Sunday 7th December 2008, Canon Sue Booys
A voice cries out

A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God!'

Wilderness is a significant part of Christian experience. Liturgically - that is to say in the life and worship of the Church we are more acutely aware of this in Lent, when we go with Jesus into the wilderness to prepare for death and resurrection and Advent when we go with John the Baptist into the wilderness to prepare the welcome THE ONE the light and hope of the world.

During Advent we go with John into the wilderness to prepare the way to welcome Christ into our hearts and lives anew at Christmas. We have the opportunity to explore the inner geography of our lives for areas of dead wood, thorns or tangled knots. Twisted relationships, the dead wood of old hurts or habits, the confusion that sometimes comes when we can't see the wood for the trees - all these are wilderness areas and need to be cleared away before growth and new life is possible. ....
Kathy Galloway

Day by day in our lives and week by week in the prayers we recognize that God is calling us to engage in faith and hope for the future not only at a personal level but also within God's family the Church and within the whole creation - everything and everyone around us - our environment.

In personal terms a keeping of Advent, then, might mean taking steps to identify those parts of our relationships within ourselves, with God, our neighbours an our world that need attention. Perhaps these relationships are entangled knots because of lack of communication. or over communication or simply because too much has happened with too little time to assimilate it properly. Perhaps there is dead wood in the form of old habits that have become poor ones because we have not had the time to ask ourselves whether they still meet the need for which they were formed. In lour personal relationships whether with God, family or friends taking the time to recognize how and where these tangled knots have arisen and taking the further step of resolving them is part of the way in which we can prepare for the coming of THE ONE ..it is also part of the way in which we work at the coming of light and hope in our own lives.

At present it is true to say that the relationships in the Anglican church are a tangle of confusion, misunderstanding and lack of direction particular over the issues of homosexuality and women bishops. In might be described as having trussed itself up like a Christmas turkey! Of course closer to home these issues affect our thinking and being but often the issues that confuse us are smaller, though they can lead to equally difficult misunderstandings. This is why your comments on the new order of service booklet are so important. Tanking time to look at this as an Advent project makes sense. Our relationships with God and his family, as well as those who come here searching are partly met and made in the language and action of the liturgy - getting it right is important. It's a good Advent project! Getting the biog Church issues right is more difficult but requires the same things identifying where the knots are tangled and taking time in our communication with one another and with God about ways forward. This too may mean looking at habits we have taken for granted. It is meaning for our leaders a serious consideration about what is needed for the future of God's mission - not what is need for our continued comfort.

In a way that is exactly where an Advent consideration of our relationships with the world needs to start. These relationships are out of kilter - both in human terns with an increasing division between rich and poor rather than the leveling out of which the prophet speaks. Together with a growing realization that our human relationship with the creation in which God has set us needs some serious re - thinking. We are so lucky here to live in a community where people take this seriously.

This Sunday in Advent is the Sunday for listening to the prophets - not just to John the Baptist but to the prophets of our own time

But how on earth do we know who they are.

The first sign of a prophet is often that they say the outrageous and ridiculous. That's hard for us - because, as children of the enlightenment we have grown up to expect that anyone who ahs a good point will have a clear case. We know (as those who listened to hi in his own time didn't) how and why John the Baptist was important.

So who are the prophets?

Within ourselves we shall never hear the prophetic voice until we are still. It is the voice that calls through the stillness for us to do something quite uncharacteristic and unexpected?

In the Church perhaps we should look for the unusual solution? The one that will never work. In the Church I would hope and pray that if all attended to stillness the rest would follow.

But where will we find the prophets in and for the world? In recent years there have been those who have called more loudly than we have for a setting right of the problems that our thirst for power have created.

There is one key thing that helps us to identify the prophetic. The prophets whether young or old, whether called from within the community of the faithful or outside it will always call us to repentance. To turn away from bad habits and form new ones that hold out the hope of a new heaven and a new earth. And we had better watch out - because it is not always the most obvious person nor the most pressing and clever idea that holds the key to God's future.

Sunday 6th July 2008, Canon John Crowe
St Birinus Pilgrimage Sermon

Thank you so much for your welcome and for the privilege of preaching at this Pilgrimage Service - it brings back happy memories of my time here as Rector!

