God's Word in God's World at Highbury

Belonging to Highbury - something special that has to do with glue!

2012-01-29T21:11:00.001Z

A large part of this sermon was a conversation between Richard and Sharon, one of Highbury's deacons, who has recently started a course in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Gloucestershire. These are in part notes prepared before hand, and in part notes of the conversation. As ever with preaching, what was shared did not stick rigidly to the prepared script. This is shared in the hope that it gives a flavour of the word that was shared this morning.

About a third of the congregation stayed on for a bring and share lunch at our Word Cafe. On each table was a two sided table mat with a summary of some of what was said in that conversation and the preaching, and questions to prompt discussion.

At the first Church Meeting of the year weasked people to come up with five words that sum up what makes Highbury special. These are the words we came up with.

I guess you could say that’s what it meansfor us to belong to Highbury. With thehelp of our Deacons on Thursday we are going to home in on six of those wordsand then we are going to dig a bit more deeply in Sunday services in HighburyNews on the web site on face book in as we ask ourselves how we can build up thataspect of our church life here at Highbury. We have something special, something we feel is really worth sharing –we want to go from strength to strength.

But today I want to push us forward abit. What are our dreams and visions forHighbury for the future? Are there wordsthat come to mind that capture the vision we have for the church here atHighbury in the future that lies ahead of us.

That’s a subtly different question – and itmakes you think.

It’s a question I put to Sharonat the end of a fascinating day at HorfieldBaptist Churchin Bristol lastSaturday. The response I got was notwhat I was expecting. It was good toshare with Sharonin conversation.

When you told us you were going to go tothe University to do a degree in Philosophy and Religious studies, Iremember you saying one of the things youwanted to work at was giving presentations, not least in church. So … first, how’s the course going?

Sharon told us how much she was enjoying the course and how well it wasgoing.

One of your lecturers set up the day lastSaturday. Tell us a little about theday.

Sharon described the way Lloyd Pieterson took us through his recentlypublished book Reading the Bible AfterChristendom (Paternoster, 2011)

Observing that Christianity in the west nolonger has that position of power it once had and has become marginalised, hewent on to suggest that that is no bad thing.

With his roots in the Anabaptist traditionLloyd Pieterson is very close to the tradition I come from. How you read the Bible will be shaped by thecommunity of faith you are part of – and his reading of the Bible acknowledgesthat. It is a community of faith thathas common roots with our own Congregational heritage in the radicalreformation of the sixteenth century. Iwas excited as I found myself sharing common ground with Lloyd Pieterson in theway I have been teaching the Bible in the last 30 years in the context of ourCongregational churches.

In particular, Lloyd Pieterson wasconcerned to explore the way much of the way the Bible has been read has beenshaped by the aftermath of Constantine makingChristianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. The result of that was to tame the radicalnature of much of Jesus’ teaching. TheChristianity of Christendom that had power and influence was a Christianity thathad been harnessed, or hijacked, by those in power to buttress that power. Now, in the west we are in a post Christendomperiod we need to go back to the way the Bible was read pre-Christendom, in the first couple of hundred years ofChristianity and indeed seek to go back to the Jesus of history. Then we shall have a very different way ofreading a Bible that challenges us to take seriously the teachings of Jesus aswe follow in his way ….

That then will shape the way we are church.

I recalled how as we got back into the carafter an excellent day ‘reading the Bible after Christendom’ it struck me thatwe needed to follow up the day and share with everyone else what we had shared.

Today we are going to be looking atbelonging to Highbury and we will be looking at the hopes and dreams we havefor the church. And then there will bean opportunity to gather ‘around the word’ we have shared during our service atour Word Café when we shall have an opportunity to share our thoughts together.

So how could we explore our hopes anddreams for the church? I asked Sharon for her response wondering how best we might ‘shape’the church for the future.

How Sharonresponded set me thinking along different lines. And I found what she shared reallychallenging and really helpful.

I was fishing I guess for ideas about whatshape the church should take, what kind of things we as a church should bedoing.. What hopes and dreams for thechurch here? What’s your vision? What kind of things would you like to seegoing on in the life of our church? Whatshape do you think our church should take.

Sharon was not happy with the way I asked the question.

The question implies that the church shouldtake a certain kind of shape, she said.

But that is to misunderstand what ‘church’is about.

We should not seek to make the church acertain kind of shape.

That is to think of the church as ‘aninstitution’.

And the church is very different from that.

It’s better to think of church as ‘glue’.

We live in an age when there are around usall kinds of different people. We livein a society that is multi-faceted and immensely diverse. We should think of church as ‘the glue’ thathelps to hold that diverse range of people and ‘societies’ together.

Our conversation went on … and built onthat analogy of the church as ‘glue’.

It feels very much as if things are fallingapart at the moment – that can be in people’s personal lives, it can be in acommunity in our locality. That’s how itfeels in the wider world, in the workplace, in the state of the world’s economy, the financial crisis in ourcountry, in Europe. So many things are falling apart.

Church should be the glue that helps putsthings together again, that mends what is broken.

If the church is to be glue, however, wemust focus on Jesus. That’s what makesus church and not some other organisation. Lloyd Pieterson had been passionate about modelling what we do and the peoplewe are on Jesus, the Jesus we can access through the Bible.

So I asked Sharon to reflect on passages from the Bible thatpointed us in that kind of direction.

Then something special happened. Sharoncame up with passages from Paul, starting in Ephesians 2:19-22. I found myself going to similar passages, anddrawing particularly on Colossians 3. Wewere in the same part of the Bible, in the same range of thinking. And it hadn’t been planned. One of thosespecial moments.

Sharon shared with us those words from Ephesians.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon thefoundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as thecornerstone. In him the wholestructure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place forGod.

There is something in those words aboutbeing ‘joined together’ and ‘growing into a holy temple in the Lord’ that hasabout it the feel of ‘glue’. I foundmyself reflecting on the way Jesus was enraged at what the powers that be haddone to the temple – it should have been a house of prayer, but it had beenmade into a den of thieves. Destroy thistemple, he had said, and I will re-build it in three days.

Temple, whereGod’s presence is most real, happens not in a particular place in a particularlocation – but it happens in Christ. AndPaul takes up that theme suggesting each Christian is a temple for the HolySpirit. And here Paul says collectivelychurch is ‘temple’ that place where God’spresence touches earth and is real.

As I have been thinking about thosethoughts Sharon shared in the last few days, Ihave felt more and more that Sharonhas put her finger on something that goes to the very heart of what it means tobe church. It goes to the very heart ofthe Good News at the heart of the Christian faith.

What’s the big picture that we work to?

For lots of people church and all it standsfor is a framework – a set of do’s and don’ts – a way of life to follow.

For others church and all it stands for isabout getting people into heaven – a personal salvation.

What’s the big picture we work to – thatindividuals need to get into heaven and that’s what we have to offer? That people need values to live by and that’swhat we offer?

Or is there a bigger picture.

Can we think of this as a picture. We can often be conscious that things seembroken – in our personal lives, in family life, in the nation. The big picture is that that is thecase. There is a brokenness in ourworld. From the largest scale to thesmallest most personal, it can feel as if we are in thrall to powers beyond ourcontrol that damage. It may be greedthat is so endemic in humanity that no one can get the better of it, as someonesuggested to me at the Community Café this week. It may be the breakdown of things we havecome to take for granted.

What is the big picture that our faithholds out for us?

The very first followers of Jesus sensedthat Jesus not only put things back together for the leprosy sufferers, forpeople whose families had fallen apart, for people who simply felt as if theworld was falling apart, he also was about putting the world back togetheragain. He came saying the kingdom of God was near. God’s rule breaking in. Paul sensed that in Christ there was a newcreation – it was possible to look to a new heaven and a new earth. Nothing less than a new order.

When Paul writes to a church in Colossae about the kind ofchurch they should be, he does exactly the kind of exercise we did at thechurch meeting – he came up with key words that summed up the life of thechurch.

But before he got to that nitty gritty kindof detail, he painted the big picture.

In Jesus Christ he saw one was the image ofthe invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, notice what he says inColossians 1:15ff

He is the image of the invisible God, thefirstborn of all creation; for inhim all things in heaven and on earth were created, thingsvisible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—allthings have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, andin Christ all things hold together.

This is the big picture – that sets theframe for us. It is that in Christ all things hold together.

We are conscious of a broken world.

Our Christian faith holds out for us thevision of a restored world.

in Christ all things holdtogether.

That’s the big picture.

No sooner has he spoken those words, thanPaul goes on to speak of Christ then as head of the church.

We are not far off the analogy of glue.

Christ – the light, the love, the care thathe embodies, the victory over darkness, the victory over death he invites us toshare – this is the glue that holds all things together.

What of us in the church?

We are called to em-body Christ. Be the body of Christ. And in being the body of Christ we look toChrist as Head of the Body and we seek to live out all he wills for us.

So Paul goes on in Colossians 3 to come upwith his core words …

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clotheyourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyonehas a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, whichbinds everything together in perfect harmony. Andlet the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called inthe one body. And be thankful. Letthe word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in allwisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritualsongs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in thename of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That has to be one of my favourite passageswhen it comes to thinking about the church. Those words are so powerful.

Chosen, holy, beloved

Compassion, kindness, humility, patience

Bear with one another

Forgive each other

Then comes something I had not noticedbefore.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, whichbinds everything together in perfect harmony.

I had always linked those words with whatthe church should be like as an institution. We should be bound together in love.

Clothe yourselves with love, which bindseverything together.

Isn’t this the key to being part of the bigpicture?

If in that big picture we se in Christ allthings hold together, we see Christ as the glue that holds things together,then it is for us to live out that love so that in our little bit of that bigpicture, the people we are, the things we say, the things we do can bindeverything together – in other words church can be the glue our broken world soneeds.

Now then, if that is our vision for thefuture of Highbury, we need to be asking ourselves – in all we do are we beingthe glue that holds things together in the world around us?

How can we work that out in practice?

There’s one thing more to add. I shared today’s theme with one of our oldermembers, Jocelyn Bell one afternoon this week. She came back with a thought-provoking response – the glue must be thekind that’s flexible. It mustn’t be toorigid! How wise, I thought!

Love binds everything together in perfect harmony in Christ all things hold together

This was the double-sided placemat that served as an aide memoire and a discussion starter when a third of the congregation stayed on for lunch at our Word Café

Changed through Peace-making

2012-01-22T12:52:00.002Z

For the Sunday of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity we shared with our local anglican church, St Luke's in a united service. Richard preached on the theme for the day from the Week of Prayer for Christian unity leaflet.

It’s what you do.

Maybe I shouldn’t speak for other people.

It’s what I do.

And I guess it’s what a lot of us do.

When things have gone wrong, when thingsare going wrong, it’s good to come back to somewhere safe, somewhere warm,somewhere you can be with friends, with family. Somewhere secure. Somewhere safe.

Maybe there’s stuff going on now that makesyou feel that way.

It’s how that small group of people who hadgiven their all to follow Jesus felt in the hours after his execution.

If you stop and think this is a rock-bottommoment for them all. Hopesshattered. Not just one life ended, buttheir lives destroyed. What they do iswhat we all do. They found somewheresafe. Somewhere warm. Somewhere secure. Family were far away. But they had each other. They could lock the doors and keep the fearsoutside.

It was into that place, into that momentthat Jesus came and stood among them and said “Peace be with you.”

I want to hold on to that picture for amoment. I want to hold on to that presenceof the risen Christ. I want to hold onto those words.

We can tell stories, we can think throughideas, we can discuss and we can argue, but at the end of the day, this is whatit’s all about.

At the moment when all is at itsworst. When nothing makes sense. When everything has fallen apart. At that moment when there is nothing else buta place to retreat to for your own security. It is at that moment, that Christ comes into our presence, into the veryplace where we seek some kind of security. And he says those words to us. Peace be with you.

This is that peace that is beyond anythingwe can begin to understand, it transcends the intellect. It is something we cannot begin to explain.

You can almost see the disciplesblinking. They cannot believe theireyes. There is that moment of takingstock. Checking. Is it really true. After he said this, he showed them his handsand his side. Then comes the rejoicing.

Sense that place you are in … hear thosewords of Jesus, Peace be with you. Takea reality check. And then as they didrejoice. Take courage, take heart. Christ is with us.

The disciples in that upper room needed tohear those words again. And so Jesussasid to them again, Peace be with you.

This is that inner peace, that calm, thatwe year for, that we need, that Christ offers.

But there is something about the peace thatChrist gives. It becomes a true peace inour hearts as we receive it and then as we pro-actively do something with thispeace.

It is not simply a comfort blanket for usto keep to ourselves, to give us a warm glow in that safe place where we feelsecure.

Peace be with you, Jesus said. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

Almost as soon as that sense of peace hascome upon the disciples they are told by Jesus they cannot stay in the place ofsafety. They cannot stay where they aresecure. They cannot stay in the warmth.

Just as Jesus was sent into the messinessof an incredibly troubled and disturbed world, so his followers are to be sentinto that world as well. They have tounbolt those locked doors and go out into the very hostile world they havesought refuge from.

This is where the very Christian faith thatis such a warmth and a peace takes on a different dimension. Never let it be said that religion is simplya comforter, a way of easing over problems.

The Peace that Jesus offers is a peace thatbecomes real only as it becomes something actively to share.

So, in the troubles of the world, whereverwe are and whatever we are doing, as we sense the presence of Christ with usand hear those wonderful words addressed individually to us … Peace be withyou, we then need to be alert to where it is that Jesus is sending us.

Is it that we are to go into the verysituation from which we have sought refuge … now to bring Christ’s peace? Is it that we are to go into an entirelydifferent setting to bring that peace into Christ’s world?

Just as I invited you to think of thetroubles from which you seek refuge, I now invite you to think of where it mightbe Jesus is sending you to take his peace.

What will it involve to take that peace ofChrist out into that situation? Is therea possibility that actually it will involve being changed?

Our theme this morning comes from theprayers for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Those prayers have been put together bychurches in Poland. The overall theme for the week is ‘We willall be changed’. Are we prepared to bechanged? Are we open to that to happen?

Those followers of Jesus went out into thevery troubled world from which they had sought refuge with the peace ofChrist. Just as God was in Christreconciling the world to himself, so God has given us in Christ a ministry ofreconciliation.

Where can we bring peace?

Think of that in your own personalsituation, in the situation of your home.

Think of that in the context of the churchfamily too. Where can we bring peace?

A particular task we can do … in theimmediate church setting. We are at thepoint in our church calendar where we are asking people to be prepared to bepart of our leadership team, serving as a Deacon. Think seriously abouyt it. No doubt there are things here in St Luke’sneeding to be done.

We are thinking about what it means tobelong to church at Highbury next Sunday with an invitiation to stay on tolunch and think things through in a conversation over the lunch table.

Practical things to do – this Thursday aninvitation to share in a service with Jewish friends at the Municipal Officesat 6-00 for Holocaust memorial day.

A team going out through Latin Link toserve in South America.

With our Polish links we think of Gosia who spent a year with us from Poland not so long ago. She writes a greeting to us for today.

Dear Richard,

Thank you for e-mail.

I am sorry that I haven’t write for such a long time.

I am fine. Just packing for mountain trip and some skiing!

Half a year ago I started a new job. I’m working for Engineering Company and part of our responsibilities is to coordinate different constructions.

Me and my team coordinate building a power station in Bielsko-Biala (which is in southern Poland in Beskidy mountain).

I’m office assistant and I’m responsible for all the documentation. I wouldn’t have this job if it weren’t for my experience during gap year in Cheltenham.

I learn so much from an amazing people involved in Highbury Congregation. I’m very grateful. I improved my social skills and I improved my English.

I really need that now. I like my job :) The only problem is that Bielsko-Biala is about 50 miles from the place I live. So week days I spend in Bielsko, weekends in my flat in Bedzin.

This is the only disadvantage. Maybe there is one more.. I start work at 6am every day and as You may remember – I love sleeping.

Huge step in being grown up for me.

On the beginning of February I’m going to Warsaw for a ball organized by my company ILF. I’m terrified.

There will be about 300 people that I don’t really know. In the same time I’m thinking that if I manage to survive a year in foreign country this ball is piece of cake :) I’m still in touch with some members of Highbury. I’m very pleased. I also received Highbury News each month. Thank You.

I’m also quite happy to say, that I started meeting someone. I hope it’s quite serious.

Now I really have to rush in with packing. I would like to ski a little bit today and I prefer doing that during the day light.

(I’m also meeting my friend Ewa today – you should remember her).

Greetings for all Highbury Members and Friends.

Gosia

There are all sorts of opportunities to take the peace of Christ into the wider world.

In them all we are in the business ofbringing peace into the world around us.

And it’s something we cannot do.

The whole point of coming aside is that weare being overwhelmed by what’s going on in the world around us. There’s one thing more in this wonderfulmoment in the story of jesus we need to hold on to.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

But I cannot do that. I cannot face what’s in store. I cannot go out.

Then we need to remember what Jesus didnext.

When he had said this, he breathed on themand said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

We cannot do I t in our own strength. But we are not on our own. WE are not dependent on our ownstrength. We have a strength from beyondousevlves in the unseen, yet very real power of God, the power andstrengthening of othe |Holy Spirit.

Let’s sense the breath of God coming deepwithin us to strengthen us for wherever it is we have to go, for whatever it iswe have to do.

And as we do it – we are to take with us inthe strength of God a spirit of forgveness.

Sending – peace-making – breaking barriersdown – week of prayer – Polish churches – Latin Link – holocaust memorial onThursday evening at 6-00. Pro-activepeace making.

Readings

Psalm 133 How good unity is!

Ephesians 2:14-20 Peace to the far off and to the near

John 20:19-23 “Peace be with you!”

Reflection

Peace is not the absence of guns

but the presence of restraint.

Peace is not the absence of bombs

but the presence of compassion.

Peace is not the absence of vengeance

but the presence of mercy.

Peace is not the absence of retribution

but the presence of reconciliation.

Peace is not the absence of division

but the presence of grace.

Peace is not the absence of greed

but the presence of justice.

Peace is not the absence of difference

but the presence of unity.

THEWORLD

Pray

Loving and merciful God,

speak peace to our hearts and minds

that we may make peace in the world:

breaching divisions to bring reconciliation,

bringing justice to bear where prejudiceprevails,

bearing your grace by the power of the HolySpirit

in and through our lives.

We belong to the church world-wide

2012-01-08T17:21:00.002Z

The following sermon was preached in a Baptism service, when Ruth and Matt brought Jessica to share with us in baptism.

In all sorts of ways it is very special tocome together here today at Highbury to share in Jessica’s baptism. Little Jessica and Matt and Ruth have beenvery much in our thoughts and prayers since we heard of the condition she hasand of the hospital treatment she would need. It was wonderful welcoming Jessica to church the Sunday after shereturned from hospital, full of beans and full of bounce!

It seems but yesterday that family andfriends met with church family here too and we were celebrating Ruth and Matt’smarriage.

At one level it’s just good to be togetheragain and in our service celebrate Jessica’s arrival. Family is so important.

And family works at all sorts oflevels. It’s great to see Matt and Ruthand Jessica as a family together … but it’s also great to see Matt and Ruth’swider family getting together as well. Here at Highbury we know Ruth’s family – and it’s great to welcomeMatt’s family. Together they make upRuth, Matt and Jessica’s extended family.

And I guess it’s good to know that Jessicabelongs as much to that extended family as to her immediate family – and canfind real support from that extended family too.

Something elseis going on too in our baptism service today. Ruth and Matt have chosen to share in a baptism service today becausethey want to share with Jessica what was shared with both of them when theywere little, a sense of belonging not only to their own family but to a churchfamily too.

There issomething special about belonging to a church family. When you stop and think about it it is one ofthose rare places where people of all ages come together to share in learningtogether in a setting where they offer support to each other. We all of us look out for each other,supporting youngsters as they grow up, supporting older people as the needs ofadvancing years become more apparent.

We are convincedthat a church family here at Highbury is something very special. At our church Meeting last Thursday we askedpeople to think of five words or phrases to describe what makes Highburyspecial and then together in groups share their findings and try to come upwith a set of words together. We aregoing to look through all the words people came up with and try to put togethersomething that goes to the heart of what makes this church family special. We think we have something special we wantothers to share.

Let me share oneset of words that one of those groups came up with. It came out first from the pile.

Relevant Preaching to Today. At the heart of our Churchservices on a Sunday we share in reflections on the Christian faith and seek tomake connections with our real lives – in a very troubled time it’s a very realway of getting your bearings and sensing what it is we should be doing in thisworld of ours.

Friendly – it’s great tosee friendships growing in a church family – and we hope the kind offriendliness that can draw others in too.

Caring - our hope is that Highbury is a church family where everyone looks out for each other and offers care and support literally from the cradle to the grave.

Embracing to all – that’sanother thing we seek to build on here. We want to include everyone, give a welcome to people of all shapes andsizes, backgrounds and thinking.

Outward looking – At ourchurch meeting it was great to hear that we heard that our Christmas collectionfor County Community Projects and its work among the most vulnerable familiesand young people in the county has reached £1,150 – but great also to know thatthree of Ruth’s contemporaries growing up at church here are now working forCCP - Matt, Al and our Dave.

Belonging to achurch family seems to me to be much the same as belonging to your own closefamily.

But to belong toa church family here in one locality is to belong to a church family thatreaches out much more widely. It is tobelong to a church family that is all over the world.

One of the greatthings about the Baptism certificate we use today is that it is recognised byso many churches – Church of England, Roman Catholic, Methodist – across theboard. We differ in our thinking withBaptist friends but have just as much fellowship with them too.

The great thingabout being part of a church family is that that makes you part of theworld-wide family of the Church wherever you are.

We have linkswith the world wide church through the Council for World Mission. We are hoping to meet up with some of theteam that went over to Malawi at the end of last year later in the Spring, andthen make contacts with some of those over here for the Olympics in the summer.

And we have agreat partnership with Stefan and Birgit teaching at a theological seminary in Brazil and all those volunteers who spent a yearwith us from Germany and

Poland

I contactedStefan and Birgit, letting them know about today’s service. And they sent the following email letter forRuth, Matt and Jessica …

DearRuth and Matt, dear little Jessica,

weare so delighted to hear that you three are forming a little family. As eachchild shows God's continuing hope for his world - this is very good news!

Herein Brazilchildren are very much part of everything. They are cuddled by complete strangerson the road and everyone is commenting about how wonderful they are. This iscertainly true for your baby daughter as well: What a beautiful child! What ablessing for us all to know her in the loving arms of her parents!

Weknow from our own experience that there will be quite some hours if not days ofexhaustion ahead. This is normal and belongs to our limited resources.

Thereare a couple of verses that we would like to pass on to you for reflection:

Evenyouths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

(Isaiah40:30-31)

All of our faith is basically relationship - relationship with God. It isknowing that Jesus is close and celebrating with us in same way that he issuffering with us. To hope for this is "waiting for the Lord". Thisis something we begin to learn here from our Brazilian brothers and sisters.

Maythe knowledge of God's closeness be always present - today and all thedays to come.

Withlots of love and a Brazilian hug,

Stefan& Birgit with Marit, Simeon and Jakob

I almost forgot the prayer... (as it isa baptism I thought something trinitarian appropriate)

Fatheralmighty, maker of heaven and earth,

setup your kingdom in our midst

andshow your love for all this world through this new family.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the livingGod,
have mercy on us as sinners,
who often fall short to wait for you,
to love you and the people close and valuable to us.
Holy Spirit, breath of the living God,
renew us, our families, our church and all the world.
Amen.

Belonging to onechurch is to belong to a world wide church.

What does thatworld wide church family look like – what should be at its heart?

I think thereare some wonderful words from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Ephesus that say itall. It’s a prayer that echoes downthrough the ages and is a prayer for us all today.

Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I bow my knees before theFather, fromwhom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the richesof his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner beingwith power through his Spirit, andthat Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted andgrounded in love. I pray that youmay have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth andlength and height and depth, andto know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filledwith all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at workwithin us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask orimagine, to him be glory in thechurch and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Belonging tothat world wide church – we seek a strengthening in our inner being with powerthrough his Spirit. That’s a recognitionthat stuff happens in all our lives that on our own we cannot cope with. That’s when being part of a wider familylocks in and becomes all important.

In the widerchurch family we have a very real strength from beyond ourselves that can be asource of strength in our inner being. Astrength from beyond ourselves in the unseen but very real power of God. IT was great when Jessica was on hospital tobe able to pick up the phone chat to someone I had never met before who was onthe chaplaincy team there and know that they were able to call in to see youlater that same day with love from us here. Sharing prayer, and that sense of power and strength in your inner beingthat we wanted to share with Jessica that day. And that’s all because we are part of that extended church family thatseeks a source of strength in God’s power, in God’s spirit.

The next thing aboutbelonging to that world-wide church wherever it may be is that we may find afocus in our lives. Churches all overthe world come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They have all sorts of traditions. All sorts of different ways of doingthings. Some familiar to us. Some very different from what we are used to.

One thing allthose churches have in common – is the importance of Christ. What is it about Jesus Christ that is soimportant – paul’s prayer puts it in a nutshell.

That Christ maydwell in your hearts through faith as you are being rooted and grounded inlove.

Christ dwells inour hearts through faith as we are rooted and grounded in love. That’s the love we are to have for eachother.

It has caught myimagination from as far back as I can remember – having Christ in our heartsinvolves being a people committed to love and concern and care. Another of those international links we havethrough Judi Marsh, one of our children’s leaders is with Moffatt, a prisonerin Zambia,awaiting the outcome of a trial. Linkswith churches – expressed in love for one person in need.

Churches aremade up of people and there will always be shortcomings. But when a church abandons the love of Christthat’s the point at which I begin to feel not part of that. It is the love of Christ that marks out whatit means to belong to the world-wide family of the church.

The love ofChrist is then something that is all encompassing. Paul’s prayer is that we knows the breadthand length and height and depth of that love of Christ that surpasses knowledgeso that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

That’s the thingabout the love of Christ. It is higherthan the heights we can climb, lower than the depths we plumb and so wide youcan’t get round it. It’s at this pointthat no end of songs come to mind to share with a Primary School teacher withresponsibility for music in school.

This is one ofthose precious thoughts at the heart of our faith that Paul comes back to timeand again –

Whowill separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, orpersecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

No, in all these things we are more thanconquerors through him who loved us. ForI am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor thingspresent, nor things to come, nor powers, norheight, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separateus from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Belonging to thechurch world wide means that we are being filled with the very fullness of Godso much that there is nothing that can happen that is outside of the protectionand the strength that God in Christ can give us in all his love.

Paul rounds offhis prayer with a a wonderful conclusion – that gives all the power all theglory to God –

Nowto him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly farmore than all we can ask or imagine, tohim be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever andever. Amen.

We belong to God - New Year's Day

2012-01-01T20:26:00.001Z

There’s a special feel to the first Sundayof the New Year, especially when that’s the 1^st January. There’s something special about thisplace. We have had some special servicesover Christmas. There have been momentsthat have been really moving. There’ssomething special about this place. There’s something special about belonging to Highbury.

