been round the block once or twice, recognise that this growth is unsustainable without a development in spiritual formation and without being more firmly rooted historically in the Christian story.

Unless all of us are part of the co-operative venture of Deep Church or generous orthodoxy - or whatever we call it - we stand in danger of missing the opportunities before us here in London, where there is at present an open door.

If we will move on and deeper into our faith, both Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, then we have an exciting future as we fulfil our Lord’s mandate to take the Good News of the kingdom to all people.

This was the Apostle Paul’s longing for the church:

“ that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3.17-19

Ecclesiastes

Introduction to Ecclesiastes
(Willesden Clergy Conference October 2003)

A church member who was a devout golfer came to talk to his priest one day and said “Father, I have one really Big Question about the faith. Are there going to be golf courses in heaven? I have to know."

"Well," said his priest, "I'm not really sure, but tonight I'll say a special prayer and see if God will tell me the answer."

The next Sunday, when the service ended and the congregation was shaking hands with the priest on the way out, the golfer cornered him again. "Did you get the answer, Father? Are there going to be golf courses in heaven?"

Well, George," the priest replied, "I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Tell me the good news first," George said.

"The good news is that, yes, there are golf courses in heaven. Beautiful courses, where the sun is always shining, the rough is not too deep, there are no sand traps, and you never have to wait to tee off."

"Hey, that's great!" exclaimed the golfer excitedly. "But what's the bad news?"

"Well, the bad news is that St Peter has you down to tee off this coming Tuesday morning at 8."

Ecclesiastes deals with the one Big Question - the Meaning of Life, the Universe & Everything. (42 - v 42 of Eccles).

And it comes up with Bad News (quite a lot of it actually) and Good News.

There will be two parts to this Bible Study this morning: a general introduction; and a short sermon on one verse that attempts to recontextualise Ecclesiastes for the present Western culture.

The Offices - take you through the great sweep of Scripture: the good bits, boring bits, bloodthirsty bits - and the puzzling bits. Ecclesiastes is one of the puzzling bits that nearly didn’t make it into the canon.

Scholars have suggested a number of different authors (they would wouldn’t they) from Solomon (unlikely - no mentions of King of Jerusalem are probably a literary device to emphasise the wisdom of the preacher) to as many as 9 different authors within the book. (JEPD chant at Div Faculty.) Qoheleth - Hebrew root, to assemble. So assembler of wise sayings or (more likely) assembler of the people, the president, the one who calls the ecclesia together (hence Ecclesiastes).

Yet despite these supposed diverse authors and themes, at it’s simplest, there is an underlying unity to the book: Qoheleth looks at our puzzling, repetitious lives, that relentlessly and universally lead to death, and says: “Even if we do not clearly understand, there is something deeper going on.”

Or put in another way: the Bad News is that there is not much point looking for meaning “under the sun” (a phrase used 39 times); the Good News is that by implication there is a God and meaning “beyond the sun” (the unknown God, a common theme in ANE religion - talk to John Chapman about wife’s PhD) (Shemesh - Gen 1 etc)

Lady Helena Levy story from last Parish Mission: lady with cocktails answers door: “I’m afraid I’m an atheist.”
“O my dear, I am so terribly sorry.”

Qoheleth could not have been that modern and strange aberration, ‘the atheist’. He was a theist, trying to make sense of things.

Stephen Pinker & Fraser Watts interview in Third Way (Oct 2003) - still discussing Eccles (Pinker’s favourite Bible book - some have mischievously argued that Eccles 10.2 is Blaire’s favourite verse...) - Pinker & Watts trying to make sense of the brain and human consciousness. Pat of Qoheleth’s Bad News is that we are just like the animals (3.12-21). Pinker on the contrariness of atheism quote.

So in a way, Qoheleth is in a similar position to us - not dealing with people who don’t believe there is something else there
- but dealing with people who act as if the only important things are those that make them secure in secular society, here under the sun
- this he asserts is vanity, futility and a chasing after the wind.

