Perspectives of St Johns' 4: Dedication Festival

This is the fourth and last of my series of sermons taking different perspectives on St John's Church. Here the perspective is one of time - of 900 years and more with thoughts on what our worship means to us in this context. 

I plan to bring all four talks together in a booklet, but, for those on line, everything is here.

 

1155, 1214, 1267 – what do these dates mean to us? Here are some equally obscure clues: Hugh the Clerk, Guy de Digeneswell, Thomas Watermue, John de Warwyk. These are the dates and names of the first recorded Rectors of Digswell. The church is probably much older than this, predating the formal foundation of the church as a dependency of the Priory of Walden (now Saffron Walden) by Geoffrey de Mandeville, who was one of the most notorious robber barons in the reign of King Stephen.

So for nearly 900 years, and probably longer than this, prayer and worship has been offered to God. If this is striking enough to imagine, then it’s even more remarkable when we realise that the worship we share today has a very similar shape and, who knows, feel to what was offered many centuries ago. In bigger churches (which we have now) the main mass on Sunday may have begun with a procession, just as we did today. And as the priest and his assistants prepared in the sacristy they may have said together:

            Deus cui omni cor patet et omnis voluntas loquitur..

Which is: God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known ..

And said the psalm, which I sometimes do before the Eucharist:

            Introibo ad altare dei ad deum qui letificat iuventutem meam,

I will go to the altar of God, to the God of my joy and gladness.

And that is just the start. Although it has been developed and adorned over many centuries, and reordered and simplified in others, what we do now would be recognisable to someone from the 15^th century (like Sir John Perient of our famous brass memorial) just as we in our turn would see familiar signposts in the Latin service of earlier times had we been there.

Over the past month we have been developing different perspectives on St John’s Church and as we celebrate today our Feast of Dedication we bring all of these together – our past, our place in the present community, our own community and our own personal roles. Probably the most important reaction to this is the simple one of wonder at the way in which this place has been kept holy by succeeding generations. Our response to that thought is one of thanks and praise to God. But further, it gives us confidence for the future. What we do together is to maintain and build on a robust foundation, in fact it’s the greatest one within several miles of here (until we get to the next medieval parishes – Welwyn, Hatfield and Datchworth!).

All of this is part of a shared memory which needs to be continually refreshed if it is to maintain its power. Just think, what we are about to do as we continue this Eucharist remembers, represents, brings into the present what Christians have done for two millennia, twice as long as this church has existed. And it all arises from the command of Jesus to his friends round the table with him, ‘Do this in memory of me.’

So how does it all work, what we do in our worship today? What would I explain to my friend from outside the church who we met in the first dialogue? A precise explanation is impossible. That’s why, in the technical language of the church we call it a ‘mystery’. It’s just as impossible as trying to tie God down to one or other definition we may prefer. All we can do is offer and develop images which may help us to feel closer to the reality (which in a more basic meaning implies ‘the thing in itself’).

Memory is only part of what we are doing in this celebration, but it’s an important part, so here’s what I would consider telling my friend. He’s an intelligent person so to begin with I would tell him that we can describe what we are doing as ‘intensified memory’. That’s a bit of a teasing phrase, but I think it is quite a nice one. Many people have some experience of what I am thinking of. For example, many have possessions which bring people, occasions or events into a clear focus. Some would point to pictures of members of the family, others to a wedding ring. I have a set of stoles which my mother made for my ordination 20 years ago including the magnificent festal one which I have chosen to wear today. I’m sure you can think of something of this kind.

Think then of articles which belong in the extended family. At infant baptisms we often see a gown which has been used over several generations, not uncommonly back into the 19^th century. Something like that was used in Prince George’s baptism this week. In this way our sense of time can expand – that’s a wonderful human capability – so that we can say that in a similar way worshipping here today is in itself and example of intensified memory.

The best example I have heard of a personal memory of this kind came from an adult participating in a course I was running for admitting children to Holy Communion. He’d sat quietly most of the time we were talking about what happens, but when I asked if anyone had any examples of things that carried an important memory for them he told us about his grandfather’s box. That seemed to me right away to be a very good example, but when he told the story of how it had come to be made it became even better. It turned out that this treasured box was made by the grandfather for his grandson and, even better, that he, the grandson, was with the grandfather as it was made. It’s only a short step from there to saying, as he did, that looking at and handling the box was like being with his grandfather as they made it together. It brought the past back into the present.

