Resignation Homily

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

When I saw these words in today’s Gospel I realized that the Lord with his wry humour had provided a reading for me today.

One of the themes of my preaching is that we have to listen to the Lord’s call to each of us and to answer it as best we can whatever the cost.

Over the last couple of years I have been discerning that the Lord is calling me to follow him in a new way and join the Roman Catholic Church. It is obviously not possible to pursue this journey with integrity as your priest and so this will be my last Sunday with you at St Peter’s.

You can see the personal relevance of the reading. Although Bishop John has kindly agreed to let me stay on in the Rectory for a brief period I am about to become unemployed and homeless, and at a time when we have just discovered that Caroline is pregnant again. A good sermon illustration, but I would ask for your prayers that we will be able to provide for our family over the coming months.

I’m sorry that I have not been able to give you advance warning of this – Bishop John asked me not to, and I have had to honour his instruction. I believe that his thought was that it would spare you the possible difficulty of feeling that you were being cared for by someone who had decided his future lay elsewhere. Also the timing of the announcement would give him the option of letting me briefly stay on in the Rectory while we try to find somewhere else to live.

When I went to see Bishop John he told me that he felt both sad that I would be going and joyful for me that I was pursuing the Lord’s call to me as best as I can discern.

That certainly sums up my own feelings at this time. In order to take any journey to a new home you not only set out to go to the new place, you leave one behind.

The Church of England has been my spiritual home for the whole of my life. It has been the place where I have met the Lord in word and sacrament and been given a wonderful vocation. In making this decision I do not want to denigrate our Church in any way. I do not set aside the faith we share together, but find what has been important to me as an Anglican in my own spiritual journey fulfilled in the Catholic Church.

Although I have of course been formed within the anglo-catholic tradition it never occurred to me that it would at any point require a choice from me, or that I would ever leave our Church. Indeed our two churches have been pursuing the possibility of coming back into communion with each for some time.

As I have preached about many times this journey towards real unity with the church from which our own was formed at the reformation is a biblical priority. I cannot read John 17 and believe that Our Lord’s will is anything other than the reunion of his broken body the Church.

My own reading of events is that that possibility is further away than ever and that the Church of England has decided to prioritize a more protestant and liberal view of scripture, ministry and ethics that has made such a journey into union impossible in my life time.

In conscience then I have come to the point where I cannot in good faith remain as your priest. I need to lay down the gift of my ministry here with you and pursue the path which I believe the Lord is leading me on.

It has been a great privilege to be your priest here for the last decade, to share in your lives and to do my best to lead and support you in your Christian faith.

I am grateful to you all for the love support you have given me, and especially in my transition to family life and the warmth with which you have embraced my family.

In his famous sermon on the parting of friends Newman reflected on the fact that our Lord chose to share the Eucharist with his disciples on the night before he left them in an earthly sense. There is nothing better we can do at this moment than to share the Eucharist together. This will be our final Eucharist together as your priest and I will be offering it not only for my own family intentions, but for the future and flourishing of the life of this parish which I continue to love. It is my hope that you will be able to continue to pray for me as I will for all of you as you seek to do the Lord’s will.

Please support your churchwardens as they lead you through this vacancy. The Archdeacon has already found a priest who will be able to take the main Sunday Eucharist every week for you until a new priest is appointed.

I will be praying that the Lord sends you a holy and prayerful priest as your next Rector and ask your prayers that the Lord will make clear the next part of my own vocation to serve him.

Stewardship Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent

Just in case you missed the stewardship sermon last week you can catch up on it here!

Jeremiah 33: 14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3: 9-13, Luke 21: 25-36

We decided earlier in the year that this would be a good time to hold a low-key stewardship fortnight. I do encourage you all to take a copy of the magazine and to read and reflect on the financial information you'll find there and on what you can do to support the church here and on your own spiritual life.

