Karen's Curacy Café

Epiphany

2012-01-07T20:24:00.000Z

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

By now I’m sure all thedecorations are put away, the thank-you notes have been written and the dietsbegun. For many, the past week has meantreturning 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 happenedthis Christmas: an engagement, a wedding, or the birth of a baby; for others Christmashas been disastrous: an illness, a jobloss, or the death of a loved one. Forsome people, Christmas has been just about shopping and parties. However your Christmas was spent, it’s notuncommon afterwards to feel a bit low.

Walking around Tesco theother day, I was struck by the change of mood amongst people – instead of theatmosphere of excitement and good will that I found before Christmas, people seemed grumpier and less friendlyafterwards. I wondered, when all is saidand done, ‘what difference does Christmas make’. From the evidence I gathered at Tesco, ifChristmas changes people at all, theeffect seems to be only temporary. Andmaybe that’s not too surprising. After all, bad news doesn’t stop atChristmas. Violence continues, inNigeria, in Syria, in Iraq and even in this country. Worldwide, the economy is still floundering. Darkness seems to cover many places andpeople. Even those of us with faith are at times beset by darkness. When we go through times of darkness what weneed 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 thesuffering. And we must expect and even desireto be changed.

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

There’s a thread runningthrough our readings today, and it is this: that God has intended his light todraw 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 yourlight, and kings to the brightness of your dawn’. InEphesians, Paul preaches to theGentiles the boundless riches ofChrist, ‘to make plain to everyonethe administration of this mystery’, that through Christ all people may approach God with freedom and confidence. And inMatthew, the Magi represent the foreign nations – Matthew is telling usthat Jesus is for the whole world –the reign of Christ is without limit. Jew and Gentile, wealthy and poor, oppressedand oppressor: Jesus, the Light of the World, came for all people. That’s whywe’re here worshipping together – and that’s why, in turn, we must welcome all.

When the Magi finishedworshipping Jesus, and after being warned in a dream to stay clear of Herod,they returned to their country by anotherroute. I wonder what difference the epiphany made to the Magi. I mean, when they returned home, do youthink they went back to their ‘same old routine’? No doubt they still had day-to-dayresponsibilities as we all do, but theymust 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 ‘anotherChristmas is over and nothing has changed’, can it be true that as another epiphany comes and goes, it has changednothing? Surely life is nothing unlessit involves change. We may not likeit, we may be afraid of it; but perhaps likethe 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 wecame”. And from the early 20^thcentury the Scottish protestant minister Oswald Chambers, who said, ‘Beware ofspending too much time looking back atwhat you once were, when God wants you to become something you havenever been’.

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

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

Outcomes of Giving

2011-12-09T08:59:00.001Z

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 toddlersand their carers, as well as giving the Christian leaders and helpers theopportunity to demonstrate Christian welcome, love and care in church. Participants often feed into various otheractivities that happen in church, like the Christmas tree service.

Activity: Uniformed Organisations

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

Activity: AA meetings

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

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

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

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

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

Outcome: Over the pastyear 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

2011-12-08T23:39:00.001Z

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

2011-12-02T22:11:00.001Z

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

2011-11-06T08:11:00.001Z

Matthew 25:1-13

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

So let’s dig in. A goodplace to start is with the contextof our passage - where does it fall in the gospel of Matthew. Going back to chapter 24, Jesus begins by talkingabout the destruction of the Temple, but the conversation swiftly moves on tosome pretty heavy stuff about the End Times. Matthew’s target audience was mostly Jewish, and he wrote his gospelsometime around the year 90. By that time, the Temple had indeed beendestroyed; the church was growing, including Gentiles; and persecution wascommon. The church believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent – andthat 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 beready – to be prepared for ‘themoment’; a crisis would come sooner or later, so make preparations now, andkeep them in good shape in the meantime, oryou’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 seemto fit in with the ‘soft Jesus’ that perhaps many of us prefer. We’d just ratherthere was no ‘judgment’ side to God. Buthere’s a question: if there were nojudgment, 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 arealike: all pure, all innocent …andall apparently sleepy! But we’re told there is a difference betweenthem: five of them are foolish and the other five are wise. That tells us this story has its roots in the Jewish tradition ofcontrasting wisdom with folly (there’s a lot of that in Proverbs, inEcclesiastes, in other parables from Jesus and in some of Paul’s letters, too). So, five of the virgins bring their lamps butneglect 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 onlyones 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’tit have been nicer for the five ladies who had oil to share it with the others?

The five who had oil wouldn’tshare because they were worriedthere wouldn’t ‘be enough’ for themall if they did share. …Sounds a little like our current examples ofcorporate 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 thinkfor a moment about our faith. Althoughwe share the road with others, our faith journey, in the end, is full ofindividual choices and decisions along the way: we’re free to love God, or not; we’re free to love our neighbouras 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 withothers.

So back to our parable, and to the oil. Now, some peoplethink the oil doesn’t symbolize anything in particular, and that all we need takefrom this parable is that we must beprepared 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 …andmoney can’t buy it.

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

How about Spirit? The New Testament has a lot to say aboutbeing ‘filled’ with the Spirit – perhaps the oil could be a metaphor for beingfilled with the Spirit. I’m reading abook at the moment called The WisdomJesus in which the author picks up on a spiritualmeaning for the oil in this parable; that these hard teachings of Jesus are not about outward actions, but about inner transformation. She says “thereason the five virgins who have oilcan’t give it to the five who don’tis that the oil symbolizes something that has to be individually created in youthrough your own consciousstriving. Nobody can give it to you;nobody can take it away from you”. “Theoil stands for the quality of your transformed consciousness” – it’s not a feeling, it’s a spiritual substance, impossible to gain by donation from somebodyelse.

Now, I realize that some people aren’t comfortable dwelling on the spiritual dimension of our faith; while others seem to prefer tofocus solely on the spiritual, to theexclusion of the practical! – But we shouldn’t be quick to separate thetwo. Our practical actions, when we perform them as a response to the love of God thatwe’ve recognized in Christ throughhis Spirit, will always be accompanied by a certain substance – I like to think of it as an attitude; if ouractions as Christians aren’t based ona spiritual attitude, then we probablyneed 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 theoil 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 justbeing quite nice – we have to work at our spiritual connection withour Lord and Saviour. So next time youeat a Cornish Pasty and you bite down on a bit of gristle, may you remember thegristle of the Gospel, and this little parable about the need for oil to put inyour lamp. Being a Christian is not justabout doing good deeds; it’s about being attentive to our spiritual relationshipwith God. It’s an attitude. Amen.

Sermon for All Souls

2011-10-31T14:54:00.000Z

Isaiah 25:6-9
Revelation 22:1-6, 16-17
The other day my daughter said that she doesn’tthink prayer works, because if prayer worked, people wouldn’t die. It’s pretty hard to come back with a quickand satisfying response to that statement, suitable for a 15-year-old’sunderstanding. Prayers for healing dowork, sometimes in very mysterious ways, but still it is only temporary. Death is part of life; we cannot deny thefact that death is inevitable.

In the first scripture reading we heardthis evening from Isaiah chapter 25, the poet-prophet imagines the earth havingover it a shroud or sheet – a covering of death, weighed down by sadness, lossand mourning. The world is held in the grip of death and has no power to shakeit off. But now, the poet prophesies,the Lord of life will bring an end to this crisis, the active power of deaththat crowds in on every chance for life. The death of which this poet speaks is more than just the fact that weare all going to die. Death encompasses everyforce that works against wholeness. Deathis all that diminishes well-being and prevents a right relationship with other people and with God. That’s who death is, and we cannot byourselves resist this culture of death. But now the good news from the prophet-poet: God will swallowdeath like a great sea monster attacking a smaller fish. God will attackdeath 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 allfaces. 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 theireyes. Death will be no more; mourningand crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passedaway”.

Both of the passages we’ve heard tonightfrom 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 includesremoving “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 thatwe are ultimately inadequate. Now all of that will be overcome,prophesies Isaiah. What is old and spentwill yield to God’s newness. The old cityof abuse is radically displaced by the new city ‘on this mountain’. To move from the one city to the other is tomove from the shrouded, sheeted desertof death to the abundant banquetof life. There is affirmation, too,from Jesus, of this very vision of God’s generous provision of hospitality, as hetells the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22, and also as he comfortshis disciples in John 14, when he says, “In my Father’s house there are manyrooms; I am going there to prepare a place for you”. These are promises on which the Christianhope rests.

The book of Revelation is partly areminder to the Church that things are notas they should be in this world, but also a sign that things won’t continuethis way forever. There will be a fulfilment of the divine promise given in the Old and NewTestaments, in which the separation between heavenand earth and God and humanityare overcome when God presencedwells with men and women in a transformedworld.

Revelation presents to us a vision, where we’re asked to suspend ourjudgment and submit ourselves to be informed by the shock of what is unusual, for the sake of a betterunderstanding of reality. Revelation posessome problems of language and symbolism – it doesn’t offer a view of things inany kind of literal way. But we preferthings that are down-to-earth. We want to see things ‘as they really are’. We like people to call a spade a spade and tobe practical rather than airy-fairyabout things. The accuracy of a photograph or a video – what we see or hear onthe 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 thewhole story. Artists and poets have longrecognised that photographs or prose can never do justice to the full dimensionof human experience. We must readRevelation 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’ insightand understanding of our relationships and the longing of our impoverishedworld.

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

Heavenon earth is the fulfilment of God’spurposes, where God is immediate and manifest – very much as God was in theParadise described in Genesis 3. All theinhabitants of the new creation are God’s children and are identified with God’scharacter and enjoy the divine presence unmediated. And as Paul reminds us in 2 Cor. 5, that newcreation 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 inindividual 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 andhumanity in the middle chapters of Revelation, we now have the water of life and the fruit-bearing tree of life, and the leaves of thetree are for the healing of the nations.

Placed as it is at the end of theChristian bible, Revelation offers to us the key to understanding the wholestory, as it points to the fulfilment of God’s purposes for justice andreconciliation. But looking forward in hope doesn’t mean we never look back,for remembering makes us present tolife 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 inremembering, for only by remembering our loss and our grief are we able toembrace 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 ofblessed mourners, we somehow experience peace. At the Lord’s Table, we experience comfort and healing, as we believe inthe 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 toremember us in his Kingdom. As weremember 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 deedsreflect that time when sorrow and sighing will flee away, and each person willbe recognised as equally stamped with the name of our God; and then we shallsee God face to face.

Uplifting things

2011-10-28T19:13:00.002+01:00

Sally over at RevGalBlogPals posts this question for the 'Friday Five':

Over the last few weeks I have been struggling with depression, I know that from reading other folks blogs that I am not alone in this, and from time to time if not suffering from depression that everyone feels down. With that in mind I wonder what lifts you? So I'd like you to share 5 things:

1. A Scripture- it might be a verse or a whole book!

2. A piece of music.

3. A place.

4. A person/ group of people

5. Something you do...

Here are my answers, subject to change...:

1. Scripture: Most recently it has been the book of Revelation - and Christopher Rowland's commentary on it. It acknowledges the reality of everything that is wrong in the world yet lifts us up to the future for the world to come when God's kingdom is here in its fullness, and how wonderful that will be.

2. Music: I'm a rocker - anything by Switchfoot lifts me, but the song 'Where I belong' from the album Vice Verses has been it lately. It sounds kind of melancholy but there's a lot of hope in there.

3. Place: California. Can't make my mind up as far as ocean versus mountains, but California. If I can't get there, then being in a peaceful church alone is good, too.

4: Person(s): my kids.

5: Something I do: exercise; walking.

Thanks for asking the question, Sally, because just remembering what lifts me, actually lifts me.

What is wrong with this picture?

2011-10-28T08:46:00.004+01:00

An article on the BBC news website tells me that FTSE 100 company director's pay increased by 50% over the past year. CEO's pay increased by 43%. Congratulations to them.
Base salaries for UK employees rose by 3.2%. Hard luck.
UK Inflation is at 5.2%. Unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds is at 21.3%.

The Church Times this week tells how the Vatican is speaking out against the "idoloatry of the market". It's heating up, too, in the Church of England, where Canon Giles Fraser has resigned from his post as the Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral in London, presumably to stand up for the protestors over and above the worldly concerns of health and safety and income from tourists. Something tells me Jesus would do the same. It's very sad that the 'Occupy Wall Street' and 'Occupy London' protests will most likely have no effect on these economic injustices. I have no answers. I just know this is not right.

Christina Weller, economist at CAFOD, says "G20 leaders have not thrown out the old failed orthodoxy of minimal government intervention in markets, and have not embraced their responsibility to re-orient economies to broader objectives of social and envirnomental well-being. As a result, they have not carried out the reforms needed to tackle the deficiencies of global markets... [and] will continue to deal with crisis after crisis, and the lessons of the global downturn will be lost."

One week

2011-10-07T00:08:00.001+01:00

On Sunday we had our annual Lifeboat service, which I led, and the vicar preached (an excellent sermon). You can read about our local Lifeboat station and see some photo's of the service here (click here). I really enjoyed talking to the Lifeboat crewmembers after the service over coffee, because all those I spoke with were amazing guys - so humble and down-to-earth and yet what they do is so giving and sacrificial and really a gift to the community.

On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting for lunch and discussion with many other women clergy from our archdeaconry, our Dean of Women in Ministry, our Archdeacon and our Suffragan Bishop. I really enjoyed meeting with other women clergy, especially those I had not yet met. I love hearing other people's stories of ministry challenges. In our group discussion we mainly talked about the Church of England's draft legislation on women bishops, particularly the debates that have been happening in local deaneries. Later on Monday I hosted a ministry team meeting at my house, which I always enjoy because we do talk about things that really matter in the parish, i.e. mission and ministry.

On Tuesday I conducted a funeral for a baby that lived for just under an hour after being born at 23 weeks gestation. I had seen the baby's photograph and handprints and footprints, which were just precious. The mother and father, of course, were devastated. It was very intense conducting this funeral, compared with how it feels to conduct the funeral of someone in their 90's. Tuesday evening I attended the Sea Cadets unit where I am chaplain (or Padre). After colours and prayers I sat in on the Meteorology class, all about clouds and their names and characteristics. I enjoy getting to know the cadets and having a laugh with them, and the staff are great.

On Wednesday morning I worked on my two sermons for Sunday. In the afternoon I got a phonecall from my training incumbent asking if I would go see a parishioner in hospital who, he had been informed, was dying. This woman was 93 years old and I had visited her at home several times. At hospital I found her unconscious and breathing was shallow. The nurse said that she had been alright the night before, but took a turn in the night for the worse. The woman's two closest friends were there, as she has no family. I held her hand and prayed with her, the last rites, and read from the psalms and other parts of the bible. A couple hours after I returned home, I was told that she passed away. What a deep mystery death is - she passed very peacefully, but I'm sure she heard me, and her friends, while we were there.

Today, Thursday, in the morning I made sandwiches for the new Lunch Club that was launched today. Our Lay Reader publicised this lunch club to several establishments around our community where there are people who have mental illnesses, inviting them to come for lunch on the first Thursday of each month. We had a turn-out of 10 guests, which I thought was super. It was an immense privilege being involved in this today, and I look forward to the next one. These people were good to be with. Then, in the afternoon, I went with one of my parishioners to the opening of the Wirral Food Bank warehouse, and to meet with the guy whose running it. My car boot was full of food donations, from our Harvest Festival, so it was wonderful to off-load that. We are considering whether our church might be able to be a distributor for the food, for people in our area. It's very exciting!

Usually we have music group practice on a Thursday night, but thankfully it was cancelled tonight. Tomorrow is my day off. Saturday, well, I still have to finish the two sermons for Sunday, don't I! A week in the life of a curate.

Hospitality to Strangers

2011-09-26T14:03:00.002+01:00

At around 9:30pm the other evening a man came to the door. "Let me in!" he shouted aggressively, and then, as if it would help his case, he added "it's Mark". I could see through the opaque glass window of the locked door that he was a big man; he sounded drunk, and I don't know anyone called Mark, so I said "No, I'm not going to let you in - you're at the wrong house!", assuming he'd misidentified where he was.

Now when something like this happens, various thoughts flash through the mind very quickly. I'm a Christian - I'm a priest - does that mean I should always open my door to strangers? No, don't unlock the door, the children could be endangered. There's a Stanley knife on the sidetable - should I move it/hide it/keep hold of it? What if he got in - what would I do?

My husband came downstairs to see what was the cause of the raised voices, and he, too, said loudly: "You're at the wrong house, mate!". Mark hung round our door for a good 15 minutes, occasionally wandering down the drive shouting and coming back to try the door handle. We had phoned the police, who said that under no circumstances should we unlock the door, and by the time the patrol car arrived, Mark was gone, into the night, and we haven't seen him again.

When something like this happens, it feels as if your secure domestic invulnerability-bubble has burst. And something else begins to dawn on us. Sometime over the course of this year, God willing, we will be moving house, into a vicarage, when I begin my first incumbency. Right now we live in the house we've lived in for 11 years, a normal suburban house. When we move into a vicarage, it is often signposted 'The Vicarage', and it's usually next door to the church. Will we have any semblance of a domestic bubble then? Will strangers be knocking on the door on a regular basis? How will the family cope if/when that happens?

Of course, this isn't the first time I've thought about this. From the beginning of priestly vocational discernment, we are encouraged to reflect hard on the reality that this calling will demand a level of availability. And in my curacy, my training incumbent has told stories of times when strangers have come to his vicarage door and he has given them food. And the bible gives examples of God's desire that hospitality is shown to strangers, for example Abraham and Sarah inviting the three strangers in, Genesis 18. And Hebrews 13:2 - "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."

I guess I'll never know whether our 'Mark' was an angel in disguise. But I'm thankful the event ended without violence, and I'm thankful for the calming influence of the two policemen who came round. There has to be a difference between welcoming strangers on the one hand, and foolishly putting your family in danger on the other. This is another one of those 'boundaries' issues that keep cropping up as I learn through this curacy. Boundaries around and between my home and family and ministry, alongside the calling to be open and generous with hospitality to all. Praying for wisdom and discernment.

Sermon for 9/11 - Matthew 18:21-35

2011-09-11T22:32:00.002+01:00

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow- servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. His fellow- servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow- servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.

In the spring I planted several different types of seed in small pots – maybe you did the same. This year I grew flowers since I knew I wouldn’t be around to harvest vegetables, but generally, no surprises, the seeds I planted grew and flowered and the flowers that came were exactly as it said they would be on the packet. The seeds in the sweet pea packet germinated and grew into sweet peas, the sunflower seeds became sunflowers, and so on for the cosmos, the pansies, and the marigold seeds. We kind of expect that when it comes to gardening, we will reap what we sow. I wonder why it’s so hard for us, then, to translate that expectation to our relationship with God or with other people. In Galatians 6:7, Paul said ‘do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows’.

...So this king was going to sell his servant and the servant’s whole family in order to make up for the large debt owed to him. It must have mattered to the servant that he stay in this particular king’s service rather than get a new master, because he begged the king not to do this. But the king didn’t accept the servant’s promise to ‘pay back’ everything – instead, he cancels the debt unconditionally! The kingdom of heaven is like this, Jesus says.

But instead of being thankful and going on to be merciful to others, the servant becomes a bully, and he treats one of his fellow servants without mercy - first he assaults him and then gets him thrown into prison for the relatively small debt that he owed. The king finds out and makes sure the servant gets back as good as he has given: he reaps what he has sown. Jesus says this is how his Father in heaven will treat those who don’t forgive their brother or sister from their heart.

In one of his speeches, Martin Luther King said that ‘hate begets hate, violence begets violence’, toughness begets even greater toughness’; in the bible, in Matthew 26:52, when Jesus was being arrested and one of his companions draws his sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Jesus says ‘those who live by the sword, will die by the sword’.

In the parable of the unmerciful servant, if we understand the king as representing God, we see that he offers forgiveness first, before the servant was expected to forgive. In our own life, if we receive the forgiveness that God has given us through the cross - the cancellation of our debt as sinners - but then we refuse to extend forgiveness to others - we have to ask ourselves, why should we be forgiven?

In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches his followers to pray for forgiveness in what we call The Lord’s Prayer: ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Jesus clearly says that if you want forgiveness you’ve got to be prepared to forgive others: he says ‘if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins’.

So in today’s passage, Peter comes to Jesus and asks, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” ...“I tell you”, Jesus answers, “not seven times, but seventy-seven times”. Jesus is saying ‘don’t even think about counting: just do it’. Because if you’re still counting how many times you’ve forgiven someone, you’re not really forgiving them at all. Forgiveness is tough. But forgiveness is the only appropriate response to evil if we’re not to become what we oppose. We reap what we sow.

There’s a providence to the timing of today’s gospel passage. Today marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the devastating terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3000 people and shocked the world. There were two paths forward from the ashes and rubble of 9/11. The first path led to war, torture, and fear: President Bush announced a War on Terror, the aims of which would be to bring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to justice and prevent the emergence of other terrorist networks. The response was to engage the forces of many nations in war, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the result was the further death of many thousands of people, spending of trillions of dollars and billions of pounds. The result was a growth in radicalised groups, of all different allegiances – an increase in hate-crimes, and an increase in fear of ‘the other’. Discrimination, prejudice, stereotyping, vengefulness and violence breeding more violence.

But another path -- led by Christians and people of other faiths, and some of no faith too -- was marked by soul-searching, genuine mourning for the lost and standing up for peace-building, making efforts towards understanding, and caring for our neighbours.

The challenge we face when we are attacked is whether we’re prepared to let go of our need for "vengeance". In the end, if we seek "justice" in that way, we’re not seeking true justice at all – we’re just trying to balance the scales in our favour. The result is always a cycle of more pain. We reap what we sow. And so, once again, as hard as it is, we’re faced with the shocking, persistent call of Jesus Christ, to follow his example, and to offer forgiveness even to those we feel don’t deserve it.

As Christians, we pray to become ‘Christ-like’, which means we want nothing more than to reflect in our lives the love that God is, overcoming selfishness and self-absorption; pursuing love and reconciliation with God, with family, with Church, with people of other faiths, in culture and politics, and with our enemies. Reconciliation has to be at the centre of our mission. In the world to come, there will be no hatred. In the new creation, holding something against your neighbour or your enemy won’t be an option, because God will be all in all – Love will be all in all. That the servant in today’s parable could behave how he did towards his fellow servant – in the new creation, it just wouldn’t enter his mind... and our calling is to work towards that new creation even now.

Nelson Mandela once said there’s 'no future without forgiveness.' It might take a long time, but we can't give up. We’re called to stand up and be instruments of God for making things right in the world. The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is an opportunity for reflection. Imagine its victims looking at the world from heaven... The greatest memorial to those who died ten years ago, and to those who continue to die in the wars after, will be a world more inclined toward peace.

We are right to remember that God is with those who are in pain and suffering. But it would be a distortion of what Christ did for humanity on the cross if at the same time, we didn’t remember Christ’s attitude to those who crucified him: Jesus cries ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’. If we remember that God is with those who suffer, but do not remember his attitude towards those who inflict the suffering, then we’re not remembering in truth. And if we don’t remember that we are all part of sinful humanity, then we are not remembering in truth. So may you sow seeds of forgiveness - and may you grow the flowers of peace and reconciliation.

