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Download November 2005 Newsletter (108KB pdf)

On Saturday 8 January 2005 in the Cathedral the Annual Servers’ Festival marked the launch of a new Diocesan Servers’ Guild. Over 200 servers from throughout the Diocese were present for a day which included contributions from Bishop Tom, the Archdeacon of Croydon, the Revd Alan Wild, the Cathedral Girls’ Choir, the Choir of Croydon Parish Church and many others.

In his sermon at the Choral Eucharist Bishop Tom spoke of the converting power of the liturgy and therefore the important role that each person plays in presenting worship within their parish, the tremendous responsibility we have the awesome privilege that is ours.

Before Choral Evensong the servers were invited to join the new Guild and those present were given an enrolment card, a badge to mark their membership and a copy of the Guild Handbook.

The aims of the Guild are simple

• to provide a sense of belonging and fellowship for those who share in this ministry in all of our churches.
• to deepen understanding of the role of the server and to encourage growth in commitment to the Lord.
• to promote good practice in our churches.

Servers who were not present but who would like to join are most welcome to do so. The enrolment form is downloadable (38KB pdf)

This should be completed and returned to

Canon Andrew Nunn
Southwark Cathedral
London Bridge
London SE1 6ER

with a cheque for £3 to cover initial costs.

For those without access to the web, enrolment forms can be obtained from Trinity House or the Cathedral.

To mark the Centenary of the Diocese a special badge has been made. In future years the time for Enrolment will be at the Servers’ Festival in the Cathedral which happens each year on the Saturday after the Feast of the Epiphany.

Sermon preached by the Bishop of Southwark
at the Diocesan Servers' Festival on 6 January 2007

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

It’s good to be with you this morning in our cathedral for this annual service when we celebrate the ministry of servers in the Church.

Like Canon Nunn, I trained for ordination at the College of the Resurrection Mirfield, set within and run by the religious community of the Resurrection. In my day ordinands were given an experience of up front ministry by every ordinand acting as server each weekday to one of the innumerable monks as they celebrated a daily mass, and then on Sunday’s and holy days ordinands would form the team of servers ministering at the Community Corporate eucharist. As in many parish churches, the pattern was to start as a acolyte
and then gradually progress to become perhaps crucifer or even thurifer.

This was a good discipline because one can learn a lot by being an acolyte. For example in Mirfield discipline acolytes never bowed when carrying their candle – the server was merely part of the candlestick at that moment and candle-sticks don’t bow – a good lesson in humility.

Then I still believe that the most stressful experience that I have had in public ministry is, as junior acolyte, having to light before the service six extremely tall altar candles whose wicks were way above my sight, before sixty pairs of eyes of critical fellow ordinands, and an equal number of eyes of holy monks. I think the rationale must have been that if an ordinand could successfully survive that ordeal he should be able to celebrate a pontifical high mass in St Peter’s in Rome if ever called upon to do so.

I have a high doctrine of server ministry, then, and am always encouraged when I meet a really proficient group of servers in one of our parish churches – it makes a great difference to my own ministry. I’m glad, therefore that you have come here this mosrning, not only in thanksgiving, but as an attempt to develop your own skills and devotion in an atmosphere of worship and prayer.

We meet on the Feast of the Epiphany, and that may have wisdom and warning for those of us who exercise any kind of up front specialized public ministry in the church, bishop, priest, deacon, server. Let me explain what I mean.

The characters in our gospel reading today on this feast of Epiphany are puzzling figures. Our translation calls them, “wise men”. The New English Bible calls them “Astrologers”, whilst the Good News Bible goes for “Some men who studied the stars.” Well what the author of Matthew’s gospel actually wrote in Greek was “Magos”, and the best translation of that is magician.

This word “magos” is used only twice more in the New Testament, in both cases in the Acts of the Apostles, and in each case the word refers to a magician. In chapter 8 the author tells of a man named Simon who previously had studies magic , but then being amazed by the signs and miracles shown by the Apostle Philip became a Christian and was baptized.

Then in chapter 13 the author tells of a meeting between St Paul and a certain magician called Elymas on the Island of Paphos. Paul had quite a confrontation with Elymas who was seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith which Paul was preaching. But the power of the Holy Spirit proved to be greater than that of Elymas’s magic and he became temporarily blind. The proconsul was so amazed by all of this that he became a Christian there and then.

Many of us were brought up to regard magic and magicians either as harmless entertainers and tricksters, like Uri Geller bending his spoons, or as pathetic deceivers, like the Great and Terrible Oz in the children’s film, “The Wizard of Oz”, where Dorothy and her three friends go to ask the great and terrible Oz to use his magic to help them, Dorothy wanted to go home, the lion wanted courage, the tine man a heart, and the scarecrow a brain. But the great and terrible Oz refuses to help, and Dorothy in righteous indignation tears a viel aside to reveal the great and terrible Oz in his true colours as a timid, frightened, powerless man, hiding behind technology and spin. The message is quite clear magicians are frauds and magic is all a trick.

