HARVEST OF WORK AT SS PETER & PAUL GODALMING 21-9-08

Sermon preached by the Rev'd Canon Peter Challen

On my first night in Godalming I was greeted as the morning broke with a cup of tea on a tray around which were words that could be an additional text for my address- ‘A Gardner’s work is never at and end’. A good Harvest text - for the work of God, and the reciprocal work of human kind is never at and end.

These words ended a Leader in a national paper on Sept 16 2008: “The reality is that in a modern economy, as in every society, the prosperity of each is interconnected with the prosperity of others and of the planet. No one is an island, and - it turns out, no bank either. From innovation to pollution, the private decisions of everyone and every work affects the common good, the public good, - whether for good or ill - and economic governance needs to be revolutionised to respect it.”

I will suggest this morning that a faith audit of work needs to be revolutionised also.

I will repeat a number of times two refrains, or mantras.

“CHRIST AT BOTH ENDS OF THE LINE” and "WORK THE SOUL MUST HAVE”

I am exploring why the work of the newly formed Mission in London’s Economy matters in Godalming

Many years ago I travelled from central London to Oxted, which involved passing through the Oxted tunnel. As I opened up a discussion about our Christian witness to the public truth that arises from belief in God, creator and sustainer of the universe, a God of ceaseless creativity, I was quite strongly interrupted.

‘Peter’, said the interrupter, ‘You should realise that as we come from town each evening and enter the tunnel, we shut our business brief case and open our minds to family, community, church, leisure and sport. Next morning we reverse the process and the contents of the brief case fill our minds again ‘til 7 at night.’

Intended or not, that is the LANGUAGE OF DUALISM – the spiritual things are here, and the material things are there. In Oxted I was stirred to say, “BUT, we are called to be in ‘Christ at both ends of the line”. [A few years later Bishop John Taylor used that phrase, Christ at both ends of the line’ as title for his enthronement sermon in Winchester. – that sermon is a gem, worth revisiting to this day, perhaps substituting Godalming for Winchester.

I ask you to acknowledge that a Christian’s 3 interweaving guides to faithfulness - the Bible, Tradition/Experience and Sound Reason – urge the exploring of a Sacred Earth as revealed in holistic faith and earth system science, the cosmic context of all life, the work of God – Thus our reading from Job 38, 1-11. The 3 guides explore the possibility of, ‘that which works for everyone and protects the earth.’ Thus the passages from Ephesians 1. 1-11 and Matthew 25, 31-46. The 3 guides evoke an understanding that ‘spirit is matter seen in a stronger light’ (Teilhard De Chardin) Thus the combined effect of all three readings today. Emphasising inclusiveness and the wholeness. of the created order.

Herein lies a problem that challenges the nature of our witness as those who would be ‘in Christ’. We are called to follow the counter-imperial, non-violent way of the global ecology of love as lived and described by Jesus in everyday, everyplace stories and in the specific relationships involved in telling them. Stories of home life, stories of public life, stories of business life. All are governed by these holistic insights.

Hear these phrases once again - [maybe with a view to discussing them together face to face in one of your study opportunities or as you view the 30 exhibits of human work you have gathered here for this exhilarating Harvest of Work:

GOD’S WORK: Sacred Earth as revealed in holistic faith and earth system science – the cosmic setting of all life, the work of God.

OUR WORK: That which works for everyone and protects the earth

NOT DUALISM BUT HOLISM: Spirit is matter seen in a stronger light. Contemporary physicists now say that, all matter is energy in wide range of vibrations’

Albert Einstein expresses the integrity of all those phrases – and the challenging difficulty of responding faithfully to them in this eloquent paragraph:

Every human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. We experience our self, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest ... a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

And having embraced all living v creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty to live by them and for them and to determine our social structures in their interest.

The problem behind the present questioning of what is going wrong, both in the human economy and the ecological realm, lies in our anthropocentric worldview – that is our preoccupation with the human to the neglect of the planet. Can we outgrow it? Our preoccupation with our human needs alone has become totally dysfunctional and needs to change, in ways that have re-emerged in a renewed consciousness in recent disturbing manifestations as Credit Crunch and Climate Change.

