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READERS RE-LICENCING SERVICE on January 26th 2008 at Southwark Cathedral, Bishop Tom’s Sermon.

May I speak in the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen

It’s good to be with you for this service when Licensed Readers are re-commissioned for Ministry and a new Registrar and Treasurer are admitted to office.

I like the story of the agency which provided visiting preachers for congregations needing them. On Saturday afternoon the organiser received a request for the following day, “Please send wit to address congregation tomorrow.” He sent a message back, “Wits hard to find at short notice am sending two half wits instead”.

Today is the feast day of Saints Timothy and Titus, and sharing a feast day I suppose that they are not so much half wits, but half red-letter saints. In the Church’s lectionary they are described as Companions in Mission to St Paul who had his own red letter day marking his conversion yesterday, but half saints or full saints Timothy and Titus are examples to us of a life of costly mission and ministry.

For Timothy with a Jewish mother and Gentile father, the cost involved being circumcised as an adult, when Paul, uncharacteristically bowed to the pressure of the Jewish traditionalists in the early church and by him being circumcised made Timothy’s ministry more acceptable to them, but ministry was not comfortable for either Timothy or Titus. They were Paul’s companions in good times and bad, helping to bear him up when his mission hit obstacles, they were then constantly on the move, acting as Paul’s envoys to the tiny congregations he had founded around the Mediterranean, networking we might call it. And finally becoming the leaders in the local church, Timothy at Ephesus, Titus at Crete, laying down the structure of church governance for two thousand years of Church life.

In days where it is more common for the church’s ministers to lay down firm personal conditions as to where and how they will serve the church it is a challenge for us to have before us the examples of Timothy and Titus, companions in mission, for whom ministry was unconditional.

Today we are looking to future of Licensed Reader ministry but following the injunctions of the Prophet Isaiah to the people of his day to consider the rock from which they were hewn, I’d like us to take stock of our past and present before speculating about the future.

The office of a Reader originated in the ancient church because reading was hard - Greek bibles came in capitals with no spaces between the words. Reading was hard and only a few could do it.

And of course the point of a Reader was that all should have access to the words only a few could read - that the whole Christian community might meditate on and interpret the words of scripture as they sought Christ’s Way to God’s Kingdom.

As time want on, Readers were demoted in the orders of the church and finally disappeared in England altogether at the Reformation. By this time the bible had been translated into the vernacular and so, in theory, was accessible to a far wider range of people.

In fact, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that licensed lay readers appeared in the life of the Church of England and it was in 1905 that the first Readers were admitted in the diocese of Southwark but since then their ministry has gone from strength to strength.
They began again to exercise a ministry of the word, reading the Bible in services and subsequently reading the services themselves.
But some of the marks of Reader ministry which we take for granted are relatively recent in appearance.

It’s only since 1941 that Readers may publish banns, receive offerings and place them on the credence table, and with authorisation from the Bishop read the epistle and administer the chalice at Holy Communion. Then Readers were permitted to preach at any other service than Holy Communion and were even permitted in the pulpit.

And it is as recent as 1969 that the order was opened to women, the blue scarf was introduced and Readers were allowed to administer the paten as well as the chalice and to preach at Holy Communion. Since 1979 Readers have been authorised to conduct funeral services.

So what are the characteristics of Reader Ministry today. They are vocational – Readers see themselves as called by God into public ministry.

They are licensed – the Church has validated the call, and unlike other lay ministries, the ministry of Reader is publically authorised by licence with an oath to the bishop.

They are nationally accredited. Readers may move for diocese to diocese without further discernment although sometimes they may find different expectations concerning their ministry in particular dioceses. For example in the world in which the diocese of Southwark is set, I would like to see all readers, as all clergy, required to attend a course on “Ministering Across Cultures” as part of their initial and on-going training.

Readers are canonical operating within the clear structures of the church as laid down by canon law.

They are almost universally voluntary – giving their ministry to church and world from a sense of call with no expectation of reward.

And finally, the most important characteristic of Reader Ministry, they are lay. While some of the tasks undertaken by readers may be similar to some done by clergy, their ministry comes from a firmly lay calling – they are not watered-down clergy.

But if those characteristics are the formal structure, the skeleton as it were of the body of Reader ministry. What are their heart and soul? What are they for? The soul of a Reader is a soul responding with thanksgiving and generosity to the generous love of God who in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has brought salvation to the world.

The heart of a Reader is a heart on fire with the love of the gospel and the determination to share its good news with others. And what of a Reader’s mind? Now we go backs to basics. Remember that the Church invented Readers in the early church because they could read. They could therefore read the gospels to those who were illiterate

Today most people in a diocese like ours can read, but they are mostly illiterate to the word of God. The heart of a Reader’s calling is to find new ways of reading the gospel in words and images, in ways that catch the interest and imagination of new generations, spiritually illiterate.

