Last week, Bishop Robert reflected on being present for the ordinations in Vasteras in Sweden, and this week I will be on retreat with our ordinands as they prepare for their ordination as deacon or priest this weekend.
As I repeatedly say, the opening words of the ordination service remind us that ordinations are about all of us and what it means to be Church:
“The Church is the Body of Christ, the people of God and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. In baptism the whole Church is summoned to witness to God’s love and to work for the coming of his kingdom. To serve this royal priesthood, God has given a variety of ministries..”
Thus, services of ordination are indeed about celebrating particular individuals, but only within the context of those services being about the whole Church. And that image of the Church as the body of Christ is that of community.
As I preside over the ordination of new priests on Saturday afternoon, I will be remembering my own ordination as priest on the same date 31 years ago. Community was a key word in my own calling to ordination. My somewhat reluctant response to the call of God emerged from my participation with people’s lives both in my role as a speech and language therapist and also in my increasing involvement with connecting with the lives, needs and hopes of those living in the community within which the local church gathered.
My ordained ministry in London had the local community at the heart, and I was fully alive when enabling the church to build community with people of all ages and backgrounds through creating spaces for relationship and connection, for example the establishment of under 5s spaces, after school spaces which became intergenerational, spaces for Bangladeshi mothers to come and practice their English, tea dances for older people, and always seeking to be confident in our faith in Christ. For me, those spaces were like gathering with people at a well, and in relationship praying that people might taste and drink from the water of life: ‘Deeply Christian, serving the common good’…
Which takes me to last Friday morning when I had the privilege of speaking to the headteachers at schools within the Diocese of Worcester at their annual conference. In that conference, teachers were reflecting on the Church of England Vision for Education which sits under that title of ‘Deeply Christian, serving the common good’.
Around tables, school leaders reflected on the core aims of the vision, which include ’Educating for community and living well together.’ In the conversation there was much discussion about the importance of relationship and contributing to a strong sense of community, not only within the school, but within each local context.
On Friday afternoon, the theme of community continued as I left Worcester to host an event as part of ‘The Great Get Together’ initiated by the Jo Cox Foundation. The event gathered people from, in and around Gloucestershire representing civic organisations, charities and leaders in our communities. Once more people gathered around tables, this time covered with pictures connected to many issues which so often divide us (including a St George’s flag, people sleeping in doorways, new houses being built, UK border control, agricultural activity). Over tea and cake people spoke both about the things which divide us and the importance of forging community, focusing on Jo Cox’s belief that ‘we have more in common than that which divides us’.
It was poignant for me because it connected back to ordinations as I vividly remember being with the ordinands on retreat in Oxford during my first summer as Bishop, when we heard the shocking news that Jo Cox MP had been murdered (16 June 2016).
Those words of Jo Cox that ‘we have more in common than that which divides us’, resonate so strongly with St Paul’s imagery of ‘the body of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 12), and the ever increasing need as the Church to recognise that in all our diversity and differences we belong to each other because through our baptism we belong to Jesus Christ, the Head of the Body, the Church, and in whom all things hold together (Colossians 1:17-18). Yet more than that, becuase together we are summoned to witness to God’s love and to work for the coming of God’s kingdom – to nurture and strengthen community in our different contexts as we discover and share ‘life in all its fullness’ as offered us in Jesus Christ.
Wonderfully, those words of Jesus as presented in John 10:10 which sit at the heart of our LIFE Together vision, also sit at the centre of the Church of England Vision for Education.
I hope that many people will be at the Cathedral on Saturday and Sunday for the ordinations in this diocese (and indeed again on Saturday 19 September when we will celebrate lay ministry and also license new Readers), as we commit to being Church, the Body of Christ together. May we commit to learning ever more about what it means to be formed in community and to be builders of community among the people and places of our daily lives, confident and courageous in our faith.
Which takes me back to the Church of England vision for education, ‘Deeply Christian serving the common good.’ May that be the hallmark of who we are in community as we live this coming week.
With my thanks and prayers,
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