Rectory Musings

Sunday Podcast

2012-02-05T20:08:00.000Z

Pain Meds

2012-02-04T23:44:00.000Z

I am preparing this is pain. None of us like it. All of us want to avoid it. None of us like being ill but illness is very much part of the human story. Some illness is pretty trivial - yes sorry chaps, man flu is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things. Other illnesses are significant on a global scale - I heard on the radio yesterday that scientists think they have underestimated the number of deaths from Malaria by at least half. In other words, we now think that some 1.24 million people die from it each year. Us Brits spent around £2 billion on over the counter medicines back in 2001. Painkillers alone cost the NHS £442 million a year. We don’t like illness. We don’t like pain. We want rid of it.

Jesus leaves the synagogue, where he has been to worship and to teach. As he leaves, he is told about Simon Peter’s mother in law who lies ill with a fever in the house next door. He is told about her, he sees her need and heals her. She gets up and begins to serve them.

Simon Peter's house where the miracle took place

Friends we meet the same Jesus in worship today. Like then, he longs to meet us in our very real need, like in times of illness. Yet all too often, as Christians we take the gift of healing from the hands of our Lord and place it exclusively in the hands of the medics. We pray for the sick, as will do in a little while in our worship, but do we really believe that Jesus will meet them in their need as He met the needs of Simon Peter’s mother in Law and countless others that day? We all too often pray for strength for people who are sick to cope with their afflictions. Did Jesus? No, through Him, people were healed.

The healing ministry of the church is a long an ancient one; one that follows our Lord’s command to His disciples to live and act like Him. But if we really believe prayers for healing don’t really work, then to whom are we praying? Jesus caused great controversy in the synagogue and at the house that day by healing. Acting as if He were filled to overflowing with the life and power of the Creator God. Denying Christ’s ability to heal then, and to heal now, denies His place as Lord in our life, or worship and our Church.

Before Jesus ministered He spent time with His father. In this section of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been to the synagogue to teach, but probably also to worship. At the end of the day, having cured many he must have been physically, emotionally and spiritually drained. So in the morning He goes out to a deserted place to pray. When Jesus acts, He does so rooted in the love and power of His Father, a relationship resourced through prayer and worship.

We worship God because it’s our natural response to who He is. Like Jesus Himself, our worship should resource and renew us in our relationship with God. Through it, we root ourselves in the power and love of the creator.

After an encounter with Jesus, Simon Peter’s mother in law’s life was transformed - she began to serve them. The word for serve is diakonei from which we get the word deacon - who who assists in worship and who brings the love of Christ to the community in very practical ways. We should come to our worship of God expecting the same sort of transformation - encountering Christ in our worship should lead us to to be diakonei - people who seek to serve Him and others in very practical and loving ways.

Christ transformed the world physically, emotionally and spiritually of many on that day in Capernaum. But Jesus Christ is not just the name of a character on the page of history - he is the same Jesus Christ present with us today as we worship, present amongst us veiled in bread and wine and reigning from the altar of our hearts. He sees the need in us and in our community still and wants to act.

As Jesus spent time alone in prayer, renewing and resourcing Himself, His disciples searched for Him, the hunted for Him. I wonder, do many in our community hunt for Jesus because of what they see Him doing in and through our lives? Do people see the life of Jesus Christ in us, our lives being transformed by Him after encountering Him in worship? Is our natural response having fed on Christ in the Eucharist and having our souls renewed, to go and make a tangible difference for the Kingdom of God amongst those whom we live or work.

Friends, the Jesus who healed at Capernaum, in whom people saw the life of God the Creator, and who longed for more, is here. He longs to see you freed from illness or suffering or to transform whatever is holding you back to living a life of loving and serving him. He longs for you to know Him in new ways that so transform your inner world that you can’t help but live out His love in simple acts of loving service. His desire is for our lives to be such that people hunt Him out, through us, so that we can be the ones through whom the love, life and power of the Creator God is shared.

Let us pray:

Living God,
draw us deeper into your love;
Jesus our Lord,
send us to care and serve;
Holy Spirit,
make us heralds of good news.
Stir us, strengthen us,
teach and inspire us
to live your love
with generosity and joy,
imagination and courage;
for the sake of your world
and in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Crowdsourcing a sermon

2012-02-01T14:07:00.002Z

I am trying something different this week in my prepararations for preaching on Sunday from Mark 1:29-39, which says,

'...As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.And the whole city was gathered around the door.And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.And Simon and his companions hunted for him.When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons...'

Initially I am struck by the following:

1. The exhausting, full-on nature of Jesus' ministry. There is no let up.

2. In this passage it is clear that Jesus has a practise of rooting everything he does in prayer and worship

3. The healing Jesus offers is real and life transforming

But what do youthink? Post any comments or reflections below.

The Waterstone's Candlemas Apostrophe

2012-01-29T08:22:00.001Z

The grammar police amongst you this morning might have heard that in recent weeks that the chain of bookshops - Waterstone’s - has gone through a small, almost unnoticed and yet significant transformation - they have become Waterstones. It sounds the same, but someone has smuggled away the apostrophe. Before we know it, they’ll be selling book’s! To notice the change, you have to see it.

As we pack away the crib with the figures of the wise men and the Holy Family for another year, do the community living and working around our church buildings and us as church people, notice? As our celebrations of Christmas formally end today - the world shaping news that God has left His heaven and quietly, almost unnoticed come and dwelt among us, has it made a jot of difference to the landscape of our lives or to our community?

As Mary and Joseph made their way into the Temple with the child Jesus to do for him what was right under the Law, I suspect that they too wanted to remain unnoticed - a child born out of marriage, having had angelic, and then unclean and then Gentile visitors, with much being said about their son - I suspect the Holy Family were happy to be nameless and faceless in the crowds.

Yet like all of the poor and downtrodden, the nameless and faceless in society, the Holy Family were seen by God through the eyes of Anna and Simeon.

What was it that made Anna come rushing up. What was it that made Simeon and Anna notice this one child in the middle of the crowd? What was it that made Simeon sing his song?

Well, we have to remember as we try to answer these questions that Simeon and Anna had been there for years, praying and getting themselves ready. Ready for the Kingdom to come.They were waiting, watching and looking for something to happen. For God to happen.

They waited with open eyes. Eyes searching the crowded temple, eyes, though old still looking for a greater revelation of God’s love.

And what did they see? Well, they saw a baby. Just a baby. An ordinary baby. Yet, the readiness that Anna and Simeon came with that day, helped them to see that this was something special. They saw that the king of heaven had been born into an ordinary family who could barely afford the right sacrifice.

They saw because they were looking. They saw it because they were the ones with open eyes.

Remember the heart of Simeon’s song – “My eyes have seen the salvation which you have made ready” My eyes have seen… They say that seeing is believing, and for these two elderly believers, it was true. They saw through open, expectant hearts.

The drama of this morning’s Gospel, the revelation of God born as one of us, meets us in the midst of the worship of the Temple.

In the East, this feast that we celebrate together is not called the Presentation of Christ, nor Candlemas, it has a name which is simple and in a way more profound. It is called “The Meeting”, or “The Encounter”.

The impact of our worship on our lives must no go unnoticed. For as we hear the Scriptures read, as we sing and pray and as we share bread and wine, we encounter God in Christ Himself in our midst and that encounter cannot leave us unchanged if we come to him as Simeon and Anna did, patiently waiting to encounter Him with expectant, open hearts.

You see, there's no point in worshipping at all, if we don’t encounter Christ. It doesn’t matter what time or day, what we say or sing, if we leave that time not changed or challenged by something God has said to us as we have prayed, heard or sung. If we leave the church door, the same person as we entered it - we need to ask what have we been worshipping?

As Christmas formally ends today we need to remember that there is no point in worshipping Christ in the manger if we ignore him in the streets, no point in celebrating the coming of Light into the world, if we still choose to linger in darkness, no point in hoping for changed lives or communities if our life and world is not transformed by the life of Christ in Word and Sacrament.

We can't do anything to take away that darkness, even for those whom we most love... but we can shine the light of Jesus on all those dark situations, and that's what today is about.

Today at the end of the service we will carry our candles, and fill the church with their light as a reminder that Christ the light has come into the world.

But when we leave this building, - that's when the light we carry must really begin to act. It's the light of faith and the light of good works.....the things we believe and the ways in which they lead us to live a different kind of life.

Light to be kindled with the flame of love...our love for God and God's love for us.

Light to show up whatever is grubby or broken or sad...but light that also, gradually, pushes back the darkness so that it is as if it had never been there.

That's the light we are each given to carry in our lives. Light that shines through our own acts of love and kindness. Light passed on to others in a kind of loving relay, just as when we light our candles here we send the flame from one to another til at last the whole place is full of love and light again.

That's quite a goal, - for us, and for our community. But I truly believe this is the point of our being here, the outcome of our worship of God. As Ben, Eden, Gillian and Virginia receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist for the first time with us this morning, Christ fills us - people who may otherwise go unnoticed - with light to shine with the love of God so that our friends and neighbours can't help but notice, and be drawn in their turn to the light and love of God beyond anything that we could imagine or attain on our own.