A former Bishop of Newcastle, Alec Graham, summed up this vital task in this way. He said, “Readers should become the Church’s lay theologians, thinking, well, informed, articulate.”

In this diocese we are well on the way to meeting that challenge but we have much still to do.

Reader Selection is far more rigorous and I have no doubt that Ray Wheeler new Registrar will continue the careful monitoring which we have inherited from Rona Duncan, the retiring registrar of readers to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude.

Reader Training has become far more thorough, and of course in Southwark under the leadership of Anne Stevens it is thoroughly professional. In a world which is ever looking for accountability I know that plans for getting the training educationally validated are advanced.

Then we have developed a greater sense of Readers being a very significant ministry in the life of the diocese. This brings with it support and responsibilities and Canon Andrew Nunn as warden keeps a careful watch over the whole gamut of Reader life.

Like the clergy Readers now surrender their licenses when reaching the age of 70. Like the clergy they have the support of an annual interview.

I would like us to revisit the pattern of CME, in service training for Readers, as we are doing for clergy. I’m not too comfortable with a totally voluntary system because often those who need the training most for the enhancement of their ministry, choose to participate least. That can’t be right.

In recent years we have been seeking to make the ministry of NSM clergy more available than to parishes where they have been traditionally based and I would like us to ask the same questions of Reader ministry. I suspect that around the diocese there is considerable waste of Reader ministry, with some parishes richly blessed with a number of Readers, and others having none. On this day with the example of Titus and Timothy before us, Paul’s companions in mission who were prepared to go anywhere for the sake of the gospel, it seems a little faithless for us to refuse to serve in a parish three miles away from where we are presently based.

But Readers like clergy come in all shapes and sizes with differing gifts and personalities. Timothy and Titus were companions to St Paul in Mission. I am sure that S Paul was both a great challenge to them as he is to us, but for me he gives an assurance of hope in our various ministries. Let me explain what I mean.

It has to be admitted that Paul wasn't the most gracious of human beings. He was somewhat neurotic, dogmatic, short tempered, & dictatorial. It was completely in character, then, that after training as a strict Jewish rabbi he should be on his way to Damascus to exterminate the infant church. There was no room for any opposing views in Paul's bigoted attitude to life & religion.

So he was just on his way to purify the Jewish church, & suddenly he was caught up into God's purpose for his world. He was felled, stunned, blinded, by the reality of Christ. The hand of the Lord was upon him, & had work for him to do, an expanded enhanced ministry faced him.

And, here’s my point, it was the very human faults of Paul which were those that were needed , when moulded and transformed by the grace of God, to take the gospel of Christ to the gentile nations. His stubbornness became courageous persistence in the face of all hardship. His quick temper became the source of his unstoppable energy. His dogmatic zeal for the chosen people became a loyalty to the rejected outcasts of gentile society.

He had only come to purify the Jewish church & he found that he was the foster parent of the infant church of Christ. And as he shouldered that load of care, it expanded in all directions. From Jerusalem to Antioch, to Cyprus, to Greece, to Malta, to Rome, to every corner of the known world. Sometimes in synagogues, sometimes in market places, sometimes in palaces, sometimes in chains. Occasionally honoured, often humiliated, finally executed, and he dared to think that in shouldering the load of care for the infant church, in his sufferings he was sharing in, and in some way even completing the sufferings of Christ.

What would he have made of the church of Christ today. The church he give birth to was a tiny handful of gentile Christians no more than the number worshipping in Lambeth or Croydon today. What would he have made of the result of his labours two thousand years later. The church of Christ world wide, history long. Over a billion and a half Christians praising their Lord in every country on earth. Did any person's ministry bear more fruit?

But all that was hidden in the mysterious future of God. All Paul knew was that he had been caught by a load of care which he had not sought, but he could not avoid. That the care was expanding, he wasn't to know the countless lives which would be transformed by his faithfulness.

I've always regarded St Paul as being very good news indeed. I'll never be as brave as a Peter. I'll never be as devout as a St. John. I'll never be as kind as a St Luke, but in St Paul I recognize a fellow creature, and if God could use him, as he did, massively, then perhaps there's a place in the family of God and the ministry of the church for the likes of you and me.

Paul had many gifts and they were all put to full use as he shouldered the load of God's care, sharing in the sharing of God's love for God's world. But Paul also had some obvious weaknesses and the good news is that these too became strengths and were well used as they were touched and transformed through the grace and power of Jesus' love.

We know that we in our time are deeply flawed people, yet the good news is that God wants us and can use us in his service. "Maintain justice ", wrote the prophet Isaiah "do what is right", "for soon my salvation will come." May each of you know that salvation, and in your ministry as Readers may you be a blessing to yourselves and to the church, now and in the years ahead.