Sunday 28th June 2020Trinity 3 – St Peter’s and St Paul’s DayMatthew 16: 13-19VOCATION – The Journey – “Who do you say that I am?”Jesus words “Who do people say that I am?” could not have been more direct. In my school days I can remember a friend saying to me ‘Would you ever become a Priest?’ that was a direct question as well. My reply to that was, words to the effect ‘I do not have enough faith.’The answer to Jesu’s question is one that we can all answer from our own experience. My answer is now that, through grace I can now say and mean, he is the Messiah and the Son of the Living God. My vocation grew by grace over time, dragged into a new relationship with my creator and sustainer in Jesus through the Holy Spirit. The last time I had Lock down hair – not since the days of 1979 when this photo was taken….Over time I have met so many people who have a genuine vocation for what they do, and that is through so many different walks of life. In my latter life - from Nurses to Doctors and Consultants, Lay Visitors, Volunteers and Morticians, Funeral Directors, Spiritual Directors, Bereavement Counsellors, Psychiatrists , Social Workers, Carers, Psychologists, and the impressive list of people goes on.The three strand definition of vocation is = * A strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.* A calling, life’s work, mission, purpose, function, position, niche.* A divine call to God’s service in the Christian life –function or station in life to which one is called by God. Not since the days of 1979 have I had ‘Lock Down hair’. My ordination to the priesthood was publicly witnessed 40 years ago today by the day and tomorrow by the date. That was at St Mary’s Parish Church in the North Wiltshire town of Calne. I was ordained a priest in the Church of God, at 10.45am by John Neale, Bishop of Ramsbury. I was ordained Deacon a year before in Salisbury Cathedral by George Reindorp the Bishop of Salisbury and prepared at a retreat with Geofrrey Tristram by Frances Dominica, the founder of Helen House at Oxford. Geoffrey Tristram is now Superior of the Order of St. John in Cambridge, Masachusetts, USA. This morning, in this time of reflection I want us to think about our journey of vocation whatever our calling is. It goes on and on and it evolves over time. The journey entails people who we meet and mine included a revelation because people saw in me something that I could not see myself. I turned up at the Bishop’s House in Southwell (Notts) as a result of an appointment made to discuss my vocation. The Bishop’s daughter answered the front door and asked me whether I had come to collect the Jukebox. That was not a good start. I didn’t see what others saw in me for a long time and it was a car crash…and a time of rehabilitation that gave me time to reflect upon what others saw in me and hence my visit to the Bishop’s House.In my sermon on St Peter’s Day, before my first celebration of the Eucharist 40 years ago in Calne I related this story. The midwife who delivered me in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire at home was the daughter of a previous curate of St Mary’s, Calne, H.Thompson Adam. She was baptized at St Mary’s Calne as was our first born Thomas. The only reason I knew this was that Sr Adam had seen an announcement of my ordination in the Southwell Diocesan News in June 1979 and told my mother - thinking she would like to know the connection. The irony is that the midwife who should have delivered me at home was Nurse Jane Thorneywell who was unwell at that time of my birth. She had delivered my brother and sister before me. I used to visit ‘Thorney’ in her retirement as a friend of the family. She comes to mind again today for she epitomizes the help and support that Jane and I have had from our families and friends over time.* Thorney didn’t enjoy good health for the last twenty years of her life. She was my first unofficial ‘spiritual director’. From her chair or her bed she would listen well to me in my teenage years. She had a childlike quality, always wanted to know the truth, gently asking questions with her chesty chuckle. She never dwelt on the past. She always looked to the future, always kept in touch with world events through the radio and TV and her optimism in life was founded on a faith that kept opening the doors of new experiences – growing experiences despite her bed of sickness. One day in my teenage angst her immortal words to me were ‘Edward, you have got your knickers in a twist.’ She knew pain and she knew the reality of new life with many Mums and Dads in home confinements – home births. She expected nothing from anybody but was eternally grateful for anything she did receive. A good spiritual director can spot when we have ‘our knickers in a twist…’One of the ordination cards I received at that time was the picture of Holman Hunts’s picture of Christ ‘The Light of the World’, standing by a creeper covered door without a door handle. It requires clearing all that negatively clings to us. Then a gentle effort to push at the door of vocation and the Kingdom of God asking God our Creator to reveal what he has in store for us?For me the question that Jesus himself asked of his disciples and asks of us now at this moment when we look for meaning and purpose for the future is, ‘Who do you say I am?’ – not just the Son of Man but the Son of the living God and the Messiah.From that declaration is formed the foundations of the Church and all our vocations. Who we believe Christ to be?When we have pushed at that open door then we are equipped through the Holy Spirit to reveal the Kingdom of God.30 of my forty years of priesthood has been in health care as a Chaplain. Vocation – ordained to the Priesthood, or another manifestation, is about discovering our purpose under God in Christ. I can see now that Jane and I were prepared for pastoral ministry through the Police service through to a lively curacy in Calne and being a Team vicar for 7 years on a new housing estate in Poole building a new church from our vicarage and developing that into an ecumenical project – a church built in people and bricks and service to the community.So, the first purpose was pastoral working with families and schools and organizations and the homeless, an ex prisoners hostel and local businesses.The second purpose that was revealed to us was the vital relationship between religion and medicine. How does the whole care of people make a difference whole care in individuals, communities, nations and the wider world? Health Care Chaplaincy including Hospice Care. Sharing peoples’ pain and joy and everything between in difficult times of extreme circumstances.It is still an open road and along it our working with people of all faiths and none and our relationships. The one thing that has united us in the Chaplaincy and Community world has been helping people to be open to God’s possibilities through the expertise of the medical profession and general pastoral care and spiritual support. Together this makes an enormous difference to so many. Caring for people as unique individuals whatever their background with respect, with big ears that hear, and seeing the Christ in every person is key. (Richard Rohr – The Universal Christ).Vocation – we all have something revealed to us that can contribute to the extension of the Kingdom of God in care. This last week I was in touch with Geoffrey Tristram my fellow ordinand all those years ago and he has a podcast that I had found on their Community of St John website about Vocation and Listening. Prayer and action always…Prayer – listening to God, to others and the grace of God touching us in body mind and spirit.Thorney was just one person who listened and at this traditional time of ordination …we remember those who have given us the quality and the everyday spiritual gift of listening. Thomas on his baptism day in St Mary’s Church, Calne and much more…great memories…photos show us so much. Answering the question – who is Christ? The Son of the Living God! He is a creator not just of the past but always of the future. Today we offer that future to him.Vocation is about grace, not having enough faith. Thanks be to God in Christ through the Holy Spirit who gives us that reality to reveal the Kingdom of God daily.Amen…Canon Edward Pogmore
Thought for the Day24th June 2020Many of you will now that I am a keen bird watcher and that also extends to a great interest in other branches of the animal kingdom. This coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing lockdown has put paid to many of my plans for this year but within the current restrictions at any one time I have managed to get out with my binoculars and camera and find some very interesting things. In the early days of the lockdown I explored the footpaths in the locality and found the Courting Styles area very interesting. There were good views to be had of warblers and when the flowers came out in the hot weather it was really delightful. During a walk through Burbage Common I was delighted to see a water shrew go hurtling across the surface of a shallow pond. This was the first live water shrew I had seen in the wild, although I had found a dead one at Draycote Water some years ago. The bird song in Burbage Woods and the surrounding area was a real joy, even with my deficient hearing, and it made me reflect once more on the glories of nature and this wonderful world that we have so much influence on. In the past I have often stood and soaked in the beauty of many natural places round the world and meditated on God’s creation. Many people say that they feel closer to God when standing alone in the wild beauty of His creation and I am very much in tune with that.Just two weeks ago, Nick gave us a very inspiring sermon on the Holy Trinity on the occasion of Trinity Sunday. As he remarked, this is a topic which can cause a certain amount of trepidation in the potential preacher. There is no doubt that it is a complex subject and one that has caused divisions in the Christian church in the past. We often say that the Church of England is a broad church and provides a home for a host of people with many individual interpretations of the Christian teaching and these days there is more room for debate than in earlier times. As I remarked in my opening paragraph, I glory in the power and wisdom of our Creator God. We dwell on a small planet in a corner of our known universe and can hardly begin to contemplate the immense extent of all that lies around us. Yet, we must acknowledge that this immensity came from nowhere and was formed by God. However much you drill down with known science you come back to one fundamental point. From nowhere this unimaginable collection of galaxies, stars, planets and other objects was formed. To me that was and is the Creator God. In Genesis we are told of the creation and of how God created all of the animals and then finally man and woman. The