The Loaf of the Lord

After a little sermon blockage at the tail end of last week, I can report a successful day with three distinct and separate sermons preached in three distinct and separate places of worship - or churches as we like to call them. The third sermon was 'written' during a visit to a DIY store after lunch today - it is indeed a wonder how the Good Lord works!

The sermon to which I refer revolved around a gospel reading that will surely be familiar to you, and that is the passage from John's Gospel where Jesus says that He is the "bread of life". It struck me how much the humble loaf teaches us about being 'church'.

The thing about bread is that it is, by very definition a composite of different ingredients. With a lack of either the flour, yeast, water or flour you would not end up with bread. They are ingredients different in volume but equal in importance. This illustrates the need to regard quality of discipleship as distinct from quantity. Distinctiveness of ingredient is important too. In church life, for it to be as God would wish, it needs different people who bring distinctive gifts.

The thing about bread is that it rarely flourishes in its creation without too very important things that move away from the recipe or the ingredients. The first is good old hard work. Kneading bread is physical exertion. Once that labour is done, we then have to set the dough aside and do that thing which is central to our religious life: faith. We have to walk away and have faith that the dough will rise as we hope. This tells us two things about being church - that is requires a very particular effort, that expecting church to come easily is a flawed vision; also that it is acceptable and even desirable to step away and let things happen. In the same way that we cannot knead bread risen, neither can we simply labour the coming of the Kingdom.

The last thing about bread is that is can be quite properly enjoyed in many manifestations. Bread is not always a White bloomer loaf. These days, it possible to find many types of bread that have a place in all manner of different meals. There is a time for a baguette, and also for a ciabatta. If the ingredients are about the inner qualities that we bring to church life, then the manifestations of bread is about the many ways it is possible to be church next to one another. For me, I am probably a traditional white split-tin, and not a funky and new olive-focaccia!

Simple bread, made simply with simple ingredients is the Prince of foods as it is the very food that Jesus chooses to represent his sacrifice. He didn't choose a medium-rare ribeye steak or the finest Beluga Caviar. No. Bread. What more do we need than this profoundly simple model of how to be the Body of Christ - than to fashion ourselves on the Body of Christ.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Biggest Threat to the Church

...is not what The Reverend Doctor Patrick Richmond said (him being the Winner of the Daftest Silly Thing to be Said in Public, Ever Contest and slightly ahead of Oinky The Pork Cutlet Pig and her comments on Bovine Eternity). Nor is it the Alpha Course, a front for the black-market trade in poor translations of the Bible and antimacassars  to the unsuspecting. It is ...

... spiders. I am scared to death of them. I can't bear to look at them alive, dead, moving, still, little, large, hairy or pie-bald. I hate spiders almost as much as I hate .... (not telling). The only time in my little life (did I ever mention that I am quite young?) when I fainted was when a spider the size of a Collection Plate emerged, with its boots on and its tattoos and everything, and walked across a ceiling between me and the door. I couldn't escape; it was horrid. I fell down in a dead faint, naked as a the day I was begotten as it happened to be in a small shower room.

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with the church. Not a lot in truth, but the title got your attention, and it is always good to see you, but there is a small overlap. As a priest, I have a certain amount of my working life that is, shall we say, church-facing. I do 'church' quite a lot. And so do spiders. English churches are, often, quite old. Spiders like old places, and the carcasses of dessicated arachnids that fall to the floor are so old that they are bleached white. One was even carrying a Tyndale translation, he was that old.  So, the thing is this - if I become Archbishop of Canterbury, not only will I have to take on half the bloody bloggers of the world, but I will have to close the medieval spyder-hyders in which we worship. Fainting Graces are not pretty.

Need to grow a beard first, which is something I just cannot do (I speak of the physical, not the moral). 

Twitterquette

The subject of good manners within social media has been written about many times over. Only not here - so here I go.

I am focussing upon Twitter in particular following a rather annoying thing that peeves me just a little bit. In simple terms, I sent a Tweet (a message of 140 characters or less, if by now you are unsure) to a priest who knows me personally and who holds some authority in the church (I lean on the word 'some'). Said priest then ignored me despite being rather active on the site. It wasn't a world-class message that I sent, but did demand a reply. I was ignored.

There are always little rules that accompany social interaction. Were there not, then rudeness and poor behaviour would quickly reign. On the whole, these rules require no printing or formal drafting, because they are the rules of good manners, and are largely innate in most of us. 

