Julian Parkin directed over one hundred singers in the Bring & Sing rehearsal of Faure's Requiem at All Saints' Church this afternoon, for performance later in the evening. It was a poignant, but enjoyable way to spend Good Friday. Fuelled by hot cross buns, the singers will perform this popular masterpiece at 7pm tonight - tickets are available on the door for £5 each, all welcome! More details at http://www.allsaintschurchleamington.org.uk/bring--sing-concert---29th-march-2013.html
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'We preach Christ crucified' is inscribed on many Victorian pulpits. All Saints is no exception. The most prominent carving on the stone pulpit is of Jesus on the cross, with Mary his Mother, John, another woman, and a Roman soldier standing by and looking on. Meanwhile Mary Magdalene kneels, and weeps with her head in her hands. It's Good Friday: the most sombre day of the Christian year, and yet one on which our Christian hope is founded. I reflected on this in the Cathedral yesterday, looking at the figure of Christ in Glory which sits above the distorted, suffering figure of the crucified Christ. We cannot have the glory without the suffering. It's worth observing that in this tapestry, the crucified Christ is at human eye-level; we need to raise our eyes to see the bigger picture of Christ the King. Each year, we set aside the three hours during which Jesus was on the cross - noon until 3pm - as an especially holy time. The Three Hours' Service takes us through the events as recounted in St John's Gospel (18.1-19.42), set alongside hymns, readings from other sources, collects, and a great deal of silence for meditation and prayer. Not everyone is able to manage the whole of the service, so we invite people to come for as long as possible. Come and join us if you are able! One of the readings we'll use is this poem I wrote a few years ago. It follows the story of the Passion through our various senses. Sensing the Passion Poignant the fragrance of love’s home: Not putrid Lazarus, death-entombed, Nor stove-aroma rich from one who served, But Mary’s precious pungent perfume poured. Feet washed, death death consumed. Bitter the savour: memory’s feast, Sour traitor’s morsel, couching sin; Spurious loyalty in pride-chewed vow; Wilderness death by freedom-tasting slave; Bread, flesh; wine, blood; slave, king. Strident the clamour: boot-black night, Jeer-jangling mob: ‘Our will!’ Fear chill Trampling through spirit-willing sleep, flesh weak; Sword-whistle wound heard hard upon the ear; Still, hear: ‘I Am. I will.’ Vivid the image: furnace fire As cock-crow sears on stricken sight Threefold, tear-tainted snap of stark remorse. Exposed, abandoned flame-companion’s gaze. Bright morning star; black night. Flinching to feel, sawn splintered strut, Spined circlet, steely-slivered nail; Betrayal; gaol; flail; rich-robe arrayal; ‘Hail, King of Jews!’ Wine, stale. Life, frail, fail; Last breath exhale; torn veil. Kindle with Passion-sense dull flesh. Roll free capped stone, trapped inward sight. Unbind to scent, taste, sing the Passion-song, To feel and long, with throng, alive and strong Dark-journeying to light. © Christopher Wilson 2008 Three very important things happened in our Cathedral this morning. One of them was the renewal of commitment to Christian ministry, articulated by lay people, deacons, priests, and bishops. Ministry is the calling of the whole Church, of course - every baptised person is called to contribute their gifts for the common good. But whoever we are, whatever we do, we're reminded that it's 'by the help of God.' Secondly, the ancient ceremony of the Blessing of the Oils took place. Oil for the sick (and dying) is a sign and a means of the power of God to heal and save. Oil of catechumens (those preparing for baptism) is used for the signing of the cross before baptism. Oil of Chrism is used for those who have been baptised, those who are to be confirmed, ordained or consecrated, and for the dedication of altars and church buildings. At Coventry, the oil of the sick is brought 'from a place of brokenness' - the ruins of the old Cathedral. Oil of catechumens is brought from the Font. Oil of Chrism is brought from the Chapel of Unity, a place of unity and reconciliation. Thirdly, the Eucharist was celebrated, in consciousness that tonight is the night when we celebrate its inauguration. Bread and wine were taken, blessed, broken, shared, as a commemoration of the Last Supper, a sharing in the life of Christ, a proclamation of his death until he comes. The wall tablet above is a reminder of the vocation to love given to us by Jesus on this night: a vocation to continue and extend his work, expressed by but not limited to those present who are authorised for various forms of ministry, and the oils used in the service of the Church. Then take the towel, and break the bread, And humble us, and call us friends. Suffer and serve 'til all are fed, And show how grandly love intends To work 'til all creation sings, To fill all worlds, to crown all things. (Brian Wren) 'To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms And, like the kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood.' 