This beautiful story gives us some sense of how it may have been that the first Christians, the ones who knew Jesus through his ministry, recognised his presence as they shared in bread and wine. In my definition it was an intensified memory which they passed on to the next generation, a memory which leads on through the centuries and over nearly half of that time through this building directly to us. It’s a direct link with Jesus which brings the church of the past together with the church of the present and Jesus himself.

This is just part of what we share in today and every week. I don’t want to try to define it further, because firstly, as I said, it can’t be done, and secondly because disagreements about attempts to define things more precisely have been the cause of great damage to the church historically, and we still suffer from the consequences.

So on our Feast of Dedication I want to make and repeat a bold assertion. Here in this church we experience a direct link with many previous generations of Christians. They have given us a gift which expresses their faith to us. We can see it all around us and use it as they did. Even more important, we have as they did a direct link through the Eucharist to Christ himself. Can we, can everything we do together, be animated (literally filled with Spirit) so that we can offer to the present and future generations still more? They have already our gift of faith and perseverance, so can we go further? What else might we be able to bequeath to them? What would be their perspective on St John’s then? 

Perspectives of St John's 3: Going Deeper into God

 The series continued with probably the most challenging questions. We can look from a perspective of outside the church and look around inside, but overall it comes down to each one of us. We have to look around to see where we stand and consider how we respond to the challenge of 'Going Deeper into God'.

‘I rather think things are going to get more personally challenging,’ she said as we began another conversation. ‘You’ve talked about what people outside the church might think, and given some thoughts about how we operate as a church community at St John’s, but I can’t help thinking that it all comes down to each one of us as an individual.’ I smiled gently. ‘You’re not wrong. What happens to us as a church community directly depends on our own individual situation. Put precisely it depends on our relationship with God. That can sound a bit profound, but before we get too concerned about it we need to remember that we are talking about good news, about how things happen as we get closer to God and nothing could be better than that.’ ‘But we’re not all perfect, we’re not nuns or monks or priests or whatever.’ ‘Quite right, we are all different. The point is not getting marks for where we are right now, but that we are part of a process of growth. It’s what our bishops are calling Going deeper into God. When I was working for SB and GSK we had something similar called continuous improvement. It worked in the same way. It’s good to be where you are and to recognise the good things that have been done, but there is always more that can follow and build on what has already happened.’

‘Still, it can seem a bit depressing,’ she said, frowning a little, ‘that means we never make it.’ ‘I think we have to look at it rather differently,’ I replied, being quite sympathetic to this point of view. ‘As I said, the spiritual life is not about passing exams, reaching a standard, collecting badges as in the Brownies, or any kind of qualification. Scripture is quite clear about this. It’s there in the parables (think of the hired workers in the vineyard) and Paul knows about it too when he talks about all the different gifts and roles we are given. So it’s none of these. It’s about commitment and growing in holiness, going deeper into God in fact. None of us will reach the holiness of God in our lifetime. Only Jesus did that.’

‘Ok, so how do we grow in holiness? It’s not easy being a Christian and living a normal life as well.’ I agreed with the basic point and indeed as we’ve noted frequently being a Christian is not normal now with respect to most of the population. Once again, we need to recognise and support each other bearing in mind that for us at least living as a Christian is normal. It is our default setting. So I began to develop the idea. But first I said, ‘Now we come to the challenging bit. At least that’s what I think whenever I try it myself. Shall we go ahead?’ A possibly tentative nod gave approval.

‘Remember we are talking about a continuing process. Things change. The way we may think about things next year may well be different from the way we think about them now. I’m sure you’ll agree that your spiritual perspectives (we might call them) are different from ten years ago?’ ‘I don’t know. I’d have to think about that,’ she said, looking a bit puzzled. ‘Well, that’s would be a good place to start. See what you think. What I’m going to say now takes a bit of work. It requires thinking about some of our deeper background thoughts and experiences. I’m afraid it’s not really what people want to hear in a sermon. I have tried it a few times before. Left the whole congregation silent!’ ‘That’s just a preacher’s trick to amuse them and get them interested!’ she replied, and I had to agree that that was indeed the case.

‘Let’s have a go. The first thing to say is that everything must be done in prayer and be supported by prayer. As we go on we need time for listening to what God may be saying, or making us aware of, or drawing our attention to through the Holy Spirit. And we can’t do everything at once. Sometimes a particular occurrence will encourage us to think about where we stand. For example, we may have surprised ourselves by being strongly irritated by a particular turn of events or by a certain person. There may be good reasons for that, but one useful reaction is to look at the events prayerfully. It’s quite possible that there is an opportunity here to go deeper into God, to grow spiritually. I think it happens all the time.’

