St Neots Parish Church

It always seems to me that the time that a parish spends in vacancy, the months that elapse between the departure of one vicar and the arrival of a new one, is a bit like waiting for the arrival of a new baby. I’m sure that you know what I mean. There is that sense of anticipation, and perhaps excitement, mingled with a certain nervousness because you know that whatever the outcome, life isn’t going to be quite the same as it used to be. There are the obvious uncertainties of course: what is the new arrival going to be like? Will he or she be a model child, or will they be one of those little horrors who are always throwing their toys out of the pram? Will we really like him? Will he really like us? Those of us who are parents or grandparents know that, while we love them dearly and deeply, babies are hard work. They arrive knowing absolutely nothing, they are totally dependant on us for everything at first, and they’re very likely to make a nasty mess on the floor at any moment. I must say that I feel a bit like a baby in that situation at the moment. Like a baby, I’m rapidly taking in information, getting to grips with new names, new faces and new ways of doing familiar things. As far as St Neots is concerned, I know a bit of course, but I need to be spoon-fed a lot of information, and fortunately I’m getting it courtesy of Margaret and Roger and Velda amongst others. Babies begin a steep learning curve the moment they’re born, and that is also true, I can tell you, of new vicars! Well, we can push this analogy too far of course, but I think that in anticipating the arrival of a new priest there is often an apprehensiveness very akin to what we feel when we await a new arrival in the family, knowing that there is the likelihood of change, knowing that some allowances may have to be made but knowing too I hope, that there will be a lot of mutual love and care as we begin to bond together and form the relationships of love in Christ that will sustain and nurture us as we continue our journey together as God’s Church, God’s people in this place.

I mentioned that one of the things that concerns us when we’re expecting a new baby is how our lives will change after the birth. Change, what was known, and not entirely kindly known, in the Ouzel Valley Team office as the ‘C’ word, is often something that is not very popular in churches. It’s not hard to see why, in fact it’s very understandable. In a rapidly changing society we have to cope with it all the time - social change, technological change and so on – and people often look to the church to provide some sort of stability, something to cling to, something that is always the same, solid and strong among what the Book of Common Prayer so beautifully calls ‘the changes and chances of this fleeting world’. And it is absolutely right that they should do so – the church witnesses to a God whose love for his people, for his creation, never wavers, never alters, never fails, and our faith in that love is our bedrock; it is, if you like, the glue that binds us together. But we also recognise that this unquenchable, sustaining love does not operate in a vacuum – rather it speaks to a context, and that context is the contemporary situation in which we find ourselves; a situation that is always changing; a situation that is often untidy, messy, with lots of loose ends; a situation in which we need continually to find new ways of making that love known – known to one another and known to those with whom we share our lives outside the church – lives subject to those very changes and chances. It has been said, and I suppose it’s true, that in any congregation embarking on a new relationship with a new parish priest people fall, broadly speaking into three groups. In the first group are those who are desperate for change to happen – those who will be saying thank goodness – someone new – now we can really change things. In a successful parish, and by successful I mean a prayerful, loving and supporting Christian community, I would expect this group to be a minority. At the other end of the spectrum there are those who are fearful of any sort of change at all. This is the way we’ve always done it – this is how we like it - I do hope he’s not going to change anything. If we’re being honest, I think we can all recognise something of that attitude in ourselves, and understand something of the fear that it provokes. And what about the third group? The third group is made up of those, perhaps they are the majority, who are not as strongly entrenched in their views as the others, and are prepared to sit it out – to wait and see exactly what this new priest is going to get up to.

So, whichever of these caricatures, and they are caricatures, applies to you, I would like to say today at the beginning of my time here, at the beginning of our journey together, our shared exploration of God’s mystery and glory in St Neots, that I am by training and inclination more of an historian, than an experimental scientist. I am going to spend some time finding out what works here for you, exploring what is good and vital in the way that you have made the kingdom of God real and present here at St Mary’s and in the wider town and I hope, celebrating and affirming that ministry which has not ceased or paused, or been put on hold just because there has been no vicar in post. I am, I can assure you, sensitive to all the hopes, the fears, the anticipations and anxieties that you may have – that indeed I share too, and I do not intend to make any major changes in let’s say, the next six to nine months. And then any changes that there may be will I hope, build on the magnificent foundations that have already been laid, using to the full, the talents and gifts of all of us, working together in Christ’s name. But please note that I said no ‘major’ changes. We all have our own style, our own little foibles and peculiarities, our own way of presiding at the eucharist and leading services and other activities. My style is scarcely likely to be a carbon copy of my distinguished predecessor’s, or my distinguished colleagues, and nor would you expect it to be. I hope you will bear with me as I learn, and that we can grow together.

I said a moment ago that the life and ministry of this parish has continued in an unbroken continuity since Fr Roger’s retirement. I know that you acknowledged last week that this is in no small measure due to the ministry of Revd Margaret during the vacancy, supported by Fr Roger Henthorne and the so-called retired clergy. I want to say now, that for the remainder of Margaret’s time with us, in recognition of her experience and her gifts, and of the love and affection in which she is held here, I intend that she and I will share the responsibility for ordained ministry here as equals and if that represents change – well, so be it.

What is out task as the Church? We heard in the reading from Acts this morning, of St Paul’s speech before the council of the Areopagus in Athens. It is a very polished piece of work, and he begins by flattering his hearers who were no doubt, very intelligent men – or at least they thought so. They were used to fine rhetoric – Paul gave it to them. It’s interesting how, when confronted by a non-Christian, but nonetheless receptive audience, St Paul can turn on the charm in a way he rather more seldom does in his letters to the churches. Paul was preaching to an open, liberal-minded constituency that tolerated a wide variety of religious practices, a wide diversity of spiritualities – a constituency that was prepared to acknowledge, in a desultory sort of way, that there may be even more than they knew about, in raising an altar ‘to an unknown god’. Paul, as we know, goes on to tell the Athenians that their unknown God is in fact the one true God – the God that, as he puts it, they are searching for and groping for, but who is not far from each one of us.

Does this sound in any way familiar? For me, this could have been written yesterday, for we too live in a culture that acknowledges a plurality of religious beliefs, but avoids committing itself to any one of them. There are many spiritual experiences on offer in our own market place of faiths, and there are more people than ever searching and groping for something to give meaning and context to their lives. More perhaps than ever before, people are erecting altars to an unknown god – something, anything that will give them a reason for existing. St Paul discerned this situation, took it and used it. In the verses that follow on from where our reading stopped, we read that some of his hearers were sceptical, and some expressed a desire to find out a bit more but that crucially, some committed themselves and became Christians. And that’s just the sort of result that you would expect from any mission initiative. It could be happening now – it should be happening now. We are not searching and groping for an unknown god. We don’t know everything that there is to be known about God, we haven’t even got beyond the beginning of the beginning of the depth and mystery of God’s being. But we have heard and received Christ’s promise that he will be with us in his Holy Spirit in all that we do and say in his name. It is our task in the coming months and years, yours and mine together, to use this church and its inclusive witness to draw in those in this community who are searching for an unknown god, and make known to them the God in whom we live and move and have our being – the one who is never far from each one of us. This is our calling – to be the Church, empowered by the Spirit, and I look forward eagerly to our work and witness together.