Are you enlightened (Sermon thoughts for Candlemas)?

'A light for the revelation to the Gentiles...' says the old man Simeon as he holds the infant Christ in his arms. These words form part of the prayer we call the Nunc Dimittis - which is said at Evensong, Compline and occasionally at funerals.

To receive light means to be 'enlightened.'  Sometimes this used to mean that someone is civilised or very clever. It is even used to put down more ancient philosophies or beliefs, grouping them all as superstitious. One of those ancient philosophies was alchemy. On the surface this practice could be labelled as mumbo-jumbo.  It was never chemically possible to turn base materials into gold and likewise there as yet has been no miracle potion for immortality.  But somehow on the way the anicents learnt something about how we change or to use a more appropriate word 'convert.' Alchemy's strength is not in the mechanisms of how we change materials in gold but how we change hearts.

The theory about making gold was called the transmutation process.  It had three steps; blackening, whitening, and redenning.  The life application as been to describe this as purification, enlightenment and union. Many spiritual courses, books, and even films take us through those three steps. Indeed, the AA Twelve Steps Programme has been seen to have three sections of four which model this.  For instance, members begin by admitting that one cannot control one's addiction or compulsion and then move on by recognizing a higher power that can give strength. It takes an enormous courage just to make those first two initial steps, many people have to be at the very lowest point. 

In the same way our liturgies normally begin with the penitential rite, inviting us to remember that we measure goodness not by some national mean but by Christ himself.  Fundamentally we stand before the foot of the cross with empty pockets.  Like that base material the intial heat covers us in blackness.  I think its fair to say that in Christian spirituality there can be little enlightenment of any use unless we first are ready to be purified. Its easy to think we can skip the initial difficult bit and download some enlightenment.  Enlightenment for the Christian means receiving the Christ the Light of the World, the light to enlighten the nations. I believe that it also means that we come to understand that there is such a thing, to quote Paul, as the mind of Christ. That God has a purpose for each of us and that although there may be individual choice, there is a greater truth which overarches everything.

What is the point of any journey? Surely it is the destination.  Likewise the goal of any religion is union. It is all too easy to be fobbed off with the idea that the Christian is simply about making people believe this or that. For us as Christians that union is with the Triunion God. Our faith is at its heart, a person, Jesus Christ. As we enjoy union, we realise that this union has come through, been mediated, via a communion, ie. the Church itself, his body.

You dont have to go to church to be Christian - (supposedly)

This is where my homily for Epiphany 2 Year A is going. I am trying to introduce a positive theme of 'Church' against a backdrop of constant media negativity. Are we beginning to believe what is being pumped out? Is it a fair an accurate picture. I think, (believe) there is another, greater, story. 

Maybe you have had accosted by someone with the statement ‘Well, you don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian?’ I find it painfully difficult not to respond by landing them with a heap of theology. I usually take the cowards route and keep quiet. To be fair to myself there is more to be learnt in listening because behind that statement often lies painful stories where the Church has let them down. Its an opening gambit and it would be all too easy to fire off rhetoric.

I think of a minister in Scotland who upon visiting an unmarried couple’s house (with regards to a baptism) said ‘We don’t “do” bastards.” A generation later the family confessed to me how they still could not stomach to go into a church.


In Year A of the liturgical cycle we follow the gospel of Matthew and also a good chunk of Corinthians. Both the evangelist and St Paul are arguing for the Church. And this is what I would like to be our theme for this year, the Church. As my story illustrates the Church can fail to live up to the Gospel. But, I think the more we look at what the Church means, the more we discover that at the heart of transforming our world, God has put the Church. I believe, therefore in a Church shaped Mission.


And yet we so often, even as Christians, even more so as church leaders, we downplay the Church. Could it be that we begin to see only the criticism and the barrage of negative media stories?


When Simon confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Lord replies by adding, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.’ So every other institution and organisation may eventually fail, but Jesus is going to ensure that his Church never fails. Even the banks can’t have that kind of guarantee! Yet, too often we live out the life of the Church, as if it’s in the mind of God, some marginal institution.

Go to Rome, and walk around the ruins of the ancient Senate, miles of rubble. That’s what happened to the empire that was supposed to never fall. Look at the Berlin Wall now and hear the words of statesmen like Gorbachev who know acknowledge the central role of the Church in bringing freedom.

There is a reason why Christ has deigned his Church, indestructible, it is because it is to be the one and only means of saving the world.

St Paul writes specifically to the church of God in Corinth and his first letter is packed with all sorts of crucial insights into what it means to be a church. He begins by rejoicing in them as a church. Verse 4, Chapter 1, actually reads in the Greek; I “eucharist” God always concerning you – on the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. I tried today to read these words like a mantra, but inserted in the name of our church, Holy Trinity Salcombe. God the Father has given this town his most precious gift, the Body of Christ, with not the vicar as its head, but Jesus himself.

There is a great danger at this present moment that we, and specifically Anglican Christians, downplay the whole concept of Church. The temptation is to believe that the church, local and national, is an incidental network or an institution. In other words it’s a bit of an accident of history. So after some brainstorming the First Century Christians pulled out of the filing cabinet the idea of having an organisation called ‘Church’. So forget the Holy Spirit, because obviously in this scenario he has retired and has not really been that hands-on for the past two thousand years.

There is a lot to say and I hope much opportunity to share thoughts and reflections. Aside from St Matthew and St Paul, I will probably pick up in sermons and talks themes from St Benedict, St Francis, the Desert Father, and the Reformers, and much modern discourse. But at the heart of it I hope you will share with me a belief that the Church, the Body of Christ, is the one community which God gives gifts like no other. As Paul says, ‘Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.’ (1 Cor 1. 7)


I like Brother Roger’s call of Taize, that it should be parable of community. Surely, that is the calling, the vocation, of every local church?

Acts 16. 16-34 and John 17. 20-end

A councillor in Bideford Devon is so incensed that council meetings began with prayers that he claims that it is an infringement of his human rights. The National Secular Society is now helping him with legal action. I struggle to get my head around how a person standing in a room with others praying can, even as an unbeliever, see that as such a violation. Maybe, and this is speculation on my part, is this because faith in God, and prayer in particular, is perceived as belittling.

Are we merely pawns in some divine chessboard? Is faith in God really about a kind of submission which reduces us to the position of slaves under a tyrant monster of a God (or if we don’t believe in God – a system of religion) ? Further more, is religion the one thing that divides us rather than unites us? Is it the case that without churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, human beings would have less conflicts and be more united?

