At our service on the second Sunday of Advent we welcomed Robin Radley of Chiks. He told us about Children's Homes in Kerala State. It is the charity we are supporting this month and our Christmas collection. In the New Year, our Church Secretary will be going out to Kerala and will visit some of the homes taking them our love.
Click here to hear what Robin had to say about CHIKS that Sunday.
Click here to visit www.chikschildrenshomes.org
And Click here to read about this month's charity and our support of CHIKS.
To lead into Robin's talk, our sermon on the Second Sunday of Advent told Thomas's story. It followed on from the story of the Wise Men starting out on their journey to the stable.
To the East with Thomas
After one of her visits to Kerala and to CHIKS, children’s homes in Kerala State, Sue presented me with three books that made fascinating reading. How easy it is for us to think of Christianity as a western religion, something Europeans exported to India and the East.
How differently the story is told in Kerala itself. The Christians of Kerala is ‘a brief profile of the evolution of all major churches in Kerala’ by Anthony Korah Thomas.
It quickly becomes apparent that the rich mix of Christians in Kerala goes well beyond the protestant missionary enterprise of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beyond the Portuguese Catholic missions of the sixteenth century. There’s an intriguing mix of Eastern Orthodox and Syrian churches that trace their history further back to the very first century AD … and to an ancient tradition that the Apostle Thomas. Acts describes the expansion of Christianity from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the Roman World – west to Rome. And the way we tell the story has tended to focus on that western church.
But other traditions tell of the move Eastwards. And one of those traditions tells of journeys the Apostle Thomas makes to Syria and Edessa and beyond two journeys to India, the second of which took him, so those traditions tell to Kerala in South Western India. Not that he was keen to go. He was filled with fear, until as the Syriac Acts of Thomas from the third century records, that the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and said, “Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you.”
Roman archaeological remains on the coast of Kerala together with coins show that trade took place between the Roman World and Kerala in the second half of the first century. The story fits.
More than that, another of those books tells the story of Kerala and Her Jews. The town of Kochi boasts a synagogue that’s three hundred years older than Cheltenham’s synagogue, dating back to the sixteenth century, but traditions of a Jewish presence going back to the second half of the first century, or possibly even earlier to the Babylonian exile.
As we focus on CHIKS as our Christmas collection and today welcome Robin Radley to tell us more about the work of those Children’s Homes in Kerala State, maybe we can bear in mind the Eastern dimension of our Christian story.
Nowhere is that plainer than here in the story of the wise men, the magi, who came from the East. And returned there. One of those traditions has Thomas meeting with two of them on his travels to India.
It’s no bad thing to bear in mind Thomas’s story.
Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. 13And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: 14Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15and Matthew, and Thomas, Luke 6:12-15
We would do well to take a leaf out of Thomas’s book and be disciples of Jesus, called to learn … and then to go out into the world.
These twelve [including Thomas] Jesus sent out with the following instructions: … go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
As a disciple and apostle, Thomas was always ready to learn of Jesus, but more than that he was ready to put that teaching into practice.
We have a teaching to share with Thomas about the love of God breaking into our world and coming to rule in our hearts, our homes and our world.
And, like Thomas, we must put that teaching into practice by bringing healing into the lives of those who hurt.
But that can be scary in a hostile world. Like Thomas at moments of fear we need to be aware of the presence of Christ with us, speaking through the storm the words, Peace be still! Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.
What draws me to Thomas is the commitment that he is prepared to make before he has all the answers to the things that trouble and perplex him.
Turning to John’s gospel it is the commitment that is apparent first …
When Jesus heard the news of the death of Lazarus, he determined to go and visit him, even though that would take him closer to Jerusalem and very much closer to his own death. Thomas is the one who expresses his commitment to Christ in forthright terms.
Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’
Thomas and the others accompany Jesus into Jerusalem but by the time they have reached the evening of the last supper, questions begin to crop up for Thomas. What I like about Thomas is his honesty in asking those questions.
It is only as we ask questions of our faith that we will elicit responses that can help us forward on our journey of faith. That was exactly the experience Thomas had.
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe* in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?* 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going.’* 5Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Thomas may have been with the other disciples in the Upper Room on the night Jesus was arrested.
But he was not among the disciples in that upper room on the evening of his resurrection.
But Thomas (who was called the Twin*), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’
26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ 27Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ 28Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ 29Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
Those words of Jesus stayed with Thomas.
He was among the twelve who heard the commission of Jesus to go into all the world, and make disciples of all nations, and among those in the upper room who sensed the strength of God’s spirit with them on the Day of Pentecost. And many in Kerala remain convinced that he overcame his fears and heeded the words of Jesus in that vision of his … recorded in the third century Acts of Thomas
“Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you.”