What have we been doing - those of us who have walked from Churn Knob? Or from Brightwell cum Sotwell? Or from Little Wittenham? Or just from the Presbytery Garden? We have not been taking part in a race. Nor just a pleasant walk in the countryside. No - we have done more than that. We are here because we are taking part in a Pilgrimage.

However short our journey may have been - we have come to the Abbey to focus on the story of the much longer journey all the way from Rome that St Birinus made to bring the Gospel to the Thames Valley back in the year 634.

Our readings brought to us the theme of journeying in faith and hope - of going through suffering to a better future - trusting in God. First we heard of Abram's obedience in starting out into the unknown, despite the uncertainty, not knowing how he would reach the land God would show him.

Then we heard that brief but vivid passage from Mark's Gospel. So much of the Gospel story tells us of Jesus journeying - teaching as he walked with his disciples through the corn fields - walking to towns and villages to proclaim God's Kingdom, to teach and to heal. In chapter 10 we reach a pivotal point. From now on Jesus's last journey, walking to Jerusalem, takes him away from the towns and villages of Galilee. The rest of the Gospel tells us about that journey and its outcome. At the start of that walk to Jerusalem Mark says that Jesus "walked ahead of his disciples so that they were amazed and those who followed were afraid." What were their feelings at this point? Fear and uncertainty as they began to realise the danger and risk that lay ahead. Mark spells it all out. Jesus says it will indeed be dangerous - it will involve his own suffering and death, and yet through it all will come resurrection and new life - the triumph of forgiveness and love over sin and death!

Let us hold the message of those 2 readings in our minds and hearts as we now reflect on the journey made here by St Birinus, then on the way pilgrim journeys can be a help to us on our physical and spiritual journey through life - and finally, bearing in mind that today's collection is being donated to Oxford's Asylum Welcome, on the journeys many make today to get to a better land away from persecution, torture and possible death.

We have to use our imagination as we think about how St Birinus got here. Nearly 40 years earlier we know that before arriving in Canterbury St Augustine had had his misgivings about his own mission. He had stopped on his journey for quite a time to wrestle with serious doubts. What sort of a welcome would he get? Birinus would have had the same question in his mind. This part of the world didn't have a friendly reputation all those years ago. In fact Birinus after landing on the south coast, was walking into a war zone. Mercia north of the Thames and Wessex to the south and west of the Thames had been at war for 25 years. Birinus had the courage to persevere, the wisdom to have a careful strategy of how to approach the pagan King Cynegils of Wessex. His achievement was to preach the Gospel to Cynegils on Churn Knob and later baptise him here in Dorchester and establish the Church here. However we know how vulnerable the situation was - a few decades later Dorchester proved unsafe - Birinus's bones were taken to Winchester and a cathedral was built there. But the story of Birinus was remembered - written down by the Venerable Bede not long after - we find that story in some of the fine medievel glass of the Abbey especially in the roundel in the St Birinus chapel showing Birinus "ready to go" after his consecration before the start of his journey. As we know, after the return of some of his relics, a beautiful shrine was built here and many pilgrims journeyed to the Abbey until his shrine was desecrated - along with so many others - because of the greed of Henry VIII. But - fragments remained - and it is so good to see the shrine somewhat restored and a focal point of pilgrimage today.

We thank God that pilgrimages have been revived in most Christian traditions since the middle of the 19th century. We all need to see ourselves in the flow of Christian history - aware of the Communion of Saints - ready to learn from their stories - always looking beyond those stories to the heart of our Faith, the story of Jesus which motivates all his disciples in their journey through life.

So - what of pilgrimages today? Our annual pilgrimage is a mini-pilgrimage giving a taste of the pilgrimage experience - a day combining walking, worship, personal reflection, fellowship and the chance to meet strangers from different traditions but with a common purpose. As regards more serious and committed pilgrimages I can't think of a better recommendation than "Get in touch with the Confraternity of St James, the largest English-speaking association of pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela.It was started 25 years ago and now has over 2000 members." It is in Santiago that St James, who became leader of the Early Church in Jerusalem and was martyred by Herod Antipas, is remembered. His shrine in North West Spain has inspired over a thousand years of pilgrimage. About 100,000 people walk to Santiago each year. Twelve years ago with some of my family I walked the last 180 miles of the Camino. To mark its anniversary the Confraternity has produced an excellent little Spiritual Companion - with the reflections of 25 pilgrims, outstanding and beautiful photographs - there are copies for sale.

