Visiting Vellore - Church Partnerships

St John's

             

St. John's

It was good to be back in Vellore in July/August, though the notion of India as an assault on the senses quickly returned. Vibrant colours, noise, heat, the smells, many pleasant, others not so appealing. It was nearly four and a half years since I had arrived on my first visit to India and, this time, there was a sense of familiarity as our driver negotiated the traffic of Chennai and we started the journey to Vellore and the guest rooms at Karigriri hospital.

It is impossible to adequately describe the variety of experiences, but one thing that was overwhelming was the welcome and the care with which we were taken where we needed to be. The link between Cambridgeshire Ecumenical Council and the Diocese of Vellore is long established and mutually valued. Having the opportunity to visit is a real journey into the enrichment of experiencing the world church.

As a minister, one of the things I most value in such visits is the opportunity to worship in a different context, which always feel different, and yet there is invariably a real sense of our oneness in Christ. Different members of the group went to different churches.

For me, the first Sunday took me to St John’s Church, Fort, Vellore, where the diocesan link person, Revd. Jared Jebareuben, is the minister. St John’s is an English language church – so I understand everything and enjoyed the opportunity to preach without the need for translation. The hymns were traditional, including some I have not sung for a while – ‘More about Jesus would I know,’ ‘Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face’. I was glad to have the opportunity to share in the administration of Communion, though doing so in cassock and bare feet always feels a little strange.

The second Sunday we were away from the city in the hills at the retreat centre at Yelagiri, and attended the church in the village, Millennium Church, so called because it was built in 2000. Prior to that, the members of the congregation had worshipped in homes, It is a small church, about 10 families, 25-30 people, but often attracting visitors. The service was in Tamil, but there was nobody to translate, so the sermon was in English, and I was assured that most people would understand! After the service, as is typical, we had coffee and conversation, and a number of people came and asked for prayer.

On the third Sunday I was preaching at Rottschaefer Memorial Church, Bernicepuram, Katpadi, where the Revd. Isaac Kadhirvelu, Vice President of the Diocese, is the minister. Apparently this was originally a mission compound and so there are a lot of retired clergy in the area. I find it difficult to estimate how many were present, but perhaps 200-300. This was designated the Sunday for us to visit village churches, but I think our connection with that is that they showed a PowerPoint of their outreach into villages during the service. We started promptly at 8.30 with everything on screens and a large digital clock facing the preacher. It was reasonably easy to follow what was going on though – apart from the sermon – pretty well everything was in Tamil. Revd Isaac gave a translation of the gist of the sermon after I had preached it, having requested a script in advance. The service included an adult baptism, people coming forward for prayer and three offerings. As usually happens, the church was less than half full when the service started, but soon filled up, including the overflow seats to the back and side, and lasted about two and a quarter hours. Afterwards we were made to feel very welcome and I had lots of people coming to me asking for prayer and a blessing, a humbling experience.

Aside from Sundays, we had several other visits to churches, and were able to encounter people as we shared worship and conversation.

A Wednesday evening visit to St Luke’s, Chittoor, where Revd Samuel Babu is pastor, enabled us to meet with the Women’s Fellowship (and a few men). There was lively singing and speeches of welcome, and I learned to be ready for anything as, having thought that one of the others had done the visitors’ bit, the pastor then asked me to bring a reflection. As so often, the ‘service’ was followed by the provision of a meal. I must admit to enjoying the food, not least the chicken biryani that is so often the main feature of church meals, though, despite all the practice of this visit, I still struggle to eat rice with my fingers.

On the second Sunday evening, on the way back from Yelagiri to Vellore, we stopped at Ambur to spend time with the folk at one of the churches there. Again, it was predominantly the Women’s Fellowship who welcomed and shared with us. Many of this congregation had broken away from a Pentecostal Church in order to join the Church of South India, and the lively worship reflected that background. There was also a cultural element, with music and dance and, when the women of our group, were invited to join the dance, I was glad of the cultural conventions of India by which it was very clear that it would be inappropriate for a man to also do so!

One more. One Tuesday evening we were taken to a poorer part of Vellore, and the church where Revd Glory is pastor. Revd Glory is one of the relatively few women pastors in the diocese, and one of the most long-serving – and what a great name for a pastor! One of the traditions in India is the giving of garlands and shawls to honour visitors and others. In this poorer community this pastor, who clearly cared a great deal for her people, had made the garlands with which we were presented. The energy and effort that this congregation put into singing and dance as they sought to introduce us to something of their life, worship and culture was extremely moving, and even a power cut failed to really disrupt them.

