Sunday, June 24, 2012

Love - the ultimate question


I’ve always thought of it as a list.

A kind of ‘to do’ list.

The ultimate ‘to do’ list.

A variation, if you like, on ‘the ten commandments’ – another ‘to do’ list.

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.

I don’t know about you, but I find ‘to do’ lists so helpful.  There are so many things to get your mind round, write them down, make a list and start ticking off each thing that needs to be done.

These are the things to work at.

When I came to this passage again this week, I saw it in a different light.

Not so much the ultimate ‘to do’ list, as the answer to the ultimate question.

Let me explain.

Jesus takes the ten commandments down to two:

Love God
Love your neighbour.

Those two commandments have one word in common.

That’s the word Jesus comes back to in his parting words to the disciples.

A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.

Be it in pastoral care, be it in care of others in need, what counts is love.

So let’s go back to this passage and see it in a new light.

That’s exactly what Paul is getting at.  Love is what it is all about.

Let love be genuine.

But that gives rise to a question.  And that’s the ultimate question Paul sets out to respond to in this passage.

What is genuine love?  How can we make sure love is genuine?

Maybe, that’s what Paul is getting at.  This is what it takes for love to  be really love, the kind of love that really is genuine …

There’s a love that pretends
And a love that’s true.
Help us to see the difference
And know that true love
Seeks the good
Honours the other
Serves the Lord
Rejoices in hope
Waits in patience
Keeps at prayer
Gives in need
Welcomes the stranger
Rejoices with those who rejoice
Weeps with those who weep
And seeks to be at peace


Sunday, June 17, 2012

Father's Day - celebrating Hy-Speed at Highbury


Sunday 17th June was Father's Day.  For eighteen months we have been running a men's event once a month on Saturday evening called 'Hy-Speed'.  It's a great space for men to come together with their youngsters and meet up ... and it's all based around Scalextric Digital Racing.

If you want a taste of Hy-Speed go to our Web site, read all about it on the Congregational Federation's Web Site or see the video that was made to celebrate our winning a Community Award from the Congregational Federation.



Father's Day seemed a great day to have an awards event, enjoy some racing and build in a service too!  Carolyn, our children's worker shared thoughts during the service.  Here are her rough notes!

Father’s Day Hy-Speed Event

9.30 Racing and Breakfast (cooks and washing up)
10.30 Service and Awards
11.15-12.30 Racing and Café

Service ideas:
Racing…
Olympics…
Sports Day (the closest most of us will get!)

·        Run some races/physical challenges with dads and children

Highlight of some people’s yr, the Fathers’ Race. Serious training and high tension followed by punch-ups!
A lot at stake; pride, standing, status in the playground/school gates.
‘My dad’s bigger than your dad!’
Bigger car, stronger, taller, faster, richer…

·        Bible- ‘last shall be first and first shall be last’ Matthew 19:30, Matthew 5:3-12

What do children really want? The biggest, fastest, richest dad?
Care for the family parenting tips; ‘Kids want 5 minutes, not £5.’
‘Quality Time’ was a fashionable phrase around parenting but Reg Bailey, the chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, (who is actually a dad!) claimed, ‘Kids don’t want quality time, they need you all the time.’

Children grow up fast. What will your legacy be?
·        Toy Story 3 clip (growing up, leaving home)
Being a parent is challenging. Constant test of values, patience, boundaries, role models and love.
·        Rob Parsons: I may be ashamed of some of the things you have done, but I will never be ashamed of you.’
·        Father images in the Bible. The lost son- ‘I was there waiting all the time.’

This is a powerful inspiration for parents, but goes further than that. God is saying this to all of us,

‘You were still a long way from home when I saw you. My heart was filled with pity. I ran, threw my arms around you and kissed you.’ Luke 15:20

AWARDS

·        Which race are you in? (recall Sports day)
·        The rat race? (images for these)
·        The human race?
·        The race for life?
·        The race against time?
·        Or, the one race that really counts…
·        2 Timothy 4:7-8
‘I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith. And now there is waiting for me the victory prize of being put right with God, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day – and not only to me, but to all those who wait with love for him to appear.’



Sunday, June 3, 2012

Diamond Jubilee Celebrations


It goes back many centuries before the time of Christ.  The idea of a Jubilee Year.

It would be a year that gave people the chance to start all over again as debts were written off and slaves freed.

It was a year to catch the imagination … but it never quite worked!

It appears at the beginnings of the Bible in Leviticus 25.  It then appears again in Isaiah 61.  And as Jesus begins his ministry the idea appears again.

Reading:  Luke 4

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, 
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour

Good news to the poor
Freedom for the prisoners
Recovery of sight for the blind,
Set the oppressed free
The Year of the Lord’s Favour – that’s it – the Jubilee Year.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that’s what the Jubilee was all about!

It really is a special year – as much as anything it is a celebration of the achievements of the Queen as an individual.  Not many people can claim to have been doing a job for 60 years … and still to be going strong with the kind of gruelling schedule the Queen has chosen to undertake in this Jubilee Year.

She has made the Christmas Day message her very own – some have been about current affairs, current issues, some about her family, initially idolised, latterly going through the very same strains and stresses any other family experiences.  On the threshold of this Jubilee year it was fascinating to hear a Christmas Day message that was such a clear declaration of the Christian faith that has meant so much to her and continues to mean so much!

She quoted a favourite Christmas carol and made it her prayer for each of us listening in …

In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, there’s a prayer.

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin,
And enter in.
Be born in us today.

The Queen went on to say,

It is my prayer that on this Christmas Day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

What would that mean for us?  I wonder?

A chance to begin all over again?

I think there’s a clue in two visits the Queen has made to Cheltenham.  And I am choosing those visits carefully.

