Anna has chosen an auspicious day on which to be baptized. It’s not just that her parents had an hour’s extra sleep last night, fortifying them for the rigours of the day. It’s not just that it’s the fourteenth anniversary of Israel’s historic peace treaty with Jordan. It’s not even that it’s the birthday of Domenico Scarlatti, Francois Mitterand and Hilary Clinton. No: it’s that it’s the Sunday before the release of the twenty-second James Bond film.
This might appear an odd coincidence for a Baptismal sermon to celebrate, even a sermon preached in a parish on the borders of which Ian Fleming once lived. For James Bond is licensed to kill rather than to preach; he’s more likely to fire a Beretta than wear a biretta; his taste is for vodka Martini rather than Eucharistic wine. James Bond is not Jesus Christ. But those who follow Jesus Christ have to accept that many more people are likely to go and see the new Bond than they are to go to Church. So we have two options. Either we ignore Bond, or we consider what he might have to teach us, and whether he and we might make common cause for the Gospel. It’s not a trivial or shamelessly populist task: it’s the same as that attempted by the young Galilean teacher who sat down with the crowds and talked about sowers and travellers and wedding feasts, the occupations and amusements of his day.
James Bond has shown remarkable resilience and remarkable adaptability: the first novel was published more than fifty years ago. In the decades since Bond has not stood still. Fleming originally conceived him as a veteran of Second World War military intelligence. His early adventures were peppered with references to the war years; his early enemies were renegade Nazis who had survived. As time went by he became a Cold Warrior; after the fall of the Berlin Wall he turned his attention to the power vacuum that its fall brought about. More recently he has fought the sinister power of the international media and the threat of terrorism. He has never been trapped by yesterday’s battles; he has never aged; he perpetually dons his dinner jacket, picks up his shoulder holster, flirts with Moneypenny and, with Q’s latest gadget in his pocket, he strolls into the crisis of the moment.
Bond’s surroundings change, his challenges change, but he is the same yesterday, today and for ever. And in his missions we catch a glimpse of our mission. The Gospel is the same yesterday, today and for ever, but those to whom it is preached are not. Anna will do most of her growing up in the second decade of the twenty-first century, not the third and not the fourth. It is to her, a child of this time that the Church must learn to speak. This does not mean the Church deserting her foundational traditions. That would be the equivalent of Bond suddenly drinking Pina Colada. But she must find a vocabulary for the age, interpret the tradition for the moment, and accept that the world in which God is active may have changed while she has not. Bond reminds us what it is to be incarnate, enfleshed in a particular place at a particular time, and that is a skill and grace that the Church must re-learn.
James Bond has a huge relish for life and for living. I’m not defending his sexual mores (not that I’m sure he has any), his general attitude towards women, or his apparent indifference to killing. But a flick through Fleming’s novels makes it clear why they were such a hit in 50s austerity Britain. Bond enjoys life. The stories are awash with vintage champagne, served always with mounds of fine caviar and hot toast. They luxuriate in the details of Bond’s cotton shirts and linen suits; they linger over the perfection of his Aston Martin.
Paeans to materialism? Of course. But we live in a London borough whose streets are soon to be filled with buses bearing the slogan ‘There is probably no God. So relax and enjoy your life’. Obviously, believing there probably is a God means not enjoying it. We are poor advertisements for faith if our faces are long and our attitudes sanctimonious. I’m absolutely not encouraging an irritating cheerfulness among Christians. But I am encouraging a little less defensiveness and anxiety. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy and peace. Unsurprising, really, as we’re the ones who have in Christ stumbled across the meaning of life.
And lastly, we are all so inured to James Bond’s lifestyle that its frankly rather hazardous quality goes unnoticed. In every film, in every book, he flings himself into the teeth of whatever’s coming at him. It may be the Communist agency SMERSH; it may be Blofeld, armed with military tunic and fluffy cat; it may be Jaws, or Oddjob, or the man with the golden gun. Whichever, Bond scarcely thinks twice, plunging in without a thought for his own safety. Why does he do it? Why not retire to play golf and write his memoirs? Well, Fleming writes this of one of Bond’s early interviews with M: ‘he sat down and looked across into the tranquil, lined sailor’s face that he loved, honoured and obeyed’. Bond’s motivation is his profound loyalty and his deep love for his service and his country. He is passionately, recklessly devoted to these causes, to which he has pledged his life and allegiance.
