A few years ago, I bumped into a former colleague at an Open
University study day. We had worked together at the Medical Research Council:
she as a radiographer and I as a laboratory technician. She left to have a baby
a few months before I resigned to do other things, and so I asked her if she
had returned to work. She looked askance at me, and told me that she’d not been
able to go back. We had worked together in the late 1970s, and at that time
there had been no right for women to return to work after maternity ‘leave’.
I believe that 30-40 years from now, someone will meet a
pensioner and ask why he never married, and be as surprised as I to recall or
discover that back in the early 2010s gay marriage had not been possible until,
like my former colleague, it was too late.
I believe that today’s vote in the House of Commons in
favour of gay marriage is progress, though I know not everyone will see it as
such. I have listened to a few arguments against today, scarcely a wide view,
let alone a scientific survey, but along the lines of the ‘the definition of
marriage cannot change’, and ‘it wasn’t in any manifesto and shouldn’t be
debated as legislation’. These are relatively easy to dispense with
(underlining my selective choice, no doubt). Definitions change all the time. I
don’t believe that ‘goods and chattels’ now include wives; and if items not
included in party manifestos were to be banned, then early day motions and a raft of
other parliamentary processes would disappear, and our democratic process would
be diminished with them.
Chief among my thoughts following the vote, however, is one
that I believe relates to a major argument against gay marriage. Despite what
people have said on the matter, I don’t believe that my own marriage has been
devalued by today’s decision. The promises my wife and I made before God are
still ours and still extant and still important to who we are as
two-joined-as-one. No man can put that asunder.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Monday, 4 February 2013
All Talk
It was the opinion of one commentator a few years back that
I revealed too much of myself in my preaching. This is an issue worth looking
at, since I hope not so much to wear my heart on my sleeve as to reflect my
encounters with the living God. The former could disenfranchise a congregation,
or give gossips ammunition: the latter, which is to say my own encounters with
God, ought according to David Day (A
Preaching Workbook) give hope to others through the authenticity it adds to
my hermeneutics.
It has long been my view that my clergy colleagues are denied through their workload the chance to join with rather than lead their congregations. One hopes that they are more rigorous in their daily devotions than many of us, but in the end congregational worship is a boon to one’s own spiritual nurture. Here it is that the surprising nature of the Gospel, and the call to confession, contrition, and contribution, can be experienced to the full.
A less obvious reason for me until now has been that the pew is simply a great position to learn from as a preacher. To physically inhabit the same space as a congregation, to suffer the same numb backside or cold draft that they do, but also to hear Scripture dissected differently and to experience someone else’s gift of rhetoric, is all very useful.
This weekend I went to church as a worship leader from the perspective of someone wanting to know more about the congregation by worshipping with them. It turned out that I learned more of myself and my preaching style because of the privilege of hearing an ordained colleague.
Which is to say, on some level her sermon worked on me and I heard God moving me to action. She preached on Candlemas being a turning point in the church year, and it became for me a turning point in my leading of worship.
I still don’t know, I haven’t concluded either way, whether I reveal too much of myself in my preaching, yet I do feel God’s presence with me as he equips me to prepare and to deliver them. My hope is that the warm words of support I get from my listeners is because God speaks to them too, for in that lies the possibility of the Kingdom here on Earth.
It has long been my view that my clergy colleagues are denied through their workload the chance to join with rather than lead their congregations. One hopes that they are more rigorous in their daily devotions than many of us, but in the end congregational worship is a boon to one’s own spiritual nurture. Here it is that the surprising nature of the Gospel, and the call to confession, contrition, and contribution, can be experienced to the full.
A less obvious reason for me until now has been that the pew is simply a great position to learn from as a preacher. To physically inhabit the same space as a congregation, to suffer the same numb backside or cold draft that they do, but also to hear Scripture dissected differently and to experience someone else’s gift of rhetoric, is all very useful.
This weekend I went to church as a worship leader from the perspective of someone wanting to know more about the congregation by worshipping with them. It turned out that I learned more of myself and my preaching style because of the privilege of hearing an ordained colleague.
Which is to say, on some level her sermon worked on me and I heard God moving me to action. She preached on Candlemas being a turning point in the church year, and it became for me a turning point in my leading of worship.
I still don’t know, I haven’t concluded either way, whether I reveal too much of myself in my preaching, yet I do feel God’s presence with me as he equips me to prepare and to deliver them. My hope is that the warm words of support I get from my listeners is because God speaks to them too, for in that lies the possibility of the Kingdom here on Earth.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)