The t(r)ies that bind

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

The T(r)ies that Bind 11 September 2011:pm The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• Psalm 119:41-48
• Ezekiel 20:1-8, 33-44
• Acts 20:17-38

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

Well, after Friday night's Rugby World Cup opening ceremony, nobody can say we can't turn on a good welcome! And perhaps that's because New Zealand is pretty much a place of welcomes and farewells. We are a nation of travellers, and we're also a very mobile population - it's said we move on average every five years! Here in Wellington, we're a harbour city, with ferries and cruise ships coming and going, the airport never still, and being the capital and centre of government, we know all about diplomatic postings and job transfers, hopefully not all to Australia!

We have no trouble empathising with TV ads depicting airport arrivals and farewells, whether it's departing on OE, or expats finally returning home. Perhaps that's because it's an easy trigger for most of us, to times when we've said goodbye to our loved ones at the airport, the excitement at heading off overseas tinged with the thought at the back of our minds, is that the last time I'll see my parents? grandparents? child?

Maybe that is why Paul's farewell to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20) resonates with so many of us in its poignancy and the very personal picture we get of Paul - very different from his sermons and teaching style, and yet entirely consistent with the pastoral concern he shows for the churches to whom he writes his letters. Here is Paul, realistic and cognisant of what his future may well hold in the way of imprisonment and persecution, and while there is a solemnity about what he says, there is also a deep sense of trust and calm. I'm reminded of the prayer in our Prayer Book (p. 464) that says 'at the heart of turbulence, there is an inner calm that comes from faith in you.'

This is the peace we shall sing about shortly: "Peace, perfect peace, death shadowing us and ours? Jesus has vanquished death and all its powers. Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown? Jesus we know, and he is on the throne." (Common Praise 553)

I was struck by a comment the composer John Adams made about his work "On the Transmigration of Souls" which our Choristers sang in this afternoon. He said, the best I can hope for is to create something that has both serenity and the kind of "gravitas" that those old cathedrals [of France and Italy] possess, [where] you experience an immediate sense of something otherworldly. You feel you are in the presence of many souls, generations upon generations of them, and you sense their collected energy as if they were all congregated or clustered in that one spot. And …you find [your thoughts] focussed in a most extraordinary and spiritual way.

I pray that this place may come to hold that same sense of serenity and gravitas for those who come seeking solace and God's peace here. I think that same sense of serenity and gravitas was part of Sir Paul Reeves' tangi, described for us in the latest edition of Anglican Taonga, and telling movingly of the way Sir Paul was able to plan for his funeral and graciously care for all the different parties involved and the due processes of Maori kawa (customs, protocols). Maoridom rightly takes pride in both its welcomes and its farewells, and these are adding much to our cultural richness.

But what about when there is not time to prepare? When death comes abruptly, without the chance for preparation or farewells? Yesterday's paper made poignant reading as we heard of the many young Japanese students trapped in the CTV building in Christchurch, many amazingly enough in the midst of the destruction still able to get through to their families in Japan and to talk to their loved ones.

And then, ten years on, we were reminded of the equally heart-rending messages shared by those on the doomed upper floors of the Twin Towers and on some of the planes, with their loved ones.

The Revd Jim Cooper's words, cited on our Today newssheet, are timely: 'Ten years ago, the final act of many 9/11 victims was one of love. Facing the unthinkable, their parting gesture was to reach out to their families, friends and colleagues.'

Do you, like me, think what would I do, in such circumstances, and under such duress?

I want to quote now from another Father Jim, this time Father James Lyons, our local Catholic priest up the hill at Sacred Heart Cathedral, who wrote a piece reflecting on Paul's leaving of Ephesus - it's called simply 'Leaving'

Set out from here O traveller rich and fearless Go with all you have, wrapped in your dream See what lies beyond your perfect preparation You may not be as prepared as you may seem.

A new horizon stretches wide before you Requiring more than you can carry on your own So travel light, forget your perfect preparation And don't pretend you can live your life alone.

Set out once more with a kind wind blowing Know what you leave you may never see again Let tears and gladness fill your parting moments Together they will lead you and preface your return.

And don't pretend you can live your life alone…Archdeacon Lynda Patterson of our sister Cathedral in Christchurch has written an intriguing article in the current Anglican Taonga (no 37) about the Rugby, called appropriately enough (at the moment anyway) Alive and Kicking!

She says there that part of sport is being bound to a team, and in Latin, the word for this sort of binding commitment was religare, from which we get our word religion. So those who tell new arrivals in New Zealand, that our religion here is rugby, may not be so far from the truth, nor is the website Rugby Heaven!

But she also talks of the fragility of our national identity, when a rugby win means our national happiness quotient goes up several notches, and a rugby loss plunges us into 'a country-wide case of the blues'. We shall see!

While I think there's some truth in all of this, I also think that the last year has shown us that there are deeper bonds which bind us together as a country when we face tragedy and loss, the real world stuff which is not just a game any more. And those bonds bridge even the North Island to the Mainland!

What then binds us together when we face tragedy or loss, illness or death as a Cathedral community? What will hold us together as individuals when we face such things in our own lives, as we inevitably will at some time or other?

I was only being slightly tongue in cheek when I entitled this sermon 'Blessed be the t(r)ies that bind'. It may be the tries that bind us together over the next few weeks of rugby point-scoring, but there's something deeper there as well.

I had a look at the words of the old hymn "Blessed be the tie that binds", it's a funny old somewhat sentimental hymn to us nowadays, written in the 18th century, but like most hymns, it has an interesting story behind it.

Its writer, John Fawcett was a Baptist pastor in an impoverished church in Wainsgate in Yorkshire. He and his wife Mary served there in meagre circumstances for seven years, and then received a call to go a large and influential Baptist church in London. Their wagons were loaded for the move, and they met their tearful parishioners for a final farewell. But they decided they could not bear to leave, saying, 'We just cannot break the ties of affection that bind us to you, dear friends'. And so the wagons were unloaded, and they stayed for another 47 years! I'm not sure what the churchwardens said about that! But out of this, John Fawcett wrote 'Blessed be the tie that binds':

Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love, The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear, And often for each other flows the sympathising tear.

When we asunder part, it gives us inward pain, But we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.

Simple, yes, simplistic, maybe. But my hope is that here we will provide those bonds of affection, that we will be family to each other. Many of us come to Evensong on our own, many come to Wellington as students or on postings far from family or extended family. It's been a delight to see one of our older widowers adopted by a young English family as their honorary Granddad. May we see more of this, for in this way we experience God with skin on, the God who never ceases to reach out to us, even when we test him to the limits (as the prophet Ezekiel reminded us), the God who is the Love that will not let us go.

So now 'I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified.' (Acts 20:32) Amen.