The answer to the problem of having dimmed our understanding of the living God’s endless gift of ceaseless creativity is found in the imperative of holistic theology and in remembering that Jesus pointed not to himself but to God and God’s reigning as the ceaseless creativity of non-violent grace. Accept that thesis and a whole new view of work, mission and witness opens up. ‘Christ at both ends of the line’ opens up. We realise that the Kingdom of God means reigning, not territory. ‘Reigning in all relationships, relationship with God, relationships with all our fellow human beings seen or unseen, relationships with the whole life community of this fragile planet.

And that sets the context for understanding ECONOMY and the WORK that fuels it.

ECONOMY is first and foremost the housekeeping of the earth. In that prime sense we are all jobbing economists. Check yourself when about to say, ‘Oh but, I’m not an economist.’ By all means be humble about how much you understand of life’s immense complexity, but never contract out of searching for the truly God given economy of life in harmony on earth. That is everyone’s concern. In that context there is ample room for rich exchange between specialists, sometimes called experts and amateurs (meaning lovers of the intrinsic value of things).

A Harvest of Work is an important celebration. But note a gentle warning. A Festival of Science in Liverpool at this time has a notice of a meeting, ‘Fighting inertia for lasting change.’ But underneath a sticker – Event cancelled!

Don’t let this harvest of our work and our prayerful attention to what is our real contribution ‘that works for everyone and protects the earth’ stop short of ‘fighting inertia’. Much is good in human work today. Much is deeply flawed. The prayers of penitence this morning carry importanmt reminders of this – they are worth revisiting later. My words today are to suggest that we beaver away at ensuring that while we rejoice and give thanks for the good things of productivity and service amongst us, we also have minds open to learning where significant questions need to be raised and gently, searchingly discussed, in order to best ensure that our efforts ‘work for everyone and protect the earth’. That is so huge and complex an issue that we need to commit ourselves to frequent revisiting of the matter.

To that end, and that we might explore the fullest possible meaning of C’hrist at Both Ends of the Line’, the Parish Magazine carries a description of the newly emerging agency called Mission in London’s Economy. This agency was born of the 60 years of work of the ecumenical South London Industrial Mission (of which I was Senior Chaplain for 29 years) and the London Diocesan Industrial Mission. Both of these agencies of mission were slowly strangled by a concentration in church life on denominations, dioceses, parishes and upon personal salvation unrelated to the essential economic condition and context of forms of public truth that ‘work for everyone and protect the earth.’

Please give thought to the pertinence of having here in Godalming a study group on ‘Christ at both ends of the Line’. The Mile description provides a number of angles on faith and work that might be explored. It has 5 practioners’ groups pursuing the five objectives of its mission to promote economic sanity.

If you do study these matters, I ask you to take as a fundamental principle some words of Alice Walker about her impoverished mother, who lived her life in frequent moves. ‘BUT’, said Alice, ‘Throughout these moves, on whatever rocky soil she landed, she planted a garden, it was work the soul must have.’

‘Work the soul must have’. That is another phrase resonant with faithful insights that we should use in our reflections on the nature of work displayed

Our faith is grounded in gift and in inclusive, unconditional love for the whole life community of the planet. On that foundation the right of everyone to have basic security, shelter, income for sustenance, education, health care and the encouragement and recognition of their ‘work’. [their humble contribution] are measures by which we should audit the true worth of all our work. Every human being is called to participate in the human gift to God- that is, ‘the work the soul must have’. It is said that ability is everyone’s wealth. This was keenly recognised when Clare Balding said, “The paralympics are about ability – not disability.”

I end with this quotation from Anne Primavesi’s new book, ‘Gaia and Climate Change – a Theology of Gift Events’ -: 'God has given the world to humans not only as a gift of continuous fruitfulness, but as one immensely rich in possible alterations, actualised by each person through freedom and labour. This actualisation, like the multiplication of talents, is the gift of humankind to God.' [Miller 2000}GG&C 80]

THE NATURE OF GOD is gift in ceaseless creativity

THE NATURE OF HUMANS is to use their talents as a gift to the life of the planet.

GOD IS EMBARRASSED BY POSSESSION.

Greed, ownership, control, exploitation arise from law operating without its counter-balance, love, and love’s social expression in inclusive structural justice.

I hope you will view this exhibition of your local work and all it represents in your daily work for the common good, with these principles of a faithful audit in mind.

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And now may God in ceaseless creativity bless us in our work and help us to absorb this challenge to redeem all work for the sake of all life on earth to the best of our ability.