In 2003 she came to the races and unveiled a bust to the Queen Mother.  It emerged then that months before the coronation the Queen mother had brought the uncrowned Queen Elizabeth secretly to Cheltenham – they watched the races from a landrover parked next to the Water Jump.

That wasn’t her first visit to Cheltenham.  Fifty-two years before she had come as Princess Elizabeth.   It was as GCHQ was about to move to the town, its buildings were going up.  Hence Princess Elizabeth Way with all its flats and houses that were built for the arrival of those moving from Bletchley Park and London.  During her visit Princess Elizabeth planted an Oak Tree.

Sad to say when the new GCHQ building went up the Oak Tree had to  be felled.  No matter, when the Queen came to Cheltenham for, I think, the fourth time, in March 2004 to open the new GCHQ building she unveiled a plaque in Hester’s Way Park to commemorate the Oak she had planted … what became of the oak.  Other oaks planted – Felicity thought in Cox’s Meadow, maybe in Hester’s Way.

There’s a wonderfully powerful image there of the acorn and the oak.  Small things that make all the difference.  That could be said of much the Queen has done … the small things that count and are remembered.

It’s in doing small things that make a difference that we bring good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind and set the oppressed free.

It is a lovely picture of the tree that has to be felled – but from it an acorn brings new life.  It is an irony of our celebrations that we are marking not the sixtieth anniversary of the coronation, but the sixtieth anniversary of the accession.  And that has a sadness as well as a joy to it.  For it is out of sadness that a new reign begins.

Jesus doesn’t talk of oaks and acorns … but he does talk of a grain of wheat.  Speaking of his own death and resurrection, and of the resurrection victory we all may share he invited us to picture a grain of wheat.

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains but a single seed.  But if it dies it produces many seeds.

Even in the sadness of dying, death and bereavement there’s a new beginning in the eternal love of God.

The story of that original Oak planted by Princess Elizabeth is also symbolic of the way new beginnings come from endings too!

When Philip Smith, the vicar of St Aidan and St Silas realised the Oak originally planted by Princess Elizabeth had been felled he rescued some of the wood.

St Silas and St  Aidan has been home to a wonderful project that has been on the go for twenty years and more, Network Crafts.  Providing word working experience initially for people who need to develop skills, maybe in unemployment or in retirement.  They have crafted candle holders and a table that takes pride of place in the church.

That’s the hope at the heart of the faith that has meant so much to the Queen down through all these years.

Between that visit to Cheltenham and GCHQ in 2004 and the next in 2009 the construction company responsible for what had been Europe’s largest building project at the time had presented to the town a wonderfully playful piece of public art in Hester’s Way Park.

Cheltenham’s very own stone circle.

There’s GCHQ, affectionately known as the Doughnut.

And from it goes an avenue of stones to a much smaller circle of stones.

What would a time team special in a thousand years make of these two circles side by side?

Created by …, and known as the Listening Stones, it really is a stone circle worth visiting.

It’s got all sorts of codes I don’t recognise … but maybe some here would.  And newspaper cuttings.  I am told there are Bible texts … but you will have to find those for yourselves.

But one stone is highlighted.  The Inscription is marked out in red.

It is a stone that brings me back to the Year of the Lord’s favour, making a new start and in particular to that Christmas Message of 2011 with its Prayer for Peace

Lead me from death to life
From falsehood to truth
Lead me from despair to hope
From fear to trust
Lead me from hate to love
From war to peace
Let peace fill our heart,
Our world, our universe
Peace Peace Peace

That prayer at Christmas 2011 is one very much for the whole of this Jubilee Year.

It is my prayer that on this Christmas Day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

The message of the angels that is right at the heart of that prayer is the prayer we would pray together

Glory to God on high
And earth …. Peace


It brings to mind the words of Jesus … I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in  darkness but will have the light of life.

For the Diamond Jubilee Philip has written a hymn.

This morning over on Coronation Square they will be singing of the Jubilee on Coronation Square.

We come to crown God sovereign
in Coronation Square
A time for celebration
in jubilee displayed.
We come as different people
each noble in God’s heart.
We come to serve our neighbour,
for all to play their part.

Our gracious Queen we pray for
and thank God for her care.
She rules with love and service,
her people everywhere.
A commonwealth of nations,
a family of grace.
We come as loyal kinsfolk
all equal in this place.

This day of national homage
is one of hope and cheers.
A time to honour duty,
for grace of sixty years.
We are a royal priesthood
who in our Lord we trust.
O God we raise our anthem,
please save our Queen and us!


Philip Smith 2012



We may not be other there with them, but we can be with them in spirit and use those same words too.


In that coronation service at the heart of the service was a moment when the Queen was anointed with oil.

That too is an ancient biblical tradition.  In the Old Testament anointing was always for a specific person and a specific role – prophets, priests, kings.

Jesus’ brother James speaks of the great value of anointing with oil in times of illness when he that when someone is ill he can call those who are senior in the life of the church and ask them to share in anointing with oil and to share in prayer for healing and hope.  Something very moving to share.

Jesus himself felt anointed by the Spirit to bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed.

The wonderful good news is that this anointing of the Spirit is not just for the one or the two, not just for those in extraordinary positions, it is something for each one of us.  We too are anointed by the Spirit to bring good news to the poor and share that wonderful message of the love of God in Christ.

For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the  power of the Holy Spirit.

We all of us are called to live for other people …
That’s the life we are anointed to, that’s the hope we look and it is a wonderful hope to share.

May the God of hope fill each one of us with all joy and peace as we trust in him, so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So much to pass on at Highbury

If you give a little love you can get a little love of your own

A blessing shared at Highbury

Now and the Future at Highbury

Dreaming Dreams Sharing Visions at Highbury

Dreaming Dreams Sharing Visions

Darkness into Light