Communion

1966 was a special year for Highbury … and not just because England won the world cup!

It was the year that Eric Burton came to be minister here. Eric brought with him vision and inspiration that he brought from the years he had spent working for the then Congregational Union of England and Wales as their Children’s and Youth officer.

He had just published a book outlining his vision for family church were people of all ages and all backgrounds were welcomed as one family of God’s people in church. No Walls Within was the title of his book and Eric’s vision for the church.

Eric was into the latest in visual aids and participative worship. Film strips, slide shows – this was state of the art technology. And things visual were all important. He had a picture board made that many will remember with fondness. He worked in collaboration with Roland Francis. Each Sunday one of the young people would open the curtain to reveal a poster Eric would relate his children’s talk to or a cartoon Roland had made specially for the occasion. They were wonderful and engaged the youngsters.

When we have visiting speakers we invite them to use pictures on the projector if they would like to. Some do, some don’t.

First time after we had had the projector Eric came to preach a couple of summers ago. And he set out instructions which Ian White took home and followed to create illustrations on the projector for his service.

This was Eric – approaching 80 and wanting still to innovate.

The other side of 80 Eric visited us again in the summer. Once again he set out detailed instructions for Becky to put into OpenSong to go with his service. Great to see his enthusiasm – took Becky quite some time – so thank you to her as well.

But this year was interesting for reasons that at the time Eric was not aware of.

A month before coming Eric rang me just to run past me his idea for the Sunday morning service.

It was to be a family service with all the children staying in as it was school holiday time. It was also to be a communion service.

Eric wanted to know if it would be all right to address Communion and what communion is.

Eric is one of those I look up to, one of those who has not only played his part in shaping my understanding of ministry and church life, but also one of those who has been Minister to me, in particular at the time of my father’s death when Eric was very supportive to us as a family as he took the funeral service.

To have Eric ask me whether it is OK to follow such and such a theme is great – it is so affirming. But also … if you think that’s the case then I follow your wisdom.

He built his whole service around the theme of Communion, and left for me in booklet form the text of what he had shared during the service.

If anyone would like to borrow it, it makes good reading as an explanation of Communion.

It is an outline of a Congregational interpretation of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It begins with reflections on its Jewish roots. It then goes on to explore what Christians mean and sees Communion as ‘an act of remembrance, an act of thanksgiving, an act of penitence and an act of devotion.

Reading what Eric had written and seeing what Eric had done in that service, and being aware of the theme he had chosen, something caught my attention.

I found Eric prompting me to think again. And Eric’s promptings chimed in with conversations I had been having with Becky.

What Eric writes starts with the Jewish roots of Communion in the Passover meal.

Passover is essentially a family gathering. It is not something you do in the synagogue. It is something you do at home. Insofar as it is possible the whole family will gather together for Passover in the family home. It will be presided over by the father of the family. And it will include everyone in the family – from the youngest to the oldest. Indeed the youngest will have a particular part to play, asking the senior member of the family what the significance of the Passover is and why it is celebrated?

In Jesus’ day it was celebrated in Jerusalem and involved sacrifices in the Temple. We first encounter Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the Passover when he is 12 and subsequently we find him going up according to John’s gospel again in his ministry. It is at or around Passover that he gets the group that have become his family together in the upper room of a particular house in Jerusalem to share in the Passover.

If Eric began at that point he also set his reflections on Communion in the context of a service where the children were sharing with us for the whole service.

What we do on a Sunday when we meet is to meet with ‘no walls within’ as a church family.

We make a point of being welcoming to all and specifically invite all who love the Lord Jesus Christ to share with us at the Lord’s Supper.

Why do we share in communion when the children are not with us?

Our children’s leaders have fed back to us that it can be a very long time on a Commmunion Sunday when the children are in the back of the church.

Becky has prompted us to think again.

In her summer newsletter to parents and families she has suggested doing something different … and we are going to do that today.

More and more churches share communion at a point at which the children are in the service – when we joined with St Luke’s back in January we saw then that that is their practice.

And so after the sermon as the hymn begins, the deacon who has been on vestry duty is going to go through and tell the children’s leaders we are ready for the children to return to church.

