The Rector Writes:
Selected Sermon Series
EPIPHANY 2011
We all have the odd epiphany, when something suddenly reveals itself to us, and it makes all clear. I have learnt a lot about myself over the last year, and it was an epiphany to me, in many ways, to discover what my underlying priorities would be when “push came to shove.” It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did a little and made all things very clear to me. Who and what matters in my life? What do I have to do and what do I not have to do. I became free of some social niceties and any sense of personal ambition was swept away in a very healthy housecleaning that went on in my mind.
Some of the positives of my epiphany then!
My faith has been founded upon questions – I had lots of them, often remaining unanswered, floating, tantalizingly out of reach. At Cuddesdon when I was training I often felt jealous of those who felt such certainty, who seemed to reach answers to questions I still had to think of. I often felt as though I floundered and was not suited to the task I had reluctantly taken on in the first place.
Ordination was acceptance but still questions and the more I served the more confused I got about the church, its people and the institution. My bishop considered me a strong, competent leader and needed someone to stabilise a difficult position. So my curacy was spent trying to get very angry people to reconcile. Having done what I could I was given an incumbency as a “reward” – the downside was another congregation, battered and bruised and angry. After seven years where often the institution seemed at best a problem, I sought new fields and came to a church that wanted to be a community serving others and not just itself. The church had a vision, not yet clarified but a vision of what God was calling it too. I prayed I would be up to the task.
Then, just as we seemed on the brink of moving forward, I was diagnosed with the spinal tumour. The prognosis was not good but at this, what should have been my worst time, I felt the overwhelming presence of God merging with the prayers of people, so strong that it felt as though hands were holding me, it was a tangible presence. I went in for the operation with no fear and my blood pressure lower than it had been for years. It has been difficult to work this through; my small brain has struggled to find words to hopefully share this with others. All that I can say is that now I don’t struggle with questions, at least not in the same way, I have discovered that my faith is strong – stronger than I would ever have expected of myself. I have also been convinced that God is one thing - love, a divine love that seeks out to touch us all – we only need to be open to receiving it. I needed to be at my weakest most desperate for that love to invade my being. Don’t get me wrong I am still flawed little old me, but for a brief moment I felt God touch the deepest parts of my-self and I understood his Peace.
And so a God of love must be love to all his created not just a select few. That love goes to all not weighing our sins against us, but loving us and wanting us to love in return.
The next positive, equal to the first, was the overwhelming sense of love I had for my family. There had been a time when I had doubted my ability to love another until a wee person got under my skin. My illness was a gift that has brought us so close I cannot give enough thanks for. I love my children, I feel every pain and every joy, every scratch and every healing and I give thanks for it all and pray that I may live to see their children give them the same source of love.
I have an overwhelming need to see them safe, secure and happy, and so have worked hard over the last year selling our house in the south so that we can build a stable future in a community of people we have come to love as a family and in a city that is a joy to live in.
It is not all a bed of roses – we will have to look after our own house and pay the mortgage for the first time in our lives, and all the myriad difficulties of family life but it is a good adventure that we undertake together.
Next - my relationship with the institution of the Church. I have spent 43 years closely connected to the institution of the Church. I have recognised how its fortunes are shaped by the whims of individuals, some like Roy former bishop of Southwark brought light, faith, hope and joy. He convinced even those in opposing camps within the Church that he loved them and wanted the best for them. He is a man of faith and a truly rare individual. Others I have seen promoted start well and then get lost in the machinery of the institution and become servants of it, rather than Christ’s. Others just get lost.
Worst of all are those for whom the rule, ritual and the canons are all important, who hide their lack of faith behind form and prejudice. Bishop Richard Holloway alluded to these last Good Friday. For these title and institution are all important and when challenged they act and fight like the Pharisees. I think every institution probably has this problem, the problem rests that the Church of Christ was never designed to be an institution, and when it acts like one it brings only death where there should be life and light.
For a time I was told I should be part of this institution, I was flattered, my ego stroked. My epiphany has stripped me of these fleeting ambitions and has cleared my mind as to what I consider important. Our rules are there to serve us not to bind us, and when they become stumbling blocks to our service of Christ and his people they must be confronted and challenged. The Church when it works well is still the best mechanism we have to bring the divine Grace to the world, but the institution must serve this purpose and not get in its way. We are the bodies who make up the church and it is up to us to make sure that the Church serves God and not the institution itself.
The Magi were wise men - the scientific elite of their day – they committed themselves to a hazardous thousand mile journey to find the answers to their questions. Their Epiphany was a young child, fragile and born in humble circumstances. At once they recognised the son of God and gave thanks. We do not know what happened to the Magi after they returned home but one would expect that they re-evaluated their lives and began lives of faith, the first non Israelites to find the true God. So the Magi possessed the most important Epiphany the world has ever known. They were blessed. But we are all blessed by epiphanies often after periods of reflection. At the beginning of a new year it can be a prime time to reflect, to bring to fore memories both good and bad, to celebrate and to forgive, and to wait on God. Maybe you can have an epiphany that can clear the decks and help you take another leap on the road of faith and self understanding.