I think I was peeved because the priest in question is a conspicuous self-promoter and manifestly ambitious. I have no real concern with that, until they become too levitous to speak to others. Exchanged messages with bishops, even archbishops - that is fine. Just not curates. Grrr

With all things concerning the social media, I believe in absolute terms that you should never utter a word there that you wouldn't be prepared to say in person. It is easy to be one person in the flesh and quite another in the online world. In the real world, when someone addresses me, I respond. In the online world, I am not rude about someone for fun (or even to be serious), though I am happy with being critical in appropriate measure. I am happy to take criticism if it is warranted and the person delivering it has the right or insight so to do. If I borrow something from someone else, I try to ask first and thank them after. If I like something, I tell others, but I remember not to accidentally let that thing become mine. 

And so it is with social media, and especially Twitter and blogging. Ideas are (more or less) property. Interactions are no less real than any that would take place in my lounge over coffee. Equally, that means that I listen as much as I speak and I don't keep repeating myself - frequent offenses in social media, especially Twitter. If I address someone, I fairly well expect a reply. I try hard to afford that behaviour to others and look back on messages received when I have been offline, and reply to them in one form or another. When people propagate my ideas, I like to thank them. It seems obvious to me. 

So, person-in-question - please stop ignoring us mere lesser mortals on the ground. It is rude and it is unacceptable, and after all, you are a priest and that demands even more good behaviour. Enough said. 

But don't just take my word for it ...

With thanks to the ever excellent somegreybloke

Sermon Block

It's alright for you lot sitting in the pews, listening to the sermons of people like me - you just come to church sit down, sing a bit, pray a bit and wait for the preacher to expound and then you go home. 

Which is fine until the preacher in question has a condition that I am now going to diagnose as "Sermon Block". It presents with varying symptoms:

 - Jesus already stated the meaning of the parable in question, so what can I possibly add?

 - I have preached the last 30 Christmases, so what can I say that is new this year?

 - I have no idea what this passage is saying

 - I have no idea where to start

 - I have no idea what to say once I have started

 - I gave up caring and I am now cursed by apathy

 - Good Friday? The under-5s? 

 - or just this

It is an affliction that gets every preacher at some time or other, often several times a year, and it is a hard thing to treat. Instead of anti-inflammatory drugs we reach for enflammatory commentaries, online or printed. I have even heard of people using the sermons of others (though not I, Your Honour).  Once, and not that long ago, I was robing up without a sermon written. It happens and it is not nice (though the resultant 21 minute homilette was well received). 

My solution to this and indeed to the preparation of all my sermons is to "go where called". A word jumps out, sticks to me - and then at least I have something of a launch pad. I am blessed with an extrovert mind so can "wing it" at times. So, this Sunday, we have (in this part of the world at least) the story of the Loaves and Fishes. I know that there is much to say, but I can't trawl a single coherent thought from the abyss of my Vernacular Bonce. 

Whilst this post is written in a light way, it is a real problem when it happens. Bloggers will lament their inability to write a post, and so it is with preachers. For some, a deadline is a good thing, for others a panic-inducing curse. I believe that the value of preaching is not in what is remembered but in what is retained. I am my own example here: I can never remember sermons afterwards. Never could. Yet I have been fashioned by them throughout my life. None remembered, much retained. For the preacher this brings a very specific responsibility - the excuses won't cut it. Our words stick, so when they are un-crafted, unplanned or frankly uninspired, they create a potential problem. No preaching class that I have been to have addressed this. 

I am writing this post in a state of Sermon Blockedness. I am hoping that in so writing, I might dislodge the debris so that fresh thought and new inspiration might pour forth. I have four sermons to preach on Sunday - so it needs to happen in the next 12 minutes. 

Poor Complaining

Speaking only of what I know, I can state unequivocally that most people in my experience cannot complain properly.

Last night, it was my pleasure and my joy to chair a meeting (of a non-ecclesiastical nature) which was characterised by poor complaining. We in Britain just do not know how to complain properly. Simple fact. It is not a secular affliction either - for it certainly exists in Godly circles too. 

Some examples:

 - A man telephoned my emporium in London in response to a message that I left informing him that his mattress would be delayed by a day. He suggested that it would have been better had I too been in the World Trade Centre (for this was the day after 9/11)

 - A man, upon hearing that his carpet would not be lovingly  fitted to his spare bedroom on account of the recent snowfall offered to visit me with a baseball bat unless I hand delivered his nylon purchase in person.

 - A woman in a fast-food outlet, upon the painful discovery that she had been given a curry sauce instead of ketchup, suggested that the poor assistant return from whence he came - in a way that led me to suggest that he was intended to take a considerable overseas journey. 

These are a few of a very very very long list that I could offer after fifteen years retailing. I have been called "stupid", "an idiot" - simply because a lorry had broken down on a motorway somewhere. Brits cannot complain (I cannot speak for other nations). Incidentally, let it also be said that the customer is not always right, but is certainly rude from time to time. 

