The homework of understanding.

I left the shopping bags near the back door the other day. I thought this was a masterstroke, a very cunning plan. The next time I went out the back door it would be a simple matter of just picking up the bags and popping them straight into the boot. What could possibly go wrong?

You can imagine my befuddlement when I got to the supermarket, opened the boot to get the shopping bags and Voila! The boot reprimanded my absentmindedness with mocking emptiness.

So I understand afresh, that it is possible to see and not “Observe”, to listen and not “Hear”, to understand and not “Comprehend”.

The forgetfulness of the shopping bags is one thing and no harm was done. However, it is quite something else in our encounters with people. We have to be incisive and frequently ask questions. Like… “Did that makes sense?” “Tell me more” “I didn’t get what you meant when you said…” So you’re saying that .. “Green eggs and ham really does have all the basic five food groups?”

If I am having a good day I remember to ask myself “What is really going on here in this chat?”

The furthering of a relationship, the sharing of a burden, venting, an act of forgiveness, an invitation. Maybe it is a combo, maybe it is something else entirely. The real answer only bubbles up much later on.

Once upon a time, in a parish far far away, a young man in his teens had the task on Friday mornings of leading the recitation of The Litany, a form of petitionary prayer, using The Book of Common Prayer.  He had grown up using the book from his early days, indeed His mother had given him his first copy of the said book for Christmass in the early 1960s.  He was thus familiar with the cadences and forms of the Book of Common Prayer, and was very much at ease in its use.

One particular Friday as the Litany progressed he was especially struck by the words of one of the petitions in the Book: “By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation, by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision, By Thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, Good Lord deliver us.”

The book’s composer had obviously intended that its contents, of which that petition was representative, should not only be a form of prayers to be used by the Church of England, which indeed it still is (including us here down under) like some sort of prayer manual, a device to provide a pattern of worship; but that there should be much more to it than that.

To cut a long story short the intent of its original author, mainly Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), although he drew on many other sources, was that a mystical idea which we call Incarnational Theology, should be found at the very heart of how the creature we know as the Church of England, would worship the Holy and Triune God.  That church, of which we are a part, although having a few of the benefits, and not to mention some of the great faults of the english reformation, would no less still share in the ancient faith and emphasis passed on from the Eastern and Western Churches.

The book of course has itself had a varied and interesting history.  Its first edition was approved in the year 1549.  A revision, less well crafted, was published in 1552, with a further, better one, being authorised in 1559 during the reign of Elizabeth I.  Those of you who have seen the film in which Cate Blanchett played Queen Elizabeth will remember the scene in which the usage of the book as part of the Act of Uniformity was debated in parliament.  If you have not, it is well worth searching out.  The book had some revision to it again in 1604.

Sadly, for a little while when the monarchy and Church of England were under attack after the period of the English Civil Wars (roughly 1642-1651), and with the martyrdom of King Charles I and the suppression of the Church of England, the book was not used, except by those Anglican Clergy who kept faith and were effectively living under internal exile.

A yet further revision was approved in 1662 after Charles II was restored to the Throne and the Church of England, not to mention the whole country, was set free of its oppression from puritan/commonwealth forces.  It is that book which is still in effect even today.

An attempted revision was undertaken early in the 20^th century (referred to as the Book of Common Prayer as proposed in 1928), which was regrettably rejected by the British Parliament (for reasons too complicated to go into here).  Many bishops though still authorised its use anyway, as they did not believe that Parliament was competent to act regarding such a matter.  (They were right)

Since then each province of the Anglican Communion has issued modern prayer books, all of which are supposed to follow the pattern and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer.  Here in Australia we did so in 1978 and 1995.  The USA and South Africa did so in 1979.

So, why do we have prayer books, missals, overhead projectors, whatever?  Why do we organise the way we worship at all?  Surely we could just get by ad hoc.

The answer in part is because worship does need to be organised.  St Paul recognised the need for some conformity in worship when he took the Corinthians to task for making a mess of it in one of his letters to them.

More than that though, the Church needs to frame its worship in relation to how God has made himself known to us, and how important doctrines relating to that are made understandable and memorable to its members.

A prayer book is more than just a business paper arranged in point form with paragraphs and subparagraphs, debated clause by clause.  It is, or it should be, an expression of doctrines and precepts that have to do with how God loves us and grants us his mercy and makes himself present amongst us, whilst we for our part respond faithfully to him.

