Holy Trinity, Prestwood

On August 15^th I was lucky enough to preach at Evensong at Westminster Abbey. One of my predecessors in Prestwood, Canon Robert Wright, had invited me.

It was an interesting experience. August 15^th is the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so the music and readings all addressed that theme. The Abbey is very professionally run and during the service whenever you have to go somewhere, like to the pulpit, a marshall in a bright red cloak and with a silver staff leads you there.

From where I was sitting in the choir I could see about a hundred people. It was only when I was led to the pulpit that I realised there were a lot more people in the side aisles. That was probably for the best as far as my nerves were concerned!

The abbey is a big building to speak in. There is a lovely, rolling echo that adds gravitas to even the most unassuming of voices—well, that’s what I told myself. I had to speak at almost half the speed I would normally speak in church, so I hope the sermon didn’t go on too long. On the pulpit is a microphone with three lights on it: green, amber and red. Green means the microphone is on; amber that it is picking up your voice; red that you are SPEAKING TOO LOUD!

It would be rather nice, wouldn’t it, to have a similar tool in everyday life, especially one that came with some sort of quality control. A light would flash whenever we began to say something silly or foolish; when we started to do the intellectual equivalent of shouting into the microphone. How much easier life would be!

For Christians that potential foolishness is never far away, because we are trying to bring something that is essentially spiritual and mystical into everyday life. Westminster Abbey—just like Holy Trinity, Prestwood—seems to be the perfect venue for a sort of language and a sort of way of thinking about the world that might be out of place in the Co-op or the pub.

But the truth is that the opposite is the case. The language of faith, of our religion, is perfectly suited to the everyday life of the world. We have just lost the confidence to use it in that way. And when the church does speak to the world too often what is says seems, bizarrely, to crush the human spirit instead of celebrating it. To be obsessed with keeping women away from positions of responsibility and to be obsessed with the mechanics of personal relationships between people who are quite clearly and equitably in love is a strange thing indeed. It’s even stranger for a church devoted to making God’s love for all his people widely known.

The abbey was full of tourists. I hope their experience of the church at worship was fulfilling, and I hope it spoke in a language that touched the heart wherever they came from. As we celebrated the Blessed Virgin Mary it struck me that she, in very everyday words, and in a position of the very greatest responsibility, spoke most eloquently the language of faith. She brought the most spiritual and mystical truth of all, Jesus Christ, into everyday life as her child. Because of that our everyday life is also spiritual and mystical. God’s truth becomes our truth, and the language of heaven is heard in the everyday life of our world.

SEPTEMBER AT

HOLY TRINITY