'What, wouldst thou have me turn pelican, and feed thee out of my own vitals?' Words from Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act IV Scene V), and William Congreve's Love for Love (Act II Scene I) respectively. Yesterday, walking through a snowy woodland, I spent five or ten chilly minutes watching a treecreeper ascend a tree-trunk, hopping jerkily upwards as it searched for insects in the bark. It occurred to me that Christian symbolism finds a place for many birds (although the treecreeper is not among them). The most obvious is the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit. There's the eagle, soaring upwards, symbolising the Resurrection and Ascension and also the new life given to the faithful in Baptism. The turtle dove, which is said to mate for life, symbolises fidelity. The peacock, a bird whose flesh was believed not to decay after death, symbolises immortality. The robin with its red breast symbolises the Passion. And then there's the pelican. A pre-Christian legend recounts the story of a pelican feeding its young in time of famine with its own blood, plucked from its breast. The story was probably based on a misunderstanding of the way a pelican presses her large beak back against her breast to release the food stored there, but the idea gained currency and was adopted as a symbol of Christ at a very early date. During mediaeval times it became a particularly popular image. Frequently the pelican's beak is sharp and pointed, quite unlike the genuine article. At All Saints', a gold pelican with chicks (known as a 'pelican in her piety') is carved centrally above the Last Supper and below the gold cross on the High Altar reredos. Another is depicted in stained glass in the South Porch. They represent the Eucharist, as the blood of Christ is given to give spiritual life to the faithful - particularly appropriate to recall, as we'll come to commemorate the Last Supper tomorrow. They also represent the self-giving of Jesus on Good Friday, as Jesus poured out his life for the redemption of the world. The giving of his blood by Jesus for us is a graphic image, and one which has repulsed people over the centuries. A clearer understanding of the Old Testament background may be helpful in understanding its meaning. In the books of 2 Samuel (23.13f) and 1 Chronicles (11.14f), an incident is recounted in which three courageous chiefs joined David at the Cave of Adullam, a wilderness stronghold. Philistines were camping not far away, and had a garrison at Bethlehem, David's home city. David expressed a longing for a drink of water from the well by the gate of Bethlehem. The three chiefs, having heard his words, broke through enemy ranks and returned with the water. David refused to drink it but instead offered it to God, saying 'Can I drink the blood of these men who went at risk of their lives?' The offer by Jesus of the Water of Life is at the price of his own life; 'drinking his blood' in those graphic words of David. O loving Pelican! O Jesu, Lord! Unclean am I, but cleanse me in Thy Blood Of which a single drop, for sinners spilt, Can purge the entire world from all its guilt. (Thomas Aquinas) It's not the sort of thing that happens to me very often. This morning, two immaculately presented young ladies in a smart grey Range Rover pulled up alongside me as I walked up an icy lane. I'd never seen them before. We had a brief chat, the passenger gave me her phone number and the driver gave me half a biscuit, and then we went our separate ways. What was it all about? The incident is open to various interpretations. If we saw it on TV, we'd have some idea from the context whether it was supposed to be amusing, chilling, romantic, surreal, or just an everyday down-to-earth part of life in a particular place. It's the lack of detail, context and meaning which makes the encounter somewhat intriguing and raises our curiosity as to what it was about. Who were the people? Why did they stop? What was the meaning of the half-biscuit? Why was the phone number given? The questions mount up in our minds. The Gospels are full of intriguing incidents too. Our distance from them in terms of time and culture means we don't always appreciate the questions they raise, but those questions are certainly there. Let's take this familiar passage from St Mark's Gospel as an example: On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. (14.12-16) Who was the man? Why was he carrying water, which was the work of women? Had Jesus already made arrangements for this man to meet his disciples, and for the owner of the house to provide and prepare the room for the feast? Had the owner