Introduction to online Parish Eucharist
Welcome to the parish of St Wilfrid and The Presentation, Haywards Heath for our celebration of the Holy Eucharist mindful in prayer of all affected by the pandemic. Haywards Heath began with the railway. Its Church began in January 1856 when a Curate of Cuckfield, James Cooper led worship in the loft above a carpenter’s shop sited in what is now Great Heathmead near the station. As you sit on your sofa for today’s online service think of those first 14 people climbing the loft ladder. St Wilfrid’s pioneers had to be fit!
As we offer the eucharist 165 years later at the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity we remember nine other Christian bodies now in our town besides our sister parishes of St Richard and The Ascension: Christ Church, Grace Church, Jireh Strict Baptist Chapel, Kents Road Church, Ruwach Church, The Baptist Church, The Methodist Church, The Roman Catholic Church and The United Reformed Church.
We pray God’s blessing on Haywards Heath and all its churches this morning. Sadly Christian witness is divided. Individually we take some responsibility for this, through complacency at least, for a divided church is weaker in its witness. As we prepare to join in the general confession we might also think of sins of thought, word and deed against Christian unity.
Sermon
On Christmas Day on a family walk through Western Road Cemetery one of my sons spotted the grave of the second Vicar of St Wilfrid’s which I’ve been looking out for on occasional visits. Fr Thomas Wyatt, did so much to help growth at St Wilfrid’s besides planting two new town churches, St Richard’s and The Presentation. He also saw to the rebuilding of St John’s as the first Ascension Church (now our Mosque). Fr Wyatt succeeded his father Robert, Vicar of St Wilfrid’s from 1865, serving from 1891 to 1918 after which he enjoyed a fruitful retirement until his passing on 19 May 1939. He is buried beside his wife in Western Road and as a one who retired as a parish priest a century later, continuing to assist in this parish and St Richard’s I identify with him, his passion for Christ and his Church and for Haywards Heath.
In his unpublished history of St Wilfrid’s Fr Ray mentions Wyatt’s involvement in the Church Defence Institution committed, I quote our former Rector, ‘to resisting attacks on the Church of England from a number of different sources. Firstly there were the secularists and atheists who wished to remove the Church of England from public influence, from its place in education and its Bishops from the House of Lords. Another popular cause was the debate around the disestablishment of the Church in Wales… Then there were those from Roman Catholic Church who were seeking to exclude the Church of England from its history and its roots in the English and Celtic Church, and who were denying the validity of Anglican Orders, and claiming that it was a Reformation Church which only began at the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Thus the Church Defence meetings sought to show the integrity and continuity of the English Church across the Reformation period and the Catholic and Apostolic nature of the Church and its Bishops. Lectures on the history of the church were to the forefront of this task and this was very much a Catholic movement in its broadest sense’.
As we look with the Bishop for a new parish priest for St Wilfrid and The Presentation our tradition is in harmony with some of that thinking. As the 1961 Catechism states we are part of ‘the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed’ and that still ends arguing, now though in the warmest fashion, for a distinctive position over against both Roman Catholic and Free Church thinking. The Church of England, this parish Church, nowadays sits uncomfortably with that title. First a lot of England doesn’t want us. Second, we are more properly part of the Church in England in mission partnership with the other nine bodies in our town in the face of the secularism and atheism referred to earlier which has not abated over the last century. I believe the job specification for our new parish priest mentions their readiness to be involved in Churches Together. Talking of which the Churchwardens received a letter this week from Rev Will Fletcher, minister of the Methodist Church on Perrymount Road inviting us to join a short . lunchtime prayer and reflection Monday to Friday 1230pm for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity inspired by the ecumenical Monastic Community of Grandchamp in Switzerland. Anne and I will be looking in on this to pray for a stronger partnership in mission across our twelve town churches.
Today’s scripture celebrates the calling of Christians. In the Old Testament passage we heard of the boy Samuel’s readiness to hear God’s voice, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’ (1 Samuel 3:9). The Gospel reading tells of the apostles being called by Our Lord one by one, Philip, then Nathanael, also known as Bartholomew. In the passage from the book of Revelation we have a prophecy of the outcome of Christian calling in the gathering of ‘God’s saints from every tribe and language and people and nation… to be a kingdom and priests serving our God [who] will reign in earth’ (Revelation 5:10). That gathering has begun in the twelve churches of Haywards Heath mirroring the twelve foundations of the universal church chosen by Christ in Galilee. We at St Wilfrid’s, though most visible as a building and rich with the legacy of Thomas Wyatt and his like, are part of something bigger in our town which is growing across the world towards the gathering of all things and all people in Christ. May our own prayer and action and the appointment of a new parish priest serve to advance the visible unity and more effective mission of the Church in our town.
