Now that's what I'm talking about....

Quite some time ago I posted here about the merger of three Diocese into one - the creation of the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales. As you can tell by the link - back then it was a maybe - and now it's a reality.  My biggest gripe was that people kept saying it was all about mission, and I couldn't see it, feel it, or understand it. Nothing I read about plans and ideas computed to the mission which was supposed to be at the heart of the decision.

Tonight I fire up the blog for the first time in a fair while to say that I am starting to see it, staring to feel it, and starting to see how me, my parish, my area, are part of this.Sometimes it is absolutely awesome to be wrong.

Tonight I've been to a meeting with other clergy in my Episcopal Area of Huddersfield and I've been inspired.  Inspired to share wacky ideas, inspired by the sense that there can be liberation from tired, downbeat, Eeyore church thinking. Inspired that we're going to really focus on discipleship, on Good News, on living love.

Tomorrow I will go about my vicar-y business with a boing in my step. Positively tigger-ish.  That's the coming of the Holy Spirit for you.

The Worship Song...

This is something I wrote to use in our local Infant school. After our last SIAS (Statuatory Inspection of Anglican Schools) it was found that though our collective worship was good, the kids weren't able to articulate what we were actually doing when we worship. So I wrote this, sung to the tune of Sing Hosanna

We gather and greet one another,

say hello to the God who cares,

say hello to our sisters and brothers

when we join to share our songs and prayers

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

We will listen to stories God‘s given

Saying thank you for God’s good word

Open hearts, open minds, sharing vision

We will think about what we have heard

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

We will pray for our world and our lives here

Saying thank you for the all that’s good

We will ask for God’s help with the hard things

God will help us live the way we should.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

We go on with our teaching and learning

thinking always of God met here,

ekep God’s love light inside always burning

in this season and throughout the year.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

praise and worship knowing God is near.

Praise and worship, praise and worship,

happy we are gathered here.

God's Family - Our Family

I was asked by some of my parishioners to post my sermon from Mothering Sunday (which was nice of them) - so here it is. 

As we meet today we celebrate 3 things – we celebrate what we know as Mothering Sunday, we celebrate the baptisms of Isabel & Elanor and we celebrate our Eucharist – the communion feast of bread and wine.

Those of you who have been hard at work giving something up for Lent, chocolate, wine, unkind words, might be relieved to know that the real name for today is “Refreshment Sunday”. It’s a chance for refreshment in the thoughtful and perhaps challenging season of Lent – and a chance perhaps to indulge in the things you've been fasting from.  So you can have sin free chocolate today. You can toast Isabel & Eleanor’s celebration without guilt – but if you want to use unkind words I’d be glad if you could wait till you get home from church and just shout at the telly.

We've heard two bible readings this morning – stories which can break your heart – about Moses mother giving her child away to save him from death – and about Jesus on the cross giving his mother into the care of a friend. Sad readings perhaps – but also readings which tell us something about what it means to be family, what it means to love.

These stories can be really helpful to us today as we all, Shelly & Matt as parents, Kay, Charlene & Simon [needs correction - some godparents missing] as godparents, and all of us as the community who will support these girls as they grow, make promises which we want to keep, we long to keep, but which we might sometimes fall short of because we are human.

Our first reading from Exodus tells us that complex families are not the invention of the late 20^th century.  Moses ends up with a mother who he knows as his nurse maid, a birth family who watch him from afar, he is saved by a woman who should be his enemy – but shows compassion and mercy and love  - not just saving him but bringing him up in a role of great importance, great privilege.  There is great heartbreak in this short story – but there is also life and love, flourishing despite all circumstances which should have squashed them.  Sacrifices are made, sacrifices which we might look at and say "such sacrifices are beyond my strength".  I remind you today of the challenges that each parent here has already faced.  I ask you to listen carefully when we pray the prayer over the water in a few moments which reminds us of the time after time after time that God has offered his strength and love to his people when things seemed impossible. As we assert that Isabel & Eleanor are not alone but have God with them – remember that you have too.

The second reading we heard is about Mary – Jesus mother, as she stands at the foot of his cross – witnessing something no parent ever wants to see in their lifetime. And what Jesus tells us from the cross as he speaks to his beloved disciple John saying ‘this is your mother – this is your son’ is that what God is calling on all of us to be to eachother is as loving parents. We need to know that the best love and care we can experience in our families is the goal that we are reaching for in how we treat all our brothers and sisters  - the people we meet every day. It is our goal when we promise as a whole community to encourage Isabel & Eleanor as they learn and grow, to pray, to know God.

Today we celebrate the gift of motherhood, of parental care, knowing that our real lives and real relationships are often complicated and difficult. For some of you today is a day of celebration – for some a day of mourning good things past – for some a day of regret and misgivings for relationships which haven’t worked or don’t work as we’d like them to.

But we are not alone – Moses family, Jesus family – neither simple.  Jesus had a step-father Joseph, a good man who accepted him in the most difficult circumstances.  He had many half-brothers and sisters who he grew up with who loved him but were hurt, confused and rejected at times when he taught that his other brothers and sisters in this world were just as important to him as they were. And he had a mother – who knew her child was special, the most special child who all Israel had been waiting for, but who had been told that an arrow would pierce her heart before his story was at an end.

