It seems like only yesterday that my boys, Josh & Gwyn, were babies. I will never forget my shock at how small they were even Gwyn at just 10 1/2lb -- it didn't seem possible that a person could be that little and still be all right! I was nervous about holding them at first. I was afraid I would do something wrong and I’d break them! It wasn't until I had to baptize a very small baby that I realized that our kids were big. I was awestruck by his tiny perfection. Such fragility. So tiny. Everything in him working away at the new business of being alive.
To see a little baby is to see what the shepherds saw, what the three kings saw, what Mary and Joseph saw. Just a little human being: weak, fragile. Never again could people dismiss the weak and the fragile as unimportant. God's own self chose this form in which to come among us: a decisive choice of the weak as the vessels of God's love for the whole of creation. God chose weakness.
When I think of Gods weakness I think of the little babies: our own babies, the tiny premature babies, the baby Jesus. Of their innocence, yes, but also of that very same longing: longing to live, trying hard to live, fighting every minute just to stay alive.
Christ came as a baby. But he also comes as a recovering alcoholic longing for job and a home and a family. He comes as a divorced man or woman who has lost a family, a broken-hearted child who has lost their parents, a lonely stranger sleeping on the streets, an old man in a nursing home not knowing who he is. God chose our brokenness in which to appear because it is in our brokenness that we need God. Longing for the fullness of life. Weak and broken, but trying to live.
What did I feel when I saw my own babies?
What did I feel when I touched that very small baby.
What do I feel when I hear about the recovering alcoholic?
All of them are weak. All of them are at the bottom of the chain of power, as the world knows power. But what I feel in their presence is awe. And we see that the world's understanding of power is upside down. Power is not the naked ability to coerce. It is the God-given ability to live. It comes from our loving. In power that works through our weakness, God is with us. All of us -- those whom we know to be weak and those whom we think are strong.
It seems that most people did not see the power in the baby Jesus. Or in Jesus when he grew up -- most people didn't see the power of God in him. Most people saw only the weakness. Most people didn't care much one way or another when he was executed as a common criminal. Most people thought they knew what power was.
But for those of us in whom the spirit of Christ lives, teaching us daily, changing the way we see the world -- the categories of power and weakness are forever changed. Seeing the victory of Christ through the embrace of the cross, our own weakness is transformed. Weak, we are strong in Christ. Dying, we live. We live, yet it is not we who live. Christ lives in us. May the love of Christ coming to you this day in the infant Jesus fill your heart. AMEN.
Tuesday 25 December 2007
Midnight Mass Sermon 2007
One way or another, everyone’s going to Bethlehem tonight. It’s the rendezvous for all the players in the Christmas story, quite literally from the highest (the angels) to the lowest (the shepherds). Joseph and Mary get to Bethlehem just in time to have their baby, but too late to find a place in the inn, which, has been enjoying full bookings during the counting process.
Pity Joseph and Mary didn’t book ahead. I checked last night on the Internet for good places to stay in Bethlehem. At the top of the list is the Jacir Palace Inter-Continental Hotel and Resort, conveniently located on the Jerusalem-Hebron Road. According to its website, it boasts 250 rooms, and 5 suites. Amenities include a 24-hour front desk, swimming pool, tennis court, barber and beauty shops, a hotel nurse, a laundry, valet, and, of course, each room comes equipped with a refrigerator, safe-deposit box, minibar, internet broadband hook-up, and satellite TV.
Oh yes . . . there are telephones in all the bathrooms.
A deluxe room for two with a king-size bed is available tonight for the special weekend rate of $1,150.00 (U.S.). MasterCard, Visa, and American Express are all gratefully accepted. Availability? I checked on-line, their full. There’s still no room tonight in the inn.
There is one detail, however, that the hotel website fails to mention. It’s hard to get to Bethlehem tonight. Israeli security forces have checkpoints set up on all access roads into the city, and many who try to get in are turned away.
The tourists who do make it past the checkpoints can wander through Bethlehem’s narrow alleys and across the barren Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity.
They can see the Door of Humility, the four-foot tall entrance into that famous basilica. After bending over, as when entering a cave, it’s a short walk to the Grotto of the Nativity, the purported site of Jesus’ birth. The manger is still there, right by the altar – not, of course, the simple clay manger that St. Helen discovered – the silver one that she put in its place.
So, if you could get by the roadblocks tonight, and you could check into your room at the Jacir Palace, and still make it to midnight mass in that glorious church above the silver manger. There would be no time to linger at the shops. Many of them are closed anyway, but you might be tempted to study the photographs posted on the shop walls – pictures of some of the hundreds of Palestinians killed.
Tonight’s the night to go to Bethlehem, but it’s so hard to get there. Instead you could log on, and become a virtual pilgrim. I tried it. It’s a lot less trouble. There are no soldiers to turn you away and no pictures of dead Palestinians to distract you from the baby Jesus in the silver manger.
Stay at a comfortable inn or do the whole thing on the Net. It’s hard to go to Bethlehem tonight. It was harder still on that first Christmas, though.
· Hard for Joseph, who has swallowed his pride to stay betrothed to a woman whose swollen belly declares her pregnant?
· Hard for Mary, who is so weary, not so much from carrying the child in her womb as from carrying the awful weight of whispers behind her back?
· Hard for the shepherds, whose life is already hard enough, without adding a wild goose chase to their nocturnal responsibilities?
· And hard, I think, even for the angels, who have to keep checking back with the control tower to make sure they have the right coordinates. This message to these witnesses? Surely someone at H. Q. has messed up.
It’s always hard to get to Bethlehem, and even harder to know for sure when you’ve arrived. The problem with Christmas is, you can make it to Bethlehem and still miss Jesus. If you rush past the children throwing rocks at the soldiers, or past the photos of children the soldiers have killed, you won’t find Baby Jesus meek and mild – not even if you make it to the church on time. He won’t be there, lying in the silver manger St. Helen made for him.
He’ll be in the homes where grief hangs heavy, like a shroud over the broken body of Mary’s boy.
He’ll be with those who did not make it to church tonight because they stopped on the way to help a stranger.
He’ll be in the homes where he has been invited and in the hearts of those who long for peace, but never speak his name.
Bethlehem is not a slice of land. The manger is not a silver relic in a church. Christmas is not a date on the calendar.
Bethlehem is the place where God is with us. The manger is the place where we can lay our heads upon Christ’s shoulder and, at last, feel safe. Christmas is a constant feast: the feast of the incarnation, the feast of God made flesh – with us, for us, among us, in love with us.
It’s hard to get to Bethlehem. Bethlehem must come to us. And so it has in Jesus.
Pity Joseph and Mary didn’t book ahead. I checked last night on the Internet for good places to stay in Bethlehem. At the top of the list is the Jacir Palace Inter-Continental Hotel and Resort, conveniently located on the Jerusalem-Hebron Road. According to its website, it boasts 250 rooms, and 5 suites. Amenities include a 24-hour front desk, swimming pool, tennis court, barber and beauty shops, a hotel nurse, a laundry, valet, and, of course, each room comes equipped with a refrigerator, safe-deposit box, minibar, internet broadband hook-up, and satellite TV.
Oh yes . . . there are telephones in all the bathrooms.
A deluxe room for two with a king-size bed is available tonight for the special weekend rate of $1,150.00 (U.S.). MasterCard, Visa, and American Express are all gratefully accepted. Availability? I checked on-line, their full. There’s still no room tonight in the inn.
There is one detail, however, that the hotel website fails to mention. It’s hard to get to Bethlehem tonight. Israeli security forces have checkpoints set up on all access roads into the city, and many who try to get in are turned away.
The tourists who do make it past the checkpoints can wander through Bethlehem’s narrow alleys and across the barren Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity.
They can see the Door of Humility, the four-foot tall entrance into that famous basilica. After bending over, as when entering a cave, it’s a short walk to the Grotto of the Nativity, the purported site of Jesus’ birth. The manger is still there, right by the altar – not, of course, the simple clay manger that St. Helen discovered – the silver one that she put in its place.
So, if you could get by the roadblocks tonight, and you could check into your room at the Jacir Palace, and still make it to midnight mass in that glorious church above the silver manger. There would be no time to linger at the shops. Many of them are closed anyway, but you might be tempted to study the photographs posted on the shop walls – pictures of some of the hundreds of Palestinians killed.
Tonight’s the night to go to Bethlehem, but it’s so hard to get there. Instead you could log on, and become a virtual pilgrim. I tried it. It’s a lot less trouble. There are no soldiers to turn you away and no pictures of dead Palestinians to distract you from the baby Jesus in the silver manger.
Stay at a comfortable inn or do the whole thing on the Net. It’s hard to go to Bethlehem tonight. It was harder still on that first Christmas, though.
· Hard for Joseph, who has swallowed his pride to stay betrothed to a woman whose swollen belly declares her pregnant?
· Hard for Mary, who is so weary, not so much from carrying the child in her womb as from carrying the awful weight of whispers behind her back?
· Hard for the shepherds, whose life is already hard enough, without adding a wild goose chase to their nocturnal responsibilities?
· And hard, I think, even for the angels, who have to keep checking back with the control tower to make sure they have the right coordinates. This message to these witnesses? Surely someone at H. Q. has messed up.
It’s always hard to get to Bethlehem, and even harder to know for sure when you’ve arrived. The problem with Christmas is, you can make it to Bethlehem and still miss Jesus. If you rush past the children throwing rocks at the soldiers, or past the photos of children the soldiers have killed, you won’t find Baby Jesus meek and mild – not even if you make it to the church on time. He won’t be there, lying in the silver manger St. Helen made for him.
He’ll be in the homes where grief hangs heavy, like a shroud over the broken body of Mary’s boy.
He’ll be with those who did not make it to church tonight because they stopped on the way to help a stranger.
He’ll be in the homes where he has been invited and in the hearts of those who long for peace, but never speak his name.
Bethlehem is not a slice of land. The manger is not a silver relic in a church. Christmas is not a date on the calendar.
Bethlehem is the place where God is with us. The manger is the place where we can lay our heads upon Christ’s shoulder and, at last, feel safe. Christmas is a constant feast: the feast of the incarnation, the feast of God made flesh – with us, for us, among us, in love with us.
It’s hard to get to Bethlehem. Bethlehem must come to us. And so it has in Jesus.
Monday 17 December 2007
Saint Martin's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
WELCOME
If we have not met you before, please do introduce yourself. You are warmly invited to look around this building, to use it for worship, private prayer and quiet reflection. This Parish Church of Saint Martin’s within the Church of England, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, affirms the heritage of the Church of England as a rich and living tradition which, rooted in history, is open to the working of the Holy Spirit in today’s changing world.
