A church where everyone participates

A sermon preached at Highbury's Gift Day

Giving is right at the heart of our church life at Highbury. On two occasions in the year we have a special focus on giving. One is at Harvest when we share our giving between mission at Highbury and our commitment to the wider mission of the church, usually a mission partnership we are involved in in another part of the world.

Our focus at Gift Day is on the mission of the church here at Highbury, and very specifically again this year, funding the post of Pastoral Assistant.

We do not have any other sources of funding. We are who we are, we do what we do together, and we can afford what we can collectively afford together. All of us are invited to plan our giving through our giving scheme. That ensures a basic, you could call it, biblical, fairness. Each of us is encouraged to give as we are able. “Each of us must give as we have made up our minds, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything you may share abundantly in every good work.”

At Gift Day our giving involves a financial commitment. But giving at church is much broader and deeper than that. It is about giving of ourselves to another, to the wider world, and most importantly of all to God.

In my sequence of sermons prompted by John Pritchard’s book, Going to Church – a user’s guide, at the eighth thing he would go to the stake for in any church.

A church where everybody participates.

“There’s a church in Nebraska,” he writes, “which has only one resident. Elsie Eiler is in her seventies and is the town’s registered mayor, clerk, treasurer, librarian and licensee. She collects taxes from herself, grants her own alcohol licence,and single-handedly repairs the town’s roads. She says: “Some day this town will just be memories, but I like it here.”

“Some churches seem to be heading the same way, because there’s only one person who matters – the vicar, or the churchwarden, or the organist.

“The old do-it-all-yourself, command-and-control model of church life ought to be dead and buried.”

That is something I want to say a big AMEN to.

It is something that goes right to the heart of church life here at Highbury.

It is what we are about.

Everyone counts in the church family. Everyone has something to do.

A year ago we came up with a new way of working that has meant that each Tuesday morning we have a ‘team meeting’. Becky and I meet first for half an hour, and then we are joined by Sue, our Church Secretary, Roger, the Treasurer, Felicity with whom I share so much two of our Pastoral care team, Peter who does the room bookings – we just review the week.

Yesterday our Deacons met reflecting on the ideas more than fifty of us came up with at our Annual Meeting.

On Thursday evening we had Morton Brown room full of people who share in our visiting scheme.

Children’s work … in so many ways ours is a church where everybody participates.

But let’s just check ourselves for a moment.

I want to come back to John Pritchard’s book, It spoke to me not simply because it rang a chord. I also found it a challenge. All the way through. The kind of book that makes you take stock of where you are. And maybe think through where you are over again.

In ‘a church where everybody participates … ‘The old do-it-all-yourself, command-and-control model of church life ought to be dead and buried.”

I say a big AMEN to that.

But I then read on to the next sentence.

“It is, however, one of the aspects of church life most prone to resurrection.”

That was the sentence that caught my eye this week.

I hear in those words a warning note.

Felicity and I have been here nearly 19 years. The continuity that is reflected in that period of time was seen at the three churches day when our deacons met with the PCC’s of St Michael’s and St Luke’s as a strength. It is encouraging to hear that that’s the way it is perceived.

But alongside that sense of continuity is a danger we must all be aware of.

It is now more than two years since Becky joined us. She is entering into her third year. That’s great – we have benefited so much.

And on this Gift Day we reflect our commitment not just to Becky personally but to the concept of the shared ministry that is reflected in the appointment of a Pastoral Assistant.

But there is a danger. We have paid employees who will do that. We can leave it to them.

It is a question that we need to pose ourselves – do we leave too much to those who are paid in ministry? It is a question we need to pose ourselves.

And I believe it is a danger we need to avoid.

Let me take one specific example we need to give thought to. Becky has been appointed to focus on work with children and family. The work she has done in that area is immense. One major project is to enable a transition for those older ones in Junior Church so that we can extend and develop and also to reach out to others in the wider community. She has helped us work through that issue immensely. One key element has been Transformers. We share the work with St Luke’s. Effectively its leadership has been shared between the two paid employees – Wes the youth and children’s worker at St Luke’s, and Becky, our Pastoral Assistant.

It is wonderful that Wes’s wife, Becca, has been accepted to train for the Anglican ministry and they are therefore moving to Bristol to take up that training from September. That means Wes won’t be around. How do we support Becky in developing that work? That is an important and pressing question for us.

It relates to this wonderful vision of a church where everyone participates.

For me one of the great passages in the Bible that prompts our thinking along these lines is in Ephesians 4.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

I hear that appeal from Paul reaching out through the Ephesian church, down through the century to us. He begs each of us to be the people we are called to be.

As we explore this theme there should be no pressure.

Above all, there should be no sense of pushing square pegs into round holes. We are each of us to lead the life to which we have been called.