There are two main reasons why we need to regularly review our stewardship commitment within the church. The first, though not the most important, is for the obvious practical reasons. We have to be realistic about our common household expenses and our responsibility to not only provide for the mission and ministry of the parish here in our own day but to care for and pass on the gifts we have received. Within the living memory of many people here at St Peter’s this main part of the church was paid for by the people of this parish as was the Rectory which I am fortunate to be lent as a home for myself and my family. I am very conscious that this has been a financially bruising year for many people in our congregation and I sympathize with that – my stipend has been frozen until 2011 and I have a growing family. But precisely because this has been a difficult year we have to be realistic about money in the parish. Some people have had to reduce their giving and the Diocese is less able to help support the parishes. Despite the misleading facts that are always about suggesting the Church of England is terribly rich the reality is that our Diocese is facing a £1 million pound shortfall for next year and will be looking to reduce clergy posts by about 10%, losing 33 full time clergy posts. Parishes which cannot cover the costs of a full time clergyman may well lose them.

But beyond the practical considerations there is the response of generosity. The PCC decided that the beginning of Advent was a good time to talk about our giving and stewardship because in this period of the church year we are so firmly focused upon God’s love and generosity. As today’s gospel reading reminds us we look ahead to the last judgement and the heavenly dwelling place that God has prepared for his people. And with the prophecy of Jesus’ birth, the righteous offspring of the house of David, we are reminded of God’s love in giving us the great gift – Jesus his Son – the reason that Christmas is a time of gift giving as we respond to God’s generosity. We give because we have received.

One of the mysteries of life is the importance of costliness. At times when it is harder to be a Christian the church flourishes in strange ways. We always look back to the times of persecution when we have been martyred for the faith for simply being a Christian as times of inspiration. We are unlikely to be asked in this generation to die because of love of Jesus in this country. But we might well think about how much our willingness to get involved in the church and let our faith be a matter of prime importance in our life defines our commitment. Do we love God enough to be generous with our money, our time, and our love?

Our second reading suggests that this theme of love is an important one for us when we are asked to reflect on our level of giving. St Paul’s theme is of course the importance of a right relationship with God, but he emphasizes the importance of mutual love within the community.

‘May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints.’

See how Paul is concerned with the salvation of the Christians he is writing to in Thessalonica, that they are righteous before God and destined for heaven. But his concern is not a mechanical one – I need get this job done so I can move on to the next church. No his concern is rooted in his love for the people he has encountered there.

I think this is the key to our giving. I can tell you practically that the church recommends that we tithe our income, give away 10% of it, half to the church and half to other charities and good causes we wish to support. So if you take home £1,000 a month the recommendation is that you give £50 a month to the church – and I can tell you that I give this myself to St Peter’s as well as supporting the Catholic Church my wife attends. I can tell you that if everyone gave an extra 50p a week that would close the budget shortfall in the Diocese.

But these figures, on their own, are not the whole picture. They don’t take into account our family situations – some may be able to be more generous, and some less. But the love that St Paul talks about, the love we should cultivate for each other should have two practical consequences here. Firstly we should want to support each other. Some people are really struggling at the moment and those of us who can need to be generous enough to make sure that we can pay our way as a whole. However much we may need to be practical no one should feel unwelcome at St Peter’s because their financial situation is worse than another’s. We have to pay our housekeeping bills but the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is free – that’s why there is no charge for baptism! So to be generous in our giving is often to help other members of our church.

Secondly the Gospel, our faith in Jesus, needs to be shared, not as a way of increasing our numbers to help us pay our way, but because we want to share God’s message of love and forgiveness with others. Jesus is not a private possession to be jealously guarded but the gift of God’s love to be shared. So to be generous in our giving is to help to make sure that there is a church here at St Peter’s open, with the lights and heating on, so that we can meet people, invite them in and share God’s love.

So I do ask you to take the time to review your giving and to be as generous as you can. But as I mention in my letter I also want you to take time to review your spiritual life and the space you are making for God in it.

I want you to be financially generous. Wouldn’t it be great if we were able not only to pay our bills but also to employ a youth worker here or buy a house so we could bid for a curate! But at the same time I don’t want us to become fixated with the money as an end in itself.

So don’t despair if you are already being as generous as you can financially – but please think about what else you can do. Support the church in prayer – perhaps attend an extra service regularly in the week and pray for evangelism in the parish. If you cannot give another penny to the parish funds but you are able to pray for another person and share your faith with them you will have done an even greater work for God.

