Martin Calderbank First Mass Requiem

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: 1Peter, John 6

Yesterday, I visited Gil Whyman who is finishing a votive candle stand in time for All Souls’ Day, so that people on coming to St Margaret’s through the winter will be able to light candles for loved ones. Our happy situation is that he has been working with one of the foremost glass artists in the country Sally Scott, who designed the glass West Doors of Westminster Abbey and an amazing 9 metre representation of Jacob’s ladder for Leeds Minster. Gil on seeing a preparatory piece with the face of an angel on glass, immediately volunteered it for our structure.  I’m delighted with the work but particularly pleased because the image of Jacob’s ladder, stretching between heaven and earth has always spoken to me. Its strength, for me, comes from the fact that there are angels ascending and descending; mediating heaven to earth, but also raising creation up to God.

Now, very likely, Martin has heard a number of presentations on priesthood from more distinguished and well-informed clergy, not least his learned incumbent. The Anglican model of priesthood is complex, though. Cranmer, and so the Prayer Book, is most influenced by Calvinism, and the church has felt the pull of many directions, ranging from a view of ontological change – that ordination has changed Martin in his very being, not dissimilar to certain views of the Eucharist – to a more Protestant affirmation of the priesthood of all believers, where Martin’s role in the priesthood of the church has changed, not in himself. I leave it to those closer to him to determine how deep the change has gone.

The Church of England has generally preferred the language of ‘vocation’, of ‘calling’. The Greek word for church is ‘ecclesia’, which derives from ek and kaleo: ‘Out’ and ‘to call’ – so ‘to call out’. We are all called out – come on down, the price is right! But some are called out to a specific ministry.

And from the most ancient ordination rites we are advised: ‘Let a bishop be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people’ In our individualistic and hubristic times we often think of a calling as coming from God, on the direct line. The reality and the testing of vocation is usually if it comes from the people of God. It is then a very happy event that Martin has returned to celebrate in his priestly calling here, at a place which has been fundamental to the recognition of that calling.

But there is a separation, a further calling-out that priesthood is heir to.  I have known priests who following ordination have returned to their sending parish, and it hasn’t worked. Ministry requires a certain emotional separation, which is hard to develop when people know you very well; when they have developed that familiarity. For the same reason, I always advise ordinands to work hard to maintain friendships from before they are ordained, because those people will keep you grounded, and help you maintain your humanity, and defend against the prevalent feeling of isolation from which many clergy suffer.

So I wouldn’t advise Martin to return to minister here full time, but I hope that we will maintain the bonds of friendship that would support him and his family throughout his ministry. It is his calling as a priest to bring in Word and Sacrament the things of God to the world; but in prayer and friendship we all sometimes need lifting up to God.

Perhaps the place where this calling-out remains most marked in our informal society, is in ministry to the dying and bereaved. Nowhere does the priest more represent Christ, and so nowhere is the priest’s fallibility more visible. I recently befriended a man who, near death, turning to a priest, was told he did not meet the criteria of a particular church.  Were this man the most worthless, intractable criminal, he should not have met this response; would not have met this response from Christ; and yet a person whose failing health could not disguise a plenitude of life and love and faith – could miss the reassurance of the Gospel, if we fall short of this calling.

And in a year when I have done too many funerals, and felt the emotional impact of this, which has also burdened my family, the priest remains called out. For all that the priest will empathise, will love those he ministers to, especially in accompanying those final journeys; a priest must remain resilient, must find the words of faith, communicate the enduring and eternal truths; must look beyond the pain that is felt, that is perceived, that is shared as humans do share pain, but must like Jacob’s ladder continue to always point the way to the Father, as a walking sacrament of hope, even through the valley of the shadow of death, or as is often the case, Putney Vale.

This is a ‘testing by fire’, but as has been the case with the imperishable, undefiled and unfading witness of the lives of friends of St Margaret, which have so recently come to Christ; they reveal Christ and so often serve as a confirmation of the living faith that binds the Church together. These faithful lives, the Fells, Delphine, Elizabeth Worth, Gordon Winter, are lives that show us the angels ascending to heaven.

I don’t think there is anyone who regrets the bringing forward of the altar here into the nave. There is one thing though that is lost in the priest facing West – or here because of the odd heritage of this building South; that is the turning as the priest in an Eastward facing Eucharist, at times stands with the congregation, and at times speaks in the person of Christ, words of absolution, benediction, consecration, peace.  In reality, this is the whole ministry of a priest. Both to show the face of Christ to every person he meets, but to remember that he is human and, facing the same trials, has all the same needs of reassurance, love and hope. And to know with humility that those he serves may be closer to the path our saviour trod.

It is apposite then, in this requiem mass, that we receive the ministry of Christ, in absolution, in sacrament, in benediction, a ministry he has been called to, and a vocation which St Margaret’s has recognised and nurtured;

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

But together with him we give thanks for the lives of the faithful that have maintained this church, and the lives of the faithful that have maintained our hope and strength, and we pray with them for the journey and the ministry that remains ahead of each of us. Amen.