When they come back they will go back to sit with their families.

We will then move into the communion part of our service.

I have grown up with a tradition that I waited until I became a church member, made my own confession of faith and became a church member – our equivalent of confirmation before taking communion. I recall therefore my first communion. I was about 12. I make much of the fact that for the most part I use the words that were used with me on that occasion at the heart of the service.

We do, however, have an open invitation to all who love the Lord Jesus Chrsit. I have come to learn that Passover includes all the family; young and old. Jesus was welcoming of all from the oldest to the youngest.

May it not be appropriate to share communion with the children as well?

What we want to do is to go with the wishes of the parents. If you think you would like to wait until your children have been confirmed, received into church membership, or maybe until they have been baptised, then we want to respect that.

So what we shall do is to offer the bread and the wine to parents first and it is for the parents to show that it is to be offered to the children as well. If they would rather not have the children receive, the deacon will say a simple God bless you to each of the children who are not receiving.

So what is happening in Communion for me?

Reading: John 14:15-27

I believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in communion. I do not mean that the bread becomes the body of Christ, the wine becomes the blood of Christ and Jesus’s real presence is located in bread and in wine. I do not go with the idea that there is some substance in heaven that makes a thing on earth what it is and that the substance changes, the elements remain the same and so you can say the bread becomes the body of Christ. I am uneasy with all of that.

But I belive in the real presence of Jesus Christ in communion.

His real presence is there as we meet together in his name. It is rooted in the promise that where two or three gather together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Some people say that taking bread and wine is just symbolic. They are just symbols. The bread and the wine certainly is symbolic … but I believe that something more is going on when we eat and when we drink.

We are doing what Jesus commanded us to do. We are doing what every generation of Christians in one form or another has done ever since the time of Jesus.

As we eat the bread and as we drink the wine I believe that God is real and that God is really at work within us.

You can feel the bread as we eat going down. And sometimes it makes you splutter.

You can feel the wine – we use grape juice as you drink it.

What we eat and what we drink is real.

The love of God seen in the body of Christ broken for us and the blood of Christ shed for us is just as real – and that love of God in Christ is activated in our lives as it were by the working of the Holy Spirit.

Just as what we eat is real and what we drink is real so too the presence God at work in Christ and through the Holy Spirit is real.

It is not a theory. It is not something just symbolised.

Something real is happening. And it is the work of God coming alive in us.

As I hold the bread I think how real it is, as I eat it I think how I need things to eat to survive. And I think how real God’s love in Christ let loose by the Spirit is … and how I need that just as much.

I hold the glass – isn’t it interesting in the wake of the swine flu fears those who have a single cup have made special provision not to use the cup. We can see today our history being worked out. Originally in 1827 we had a cup. I think this is our original chalice. Then in the Victorian period at some point, when there was an awareness of hygiene and the danger of contagious diseases, lots of free churches were persuaded to switch to individual glasses. I have not qualms about using a single cup on occasion – but at the moment I am pleased to have individual glasses.

As I hold the glass – I think the same train of thoughts about the need to have something to drink.

But something else comes to my mind as well.

I hold the glass between my thumb and finger and as I look at the liquid I notice that I can see my pulse beating. Have you noticed that. It may just be me!!!

Just as the real beat of my heart can be seen in that cup, so too the life-beat of God’s love in Christ let loose by the Spirit is real within me as I drink that cup. God’s love in Christ by the power of the Spirit is my life-blood, it is the beat of my heart deep within.

Communion is most moving. It is something we share as a church family. With no walls within. It is something in a moment or too we will share with our youngsters as well.

Come and See!

An invitation to share …

And questions to answer

It has to be one of my favourite phrases.

On a beach a beautiful rock formation, such wonderful colours. You cannot keep it to yourself, you simply have to call out to your long-suffering partner those wonderful three little words.

On Cleeve Common you spot a beautiful oyster shell embedded in the rock far from any beach and there’s nothing else for it … you call, you beckon … and those three monosyllabic words tumble out in their excitement.

A bush alive with butterflies. This time it’s Felicity re-paying the compliment. Three words 4-3-3.

