13^th October 2002

TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

A rector explained to his congregation that the church was in need of some extra money, so he asked them to consider being more than generous. He went on to said that whoever gave the most that Sunday, as a little prize, would be able to pick three hymns. After the offering plates were passed about the church, the priest glanced down and noticed that someone had graciously offered a bundle of $100 notes, in all $1000. He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with the congregation and said he'd like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the plate. A very quiet, elderly, saintly lady in the back of the church shyly raised her hand. The priest asked her to come to the front, so she slowly she made her way towards him. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much, and in thanks he asked her to pick out three hymns. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation. She pointed to the three most handsome men in the church and said, "I'll take him and him and him."

The strongest argument for Christianity is the weak argument that do yet persuade so many to believe - i.e. it fits the human heart. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

O God, who has bound us together in this bundle of life, give us grace to understand how our lives depend upon the courage, the industry, the honesty, and the integrity of our fellow human beings; that we may be mindful of their needs, grateful for their faithfulness, and faithful in our responsibilities to them; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Your blessed and beloved Rector and family are now back from holiday, and good indeed it is to be back. It is my own bed and my own shower that are perhaps the greatest of all the blessings of home, but there are many others too, not least being back in the bosom of my own church family. Also the orange blossom by our French Window is about to burst forth into glorious scent and the young, light greenness of unfurling deciduous tree leaves gladdens the heart. Robe, in South Australia, where we spent our holiday, was experiencing the last gasps and blasts of winter all the while that we were there. This was exhilarating, for I far prefer a wild and tempestuous sea and a rugged coastline to a tranquil and smooth sanded one, but it is good to return to an emphatic Wodonga spring. Which is a round about way of saying that I have returned, after the manner of the Psalmist's awakening God, "like a giant refreshed with wine".

It is a great pleasure for me to introduce as our preacher today, the Revd Elaine Farmer. I met her for the first time while at the Anglican Conference in Sidney earlier in the year, and if she sparkles in the pulpit as well as she does in the pub then how scintillating a sermon we can look forward to. She is at present an Assistant Priest at St Paul's Manuka, a Tutor at St Mark's Theological College and Associate Editor of the highly regarded "St Mark's Review". Yesterday she took part in a forum on the ordination of women that was held in Benalla and we are privileged to have her with us at all three of our services at St John's this weekend. There is some hope that in this diocese we will one day join the majority of Australian dioceses and embrace the ordination of women to the priesthood. However, we will need to be firmly and gently persistent and vigilant if we are ever to get there. The fact that she is not celebrating at any of our Eucharists today is an indication of our respect for diocesan regulations, but is also a great shame and disappointment.

One of the joys of being on holiday is the time available for sustained reading. I finished a biography of Kingsley Amis and then tackled with joy a great big biography of James Boswell, himself the writer of the greatest biography in the English language, that of Dr Samuel Johnson. Boswell is something of an enigma, on the face of it he was a philandering, weak, pompous sycophantic ass, and yet he produced that most wonderful biography of the splendid Anglican and human being Samuel Johnson. When you delve in to what made Boswell tick there is, as you would suspect, more than pomposity, weakness and so on, though all these failings are indeed very much a part of him. Throughout his life he suffered from what in the 18^th century they called either "melancholia" or "hypochondria", a form of severe depression, the struggle with which helps explain and in part excuse his weaknesses and also pushed him towards greatness. His wife, Margaret seems to have been an unutterably tolerant and lovely saint. After reading this I tackled the most enjoyable book I have discovered in a long time. There are over a thousand pages of it, and I am still only half way through. It is called "The Lives of the Poets" and is by a man called Michael Schmidt. The first writer of a "Lives of the Poets" was Dr Johnson himself, so there is a connection with the Boswell Book. The book by Schmidt is a effortlessly learned but succinct account of English language verse and poets from the early fifteenth century through to the present day. The author writes like an angel. I had not fully realised what a great part John Wycliffe played, by translating the bible, in forming and developing our English language and poetry......For once English had become the tongue of Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and Jesus it could then, of course, be allowed to be the tongue of everyone - "the Word was out."

I also learned that Milton Milton was only fifteen when he translated Psalm 136 as :

Let us with a gladsome mind

Praise the Lord, for he is kind.....

This is a marvellous hymn that sadly has been eviscerated in the Australian Hymn Book. The editors omit magical phrases like "the golden-tressèd sun" and "....the hornèd moon at night, mid her spangled sisters bright" leaving the hymn limp and prosaic. The adolescent Milton's translation of Psalm 114 contains the following lovely couplet:

The high, huge-bellied mountains skip like rams

Amongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.

Another gem from the book is a comment of Carlyle's on Bobby Burns which we should all take to heart, for it is sound advice on judging people: "Granted the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle damaged, the pilot is blameworthy.... but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the globe or only to Ramsgate and the Isles of Dogs."

Well here I am back in harness once more. The second five hundred pages of this marvellous book will probably take me months to read..... But it is good to be back.