Leadership

I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately.  I'm writing an essay on church discipline and its relevance in the 21st century church, and of course the leader of a church has a role in that.  There have been some interesting online debates recently about church discipline - if you're interested take a look at Matthew Paul Turner's blog.

But my thoughts on leadership have been much wider than just church discipline, and it seems I'm not the only one who is thinking a lot about 21st century church leadership lately (see Mike Friesen's blog here, here and here, for instance).

In my research for this essay I've found some great books, which I highly recommend: 

The Fourfold Leadership of Jesus, by Andrew Watson, an Anglican vicar;

7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership by Kate Coleman, a Baptist minister;

Post-Christendom:  Church and Mission in a Strange New World by Stuart Murray, an Anabaptist and overseer of Urban Expression, a pioneering urban church planting agency;

and Leadership:  a Critical Text by Simon Western, a Quaker, and the Director of Coaching at the Management School, Lancaster University.

At this point in my curacy (in my final year) I'm reflecting a lot on what kind of leader I want to be and what kind of leader God wants me to be.  I'm thinking about what kind of leadership style I'm inclined towards, and how I might need to push beyond my natural comfort zones to really go where God wants to take me in terms of leading a church as an incumbent.  It's quite exciting, really.  This is such an interesting time in Christianity in the west.  Interesting and very challenging. 

I quite like it that the books listed above, the ones I really got a lot out of, are written by people from four different traditions.  One thing I warmed to about all four books is their common emphasis on the need for collaboration and community.  The 21st century does not take well to domineering, heirarchical leadership, but a multi-voiced, sensitive, listening, serving and enabling kind of leadership is what many are calling for, with vision, attentive to the Spirit. Bring it on!

Epiphany

Readings:  Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

By now I’m sure all the decorations are put away, the thank-you notes have been written and the diets begun.  For many, the past week has meant returning to work, returning to school, returning to the usual routine.  Christmas is over, and there are only 351 days until it comes round again.  For some people, exciting things have happened this Christmas: an engagement, a wedding, or the birth of a baby; for others Christmas has been disastrous:  an illness, a job loss, or the death of a loved one.  For some people, Christmas has been just about shopping and parties.  However your Christmas was spent, it’s not uncommon afterwards to feel a bit low. 

Walking around Tesco the other day, I was struck by the change of mood amongst people – instead of the atmosphere of excitement and good will that I found before Christmas, people seemed grumpier and less friendly afterwards.  I wondered, when all is said and done, ‘what difference does Christmas make’.  From the evidence I gathered at Tesco, if Christmas changes people at all, the effect seems to be only temporary.  And maybe that’s not too surprising. After all, bad news doesn’t stop at Christmas.  Violence continues, in Nigeria, in Syria, in Iraq and even in this country.  Worldwide, the economy is still floundering.  Darkness seems to cover many places and people. Even those of us with faith are at times beset by darkness.  When we go through times of darkness what we need to do is persevere in seeking the light of Christ. We must find our own epiphanies, and we must seek in unexpected places:  among the poor and lowly, in the stranger; among the outcast, and in the suffering.  And we must expect and even desire to be changed.

After Jesus was born, Magi from the east ‘saw his star’ and followed it to Bethlehem.  Without any light pollution, the night sky must have been amazing, but the Magi had discovered an especially bright star, and they were convinced this was the sign that the king of the Jews had been born.  They were so sure of it they travelled afar from their Eastern homeland, bringing gifts fit for a king.  They found what they were searching for when the star stopped over the place where Jesus was, and they bowed down to worship him.     

There’s a thread running through our readings today, and it is this:  that God has intended his light to draw people together from far and wide, as his glory and his grace and his accessibility to all the nations is revealed through his Son.  The prophet Isaiah says ‘Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn’.  In Ephesians, Paul preaches to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, ‘to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery’, that through Christ all people may approach God with freedom and confidence.  And in Matthew, the Magi represent the foreign nations – Matthew is telling us that Jesus is for the whole world – the reign of Christ is without limit.  Jew and Gentile, wealthy and poor, oppressed and oppressor: Jesus, the Light of the World, came for all people.    That’s why we’re here worshipping together – and that’s why, in turn, we must welcome all.