invited Jesus? If not, was it all the work of faith, with the disciples sent to enter someone's house without any prior arrangement having been made? Or was there some other explanation altogether? We don't know the answers to these questions. We do know that Jesus was familiar with Jerusalem. There's the account of him visiting with his parents when he was twelve years old, and accidentally getting left behind when they returned - spending the time debating with the Temple staff. Tradition suggests that his grandparents, Mary's parents, lived in the city. There are hints in the Gospels that his normal practice was to celebrate certain feasts there. And certainly Jesus had a confidence teaching in and around the Temple which may not have been acquired easily by someone who did not already feel at home there. There's more, too. Why were the religious authorities from Jerusalem so concerned to travel out to the countryside, listen to his teaching, debate with him, and try to trap him? Was it because Jesus was a protege of the Temple, well-known and respected there, a rising young star - only to be taken in another and less conventional direction by the teaching of John the Baptist and the time spent in the wilderness crystallising his vocation? If all that is true - and of course it's speculation - then the chances are that Jesus had already arranged the use of the room for the Passover. Even so, we don't know why a man was carrying water - and more importantly, whether the disciples did as Jesus asked entirely out of faith, or whether they knew they were expected. When we read the Bible, we shouldn't just let it wash over us. We need to learn to raise the questions, to be intrigued by the unusual details, to read with our imagination freed to wonder and explore at a deeper level. Of course we'll jump to the wrong conclusions at times - but this will be outweighed by the enrichment and insight we'll gain. And that incident this morning? I'm sure you'll have worked it out. It was to ask me to look out for a lost dog. The half-biscuit was a dog biscuit, and the phone number was to report any sighting - which sadly never came. The lecture continued. How, I don't recall: my attention was focused on something else. Something unexpected. Something irrelevant, or so I thought. A ladder was propped against the high window behind the lecturer. A face appeared, covered in face paint (or is my memory playing tricks?). A placard was waved - what it said, I don't recall. Was it held by a second person sharing the ladder? It might have been. Even as this was sinking in - or not - a bell was rung. I think. Plainsong chanting commenced, and a small group of robed and hooded figures processed into the lecture hall and out again. How many? Four? Five? Six? Were they holding candles? Books? No. Yes. No. I can't be sure. What colour were the robes? I don't know. After the commotion, the lecture stopped. We were asked what had just happened. We agreed on key elements of the disruption - but not on the details. There were as many variations in the accounts as there were people in the room. And that, of course, was precisely the point being made. Take another example. I'm not the most observant of people. Walking home through the shops on Friday afternoon, I noticed a mannequin in a particular shop window wearing a green hoodie with the word EEK emblazoned on it in large white letters (it actually said GEEK but the G was angled away from me). The next morning, for the blog post sparked off by the mousetrap experience, I went back with my camera. Eventually I found what I was looking for. It was in a different shop and the garment was blue, not green, and not a hoodie. The details were not as I remembered them. But the salient aspects were recalled accurately: there was a mannequin in a shop window wearing the word EEK in large white letters. It felt unseasonal this morning to be looking at the ending of St Mark's Gospel (16.1-8). The Lent group has finished, so we're back to our normal discipline of spending time with the Gospel reading set for the Sunday after next. The Gospels give us varying accounts of the Resurrection, and indeed of other events too. Trying to work out what actually happened, and in what order, and who was involved, when, and how, is not straightforward. As we journey through Holy Week towards Easter, the questions invariably recur: who's telling the truth? Can we rely on the Gospels? Don't the stories contradict one another? The stories seem contradictory or at least different because they come from genuine eye-witness accounts. They aren't the carefully manufactured matching descriptions we might initially hope for, and if they were, we would suspect collusion in their writing. The differences and contradictions between them support rather than undermine the raw truth of what is being recounted by different people. We witness things from different perspectives