The United Benefice of Fen Drayton with Conington and Lolworth and Swavesey The Journal - News from the Benefice Bishop David’s Visit on Mothering Sunday 2010 Bishop David, the Bishop of Huntingdon, came to St Mary’s, Fen Drayton, and St Andrew’s, Swavesey, for the Mothering Sunday services on 14th March. The Bishop’s blog of the occasion can be found here. During the service at St Andrew’s, Bishop David dedicated a new banner made by the children of the Sunday School (right). The new banner tells the story of the first Christmas and Epiphany (below). The pictures start from the New: Photo Gallery Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and go through to the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. In detail (left and then right): An Angel appears to Mary; An Angel appears to Joseph in a dream; Mary & Joseph travel to Bethlehem; No room at the inn; Jesus is born and laid in the manger; Angels appear to the shepherds; The Shepherds visit the stable; The Wise men follow the star; The Star; The Wise men see Herod; The Wise men give their gifts to Jesus; An Angel appears to Joseph in a dream, telling him to go home another way; Joseph, Mary and Jesus flee to Egypt It’s quite appropriate that I should talk about the Second Ecumenical Kirchtag on the Day of Pentecost - what used to be Whitsunday in the old money.  For a principal theme of Pentecost is the communication of the Gospel to all nations - through the gift of tongues - the ability to speak in all languages - that the good news in Christ crucified and risen from the dead might be shared and spread. Well there were certainly plenty of languages present in Munich - and not a few flavours of Christianity.  But, as is common in the modern world, not all languages spoke to all people.  And on some issues, some folks just couldn’t seem to understand. Not that all the languages used in Munich were spoken.  And in fact it was those which were not spoken which perhaps had the widest currency.  Music is a language which is spoken the world over - in many dialects.  Even in the closing service of the Kirchentag last Sunday morning, God was worshipped through many different kinds of music.  We were summoned to worship by the bells of the city - all ringing together in a great mush of sound (quite unlike our English change-ringing). There was a worship band with keyboard, there was an orchestra on the rostrum accompanying a Bach choir.  There was the voice of 3,000 brass instruments - some sporting umbrellas in the cold wind and spotting rain.  There was a gospel choir and there were traditional hymns to sing and worship songs - sometimes with different styles combined in the setting of the same text.  There were Taizé chants - and, oh, I mustn’t forget the chorus of Alphorns - well, what else might you expect in Munich? But the closing service also included more silent forms of communication - through the movement of shared actions and gestures - and even body percussion.  And there was the language of picture - you almost want to say ‘image’ - though this might too easily be misunderstood as an expression of idolatry.  And there was the language of silence - though it isn’t easy to find an absolute silence in the middle of a busy city even at 10.00am on a Sunday morning. But there were, of course, also words - so many words about so many subjects.  Even the closing service included no fewer than four (mercifully short) sermons - from a Roman Catholic Archbishop, from a Methodist Bishop (a woman), from the Metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox Church in Germany and from the Chairman of the Council of Protestant Churches in Germany.  Four sermons reflecting different themes from the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, which provided the structure for the whole service. Throughout the five days of the Second Ecumenical Kirchentag, some five hundred thousand people took part. For a little while, the city of Munich became Jerusalem at Pentecost, with over four thousand participants from around the world, of whom one of the largest single groups came from the UK.  And it certainly seemed that if you wanted to find an Anglican bishop, one of the best places to look that week was in Munich. Of course, one of the highlights for Anglicans at the Kirchentag is the service celebrating the work of the Meissen Commission which oversees relations between the Church of England and the Lutheran Churches of Germany.  The celebrant was Nick Barnes, Bishop of Croydon (and whom I had met at a recent meeting of the Anglican-Lutheran Society) and the preacher was Bishop Professor Doktor Freidrich Weber, the other co-chair of the Meissen Commission. Partnership is always a key theme of these gatherings - and Ruth and I took our turns on the stall celebrating twinnings arranged under the Meissen process in the Market Place in one of the great exhibition halls at the Munich Exhibition Centre or Trade Fair.  There I saw again Gabriele Voigt who visited us in Fen Drayton and Swavesey only a few weeks ago - and also Jörg Weißbach who visited the benefice in 1996 and preached a memorable sermon at the Harvest Festival in Conington.   Well, perhaps we will see Jörg again in the not too distant future. So much for the nuts and bolts of the Second Ecumenical Kirchentag - but what was its message; what was achieved?  There were various themes running through the many areas of special interest of the Kirchentag.  Obviously some of the Roman Catholic participants were anxious to question the hierarchy about the cover-up of allegations of sexual abuse in parochial, educational and community settings.  There are many issues here still to be resolved. The Kirchentag also took place against the background of a deepening crisis over the stability of the Euro and Germany’s place as the principal donor of the funding needed to support the single currency.  In fact, the Kirchentag was alive with politicians of all parties, including the Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, all staking their claims to the moral high ground.  It never fails to amaze me how many German politicians are quite open about their Christian faith and clearly active in the life of their church and denomination. Issues of Social Justice for the poor and the migrant workers and the Integrity of the God-given Creation (the environment) are never far from the surface of discussion at Kirchentag.  One morning Rebecca and I attended a Bible Study led by the Federal Minister for the Environment in dialogue with the deputy speaker of the federal parliament. And, of course, there was abundant witness that the cause of ecumenism is still very much alive.  There is constant and growing pressure on the Catholic hierarchy to allow the sharing of communion between Catholics and Protestants.  Even the Catholic (lay) co-chairman of the Kirchentag made a strong and urgent appeal for this central expression of Christian togetherness to be allowed at least within inter-denominational marriages in his closing address to the final service last Sunday.  And again, the active participation of so many members of the Greek Orthodox community was also a most striking and positive feature of the whole five days. But in the end, Kirchentag always charges its participants with a measure of challenge - a challenge to rise out of an all too comfortable complacency.  In those four sermons on the Magnificat at the closing service on the Theresienwiese last Sunday, we were first challenged by Archbishop Robert Zollitsch to join with Mary in rejoicing in God, in thankful recognition that he has brought us to where we are and urges us to go forward together.  Then we were challenged by Bishop Rosemarie Wenner to make ourselves open to the call of God not to forget the lowly and the hungry.  Again, we were challenged by Metropolitan Augoustinos to take to heart the fear of God and embrace the holiness of God.  And finally we were challenged by President Nikolaus Schneider not to live in a fools’ paradise of complacency but to join in Mary’s wild and rebellious song of hope, not forgetting that in God’s kingdom, while the hungry are to be filled with good things, the rich are to be cast down.  “We Christians,” he mused, “who are well off and eat our fill, and we leaders of big churches, we no longer dream of relationships being turned upside down: we dream at most of peaceful change.”  And he prayed that God might smash our arrogance and our self-satisfaction and teach us anew fear and awe in the face of God’s justice.” You can always count on Kirchentag to serve up a diet of beautiful and disturbing, of imaginative and challenging spiritual food.  Oh well, on to next year in Dresden - if God wills it and we live. Amen. The Second Ecumenical Kirchentag held in Munich 12th-16th May 2010 (extracted from a sermon preached on 23rd May 2010) A salute from some of the 3,000 brass instramentalists at the closing service The Munich skyline from the English Gardens.  Sadly, the sun stayed quite away from this year’s Kirchentag. Some of the 100,000 congregation await the beginning of the closing service. right: Doing brisk business on the sall promoting inter-church partnerships between Britain and Germany under the Meissen Agreement Church leaders at the closing service in Munich issue invitations to the 33rd Protestant Kirchentag in Dresden in 2011 and the 98th Katholikentag in Mannheim in 2012.