A comic strip about today's Gospel reading from the folks at AgnusDay

Not that I'd win or anything but I could be nominated for the Canadian Blog Awards even though I'm an expatriate. There is a religion and philosophy category.

Just saying......

When we had behaved ourselves in school we were allowed to watch films sometimes on a Friday afternoon. It was a different age - boys were allowed to play with knives, lonely men operated light houses on the East coast of Canada and small boats fished for codfish in the Gaspe. It's one of the two or three bits of primary school education that I remember. The film is called 'Paddle to the Sea' (National Film Board 1966) and it's based on a book of the same name which was written in 1941.



Part Two is HERE
Part Three is HERE

or the whole film (slightly better quality) can be found HERE

A later generation's NFB childhood can be found HERE - an animated film called 'The Hockey Sweater'

Updated to include a link to the sermon



Frances McLean was buried today from St James' Episcopal Church here in Penicuik. The coffin was welcomed into the church last night, covered with the funeral pall and installed in the chancel with the Easter Candle. A number of people who were unable to get away from work for the Requiem elected to show up last night along with a few who just wanted to be there. We had about 35 in attendance. Tony Bramley conducted a brief service which included the Sentences from the Burial Office along with a few prayers - both formal and informal. It was Bonfire Night here in the UK as well. As Tony led the coffin in there were bursts of fireworks coming from the hill behind the church - 21 gun salute? Celebrations in heaven? A good touch all round.

The Bishop celebrated the Requiem Mass today, I preached and the ample congregation was in full voice. The hymns had all been chosen with an eye to Christian Mission. I hope she'd have approved.

Frances was buried by Philip Crosfield (our now most senior Nonstipendiary priest) in Rosebank Cemetery in Edinburgh where her grandfather and great grandfather are buried. It was a cold and clammy day - lots of mist in the air and very grey. It was everything a burial in a Scottish graveyard ought to be. No worry, though: there has been enough light and warmth over the years and even during the day itself to cover any amount of clammy mist.

An article from the Edinburgh Evening News.

Comments from one of the choristers at today's funeral about the placement of bodies in the chancel.

Clergy Conference at Pitlochry

It's an annual affair here in the Diocese of Edinburgh for the stipendiary clergy of the Diocese. Though we're not spread out all over hell's half-acre like the clergy of some regions of the Canadian north it is nonetheless true that we hardly ever get to see each other and this is one opportunity when we do. A few clergy never show up. I guess that's par for the course. We had about 35 clergy in attendance this year.

We get some sort of off-season deal at the Atholl Palace in Pitlochry. The conference has been there each year since I arrived and I must admit I rather like the venue. There was a nice break in the rubbish weather for a couple of days (though it was rather foggy in the mornings) and we took our traditional long walk along the Tummel River up to the reservoir behind the dam, followed by an equally traditional trip to the Whisky Shop on the High Street.

Some years we've had speakers. This year it was decided that we wouldn't and the jury is still out on whether that was a good idea.

There was to be a discussion on the Anglican Covenant followed by or at least mingled with discussion about the professional development of the clergy and pastoral care of same. It was clear on the opening evening that the programme needed some tweaking/revision and the gathered clergy made their views on the subject known. The programme was duly tweaked.

Discussion of the Anglican Covenant was limited to about 30 minutes in the course of the three day conference which is about 20 minutes more than it deserved (my opinion).

Issues relating to the pastoral care of clergy got most of the remaining program time. It became clear (and I guess that we all knew this beforehand) just how lonely a life many of our colleagues lead. That, along with the fact that we don't take very good care of each other in the Church, are the sorts of things things that you know to be the case but which people are reluctant to talk about. Sorta like an 'elephant' in the room.

The word 'elephant' was used rather a lot - referring always to those things which a substantial presence in the room but which are simply not spoken about.

Malcolm Round, the Rector of St Mungo's Church in Balerno thought it a shame that he actually has a picture of himself riding an elephant and no blog to show it on.

I received it in an email last night and I include it below. Think of it as part of a programme of informal pastoral care of the Rector of Balerno.

R.I.P

Frances Ellen McLean
1921-2008

Frances McLean died in the Royal Infirmary last night at about 7:30 pm. She has been a non-stipendiary minister at St James and St Mungo's for many years - ordained to the priesthood in her sixties following a long and varied ministry including many years as a missionary nurse and midwife in South Africa.

