Trinity 1, Holy Trinity Church Corfu

Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan

 

Lynne and I are delighted to be with you here this morning. I promise that I don’t think you all live like the Durrels! It is a joy to have Jules as a colleague and I know how much you love him and value him as your priest here.

All of us who minister in Greece, and indeed throughout the whole of the Archdeaconry of the East have to be resilient and self motivating as great distances prevent frequent collegial meetings, but we can hold each other in prayer, and I will do what I  can to try and improve on the opportunities we can have to meet and support each other. One of the challenges of this is the cost involved and I will also explore how we might be able to access some funding for an annual meeting of the clergy and Readers, so we can have mutual support in ministry.

I have just returned to Athens from the Diocesan Synod in Cologne, Germany, and I bring you greetings from Archdeacon Colin.

In my first six months in Athens – that is up until Christmas – I had managed to visit our congregations in Thessaloniki, Patras, Nafplio, and several times to Crete. This was because Crete has no Assistant Chaplain, and we had to work the processes to make an appointment. I am delighted to say that we have now made an appointment; however Procedures prevent me from giving you any hint as to who it might be!

Also, out of the blue, a young priest from England has heard the call to come to work with me in Athens for a year, entirely self supported. His wife and children will also live in Athens and their children will attend an English speaking school in the city.

In Thessaloniki, there is a Free Church  American minister who holds the Bishop’s Ecumenical licence, and in negotiations with him and the warden he is now leading a monthly service for the Anglican congregation in Thessaloniki. These are all good and positive developments. You have a Reader here, and we have one in Athens, and we are grateful for their lay leadership and ministry, and I am blessed with having Deacon Christine Saccali in Athens, who as well being our curate there, is also the Refugee and Migrant Facilitator. In Patras and Nafplio Tom Bolam, a Congregational Worship Leader is  an essential part in leading worship in the Peloponnese. He also keeps an eye out for Fr. Ted Weatherall, an aged but wise priest who lives in Tolo.

To God be the glory for all of these people and their callings, and for all God’s people as we minister as the baptized, to be the salt and the light in the world. The baptized people of God are God’s greatest treasures as we together reveal God’s glory to our communities.

Yet we are reminded by St. Paul in today’s reading from  Corinthians that we hold this treasure in clay jars. In other interpretations we are ‘earthen vessels’. Now anyone with a modicum of knowledge knows that Greece with its ancient culture is littered with clay jars.

They may be shards, potsherds as the bible occasionally calls them, or they may be in rather better ‘nick’, but cracked; their glaze may not be what it used to be; it may be that it has required a major reconstruction to look like the earthen pot it once was, but each shard, bit of a pot, whole pot but duller than it was, tells us so much. Each shard reveals a whole rich history and narrative of a people, and so these pots and bits of pots are so important in revealing a glory of the past, and are a glory now in their own right.

They are broken, fractured, crumbled, pieced together, and so are we in this image St. Paul uses. He uses it for good reason, because each of us reflects a broken, fractured, injured, crucified Lord, and there is no escape from this. There is no ‘by pass’ around the cross for us if we seek to be authentic witnesses of our Lord and God.

As Paul says, we are ‘always carrying in the body, the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.’ (2 Cor 4 10).

It is out of the shadow and darkness of death, that God calls us to new life, and to be the ones who reveal in our ‘earthen pots’ the glory of our God and Father. It is in this very darkness and shadow that God calls us.

Thousands of years ago we hear of God doing something he has always done, and always will do. In the shadow of night, and in the darkness of sleep, a young man is stirred by a voice. The voice is slightly deceiving in that the young man doesn’t know quite what to make of it so he assumes that his ancient and wise mentor is calling out to him in the night. It happens more than once until the wise old man realizes that it is God who is calling the boy Samuel. It is a strange thing to happen, and odd event, unexpected and unpredictable, because we are told clearly that ‘the word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.’ (1Sam 3,1)

Despite the range of darknesses that engulfed him Eli gets it. It is night time, it is in the shadows, it is at a time of spiritual dearth, it is in an unbelieving time, it is in the blindness of Eli. In all of this God remains faithful and constant. All that is needed is for a human to hear and respond.

How like our own times this may sound. At Diocesan Synod we received statistics about the decline of attendance in the Church of England. Across western Europe it does not make good reading. We might think that God’s word is rarely heard in our day.

Yet, despite this backdrop of decline, there are great stories of hope. Maybe visions are less rare than they were, and maybe more people are hearing God’s call. The number of women and men being selected for ordination training is on the increase; new ways are being found for Christian communities with Anglican foundations to emerge as new ways of being the church. What we have to accept is that we are always carrying in our bodies as baptized Christians, the signs of a crucified Lord.

We are all subject to him, and in him is our hope, here in Corfu, in the tiny congregation in Patras, in Athens, and in every place where the people of God gather to worship him in glory.

We must submit to him as our Lord. The church must submit to him, if the church is to thrive and be the gathering of the people that that witnesses to his world. If the church allows herself to be an institution, overburdened with rules and practices, procedures and protocols, rather than the living body of Christ , then of course we will not hear the voice of God calling us.

We are reminded in the gospel reading, about the perils of religiosity. Those finger pointing Pharisees in this passage are alive and well in everyday life in the church, but they do not represent who we are as authentic disciples of Jesus. He is Lord; he is Lord of Creation, Lord of the Church, Lord even of the Sabbath, so everything in our church life, is subject to him. What is more mind-boggling? That Jesus healed someone with a withered hand, or that he broke a rule in doing so. I know where I am.

So may God bless you in this congregation in Corfu, and with Jules and all in the ministry team here, and all God’s baptized people, may your ministry of being God’s earthen vessels enrich you and your community. Pray for all the Anglican congregations scattered throughout this wonderful country, and in the silence of the night, listen, and you might hear a voice calling you.

‘Here I am Lord, is it I lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.