The God of Surprises

Last weekend, a rather wonderful thing happened. No, I am not referring to 

       (all glory laud and honour)
Palm Sunday though that was pretty special as always
        (it never seems to rain on Palm Sunday, either).
This year, our Hosannah-ing was followed by the baptism of two youngsters. It should have been a two-family-four-kid baptism week but one of the families cried off with chicken-pox, which is unfortunate. Our prayers
        (and calamine)
are with them at this time. No, what was wonderful was something that was entirely new to me in my modest professional Christian ministry, and also unheard of in the somewhat longer
        (and levitous)
ministry of my brother priest, now retired and a great asset to the parish! 

The two children being baptised were themselves from a clutch of four, and I was dousing Number Two and Number Four - number one was 'done' already and Number Three resolutely refused to be involved! Number Four was a babe-in-arms and Number Two was a 
        (very well turned out)
lad of about 9 or ten years of age. And so it was: we went Declaring and Promising and we even agreed to fight the devil, corruption and evil
        (no theological dilution needed in Whitton, thank you)
and then anointed Two and Four with the usual aplomb and style. The godparents were resplendent and were duly thanked for their service to the ... well, service and returned to their seats for the Half-Time Entertainment - the Collection. Suitably frisked by two youngsters, the assembled throng
        (as distinct from 'thong' which is something else altogether)
turned on their heels to face The Font for the Main Event - the Baptism of Two and Four. 

Suitable quantities of pre-warmed
        (cold is simply anti-social)
living water was poured, tested and blessed - and so it was that Number Four was gently held under my arm 
        (not unlike a rugby ball)
and received the appropriate aspersion. Number Two, being bigger therefore heavier, was trapped and held
        (rather like a jousting thing at a joust)
over The Font and was granted spiritual and fluid entry into the Faith of Our Fathers. Job done a good'n! 

And then it happened. Number Three
        (formerly agin the whole enterprise)
shimmied up, the way one does in a pew-bound church, and asked if she could be baptised. "Yes" I said, "but I haven't got my diary, so I will have to talk to mummy". No, mister, I meant now - right this minute
        (yes, Revd Imaginationless the Un-Creative, Vicar of Failing to Spot Gift Horses)
while we are here, if you please. Well, thought I to myself, what to do. What would Canon Law make of all of this
        (and should I care?)
so I did the only decent think and press-ganged three new Godparents, sent for the oils and did what any right minded cleric would do, and baptised her before she changed her mind!

A spontaneous baptism! It doesn't much better than that!

Having Their Cake and Blessing It

Before I start, apologies for the lengthy absence. It has been a period of time characterised by spending time away from home for all sorts of reasons, though chief of which was our week away in Wales. Lovely, ennet!

I have returned to the Blog in fine fettle, rested and ready for the steady acceleration to the festival of moment of the birth of Jesus; you know, Christmas and all that! For me, that will bring with it my beloved mince pies, my less beloved Away in a Minger but the overall sense of fluffy red and gold that insinuates itself into every fleeting thought. Nice. 

I have also returned to this Blog with a bee in my bonnet (and having been to Wales, have mastered the art of saying "bumblebee" in the Welsh accent. Stonking). I digress. I witnessed something today that annoys me, believe it or not. 

I am a priest, a vicar, a God botherer - a worker for the Lord. When I am asked to officiate over a funeral, I think it is reasonable for the mourners to expect that I will lob in the odd prayer, a little Bible if you will, and allude to the resurrection somewhere. Some may, in line with a trend I am fast disliking, expect me to use the death of their nearest and dearest to sell my church as a value-added to death. Either way, the funerials will be Christian, overtly, proudly and honestly. 

Then you get the Humanists, disciples of none less that Archbishop Dawkins (whose existence I refuse to accept). Their book, Funerals Without God, sets a clear scene for the punters. You will get a funeral without God (though interestingly, they refer to "God" as distinct to "a god" or funerals "without a make-believe deity" which is different - and means that they must have a view of the God I have a view on). If I went to a Humanist funeral (as distinct from the more honest and upfront civil ceremonies), I might expect some secular poetry, Elvis and happy reminiscence. 

Imagine if Reverend Father David Cloake pitched up without a collar (no, scrap that - some don't), without a Bible, placed a goat atop the box and catafalque, slit its throat and let it die as a blood offering to Grunthos the Flatulent. Imagine if I presided over a funeral service without speaking of the Lord at all. You'd have every right to kick my reverential butt!