When I think of Mary at the cross I am always transported back to watching The Passion of the Christ – the Mel Gibson film – to the moment when Jesus, carrying his cross to Calgary, staggers and falls under its weight. His mother, watching, sees in her mind’s eye the little boy running in the yard of his step-father the carpenter’s house, stumbling and falling – and she rushes to comfort him, to lift him up, to rub his knees and make everything better with her love.

The purpose of this morning’s short gospel reading is to show the other side of that coin - that even in the midst of the hardest times – God’s love is there for Mary and for each of us. Jesus is making provision for his mother – thinking of her and her needs despite what is happening into him.  In what he does on the cross he makes provision for all our needs and offers us love which has no boundaries, no exceptions.

Today we celebrate with Isabel & Eleanor and family as they take the next step in their journey in God’s church, our mother church.  We might perhaps think about God our parent creator – how God, so often referred to as father though of course without gender, can also be thought of as mother – and how this might help us better understand the God who loves us and gives us life.  And we remember that through the waters of baptism, and sharing in the feast of bread and wine at God’s table in our Eucharist, we know that whatever the good or bad of our earthly family, we are brothers and sisters all in Christ’s body, part of the family which God has created, and which in Jesus he gave his life to show love for. Amen.

Can we get on with it now??

Decided to blog about the on-going Deanery 'debates' about the legislation to finally get on with consecrating women bishops.  Only briefly - because essentially everything I want to say is stated or implied in that first sentence.  What I mean by this is that I was heartily pleased to hear colleagues admit that while we may never be able to achieve an ideal situation for all sides, we have essentially got as close as we're going to to a workable compromise, and we just need to get on with it now.  Not just get on with introducing the change to legislation and the Code of Practice - but get back to getting on with all the stuff we're really supposed to be getting on with.

So a one clause measure would have been great - but a Code of Practice perhaps gives us an opportunity to act like a church - like people who care about each other, can trust one another, and can show a little bit of the enormity of God's love in the way we treat one another.  I'm getting all management motivational - aren't all challenges just opportunities?  I appreciate that some of the fear on the traditionalist side is coming from the fact that they don't feel that they have been much loved, honored or cared for in recent years - but I genuinely see the Code of Practice as the opportunity to put some of that back - to reconnect with the tolerance and respect which the insistence on legal 'safeguards' has banished.

I ask that we're all able to put the focus back on the loving God we all believe in - bring reconciliation and trust back into the situation - and show a world full of conflict that it is possible to love those who you disagree with.  So the challenge of being church with 'the other side' becomes the opportunity for everyone to be truly Christ-like and see where that exciting possibility takes us??

Free Coke and a Bag of Popcorn

Right - if I want to rent a DVD in the greater Halifax environs I am required, according to the rules laid down for such things, to take at least two forms or ID - one with my picture on, and both with my current home address on, as evidence that I am who I say I am, I belong where I say I belong, and can be chased down like a dog if I fail to return Pretty Woman on the agreed day.

Now imagine if you will that I want to get married in a church.  There are various rules about how I qualify to do this.  Perhaps this is the church where I am resident, or where I worship, I am part of the community, I am known - I therefore meet all the rules necessary to get married there.  However this scenario, in my current parish, is very rarely the case, and more often than not we are meeting and welcoming people who are getting married under the churches new rules about marriage by connection.

I now come to my grumble for the day - there is no expectation that I will confirm who people are as part of the legal processes of marriage in a church - yet there is the expectation that I will discern (by my magical priesty powers??) if they are involved in something shonky - like a marriage scam.  In this day and age Banns are a nonsense in 99% of cases, they are not an effective way of giving legal notice - who in the pew would know???

I ended up asking someone about their legal right to marry in this country the other day - essentially because they had a funny accent - and was wildly angry with myself and the church afterwards for putting me in a position where there is not a level playing field and I felt like I was being discriminatory.  I cannot be expected to discern whether or not someone is a UK citizen on the basis of how they look or sound - but there seems to be no expectation that anyone who comes to me requesting a marriage in my church should prove whether they do or don't meet the most basic legal criteria to marry in this country.  I believe that introducing simple proof of ID to the legal process for marriage in church could save a lot of clergy a lot of heartache and would cut down on those targeting us to exploit a lax administrative process.

Togetherness

Have been to a Churches Together meeting this evening - which was lovely - they always are round here.  Genuine and smashing bunch of people who are involved in all sorts of amazing and dynamic projects like Street Angels, CICs, our local food bank and many many more.  Came away feeling a bit wrong footed though somehow.

The majority of churches involved, though of many denominations, are of the evangelical tradition, and I always end up feeling like a bit of a trad old stick in the mud.  I got really excited when we talked about some kind of flash mob last supper event - some friends and I had been looking at some kind of flash mob nativity but didn't get our act together so this really tuned me in.  Problem came when everyone insisted it should happen on Good Friday.  I know this makes sense in some ways but I thought some of them might, like me, be busy with stuff like the Good Friday Liturgy? Frustrated because I want to join in and do more with this group but feel like the rhythms and practices of the more middle of the road Anglican amongst us are ignored or viewed with gentle scorn.

I want to sing beautiful music at the foot of the cross, to me moved by the sound and the silence of the Good Friday liturgy as I always am - but I also want to go out onto the streets and share something of the Passion with people who may never consider darkening our door.  Why would anyone imagine that I and plenty of others wouldn't like the opportunity to do both?