I love those characteristics – these are the characteristics of the kind of leadership, the kind of belonging that we all need to share – humility, gentleness, patience, love – the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

As each of us takes these words seriously, in whatever position we are in, then our church has the makings of a church where everyone participates.

This is, as John Pritchard suggests, not something for discussion. It is something that is the very essence of what ‘church’ is. This kind of unity, these character marks are not up for discussion as far as Paul is concerned. This is the very essence of church.

4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

That’s the basis for a church where everyone participates.

But. And there is a But.

Each of needs to recognize we are the people God made us to be.

7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

Who we are will shape what we do as we recognize what we are passionate about, what gifts we have, and what kind of a personality we have.

11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,

At this point Paul homes in on one set of four gifts. On other occasions he enumerates many more gifts. We need to be aware of the great variety of gifts there are.

I guess this is one of my favourite passages because it includes the description that I have always felt describes best my gifts. As a pastor and teacher. The passage is a favourite ... and I come back to it today.

But interesting it contains within this passage the very challenge posed by John Pritchard’s comment.

Let’s see again what Paul goes on to say …

11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,

12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

Even at that very moment that Paul celebrates the very thing I feel called to I am challenged to return to the notion that no matter what our gift is everyone of us needs then to be concerned to share it for equipping everyone for ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

There has to be that empowering dimension to the kind of ministry I am called to that works towards involving everyone.

This is how John Pritchard puts it …

Leadership will be dispersed throughout the church’s life, although it will have a clear focus in the leadership team and the one who has been given final responsibility.

The bottom line for John Pritchard is this. I believe it needs to be the bottom line for us as a church too and for me in the ministry I share.

God is present in the wisdom and gifts of all God’s people, and the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts.

A church with a sense of humour where love is all around!

I hesitate to follow on from Becky’s fun with the children. It was great fun seeing her re-telling of the story of Noah's ark with so many unexpected animals.

And as for the joke about opening the door ... that was one she had not actually run past me before the service!!!!

I must say I have enjoyed John Pritchard’s book, Going to Church

Among the ten things the Bishop of Reading would go to the stake for in any church is

A church with a sense of humour where they laugh a lot – mostly at themselves.

It’s very sad when people feel that on entering a church they have to take off their personality and leave it at the door. You catch a glimpse of that when young men, unaccustomed to church and dressed up uncomfortably for a baptism or wedding, are clearly enormously relieved to get outside, where you can almost see them shake off the formality and resume normality. Laughter in church would be deeply odd to them. But laughter is a gift that belongs to our humanity. It’s God-given and one of our greatest pleasures – as well as being good for our health. Humour should be alongside holiness as the ‘ground bass’ of our church life. Sometimes as I watch the Church acting out its protocols like vintage Gilbert and Sullivan, I think God must be hooting with laughter (if you’ll excuse the anthropomorphism) As if our formalities mattered.

Laughter is a gift that belongs to our humanity

My problem is … I am not good at telling jokes!

So I want to move on … to another of his statements and one that is very timely in the week when we are going to have our Visitors’ meeting.

John Pritchard is also adamant about another of the things to go to the stake for in any church …

A church where love is all around.

… even when it has to be expressed in forgiveness. Love is the litmus test of a church’s life. It tells you whether it has got the Jesus gene or not. Love is the projection of God’s life into the world and so it is one of the very few things that increases the more you give it away.

In each of his letters Paul comes to a point at which he seeks to apply the thinking behind his Christian faith to practical everyday living, not least the kind of living that is so necessary in a church family.

Coming towards the end of Ephesians that’s exactly the kind of thing he reflects on.

Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

There is so much that is precious in what Paul has to say.

I like the way that passage begins.

So then, putting away falsehood let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.

Paul has a very strong sense of belonging when it comes to the church. On a number of occasions he speaks of everyone who belongs to the church as if they were members of a single body. And in that body the seemingly least important members are just as important as the seemingly very important members.

But here the analogy he uses is a little different.

He is adamant – we are members of one another.

We belong to each other. We are part of each other.

When one hurts we all hurt.

That sense of togetherness is bound together by a sense of love.

How that works out in our church is key to the life of our church family.

We have a wonderful collection of church directories from about 1900 to about 1930. Not unlike in size or content the directory we continue to publish. One difference is that the church directory includes a listing of all the members and adherents with their addresses … and it includes the visiting district they are in and the church visitor.

Isn’t that fascinating.

Our present scheme of visiting districts goes back 50 years, but 100 years ago the church family was divided into visiting districts.

That notion goes to the heart of what we do to bind ourselves together as a church family.

Every 6 months the church visitors meet together for an evening when they compare notes and someone with a particular experience or speciality feeds in thoughts and ideas that can help build up the whole work of visiting. On Thursday we meet as church visitors and Deacons and will be joined by a friend of Kate Blazey who works with older people and is going to share with us on the support we can give and share with those who have dementia.

