Faculty for the Creation of a Storage Room for all the Things we Can't Face Raising Faculties For the Removal Of

The vicar and church wardens of St Kelvin the Less petition for the building of a new room, to hold all the things we can't face raising faculties to get rid of.

The church is full of altar frontals, freestanding bench pews, assorted panels that used to be on the wall somewhere, paintings of the Last Supper, random replicas of Flemish altarpieces, and similar detritus either "gifted" by parishioners or procured by obsessive former incumbents.

We don't need them. They're in the way. They're getting on our nerves.

But every time we try to get rid of them, the diocesan bric-a-brac advisor asks for their "provenance".

How should we know? Our predecessors in these jobs were far too busy shooting partridges and chasing foxes to bother themselves with documentation.

And we don't know whether our predecessors put what records they did keep into the diocesan archives, hid them under their beds, or ate them, frankly.

And a fair amount of it seems to have been pretty much fly-tipped over the years. There's rumours that a vicar out in the Fens once hired a removals lorry and dropped off six pews and a lectern he'd removed from his own place to clear some room for a children's corner.

And experts are rare and expensive. And the diocesan archives only hold records written by drunks, so you can't read a word. And then everything takes so many backwards and forwards to get done.

So, since life is too short to do any disposals properly, we propose to build a new room, to the west of the existing north aisle. From local ashlar. With lime mortar, of course. All the right components. From the outside you'd never know it were new.

We will put all the stuff we can't get rid of without too much trouble in there. And close the door - a replica of the south door, in oak, with brass fittings.

And never think about any of it again.

Calling Bunny 17, your time is up

Little thing to remember for next year. 

Don't use an area the size of a football pitch for your Easter Egg Hunt.

All the Little Pebbles went out on the Big Meadow at 3 pm yesterday, eager to fill the Holy Saturday void with sugar highs and chocolatey excitement.

Purswill is still out there.

It's been twenty-five hours now. He knows there are more eggs out there.

And with all that sugar and caffeine in him, nobody can catch him. We can see him scuttling around, but he's like the Duracell Bunny.

I mean, it's not really a safeguarding issue. He's forty-seven, and can look after himself. I've got no idea how he obtained. a set of the official bunny ears to enter the competition.

He's just getting really annoying.

Seemed like Nonsense

 “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” (Luke 24:11)

Well, it is nonsense, isn’t it?

The idea that a man who has been killed by the Romans – experts at killing people – whose death has been checked by a Centurion – who before crucifixion suffered a flogging that was often severe enough to kill people….

The idea that this dead man would rise was nonsense.
And of course – the message came from women.  And who would listen to women?

Apart from Luke, of course. Who paid attention to the women in Jesus’s story throughout. Surprising to be honest that there’s not some group somewhere trying to remove Luke’s Gospel and Acts from the Bible on the grounds that he’s the Woke Physician, not the Blessed Physician.  And now it’s the whole group of women who’d been to the tomb – led, of course, by Mary Magdalene - who come back with the news. Luke has shown us women as prophets: the Blessed Virgin Mary, Elizabeth, Anna – now he shows us women as apostles – sent out from the tomb to give the apostles the good news.

And I believe that nonsense that the women brought to the apostles, today. Yes, of course it’s impossible.  But then it wouldn’t be worth telling if it weren’t impossible. It wouldn’t make any difference if it weren’t impossible. It wouldn’t be a miracle if it weren’t impossible. If Jesus weren’t raised from the dead, as Paul says – what would the point be?

But on the basis of those women, then of those apostles, of the weird inconsistencies within the Gospel resurrection accounts even while they are so consistent in what really matters – on basis of the message of the church, of the mere existence of a church that should have ceased to exist when Jesus died, and on the work of the Holy Spirit within my heart – this is what I believe. That Mary Magdalene and all the rest went to a tomb, found it empty, told the apostles – and the apostles then had it proved to them that it was true.