Let us pray: God of mercy, your love overwhelms us with your generous forgiveness. You release us from a debt we can never repay. Open our hearts to extend love and mercy to all who are penitent. And may we persevere in working towards dialogue, peace and reconciliation with those who are not. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Back again

2011-09-06T01:35:00.000+01:00

It's 1:00am and I can't sleep, so I thought I would write a blog post. It's been a while. I've been away on a long holiday to my homeland, seeing family and old familiar places. We spent two weeks in the small town of Auburn, where my mother and sister live. Highlights from Northern California were:

The Sacramento Rivercats baseball game (we won!)

Boating on Rollins Lake

Shouka at Discovery Kingdom

seeing the house again in which I grew up

and my old high school

Seeing family. We also drove down to Southern California, to San Diego, where I lived for 8 years. San Diego is a wonderful place. We spent a week there, a block from the bay on one side and a block from the beach on the other. One of my favourite memories this time is of cycling down the boardwalk along with all the other cyclists, walkers, and skateboarders.

That, and watching my daughter and nephew boogie-boarding for ages in the waves of the Pacific:

The holiday was fantastic. California has got to be the best place on earth.

It was sure hard to leave my relatives. But now I'm back in rainy England. My training incumbent is now back from sabbatical, too. Things at church are really starting to pick up pace once again. It was a great experience to be 'in charge', so-to-speak, while he was away - I learned a lot -, but it's nice to have the vicar back again, too. But I'm starting to think about the reality of moving on, sometime in the next 15 months, to my first incumbency. I don't know where it will be, which is a little unsettling for the family, but we're trusting that things will work out. All shall be well, as Julian of Norwich says.

Practicing forgiveness

2011-07-01T23:46:00.001+01:00

This is wonderful - and for me it's such a timely video of Miroslav Volf on Forgiveness that has been shared by Mike Friesen in his great blog.

Miroslav Volf wrote the book, Against the Tide, which was assigned reading for us curates, and I also have had to write a critical reflection on that book for one of the modules for my master's degree course.

Volf is a pacifist, and though I found Against the Tide a little frustrating because of it's format, another of his books, Exclusion and Embrace, is excellent.

Trust

2011-06-16T11:48:00.000+01:00

Mark 4:35-41
A sermon for mid-week Holy Communion

‘We’re all in the same boat’ – I like that expression because it helps us feel like we’re not alone in whatever we’re going through. In our Bible reading we see in Jesus a God who is present, a God who is there in the boat with his people. God doesn’t allow problems to happen to us and then keep his distance. He’s right there in the boat with us; he’s in the middle of the problem with us; he’s in the middle of our struggles alongside us.

On the boat in the storm, Jesus wanted his disciples to look deep inside and check where their faith was. He wasn't accusing them of not having faith, he was asking WHERE their faith was. Every now and then we leave our faith in a cupboard or under the carpet somewhere, or perhaps we leave our faith in church when we go back home or out into the world, and we try and go about our daily tasks, or even through major crises, in our own strength and with our own vision of how things should go. From time to time we hide our faith, not only from others, but also from ourselves! But we need to keep returning and trusting God especially when things are stormy or scary. God can use the storms in our lives to teach us how to live our lives with faith and trust in HIM.

The painting is Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee. Notice there are 14 people in the boat. There should only be 13 (12 disciples plus Jesus). Some believe that Rembrandt included himself on the boat, but it could be that he intended to include the viewer (you or me). Where would you be in the painting? Up to the left of the painting is a place of chaos, and down towards Jesus is a place of calm. Where do you think you live most of your daily life? If you think you live in chaos, are you able to picture yourself moving from the place of chaos (on the left) to the place of peace in front of Jesus (on the right)?

I think that fear is one of the main reasons we don’t trust Jesus as much as we probably want to trust him. But what is stronger than fear? Scripture gives us the answer: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Jesus sleeping on the storm-tossed sea reveals that the disciple’s faith had been replaced by fear. They feared for their lives even though their Lord was with them in the boat. Jesus is asleep at first, but the irony is that the disciples are revealed as asleep to Christ while he was present with them in their hour of need. The Lord is always present with us. And in our time of testing he asks us the same question he asked the disciples here: Why are you afraid? Where is your faith? Great unexpected storms arise at times in our life, threatening to overwhelm us. Every time we meet with trouble, the Lord is there with the same reassuring message: “I am with you, do not be afraid”.

What does it mean to "trust" Jesus? Trusting Jesus means no longer relying on yourself for any kind of salvation, but relying on Christ alone. When we trust that Jesus died for our sins, and we trust that our sins are forgiven, and we totally rely on his promise that he’s with us by his Spirit, then we are blessed. The Bible says in 2 Cor. 5 that when we really trust in Christ, a new life begins -- "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" As a follower of Christ, a person has to rely upon Jesus in all areas of their life, not just for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus said in John’s gospel that he is the Teacher. And he told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would teach them all things and guide them into all truth. God teaches us his ways and his truth. In terms of values and behaviour, when we listen, he points out the stuff in our thinking and behaviour that's not right, he shows us what the right thing is, and gives us the strength to do it. This is one of the ways God shows his love for us – by helping us when we come to him and trust in him. He is the One who knows all truth, and He wants us to build our lives on His truth.

By trusting Christ as our Teacher, through Scripture and Prayer, he shows us how to live, and will guide us in praying. When we learn what He wants from us, and endeavour to do those things, we know can rely on His strength and power through the Holy Spirit.

So being a Christian is based on trusting Jesus. God doesn’t promise a life without storms, but he has promised to be with us in the middle of the storms. The disciples were experienced fishermen, so this wasn’t the first time they had faced a storm on the sea. But this storm was so powerful that they panicked. But the disciples had underestimated the power of Jesus. Once they turned to him, Jesus immediately calmed the storm. God wants to be the calmer of our storms as well. Do we underestimate his power? We have two options when we face hard times: we can panic and worry, assuming that God doesn’t care, or we can turn to Jesus and rely on him and trust that he is with us no matter what. Amen.

Pentecost sermon for Choral Evensong

2011-06-12T16:40:00.000+01:00

Joel 2:21-end; Luke 24:44-end

How about that weather today? We can’t put away our winter wardrobe just yet! I come from California where the weather is generally predictable. And that makes it easy to figure out what you’re going to wear during any given season. Here in England the weather is a popular topic of conversation because it’s so variable, and many days will contain something from each of the four seasons, and so trying to decide what to wear each day can be a tricky business!

Of course it depends somewhat on what the day will involve. During the week, for someone working in a bank, a suit is definitely in order. If you’re employed at a fitness centre, it could be shorts and t-shirt. And if it’s Sunday and you’re a minister, you might put on one of these... [my cassock and surplice]. Or maybe if you can sing well, you might be dressed as one of these lovely people [gestures towards the choir].

Clothing has several purposes. It identifies, protects, and helps us control our body temperature and our level of modesty. It can be an expression of fashion and personality, or vocation. To be ‘clothed’ is to be covered in some way. Ever since Adam and Eve clothed themselves with fig leaves, it has been important for humankind to be clothed.

In our reading this evening from Luke’s gospel, chapter 24, Jesus is talking to his disciples, and he says that after his ascension, he will send them what his Father has promised; that they will be ‘clothed with power from on high’. We know what it means to be ‘clothed’ in the ordinary sense, so what does this mean to be ‘clothed with power from on high’?

Well, the power that Jesus speaks of is, of course, the Holy Spirit - the same Spirit of God that was present at the creation of the heavens and the earth; the same Spirit that filled many of the Israelites throughout the Old Testament period - the patriarchs, judges, prophets and kings. It’s the same Spirit that inspires wisdom, discernment and prophecy. It’s the same Spirit that was involved in the Incarnation of the Son of God. And it’s the same Spirit that enables the transformation of our hearts and our minds - the Spirit that confirms our faith - and the Spirit that empowers our mission.

What is this Spirit? As one of the Trinity of persons in the One God, the Spirit is the way that God lives in us. The Spirit gives us strength; the strength we need to follow Christ along the way that leads to life in all its fullness. The Spirit enables us to have fellowship with one another in the unity of Christ – fellowship with all believers, whatever their background or origin; whatever their denomination or position, whatever their social status or race – all believers are united in the body of Christ by the Spirit.

The Spirit also is active outside the Church, and we can’t always say where or with whom that is happening, but we can say that the Spirit always acts as a means of pointing people to the good news of Jesus Christ. The Spirit’s mission in the world is always bound up with energising the Kingdom of God and the new creation. And the Spirit is not a prisoner of the church. The Spirit can work with anyone: a mysterious, sovereign wind, the Spirit blows wherever the Spirit wills, and we’re not in control.

But the Spirit has a momentum and a direction into which those of us who call Jesus ‘Lord’ are called. The Spirit equips the church for mission and often goes on ahead, always to glorify Jesus Christ, of whom the whole of Scripture speaks. The text in our Luke 24 passage tells us that Jesus opened the minds of his disciples so they could understand the Scriptures. At that point, the New Testament hadn’t even been written – so it’s the Old Testament Jesus is referring to when he says, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations’. Jesus confirms that the Old Testament points to himself as the Christ. The Scriptures and the Spirit all point to Christ.

If you were in church this morning you will have heard the story of the day of Pentecost from Acts 2:1-21 where the disciples are metaphorically blown away by the wind of the Spirit. And our first reading this evening from the prophet Joel is quoted in that Acts passage by the Apostle Peter, who explains to the crowd that what Joel prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus was even born, was now coming to pass with the pouring out of the Lord’s Spirit on all people, and for all people.

Jesus Christ is truly a gift to all people, in all places, at all times. He’s the source of hope, life and light for all, and cannot be reserved for a particular grouping, tribe, church or community. It’s not one-size fits all, it’s One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism as Paul says in Ephesians 4. We are called to be brothers and sisters in Christ, reconciled with God by his death and resurrection, and united in him by his ever-flowing Spirit.

We all know when we’re clothed and when we are not. And just as we wouldn’t go anywhere without our clothing, so as Christians we should not go anywhere without the Holy Spirit covering us. God doesn’t expect us to grow in Christ-likeness on our own, or to grow the church on our own, or to promote his kingdom on our own. God wants us to put on the clothing that he makes freely available to us – the Holy Spirit. How do we do this? Well, first we have to be naked. We have to discard our own clothing of pride and self-sufficiency, and with prayer, in humility, we must come to God and ask for the clothing of the Spirit. Prayer is essential if we are to submit to God in all our weakness and ask to be filled and clothed and strengthened by the Holy Spirit for the life of discipleship and mission.

I leave you with a prayer based on that which Paul prayed for the church of Ephesus; a prayer that summarizes the vast and limitless power of God that is open to all believers. Being adopted children of God and co-heirs with Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God, we have the same access to this unlimited power through faith in Jesus Christ. Let us pray:

Father God, out of your glorious riches, clothe us, we pray, with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we pray that, being rooted and established in love, we may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ; that we might know this love that surpasses knowledge; and that we would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Father, you are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to your power that is at work within us: to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (based on Ephesians 3:16-21)

Fit for life (or at least the next three months)

2011-05-13T23:08:00.007+01:00

My training incumbent is now away on a three month sabbatical. Right from the first day of his absence, I have noticed my phone has rung quite a lot more often. I think the next three months will be good for me. My plan is to use this time to improve my organisational, admin and time-management abilities, and to make a strategic effort to increase my energy levels. After all, ordained ministry is a marathon and not a sprint! I need energy to focus on ministry and mission, and to be the person God calls me to be. I know I won’t function well in the long run if I don’t make some changes. These changes mainly revolve around discipline in the following areas: eating, exercise, leisure, prayer and study time, and sleep. My purpose in writing this blog post is to keep myself accountable to my intentions. Any readers are welcome to support me in this effort with encouragement and prayer!

Eating: My aim is to try and stop using chocolate as an instant energy and feel-good drug. I’m not saying that I’ll cut out chocolate completely, but I’m going to try to cease ‘using’ it any more. In addition, I’m going to try to eat healthier in general. I’m going to try to let the phrase ‘you are what you eat’ inform my choices!

Exercise: I know that exercise increases my energy levels and my sense of well-being; I just haven’t been prioritising it or making time for it. I’m going to try to do this more often. Fortunately, we live in an area that lends itself to walks, and this gives the added benefit of time with my husband, if we go walking together.

Leisure: A parishioner recently suggested that it’s arguable whether clergy should have a day off. This was casually said after I had conducted two funerals on what should have been my day off, at the end of what was a very busy week indeed. I suppose many parishioners aren’t aware of what this vocation actually means (or entails) in practice. That aside, I am not doing a very good job of keeping my day off. I’m very aware of this, and I’m hoping with improvements in other areas I will get better at sanctifying time off. I recently wrote an essay with a focus on personal and professional boundaries, and that was helpful, getting me to reflect on that very important issue.

Prayer and study time: I pray contantly. I study quite a lot, too. But I feel the need to be more disciplined and focused in these areas. It’s interesting that since my training incumbent has been away, I’ve been drawn back to the Common Worship Morning Prayer liturgy. Yes, it’s wordy, but I find it sets me up well for the day, and covers all the bases. The online version is great because the readings and prayers are all there for each day. I’m also working my way through Brian McLaren’s Naked Spirituality, in which he shares a simple yet effective discipline of connection with God. Regarding the study time, as a curate I’m supposed to have a designated ‘study day’, but this has never materialised for me. I think parish obligations have probably got in the way of this, because we have two churches. It’s my responsibility to make time for study, so I need to prioritise the need for it, especially now while I am a curate.

Sleep: This is related a bit to the ‘boundaries’ issue – like many people, I find it hard to ‘switch off’ at night and sleep. The concerns of the parish come to bed with me! I have made a concerted effort not to stay up too late (I used to be very bad at doing this), so that’s an improvement. In a way, it would be unusual if I never let things worry me, but hopefully, with the added exercise and changes in diet and attention to adequate leisure, sleep will come easier. Last night I took some mineral supplements – calcium and magnesium – which my mother says help her sleep. I had one of the best sleeps for a long time, so maybe there’s something in it.

Everything is linked. I hope my efforts in these areas will combine and build upon each other to give me more energy and ultimately that it will result in an increased ability to do the work God asks of me in ministry - in the parish, in family life and in my personal wholeness and well-being. If we want to participate in God’s new creation, we had better keep ourselves fit for purpose! I hope and pray that my training incumbent’s sabbatical helps both him, and me, along that way.

A prayer by John Cosin (1594-1672):
Be thou a light unto my eyes, music to mine ears, sweetness to my taste, and full contentment to my heart. Be thou my sunshine in the day, my food at table, my repose in the night, my clothing in nakedness, and my succour in all necessities. Lord Jesu, I give thee my body, my soul, my substance, my fame, my friends, my liberty and my life. Dispose of me and all that is mine as it may seem best to thee and to the glory of thy blessed name.

Amen.

Spring flowers

2011-04-25T13:31:00.013+01:00

I love gardening, and it is a joy to watch what happens with each passing season. Of course, Spring is especially wonderful. I'm 'off' this week, so I thought I'd post some photos from around my garden.

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Do not be afraid - to choose life each day!

2011-04-23T19:31:00.010+01:00

Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10

The scene at the tomb in Matthew’s gospel is the most dramatic of all the gospels – there is an earthquake, and the startling appearance of an Angel, who rolls back the stone. The guards were so shocked the text says they ‘became like dead men’ – perhaps they fainted. At hearing the words spoken by the Angel, Mary Magdalene & the ‘other Mary’ were ‘afraid yet filled with joy’.

Several members of the church were involved recently with New Brighton Primary School, telling the story of Easter from Palm Sunday and through the events of Holy Week and finishing with the story we heard this morning of the empty tomb. I asked the school children to describe to me in words how the women must have felt when the Angel told them Jesus wasn’t in the tomb but had risen, and was alive again: “surprised” “confused” “terrified” “excited” “gobsmacked” “flabbergasted” – yes, I’m sure they felt all of this and more. The Resurrection is a fascinating and miraculous event of God. It was the most important event in the life of Jesus. But the Resurrection is far more than just something that happened to Jesus or even something that will happen to people at the end of time.

The Resurrection is also something that happens for us today. God used the miracle of the Resurrection to make available God’s very life to us even now. And why did God do this? Because God so loves the world. God is love, and it’s God’s love that gives us true life. And through the Resurrection comes our call to be Christ-like people, to be life-givers and agents of resurrection to our families, our communities and our world. And so the challenge for us who believe in our hearts and minds in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is to work out what that means for us, each and every day.

In our reading from Romans 6, Paul says that we discover our true identity when we count ourselves ‘dead to sin’ and ‘alive to God’. When we’re consciously aware of God’s abundant grace and love, and God’s presence in all things, then we can no longer be slaves to sin. If we find we’re not really feeling ‘alive to God’, we may need to look inward; and if we search deeply enough we’ll probably find that we’ve distanced ourselves from a fully conscious awareness of God’s abundant grace and love; we’ll find that the master of our life has shifted away from Christ Jesus, and we’ll find we’re being mastered by something or someone else. The good news is that each time we recognise this, we then can be released from enslavement to sin; we become free to return to the source of our Resurrection life, and that is the choice that we face each day, for conscious awareness of God’s presence in all of creation, in the darkness and in the light.

When the disciples see the risen Lord, he commissions them to a new way of life. The resurrection announces God’s new way of being human. And we’re called to remember that as we receive Christ, this becomes our story too. We’re then challenged to open our lives to the Resurrected life of Christ, to allow the life of God to break in and free us from all else that seeks to control or master us. Then we’re sent to bring life to others, in all places where death is at work in the world.

Each generation faces the question of how Resurrection can be experienced in places of disaster and conflict, poverty, abuse, oppression & disease. And each of us also must face the death that is within us – the self-centredness, apathy, destructiveness & cynicism – that keeps us and others from life; and we must choose to allow these dead ends to be transformed into life through openness to God’s love, forgiveness, grace and creativity.

We should be prepared to bring life to others wherever we can through compassion, hospitality, giving, involvement and advocacy for justice and mercy. If our activities rob the planet of life, we would gratefully seek to be more responsible and careful. If our choice of products or our tendency to consume more than we need leaves others in poverty or exploitation, we will shop more compassionately.

Living the Resurrection Life is about attitude and behaviour in everyday life, modelled on the attitude and behaviour of Jesus, demonstrated through inclusivity, forgiveness, loving our enemies and standing up for the poor, consciously trusting God through life's trials and circumstances. This Easter morning and every new day let us not be afraid. Let us look for all that is joyful about the work Jesus did for us on the cross and the power that the Resurrection brings to our lives and to the whole of creation. And let us pray for freedom from the control of the wrong master and for strength to live in the true identity of the risen Christ. Amen.

Easterly things

2011-04-21T18:38:00.004+01:00

Easter started for me last week when our church hosted the local primary school for 'Experience Easter', a great resource created by the Gloucester Diocese. Six 'stations': Palm Sunday, Washing the disciples feet, the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemene, the Cross, and the Empty Tomb. All the lovely volunteer station leaders were blessed by this interactive way of engaging the school children. We hope the children were blessed by it, too, and will remember at least some of it during Eastertime.

Palm Sunday itself was a wonderful day at church because we had a Confirmation service at the same time, with six people being confirmed including my darling 12-year-old son. The vicar taught the confirmation classes for the three adult candidates and I taught the three youngsters. It was a blessing and a privilege to teach them - so much fun, and a challenge, too, keeping them engaged with it all.

The week has been busy, but I had time last night to go to the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral to hear Rob Bell speak about his new book, 'Love Wins' (I recommend it highly). Tonight is the Agape Meal at church; tomorrow is Good Friday of course, and I'm going on the ecumenical Walk of Witness. There are Easter Crafts at church, at which my daughter is helping, and the 'three hours at the cross' devotions, and in the evening, Stainer's 'Crucifixion' from our excellent choir. Easter Sunday starts early for me with the 8:00am BCP Holy Communion service at one church followed by 9:45am Holy Communion at t'other.

A blessed and joyful Easter to all!

Happy Mothering Sunday!

2011-04-03T18:32:00.003+01:00

I'm one of those who think we should keep it as ‘Mothering’ Sunday rather than ‘Mother’s Day', because for me, it’s not just about mothers, it’s about mothering. ‘Mothering’ is inclusive; whether or not we’re mothers ourselves, ‘mothering’ is something we all experience and engage in, including men; it’s part of being made in the image of God. Much of the time the bible contains masculine imagery of God as Father, but it also contains feminine imagery of God where God has ‘mothering’ qualities like nurturing support, patient understanding and compassion. The Hebrew word for compassion is related to the word ‘womb’. In the book of Job, God asks Job ‘From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens?’ Well, the answer is God. And through the prophet Isaiah, God says to Jerusalem, ‘As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you’. So in both the creative sense and the spiritual sense, our God is both a fathering God, and a mothering God.

‘Mothering’ is risky; it involves the risk of suffering, pain and loss. Our Old Testament reading (Exodus 2:1-10)about baby Moses adrift in the bulrushes tugs at our emotions in many ways. We can hardly imagine what Moses’ mother went through, when, out of circumstances that were beyond her control, she was forced to give up her baby.

The beginning of the book of Exodus tells us that ‘the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous’. The Israelites, also called Hebrews, had been living in Egypt from the time when Joseph ruled Egypt. In the present story, however, Joseph is long dead and a new king is in power in Egypt. This Pharaoh decided that the Hebrews were posing a threat to Egypt’s security, so he forced them into slavery and oppressed them. Pharaoh was so worried about their population growth, he told the Hebrew midwives to kill all newborn boys, but this didn’t work – the midwives couldn’t do it because they ‘feared God’ – so Pharaoh decreed to all his people: ‘every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.’

Into this terrible situation, baby Moses was born. We don’t know his Hebrew name – he was named Moses after he was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter; our text tells us that the name Moses means ‘to draw out’, as Pharaoh’s daughter ‘drew him out of the water’ – and it also fits with Moses later being the one who draws Israel out Egypt through the Sea of Reeds.

There are three moving acts of ‘mothering’ here. First, in the birth-mother of Moses; this was a mother who was determined that her boy would live in spite of the death sentence from Pharaoh. She hid him for three months. When she realised she couldn’t keep him secret any longer, she was forced to do the unthinkable: to place him in the river Nile. But she gave him the chance to survive – she made him a little waterproof basket to lie in - his very own little ark. We know from the book of Numbers, chapter 26, that this woman’s name was Jochebed. It’s impossible to know exactly how Jochebed felt when she had to give up her child, but we can imagine after 9 months carrying this baby in her womb and three months of caring for his every need, it would have been terrible.

The baby’s sister, whom we later know as Miriam, stays near the Moses basket watching to see what might happen to him – Miriam’s watchful eye and her courage is our second example of ‘mothering’ action. She sees the baby being drawn from the water by Pharaoh’s daughter, so she quickly and shrewdly asks, ‘Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?’ This allows Jochebed to continue for a while to nurse her baby. Wonderful for them both, but this also leads to a second heart-break, for after he is weaned, the babe is returned to Pharaoh’s daughter, as we assume they agreed. The bible says, ‘he became her son’ – in other words, he was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, and she is our third ‘mothering’ figure from this passage.

