Ministry Team Letters July – December 2006
I want to engage you in a conversation. It concerns children and communion, two faces of our life as a church family that represent our very essence. Children are not only, as is sometimes said, the future church, they are active members of the body of Christ now, and their presence (or absence) is a constant and vital challenge to our ways of thinking and acting. Communion, it goes without saying, is what we are and do, what gives life and strength to the body of Christ. The conversation I want to hold is about admitting children to communion. Why might children receive communion? What are the reasons for excluding them?
Two of the possible objections are clear: children do not have enough understanding to receive the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, and they are not always going to show due reverence.
Understanding. How important in fact is our understanding of communion? Can any one of us be said to have understood what the church has always described as the deepest of mysteries? Communion is belonging together, to each other as a church family and collectively to God and to Christ. A child does not need to know what any of those words mean to experience the reality of being included, or not. If mental understanding is essential, what should we do with a lifelong communicant who develops Alzheimer’s or some other mental disability? What should we do with adults with learning difficulties?
Reverence. Children are certainly capable of great reverence if they are included in an act of worship rather than passive spectators of it. Watch any child invited to help with the collection or with bringing up the elements for communion. We may also need to consider carefully what we mean by reverence. Do we sometimes confuse reverence with solemnity? Might not the occasionally exuberant reverence of children be what we need? Remember King David dancing wildly and half-naked before the Ark of the Lord (2 Samuel 6:14-16, 21-22). (We could possibly do without the half-naked bit, I feel.)
I suppose it is clear where I stand, but let us talk together about this as a parish. We need to discuss it, because there is a growing number of parishes both in this diocese and in the Church of England as a whole where children do already receive communion, not to mention entire Anglican provinces overseas and the Orthodox churches, which may seem surprising because they are in some ways the most conservative and traditional of all. If a child who regularly receives communion elsewhere comes to us, we are obliged to let him or her receive here also.
What I want to do is to get us all talking, with sensitivity and love, about this matter. At some point next year I will circulate a discussion paper that sets out some of the points that need to be considered in greater detail than there is space for here. I then propose to hold a parish meeting at which we can continue our conversation en masse. Finally, taking into consideration the weight of feeling in the parish as a whole, the PCC would vote on the issue. If the vote were in favour, we would then apply to the bishop for permission to admit children to communion. (I will spell out the mechanics of admission in detail in the discussion paper.) I envisage this process taking no more than a year from now.
We need to be keenly aware that this touches on the heart of our life together and that people are likely to feel strongly about it. Whether we opt for change or decide not to, it is very probable that some will feel hurt and bewildered by the decision we make. Even more than the outcome of this conversation, what matters most is how we conduct it. Our true communion consists in more than the reception of the consecrated bread and wine; our communion is the unifying presence of the living Spirit of Christ among us, which is what makes us one, although opinions and ways of thinking may differ greatly on many subjects. In this as in all things, let us hold that ‘committed union’ as most precious of all.
You might have expected to find a letter with a Christmas theme in this month’s magazine, but in a sense this matter does relate to Christmas. What we are about to celebrate is of course the birth of the one who is our communion. In describing the birth of Jesus in such detail, the Gospel writers Matthew and Luke do something that is remarkable in any age, and perhaps unprecedented in their own: they make a baby the chief character in a drama. That drama is, of course, the eternal tale of how you and I and all of creation are brought from darkness to light. Those of us who will kneel this Christmas to receive the living Christ into our own lives, might begin this conversation by asking Him what He is saying to us today about His own worship, His Holy Communion, here at St Mary’s.
With love, and with prayers for a truly blessed and joyful Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
David
Dear Friends,
I am writing this the day after Penny Jones’s funeral, and that extraordinary day and what it might mean for all of us is what I want to write about here. I can’t really offer a tribute to Penny, because I didn’t have very much time to get to know her, and I think that what Ally said in her funeral address is far better than anything I could come up with. I will just say that when I came with the other candidates to be interviewed for this job, we could all sense that here was someone full of cheerful and intelligent spiritual life. I was never likely to say no to the job, but meeting Penny certainly made me feel all the more eager to say yes.
However, although I am not able to give Penny a proper tribute, I do feel I have been able to get to know her through all of you as you expressed your love for her and your grief at her passing. I don’t think that I have ever felt so strongly the truth that who we are as human beings, ‘the meaning of me’ as it were, is actually something that finds its full expression in communion, that is in the coming together in unity of everyone who is touched by our lives. What Penny was, and is, is part of who we are, and what we and all who knew her are, is in a sense what Penny ‘means’. I can say ‘we’, because although I only knew Penny for a few months, I am included in the circle of life that rippled out from her among all of you. This is difficult to put into words, and I don’t think I am making a very good job of it, but Christians shouldn’t find it too hard to understand, because this is really what we mean when we say that we are a body, not a loose collection of individuals, and that our true life is not the number of years we draw breath on this earth but the eternal life of God Himself.
