His most recent biographer does not record whether Higham's
most illustrious resident was present at the consecration of its new parish
church, but then 1862 was a difficult year for Charles Dickens. He turned fifty
and he wrote little more than a largely-forgotten short story, 'His Boots'. His
brother Fred was locked up in the Queen's Bench Prison and his son Alfred
failed the Army exams. Closer to home he was forced to exchange his beloved
Gad's Hill for what he called 'the nastiest little house in London' in order
that his daughters might enjoy the metropolitan season - and the historical
detectives suspect that the actress Nelly Ternan may have born him a child, in
exile in France. Perhaps it's no wonder that he didn't play country squire when
the altar and walls of St John's were anointed with holy oil and God's praises
were sung for the first time within these walls. They had been sung here for
well over a year before things began to look up and he began work on the novel
that would become Our Mutual Friend.
Dickens, that great teller of tales, loved to tease
visitors to his study at Gad's Hill. They would enter and close the door behind
them. Then they would look around and be amazed to discover that the door had
disappeared. Instead all around them, all around the walls, were book-lined
shelves. On close examination, some of these had extraordinary titles. There
was Cat's Lives, in nine volumes, and A Short History of a Chancery Suit, in
twenty-one volumes. His suspicions raised, the visitor might subject these
books to an even closer examination, and would then discover that they were
false. Dummy books had been built onto the back of the door. Their titles
amused the great novelist. They couldn't be taken down and read, but they could
be swung open, allowing the visitor to walk through and leave the study. The
painted books were a doorway, a means of access to another place.
One hundred and fifty years after the consecration - and
two hundred years after Dickens's birth - St John's is lit up by one hundred
and fifty icons. Icons are pictures. Not landscapes or sea views, of course,
but formal, stylized pictures of saints and Biblical scenes. But those who pray
with icons believe that they have something in common with the study door at
Gad's Hill. The visitor to Dickens's study might enjoy poring over the
fictitious titles painted on the spines, just as a visitor to your exhibition
might enjoy poring over the technical skill of the iconographers. But unless
the visitor to Gad's was willing to look beyond the dummy books he would remain
forever stuck in the study, looking at the surface of the door. And unless the
visitor to St John's is willing to look beyond the gold leaf and the egg
tempera he will remain every bit as stuck. For just like Dickens's practical
joke the icons' painted panels are a
doorway, a means of access to another place.
Those who pray with icons believe that they are one of the
means that God has chosen to reveal himself to the world. When a faithful
person looks upon an icon he or she does not just look upon painted wood; he or
she looks upon the one whose image is painted upon the wood, and the one whose
image is painted upon the wood looks upon the faithful person. A
computer-literate generation will not find this difficult to grasp. When we
open up our computer screens we are confronted by an array of little images.
When we click on one of them - Word, for example, or PowerPoint - we are taken
to the programme that we want to use. The point of the little images is that
they take us somewhere else. And we call the little images 'icons'.
Most pictures hang on the walls gathering dust. They may
entertain us and they may educate us. If the walls they hang on are the walls
of Hogwarts they may even move about and speak to us. But most pictures do not
allow us to gaze upon the face of God. Even to suggest that this is what icons
allow should raise some questions for us - questions about the pictures,
certainly, but also questions about God. We don't have to listen very hard to
hear the scoffing of the cultured despisers of religion. What sort of God
allows his creation to peer at him through wood and paint?
Our sort of God is the answer; our sort of God. For our
sort of God is the God revealed in Jesus Christ; the God who sits down in a
house in Capernaum and takes a child his arms. Our sort of God says 'Whoever
welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me'. This is the God who has not held anything back; the God who
has come to us in person; the God who identifies himself absolutely with the
small and the weak.
Charles Dickens wrote books. When we read his collected
works we learn something about him. Our God did not write books. We do not have
to read his collected works in order to learn something about him. For our God
turned up. As Saint James puts it, Wisdom came from above, pure, peaceable,
gentle and merciful, in the flesh and blood of Jesus. Wisdom came from above,
and Wisdom comes from above. Wisdom's coming is an annoyance, as ancient
Solomon said it would be, for Wisdom's coming illuminates all our faults,
fragilities and failings. Yet still Wisdom comes, and Wisdom is not ashamed of
us: not ashamed of the flesh and blood that Jesus shares; not ashamed of the
works of our hands; not ashamed of the things of the earth that we work with
our hands. Wisdom takes these and makes them holy. Wisdom comes and through the
love we have for one another; through the holy icons; and above all through the
bread and wine of the Eucharist Wisdom makes us welcome. Amen.
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