When the Magi finished worshipping Jesus, and after being warned in a dream to stay clear of Herod, they returned to their country by another route.  I wonder what difference the epiphany made to the Magi.   I mean, when they returned home, do you think they went back to their ‘same old routine’?  No doubt they still had day-to-day responsibilities as we all do, but they must have been changed by their encounter with Jesus.  I wonder how they were changed by their epiphany; Matthew doesn’t tell us.  But then I wonder does Epiphany change us?  Just as it’s tempting to think ‘another Christmas is over and nothing has changed’, can it be true that as another epiphany comes and goes, it has changed nothing?  Surely life is nothing unless it involves change.  We may not like it, we may be afraid of it; but perhaps like the Magi, we, too, need to return ‘by another route’.  Consider these words from Gregory the Great, of the late 6^th century, who said, “having come to know Jesus we are forbidden to return by the way we came”.  And from the early 20^th century the Scottish protestant minister Oswald Chambers, who said, ‘Beware of spending too much time looking back at what you once were, when God wants you to become something you have never been’. 

For Christmas to have any meaning at all, we need to experience our own Epiphanies – we must respond to the light we see in Christ. Signs of assurance come when we step out in faith.  When the Magi found the Christ child they were assured it had been the right thing to do. When Lesley and Sue and I started the Lunch Club, we knew it was the right thing to do.  We were anxious about it, but we stepped out in faith.  And each time we meet with those who come to the lunch club, people usually shunned by society because of their mental health issues, the truth in God’s word is confirmed for us that by welcoming the stranger we’re welcoming Jesus among us –the fulfilment this brings is hard to put into words, but we are certain that it’s right and it’s worthwhile and it’s Kingdom stuff.  Following the light of Christ leads us into God’s mission in the world. 

So if, like me, you found yourself a bit deflated after all the hype of Christmas, wondering what difference Christmas makes, the solution can only be to remember to focus on the light of Christ, and expect to find it in unexpected places, even in the darkness of this world.  When we keep our eyes focussed on Jesus and his light, with thankfulness for all that we’ve been given, then everything is changed:  the ordinary and the routine; our pain and our joy – all of life is changed by our faith in Christ, who is the light of our hope in the midst of darkness.  Setting off from a faraway place, the Magi didn’t know what to expect, but no doubt their encounter with Jesus changed them.  And when we encounter Jesus, we are changed – to walk a different and sometimes uncomfortable path – and really, we have to accept this:  we cannot go back the way that we came – we must find another route.

Outcomes of Giving

Recently I attended a helpful training session for curates about "Christian Giving".  It was well led by John Preston who is the National Stewardship Officer of the Church of England. One of the many motivational things Preston spoke about was the importance of communicating to the parish the bigger picture of what their giving achieves.  So rather than simply saying "we need everyone to give more because we need to pay our bills", Preston urged us to consider emphasising the outcomes of the activities that our giving supports. 

I decided to compile a list of our parish activities and then try to describe the outcomes of those activities.  It's rather long and may not make for enthralling reading but I thought it was beneficial to engage in this exercise, and I recommend it to others.   Here are the results of my efforts:

Activity: Sunday and mid-week worship with a variety of styles and times offered

Outcome:  Provides a place and a space to worship publically with fellow believers; facilitates the opportunity to grow in faith alongside others through word and sacrament.  Offering worship is one of our primary callings as people of faith.  

Activity: Choirs and music group

Outcome: Provides support for and leads the congregations in worship through hymns, choruses and carols. Musical ambassadors for the parish in the community and in churches and cathedrals around England. Provides an opportunity for young people and adults to use their musical talents and gifts in the service of others.

Activity: Parish Newsletter (delivered house-to-house)

Outcome: Promotes church activities and seasonal festivities to the community, reminding people that their parish church is here and available and active.

Activity: Magazine & Sunday notice sheet

Outcome: Keeps parishioners, whether church attendees or not, updated as to the current goings-on; facilitates communication and promotes a sense of belonging.

Activity: T4U & Care Link trips

Outcome: Welcoming elderly (and not-so-elderly) people for fellowship, speakers and outings. Promotes a sense of community. Holy Communion prior to T4U meets the needs of those who cannot get to church easily on Sundays.

