It was Easter, but Saint Michael’s church, Harbledown, was closed, the would-be worshippers locked out. Easter was not forgotten though.
This shrine had the crosses of Christ and the thieves, backlit by sunset – this day you will be with me in Paradise! There is a sketch of the water of Baptism, evergreen leaves, a symbol of eternity, and the faithful cross above all, crowned with white flowers:
Faithful cross, above all other, One and only noble tree: None in foliage, none in blossom, None in fruit thy peer may be. Sweetest wood and sweetest iron, Sweetest weight is hung on thee!
We can worship in peace in Kent this year; Saint Michael’s will be open, all made welcome. Thank God for bringing us through the pandemic, and may he gather in all who have died in the covid outbreak. Let us remember, too, the many who are still becoming infected with the disease and perhaps finding recovery difficult. Lord hear our prayer!
To hear King’s College choir sing a setting of this hymn, click here.
We pray for the dignity and worth of women to be recognised in every culture, and for an end to the discrimination they face in various parts of the world.
This pot is part of our Easter Garden at Saint Mildred’s in Canterbury. It represents Mary Magdalene who had walked with Jesus through the Holy Land, who had supported him with her own money, who had stood by the Cross as he died, who came to anoint his body on Easter morning, who met him risen in the garden.
Mary Magdalene helped to make Jesus’ mission possible, and brought her practical skills to the fellowship of the disciples. Today, let us discern and recognise the many ways in which women build up the Church and give thanks for them. Let us celebrate their gifts and graces. Let us enable and encourage them to take on roles new to women in the Church.
I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.
Jeremiah 30:17
Pope Francis has frequently called for the Church to be like a field hospital for anyone wounded by their experience of life. That may call some church organisations or individuals to take on roles in earthquake zones, in combat areas or other emergencies, but every day we may meet someone who needs a little of our time: a family member, friend or neighbour; quite possibly a stranger. Let us look out for them, all of them God’s children.
A sermon preached by the Revd Perry Butler at St Mildred’s Church on the 14th January, the Second Sunday after Epiphany. Here is a window from St Mildred’s, showing her with her grandfather King Saint Ethelbert. Why did they go to church?
Why do people go to church? Why do we go to church? Well of course there are lots of reasons.
There are the C and E types, Christmas and Easter, and the four wheelers, christenings, weddings and funerals. Though probably less of them now. And other reasons: habit. duty even, being part of community and the support it gives, friendship or the activities that are part of church life, the choir or bell ringing and so on.
But I think you would call these surface reasons. For those of us who are regular churchgoers there is, I hope, a desire to worship that springs from a feeling deep down that we are, in some way or another, responding to a call from God.
Samuel the young apprentice to Eli the priest hears God calling audibly his name. There seems to have been no word from the Lord in those days. Had God gone quiet or perhaps God’s people had stopped listening.
Either way God calls Samuel and Samuel thinks it is Eli calling. “ Here I am you called me” It happens twice. Notice how Eli reacts. He tells Samuel to “Lie down again”. In other words quieten down, calm yourself. Wise advice I think. To hear God’s call we need to be calm, forget our own thoughts and agenda, make space in our overcrowded lives, leave the hubbub behind and listen to what God might be saying.
And perhaps the Church as an institution needs , especially now perhaps, to forget its noisy arguments and controversies and try and listen to what God might be saying.
And then God’s final call, and this time Samuel responds, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening” Rather like I think Mary and the angel at the annunciation, “Be it unto me according to your word. “
Do you know? ( I didn’t til I was preparing this sermon) that the word for obedience comes from the latin word obedire, which means to listen to, to pay attention. So trying to listen to God is actually an act of obedience to Him.
And the Gospel passage. Jesus calls Philip, a direct and unambiguous call. “Follow me” And he does, immediately. Had Philip already heard about Jesus? We don’t know, all we know is he responded to Jesus’s call wholeheartedly. He became a disciple.
I suspect, with some exceptions, that doesn’t quite match our experience. So let’s look at the psalm, Psalm 139, one of my favourites. It speaks of that inescapable sense of God’s presence in all of human life, haunting us. I think we can relate to that.
Lord, you have searched me out and know me. You know my sitting down and rising up, You discern my thoughts from afar.
Read that psalm. Alas today we skip from verse 5 to verse 12 and so lose some gems. There’s a bit of homework for you. Read it through.
Where shall I go then from your Spirit or where shall I go from your presence? If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there shall your hand lead me, your right hand shall hold me.
I have said that psalm with people who have come to the end of their lives.
And that wonderful verse,
If I climb up to heaven you are there, if I go down to hell you are there also.
God in the heights of elation, yet a God who plumbs the depths of tragedy and despair.
I read that psalm at an awful funeral early in my ministry. The funeral of a young woman whose marriage I had taken a year before, who had taken he own life, weighed down by a deep mental anguish.
Samuel, Philip but let’s not forget Nathanael. Philip calls Nathanael and so becomes the first missionary. But what does he say in response to Nathanael’s cynical remark about Nazareth?