Today Christmas is over – but the light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never put it out. The light from the stable is indeed, as Simeon proclaimed, a light to show God to the nations, and to bring glory to God's people... And that light is ours to carry into God's world every day of our lives, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

~~~~~

I am indebted to Kathryn and Kevin for some pointers and ideas in this sermon. Thank you.

Wedding Wine

2012-01-21T20:53:00.000Z

I am meeting as many of 2012‘s wedding couples as I can this week to do some initial preparation with them for their weddings. As I meet with them, I will very much have this morning’s Gospel reading in mind.

All too often the church tells the loving couple how their wedding services should happen - you have this music or that. You have to have this or that and so on. I can see the rationale - the church is an expert in providing worship, and a wedding is worship, and so that being the case, we’ll tell you how it should be and what we will or will not allow in the worship to celebrate your wedding in the sight of a God who loves you. Yes this morning’s Gospel reading flips this totally on it’s head - Jesus is not invited to this wedding at Cana to officiate at it. Jesus is an invited as a guest.

Just as answering the question - what makes a good wedding - will provide as many and as as varied answers as there are people, so there are many ways to understand this well known story of Jesus’ first miracle.

Firstly, we can read of a God who transforms the ordinariness of water into the specialness of wine, paralleling his transformation of people from sinners needing him, into citizens of the Kingdom of God and introducing the enhanced, improved, better, more full life that God has pomised since the prophets first opened their mouths and spoke.

Secondly we could focus on the transformation of the water in the water jars used for rites of purification called for by the Old Testament Law, into wine; the new wine of the Kingdom. first drunk by Jesus at the last Supper and referred to again in Revelation, implying the replacing of the old Law of Moses with the new, brought in by Christ.

Thirdly, another way of understanding this story centres on the the waiter’s ‘joke’ about saving the best wine till last (unheard of at a Jewish wedding clearly!), perhaps we are to understand that God has done a surprising thing by saving his best up till last - his very best gift to Israel and the world was not Moses and the Law, but his Son Jesus.

Fourthly then, there is the volume of what Jesus produces, in his later tradition of loaves and fish and the parable of the sower. Jesus transforms 6 stone water jars holding gallons and gallons of water. In so doing we rediscover the extravegant grace and generosity in love God shows his world - more than we will ever ever need.

Finally, in Jesus’ words to Mary, ‘My hour has not yet come’ there is a reference not to his unwillingness to provide for people’s physical need in great abundance, but that his greatest hour, the crucifixion and resurrection, has not yet come. He will only act when God wills it not when she wants.

Whatever you have taken away from this story in past sermons or your own reading and understanding is all almost certainly good, true and life-giving. Whichever interpretation works for you, there is always an element of God celebrating, of rejoicing like at a wedding, of all that Jesus is doing or will do to forge a new relationship between him and people.

So it is with our worship. It is is our worship of God. It is all to easy for our worship, especially as Anglicans, to be prescribed - for us to offer what our tradition or what the Vicar tells us. But it is our worship - individually and together - and what we offer must not only be our best but also be what and where and when suits us the best together enabling us to forge a new relationship with Jesus Christ present as a guest with us veiled in bread and wine.

This is the central message of the Church - that God celebrates all that Jesus is doing to forge a new relationship between him and people, revealed supremely, but by no means exclusively in our worship.

We are not asked by Christ, following tsunami and famine to go and debate whether the God of philosophy exists; we are not called to just be the compassionate or even the good people in society; we are certainly not called to retreat behind the safety of closed doors and carry on in private.

The Danish philosopher of the 19th centuray Soren Kierkegaard said ‘Christ turned water into wine, but the church has succeeded in doing something more difficult, it has turned wine into water...’ It is, if you excuse the pun, a very sobering thought. Have we, by the things we say, the way that we live, the way that we worship, reversed this miracle so much that when people come to church or come into contact with us as Christians they taste, not the best wine (good worship done to the best of our ability, love between us as people, the presence of God himself), but water which is either flavourless and dull or at worst stagnant which has to be thrown away. Have we made the message we have been sent to tell the people of our community in our day, once so full of rich and sweet flavour, now so flavourless so as to be not just unappealing but pointless?

The Greek word for Church in the New Testament is ekklesia, literally, called out. We have been called out of family relationships into a new relationship with God and with each other as disciples - HERE. Here in the security of this room we learn and worship together, here we get to know one another. BUT, from the safety of a room, God empowered the first disciples with the Holy Spirit and sent them out with is same message. He has does the same with us.

From Cana’s water in wine to Calvary’s blood and water, in this sweep we see Jesus’ whole life as one miraculous event, an invitation into an eternal relationship of love. I believe that in this Gospel my friends, God is offering us a challenge to be his Epiphany people again which begins with our worship. It is a challenge that calls us to share the sweet and rich wine of the Gospel with our community through some new things that we will do together this year - to work and worship ever closer as a parish; to make sure we communicate with the local communicate as effectively as we can whether via a website, posters, or personal invitations; or through the warmth of the welcome that people receive we they worship with us. God calls us to prove Kierkegarrd wrong. Amen.

The Word as a Wordle

2012-01-18T14:18:00.001Z

Here is a wordle of the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Epiphany from John 2:1-11 - the story of the weding at Cana...

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim.He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it.When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroomand said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Sunday Podcast - Epiphany 2

2012-01-15T20:53:00.000Z

Come and See!

2012-01-14T23:43:00.000Z

A little later on this afternoon I shall be leading another baptism service, one in an increasing number. We are booked up until March with one enquiry already into the early Summer! It’s also fantastic that we are booking to do more baptisms here at St Thomas’ too. It is a reminder to us that people are still seeking out the ministry of the church even in these increasingly secular days.

As I prepare the families for the service, I always ask them why they want to have their child ‘done.’ They usually clam up here and look a bit vacant, but they sometimes talk about wanting God involved in their child’s lives from the beginning or wanting a grounding to help them to grow to be a good person, and involvement with the church seems to fulfill that. They hardly ever talk about having faith in God themselves, the Baptism for them as a family being an expression of a living faith. More often it is a chance to say thank you to someone or something and to acknowledge the gift of life.

In the service, at the declarations, I ask the parents and Godparents on behalf of the child - ‘Do you turn to Christ?’ They respond, ‘I turn to Christ.’ There is sometimes a look of fear in the parents’ eyes... what are they committing themselves to? Is this some sort of Divine Contract between God and them that they are being duped into verbally signing? No, they are being invited to do what Nathaniel and countless others have been done over the centuries - to come and see, and make up their own minds as to who Jesus is.

This morning we hear of Jesus heading out to Galilee where he meets Philip. We know nothing of the detail that encounter with Jesus, other than Jesus invites Philip to follow Him. What we do know is that because of whatever accompanied those two words, Philip leaves enthralled and enthused and has to go and tell someone, anyone about what has happened to him and who he has met.

The encounter with Jesus also convinces Philip that Jesus is the Messiah. As he looks for someone to tell, someone who will understand his excitement, Philip finds Nathaniel. Out tumbles the story - he has found the one whom all Israel has longed for in Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth. Nathaniel is skeptical, to which Philip invites him to make up his own mind.

We too are invited to make up our own minds as to who Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth is. As we gather Sunday by Sunday, Thursday by Thursday we are, as each week passes, making up our own minds.

Why do we come to church after all? We come to meet our friends. This is really important and for some of us, this is the only time we may see each other from week to week. This building of community is such an integral part of coming to church. Even Jesus himself sought to build community by calling people to follow him.

We come to church though primarily though to offer Christ our worship. We come to meet with Him in the reading of the scriptures, the praying of prayers, in the making of the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Marriage but supremely in the Eucharist. As we eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of Jesus, He hounours His promise to be with us always. If we let it, this encounter, this communion with Christ, as Philip discovered, is utterly transforming. Through it, we become sure of who He is.

Friends last week I sent you all a letter. In it I asked us to realistically consider, together, how and when we worship, when we meet with Christ.

On Tuesday the PCC began to grapple with this issue. How can we have a pattern of worship that allows worship to happen in all three churches, in such a way that I can lead it? We have not yet come to a point where we can offer you some workable suggestions, but these will come. What we have become aware of though is it will require all of us to be prepared to change what we currently know to allow that to happen.

Our worship must not become the provision of something by me or others. Over the time I have been with you as your Priest in Charge, I have become all too aware that we cannot worship together at the moment with out our worship being reduced to that, the provision of something by me for you, before I have to leave to do the same elsewhere & I miss out on one of the things I imagine you value about coming to church at the moment - having the opportunity to see your friends, build community after worship.

I know you know that I cannot lead worship in more than one place at once unless we have someone else bought in. But you might say to me, well get over it, but as a result I am not being given the privilege to minister as your priest and get to know you. As a result worship can become something that happens to you, and not something that we, priest and people, can offer together. The pattern we have friends at the moment I believe is just not sustainable by one priest without having to continue to seek the resources of others from elsewhere, however willing or capable they may be. In those senses what are we doing as we worship? Are we giving ourselves the time to meet each other and encounter Jesus Christ?

Worship is not the provision of something by me, but time for an encounter with God for ourselves. Philip’s encounter with Christ changed him in such a way that Nathaniel had to go and find out more for himself.

Our worship must be about opportunities to deepen our friendship with each other, but it must also be about meeting Jesus Christ for ourselves and leaving that communion changed and challenged. Our encounter with Christ in worship, like Philip’s, should see our words and deeds bearing witness to Him. As a result, does the worship in our churches and congregations help people see Jesus for themselves in this parish? Friends I believe that this will only increasingly happen if we cease to allow worship to be something that is done to us, but something that we priest and people offer to God together, that spills out in our friendships with each other and into every word and every deed. Amen.

Rend Collective Experiment - You Bled OFFICIAL

2012-01-10T00:42:00.000Z

Sunday Podcast - Epiphany Sunday

2012-01-08T20:07:00.000Z

The Worship of the Magi... And us...

2012-01-08T00:55:00.001Z

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.

Those words are by Malcolm Guite - a poet and priest - and they take us to the heart of the mystery that we celebrate today: the regal baby born in squalor, the re-imagining of God from local religion to the life of the whole world, and our inbuilt desire to search for meaning, for joy, and a need to worship.

Worship lies at the very heart of the journeying of the Wise men. These astrologers/astronomers from other lands and cultures have their attention drawn to the God of Israel, to see the new thing that He is doing. They are so struck by God’s power over the world so as to be able to reorder the stars to reveal His glory, they set out to worship him.

We stand on the cusp of a new year and as people from different places and communities, we too have our attention drawn to the God of Israel, to continue to see the new thing that He is doing in our midst, and so we gather here to worship Him.

Let’s not lose sight of these Wise men though. Like us so often, they began their Godward journey purposefully and with good intention, but they get distracted. Looking for the Jewish Messiah, God’s coming king, they get distracted by royal palaces, fine robes and the trappings of regal power and influence with Herod. Yet, as they sought to worship God come to us, heaven in the ordinary, it is God Himself who refocussed their vision away from thrones in palaces to the glory filled thrones of a manger and a cross.

Let’s also not lose sight of the strange gifts they travelled with so far to give. These highly prized gifts reveal as much about the baby who would recieve them as the givers themselves.

The gift of gold brought to honour a king - acknowledging His might and power. The gift of frankincense brought to honour God - acknowledging His holy presence. The gift of myrrh brought as a healing balm or to embalm the dead. The mostly costly of gifts, protected carefully with their lives in transit over many months and many miles. In giving, the child is revealed as God’s king with His might and power. In giving, the child is revealed as a priest offering the world to God and God to the world and in so doing forging something new. In giving, the child will offer healing to many and indeed will offer their very selves, their life, for the healing of the nations.

Let’s not lose sight of the reaction of these Wise men as they reached the place of the presence of the Christ child. They were overjoyed as they arrived at the end of their journey, it’s fulfillment and purpose. They knelt in humble obedience, acknowledging who they were and who He is, and they offered Him from their own riches, their very selves.

Friends our worship is not a series of rapid one-off sorties we individually make into Divine territory, at best, on a weekly basis. Our worship is the journey we make through life to God in Christ. Like the Wise men, it should be guided and purposeful and not a meandering. It is not just about a particular place, a particular time, for however long, but an orientation of our hearts to discovering God for ourselves. The Wise men saw the star and followed no matter for how long or how arduous the journey.

What do we expect as we worship? The Wise men, expected to find God Himself doing a new thing, present in their midst, in the Messiah. Do we gather for worship with the same expectancy? Do we joyfully set out in worship ready to meet Jesus the King?

The much travelled and treasured gold, frankincense and myrrh were expensive and will have cost the wise men much. Similarly, our worship must be the very best singing, interceding, playing, praying, & preaching that we can offer. It must cost us time, effort and talent to prepare and offer because we are offering it God and it is all we can offer Him - from ourselves.

I enclose here the letter I have written to the parish:

Dear friends in Christ,

It doesn’t seem possible that I have been your Priest in Charge for some six months or so now.Over that time we have worshipped, prayed, read, learned and discovered together and there isstill much to do and a way to go together and with God.

When I first came to you, I said that things wouldn’t change too quickly and I hope you feel that hasbeen the case. I’m also on record as saying that when change did come, we would talk about it,pray about it and decide together a way forward.

Over the time that I have been with you I have been ably and capably supported in leading worshipby willing and gifted priests like David Smith, Martin Bannister and Charles Parry and many otherslay and ordained. I am very thankful for their ministry.

I have become aware that the pattern of worship that we currently have is only providable with thehelp of others. As your Priest in Charge I am unable to worship with you all on any given Sunday. Icannot preach and preside at two services most Sundays at 9.00am for example. We need tohave in place a pattern of worship that is providable by me.

Following the PCC meeting next week, we will try to discern a pattern of worshipping life thatmeets our needs and is providable by me. I have ideas as to how we could do this, but I don’t haveall of the answers and I will not just drive through what I want. We are Christ’s church here togetherand we will seek a way forward together.

None of us like change, and perhaps especially in things that matter to to us, but I hope that yousee the need to look at these matters afresh.

If you have ideas as to how we can have a pattern of worship on Sundays across the parish that Ican provide, I would like to hear from you. We will have a period of consultation regarding thismatter which will run from 14th January-18th March 2012. If you have any suggestions as tohow we can worship together in the churches of the parish with me leading you, and build up ourfriendships and community together, please let me know by letter or email only.

In the meantime please do continue to pray for me and each other as we seek to follow where Godis leading us.

Our worship should be like Gold - for the king, regal, our very best offered, in humble obedience. Our worship should be like Frankincense - to God and for God alone, mysterious, otherworldly, spiritual. Our worship should be like Myrrh - that heals our hurts, renews and restores us, refocussing our lives on God’s purposes for us and His world.

Worship must not be about embalming the dead and dying - older congregations in decreasing numbers, the church becoming some sort of cultural museum piece of a bygone era; nor should it be about rigid regal formality - worrying more about the mechanics of how it happens that we forget for who it happens; nor should it be so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly use - sounding and looking beautiful on the surface but failing to draw us closer to Him whom we worship. Our worship must be about offering life in all it’s fullness through an encounter with God himself, always in surprising ways and sometimes in surprising places. Amen.

Alter Bridge Wembley Arena 2011 - great footage.

2011-11-30T22:55:00.000Z

Following last night's awesome, AWESOME gig...

'Brand New Start' live 29/11/11

Advent 2011

2011-11-27T21:09:00.001Z

It has become a tradition of mine to put this blog to bed during the holy season of Advent, and to blog daily over at my Advent blog.

Please do join me over there are we make our way through this holy season.

Word as a Wordle

2011-11-21T16:16:00.001Z

Here is Sunday's Gospel for Advent Sunday from Mark 13:24-37 as a Wordle. I am very familiar with the passage. Jesus' language and imagery is initially apocolyptic.

As He talks about the fig tree, the metaphors are immensely hopeful and speaks of the growth of faith in the church.

The passage is so full of hope and immediacy.

As I wordled it I was really struck how, in the midst of angels and men, houses and the sun, branches and leaves, and in the midst of the dawn and the clouds we can know heaven. The two most prominent words just sum up Advent. We can know the nearness and purposes of God.

Maranatha!

Christ the King

2011-11-20T06:59:00.000Z

I wonder what the word king makes you think of? Probably a man with a crown. A regal image. Perhaps you are thinking of a particular king in our country’s recent past. Either way, it’s hard for us to do when a queen has sat on the throne of this nation for such a long time. It’s harder still to engae with the image that this morning’s gospel presents us with, as 21st century kingship is mostly a nominal power, and couldn’t be further from the reality of authority running through images of kingship from the world and time of Jesus.

Today is the Feast of Christ the King and my mind is whisked back to that wonderful hymn - ‘O worship the king, all glorious above.’ This is the king that we will sing our way through Advent about and whose gaze meets ours in a galaxy of icons and religious images.

Both of those sorts of kings are present in our Gospel reading this morning. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. This is the court of judgement ...the place where we will hear our final destiny...truly a place of awe. But if we wish to live as citizens of his kingdom in the meantime, what does it mean for Christ to be King?
To live in a kingdom is about far more than standing to wonder at the majesty of the king as he makes his grand entrance...and we may be in real danger of missing the heart of it, Jesus reminds us this morning.

It's an easy mistake to make – one that we hear about again and again in the gospels. Think of the Wise Men, eyes fixed on the star, dazzled by its brightness into calling at the obvious place – the royal palace of Herod – while the king they seek, is born in the poverty of a stable. Think of the Palm Sunday crowds who seem to speak prophetic truth as they shout “Hosanna to the Son of David” but whose expectations of uprising and God-led triumph are disappointed by the events of Good Friday. Then think of the ways in which Jesus chooses to explain what the kingdom is like – a mustard seed, a hidden treasure, some leaven mixed with dough - and remember just how close king and kingdom really are... and realising that Christ the King, however glorious, is always to be found in the least likely places - with the naked, the hungry, the prisoner, the stranger, the sick or the thirsty, for it is they, says Jesus, that are blessed by God. Suddenly the question of judgement and choices comes close to home...as we realise that it is our judgements, our choices now, today how we react to others, that will make all the difference. And those judgements, those choices, will be governed by our allegiance – to Christ the king.

To live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God, means you and me, living by the standard set for us by Christ the King - Christ, who chooses to spend his time with the marginalised, the oppressed, the forgotten. Christ who is utterly committed to those whom nobody values, nobody respects. Christ who identifies himself so completely with “the least of these” that when we look at them, we know we are seeing him too.

To love Christ, to dwell as a citizen of His kingdom, is to love what He has made - men, women and children however broken and needy - the sick, the thirsty, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned - to love such as these is to live and love like the King; it is to love the one in whose image we are each made.

The German pastor and concentration camp resident Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote ‘How may Christ take form among us today and here?’ It is by modelling the example of Christ our King - by loving and loving again. We may not notice, we may not realise that we are loving and serving Christ, and the parable Jesus tells offers a wonderful surprise for those who in love served the downtrodden in society, also served the king.

To love like this is to love Christ - but we are clearly warned - not to love, to walk by on the other side, to condemn, to exclude, is to deny Christ, to walk past Him, to condemn Him, to exclude Him...

Peter Rollins says it all...

There is just one commandment, the commandment of love, and real love is always manifested in action. And, when it comes down to it, it is living lives of love that will build the kingdom of God here on earth.We aren't asked to decide who might be sheep or goats...that is down to the King to decide. All we are asked to do is to carry on loving – wildly, indiscriminately, just as Christ our King does.

Word as a Wordle

2011-11-14T11:35:00.001Z

Here is the wordle of Matthew 25:31-46 which is the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King...

31 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. ³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” ⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine – Grant them eternal rest, O Lord

2011-11-02T10:40:00.002Z

We are all very familiar with the saying that there is nothing certain in life except death and taxes. What a true expression: Taxes are not very pleasant to think about, and death even less so. But, we know, deep down, that death must be accepted as an integral and inescapable part of life. Death accompanies us through life, as we face the passing of loved ones and friends, and come, each of us, to face our own mortality. So on this day, All Souls day, the Church pauses to reflect on the meaning of our death.

What happens to us when we die? It is such a common question when we are children, but we soon grow away from asking the question openly, but it still is within each of us. Back, two or three decades ago, there was a rather silly joke that was going around: “What do you call an atheist in a coffin?” The answer is of course, “All dressed up and nowhere to go”. It’s bad joke I admit, but it does provide a starting point in considering some answer to the deep questions we have about death: “Where do we go?” “Are the dead at rest? At peace?” “Are they happy?” “Will I ever see them again?”

We have all had these questions raised within us, especially as we have mourned the death of a loved one, or even as we attend the funeral of an acquaintance. For the occasion of a death leaves us with a mixture of deep feelings: grief and sadness, naturally, but also confusion, doubt, fear and loneliness.

Our readings tonight speak into those feelings which may still be very live for us - they are what someone once called, words against death - the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God. No torment touches them. They are at peace. We need not worry too much about those whom we love but see no longer because of death, for God’s loving care for us extends even beyond the grave. We are still held by God in his arms, in peace, for ever, and that God offers each one of us, not just life in the now, but an assurance of Resurrection life now and for eternity, when we place our faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

Tonight as we gather, missing those whom we love and praying for them, we hear again of the loving and eternal embrace of God for us all in life, in death and into eternity.

An elderly woman who was a very active and a faithful member of her parish years was dying, and she asked for the priest to come to her bedside that they might talk about her funeral. She said, “Father, when I am laid out in my casket, I want my rosary in one hand and a fork in the other”. The priest was caught by surprise: “You want to be buried with a fork?” “Yes. I have been looking back at all the church dinners that I have attended over the years. I remember that at all those meals, when we were almost finished, someone would come to the table to collect the dirty dishes, and usually they would say, ‘Keep your fork’. That mean that dessert was coming. When they said that, I knew the best was yet to come! That's exactly what I want people to talk about at my funeral”. When people see me in my casket, I want them to turn to one another and say, “why the fork?” And, Father, I want you to tell them I kept it because the best is yet to come”.