Frances underwent a major operation on Tuesday for an aneurysm of the aorta. She rallied initially and then began to fail on Wednesday morning. She was visited by the Bishop at around lunchtime and received the Sacrament later in the afternoon. She'd had occasion to ask her nurse whether it was expected that she would survive and was told that there were grave concerns as to whether this would be the case. She was surrounded by friends up until the time she died. At nearly 87 years old, Frances died "in the saddle" - involved in an active ministry to "old people" for whom she was an enabler and a source of spiritual comfort and with questions as to who will do her work now that she's gone.

I'd say a pretty good innings by any estimate.

One of my colleagues here in Edinburgh Diocese mused in a public forum the other day about whether she should abandon her Parson's Pocketbook (that comforting symbol of God With Us when carried in the hand of a clergyman/woman on the rounds of the hospital or the neighbourhood - for a Filofax (probably a black one looking like the monolith in the opening of 2001 A Space Odyssey).

I have no doubt that there are even other clergy eager for preferment with eyes darting back and forth who've switched to something electronic, allowing them not only to manage their contacts and arrive at appointments in a timely manner but to profit from those long walks along hospital corridors by finally achieving the status of Jedi Knight of Orath-Ping in world seven with extra ammunition for their Circadian Orc Slayer.

It never ends, does it? All this innovation!

Real priests carry paper! No pasaran!

Proud owner of a greenhouse

After all these years. I purchased it second hand on Ebay and drove down to Livingston today to disassemble it. I have absolutely no clue if I'll be able to put it back together again. On the plus side, there was no glass breakage. On the minus side - I note that there were a few bits which had bent nicely together and belong together so that even if most of the uprights and roof slats are identical they now belong in a certain relationship to each other.

I will let you know how it goes. I shall be heading off to my yearly clergy conference on Sunday and returning on Wednesday. That's when the fun begins.

It was once said of Canada that, had we played our cards right, we could have had British government, French culture and American know-how. Instead we got French government, American culture and British know-how.

With respect, then, to the latter: Citizens of the very same nation which invented Spam (the luncheon meat) and scattered their Mars explorer in tiny bits across the dusty surface of the Red Planet are now turning those prodigious skills (normally reserved for taking a common-sense approach to road repairs) to tackling God. The British Humanist Association, Richard Dawkins and an assortment of other luminaries are conducting a campaign during the Christmas shopping season to get the 'atheist' message slapped on to the sides of busses in London for four weeks. It will cost around £11,000 and they are raising £5,500 by way of donations from the general public. Dawkins, I gather, is putting up the rest.

At first glance one is not struck by the ... um.... boldness of the campaign. I could sit down with a few of my vicar chums and we could come up with something witty and memorable and which meant what it said.

"There's probably no God?"

And that's the best they can come up with? That would be like a church commissioning a great big banner to evangelise the neighbours and carefully printing out the words

"Jesus is quite possibly Lord, don't you think?"

or

"Your mother might have been right - someone could be watching"

I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the planning meeting.

So what do you say - in the spirit of Ecumenical good will just prior to Advent shall we give the atheists/agnostics a hand and come up with some better slogans for them? I mean we'd have no scruples about attending a Presbyterian Coffee Morning or sitting on an eco-justice committee with the local rabbi!

The atheists have raised all the money they said they needed and the charity regulator will get all fierce and thump them if they spend much more than they (clearly!) have already on creative work. They need our help!

Approachable? Possibly not....

Yet more hopeless overstatement from a man in a woolly jumper: an article in the Telegraph says that, according to a 'leading theologian', all the regulations forcing clergy to wear robes are clearly out-of-step with the 21st century. Clerical robes reinforce the hierarchies of a bygone age and make clergy less approachable.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, however: "Leading theologian" morphs seamlessly in the course of the article into "Tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford" where the woolly jumper and the beaten down trainers are taken as a sign of holiness and a rich inner life.

Robes, we are told, build barriers.

Bollocks!

My daughter Hannah, aged 16 months sat on the carpet at the back of the church where the then Bishop of British Columbia was decked out in his best duds waiting for the processional hymn to begin. She grabbed a handful of his costly and well-embroidered cope, stuffed it into her mouth and began to chew.

Overdressed or not he seemed palatable enough to her at the time!

The log driver's waltz

Something I'm practising up for this Tuesday's meeting of the Penicuik Folk Music Club.

A Sermon for Sunday
the 19th of October, 2008

Proper 24

The Service can ge found HERE.
The sermon begins at 11:22 on the counter.