And now for the most wonderful discovery of all. Not only have the BBC got highlights of Football League games as well as the Premiership on Match of the Day, but on the internet they are showing highlights of each game played by each club, including Cheltenham Town, all the goals!

Have you got what those three words are yet?

C _ _ _ A _ _ S _ _

Come and see!

Those three little words go a long way towards explaining why the wonderful Good News of Jesus Christ caught on and spread.

John explains what happened in the first chapter of his book.

Philip lived on the north easterly shore of the Sea of Galilee in Bethsaida, the home town of Peter and Andrew. When Jesus decided to go to Galilee he found Philip and said to him, Follow me.

Nothing of said of what happened next. It’s not important to the story John is telling. But it was life-changing for Philip. Joining up with Peter and Andrew and others who were already following Jesus, his immediate reaction was to want others to know what he had discovered.

So it was that Philip found Nathanael and told him the wonderful news!

“We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

Now it would appear that Nathanael was more than a little cautious. Maybe he knew Philip’s enthusiasms, maybe he was wary of being carried away on the latest fad. Maybe something had happened that had made him hesitate to leap in.

His response is quite disparaging. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip’s reply is telling.

He could have argued the case, but he didn’t.

He could have said, ‘Go and find out.’ But he didn’t.

Instead Philip says,.

“Come and see.”

Three small words.

One friend’s invitation to another friend.

‘Come and see’

It began five years ago in one church. Since then lots of other churches have caught on. A couple of years ago, the church Felicity’s mother and sister and cousin and their families in Leicester joined in.

This year the Congregational Federation has joined in.

Think of people you know who once came to church, who have at some point been interested in church. Why not ask them to come back, or come along and see what happens now. What if more than one person did that on the same Sunday. What if lots of people in lots of churches were doing it on the same Sunday.

That’s what will be happening on the last Sunday in September. And we are going to be part of it.

YouTube Video clip of Back to Church Sunday

Invitations to take with you … or simply make the invitation.

The service we will invite people to will be a celebration of God’s creation, and the call to us to care for one another in that world – at our harvest weekend we will be looking at our own mission and the Christian Aid project we are supporting in the Dominican Republic, Oné Respé.

But Philip’s story didn’t end there.

He stuck with Jesus through to the cross, beyond to the resurrection and was with the followers of Jesus on the Day of Pentecost. He was involved in spreading the Good News in Jerusalem. And when Saul’s persecution of the church was at its height he fled, taking the message wherever he went.

On one occasion he was on the wilderness road that led from Jerusalem to Gaza. This time he met someone who had a lot of questions to ask.

Acts 8:4-8 and 26-40

Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralysed or lame were cured. So there was great joy in that city.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.’
The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Who, why, what, how?

These are questions people ask at all sorts of points, not least when confronted with the realities of a sometimes very troubled world.

What is the point of life?

Why do people suffer?

What happens when we die?

Is forgiveness possible?

Does God exist? Yes No Probably

Philip was prepared to listen, the Eunuch was prepared to learn, both of them were up for discussing and discovering something new.

That’s basically what Alpha is about.

‘The Alpha Course is an opportunity for anyone to explore the Christian faith.

“It is relaxed, low key, friendly and fun.

There is a meal together at the beginning of each session which gives you an opportunity to know each other.

Listen, Learn, Discuss and discover. And ask anything. Alpha is a place where no question is too simple or too hostile.

Our Alpha Course will run from 6^th October to 8^th December on Tuesday evenings. Again the idea is that we invite people. That’s it’s strength.

We have been involved in those difficult questions – in a conversation in a discussion. Take the opportunity to invite someone along. Don’t just say, go along it will be interesting.

Use Philip’s invitation – come and see as well. Come with them, bring them along.

This Autumn we have an invitation to share … Come and See.

Building Bridges ... and not just in the sky!

It’s not something you can see from Cheltenham.

I saw it only once in the fortnight we were in Cornwall.

But when I did see it, there it was in all its splendour!

The Milky Way streaks across the sky and it’s quite possible to see why the Chinese thought of it as a mighty river.

Look at the stars of the summer triangle and the wonderful Chinese story of the herd boy and the weaving girl separated by the impassable river has to be one of the best of the stories of the night sky!

