VOCATIONAL TALK AT BREAKFAST

A journey of Faith

I am now 66, with a lot of grey hairs. I was born in Windsor, studied at Liverpool for my first degree, and worked as a Social Woker in London before ordination. I continued to study part-time and completed a Master’s degree at Warwick University and a Doctorate at Brafford. I trained for ministry at Westcott House, Cambridge and completed my Curacy at St Mary’s, Abbey Nuneaton.

It was not a smooth journey to ordination despite an early awareness of priesthood as my vocation. When I was at school I was told by my English teacher that I wouldn’t get a job going around talking to people. On another occasion I was not paying full attention during the visit from the career’s adviser. Isiorho, shouted the teacher - Do you know what piece work means? I replied does it have something to do with the Church? Everyone laughed. And the teacher knew he had been upstage and had the good sense to leave it there.

I left school and started to work on my A levels. It was at this time when I first became interested in Church Ministry. So I went to see my vicar who gave me a book all about vocations. He didn’t seem to know much about the procedures which would allow me to explore this further. Eventually, as a result of my own inquiries, I got in touch with the Diocesan Officer for vacations and entered into a number of discussions about what God wanted me to do. During one of these discussions it was decided that I should complete my degree and seek employment in some useful work in order to give me a greater experience of life. So my aspirations for Church ministry were put aside for the time being and I entered into the world of Social Work.

My first job was with disturbed teenagers in a residential treatment unit.

It was a bit like an open prison, for the staff as well as for the young people.

This was a difficult job because it involved split shifts, and I was always working when all my friends were out enjoying themselves. And when I did have time off, they were working. In any event, all I wanted to do during my non-working hours was to sleep. My next Social Work job was with delinquent Adolescent. I soon learnt that this meant working with teenagers who were not only emotionally disturbed, but who got into trouble with the police and the courts. This job was located in a Day Centre. Two thirds of the job involved visting schools and police stations in order to negotiate on behalf of the young people. I preferred this type of Social Work. The hours were better, and I got my own desk. In my spare time I continued my studies and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in applied psychology.

It was at this time that I started exploring the possibility that perhaps I was being called to the Franciscan Ministry and become a Fryer. Well I always liked chips. I visited several Friaries that is not chip shops, and after a period of time was invited to an Aspirant’s Weekend, with the society of St Francis where a decision would be made. And it would seem I was about to be offered a place. But five minutes before the end of the weekend, I just knew I was not going to join the order.

By this time I had a new Vicar who had already told me that he thought my vacation was not to the Franciscan ministry, but to work in the wider church as a priest. I knew now he was right. We spent the next year in preparation in order to attend a selection conference. In the meantime, I had changed my job, from working with teenagers to working with mentally handicapped adults. I enjoyed working with this client group, but also knew when it was time to leave the world of Social Work and to go to theological college.

The selector’s decision that I should train for the ordained ministry in the church of England was an important turning point. At long last, the Church was giving expression to my felt sense of vocation. At last I would be able to serve Jesus Christ and the people of God as a Priest. I was ordained deacon in July 1990 and priested in June 1991. It was at my deaconing that I met my wife, Linda. Linda and I came separately to ordination from similar but distinct backgrounds within the caring professions. Linda was eventually also ordained a priest, but we didn’t work together as we wanted to stay married.

I believe that the Rector’s ministry is to the whole community and is the meeting point of many Ministries. And that visibility is a key word. The number of clergy is dwindling. So it is very important that priests are out there among the people maintaining a high profile for the Church to witness the embodiment of the risen Christ. Our witnesses is valid and righteous because Jesus is everything to us, giving us life, filling it with love and setting us free from sin that we might live in his love. May the incarnate God take the work of our hands and let good come of it. May God take our lives. Give us peace and renew us in his blessed service. So I understand Mission as heart speaking to heart across the suffering of the human condition. It is a tiny movement of the spirit in local places, where the members of the Church take others under their wing, just as the everlasting God has us all under God’s enduring wings. But we seek to lead all to Christ by church contact with the wider community and see this as an important party for a much larger process of Church growth. This may take many years to realise. But we are the people of faith. And this in the faith of Christ Jesus by which we continue this important work. So I see ministry in Loggerheads as a partnership between Clergy and People in which we do Ministry Together in Christ.

