What's the point of celebrating Harvest?

The previous blog contains notes from our morning service for our Harvest weekend.  In the evening service we had a much more 'traditional' harvest service with lots of the old favourite harvest hymns!

We had a lovely tea with Hy-Way on Wednesday over in the Tewkesbury Park Hotel – first, June came up with the request for Fair waved the golden corn for Harvest … and then my passengers, Olga and Joyce made a request for the favourites and Olga said from Congregational Praise including Mr Moxley’s Oxfam hymn.

So I thought let’s have a rest from Acts and think about Harvest.  The very word itself is an Old English one and the custom of celebrating the harvest goes back to time immemorial.

That fount of wisdom Wikipedia describes 16^th century customs including ‘reapers accompanying a fully laden cart, a tradition of shouting Hooky, Hooky, and one fo the foremost reapers dressing extravagantly, acting as ‘lord’ of the harvest and asking for money from the onlookers.

There’s a play by a contemporary of Shakespeare, Thomas Nash first performed in October 1592 ‘that describes several of these features’ called Summer’s Last Will and Testament.

Maybe we should get Alan to use his contacts and get Morris Men to join us.

From a church point of view it was well established among our forebears by the time they travelled on the Mayflower to America when in 1621 they celebrated their first harvest at Thanksgiving – a custom that has become a major festival in the States.

And over here, harvest festivals as many of us grew up with with their displays of produce, their baskets brought to church gogest back to 1843 when the Reverend Robert Hawker invited people to a special thanksgiving servie at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall.  That then produced some of those favourite Victorian harvest hymns – come ye thankful people come, Fair waved the golden corn and most of the others we are going to sing this evening.  Though the German We plough the fields and scatter is from the pevious century the translation we love is from this century.

But of course in celebrating Harvest we then put the roots back very much into the Bible where the whole rhythm of the Jewish year is built around a succession of harvests.  I like that idea … and it has always appealed to me.  Many of the Jewish harvests are ealier in our calendar year – this is the time when the Jewish people have just celebrated the start of their New Year.  I like to think of Harvest as in some ways the start of the year.  It’s the start of a new school year, a new session at church, and we mark something that celebrates the goodness of God in creation.  Then we come on at Christmas to celebrate the Incarnation, in Holy Week and Easter the death and resurrection and at Pentecost (itself a harvest festival) the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  It is a pattern that takes us to the very heart of God, Creator, Redeemer,  Sustainer, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Turn to one of the classic Jewish accounts of harvest and you will find many of the customs we have grown up with find their roots in the kind of passage we read from Deuteronomy 26.

Indeed, that chapter provides us with one of the classic readings we share on Harvest Sunday.

I can remember in the first Harvests Felicity and I shared with the folk in Yorkshire where the traditions were very strong  this was the pattern we followed – I grew up with it too.

26When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, ‘Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God

It’s a lovely picture – that’s morphed from produce actually grown, to fruit and veg bought from the shops, to tined food we offer today.  But basically it’s the same idea.

The gift is accompanied by a wonderful statement of faith in this passage that is recited by everyone.  I guess we sing our faith in our tradition and the hymns we sing sum up the faith we share.  But it’s good to speak our faith.

This is one of the earliest statements of faith –

It’s an account of all that God has done for his people – all they have is His and so they return something of what is his and say a great big ‘Thank you’.

‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’

Then comes a wonderful moment … the gift is presented to God and the indebtedness to God for all the people have is acknowledged.

You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11Then you, … shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

I think it is a wonderful thought.

Let’s just pause at those last words –

You shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

This is the point where if we are going to do a traditional Harvest Service we need to push on a little beyond the produce of the gardens.   We live far from the land – in our houses and flats and rooms.  Think of all the bounty in your house – is it something you take pride in – the fruit of a lifetime of labours.  You have earned it?  Harvest encourages us to think of all the bounty we have in our house and recognise it comes from God.  How indebted we are to God.

Did you notice I left some words out of that last sentence.  Deliberately.

This is what Deuteronomy 26 verse 11 actually says …

Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

This is one of those special moments in the Books of the Law when something remarkable is glimpsed.  It’s very easy to think of the occupation of the Promised land, that land flowing with milk and honey, resulting in a land peopled only by Jewish People.  Read more closely in the Torah and in the later books of Joshua, Judges … and you will find there is another strand.  One that is sometimes overlooked.   There are in the land foreigners – and the foreigners remain.  And the purposes of God is that Jewish people and foreigners live together sharing the land.  And sharing the produce of the land, the wonderful bounty the Lord your God has given you.