using different presuppositions and perhaps experiencing different emotions. Small wonder then that our perceptions also differ. But just as those present in the lecture were all agreed that a commotion had taken place, just as I knew there was a mannequin wearing the word EEK, so the Gospel writers agree on the matters of fundamental importance. As St Paul wrote in a very early form of the Creed: 'For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve...' (1 Corinthians 15.3-5) Let's return to the Stations of the Cross. On Friday my attention was caught by the gold-painted cross, running like a leitmotif through every plaque. The Cross is a key aspect of the Easter story, and one about which all the Gospel writers agree. But there's another leitmotif, and it's even more important. It's the figure of Jesus, the central figure of course; and attention is drawn to him on every plaque by the halo around his head, painted not only in gold but also in red. The details around him may be remembered in different ways, and have certainly been interpreted in many more through forms such as art and preaching. But the focus is on Jesus, through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Day and beyond - and it's that focus which is of fundamental importance, which unites the Gospel writers and all Christian people. This morning, we sang that beautiful hymn by Samuel Crossman, 'My song is love unknown.' The author; a Cambridge graduate, was expelled from the Church of England for his Puritan sympathies in 1662. The hymn was published in 1664, and the following year, he embraced Anglicanism again and was ordained. He became Dean of Bristol in 1683, but died early in February the same year. Some years ago, I was asked to visit an elderly widow who was distressed by the onset of blindness and frailty. I saw her regularly for perhaps a year, and eventually took her funeral. When as a young single woman she'd moved to Leamington to start work, her father had told her not to go to the pub, where she wouldn't be missed if she didn't turn up, but to go to the church where she'd find friendship and care. One of her regrets was that over the years, she'd got out of the habit of going - and thereby failed to reciprocate the friendship and care needed by others in their loneliness and need. But the hymn speaks of the love of God for us all, indiscriminately: the lonely and the self-satisfied; the religious, the agnostic and the atheist; those who respond to love and those who don't; those who are reasonable, well-adjusted and trusting, and those who are hurt and rejected. 'Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.' In his moving book 'The Sorrowful Way' (SPCK 1998), Michael Perham takes this hymn as the title and theme of a chapter. He writes 'If Christ's song is a love song for the world, then the bread that he breaks and gives is for a broad community of 'jagged' people, each with his or her disfigurement, or hurt, or eccentricity or inadequacy...We should be suspicious of any Christian community that seems to be a company of the healthy, the whole, the rounded, the pleasing and self-pleasing, the paten of unbroken rounded hosts. For the kingdom is a company of sinners, misfits and ragged, jagged, aching souls. The Church is the company of the broken, and it is the body that is broken - in the upper room, on the cross, at the altar, of the Church - that redeems.' How true that is, and how challenging. It's so easy to join in the 'sweet praises' of God when we feel safe and at home among people like ourselves, people who are harmonious and reasonable and caring, people who don't intrude upon our sensitivities or disturb us by their characteristics. We like the body of Jesus, the Church, to be a body which is perfect - for us. When it isn't - which means most of the time - and its inadequacies grate, we're more likely to cry 'Crucify!' than 'Hosanna!' But those inadequacies are within us too. Each of us is to some measure a sinner, a misfit, broken. We might conceal it very well indeed, but it's there. And the fact is, we can't be redeemed unless we recognise our brokenness. That may cut across our pride, our self-reliance, our carefully constructed defences, but the acknowledgement of our human nature with its shadow side as well as its positive side sets us on the path to forgiveness, acceptance and maturity. And it grows compassion and love within us for other ordinary, flawed people who have joined us on the road to Jerusalem. As we kneel together at the altar rail and stretch our hands out for the Bread of Life, we experience the presence of a love far greater than our own; a love which encompasses and binds us to God, not only with those whom we love, but also with those whom we find it hard to love; a love which reaches out to those whom we have hurt and to those who have hurt us; a love which transcends both our petty preferences and our most deep-rooted