Activity: Lunch club for those with mental health disabilities

Outcome: Providing a welcome and hospitality for people who are often marginalised in society. A simple meal and friendly conversation is a blessing to those who give, as well as to those who receive.

Activity: Care Home Friendship group

Outcome: Befriending residents and staff of the care home as a way of fostering relationships in the community through mission.

Activity: Wirral Foodbank involvement

Outcome: Provides emergency food to those who have fallen on hard times.  We’re continuing to donate food helping to get the Wirral Foodbank up and running, and looking into collaboration with other churches to provide a distribution centre for needy people in our community.

Activity: Pathways involvement

Outcome: Working ecumenically, this facilitates a listening space for people affected by crisis pregnancy and/or abortion, as a demonstration of God’s unconditional love. We also occasionally provide a prayer meeting space for Pathways and its supporters. Involvement includes prayer, financial support, volunteering as a greeter, as a counsellor, or being on the steering committee.

Activity: Sea Cadets and RNLI involvement

Outcome: Provision of chaplaincy support by the curate and vicar to the Sea Cadets and the RNLI, respectively. Hosting the annual RNLI service in our church.

Activity:  Carers & Tots

Outcome:  Provides a fun and safe place for toddlers and their carers, as well as giving the Christian leaders and helpers the opportunity to demonstrate Christian welcome, love and care in church.  Participants often feed into various other activities that happen in church, like the Christmas tree service.

Activity:  Uniformed Organisations

Outcome:  Provides a place for children’s participation in Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, with monthly parade services for Christian worship, teaching and prayer.  Several leaders are church members. 

Activity:  AA meetings

Outcome:  Providing a place for people to meet and support one another in recovery from alcoholism. 

Activity:  Keep Fit, Zumba, Kung Fu, Karate, Badminton

Outcome:  Providing a place for people in the community to take up healthy activities; promotes physical health and well-being. 

Activity:  Saturday drop-in coffee
Outcome:  Provides a welcome and hospitality to the community.

Activity:  Charitable Giving - over 10% of parish income goes to support various charities.

Outcome:   Over the past year we’ve given over £11,000 of parish income to various charitable causes, providing medical assistance to the poor and the sick, care for the homeless and the destitute, support for the oppressed and those affected by natural disasters worldwide. 

Overcoming Discouragement

So I've received a bit of criticism as-of-late, my training incumbent tells me.  It comes from someone who apparently doesn't like women priests.  A bit of character assassination. OK.  It's all part of the training, in my view.  I have to learn to deal with criticism.  At least if it's just that they don't like women priests, I don't have to take it personally (Lol).  Pray for those who persecute you (I tell myself).  It just seems so sad and ridiculous, and such a waste of energy to be so wrapped up in the male priest/female priest thing when there is so much else to do.  I debated whether to blog about this, but actually it's an important thing to say about my curacy experience, that some people disagree with my being in this position.  But not only has the national Church called me to this vocation, God has called me to this vocation.  I'm certain of that.  Here's some of Psalm 118, which seems particularly helpful at the moment:

Psalm 118

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

  his love endures forever.

In my anguish I cried to the LORD,
  and he answered by setting me free.
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
  What can man do to me?
The LORD is with me; he is my helper.
   I will look in triumph on my enemies.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD
   than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
   than to trust in princes.

All the nations surrounded me,
   but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
They surrounded me on every side,
   but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
They swarmed around me like bees,
   but they died out as quickly as burning thorns;
   in the name of the LORD I cut them off.

I was pushed back and about to fall,
   but the LORD helped me.
The LORD is my strength and my song;
   he has become my salvation.

Open for me the gates of righteousness;
   I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD
   through which the righteous may enter.
I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
   you have become my salvation.

The stone the builders rejected
   has become the capstone;
the LORD has done this,
   and it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day the LORD has made;
   let us rejoice and be glad in it.

O LORD, save us;
   O LORD, grant us success.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
   From the house of the LORD we bless you.
The LORD is God,
   and he has made his light shine upon us.
  With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
   up to the horns of the altar.

You are my God, and I will give you thanks;
   you are my God, and I will exalt you.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
   his love endures forever.

