Holocaust Memorial Day

A prayer for Holocaust Memorial Day 2014 (27th January) inspired by visiting the Anne Frank exhibition in Peterborough Cathedral.

Hear the cry, Lord,

which echoes down the years

from atrocities and violence

perpetrated against your children.

To anguished hearts, bring your healing grace;

to the grief stricken, bring the hope of salvation;

to the lives lost, bring your redeeming embrace.

Open the eyes of those who would repeat

these horrors anew;

challenge them with your justice

and inspire compassion.

Take away all evil intent

and replace it with your peace and unity,

that the world may resound

with the song of your love.  Amen.

How we deal with the bad stuff

This week has been a dark one for this city.  The conviction of a number of men and teenage boys for abuse of young girls has left many feeling sickened.  It comes on the back of over a year now of child abuse being on the front pages nationally, from Jimmy Savile, through high profile celebrity trials and convictions, to cases of trafficking and exploitation.  If anyone is tempted to try to blame any particular community for these we have so many cases in front of us which shout the lie to that.  As a children’s commissioner said this week, these cases are everywhere, in every community and no place can be complacent.  They bring a dark cloud and over time we all start to feel grubby.

For those who have suffered, they have been violated and that runs very deep indeed.  That some of these assaults took place in a children’s play park is a violation of childhood.  That touches us deeply too because childhood should be safe and a time to grow through play.  There is help and any group working with children and young people has procedures in place to minimize the risks.  The truth is, though, no one can ever remove all risk, but when potential perpetrators know people are on the look out, they tend to go elsewhere, where the pickings are easier.  A rule of thumb in safeguarding young people is that things should make sense and where behaviour is odd or something just doesn’t seem right then dig until you are satisfied, share your concern with someone you trust.  If you are not satisfied, keep digging until you either are or things come to light.  It’s a bit like when cash doesn’t reconcile by a few pence.  If that can’t be explained, then dig about because it can expose larger discrepancies.  I know this from reconciling my own bank account.  When my statement doesn’t agree with my record it usually means I’ve written something down wrong or added it up incorrectly, or an unexpected payment has gone out.  In one case it meant that someone had cloned my bankcard and that became dramatic as the sales assistant took a pair scissors and cut it up at the check out!

These cases of abuse are extreme and can breed a kind of paranoia about stranger danger.  The vast majority of people are actually trustworthy and safe.  One of the remarkable things despite all these cases is that people are generally good natured and kind.  The internet can be a dark place of any kind of depravity anyone cares to look for or even not look for.  But I find that if you have a problem making some piece of software work there will be a web page set up by someone with the answer and solution.  These are free and whenever I’ve tweeted a problem someone will reply with advice and encouragement.  I find that the internet is generally a place characterized by generosity and kindness.  So as with so many things balance and perspective are needed.  This is one of those weeks when we need to restore our grasp on this because it looks so dark and the scale can be overwhelming when presented without seeing all those others who can be trusted.

But sin is real for all of us and it lurks in our hearts.  It is the struggle between the good we desire and the evil we desire.  As Lady Gaga put it, 'Jesus is my virtue, but Judas is the demon I cling to'.  The inclinations of the heart are not always virtuous and we are fallen, fragile and vulnerable mortal creatures.  We are not perfect and sin is written through the human condition like a message through a stick of rock.  We have a need for salvation if there is to be any hope of eternity because how we are now is not ready for eternity.  We are a seething soup of desires and drives, which create and destroy.  That needs an answer and a solution and these do not lie within ourselves because while we can make incredible headway, we can’t ultimately change the condition that is both virtuous and vulnerable, godly and greedy, creative and destructive.

Into this struggle, walks Jesus in our gospel reading (John 1:29-42).  John the Baptist has been baptizing by the River Jordan.  He was doing this as a symbolic action to reinforce a spiritual preparation for God.  Those who came were responding to his message that God’s kingdom matters; the world belongs to God and we need to recalibrate our settings so that we aim to live as God would have us live.  But that recalibration is not, on its own, enough.  John points to Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’.  This is not just a washing away of sins, the actions where we mess it up or the thoughts it would be better that we didn’t have.  This is the removal of the very flaw in the system in the first place.  This is the removal of mortality and the limited scope of where we live and therefore how we live.  Jesus is the answer to the problem of sin, of suffering and humans being mortal.