Here is the reflection of the historian, Katherine Lack. You may have heard of the Worcester pilgrim, whose remains, with evidence of his pilgrimage to Santiago in the 14th century, were found recently in Worcester cathedral. Katherine Lack researched his story for her book "The Cockleshell Pilgrim" - "I faced many questions. What sort of Englishman would consider travelling through a continent ravaged by civil disorders? What really motivated him? Why walk when many compatriots chose the sea journey? How did he manage from day to day with sleeping and eating? Who helped him? Whom did he remember with gratitude at the journey's end? As I retraced his pilgrimage, it was remarkable how often archive materials agreed with surviving evidence on the ground, despite 6 centuries of change. Indeed, it was sometimes unnerving just how closely I identified with this man from the past, on our journey."

Philip Wren, a Methodist minister reflecting on over 2000 km walked to Santiago during 5 walking pilgrimages over the last 9 years said - "I feel it's now time to call a halt to the blisters, the exhaustion, the jubilation, the ecstasy, the spiritual growth and insight that walking to St James has brought me." Speaking of the shrine at Santiago - he said "When I kneel in the crypt I am physically close to St James whom I see as a fellow pilgrim, fellow disciple and one who gave up all to fulfil his calling and vocation."

Finally - I said I was going to speak briefly about some of the stories of those who have made dangerous journeys to Oxford from overseas and been helped by Asylum Welcome. There is plenty of information available - but just let me refer to 3 of the stories from this book - "How the world came to Oxford" In his Foreword Mark Haddon writes "We talk of people being forced to flee persecution in their home countries. But the brutal truth is that no-one is forced to flee. Fleeing is what you do if you have the guts to leave" It needs bravery and courage similar to that shown by the missionary saints of God, called to leave security and all that was familiar, to go to another land.

Bravery and toughness of character as shown by Ali Askari, a young Hazara from Afghanistan. At the age of 15 his father, a military commander was killed by the Taliban. Soon Ali was on a 2 months walk over the mountains - "I lived with the cows, sleeping in stables or on the ground. I walked until my feet were swollen and my knees hurt. Often we had to eat grass. Sometimes we had to walk waist-deep in water."

By the age of six, Grace from Uganda had already been displaced and moved homes several times because of the civil war. What was it like to flee so often? - "It wasn't material possessions, however precious, that mattered. Family and our Christian faith were our most precious belongings. I remember being told - 'If you must take nothing else, you take God, the rest doesn't really matter.'I also believe in the saying - 'You make your home where God leads you to, wherever that may be."

Many of the stories are of older people like Makonen Getu from Ethiopia. His is an especially remarkable story. Sick and weak as a child he was brought up in a remote village, tending cattle. His uncle paid for him to start school run by a Coptic priest. Eventually getting to university in Addis Ababa and then to study further in Sweden Makonen returned after the military coup in 1974. By then a Marxist he had rejected his Christian beginning. He became involved in the underground opposition to the military dictatorship. For several months he travelled in constant danger. To cut a long story short - Makonen then escaped to Sweden, returned to Christianity, married a lady from Finland, worked for the United Nations and for World Vision in Lesotho and Zambia and has been here with his family in Oxford since 2000. Makonen's story shows how there was always an inner journey with change and development within his physical journey.

"Jesus was walking ahead of the disciples - and they were amazed and those who followed were afraid."

May we on our journey through life be inspired by all who walk ahead on dangerous journeys to a better land. May we be inspired by the journeys of the saints of God. Above all may we be inspired to be disciples of Jesus, overcoming fear of the future to follow in his Way to our eternal home. Amen

Sunday 1st June 2008, Canon Christopher Hall
"Time for change - or business as usual?"

I suggested the title 'Time for change - or business as usual?' without knowing what would dominate the news during this last week - floods, demonstrations about the price of fuel and yesterday against the third Heathrow runway.

