Moderately Important

"One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important."  CS Lewis

I bumped into this quotation from Christian Apologetics at the back end of the summer and I must confess I didn’t like it very much at all. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with it, I agree with CS Lewis as a default setting – the sum of my life’s thinking wouldn’t be a fair exchange for a half-decent paragraph of Lewis. What I didn’t like was it’s diagnosis of my spiritual condition, a soul drifting in the summer sun and allowing the crucial to become the peripheral and vice versa. There is nothing particularly wrong with Test Match Special and a glass of Rioja, but perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to define us.

But having put on my hair shirt and thwacked myself a few times as penance, I noticed the first six words of the quotation above which are often omitted when repeated elsewhere – ‘one must keep on pointing out’. At some time in my past, and possibly yours, there was a season when my innermost being realised that to follow Christ was of infinite importance, life was (gloriously) different from that moment on. There have been various dark times since, and undoubtedly there will be in the future, but at no point have I concluded that Christianity was of no importance, I think that would be too recognisable as a dimension of the spiritual battle. But if I’m honest, living at times as if following Christ was of moderate importance is something I can be fairly accused of. Cranmer, in the Book of Common Prayer, would have us confess our sins of negligence, weakness and deliberate fault. We tend to put our hands up to the deliberate fault stuff – sorry, O Lord, that I kickest the cat verily–  but it’s harder to recognise that subtle negligence and weakness, and it is in this we reduce Jesus Christ to moderate importance. CS Lewis identifies this not as a one-off problem, but as a condition of the church that frequently needs pointing out.

So I point it out to myself again, and I point it out to my brothers and sisters at Malmesbury Abbey, that this isn’t and never was moderately important. And it crucially matters that we make very effort to stay spiritually alive and well this autumn. How vicar? I’m not sure that there is anything new under the sun really: simply engaging each week in corporate worship, serving together in ministry and mission, and allowing some space in our (daily) lives to meet with God, will go a long way to rescue us from moderation. And also not kidding ourselves that spiritual consistency and growth will happen between now and Yule unless we actually make changes to effect it.

‘Who do you say I am?’

Leadership 101: Height

It’s hard to oversee something when you’re crawling underneath it.

In the autumn of 2011 I was granted a three month sabbatical by my Bishop, Extended Study Leave to step back from the relentlessness of ordained ministry, to refresh my thinking on leadership, and to count the grains of sand on an Australian beach. Returning in January 2012 one of the surprising benefits of this disengagement was height. I understand leadership in the church (or anywhere really) to involve the overseeing of people and their life together, both their well-being and their direction - seeing both over and beyond, pastoral and prophetic. But it’s really hard to oversee something when you’re crawling underneath it, and over months and years the organisational dimensions of the pastoral and prophetic can gradually drag you in, making the over-seeing harder and eventually impossible to achieve – effectively ministering as an underseer. (I think I just invented a word.)

I was reminded of this as I crawled over the line this summer, a bit like the injured Olympian I’d seen on the BBC who bravely chose to finish the race even though one of her leg muscles was clearly shot to bits. Breaks from work this year had been curtailed because of significant pastoral matters and early-August was an oasis that couldn’t come soon enough. I was beginning to think that in the Kingdom of Heaven the out of office reply is always on and the answer machine whispers soothingly ‘leave that call to me, you go back to that nice dark room, vicar.’

But two weeks later I have height again. Was it the day on the beach, the lengths in the local pool, the new instalment in the Batman trilogy, or even the theology I enjoyed reading on a sunny, peaceful afternoon? All really, I guess. I think this regained height is a form of the practical, prophetic wisdom which the monk Thomas Merton references:

Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace,

it destroys the fruitfulness of our work

because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

Although we don’t really do ‘frenzy’ in Wiltshire I like his point. His 'root' is my 'height'. I feel taller, I can see differently and I remember two bits of advice which I pass on. First, Bill Hybels saying that the best gift a leader can give to their church is a fully rested and energised self. And secondly, Jason Bourne in Robert Ludlum’s the Bourne Supremacy who points out helpfully to those of us engaged in a spiritual battle that ‘Rest is a weapon.’

