One week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)