For Christians, our life’s journey is towards towards God and the promised eternal banquet of the Messiah - a celebration in the presence of God and his Son Jesus Christ forever. We are called live our lives in joyful hope and anticipation of that promised life that is ours now and in the future, through Him. That fullness of life with God, that hope that is offered to each of us by God, promised in the resurrection of his Jesus, is glimpsed here in this Eucharist tonight. For as we eat bread and drink wine, we don’t just recall Jesus, but we remember Him. Through Him being with us as we worship Him, the veil between earth and heaven is specially thin. When we join in the song of the angels in heaven “Holy, holy, holy...” I'm certain that if we cannot hear the angel voices, it is only that we aren't listening hard enough....but today, as we gather to remember our own beloved dead that great community is closer than ever.

From the perspective of eternity, that barrier which we call death is non existent...Where there is no time, no past, present or future, then there can be no endings or beginnings.

We pause to remember and to pray for those whom we love but see no longer, knowing that the ties that connected us in life, that made us pray for them and they for us are not broken. Standing in God's closer presence, I know they are praying for us...as we for them, and knowing that, for those whom we love but see no longer, and for us, the best is yet to come.

With heartfelt thanks to @Eurobishop and @Goodinparts for inspiration and input into this homily

2011-10-30T21:48:00.000Z

Nabbed this from my good mate @bigdaddywhale's blog - so inspirational and so true...

Sunday Podcast

2011-10-30T21:36:00.000Z

Herewith the audio from this morning's ramblings for All Saints Sunday...

X-Factor Saintliness

2011-10-29T22:22:00.000+01:00

I have a guilty Saturday night pleasure - I love watching X-Factor. Once the show really gets underway a few weeks in, I love the passion, the sheer self belief that lies at the heart of each performers’ song each week. I think everyone loves the sort of rags to riches stories that that show tells; where ordinary people people come with their raw (sometimes very raw!) talent and see their lives transformed into multi-million pound, blessed beyond belief pop superstardom over a matter of weeks.

What we remember today as we celebrate the saints is rags to riches story after rags to riches story as we hear of God entering into human lives, blessing and transforming them through the grace and holiness of God.

In biblical times, the affluence that X-Factor promises, was a sign of the favour and blessing of God. Abraham is blessed by God in the book of Genesis - evidence of that is all the ‘stuff’ he came to have - cattle, sheep, male and female servants and so on. Similarly in the New Testament in the teaching of Jesus, in the parable of the Rich Fool, his crops have produced so much grain he contemplates building bigger barns to store it all. Now I don’t know if God takes account of recessions or not, but it seems that blessing, affluence and success are to be spoken of in the same sentence - as one follows on from the other. In other words, if you are rich you must have found favour with God.
Blessed are you who are poor, you who are hungry, you who weep,blessed are you when people hate you says Jesus. On this All Saints Sunday, the blessing of God, those on whom His favour rests, are not on those affluent few whose lives are measured in tabloid headline inches, but on those who weep, whose lives are poor,empty and broken. The rich, the full, the laughing, those of whom much good is spoken of have already been rewarded of their own doing now and are not seeing or living by the standards of eternity.

To live by the standards of eternity is to live by God’s standards. Living by these standards takes us along the road to what we might call saintliness. Jesus says saintly living is not about a rarified holy way of living, but is simply put - God’s design for life - a better way to live. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

When we consider the lives of those the church traditionally calls saints, what strikes me first is how very ordinary most of them were but how thet tried to live out these words ....from that clutch of Galilean fishermen to a consumptive French nun,from a wounded soldier who spent most of his time dreaming of damsels in distress to a forthright Albanian with a genius for spotting Christ in the slums of Calcutta. None of them looked in the least remarkable – they didn't start out as super-holy beings, nor, I suspect, did any of them spend their days with heads surrounded by a heavenly glow. They didn't even aspire to outstanding holiness but they lived Christlike lives and accepted the gift of grace that God offers to all of us, and in so doing, they found themselves transformed.

The Saints we celebrate today are ordinary people trying to live Christlike lives transformed by the grace of God celebrated in the windows, paintings, statues, icons hymns... and pews around us. Yes you too... We are called to be saints, it is in our spiritual DNA, to strive to faithfully follow Jesus Christ in our day and to proclaim the Gospel in words and works of love.

Part of our saintly calling though is therefore to side with those whom God sides and favour those whom He does.

As we answer His call on our lives to Sainthood, we must also recognise that whilst He is transforming our lives as we worship Him, His favour, His blessing, rests on those in pour community where we might least expect to find it - in the home of the grieving widower, at breakfast with the family struggling on benefits, in the cold flat of the assylum seeker, in the frightened dreams of the child in care... Love them says Jesus. Support them. Do good to them because few are, and why, because as you see your life transformed by grace and new life, so the grace and new life spills out and blesses them through you... God’s blessing is on them because of you.

On this All Saints Sunday, we thank God for His transforming grace at work in people past as well as in us today as we seek to follow Him. We pray that we would not squander that grace He so freely gives us, so that it turns into sour judgement of others in our hands and fills our mouths and lives with bitterness.

Rather let us pray that God would continue to meet us where we are; would take us as we are - with all our rough edges, and by His grace transform the raggedness of our existence by the richness of His grace. As He, as Mother Julian says, transforms our wounds into worships, let us also pray that He would charge us with a contagious holiness to allow even us to be God’s blessing on those in our community, especially on those who need it the most. Amen.

Sunday Podcast

2011-10-24T21:58:00.000+01:00

Here is the podcast of my sermon from Bible Sunday using Colossians 3:12-17

The Good Book - God's Unfolding Drama

2011-10-22T19:44:00.000+01:00

Imagine for a moment that, in a dream, you are attending a theatre and watching a play. The play is reaching the climax when suddenly an actor is taken ill. The director steps forward and invites not just anyone but you to play the role. What could you do? You would have to improvise in the light of all you knew about the play so far – the plot, the characters and perhaps what you had read in the programme about the end. Today, as we give thanks to God for the scriptures, we are reminded that one way to understand the Bible is that through it, God invites us to play our part in his drama, applying all we know of his plans and words to our own often unexpected situations.

Our Epistle this morning reminds us that Christ has not been properly understood, if we forget his life before birth and his life after the resurrection! The whole creation and the whole development of the universe revolves around Jesus Christ. Nothing falls outside the scope of God’s project. Here we have God’s Mission Statement – you cannot be more comprehensive than this. The whole Bible backs up this view. It’s a play - THE BIBLE – A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS
1. The Creation – God creates the scene (Genesis 1-2)
2. The Fall – The tragic consequences of human sin distort the world (Genesis 3-11)
3. Israel – God begins the process of redemption (Old Testament)
4. Jesus – God brings redemption to a focus in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus (The Gospels)
5. The time of the Church – God’s redemption is brought to the whole world (Acts – Revelation).
Scene 1 – the birth of the church
Scenes 2 & 3 - Church history so far
Scene 4 – in which we are called to live faithfully and creatively
Scene 5 – Redemption completed.

We are invited to play our part in this developing drama. The our Gospel reading from Matthew reflects the vision of God beginning to wrap the whole play up – it’s part of the final scene.

Looked at in this way, the Bible provides us with a “big story” in which to live out our lives – a dynamic framework which helps us to make sense of the meaning of life, to explore its difficulties and to discover a sense of purpose for our selves.

David Wilkinson a respected astrophysicist and theologian tells us that physicists have calculated that the probability of the universe ever getting started is 1/1x fifty seven zeros – in other words so improbable as to be impossible as a chance event. Scientists also calculate (from observations of the galaxy’s oldest stars) that the universe has been around for 13–14 billion years – in other words, an unimaginably long time. Both of these estimates give us just a glimpse of the scale of the “big story” God is directing and that we have a part in. More than this, it offers us • A new beginning – resources for living and an invitation to friendship with God agreeing to live in this story • It does not impose a fatalistic future – we are invited to make choices, enjoy relationships and contribute to the developments.

So, this grand narrative of God’s eternal purposes has local implications – that too is part of its richness. Christ’s death turns enemies into God’s friends and overcomes all the divisions that people create. It leads to transformed people who then transform the locality in which they live. There are all kinds of hints to this effect in the letter. Old divisions are being overcome – whether they are religious/ethnic ones or social ones. Old attitudes and destructive patterns of behaviour are being transformed so that anger is replaced with compassion, hate with forgiveness, insults with kindness and so forth. Old-style relations in home and workplace are being replaced with ones that more fully reflect the model of Jesus – loving respect for all. We can see in these how the yeast of the Kingdom is beginning to change the whole loaf!

So, another aspect of the richness is that through Christ God is redeeming his people for holiness. God’s Word has always worked like this. Our context is very different, so completing the drama does not mean copying but being stimulated by this story. We too need to seek “to set ourselves” apart for God and demonstrate how
the message of Jesus transforms communities.

Some of us face the challenge to work out how we can demonstrate God’s kingdom in the workplace or in a difficult family situation. As Christians we need each other to work these things through and to support one another – it is easy to forget we are in God’s play when we are “out there “on our own!

But this richness affects individual people – the details about various believers in chapter 4 remind us of this. Within this list, there are many dramatic personal stories. Fortunately, we know a little about a couple of them. We can tell the stories of Mark – Barnabas’ cousin, who opts out of missionary journeys with Paul and gets barred by Paul on a subsequent journey. But in Colossians 4, Mark is restored as a companion of Paul; he is one of three people who have “been a great help to me”(4.11). Mark goes on to provide us with one of our Gospels. Clearly, he had allowed Christ’s word to live richly in him. Onesimus – a runaway slave, whose master Philemon probably lived in Colossae! Here are individuals profoundly influenced by the richness of Christ’s message, who have become part of its unfolding drama. And there are the others, known to us only by name, but whose own parts in the drama would have been well-known to Paul and the churches in that region. And that’s where we all come in – [refer back to Bishop Tom Wright’s five acts] – we are invited to construct scene 4 in the final act of the Bible’s continuing drama!

“Let this rich message about Christ live in your hearts …” Now we need to beware! “Live in your hearts”, doesn’t mean keep it hidden, locked away, inside us! It means to take it so much to heart that it reshapes who we are and what we do from the inside out!

The Colossians are encouraged to encounter Christ’s message in many ways and so are we so that we can fully receive it’s message and play our part in God’s continuing drama.

Sunday podcast

2011-10-16T21:33:00.000+01:00

What belongs to God?

2011-10-16T21:25:00.000+01:00

You know you are in trouble when your enemies begin to flatter you: Kind words and Very Unkind Intentions. “Now, tell us, Jesus,” they continued, “is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

By “lawful,” of course they meant “according to Torah.” Any of Our Lord’s responses could have got him into trouble with one faction or another. If Jesus said that a good Jew should support the Roman state, then he would have allied himself with a power that was occupying Israel and killing Jews. That would have alienated the Jews and given implicit approval to a state that regarded its ruler as a god. It would have been idolatry. But to say that Jews should not pay taxes to Rome would have been treason. The question was a perfect trap for Jesus.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” It was a good question then, and it is as difficult to answer today as it was two thousand years ago.

There is much to say in favour of Jewish or Christian support of the state. The state maintains order; it keeps the roads paved; and it operates schools. Even the Romans, for all their brutality, created a system of roads that ran the length of Europe. It took less time to send a letter from Athens to Rome in the first century when Rome was at the pinnacle of its power than it did in the 11th century when Europe was divided into hundreds of small kingdoms. Under Roman rule, we and the whole of Europe enjoyed a standard of living that fell drastically after the Roman state disintegrated and was not recovered until the late 19th century.

Yet, the Roman state was brutal. Persons found guilty of treason were hung or nailed to a cross and left to bleed to death and asphyxiate; it was the cruellest form of capital punishment ever devised. Men and women flocked to the circuses or amphitheatres to watch convicted criminals fight wild beasts.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” The question seems easier to answer today. Compared to Rome, we live under a humane and beneficent power. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” Is it?

One of the interesting things about this story of Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees and the Herodians is that he never answers their question.

“Show me the money for the tax,” Jesus demanded. And they produced a Roman coin. As Jesus held it up, it glinted in the sunlight, and Jesus asked, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” The coin would have borne the image of Caesar, much as our coins display the profile of our Queen. Finally, Jesus said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Well, that settles the question, doesn’t it? There are things that belong to Caesar, like the money with which we pay our taxes, and there are things that belong to God. Such as…? Well, what? There’s the problem.

Jesus threw the question back at the Pharisees and Herodians. His statement just raises some questions. How and where do you draw the line between the things that belong to Caesar and the things that belong to God? What are the things of Caesar and what are the things of God?

Jesus was a faithful Jew who every Sabbath of his adult life had recited the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all you soul, and with all your might.”
Friends, a whole God demands the service of whole human beings. The God of Jesus has a claim on all of our life. So if God demands all of our life, what is left to render unto Caesar?

The question Jesus threw back at the Pharisees and Herodians echoes Genesis. Holding up the coin, he asked, “Whose likeness or image is this?” The image of Caesar was imprinted only upon coins; but the image of God is upon every human life. The fingerprints of God are on us all.

“The things that are Caesar’s.” What are they? Caesar seems to have a claim on much of our lives, but in fact, nothing belongs to him. Everything belongs to God; the things that Caesar claims are merely on loan.

“The things that are God’s.” The way most of us behave suggests that we believe that God has a claim on about one hour per week and a small percentage of our income. But God’s mark is upon every particle of our being.

Many parishes today will hear sermons on stewardship today, many parish priests will ask people to consider how much they should pledge to the church. But the real question is not how much we should give to God or the church or how much belongs to Caesar, but how much belongs to God? And if we ask that question, then the real issue of stewardship is not “How much should we pledge?” but “How much should we keep for ourselves?”.

All that we are and all that we have belongs to God. But we belong to God not as slaves but as children and if children then heirs. Rendering to God what God has a claim on is not burdensome; it is liberation. We cannot divide our lives between God and Caesar. Realizing that life is whole and not fragmented is an insight that brings us freedom. It teaches us that our first and foremost priority is the service of God.

If you, like many people, feel many claims upon your time and finances and energy, then it is freeing to realize that in reality is that there is only one claim upon our lives: to serve God in joyful freedom.

Yes, my dear friends, there are Standing Order forms that you get and fill in and return, and yes, there are Gift Aid Envelopes and as you all know, there is a whole host of mission and outreach which needs to be underwritten both here in this parish, in the diocese and internationally, but we gather here to give ourselves, and through that we bear fruit for the Mission of God in this place. Your prayer, your activism, your community engagement with the young, the disaffected, the old and the isolated, and yes, quite importantly, your money is a response to Him who gave it to us in the first place.

“Render to God the things that are God’s.”

That’s you.

Every bit of you.

Amen.

Word as a Wordle!

2011-10-10T21:10:00.000+01:00

Here is the text of Sunday's Gospel reading from Matthew 22:15-22 as a wordle...

I am interested to note the importance of the words: emperor, went, God and things.

The passage makes me dwell on how Jesus seemed to be caught by this question between offending the spiritual legalities and committing blasphemy and offending the temporal laws and committing treason - but that was the point.

Jesus sees beyond the questions to the heart of the matter - where does true authority lie? With the emperor? Where does he get his authority from???? From the State?????? And where do they get theirs from?????? From the people??????? And where do they get theirs from???????? The inbuilt sense of justice in most people????????? And where does that come from???????????

Pay due attention to the the laws of the land says Jesus. Give to the state and their authority the things that are due them - tax, law keeping and so on. But as a follower of the way, God asks not for our taxes or our deference, but our whole selves.

Which matters more?

Sunday Podcast

2011-09-18T20:13:00.000+01:00

Here's is this morning's sermon in the audio equivalent of glorious technicolour!

The Peckham Gospel

2011-09-18T07:03:00.000+01:00

On the evening of 22 April 1993, Mr & Mrs Conor Taaffe had been to a prayer meeting at their local Catholic church. As they left the church they noticed two young black boys who were running towards them. Further away they saw a young man holding his upper chest with one of his hands, as if he might have been injured in that area. Then they saw him crash onto the pavement. At once they realised that something very serious had happened.

They moved closer, oblivious of their own needs or safety. There was another man standing in the middle of the road trying to flag down passing cars. Then they saw him go to the telephone box on the other side of the road, probably to try to call the emergency services.

The Taaffe’s crouched down on the hard pavement with the young man as he lay there, and Mr Taaffe remembers an involuntary movement of the head to the left and a sound as if the young man was choking and trying to breathe. There was quite a lot of blood on the pavement.

As the young man’s life clearly was ebbing away, Mrs Taaffe gently and lovingly reached over and touched the young man’s head. The last words he heard as he gave up his life were her whispering into his ear: you are loved, you are loved. The young man’s name was Stephen Lawrence.

Dear friends, oblivious to His own needs, in the person of Jesus Christ, God makes His way down close to us. In His incarnation, He comes down to where we are in love and compassion, onto the litter filled streets of our lives, and whispers into our ears, into our lives, into our very souls - you are loved, you are loved you are loved...

That is the extent of the love of God in Jesus Christ. Instead of crossing the road and walking by on the other side, perhaps rightly avoiding us, not wanting to get involved with the mess, He runs to us...

In the story that Jesus tells us this morning, it is this same God who comes to us where are, waiting in the market place.

And we are all in the market place sometimes in our lives, whether we realise it or not. All of us ask those big searching ‘why’ or ‘how’ questions about life from time to time. Just this weekend, how Lord, could you let those Welsh miners die? In asking those sorts of ultimate questions, we are all looking for ultimate answers, ultimate answers that can only come from a relationship with the ultimate - with God himself.

In the story Jesus tells this morning, for some of those workers, the day is long, hot and hard, but not so for others. To our mind, it seems unfair, unjust for the wages for all the workers to be the same. But if we carefully look at the contract made by the landowner and the workers - they agreed to the ‘usual daily wage.’ for work, whether they have worked all day or for just an hour. It is up to the land owner to pay what he desires and whatever is agreed.

As far as God is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether we came to know Him, asking big life or faith questions, eighty years or eight weeks ago. It doesn’t matter whether we have faithfully attended church our whole life or come to Him on our deathbeds. That is the extent of the generosity and patience of God outworking the topsy turvey values of His Kingdom.

There is never any sense of - right, sorry, heaven is filling fast, if you want to come in you have til next Tuesday to sign up. God goes on loving, He goes on welcoming those who come to Him in faith. And the payment?

Jesus is clear, the wages are the same - when we ask those ultimate questions of an ultimate God, He offers each one of us an eternal life long relationship of love - the wages are the same. We may not get all the answers we seek straight away, but we do ultimately get a God’s eye perspective on how life should be according to the values of His Kingdom - where the the poor are raised up, the rich and powerful are cast down and where the last are first.

It may not seem fair or just if the office junior were paid the Director’s salary but this is the extent of the wild, wanton, almost wasteful generosity, love, and grace of God.

In economic terms, if God’s company were to run like that it would surely go out of business very quickly, but there is a price for the wage structure to be like that. But this is not a parable about our work or how we will be paid - it is a reminder of the graciousness, the benevolence, the kindness and the generosity of God – a God who gives the best thing he has – himself. Who in some mysterious way in Christ’s crucifixion, pays the price of my sin – and the only reward any of us could ever hope or pray for – assured in His resurrection - the gift of eternal life with Him.

This morning, Jesus runs to us, He crouches near to us on the hard pavement of our lives, gently loving us into life, whispering into our souls - you are loved, you are loved you are loved; He meets us again and again, today, here even, in the market places as we ask life’s ‘why?’ questions and offers us the wages of eternal life, knowing that the costs are covered, the price is paid.

This morning we need to decide for ourselves - perhaps for the first time, maybe afresh, whether to accept the generous grace-filled offer of His life transforming love, his very self - freely given, thoroughly undeserved and outrageously unwarranted and offered widely and to all, whether we have known Him for eighty years or eight weeks, or not. For faith, being Christian, is not about how much we know about God in our heads, or for how long, but how we are known by God in His heart of love. Amen.

The Word as a Wordle

2011-09-12T13:38:00.000+01:00

Here is this coming Sunday's Gospel reading from Matthew 20:1-16 as a wordle...

I am struck by the importance of the vineyard, the labourers, the usual daily wage being received are to the wordle and the passage.

I am left wondering:
1. At the fact that here is another parable of Jesus that speaks of the extravagant generosity of God - all were paid the same.
2. At the place of envy - we check each other out as a way of ensuring that we are 'normal.' Most of us don't like sticking out in the crowd. We measure ourselves by those who are like us, to make sure that we blend in, that we are part of the crowd. That checking though can lead to a more worrying condition that says things like - 'Wow come our next door neighbour can afford that new car bearing in mind what they earn...?' Is there a parallel with this parable and the parable of the Prodigal Son, especially with the son's older brother...

9/11, forgiveness and prayer

2011-09-08T15:47:00.000+01:00

h/t to Lesley Crawley for the vid which, as we move to the 10th anniversary of the events of that day, I found deeply moving and very self explanatory....

Tell. Show. Be

2011-09-08T13:02:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Muriel for sharing this...

Word as a Wordle is back!

2011-09-07T09:30:00.000+01:00

Here is a wordle of Sunday's Gospel reading from Matthew 18:21-35. It is about the area central and distinctive (I believe) to Christianity - ongoing and unmeritted forgiveness of each one of us, and Jesus underlines that in the parable he tells of the unforgiving servant.

Forgiveness
Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

The wordle highlights four key words - pay, slave, debt and Lord. I am left asking and I need to prayerfully explore:

1. Who is the slave?
2. What is the debt?
3. How do I pay? Who do I pay?
4. Who is the Lord?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Gavin Harrison...

2011-09-03T20:45:00.002+01:00

Because of the sheer joy of the music, and the outstanding but effortless looking skill, I had to post this vid... I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)

This is Discipleship

2011-08-25T20:51:00.001+01:00

Sunday Podcast

2011-08-14T15:41:00.000+01:00

For your listening pleasure, here is this morning's sermon based on Matthew 15:21-28...

Crumbs or Bread?

2011-08-14T07:03:00.003+01:00

A prostitute went to see a minister in dire straits - homeless, sick and unable to buy food for her 2 year old daughter. Through sobs she told of how she had been forced to prostitute her own child to feed her drug habit. He could barely take hearing any more of the story she was telling and besides he was legally bound to inform the authorities if he became aware of any cases of child abuse.

Unsure of what to say to her to offer her any advice, he asked her if she had ever been to church to seek any support. The look she gave the minister was one that would live with him for the rest of his ministry, ‘Church?’, she said incredulously, ‘Church? Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They would only make me feel worse!’

