Collation of Peter Jones as Rector of Havant

Readings: Romans 12: 9-16/Lk 1: 39-49 (Feast of the Visitation) 

Can you find an ante-natal clinic in the Bible? Well, not quite – but this evening’s gospel reading comes quite close. Today is generally observed as the feast of the Visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth. So we have the young and newly-pregnant Mary coming to see her (much older) cousin Elizabeth, who is six months ahead of her. On the surface, it’s a homely scene, which might make us smile a little: Mary wants to be with someone else who is a bit more experienced in what she has begun to go through. And the Christian Calendar sharpens up these delicacies. If this visit takes place on June 1st, we can back-date and forward-date. Back-date to March 25th, when Mary conceived Jesus – so by now she’s starting to be aware of what is growing inside her. Forward-date to June 24th, the birth of Elizabeth’s son, John the Baptist – so at this stage she is very pregnant indeed, and her child is likely to be moving around in the womb. And moving around in the womb is exactly what the unborn John the Baptist does, sensing the excitement of his mother. So from this encounter comes the quaint theological interpretation – John the Baptist is recognising the supremacy of his kinsman Jesus long before he is born! 

I must admit to being fascinated by this scene, perhaps because over the past three years I have become one of those wonderfully privileged people, a grandparent, though only twice – unlike Archdeacon Trevor, who seems to be turning the profession into an art-form! The scene is about hope and new beginnings, and the way the most ordinary events in the human life-cycle can become occasions of blessing, and of looking forward. The world is full of hopes and dreams, often born of little signs and pointers to what might be. I prefer these little signs and signals to a lecture, or some grand plan – necessary though these are in order to communicate and to gather consensus. 

In his move from the University and the Cathedral to this civic parish, Peter will be full of hopes and dreams. He knows it will be an adjustment, but he will bring the skills of Hospital and Higher Education Chaplaincy – and the Cathedral - to bear on his new responsibilities, as well as look back to his time in parish work. I was a University Chaplain once, and it’s no doddle, believe you me. How Peter meshes with you in St Faith’s, and St Nicholas’ at Langstone, as well as the Deanery as a whole (and that’s important too) will be up to all of you, and not just Peter alone. But I suspect that the secret of his future ministry here is more likely to lie in those hidden, unborn signs of God’s grace – as in this evening’s gospel. They remain ordinary, if we let them. They become signs of God’s love if we let ourselves go, allow our imaginations to soar, and our eyes to see new opportunities. That is why the ordinary movement in the womb of John the Baptist is viewed – extraordinarily – as a recognition of Jesus as his Lord. And that is why – if I can refer to the ‘walk-about’ Peter will shortly take part in - the waters of baptism are more than ordinary water, the sacred book we read from is no ordinary book, but full of words that are far more than what they seem, the prayers we offer together are more than mere utterances, and the bread and wine of the eucharist far more than ordinary food, but the nourishment of eternity. 

But Peter is not the only one to have hopes and dreams.  All of you here in St Faith’s and St Nicholas’ will have your own hopes and dreams, which Peter will listen to as he gets to know you all.  For you and he together will share not only in worship, prayer and sacrament, but also in the proclamation of the Gospel and the building of the kingdom. 

All this, then, will be a focus for a much wider ministry – to schools and places of education, the civic authorities, local industry, and those places where men and women of goodwill can gather to explore what is happening in our world, and how God is speaking to all of us from right outside the confines of the Church. But then, that is precisely why the scene of Mary going to see Elizabeth took place right out in the open air, unstifled by our sometimes rather dull and boring interests. The message of that scene, surely, is about the Spirit pushing us forward to take risks as we journey into new, uncertain and unexpected paths. 

+ Kenneth Portsmouth