The Chinese story has the great bird, we think of as Cygnus, the Swan, flying the length of the river and as the bird’s wings span the river so the herd boy and the weaving girl are able to meet each other once again!

Lovely story.

When I look for Cygnus the swan, I always see a cross. Not for nothing is that constellation sometimes known as the Northern Cross.

I love that picture of Christ as the bridge builder across the impassable chasm!

That verse in 1 John 4.9 says it all … God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world.

It works for me in a number of ways.

There are times when we can feel as if there is an impassable gulf between us and God.

God stands for all that is good. We strive after all that is good. But time and again we fall far short of the ideal. There seems to be a gulf between us and God.

Christ is the one who bridges that gulf. On the one hand he is one with God and in Christ’s teaching we can see all the good God wants us to live by in our lives.

But at the same time he touches us in all our weakness with a wonderful forgiving love. Christ embodies God’s way of goodness, but his love reaches out to those who most blatantly fail to follow that path – to Zacchaeus he offers a forgiving love that gives him the opportunity to begin all over again, to the woman caught in adultery he refuses to condemn and offers a new start, supremely on the cross of those who have carried out his execution he says, Father forgive them.

As 1 John 4.9-10 goes on to say, God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world … to be the means by which our sins are forgiven. Look to the cross and see the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and find that it is as if the cross bridges the gulf between us and God. We are forgiven, we may begin all over again – and discover a new way of living in God’s way for the world.

There’s another way for me when a chasm opens up between us and God. We build up in our mind’s eye an image of God as all knowing, all powerful, all loving. That’s God, over there. The other side of the chasm.

But over here in the real world things go wrong, things fall apart, things are not as they should be. And a gulf opens up between us and God. On the large scale, but closer to home as we are aware of sadnesses that creep up and then sweep us away as they overwhelm.

It’s not enough to have a picture theoretically of God as all knowing, all powerful, all loving. If that’s just a sense of God that you have the chasm is indeed impassable at times.

I want to focus on the one who bridges the gap. I want to focus on Christ. For me it is as if in Christ this God who is all-powerful, all seeing, all loving comes alongside us – crosses over to our side of the chasm if you like. Look to Christ and what do you see, one who shares with us in our weakness and frailty. So when a close friend, Lazarus, dies, Jesus too weeps. In those moments of agony on the cross, Jesus too cries out, My God, my God why have you abandoned me?

Jesus is with us, feeling with us, sharing with us precisely at that moment when we can but weep, precisely at that moment of feeling God-forsaken. He is there sharing in our every weakness.

He is the strength alongside to help us through the difficulty.

Both of these images are captured by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews

He speaks of Jesus as ‘the great High Priest’ What is interesting is to unpack the idea of the priest. In Latin the word for priest is Pontifex. That in turn comes from two words, pons, meaning bridge, and facio meaning to make. The priest is the ‘bridge-builder’ the one who bridges the gulf between us and God. And Jesus is the great high priest, the supreme bridge builder who bridges the gap. He does so because he knows our every weakness, and shares the very vulnerability that makes us so intensely aware of the chasm.

Hebrews 4:14-16

Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God — Jesus, the Son of God. Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.

That image of the cross spanning the chasm is so powerful.

It is such a powerful image … and a wonderful invitation. Feeling a chasm between us and God because we cannot live up to the ideal? Feeling a chasm between us and God because events are overwhelming us? Look to Christ, cross over that bridge that spans the chasm and with confidence let us approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it!

And when we find that grace, and find the help we need … what then?

That then has to make a difference to us. The picture of the cross spanning the chasm works in a third way for me as well.

The promise of grace and help just when we need it, leads on to the challenge – our task is to be ‘bridge-builders’, and to support the work of bridge-building. It was wonderful to welcome Peter and Yousef to our Palestinian Supper evening on Wednesday, when we raised £1502-50 for the people Joanne supports in Bethlehem. It was Peter who organised our visit to the Scout group – and it was great beside the pictures of the Bethlehem scout camp in the corridor to talk about building partnerships with the scouts in Bethlehem.

