Church of the Good Shepherd

Christmas Sermon 2009

“He Can’t Talk To Us Like That!”

I guess most creative people hope that their work, be it a painting, a sculpture, a piece of writing or a musical composition will last and be enjoyed by people long after they are gone. If I am right in this assertion then the soul of the late avant-garde composer John Cage, who died in 1992, must be dancing for joy for, in an ancient German Church in the town of Halberstadt, his composition, “As Slow As Possible”, has been running for several years non stop; in fact the first three notes of the piece were played continuously for a year and a half and just today (Tuesday 10th February) another note was added to the already playing chord. Originally this composition was intended to be a twenty minute piece for piano, but a group of musicians, philosophers and theologians decided to take the title literally and work out how long a piece of music with such a title should last. They settled on 639 years because the Halberstadt organ was 639 years old in the year 2000.

I was at a dinner party a few weeks ago where a heated discussion got underway about the merits and demerits of the contents of the Tate Modern. One enthusiastic champion of “Modern Art” waxed eloquent about the wonderful nature of many of the exhibits on display whilst an erstwhile protagonist, someone of rather conservative taste in painting, spluttered “it’s all a load of rubbish; it’s not art at all!” As the only priest at the table I felt that I had to play the role of mediator and so I, helpfully I felt, said, “Well the building has a lot to commend it (after all it was a ‘converted’ power station) even if some of the paintings are a little strange and not to my taste”. The modern art enthusiast was having none of it and came up with the cultural version of the theological statement, “you can’t tell me I’m wrong ‘cause God told me”, by saying to the assembled and by now embarrassed company, “well art is supposed to provoke discussion, we are discussing it, so it must be art”. “Care for another glass of wine?” said Julia; sensible woman my wife!