Perhaps this sermon should carry the sort of warning that we all remember from childhood: don’t try this at home. I’m not asking anyone to go out and start behaving like 007, and certainly not on a Sunday in Belgravia. But if as a community the Church exhibited just a little of that exuberant spark, just a little of that relentless fire, just think what she might achieve for her Lord.
Rooted in tradition but living in the present, relishing life, and giving everything for the great cause: true of James Bond and, I would have thought, not a bad prescription for the Church into which Anna is about to be baptized. On this her baptism day my hope is that those three thoughts offer her (and all of us) a measure of comfort; as it were, a quantum of solace. Amen.
Sunday 26 October 2008
Monday 20 October 2008
Sunday 19 October 2008, 22 after Trinity
‘We will not go to Canossa’ Otto von Bismarck told the Reichstag in 1872. He was not discussing his colleagues’ travel plans, but was referring to a journey made to a northern Italian city eight hundred years earlier. The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, had very rashly claimed for his Imperial throne the right to invest all the bishops of his Empire. For this trespass on the rights of the Church, Pope Gregory VII excommunicated him.
Henry made his way to the fortress at Canossa in January 1077, dressed as a penitent in a hair shirt. When he arrived the Pope made him wait outside in the snow for three days before receiving him with a kiss and accepting his penance. Canossa was thus the moment when temporal power accepted that it had no authority over spiritual power. It is a seminal moment in European history, comparable to Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon or the Paris mob’s storming of the Bastille.
Bismarck’s successors, the statesmen and stateswomen of modern Europe and of the United States, will in recent weeks have been less occupied with ecclesiastical matters than was he when he addressed the Reichstag. Still, the next time they meet they might well consider whether Canossa would be an appropriate venue for their meeting. For in these last weeks we have witnessed an encounter which may prove to be every bit as significant as was that of Gregory and Henry. The encounter has changed geopolitical relationships in ways which seemed unimaginable only a few weeks ago. It may have marked the end of an era. It will almost certainly shape the one to come. It’s just that the parties to the encounter are different. At Canossa the Empire met the Church. In October 2008 the private sphere met the public sphere; the bankers met the elected leaders. And exactly who prevailed is not yet clear.
‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’. Henry’s submission to Gregory allowed prince and prelate to put Christ’s command into effect. By making Henry wait in the January cold Gregory punctured the medieval obsession with the all-encompassing near divinity of emperors and their courts. The reforms of his pontificate were directed to the development of critical distance between the spheres of influence dominated by church and state. The great irony is that - arguably - it was this division that would in later centuries allow the state to insist on the rights of religious minorities and, more recently, of people of no faith. Modern secularism and contemporary multiculturalism have their roots in the reforms of a medieval Pope. It’s an irony probably lost on Richard Dawkins.
So does the history of Canossa have anything to teach us about the encounter between public and private through which we are living? The banks’ acceptance of subsidies can be caricatured as Henry-like, and the politicians’ use of public funds as Gregory-like. And just as the thirteenth century did not witness the development of either theocracy or atheist autocracy the twenty-first is unlikely to herald an era of either centralized control or unfettered laissez-faire.
But perhaps it will see a new balance emerge, as it did in the era after Canossa. Perhaps it will see more effective regulation and more effective control of excess. And perhaps that balance will set the banks free to serve the economy in ways which at present they cannot; perhaps such balance will also prevent politicians from promising a cost-free, ever more affluent future, in which the value of property will rise in perpetuity and the earth’s resources will be deemed inexhaustible.
If we are at the beginning of a new chapter of Western history, at a new balance between the modern powers, then what can the Church contribute to the narrative? Ought she content herself with Gregory’s sphere, the post-Canossa settlement which concentrates on the things that are God’s and leaves the emperor to the mercies of Darling, Paulson and the bankers? I suggest she cannot. For at the heart of whatever economy emerges from the trauma will still be human beings, bringing with them human needs and human emotions, human vices and human virtues.
‘A modern market economy cannot do without a measure of moral corrosion’ writes John Gray, emeritus professor at the LSE. Greed and envy are powerful economic stimulants in the marketplace; thrift and caution are not. How does the Church speak into the balance? As public and private adjust to a new relationship she must counsel and warn, advise and admonish, prophesy and proclaim, recalling always that God’s people are more than customers and investors. The denarius, of course, bore the image and likeness of Caesar; God’s people bear the image and likeness of God.