Someone who has been a visitor for quite a number of years is Katherine Stanley – she is going to say a few words about what it means to be a visitor.

Reflections on being a Church Visitor by Katherine Stanley

When we moved to Cheltenham, nearly 38 years ago, we visited some other churches and after a few months settled into Highbury. When new to a church, you don’t realise the organisation behind is, so I didn’t know all about the Districts and the Church Visitors, but I did know that every month a dear little old lady brought us our Highbury News. We lived in Beechurst at the time, and it was Marion Darvill, for those people who remember her.

Well, when thinking about what I was going to say this morning I realised that this dear little old lady, was probably about the age I am now!!!

After some years, I was asked if I could become a Church Visitor. As I enjoy meeting people I said yes.

Highbury has 12 geographical districts, each district having one Deacon and 1, 2, of 3 visitors, so that every person in Highbury can feel some connection with the church.

In this church, we have our own building, but this ccanot exist without people, because the people are the church, drawn together on Sundays and during the week as well so we are all connected through our Christian faith.

It is up to all of us to help each other feel welcome in our church, and the Church Visitors have a special tool to help them – it’s called Highbury News. This is a really valuable link, because as well as giving all the news about Highbury it enables the visitor to make contact with everyone in their patch, thus strengthening the Christian connection of love and care.

Another way of promoting the family feeling in Highbury is the way that the Visitors themselves have a meeting with the Pastoral Care team, usually twice a year, when there is a special theme, and the opportunity to hear about concerns in all the other Districts. I can assure you that no confidences are betrayed, but it is an extra way of helping that Christian family feeling.

It is interesting to see the kind of dynamic Paul envisages in a church family where we are all members of one another. It is not all sweetness and light, all cooey and lovey dovey.

Be angry … he has space for anger, but do not sin. That’s an interesting qualification. Maybe there are times when we can be angry – even with each other. But there is a line beyond which we not cross in our anger. When it turns bad – turns to sin.

Then comes that very wise advice – advice to be taken to heart in any family and in any church family.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

Interesting isn’t it the injunction about thieves giving up stealing. Isn’t that an interesting insight into the makeup of the church Paul knows he is writing to. It is not a repetition of the injunction ‘do not steal’. Paul envisages that a church family will be made up of a mixed bunch.

There is room for the thief – but the thief is to stop thieving and to share with the needy.

Then Paul comes back to what is said, what passes the lips …

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

That’s a wonderful measure of how we speak one with another, what we say to each other, and the tone in which we say it.

Building up – edifying. Words that give grace!

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

Things you do can make others not so much angry, as sad.

And they can make God sad.

Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.

Those are the negatives … but in place of the negatives paul then lists the positives. They are the things for us to take to heart in our conversation with each other, in our visiting scheme in the whole of our church family life.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.

What it all boils down to is that we be imitators of God, as beloved children, and that we live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for , a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

I love those words …we are called to live in love.

That’s what church is all about.

That’s worth going to the stake for.

John Pritchard recalls a doctor who once said that he’d been in general practice for 30 years and he’d never found anyting as effective as a prescription of love. “What if it doesn’t work?” he was asked. “Double the dose,” he replied.

Churches need to be places where such prescriptions are given out endlessly and inexhaustibly. If people don’t experience something different about the quality and character of loving in a Christian community, you can’t blame them for not taking their enquiries further. “God is love, and those who live in love live in god, and God lives in them (1 John 4:16). That sounds like a cast-iron argument to me, says John Pritchard.

At the heart of our church family life, at the heart of that church visiting scheme

Let’s live in love as Christ loved us.

Tears on Easter Morning ... but more beyond

Our theme for the Sundays leading up to Easter and through Holy Week has focused on the tears.

Jesus wept at the death of his friend, Lazarus.

Jesus wept when he saw Jerusalem. "Would that you had known the things that make for peace, but you did not."

Peter wept when be betrayed Jesus three times.

The women of Jerusalem wept as Jesus passed by.

The women who had accompanied watched and wept as he was crucified.

What I like about the Christian faith is that it is realistic.

It does not offer an escape from a world of weeping.

Instead, our Christian faith, offers us a way through that world.

Through Holy Week we have laid bare the cross at the front of our church. It has cast a shadow on the wall.

That shadow is a reminder to us that at times we all have to walk through the valley of the shadows.

But in the valley, in the darkness of the shadow, God is there, in Christ to accompany us along the way of weeping.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil

for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff

they comfort me.

It is only through the valley of the shadow that we can reach the glory of resurrection victory.

But that resurrection victory is assured ... and it is one we may share.

Yet even in the moment of resurrection victory there is still weeping.

Mary Magdalene weeps in the garden.

The two on the Road to Emmaus are 'downcast' and saddened with, maybe, tears in their eyes.