The story of Noah and the flood may indeed be a myth. That doesn't mean it is untrue. It surely didn't happen quite as described in Genesis, though there is evidence that the rivers of Mesopotamia - what was the then known world - did indeed have a major flood. A myth is like a parable - it is a 'Truth-picture'. That means it contains truth; there are lessons to be read from it.

So just imagine the story of Noah in the context of today.

God may well see now, in the words of Genesis, how great human wickedness has become on the earth, and the inclination of the thoughts of very many are only evil. There are major floods, and rumoured threats of even greater ones to come, floods caused not by divine intervention, but by human activity out of step with the constraints of nature. A Noah might well say to God, as many today do indeed say: "I don't believe the prophets of doom." In a skit on the story by Bill Cosby, God asks Noah, "How long can you tread water ?"

Noah is persuaded by God that it is Time for Change. He agrees to go to great lengths to refashion where he is to live, him and his family - plus just a few pets - going even to the length of 150 yards, 25 yards wide and 15 yards high - or should that be metres ?! But the climate change deniers think he is cracked and treat him as they treat green weirdos; they dismiss him as an eco-freak. For them it is Business as Usual.

Business as Usual today is wedded to growth without limit. On Friday a crane in Manhattan collapsed fatally onto an apartment block in the rush to build yet another high-rise block. Just one example of the continual building of ever greater barns to house the ever increasing numbers of possessions and the latest technological wizardry, heedless that the resources of a single planet are limited. If Business as Usual is to continue uncurbed, it requires the resources of not one planet but three, but there is, and can only ever be, just the one - just one planet to be used or abused.

'Business as Usual' readily forgets that Business has not always been what is now assumed to be 'usual'. It is only 150 years since oil was discovered. Before that Business as Usual had no oil to burn. In the six generations during which oil has been available, two parallel processes have been accelerating. One is global warming - though the effects and causes of climate change have only been recognised in the last 30 years. Examination of Antarctic ice-cores have demonstrated the close link between the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperatures - going back sixteen hundred centuries. Before fossil fuels began to be burnt, the planet could cope naturally with the emissions of greenhouse gasses, but industrial activity in the last 60 years are pushing CO2 levels to double what they have ever been. The line on the graph showing the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere is soaring upwards.

• So the Arctic is losing its sea-ice much more rapidly than was expected - white ice which reflects heat is replaced by dark sea which absorbs heat creating a self-reinforcing feedback.
• Glaciers are shrinking - I've been told that to preserve a glacier in NZ, which is a tourist attraction, it was at first wrapped in black plastic.
• Kilimanjaro is losing its snows on which Tanzanians up to 250 miles away depend for water, yet charities like Oxfam and Scope have been flying people out to join sponsored treks up the mountain. In protest I cut up my Oxfam credit-card and told them why. I see Oxfam at least has now stopped them.
• Another example of climate change is nearer home: Canon Edmund Newell told me last week that the guttering for St Paul's Cathedral designed by Sir Christopher Wren 300 years ago can't cope with the recent downpours and the crypt is getting flooded.

That's one of the two parallel processes - global warming and climate change. The graph for the other parallel process is different: it is shaped like a bell. It shows the availability of oil. The top of the graph is Peak Oil, the point at which the maximum amount of available oil is reached. After that the amount goes down and therefore its price goes inevitably up, because demand outstrips supply. Peak Oil has probably been reached already, though the oil companies deny it to keep investors happy. The discovery of new oil fields peaked 40 years ago. 1979 was the last year in which more oil was found than was burned. As the price of oil goes up, sources where oil is harder and much more expensive to extract become profitable. Thus Shell is among those companies starting to squeeze oil out of the tar sands in Canada. As I learnt at the Shell AGM last week, they admit they expect to release each year 360,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases in the process of extraction, and that is before the extracted oil is used. That is what is involved in the Business as Usual model.

This may be the point in this address, if you are timing me, to quote the saying to a speaker: 'If you don't strike oil in 10 minutes, stop boring !' May I continue?