Imogen Catherine Rose

I was pleased to discover when coming to reactivate the blog that my last posting was, at least in part, about my Stepdaughter Isabella, or daughter number one as we are now calling her! Imogen was born on November 17th and is my latest contribution to church growth here at St Peter's!

I may be biased but I think she's rather wonderful.

Well it's been some time since I posted on the blog, perhaps tomorrow I'll post something about that. Today I was moved by the snow to think of St Thomas Aquinas' speculation on whether Christ should have been born in the winter or not.

This is the sort of speculation that is often assumed to be rather silly. Do we really need to wonder whether it was wise timing on God's behalf to choose a winter birth for Christ?

(Astute readers will notice that I give some credence to the view that Christ actually was born on 25th December.) However St Thomas' speculation revolves around something rather important. Much of the current revisionist theological debate about gender, whether in relation to Holy Orders, or sexual ethics seem to assume that the timing of the Lord's birth was rather poor, given how much better informed we are today. I think this argument needs to be examined carefully. Obviously I am not trying to argue that we need to simply remain within the Jewish culture of two millennia ago, but we also need to be careful not to assume that that culture is irrelevant to us today. God chose the moment in history for Jesus to become incarnate - and he doesn't make mistakes.

None of this I suspect was on my stepdaughter's mind when she was building a snowman today!

Over to St Thomas....

St iii. 35

Article 8. Whether Christ was born at a fitting time?

Objection 1. It would seem that Christ was not born at a fitting time. Because Christ came in order to restore liberty to His own. But He was born at a time of subjection--namely, when the whole world, as it were, tributary to Augustus, was being enrolled, at his command as Luke relates (2:1). Therefore it seems that Christ was not born at a fitting time.

Objection 2. Further, the promises concerning the coming of Christ were not made to the Gentiles; according to Romans 9:4: "To whom belong . . . the promises." But Christ was born during the reign of a foreigner, as appears from Matthew 2:1: "When Jesus was born in the days of King Herod." Therefore it seems that He was not born at a fitting time.

Objection 3. Further, the time of Christ's presence on earth is compared to the day, because He is the "Light of the world"; wherefore He says Himself (John 9:4): "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, whilst it is day." But in summer the days are longer than in winter. Therefore, since He was born in the depth of winter, eight days before the Kalends of January, it seems that He was not born at a fitting time.

On the contrary, It is written (Galatians 4:4): "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law."

I answer that, There is this difference between Christ and other men, that, whereas they are born subject to the restrictions of time, Christ, as Lord and Maker of all time, chose a time in which to be born, just as He chose a mother and a birthplace. And since "what is of God is well ordered" and becomingly arranged, it follows that Christ was born at a most fitting time.

Reply to Objection 1. Christ came in order to bring us back from a state of bondage to a state of liberty. And therefore, as He took our mortal nature in order to restore us to life, so, as Bede says (Super Luc. ii, 4,5), "He deigned to take flesh at such a time that, shortly after His birth, He would be enrolled in Caesar's census, and thus submit Himself to bondage for the sake of our liberty."

Moreover, at that time, when the whole world lived under one ruler, peace abounded on the earth. Therefore it was a fitting time for the birth of Christ, for "He is our peace, who hath made both one," as it is written (Ephesians 2:14). Wherefore Jerome says on Isaiah 2:4: "If we search the page of ancient history, we shall find that throughout the whole world there was discord until the twenty-eighth year of Augustus Caesar: but when our Lord was born, all war ceased"; according to Isaiah 2:4: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation."

Again, it was fitting that Christ should be born while the world was governed by one ruler, because "He came to gather His own [Vulgate: 'the children of God'] together in one" (John 11:52), that there might be "one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16).

Reply to Objection 2. Christ wished to be born during the reign of a foreigner, that the prophecy of Jacob might be fulfilled (Genesis 49:10): "The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till He come that is to be sent." Because, as Chrysostom says (Hom. ii in Matth. [Opus Imperf., falsely ascribed to Chrysostom), as long as the Jewish "people was governed by Jewish kings, however wicked, prophets were sent for their healing. But now that the Law of God is under the power of a wicked king, Christ is born; because a grave and hopeless disease demanded a more skilful physician."