This catapults me back into our reading of Acts.  In Acts 10 and 11 and through to 15 we are at that moment when comes the realisation that the Good news of Jesus is all inclusive of Jew and Gentile – that all are included in the people of God.   This is not a denial of the Jewishness of Jesus and Peter but the fulfilment of a strand in the Old Testament that goes back to this kind of passage in Deuteronomy 26 which affirms the place of the foreigner in the midst.

But this also touches the focus of our Harvest this year when we are supporting Middle East concern – one of the big issues in the Middle East has to do with the capacity for different peoples to live together.  With the exception of the Crusades and of the last fifty years Jew, Christian and Muslim have lived side by side in the Middle East.   In Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Israel they have lived side by side.

There are moves to prise those peoples apart – throughout the Middle East – we see it in the scale of persecution of Christian people.  We’ve seen it in horrific ways in Pakistan last Sunday.  How important to pray for the people of those lands.  In amongst those prayers the prayer that people can live side by side with the foreigner in the midst.

There’s a danger of a backlash – here as well.  Maybe it’s because it’s Leicester and that’s where Felicity and I grew up, but I found it very moving hearing the Neurosurgeon in the hospital in Dublin describing his reaction to the arson attack on his Leicester home which resulted in the death of his wife and his three children.  He was a devout Muslim … but it was moving to hear the way he was so pleased there had been no violence in response to what had happened.

It’s very easy to slip from praying for persecuted Christians to an Islamophobia and a Xenophobia on our doorstep.  And that, it seems to me, this kind of passage is urging us to resist.  The alien in our midst is part of us.

What do you do with all that’s offered …

Well this passge sets the precedent that we have taken to following in our harvest festivals from as far back as I can remember – so well over 50 years!

When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, 13then you shall say before the Lord your God: ‘I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you commanded me;

We have reaffirmed the importance of the tithe – planned giving of a proportion of your income, we say disposable income – we suggest a twentieth for Church on the assumption that another 20^th will go to charitable giving making a tithe in all.

In this instance the giving is for the Levites, the aliens, the orphans and the widows, so that  they may eat their fill within your towns.

This is what underpins our support of CCP foodshare in our harvest today … and also what underpins our use of our Harvest collection that goes on a mission project in Highbury and this year for Middle East Concern in the support they give to Persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

It is an expression of solidarity.

The passage finishes with a renewed commitment to the covenant relationship the people have with their God.

I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments: 14I have not eaten of it while in mourning; I have not removed any of it while I was unclean; and I have not offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God, doing just as you commanded me. 15Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our ancestors—a land flowing with milk and honey.’

Concluding Exhortation

16 This very day the Lord your God is commanding you to observe these statutes and ordinances; so observe them diligently with all your heart and with all your soul. 17Today you have obtained the Lord’s agreement: to be your God; and for you to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and to obey him. 18Today the Lord has obtained your agreement: to be his treasured people, as he promised you, and to keep his commandments; 19for him to set you high above all nations that he has made, in praise and in fame and in honour; and for you to be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.

Maybe our harvest should finish with a renewal of our commitment to follow in the ways of God in the living of our lives that all we do may be to his glory.

Praying for the Middle East

On the last Sunday of September we always celebrate Harvest.  Just as a new school year is beginning it seems good to start our 'Christian' year with creation and a celebration of God our Father, before moving on to Christmas, Holy Week and  Easter as we celebrate the birth, life and death and resurrection of Jesus, rounding off the year with Pentecost and our celebration of the Holy Spirit and that strength, unseen and yet so real, that is nothing other than the presence of God with us, guiding and empowering us.

At Harvest we have one of our special collections of the year and always share it between Highbury's mission project, supporting a children's worker for our work among children, and a project linked to the world church.

This year we have been supporting the work of Middle East Concern.

At our Harvest Supper we were introduced to the work they do throughout the Middle East and North Africa and in this morning's service we focused particularly on Syria.

It was good to have our focus for prayer in the Middle East over Harvest Weekend and to have a particular focus for our prayers.

At our Harvest Supper a suggestion was shared that would be good for us all to do this week ... and on into the future too.

So much is happening in the Middle East it is very difficult to know how exactly we should pray.  This is one suggestion and thought, not so much for a prayer time, but rather at those moments when we are confronted on the news with all that's happening.

Each time we hear mention of one of those countries we are so concerned for in the Middle East, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and so on … in that moment say to yourself, “There’s a church in this country and I can pray for them now.”  This is the kind of thing those churches are asking us to pray for …

• Pray that we maintain a good witness
• Pray that we won’t be anxious
• Pray that we stand firm in the faith
• Pray that we will know God’s peace
• Pray that we will be courageous
• Pray that we will be able to reach out to others in need and do the right thing

There are more pointers for prayer at Middle East Concern's web site - click here.

