Oil is of course essential in the economy we have built on the use of fossil fuels from the motor car, to heating to manufacture.
But is also important in the economy of the church.
Each year, usually on Maundy Thursday the Chrism oils are blessed in Cathedrals by the Bishop and distributed to those parishes who use or need them.
Oils are used at Baptism and Confirmation, but they are also used for the blessing of the sick and the dying and at other special times.
They represent a visible expression of the churches sacramental life and it is usual for the clergy to be invited to the Chrism Mass in order to renew and recommit to their Ordination vows.
Now we have a an Archbishop who perhaps in the light of this, was appropriately, an Oil Executive.
Not Chrism Oil however but initially Elf Aquitaine and then Enterprise Oil.
His vocation was nurtured at Holy (maybe more appropriately Oily) Trinity, Brompton which possibly makes him an Alpha Oil Executive.
His ministry is sometimes described as reconciling, after he spent time in West Africa and developing North Sea Oil exploration.
His career has been remarkable after being initially turned down for Ordination he has blazed a trail through the institution he now leads as pastor in chief.
But how do the skills of an Eton educated, former Oil executive, meet the challenges facing the Church he leads today?
It seems that the pattern is becoming clear.
The major achievement is the breakthrough that unjammed the blockage to the ordination of women to the Episcopate.
Certainly this was a just, and if the Church was to remain relevant to a changing society, necessary change, but underlying the changes there seems to be a rather doubtful politics at work, it is hard to put your finger on it and I can only reference the semester that I spent in the USA at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. where amongst other things two memories continue to resonate:
One: the class entitled The Common Genealogy of Racism, Sexism and Classicism taught by the Rev'd Katie Cannon ( I'm called Cannon because my Grandmother was born and raised on the Cannon plantation )which makes me again and again question the way in which the church qua church divides and rules by means of dividing and suppressing those who question.
The second, the Bishop of New Hampshire, who I went to see to talk about a possible job whose comment was straightforward, 'You have as much power as I do, the real power rests with the search committees'.
It is the issue of power and class that underpins my disquiet.
The report on future leadership in the church, the emphasis on management skills, the change in the language which redefines the clergy as leaders rather than pastors.
A few weeks ago I had to have a couple of documents signed, simply to confirm that the photocopies that I was attaching to an application were true copies of the original documents.
As I was in town I called at a Vicarage, the Vicar was parking her car and so I turned up at her door, as so many have turned up at my door over the forty-five years or so that I have been ordained, at an inconvenient time, so I apologised and asked if the documents could be signed.
I was told that no, that couldn't be done, and that I would have to make an appointment.
In the event the Vicar changed her mind and did in fact sign once the simple nature of the request was explained.
Power and Class.
The Eton educated Alpha Oil Archbishop, despite the challenges of negotiating in West Africa and the North Sea, always brought to the table Power and Class, just as he has brought the same disabilities to his role as Bishop and Archbishop.
Whether it was Bankers, who he refused to name and shame, or the embarrassing revelation that the Church had invested in a particular pay day loan company after the Archbishop had criticised their business style and interest rates, his comments on food banks or modern slavery, his attitudes to Gay Men and Women or his latest decision to loosen the the ties that bind Anglican Churches world wide into a communion.
As the Guardian has it: 'he is a figurehead of an established religion that has lost its grip on the imagination of a shrinking second rate power'.
So that is what is at stake: Power and Class is being challenged wherever it tries to impose its will on the emerging progressive consensus which is establishing a post colonial world view and which will challenge politics in the UK as much as its religious beliefs.
The whole apparatus of Church has become outmoded and there is a need for a new humility, a renunciation of the Power and Class which has characterised the church and was captured by Robert Roberts in his book The Classic Slum, when he described being sent by the schoolmaster to ask the Vicar if they could have an extra bucket of coal and the Vicar took the Headteacher's note and tossed it into the roaring fire in his study.
So what are the ingredients of the the oil of Chrism?
Balsam: represents the sweetness of virtue and symbolises healing
Myrrh represents the purification and the anointing to Jesus
Frankincense reminds us of Jesus the man for others who is our model of what it means to be a Priest
Clove and Cinnamon remind us of our duty to be people of prayer
and Olive Oil, which reminds us that we stand under grace, powerless and classless.
