5th October 2003
Today is dedication festival, a festival where we are actually encouraged to celebrate that this building has been set aside to the glory of God, that it is a space set aside for the sacred. It could seem a throw back to a past age since we are now very much encouraged to think beyond buildings and to think of the faith embodied in holy lives, not safely contained in carved stone! But the two are not completely conflictory - we can mark the dedication of the building and in so doing be reminded what it is for.
I spend quite a lot of time in this place, often on my own, and I find myself noticing things or seeing them anew in literally the different light at various times of the day. So this morning I want to take you on a little journey round the church and as we go I will stop at just three places to see what they have to say to us.
I am going to start at the door - the main door we come in through.
If you look at the door, or think about it in your mind, it opens inwards and therefore draws us in. For those already on the inside it becomes a calling to welcome and greet with the love of Christ all who step across its threshold. As St Benedict said, ‘let all be greeted as Christ’.
If the door was being made today, current standards would require that it also open outwards. The door also bids us go. We are dismissed at the end of the service with the charge: ‘go in peace to love and serve the Lord’. We are sent to be light and salt in the community. We are charged to engage with the community around us, or wherever our day, our week, takes us.
Doors can invite or they can repel. We no longer have a great oak, stronghold door. We are not repelling invaders here. We have glass panels in the door that allow each side to see the other.
Whenever I come into the church during the week, be it to pray or sort something out or pick something up that I need, I always use the main porch door AND I leave it unlocked. I do this deliberately so that others may come in and gain access. Many do - some are visitors staying in the hotel across the road, some are locals just passing, some are people needing to use this sacred space for prayer or a moment’s reflection. Some light candles, some need to talk. The door being open makes contact and meeting possible; it makes hospitality possible. I would encourage others to do the same when they come in and if extra keys need to be cut, then so be it.
Remember the words of the gospel - ‘let the children come to me, do not try to stop them’ (Mark 10:13-16). Let the door be a reminder to greet all as Christ and therefore be blessed by that encounter. As it welcomes us in, so it also sends us out. The faith in which this church is dedicated is not bound by these walls and we live it when we are not here too as salt and light in the community.
The second place I want to stop is the side chapel, where I say Evening Prayer each day. There is so much I could pick from there - the window with its images of Christ in majesty above scenes from his passion. But I want to pick the large monument that dominates that space, the peculiarly arranged family who almost join me for the prayers.
They were rich and opulent; this monument cost £700 in 1697. Edward, second Viscount Irwin, was a rogue and had more than an eye for women. He reclines nonchalantly; his wife, Elizabeth, is almost leaning on his head, but not quite - there is daylight between them! At his feet sits their only daughter, Katherine, holding a skull and this is the key to the scene. We see instantly that this is a sign that she died in infancy - in her second year. Edward himself died at the age of 26. There is a great human tragedy behind this memorial. Money does not exempt anyone from tragedy and death.
We live in times that delude themselves that we can fix anything, that if we have enough money it will solve everything. Death is ignored and pushed to the margins of life where we don’t have to look at it or face it, until it finally catches up with us of course. This monument reminds us that in the midst of life there is death and that this is part of the mystery that is life itself. Taken with the window, and its celebration of Christ’s passion and resurrection, we can find beyond the immediate opulence a reminder of the great faith of the church. As St Paul tells us, ‘nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus’. We can also find a challenge to the assumptions of our times, that we can fix anything and money solves all problems!
So we have the door that bids us welcome and bids us welcome others and sends us out to live to God’s praise and glory. We have a monument and its prophetic reminder of the Christian hope. The third place I want to take you to is on the other side - the votive candle stand and another place of prayer.
This is a popular place. There are times when there is no more room for candles and they are precariously, even dangerously, balanced. I could tell you the story of the young lads who were being a nuisance outside the church and hall, and after an hour or so of this, eventually it came out that the uncle of one of them had just died. They didn’t know what to do, what to say or how to do or say it. They just found themselves outside a church in the rain and made a nuisance struggling to find something. We came inside, one of them lit a candle and they went on their way.
I could tell you of the two young girls who came back into the church and lit candles after the funeral of their father. I could tell you of the couples coming for further marriage who after we have said some prayers recognising that vows had been made before and not lasted, they come over and light candles as a sign of so much.
You could tell me of why these candles mean so much to you as a visible sign of your prayers, because you light so many of them.
So, as we have concentrated on the door that draws us in, that sends us out, that bids us welcome all as Christ; as we think of the monument which if we work at it can speak of the great Christian hope; as we look at these lighted candles some words found in Salisbury Cathedral near to the place for lighting candles.
© Ian Black 2003