There is a way open for human beings to share in the life of God because God makes that way open.  It is God who made the world the way it is and so only God can expand its horizons beyond being locked into the limit of our flawed nature.  As things stand the natural order and condition of human life ends with death.  It goes no further.  The prospect of passing through a veil or slipping off into eternity doesn’t actually deal with the root problem.  It just keeps us as we are and as we are is not perfect or a condition to stay in forever.  The New Testament does not talk about just walking into another life with no interruption at death, it talks about a new creation, a new way of being, where sins are removed and we are changed.  God in Christ brings a new life where there would otherwise be death; his salvation disrupts the expected outcome.

The hope which this brings is that whatever the darkness we may encounter or perpetrate it is not eternal.  It doesn’t have the final word.  We know this instinctively which is why so many people find lighting candles as a sign of prayer helpful and encouraging.  Light shines in the darkness.  Healing is available for the injured and violated.  Forgiveness is offered for those who offend and with it a new start to live differently.  Places of violation are not tarnished forever but can be places of blessing and joy once again.

The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world brings hope and new life.  We need this because there are things we can’t deal with on our own and the power and hold of evil, of the pain and shame, are profound ones.  We need the healing grace of God in Christ.  In him we find the space to be heralds of his new creation and to find that the evil and pain do not have the final word.  Christ takes away the sin of the world and that is the source of our hope and much rejoicing.

Sermon preached at Peterborough Parish Church, Sunday 19th January 2014

Baptism, The Devil and 'Special Agents'

Baptism has been in the news in recent months.  First we had the baptism of Prince George back in October.  On the day, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire turned up here at the Cathedral and I drew the short straw to stand by our ancient font and record a piece on baptism.  Having conducted something approaching a 1,000 baptisms I thought it would be an easy task.  However, my well-honed theology was to no avail.  What really caught their interest was my off-the-cuff comments about how to hold a baby.  I was taught by a midwife in the hospital after our first son was born and as she was explaining how to wash a baby’s hair she turned to me and said ‘I suppose this is how you baptize babies’.  I thought, ‘it is now’.  Though when it comes to David in a short moment, we won’t be employing quite the same grip, at 10 years old he’s a bit big for that.

The second place where baptism has been in the news is over some revisions being made to the words we use at baptism.  Ever since the latest text came out in 1998 many of us have found it to be out of touch with where most people are when they come for baptism themselves or bring their children for it.  There is too much unexplained reference to the devil and the language is just not earthed and doesn’t connect.  So revision is needed.

The news reports, though, about dumping the devil set me off thinking about the nature of evil and how it can concentrate and become focused in a place or a community so that it can take on a life of its own and we can find ourselves caught up in this.  It’s easy to see where ideas that personify evil as a person come from.  There are, though, other ways of saying this, which don’t imply horned creatures dressed in red with a spikey tail pitchforking the damned into the eternal flames, which is not very helpful and does tend to spoil the Christening party somewhat.

Baptism is a sign of how God deals with the reality of evil.  He does this in the person of Jesus Christ, sharing our humanity and our struggle, taking the human condition, even to the point of death, and breathes new life into it.  He also calls us to join in with him, to become his followers, his special agents in the world witnessing to love, hope and peace.  So, on this Sunday when we remember the baptism of Jesus we are drawn to look afresh at what lies at its root.

Baptism has its origins in washing, in the removal of dirt and making ourselves clean.  It lies in the freshening up after the heat of the day and getting ready so that we are acceptable for a special occasion.  We scrub up.  John the Baptist was building on a tradition that used this as a way of getting people ready for God’s kingdom, specifically a place where God was the ruler and not the Romans.  So people went to the Jordan, a place rich with significance as the place where the people of Israel crossed to enter the Promised Land.  As they lined up for this ritual washing, they signed up for the rule of God in their lives, in the life of their community and nation, they signed up to be special agents of his kingdom.   As they entered the flowing water, and either went beneath the waves or had the water poured over them a connection was made with how vulnerable life can be, how fragile we are.  Water can also overwhelm us, at its worst we can drown in it, and we’ve seen just how powerful it can be in the waves battering the coast and in the unstoppable floods.  Sadly yesterday the body of young man was found off the south coast.  Fragile and vulnerable, water in baptism reminds us that life is a special gift.  So God’s rule is founded in an eternal hope that the world belongs to God and so we try to shape our lives and the common life in accordance with the moral tone and purpose which flows from our faith.