This morning in our Service our focus was on Syria.  It is through the personal contacts we were hearing about this morning with church leaders in Syria that we are asked to pray the following in our prayers for Syria …

• Comfort, healing and support for the bereaved, wounded, displaced and traumatised
• Syrian Church involved in meeting humanitarian needs to have the resources to do so
• Christians in neighbouring countries supporting the 2 million plus registered refugees and (probably) as many unregistered
• Christians to remain in Syria wherever possible
• A political breakthrough.

Offering ourselves in the service of God and of other people

Our service today was a special service, welcoming people into Church Membership, celebrating our children's and young people's groups at the start of a new school year, presenting Bibles to some of our young people and then thinking of the way everyone in the church family has something to offer God and to offer other people in the life of our church ...

Call to Worship

Lord Jesus Christ

help us to lead a life worthy

of the calling to which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness and patience,

Bearing with one another in love,

Making every effort

to maintain the unity of the Spirit

In the bond of peace.

Hymn:  33  Now thank we all our God

Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

Church Membership

Highbury is a place to

share Christian friendship,

explore Christian faith and

enter into Christian mission

with Christ at the centre

and open to all.

Highbury Congregational Church is affiliated to the Congregational  Federation, a fellowship of independent Churches who come together to share resources and to support each other.

We are committed to each other by belief in the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

We trust in our Lord’s promise to be with His people who meet in His name.

We affirm the scriptural right of every Church to maintain independence in the ordering of its affairs according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We recognise the oneness of all Christians within the rich diversity of the world-wide Church.  We seek the unity for which Christ prayed by the means He wills.

We are partners in God’s mission with the Churches of the Council for World Mission, a world-wide mission partnership, and with Churches Together.

We worship, work and serve with all who love our Lord to realise His Kingdom in the world, and to help people everywhere to know the joy of His companionship.

God has already placed Jesus Christ as the one and only foundation: there can be no other foundation.  Jesus said, “Where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them.  I give you a new commandment to love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

1 Corinthians 3:11, Matthew 18:20,  John 13:34-35

Church Members are called to

• Worship God regularly with the whole Church family
• Remember the covenant with God in the Lord’s Supper
• Read the Bible and pray regularly
• Share in the life and work of the Church Meeting gathered together in Christ’s name.
• Witness by the power of the Holy Spirit to the truth of the Gospel through what they are, what they do, and what they say.
• Give their gifts of time, service and money to the work of the Kingdom as they are able.

In all they do they rejoice in the forgiving love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, knowing that when they fail they do not give up but go on in the strength of God.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  Love your neighbour as yourself.    Mark 12:30-31

Questions for Church Membership for

Karen Waldock and Charlotte Armstrong

Do you believe in God and Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?

Do you promise as you are able to share here at Highbury in the church’s worship, in its mission, in prayer, in church meeting and in giving so that Highbury really can be a place to share Christian friendship, explore Christian faith, enter into Christian mission with Christ at the centre and open to all?

I do

Prayer

Going deeper … a time with the children

I am going to get the children to tell me what happens when they go out to the back

Starting with the all together time … then going into their groups

I will then have some fun with the titles of their groups … but at the same get them to say they do Bible stories and hear what Jesus does

Bubbles – I will get some bubbles and talk about fun together and great stories

Splash – little bit older – a bucket of water and I will splash the youngsters and get them saying more stories

X-Stream – I will threaten to pour the bucket out as a stream – and then maybe get someone to throw the bucket of water down the slope by the front door – we are beginning now to launch out think more – how the good news goes out into the world

M:Ocean – getting older and out on the ocean the big world – big issues, big feelings …

And then introduce D:per – going deeper

I will then suggest that actually we are all basically doing the same thing – in the main part of the church we tell Bible stories, stories of Jesus … and we are making connections – listening out for what God is saying to us and his word for us … what we can do about it in our world.  In a sense we are all going deeper.

All of us are using one basic course book – and actually it’s the same one.  It’s the Bible.

Stories at a children’s level – but then we need to go deeper – and as you find out the Bible re-pays reading and really getting to grips with …

So for those in M:Ocean we present a Bible, the Youth Bible that helps you in going deeper – but the idea is that you will be continuing to use it as a real tool

Presentation of the Youth Bibles

And we all of us need guidance.

I will briefly tell the story of the Ehtiopian Eunuch and the question he asks …

An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get ready and go south  to the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This road is not used nowadays.)  27-28 So Philip got ready and went. Now an Ethiopian eunuch, who was an important official in charge of the treasury of the queen of Ethiopia, was on his way home. He had been to Jerusalem to worship God and was going back home in his carriage. As he rode along, he was reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah

k*. 29 The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to that carriage and stay close to it.” 30 Philip ran over and heard him reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah

He asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 The official replied, “How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?” And he invited Philip to climb up and sit in the carriage with him.  

