Olde England #1

I heard a really great sermon at church at the weekend.

Ok, that's not that kind of thing you expect to read in this blog, but it's true, I did.

We had left Ikea and instead of turning back into London, decided to keep going up the M11, into that strange land that exists outside the M25, also known as England.

We ended up in countryside on the Essex/Suffolk border, all hedgerows, country pubs and hay fields.















We pulled up in the mostly medieval village of Lavenham, which can't be that behind the times as it has it's own snazzy website. We also checked out Long Melford, which also has its own website, though not quite as snazzy. I wonder if this represents some subtle marketing demographic...

Anyway, we went for lunch, which turned into dinner, which turned into an alcoholic evening, so we stayed. As bells peeled out the next morning, I said: "You know that big church we couldn't get into, how about checking it out now?"

"What, during a service?"

"Why not?"

Although clearly not convinced, my glamorous companion managed to dig out a mother of pearl cross that she placed piously over her breast (for fear of being struck down, I don't doubt) and we headed for church.

And very nice it was too. As we sat waiting for the service to begin, a Margo Best-Chetwynd Lady of the Manor-type complete in twin set and pearls came over to welcome us ("Are you new, or visitors?"

"Oh, we were just passing through then decided to stay the night"

"Why did you tell her that?" hissed glamorous companion, her cross beginning to pulsate hussy-red.)

The bells stopped and behind the alter emerged a procession of folk in white smocks, fronted by a bloke holding up a cross ("High church," I whispered authoratively) and sure enough, there was all that litergy stuff and hymns and things. In short, the usual bum-numbing suspects.

Then the vicar, a stand-in by the name of Richard Titford, began his sermon. It wasn't quite what we had been expecting.

"You don't mind if I come among you, do you?" he said, turning his back on the pulpit to position himself at the head of the central aisle.

He said he had a problem, and perhaps we could help him with it (I think this was a rhetorical bit). That surrounded by all this ancient beauty, how could he connect with us? He said that this was also a problem confronted by the gospel writers (and this was where it got interesting) that even Matthew was writing 50 years or so after Jesus's death, so he couldn't possibly have known what Jesus actually said (I noticed a white haired head begin to shake), that none of the gospel writers did - instead they were considering their own time and trying to make sense of it in the spirit of Jesus.

He said that even the gospels themselves were a self-selected bunch, created to conform with the needs of the time - a time when the Christians were under threat from Rome and there was a desperate need for a unified church to hold them together.

At this point I realised that Rev. Titford must have at least have glanced at my favourite (okay, the only one I've read) theological book, Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas.

Indeed, he went on to speak of the dozen or so gospels excluded from the Bible and his hope that one day he might be able to read from them all. Becoming increasingly excited, he rounded off by saying that although he had a duty to "the bishop and the church" he also had a duty to God, and if he had to choose, then it would have to be God.

He came to an end and hung his head. I for one wanted to burst into spontaneous Houses of Parliament Robin Cook applause, but was stilled by the frosty silence. My glamorous companion and I exchanged a glance, humbled I think, by the first honest sermon either of us had ever heard, even if it had come from a vicar who had clearly got into hot water for expressing these very views and was making a kind of swan song.















Oy tell thee that wall b'aint straight...


It was all the more ironic that Long Melford's usual Rev was away on a sabatical to learn about increasing church numbers when this pair of apostates agreed we would gladly attend more services if they were like this.

And perhaps that's the true trouble with the Church of England - not that it has gone too far, but not far enough. Allowing itself to be guided by members attracted by the simple certainties (read: fables) of the Bible is like the Conservative Party getting its members to choose their leader, or turkeys voting for Christmas. Alpha courses and the like are all very well, but in reality they only attract more of the same (gays to burn in hell? I don't bloody think so...) if via Land Cruisers and Mercedes.

It's not that most people in this country are irreligious (look how superstitious they are for heavens sake) rather that religion has become so irrelevant that they can see right through it. But instead of throwing out all that brutal Old Testament crap (Ten Commandments my foot, Moses needed to keep his people in line) and deconstructing early Christian writing to separate the wheat of what Jesus meant from the chaff the church used to keep his ideas alive, we have on one hand the Archbishop of Canterbury humming and hawing over gays and women and how tough it is to believe in a Tsunami God (never mind the Holocaust) and on the other happy clappers believing they can be "saved" and so can you if only you sign on the dotted line. No wonder most people turn to consumerism, agnosticism or atheism.

But if they won't let you preach in "God's House" Rev Titford, you're always welcome to crash around mine.