There is weeping on Easter day too. And the presence of Christ is with us in the weeping.

In our prayers we remembered those we know to be sad in bereavement. But we also remembered those who are in places of conflict, not least in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, in Palestine and Israel. Especially as we received greetings from friends in Bethleehm and the Scout group we have partnered with. A reminder that Bethlehem has been closed off this Holy Week to those wanting to worship in Jerusalem. And we shared the tears of those who were bombed in the Good Friday bombing attacks in and around Gaza.

Our commitment is to heed the Christians of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, of Israel and Palestine who through the Kairos Palestine document urge us to support them in their commitment to peace and to oppose those bent on violence, not least the violence of the settlement regime in the West Bank.

We walked again the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross, the Way of Weeping, following the stations of the cross we had set out in the church.

Even on Easter Sunday we walked through the way of weeping to the cross and beyond to resurrection glory. And in doing that we shared that confident faith that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Nothing in the present or the future. No height, do depth. Nothing in life or in death. Nothing in all of creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Way of Weeping

Watching those aspiring Dorothy’s, anticipating Andrew Lloyd Webber additional songs, brought it all back to me … the very first time I saw the Wizard of Ox, in the 1000 seater Picture House on Leicester’s Granby Street. It’s funny how you associate certain films with certain cinemas – Jason and the Argonauts with the Saturday morning cinema club at the Cameo in Leicester, not that my parents would allow me to go very often, The Planet of the Apes at another flea pit, the City Cinema in Bangor – complete with a patch on the screen, Ben Hur at the 2000 seater Odeon Cinema, can’t remember the film but do remember the double seats at the other cinema in Bangor, and then there was my first visit to what was a brand new idea – multi-screen cinema – the intimacy of a small cinema, large screen … and at Leicester’s CineCentre Franco Zeferrelli’s Romeo and Juliet. I was I think in the sixth form and I went with my cousin John.

That particular occasion sticks in my mind and has become for me a bit of a benchmark. As the film came to its dramatic climax I vividly remember how there were audible sobs first from one person, then another. It seemed half the cinema were in tears. I guess it was the intimacy of the small cinema – it was almost catching. Almost, but not quite. Then someone called out from the other side of the cinema in an inimitable Leicester accent, ‘will someone pass a bucket’.

At that while half the cinema were in floods of tears, I joined my cousin and the other half of the cinema in fits of laughter.

I think over the years I have changed sides. I have become more emotional. When Felicity and I went to see My Name is Khan a film exploring autism and the meeting of Hindu and Muslim post 9/11, a film in which Bollywood meets Hollywood in Hindi with English sub-titles, I found tears coming to my eyes.

I felt quite emotional at the last day of the Day Centre on Friday – it was good to have a good number of folk from Highbury there at the last of a series of services that began 19 years ago at our first Christmas here, that I have shared with very few exceptions with Frank Guppy on the organ. I do hope a good number of people can come to the celebration on Saturday, 17^th April when we will say a big thank you to the staff who have worked there.

Though I get emotional, there is still something inside me that feels uncomfortable about those tears.

It is significant for me that tears are at the heart of Holy Week. During our pilgrimage we walked the Via Dolorosa, following in the footsteps of Jesus as it were through the streets of Jerusalem from the place, there or thereabouts, where he was condemned to death, to the place, there or thereabouts, where he was crucified and buried. We are going to create a set of stations of the cross around the church and open the church from 10 to 11 and from 6 to 7 each evening through to Good Friday. I think of it as the Way of the Cross. But the Via Dolorosa is the Way of Weeping.

The women of Jerusalem weep. There are women at the foot of the cross who weep. But it is not only women who weep.

Peter vows to follow Jesus to the bitter end if needs be. He follows as far as the courtyard of the High Priest’s house and there he denies Jesus three times. The cock crows and he breaks down and weeps bitter tears.

He is not the only man we see weeping.

There are two occasions when Jesus also weeps.

He weeps at the death of a friend.

And he weeps at the plight of a city.

Jesus journeys to Jerusalem down the Jordan valley through Jericho, at 1500 feet below sea level the world’s lowest and most ancient city and up to a small village on the heights of the mount of Olives, called Bethany. That was the village of Mary and her sister Martha. There is a wonderful, homely painting by an older contemporary of Vermeer, Hendrik Martensz Sorgh, that is said to have been the inspiration behind Vermeer’s only remaining religious painting. Christ at the home of Martha and Mary. It captures that moment when Martha, busy in the kitchen, loses her patience with her sister Mary who is sitting at the feet of Jesus. The moment when Jesus commends Mary’s prayerfulness. It is a wonderful picture, not at the moment on display in the Art Gallery. The friends of the Museum and Art Gallery have arranged to have the picture brought out of the store and have invited me to do a talk on Wednesday, 12^th May. It captures a moment of happiness and joy and maybe a moment of tension in that home.

