Leaving so soon?

We are already approaching 'The End'. The end of the Lent Term is only 3 weeks away. Two more Sundays and my commitments at my attachment church, St Georges, come to a conclusion. I can be a free agent on a Sunday morning during my final term.

So with this landmark appearing it was time for a farewell pint. And it was on the way to the farewell pint that I realised that the end of my time in Cambridge is really coming to an end. This week I started getting quotes for the house move, so I can set a move date, so I can give notice to our rental agency, which needs to happen next week! That point will mark 'three months to go'.

Am I ready for this?

Big Speakers and Dead Flowers

It was one of those days today. Got very little done, but had a good time doing it.

We welcomed Mike Pilavachi as a guest speaker for a special lecture to the entire Federation this afternoon, as well as preacher at Federation Worship, which meant that we spent all afternoon setting up the sound equipment and soundchecking with the band. In turn this meant that the things I normally spend all Tuesday doing (preparation for lectures for the rest of the week) got compressed or ignored in a small 2 hour slot in the morning.

Mike is somewhat of a celebrity amongst those who have worked with youth - he's the founder of the Soul Survivor annual festivals, amongst other achievements - so many people were looking forward to hearing him speak. Knowing that I was going to be the sound engineer today meant that there was a fair chance I'd be meeting him. However, I didn't expect to go totally incoherent within 30 seconds of meeting him.

The church doorbell rings (yes, they have doorbells!). I answer it. There, like a drowned rat in the pouring rain is a dripping wet Greek bloke. I let him in, introduce myself, he asks me which year I'm in, and I go incoherent trying to explain that I'm a second and final year! I feel like Jar Jar Binks (see illustration). Hardly a great first impression. However, later conversation is a greater improvement. In his lecture Mike spoke of his regret that at Soul Survivor 2009 he encouraged a Big Top full of young people to turn to Jesus, but didn't explain the cost of being a disciple. Afterwards in a quiet corner I catch him and we discuss the effect that obedience to God's call has on not only my own life, but also that of my children who will shortly have to move for the second time in two years, and make friends all over again.

It's interesting the effect that a 'celebrity' speaker has on Fed Worship. We've never had to put extra chairs out before.

Afterwards, clearing up, I demonstrate why churches shouldn't have flowers out in Lent, as I drop a rather heavy speaker (of the audio variety) on top of a lovely arrangement of daffodils and tulips. The speaker won.

Don't stop me now!

I preached a homily in chapel yesterday morning.

"What's a homily?" I hear you all mumble....

It's a very short sermon, a micro-talk, slightly longer than a tweet. About 3 minutes long, which isn't time to say an awful lot. Basically, you need to choose one point and stick to it. In front of the whole college.

The text I was given to work with was the story of Jacob wrestling with God (Genesis chapter 32), after which he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Which is apt, given that my walking posture is not exactly normal these days.

We opened with a very laid-back jazz version of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" playing as people came in for Morning Prayer (go to itunes and search for 'Jeroen van der Boom'), which is unusual in itself. It was important to choose the right style of this song, as the original Queen version at 8.15am would have been too much!

This talk was delivered with the chairs arranged facing inwarsd to the aisle, so that I could amble up and down and look people in the eye to challenge them at certain points. I hadn't anticipated how well this would emphasise the fact that I was walking - a very physical demonstration of my point!

My text follows:

As I was thinking about this homily I was sitting in a seminar considering the following verses from Matthew 9, and it struck me how appropriate they were for the message that was swimming around in my head:

And as Jesus sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard this, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick [do]. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

Do you need a physician? I wonder if you realize that you are sick? In last week’sDimbleby lecture Sir Terry Pratchett spoke of his Alzheimers disease, how over a number of years he noticed that his typing wasn’t as good as it had been, that he wasn’t noticing things, that gradually life was changing.

In our reading from Genesis today we heard of how Jacob wrestled with God, and had a sudden change in his leg. He was left with a limp for the rest of his life.

I wonder how that passage spoke to you. For me it was an interesting choice, because, like Jacob, I’ve got a dodgy leg. In fact I’ve got two dodgy legs. But like Sir Terry, I didn’t even know that I had for a long time. For several years before I came to Ridley people at work asked me why I was walking ‘like that’, and I, reassured by family, told them that I’ve always walked ‘like that’. It’s only when I got here and met a whole pile of concerned new friends, who were trying desperately to exercise their new found pastoral skills, along with a physiotherapist at my attachment church who told me that actually we’ve never had an acolyte who walks ‘like that’ and I really ought to get it seen to, that I started to think ‘maybe there is something wrong’. And within thirty seconds of meeting my consultant, he could tell that there was something not quite right with me. But the diagnosis had to wait until somebody had the chance to put some serious voltages through my legs…

You see, the motor nerves to my toes, feet and ankle are slowly losing communication with my brain. It’s called a neuropathy, and it’s unlikely that anything can be done about it. It’s taken 40 years to get as far as not being able to stand on tiptoes, and I didn’t even know I couldn’t do that until I was asked to… So I might end up walking with a stick. Now I understand why I was finding it so difficult to climb the 54 stairs to my study at the top of ‘A’ staircase last year. Now I know why my legs get tired in the middle of a long shopping expedition, or why I sometimes need to hold onto the chair in front of me during a long liturgical stand. Like Jacob I’ve been living with a limp. Unlike Jacob I didn’t even realize I had it. So if this time last year Jesus had told me I needed to see a physician (whether literally or metaphorically) I might have laughed at him and said “Not me, Jesus, I don’t need a doctor. I’m alright. You must mean somebody else.” But, if we’re talking in the same metaphor as Jesus, that puts me in the same place as the Pharisees, who thought that they had no need of a physician.

