Sermon Sunday 22Nd January 2017 3Rd of Epiphany

Sermon Sunday 22nd January 2017 3rd of Epiphany

Isaiah 9 1-4

Psalm 27 1, 4-12

1 Corinthians 1 10-18

Matthew 4 12-23

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Some of you may recall that in the mid-2000s my work took me off to live in China for a few years.

It’s ten years ago now and when I look back I see now that while this was jolly exciting, in many ways it was a very odd and disruptive time for me and my family. Family-wise it was very testing; the timing for my family’s point of view was not good; my son had just started ‘A’ levels, and my elder daughter GSCEs, and so I was stuck in a flat in Shanghai while poor Irene wrestled with three hormonal teenagers at home. We had some fabulous holidays, and got to know quite well a fascinating and important country. But there were also long periods of separation, and times when we mainly communicated by phone or Skype. Career-wise it was also challenging; I was trying to start up a business in a complicated part of the world that was testing to operate in and to understand. I knew very few people there, and had no UK colleagues nearby. I had some triumphs and some disasters – perhaps as you would expect.

And there was also disruption Church-wise as well of course. I said a temporary farewell to St Mary Magdalene and hello to the church scene in Shanghai. I quickly worked out that there were two basic options.

The first was the local Catholic Church. Advantages were that is was walkable from my flat; had a liturgy that all of you would instantly recognise – the same creed, the same eucharistic prayers, the same absolutions; it had robed clergy who could preach in a reasonably comprehensible way – and so on. The disadvantage was that the congregation seemed basically to consist of expatriate French bankers, plus their wives and perfect children, and exuberant Philippinos – all of them lovely in their way, but very difficult to make friends with.

The second option was the “International Church” further away in the western part of the city. This was very much the fiefdom of American Evangelicals, so we are talking guitars and choruses, prayers very much from a stream of consciousness, and leaders in jeans and sweatshirts - on a good day. There were Americans, Singaporeans, Hong Kongers, a scattering of Europeans, the ubiquitous Australians and New Zealanders, and then a fine sprinkling of people from around the whole of the rest of the World. But they were wonderfully welcoming; they had House groups that I faithfully attended; they kept in touch.

Dear Congregation – I attended both churches, for different reasons, but probably spent 80% of my Sundays in the International (i.e. the American) church.

Now, I know we’re all sinners and so on, and there’s no such thing as a perfect church, but after a while there were certain things about the International Church that really started to bug me.

Let’s start with the prayers. Here we were in the middle of Shanghai, with a congregation that was genuinely from all continents and all backgrounds, with the war in Afghanistan raging, the Hadron Collider being commissioned, Thailand going under military rule, the earthquake in Szechuan, the Olympics in Beijing looming – and what did we pray about? Ourselves. Lord, bless our Church.

Then there was the music. I know this may be a personal prejudice, but there are only so many choruses a man can take, especially when the last verse is repeated. Three times.

But the biggest bug for me was that in nearly three years at that church I took Holy Communion only twice. The Eucharist simply did not feature as a core part of what the International Church did.

For me, the International church seemed a bit of a throwback to a previous age when weekly services did not feature Holy Communion. It’s worth remembering that in the Middle Ages, while the priestly class took Communion frequently, the people in the pews would only attend a Eucharist on High and Holy days. Even by the 17th Century, the Book of Common Prayer states that it is only "binding on everybody to communicate three times a year". Even today, for some of an older generation, their memories of a Sunday morning will be of the main service being Matins or Morning Prayer, with the Eucharist being reserved for Easter & Christmas and major festivals.

This all changed only in the 20th Century with the Parish Communion movement. The movement started between the Wars and really look hold in the 1960’s; its slogan was “the Lord's people, around the Lord's table, on the Lord’s Day”, and it sought to move the Eucharist away from an individual act of private devotion to a collective act of worship central to the Sunday morning gathering of the faithful. The success of the movement can be seen in that weekly communion is now thought of as being the norm – at least in the Church of England if not in Shanghai.

Now, Victor Baker-Holmes, born in the 1930’s, lived through all the debates on the role of Holy Communion in the life of the church. Victor also originally had quite a low church background, one in which the pulpit was bigger and more prominent than the altar, where preaching (and Victor, as you remember, was very good at preaching) was given a lot more air time than the liturgical niceties of the Sunday morning Communion service.

But, over time, Victor grew to have a high view of the Eucharist. He insisted that Holy Communion was conducted….properly. With due preparation and care. With polished Chalices and Patens and Cyboriums, with crisp linen and candles, with clear diction; with reverence. Victor recognised that the Eucharist was a particular and special event in the life of the church and was keen to support it here in St Mary Magdalene both on a Sunday morning and at the Tuesday mid-week celebration too.

In addition to this, one of Victor’s priorities was his support of Ronald Gibson House. For those of you who don’t know of it, Ronald Gibson is a purpose-built care home situated in the grounds of Springfield Hospital. It has 56 rooms and specialises in the care of those who are physically frail, those recently discharged from hospital, and those who are mentally frail too – particularly those with Dementia or Alzheimer’s, for whom it has a specialist unit within one of its wings. The very nature of care homes is that they are closed spaces – quite naturally, as they must protect their residents – but those of us who have visited friends or relatives in such a home may feel that as we cross the threshold we enter into a different world, a little microcosm of society, held separate from the environment that you and I and our friends live in each day.

Victor was a key leader of the team that faithfully visited Ronald Gibson House each week, and in doing so he and others expressed the love of God and his church for those who live there.

This week sees the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. We have heard this morning Paul’s prayer with the Corinthians that ‘all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose’.

For me, there can be no better symbol of unity and inclusion than the Eucharist. We prepare for the Eucharist both individually and collectively; we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness together; we declare our statements of faith as a body of Christians – “We Believe” – we receive the sacraments all together; and after the Eucharist are sent on our way as a church to “Love and serve the Lord”.

Therefore the church has always placed a great deal of emphasis on making sure that Holy Communion is available to those who through physical or mental frailty cannot make it to join the communion of the saints at a church eucharist. In just the same way as the church historically distributed food and alms to the sick, the church distributes the Eucharist as well. By doing so the church not only provides for the spiritual needs of an individual, but also reinforces that they remain an important part of Christ’s body on earth.

It is an important part of the church’s pastoral work, and today we celebrate Victor, an important person who sustained our ministry here for so long and with such dedication.

It’s therefore very fitting that Linda has shown such generosity to give to the church a Home Communion set in Victor’s memory. It’s a rather magnificent set, and I think Victor would be very pleased indeed that we will be able to take the sacrament of Christ’s sacrifice and love out from this church and into the wider world. And for those of us who use it, it will always be a reminder of a much loved friend and colleague.

At the end of this service we will have a lovely post-Communion prayer. I’d like to end by paraphrasing some of it now.

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the light of the world, we pray that we, your people, whether whole or sick, robust or frail, may be illumined your Holy sacraments, and shine with the radiance of your glory..”

Amen