fears and divisions. Try as we may, those preferences, fears and divisions may seem unshakeable, sometimes with good cause. But we put our faith in the God who shares our brokenness and redeems us by his grace. My song is love unknown, My Saviour’s love to me; Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be. O who am I, that for my sake My Lord should take frail flesh and die? I'm not sentimental when it comes to vermin. Unlike one of my churchwardens, who repeatedly used a humane mousetrap a couple of years ago. Each time, she set the mouse free in Christchurch Gardens - from where found its way back into her kitchen. Then one day, in a rush, she let it out outside church, and it soon found its way in. No. On seeing evidence of a mouse in the pantry, I bought a new mousetrap at the first opportunity. At first I was dubious about the high-tech plastic look: too clever by far. Nevertheless I baited it using my in-depth knowledge of mouse psychology. Surely it would feeling be short of its five-a-day at this time of year. A sweetened dried cranberry would do the trick. And it did. Nature red in tooth and claw played its part, and I was unquestionably the victor. And the world should be beating a path to the door of the mousetrap inventor - it's a brilliant device. Disposing of vermin is something which many of us do without hesitation. Yes, it's life, and we do our best to ensure there's no suffering - but if we don't kill it, sooner or later it'll make our life intolerable. So the trap is baited and set, and we wait for it to carry out its deadly work. Which is to say, our deadly work. The problem comes when we come to think of other people as vermin: a nuisance, and an expendable nuisance at that. In fact, such a nuisance that they cannot be allowed to live. Searching the BBC News website for 'death in custody' reveals reports during the last month alone from Israel, Pakistan, South Africa, England, Nigeria, India, Bahrain, and Central African Republic. Whilst the reasons in these particular cases may not yet be known, all too often in similar cases the life of the prisoner concerned is perceived to be worthless or worse by those responsible for his death. We saw something similar in Iraq, with the maltreatment and in some cases death of prisoners in Abu Graib and elsewhere. And on a much larger scale, there are the 'disappeared' of places as diverse as North Korea and Peru; the genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Srebrenica; the Holocaust; the victims of Stalinist and Maoist purges - the list could go on. Usually it concerns people perceived to be trouble-makers, people who threaten the status quo: opposition leaders, members of minority ethnic groups, and so on. And for Jesus this Holy Week, the trap has been set. He's perceived as too much of a danger to be allowed to live. A danger to the religious establishment, as crowds flock to hear his teaching and applaud his cleansing of the Temple. A danger to the Jewish puppet dynasty as this true son of David is proclaimed King. A danger to the occupying Romans whose priority is to keep the peace at any cost. Now it's a case of waiting;sooner or later, the trap will spring and the deadly work of darkness will then be carried out. My schoolday sporting triumphs were not exactly momentous. Games were not my favourite activity. But at the tender age of 10, I became the proud owner of a dark blue enamel badge shaped like a shield, bearing the words 'First Prize Sports'. It was awarded for my prowess in the three-legged race. Somehow, a friend and I succeeded in remaining in step and co-ordinated for the duration of the course, whilst those competing against us all fell over. We were the exception to prove the rule that if one leg is tied, progress is all but impossible. We'll return later to that theme. Meanwhile, for ten years now, I've been leading the journey around the Stations of the Cross in All Saints' every Good Friday morning. The stations are depicted on plaques spaced in the normal way around the church, and we move from one to another in turn. The simple, austere service includes a brief Bible reading and a response at every station. 'We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you: because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.' At some stations there's also a brief meditation or a hymn. Afterwards we share hot cross buns and coffee. The plaques were in St Alban's Church on Warwick Street until it closed, when they were transferred to All Saints'. I looked at them more closely today. They're made of plaster, with very sparing use of colour: gold and red for the halo around the head of Jesus, and gold for the cross. Gold for other occasional details too, but everything else is white, against the background of a dark blue sky. Today I'm particularly struck by the cross. It features in every one of the plaques, a sort of leitmotif threading the story