Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford 1st November, 2020 Eucharist

Fr Richard Peers SMMS

Revelation 7:14: 

These are they who have come through the great ordeal.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

How is the new job going?

The question I have been asked most often in the last 8 weeks.

So how is the new job going?

Well, there are a lot of rules, I say. 

There is the Blue Book, that is the lengthy document that sets out the rules for those of who live in here at Christ Church. 

Then there are the rules for our worship in the Cathedral.

As Sub Dean I read the second lesson at Matins when the Dean is not present, unless I am Canon in Residence in which case I read the first lesson, and the second only if the Dean is not present but I can give away the first lesson to someone else, which is usual, and when I am also Officiant I give away both lessons.

Well, you can see what I mean: there are a lot of rules.

Rules can seem stifling, imprisoning, trapping. It  can fee like they asphyxiate the Spirit, the very breath in us, the very breath of God.

I haven’t even mentioned the rules that the Pandemic has caused. Rules which we have struggled to keep up with. How many people are allowed in any house? How many in a bubble? How long should I wash my hands for? Where  and when do I need to wear a mask.

We can feel trapped, stifled. We are almost literally asphyxiated, our breathing hampered by these horrible bits of material on our faces. I yearn to tear mine off in church, to speak clearly, to hear clearly.

Rules, can, of course, be oppressive, tyrannical. They can be motivated by a desire to control, to dominate.

But I like rules. We need them, we can’t live without them. We need the rules of the game, of sports and board games to be fair, to enable the game to be played. To keep us safe. We needed the rules of Rugby yesterday when England won, but needed them just as much if we had lost. We need the rules of the American election to ensure a safe transfer of power if Biden wins.

We need rules.

I suppose, it will be no surprise to you that as a former Headteacher I like rules,  I enjoy the rules of this House, of this Cathedral. 

I am glad to be part of a team of wonderful people who are teaching me the rules.

I love receiving Mother Philippa’s Rubric copies of our worship booklets with the rules in Red. 

I loved being able to text her yesterday to remind me if I was doing the intercessions at Evensong and I loved getting her one word answer: Yes.

Rules keep us safe. They keep the chaos at bay. Sitting in the comforting stillness of my stall before Matins begins as my colleagues arrive and take their places I am not panicking, wondering what’s going to come, whether I need to read this lesson or that. Like a smooth, well-oiled mechanism the prayer flows and the Spirit is present.

It is that daily unfolding of prayer that is the real answer when I am asked how the new job is going. 

It has been the greatest of joy for me. 

The most exquisite experience of rightness, the joy of tumbling into this bubbling stream that has bubbled in this place since Frideswide lived here and which bubbles still. 

These eight weeks have been among the most prayerful of my life. This is the easiest building I have ever known to pray in. Kneeling in the Latin chapel I physically feel Frideswide’s presence tangibly next to me. 

Places like this are sometimes called thin places, Places where the barrier between the natural and the more than natural is barely there. Thin places is a good phrase. But this is also a place that is thick with the prayers of the centuries, thick with the memories of goodness, thick with the known and unknown, thick with those who will come after us, the centuries ahead when the pandemics of 2020 will be carved into monuments and stones and you and I are long gone.

Rules are important. After Frideswide’s community it was Augustinian canons who lived and prayed in this place; built our oldest buildings; the buildings that are the heart, the core of this place, this cathedral, the Chapter House and the Prior’s House. Preparing to move here and since I have been here I have been praying the Rule of Saint Augustine that was the rule of life of those canons who lived here. It is a beautiful document. Very short, I’ve arranged it so a short paragraph can be read each day over a month. Barely 3000 words in English. Just a hundred or so words a day.

Today we face new rules for the month ahead and perhaps even longer. Rules that are devastating to those of us who love to gather for worship. Rules the like of which we would never have imagined when this year began. Rules designed to keep us safe, to protect us.

Whatever those rules turn out to be in the next few days as bishops and lawyers send us, no doubt, many pages of guidance. Whatever those rules, the stream of prayer in this place will continue. Whether we can gather together in this building, or whether the saints will have to murmur the prayers in here for us while we pray in our homes. Whether it is online daily or weekly. Please in your own homes know that we, you, I, all of us, are praying together. The communion of all the saints is the water we swim in, the air we breathe.

When I meet with my sister and brother Chapter colleagues (on Zoom) in the next few days I am going to suggest to them that we commit to praying two texts in the weeks ahead.

Firstly the Rule of St Augustine. It is a document of its time, it has some wonderfully quirky sections. But it is very beautiful and simple. Please watch out on our website and elsewhere for posts about our praying this or some other text (they may not agree!) 

The other text I would like us to pray together is the key section of today’s Gospel, the Beatitudes.

It is one of the most profound and complex texts in the gospels, yet deceptively simple.

Most scholars believe that there were originally just the central eight invocations of the blessed, omitting the final one. It is these eight which form a perfect poem, a canticle to blessedness.

I’ve been praying the Beatitudes at mid-prayer each day for all my adult life.  I learnt the habit from the prayer book of the Taizé community in France which I first visited as a 17 year old.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, 

for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, 

for they shall be comforted!

Blessed are the meek, 

for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 

for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, 

for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, 

for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, 

for they shall be called children of God. 

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, 

for theirs is the kingdom of heav’n.

The Beatitudes are a wonderful rule of life. As we pray them together or at home as we dwell in them, we will be formed and shaped by them. They are a complex rule, they don’t tell us who is to read the second lesson, or how often to sanitise our hands. But they are a rule nevertheless. 

A rule can be a tool for measuring. They help us to judge our lives and ourselves.

 A rule keeps us accountable to each other and to God.

To what extent am I poor in spirit and meek? Am I really hungering, yearning or justice? Am I always merciful? Am I known as a peace-maker?

Is the kingdom of heaven the start and end of my life, of my day, as it is the start and end of this poem that is the Beatitudes?

Brother Roger who founded the Taizé Community distilled the Beatitudes into a simple statement:

‘Every day let your work and rest be quickened by the Word of God; keep inner silence in all things and you will dwell in Christ; be filled with the spirit of the beatitudes: joy, simplicity and mercy.’

So, this is my suggestion, that as the Christ Church community in the lockdown ahead we think about our common life by praying these texts every day. Whether you are a long standing member of the congregation, one of our wonderful sidespeople, guides, choristers, organists, employees or a member of Chapter. Whether you have just dropped in on YouTube or Twitter, whether you have been here for thirty years or like me just arrived

Dwelling in these words and allowing them to dwell in us.

The limpid simplicity of the Beatitudes, their complex depth, will help us bear the grief of these times, we will be those who mourn the many losses of lockdown and plague. Enduring this we will be those who have come through the great ordeal for Jesus is at the centre of the throne, he is our shepherd and he “leads us to springs of the water of life.”

In this pandemic may Jesus keep us all in the spirit of the Beatitudes, joyful, simple, merciful.

‘Amen! 

Blessing and glory and wisdom 

and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’