John Green 25 years sermon

May I speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen
11,500 cups of tea… 4,600 slices of cake… 17,500 services of various
sorts… and I estimate 1,500 ‘more tea vicar?’ jokes… 25 years as a
priest is an incredible achievement. We thank God for that; for The
Rev’d Canon John Green, his ministry and for the fact that God called
him here at this time, and we do it all in the context of worshipping
God in this service, who creates, redeems and sustains us all.
Blessed be God forever.
Let me firstly deal with the man himself: calm, intelligent, good taste
in art, literature, the theatre, and in red wine. Kind, caring and
compassionate. Well dressed, a theologian, and well read – in actual
fact, I don’t like him much really!
As you may know, I am now firmly installed as Chaplain at Seaford
College having survived almost an academic year there. I think I have
been well-received at Seaford. I say ‘I think’, because I have had
some feedback on my existing tenure. The Head of Performing Arts
took me aside and told me that one of the year 10 pupils had said to
her: “Miss, our new chaplain… looks like a bit of a thug!”
Other than my wife, John’s was the first opinion I sought as to
whether I should take the job. That’s another annoying habit he has
– he’s right a lot of the time, along with my wife!
When I was in the period of discernment for Ordination, after having
the green light from the Bishop’s Advisory Panel, I was sent to see
Bishop Lindsay of Horsham, my sending Bishop. He had these words
to say about being a priest: he said being a priest is easy; there are
only two things you need to know and two things you need to do.
The two things you need to know is that you are called by God and
that you are loved by God. The two things you need to do are to love

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God and to love your neighbour. There are times when it feels that
the world, and the Church, is upside down and the wrong way about,
so it is good to be reminded of the simplicity of priestly life.
With an Old Testament reading about Elisha asking for a double
share of Elija’s legacy for fulfilling the responsibility of his families
welfare and future, asking for the resources needed to be his
successor as a prophet, of taking up the mantle of something that
you want but that also calls you, that is wider than your
understanding, but of which you are somehow a part, it is good this
morning in our thankfulness for John that we turn our attention to
what sustains and is life-giving in priestly ministry and the first is to
be a person of the people; a pastor.
The Maori have a saying: He aha te mea nui o te ao, he tangata he
tangata he tangata. What is the most important thing in the world,
it is people, it is people, it is people. It is all too easy to lose sight of
the reason for our calling, and often when the pressure is on, the
first thing that goes is pastoral care. Inherent in our theology of
priesthood is the transformational love of God demonstrated in Jesus
his son. God did not abolish evil, he transformed it, he didn’t stop
the crucifixion, he defeated death and rose from the dead. Being a
pastor means you are involved in the trivial, and the meaningful. The
life-changing and the mundane, but always aiming at the relief of sin
and suffering being able to present your people spotless before God.
In what way should we undertake this?
I was privileged to work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta in 1995. She
took us to her home for the dying and destitute. She had
ambulances that would drive around the city and collect the dying
from the streets and bring them back to care for them; wash them,
feed them, bandage their injuries and be with them to give them a
dignified death. Each morning there was a briefing for the day, and
we asked feeling so overwhelmed: how do we do this? You do it as if

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you are tending the very wounds of Christ himself, was the response.
This is how we go about our pastoral care.
The second is to be a person of prayer. As the Ordinal states; Will
you be diligent in prayer? Archbishop Michael Ramsay was asked
once, how much time do you spend in prayer each morning. He
replied: 'I spend 58 minutes trying to pray, and 2 minutes actually
praying.' Words begin to fade, and we end up, to use another
phrase by the Archbishop, being with God with the people on your
heart, such is the relationship you have with them. This prayer is a
privilege, and is costly and is something that can’t be put down. It is
with you all the time. It is the type of prayer that has faced tough
times and good, silence and answers. The Lay reader Monica Furlong
put it like this: I am clear about what I want from the clergy. I want
them to be people who can, by their own happiness and
contentment, challenge my ideas about status, success and money
and so teach me how to live more independently of such drugs.
I want them to be people who can dare, as I do not dare, and as few
of my contemporaries dare, to refuse to work flat out and to refuse to
work more strenuously than me.
I want them to be people who dare because they are secure enough
in the value of what they are doing to have time to read, to sit and
think, and who face the emptiness and possible depression which
often attacks people when they do not keep the surface of my mind
occupied. I want them to be people who have faced this kind of
loneliness and discovered how fruitful it is, as I want them to be
people who have faced the problems of prayer. I want them to be
people who can sit still without feeling guilty.
The third is to be a person of study. Will you be diligent in reading
Holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith? This is
why the preparation of sermons becomes a joy because it is a
rhythm that places you in the continual state of study and immersion

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in God’s Word. To study widely, understanding that God is present
and in the world, and that the outward facing work of the Trinity
seeks us out and educates us in a lifelong process. We find ourselves
moving from that worldly way of needing to understand before we
accept, to echo the words of St Anselm: I yearn to understand some
measure of your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do
not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in
order to understand. We realise that study is being with God.
The last is to be a person of worship. A priest is to preside at the
celebration of Holy Communion. They are to lead the people in
prayer and worship. Worship contains all we need to live life in all its
fullness, those rhythms, patterns, disciplines… As we worship we see
that its pattern equips us for life: we gather, confess, forgive and are
forgiven, hear God’s word, hear it applied, pray, make peace, and
then gather around that beautiful horizontal meal where there is no
hierarchy, no grade of Christian, but that moment when the veil
between heaven and earth is thin, before being sent out into the
world. Priests inhabit these patterns worship, they model them, and
simultaneously stand on the shoulders of those who have gone
before as well as interpreting them afresh for each generation. It is a
constant placing of oneself under the spotlight of the Holy Spirit and
realising our brokenness is made whole in Christ.
These four things, in my view, are central to our calling as priests;
they are what we do and what sustains us. These things we see in
you Father, and we’re grateful for it.
I want to end because I’m well over my 8 minutes with a line from a
film. The film is As Good as it gets, and stars Jack Nicholson as an
awkward obsessive compulsive who falls in love with Helen Hunt.
She is tiring of his annoying and ill-mannered ways and there is a
scene where the two are out having a meal when he decides to pay
her a compliment, and he says: “you make me want to be a better

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man”. Your example, John, is an inspiration. We see Christ in you,
and quite simply, you make me want to be a better priest.
Amen