Drawing near to Jerusalem, Jesus arrives in Bethany, and makes once again for the home of Mary and Martha. There they and their brother Lazarus prepare a meal for Jesus. As you might expect, Martha served and Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard and anointed Jesus’ feet, wiped them with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of perfume.

Not long before, however, the house had been filled with the stench of death.

Lazarus had been severely ill. Martha and Mary had summoned Jesus. But he delayed. And Lazarus died. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went and met him and she said to Jesus in an almost accusing tone, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” A conversation ensues. And it is to Mary that Jesus says words that have become wonderful words, treasured by those who have followed in the footsteps of Jesus ever since.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Then Jesus looks Martha in the eye and asks her, “Do you believe this?” It is Martha, the doer, who is the one who makes that wonderful profession of faith. “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

So, what of Mary.

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, exactly the same question Martha had posed. The haunting question … if only …’ “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Judaeans who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him? They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”

Then comes in the AV the shortest verse in the whole Bible.

Jesus wept.

If Jesus wept at the death of a friend, we should not be surprised if in such circumstances we find ourselves weeping. Tears are not to be bottled up. Tears are to be shed. More than that tears are to be shared. Jesus came alongside Mary and those many others who had come alongside Mary and Martha and he shared their tears.

Holy Week is important to me at the most personal level. At the heart of my faith is the conviction is that this wonderful world being explored so marvellously by the youthful, David Waters lookalike, Professor in his series on the solar system, is the creation of God. I passionately believe that there is something more beyond the world we can see, that helps me to make sense of life in the world that I do see.

My Christian faith, however, takes that world with all its pain and its suffering seriously. And it says that we must come alongside one another in those times of suffering and share the weeping, share the concern. The reality is we cannot escape the tears. Holy Week is the time to remember the tears, and come alongside the suffering. We can only reach the joy of resurrection victory, the life that is beyond, by going through the valley of the shadow, by going through the tears, by travelling the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Weeping.

That’s the personal dimension to my faith. It is something for each one of us. For each of us there is a wonderful hope beyond of resurrection.

But faith cannot be individualistic.

There is a bigger dimension too.

And that also becomes apparent through Holy Week.

Jesus weeps at the death of a friend.

He also weeps at the plight of a city.

There in Bethany Jesus is very aware that the authorities, the powers that be, those who are colluding with the conquereing Romans who have built up a power base by ‘devouring widows’ houses, are out to kill Lazarus and to kill him.

So it is that he sets off to make his entry into Jerusalem. It was Passover time. That meant that the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, would have come up from the Roman seaside capital of this unruly province in Caesarea Maritima and taken up residence in the Herodion palace to keep law and order in the city. He would have ridden on horse back, accompanied by cavalry. There is a description of the kind of sight that would be later in Acts as 200 horsemen make that journey. Pomp and ceremony were the mark of Roman power in collaboration with the Herodian dynasty and the powers of Jerusalem.

And Jesus chose to ride in on a donkey. It was a massive prophetic statement. That he was coming not as a warrior king, but in peace … humble and mounted on a donkey, as Zechariah had said, ‘he will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off and he shall command peace to the nations …”

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

It really is so. Coming down the Mount of Olives there is a spot where the ancient city of Jerusalem suddenly appears … coming down a little further there is a church – built in the shape of a teardrop. And on the terrace in front of that church, overlooking the temple mount, is the church of Dominus Flevit. The Lord wept.

Video clip

Bethany is now separated from Jerusalem by the wall.

The East Jerusalem where so many settlements are proposed not for Israeli citizens but exclusively for Jewish people is the part of Jerusalem where Christian as well as Muslim Palestinians live and where we attended the East Jerusalem Baptist Church.

Those Christian people in East Jerusalem through the Kairos Palestine document ask us as fellow Christians to support them in the condemnation of those settlements on Palestinian land, to support them and their church communities where, in their words, ‘most of their young people are active apostles for justice and peace … where their ‘various Christian institutions make their faith active and present in service, love’, where they are engaging in dialogue between the three relilgions and actively working for reconciliation once justice has been restored.”

Through the tears and the pain they look to signs of hope.

As Jesus did then, we too weep, If you even you had only recognised the things that make for peace.

Our commitment must be to stand with those who work for peace.

Jesus wept.

He weeps at the death of a friend.

He weeps at the plight of a city.

And not just that particular city.

I got hold of David Baldwin’s little book, The Holy Land, A Pilgrim’s Companion. It has a photo of that view of the old city taken from inside the Dominus Flevit church.

Opposite that photo is a prayer written by a URC minister, who has often contributed to our prayer handbook, Donald Hilton.

We finish with the words of that prayer …

Lord Jesus Christ,

Today we share your tears for the cities of the world;

-still we have not loved the things that make for peace.