Today, I witnessed a sharply dressed Humanist high-priestess (ordained into the church of Dawkins) offer Jewish blessings - truly. I have heard of Humanists employing the Lord's Prayer in their "ceremonies" (you know the one, Our Father, the one in Heaven, yada yada be His name). I saw her directive to the staff of the very nice crematorium asking them, at a future service, to pause to give people time for their prayers. She played Ave Maria (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee). If this were retail or business it would surely breach trading standards. 

The thing is, I find the lack of integrity offensive. If people asked me for a funeral sans-God, I would have to decline. It is the right thing for me to do. If I were to stand up as a Humanist but invite invocations of a God I protest as delusion, I would be acting immorally. Simply put, it seems that they want their cake and to bless it. I would have far more respect for a group of people who told me I was delusional and therefore mentally unwell (for it is, I am sure, what they think) if they didn't then profit from our sentiment, literature and sacred texts.  At least true atheists have the honour to talk of God as I might be inclined to talk about pink elephants - which is to say that in either case, they just wouldn't arise in a conversation. 

Moments of Perfect Clarity

This time of the year is special for many ordained people as it is Petertide (more or less), the time when many of us were ordained. Already I am considering the fourth anniversary of my Making as a Deacon, the third of my Ordination to Priesthood and they have been the best of times.

The very grave issue with blogging is that as an activity it can become a spittoon or else the residue of the rumination - which it to say that we use our blogs to whine, grumble and work though our minor psychoses. Mine is no exception, although I have tended to rant less than in previous years. It struck me how I log on to complain, and rarely to celebrate in that unfettered way that we Brits find so hard. Christian Brits do celebration with an ecstasy of self-apology like so other race on Earth. 

Earlier this week, and not for the first time since my own 'moment', I was privileged to be present for the First Mass of a new priest. For those of us of a sacramental disposition, such a Rite is in many ways the perfect pinnacle of priestly experience, the best of things. One's First Mass is a stunning balance of abject terror and child-like excitement, all bound up in the person of one who feels oddly fraudulent placing a chasuble over their heads, let alone waving arms around in a liturgical way. 

First Masses represent different things. By their very nature they are perfectly crafted and long-planned affairs with every facet and movement of ceremonial designed and intended. A new priest is so terrified that each step and gesture is deliberate, considered and executed with precision. The music is often from the heart of the new priest so a provision of such wonder and true authenticity, it is almost as if the spirit of the priest him/herself is singing for us. Family and dear friends, supporters well-wishers, observers and guests - all turn out to make First Masses fully populated and thereby buzzing with the tension that the Spirit sees fit to imbue such gatherings with. In short, you will see a priest presiding his/her heart out, and a priest almost certainly a sixteenth of an inch from tears all the way through (or else closer than that in my case). From within and without, First Masses (for those who do them) are the absolute summit of all that a priest regards as special before God. 

For those of us who bear witness to such events (I include ordinations in that), these Rites of Priestly Passage do something very deep within us. They remind us. They simply do that. They remind us why we accepted God's call. They re-affirm in us the absolute and complete rightness of accepting that call and making all the sacrifices in life that such acceptance demands. We feel again that feeling we had in our hearts when it was our time to process in to our own Masses or ordination - that sense of bewildering joy and trembling uncertainty. More usefully perhaps after the fact we are reminded of how wonderful this job is - how perfect, how it is more than we could ever hope for or dare dream ourselves capable of. Even in the context of the Stuff of Grumbles, we are given moments of perfect clarity as to why we are who we are - priests and ministers in God's Church. 

So to Fr Andrew next door, and all ordinands, deacons and priests all about to pass or have just passed through these exquisite moments of the greatest joy we can know - my prayers to you, your families and those who support you in your ministries. May the Lord be with us all. 

George Carey Gets Lairy

Courtesy of paulvallely.com

Those of you who know me know well what I think of anything that smacks of passive-aggression. It is a scourge, a curse and a flim-flammery - the shadow in the blogosphere and the peril that threatens the very credibility of Christianity in this country. There is nothing worse than an individual or organisation licking its non-existent wounds and baying like a wounded puppy in the wake of injuries that just don't exist. 

I am a loyalist, as you know. I respect the place and persons of the episcopacy, and regard myself as duty-bound by my Orders to respect those in ecclesial authority. I am not one who comfortably launches invective at senior bishops! But I will make an exception ...

It is Easter. It is a time of joy, hopefulness, new life, bursts of new faith, and all-round rapturous happiness in the lives of us God-botherers. My church was full this Easter, literally. The God of the Resurrection is all mighty, all powerful, all loving, has the plan sorted, can be trusted, knows what He is doing, built things like mountains and stars and that, and on the whole is not going to be easily supplanted. Oh no - not one bit of it. 