Come and see
Come and see.
I suspect a lot of people hear God’s call through another person,
Come and see. Come along Come with me. What do you think?
So why do we come to Church?
Because in one way or another we have sensed God’s call to us, coming in all sorts of ways, for all sorts of reasons, believing God has called us into the fellowship of his Church, to meet Him and enjoy His presence with us in word and sacrament.
And the two challenges which spring I think from the response of Samuel and Philip
Samuel: Speak Lord , your servant is listening: Are we?
And Philip: Come and See! Do we ever give that invitation?
I’m sure readers will not have forgotten the way we were during the Covid pandemic, but there are always ‘lessons to be learnt’, as our politicians frequently remind us. The effect of changes forced upon Churches should not be ignored, especially the blanket closures and the inability to attend Mass or other Divine Service.
The Catholic Union has completed a survey of people’s thoughts and feelings to be sent to the Covid Enquiry. Here is the CU’s report on their results, from Deputy Director James Somerville-Meikle. A more detailed account can be found here.
Last month I sat down with a cup of coffee to go through the results of our survey on Covid and places of worship. Reading through the comments, I could have done with something stronger. Words like “isolated”, “depressed”, and “lonely” appeared time after time. It was a harrowing reminder of the impact that restrictions imposed on our churches for the best part of two years had on people’s lives.
Two thirds of people who took part in the survey said that closing churches had an impact on their physical or mental health. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the vast majority of people (90 percent) want to see places of worship classed as “essential” in any future pandemic, and never forced to close again.
Boris Johnson was not asked directly about the decision to lockdown churches as part of his evidence to the Covid Inquiry this week. We will be sending the results of our survey to the Inquiry Chair, Baroness Hallet, and asking her to hold a stand-alone evidence session on places of worship in the New Year. The impact of these decisions on people’s lives cannot be overlooked. Politicians and policy makers need to wake up and smell the coffee!
Harbledown Anglican Church celebrating Easter during Lockdown.
And so, beloved brethren,
we should know and remember that when we call God our Father, we must behave as children of God, so that whatever pleasure we take in having God for our Father, he may take the same pleasure in us.
St Cyprian, 'On the Lord's Prayer'.*
Enjoy!
* Cyprian, Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer, Office of Readings, 20.6.23
Our title, A new Place in the Sky, comes from William Golding’s novel, The Spire. A cathedral dean contradicts his master mason’s urgent advice to lay down deep foundations for the spire he is adding to the church, which the dean describes as a new place in the sky. But despite his misgivings, the mason obeyed orders.
Canterbury Cathedral is still standing, as seen here from Saint Thomas’s Hill on a misty, moisty morning. That is a tribute to collaboration between architects and masons on one hand and Cathedral clergy on the other.
There had to be a great deal of listening for successful construction to occur over the centuries and listening and building continue to this day. In forty years of living in this city I cannot remember ever seeing the cathedral without scaffolding somewhere, maintaining the work of previous centuries.
We need more listening in the Church and not just about building maintenance. Let’s pray that last month’s gathering of the Catholic Synod will lead to greater communication within the church. Already one cardinal has stated that very soon it felt right for women and laymen to be part of the synod, and it was inconceivable to revert to an assembly solely of bishops in future.
No new dogmas were put forward, no new place in the sky, or the heavens, but the tent has been made bigger and hopefully will be more welcoming. Let’s see where we are in twelve months’ time. Laudato si!
Habakkuk 3: 17 – 19 Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.
Reflection Elie Wiesel told of rabbis imprisoned in Auschwitz putting God on trial for allowing the German genocide against His chosen people, the Jews. After many arguments, the rabbis found God guilty – who on earth could blame them? Then, after the verdict was delivered, a candle was lit and the evening prayers were said.
There is much in the Church demanding a guilty verdict. Our record on anti-semitism is, perhaps, our most ancient sin vying for prime position with our sexism. Sections of the Church justified colonial expansion and its consequent slavery. The persecution of those who thought, or loved, differently added to our hatred and denial of God’s image in His creation – to say nothing about how our clinging to patriarchal modes of power imperils the lives and faith of women and children.
Then there’s the Church’s inability to see, and differentiate itself from, what’s going on around it. Whilst the Earth burns – fuelled in no small measure by the wars we wage – the Church prefers to focus on the insignificant. Personally I’ve been wounded by sections of the Church far more than by wider social movements – and those wounds have come most deeply from the more “progressive,” “inclusive,” and “liberal,” parts of the Church far more than my Catholic childhood or charismatic Anglican teenage years (though they don’t get a not guilty verdict either!) So why am I still a Christian?
Millennia ago the prophet Habbakuk foresaw environmental ruin and consequent famine and yet still sung of his trust in the Most High. Decades ago those rabbis in Auschwitz clung to faith at the same time as believing God had wronged them. I can only admire that illogical tenacity. I don’t believe God has wronged me – but elements of His Church have. So for me, being a Christian is often about differentiating between God and the Church; seeing the Church as a flawed agency of God’s love always in need of radical reform.