Our Gospel reading took us to the River Jordan (Matthew3:13-end).  Along comes Jesus to sign up for this too.  This causes confusion for John because it is him that he is getting everyone ready for.  So this is the wrong way round and doesn’t make sense to him.  It wouldn’t make sense to us if Jesus arrived through the great West Doors and asked to be baptized.  In presenting himself at the Jordan, Jesus identifies fully with who we are and where we are.  He takes the baptism and gives it a new significance.  It is no longer something that needs to be repeated, as with ritual washing, but becomes an entry point into his kingdom.  Once the waters of life have touched us we are incorporated into his family, his household of faith, and become his children through grace, through his gift.  We become his special agents.

To show this three symbols will be used.  These children will be marked with the sign of the cross, using special oil blessed for this purpose by our bishop.  They will be anointed, blessed.  People are anointed for special jobs; it’s an ancient practice.  The special job which these children have, and which all of us who have been baptized share with them, is to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  There are not just 12 disciples, but there were many more and since there have been billions.  In a moment, there will be three more called David, Isabel and Esme.

Then there is the water, the way we sign up for this.  We are washed, brought through the vulnerable submission and incorporated into the life of Christ’s church.  The consequences of sin are repaced by the freshness of salvation.  Finally we will give them candles, and the words used talk about shining as lights in the world to the glory of God.  This takes us back to that debate about the devil and evil.  Following Christ means challenging evil wherever we find it, it means making a difference so that we bring light into situations, not darkness, we aim to be people who are grace and blessing to the world: challenge evil, make a difference and be grace and blessing.

Today we make 3 new disciples of Jesus Christ; people who are blessed and who will themselves be blessing.  They are to be signs of hope in a fragile and vulnerable world, lights to counter darkness wherever it is found, however we choose to talk about evil.  They are to be special agents of God’s kingdom as all of us who have been baptized are called to be.  The challenge for the rest of us here is help them do that, to set the example for them to follow.  That is why God draws us together as his church to help one another in this journey.  Baptism is a sign of God’s confidence in us to do this and be this in the power of his Spirit.

Sermon preached in Peterborough Cathedral, Sunday 12th January 2014

What makes a good vicar?

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that good vicars grow churches.  Well bad ones can certainly turn people off so that they vote with their feet.  But there are quite a number of factors involved in church growth, not least the people there already and the history of the area.  Where there have been conflicts or fall-outs these can pollute the waters for years to come.  Having taken over churches where there has been trouble in the past, I know that for some those problems can hang around and take years to overcome.  All of that taken into account, what makes a good vicar?  Here are a few values I treasure which I think lead to good vicars (and healthy growing churches).

Welcoming and inclusive

Everyone is welcome.  This is not a members only club and you don't have to fit a predefined set of criteria to walk in.  So the single, families, those with mental illness and who struggle with themselves as much as everyone else, those with high disposable income can sit alongside those on benefits.  We have men, women, adults and children, gay and straight along with the not sure and those who could go either way, those in secure relationships alongside those fractured or irretrievably broken.  Politically left sit near to those on the right - makes the feedback on sermons on political and social issues interesting.  People struggling with the psychological effects of abuse and those who have carried this out (those with convictions will be under a contract which the vicar knows about but no one else does or at least only a small tight group for safety).  Broadsheet and tabloid readers (e.g. Daily Mail, Sun, Mirror, Times, Guardian, Independent and Telegraph).  The bookish and those who get all their culture electronically.  Some will be good at social contact, some will struggle, some will be well schooled in the art of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time too.  Different nationalities and ethnic origins, permanent and temporary residents.  Those who look like they have it all sorted, those with many doubts, those not sure and those with deep questions.  You get the picture.  A healthy church is a full mix of every different group you care to think of.

Engaging Worship

Worship is the life-blood of the church.  It needs to be alive and faith-filled.  It should draw us deeper into the mystery of God and stimulate the sense of the other.  Well crafted liturgy will take the worshipper on a journey from where they are, into an encounter with the spiritual, give them a bit of a shake so that they are ready to go back out renewed and ready to reengage with the world.  It's not entertainment, but shouldn't be mind numbingly dull either (whether the songs are accompanied by a band or hymns sung to an organ, or even karaoke style to a CD).  It should include moments of praise, lament, forgiveness and restoration; it should be filled with grace and passion for God who loves us, call us and blesses us.  Worship needs to remind us that we are created from purpose and everything we do is caught up in that purpose: we are loved and live in love, hope and faith.

