On Friday, Huntingdon celebrated in style as we gathered in All Saints to celebrate the wonderful renovations there. "Tapestry" came to sing to us, and were marvellous. I remembered how "medieval" in the sense of being rather dark and dull the church was ten years ago, and how the re-ordering had in fact restored the real medieval heritage of the church to both it and the town, opening it up to light and colour and community use. Now I am back at All Saints to preside and preach at the eucharist with the church people who made it all possible.

The heart of being here today for me is to share as Bishop of Huntingdon in celebrating the transformation of this church of All Saints in Huntingdon along with the whole work of the town centre Anglicans, and to share in the joyful offer of transformation to the whole community of Huntingdon which these churches serve and which has been at the heart of Andrew’s ministry as the priest of this place. There is a strange symmetry that he and I who began our work as incumbents in the same team should now both be of the same place again and be retiring from it at the same time. So it is good to be here, and whatever else we do we must celebrate; and whether we are in church or not it’s time to do it in style, so Hip Hip …

Today is also an opportunity to reflect on the ministry of a
church like this, and today’s readings point to three great truths that apply
it all such churches:

Firstly, however marvellous they are, they pale into
insignificance compared with the wonder of the universe that God has made and
set us in. We must not be seduced by them (and I say that as a churchaholic and
chairman of the Historic Churches Trust) but always remember that they are
there to serve God’s creation and the community they are set in; that their
most important feature is actually their door; and that that door must stand
open to all. It is of the nature of both the Gospel and our Anglican parish
church tradition that all are welcome in this place, and with a special care
for those who are often least welcome in the world at large. That is what the
ministry of Christ looked like and that is what our ministry must look like as
well.

Secondly, our churches do nevertheless serve a special and
universal need that we feel, and that I think we all feel in some way, in fact,
whatever words we use: to mark the holiness of God (if we dare use that word) and
the holiness of life, to be a place where we can celebrate all that is special
and beautiful from lives well lived to the creative arts, and to be a place
where we can also come to pour out our sorrows, seek forgiveness and find
healing for our wounds. Here especially, if church is being what church should
be, we encounter a presence, a stillness, a sign of hope, the presence of the
God who in truth is present everywhere, but so often not seen or felt.

But thirdly, the scriptures in their realistic account of
life as we know it make it clear that the path from the wonder of the world
writ large and the wider community within it on the one hand, and the special,
deep encounter with God that we seek in a church and the particular community
of faith that inhabits it, is not a straight one. The labyrinth that has been
so beautifully made here points to the same truth. Every life and every faith
journey is full of twists and turns. And no church, no minister, not even
Andrew, can make such a journey for someone else. They can point to possible
answers but not force the answer or be the answer: this is a journey each of us
has to freely make for ourselves, invited and welcome but never corralled or
coerced. The door stands open for all, but we must decide to walk through it.

In a moment we will symbolically go out through that door
and into the marketplace to pray for the town that this church was built to
serve, a landing craft for the good news of the Gospel of Jesus for it, not an
escape craft from it. The good news is gift, is grace, is gladness. And then we
will come back into church, again symbolically bringing the whole town with us
on our hearts, and bring it the altar of God, the communion table of our Lord
Jesus Christ, where saints and sinners are alike invited to take their seat.

For some of you, that eating place which is a meeting place
will be a place of familiar company, a place where you have known Christ
present for many a year. For others of you it may be a new thing, an unfamiliar
invitation, even an awkward one. But this is a place where Jesus turns
strangers into friends, so if you will, whether it is a new thing or an old
one, share today in this Holy Communion; and share in the work of not just
transforming a building and giving it new life, but transforming lives here in
Huntingdon and beyond, and giving them new hope for the future too.