Madison Square Park
New York City: Madison Square Park
May 18th 2012
Nine years ago, as I celebrated my first service of Holy Communion at St Mary’s Church in Penwortham, I nearly disgraced myself by becoming so caught up in the moment that I couldn’t remember what to do next.
I had to throw a helpless look to Revd Chris Nelson, my training incumbent, who was doing a useful ‘hand.. bread.. mouth’ action for my benefit.
Even then he knew me too well.
Since that day leading the service of Holy Communion has been my bedrock and my anchor. Something which comes around Sunday by Sunday no matter what else is happening, who has died, or who is about to be born. A fixed point in life.
The common factor in each celebration has been the telling the story with whoever will come, and then standing back to watch people receive the healing it offers. On my last Sunday at St Mary’s Penwortham, I looked along the altar rail and realised that I had had significant encounters with every single person there. In their kitchens, or by hospital beds, in the graveyard and the vestry, we had shared so much it almost overwhelmed me. All of it had taken place in the context of that weekly breaking of bread,on their behalf, on my own behalf, alongside an invisible communion of saints, some of whom I had been the one to bury as well.
For the last five years I have celebrated Holy Communion week by week as Vicar of St James the Less in Bethnal Green, an inner city London parish. Gathering all our needs and longings, our pain, our joys and our fallings out into those exceptional words. “Though we are many, we are one body”. The enormous privilege of being a parish priest is never ever lost on me in that moment. The gift of retelling the story of Christ’s brokenness which mirrors our own, in a congregation of the broken, and of offering again the possibility of resurrection to all of those who come with the courage to “hurry or hobble behind him” is a priceless task which has no equal, and the more I get to know people’s stories the better it becomes.
Behind every celebration I have ever led has been the memory of others.
In the chapel at Trinity College in Carmarthen they sang parts of the service in Welsh.
At St Paul’s Church, in Bedminster, Bristol, the tiny voice of Lucemo Mlewa would ring out loud and clear above the Prayer of Humble Access, “Where’s my God sandwich Mummy”.
At St John, Hills Road, in Cambridge, the vicar would begin the service bemoaning that, once again, a mouse had eaten his cassock, before preaching a sermon about his granny’s hat.
I learned in those years that, as far as receiving communion goes, all human life is there.
It’s true to say though that one memory of those pre-priesthood communions has stood out over and above the rest, and it is this: Outside in a circle, in a park, with the communion elements waiting on the table, a man steps into the circle and says this. “You need to pray for me, because if I don’t stop drinking I am going to die” . The gathered community, housed and unhoused, gathered around him and prayed as if their own lives depended on it, which they probably did. What came alive for me that day was the realisation that, if worship is anything, it is us being ‘ drawn up’ into the life of God, and the more honest and available we are to being changed, the more powerful is that process.
Now imagine being part of that ‘drawing up’ with people whose vulnerable lives mean they have nothing to lose. Who pray with honesty because Jesus is genuinely their best hope, having nothing and no one else to fall back on. Imagine breaking bread with someone who is willing to offer all of that story, alongside your own, because of and despite the fact, that tonight they will be sleeping in a doorway.
None of us find it easy to share with others our losses and our devastations, even less so when those losses have led us to the street.Yet they come and they share what they have. Imagine presiding over such a gathering, in midtown Manhattan, on a Sunday afternoon, with the Flatiron building acting as a steeple out of the corner of your left eye.I can hardly credit it myself.
Here are some things I learned about doing church outside:
Pigeons and skateboarders have no respect. But both create an immediacy which means that the weirdness that God made gets ‘drawn up’ too. If a duckbilled-platypuss had wandered across that square I would not have been surprised.
That all places are made holy by the words “Come Lord Jesus”, even places which are dark and smell, or which just look like a bit of park. Fr Seamus sprinkles holy water on the paving slabs as the service starts and we are all standing on holy ground together.
That people can position themselves wherever they need to be, in order to take part. At home Brendan sits with the church wardens because they make him feel safe. For some people walking into a church building is too much of a commitment to being part of what goes on. But what if you could just stand under a tree and watch and see how saying “yes” feels?
It is impossible, as the person presiding, to be a one woman show. While you are fussing about the grape juice the service sheets are blowing half way down the street…
You are forced to take seriously what people need because shame and fear are not as well hidden as they are in a housed congregation. If people can’t read, or haven’t taken their medication or need a drink, you know about it generally, or it takes less time to find out. To some extent you can anticipate what might be true. Make sure the wine isn’t an issue and that people don’t have to be able to read. All stuff we should do in our housed congregations as well but sometimes forget.
That the church, like most things, flourishes in an atmosphere of love and clear boundaries which expect the best from people.
I have had several moments in my life where the phrase ” I can die happy” has been applied enthusiastically.
Performing my first baptism for a little boy called Kieran, who was the size of a house despite being only four months old. Being asked to take the wedding of Laura Collier,the only daughter of one of my dearest friends. Seeing Dolly Parton walk on stage at Wembley Arena. Standing in the River Jordan..
But that Holy Communion. In the park..