And yet my Lord and sometime Archbishop of Canterbury perceives a threat to it all. From the secularists who seem to want it all their own way, apparently. George says 'no'. Once again, it seems that the entire Missio Dei hinges on whether some lovey wears her crucifix on the outside of her uniform rather than under it. It seems that God's entire universal purpose in the whole of Creation is threatened when people are stopped from unilaterally imposing their own theologies on others. Want to do something? Only if I agree with your moral fibre, sir! Then I will allow you. 

What the world needs is love, love, love. The Christianity in England that will die is a Christianity that imposes its rights before love. The Christianity that will die in England is the Christianity that says 'our way or the highway'. Christianity in England will die when our Gospel message is contingent on one soul wearing a piece of jewelry as a definitive sign of belief and fights tooth and nail when that company or organisation (who pays them a salary , but let's no quibble over details) chooses to disagree (as they do for all such baubles). Whining in public about how hard-done by we are is a sure fire way of saying that God and all God's enormities are somehow threatened by the whiles of Secularists and Dawkins type folk. It is the same, exactly the same, as a heavy-weight champion boxer complaining that a toddler just hurt him with a slap on the shins. 

Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia - and His church is as alive, vital and unapologetic as ever it was (save for a few individuals who know not how to pick their fights - who are making us look marginally stupid)

God in a Box

This is not a post about Aumbries, before you ask!

It is a matter of some mirth in our community that our friends from Zimbabwe always arrive for services late. Once, I was asked to bless the marriage of a wonderful couple, and to perform that ceremony at Noon on a given Saturday. At 12.05pm, I was to be found in the church kitchen making myself a coffee, which I then savoured for the next half an hour in an empty church before even husband and wife arrived, let alone the supporting cast!

On most Sundays, at the point when I have completed my little round of pre-Mass chores and preparations and toddle off to robe, the church looks empty. That would be four minutes before we process in. By the the time the first note of the first hymn thunders forth, the church is half full. By the end of the Collect, it is normally well packed. For us that is normal. 

My Boss and I are invited to a celebration in September, which starts at 2pm I think. He has been invited to given Opening Prayer at 4pm. You get the idea. 

We are all quite open about it. Leg pulling happens on both sides, but I thought I would consider this more fully in preparation for the aforementioned Mass last week. 

I am one for promptness. To be honest, I get the proper hump when someone is late, and I get an ever great cob on if I am the one who is late. On time-keeping, I have a minor OCD (though my Training Incumbent may at times be forgiven for thinking that I perhaps cope rather well with 'cutting it fine' - something I am guilty of all too often). It is another Western thing, added to by the likes of Gina Ford as modern parents are guided to raise their children by absolute meticulous routine (finally, I can blame that woman for something). Same for our faith and its expression.

8am Holy Communion

9.15 Morning Prayer

10am Sung Eucharist

6pm Evensong

We have made our faith a matter of appointment. We give God an hour here and an hour there - though we make sure that we are on time, of course. There is a danger, thereby, of placing God back in his box for the rest of time as we toddle off to the next appointment for which we must of course be on time. It is a Western thing. 

But not an African thing. As I said last week, if we give God time by appointment only, then they give him the time between waking and  ... waking. They are never late for a service, simply because they started their worship and praise many hours before we did. 

Voting for God

As I sat in Lincoln Cathedral yesterday, listening to a sermon being delivered by the Dean, Philip Buckler, something that he said stuck (which is an achievement given that I have been coated with a rather embarrassing Sermon Teflon). He spoke of the appetite that the world has to seek an elected God. 

He was, I think, referring to the proliferation of the Western Ideal - democracy, and how we apply that to our faith. As he commented, we judge God's 'electability' on the basis of the Bums-On-Seat Quotient - which is to say, that if church  numbers go down (as they seem to, sadly) that God is somehow failing in the approval ratings. We are, step by little step, moving towards a Bruce Almighty scenario (the Dean didn't say that bit, I hasten to add). 

I blame Richard Dawkins who, oddly, seeks to take the proverbial knife to the proverbial pistol fight, claiming that our pistols don't exist and that he left with the only viable alternative, that we is all dead and the duel is done. Silly man. What he has done, though, quite skillfully, is to make God's existence contingent on our belief and our willingness to stand up and vote. Ergo, God exists because Christians defend Him/Her - ergo, if they didn't God wouldn't. You get the idea. 