What is that something special? If we can identify what it is that isspecial about this place, then maybe that gives us something that will help usto build up the church here at Highbury. That’s going to be our focus in our Church Meeting on Thursday evening –and on Sunday mornings in this New Year we are going to explore what it meansfor us to belong here at Highbury.

On this first Sunday of the New Year webegin by asking what it means for us when we make a very big claim and say thatwe belong to God.

In its 186^th year it has to beone of the longest running TV shows in Television history. Well, to be fair, it’s only been on TV eachChristmas for 46 years. Started in 1825by Michael Farraday the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are aimed at youngpeople not just to teach science but to inspire and enthuse young people withthe wonders of science. With a breakonly in the second world war the lectures have been delivered from the verysame lecture hall in the RoyalInstitution in Londonsince Michael Farraday started them in 1825, they have been televised since1966 and they are a highlight of the Christmas TV schedules. This year’s lectures were given by anexperimental psychologist, Dr Bruce Hood with the catchy title Meet Your Brain. At one moment holding in his hands the brainof someone who had bequeathed their body to scientific research and in anothermoment doing a live link-up with one of the country’s most powerful CATscanners which just happened to be round the corner at the Cobalt Unit here in Cheltenham, he had his very young audience riveted.

He kept on coming back to the really bigquestion … who am I? Am I the sum totalof all the links between the bits in my brain … or is there something greaterthan the sum of the parts that makes me, me?

Who am I? What makes me, me?

What was very apparent in his lectures wasthe absence of any mention of God. Isensed the implication of what he was saying was there was no space for God.

I want to say something different. There is something about this brain thatreally does make us humans unique, at least on planet earth. Human beings have the capacity to investigatethe beginnings of the universe and understand its workings. Human beings have the capacity to appreciatethe wonders of a world of beauty and the dangers of nature’s awesomepower. Human beings have the capacity tocreate and to be incredibly creative. ITis as if we bear within us the stamp of something that permeates the universeitself – we bear the. For me thatsomething that is deep within and far beyond all we can see or explore is thecreator God. Our capacity to investigateand appreciate that creation and ourselves to be creative bears out theconviction that we are made in the imageof God.

What difference does it make to say that webelong to God?

I want to point to three thoughts, eachlinked to a powerful passage of Scripture.

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them havedominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over thecattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creepingthing that creeps upon the earth.’
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he createdthem;
male and female he createdthem.
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Befruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion overthe fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thingthat moves upon the earth.’

Made in the image of God that means we seeksomething of God in all other people and we must never forget that. It is one of the great insights of theQuakers that there is ‘that of God’ in each person. That changes our perspective on otherpeople. Each person is precious in thesight of God and we must always seek in others ‘that of God’.

At the same time we have a responsibilityto the whole of creation – to have dominion is not to have a free hand todestroy that world – it is to care for that world, to act as good stewards ofthat world and hand it on to the next generation.

What is this creator God like? That’s what this Christmas season is allabout. The notion that the God ofcreation is to be found in all the fullness of God in a person who bears thestamp of God in all its fullness.

It was wonderful at our Candle Lit carolservice to hear the opening words of John’s Gospel read from the AuthorisedVersion as the 400^th anniversary year of the AV came towards itsclose. Wonderful to read those wordstogether again on Christmas Day. In thebeginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us and we beheld his glory,the glory of the only begotten, full of grace and truth.

That is the big idea behind Christmas,behind our Christian faith that focuses us on Jesus Christ. The God we belong to is the God who is to befound in every way possible in Jesus Christ. Those thoughts from John 1 are echoed in the opening verses of Hebrews1.

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many andvarious ways by the prophets, butin these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir ofall things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s gloryand the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had madepurification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior toangels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Want to find out what this God islike? Look to Jesus and see God. And what is it that we see. Love, compassion, forgiveness … Look to Jesus,see God, and discover that God is Love.

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, love divine

To belong to God means that we seek that ofGod in other people and care for God’s creation.

To belong to God whets our appetite to findout what this God is like. Look toJesus, see God and know that God is love.

So the key for us and what we do with ourlives is then found in Jesus Christ. Wecan sense in him the forgiving love of God reaching out deep into our verybeing to transform and renew us … and set us up with a new start, not least atthe beginning of a New Year. More thanthat we have someone we can model ourselves on. That brings me to the third of the passages I want to turn to. It is from Philippians 2.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ,any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion andsympathy, make my joy complete:be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of onemind. Do nothing from selfishambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your owninterests, but to the interests of others. Letthe same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

That’s the most wonderful of thoughts – letthe same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

That’s for us to do individually. A great measure of what we can do with ourlives as a new year unfolds.

But it is also what we seek to do as achurch. At the heart of our way of beingthe church is the opportunity we have to come together and through theconversations we have with each other and the prayer we share with God we seekout the mind of Christ for us. That’swhat our church meeting is all about. And why we are going to do Church meeting differently.

To belong to God means

We seek that of God in others and care forGod’s creation.

The God we belong to is to be found fullyin Jesus Christ – look to Jesus, see God and know that God is love.

Come to Jesus, know the forgiving love ofGod that sets us free and seek to have the mind of Christ in all we do.

The Unexpected Result - our Christmas Day Celebration

2011-12-25T12:02:00.001Z

Our Christmas service followed on from our Advent theme and focused on the Unexpectedness of Christmas, and in particular, the Unexpected Result of Christmas.

Christmas Greetings

597 Ocome all ye faithful

TheUnexpected Result – our Christmas Candle

Lighting the Christmas Candle

We light our Christmas candle

And think of the unexpected result

Of the birth of a baby who grew to a man

Who would have thought it

For the one born to be King?

No life of regal splendour

But a life lived with those no one else

Had time for.

A life lived for other people.

A life that seemingly ended in tragedy

Yet opened up life in all its fullness

For all of us to share.

John 1:1-5 and 14 – the Congregation

In the beginning was the Word,

---

and the Word was with God,

---

and the Word was God.

---

The same was in the beginning with God.

---

All things were made by him;

---

and without him was not any thing made thatwas made.

---

In him was life;

---

and the life was the light of men.

---

And the light shineth in darkness;

---

and the darkness comprehended it not.

---

And the Word was made flesh,

---

and dwelt among us,

---

and we beheld his glory,

---

the glory as of the only begotten of theFather,

---

full of grace and truth.

Reading: Luke 2:1-7 – Pete

At that time the EmperorAugustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2 When this firstcensus took place, Quirinius was the governor of Syria. 3 Everyone, then, went to registerhimself, each to his own town.

4 Joseph went from the town of Nazarethin Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went therebecause he was a descendant of David. 5 He went toregister with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, 6 and while they were in Bethlehem, the time camefor her to have her baby. 7 She gave birthto her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger —there was no room for them to stay in the inn.

A New Nativity by Alan Tichmarsh – Caroline

ANew Nativity.

byAlan Titchmarsh.

Whenall those long, long years ago a child came down to earth below,

Tosave the likes of you and me from evil, harm and misery,

Doyou suppose that even then, there were some doubting, heedless men

Who,rather than believe the word, just turned their backs and never heard?

Yousee, today we all recall, the baby in the ox's stall.

Theass, the stables, shepherds, Kings, - all ancient, rural, rustic things.

Butwhat if, here, this very night, it happened....on the Isle of Wight

Wouldwe rejoice and all be merry? Would we dash off and catch the ferry?

IfChrist was born in Walthamstow, would builders drop there tools and go?

WouldWapping printers stop their presses? Would supermodels ditch their dresses?

InHampshire and in rural

Kent

,would shepherds, by an angel sent

Walkmiles to see a newborn child, whose mother, unmarried, although mild

Hadgiven birth to a baby boy, not at the Dorchester or Savoy,

Butin a garage, there's the rub, round the back of the local pub.

Andyet I like to think that we, despite the e-mail and DVD

Wouldknow to go, when star shone bright, and make that journey through the night

Tosee the child who saves the world, in some old oil drum safely curled.

Thenativity for the Millenium. Would anyoneout there like to come?

72 Awayin a manger

Unexpected Presents

Greeting from Stefan and Birgit

Christmas Greetings

Sermon – The Unexpected Result

When the unexpected happens it can fill youwith fear and trepidation, it can be pretty scary.

Mary did not expect to be expecting a baby:she was frightened.

Joseph did not expect to take on theresponsibility of a father: it was scary.

Joseph and Mary did not expect to have tomake the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem: it wasfrightening

Joseph and Mary did not expect to have tomake do with the squalor of an unexpected stable: it filled them with fear

The Wise Men did not expect to have to takespecial measures to avoid the clutches of a King Herod determined to do awaywith the Christ child: Herod’s power and his abuse of power was terrifying

Mary and Joseph did not expect to have toflee south from Bethlehem and escape across theborder to become refugees in

Egypt

for a matter of years. It was afrightening time.

Think back a year to the last Christmas andin that time unexpected things have happened … not a few of them have beenpretty scary.

A year ago who would have expected the Arab Spring to havehappened? Tunisia,Egypt, Libya,

Syria

– democracy coming tocountries over-run by dictatorship. Butit has been a time filled with fear for Christian communities throughout themiddle east. Prayer requests come fromso many Christians in each of those countries who are facing persecution in away they have not faced before.

And then things that have happened verymuch closer to home – someone taken ill: I wasn’t expecting that. Uncertainties at work, issues in the home,someone very close who has died. Iwasn’t expecting that to happen.

How do you cope with the unexpected that isso scary and troubling?

Two thoughts contained in two words thatfor me are particularly special this Christmas.

Of all the words I associate withChristmas, of all the words that crop up in the Christmas story, there is onelong word that I want to hold on to. Itseems to me to be the word that speaks directly into all the fears that comewhen the unexpected happens.

It is the word, Emmanuel.

It sounds like a name. But it is a name with meaning. And it s the meaning of the name that is allimportant in the face of the unexpected.

Emmanuel means ‘God is with us’.

That’s not just a conviction to hold on toin the face of everything that goes wrong. The point of Christmas is that it is a reality that is there, come whatmay, even when we feel it not to be so.

God is with us. That’s what comes across in the prayerletters that come from the Middle East – it is the promise that shines out ofthe Christmas letter from Alex Awadand his congregation in East Jerusalem and his college in Bethlehem. It is what shines out in the prayer letters that I receive from MiddleEast Concern.

God is with us.

How can we know that to be true?

That’s where my second word comes into play. It’s my favourite word. The word‘serendipity’. The joy of discoveringthe unexpected unexpectedly. TheChristmas story is full of serendipitous moments. Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, the Shepherds –they all were in totally frightening situations. But in the fear, quite unexpectedly, they hada sense of the reality of God with them, the reality that God is with us. Wonderful, serendipitous, God moments.

When I wrote about my favourite word inHighbury News I had a response from Peter Petrie, one of our evening congregation. He had been digging into the derivation ofthe word ‘serendipity’. It was coined byHorace Walpole in 1754 when he recounted a tale form the East of the ThreePrinces of Serendip, Serendip the landonce known as Ceylon, nowknown as

Sri Lanka

. On their travels, Horace Walpole recounts,the three princes were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, ofthings which they were not in quest of.

What fascinated Peter was the number ofscientific discoveries that have been made as a result of ‘serendipity’. Indeed it is a commonplace term in thehistory of science. Maybe a Christmasquiz is to list scientific discoveries made unexpectedly. You might include penicillin, the microwaveoven, Teflon!

The point Peter made in his email to me, however,was an interesting one. Though theyappear to have been discoveries made by accident. Something else was involved as well. Each of the people responsible had the wisdomto recognise that something special had happened.

Serendipitous things happen and you havethe joy of discovering the unexpected unexpectedly when ‘accident and sagacity’are both involved. Chance and wisdom.

That’s the other observation I want to makefor Christmas. Maybe the Christmas storyshould encourage us to seek the kind of wisdom that will recognise the Godmoment when it comes. And that issomething we can work at.

Putting yourself in a position where youare exposed to thinking about God, thoughts of God, in the pages of theBible. Prayer and praying have their partto play – those Christians facing persecution in the Middle East share thatwith us constantly, I pray for you each night, was said to me only on Friday,by someone who is not able to get out and do a great deal – but it meant theworld to me as they shared that thought. It reminds me to look out for the God moment that comes unexpectedly.

One other thing – it is as we step out of aconcern simply for ourselves and step into a concern for other people thatmaybe, we shall encounter God unawares. To love another person is to see the face of God.

Our Christmas collection is for CCP – greatto hear Al and Dave – today isMatt’s turn – courtesy of Points West earlier this week …

From the squalor of a borrowed stable

Christmas Collection for County CommunityProjects

Prayers of Concern

85 Good Christians all rejoice

Words of Blessing

The Unexpected Christmas Story

2011-12-18T23:45:00.002Z

Sunday 18^th December Service TheUnexpected Christmas Story

Each Sunday of Advent has been unexpected! The unexpected gift, the unexpected guest, the unexpected route, and today the unexpected Christmas story. Carolyn Tennant, our children's worker, explored the unexpected twists and turns of the Nativity with our children.

Young child welcomes everyone to the service!

· That was unexpected ... but lovely!

Welcome and News of the Church Family.

An opening prayer and verse from theBible.

59 Hark the herald angels sing

CT- We probably all like stories.Bethany and Abigail like fairy stories and they are going to come up now withHelen who is going to read us one of her favourites.

(Helen sits on chair, childrendressed as princesses sit comfortably on floor and Helen reads)

As she finishes, CT steps in;

· That wasn’t what I was expecting!(asks the girls and has brief conversation about the expected ending to thestory)

· It just goes to show, you have tolisten very carefully even if you THINK you know a story so well. When we’veheard a story lots of times we can stop listening. We’re no longer surprised byit. We know what to expect, or at least we think we do.

· The Christmas story can be a bitlike that. We are going to re-tell the story and think about the surprises Godhad in store.

Nativity Play with Open the book.(includes ‘Little Donkey’, ‘Away in a manger’ and finishes with ‘Come and jointhe celebration’.)

· Presents to open.

Choosechild to come and open each present, one at a time.

1. Baby doll

Godchose to be born as a baby. He couldn’t do anything for himself. He wanted toidentify with us totally. He relied on his parents. It’s perhaps not how youwould have chosen to plan it if you were God. It’s a risky strategy.

But,how perfect! Right from the beginning, God loved to turn things upside down andchallenge everything we think we know so well. As Jesus grew up, he taughtstrange things like ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’ andhe said, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’. So, reallyit was the perfect plan to come into this world as a powerless baby.

1. Teenage things-hoody, magazine, i-pod, make-up?

Youmight have thought that God would have chosen someone famous or special to beJesus’ mother. Mary was probably only 12 or 13. How would you have felt? Peoplewere unkind to her when they found out. Again, God does the unexpected thingand chooses someone ordinary for this most extraordinary job. God choosesordinary people even when we might think there’s someone better for the job.But again, this is the perfect plan. There are no worldly trappings to confusethe purity of his purpose.

2. Toy crib

God’schoice of birth place would probably not be ours! A hospital, a luxury hotel,Marks and Spencers maybe, but not a noisy, smelly, uncomfortable stable with noprivacy, surely! Remember how the so called wise men went first to a palace tofind the baby. They weren’t thinking God’s way yet. Again, God does theunexpected and makes it perfect. Not perfect in luxury but perfect in plan.‘lest none should boast’ ring the words of the bible. Jesus came humbly intothe world with no trace of corruption of wealthy start in life.

3. Co-op funeral voucher in giftvoucher card

Oh!I wasn’t expecting that! And I’m sure Mary and Joseph found it very strange toreceive gold, frankincense and myrrh as gifts for their new baby. Thesepresents show how the wise men DID know what they were looking for though;

Goldfor a king,

Frankincensefor worship

Andmyrrh for death.

Godwasn’t afraid to hold new life and death in his hands at the same time. It ishis remarkable and perfect plan.

AHy-Spirit Christmas Song

Prayersincluding Christmas Lord’s Prayer written by Transformers and read byGrace and Andi. The children's club we share with our friends from St Luke's, Transformers, has been looking at the Lord's Prayer for the last term. This is a special version of the Lord's Prayer written by our Transformers for Christmas.

A Lord’s Prayer for Christmas

Our Saviour who art in the manger
Hallowed be thy son.

Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done with humans as with angels.

Thank you for all the food we have at Christmas, Give to the poor so we can ALL have Christmas food like turkey and mince pies.

Forgive us our greediness,
And cleanse us from wrong

And carry your forgiveness through the world

Help us not to be tempted to open any presents or calendar doors too early Or to steal things or do things we are not meant to do And lead us not into spoiltness Or spoiling surprises for other people.

Keep us safe when traveling
And keep us from bad things

Help us remember that Jesus is king and he is God’s son Not just at Christmas but forever and ever

Amen

Dinnertable set up with one chair, fancy place setting and cloche covering meal.

Askfor volunteer to come to dinner, on condition they will eat whatever is served.

Seatthe child, napkin etc.

Revealthe dish- tin of cat food!

· I wasn’t expecting that!

Better open it up and eat itthough as you promised! (read label etc., hope you like fish etc.!)

Open tin to reveal chocolates!

· Well, I wasn’t expecting that!That was much better than you expected!

God planned things at Christmas that no-oneexpected, they were even better.

We can get so comfortable and familiar with theChristmas story and with coming to church that it stops having an impact.

Let’s pray that we will be surprised, challengedand overjoyed by what God is saying to us this Christmas when we understand Godis with us – Emmanuel.

Carol: Seehim lying on a bed of straw

The Unexpected Route

2011-12-11T21:20:00.001Z

On the third Sunday of Advent we had a Sunday Special that started at 9-00 in the morning as our youngsters met for breakfast and some fun and games. They made an unexpected journey that took them around the district looking for things that began with each letter of the word Christmas.

They then joined us in church as we explored the theme of 'Unexpected Journeys'

Carolyn Tennant, our Children's Worker then shared these reflections.

Thetheme of our service is ‘The unexpectedJourney’.

Ifyou have ever used a Sat-Nav, you will probably have your own unexpectedjourney stories to tell!

Havea look at this light hearted clip about the not-so wise men…

Show‘Sat-nav-tivity’

We’llbe coming back to their story later.

(Childrento the front.)

Thechildren who came for their breakfast this morning have made an unexpectedjourney themselves.

Canyou tell us about it?

(Whatwas unexpected about it? Where did you go? How did you decide where to go? Howdid you find your way back? Did you have any other jobs to do on the way?)

Childrensit down, readers remain.

Inthe Christmas Story, the people involved had to make many different journeys.These weren’t fun holiday type journeys. They weren’t exciting adventuroustrips that had been months in planning. Sometimes the people had to leave in ahurry and think quickly about what they might need and travel light. I thinkit’s true to say none of the journeys was planned and most were reluctanttravellers.

Let’slisten to the story as the children tell it now.

UnexpectedChristmas Journeys

1. Luke2:1-7

When Mary was expecting her baby, everyone wasordered to go and register in their own towns. So, Joseph and Mary had to makean unexpected journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem where the babywas born.

2. Luke2:8-20

Some shepherds were spending the night watchingtheir sheep in the fields. An angel came to them and the glory of God shoneover them. The angel told them not to be afraid and said they should go and seethe new baby. So it was that the shepherds made an unexpected journey and Maryand Joseph and saw the baby lying in the manger. They rushed back praising God every step ofthe way.

3. Matthew2:1-12

Some men who studied the stars travelled from theeast expecting to find the baby in Jerusalem. King Herod wanted to trap the new born baby,so the wise men journeyed on, following a star and finally they found the babyand gave him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They had to make anunexpected journey home by another route as God had warned them in a dream notto go back to Herod.

4. Matthew2:13-15

After the wise men left, an angel came to Josephin a dream and told him to go and take Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt to keepthem safely away from Herod and his plans. So Joseph had to make another unexpectedjourney in the night with his family.

5. Matthew2:19-23

After Herod died, an angel came to Joseph in anotherdream and told him to take Mary and Jesus back to Israel. So up he got and travelledagain. But when Joseph heard that Archelaus was the new king, he was frightenedof going through Judea. Godtold him in another dream to go to Galilee and so one last unexpected journeytook the family back to Nazareth. There Jesus grew strong in body and wise inspirit. And the grace of God was on him.

Ihope you spotted all the journeys.

Youmight think that it was an odd idea for God to make Christmas happen like that.

Doyou think you could have organized it better and made it easier?

Wemight feel like that in our own lives.

Unexpectedthings happen.

Thingschange and we have to change our routes and our plans sometimes.

Thismight involve moving house or school, friends moving away, having new teachersor dealing with the disappointment of an event we used to enjoy, no longerrunning.

Forthe adults, we learn that life is full of adaptations and we constantly need toreview and re-work our ‘world maps’.

Iwas fascinated when I first read ‘The Road Less Travelled’.

ScottPeck writes,

‘Our view of reality is like a map with whichto negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we willgenerally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, wewill generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, wegenerally will be lost.’

Hegoes on at length to explore how we need to constantly revise our maps all ourlives, continuing to learn and embracing new information and ideas in order tokeep our maps true.

Thingschange and we have to take a different route.

Howdo we cope?

Weare going to hear how we can help in people’s lives through the work of CCPwhich helps people to deal with changing circumstances.

Goddoesn’t change.

Butthat doesn’t mean he’s dull or boring!

Hehas strange and unexpected plans for our life journeys!

Whatwe know is that we can trust him.

Hehas the master plan and writes all the maps.

Later in the service Dave and Al who, together with Matt, grew up at Highbury and now work for County Community Projects spoke about the work CCP does in Cheltenham. CCP is our Christmas collection and we are collecting food parcels each week. This video gives a graphic glimpse of the kind of work CCP does.

Where Love is, God is

2011-12-04T17:31:00.001Z

I grew up with two sets of Christmasstories.

I grew up with the stories built around theaccounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel. We will be reading those stories as adventunfolds and Christmas approaches … and we’ll be telling them again to thechildren in all sorts of different settings.

The other set of Christmas stories I grewup with were stories about the Christ child, tales that go to the heart of whatthe Christian faith is all about.

Of those stories, the tale of Martin, theCobbler has been one of my favourites ever since I first heard it as a littleone, told in the way I told it to the children today.

I think of it as a children’s story,beautifully re-told in lavishly illustrated children’s books, in glorious animationstoo.

It was a long time before I realised it wasnot written as a children’s story.

My father’s signature is on the inside ofthe front cover of a well-worn volume LXXII of ‘The World’s Classics’. Twenty-three tales by Tolstoy. There’s a book mark at Tale number 7. The title was not so familiar to me, and yetit is a title that goes to the heart of the Christian faith for me.

Where love is, God is.

In a certain town there lived a cobbler,Martin Adveich by name.

Straightaway the story draws you into thatbasement with a single window through which all the cobbler can see are theboots of the passers by.

By the second paragraph of the story, itbecomes very much bleaker than any of the children’s adaptations I haveread. There’s a theatre company doingthe rounds at the moment that re-visits children’s fairy stories and re-tellsthem as they were originally told with a darkness that makes for very adulttheatre. The Knee High theatre company. They could have a field day with Tolstoy’s tale.

It was while he was still apprenticed tohis trade as a cobbler, working for a Master, that his wife died, ‘leaving himwith a three year old son. None of hiselder children had lived, they had all died in infancy.’

He thought of sending his son away, maybeto his sister’s. But then determined tolook after him on his own. And thatmeant being on his own. He had to leavehis master and go into lodgings.

And then the unthinkable happened.

“No sooner had the boy reached an age whenhe could help his father and be a support as well as a joy to him, than he fellill and, after being laid up for a week with a burning fever, died. Martin buried his son, and gave way todespair, so great and overwhelming that he murmured against God.”

There is a depth of despair in Martin’ssoul that is dark, so dark it is without a glimmer of hope. His prayer is simply that he should die. He loses his faith.

“After that Martin left off going tochurch.”

Carolyn was telling us at our Deaconsmeeting that she had been to a Care For the Family Day on the very subject thatwe have very much as a focus for the work that Carolyn is doing - 'How to get your kidsthrough church without them ending up hating God!' That’sa big challenging question. At ourchurch Meeting on Thursday, 5^th January we are going to do thingsvery differently – and give those who would like to have a conversation withCarolyn the opportunity to dig more deeply with her into this big issue.

Thee is something that resonates withMartin’s plight in Tolstoy’s tale. Onething that puts people off church is what goes on not just in a troubled world,but in the troubled lives people lead. Where is God in all of this?

What do you do in this moment of anguishand rage.

Martin has an unexpected guest. What is wonderful about this unexpected guestis that he is willing simply to listen to Martin. In the depths of his despair, it’s whatMartin needs.

“Martin opened his heart to him, and toldhim of his sorrow … I no longer wish to live … I am now quite without hope inthe world.”

It was great to hear that Neil and Lorraine contactedRichard Atkins on his Sunday morning programme and got in a good plug for Highbury. I happened on a very moving interview he didwith Malc Allen, Chaplain to the Robins and Garth, a member of the Samaritans. They were discussing the impact the sad newsof Gary Speed had had in the footballingworld. As the interview came to an endit was moving to hear the ever ebullient Richard Atkins describing the way hehad suffered from depression ever since he had been twelve or thirteen. He spoke of the way in which so many menrefuse to open up about their depression, and spoke of the way in which it wasso important to do just that.

It was moving hearing him tell his ownstory – the experience many of us share testifies to just how true those wordsof Richard’s were this morning.

Christmas is a time when depression can soeasily overtake many. All sorts oftriggers are around. It is a time whenthe darkness of this kind of despair can become overwhelming.

In some ways it is simply the willingnessof the old man to listen that counts.

The old man who is willing to listen has awisdom about him that stops Martin in his tracks.

He wonders aloud, as to your despair thatcomes because you wish to live for your own happiness.

Now I will be the first to acknowledge thattales like this have their weakness. They are written to make a point. And sometimes the point they make is unbearably simplistic. I want to take issue with Tolstoy when heputs into the mouth of this wise old man the thought that all that happens isGod’s will. I actually think thatdreadful things that happen cut across God’s will. It’s not so much that he must will them … butrather my conviction would be that God can bring out of the greatest calamitysomething more – there is nowhere so dark that God’s light cannot come.

Simplistic explanations often have grainsof truth in them.

And for me there is a grain of truth here.

One of what I would think would be manycauses of all kinds of despair is that we have built up a culture where thepursuit of happiness means everything. It doesn’t really matter what happens so long as I can be happy. One of the things we are being brought faceto face with is that the relentless pursuit of happiness is something that canbe self-defeating.

Martin has indeed followed that path. He has drowned his sorrows on more than oneoccasion to find relief from his pain in an all too transitory happiness. What else is there but to live for happinessand well-being?

“What else should one live for?” askedMartin.

“For God, Martin,” said the old man.

In many ways it’s simplistic.

But that’s a choice.

What is the purpose of life. To seek happiness?

Or is life to be lived ‘for God’.

A big choice.

But what does that mean? All very well to speak of living life forGod. But it’s not very helpful.

That’s exactly Martin’s problem.

Live for God … this is the antidote to yourdespair.

Martin was silent awhile, and thenasked: “But how is one to live for God?”

I like the response the old man gives.

The old man answered: “How one may live forGod has been shown us by Christ. Can yourad? Then buy the Gospels and read them;there you will see how God would have your live. You have it all there.”