together. It's there, ready and waiting, in the first plaque when Jesus is condemned (see photo); it's still there in the final plaque, small and in the background, as Jesus is laid in the tomb. As one would expect, it's much larger and more prominent in most of the plaques in between. It's a reminder that for Christian people, the Cross is inescapable: inescapable for Jesus at the heart of our faith - 'He was crucified under Pontius Pilate' as we say in the Creed - and inescapable for us, called as we are to 'deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow' Jesus. Two years before St Alban's was built, the Rev E B Pusey, a noted leader of the Oxford Movement, preached a University sermon at Oxford entitled 'Christianity without the Cross: A Corruption of the Gospel of Christ.' It includes these words: 'Real self-renunciation is in all things, and as one tied by one leg may walk for miles, but quit not the spot where he is tied; so one unrenounced evil habit keeps the soul Satan's prisoner, that he cannot follow Christ.' Pusey makes the point that true discipleship is not the renunciation of one vice along with the retention of another, but a complete surrender of self. Otherwise we're as hampered in our walk of faith as if we were tied up by one leg. Of course, it's a counsel of perfection; an aspiration that few if any of us will achieve. If by the grace of God and the exercise of our will, we overcome some particular sin, we soon become aware of another - or fall prey to pride at our success. Perhaps the desire and the effort at least to be facing in the right direction is the best we'll manage most of the time. Seeking to run in a three-legged race with our sin is unlikely to get us very far very quickly - but let's at least make a start. My attention was caught the other day by the news that a violin bow, discovered in mildewed case in a garage during a house clearance, had been sold for £3600. It was of interest because I knew its former owner: the late Fr Hugh Theodosius, my predecessor as Vicar of Billingborough. It set me thinking about the possessions we put away: because we don't need them at present but might do so one day; or we don't want to dispose of them yet; or we simply haven't got around to getting rid of them. Mostly the items are of no particular value, but occasionally we read of the discovery of unexpected treasures - such as the bow. Unused possessions are one thing. Eventually the time will come for them to be sorted through and perhaps sold or given away for someone else to use. Antique shops are full of such items. But what about the hidden treasures in our own lives, I wonder? What about the unused potential within us, the gifts and talents which could enrich us and others but which currently lie dormant? St Matthew, in his Gospel, recounts extensive teaching of Jesus during the brief time between his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his arrest. Part of that teaching is what we call the Parable of the Talents (25.14f) in which a man entrusted to each of his servants a number of talents - ten, five, and one respectively. A talent was about ten years' wages for a working man. Those entrusted with ten and five talents made use of them, and doubled their value. The servant entrusted with one talent buried it in the ground. At first sight it appears to be a parable extolling the virtues of capitalism, but it almost certainly isn't intended to be so. More likely, it's based on a current story of a ruthless wealthy man - perhaps one of the ruling sons of Herod the Great: Archelaus, Philip, or Herod Antipas. (The instruction to the servant with one talent, that at least he should have banked the talent to gain interest, is telling - that would have contravened Jewish law, something Herod's family did frequently.) The real point of the story is to be prepared for the unexpected coming of Jesus, just as these servants prepared or failed to prepare for the return of their master. Accountability and the making use of what we have are part of that preparation. We assume the story is told to teach us to be ready for the coming of Jesus by making full use of the gifts and abilities we've been given. Certainly that's a valid interpretation, and a constructive one which we should heed. But it may be that Jesus was also articulating his own need to be ready for the unexpected; for his arrest, trial and crucifixion. Whilst he couldn't know for certain when or even whether this would happen (I believe that because Jesus was fully human, he had to live by faith without any extra knowledge), he sensed it was looming ahead in the near future. He had to be watchful and prepared, and would soon give account for his earthly life. If he needed to remind himself through this and other parables, how much more should we heed what he has to say. |
All Saints' Church, Leamington Spa
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