Our Bible doesn’t give us the name of Pharaoh’s daughter, but the Midrash, which contains the traditional teachings of Rabbi’s, identifies her as Bithiah - the same Bithiah mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4:18 in the Bible. The Midrash says that Pharaoh actually exiled Bithiah for bringing Moses into his household. You can imagine the scenario, the ultimate act of teenage rebellion: Pharaoh decrees all Hebrew babies should be killed, and then his own daughter brings one home! Whereas today’s teenager might get off lightly, maybe getting grounded for a week or two, eviction was Pharaoh’s choice of punishment. Bithiah and Moses were probably both lucky to escape with their lives. The Midrash says that when the Israelites left Egypt in the mass Exodus, Bithiah left with them. It was because of her compassion and pity in rescuing the baby Moses, she received her name Bithiah, which means ‘daughter of the Lord’.

So Moses went on to lead his people out of the bondage of slavery and towards the Promised Land. Not only was a boy spared, but a whole people; the salvation of Moses was the salvation of Israel. Not only did Moses owe his life to Jochebed, Miriam and Bithiah, but the Israelites owed their liberation to them as well, placed as they were by God’s providence.

The Israelites have told this story for generations because the boy was Moses, their liberator and Law giver. They also tell it because regardless of how bleak things might look, it gives hope that God is able to bring salvation out of despair. This was the story of the Israelite’s deliverance. And in our Gospel reading (Luke 2:33-35), when we hear Simeon’s prophetic words to Mary, the deliverance of the whole world through Jesus is foretold.

Simeon said, ‘this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ At the time, Mary must have wondered what that meant. She didn’t yet know the pain that would come from watching her son die on the cross. She didn’t understand that God would bring deliverance to the whole world through his death and resurrection. But while Jesus was still a small child, we read in Matthew’s gospel of a kind of reversal of the journey that Moses and the Israelites took, as Mary and Joseph have to flee with baby Jesus to Egypt to escape King Herod’s death decree for all boys under the age of two.

Throughout his life, the mission and ministry of Jesus and the opposition that he stirred up must have been worrying for Mary. We see in John’s gospel the love Jesus had for his mother when he was dying on the cross and he worried about leaving her behind so he asks his closest disciple John to look after her. They became family. Jesus said, ‘whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’ - Matthew 12:50. Mothering Sunday is family time. In the church, we are the family of God: brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers – let us serve one another with love, compassion, kindness, patience and forgiveness, through the times and seasons of joy and of sorrow as we see this journey through. Amen.

Time to read

2011-04-02T17:51:00.004+01:00

We had a second-hand book sale in the parish today, in aid of choir musical resources, and I decided to buy some classics - I could do with broadening my reading. Here's what I found:

Jane Austin: Emma

D.H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Shakespeare: The Tempest

All these for just £2! A bargain. Now to find the time to read them...

Questions and more questions

2011-03-23T15:58:00.008Z

In England everyone has recently received the 2011 Census form. We’re supposed to fill in these forms on the 27th of March, but I’ve read the form all the way through already because the questions asked and the data generated from it is of great interest to me. I’ve used census data before in research and I will use the data from this year’s census in future research, especially as it helps sketch a picture of each parish and of the nation. It is compulsory for everyone to complete the census, to the point where you could be fined if you do not. But I find it fascinating that there is one question that is ‘voluntary’. Which question is that? It's the one about religion. Every other question is compulsory, including who you have staying overnight on the night of 27th March. Why is the religion question voluntary? Maybe it’s considered too personal, or maybe it’s too controversial.

Another question I find interesting is number 37: ‘At your workplace, what is the main activity of your employer or business?’ Well, I am paid by the Church of England. So what is the main activity of the Church of England? I know some people could come up with a few sarcastic answers to that one. But what should be the Church of England's main activity (in no more than 50 characters)? I was going to put 'The Cure of Souls'. My daughter thinks that sounds really naff.

------------------------------------------------------

In the past couple of days I’ve read two rather disturbing articles on the BBC News website. The first one is about a survey carried out by the British Humanist Association that suggests that two-thirds of Britons are not religious. You can read that one here.

The second article is about a study that uses census data from nine countries that shows religion will become 'extinct'. You can read it here.

What are we to make of all this? I'm mulling it over.

Sustenance

2011-03-17T08:30:00.010Z

Among my usual curacy activities of sermon and service preparation, visiting, chaplaincy, funerals, meetings, IME coursework and teaching the confirmation class, I've been involved in a particularly intense ongoing pastoral situation for the past six months that has greatly challenged my personal emotional, physical and spiritual resources. As part of my continuing education, I'm currently writing a paper on pastoral ministry and through this a question has come up: what is sustaining me through all of this?

Well, the short answer, in my view, is: the Holy Spirit. I know the Spirit is sustaining me and equipping me because I know I couldn't do this on my own. My faith is as strong as ever. But because of this particularly challenging ongoing situation, I've been finding it very difficult to focus during prayer time. I'm more easily distracted than usual. I find music very helpful for this, especially instrumental music. I'm not as chatty with God in prayer at the moment - I often just need to sit still in God's presence and not say too much apart from the occasional lifting up names of people who are in need.

The bible has always been significant in sustaining me and that's not changed, though I only seem to be able to manage small bites lately. I have less energy and often need a nap to sustain me. I often stay up too late and I'm not sleeping very well. I'm my own worst enemy, though, and I know I need to get more exercise (or at least some exercise) and make better eating choices, which would help all around.

I would like to say that my family also sustains me, but I'm not too sure at the moment! Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't. That's the reality of family, of course... I couldn't live without them. I am really looking forward to our holiday back home to California in the summer. I haven't met with my Spiritual Director for quite a while. I think I really should set up a meeting with her. My training incumbent deserves a mention here, too, as he helps me to reflect on ministry and offers a listening ear.

In this role I have witnessed the effects of some of the worst things humans can do to others, but also I've witnessed some of the best things of humanity. My heart alternates between swelling with love and joy and throbbing with pain for another. But I remain hopeful. My fundamentally optimistic nature helps. But really what sustains me is my faith - faith in a good God, in a God who does care - faith in a God who is making all things new, even though it is painful. We do need sustenance to persevere. St. Paul teaches us a lot about perseverance and endurance. I think I'll go read him right now.

Ring Bell for Church Renewal

2011-03-01T21:55:00.006Z

Thank God for people like John Bell. We had an 'optional' IME day today (IME = Initial Ministerial Education, or curate training day) with John Bell of the Iona Community and I'm sure glad I took the option to attend. Bell's easy and authentic way of communicating was warming and inspiring.

The theme was something along the lines of sacred spaces and symbols, and discussion revolved initially around things like church architecture, reordering the space so that it speaks of such important qualities as welcome, gathered community, singing praise, word & table & heavenly kingdom. Some of our churches are a product of their time, architecturally speaking. Individual private worship in rigid pews, austere aesthetics, high distant altar, etc. Bell talked about ways churches can change (eek! change???) to become more meaningful authentic worship spaces that reflect Jesus as being right there among his people. Chairs instead of pews, arranged in the round with a central table seems to be Bell's vision, and this happens in places. I'm quite attracted to the idea. The solid arguments for change must be based on the need to welcome all, for the sake of effective mission and evangelism.

A question was brought up from the audience about projector screens. I think the asker was asking about the screen as a central focal point and Bell's views on this, but his reply was interesting. His concern was the fleeting nature of song lyrics on a screen, as opposed to the permanence of black ink on a service sheet or songbook. People cannot reflect as easily on song lyrics that vanish immediately from sight after being sung as they can when, perhaps during the sermon, they can revisit the text of the lyrics on the sheet or in a book. They can often see who wrote the song or hymn, and when it was written, too. Bell spoke of the ability of the words to minister to us, and asks whether this ministry is as effective if the words just disappear. He suggests if a screen is used to also use books or song sheets as well, and don't worry about the trees in this instance, it is worth it. If you're concerned about the trees, protest against all the junk mail or free 'news' papers everywhere, he said.

In the second half of the day Bell focussed on symbols. First, using the wedding service as an example, he asked us to think about what the actions are really symbolising. If a couple who already have been living together decide to wed in the traditional manner of father 'giving away' the bride, what is this meaning? People do like tradition, though, for its own sake, even if they haven't thought much about the meaning at all. And why do the congregation, who after all are there as 'witnesses', only get to see the backsides of the bride and groom during the ceremony? Apparently this has origins in the days when weddings were much quieter and smaller affairs, often held in the parsonage with only a couple of witnesses.

Music is also a symbolic thing. Our God is a symbolic God - this is shown in the bible when God asks his people, for example, to build rock cairns at places of significance. Jesus gave us the most potent symbols of bread and wine as his body and his blood. Bell cautioned against the use of symbolic actions in worship if it hasn't got relevance - there is a difference between symbolic action and gimmicry.

Finally, Bell demonstrated how the wonderful songs from the Iona Community can be used in a liturgical setting, especially the short songs, which are like chants, really. Prayers or bible readings can be interspersed with these short songs, and we tried out a few and they were lovely. 'Church renewal' is what the Iona Community says its about, and John Bell is a wonderful, inspirational spokesperson. God bless him.

God's Creation

2011-02-24T16:49:00.000Z

I'm going to show this video at the start of the young people's confirmation class that starts next week.

Thank you Lord

2011-02-18T08:10:00.003Z

Praising God today for small miracles and answered prayer! (Can't give details as they are confidential).

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with all my heart;

I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and rejoice in you;

I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.

(Psalm 9:1-2)

This morning I am rejoicing for a friend. Hallelujah!

Living by the Heart

2011-02-13T14:42:00.005Z

Matthew 5:21-37
The gospel for today is part of ‘The Sermon on the Mount’, which in its entirety takes up all of chapters 5, 6, & 7 of Matthew’s gospel. We heard some of the sermon last week, and we’ll hear more of it next week and on into March. For disciples of Jesus, I think the Sermon on the Mount should be read repeatedly - marked, learned and inwardly digested. In the section we heard this morning from chapter 5, verses 21-37, Jesus ‘expounds’ the law; in other words, Jesus looks at some of the Ten Commandments and develops them further – he affirms the law, and goes beyond it. “You have heard that it was said ‘You shall not murder’, but I tell you that anyone who is angry will be subject to judgment”. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, but I tell you that anyone who lusts has already committed adultery”. “Again, you have heard that it was said ‘do not break your oath’, but I tell you, do not swear an oath at all”.

Jesus is really challenging us here in this passage to true integrity, goodness and compassion in dealing with anger, lust, adultery, divorce and making promises. By this passage, Jesus shows us the level of purity that is found in God. When we hear these words, we all recognise our shortcomings. How can any of us mere mortals possibly live up to these high standards? We can only hope to come close to this level of purity if we live from the heart rather than from our self-promoting ego. This is what’s important to God – love, faithfulness, loyalty and reconciliation. And this is what true discipleship looks like.

The heart is the place where obedience and righteousness are made possible; and the heart is the only place from which Christ-like grace and compassion can flow. Righteousness is not just about following laws imposed upon us from the outside – it’s about what happens in the heart. Christ’s challenge is to refuse to allow ourselves to live only by the letter of the law, but to go beyond the law to living from the heart – serving, seeking justice, offering welcome and compassion, protecting the vulnerable and preserving our rich ecological heritage on the planet. To adopt Christ’s heart-driven life is sometimes painful and difficult. But it will open the door to life for us and for others.

When we speak of ‘the heart’, it’s the heart that seeks God’s will – it’s the heart that listens to God’s Spirit living within him or her. The opposite of living ‘by the heart’ is living by the ego. The ego is the selfish part of our self, the part that wants to be the centre of the universe and wants to control things out of fear and pride; the part that doesn’t think too deeply about the effects our thoughts or actions have on other people or on the created world. The ego is the veil that keeps us from seeing God’s vision for the world and for ourselves and other people, and keeps us from fully living, loving and serving. The ego-self edges God out, it edges inspiration out; it inhibits growth. The ego state of mind brings discontentment and fear and a continual desire for the next, newer, or younger thing. It ultimately leads to our unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

In Luke 9:23-24 Jesus says: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” We all have an ego-self, and would benefit us to be aware of this. But as disciples of Christ, not only do we want to be aware of our ego, we also hope that through that awareness, and through prayer and obedience, our ego will become less significant in influence (i.e. we will decrease), and the influence of God’s Spirit in our heart will become more significant (he will increase). That’s what is meant by ‘dying to self’ - dying to self means determining to live for Christ rather than for our self. And this is a daily battle. In his 1st letter to the Corinthians [15:31], St. Paul writes, "I die daily." Paul, a veteran apostle who witnessed many miracles and had a revelation of Christ, still had to personally die to his own selfish desires. We do too, daily.

The Christian life must be based on a humble heart. When we’re willing to humble ourselves through a realistic awareness of our ego’s self-serving influence, then we’re able to make progress on the narrow path that leads to life. It’s a choice that we have to make in every moment – will we experience life, perceive our self, and engage with the world from the heart or from the ego? That choice determines how clearly God’s pure values of love, faithfulness, loyalty and reconciliation will be reflected in our life.

This living from the heart takes far more work, and far more awareness than legalism. It requires us to allow God to constantly challenge our attitudes and convictions, to constantly transform our feelings and reactions and to constantly call us to a higher standard. In this way of living we cannot sit back and rest in the future guarantee of heaven. We are called to work to be citizens of heaven now, and to actively bring heaven into our world and into our lives through submitting to God’s gracious guidance. If we’re courageous enough to embark on the journey of heart-driven living, we will discover a richness and a fullness to life, a deeper connectedness and a more gracious way of relating and living together.

Whenever we interact with family, friends, neighbours and strangers, with those who are safe and those who are not, may we live by heart. When we deal with those who help us and those who challenge us, with the poor and with the wealthy, may we live by heart. With those in our care, or with those in authority over us, may we live by heart. Whenever we eat, spend, drive, use or enjoy anything that this world has gifted us, may we live by heart. May we refuse to settle for simply doing what the law requires, giving ourselves instead to live from hearts that are captured by God’s Spirit. And through our daily living by heart may the heart of our world be positively transformed. Amen.

(with thanks to John van de Laars at Sacredise)

Give More Life

2011-02-08T18:43:00.005Z

Found a good blog post today. It begins with a quote from someone called Brennan Manning: “In every encounter we either give life or we drain it; there is no neutral exchange.“

40 Ways to Give More Life.

I'm sure there are even more ways than this to discover, too!

To be in Christ

2011-02-02T09:55:00.010Z

I have recently become facebook 'friends' with a guy I went to school with. I remember him as a fun, funny, popular, cheerful and happy-go-lucky kind of person; I also knew that for quite some time he hadn't been in contact with his family and there was the intimation of a problematic phase of life. But God is in the problematic phases of life (thank you God), and in looking at my friend's info page on facebook, it is most obvious to me that he has been on a life-changing spiritual journey for the past few years. He has become what some might call a follower of the New Spirituality, along the lines of the Christ Consciousness movement, which is an attractive spiritual quest and one that I think has some truth to offer us all.

My friend makes inspirational videos and posts them on You Tube under the name Amplifying the Light (Atomas Victory), if anyone is so inclined as to look at them. An interesting thing that my friend has written in his You Tube profile:

This channel is dedicated to broadcasting (Amplifying) information and knowledge (Light) about, what may be considered "Secret Teachings". Of course none of these are really secret but it's probably not the type of information that you would find at the local church (lol).

I'll admit that a lot of these 'secret' teachings would be considered gnostic and heretical by many Christians. But I also think that the Church is missing something significant if it doesn't take more seriously the meaning of what Jesus said in John 17 when he prayed to the Father for his disciples that they would be one with him as he is one with the Father. By the Holy Spirit, we live in Christ and Christ lives in us. And Christ is One with the Father. So not only does Christ give us 'access' to God, he also makes possible the intimacy between us and God that Christ himself has.

Meditation features highly in New Age Spirituality. I don't think Christians meditate enough about the fact that God is in Christ and therefore through him God is in us. This morning I decided to try and meditate on the concepts of 'One' and 'Oneness'. It was lovely, though I only could sustain it for 15 minutes as I'm not well-practiced in meditation. I would like to try and keep this up though. I'm grateful to my old friend for helping me to remember the intimacy that God offers us all when we are open and seek this.

I realise writing about this stuff is risky - it's on the edge. But the attraction is in the emphasis on love and on freedom, which is exactly what the gospel proclaims. It's interesting how this resonates with the writings of some of the Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich, and the more contemporary Thomas Keating. And it resonates directly with my own conversion experience, too, when the purity and clarity of God's love was shown to me 12 years ago. 'Awake, O sleeper, and Christ shall give you light'. It seems that our fear is a block. I want to try and get rid of that block. I'd like to engage in this conversation with others who are either attracted by this or repelled.

If you have love for one another

2011-01-31T12:55:00.011Z

Yesterday we had the last of our 'circumstance-dictated' joint services with the two churches in my parish. The heating in the older building has now been fixed, so the two congregations can return to separate spaces. The past three weeks of togetherness have been good, with a larger congregation and the voices of two choirs, worshipping and fellowshipping together. Many old grievances and walls between the two churches are melting away as time passes and each church reaches out to the other. The diocesan GAP (Growth Action Plan) process has been helpful in speeding up this process as both churches work together in mission, as has the patient care and hard graft of the vicar, my training incumbent.

This parish has an interesting history. In the early days, the two churches each had their own vicar. Then for a while the parish consisted of three churches, under one vicar. Subsequently, one of these churches joined with a different church as a united benefice, leaving this parish with its current configuration of two churches under one vicar (with curate).

I have said before that these two churches are very different in style. One is in an old building, built in the 1850's, and has more traditional forms of worship, with an 8am Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion service (written in 1662), without any hymns or songs; a 10:30 Common Worship service (written in 2000), with traditional hymns, organ and robed choir; and a 5 pm service of Choral Evensong, which again is from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and again incorporates traditional hymns, organ and robed choir. The interior of the building is traditional, with pews, formal choir stalls, high altar, and Lady Chapel. The chancel walls are painted with beautiful frescoes, but they in need of repair. There is no church hall, as it was sold off years ago, but there is a space at the back of church which has been re-ordered to make room for fellowship, with a kitchen and lavatories, and a small room for Sunday School (there are 2 children who attend regularly at present).

The second church's building used to be old, too, but the old building had to be demolished and a new, smaller building sprung up in 2001. As you come in the front door, the new building has a small coffee lounge leading to a worship space (people here refer to that part as 'the church'), and on into a hall, where the uniformed groups such as Brownies, Cubs, Guides and Scouts meet throughout the week, and where the Sunday School is held on during the main service. There are about 8 children who regularly attend Sunday School, and once a month we have a Parade Service with the uniformed groups, where there are about 40 children present. At the Parade services, a band plays with brass, keyboard, flutes, clarinets and guitars. It's an all-age band, which I am in, as are my two kids. This church has also got a robed choir, but they sit in normal chairs like the rest of the congregation. There are no pews, and there is no Lady Chapel. There is a small organ (not a large pipe organ like in the other church), but there is no organist at present, so the music for worship comes via CD's. This church uses some traditional hymns but also more contemporary worship songs, and they do not use hymn books, they project the words onto a screen.

Recently with the joint services some people from the traditional church were inspired to comment after experiencing the worship at the less formal church that they would like something different from time to time in their more formal church. My heart leaps in hearing this. The all-age all-instrument band has been invited to play on occasion at the more formal church, too, and so far has been well-received. Things are moving, and it is exciting to witness. One church member is going to start up Messy Church there soon - how wonderful is that?! In fact, the GAP process has invigorated both churches in many ways. Its such a privilege to be part of the church as the body of Christ and to be involved with others as we all seek to be faithful disciples. May we continue to listen and be open to the Spirit's leading.

The True Christian - a homily for BCP evening Communion

2011-01-24T13:59:00.003Z

Romans 12:6-16
We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Marks of the True Christian Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

John 2:1-11
The Wedding at CanaOn 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 bridegroom and 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.

In the Epistle reading from Romans 12, St. Paul exhorts us not to claim to be ‘wiser’ than we are, so at the outset of this sermon, I want to assure you that I make no such claim! But that reading gives us some pretty challenging things to think about. I wonder how many of us would claim to be a ‘true Christian’. I would probably say that I am a ‘true Christian’. But looking closely at verses 9-16 of Romans 12, known as the ‘Marks of the True Christian’, we gain a sense of renewed humility as we recognise our shortcomings.

A ‘true Christian’ lets love be genuine, hates evil and holds on to what is good; ‘true Christians’ love one another with affection and outdo one another in showing honour. They do not lag in zeal – they serve the Lord with enthusiasm. They rejoice in hope, are patient in suffering, and persevere in prayer. They contribute to the needs of the other Christians; and extend hospitality, even to strangers. True Christians bless those who treat them badly; bless - and not curse. They rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep, and live harmoniously with one another; they don’t think they’re important - they associate with the lowly; and they never claim to be wiser than they are. I think this passage gives us a target to aim for, if we seek to be true Christians; I would venture most of us aren’t there yet – but we would hope that we’re on the right path.

One gift of St. Paul’s letters is that he reveals to us our higher goal, that higher way of living as disciples or followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this way, St. Paul’s letters are a sign revealing the glory of Jesus himself, which links in with this season of Epiphany. During the Epiphany season, the focus is on signs from God revealing the true identity of Jesus to mankind, and the glory of Jesus revealed in our Gospel Reading from John chapter 2 is revealed through the miracle of the water turned to wine.

The symbolism of water turned into wine demonstrates that Jesus is the One who has come to do a new thing; to provide the new blessing; to transform the old covenant with its system of laws that became corrupt (to the point of absurdity) into a new covenant, the rule of love, grace, faith and trust in what Christ has done, and what he’s able to do for us when we let him into our heart and mind and soul. The message of the water turned to wine at the wedding of Cana is a picture of the way our God gives to us an abundant life. But with our human nature, we can take this for granted. As St. Augustine writes, “For even as that which the servants put into the water-pots was turned into wine by the doing of the Lord, so in like manner also is what the clouds pour forth changed into wine by the doing of the same Lord. But we do not wonder at the latter, because it happens every year: it has lost its marvellousness by its constant recurrence.”

On a superficial level, the wine Jesus created was a face-saving gift to the groom and his family, but at the deepest level, Jesus has created the good wine of redemption, given to us by his grace; he produced good wine from water when the old "water" of the Jewish Law had run out. Jesus is the only One who provides the grace of redemption when the old ways produce nothing.

Miracles are called ‘signs’ in John’s Gospel - signs that point us to Jesus as the One who came to give us life in all its fullness. And when we follow him, we then become signposts ourselves – we should be displaying signs of growth and transformation. We should display something resembling the marks of a ‘true Christian’ that St. Paul describes. When we show genuine love, affection and honour to one another, when we’re patient in suffering and bless our persecutors, when we live in harmony with one another, we will be signs that point to Jesus our Savour, the one who meets our needs in times of crisis and times of joy; the One who offers the very best of the kingdom to the meek and the lowly.