“These words sank deep into Martin’s heart,and that same day he went and bought himself a Testament in large print, andbegan to read.”

So often faced with a crisis of faith, inthe face of the depths of despair we want to rail at God, we want to sort Godout, we want to ask where God can be in all of this.

You don’t get so far.

Instead look to Jesus … and see God. To look to Jesus read the Gospels.

A good gospel to start with is Mark – it’sthe shortest, and it packs in a lot of the action of Jesus’ life. There’s no time for the stories around thebirth of Jesus, Mark wants to get on with it. John the Baptist heralds the arrival of Jesus who has the simplest ofmessages, God’s rule is breaking intothe world, now’s the time to start allover again, believe the Good news. Fishermen follow him, and he makes his base in the home of SimonPeter. And from there he travels thecountryside with a simple message and bringing healing into people’s lives.

Then there’s a twist in the story – indeedthere are three stories in quick succession of very unlikely people Jesushelps. First someone suffering fromleprosy – Jesus’ reaction to the illness he sees is on the one hand to beangry, and then to have compassion. Hebreaks all the taboos and touches that man. It is a most unexpected encounter.

Next is someone who is paralysed – and Jesus treats him just likeeveryone else – no different, you might have thought his biggest need wasphysically healing. Not so, for Jesus. He’s no different from any of the rest ofus. He needs something deep down in hisspirit to assure him of the love of God. It’s the high-up people form Jerusalem who are tasked with making surethe law is copied out fully and accurately to every last ritual detail who areup in arms about what Jesus shares – only God can bring that kind offorgiveness. For good measure Jesusbrings healing to that man as well. Itis an unexpected moment.

And the third tale to tell is of someonewho is in hock to the oppression of the Roman power – a tax collector. Not only does Jesus welcome this mostunexpected of people as one of his band of disciples, but he also spends theevening eating and partying with his friends. An unexpected guest.

Martin’s thoughts turn to no end of peopleJesus helped in unexpected ways. His eyefalls on the sermon on the mount.

He is moved by what he sees … but notconvinced.

Then Martin laid his head upon both hisarms and, before he was aware of it, he fell asleep.

“Martin!” he suddenly heard a voice, as if someone had breathed the word above his ear.

“He started from his sleep. “Who’s there?” he asked.

He turned round and locked the door; no onewas there. He called again. Then he heard quite distinctly: “Martin,martin! Look out into the streetto-morrow, for I shall come.”

The next day, not sure whether this hadbeen a dream or not, he feels something is going to happen. Jesus is going to come to him – the ultimateunexpected guest.

And as the day unfolds he is disappointed –Stepanitch, the old soldier is glad of the tea Martin makes as he comes in fromthe cold of sweeping the snow.

The mother in summer clothes with a babe inarms is so pleased with the cabbage soup … and goes away with a warm cloak forherself and her child.

And the old woman and the young lad – hecould have ended up in gaol if she hadhad her way – but Martin got her to see the boy differently, and got him tomake reparations for what he had done by helping the old woman.

The day over, nothing had happened.

No Jesus.

He took the Gospels from the shelf. He meant to open them at the place he hadmarked the day before with a bit of morocco, but the book opened at anotherplace. As Martin opened it, hisyesterday’s dream came back to his mind, and no sooner had he thought of it thanhe seemed to hear footsteps, as though some one were moving behind him. Martin turned round, and it seemed to him asif people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out who theywere. And a voice whispered in his ear|:“Martin, Martin, don’t you know me?”

“Who is it?” muttered Martin.

“It is I,” said the voice.

And out of the dark corner steppedStepanitch, who smiled and vanishing like a cloud was seen no more.

“It is I,” said the voice once more. And out of the darkness stepped the womanwith the baby in her arms, and the woman smiled and the baby laughed, and they too vanished.

“It is I,” said the voice once more. And the old woman and the boy with the applestepped out and both smiled, and then they too vanished.

And Martin’s soul grew glad. He crossed himself put on his spectacles, andbegan reading the Gospel just where it had opened; and at the top of the pagehe read,

“I was an hungred and ye gave me meat; Iwas thirsty, and ye game me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in.”

And at the bottom of the page he read:

Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these mybrethren even these least, ye did it unto me.” (Matthew xxv)

And Martin understood that his dream hadcome true; and that the Saviour hadreally come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.

What I like about the way this tale unfoldsis that it is so true to the experience of many. Happiness at all costs is not a recipe for livinglife to the full. Live for God? That’s all very well … so look to Jesus. Read the Gospels and find that he is the onewho comes alongside us in our weaest moments and draws us to a God who is withus when life is at its worst. But morethan that Jesus invites us to find him in serving other people. In doing that we shall find in thosewonderful closing words to Les Miserables that to love another person is to seethe face of God!

Unexpected Gifts

2011-11-27T13:00:00.002Z

An all age service for the first Sunday of Advent when we welcomed Brownies, Guides, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts and their families led by Richard Cleaves and Carolyn Tennant.

Welcome and
News of the Church Family

Call to worship -
Glory to God – a new song for Christmas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYoPJZ_mZ3c
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
Congregational Reading: The Magnificat
Unexpected Gifts for Christmas Sunday 27th November Parade Service 1st Advent

The Unexpected Gift

At this time of year we start thinking seriously about our Christmas plans and this might include thinking about presents!
Each year there seem to be a few ‘top presents’ requested by children and sometimes this leads to all kinds of frantic searching in the shops and online as family and friends try to locate the elusive special, longed-for gift.

I investigated the league tables published on the internet;
Let’s see a thumbs up or thumbs down for the following present ideas…
(Powerpoint slides)

Cookie my playful pup
FurReal Go Go My walkin pup
Transformers dark of the Moon Optimus Prime
Barbie Fashionistas
Rock on Elmo
Lego Star Wars Millenium Falcon
Angry Birds Knock on Wood Board game
Singamajigs Musical Dolls
Fijits

Some people like wrapping presents and others much prefer unwrapping them!
The new John Lewis advert has won a lot of Brownie points this year with its ‘Gifts you can’t wait to give’ campaign.
(Slide)

If you haven’t seen it, it involves a little boy waiting (not very patiently) for Christmas. On Christmas morning you expect him to rush to open his sack of gifts first, whereas the advert has a very unexpected ending; he dashes into his parents’ room unable to wait any longer to give them his presents.
Has me in tears every time!

We are going to play a well known game now.
It’s called ‘Pass the parcel’ and I fully expect that every person here of every age has enjoyed this game at some point in their lives!
There will be 6 parcels going round the church so keep awake for the next one on its way!
When the music starts, pass the parcel along and keep them all moving.
When the music stops, if you are holding a parcel, stop and open ONE layer.
PLAY MUSIC
OPEN PARCEL
Now, just to throw in an unexpected rule here, I want you to pass the unexpected gift you just revealed to the person next to you!
PLEASE DON’T EAT YOUR PRESENT AS WE WILL NEED THEM LATER!
KEEP PLAYING
EXPLAIN THAT IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A CHOC, PASS IT ON TO THE NEXT PERSON.
IN THE LAST ROUND, SHARE THE REMAINING CHOCS AND ADD SOME MORE IF NECESSARY SO THAT EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING.
When we play ‘Pass the parcel’ we usually understand we won’t all get a present but in THAT game, lots of us got a present we probably hadn’t expected.

Chocolate is something we all like to get and maybe you are expecting to get some chocolate on a regular basis between now and Christmas; in your Advent Calendars!

We are going to tell a familiar story now in a fun way.

The Chocolate Nativity

The Christmas story is so well known that our minds can easily skim over it and we miss the surprise elements. To help you concentrate, listen out for your chocolate bar or sweets to be mentioned and hold them up high at the right time. You will be prompted by the pictures too. We can all join in because the Christmas story is something God wants everyone to know.

The story of the nativity is written in the bible and we have put this version together by reading Matthew and Luke.

A young girl named Mary heard a
WISPA
from the angel Gabriel that she was chosen to be the mother of God’s son. Now, Mary wasn’t married yet to Joseph and so this awkward situation became a hot
TOPIC
of conversation among the locals. But Mary explained to Joseph that it was all part of God’s
DIVINE
plan. Joseph helped Joseph understand in a
DREAM
and it all became as clear as a
FOXES GLACIER MINT.
Joseph had to return to his home town of Bethlehem to be counted in the Roman Census in order to
BOOST
taxes. It was a
MARATHON (yes, we all know they are called SNICKERS now!)
journey for someone expecting a baby. 80 miles of walking over the stony hills which were

CRUNCHIE
Under foot. They arrived in Bethlehem well
AFTER EIGHT
but having tried
CLUB after CLUB
there was no room for them to stay. It was certainly no
QUALITY STREET
but one innkeeper said they could sleep in his stable. That night Jesus was born. There was no bed of
ROSES
but Mary wrapped the baby in pieces of cloth and laid him in the manger. This baby was to show the full
BOUNTY
of God. He was God’s own son, unique in the
GALAXY.
Nearby in some fields, some shepherds were looking after their sheep. As they were gazing at the
MILKY WAY,
a
RIPPLE
went through the air and suddenly a
DOUBLE DECKER
row of angels appeared in the sky. The glory of God shone all around them and the shepherds went
FLAKY
at the knees! But the angel said, ‘Do not be afraid. I am bringing you good news that will be a great joy to all people. Today your saviour was born. He is Christ the Lord.’ So, the shepherds went straight as an
AERO
to find the baby. They told everyone what the angels had said about the child. Mary treasured these things in her heart and thought about them a lot.
There was great cause for
CELEBRATION.
The shepherds went off, praising God with many a
TWIRL
in their step! Meanwhile, in a far country, there were some
SMARTIES
otherwise known as wise men or astrologers. Some people thought they were looking at
MAGIC STARS
but they were serious scholars busy scanning the
GALAXY
and one night they saw a
STARBURST.
Was it
MARS?
No, it was a very bright star shining in the east which they realized signalled the birth of the baby born to be king of the Jews. So they took some
TIME OUT
and travelled by camel to Jerusalem to investigate. The road was
ROCKY
and they stopped for a few
PICNICS
on the way. When they found the baby, they gave him their
KINGSIZE
gifts of gold for a king, incense for worship and myrrh for death. Unusual gifts for a baby? But this was an unusual baby. They bowed down to the child and worshipped him as they recognized who he was.
Jesus wants us to recognize who he is and accept his leading in our lives as a gift from God his father.

He is God’s gift to each of us; the whole
SELECTION
of us are included in God’s plan.
The bible says, ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost but have eternal life.’
So, over the years there have been many
CELEBRATIONS
as people receive that gift of God’s love and a place in his kingdom, here on earth and forever.

Thank you for taking part.
Now, you are probably expecting me to say, ‘Put away your chocolate until after your lunch’.
But, unexpectedly, I’m not!
When we are given presents, we react in 2 ways; some of us get on and use or eat them straight away. (I can think of some family members who do that!) and others, like me, tend to keep things in their packaging, save things for later! The trouble with that is, as a child, I ended up with unused bubble bath that started to smell funny so I couldn’t ever use it! And I still have some writing paper sets that are way out of date because I was afraid to use them up! So, lovely gifts went unused.
If we don’t open our gifts we can’t use and enjoy them.
So, I give full permission to open these chocolates and eat them.
What I would like you children (and anyone else who wants to get up and move about) to do is to go and sit by someone new, preferably someone not your age, and have a chat while you eat.
Ask each other;
Have you ever received an unexpected gift?
What made it unexpected?
Who was it from?
Maybe you didn’t think you would get a gift
Or, the gift itself was not what you were expecting?

As I was writing, it occurred to me to add the idea that if we don't get on and open/use our gifts, we won't enjoy them/get anything out of them. Likewise, when considering the gift of Jesus, if we leave him 'wrapped up' (in the manger/in a story/as an idea) we won't get the benefit of him/won't enjoy him. (clumsy language, but you will get the idea!)You could pick up on this idea in your talk too?
The part of the Christmas story that makes me think of gifts is the part that tells of the Wise Men with the gifts they bring – gold, frankincense, myrrh – unexpected gifts, given by unexpected people. They knew just what to expect of a king – a fine palace. And they knew the palaces built by the King of the Jews Herod were among the finest in all the wolrd. No expense spared – a wonderful place to find a king.

But he wasn’t found there … found in a place where there had been no room – out in the squalor of a cattle shed. There they found the child.

The Christ child was the most unexpected of all presents.

A great present – but it’s easy just to leave the baby – wrapped up – in the manger, in a story, as an idea … but we need to unwrap the baby – see the way he grew to set out a way of living that can make a world of difference to anyone who tries it, who shares with us in the suffering of a troubled world, and goes through that suffering to resurrection victory, a victory to share.

But we have to do something … in return.

The greatest most unexpected of all gifts …

John 3:16

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

1 John 4:7-12

The greatest gift is one we need to respond to – it is the gift of God’s love, and the love we can give to each other and to other people too.

7-10My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.
11-12My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.

A new song for Christmas – Presents
http://www.maynardsgroovytunes.co.uk/jukebox/presents

I want to light the first of our Advent candles and think about the Unexpected Gift – and the gift that we can give – the cubs have put some prayers together … and then get a couple of the Brownies to light the candle.

So through prayer … commitment to others … love for other people – the Cubs prayers …

Green Six

Last night I saw a lady across the street
So I went to meet
her and said, ”do you need help?”

One of my friends was ill;
had to resort to a pill.
So I sent him a Get Well card

These are acts of kindness and love
As pure as a dove.

If we care for other people that means being helpful ourselves – and so the prayer from Yellow Six

Yellow Six

Dear God,
We will cut the grass
Wash up,
Help other people by making breakfast,
Walking the dog,
Wash the car,
And make lunch.
Amen.

And then we need to be concerned for other people, and to help others at Christmas especially ...

Blue Six
Dear Lord,
Please help us to share with others and think of others before ourselves, be thankful for what we have got because poor people would love to have it.
Amen

Red Six
Dear God,
Please help us help charities and help the elderly across the road and to keep people safe and sound.
Amen.

The Brownies light the first of the Advent Candles.

A prayer for our first Advent Candle

Unexpected Gifts
We light our first candle
And think of unexpected gifts
Gifts we receive
Gifts we give
The greatest gift of all:
A love that knows no bounds
A love that shines in the face of Jesus
A love that is ours to share with each other
Ours to share with everyone around.
Through unexpected gifts of love
May your light shine in the darkness.

County Community Projects
Food Share and Education Centre

We will be having a special Christmas Collection for County Community Projects – through December and for our Christmas Day collection – CCP – and we will be hearing more about the work of CCP … gifts of money – but more than that – gifts for the Food Share programme.

We are fortunate in having the opportunity of showing our real commitment to love in action through our close relationship with CCP. As you can see from their ‘Thank You’ letter below, our involvement is really valued. They mention the opportunities to give food and we will put some of the money we raise towards the Food Share scheme as well as aiming to make a generous donation of food.
In the past I have had some professional involvement with the CCP Education Centre and can assure you that they do valuable and challenging work. It makes sense to let them explain what they do so I have taken this from their website,
“The aim with all our learners is to involve them in positive activities which are tailored to meet their individual needs and address the issues which have led to their exclusion from school. We give each child what is often their first positive learning experience, and help to build their motivation to take part and succeed. This raises their self-esteem, which in turn raises performance and aspirations.
Using subjects such as art, sport, exercise, cooking and conservation, we help young people understand that education can be fun and rewarding. We undertake work with them on anger management, communication, group working and rights and responsibilities. We prepare them for a return to full time school education or a progression to higher education.
The Education Centre is located in a purpose-converted building in Grove Street, Cheltenham. It offers a selection of learning environments, a well equipped woodwork room, IT and Multimedia learning facilities, a full kitchen and a leisure area with a TV, video and a selection of board and video games.”
To further improve their environment we hope to collect enough money to be able to buy some garden furniture

Dear All at Highbury Church
CCP would like to thank you for your donations to the CCP FoodShare - the emergency food distribution service for Gloucestershire people and families in times of crisis, which relies on donations from members of the public, churches, schools and businesses, and distributes over 500 emergency food parcels every year.
In the run up to Christmas, CCP FoodShare is extended to become the CCP Hamper Scamper, a food and gift distribution scheme.
Many disadvantaged people in Gloucestershire cannot afford the basic festive goodies which most people take for granted, including food and Christmas presents for their loved ones. The pressure on them to provide such gifts leads to many getting further into debt, which can last for years to come and only acts to make their lives even harder. This is the stark reality for many families every year.
The Hamper Scamper campaign aspires to bring the spirit of Christmas to hundreds of children, young people, families and vulnerable adults, including those who are homeless. This is not just by providing them with Christmas food items and gifts, but to help in the longer term to reduce or wipe out the debt that can accrue through the pressure of the festive season, culminating in year round misery.
If you would like to take part in this year’s Hamper Scamper, or want to find out more, please see our website www.ccprojects.org.uk

To lead us into our time prayer …

Prayers of Concern

Offering and Dedication

At this time of giving

Words of Blessing

See God in Jesus - See Jesus in Others

2011-11-20T13:09:00.003Z

How do you picture God?

Say I were to give you a piece of paper how do you picture God?

Say I asked you to make a film … how do you picture God?

Some people have thought of God as an old man with a beard up in the clouds. I don’t like that.

God is more mysterious, more majestic, more than anything I can begin to imagine.

I find it difficult to picture God.

As a working way of thinking of God I like an age-old phrase coined by an teacher of the church in the middle ages, Anselm …

God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
Think of the most incredible greatest thing ever … and God is greater.

What about picturing God in an abstract way. Maybe that’s more helpful.

Sometimes words can build up pictures in your mind’s eye.

That’s just what Paul does as he is writing to the church in Corinth.

IT’s almost like the story board for a kind of surreal, modern, arty film about God.

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’,

That’s it. That’s got the makings of something for me. Complete and utter darkness, and then a pin-prick in the darkness reveals a light – and from a pinprick of light the light grows until the light is so bright you cannot look at it.

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts

Then somehow the picture turns – the light is behind the camera and the camera is looking at me – and the light is shining deep into the darkness of my heart

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God

Wow … this is a mystery. The light of the glory of God.

But then comes a punchline that means so much for Paul.

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

It is in the face of Jesus Christ that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God can be seen.

Look to Jesus and see God.

That changes the way we picture God. And that can make a difference in our lives too.

Jesus starts out in the squalor of a cattle shed, lives his life among people who are rejected by the well-to-do, people whose lives are full of suffering. And he plumbs the depths of anguish in the Gethsemane, feeling as if he is abandoned by God on the cross. This is a frail, vulnerable, pain-stricken image of God.

This Jesus is risen and comes alongside us in our moments of weakness. So Paul speaks of himself as a clay jar – dull, battered. God’s strength and power is there in the weakness he experiences.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12So death is at work in us, but life in you.

See God in Jesus and what becomes important is not the way you picture God but the presence of God you have with you in the deepest, darkest times – what’s important for Paul is to say, I believe.

And with that step of faith see God in Jesus and know he is alongside us through the darkest times and on into the glory of that wonderful light that through resurrection does shine in our lives.

Jesus opens up for us new ways of seeing God – he invites us to pray to God as our Father – and we realise God is someone who comes very close to us. Jesus shares with us a power, a strength that is unseen and yet so real in the Holy Spirit. And we begin to sense that God is not just that than which nothing greater can be conceive. But look to Jesus and discover God alongside us as one who cares, who empowers, as one who is Love.

So as far as Paul is concerned that shapes what he does …

For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. 6

Picture God through Jesus and then that means we are called upon to serve other people. Help other people.

If we see ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’

We see Jesus Christ in the face of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the prisoner …

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” 37

just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me

Picturing God … that’s not so important.

Much more important is that we serve other people.

It’s great to support Stefan and Birgit – Stefan helping to train and equip people then to be ministers in churches all over Brazil. And in those churches people to serve. And Birgit – working with so many of those women who have been caught up in drug abuse, neglected in all sorts of way in the project where she works. MISSIONMotivated by our Christian responsibility we are trying to prevent addiction to alcohol or drugs and reintegrate drug dependent persons into society – for a better quality of life.

Serving others is something in some way we are all involved in.

What have you seen in this picture?

The face of Jesus?

Or a lot of faces? But whose faces are they?

Our thoughts this week go to those who are in prison –
An old country song about old age echoes Jesus’ words from our gospel reading for the Sunday of Prisons Week: ‘So if you’re walking down the street sometime and spot some hollow ancient eyes, please don’t just pass ‘em by and stare, as if you didn’t care, say, "Hello in there, hello."'
Looking into the eyes of those who are struggling, wherever they may be, can be difficult – perhaps it’s the look of hunger or thirst, isolation or vulnerability, of being trapped or in pain. But Jesus tells us of the importance of stopping, seeing (not just looking) and attending to their needs – and to remember that in so doing we are also ministering to Him.
When we, beginning in prayer, decide to look into the eyes of those affected by the reality of prison, we also see into the eyes of our Lord, and our response to their struggle is transformed.
Prisons Week

Karen shared with us some of the things she has done in supporting the prison chaplaincy at Eastwood Park, the Gloucestershire Women’s prison where for five years she helped to lead Bible Studies.

What’s going on here goes right to the heart of what our Christian faith is about. The service Stefan and Birgit share, the service Karen describes …

Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Remembrance and what it means

2011-11-13T13:36:00.001Z

I can never visualise what an acre is. When Tom asked us how big a hectare was it dawned on me for the first time that in all likelihood a hectare would be 100 metres by 100 metres and so it would be 10,000 square metres. Lo and behold that was the right answer. That’s an area I can visualise. My diary informs me that one hectare is 2.4 acres. But I still find that difficult to visualise. Walking through Sandford Park the other day I passed the notice advertising the lido – set in four acres.

Very roughly that’s two hectares – maybe a little less. 200 metres by 100 metres.

For nearly two years Eric Liddell was kept in a Japanese internment camp that was 200 metres by 150 metres. Just a little bigger than the lido. He was one of 1800 people confined in that tiny space. He died with a brain tumour shortly before the end of the war. [For more on Eric Liddell click here and for more on the Japanese Internment camp at Wiehsien click here]

How do you sustain yourself in the face of such horrors? How do you survive? Not only did he keep the young people entertained with sports, but he also brought people together for prayer and prepared notes that would people in their own prayer times. It was only in the wake of the release of Chariots of Fire that someone, Herbert S Long, tracked down the two remaining handwritten manuscripts containing those notes. They were published in 1985 … and at the time made an impression on me. I had grown up with the story of Eric Liddell long before the film was made as he was one of those missionaries in China our churches had supported through the LMS, now the Council for World Mission, CWM.

I was telling the story to a group on our training course, and one of the people from Mark Evans’ church in Belvedere and Erith said he had only just heard an interview with a couple of people who had also been in that internment camp speaking of the very big impression Eric Liddell had made and the immense help he had been to them.

I’ve gone back to my copy of the Disciplines of the Christian Life to reflect this Remembrance Sunday on what we can draw from those experiences of Eric Liddell in the face of very different circumstances maybe, but in the face of our war-torn world today, with all the uncertainties of the financial crisis, and personal problems closer to home.

One of the first things to leap out at you from this set of prayers is that it is shot through with love, a sense of the love that God has for us, and the love we can share with each other. Right at the very outset is a page of quotations of verses from the New Testament about love.

God is love (I John 4.8)

By this shall everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another (John 13:35)

Love is very patient, very kind,
Love knows neither envy nor jealousy,
Love is not forward or self-assertive,
Love is not boastful or conceited, gives itself no airs,
Love is never rude, never selfish, never irritated
Love never broods over wrongs.
Love thinketh no evil.
Love is never glad when others go wrong.
Love finds no pleasure in injustice but rejoices in the truth.
Love is always slow to expose; it knows how to be silent;
Love is always eager to believe the best about a person
Love is full of hope, full of patient endurance
Love never fails (I Corinthians 13 paraphrase)

In amongst all the readings he maps out for people to follow through the year is a month of readings on Paul’s letter to the Romans. My eye fell on the heading that he gave to the reading I have chosen for today from Romans 12.

Writing towards the end of that third missionary journey from Corinth to Rome Paul’s letter to the Christian church in Rome contains a distillation of his thinking about the Christian faith. It’s powerful stuff, closely argued. But for Paul theology is of no value unless it shapes the way we live our lives.

Coming towards the end of Romans we reach that moment when Paul moves from the theory to the practice – there’s that tell-tale linking word. Therefore.

In the light of all that has gone before … therefore, this is what we must do in the living of our lives.

For Eric Liddell in Romans 12 three things are all important in the living of our lives.

Surrender to God

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Offer your whole selves, everything you are in service to God – this is spiritual worship. It means being willing to stand up and be counted, to stand out and be different – Martin Luther King in a sermon on this text challenged us to be transformed nonconformists who were prepared to be transformed by the renewing our our minds. We need to be on the lookout for what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Eric Liddell valued daily prayer that begins in stillness, moves on to thanksgiving and then seeks to surrender the day into God’s hands, looking out for God’s guidance for all that is to be that day.

In Romans 12 surrender to God is followed by

Love to your brother and your sister

Love is at the heart of all we are and all we do as followers of Christ.

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.

In his book Eric Liddell includes his creed. It’s my idea of what a creed should be. I love the great creeds of the church … but they all seem to me to miss out something crucial. They jump from Jesus born of the virgin Mary to suffered under Pontius Pilate. The creeds come from that period when the Roman powers that be under Constantine wanted to keep control of the church. So it was Constantine who got so many bishops together at the Council of Nicaea to produce the great Nicene Creed. Maybe he was uncomfortable with all that comes between the birth and the death of Christ in the Gospels. Eric Liddell builds that bit of Jesus into his creed …

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator, infinitely holy and loving, who has a plan for the world, a plan for my life, and some daily work for me to do.

I believe iin Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, as Example, Lord and Saviour.

I believe in the Holy Spirit who is able to guide my life so that I may know God’s will; and I am prepared to allow him to guide and control my life.

I believe in God’s law that I should love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength; and my neighbour as myself.

I believe it is God’s will that the whole world should be without any barriers of race, colour, class or anything else that breaks the spirit of fellowship.

He adds a definition of he means within that creed when he says I believe.

To believe means to believe with the mind and heart, to accept, and to act accordingly on that basis.

One of the moving things I find about that creedal statement is that it comes out of the experience of the horrors of war at their worst in that Japanese internment camp where the personal space Eric Liddell had measured six feet by three feet in a massively over-crowded dormitory. It is from inside the experience of the horror of war that a commitment to a very different way comes in the footsteps of Christ. Here is a vision from inside the war of the kind of peace that is to be built in the wake of war.

Surrender to God, love to your brother and to your sister.

Then we reach the third of Eric Liddell’s headings for Romans 12.

Kindness to your enemy

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. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. If your enemies are hungry feed them; if they are thirsty give them something to drink. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Returning to that interview with other survivors of that prison camp, it was this that impressed one of those interviewees most. It did not simply impress him, but it went on to shape his life. At the time Steve Metcalfe was a teenager. Eric Liddell made an immense impression on him that was to transform his life after the war.

I just remember him as being a very happy man. He had a broad head, very broad shoulders. Very strong and robust, he would never talk about himself even though we would ask questions.

Because you all knew that he was an Olympic hero.