Then on Friday and Saturday I stumbled across the East West Divan Orchestra at the Proms. The Jewish Daniel Barenboim spoke of the way he had got together with the Muslim Edward Saieed 10 years ago with the intention of getting Arab and Israeli muicians together to talk to one another and to listen to each other’s stories. Little did he dream then that ten years on a Promenade concert would include Saeed’s nephew as the pianist and Barenboim’s son, Michael, as the violinist in a piece by Alban Berg in three parts, Love, Friendship and the World. Those young people get together and they fiercely support their own perspective on the Middle East – but they listen to each other’s very different narrative. And maybe in the making of music something happens where differences exist side by side and yet in harmony with each other.

Where are the bridges we can be involved in building?

Our Grandson's Baptism!

This is a bit special!

Leading a baptism service for your own grandson!

That really is special.

First it was the Saga magazine. Then it was noticing that Age Concern and Help the Aged do special events for the over 50’s! I always used to think they were good titles for those organisations. I’m having second thoughts!

And now a baptism service for your grandson.

I think there’s something special about family … and continuity in the family. There’s a chain of links from one generation to the next – Felicity has been very much into family history, a cousin emailed only this week to say she had added us into her family tree. There is something very special about what is passed on from one generation to the next.

So I have a reading from a part of the Bible that has become very special to me. My father preached from Paul’s letter to Timothy at my ordination – as it were passing something special on that he had received from his father and grandfather before him, I then drew on the same letter when it came to Dave’s baptism. From my father to son, from father to son, and now from grandfather to grandson. After all, Paul addresses his letter to ‘my dear son’.

When my eye turned to this passage again, however, I was delighted to see that grandparents come in for some praise too. Though actually it’s mother and grandmother who come in for Paul’s praise. See if you can spot the names of the Timothy’s mother and grandmother too.

From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, sent to proclaim the promised life which we have in union with Christ Jesus —

2 To Timothy, my dear son:

May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.

3 I give thanks to God, whom I serve with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did. I thank him as I remember you always in my prayers night and day. 4 I remember your tears, and I want to see you very much, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I remember the sincere faith you have, the kind of faith that your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice also had. I am sure that you have it also.

6 For this reason I remind you to keep alive the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you. 7 For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love, and self-control.

Your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice had a very special part to play in Timothy’s life.

Since Easter we have been exploring a theme of service, looking at ways we can serve each other and serve God through the church and in the wider world. Becky came across a video clip that celebrates motherhood. I found it moving, not least because of the way it brings together powerful music, and thought-provoking words. Indeed the piece of music is one I associate very much with my own childhood, and others of a certain age will find it brings back fond memories too. It’s the kind of music to pass on from one generation to the next.

YouTube video clip on being a mother

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T5brqV6Y1M

I guess motherhood … parenthood … is one of those things that you can’t do on your own – you need help. One of the things that happens in a baptism service is an acknowledgement of the help that is available from friends, from family, from church family too.

But a baptism service is about much more than the help that other people can give. At the heart of our baptism service is a celebration of the gift God gives to us of his love for us and of his presence with each one of us.

That gives us a strength from beyond ourselves that we can draw on when we feel overwhelmed by all the demands laid on us.

We can tap into that source of strengthening from God through the faith we have in God.

That’s what Paul recognised:

I remember the sincere faith you have, the kind of faith that your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice also had. I am sure that you have it also.

6 For this reason I remind you to keep alive the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you. 7 For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love, and self-control.

In a baptism service we also celebrate the wonderful thought that we belong not just to our own family … but also to a church family. The church family we belong to includes Lois, Eunice and Timothy – our celebration today is a celebration that Lake is part of that church family that goes right back to Timothy and to Eunice and to Lois as well, right back to Jesus.

Think how many people come between those three and Lake – so many!

And yet it is not quite so many as you might think!

The oldest person in our church family is Margaret Saunders – next month she will be 104! She’s thinking of us today! At Margaret’s baptism it is just conceivable there could have been someone that old around then as well … that’s just 20 people between Lake and Timothy, Eunice and Lois!

Thinking of that link between Lake and Timothy, his mother and his grandmother, I asked some of those in our church family who are around the hundred mark what their hopes and prayers would be for Lake and for all the little ones in our church family now.