Where we differ, dialogue is vital

2011-01-18T15:45:00.004Z

I'm a member of an evangelical network for ordained women, Awesome, who have been meeting over the past 12 months with Reform, a large conservative evangelical network in the UK, for talks over differences between views of the ordination of women as priests and as bishops in the Church of England.

For now, the talks are over, and a final statement has been published on the Awesome website and on the Reform website. From the statement on the Awesome website:

"...it is clear to us that our ongoing differences are not only in relation to the exegesis of the specific biblical texts where we have focussed our studies. Further areas which have arisen in our conversations and which we believe require ongoing discussion among evangelicals include:

1. The effect on biblical interpretation of different understandings of the relationship between exegesis of specific texts in their original contexts, wider biblical theology, and the role of doctrine and systematic theology.

2. The form and significance of creation order in relation to being made male and female, especially as revealed in Genesis 2 and later biblical appeals to it.

3. The doctrine of the Trinity, in particular whether or not language of submission and obedience is to be used for the eternal intra-Trinitarian relationship of the Son to the Father and the significance of any such order within the Trinity for the ordering of relationships between men and women in the church and husband and wife in marriage.

4. The relationship between submission and obedience and whether there is a universal Christ-like mutual submission among Christians or a specific submission of wives to husbands whose position as head is to be understood in terms of Christ-like authority.

5. The connection between any ordering in relationship between husband and wife and any ordering of men and women within the ministries and offices of the church.

6. The nature of episcopal jurisdiction and the provision therefore required for evangelicals opposed to women bishops when women become bishops."

As ever, encouragement of ongoing dialogue is important among God's people, especially where differences result in damage to the body of Christ.

I affirm my commitment to the following ideals from the statement:
•• to sustain each other in prayer
•• to work for charitable best practice in all our relationships and discussions
•• to recognise and nurture the gifts of all fellow evangelicals, both male and female.

Amen.

Epiphany 2

2011-01-17T09:52:00.004Z

1 Corinthians 1:1-9 & John 1:29-42
As we continue in the season of epiphany we find in our Gospel reading this testimony from John the Baptist about who Jesus is, and here John refers to Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’, he is ‘the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit’; he is ‘God’s Chosen One’. John the Baptist’s calling was to prepare the way for this One person, this special person whose manifestation was prophesied over many generations of Israel.

John the Baptist gathered many followers over the years he’d spent preparing the way for Jesus. We can imagine must have been overjoyed when he saw the Spirit come down from heaven and remain on Jesus. Here he is! Here is the One! And John’s followers trusted his testimony about the significance of Jesus – right away as he points Jesus out to them, John’s disciples begin to follow Jesus.

A strong thread running through our readings this morning is the importance of testifying to others about God’s grace found in Jesus. In the reading from 1Corinthians, St. Paul shows up the result of his testimony and the testimony of those ministering with him to the church in Corinth. The result was that the Corinthians were greatly enriched in knowledge of the grace that was given them in Christ Jesus. But Paul doesn’t let them get comfortable there, because in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians he says ‘[God] has committed to us the message of reconciliation. [So] we are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us’. God calls his people to testify about his loving kindness and redeeming power made known to us through Jesus Christ. Each one of us has heard this testimony from someone, which has led to our being called into the body of Christ as his church. But this cannot be the end of it. Regular attendance at church isn’t all that we’re called to. We are called, as well, to be witnesses for Christ. And that means sharing our faith. Church is important, that’s for sure. But unless we testify to others about who we worship when we come together as church, what is the point?

There are many reasons why we hesitate to share our faith – fear of failure, of rejection or of offending people. Let's be honest. Sometimes it’s just a case of apathy – or we don’t think we need to do this; we can leave it to others. It can be so difficult to tell others about the benefits of a living relationship with Jesus Christ, and we can find ourselves instead saying to people things like, ‘why don’t you go to church, it helps me’, or ‘if only more people would go to church, the world would be a better place’. It’s not that this is wrong, but we can find that we’re leaving Jesus out of the conversation altogether.

I have a cousin who is a pastor in the US at a large and lively evangelical church. My cousin preached a sermon recently that’s available to listen to online. I listened to Steve’s sermon, and it was great. (You might not have liked that it was 40 minutes long! I marvelled at how congregations there are used to that length of sermon.) But his sermon was from the heart, it was enthusiastic, and it was on a subject that’s very important. It was as important to the early church from the beginning as it is to the church today. Steve’s sermon was about sharing our faith, and he asks the question: is sharing our faith a privilege, a responsibility or a burden?

Some people might say a small 8am BCP congregation isn’t the appropriate place to preach about ‘sharing your faith’ or ‘giving your testimony’. Is this true? Are we exempt here? In our Old Testament reading from Isaiah, God says, “I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus says to his disciples, “You are the light of the world. ...let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven”. Does this not also apply to an 8am BCP congregation, here in our little town, as much as it does a big evangelical congregation in a church halfway across the world?

The statistics show that the church in the west is in decline. There are people out there - in our families, our neighbourhoods and our community - who need to know about the saving grace of Jesus, who need to know that they can be reconciled with God, who need to know the path that leads to life not only for eternity but for the fullness of life that is available now.

If we are in Christ, if we are in the church, which is the body of Christ, God has chosen us to be his ambassadors – to represent the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When we live as we are called to be, we can’t help but share our faith. No matter our age, no matter our state of health, there are people in our midst, who we meet regularly, who need to hear our testimony about Jesus.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you have made reconciliation possible for all through the righteousness of your Chosen One, Jesus Christ our Lord; and you have called your church to participate in this ministry of reconciliation. We pray for courage, wisdom and discernment so that we may share our faith appropriately with others. Equip us for this privilege and responsibility by your Holy Spirit, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blogging

2011-01-15T16:50:00.003Z

I'm thinking I would like to start blogging a bit more on thoughts or reflections rather than mainly just posting my sermons. One problem with this, though, is that a lot of what happens in ministry is confidential, or its stuff that wouldn't be right to put out there into the wide open blogosphere. For example, recently I've been feeling quite bruised by some criticism targeted at a particular service that I was involved in. I felt the criticism was unfounded and in fact, petty, but to go into detail about it here just doesn't feel right. And I've been involved in some highly intense pastoral situations, but they are certainly not appropriate to write about. This reflects the nature of the job, and also underscores to a certain extent its isolating aspect.

Another problem is the risk of being labelled [liberal, conservative, evangelical, catholic, orthodox, heretic - take your pick - although like Brian McLaren I would hope that I'm all those and more], when a particular flag is flown or cause promoted (though some of that might be discerned from the sermons anyway). One never knows who reads the blog, and though truth matters, so does my future ministry. Whether to be bold in this or not, the most important thing to me is that I am faithful to the gospel as I understand it.

I had a visit from the Diocesan Director of Curates (at least that's what I call him - not sure of his official title), and we talked a bit about the interesting phenomenon of online social networking and blogs (he has a blog, a facebook and a twitter account himself). We both agreed that it doesn't make sense to bury your head in the sand re: the opportunities that online communication affords. If we want to be able to relate to this generation, this stuff isn't going to go away.

I love reading the blogs that I'm subscribed to. I sometimes wish I blogged like Rachel in Revise Reform or maybe like Rev Elizabeth in The Rev and a Dog or like NRIGirl in Coffee with Jesus, but as anyone can see, those are very different blogs, and anyway, I should just be myself, I guess. I just feel a little stuck in a rut. But evolution is natural, so, who knows?

Epiphany

2011-01-02T19:35:00.003Z

Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12
Today we celebrate the Epiphany. After months of watching the signs and following the star, the Magi saw and recognised the truth about Jesus Christ. If you watched The Nativity series on the BBC just before Christmas, you may have noticed a little error they made in telling the story – the Magi didn’t arrive in time to see the Christ child on the same night that he was born, as the programme portrayed– they probably didn’t even arrive on the 12th day of Christmas – it’s more likely they arrived months afterwards, because they came from such a long distance. But at least the programme didn’t dress the Magi up as kings.

Matthew’s gospel is the only gospel to refer to the Magi, and ‘three kings’ aren’t mentioned at all. The identification of the Magi as ‘kings’ is linked to our OT reading from Isaiah & in psalms that say the Messiah will be worshipped by kings. Early readers interpreted Matthew in light of these prophecies and by 500 AD, the tradition of the three kings was adopted by all commentators, and this carried on up until the Protestant Reformation, after which the idea of the wise men as ‘kings’ was out, and they returned to their original status of Magi.

The word Magi probably refers to priestly astrologers from Persia. As part of the Zoroastrian religion, these priests paid a lot of attention to the stars; they had an international reputation for astrology, which was highly regarded as a science.

The same Greek word that translates as ‘wise men’ in the King James Version of the bible is translated as sorcerer in the Acts of the Apostles, with the sorcerers Elymas and Simon. But in spite of that negative use of the term, here in Matthew’s gospel, the Magi play a positive role. They don’t need conversion from their godless arts because they’ve recognised who Jesus is and have acted appropriately by worshipping him. The Nativity programme paid a lot of attention to the process the Magi went through, discovering the meaning of the bright star and acting upon this by following where it led. They knew that the infant born in Bethlehem was immensely important and brought him gifts that reflected their insight. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were the usual offerings given to a king at that time; gold, being valuable, was a symbol of kingship, frankincense is a perfume and was a symbol of priesthood, and myrrh was used as anointing and embalming oil.

By contrast to the epiphany of the Magi, the negative figures in the text are, of course, King Herod, and also ‘all Jerusalem with him’. Herod sees the Messiah as a rival to his kingship and he asks the Magi to come back and tell him the location of the newborn king so that he can destroy his competition. But surprisingly, all of Jerusalem, too, is disturbed at the coming of the Messiah. The ‘people’s chief priests’ and the ‘teachers of the law’, help Herod plan his evil assaults because of their wrong interpretation of Scripture. And so the Magi, the foreign elite, stand on the side of Jesus and act in keeping with biblical prophecies, while the religious elite of Israel stand on the opposite side with Herod and plot against Jesus.

Through the story of the Magi, the extent of the coming Kingdom of God is made clear, and this point was elaborated by Paul in our reading from Ephesians. Jesus came into the world to save all nations, not just the Jewish nation, and Jesus accepts all people, regardless of their status. The incarnation was first revealed to local shepherds and foreign Magi. God’s justice and peace is for the whole world, sharers together in the promise in Jesus Christ.

Later in Matthew chapter 27, as Jesus faces his inevitable suffering, Pilate’s gentile soldiers are the first since the Magi to call Jesus the ‘king of the Jews’, but the crown they give him is a crown of thorns, and his throne is on the cross. At that moment, instead of a bright star, darkness came over all the land. And we hear the voice of the Roman Centurion: ‘Surely he was the Son of God!’ Finally, Matthew ends his gospel with the resurrected Jesus commissioning his followers to go and make disciples of all nations.

The Magi’s attention had been fixed by the bright star that revealed Jesus to them as the true king of the Jews, through which all creation would be saved - and it was an event of astronomical proportions. The Magi dropped everything, travelling far from the East because the magnitude of this event that had been revealed to them. The story of the Magi speaks to us today not only about the extent of God’s kingdom over all peoples and all creation, but also about the importance of awareness and recognition of who God is in Jesus Christ and what he wants from us in terms of response.

Do we pay much attention to what God reveals to us in our own life? Are we aware of what God is doing in the life of other people in our communities and in our world? Think about what it would take for God to get our fixed attention. And then come to him by whatever route you can, with the best gift you can give: yourself.

O God, who by the leading of a star revealed your Son to the nations of the world; lead us to a clearer vision of your presence, and the nations into the ways of unity and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

2010-12-30T15:42:00.002Z

Luke 2:36-40 36 There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.

When I read the gospel reading set by our lectionary for today, my instant response was, ‘why are we only reading the verses about Anna? Why not those about Simeon, too?’ Because of course, when the time for Mary’s purification came and Jesus was presented in the temple, Simeon and Anna were both there, both giving their prophetic witness to the true identity of the Christ child. Surely Simeon and Anna go together in bible readings, don’t they? Like Sampson & Delilah, or the Pharisee and the tax collector. But then my feminist upbringing kicked in – ‘girl power’ and all that - and I thought, ‘how great that Anna is acknowledged here on her own in our lectionary reading for today’. I decided to look Anna up in my ‘Who’s who in the bible’ reference book – and it turns out there’s really not much known about Anna other than what this passage in Luke tells us.

Her father was called Penuel, which is Hebrew for ‘face of God’. Her family line was through the tribe of Asher, which was not highly regarded by most Israelites because there was a lot of intermarriage and a history of dabbling in paganism. I suppose that goes to show how God will use even people with dodgy past histories to bring glory to his name – there is hope for us all!

But Anna was a very devout lady – after she was widowed, she spent virtually all her time at the temple, praying and worshipping, and for many decades. I thought a bit about how Anna’s temple-centred life differs from our life, even if our life centres on church. Some of us spend an awful lot of time here at church, but do we spend the majority of that time on worship and prayer? For that matter, our worship and prayer doesn’t need to be done solely here at church, but can be practiced throughout our daily routine.

Not all of us are called to be prophets like the prophetess Anna. But each one of us does have a role to play in God’s plan. For some, it will be active and obvious – as in the roles of evangelists, clergy, readers, intercessors, wardens, choir members or sides persons. For others, it’s quiet and out of public view, like those who care for people in need in the community or witness their faith to co-workers in their workplace. For many, it will be a mixture of the two, sometimes one, sometimes the other. God uses both the obvious and the subtle to reach the people he wants to reach. And the gospel writer Luke wants to draw readers of every age and stage of life into the picture. No matter who we are, or where we are, the story of Jesus becomes our story.

Mary and Joseph needed the wisdom of the old prophets Simeon and Anna at that moment; and the old man and old woman needed Jesus, they had been waiting for him, and now they thanked God for him. Anna and Simeon and all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel were living in patient hope, long-suffering, at a time when suffering had become a way of life.

These two aged saints are Israel at its best: devout, obedient, constant in prayer, led by the Holy Spirit, at home in the temple, longing and hoping for the fulfilment of God’s promises. God is doing something new, but it’s not entirely new, because hope is always joined to memory, and the ‘new’ is God’s keeping of an old promise. Anna and Simeon are a portrait of the Israel that accepted Jesus. Those who rejected him misunderstood their own tradition and so were not capable of recognizing him as the continuation of Israel’s hope.

One thing we can learn from this lesson is that it’s about trust. Time and time again Joseph and Mary had to trust God. They didn’t understand everything the angels had told them about Jesus’ conception and birth, but they trusted. At the presentation in the temple, they didn’t know exactly how to respond to Simeon and Anna, but they accepted how they reacted to Jesus, in trust.

And that’s something we all must learn to do. We all must learn to trust God. Sometimes faith is messy. Things can happen that we don’t understand, or that seem to hinder, rather than help us to accomplish the will of God. And all we can do is trust.

The elderly Anna learned to trust God. She showed her trust in God by living a devout life, something that all of us are capable of doing by the power of the Holy Spirit. Anna was looking forward to the promises of the messianic age, ‘the consolation of Israel.’ Again not only are we capable of that, the New Testament commands us to do it, looking for the fulfilment of God’s promises for the redemption of the whole world.

What Israel didn’t realise was that God’s appointed redeemer would deal with the suffering of the world by sharing it and taking it upon himself. The face of God shown to us in Jesus Christ is that of a suffering servant – who suffered on the cross for our sake – who still suffers alongside us, though glorified in heaven. It’s not about ‘girl-power’, or ‘manpower’, it’s about the power of God and his graceful nature, seen in the face of Christ. Our Emmanuel, who came to raise the lowly, and humble the arrogant – let all creation rejoice before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness. Amen.

Christingle!

2010-12-24T19:10:00.004Z

Despite the still icy and snowy conditions, we had a great turnout for the Christingle service at 4:00pm today - over 225 people. Wonderful to see all the families that come to this service. A real privilege to speak to them about God's love for the whole world, made manifest through Jesus Christ, who is the Light of the World. Now just need to stay awake for tonight's Christmas Eve Communion at 11:30pm!

Advent 4

2010-12-24T12:49:00.001Z

Isaiah 7: 10-16 & Matthew 1:18-end
Are you prepared for Christmas? Every year, I send cards and presents across the pond; and every year, I vow to send them before the international posting deadline. I keep making that vow to myself, but I can’t ever seem to fulfil it. Maybe, like me, you still have shopping to do as well. We probably could all improve in our forward planning. But we can be thankful that God is a forward planner! Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah reminds us that God began preparing for Christmas from a very early time. And that’s what led up to the wonderful miracle that happened in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.

Matthew’s gospel emphasises the fact that Jesus was the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies. That’s why he refers back to Isaiah 7:14 – ‘therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel’. But expectation of a virgin birth was never actually part of the Jewish vision of the Messiah-to-come. Matthew use this Isaiah text because it fit the actual facts that he needed to tell – in other words, Matthew’s story of the virgin birth was shaped by the true event itself. But the emphasis in both Isaiah & Matthew isn’t the virginal status of the mother; it’s about the importance of the name ‘Immanuel’.

The meaning of Immanuel and the meaning of Christmas are the same - one simple truth, four little words: God – is – with – us. The Holy God of Israel, wrapped up warm in humanity, crying real tears, in a real city, with real parents, who are trying their best to take it all in: God is with us. He’s on our planet – on our countryside – in our manger – Immanuel! ‘God is with us!’

From the birth of Christ, fast-forward 2000 years and those four words that changed history can now change us. In fact, those four words are the only words that can bring meaning to the deepest places of our hearts. The challenge for us is to recognise God’s presence in all situations and circumstances. We might doubt God’s love in times of grief, pain and trauma, but we will find comfort, healing and strength when we are able to experience that God is with us even in such times.

For the woman whose partner has left her and the children, who continually struggles to pick up the pieces: God is with you. For the elderly person who can no longer care for themselves, and must now rely on the care of others: God is with you. For the teenager struggling against peer pressure to fit in - tempted with alcohol and drugs: God is with you. For the person who is seeking truth, and looking hard at Jesus as a possibility: God is with you.

At Christmas, in the quiet moments, many of us revisit our own past, which for some might bring back wonderful memories, but that’s not always the case – it’s not always comfortable and cosy - for some it overflows with sadness. But Matthew’s Christmas gospel invites us to look at the wider perspective, that we are not alone. We never have been, and we never will be, because God in Christ stepped out of eternity, and into time. And God chose a cave in Bethlehem to communicate one simple abiding truth: God is with us. And those four words have the power and the beauty to change our every waking moment.

Matthew’s Christmas gospel asks us to take the past seriously, to recognize how the past shapes the present, and to honour what God has done for us through it. And in the present we can find not just a lonely moment, but an opportunity for faith and service and the possibility of new beginnings.

The Advent challenge for us, on our own & as a church, is to follow Christ in becoming Immanuel in our broken world. In simple acts of service, inclusion and grace, God’s love is made clear and present. In particular, an awareness of, and care for, those who have significant need is a tangible reflection of God’s care: Setting aside time to volunteer in a caring ministry, or welcoming lonely people into our celebrations – these actions offer healing and transformation to a world that sorely needs it.
Whatever actions we might choose to do, this is the key to experiencing Immanuel again this Advent and Christmas: to offer ourselves as ‘little Immanuels’ in practical ways in the world.

Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, as we make preparations to celebrate the birth of your Son Jesus, we thank you that you have planned our future from the beginning of time. We thank you for Mary’s willingness to say ‘yes’ as you called her to be the mother of our Lord, and that Joseph listened to the Angel and was not afraid. May we, too, be willing and unafraid to do your will. Most of all we thank you that you have not left us alone, you have given us Jesus Immanuel, God with us. Strengthen us, that others might see you in us; and humble us, that we would see you in them and in each other. And may we look to the future with hope, serving you and all your people with joy. Amen.

Prepare ye the way

2010-12-12T23:12:00.002Z

Advent 3 - Matthew 11:2-11

The candle we lit today on our Advent ring is for John the Baptist, and our gospel reading helps us to think about his particular role. After all his hard work preparing the way for the Lord, unfortunately John the Baptist was imprisoned for speaking out in truth about King Herod. And from prison, John could only get snippets of news about Jesus. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus a question: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus affirms that he is ‘the One’, and gives examples of his liberating and healing work, which was fulfilled the prophets: ‘The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor’. Then he teaches the crowd about the role of John the Baptist, explaining that, as great as John was, anyone who embraces God’s reign and his Kingdom is greater still.

John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy foretold by Isaiah, ch 40: ‘A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God”’ John lived a life of discipline and simplicity. He influenced many people to come into the desert to be baptized, confessing their sins. He didn’t soften his message to gain approval. When Jesus came, John pointed people to Him. He did a wonderful job preparing the way for Christ. No other prophet was greater than John. But Jesus says that those who embrace God’s reign and the coming kingdom are greater still.

John was filled with the Spirit while still in his mother's womb which helped him fulfil his mission. But John the Baptist didn’t know about the nature of Christ as King in God’s kingdom. His limited knowledge of Christ is obvious from the question he had to send his disciples to ask. But because of the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, followers of Jesus can receive a measure of the Spirit that wasn’t available until after Jesus ascended and was glorified in heaven. St. Peter says in Acts 2:38, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’. It’s a gift that wasn’t available to those under the Old Covenant. And like all gifts, you must receive it to be able to use it.

John the Baptist lived under the Old Covenant; but even those who are ‘least in the kingdom’ now live under the New Covenant with its better sacrifice, hope, and promises. Those who turn to Christ are immediately brought into the kingdom of God's Son - Colossians 1:13 says ‘...he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves’.

We can know many things which Jesus hadn’t taught His apostles until after the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost. Jesus said, in John 16, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come”.

And the depth of knowledge about Christ has increased over the centuries, because many can read in their own language about Christ from all that’s recorded in the bible, and so we are able to know about God’s grace through the cross and the forgiveness of sin in a very personal and accessible way. We can share God’s kingdom vision of justice and mercy, and the future glory of a transformed creation. Our true greatness only comes by our relationship with Jesus Christ, made possible by the Spirit when we turn to Christ; and by his Spirit, when we ask, Christ lives in us and we live in him.

When we know Jesus has given such great blessings to us, we want to dedicate our lives to Christ, and produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, to nurture and enjoy the fellowship of the family of God, and proclaim the gospel of Christ and the kingdom in its fullness. We are called to seek out the places in our world where joy is being robbed, and to challenge the unjust ‘killjoys’ of our society. We are called to wait actively for Jesus to return. This is our source of patience and hope as we wait for God’s reign to be fully realised, both in this world and the next.

As we actively wait for the One who will come again, we must reflect on how we, as a church, can best point people to Jesus and prepare the way for his second coming. We need to identify areas of neglect in our community of New Brighton. To be salt and light, we must refuse to buy into the scepticism of our time, and commit ourselves instead to hope and compassion, and standing for truth and justice. In the way we live, speak and interact with each other, we can demonstrate that joy can be known in this world without oppressing, bombing or ignoring others, and without buying into rampant consumerism and achieveism. We need to allow the light of Christ to search out all the ways in which we inhibit the growth of his kingdom.

