Category Archives: ministry

The colour of my shirt

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In the last year of my time at Westcott my training incumbent came to visit. In the middle of a good conversation we began to talk about shirt colour, as I was soon to invest in purchasing the clerical necessaries. I asked if it was possible to have a different colour than black – thinking principally of dark blue (which is what I now wear). With his customary grace my incumbent indicated gently that black was the only acceptable option…

The apparel of a bishop, priest, or deacon shall be suitable to his office; and, save for purposes of recreation and other justifiable reasons, shall be such as to be a sign and mark of his holy calling and ministry as well to others as to those committed to his spiritual charge. (Canon C27)

~~~

I attended a boarding school for seven years, from the age of eleven (this one). At one point I acquired a temporary nickname, ‘Jimmy’, due to a distinct facial resemblance to Jimmy Somerville.

This I did not appreciate, for Jimmy was gay, and within a boys boarding school, being gay was anathema.

There was one friend at the time who was a little odd, who didn’t quite fit in with the prevalent macho culture. The boys who were esteemed were the ones who displayed great biological prowess – on the sports field, through dominating a social hierarchy, or sexually. To be a ‘stud’ gave instant social kudos. Reflecting on that now I can see that mimetic rivalry was rampant.

My friend wasn’t very good at any of that, though he did have quite a waspish tongue, which helped. Sometimes. We victimised him in the way that boys do, with cruel ritual humiliations.

~~~

At Lambeth in 1998 the gathered stewards of our great mysteries came together and proclaimed a policy (full text here).

There were two aspects to this policy: first a recommitment to the traditional rejection of homosexuality; second, a commitment to listen to homosexuals. I have taken the second of these quite seriously – indeed, I had taken it seriously for quite some time before that conference. The church I attended in the 1990s (this one) was very gay-friendly (occasionally it was described as a ‘gay ghetto’!); I learned an awful lot there, and got to know a lot of gay people, both lay and clerical.

Every so often in the 1990’s, particularly when I was single, I would spend time wandering in Soho. I used to think of it as my ‘fugue state’. I would just wander around, spend time in the bookshops on Charing Cross Road, occasionally going into the cafes, going to the cinema a lot. It was a place where I could forget who I was for a while.

Soho was (obviously) very ‘gay’ – but not just in the homosexual sense. It was colourful and vibrant. I think the loss of the original meaning of the word ‘gay’ reflects a loss of a certain form of masculinity; and that men have suffered from that loss. There is a strong strand of male nature that is now repressed, for precisely the reasons that were dominant at my boarding school.

The repressed returns in various ways. Look at the way that footballers celebrate when they score.

Our communion has lost its way with regard to sexuality; hence the present crisis. We struggle with the legacies received from previous generations, from previous patterns of value. It is quite possible that this is the prelude to a creative resolution. I hope so.

The church has to be a gay church; otherwise it is failing to be a church.

~~~

Disordered sexuality is not an abstract concept for me; it is something with which I am intimately familiar. Yet God is never absent.

In the mid 1990s I had a painful split with a girlfriend, about whom I was rather serious. In the ensuing months I had a great deal of rage and jealousy running through me which – because I lacked the self-awareness to deal with such things at that time – led me into some very dark places, and some very damaging behaviour.

After one episode – an episode that, had it been recounted at school, would have led to a significant increase in my social standing, and have established me as a ‘real lad’ – God took a hand.

I have never been so terrified in my life.

It was made indisputably clear to me that I was rapidly walking down the path to hell, which was not a metaphor but something concretely real; that my life choices were destructive, both of myself and of others; and yet, in the midst of being convicted of my depravity and sin, God gave me a vision. Of presiding at the altar; of being ordained.

I did not welcome this. I resisted.

What could be less likely work for a ‘real lad’? Priesthood was for poofs.