This true story reminds us of the way that people perceive the followers of Jesus to be. In this morning’s Gospel reading - it is Jesus’ disciples who are seeking to send this undesirable noisy woman of questionable integrity and faith away. Jesus should not be mixing and certainly not seen to be mixing with people like her. Would we want to have anything to do with her? People generally think of us as judgmental, holier than thou do-gooders who believe they are better than everyone else. This morning, Jesus reminds us that to be His disciples, to even call ourselves Christians, we must not find ourselves to be anywhere near living out that preconception.

Jesus makes His way out to Tyre and Sidon. These prosperous, multicultural cities were made wealthy through the manufacture and sale of purple cloth, quality cedar timber and ship building. Due to their ‘international trade’, they were heavily influenced by both of the superpowers of the day - the Romans and the the Greeks and were most definitely seen by most Jews as places not to go to. Religiously, the Canaanites worshipped a plethora of Gods including Baal. Jews saw themselves as better than the Canaanites mostly due to Old Testament stories like Elijah’s defeat of the prophets of Baal on the mountaintop.

Why is Jesus going here? As they arrive this local woman starts making a scene. No wonder the disciples start feeling uncomfortable. Yet notice what she is shouting - she calls Jesus - Son of David. She recognises Him as the Jewish Messiah. She may may regularly worship many gods, but she recognises Jesus as someone significant. Maybe she has found that her gods are silent and unable or unwilling to respond to her cries for help. Perhaps the Son of David - God present on earth - can transform her world.

This persistent Canaanite woman approaches this Jewish Messiah and kneels before him. She knows that he can help her cause. She knows that he offers more than empty words or broken promises. Having reiterated to his disciples that he has come to call the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Jesus then responds to her request for help with a very enigmatic statement: It is not fair to throw the children’s food to the dogs.

Non Jews, were vilified and popularly called dogs. Is this a racist slur on the lips of our Lord? No. The image Jesus has chosen is an image of endearment, not insult. The picture of dinner time, with little kids at the table, and their pet puppies at their feet, maybe tugging on their robes for food or play. The puppies, dear to the children and probably so too to the master, were to be fed after the children. Jesus must take care of those to whom he is sent first.

Did the woman misunderstand Jesus’ words as words of love? ‘But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table...’ Either way, she is clearly demonstrating a very strong faith - even those who don’t deserve to be fed by the master, scavenge for whatever they can. She knows Jesus can give her daughter what she is asking for her.

Jesus challenges the Canaanite woman to articulate her faith - so it’s more than just empty words. She calls Him Son of David, acknowledging Him as the Jewish messiah. Yet she demonstrates that even those outside the expected boundaries of the work of God’s Jewish Messiah, fully understand what He is teaching and revealing - even the dogs eat the crumbs, the words of Godly wisdom and ways to Godly living, that fall.

Jesus welcomes and responds to this woman because her grasp of what it means to have faith. She clearly gets who Jesus is and he includes and welcomes her - even though she would be excluded and alienated by many others. She comes to Jesus as a stranger and leaves a friend.

We all know people like the prostitute I told you about. They are people who wouldn’t normally go anywhere near a church for fear of being condemned. Yet that’s how most people feel about coming to church. But Jesus didn’t invite that Canaanite woman to come to Jerusalem to meet her - he met her in her home town.

There are many people in our community who long to meet with God. They cry out to him in desperation in some cases every day, for release, relief, for healing, for hope. They are often people we wouldn’t expect to see in our churches, and yet if we talk with them - like the Canaanite woman - they know what God can do in and for their lives. They understand the all transforming power of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

This morning are we all too often like the disciples - keeping the Canaanite woman far from Jesus if at all possible, ensuring the ‘undesirables’ are kept away from our Lord? Or are we like Jesus, meeting those people where they are; where we most often are - at the shops, bus stops, chemists, doctors’ surgery or the pub?

On 25th September, B2CS, we encouraging you to rediscover those people you know who wouldn’t normally come to church, who like the Canaanite woman, who have heard of Jesus, who used to come to church, but who don’t anymore and to invite them for a special service on that day. To come back to church. Jesus, in you meets them where they are and invites them into renewed relationship with Him.

This says it all...

After all, what are we offering our community? Crumbs? Memories of what church was or should be? A chance to come to Harvest festival or a beetle drive as lovely as those may be? Or are we offering them Jesus - who meets them in their desperation, offering release, relief, healing, and hope, the Living Bread, in whom all our hungers are satisfied? Amen.

The Word as a Wordle - Trinity 8

2011-08-08T12:17:00.001+01:00

Her is the wordle of Sunday's (shortened) Gospel reading from Matthew 15:21-28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

Sunday Podcast

2011-08-07T14:36:00.000+01:00

Here's this morning's sermon on Matthew 14:22-33...

Salvation according to Charlie Stoltzfus

2011-08-06T23:03:00.000+01:00

Tony Campolo, the American evangelist was invited to preach at a Pentecostal Church and before the service the leaders prayed for him. He wanted to get on with preaching but soon they started praying for things in their own lives.

One man said, “Oh, Lord, be with Charlie Stoltzfus, my neighbor. You know Charlie, Lord. He’s leaving his wife and three kids today and he’s going off. Lord, we don’t know where he’s going. Find a miracle to bring him back. He lives at Exit 14A off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. You know, Lord, in that little trailer park. His is the first one on the right hand side.” And Tony’s thinking, oh brother, why is he giving God directions. God knows this guy and knows where he is. God created this him. Tony just wants to start preaching.

Finally, he preaches the sermon. The service is over. He gets in his car and starts driving home. He’s on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and he sees hitch- hikers holding up signs – California, New York, Philadelphia. He passes by them but one guy has a sign that said “Anywhere.” Tony said to himself I’m going to pull over. He pulled over, backed up, and the guy got in. Tony said, “I’m intrigued by your sign.” The guy said, “Yeah, I don’t care where I go, I’ll go anywhere, I just have to get away from where I am.” Tony introduces himself and asks the guy his name. He replies, “Hi, I’m Charlie Stoltzfus.”

So Tony drives on. When they get to Exit 14A Tony exits the Turnpike and starts driving back. The guy said, “Where are you going?” Tony said, “I’m taking you home.” The guy said, “Now wait a minute. What do you mean you’re taking me home.” Tony said, “You left your wife and your three kids and I’m taking you home right now.” The guy said, “You don’t know where I live.” Tony said, “Yes I do, in the trailer park up here, in the first silver trailer on the right.” And the guy said, “How do you know that? Who told you that?” Tony said, “God told me!” He pulls over, gets Charlie out of the car and goes into the trailer with him. Charlie and his wife and Tony spend time talking together. A year later Tony learned that Charlie and his wife had decided to stay together – their marriage is restored. Friends, there are no lengths that God will not go to, to bring us back into relationship with Him. He reaches out His hand, we just have to take it.

At the heart of this morning’s Gospel reading, lies unseen, the heart of God, beating with love for His world. It is the love which God has for His world that calls His Son to complete His work of creation by coming amongst us in the first place. It is this same love that Jesus demonstrates by feeding the crowd with bread and fish. It is the same love that sends the crowd away, allowing Jesus to cross the lake and climb a mountain to pray; to renew and be renewed in His Father’s love himself.

It is the same love of God, that compels Jesus to reveal to the disciples who He really is. Early in the morning He comes walking across the water to the to them in the boat. Only the Creator of the universe can defy the laws of physics - God in Jesus Christ draws near to those He specially loves. The disciples are rightly terrified at what they are seeing. Is this a ghost? Jesus speaks to them and His words sound like reassurance - ‘it is I’ and yet they echo God’s revealing of Himself to Moses in the burning bush ‘I am who I am.’ None other that the Creator God is with the disciples on the lake.

This is all just classic Peter, unsure of himself and unsure of who Jesus is. ‘Lord, if it you, if you really are God, I’m going to come out of the boat and out onto the water & walk with you.’ So he does. Just as Peter begins to experience the reality of God’s love for Himself, he doubts and starts to sink ‘Lord save me!’ And Jesus reaches out His hand in love and saves him.

All too often friends, we think we have faith sown up. We think we know God. He is safely contained in the pages of the scriptures or in the guise of bread and wine, and yet we forget all too easy that He has the capacity to surprise us. To think and act outside the box. It is this God of surprises that limits Himself and meets us invitingly contained in the pages of the scriptures or in the guise of bread and wine. And yet it is this God in Jesus Christ who out of love for us encourages us to step out of the safety of those comfort zones, of what we think or believe God to be, and to walk with him.

The boat is a safe place to be whether that boat is our lifestyles, our jobs, our houses, our choices, our humanity even. We believe that we can only ever be like ‘this’ - sad, tired, broken, unforgiving, unforgiven, guilty, shamed. Jesus comes alongside us in love and encourages us to step out with Him, to trust Him, to leave the boat - our old lives - completely behind. Jesus doesn’t meet us someway off on the lakeshore, He meets us where we are, by the boat. He comes alongside us. He doesn’t deny where we have sailed, where our lives have taken us whether filled with goodness or sadness. It doesn’t matter to Him how we feel about ourselves. He loves us for who we are and encourages us to be where He is - in the presence, in the love of God - where we were created to be.

That encounter, with the love of God in Christ whether in Scripture, Sacrament or wherever is all transforming - for through it we can walk with Him. And we know we can trust Him too, when he stumbled, when he doubted, when he struggled to believe in Jesus - to let go and to let God, Jesus came alongside Peter and Thomas and countless others in love reassuring, restoring, renewing and resurrecting their lives.

Friends, in life, whenever and wherever we fail, no matter how far we feel we have fallen even when we feel He can’t, Jesus reaches out His hand to save us, restoring and renewing and resurrecting our relationship with each other, with Him and with his Heavenly Father in love. All we need to do is take His hand. When we do, wherever we are, He walks with us to where He is - helping us to become in each step we take, more and more like the Son of God - whole and holy people transformed by His love. Amen.

Better late than never - The Word as a Wordle for Trinity 7

2011-08-03T21:59:00.000+01:00

The Gospel reading for Sunday is another well known story about Jesus, where He and then He and Peter walk on water from Matthew 14:22-33...

'...Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’

Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.'...'

Things that stand out as I read the passage include:

This is classic Peter and classic Jesus
Is Jesus physically different? They don't recognise Him and think He is a ghost
This is the God of surprises at work - we think we know Jesus/God (teaching, healing, raising the dead etc) but then He does something completely unexpected and walks on water
We need to trust God, and as He reaches out to us, so we need to take His hand and step out
We need to join Jesus where He is - not in the safety of the boat, our lives, our routines, our earthly expectations and limitations - but accept Jesus invitation to join Him in the realm of the Divine.

Workplace prayer resource

2011-08-02T16:15:00.000+01:00

I recently rediscovered something that we promoted elsewhere in previous years.

For those of you who work at a desk (however often) the ReJesus website (which is a brilliant site anyway!) produced a fantactic resource that you can print on stiffened paper or card and have some quiet prayerful time in the middle of your working day.

It's easy to print and make and easy to use. To down load it just click the image below...

Pleased to meet you!

2011-08-02T09:03:00.000+01:00

There is a new post on the parish blog about meeting me in small groups. It would be great to do that and gives me a chance to get to know you and you me. Clink the link below and have a read!

Sunday Podcast

2011-07-31T20:04:00.001+01:00

Here is the podcast of this morning's sermon based on the story of the feeding of the 5000...

Augustine, feed me!

2011-07-30T22:55:00.001+01:00

What do you do? It’s often one of the first things we ask people when we meet them. It helps us to identify them along with asking them their their name. I am trying to meet as many of you as I can in the first few weeks that I am here, so I can identify you and build a relationship with you.

What about Jesus? People identify him as all sorts of different things: prophet, teacher, good man. But only Christians identify him as the Son of God. And if he is, then he’s very important. Because it’s easy to ignore a great teacher – you can take or leave his teaching. Or a prophet – you can interpret his prophecies in different ways. But if Jesus was the Son of God then he can’t be ignored.

The feeding of the 5,000 is an incredibly famous story. It’s very important – the only one of Jesus’ miracles to feature in all four gospels. The reason it features so prominently is because it tells us who Jesus is.

We need to set the story in context: Jesus has been teaching about what having God in control of our lives is like in parables about the Kingdom of God and healing the sick. We then have the story of the death of John the Baptist. And then we get this morning’s Gospel reading which I believe friends, clearly shows us who Jesus is and the implications for each one of us.

In Mark’s version of this story, the crowd is described as like sheep without a shepherd – directionless, clueless, helpless, vulnerable. So often in life we can feel like this too.

Jesus is like a shepherd. It’s the shepherd’s responsibility to provide food and protection. In Jesus we find everything we need. We can rely on him. We want to be self-sufficient, but Jesus says actually we do need him, and he is everything you need.

A shepherd doesn’t look after one sheep on its own but a flock. Our society has privatized morality and religious belief and says ‘if you want to follow Jesus, great go ahead, I’ll believe what I like.’

Sometimes people say that it’s possible to have a Christian faith without going to church. Well, on one level it is, but the Bible doesn’t give us a picture of God’s people worshipping him each on their own. It gives us a picture of the church: God’s people worshipping him & being cared for by Him together, like sheep with a shepherd. Jesus is a shepherd, we should follow him and rely on him.

What did Jesus do when he saw the huge crowd and had compassion on them? He actively demonstrated the love and presence of God amongst people - he cured the sick.

Jesus is compassionate. He calls His church to love others - to demonstrate the presence and love of God. Jesus reminds that the greatest commandment is to love God with all that we are and to love others as we love ourselves.

Time and again we are called by Jesus to love others but to allow our love to go the extra mile - not just to those we like or who are like us - but beyond those boundary lines, to love and forgive our enemies, those who persecute or deride us, those who sit on the outside and on the margins of our society or social grouping, those whose very existence challenge our values, codes or beliefs.

In fact we are called to live out that love that called creation into being and called Jesus the Son to come and demonstrate the length, breadth, depth and height of that love in word and action in his life, death and resurrection.

Jesus’ love shows compassion - a deep understanding of what it means to be human. An empathy that puts Him firmly in our shoes. Sometime people wonder where God is today in the face of disaster and personal crisis, and yet Jesus lives the love and presence of a God who knows us intimately as we are made in His image and He loves us no matter who we are, where we are or what we do in or with our lives.

The key to understanding this story is that Jesus is indeed a leader and lover of people but so what? But the most dynamic and charismatic people, the most self giving of people are simply not able to divide five loaves and two fish and feed so many. Some people have suggested that once the bread started to be passed around, people got their packed lunches out. So it was a Mini Babybel here, a Geo bar there, here, have half a banana… No! All four accounts make it clear that this was a case of divine intervention. They all ate and were satisfied. I can only conclude this is God’s work.

5000 people are fed - so what. So Jesus is God - ta da! But that’s not the end of it. They are fed, but notice what Jesus says to his closest friends when they ask him what to do with this this hungry crowd - hungry physically and spiritually, you give them something to eat. There is an expectation from Jesus that the disciples will respond. Is this Jesus being facetious and awkward? I think not.

Many people are still looking to make sense of their lives. They have huge questions about it’s purpose and plan and they fill the holes that those questions generate with stuff - success, money, gadgets, sex, celebrity living. St Augustine described it well when he said ‘our hearts are restless til they find their rest in thee.’ He knew well that only a relationship with a compassionate God could satisfy.

The crowd that Jesus fed with bread and fish were hungry, but for more than food. To their longing, Jesus offers the disciples - you give them something to eat. But how can we Lord? We aren’t equipped. We don’t have the words. We’re scared. We’re not ordained - just the sentiments of Jesus’ first disciples. The crowd are looking for ultimate answers, for deep longings to be satisfied and Jesus offerers them us.

The story reminds us that God can use ordinary things like bread or fish to demonstrate his extraordinary compassion and love. He offers us to a searching world because the people searching for meaning in life are just like you and me, they are you and me. We can only offer them what we ourselves have received. Jesus has takes each one of us, and like bread and fish, blesses us filling us with his very self each time we encounter him in Word and Sacrament and then shares us, ordinary people filled with the extraordinary life of God, with the world. He offers us not to give glib answers, but lives lived in relationship with Jesus the compassionate shepherd, the Son of the Living God. Amen.

Rush - Cygnus X-1 10-13-2002

2011-07-29T09:13:00.003+01:00

In honour of Geddy Lee's birthday, and prompted by Gerrarrdus, here is part of Cygnus x-1 by Rush. Quality music for a Friday :) Read his blog about it here :)

New Parish Blog

2011-07-28T00:04:00.000+01:00

Evening all, it's late so I'll keep this brief, but just to say that we now have a new Parish blog which you can read and follow here. It will run alongside this blog and the Parish website (which will be due an overhaul fairly soon.

Prayer for the people of Norway

2011-07-25T22:26:00.000+01:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has sent his prayers and sympathy to the people of Norway following the tragic events in Oslo and Utøya last Friday.

His message is as follows:

"Along with all the faithful of the Church of England, I want to express my deepest sympathy with the people of Norway in the wake of the appalling events of recent days. Norway has played so great a part over many years in international reconciliation as well as developing its own distinctive national ethos of openness and fairness, and it is a special tragedy that it should suffer this outbreak of senseless carnage. Our prayers are with all those who died and all those who mourn them; and we are grateful for the many signs of strength and spiritual maturity that the Norwegian people have shown in their response to evil and destructiveness."

A prayer for Norway
God our saviour,
we pray with those in Norway
who are shocked, grieving or in pain.
In your mercy, look on this wounded world,
and hold us closely to your promise of hope
in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

Word as a Wordle

2011-07-24T20:18:00.000+01:00

Here is a wordle of next Sunday's Gospel reading, a well known passage...

Matthew 14:13-21

Feeding the Five Thousand

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Sunday Podcast

2011-07-24T19:46:00.000+01:00

Here is my sermon from this morning's parish service at St Thomas' in West Hyde based on Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

Johnny Cash - Hurt

2011-07-23T22:57:00.001+01:00

This sums up the last 24 hours in some ways...

Change? No thanks. Transformation? Yes please!

2011-07-23T22:34:00.000+01:00

The red and blue of the Norwegian flag are in some way said to symbolise freedom. The flag is a blue cross on a red background - historically linking Norway to both neighbouring Denmark and Sweden and yet ultimately marking her out as a distinct and free nation in her own right.  

It is a beautiful country - politically open, warm people, a low international profile all which has been smothered into silence by the tragedy in Oslo and on the island of Utoeya. Last night’s unfolding news coverage was was captivating, overwhelming, disarming (no grim pun intended) and humbling. Already Norwegians are asking big questions about their national life - how can this have happened, how can the far-right groups likely to be behind this still have a place in Norwegian or indeed in any other society? If we place that national soul searching alongside the nation-building in Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain and Egypt, it feels like there is need for change in the air.  

All politicians talk about working for change and the good of all, and yet the only change that seems to come all too often is no change! That's because all politicians wield power self-interestedly whether they are Colonel Gadaffi, Barak Obama or David Cameron. As this overarching political change is being fought for in the Middle East and is being questioned in Norway, Jesus reminds us this morning that this sort of fundamental change it is not only desirable but also possible.

People in Jesus' day longed for change. Even though their nation had been occupied for hundreds of years by Persians, Greeks and Romans, they longed for freedom from political oppression, but instead of looking to the ballot box, they looked to God and the coming of his Kingdom.  We have lost not only a belief in the possibility of political and social change but also the sense of power behind the word kingdom. Our royalty today do not have the authority tied up in the word that Jesus uses. Perhaps it might better to talk of the Government or Presidency of heaven to give a sense of the worldshaping power that Jesus has in mind. In these strange little stories, Jesus is giving a sense of what things would be like if God was in control rather than the EU’s leaders.  

In the face of the events in the last 24 hours or unfolding in drought and starvation in the Horn of Africa, we shake our fists at the sky and ask God why he allows it to happen. We know what we think having God in control of the world and it's people might be like. John Lennon put it so well: 'Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too, Imagine all the people, Living life in peace, Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world...'

The disciples thought they knew what the establishing of God's kingdom would be like. The Romans would be swept from power, and God would bring in his political regime with prosperity and dignity for all. And yet, what Jesus goes on to outline, is no political manefesto, and what he says it is like when God is in control is not of worldshaping proportions.  

God in control, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed. It starts small but grows large. When God is in control, Jesus says, there will be an organic growth in power rather than a dramatic confrontation of governing authorities.  

God in control, Jesus says, it is like yeast in flour. I have been known to make bread and you know as well as I do the way that it utterly transforms the dough from the inside out.. Yeast lierally corrupts, it changes sugars into oxygen. When God is in control Jesus says, his government corrupts the current powers, pervading quietly until it's influence becomes visible.

God in control, Jesus says, is like a man selling all he has for a field with treasure in it or a pearl of great value. There is happiness in this, but it comes from being ready to give up everything in the process.  

Is this the sort of God that Jesus' contemporaries, the people of Oslo or any of us think we want? A God whose rule starts small and works secretly within? No, they want regime change and oppression to end NOW. This is not what any of us long for.  

But that's the point, this is what it is like when God is in charge, not people. Time and again we think an overthrow of a regime will change the world for good, but remember how often people have cheered a new ruler on to find the reality cruelly different. God’s government is different, and the disciples will soon realise that. God crowns his king on a cross: a seed as small as a mustard seed winning forgiveness for our sins. The Holy Spirit pervades with the yeast of godliness. Jesus gives up everything for us, as if we are his treasure or his fine pearl, and in doing so shows God’s love to each one of us, even though good and bad is held together in every one of our lives.   This kingdom is no superficial change of one regime with another. It’s a fundamental transformation; people being changed in hearts, attitudes and minds by the love of God, and through that, changing the world they live in. We see it in the disciples after Pentecost, and in people like you today.

I remember watching Big Brother once, wondering which housemate would be next to leave, and I realised something. Who stays in the house is about superficial things like personality or looks. God sees past our society's self-obsession,who looks good on tv, and sees us as we really are - which is both daunting and liberating. Daunting because we feel naked before Him - someone else really knows what we are like. It’s liberating because someone knows what we are like - and loves us all the same. He loves us enough not to judge us, but to judge our failings. He loves enough to hold our hands and lead us through to change.  

It's a long process, but one I am committed to. I don't want to be a better person. I don't wanting life-coaching and goal setting. I want God-led regime change! I hope that I might become the person He longs for me to be, the sort of person who clearly has God in control of my life, even with all my faults.  

Here is the amazing truth: God in control can be like you or me. If we are seriously submitting ourselves to the will of God, asking asking Him to change us, God can be in control of & transform our lives. It begins with simple things – a baptism enquiry, a listening ear, a loving word to the grieving neighbour, I am going to this or that church event, and it's going to be good, will you come with me... and any of these can lead to an encounter with God lovingly in control. All of us can become people where God is in control, because when we do, that's the most radical change of regime the world has ever seen. God's loving control of the world is growing, and changing it’s personal, social, political and economic landscapes one heart, one life at a time. Amen

Word as a Wordle is back!

2011-07-17T20:03:00.005+01:00

Here is a wordle of next Sunday's Gospel reading from Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52:

'...He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’
‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old...'