nub of the story was that God gave man and woman the dominion over the animals and had created everything for them and had finally made them in His image. We now have to decide how we interpret this story. Here the concept of a broad church really kicks in. Some of my friends believe this story as absolute fact and will not be swayed in any way. Others, including myself, take the view that this story was an attempt by the early scripture writers to express the foundation of the world and the human race in an allegorical way. If we take the chronology of the Old Testament and work forward adding the ages of all the characters mentioned therein we would arrive at a date of just over 6000 years ago for the creation of the world. Now that is something I simply cannot accept. My view is that God revealed his intentions and the reasons for and limitations of the power of humans under His rule to the patriarchs and prophets. Eventually these were set down in allegorical form, at a period of around 3000 years ago, in the form of God’s Testament to his people by the scribes who were setting down the record of those oral stories coming down from the patriarchs and prophets.There will be many that strongly disagree with my interpretation and I accept fully that this is their undoubted right. Religion is a very personal thing and touches us all in different ways. When I read the Old Testament and moved forward from that time 3000 years ago I came to realise that the peoples of Israel and Judah began to stray from that strict interpretation of God’s law that had been set down in the first five books of the Old Testament. This is recorded very graphically and shows that there were a series of kings, some good but the vast majority bad, and these led Israel into a steep decline. How much the captives in Babylon had to grieve for and it would have been hoped that when they finally returned to Jerusalem, following their release by King Cyrus, they would have managed to build a new stable society based on the law of God. This was not to be the case and politics once more ensured that the priesthood were influenced and then controlled by the local monarchy and governors imposed by Rome.This is the time that God sent His only begotten Son to earth to reform society and to amend the abuses taking place in the Temple and throughout the state of Israel. Do you believe that Christ was the Son of God and conceived of the Virgin Mary? I do, and I believe He came to earth to teach the population a new way of interpreting the Jewish religion. That interpretation was not based on pure blind ritual and animal sacrifice but on serving others in need and building a new society that was inclusive. Inclusive of those who were then seen as outside the bounds of polite society. Inclusive of those of other races and who currently worshipped other gods. Christ was the great teacher and must have made a tremendous impact on all of those around Him. He picked His disciples well and even Judas had an important role to play. When Christ ascended to heaven again His disciples did a phenomenal job. They certainly picked up the ball and ran with it and the word spread round the shores of the Mediterranean and to the furthest parts of the world in a remarkably short time. The disciples suffered for their faith, as Christ knew they would, and yet they felt so much empowered and moved that they went on and did the job that Christ had left for them. So we say that Christ is the Son of God. Does that mean that He is a separate entity? In my interpretation and I believe that of the established church - definitely not. My take is that Christ was a manifestation of God in human form come down to engage with the Jewish nation to teach them a new and better way to worship God and live with their neighbours in a better way. It was necessary for God to take human form in order to have a close relationship with His disciples and to teach them this new way. When God appeared to Moses it was such a terrible experience that Moses was awestruck. How could God appear to many people in that sort of form?The third element of the Triune Deity is the Holy Spirit and this should mean more to us than it does. In my interpretation I feel that this is a part of God that is always with us. The Holy Spirit should remind us of our duties to God and also to our neighbours. Whenever we pray on our own we should let the Holy Spirit shape our thoughts and prayers. We can read in the bible of those great occasions when the Holy Spirit came among the faithful people to influence their actions and Pentecost is a wonderful example of this. All that were gathered there began to speak in tongues, that is to say in languages that they previously had no knowledge of. The power of the Holy Spirit is truly wonderful and reminds us that God is with us every minute of the day; all we have to do is to acknowledge the fact. With this knowledge we can confidently awake every morning, get out of bed and meet all the challenges that life has to offer and to help to do God’s work here on earth.As I mentioned earlier on, this is a very personal view and I hope that I have not offended anyone in sharing it with you. I respect everyone’s right to hold dear to their own interpretation of these matters and I am sure that not two people think of it in the same way.Don Peacock