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is a Christian worship service celebrating the birth of Jesus and traditionally followed at Christmas. The story of the fall of humanity, the promise of the Messiah, and the birth of Jesus is told in nine short Bible readings, interspersed with the singing of Christmas carols and hymns.
The format was based on an Order drawn up by E.W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro. It has since been adapted and used by other churches all over the world.
Our organist this afternoon is Mr. John Knight.
NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS
All stand.
CHOIR … INTROIT – THE CANDLE SONG,
Choir Process
Remain standing as the Priest welcomes the congregation and gives
THE BIDDING
Beloved in Christ, at this Christmastide let it be our care and delight to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind to go to Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, and the babe lying in a manger.
Therefore, let us read and mark in holy Scripture the story of the loving purposes of God in the promise of his glory and in the wonderful redemption brought us by this holy Child.
But first, let us pray for the needs of the whole world; for peace on earth and goodwill among all his people; for unity within the Church he came to build.
And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us remember, in his name, the poor and helpless, the cold, the hungry, the homeless, and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and the unloved, the aged and the little children; all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.
Lastly, let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are one for evermore.
These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven; in the words which Christ himself has taught us:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
CAROL … ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY
READING 1 GENESIS 3:8-19
God tells sinful Adam that he has lost the life of Paradise and that his seed will bruise the serpent's head.
AND they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Thanks be to God.
CAROL … GOOD KING WENCESLAS
READING 2 GENESIS 22:15-18
God promises to faithful Abraham that in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
AND the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
Thanks be to God
ADULT CHOIR… SING LULLABY
READING 3 ISAIAH 9:2,6-9
The prophet foretells the coming of the Saviour.
THE people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Thanks be to God.
CAROL … UNTO US A SON IS BORN
READING 4 ISAIAH 11:1-4A, 6-9
The peace that Christ will bring is foreshown.
AND there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
Thanks be to God
CHILDREN’S CHOIR… AWAY IN A MANGER
READING 5 LUKE 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel salutes the Blessed Virgin Mary.
AND in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … ANGELS FROM THE REALMS OF GLORY
CHOIR… PAST THREE O’CLOCK
READING 6 LUKE 2:1-7
St Luke tells of the birth of Jesus.
AND it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
Thanks be to God
CHILDREN’S CHOIR… THE VIRGIN MARY HAD A BABY BOY
READING 7 LUKE 2:8-16
The shepherds go to the manger.
AND there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED
READING 8 MATTHEW 2:1-12
The wise men are led by the star to Jesus.
NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … WE THREE KINGS
CHOIR… THE COVENTRY CAROL
READING 9 JOHN 1:1-14
St John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation.
IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING
PRAYERS
Let us pray. O God who makes us glad with this yearly remembrance of the birth of your only son, Jesus Christ: Grant that as we joyfully receive him as our redeemer, so we may with confidence behold him, when he shall come to be our judge; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
COLLECT
God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesusas Christ our Lord.
CAROL … O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL
BLESSING
May the Father, who has loved us in his eternal Son, shed that love abroad in your hearts. Amen.
May Christ, who by his incarnation gathered into one all things earthly and heavenly, fill you with joy and peace. Amen.
May the Holy Spirit, by whose overshadowing Mary became the bearer of God, give you grace to carry the good news to others. Amen.
And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.
If we have not met you before, please do introduce yourself. You are warmly invited to look around this building, to use it for worship, private prayer and quiet reflection. This Parish Church of Saint Martin’s within the Church of England, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, affirms the heritage of the Church of England as a rich and living tradition which, rooted in history, is open to the working of the Holy Spirit in today’s changing world.
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is a Christian worship service celebrating the birth of Jesus and traditionally followed at Christmas. The story of the fall of humanity, the promise of the Messiah, and the birth of Jesus is told in nine short Bible readings, interspersed with the singing of Christmas carols and hymns.
The format was based on an Order drawn up by E.W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro. It has since been adapted and used by other churches all over the world.
Our organist this afternoon is Mr. John Knight.
NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS
All stand.
CHOIR … INTROIT – THE CANDLE SONG,
Choir Process
Remain standing as the Priest welcomes the congregation and gives
THE BIDDING
Beloved in Christ, at this Christmastide let it be our care and delight to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind to go to Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, and the babe lying in a manger.
Therefore, let us read and mark in holy Scripture the story of the loving purposes of God in the promise of his glory and in the wonderful redemption brought us by this holy Child.
But first, let us pray for the needs of the whole world; for peace on earth and goodwill among all his people; for unity within the Church he came to build.
And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us remember, in his name, the poor and helpless, the cold, the hungry, the homeless, and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and the unloved, the aged and the little children; all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.
Lastly, let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are one for evermore.
These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven; in the words which Christ himself has taught us:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
CAROL … ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY
READING 1 GENESIS 3:8-19
God tells sinful Adam that he has lost the life of Paradise and that his seed will bruise the serpent's head.
AND they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Thanks be to God.
CAROL … GOOD KING WENCESLAS
READING 2 GENESIS 22:15-18
God promises to faithful Abraham that in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
AND the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
Thanks be to God
ADULT CHOIR… SING LULLABY
READING 3 ISAIAH 9:2,6-9
The prophet foretells the coming of the Saviour.
THE people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Thanks be to God.
CAROL … UNTO US A SON IS BORN
READING 4 ISAIAH 11:1-4A, 6-9
The peace that Christ will bring is foreshown.
AND there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
Thanks be to God
CHILDREN’S CHOIR… AWAY IN A MANGER
READING 5 LUKE 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel salutes the Blessed Virgin Mary.
AND in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … ANGELS FROM THE REALMS OF GLORY
CHOIR… PAST THREE O’CLOCK
READING 6 LUKE 2:1-7
St Luke tells of the birth of Jesus.
AND it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
Thanks be to God
CHILDREN’S CHOIR… THE VIRGIN MARY HAD A BABY BOY
READING 7 LUKE 2:8-16
The shepherds go to the manger.
AND there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED
READING 8 MATTHEW 2:1-12
The wise men are led by the star to Jesus.
NOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … WE THREE KINGS
CHOIR… THE COVENTRY CAROL
READING 9 JOHN 1:1-14
St John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation.
IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Thanks be to God
CAROL … HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SING
PRAYERS
Let us pray. O God who makes us glad with this yearly remembrance of the birth of your only son, Jesus Christ: Grant that as we joyfully receive him as our redeemer, so we may with confidence behold him, when he shall come to be our judge; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
COLLECT
God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesusas Christ our Lord.
CAROL … O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL
BLESSING
May the Father, who has loved us in his eternal Son, shed that love abroad in your hearts. Amen.
May Christ, who by his incarnation gathered into one all things earthly and heavenly, fill you with joy and peace. Amen.
May the Holy Spirit, by whose overshadowing Mary became the bearer of God, give you grace to carry the good news to others. Amen.
And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.
Sunday 9 December 2007
Who likes waiting…
Waiting is not a popular past time in our culture today. We have our photos developed at a One Hour Photo Shop, take our clothes to Same Day Dry Cleaners, and buy food at a fast food restaurant. We pay our bills over the phone and do our banking on the internet where there are no long lines of waiting people. When a lift takes a long to time to arrive, we give the button another series of rapid jabs. Children get impatient waiting for their parents to stop talking after church.
Parents teach their children how to wait patiently. They say things like -
"No, not now, you can have that when you're older."
"Just wait a while and I'll get it for you."
"Wait until your birthday."
"Wait a bit, and just be patient."
But somewhere along the line, those lessons about waiting are forgotten and so impatient drivers sit on our rear bumpers of those they think are going too slowly, people with very loud whispers complain about the person up front who has an article that needs a price checked at the supermarket, and our blood boils after pressing buttons on the phone as requested by the computerised voice on the other end only to be told that we have put on hold and that we are 26th in the queue.
And today we are waiting. What are we waiting for?
There are two kinds of waiting - passive waiting and active waiting. Let me illustrate what I mean in this way.
You are at the railway station. People are waiting for the arrival of a train. You notice that in one corner of the waiting room there is a man who has dozed off. He is waiting for the train but while he is waiting he is bored and so has decided to catch up on a little sleep. He thinks that there will still be plenty of time before the train arrives, and so for now he is sleeping. He is passively waiting.
Also waiting for the train is a little boy. He is excited about the arrival of the train and then riding on it. He can’t sit still and constantly goes to the station door and looks up and down the tracks, he chatters to the other people waiting about the arrival of the train, he even asks the sleepy man if he is getting on the train too. The little boy’s waiting is full expectation, excitement, waiting on tiptoe. He is anticipating that the train will arrive at any moment. He is actively waiting.
We can choose to wait passively. Like sitting in a waiting room at the doctor’s, flicking through magazines, day dreaming a bit, just filling in time until we are called into the doctor’s surgery. This kind of passive waiting doesn’t require much energy or attention. It requires no commitment on our part. If God wants us, he is all-knowing and he knows where to find us. In the meantime we deal with our own concerns, and look after our own need for leisure. There is no need to bother about prayer, worship, mission, the Bible, or with deliberately living the Christian life.
Or like the little boy at the train station we can wait with eager expectation. This waiting involves prayer, worship, mission, the Bible, and deliberately living the Christian life, going out of your way to serve others and not just looking after your own needs. You know that Jesus will return, and like the servant in the parable, his absence doesn’t mean forgetting about the master and what he wants you to do, but to actively wait and be prepared for whenever that moment of his arrival might be.
If you don’t believe that Jesus will return then it doesn’t matter what you do, but if you do believe that Jesus will keep his word and come again then we need to examine just how active we have been while we are waiting.
Advent is the season of the church year when we consider how well we are actively waiting for the return of Jesus. This is a good time to ask ourselves questions like...
How seriously have I taken the fact that Jesus died and rose for me?
How well have I been actively waiting or have I become disinterested?
We spend a lot of time waiting – someone worked out that we spend 6 months of our life sitting at traffic lights – but there is nothing more important to wait for than the return of Jesus. What we do while we are waiting is also important – are we like the man dozing in the railway station unaware of the approaching train, or are we eager and actively waiting like the little boy?
Jesus is coming. So let us make our Advent prayer "Come Lord Jesus".
Parents teach their children how to wait patiently. They say things like -
"No, not now, you can have that when you're older."
"Just wait a while and I'll get it for you."
"Wait until your birthday."
"Wait a bit, and just be patient."