Alice Brown was 12 years old when a friend called Nelly invited her along to Highbury. That was 1925, seven years before the church moved to this site. It wasn’t long before she was walking from Charlton Kings to our Winchcombe Street building for church in the Morning, to Grosvenor Street for Sunday School in the afternoon, and back to church in the evening as well.

When she left home as a teacher she moved away from the church to return when her sister died about eight years ago.

Think how much that generation have been through in the last century.

“I don’t know what I would do without a faith – a faith that there is a God who is there to help!”

That’s the first of Paul’s comments – God’s Spirit fills us with power, strength from beyond ourselves – the help we need to see is through. Alice spoke movingly of the help her faith has been to her … and still is.

Recently, at the age of 96, Alice has started to teach an aerobics class at Lilian Faithful House, the care home, where she now lives. She was disappointed at having only 8 people turn up. The manager, came over to her one day to remind her – you’ll have to remember how old they are!” she said.

“Well, bless my soul,” Alice said, “none of them is as old as I am!”

God’s Spirit fills us with power and with love …

Alice has had a passion for helping people – when she came to worship with us regularly on Sunday mornings each month she would be away one Sunday – and she was in her late 80’s then because she was helping to make cooked breakfasts at Cheltenham Open Door, supporting people who are homeless, or in need of support.

What did she wish for Lake?

“That his life be a peaceful life … not harassed by worries.

“That he should try to be helpful and friendly to other people – not to get enemies – to keep friends with people.

“That we should all try to do the right thing, try to keep on the right path and not do wrong things.

“Most important to keep friends with other people, to help as much as you can, to keep good relationsh9ips with people.”

God’s Spirit fills us with power and love …

That thought was echoed by Ivy Saddler – whose husband died after nearly 70 years of marriage earlier this year, and who lives in a house called Hoe Met because they met on Plymouth Hoe.

She would pray for the little ones in her family, in our church family and specifically for Lake “A peaceful world, we want peace.”

And then she offered a verse giving a very practical guideline about the kind of love we should show to each other …

“Don’t look at the flaws as you go through life

Not even if you find them

It is wise and kind

To be somewhat blind

And look for the virtues behind them.”

God’s Spirit fills us with power, love.

It is intriguing that that was important to Paul as he thought of Timothy, Eunice and Lois.

Margaret Saunders was 9 when the first world war started. She had vivid memories of the first world war and of the second world war too. And like the others I was speaking to, a peaceful world was uppermost in her mind.

What is your hope for the little ones in your family, and in the church family? Was the question I put to Margaret.

“A peaceful world. No more wars, no more air raid sirens and raids that a lot of us went through.”

But Margaret did not leave it there. After pausing a moment, she went on with a further thought.

“Now does that mean, a less selfish world, a world where people think more of others and less of themselves?”

Maybe that’s the key to living that life of love that Paul spoke of?

Then it was that Margaret began to speak of the need for discipline, the value of rules and regulations, the importance of a moral code, the importance of making promises and keeping promises.

That too seemed to be an echo of Paul’s thoughts as well.

God’s spirit fills us with power, love and self-control.

“Rules of behaviour,” Margaret commented, “are actually for the benefit of everyone.”

There is so much to give thanks for as we share together family and friends, and church family in this celebration of Lake’s baptism.

The Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead his Spirit fills us with power, love and self-control.

How can we keep to that – for Ivy the day is framed at the start and the finish by prayer …

This is the day which the Lord has made

And we will rejoice and be glad in it

For thou has given to me

The gift of a new day

Help me to accept it with a thankful heart

And to use it trustfully for Jesus’ sake

Amen

Now that the day is over

And the coming and going is ended

Grant to us a quiet night

And in the hours of darkness

Restore us in body, mind and spirit.

Worship in spirit and truth

Something happened in Nablus this week. The car parks were full, the coach station was busy and the shops were teeming. It was the first time that had happened for nine years.

Nablus is a major town and shopping centre in the West Bank. Why that news from Palestine and Israel caught my eye was that Nablus is home to a tiny remnant of Samaritans. They are still there … just!