**

The Roman-Greek mythologies did seem to stress the lowliness of men and women in the grand scheme of things. There was an underlying despair in their narratives which did see us as pawns. This made it very easy for citizens to fall into line with the view that the emperor was a living god. Just like the desolate souls of the Soviet empires who worshipped the Party leaders who told them that they were nothing but cogs in the machine that was the State.

In today’s first reading (Acts 16. 16-34) we pick up on Paul and Silas being taunted by a slave girl. “These men are slaves of the Most High God,” she says. In other words she is accusing them of being pawns, worthless minions to Jehovah.

But, who is really free in this story? The slave girl has a power of divination through some dark inner spirit or force. Her owners make a good buck from her predictions and of course are riled when she is power is broken. Paul and Silas are then imprisoned and after the miraculous earthquake - liberated. The guard is terrified of the punishment that will be met out on him so he quickly tries to commit suicide. He is dissuaded but asks, “Sirs what must I do to be saved?” The instruction is without hesitation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” In this ancient culture the word for salvation comes not only close to liberation but also healing. So in New Testament mindset salvation is not just the next life, but also our experience freedom and wholeness, here and now. And the story, leads us to this conclusion, the guard is not just baptised, but seeks to wash (heal) the wounds of these apostles, and to offer them food and hospitality. We can imagine that a great burden had been lifted from this family and their joy was intense and complete.

**
Have you ever watched that TV quiz show, Come Dine With Me, where participants (sometimes celebrities) make a meal and act as host. They then give each other marks out of ten and the winner gets a thousand pounds. The fly on wall documentary is popular but turgid and often there is a lot of predictable bitchiness.

Well it would make television history if a host, told his guests he was about to get wrongly arrested and killed. Imagine the cameras rolling as during the meal he breaks bread and tells them that this is his body and afterwards that a chalice is filled with his blood, even though it looks like wine. Then further more after the meal, imagine the host getting up and washing the guests feet, and imploring them to love one another. Top this with a prediction that some invisible spirit called the Advocate was going to come along later and empower them beyond their dreams. At the end this host prays that the kind of unity he has with God was the ultimate prize.

Of course we know this as the Last Supper. In the version by St John, the fourth evangelist, Jesus gives a long powerful speech. At the end of the testimony there is this prayer (John 17.20-end), which is often called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. It is recorded not for the disciples but for us the reader.

The heart of this prayer is that we may be one, united, just as Jesus himself is united to the Father. But what kind of unity is it? Is it the uniform drab eternal existence of a slave bowing in front of a giant throne? Am I somehow being absorbed into some magical spiritual force so that my identity evaporates? On earth does this ones mean doing as I am told in case that divine Big Brother or his clerics catch me out?

The key word is love. We called to be ‘one’ by our common experience of being liberated by the carpenter of Nazareth who says ‘I call you not servants any more but friends.’ This is the friendship of him whose love and passion for us is so intense, if not eternal, that he offers himself for us on the Cross at Calvary. He wants that love to sink deeply between the roots and marrow that we may be transformed by love, and know that we are truly loved, totally healed, and therefore free.

The Good Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

April Magazine Editorial

Groucho Marx famously remarked that he wouldn’t belong to any club that would have him! I wonder, if many people today think the same thing about being part of life of the Church? The world-wide Church at its heart is not an institution but a living vibrant body; a band of people from every walk of life trying to follow Jesus. Can we look at membership of the Church afresh and present it in a more positive light?

Of course, it’s all to easy to imagine that the historic Church is an invention of man and nothing near what Jesus would want. Philip Pullman in his controversial new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, resells this old chestnut. In the author’s view Saint Paul is the ultimate spin doctor who has recreated Christianity and made it into something it was not meant to be. The same kind of slant on the Church is painted by Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code but with Emperor Constantine as the one who invents Christianity rather than Paul. Neither Pullman or Brown are practising Christians or theologians, rather they are in the business of telling stories and selling books.

The alternate view to these contentious authors is to see the Church as Christ’s body. This does not mean that Church people have not got things wrong in the past or have done terrible things in the name of religion. But, it does mean that at the centre of Jesus’ work, here and now, is this spiritual family. So, even if clergy and laity make a hash of it, the Lord somehow will make good of bad. We, fallible human beings, are the only material that He has. Maybe the Church has many centuries to go before it reaches its perfection? Could it be that we are in the infancy of the Church?

Sometimes being part of a church can be testing but it can also be tremendously rewarding, welcoming and spiritually, intellectually and emotionally nourishing. There can be politics and squabbles in our churches which can drive us to distraction. But, just as ‘no man is an island’, surely no Christian can be truly fed without some participation in the life of Christ’s Body? Maybe this Easter we all need to give the Church a second look, and think afresh about how we can be part of it?

Year B - Proper 20 - The Centre of the Centre - Mark 9.30-37

My own personal reflection of the mission of the Church has coincided nicely with this week's Gospel - Mark 9.30-37. This pivotal part of the narrative marks the end of the Christ's mission and the beginning of his final southward journey to Jerusalem. We are told in the opening verse that Jesus passes through the Galilee anonymously with his disciples. This confirms that he senses that the period of outreach has finished. 'For he was teaching his disciples saying to them - The Son of Man is to betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three after being killed, he will rise again.'

However the disciples dont understand what Jesus is saying. The reality of either Good Friday or Easter seems incomprehensible. Instead on the way to Capernaum the disciples are arguing amonst themselves as to who is greatest? Two little footnotes here with regards to the passage. First, it is the disciples not the Twelve who are having this discussion. There may have been hundreds if not thousands - we are not told. But notice that it is the inner group, the Twelve who are taken aside. Secondly, the return to Capernaum is important too because Jesus begins his ministry there and it seems to in this Gospel the centre of his ministry.

So Jesus returns to the centre. But in many ways the followers are not pyschologically at the centre - at the heart of what it means to follow. Then he does an extraordinary thing - he places at the centre of the centre - a child. 'Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, he said to them - 'Whosever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.' The adults have been arguing who is the super-follower, whose had the greatest converts, whose done the most miracles, who has walked the most miles. But Jesus puts a child as the greatest.