The other very special part of Penny’s funeral was, of course, the participation by three Buddhist monks and a large number of Peter and Penny’s Buddhist friends. I can’t be certain, but I very much doubt a Buddhist abbot has ever taken part in a service in St Mary’s before. I do very much hope that no one found their presence in church difficult – I should be happy to talk about it with anyone who was uncomfortable. What was so heartening was that many people from St Mary’s expressed their approval and even delight at the inclusion of the Buddhist prayers, so much a part of who Penny was. Equally, many of the Buddhists who participated, including the abbot Phra Maha Laow Panyasiri, told me that they were happy to have been welcomed and included. I feel something very precious took place there, something we may be able to build upon in the years ahead. That would indeed be a glorious legacy from Penny. Christ and the Buddha are not enemies – far from it. Buddhists worship no god, neither do they deny the existence of God; essentially, they practice a way of life intended to liberate people from the avoidable suffering that a disordered and unharmonious life can bring. How could a Christian object to that? Here again are some of the words chanted at Penny’s funeral:
Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another.
Just as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world.
Shall we not all say Amen?
With love,
David
Dear Friends and Friends-to-be,
I am so happy at long last to be able to write a few words to you as your new… well, I suppose I should begin by explaining what I am! You probably know that St Mary’s now has a Priest-in-charge and not a Vicar. As far as the job goes, there is no difference whatsoever; I will do exactly the same things as a vicar and have the same responsibilities. The difference is simply that whereas a vicar has what is known as the freehold of the living – which means in effect he or she can stay until they feel it is right to move on – a priest-in-charge is appointed by the bishop for a fixed term, usually renewable at least once. A priest-in-charge is often appointed when parish re-organisation is likely, since a vicar can block changes that may be in the best interests of the local church as a whole. At some point, then, together with other parishes nearby, we will have to consider what those best interests might be, but we can leave that for now. In the day-to-day life of the church, you can consider me to be your vicar – I will probably use that term in casual conversation, since most people know what a vicar is but many, even in the church, are not too sure about priests-in-charge. I hope that makes things clearer!
To go back to the beginning, I am so happy to be here. Yoko, the children and I have been greatly moved by the warmth and kindness we have met since moving in and we are really looking forward to becoming part of the life of this parish. I cannot say a big enough thank you to all who have made us feel so welcome. There is no space here to list the names of the small army of people who have taken care of us, sent us cakes, cleared and mown the vicarage garden, sorted out our computer woes, given us furniture and curtains, provided useful local information, handled various administrative headaches and generally eased us in to our new life. However, I do want to record my thanks in particular to the churchwardens David and Penny and to Trevor Weedon, who collectively helped appoint me to this job in the first place and have been a constant source of support and encouragement. And there are no words adequately to express my thanks to and admiration of Ally, who has done and is still doing such a tremendous job of keeping the life of the parish in great good health, and who is helping me in countless ways to find my feet. Thank you, Ally.
So really the whole of this letter is a thank you. That’s not a bad theme to begin on. Thanksgiving, however we express it, is at the heart of our faith. Each week we celebrate the Eucharist, which means just that, an offering of thanks for our life in God. Whatever we face in life, may we always be a thankful, that is a joyful community.
With Love
David
Dear friends
I am writing this the night before my annual summer holiday, (yes, as usual, I have left everything till the last minute!), but by the time the magazine reaches you, most people will probably have finished with their holidays and be gearing up for the start of a new school term, or perhaps have already returned to work after a well-earned bank holiday weekend. Members of our church youth group will have spent the last few days of August at Greenbelt, the Christian arts festival in Cheltenham.
Whether you have been on holiday, or are yet to go, or even if you’ve not been able to manage a holiday this year, my hope for you all is that you have, somehow, found refreshment and renewal, an opportunity to pause and gather strength.
Each time I go on holiday I am torn between looking forward to the break from routine, and trepidation at how I will fill the time, and whether I will get so out of the habit of working that it will be hard to get going again afterwards. But even those who thrive on activity and busy-ness (and I’m one of them) need time out every so often: time to think, time to enjoy the world around us, time to ‘be’, rather than to ‘do’.