The young man progressed as he grew older, and has used other forms of liturgy, some very good, some appallingly bad.  Still he has a respect for the book that has sustained this part of the Church Catholic for so many centuries and whose cadences are so well known.  Hopefully it will continue to be useful and encouraging to others as well.

Sunday Mornings mass at Christ Church Hamilton will be celebrated at 10:30am on the   19th  of July. This service will be live streamed and can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/AnglicanHamilton

Today I thought I would do something a little bit different and preach not on the gospel, but on the first lesson. The story of Jacob's ladder.Here’s the go.Jacob is on a journey of 500 miles to say Howdy to  his uncle in Haran. This is where he plans to meet his wives. But God says “PHooe! I have a different plan and journey in mind for you Jacob. Let me show you.In a dream Jacob sees a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top of it is touching heaven: The angels of God are going up and down on this ladder; The Lord introduces himself to Jacob and makes him a promise.“I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land, where you are snoozing, I will give to you and to your descendants.”  When Jacob wakes up he exclaims that he was unaware of God’s presence in this place. Further, He takes the stone that he had been using as a pillow, pours oil on it, and renames the place Bethel. OK great story about a lumpy pillow, but what in it for us

First, God takes the initiative. Jacob did not build the ladder to reach heaven, God extended it to him. Contrast this with the building of the Tower of Babel. We tend to think of Babel as an act of human pride and folly. But dig deeper friends. They very much wanted something that would ‘reach to heaven’.. It did not end well.. Man cannot make his own way to heaven.So God first came to us. God not only takes the initiative, but He first descends to us. It is He who crosses the gulf between the human and the divine. That’s what Christmass was all about.  The lowered ladder is not a challenge from God, but a wonderful opportunity, an invitation to become one with Him..Secondly God is with us as we make the ascent. God is both the destination and our companion on the way.Notice that there are angels running up and down the sides of the ladder. Some see these angels as carrying our wishes to God and then bringing back his help. It's like this prayer that I am very fond of.“To go daily from men to God to offer him their homage and petitions; to return from God to men to bring them his pardon and his hope”.OK. So God is with us, the angels are our companions, what is expected of us? God does not drag us up the ladder. We are expected to respond to this invitation.How does Jacob respond?;When Jacob woke up, he said: “Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I did not know”. How awesome is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven”.Jacob’s response is one of holy fear or reverence at the presence of God. So the story becomes a metaphor for how we tend to fall asleep to the reality of God’s presence in our life. And what is it that awakens Jacob to God? It is this vision of the ladder. For us, the Cross is our true ladder to heaven—that ought to awaken us to the presence of God.Then We must act. After the vision ends, Jacob does more than wake up and remark how truly awesome it had been. He goes beyond a mere verbal utterance. He sets a stone in place and anoints it. His world is changed.And so Our world is changed. Jacob sets the stone in place as a permanent memorial of what happened. It could also be interpreted as a kind of a primitive temple since he also renames the area Bethel, which means ‘house of God’— The renaming of the area itself tells us a significant change has occurred. Finally, Jacob calls on God to be with him and to ‘keep’ the ‘way by which I walk’ and to nourish and clothe him. Jacob arrived at Bethel as a simple itinerant. He walked away with God.Something to ponderAs I re read the account of poor old Jacob I had to ask myself “How many times have I encountered a person or gone into a place only to discover much later that this was a sacred space, a holy encounter and I did not know it? How many times have I been asleep, when actually what I should have been seeing is angels and  climbing a ladder with them to heaven itself? How many times Lord… how many times?

I made a bit of a blunder last week. An oversight that was understandable and yet unfortunate. I mean, I didn’t get up in the morning, sprinkle sugar on my weeties and think…

“How can I be a monster today. What heinous act can I accomplish to wreak mayhem and mischief in peoples lives” No, just a little oopsie that anyone could make. I dutifully apologised, was swiftly forgiven and the whole thing was forgotten. Or was it?

You see the thing that disconcerted me most was not the fact that I made the blunder. When you get grey hair and wrinkles your mind also gets a little squidgy around the edges.

No, what I spent too much energy on was navel gazing whilst repeating the formula “Could have should have”.  This is not a helpful way to expend the valuable and limited resources of human emotion. A more fruitful exercise would be to put some strategies in place to try to make sure that this mistake does not recur. Surely that is a much more positive use of time.