~~~

One deeply attractive aspect of present day gay culture – and one that is most authentically Christian – is that it is, on the whole, a place of non-judgement, particularly with regard to sexual disorders. I imagine that a community which lives each day with the shout of condemnation from the worldly powers has learnt to be frugal with its own condemnation.

I met up with my school friend at this time. He had recently come out as a gay man, and we went for a drink in a bar just up from Leicester Square tube station.

I said sorry for the things I had done at school. He said he forgave me.

~~~

One of the most memorable sermons I heard at school – we had services every day, sermons twice a week – was by a minister who brought in a stereo, and played the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘It’s a Sin’ to us. He was insistent that Christianity was misunderstood. It wasn’t about being negative, about repressing all of our instincts, and telling us that everything that we enjoyed was bad for us. Christianity was about embracing a fullness of life, that allowed us to be all that we can be.

Allowing us to become who we are.

For we are each loved by God, and we each have a vocation from Him.

~~~

At school – and strongly reinforced by the surrounding culture – boys are taught to ogle. This is the lust of the eyes. Boys in a boarding school have various ways in which to pass on this mimesis, out of the sight of disapproving housemasters. One friend in particular took great delight in his poster of a topless Linda Lusardi hidden on the back of his door, almost never seen by the staff.

I read Playboy for many years after leaving school. And despite your incredulous laughter, I do mean read, not just gaze at bare breasts. Pornography is very damaging; the damage it causes is hugely underrated. The problem is not the nudity, which is (can be) something holy. The problem is in the destruction of genuine intimacy, the abolition of relationship, and the stimulation of an appetite which is then not fed.

Bad love can only be redeemed by good love.

~~~

I resisted my vocation for two days and two sleepless nights. On the third day, at lunchtime, I went to my church, and knelt down, and accepted God’s will for me – but even then I said ‘please don’t make me celibate!’

Although accepting the vocation gave me a great sense of peace, and a significant feeling of slipping my bindings, it takes a long time to grow into a vocation. God is patient; it’s an aspect of his mercy.

I left my job at the Civil Service and worked for a year as a caretaker, in the primary school attached to my church. One of my regular tasks was clearing up after the ‘accidents’ left by the children – either the vomit or the excrement left in unwelcome places.

I got quite good at this. I had a distinct system: plastic bag; paper to mop up the major part of the mess (to be placed in the plastic bag); mop and bucket to clean the floor afterwards; disinfectant. On a good day I could clear up a site in less than five minutes.

I never got angry with the children for this. What was the point? The children were learning how to conduct themselves, and control themselves. Ranting and raving about the messes being created would only have disfigured their souls.

It’s the same now with changing nappies. You don’t get hung up on the present moment – you preserve the end-point in your heart, and never let go of that sense of where your child is growing. That’s what it means to have parental love.

Of course, God is no different in that respect.

~~~

I said that I resisted my vocation; the roots of sexual disorder took longer to deal with. Only two months after this experience I got involved with a girlfriend and, frankly, I was a complete shit. I was in no fit state to embark on a relationship; I made promises I couldn’t keep; I was precisely not strong enough to be her man.

And so, the car crashed.


One lunchtime, I was walking by the Thames, in the park behind the Houses of Parliament. The tide was high, and I watched some leaves float off. It was the one time in my life that I have seriously contemplated suicide.

What prevented me from jumping in was reflecting on a) my vocation, but b) more importantly, the week of silence that I had recently spent in Taize, where I had started to accept my vocation.

I accepted the promise, and the hope, and this was where I really began to believe in a God of grace. We are not saved by our own strength.

And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of song
With nothing on my tongue
But Hallelujah

~~~

*Christopher wrote something very interesting the other day, amending Bishop Tutu: “Be nice to the straights, they need you to rediscover their humanity.”

I have found great insight and comfort from listening to the gay community, not least through understanding the Girardian perspective, and reading James Alison. In particular, his ‘Faith Beyond Resentment’ untied many of the knots within which I remained bound. His “The boys in the square” is haunting.

The problem with our communion is a lack of listening, despite Lambeth 1998. For all the criticisms hurled at Rowan, that is something that he has consistently insisted on.

