Feast of The Blessed Virgin Mary

They say don’t they that the simple pleasures in life are the best.

One of the things I most enjoy at the moment is taking the dog for his walk up to Stafford castle. There is a marvellous view over Stafford from the top of the castle mound. A view stretching from the town centre up to Baswich in one direction and the North Side in the other. You can make out all the main buildings in the town centre – and there ofcourse in the heart of it all is the very distinctive octagonal tower of St Marys Church. And whichever way you travel into Stafford you can see the tower of this church as you approach the town centre. St Mary's stands right at the heart and centre of Stafford – as it has done for hundreds of years.

Today as we celebrate the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary which is of course our Patronal Festival so there is a sort of twofold focus for us. One focus is for us to give thanks to God for this church and for its continuous and containing witness to the Christian faith and Christian service to the people of this town and community down the years. The second focus is of course the figure of Mary herself – our Patron saint.

Now I want if I may, and if I am able, to try to bring those two things together. This church building and what it means. And Mary our patron and what she means.

First this witness of this church building. It stands here at the heart for Stafford as a sign to everyone of the presence and the call of God within the whole of human life. Surrounded as it is by shops and offices, cafes and restaurants, the crown court, the theatre and the college. Everyday thousands of people walk past it or around it or sit within its shadow – and a good number of them come inside. Each and every one of them has family and concerns and jobs and a social life. They have their joys and sorrows their trials and their victories. Their hearts and their m minds are full of all of that as they walk past this church. And it stands here as a sacrament or symbol of Gods concern with all of that.

The basis of our faith found in the first words of the bible is that God is the creator of all that is. But he’s not an absentee landlord. He is concerned with and cares for all that he has created. And this is where Mary comes in. God the creator is so concerned with us and with his world so great is his care that he comes to be part of all that he has made. In the womb of Mary God’s  creating word became flesh and dwelt amongst us – as St John’s Gospel puts it.

At a particular time in history and in a particular place in the world and in the circumstances of that time and place – God came amongst us in his eternal Son and Word made flesh - Jesus born of Mary. And in so doing God our creator has shown and demonstrated his care and concern and indeed his presence in all of history, in the entire world in all circumstances, in the whole of life and in all of our lives. This is absolutely central to the Christian faith. That God became one with us in Jesus Christ – The Eternal word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. And Mary was at the centre of the great redeeming act of God towards us. It was her flesh and blood that God took to himself in her womb. She was the human means by which God joined himself to his creation. It was Mary's obedience to God's will and his purposes for her and for the entire world which made it all possible.

‘The child to be born of you, said God through the angel to Mary,’ the child to be born of you will be holy and will be the Son of God the most High.’

‘I am the lords handmaid’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’

And so you see this church and its purpose and meaning as a sign of the presence and the call of God in all of human life comes together with the great truth that God became one with the whole of human life when he came to us as a child born of Mary– flesh of our flesh.

As I said a minute ago this is central to the Christian faith for which this church stands – that God is at the heart of all life, at the heart of the world. It’s especially important at this particular point in history – especially in the life and history of our nation. There is a strong and vociferous movement amongst the modern and very evangelistic atheist movement to restrict Christianity and indeed al religion and all faith to the realm of the private. This is very strong in the words and the writing of Messrs Grayling and Dawkins. The idea is to deny faith any public voice at all. To deny Christianity its place in the public life of our nation. The humanist and atheist lobby want to marginalise Christian faith, indeed all faiths, to private life behind the walls of churches, safely hidden from public view and the possibility of public influence. Now that has already happened to some extent. The Christian voice is muted in the life of our nation and its people when compared with past years – this has been going on for a long time.

It seems to me that to allow that to continue and to further marginalise Christianity just to the so called spiritual aspects of life would be to allow the very nature and ion large part the meaning and impact of the Christian faith to be emasculated. For the incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of Mary demonstrates Gods’ concern with the whole of life not just that part of it which may be labelled religious or spiritual..

‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.....’

All of us have been shocked, concerned and bewildered and perhaps even fearful by the events of this past week. What has been happening to us as a nation?  What has gone wrong? The answer to that is as we all know very complex and we need to avoid over simplistic answers. But we do as a nation need to do some very thorough thinking and some equally thorough heart searching about what we have become as a nation and about how we behave towards one another.

I will however venture just one thought. A word that has been buzzing around in my head this week as I have witnessed the appalling behaviour of in fact a wide variety of people – is the word ‘values’. Where in the midst of all of this are the values which give direction and moral compass to our lives? Those values which call us to have a proper respect for rightful authority. Those values which cause us to respect each other as persons and people and to treat other with respect and care. Those values which have a rightful respect for the property of other people.

It would seem that those values were lacking on the streets of some of our cities last week. And the result has been death and mayhem and destruction and great concern and cost. Why are those values so lacking. Again, the answer is, I am sure, complex. Part of the answer is that over the past years the values of the Christian faith which hitherto have informed and directed our lives have gradually been marginalised and nothing has replaced them. This is true in our home and family life in our community and social life and in some aspects of the life of our nation.

The Christian Gospel seems to have been replaced by a Gospel of greed – from MPs' expenses to the looting by twelve year olds and some young adults who should know better. And a dislocation between a society based upon materialism and many young people caught in a poverty trap for which there seems to be no way out and therefore no hope. I think that we have sleepwalked into all of this. Now is the time to wake up and to ask ourselves:

What kind of a people and nation do we want to be and what are the values that will steer us in that direction?

Spiritual, religious faith values need to be part of the debate that we ought to have with ourselves as a nation. And we needn’t be triumphalist in our Christianity about this. For the values that we need to assert again in the life of our nation are the values espoused by all the great religions that share with us the same concerns and have the same values to offer to a society in need of them. Except to say that for us who hold the faith of Christ we do have this one element which lies at the heart of our faith in particular. That the Word of God present in the creation of the world became flesh and dwelt amongst us full of grace and truth. And today in this church named after Mary standing as it does in the heart and centre of community we give thanks to God for this great movement towards us to redeem us and to bring us back to who we were created to be. That great movement of God towards us which began in the womb of Mary.