What is the point of a vicar?
One of my favourite answers to this question came from the pen of the Dorset novelist Theodore Powys in the 1930’s. And a warning: he wasn’t being complimentary. It went something like this.
‘A clergyman is an individual placed in a community by the powers that be to stop any uncertain wanderings in the direction of God’
I have always tried not to be that sort of priest. And I’m convinced that the opposite is true – that the main purpose of a priest is to allow and encourage as many uncertain wanderings in the direction of God as possible; to point the way and to get out of the way. That is one of the reasons I never feel comfortable when I hear one of my colleagues talk about ‘my parish’. Parishes are not fiefdoms of the vicar, but territories where people can ask their uncertain questions and listen out for God’s reply.
The Gospel story for this morning is one of my favourites, because it so perfectly captures the idea of the journey of faith being a dialogue, and not always an easy one. St Mark tells us that when Jesus goes to the region of Tyre, he is having one of his recurrent Greta Garbo moments. He wants and needs to be alone for a time. But thanks to the unnamed Syrophoenician woman, who comes looking for him, that interlude is brief.
A bit of background might be helpful.
The region of Tyre – today on the Lebanese coast and home to numerous refugee camps – was a multicultural society, where Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians and Jews, speaking different languages and practising a variety of religions, lived and worked alongside each other. Ancient Tyre is not as well known as it should be; all the evidence points to it being the origin of all the alphabets that these different communities used, and that we do now.
So, when going to the region Jesus was probably seeking to concentrate on his own cultural group – Aramaic-speaking Jews – but the Syrophoenician wanted help and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wanted him to cast a demon out of her daughter. At first Jesus refused, setting out his priorities in a brutal way: ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to let the children’s food be cast to the dogs.’ But she persists, and argues back that even the dogs under the table can eat the children’s crumbs.
I am sure that for that woman to go home and find her daughter well again it didn’t feel like she was getting mere crumbs.
This pattern of persistent questioning and dialogue comes up over and over again in the Gospels. I hope that St Barnabas has been and will remain a place where people can come, in their uncertain wanderings in the direction of God, and find encouragement and guidance.
Our other reading this morning, from the letter of James, is full of guidance, which I think connects with the kind of church St Barnabas tries to be. There is the bit that so annoyed Martin Luther that he relegated the letter to the appendix in his version of the New Testament: ‘What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?’ Helping with Glassdoor and providing food to those who come to the door show even if we are not that familiar with those verses, we have absorbed the principles.
Many people who come to church regularly here love the hymn ‘All are welcome’, which begins,
Let us build a house
where love can dwell
and all can safely live,
a place where
saints and children tell
How hearts learn to forgive.
I think that speaks to what God offers to us when we worship together, but also what we hope to be as a church community and for the wider community. It is what happens when we pray, or sing hymns together, host plays or musicians, offer a haven of peace for people doing yoga or recovering from illness; or when we enable open conversations about divisive local issues and sometimes national ones. It’s what happened when St Barnabas hosted the vaccination hub, and thousands of people came, and many local people welcomed and helped them – that, to me, was one of our finest moments.
It will for me be very strange not being part of St Barnabas’ and Southfields’ future, but I am grateful for being welcomed for 18 years to accompany you on your journey, including your wanderings in the direction of God.