Reading:  Acts 8:32-35

The passage of scripture which he was reading was this:

“He was like a sheep that is taken to be slaughtered,

like a lamb that makes no sound when its wool is cut off.

He did not say a word.

33 He was humiliated, and justice was denied him.

No one will be able to tell about his descendants,

because his life on earth has come to an end.”

34 The official asked Philip, “Tell me, of whom is the prophet saying this? Of himself or of someone else?”

35 Then Philip began to speak; starting from this passage of scripture, he told him the Good News about Jesus.

A Hy-Spirit Song

Offering of Money Gifts for the church – everyone remain seated

Reflections and Building up the Body of Christ

I grew up with Bible stories.  I love telling Bible stories to children.  But as I come back to them they connect more and more with the adult world I am very conscious of.

That came home to me forcibly last Sunday.  On Sunday evenings I am preaching through the Book of Acts and last Sunday I arrived at chapter 9 – which describes the encounter Saul who was to become Paul had with the Risen Christ on the Road to Damascus.

When I was a child Damascus was from off time and in a far off place.  It is right at the forefront of our minds.

Read again the account and it is a brutal time when the first followers of Jesus are facing persecution – indeed Philip is on that road to Gaza because of the brutality of the persecution that is going on.  We were reflecting on the way Christ meets us in the middle of dark times.  And out of those dark times God brings unexpected good.

Paul makes a fleeting visit back to Jerusalem but there is then a 14 year gap which he spends initially in his home town of Tarsus – maybe he is taking time to get his head round this business of following Jesus and all it means, taking time to ‘go deeper’

He emerges after those fourteen years going again to the very place where he had been involved in brutal persecution of followers of Jesus and has a private meeting just with the leaders of the church there.  Maybe understandably they are very ‘iffy’ about him.  Not at all sure about him.  Then they see the genuineness of the work he is doing (verses 7-8) and then comes a wonderful set of verses that we use as the inspiration and model for our understanding of what happens when we welcome people into church membership of our church here at Highbury.

Cephas is just the Hebrew form of Peter – this is where we get the phrase ‘pillars of the church’ from.

Reading;  Galatians 2:9-10 (NRSV)

James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.

All are welcome at Highbury

But as we get to know people and

Recognise the grace of God at work within them

We then welcome them into church membership and extend the right hand of fellowship to them.

We recognise that each person has a job to do – Paul’s was to go to the Gentiles.

And all have a challenge to remember ‘the poor’, those most in need, the most vulnerable around us.

Every single one of us has a job to do.

And this morning we are going to have a second offering.  When twe ook our offering I deliberately got everyone to stay sitting down – usually we make a think of our offering – we are offering our gifts but we are also offering ourselves in the service of God and of other people.  Today we are going to take that seriously and so we are going to have a second offering – and this time we are going to offer ourselves in God’s service.

In a moment we are going to sing … as we prepare ourselves to make our offering – I am then going to give us space to write our responses to on this form together.

Hymn MTS 2 Be still for the Presence of the Lord

Name: 

As I stand and offer myself in the service of God and in the service of other people I feel prompted to commit myself to serve at Highbury in the following ways ...

1)  Please write in a couple of sentences what you have to offer Highbury.

2) Please identify which area or areas of the church’s work you are drawn to ...

Worship

Children’s Work

Youth Work

Discipleship

Pastoral Care

Mission and Outreach

3) Much goes on behind the scenes - please tick what kind of support you feel able to give in what we have described as the ‘support services’ Highbury needs at the moment and for the future ...        

•           IT

•           The Church Office

•           Membership records and master list of Church Members and Adherents

•           Operations diary and room booking

•           Practical arrangements for Sunday services and occasional services

•           Sound and Vision

•           Housekeeping

•           Hospitality and catering

•           Publicity, advertising, leaflets and web site

•           Production, collection, collation and distribution of Highbury News

•           Maintenance and security of the building and grounds, car park, and Manse

•           Development of the building and environment

•           Health and Safety

•           Safeguarding

•           Disability Awareness and Inclusion

Now we make our offering – this time as the plates are brought to the front we will all stand and offer ourselves anew in the service of God and in the service of others here at Highbury

The Offering and Dedication Prayer

There is one body and one Spirit,

Just as we were called

to the one hope of our calling:

One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in all.

To each of us was given grace

according to the measure of Christ’s gift

to build up the body of Christ.

May all that we offer help us as a church family to build up the body of Christ here in this place.

Amen.

