GUEST BLOG - 11th June 2014 - The Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker

Indwelling God,’ a Sermon by The Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker. 25^th May 2014, St Michaels

The Reverend Charlotte Bannister-Parker is a priest at St Michael’s and All Angels church in Oxford, as well as the Chair of the UK Children’s Radio Foundation. She co-founded the charity Learning for Life which funds schools and education projects in India and Pakistan, and in 2008 moved to South Africa with her family, where she helped develop the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman on HIV/Aids educational projects. I am extremely touched that she should pick my words as a worthy starting point for a sermon to her congregation.  Here it is in full.

At times we can all feel overwhelmed by life. We might have good reasons, too.

However outwardly blessed our lives might seem – we have food and shelter, have jobs, homes and family – we can sometimes, each and every one of us,  feels alone, lost and fearful. We all know that feeling.

That sense that, “nobody quite understands what I am going through”.

This sensation, of personal isolation, is particular present in anyone who has suffered from depression.  Especially since depression is a mental state which many people don’t understand. There are no crutches or bandages, no operations involved, even though the physical symptoms for those suffering can be highly acute and deeply painful. 

Like any other organ of your body, your brain can go wrong, but unlike other organs the brain is of extraordinary complexity and even top neurologists have limited understanding of how it truly operates.

A very dear friend of mine called Rachel Kelly last week published her extremely brave book called Black Rainbow, which charts  her personal account of her fight to overcome depression. The memoir is brilliant and beautifully written (she was a journalist for the Times). Black Rainbow explains how Rachel started her journey of recovery through the power of poetry, prayer and breathing. These three elements poetry, prayer and deep breathing became like “ice-cool water offered to a parched traveller” in Rachel’s darkest and blackest moments.

One of the poems/prayers which she found most comforting was that of St Teresa of Avila. Rachel says that repeating the prayer over and over again became like a mantra to her.

Let nothing disturb the

Let nothing affright thee

All things are passing

God never changeth

Patience endurance

Attainth to all things

Who God Possesseth

In nothing is wanting

Alone God sufficeth

But Rachel also found great comfort in something extremely simple: something all of us do every day – breathing. She learnt breathing technique similar to the ancient Hindu technique of Pranayama which led to a great realisation that one’s breath can be a constant companion.

“Its impossible for your mind to tense when your body is relaxed by lengthening the breath” write Rachel.  “You can slow the heart rate and enjoy the after glow as the muscles relax.  Later I was struck by the thought that actually I did not need to feel alone, I could imaging by breathing like a companion, and my breath would never leave me until the day I died”.

And of course breathing is something every human being on earth shares. Is it our very life force. When God created Adam, God breathed into him the breath of life.  As a result Adam became a living human being. “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2 v 7).

And in today’s Gospel for the first time, John points to the coming of the Holy Spirit. The term Holy comes from the Hebrew word “rooach” which can mean breath or wind. John explains that “He lives with you and will be in you. I am in my father you are in me and I am in you.” (14.  15-21) And therefore I see our very breath  as the essence of our God given spirit and the physical manifestation of the indwelling of God in each and every one of us.

And in Acts this theme is picked up by Paul, as he said to the Greeks that God himself “Gives to all mortals life and breath and all things”(Acts 17 25). “For in him we live, we move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 ) .

An old Sufi poem called “In each Breath” written by the mystic Sheikh Ansari Jabir Ibn (1006-1088), says:

“O you who have departed from your own self and who have not yet reached the Friend.  Do not be sad for He (the lord) is accompanying you in each of your breaths”.

But remember, I began this sermon talking about the sense of loneliness or isolation each and every one of us can feel, and have shown that we are never alone, since through our breath and very life force we have the Holy Spirit within us. The indwelling of God.

There is another example of how each week God is indwelling in us for let us not forget we are not alone as we go forward this morning and share in the Holy Eucharist. Once more, like breath, we take into our bodies each time we partake in his Holy Sacrament, the bread and wine, the body and blood, of Christ who dwells in us and we in Him.

This act is a corporate one: it’s one that by sharing together binds us together. As Gavin so eloquently puts it “The Eucharist offers welcome to the lost, health to the sick, humility to the strong and transformation to all who call upon the name of God”. In this way we can not feel alone, but be deeply connected giving thanks to God for our communion together.

Rachel Kelly at the end of her book identified this spiritual inter- connectedness and how it helped in her recovery. Inspired by reading Cardinal Newman’s Meditation as and Devotions, she found “There was a reason for my existence, as indeed there was to everyone, we were all “links in a chain, the bond of connections between persons. It was not for me to question what had befallen me or what would befall me in the future, or to know the reason why. I had to trust in a power higher than me.”

So as we prepare for Ascension and Pentecost we must not forget the words of Jesus to his disciples after the resurrection, in the chamber in Jerusalem when he breathes on them,  he says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22).

And we now know that when God dwells within us we are no longer strangers, but friends; no longer individuals, but knitted together as one.  So may we let the Spirit in, worship with wonder and awe, and know that we are never alone.

Amen