But at the same time, like most of the Wisdom literature, Job and Jonah, Proverbs and some of the Psalms - he won’t let us get away with trite, easy answers. (5.1f)

My faith became more credible to my siblings when it became messier!

Qoheleth raises two other, ever contemporary problems:
The Problem of Knowledge & Wisdom (1.17f) He moves from enlightenment pursuit of knowledge to the madness and folly of Dada-ism, absurdism, the trippy 60s - drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll. And it is all a painful dead end.

The Problem of Evil - oppressors prosper! (4.1f) Postmodernity has no answer to the jackboot. One of the problems facing the West today, and Christians in particular - we do not know the answer of how to deal with violent evil. (Iraq & terrorism etc)

For Qoheleth, all these puzzles and mysteries, all these disturbing realities of life under the sun, leave no other choice than (12.13f): “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

Thank goodness that we have more to go on than Qoheleth; that like Paul we can say” “What a wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 7.24f)

George Herbert toyed with some of these issues in his poem The Pulley that plays on the Pandora’s box theme - but instead of chaos being unleashed and only hope remaining in the box, God keeps ‘rest’ in the bottle - there is never a complete and satisfactory answer to Life, the Universe and Everything - we can never be wholly at rest.

The Pulley

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
The beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.

ETERNITY IN THEIR HEARTS

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Eccles 3.11)

Why do so many 20 somethings still live at home with their mum? My two nephews, 20 & 23 are prime examples.

Well, there are probably lots of perfectly good reasons, but Douglas Coupland’s book Generation X has a little cartoon of a 20 something son talking to his clearly exasperated father: “It’s like this dad. You can either have a mortgage, or a life. I’m having a life.”

Although written two and a half thousand years ago Ecclesiastes is a fascinating book. It’s famous opening words could be paraphrased: “Vanity of vanities, all is postmodernity.”

This captures something of the mood of contemporary society. It is meaninglessness with attitude; emptiness covered up by all the good things money can buy. Tesco ergo sum - I shop, therefore I am. The loneliness and ennui is eased by friendships and music, sex and sometimes drugs; and lashings of humour.

“Yet” says the Preacher, “they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Postmodernity is one of the most exciting, painful, challenging, opportunity-filled, anxiety ridden, faith building, depressing, faith destroying, enjoyable and contradictory of times to be alive. Postmodernity is the cultural climate that is increasingly pervading the world, spreading like a virus through TV, the arts, popular culture, ‘new’ politics and designer religion.

What would the Preacher of Ecclesiastes make of it all?

He would most certainly speak from the point of view of identifying with, and being part of, the culture. This can be one of the church’s biggest stumbling blocks, because most Christians are firmly locked into modernism, the outgoing philosophical climate; yesterday’s weather.

Worse still, many of us feel that there is something inherently Christian about modernism, despite the fact that it has only been around for a few centuries, although the Judaeo-Christian faith has been around for at least 35 centuries.

“She who marries the spirit of the age is sure to be a widow in the next”. So we must not ‘marry’ either modernity or postmodernity. But we must be so in touch with our culture that we feel its pain and know how to apply the balm of the Gospel.

Increasingly in our society, purpose is giving way to play; design to chance; founts of wisdom to pools of knowledge; Reason to reasons; the metanarrative, the Big Picture, to the micronarrative, the local story - the soaps, Big Brother. My primary school children know far more about the world of Pokemon and Harry Potter, than they do about the Christian Gospel that shaped their culture and gave them their school.

Dominic Crossan puts it this way in The Dark Internal:

“There is no lighthouse keeper. There is no lighthouse. There is no dry land. There are only people living on rafts made from their own imaginations. And there is sea.”

But eternity is firmly set in our hearts, says the Preacher: a divine uncomfortableness, a dis-ease with what is.

Postmodernity is a way of coping with that dis-ease. It does not make sense of life, but it helps you cope.