A quiet song from Hy-Spirit to lead into

In a moment Jean is going to lead us into our prayers for our church, for people in need and for the wider world.  In our prayers we are very conscious of the situation in the Middle East, not least in that city of Damascus.   We are conscious of persecution in so many parts especially of the Middle East – we are supporting this month the work of Middle East Concern in its support of Christians in the Middle East facing persecution.  Our harvest collection will be shared between our work of mission and the work of Middle East Concern – our supper that weekend will be a Middle Eastern Supper from our friend Bassam from Palestine  and Ian will be joining us to help us think through How we Pray for Christians in the Middle East.   He will join us again that Sunday morning too.  Tickets for that supper for £7-50 are available from today.   There won’t be fun and games but our children are very well aware of what’s going on will be thinking of it as they see reports on the news and thinking about it at school – so it may well be that they and especially our older children would get something very valuable out of this evening.  Ian has said – we only hear the bad news – but actually their research shows that there is much that is good happening too as churches are growing and making a very real difference in their contribution to peace and to justice.

Prayers of Concern

Hymn 430  How firm a foundation

Words of Blessing

Four Shafts of Light Woven into Prayer

Four Shafts of Light Woven into Prayer

2 Corinthians 3:17 – 4:15

For Alan and Muriel

28^th July 2013

The year we moved to Cheltenham and the South West Midlands Area of the Congregational Federation was the year Alan and Muriel Proctor moved to North Wraxall and our Area.  Over the years it has been good to share in fellowship and a very real sense of support in the ups and downs of ministry.  Today it was a very real privilege to be invited to preach at a service marking Alan's retirement from Ministry and to share that service with Barbara Bridges, Minister of our Moreton in Marsh Congregational Church and until recently our Area  Churches' Support Worker.   Sad to say North Wraxall Church is almost literally in the middle of nowhere surrounded as it is by fields.  They have taken the decision to close and so this service not only marked the retirement of Alan and Muriel but also the closure of the Church.  There were very many mixed feelings as we celebrated the past and the present and put the future very much into God's hands.

I didn’t know what reading to choose.  Barbara needed to know.  My mind was a blank.  And then on Wednesday evening Felicity and I went to a service that was welcoming what seemed a very young man as an Associate Minister in Cheltenham’s central Anglican churches – the Minster and St Matthew’s and St Luke’s.  The Bishop of Gloucester began his sermon by saying that for fear at such services he would simply preach on his favourite passages of the Bible he had chosen the readings for the next Day, Thursday, the Feast of St James.

First thing Thursday morning I turned to the book of devotions that I am using this year, a lovely pattern of daily prayer by Angela Ashwin with a title I want to come back to, Woven into Prayer.  And the verse the morning’s prayers began with was 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree to another; this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

What a wonderful text for today.  I looked up the passage and felt what a wonderful passage to weave into our thoughts in such a different place at such a different time and yet a service that has the same presence, the same Spirit at its heart and I believe the same blessing too.

I have in the past done some weaving on a table loom with four shafts.

There are four thoughts I want to weave into our minds and into our prayers today an d hold on to for the future – I’ld like to think of them as Four Shafts of Light Woven into Prayer.

And the first Shaft of Light is in that verse.   All of us are changing.  That young associate vicar will change as his young family grows older – our lives are constantly changing – it seems but yesterday that Alan and Muriel arrived here just as we were arriving in Cheltenham.  Great moments we have shared, exploring faith, journeying in faith, in Tiley Towers, around the fire in the Manse – occasional meetings, but meetings rich with blessing.  Then my youngsters were 5 and 8, now Felicity and I are grandparents.  It was great sharing in that Golden Wedding celebration – we have been together 58 years.  Change happens.  In those changes a wonderful thought, a wonderful promise that we are all in the process of being transformed into the likeness of Christ – the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Something follows from that as chapter 4 opens … and it brings me to the second shaft of light as we weave our thoughts together into prayer today.

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.

That’s a wonderful thought to hold on to – we’ve not met up that often, but when we have we have shared ups and downs of faith together.  Alan and Muriel share with us all a wisdom in ministry, a love and a rich musical gifting as well.  I think these next few verses sum up the kind of ministry that  Alan and Muriel have shared together over the years and in this place.

 We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practise cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.

A living faith is a faith that grapples with the world, that grapples with the word of God – and it’s a living faith we share – one that invites questioning that’s hones – that seeks the truth and touches the conscience.

And what is at the heart of this faith that’s so precious we celebrate today?

As we celebrate Alan and Muriel’s ministry Paul’s words are so true …

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

We have had a lot of fun at meetings we have shared.  Alan was President of our Area for some years and would have words of encouragement always with a smile.

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

How wonderful this is in a day when we can celebrate that ministry.

But … and there is always a ‘but’ – and the but can sometimes be brutal.

