| The Foundation of Lady Katherine Leveson at Temple Balsall | ||
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St
Mary's Church
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First Sunday after
Trinity Sermon preached on 13th June 2004 by With some of the Friends of Temple Balsall with us this morning, I should like to give some voice to what I believe to be one of the important aspects of the mission of the Church. And what I mean is not the church in general, but the particular ministry and mission of this building and this community of faith. It would be my fundamental affirmation and assertion that Temple Balsall can only be understood within the context of this building and its work, which stands at the heart of our purpose. The renewal and development of The Foundation has been enabled, in part, by what goes on here. Sometimes in order to be able to look outwards, individuals, organisations and churches need to look inwards to ses, think and reflect. I am intrigued by what wedding couples do before their big days … A trip down Broad Street in Birmingham or some times more adventurously across to Dublin or up to Edinburgh. Amsterdam is popular and so are Prague and Barcelona. However, more than one bride has told me of a place in London where she has indulged herself before the wedding day. It is a health club where men are not admitted, except perhaps as professional masseurs or waiters. It is called 'The Sanctuary'. It evokes vivid pictures. I wonder what your Sanctuary might look like or how you would like your sanctuary to be? An escape - a place to languish in minted steam baths, exquisite aroma therapies, secret skin treatments that fight the ageing process. A sanctuary is a place where women can go and escape and find intense pleasure, refuge and restoration well away from the pressures of life. We all need sanctuaries, and this church is one. It strikes me how much work this building does - not only as a place where the faithful meet God Sunday by Sunday , a place where newcomers to faith are baptised, weddings celebrated and funeral prayers offered - but also a place into which the casual visitor may come and find peace and encounter the presence of God - a sanctuary. And it is good that we continue to take the risk of keeping this place open - to welcome the passers by, the curious, the bored and the searchers. I think we need to think more about these casual visitors and our response to them. And it is also good that we have invested time and energy and money in improvement of the space through our lighting system the un-cluttering both of the sanctuary area and the west door area. I know how many of you are aware of our desire to remove the vestry and create a greater sense of space. Perhaps some call here and glimpse something of God in the beauty of the silence. Perhaps Temple Balsall is Warwickshire's Emmaus - where truth is understood in conversation as seekers walk to a place outside the city, where the living Christ is recognised. The Church is a place for rest, for stillness, reflection and spiritual recreation. In the moments of quiet within these ancient walls our present anxieties can settle down into a long run of history. Here we may be woken up out of complacency into a new compassion. This is a place in which to know God and to be known by God. Activity emerging out of resting; being; stillness. "Let there be a silence that is full of blossoming hints" says the praying poet Elizabeth Jennings. Here is a garden of light and stone in which contemplation may flourish. The stillness of this Church offers a doorway for people, a doorway deeper into ourselves, a place within which we can discover and rediscover ourselves, a doorway deeper into the world and through these moments the embodied, self out-pouring, in-dwelling spirit of God can touch and heal and transform. In Christ the Father has sought us and found us. He is our worship and we his temple. Temple Balsall; buildings, history, nature but always embodied, however provisionally in people, a community. This is Temple Balsall, but we are God's Temple - living, growing, changing, loving, forgiving, responding - alive to God and to one another. Let this place stand as a sign of God's glory and mystery and praise. May we be found by him here in this holy place.
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