I've spend a lot time wondering what the next thirty years is going to be like for the Church - nationally and in my own parish. I think we have underestimated the sheer power and influence of secularisation in Britain and the way it has decimated our congregations. The belief used to be that churches would always be filled with grannies and toddlers. The idea was that as people got older they returned to worship. But new research now points to the fact that they are not returning in riper years because they were never here in the first place. We can now speak of three generations of unchurched people. So our supply of returners is drying up.

Yet we are asked by the leadership of the Church to be missionary in our land. We have to be 'fit for mission' and a 'mission shaped' Church with lots of 'Fresh Expressions of Church' and have events like Alpha and 'Back to Church Sunday'. Now I'm not try to poo poo this because there is a lot of inspiratinal stuff here. But I think there needs to a minority report which challenges the presumptions that people are going to return in their droves - if only we make our churches a little bit more user friendly. Also, I sense that in many typical congregations, a small number of people are being asked to run the building, go to the endless meetings, pay the quota to the diocese, and then be evangelists outreaching into the community. And again, many churches do excellent work but many many more struggle.

Could we not at an epoch where we have to say to ourselves - has not this period of mission ended? Is it not the case that the majority of people in our land have not responded to the Gospel. Have we not to quote the psalmist -'Sit down by the rivers of Babylon and weep while we remembered Zion.' Is it not now the time to consolidate, regroup and come back to the centre? I dont think this is defeatist or negative. The greatest moment in our country's military history was Dunkirk - a retreat. If Dunkirk had failed we could have lost the War.

My guess is that our ecclesiastical Dunkirk would involve putting the child at the centre of the centre. By this I mean supporting families who trying to be little churches in their own homes. I dont mean house churches - but rather that we must have many special families in these diocese where Mum and Dad practice and are trying to live out Christian life centred on the home. Because of the age spread of most typical congregations they find it hard to find Sunday worship with people their own age. Their children may be the only children coming on Sunday. Yet surely, these people should be the mainstream not the exception?

So my controversial advice to the bishops is to say that we need to plant in each diocese a number of centres exclusively for families to come and worship. I would envisage that this would mean five to ten churches like this per diocese. Each would have a membership of at least a hundred so that they had the possibility of growth. They need to be this size so that newcomers can come and see what it is like without feeling they stick out. The other reason for a large congregation, (that is beyond the size of the a small 'club') is to draw on a lot more resources that can currently be shared.

For church like the one I lead in Salcombe, it may be that it is not possible to be a centre for families - even with our new reordering. However, thinking outside the box, could we not be a centre for families in the 'high season' where the population goes up from 1800 to 25,000?

Put on the Armour of God

After ten hours on the road, numerous toddler squabbles, and one or two near misses, we stopped for supper at the Dartmoor Lodge, Ashburton. We were on the final leg of our journey back from Aberdeen. Parking the car, I slumped against the steering wheel, only to hear Nathaniel (3) whisper, ‘Luke – I am your father’.

It’s the best line in cinema (in my opinion) from the Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars), the film that brought us the cosmic struggle to rid the galaxy of the dark side of the Force.

It resonated for me with Ephesians 6. 11-17, my favourite bit of the New Testament, with the injunction to put on the armour of God because ‘of the cosmic powers of this present darkness.’ I like to use it in the baptismal liturgy when the child or adult is anointed with the oil of baptism. I think it is particularly powerful to do when baptising boys because the prevailing British culture wrongly sees the Gospel as something largely for girls. We rarely speak of the Church Militant or being a spiritual warrior for Christ.

Perhaps I should have presided in a suit of armour rather than an alb, stole, and chasuble? There is in fact a mosaic in Ravenna of a beardless Christ dressed as a Roman Soldier. Could we imagine a Ninja Jesus, or a Christ in Khaki battle dress, or Jesus paratrooper?

I am not advocating violence, crusades or some kind of Christian Jihad but rather the idea of the armour of God and the cosmic powers calls us not to sleepwalk in the task of being a Christian in the world? Remember Jesus said to the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was stormed by violent men (and women) and that these violent people were taking from them. In other words God’s revolution was being snatched from the luke warm and given to the enthusiasts for the Gospel. Likewise, the letter to the Ephesians wants us be to tuned into the bigger picture of what the Church is all about. The Church was devised not in committees, vestries or sanctuaries but in the mind of God before creation. The Church is the central instrument of salvation in the World. And as the Church increases her territory so she finds resistance, confrontation, injustice.

The battle that the Church finds itself is not simply against injustices or people who don’t like our religion. The battle, Ephesians is telling us, has an undercurrent. It is a battle for the heart, for imagination, for the soul. It is war of ideas. Even if you find it alien the concept of a devil or a supernatural dark side, believe that we are fighting a war of ideas.

In the news recently has been the passionate debate about the urgency to provide soldiers in Afghanistan with more helicopters, land vehicles, and personal body armour. Having half the kit, is almost pointless. The write of Ephesians clearly calls us to be strong in the Lord by putting on the whole armour. The emphasis here is on the whole, rather than part. All bits of kits are crucial, in many ways it’s a mindset as well as discipline. We need for our armour, a sense of salvation, an understanding of the Scripture in our life, the canniness to know untruth and heresy, and the shield of a mature faith to protect us.


Finally, and core to our armour is the breastplate. This protects the heart and lungs, the core of our being in other words. Ephesians links the breastplate with righteousness. This is not self-righteousness but rather you and me doing the right thing. Abbot Jamison has written a book called Finding Happiness which I would eagerly recommend. He wisely points out that most of us want happiness but when pushed struggle to define it? Monasticism understands it as the pursuit of what is good, namely living a virtuous life. If we do the wrong thing, if we choose the easy path, (or to quote Yoda – choose the ways of the Sith and not the Jedi) then will we know true happiness? Will not our conscience be racked and our spirituality fail? Surely this is at the heart of Jesus’ first sermon the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) which itself starts with the word ‘Happy’. Happiness is doing the right thing.

I want to end with the words of Soldiers of Christ Arise

Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul,Take every virtue, every
grace, and fortify the whole;Indissolubly joined, to battle all proceed;But arm
yourselves with all the mind that was in Christ, your Head.

Meditation on the Bread of Life

Bread of Life – Used on the Sunday 8am Homily

I have been reflecting on the Eucharist, and I offer this meditation.

When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

In the past week I have been making bread. I have not employed a bread maker but wanted the experience of mixing the ingredients and kneading the bread. The whole process is ancient, a skill passed for millennia and somewhat mysterious. The smallest constituent, yeast, transforms the whole thing.

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to yeast. When I worry about the diminishing size of congregations, I remember that the yeast.

