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 15th 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 19th
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.
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