Exodus 33:12-23
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22


Wouldn't it be grand if everybody wished you well.

It doesn’t always work out that way. The more we engage with life – the more we open our big mouths – the more we stand up and make ourselves counted the greater the possibility that we will develop a group of people around us who don’t fancy us in the least.

With some of them you can come to an understanding. You can keep out of each other’s way. Others are not so easily persuaded. They’d just as well see us take a dive and if it ended up that they were the ones who gave us a little push well then so be it. It’s like that in business. It’s like that on sports teams, clubs and associations. I wish it weren’t so but it can be like that in community organizations and churches as well. When I was the chief executive of a charitable organization in Montreal I developed a few foes on the board of directors. I remember my father patting me on the back and saying that I’d finally ‘arrived’. If you don’t have a few enemies, he said, you must be doing something wrong.

We are at a point in Jesus' ministry – in this morning’s Gospel reading – where opposition to his ministry has finally crystallized. He now has opponents and they are waiting for one wrong move on his part which will allow them to pounce. They continue to take part in discussions he is having with disciples and enquirers. They are there on the sidelines. Their questions are not designed to enlighten or inform. There is no genuine information being sought out. They are questions designed to trip Jesus up and embarrass him. We see such questions asked in political debates – questions which have passed through a committee before one candidate ever gets to ask them of the other. Questions designed to be unanswerable without cost. We see such aggressive questions asked in civil court as well. In this case the question is asked about the payment of taxes to the occupying Roman government. Is it permissible to pay taxes to your political and religious opponent and still remain faithful? In order to answer the question Jesus asks for a coin to be handed to him. Everybody waits for his answer – much will depend on his answering the question correctly.

I have such a coin at home – a silver denarius. It’s surprisingly small – smaller than a UK penny. My coin has the head of Trajan on it. The coin which Jesus was handed would likely have had the head of the Emperor Tiberius stamped on one side. Printed around the head would have been a few letters – abbreviations, really – which read “Tiberius Caesar – Son of the Divine Augustus”

And so Jesus is being asked here whether or not a piece of propaganda used to proclaim that Tiberius was the son, if not of God, then of 'a god' could be used by Jews, disciples, followers of Jesus or not followers of Jesus to pay their debts. A trap, certainly. What sort of trap is it?

Jesus has been proclaiming the imminent reign of God – the presence ahead of us, around us and within us of the Kingdom of God. It’s something which pious Jews had been expecting in the future but which Jesus proclaims as something which is already being revealed in tantalizing tidbits. It’s within us, or among us or around us but it is definitely present whenever and wherever Jesus is present. But Kingdom is a loaded word. Herod the Great initiated a massacre because of the rumour of a king being born in Bethlehem. When Pilate is asking Jesus whether or not he is a king he has a clipboard out with a piece of paper on it with a question and two little boxes – one of which should be ticked by the questioner: Does the accused claim to be a king – yes or no. At this point the Pharisees are losing patience with Jesus and their relationship with him has passed some sort of threshold a few chapters back. They are no longer his friends and are wanting to set up some situation where he will be either revealed to his own disciples and followers as a fraud or to the authorities as a risk. Much is at stake. Tax revolts were not unknown and the Roman response was swift and deadly.

If taxes can be paid to the emperor using a coin with the emperor’s head and a phrase denoting that the emperor is the son of God or at least the god Augustus then the religious life Jesus must be promoting is a privatised sort of thing which intersects only lightly with the real world. Believe in God and follow me, Jesus might be saying, but let life go on as it usually does. Jesus could then quite rightly be accused of trying to promote a hobby – something which let life go on largely as it did before and his positive answer to the Pharisees’ question – yes, everybody should pay taxes, even my disciples - would reveal this to be the case. Let’s see if he answers yes, say the opponents, and then we pounce.

But if he says no – my followers should not pay their taxes with a coin that declares the Emperor to be the son of God then he’s gone the whole hog with the idea of kingship. He’s like the radicals who have gone before and who have led the nation into disastrous conflict with Rome. His followers are members of a kingdom which is not part of the Roman Empire. Their allegiance belongs to God alone and to the Kingdom of his Christ and not to Tiberius Caesar. We can pass his name on to the relevant authorities. He can be arrested in the night as a tax rebel and a dangerous character. Either way we win. Either way he’s finished. We’ve got him

Jesus hands back the coin. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, he says. Render unto God the things that are God’s.