Break

Sky, Bear & Vik in Chester

Last week I was on holiday because my sister from Florida came to visit us with her husband and their 14-year-old daughter.  They had never been to the UK before, so it was quite an adventure.  We had so much fun together, going to London for three days, and to North Wales (Caernarfon) and Chester and Liverpool.  The weather cooperated with us, apart from the last day in Liverpool.  London was fantastic.  We stayed in Ealing and took the Tube into the city each day.  We were able to catch Evensong at Westminster Abbey one evening, which was special as my sister and her family belong to the Episcopal Church in the US.  Caernarfon was interesting - the public toilets there have bins on the wall of each loo for 'used needles'.  I've never seen that before.  The castle was amazing as ever, and the Black Boy Inn for supper was an experience not to forget.  In Chester we went to the zoo, which was more fun this time than I've experienced before because it was virtually empty of people and the animals were all out and lively! 

It was a great break - it did me the world of good, even though I did have to do a little bit of work while they were here... I conducted my first wedding, in fact!  And I attended a book group meeting at the bishop's house.  But about the wedding... I was fairly nervous, first one and all, but it went really well and I enjoyed it (I hope the couple did, too!).  Looking forward to the next one.

Now its Advent, things are very busy, Christmas and the new year is on the horizon, full of mystery and promise.

Give me oil in my lamp

Matthew 25:1-13

I heard someone recently compare Christianity to a Cornish pasty...  there’s definitely something in it, but sometimes it’s difficult to find out what it is – and sometimes you bite down on a hard bit of gristle.  This is kind of like our parable this morning with the virgins and the lamps and the oil (or lack thereof).  There’s definitely something to it, but there are some hard bits, too.

So let’s dig in.  A good place to start is with the context of our passage - where does it fall in the gospel of Matthew.  Going back to chapter 24, Jesus begins by talking about the destruction of the Temple, but the conversation swiftly moves on to some pretty heavy stuff about the End Times.  Matthew’s target audience was mostly Jewish, and he wrote his gospel sometime around the year 90.  By that time, the Temple had indeed been destroyed; the church was growing, including Gentiles; and persecution was common.  The church believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent – and that it would be sudden and unexpected, like a flood or a thief in the night.  In chapters 24 & 25, Jesus uses parables to warn about the need to be ready – to be prepared for ‘the moment’; a crisis would come sooner or later, so make preparations now, and keep them in good shape in the meantime, or you’ll be sorry. 

These are ‘hard’ teachings – I like to think of them as the gristle in the gospel - those difficult teachings of Jesus that don’t seem to fit in with the ‘soft Jesus’ that perhaps many of us prefer.  We’d just rather there was no ‘judgment’ side to God.  But here’s a question:  if there were no judgment, would we still take God seriously? 

So what do we see in our parable.  The setting is at the ‘end time’, and the main characters are 10 virgins (in some bible translations they’re called ‘bridesmaids’).  At the outset, all 10 of these young women are alike:  all pure, all innocent …and all apparently sleepy!  But we’re told there is a difference between them:  five of them are foolish and the other five are wise.  That tells us this story has its roots in the Jewish tradition of contrasting wisdom with folly (there’s a lot of that in Proverbs, in Ecclesiastes, in other parables from Jesus and in some of Paul’s letters, too).  So, five of the virgins bring their lamps but neglect to bring any oil.  The other five do bring oil along with their lamps.  It’s fairly obvious that wisdom in this case means being ready with enough oil for the lamp, and folly means not thinking about it until it’s too late.  The bridegroom eventually comes, but the only ones who could go with him into the wedding banquet were the ones who were ready.

But hang on a minute - if Jesus is about sharing, wouldn’t it have been nicer for the five ladies who had oil to share it with the others?  

The five who had oil wouldn’t share because they were worried there wouldn’t ‘be enough’ for them all if they did share.  …Sounds a little like our current examples of corporate greed, doesn’t it!  But here’s the thing:  this parable’s not about sharing, because the ‘oil’ in this parable isn’t something that can be shared. 

I want to talk about the meaning of the oil, but first let’s think for a moment about our faith.  Although we share the road with others, our faith journey, in the end, is full of individual choices and decisions along the way:  we’re free to love God, or not; we’re free to love our neighbour as ourself, or not.  And no one can make anyone else pray.  These things are individual choices and practices – they’re attitudes stemming from a personal love for, and relationship with, God.  We can’t buy it, and we can’t share it with others.