But there is also a much more sinister thing that happens. That we swiftly cast our “Could have / should have” onto someone else and there it sticks. We can only see them through the murk of past errors. And what is sadder, is that by audibly articulating this mantra, others also are sucked into our slurry.

“Ol so and so should have done…A, B, C. They  should not have done Q. # Z, X and that other unmentionable thing. Everyone from our pollies to our sporting heroes are fair game. No-one is exempt.

Each day we need to see ourselves afresh because that is how the Master sees us. The challenge is to see others that way too.

Today's homily... "3 cheers for Farmer Bill"Today's homily starts with a great fizzing commotion. We are on the farm and the reason for the buzz is that we are having visitors.  No-one ever comes to visit us at Sheephills… ever… but here we are and the folk are on their way.I go with my Dad who is showing this couple around the farm. Part of the guided tour is a trip to the top paddock. It must have been early in the year, for I can distinctly remember him bending down and showing this couple the soil. He explained that this was good quality soil and it was his best paddock But then he says something quite sobering.Something like “Yes it's a great paddock all right and I always get a good return from it, but sometimes it really does feel as though you are trying to scratch a living out of a bit of dirt”.I think about that phrase often when I read this parable of the farmer. It’s lovely when the soil returns heaps and you make a living out of it, but like my dad, the farmer in the parable knew the gamble and vocation that is farming.

You have to admire the farmer in the parable. He goes out year after year to sow the seed. And I applaud him not just for his diligence, but because he knows full well before he even sets out. that some of the crop will fail. Some gets eaten by the birds, some swallowed by weeds, some falls on rocky ground, but this doesn’t stop him. Undeterred, time after time, year after year, he still goes out and sows. And there must have been times like my Dad, when in the driving rain, or the freezing cold, or the blithering heat, you think.. What on earth am I doing here?Now the parable has something to say about the times when we get it right and that's good and dandy and the harvest comes in followed by the cash. Sometimes heaps and sometimes not quite so much.But I reckon the message for us in these debilitating times is the courage and the diligence and the perseverance of the farmer.

That we are called to simply be faithful. Nothing more… nothing less. And it won’t be easy and we do wonder what’s it all about and we question the future, but the parable is quite clear. That we march on with the good news and then let God take over.

There’s also a subtle message about our attitude to those who seem to have lapsed in their faith. Notice please that the rocky ground is always offered the seed. The seed might wither and perish, but it is always offered. For the lapsed and those who are just inquiring in tiny baby steps the door is always open. There must always be a way back, for that is how God loves us and calls us to welcome others.A couple of other things to ponder.Given the amount of what I call “agricultural parables and stories” I wonder whether Jesus didn’t have a couple of farmers as friends. Is it not likely that farmer Bill came into Joey's carpenter shop to order a yoke for his oxen? Or Shepherd Hezekiah came in and ordered a shepherds staff? Perhaps the Master was thinking of a particular farmer when he told the parable. Perhaps he had watched the same farmer over a number of years just go faithfully about his work in an unassuming, faithful way. Perhaps, and this would be my hope for you, that you know or have known someone who is just like that. Someone who by their very example both inspires and challenges you. Last thing. What I didn’t tell you in the story about our visitors, is that my dad had a couple of other paddocks that weren’t quite as flash and didn’t give nearly as generously.

Deep down in our hearts in that secret place, I am sure that there are patches that are good and rich and generous and we play to our strengths in order to nudge just one person a little closer towards the Kingdom. But there are also places deep within us, that, if we are honest, that are rocky and disappointing. There are times when we can be hard of heart and unresponsive to His generous love.  My Dad didn’t show our visors the paddock that occasionally had scotch thistles pop up and the dam went dry.  We can be good at hiding that which is embarrassing, but that can never stop the good farmer coming to us and offering us a way forward to transform our dearth, into rich truck loads of golden grain to share with the world.

Of our AGM

You would be painfully aware that we can only have 20 people inside for Church gatherings. This means that at the moment our Parish AGM will be limited to 20 people. We really hope that this will change in time and everyone can come.(Hoorah)

In order to allow ample time for the possibility of election and for the forms to go back and forth, the AGM has been set for September 27th.

If you would like to nominate a People's Warden please use the yellow form. 

If you would like to nominate a parish councillor please use a blue form.

If you are over 18 and have received communion more than 3 times in the last year you need to fill out a white form affectionately known as schedule A.

Nomination forms and any items for general business need to be in by the end of August. 

Got a question. Please see that local friendly priesty guy Fr. David.