Christianity is also a way of coping and making sense of life. Not complete sense, for now we see through a glass darkly.

So we need to let God grasp people’s hearts and imaginations before God can transform their minds. And we must learn to live with uncertainty. Evangelism has never been easier; discipleship has never been harder.

How then should we live?

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts.”

As Christians we believe that we are not alone in the universe, because the Bible, the Church and Reason call us to believe that there is a ‘transcendent’ God, who is before and beyond all things.

Many postmoderns are sick of themselves. But where can they look but to themselves if there is no ‘Other’? We must present clearly the intimations of transcendence which God has planted throughout his universe - the eternity in our hearts:

Beauty and love, order and satisfaction, suffering and meaninglessness, the mystery of the Mass, the splendour of music and liturgy, the depth of Christian fellowship - all point to an Utterly Other. We believe that the ‘eternity within’ is no less than ‘Christ in us’, the hope of glory, the imago Dei, the image of God.

God, the Holy Trinity, is community, and in that community of love we find our identity in the postmodern sea of shifting images and personal fragmentation. Jesus’ command has never been more relevant: “Love one another as I have loved you… by this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” If we cannot demonstrably love one another, then we are failing the Christ whom we seek to follow.

It is as we worship and love in our Christian communities that we mirror, albeit imperfectly, the eternal God.

At best, the Church’s response to whatever intellectual climate it has found itself immersed in, has been - not a renewed set of dogma - but a renewed love of God through our worship, and a renewed effort to love and serve one another.

The death of dear friends and our own failing powers remind us that “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” But it’s time to fade comes.

Yet “He has also set eternity in their hearts” and in it’s time it will blossom into a newer and fuller life which starts now and which will grow on into the eternity of paradise.

Future of Christianity

The Future of Christianity
(Guest prescher - Revd David Coffey at St Mary's Bourne St)

‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you’ (Matthew 6:33)

Thank you for the privilege of sharing with you at St Mary’s today. As a regular reader of the Friends of St Mary’s emails-I feel at home among you. It is a further sign of your kind hospitality that you have included for the Communion Motet, Ave verum corpus by my beloved Edward Elgar. You will be aware that Nick Mercer is a good friend of our family dating back to our days together in ministry in Torquay. In our circle of friends Nick represents the highs and lows of life. High church worship and low life culture!

We rejoice with you in Nick’s new appointment within the diocese of London and we pray that he will know God’s blessing on his life and ministry for this challenging ministry.

You have given me the subject of The future of Christianity and I find this a daunting task for two reasons. First it’s a presumptuous undertaking for anyone to speak on the future of Christianity. Second it’s normally impossible for a Baptist to say anything significant in 11 minutes. The Baptist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is grounded in our congregations enduring very lengthy sermons!

But given that what emerges in the future of Christianity is always configured out of the fragments of its past and the divine promises for the future , I think there are three significant indicators to draw upon this morning.

The first is that Christianity does not seem to plant churches that last for ever-so we must expect the death of some churches as well as the birth of new ones. Kenneth Scott Latourette in his magisterial work A history of the expansion of Christianity concludes that the story of Christianity through two thousand years is not one of steady progression, It’s a story of advance and recession-not irreversible progress. Andrew Walls supports Latourette when he observes: ‘The homelands of Tertullian and Augustine are no longer thriving Christian centres’. In our own country urban churches have become furniture stores and rural chapels are sold as holiday homes. It is a sombre reminder that whilst the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, the local and national expression of the community of Christ has no divine right to survival.

