Homily for 22.03.20

The Revd Preb. Marjorie Brown

I hope you have all started keeping a journal. What a historic time this will be when we look back on it in years to come. Today is, as I’ve said already, as far as we know, the first time Sunday worship has not taken place in St Mary’s Church since 1872.

Sometimes we don’t know what we have lost until it is taken away from us. Mothering Sunday reminds us not to take our families for granted. People who have lost their mothers or children often find this a sad and difficult day.

But today we are all feeling the loss of the embrace of our common mother, the Church. A sword pierces our souls because we are not allowed to engage in common prayer in church and because we cannot touch the friends we love. Those of us who are here are feeling very deeply the absence of all of you, and those who are at home are being denied the fellowship of the altar. 

And yet, the church that provides a sacred space for worship is only a gathering place for the Church that is found wherever the baptized are. I hope you saw the cartoon in yesterday’s congregational email. It pointed out, under the heading “Where the Church is”, people at home or going about their business, not a building with a spire. The Archbishops wrote this week that “our life is going to be less characterised by attendance at church on Sunday, and more characterised by the prayer and service we offer each day. We may not be able to pray with people in the ways that we are used to, but we can certainly pray for people. And we can certainly offer practical care and support.” 

This is a time for a new way of being Church for the whole community, not just the members of our congregation. This week we have begun to open the church in daylight hours seven days a week or anyone to drop in. We are collecting groceries and household items for vulnerable young people who are leaving prison or hostels. We are linking up members of the congregation with older people who are isolated at home, so they can have phone contact and shopping delivered.

And we are praying. There is a link on our website to a prayer each day, and I suggest that you might like to say it at 12 noon, when I shall do the same. You can also use online resources for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, which will continue to be said by the clergy in church at 9 am and 6 pm every day. Let each handwashing be measured by saying the Lord’s Prayer and you will wash for the right length of time! And why not pray the psalms, especially those of lament, that may never have spoken to you before but now have a new relevance to our situation.

The Archbishops are calling a National Day of Prayer today and asking us to light a candle in a window at 7 pm tonight, if we can do so safely, as a as a visible symbol of the light of life, Jesus Christ. This is a something we can do with our children, who are starting a strange new time of being cut off from their school life and friends. All ages need to be helped to remember that we belong together even when we are physically apart.

We can also encourage young people to join a national action tomorrow evening, when at 8 pm the whole nation will give a round of applause to the doctors, nurses, scientists, cleaners, carers and all the other health workers who keep the NHS going at this time of national crisis. Please stand at your front door or a window and clap as hard as you can. This has been happening for the past week in Spain and it gives a great lift to those who are working so hard and risking so much to help us all.

Our website and emails will continue to offer suggestions of things we can do together even when we are physically apart. Please send in your ideas. And most important of all, phone one another regularly, and especially those who may be living on their own and feeling lonely and anxious.

I’ve already noticed a new trend in the streets of people meeting each other’s eyes and smiling and saying “Keep well!”, instead of rushing past with heads down over their phones. When we emerge from this epidemic, we may have changed many of our habits for good – I mean both for the better and for the long term.

As Christians, part of the family of Mother Church, members of the Body of Christ, we have resources to draw on that we can share with others. I want to end by looking at the words St Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians when they were feeling pretty broken and fearful. God consoles us in all our affliction, he wrote, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. And he also says, Our hope for you is unshaken. 

Consolation from God and hope for the future – that is enough to keep us going, one day at a time. May we daily be renewed and refreshed by our hope in Christ, and may we share it with one another. Amen.