Oh yes we all knew about that but he wasn’t a jazzy man. He was a man of few words if anything. But the amazing thing about him as I got to know him was that he backed up all that he preached.

Steve helped Eric organise games for the children in the camp. He was a keen runner himself.

Steve Metcalfe goes on to describe how he used to run bare foot until Eric made him a pair of running shoes from make-shift glue and materials.

Eric Liddell also led bible classes at the camp. Steve Metcalfe doesn’t remember him as a great speaker but one moment did stick in his mind.

He read the verse, love your enemies do good to them that hate you. He said, I’ve started praying for the Japanese and he challenged us to do the same. And I did do that. It changed my attitude to them as being creatures of God and was what remained in my mind.

Eric developed a brain tumour, his health rapidly declined and he found comfort in hymns. And the company of Annie Buchan a Scottish missionary friend.

He just suddenly said, Annie, it’s complete surrender. And that was his last breath. He had been a man that had been surrendering to God all his life through. And I don’t believe that it cost him much to say complete surrender because he knew where he was going.

Be still my soul, the Lord is on your side,
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Steve Metcalfe: the funeral itself was absolutely packed. They chose me as one of the pall bearers. And we took the coffin. It was a freezing day. A cold wind blowing in from Siberia. We lowered the coffin down into the grave then read the Beatitudes I remember how absolutely shattered I was just walking home thinking here’s this world champion we buried him here in this prison camp. What’s life all about?

After Eric Liddell’s death Steve Metcalfe often thought about his advice to pray for the Japanese. Once the camp was liberated he found out more about Japan, and then spent 40 years sharing his Christian faith, working for peace. Eric Liddell passed on two things to him - a pair of running shoes and the baton of forgiveness .

Grace for living in the real world

2011-11-06T17:10:00.000Z

I like big long words. My favourite long word of all time is ‘serendipity’ – the joy of discovering the unexpected unexpectedly. You go to open a box expecting something and you find something tons better and you go ‘wow’! I guess there will be a lot of serendipity as our shoe boxes are opened at Christmas time!

I also like little short words. In fact, I like little short words a lot better.

One of my favourite passages in all the Bible comes in Roans 3:21-26. In lots of translations it contains two little short words that are all important. And three big, long words

But now God's way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it. 22 God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all:
23 everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence. 24 But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. 25-26 God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people's sins are forgiven through their faith in him. God did this in order to demonstrate that he is righteous. In the past he was patient and overlooked people's sins; but in the present time he deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate his righteousness. In this way God shows that he himself is righteous and that he puts right everyone who believes in Jesus.
27 What, then, can we boast about? Nothing! And what is the reason for this? Is it that we obey the Law? No, but that we believe. 28 For we conclude that a person is put right with God only through faith, and not by doing what the Law commands. 29 Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Of course he is. 30 God is one, and he will put the Jews right with himself on the basis of their faith, and will put the Gentiles right through their faith.

31 Does this mean that by this faith we do away with the Law? No, not at all; instead, we uphold the Law.

The first short word is the word ‘sin’. How do you understand ‘sin’? Doing wrong things. Doing what you shouldn’t do. One of the best explanations I have seen spots what the middle letter is ‘I’ I – me. Sin is where you put I – me at the centre of everything. And you push other people and God out.

Paul reckons that that’s something everyone does. We all do things wrong. We all do things we shouldn’t do. And we all put ‘I’ – ‘me; at the centre of things too.

Everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence.

Some other translations say something a bit different – since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I like that even better. It brings into my mind a picture of shooting with a bow and arrow at a target. It’s more difficult than you think. The arrow falls short of the target. God’s glory is wonderful. He wants us to get everything spot on … but sadly we each of us fall short in some way or other – maybe in things we say or do, or things we think, or sometimes words we say that hurt other people.

Then hard on the heels of that tiny little word, comes another little short word. It is the word ‘grace’.

How can we get the better of this sin?

Verse 24 by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him throough Christ Jesus.

Realising the significance of grace was for me a turning point in my understanding of what Christianity is all about. What caught my imagination about Christianity first was the way of life it set out in the ten commandments especially as Jesus summarises them in his teaching Love God, love your neighbour. Help everyone. Bring care and love into everyone’s lives. Love even your enemies. This is a great way of life. What a difference it can make – in individuals, in families, in society at large in the world as a whole. That’s soething to work at, to struggle for, to aspire to. And it can make a difference.

But somehow I always fall short. That’s where this wonderful second word comes into its own. Grace. The free gift of God’s love. God’s love reaches out to us first of all before we do anything to deserve it. God doesn’t say, if you change then I’ll love you. He loves us first with a free gift of love. That’s incredibly transforming. And it has been for me.

Then in some translations you notice the big long words Paul goes on to use to sum up just the difference that grace can make. Justification. Redemption. Atonement.

Those are big long words. And difficult to understand and explain. They are really long, religious words. But for Paul they were not big long technical religious words. They were words drawn from the ordinary every day life of the Romans he was writing to.

It was great being in Leicester last week – it’s a Roman city, with Roman remains. We walked down an ancient Roman road into the city centre, the New Walk. Saw a book all about life in Roman Leicester. You can find out about Roman life anywhere – and it’s much the same throughout the Roman Empire. Here in Glevum where the streets in the city centre were laid out over 1900 years ago by the Romans and they are still in the same layout.

The first long word, justification, takes you to the law courts. Rome valued law. Rome was built on a system of law. It’s as if Paul invites you to imagine that you are brought before the law, you are filled with remorse and know that you have fallen well short of all that you should have done. And then you are set free by a kindly judge. That’s what the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is like.

We have fallen short – but we are forgiven – we are put right with God by all that Jesus Christ has done – and that’s something so wonderful.

The second word ‘redemption’ Takes you to the slave market. Rome was built by slaves, and slaves play a large part in Roman life. Go to Chedworth Roman villa once the renovations are completed and it will be one of the finest roman sites in the whole country. And there you will see how the slaves kept the toilets clean, stoked the boiler to keep the water warm in the baths and were taken for granted. Bought and sold in a slave market.

Imagine you were a slave and your owner decided to put you up for sale in a slave market. The bidding went up and you were sold – only to find the person who has bought you, not only sets you free, but he also sets you up with a living for life. That’s what Christ does when he sets you free.

It can feel as if you are a slave to all the wrong things that you do … but Christ sets you free.

And the final big long word is ‘atonement’. Every Roman settlement would have its temples, and every home its shrine. And in so many places sacrifices were made in the belief that they would get you on the right side of the gods. You can see one of the finest of Roman temples at Lydney and across the Severn at Uley they found literally thousands of sheep’s bones from the sacrifices made at the temple – and many of them are on display in the British museum.

Jesus went to his death on the cross and rose again – and he is the one who is a sacrifice of atonement – and restores us into the love of God.

The grace that results in justification and puts us right with God, the grace that results in redemption and sets us free, the grace that is a sacrifice of atonement draws us into the love of God, this grace is free.

But for Paul there is a problem.

If God’s love is free and so generous, if the grace f the Lord Jesus Christ is free – then it doesn’t matter what we do – we can throw away the Law and all it stands for.

No, not a bit of it Paul says. Actually God’s law – offers us a wonderful framework – so long as we recognise at its heart the grace that Jesus Christ has shared with us, the free gift of God’s love.

It is right to have a framework in law – but law that is administered must be administered in the light of grace – in a spirit of mercy and steadfast love. This is something right at the heart of the law Paul had grown up with in the Old Testament that for him was the whole of his bible. Law is important but law in a framework of grace.

That’s something we need to work out in our society. As people of grace we are not excused from the law – but as people of grace we are to understand the law in the light of that grace and that mercy that is at the heart of our understanding of God. This month our chosen charity is the Langley House Trust. That is a Christian organisation that works with ex-offenders in the whole work of rehabilitation. At times law requires that there be punishment – but the purpose of that punishment should be rehabilitation. It should be underpinned by a grace that seeks to make people better. Take grace seriously and it will prompt you in the direction of a restorative justice system that seeks to restore people. And that shapes an approach to justice and to law.

It took Christians a long time to see how a people of grace must reject slavery … but at long last with the likes of William Wilberforce they saw the light. But there’s another dimension to slavery in the Old Testament that’s far closer to home. And as people of grace I believe we have something to say as well. The Old Testament has a structure of law that is designed to deal with the problem of debt as it accrues and becomes impossible to pay. The framework of law provided that debts would not permanently enslave people. As people of grace what do we have to offer into the current financial crisis. I wouldn’t have liked to have been in the shoes of the staff of St Paul’s cathedral. But I couldn’t help but notice that as that developed a silver jubilee was marked. It is easy to imagine that the financial system that has so disastrously collapsed is an age-old one. But twenty five years ago came what was known as the Big Bang. When all the controls, the frameworks that applied to the banks I had grown up with until I was in my thirties were removed. The bid was made to make the City the centre of finance for the world in a way it had not been before by a massive removal of regulation. My hunch is that as a people of grace we should be recognise the failure of a system that lets anything go and we should be looking for ways of introducing a framework of regulations that keeps in check the excesses of a market gone wild. Far from being silent on such issues as some of the tabloid press has suggested, I think it interesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been suggesting the need for a new kind of regulatory framework – joining interestingly the Pope in advocating a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions.

A People of grace interestingly don’t abandon the framework and structures of law – but when it comes to the world finances to be true to the law that was valued by Paul and marked by a spirit of grace there needs to be an appropriate framework. A people of grace will work towards such a framework of law.

And a sacrifice of atonement – people of grace who know that the once and for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross has restored that reliationship with God that is so important will seek to live sacrificially looking not to the interests of themselves, but always to the interests of others.

Be a people of grace and who knows what surprises may be in store – as we discover unexpected things unexpectedly and maybe even revel in some measure of serendipity!

Overcoming Violence

2011-11-01T11:48:00.002Z

This sermon was preached by the Rev Dr Graham Adams of Lee Street Congregational Church, Manchester. Graham grew up at Highbury and is currently Minister at Lees Street; he teaches on the Congregational Federation's Integrated Training Course.

Readings

Micah 4: 1-4
1 Samuel 17: 33-50
John 8: 1-11

Introduction: Throwing stones

What are we to make of the violence in our world? And can we overcome it?
From Libya, & recent unpleasant images from there, to the riots in our own cities,
contemporary events bring these eternal questions into focus – and we still feel helpless.
In fact, we often feel a real fear of violence, & often think it is getting worse,
even though there is much evidence that it is not –
that over the centuries we have become much less tolerant of awful violence
and much more inclined to see it as a problem to be overcome, not a contest to be won.

But it means working at being empathetic, more inclined to listen to one another,
less inclined to put our desires for revenge into action –
so the question for us as Christians is, can the Bible help us to overcome violence?
The reality is that many people do not see the Bible as the answer to this problem
because it is too blood-thirsty, too gory, including portrayals of God demanding violence,
so how can it give us resources to help us overcome it?
If it was written in a time when violence was seen as a contest to be won
then how can we claim that it inspires in us our faith in a peace-loving God?

It’s important to hear these questions, and to wrestle with them honestly:
but still I believe we can maintain that the Bible has to contain violence
because the Bible has to reflect the real world, which is indeed a violent place.
The question remains, though, whether we can look to it for resources to help us
if we want to find ways of overcoming violence – of believing it can be overcome –
rather than treating it as something inevitable, a contest that will just always go on.
And I hope we can discover that even violent stories in the Bible give us cause for hope,
that it does offer resources to help us find ways of overcoming violence,
especially if we read it not as a contest between two violent parties,
but as a choice between the ways of violence & the ways of the peace-loving God.

OT Reading: 1 Samuel 17: 33-50

2) Reflection: choosing stones

The problem is, we feel too small.
There are many Goliaths in our world which make us feel too small:
poverty, inequality, hunger, the crisis in the world’s economic system, or climate change –
all these things are like Goliaths which feel too big for us to handle and defeat.
But this evening we’re focusing particularly on the Goliath, the giant, of Violence:
and although this may seem a strange story to draw on, because it uses violence itself,
it captures how we feel – as small as the shepherd David – in the face of something
that we cannot imagine overcoming … but are we really so powerless?
What if we approach this story as a choice between two ways of living in the world:
the Goliath way is the way which holds sway –
the belief that Violence is basically inevitable, so let’s resign ourselves to it;
let’s accept that bullies are bullies, & those with the levers of power & strength always win;
we know of bullies in many walks of life, who are never far from imposing their will –
in schools, at work, in situations of domestic violence, or the lobbyists of big business,
up to arms dealers, & dictators.
There’s something about the power of the world’s Philistines, represented best by Goliath,
which means we cannot help but take the way of violence for granted. It is awesome.
And yet there is another way, a smaller way, embodied here by David –
imagine that he represents those instincts within us which we often suppress,
the belief that another way is possible, that the underdog can win – and sometimes does,
even without using the same tactics as the world’s bullies & mobs.
The David instinct is often overwhelmed in our cynical, weary world
because we’re so used to accepting that things are just the way they are –
but this small boy dares to believe in an alternative way.
At first, Saul mocks the idea that someone so fragile could be a match for Goliath.
That’s only natural: we all feel like Saul when others tell us the world could be different –
they sound so naïve, so unreal, so idealistic,
perhaps they’ve not lived enough, but soon they’ll realise it’s not so straightforward.
But even when he persuades Saul to let him have a go,
by reassuring him that he has won other battles, even if only against wild animals,
even then, he is forced at first to play by the Big Boys’ rules, to use the world’s tactics:
for he is made to wear the armour & take up the heavy weapons, to be a man of steel.
But in David’s case that way is ridiculous: the armour is too big.
The ways of the world do not fit …
for he knows another way – just a simple sling and five small stones.

So what might be our different way? What might be our sling & our five small stones
in our quest to overcome the Goliath of violence in our world?
We might, for instance, pressurise banks not to invest in the arms trade,
e.g. the RBS was recently forced to stop investing in companies making illegal cluster bombs;
or we can support campaigns of the Fellowship of Reconciliation or other peace movements –
I preach here to myself, too, as I’ve only started to look at this & will try to act on it.
Or imagine if churches were better known as communities who promote understanding
rather than prejudice – if we encouraged people to understand those who differ from us ...
Or if we committed to de-escalate any situation of conflict, to crank tension down, not up,
by encouraging each other to debate constructively, to talk rather than react anxiously.
These are some small stones we might offer – as well, of course, as prayer.
Each on its own may not suffice, though we can take heart from David’s success with 1 stone,
& may we be encouraged to believe that, together, we can make a real difference.

Our next hymn is a prayer with other thoughts on becoming channels of peace …

Make me a channel of your peace …

NT Reading – John 8: 1-11

3) Reflection: dropping stones

In the light of the David story, this story from the life of Jesus reminds us that,
no matter how much we feel the stones we carry are good ones, & that we are different
because we only have good intentions - even if we struggle to put them into practice -
the truth remains that we are carrying stones which have the potential to do harm:
after all, we live in a complicated world
where the system we are part of, the history that is behind us, how we spend our money,
all have unintended consequences we know little about, so we’ll never be totally innocent:
somewhere, somehow, our lifestyle hurts other people, whether or not we know it;
& so, like the crowd gathered around this condemned woman, we don’t see it:
even if we try really hard to live peaceful lives, & to promote peace,
we are still very much part of a world which hurts vulnerable people, & we need God’s grace.

And yet, by the end of this story, one by one the crowd has dispersed,
their stones are lying on the ground, having done no harm, and the woman is safe.
There is something about the personality & impact, & community, of Jesus of Nazareth,
even as he bends down & writes in the sand, that disarms an otherwise dangerous crowd.
The community of Jesus is called to follow in this way, to disarm an otherwise dangerous world,
but the church has not always grasped this –
sometimes we have done hurtful things claiming they are in the name of Jesus Christ –
but we see here that, with barely any words, he can still disarm a violent world.

So we pray that this story will speak to us:
that it will help us to drop our dangerous stones – the wounds we carry,
the hurtful things said to us, the chains which hold us captive, the resentment we feel,
the longing for revenge on those who have hurt us, or on people who seem like them,
the desire to punish those who upset our view of how the world ought to be …
May we pray that this story,
the story of a condemned woman & a crowd anxious to make her into a scapegoat,
will become for us a means of dropping the stones we carry
& learning to find a better way of putting the world to rights –
not lashing out, not condemning, not acting so indifferently to others’ life-experiences,
but being as aware as possible of our own failings, the danger we sometimes each represent,
and the need to put healing before hurt, hope before hate, peace before violence.
May we pray, not only that we choose our stones with care, in the cause of peace,
but that we know when to let go, when to be disarmed, when to be vulnerable
to the peace of Christ working in us.
Amen.

Prayers
For the wisdom to choose our stones carefully in the battle against violence …
For the wisdom to know when the stones we carry are still dangerous to others …
For the wisdom to let go, to drop our dangerous stones, to be disarmed by Jesus Christ

For situations of conflict … for the needs of our neighbours, far away & close to home …
For all who long for peace, shelter, freedom, hope, healing or compassion …

Micah 4: Hear these words of encouragement, again, from the prophet Micah:

‘Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples and shall arbitrate between strong nations;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
So be it. Amen.

Blessing -
May the peace of God give us courage to confront Goliath with a new way of living.
May the peace of Christ give us wisdom to know when to let go of the stones we carry.
May the Spirit of peace live in our hearts & inspire us, now and for ever, Amen.

Heavy Burdens and Weightier Matters

2011-11-01T11:45:00.002Z

This sermon was preached at Highbury on Sunday, 30th October by the Rev Dr Graham Adams. Graham grew up at Highbury and is curtently Minister of Lees Street Congregational Church, Manchester, and teaches on the Congregational Federation's Integrated Training Course.

Readings

Micah 3: 1-12
Matthew 23: 1-15, 23-28

Reflection 1 … heavy burdens

Let’s be clear about one thing to begin with:
Some Christians have tended to see the Pharisees as representing the whole Jewish religion,
so they’ve concluded that Jesus is basically having a go at everything Jewish,
but this doesn’t make sense, not only because Jesus himself was Jewish, but for other reasons too:
first, there were about 7 schools of thought amongst the Pharisees, some far stricter than others,
& Jesus’ argument is clearly with the stricter ones, those obsessed with every little rule –
but secondly, as we see, Jesus doesn’t tell people to ignore what the Pharisees teach:
he says ‘do what they say, but not what they do’, because it is their hypocrisy which angers him.
And thirdly, the Jewish religion is deeply self-critical –
we see this in the passage from the prophet Micah, again angry with religious leaders’ hypocrisy,
the way they exploit the people, take bribes, line their own pockets, suit themselves
while ignoring the suffering of the ordinary people.
Micah has strong words indeed for those who exploit their position –
and warns that there will be consequences (darkness without revelation, the ruin of Jerusalem),
because the point is that the leaders have a grave responsibility to care for their people.
So, by attacking hypocritical Pharisees, Jesus is not attacking Judaism as a whole at all,
but in fact is speaking up for ordinary Jews who are suffering because of their leaders’ behaviour.
So what, exactly, are the accusations?

On the one hand, there is the crucial issue of hypocrisy – of which we are all guilty.
In this case, it was leaders who say one thing, but live according to their own rules,
flaunting their religiosity but not their integrity, taking the best seats at banquets,
expecting special treatment, & demanding for themselves special titles –
all designed to puff themselves up.
In our own way, we are all hypocritical – we do not manage to live up to the ideals we hold;
so we need to be honest and humble about this, & support each other to practise what we preach;
this will also mean forgiving each other – being generous-spirited towards one another –
which is, after all, one of the ideals we profess to believe in.

But on the other hand, there is the more specific problem of misdirecting people to every little rule
in such a way as to overburden them.
The thing was, the Pharisees broadly believed Israel’s redemption lay in its obedience
and that God would rescue the nation if he saw that everyone was fulfilling the law;
so actually this obsessive attention to the tiniest details was driven by fear – the fear of disorder –
because they feared that, if people didn’t stick to every rule, everything would fall further apart.
So they made converts to Judaism even more obsessive than themselves,
and they focused on superficial religious observance – how things seem on the surface –
rather than the core issues, as we’ll come to in a moment.
Essentially, fearing disorder, they turned vibrant faith into something burdensome –
the life-giving power of religion had become a deadweight around people’s necks.
Although our context is very different,
how do we contribute to the turning of life-giving faith into something that burdens people?
Do we ever find ourselves, because of anxieties about the future wellbeing of the church,
expecting that people should fit our mould of the Christian life, rather than find their own way?
Do we find ourselves obsessing about the little details which make church feel like church to us,
whether in one direction or the other, and judging others who hold to different expectations,
anxious that things seem to be falling apart?
Or, from the other side, are we the people who are suffering from a burdensome form of religion,
one which makes us feel guilty for every little mistake, for every unattained goal,
or which traps us in cycles of behaviour we can’t seem to escape from,
where we allow ourselves to play a particular role, to be boxed in to a specific corner,
without imagining that God’s Spirit works to free us up, to make new possibilities possible?

With all the little tasks that need to be done to keep the church’s show on the road,
it can be all very well to expect that religious commitment should be liberating not burdensome;
and it is appropriate to have certain kinds of expectations of one another
because, especially in a Congregational church, we are called to hold each other to account;
so all the different roles need to be taken seriously –
but the point is, essentially I think, as Micah and Jesus remind us, that it’s not about control,
it’s not about exploiting each other, it’s not about boxing people in to burdensome roles,
but is meant to be about enabling one another to fulfil the God-given potential within us,
both for the sake of our own growth & for the common good of church & wider community.

The trick is, I suppose, to find ways of helping each other to fulfil the part we each play
while also being free to grow into new roles, not being stuck in a rut or left unfulfilled
while also remembering that the tasks are only a small part of the story:
what matters most is the vision & mission we share together – to share good news with others.

Reflection 2 … weightier matters
So, if our Christian life is not to become all about the tiniest of details, the little rules we live by,
we need to listen to Jesus’ words: that the Pharisees had been obsessing about ‘straining gnats’
while inadvertently ‘swallowing camels’;
that is, they had neglected the ‘weightier matters’ – the matters of justice, mercy & faith.
That’s where the heart of our attention should be:
yes, share the tasks out fairly & encourage each other, but remember the big issues always:
justice, mercy and faith (or, in the GNB, justice, mercy and honesty).

The thing is, Jesus realised all too well how religion (of any kind) neglects these weightier matters
even though it’s supposed to be their very champion;
we can become well practised in the art of gnat-straining
(I recognise this in my own church – but I’m sure it’s not like that here!)
so we need our attention drawn once again, as much as possible, to the weightier matters.
And these matters, clearly, aren’t just supposed to be the marks of the kind of fellowship we are,
but the very principles by which we live out our lives wherever we are:
So what does it mean to limit burdensome religion in favour of the weightier matter of justice?
In biblical terms, justice is about the wellbeing of society, particularly the place of the vulnerable,
often represented in the OT by ‘widows and orphans’, but also very much by the poor,
& those of other countries who are in need of shelter and sanctuary.
So, we are called to have a clear concern for the common good, the wellbeing of the vulnerable,
to check that the gap between rich & poor does not become destructive to society –
so, for instance, Church Action on Poverty is currently campaigning for fairer taxes:
which largely means ensuring the very rich are not allowed to get away with tax avoidance,
estimated to be worth anything between £40 bn and £120 bn –
imagine if that was collected how it could help protect public services for vulnerable people.
Church Action on Poverty also campaigns for fairer prices for essential goods, fairer pay scales,
fairer credit rates, and for poorer communities to have a stronger voice in decision-making –
if you’d like to know more, there is some information in the porch.

And what of mercy – how might we limit burdensome religion in favour of a focus on mercy?
It’s strange, but I suspect many people think our society is too merciful,
that people are able to get away, literally or figuratively speaking, with murder;
but the difference is this: while justice demands meaningful guidelines for the common good,
it’s still important to instil in people an attitude of mercy as well,
because the alternative, often well represented in some newspapers, is one of scapegoating –
we point the finger of blame, often at foreigners, or some other group who can’t answer back,
without patiently pursuing better understanding of the bigger picture.
An attitude of mercy, a willingness to extend grace to each other, is a mark of our faith:

But then, that brings us to the third weighty matter – faith, or in the GNB, honesty:
it’s not just about standing true to what we believe, or saying what’s on our mind;
it’s also, in the case of faith, about believing in new possibilities, because God does new things,
and in the case of honesty, it includes being honest about our mistakes & our need for renewal.
So, may we focus on these weightier matters, that they may free us from burdensome religion:
may our temptation to strain the gnats of faith be transformed into a focus on the camels.

Post-script
Funnily enough, these three themes are at the heart of my book Christ and the Other,
which is all about how we grow through our relationships with ‘others’ –
first, we understand our ‘faith’ and grow in faith, not so much on our own,
but through our relationships with all kinds of ‘others’ within our community & tradition,
so we need each other, including those we do not always think to look to for relationship;
secondly, we grow as people of faith through an attitude of ‘mercy’, or hospitality,
not least to those of ‘other’ traditions – so we are to be a listening people,
willing to be shaped by relationships with others beyond our own community or tradition;
and thirdly, we should be people of ‘justice’, committed to relationships with those
who are in effect the ‘invisible others’ in our society and world – the most vulnerable.
It is through these relationships, marked by these weightier matters of faith, mercy & justice,
that we grow as the people Jesus calls us to be.

Amen.

Prayers – next page

Prayers

Holding the stone you have been given … reflect with me, in prayer, on our burdens
and on the weightier matters to which Jesus draws our attention – let us pray:

Living God,
As we hold this stone, or think about it, we recognise we come with burdens –
anxieties, worries, fears, illness, concerns for friends or family-members,
jobs that need doing, tasks left unfinished, words that have hurt us, wounds we bear …
we ask, reflecting on these stones & burdens, that you will help us
either to let go, if that is possible, or to carry them a little more lightly, with your help …

so we pray for others with burdens, too – that we may help to carry their burdens
and as a church, may we be known for sharing the burden of one another’s pain:
so we pray, in the silence, for people known especially to us, in need of your love …

we pray too, as we take your yoke upon us, that we will not see this faith as a burden
but as something genuinely life-giving, genuinely life-affirming, genuinely liberating for us,
so we may be freed from the view we have of ourselves which is limited or battered,
and we may see in ourselves capacities and gifts we had not recognised before –
may your Spirit free us to have life and life in abundance …

but we also pray, as we must, that these stones may be for us the weightier matters
of justice, mercy and faith:
help us to believe in and pursue justice, especially for the sake of the vulnerable in society;
help us to believe in and practise mercy, so we encourage better understanding and compassion;
help us to be people of faith and honesty, recognising our mistakes, more aware of our needs
but also committed to be open about the good news we know because of you …

so help us to free each other of our burdens and focus more on these weightier matters,
for the sake of your kingdom, now and for ever, Amen.

Blessing
May the God of justice bless us with courage to speak up for the vulnerable.
May the Christ of mercy bless us with compassion for all people.
May the Spirit who nurtures our faith give us life in all its fullness,
for our sake and for the sake of others,
until goodness fills the whole world,
Amen

How do we keep on caring?