The present generation of children, brought up with the Harry Potter books may not be quite so sure. Harry Potter is one of the star pupils at the School of Wizardry and there magic is very real indeed with battles between good and evil wizards seeking to control or liberate lives and hearts, in the spirit of those confrontations in the Acts of the Apostles. Again, the apprentice wizards are taught to use their skill and knowledge for the good of all, and not merely for personal gain.

Now sitting in a cathedral on a January afternoon we might think that all this is harmless fun for children, but I suspect that magicians are to found outside the world of Harry Potter and are trained at other academies than Hogwarts. In fact my thesis for you today is, we are all magicians now.

Every day I get up with the Today Programme on Radio 4 and between quarter and half past six each morning the programme focuses on financial matters. I listen in bemusement because I can understand very little about it. And yet the forces being talked about , interest rates, and monetary values determines what happens to morgages, pensions and jobs and determine the quality of life of my family and my neighbours.

And there are people who claim to understand and even control these economic forces – politicians and economists, and like magicians everywhere they claim special knowledge which they will sell at a price, even if its only the price of a vote. They demand absolute faith in their message if it’s to bring salvation and they leave the average person like me feeling helpless and even manipulated.

And what goes for politicians and economists equally applies to medics, lawyers, civil servants, teachers, theologians, priests and bishops – we’re all magicians now. We all have specialized training, speak our own language, and claim to able to handle forces that confuse others. Get it right and such magicians are a blessing to society. Get it wrong and they are a menace.

So in looking at our gospel reading this afternoon about the meeting between the magicians from the East and Jesus Christ, we are not just talking about a children’s tale between three wise guys and a heavenly baby . We’re talking about your life and mine at the place where we can feel most vulnerable.

What does S Matthew say happened? It tells of how these powerful magicians, through their learning and professional powers were led to see that a new power was being born in the heavenly firmament. And they went to pay homage and to make alliances. Naturally they went first to a palace – Herod’s palace but the child from God was not to be found in that old dispensation of pomp and power, but was incarnated at the heart of ordinary life.

But they found him, and they fell down in worship and they offered their gifts – they offered gold the gains of their trade, then they offered the very tools of their profession, incense the odour of mystery and awr, myrr, the ingredient of ink, the vehicle of secret knowledge and information. They offered the best of their magic and the tools of their trade became playthings in the hands of a child.

Human power, pomp and profession. Mysterious magicd all had met its master and received sits comeuppance, for the infant Christ had no need of such baubles, for something far greater was here, the love and grace of a God who alone can bring peace and freedom to the human heart.

Now I said, earlier that this story of the epiphany might have wisdom and warning to those of us exercising up-front ministry in the Church.

You see we who are privileged to serve the lord in ordering the worship in the sanctuary as priest or server can easily seem to be ecclesiastical magicians. We too wear special clothes, use a special language, both public and private, we have our rituals, some publically obvious as the liturgy proceeds on its dramatic way, as the gospel procession takes place, or as in the prayer of consecration candles are perhaps raised, bells are rung etc. etc And we have our semi-private rituals too such as the ablutions before and after handling the sacred bread.

And we’re quite capable of playing ecclesiastical games. I remember as a new bishop going to celebrate a sung eucharist in one of the most catholic churches of my then Episcopal Area. The Altar book, the missal was literally a work of art. So much so that when, having consecrated the hosts I genuflected and took my eye off the book, I couldn’t immediately find my place on the page again. No human soul was within reach, the nearest was in profound prayer several steps down.

After what seemed to be an age, I found my place and continued, bathed in sweat. In the sacrestry afterwards the head server said, “Could I ask a question bishop?” “Of course” I replied. “At a pontifical high mass is there always that profound silence in the middle of the prayer of consecration.?” “That’s the way I like to do it” I heard myself saying. I just hope that the Bishop of London when he presides in that parish twenty years later keeps that profound silence otherwise, I’m quite sure they’ll be criticism.

So if we’re all magicians now, that might seem particularly so for we servants of the Church around the altar of God, bishops, priest, servers. The question is, are our ways and wisdoms helpful to the people of God as they worship their Lord, or do we get in the way of their worship and devotion, are we a blessing or a distraction?

So in considering the old, old story of the meeting of the magicians and the infant Christ we’re not just considering an old, old story, we’re talking about my life and yours in Church and community, where often we’re in the hands of seeming magicians and sometimes we’re acting as the magicians ourselves.

Well, remember what happened to the magi around the crib. They offered what they had to the infant Christ, their gifts, their wisdom, their skill, they watched and listened and learned, and then they went home by another way – no doubt a deeper and more profound way.