It’s somewhere near there that Jesus met the Woman of Samaria at Jacob’s well and had a conversation that in all sorts of ways went to the heart of what the Christian faith is all about.

I want to take a close look at one little bit of that conversation and see what it has to say about the way we serve God and more particularly what it has to say about our worship.

Jesus ‘left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.’

Israel was a united monarchy under Saul, David and then Solomon – and then there was a big bust up. The southern kingdom came to be known as ‘Judah’ and was the small area around Jerusalem. The dynasty of David continued uninterrupted until the eventual downfall of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC by the invading Babylonians.

The Northern Kingdom came to be known as Samaria. Its history was more chequered with coups d’etat and often corrupt governments. It didn’t last as long and fell in the 700’s to the Assyrian power.

While the worship of the people of Judah focused on the Temple in Jerusalem as the place where the presence of God was focused, the covenant relationship with God was symbolised, and the sacrifices that secured that relationship were carried out, for the people of the North there were other holy places, other temples, and one in particular associated with the holy mountain of Shechem, here known as Sychar, not far from the modern city of Nablus.

When the exiles from Judah and Jerusalem were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rejoin those who had stayed all along they rebuilt the temple, and that was again the focus for the presence of God, the covenant with God, and the sacrifices to God.

Other exiles returned to what had been Samaria, and settled in the territory immediately around their holy mountain and temple in Shechem as far as they were concerned the focus for God’s presence, the covenant with God, and the sacrifices to God was on that holy mountain, in that holy place.

They had preserved a slightly different rendering of the five books of the law and what’s more they did not regard any of the prophetic books as being part of their holy scriptures. The scriptures just amounted to the books of the law.

Not a lot of love was lost between the Samaritans and the Jewish people. But the Samartian territory cut right across the middle of Palestine. To get back from Jerusalem and Judah to Galilee you either had to walk up the Jordan valley, or you had to go through the Samaritan territory.

Jesus chose to go through Samaritan territory. He was making his way from Mount Zion and the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the holy mount that was for the Jewish people the focus for the presence of God, the covenant with God and the sacrifices to God, up north to his homeland of Galilee where once more he would be with fellow Jewish people.

It was near the site of Jacob’s well, not far from Shechem and the holy mountain of the Samaritan people that Jesus met up with this woman from Samaria.

The conversation touches on personal things and the life that Jesus has to share with all people, Samaritan and Jew alike. For the Samaritan woman that was a divide too far.

The chasm between the Samaritan people and the Jewish people was one that was not possible to bridge.

So she says these words to Jesus …

‘Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’

That’s the divide in a nutshell.

Samaritans and Jewish people alike were convinced that The Presence of God, the Covenant with God and the Sacrifices to God were focused in one particular location. For the Samaritans it was and still is at Shechem – modern-day Nablus, for the Jewish people it was and still is in Jerusalem.

Jesus then challenges the assumption the woman makes. He challenges her assumption that that divide is unbridgeable. In doing that he voices the unthinkable. He offers something that is recognisably in continuity with all that had gone on in the past, but at the same time is something new.

Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

Woman, Jesus addresses her directly. Believe me. He has something to offer, but it calls for her to step out in trust towards something new.

The hour is coming … that was a phrase that immediately would ring a bell – it was the phrase used to speak of the fulfilment of ancient hopes. That hour is coming. Believe me.

The point of continuity with the past is in the worship. You will continue to worship. But your worship will now find its focus somewhere different.

The presence of God, the covenant with God, the sacrifice to God will no longer be location specific – it will no longer be focused on the Temple in Jerusalem or on the Holy Mount of Shechem.

The God at the heart of the temple worship was an awesome God whose name could not be uttered – the location was in the holiest of holy places – no one could enter.

Jesus is opening up a new sense of the presence, a new covenant relationship and he will be the sacrifice to end all sacrifices – and the God who is the focus of this worship people will regard not as YHWH, not as Lord, but as Father. Abba. Father.

Something special is opening up here.

This new way of worship creates a bridge that will span the divide between Samaritan and Jew.

Then comes a curious statement from Jesus. And yet it is a fundamentally important one for us to realise … especially if we are drawn to the process of bridge-building.