We are what (or who) God is using to raise everything around us. Our calling is to be yeast in Salcombe, or wherever we call home.

It may even be a mystery to us how God can do this. How can God use me to be his agent of change? In many ways this is not our business or concern. It may come years later, that we appreciate how our very presence changed everything around us.

When you and I leave this service, we carry Christ with us. We have received the bread of life sacramentally. Let us not keep him to ourselves. That would diminish the supreme gift. Somehow, let the joy, grace and peace be something we share.

The Eucharist is a miracle. Let us be a miracle when we leave here.

Trinity Sunday - Patronal Festival

Here are sermon nuggets for tomorrow - Trinity Sunday. I'll make something from this.

• Trinity Sunday - who thought that one up? It's a bit like the BBC deciding to have a broadcasting week! Surely every Sunday is a Trinity Sunday? I don't really understand the logic of this one.
  
• I can't get my head around why preachers sweat at the thought of this topic. Surely everything we proclaim subsists in the Holy Trinity?
  
• The danger is that we treat the subject of the Trinity as an optional extra. It's not as if some bored Early Church theologians thought it up on a rainy day. We cannot jettison the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, yet sometimes we act as if we could. I mean we just dont live it enough. As a remedy I would suggest that we ban the word 'God' for a while from our vocabularly. Instead let us speak of The Father (or 'Abba'), Jesus and Holy Spirit.
  
• Another one is to ban the word 'Church' and speak of 'Body' instead. The more we speak of the 'Body of Christ' the more we might begin to act like it.
  
• The collects from the Prayer Book and Common Worship dont always scratch were it itches with me. All those adjetives sound so parsonical and impersonal. Do you remember the sketch of the school chaplain from Monty Python's film 'The Meaning of Life' ? 'Oooou God you are sooo big. We're jolly impressed down here.' Sometimes these collects sound a bit like this.
  
• Dont get wrong its not a case of God all-matey. But surely the message of the Gospel is that the image of the awesome God stands before us as Jesus? 'I call you not servants but friends'. Through the Cross we have access to the majesty of Christ. Through the incarnation we can see God among us as the infant Christ of Bethlehem. The Eucharist unveils the God of mystery as our food. God touches us with his physical sacraments. The veil of the Holy of Holies has been torn in two.
  
• We are baptised into the name of the Trinity. Anything else is repudiated by orthodox Christianity and the baptism seen as invalid. The Great Commission of Jesus at the end of Matthew's Gospel tells us to baptise the nations in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are to immerse the world into this mystery. We cant do the job if we are not spiritually immersed in the Trinity itself.
  
• I love all that stuff in The Shack about the Trinity and how the three persons explain that they live in perfect community. Human beings want to be independent of their creator and in doing so fail to be truly themselves.
  
• I appreciate in these rough notes I have not given Scripture references. Of course one of the aunt sally's that is put up is that the Trinity is not scriptural. (Some of the sects like Jehovah Witnesses make this point as does Dan Brown in the DaVinci Code.) But although the technical word 'Trinity' is not there, the relationships of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are there. Jesus for example in the last Supper Dialogue (St John) is quite clear that the Advocate is a person. Paul also speaks of the Spirit in a personal way. Since they are not speaking of an angel or the force from Star Wars, the Church has understood this as the Ruach Ha'Kodesh - the Holy Spirit.

Well I shall offer these little random thoughts to Almighty Everlasting God - Abba, in the hope that something will come together. (Not the Swedish band of Mama Mia fame).

PS Did that MP who claimed for £5 he put in the collection gift aid it. If he did at least we'd get someting extra.

Pentecost Thoughts

When preparing for a sermon I often note down lists of thoughts. Sometimes they are disconnected, other times they form a pattern. With Pentecost Sunday coming there is so much that can be said. Here are some of my random notes:

• Are you part of the New Creation? God through Christ is transforming this world - do we want to be part of that transformation? The great danger is that our spirituality is fixed solely on our own spiritual survival AND therefore we lack any concern for the world around us.
  
• Britain's Got Talent got huge ratings and massive hits on youtube. Has does God equip his Church with talent? I think sometimes when we consider 'gifting' and the Church we tend to think that its all about doing things 'in church' on a Sunday. Life in the sanctuary of Sunday worship is important but not as pivitol as the life we live out Monday to Saturday. What gifts does God give us to live out our Christian life in the real world?
  
• Romans 8. 26: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. I suspect that the Holy Spirit can do little in us until we admit our weakness. The best prayer surely starts by not knowing how to start? The Church will only get somewhere when it is on its knees. In some cases when we look at Church decline in the UK - maybe the Father is bringing us to our knees. Have we not, as churches, become too focused on our own abilities? That confidence, or smugness, has prevented the Spirit from breaking through. Maybe this is a bit harsh - but I sense that we to regain confidence in God's power to resurrect the Church in Britain.
  
• Romans 8.26b The very Spirit interceeds with sighs too deep for words. If our critics say that we have nothing to offer the world in terms of "spirituality" then what about that sentence? It is a mighty blow for blow argument. God's Holy Spirit wants to rest so deep within in our hearts if we let Him. That relationship will be one beyond words, a connection which is physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.
  
• The image that comes to mind is of a wind-chime. That we are the chime and God is the wind.
  
• Somehow we need to relay that deep spirituality of Romans 8.26 to those outside the boundaries of the institutional Church. People need to know that the well runs very deep - if not infinitely deep.
  
• Spiritual giftedness is something that mainstream churches tend to shy away a bit. I want to consider this for a bit. The clergy maybe are suspicious of losing control to the laity? We have grown up in such a materialistic world view that I suspect churches are worried that talking or experiencing spiritual gifts may be too unpalatable for people outside.
  
• Spiritual giftedness is not some hidden talent we have. It is not like people who claim to be clairvoyants or mind readers. Surely its about how God's Spirit uses us for a ministry? I think that is the essence of the gifts of the spirit which Paul lists. They are there for a purpose and not for vanity.
  
• I knew a lady, who was a hospital cleaner. She had a gift that she barely recognised. Her gift was in being able to be the voice of God's comfort in specific situation. She transformed (I should write this in bold TRANSFORMED) several people's lives by a sentence. Depression literally fell off one person, guilt, anger, ebbed away. And yet, her own life, was one of pain, failure and the loss of a son who suddenly died in his forties. Somehow she was content in God's presence. Its really difficult to explain, but she was, is, a transforming personality.