May we know something of that experience in our worship and work together in this holy place today – we bring here the best of what we have and what we are, and through worship, devotion and thoughtful discussion we watch, and listen and learn and then we return to serve in our home parishes in a deeper and more profound way.

May it be so for you in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy spirit.

Amen

Sermon preached by Canon Andrew Nunn
at Evensong - 06 January 2007

I was in the choir at the church where I was brought up – I joined when I was 7 as a way of escaping from Sunday School and stayed in it until I went to University. So as a consequence I seldom got a chance to serve at the altar. Occasionally though the crucifer wouldn’t turn up and so, being one of the few boys in the choir, I was asked to carry the cross. And then, when I was a bit older, I asked if I could serve at the Saturday morning Mass – so I was taught to do that.

Looking back on it I think that it was the experience of being in the choir for all that time and having the chance to serve on those few occasions that helped me to understand that God wanted me to be a priest – it was playing my part in the liturgy that helped to form my vocation.

It was also so wonderful to be nearer to where the action was, to be involved, to see what was going on and the things that our priests did. Whether I was in the choir stalls or kneeling on the steps of the altar there was a real feeling that I was somehow caught up in the mystery that is the worship of almighty God.

The second lesson for the Feast of the Epiphany is another episode of manifestation, of Jesus making himself known – just as happened when the wise men arrived as we remembered this morning, just as happened in the River Jordan at the baptism of the Lord as we’ll celebrate tomorrow. In these three great acts, the visit of the Magi, the baptism and the first miracle, the true nature of Jesus is disclosed and we see more clearly that the baby in the manger is God among us.

It must have been a wonderful wedding to be invited to. Cana is a very small village just outside of Nazareth, so Jesus, his family and friends didn’t have far to go to join in the celebrations. I was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land on one occasion and got caught up in the wedding celebrations of a Bedouin couple. The ceremony had taken place and by the time I arrived there was much singing and dancing. These were Bedouins who’d left their nomadic lifestyle and had settled in a village. And the whole community seemed to be there, laughing and singing and dancing.

It was the same last year when I was in India. On Friday Hindu marriages take place and I was invited as a guest to a marriage in the village in which I was living. The marriage hall was packed for the ceremony and as soon as it was over the vast crowd flocked downstairs where a second hall had been decked out for the celebration with food for all. It really was a celebration.

And that was the atmosphere at Cana – until, disaster, the wine ran out. Mary asks her son to help and Jesus does and produces more wine than we can imagine - 120 gallons of the stuff, which for those who only understand litres is about 545 litres and those of you who only understand bottles is about 780 bottles!

What a privilege to be at that wedding as a guest! Well yes – but you know I don’t think that the guests were the most privileged people there. There’s a group of people mentioned by St John whose names we don’t know, only their role. You see, I think the most privileged group of people were the servants – because it was they who were the witnesses of the miracle and really received the revelation of the nature of God.

The guests enjoyed the wine, the hosts had their problem solved, but it was the servants who were given insight into the abundant and overflowing love of God that would be made known in the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

They after all saw it all, they knew it all, they were the ones who helped make it happen, they were there when they were needed. St John just slips the important words for you and me into the middle of a sentence, between brackets, when he says ‘though the servants who had drawn the water knew’. Almost a throw away line – but included because it tells us so much about what it means to be a servant and share, as we do, in the privilege of ministry.

Those of us who minister in the sanctuary as servers, or Readers, or priests, co-operate in the revelation of God, we’re agents in an act of mystery, makers of epiphany, part of the disclosure of the nature of God. Being asked to be a server, being admitted as a Reader, being ordained as a priest is an enormous and mind boggling privilege - for we’re allowed to know the mysteries of God in an intimate and profound way, a life changing way for us.

I’ve already mentioned my time in Southern India. When I was there I was touched by how the people treat the holy, whether they be Christians, Muslims, or Hindus. They approach the sacred with real humility and devotion and with that amazing sense of the privilege of knowing God. For us as Christians this has been handed on to us in the words of a hymn that we often sing, words that come from an ancient Indian Christian text sung by the people of the Mar Thomas Church, one of the oldest churches in Christendom. Our version of it goes like this:
Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands
That holy things have taken;
Let ears that now have heard thy songs
To clamor never waken.

Lord, may the tongues which ‘Holy’ sang
Keep free from all deceiving;
The eyes which saw Thy love be bright
Thy blessèd hope perceiving.

The feet that tread Thy holy courts
From light do Thou not banish;
The bodies by Thy body fed
With Thy new life replenish.

The servants at the wedding at Cana were touching holy things, they saw God at work. Each of us called to serve in the sanctuary touch holy things, week by week and day by day. We’re part of that constant epiphany in which God makes himself known.

Like the servants our names are not important – what’s important is what we do and how we do it and the fact that touching the holy is life changing – for what we learn, as the servants of Cana learnt, is that whenever God takes the water of our lives he transforms it into the wine of the kingdom – if we but allow him to.