2011-10-23T20:15:00.001+01:00

On Thursday evening it was great to meet with visitors and deacons in our twice yearly Visitors meeting, welcoming Tricia as she joined the visiting scheme. Always good to welcome more. In leading our meeting Phil got us off to a good start with some reflections on Caretakers.

After a section on our services, the next section in our church directory is ‘serving the church’ – opposite the page listing the members of our Diaconate we have a page of those who keep the nuts and bolts of what we do together as a church. Among them is our Church Caretaker Bridget.

That’s a title Bridget is fiercely proud of. Unless you are in the church very, very early on a Saturday morning, or at unexpected other times during the week you won’t see Bridget. But we all know that she’s been here. The floors in the back of the church always shine.

Caretakers are very easy to take for granted. But very important for all that we do. In a sense, Phil went on to suggest, that we all ‘care-takers’. The word ‘caretaker’ doesn’t crop up in the BIible, but there are many people who take care of others. The Good Samaritan, those friends with the paralysed man … so many are people who take care.

That’s the task we have. It is just what you do. It’s what we are about. And we share that with many, many people. And yet, taking care of people, giving time to people, simple acts of kindness, graciousness, care … are things we cannot take for granted. Because sometimes they are not there.

Last week I posed the question … why care? What is it that motivates us in our care? There are all sorts of ways of responding to that question. There is something in our basic humanity that makes us care. It goes right to the heart of our Christian faith as well.

I was drawn to the story of Paul as it unfolds in Acts and the moment when he heard the news of a famine situation over in Jerusalem when he was more than 1000 miles away in Macedonia, how he was prompted to organise a collection and take it at great personal risk to himself back to Jerusalem.

Fascinating to re-construct the story of Paul in Acts but then put alongside that the letters – and you see the thinking behind what it was Paul did. And we looked at the thinking Paul has on giving.

Why Care? It’s not a matter of rules and regulations. It is not that we love and work hard at caring in order to please God – it is a response to the love that God has first shown us. Look to the love of Christ – and in response to that love is a longing to share that love with others, to make a difference for good. Each is to do that as they are able, from those who have to those who are in need – a principle of sharing that love that God pours on us.

How do you keep that kind of care going?

How do you keep at it?

How do you keep going in care?

The first thing we do in our church visitors meeting is to think of the people who make up the church family – we work through the visiting districts and think of the people who make up the church family. We have in our church family now 38 people who are over 80, not a few of whom are still very active in visiting in caring in the church family. How do you keep going? How do you stick at it?

The last part of our evening each time we focus on one area of pastoral care to strengthen our understanding of what it is we are about in caring. It was great this time that Kate who is on our steering group for the pastoral care scheme, was able to step in and share some insights in her particular area of expertise as now a consultant working with the NHS in Hereford drug and substance abuse. It was great to share Kate’s insights – help in the littlest of ways is so valuable, every tiny success to be celebrated. Thought-provoking when asked are there addictive personalities, no, was Kate’s response – not so much addictive personalities as addictive substances. Start from an acceptance of people – non-judgemental – that’s where Jesus starts accepting us as we are and working with us from there. Good to be able to refer people on. All sorts of agencies. And among them the ones with a 12-step programme. Not for everyone but helpful to many. We host two groups that follow that 12-step programme that originated with Alcoholics Anonymous – and it was great when they arrived in the church to have Kate’s wisdom in guiding us in the way we should be welcoming of those groups.

It begins by acknowledging the need of help and then moves on to seek a strength and a power from outside ourselves.

That’s an element of that programme I find fascinating. It was moving to be invited to sit in on one of their sessions and to see how seriously they took that turning to a strength from outside ourselves.

But that’s not just something for that situation alone

I think it is an insight for all of us that can be helpful. How often do people in dire circumstances speak of finding a strength they did not think they had.

I think it is a fascinating insight that Paul has in other letters of his that he wrote.

Early on in his ministry, during the very first missionary journey he took he wrote a letter to the Galatians. It’s all about freedom and the way faith, getting to know Christ and all he stands for is not a burden, but it’s a real sense of freedom. But it’s not the freedom that can do what you like regardless of the cost to others, it’s a freedom that honours others and enriches all.

Paul did not want to think of the Christian way of life as a set of rules that places a burden on you. But at the same time he was one for lists. And towards the end of his letter he comes up with a list of those things that go to the heart of the Christian way of life, of Christian values. That underpin the kind of caring that is so important.

I think his list says it all – and makes you think. There are nine things, Paul suggests that it takes if we are to be caring, the kind of people who will make a difference. It starts with love, that kind of selfless concern for others that’s the be all and end all. It’s not a burden. It’s a joy. Not a grudging caring, one that enjoys caring. It’s a caring that has about it a tranquillity, a serenity, a peace. To be caring calls for patience, kindness, generosity. You need to stick at it – faithfulness and commitment are important. You need a gentleness – and an ability to control your own reactions – a self-control.

Think of any kind of caring commitment we need to have and those are the kind of things that we need.

How can we muster them. That’s the insight that to me is so precious from Paul. It is not something we can generate from within ourselves. Important though it is to have the kind of training and deepening of understanding that Kate shared with us on Thursday, it’s not something you can work up. Paul regards these nine things as the fruit of the Spirit.

Our Christian faith directs us to the God of creation who is as close to us as can be. Our faith finds its focus in Jesus Christ who opens up for us a way of life to follow and gives us that sense that God is a forgiving God always there to enable us to start over again. But then God gives us a strength from beyond ourselves – a spirit. Yes, do the training. Yes learn about caring. Yes, develop these virtues. But then rest in God and recognise there is a strength of God working in you and let that Spirit work with you.

Let’s hear what Paul had to say about the fruit of the Spirit.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

I notice that the fruit of the Spirit is one of those collective nouns. Sometimes people talk of the fruits of the Spirit. No. This is the fruit of the Spirit – it is this range of things the Spriit produces in each one of us. You cannot pick and mix and choose which of these fruits you want – for this is the fruit of God’s working in us – the whole range.

All of us as we rest in God’s spirit need to cultivate the whole range of this fruit.

But we are at the same time individual. Each of us is different. And we need to rejoice in that rich diversity that God has given us. So it is much later in the third of those journeys that Paul enters into correspondence with the church in Corinth. There he talks of the rich variety of different things people do – take a church family and we all have different gifts.

The very word Paul uses for gifts is an interesting one – it has a play on words that is lost in translation.

The Greek word he uses for grace –that wonderful free gift of God’s love is charis.

Think of grace as the free gift of God’s love that is given to us.

You can add a suffix, two letters to the end of the word ‘grace’ and that signifies what grace works as it is at work deep wihin our hearts. So Charis becomes ‘charis-ma’

But that’s difficult to translate into English. It becomes just the ordinary –gifts’ or ‘spiritual gifts’.

But it is the simple idea of the grace of God working it’s way through us and out in the things that we do.

And that happens differently in each one of us. For there is this wonderfully rich variety of ways that grace works its way out of us in that rich variety of gifts.

He lists quite a number – other lists are given.

1 Cortinhains 12

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
One Body with Many Members
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Each of us has particular gifts that we are to use … but we are to recognise that these too are gifts that come from God – which then we can develop and enrich – and use for the common good.

The fruit of the Spirit is something for all of us – these are the qualities we need, this is what it takes to live a life of caring for one another, to be care-takers. But it’s not what we generate, it’s what God’s spirit and strength produces in us.

Then let’s recognise we are all different – recognise that again the gifts we have don’t come from our own making, but are the gifts of God – and they are to be honed, developed, built up, and then used for the common good.

Hoe do you make it as a care-taker? How do you keep going? Draw on that strength that comes from beyond ourselves build up those gifts the spirit has given and produce from deep within the fruit of the Spirit in that love, joy peace and patience, that kindness, generosity, faithfulness and gentleness, that self-control that can make all the difference.

Why Care?

2011-10-16T14:29:00.002+01:00

The news that came out this week about the lack of care given to so many older people in our hospitals was pretty shocking. One response was given by Joan Bakewell, who has acted as a champion for older people in all sorts of policy-making.

How important it is to have as part of our inner being a longing to care for people, generosity, kindness. Joan Bakewell went on to ask where we get that spirit from. She said she had got that from going to Sunday School. Where do children get it today? That’s what makes what we as churches do with children and young people growing up around us so important.

What prompts us to do what we do is not just because it says so in the Bible. It is not just because that’s what we’ve got to do that. These are not just principles or values that we must uphold.

I think it’s fascinating to see how the Bible is made up the stories of real-life people who were grappling with a very troubled world – and we can learn from their experiences in that very real world principles that we should follow in today’s world.

On Thursday we shall have our visitors meeting which is what underpins the pastoral care we share as a church family. Today we start our commitment to Operation Christmas Child.. At communion we support Listening Post, Gloucestershire’s Christian counselling service.

Why? Why is giving time to pastoral care important? Why do we need to support a Christian counselling service open to anyone and everyone? In a time of austerity why should we bother with children on the other side of the world that don’t have anything? Why should we be passionate about our care of older people and committed to the care of the youngest?

What is it that motivates us?

I draw the principle that that is important not just from what it tells me in the Bible –I draw it from the way in which the people of the Bible grappled with just the same kind of problem.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the story of Paul.

It’s a story powerfully told in the book of Acts. From his first appearance on the scene at the martyrdom of Stephen as he stands by as Stephen is stoned to death, through his conversion on the Road to Damascus, to his travels spreading the wonderful good news of Jesus Christ all around the Mediterranean world, to his arrest in Jerusalem, his imprisonment in Caesarea and then his final voyage to Rome under arrest. At which point the story ends in mid air.

That’s a story told in the Book of Acts. But then the next 13 books of the New Testament are the letters that Paul wrote. What’s fascinating is that you can tie in the letters to the story that unfolds in Acts. Do that and in the end it becomes quite an exciting and tense story.

It is as Paul is visiting and re-visiting the cities of modern-day Greece in Macedonia, and Corinth that he becomes aware of terrible hardship that the followers of Jesus and many other people are experiencing on the other side of the Mediterranean in and around Jerusalem and Judea.

Paul is galvanised into action. And he determines to organise a collection around the churches in and around Greece. Someone is delegated as the treasurer who will look after the money.

Then it is that Paul has cause to write to the Christians in Corinth … and he talks about the collection he is making. He is thrilled to bits at the response the churches in Macedonia has made … and now he asks the churches in Corinth to match it.

2 Corinthians 8:1-7

Our brothers and sisters, we want you to know what God's grace has accomplished in the churches in Macedonia.

2 They have been severely tested by the troubles they went through; but their joy was so great that they were extremely generous in their giving, even though they are very poor.

3 I can assure you that they gave as much as they could, and even more than they could. Of their own free will 4 they begged us and pleaded for the privilege of having a part in helping God's people in Judea.

5 It was more than we could have hoped for! First they gave themselves to the Lord; and then, by God's will they gave themselves to us as well.

6 So we urged Titus, who began this work, to continue it and help you complete this special service of love.

You are so rich in all you have: in faith, speech, and knowledge, in your eagerness to help and in your love for us.

And so we want you to be generous also in this service of love.

You can almost hear them asking the question why? Why should we bother? They wouldn’t have known any of those other people at all.

Paul notices a joy they have in spite of themselves living in poverty and being sorely tested. He notices they are ‘extremely generous in giving’

But Paul goes right back to what is at the heart of the Christian faith for him.

It is Jesus Christ.

First, they gave themselves to the Lord.

That’s the starting point for what motivates us – we see something in Jesus Christ, not just his life and ministry way back, but his presence with us now.

First they gave themselves to the Lord, then they gave themselves to us as well.

What they shared was ‘a service of love’.

They may have lived in poverty but there was something in their spirit that made them ‘rich in all they had: in faith, speech, and knowledge, in eagerness to help and in this ‘service of love’.’

2 Corinthians 7:8-9

I am not laying down any rules. But by showing how eager others are to help, I am trying to find out how real your own love is.

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; rich as he was, he made himself poor for your sake, in order to make you rich by means of his poverty.

What is important for Paul is not the laying down of rules. You must do this, you must do that. But it is being drawn to Jesus Christ and then channelling the presence of Christ to others.

He thinks of the way Jesus who was one with God, humbled himself, gave up everything and become a slave – he came alongside us so that we with him could be raised up to God.

The way Jesus lives his life gives us a model for living ours. So, Paul urges the people in Corinth to give as much as they can. And that is the operative word. These are not people in Corinth who had grown up with the Hebrew Scriptures where the principle of the tithe was common. So Paul goes back to first principles. And the principle he works out is one that is very much to the fore right through to today.

2 Corinthians 7:10-15

My opinion is that it is better for you to finish now what you began last year. You were the first, not only to act, but also to be willing to act. 11 On with it, then, and finish the job!

Be as eager to finish it as you were to plan it, and do it with what you now have. 12 If you are eager to give, God will accept your gift on the basis of what you have to give, not on what you haven't.

13-14 I am not trying to relieve others by putting a burden on you; but since you have plenty at this time, it is only fair that you should help those who are in need. Then, when you are in need and they have plenty, they will help you. In this way both are treated equally. 15 As the scripture says, “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”

Giving is not a burden – it is something to be ‘eager’ about.

Then give ‘as you are able’ – give with a real eagerness of heart ‘on the basis of what you have to give, not on what you haven’t’.

It is not a matter of placing a burden on people. ‘Since you have plenty at this time, it is only fair that you should help those who are in need. Then, when you are in need and they have plenty, they will help you. In this way you are treated equally.”

Isn’t that a great principle!

One thing more I notice when I read through this story.

At the heart of Paul’s message is a little word. Grace.

It means the free gift of God’s love.

That’s the exciting thing at the heart of our faith. Loving others isn’t the way you win God’s approval. God first loves us. And that is grace.

So we as Christians receive God’s gift of love, God’s Grace.

That little word is one of the most important words in the whole of the Christian faith. But if we receive God’s gift of grace, the free gift of love, we should be people of grace – who give our love freely and make very real expressions of that love.

That becomes a work of grace.

All that those churches in Macedonia have done so generously is seen by Paul in verse 1 to be what God’s grace has accomplished.

God’s grace starts with Jesus Christ – you see that in verse 9. For us as Christians what motivates us is not any end product, not the thought that if we do this then the world will change. What motivates us is that this is what Jesus Christ has done … “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; rich as he was, he made himself poor for your sake, in order to make you rich by means of his poverty.”

What we do then is to share the free gift of God’s love in every practical way we can. Because this is the very nature of the gift of God’s love that we have received. As we have received so freely, so we are to give freely.

In this way all are treated equally … and as the Scripture says, The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”

From Darkness to Glory via the Cross

2011-10-09T13:33:00.001+01:00

There is something wonderful about colour.

Colours capture the imagination; colours touch us deep down; colours stir the emotions. They can move us in strange and wonderful ways.

I found myself on Tuesday evening in a church full of colour. The Greek Orthodox Community in Gloucestershire met for worship at St Luke’s church until a few years ago when they purchased a redundant Anglican parish church in the village of Bentham. They have transformed it. Sitting on new, wooden bench like seats with arms, that were not the most comfortable, we were surrounded by a rich explosion of colour - chandeliers from the ceiling, beautiful icons rich with their golds and many colours surrounding us on all walls. We come from a tradition that heeds the word of God and has plain walls in our place of worship. I like the quiet, and the stillness of our place of worship – but gone are the days when I would disparage those of another Christian tradition for their love of colour.

I delight in that colour too.

In the last couple of months the Russian Orthodox community of Gloucestershire have joined the Greek Orthodox in that Bentham church – their reich liturgy adorned by wonderful colour. The colours that draw us through the icon into the presence of God. It is a glimpse of the communion of saints singing their praises in the glory of heaven.

One hundred and more years ago, one of the great artists of the early twentieth century worshpped in just such a setting. In his studio he had icons that were dear to him. He gloried in colour.

Colours filled his life … so much so that he could hear colours.

Exactly 100 years ago he published his treatise ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’ in which he developed his thinking about art, colour and the emotions.

He had, many suppose a condition, or is it a capacity that Richard Sharpe introduced me to, called Synasthesia.

For Wassily Kandinsky there was something profoundly spiritual in the colours he delighted in. Art is not just about depicting a form, in fact it is much more than that. It is something that touches the emotions very deep down … and it is the colours themselves that have that capacity.

At first I was very disparaging about his art. It was one of our own young people then a regular at Hy-Tec, Janet and Steve Brown’s daughter, Jacqui who changed my way of thinking entirely. She was at the time doing an art foundation course and studying Kankinsky. Jacqui prompted me to think again, and to see with new eyes.

I began to appreciate Kandinsky’s art, but had no inkling how much of it was related to the Bible until I went to a remarkable exhibition of his work at Tate Modern.

I want to invite you to stand with me in one particular place in the art gallery.

To my left I could see the what Kandinsky called ‘Composition Number 6’.

It is an enormous canvas, no reproduction can do the original justice.

It is a mass of lines and shapes and above all colours.

But the colours are dark. Menacing. Filled with foreboding. He calls the piece ‘Composition’ because it echoes the composition of a piece of music. The colours can be heard, look at the canvas and they resonate deep within you. And the way they sound is disturbing, unsettling.

He links Composition number 6 with the deluge, the flood.

It prompts me to turn again to the Biblical narrative. And what I find is very different from the remembered story of Noah and the animals who went in two by two.

It opens in a world torn apart by violence.

Wickedness had taken over humanity. every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually

These stories are not seeking to explain the beginning of things. This is a story on a massive scale that has something to say to every generation. It has something to say to our generation. Because that’s what the world is like. Tragically, there are moments when it seems that’s what humanity is like. It’s dark. It’s menacing. It’s filled with foreboding. Ten years into an unwinnable war in Afghanistan with deaths of young men and women from this country being reported each week, injuries going un-noticed, and 10,,000 Afghanistan casualties in the last four years alone. There is a violence that is deeply disturbing.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth.

And what happens? There is a flood.

19The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; 20the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

What’s happened is that the beautiful colours of the wonderful creation of God have completely gone – all that can be seen is the darkness and the gloom of the raging waters.

Tragically, this is a world we can recognise. It was the world Kandinsky could see around him. And it is a profoundly disturbing world. Art can bring home to you just how disturbing it is.

That struck me on Friday morning as I was taking a group of Year 6 families around Pittville. We had arrived in the Art room. And on the wall some powerful, disturbing art work. One in particular quite small – a collage depicting the map of Africa and by its side a famine-stricken child of Africa. Powerful enough, I would not have thought again about it. But one of the parents had stopped, and found it hard to go on. The picture moved her almost to tears. And she said so.

Art brings home how profoundly disturbing our world is. And that’s what this narrative from the Bible does in Genesis 6. And that’s what the cacophony of colours in Kandinsky’s Composition number 6 brings home.

Hold on to that picture for a moment. See the picture, hear the disturbing troubled, discordant music.

And now stand on that spot and cast your eye round to the right – and on the wall in the right is Composition 7. The lines, the shapes, the scale of the canvas are all much the same.

But the colours are different. No reproduction can do them justice. There is a glow to the picture, a golden glow of many, many rich colours. It has the feel almost of an icon drawing you into the divine, drawing you into the very presence of God in all his glory. And it is the glory of God that Kandinsky is inviting us not just to glory in but to feel deep down as the most joyful of emotions well up in side us.

Kandinsky invites us to link this picture with the last book of the Bible, with Revelation. For me it is a connection that brings us to glory. There is something wonderfully rich about the narrative of the Bible – from the start it holds u[ a mirror to the reality of a world of violence, a world we know all too well. But it holds out something beyond that world that we can look to. A hope that is firm and real.

And so we turn to the Book of Revelation and what do we see in Revelation 21. A new heaven and a new earth come down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband, where there will be no more crying, no more pain. And what is this new heaven and this new earth like?

Then one of the seven angels carried me away in the spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates,

The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls.

The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth cornelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.

These are the colours of Kandinsky’s Composition number 7.

What a wonderful glory.

Come back with me to that spot in Tate Modern.

To the left we see on the far wall the deluge and the awfulness of a world of violence where all colour is gone.

To the right we see on the far wall the glory and sheer brilliance of a new creation filled with unimaginable colours.

How do we get from Composition number 6 and the awfulness of this world to Composition number 7 and the glory of the new heaven and the new earth.

In front of us in the middle is a cathedral like window, for Tate Modern is in the Bank Power Station designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Liverpools’ Anglican cathedral. We are looking through a cathedral window down on to the millennium bridge, straight across the Thames, between the houses opposite and over to St Paul’s. And high above its central dome, one metre higher than the chimney astride Tate Modern, is the cross. And it feels as if people are walking from where we stand to the foot of the cross.

It is as God, the God of creation, comes alongside suffering humanity and takes on humanity in all its frailty in Christ, and goes to the cross that we can sense that we are not alone in this world of violence that so often can overwhelm. For as God took upon himself our humanity, so he invites us to take upon ourselves his divinity. For on the cross we see that that violence, that suffering, the sheer awfulness of a world that overwhelms does not have the last word. There is a resurrection victory that as we turn to Christ and put our faith in him we too can share.

How do we move from that world of violence to that vision of glory – only as we come to the cross. And as we do that so we find a path mapped out for us that will lead us through the world as it is to the glory that is nothing less than a new creation.

Remind me, Lord, says a prayer Pat shared with me later that Friday as she anticipated going into Frenchay for major surgery on Wednesday, Remind me, Lord, that real hope is when I can’t see the end of the road, but still trust you to lead me there.

Pause for Reflection

For a few moments I want to pause for us to share in a reflection accompanied by Richard Sharpe on the organ. Look first at the bleakness of Kandinsky’s art, bring to mind the violence of humanity at its worst as in the biblical flood all colour goes from God’s creation. In his organ playing Richard will capture the discordant darkness that we see in the art and sense in the world around us.

Look then to the cross and find in Jesus Christ the One who comes alongside us in our suffering, and draws us deep within God in his glory.

We then move from the darkness towards the glory as Richard takes us to the last part of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in this centenary year of the death of Mahler. The gentleness of what is described by Mahler as Urlicht, Primeval Light, takes us to the three days leading up to Resurrection.

Our eyes turn to the central view of St Paul’s, and we are taken to the foot of the cross and towards the Resurrection.

With a great triumphant chord on the organ we lead then into the climax to Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony as the words of resurrection would be sung by the choir appear in translation on the screen.

Die I shall, so as to live!
Rise again,
yes rise again you shall, my heart, in an instant!
What you have struck out for, to God, to God,
to God it will carry you!

Bringing Heaven Down to Earth

2011-10-04T11:17:00.002+01:00

These are rough notes of a sermon preached on Sunday, 2nd October, as we shared in the Sacrament of Baptism as Emma and Carl brough Dylan to be baptised.

How do you get into heaven?

Wrong question.

How does heaven get into you?

Much more exciting.

It’s not about us getting from this life on earth into some life hereafter in heaven, it’s about bringing heaven down to earth, right into the lives we lead here on earth.

So what is heaven?

Not a place

Deep within, all around, beyond … it is where and when all is well, where God’s presence is all around, where God’s will for good prevails

It is a spiritual dimension, it is if you like the God dimension.

How do you know what God is like, what God’s will is, what it’s like when God’s presence is real, when God rules, when God’s will prevails?

The accumulated wisdom of 1500 years in stories, poems, experiences shared by people that have come together in the Bible and culminate in the story of Jesus Christ – in him this spiritual dimension of God –

Teaching – love God, love neighbour
Bringing healing where there is hurting
Alongside us through a hurting world

Opens up for us a way of understanding God - a loving God – spiritual dimension is filled with love.

He gave us words to sum up that experience.

The Lord’s prayer

Our Father who art in heaven

God as a loving father – whose realm is in that spiritual dimension which is deep within, all around and far beyond all space and far beyond all time

Hallowed be thy name

Hallowed – special – this is something different – this is something to honour to make a difference. Someone I can get to know and honour

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.

That’s the exciting bit.

It’s not a prayer – dear God help us to get to heaven

No

It’s a prayer that God’s rule, God’s will be done here on earth, in the everyday world around us, just as it is in heaven, in that spiritual realm, that spiritual dimension God’s rule, God’s will to be done here on earth just as it is in heaven, all we think of in that spiritual realm, that spiritual dimension – the prayer is that that should be made real here on earth.

It is made real in Jesus …

God’s love is made real for all of us …

Celebrate God’s dimension coming to us – in a babe – but then in the hope that that will shape the life this little one lives.

What will that look like?

That’s where it is the responsibility of each one of us to live out this God dimension in our lives -

In personal living and in family life, in the work place and in the world around us – where each person counts, everyone matters, respect and honouring each person, all based around love for God and love for neighbour.

We are also called to play our part, however small that may be in shaping the world around us - the way society and the world around us works. We play our part in doing that wherever we are – and in whatever way …

Church family in what we do – in August we collect for Christian Aid’s emergency appeal for those affected by famine in East Africa …

But in September we moved on leading up to our Harvest collection to support a fascinating sustainable agriculture project called Send A Cow – enabling tiny-scale farmers not only to build their own livelihood but also pass on all they have gained to others too – in Uganda, Kenya, and a number of other African countries.

And then this month we turn to support a local counselling service run through the churches called Listening Post – meeting particular needs.

This is all about bringing heaven down to earth …

As we then bring heaven down to earth that God-dimension becomes at the heart of all we do and becomes part of us … and that is not bounded by dying – for that God dimension is deep within, all around and beyond all we are and all we do.

Transforming Joy - Send A Cow

2011-09-25T13:57:00.003+01:00

Our harvest collection this year is shared between Highbury's Mission and Send a Cow. During the first part of our service we learned about Send a Cow and its support of sustainable agriculture in Africa.

There is a rhythm to the year as the seasons pass into each other. The last Sunday of September we mark as a celebration of the goodness of God’s creation. The harvests safely gathered in, the fields are now being ploughed, ploughing competitions being held this year. As one agricultural year finishes so another starts. For Jewish people this marks the start of a New Year. And in many ways it’s like that for me. In the Autumn we mark God’s creation, at Christmas the way God comes alongside us in Jesus and shares our humanity. On Good Friday we mark the way God in Christ shares in the suffering of humanity at its worst and at Easter the way we too can share in that Resurrection Victory that Jesus won. And then Pentecost is the reminder that we are not alone – there is a strength from beyond ourselves that we can draw on in the Holy Spirit of God.

And then the summer over we come back to harvest and that celebration of the goodness of God’s creation.

But it’s not possible to share in the goodness of God’s creation without being concerned about God’s world, and the very great needs of people around us. That’s why at harvest we link up with County Community Projects and seek to replenish the food stocks they need to give people food parcels. We also have a special collection that we share between Highbury’s mission with its focus on our children’s worker and an international project that enables us to share our resources with others in need.

It was Phil Arnold who this year suggested we should support Send A Cow. Another of our members was very excited when she heard that was what we were supporting.

Well over 20 years ago – maybe 23 years ago or longer Pat Kimber and her husband, Ron, were worshipping at St Philip’s and St James’ Church in Bath. As she recalled it was a farmer from Peasdown St John and his wife started attending the church.

The church had already had links with Africa through their Vicar, Alan Bayne. It was through those conversations that Send a Cow was started.

Looking to the web site the farmers took up the story – they recalled that at the time they were faced with a dilemma. For many years they had been encouraged to increase their productivity. And then came a directive that they had to cut back their production. Quotas were introduced. And they had to shoot as many as thirty cows from a herd.