Thoughts for Today From the real world, sublime and challenging The Falkland Islands War, Constancy, Peace and wild bleak beautySo, at 8am Tuesday 4th February we were ‘anchors off’, and the tenders were ready to transfer us to Port Stanley part of the East Falklands. The Falklands made up of 776 smaller islands and now designated a British Overseas Territory are 752 miles from the northern tip of Antarctica and 300 miles east of the South Americas. Since their discovery in 1690 by Royal Naval Captain John Strong they have been in French, British and Spanish hands. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833 after a two-year settlement by the Argentinians. The total population of the islands today is 3,398.The Falkland Sound was named by Strong after the 5th Viscount Falkland, Treasurer of the Navy in 1690. Falkland is from the Gaelic word for enclosure hence the name of the town of Falkland in Scotland. It wasn’t until 1765 that the Falklands Islands were named. Captain John Byron claimed them for King George lll and when the French challenged their ownership it was almost called St Malo! We arrived on this breezy and sunny day aware of the context of the 1982 Falklands Conflict between April and June of that year. After a warm welcome at the Tourist Board we made for Gypsy Cove, a twenty-minute minibus ride away. We were quickly out of the centre of town, past the large supermarket, petrol station and the great peat banks (the residents get an annual peat fuel allowance) into the wild barren vista of the sea coast with one or two large wrecks lying forlorn and rusted. At Gypsy Cove we met guides who were able to let us know what we were seeing around us. They left us to walk (at a safe distance) past the Magellanic Penguin burrows where there was evidence of some youngsters. We saw a Turkey Vulture on top of one of the high outcrops. The local regulars like the Falkland Thrush and the bright yellow Siskin escorted us until we came to the bright red dust-bath display of a Long Tailed Meadow Lark.The Cove revealed a vast expanse of beach being patrolled by the adult Magallenic Penguins in every stance you could name. Preening their stiff wings which can propel them 20–50 metres into the sea to catch fish and jelly fish at up to 25km an hour. Commerson Dolphins swam close to the shore, five or six of them fleetingly saying hello with their dazzling white and black markings. ‘Diddle Dee’ Shrub Heath guided us to the cliffs where the Cormorants were nesting overlooking York Bay. The Balmoral was just the other side of the bay where we saw a gun emplacement from the second world war. Further along in the distance we could clearly see HMS Forth part of the present British Fishery Protection fleet.All of this before 12 midday. Back in Port Stanley we took refreshment at the Globe Tavern where the licensee was from St Helena and his forbears from the heritage of slaves. The Falklands flag displaying the Falklands coat of arms shouted the motto of the Islands: ‘Desire the Right’. The pub was filled with memorabilia of the islands in war and peace. We paid our respects at the Falklands Memorial recording all the fallen of 1982 conflict which included 3 civilians, 255 British personnel and 649 Argentinians. Nearby we passed the Governor’s House en route to the 1918 Memorial outside Stanley remembering the Sea Battle of the Falklands on 8th December that year. This was when the German Squadron, headed by Vice Admiral Graf Von Spee, was defeated by the British Navy. Flanking the memorial are the three words War, Constancy and Peace. The story of the Falklands goes on with the fishing industry, tourism and sheep farming. The possibility of drilling for oil still looms.Christ Church Cathedral on the front at Port Stanley, built in 1892, is the most southerly Anglican Cathedral in the world. The Whale Jaw Bone arch was put up in 1933. We met the Dean, Ian Faulds, in the Cathedral and shared a service of dedication. A wreath made up of a hundred poppies knitted by passengers on our ship Balmoral during the first half of our voyage was placed on the Book of Remembrance, and meant so much to the Veterans in our party. It was a very moving ceremony and took Jane and I back to our parish life in Poole where we and the Church family were able to give support to the families of Marines engaged in the Falklands conflict.It was hard for us to leave this extraordinary place with its remoteness and untouched habitat, and where we had received such a warm welcome.The three words War Constancy and Peace describe our present circumstances and the process of reflecting upon what makes for peace and builds up our common life.On we go to Chile, Punta Arenas and the Chilean Fjords…Blessings,Edward and Jane
And it’s goodbye from me…….I want to say thank you to everyone at St Catherine’s and St Peter’s Churches for your whole hearted welcome and friendship. It is not always easy being a stranger in a church, learning different ways in a different church to what you have been used to. However the guidance and support that I have received from everyone has been amazing and something I shall not forget. I have certainly learned many new things, whether that is the particular names of the garments that is worn, the articles used in a service and indeed to know what a ‘Monstrance’ is. There are many things that I will take forward into my next context of ministry, much of which I have learned while at St Catherine’s and St Peter’s.Although my time here was short, the quality of fellowship has been rich and rewarding.I will miss you all.Pauline x