To finish, it seems appropriate to pray again the Advent candle prayer we prayed earlier: God incarnate, Prince of Peace, we confess that we have lost sight of your promises. We confess that we have accepted the depths of violence and poverty and despair experienced by so many today. We confess our cynicism and our doubt, and pray that we of little faith, may prepare a path for you, and give you the space to come into a broken world. Amen.

Advent 1

2010-12-02T22:28:00.005Z

I've been too busy to post lately.

We had a great all-age Advent Sunday service last week, followed by the Deanery Advent Carol Service in the evening, both of which I led. Boy, I was exhausted at the end of it all!

Last year December was almost overwhelming, my first December as an ordained minister. This year I feel much more prepared, at least mentally. All the extra services combined with the family's expectations (not to mention my son's birthday) and unexpected pastoral situations, December is very busy.

This weekend is my son's birthday party, a sleepover followed by a trip to Blackpool (Ramp City indoor skateboard park). Six 12-year-olds. Will I get any sleep?

Also on Sunday is the annual Christmas Tree service, where we decorate the tree at church, and the band plays the music for the carols. I am leading the service and I am also in the band (guitar), along with my son (cornet) and daughter (flute). Should be fun.

I like Advent, because in this season we make a big deal about both the Incarnation and also the Second Coming. The Incarnation is just mind-blowing, that God would dwell amongst us in the form (at the beginning at least) of a little baby. Christ's return is something I yearn for - the new creation - come soon Lord Jesus.

Remembrance

2010-11-14T13:10:00.004Z

Isaiah 25:1-9 & Revelation 22:1-5

Remembrance Sunday brings to mind a variety of feelings. Some people here may have experienced war or have relatives who’ve been affected by war. Some here may have loved ones currently serving in the Armed Forces. Others, like me, have little involvement in the realities of armed conflict, but we all have immense respect for those who have put their lives on the line for our freedom. Today, it is important to remember.

Many of you will have seen some of the many war memorials in France. It’s a humbling experience. Travelling through the Somme in the summer, we visited the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, which bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in WW1 and have no known grave. The whereabouts of their bodily remains will always be a mystery - and how disturbing this must have been for their families.

We have mixed feelings about war. We hope that we live in a country where conflict is only entered into when necessary to protect our freedom or the freedom of vulnerable people. We hope that world leaders consider long and hard whether war is justified before entering into armed conflict. We hope that those who fight in our Armed Forces will fight with honour. But evidence from contemporary conflicts shows that sometimes wars start with questionable motivations, and sometimes conflict brings out the most shameful behaviour, not just in the enemy, but in us and in our allies.

Sadly, we still count the dead, as bodies are flown back to the UK, and we read their stories in the newspaper. At the end of WW1, you wouldn’t be able to fit the names of the dead in a single newspaper. The sheer numbers are hard for us to comprehend today. WW1 was known as ‘the war to end all wars’. It has been followed by WW2, Korea, the Falklands, the two Gulf Wars, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and conflicts in other areas where British & Commonwealth troops have been engaged. It is important to remember.

Some of us who were at the service of Remembrance in Liscard on Thursday were disappointed because at the 2 minute silence at 11:00, some people just walked on past, carrying on their conversations. At that one point in time, which is set aside for remembrance, they had forgotten. But on reflection, those people remind me of the fact that all of us, at times, take our freedom for granted. And that’s why the work of the Royal British Legion is so important, lest we forget.

This year, the British Legion has done something really different to mark Remembrance Sunday. They’ve made a single called ‘2 Minute Silence’, which is available online to download for £1 - and as well as the silent track, buyers also receive a video file showing individuals standing silent in remembrance: famous actors, sports stars, politicians and musicians as well as serving and injured soldiers. I found it quite moving. Chris Simpkins, from the British Legion, hopes that people will appreciate the significance of the absence of sound: ‘Rather than record a song’, he says, ‘we felt the UK public would recognise the poignancy of silence and its clear association with remembrance.’ Let us hope so, too.

A Facebook campaign has boosted the single into the Top 40 – and because it’s a ‘new entry’ in the charts, BBC Radio 1 is going to play this silent song during the Sunday afternoon countdown. A completely noiseless charity single in the charts for the first time. The Official Charts Company says they’re ‘not aware that any track like this has ever made an impact on the Official Singles Chart before. But even aside from that, this [is] a great achievement by the Royal British Legion - and for a great cause, of course’ – what a contemporary way of encouraging Remembrance in the public arena, especially amongst younger people. The Royal British Legion knows it’s important to remember.

We remember the many people who have fought to protect freedom and bring peace. But in our remembering, as Christians, let us not forget the one who puts the vision of freedom and peace into our hearts – he is the one who comes to bring us ultimate freedom and peace.

Our bible readings today are all about God’s promises for freedom and peace. The reading from Revelation 22 reminds us that the day will come when there will be no more pain, no more conflict, no more war. It’s a prophecy of the New Jerusalem, of Eden restored, the time to come when earth will merge with heaven in the new creation. And the first reading from Isaiah 25, written some 700 years before Jesus came to begin the merger, prophesies the same thing:

The context of the Isaiah reading is a time in Israel’s history when things are bleak – civilised society has become disordered, and Israel is badly afflicted. Verse 2 says: ‘You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin...’ We’re not told which city this is – it could be Babylon, but it seems to move beyond this to any city characterised by arrogance, injustice and the misuse of power. It’s every city devoted to greed and exploitation. This city is in ruin, and Isaiah praises the Lord for having done ‘wonderful things’, which he had planned long ago. This prophecy speaks of God’s ultimate intentions to humble those who exploit the weak.

Isaiah is inspired to speak for all the poor and needy, those who are crushed and abused by indifference and greed. In the abusive city the poor are surrounded by the merciless who care only for themselves. Isaiah speaks the word that God will intervene against that city, and even the heartless will glorify and fear the Lord because God eliminates the old way of living and being. From verse 6 both the city and the ruthless have disappeared, leaving only the generous and caring presence of the righteous Lord. The vision is of a mountain. On ‘this mountain’ is the great banquet for all peoples, in the fullness of the Kingdom of God, who offers this feast as a sign of generosity, security, and joy - but goes even further than that. Isaiah imagines that the whole earth has a ‘pall’ over it – a shroud of death – weighed down by sadness and loss. The world is gripped by the power of death that crowds in upon every chance for life. This isn’t just about the awareness that we’re all going to die. This is about the active negation of well-being; everything that limits humanity and our well-being, and prevents communion with others or with God. That’s who death is, and that’s the death that God will swallow up. The apostle Paul says in 1 Cor 15:54, ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’. This is the good news of Jesus – this is his accomplishment on the cross. And 700 years before Jesus, Isaiah envisions nothing less than a radical, complete transformation. The final act of transformation removes the shame of helplessness and exploitation; of not being able to resist the powers of death. All of that will be overcome. This is our faith – it is important to remember.

In verse 1, Isaiah says, ‘You are my God.’ By the end of the passage he’s joined by all who welcome the Lord’s kingdom: ‘This is our God.’ This is the community that hopes in confidence that the Lord will prevail. The city of abuse cannot escape the God whom Israel trusts and praises: the Lord who has power to save and to transform. Armistice is about peace, but Christians understand ‘peace’ as more than just the avoidance of war. It’s about building relationships between people, communities, and nations, founded on justice. We start here in our own parish, in our own community, building relationships of peace. And for that we need God’s help, to change each and every one of us: to give us a passion for peace and justice and to follow Jesus, who is the path to peace.

Lord God, give us the will to pledge ourselves to serve you and all others, in the cause of peace, for the relief of want and suffering, and for the praise of your name. Guide us by your Spirit, give us wisdom, give us courage, give us hope, and keep us faithful now and always. Amen.

2010-11-04T17:31:00.003Z

Philippians 4:4-9; Luke 15:1-10

‘...There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents...’, these words tell us just how much every person matters so much to Jesus our Great Shepherd – he goes to great lengths to look for those who turn to him - and it’s amazing to think that each one of us is so loved by God our Father in heaven.

When the shepherd in the parable finds his lost sheep and the woman finds her lost coin, both the shepherd and the woman do the same thing: they call their friends and neighbours together and say, ‘Rejoice with me’, because I’ve found what I have lost. And in our first reading from the letter to the Philippians St. Paul says to the church, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!’

Joy can be experienced in many circumstances and in human relationships. But we live in a world where there are natural disasters, political catastrophes, economic hardships; accidents, illnesses, death and widespread wickedness, and none of us are exempt from suffering. So how in the world does the apostle Paul expect us always to be joyful? Does he want us to move through life as if we’re on some kind of spiritual ‘cloud 9’, oblivious to the awful things that sometimes go on in the world around us? No - that kind of joy is mindless naiveté and it isn’t attractive to anyone seeking a real and grounded basis for faith. So how can we rejoice when the road seems long and tiring, the skies are dark, the path is rough and when life is hard?

We can be sure a sense of well-being that ignores what’s going on around us isn’t what Paul has in mind when he tells the Philippians to ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’. The letter he writes is filled with recognition of the difficult circumstances they are facing. At the beginning of the letter Paul speaks of his own situation as a prisoner facing execution. A little later he encourages the Philippians to remain strong in the face of the opposition that threatens them as well. But in spite of the realities of persecution and suffering, Paul repeatedly calls on them to rejoice in the Lord.

Among the many situations in which joy is experienced, Scripture tells us that it’s especially important in the life of God’s people to experience joy in response to all that God has done for us. There are some lovely poetic expressions of joy found in the Old Testament, especially in the psalms: Psalm 100: Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

And Psalm 96: Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy. Let all creation rejoice before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.

And in the New Testament, Jesus encourages his disciples to be joyful in spite of persecutions: In Luke 6, Jesus says, ‘blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven’. [Luke 6:22-23].

We know that God’s purpose is to redeem the whole world through the cross. And that is why we rejoice. We can rejoice that God the Father loves us so much, in spite of all our failures and mistakes, that he sent Jesus into the world to be our Saviour and our Lord. Jesus Christ’s coming into the world has brought great joy. In Luke’s gospel when the angel appears to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks at night, the angel says to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord”. [Luke 2:10-11].

We can rejoice in the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus: in John’s gospel after Jesus hints at his ascension to his disciples, it says, ‘Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. ...Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy...’ [John 16:19-24].

We can rejoice that after Jesus ascended into heaven he sent the Holy Spirit to be our comforter and our guide. The Holy Spirit can bring an inner joy to believers – a joy that doesn’t have to depend upon external circumstances – when we remember and trust in God’s promises and the work of Christ on the cross.

Every day we can choose to believe in the unconditional love of a faithful God. Even in the midst of disaster, we can be joyful if we know we are loved by a God who is in control of the bigger picture, a God who will bring order out of chaos. We will still grieve; we will still shed tears, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and hope that he’ll see us through the storm; his grace and mercy will sustain us. Choosing to rejoice in the Lord means choosing to receive all that he wants to give to us. It doesn’t mean we deny the reality of our circumstances or pretend we have no pain. Choosing joy means acknowledging the truth of what is happening, accepting that this is a difficult time, even mourning and grieving; but also, at the same time, looking to Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. He has determined our eternal destiny and he knows what he’s doing, even when we don’t really understand.

Paul isn’t asking us to rejoice in our circumstances. He’s asking us to rejoice in the Lord and he says this repeatedly. Paul knows it’s good to be reminded again and again to rejoice in the Lord. Paul rejoiced in the Lord because what he desired above all things was to be in Christ, close to Christ, content in Christ and ultimately to be with Christ forever. His rejoicing is not about smiling at the tragedies of life. He rejoiced because even as he looked at the chains on his ankles and wrists, and had few to none of the comforts of life that most of us strive for, and as he heard about the persecution of the Philippians, Paul rejoiced ‘in the Lord’ because he knew that if he trusted God, God would make something good come out of his suffering, something that would glorify God, and Paul desired to glorify God far more than he desired to live in comfort.

Paul instructs the Roman Christians to rejoice in their sufferings [Romans 5: 3]. He didn’t say rejoice because of sufferings, but to rejoice IN them. And Paul isn’t alone in this instruction. The apostle James says: ‘Consider it pure joy... when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance’ [James 1:2-3]. And the apostle Peter says: ‘In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials’ [1 Peter 1:6]. So it seems that the New Testament teaches us to rejoice even through suffering, because God will bring something good out of something bad.

Finally, rejoicing ‘in the Lord’ is about priorities. What do you most desire? What is most important for you in life? What drives you to live and behave in certain ways? Whatever it is that we most desire, that is what we’re hoping will give us joy. But true joy isn’t found in the passing things of this world – it’s only found in the eternal relationship with God ‘in the Lord’. Rejoice in that.

Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice that he loves you.

Rejoice that he suffered and died for you; that he rose from the grave for you. Rejoice that he promises to return one day and that we’ll be with him in glory. The angels in heaven rejoice over everyone who turns to the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice! Amen.

The importance of humility

2010-10-25T10:51:00.004+01:00

Luke 18:9-14

Remember 1966? 1966 was the year the Beatles wrote the song ‘Taxman’. Already by then they had started earning enough to be placed in the top tax bracket. In fact they were in the 95% ‘super-tax’ bracket, under Harold Wilson’s government. I don’t think I’ll ever have to worry about being placed in the top tax bracket. In any case, rather than income tax rises the current coalition government is more interested in deep spending cuts, despite the moral difficulties: it's said that disadvantaged children could be the ones who suffer most. But high taxes are not something that people are naturally fond of either, and ‘the Taxman’ is surely considered ‘the bad guy’ by many.

In reality tax collectors share a similar stereotype to that of lawyers: generally described as greedy and dishonest. But in today’s gospel reading, it’s the Taxman that comes out tops in the eyes of Jesus. The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector clearly points to the Tax Collector as ‘the good guy’, and the Pharisee as ‘the bad guy’. And that’s not too surprising because throughout his ministry Jesus made plain his views about the Pharisees: they were hypocrites, phonies – who pretended to be righteous, but were not - Self-righteous, but not actually righteous.

The Pharisees thought they were superior to everyone else. They sought praise and attention as guardians of the Jewish laws. They prayed loudly in the synagogues so people could hear them. They made sure that people would see them giving money to beggars on the street. They wanted to be honoured for their pious behaviour, but their pious behaviour was all for show. In today’s parable, the Pharisee stands as a symbol for anyone who thinks to themselves, ‘I’m better than those other people, the riff-raff who are vile and disgraceful’. The Pharisee said, ‘I thank God that I am not like those thieves, rogues, adulterers and even that tax collector right here next to me in the Temple. Because really, I am a good person. I am at least a lot better than these other people. I go to temple every week. I give ten percent of my income. I say my prayers daily and loudly. I’m not like the riff raff of society. I’m much better than that’.

This conflict between the self-righteous hypocrites and the sinners of the world goes back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when Jesus called his first disciples. We read in Matthew’s gospel, ch. 9 v. 9, one of the disciples is Matthew, the tax collector. When Jesus called Matthew to follow him, he knew that tax collectors had a bad reputation. The tax collectors were the villains of Jewish society. For one thing, they collected taxes. But to make matters worse, they collected taxes for the despised Roman government. And they made a lot of money from collecting taxes. If anyone was considered a thief and a betrayer in Jewish society, it was the tax collectors.

So the Pharisees were deeply offended that Jesus called a tax collector to be his disciple. One day, Jesus was invited to Matthew’s home. Lots of other people were also there who were regarded as ‘sinners’: the social and moral outcasts of society. Jesus was having a meal with these people, chatting, laughing, and telling stories. The Pharisees were there, too, watching the action around the table. The Pharisees asked around, ‘Why does Jesus eat with such contemptible people like these?’ Jesus answered, ‘I have come not to call the righteous, but those who know they are sinners’ – Matthew 9:13. So from the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus said that his disciples would be sinners and not self-righteous folk like the Pharisees.

In his parables, Jesus wants his listeners to discover where they fit into the picture. So perhaps we need to ask ourselves, in what way might we resemble the Pharisee? Who do we think we are superior to? Who do you think you are ‘better than’?

Let me tell you about last Wednesday. I had the most amazing day last Wednesday. It was one of the regular training days that curates have to attend, and this time we spent the day at a prison, a Young Offenders Institution for males aged 18-25. The 'restorative justice' programme offered there was a real eye-opener, and I'm sure it will influence future sermons. But thinking about prisoners and connecting it with our parable for today, the question begs: do we think we’re better than a prisoner who commits crime and deserves to get locked up in prison for months or years?

Or what about thinking that we’re better than those alcoholics that hang around our streets late at night asking for money? Or that ‘I’m better than all those people on benefits who spend the tax-payer’s money on cigarettes or in the betting shop’. How about, ‘I’m better than those Muslims, those Jews, those gays, lesbians and transexuals. You know, those abominable kinds of people (who I would never call ‘abominable’ in public, but I can think it). I’m better than them’.

Well this is exactly what the parable has to do with us, because Jesus doesn’t want us to be like the Pharisees - to have hardened hearts towards other people who the world considers as ‘substandard’ in some way. Jesus was angry with the Pharisees because their hearts were hard. Their hearts showed no sign of the compassion of God. Jesus’ heart is full of compassion for the outcasts of society. And this is the problem: if our hearts are not compassionate to others here in our own community of New Brighton and beyond.

Jesus wants us to be a bit more like the tax collector in this parable. So let’s think about this Tax Collector for a moment. The tax collector was at the temple to pray, but he stood back at a distance. The text says that he would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ And Jesus says, ‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbles, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’

Jesus wants us to be honest in assessing our own sinfulness, and not to secretly feel that our sinfulness is not as bad as someone else’s sinfulness. So at the heart of this parable today is the tax collector’s deep awareness that he is a sinner in need of the mercy of God. And we never outgrow the need to be aware of this ourselves. Throughout our whole lives, we need to have this awareness that we are imperfect people who need God’s grace and his mercy. None of us are worthy of God’s grace, but yet he offers forgiveness and mercy as a gift to all.

Jesus taught at the beginning of his ministry: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician. Those who know they are sick know that they need a doctor.’ On this side of eternity, we never outgrow our need for the healing touch of Jesus.

Last Easter we hosted an Easter egg hunt for the carers and tots group in church. One of the child-minders said something interesting as she came out of the church and back into the hall that probably sums up what many outside the church think:
She said she’d better get out of there quick before she was struck by lightning because she wasn’t ‘good enough’ to be in church.

I quickly pointed out that I’m not ‘good enough’ either, but really, do we think we’re better than those outside who (for whatever reason) don’t want to come in? Even Jesus said, ‘no one is good except God alone’ (Luke 18:19). But the sad truth is that we Christians can be arrogant and critical of others and to come across as “holier than thou” and this has left many people feeling hurt and angry and put off church altogether. Contrary to this, the gospel is most powerfully demonstrated when our brokenness is acknowledged, and when we engage with the world outside in humility, recognising that we have much to learn from those we should be seeking to serve - the poorest and the weakest in our community. This is the way we discover the signs of God’s reign that go before us as disciples in mission in any place or time.

The truth is, yes sometimes we are like the Pharisee, but sometimes we can also be like the tax collector, too much – despairing over our sinful condition and never getting up off our knees. Yes, we’re sinners and we’re broken, but we also have hope – the hope of Christ that lives in us - that in Christ we have been set free. Only in Christ are we counted worthy in God’s eyes. And Christ welcomes everyone to his table – so who are we to condemn?

Arrogance always robs the ‘other’ of their humanity and dignity. Humility, on the other hand, results in an openness to other person's story – to compassion for the many complex causes of their predicament (many of which are beyond their control) - and humility commits us to mutual care. Humility opens us to God’s Spirit which works among us and in us as we serve one another, allowing us to experience God’s reign here and now.

Let us pray: Dear God, whenever we are tempted to think of ourselves as better than others, more worthy, more deserving, more important to you, may your humility break in and challenge us, reminding us of our brokenness and need, and teaching us to serve and to love others with the grace and humility you show towards us. Amen.

The Annual Lifeboat Service

2010-10-17T23:37:00.005+01:00

Matthew 14:22-33

It’s an honour and a privilege for me to address you this morning because of the great admiration and pride that all of us here have for our local RNLI station and for the RNLI as a national institution. It’s a life saving institution crewed by local volunteers showing deep commitment to what they do and great courage in the face of adverse and often unpredictable conditions.

The sea plays a big part in the lives of many people here in terms of both employment and leisure pursuits. I have a great love of the sea myself; I come from a family that loves to ‘mess about with boats’. My step-father built from scratch a 50-ft sailboat in our back garden when I was growing up in California. Later I spent around 10 months sailing around the islands of the South Pacific on an 85-ft schooner as paid crew together with my future husband, who was a professional yachtsman at the time. He was one of the eight who survived the sinking of the tall ship Marques near the Bermuda Triangle from a sudden squall in the 1984 Tall Ships Race. Many didn’t survive that sinking, because they were below deck when the squall hit, but Andy, who was on deck, managed to find one of the ship’s life rafts which kept him safe until he was rescued by another ship. That was a rescue he’ll never forget. And now here our family have a small dinghy and our two children are learning to sail. It’s a great relief to know that the RNLI are prepared and equipped for rescue operations 24/7 right here in our local waters.

Well, I’ve been the curate here in this parish for just over a year now, and I’ve also recently taken on the role of chaplain to the Sea Cadets, who, of course, meet just across the road – around 70 young people who are learning the skills of seamanship and the fun of ‘messing about in boats’. These young people, and many people like them who live near the coast, are naturally drawn to the sea for its sheer magnificence and for all the opportunities of recreation and employment it provides.

You might remember that the first disciples of Jesus Christ also did a bit of ‘messing about in boats’. Most of them were fishermen, who made their living on the Sea of Galilee, where conditions are notoriously unpredictable. On the night when the story from our reading from Matthew’s gospel takes place, the sea was particularly choppy because of the strong wind. The disciples were in the boat on their own, as Jesus had sent them on ahead of him to the other side of the sea. But now they were in difficulty. Professional fishermen though they were, here they are struggling with the oars, unable to make headway against the wind - a familiar sight for RNLI lifeboat crewmembers. The disciples were afraid, even though they knew first-hand of Jesus’ power. They knew his teaching and they knew the prayer that he taught them. And still they were fearful and doubtful.

One way of looking at this story is as a picture of the life of faith – and the life of faith isn’t always smooth sailing. Faith is often mixed with occasional fears and doubts as we’re buffeted by the events of life that can threaten us or sometimes overwhelm us. But at the heart of the gospel story are Jesus’ words, ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid’.

The disciples saw Jesus, a shimmering figure out on the water, and Peter, feeling both wonder and terror, started walking on the water towards Jesus. Peter’s eyes were focused on Jesus, and there in a moment of doubt, his attention diverted by the strength of the wind and the size of the waves, he began to sink. And so often it is with us in our lives. In the midst of our worst storms, Jesus asks us to keep focussed on him, on his strength and power, rather than on the storm that is raging around us - to take his hand and depend upon him - to trust him and to lean on him. Into the storms of our lives, Jesus says, ‘Take courage. Don’t be afraid. I am with you’. But it isn’t easy to trust.