At a time when so many in the world were starving, that seemed wrong.

And so it was they explored the possibility of actually sending cows to Africa. Through contacts they had they made contact with a ministry in Uganda. And Send a Cow was born.

The idea was to help small farmers on a very small scale by giving them a cow. Amazingly, the idea took off. The support of small farmers has grown through half a dozen other African countries, Ethiopia, Kenya … sometimes with seed, sometimes with livestock – all if it now sourced from within Africa, funded by Send a Cow. And now another reasonably local farmer is Patron, the Prince of Wales.

Working in collaboration with local people, they have developed a set of values that emphasise the importance of the small farmer, farming in a way that is sustainable in their own community.

They serve people of any faith and of no faith … but their roots are firmly in that Christian inspiration that was at the heart of those conversations between that farming family and that vicar in the church Pat Kimber and her husband belonged to.

They draw our attention to three stories from the Bible that get to the heart of what they are about … and to one verse. Those three stories and that verse seem to me to speak to us all today.

The first story takes us on to the hills just above the North west corner of the Sea of Galilee – a crowd of 5000 people are hungry. Someone is prepared to share their loaves and two fish – Jesus blesses them and everyone eats their fill.

Send a Cow have seen a ‘phenomenon’ which they call ‘The multiplier effect’. As families become farmers – and often their own bosses – others naturally want to share in their success. This means that every person who is helped by Send a Cow passes on knowledge and skills to around another nine family members, friends or neighbours.

It’s such a simple principle … and it is so exciting to see the difference it has made through Send a Cow working on a tiny scale with very small family farms.

That simple principle is something for us to take to heart. The world’s problems are so immense it is so easy to throw the towel in – what difference can we make. Through that one boy’s tiny offering so many were helped that day by Jesus. Maybe we should each of us think of just some small thing we could each do this coming week – think of the multiplier effect that could have around us. That makes a real difference.

The second story takes just south from Galilee to the region of Samaria and to a woman who is by a well, but has nothing to draw water with. Jesus approaches her and breaks through a number of taboos – a man, he speaks with this woman, something that the law forbade; a Jewish man, he speaks with this Samaritan woman although Jewish and Samaritan people were at loggerheads. The woman was a woman in despair, a woman without hope, a woman whose life had fallen apart. The woman gets not just water from the well, but the conversation with Jesus touches her very deeply – she has some pretty big personal problems that Jesus gets to the heart of. It is as if she has spiritual water to quench her spiritual thirst. Jesus gives her hope. He sent a Samaritan woman away with a new life and rescued her from failure giving her hope.

Jesus goes to the root of her problem and gives her hope. How important it is for us to go to the root of the world’s problems and address root causes of injustice and poverty – Send A Cow’s values do just that.

But then the woman does something remarkable. She goes back to her own village and passed on what she had received – she didn’t keep it to herself – she passed on the message of hope.

Send a Cow has its own Pass it On system. Every family who receives a gift from them promises to pass on a gift to another family in need. Whether it’s the first female calf, seeds, saplings or skills, each gift starts a chain of giving that continues to grow and grow. Importantly they become donors themselves, restoring their dignity and pride..

So Send a Cow seeks to deal with the root cause of people’s hunger and poverty and not just the symptoms. To offer them a ‘hand-up’ rather than a ‘hand-out’. It seeks to rescue them in such a way that they have real life changing and permanent hope - sustainability. The families who have received start to give to others in their community.
• They were receivers. Now they become givers.
• Some of the animals that are born are not kept - they are given away.
• So the chain continues.

The gift we discover is a gift to pass on to others – is there someone we could pass the message of God’s hope on to?

And the third Bible story takes us to the third day after Jesus had been crucified. And two of his friends are walking the seven miles to Emmaus … utterly in despair. And then someone joins them they don’t recognise. They invite him in for a meal. And in the breaking of bread they recognise it is the risen Jesus. Their despair is taken away and their outlook on the future is completely transformed.

This is the practical mission of Send a Cow, providing the resources for Transforming Joy as people are not only fed but equipped to help others to follow their experience and find a similar joy. Not only by passing on knowledge through the Pass it On principle and the multiplier effect, but also by becoming peer farmers themselves. Farmers who become exceptional at what they do are asked to help train other farmers in neighbouring groups. Helping to spread the knowledge quicker and to more and more people.

The joy of our Harvest celebrations can reverberate around the world through the life changing training given, seeds grown and animals provided. Send a Cow seeks daily to rescue people from hunger, to take them from sadness to joy and from despair to hope and self-sufficiency, in the most practical of ways.

It is wonderful to see that when some of those original farmers who had started the ball rolling all those years ago returned to Uganda recently they met with some of the very first people to receive a cow - how good to see that 23 years on that tiny initiative has made a world of difference to those people!

Three stories that have been an inspiration to Send a Cow and transformed people’s lives.

And there’s one verse.

That takes us back to that Bible reading we had earlier …

‘Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up’. Galatians 6:9

We need to keep at it. Pat has been very much in our prayers as she awaits major surgery in Frenchay. What she shared with me is what keeps her going … and maybe it’s something we could well do as well.

Each day she turns a page in a calendar and in abook which contain Bible verses and a prayer.

I copied out the verses and the prayer that will keep Pat going today …

September 25th

Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flows the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23

And then a prayer and a verse –

The Rain of His Spirit.

Thank Him for the storms
That break open the dry, parched ground
and allow the renewing rain of His Spirit to pour into our lives.
It’s the weight of the wind,
And the force of the storm
That make deep sturdy roots and strong solid trees.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. Jeremiah 17:7-8

[From B.J.Holf, God’s Abundant Love – One Minute Devotions]

Introducing Street Pastors

2011-09-18T13:12:00.002+01:00

Nigel Bennet of Cheltenham Street Pastors joined us to speak about Street Pastors. He was joined by Andy and Mary who spoke of their experience of Street Pastors.

One of our Prayer Pastors, Lyn, spoke movingly of a tragedy in her own family with a young student many years ago during Freshers week. How important it was, she said, to offer the support that Street Pastors offer. Lyn and Ivy both are committed to praying for Street Pastors each Friday and Saturday evening as they go out on the streets.

We then went on to share in a reflection on the importance of prayer ...

It’s great to have a mission focus on Street Pastors – and the call is there for us hear – do take the opportunity to chat with Nigel or one of the Street Pastors and put it into God’s hands.

One thing to share with Nigel and the others – it’s also something for all of us to take with us from here – the words of Ephesians 1:15-23

That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the Christians, --- I couldn't stop thanking God for you--every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks.

The importance of prayer – and prayer that starts with thanks to God …

I couldn't stop thanking God for you--every time I prayed

Prayer is wonderful because from thanks we can make our requests known to God …

But I do more than thank. I ask

Signing up people as Street Pastors but also Prayer Pastors. We have two people who do that – Ivy Saddler and Lyn Horne. Prayer that is informed … there is a value in keeping a note – planning our prayer. Something shared by the Street Pastors – one way they do that is by emailing …

Street Pastors email …

The value of keeping a notebook, a journal or a diary …

There is something very powerful in such prayer.

But I do more than thank. I ask--ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory--to make you wise and discerning in knowing him personally, --- your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, --- oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him--endless energy, boundless strength!

The power of prayer is not only a power in itself … it is also energising.

All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, --- in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. --- He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. --- The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. --- The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

That is what we can each take from this service. Maybe it’s to keep up the work of Street Pastors, maybe it is to keep up what it is we are called to do, maybe it is to get going in a new venture – new school – especially thinking of Sharon about to start her degree course at the Uni

All this energy issues from Christ:

Not in our own strength – but in the strength that comes from Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit of God working deep within us.

The Basics

2011-09-16T09:03:00.001+01:00

A sermon preached by Shirley Fiddimore at Highbury on Sunday, 11th September 2011

When I was asked some time ago to take this Service I felt complimented, but also apprehensive not having taken one for about 18 months or so. I wasn't given a theme , so I prayed and sought inspiration as to the topic/theme I could share with you.

As a matter of interest Google informs me that:

There are 1,189 Chapters in the Bible, and 31,103 verses, so I had a vast choice. Should I open the Bible at random and start reading; maybe that would be a starting point. I decided not to.

My mind went back to the course I attended in Nottingham many years ago. Richard is there this weekend teaching and developing Church ministries to candidates nation wide. It was there that I remembered a particular debate considering Who Jesus was? Similar to the discussions we have at the Alpha Course here in Highbury. A group of us discusssed and commented on how Artist around the world visually perceived and portrayed Jesus. We were shown paintings by current Artists from Japan, Korea, Turkey, and India, also by one from Europe. It was facinating to see the Jesus of all nationalities. I wondered if there was material I could expound on from this.

After a while it came to me, that at this stage of my journey, I 'd like to share something simple but meaningful; When I say simple, I mean simple to understand. Over the years, l Have read many Commentories on Books of the Bible. Had many discussions, and theological debates on how accurate it is; and, do we take it literally; how do we interpret various passages; and does it apply to us today?

The simple but powerful Truths I decided to share is the very reason the Bible is Holy and inspirational, and IS appropriate for today. I know that every Sermon should have 3 points, and as I wanted to share exactly 3 profound statements I came to the conclusion that perhaps I was going in the right direction.

The statements are the essence of our Faith and applies to every one; though I have personalised it.

1. Jesus came to earth, died and rose again for me.

2. I have been freed from sin and slavery, and have eternal life.

3. I have been given the Holy Spirit as my Helper.

As I said it is simple to understand but take these three Truths away from the Holy Bible then, it would be a History Book. There would be no teaching, direction or purpose - just constant wars and claiming of land in the early centuries, no Prophets, in fact simply no Hope in life or death.

These 3 facts ARE the basics of our Faith, and why we are here today. ALSO the basics of Faith of all Christians in the past, and will be, in future generations.

We celebrate Communion regularly to remember these miracles. Whatever we may forget over the years, and you will agree we do, and will, especially as years pass and we become older, and life seems to gets busier!

Sometimes I ask friends to remind me the theme of the previous Sunday's Service, and like me, they struggle to remember, which makes me feel better! This is nothing to do with Richard's excellent Sermons, of course, but rather that we are mortal beings, and can only comprehend and retain information for approximately 5 to 7 minutes in any one talk. The idea of discussing the Sermon at lunch immediately after the Service, appeals to me as was mentioned in the Church Meeting recently.

These 3 facts will remain in our minds for ever, because, It is a personal revelation, and Good News to be shared. I think we are starved of GOOD NEWS. The World News does not bring joy or happiness but does prompt us pray. Today we remember those attending the Memorial Service in New York which we will be focussing on in our Prayers of Concern.

Personally, I find it easier to share good news than sad news. Jesus tells his disciples (that is you and I) in Matthew: "Go then to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples; Baptize them in the name of the Father., the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age. What a comforting promise!

We will have an opportunity to invite friends and neighbours to Back to Church Sunday. This however, should be our life long mission and not necessarily confined to one day in the year.

In the first reading that Matthew read; Isaiah of the Old Testament, lived in the 8th century BC, in Judah he prophesied the birth and mission of Jesus 8 centuries before! Not 8yrs, or even 8/9 months but 8centuries!! In Chapter 7 v 14 he prophesied, and we read this at Advent; "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign; Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, His name will be Immanuel, which means "God is with us". This was Good News to the divided society of that day. It brought HOPE and encouragement to those expecting and awaiting the Messiah.

In the second reading we heard Jesus speaking that prophecy of Isaiah himself. He stood up to read the Scriptures in the Synagogue and was handed the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has chosen me to bring
good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed
and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people.
Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.All the people in the Synagogue had their eyes fixed on him as he said to them. "THIS PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE HAS COME TRUE TODAY, AS YOU HEARD IT BEING READ.

This was the first public acknowledgement of Jesus being Divine. He understood and recognised his Mission on Earth: though it was not understood by many.

John the Baptist had that inner perception and knowledge from God Who Jesus was.

So did Simeon who was in the Temple when Joseph and Mary presented Jesus as their first-born to be dedicated to the Lord, as was the custom at that time.

There was also a Prophetess, a widow named Anna, who was 84 yrs old, who spent most of her time in the Temple Worshipping God. As soon as she saw Jesus she gave thanks to God and spoke about the Child to all who were waiting for God to set Jerusalem free.

It is clear that John the Baptist, Simeon and Anna all had the gift of discernment. We talk about gifts of the Spirit. Discernment is a rare and valuable gift. It is one of Wisdom. We can recognise each others gifts more readily than or own. It appears that those who spend much time in Worship, waiting upon and listening to the Lord, could be blessed with the gift of Discernment as was Simeon and Anna.

In responding to the Great Commission to all disciples, we will need discernment. We will need to know when to listen, when to be silent, when to speak, and when to share the good news.

If we are equipped and believe in these 3 statements, our chances of being discerning, sensitive and considerate when we share the Good News to our friends and neighbours will be successful.

I noticed that in these statements we have the main events in The Church Year.

1. Jesus came to earth; died and rose again
Came at Christmas! Died - Good Friday and rose again - Easter

2. I have been freed from sin, slavery/obsessions and I have eternal life.

3. I have been given the Holy Spirit as my my Helper.
And the Holy Spirit is Pentecost.

Before reading the 3 main points and a prayer for Guidance and Discernment written by Thomas of Aquinas in the 1200s which seems to consolidate what I've been talking about. I have one more piece of good news.

I have discovered, as I am now assisting Elizabeth Forbes to deliver Birthday cards and presents to Highbury members, that there are well over 40 members above the age of 80 yrs! So to enjoy a long and fruitful life stay with us in Highbury and mention it to your friends and neighbours!!

We conclude by reading together:
Jesus came to earth; died and rose again for me.
I have been freed from sin and slavery and I have eternal life.
I have been given the Holy Spirit as my Helper.

A Prayer for Guidance and Discernment

O Creator past all telling,
you have so beautifully set out the universe,
you are the true fount of wisdom
and the noble origin of all things.
Shed on the darkness of my mind
the beam and warmth of your light
to dispel my ignorance and sin.
Instruct my speech and touch my lips with
graciousness,
make me keen to understand, quick to learn,
and able to remember;
and keep me finely tuned,
to interpret you word,
for you are God for ever and ever.

People need Places

2011-09-04T20:26:00.000+01:00

It’s just the same for me in the summer as it is at Christmas and at Easter. I always think it’s going to be quieter afterwards. And it never is!

I guess it was anticipating the busy-ness of returning to the Holiday Club and its special service, Greenbbelt, Church Meeting and the start of an Autumn Programme, the first of our training weekends and then Harvest weekend, that prompted me to choose the theme I did for the first few services of this new session.

I wanted to look for some very practical ideas about the way prayer and spiritually can sustain us in the day to day round of what we do. Spirituality for busy people. I knew would be preaching to myself as much as to anyone else, and that is no bad thing! It seemed to connect with the troubles we had been so aware of through the summer.

As we have circulated our prayer concerns for one another in the couple of weeks since I have been back I have become very conscious that for some people the busyness they thrive on is taken away by health concerns. We have been remembering in our prayer John Wren, Minister of St Mark’s Methodist Church, a good friend and colleague, doing well after surgery and now about to start a progam of chemotherapy. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with Jonquil – how good to hear that she has had her operation – but a long period of recovery now before a new knee replacement can be put in in due course. Our thoughts and prayers have been with Pat Kimber, rarely missing a Sunday but now not able to get out as she awaits consultation and subsequent treatment at Frenchay. Our thoughts and prayers have been very much with Reg in the slow progress of his illness as he has moved into a nursing home.

Maybe a spirituality for busy people misses the mark. Or does it? It was a conversation I had with Pat that made me think differently. Maybe practical ideas for prayer and spirituality are important for us all whether we are busy, facing a forced period of inactivity, or just somewhere ib between.

If the theme of a fortnight ago was the Sacrament of the Present Moment.

Today it’s

People need Places

Just a few thoughts on the way we each of us can value a place where we can be still and seek the presence of God.

It was a dark, dismal, wet day when for the first time we visited Stone Henge. I was quite prepared for the crowds to spoil it for me. They didn’t. It is pretty awesome. Geology, astronomy, a sense of ‘the other’ – it’s all there. A very real sense of mystery. What was it for? Why was it built? For an ancient people a special place.

And on Anglesey a standing stone in the middle of a field. A cromlech – three upright stones balancing a cap stone on top – more than just a burial place. A special place, a holy place.

Seeing such things, my mind immediately goes to that story of Jacob.

Overwhelmed by a sense of the presence of God, what he does is in a different culture, with different meaning, and yet no less a sense of the other, what those other peoples had done far away in these islands.

Lying down to sleep he uses a stone for a pillow, and in his dream senses the reality of God and the wonder of all that God promises.

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’
So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel; - which means House of God.
The Burning Bush was holy ground, sacred space for Moses as he removed his shoes. In their wanderings the people of Israel valued the Tabernacle with its Holy of Holies, and later Solomon built a house for God, and the Temple became the focus for the presence of God.

When Herod tore down the old Temple building, and re-built it with untold splendour Jesus was affronted by it … my Father’s house should be a house of prayer and you have made it a den of thieves.

Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days, he said. And when he dies and rose again his followers sensed that it was no longer in stones and mortar but in the risen presence of Christ that God’s presence could be felt. A synagogue was no longer necessary – wherever two or three gather together there the presence of God is real, and God’s presence is there. Each believer is a temple for the holy Spirit, Paul says. Put believers together and as they come together it’s like the living stones and mortar that makes up a temple with Jesus himself the corner stone holding it all together.

It’s a short step then to say location is not important, places don’t matter. The church is people not buildings. And I have been the first to wax eloquent along those lines.

But wait a moment. When he was in Jerusalem Jesus did go to the Temple and valued something special there. It was his custom on the Sabbath to join in the synagogue as people gathered in a particular place to read the Scriptures. He seems to value the mountain top. He goes to a quiet place. In the bustle of the city with all its busyness he finds the quiet of the Garden of Gethsemane.

People need places.

Places that are special, places that are precious.

I want to suggest three places that we can look for and value as we seek the strengthening that comes from prayer and the presence of God.

First, a quiet place. Jesus went out into the mountains, to the hill side, to the Garden. Is there a place for us where we can have a sense of the presence of God – maybe on the top of the hill, a walk through the park, a space in the garden – maybe a place we have visited and sensed that something ‘other’. Good maybe to know the places we can have that sense of the ‘other’ – and there give thanks to God. And when we cannot visit it ourselves, visit it in our mind’s eye – maybe a photo to remind us, or simply an image deep within our minds.

Then there is the value of a place in the home. There’s a wonderful story about David which gives a glimpse of an ancient home- where there were ‘the household god’s there were some statues that were an aid to worship. Any Roman villa would have had its shrine to the Roman gods – it’s absolutely fascinating that it is in that shrine at Chedworth that there are the rough etchings of a chi-rho symbol. Was there at the time of Jesus a strong sense of the presence of God in a home – marked by something – that was the Roman culture – was it adopted and adapted by the followers of Jesus? Whether or not it is the home used by Jesus in Capernaum that first century house with its Christian inscriptions etched on the wall – is it an indication of the value of having something in the home that prompts the connection with God.

Maybe a cross – for me a picture of the praying hands, the light of the world both on the wall in one room of a house where I have lived since I was born. Part of me, a moment’s reminder. Something of value.

Is there something in the home that can remind us of the presence of Chrsit with us, the power of prayer, his light coming into our lives? Not a shrine but a place.

It was Pat who brought those two first ideas – the open air space, the space in the home together for me. She was telling me of a lovely book of prayers given to her she had read that morning. The prayer invited you simply to look out of your window. It asked you to put your elbows on the window sill and your head in your hands and just look. And then sense the presence of God maybe in the view you have, or it could be in a single leaf or plant that your eye rests on. The wonder of God in the view through the window.

But there is one more place that I believe is important. Jesus did go to the synagogue, did go to the temple. Followers of his who remained in Jerusalem continued to go to the temple at the hour of prayer, Paul would go to the synagogue, and where that wasn’t open to him he met in a particular place. In some places a particular person hosted the church in their home but it was that place they went to.

This is a place that for us is special. It is where we have gathered together Sunday by Sunday to sing the praise of God, to share our prayers with God, to hear God’s word. There is something special about this place that we need to value. I believe it is good that we actively encourage others to use this place – in doing that it is my hope and prayer that they too will sense something special about this place, something special that has about it a sense of God’s presence with us.

It is a place made special because people meet together in this place to seek the presence of God, to share the presence of God, to celebrate the presence of God. It is a special place. And we must not be apologetic about that – it is a place that we need. And those friends of ours who cannot make it now – well they know we are thinking of them as we meet here and they have associations with this place.

That’s why it has been good this last couple of years to share in Back to Church Sunday. And we can again this year. The date 25th September. Harvest – not Parade, at Church Meeting we felt it would be better to have the kind of service we usually have Sunday by Sunday. It is not something for general publicity, but rather something for us to give personal invitations to. Do take an invitation card – think who you might give it to – and make a personal invitation. To share with us here in this place – and sense the presence of God.

People need Places – be it in the open, in the home, or here in church – it is good to have somewhere to go where we renew that sense of the presence of God with us. Then we can take that presence into all the places we are in wherever we are as the presence of God in all his love is released into the lives of others through the faith we put into practice.

Do Not be Afraid, Stand Firm!

2011-08-28T17:51:00.001+01:00

A thought to share at the close of a week's holiday club with friends from St Luke's and St Michael's

It has been great sharing in Mission Rescue, our holiday club, telling the story of Moses.

It was moving to be doing our holiday club this week, telling the story of a people discovering freedom as we have been listening to the news from Libya. One moment encouraging, the next disturbing.

It has been a week when we have shared in concern at the illness of a young baby and one of our older members of our congregation.

Each morning the leaders gathered together for prayer and last minute planning.

Three verses we shared were verses that came back to me later in the day and in my visiting.

The place on which you are standing is holy ground – Exodus 3:5

How we each of us need to find a place where we can be ‘on holy ground’, a place to come apart and seek the presence of God.

And the people bowed down and worshipped 12-37

How we each of us need one another … faith, living the life we are called to lead, is an impossible task on our own. We need the support of one another, the support of a praying worshipping community that bows down and worships.

The last of our verses I found myself sharing with someone later in my pastoral visiting. It spoke very powerfully to me this week. It speaks very powerfully to each one of us.

Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today Exodus 14:13

Each day, we may be sure that we need not be afraid as we stand firm for we shall see the hand of God accomplishing deliverance at the point at which we need it most.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment

2011-08-21T20:24:00.000+01:00

Offspring of the past, pregnant with the future, the present moment, nevertheless, always exists in eternity.

Let’s dwell on those words for a moment.

Offspring of the past, pregnant with the future, the present moment, nevertheless, always exists in eternity.

Give me a pure heart – that I may see Thee
A humble heart – that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love – that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith – that I may abide in Thee.

Much has happened since I prepared today’s order of service.

Anticipating returning to the pulpit after a good holiday, I decided to focus on one thought from 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 2.

Now is the acceptable time
Now is the day of salvation

Now

Not yesterday

Not tomorrow.

Now

Now is the acceptable time
Now is the day of salvation

Writing letters and thoughts for a group of nuns in a convent in France more than 200 years ago, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, coined a phrase that has become a very special part of the spirituality and prayer life of many people down through the ages. It is something I find I need to come back to time and again.

He spoke of the sacrament of the present moment.

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

Don’t be overwhelmed by things that have happened in the past. Don’t sink under the weight of anxiety for the future.

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

Now is the acceptable time
Now is the day of salvation

Offspring of the past, pregnant with the future, the present moment, nevertheless, always exists in eternity.

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could unlock the present moment and find those infinite riches beyond our wildest dreams.

For Jean Pierre de Caussade two things unlock the moment …

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love. The more a soul loves, the more it longs, the more it hopes, the more it finds. The will of God is manifest in each moment, an immense ocean which only the heart fathoms insofar as it overflows with faith, trust and love..”

Offspring of the past, pregnant with the future, the present moment, nevertheless, always exists in eternity.

Give me a pure heart – that I may see Thee
A humble heart – that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love – that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith – that I may abide in Thee.

Now is the acceptable time;
Now is the day of salvation.

Refreshed, restored, renewed by a good holiday how good it is simply to fall back into the arms of God and discover his presence in the moment that is now.

But much has happened in the three weeks we have been away.

What can we make of the rioting? What can we make of the turmoil in the world’s economy? What can we make of famine in East Africa? What can we make of the violence that continues to mar the Middle East?

I wondered about going back to the drawing board, addressing the issues in hand, offering some responses.

And then I came back to the service I had planned.

And in a strange way the words spoke to me again.

I chose to read not simply the last part of the second verse of 2 Corinthians 6. I had chosen to read the first 12 verses.

The ‘now’ Paul has in mind is a ‘now’ that for him is deeply troubled.

It is one of those rare moments in his letters that Paul writes autobiographically.

There is a remarkable grace to be found in the love of God in the now that is the present moment, even when that present moment is fraught with all kinds of horrors.

Paul’s message is very much a message of grace, it is a message that focuses on the ‘now’ that is the acceptable time, the ‘now’ that is the day of salvation. But that grace, that acceptable time, that salvation is experienced in the ‘now’ no matter what may be happening in the ‘now’.

Paul speaks of great endurance, of afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger.

It is in these circumstances that Paul treasures the present moment, the knowledge that God is there no matter what circumstances you find yourselves in. And what circumstances he had experienced!

In the middle of the awful things the presence of God in the present moment can seem far, far away. But it is there, to be found. For Jean-Pierre de Causade the things that unlock that present moment were faith and love …

“The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love. The more a soul loves, the more it longs, the more it hopes, the more it finds. The will of God is manifest in each moment, an immense ocean which only the heart fathoms insofar as it overflows with faith, trust and love..”

That’s very much the thought that Paul shares. He finds that grace and so commends himself in all those awful circumstances by holding to a number of things that he lists …

Purity, in knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and left.

These are the qualities, the values, the things that we need to bring into the present moment when facing the awful things that happen in our world. These are the qualities that should mark the response we make to the things that have happened. In the North West of Wales we were a world away from what was happening on the streets – and maybe have no right to make any response. But we all do respond.

Maybe these are the things that need to shape our response and how we comment. This is the ‘moral compass’ we have to offer …

Purity, in knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and left.

Unlocking the present moment, the ‘now’ of the day of salvation, that then means that Paul finds himself empowered, enabled to live in the grace of God in spite of the circumstances that have the potential to overwhelm him …

In honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known, as dying, and see – we are alive; as punished and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

The way Paul finishes, seems to me to speak across the ages to us in the wake of all that has happened these last couple of weeks …

We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return – I speak as to children – open wide your hearts also.

There is a danger in the wake of what has happened, that in our very commitment to those values and principles, we turn our back on the people involved and narrow our heart. Justice is needed. But there are people responsible we need to open wide our hearts too – so that justice can restore and renew.

Troubled times are nothing new.

Fifty years ago, the East End was gangland in London. Mods and Rockers had running battles on the streets of some of our resorts. And international troubles were very much to the fore.

The cold war raged. There were troubled places in Africa. Not least the Congo.

