Hooray for Linda, Iain and David: they’ve made it! Huge thanks to them for staying the course and to all those of you who have supported them on the journey. And what a beautiful place for them to ordained in! But you know, I am just SO fickle. Five years ago when I was acting diocesan bishop for St Edmundsbury and Ipswich I was boldly upfront about how the new works at the cathedral at Bury were the best in the country. Three years ago when I was back in Ely as suffragan, I would wax lyrical about the splendour of its world-famous lantern and massive nave. And now, well – just look around you, isn’t Hereford the perfect balance of old and new, beauty and mass, colour and shade? I really have been spoilt by the buildings I’ve bishopped in – but there is a darker side to these big Norman buildings too. The heavily built Romanesque arches were modelled on Roman aqueducts, and cathedrals just as much as castles were massive statements of Norman power. Forget the Romans, they were saying. The Empire: it is us. This means that every cathedral has a job on its hands, to be a place of not just power but prayer. To face up to the fact that without even trying it shouts out privilege and even oppression. I don’t know about here but the locals in Ely once rioted against the bishop, and in Carlisle once you needed to be posh and have a ticket to attend. It’s just how life is, of course, always an unavoidable mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly – and always in need of redemption, which thank God cathedrals like this are in our time fully committed to. But it’s not a task we can take on alone. Our service of deaconing today reminds us that in the end only Christ can redeem and transform the world, and only with the spirit of Christ in us, his character and his heart, can we be effective co-workers with him. “Deacons are ordained so that the people of God may be better equipped to make Christ known. Theirs is a life of visible self-giving. Christ is the pattern of their calling and their commission; as he washed the feet of his disciples, so they must wash the feet of others.” The stole we will set on the shoulders of the deacons today began life as a servant’s towel. The cathedral around us does more than point up the task that lies before us. It also offers us a potent visual aid for some of the key ways in which we must live and act if we are to accomplish it – good lessons for our new soon-to-be-deacons, and good lessons for us all too. I’m going to take my life in my hands now and NOT refer to Herefrod’s mous poet, Thomas Traherne, but to his older contemporary George Herbert – because the physical building of the country church he served (not so different from ours here) was the springing-off point for many of his poems, and even as I started to mentally look around this cathedral to hear its voice for us today, so my memories of how Herbert turned his reflections then into poetry started flooding back. The first image that came to my mind was of the cathedral’s stone floor. Hardly the most-noticed and certainly not the most glamorous of its architectural features. But the surface of its foundations, without which the rest would fall. And yet it allows itself to be walked all over. So we and our deacons are called not to be unwilling doormats – remember we are trying to redeem the misuse of power not perpetuate it – but to be so formed with the character of Christ, so abiding in Him, that we are able to serve others even when our whole temptation is to serve ourselves, even when the cost is very real. “Let the same mind,” said St Paul in our epistle, “be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” Herbert in his poem called “The Church Floor” spelled out what virtues of character that means we should seek to embody: Mark you the floore ? that square and speckled stone, Which looks so firm and strong, Is Patience: And th’ other black and grave, wherewith each one Is checker’d all along, Humilitie: The gentle rising, which on either hand Leads to the Quire above, Is Confidence: But the sweet cement, which in one sure band Ties the whole frame, is Love And Charitie. Deacons then, seeking so to be formed, “are to seek nourishment from the Scriptures; they are to study them with God’s people, that the whole Church may be equipped to live out the gospel in the world. They are to be faithful in prayer, expectant and watchful for the signs of God’s presence, as he reveals his kingdom among us.” And so are we all. Next my mind went to the pillars. How solid and squat they are, taking the pressure of all that is above them without a sound, joining the whole edifice of the church to its foundations. They are there for the good of the whole, just as deacons were first called to be there for the good of the local church community, meeting the needs of the widows and distributing their food. Now note how the pillars we can see, typically for their time, yes have a very solid central element, but gather smaller pilasters around them. So too our deacons are not called to serve alone, but to gather the whole church into a called and serving community of mutual service and care. A community that starts to model the kingdom of God and be a sign to the world of what our wider society could look like if was turned the right way up again. Pray that despite the temptations we began with, we may be such a community. Pray that our deacons may lead us into it as they “lead God’s people in worship, preach the word and bring the needs of the world before the Church in intercession.” Herbert didn’t write about the pillars at Bemerton, but he did write about the calling we share, the same call that came to Samuel and that comes to us now, and about how the Spirit of God more than meets us half-way when we like Samuel say Yes. Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath: Such a Truth, as ends all strife: Such a Life, as killeth death. Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast: Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes his guest. Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joyes in love. Finally, my mind went to the windows. From medieval survivals to High Victorian to the superb Traherne set (there, he is getting an honourable mention after all), the cathedral here is a showcase of saints from biblical times to the present, still speaking words of light to us, still part of our company. Once we have set our foundations, abided and been formed in Christ; once we have heard his call and joined him in taking the load together so that his new community can be built; then we are mobilised to take his good news out to a world in need and draw all that world to him. The succession of saints through the generations never comes to a close. In each generation women and men are called afresh to shine with Christ’s light, and the New Testament is clear that to be a member of the church is to be called to be such a saint. We all have our place in the windows, if we will but accept it. I love the way in which the light shed from these windowed saints doesn’t just illuminate us as we gather here but transforms and enriches us with unexpected spectra of colour. And how magical it is on a winter’s evening, perhaps at Christmas, when the light shines not inwards but outwards, taking that same illumination, offering that same enrichment and transformation to the whole world. That is our third calling, not to keep the blessings we have been given for ourselves, when they will surely go off from long-keeping, but to give them away, knowing that the more we give the more we too will receive as well. So deacons, we will hear, are “called to (be) heralds of Christ’s kingdom. They are to proclaim the gospel in word and deed, as agents of God’s purposes of love. They are to serve the community in which they are set, bringing to the Church the needs and hopes of all the people … reaching into the forgotten corners of the world, that the love of God may be made visible.” We can only do it in and with Christ. Hear Herbert again in his poem on Church Windows: Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word? He is a brittle crazy glass; But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine within The holy preachers, then the light and glory More reverend grows, and more doth win; Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin. We’re back to the towel. Jesus said, “If I, yourLord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’sfeet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done toyou.” Let’s do it, and as we do, let’s remember that Jesus also said he would be with us, with you Linda, Iain and David, with each one of us, securing our foundations, building his church, and shining through us with the light that only he can g David Thomson | July 3, 2019 at 9:25 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/poSLL-3Ko |