Sermon for Evensong - First Sunday After Trinity - Kitty Price, Cathedral Reader

EVENSONG SERMON 22 June 2025

Genesis 24:1–27, Mark 5:21–43, Anthem: Rejoice in the Lamb (Benjamin Britten, Christopher Smart)

In the name of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I put a lot of pressure on myself because this will be the last sermon I preach here as lay reader, given I will be ordained deacon here next Saturday. It is also the last at least for a while as I will no longer be based here. I sound a bit like Christopher Plummer in his role as Captain Von Trapp in the Sound of Music when they perform at the music festival. The family won’t be singing together for a while because he’s off to serve in the navy. Obviously, he knows and we know they’re about to attempt an audacious escape climbing over the mountains.

You’ll be pleased – or perhaps disappointed - to know I won’t be breaking into a rendition of Edelweiss or singing Climb Ev’ry Mountain, but the sentiments are similar to this evening!

I digress. The pressure. I wanted it to be all singing, all dancing, lights camera, action. What I produced was a really rather dull sermon. Solid, some reliable biblical exegesis, but nothing worthy of a mic drop as I sashay my way back to the stalls. I don’t think I have ever sashayed, more like tripped up inside my cassock! After such an outstanding sermon from the girl head choristers this morning, I challenged myself to start again. Here goes version two…

The thread that joins our readings and the words of the anthem, Rejoice in the Lamb is expectant faith. Not just faith that waits for things to happen, but faith that walks, touches, and reaches, as well as imagines, and exalts. It is forward looking, despite suffering.

Abraham sends his servant off to find a wife for Isaac. Rebekah is an answer to prayer. We get a sign of new life in the water from the well. Rebekah offers the servant and his 10 camels’ hospitality. Fun fact, an adult camel can drink up to 200 litres of water in 3 minutes, so Rebekah must have been very busy. At the end of this encounter, the servant bows to give thanks to the God of his master. God has been faithful. Abraham’s line will keep going, as he promised.

In our second reading, with a story inside a story, both Jairus and the woman we have active faith. They move forwards towards Jesus in anticipation of help, even though they cannot be certain of the outcome. Jesus heals them.

The lyrics for this evening’s anthem come from a much longer work Jubilate Agno – Rejoice in the Lamb - by the English poet Christopher Smart. Benjamin Britten, with help from the poet Edward Sackville-West selected 48 lines for his composition, a piece for soloists, choir and organ.

The Poetry Foundation describes Jubilate Agno as a “prophetic book: a doxology, evangelical and philosophical manifesto, personal diary, and commonplace book all in one, as well as a remarkable experiment in poetic form.” It is reverent and playful, which I find very appealing.

In 1757 Smart was admitted to the ‘curable’ ward of St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in London following a period of intense religious fervour that saw him praying openly in the street. After a year he left the hospital – uncured – but was kept in confinement until 1763. It is likely that he wrote his lengthy poem Jubilate Agno, during this time.

Some might argue that Christopher Smart – known as Kit to some of his friends – was bipolar. They might use this to explain how he struggled with looking after himself, and his highs and lows were more extreme, that he experienced religious mania and had to be hospitalised. A later arrest was, however, more to do with his unpaid debts than ‘insanity’. Also, if we spend too much time analysing the artist, we forget to look at the art, which is extraordinary. And if God is so powerful, as we believe he is, he can work through any mind, with mental illness or any neurodiversity; he can work with yours and mine.

Britten gave the text he selected a structure, which you can spot when you look at it:

We have the opening hymn, rejoice, O ye tongues.

Then there are characters from the Old Testament appearing together with animals, such a leopard and a tiger. 1974 was a year of the tiger. It is the year of my birth. For our joint 50th birthday last year, my friends in the Tiger Club – yes, we have a WhatsApp group because we’re cool like that – sponsored a tiger for a year. We even fed them in a sanctuary on the Isle of Wight. That is a Christopher Smart type of move. He’d like that.

Then there’s a Hallelujah, which is charming and gentle, smooth like honey – H for honey, H for Hallelujah!

Then he talks about his cat Jeoffry – more about him in a minute, the mouse and the flowers. Why? Why not?!