~~~~~~~

These are obviously parables about the Kingdom of God. The thing that strikes me about this wordle is how the kingdom of God/of Heaven lies at the heart of everything, in the midst of mustard and bread and field and treasure and pearls...

Sunday Podcast - Sermon for Trinity 4

2011-07-17T15:18:00.000+01:00

The Dying Church Living The Love of God

2011-07-17T01:21:00.001+01:00

There was an article from the Telegraph this week which proclaimed that the Church of England will be dead in 20 years. It referred to a debate in General Synod this week where it was speculated that by 2020 the CofE would fail to be practically functional. With the average age of congregations currently around 61, by 2020 we will be in terminal decline apparently. We need to have a very real sense of crisis about this apparently.

This got me thinking. How do we respond to such stark news? Let me give you a sense of what I believe we do not do.

We do not change our liturgy and suddenly dumb down our worship to the ‘lowest common denominator’. We do not put to one side the hymns we have been singing - led by organ and choir for generations - and sing only simplistic new songs instead. We do not take out our pews and replace them with chairs. We do not do away with our robes. We do not change our received traditions and customs... Now, before you wonder whether I am advocating some sort of entrenchment against the odds to see if we can weather the storm or worse still ignore the reality of the situation, I invite you to look with me again at this morning’s New Testament reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Paul does not call the Roman church, and us to entrenchment against the odds or to move the furniture or to change the music, instead he reminds us of something fundamental and obvious. If we call ourselves Christians, then it must count in an obvious way. In other words, to be a growing Christian community in some way Jesus' life and death must free us into new ways of living. Something distinctive. What does that freedom mean? Well Paul's answer is compelling: life. If we call ourselves Christian then we should be living lives recognisably full of Jesus Christ for if we are not, we are living according to 'the flesh' as Paul calls it.

Paul says we can only live true life if the Spirit of God leads us. To be led by God’s Spirit transforms our future as starkly as a turn from death to life and our relationship with God from rebellion to obedience, from being an enemy of God to His beloved child.

To fully help his hearers to get their heads round this he compares the life of a slave with that of a child in a family. To be a slave is to be under oppression, owned by and directed by someone else, without freedom and living in fear. This is not Christ’s way.

Being a child on the other hand means becoming a heir. It means being loved no matter what. It means addressing the head of the house in the same way that the Son does – with the utmost intimacy, as Daddy! It means God giving us equal rights in the family just as his Son, and for us to see and recieve all the things we might expect too with it. And the Son does not mind as it is Jesus the Son who has gone out of his way to invite us in – offering us freedom, life and hope.

As Jesus' siblings we have a duty to be a good advert for Him. We should be finding ourselves so transformed by God's Spirit, that we desire to please our Father by the way we live. Children usually look up to their parents in respect and love and long to be like them. As adopted children of God let’s strive to please Him – but let's not romanticize it. It's not all love, love, love. Paul reminds us that we cannot pick and choose which parts of the life of Jesus we buy into.

Just as Jesus endured suffering – so will we. Yet God's spirit in us reminds us of our true nature – in those moments when we question who we are and what we believe, when we forget who we are, when we desert who we are – God spirit says 'You are God's child, now behave like it!' If we are going to talk like the Son, we also need to act like him and until we do, the rest of the world cannot receive what's on offer from God through His church.

We know how to act like Jesus - He clearly told us - love God with all that you are and love your neighbour as you love yourself. This is the fulfilment of the Law and of everything that God expects of us. Whilst the predictions of the future of the Church of England may look bleak statistically, the one thing that statistics cannot measure is ther quality of God's life enhancing, all transforming love.

Friends, in love God sent Christ to call the Church into life and love, not to see it die in ten years or so. He does not and nor do I. Paul reminds his hearers and us this morning that as children of God, our future is glorious, but this hope is not one based on statistics showing doomed decline, or powerpoint displays, or comfy seats but a sure and certain hope that his love will transform us, others and this community just as He done in the lives of many others over the centuries.

If we as a church want to make the most of our status as beloved children of our heavenly father we need to be led by His Spirit into new ways of loving for it is the quality of our love of other and of God that is attractive to others not our seats or songs. We need to spend time reflecting afresh with God on how and where we should express His love most effectively in our parish and their communities.

As churches we will begin to do that over the next few months in three ways: through listening to Him in prayer, listening to each other’s hopes and dreams for the church and listening to the wider community’s needs and longings. Through that listening, we will begin to determine a few priorities in living out the love of God across our parish and within the homes, shops, schools and lives of people in each community.

The big story that God has written with people over the pages of the centuries goes something like this - God says: I love you, I want to be with you, will you be with me? We are called to respond to that love story ourselves and share it with others by allowing our lives to be transformed by His love. God longs for His church to be growing, thriving, engaged in the community, transforming the community - this morning who do you trust? Gloomy statistics or the transforming love of our Father lived out by each one of us? Amen.

What is a fresh expression of church?

2011-07-16T11:52:00.002+01:00

h/t to Kathryn for sharing this thought provoking reminder of what a fresh expressions are - it's not what we do as a church, but the warmth of our hospitality and breeding a culture of welcome...

Fresh Starts

2011-07-12T21:51:00.002+01:00

And so it begins. Tomorrow I take a new step with my family into a new adventure with God. But the new chapter is not just ours. Tomorrow the parish in which we now live takes a step into a new adventure with God as I am licensed as their Priest in Charge.

How do I feel?

Humbled: why was I chosen to this ministry? I am sure that I have some gifts and skills that will further the proclamation of the gospel in these communities. But why me? God knows or at least I hope He does! Can I carry out the task that I am being appointed to? Do I have the requeite gifts and skills? Can I manage change and handle conflict? Can I discern when to listen to past hurts and dashed hopes and when to challenge people to look to God's future?

Daunted: I have responsability for three centres of worship and three very distinct communities. I knew what I was doing in my previous parish. I knew how things ran. I knew people and they knew me and we worked well together to the glory of God. I know very few people here and I feel uncertain as we launch out into this friendlessness and unknown.

Hopeful: I feel hopeful as God opens a new chapter in the story He is writing in this parish and these communities. I am looking forward to seeing God transform the hearts and lives of people here and I believe that He will. I am looking forward to seeing people come to faith and have their faith renewed. I am looking forward to walking alongside the people of these communities celebrating their joys and consoling their tragedies - baptising the babies, marrying the loving couples and commending to God the dead.

Committed: I am committed to the ministry that the Bishop will call me to share in tomorrow night. I am aware that it wont all be easy. I am aware that there will be change ahead. I am aware that all that God is calling us to will take time.

As I prepare tonight, I have looked through the service that we will be using tomorrow night and a couple of passages in the liturgy ring loud and clear tonight.

In the middle of the service the Bishop will say,

'...The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. In the declaration you are about to make, will you affirm your loyalty to this inheritance of faith as your inspiration and guidance under God in bringing the grace and truth of Christ to this generation and making Him known to those in your care?...'

Yes, this is the church of which I am a part of and one that I love, the one for whom Christ died. One phrase catches my eye each time I read though: the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh.

This church, as broken and divied as she may be, it is she that is called to proclaim afresh the Christian faith in each generation. This is our task - as members of the Church, God's church, in this parish in these communities. It's not down to me. We are the church. It is down to God and us.

Towards the end of the service I will pray,

Father, take our hands and work through them;

take our minds and think through them;

take our lips and speak through them;

take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you and your people;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is such a wonderful prayer and one that sums up mission and ministry as far as I am concerned. I may be feeling humbled, daunted, hopeful and committed, but however I am feeling, the ministry to which I am called to is one that I am called to share in - it's God's ministry, a ministry in which the bishop, me and indeed every member of the churches and parish in which I will minister are called to share.

Proclaiming afresh '...good news for men in all the earth...'