But somewhere along the line, those lessons about waiting are forgotten and so impatient drivers sit on our rear bumpers of those they think are going too slowly, people with very loud whispers complain about the person up front who has an article that needs a price checked at the supermarket, and our blood boils after pressing buttons on the phone as requested by the computerised voice on the other end only to be told that we have put on hold and that we are 26th in the queue.
And today we are waiting. What are we waiting for?
There are two kinds of waiting - passive waiting and active waiting. Let me illustrate what I mean in this way.
You are at the railway station. People are waiting for the arrival of a train. You notice that in one corner of the waiting room there is a man who has dozed off. He is waiting for the train but while he is waiting he is bored and so has decided to catch up on a little sleep. He thinks that there will still be plenty of time before the train arrives, and so for now he is sleeping. He is passively waiting.
Also waiting for the train is a little boy. He is excited about the arrival of the train and then riding on it. He can’t sit still and constantly goes to the station door and looks up and down the tracks, he chatters to the other people waiting about the arrival of the train, he even asks the sleepy man if he is getting on the train too. The little boy’s waiting is full expectation, excitement, waiting on tiptoe. He is anticipating that the train will arrive at any moment. He is actively waiting.
We can choose to wait passively. Like sitting in a waiting room at the doctor’s, flicking through magazines, day dreaming a bit, just filling in time until we are called into the doctor’s surgery. This kind of passive waiting doesn’t require much energy or attention. It requires no commitment on our part. If God wants us, he is all-knowing and he knows where to find us. In the meantime we deal with our own concerns, and look after our own need for leisure. There is no need to bother about prayer, worship, mission, the Bible, or with deliberately living the Christian life.
Or like the little boy at the train station we can wait with eager expectation. This waiting involves prayer, worship, mission, the Bible, and deliberately living the Christian life, going out of your way to serve others and not just looking after your own needs. You know that Jesus will return, and like the servant in the parable, his absence doesn’t mean forgetting about the master and what he wants you to do, but to actively wait and be prepared for whenever that moment of his arrival might be.
If you don’t believe that Jesus will return then it doesn’t matter what you do, but if you do believe that Jesus will keep his word and come again then we need to examine just how active we have been while we are waiting.
Advent is the season of the church year when we consider how well we are actively waiting for the return of Jesus. This is a good time to ask ourselves questions like...
How seriously have I taken the fact that Jesus died and rose for me?
How well have I been actively waiting or have I become disinterested?
We spend a lot of time waiting – someone worked out that we spend 6 months of our life sitting at traffic lights – but there is nothing more important to wait for than the return of Jesus. What we do while we are waiting is also important – are we like the man dozing in the railway station unaware of the approaching train, or are we eager and actively waiting like the little boy?
Jesus is coming. So let us make our Advent prayer "Come Lord Jesus".
Sunday 25 November 2007
Christ The King
“It’s good to be a king!” says Louis the Fourteenth in the Mel Brooks film “History of the World, Part One,” but the Feast of Christ the King makes many of us uneasy. We have little experience of kings and queens, outside our own Royal family, and for the last two hundred years of British history it’s been the gradual decline and disappearance of royal power and its replacement with that of duly elected House of Commons. Historically, we may know kings and hereditary rulers as tyrants, refusing to yield power, or as buffoons, unable to see that their time had passed. In either case, they were forced from power. Say “king” and you may think of France’s Louis the Fourteenth saying, “I am the state,” or Marie Antoinette dismissing the hungry and their cries for bread with her notoriously callous comment, “Let them eat cake.”
Christ the King may also make us uneasy because of its association with religious imperialism. If Christ is the king, then does his church occupy a privileged position? The Anglican cross followed the British flag throughout the British Empire and enjoyed a privileged status, sometimes sadly reinforced by bullets and bayonets.
So what kind of king is Christ, and how does he exercise his authority?
First, we need to recognize that kingship was central to Christ’s mission. Matthew, Mark, and Luke speak with one voice in telling us that at the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced that the “kingdom of God” was drawing near. But Jesus upended and undermined the whole concept of kingship. This world’s kingdoms are about power and prestige; Jesus was about service and humility. The rulers of this world are about coercion and violence; Jesus’ life was characterized by peace and reconciliation. Kings surround themselves with throngs of fawning courtiers; Jesus chose the lowly and rejected as his companions.
Two of the three sayings of Jesus from the cross illustrate the nature of his kingship. One of the powers of kings is to pardon those accused of crimes. The irony of the crucifixion is that Jesus was sentenced to die for claiming to be a king. However, even while being nailed to the cross, Jesus demonstrated that it was his executioners who were in need of pardon and he alone had the power to grant it. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
In pardoning those who were executing him, Jesus showed us the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness frees not only those who are forgiven; it also frees the forgiver. When we forgive, we release ourselves from the chains of anger and resentment. In forgiving others, we exercise the royal power that Christ delegated to his followers.
The power of forgiveness is also illustrated by the example of Thomas More. During the Reformation, More, who was Henry the Eighth’s Lord Chancellor, would not recognize the king’s authority to rule the church as he ruled the state, so Henry had More tried on charges of treason and bound over for execution. After being sentenced, More addressed the judges at his trial, saying, “I verily trust and shall therefore right heartily pray, that though your lordships have here in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together, to our everlasting salvation.” More knew and demonstrated the power of forgiveness.
Secondly, kings and rulers are usually surrounded by throngs of sycophants. In contrast, Jesus surrounded himself with the poor and marginalized. He crossed social, moral, and religious boundaries by accepting women as disciples. His critics charged that he ate and drank with thieves and prostitutes. And Jesus does the same thing every time we celebrate the Eucharist!
Even on the cross, Jesus continued his habit of associating with the despised and disreputable. Poignantly, the second thief pleaded, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
What persuaded the penitent thief to believe not only that Jesus was a king but would survive the cross and “come into” his kingdom? Had he observed Jesus pardoning his enemies? Or was he able to see that the cross itself was Jesus’ royal throne?
“Remembering” is central to Jewish thought. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, Exodus tells us that God “remembered” the covenant he had made with the patriarchs. The kind of remembering that God did in Exodus and that the thief was asking Jesus to do is not the opposite of forgetting; it is the opposite of dismembering. The thief was asking to be made a part of Jesus’ kingdom.
“Lord Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” prayed the penitent thief; but it is our prayer, too. Indeed, it may be the most important prayer that we pray. Like the thief crucified beside Jesus, we pray that we may be a part of the great kingdom he is building in this world and the next. But we must always keep in mind that we make our prayer to Christ the King, whose judgment is ever against those who trust in their own righteousness (and at times that is all of us) but whose arms are always outstretched in love.
Christ the King may also make us uneasy because of its association with religious imperialism. If Christ is the king, then does his church occupy a privileged position? The Anglican cross followed the British flag throughout the British Empire and enjoyed a privileged status, sometimes sadly reinforced by bullets and bayonets.
So what kind of king is Christ, and how does he exercise his authority?
First, we need to recognize that kingship was central to Christ’s mission. Matthew, Mark, and Luke speak with one voice in telling us that at the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced that the “kingdom of God” was drawing near. But Jesus upended and undermined the whole concept of kingship. This world’s kingdoms are about power and prestige; Jesus was about service and humility. The rulers of this world are about coercion and violence; Jesus’ life was characterized by peace and reconciliation. Kings surround themselves with throngs of fawning courtiers; Jesus chose the lowly and rejected as his companions.
Two of the three sayings of Jesus from the cross illustrate the nature of his kingship. One of the powers of kings is to pardon those accused of crimes. The irony of the crucifixion is that Jesus was sentenced to die for claiming to be a king. However, even while being nailed to the cross, Jesus demonstrated that it was his executioners who were in need of pardon and he alone had the power to grant it. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
In pardoning those who were executing him, Jesus showed us the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness frees not only those who are forgiven; it also frees the forgiver. When we forgive, we release ourselves from the chains of anger and resentment. In forgiving others, we exercise the royal power that Christ delegated to his followers.
The power of forgiveness is also illustrated by the example of Thomas More. During the Reformation, More, who was Henry the Eighth’s Lord Chancellor, would not recognize the king’s authority to rule the church as he ruled the state, so Henry had More tried on charges of treason and bound over for execution. After being sentenced, More addressed the judges at his trial, saying, “I verily trust and shall therefore right heartily pray, that though your lordships have here in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together, to our everlasting salvation.” More knew and demonstrated the power of forgiveness.
Secondly, kings and rulers are usually surrounded by throngs of sycophants. In contrast, Jesus surrounded himself with the poor and marginalized. He crossed social, moral, and religious boundaries by accepting women as disciples. His critics charged that he ate and drank with thieves and prostitutes. And Jesus does the same thing every time we celebrate the Eucharist!
Even on the cross, Jesus continued his habit of associating with the despised and disreputable. Poignantly, the second thief pleaded, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
What persuaded the penitent thief to believe not only that Jesus was a king but would survive the cross and “come into” his kingdom? Had he observed Jesus pardoning his enemies? Or was he able to see that the cross itself was Jesus’ royal throne?
“Remembering” is central to Jewish thought. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, Exodus tells us that God “remembered” the covenant he had made with the patriarchs. The kind of remembering that God did in Exodus and that the thief was asking Jesus to do is not the opposite of forgetting; it is the opposite of dismembering. The thief was asking to be made a part of Jesus’ kingdom.
“Lord Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” prayed the penitent thief; but it is our prayer, too. Indeed, it may be the most important prayer that we pray. Like the thief crucified beside Jesus, we pray that we may be a part of the great kingdom he is building in this world and the next. But we must always keep in mind that we make our prayer to Christ the King, whose judgment is ever against those who trust in their own righteousness (and at times that is all of us) but whose arms are always outstretched in love.
Sunday 11 November 2007
Remembrance Sunday
Remembering becomes harder as the years go by. Because of the time that has elapsed of course – though I’m told that those who have lived through a war will never forget – and because those who’ve endured the experience of war become fewer each year. So although we’re told that Armistice Day is enjoying some sort of renaissance, with more of the population pausing at 11o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the whys and wherefores of it all become increasingly opaque.What is it that we are called to remember, particularly those of us whose memories are too short to encompass 1945, let alone 1918?
What we are called to look at on this Remembrance Sunday is war and its meaning, and the achievement of those who gave up their lives. And as we do so, we’re called too to dream dreams and paint pictures, which draw out of us new and creative ways of living and working together as fellow creatures of our heavenly Father.As Christians, we all believe, I’m sure, that war is an evil, because it falls short of God’s loving purpose for his world. We live and work for the coming of God’s kingdom, longing for that day foreseen by the prophet Isaiah, when “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; [when] nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
Yes, war is an evil, always, but sometimes, we argue, or most of us do, war is a necessary evil, used to restrain or resist a greater evil. It is on these grounds that the Church has since the time of St Augustine espoused the concept of the Just War, provided always that the cause is righteous, the means controlled, and the outcome predictable – within reason. Yes, when those conditions are fulfilled, the Church continues to recognise the possibility of war, though always reluctantly.
