EDL Aylesbury: wingnuts lock down

Day out in Aylesbury with Frs Shane Wood and David Cloake, as the EDL came to town. Lord knows why Aylesbury, but the day demonstrated clearly the strength and cohesion of the town, in the face of major frustration and annoyance. However unwanted it all was, it did bring people together. I spent the day on walkabout with visits to the TVP Silver Command, Jamia Ghausia Mosque, and Young People’s activities at CGS in Southcourt, among other places.

The tiny but good humoured UAF event at Vale Park, whilst basically irrelevant, was no bother at all. The EDL have been trying to build numbers on their outings, so will doubtless be disappointed by a modest turnout. There was only one public order arrest, with a small number of others for offensive weapons and, inevitably perhaps, one drunk and disorderly EDL member. There’s always one. The day demonstrated great patience, professionaism and good humour from our police and emergency services. An Al Jazeera reporter commented, on the basis of experience all over the world, on the “gentlemanly” way TVP had approached a pretty daunting task.

Above all, the day saw a basically good humoured, cohesive community cope, mainly cheerfully. Most people, wisely, stayed away. I feel really sorry for the town’s small traders, innocent people, who have lost thousands of pounds so that EDL could indulge their ignorance and insecurity in public.

One or two aspects of the day struck me as quintessentially Engish.

• We believe passionately in free speech, in the town John Hampden and John Wilkes served as MP’s. This particular exercise cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions, taking into account lost income to local businesses on a bank holiday weekend. If EDL’s views reflected local reality, they wouldn’t have to bus in people from all over the land. The 50 odd EDL members in the town can’t be expected to cough up the £20-30,000 each their antics have cost their neighbours, I suppose, but the idea was, understandably, expressed by various locals during the day. Balancing the right to free speech against the right to get on with your life unmolested was the original wingnut dilemma I discussed last week, and things seems to have worked out relatively peacefully, if unfairly weighted against local traders.
  
  
• The power of Twitter was demonstrated interestingly when silly rumours started up mid-aftermoon that someone had firebombed the mosque — this on the back of various tales on the streets about stabbings in the town over the previous few days — all rubbish. Enough is enough, so Fr Shane and I went down to Havelock Street for a very English Nice Cup of Tea with the Mosque president, a photo of which we tweeted straight out, to demonstrate that we weren’t actually in a war zone. Samosas followed soon after.
  
  
• As the EDL went home (by way of some high jinks in Morrison’s car park) I noticed boarding coming down from the Green Man in the Market Place.
  
  Like Noah’s dove returning to the ark, this was the first true sign of normality’s return, and it was great to have a pint in there as it reopened at 6·00. Nice pint, too.
  
  
• A more public all-clear came at 7·00, as bellringers met at St Mary’s to ring the Church bells. A couple of bottles of Champagne were opened and shared. The mp3 below records the happy sound of some changes rung, along with a small amount of associated ribaldry. “Thanks,” said one local resident. “This means we’ve got our town back.”
  

Why ordination? Why today?

I was overjoyed to ordain three stipendiary Petertide priests for Buckinghamshire at St Mary’s Aylesbury on Sunday evening. In an age where everything seems consumer driven, functional and changing, Western churches can easily lose the script about the meaning of ordination. I gave the candidates some words from the Evangelical theologian and translator Eugene H. Peterson:

The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shop-keepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shop-keepers’ concerns — how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money.

Some of them are very good shopkeepers. They attract a lot of customers, pull in great sums of money, develop splendid reputations. Yet it is still shop-keeping; religious shop-keeping, to be sure, but shop-keeping all the same... “A walloping great congregation is fine, and fun,” says Martin Thornton, “but what most communities really need is a couple of saints. The tragedy is that they may well be there in embryo, waiting to be discovered, waiting for sound training, waiting to be emancipated from the cult of the mediocre.”

The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God.

That last sentence is the great clue to ordination. Peterson goes on to explain exactly what it is people need from ordained priests in our kind of society, and why:

We need help in keeping our beliefs sharp and accurate and intact. We don’t trust ourselves — our emotions seduce us into infidelities. We know that we are launched on a difficult and dangerous act of faith, and that there are strong influences intent on diluting or destroying it. We want you to help us: be our pastor, a minister of word and sacrament, in the middle of this world’s life.

Minister with word and sacrament to us in all the different parts and strands of our lives — in our work and play, with our children and our parents, at birth and death, in our celebrations and sorrows, on those days when morning breaks over us in a wash of sunshine, and those other days that are all drizzle. This isn’t the only task in the life of faith, but it is your task. We will find someone else to do the other important and essential tasks. This is yours: word and sacrament. One more thing: we are going to ordain you to this ministry and we want your vow that you will stick to it. This is not a temporary job assignment but a way of life that we need lived out in our community.

We know that you are launched on the same difficult belief venture in the same dangerous world as we are. We know that your emotions are as fickle as ours, and that your mind can play the same tricks on you as ours. That is why we are going to ordain you and why we are going to exact a vow from you.

