SECOND SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS
4th January 2004
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in.
A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
Bill Vaughan
New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.
Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.
The accepted behaviour all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to.
P.J. O'Rourke
A PRAYER FOR THIS WEEK
As we pass forward into another year, we look back with gratitude, Lord God, for all your help and guidance in the year just passed. We fully appreciate that whatever we have done, achieved or acquired in the past is the outcome of your kindness and love, and we earnestly pray, Lord God, that you continue to be with us along life's journey and that we are aware of your presence with us and so able, under your guidance, to follow the correct path. Grant us the necessary power and strength of body, mind and spirit to overcome any obstacles upon our way. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
UP THE ENGINEERS
An engineer and a scientist met in a pub to discuss a mathematical problem. On a table four metres away was a carton of beer. The problem was to reach the table, with a first step of any size, a second step half the first, a third step half the second and so on. Quickly the scientist said that this was a geometric progression, was asymptotic to zero, and no matter how many steps you took, you'd never actually reach the table, and said it couldn't be done. The engineer leapt two metres, strode one metre, minced half a metre, leaned over, picked up the beer and triumphantly declared, "Near enough's good enough."
HAIL LITTLE TINY MOP
When in England last, three and a half years ago, we visited York Minster, one of the greatest and most beautiful of all Europe's splendid gothic structures. We were a little nonplussed, however, to discover the whole of the nave filled with tiered chairs, and the famous Chapter House closed to the public, because the Cathedral at the time was the venue for a series of celebrated performances of some of the medieval Mystery Plays.
In one of his sermons, preached around that time and printed in his collection of sermons and addresses entitled Open to Judgement, Archbishop Rowan Williams quotes from the nativity scene in one performance, adapted from the fifteenth century Wakefield mystery play in which three shepherds, unmistakably Yorkshire men, come to the cradle and give their gifts. He quotes the verses they speak saying, quite rightly, that it seems to him that they are among the most beautiful in the English language:
First Shepherd
Hail, comely and clean! Hail, young child!
Hail, maker, of all I mean, of a maiden so mild!
Thou hast confounded, I ween, the Warlock so wild:
The false guiler of men, now goes he beguiled.
Lo he merries!
Lo, he laughs, my sweeting!
Ah! A well fair meeting!
I have holden my telling:
Have a bob of cherries.
Second Shepherd
Hail, sovereign saviour, for thou hast us sought!
Hail, fresh root and flower, that all things has wrought!
Hail, full of favour, that made all of nought!
Hail! I kneel and I cower. A bird have I brought
To my bairn.
Hail, little tiny mop!
Of our creed thou art crop:
I would drink on they cup,
Little day-star.
Third Shepherd
Hail, darling dear, full of Godhead!
I pray thee be near when that I have need.
Hail, sweet of thy cheer! My heart would bleed
To see thee sit here in so poor weed,
With no pennies.
Hail! Put forth thy hand.
I bring thee but a ball:
Have and play thee withal,
And go to the tennis.
Williams comments: "Three gifts; a bob of cherries, a pet bird and a tennis ball. Much more difficult, aren't they, to allegorise and make theological mysteries out of, than the gifts of the wise men. And so infinitely more touching: pointless, useless presents and so more eloquent than almost anything could be....."
Rowan Williams, by the way, is one of the most heartening and wonderful gifts to our Church that one could ever have hoped for. As luminously intelligent as anyone in the land and yet also, it seems to me, authentically in tune with and knowing of God. AN
HOMILETIC LOGORRHEA
Fr Andrew Neaum
I have 847 sermons in my files. Very few of them took me less than two hours to prepare, some of them a good deal more. What is more, since I was born and was first taken to church to be baptised, as a blob of palpitating protoplasm, I must have listened to at least a couple of thousand sermons by others.
Sermon Sedated
A little elementary arithmetic reveals that I have sermonised or been sermonised for nine thousand, eight hundred hours. And that does not take into account the sermons that I have reworked and preached a second or third time! In reality, then, I have spent many more hours than nine thousand eight hundred involved with sermons and sermonising. I deserve some sort of a medal. I am sermon drunk, drugged, drowsed, sedated.
The longest sermon I have ever suffered was a forty five minute horror by a charismatic bishop in Grahamstown Cathedral in South Africa. I was a theological student at the time and sang in the choir. The tedium of sermons there was alleviated by the organist. She was visible to my side of the choir, up in her loft, and during sermons she did violent physical jerks and little dances to keep her circulation going.
I have heard many bad sermons. The worst involved the dramatic popping of a balloon. Unfortunately the thing was so flaccid it wouldn't pop, it just squelched and squeezed. So no bang, not even a whimper, just embarrassed giggles.
The Best Sermons
As a deacon and assistant priest in a large cathedral in Africa I shared an office with a retired but still harnessed bachelor priest, a delightful old man called Lionel Gubbins. He decided very early on in his ministry that he was no preacher and so never preached for longer than three minutes. He was the most popular preacher of us all. He was popular in other ways too. A great deal of his priestly life was spent avoiding proposals of matrimony. One lady bribed his servant to let her in to propose to him as he ate breakfast.
The best sermons I ever listened to were in London when once I was on furlough there. John Austin Baker was at that time the Vicar of St Margaret's Westminster and a Canon of Westminster Abbey. He preached quiet, beautifully expressed and reasoned sermons in the tradition of Austin Farrer, orthodox but with a radical edge.
Although I like forceful sermons I am not one for drama or histrionics in the pulpit. Once though I went wild and red in the face in the pulpit myself. In Harare Cathedral in Zimbabwe you had to wear a microphone on a cord round your neck. After a startling and effective end to one of my sermons, I galloped down the pulpit steps forgetting the thing about my neck. I was nearly throttled. My adam's apple had its pips squeezed out and the crackling and shrieking, sent by the tortured microphone resounding and reverberating through the speakers, deafened the delighted congregation.