So back to our parable, and to the oil.  Now, some people think the oil doesn’t symbolize anything in particular, and that all we need take from this parable is that we must be prepared at all times for the Second Coming.  And that may be true.  But I think it’s helpful to try and imagine what the oil (or a lack of it) might mean.  Because whatever it is, in this parable it’s essential, and at the crucial moment, it can’t be shared out …and money can’t buy it.

Some people might be inclined to think of the oil as good deeds:  have I done enough good to be accepted into the wedding banquet in God’s kingdom?  Others might think that the oil is related to the amount of faith we have – have we got enough faith to get us in to the banquet?  Could we give away some of our faith to others if they needed it?  I’m sure we would if we could.

How about Spirit?  The New Testament has a lot to say about being ‘filled’ with the Spirit – perhaps the oil could be a metaphor for being filled with the Spirit.  I’m reading a book at the moment called The Wisdom Jesus in which the author picks up on a spiritual meaning for the oil in this parable; that these hard teachings of Jesus are not about outward actions, but about inner transformation. She says “the reason the five virgins who have oil can’t give it to the five who don’t is that the oil symbolizes something that has to be individually created in you through your own conscious striving.  Nobody can give it to you; nobody can take it away from you”.  “The oil stands for the quality of your transformed consciousness” – it’s not a feeling, it’s a spiritual substance, impossible to gain by donation from somebody else.

Now, I realize that some people aren’t comfortable dwelling on the spiritual dimension of our faith; while others seem to prefer to focus solely on the spiritual, to the exclusion of the practical! – But we shouldn’t be quick to separate the two.  Our practical actions, when we perform them as a response to the love of God that we’ve recognized in Christ through his Spirit, will always be accompanied by a certain substance – I like to think of it as an attitude; if our actions as Christians aren’t based on a spiritual attitude, then we probably need to check our motives. 

Metaphorically speaking, when we’re at the door of the wedding banquet, Jesus will recognize us by our oil – our spiritual attitude; this is the oil for the lamp that gives out light, and it comes from a personal relationship with Jesus.  That’s what it means to ‘know’ the Lord.  That’s what brings peace and assurance.  It’s easy enough to fill our life with ‘good deeds’.  But let’s remember ‘the gristle in the gospel’ - there’s more to being Christian than just being quite nice – we have to work at our spiritual connection with our Lord and Saviour.  So next time you eat a Cornish Pasty and you bite down on a bit of gristle, may you remember the gristle of the Gospel, and this little parable about the need for oil to put in your lamp.  Being a Christian is not just about doing good deeds; it’s about being attentive to our spiritual relationship with God.  It’s an attitude.  Amen.

Sermon for All Souls

Isaiah 25:6-9
Revelation 22:1-6, 16-17
The other day my daughter said that she doesn’t think prayer works, because if prayer worked, people wouldn’t die.  It’s pretty hard to come back with a quick and satisfying response to that statement, suitable for a 15-year-old’s understanding.  Prayers for healing do work, sometimes in very mysterious ways, but still it is only temporary.  Death is part of life; we cannot deny the fact that death is inevitable. 
 
In the first scripture reading we heard this evening from Isaiah chapter 25, the poet-prophet imagines the earth having over it a shroud or sheet – a covering of death, weighed down by sadness, loss and mourning.  The world is held in the grip of death and has no power to shake it off.  But now, the poet prophesies, the Lord of life will bring an end to this crisis, the active power of death that crowds in on every chance for life.  The death of which this poet speaks is more than just the fact that we are all going to die.  Death encompasses every force that works against wholeness.  Death is all that diminishes well-being and prevents a right relationship with other people and with God.  That’s who death is, and we cannot by ourselves resist this culture of death.  But now the good news from the prophet-poet:  God will swallow death like a great sea monster attacking a smaller fish.  God will attack death in all its forms and crush it and eliminate it: ‘He will swallow up death forever’.  And then, verse 8 tells us, the Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.  This image is a comfort and expectation for the faithful.  We read of this promise again in the book of Revelation, written some 700 years after Isaiah, where it says:  “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away”. 