And so everything has changed. There is a purpose to this world beyond the world we see. There is a purpose to our lives deeper than the lives we live. Death is not all there is, and we are called by our loving Saviour to follow him – through the death he died like we all do – into the life that he offers. That new life starts now – and goes through death and on in God’s love into eternity.

It's nonsense isn’t it? But it’s beautiful, powerful nonsense. It’s nonsense that makes sense of this life – and makes promises for the next.

And I believe it’s true.

The Long Ash Wednesday

Sometimes you try to be creative in liturgy and it just goes wrong. I'm not afraid to admit it. The important thing is to learn, then move on.

Take last week's Ash Wednesday service.

Just because I ran out of ashes and had to use ink.

How was I to know it was registrar's ink?

It'll all come out in the wash.

Eventually.

Giving thanks for Bald People on Ash Wednesday

Let us give thanks for bald people

On this Ash Wednesday

Those who offer up to the ashing-person

A blank and ready canvas for our cross-drawing

Whether a neat, austere, Puritan kind of cross 

Or something swishy and baroque 

Like the sort of thing you see on a clipart on Facebook.

Not so when confronted by an hairy man

Or those women who pull not back their locks.

For their foreheads are a minefield of artistic and safeguarding danger.

Can one move their hair?

Or must one break the mystery of the event to ask them

Or just plough on regardless?

Their crosses are a mess

Bits of ash on stray tresses

Blobs of black on their foreheads

Of no discernible form.

On the whole, the ideal Ash Wednesday crowd would be woman footballers.

Those ponytails leaving the foreheads clear would be the perfect base.

Stylish black cross beneath dyed-blonde frame.

Simply the best.

Ash Wednesday 

Because you're worth it.

Amazing Grace for Pedants

All:  When we've been there ten thousand years, 

Bright shining as the sun, 

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Pedants: Fewer 

All:  Than when we first begun.

Pedants: Began

Saint Paul Pops Home

"Hi, Hannah, I'm home!"

"Saul, you said you'd gone out to hold some coats. Where have you been?"

"It's quite a story. I went to Damascus, and you'll never believe what happened."

"I will. I've read Galatians."

"And then so many journeys, all the time spreading the Good News: Macedonia, Collossae, Ephesus..."

"And all the time writing letters to all those churches, and not one to your wife?"

"I remembered you."

"I know. Telling the Corinthians, 'oo I wish I could bring my wife along like Peter does.' Well, Peter obviously loves his wife."

"Look, I'm not some unreconstructed dinosaur. I've been raising the status of women: 'In Christ there is no male or female."

"I read what you told the Corinthians. Women should keep quiet, you said. And as for what you instructed Timothy..."

"Ah, but I didn't write to Timothy."

"What do you mean? I saw the letters. They've got your name on. In suspiciously big writing."

"No, in 1900 years, some Germans are going to decide that I didn't write those letters."

"Germans? Those hairy illiterate weirdoes who hang around  the Rhine massacring legions? You think they're going to start adopting source criticism?"

"You obviously aren't going to listen to anything I say. I'm off to Rome tomorrow. And I wouldn't be surprised if I get executed."

"Ah, Paul. You and your martyr complex. Ah well, I won't stay up tomorrow then.

Candlemas

Layer upon layer in the story of the Presentation.

The Holy Family go to Jerusalem. To the Temple. To achieve two things:

Mary must be purified. She has given birth and so she is ritually impure until the priest has made a sacrifice which will make her ritually pure.

Not a curse. She isn't bad because she's had a baby. And the other women down the ages of this ritual law hadn't been bad because they'd had sex. 

It's part of the whole Hebrew law code where the people of Israel had to be super-careful to make themselves distinctly holy before they could worship. Other things could make you impure quite innocently.

But there's a sacrifice set for purification in Leviticus 12. And if she's poor, it's two doves.

And then the visit’s also because Jesus is a firstborn male.

In the Passover, the Angel of Death killed all the Egyptian firstborn sons. But passed over the Hebrew firstborn because of the blood of the lambs on the doorways of the Hebrews.

As a result, the Hebrews had to redeem their firstborn sons - ie pay God the price of getting them back - with a sacrifice. And the cost of getting your firstborn son back was money - five silver coins.