~~~

When I was ordained, +Richard placed his hands on me and said ‘Shine as a light in the world Sam’. We are not to hide away in the darkness. We are meant to be bright lights illuminating the world.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

So far as I can tell, to be gay is to shine.

~~~

The right ordering of our desire is at the heart of Christian faith, for our hearts remain restless until they rest in God. Once our desires are rightly ordered, then we become the people whom God is calling us to be.

At that point the pressures from society can be progressively withstood and then ignored. We shall be free to become who we are.

I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses.
I deal my own cards, sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces.

~~~

After my father died, I inherited some rather colourful shirts. Bring out the peacock!


One day, I will have the nerve to wear one of these as my clerical shirt.

One day, churchmen will no longer be afraid of gay men.

Reordering the sanctuary

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A discussion paper for West Mersea PCC

Issue
The Rector would like the PCC to consider reordering the sanctuary and chancel area within St Peter and St Paul’s church, principally through moving the altar from its present position at the East End, swapping places with the choir.

Theological context
Jesus said “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2.19). The New Covenant inaugurated in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection involved a replacement of the Temple with Jesus’ own body, most especially the celebration of the Eucharist – “This is my blood of the New Covenant”. This has many aspects, but one key element can be thought of as a replacement of a vertical form of worship with a horizontal one.

The temple was built according to very specific instructions, and a plan looks like this:

Temple worship is hierarchical – there is a steady ascension from the world of the profane to the Holy of Holies, and there is a corresponding stripping away of profane people – first the gentiles, then the women, then the non-priests, then finally only the High Priest is able to enter into the most holy place itself. This is what Jesus overturns.

In contrast to Temple worship, with its vertical hierarchy, the Eucharist is a horizontal form of worship, involving a gathering of the equally profane around a common table, to share in a common meal. Whilst there are still ‘priests’, these are not priests in the Temple sense – they are rather ‘presidents’, those whom the church has called out to a specialised rôle in the worshipping life of the community. So an image of horizontal worship, in this sense, might be this:

“There am I in the midst of them.”

Although this is a very basic feature of the New Covenant, it is fair to say that church history records a community which has largely ignored the nature of horizontal worship in favour of the hierarchical model. Hence the prevalence in churches of an altar at the East End. A reaction against this began with the Reformers, who sometimes brought the altar down into the nave itself, but beginning with Vatican II, there is now a substantial ecumenical consensus in favour of a more horizontal understanding of eucharistic worship. This can be seen where cathedrals have re-ordered their own sanctuaries. In St Paul’s Cathedral, for example, celebrations of the eucharist now take place beneath the great dome, in the centre of the cathedral, and the choir are behind the altar. This is what I am looking to establish here in West Mersea.

Logistical issues
As well as this fundamental theological point, there are two practical issues which concern me about our present arrangement, one minor, one major. The minor issue is that the president at the altar cannot see the main part of the lady chapel – and cannot be seen by them. That part of our community is therefore prevented from a full participation in what is happening at the Eucharist (‘Behold the Lamb of God’ doesn’t really work where the beholding is impossible). More crucially – and putting it bluntly – the choir get in the way! (This is not the fault of the choir, of course, it is a purely physical point.) I see two main issues – firstly, when people are at the altar rail to receive communion there is a severe bottle-neck on each side of the church as people have to either wait for a group of people to leave the altar rail, or else walk amongst people’s feet; secondly, people have to negotiate their way past the Director of Music as he conducts the choir from his position at the top of the steps. Each of these aspects I see as significant.