And God’s people are citizens not just of Europe or the United States. They are citizens of God’s kingdom. Theophan the Recluse writes of the transplanting of humankind’s treasure and of humankind’s hopes, a transplanting from the temporary realm to the eternal. This ‘makes man essentially a pilgrim on earth, seeking his fatherland, the heavenly Jerusalem’. And the heavenly Jerusalem of which Theophan writes is a kingdom which has no market but that of grace freely given; that has no economy but that of salvation; that has no law but that of love. Only through the recalling of that citizenship can we gain a proper perspective on our contemporary way to Canossa. Amen.
Sunday 19 October 2008,
22 after Trinity,
Matthew 22: 15-22
Henry made his way to the fortress at Canossa in January 1077, dressed as a penitent in a hair shirt. When he arrived the Pope made him wait outside in the snow for three days before receiving him with a kiss and accepting his penance. Canossa was thus the moment when temporal power accepted that it had no authority over spiritual power. It is a seminal moment in European history, comparable to Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon or the Paris mob’s storming of the Bastille.
Bismarck’s successors, the statesmen and stateswomen of modern Europe and of the United States, will in recent weeks have been less occupied with ecclesiastical matters than was he when he addressed the Reichstag. Still, the next time they meet they might well consider whether Canossa would be an appropriate venue for their meeting. For in these last weeks we have witnessed an encounter which may prove to be every bit as significant as was that of Gregory and Henry. The encounter has changed geopolitical relationships in ways which seemed unimaginable only a few weeks ago. It may have marked the end of an era. It will almost certainly shape the one to come. It’s just that the parties to the encounter are different. At Canossa the Empire met the Church. In October 2008 the private sphere met the public sphere; the bankers met the elected leaders. And exactly who prevailed is not yet clear.
‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s’. Henry’s submission to Gregory allowed prince and prelate to put Christ’s command into effect. By making Henry wait in the January cold Gregory punctured the medieval obsession with the all-encompassing near divinity of emperors and their courts. The reforms of his pontificate were directed to the development of critical distance between the spheres of influence dominated by church and state. The great irony is that - arguably - it was this division that would in later centuries allow the state to insist on the rights of religious minorities and, more recently, of people of no faith. Modern secularism and contemporary multiculturalism have their roots in the reforms of a medieval Pope. It’s an irony probably lost on Richard Dawkins.
So does the history of Canossa have anything to teach us about the encounter between public and private through which we are living? The banks’ acceptance of subsidies can be caricatured as Henry-like, and the politicians’ use of public funds as Gregory-like. And just as the thirteenth century did not witness the development of either theocracy or atheist autocracy the twenty-first is unlikely to herald an era of either centralized control or unfettered laissez-faire.
But perhaps it will see a new balance emerge, as it did in the era after Canossa. Perhaps it will see more effective regulation and more effective control of excess. And perhaps that balance will set the banks free to serve the economy in ways which at present they cannot; perhaps such balance will also prevent politicians from promising a cost-free, ever more affluent future, in which the value of property will rise in perpetuity and the earth’s resources will be deemed inexhaustible.
If we are at the beginning of a new chapter of Western history, at a new balance between the modern powers, then what can the Church contribute to the narrative? Ought she content herself with Gregory’s sphere, the post-Canossa settlement which concentrates on the things that are God’s and leaves the emperor to the mercies of Darling, Paulson and the bankers? I suggest she cannot. For at the heart of whatever economy emerges from the trauma will still be human beings, bringing with them human needs and human emotions, human vices and human virtues.
‘A modern market economy cannot do without a measure of moral corrosion’ writes John Gray, emeritus professor at the LSE. Greed and envy are powerful economic stimulants in the marketplace; thrift and caution are not. How does the Church speak into the balance? As public and private adjust to a new relationship she must counsel and warn, advise and admonish, prophesy and proclaim, recalling always that God’s people are more than customers and investors. The denarius, of course, bore the image and likeness of Caesar; God’s people bear the image and likeness of God.
And God’s people are citizens not just of Europe or the United States. They are citizens of God’s kingdom. Theophan the Recluse writes of the transplanting of humankind’s treasure and of humankind’s hopes, a transplanting from the temporary realm to the eternal. This ‘makes man essentially a pilgrim on earth, seeking his fatherland, the heavenly Jerusalem’. And the heavenly Jerusalem of which Theophan writes is a kingdom which has no market but that of grace freely given; that has no economy but that of salvation; that has no law but that of love. Only through the recalling of that citizenship can we gain a proper perspective on our contemporary way to Canossa. Amen.