Social Media and the church

2011-06-22T20:03:00.000+01:00

A well deserved h/t to Fr David Cloake for this excellent post which can be read on his blog here and I share here for your delectation and delight...

~~~

To those of you reading this who, by by the very fact of your presence here, the icons contained in this image will have some meaning.

Then you have the remaining 98% of Christians, church-goers and other people of faith who will have no inkling about what this is all about. They have heard some of the names on the news, but will have cast them aside in the way that they would anything that held no apparent relevance, or that which had the feeling of fad or voodoo about it. I don't blame them - but we have a situation where an increasing gulf is developing between social-media aware Christians, and those who are not.

This is a potential considerable problem. The world of social media is expanding at a fast pace. Conferences convened for its discussion and consideration are proliferating, including those for social media where it applies to the Church and her life. Already, it is clear to see that small number of communities who engaged positively and meaningfully with social media and those who have cast it aside with quite understandable suspicion. One only needs to examine a few parish websites and this is clearly evident. Yet, in many ways, this is the beginning. These are the pioneer days, the days of the more considerable gamble, the days when those who dare may well 'win'.

The industrialised world is increasingly living its life through the electronic device. Of that there is no doubt and it is something that I have said here for some time. The young in particular articulate much of their personality through social media, each holding accounts for such websites that allow them to communicate with just about anyone else with a similar account. Millions of us have mobile phones, many of them being smart phones. Not on the ground in real space does life happen for many, but in the interactions conveyed through the virtual world. In other words, any organisation that seeks relevance in this age must embrace that ages's self-expression

...including the church.

I think that there are compelling reasons, of a cultural nature, why this should be the case. However, such lofty notions are meaningless without a little application (to pardon the pun). I encourage all members of all parish councils to discuss social media and start to embrace the expression of this age - or be left behind in the bow wave of irrelevance. Consider these things:

Marketing: Every organisation worth its salt markets itself in a marketplace where the customer expects to make an informed choice. No longer do we live in places where you buy bread in the one shop because it is the only shop. Church life is without doubt the same, especially with so many Christians being mobile or able to call upon mobility. Christians increasingly go to the church of their choice, not the one that is there by accident of geography. They will travel to make that choice, often some considerable distances. Churches need a presence that extends beyond the flaking-painted board at the gate to the church up the track three miles from the nearest house. The pew-sheet phenomenon is one that is part of a decline - because you have to go in in the first place to take a pew sheet, and if one of those people fails to return for whatever reason, the spiral is downward. People search the internet to find what they want. They use search engines to do that work, and to be out of that listing is to fail to attract those who wish to be attracted.

Infection: "We have a Gospel to proclaim", but the people are increasingly living lives elsewhere on Sundays and other days of observation. The Gospel is the glorious product that Christians are proud to offer, the product of God's love that is available to all people. I don't think it gets better than that. The question remains about how we infect the world with our Good News - a world that receives its stimulus through gadgetry. The answer is simple - be part of the electronic stream of stimuli. The world is slowly overcoming its innate suspicion of things relating to the internet and cyber-highways. No longer is a perilous thing and one that may land you the happy recipient of dubious imagery and other unsolicited muck. Now, people can browse the internet in some safety. Our children and young people do - and there is where the virus and opportunity of the Gospel will have most meaning to that age group.

Story-Telling: Blogging and the like are the current means by which this most often undertaken. We are all compelled by stories. When we hear stories of happy days and dark days, we are able to empathise and enter into the narrative - and is the device that Jesus used in his own ministry. Stories are less often in books, and books more often electronic than physical paper-entities. I judge a parish by the stories it tells of itself, its life and its faith journey. The great gift of the technological age is the ease with which imagery can be captured and used. I can be at a joyful event one moment, and able to tell the global community about it within minutes, with imagery, or even sound and film. I believe that people subscribe to a journey of faith, not just a static crowd of Christians. So often, websites give calendars and rotas, but no reportage of what has happened and yet fewer images. An absence of story in the 'output' of a parish states simply that there is no story to tell. Indeed, where would the church of the twenty-first century be if the early church hadn't jotted down its news and events?

Breaking Free of Buildings: The wider world perceive 'church' to be all that pertains to the building. Church life only happens within those medieval stones in the minds of so many. They have always been wrong, but Christians have never cottoned on to that fact even for themselves. Mr and Mrs Typical-Christian will probably spend one or two hours a week in the building, but will be living breathing Christians for the rest of the time. In the past, the faithful parish magazine touched that part of people's life - a little. Blogging and micro-blogging and all other social-media tell the stories of ordinary Christians in ordinary time outside of the church building. Its priests and ministers are starting to acknowledge this too, for we all know that much more of our ministry happens outside of the physical church building than within it. The immediacy and portability of social-media means that Christians can tell of the considerable bits of faith-life hitherto completely un-witnessed.

Dialogue: It would be fair to say that in the present age, the church is becoming alarmingly polarised. The evangelicals are fearful and suspicious of the Romanising and incense swinging Anglo-Catholics who are, in turn, fearful and suspicious of the text-free converta-a-holics of the evangelical churches. Understanding has all but died, and so polarisation is happening with greater speed and in fearful ways. Indeed, where understanding fails, bigotry and mis-understanding flourishes. Social media, for all its flaws and idiosyncrasies, overcomes much of the ecclesial divide. It also does much to cross gender-divides which also mar the image of 'God is Love plc'. On the whole, and as one with a fair experience of this, I could not tell you, and would not care to tell you, what the ecclesial expression was of the vast majority of those good people with whom I interact. We talk, we enjoy dialogue, and rarely do we ever inhabit those places that dog dialogue in the temporal church. I would go so far as to say that social media does more for Christian unity than anything else in this day and age.

I could go on, but will save some for another day, and spare you a longer post now. This is a pivotal moment in many ways and such is the potency and valency of social-media that I predict that in a decade, we will determine the church communities that lived or died by how they embraced the technology and behaviours of this moment.

Praying ourselves ready

2011-06-20T12:43:00.001+01:00

I am now in that limbo time between posts. Having had a very full and moving farewell from Leverstock Green and the Benefice of Langelei, I now have a period where I am readying myself for ministry in the Parish of Mill End and Heronsgate with West Hyde.

During that time, each day I will be praying for the 3 distinct communities ofg the parish using the collects for the patron saints of the churches: St. Peter, St John and St. Thomas Becket.

Peter has often been called the 'Prince of the Apostles' because of the words of Jesus re-naming him, from Simon to Cephas. This was the Aramaic form of the Greek word Peter, which means 'rock'. Jesus said that on this rock he would build his Church. Peter, after his proclamation of Jesus as Christ and Son of God, Peter spent the rest of his life and ministry witnessing to the Lordship of Christ. He was martyred in Rome in about the year 64.

So I pray for the people of Mill End:

Almighty God,
who inspired your apostle Saint Peter
to confess Jesus as Christ and Son of the Living God:
build up your Church upon this rock,
that in unity and peace it may proclaim one truth
and follow one Lord, your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen

Whether or not John the Apostle and John the Evangelist are the same person we will never know but the Church honours the one who proclaims Jesus as the Word made flesh and who is 'the disciple whom Jesus loved'. John was one of the sons of Zebedee, along with James and Peter, who followed Jesus. John was there at the Transfiguration of Jesus on the holy mountain; he was there with Jesus at the last supper; he was there with Jesus in his agony in the garden; he was there with Jesus and his mother, standing at the foot of the cross; he was there with Jesus as a witness of his resurrection and 'he saw and believed'. John was a witness to the Word, he proclaimed the Word and he lived and died witnessing to the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, who loved him and whom he loved.

And so I pray for the people of Heronsgate:

Merciful Lord,
cast your bright beams of light upon the Church:
that, being enlightened by the teaching
of your blessed apostle and evangelist Saint John,
we may so walk in the light of your truth
that we may at last attain to the light of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen

Thomas was born in London in 1118, of a family of merchants. After a good education he served as clerk to another burgess then entered the service of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury. Thomas proved himself an excellent administrator and skilled diplomat. In 1155 he was appointed chancellor by King Henry II. For several years king and chancellor worked harmoniously together in mutual admiration and personal friendship. As a result, the king nominated Thomas as Archbishop of Canterbury to succeed Theobald in 1161. From the start there was friction, with Thomas insisting on every privilege of the Church. The conflict worsened until 1164 when Thomas fled to France. Encouraged by the Pope he continued his arguements with the King from there, sending letters and pronouncing excommunications. Three efforts at mediation failed before an apparent reconciliation brought him back triumphant to Canterbury in 1170. But the nobility still opposed him, and words of anger at court led four knights to journey to Canterbury where they finally chased Thomas into the cathedral, and murdered him on the steps of the altar on this day in 1170. Thomas was undoubtedly a proud and stubborn man, for all his gifts, and his personal austerities as archbishop were probably an attempt at self- discipline after years of ostentatious luxury. His conflict with King Henry stemmed from their equal personal ambitions, exacerbated by the increasingly international claims of the papacy, played out in the inevitable tension between Church and State.

And so I pray for the people of West Hyde (Maple Cross):

Lord God,
who gave grace to your servant Thomas Becket
to put askide all earthly fear
and be faithful even to death:
grant that we, disregarding worldly esteem,
may fight all wrong,
uphold your rule,
and serve you to our life’s end;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen

Good News for the Bald...

2011-06-11T23:52:00.002+01:00

We are rightly skeptical of the ads in the backs of certain newspapers or magazines that offer wonder products - a miracle cure for baldness, an elixir that gives an incredible physique without the work at the gym, or a tonic that enables weight loss over night - or your money back! We are rightly skeptical of claims like these, because they seem unlikely, implausible or impossible - depending on how you view them.

Radical transformation is possible in the lives of balding, fat and ugly people like me but there is nothing that will cure any of the above ailments overnight sadly! Yet our celebrations today do centre on the reality of utter life-changing, radical transformation.

I have been musing and reflecting on the last 7 and a bit years as today approached and I remembered being invited to tea with the then Archdeacon about three weeks into post here. Sitting in her lounge with her best china she asked me, ‘What is your vision Simon?’ I replied that I wanted to do myself out of a job, at which she nearly spat out her tea, but I qualified what I said by saying that when I left Leverstock Green I wanted to leave behind a community that was thriving - pastoring and caring for itself, nurturing and deepening her faith and generally being the church. Today as I leave as your Vicar I see in you God’s radical transformation and the realization of that Divine vision.
God’s divine vision, revealed through the pages of the Scriptures, in the life of the church and the Sacraments she celebrates is a simple love song - I love you; I want to be with you; will you be with me? This vision was personalized by the coming of God in Jesus of Nazareth who emphasized his and God’s love - ‘love as I have loved you’ and ‘No-one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’

But he also made it clear that whilst this special relationship was hugely important, it wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus was going to leave them, but he would send the Spirit to enable them for the very thing he had prepared them for: to go out into the world and tell everyone the good news about what he had done for them. They were to carry on what Jesus had begun with them…. growing out from their personal and very special relationship with him was their mission to the whole world. So let’s look at the effects the Spirit did have as they began their task……

First of all the barriers of language were broken down. Strangers, foreigners, outsiders, a crowd of many different races and nationalities heard the disciples talking to them in their own language. And such was the conviction with which they spoke that many people trusted their good news and were baptized.

Secondly, their lives were changed. We read in Acts that the believers shared their belongings and made sure distribution was equal according to need. They met regularly to worship and eat. Every day, more people joined them and barriers of class and nationality were broken down.
And thirdly, as a result of the Pentecost experience they were filled with a new power and confidence. Suddenly, ordinary people found they could do extraordinary things, things they had never dreamed of.

But Pentecost is a never-ending story. It didn’t happen just once. It happens whenever and wherever people live empowered by the Spirit of Jesus. But if it’s not rooted in our own experience, then it is a flame that will soon die. If the Spirit of the living God has not burned a path down into the depth of our experience, then Pentecost still awaits us.

If Christmas is the festival of the Incarnation, and Easter is the festival of Resurrection, then Pentecost is the festival of liberation. Because Pentecost is about freedom. It is about the Holy Spirit setting people free. Not the kind of freedom that means no more responsibility or suffering, nor freedom from having to make decisions, but a freedom to live in the truth of the promise that we are loved eternally and unconditionally. It gives us a freedom to live the personal relationship with God. But the Spirit too, is free. It cannot be contained or possessed or locked up and it is free to move in the lives of those from whom we are divided or alienated, or those we have hurt or been unjust towards and those who have hurt or been unjust to us. We need Pentecost daily in our own lives and in the life of the world. The freedom of my own personal relationship has to overflow into a passion for the world. Jesus is my saviour because he is the saviour of the whole world and the Spirit has set me free, set us free to be part of God’s mission in that world: to spread the news, to teach others about God’s saving power, to tend the earth and treasure it, transforming it into God’s kingdom.

Back in the Book of Genesis the Spirit of God breathed life into dust and created a human being. Today we celebrate radical transformation, that that same Spirit of God breathed life into those first cowardly disciples and created in wind and fire new men who had the gift of bold speech. The same Holy Spirit of God breathed on us in our baptism, in our confirmation, and continues to breathe on us when we pray, when we read the scriptures or gather for worship in fact whenever and wherever she wills, calling us to follow Christ and make Him known.

As I walked home from the cashpoint last night, the sky almost refused to be night - filled with a dark glowing blueness. It hinted at the coming dawn in a few hours time. As I walked, the street lights, seemingly in great number, stood erect, their warm orange glow lighting the street as I walked, their light reflecting off signs and into windows. What the church celebrates today, we have been celebrating afresh together here in Leverstock Green over the last 7 years. We have seen the light of Christ dawning around and amongst us, even in the darkest of nights. We, in growing number, through us, the Holy Spirit sheds the warm light of Christ wherever we are, we sometimes unaware who will come into our paths. That light, the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, reflects onto and into the lives of others, not because of what we do or what we are, but because of who Christ is and what he does in loving God’s world.

The Spirit of God has no favourites and pulls no punches. Christ himself uses the Holy Spirit as a vehicle of Ministry and by breathing it over his disciples he further equips them for Ministry and Service, giving them authority, his authority over sin.

As this chapter of the story of God's church here closes and before you begin writing a one together with Him but without me and my family, we should therefore ponder for a moment what it is that Christ is calling us to for we should continue to reflect on Christ’s call in our lives:
Where he wants us to deepen our journey, our faith, our engagement
Where he calls us to action
Where he calls us to make a difference in the lives of others, bringing them hope and comfort and healing
Where he calls us to bring the Good News to all people
To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted and proclaim that (in the words of Christ himself) the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Amen

The Word as a Wordle for Easter 7

2011-06-01T09:46:00.000+01:00

Hi folks, even in the throes of moving Word as a Wordle continues!

Below is the wordle for this Sunday's Gospel reading from John 17:1-11. I was reminded in the midst of the complexity of what Jesus says, of the heart of the Good News...

What God gave on behalf of the world and what he has gave each one of us as a result...

The Word as a Wordle for Easter 6

2011-05-25T11:30:00.000+01:00

Hi folks, here's the wordle of this wek's Gospel reading from John 14.15-21 which you can read by clicking here.

I am really struck by Jesus' words '...This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. ‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live...'

Jesus is going away, but assures us of the presence of God in and with us - the Holy Spirit of God Himself. The power of God in creating is offered to us. That same power at work in an amongst us creating in us eternal (resurrection) life.

That same Creator Holy Spirit is not on offer to 'the world' to all and sundry who do not know God and His hopes and dreams for His creation, but to those who seek to orient their lives into the ways of God, guided by His grace.

Going, going, gone...

2011-05-21T21:02:00.000+01:00

In case you had missed this on other platforms, but I am selling my old vinyl records - a catalogues of some of my rather iff musical past - everything from this 12" with the wrong labels on the record, through to stuff by Dogs D'Amour and Ultravox...

There are some rarities and collectable things in there too.

Go on, have a browse here...

The Word as a Wordle for Easter 5

2011-05-21T19:58:00.001+01:00

Here is a wordle of tomorrow's Gospel reading from John 14:1-14. The reading isset in the context of a very real questioning about what Jesus was doing, talking about dying, when His ministry seems to be flourishing. Jesus speaks into the fear of His closest friends, He speaks peace into their troubled hearts.

Everything is up for grabs, 'Show us the Father' says Philip. Who is this Jesus after all? He behave and speaks and acts like God and then speaks of it ending not in triumph but disaster and death.

The wordle reminds me, that Jesus calls us to know the Father, but He does so in the middle of everything that makes our lives - in the middle of life's joys and tragedies. To fundamental questions about life and faith, Jesus comes back with words that echo the words of God to Moses at the burning bush when he reveals His every essesnce... I am...the way, the truth, the life. To know Jesus is to know God Himself.

We can know God in Jesus Christ, but how do we show Him and His heavenly father to the world? By listening to the questions that the world and her people are asking and not just speak of but act showing the love of God...

Listen to His voice - as a Wordle

2011-05-16T22:50:00.001+01:00

Here's Ben's sermon - Wordled! Thanks to David for this...

Sunday Podcast

2011-05-15T15:19:00.000+01:00

Here's Ben's sermon as an MP3 podcast - enjoy. A fine, fine preach...

Listen to His voice

2011-05-15T15:07:00.001+01:00

Here's the sermon preached by our budding ordinand Ben Masters, based on this morning's Gospel reading from John 10:1-10...

The other day I was working with a roofer, I mentioned that one of my customers was religious. “I hate religious people,” he said, “the other day I went to a funeral, and the vicar want on about shepherds, and sheep, such rubbish I never heard! Pete my friend, who has known me a little while piped up with a cheeky smile, “You know Ben is going to train to be priest!?” The look on the roofers face was priceless! It did set me thinking though, for the passage I had been given to preach on was about shepherds and sheep.

This morning’s gospel reading tries to get us to understand a little bit more of what Jesus is like. A poet will use simile and metaphor to convey a stronger and more definitive point, and so it is here with Jesus. In 1st Century Palestine a shepherd went before his sheep, leading them and calling them with his voice. The voice of the shepherd comes up a lot in this passage, the voice, not the words, not the nice collection of little phrases, the voice, for the voice connects the listener with the speaker. As we gather here today in church, listen for the voice of Jesus, quiet your hearts and minds, as we partake in the Eucharist, and in the singing of hymns and speak the words of the liturgy. The voice of Jesus speaks today, here and now. He speaks forgiveness and hope, He calls for repentance and trust, his voice comforts the downtrodden and weary. He speaks in the Eucharist, an outward sign of an invisible grace, where in laying down his life he brings abundant life. He speaks in the gospel reading, he speaks in the children’s laughter and he speaks in our pain. Listen for the voice of Jesus.

So we hear the voice of the good shepherd, a shepherd who leads his sheep to better pastures. The voice calls us to follow, to follow the shepherd who knows what is best for us, to follow him when the sun is shining down on us, when the rain is falling in torrents, when the stones hurt our feet, when we can’t see where we’re headed, and can’t remember the way we have been. We are to follow him when darkness enshrouds us, when we reach the mountain tops and the view takes our breath away, when success lands at our feet. We are to follow him. Follow in the dust of his shoes. Knowing that he laid down his life, that he has walked the path we have walked, he has felt our joys, our highs and our lows, he has wept with the mourning, laughed with those who were laughing, he worked as we work, he got splinters in his hands! This shepherd we follow laid down his life, died, went to the darkest depths, and rose to life on that Easter Sunday morning. The marvellous and wonderful thing about the call to follow is that it is for everyone, it is for the youngest to the oldest, it is for the weak and for the strong, it is for the happy, and for the sad, it is for the lovely and the not so lovely. The call of Christ is for everyone. I urge you now to consider this call, whether for the first time or for the thousandth time, the call of Christ is as relevant today as it ever will be. Follow the good shepherd.

As we follow, as we walk in the dust of his shoes, we begin to know our shepherd, “I know my own and my own know me” says Jesus in the gospel reading. In the building trade, and other professions one learns their craft by watching, being with, and emulating what the teacher is doing. The learner becomes apprentice to the teacher. As we listen to Jesus voice, follow on the path he leads we are apprentice to him, learning his ways. Things are a bit different as his physical presence is not with us, but as Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.” So we learn to follow Christ from those who have trodden the path a while longer than us, do you struggle knowing how to pray? Find someone who has got an idea. If you don’t know one end of the Bible from the other, get alongside someone who knows a little more, the path we walk is not one we walk alone, we walk it together. Each week, gathered together here and across the globe Christians gather together to celebrate, to worship, and to encounter the risen Jesus, there is something in this experience that also helps us to know more of the “good shepherd”.
I have spoken quite explicitly about our need to listen to the voice of Jesus, follow him, and know him. Yet, something greater, more exciting, more surprising perhaps is that the shepherd we follow, is the shepherd who “brings” his sheep not yet of his fold, to himself, he goes to find the one that is lost when the ninety nine remain. He longs to bring us from death into life, the one who made us, and fashioned us, and knows us, wants to bring us into his fold, into his kingdom where we can be who we were made to be. He meets us where we are, I heard it put like this once:

“I am the good shepherd,” says Jesus so that shepherds will understand,

“I am the true vine” so that gardeners will understand,

“I am the light of the world” so that electricians will understand,

“I am the way,” so that search and rescue teams understand,

“I am the truth” so that politicians will understand,

“I am the life” so that undertakers will understand,

“I am the alpha and omega, the first and the last” so that historians will understand,

“I am the bread of life” so that bakers will understand,

“I am the living water” so that plumbers will understand,

He is “the righteous one” so that lawyers will understand,

“The cornerstone” so that builders will understand, “I am“ says Jesus.

Izzy is going to be baptised this morning, baptism being another outward sign of an invisible grace, in that in baptism we die with Christ, and so we are raised to life in Christ. What has baptism, got to do with our gospel reading? Baptism is the start of the road, is the bringing into the fold, where the baptised begins their journey of faith and discovery, together with the church. It’s the start of our listening to the voice of Jesus, it is the start of our following Jesus, and the start of our knowing him more intimately.

It is quite apt that we had a reading from acts, where we hear of the early church, working out what a church is like, where as part of following Jesus, how this expresses itself in the community. This is as relevant to us here today as it was then. For we need to ask ourselves, not just individually, what does following Jesus look like in church? We have a great tradition that forms our expression of worship, but I am not just talking about the worship on Sundays, I am talking about church, on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, Thursday Friday, even Saturday. How do we live as a church community that expresses our faith, not just inwardly but in how we live, on a day to day basis?

As we come near to the close hear the words of Jesus, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” To hear the voice of Jesus, to heed his call, and to follow in his footsteps, beginning to know him is where we begin to live an abundant life, a life full of love, of grace, mercy and forgiveness. Let us pause for a moment to reflect - listen to the voice of Jesus follow him, and know him,

Blogging for the World

2011-05-14T20:06:00.000+01:00

This is a great piece from the Church Times Archive by Alan Wilson, the Bishop of Buckingham (his blog can be read here and you can follow him on Twitter here...)

~~~

Mrs Partington lived at Sidmouth on the seafront. The Revd Sydney Smith records her gallantry with a mop and pail during the great storm of 1813: “The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington’s spirit was up. But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal; the Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington.”

Confronted by a new wave of communications technologies, some Christians will reach for the mop and pail. Others will just keep calm and carry on. A few will go sailing, seeing the Atlantic as the way to a new world.

New media are the greatest quantum leap in communications since the invention of printing. Networked computers are now connecting and reconnecting people all over the world in radical new ways.

This is visibly changing the course of history. Time magazine’s most influential person of 2011 is Wael Ghonim, the 30-year-old Google executive who, over a few weeks, mobilised 12 million people to topple the Mubarak régime. He used Facebook, which, if it were a nation, would be the third largest in the world.

The world of social media is large and complex, but three kinds of site are driving the revolution.

Social-network websites such as Facebook connect people, enabling them to share information and stories. MySpace enables people without special technical knowledge to publish personal websites.

Resource-sharing sites such as YouTube publish videos produced anywhere from Hollywood studios to people’s phones; while Flickr and Picasa specialise in still images.

Blogs are websites for personal stories, writing, and comment. The world has roughly 6500 daily newspapers and 200,000 periodicals; 129 million book titles have ever been published. There are about 156 million active blogs in the world. A really successful religious paperback might just achieve sales of 20,000 copies. My blog, over three-and-a-half years, has received more than half a million hits.

Twitter is a “micro-blog” — a site for comments and links from other media in a tiny format of up to 140 characters, called Tweets. It publishes instant news, images, and thoughts. Some six-and-a-half million people followed the royal wedding on Twitter.

Social-media sites are engaging unprecedented numbers of people, but what is really revolutionary about them, along with the way they all interconnect, is that they give anyone who is connected an equal opportunity to participate.

The editor of the Manchester Guardian C. P. Scott wrote in 1921: “a newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly.” In the days of hot metal, you could say anything freely as long as you happened to own a press. Now anyone who is networked can publish anything from home.

The mushrooms are no longer in the dark, and they can talk back, with radical results. The key to using these media is to interact personally and to engage others in conversations, not to shout at them. New media are inherently anti-hierarchical — some bishops may not take kindly to a world where nobody cares who any of them are, in which they are only as good as their last job.

Christians are the Body of Christ, the Word made flesh. The Lord commissioned them to be good news. This involves communicating in any way we can. Churches with printing presses led the last revolution; so what are we going to do about this one? We could always do nothing, or perhaps sit it out on our spotty behinds, sullen and cautious, with occasional bouts of whining and nostalgia.

There are indeed dangers lurking out on the ocean. It contains so much information that getting what you need can be like trying to drink under a shower. Privacy is being redefined in terms that we don’t yet understand with confidence. Instant communication can stoke up firestorms of bad behaviour.

The fastest-growing take-up of Facebook has been among people over 55, mainly to get back in touch with former associates.

Every community needs a campfire around which it can gather to share stories, build relationships, and make decisions. There is an emer-ging trend among US voluntary associations, including churches, to do their internal communications, including contact with the housebound, through Facebook.

Twitter, meanwhile, is a good way to collect news, as well as snippets of personal expression, as all the world’s media outlets now use it as their primary broadcast medium for hot information.

Does triviality matter? Frankly, most human conversations are less weighty than the Gettysburg address. Quirky observations and chit-chat are the staple diet of all social gatherings, including Twitter and Facebook.

If you have more heavyweight observations to offer or stories to tell, start a blog. Almost all serious leaders in politics and commerce, along with a few of the clergy, are using blogs to communicate and develop vision, comment, and ideas.

In Social Media, authenticity is gold dust. Many people expected the internet to be dominated by anonym-ous or pseudonymous bigots, but in general this has not happened, and Facebook goes to great lengths to prevent this on its site.

The key to social media is to be yourself. Christians who believe in the Word made flesh should have faith to engage, as themselves, freely with others. There are one or two contexts, such as confession, which call for anonymity, but, in principle, people who refuse to take personal responsibility for their words almost always detract from their authenticity.

Any revolution contains many reasons to be anxious, but I feel optimistic about Christians’ using social media. We have a gospel to proclaim. If it is true, it should be able to stand up for itself in the open market. The New Testament contains good examples of Paul and others preaching in the streets, without the privilege of controlling the scene, and achieving great things.

Christians have much to say using social media because churches contain many ordinary people with engaging stories to tell. Now they have the means to do so personally and conveniently. The more they get out there and speak freely, the richer a view of Christianity the world will get, to replace the two-dimensional retro soap that Fleet Street makes of Church.

The earliest Christianity flourished on the open streets of a pluralistic world. The ocean is wide. The possibility of getting lost or drowned is always there, but this is a time for courage and ima-gination, not mop and pail.

Sunday Podcasts - yes 2!!!

2011-05-08T22:40:00.000+01:00

Here are not one, but two Sunday Podcasts with sermons from 1st May based on John 20.19-31 and this week's based on Luke 24.13-35. Click the bible references to reread the passages. Sit back, and enjoy!

From Jerusalem to Leverstock Green

2011-05-08T06:47:00.002+01:00

We spent Friday undertaking an unenviable task - sorting the loft. it is an unenviable task because when we arrived here we were 2 and a bit, and now we are 5 (6 if you count the dog!) and with a boarded loft this end and no boarded loft at the other, we needed to sort with a motto - if in doubt throw it out.

Sorting stuff was was a bittersweet experience - there were records, books, photos, keepsakes, mementos - there were things that brought back good memories, there were things that reminded me of people no longer with us, there were things that reminded me of how far I have journeyed on life since. The sorting made me look back and caused a number of different emotions to surface.

Then yesterday morning I was at Leverstock Green School celebrating the history of the life of the school in this community as part of the 200th anniversary celebrations of the National Society which was set up to promote religious education in this country. It was wonderful to go and see photos and records and stories of the school over different eras of it’s past and to celebrate the journey the school has been on over the years and the impact that the it has made on thousands of lives in this community.

In this morning’s Gospel reading we encounter two people, full of memories about the past, overflowing with emotion, contemplating the journey their lives had taken them on as they travel from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

This story deals in things we know and can grasp and understand - it happens on the way to Emmaus from Jerusalem - roughly equivalent if we were to walk from here to St Albans Abbey, about 6 miles. We are told one of the key players is a man called Cleopas. He’s not one of the 12 disciples, but might have been part of the very earliest of churches. And the other? One of us perhaps?