Showing posts with label mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mission. Show all posts
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
What it takes to be disciples
It’s great to catch a glimpse of what our Open the Book team are doing as they take Bible stories into the assemblies at Oadwood School. And to think there are other such teams taking Bible Stories into many, many school assemblies throughout Gloucestershire and up and down the country.
I loved the way the story of Jesus’ Special Friends came to an end.
Jesus shook his head and smiled. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “God has given me a lot of work to do. And I need helpers Helpers like you and your friends. Once you weree fishermen. But from now on, you’ll be fishing for people. And helping me bring them to God.
Then Jesus stepped out of the boat and wawlked away, across the shore. “Come with me,” he called.
Peter and his friends watched him go. They looked at the fish. They looked at each other. Then they dropped their nets, left their boats behind, and raced off to follow Jesus.” [The Lion Storyteller Bible retold by Bob Holman (Lion, 1995)]
It’s one thing telling Bible stories for children and catching the fun and excitement as those special friends ‘raced off to follow Jesus’.
It’s worth re-visiting those stories, however, in an adult context. The stories we tell to children as children’s stories, are in fact about adults in an adult world. And the world they lived in was a world where it was not actually straightforward to ‘race off and follow Jesus’. It was in fact fraught with difficulties.
The task Jesus had come to do and the task he expected of those who would follow him is spelled out in quite some detail from chapter 9:35 through to chapter 10 in Matthew’s gospel.
As Jesus travels from village to village, from city to city he has a message to share that’s focused on the way God’s rule is all important in the home, the family and in the world at large.
On the one hand, his teaching in some strange way made sense and helped them make sense of their lives. It was always about God’s kingdom and it gave them that sense of purpose they longed for.
And on the other hand, with Jesus it wasn’t just words. What he did made a world of difference to people as he brought healing into hurting people’s lives.
Then as Matthew 10 opens, twelve of those special friends of Jesus are named and Jesus then commissions them. He passes on to them something of that sense of authority that he has.
And then he gives them two things to do. First they are to share the very same teaching – it’s the very thing that people need to make sense of their lives … and it’s something really worth passing on.
And then they too are to bring healing into hurting people’s lives and make a difference to other people.
That’s the task in a nutshell.
Stefan and Birgit were with us for three years about ten years ago as Stefan was studying for a doctorate at the University and undertaking a pastoral placement here.
We have supported them since as they have moved to Brazil to undertake Christian work. As a family they are among those we have a special partnership with in mission.
It was great to chat with Stefan and see the three children over Skype earlier this week. What they are doing over there in Londrinia in Brazil is exactly what is envisaged here in Matthew 9 and 10.
They share a teaching ministry. That’s primarily what Stefan is engaged in. He teaches in a large theological seminary which is one of the main protestant theological seminaries in Brazil. He teaches Old Testament and biblical studies. It is quite some accomplishment for a German who did his doctorate in English now to be teaching theology in Portuguese! He encapsulates that ‘teaching’ side of the work of mission. He is helping students to make sense of the Scriptures who will then go on in pastoral and teaching ministry to help people make sense of their lives through the Scriptures.
But while we were chatting Birgit was out. A physiotherapist, Birgit has become very involved in a drug rehabilitation project run in their locality. That’s the other side of that mission coin – the practical, helping service that brings healing to hurting people.
Such work has its difficulties and in our prayers and in our practical support we seek to be a support to Stefan and Birgit, and to Marit, Simeon and Jacob in their family life together.
Jesus too recognised the difficulties. A lot of what he shares with those ‘special friends’ in chapter 10 is about addressing the difficulties that are all too real. He recognises not all will be impressed. People will mock and taunt – there will be real persecution. Jesus shares words of wisdom about how to cope in that kind of situation, and emphasises the importance of actions rather than words.
Matthew 10:16-20 and 40-42
Following in the footsteps of Jesus can lead you into scary situations – be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. And even if it is just a cup of water … what a difference that can make!
It is a year since Street Pastors was launched in Cheltenham.
On Saturday night at Cambray at 7-30 that anniversary will be marked and the latest set of volunteers to join the scheme will be commissioned, bring the total number of Street Pastors in Cheltenham to 50. Though more are very much needed.
I’ve been asked to give the address on Saturday night and felt I couldn’t do that without getting a taste of the training they do and experiencing a night out on the streets.
It was an inspiration.
So it was I found myself just after 4-00 one Saturday morning walking back to the Salvation Army church which is used as a base with one of the older members of St Luke’s who I think will be in their seventies. What she had to say was an interesting.