Expensive business, having a firstborn son. Second sons were cheaper. And daughters. Though for daughters, the mother was impure for longer.

So there's a redemption and a purification here. Two sacrifices.

But as well as the Jewish purity laws, and the story of Passover- there's another story of sacrifice underlying this visit. And another sacrifice overlaying it.

There's the story of when Abraham goes to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. And God's angel says “don't do it. The Lord will provide.” And Abraham finds a ram.

According to the 2 Chronicles 3, the place called Mount Moriah is where God appeared to David, and where Solomon built the Temple. 

So the Holy Family are standing- and the sacrifice for purity is being made - where the Lord provided for Abraham and Sarah's firstborn son. And they're paying for Jesus's life in the place where a price was paid for Isaac's.

Layer upon layer of meaning under this little story of the Presentation. And then another layer is added by the author to the Hebrews.

The child lying there in Simeon’s arms isn't just a six-week-old baby.

He's also a sacrifice. God has sent his Son into the world to pay a redemption price for us. Not for angels- for human people. As God provided a ram for Isaac, he's now providing himself for us. 

And he's not just the sacrifice. He's also the high priest who makes the sacrifice. God the Son chooses to come into our world. Given the choice between power and sacrifice, he will choose sacrifice. He will be raised up on a cross and pay the price that brings us back to God.

God the Son becomes fully human to join our lives. Is our sacrifice, our high priest, our representative. He pleads for us with our Father and sends his Spirit on the church.

The Holy Family go to Jerusalem. They're young and poor and apparently nothing out of the ordinary. But through God's Spirit, Simeon and Anna know who they are meeting. They welcome them, they sing the praises of this holy baby. And they fade back out of the story. The baby was safe in Simeon's hands: is safe in Mary's.

Now they know the world is safe, in this baby's hands.

(The Presentation: John Opie, in Norwich Cathedral)

Celebrations for 5 Years of Brexit

 I've been absolutely overwhelmed by demands from a Mrs Trellis of North Crawley, asking me what we are going to do to mark today's auspicious anniversary. And though I generally regard it as the single most damaging self-inflicted wound by a country since the island of Zanzibar declared war on the British Empire, I am by nature a democrat. And the people have spoken.

 So the schedule for celebrating five years of Brexit this afternoon will go as follows:

1 pm - Playing of "Land of Hope and Glory"

1.01 pm - Reading out of all Brexit Benefits

1.02 pm - Going to the pub 

Unifauns on the Lawn

Please could all Beaker Folk be careful around the main lawn. There's a small herd of unifauns grazing there.

We're really pleased to have the wild unifauns here. As such an endangered species - they've never quite found quite the right countryside to inhabit - there have been many failed attempts to breed them in captivity. But here on the edge of the greensand ridge, they get that combination of well-drained heath and boggy lowland that they crave.

Please if you meet a unifaun, walk straight past it. They don't like eye contact, and they will run away quite recklessly, crashing into hedges, walls, and sheep, if you panic them

Please keep squonks on leads.

Death of Thomas Hardy (1928)

Yokel 1: I see that Thomas Hardy have gone 'n died.

Yokel 2: 97 years ago, aye.

Yokel 1: Spose in 3 years, the Thomas Hardy Society will have a big memorial?

Yokel 2: Spose they will, aye.

Yokel 1: Shall us get down to Peter's Finger in Mixen Lane? I hear their latest brew is a pretty drop o' tipple.

Yokel 2: Aye, after I've made these souvenirs.

Yokel 1: Souvenirs, Abel?

Yokel 2: Thomas Hardy 100 years medals, pots, shawls, tea lights, drip maps, dinosaurs, replica tombstones, model cats, little tiny Wessex the Dog to the Households, women being hanged... 

Yokel 1: Thou dost reckon th'art goin' to cash in, Abel?

Yokel 2: That I do, Cain. That I do.

Yokel 1: See ye leanin' over the rail later?

Yokel 2: I' faith. I'll bring a straw.