The second indicator is that the geographical centre of gravity for Christianity is always shifting-so we may anticipate the continuing marginalization of the Western Church in the global family of Christianity. Philip Jenkins has chronicled that in our own life time there has been a massive shift of numerical influence from the northern to the southern hemisphere. The growth in Africa has been relentless. In 1900 Africa had just 10 million Christians out of a continental population of 107 million—about nine percent. Today the Christian total stands at 360 million out of 784 million, or 46 percent. In the same century church going and Christian commitment plummeted in Western Europe. It is estimated that by 2025, 50 percent of the Christian population will be in Africa and Latin America, and another 17 percent will be in Asia.
Those proportions will grow steadily. By about 2050 the leading nations for Christianity, apart from the USA, will all be Southern: Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and the Philippines. Reverse flow mission will probably be the norm and the United Kingdom could be re-evangelized by missionaries from the southern hemisphere.

The third indicator for the future of Christianity is more positive. The Church at all times and in places is always made up of people. Christianity thrives on people gathering in the name of Jesus Christ and believing his promise to be present among believers when they gather for worship in his name. The church thrives where people gather in order to be scattered. Gathered by Christ around word and sacrament in order to be scattered in the power of the Spirit as salt and light in the service of the Gospel.

I have seen this principle at work in every part of the world and remember with deep admiration the courageous witness of disciples of Jesus in every conceivable cultural context. I remember Daniel a village pastor in Namaroi, Mozambique where the country had been ravaged by fifteen years of civil war and ten years of drought. I said to Daniel, ‘what did you do when faced with another year of famine and warfare? . He replied ‘I prayed’. ‘And the next year’, I enquired. ‘I prayed with tears’, he said. I gently pushed him further by asking- ‘And the next year’? ‘I prayed with tears and waited in hope’, was his strong response.

The discipleship church is the most vibrant evidence of Christianity and I suggest that the followers of Jesus in a violent world hold the key to the future of Christianity. The death of the Christian West and the global shifts of Christianity may be beyond our control, but Christian discipleship is indelibly our calling and vocation, but we will to need to redefine discipleship for the future of Christianity. John Howard Yoder suggests there four essential marks of the 21st century disciple which he summarizes as baptism, discipline, holiness and martyrdom.
Baptism-, because in an age which revels in self-fulfilment, we proclaim a Gospel of self-denial.
Discipline-because in a permissive and individualistic age, we proclaim a Gospel which gathers us into an accountable community.
Holiness- because in a command free culture we proclaim a Gospel of grace which simultaneously enslaves us to Christ and liberates us for a life of freedom
Martyrdom- because in a therapeutic culture that seeks to eliminate pain and discomfort, we proclaim a Gospel that empowers us for cross bearing and suffering.

Discipleship has been the underlying theme of our lectionary readings this morning and a close study reveals they support the Yoder quartet of essential marks. The passage from Joshua is about wholehearted faith- ‘choose this day whom you will serve’.





Walter Brueggemann has framed a prayer around this theme of what God expects from those in covenant fidelity with him:
We will be your faithful people-more or less
We will love you with all our hearts-perhaps
We will love our neighbors as ourselves-maybe
We are grateful that with you it is never more or less, perhaps or maybe
With you God it is never yes and no-but always yes
Clear direct unambiguous and trustworthy

The passage from Galatians draws out another aspect of discipleship- namely the need for a disciple to die in order to live: ‘I bear in my body the marks of Jesus’ writes the Apostle Paul. Eugene Peterson suggests that the language of circumcision and uncircumcision in Galatians represent two ways of life. The morally earnest life loaded with rules and regulations and the fun loving carefree spirit that wants to release potential in whatever way feels best at the time. Both lifestyles are arguing for freedom and they are both unfree because they are so desperate to hold on to life at any cost. Petersen says, ‘They are not free to die because their own life is all they know and all they believe in’. This is the heart of what Yoder means by ‘martyrdom’. We can be empowered by the Spirit to live a Gospel lifestyle within our culture that includes self denial, cross bearing and suffering.

