The Call
Given on Sunday 25 July 2004 by the Vicar, Canon Eric Woods
| It is
a fact little known to the general public, or even to most church members,
that clergy and bellringers traditionally hold each other in deep mutual
suspicion. To the bellringers, clergy are the pestilential nuisances who
ration quarter peals, hide the tower key, come bursting into the ringing
chamber ten minutes before a full peal is due to finish and ruin everything,
and who make dark remarks about ringers who slope off before the service
starts. In fact there is only one animal who is more of a nuisance to ringers
than the Parson, and that is the Organist, who is always complaining that
his playing cannot be heard above the sound of those wretched bells, and
why doesn't the Vicar do something about it? Well, life is terribly unfair,
and at least the ringers can enjoy a good grumble after practice in the
Digby Tap or the Half Moon. Meanwhile, the clergy return muttering to their
studies and pour out their woes in their journals. Take, for example, the
Reverend John Skinner, Rector of Camerton in Somerset for forty years, from
1800 to 1839. His diary, published as The Journal of a Somerset Rector,
is full of complaints about the ringers. Here is just one example, from
the entry dated Friday 19 July 1822. Returning from the glebe, Stephens, the under-gardener to Mrs Jarrett, came to me in the field facing my house saying he had a favour to ask, which was to let the ringers give a peal it being the King's Coronation Day.... I said I was as much attached to the King as any man in the country, yet could not see how his Majesty derived any good from people leaving their work to make a noise with the bells; with respect to the ringers, they certainly did themselves much injury by frequenting the Ale Houses in the manner they had done last week, and then returning home and beating their wives to a jelly. I said, as the Parish seems so desirous of having them rung... I would not oppose it; but I recommended their not going to the Public House spending the money they had gained in folly, which might be much better spent on their families. They accordingly commenced their ringing, and I walked in the village to avoid the jingling of the Bells. Poor Skinner frequently imagined that he was at war with the whole world. The previous year, on 29 July, he had complained: Alas! my labours in the Vineyard, I feel more and more convinced are of no avail: when I look for good fruit the grapes still continue to tart, they set my teeth on edge. Truly may it be said Society is now out of joint; what with Methodists, Catholics, Colliers, Servants and Attorneys, all domestic comfort is estranged: may better prospects brighten upon me. They never did. One morning in October 1839, the Rector took his gun, walked into the beech wood near his home, and shot himself dead. Well, my experience of bells and bellringers has always been much happier, and there is nothing lovelier than being in the garden on a fine Tuesday evening and hearing the bells of Sherborne Abbey ring out over the town. But I want to tell you about one bell which at one time in my life I would gladly have silenced. A miserable little thing it was, hanging at ground level in the cloister of my theological college at Cambridge. Its sound did not carry very far, but close to it was deafening. And during my first year at college, when I was still a bachelor, my bedroom window was directly over that pesky bell. Every morning at 7.00 am the first bell of the day rang to destroy any chance of a late snooze. At 7.25 am it demanded my attendance in a cold unheated Chapel. It did the same at noon, and at 6.35 pm every evening the same bell ordered me to prayers before dinner. At five to ten at night it called us to Compline, and then a few hours of silence until it began again: the bell which must be obeyed. That bell and I were not good friends. Until, that is, my Greek improved, and I was able to pick out the squiggles etched onto the side of the bell. Three Greek words: pistos ho kalone. 'Faithful is he who calls.' From St Paul's first letter to the Church at Thesselonica, thought by the scholars to be his first letter to any church, the earliest he wrote. And it is a reference of course to Christ, the Christ who first called Paul on that day as he was journeying to Damascus to persecute the Christian Church there. On the Damascus road Paul was halted by a great light, and the voice of Christ calling him to a new life, a life of Christian service. And in the years that followed, Paul would discover time and time again, in good times and bad, in danger, in prison, in hardship, that the One who calls is faithful. Pistos ho kalone: the words have come back to me time and time again in the course of my ministry - most recently at the licensing of Tony Monds as our new assistant curate, and again as I read tonight's New Testament lesson, with its brief reference to the call of James, whose day this is, and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee. And it prompts me to ask two questions of you this evening. The first is this: is Christ calling anyone here to ordained ministry in his Church? And the second is a bigger question still: is Christ calling someone tonight to Christian faith and discipleship, someone who has never heard his voice before? Let us take the first question first, although in one sense it's the wrong way round. When people do hear Christ's call, and begin to follow him in Christian life and discipleship, that is only the first call among many. And it may be that there are others here as well as Brenda Philips, who is to be ordained to the diaconate