Leatherhead
Covenanting Churches,
Shrove Tuesday 24 February 2009, at Christ Church (United
Reformed), 7pm
An ecumenical celebration of Holy
Communion in the context of a shared supper. To mark 6
years of our Covenant and Canon David Eaton's
contribution to the life of the Churches in Leatherhead.
The Reading was John 15 1-7: Revd Dean
Tapley
Rev Dean Tapley greets us
The intercessions were led by Revd Ian
Howarth
David Eaton explains the how the distribution at
Communion will be done.
After Communion and before The Peace,
Revd Canon David Eaton offered this Reflection:
May I thank you all for coming and
joining together tonight, it means a lot, and especially
may I thank Mary, Alison, Mike , Dean and Ian and all
those who have worked to make tonight happen. It’s
great to be here and to be together.
I started to think I had better get a
part time job – Sainsbury’s or the Big Issue,
perhaps. Keep going at all costs. Then there is the other
approach. The flat-out school of thought. The retired say
“I never know how I found the time to go out to
work”. This is worrying because most of my life has
been spent never knowing how to find time to go out to
play.
A while ago we were having a crisis about
pensions, that’s before we were having a crisis
about credit. The clergy all received a letter to say
that the clergy pension fund was on hard times. They
thought we ought to know the reason is that the clergy
are all living a lot longer than they used to …
which felt like an invitation to make the ultimate
sacrifice. That’s another option when you retire.
Then there’s housing. We’ve got
to live somewhere, but where? And we’ve got to get a
house, but which one? Rumours that we looked at most of
the available houses in SE England are true. People kept
saying “it’s like falling in love, you’ll
know”. We kept looking at each other: “Do you
know?”; “Do you know?” We also discovered
that looking at houses can become addictive. We are
thinking of starting the HHA – House Hunters
Anonymous. There is something mesmerising about other
people’s houses, hence all those property
programmes. Shall we call Phil and Kirsty in? We would
look complete idiots. “oh look, that’s nice
… mind you I wouldn’t have chosen blue …
look at the state of that… you can’t believe
how some people live.”
And what about estate agents? Anyone here
an estate agent? Are they really your new best friend, or
are they desperate to see you a house? Surely not.
Then there is saying goodbye, and leaving
behind. This is where it gets a bit tricky. Maybe you are
someone who always relishes the future. Me, I’m a
nostalgia buff .. the music we used to listen to, and
still do .. the places we’ve been ..the photos of
the children – when they were children …
I’m cracking up without really trying.
So saying goodbye to all of you and
moving on doesn’t fill me with delight – I
don’t know quite what I’ll do with all the
memories. I know I’ll be thinking of old so-and-so:
and do you remember when; and if only we could ….
But that’s what friendship means. If there was no
true friendship you wouldn’t miss it when friends
are not around so much.
What am I saying! Pull yourself together!
We’re only going to Brockham, for
goodness’sake.
It's only Brockham
But it’s a real break in the sense
of separation and the end of a way of life. Which is our
way of saying “It’s been great, and we want to
say a big ‘thank you’ for having us a round for
a bit, and giving us your support and friendship .. and
I’ll return the mower as soon as I can find
it.”
Which brings me to tonight .. The Last
Supper (or one of them). A means of shared friendship.
One of the joys of being here has been the Ecumenical
Partnership which we have been able to establish, abiding
in God’s love. There we were last Sunday morning,
three churches sharing in Breakfast Praise ... all
working together as families with children. The there is
the Leatherhead Youth Project and our joint youth work,
and Leatherhead Trinity, the newly formed Church School
to move this year into a brand new multi-million pound
school building; a school jointly sponsored by our three
churches; not to mention Lent Groups, Christian Aid, the
Walk of Witness on Good Friday, New Fire, Be@titude,
Liquid, Bugs Club and other shared services.
Tonight is a celebration of all this. Not
just for its own sake but because it is creative when we
do what do together and not on our own. Together we can
address issues around our response to young families, for
example, much more creatively than if we each try and
paddle our own canoe, oblivious of anyone else.
We all face the same issues and problems.
The Holy Spirit is the go-between: the emerging new
possibilities, the hope for the future and the practical
problem solving in the present. And we’ve only just
begun to work in this new and innovative way. I sense
that there is a lot more to come and on which you can
build. It feels like we are in Phase I and this will lead
to further development and change and building in the
future.
So tonight we (Ginny and I) say thank you
for all that we have been able to share and do and be
together, and we celebrate all that is and we commit
ourselves to going on together to see what yet there is
to come.
A gift towards fireworks at Brockham perhaps?
Barbara Howarth - Ian Howarth - Lydia Tapley - Dean
Tapley - Ginny Eaton - David Eaton
David and Ginny Eaton
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