Much of our world knows at least a little about Jesus, but to some he seems a kind of fanciful dream, unrelated to us and to our real problems. Others find Jesus frightening. Some wish he’d just go away and leave people alone. Even those who believe in him, as the disciples already did, aren’t always sure what to expect from him. Yet they are compelled to try and do what he asks, even when it sometimes seems impossible: to bring his love and his power, his peace and his hope to the needy world. But then we let our eyes drop for a moment to the waves - like a small boat in trouble on big seas, surrounded by darkness, fear and a howling gale. That’s what it can feel like when you try to bring God’s love and healing power into the wild night of the world.

There are many times when what Jesus asks of us seems impossible. How can we even begin to do the task he’s called us to? How can we manage to love others as he has loved us – and yes, even our enemies? How can we even think of giving up that sin that we really would rather to hold onto? How can we possibly develop a commitment to prayer when we’re so busy and life is hectic? That’s when we need to hear, once more, Jesus’ words, ‘Why all this doubt? Take courage. Don’t be afraid. I am with you’. We’re called to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and our ears open for his encouragement (even if it does contain some rebuke as well).

While I was preparing this sermon, I do confess my concentration was distracted by the extraordinary rescue shown on TV of the 33 Chilean miners. To a large extent, that astonishing achievement was made possible by the great skill and courage and fortitude of all involved. But also the faith which the Chilean people openly proclaimed was so obviously an integral part of the rescue operation and the survival of those miners. One of them said afterwards, ‘it has been a nightmare, but I grabbed God’ hand, and I never doubted that he would get me out of there’.

I was amazed to hear those words while at the same time I was reading the words of the scripture set for today’s service, because when Peter begins to sink, the scripture says, ‘immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him’. If we would just look to him in times of trouble, Jesus reaches out his hand to us.

At the same time I was also making a connection in my mind between the rescue that I was witnessing on TV with the Chilean miners, and the purpose of the RNLI, because of course, the RNLI is in the rescue business. And it’s a measure of the very best of humankind when people work together, using their skills and time to rescue others. Courage in the face of adversity is something the RNLI lifeboat crew have to face every time they are called out. And it is my belief that all who are involved with the RNLI - either in the front line or in supportive roles - are working alongside God, because God is also in the rescue business. God’s work is being done when people are compelled in their hearts to reach out sacrificially to rescue people from trouble and despair. It’s God who upholds us, and he can equip us with the inner strength and resilience that we need when the going is rough.

It has been an eventful year for our local RNLI. 2010 began on a sad note with the passing of one of the station’s most inspirational members... But of course, the task of the RNLI goes ever on, and over the spring and summer months the lifeboat crew were called out many times. And with grateful thanks to The Lifeboat Fund, the new lifeboat is now in service, which will enable the lifeboat crew to carry out their life saving work more effectively than ever before.

Here in this service we thank God and we praise God for all the people who make this work possible: The Lifeboat Fund, our local fundraising guild and all those who support the RNLI financially; the local RNLI Management Group; the lifeboat crewmembers, who sacrifice time with their families or at work to go out and help people in trouble on the sea; and we thank the families and employer’s who support them in this calling. So let us pray:

Loving God, our God of rescue,
We thank you that you put it into our hearts to want to help others in need. Thank you for the RNLI: for all who contribute in so many ways to its effectiveness in saving lives.
And we thank you that by the example shown to us by Jesus we know just how much you want to save and help us. Help us to trust in Jesus. Help us to live and work hand in hand with him, to your praise and glory. Amen.

A Grateful Attitude

2010-10-11T09:31:00.006+01:00

Luke 17:11-19

I know that some of you use the social networking website called Facebook, and I know that because I'm 'Facebook friends' with some of you, but even if you aren't on Facebook, you’ve probably at least heard of it. I use Facebook mostly to keep in touch with friends and family that live in far away countries. Not only can you add ‘friends’ on Facebook, you can also join groups. I found out recently there’s a group on Facebook called ‘Attitude of Gratitude’, and nearly 3000 people have joined that group. The purpose of the group is to encourage thankfulness and gratitude, which is an admirable purpose. Their information page says that ‘Having an ‘attitude of gratitude’ is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to transform your life’! Well, I have to agree with this group that gratitude is powerful and transformative, but I’m not so sure that it is easy.

The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther considered gratitude to be “the basic Christian attitude” – that gratitude is the basic attitude Christians should have. I know that when I do remember to be thankful, it makes me feel more positive about life, even when things aren’t going well. But it’s not always easy to remember. It actually takes effort and it takes discipline.

When a child receives a gift, more often than not, the parent prompts a response from the child by asking, ‘Now what do you say?’ and hopefully the child responds with a ‘thank you’. We want children to learn to be grateful for gifts given, and we begin to teach them from a young age. I was taught to write thank-you notes when I was growing up, and I try to encourage my children to do this as well. But often it takes weeks to get around to writing thank-you notes. Why is it we find ourselves so easily distracted from showing gratitude, not only to other people, but even more importantly to God, from whom all blessings flow? We have so many blessings from God it’s impossible to count them all. But we often forget to be thankful; we often take for granted all that we have.

Our gospel reading is about the importance of gratitude. In the gospel story, ten lepers have an encounter with Jesus. Leprosy was the dreaded disease in Jesus’ day. Leprosy was and still is highly contagious. Today it’s treated with a long course of antibiotics, but in Jesus’ day, whether it was mild or serious, lepers were kept in isolated groups separated from their families and friends, sometimes for the rest of their lives. If you had leprosy, no one could come within twelve feet of you. You were untouchable and ‘unclean’ under Jewish law.

Jesus had already healed at least one leper before, and the news of that healing had spread. So these lepers, too, were hoping that Jesus would come by and perhaps one of them would be healed. Well Jesus did come by, and the 10 lepers began shouting to him: ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us’. Jesus very calmly and simply told them ‘Go, and show yourselves to the priests’. So on their way, the ten lepers noticed their lesions began to disappear and they knew they were being healed. Well of course, they were elated! Off they ran as fast as they could to see the priests, to be officially declared ‘clean’, and then they could return to the family and society they hadn’t seen for who knows how long. As fast as they could go, they were so happy to be well after all this time. But one remembered, one turned back and fell at Jesus’ feet, worshipped him, and thanked him.

What happened to the other nine? Why didn’t they also come back? When they needed God, they were close to God; but when they didn’t need God, they were off busy being well. The ironic thing was that their healing drove them away from God. So what does it take to heal the human heart of ingratitude ...an even greater miracle than healing the skin of leprosy?

The nine lepers became so busy being well... rushing off to see mum and dad, brother and sister, aunt and uncle, and the garden and the farm and the shop and the fishing boat, all those people and places they hadn’t seen for so long. They were so busy being well, they had no time to express appreciation to Jesus. And perhaps we understand this - being too busy to live gratefully; being too busy even to pray. We hit the floor running each morning and fall asleep exhausted at night - Who has time for words of thanksgiving or feeling gratitude? Busy, Lord. We’re very busy being well. The tragedy of the gospel story is that the nine lepers got the healing, but not the healer; they experienced the miracle but not the miracle worker; they received the gift but they didn’t acknowledge the giver.

We can become so busy with life that we forget the God who has given it all to us, who came to be with us in Jesus, who died for us, and who lives in us by his Spirit. That’s the tragedy of the nine who didn’t turn back: they missed out on the true blessing.

But let’s focus on the one - the one who came back to say “Thank you” - the Samaritan, the foreigner, the outsider. The one who came back wasn’t a Jew; he was an outsider to the faith. In several gospel stories it’s an outsider, who shows great faith and great gratitude. If we’ve been on this faith journey for some time, we can become used to God blessing and caring for us and we can begin to take God for granted; we can begin to expect his blessings as God-given rights. But those who’ve only recently found faith are often deeply grateful to God for the smallest of gifts, for the littlest of his blessings. With familiarity, we can take things for granted - we experience that in our family life sometimes, don’t we? And we can do that with God. So in our bible lesson it was an outsider to the established religion who was the only one to come back to Jesus to say ‘thank you’.

And what was Jesus’ response? "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Jesus’ response seems almost bad-mannered. He’s not even directly addressing the one who returned; he’s speaking over that guy’s head to the crowd listening in. Jesus points out that the thankful man is a ‘foreigner,’ because the whole point of this story (which only occurs in Luke’s gospel) is to chastise those among the Jews in Luke’s day who have not shown gratitude and acceptance to Jesus and his mission. Only the foreigner remembers the giver of the grace he has received.

But of course, Luke’s context is not our context. So how can this story about gratitude impact on us today? Why is gratitude such an important attitude? Well of course, it’s more than just a show of good manners or discipline. Gratitude is crucial for our well-being; for our health in mind, body and spirit. And that’s something God’s very interested in. A person can be physically and even mentally well, but if we’re not spiritually well, we’re not whole, and we’re not living the fullness of life that Jesus came to give us.

But with gratitude our inner focus is re-directed, and that radiates out to our whole life. But we have to put it into practice – we have to develop the habit of gratitude as a rule of life. Monks and nuns dedicate their whole lives to this pursuit. Their frequent prayer times help to develop this continual thankfulness. But none of us live in a monastery, as far as I know. But in our better moments, we know that a grateful heart, full of thankfulness to God, is the secret to contentment, satisfaction and joy.

I’m going to finish with a little exercise. Don’t worry; it’s not physical exercise – just a little easy mental & spiritual exercise. Let’s close our eyes to block out distractions, and think of something or someone that you are grateful for.

It could be simply the air that we breathe, or this new day.
It could be we’re grateful for our faith, or a relationship.
It could be a particular person.
Just hold the situation or the person in your mind and in your heart.

Now we’re going to gently move our focus from the gift to the giver.
We’re going to focus on our maker – the maker of heaven and earth,
and of all that is, seen & unseen.

And we’re simply going to say,
either silently or out loud if you wish,
those two simple words of gratitude to the Lord: Thank you.

Amen.

Faith

2010-10-03T22:10:00.005+01:00

Luke 17:5-10

Suppose you are in a room with two windows on opposite walls of the room. One window is very small, and the other is large. The large window looks out on a cold landscape characterised by chaos, conflict and hostility. The other window, which is very small, looks out on a land of justice, mercy, love and peace.

Faith can be compared to a window. It doesn’t matter whether the window is 6 ft or just 6 inches. What matters is what the window looks out on, and whether we choose to look there. If we’re looking to the God who loves us, who has compassion on us, then even the tiniest little peep-hole of a window will display aspects of the justice, mercy, love and peace of God. In a world where the daily news keeps the knowledge of evil at the forefront of our minds, we know life is often a struggle and sometimes very tragic indeed. It’s no wonder that we sometimes cry out to God to increase our faith so that we can make it through the day.

But as we heard from Luke’s gospel, even faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to move a mulberry tree. Matthew and Mark’s gospels put even more emphasis on this, where faith ‘as small as a mustard seed’ can move a mountain. The primary message is that it’s God who empowers our life of discipleship and with God, all things are possible. So if you sometimes feel as if you haven’t got enough faith, remember this: It’s not great faith we need; it’s faith in a great God. Its faith and trust in a God who will hold us and help us.

I read this story the other day: A tourist was hiking in the Lake District. She fell over a precipice. As she plummeted down, she grabbed the branch of a small tree. She looked up to the top of the rock face and cried out, “Help! If there is anyone up there, help!” Suddenly a voice from heaven said: “I am here. I will help you. Let go of the branch and I will send the holy angels to hold you safe in my supporting arms. Have faith. Let go.” The girl looked up, looked down to the jagged rocks below, looked up again, and asked: “Is there anyone else up there?”...

It’s not an easy thing to let go.

In some places in our gospels, people are praised and even healed by Jesus for their strong faith in him. But here in Luke 17, Jesus reassures his disciples and us that he knows we aren’t always capable of sustaining a fired-up faith. He knows that sometimes in place of a flame there’s just a small spark. He knows there will be times when we will doubt his faithfulness to us, as even his first disciples sometimes doubted. And this is ok, because our God is a great God. He can handle our weaknesses. He loves us, and he can take it.

But what God doesn’t like, and this is illustrated by the second part of our reading from Luke 17, what God doesn’t like is when we get arrogant about our faith – if we begin to think of ourselves as privileged. Here’s that part of the reading again:
"Suppose one of you had a servant ploughing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "

Does the servant get special thanks for doing what's expected of him? No. By this little parable, Jesus shows his disciples their need for deep humility. We don’t deserve any reward from God for our faithful service. No matter how hard we work for God, God is not in debt to us. Jesus came among us as one who serves, and his followers are also called to be servants. We hear it said (and how many more times is it thought): ‘I’ve done all this, I’ve given all that, I’ve worked so hard – surely God (and my fellow church members) will be satisfied with all that I do, and I will be honoured. The reality is that all genuine service to God is done from gratitude, and not to earn anything at all. God is never in our debt.

Likewise, in spite of all the work we might do for the Church, we must not hold fellow members of the body of Christ in our debt.

Jesus asks all his disciples to uphold the kingdom values of justice, mercy, love and peace. But so difficult seem the teachings of Jesus that his disciples ask for greater faith, to which Jesus points out and affirms that even the little faith they have is adequate enough. It’s interesting that Jesus uses the mustard seed image here in relation to faith, and in Matthew 13, he uses the mustard seed image in relation to God’s kingdom. Listen to that passage:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

How reassuring it is that faith as small as a mustard seed is enough for God’s Kingdom to grow within and among his people. And going back to the imagery I used at the beginning, where faith is like a window looking out on a kingdom under God’s rule, even a very small window of faith is enough for the living Lord to work with. The more we let go and trust, the wider that window becomes. But even Jesus’ closest disciples were forever doubting and confused. How often did Jesus say to them, ‘O you of little faith’? But our generous God takes our little faith, and grows it like a seed within his kingdom and into his kingdom - his kingdom of embracing love and hospitality, of welcome, of inclusion, and of more grace than we can ever imagine. It’s not what we do; it is what he has done. To God be the glory. Amen.

(With thanks to Tom Wright for ideas!)

The Kingdom of God

2010-09-30T11:48:00.004+01:00

Colossians 1:15-20 & Luke 10:1-12

In our gospel reading, Jesus instructs the disciples to tell people that ‘The kingdom of God is near’ – but what does that mean? Is the kingdom of God something we experience now or something that is in the future? The kingdom of God is a hugely important thing for us to try and grasp as Christians, but why is it so important? Well, the main reason is that the kingdom of God is our goal – it’s the goal toward which Christians strive. So if we’re striving towards the kingdom of God, we should in theory at least know a little bit about what it means. And assuming you don’t want to be here all day, it’s only a little bit that we have time for in the space of this sermon.

What does the word kingdom conjure up for us? - A realm, an empire, a monarchy, and perhaps even a territory; or the kingly rule of God in the lives of people and nations. By definition, a kingdom has to have a king, and from the earliest days of Israel’s history, God was worshipped as King, and we can look to the psalms to illustrate this:

Psalm 9:7-8
The LORD reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment.
He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice.

Psalm 47:8-9
God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.
The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham,
for the kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted.

Psalm 93:1-2
The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength.
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Your throne was established long ago; you are from all eternity.

So for Israel God has always been considered sovereign over his creation. Even when the kingdom of Israel was established under Saul and David, these were not absolute monarchs – they were ‘the Lord’s anointed’, and only derived their sovereignty from the heavenly King.

The eternal future reign of the Messiah was prophesied by Isaiah in what has now become a very familiar passage, especially at Christmas (Isaiah 9:6-7):

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.

The idea of this coming Kingdom excited the imagination of the Jewish people; and in Israel, about the time of our Lord, many were looking for the Kingdom of God as Luke puts it in his gospel. Paving the way for the Lord, John the Baptist’s message in Matthew 3 was, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’ (the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God being the same thing). The message of John the Baptist was taken up by Jesus, who after his baptism, and the temptation by the devil in the wilderness, also began to preach ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’ In Luke 4, Jesus said "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God... because that is why I was sent." And at the Last Supper, in Luke 22, Jesus said to his disciples that he was giving to them a kingdom just as his Father gave to him.

There are many imaginative references to the kingdom of God in the Parables, especially in Matthew chapter 13, where several times Jesus says, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like...’ followed by an illustration using things or activities with which the people could make a connection. So here’s a scriptural memory question (just to see if you’re still awake): Who can tell me something that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is ‘like’? It doesn’t have to be a big thing; it can be just a tiny little thing. [a mustard seed: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”] Jesus also liken the kingdom to yeast, to a fishing net that was let down to catch all kinds of fish, to treasure hidden in a field, to a merchant looking for fine pearls - when he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. The emphasis of some of the kingdom parables is on the present signs of the kingdom and in others it’s on a future aspect of the kingdom when it comes in its fullness at the end of the age, the timing of which we are not to know.

So having laid a little bit of the foundation for why the kingdom of God is important to us as Christians, let’s move on now to a little bit of what it actually might mean for our lives. As I hinted before, there are two possible aspects of biblical teaching we could look at – the kingdom in the present time, which is a gift enjoyed by all who believe in Jesus Christ, and the kingdom in the age to come, when as Matthew’s gospel puts it in ch. 25, ‘the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him’. These two aspects are sometimes referred to as the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’. We live between earth and heaven, between God's act in Christ and the completion of that act. We haven’t time this morning to look at both aspects, so I’m going to focus on the first one: the kingdom of God in the present time – the kingdom of God that is accessible to us now.

So if the kingdom is here now, how do we access it? How do we become a part of it? The answer, of course, is through faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. By acknowledging the authority of Jesus over the whole of our life the kingdom of God breaks in to our life. A living relationship with Jesus brings the kingdom of God into our homes and into our relationships – I’m sure many of us can testify that our faith certainly helps in dealing with difficult issues within our family life. A living relationship with Jesus also brings the kingdom of God into our workplaces and into our working attitudes. We’ve probably all heard the maxim that we should perform our work as if we were working for the Lord himself. And finally, a living relationship with Jesus brings the kingdom of God into our leisure time. It’s great when people know that we're Christians and are surprised that we can still enjoy life – because joy is part of the kingdom. But however we choose to spend our leisure time, if we have given Jesus authority over the whole of our life, then our leisure time should also reflect kingdom principles.

It’s important to remember, though, that in each of these spheres of life we will sometimes fail to live up to this – that’s our human condition. We don’t seem to be able to allow Jesus to have authority over each and every aspect or issue of our lives. And that’s part of the kingdom being both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ in its fullness. We hold this treasure in jars of clay, so easily chipped, cracked and broken.

In Luke 17:21 Jesus says something interesting – he said, ‘The Kingdom of God is within you’; sometimes it’s translated as ‘The kingdom of God is among you’, but I think it is both. The kingdom is ‘within’ us as God’s Spirit dwells within us; and the kingdom is also among us, among the members of Christ’s body, the Church. It’s not really clear which of these translations is most accurate, but both meanings are pretty special, and represent the intimacy of relationship that God wants with us, despite the fact that, in the words of my favourite Christian band, we are a ‘beautiful letdown’.

In an unsettled, anxious and sometimes despairing world, the positive and welcoming message of the Kingdom of God takes our faith to a counter-cultural level. When taken seriously, a focus on the kingdom of God in the present can make a great difference in the Church, and through the Church it makes a difference to the world. But there’s still too wide a gap between personal religion and social religion, and also between the various factions in the Church. What matters is the Kingdom of God – and the kingdom of God is present wherever human beings love and serve God and seek to extend the acceptance of his reign over all the earth. The kingdom is present in all acts and attitudes of compassion and efforts to bring about a better world.

The day is coming when every knee shall bow in Jesus’ name and every tongue confess that He is Lord, and we anticipate that day today by acknowledging his Lordship here and now. When the Kingdom is fully come, God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Yet here and now believers in Christ may know the power of his resurrection and walk in newness of life. And at home, at work or at leisure, the kingdom qualities of justice and mercy, peace and truth should sought by and be seen in God’s people until, as the prophet Habakkuk foretells, ‘the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea’. Amen.

Harvest Festival

2010-09-26T16:36:00.002+01:00

John 6:25-35

There’s something special about Harvest, isn’t there? It’s really starting to feel autumnal, and some of the trees are beginning to change colour. And then there’s the agricultural aspect of harvest - reaping the edible benefits from what has been sown and carefully tended. I had a little patch of vegetables this year (only about 2 ft. by 10 ft). There’s still a few more tomatoes coming, but the beans, peppers and courgettes have pretty much finished. But it’s a sad fact that my melons didn’t grow at all this year!

Harvest is a time when we think about the bounty of the earth, and God’s provision to us. We are very blessed in this country. Most of us have more than enough food. Our supermarkets are full of food. Few of us have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. And we have easy access to good, clean running water. Some of us experienced our water supply being cut off for a little while back in May, and I think a lot of us realised then how much we often take our water supply for granted.

And so when Harvest comes around in our Christian calendar, it’s a wonderful opportunity for us to thank our generous God for all that he gives... and to remember those people all over the world who struggle to achieve a good harvest of food or water. But for the Christian, Harvest also has a spiritual meaning. And our New Testament reading this morning from the book of Revelation, chapter 14, illustrates this quite dramatically:

‘I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one "like a son of man" with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then [an] angel ...called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested’.

‘And the earth was harvested’. If anyone here is unsure why Jesus Christ was sent by God to the earth some 2000-odd years ago, it was for this very reason: to harvest the earth. But what on earth could that mean? At harvest the farmer collects the fruits of the passing season and begins preparation for a new season. So ‘harvest’ is a good metaphor for what Jesus came to do. When Jesus came as Son of God and Son of Man, he completed the old covenant between God and his people. When Jesus died, and was buried, and then resurrected, it was the beginning of the new covenant between God and his people. St. Paul says in Hebrews 8: By calling this covenant "new," [God] has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

This was all pretty radical news to the crowds of people following Jesus around during his ministry, and especially to his fellow Jews. It was a confused and bewildered crowd that got into conversation with Jesus in today’s reading from John’s gospel. If we go back a few verses, this crowd had only just been with Jesus at Tiberius where Jesus fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. Our reading today happens the day after that amazing miracle of feeding. Listen again to some of the conversation that occurs in our reading of John 6:25-35, this time from The Message paraphrase:

When [the crowd] found him back across the sea, they said, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Jesus answered, "You've come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free”.

Jesus is accusing the crowd of following him only to satisfy their empty bellies. He then refocuses the conversation upon more spiritual matters. He says:

"Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last."

Jesus continues saying, "The real significance is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread. The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world." "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever”.

The crowd was confused by Jesus because many were looking for a different kind of saviour – a saviour who would show force and power and strength to liberate the Jews from Roman oppression. But because of the spiritual nature of Jesus’ message, in the end many people abandoned him. And the same thing happens today. Seeking a deep personal relationship with Jesus is sometimes thought less important than seeking material or practical answers to human problems. But Jesus is saying the spiritual takes priority over the material because in the final analysis, material things cannot fully satisfy the human soul.

Karl Marx said that "religion is the opium of the people". According to Jesus it’s the very opposite - materialism is the narcotic. Materialism anaesthetises people to the reality that real contentment and real security are found only when we come to know God. A devotion to materialism keeps our deepest needs buried down out of sight where we don’t have to face them. Materialism is addictive – we want more and more of whatever it is, and we lose sight of the person that can fulfil us most completely: God.