“I think quite differently about going out into Cheltenham in the evening now! I used to be fearful of all the young people. Now I realise they are with very few exceptions lovely people who are looking out for each other. I no longer feel a fear about going into Cheltenham in the evening.”
Cheltenham at night on a Friday and a Saturday can be a scary place. In that context Jesus’ words of wisdom are to be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.
That sums up the approach of Street Pastors. The training is extensive. They are now an integral part of the town’s response to the Night Time economy. Dressed in a distinctive uniform they go out in pairs, always two pairs together. One person in each pair has an ear piece and microphone which links them into the Police Control room and enables them to hear conversations among all the security staff in all the clubs around the town.
In the middle part of the 6 hour shift I did that night I was back at base where we were chatting, and listening in to that radio chatter. I pricked my ears up as one of our Street Pastors radioed into the police control room to report a fight that was starting on the Strand. Within a couple of minutes a single police man arrived. Enough of a presence to calm the situation a little but not enough to stop it entirely. Within a couple of minutes the police control room were asking for some street pastors to attend a girl by Boots corner who was on her own and needing help. They moved over there where they found a police van with police officers helping that girl. They took over and the four of them were able to chat with her, share some water, some of those flip-fops which for girls with no shoes on make all the difference and walk her home. That freed up the police to join their colleague and nothing came of the fight.
The Street Pastors carry a dustpan and brush and it was surprising how much broken glass they swept up. And a dozen girls had flip flops.
A fight that didn’t happen doesn’t count on the statistics. Girls who don’t go to A and E with badly injured feet having walked over broken glass don’t count on the statistics.
Two things struck me about that night. First the whole approach takes those words of Jesus seriously. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. There was a wisdom in the rigorous training and strict approach to patrolling they took, linked with a gentle presence that made all the difference.
And the other thing was taking seriously what Jesus said about the cup of water. What a difference that makes too.
Practical help. But absolutely clear. It is not bound up with teaching. There’s no ‘evangelising’. Each of those involved in Street Pastors will no doubt have other settings in which they can share a faith that is definitely important to them. But Street Pastors is not the setting for that.
Mind you, it was fascinating to see how many conversations there were initiated by people asking questions, sometimes very big questions, as they faced real difficulties and major problems. Who knows how many of those conversations may have been a real help too.
I for one am with those ‘special friends of Jesus’ not just in the adult world as much as in the world of children’s bible story telling. That involves something in Christ’s teaching, and in the whole of his life, death and resurrection that for me helps make sense of a sometimes very troubling world. And at the same time it also involves bringing practical help real healing to people who are hurting in that very troubling world.
I loved the way the story of Jesus’ Special Friends came to an end.
Jesus shook his head and smiled. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “God has given me a lot of work to do. And I need helpers Helpers like you and your friends. Once you weree fishermen. But from now on, you’ll be fishing for people. And helping me bring them to God.
Then Jesus stepped out of the boat and wawlked away, across the shore. “Come with me,” he called.
Peter and his friends watched him go. They looked at the fish. They looked at each other. Then they dropped their nets, left their boats behind, and raced off to follow Jesus.” [The Lion Storyteller Bible retold by Bob Holman (Lion, 1995)]
It’s one thing telling Bible stories for children and catching the fun and excitement as those special friends ‘raced off to follow Jesus’.
It’s worth re-visiting those stories, however, in an adult context. The stories we tell to children as children’s stories, are in fact about adults in an adult world. And the world they lived in was a world where it was not actually straightforward to ‘race off and follow Jesus’. It was in fact fraught with difficulties.
The task Jesus had come to do and the task he expected of those who would follow him is spelled out in quite some detail from chapter 9:35 through to chapter 10 in Matthew’s gospel.
As Jesus travels from village to village, from city to city he has a message to share that’s focused on the way God’s rule is all important in the home, the family and in the world at large.
On the one hand, his teaching in some strange way made sense and helped them make sense of their lives. It was always about God’s kingdom and it gave them that sense of purpose they longed for.
And on the other hand, with Jesus it wasn’t just words. What he did made a world of difference to people as he brought healing into hurting people’s lives.
Then as Matthew 10 opens, twelve of those special friends of Jesus are named and Jesus then commissions them. He passes on to them something of that sense of authority that he has.
And then he gives them two things to do. First they are to share the very same teaching – it’s the very thing that people need to make sense of their lives … and it’s something really worth passing on.
And then they too are to bring healing into hurting people’s lives and make a difference to other people.
That’s the task in a nutshell.
Stefan and Birgit were with us for three years about ten years ago as Stefan was studying for a doctorate at the University and undertaking a pastoral placement here.
We have supported them since as they have moved to Brazil to undertake Christian work. As a family they are among those we have a special partnership with in mission.
