I thought I would explain the subtitle to the blog. (Explanation of the title can be found here.)
On one level it is a response to getting Ollie, walking on the beach much more, taking my pictures, and literally watching the tide come in.
On the next level it is a reflection of global warming, and the fact that by the second half of this century Mersea will be much more emphatically an island than it is now. The mean tide level will be the level that the tide reached in the great floods of 1953. The Peldon Rose will become a waterfront property.
On the next level again, it reflects a concern about population movements, and the cultural clashes that will be provoked.
On the final level, however, and rather more optimistically, it refers to the first sermon that I ever preached when I arrived at West Mersea, and this is the most important sense. This is the text of the sermon, which, on re-reading it nearly three years later, I find I am rather pleased with it, as it really does set out the things that I most believe in, which was the intention (the text was Ephesians 3 14-21)
‘What a wonderful text for a new Rector on his first Sunday! “I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” Surely a prayer which a new Rector should share with St Paul. For it does link together some central ideas about what it means to be a Christian, to confess Jesus as our Messiah.
For being Christian is just that being rooted and grounded in love – as the hymn has it, they will know we are Christians by our love; and we are called to love one another as we have been loved by Christ. But what does that actually mean for us, for our Church? I would like to say a few words this morning about this, about what it means to be a church where Christ dwells in our hearts through faith.
In recent weeks there has been rather a lot of publicity about the nomination of Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading, and his subseqent withdrawal of acceptance of that nomination. I don’t intend to talk in any detail about what has happened; I would rather take a step back, and talk about what it means to be the Church, what it means to be members of the Church of England, what it means to be – as the Bishop said on Thursday – part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. It seems to me that the overriding impression that non-Christians will have received of the Church from the Canon John affair is of strife and argument, of hostility and rejection – all within a community of people who profess a shared belief in a loving Saviour. There seems to be some distance between the apostolic community and the one in which we now share communion.
Let us consider that early Christian community for a moment. That community was a community of the resurrection, for it was born on Easter morning and it received its life and Spirit from the action of the risen Lord amongst it. This community was a dynamic and astonishing new thing – a community of people who loved each other, who forgave each other, who – most important of all – recognised each other as sinful, where all fell short of the glory of God. From that recognition, and the shared love, came the shared life – a life marked out by Grace.
What is this Grace – this amazing grace, about which we just sang? For it is amazing, the grace that can save a wretch like me – like you – like all of us gathered here. As I understand it, grace is when God reaches to pick us up after we have fallen down. Many of you will have seen my son Barnabas on Thursday evening. He has just got to the stage of learning to run – and as he is still learning, he falls over quite a lot. And he bumps his head. And it is an instinctive reaction when Barnabas falls to reach out and pick him up, to hold him if he is crying, to cheer him up if he is upset. That is how God reacts to us and our sin, our falling downs. He reaches out to us, with arms wide open on the cross, and he takes on and heals our hurt.
This forgiveness offered to us is what the Christian faith means for us who live it out, day by day. For Jesus tells us to love each other as he loves us – to not judge, to bear one another’s burdens, to lay down our lives for our friends – and we are His friends, if we do what he commands us. This is what makes our common life a Christian life – not that we are perfectly holy, or marvellously spiritual, or exceptionally pious and praying several times a day. What makes our common life a Christian life is an acceptance of each other in Christ. An acceptance of each other’s faults and foibles, all those little characteristics which – if we are not careful – we will allow to really rub us up the wrong way, we’ll get irritated, we’ll get angry and cross – and then, our communion in Christ is lost. For Jesus tells us that not everyone who calls him Lord will inherit the Kingdom, but those who do the will of his Father – and that will is clear – it is to love each other, to forgive each other, to place our common life in Christ above all other things, to break bread with our neighbour and to meet Christ in that action. That for me is what Paul is talking about when he talks of Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith – that our hearts are moved to love and accept each other, in just the way that Christ loves and accepts us.