in October, whom God is calling to ordained ministry. He calls both men and women, to be full-time ministers or to work out their ministry as non-stipendiaries. He calls others to work as Church Army Officers, as Diocesan Readers, as monks or nuns, as missionaries or relief workers. The list is endless. And he calls us all to particular spheres of ministry and service within our local church, our local community, our homes, our work: we are all called to be ambassadors of Christ in our own piece of his one world. To what sort of Christian service are you called? Are you listening? Are you attending to his voice? For calling he most certainly is, and faithful is he who calls. Even if you feel that your days of active service are over, still he calls you to an ever deeper ministry of prayer, to make up the deficiencies in the prayers of the rest of us. Christ has work for you to do till your dying day. Faithful is he who calls. |
But
now for what is really the prior question, the most important one of all:
have you heard Christ calling you simply to follow him, to be his disciple,
to let him into your heart to live and reign there as your brother, your
master and your friend? For make no mistake, it is possible to come to church
for a lifetime, to try hard to lead a good and caring life, to be a loving
neighbour and friend, and yet never to have heard that call. A former Chaplain
General to the British Forces, Bishop Taylor Smith, was once preaching in
a large cathedral about the need to listen for Christ's call, to respond
to it and to be born again. To illustrate how even devout churchgoers may
not be listening for that call and therefore may never have heard it, he
pointed at the Archdeacon sitting in his stall in the Quire, and said: You might even be an Archdeacon like my friend there, and not be born again, and 'unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God'. You might even be a bishop like myself, and not be born again, and 'unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God'. Next day he received a letter from the Archdeacon: My dear Bishop, you have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over thirty years, but I have never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. Mine has been a hard, legal service. I did not know what was the matter with me, but when you pointed directly at me and said 'You might even be an Archdeacon and not be born again', I realised in a moment what the trouble was. I had never known anything of the new birth. The next day Bishop and Archdeacon met together and before long were both on their knees, the Archdeacon responding to Christ's call as he had never done before, taking his place before God as a sinner, and committing his life to Christ as his Saviour. At last he had listened, and heard, and responded. Faithful is he who calls. Does this apply to you? Have you, if you are honest, never really listened for Christ's call, never expected to hear his voice? Ours is a visual generation; we are not good at attending to a voice. And it is also a noisy world, with so much clamouring for our attention, that the still small voice of Christ is not often heard. It was like that in Samuel's day, as we heard in the first lesson: 'In those days the voice of the Lord was seldom heard, and no vision was granted'. But it may be that Christ is calling someone here tonight, calling someone to open their heart and life to him, to follow him along the path of peace and faith and love, to receive his mercy, his forgiveness, to know him as Saviour and Friend and Master and Lord. For anyone who may be conscious of that inner call, that still small voice of God, I beg of you not to ignore it, not to lose it in the noise and clamour of busy living. For it is surely the ultimate tragedy of life, to have heard the call of Christ and to have ignored it, to have turned one's back on the call and the Caller. I first heard that call nearly thirty five years ago. Since that time I have known the reality of God in a way I could not possibly doubt. God is my heavenly Father and Christ is my friend. Oh, it has not always been easy, and I have wanted to go my own way and forget that I ever heard that voice. But he who calls is faithful. In countless ways I have experienced his peace and his love. I have seen the power of his Spirit in my own life and in the lives of a great many others. There are still many questions unanswered, of course there are. There is still so much to discover and learn. But to be called, and to know that God has a point and purpose for your life, that it is not an aimless drift through the years but a journey that will not finish until we reach the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, why that is something I can never deny, and never wish to. And that call is one Christ makes to us all, a call that is both invitation and promise: 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in'. I am going to pray a personal prayer of mine now which you could make your own. And if you want to say amen to that prayer, not just with your lips but in your heart, then do so now. Remember, too, that this is not an end, but only a beginning, and I and my fellow clergy will always be glad to do anything we can to help you along the way. So, as we sit, let us pray: Lord Jesus, I admit that I have sinned and gone my own way, and need your forgiveness. But I have heard you call me back, and I want to respond. Reach out and help me; help me to follow you and to open my heart and my life to you. Help me to come back to you now, and return your love. I ask you to be my Saviour and Friend and Lord for ever, for always. Amen |