Christians are celebrating the Holy Trinity at this time. Like so many things, (or indeed all things when we talk of matters of faith), we are pinning our beliefs on the innately un-provable. There is nothing specifically scriptural that 'proves' that the Trinity exists. The three-in-one idea is a human construct, born of a desire to understand our faith, draw into a closer relationship with God and to piece together the God who makes Him/Herself known to us in light touches throughout all ages. Let us not forget too that we can no more 'prove' the Trinity, or indeed God, than we can the wind. We know of both because of their effect upon other things. Those things that are separate to God, the Trinity and to wind (Heb 'ruach', the other name for the Holy Spirit) are the only things that point to the 'inner truth' or existence of them.

But I digress. There have been times when, in arguments with my wife or an employer, that they have claimed not to believe me. Fine, I would retort - the truth is not dependent upon your belief, and that you don't believe doesn't mean that I am not telling you the truth. Much as it annoyed them no end, it is the basic perspective that I hold in matters of the faith. Professor Dawkins may wish to spend him life telling the world that God-believers are deluded, but God is not injured or enhanced by a single believer. God is. Christians should be aware of the danger, though, of being drawn into a 'prove it' argument. Confessions of faith are part of what we are and what we are called to do - but not because of trickery or the subterfuge of those who claim no belief. After all, our confessions are of faith - and the harder we try to 'prove', the greater our failure. I do not live a moment of my own life to prove God's existence. What I am called to prove is that I love God, and I can only do that by living my life in that light. 

And what if God were outvoted? Would he leave us all to our own devices and switch out the lights? 

Heaven forbid.

God and The Mis-Selling of Insurance

I have been thinking a bit about the church and her life, like you do! In the midst of this ruminating, the echoes of a statement were bouncing around "Jesus is for life, not just for Christmas". It is also at a time when I consider all matters financial, in a personal setting, and in particular that very best of things - insurance. 

My life is insured for a few shekels, which means of course, that if I were to shuffle off my mortal coil, Mrs Acular will be able to treat herself to a new dress. I have choices. Do I wish to up the premium, so that Her Indoors can get new shoes as well, at the time of my demise? I opted to deny her this option, at this stage. But what if I get poorly? Will I need another insurance policy to pay the window cleaner when I am festering in bed? And what if I am really ill, and I mean more than man-flu (if such a terrible condition has been discovered yet)? There is an insurance for being not just poorly, but very poorly. 

We think about insurance for the nasties in life. We want to boost our immunisation against financial ruin in the event that something in life goes adrift - like bouncing the car off of a wall, having ones gadget dropped in a toilet, the possibility that the last payment for the cooker isn't met through some act of fate. For the benefit of a sermon that I once preached, I had discovered that I was the proud owner of not five, not ten, not twelve, but of fourteen separate and distinct insurance policies. The total cost of the premiums would have bought me a Mercedes Benz - and we all do it. 

And so back to "Jesus is for life, and not for Christmas". The world has a tendency to use God as the Celestial Insurance Policy. Christians do it too. In the good times we are apt to drift from a rigorous church attendance - and after all, games of golf are important to golfists, even on a Sunday! We are in danger of regarding God as Critical-Illness Cover and not a Full-life policy (this is illustrative, by the way). I have a great belief that our Christian faith and practice be our way of life, not a bolt-on extra. So many of us (and in this I can exclude myself, for perhaps obvious reasons - and not because I am an Angel) go to work and never speak of our faith and all that we hold dear, instead dosing up up insuring against the ill-winds of our life, in private. Sometimes, in my less charitable moments, I start to blame those bibles that give you a page number in the event of a given trauma? Suffering from Psoriasis? p867. Your iPad failed to sync? p461 - you get the idea. 

Whilst it is understandable that we turn to God most fervently in the [mostly sad] salient moments of our life, it is not the best relationship that we can have with Our God. I have been guilty of the same, so speak as one who has no room to judge. I am glad, though, that God does not do the same. 

Technology and God

A Liturgical Luddite I may be, but in a wider church context I am the nearest you will find to a techno-geek. I am unusual, as a priest, or indeed as an English Christian, in that I use Twitter, I write a blog and I manage a Facebook page. I know more priests who don't do any of these things than those who do any, let alone all, of them. In the diocese where I minister, I am fortunate that one of our bishops (+Alan, of blogging fame) led the way for Christian bloggers, and was then an early Twit. It made a difference to me about what may be viewed as 'acceptable', and before the example set by Bp Alan, this social media lark would have existed way out of that circle of acceptability in my mind - quite wrongly.

