4th Sunday of Easter - Chris Nicol, Cathedral Reader

On the 28th June next month, Kitty Price and myself will be ordained as Deacons. After being ordained a Deacon I will begin my curacy in Holy Trinity Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Holy Trinity Cowes is situated on the seafront at Cowes, traditionally a place of worship for sailors and seafarers. So from the cathedral of the sea to a place of worship for sailors and seafarers another voyage begins.  It must be nearly five years ago I stopped teaching. As I was contemplating the next stage of life I had a call from John Shepherd. John and Cynthia Shepherd once worshipped here.  John a retired priest also served here for a while. We struck up a lovely friendship and have remained friends ever since they returned to London. ‘I’ve been up all night thinking of you Chris, I think you should get ordained’. ‘Well I don’t’. I replied, I’m over 60 and I don’t think I have a calling. Well, I think you should, John insisted. So I explored and within a year I  embarked on the Portsmouth Pathways Course to train as  Licenced Lay Minister, formally known as a Reader. After three years theological training I was licenced as a Lay Minister here in July 2023.

In August 2024 Canon Anthony Rustell approached me and said, ‘I think you should get ordained’. ‘Are you on a recruitment drive? I replied. No, let’s have a chat over coffee and see what you think? A couple of things he said did resonated with me which inspired me to take the next step and to talk to the DDO (The Diocese Director of Ordinands) who oversees the ordination process. As I sat listening to him in his office nearly everything he said resonated deeply with me. I was invited to explore the path of ordination through an accelerated discernment process. It was a lovely surprise to see Kitty’s name also on the list of those who were also exploring a calling. There have been times when I have found the process intense and there have been moments when I have been very uncertain. When I talked with other colleagues I discovered that they too had many ups and downs yet encouraged me to persevere.

Part of this journey of discernment is to choose a community placement. For some reason I have always had a leaning towards prisons. So I applied for a placement in a prison in the south of England. It took ages to be vetted. Eventually after numerous Safeguarding and Health & Safety talks I was given a starting date, I was also given a leather belt, chain and whistle that hung at my side.

What a daunting experience it first was to be inside a prison. At first I was very apprehensive and nervous about meeting the inmates. I discovered that there are as many different chaplains as there are different faith communities. The current C of E chaplain has been there for 11 years and does a fantastic job. She is highly respected and not one to be messed with! Between her and another part time Chaplain and a Muslim chaplain, they alternate visiting the four areas of the prison complex each day. Two separate prisons, a hospital unit and a segregation unit, which is a solitary confinement unit for those who cause trouble within the prison.

Each Sunday there are two services one for each prison. On my first visit to service in the chapel, I waited at the entrance to greet the inmates being led down from their cells, I did feel somewhat apprehensive and uncertain of how I would be greeted, not knowing what to expect. They soon appeared, a variety of ages and back grounds and cultures. Most of them shook my hand and smiled and said good morning. Then out of the blue I had a sudden conviction. Here am I thought, a law-abiding good citizen, nothing like these offenders. I became aware of feeling self-righteous and somewhat morally superior. What a good man I am I thought, a far cry from those who were coming in. Then what seemed instantaneous, I suddenly felt ashamed. I was the Pharisee in Luke’s Gospel story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, where Jesus begins with the words, ‘To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else’.   I was no better than those I was standing amongst. They, for whatever reason, had gone off the rails and had lost all sense of moral direction and decency. They had committed a crime and were being punished, yet I was convicted that with God they were equally loved.

Then to compound the situation even further, one of the inmates said to me, ‘The only reason I can cope in this place is because of him’, and pointed to the front of the chapel, I looked round and there was a large crucifix.  ‘He’s changed my life’, he said, with a smile that lit up his face, ‘Where I would be without him, I do not know’, and he carried on thanking God for His goodness to him.  I felt very humble sitting amongst the prisoners that morning. A few of them were on their knees for most of the service. The chap behind me had his head on his knees and seemed to be silently pleading to God. The more I observed the more heart rending it was.  I do believe I was given a greater compassion towards the prisoners during that placement. It was a valuable experience.

We heard in John’s Gospel this morning, Jesus saying, ‘My sheep listen to my voice, I know them, and they follow me’. This intimate knowledge of God’s complete love for us is reflected in our psalm this morning and is also echoed in Psalm 139, I psalm I often turn to for comfort. ‘You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar, you discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways’. To be known by God is daunting and at the same time deeply profound as there is nothing hidden from God, nothing he does not know. Even the hairs of our heads have all been numbered.  And because there is nothing in us that is hidden from God, we can and should respond by being completely open and honest. I think that’s what Jesus meant when he said , ‘…and the truth shall set you free’.

Listening to the voice of Jesus in the scriptures and through others can move us to respond and to want to know more of the love that God’s has for us, ‘to trace the rainbow through the rain’ as the hymn writer George Matheson wrote in his beautiful hymn ‘O love that will not let me go’. Discovering God’s love can awaken in us a desire to seek out more of the author of our lives, who like a loving parent waits patiently for us to return.  The voice of God reverberates through time, through history and through the Gospels. When we listen and truly hear that familiar and trusting voice, that speaks to our inner being, we too can respond and follow Christ.  ‘My sheep listen to my voice, I know them, and they follow me’, what a beautiful sense of belonging.  The inmate who pointed to the crucifix in the chapel had heard God’s voice reverberating through the scriptures, through the chaplain and through the walls of his heart. Those who attended the service in the prison chapel had either also heard or were searching in their own personal way. In the Eucharist this morning we have an opportunity to respond to Jesus’ voice when He invites us to, ‘Take, eat, this is my body given for you, my blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’, and maybe with George Matheson we can say, ‘Oh love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee’. Amen.