Reply to Objection 3. As says the author of the book De Qq. Nov. et Vet. Test., "Christ wished to be born, when the light of day begins to increase in length," so as to show that He came in order that man might come nearer to the Divine Light, according to Luke 1:79: "To enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."

In like manner He chose to be born in the rough winter season, that He might begin from then to suffer in body for us.

Rector on the roof

Those of you who come to the Church cleaning days will know that I don't like being up ladders. I couldn't, however, miss the opportunity of the scaffolding being up at the moment while we are carrying out the roof repairs to the Church. So, after a short ladder climb, I got to see a part of the church I haven't been able to view before. Once again I reflected on how fortunate we were in the way the newer part of the church blends into the old. I also rather like these gorgeous curved skylight covers - although the roofers were less impressed with their practicality! I know that sometimes we feel that maintaining a church burdensome, but we are fortunate in having had relatively few problems with our church, which in the main is of course not that old, despite there being norman parts and saxon remains. Pray that it may continue to be so! Also spare a thought for your churchwardens who have spent a lot of time at the church over the last few days.

Star Wars

Those of you who know me well will know that I am quite a science fiction fan. Unfortunately much science fiction creates a future in which religion is not taken seriously. There are interesting exceptions, such as Babylon 5, and the mystical overtones of Star Wars, but the religious themes explored by them are far removed from Christianity much of the time.

So I rather like this Star Wars parody which you can find here.

St Peter's Festival

Due to unforeseen circumstances the St Peter's music festival is not going to be able to make a full fledged launch this year. 

However we are still going to be having our Gilbert and Sullivan evening on Saturday 5th July, thanks to the hard work of our Director of Music Anthony Roberts.

We will also be holding a Choral Evensong service on the previous weekend for the feast of St Peter and St Paul - which is of course our patronal festival. This service will take place in the afternoon early evening, probably 4.30 p.m. Sunday 29th June. Our good friends from S. George's will be coming.

It is one of those happy weekends when the St Peter's Day actually falls on the Sunday and will be my 8th anniversary at St Peter's, my 11th anniversary as a priest, and my 12th anniversary as a deacon!

In fellowship with our brothers and sisters from S. George's who are beginning a special year of celebrating the life and witness of St Paul, we will also remember St Paul - who usually gets forgotten because it is St Peter who is our patron!

The CHoir have already started practicing so make sure these dates are in your diaries!

Caritas 2008

As part of our preparation for Caritas we have been asked to prepare a twenty word aspiration, as well as pictures of our church building, church family, and our parish. 

Our aspiration, agreed by the PCC, is that we become more deeply a church where: “All are made welcome, the gospel is proclaimed, and we are drawn ever more deeply into the life of Christ.”

I hope that most of you will have picked up one of the leaflets about the Caritas celebration and though about whether you can come. It should be a good and fun day of encouragement, gathering together with other Christians from across the Diocese. If you haven't already, please do think about whether you can come.

APCM Sermon 2008

I know that many people were not able to attend the APCM because of childcare commitments, or got caught out because of the holidays!

So I'm posting my sermon for the meeting, and hope that members of the congregation will take the time to both read it and take up its challenge for the coming year.

Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.

At the PCC recently we have been discussing our mission priorities. It is only 3 years since our Growing a Healthy Church exercise, and we are still being guided by our conclusions on that day that we need to be working to develop our spirituality and be a Church which clearly puts God at the heart of everything we do.

But that is a general aspiration, and this discussion was about trying to focus our energies over the coming year in response to a suggestion from the Diocese. This suggested three aspects to mission – Attending to God, Building Community, Commending God’s love for the world. We looked at what we were already planning practically and how they might fit into these categories. It’s an ongoing discussion and the new PCC will have to take on the task of thinking this through further with me.

What was clear from our discussion is that as with all these schemes it is a useful exercise to concentrate on improving one thing at a time. You may remember from Growing a Healthy Church the advice to concentrate on doing a few things well. Yet at the same these priorities are part of the same thing.