Both of the passages we’ve heard tonight from Isaiah and from Revelation 22 speak of a radical, complete transformation of reality as we now know it.  In Isaiah, God’s act of transformation includes removing “disgrace” from God’s people – the disgrace of being helpless, powerless, and exploited; the shame of not being able to resist the powers of death; the humiliation that we are ultimately inadequate.  Now all of that will be overcome, prophesies Isaiah.  What is old and spent will yield to God’s newness.  The old city of abuse is radically displaced by the new city ‘on this mountain’.  To move from the one city to the other is to move from the shrouded, sheeted desert of death to the abundant banquet of life. There is affirmation, too, from Jesus, of this very vision of God’s generous provision of hospitality, as he tells the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22, and also as he comforts his disciples in John 14, when he says, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms; I am going there to prepare a place for you”.  These are promises on which the Christian hope rests.

The book of Revelation is partly a reminder to the Church that things are not as they should be in this world, but also a sign that things won’t continue this way forever.  There will be a fulfilment of the divine promise given in the Old and New Testaments, in which the separation between heaven and earth and God and humanity are overcome when God presence dwells with men and women in a transformed world. 

Revelation presents to us a vision, where we’re asked to suspend our judgment and submit ourselves to be informed by the shock of what is unusual, for the sake of a better understanding of reality.  Revelation poses some problems of language and symbolism – it doesn’t offer a view of things in any kind of literal way.  But we prefer things that are down-to-earth. We want to see things ‘as they really are’.  We like people to call a spade a spade and to be practical rather than airy-fairy about things. The accuracy of a photograph or a video – what we see or hear on the news - now, that’s reliable.  But is it really?  Can we capture reality by sight or hearing alone?  What we perceive as real may be far from the whole story.  Artists and poets have long recognised that photographs or prose can never do justice to the full dimension of human experience.  We must read Revelation as if we were reading poetry or looking at a painting.  Provided that we don’t demand a ‘photographic’ quality, we can find in Revelation the most ‘realistic’ insight and understanding of our relationships and the longing of our impoverished world. 

Revelation as a whole offers an account that resolves the contrast between heaven and earth, and good and evil, in the dwelling of God with men and women in a heaven on earth – what the bible calls ‘the New Jerusalem’.  And the event that brings about this resolution is that which lies at the centre of the Christian faith - the confession that the crucified Jesus is raised from the dead.  Resurrection from the dead transforms that which was destined to death into the shared life of a renewed world.  The vision in Revelation helps us to see the contrast between earth and heaven disappearing in the new creation, when God’s dwelling is no longer somewhere above us in heaven, but right here on earth. 

Heaven on earth is the fulfilment of God’s purposes, where God is immediate and manifest – very much as God was in the Paradise described in Genesis 3.  All the inhabitants of the new creation are God’s children and are identified with God’s character and enjoy the divine presence unmediated.  And as Paul reminds us in 2 Cor. 5, that new creation isn’t just something to look forward to, because already in Christ there is the possibility in the power of God’s Spirit of bringing about that new creation in individual lives and in communities. In Revelation the vision is of a city – it’s communal rather than individual. From first to last, biblical practice and hope is centred on the healing of relationships, between humanity and God and with one another.  In contrast to the destruction of nature and humanity in the middle chapters of Revelation, we now have the water of life and the fruit-bearing tree of life, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 

Placed as it is at the end of the Christian bible, Revelation offers to us the key to understanding the whole story, as it points to the fulfilment of God’s purposes for justice and reconciliation.  But looking forward in hope doesn’t mean we never look back, for remembering makes us present to life as it really is - there can be no healing unless we are present to the wound.  Remembrance is at the heart of healing and restoration.  There is transformational power in remembering, for only by remembering our loss and our grief are we able to embrace the journey into new beginnings.  Renewal is a work of remembrance... it is life out of death.  What is broken is reconnected. 

In the Church, as a fellowship of blessed mourners, we somehow experience peace.  At the Lord’s Table, we experience comfort and healing, as we believe in the communion of saints – those who are with us together with those who have died.  And our hope lies in Christ, in his Resurrection and in his promise to remember us in his Kingdom.  As we remember his story, we hope and pray that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it already is in heaven.  And until then, may our thoughts, words and deeds reflect that time when sorrow and sighing will flee away, and each person will be recognised as equally stamped with the name of our God; and then we shall see God face to face.