• The more we relax into the stream of the Holy Spirit consciousness, the more we see the world through His eyes. The more, he prays in us. We begin connect with the heart of God and understand what He gave up on the Cross.
  
• I believe these gifts are for our work in the world and not so much in the Church. That is why is crucial that most active Christians turn attentions away from the inner workings of the church. We must be amateur ecclesiastics not professionals. The Spirit will look after the Church must better than we ever will.
  
• A high-up cleric (I wont say who) recently said that the Church must be made fit for mission. I want to give another point of view. We are fit for mission!!! We dont need massive reorganising. We need deploying. Saying that we must be 'made fit for mission' is saying that we are not fit for mission. In other words we ready or not good enough. I wonder what the average age here is in Salcombe parish church and benefice. Say it is a modest 50. A practising Christian will have gone to 50 x 52 Sunday services in his or her life. Thats 2600 hours of training. An average degree has 3000 hours. Basic training in the army would probably have 1000 hours. So including all the Bible Study groups, special meetings, reading, retreats, how can we say that the Church, including our church, is not fit for mission?
  
• When bishops and priests talk of mission here what they mean is a reconnection of the Christian message and the Church with the nation. Just in case you wonder. It's not about going off to work with folks in other continents.
  
• Some spiritual gifts I believe can also be less obviously supernatural. Many of the Old Testament prophets spoke up for justice, for what is right. They instinctively were led to see a structural evil in the world around them. From their passion for justice flowed imense energy and insight.

Well, that a few nuggets to work on. It's 10.43 and Susan Boyle has not won BGT. I cant help but feel she was built up over a few weeks and then cruely pounced on by the media. Hopefully she will have a brilliant singing career.

120 in a Room

There's a really challenging book by Michael Budde (1997) with the title 'The Magic Kingdom of God - Christianity and Global Culture Industries'. I appreciate that you may be switched off from the title but stay with me on this one. Fr Michael is an American priest and lecturer who was hired by the Catholic bishops in a certain state the 1990s to create a strategy to rededicate efforts on confronting poverty in the States. I sensed that what they wanted to buy into was a new lobbying initiative or perhaps a special conference on the subject. I'll give you words..

"I told them that they should attempt to take every parishioner in their state
on an intensive retreat, with follow-up programs upon their return.
Nothing the Church could do would benefit the poor people more, I argued, that
to energise, and inspire."

He felt that without attempts to convert the baptised the stranglehold on self-interest and isolation. Religious indifference, he said would continue to "throttle" church attempts to deal seriously with poverty in a global capitalist order. He was fired.

The days from Ascension to Pentecost mark the period in which the first believers stayed together in one room and waited, and waited, and waited. The Acts of the Apostles tells us there were 120 of them. Imagine that! 120, in one room. You can see from Big Brother episodes what a dozen people are like in fairly nice house, so 120 in one room is something else.

The crucial thing is that they didnt just get the Holy Spirit after Jesus left. It wasn't instant. They had to endure these ten days. Sometimes were have to submit ourselves to God in this way. We have to sit and wait. We have to offer the time we have to Him who made time. In doing so we are acknowledging what we receive is His gift and not our right. The simple act of waiting is a process of purification.

I was trying to think of a mission strategy one day and a priest friend of mine said this to me 'pray them in Father'. Secretly I scoffed at what sounded like a pious solution. But for years now that phrase has stuck. 'Pray them in.' We've been challenged to grow by 25% in two years in this diocese. How are we going to do this? Its great to have lots of strategies for church growth, well certainly need to wise-up. But what this priest is telling me is that the MAJOR work will be done in prayer. Let me repeat that - the MAJOR work will be done in prayer.

This might sound a bit scary, if not daunting. It is a bit like when we read John 17 (which we do at the Sunday Gospel today) and think that prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper is really long and complicated. We then begin to say to ourselves, 'I could never pray like that.' Or maybe we think to ourselves, I'll leave that sort of prayer to the vicar and the people who are experts in that sort of thing.

Prayer is not so much about words, but about what we dare to give to God. The prayer of waiting, like those early disciples, is the prayer of entering into quietness, silence, boredom, and fear that God will not respond. Just a sort of sponsored silence. It is then, in his own time, that God smiles on the patient and works his miracles. Consider if a congregation like this (Malborough - this Sunday) we went into ten days of prayer. Maybe we even locked ourselves up in this building. How would we expect to be changed at the end of it? What vision would God give us for what we do with the Gospel, let alone the biggest building in the South Hams?

The caterpillar never becomes a butterfly unless it goes into its cocoon.

I dont know if those 120 in that Jerusalem room had the slighest inkling of what coming. But I know that if they hadn't stayed - nothing would have happened.

Celebrating the Vigil

Saturday's evening service (6.30pm) is called the Easter Vigil. It's a new service for many Anglicans and heralds the official beginning of Easter. If you havent been before come and see. In this candlelit service we hear well known stories from the Bible, renew our baptismal vows and the receive Holy Communion.

If we could travel back in time to the fourth century we would find God's Church at the cusp of massive growth in the dying days of the Roman Empire. After a period of horrific persecution the Church was legalised by the new Emperor, Constantine and believers found new freedoms. Many in the church however were unsure as to how to deal with the large numbers of pagans seeking baptism. Was it simply fashion or were they genuine? Some felt that all this populism was diluting the historic faith and went off to the desert looking for a 'purer' exercise of discipleship. The Easter Vigil is a product of that time and is well documented by for example, St Ambrose.

For candidates for baptism this was the highlight of their spiritual journey and the occasion in which they were baptised. It was at this service that they were anointed and heard the Bible stories of salvation. The evidence is that the liturgy went through the night. Men and women were baptised fully into baths in separate rooms. They were then presented dressed in white to the overseer (bishop) who lay hand on them to confirm and seal the work of the Holy Spirit. They then were finally initiated via Holy Communion. Up until then none of them would have seen the Eucharist since it was done in private. In fact much of their journey was carefully planned exposing them bit by bit to the service. In the Orthodox Church they still dismiss the catechumens after the sermon with the words 'The doors the doors'. (There is a story that Metropolitan Anthony, the Russian bishop in London, had a chill in the cold church and intoned; 'The doors the doors - shut the bloody doors!')