Thoughtful and inspiring

Preaching needs to be alive - intellectually, spiritually and relate to life as it really is.  Our aim is to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ.  This is a different mindset from members or even volunteers.  The latter is about spare time.  Discipleship is a whole life commitment, touching our paid time and the time we give for free.  Preaching is a complicated art: for some it will include images, for some it will be cerebral.  To balance the different learning styles in 10 minutes is a tall order, but over a month a range is possible.  The vicar needs to demonstrate in the pulpit that faith and brains go together, to keep critical faculties turned on and firing on all cylinders.  Growing churches are places where intelligent debate is encouraged.  We need nurseries of faith, where the new shoots and old ones can grow in faith.

Socially active and in touch

An amazing thing has been taking place over the last few years.  Churches have been the backbone of the Foodbank movement.  They have seen the hunger need and responded with generosity and commitment.  In some places churches have been picking up the fallout of asylum and immigration crises, trafficked and migrant workers' rights, exploitation in many guises, set up homeless shelters, lunch clubs and drop in cafes/coffee mornings.  Church halls have been centres of community, with scouts and guides, fitness and well-being groups, drama and gardeners' groups.  People from our congregations staff many charities and provide valuable services, some are councillors and play an active role in civic life and cultural interests.  We are called to be salt and light in community and many churches do this in stunning ways.

Pastoral Care

Caring has been a foundation of faith-filled living since it began.  We care for the bereaved, we visit the sick and housebound, lifts are given and time is spent listening to things which have been said to no one else.  Pastoral means relating life to the gospel and so the caring is gospel shaped.  It's not just cosy, but may involve facing some hard realities about who we are and what we've done.  Honesty with acceptance matters, which is why it can extend into prisons and difficult schools, communities where their is tension as well as the easier places.  Important moments of life are marked: birth to death, moments of joy and sorrow.  It's an emotional roller coaster being a vicar, a day can include all the emotions under the sun.  They need to be personable and approachable.  Not necessarily a youth worker come geriatric specialist, but an ability to relate to a wide range of people is pretty much a given requirement.  It's not a job for a sociopath or someone who can't cope with people.  Vicars and their churches need to reach out into communities and draw people into the church's embrace.  It can involve imaginative thinking about how to do that.

Political and campaigning

Caring is admirable, but sometimes there are issues which need addressing at their root.  We can feed someone, but it is also important to ask why so many are hungry.  The gospel that inspires and shapes us does include clues as to what makes us healthy and collectively what contributes towards a healthy society, to the common good.  This is not seeking privilege and power for its own sake, but we have a voice and a perspective which comes from the caring and the community action, from being rooted in every community in the country.  Churches have been active in sponsoring fair-trade, in challenging injustice wherever it is found (and we challenge ourselves too where that is necessary) and work with others who can be ready partners in this.

It will be clear from this list that the weight of all of this would cause one person to collapse in a heap.  This cannot just be the job of a 'good' vicar, but the vicar leads this church community and these are the elements which need to be nurtured and encouraged.  Good Vicars do this, but above all they invite their churches to do them and churches that do grow.

Warning: Christmas has sharp edges

These days following Christmas Day have some sharp edges to them.  If we are tempted to think of Christmas as a time of saccharin sweetness and one of overindulgence then these days bring the hangover to end all hangovers; they bring us up short very quickly.  The day we call Boxing Day is also known as the Feast of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.  He brings with him the reminder that following this newborn baby lying in the manger can be costly, often is.  It brings us into conflict with vested interests, those who don’t like the boat being rocked and certainly don’t like their power being challenged.  Any preacher who ventures into the realm of political or social comment will quickly learn that some will tell us to keep politics out of the pulpit.  These days that follow tell us that it belongs firmly in the pulpit and in the pew and outside it.  Faith touches the whole of our life or it touches nothing at all.

Then on Friday we were given St John, the apostle and either the author of the Fourth Gospel or one on whom much of its information rests.  This is the Gospel that tells us the eternal Word, the Wisdom and very purpose of God, chose to be enfleshed among us, to be incarnate.  Why did he do this, well our epistle told us it was that through doing this he became subject to death so that he can destroy death (Hebrews 2:10-end).  As fans of the comedian Reginald D Hunter will know, if you want to defeat something you have to become it, so Christ takes on our humanity so that he can be subject to our mortality, die and rise; he can become death in order to destroy it.  It’s a profound piece of motivational thinking.  By entering deeply into the very thing that oppresses us we can destroy its fear and therefore its hold on us. 