The Galilean crowd had tracked Jesus down because they wanted a repeat of the miracle meal. "Open your eyes;" Jesus was saying to them, "the bread you are really looking for is right here. It’s not a something but a Someone. It’s me. I am not just the giver; I am the gift”. This kind of bread seemed hard to swallow. People wanted to know what they needed to do – but Jesus said, ‘Just come to me; just believe in me’. And that’s what he still is saying to us today. Eternal life is not a possession but a gift – and we continually receive this gift through a deepening personal relationship with Him.

Of course Christians look forward to a future when all is made right and new through Jesus, but we miss the point if we lose focus on the kingdom here and now. Jesus taught that God's kingdom is among us (Luke 17:21) - he taught that it’s here and now, it’s in our hearts and so it isn't only something we look forward to after we die but it’s our present reality. We can choose to live within God’s eternal kingdom now by allowing God’s Spirit to live in our hearts and demonstrating God's love to others in our everyday lives.

And we are not afraid because we trust that through Jesus, God is drawing all things to himself. That’s the spiritual meaning behind Harvest. Jesus is the bread of life. He’s the bread that truly satisfies and strengthens us, leading us to reach out and care for other people and for the earth. Jesus is harvesting the earth for God’s kingdom. A loving and living relationship with Jesus enables us to work with him in the ongoing harvest of the world.

A prayer: Generous and merciful God, today may we be thankful in the light of your rich gifts to us. Help us to know how essential you are to our lives. Draw us closer to you, that we may never go hungry. Give us faith in abundance, that we might never be thirsty. And may your transforming joy rise up within us, and overflow into the lives of others across your world. Amen.

Praise the Lord! Psalm 146

2010-09-20T13:57:00.003+01:00

Psalm 146 begins and ends with Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah, in Hebrew). It’s a hymn of praise for the God who is faithful, the God who cares about the needy, and the God who sets people free. This psalm, along with all the psalms, would have been well known by Jesus and his first disciples. And this psalm carries a message for us today, as well. I want to look particularly at verses 7-9 of Psalm 146. Here are those verses again:

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, the LORD gives sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

God did these things for Israel in the past. And God did these things through Jesus Christ while he walked the earth. And God’s will is to continue to do these things through all his people, who are the body of Christ.

The acts of God recited in vv 7-9 point to events in the history of Israel. In verse 7: ‘He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free’ – the most obvious event remembered here is the Exodus. In Egypt, the Israelites were oppressed as slaves. Moses led them out into freedom and into the desert, where they became hungry. God heard their cries and sustained them with manna from heaven. Freedom from oppression and the provision of food – this is attributed to God by the Israelites.

In verse 8, the psalmist writes, ‘the LORD gives sight to the blind’. But among the miracles written about in the Old Testament, the recovery of sight is absent. I couldn’t find any examples of the Lord giving sight to the blind in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Lord giving sight to the blind was not a reality, but a promise. And it was associated with the Messiah who was to come. It was prophetic. Isaiah prophesied sight for the blind as did our psalmist here in Psalm 146.

Verse 8 continues: the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous. God loves righteousness because that is one of God’s main attributes. To be righteous is to live your life guided by the qualities of justice, integrity, sincerity and equity. In the Old Testament, Noah, Abraham, and Job were called righteous. In varying situations, ‘righteousness’ means being right, doing right, and putting things right. It includes ‘frustrating the ways of the wicked’ by creating order out of disorder, and unity out of disunity.

Verse 9 says: The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. God's love and concern for people who are disadvantaged is obvious throughout the Old Testament. God’s covenant with Israel included the obligation not to abuse the weak or defenceless, as we see in Exodus 22: "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry”.

The Law of Moses contained several rules for the fair treatment of orphans, widows and foreigners, for example in Deuteronomy 24: ‘Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. ...When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.’

So we see that this short Psalm touches on several aspects of Jewish history. The ‘God of Jacob’ rescued Israel from oppression, hunger and slavery, and formed a covenant with his people, that they would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. And for us as Christians, if we reframe this psalm and view it in the light of Jesus Christ, we recognise a connection between what God has done for Israel and what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God came to rescue all people from spiritual oppression, hunger and slavery, when we turn to him. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus stands up in the synagogue in Nazareth and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (61):

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Everything Jesus did had both a spiritual dimension and an earthly dimension. When we’re released from spiritual blindness, we see the greater purpose to which our earthly good works contribute. We understand that God’s kingdom is breaking in, and that God wants our lives to be formed into this Kingdom shape, where Jesus reigns.

Today we can have a real impact on people’s lives – by giving our time, our talents, or our money. Through charitable organisations such as Open Doors, Christian Aid, the Barnabas Fund and the Ark, as individual Christians and through the Church, we can uphold the cause of the oppressed and the unfairly imprisoned. We can give food to the hungry and sight to the blind. We can arrange hospitality for refugees and the homeless, and we can care for orphans and for widowed people. Selfless giving of time, talents, and money for the sake of the kingdom of God aligns us with the will of God.

In the short space of Psalm 146, we remember God’s saving grace in the past, and are pointed towards the reign of Christ and our responsibilities as his disciples. Under the New Covenant, we are the body of Christ. We are to seek out the lost and fight the corner for the oppressed. We are to feed the hungry and liberate those enslaved by the things of this world. When this happens through Christ’s church in the world, it’s a sign of his kingdom breaking in on earth, and he is to be praised. Hallelujah! Amen.

2010-09-08T14:30:00.005+01:00

It has been a busy couple of weeks. My training incumbent has been away on holiday. Two funerals, six church services, pastoral visits, a chapter meeting, standing committee, music group, ladies fellowship. And school starting up again for my 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son. My son started high school, which begins at year 7 here. A big change for him, but so far, so good.

With the end of summer, church activities start up again - like the parents/carers & tots groups. I'm looking forward to being involved in those two groups again. I have to finish off my application for the Sea Cadet chaplaincy asap, and start to increase our level of involvement with a local care home and the local primary school. I've also got a paper to write for my master's programme, about the book we curates had to read (Remembering our Future). I need more hours in each day and more days in each week!

I've been reflecting a lot on preaching. I'm not happy with my preaching. I would like to get better at preaching without a written script. It doesn't feel right to read my sermon, no matter how well I do it, and no matter how often I make eye contact (a lot, I think). There isn't enough engagement with the congregation. I need to work on this.

In conversation with a parishioner, I've come to realise that most of our sermons are too long, and people switch off. What good is that? I think I need to make my sermons a lot shorter, and try to learn how to preach it without relying on my manuscript.

Hallel

2010-09-01T09:42:00.002+01:00

Psalm 113
1 Praise the LORD.
Praise, O servants of the LORD,
praise the name of the LORD.

2 Let the name of the LORD be praised,
both now and forevermore.

3 From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised.

4 The LORD is exalted over all the nations,
his glory above the heavens.

5 Who is like the LORD our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,

6 who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?

7 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

8 he seats them with princes,
with the princes of their people.

9 He settles the barren woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.
Praise the LORD.

Continuing with our sermon series on the Psalms, this morning’s Psalm [113] is known as one of the Hallel Psalms. The Hebrew word Hallel is familiar to us in the word Hallelujah. Hallel means ‘praise’, and Yah is the shortened form of Yahweh, the name of God. So Psalm 113 is a hymn of praise about God. It’s a call to the people of God to remember who God is and what God has done.

All day, every day, and everywhere – as the psalmist says, ‘from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets’, ‘both now and forevermore ...the name of the Lord is to be praised’. Praise shouldn’t be something we only do when we feel like it – praise is supposed to be something that we do at all times – in ordinary and extraordinary times – in good times and in bad times. The method of praise comes down to individual preference, but whatever way we do it, God’s people are called to praise God.

The call to praise God is followed in the psalm by reasons for praise: God’s glory is above the heavens and wide as all space! There is nothing in all creation that can be compared to this God, and yet this God is concerned about people, and the ordinary activities of people. God watches over all his creation. God raises the poor, lifts the broken and oppressed, corrects inequality, and injustice, and provides fruitfulness in otherwise barren conditions. Disparities between wealthy and poor, powerful and powerless, elite and excluded – situations present at the time the psalm was written, and still present today – these do not harmonise with the attributes of God.

What must then be called into question is people’s attitudes towards those who suffer from poverty, inequality, and despair. Those who participate in activities that contribute to the poverty of others; those who isolate people into categories for discrimination; those who exclude the childless from circles of friendship are reminded that these attitudes do not align with God’s care for people.

Instead, the psalmist affirms that those in the ash heaps of life and dust piles of despair will be lifted up. This mighty God helps people find dignity within the community. This God hears the prayers of the discouraged. This God also hears the prayers of the childless couple. Coming out of the Hebrew tradition, the psalm reminds people of God’s answer to the prayers of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, & Hannah who were once barren women. The psalm reminds people that the experience of the desolate will not be forever. There will be a day of justice, a day where the fields are levelled. The people of God will have security, contentment and fruitfulness. Their day of despair will not triumph, and a day of praise shall break forth.

Psalm 113 speaks of a God who is high and exalted, who also ‘stoops down’ to care for people. This is the God who sent Jesus, whose name in Hebrew is Yahshua, which means ‘Yahweh saves’ – Jesus, who came to live among us, and who died and rose again for the world.

At this point our psalm connects with our two other readings. As Jesus says in our Luke passage, we are called to love and to serve others, and to invite those less fortunate than ourselves to our table. As St. Paul says in the Hebrews passage, we’re called to love each other, but we are not to forget to entertain strangers. That’s hospitality in its most God-honouring form.

I have this crazy vision of how exciting it would be if we focussed our energies on inviting strangers to come and eat here with us. Yes, it would be risky, and it might be uncomfortable. But I think it’s what Jesus would do if he were walking around our town today – he would invite everyone to come and eat at his table. Isn’t that what we, as the body of Christ, should also do? Not just our friends, our family and our 'presentable' neighbours; but as Jesus said, ‘...when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed’.

One of the most powerful ways God lifts up the lowly is through other people, so if we claim to be disciples of Jesus, then we will actively seek ways to serve the people who need to experience God’s love. That is praise in action.

We praise God for who God is, we praise God for our ongoing salvation, and we look forward what God has planned for the future when Jesus returns. Every time we sing ‘Hallelujah!’ we can be reminded of what God has already done, and that God will finish the salvation that is still taking place. God’s saving presence was demonstrated in the past, and will be demonstrated again when Jesus Christ, Yahshua Messiah, returns in glory. ‘Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name’. Amen.

Waiting

2010-08-25T21:03:00.003+01:00

Sermon for Midweek Holy Communion
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 / Matthew 24:42-51

Many of you know that I used to work in Veterinary Research. In the lab, one event that inevitably caused distress to scientists and supervisors alike was the unannounced health and safety inspection. Lab by lab, mass panic spread through the building as the inspector’s beady eyes darted about, and they scribbled in secret code on their notepads. As my lab was often the last to be visited, we were the lucky ones: usually forewarned by about 30 minutes - so that we could make sure everyone had their lab coats and gloves on; the chemical spills were cleaned up, any dodgy experiments were halted, and toxic substances stored away.

Of course, we all knew we were supposed to conduct our work according to the health and safety guidelines, but with time and experience, things have a tendency to go slack. When we’re first employed, we’re shown the right way to do things, and we conform for a while. But then we work out what we think is the bare minimum required to keep things ticking over. We work out where we can let things slide, so long as we’re not found out. We work out where we can take advantage of the system. It happens in many workplaces all over the country. It happens in the government. And it can happen in the Church, too.

Jesus said, ‘keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. ...Be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him’. Is the Church still keeping watch? Is the Church ready for what St. Paul calls the revealing of the Lord, which will happen without warning?

Jesus says it will happen quietly, like a thief in the night, and those who are not prepared will be caught unaware. Most of us take care in preparing our homes against thieves by locking up each night. I wonder if we consider meeting with God as likely a prospect as having our house broken into.

I once received a greeting card from a friend. On the front of the card is an illustration of Jesus knocking on a door, kind of like that famous painting by William Holman Hunt called ‘Light of the World’. The caption on the card says, ‘Jesus is Coming. Look Busy’. More than 2000 years have passed since the disciples were assured that Jesus would return one day. We cannot know when exactly Jesus will return. But we CAN think seriously about what we should be doing while we wait for his return.

Jesus says in this morning’s gospel reading that it would be good if upon his return the faithful and wise servant were found to be giving the other servants in the household their ‘food’ at the proper time. The wise servant carries out the master’s instructions, ensuring the welfare of his fellow servants. This sounds like a fairly pleasant way to spend our ‘waiting’ time, by feeding each other. ‘Give us today our daily bread’, we pray, and we do need it. Being ‘fed’ at the proper time suggests to me regular healthy eating, which would promote the strength and well-being of the servants. If you’re healthy and strong, you can do a lot of good work. If you’re unhealthy, it’s more difficult to keep watch and be ready for life’s unexpected events.

Being fed or nourished can also have other meanings, too. I’m thinking here of encouragement – it’s good for the Lord’s servants to encourage each other at the proper time - being sensitive to each other’s needs; helping to build up the faith of others.

But in the illustration of the master who stays away for a long time, nourishment of the servants isn’t the only point. Jesus gives the example of the faithful and wise servant because it’s an example of obedience to the master. Jesus wants his disciples to actively, faithfully and obediently live out his commandments and take on his commission until he returns.

Jesus commanded us to love God and to love one another; and he commissioned us to go and make disciples of all nations. The gospel has been proclaimed around pretty much the whole world, and it’s necessary to continue that proclamation. Professing Christians have been kept busy over the centuries. But the history of Christianity shows that some who profess to act in the name of the Lord have instead acted in the name of corruption and oppression. And if we’re honest, many of us get our priorities wrong as Christians. We get side-tracked and distracted by the complications of life. But alongside that we need to keep a centred core of readiness; and we need to keep short accounts with God - to be prepared to meet with him either upon our own death, or when Jesus returns to the earth, whichever comes first.

Here’s a question for you: what is the Scouting and Guides motto? Be prepared. Robert Baden-Powell explained the meaning of the phrase:
‘To BE PREPARED means you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty. ...To be prepared at any moment to face difficulties and even dangers by knowing what to do and how to do it’. This is about being prepared for earthly health and safety. But our readings this morning are concerned with an even more important thing – our eternal health and safety! If at any time the living God might knock at the door, wisdom means endeavouring to be ready at all times.

Back to my research lab and the unannounced visit from the health and safety inspectors, after an inspection, we would receive a detailed report about which areas of the lab were found to be below the required standard and what we must do to improve. Would it help if we Christians could be given such a concise and concrete report from the Lord, with tick boxes and a time schedule for completing the necessary improvements? And I wonder how close God’s inspection report on us would tally with our own self-analysis. (For a glimpse into what God’s report might say about the Church, just read the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation)!

But for ourselves, in the absence of a personalised health and safety report from God, we pin our hopes on the mercy of the Lord, and do the best we can in our circumstances. We have the master’s orders, though, and we should resolve daily to be obedient until his return.

We have big clues on what to do while we wait – and these clues are found in Scripture. St. Paul (1 Cor 1) says we are ‘called to be holy’. ‘Holy’, meaning set apart. Set apart for God, knowing that we belong to God. The call to holiness is the vocation of the Christian believer. And holiness in action increases with an increased focus on our relationship with Christ and his will for our life. This is the life of faith, which according to Martin Luther, is a life in which we recognize that although our sinful nature never leaves us, the grace of God ‘invades’ us and draws us close to Christ. And according to John Calvin, part of holiness is suffering – suffering is not a punishment from God, it is participation with the life of Christ, who suffered for us. The Christian mystics would agree with Calvin on this point.

So what shall we do while we wait for Christ to return? For your consideration I suggest taking up the responsibility to actively be holy. Love is at the core of holiness: Love God and love one another. Actively be faithful and obedient to God; feed and encourage others. Keep watch and be ready, because we do not know on what day our Lord will come. Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

Psalm 27

2010-08-16T13:54:00.004+01:00

I'm back from being away! It was a wonderful long holiday, and I've finally finished washing the piles of laundry that resulted from our travels to France and Germany and having 8 people in the house.

During August and September we are doing a sermon series at church on the Psalms, the collection of Hebrew poems compiled over a period of some 1000 years and written by more than 12 different authors. The following is taken from the sermon I preached yesterday:

Today’s psalm, Psalm 27, is credited to King David, who probably did write the majority of the psalms. Psalm 27 was written against a background of great danger. David may have been writing in response to persecution from Saul or from his son Absalom; he was obviously under the threat of enemies, but they remain unspecified here in this psalm. Whatever it was, it was certainly a nerve-wracking and hostile time.

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you were really afraid – for your job, financial security, your health, your personal safety or the safety of loved ones, for your freedom, or for your life... you will know the debilitating effect of fear. Whatever your present situation, the reality of life is that everyone eventually will experience some kind of trouble and distress. In our Psalm, David meets his fears head on and defies them with the strength of his faith.

In the midst of distress, David begins Psalm 27 with an affirmation of the depth of his faith and his confidence in God:

The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?

David’s courage and assurance comes from his security in the Lord. God was his light – guiding him; God was his salvation – delivering him; God was his stronghold –protecting him. The questions, ‘whom should I fear’ and ‘of whom should I be afraid’ are rhetorical, like the questions posed by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans in chapter 8: ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ ‘Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?’ ‘It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?’ ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

As Christians we strive to adopt Paul’s attitude and David’s attitude - to have confidence in God and not be afraid, and we ask for the help of the Holy Spirit, as we cannot do this in our own strength.

One Christian who was greatly strengthened and consoled by Psalm 27 was James Hannington, the Anglican missionary to Uganda who became bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa. In 1885, he was imprisoned and soon after, martyred. Now he’s a Saint with a capital ‘S’, but on the day before he died a martyr’s death under horrible circumstances, in his journal this St. James declared that in the midst of being ‘broken down and brought low’, he was comforted by Psalm 27.

None of us are likely to be in the same position that James Hannington was in when he endured a martyr’s death. But still, God cares for us in our relatively smaller trials of life. Sometimes when we feel like life has become a daily battle, we can forget this truth. We might think that our concerns and suffering isn’t that important in comparison with some of the problems other people have in the world today. But we mustn’t belittle the smaller trials and fears we all encounter in life, because each individual person matters to God – even the very hairs on our heads have been numbered! Our good shepherd seeks out and cares for the one lost sheep. So please don’t ever think that your problems or fears are too small for God to attend to.

These days we have fears of many kinds: for the safety of our children or grandchildren, because of violence and terrorism; or we fear our declining health or our declining wealth, and whether or not this planet can endure all the abuse we are putting it through. In the face of threatening times, David proclaims in Psalm 27 that he wants one thing over all; that is, he wants to stay close to God.

Like the Teacher in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, David has tried everything – work, pleasure, money – and none satisfy. But whereas the Teacher in Ecclesiastes resolves the seeming futility of everything with cynicism, David in Ps. 27 concludes that the only satisfying resolution is communion with God. It is God who makes us safe, and knowing this leads David to confident praise.

Of course, this confidence does not eliminate all trouble from life, and a deep faith should not lead to a denial of reality. This psalm has been set in a context in which troubles are acknowledged. And this leads David into the pleading prayer of verses 7-12: Hear my voice when I call, O Lord; be merciful, and answer me... Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger... David knows he is unworthy, but his hope lies in God’s mercy, not on the basis of his own moral behaviour. This gives us all hope, as we all fall short of the glory of God.

David’s heart is soft and his soul is open to transformation by God as he pleads: ‘Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path’. We, too, need to be teachable and open to the leading of God’s Spirit. We, too, can have confidence as we call on God for mercy, for his guidance, and for liberation from that which causes us to be afraid.

The psalm concludes with a return to confidence; David’s complaint was real, but it’s powerfully contained in the trust before and after. The final verse is a deep encouragement: Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord. David is fully confident that with the Lord as his light, his salvation, and his stronghold, he will see the goodness of the Lord in the here and now – ‘in the land of the living’.

This psalm has a universal resonance with people, because we all go through tough times. And through this psalm we are reminded of the assurance we have through confidence in God. The great gift of the psalms as a whole is that through various times and seasons of our lives we will be able to identify with at least one (and probably more) of the 150 psalms. And in the case of Psalm 27 and many others, as we seek the face of our Lord in the midst of the fearful trials of life, we can allow the psalmist’s words to console us, to strengthen us, and to lift us up. Amen.

R & R

2010-07-18T20:01:00.002+01:00

On holiday for a bit with family over from the States. Yippee!

Really in need of the break. No posts for a wee while...

Sowing and reaping

2010-07-04T19:13:00.003+01:00

“Peace to this house”! “The kingdom of God is near you”! These are the two simple messages that Jesus sends out the 72 disciples to proclaim (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20). Jesus has ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem,’ and tells his fellow-travellers that the journey requires their single-minded purpose. He sends the 72 ahead of him after preparing them for what lies ahead - the labourers are few and the risks are great. Jesus sends them in pairs with no provisions for the journey. No conversing with those they meet on the road. They will depend on the hospitality of strangers. He tells them to move on if a town does not welcome them, with a sign of judgment against that place. Those who would call themselves disciples of Jesus Christ today do well to consider both the simplicity and the challenge of this mission and message.

Try to envision yourself as one of the 72. What would be the most challenging thing about this journey? Having to ‘Eat whatever is set before you’? Fussy eaters might have difficulty with this. Being told not to take any money even for emergencies; no change of clothes, and no snacks! Those of us who go on holiday packing everything but the kitchen sink might feel a bit anxious about that! How about having to depend on strangers for food and lodging; or not being able to choose your travelling partner; or wiping off the dust and walking away from people who did not accept the message? Simple message, difficult challenges!

If our message could be boiled down to just two things, it would be to proclaim ‘peace’ and ‘the kingdom of God’ that is so very near to us. As God’s people, this peace already resides in our hearts. But we don’t always sense this, because there are elements of our lives that we struggle mightily with; things that keep us from experiencing the peace of Christ. We’re all too familiar with the many forms of gluttony and greed, pride and envy, lust, hatred, and despair. We’re working against the tide of the coming kingdom of God when we nurture these elements. And we don’t fully experience the peace of Christ when we cultivate these sins.

In our first reading from the letter to the Galatians, Paul tells the disciples there, and by extension he is telling us, that when we feed the sinful desires that are ultimately harmful to ourselves and to other people, we are sowing to please our sinful nature. Then, says Paul, we reap destruction in our lives – and in so doing, we reject the peace that God gives to us. But even St. Paul had this inner conflict and struggle which is part of the human condition. He describes this well in Romans 7 where he says: ‘21When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!’

Our strength comes from the Lord, whose Spirit helps us to overcome. And when we ‘sow to please the Spirit’, then from the Spirit we reap eternal life and peace. How are we helped in this? Paul gives us an answer in verse 2 of Galatians 6 when he pleads with us to ‘carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ’.

Similarly, the apostle James says in his letter to the new church in Jerusalem, and by extension he is saying to us, ‘confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed’. God has given to us, his church, ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ and it’s to enable our healing.