Colossian 2. 6-7

‘As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.’

Conclusion

I am going to conclude this talk with a Poem on Priesthood by Stuart Henerson. The poem is called Priestly Duties. It certainly raises the question can a sense of humour be part of Prayer and Ministry? This poem would certainly suggest that it can.

Priestly Duties

What should a priest be? All things to all – male, female and genderless. What should a priest be? Reverent, yet relaxed, vibrant, in youth, assured through the middle year’s, divine sage when ageing. What should a priest be? Accessible yet incorruptible, abstemious, yet full of celebration, informed, but not threateningly so and far above the passing soufflés of fashion.

What should a priest be? An authority on singleness. Solomon-like on the labyrinth of human sexuality, excellent with young marrieds, old marrieds, were marrieds, never marrieds, shouldn’t have marrieds, those who live together, those who live apart, and those who don’t live anywhere respectfully. Mindful of senior citizens and war veterans, familiar with the ravages of arthritis, osteoporosis, post-natal depression, anorexia, whooping-cough, and nits.

What should a priest be? All-round family person, counsellor, but not officially because of the recent changes in legislation, teacher, expositor, confessor, entertainer, juggler, good with children and possibly sea-lions, empathetic towards pressure groups.

What should a priest be? On nodding terms with Freud, Jung, St John of the Cross, The Scott Report, the Rave Culture, The Internet, the Lottery, BSE and Althea Turner. Pre-modern, fairly modern, post-modern, and, ideally, secondary-modern (but only if called to the inner city).

What should a priest be? Charismatic, if needs must, but quietly so, Evangelical, yet thoroughly Catholic, mystical but not New Age, Liberal, and so open to other voices, Traditionalist, reformer and revolutionary, and hopefully not on medication unless for an old sporting injury.

Note to congregations:

If your priest actually fulfils all of the above, and then enters the pulpit one Sunday morning wearing nothing but a shower-cap and a fez, and declares ‘I’m the King and Queen of Venus, we shall now sing the next hymn in Latvian, take your partners please’ – let it pass. Like you and I they too sew the thin thread of humanity. Remember Jesus in the garden – beside himself?

So, what does a priest do? Mostly stays awake at Deanery Synods, tries not to annoy the Bishop too much, visits hospices, administers comfort, conducts weddings, christenings - not necessarily in that order - takes funerals, consecrates the elderly to the grave, buries children, and babies feels completely helpless beside the swaying family of a suicide.

What does a priest do? Tries to colour in God, uses words to explain miracles which is like teaching a millipede to sing but more difficult. What does a priest do? Answers the phone when sometimes they’d rather not, occasionally errs and strays into tabloid titillation, prays for His Majesty’s Government. What does a priest do? Tends the flock through time, oil and incense would secretly like each PCC to commence with a mud-pie making contest, sometimes falls asleep when praying, yearns, like the rest of us, for heart-rushing deliverance.

What does a priest do? Has rows with their family, wants to inhale Heaven, stares at bluebells, attempts to convey the made love of God, would like to ice-skate with crocodiles and hear the roses when they pray.

How should a priest live? How should we all live? As priests transformed by The One Priest, that death prised open so that he could be our priest martyred, diaphanous and matchless priest. What should a priest be? What should a priest do? How should a priest live?

Let us pray,

God, the fountain of all holiness, you gave many talents to your Saints on earth and now in heaven you crown them with glory.

Let their fellowship inspire your people, so that each of us in our vocation as Christians may lead a life worthy of our calling.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.