Human beings are sinful beings – we know that not just from the text books but from our own experience – and precisely for this reason justice will only ever be achieved in our world by a certain degree of coercion on the one hand, and by resistance to coercion and tyranny on the other.
So as today we remember, as today we reflect on war, on its horrors, and on the oppression and tyranny that war seeks to redress, we recognise that it is only because God is truly our strength and salvation, that we would ever dare embark on such an enterprise. It is only because we seek to bring about the rule of almighty God, to uphold the values of his Kingdom, as revealed to us in his son, Jesus Christ, that we are ever willing to take up the sword against our neighbour, against a brother or sister human being, for one of the tragedies of war is that those who engage in combat are all children of the same creator God.
And then we remember those who’ve died. Young, many of them. And a long way from their loved ones. Frightened, much of the time. Courageous, often. Finding their strength in their comrades. Heroic, sometimes. And exactly the same can be said of those who were left at home, holding the baby, keeping the country running, keeping hope alive, in spite of all the hardships and horrors. It’s the stuff of sacrifice and of tragedy, individual, corporate, national; which we pray, and believe, in the end is all for the greater good. But let us never forget the price that was paid by so many, not just for us, but for the well-being of God’s world.
As those who believe in God and pray for the coming of his Kingdom, somehow, as we pause to remember, so we must struggle to fit the pieces together. God’s fatherly care. Our responsibilities to our neighbour. The evils that God’s children inflict on one another. The sacrifices our grandparents and parents, family and friends, made on our behalf. They’re the tangled threads on the back of the tapestry.
But today, Remembrance Sunday, is the time when we turn the canvas over; to see a picture of the world as God would have it be; a picture so attractive, so enticing, so enthralling, that we, like our fathers before us, decide to take risks, and make sacrifices, can do no other, in order to realise that picture impressed on the face of God’s world.
Monday 5 November 2007
Bereavement Service 2007
Among the opening sentences of most christian funeral services, are the words of Jesus: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
On the face of it, a strange thing to say – strange words. But, our mourning is not futile. It is not meaningless. It is not a wild cry of despair in the dark. It is Jesus himself who gives significance to all our sorrows. “I will not leave you bereft,” said Jesus, “because I live, you too will live.”
We mourn for those whom we love – our mourning is a sign of our love. We are privileged to have had that which is most precious in human life; and our mourning signifies our privilege. Grief is the price we pay for human love. Those who have never loved will never grieve. Their hearts can never be broken. They are the most deprived people on earth. They have missed that which makes life worthwhile. “How blessed are those who mourn.” This is why our experience at this time is “bittersweet”. Our sorrow in parting reflects our joy in being together.
This is a “bittersweet” occasion. We are thankful for the person we honour, but sore at our loss. The one reflects the other. But we do not mourn as those who are without hope; for the many waters of death cannot quench love. Love is stronger than death. Love abides for ever. All partings are painful. When Jesus was preparing his disciples for the time when he would be taken away from them, he said that he was going to prepare a place for them. “And if I go,” he said, “I shall come again to take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
So we pray today that all who have walked beside us through life, whom we love but see no longer, whose presence we miss, whose memory we treasure; who have been taken from us by death, have been taken by our Lord to be with him where death is no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow. And, we pray for one another “I will not leave you bereft,” said Jesus, “because I live, you too will live.”
Come to the assistance of our loved ones, All you Saints of God! Meet them, you Angels of the Lord.
Receive their souls, and present them to the Most High.
May Christ who called them, receive them; and may the Angels lead them into the bosom of Abraham.
Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord,
And let light perpetual shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace,
And rise in Glory. Amen.
On the face of it, a strange thing to say – strange words. But, our mourning is not futile. It is not meaningless. It is not a wild cry of despair in the dark. It is Jesus himself who gives significance to all our sorrows. “I will not leave you bereft,” said Jesus, “because I live, you too will live.”
We mourn for those whom we love – our mourning is a sign of our love. We are privileged to have had that which is most precious in human life; and our mourning signifies our privilege. Grief is the price we pay for human love. Those who have never loved will never grieve. Their hearts can never be broken. They are the most deprived people on earth. They have missed that which makes life worthwhile. “How blessed are those who mourn.” This is why our experience at this time is “bittersweet”. Our sorrow in parting reflects our joy in being together.
This is a “bittersweet” occasion. We are thankful for the person we honour, but sore at our loss. The one reflects the other. But we do not mourn as those who are without hope; for the many waters of death cannot quench love. Love is stronger than death. Love abides for ever. All partings are painful. When Jesus was preparing his disciples for the time when he would be taken away from them, he said that he was going to prepare a place for them. “And if I go,” he said, “I shall come again to take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
So we pray today that all who have walked beside us through life, whom we love but see no longer, whose presence we miss, whose memory we treasure; who have been taken from us by death, have been taken by our Lord to be with him where death is no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow. And, we pray for one another “I will not leave you bereft,” said Jesus, “because I live, you too will live.”
Come to the assistance of our loved ones, All you Saints of God! Meet them, you Angels of the Lord.
Receive their souls, and present them to the Most High.
May Christ who called them, receive them; and may the Angels lead them into the bosom of Abraham.
Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord,
And let light perpetual shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace,
And rise in Glory. Amen.
Sunday 28 October 2007
Bible Sunday
When I was very little, my father could do no wrong in my eyes. He was the best father in the world, and everything he said was always right, and I would punch anyone who said different. He could answer all my questions. He could mend my Scalectrix when it went wrong. He knew everything. But then, when I was a teenager, I saw him from a different perspective. He seemed so old, so out of touch and so utterly uncool. It was as though he was living in a different century. He couldn't do the simplest problems in my physics homework. He had the most old-fashioned ideas about when I should be home at night. He was incredibly stingy with money and, as for his political views, he made Attilla the Hun look like a woolly Liberal.
But later on, when I had learned a bit more about the world, my view changed again. I began to see my father as a friend, as a man of long experience and mature wisdom, someone to respect and someone to rely on. As Mark Twain put it, 'When I was fourteen I thought my father was an old fool. When I was twenty-one I was amazed what the old man had learned in seven years'.
It occurred to me recently that our attitudes to the Bible probably change in much the same way. When you were little, many of you were taught the chorus The best book to read is the Bible, and that everything in it is absolute, literal fact: 'Gospel truth'. You knew that you should read the Bible every day, and believed that if you did it would help you with everything. But when you grew older, grew thoroughly bored with the dull old volume. Friends told you that it had been 'disproved' by science, and that the Ten Commandments were a waste of time. Increasingly you discovered parts of the Bible that you couldn't help but disagree with. It all seemed a mixture of fairy tale and heavy morality, and you put the wretched tome back on the shelf to gather dust.
Today is Bible Sunday. I don't know why, but there it is. For many years it rested happily on the Second Sunday in Advent, but now the Liturgical Commission have moved it to the Last Sunday after Trinity. No matter. At least it has not been forgotten altogether. And Bible Sunday prompts the question: did we ever get the Bible off the shelf again, or is it still there mouldering away? Have we blown off the dust and read it once more? Have we grown into that maturity ourselves whereby we can see the Bible as a friend, as a story of divine wisdom and human experience, as something to respect and to rely upon?
I do hope that the Bible is not still collecting dust and cobwebs on your shelf, because I have a horrible feeling that, for all the modern translations which sell so well with their lavish photographs and pictures and clear modern English, the Bible is in fact being read less and less by Christians today. And that is a tragedy. For although it does not give us - it does not pretend to give us - the latest scientific knowledge and technical data, it does offer us timeless and changeless insights into what it means to be a human being, and of God's way with men and women. For people still make love and go to war for the same motives and with the same passions as they did in the days of Noah. We still suffer anguish and know heartache just like the psalmist. We still know pain and fear and happiness and hope, just as the people did when they clustered around Jesus. And God, the Most High God, still loves us and cherishes us, yearns for us and weeps for us, sits with us in our sorrows and enters into our joys, as he did throughout all the biblical centuries.
There was a moment in the Coronation Service, immediately after the Queen had been crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, when the Moderator of the Church of Scotland presented a copy of the Bible to Her Majesty with these words: “Receive this Book, the most valuable thing this world affords.” And this Bible Sunday my plea is that we should all blow the dust off this most valuable thing, and read again the lively oracles of God.
Perhaps you need to acquire a modern version, I recommend the NRSV and you can buy one or order one through any bookshop or Christian bookshop. Perhaps we will be helped by a scheme of readings or Bible notes, and a Christian bookshop can help you there too. Perhaps we might even want to talk to the clergy about our spiritual and devotional lives, for that, after all, is what we are here for. But above all, read the Bible, read it carefully and prayerfully, and you will discover the most profound and permanent insights into the foundations of human living; you will discover how God deals with you and me; and in the words and the works of Christ you will discover the true and authentic picture of what God is like and what he has done for us.
As they grows up, there will come a time when my children Joshua and Gwyn are no longer bothered by the discovery that their parents aren't infallible. They will no longer be worried that we do not know the answer to everything and that sometimes we disagree with them. The boys will learn that what is important about their parents is not that we should be some kind of walking encyclopaedia, but people of love and wisdom, of laughter and tears, of comfort and encouragement. And that's what I find in the Bible, too: not dull, encyclopaedic facts about God, but the red-blooded story of his involvement in this one world, his laughter and his tears and his deep, deep love, and the story of men and women touched by the finger of God, whose touch has still its ancient power.
And for that, thanks be to God.
But later on, when I had learned a bit more about the world, my view changed again. I began to see my father as a friend, as a man of long experience and mature wisdom, someone to respect and someone to rely on. As Mark Twain put it, 'When I was fourteen I thought my father was an old fool. When I was twenty-one I was amazed what the old man had learned in seven years'.
It occurred to me recently that our attitudes to the Bible probably change in much the same way. When you were little, many of you were taught the chorus The best book to read is the Bible, and that everything in it is absolute, literal fact: 'Gospel truth'. You knew that you should read the Bible every day, and believed that if you did it would help you with everything. But when you grew older, grew thoroughly bored with the dull old volume. Friends told you that it had been 'disproved' by science, and that the Ten Commandments were a waste of time. Increasingly you discovered parts of the Bible that you couldn't help but disagree with. It all seemed a mixture of fairy tale and heavy morality, and you put the wretched tome back on the shelf to gather dust.