Now we find ourselves in Britain in a less religious more secular country and the rites of the Church need to accomodate this. Large sections of the population remain unbaptised and common language of the Faith is becoming less and less familiar. On this Good Friday in Salcombe we had our procession with wooden cross around town. As we moved to Chapel End a young lad shouted out. "Has someone's died?". I replied 'Jesus'. He promptly ran back into the house 'Mum's Jesus is dead!'. I added, shouting over the fence, 'Dont worry on Sunday he rises?' According to researchers in this field we are now talking of three generations of de-churched people. The task for us is really challenging.

The Easter Vigil calls us to use our imagination, to rediscover liturgies which enchant. It also calls us to take seriously the task of journeying with people seeking faith.

Good Friday Blog

Sorry folks its been a while since I blogged.

'I hate Jesus of Nazareth' was one of those lines you dont easily forget. A fellow and rather loud student burst into our common room, made the comment and ran off. This was 1993 and I had set up Franco Zeferreli's TV-movie in the seminary common room during Holy Week. (You know the one with Robert Powell - isnt he now in Holby City rather than the Holy City?) It was obsviously not to everyone's tastes and some staff made grunted comments that I was competing with the programme of liturgies they had set up. I had put this on because I felt that our ceremonies and rites had become a performance. Our endless rehearsals were almost too perfect, too anodine, too precise and I wasnt get much out of it.

Films like 'Jesus of Nazareth' or 'The Passion of the Christ' remind us that if we as Christians are not touched by the story of Good Friday then we are in trouble. It is all too easy for us as clergy and all those involved in preparing liturgies to be get so caught up in the planning and the details that we dont get anything out of it.

I recall as a deacon in my first year of ministry collapsing on the sofa Good Friday afternoon. It was 1998 and I was exhausted from the packed programme our busy parish had to offer. I channel hopped until I got to BBC1 where they were showing Ben Hur. Again, one of my favourite films, it goes on a bit, but it powerfully puts over the story of the Cross. At the point of crucifixion (Charlton Heston was saying something profound) the camera pans in on Jesus in agony, dying, thunder, lightning. Then to my initial annoyance a ticker tape runs underneath, with a news item. C'mon BBC, get this off! Not now! But I read closely. 'Northern Ireland peace talks concluded with agreement'. 'By his wounds we have been healed' says Charlton Heston/Ben hur. (I feel weepy even writing this.) And suddenly, that was it! Good Friday touched me, lanced me, threw me at Golgotha. Wham Bam!

And that, and many other thoughts , lead to believe that this, not Christmas, or Easter, is the greatest day of the year. We talk of being 'moved'. 'Being moved' speaks of a powerful emotional experience. It's a good expression, because it shows that being touched emotionally is not just a feeling but about doing something with that. In Good Friday, God through Jesus, moves us so that we can move. Martin Luther King said that love without power is mere sentiment. The power of Good Friday is what God does for us.

Yet, if we are not move, nothing will move. If we are not touched by the Gospel then how can we expect anyone else to be?

Proper 25 Sermon - Mission Statements

1 Thessalonians 2.1-8 Matthew 22.34-46
Sermon Text For Sunday

It has become commonplace for people or companies to forge a mission statement. Some of these can be rushed or full of waffle and maybe reflect that people were not ready to formulate their thoughts. A bad mission statement uses lots of words to say nothing in particular. It is a tick box exercises. A good mission statement however reflects some of the dynamism, excellence and focus of the stakeholders.

I think it was Jaguar (I maybe wrong here) that had the mission statement printed on the uniforms of all employees. It simply read ‘Kill Ferrari’. No one was in any doubt about what the company was trying to do.

I fear that in these challenging times the churches need to consider what their primary purpose is about. This is because over the centuries parish churches have built up such a large role in the community that we are in danger of losing focus and not remaining true to our primary role. It is the downside of doing a lot of good. This does not necessarily mean we have to create a mission statement. This can be useful from time to time but there is a danger that we create a mission statement and then file it. A mission statement has to be something engraved on the heart of every one involved otherwise it is fairly pointless. I suspect that many of the best mission statements are written when an organisation is on its knees. It is at this critical juncture that minds are sharpened and there is a hunger for change.

For the pious Jew Shema Yisrael is a mission statement par excellence, the greatest commandment. ‘Hear O Israel the Lord your God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with your mind.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4)

The practicalities of engraving this mission statement in your heart are given in the verses afterwards in Deuteronomy.

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Importantly Jesus adds to this a quote from Leviticus 19:18 ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ and says that ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’.

A few years back a clergy friend of mine gave one of the most inspiring talks I have ever heard on mission at a local clergy conference. It was not a pulpit rant or some quasi-bit of management-speak but a clear mandate for us to change. It was given from a shy Anglo-Catholic priest with a great vision. In that hotel conference room the scales dropped off my eyes and I can still quote chunks of it off the top of my head. Privately I wept afterwards because I realised that for years I had been going down the wrong track. The address was entitled ‘Have We Got the Map Upside Down?’ His observation is that what most traditional churches feel comfortable doing in terms of mission is just making themselves a little bit more user-friendly. If we can tweak this or fiddle with that then the general populace will come back to church in their droves. In Scotland we even bought into an American programme which argued that each parish church’s first step in mission was ask ‘How Can We Make Our Church More User-Friendly?’ We invested years in this.

The question we should have been asking is ‘Why Do We Things We Do?’ or more bluntly ‘Why Are We Here?’ But let us not get disheartened because it seems as most of the apostolic leadership got it wrong with the exception of Peter and Paul. If the apostles had got their way Christianity would have remained a sect for those who like that sort of thing.

Let me give you a sense of where my friend is coming from. The problem with the Scottish Episcopal Church is that it is very small – roughly 0.6% of the population attend. The pond in which it can fish will remain very small if it thinks that all it had to do was make it self more user-friendly. Its liturgical heritage is quite conservative and I think that the likelihood that there is an additional 0.5% of people interested is unlikely.

The mandate from Christ at the end of Matthew’s Gospel is quite clear. ‘Go out and baptise the nations in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Likewise loving God will our all being and doing the same for our neighbour is fairly fundamental. These are not suggestions from the Lord or nice ideas but commands. They relate the essence of our faith.

Imagine if our mission statement was we aim to baptise adults as our primary purpose. If this was the yardstick to which we put all our resources how would we fare? It helps to be user-friendly and this can be a good thing to do. People wont return or come unless we know why we are here. At the heart of this understanding that we are called to be disciples, followers of Jesus, others will follow.

Shema Yisrael - wear it - live it.