The gospel reading from Matthew is about single minded discipleship: ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’. The passage is a contrast of competing ambitions between the basics of life (money food drink and clothing) and the prior claim of the Kingdom. The ambition to acquire the basics of life exposes the disciple to a twin challenge: What is it I value above everything else? And what are the things I worry about? The challenge to be single-minded and seek God first above everything else is the distinctive badge of discipleship. This is the call to holiness which Yoder included in his quartet. To be holy is to be different for God’s sake. We can retain our expansive ambitions, but they are secondary to our prime ambition to seek the reign of God’s Kingdom. After all, as John Stott observes,’ there is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God’.

As to the future of Christianity in our Western society, the numerical strength of the institution may go on declining; the social influence of the church may weaken; but the presence and witness of vulnerable disciples will always be the sign and foretaste of God’s eternal Kingdom which one day will be seen in its fullness. Meanwhile, let us go forward into the world knowing, in the words of Peter Taylor Forsyth, ‘there is nothing in all the raging valley-neither the devilry of the world, nor the impotence of the Church-that can destroy our confidence ,quench our power or derange our peace’ in God’s eternal purposes which are assured in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Review - Liquid Church

Liquid Church

Pete Ward
Paternoster Press, 2002, £9.99
1-84227-161-X

Sometimes a book doesn’t live up to a good title, but Ward’s stimulating and occasionally annoying material swirls about in Liquid Church to produce a provocative and generally encouraging analysis. It was one of postmodernity’s great commentators, Zygmunt Bauman, who came up with Liquid Modernity (Polity Press, 2000) and this provided the metaphor to examine the postchurch realities of a Britain where 72% describe themselves as Christian, although only 5% regularly sit in the pews.

Ward recognises what others have called the McDonaldization of the church. It has become a spiritual commodity in the postmodern marketplace and some church growth ‘methods’ have capitalized on that. Many Christians not only shop for the style of church they like, but they also choose the time, place and degree of involvement that suits their fluid lifestyle. So some of these “72%” are part of a network of relationships rather than a gathered assembly on a Sunday morning. The commodification of spiritual resources becomes the means of sustaining the life of this decentred and unstructured Christian network. Liquid church ‘will need to develop commodities that can circulate through networks’ asserts Ward. (p.47)

Solid Church (some will be glad to hear) doesn’t disappear in Liquid Modernity, for there are still islands of Solid Modernity floating in the postmodern sea. Ward suggests that this solid church mutates into three different expressions of traditional congregational church: heritage site, refuge (and sometimes holiday resort), and nostalgic community. Most of us will recognise ourselves in these descriptions.

If all this is completely new to you, then the last chapter of ‘Dreams’ about Liquid Church is a fascinating insight into postmodern and premodern ways of being church and of worshipping God, with lots of actual examples.

The challenge is how we adapt church structures to service and in some ways guide this growing manifestation of ‘being church’, if indeed we accept it as genuinely ‘church’. A moot point, which although the book is not heavily theological, Ward does spend a couple of chapters discussing in the light of traditional ecclesiology.

Not all will agree with Ward that as part of the continual reformation of the church, there needs to be a conscious shift from solid church to liquid church. But we will all find food for thought and action and perhaps a melting of our too solid views.

Church Times

Future of Christianity

The Future of Christianity
(Intro to a series)

“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Col 3 14

It was GK Chesterton who once remarked that: “At least five times the faith has to all appearances gone to the dogs. In each of the five cases it was the dog that died.”

The last two years have seen a number of significant books speculating on the future of Christianity. I suppose the Millennium is a good time to take stock; to look back over our modest successes (from 12 to over two billion in two thousand years) and some spectacular failures (100 Hymns for Today).

Over the coming year I have invited a number of Christian leaders to address us on the subject: The Future of Christianity. And today I want to set the scene and do a little public ruminating of my own.

Alastair McGrath is an Anglican priest, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford and Principal of Wycliffe College. After a brief dalliance with liberal Christianity at theological college, he returned to his evangelical roots and has championed reasonable evangelicalism over the past 20 years.

Just over a year ago he published The Future of Christianity which was both scholarly, interesting and speculative: a rare combination.