It was great to chat with Stefan and see the three children over Skype earlier this week. What they are doing over there in Londrinia in Brazil is exactly what is envisaged here in Matthew 9 and 10.
They share a teaching ministry. That’s primarily what Stefan is engaged in. He teaches in a large theological seminary which is one of the main protestant theological seminaries in Brazil. He teaches Old Testament and biblical studies. It is quite some accomplishment for a German who did his doctorate in English now to be teaching theology in Portuguese! He encapsulates that ‘teaching’ side of the work of mission. He is helping students to make sense of the Scriptures who will then go on in pastoral and teaching ministry to help people make sense of their lives through the Scriptures.
But while we were chatting Birgit was out. A physiotherapist, Birgit has become very involved in a drug rehabilitation project run in their locality. That’s the other side of that mission coin – the practical, helping service that brings healing to hurting people.
Such work has its difficulties and in our prayers and in our practical support we seek to be a support to Stefan and Birgit, and to Marit, Simeon and Jacob in their family life together.
Jesus too recognised the difficulties. A lot of what he shares with those ‘special friends’ in chapter 10 is about addressing the difficulties that are all too real. He recognises not all will be impressed. People will mock and taunt – there will be real persecution. Jesus shares words of wisdom about how to cope in that kind of situation, and emphasises the importance of actions rather than words.
Matthew 10:16-20 and 40-42
Following in the footsteps of Jesus can lead you into scary situations – be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. And even if it is just a cup of water … what a difference that can make!
It is a year since Street Pastors was launched in Cheltenham.
On Saturday night at Cambray at 7-30 that anniversary will be marked and the latest set of volunteers to join the scheme will be commissioned, bring the total number of Street Pastors in Cheltenham to 50. Though more are very much needed.
I’ve been asked to give the address on Saturday night and felt I couldn’t do that without getting a taste of the training they do and experiencing a night out on the streets.
It was an inspiration.
So it was I found myself just after 4-00 one Saturday morning walking back to the Salvation Army church which is used as a base with one of the older members of St Luke’s who I think will be in their seventies. What she had to say was an interesting.
“I think quite differently about going out into Cheltenham in the evening now! I used to be fearful of all the young people. Now I realise they are with very few exceptions lovely people who are looking out for each other. I no longer feel a fear about going into Cheltenham in the evening.”
Cheltenham at night on a Friday and a Saturday can be a scary place. In that context Jesus’ words of wisdom are to be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.
That sums up the approach of Street Pastors. The training is extensive. They are now an integral part of the town’s response to the Night Time economy. Dressed in a distinctive uniform they go out in pairs, always two pairs together. One person in each pair has an ear piece and microphone which links them into the Police Control room and enables them to hear conversations among all the security staff in all the clubs around the town.
In the middle part of the 6 hour shift I did that night I was back at base where we were chatting, and listening in to that radio chatter. I pricked my ears up as one of our Street Pastors radioed into the police control room to report a fight that was starting on the Strand. Within a couple of minutes a single police man arrived. Enough of a presence to calm the situation a little but not enough to stop it entirely. Within a couple of minutes the police control room were asking for some street pastors to attend a girl by Boots corner who was on her own and needing help. They moved over there where they found a police van with police officers helping that girl. They took over and the four of them were able to chat with her, share some water, some of those flip-fops which for girls with no shoes on make all the difference and walk her home. That freed up the police to join their colleague and nothing came of the fight.
The Street Pastors carry a dustpan and brush and it was surprising how much broken glass they swept up. And a dozen girls had flip flops.
A fight that didn’t happen doesn’t count on the statistics. Girls who don’t go to A and E with badly injured feet having walked over broken glass don’t count on the statistics.
Two things struck me about that night. First the whole approach takes those words of Jesus seriously. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. There was a wisdom in the rigorous training and strict approach to patrolling they took, linked with a gentle presence that made all the difference.
And the other thing was taking seriously what Jesus said about the cup of water. What a difference that makes too.
Practical help. But absolutely clear. It is not bound up with teaching. There’s no ‘evangelising’. Each of those involved in Street Pastors will no doubt have other settings in which they can share a faith that is definitely important to them. But Street Pastors is not the setting for that.
Mind you, it was fascinating to see how many conversations there were initiated by people asking questions, sometimes very big questions, as they faced real difficulties and major problems. Who knows how many of those conversations may have been a real help too.
I for one am with those ‘special friends of Jesus’ not just in the adult world as much as in the world of children’s bible story telling. That involves something in Christ’s teaching, and in the whole of his life, death and resurrection that for me helps make sense of a sometimes very troubling world. And at the same time it also involves bringing practical help real healing to people who are hurting in that very troubling world.
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