Praise or Flattery
Preachers should heed only criticism of their sermons. Praise is nearly always mere flattery. I have heard too many appalling sermons gushed and enthused over by uncritical admirers of colleagues ever to take praise too seriously. Parishioners are usually far too gentle and tactful ever to tell you the critical truth. I have received salutary criticism myself only a few times. Once, as a deacon, I preached on the Trinity in Harare Cathedral. As I glided, self-satisfied, past the Dean's stall on the way back to my place, he whispered loudly for all the choir to hear, "Heresy!" A diminutive, thoughtful Scotsman in my first parish once said to me as he left the church, "I liked the first half of your sermon, Rector, but the last half, man it was rubbish, bloody rubbish!"
In that first parish there was an African woman who I like to think was mad. When she came to church it was always late. As I began my sermon she would take out yesterday's paper, purloined from someone's bin, noisily unfold it and begin to read. Perhaps the sanest person in the church.
I always look forward to the sermon when visiting a church. I love to hear the Gospel made sweet and articulate sense of. I am nearly always disappointed. Far too often all you get is platitudinous and ill-prepared waffle, or mere dullness. At other times I feel like quoting the Frenchman who said, "Improve your style monsieur! You have disgusted me with the joys of heaven." A visitor to a Cardiff church admired the altar flowers once. Agreeing on their beauty, the verger added, "On Sunday nights they are always given to those who are sick after the sermon."
But perhaps the wisest of all comments on being sermonised came from my father, who once said to me when he heard me complain of a sermon, "If you listen in the right spirit there will always be something to move your heart towards God.
BOOKS
A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.
E.. Morgan
THE BEST WAY TO GO
The following poem is by Robert McGough. At an obvious level it is emphatically less than Christian in its sentiments, but in its attitude and courage it is decidedly Christian:
Let me die a young man's death
not a clean and in between
the sheets holy-water death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death.
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an all night party.
Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with ham-fisted tommy guns burst in
and give me a short back and insides.
Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a young man's death
not a free from sin, tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death,
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
"what a nice way to go" death.
FLYING TIME
The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post.
L.T. Holdcroft
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
Henry Austin Dobson
FROM KIERKEGAARD
The majority of men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, terribly objective sometimes, but the real task is in fact to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations to Jeanette Smith and Fr Wayne Weaire who celebrate their birthday today, Sunday the 4th. Also to Emmie Dean who celebrates hers on Friday the 9th.
ROSTERS
Because the last week has been so dominated by funerals I am not sure as I prepare this pewsheet whether I will have managed to organise the rosters for the coming year. If I have not then we will simply have to "ad hoc" for a week, charitably of course.
FAREWELL
Today is the last Sunday that Catie Morrison will be resident among us. She heads off to divide herself between Adelaide and Portland for a while, and later on perhaps to England and further study. She has been a great and lively member of St Augustine's and we will miss her many gifts and her creative contrib-ution to the life of the parish. On my first Sunday here she was a Eucharistic Assistant and I remember, on hearing her sing, thinking to myself , "Aha, a fine clear voice to form the foundation of a choir..." Sadly that is not to be, but others have turned up for that, and she is going on to do great things for Anglicanism and her Lord else-where. We wish her every blessing and will do this formally at the end of the 8.30am service.
PRAYER
A new prayer list has started and all names on the list that are not marked as "continuing" have been removed. Please add any names needful of prayer, with their permission, and also the names of anyone still needing prayer who have had their name removed.
Prayer List
Liam Bognar, Rita Esam, Peg Galt, Iris Grant, the Harrison Family, Jean Hastie, Fr Wayne Ireland, Ann Mills, Joan O'Reilly, John Perry, Ray Prosser, Gwen & Bob Scott, Peter & Eva Swindells, Des Walker, May Wallace, Bruce, Natalie & baby Alexandra, David, Emily, Faith, Gary.
Rest In Peace
Gwen Hounslow, Craig Siely, Chloe Schaper, Hunter Fairmaid.
Anniversary of Death
Annie (Nancy) Davis, Linda Maskell 5th, Doris Woodcock 6th, Dorothy Young, Frances McKendry 8th, Edyth Rosa Akers 9th.
IMPORTANT DATES
Jan 10th Wedding 4.30pm
Jan 10th Wedding 6.00pm
Feb 7th Wedding 2.00pm
Feb 7th Wedding 3.30pm
Feb 14th Wedding 3.00pm
Feb 25th Ash Wednesday and AGM
April 11th Easter Day
May 18th - 21st Annual Priests' Retreat
May 28th -29th Synod
Jun 5th Ugandan Martyrs - Breakfast
Nov 13th Parish Fair
THIS WEEK
Monday January 5th
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
2.30pm Funeral - Gwen Hounslow
5.30pm Evening Prayer
Tuesday January 6th EPIPHANY
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
2.00pm Children's Church Meeting - Rectory
5.30pm Evening Prayer
Wednesday January 7th Macedonian Christmas
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
8.00am Macedonian Christmas Celebration
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
11.00am Banksia Lodge
1.30pm Hakea Lodge
5.30pm Evening Prayer
Thursday January 8th
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Evening Prayer
Friday January 9th
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Wedding Rehearsal
6.00pm Wedding Rehearsal
Saturday January 10th
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
4.30pm Wedding - St Augustine's
6.00pm Wedding - St Augustine's
Sunday January 11th Baptism of the Lord
8.00am Mattins - Lady Chapel
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine's
9.00am Eucharist - St Luke's Dookie
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine's
10.45am Eucharist - St Mary's Katandra West.
5.30pm Evening Prayer