Sunday 19 October 2008,
22 after Trinity,
Matthew 22: 15-22
Wednesday 8 October 2008
Harvest Thanksgiving and Giving Campaign Launch, Sunday 5 October 2008
Harvest Thanksgiving at St Peter’s Eaton Square,
Sunday 5 October 2008,
Address given by the Vicar at the Parish Eucharist
I have to own up to something of an internal tussle this morning, as I debated where I should address you from - behind a lectern or not behind a lectern. Those of you who are students of politics will know that in the last year or so whether or not to speak from behind a lectern has become a rather hot issue. Mr Cameron first came to prominence when he made a speech to his party’s conference in which he shunned the lectern and strode about the platform. It was such a good idea that his rival Mr Clegg addressed his party conference this year doing exactly the same thing. The following week the Prime Minister - declaring himself a serious man for serious times - stood very firmly behind a lectern to address the party faithful; and last week, not wishing to be outdone, Mr Cameron too retreated behind a lectern there to address the gathered flock.
This morning I have to address you in serious times on a serious matter and so I suppose - following conventional political wisdom - I ought to do so from behind a lectern because I have to talk to you about one of the things that we cannot talk about in church, which is money, and giving, and that, in this of all weeks, is a serious matter that needs serious attention. But my brothers and sisters I am not going to speak to you from behind a lectern - not because these are not serious matters to which I pay serious attention. They are, and I do, but because this is Harvest Thanksgiving, when the focus of our worship is on what we have been given; it’s on what God is doing here among us; what God’s purpose is for this community; what we are achieving on his behalf; and when I speak to you about those things I am not going to hide myself behind a lectern so to do, even if it means there is nothing between me and the rotten eggs that may follow. I am not going to speak behind a lectern because I want to celebrate, I want us to spend a moment or two thinking about what is God is doing with us and among us.
Let’s just pause for a moment and consider what it is that we give thanks for at Harvest Thanksgiving. We can try it this way, I suppose: please raise your right hand if you believe yourselves to be part of a decaying, defensive and dwindling community which is dying on the stem. I see no hands. The fact is that the growth of worship at this church continues, the trend that began under my illustrious predecessor and to which even I have not been able to put an end. More people are worshiping at St Peter’s today than there were two or three years ago. We are growing community - none of us, I hope, has a sense of our being a declining community. Please raise your right hand if you believe that the quality of music we offer or the quality of worship we offer here is sub-standard and dull and tawdry and boring. I see no hands. That is because we have in our midst some of the finest musicians in London. I know. I have worshipped in two of our neighbouring parishes in the last fortnight and the quality of the music that we offer here from Stephen and the 10 o’clock choir through to Andrew and Dan and the 11.15 choir leave other musicians in this Deanery and Diocese standing. We are blessed with an extraordinary quality in what we offer here Sunday by Sunday. Put your hand up please if you think that the school - that we founded and that we continue to support financially and through our time - is a school which deserves a place at the bottom of the bottom most league table. I see no hands, because our school is a vibrant, lively place that children like to attend and where the quality of learning and education is good and high. We are a growing community, we offer vibrant worship, we sponsor a good and lively school. Put your hand up if you find this a depressing building that’s dark and dusty and filled with unwanted clutter like some other churches you all have visited. It isn’t. It’s warm and it’s welcoming; it’s beautiful; it’s a place of tranquillity, and a place where it is possible to feel near to God. We are a growing community, a community that offers authentic and beautiful worship, we have a wonderful school, we have a marvellous building, all this we have to give thanks for at Harvest Thanksgiving.
But there is more because in twelve months time when I address you, I don’t want to be able to say, twelve months ago I spoke to you and today St Peter’s looks the same as it did then. We have plans for the parish, we have ambitions. We want to refurbish the public address system, so that at last you can all hear what is being said at the front. We want to kit the servers out in new albs, a closer look will reveal that the ones they are wearing more properly belong in a jumble sale than in this glorious building. Those are very internal matters. We don’t stop there. We want to send the young people of our parish on pilgrimage to Canterbury, to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Becket, and learn for themselves what it means to live a holy life. We want to send our teenagers to Taize (and bring them back again, or most of them at any rate), so that they can experience what it is to be part of a global church, a world wide Christian family. We want to build a school in Angola because we believe education is important, and we believe it should be shared. We want to partner the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, a local charity which works with the poorest of the country’s poor. We don’t want to stand still and rest on our laurels: we want to grow and to build and to do more. And as I look at you, my brothers and sisters, I am more convinced than ever of what I said to the first PCC meeting I attended here, which is that I do not believe that there is anything that this community cannot achieve for God, if it is determined to do it.
