Second Sunday of Lent, 14th February 2016
Sunday 14th February 2016, by Fr James Heard
That great icon’s in Indian history, Mahatma Gandhi,
spoke these perceptive words: ‘There is more to life than increasing its
speed’. We regularly need to be reminded of this, and perhaps it could make a
good Lenten discipline this year. Why?
Well, because technology can be a wonderful thing (I love
my iphone/ ipad – GPS watch) - but technology also has the habit of speeding
things up. Many of us are no longer happy to wait for a few days for a response
to a letter. In the world of emails and smart phones we can begin to get
impatient if we haven’t received a response in a few hours. I know some of you
here don’t have computers let alone emails… and I sometimes think how amazing
that must be! Because life in the modern world has certainly increased its
speed.
This need for speed is combined with a stress on what is
calculable – what you can measure. And these can have profoundly negative
effects. Just think of the disastrous results that prioritisation of targets
over patient care have had in certain hospitals. Is education simply about
producing students who know how to pass exams so as to gain entry into a
top-tier university, rather than the old style of teaching where learning is
important for its own sake (the dilemma played out in Alan Bennet’s History
Boys).
It seems that wherever you turn, in business, in
industry, in education, success is measured by this – speed and calculability.
To get on means that you will have to fill your diary, work every hour God
sends, work both smart and fast. Even the church is not immune to this ethos,
with potential bishop having to do mini-MBAs. Is busyness axiomatically a good
thing? I get twitchy when someone says they didn’t want to disturb me because I
must be so busy.
Perhaps during this season of Lent, we might learn two
things from the monastic tradition – stability and stillness/slowing
down.
Michael Sadgrove, who was Dean of Durham, described that,
when he was in Sheffield and trying to raise funds for the Cathedral, he asked
a wealthy businessman to help.
As he wrote out the cheque, he said to me: ‘Michael, it’s
really important that the church models something different from the hectic
pace at which we in the public and private sectors expect to see results.
The cathedral has been here for centuries…it looks at things from the vantage
point of eternity. It can help us take the long view, learn the meaning of
patience.’
Perhaps this is what St Benedict meant by stability in
his rule for monks. I once went on retreat to the Benedictine monastery Worth
Abbey. I was shown around and various places were pointed out: the chapel,
refectory, library, common room, a rather beautiful quiet garden. And a little
further on was their cemetery. Part of the Benedictine commitment is to
stability, so when monks make their solemn vows to living in this particular place,
they do so knowing that they will be there until their dying days. And this was
where they would be buried.
Their challenge to us is about not running feverishly
from place to place, either physically or metaphorically, but being committed
to the present where God has placed us, living according to that long view. It
is precisely because of the nature of our life today, especially in this
frenetic city of London, that the concept of stability is so important. One
theologian (Grün) calls stability ‘medicine for a restless era’.
Stability is not just, or primarily, about geographic or
emotional space – as important as they are – but about spiritual space.
Stability of space and relationship are not the ultimate goal but the means
towards establishing stability of the heart. As Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
writes:
‘…at the heart of stability there is the attitude that
God is everywhere, that we have no need to seek God elsewhere, that if I can’t
find God here I shan’t find Him anywhere, because the kingdom of God begins
with us.’
That’s the invitation of stability in our fast paced and
changing world. We have daily prayer here, about fifteen minutes, little and
often. You’re welcome to pop in when you can.
The other thing to learn from the monastic tradition is stillness
– In our fast paced lives, slowing down and pausing - being still and silent -
is a very difficult challenge. We learn about speeding up at a very young age.
We learn it from adults. I remember when we gave our children’s buggy away and
they start to walk – but with their little legs they go, compared to our big
legs, terribly slow. If you actually want to get anywhere it can be
infuriating. I would find myself looking back and saying, ‘come on’, ‘hurry
up’. Children also have a real sense of wonder about life and the universe – a
flower. A dog! The wind blowing the leaves in a tree. Wow!
Perhaps you hadn’t considered the two year old as an
image of God. They remind us adults, who have lost this wonder, to slow down
and smell the proverbial roses. Lent can also be our teacher. The invitation
during Lent is to slow down. The scary thing that might happen here – as our
Gospel reading suggests – is that we begin to face our demons, and that can be
uncomfortable and challenging.
This is exactly what Psalm 46 encourages us to do – ‘be
still and know that I am God...’ It’s about finding soul space in a busy world.
And Lent is a time of year that can kick start it. The gift of Lent could be
finding equilibrium, balance, among the world’s destabilising, capricious
changes and chances.
We are invited into a differently calibrated kind of
life, a way of being that is not governed by the breathless sprint of our
ordinary days but that paces itself according to divine time, discovers its own
rhythms through living reflectively.
For me, the first sign of success will be not to agree
with anyone who says to me ‘You must be so busy’. Indeed, authentic Christian
ministry means the very opposite: having time for other people and for God.
Putting this in musical terms – God’s pace could be
described as Adagio, lento, sometimes andante, but not often presto or vivace;
it’s the still small voice, not the earthquake, wind and fire.
It’s true that occasionally, ‘he is such a fast god’ as
R.S. Thomas says: baffling, elusive, strange. But most of the time he is so
slow his movement is undetectable except to those who stay still for long
enough. To see it, we need to become more contemplative: sit in the park and
travel at God’s speed; or when a child approaches to play, put down your ipad/
book/ phone (whatever is causing your busyness)... and play, waste some time,
do a puzzle, read their book, play a game.
Lastly, during the first three Sundays of Lent we have a
focus on stewardship – taking responsibility as a whole community for the life
of this church. This involves our time and also our financial resources. A
letter has been sent out to the whole parish (let me know if you didn’t get
one) detailing our vision as a church. It’s a vision that includes being a welcoming
and hospitable community, where we grow deeper in our faith, which includes
nurturing our children, ensuring that our beautiful church is kept in good
condition, that its heated a lit, and where we aren’t simply focused inwards
but that we serve the community and a variety of ways – part of which is giving
our share of the Common Fund where we support churches in poorer parts of
London who couldn’t otherwise have a priest. This all takes money – in fact,
about £220,000 a year. The importance of planned regular giving is to help us
plan and have important things like budgets.
As the vicar, I don’t know who gives what, but I’m
conscious that many of you give regularly and generously and so a huge thanks
to you for that. If you are able, I would encourage you to review your giving
during Lent. And if you haven’t yet got around to starting planned giving, do
consider starting now.
Returning to our invitation to find stability and
stillness. Try this in Lent: pay attention, slow down, listen to music, read a
book, go to an art gallery, waste some time, see into the life of things. It
will bring to life’s relentless flow and flux the gift of stability and
peace. Spring is nearly here, Lent’s slow awakening, forty days for the
wilderness of our lives to blossom, for us to listen and pay attention and find
a new happiness in our souls.
Fr James Heard
Reference: Michael Sadgrove, Durham
Cathedral, 10 February 2013