But is also important in the economy of the church.
Each year, usually on Maundy Thursday the Chrism oils are blessed in Cathedrals by the Bishop and distributed to those parishes who use or need them.
Oils are used at Baptism and Confirmation, but they are also used for the blessing of the sick and the dying and at other special times.
They represent a visible expression of the churches sacramental life and it is usual for the clergy to be invited to the Chrism Mass in order to renew and recommit to their Ordination vows.
Now we have a an Archbishop who perhaps in the light of this, was appropriately, an Oil Executive.
Not Chrism Oil however but initially Elf Aquitaine and then Enterprise Oil.
His vocation was nurtured at Holy (maybe more appropriately Oily) Trinity, Brompton which possibly makes him an Alpha Oil Executive.
His ministry is sometimes described as reconciling, after he spent time in West Africa and developing North Sea Oil exploration.
His career has been remarkable after being initially turned down for Ordination he has blazed a trail through the institution he now leads as pastor in chief.
But how do the skills of an Eton educated, former Oil executive, meet the challenges facing the Church he leads today?
It seems that the pattern is becoming clear.
The major achievement is the breakthrough that unjammed the blockage to the ordination of women to the Episcopate.
Certainly this was a just, and if the Church was to remain relevant to a changing society, necessary change, but underlying the changes there seems to be a rather doubtful politics at work, it is hard to put your finger on it and I can only reference the semester that I spent in the USA at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. where amongst other things two memories continue to resonate:
One: the class entitled The Common Genealogy of Racism, Sexism and Classicism taught by the Rev'd Katie Cannon ( I'm called Cannon because my Grandmother was born and raised on the Cannon plantation )which makes me again and again question the way in which the church qua church divides and rules by means of dividing and suppressing those who question.
The second, the Bishop of New Hampshire, who I went to see to talk about a possible job whose comment was straightforward, 'You have as much power as I do, the real power rests with the search committees'.
It is the issue of power and class that underpins my disquiet.
The report on future leadership in the church, the emphasis on management skills, the change in the language which redefines the clergy as leaders rather than pastors.
A few weeks ago I had to have a couple of documents signed, simply to confirm that the photocopies that I was attaching to an application were true copies of the original documents.
As I was in town I called at a Vicarage, the Vicar was parking her car and so I turned up at her door, as so many have turned up at my door over the forty-five years or so that I have been ordained, at an inconvenient time, so I apologised and asked if the documents could be signed.
I was told that no, that couldn't be done, and that I would have to make an appointment.
In the event the Vicar changed her mind and did in fact sign once the simple nature of the request was explained.
Power and Class.
The Eton educated Alpha Oil Archbishop, despite the challenges of negotiating in West Africa and the North Sea, always brought to the table Power and Class, just as he has brought the same disabilities to his role as Bishop and Archbishop.
Whether it was Bankers, who he refused to name and shame, or the embarrassing revelation that the Church had invested in a particular pay day loan company after the Archbishop had criticised their business style and interest rates, his comments on food banks or modern slavery, his attitudes to Gay Men and Women or his latest decision to loosen the the ties that bind Anglican Churches world wide into a communion.
As the Guardian has it: 'he is a figurehead of an established religion that has lost its grip on the imagination of a shrinking second rate power'.
So that is what is at stake: Power and Class is being challenged wherever it tries to impose its will on the emerging progressive consensus which is establishing a post colonial world view and which will challenge politics in the UK as much as its religious beliefs.
The whole apparatus of Church has become outmoded and there is a need for a new humility, a renunciation of the Power and Class which has characterised the church and was captured by Robert Roberts in his book The Classic Slum, when he described being sent by the schoolmaster to ask the Vicar if they could have an extra bucket of coal and the Vicar took the Headteacher's note and tossed it into the roaring fire in his study.
So what are the ingredients of the the oil of Chrism?
Balsam: represents the sweetness of virtue and symbolises healing
Myrrh represents the purification and the anointing to Jesus
Frankincense reminds us of Jesus the man for others who is our model of what it means to be a Priest
Clove and Cinnamon remind us of our duty to be people of prayer
and Olive Oil, which reminds us that we stand under grace, powerless and classless.