It was fifty years ago this week that the Secretary General of the United Nations was killed in an aeroplane crash over the Congo. There is still speculation as to whether he was the victim of an attack on his life.

After Dag Hammarskjold’s death, the manuscript of Vugmarken was found in his house in New York together the following undated letter addressed to the Swedish Permanent Under-Secretary for Foregign Affairs, Leif Belfrage.

Dear Leif:

Perhaps you may remember I once told you that, in spite of everything, I kept a diary which I wanted you to take charge of someday. Here it is.

It was begun without a thought of anybody else reading it. But, what with my later history and all that has been said and written about me, the situation has changed. These entries provide the only true ‘profile’ that can bd ddrawn. That is why, during recent years, I have reckoned with the possibility of publication, though I have continued to write for myself, not for the public.

If you find them worth publishing, you have my permission to do so – as a sort of White Book, concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God.

Dag

It was translated into English by W.H.Auden and Leif Sjoberg. Fifty years on ‘Markings’ still speaks to a troubled world.

Offspring of the past, pregnant with the future, the present moment, nevertheless, always exists in eternity – always in eternity as the point of intersection between time and the timelessness of faith, and, therefore, as the moment of freedom from past and future.

Give me a pure heart – that I may see Thee
A humble heart – that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love – that may serve Thee,
A heart of faith – that I may abide in Thee.

Now is the acceptable time
Now is the day of salvation

Offspring of the past, pregnant with the future, the present moment, nevertheless, always exists in eternity – always in eternity as the point of intersection between time and the timelessness of faith, and, therefore, as the moment of freedom from past and future.

Open wide your hearts also.

Give me a pure heart – that I may see Thee
A humble heart – that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love – that may serve Thee,
A heart of faith – that I may abide in Thee.

The Grace that makes all the difference ... the story of Onesimus and Philemon

2011-07-24T14:18:00.002+01:00

It’s going to be wonderful.

You’ll be able to see it in ways you haven’t seen it before.

The National Trust announced this week that it has won more funding for its re-development of the Chedworth Roman Villa site. You will be able to see the mosaics in a way that you have never seen them before as walkways are built to enable you to look down on them. Along with a new visitor centre a re-designed museum and all sorts of other improvements to the site it promises to become one of the National Trust’s star attractions.

What excites me about it is that it gives you a little bit of a feel for the kind of house that hosted many a house church in the days of the New Testament. And it looks very much as if Chedworth Roman Villa, perhaps towards the end of the Roman occupation of these islands was home to just such a church.

In the top corner of the site the spring still deposits water in the octagonal pool that was the shrine to the Roman gods, revered by the first occupants of the house. It is on the paving slabs that originally surrounded the pool that the very first chi rho Christian symbols in this country were discovered. I hope they will take up a more prominent position in the new museum than they did in the old. You had to get down on your knees to see them.

From the shrine the water from the spring was then channelled to the boiler house and to the baths, passed the dining room to the latrines at the lowest point in the villa complex.

What’s interesting about the layout of the house is the way it highlights the sharp divide in such a Roman house between the house-holder and the slaves who kept the household going. The Householder and the family would have used the shrine. The slaves would have been stoking the furnace. The householder would enjoy the baths, the slaves would have been stoking the furnace to keep the water warm.

It’s in the dining room that the divide becomes most apparent. Half the floor is a beautiful but simple mosaic in geometric design. That’s where the table would have been. The other half is a wonderful pictorial mosaic of the four British seasons, complete with a hooded figure for winter.

The householder and the family would recline at the table. The slaves would serve at table … the householder and family would from time to time during a banquet excuse themselves to use the latrines outside. The slaves would keep the latrines clean.

The divide was great between house-holder-and-family and the slaves who kept the household going.

It is against this kind of backdrop that we should try to visualise the house church that meets in the home of Philemon in Colossae. Far away, hotter climate, but basically the same social division.

This had been a household where there had been friction. And maybe that should come as no surprise.

Maybe it was his birth name. Maybe it was a name given to him by the householder, Philemon, but Onesimus had at one time been ‘Useful’ by name and ‘Useful’ by nature.

He was a hard worker. He got things done. And usually he didn’t complain.

Usually.

But something had happened.

He didn’t just complain.

He ran.

He ran away as far as he could.

And he ran away to the place so many runaways run to.

The great city.

Rome.

An anonymity in the greatest of crowds.

An exciting city, a dangerous city, a scary city. Rome – where the power of Rome was at its greatest.

And where there were all sorts of underground movements, offering a different way of life.

Maybe that was what drew Onesimus to one particular circle of friends. There was an openness about them that he hadn’t discovered before. They came from all levels of society, but there was something different about them. The lowest of the low slaves were treated as equals with the most influential and powerful.

Luke was a physician, a doctor, who was willing to share his expertise and reach out his healing hands not just to the well-off who had plenty of money, but to the poorest of the poor, to slaves as well.

Maybe Onesimus had had something wrong with him. Something that really troubled him. Maybe Luke had been the only one to help. Who knows. But Luke was a kindly person. Onesimus got on well with him.

And then there was Mark, he had been hard at work writing up an account of someone they all spoke of. They spoke so highly of this person. He had lived in the far-off Eastern frontiers of the great Roman Empire among the Jewish people.

Onesimus wanted to learn more of this Jesus and the difference he made in people’s lives. Aristarchus, Demas, Mark and Luke knew just the person who would be able to tell Onesimus all he needed to know.

There was, however, a snag.

He was in prison, along with Epaphras.

In prison is putting it a bit strongly. He was under arrest, under constant guard … but kept in a house, a secure house. The circle of friends could come and go, take him his meals, even share a meal with him. And he could host small numbers of people and tell those stories of Jesus, and explain what it takes to follow in his footsteps and the difference it can make.

Would he have time for Onesimus? Of course, Luke, Mark and the others insisted.

And so it was Onesimus made his way, no doubt under cover of dark, to the house where Paul was being held under arrest. He was an old man by now. But still as lively as ever.

That first evening, Onesimus would never forget. Paul spoke of the teachings of Jesus, the love he had for all, that sense those followers of his had that getting to know Jesus was touching the very nature of the God who created the heavens and the earth.

Putting your trust and faith in this Jesus meant a transformation in your life. Paul was sure of that.

It was like getting rid of all the dirty, mucky, horrible clothe – Onesimus thought of those duties he had to do mucking out the latrines and knew exactly what it was to long to get out of the stench of filthy clothing.

He also knew the world of abuse where a slave could be used for the gratification of his master: it made him shudder to think of it, he knew the world of impurity, passions gone wild, and as for the world of greed, the world of lying. He knew it all … so well.

An end to all that, said Paul. To put all your trust and faith in jesus Christ, to see him as Lord, to see him as Saviour, to see him as Son of God – Onesimus knew how dangerous such talk was. No wonder the Romans were holding Paul captive – Lord, Saviour, Son of God – those were words reserved for the Emperor himself.

Look to Jesus as Lord and Savior – he died at the hands of the Romans at their cruellest – but not even death could hold him down. He had risen again. And what’s more all who follow him can be raised to a new life and become a new creation.

All?

Onesimus could scarcely believe his ears. Was this something for everyone? Could all be raised to new life in Christ?

Paul was adamant.

In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

No longer slave and free. This was a teaching Onesimus had not encountered before. In his world the lines were too strictly drawn. You couldn’t cross them.

There was a newness of life for everyone.

Paul was sure – it was like getting out of those stinking clothes, being completely washed clean, and then stepping into a new set of clothes.

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
That night, Onesmus knew there was nothing else for it.

He committed himself, stepped out of those old clothes, was washed clean with whatever water of baptism was available, and he stepped into that new set of clothes.

He so wanted to go back. And he did. Over and over again. He became really useful to Paul. Paul began to look forward to his visits. He really was Onesimus, useful by name, useful by nature. And then, slowly, Onesimus began to open up to Paul.

He told of his roots in Colossae. Of the fall-out he had had with his master.

Colossae. That’s a place Paul had visited. He knew it well.

Onesimus felt a little uneasy as Paul asked him the name of his master.

Philemon.

Philemon, Paul exclaimed. And then he began to tell Onesimus of his visits to Colossae, of that circle of friends, an open, welcoming circle that he grown up in of all the houses in Colossae, Philemon’s house.

You must go back! Said Paul.

Onesimus wanted to stay. But the big city was scary, a fearful place.

To think there was such an open, welcoming circle back in Colossae, in Philemon’s house, a house he knew so well.

Could he start all over again.

Yes, you can. You will no longer just be a slave, though no doubt you will be as useful as ever to Philemon, you will be brothers together, more than that you will be beloved brothers.

I’ll write a letter, I’ll write two, Paul said.

And so it was Onesimus found himself travelling in the company of someone who was one of Paul’s beloved brothers, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord – Tychicus was wonderful company. He was always bubbling over with conversation. And he guarded those two letters with his life.

News went ahead of them and as they arrived in Colossae the whole of that circle of friends had gone to Philemon’s house. They were packed into the courtyards, every available space. And they were eager to hear all the news.

Onesimus lost his nerve. How would he be received? He held back. Lost in the crowd. Tychicus thought it wise too. There was no telling how Philemon might respond. They agreed, Tychicus would present himself alone, Onesimus would stay as anonymous as he could. He had changed so anyway.

Tychicus handed over the larger of the two letters … and listened as the familiar words Paul had dictated were read with excitement and attention …

Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae. Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

In our prayers for you we always thank God …

Onesimus could hear at a distance – the teaching was so familiar – Christ the image of the invisible God

You have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.

It’ll be the clothes next, he thought. And it was

Put to death whatever is earthly in you – all that abuse, the lying, the greed.

He looked around and could scarcely recognise the house he knew so well. It seemed somehow different. In the distance through the crowd he could just about make out the householder, Philemon. He too was changed. Had he really put off those old clothes and put on the new. Maybe he had.

As God’s chosen one holy and beloved clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another, and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you.

Was it possible? Was Paul right? Would Philemon forgive … Onesimus?

He hung back even more.

Hoping the shadows would swallow him up.

Tychicus will tell you all the news about me.

The person reading the letter must be getting to to the end by now. Onesimus could see his travelling companion Tychicus was bursting to tell everyone all the news and more.

“he is a beloved brother, a faithful minister and a fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts.

Onesimus was beginning to relax a little – but alongside Tychicus he felt so inadequate. He hoped the shadows would swallow him up.

Then it came like a bombshell. He hadn’t been expectinig it. Tychicus hadn’t told him what was in the letter.

The person reading, came to those fateful words …

“… he is coming with Onesimus.”

You could hear a gasp as those in the inner circle, closest to Philemon, instantly recognised the name.

Onesimus.

Could it be THE Onesimus.

There was nothing else for it … he stepped out of the shadows as the words echoed in his ears

He is coming with Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you about everything here.

Onesimus scarcely heard the rest of the letter. But something deep inside him said it would be all right.

Tychicus was holding forth by now, and everyone wanted to hear all the news. And then Onesimus could see Philemon was inching his way through the crowd. Tychicus must have seen it too. He was one to encourage the heart of anyone.

Tychicus broke off from what he was saying and called across to Philemon – there’s another letter here. It’s a personal one. It’s for you.

Philemon took it and, standing there on the edge of that circle of friends that was so much a part of his transformed household, he began to read it.

And as he read, Onesimus could tell, that everything would be all right.

And this is what Philemon read …

From Paul, a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy —

To our friend and fellow-worker Philemon, 2 and the church that meets in your house, and our sister Apphia, and our fellow-soldier Archippus:

3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

4 Brother Philemon, every time I pray, I mention you and give thanks to my God. 5 For I hear of your love for all God's people Philemon raised his eyebrows and a smile spread across his face, he sneaked a look at Onesimus, the runaway slave …

I hear of your love for all God’s people and the faith you have in the Lord Jesus.

6 My prayer is that our fellowship with you as believers will bring about a deeper understanding of every blessing which we have in our life in union with Christ. 7 Your love, dear brother, has brought me great joy and much encouragement! There’s that word again, thought Philemon.

Your love, dear brother, has brought me great joy and much encouragement.

You have cheered the hearts of all God's people. All God’s people … Philemon stole a glance at the figure behind him. A lot had happened since last they met. And both of them had changed. He could see that. He read on …

8 For this reason I could be bold enough, as your brother in Christ, to order you to do what should be done.Philemon knew Paul could give his orders …

9 But because I love you, I make a request instead. I do this even though I am Paul, an old man and at present a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus.

10 So I make a request to you on behalf of Onesimus, who is my own son in Christ; for while in prison I have become his spiritual father.
Philemon glanced at Onesimus once more … did he know what was written in this letter?

11 At one time he was of no use to you, but now he is useful, useful by name, useful by nature, both to you and to me.

12 I am sending him back to you now, and with him goes my heart. 13 I would like to keep him here with me, while I am in prison for the gospel's sake, so that he could help me in your place. 14 However, I do not want to force you to help me; rather, I would like you to do it of your own free will. So I will not do anything unless you agree.

Philemon knew there was nothing else for it. More than that he knew it was the right thing.

15 It may be that Onesimus was away from you for a short time so that you might have him back for all time. 16 And now he is not just a slave, but much more than a slave: he is a dear brother in Christ. How much he means to me! And how much more he will mean to you, both as a slave and as a brother in the Lord!

17 So, if you think of me as your partner, welcome him back just as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to my account. 19 Here, I will write this with my own hand: I, Paul, will pay you back. (I should not have to remind you, of course, that you owe your very self to me.)

A smile had been creeping across Philemon’s face. But now he was serious. How right Paul was. He too was a changed person. He could tell Paul was getting old, his writing was shaky, so different from the confident script the rest of the letter had been written in. He wondered who it was had acted as Paul’s scribe this time.

This time when he looked at Onesimus he saw him through changed eyes. He read on …

20 So, my brother, please do me this favour for the Lord's sake; as a brother in Christ, cheer me up!
21 I am sure, as I write this, that you will do what I ask — in fact I know that you will do even more. 22 At the same time, get a room ready for me, because I hope that God will answer the prayers of all of you and give me back to you.

23 Epaphras, who is in prison with me for the sake of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings,
24 and so do my fellow-workers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke

25 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

That day, there could be no doubt about it, it was the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that made all the difference to Onesimus, to Philemon and to them all.

In what way will the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ make all the difference to each one of us, to our families and to those we are linked with this week?

Barnabas - the one who encourages

2011-07-17T20:25:00.002+01:00

AFter 3 and half years, Becky, has completed her time at Highbury as our Pastoral Assistant.

During our services on 17th July we said 'farewell' to Becky and wished her every blessing for her future, celebrating a wonderful time at Highbury.

Four years ago when we took the decision to appoint someone full time for more than a year it seemed so wonderful to have the prospect of working long-term alongside someone else in ministry. The last three years and a term have exceeded my expectations in all sorts of way … but in one respect they disappoint me. The time has flown far too quickly. I was excited to welcome Becky … but find it very difficult to say fare well!

There’s a very real sense of coming to an end and also seeing things come to fruition and grow.

Becky has helped shape three of our church weekends away and with Felicity has organised the children’s work there. As this last weekend came to an end in our worship on Pentecost Sunday Sheila Grimes came up to me and said how much the weekend had meant to her and how she wanted to become fully part of the family and enter into church membership. - so I have one last job for Becky to do when we receive Sheila and James into church membership – but we’ll come to that later.

It was great when Becky emailed me an updated list of all the children linked with the church and there were 34 names on the list … and there was one new name this week – Poppy Archer – great that Becky has seen a number of youngsters in their first three years … and supported so many others in so many ways.

So much has started, so much has become very much part of our church family. Just think of the last week – and how much we have done in this last week we are so indebted to Becky for … It’s been great to see Transformers get off the ground in partnership with St Luke’s and was wonderful to share in such a vibrant Sunday Special last week and such a lively Messy Church last Tuesday evening. Becky ha played a key part in Hy-Tec too, with last night’s bar-b-q, if not the sleepover!! The lunch on Wednesday and the community café on Thursday both came out of the community action group that Becky helped us put together. Prayer emails are very much part of the church family – but came out of the course on prayer that was one of the very first things Becky shared with us.

Becky has shared with us in the joys of new arrivals to the church family – but also the sadness of those who pass on. Today we think specially of Vic – but as we welcome Sue back we cannot help but remember Cecille who with Sue gave Becky such personal support in settling into the church family here at Highbury.

We owe a great big thank you to Becky for all sorts of things in the last three years and a bit.

So what is there to share?

Our Church Weekend away focused on Pentecost. Pentecost is the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is a festival that cannot simply come and go – it must remain with us. In our Christian faith we look to God creator of this wonderful world, to Jesus Christ who sets out a way of life for us to follow and brings God’s love close to our hearts. But then in the Holy Spirit we have a strength from beyond ourselves that is unseen yet very real and that strength makes all the difference to the living of our lives.

Since then we have been looking at the stories in Acts of people who came to follow Jesus and found the strength of the Holy Spirit so important in the living of their lives.

Today’s story is the story of Joseph, the Levite from Cyprus. It seems to me an appropriate story to share today of all days in all sorts of ways.

We first encounter Joseph, the Levite from Cyprus very early on in the story of the early church – he shared his all with the others and got himself a nickname.

From that point on they called him Barnabas which means literally, the Son of Encouragement.

Sharing of our plenty and giving to each as any has need is at the heart of Christian discipleship. To be an encourager is something all of us can aspire to … it is something that Becky has shared with us all, especially with me. Becky has that special gift of being able to work with people in a way that en-courages and em-powers – and that’s something very special for us to share.

Maybe that’s why Barnabas played such a key part in encouraging the church in Jerusalem to accept Paul, and in empowering Paul at the very outset.

After Saul made his escape from Damascus he went down to Jerusalem only to find that the disciples there were all afraid of him. They did not believe that the Saul who had been so vicious in his persection of them could have become a follower of Jesus himself.

Only one person believed in Saul, or Paul as he came to be known.

And that was Barnabas. “Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described fro them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.”

By now Barnabas really was living up to his new name and was an enormous encouragement to everyone in Jerusalem, not least to Paul. Sadly, however, they were facing immensely difficult times. Paul took time out and returned to his home town of Tarsus.

The church in Jerusalem heard that a group of followers of Jesus needed particular support in Antioch … and so they sent Barnabas – “when he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion, for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and o faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord.

But Barnabas knew he needed help in building up the church in Antioch and so he travelled to Tarsus and brought Saul back to Antioch.

So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people.

It’s fascinating catching a glimpse of the significant part played by this Son of Encouragement – in partnership for a short period of time.

But things happen … and things stick even after such a short period of time.

It is here in Antioch that another nickname is coined. This time it is a name for all the followers of Jesus Christ.

It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians”.

Then we come to one of the most powerful part s of the story.

Saul as he is still known and Barnabas have a very powerful message to share. They are engaged in teaching to help the disciples grow.

But teaching is never enough on its own.

A prophet, Agabus, comes to Antioch, with the leading of the Spirit, he predicts that there is going to be a very sever famine that will devastate many parts of the Roman world. The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Practical help alongside the teaching.

One of the things Vic has done until very recently has been to be one of our church visitors. Among those he would visit was Hilda Read. Hilda asked me to call round to see her this week. Unable to get out of the house, she told me how she had been profoundly moved by the pictures of the famine spreading through East Africa at the moment. She wanted to do something about it and had put aside some money she wanted to give. I got on the phone from Hilda’s to Mary Michael – and we have re-jigged our Communion Collection so that through August we will support Christian Aid’s response to the emergency in East Africa with our special collections.

Discipleship involves a message to share, practical help to give – it is only possible through the strength of the Spirit – and we need people to be our ‘Sons of Encouragement’.

There’s one more dimension to the Barnabas story I want to mention.

It is from that church in Antioch that Saul and Barnabas are commissioned by the people in the church to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to Cyprus and on into the Mediterranean world.

It is the first of Paul’s great missionary journeys. But Paul does not make that first journey alone. He goes with Barnabas.

And the two of them are a partnership.

I guess that’s what I have valued most about these last three and a bit years – the very real sense of working in a partnership together with Becky.

There is, however, a twist in the tale of Barnabas and Paul as they part company.

It’s not the same reason we are parting company – but church work does have its downs as well as its ups. Reading the story of the church in the New Testament it always has been the case – and because we are people all of whom are blemished I guess it ever will be thus!

Paul loses patience with young Mark, and Barnabas ever the encourager insists in sticking together with him. They part. And from Acts 16 we don’t meet up with Barnabas again.

Or at least, not quite.

We have to wind the clock forward to the point at which Paul is in prison. He writes one letter to the church in Ephesus telling them to put on the whole armour of God – a wonderful passage that cropped up in Sunday Special last week and again at Messy Church. Another letter is written to Philippi and two more to the church at Colossae – the church itself, and to the person who hosts the church in his home, Philemon. In Colossians 4:10 it looks as if once more Barnabas’ work of encouragement has borne fruit, Mark and Paul are back together again.

For us today, it is my prayer that we all of us will have encouragement from others, that we will give encouragement to others – above all that Becky will take encouragement from our church family here at Highbury for whatever lies in the future.

Paul, Damaris and Culture

2011-07-10T20:45:00.000+01:00

Special events come … and then they go and they are gone.

You can look forward to an anniversary, a special birthday, a family celebration… it’s ages coming, then it’s upon you … and then it’s gone.

The same happens with sporting events. You are looking forward to Wimbledon, or the Cricket Festival … and then suddenly it’s upon you and it’s gone.

Yesterday worked like that in two ways for me – a family celebration as the daughter of a cousin got married – excitement, the day is there and then it’s over in a trice. We went early and stayed overnight with Natalie’s former headmaster and his wife – we know them better as Martin and Liz Blazey.

Of course, yesterday was a great sporting occasion – one we have been looking forward to for almost a couple of months – the new-look Robins first game of the season – you look forward to meeting Cirencester Town – and then it’s over in a trice – or at least 90 minutes!

The major festivals of the Christian year are just like that … you look forward to Christmas, count down the days, you look forward to Easter and mark Lent – then the festival is there and it’s over in a trice.

Or it is?

A game is over and complete – Wimbledon has come and gone for another year. That’s the kind of event you look forward to and then it’s all over.

But a wedding is different – you look forward to it, build up to it … and then it’s over – but it continues to shape the rest of your lives together.

Do you see the difference?

I think we should treat the Christian festivals like that – especially the one that’s just past. Pentecost.

We celebrate it at our weekend away – we look forward to that weekend away – and then it’s all over. In the past. And Pentecost with it.

But no … Pentecost is an event that then has reverberations afterwards. Indeed it was an event that went on to shape the rest of the lives of the first followers of Jesus.

The round of Christian festivals we observe because they shape the rest of our lives.

That’s why I wanted to take the story of Pentecost forwards – and see how people’s lives are shaped not just by what happened at Pentecost but by the life and teaching, the death and resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

That’s the story of Act. But what’s interesting about the book of Acts is that it contains not just an account of the things those first followers of Jesus did. It also contains a number of the speeches they gave to explain their faith, all it meant to them and the impact the whole Christian faith can have on people’s lives.

It gives you a fascinating glimpse of the preaching and the teaching of the first followers of Jesus.

The genius of Paul is that he is able to relate his faith in Jesus Christ to very different sets of people. There are occasions when he meets with people steeped in the Jewish religion and in what we think of as the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. On those occasions he makes references to those Scriptures, demonstrates as do those other followers of Jesus that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets and that through is death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit a presence is let loose into the world that doesn’t just shape what we do in the world, but it gives us a new dimension to our lives.

But then there are other occasions when Paul engages with people who have no knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures and are in an entirely different culture, the culture of the Greek-speaking part of the Roman emperor with its own traditions and ways of thinking about life. On those occasions he doesn’t quote from the Bible, but instead draws on that culture and shows how it too speaks in some way of God and he then shows that into that culture Jesus has something enormous to say.

He arrives in Athens and straightaway you see the two sides of Paul – there’s a Jewish community there and so he goes to the synagogue and there he draws on all his skills as a Pharisee, his rabbinic training, and he argues from the Hebrew Scriprtures that Jesus is indeed the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets.

But then he goes into the market places and there engages with anyone who happened to be there. That’s the civic centre, the Agora. There he engages with Epicurean and Stoic philosphers who debated with him. He arouses curiosity, and they bring him to the Areopagus – the hill of Ares and there they want to listen to him in full. In some ways the place were disputes were settled.

What is fascinating is that you see this process going on in Athens today. When you see what is happening in Syntagma Square in the heart of Athens at the moment, it is fascinating that what is going on there has its roots in the ancient world of Athens. Faced with major problems today campaigners, politicians, union leaders, writers, thinkers have taken over Syntagma Square. There in different parts of the square lively discussions and debates are taking place as people try to work out how to respond to the crisis in Greece at the moment.

That’s what you catch a glimpse of Paul doing here in Athens.

It’s fascinating to see his approach. He starts where the people are.

He touches their sense of the religious – and interestingly he does it in a respectful way. He has found an altar with an inscription ‘to an unknown god’: he takes that as his starting point and sets his stall out, “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

If we want to engage with people around us and share what’s important for us, we need to start where they are. There is a sense of the ‘spiritual’ – we need to respect that. Start where people are … and move on to explain something more.

Think of people around – is it some sense of the spiritual, some sense of something there?

Paul starts with the immensity of the world in all its beauty. The immensity of the God who made the world and everything in it, the Lord of heaven and earth – and the impossibility of tying such a God down into shrines made by human hands.

That resonates for me … the greatness of God – the sheer sense of awe and wonder.

It is the last time the shuttle will take astronauts up the Space Station. Russia takes over where the USA leaves off in getting people up to the Space Station. Their descriptions of the awe they have at seeing the curvature of the earth, encased by that thin blue line of the atmosphere is a wonderful sense of awe and wonder.

The universality of the sense of ‘the other’ the sense of the divine. In all ages. In all parts of the world. Some sense of the other.

Paul has read the poetry of the time – and he quotes one of those poets – In him we live and move and have our being.”

I love that way of talking about God. As the one ‘in whom’ we live and move and have our being. The being of God, being itself, God as the ground of our being. All ways of thinking of God that go back half a century and more and speak powerfully.

I sometimes it would help if we got away from the non-biblical view of God as the Designer, the clock-maker, and re-discovered a more biblical way of thinking about God such as Paul offers here. God as the one in whom we live and move and have our being. The being of God, being itself, the ground of all being. Those were vogue words half a century ago, but they have their value now.

Interestingly in the debates among scientists over God, John Polkinghorne, a phyusicist, cosmologist, a vicar and a Christian thinker suggests we should get away from the idea of God as a designer that dates back only a couple of hundred years to someone called William Paley, the thinking that was rejected by Darwin, and seek another way of thinking about God. He suggests thinking of God as ‘one who is the ground of the fruitful order that makes any process possible at all.” [John Polkinghorne, Theology in the Context of Science (SPCK, 2008), 62]

God as the one in whom we live and move and have our being.

Then Paul turns to Jesus Christ – and what he suggests that Jesus provides a yard stick, a measure by which to judge right from wrong. He appeals to the teaching of Jesus – the thought that right and wrong matter.

His speech reaches its climax with mention of the resurrection.

No mention of the name of Jesus.