But … there’s an elephant in the room.  Our thoughts and prayers are very much with Alan and Muriel for their health – times of uncertainty and difficulty – coming to the point at which this place closes.

I think what Paul goes on to reflect on is so important for us to take to heart today as well.  It reminds us of the realities, the stark realities that we all have to face.

But, says Paul, we have this treasure in clay jars,

And clay jars don’t last forever.  We don’t last forever.  Our bodies let us down.  Church buildlings don’t last for ever – they have their time.  A stark reality.

And in the face of that reality a wonderful insight from Paul …

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

This is the faith to hold on to – this is the faith professed starting out in ministry, this is the faith professed this day no less …

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—‘I believed, and so I spoke’—we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

A table loom with four shafts is capable of weaving cloth in the most beautiful of patterns – Four Shafts of Light Woven into Prayer…

1. The first Shaft of Light woven into prayer  is that we are all being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another

2. The second Shaft of Light is that we do not proclaim ourselves, but we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

3. The third Shaft of Light Woven into prayer  is that we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God.

And one shaft of light remains.

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

That’s the vision to hold on to.

When you weave those four shafts are raised and lowered and the shuttle flies to and fro and the pattern forms in the cloth … but then it disappears.  As you wind the cloth on the roller it disappears from sight.   The full splendour of the pattern you have planned is not apparent until you come to the end of your cloth – you hem the ends and you have to cut it off from the loom – only then is the pattern apparent.

Not till the loom of time is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And explain the reason why

The dark threads are as needful

In the Weaver’s skilful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern he has planned.

A Great Big God and a Pale Blue Dot

I wish I had known it was happening.

If only I had, I could have shown you my picture.

But I didn’t and so I can’t.

But at least 20,000 people knew it was happening … and they were there waving.

And this is their picture.

Taken from the Cassini spacecraft on Thursday from the other side of Saturn, looking beyond  Saturn’s rings to a small blue dot – and that is planet earth!

And if only I had known to go out into the garden at 9-30 on Thursday evening and look towards Saturn that could have been me!!!  I would have been there waving.

The God I believe in is a great big God – to quote the words from one of those wonderful children’s songs.

That’s a bit of a paraphrase for a statement about God that one of the philosophers came up with that’s itself got a long name – the ontological argument for God.  Forget the big name – but think of the big God.

God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.

It does put things in perspective somehow seeing Planet Earth and knowing that those 20,000 people are waving at the camera!

And that’s just from a neighbouring planet in our solar system.

Which is part of our galaxy which is part of the universe.

Which is immense.

And God is even greater.

One writer came up with a memorable title for a book when he said, Our God is Too Small.

I believe in a great big God, God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.

That’s at the heart of the Bible’s view of the world.  For this, this planet, this solar system, this universe, is the world of God’s creation.  And God is greater far.

The Creator God I believe in is the God who is not static but dynamic – in that endless dance of creation as the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are one in this God and yet each with their own identity.  The Spirit is that breath that breathes life into the Universe.  The Son is that Cosmic Christ who is the very word of God from the beginning of time.  The Father embraces all in the wonder of the eternity of love.

It is the sheer immensity of this God that captures the imagination of Paul in those wonderful words in Colossians 1:

The beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

To believe in such a Great Big God is to put things in a different perspective.

If all we see is what we do see – concerns for health and the future, finance and work, problems at home, big concerns on the news – then the world is a world of darkness.

But believe in a great big God and something happens

Jesus said, I am the light of the world, those who believe in me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

Believe in a great big God and we can, in the words of Paul,  be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,

Christ at the centre

In a world of darkness

The light of life

And it is life.

I guess what I want to share this morning are three simple promises that come from putting Christ at the centre of the world, the universe and all that is and from putting Christ at the centre deep in our hearts.

In a world of darkness

The light of life.

And it is life in all its fullness.

The second of those great promises of Jesus is hinted at in these words of Paul as he thinks of the Cosmic Christ.

all things have been created through him and for him. 17He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

In him all things hold together.

Believing in a great big God who is Father , Son and Holy Spirit is life enriching, life enhancing, life fulfilling.  How tragic that too often religion is depicted as a kill joy thing when in truth Christ brings a wonderful promise of life in all its fullness.

I came, says Jesus, that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in the Message

I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

And then comes the final thought that Paul has to share in Colossians 1:15-20

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Christ at the centre

In a world that’s brimming full of life

Life in all its abundance

Christ at the centre

That brings me to another promise of Christ – a wonderful one to treasure.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives, give I to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The peace Christ gives is a peace that binds us together with God and then a peace that binds us together with others.