He starts by looking at some of the human atrocities of the twentieth century; events like the Armenian genocide, the Communist persecutions, and the churches' failure to confront Nazism.
He argues that the liberal, ‘modernist’ Christianity of the 1960s grew out of these disasters and adjudges that it completely failed to bring people back to faith.

And I would agree that mainline liberalism, has suffered from what Gabriel Fackre calls “Christological heart-failure”. People returned to traditional forms of the faith, and to evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

He concludes that there are four branches of the church which, on the track record of the past 50 years, appear to have any hope for the future: Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism and somewhat more speculatively, Eastern Orthodoxy.

McGrath is not all optimism and worries at the McDoladisation of the faith, whereby it is turned into a slick, easy-to-believe and shallow commodity which has lost most of its historic roots.

Dr Peter Ward, a lecturer at King’s London, takes the analysis of where we’re going several steps further on.

Last week his book came out, entitled, Liquid Church - I can see some of you are already keen to sign up...

You’ve heard of Modernity and the buzzword of the last decade or so, Postmodernity. Ziegmunt Bauman’s recent book, Liquid Modernity (2000), was a new way of looking at the globalisation which is affecting every area of our life together on the planet.

Pete has used this metaphor to look at what is happening in the church. He argues that there is still much solid church around - corresponding to solid modernity - buildings and congregations, parishes and church structures - all the things that have been part of Christianity for centuries.

But then there is a growing pool of Liquid Church - the loose networks of Christians who may or may not occasionally darken our doors, but who feel part of the Body of Christ, connected through informal fellowship, by TV, radio or internet, in alternative worship groups, or simply in association with other Christian friends.

They feel no loyalty to the structures. Some may think they are irrelevant. Others are happy to pop in from work for a lunchtime mass, or turn up on the major Feasts, or just look in out of interest from time to time.

They may go to a mums and toddlers’ group run by a church. They may be one of the tens of thousands who went to an Alpha course but then felt uncomfortable identifying too closely with the church.

Of course Anglo-Catholicism has always had it’s fair share of these. I’ve finally got round to reading Rose Macaulay’s book, The Towers of Trebizond, with that wonderful character ‘the Revd the Honorable Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg’ whom she describes as ‘an ancient bigot who had run a London church several feet higher than St Mary’s Bourne Street’.

The narrator says “I too am high, even extreme, but somewhat lapsed, which is a sound position, as you belong to the best section of the best branch of the Christian Church, but seldom attend its services.”

And then there is that great host of Anglo-agnostics who are out there in the liquid church and occasionally look in.

Pete illustrates three ways in which traditional, solid church, has mutated to try and adapt to the shifting certainties and moralities round about it.

There is ‘Church as Refuge’, where the congregation tries to become an all absorbing sub-culture, with lots of meetings, an emphasis on togetherness and family. This gives a sense of safety, and especially in the United States, mega-churches have grown up, with their own schools, restaurants, bowling allies, gyms, weightwatchers - I have seen the book ‘Slim for Him’.

Then there is ‘Church as Nostalgic Community’. It constantly laments over an imagined past, when rich and poor, young and old, flocked into church. Although there is some truth in this, the facts and figures of the past don’t generally bear it out.

Yet it is a powerful myth the church likes to believe about itself and by constant repetition it avoids having to take into account and act in the light of the very changed circumstances of today’s society.

Finally there is ‘Church as Heritage Site’. Pete Ward writes: “Far from being a turn-off, for some people the weekly visit to church is attractive precisely because it offers a slice of living history... As the tradition of the church is mutated by liquid modernity, the minister slowly turns into curator... Ministers and people are willing to see gradual change, but every effort is made to respect the weight of tradition.” (p.27)

Pete argues that although these islands of solid church will remain for some time yet, it is the liquid church that is growing in Europe and North America and many solid churches are melting into it. Alan Jamieson catalogued this process in his fascinating book, A Churchless Faith.