In church life, it is probably worse, because you don't get to hear of the complaint first hand or at the time. It is quite usual to hear a complaint 64 years afterwards, and eighty-sixth hand. In church life, a complaint is broadly made manifest by way of pout or that vile passive-aggressive stuff that I personally hate with some considerable passion. 

We can't complain well because we hate to be confrontational, and because we hate to be confrontational we overdo the rhetoric. We don't state our complaint, we wrap it up in a thick layer of value-statements, and quite often personalised comments made purely to cause injury to the recipient of the complaint. If it isn't passive-aggression it is over-aggression, and rarely anything in-between. 

I have wondered what the solution is. Partly, I think that we need not fear speaking our mind, so long as we are just stating what we feel and what we know (and not to add interpretations and unfounded opinion). Perspective is also important. Very often we lose perspective when complaining, and over-egg the pudding. Generally, a complaint accompanies a desire for a change in process or a more aggreable and appropriate outcome. Insulting the shop-assistant won't help that at all. Stating the issue soonest, as opposed to letting things fester over weeks or longer is always best. Then say it simply, not explode - people recoil and retreat in the face of explosions.

I think that what we tend to forget is that the person to whom we complain is, even with all due cynicism and realism, minded to want to help us or to work through the issue. We complain badly because we overlook that fact, instead replacing it is bile and shouting. Simply put, when you insult someone, they will stop caring what you think and will therefore not care to help a jot more. 

(and in my experience across 20 years, Christians are the worst offenders - and two of the examples given above we from the mouths of those who I later discovered or already knew to be church-goers)

Changes to This Blog

This is just a quick post to tell you that I am going to tweak this old site a little. As a former retailer, I embrace the effects of a little  re-merchandising.

So, gone is the map telling me where you are from. You know where you live and you don't need me to tell you. Gone is the Twitter box because if you were interested, you would have an account of your own and don't need to eavesdrop here. Gone is the Wordle thing, because it was boring and I am not here to bore you (much).

I have added my Vernacular Video Bar, which I will use to house a new video clip from time to time. It will be what has caught my eye or interests me, or of bits of music that I love. I think it add a dynamism to a site that is characterised by stillness of image. Take it or leave it, of course - but I will keep it mixed and will tell you more about me than most of my words.

Also, as an aside, I thought that I would advocate the place of Apture in this blog. From time to time you will see little symbols besides words. They will be links and the symbol, if you hold your mouse over it, will open a new dialogue box with some extra material in. It means that you don't need to keep flitting. I hate flitting. Do you hate flitting? An example would be Sacrament for links to text or King's College Choir for video (it takes the video symbol a little while to appear after posting, I ought to say)

I am interest to know what you think. Please say if there is anything you would like to see added or removed (any comments that have the word 'delete' will not be treated kindly and there will be tears before bedtime). I am among you as one who serves, after all. 

God in a Box

This is not a post about Aumbries, before you ask!

It is a matter of some mirth in our community that our friends from Zimbabwe always arrive for services late. Once, I was asked to bless the marriage of a wonderful couple, and to perform that ceremony at Noon on a given Saturday. At 12.05pm, I was to be found in the church kitchen making myself a coffee, which I then savoured for the next half an hour in an empty church before even husband and wife arrived, let alone the supporting cast!

On most Sundays, at the point when I have completed my little round of pre-Mass chores and preparations and toddle off to robe, the church looks empty. That would be four minutes before we process in. By the the time the first note of the first hymn thunders forth, the church is half full. By the end of the Collect, it is normally well packed. For us that is normal. 

My Boss and I are invited to a celebration in September, which starts at 2pm I think. He has been invited to given Opening Prayer at 4pm. You get the idea. 

We are all quite open about it. Leg pulling happens on both sides, but I thought I would consider this more fully in preparation for the aforementioned Mass last week. 

I am one for promptness. To be honest, I get the proper hump when someone is late, and I get an ever great cob on if I am the one who is late. On time-keeping, I have a minor OCD (though my Training Incumbent may at times be forgiven for thinking that I perhaps cope rather well with 'cutting it fine' - something I am guilty of all too often). It is another Western thing, added to by the likes of Gina Ford as modern parents are guided to raise their children by absolute meticulous routine (finally, I can blame that woman for something). Same for our faith and its expression.

8am Holy Communion

9.15 Morning Prayer

10am Sung Eucharist

6pm Evensong

We have made our faith a matter of appointment. We give God an hour here and an hour there - though we make sure that we are on time, of course. There is a danger, thereby, of placing God back in his box for the rest of time as we toddle off to the next appointment for which we must of course be on time. It is a Western thing. 

But not an African thing. As I said last week, if we give God time by appointment only, then they give him the time between waking and  ... waking. They are never late for a service, simply because they started their worship and praise many hours before we did.