I was reminded of this the other day in church, when in our gospel reading Jesus welcomed his disciples back to him after they had been busy teaching and healing the sick. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place by yourselves and rest a while’. It’s good advice. We all need balance in our lives, and if we are very active and busy, we need to take time out to rest, to be ourselves, and for ourselves, even if this sometimes feels like an unjustifiable luxury.
This is the heart of the idea of the Sabbath: one day in seven that isn’t about work, but is about life – ourselves and our relationship with the God who created us. It can be hard to find a Sabbath in this 24 hour, 365 day culture, but we do need something like it if we are to stay healthy in body, mind and spirit.
If, because of the work you do, or through caring for someone close to you, you’re not able to have a ‘real’ holiday or a weekly ‘Sabbath’, I hope and pray that God will give you other opportunities to find refreshment, to enjoy his world in all its beauty, and to spend even just a moment ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’.
Yours in Christ,
Ally Barrett
Dear Friends,
I am writing this on the afternoon of the Sunday on which Christopher Herbert, the Bishop of St Albans, came to preside and to baptise his granddaughter Sophie. Sophie is, of course, the daughter of Robin and Kerry.
Sophie was in the company of lots of small children who were amazingly well behaved. At least, that was my experience until I had to leave a little early in order to take a service for the Salvation Army, their minister, Lynn, being on leave. But at least until then, the children were all seen but not heard. That was largely because they were involved, and therefore not bored. Ally gathered a crowd of little ones around her in the Gospel procession and quite clearly read the Gospel to them as well as to the rest of us. She had a small crowd around her as she sat on the kneeler in front of the altar rail while the Bishop preached – and he perched on the rail as he preached.
The children were ‘good’ because they were a part of what was going on. Now I know that some of the regular congregation feel that children don’t really belong at Godmanchester and would prefer it if they were not there. But if we exclude children and young parents every Sunday (and they are not there every Sunday) then we can guarantee that, in another twenty or thirty years, there will be no congregation. Maybe we might remember a story about the disciples shooing children out of Jesus’ way only to be surprised when he took them in his arms and blessed them.
There is, as always, another side to the coin. We are a large congregation and we often include people who have been bereaved, or know themselves to be very ill, or who are faced with relationships that are breaking down. When that happens to us, we need space to be quiet in church; to come to a service where there are no interruptions and there is no extraneous noise. There are some services in the week where that ought to be possible; and we need to be sufficiently sensitive to the needs of others to ensure that what is possible actually happens.
Yours ever
Jeremy Craddock
Assistant Priest
Dear Friends,
As many of you will have heard, we are, finally, able to look forward to the arrival of a new parish priest – Revd David Busk will be licensed in early September, and immediately will be in at the deep end with the civic service (17 September) and the Harvest Festival celebrations at the end of the month. He will no doubt be looking forward to meeting everyone here, too, and to becoming part of the life of this town.
Thinking ahead to David’s arrival made me think about what people experience when they come to a new place, and especially when they arrive in Godmanchester. How do we welcome new people into our midst, and what makes them glad to call Godmanchester ‘home’? Some of you reading this will have been born and bred here, and others, myself included, arrived much more recently.
As a newcomer, my impression of Godmanchester is that we are very blessed to have a town that is still a community, when so many other small towns seem, from the outside at least, to have lost their ‘personality’.
Part of the answer lies in the tireless work of our town council, and in the imaginative and energetic activities of the community association. And part of the answer lies in the wealth of groups, clubs, and societies that meet regularly here, catering for almost all interests and age-groups. Certainly part of the answer can be found in our local shops and businesses, who care about the place they serve, and in the two wonderful primary schools where the children of the town spend so much of their time, and learn to love learning, but also to love their community and respect each other.
But, of course, a community is created by its members, and it is the people who live and work here who make the place what it is. In the Bible, Jesus talks a lot about the ‘kingdom of God’ – it’s not a geographical place, like Godmanchester, but rather it is a way of living, a way of ‘being’, that reflects the values of God: values such as peace, justice and mercy, and love. The kingdom of God is anywhere where God – rather than wealth or status, or any other ‘false gods’ – is king. The kingdom of God is wherever God’s people are trying to live his way, to be the people they were created to be. The kingdom of God is wherever all people are treated equally, with respect and care.
All this means that God’s kingdom isn’t just some dreamland that we have to wait for heaven to experience. It’s something that can start here and now, in your house, in your street, in our town.
So may God bless you all as you build his kingdom here, and make it a place that all his people will be happy to call ‘home’.
Yours in Christ,
Ally Barrett