At first sight Jesus seems to be arrogant, rude even, in what he says to the woman.

‘You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.’

Jesus the bridge builder is being honest. He does not pretend that he occupies the middle ground. He is clear about his own roots. Jesus is Jewish.

This is one of the most explicit statements of that in the Gospel.

How tragic that the church lost sight of that truth down through the centuries.

The Jewishness of Jesus is something we need to constantly remind ourselves of.

And Jesus knows his Judaism.

What is he getting at when he says, ‘Salvation is from the Jews’.

Jesus is laying claim to the entirety of the Jewish story of salvation as it is told in all of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The Samartans had their own version of the first five books and regarded only those books of the law as Holy Scripture.

They had not kept any of the writings of the prophets, let alone the miscellany of writings that make up the third part of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus counted himself among those Jewish people who regarded the Prophets and for that matter the writings as part of the Holy Scriptures of his people. For him the prophets had to be read alongside the law. The prophets were as much part of the story of salvation, the salvation history, as the books of the Law.

The prophets had in turn taken up the mantle laid down by Elijah, John the Baptist had taken up the mantle of the prophets … and Jesus had taken it up too. The woman at the well had just before in the conversation recognised Jesus as a prophet.

The story of God’s salvation comes through the whole of the Jewish Scriptures: Jesus claims to be the fulfilment of the law and the prophets.

To build bridges he does not deny his heritage, but he affirms it.

Often when people seek to be bridge builders they imagine that it involves denying what you stand for and who you are.

In building bridges with other churches it is important to know where you stand and what has made you the Christian you are. In building bridges across the divide between religions, it is much more effective to stand firm in your own convictions as a Christian and to start from there.

As he bridged the divide between Jew and Samaritan Jesus did not deny his Jewishness he affirmed it. And he did so for a very specific reason.

That reason now becomes apparent.

Once again he uses that phrase that indicates the fulfilment of ancient hopes. Now he is even more explicit.

But the hour is coming, and is now here,

Notice how the drama increases, he ups the ante. The hour is coming and is now here!

when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

What a wonderful statement Jesus makes.

It has to be one of my favourite verses.

Now we are coming back to the very heart of worship.

But how do we worship in spirit and truth?

What’s involved? What is Jesus getting at?

Let’s pay careful attention to the line of thought …

The woman gets the point Jesus is making, though at first sight it is maybe difficult to see the connection with what she says next.

She goes on to say,

‘I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ), when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

The reference to worshipping in spirit and truth prompts the woman to think of the prophets and their talk of a coming Messiah.

And Jesus says, You’ve got it! That’s right. That’s what I’m getting at!

“I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

That phrase he uses – I am – is the emphatic I am that is the very name of God in the books of the law.

This is life-changing for the woman.

This is the moment of breakthrough … the bridge-bulding complete. So much so that she wants to share it with her friends back home in the Samaritan city.

So what is Jesus getting at when he asks us to worship in spirit and truth.

If the comments of Jesus about worshipping in spirit and truth trigger off in the mind of the woman thoughts about the prophets what do we make of that?

We have just encountered a reference to the whole of the Jewish story of salvation – including the Prophets as well as the books of the law.

Jesus has been described as a prophet.

The nuts and bolts of what to do in worship are spelled out in the books of the law. It is the prophets who go to the spirit of worship, and they challenge the people to think of the truth of what they are doing.

Nowhere is that more powerfully expressed than in Amos 5:21-24

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:21-24

James saw it.

To worship in spirit and in truth we must be doers of the word and not mere hearers. Those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing. James 1:22-25

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27

Paul saw it

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

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one

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.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

To worship in spirit and truth we must, in more words from Amos.5, seek good and not evil, we must hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate.

Which takes us back to Nablus this week. The car parks are full, the coach station crowded and the shops bursting at the seams for the first time in nine years because soldiers at the Israeli road blocks have waved people through. And that has to do with the new policies of President Obama … and the pressure he is bringing on the state of Israel.

How are we going to worship in spirit and truth as this week unfolds: what is the justice we take our stand on as we live out our faith and are doers not merely hearers of the word.