Can Business as Usual continue? Commuters by car, long-distance lorry drivers and frequent fliers all seem to believe so, and expect to go on doing so as cheaply as before. In USA to keep cars on the road, tax incentives are being paid to farmers to change from growing grain for human consumption to planting maize, sugar cane, palm oil and oil seed rape - all of which can be turned into biofuels. This policy is a vote-winner enthusiastically embraced by rural farmers. None of the presidential candidates say they will abandon it. But the altered pattern of crop-growing produced by this US legislation has already helped drive up the price of bread in Britain, pasta in Italy and tortillas in Mexico. When the price of food, of petrol and of heating go up, accusing fingers are pointed at governments, and votes are lost. As so often, when we point a finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at ourselves.

It is Time for us to Change. The evidence tells us that Noah was right to obey God. It is high time to change. A London professor says we have only ten years to make the change. It takes ten years to turn the global tanker around, so we need to make a start. What are the possibilities?

For a start we need to reduce consumption, to reduce our dependence on oil, and embrace renewable energy - for instance welcoming wind turbines. Some 2000 people have invested £4.6m in the Westmill Wind Farm which was opened last month near Faringdon. The Triodos Renewable Energy Fund is offering £8.5m in shares to be invested in renewable energy projects. Planning permission is being sought for a turbine in Deddington. As I wrote in The DOOR in April: Wind generation requires just five litres of water to provide five megawatts hours, the average amount consumed by a household per year. Coal requires 10,000 litres, while nuclear needs 12,500, to produce the same amount of power. I very deliberately said 'require' not 'consume'. At the opening of the Westmill Windfarm, we were told that the wind generators would recoup the CO2 embedded in their construction in about seven months, while coal and nuclear power stations recoup only about half their embedded CO2 in their life time, and that does not include their inputs of fuel.

What we are able to do may be relatively small steps but I'm encouraged by a motto I found years ago on a milk carton in New Jersey: 'Teamwork is great. Look at Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is nothing but a lot of little drips working together.'

Averil Stedeford is an Associate member of the Iona Community Noah. She has gone to great lengths to refashion where she lives. She has changed her '50s semi in Headington into an eco-house, and won an Observer Eco-award for it. It has been featured on Songs of Praise. She has set an example which others are following. She has shown what is possible. It wasn't cheap, but in the words of an Iona Community prayer, she says: "I will not offer to God offerings which cost me nothing."

Not to be confused with Berinsfield's Operation Noah's Ark, there is Operation Noah the campaign of Christian Ecology Link, the British Churches working together. It is spear-headed by Ann Pettifor, who achieved global success for the Jubilee 2000 campaign because she refuses to take no for an answer.

Sue tells you have engaged wit the Eco-congregation project which provides tools for churches to audit what they do, and to decide what they can do better. The 100th Eco-congregation Award was announced on Friday - a second award for St Thomas Church in Salisbury.

There was a time for confession earlier in this service, here's another. Hands up those who are addicted listeners to The Archers ? That's great, because you will have heard about Transition Towns. There are 52 communities in Britain designated as Transition Towns, and 600 more seriously exploring becoming one as they are in Ambridge, led by Pat Archer. Transition Towns are communities which have come together to raise awareness of the challenge, to explore the relevant local ways to reduce their dependence on oil and their carbon footprint - growing and buying local produce, promoting public transport, cycling and walking.

There is something for everyone, every congregation and every community - some way to respond to the challenge. Those with access to the internet can find out more using the links above.

Do I need to spell out why Christians are called to get involved?

• for the sake of our children or grandchildren,
• for the sake of those who lack the power or the funds to survive - the Torres Straits islanders, the citizens of Kiribati and Tuvalu in the Pacific whose land is already being submerged,
• for the sake of the 200 million predicted environmental refugees

but surely over and above all for God's sake,

• for the sake of him who in his love created this planet to give us life, and came to share it with us.

Finally can we make the Eco-Congregation prayer our own;

Creator God - maker and shaper of all that is, seen and unseen;

You are in the expanse and depth of Creation, and in the processes that make life possible.
Yet we are distracted by the gods we make ourselves and our lives become fractured and fragmented.
In our brokenness we disturb the Earth's capacity to hold us.
Instead we find climate uncertainty and global injustice.
Call us back from the brink.
Help us to choose love not fear, to change ourselves and not the planet;
to act justly for the sake of the vulnerable; and to make a difference today for life tomorrow.
In your name - Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.