Vicar's Thoughts

Sermon preached on 27 January 2008

Cycling along the lanes the other side of Sandridge yesterday I came across a flock of what I now think must have been fieldfare, with their chestnut brown backs and rusty yellow breasts. These birds enjoy birch woods, poplar avenues, copses, parks and woodland edges. They are a type of thrush and live in large flocks and are very noisy, but they are also very shy and wary and difficult to get close to - a bit like the clergy, really. And in my scatterbrained way they reminded me of my old mate, Neil, who is also a clergyman, and is currently Rector of Blakeney and the surrounding villages in north Norfolk. And something has happened to the Rector of Blakeney that we lesser clerical mortals can only dream about.

It all began in the garden of a retired priest, Richard Bending, who helps Neil in Cley church. One day not so long ago Richard awoke to discover an unusual bird in his garden - he subsequently discovered that it was a seven inch long American sparrow. A bird which is rarely seen in the UK. Well you know what bird watchers are like, and before you could say "Bill Oddie" they started to gather in his garden in large numbers - I think he has had about 4,000 visit him thus far. Being a genial clergyman - most retired clergy are genial - he didn't mind, but he did put an old bucket in the garden with a note saying that any contributions would go to support the local church in Cley. And people chucked a few bob in the bucket.

These rare birds rarely stay in one place for very long, but this particular American sparrow decided to buck the trend. Perhaps he couldn't decide if he was a Democrat or a Republican, and so opted to avoid Super Tuesday. But for whatever reason this sparrow stayed and stayed. He has stayed so long that a total of £5,200 has so far been donated to the church via Richard Bending's bucket. You couldn't write the script. And if you ask why the bird stayed so long in Richard's garden the answer would have to be - because the bird chose to do just that.

I hope that you won't think this introduction is a mere flight of fancy - ho ho! - but the Gospel today is all about choice. It's about Jesus choosing his first disciples. It's about them choosing to respond to the call of Jesus. it's about choices.

Of course in our day choice is very much the flavour of the month. The Government - for at least the last ten years, I think - seems to have been obsessed with giving people a choice. You can choose which school you want your children to attend - but you can't really. You can choose where you will get the best patient care - but you can't really. You can choose who will be Prime Minister - although none of us chose Mr. Brown. And the Church isn't much better. You can choose who will be the next Bishop of St Albans now that the present one has said he is going to retire - but you can't really. The important decisions always seem to be made elsewhere. Choice, it seems, is elusive.

But you can choose to respond to Jesus' call. As Marcus Borg has reminded us, what we learn from the life of Jesus is that God is near at hand and can be experienced. We are told that the Spirit of God moves around us, like wind, and within us, like breath. We are told that God is compassionate towards all people, and passionate about justice. And when we are called, it is to a life full of God. We are called into a conscious and intentional relationship to God. This is what we most want for ourselves. So God asks this of each one of us. Will we commit ourselves to prayer and worship in whatever form we find helpful? Because it is as we deepen our relationship with God that we shall be changed. We shall experience transformation.

The early Celtic Christians talked about thin places. By that they didn't mean a post Christmas action plan to lose weight. They were trying to describe a vision of reality that affirms that reality has at least two layers or levels or dimensions - the visible world of our ordinary experiences, and the sacred world, which they understood not only as the source of everything but also as a presence interpenetrating everything. In thin places the boundary between the two levels becomes soft and permeable, and the veil sometimes lifts. They understood Jesus to be a thin place, as are the stories and practices of the tradition that remembers and celebrates him. In such ways, they argued, the living Christ comes to us and transforms our lives even today. We can't control Him or manipulate Him - all we can do is choose to respond positively and actively pursue the spiritual quest both within and without the confines of the Church.

This, I think, is what John O'Donohue was trying at articulate when he wrote these words at the start of his book about spiritual wisdom from the Celtic world, and with his words I draw to a close:

On the day when/The weight deadens/On your shoulders/And you stumble,/May the clay dance/To balance you.

And when your eyes/Freeze behind/The grey window/And the ghost of loss/Gets in to you,/May a flock of colours,/Indigo, red, green/And azure blue/Come to awaken in you/A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays/In the curach of thought/And a stain of ocean/Blackens beneath you,/May there come across the waters/A path of yellow moonlight/To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,/May the clarity of light be yours,/May the fluency of the ocean be yours,/May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow/Wind work these words/Of love around you./An invisible cloak/To mind your life.

Amen.

David Brentnall 27 January 2008