Civic Service

The Civic Service is at 10.30am on Sunday 19th October. This is the first time I have done one of these services and I am not really sure what this involves or how to pitch it?

I feel that I want to say something about spirituality as I have done at the 9am Eucharist. So here goes.

Do you remember the advert 'Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet'. My favourite version of this was a philosophical Christopher Columbus lighting up as the deck hand shouts 'Captian the End of the World' and the boat goes over the edge. I wonder what do you think happiness is? Abbott Chris Jamison from the BBC TV Series The Monastery has just written a book on this. I think he has touched on something.

If I could I would take all of you off on a week long retreat where we could think about happiness. Maybe even experience a bit. The problem is that 21st Century living can disconnect us from experiencing and enjoy happiness. Charles Handy says we are expected nowadays to work twice as hard in half the time. Results, targets, profits are paramount. Now with the financial pinch, this pressure and stress must be worse. Do we have time to be happy?

This happens in the churches too. We get very caught up in the business of running church that we forget that happiness is what it is all about. We lose touch with Jesus and his call for us to come and simply be.

You might argue that this contradicts the Parable of the Talents which is being read today. That seems to be a frightening example of God wanting results. But is it? Is not more about using the gifts that God gives us. The good stewards invested the talents and got interest. Some got more than others. It did not much matter how much return was made. The king was pleased with all but the one who hid his talent in the ground. That steward was too locked up in his own fear to experience the happiness of pleasing his master.

Why do people come to Salcombe? Could I suggest they come looking for a bit of happiness. Maybe it is out there sailing that a sense of freedom and release is achieved? Or perhaps it is a nice meal, a walk, some new clothes, an ice cream, that helps them forget themselves? The search for happiness is not far from the concept of spirituality.

Hosting other people's happiness can be demanding. In theological circles we now ask a very basic question of congregations. Are you consumers of ministry OR are you engaged with ministry? In other words do you drain the minister of so much energy that at the end of the day he has nothing left for himself or his family, or is this a place which energises a ministry which works as a team. Does the minister return home feeling fed? The same can be said of a town community? Does providing other people's happiness drain?

I think if we all went al retreat we would find that the good news of the Christian story is that happiness is central. Jesus' first sermon, his first words, begin with the word 'Happy'. I cant think of anyone who does not want to be happy. Presumably a loving God wants this of us too. This does not mean sweeping stress, suffering, hardship under the carpet. I think it means searching for a really deep understanding of happiness, one that is three dimensional, one which includes our Good Fridays as well as our Easters.

Maybe contentment is closer to anything in the Christian understanding. Being content. St Francis in our first hymn, All Creatures of Our God and King, had it right, he really connected with everything. Even embracing, as weird as it might seem, a sense of peace over his own death.

Several weeks ago I took my son down to North Sands. With his little wet suit on he ran in and out of the water all Sunday afternoon. We might have had a bad summer weather-wise, but the autumn has been good to us. The water was warm. He was estatic. Screaming with pleasure as the waves chased him. He was happy, care-free in an uncomplicated wonderful way. So often as adults we lose that ability. We make things complicated. We forget to forget ourselves.

I believe that God wants us to find happiness for free. To be liberated. That is what Jesus came to offer. We dont need Hamlet to find happiness. And it wont be the end of the world if its not Hamlet.

Render Unto Caesar

This week's Gospel is from Matthew's Gospel 22.15-22 "Render unto Caesar what belongs unto Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

We can’t fool God. We can’t play games with God. We can’t trick God. This is why for the Christian what is offered to God is central to his or her spirituality. Half-measures will not bear much, if any, fruit.

But let me digress for a moment on the idea of spirituality. I want to do this because I think this is something which churches struggle with. John Drane's (Theology Professor at Aberdeen) research has demonstrated that many post-modern people think that churches and Christians in general are not spiritual. We are religious, in their view, but not spiritual. We are not feeding them and they are turned off.

The churches then have a two fold problem in attracting people seeking 'spirituality'. One, is that we are on the wrong wavelength. By this I mean that we are (metaphorically) broadcasting on the wrong radio station. This is not a matter of doctrine but emphasis and ambiance. You could easily dismiss this as 'touchy-feely' talk. Spiritual seekers want to find here a way of life which will impact everything, not just one hour on Sunday. They want to know how they can change (transform) their lives. This is why they find candles, whale music, Reiki, Hinduism, the new age movement, lay lines, angels, Glastonbury, Buddism, etc, etc attractive. They come, if they come, looking for Jesus. I want to repeat that, they come, if they come, looking for Jesus.

The second challenge for the churches is that we cannot sell short Christianity. We cannot do a decaf version. The Gospel cannot be reduced to a new age movement. The spirituality of the Church is standing at the foot of the cross and wondering what can I give in comparison to this? You wont be fed until we come to that point. Likewise, it also means doing this in a non-judgemental loving way. We are not the elite. In God's eye the elite is the child this morning somewhere in Africa, searching for food among the rubbish. (I found on-line a picture of this which I shall never forget). We must not hate the world, we must not resent people who struggle with joining us. We must see them the way the Father sees them.

Render unto God. Let us render our hearts.

Webcam Homily on Saint Francis

My first attempt at a webcam sermon done in the living room. Probably too long and should have included lots of photo clips and charts. So apologies that this is a bit of an amateur effort.

Francis of Assisi

The church, TS Eliot wrote, must constantly be rebuilding and pulling down. These haunting words fit very well with the life of Giovanni Bernadone otherwise known as Francis of Assisi. I say this because in many ways his life was about rebuilding church. There is something of his successes and failures which I find tremendously inspiring. And I think for us to get anywhere in being missionary today we need to take on board the lessons of Francis.

As a youth he could settled with a fairly ordinary merchant class existence in the twelfth century Umbria. His father was a proud cloth merchant and Francis would no doubt inherit part of a successful business. Strangely his days as a womanising wild youth did not irritate his father as much as his religious conversion. The spiritual awakening occur ed around his early twenties and the story goes that while selling cloth a beggar came to him for amls. At the end of the encounter he ran after the man and gave him the contents of his pocket. His mates mocked him. Dad was not well pleased. Over the next few years military adventures turned sour followed by a period of illness where he began to disentangle himself from his pretentious lifestyle. He frequented meeting lepers and on one famous occasion kissed one.