We know something that they don’t. As they walk the two travelers are joined by a stranger. THey fail to recognize him as the risen Jesus. Was that because it was so unlikely? So unexpected? Were they so wrapped up in their grief. But would we recognize him? Jesus promises to walk with us, to be with us wherever we go but do we recognize him?

Cleopas and the other disciple are asked by their traveling companion to explain why they are looking sad. Their hope is gone. So Cleopas explains about the things that had taken place. ‘We had hoped...’ said Cleopas. As he retells of Jesus alive, crucified, dead and buried, so they tell of crushed hopes and trodden down dreams with him and for themselves. Gone. But notice, as they unfold the top news story of the day, they describe Jesus as a great prophet, but fail to grasp something crucial - his divinity - He is the Son of God. They had missed something crucial.

By ourselves, through own intelligence, our philosophy, science, our own reasoning we discover much about our lives and the world, but all in all we cannot fully grasp God fully, really truly is using these alone. God is beyond us. We need him to reveal himself to us alongside us.

This weekend we have been celebrating the life of Leverstock Green school in the context of the wider bicentennial celebrations for the National Society. We have been celebrating and giving thanks for the life of a school that has walked alongside this community for over 160 years through tragedy and joy. What we celebrate this weekend is not the buildings, but the people who have walked alongside sometimes unseen, as fellow pupils of the school as well as staff and support staff. It is their presence, commitment and care that is remembered long after the buildings are forgotten because it is that which shapes us as people and has transformed our future.

The stranger walks alongside Cleopas an the other disciple and us and opens the scriptures to them. He reveals the big story of God’s love for creation contained in them, and reaching it’s fulfillment in and through his messiah, his chosen one. Even then they did not fully grasp why this was the most important walk of their lives.

Later, as they share a meal at which the stranger takes bread, gives thanks for it and blesses, breaks and shares it. Suddenly it dawned on them who the stranger is. It is their Master raised from the dead. Jesus himself had had walked alongside them and had revealed God’s promise of new hope and resurrection life to them, but not in the Temple, not in church, but in the ordinary things of life - a walk, a meal, a chat, a growing friendship...

This is such a contemporary story. We make our way through life accompanied by all sorts of people - family, friends, teachers, strangers. Some of the journeys are joyful some are tragic. Jesus comes alongside each of us on life’s journey. He doesn’t force his way into the conversations, but listens attentively to our stories and then asks us what we are saying and where we are going. Some of these journeys will encourage us to ask big questions about life and faith.

Jesus meets us this morning wherever we are on our journey. As we read the Bible he helps us understand the extent of God’s love for us as all. As we break bread and share wine Jesus transforms our hurts to hopes, our sorrow to joy, our death to his risen life. As we leave here he meets us again in the ordinary things in life - a walk, a chat, a meal a growing friendship. In all these Cleopas and the other disciple found themselves filled with faith. As we journey from school to college, to work, to family, to friends in all the ordinary things of life, walk alongside us O unexpected Jesus and share with us the things of God and fill us with faith and hope. Amen

Catholic Coke

2011-05-05T20:07:00.000+01:00

Loving this...

2011-05-05T20:05:00.000+01:00

JK Wedding Entrance Dance

2011-05-04T21:52:00.001+01:00

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I saw this video for the first time today as I am participating in the Diocese of St Albans' hosting of the Weddings Project. This was a real wedding in the USA.

We were challenged to think - whose church is this? It's not mine as priest. It's not the PCC's. It's Christ. We are all His guests.

So often the church's answer to couples is 'no' or a percieved 'no.' Christ says 'yes' to us. Shoulndn't we, as the church, say yes to loving couple's celebrations of their love?

I was deeply deeply moved by this and it made me really think

The Word as a Wordle - The Emmaus Road

2011-05-04T21:35:00.004+01:00

This Sunday's Gospel reading is one that I would take to a desert island if I could. It is the story of the encounter on the Emmaus road.

I remember it being taught passionately when I was doing my ordination training. The story is significant for in the encounter that these 2 have withe the Risen Christ, the scriptures are opened and they are interpretted by Christ and He demonstrates, He reveals how those scriptures point to Him.

Christ as the key to scripture. The whole of scripture. He unlocks the revealing of God's purposes that those stories reveal. It is Christ who lovingly demonstrates God's call to us - I love you. I want to be with you. WIll you be with Me? God's longing for us as a lover for His beloved is revealed again and again in history, but it is Christ who is not only that supreme demonstration of God's love, but also the means to grasping and experienceing it fo ourselves. He offers us 'zoe' - with-God-life...

Not only are the scriptures 'broken open' and the truth of God's love revealed, but bread is broken. It is in the context of a meal that this stranger on the raoad is revealed. The stranger took bread, blessed and broke it and shared it - the actions that the earliest churches will have recognised as Jesus' reinterpretation of the passover meal. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26,

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ ²⁵In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

~~~~

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

~~~

Having wordled the reading I am really struck by the way that the significant word that sticks out is 'things.' What things?
1. The arrest, trial and death of Jesus
2. The hope they had that God's Messiah was finally here in Jesus of Nazareth
3. The perceived failure of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth
4. The prophesied suffering of the Messiah
5. The passages of scripture, how the Bible itself as one long love story between God and humanity reaches it's climax in this man Jesus.

And these things are revealed in the normal stuff of life - in grief and tragedy, on a walk, in conversation, in a meal, and between friends and strangers.

The Bishop of London's sermon at THAT wedding

2011-04-29T18:00:00.000+01:00

Below is the sermon preached by Rt. Rev'd Richard Chatrres, The Lord Bishop of London, at the wedding of HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton this morning. Cracking stuff.

~~~

"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."

So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day this is. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.
Many are full of fear for the future of today's world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in the celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.
In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them to the future.
William and Catherine, you have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

In the Spirit of this generous God, husband and wife are to give themselves to one another.
Spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover that the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.

It is of course hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness. People can dream of such a thing but the hope will not be fulfilled without a solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love.

You have both made your decision today – "I will" – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.

We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely the power which has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the earth and for one another.

Marriage should transform, as husband and wife make one another their work of art. This transformation is possible as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must give the other space and freedom. Chaucer, the London poet, sums it up in a pithy phrase:

"Whan maistrie [mastery] comth, the God of Love anon,
Beteth his wynges, and farewell, he is gon."

As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive, and mutual forgiveness, to thrive.

As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This leads to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the next generation can practise and exchange those gifts which can overcome fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose fruits are love and joy and peace.

I pray that every one present and the many millions watching this ceremony and sharing in your joy today will do everything in their power to support and uphold you in your new life. I pray that God will bless you in the way of life you have chosen, a way which is expressed in the prayer that you have written together in preparation for this day:

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.
In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.
Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer.
We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Fake Origins of Easter

2011-04-28T09:28:00.001+01:00

H/t to The Church Mouse. Interesting blog post shared with thanks...

Before the Easter season has passed, Mouse wanted to quote a large part of a blog post from Catherine Meyer's About.com blog on alternative religions.

Every year Catherine gets annoyed by people quoting made up history about the origins of Easter.

Catherine explains:

"The historical record of Eostre is incredibly small: a single reference written by a Christian monk named Bede, writing after the supposed worship of Eostre has already vanished from England. he comments that the word Easter, in English, comes from Eostre, or perhaps from Eostremounth, the mouth in which Easter occurs.

That's it.

Bede doesn't know anyone who worships Eostre, and no worshiper of Eostre has left any records of her at all. There is no mention of a specific holiday for Eostre, and no mention of rabbits or eggs. Most of the claims equating Eostre and Easter, therefore, are entirely made up. The only potential connection is the word Easter and the name Eostre, an issue that only exists in English. In Romantic languages, the word for Easter is based on Pesach, the Hebrew word for Passover, which Jesus was celebrating at the time of his execution. And the Romantic language speakers have been celebrating Easter far longer than the English.

Stop repeating the fallacy. Please. And stop presuming world practices revolve around what went on in England."

Mouse agrees, and now you know. So next time someone tells you that Easter was originally a pagan festival called Oestre, you can set them straight.

Thomas - the greatest apostle of them all

2011-04-26T21:46:00.002+01:00

Victor Meldrew’s cry of “I don’t belieeeve it!” from the hugely popular tv series “One Foot in the Grave” struck a reassuring chord with many in this country, characturing perfectly the now infamous British reserve! People who loved the series found an ally in him, through his frustration with the modern world, it’s technology, and with life especially in retirement. His catch-phrase would most often get an airing when he was forced to face the things he disliked, distrusted, and doubted. It didn’t matter whether that was people or things that make the contemporary world much more immediate, perhaps even things that you and I take so much for granted, like the telephone. His quiet frustrations turn so quickly to ‘I don’t belieeeve it!’ exposing what he really felt.

It’s true though. W e don’t like to show others that we cannot cope with life. So often the life we show the outside world day to day with our work colleges, family and friends, is often one of calm in controlness. But from time to time we can have our feathers ruffled by the simplest things like a conversation with a friend, an article in the newspaper, or the video not working, and it’s then that we show that underneath we maybe struggling to make sense of our world with it’s changing patterns of family life, society, values, politics and dare I say faith.

Belief and uncertainty or doubt are the yin-yang, the polar opposites, of all of our lives at one point or another. Many who are desperate to believe to share religious faith, wrestle with doubt, question reality, and yet can’t bring themselves to put to one side something so dearly cherished. Many cannot live with faith and yet cannot live without it.

But is doubt a bad thing? Personally, I see doubt as not only healthy but essential to the Christian life. If more religious people doubted, perhaps the world would be a slightly saner place?

Even as I speak there is news of yet another Iraqi suicide bomber blowing himself up along with any fellow Iraqi or Coalition forces unfortunate enough to be within striking distance. I wonder how many suicide bombers would blow themselves up if they doubted the promises of a martyr’s paradise?

The opposite of doubt is certainty, and yet there can be no room for it in any religion. Give a man or woman certainty and there can be no room for faith, for faith is hope in what is not seen. We can live faith for it is open, endless and eternal. Does not ‘hope spring eternal’? Give certainty and we risk sowing the seeds of arrogance, bigotry, and fundamentalism.

Those with faith, I believe stand much more chance of living in harmony because they recognise within others a seeking after truth and a quest for answers to those illusive eternal questions; the truly faithful recognise that faith is but a tradition to build on and live by.

This Sunday's Gospel reading mentions Thomas - one of Jesus’ 12 disciples - encounter with the Risen Christ. Imagine the scene, he, like the other disciples, was suddenly thrown into fear and confusion after the man he knew to be God’s son and capable of the most amazing miracles who was set to re-establish Israel both politically and spiritually on the world stage - driving out the Roman occupiers of the land and restoring the eternal presence of God with His people - this man had been captured, arrested, and condemned to death on the cross. His mission, his vision all had gone wrong. The day after these terrible events, other disciples of Jesus come excitedly shouting about having seen him alive. For Thomas, all talk of Jesus his leader, Master, saviour and friend, rising from the dead was just cheap talk, a slap in the face, bittersweet words of comfort in the face of shocking grief. Could you blame him for doubting? I certainly can’t.

Thomas is also known as the greatest disciple. He later meets with the risen Jesus himself, seeing the scarred body with his own eyes and touching it with his own hands. There is no question, this is Jesus. Thomas who has withheld himself utterly from the hope Jesus offers, imprisoned by doubt, gives himself utterly, and finds himself freed and he utters the profoundest statement of faith - my Lord and my God, as in the risen Jesus Thomas recognised both. Thomas finds faith, through belief transformed by doubt.

There are many today who stand at the threshold of faith and say with Victor Meldrew and St. Thomas - I don’t believe it; who ask the profoundest questions; is it all true? Can we believe it? The Risen Jesus does not ask any of us to believe in him. If we begin to explore the depths of the Christian faith we are not suddenly asked to sign on the dotted line in blood assenting to believing everything about the faith - we are not asked by Jesus to verify or falsify what the Bible says as FACT. Neither though can we simply place what the Christian holds dear into the same category as belief in Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy, beautiful stories that enrich but do not change our lives. Jesus says to us as he said to Thomas and those first disciples ‘Come follow me!’ and that means you if you have lots of faith or little; with questions answered and thousands not. Faith is not about certainty or lack of doubt, but it is about hope and the future. Hope is what Thomas saw in the Risen Jesus - my Lord and my God - and it is what he offers us when we come to him in honest doubt today. So what about the Christian faith, can any of what we claim be true - I don’t believe it, but I have faith that it is.

Doubt/Faith

2011-04-26T16:25:00.001+01:00

Here's a Wordle of this Sunday's Gospel reading from John 20:19-31...

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.'

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Leverstock Green Resurrection

2011-04-24T06:27:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, a 6 year old girl was asked by her class teacher to write a letter with the following question “To God, How did you get invented?” Her father emailed the letter to various churches hoping for an answer, but got none. For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,
Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –
‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.
Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.
But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’
And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.
I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.
+Archbishop Rowan
That tells me much more about Archbishop Rowan’s faith, in words I can understand than any lecture or synod address. It also reveals the tender love of a man who is writing an answer to a complex question - revealing all that needs to be known.

The same Rowan Williams put it well when he says that when we celebrate Easter;“we are standing in the Middle of a second ‘Big Bang,’ a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the very beginning of the universe.”

What we are celebrating is on a level with the very beginning of time. And yet whilst both ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Resurrection’ are in many ways beyond the scopes of our imagination, together they do so much to define our understanding of the world. The former brings the world into being and the latter is through which a loving God renews all things in His love and transforms how we see the world and ourselves.

And yet both come without expectation. One of the strongest evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus is that his followers did not expect it. Their world had caved in. The hopes and dreams that had been theirs, now lay totally and absolutely devastated. Their world was shrouded in complete darkness. All that remained was to visit the tomb - those painful visits that we all make in times of loss.

In that darkness, Mary Magdelene and another Mary came to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. Matthew tells us of an earthquake and an angel sat in the tomb, with Roman guards outside frozen in a state of petrification. The angel tells the news that Jesus is risen and tells the women to let the disciples know for Jesus is heading for Galilee where it had all began. And then as the women who are by now a combination of joy and fear, hurry away to take the good news to the disciples, they are met by the Risen Christ. And they did not expect it.

Every year we tell these Gospel stories of the appearances of the Risen Christ and none of those closest to Christ expected the resurrection. Why? Because the Resurrection of Jesus was outside of their world vision. For the Resurrection of Jesus cannot but change how we see God, the world and
ourselves. Yes, like ‘Big Bang,’ it is a defining moment as it proves that all that Jesus said about God and himself must be true. I proves that death itself is defeated and it proves that what Jesus experienced is on offer to all of us! And yet so often we live like it resurrection is an every day event, or that it simply doesn’t matter.

I heard of someone who had a dream, and in the dream he dies and went to heaven, St Peter was there opening the gates to welcome him. As he is waiting to go in he noticed that some of his friends were there outside the gates unable to go in, some of them atheists, some of them buddhists, he said Peter what about my friends? St Peter said ah but you know the rules... So he thought, well what about my reference point - Jesus the outsider, Jesus the friend of tax collectors and sinners, Jesus the one who would always stay with those who were oppressed... And he said, you know what? I’ll just stay outside with them. St Peter breaking into a smile says - at last, at last you understand.

God so loved this world that he forsook heaven. That’s why Mother Thersea said, If I am ever to become a saint, I shall be a saint of darkness. For I shall not be found in heaven, but I shall be found outside as a light guiding the way.

Today we celebrate and event that took place some 2000 years ago that changed the universe forever. We beautify our church, we sing wonderful hymns. We go home with a warm fuzzy glow. And yet did it happen? How has it impacted our lives? How does it change the here and now on the streets of London, Libya or Afghanistan?

And is it true? Is it true? Is the resurrection of Jesus a tale to tell in child-like language? Is the resurrection of Jesus only a dream? No. friends. If the resurrection had not happened why did the Marys and Jesus’ other disciples go and spread the news that continues to challenge and change our world? If it had not happened how was it that thousands of people in the Bible are recorded as seeing, talking to and eating with him. If the resurrection had not happened, where is the body? The tomb? The ongoing evidence to the contrary? If the resurrection had not happened, why did the church begin and millions of our people today talk about having known the Risen Jesus for themselves today? If it is true then what Jesus said about himself and God’s love for us is true. If it happened, then what Jesus experiences in new risen life is on offer to us - today, now. Our universe is transformed and all rules and norms are challenged because of the extent of God’s love for us.

Friends we deny the reality of the resurrection every time we walk away from people who are poor. We deny the truth of the resurrection every time we participate in unjust practises and unjust systems. The resurrection of Jesus did not happen for us to his love for others entombed in our hearts with a stone rolled in front... But we affirm the truth of Jesus’ resurrection every time we stand up for those who are on their knees. We affirm Jesus’ resurrection every time we speak out for those who have been silenced, when weep for those people who have no more tears left to cry and who long for hope and life.

The risen Jesus sent the women back transformed to Gallilee where the story all begins, in the midst of normal life. The risen Jesus stands among us today us today. He sends us from here with news of love that will transform despair into hope, fear into love, darkness into light - expressed and lived in our lives here. Amen

A six-year-old girl writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

2011-04-22T19:46:00.001+01:00

This is lifted directly from Damien Thompson's religion blog in the Telegraph blog and I had to share it because it moved me to tears...

~~~~~~

There’s a charming article in today’s Times by Alex Renton, a non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school. Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?” The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father. He could have told Lulu that, in his opinion, there was no God; or he could have pretended that he was a believer. He chose to do neither, instead emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer). For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,
Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’
And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lors of love from me too.
+Archbishop Rowan

I think this letter reveals a lot about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sort of theology – more, indeed, than many of his lectures or agonised Synod addresses. I’d be interested to know whether readers of this blog think he did a good job of answering Lulu’s question.

