We belong to the church world-wide

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 to come together here today at Highbury to share in Jessica’s baptism.   Little Jessica and Matt and Ruth have been very much in our thoughts and prayers since we heard of the condition she has and of the hospital treatment she would need.  It was wonderful welcoming Jessica to church the Sunday after she returned from hospital, full of beans and full of bounce!

It seems but yesterday that family and friends met with church family here too and we were celebrating Ruth and Matt’s marriage.

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

And family works at all sorts of levels.  It’s great to see Matt and Ruth and Jessica as a family together … but it’s also great to see Matt and Ruth’s wider family getting together as well.  Here at Highbury we know Ruth’s family – and it’s great to welcome Matt’s family.  Together they make up Ruth, Matt and Jessica’s extended family.

And I guess it’s good to know that Jessica belongs as much to that extended family as to her immediate family – and can find real support from that extended family too.

Something else is going on too in our baptism service today.  Ruth and Matt have chosen to share in a baptism service today because they want to share with Jessica what was shared with both of them when they were little, a sense of belonging not only to their own family but to a church family too.

There is something special about belonging to a church family.  When you stop and think about it it is one of those rare places where people of all ages come together to share in learning together 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 of advancing years become more apparent.

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

Let me share one set 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 Church services on a Sunday we share in reflections on the Christian faith and seek to make connections with our real lives – in a very troubled time it’s a very real way of getting your bearings and sensing what it is we should be doing in this world of ours.

Friendly – it’s great to see friendships growing in a church family – and we hope the kind of friendliness 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’s another thing we seek to build on here.  We want to include everyone, give a welcome to people of all shapes and sizes, backgrounds and thinking.

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

Belonging to a church family seems to me to be much the same as belonging to your own close family.

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

One of the great things about the Baptism certificate we use today is that it is recognised by so many churches – Church of England, Roman Catholic, Methodist – across the board.  We differ in our thinking with Baptist friends but have just as much fellowship with them too.

The great thing about being part of a church family is that that makes you part of the world-wide family of the Church wherever you are.

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

And we have a great partnership with Stefan and Birgit teaching at a theological seminary in Brazil and all those volunteers who spent a year with us from Germany and Poland.

I contacted Stefan and Birgit, letting them know about today’s service.  And they sent the following email letter for Ruth, Matt and Jessica …

Dear Ruth and Matt, dear little Jessica,

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

Here in Brazil children are very much part of everything. They are cuddled by complete strangers on the road and everyone is commenting about how wonderful they are. This is certainly true for your baby daughter as well: What a beautiful child! What a blessing for us all to know her in the loving arms of her parents!

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

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

Even youths 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.

(Isaiah 40:30-31)

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

May the knowledge of God's closeness be always present  - today and all the days to come.

With lots of love and a Brazilian hug,

Stefan & Birgit with Marit, Simeon and Jakob

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

Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,

set up your kingdom in our midst 

and show your love for all this world through this new family.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God,
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 one church is to belong to a world wide church.

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

I think there are some wonderful words from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Ephesus that say it all.  It’s a prayer that echoes down through the ages and is a prayer for us all today.

Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

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

Belonging to that world wide church – we seek a strengthening in our inner being with power through his Spirit.  That’s a recognition that stuff happens in all our lives that on our own we cannot cope with.  That’s when being part of a wider family locks in and becomes all important.

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

The next thing about belonging to that world-wide church wherever it may be is that we may find a focus in our lives.   Churches all over the world come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  They have all sorts of traditions.  All sorts of different ways of doing things.  Some familiar to us.  Some very different from what we are used to.

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

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

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

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

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

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

That’s the thing about the love of Christ.  It is higher than the heights we can climb, lower than the depths we plumb and so wide you can’t get round it.  It’s at this point that no end of songs come to mind to share with a Primary School teacher with responsibility for music in school.

This is one of those precious thoughts at the heart of our faith that Paul comes back to time and again –

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

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

Paul rounds off his prayer with a a wonderful conclusion – that gives all the power all the glory to God –

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

We belong to God - New Year's Day

There’s a special feel to the first Sunday of the New Year, especially when that’s the 1^st January.  There’s something special about this place.  We have had some special services over Christmas.  There have been moments that have been really moving.  There’s something 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 is special about this place, then maybe that gives us something that will help us to 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 means for us to belong here at Highbury.