Proposal
I therefore propose that we bring the altar forward from its present position, and move the choir to the rear of the church, to look something like this:
I see the choir being deployed facing directly West. This maximises the available space, and is acoustically the best option. A number of people have expressed a concern about ‘worshipping the choir’, but that is still applying the vertical model of worship to the arrangement. The whole point is that Christ is ‘in the midst’ of us. At the far East End, between the choir stalls, I see the Bishop’s chair being placed, signifying his role as the ‘ordinary’ of the church (ie the one with ultimate responsibility for our eucharistic worship – the Rector and other clergy operate ‘in his stead’).

Issues to consider
There are a number of detailed elements which need to be considered, as well as the major principle itself. Amongst others:
– how to distribute communion under the new arrangement;
– how to cater for those who wish to kneel to receive;
– whether to move the crucifix from its present position to one directly above the altar (which would be a powerful visual symbol of the nature of the eucharist itself);
– where to place the Rector’s and curate’s pews;
– whether the new arrangement would work for all services, thinking especially of funerals.
There are doubtless other aspects and details which PCC members may wish to raise.

Timetable
I propose the following timetable:
– firstly, that in its February meeting the PCC agree that this is a suggestion worth exploring, and that we write to the Archdeacon requesting a temporary faculty covering an initial moving of the altar;
– secondly, that we move the altar as soon as possible, and ‘live with’ the arrangements for a period of three months. There will certainly be unforeseen aspects of the change that only become apparent after a change of use;
– thirdly, that we meet for a study day on a Saturday morning in the summer, with the wider congregation, to discuss our experience and to consider whether this is a path that we wish to pursue further;
– fourthly, if we do wish to pursue the rearrangement, that we then formally engage our architect to work up concrete proposals for the PCC to take forward.

(Being distributed to PCC members and ministers today.)

Mad vicar

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My friends see me as the mad vicar, with a tendency to chase up strange phantoms (like 9/11 conspiracy theories and Peak Oil…)

Have a read of this. I enjoy Giles Fraser, even when I sometimes disagree with him (absolutely not the case on this occasion). I particularly liked this: “In exchange for a walk-on part during major family occasions and the opportunity to be custodian of the country’s most impressive collection of buildings, the vicar promised discretion in all things pertaining to faith: he agreed to treat God as a private matter. In a country exhausted by wars about religion, the creation of the nonreligious priest was a masterstroke of English inventiveness. And once the priest had been cut off from the source of his fire and reassigned to judge marrows at the village fete, his transformation from figure of fear to figure of fun was complete.”

It was precisely because that was my image of the priest that I had a struggle accepting my vocation (I still struggle with it). I think I have too much passion to fit into the establishment box. What encourages me is that the passion is finding an outlet, and seems to be sparking a response. I’m being profiled in the Colchester local paper tomorrow, and Channel 4 want me to take part in a documentary in the autumn.

God is up to something – the Spirit is restless and uprooting the old certainties. I’m more and more convinced that a real capital-R Revival is around the corner.

Long day

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OK, end of a long day, enjoying my G+T (the taste for which was one of the byproducts of training in a theological college….) and musing on several things.

The first is that my study is way overdue for a tidy up – might get a chance for that tomorrow.

The second is that I’m seriously knackered – I’ve tried to minimise the number of 4 service Sundays I take, but I couldn’t avoid this one – so 3 HCs this morning (1 sermon), then Evensong tonight (second sermon, written this afternoon!), plus funeral visits etc – January being peak-funeral season – I feel a little stretched.

Third: might post my sermon from tonight (tomorrow, not now). Links in with lots of stuff, but I’m particularly thinking about a former tutor at the moment, and the influence he’s had on me (huge).