As Paul says in II Corinthians 5

if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20

Christ at the centre

In a world of division

Peace beyond understanding

Christ at the centre

And that takes me back to that photo I wish I could claim to be on …

An earlier one was taken in the year that Felicity and I arrived here in Cheltenham by the Voyager Space Craft.

It inspired Carl Sagan one of the great astronomers to reflect in this way …

Pale Blue Dot Quotes (showing 1-30 of 43)

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” 

He went on to say something else …

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”

No, no, no!, Karl Sagan, My God is a great big God!

Nothing less than the cosmic Christ brings light into darkness, life in all it abundance and a peace such as the world cannot give … and I don’t just want him to stay that way … he’s going to stay that way!

Christ at the centre

In a world of darkness

The light of life

Christ at the centre

In a world of division

Peace beyond understanding

Christ at the centre

In a world that’s brimming full of life

Life in all its abundance

Christ at the centre

Janet went on to lead our prayers ...

PRAYERS – 28/07/13

Like spokes of a wheel radiating out from the hub

The prayers of your people go out into the world

With Christ at the centre.

Like the ripples on a pond when a pebble is dropped

The actions of your people are felt throughout the continents

With Christ at the centre.

Lord, as we each live our own, tiny lives, it is easy to see our prayers and actions as insignificant in the grand scheme of things – how can I possibly make a difference?  Help us to remember that every little thing we do is part of a chain reaction whose ending we may never see.

And if we are tempted, through fear, ignorance or ambition, to take excess pride in our ability to change the world around us, help us to remember that every little thing we do is our responsibility, whose consequences we may not have anticipated.

As we thank you for this time of holidays, we pray for those who are unable to have holidays, and those for whom holidays bring little or no relief from the problems and anxieties of everyday life.

Be with us all, wherever we may be.

As we think of Egypt and the many other troubled areas of the world, we pray too for the many smaller conflicts, seen and unseen, where differences of opinion and understanding lead to violence in thought or deed, and an unwillingness to listen to another point-of-view.

Be with us in all our conflicts, great and small.

As we look at our harvests ripening in our fields, and rejoice in the wonderful range of material things we are able to enjoy, we pray for those for whom love of material things becomes a trap, leading them into ever greater debt, and those for whom they are a disguise, giving an illusion of abundance to empty lives.

Be with us all in our plenty and our poverty.

Lord, every little thing we do has the power to change the world.  Help us to step out confidently in prayer, word and action, remembering that with great power comes great responsibility.

Like spokes of a wheel radiating out from the hub

The prayers of your people go out into the world

With Christ at the centre.

Like the ripples on a pond when a pebble is dropped

The actions of your people are felt throughout the continents

With Christ at the centre.

The Means of Grace and the Hope of Glory

If you want to bake a cake you need the proper utensils.

If you want to make a table you need the proper tools.

If you want to write a letter you need pen and paper

If you want to send a text you need a mobile phone

Those utensils provide you with the means to bake a cake.

Those tools provide you with the means to make a table

That pen and the paper provide you with the means to write a letter.

That mobile phone provides you with the means to send a text

The Church I grew up in at home was a little bit quirky for a Congregational Church.  Each Sunday morning we sang a set of responses – I always thought they were ‘feral’ responses.  Closer attention to the hymn book showed they were Ferial responses.  But I am still not exactly clear what that word ‘ferial ‘ means.   We also chanted the Psalms with the quirky pointing system devised for Congregational Praise.

And we said the same prayer each week.

It was the General Thanksgiving.

I can still recite the words …

ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men;  We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

One of many phrases that sticks in my mind from that prayer is the line that says …

… for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.

And it is the first of those two phrases that I want to home in on today.

The means of grace.

I think it is a wonderful phrase that gets to the heart of something that we very easily overlook when we think about our Christian faith.

It’s so easy to talk about putting Christ at the centre – of our lives of our town.

But how do we actually put Christ at the centre?

It’s so easy to talk about the presence of God?  But how is the presence of God real.

This is the wonderful thing.

It’s easy to talk about the amazing grace of God, the forgiveness of Christ … but how is that grace made real in our lives.

The thought in that wonderful line from that prayer is that God offers us the things we need to help make that grace real, the things we need to help make that free forgiving love of God in Christ real, the things we need to put Christ at the centre.

He offers us ‘the means of Grace’.

There are lots of things you can think of as ‘the means of grace’.

God’s grace is a message to us  .. he gives us the means of grace in the Bible – we need to read the Bible if we are going to hear God’s word for us.  People sometimes say they haven’t heard God’s message for them for a long time … and they don’t read their bible – it’s no surprise maybe that God’s word is not heard!

Prayer is another means of grace – people can say that they don’t sense the presence of God with them, do they have a regular pattern of prayer – a day with a rhythm of prayer for that kind of set of praying is one of those means of grace.