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

In its 186^th year it has to be one of the longest running TV shows in Television history.  Well, to be fair, it’s only been on TV each Christmas for 46 years.  Started in 1825 by Michael Farraday the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are aimed at young people not just to teach science but to inspire and enthuse young people with the wonders of science.  With a break only in the second world war the lectures have been delivered from the very same lecture hall in the  Royal Institution in London since Michael Farraday started them in 1825, they have been televised since 1966 and they are a highlight of the Christmas TV schedules.  This year’s lectures were given by an experimental psychologist, Dr Bruce Hood with the catchy title Meet Your Brain.  At one moment holding in his hands the brain of someone who had bequeathed their body to scientific research and in another moment doing a live link-up with one of the country’s most powerful CAT scanners 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 big question … who am I?  Am I the sum total of all the links between the bits in my brain … or is there something greater than the sum of the parts that makes me, me?

Who am I?  What makes me, me?

What was very apparent in his lectures was the absence of any mention of God.  I sensed 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 that really does make us humans unique, at least on planet earth.  Human beings have the capacity to investigate the beginnings of the universe and understand its workings.  Human beings have the capacity to appreciate the wonders of a world of beauty and the dangers of nature’s awesome power.  Human beings have the capacity to create and to be incredibly creative.  IT is as if we bear within us the stamp of something that permeates the universe itself – we bear the.  For me that something that is deep within and far beyond all we can see or explore is the creator God.  Our capacity to investigate and appreciate that creation and ourselves to be creative bears out the conviction that we are made  in the image of God.

What difference does it make to say that we belong to God?

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

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

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

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

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

It was wonderful at our Candle Lit carol service to hear the opening words of John’s Gospel read from the Authorised Version as the 400^th anniversary year of the AV came towards its close.  Wonderful to read those words together again on Christmas Day.  In the beginning 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 be found in every way possible in Jesus Christ.  Those thoughts from John 1 are echoed in the opening verses of Hebrews 1.

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

Want to find out what this God is like?  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 of God in other people and care for God’s creation.

To belong to God whets our appetite to find out what this God is like.  Look to Jesus, see God and know that God is love.

So the key for us and what we do with our lives is then found in Jesus Christ.  We can sense in him the forgiving love of God reaching out deep into our very being to transform and renew us … and set us up with a new start, not least at the beginning of a New Year.  More than that 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 and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

That’s the most wonderful of thoughts – let the 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 our lives as a new year unfolds.

But it is also what we seek to do as a church.  At the heart of our way of being the church is the opportunity we have to come together and through the conversations we have with each other and the prayer we share with God we seek out the mind of Christ for us.  That’s what 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 for God’s creation.

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

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

The Unexpected Result - our Christmas Day Celebration

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      O come all ye faithful

The Unexpected 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 that was 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 the Father,

---

full of grace and truth.

Reading:  Luke 2:1-7 – Pete

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

4 Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David. 5 He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant, 6 and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. 7 She gave birth to 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

A New Nativity.

by Alan Titchmarsh.

 

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

To save the likes of you and me from evil, harm and misery,

Do you suppose that even then, there were some doubting, heedless men

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Hampshire and in rural Kent, would shepherds, by an angel sent

Walk miles to see a newborn child, whose mother, unmarried, although mild

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

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

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

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

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

The nativity for the Millenium.  Would anyone out there like to come?

72        Away in a manger

Unexpected Presents

Greeting from Stefan and Birgit

Christmas Greetings

Sermon – The Unexpected Result

When the unexpected happens it can fill you with 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 the responsibility of a father: it was scary.

Joseph and Mary did not expect to have to make the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem: it was frightening

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

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

Mary and Joseph did not expect to have to flee south from Bethlehem and escape across the border to become refugees in Egypt for a matter of years.  It was a frightening time.

Think back a year to the last Christmas and in that time unexpected things have happened … not a few of them have been pretty scary.

A year ago who  would have expected the Arab Spring to have happened?  Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria – democracy coming to countries over-run by dictatorship.  But it has been a time filled with fear for Christian communities throughout the middle east.  Prayer requests come from so many Christians in each of those countries who are facing persecution in a way they have not faced before.