So what of the future of the church? Well my guess is that in the short-term, say the next 20 years or so, the solid core is going to get a little smaller but more significant. And the broad liquid aurora will become larger - I hope much larger - and slightly more coherent as a loose network, perhaps with solid church acting as nodes of information and tradition, and sustainers of the network.

And beyond that? I have no idea, but I am sure that God does not lose sleep over it.

Nevertheless, all the commentators and future-watchers draw some similar conclusions. Namely, the urgent need for all churches to grow through mission rather than by merely hoping to survive. In this respect all the books offer the same message: evangelise or die.

And another common conclusion is, that we need each other. Those who are spiritually hungry in our world are not particularly interested in denominational labels or styles of worship. If they go anywhere regularly, or drop in occasionally, they will go where they feel nurtured and loved. It is a very basic human need.

In the government guidelines for the relationship between school governors and the Head Teacher, they are described as ‘critical friends’. We cannot ignore differences or pretend we don’t hold opinions, but we must at the very least be critical friends. And this applies within a single congregation, as well as across the denominations and wider.

We have misunderstood the Gospel if we have made it a Gospel of exclusion. Our Lord always wants to include those who seek after God and truth. This is the message of today’s Gospel parable.

To demonise those with whom we disagree, in our own congregation or in another denomination, is frankly unchristian.

They drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took them in
(Edwin Markham)

The Future of Christianity, our adventure into the unknown, can only be in following our Lord’s way of faith, hope and love.

“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Col 3 14

Coping with Change

Coping with Change

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” Hebrews 12.28

I must have told you about the strict Baptist minister visiting Newmarket. Out of curiosity he goes to the race course and knowing that nobody knows him there, decides to have a flutter. He goes to the paddock first and is intrigued to see a Catholic priest praying in Latin over a horse. He is even more surprised when it wins. The priest prays over two or three more horses and they all win.

So finally he lays half the church funds on the next horse the priest prays over. The horse starts well but then keels over before the first fence and dies. The minister is distraught and rushes to ask the priest what happened. “Ah that’s the trouble with you Baptists,” the priest replies, “you don’t know the difference between a blessing and the last rites.”

It’s said that the Seven Last Words of the Church will be “We’ve never done it that way before.” The Church does not have a good track record for coping with change. Whether it’s Copernicus and the earth going round the sun, or a new Archbishop who is being tried for heresy before his episcopal bottom has touched the throne.

And we Anglo-Catholics are sometimes the worst. ‘How many Anglo-Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?’ ‘Change!’

Heraclitus had the measure of things in his much slower culture than ours: “There is nothing permanent but change.”

And there is nothing more exhausting. Even young men and women grow weary. But continuous change is here to stay so we all have to learn to cope.

First there is a very important characteristic of the human psyche.

“All change is perceived as loss.”

When 70-year old George dies, we do not go to widow Edith with encouragements like: “He was pretty old and useless anyway, and there are plenty of younger, better men around. A younger husband would improve your image. So just forget George and get to like a new trendier husband.” Of course not. We understand bereavement.

I remember trying to get rid of the pews in one of my churches. I knew I had lost when I found myself denouncing the pews as uncomfortable, jerry-built, Victorian monstrosities. This was no way to prepare people for a bereavement.

What I and others said about the pews may well have been true, but their departure from people who had sat in them for 20, 30, 80 years would be perceived as a real loss. My arguments were pastorally insensitive. (They removed the pews ten years after I left.)

Alvin Toffler, in his classic work Future Shock, talks about PSZs - Personal Security Zones. We all need them and often they comprise familiar surroundings with the comfort that they bring. I still remember the secure feelings engendered by the gentle hiss of the gas heaters in my old church on a winter’s evening.

For the past 30 years the arrangement of bits and pieces in the drawers of my desk has changed very little. I don’t actually use the sealing wax in the Bendicks Bittermints box, but it is somehow comforting to know that it is there.

