Scars and bruises

Dear friends

We each of us bear the marks of our existence, both in our spirit and in our flesh. The longer the time we are granted on this earth the more of these testimonies we accrue. Some are given to us – like war wounds – and some we choose to carry ourselves. Everyone’s story is unique and so it follows that their pattern of pain is different too. I have a small scar on my face from where I was assaulted as a student in 1984. More positively, my wedding ring has made a groove on the fourth finger of my left hand.

It is the same for businesses and institutions. The longer they have been around, the greater the trauma they will be carrying. Drivers of Porsche cars this week will be wondering if their model is one of those to be recalled to check the wheels aren’t going to fall off. Hardly a moment of glory for the company. Porsche owners might be less aware of the company’s enthusiastic engagement with the Nazi war machine of 1940’s Germany; the engineering brilliance of Ferdinand Porsche, their founder, being offset on the scales of eternal merit by his membership of the SS and friendship with Hitler.

The resignation  of Archbishop Justin Welby last week reveals another scar on the long suffering body of Christ that is the Church of England. This being the hideous legacy in damaged lives left by the sadist John Smyth, finally brought into the light by firstly Channel 4 in 2017, and recently by the long overdue Makin report. For me, it is interesting that the media have majored on the silence of the church authorities over the years, which, while disgraceful, nevertheless tends to overlook the fact that the Iwerne summer camps were ostensibly a para-church movement, with private trustees upon whom the legal responsibility of oversight fell. Winchester College, and also any barrister colleagues of Smyth’s chambers, should take note. Archbishop Justin cannot possibly in himself bear the whole responsibility for the sins of this man, and the sins (of omission) of the other networks in which he slithered. But the Archbishop can, and has bravely done so, take responsibility for his small corner of the world, which, when it knew (in a few cases, shamefully long ago,) chose silence and containment in a bid to keep the wheels on.

The Lord of Hosts in Glory already has the full picture, whether that is the story of my scars, or the abuse, corruption and coercive control still endemic in all parts of our society.  I am confident that God still loves his church, not because it has priests and bishops, nor because it has been around a long time, but because, for all its wounds, it is made up of people from this fallen world, which Christ has told us God so loves. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross and “by his wounds we are healed”. (Isa 53 5-6). I am aware that this will sound like a pious platitude to those whose trust has been betrayed and who have felt abandoned for many years. The challenge for anyone who bears a mark of pain is to learn to love and trust again. For me the hatred that resulted in my small scar is more than outweighed by the love symbolised by the groove on my finger. The challenge for the church as an institution is not to be tempted by the scandal to default to a culture of pathological mistrust, which is as near to self reliant atheism as I can possibly imagine.

Worship Services for Sunday 24th November Christ the King

9.30am Holy Communion at St John’s Stoke Row with Revd Romey Poston

11am Holy Communion at St Peter and Paul, Checkendon with Canon Kevin Davies.

Midweek zoom service: Wednesday Evensong at 5.00pm  410 935 129

Save the Date(s)!

You can count this as a reminder to get your Christmas baking underway, but, primarily this is to invite you to the Coffee and Mince Pie morning in Checkendon Village Hall from 10-12noon on Saturday 7th December. A great chance to catch up with friends and neighbours, hosted by Checkendon Church. Stalls, and, for enthusiasts of all ages, the model railway will once again be running. All aboard!

Secondly the dates of all services for Advent and Christmas around the Team are now on the Team website. Please follow the link, with your diary in hand. If you would like a pretty poster of the Christmas Services at Checkendon to print out and stick up at home, you can download it here, with my compliments.

Lastly, do join us for holy communion on Sunday. The liturgy has, in my view, the most apposite “post communion” prayer of the year, being a version of one in the old prayer book which it is highly likely Thomas Cranmer wrote “on request”. You’ll know it. There aren’t “stage directions” for it, but mentally I always see “with gusto” in shining gold letters above the text….

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

May God bless us all, and hold us in his love.  Your Rector, Canon Kevin.