This sermon was preached in the context of a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, using music and liturgy from the early 17th century.

Preaching was the great art form of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, it was the Strictly Come X Factor of the age. So I had thought to use a sermon from the period this morning.

However having read a few they are so very tedious to todays ears. Anyway standards have slipped so you're stuck with my words.

Actually, that's the thing. We tend to think that standards have slipped, that the past was a more devout, more religious, more faithful age. And yet I wonder if that was true.

When it was first suggested we had a service to commemorate 400^th anniversary of the KJV I wondered if we could recreate something of the experience of that time – what would it have been like for a local church such as ourselves to receive our copy of Royally Authorised Version of the Scriptures in English.

And I'm sure in many ways it would have been a momentous day and a time of much rejoicing for many.

If you know a little of the history of the Tudor and Stewart period from your school days you will know that we tend to understand these years as times of great religious turmoil. Of battles between Protestant and Catholic, of martyrs going to the stake for both causes. Guy Fawkes had jumped from the scaffold only 5 years ago and the Civil War is only 30 years in the future. The old Chinese curse says “May you live in interesting times” and it seems that these people did.

The oldest of the toothless crones of the congregation in 1611 might still remember from their childhood the time when the Church was Roman Catholic and the worship conducted in Latin. Perhaps they muttered (when they were sure no Puritan could hear them) that the church had dumbed down, putting holy words in the modern tongue, and placing the bible into the hands of the young and the common, rather than keeping it in the safe hands of the clergy and the gentlemen scholars, where it belonged.

More likely there were some who regretted deeply the loss of traditional worship to this newfangled Book of Common Prayer. In the good old days, when the service went on for 3 hours in a language you didn't understand and only really involved the priest and the choir, you could squat happily in the nave playing cards or dice, gossiping or cutting a fast deal with the village folk with whatever you had brought for trade, indeed for much of the service you could happily spend the time in the church yard drinking ale and chatting up the local comly wench until the bell tolled for the actual distribution of the mass.

One account of worship from the mid 16^th century says “members of the population jostled for pews, nudged their neighbours, hawked and spat, knitted, made coarse remarks, told jokes, fell asleep and even let off guns’, with other behaviour including ‘loathsome farting, striking, and scoffing speeches’, which resulted in ‘the great offence of the good and the great rejoicing of the bad’.”

This newfangled idea of all kneeling down and having to listen and understand, and indeed being preached to. Well, things weren't like the good old days.

Except history always tends to appear more significant in hindsight. If we actually look at what every day people in everyday churches like us were saying at the time, we may realise that their concerns were not with the great theological and ecclesiastical debates of the day.

Consider these records, for example, taken from the Archdeacons Visitations to the Diocese of Bedford in 1578 – each is a report from the churchwardens to the Archdeacon outlining their chief concerns for the year:

LangfordOur chancell is owte of repayre in tymber & wyndowes, at the parsons defaute. Our churche wyndowes are in decaye by reason of fowle that cometh in at the chancell wyndowes which hathe broken them.

TylsworthWe have had but one sermone since Michaelmas, which was the Sondaye after New yers daye.

FarandicheThe chancell & parsonage are in decaye by the parson’s defalt. They have but one sermon this year.

BidhamWe doe present that we had no Communion but once this yeare, and that our last churchwardens dyd not make there accompt for the yere.

Patnum[Pavenham] Our chansell is in decaye and redye to faule downe, at the defaute of Trynitye College in Cambridge.¹

There are many others describing the eloping of the Curate with the Organists wife and one that questions how many children in the village the Vicar has fathered by how many women. One of my favourite is from the parish of Colmworth – whose Vicar seems to be an imposter and churchwarden a thief:

We have had no service on the weeke dayes not from Maye daye last tyll September & no service on Sancte Peters Eve nor Sancte Bartholemewe Eve nor Michaelmas daye at nyghte & they had iiij children christened iiij wayes, & he woold not let the parishe see his licence. Umphrey Austyne churche warden last yere wold not present the lead that was missing oute of the steeple. Item Nicholas Dicons, Thomas Jud, William Quarrell & his wyfe have not receaved this xij monthes. Item the Quenes Iniunctions or the bisshoppes were not made thes iij yeres nor the catechisme taughte.

And finally the naught Vicar of Clophill

ClophillWe present the Vicar William Spellinge the 23 of Marche beinge then called Palme Sondaye in the churche & tyme of eveninge prayer, before suche maydes as then had receaved the communion, dyd in theyre seate lye upon his backe verye unreverentlye till the ende of the fyrste lesson, and also other tymes dothe seem to forgette to yeilde dewe reverence in the tyme of dyvyne service.

In other words the church in the Early Modern Period was preoccupied with the fact the Diocese never got anything sorted out, the churches were skint, cold, leaky and in need of repair, you can't get a decent Vicar for love nor money and everyone is obsessed with sex.

Its good to know that church life has changed since then.

But seriously our situation is not too different from theirs. It is easy in the midst of everyday life not to appreciate the changes that are going on around us and to miss the wood in the midst of the trees.

We too live in interesting times. Times of profound change in the life of the church. The great gift of the 16th and 17th centuries was to take religion out of the control of the clergy and give it to the people. It was an attempt to give both the worship and the word of God into the hands of anyone who was open to them, in a way and a language they could understand.

The gift of the 21^st century needs to be a continuation of that, as so much more of the faith and life of the church is taken out of my hands and placed in yours.

But most of all the 16^th Century gave us the scriptures in a way we might hope to begin to engage with. With the weight of the crown behind it, the King James Bible created a level playing field where priests and people could share together the process of discovering the riches of God's love and grace through the Bible. And by the use of the latest scholarship and technology, people were given the chance to learn and participate in a way they had never had before.

I wonder how many of them took up that opportunity to the full? And how many got distracted by the fowls coming in the window, or the irreverent priest reclining at the front?

Continuing in the Spirit of those who translated the KJV, we have at our disposal resources that they could only dream of. Not only bibles in every conceivable style ( I have a copy of the Gospel translated into Yorkshire at home – its called Ee by Gum Lord and includes the parable of t'sheep and t'gooats') but also every conceivable study aid, commentaries, dictionaries, atlases interadctive CDROMS and cartoon versions where all the characters are played by animated cucumbers.

If we are to look to the past, as we do in this service, it must be in order to learn its lessons. And the lesson of the Book of Common Prayer and the KJV is that we should both strive to present our faith in a way that is accessible to everyday people – and not be afraid to innovate and change if that is the best way to do so – but also that when we have these treasurers laid out before us, it is so easy to be distracted and not to realise the momentous nature of the time we live in. Many people would have died to have what we have available to us as Christians – and indeed many did die to give us just that.

In the words of the KJ Translators

We commend thee to God, and to the Spirit of his grace, which is able to build further then we can aske or thinke. Hee removeth the scales from our eyes, the vaile from our hearts, opening our wits that wee may understand his word, enlarging our hearts, yea correcting our affections, that we may love it above gold and silver, yea that we may love it to the end. Ye are brought unto fountaines of living water which yee digged not. when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when he setteth his word before us, to reade it; when hee stretcheth out his hand and calleth, to answere, Here am I; here wee are to doe thy will, O God. The Lord worke a care and conscience in us to know him and serve him, that we may be acknowledged of him at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the holy Ghost, be all prayse and thankesgiving. Amen.