Olympic Highlight

Getting quite tired of the constant Golds and Silvers being hung around the necks of GB athletes – this ruling the world is so tedious – and resisting the temptation to call family and friends in Australia and say ‘na, na, na, na, na’, I was surprised and delighted to find a deep but quirky joy in the first round of the women’s 400m hurdles.

Yes, I liked it a little that one of the fastest qualifiers from Jamaica was a Melanie Walker (54.78) – who clearly didn’t, walk that is. I also chuckled that the Liberian athlete who didn’t qualify for the next round, Raasin McIntosh (57.39) clearly wasn’t, racin’, that is. But my joy in the misfortune of another, which is obviously a dark side that I must address at some future point, was taken to higher giggly level altogether by the Bulgarian athlete Vania Stombolova – who did, at the 4^th hurdle. With a surname like that I would have chosen a seated discipline.

Very Present

‘And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'’ Christ bringing to a close both Matthew’s gospel and his Great Commission - the Great Afterthought, perhaps; Jesus the realist anticipating that the church would probably lose its nerve. Perhaps he had an idea that making disciples (his commission) would turn out to be a virtually impossible task, it is, have you ever tried it? I saw a woman crossing the road this morning who I had baptised and could only reflect on how profoundly easy it was to cover her head in water and how profoundly challenging it remains to teach her to obey all the teaching of Christ – this stuff knocks the smugness out of any minister. Jesus, I think, knew that the infant church would need all the reassurance it could get as it stepped out to minister in a godless world; the reassurance that the world is never, ever in fact God-less. I am with you. As the Sons of Korah sang for us in Psalm 46, ‘God is our refuge and strength, our very present help in trouble’. The very presence of God is not just doctrinal to us, it’s a lifeline when our circumstances point to the very absence of God, it’s our courage when our faith has dribbled out our boots. Always, I am with you.

Malmesbury Abbey is experiencing human absence right now. The sad passing of congregational members whose lives we celebrate, but who, although they are now fully present to God, are painfully absent to the life of the church. And we also face the moving on of a key leader, Revd Lee Barnes, who has changed the lives of many and has been at the heart of shaping the mission of the church in Malmesbury – really quite surprising for a Derby County supporter. His vocation to serve from September in the Diocese of Liverpool leaves us with the limp lettuce of his absence as St Mark’s Haydock tucks into the Sunday lunch of his presence. I love change, when somebody observed that ‘change is here to stay’ in the Church of England, I was a happy chappy. But I sometimes wish we didn't have to turn the page quite so quickly; I sometimes wish that those who have so tangibly revealed God’s presence to us didn’t so suddenly leave us.

‘Why have you forsaken me?’ ‘I am with you always.’ These simple words of Christ spoken within a few days of each other point to the fact that we will always have to hold together the tension of presence and absence in our Christian journey. The richer the companionship, the greater the loss. The deeper the springs of God’s grace, the more barren the desert wanderings. To those that have moved on we say simply, job very well done, thank you. To Jesus we gently remind Him in our prayers that He did say ‘the end of the age.’

True Rest

As I, and many others, head off on annual leave over the summer (ha, ha…am I the only person who has grown gills this June?) a thought that as we rest, sabbath, and vacate together - we need to consider both what we rest from and who we rest in. You have probably come across these words at some point…

In repentance and rest is your salvation

In quietness and trust is your strength (Isaiah 30:15)

Beautiful words indeed, the quietness and rest seductive in a frantic world. But Isaiah wasn’t prophesying these words to go directly on to a Christian fridge magnet or to adorn an encouraging tea towel or greetings card. There was chaos in 8^th century Judah, and Isaiah, prophesying into that chaos, was bringing a warning – the word ‘woe’ at the beginning of chapter 30 is probably a clue. The warning was this: if Judah wants to escape Assyria’s threat from the North East, then running into the arms of Egypt in the South West is not going to do her any good at all. In verse 7 he puts it rather bluntly – Egypt ‘is utterly useless, therefore I call her Rahab the do-nothing’. But there is another option…

In repentance and rest is your salvation

In quietness and trust is your strength

…and clearly that is the invitation before the people of God, both then and know. The problem with these two lines is the line that immediately follows… ‘but you would have none of it.’  Seven desperately sad words really.

