Preached by Rev Clare Herbert on behalf of Inclusive Church at St Peter's Eaton Square

Sunday March 9th 2008 at 11.15am

"Jesus began to weep, so the Jews said "See, how he loved him!”.”

In the name of God, Source of all Being, Eternal Word and Holy Spirit. Amen

I have recently left Soho after being the Rector of St Anne's Soho for nearly 10 years. One of my reasons for leaving was to have time to digest the very rich experiences which I encountered there, to take them in, to adjust my theology, to let them shape my future mind and work.

For Soho is a very vivid place and its people a colourful bunch. I was very stretched by being there in two ways. Firstly it was the place where as a woman coming late to the living out of my vocation I really became the priest I had always hoped to be! That may sound strange - I had after all already been a curate and for years before that had responsible roles in Church and social work. But in Soho as the Rector I truly learned to be a priest!

When you are the priest in charge of a church, whether its Rector or Vicar or Priest in charge there is no-one else to whom to pass the buck of leadership  in creating a healing and resurrected community. People help of course and without those people the whole priesthood of believers could not take shape. But when push comes to shove, when people are disagreeing or making life difficult, or when a new step in creativity is absolutely necessary for new life to emerge the priest leading the community has to stretch out his or her arms, his or her brains, heart, smile, common sense and stamina and hold the people around the altar so that they can themselves take the next in the mystery of being Christ's body together.

I never knew that in my body mind and soul before Soho - but the people taught it to me.

People like Vee who fought tooth and nail in her body and mind against women being ordained as priests and so found my arrival as her Rector in the Church she loved very difficult indeed. She was most surprised when I didn't contradict her views, believing she had the right to have them and even more surprised when I honoured her role as a lay chaplain at a nearby homelessness hostel. The rapprochement between us lasted some years until Vee developed a brain tumour and her vitriol against me knew no bounds in speech or action. But I was getting used to her and to being a priest by now. You cannot say the words of the Eucharistic Prayer of Jesus self-offering day by day without the tremendous privilege of starting to be shaped by their reconciling power. So again I held on to trying to love , to not letting hatred divide us ,and eventually, in her last days in hospital and as she lay dying , she could see me in my care for her and I could see her in all her vulnerability, could see the forces and relationships that had twisted and mauled her out of easy shape but into the person that I and Soho and the hostel needed.

The people of Soho stretched me into being a priest - one who endures the pain people throw because they are suffering and because you have decided to take upon yourself the story of Christ's forgiveness and love and to hold others in that story too.

That was the first stretching. But the second took me out of my priestly comfort zone into a place of desolation, a valley of dry bones. This stretching made me less obedient towards the Church of England Bishops' statements and more challenging of them in the name of the very people to whom I found myself a priest.

10 years ago, on April 30th, a Friday evening, the early spring sun was shining on those passing along Old Compton Street to start their weekend over a drink with friends. At 6.30pm a nail bomb exploded under the bar of the Admiral Duncan Pub, leaving 3 people dead and some 100 others injured in body or mind. David Copeland had targeted a so-called gay pub in his third murderous attack on what he perceived as minority London.

That murderous act catapulted me into pastoral care of the gay community in Soho before I, let alone my little church, were ready for it. A thousand people came to the open-air memorial service to the victims one week later , so I came to know not only the very ordinary loving families of those who had lost loved ones , - and came to see through them that gay is part of all of us  - but also the guilty who thought they should have died - they always drank at the Duncan on a Friday - just were at work , or with Mum , or fancied a change THIS Friday - and the painful lives of the brutally injured - the nails had been mixed with human excrement so injury and infection went on and on for years , with amputations and the fear of worse to come. And I met a lovely transgendered woman - Sarah, a past traumatic stress disorder therapist  - who was able to go where I in my collar was not able to go - the statement of the Lambeth Conference of 1998 about homosexuality had not exactly endeared us to the gay community and this was not the time to try to get over that , I could only be who I was and Sarah who she was and we worked together