We weep for the divided cities:

Where brother fights with brother,

Where anger feeds on hatred,

Where prejudice blinds the eyes of compassion,

And even religion divides,

Where children are taught to hate

And old men relish ancient wrongs.

We weep for the cities of oppression

Where iron law imprisons freedom,

Where thought is curbed and conscience stifled,

Where the questioning spirit is called a traitor,

Where art and civilising truth grow barren

And each must think in manner as his neighbour.

We weep for the cities of poverty:

Where children live, but die too soon,

Where eager hands can find no work,

Where hunger rules and aid is short,

Where mothers clutch uncomprehending young,

And where the little we do, we fail to do.

We weep for our cities, for our town, and for ourselves;

We have not learned the things that make for peace.

Lord, turn tears to love,

And love to work,

Turn work to justice,

And all that makes for peace.

Amen.

What would Jesus pray?

“I think of you every night in my prayers.”

When I heard that said by someone not so long ago, I found it humbling. In a strange way I find difficult to describe it is good to know that someone is thinking of me in their prayers each night.

One or two people say that to me from time to time. This person had said it before. As it happens they are as often as not people who don’t get out, because they can’t get out, are not so active because for various reasons they are not able to be active. But they have a special gift that is particularly important in the life of a church family, in the life of this church family, and in each of our lives. They have a gift of dedicated, committed prayer.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we knew of someone who remembered us each night in their prayers. The good news of our faith is that we each of us have someone, someone very special who comes alongside us, a soul-mate, a particularly close friend … and who prays for us constantly.

You can dress it up in the high-falutin words of Christian doctrine which tells us that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried, on the third day was raised again to life and sits at the right hand of God the Father – and there he intercedes for us.

I prefer a simple picture … of Christ praying for us day by day.

What would his prayer be.

I want to go back to that Last Supper. It wasn’t the brief re-enactment that has become for us the Lord’s Supper, it was a whole evening – a celebration of the Passover among a group of friends who had become an extended family. After all Passover to this day is a family gathering where all the family come together.

The meal goes on through the evening. Luke describes some of the different cups and the bread that is shared.

But as the conversation goes on unexpected things happen. No sooner has Jesus shared the cup than he speaks of the one who will betray him. Then, Luke tells us there is an argument among the disciples as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest.

²⁵But he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. ²⁶But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. ²⁷For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

Was this the moment when as John tells us Jesus got up and washed the feet of the disciples?

He then speaks highly of the way he treasures the friendships he has built up with this set of people …

28 ‘You are those who have stood by me in my trials; ²⁹and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, ³⁰so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Then Jesus singles out Simon Peter. The big fisherman disciple Jesus has given the nickname of Rock – dependable, solid as a rock. But he doesn’t use the nick-name – he uses the name Simon.

There is a tone of lament in what he says as he recognises that following Jesus is not straightforward, that times of testing come … and those times can be bleak and fearful.

31 ‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, ³²but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’

I find that a remarkably moving moment in the course of the supper Jesus shares with his friends.

First, is the realisation that no one can escape the times of testing. They come. They are pretty bleak. Satan has demanded to sift all you like wheat.

What time of testing do you experience?

What time when in that footprints poem it feels as if the footprints are yours and yours alone – that you are on your own.

Think for a moment of that time of testing. Maybe it is something that is happening now, maybe it is something that has happened recently, maybe it is something has happened a while back.

Jesus suggests that time of testing, that time of sifting, that painful, dark time is something that comes to all.

Then comes the moment that is, it seems to me, to be so treasured.

It is a moment that is to be treasured by Simon Peter, to be treasured by all the others around that table, to be treasured by each one of us.

I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’

I think that is a remarkable prayer.

It is not that you will escape the testing times. It is that your faith will not fail. There are going to be moments over this testing time of passion tide when faith is tested to the limit. Jesus himself experiences that testing. Later that night in the Garden of Gethsemane when he knelt down and prayed, ⁴¹Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed,⁴²‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’

Luke tells us that Jesus found strength in that moment of praying …

³Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. ⁴⁴In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.]]

This is his prayer for us … that our faith not fail.

One of the great things of this Passion tide is simply to re-live the story, walk with those disciples and with Jesus on the way of the cross. It is what we are going to set up through Holy Week as we invite people to follow in the way of the cross and reflect on this story. It is powerful.

Powerful, not least to see what happens after a prayer like that is said.

What happens is not an instant cure, an instant answer. It is a journey, a process, and a very difficult path to tread.

⁴⁵When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, ⁴⁶and he said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.’

But the time of trail comes … and the party arrives to arrest Jesus in the garden.

Some strike out in his defence – but Jesus says, no more of this and heals the ear of the slave of the High Priest one of the disciples had attacked.

54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance.

Why.