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

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

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

Of all the words I associate with Christmas, of all the words that crop up in the Christmas story, there is one long word that I want to hold on to.  It seems to me to be the word that speaks directly into all the fears that come when 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 all important in the face of the unexpected.

Emmanuel means ‘God is with us’.

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

God is with us.  That’s what comes across in the prayer letters that come from the Middle East – it is the promise that shines out of the Christmas letter from Alex Awad and his congregation in East Jerusalem and his college in Bethlehem.  It is what shines out in the prayer letters that I receive from Middle East 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 discovering the unexpected unexpectedly.   The Christmas 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 had a 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 in Highbury News I had a response from Peter Petrie, one of our evening congregation.  He had been digging into the derivation of the word ‘serendipity’.  It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754 when he recounted a tale form the East of the Three Princes of Serendip,  Serendip the land once known as Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka.   On their travels, Horace Walpole recounts, the three princes were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

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

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

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

That’s the other observation I want to make for Christmas.  Maybe the Christmas story should encourage us to seek the kind of wisdom that will recognise the God moment when it comes.  And that is something we can work at.

Putting yourself in a position where you are exposed to thinking about God, thoughts of God, in the pages of the Bible.  Prayer and praying have their part to play – those Christians facing persecution in the Middle East share that with 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 the world 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 a concern simply for ourselves and step into a concern for other people that maybe, 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

Sunday 18^th December Service The Unexpected 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 with Helen who is going to read us one of her favourites.

(Helen sits on chair, children dressed 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 the story)

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

·        The Christmas story can be a bit like that. We are going to re-tell the story and think about the surprises God had in store.

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

  

·        Presents to open.

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

1.      Baby doll

God chose to be born as a baby. He couldn’t do anything for himself. He wanted to identify with us totally. He relied on his parents. It’s perhaps not how you would 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 and challenge everything we think we know so well. As Jesus grew up, he taught strange things like ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’ and he said, ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’. So, really it was the perfect plan to come into this world as a powerless baby.

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

You might have thought that God would have chosen someone famous or special to be Jesus’ mother. Mary was probably only 12 or 13. How would you have felt? People were unkind to her when they found out. Again, God does the unexpected thing and chooses someone ordinary for this most extraordinary job. God chooses ordinary 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 confuse the purity of his purpose.

2.    Toy crib

God’s choice 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 no privacy, surely! Remember how the so called wise men went first to a palace to find the baby. They weren’t thinking God’s way yet. Again, God does the unexpected 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 into the world with no trace of corruption of wealthy start in life.

3.    Co-op funeral voucher in gift voucher card

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

Gold for a king,

Frankincense for worship

And myrrh for death.

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

A Hy-Spirit Christmas Song

Prayers including Christmas Lord’s Prayer written by Transformers and read by Grace 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

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

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

Seat the child, napkin etc.

Reveal the dish- tin of cat food!

·        I wasn’t expecting that!

Better open it up and eat it though 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-one expected, they were even better.

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

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

Carol:  See him lying on a bed of straw

The Unexpected Route

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.

The theme of our service is ‘The unexpected Journey’.

If you have ever used a Sat-Nav, you will probably have your own unexpected journey stories to tell!

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

Show ‘Sat-nav-tivity’

We’ll be coming back to their story later.

(Children to the front.)

The children who came for their breakfast this morning have made an unexpected journey themselves.

Can you tell us about it?

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

Children sit down, readers remain.

In the Christmas Story, the people involved had to make many different journeys. These weren’t fun holiday type journeys. They weren’t exciting adventurous trips that had been months in planning. Sometimes the people had to leave in a hurry and think quickly about what they might need and travel light. I think it’s true to say none of the journeys was planned and most were reluctant travellers.

Let’s listen to the story as the children tell it now.

Unexpected Christmas Journeys

1.      Luke 2:1-7

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

2.    Luke 2:8-20

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

3.    Matthew 2:1-12

Some men who studied the stars travelled from the east 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 baby and gave him their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They had to make an unexpected journey home by another route as God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod.

4.    Matthew 2:13-15

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

5.    Matthew 2:19-23

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

I hope you spotted all the journeys.

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

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

We might feel like that in our own lives.

Unexpected things happen.

