DAY OF PENTECOST 2015 ROMANS 8:22-27

The weat her t hat day was suit ably bleak. The overcast sky seemed t o be aware t hat it was t he day of a funeral. Like every parish priest in England I found myself in the disconcert ing posit ion of having t o conduct the

burial service for someone I'd never met . Those are t he days when English vicars curse Henry VIII and t he bizarre hist ory t hat led to the Church of England to be 'est ablished', wit h t he result t hat 'parishes' are not congregat ions, like t hey are in t he US, but geographical areas on a map; and everyone living wit hin t he boundaries of t hose few square miles are ‘Church of England’ unless t hey choose t o be somet hing else. At t hat time I had 2,000 parishioners to whom I had a responsibility, but only 200 of them ever came t o church.

So, on t hat fat eful and, frankly cursed, morning as I frequent ly did, I found myself committing to God one of t he ot her 1800. The borough council’s crematorium that day was t hinly populated by a few dozen people who

had, I presume, many things in common with the deceased, including being completely unknown to me. I had met wit h one of t hem, I remember that , and they had furnished me with some sketchy biographical

informat ion. But I was in t hat disabling place of flying wit hout the safety net of a relationship with the people who were now gazing at me for something – enlightenment , comfort , meaning, hope.

 

One of t he ironies of England is that..... (Read the full Sermon here): http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3207606/20150524_Lost_for_words.pdf