That is why I am not going to retreat behind a lectern to talk to you about the financial problem that we have at the moment, because I am quite sure that once we think about it, once we focus on it, the problem will go. And the problem is quite simply this. If we are to keep going as we are now, next year, we need to raise an extra £30,000. Why? Because our utilities bills have gone up, because our insurance costs have gone up and because the costs of what we pay to the Diocese, the costs of belonging in the Church of England, have also gone up. Not because of profligacy or waste on our part, but because our bills have gone up and because we don’t expect to receive as much from giving this year as we had hoped to. We need to raise £30,000 extra just to stand still. If we want to do some of the things I have spoken about if we want to achieve some of our ambitions we need an extra £8,000. The target before us is to raise an extra £38,000 next year. I am well aware that in this of all weeks that sounds like a huge sum, but your PCC has thought about it in these terms. There are roughly 250 households associated with our parish. If every household in the parish was to look at what it gives at the moment week by week, and was to give £10 extra per month, then we would raise what we need - if the £10 was given through the Gift Aid system. Gift Aid is the Giving Plus system which means that Alistair Darling gives us money for free, if only we can be bothered to fill out the Gift Aid declaration form. £10 extra per family per month given through Gift Aid, £2.50 per family per week given through Gift Aid. £2.50 will almost buy you a tall latte in Starbucks; it will buy you I suppose almost a third of a bottle of Prosecco from Oddbins; it will almost hire you a James Bond movie for a week from Blockbuster Video. £2.50 will be beyond some of us but it will not be beyond all of us and, I dare to say, it will not be beyond most of us.
My brothers and sisters again raise your hands if you believe you are part of a community that is dying. We are not. We are eminently capable of doing this. At this time we are all thinking about what our commitments are: the global situation is making us all consider what we really value, where we really place worth, what we can really afford week by week. When you look at this building, at this community which welcomes you, when you think of our school, when you think of the music we offer here, I want to suggest that that £10 extra per family per month is easily achievable; that we will raise £38,000 and that in a year’s time we will have balanced our budget for next year, spent the extra we want to, and have grown our plans and ambitions accordingly.
In a few moments we are going to make Harvest offerings at the altar and as you come forward to bring up what represents your offering to God for this year, please think and pray about the extra that you can give, as a thanks for all we have received and to help us to continue to grow.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Sunday 5 October 2008,
Address given by the Vicar at the Parish Eucharist
I have to own up to something of an internal tussle this morning, as I debated where I should address you from - behind a lectern or not behind a lectern. Those of you who are students of politics will know that in the last year or so whether or not to speak from behind a lectern has become a rather hot issue. Mr Cameron first came to prominence when he made a speech to his party’s conference in which he shunned the lectern and strode about the platform. It was such a good idea that his rival Mr Clegg addressed his party conference this year doing exactly the same thing. The following week the Prime Minister - declaring himself a serious man for serious times - stood very firmly behind a lectern to address the party faithful; and last week, not wishing to be outdone, Mr Cameron too retreated behind a lectern there to address the gathered flock.
This morning I have to address you in serious times on a serious matter and so I suppose - following conventional political wisdom - I ought to do so from behind a lectern because I have to talk to you about one of the things that we cannot talk about in church, which is money, and giving, and that, in this of all weeks, is a serious matter that needs serious attention. But my brothers and sisters I am not going to speak to you from behind a lectern - not because these are not serious matters to which I pay serious attention. They are, and I do, but because this is Harvest Thanksgiving, when the focus of our worship is on what we have been given; it’s on what God is doing here among us; what God’s purpose is for this community; what we are achieving on his behalf; and when I speak to you about those things I am not going to hide myself behind a lectern so to do, even if it means there is nothing between me and the rotten eggs that may follow. I am not going to speak behind a lectern because I want to celebrate, I want us to spend a moment or two thinking about what is God is doing with us and among us.