I recently went on a day course for curates about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, otherwise known as Confession. Unlike in the Roman Catholic church, the Anglican edict is not that we must formally confess our sins to a priest, but that all may, some should, and none must. On the course, we were shown an example service for the Act of Repentance and Reconciliation which comes out of the Methodist Worship Book, and after the absolution the minister ends the act most powerfully with the words: ‘Go in peace, pray for me, a sinner, and remember the mercy of God. Amen.’ This acknowledges that we are all sinners - it's one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread - it's the bread of life that gives us the hope of peace. That hope of peace rests on the promised mercy of God and our life within the body of Christ – and it is borne out when we experience the ministry of Christ through one another.

It sounds simple, but it isn’t easy. The difficult challenge to each one of us here is to be open with one another, to be humble and to be vulnerable, and to share our lives. This is the counter-cultural way of living that speaks against everything we hold dear; and especially in this age of individualism and when our culture imparts a high value to the superficial image, seeking temporal perfection. But we have the hope of Christ within us, and we must trust that even when we wrestle with God, or are struggling with sin, Jesus is faithful to us.

Being a disciple of Jesus comes with a cost. It’s up to us, as members of his church, to be the disciples that go out and transform the world in the Lord’s name. Jesus wants us to rely on him, and to be faithful to him. It’s only by his Spirit that we’re enabled to do this. As St. Paul says in our Galatians reading, ‘14May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...’ We must not boast in our own achievements, we should only boast in the cross of Christ. It’s not for our glory, but for the Glory of God.

The glory of God is a human being fully alive – what counts is a new creation - the reconciled humanity of Jesus Christ and the community of new relationships that is His body.

We are to form a radically different community, living in equality and in loving service in Christ. In Galatians, Paul speaks of following Christ in terms of our relationships with one another: correcting each other and sharing burdens, taking responsibility and doing good for all. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus sends out his disciples to share the message of God’s peace and the nearness of his kingdom. The labourers are few because we are all distracted by other things.

When the disciples return from the mission field boasting that the demons submitted to them, Jesus leads them not to focus on their own achievements, but on the ultimate demon-conquering, peace-giving and love-sharing achievement of his death on the cross. Let us boast in nothing else. And let us rejoice that our names are written in heaven. Glory be to God... and peace be to this house. Amen.

Sermon for 20th of June, 2010

2010-06-20T23:09:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I was ordained as a priest! It was a special moment in time for me. The photograph above was taken today just after I presided at the Lord's table for the first time, with Lesley our Reader, who also assisted with distributing Communion - another special moment in time. What follows is taken from the sermon I preached today. The readings were 1 Kings 19:1-15a, Galatians 3:23-end, and Luke 8:26-39.

There were a lot of photographs taken yesterday at the Cathedral. These snapshots will have captured some of the excitement of the moment: the joy of the ordinands and the support of family and friends. Photographs are snapshot images of moments taken out of time. They’re moments that have been taken out of their original context. Each Sunday our scripture readings are kind of like snapshots in this way. What we get is only a small picture of what is really a much wider landscape of events and meanings. The task of the preacher is to develop the picture in some way. But it can never be the whole picture, because ‘the word of God is living and active’, as St. Paul says in Hebrews 4:12. God is still completing the picture, for us and with us.

I’d like to consider just a couple of themes from our readings this morning. The first comes from the Old Testament reading, 1 Kings 19, of Elijah’s experience of the presence of God in a “gentle whisper”; the ‘still, small voice’ in some translations. God is both meekness and majesty. In the Old Testament, God’s presence is sometimes signified by thunder, clouds and fire. But here God’s presence is signified by gentleness, quietness and stillness. God works in his own way, and in his own time, and not always in the ways we expect. And if we busy ourselves too much in the noisy stuff of daily life, we can miss the still, small voice of God.

For a few days last week, those of us who were ordained priest yesterday were made to go on retreat. This took place at the Diocesan Retreat Centre, which is surrounded by woodland. I found the most refreshing part of my retreat experience was time spent walking in the woods, serenaded by birdsong. The blessing of the retreat centre is for all of us in the Diocese and I recommend it to you for a quiet day or a couple of days retreat.

Stillness, quiet reflection, and prayer are so important if we want to become more aware of God’s intimate presence with us, and his purposes for our life. What might God be saying to you, in a gentle whisper? In some cases, he may be reassuring us; in others challenging us or calling us to a new direction in our lives. Whatever the message may be when we make the space to listen, in our desire to respond, God will equip us for the next stage of our journey.

The next theme I’d like us to think about is from our second reading from Galatians chapter 3. It’s that remarkable picture of inclusiveness in Christ. Verse 2: ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’. It’s a picture of a world where there are no exclusion zones. In the new creation there are no categories in which people are boxed in or kept out.

Is there someone or something we would rather exclude from God’s grace? Remembering now our Gospel reading from Luke 8, picture the demon-possessed man, a horrific picture of distorted humanity, being healed by Jesus. Irenaeus once said, ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive’. And God’s grace makes that possible, even for the most distorted of lives. No one is beyond the reach of Jesus.

And God’s grace makes reconciliation possible even in the most hostile of situations. Reconciliation is God’s work. And through Christ, by his Spirit, the ministry of reconciliation has been given to the Church. Going back to what St. Paul says in verse 27 of Galatians 3, ‘All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ’. And being in Christ, as his body the Church, we are to be a blessing to the world. All the baptised are ‘ordained’ to do this.

And all the baptised are ‘set apart’ to a ministry of serving Christ by serving others in the world. Jesus set this example for his disciples when, in John’s gospel, chapter 13, he washes the disciple’s feet, and says to them, ‘You should do as I have done for you’. In the body of Christ, in whatever role we have as laity or clergy, it’s an immense privilege to serve our amazing God. And I want to say today, as I preside at the Lord’s Table, how humbling this privilege is. As we say in the ‘prayer of humble access’, none of us are worthy even to gather up the crumbs from under his table. And yet, Jesus says: ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me’.

Jesus gives his very self for the whole world. And the still, small voice of God calls all who are ‘clothed with Christ’ to take part, in this sacrament of thanks and praise. The Eucharist is a thanksgiving meal and it’s a memorial meal. And the act of taking bread and wine, blessing and breaking, taking and eating – this simple act contains a much wider significance in its whole context, some of which is simply beyond our comprehension.

But at its heart, the sacrament of Holy Communion is about participation, sharing, and fellowship – with Christ and with each other. By his Spirit, we share Christ’s body and blood. By his Spirit, we are clothed with Christ on the outside and Christ lives within us. By his Spirit, we share in his mission and in his servant ministry.

Jesus gives himself to us, and we make our response by giving ourselves to him. As St. Paul urges in Romans 12:1, ‘...brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, ...offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship’.

So as we come to the Table in gratitude for what Jesus has given us, let us also come to offer our lives afresh to God. And let us seek God’s purposes for our own life and for the life of this community; not by listening to the loud clanging drums of special interest groups, but by listening to God’s ‘gentle whisper’ – that still, small voice. The voice that says ‘be still and know that I am God’. The voice that says ‘Do not be afraid’. The voice that says ‘I am with you always’. It’s the voice of truth. It’s the voice that sets us free.

Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, thank you for giving to us your Son and your Spirit. Thank you for including us among your children, and at your Table. Speak to us afresh today, Lord. As you know our inmost thoughts and deepest needs, comfort us, and challenge us; to the glory of your name. Amen.

Priesthood

2010-06-16T09:13:00.014+01:00

As it is, I am an ordained deacon. As of Saturday afternoon, June 19th, I will be an ordained priest. The wonderful people in my parish ask me if I am excited, or if I am looking forward to it. Definitely yes, and yes. But that is mixed up with a whole cocktail of other emotions as well.

This time last year when I was ordained as a deacon, I couldn't imagine being ordained priest. Gradually as the year has progressed, with experiences gained and much prayer and seeking after God, my imagination has been stretched. The composition of my being seems increasingly perfused with 'priestly' qualities. And the formal ordination service marks the point at which I will be able, with authority given by God and by the Church, to use those qualities in profound ways to serve God and to serve people.

Not too many years ago, I was fairly anti-priestly-authority, fairly anti-church-heirarchy and institutionalism. I still am, on many levels. I've always believed in the 'priesthod of all believers' (1 Peter 2:9). I long for the 'priesthood of all believers' to be full-on enabled and released into ministry. I wonder if the ordained priesthood as a stipendiary office would even be necessary if the priesthood of all believers were fully engaged in the world.

What does it mean to be a priest in Christ's church, when Christ himself is our High Priest (Hebrews 5)? In the Old Testament, a priest was a mediator between God and his people. There was a curtain in the Temple through which only the priest could pass to access God in the holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant rested. When Jesus was crucified, the temple curtain was torn in two (Matthew 27:51). Jesus opened up the way to God for us all, by his death on the cross. No longer is any earthly mediator required for any of us to have access to God; our heavenly mediator is Christ, and we ourselves live in Christ through his Spirit.

This is why I've never really liked the title priest to describe what we do today, because it can confuse the role that priests should fulfil in these post-resurrection days. But this is what they are called in many denominations, and so long as the role is clear and not abused (which sadly, it often is), then I can just manage to get my head around it. For me, being ordained as a priest will be a commissioning, a releasing, to be and to do what God has put me on this earth to be and to do. I just pray I will be faithful to this.

So the role is about both being and doing. But if there's no longer any need for the Old Testament priestly function, what do priests today do? I came across this incisive poem about being a priest, on the blog of an ordinand who seems also to wrestle a lot with the notion of priesthood and ordination. I'm so grateful we have a God who doesn't mind our wrestling with him and with the mysteries of his purposes (I've always loved Genesis 32:22-32 where Jacob wrestles with God).

Yes, I am very excited about Saturday, and about Sunday, when I will preside for the first time at Holy Communion, and be able to say the Absolution and the Blessing. It is a great privilege to be able to do this kind of work full-time. Please pray for me and for all those who are called to ordained ministry of whatever form. I pray that in our ministry, the name of Christ will be honoured above all else; unto him be all honour and glory for ever. Amen.

By faith, through grace

2010-06-13T22:20:00.004+01:00

Galatians 2:15-end / Luke 7:36 – 8:3

I’ve been spending some time recently with the Sea Cadets in my new role as their chaplain, and what an amazing unit it is! The volunteer staff are so dedicated to serving the young people who attend – fuelled by a deep belief that what they are doing benefits these young people immensely. And for many cadets, especially those who are from disadvantaged or disorderly backgrounds, being in the Sea Cadets is a real life-changer. Their belief in themselves grows through the skills and disciplines learned.

Believing in ourselves and in others, learning to trust ourselves and other people is a very healthy thing. But it’s not the whole thing. You’ve probably heard the phrase that there’s a ‘God-shaped hole’ in every human heart. And we do seem to have a need to believe in something. It’s that natural inclination of human believing that the Holy Spirit uses when people respond to the gospel. The Holy Spirit takes the power of human love and transforms it into a godly love. The same is true of hope. God takes the human hope which is found in every person and transforms it into the hope for ‘life in all its fullness’ – into the hope for eternal life. Likewise, God takes the natural faith or believing that is deep within all human hearts and transforms that human believing into belief and trust in Jesus.

A famous quote from the Bible is: “I believe; Lord,help my unbelief.” God wants to cure our unbelief. What God wants from us more than anything else is that we would have faith in Jesus Christ - belief in Jesus Christ; trust in Jesus Christ. Not just to believe in positive thinking. Not just to believe in the power of believing or have faith in the power of faith. God wants more than that. We are invited to put our faith in his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. That’s the core of the Christian faith. God wants to transform the power of human belief in all of us into a personal faith in Jesus Christ, so that we trust the promises that he has made to us through Jesus.

Our first reading this morning was from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, ch. 2: Let’s think about the churches in Galatia, in ancient Turkey, in Paul’s time. There were deeply religious people there in Galatia who couldn’t grasp that God raised Jesus from the dead, that all our sins are fully forgiven by his death on the cross, and that his followers, his disciples, are to live a life of love. Those Galatians didn’t understand the gospel.

They also didn’t understand what God wanted from them and wants from us. The very core of Jewish morality was to obey hundreds of laws that said, “don’t’ do this and don’t do that.” When Jesus came, that changed. What God wants from us more than anything else is that we would have faith in Jesus Christ. The essence of Christianity isn’t to obey rules and regulations but to have faith in Jesus Christ.

Surrounded by evil and suffering, our faith demands that we trust in God's ultimate judgment and protection. No matter what happens to us in this life, we trust in Jesus as ultimate judge and our saving grace. Faith trusts the promise of God that we will live forever with Jesus, who suffered and died at the hands of evil, for our sake.

And faith involves a leap, a letting go, because there is no proof that God exists. It’s a risk. There is no proof that there is a God or that God will catch us when we fall. So there is a leap of faith, a letting go of the need for proof. Even with everything we see in nature – or in human courage, kindness, and love – ultimately we believe in that which is not seen.

And we are justified in the eyes of God, not by adherence to any Law or Doctrine or Dogma, but by faith in Jesus. The Law by which we are justified is the law of grace – it’s the law of love, laid down by the life of Jesus. And What God wants from us more than anything else is that we would have faith in Jesus Christ.

The other day, I was approached by a man who was what we might call a ‘down and out’. He saw my clerical collar and held out his hand to me and told me his name is Tony, that he is a believer, and that he prays every day. He said he no longer goes to church. I told him that the most important thing to God is that we have faith in him. And Tony told me that he does have faith.

And even though he was a ‘down and out’, Tony had a quality about him. A resilient and open quality about him. Even though things might not be going so well for him in the material context, maybe Tony has found that no matter how far he’s fallen, somehow his basic needs have been met – out of the goodness of others, or out of an inner strength that he’s been able to draw upon. Maybe I’m a soft old fool, but I believe him when he says he has faith – I could see it in his eyes. Tony asked me to pray for him, and he told me he would pray for me, too.

I pondered this encounter the next day. I wondered what our reaction would be if someone like Tony came in here to worship with us. Would we welcome him in with open arms? Or would his presence in this congregation disturb us? Would the smell of beer on his breath and his unkempt appearance make us want to avoid him?

I wondered whether we subconsciously make judgements that the sin of people like Tony is somehow greater than our sin, and therefore he shouldn’t be in here with us. Remembering our second reading this morning from Luke 7, that is just the kind of thing that Simon the Pharisee thought of the woman ‘sinner’ who came into his house and anointed Jesus’ feet.

Martin Luther wrote that ‘Christ is a Lover of poor sinners, and such a Lover that He gave Himself for us. Now if this is true, and it is true, then we are never justified by our own righteousness’.

The Pharisees were self righteous people with an inflated sense of moral and spiritual superiority. They maximized everybody else’s sins and minimized their own. They felt they were two or three cuts above everybody else in the world.
But Jesus says, ‘Whoever is forgiven much, loves much. Whoever is forgiven little, loves little.’

It’s easier to extend forgiveness to other people when a person has personally experienced a deep forgiveness himself or herself. When a person realizes the number of stupid mistakes they’ve made in their own life, then that person is more willing to forgive others who also make stupid mistakes in their life.

When we realize our own sinfulness, and the gift of forgiveness, we’re set free to show compassion to others – compassion for all people - even our imperfect family members. We’re set free to show compassion to marginalised people – like those with mental health issues - and for every other kind of group that we’re sometimes prejudiced against. We’re set free to show compassion for down and out’s like Tony. Jesus says that there’s a connection when we realize our own sinfulness and the measure of his forgiveness; there’s a connection between that realisation and our degree of compassion for others.

There are many people out there who have faith in God but don’t feel ‘good enough’ to belong in here. We have to ask ourselves why. And we have to make sure that we aren’t the kind of church that holds up a measuring stick, only allowing those who ‘fit in’ to have a place here to belong. As Christians we must have faith that God can release us from our fear of the other.

What God wants from us more than anything else is that we would have faith in Jesus Christ, who loves us and gave himself for us. We need to trust that Jesus now lives in us by his Spirit, who will release us from the desire to condemn others who we think are somehow beneath us in righteousness. Faith believes that the only way any of us are righteous in God’s eyes is by the gracious love of Jesus, and not through anything we try to do. Amen.

Fire and Rain

2010-06-10T12:17:00.007+01:00

1 Kings 18:41-46

Elijah said to Ahab, "Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain." So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.
"Go and look toward the sea," he told his servant. And he went up and looked. "There is nothing there," he said.
Seven times Elijah said, "Go back."
The seventh time the servant reported, "A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea." So Elijah said, "Go and tell Ahab, 'Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.' "

Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. The power of the LORD came upon Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.

The great prophet Elijah lived around 900 years before Christ. It was well after King Solomon’s reign, described in the first eleven chapters of 1 Kings, and also after Israel had been divided into the two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The reading this morning from 1 Kings 18, where the rains finally come down upon drought-stricken Israel, is the end result of a significant time in the life of the prophet Elijah.

Elijah first appears in 1 Kings 17, in confrontation with the evil King Ahab. Ahab reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for twenty-two years; and according to 1 Kings 16:30, he ‘did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any [of the kings] before him’. And Ahab’s wife was his equal in wickedness. The name Jezebel is now part of our language, referring to any evil, devious, manipulative woman. It says in 1 Kings 21:25-26 that ‘Never was there a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife’. Jezebel corrupted Ahab by enticing him into following her pagan gods Asherah and Bel, who together were called Baal.

The short passage from 1 Kings 18 relates the end of the long drought that was a punishment for the idolatry raging in Israel at the time. Just before this passage, Elijah put this idolatry to the test, when he poses a challenge to the people. He says in verses 23 & 24:

‘Let the prophets of Baal choose [a bull] for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare [another] bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire – he is God.’

Calling on the name of their pagan god, the people danced around their altar from morning till noon, with no response. Elijah taunts them, saying: ‘Shout louder! ...Perhaps [your god] is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling’ – and that was an insult, because ‘travelling’ was a euphemism for going to the toilet! From afternoon to evening, the idolaters ‘shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed’ (v.28).
But still, no response from Baal!

So Elijah builds his altar in the name of the Lord. He arranges the wood and the bull, and then he pours water all over it until it is completely drenched. Elijah prays to the Lord - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. And in v. 38, ‘the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench’!

When the people saw this, they fell down on their knees and cried out that the Lord is God. Elijah then has all the prophets of Baal killed. The whole dramatic event is interwoven with the story of the drought, and shortly afterwards, on Mount Carmel, the sky becomes black with clouds and heavy rain finally begins to fall – and that is this morning’s passage. The rain is seen by Elijah and his followers as a sign that God has forgiven the repentant people their sin of idolatry which had been the cause of the drought.

Rainfall is a symbol of blessing and divine providence. The Old Testament conveys to us that the blessing of water and abundance is at God’s command (whether that says anything of the recent problems with the water supply in our region, I don’t know!); but the prophet Elijah longed for the rains to come to end the severe drought and famine – he longed for justice and for the redemption of God’s people.

The Old Testament often makes use of the imagery of water as a sign of justice and righteousness: The flood in Noah’s day was purging, cleansing and purifying. From Amos 5:24 come the powerful words, ‘let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream’! The waters of baptism signify cleansing and healing - the dying and rising again of new life. God knows that his people need the water of life and we are dependent on him for everything good that we have.

The story of Elijah seems like it would make a great plot for a film. But there have only been a few films made where he is featured, like one called The Sins of Jezebel from 1953, with John Hoyt as Elijah, and Paulette Goddard as Jezebel; and there was an animated film about Elijah made in 1996. But I think it’s about time for someone to make an up-to-date version of this story, because it could highlight the ways we practice idolatry today.

Not many people these days worship the pagan gods Asherah and Bel, but we’ve certainly got contemporary examples of idolatry. And it’s even present within the Church! Many people in the western developed world have exchanged their Christian heritage for the god of Choice; and we often put Ourselves in the place of God, as well. So we are challenged today by the prophet Elijah to examine whether we choose to follow the one true God, faithfully.

The Bible teaches that there are many forms of idolatry including greed and immorality (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). Anything we worship or depend on for security, significance, or happiness, other than the Lord, becomes a form of idolatry. Today, people don’t usually construct gods of wood and stone, but we do make gods out of our own ideas, our prejudices, and our worldview. It can be helpful to think about what forms of idolatry we are engaging in, and to bring this to the Lord in prayer and repentance.

We might idolise Church-going, over and above a personal prayerful relationship with God. Maybe we sometimes idolise our church buildings.

We might allow pleasure and comfort dictate what we do and keep us from seeking the true will of God for our life, because we’re afraid of how uncomfortable or unpleasant that might be.

We might set our hearts and our security on being successful – either financially or socially; spending all our energy and time pursuing the next rung on the ladder to the point that it interferes with quality time spent with family, church, and community.

What must we have to be secure, happy, or significant?

Today, people can find the resemblance of joy and peace in false religion, in money, power, and position, but it always falls short of true and lasting peace, which only comes through faith in Jesus and the intimate fellowship that he offers to us.

Let us pray: Father God, thank you for the wonderful stories from the prophets of old. Help us to apply the things we learn from them to our lives today. Keep us from worshipping anything or anyone other than you. Thank you for your abundant provision. Lord, send your kingdom down upon us, like a fresh rainfall. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Miscellanea

2010-06-07T22:36:00.006+01:00

Haven't posted for a while, so thought I would just say what I've been up to and what's ahead. I had a great day today. After seeing the two kids off to school, the usual morning prayers were said with my training incumbent, followed by some enjoyable conversation and play with the 'carers and tots' group, held every Monday at one of the two churches (there is also a Tuesday group held at the other church). Delivered the monthly parish newsletter to my usual two streets (there are several other volunteers and around 500 homes reached). I enjoy that - perhaps missed a calling as a postman? (what is the gender neutral term for postman?) A few emails and a few phone calls with the funeral director and someone wanting to discuss doing ecumenical outreach. Worked for a bit on Thursday's sermon; also went to the bank. After the kids got home from school, had to take my daughter to get some new school shoes and later after cooking dinner, I helped my son create an elephant costume to wear to school tomorrow.

Tomorrow is an 'IME' day, which is our continuing education scheme as curates. The theme for tomorrow is 'Growing Church', so it sounds like its right up my street. Looking forward to it. Also tomorrow in the evening I plan to attend my first Sea Cadets meeting, and this will become a regular feature in my parish ministry.

Wednesday I must finish up my sermon for Thursday and the funeral service that is also on Thursday. Should also make a pastoral visit. Thursday, of course, is Holy Communion when I will be preaching, followed by a funeral. Thursday evening I'll start working on Sunday's sermon. Friday is my day off, so I might take half of that to potter around doing nothing much at all, and the rest of it catching up on housework and tidying my study. Saturday I have Diocesan Synod to attend. So that is my week.

I'm looking ahead with excited anticipation to several events: a train journey down to London to visit an old high school friend; my pre-ordination retreat; the ordination of priests on 19th June; my first ever Holy Communion presidency on 20th June; the Race for Life on 27th June; and the Diocesan clergy conference from 28th June to 1st July. After all of that, I'll be eagerly looking forward to the visitation from California of my mom, sister, niece and nephew for three weeks! Yay!