Fourth: the reason why I was thinking about that tutor was because of a conversation about Gandhi that has started in ROE-T – that’s RunningOnEmpty-Theology, the yahoo group that I’ve established, please join!!! – and thinking that he really knew what he was doing. In a sense, the direction I’m moving in (see this post) is a ‘reverse Gandhi’ – trying to resist the imperialism of oil culture from within. Not sure what the equivalent of a dhoti would be for an Anglican Rector, but I’ll keep thinking ;o)

Fifth: still want to write more about the books I read. There’s a review of the Cluetrain Manifesto bubbling away, and one or two others. But in the meantime, I’ve put a ‘Bookshelf’ in the side bar – should be there if you scroll down – so you can see the sorts of things I’m reading at the moment. I’ll try and keep it up to date.

Sixth: you’ll also see the ‘CD rack’. Ripping all my CDs onto my hard disk has allowed me to get plugged back in to music – it used to be absolutely central to my life, then other things kicked in, now it’s coming back. I’m particularly enjoying Coldplay at the moment, despite an initial negative reaction, whilst in a car with my friend PB… who should note the whole list 😉

Seventh: I dunno. That’s about enough for one night. Time to veg out in front of the telly.

Sweet dreams!

Prophecy and Peak Oil

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One of the central strands of Christian thinking is that of the ‘Prophetic Imagination’ (see W Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press 1978). The prophetic perspective centres on a distinction between the “Royal Consciousness” and the “alternative community”. Consider the experience of the Hebrew people in Egypt. The dominant classes established and promoted an ideology which allocated the Hebrews a particular role in that system – they were the slaves, and this denial of human freedom, this destruction of human nature, was a cause of tremendous pain and anguish – which the Lord hears. Brueggemann gives three elements of this Royal Consciousness, which he explicitly links to our modern life:

i) it is driven by an economics of affluence “in which we are so well off that pain is not noticed and we can eat our way around it” – we are fed sufficient soma to be tranquilised into acquiescence;
ii) the dominant politics are oppressive, “the cries of the marginal are not heard or are dismissed as the voices of kooks and traitors”; and
iii) the dominant religion is one of immanence – God made domestic and safe – “God is so present to us that his abrasiveness, his absence, his banishment are not noticed, and the problem is reduced to psychology”.

This is the situation in which Moses, the archetypal prophet, is called to serve the Hebrew people, and to lead them towards freedom in the promised land. This emphasis on freedom is crucial, as it is for a free life that the Hebrews have been released from Egypt. Brueggemann points out that at the centre of Moses’ ministry lies not a cry for social justice (criticism of the status quo – the ‘liberal’ idol) nor a reaffirmation of a familiar God (the idol of a comforting conservatism) but a radical call to become acquainted with the living God, who cannot be captured in our understandings but who is the only God who can set us free: “the point that prophetic imagination must ponder is that there is no freedom of God without the politics of justice and compassion, and there is no politics of justice and compassion without a religion of the freedom of God”.

Intimately woven in with this freedom of God is an acknowledgement of the pain of the oppressed, the pain which has been denied an outlet. Indeed, it is the explicit naming of this pain which generates the momentum for change, the avowal that something is wrong: “as long as the empire can keep the pretense alive that things are all right, there will be no real grieving and no serious criticism.”

So, rooted in this commitment of response to the living God, this acceptance of pain, the prophet Moses embarks upon the road of freedom, freedom for God’s people. This path begins with the imagination – setting the understanding of the people free so that they can discern that the Royal Consciousness, the status quo, is not permanent and given (is not God) and that it can be overthrown. Thus, as Brueggemann famously puts it, “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture”. This involves some element of prediction about the future, but those predictions have interest only in so far as they stand as criticisms over against the present; they do not stand independently of that context and are open to revision (eg Jonah’s message to Nineveh).

This alternative understanding first criticises the existing social arrangements, principally through attacking the ‘gods’ of the system, and then energises the alternative community through a promise of a different place, the promised land which is the living God’s intention for his people. In other words, through being rooted in a right understanding of God’s freedom, a new social community comes into being to properly reflect that sense.