Today is Bible Sunday. I don't know why, but there it is. For many years it rested happily on the Second Sunday in Advent, but now the Liturgical Commission have moved it to the Last Sunday after Trinity. No matter. At least it has not been forgotten altogether. And Bible Sunday prompts the question: did we ever get the Bible off the shelf again, or is it still there mouldering away? Have we blown off the dust and read it once more? Have we grown into that maturity ourselves whereby we can see the Bible as a friend, as a story of divine wisdom and human experience, as something to respect and to rely upon?
I do hope that the Bible is not still collecting dust and cobwebs on your shelf, because I have a horrible feeling that, for all the modern translations which sell so well with their lavish photographs and pictures and clear modern English, the Bible is in fact being read less and less by Christians today. And that is a tragedy. For although it does not give us - it does not pretend to give us - the latest scientific knowledge and technical data, it does offer us timeless and changeless insights into what it means to be a human being, and of God's way with men and women. For people still make love and go to war for the same motives and with the same passions as they did in the days of Noah. We still suffer anguish and know heartache just like the psalmist. We still know pain and fear and happiness and hope, just as the people did when they clustered around Jesus. And God, the Most High God, still loves us and cherishes us, yearns for us and weeps for us, sits with us in our sorrows and enters into our joys, as he did throughout all the biblical centuries.
There was a moment in the Coronation Service, immediately after the Queen had been crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, when the Moderator of the Church of Scotland presented a copy of the Bible to Her Majesty with these words: “Receive this Book, the most valuable thing this world affords.” And this Bible Sunday my plea is that we should all blow the dust off this most valuable thing, and read again the lively oracles of God.
Perhaps you need to acquire a modern version, I recommend the NRSV and you can buy one or order one through any bookshop or Christian bookshop. Perhaps we will be helped by a scheme of readings or Bible notes, and a Christian bookshop can help you there too. Perhaps we might even want to talk to the clergy about our spiritual and devotional lives, for that, after all, is what we are here for. But above all, read the Bible, read it carefully and prayerfully, and you will discover the most profound and permanent insights into the foundations of human living; you will discover how God deals with you and me; and in the words and the works of Christ you will discover the true and authentic picture of what God is like and what he has done for us.
As they grows up, there will come a time when my children Joshua and Gwyn are no longer bothered by the discovery that their parents aren't infallible. They will no longer be worried that we do not know the answer to everything and that sometimes we disagree with them. The boys will learn that what is important about their parents is not that we should be some kind of walking encyclopaedia, but people of love and wisdom, of laughter and tears, of comfort and encouragement. And that's what I find in the Bible, too: not dull, encyclopaedic facts about God, but the red-blooded story of his involvement in this one world, his laughter and his tears and his deep, deep love, and the story of men and women touched by the finger of God, whose touch has still its ancient power.
And for that, thanks be to God.
Thursday 25 October 2007
“Festival of Christmas Music”
On Friday December 14th we are hosting a “Festival of Christmas Music” to raise money towards the cost of a new organ for the Parish of Barnehurst.
The festival will feature seasonal poems and readings and music played, on a Wyvern Organ, by Jeremy Allen Director of Music and Senior Organist at Saint Laurence, Upminster.
The cost for the evening will be just £5:00.
The festival will be followed by refreshments including mince pies and The Vicar’s famous mulled wine!
We would like to thank Wyvern Organ Builders for the loan of the instrument over the Christmas period.
Sunday 21 October 2007
Organ Project!
Organ Project!
No sermon from me this week, but please read about our Organ Project.
The organ that we have at Saint Martin’s was built originally in 1870 and would have served in a small chapel or private house. The organ was moved to Saint Martin’s some time in the 1950’s. The organ was never really powerful enough for the building especially when we are full such as at Christmas or my Collation.
The Saint Martin’s organ was built with just 10 stops and a single manual. It has been proposed by the PCC that we aim to buy a brand new digital organ early in the new year. The cost of the new organ is likely be just over £10,000 + VAT. This may seem like a huge sum but when you consider that my previous parish spent over a quarter of a million pounds on an organ this amount becomes quite realistic, and even more realistic when you know that I have been able to obtain a grant of £5,000 towards the cost of the organ from the City Parochial Fund through Archdeacon Paul.
The proposed new organ, subject to faculty, has a carefully chosen traditional specification of 31 speaking stops and two full compass 61 note manuals with a 32 note pedalboard. The emphasis is on quality of tone rather than an extensive stop list. This instrument is particularly suitable for the accompaniment of congregational singing, and has more ‘weight’ in the Pedal department plus a 16’ reed on the Swell. The organ will have its own custom build audio system with speakers up high on the west wall, in a decorative case and also in the quire area of the church and this system will help produce the character of a very good pipe organ! We hope to buy a Wyvern Sonata CH6 Digital organ (pictured below).
No sermon from me this week, but please read about our Organ Project.
The organ that we have at Saint Martin’s was built originally in 1870 and would have served in a small chapel or private house. The organ was moved to Saint Martin’s some time in the 1950’s. The organ was never really powerful enough for the building especially when we are full such as at Christmas or my Collation.
The Saint Martin’s organ was built with just 10 stops and a single manual. It has been proposed by the PCC that we aim to buy a brand new digital organ early in the new year. The cost of the new organ is likely be just over £10,000 + VAT. This may seem like a huge sum but when you consider that my previous parish spent over a quarter of a million pounds on an organ this amount becomes quite realistic, and even more realistic when you know that I have been able to obtain a grant of £5,000 towards the cost of the organ from the City Parochial Fund through Archdeacon Paul.
The proposed new organ, subject to faculty, has a carefully chosen traditional specification of 31 speaking stops and two full compass 61 note manuals with a 32 note pedalboard. The emphasis is on quality of tone rather than an extensive stop list. This instrument is particularly suitable for the accompaniment of congregational singing, and has more ‘weight’ in the Pedal department plus a 16’ reed on the Swell. The organ will have its own custom build audio system with speakers up high on the west wall, in a decorative case and also in the quire area of the church and this system will help produce the character of a very good pipe organ! We hope to buy a Wyvern Sonata CH6 Digital organ (pictured below).
The Diocesan Organ Advisor, Paul Isom, has been involved with this proposal from a very early stage and was responsible for much of the system design with myself and the proposed organ builder.
I would like to see this organ installed in Saint Martin’s by March 15th 2008, the day before Palm Sunday. This means that we will have the new organ in place for the Easter Festivities. If we are to achieve this we have to raise the rest of the money. This is being looked into and many events planned including concerts, dances and a festival of Christmas music. We will also be selling “bonds” as we did to fund the replacement of the kitchen. If you would like to help with the funding of this new instrument please contact me also if you have any ideas for fundraising please also contact me.
Wyvern Organs will be kindly lending us a similar organ to use over the Christmas period. We will have it in place for the Saint Martin’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Sunday December 16th for which my father-in-law, John Knight, is playing. Also on Friday 14th December we will be having a “Festival of Christmas Music” with Jeremy Allen, the Director of Music from Saint Laurence, Upminster, on the Organ, to raise money towards this project, followed by Mince Pies and Mulled Wine.
Please “get behind” this project as this new organ, together with the younger members choir studying for the Royal School of Church Music Voice for Life awards, can only help to enhance the music and worship of our church.
Many Blessings, Gareth.
I would like to see this organ installed in Saint Martin’s by March 15th 2008, the day before Palm Sunday. This means that we will have the new organ in place for the Easter Festivities. If we are to achieve this we have to raise the rest of the money. This is being looked into and many events planned including concerts, dances and a festival of Christmas music. We will also be selling “bonds” as we did to fund the replacement of the kitchen. If you would like to help with the funding of this new instrument please contact me also if you have any ideas for fundraising please also contact me.
Wyvern Organs will be kindly lending us a similar organ to use over the Christmas period. We will have it in place for the Saint Martin’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Sunday December 16th for which my father-in-law, John Knight, is playing. Also on Friday 14th December we will be having a “Festival of Christmas Music” with Jeremy Allen, the Director of Music from Saint Laurence, Upminster, on the Organ, to raise money towards this project, followed by Mince Pies and Mulled Wine.
Please “get behind” this project as this new organ, together with the younger members choir studying for the Royal School of Church Music Voice for Life awards, can only help to enhance the music and worship of our church.
Many Blessings, Gareth.
Sunday 14 October 2007
Harvest time is a time for remembering to give thanks:
Harvest time is a time for remembering to give thanks:
• for our food – which is more abundant and varied than at perhaps any other time in human history. We never have food shortages – the shelves of the supermarkets are always well stocked. It wasn’t always like this, as those who were alive in the war can no doubt remember.
• For our farmers – both those who produce crops and those whose farms involve livestock. So our thoughts and prayers must continue to be with all those livelihood is precarious, and those who see no alternative but to give up.
• For the modern agricultural system from which we all benefit. Farming in many parts of the world, including much of Africa, still relies very much on large numbers of farm labourers carrying out the tasks by hand. In many developing countries tractors and other forms of agricultural machinery are scarce. Animals are often used for ploughing and hauling loads. The labour-saving machinery which is available to us is certainly not affordable to many of the world’s farmers.
Harvest time is also a time for remembering to use the earth’s resources wisely and sustainably:
• ‘sustainability’ is a word that’s being applied to more and more aspects of life today – including agriculture. It reflects an attempt to make sure that the long-term consequences of today’s actions will not jeopardise the livelihood of generations to come. The idea of sustainability goes back centuries – even though the word itself, in this context, is new. Even as far back as Old Testament times, the ancient Israelites tried to ensure that their agriculture was sustainable; that too much was not taken from the earth without giving it chance to recover. This meant giving the land a rest every seven years, and also every fiftieth, or jubilee year.
• Today we have different ways of ensuring that agriculture is sustainable; but the need to consider future generations is no less important. This may involve getting a better balance between large-scale and small scale farming; more support for those farmers who wish to go organic; and fewer subsidies for those farmers in the US, Canada, Japan and the European Union who produce crops on such a massive scale that vast food surpluses result. These are often sold at below cost price in developing countries, undermining farmers there and contributing to rural poverty.
Harvest time is also a time for remembering to share the fruits of the earth:
• for our food – which is more abundant and varied than at perhaps any other time in human history. We never have food shortages – the shelves of the supermarkets are always well stocked. It wasn’t always like this, as those who were alive in the war can no doubt remember.
• For our farmers – both those who produce crops and those whose farms involve livestock. So our thoughts and prayers must continue to be with all those livelihood is precarious, and those who see no alternative but to give up.