I could see that she was thinking about whether she had any recent experiences like this, so I said, ‘we don’t need to talk about an example now, but it’s good to do it at some time if you want. Let’s look at a more general process which anyone can try at any time, although I’ve often recommended something like it in Lent. It may sound rather dramatic but it’s worth looking at in this way. Perhaps without realising it we all have what we can call a Rule (capital R), or perhaps a Pattern. I don’t mean something rigid and monastic. What I mean is the way we have decided to live our lives as Christians, the way we do it at present.’ ‘I’ve never thought about it like that,’ she said, ‘what would you include in a Rule?’ (again with a capital R). ‘I’d firstly look at what you do now. Do you pray?’ She nodded. ‘That’s great. So we can think in more detail about it. For example, when, and how often? What do you pray about? Do you allow some time in silence to allow the Holy Spirit to direct your thoughts? Do you tell God exactly how you are feeling about things, what your concerns are, what you are pleased and happy about, what you think you could have done better …’ She interrupted, ‘Come on, I can’t do that all at once.’ ‘Quite right,’ I agreed, ‘but you can check out your current pattern of prayer and see if there are ways in which you might develop it.’ She seemed to agree, but also looked a bit uncertain. ‘Yes, I know it is a challenge. The more we are prepared to offer things to God in prayer, the more we are likely to come across things that need attention, shall we say. But, as I said before, this may seem paradoxical, but it is a good thing. It means we are going deeper into God. And if we decide to go that way we know the Holy Spirit will support our decision.’

‘But let’s move on. Prayer is very important, but there are a couple of further elements we could add. What do you think they might be?’ ‘Reading the Bible?’ she offered. ‘That’s right. Reading the Bible and other spiritual writings (there are so many) are also important. Scripture provides a window for us onto so many important things. It’s good to have our own pattern of reading scripture as well as following the sequences we follow in our Sunday worship.’ ‘Ah, and that’s the other one,’ she said, looking pleased. ‘The other main activity is worship.’ ‘Yes indeed,’ I said. ‘And worship can be a great delight because we celebrate together. This brings us back full circle to where we were in our last conversation. Remember that coming together in worship has lots of give and take. We receive and give support to each other and we all receive support from God.’

Then just to summarise I said, ‘So if we were doing a review of the kind I suggested, developing a Rule or Pattern of our Christian life, we would want to include at least these three components – prayer, reading scripture and worship. We’d need to think about what we do under each heading and we’d need to think about how often and when, just as I’d asked about prayer a moment ago. Then, and this would be listening part of the prayer, we’d need to discern whether we are being led to a development in any of these areas. A different pattern of prayer, timing and frequency? A plan of scripture reading? Or a change in coming for worship? – if our pattern is to come once a month, how about one more time a month, on Sunday or on another day when we have a service? Whatever we decide, these could become part of our Rule, which we would decide to follow for the time being. Then in six months or a year we could review it and make changes where it seems appropriate.’

At this point I thought I could not really add anything more because each of us has to make the next steps ourselves. The important thing is that we do continue to move forward. We may feel we don’t have the time. But it’s my experience that when we feel called to make a move and offer it to God, and if it’s the right thing to do, we will be supported, the time will be there and we will indeed find ourselves going deeper into God. And for a Christian there is nothing better than that.

Perspectives of St John's 2: Inside the church

 

  

The second of the series of October sermons about St John's Church, its community, the challenges it faces, both for the community and for individuals. Here we begin to think about what happens in the church and what it means to St John's people and what a visitor might make of it.

 

 ‘You’re going to ask me the questions I can’t answer,’ I said, to start the ball rolling. ‘It’s much easier for people to criticise from the outside than for us to keep going on the inside.’ That’s how the discussion got going following up my earlier conversation with another friend and former colleague who had been gently challenging about the church in general and St John’s as part of it. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘what do you think about the situation for St John’s congregation at present?’ How about that for a first ball fast yorker! ‘I’m glad we are just having a conversation,’ I replied, ‘I’ll probably say things I wouldn’t dare to say in a sermon. You know, it’s not what I think that is the important question. It’s what everyone together thinks. We should look around and see what is going on. For example, we have a very active and dedicated core membership. It is as strong as anywhere and nothing would happen without them. Looking more widely, I know that it can be depressing when we see relatively few people in a large church, but if we think about that all the time we will just freeze. We have to make sure we are focussing on our core activity.’