That took some doing, it took some courage. Maybe that prayer of Jesus stuck with Peter.

I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail;

Peter had been adamant in response.

And he said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!’

So here he was.

⁵⁵When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. ⁵⁶Then a servant-girl, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, ‘This man also was with him.’ ⁵⁷But he denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know him.’ ⁵⁸A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, ‘You also are one of them.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I am not!’ ⁵⁹Then about an hour later yet another kept insisting, ‘Surely this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean.’ ⁶⁰But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about!’ At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. ⁶¹The Lord turned and looked at Peter.

What a look that must have been!

A look that sees into the deepest recesses of the heart.

And then Peter remembered.

Jesus said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me.’

At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. ⁶¹The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ ⁶²And he went out and wept bitterly.

Passion tide is a time of weeping.

These are the tears of a faith that has failed.

It had seemed to be the structure that would hold his life together. A direction, a power. And now it had crumbled.

It had collapsed.

At that point Jesus is mocked, beaten, blindfolded, struck, and insulted.

And then comes a brief phrase. In verse 66. When day came.

In other words Jesus is mocked, beaten, blindfolded, struck and insulted and left alone over night.

Within sight of the Temple mount, the dome of the rock glistening in all its gold in the distance, is a house reputed to be the High Priest’s house. And beneath the first century ruins a dungeon.

You catch the solitariness of Jesus – at that moment.

The words of Psalm 88 have a power to them.

O Lord, God of my salvation,
when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no help,
like those forsaken among the dead,

You have caused friend and neighbour to shun me;
my companions are in darkness.

One of our number pointed out a connection. It was by the fire that Peter betrayed Jesus, heard the cock crow and broke down in tears.

It was by the fire that Peter met with the risen Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee who three times asked him, Do you love me.

Coming out of the dungeon we found ourselves beside a wonderful sculpture of Peter and two servants, and on the pole beside him a cockerel. With the gold of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple mount in the distance it was a very moving moment.

Video clip

We come back to the prayer.

There is a second part to the prayer Jesus prayed for Peter … and maybe that’s the second part we need to take to heart.

I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’

That’s the power of this prayer.

It is the power of this prayer for us as well.

We do let ourselves down, Christ down, God down … but there is someone praying for us. The prayer Jesus prays for us is so special. He knows us as we are … and he loves us. His prayer is that we once we have turned back we may then strengthen our brothers and our sisters.

Maybe it is the one whose faith has been sifted, who has faced trials, who has been through that time of testing is then hen better able to be a strength to others.

So thank you to all those who have said to me … I pray for you each night.

Though the one I was thinking of at the start was our friend Maurice.

A church that prays

Hush!

An open church, a quiet space

But

I often hear a hum.

Is it the heating? Is it the lighting? Is it the sound system?

Hush!

I hear it now.

It’s not the heating. It’s not the lighting. It’s not the sound system.

It’s something else.

It’s no bad thing to repeat the 10 commandments, not least on Mothering Sunday. Honour your father and your mother is something that comes right to the fore this year! Though this year in particular it has occurred to me that we ought to add an eleventh commandment ‘Honour your grandfather and your grandmother’.

There are lots of things you can add to the 10 commandments. As he writes to churches Paul is fond of lists. He often comes up with lists of commandments that he is convinced a church family needs to take to heart.

I like lists. I like the 10 commandments. And I like those lists Paul comes up with too. As he comes to the end of the first letter he writes to the church in Thessalonica Paul comes up with just such a list. There is something timeless about it. It speaks very much to any church family, to every church family and to our church family.

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

12 But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labour among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; ¹³esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. ¹⁴And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. ¹⁵See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. ¹⁶Rejoice always, ¹⁷pray without ceasing, ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ¹⁹Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰Do not despise the words of prophets, ²¹but test everything; hold fast to what is good;²²abstain from every form of evil.

23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.

25 Beloved, pray for us.

26 Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. ²⁷I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all of them.

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

They are wonderful principles. Let me go through them again. But this time I am going to take three away. A bit like Kim’s game where you take things off a tray and see whether you can spot what is missing.

• Respect
• Be at peace among yourselves
• Admonish the idlers
• Encourage the fainthearted
• Help the weak
• Be patient with all of them
• See that none of you repays evil for evil
• But always seek to do good to one another and to all
• Do not quench the Spirit
• Do not despise the words of the prophets
• Test everything
• Hold fast to what is good
• Abstain from every form of evil.

There are three things in the middle of that list that stand out. A couple of them are given entire verses – which make them rank among the shortest verses in the Bible. Paul adds a comment to these three which somehow captures for him their importance.

“for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

It is as if these three hold the key to the observance of all the others, important though they may be.

• Rejoice always
• Pray without ceasing
• Give thanks in all circumstances
• For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you

And maybe the middle one is the key to them all … and one of those very short verses. Pray without ceasing.