Prayer God of the Church we pray for its renewing, for You to show us where we need to reform, where we can bind up the wounds of our world, that we may praise you, and cease wounding others. Amen.
Today’s writer: The Rev’d Andy Braunston is the URC’s Minister for Digital Worship and a member of the Peedie Kirk in Orkney
Thank you once more to Andy for letting us share his Digital worship. Perhaps most of us can identify with Andy’s words: ‘I don’t believe God has wronged me – but elements of His Church have’. Some of us have shuffled aside into another congregation, but how many have been driven totally away? Andy’s prayer is a good one for Catholics at this synod time; there’s another year of it to come! Meanwhile we should be staffing what Pope Francis calls God’s field hospital. Above all let’s cease wounding others.
We bring to a close our reflections on Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium where he treats four principles for facing and resolving conflict. Today’s principle is: the whole is greater than the part. Certainly Pope Francis has challenged us, by his travels and his choice of Cardinals, to appreciate the beauty which God bestows beyond our borders. May we not give in to any fears of broadening our horizons!
There is – or there should be – room for everyone in the Church and society. Let’s move up to let in a few more sisters and brothers. And let them be themselves, as their Creator wants them to be, not forced simply to conform to our way of looking at things. If we can enjoy our newcomers’ recipes, we can enjoy their company: Vive la difference!
234. An innate tension also exists between globalization and localization. We need to pay attention to the global so as to avoid narrowness and banality. Yet we also need to look to the local, which keeps our feet on the ground. Together, the two prevent us from falling into one of two extremes. In the first, people get caught up in an abstract, globalized universe, falling into step behind everyone else, admiring the glitter of other people’s world, gaping and applauding at all the right times. At the other extreme, they turn into a museum of local folklore, a world apart, doomed to doing the same things over and over, and incapable of being challenged by novelty or appreciating the beauty which God bestows beyond their borders.
235. The whole is greater than the part, but it is also greater than the sum of its parts. There is no need, then, to be overly obsessed with limited and particular questions. We constantly have to broaden our horizons and see the greater good which will benefit us all. But this has to be done without evasion or uprooting. We need to sink our roots deeper into the fertile soil and history of our native place, which is a gift of God. We can work on a small scale, in our own neighbourhood, but with a larger perspective. Nor do people who wholeheartedly enter into the life of a community need to lose their individualism or hide their identity; instead, they receive new impulses to personal growth. The global need not stifle, nor the particular prove barren.
236. Here our model is not the sphere, which is no greater than its parts, where every point is equidistant from the centre, and there are no differences between them. Instead, it is the polyhedron, which reflects the convergence of all its parts, each of which preserves its distinctiveness. Pastoral and political activity alike seek to gather in this polyhedron the best of each. There is a place for the poor and their culture, their aspirations and their potential. Even people who can be considered dubious on account of their errors have something to offer which must not be overlooked. It is the convergence of peoples who, within the universal order, maintain their own individuality; it is the sum total of persons within a society which pursues the common good, which truly has a place for everyone.
237. To Christians, this principle also evokes the totality or integrity of the Gospel which the Church passes down to us and sends us forth to proclaim. Its fullness and richness embrace scholars and workers, businessmen and artists, in a word, everyone. The genius of each people receives in its own way the entire Gospel and embodies it in expressions of prayer, fraternity, justice, struggle and celebration. The good news is the joy of the Father who desires that none of his little ones be lost, the joy of the Good Shepherd who finds the lost sheep and brings it back to the flock. The Gospel is the leaven which causes the dough to rise and the city on the hill whose light illumines all peoples. The Gospel has an intrinsic principle of totality: it will always remain good news until it has been proclaimed to all people, until it has healed and strengthened every aspect of humanity, until it has brought all men and women together at table in God’s kingdom.
A few years before this picture was taken I was once at Mass with one of the young people in this picture, an ordinary-time Sunday Mass, when a stranger came and sat next to us. ‘Your baby is very distracting!’ he said, expecting us to move rather than doing so himself.
On another occasion Mrs Turnstone and I, with our then two daughters, were settling into a bench at a church near our holiday house. The priest came up and said that he usually asked parents with young children to stay in the glazed porch where we could see and hear perfectly well. We stayed where we were. It must be said that after Mass Father congratulated the two of them on their good behaviour, but he had begun by excluding them.
There was the occasion before a Cathedral service when a baby of ours discovered by yelling the nave echo! That time we did beat a retreat. I’m sure most parents have felt embarrassed by their young child’s behaviour in church.
Recently I was very pleased to read this notice by Father Valentine Erhanon of Saints Simon and Jude, Streatham Hill, South London. Please make families and babies welcome!
Parents with Babies
Parents are encouraged to bring their babies to Mass
and should not feel
embarrassed if the child cries at Mass,
it is okay.
It shows that our parish is growing
and flourishing.
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