Some scoff. Some are intrigued. Paul finishes.

The moment has passed – but for some that moment becomes a life-changing moment that shapes the rest of their lives.

But some joined him and became believers., including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Just a handful of people whose lives were touched, changed and for ever afterwards shaped by this Jesus. Two of them named.

That’s the task. Let’s keep to it. And if only a handful are shaped by what is at the heart of the faith – that too is precious.

These two were touched by Paul as he spoke to them through their culture.

And Damaris has given her name to a website that emails out a culture watch – and aims to relate the Christian faith to the culture of today. The task we each of us are called to rise to.

Discipleship with Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

2011-07-03T20:44:00.001+01:00

I have quite a pile of books waiting to be read. But I won’t be taking all of them away on holiday with me. I guess holiday reading is rather special. I have one thriller lined up – it’s the last in the Martin Beck series, the original Swedish crime novels. I might take a book of biographies away with me, I’m not sure, but it is written by my old history teacher, so it’s quite an attraction. And then there’s the story of I’m sorry I haven’t a clue. I mustn’t forget a geology book or three … Oh … and maybe one of those theological books I have waiting to be read. And I won’t forget my Bible.

How fortunate we are to have access to books.

Things weren’t like that in the time of Jesus.

Books were far more difficult to come by. The cost of papyrus, the length of a scroll. They were being produced in Jerusalem – a hoard of them was discovered more than 60 years ago in caves at Qumran just by the Dead Sea.

That’s what makes this story so fascinating.

With the martyrdom of Stephen the persecution of the Jerusalem church intensified under the leadership Saul who was before very long ‘ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women and committing them to prison.

There was, as far as Saul was concerned, an unintended consequence. Wherever people scattered there they took with them the good news of Jesus.

One of those who fled Jerusalem was Philip, another of the seven deacons with a passion for bringing practical help to people and an equally strong passion to share the good news of Jesus. He found himself going down to the city of Samaria. A little while later he sensed the guidance of God and felt impelled to travel the road from Jersualem to Gaza, a road that runs through wilderness terrain.

Luke tells what happened next …

Acts 8:26-40

What a fascinating glimpse of the church’s missionary activity.

This was no ordinary person.

Treasurer in the Ehtiopian court, this was clearly a person of some wealth.

He must have been to have got hold of a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

That’s quite some substantial piece of writing.

Here is a wealthy, powerful man who has the money to invest in a scroll, and here he is reading from it.

It’s a story that makes me want to ask why. Why has this court official got hold of this particular scroll. Was it one he happened to pick up? Was it one of many he had acquired.

He clearly was sympathetic to the Jewish people, had been worshipping God. Had he been commissioned to get hold of a scroll of the prophet Isaiah to supplement the scrolls in a synagogue back home in Ethiopia?

Was it a personal interest he had? Why choose this scroll, the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah?

Why is he reading where he is reading?

Is it something very personal?

Has he deliberately chosen to read from Isaiah? Does something draw him to this particular prophet?

Luke is at pains to tells us that he is an Ethiopian Eunuch.

That’s something quite alien to our culture.

The place of a eunuch in the royal court of a queen is something we are not used to. Indeed the whole notion of, was it voluntary, or was it forced castration is something that we would rather not think of.

What does that make of the person who is a Eunuch?

There were cultures that had great reservations about castration and the place of the Eunuch. And one of those cultures was in some part to be found among the Jewish people.

There is a key verse in Deuteronomy 23 that is pretty draconian as some words in the Books of the Law can be. The removal of a man’s sexual organs means that he shall not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. That stark prohibition is absolutely clear.

One of the things we sometimes don’t realise is that the Hebrew Scrptures don’t simply work as a mine for proof texts which establish exactly the line that should be taken on all issues and in all circumstances.

The Hebrew Scriptures reflect changing thinking about God and God’s ways with the world. Sometimes one part of the Hebrew Scriptrues will be in conversation with another.

If you are a Eunuch and you are fascinated with the Jewish God then Deuteronomy 23 verse 1 is a major difficulty. But it is not the last word on eunuchs.

Indeed one book in particular takes the story further.

And interestingly it is the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.

Might it be that the Eunuch knew that. That this is what attracted him to this particular book? Who knows … but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Had he never read these words before? Or was he re-reading words that for him were very special.

By the time you reach Isaiah 53 and the words that the Eunuch is reading in his chariot you reach new ways of thinking of the Messiah. They are new and strange ways. Isaiah 53 thinks of the Messiah as a Suffering Servant. Not an easy concept, one that Isaiah introduces into the thinking of Jewish people. Read on beyond 53 into 54 and that tells, in the words of the NRSV headings, of the eternal covenant of peace that the suffering servant establishes. Chapter 55 then extends ‘an invitation to abundant life’ to all with those wonderful words …

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;

Then comes chapter 56.

The heading says it all.

The Covenant Extended to All Who Obey.

All?

To be part of the covenant the way is clear …

Maintain justice, and do what is right,
For soon salvation will come
And my deliverance be revealed.

Who can be part of this?

All?

Yes, indeed.

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
The Lord will surely separe me from his people.”

Foreigners can be part of the people of the eternal covenant under the suffering servant messiah.

That’s a thrill for the treasurer of the Candance, the Queen of the Ethiopian Court.

But then comes the wonderful next insight.

Do not let the eunuch say,
“I am just a dry tree.”
For thus says the lord;
To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
Who choose the things that please me
And hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
A monument and a name
Better than the sons and daughters.
I will give them an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off.

Wow!

That is quite some place for the Eunuch of all people. What a massive statement. So powerful, so important it would go a long way towards explaining why this particular Eunuch had invested in this particular scroll.

Deuteronomy had been quite explicit – never a place in the assembly of the Lord.

This turns that on its head and gives a place for everyone,. What’s more the Eunuch is to to have a place within God’s house, and a name better than the sons and daughters.

No wonder that this Eunuch wanted to find out more about who this Suffering Servant was.

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,

No wonder the Eunuch should ask Philip “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about some one else?”

Then notice what Philip does.

Philip began to speak and starting from this scripture he proclaimed the good news about Jesus.

What is good news for the Ethiopian Eunuch about Jesus?

God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

All inclusive. The Gospel is for everyone?

But could it possibly include a Eunuch?

Would Philip have been aware of jesus’s view. Jesus had come to fulfil all the law and the prophets – to bring the whole story to fulfilment. That meant Jesus was with Isaiah on this one.

In Matthew 19:12 in the context of relationshipis and having children, marrying and not marrying, Jesus says some curious words, words that are all embracing as much of the Eunuch as of anyone else.

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of hevean. Let anyone accept this who can.

A great, enigmatic saying of Jesus.

But one thing is certain.

The Eunuch is accepted.

And of that Philips is absolutely sure.

But look at the actual question that the Eunuch asks.

Even after hearing all the good news about Jesus from Philip he still wonders … can he be accepted?

Look here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptised?

Perhaps he thought Jesus would have stuck with Deuteronomy 26 without moving on and taking into account Isaiah 58.

No nothing stands in the way.

He commanded the chariot to stop and both of them, Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

I don’t believe you can simply lift texts from the books of the law and apply them to today. You have to see how thinking moves on within the Hebrew Scriptures, you have to take into account the conversations that happen. But most important of all you must look to Jesus to read the Scriptures of the Old Testament knowing that he has brought them all to fulfilment.

That’s why as a disciple of Jesus I want to base my response to another group of people who in some parts of the church know the exclusion that this man feared, those who are homosexuals, not on the half dozen or so texts from the books of the law and the couple from Paul and Peter, but on the inclusiveness of the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ and disclosed in the Gospels.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

A down-to-earth Trinity - Stephen's Story

2011-06-26T20:55:00.001+01:00

Today, I have a text.

Acts 7:55

But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

What do you make of the trinity?

Are you drawn to mathematical conundrums?

Three in one and one in three?

What about a pictorial representation – three overlapping circles in a kind of venn diagram?

What about an ancient philosophical way of putting it … three persons, one substance?

What do you make of the trinity?

If God is love – there is within the very nature of God a dynamic of love – God Father – Son – Holy Spirit.

If you have any awareness of the liturgical year you will have noticed I marked Pentecost Sunday and celebrated the Holy Spirit, but as for the Sunday after – I ignored it, Trinity Sunday.

Too difficult. Not important.

Actually, I have come to value more and more the trinity at the heart of our faith … I do believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But I guess I find it something difficult to explain.

In a sense I prefer to start with the reality on the ground. I prefer to start with stories, real stories, of real people.

One of the stories that still sets my spine tingling is the story of the first Christian Martyr, Stephen. It’s a story I remember being told vividly when I was quite small. It has always made an impact on me.

There’s something about the story of Stephen that to my mind goes to the very heart of what the faith is all about to me - it is a three dimensional, living faith that finds its focus in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Stephen had an incredibly strong sense of the reality of God. The God whose involvement with people is told in the great narrative of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Stephen’s speech in chapter 7 of Acts is a wonderful re-telling of the heart of the Old Testament story. There are a number of points in the New Testament where the Old Testament story is played back. This is one of them.

It’s a great speech.

If you want to tell a story you need to have a really strong start and know exactly where you want to finish. Stephen knew exactly where to start … and he knew at what point he wanted to finish. And that is all to do with God.

He really has a great way of telling a story … Are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin … becomes for Stephen, Brothers and Fathers, listen to me.

A hush falls over the gathering and everyone is listening. And the fist wors say it all.

The God of glory.

This is the God at the heart of Stephen’s faith. It is the God who is at the heart of my faith. This is God, the God of Glory. Glory that’s an incrediblby solid, tangible word. The Glory is made real in tangible ways in the Old Testament, often in a cloud – a really strong sense of the Glory of God.

The glory of God is real, all embracing, all powerful – but the glory of God appeared to Abraham … and then Stephen is off. For this long, long speech he recounts the way in which this God of Glory is the God who involves himself with Abraham, with Issac, with Jacob, with Jacob’s sons, with Joseph, with Moses, with Aaron … the story builds up towards a climax.

And what Stephen builds up to is the climax that this God then takes up his dwelling place with the people in a Tabernacle tent. A special place where God’s presence is released among the people. That tent is then taken by Joshua into the promised land. And the tent remained simply a tent under David. But then Solomon built a house for him.

You reach verse 47.

And that is the Temple.

The temple had been destroyed and re-built. And over the last fifty years a brand new incredibly big and glorious and powerful temple had been in the process of being built all over again.

By now the people associated the presence of God with this location, this place. And this place was all important.

But this is the point at which Stephen has reached the finish he wants to come to.

No, the reality of the God of Glory that he believes in is that this God of glory cannot be contained in any so called ‘house of God’ made with human hands.

Veses 48-50

Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says,
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is the place of my rest?
Did not my hand make all these things?”

That’s the point at which Stephen turns on the people in front of him.

They have confined God to the temple, to its rituals, in its monstrous rebuilt state … and it had become a focus in itself. This is the indictment Stephen lays against the people.

That’s the first thing – let’s start with the greatness and the glory of God and realise the God we believe in is always beyond us, never to b e tied down to human institutions. We must be so careful not to reduce this God to the human way we have of doing things.

But there is another dimension to Stephen and what he does.

As he gets to the point at the end of his speech of the God of Glory who is everywhere … he then focuses in on Jesus Christ.

The whole story of this God of Glory has been leading up to the point of its fulfilment … and the tragedy as far as Stephen is concerned is that the powers that be in Jerusalem, that element of the Jerusalem hierarchy that is firmly in collaboration with Rome, has secured the power-base of Herod’s re-built temple monstrosity, have rejected the Rigtoeus One who has come.

Jesus Christ it is who has made such a difference to Stephen that he has come to model all that he does on Jesus.

If you think about the mark Stephen makes he is one who is Christ centred, and one who embodies in all he does the very essence of Christ’s ministry.

Christ’s teaching made people things differently and brought people a fresh awareness of the reality of God … Stephen too is a powerful teacher … and we have a glimpse of that teaching here in Acts 7.

But more than that Jesus put into practice all he taught by bringing healing to the lives of those who were hurting. Stephen first emerges on to the scene when he is one of seven who are identified who are going to take on a very particular task in the early church.

Read any of the Gospels, read Acts and you cannot but be aware that the first followers of Jesus were living, as it were in two worlds, in two cultures. The story of Jesus and the early church unfolds within a Jewish world – almost all of the followers of Jesus and Jesus himself are themselves Jewish. Stephen is clearly steeped in the story of the Jewish people.

But at the same time the story of Jesus and the early church unfolds in a Gentile world, the world of the Roman Empire.

In Christ there is no difference, all are one … the barriers have come down. Now Jew and Gentile are one in Christ.

But that’s not easy. And within this first year of the church’s life the tensions break out between the Hebrews and the Hellenists, the Jewish among the church and the Gentiles.

And this has resulted in some people not being properly cared for … in particular the gentile widows were not being properly looked after. The Apostles could see the problem needed addressing … and they got the whole church community together in order to identify seven men, men they were … and that in itself is interesting as the men were to provide the help needed for those widows … and they were set aside to be servants of the church and Deacons. So alongside the teaching Stephen was essentially in a very practical, caring role – and brought healing to many.

But more than that … Stephen got the message of Jesus. No longer was God’s presence focused in the stonework of the temple … but now in the person of Christ.

Just as Christ had been condemned for his critique of the temple – the accusation is the very one levelled at Jesus – that he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days – as if he were to take the place of the temple.

Stephen’s speech addresses that very issue – and locates the presence of God everywhere, and finding its focus in Christ and not in the temple.

Then it is that Stephen is taken out to be stoned to death. And at his death the words he shares echo those of Jesus on the cross. Stephen sees the glory of God … and Jesus in that glory, one with God …

Look, he said, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit

Then comes the crunch one … for it is on the cross that the forgiveness of |Jesus comes through … and it is here at the death of Stephen that the forgiving love of Jesus shines through him as it had shone through Jesus …

Lord, do not hold this sin against them.

When he had said this he died.

But there is one dimension we have missed from Stephen’s story.

It is something that is there from the beginning of the story.

And it is the something that makes all the difference and for us who seek to grow as disciples of Christ it is the thing that will make all the difference as well.

The thing is that if we stick with the story I have told so far we will be at a loss to accomplish all we are called to accomplish. We cannot do it in our own strength.

It is difficult to see the glory of God in all things around us at times.

The world gets the better of us, and we cannot help all the people we long to help, we cannot keep to the teaching we know makes sense.

On our own we cannot do it.

But we are not on our own. And this is the third dimension to the Stephen story that is so important for us to take on board.

The seven are to be

Full of the Spirit and of wisdom

Stephen is chosen as a man ‘full of faith and the Holy Spirit

Stephen was ‘full of grace and power’

He spoke with wisdom and the Spirit

IF we are to see God in all things we need faith … but we cannot have faith simply be believing harder and harder … faith is released in us by a strength and a power from beyond ourselves, the Holy Spirit of God.

If we are to live by the teaching of Christ and pass that teaching on we need wisdom but we cannot have wisdom by ourselves and in our own strength simply by studying harder it is something that grows from deep within us by the working of that unseen power and strength, the Holy Spirit.

And if we are to have the grace to be Christ to others then we cannot do it in our own strength – we need that power from beyond ourselves.

And it is a power … a strength. The very strength we need in the times of weakness we inevitably have.

One verse more than any other stands out for me in the story of Stephen.

It is vese 55

But filled with the Holy Spirit – that’s what we need to grow as disciples of Christ – that strength from beyond ourselves unseen and yet so real.

But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God.

It is as the Spirit of God is within us that we can look beyond the world we see to the very glory of God – and how important it is to have a great big God that we know is there.

But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Look to God and see Jesus Christ for in Jesus Christ all the fullness of God is revealed – and he is the one who is at the centre of our faith.

That’s it … that’s the trinity brought down to earth – in the experience of this figure from the NT story … and it is how it can come alive for us … not a doctrine to be understood, or a philosophical idea to get your mind round, but a reality that makes all the difference as we seek to grow in as disciples of Jesus.

Peter and the Invitation to Prayer

2011-06-19T20:29:00.000+01:00

We’ve now completed the set!

One year we had a church weekend away at the beginning of Advent and made it a celebration of Christmas.

Another year we had a weekend away leading up to Palm Sunday and we marked the beginning of Holy Week.

This year we had a weekend away leading up to Pentecost. And so we told the story of Pentecost.

While the children took a look at Pentecost and a little bit of the story of Peter, I told the story of Pentecost, and David Waters prompted us to think about what it takes to be a disciple of Christ.

That theme was carefully chosen because it ties in with a theme we have been looking at as part of an initiative launched by the Congregational Federation called Growing Disciples. That’s a resource that is aimed at helping churches to grow in purpose and confidence as a learning community, discovering Good News Together, a worshipping community experiencing Good News Together, a lisenting community embodying Good News together and a missionary community, practising Good News together.

Through our weekend David got us telling each other our stories, looking at our roots, the people who have helped us grow in our faith, and look at the fruit we bear as disciples.

I want that theme we shared to feed into our thinking over the next few Sundays through the summer. And so I want to start by asking those who were at Brunel Manor to think for a moment or two of what it is they have brought back with them to feed into the life of the church.

Then share those thoughts with a small group around you – so that we can share those who were at Brunel Manor and others too.

A time of sharing

Pat recalled the challenge our speaker, David Waters (one-time volunteer at Highbury, not working with the BBC on Songs of Praise) gave – before going to bed think of fifteen things to give thanks to God for. Quite a challenge. So many so that you cannot gloss over them!

Felicity recalled the Pentecost story with the children and noticing that at the end of his sermon on the Day of Pentecost the response of the crowds was to say, What must we DO? How important that we respond to what we hear in preaching by DOING!

Lyn recalled the way David invited us to think of those who had made a mark on us and how moved she had been to hear her daughter say how much she was indebted to her grandfather, Lyn’s father. How much there is to treasure from the roots we have!

David took a passage from the beginning of Colossians (1:3-14) and drawing on his experience at the BBC working with Songs of Praise he invited us to ask Who do you think you are? And suggested that it was good to tell each other our stories and discover where our roots are: how important as Christians that we have our roots in Christ.

In a second session entitled Gardener’s World he got us to think of the shoots that spring up in our Christian life and how again they need to be focused on Christ and. The third was Top Gear – David reflected on the way things sometimes need to change, and suggested that we need to bear fruit in the living of lives as well.

One quote I bring back with me is from the BBC’s director of drama who at a gaterhing David was at explored what it was about some of those popular TV shows that makes them what they are. It makes you feel I want to belong to that gang. I want to be in that place.

A gang to belong to … a place to be.

I found myself looking again at that passage from Colossians in a group I was part of and I noticed something special …

Paul starts with the roots those Christians have and he says this … We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you … Colossians 1:3

Then as he thinks of the way they grow in the faith, the shoots they have, he says this, “we have not stopped praying for you .” (1:9)

And then he goes on to say, “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord.” 1:10

At each point prayer is important.

I felt that what we would do in the next few Sundays would be to look at Acts and look at the way the church and those very first disciples of Christ grew in the very first days of the history of the church.

It’s all very well telling the Pentecost story over last weekend and especially last Sunday … but what happens next is equally important for us to take on board.

What is fascinating is that in Acts the story is told of a number of people who became key followers of Christ … and as each of their stories is told we catch a glimpse of others whose story may not have been told in detail but nonetheless has something to tell us.

We start today with Peter’s story.

There’s one thing in that story I notice as I come to it afresh. And you encounter it first right at the very beginning.

The initial euporia of that Day of Pentecost past we next find Peter at a very specific time in a very specific place doing something very specific.

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon.

It’s a wonderful story of the way they bringing healing to that man who was unable to walk and who needed so much. It’s a challenging story as that next day by the evening, their preaching and their healing ministry had drawn many more to hear the word and believe. From the 3000 on Pentecost day the numbers grew is it by or to 5000 the next day. (4:4).

But Peter and John are arrested and find themselves up against the authorities and the powers that be in jerusalem.

So what do they do next …. When they are released they went to their ‘friends’ and what do they do? The heading in the NRSV says it all … The believers pray with boldness. Their prayers draw to a close and there is a sense of the strength and the power of God with them by the Holy Spirit and there is a spirit of sharing that sweeps through them.

As Peter’s story unfolds there is about it a rhythm of prayer. We move forward to a story the children focused on last weekend in chapter 10 to a story that is told three times.

It’s a fascinating story that begins in Caesarea by the seaside the centre of Roman control from which the Romans ruled with a rod of iron over the subject peoples of Judea, Samaria and Galilee. It’s a surprising place to be. And the person the story is about is a surprising story – not just any old centurion but one from the Italian cohort … Cornelius. And it is perhaps no coincidence that the story begins as this man who has been touched by the faithfulness of the people he has been sent to subjugate has a vision.

It’s 3 o;clock. The very time we know from the start of Peter’s story that is the hour of prayer. Cornelius is in prayer and he hears that his prayer and the actions he takes to care for people have been received and answered by God. But he is to send to nearby Joppa, a little up the Mediterranean coast.

The next day at noon what should Peter be doing … again he is at prayer.

He’s hungy. It’s time to eat. And Peter has a remarkable vision that he is to eat all the foods that the books fo the law prohibit. Not possible – but that’s the vision..

He awakes and who should be at the gate but messengers from Cornelius getting Peter to go into the city of Caesarea, that place of hostility for all Jewish people – there to share the gospel with of all people this centrioun Cornelius.

For a variety of reasons the story is told three times – it is so significant – and it is marks a breakthrough for Peter to line Peter up with Paul and the realisation that the Good News is for everyone – Jew and Gentile. That all are on ein Christ.

Then comes the final tale. And it feels as if the timetable of Acts has moved on one year. And it is a year on.

Chapter 12 starts the final part of Peter’s story in Acts.

It is the feast of unleavened bread – that makes it exactly a year on from the week of Christ’s arrest and crucifixion. The very King Herod, of the Herodian dynsasty that in the days of King Herod the Great had been responsible for collaborating with the Roman powers and actually building Caesarea, this King Herod who had himself built another Roman strongold on the shores of Galilee, the city of Tiberias, lays violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. And he could be vioilent. He had already executed John the Baptist as Jesus’ ministry began, he had played a major part in the execution of Jeesus a year before, in the intervening year he had executed James, the brother of John, one of those fishermen sons of Zebedee with the sword. And when he saw that this pleased those Judeans who were willing to go along with the Herodians in collaborating with Rome he determined to arrest Peter also. He determined a year on to do exactly as he had done with Jesus – have Peter under guard during the festival and then bring him out to the people. He had four squads of soldiers guarding Peter.

Then comes that wonderful account of the way Peter escapes from the prison. He makes his way under cover of the dark to a house he knows well. It is the house that belongs to Mary, the Mary who is the mother of John Mark – someone whose story we will come back to later, who in all likelihood was to go on to write the earliest of the Gospel accounts of Jesus. That’s when a maid who is named Rhoda answers Peter’s knocking, is so taken aback to see him at the door that she leaves him there, reports back to the others and only then lets him in.

When Herod learns of peter’s escape he has the soldiers themselves executed – this is a measure of the brutality of his regime. He then departs from Jerusalem and goes to the Roman stronghold. This King Herod’s father had a temple built to Augustus, the Roman Emperor as ‘Son of God’ in Caesarea – this Herod now is greeted by the people of Tyre and Sidon as a god – grandiose claims to be up there with the Roman Emperor. And that is the point when Herod dies.

It’s the last we hear of Herod … and the last we hear of Peter.

But what was Mary, John Mark’s mother doing?

It was in her house that many had gathered and were praying.

Track through that story of Peter and what do we find?

The whole story is shot through with prayer.

Peter is at prayer time and again.

Cornelius is at prayer.

And Mary, John Mark’s mother … gets a whole crowd together in her prayer … and the only one of them to be named is Rhoda just a servant.

And they are at prayer.

When people pray things happen.

This it seems to me is the first thing we need to take from our Pentecost Weekend Away.

How vital prayer is.

Prayer on our own can have unexpected consequences.

It may be prayer for ourselves, it may be prayer for others.

The value of a pattern of prayer. The hour of prayer. Is it at the start of the day? Is it at noon? Is it at night. Re-discover the power of prayer.

Re-discover the power of getting together with others for prayer. That’s what we do as we come together in church Sunday by Sunday. We do have that opportunity before the service begins to meet in the Moreton Brown Room – our prayer parlour. It’s good just to be quiet and share in prayer. Maybe during the week. Think of sharing in prayer.

Michel Quoist, whose book Prayers of life were the inspiration of an earlier generation, wrote of Prayer as an Act of Faith in his book “The Christian Response” (gill and macmillan, 1963), 174-175 ….

“You would never think of saying: I don’t have to bother to show my love to my wife any more, she knows I love her. Then don’t say: I don’t have to talk to God, he knows that I love him.

“You would never think of saying: I haven’t time to spend with my [family] but what’s the difference, I’m working for them. Then don’t say: I haven’t time to pray, but that doesn’t make any difference, I offer my work up and that’s a prayer.

“Love demands that you stop for a while. If you love, you must find the time to love. To pray means to stop for a while; it means to give some of your time to God, each day, each week.

In the modern world we are too often “the laves of efficiency and utility” and it is too easy to think of prayer “in terms of profit and loss.

“Prayer can not be understood in such pragmatic terms, and scuh a view can never lead to an authentic prayer life.

“The modern world, none the less, has an urgent need for a life of prayer. Unless the members of a technological society are also [people of prayer], people of “adoration and praise” “technology will enslave and ultimately destroy them.”

Breathe on me breath of God

2011-06-05T20:24:00.000+01:00

Mary sat quietly at the feet of Jesus and listened.

Martha was filled with busy-ness.

Are you a Martha or a Mary?

Maybe there is something of Martha and Mary in each of us.

In that case where is the balance – do you come down with Martha in your busyness, to the neglect of Mary’s stillness and listening?

Do you come down on the side of Mary so still and always listening but not doing?

Or is there a balance?

And what about us as a church community.

Do we have Martha tendencies to the neglect of the stillness of our prayer life?

Or do we have Mary tendencies to the neglect of actually doing anything?

Exiled far from Jerusalem with so many other exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel felt impelled to DO something, to speak out.

But he didn’t.

He held his peace.

And he went down to the river and sat with those who were suffering and listened. In the words of the NRSV he was stunned.

Then he spoke out vigorously, challenging the people to think again about what they had done. And in a dream he held out the hope that the dry bones would live again. He prophesied to the bones and they came together. But there was no life in them. He prophesied to the ‘breath’ and their life was restored.

If in our busyiness we have lost the tranquillity of being able to listen and the stillness of prayer that was Mary’s maybe we need that breath of life to be breathed into us anew.

To do that we need to seek stillness … and that is exactly what we did for nearly ten minutes, listening to two worship songs, reflecting on words of promise from the Scriptures and seeking anew the breath of God in all its life-giving power.

At the death of their brother Mary didn’t want to speak. Jesus simply listened … and wept with her.

Martha spoke nineteen to the dozen and Jesus responded to her questions.

I am the resurrection and the life, he said, those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live and whoever lives and believes in me will live.

Breathe on me, breath of God
Fill me with life anew.

Do you believe this? He asks of us, just as he asked of Martha.