I know I’m not perfect – yet – but that’s the stuff I’m aware of. I know the things that I keep confessing and promising not to do again, but that keep coming back. What behaviours am I not aware of? Maybe sometimes I think “that’s just me, take it or leave it” when in reality I need to change something. There are the words that spill out of us when we're stressed or caught off guard that reflect the real inner 'me', not the professional ‘shields up’ public front that we start to develop here.

Are you busy saying “Don’t stop me now. I’m having such a good time” to Jesus?
What does he want to bring to your attention that you’re ignoring?

Picture (c) thebricktestament.com

Trouble at the top?

This window intersects my field of vision most days of the week - it's the east end of Ridley chapel. I gaze at it while waiting for things to start. I focus on different things - sometimes the different people, sometimes the tiny details, sometimes the shape of the stonework. In the winter I long for the summer mornings to come so that it is backlit by the rising sun. In the summer I wish that there were more buildings behind it because the sunlight is dazzling me!

Just recently I've noticed what's happening, but I don't know why. The figures, from left to right, are: St Peter, St Matthew, Jesus, St Luke, and St Paul. But Paul has obviously fallen out with Jesus about something, as all the others are looking towards Jesus - Paul is the only one with his head turned away.

Answers on a postcard please!

Vibrating Jesus

A lot of our personal theology (i.e. what we think of God) is formed from the songs and hymns we sing in church services. A lot can be formed by what we read, or what we hear in sermons, and we usually have an opinion on messages we receive by those routes ('won't be reading his books again', 'Didn't agree with that preacher') but we usually object less to what we sing.

Case in point - at College Communion this last Thursday night we had a good mix of old and new, contemporary songs and older hymns and I loved the new musical setting for the 'Nunc Dimittis' even though I didn't know what the Nunc Dimittis was before this week. And I'm not saying that because my friend Disco Dave was leading and had written that new setting.

But in the final hymn 'We Shall Go Out With Hope of Resurrection' there were lyrics that sneaked up on you. It's a relatively modern 1990's set of words, to a familiar tune - Danny Boy. The first verse was fine:

We shall go out with hope of resurrection,

We shall go out, from strength to strength go on,

We shall go out, and tell our stories boldly,

Tales of a love that will not let us go.

We'll sing our songs of wrongs that can be righted,

We'll dream our dream of hurts that can be healed,

We'll weave a cloth of all the world united,

Within the vision of a Christ who sets us free.

OK? Having sung that through in your head have you really taken the words on board? If you sing in church how often do you actually process the words between eye and mouth? Do they pass through your brain on the way, or does your mouth just flap up and down vaguely in time with the music? If you've processed it, can you see why it's been used for services post 9/11, services for abused women, for the disenfranchised?

Let's move onto verse 2, which tells us what we should be doing to help those situations described in the first verse.

We'll give a voice to those who have not spoken,

We'll find the words for those whose lips are sealed,

We'll make the tunes for those who sing no longer,

Vibrating Jesus into every heart.

We'll share our joy with those who are still weeping,

Chant hymns of strength for hearts that break in grief,

We'll leap and dance the resurrection story,

Including all within the circles of our love.

I have to admit that I wasn't really concentrating on what I was singing in this song at all until I saw line 4 looming. And no sooner had it loomed and been sung than I noticed several of my fellows having difficulty with it - one almost doubled over in uncontrollable laughter, others merely with their heads and shoulders shaking a little more than normal. I don't remember singing the rest of the verse, and the main topic of conversation over dinner was that line.

Exactly how do I vibrate Jesus into people's hearts? If you know, please tell me. Only the brave ask Google. I think I know what the writer was trying to say, and I wish I was as innocent as he, but does nobody proof read these things before they are published?

My subsequent research into this hymn has failed to find that precise lyric on the internet. I suspect it got modified in individual churches quite quickly after publication, as I've found a few alternative versions in published service sheets: 'Expressive love alive in every heart', 'Vibrating love alive in every heart', but actually these don't communicate the writer's original sentiment.

Disco Dave was quite upset about our reaction to the hymn as it's one of his favourites. Apart from that line I love it too, and would probably use it. It has been used for as well as just being a great 'going out' hymn for reminding people what their Christian responsibilities are. But we mess with song lyrics at our peril - sometimes the theology expressed in a song isn't quite what we agree with, and with so many churches using screens these days it's so easy to change words at the click of a mouse. But we should seek the author's permission to do so, and they will frequently refuse permission as it totally changes the meaning of the song as written. In which case we should either use it as written, or choose another song.

And that leaves me in a dilemma with this song.

p.s. The hymn discussed is (c) June Boyce-Tillman, 1993.