It is in this context that the ten plagues must be understood, for the plagues represent the contest between the gods of the status quo, the gods of Egypt, and the living God working through Moses. To begin with, the powers that be are able to meet and match the actions which YHWH takes. Nothing changes and the power of Egypt remains intact – yet with the third plague the establishment fails: “The Gods of Egypt could not! The Scientists of the regime could not! The imperial religion was dead! The politics of oppression had failed! That is the ultimate criticism that the assured and alleged power of the dominant culture is now shown to be fraudulent.” The powers have been named, and in being named, they have been dethroned. Now that the dominant system has been unmasked as temporary, that its claims to divine eternity have been exposed, its foundations begin to crumble. “By the middle of the plague cycle Israel has disengaged from the empire, cries no more to it, expects nothing of it, acknowledges it in no way, knows it cannot keep its promises, and knows that nothing is either owed to it or expected of it. That is the ultimate criticism that leads to dismantling.”

Finally, once this has happened, the prophet comes into his own through the articulation of the new possibilities, which energises the new community. This is the exercise of the prophetic imagination – the conceiving of something new within the world. For it is this articulation that holds back despair as the old order breaks down. “It is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order. Energising is closely linked to hope. We are energised not by that which we already possess but by that which is promised and about to be given”. This articulation necessitates the development of new images and new metaphors with which to describe the Royal Consciousness, thus bringing it into open conflict with the claims of the living God. Ultimately, the alternative community is sustained by the highest form of language, doxology, the practice of its worship, for “Doxology is the ultimate challenge to the language of managed reality and it alone is the universe of discourse in which energy is possible.” Only worship sustains the hope which sustains the community, on its journey through the wilderness towards the promised land.

The analogies to our present situation, are, I trust, reasonably clear. We live within a Pharaonic system of oil based consumerism, and we are taught that it cannot be challenged, for to do so is to threaten the prosperity on which we all depend. It seems to me that the task of the Christian in this situation is to renew our prophetic imagination and to speak words of praise and hope which enable the development of a community which reflects the freedom of a loving God.

Specifically, I think we must:

i) identify the Royal Consciousness in all its aspects, not just Peak Oil, although that will inevitably be central;
ii) articulate the pain of the marginalised and oppressed who have no present voice or witness;
iii) challenge the claims to power made on behalf of the Royal Consciousness, with a view to demonstrating their emptiness;
iv) labour with confident expectation towards the dismantling of the present structures;
v) develop new communities which break away from obeisance to the Royal Consciousness, and which offer the opportunity of free life in the image of the free God;
vi) articulate a vision of hope, a promised land, on the other side of Peak Oil, which will sustain us through the transition period in the wilderness; and
vii) trust in God.

That is what I intend to spend the coming months working on.

Off on retreat

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Off on retreat here until Friday. It’s a place I knew when I was doing my curacy here.

I feel like I’m staggering over the finish line at the end of a marathon. I haven’t had a retreat since 2000 – although, to be fair, I did have a sabbatical year (grin) – but the last few months have been quite intense. It will be good to just sit in silence for a while. Although, me being me, I’m taking a bit of work – Learning Church session on the Gospel of Mark as soon as I get back, so I’m going to be spending time with the first evangelist.

Plus McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy. Plus Peterson’s Christ plays – which I bought ages ago and wanted to read when I could concentrate on it – plus a few other books… and a couple of films….

The pastoral is trumps

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Recently had to take a very sad funeral, and the request came in for Henry Scott-Holland.

I have problems with the Scott-Holland reading. In the context in which it was used it was specifically describing a non-Christian attitude, and it is non-Christian because it is non-true. Death is not nothing at all, death is horrible and maiming, particularly in a context like this.

I suggested a reading from Lamentations instead, but this caused great distress to one member of the family. So what to do? Insist on something Christian, or accept the heresy being read in church?

The pastoral is always trumps for me. It leaves me with an unquiet conscience, but rather that than increasing the already great distress amongst those grieving.

If only I knew of something “secular” that wasn’t so wrong. Anyone have suggestions?