There is then a lament. Towards the end of this, Smart talks about the twelve hardships which, after a hurried internet search after lunch, reliably – or unreliably – informs me that there are also known as the twelve difficulties of Christmas, the first being that Mary conceives the Son of God. But that is another sermon…

Next comes some mystic praise exploring letters, such as H is a spirit – is H the Holy Spirit? Then a wonderful exploration of musical instruments. It is so evocative that I can almost hear them playing. It’s like a musical version of Pentecost when people heard others speaking in their own language.

Finally, the Hallelujah we heard earlier is repeated as the closing hymn.

The ‘Let’ verses are call the universal choir of creation to glorify God, “Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.” The ‘For’ verses add comments, reflections, topical references, and details of his life and feelings, such as the musical instruments, the flowers, the letters, the animals, and the poet himself.

During his time in hospital, Smart had a surprisingly progressive programme of treatment. The NHS is increasingly offering ‘Green prescriptions’, such as outdoor walking groups, gardening etc, to help with physical and mental wellbeing. They were already doing this in the 18th Century, as Smart worked in the hospital garden.

Pet therapy is also not a new treatment. At St Luke’s, Smart was allowed to keep a cat. Is this the legend, Jeoffry? We all hope so. We are told, “For he is the servant of the living God. Duly and daily serving him.” How utterly magnificent?! One of our former choral scholars, Harry, had a cat named Jeoffry, because of this very anthem.

Years ago, we had a cat called Ivor. He was an amazing animal. He spent most of his days in the cathedral, so much so that his photo appeared on the ‘who’s who?’ board and the shop sold Ivor notepads and pencils.

Ivor was amazing because he had a capacity for wonder as well as a meaningful feline ministry. We would watch him sidle up to people having an emotional moment in the garden of rest. Before long he would be sat next to them, and they were stroking him. No words were exchanged but so much was communicated, something that humans couldn’t do without interruption.

Ivor the cat regularly attended midweek services. He would walk up with the congregation to take communion, return to his seat then process out at the end behind the celebrant. One Good Friday, I came across him crying at the foot of the cross we put in the nave for the Good Friday service.

Even as an adult I am still fascinated by the characters of the Wind in the Willows, Winne the Pooh, and the tiny mice of Brambly Hedge. When was the last time anyone here over the age of 18 skipped or jumped or did a spontaneous dance? How often have you considered the flowers to have angels? Not enough! When was the last time you got overexcited about letters of the alphabet? Watching Sesame Street as a child or with your own children?

We tend to lose our sense of playfulness and wonder, and celebration as we grow out of being children. And it we are called to be children to enter the kingdom of God. It is not naivety but cutting through the layers to find what it is the essence of what it is to be a child of God, the omnipotent creator of ALL things, “all creatures of our God and King”. Better to see God in everything than be selective.

In his encyclical Laudato si, Praise be to you – a phrase from St Francis of Assisi, whose name he took at his papal name - the late Pope Francis spoke of the interconnectedness of humans, other species and the natural world. He urged Christians to remember that we are not God, that we should be looking after the environment as stewards, not exercising dominion. He pleased many pet owners with the following statement: “Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place.”

Christopher Smart would applaud these words. He had a capacity for wonder and despite his suffering – debts, critics, separation, mental illness, hospitalisation, imprisonment – he still had gratitude, he still had hope. His poetry is wild, lyrical, fantastical, mystical, joyful. And we need more joy.

Joy celebrates the now with the anticipation of the future. I said earlier that the faith we see in this evening’s texts is forward looking. I’ve had to give myself a talking to because I am very sad about my formal ministry moving from the cathedral to St Simon’s Church. They are a lovely congregation, but I’ve been part of the congregation here for 30 years, my entire adult life. It is my home. For a nano second, I considered staying here as a lay reader, but the pull to ordained ministry was and is too great. Abraham let his home because God called. So did Rebekah, and so must I, though I’m trying not to be melodramatic about it because you will still see me in my role of supporting David and the choir. Referring to another song from the Sound of Music, there will be a ‘so long’, and an ‘auf wiedersehen’, but not a ‘farewell’ or a ‘goodbye’. In the eloquent words of Terminator, ‘I’ll be back’!

Our readings show God is in all situations; they show hope in seemingly hopeless situations. Can the servant really find a wife for Isaac? Yes! Can the woman in agony be healed? Yes! Can Jesus bring a child back from the dead? Yes! Why? How? Because he is the Lamb, in whom we rejoice. “Rejoice in God, O ye tongues”, whether human or feline. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah for the heart of God. Amen.