Revd Caroline's Retirement Thoughts

  Sunday 20 th  October Garsington.   How do we become great?   What does your mind picture when you ponder the question.  If I am brutally honest, I am influenced by models of earthly success.  During this week England have appointed a new Football Manager, rightly or wrongly he will be judged by the press and by the fans on his success, there may well be a honeymoon period, but he will need to have a winning record and hopefully some silverware to show for it.   I last preached here a few weeks ago and the lectionary invited a similar sort of reflection on the nature of greatness. These questions are floating around because we are reading through Mark 9 and 10.  Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and is teaching the disciples on the way.  If there is a lot of repetition, I get the sense this is because for the disciples (and perhaps for us all) this is hard teaching.  Jesus, you see turns any idea of ea...

  Sunday 6 th  October 2024 Cuddesdon   Today’s gospel reading continues in the section of Mark where Jesus is leading the disciples toward Jerusalem. There is an undergirding theme of care for the vulnerable.   Jesus is proclaiming a topsy turvy kingdom where greatness is expressed through service of those who need lifting.     Jesus has consistently asked them to use what they have in service of those who are most vulnerable: children, the poor, those denied status.    The opening verses in the gospel on marriage and divorce may sound jarring to us in our 21 st century context but I think it is helpful to put Jesus’ teaching on divorce into this category Given the way divorce worked in the ancient world (and often still does today), certain people were disproportionately hurt in a divorce—especially women and the children they cared for.  I don’t want to delve deeply into this part of the passage but want to concentrate today...

My first regular sermon for quite a long time, preached at St Mary's Garsington 22nd Sept and based on the lectionary readings,  James 3.13 – 4.3, 7-8a Mark 9.30-37   Sunday 22 nd  Sept 2024   In my spare time I enjoy watching tennis, for armchair tennis fans like me the last few years have provided rich pickings.  This has been a great era to watch greats like Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic, the Williams sisters.  All of them have become all time greats each with their own claims to be the GOAT. (Greatest of all time). How you decide these things is a complex argument, how can you compare different eras, different levels of fitness, genders, racquet science.     For what it’s worth I would put my money on Serena Williams, not just for what she has achieved but for what she has overcome to get there.  It is subjective though, just how can you decide who is the greatest tennis player, musician, poet playwright....

As the parent of a profoundly disabled child I have always found Emily Kingsley's description here both moving and easy to relate to.  Perhaps you will too.  Emily Perl Kingsley extract  A Trip to Holland :  “I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this...  When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans...  “After several months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ‘Welcome to Holland!’ ‘Holland?’ you say. ‘What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy. I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.’  “But there’s been a change in the flight plan...

This is self explanatory, it is the sermon I preached at my final service.    Retirement Sermon 4 th  August 2024     The church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration on Tuesday, a feast we anticipate here today.  It is a fascinating and important gospel passage appearing in the three synoptic gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke.       All 3 gospel texts bring out the main and familiar details of the story. Jesus goes up a high mountain with Peter, James and John. Jesus garments become white and Elijah representing the Prophets and Moses representing the Law appear and talk with him; Jesus’ face glowed as white.  There is here a clear parallel with Moses whose face glowed in Sinai, but no one was permitted to see.     We are now enabled to see face to face what was previously hidden.  And as a little aside, you might recall that Moses didn’t enter the Promised Land here Moses appears in the Promis...

 HOW I CAME TO BE WHERE I AM TODAY For my first post I am sharing something I wrote for a parish newsletter to let people know some background to my decision to retire. Retiring from Full Time Stipendiary Ministry   ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here”.  This is the punchline of a well-known joke.  It seems apt when I think about what has brought about my retirement.  As you know I am retiring on the grounds of ill health, my pension has been granted by the Church of England Pensions Board.  Given the choice it is not how I would choose to leave.  I was ordained a deacon in 1997, my ministry has always been in the Deanery of Aston and Cuddesdon and I have been in my current post I have been in since 2012.    My ill health arose in part because I did not take seriously enough the need to take good care of myself.  By autumn 2022 on the face of it I was coping well and managing a heavy and complex ...