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At my induction service on Thursday, the Bishop said as part of the formal process, that the Church of England is part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. What that claim means is that we share in the inheritance of that original community of the resurrection – we look to them as our foundation, and as our guides back when we fall away. And the Catholic part of that claim is a claim about being inclusive, it is about being all embracing. It is about accepting those whom – let us be honest – accepting those whom you dislike, whom you don’t agree with, whom you would rather cross the street to avoid. Christ’s claim upon us is that we put those things to one side for his sake. For his arms are bigger than we can know, and in him we find our only possible unity. Christ came to save sinners – he went out of his way to seek the lost, those whom polite society had rejected, those whom the religious leaders considered beyond the pale, not worthy of inclusion in the community. And it is from those who were excluded that Christ built his inclusive church – his body as it continues in the world today.
It is one of the wonderful things about the Church of England that it emphasises this inclusive nature. The Church of England invites all Christians to participate in Holy Communion, it does not seek to place barriers in front of those who would wish to come. For who are we to judge who is worthy or unworthy? Who are we to try and say ‘you are not worthy to have communion with us, for we are worthy, and you are not’?
Unfortunately, it has been a recurring feature of Christian history that every so often, a group of Christians will claim “We have the answer! Agree with us!” And when such agreement is not forthcoming, that group sets out on its own – it breaks off communion. It is really saying – we know what Christ is; we have captured Christ in our understandings; and consequently, it is saying that we are the saved – and you are not. It tries to preserve a little bit of purity in the face of all the sinful dangers of the world. It is something that has come to be known as the ‘pure church’ heresy – the idea that by following certain rules we can keep ourselves pure, and thereby earn our way to salvation. Such a community has – I would argue – lost something essential to the life of faith. For what it means to be a part of the Catholic church can be simply stated: one church, one faith, one Lord. It is when we abandon a sense of having all the right answers, and are prepared to put aside our disagreements in the name of the one who asks us to do just that – it is then that we are walking in His way. It is when we say: Lord Jesus, you are deeper than I can understand, you are larger than I can comprehend, let me lay aside all my understandings and trust only in you – it is at that point that we start along the way.
It is, in so many ways, a more difficult path, to leave aside a sense of confidence or certainty in possessing the right answer. In our gospel reading this morning, we heard about those who were fed by Christ, and yet, within hours of seeing such a miracle, the disciples go out upon the water and are terrified when they see Jesus walking towards them. If the disciples, who spent so long in Jesus’ company, become fearful so quickly, what hope have we? Yet let us listen to Jesus: “It is I; do not be afraid.” We are people who walk by faith, not by sight. We are a community centred in mystery – formed by a love that cannot be grasped or contained in our minds, but only acted out and lived through our hearts and hands. At its heart is trust, not certainty. As St Paul says, it is rooted and grounded in our love. If we love and we trust, then the waters will not overwhelm us.
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There is one final point that I would wish to make. It may not have escaped your notice that I believe strongly in the Church of England. Not as deeply or as passionately as I believe in Christ, but it is a strong belief all the same. I think the Church of England, amidst all its controversies and occasional errors is a true vehicle for the gospel; it is a vessel for the sacred mysteries of Christ. But I have been struck, since returning to Essex, by the note of quiet desperation amongst a number of people in the church community – sometimes clearly expressed, sometimes just a note in the background. I guess that it might be related to the drop in church attendance that has taken place in recent decades, which has really been going on for some one hundred and fifty years now, in this country. The poet Matthew Arnold described it in terms which Islanders might find familiar – he described it as the long slow melancholy roar of the sea of faith, withdrawing with the tide.
Yet as all of us gathered here will know, tides go out, and tides come in again. And, while I am conscious that this might sound lacking in humility, but also with a real confidence that it is the truth – I come to you now at the turning of the tide. I have many reasons for believing this to be true – reasons which I am sure I shall be sharing with you in the coming weeks and years, reasons which I have spent the last year exploring in my writing – but I have great confidence in the future of the church. And having been in these communities for just a little while, and seen what tremendous potential there is here, I have great confidence that our work, as we toil together in the vineyard, will be very fruitful.
For my confidence does not lie in our efforts, our knowledge, our abilities. It certainly doesn’t rest in a confidence in my own abilities. My confidence lies in the actions of a God who manifested his glory on that Easter morning nearly two thousand years ago. For we are a people who have been changed by the resurrection – we are the people who have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord – God has already overcome, and what we need to do is to follow in his footsteps. So let us walk together, in faith and in trust, living that life of forgiveness and acceptance, loving one another as he loved us. “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen”.’