But what the letter also tells us is that the Archbishop took the trouble to write a really thoughtful message – unmistakably his work and not that of a secretary – to a little girl. “Well done, Rowan!” was the reaction of Alex Renton’s mother, and I agree.

~~~~~~

Well done Rowan indeed! This letter reveals the profoundest of theologies expressed in the simplest of terms. It is written from the heart and from a father whose son will continue to ask the same profound questions that we all do from time to time...

What Do You Do? I love...

2011-04-21T17:17:00.000+01:00

I don’t really like those social events that you sometimes get invited to to where you have to do small talk. I always wonder where you go after ‘hello my name is Simon.’ One of the easy next questions is something like ‘How long have you lived here?’ or ‘What do you do?’ It’s a conversation starter, but we so often define people in those ways, and leave them at that most simplistic level - oh he’s an accountant, she’s a housewife, she works with kids and so on.

We do this in other ways too - we make assumptions about people all the time because of their height, weight, sexuality, gender, hair colour, and so on. Apparently though, we each have already made an assessment of someone and have weighed up their qualities as a person before they have even opened their mouth. We make thousands of subconcious judgements about each other because of our mannerisms and the way we look. It is something we have learned to do.

Today is a day of unlearning. Instead of defining people by what they do, Jesus encourages us to define people by what we do for them and what they do for us. Don’t define people by what you have already made up your mind they will be - an ex con, therefore they cannot be trusted - instead says Jesus, define them by what they are - fellow human beings, made in the image of God, precious to Him from all eternity and therefore loveable by you.
There seems to be a double focus to today - on the one hand the reading from 1 Corinthians designates today as the day Jesus celebrated Passover before he was betrayed, tried and crucified, and instituted what we recognise as the Eucharist. On the other hand our Gospel reading tonight does not emphasize the institution of the Eucharist. Instead Jesus emphasizes that his disciples need to continue to unlearn all of the social rules. Today is Maundy Thursday from the Latin mandatum, from Jesus’ words - a new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you... Jesus says eat bread and drink wine to remember his presence in our lives and in the world, but He also calls us to loving service of others and we are to do both in remembrance of Him. Both are essential to our following of Him.

The last few years of our life together here at Holy Trinity have been about unlearning a way of being church, unlearning what we thought being a disciple was about. We have rediscovered that we are each in charge of our destiny with Christ and what we must decide is - do we follow Him or not, do we listen to God or not, do we take seriously that we are loved by Him or not. We have have been unlearning that church is something that is done to us, where we dutifully and gratefully received from Him, and learning rather is is something we are as His body here. As we gather at His table for the family meal in the Eucharist, we do as His brothers and sisters. Here He is remembered, re-membered, not as a historical figure on the pages of history, but as we eat bread and drink wine, He is literally present here amongst us - in each other, expressed by the quality of our love.

But we fail as his disciples if our remembrance of Him is forgotten as we step away from His table or as we leave the church building. For tonight Jesus gives us a new commandment - yes, listen to what He teaches, yes love God and your neighbour and yourself, but that only has any worth if we are practically showing love to one another as Christ himself has loved us.

This is an abstract sort of comment for Jesus to make, so to show what he means Jesus takes off his outer robe, picks up a bowl and towel and begins to undertake the task of the lowliest of servants. ‘Remember me’ says Jesus, ‘by demonstrating the quality of your love practically to others.’

But Jesus, this night, is not interested in forming a heirachical community where everyone knows their place from the master of the house to the footwashing servant, where there are those who wash feet and those whose feet are washed, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ There is to be a mutuality in Jesus’ body where master and servant alike wash each others feet and love each other in turn.

In a world where we make snap judgements on each other’s character, on who are we are deep down in a blink of an eye, Jesus gives us His church, his body fed with his own body and refreshed into eternal life with His blood, a new commandment, a new way of being which calls us to give to others in acts of loving service, but also to receive love from them in the same way in return. It is a way of being which, when people try to catagorise us as a builder or a teacher, and they subconciously make all sorts of judgements about us but the thing they notice about us is not what we do, but what we do for others - our expression of God’s love for His world and our receipt of in turn.

We love as He loves every time we support a grieving family. We love as He loves every time we visit someone lonely. We love as He loves every time we play a part in encouraging people out of poverty at home or abroad. And we are able to love because he loved us first by touching the leper clean, by raising the dead, by socializing with tax collectors and sinners, by taking a towel and washing my and your feet and dying for us.

It is not possible to make sense of all that Jesus does today and what he will do in us from Sunday onwards, without acknowledging what he will do tomorrow. It is Christ’s willingness to accept the Cross that makes sense of this self-giving love which we are offered and are to offer in return.
Today Jesus gives His disciples a new command as we remember Him - unlearning our ways of judging others, and as we follow Him learning new ways in love. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh and through it we are all called into deeper relationship in God. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh that reaches out and through our actions and words, God makes new disciples. It is that sort of loving that reveals Christ afresh and through it, and our changed lives, that whole communities can be transformed as we each unlearn how to be simply human, and learn from Christ’s loving actions how to become children of God. Amen.

My Last Day (English)-- the Jesus Anime

2011-04-16T15:36:00.001+01:00

Klone - Give up the Rest (Video)

2011-04-14T12:12:00.001+01:00

Klone - Give up the rest (Live from Wolvehampton 10/4/11)

2011-04-14T12:06:00.002+01:00

King's X excellent support act...

King's X - What is This (Live from Wolverhampton 10/4/11)

2011-04-14T12:04:00.001+01:00

Maundy Thursday - Wordled

2011-04-14T10:56:00.008+01:00

John 13.1-17,31b-35

Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God,got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am.So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

The New Commandment

When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

~~~~~

Above is the reading set for Maundy Thursday and a Wordle of it too. Stand out words from the wordle are: wash, Jesus, God, one, also, know, Lord and especially feet.

Our feet are ususally covered these days by shoes and socks. There is still culturally a stigma about our feet. We don't like people touching them and in certain cultures to show the soles of them is the height of rudeness. Yet Jesus the servant Lord is the one who knows this and still washes them also because God made them.

I Deny the Resurrection

2011-04-12T10:49:00.000+01:00

I have just wept... Thanks to Simon Rundell for sharing this... Wow...

Sunday Podcast

2011-04-10T22:25:00.003+01:00

Here is my sermon from this morning based on Ezekiel 37:1-14 and John 11:1-42 set for today, Passion Sunday. The sermon is also by way of my Vicar's report for our AGM which happened today.

An announcment

2011-04-10T16:06:00.002+01:00

The following was read at our services this morning...

To be announced in all churches on Sunday 10 April 2011

We are pleased to announce that the Rev’d Simon Cutmore currently Team Vicar in the Benefice of Langelei has been appointed as Priest-in-Charge of The Benefice of Mill End and Heronsgate with West Hyde. This is subject to the completion of legal formalities and when those matters have been completed we will be able to announce the date of the Licensing.

Please remember Simon and his family in your prayers.

What Are You Passionate About - A Sermon for Passion Sunday and Vicar's report for the APCM

2011-04-10T06:56:00.003+01:00

On this Passion Sunday, I wonder - what are you passionate about? What is your vision? I have spent the last 6 months or so asking the clergy of Hemel this question as part of some work I am doing for Churches Together. The responses have been varied and inspiring and including: mission & evangelism, the transforming power of the Gospel & building community in various forms. I also asked the ministers to answer the same question as if their church members were answering. Again the answers have been interesting & not necessarily the same as the respective minister! They include: the quality of our worship and being community of disciples open to God.

This work has made me reflect though on how I might answer the question? I would answer in part with a quote - a blind person once asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing your eyesight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision."

The this year has been marked with me/us regaining our vision. I was privileged and thankful that the diocese & you gave me the opportunity to take Sabbatical leave the this year. During my time off, I spent time with churches that gather around the Eucharist that are growing - seeing what God is doing with them, & seeing if there are any common themes. I also read much about church growth and strategic planning under God. The time was a gift & I thank you for it. I returned with some renewed priorities and fresh vision. Since my return we have begun work on a big piece of work - our Mission Action Plan which is a direct outcome of my time away. My time off also helped think much about the importance of helping all of us grow in Christian faith and have seen some great opportunities for us each to do that & to that end I am delighted that we have now run an Alpha course. The feedback we have had from those who have been on the course is that it has developed new friends & deepened faith in God. This personal re-visioning for me personally has continued as I have attended some very worthwhile training events including a 3 day workshop on change management with 20 colleagues from the Eastern region’s dioceses, an Old Testament study day, & I am 1 of 30 30 clergy from the diocese selected to attend The Weddings project training.

The other big new responsibility that I have undertaken this year, is that I have become Vice Chair of Churches Together in Hemel Hempstead. I am committed to working with other Christians to see God’s Kingdom revealed. The fruit of that work has been a better working relationship with of churches, and a mutual support in ministry - several local churches helped with our Alpha course for example.

Much of this year’s work has been consolidating & building on God’s work in & for our growing church, much of it unseen by the church per se, but all of it enriching and revealing something of the love of God including supporting the key groups and their leaders with a quarterly round of house communions with each group for support and prayer in the context of worship, an increased level of personal pastoral work with a number of individuals in the community, a significant increase in ministry to the dying - I have prayed the Last Rites in the last 6 months more that I have in 11 years of ordained ministry. We have also seen the start a new group for men in the church which has been well supported.

In the last 12 months or so, I have become a member of our Diocesan synod and have and have continued my involvement with the Diocesan Board of Education, focussing on how we support our church schools best and most effectively.

Speaking of education, we have continued to strengthen our links with Leverstock Green school - I am leading worship there once a week and conducting 4 services in church for the school. As Chair of Governors I have a particular responsibility to ensure the school moves from strength to strength and to ensure that the Christian faith is experienced implicitly and explicitly in the life of the school. We are an Outstanding church school and are a leader in the Diocese in terms aspects of our life such as discerning the Christians values that underlie every aspect of the school (love, forgiveness and respect) & working to introduce a quiet space in each classroom for prayer and reflection. It has been particularly challenging year and the Head has required some particular support which it has been a privilege to offer & to give. Involvement with the school has provided the opportunity to walk alongside people in other ways through funerals and baptisms especially.

Talking of baptisms and so on, the number of occasional offices that I have officiated at this year has gone down - there were only 6 church weddings this least year for example and a similar number of funerals in church or the crematorium and baptisms. There are always peaks and troughs in these things. Things are already looking up on that front though with 13 booked for 2011 with a good number for 2012 already. We have also seen the sad deaths of some long standing church members in Sandy Walker, FLora Parr and Sara May. It has been a privilege to know and be known by them & together with them, to know the love of God.

Looking ahead over the next 12 months and beyond must be about, to borrow the living God’s Love headings, going deeper into God - there will be many opportunities for us to do this through bible study groups, our planned quiet day, and a planned Walk through the Bible event; making new disciples - we have a good number of adults expressing interest in being Confirmed in November this year and plans will be laid for another Alpha; and asking God to enable us to transform our communities - I hope for a full and imaginitive review of our childrenswork and plans being laid to provide for the needs of our growing church including the launching of a new service plus continuing to work in partnership with people as diverse as Leverstock Green school and the Leather Bottle pub. Another high will be the completing & acting on the God-given priorities identified in our Mission Action Plan. An exciting year indeed!

We heard in our readings today of a God who offer of new life in the face of death. This hope, says Jesus to Martha on their way to Lazasus’ tomb and to us, is not set at some fixed point in the future at the end of our lives, but the power of God breaks through in the now, subverting our expectations and surprising us with joy. The heart of this morning’s Gospel is not as such the raising of Lazarus but the intersection of three lives with that God in Jesus - and God’s power at work amongst them. At work amongst us today.

Jesus, on this Passion Sunday as we turn our faces with towards the cross, what are you passionate about? What is your vision? No mention of mission and evangelism or the transforming power of the Gospel or beautiful worship. His answer is revealed in the tears he cries at the starkness of the death of his friend Lazarus prefiguring his own death and ours; and in the vision of God to Eziekiel of the long dead warriors of Israel - that the hope, the love, the life of God is at work amongst ordinary people and for ordinary people like us, in tragedy and joy, and in both and in the intersection of our lives with Him, He offers both the power of God in resurrection and life in all it’s fullness. Amen.

Sunday Podcast

2011-04-05T21:57:00.002+01:00

Here is the sermon that I preached at 8am on Mothering Sunday...

The Word as a Wordle

2011-04-04T10:58:00.005+01:00

Here is a wordle of Sunday's Gospel reading from John 11:1-45 which is the story of the Raising of Lazarus:

'...Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

Jesus Weeps

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

The Plot to Kill Jesus

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him...'

The story is well known to us and full of emotion. It is a very human story. As I re-read it this morning I realised that the heart of the story is not just the resurrection of Lazarus, or even that as a prefiguring of Jesus' own resurrection.

The heart of the story is the interaction of Jesus and three other people - Martha, Mary and Lazarus - in the midst of life's ultimate tragedy, and the power of God at work amongst them...

The Refreshing love of our Motherly Father

2011-04-02T19:49:00.002+01:00

Some people are not sure if this is supposed to be mothering Sunday or Mother’s day. I prefer mothering Sunday because it gives more attention to activity of mothering rather than on particular group of people.

Mothering is more than just giving birth. Some say giving birth is the easy bit.
9 months of expectation followed by 24 hours of excitement and pain. These are just a drop n the ocean compared to the years of pain and frustration, which are about to come your way after the child is born!

For mothering is really about two things both of which have to be done with huge amounts of love. One is the protection of the child and the other is development of that child to maturity.

Our reading today Paul takes about putting on the right clothes. We all have spent ages dressing children why? There are two reasons. One practical and hygienic and the other social.

The practical reason is so they are protected and kept warm or cool. We also teach them how it is put on and that it’s clean. The other reason the social one is so they are acceptable to others and fit in.

But that is only part of our task we dress the to develop them. For we are also teaching them to do all that for them selves. Put the clothes on for themselves Put on the right things at the right time Put them on in the right way and make sure they are clean.

This does not just apply to clothes, this applies to every thing we do for children. What Paul says was meant for a church but it could equally to parents and children. Paul says the church must get rid of thing it wears that are unbecoming and put on things appropriate to the new family we have joined.

Once everyone was little better than a slum dweller living on a rubbish heap, as many do in the third world, now we are princes and princesses, living in the palace of king Jesus so we need to wear the new clothes he provides. For when we become Christians, we join a new family Father God’s family.

Now he could have said put on success, fame, and power but he does not, for what we wear effects what we are and what we do. Success, fame, and power are dangerous things and very few are string enough to have them and use them with out hurting themselves and others.

Remember Jesus is more concerned with the content of our characters that the scale of our achievements. That is how he thinks of us as his children. Now we want the best for our children, but so much of what we are told to do is about developing skills, abilities, and intelligence. Not about Character.

According to St Paul, the key values, the Christlike character we should dress our selves are: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, Bearing with each other and forgiving each other, forgiving as the Lord forgave us. And putting on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

The sort of forgiveness Jesus wants is a huge and wonderful thing and it starts long before anything goes wrong. It is the giving of complete forgiveness. And as far as God is concerned, everything is forgotten. Then and only than can there be true forgiveness and new life. But if you fail and know you have failed, and if then when you are truly sorry and you find forgiveness, then the liberation that is found is truly life changing. The child who knows all this will be more secure in themselves and their world, and more affirmed and content. They will be wiser than their years, and is more likely to become a mature and well-balanced adult.

And all this is best learned from all those who mother us if they understand it because they have been forgiven too. If you can teach and model true forgiveness to your child, it is probably one of the best things you can do. Any child who knows what it is to be forgiven and is able to forgive freely from its heart has an almost God like personality. The point is we are all children of God. Even Jesus calls himself our elder brother. It is he who goes before us and brings us to God. It is he and asks for us to be forgiven, and he does this even at those times when we do not want to be forgiven our sins yet. Now we know that when child disobeys us, say when they go out into the cold with out a coat. We know it can be dangerous for them and we are right to tell them off. But God commands us to dress properly at all times because of what it cost him to give us to us.

This is Mothering Sunday we should be praying to the father so we will all be better parents. And to say thank you for those who cared us so well. Let us also rediscover today how to teach our children to forgive. Let us do that by learning how to forgive ourselves. And finally let us get our forgiveness from God. We would never dress our children in rags. Our heaven father does not want us to dress in rags either.Let us put off the dress of this world and put on the royal robes of Jesus, which are freely and lovingly given to us. And let us walk in joy peace and freedom that is ours. And let us walk in love. The love that can only be found and shared, when we forgive because we know we are forgiven. Amen.

Wednesday's homily - Love is the fulfilling of the Law

2011-03-29T12:04:00.004+01:00

Here's a short (5 min) homily based on tomorrow morning's Gospel reading from Matthew 5:17-19:

‘...Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one lett not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven...'

I would really value some comments please!

~~~~~~~

Not many days go by when certain sections of the British press decry the erosion of our legal sovereignty, especially to the European courts. But history shows that the laws of our land have been far from static. Over time, the Law has been applied, reapplied and redefined in differing times, places and situations.

Laws are sometimes introduced to respond to situations that with hindsight might be considered to be heavy handed where, if you like, the letter of the law is very different from it’s spirit; a sort of legal knee jerk.

The Law of Moses of which Jesus speaks in this morning’s Gospel reading, has been a source of light and inspiration to us over the centuries. It is foundation of the British legal system after all, but it was given by God in a particular time and place, to mark out the distinctiveness of His nomadic people - no intermarriage, the dietry laws, no mixed fibres, the avoidance of foreign Gods - are all about an ancient very practical holiness.

It is very tempting to looks at some of the Old Testament laws and dismiss them as being out of date, not fit for 21st century Christian living, but Jesus reminds us this morning, that he came not to do that,
‘...Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished...’

These words of Jesus are part of his Sermon on the Mount, which begins with a topsy turvey vision of God’s kingdom values where the last are first in the Beatitudes, and includes some very practical if not sometimes shocking teaching about faithful and Godly living. What Jesus teaches here does not remove the Law because it has been deemed unfulfilable, rather he reinterprets and reinforces the Law with words like, ‘...You have heard it said and eye for and eye... but I say to you...

History has proved that some laws no longer have relevance (the requirement to practice archery after Sunday worship for example), but Jesus comes to his own time and ours this morning, and reminds us that He comes not to sweep the law away, but to complete it. He calls not for law breaking but for Law keeping. Just as in his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well that we heard about in Sunday’s gospel reading - where Jesus broke every religious and social law - when asked about the nature of right worship, Jesus said it was not so much about the right place as the intent of our hearts. Being faithful to God, says Jesus, is about the spirit not the letter.

How we live as God fearing people still matters says Jesus. He is not advocating a sort of spiritual equivalent of what happened on London’s streets on Saturday, nor is He seeking the continuation of an almost Lybian style tyrannical rule of spiritual law.

Being faithful to God is about walking with Jesus on the Emmaus road of life, listening to him open the scriptures and revealing afresh to us the love of God. He calls us to a very practical holiness when we allow our lives to be viewed through the lens of the Gospel to see whether out living is loving to others, to God and ourselves; whether our living is compassionate and seeks to forgive and be forgiven; whether we live lives as people who long to to heal and to reconcile.

God’s Law of love calls us individually and together to be reconciled to Him and each other. This isn’t just when we break the Law of Moses, but rather when we fail to grasp the call of the Gospel - when we put ourselves before others or place them on the edge of our concern.

In this holy seasons of Lent - as we look to go deeper into God, to make new disciples, and to see Him transform our communities, let us be like the first disciples of Jesus, seeking to be like their Rabbi, and follow in the dust of his shoes. We come to Jesus with questions about how to go deeper, how to make new disciples, how to transform communities. As we walk and as we prayerfully wrestle with these questions Jesus comes alongside us, listens to our questioning and refocuses our searching through the Gospel’s lens and says, “you have fulfilled the law” or you are on the Way. Amen.

Sunday Podcast 2

2011-03-27T20:56:00.003+01:00

Here is the sermon I preached this morning at 8am based on John 4.5-42.