• For the modern agricultural system from which we all benefit. Farming in many parts of the world, including much of Africa, still relies very much on large numbers of farm labourers carrying out the tasks by hand. In many developing countries tractors and other forms of agricultural machinery are scarce. Animals are often used for ploughing and hauling loads. The labour-saving machinery which is available to us is certainly not affordable to many of the world’s farmers.
Harvest time is also a time for remembering to use the earth’s resources wisely and sustainably:
• ‘sustainability’ is a word that’s being applied to more and more aspects of life today – including agriculture. It reflects an attempt to make sure that the long-term consequences of today’s actions will not jeopardise the livelihood of generations to come. The idea of sustainability goes back centuries – even though the word itself, in this context, is new. Even as far back as Old Testament times, the ancient Israelites tried to ensure that their agriculture was sustainable; that too much was not taken from the earth without giving it chance to recover. This meant giving the land a rest every seven years, and also every fiftieth, or jubilee year.
• Today we have different ways of ensuring that agriculture is sustainable; but the need to consider future generations is no less important. This may involve getting a better balance between large-scale and small scale farming; more support for those farmers who wish to go organic; and fewer subsidies for those farmers in the US, Canada, Japan and the European Union who produce crops on such a massive scale that vast food surpluses result. These are often sold at below cost price in developing countries, undermining farmers there and contributing to rural poverty.
Harvest time is also a time for remembering to share the fruits of the earth:
• Jesus often talked about the perils of having too much and keeping for oneself what should be shared with others. He told a parable of the rich man whose crops were so abundant that he planned to build more barns in order to store them. He did not sell or share his harvest; but then he died, and was not able to enjoy the results of his wealth. The parable shows that acquisitiveness and hoarding are not virtues in God’s eyes.
• At harvest time we in the churches do generally think about those in need – especially those organisations which benefit from our harvest gifts, maybe harvest time is an opportunity for trying afresh to get the balance right between providing for oneself and one’s dependents, and building a world which is based on mutual support and help for those in genuine need, rather than on materialism and greed.
Harvest time is, finally, a time for remembering that God sows spiritual seeds in our hearts, and wants them to bear an abundant harvest. I hope we can see that our celebration of God's harvest is just as relevant today as when the idea of the harvest festival was first conceived.
Sunday 7 October 2007
How much is enough?
Luke 17:5-10
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.
"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.
"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "
This is a fundamental question for all of us: How much is enough? Especially when words such as “stewardship,” “pledge,” “proportional giving,” and “tithe” are in the air.
Luke has told us in no uncertain terms that Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. On the way, Jesus talks endlessly about the life of discipleship. He talks about hospitality, welcoming and helping strangers, seeking lost sheep, visiting prisoners, lost coins, prodigal sons, the rich man, and Lazarus. Then he lays it on in Chapter 17 by saying if you cause anyone to sin, may you as they said in the film the Godfather sleep with the fishes! And you must rebuke those who sin, and forgive those who repent seven times a day.
Is it any wonder the disciples cry out, “Increase our faith”? They are being asked to assume major leadership positions in the community of Christ. And no one wants to end up in the proverbial sleep with the fishes.
For much of the gospel, Jesus has questioned the faith of the disciples. “You have such little faith,” he says often. “Where is your faith?” he asks on the stormy sea. So it is only natural that they cry out, “Give us more. … Give us more faith. … Increase it, please, so we can succeed at all of this.”
It is a familiar cry. Whenever the church is faced with challenges, we say we need more: we need more resources, we need more planning, we need for people, we need more, more, more of everything before we can possibly do what Jesus calls us to do.
We all know just how the disciples are feeling. We put off leading Bible study until we know more about the Bible. Or we put off increasing our giving until we are earning just a bit more money.
Jesus response exemplifies what is wonderful about Jesus and his method of training us and developing our discipleship. Hear what he says. Jesus says you do not need to increase your faith; you just need the tiniest bit of faith imaginable. A grain of mustard seed’s worth of faith can empower you to do great things. Which is to say, unless you have no faith, you already have enough.
You have enough! What you have is sufficient.
As it says in Common Worship, we are to bear witness to Christ wherever we may be, and “according to the gifts given us, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.” This is the definition of lay ministry in the church. For this we were baptized.
This acknowledges that we have all been given gifts and resources. As Saint Paul makes clear in his letter to the Corinthians, we do not all have the same gifts, but we all have gift necessary to do the things Jesus does. And most astonishing of all, in the fourteenth chapter of John, he tells us, “and greater things than these you will do.”
Pause. Try to take this in. We are promised by Jesus that with the gifts we have been given, we will do greater things than he does. What an incredible assertion. What a promise!
Jesus goes on to say that, at the end of the day, when you have used the gifts you already have been given, you may still feel as if you have not done enough – that you do not have enough to give. You will still feel unworthy somehow. That it is only your duty to have done these things Jesus calls us to do.
This is only natural, because you are so filled with the love of God, so filled with the Spirit of God, so perfectly created in God’s own generous and giving image that you will always want to do more for God’s sake and our neighbours’ sake.
Trust what you have – what you have been given. Trust what you have to give. It is more than enough. You can uproot trees. You can move mountains. The lame will walk, the blind will see. Loaves multiply so there’s enough to feed everyone. As you sow, you shall receive. As you follow Christ, you will begin to lead. If only you have faith as small as a mustard seed.
The kingdom of God is at hand. We can reach out and touch it, feel its nearness, participate in its fullness. If only we have the tiniest bit of faith, God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Sunday 23 September 2007
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
Luke 16:1-13
Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'
"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
" 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'
"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
Oh, the cleverness of the man in today’s Gospel!
OK, so he wouldn’t have scored well in the honesty department, but you must admit he was quite bright.
It seems that he was dishonest many times over. He worked for a rich man, managing his property. Probably he was well enough paid for this service, but not being quite satisfied with his salary, he had been wasting the property, property that was not his but belonged to his employer. Finding out about it, the employer quite naturally decided to sack him. He gave his employee something like the classic “two weeks notice.”
The employee had evidently been living it up on his ill-gotten gains. Now he was really up the creek! He didn’t know what to do. How was he to continue to live in the manner to which he had become accustomed? He had lost his job, and now he had to give his employer a final accounting. It was not bad enough that he had been cheating his rich employer for some time, but now he proceeded to cheat him some more, destroying the old bills and writing ones for lesser amounts for his employer’s debtors.
Nevertheless, those debtors must have been delighted. Who wouldn’t like to be told that they owed less than they thought they did. “I’ll just move the decimal point one space to the left on your credit card bill!” Or the tax man saying that he was going to let you off some of your tax and you would only have to pay a portion of the taxes you thought you owed. But those things don’t usually happen in real life, do they?
But let’s change this story a little. Let’s suppose that, instead, it was the rich man himself who called his debtors in and handed them their bill. Let’s suppose that instead of writing a new bill for a lesser amount, he wrote, instead, “Paid in full.” Let’s suppose, further, that he even forgave his dishonest manager, and gave him another chance.
Does that remind you of anyone you know? It should! Because that is exactly how our God deals with us. If the bill for everything we owe God were taken away and we were given a new one for a lesser amount, it might be like having a bill for a hundred trillion pounds reduced to a mere hundred billion. No matter what kind of break God gave us, it would still be impossible for us to repay our debt. What would be the bill, after all, for our life and the whole world and everything in it—not to mention the entire universe? So God did the only thing a loving God could do that would make any difference. As an old hymn puts it, “Jesus paid it all.” And if that sounds too easy to be true, well, no, it wasn’t easy at all. Take a look at the cross if you need to be reminded how “easy it wasn’t.”
So where does that leave us? Home free, you say? Well, yes and no. Our “legal” debt is cancelled, thanks be to God. No bills, notices of disconection, no insistent phone calls. The debt of love, however, isn’t one that goes away. What can we give back to this God who loves us so much and has given us so much—“who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger; who sets prisoners free; who opens the eyes of the blind…” The list goes on forever.
What can we give back? Nothing, for anything we could give is as nothing in the face of so much generosity. On the other hand, everything—for that is all we have to give, and it is also just what God wants.
Yes, God wants us to come to church and worship. Yes, God also wants us to give to the church and for the relief of those in need, out of what we have been given. God wants us to spend time in prayer and in reading the scriptures. And, yes, God wants us to reach out to each other and be kind and honest in our dealings with each other; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and so forth. God wants us to live as one family, to work together for justice and peace on earth. But more than that, God wants it all. God wants our hearts.
I think that it’s fare to say that Saint Martin’s has had its ups and downs over the last few years… But now we are to move on to leave what happened in the past in the past, not to forget the things that hurt or wounded us as a church in the past but not to keep picking at the wound. If we pick at the wounds of the past, they will not heal; they will fester and become infected. It is time for Saint Martin’s to move on, looking to the future not distracted by the past.
The Bishop, the Archdeacon, the Church Wardens believe that God has called me to this parish as do I. I intend to be with you for quite some time, so that working together we can do some serious work for the Glory of God. But we can only do it if we all pull in the same direction. So work with me please, I don’t like factions or divisions in the church because we can only do God’s will if we are working together and that is the only way that the church will grow.
I wish to close by all of us quoting together from my collation service…
I am here as a fellow servant to share with you the mission of Jesus. We are to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. We are to make new disciples of Christ, to build up one another in the faith, and celebrate the sacraments of the new covenant. Therefore let us commit ourselves afresh to the task to which God calls us.
Amen.
OK, so he wouldn’t have scored well in the honesty department, but you must admit he was quite bright.
It seems that he was dishonest many times over. He worked for a rich man, managing his property. Probably he was well enough paid for this service, but not being quite satisfied with his salary, he had been wasting the property, property that was not his but belonged to his employer. Finding out about it, the employer quite naturally decided to sack him. He gave his employee something like the classic “two weeks notice.”
The employee had evidently been living it up on his ill-gotten gains. Now he was really up the creek! He didn’t know what to do. How was he to continue to live in the manner to which he had become accustomed? He had lost his job, and now he had to give his employer a final accounting. It was not bad enough that he had been cheating his rich employer for some time, but now he proceeded to cheat him some more, destroying the old bills and writing ones for lesser amounts for his employer’s debtors.
Nevertheless, those debtors must have been delighted. Who wouldn’t like to be told that they owed less than they thought they did. “I’ll just move the decimal point one space to the left on your credit card bill!” Or the tax man saying that he was going to let you off some of your tax and you would only have to pay a portion of the taxes you thought you owed. But those things don’t usually happen in real life, do they?