Let’s just pause for a moment and consider what it is that we give thanks for at Harvest Thanksgiving. We can try it this way, I suppose: please raise your right hand if you believe yourselves to be part of a decaying, defensive and dwindling community which is dying on the stem. I see no hands. The fact is that the growth of worship at this church continues, the trend that began under my illustrious predecessor and to which even I have not been able to put an end. More people are worshiping at St Peter’s today than there were two or three years ago. We are growing community - none of us, I hope, has a sense of our being a declining community. Please raise your right hand if you believe that the quality of music we offer or the quality of worship we offer here is sub-standard and dull and tawdry and boring. I see no hands. That is because we have in our midst some of the finest musicians in London. I know. I have worshipped in two of our neighbouring parishes in the last fortnight and the quality of the music that we offer here from Stephen and the 10 o’clock choir through to Andrew and Dan and the 11.15 choir leave other musicians in this Deanery and Diocese standing. We are blessed with an extraordinary quality in what we offer here Sunday by Sunday. Put your hand up please if you think that the school - that we founded and that we continue to support financially and through our time - is a school which deserves a place at the bottom of the bottom most league table. I see no hands, because our school is a vibrant, lively place that children like to attend and where the quality of learning and education is good and high. We are a growing community, we offer vibrant worship, we sponsor a good and lively school. Put your hand up if you find this a depressing building that’s dark and dusty and filled with unwanted clutter like some other churches you all have visited. It isn’t. It’s warm and it’s welcoming; it’s beautiful; it’s a place of tranquillity, and a place where it is possible to feel near to God. We are a growing community, a community that offers authentic and beautiful worship, we have a wonderful school, we have a marvellous building, all this we have to give thanks for at Harvest Thanksgiving.
But there is more because in twelve months time when I address you, I don’t want to be able to say, twelve months ago I spoke to you and today St Peter’s looks the same as it did then. We have plans for the parish, we have ambitions. We want to refurbish the public address system, so that at last you can all hear what is being said at the front. We want to kit the servers out in new albs, a closer look will reveal that the ones they are wearing more properly belong in a jumble sale than in this glorious building. Those are very internal matters. We don’t stop there. We want to send the young people of our parish on pilgrimage to Canterbury, to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Becket, and learn for themselves what it means to live a holy life. We want to send our teenagers to Taize (and bring them back again, or most of them at any rate), so that they can experience what it is to be part of a global church, a world wide Christian family. We want to build a school in Angola because we believe education is important, and we believe it should be shared. We want to partner the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, a local charity which works with the poorest of the country’s poor. We don’t want to stand still and rest on our laurels: we want to grow and to build and to do more. And as I look at you, my brothers and sisters, I am more convinced than ever of what I said to the first PCC meeting I attended here, which is that I do not believe that there is anything that this community cannot achieve for God, if it is determined to do it.
That is why I am not going to retreat behind a lectern to talk to you about the financial problem that we have at the moment, because I am quite sure that once we think about it, once we focus on it, the problem will go. And the problem is quite simply this. If we are to keep going as we are now, next year, we need to raise an extra £30,000. Why? Because our utilities bills have gone up, because our insurance costs have gone up and because the costs of what we pay to the Diocese, the costs of belonging in the Church of England, have also gone up. Not because of profligacy or waste on our part, but because our bills have gone up and because we don’t expect to receive as much from giving this year as we had hoped to. We need to raise £30,000 extra just to stand still. If we want to do some of the things I have spoken about if we want to achieve some of our ambitions we need an extra £8,000. The target before us is to raise an extra £38,000 next year. I am well aware that in this of all weeks that sounds like a huge sum, but your PCC has thought about it in these terms. There are roughly 250 households associated with our parish. If every household in the parish was to look at what it gives at the moment week by week, and was to give £10 extra per month, then we would raise what we need - if the £10 was given through the Gift Aid system. Gift Aid is the Giving Plus system which means that Alistair Darling gives us money for free, if only we can be bothered to fill out the Gift Aid declaration form. £10 extra per family per month given through Gift Aid, £2.50 per family per week given through Gift Aid. £2.50 will almost buy you a tall latte in Starbucks; it will buy you I suppose almost a third of a bottle of Prosecco from Oddbins; it will almost hire you a James Bond movie for a week from Blockbuster Video. £2.50 will be beyond some of us but it will not be beyond all of us and, I dare to say, it will not be beyond most of us.
My brothers and sisters again raise your hands if you believe you are part of a community that is dying. We are not. We are eminently capable of doing this. At this time we are all thinking about what our commitments are: the global situation is making us all consider what we really value, where we really place worth, what we can really afford week by week. When you look at this building, at this community which welcomes you, when you think of our school, when you think of the music we offer here, I want to suggest that that £10 extra per family per month is easily achievable; that we will raise £38,000 and that in a year’s time we will have balanced our budget for next year, spent the extra we want to, and have grown our plans and ambitions accordingly.
In a few moments we are going to make Harvest offerings at the altar and as you come forward to bring up what represents your offering to God for this year, please think and pray about the extra that you can give, as a thanks for all we have received and to help us to continue to grow.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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