When for three weeks I was living out of boxes in the vestry down in Torquay, sleeping under the Communion Table where the carpet was cleanest, I thought I could cope until my nice new flat was ready.

But I couldn’t. My emotional life fell apart and more than once I found myself sitting on the floor in the corner of the vestry sobbing. My Personal Security Zones were shattered and the everyday stresses of ministry overwhelmed me. It was a great and painful spiritual lesson for me.

And what is often true about the routines of our daily life and ordering is sometimes even more true of our mindset.

It was George Bernard Shaw who observed that “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

One of the hardest areas of change that we have to face up to is the change in our own theological outlook: our view of God and the church.

There is sometimes a psychological play-off we indulge in. As we become less certain about some of the doctrines of our faith we become more dogmatic about liturgical procedures. We may not be too clear any more about what we believe concerning heaven and hell, but we know exactly what speed the ‘Our Father’ should be sung!

Stephen Madden was a retired minister in his 90s when I went as a young minister down to Torquay.

What I admired greatly in him, was his ability to change his mind about various theological issues during his lifetime - even in his 80s. He was secure in his faith in Christ and there was little solid ground anywhere else. He would tell me of views he had held during his ministry, and then chuckled at the thought of them.

It is interesting that old age often gives security and the middle-aged are those most threatened in the church - the men and women who have to face up to so much change in the family and at work and so put all their PSZs in the church.

Of course too may changes at once can push the stress levels up to danger point. Gaius Davies in his book Stress, gives The Social Readjustment Rating Scale: ranging from 100 points for the death of a spouse, through 50 for marriage, 31 for taking out a mortgage, 24 for revision of personal habits, to 13 for the changes brought about by holidays and 12 points for Christmas! It’s a good chart to fill in when you wonder why you feel as though it’s your turn to have the nervous breakdown.

We counsel the bereaved not to make too many changes too soon, yet in personal growth and church life we often expect far too much too quickly. Despite modern technology and Instant Renewal, the mills of God still grind slowly. In my spiritual formation classes, I always encouraged students to try and change only one habit at a time, and even then to take at least six months per change. We all know that crash diets really don’t achieve much. It is the steady discipline of change that which brings about real growth in Christ.
Archbishop Stuart Blanche once wrote that “Change is the angel of a changeless God.”

All this unavoidable change is there to help us grow in grace. In the sovereign purposes of God, he has called us to be a pilgrim people. He constantly shakes our world (Heb.12.22-28) so that we can clearly discern the things that cannot be shaken and place all our hope in the City of God and Jesus Christ who is the same, yesterday, today and forever. (Heb.13.8)

If you read through the book of Numbers which tells of the Israelite pilgrims on their long journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, then you will see how again and again God reminds his people that their security is not in the ‘flesh pots of Egypt’, but in God himself.

Or while Abraham lived with God in his tents among the hills, his nephew, Lot preferred the security of the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah. But our Lord warns in the Gospels of the consequences of longing to go back to the secure Cities of the Plain with that enigmatic little phrase in Luke - “Remember Lot’s wife!” (Luke 17.32)

Whether it is personal change or change in our churches, they all throw us back onto God. “All my hope on God is founded” is never more true than in times of rapid change. Our faith is renewed; we come to an end of self and church ‘schemes’; we throw ourselves upon God and find in him our strength and shield.

Now an interregnum is not a time for major changes. It is hard enough to be bereft of our Vicar. For many of us he was a very important part of our Personal Security Zone. We are too fragile for too many changes too soon.

But it is a time for taking stock. For thinking about where we are, and praying about where we might be. Some will be frustrated because they want to get on with things. Others will be apprehensive about an uncertain future.

In these ‘in between’ days, the old nun’s prayer has never been truer:

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom to know the difference.

And in all the changing scenes of life, we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, regular in our attendance at the sacraments, gratefully receiving the security of the Body and Blood of Christ. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it:

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” Hebrews 12.28