And I got to know Sinders, David Morley, the barman standing over the bomb, badly traumatised but not killed. As often happens at the eye of an explosion - the fatal injuries are caused by flying debris further out. He was a chunky, kind, over-colourful, over-camp, over-giving gay guy who would have given anything to be accepted as an ordinary fellow with partner, home-life and job. He taught me how the most extreme side of gay life can sometimes be a cover for a simply enormous well of need for quiet recognition, calm and care. No such good fortune for David. It was as well I got to know him because a few years later we had 4000 people on the streets of Soho at his memorial service when he was murdered in a happy slapping incident on the South Bank, an easy target through his vulnerability and obviously camp demeanour.

This stretching which I received in Soho has made me unable to agree with the Church of England's received wisdom of the moment about keeping quiet about the lives and needs of gay people - there are just too many people at serious risk of depression, victimisation, bullying or the plain simple sadness of loneliness for me to be able to agree that silence is best where change and recognition are needed. People often speak about priests forming their church communities as if the work is all one way - it's not of course, its two way.  I am changed by the people I was called to serve and by the vocation in which I was called to serve them.

Which is why I now work for Inclusive Church, a charity working for equality within the Church of England for women and for those who are lesbian and gay, bisexual and transgendered. Without whitewashing over the need for the discussion of sexual ethics, as an urgent priority, we need to declare that LGBT people are capable of being witnesses to the holiness of God and to hear how they may be bearing Christ's image themselves in their bodies and minds by their suffering and by their love and struggle for the truth.

These stories of my being stretched, with St Anne's my parish Church , as we tore down plastic which made the doors difficult to open , and created safe listening spaces for those needing to talk and receive care, as we received new life ourselves by our encounter with those who needed us ,  these stories are no longer simple anecdotes for me but are instead tales of the living out of the Good News which I find in today's Bible readings.

God promises Israel through the prophecy of Ezekiel that they are to hope in God who is able to bring life from bodies caught in the desolation of war. By his breath scattered dried up bones will become a company of living individuals.God promises the young Church of Rome through Paul that the old enmity between flash and spirit need be no more - spirit can revitalise flesh. And Jesus lives out the promise of God to be God, to raise life from death in Lazarus his friend.

Only notice this, in the story of Jesus we see the cost and the risk involved in working with God to raise people to new life. It is Jesus heart which weeps as he contemplates the distress among his friends and the loss of Lazarus. And he risks everything for love of his friend. This story will come out into  the open, there is now hiding it or concealing who Jesus is which is why his disciples are so afraid and beg him not to go to Bethany so near Jerusalem. Now Jesus fully aligns himself with the activity of God in the world and his enemies will be incensed! The crowds will follow Jesus after this there will be no peace for Jerusalem, his enemies must act soon to get rid of him.  Jesus prefigures his own death and resurrection - with passion he lays down his life for his friend's sake, that his friend may live.

On Passion Sunday we take a deep breath before the events of Holy Week unfold and we see how our God is not far off , creating and withdrawing to watch , sitting on the sidelines  or pulling strings to remain detached from our suffering as we tumble and fall. God is involved in the mystery and immensity of human suffering and by offering himself in love for us shows us by his passionate engagement with us the way that we must tread if we would follow Jesus.

Now this is an enormous challenge .This is the turning around we have to understand if we would be Christian. Thank goodness the Church's year gives us a whole fortnight to struggle to take it in! Can we, as Paul would put it disengage ourselves from the mindset of the world in what it values in terms of status, power, wealth and recognition and put on the mindset of Christ, that is understand the folly of the cross as true wisdom, offering ourselves in love for others so that they and we may truly live -this Passiontide and Easter may we learn so to stand beside Jesus in his death, where he continues to die among us, that we may also know the power of his resurrection and where his risen life is seen and known .Amen.