It’s a trap cleverly avoided. But it’s not merely clever. Our children respond with clever phrases. I said I would do my homework but I didn’t say exactly which homework I would do and when. I said I would clean my room but I didn’t specifically mention the part of my room which is under my bed. Jesus is not merely being clever. He is not merely ‘dodging’ the question.

Jesus has always maintained that the Kingdom is like seed cast into a field. It is like yeast hidden inside a lump of dough. In like manner his followers are cast into the world – are part of village life – are part of the world’s life - unconformed to it but living within it. Eventually, to Pilate’s great frustration, Jesus will tell him that his Kingdom is not of this world. It is not Kingship as the world understands it – neither the authority of the reigning King or the rebellion of a pretender to the throne. Jesus wants no standards, no armies, no coins printed with his face. It is something other.

In this ‘other’ understanding Caesar’s coin will be returned to him to pay for roads and navies – returned freely as something owing him. You will pay your taxes though you are a follower of Jesus and a believer in God. And – in 2008 you will avoid the temptation to withdraw into the close confines of the sect. As Christianity may well have reached Great Britain in the person of Roman soldiers who were Christians so christians from your church will serve as elected councillors in local government. The Christian will wheel out his bins on a Tuesday morning shoulder to shoulder with the neighbour who is not part of the community of faith. We understand not only our responsibilities to the larger civic community around us we understood that it was intended that it be this way – that we be sent forth into the world to bring the message of God’s salvation into the marketplace, the school we attend, the workplace we frequent.

No clever dodge whatsoever on Jesus part but an explanation as much to the disciples as to his opponents that we are more than rebels. We are disciples.

Overheard at coffee time after Church....

In Japan:

- the Origami bank has folded.
- there's something fishy at the Sushi Bank
- The Bonsai Bank is cutting back.

I was holding court in St Mungo's Church on Saturday when the folks there decided that they were tired of me and so they gave me a window to decorate for Harvest. I'm not completely displeased with the results.

Graham Kendrick makes the list!

Though it's the list today in the Daily Mail of the 50 people who ruined Britain.

Hymns such as "Shine Jesus Shine" can be variously described as either 'tepid bilge' or 'really worshipping Jesus'. They've certainly run afoul of Quentin Letts who includes the author of many such hymns on a list of people he holds responsible for Britain's downfall. Mr Kendrick occupies space #39 - between the present head of MI6 and Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister.

Mr Letts' taste in hymnody clearly runs in a different direction

The sturdy hymns of England, musical embodiment of the stoicism, resolve and undemonstrative solidarity of our nation....

In other words 'Jerusalem' or some other old chestnut - the sort of hymns a schoolboy could belt out in full voice while being flogged with a cane at school - back in the days when Britain was great.

Postscript:

Although, in fairness (and with thanks to AsboJesus for mentioning the bloody obvious) Graham Kendrick has not done nearly the damage to Britain over the years that the bloody Daily Mail has done.

A Sermon for Sunday
October 12th, 2008

Proper 23

Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

What do the mice do when the cat’s away? “When the cat’s away the mice will play”. In the French version of the same saying it seems that the mice “dance”. You get the drift. They move the tables and chairs off the floor, put up streamers and turn the stereo on nice and loud. They can’t be trusted.

Any substitute teacher knows what will happen when he leaves a class and wanders down to the office with some paperwork. He can hear the voices begin to mount in the classroom as he takes the first steps away from the door and knows that he’s got only seconds before his class erupts in chaos. If he’s clever, he’ll time the day so that there are no gaps – one activity will follow the other like clicks on a metronome. Keep the children busy and you’ll keep the children happy.

Delay and you’ll only create a vacuum which nature itself or human nature abhors. William Golding’s novel ‘The Lord of the Flies’ shows how in the absence of order and structure new hierarchies will develop among children left to their own devices. We’ll always fill in the gaps. We’ll always make accommodations. We hate to wait.

In our story from the Book of Exodus, which we read this morning, Moses was off on a mountain speaking to God and the people of Israel were left alone. Moses was away. God seemed remote - an idea - a memory. There was absolutely nothing to hand. An agreed common history – brutal though it may have been – had slowly begun to redeem itself in the memory. Where were we, in Egypt? Slavery, yes – but was it so awful, after all? There was food, there was a place to sleep. And the future - what can we say about that? We’re told there’s a land somewhere out there. It’s where we’re going. It’s filled with milk and honey, don’t you know. Milk and honey? Here we are - barely able to find our way and we’re living in the shadow of a promise, an idea, a possibility – something which an invisible God said to a man who isn’t here today. He’s gone and we’re alone. Now there’s a gap which wants filled.