Increasing time is being spent by people interacting with the world around them by way of computer technology. Once, a computer was a Space-Invaders Box or a mainframe in a large building somewhere. Now, we can hold the capacity of those mainframes, hundreds of times multiplied, literally on the tip of our finger. It seems that more and more of the expression of industrialised humanity is to be found through an electronic device of one sort or another. This has to have an impact on all aspects of life, including its spiritual side.

Instinct would lead many Christians to a perceive technology as 'against' God. Technological advance connects people in many ways yet enables that in a profoundly disconnecting way. I can talk (literally or figuratively) to hundreds of people but without leaving the house, if I so chose. This can be viewed favourably or not, though I am now tending towards the positive these days. I am now in touch with a far wider sphere of people than ever before, and people who edify me and improve my life and aid my thinking in many good ways.

I have been musing this for a while now, and with the aid of Twitter and other 'streams of consciousness' have gathered much about the ways that technology and the implicit theologies of our Christian lives are beginning to fuse meaningfully. At a recent gathering called 'Thinking Digital Conference' (not a thing I attended, but followed its Twitter stream, so the next best thing) I saw a great deal about what the possibilities are for that fusion. There will be another gathering, Open Source at Pentecost Festival 2011 that will attend to this very subject. For this blog post, though, a couple of my own thoughts in splendid isolation:

Distinctiveness of Spirituality - A matter that was covered at TDC was, more or less, the possibility of a 'man space' (though not in any religious sense, but it got me thinking). I think that it is possible to talk about distinctiveness of gender spirituality without falling headlong into the debates on ordination and consecration, and to throw the baby out with the bathwater would be sad. The simple fact is, my experience of loving God is rooted entirely and squarely in my own existence as a male of the species. For well over a decade I have felt a very slight need to apologise for being male in the church and whilst I understand why other balances need to made, feel very strongly that our matriarchal church (which it is, at ground level) has left little space for male spirituality. You have Mother's Onion, World Women's Day of Prayer, WATCH - but I cannot name a group purely for men. We just daren't. This is a sad thing, but one that is increasingly superseded by technology where we can 'App' our lives as we wish. Technology allows us such levels of mutual individuality that we can be who we are without impinging on the rights of others to do the same. I love women, women in the church, women running the show if they wish - but I have never once wanted to give up being a man, or to be proud of the spirituality that I have been given. 

Infectiousness of the Gospel - This is very much 'my thing'. I have said here and elsewhere on numerous occasions that Christians are infected with the 'virus' of the Gospel. By any and all means necessary I will communicate that virus as widely as I can, and technology allows that in ways that are still not fully clear. The thing about "mission" that I dislike is how contrived and deliberate it seems to me. It seems, at times, to be exploitative and I don't favour that approach at all. Like a virus, I can no more force a person to become infected of the Gospel that I can of the common cold, with trying among some anti-social behaviours. However, I try to be authentically me (see above for the means), and through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I seem to attract people to the Gospel without making a specific effort. I yap to all sorts on Twitter under the name @FrDavidCloake, and if I can be normal, fun, humourous, grumpy, angry and all those other things that normal people do under this label, then the world can know that at least this part of the church and its Gospel is not beyond reach in some holy cavern somewhere. 

Accessibility -  A little while ago I wrote an essay on a very narrow little topic that means nothing to almost anyone except me and the essay marker. However, I experimented with technology and its preparation. I had no books on the subject at hand, and I had no real idea what I needed to say, but the internet grants us all such considerable access to every conceivable theology and theologian. I could cite Augustine of Hippo, other Early Fathers in their native languages. I could access any number of versions of the Bible and commentaries (from all centuries) to match them all. I could translate into languages long lost or translate from them. I could find scholarly works that were written mere months ago. I did the essay, and only got brought up for not using physical books. Defence rests, m'lud. I know that millions of Christians (and non) are delving into the internet to edify their seeker experience. Technology allows people to learn and therefore to teach things that until recently were lost in books only to be found in libraries or vicarages. We can teach our children the Gospel in ways I wouldn't have been able to dream of even a decade ago. Beyond this, and through social media specifically, we can discuss our thoughts with spheres of people and indeed experts from all over the world. I have never for a moment thought that God had wanted all his God-stuff to be a privileged secret for the practitioner minority - and now it never will be again.

In general, technology and social media grant many people a 'way in' to theology, praxis, dialogue and even belief and discipleship. That a priest of limited education but of all faith can write words that mean something to people in Angola (this I know to be a fact), then God has a use for me I hadn't even predicted at ordination. This is the tip of a very large iceberg and I would welcome opinion. However, without technology and social media, God's plan for me would never have found life.