As individual Christians and as a church family we have three interwoven parts of our Christian lives; knowing, living, and proclaiming.

Knowing the faith is both about our personal relationship with God, and knowing the content of our faith.

Living the faith is living out in our own lives and as a community the implications of that faith. 

Proclaiming the faith is about sharing our Christian lives with others, both in the specifics of encouraging others to know the Lord Jesus, and in the love and care for our neighbour which he demands from us.

You can see at once how these three are related. Clearly one of our priorities at St Peter’s is to share our faith with others, to encourage others to join our church family and to grow our church.

As you know we are using the Credo course again as a way of giving us something to invite others to. We were one of the parishes in the Diocese who experimented with Back to Church Sunday last year and are looking forward to using it again this year supported by some Diocese wide advertising. These are some of the structured practical things that we can do as a church to help encourage others to come and join us, or to become more involved.

Yet clearly we cannot effectively proclaim, share our Christian faith with others if we are not committed to living it clearly ourselves. The most effective way to evangelise is to live such a distinctive and clearly committed Christian life that other people are interested and encouraged by your witness to find out what makes this so important to you. This is true whether you are sharing your faith with a work colleague or your children.

One of the many encouraging things that has happened this year is the effort in the Children’s Liturgy to make provision for our children over the school holiday periods, this is a very important and symbolic move. I quite understand that our children’s liturgy leaders, who do a sterling job, are often on holiday and need time in church themselves. Yet if we have no provision for our children at these times, what are we saying? Are we not encouraging a view of church that it is indeed like school, something that is only a part time commitment, and one you grow out of. It was precisely for that reason that we began to stop talking about Sunday School and talk instead about the Children’s liturgy. If we want others to respond to our invitation to join us as Christians we have to show them that we are serious about what we are inviting them to. That it matters to us.

I am very interested in some of the research that shows that how committed we are to our celebration of the Eucharist plays a big part in whether we provide a community in which others find this service a good place to meet God, as it should be.

And how can we live our faith effectively if we do not know what the faith is ourselves. How can we share our faith if we do not know what we are sharing.

As many of you will know my girlfriend is a Roman Catholic, and with her little girl we regularly attend a Saturday evening mass so that she can fulfil her obligations as a catholic and still attend St Peter’s as well. It has given me a new level of respect for all of those of you struggling to help your children through the service, as there is usually no children’s provision on a Saturday evening. At the same time it also makes it very clear how much you need to be connected yourself to what is going on in order to communicate it to others.

What I really want each of us to do this year is to reflect upon what we as individuals are doing to grow in our Christian faith. It is perfectly possible to come to church faithfully every Sunday, listen attentively to the readings and the sermon, reflect upon them and grow in our life with God. However many of us aren’t able to do that. If you are helping with the Children’s Liturgy or looking after children you won’t have the luxury of even being able to listen easily to the readings and sermon. So I want each of us to reflect on what we are doing to grow closer to God.

Maybe you are the sort of person who gets on best beavering away on your own. Check out the resources as we slowly add them to the parish library, or come and ask me for suggestions.

I suspect that most of us however are not cut out for self study. I really want to encourage you to think about joining in some of the groups we organise. There are the Credo courses, Bible study groups, especially at Advent and Lent, and many other opportunities. I have been leading the Following Jesus course at Church house this year and it has been very helpful. It is not demanding, other than a commitment of an evening a week during term time. It involves getting to know the Bible better and seeing how it connects with what the rest of our Christian and Church life. I really can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who has been confirmed. This is a very good course, and there will be another one beginning in September.

As always, within the constraints of time I am always happy to take suggestions as to what we could be doing better or differently in the provision of groups and other support to help us grow in our faith.

By doing these things we will, both as individuals and as a church, be able to respond better to the challenge that we heard in the first letter of Peter.

Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.

Because it is together that we make up the church – and our lives are shaped in this way then when we invite or welcome new members to our family they will see a church in which God is known and our faith lived out and proclaimed.

As always be assured that you are all daily in my prayers – and I ask you to remember me in yours.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.