We know that there are going to be days and months, maybe even years, when we won’t feel like we are believing anything and won’t want to hear it from you. And we know that there will be days and weeks and maybe even years when you won’t feel like saying it. It doesn’t matter. Do it. You are ordained to this ministry, vowed to it.

There may be times when we come to you as a committee or delegation and demand that you tell us something else than what we are telling you now. Promise, right now, that you won’t give in to what we demand of you then. You are not the minister of our changing desires, or our time-conditioned understanding of our needs, or our secularized hopes for something better. With these vows of ordination we are lashing you fast to the mast of word and sacrament so that you will be unable to respond to the siren voices.

There are a lot of other things to be done in this wrecked world and we are going to be doing at least some of them, but if we don’t know the basic terms with which we are working, the foundational realities with which we are dealing — God, kingdom, gospel — we are going to end up living futile, fantasy lives.

Your task is to keep telling the basic story, representing the presence of the Spirit, insisting on the priority of God, speaking the biblical words of command and promise and invitation.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, I have to record one magical moment — the sort of thing that makes this job such complete joy at times. As we came out of the Church, just the new priests, Rosie the chaplain and I, a photographer came round. “That man,” said David Cloake with his local knowledge, “was the first on the scene of the Great Train Robbery.” “Really?” said Paul Collins, former Police Officer. “I always thought that was Ronnie Biggs.”

Big Thunder in Little Chalfont

Vibrant Charismatic Evangelical worship at St George's Little Chalfont. David Allsopp and colleagues are working well together as a team, and it was good to be in a congregation of all ages and backgrounds. I’ve had a particular soft spot for St George’s ever since the night in 2004 I was on my way to a licensing at Flaunden; only the order of service said Little Chalfont. There was nothing going on at St George’s except a boxing club in the hall. I walked in seeking directions (in flourescent purple) and the very nice man in charge took one look at me and said “What ho, Father. Going to a rave?”

Anyway, this morning I noticed a very engaging way to do intercessions. There was a silence into which people could gently speak the names of people for whom they were praying personally. Just at the end of the prayers came a tremendous clap of thunder — followed by us all singing a hymn about “hearing the mighty thunder.” Endorsement from upstairs, said somebody.

We did pray for Zimbabwe, at both services this morning. meanwhile, Members of the Mothers Union from Ss Peter & Paul Harare, were helping lead morning worship at St Mary’s Aylesbury. Fr Shane Wood, Rector said “Even the most restrained members of my congregation were drawn into the wonderful harmony and soon had them clapping and dancing in the aisles.” However bleak the news, we are praying for Zimbabwe, and these links, prayers and relationships give real hope.

42 adults and a baby

Epiphany has always been special for me. I never imagined there could be a more joyful way to celebrate Epiphany than in Reading, where we used to send out a server out after communion for fish and chips all round from the chip shop in Briants Avenue. But last night I went to confirm in St Mary’s Aylesbury, and the experience was wonderful. Frs Shane Wood, Mark Ackford and colleagues organised a most glorious time — 42 candidates plus a baby, with the oldest candidate in her 90’s. The service which was set up collegially (people facing each other with me going along the lines to confirm, and Fr Mark following to anoint). Quirky and wonderful happenings broke out all over afterwards — a Zimbabwean Mothers Union delegation resplendent in blue and white uniforms, somebody coming up and asking me to bless a pilgrim rosary from Knock... The whole place was heaving, but with a real sense that the light that shone over the stable is now shining in and through people’s lives — pure joy, real hope.

There may be an argument for the occasional really big confirmation, gathering people into a large Church on a special occasion for a slightly over-the-top but glorious celebration, really making something of it. Last night certainly showed how this could be done.

Three new priests in Aylesbury

Michaelmas Ordination Day. Congratulations to Paul Willis (Wycombe), Jan Henderson, (Ellesborough & Stoke Mandeville) Claire Wood (Buckingham), ordained priest at St Mary's Aylesbury on Sunday evening. Many thanks to Fr Shane, Canon Andrew Meynell, and everyone who handled the practicalities. Three completely different people on the way out told me about various moments in the liturgy they "filled up" — it was all very moving. I don't know why God fingers people for priesthood, but am immensely grateful that he does call people to this ministry, to be signs of hope and agents of the kingdom.

In her sermon, Beverley Mason focussed our thoughts on what this is really all about — the authority that comes from anointing (Christ's and that of all the baptised, as well as the particular grace of ordination) and the commission of Isaiah 61/ Luke 4 to proclaim and go out and live the calling to Jubilee —

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion--
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, to display his glory

Beverley also reminded us of the real meaning of it all — the peace and salvation of the world. It made all the in-house churchy politics in the media seem self-indulgent and, frankly, rather silly. Agitators and politicos feel immensely grand and important as they bang off emails to their chums about who's in and who's out, but real authority in the Church cannot ever come from that stuff, and any human "qualifications" are all crap (St Paul's phrase in Philippians 3:8), compared to what this is really all about — Christ's ministry to the world through us.
He is alive and well, working his good purpose in the real world. Are we?