But let’s change this story a little. Let’s suppose that, instead, it was the rich man himself who called his debtors in and handed them their bill. Let’s suppose that instead of writing a new bill for a lesser amount, he wrote, instead, “Paid in full.” Let’s suppose, further, that he even forgave his dishonest manager, and gave him another chance.
Does that remind you of anyone you know? It should! Because that is exactly how our God deals with us. If the bill for everything we owe God were taken away and we were given a new one for a lesser amount, it might be like having a bill for a hundred trillion pounds reduced to a mere hundred billion. No matter what kind of break God gave us, it would still be impossible for us to repay our debt. What would be the bill, after all, for our life and the whole world and everything in it—not to mention the entire universe? So God did the only thing a loving God could do that would make any difference. As an old hymn puts it, “Jesus paid it all.” And if that sounds too easy to be true, well, no, it wasn’t easy at all. Take a look at the cross if you need to be reminded how “easy it wasn’t.”
So where does that leave us? Home free, you say? Well, yes and no. Our “legal” debt is cancelled, thanks be to God. No bills, notices of disconection, no insistent phone calls. The debt of love, however, isn’t one that goes away. What can we give back to this God who loves us so much and has given us so much—“who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger; who sets prisoners free; who opens the eyes of the blind…” The list goes on forever.
What can we give back? Nothing, for anything we could give is as nothing in the face of so much generosity. On the other hand, everything—for that is all we have to give, and it is also just what God wants.
Yes, God wants us to come to church and worship. Yes, God also wants us to give to the church and for the relief of those in need, out of what we have been given. God wants us to spend time in prayer and in reading the scriptures. And, yes, God wants us to reach out to each other and be kind and honest in our dealings with each other; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and so forth. God wants us to live as one family, to work together for justice and peace on earth. But more than that, God wants it all. God wants our hearts.
I think that it’s fare to say that Saint Martin’s has had its ups and downs over the last few years… But now we are to move on to leave what happened in the past in the past, not to forget the things that hurt or wounded us as a church in the past but not to keep picking at the wound. If we pick at the wounds of the past, they will not heal; they will fester and become infected. It is time for Saint Martin’s to move on, looking to the future not distracted by the past.
The Bishop, the Archdeacon, the Church Wardens believe that God has called me to this parish as do I. I intend to be with you for quite some time, so that working together we can do some serious work for the Glory of God. But we can only do it if we all pull in the same direction. So work with me please, I don’t like factions or divisions in the church because we can only do God’s will if we are working together and that is the only way that the church will grow.
I wish to close by all of us quoting together from my collation service…
I am here as a fellow servant to share with you the mission of Jesus. We are to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. We are to make new disciples of Christ, to build up one another in the faith, and celebrate the sacraments of the new covenant. Therefore let us commit ourselves afresh to the task to which God calls us.
Amen.
Sunday 9 September 2007
A question of authority
In the mid ‘80’s, a national movement arose in Britain called the Snowball campaign. It grew from CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It started in a small way, but it grew bigger and bigger, hence the name Snowball.
The campaign involved cutting a single strand of the perimeter fence of any military establishment which carried nuclear weapons. One such establishment was said to be the US airbase at Sculthorpe, on the outskirts of Fakenham.
One of the protesters was a young woman deacon whom the campaigners made sure they used for maximum publicity. That of course, was the object of the exercise. They made sure the police were informed of their intentions, so that as soon as that single strand of wire was cut, the police had no option but to arrest those responsible. Then the courts throughout the land became quickly clogged up hearing cases against the protesters, and justice in Britain for everyone else ground almost to a halt.
Opinions were strongly divided over this issue. An argument was that every citizen had the right to protest, but no-one had the right to break the law by causing criminal damage, even a small degree of criminal damage. And no-one had the right to protest at the expense of other people already waiting perhaps a long time in the justice system.
Many agreed with that argument. "There are channels through which to protest," they said. "In a democracy, people who feel that strongly should use the proper channels, and protest through parliament, not go around damaging defence property."
The campaign involved cutting a single strand of the perimeter fence of any military establishment which carried nuclear weapons. One such establishment was said to be the US airbase at Sculthorpe, on the outskirts of Fakenham.
One of the protesters was a young woman deacon whom the campaigners made sure they used for maximum publicity. That of course, was the object of the exercise. They made sure the police were informed of their intentions, so that as soon as that single strand of wire was cut, the police had no option but to arrest those responsible. Then the courts throughout the land became quickly clogged up hearing cases against the protesters, and justice in Britain for everyone else ground almost to a halt.
Opinions were strongly divided over this issue. An argument was that every citizen had the right to protest, but no-one had the right to break the law by causing criminal damage, even a small degree of criminal damage. And no-one had the right to protest at the expense of other people already waiting perhaps a long time in the justice system.
Many agreed with that argument. "There are channels through which to protest," they said. "In a democracy, people who feel that strongly should use the proper channels, and protest through parliament, not go around damaging defence property."
Those who supported the protesters said: "Not so. We could all be wiped out through nuclear war before parliament gets round to doing anything. This is a very good way of raising public awareness of the huge dangers of nuclear war. And this is a very gentle protest, with no violence involved. If the law is wrong or inadequate, it needs to be broken. These people are protesting on behalf of all of us, and they're prepared to go to prison for their beliefs."
And prison was the eventual consequence for all those who cut a strand of wire, including the woman deacon.
So, should Christians obey the law, whatever their individual beliefs? Should Christians always choose legal ways of protesting if they don't like the actions of the government? Or should Christians break the law if they consider government is itself breaking God's law?
St. Paul is pretty clear in his letter to the Romans, often considered to be his foundation document, the letter which most clearly sets out his theology. In chapter 13 he says: "You must all obey the governing authorities….The authorities are appointed by God and are there to serve God…. All government officials are God's officers." (Rom. 13:1-7)
The letter to the Romans is thought to have been written between AD 54 and AD 59, a time when the state was authoritarian. Paul's words in Romans seem to affirm the words of Jesus in today's gospel reading: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give to God what belongs to God." And this desire to uphold the Roman empire as the divinely ordained protector of law and order, is echoed in the first letter of Peter, despite the Roman persecution of Christians which was current at the time.
So the NT is clearly warning against anarchism. But conversely, the book of Revelation regards Rome as the enemy of God. And Acts 5:29 says: We must obey God rather than men.
Perhaps Jesus' words and the implication in the letter to the Romans isn't unquestioning obedience under any circumstances, but is rather a claim on Christians to behave responsibly. Surely if obedience to the state is in clear conflict with God's laws, Christians can still consider themselves subject to the state, yet seriously and responsibly oppose the state.
Let’s look at Nazi Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s. The eminent theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer shifted from Christian pacifism to a point when in 1939 Bonhoeffer joined a hidden group of high-ranking military officers based in the Military Intelligence Office, who wanted to overthrow the National Socialist regime by killing Hitler. He was arrested in April 1943 after money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to him, and he was charged with conspiracy. He was imprisoned in Berlin for a year and a half. After the unsuccessful July 20 Plot in 1944, connections of Bonhoeffer to the conspirators were discovered, he was moved to a series of prisons and concentration camps ending at Flossenburg. Here, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging at dawn on 9 April 1945, just three weeks before the liberation of the city. Bonhoeffer considered that killing Hitler would have been the less bad option. Less bad than letting Hitler carry on with the mass killings.
For us in England in 2007, the problem perhaps arises in identifying whether or not the State is in conflict with God's laws. All types of government, even corrupt ones, will probably act in accordance with God's laws some of the time, and against them the rest of the time.
We're fortunate enough to live in a country where the State, generally, follows God's laws most of the time. But that probably makes it even more difficult to identify any moves away from God's laws. And because the State has largely Christian values, does it mean we should accept the whole package with unquestioning obedience? Or should we be looking much more carefully at the actions of the State, and raising Christian uproar whenever we think the State is moving away from God's laws?
Is the State acting for or against God's laws in its stance towards nuclear weapons, the Middle East, poverty or fair trade? Is it for or against God's laws in its objective to maintain income tax levels, when the NHS and our education system appear to be in danger of crumbling for lack of funds? In the level of aid it gives to third World countries? In regarding some degree of pollution as acceptable? In encouraging the use of GM foods? And so on.
And if any of these things are against God's laws, are any of them sufficiently important to justify breaking the law of the land?
The press often complains about lack of leadership in the Church of England. About how the established church is perceived to keep silent when it should be protesting. But we are the Church of England. If we felt strongly enough to inform our leaders, perhaps the Church would speak out more often.
Politics, the rule of government, is about real people and the lives they lead. Maybe the challenge to Christians today is to take much more interest in politics. To become much better informed about politics and the law of the land, even at the risk that that interest might cause us to protest against the government.
Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. But let's also make sure that Caesar as well as us gives unto God that which is God's.
And prison was the eventual consequence for all those who cut a strand of wire, including the woman deacon.
So, should Christians obey the law, whatever their individual beliefs? Should Christians always choose legal ways of protesting if they don't like the actions of the government? Or should Christians break the law if they consider government is itself breaking God's law?
St. Paul is pretty clear in his letter to the Romans, often considered to be his foundation document, the letter which most clearly sets out his theology. In chapter 13 he says: "You must all obey the governing authorities….The authorities are appointed by God and are there to serve God…. All government officials are God's officers." (Rom. 13:1-7)
The letter to the Romans is thought to have been written between AD 54 and AD 59, a time when the state was authoritarian. Paul's words in Romans seem to affirm the words of Jesus in today's gospel reading: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give to God what belongs to God." And this desire to uphold the Roman empire as the divinely ordained protector of law and order, is echoed in the first letter of Peter, despite the Roman persecution of Christians which was current at the time.
So the NT is clearly warning against anarchism. But conversely, the book of Revelation regards Rome as the enemy of God. And Acts 5:29 says: We must obey God rather than men.
Perhaps Jesus' words and the implication in the letter to the Romans isn't unquestioning obedience under any circumstances, but is rather a claim on Christians to behave responsibly. Surely if obedience to the state is in clear conflict with God's laws, Christians can still consider themselves subject to the state, yet seriously and responsibly oppose the state.
Let’s look at Nazi Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s. The eminent theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer shifted from Christian pacifism to a point when in 1939 Bonhoeffer joined a hidden group of high-ranking military officers based in the Military Intelligence Office, who wanted to overthrow the National Socialist regime by killing Hitler. He was arrested in April 1943 after money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to him, and he was charged with conspiracy. He was imprisoned in Berlin for a year and a half. After the unsuccessful July 20 Plot in 1944, connections of Bonhoeffer to the conspirators were discovered, he was moved to a series of prisons and concentration camps ending at Flossenburg. Here, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging at dawn on 9 April 1945, just three weeks before the liberation of the city. Bonhoeffer considered that killing Hitler would have been the less bad option. Less bad than letting Hitler carry on with the mass killings.