‘What do you think the core is?’ she asked. I thought of replying, ‘what do you think?’, but I thought that would be too flippant, so I left a few moments to allow the question to mature in the mind and then offered an answer. ‘When you talk to people outside the church, as we did last week, they will often say that it is about being good and following rules. Many people in the church fear that may be the case too. But here we are clear that we do not start there. What distinguishes the church from everyone else? Anyone can try to be good and kind and helpful if they want. The difference of course is that we do it in a different context, the one offered by God through Jesus Christ. That’s the story we tell to each other every week. St John’s is a place of prayer and worship, as it has been for centuries, and everything we do flows from that.’

‘But that’s just the thing people outside the church don’t understand,’ she said, insightfully picking up the theme of my previous conversation. ‘It makes no sense to them.’ ‘I agree,’ I replied. ‘Church going these days is counter cultural. And we spend a lot of time working out for ourselves how everything fits together – that’s part of our prayer – and we don’t expect to find complete solutions either. But even though people want that certainty, it’s not the point. We are simply called to go deeper into God, as Bishop Alan would have us call it, and we are called to do it together.’

‘So you think church is a community thing?’ ‘Church has always been a community thing. It began with people coming together with a new way to live their lives, and, passing over centuries of history, that’s what it has returned to now, much more like the early years of the church than recent centuries. We find ourselves in a minority which is not understood, so we really do depend on each other. This is very important. Whenever we come to church we are saying yes to God and to everyone with us. We support each other just by being here. And it’s a good thing to do, as scripture confirms in the Psalms:

I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord.

And: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.’

‘That’s what we do here. Whatever else happens, prayer and worship, sustained by this community must continue. We, the community will in turn be sustained by it. It’s the energy source for everything we do.’

‘It sounds a bit simple and not very worked out,’ she commented. I partly agreed. ‘I don’t think we get given a detailed work schedule planned months into the future. It can seem trivial to say, but the way ahead is not always clear. It requires patience and faith to discern where we are being led and a sort of stubborn persistence as we keep going. The life of faith individually and as a community is like that. Much of the time we don’t see more than a step or two forward, but that’s all right if we continue our life together in the Spirit.’

‘Do you really think it makes a difference here at St John’s?’ she asked, perhaps sceptically but also thoughtfully. ‘Certainly. You can’t always put your finger on what it is, but very often when you go into a holy place you know it, you can feel it. That’s what St John’s can be like. Any visitor coming in from Monks Rise should be struck by it.’

‘I think I know what you mean,’ she nodded gently in agreement, ‘but St John’s is rather hidden. Not many people find their way in.’ ‘I think that will change,’ I replied, ‘as we increase the number of events here people will be coming from every local corner. And when they walk in they will say, as many do “what a beautiful place”, and then they might just begin to ask themselves why, what is it that is beautiful and peaceful about it, and they will see some hints around them. They may want to light a candle. Children often get their parents to do that.’

‘I’d love them to be led to thinking something like this. It’s based on a meditation I found visiting an abbey church in Germany. I found it very moving so I’ve translated and edited it for St John’s. Imagine coming into the church, sitting down in one of the many quiet corners and reading and thinking through this:

Now I'm sitting here in this church.

It has become quiet as I have come in. Old and new things surround me. There is a lightness in the new and stillness in the old.

I've come in away from the main roads and routes of Welwyn Garden City. The church is hidden away where it has been for centuries, and for all that time people have come here to pray…

It is good to be able to rest here. I find myself thinking of where I have come from: of all of today's business, of my work, of my family.  Here in this church I can set everything down. Every burden and care I can leave behind. I know I am lifted up. I am able to rest. I am thankful that there are people here who look after this place of stillness.

Whether I am able to stay for a short or long time I sense that things are different. From a place like this I can gain a new perspective.

Here the old meets the new in a place of rest.

Father, I am on a journey. People share my journey with me, some who have already accompanied me just for a time and some who continue to travel with me. I think of them too in these quiet moments. I leave the church with a happy feeling. These few minutes in this quiet corner of Hertfordshire have helped me. May I continue to find these moments of peace and stillness which offer help, support and the opportunity of a new beginning.