In seeking a church there are, says the Bishop of Reading, ten things to go to the stake for.

1. A church that takes God seriously.
2. A church that takes our humanity seriously.
3. A church that takes the world seriously
4. A church that prays

“A church that prays has its priorities absolutely spot on. Prayer is to us as milk is to a baby, as love is to a newly-wed. It’s how we live and thrive.”

Prayer meeting and at house group and at Hy-Way and at Hy-Tec and here in our services – prayer is part of what we do. It is what we are.

The Leprosy Mission works in parts of the world where leprosy is still a major problem. Each year and each quarter they publish a prayer diary. In the welcome notes to Ask2010, this year’s diary, Geoff Warne, the General Director of the Leprosy Mission International quotes from a wonderful lhymn by James Montgomery …

“Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed

The motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.

He goes on to suggest that ‘the motivation for prayer comes not just from having a prayer guide in our hands but from a fire within.”

‘a hidden fire that trembles in the breast’.

“What fire is that?” he asks.

“We are fired up by trusting in the power of God. Prayer is a mystery. We don’t understand why or how the Creator of the universe responds to our prayers. But scripture affirms again and again that he does.

“Our experience in TLM is that God’s response is not always what we expect, and sometimes goes far beyond. In Ephesians 3:20 Paul speaks of God ‘who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”

He goes on to suggest that it is good for prayer to be informed.

“We are fired up by knowing something of the need.”

So it is that this prayer diary includes suggestions for prayer for each of 365 days. Being informed in our prayer – be it in CWM through Inside Out and the Web site, through the prayer requests we have in Highbury News. The email requests for prayer that Lorraine is now co-ordinating supported by Judi Marsh. If anyone not on email would like to participate have a word with Lorraine or Judi and we can link you in by phone. And the re-issue of Highbury’s Prayer diary – suggestions for prayer in a four week cycle that takes you through the month – with space for personal prayers to be noted as well.

I love that comment on the front cover … “Prayer puts God’s work in God’s hands … and keeps it there.” (E.M.Bounds)

But what is this prayer?

It is a mystery.

It is difficult to understand.

It is not simply a wish list presented to God

It is not simply a shopping list of expectations from God

It is something more.

And Paul gives us the clue. It is at the heart of what we are and who we are … it is nothing less than ‘the will of God in Christ Jesus for each one of us.”

What is this will of God in Christ Jesus for each one of us.

Rejoice always

Pray without ceasing

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Prayer is framed in a spirit of praise and thanksgiving. That does not always come naturally. Praise takes you out of yourself and focused you on God. Thanks acknowledges our indebtedness to God. Rejoicing always is not to put a brave face on it, it is not to smile in the face of adversity, it is to lift our eyes above the awfulness of a situation that may be unfolding and to see God … praise releases that sense of the presence of God.

We rejoice always. We give thanks in all circumstances.

Rejoice and Give thanks frames the middle statement.

Pray without ceasing.

I think that is one of the most exciting insights into the nature of prayer. We know that Paul was an incredibly busy person – his life was action packed. His travels took him all over the Mediterranean world, he preached, he taught, he healed and he got into many scrapes which he describes on more than one occasion .. hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, sleepless nights, hunger – you name it, Paul endured it. He was busy, a great doer.

When he says ‘pray without ceasing’ he does not mean that you have to extract yourself from the real world and simply say your prayers. No, prayer is a greater mystery than that.

Prayer is the life-blood of what we do. It is the air we breathe. It is an attitude of mind that is always there. Often we are not aware of it … but then it will surface, just in a thought, a moment’s reference to the God who is always there.

“Prayer is to us as milk is to a baby, as love is to a newly-wed. It’s how we live and thrive.” John Pritchard is right.

And prayer is at the heart of all we do and all we share in the life of the church. And if it’s there just under the surface … popping up to the surface as and when necessary that makes a difference.

“A praying church,” John Pritchard suggests “is relaxed, joyful, purposeful. It doesn’t strive. It may agonize but it doesn’t worry. It may struggle but it doesn’t despair. It’s turned towards God like a sunflower towards the sun.”

Through Holy Week we are going to open the church each day from 10-00 to 11-00 and again from 6-00 to 7-00 so that we can have an open church and a quiet space. In the church we are going to focus on the stations of the cross and give people the space to share in the quiet of this place, to share in prayer.

Hush!

An open church, a quiet space

But

I often hear a hum.

Is it the heating? Is it the lighting? Is it the sound system?

Hush!

I hear it now.

It’s not the heating. It’s not the lighting. It’s not the sound system.

It’s something else.

“A praying church is turned towards God like a sunflower towards the sun. There’s a saint in every other pew quietly humming with holiness. This is a good place to be in.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m with John Pritchard. I would go to the stake for a church that takes prayer seriously.