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

This might involve moving house or school, friends moving away, having new teachers or dealing with the disappointment of an event we used to enjoy, no longer running.

For the adults, we learn that life is full of adaptations and we constantly need to review and re-work our ‘world maps’.

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

Scott Peck writes,

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

He goes on at length to explore how we need to constantly revise our maps all our lives, continuing to learn and embracing new information and ideas in order to keep our maps true.

Things change and we have to take a different route.

How do we cope?

We are going to hear how we can help in people’s lives through the work of CCP which helps people to deal with changing circumstances.

God doesn’t change.

But that doesn’t mean he’s dull or boring!

He has strange and unexpected plans for our life journeys!

What we know is that we can trust him.

He has 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

I grew up with two sets of Christmas stories.

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

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

Of those stories, the tale of Martin, the Cobbler has been one of my favourites ever since I first heard it as a little one, 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 animations too.

It was a long time before I realised it was not written as a children’s story.

My father’s signature is on the inside of the 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 yet it 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 that basement with a single window through which all the cobbler can see are the boots of the passers by.

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

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

He thought of sending his son away, maybe to his sister’s.  But then determined to look after him on his own.  And that meant being on his own.  He had to leave his master and go into lodgings.

And then the unthinkable happened.

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

There is a depth of despair in Martin’s soul 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 to church.”

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

Thee is something that resonates with Martin’s plight in Tolstoy’s tale.   One thing 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 anguish and rage.

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

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

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

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

Christmas is a time when depression can so easily overtake many.  All sorts of triggers are around.  It is a time when the darkness of this kind of despair can become overwhelming.

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

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

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

Now I will be the first to acknowledge that tales 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 he puts into the mouth of this wise old man the thought that all that happens is God’s will.  I actually think that dreadful things that happen cut across God’s will.  It’s not so much that he must will them … but rather my conviction would be that God can bring out of the greatest calamity something more – there is nowhere so dark that God’s light cannot come.

Simplistic explanations often have grains of truth in them.

And for me there is a grain of truth here.

One of what I would think would be many causes of all kinds of despair is that we have built up a culture where the pursuit 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 face to face with is that the relentless pursuit of happiness is something that can be self-defeating.

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

“What else should one live for?” asked Martin.

“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 for God.  But it’s not very helpful.

That’s exactly Martin’s problem.

Live for God … this is the antidote to your despair.

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

I like the response the old man gives.

The old man answered: “How one may live for God has been shown us by Christ.  Can you rad?  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, and began to read.”

So often faced with a crisis of faith, in the face of the depths of despair we want to rail at God, we want to sort God out, 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’s the shortest, and it packs in a lot of the action of Jesus’ life.  There’s no time for the stories around the birth of Jesus, Mark wants to get on with it.  John the Baptist heralds the arrival of Jesus who has the simplest of messages,  God’s rule is breaking into the world,  now’s the time to start all over again, believe the Good news.  Fishermen follow him, and he makes his base in the home of Simon Peter.  And from there he travels the countryside with a simple message and bringing healing into people’s lives.

Then there’s a twist in the story – indeed there are three stories in quick succession of very unlikely people Jesus helps.  First someone suffering from leprosy – Jesus’ reaction to the illness he sees is on the one hand to be angry, and then to have compassion.  He breaks all the taboos and touches that man.  It is a most unexpected encounter.

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

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

Martin’s thoughts turn to no end of people Jesus helped in unexpected ways.  His eye falls on the sermon on the mount.

He is moved by what he sees … but not convinced. 

Then Martin laid his head upon both his arms 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 one was there.  He called again.  Then he heard quite distinctly: “Martin, martin!  Look out into the street to-morrow, for I shall come.”

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

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

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

And the old woman and the young lad – he could have ended up in gaol  if she had had her way – but Martin got her to see the boy differently, and got him to make 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 had marked the day before with a bit of morocco, but the book opened at another place.  As Martin opened it, his yesterday’s dream came back to his mind, and no sooner had he thought of it than he seemed to hear footsteps, as though some one were moving behind him.  Martin turned round, and it seemed to him as if people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out who they were.  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 stepped Stepanitch, 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 woman with 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 apple stepped out and both smiled, and then they too vanished.

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

“I was an hungred and ye gave me meat; I was 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 my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me.”  (Matthew xxv)

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

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