Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent

Sunday 23rd December 2007

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

I would love to have a normal Christmas some year. Really, it is quite bizarre. By the time Christmas actually comes round, you couldn’t ever have done enough visiting; you couldn’t ever have done enough private communions. You haven’t helped with the shopping or the presents and you have really haven’t had any time to yourself in the lead up to “the most wonderful time of the year”. I think I’m going to have to buy all of Christine’s presents after Christmas! And yet the kids are still excited and full of expectation, relaxed, on holiday, and they can’t wait and it’s great!

In the midst of it all, we had a wedding here yesterday and we nearly had a funeral last Friday, but it was called off! As Peter said to me, ‘I’ve heard of weddings been called off, but not funerals.’ But it was true. Sadly a man called Clancy McDermott died on Saturday week ago. Some of you may know him; he was a footballer and, among other teams, he played for Glentoran. His brother was George, who died several years ago and was certainly a parishioner of Glencraig. But when James Brown undertakers phoned me last Monday morning, I was unaware of the connection and I was asked to conduct the funeral on the Friday at the Church. Clancy lived in Seahill and you just don’t say ‘no’ to these requests. With the week that was looming and our dear friend Hubert Murphy still in Intensive Care, I could’ve done without that phone call.

As I discussed matters with the son, Paul, it was decided to move the funeral venue to the Newtownards Road, which was fine. The next message I got was that the funeral was now being conducted by the kind of ‘Chaplain’ to Glentoran Football Club and so, as far as I was concerned the funeral had been ‘called off’. It was all done very politely and above board.

So both the wedding and the near funeral last week were, strictly speaking, not parishioners. But they were very much part of our community here in Seahill; the bride had even attended our Bible Group several times many moons ago, and I was delighted to marry her to her husband.

In England, if you approached a local vicar about a funeral or wedding or whatever, the Vicar is almost bound to cater for you. The Church of England is the Established Church. This means that if you’re not anything; you’re Church of England! That’s bit of a crude way of putting it, but nonetheless true. If you don’t claim allegiance to any particular denomination, you’re Church of England!

My father was a Vicar in London for nearly twenty years, and the local clergy had their special day for duty at the Crematorium at Kensal Green. My father’s day was Monday. And I remember his record for the number of cremations he did in one day was fourteen. Most Mondays were probably nothing like that, but that was the largest he ever had. Weddings were often like a conveyer belt also; three, four, five weddings on one Saturday which used to be the day to get married on; and you would never marry on a Friday. So, that was the Church of England several decades ago, the Established Church where the Queen is head of the Church and the Prime Minister chooses the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, in a sense, they are directly accountable to Queen and State. It’s a bit of a nonsense to my mind. What if Tony Blair had been a catholic at the time, I don’t know!

The Church of Ireland, on the other hand, having once been part of the established Church, was disestablished, taking effect on 1^st January 1871. It was also disendowed, which sounds painful enough, and I think it was financially, because it meant it was no longer supported by the established church and it had to fend for itself. Thus the Representative Church Body was founded to act as Trustees of land and property owned by the Church of Ireland and proper stewardship of Church and Clergy was the order of the day. Bishops were no longer ‘Lords’ and so you never address an Irish Bishop ‘My Lord’ although the practice ended for good only very recently.

It must have been troubled times within the Church of Ireland, but it was the best thing to have happened. We were now a completely independent Church, still within Anglicanism where there is unity in diversity and the Archbishop of Canterbury remains ‘First among equals’. I would’ve been within my rights to have refused the wedding or funeral. The reason I mention this is to suggest that it is high time the Church of England considers disestablishment. Personally, I don’t think having Church and State hand in hand is healthy for either Church or State. This is not so to turn people away, but so that the Church can be even more influential and strident and independent

With all these kinds of movements and many disagreements over doctrine, dogma and Church practice, how the Anglican Communion has remained a Communion is a remarkable testimony to the leadership and integrity of good men.

And yet the divisions which began in the reformed churches in the sixteenth century, seems to continue without abatement; and it looks as if Anglicanism, itself, is going to follow the same fate. It’s not good witness to the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem, whose name is Jesus because he is the Saviour of the entire world. 

The divisions that exist are usually fairly minor when you consider the overall scheme of things. And perhaps that’s where we should be as we approach this most wonderful time of the year. Take in the bigger picture and together gather around the crib, worshipping the Christ Child whose name is Wonderful, Counsellor, Prince of Peace.