Judah when faced with the Assyrians fancied propping herself up with Egypt, not the LORD. When in our innermost being there are issues relating to insecurity, guilt, self-worth, rejection, rather than run to God when faced with this quasi- Assyrian onslaught we turn to Egypt for help and prop ourselves up with a myriad of things that include overwork, overspending, overeating and drinking, and illicit relationships and the resulting diminished intimacy in the relationships that actually matter.

The authentic journey to rest this summer begins with repentance not a weather forecast. What am I resting from? Who am I resting in?

England 3 Italy 0

Last Sunday, at the 6.30pm St John the Baptist Patronal service at Brokenborough, I was more concerned than usual with finishing quite promptly and leaving the building before the obligatory cup of coffee, as Messrs Rooney, Parker, Hart and Terry needed me to sing the national anthem and sit with a patriotic glass of English ale and cheer them to glorious victory. In an alternative universe Theo Walcott came on at 60 minutes and scored a breathtaking hat trick as we advanced to the Euro semi-finals on Thursday. In the universe I normally inhabit we lost miserably and predictably on penalties.

But if we had won on Sunday it would have landed me with a big problem, as every Thursday night I ascend from the sofa and actually play sport. Thursday night is always basketball night at the Activity Zone and has been since St Aldhelm started it in the 7^th century. And given the choice to watch England play football or actually play sport myself, well, England would have had to manage without me. Maybe they’d even win.

There is a tide of passivity which we need to keep an eye on. We can too easily settle for watching others sweat and triumph in the sporting arena. We can get totally absorbed in the relational nuances of our favourite soap and miss the relational blessings and challenges of our own lives. And in glorious 3D we can see the world saved from aliens by superheroes when there is plenty the world around needs saving from, and we’re probably the mini-superheroes lined up to do it.

That same dynamic can also rob us of our full participation in the life and worship of the church. As long as others are reading the Bible and reflecting theologically, as long as others are engaging with broken and lost souls, as long as others are passionately praising God in song, as long as others are giving generously, as long as others are meeting and praying and having fun, if all that is going on, well…the church will be just fine. Maybe. But two things: if we don’t inhabit the fullness of what God wants for us we are surely diminished, we are less. And if we are individually diminished, then the church has loss some of its beauty and uniqueness. I shall reflect on this further as I watch Wimbledon.

The Lord's Prayer

Working as an opera singer in the 1980s & 90s I used to receive in the post opera scores with the English translation that we were about to use in a production. For example, the postman would arrive with The Dialogue of the Carmelites from English National Opera (pictured below with Joan Rodgers), The Bartered Bride from Opera North, The Barber of Seville from Welsh National Opera; you get the idea, foreign works performed in English for English punters. Generally it was far easier to sing an opera in the original language, Italian, French or German, but I totally changed my mind on that when singing Janacek’s Katya Kabanova for the Glyndebourne Festival, in Czech. Aaaagh. 

However when the rehearsals started, a gentle negotiation with the director and conductor would begin, as we tried to mould the translation a little closer to the original and make it just a little more singable – e.g. ‘darling’ is closer to the Italian ‘cara’ than ‘dearest’; a more open vowel for that big high note.


I found myself negotiating with the director of the Lord’s Prayer the other afternoon. Playing devotionally with the words as it moved, on this occasion, from being our communal liturgy to being my aria. You may not be able to sing in this key, but I would love it if you would let your imagination loose and post your Lord’s Prayer as a response. This is mine:

I pray to the one who loves me,

the divine Father,

whose name is holiness.

Unleash the dominion of Jesus.

Reveal your will, and draw us to it.

Starve the unholy in me, feed what remains.

Forgive me my ugliness as I choose

to see your beauty in those who come against me.

Drown me in mercy as I dive into sin.

With both hands rescue me from the stench within and the black without.

For all is yours, 

time & existence, heavy glory & and impossible radiance,

all is held together by you. 

Come.