Gathering together for worship is another of those means of grace – people say they don’t sense the presence of God in their hearts – it is important to meet with other people and sense that presence together.

But most important of all maybe is one particular ‘means of grace’ that is right at the heart of all we share today.

And it is something very tangible and very real that we can actually do that makes a difference to us – and it is a means of the grace of God in Christ that can really help us to put Christ at the centre of all the things that we do.

And that means of grace is what we are going to share in doing during our service this morning.

It is the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion.

In the breaking of bread and in the sharing of a cup we have perhaps the most wonderful of all ‘the means of grace’.

Most wonderful because it was commanded by Christ.

Do this in remembrance of me, he said.

And as we do this thing what we are doing is something that Jesus commanded us to do.

We are never more than a couple of weeks away from a moment when what we actually do together is something that was done by Jesus with his friends and his been done by those followers of Jesus ever since continually – and it is something we can do.

So much happens in Communion that makes what we do the means God uses to make that grace of the Lord Jesus Christ something very real, that keeps Chrsit at the centre of our lives.

First, it is in the gathering together and in the parting at the end that we are reminded in the most powerful way of the promise of the presence of Christ with us.

We can only put Christ at the centre of our lives, of our families, of our town, of our world as his presence is with us.

The real presence of Christ is let loose as we meet together in his name and claim the promise he made that where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them.

It is in the actual meeting together in the name of Christ that the presence of Christ is made real.

How does that help?

I think we will all be different as we come together.  Some will be at a good place where all is going well in their journey of faith.  Some will be in a bad place where their journey has taken a turn for the worse.  In coming together we share one another’s joys – and we share one another’s sorrows and concerns.  That way we build each other up not just in each other’s strength, but also in the strength of God.

And then as we go our separate ways comes another promise of Christ.

Those last words to his disciples.

Remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

As we go our separate ways we take that promise with us into those joys and into those sorrows.

I have grown in my liking of and respect for Tracy Enim as an artist since visiting the new Tate Gallery in Margate - a wonderful contribution to the regeneration of Margate that owes much of its inspiration and no small amount of its funding to Tracy Enim as she longs to see the re-birth of her home town.

Recently she was commissioned to do a piece for Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.  She spent a day in the Cathedral and then did her piece in response to all she had felt as she had shared in the rhythms of that place of worship with its stillness, its noisiness, and its daily round of worship.   It has been placed under the West Window and is one of the last things you will see as you leave that place of worship.

In neon lights it is a statement in her own handwriting ...

"I felt you and I know you loved me."

A wonderful sense of the presence to take with you as you leave.

A very real means of grace whereby we keep Chist at the centre.

It is in the breaking of bread and the sharing of a cup.   This is something tangible – great symbolism to do as Jesus did and keep that memory alive, that remembrance going.  But it is for me more than symbolism.

The bread we break is real and I feel it going down!

The cup we here has the fruit of the vine and I taste it as I drink it.

Something real.  The love God has for us, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is no less real.   But I cannot see it.  As the bread goes down, as I drink of that jice I know it’s real … and I know that the love of God, the grace of the lord Jesus Christ is just as real.

You don’t need it – maybe not.  But it is the insight of Chrsit. That we do.  And I for one go with his insight.  A constant reminder – of just how real this Christ is for me.

For Christ to be at the centre the breaking of bread, the sharing of a cup so important.

And one more dimension in what we do.  Communion, the Lord’s Supper is based around what Jesus ordered us to do, commanded us to do.   In our Congregatinal way of understanding things this is what makes it special.  It becomes an ‘ordinance’ of Christ.   An order.    And at this table we remehber the new commandment he gave to his disciples as he washed their feet and set them the example of service – a new commandment I give you that you love one another.  The communion collection is important for us.  It goes back to a dark time in this country’s history when religious persecution was the order of the day and our forebears in the 1580’s would go from their illegal communion service to the prison where fellow members of their church were and take supplies for the coming week.  You see reference made to a communion collection then later in our tradition again in dark times in our land when there was no social security, no welfare state in late 1700’s and early 1800’s and the church would have a pastoral fund supported by a communion collection.  And for many years we support a local charity.  

And this month it is the local branch of the Multiple Sclerosis society.  A tangible reminder of the commitment we have to people’s needs beyond our fellowship.

The menas of Grace to keep Christ at the centre in the new commandment he gives to love one another.

Christ at the Centre

Christ at the centre

In our gathering together

And in our parting

Christ at the centre

In the breaking of bread

In the sharing of a cup

Christ at the centre

In the new commandment he gives

To love one another

Christ at the centre

In our gathering together

And in our parting

Christ at the centre