The most amazing story for me about Francis is where he hears the voice of Jesus from the crucifix at the ruined church of San Damiano. "Go Francis and rebuild my house which you see is in disrepair." Francis immediately gets to the task and sells horses and cloth to help the local priest to get masonry, etc. It must have taken a while for him to appreciate that the Lord was not speaking of that church but the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of Jesus.

Today, you can go to Saint Damiano and see that cross, it is an extraordinary painted icon that has become instantly recognisable all around the world. I have always felt tremendously inspired that. I believe, passionately that Jesus calls each us to be part of the rebuilding of the Church. It was this very story which led to think maybe God was calling me to work in building up the church. At the age of 18 a priest gave me the card with the picture and the words. I think you can delete the word 'Francis' and put in your own. And I suspect this is why many go to that tiny church, especially many young people, and sit in the pews and dwell upon what God is calling them to do.

Francis did not have an easy life even after his conversion. He was not a natural organiser and by the time he reached his forties the brotherhood he formed, the friars minor, was not really what he had envisaged. It all got tangled up in ecclesiastical politics and lost much of its initial idealism. It became a business just as his father's carpet and cloth trade was a business. Francis was despondent.

Yet in the final weeks of his life he received the stigmata, the miraculous appearing of wounds of the cross upon his flesh. He is the first person we know who had this. This is why many say he was the nearest thing we had to Jesus in the second Millennium. He soon after died of eye cancer.

Francis' life continues to have a profound effect on the Christian experience. His challenge to a radical life cannot simply be swept under the carpet - if you pardon the pun. I feel that for me he is one of the jigsaw pieces that make up my own personal vocation story. And the question I feel he poses to us - how are we going to build church and what in that process do we need to pull down?

Angels, Archangels, Powers and Dominions

Many people in the New Age movement are interested in angels and have a belief in guardian angels looking after each of us. It is easy to criticise the New Age movement but on this occasion there are bridges that can be made to the Christian tradition. This is because it is difficult to imagine angels, who are personalities, without reference to THE ultimate person (or in Trinity theology - "persons").

The New Age movement does not engage with the idea of a personal God - which is the heart of the Christian message. So I would argue that we can use the concept of personal beings close to reflecting something of the nature of God. But even more theologically controversial is the Christian concept that angels are not the pinnacle of creation. We are.

Harvest Homilies

Having never celebrated Harvest Thanksgiving before I find myself having done six in seven days. Not bad for an initiation in 'We Plough the Fields and Scatter'.

I was a particularly fussy eater as a child and had a enourmous hate list which narrowed things down on the savory side to Steak and Kidney Pie, KFC and Heinz Ravoli. I recall at the age of six being put in detention with the tomato I wouldnt let touch my lips. Each time I found more crafty ways to hide my nemesis, out of windows, down the loo, under pot plants. Today I still hold some food hates, including mushrooms, cauliflower, and whites of eggs. Every year I have celebrated a Passover and to get into the spirit of things I made sure I go for the boiled egg in full. It reminds me that like the bitter herbs of Passover - our spiritual journeys includes the things we dont like.

The food I most appreciate is chocolate. I must border on addiction here. I lived in my paternal grandparents deli in Bruxelles for two years and they often had whole displays made from either chocolate or marzipan. Of course these shop window pieces all had to go and someone had to eat it!!! But in this more enlightened age we are asked to consider where does my chocolate come from? Who made it and at what cost? Is there someone at the other end of the world picking cocoa beans for a pittance so that I might enjoy it.

Food, the ones we like and the ones we don't, have much to prompt us to think about our neighbour and our spiritual journey. The greatest food is of course the bread of life, Jesus Christ, who comes to us in our Eucharist that we may feed on him. We eat so we may be transformed, or to quote St Augustine, we become what we eat.

Being Church

Sunday Sermon - summary (Proper 18) Romans 13. 8-14 & Matthew 18.15-20

On paper it was a good sized vibrant congregation in an affluent suburb. Yet it hit the headlines not for its potential success but for the resignation of the young priest. The front page of regional tabloid read 'You lot are awful'! On the last Sunday the priest placed a damming editorial in the parish magazine which was subsequently leaked to the press. It hit the nationals a few days later. Journalists were able to come in and stir things up further with anonynmous quotes "he's reduced the congregation from 400 to 30" , "we're glad to see the back of him" and 'he was more interested in what happened in India parish link than here'. With division over doctrine this evangelical church tore itself apart. Church mediators were brought in unsuccessfully and the priest began to be signed off for stress. It was a shame that (a) he had to put in his article in the parish magazine clandestinely and (b) that there wasnt an attempt at serious reconciliation from the aggrieved group in the pews. The greatest shame was that a capable priest left ministry. I would like to underline the word 'left' a hundred times.

Years ago, I was at a jubilee anniversary of a Kent RC priest. He was (is) a bit eccentric, very much someone who tows the party line, loves the latin rite, etc. Yet people love him in the parish and liberals and conservatives get along and wave to each other through the clouds of incense. At this Mass he preached one line which was something like this - "If in 25 years of ministry I have wronged anybody then I truly apologise and however long ago this was would be willing to make up." I was dumbfounded.

A recent Church of Scotland ministries report said that congregation more and more are relying on mediation to try and repair divisions. It is a terrible shame if things get to this point. No doubt the pressures of a fast-paced aged with lots of change add to this. Churches in my experience experience disunity over doctrine, architecture, liturgy, leadership and youth. A good example might be a congregation divided over the removal of pews or the introduction of a woman priest. Sometimes these divisions have their roots in long long history. Other times the division is more to do with a clash in mission values.

The words of Christ in Matthew's gospel call us to consider what it means to be a congregation at peace with each other. The emphasis is to be proactive even when we feel we are wronged. The alternative is let things boil under the surface and for cliques to develop and their to be a lot backbitting. Whatever the wrongs or rights of any conflict Christian communities have a very serious commitment to being places of love, peace and harmony. To quote the song "We are one in the Spirit" - "And they'll know we are Christians by our love." Or to use the words of Terullian, the most cutting of early Church fathers, "See how those Christians love each other." This love will say more than any hundred carefully crafted sermons or beautifully arranged liturgies.

No wonder Paul says put on Christ, put on the armour of light. If we are not different, then God help us, everything is in vain.

A final story, a cautionary tale from thirty years ago. After some battles a church decided not to introduce the sign of the peace. Too many people within the pews loathed this new ritual. Above the church porch was a sign to inform visitors that this rite was out of their liturgy it read "There is no peace in this church."