The motto of the Church of South India is “That they all may be one”. All we shared chimed well with that brilliant sentiment.

Stories of Saints

When Rowan Williams spoke at the United Reformed Church ministers’ gathering in May 2018, I realised how skilled he was at telling the stories of others and using those to say some really significant and helpful things. On that occasion he told the stories of three women - Maria Skobtsova, Dorothy Day and Madeleine Delbrel - and used an account of their lives and Christian contribution to offer some fascinating insights.

Now, much more briefly, he has put together a collection of stories of Christian lives and uses these to point us to new and familiar Christian insight. The book, entitled “Luminaries” started life in various places and is a compilation, mostly, of addresses and sermons. However, it works, as Williams takes us into the lives of those he described. Starting with St Paul, and it is well worth starting in the Bible in a project like this, and ending in the latter part of the twentieth century with Oscar Romero, he takes us into some great stories of Christians. It is a good reminder that we all have our story, and that stories are worth telling.

There are twenty stories, and each have their insight.

I particularly liked some of what he says about William Tyndale (1494-1536) - “Tyndale was not just a gifted, pithy and entertaining translator; he also had a profound and far-reaching vision of the social order. For Tyndale, God was shown in the world by particular kinds of social relation. The Church is the community of those who live in Godlike relation to one another. The Church is the community of those so overwhelmed by their indebtedness to God’s free grace that they live in a state of glad and grateful indebtedness to one another.”

Diverse Saints

I recently read “Every Tribe”, edited by Sharon Prentis, appropriately sub-titled ‘stories of diverse saints serving a diverse world’. Recognising that the Christian story has often been told in a way that gives priority to white males, this collection of stories seeks to redress the balance by high-lighting a necessarily small selection of ‘saints’ who have made a good contribution to the Christian story, but whose ethnicity is non-white. I agree that these stories need to be told, and allowed to come to the fore and so consider this a valuable contribution. Starting with St George who, as the patron saint of England, is often wrongly depicted as white - he was actually a Palestinian - the book works its way through a dozen stories across a number of centuries and helpfully reflects on the stories.

For instance, of St George it is said: “St George, so often domesticated for narrow nationalistic gains, should instead be seen as a brave man, bold in speaking about the faith and international in his appeal and acceptance, with communities in England sharing this Palestinian Roman saint with many other communities and nationalities around the world.”

One of the other stories comes from the sixteenth century and is of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin who, in 2001, became canonised as the first saint from the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The book says of him: “Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin’s importance to the people of Mexico, and all those who feel powerless, cannot be under-estimated. He speaks alike in accents that common people going about their business, in the marketplaces and in the tea houses, and those in seats of power in Mexico, can understand. It is the age-old truth: God raises up saints from the most unlikely of places and people.”

These are valuable stories with important lessons - and it is important to remember that behind them there are many others that remain untold.

Listening to God

The second chapter of Barbara Brown Taylor’s “When God is Silent” says this:

“Even now, some Christians have trouble listening to God. Many of us prefer to speak. Our corporate prayers are punctuated with phrases such as “Hear us, Lord” or “Lord, hear our prayer,” as if the burden to listen were on God and not us. We name our concerns, giving God suggestions on what to do about them. What reversal of power might occur if we turned the process around, naming our concerns and asking God to tell us what to do about them? “Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”

Yes, indeed, how we need to listen to and for God. We are good at making noise. We need to learn to listen. It seems as though that should be so easy, and yet it just does not seem to work out like that. Let us try to listen more!

Words and Welcome

I have been reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s “When God is Silent”. In the first chapter she explores the power and our use of words, suggesting that we do not always take them as seriously as we should. She points to the eloquence of silence and how that can so easily be shattered by words. She talks of God as Logos, the Word, and how God speaks ‘things’ into being, going on to say “the most dangerous word God ever says is Adam”. Humans are in the ‘image’ of God and are given ‘dominion’ over creation. Those are two really important ideas. Taylor is talking with reference to preaching and emphasises that we need to take our words seriously.

She points out just how often we do not really do that. For example, she talks of how many churches describes themselves as welcoming to one and all. That is something I also hear. Many of the churches I visit are very welcoming, and that is great, but, like Taylor, I suspect that they do not absolutely live up to their claims. She comments: “No church I know is open to everyone. Whom do we think we are fooling? I would so much rather see a sign that says, “We do the best we can,” or better yet, “Christians meet here. Enter at your own risk.”

I think she makes a very good point.

She also talks about the importance of context, about how words change their meaning, about our expanding vocabulary. Let’s take seriously our use of words, but also the challenges of being really welcoming.