There’s a lot to be said for filling gaps. There’s a lot to be said for accommodating one’s self to reality. We do it all the time. Accepting something less than we once wanted might just be a sign of maturity. Taking stock of where you’re standing and squinting slightly until it begins to look better is one of the things that we find ourselves forced to do. Adapting. Accepting something less with a shrug. As my grandfather used to say: It may be an ugly dog but it’s my dog.

Accommodation. If you can’t accommodate you won’t stay married for long. If you can’t accommodate you’ll never find a church you’re happy to settle in. I know plenty of people who’ve don’t join a church as much as they camp in a series of churches for six months or a year. They’re looking for something grand and they end up with real people with real foibles and a pastor who’s merely human and a roof that leaks. They can’t do it - they refuse to accommodate and so they move on.

You wake up one morning next to the snoring tousled person you married and you reflect how this was not part of the daydream you had. Living with the reality of your marriage, your church, your work – living for that matter with the reality of who you are and have become – requires a degree of accommodation. You jostle your expectations a bit. You make do. You go to work anyway. This is your job. This is your husband – your wife. This is life. It may be an ugly dog but it’s my dog.

But are there limits? Yes I think there are. I think there are dreams, which we need to rediscover when we’ve accommodated too much. When we’ve accommodated ourselves endlessly to a life grown small and stunted. It’s possible to accommodate too much.

The people of Israel out there in the desert go about building their own god. They melt down their jewellery. They make a veal calf out of it and bow down to it. We might not understand that. It doesn’t have a lot of analogues in our own experience. It’s just a thing. It’s the same gold you could fill teeth with or make wedding rings. Like Isaiah says: a man takes a piece of wood and cuts it in two. With one half he builds a fire and warms himself. With the other half he makes for himself a god. Isaiah repeats the same thing three times in case we don’t understand. It’s just a thing. It’s no god.

We have appetites. We cling to groups of like-minded people. We scream at the other team. We are Scots, we are Canadians: we have political or national affiliations. We have preferences in music and art. We’re members of families. We live for our children, we live for our art. We buy lottery tickets. We worry about our health and try to keep ourselves fit. It may not be God but it’ll do in his absence.

There are a lot of things which feel like Grace and which feel like God.

Sometimes we know we’re following the wrong track – sometimes we don't. We may have wrapped ourselves up with the lives of our congregations – with their intrigues and the particular web of relationships and institutions. Churches have a life of their own. "We’re doing our part for the Kingdom of God", we say. There are only a few of us on the Vestry or the Session. Somebody needs to do this. But maybe we forget that our church points to something beyond itself. Beyond the actions and the hymns, beyond the execution of good liturgy, beyond the sermon and the young people’s group, there is the presence of God within and around us. Kneeling there at the altar rail, vulnerable and face to face with the reality of a God who loves us and nourishes us we might need to be reminded that none of these tasks and responsibilities is an end in itself but simply a means. That’s what it’s about. So take your place in the life of the church, fill your shoes as part of the property committee or the altar guild but don’t forget what stands above and beyond all that – remember the invisible reality which underpins all of that and don’t ever let the contingent things of life replace the Eternal things. We’ve accommodated too much – our boredom is showing - and it’s time we raised our sights. We need to look beyond the things that are to hand.

Anxiety and impatience: that’s what drove them to it out there in the desert with their Golden Calf. We live in an anxious and impatient age as well. The smouldering sense of dread is seeps out of our newscasts every evening. We’re meant to believe that this is an age where humans have outlived a personal God and have evolved beyond the revealed religion of earlier ages but what we see is tremendous hunger. We will go to great lengths to fill the gap with something – anything. Genuinely hunger for a relationship with a living God deserves to be satisfied. The tragedy out there in the desert occurred because the people would not wait and allowed something less than God to take his place.

Lift your eyes higher. Be hungry a little longer. Be satisfied with nothing less than the real thing which alone will satisfy.

Taking the lead from a master.....

I got a few words muddled up in yesterdays "Thought for the Day". They were the same words I muddled up while I was practising it so have made a note-to-self to replace anything hard to say before I get in front of a microphone. Clearly I need to take more of a lead from the master himself.

Good advice from Asbo Jesus.