This is inspirational leadership.  The leaders who inspire us most are those who are grounded in the reality of the situation they seek to manage.  Bishops who have been parish priests tick a box for me which those who haven’t just fail to master.  At a profound level they get it: the pressures, the struggles and the all comsuming commitment required.  Politicians who have done a day job, and not just been political researchers and the like, command a respect which the others fail to achieve.  One of the problems with the House of Commons at the moment is too many of those in it haven’t done what I’d call a proper job.  The same goes for clergy too.  The ones who have a former career tend to command a respect that those who haven’t don’t for its rooting and ground in the daily grind.  In the prison service trainee governors have to spend time as an officer on the wings first.  They have to have walked the landings to be able to understand what the real issues are and to gain the respect of the officers.  The same goes for Education.  How can you lead schools if you haven’t taught in a class and preferably in one of the more challenging places?

Jesus is not a remote vision of God, but one among us, sharing our joys and griefs, the trials and achievements we all have.  And in this the final trial we all face, that of death itself.  This is the God who not only understands but shows he does.  That matters when the chips are down and we are struggling with the rawest experiences and emotions we can face.

Our gospel reading today, was also the one for yesterday when we recalled the brutal murder of the Holy Innocents (Matthew 2:13-end).  Kind Herod, worried for his grip on power and despotic control, ordered the murder of all of the baby boys in the Bethlehem area under the age of 2.  I don’t know how many children that was, but we count each child as special and to every parent each child is irreplaceable.  So this is a dark day in our calendar.  But it is a day that provides a space for parents who have lost children to find their story in the Christmas story.  It means that they are not shut out from these celebrations, even if partying is furthest from their minds.  It is also a day for everyone who has been abused as a child, and those who as adults continue to struggle with this.  As a senior police officer dealing with the Jimmy Savile cases said, there is no such thing as historic abuse.  For those who endured it the nightmare is always with them and it haunts.

For Joseph, he knew that only when the threat had disappeared, when Herod was dead, would it be safe to return from Egypt.  Even then he found that he couldn’t go back to where they had previously been, he had to settle anew in a place some distance away.  Psychological distance can be important for those who have endured significant trauma.  If we are going to rebuild we have to feel safe to do it.  Egypt was an ironic place to go for safety because it was there that Pharaoh had tried to kill all the Hebrew boys leading to Moses being hidden by his mother in the reeds.  It shows that places do not remain dangerous for ever.  Previous places of danger can become a place of safety, of asylum.

Today is also the day we remember the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.  Another king, Heny II, out to remove political opponents, saw violence as the solution to his problems.  Whether he intended it or it was overambitious barons, with their own axes to grind, who went too far, we will probably never know.  Becket has local connections here in Peterborough because the roof of our Cathedral is probably modeled on what Canterbury Cathedral would have looked like at the time.  Some of his relics where also displayed here which is why we have the Becket Chapel.

Becket is a strange one.  He brings the compromised position of church power and privilege.  He died for separate courts to deal with misbehaving clergy.  It was a view that the church needed its political independence to be able to do its job – prophetic and pastoral.  On one level I like the Royal Navy chaplaincy model of clergy taking the rank of the person they are talking to.  That enables a conversation of equals and that assists honesty because no one has to keep face.  It requires a high degree of confidentiality and while not tested by the courts, it is recognized as a good thing.  But everyone needs to be accountable and we have seen far too many cases where protection of the vulnerable has been given second place to protection of the institution, which is really a false protection because it is no protection at all when the truth comes out.  True protection lies in behaving appropriately in the first place and with a transparency of justice.

Becket though, stands for the need to speak the uncomfortable truths to power.  Hugh of Lincoln, depicted in our windows and reredos with his pet swan, who consecrated the cathedral 900 years ago, was a contemporary, and he seems to have been better at it – at least he kept his head, but may have benefited from the furore that erupted after Becket’s murder, and pushing his luck accordingly. 

So today, on this fifth day of Christmas, we are reminded that the Christ in the manger takes on our flesh completely.  He does this to save us and that brings the sharpest pains and conflicts into the heart of our faith and our celebrations.  This party has some bitter tastes to ground the sweetness and stop excess losing its way.  

Sermon preached in Peterborough Parish Church, Sunday 29th December 2013