For us in England in 2007, the problem perhaps arises in identifying whether or not the State is in conflict with God's laws. All types of government, even corrupt ones, will probably act in accordance with God's laws some of the time, and against them the rest of the time.
We're fortunate enough to live in a country where the State, generally, follows God's laws most of the time. But that probably makes it even more difficult to identify any moves away from God's laws. And because the State has largely Christian values, does it mean we should accept the whole package with unquestioning obedience? Or should we be looking much more carefully at the actions of the State, and raising Christian uproar whenever we think the State is moving away from God's laws?
Is the State acting for or against God's laws in its stance towards nuclear weapons, the Middle East, poverty or fair trade? Is it for or against God's laws in its objective to maintain income tax levels, when the NHS and our education system appear to be in danger of crumbling for lack of funds? In the level of aid it gives to third World countries? In regarding some degree of pollution as acceptable? In encouraging the use of GM foods? And so on.
And if any of these things are against God's laws, are any of them sufficiently important to justify breaking the law of the land?
The press often complains about lack of leadership in the Church of England. About how the established church is perceived to keep silent when it should be protesting. But we are the Church of England. If we felt strongly enough to inform our leaders, perhaps the Church would speak out more often.
Politics, the rule of government, is about real people and the lives they lead. Maybe the challenge to Christians today is to take much more interest in politics. To become much better informed about politics and the law of the land, even at the risk that that interest might cause us to protest against the government.
Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. But let's also make sure that Caesar as well as us gives unto God that which is God's.
Many Blessings,
Gareth
Friday 7 September 2007
Christian Stewardship is a response to the Creed.
The Christian understanding of Stewardship is derived from the revelation of God to which the Bible bears witness. God is the Creator of all things and the Lord of all history; in Our Lord Jesus Christ he acted to save the world; through the Holy Spirit, he is at work in the Church and in the world to fulfil his purposes.
We Believe in God the Father…
Because God is the Creator and has given men and women a special place in his purposes on earth and dominion over all other living creatures, men and women are called:
To worship God and to give thanks for his goodness
To use the natural world and other living creatures in the service of God and all people and not for self-interest and exploitation.
We Believe in God the Son…
Because God has made himself known most fully in Jesus Christ, and has acted uniquely and decisively in him to save the world and to give forgiveness, grace and eternal life, men and women are called:
To put their trust in God and live in companionship with Jesus Christ
To follow Jesus in showing love to others; to use their minds, bodies and possessions to glorify God, and to give practical help to people in need.
We Believe in God the Holy Spirit…
Because God has formed the Church, entrusted the Church with the Gospel and given gifts to men and women through the Holy Spirit:
The Church is called to make Jesus Christ and the Gospel known.
Individual Christians are called to use their gifts in his service.
A response in active Stewardship
So the Christian seeks to give, because God has given to us. "We love, because he first loved us".
To describe our response and love we use the words "Christian Stewardship". We do so because the word "steward" is used in the Bible to express the concept of responsibility for the use of material possessions and spiritual powers.
Christian Stewardship may therefore be defined as the response which we the Church, collectively and individually, are called to make to God for all that he has given us and done for us, above all in Jesus Christ.
In this response:
We worship God with praise and thankfulness;
We look on the universe as God's creation;
We treat the earth and its resources as God's provision for the needs of all mankind;
We regard our lives, our powers, our possessions, as gifts from God to be enjoyed and used in his service;
We seek to share in Christ's mission to the world.
Our response in Christian Stewardship is therefore active:
As we respond to God in praise and thanksgiving
As we look on the universe as God's creation
As we treat the earth and its resources as God's provision for the needs of all mankind
As we seek to consecrate our personal wealth to God
As we regard our lives, our powers and possessions, our money and material wealth as gifts from God to be enjoyed and used in his service
As we seek to be "Stewards of the Gospel" and to share in Christ's mission to the world
Many Blessings,
Gareth
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
Matthew 18:21-35
Many Blessings to you,
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
Matthew 18:21-35
I was once told about an elderly lady who had been a churchgoer all her life, but who hadn't spoken to her only sister for the last 40 years. I can't remember what had happened between the two of them only that this lady entirely blamed her sister for the trouble and forty years later, was still waiting for her sister to apologise. The two of them never met again, and both died with their differences unreconciled.
It seems such a sad loss of the love and companionship which family members can bring, yet it's a very common story. There are many families where one member of the family is not talking to another member, or where the entire family is at loggerheads. And that's just in families. In the wider world, neighbours or friends fall out (often over something trivial) and never make it up, because each blames the other and neither will make the first move.
And of course it's well known that in churches people who take offence very often simply walk out and never attend that church again. For some people that's a pattern in their lives. They attend a church, they're offended and they leave, so they attend a different church and in due course the same thing happens all over again - and again and again.
Forgiveness isn't easy either to give or to receive, even over the most trivial offence. It's much easier to deny all culpability and to walk away in high dudgeon than it is to face the problem. It requires considerable humility to be able to even begin to see that both parties might be partially responsible, let alone to apologise. And it requires considerable sensitivity to begin to understand what it might feel like from the other person's point of view.
"How many times should I forgive my brother?" asked Peter. "Seven times?" "No," said Jesus. "Not seven times, but seventy times seven."
That's a tall order. Real forgiveness is a gift from God and it doesn't come easy. Insults and injuries and offences damage pride, and only those who are able to face the pain of wounded pride are really able to forgive. And only those who dare to begin to approach those dark, hidden corners of their inner being, are able to face the pain of wounded pride.
It's a difficult business, forgiveness. It's much easier to totally blame somebody else for all problems than it is to accept that I myself might bear some responsibility. And taking that first step of approaching the other party, whether I'm the offender or offended against, is very difficult indeed.
Sometimes people are precipitated into forgiveness, but that usually takes a major, earth-shattering event, like a sudden death or a life-threatening illness. That sort of event changes priorities, and wounded pride is suddenly seen for what it really is.
Yet forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, and without it Christianity is just a hollow sham. "Forgive us our sins," we say to God, "as we forgive those who sin against us." Forgive us Lord, in the same measure that we forgive other people.
Forgiveness over trivial offences which haven't caused much hurt, is difficult enough. But is it even possible to forgive a really serious offence? And should we really go on and on forgiving those who commit serious sins against us?
Forgiveness may be possible and desirable when the injury is slight, but can it be either possible or desirable when the injury is unspeakably brutal, is evil and is, for instance, against a child?
Jesus placed no limits on forgiveness. He repeated again and again that forgiveness is always essential for those who wish to remain close to God.
The problem with lack of forgiveness is that it causes a hard, intractable knot inside the inner being of the person who is unable to forgive, a knot that even God cannot penetrate.
But that hard knot doesn't remain static. Like a malignancy, it slowly grows and spreads and poisons the soul, so that God is squeezed out and the coldness and the hardness and the evil take over. The effect of lack of forgiveness on a whole nation can be seen very clearly in Northern Ireland or in the former Yugoslavia.
The treatment for lack of forgiveness is simple, but never easy. Like lancing a deep-rooted boil without anaesthetic, it's very painful. It can mean suffering the depths of humiliation, because at the very least it means swallowing pride.
And it seems to me that forgiveness for serious offences lies solely in God's hands. Most mere mortals would probably be incapable of forgiving, for example, a child molester or a murderer. But inasmuch as we are unable to forgive, so to that extent we are cut off from God and are slowly poisoned by insidious evil within ourselves.
Perhaps the way forward is to ask God for the gift of forgiveness, then to try to open up all parts of our inner being to God. It will undoubtedly be a painful process and probably a long process, but the one who eventually is able to forgive will be the winner.
Forgiveness is tied up with understanding. Once I begin to understand the reasons for another's actions, I can begin to forgive them for those actions. God understands everything about all of us. He knows what's happened to us in the past. He knows why we act the way we do, and therefore he can and does fully and completely forgive us, whatever the sin.
If I fail to forgive, it has an effect on the other person, but nothing like the effect it has on me. If I really want inner, spiritual health and an increasing ability to love, then I must learn to forgive in all circumstances, seventy times seven.
It seems such a sad loss of the love and companionship which family members can bring, yet it's a very common story. There are many families where one member of the family is not talking to another member, or where the entire family is at loggerheads. And that's just in families. In the wider world, neighbours or friends fall out (often over something trivial) and never make it up, because each blames the other and neither will make the first move.
And of course it's well known that in churches people who take offence very often simply walk out and never attend that church again. For some people that's a pattern in their lives. They attend a church, they're offended and they leave, so they attend a different church and in due course the same thing happens all over again - and again and again.
Forgiveness isn't easy either to give or to receive, even over the most trivial offence. It's much easier to deny all culpability and to walk away in high dudgeon than it is to face the problem. It requires considerable humility to be able to even begin to see that both parties might be partially responsible, let alone to apologise. And it requires considerable sensitivity to begin to understand what it might feel like from the other person's point of view.
"How many times should I forgive my brother?" asked Peter. "Seven times?" "No," said Jesus. "Not seven times, but seventy times seven."
That's a tall order. Real forgiveness is a gift from God and it doesn't come easy. Insults and injuries and offences damage pride, and only those who are able to face the pain of wounded pride are really able to forgive. And only those who dare to begin to approach those dark, hidden corners of their inner being, are able to face the pain of wounded pride.
It's a difficult business, forgiveness. It's much easier to totally blame somebody else for all problems than it is to accept that I myself might bear some responsibility. And taking that first step of approaching the other party, whether I'm the offender or offended against, is very difficult indeed.
Sometimes people are precipitated into forgiveness, but that usually takes a major, earth-shattering event, like a sudden death or a life-threatening illness. That sort of event changes priorities, and wounded pride is suddenly seen for what it really is.
Yet forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, and without it Christianity is just a hollow sham. "Forgive us our sins," we say to God, "as we forgive those who sin against us." Forgive us Lord, in the same measure that we forgive other people.
Forgiveness over trivial offences which haven't caused much hurt, is difficult enough. But is it even possible to forgive a really serious offence? And should we really go on and on forgiving those who commit serious sins against us?
Forgiveness may be possible and desirable when the injury is slight, but can it be either possible or desirable when the injury is unspeakably brutal, is evil and is, for instance, against a child?
Jesus placed no limits on forgiveness. He repeated again and again that forgiveness is always essential for those who wish to remain close to God.
The problem with lack of forgiveness is that it causes a hard, intractable knot inside the inner being of the person who is unable to forgive, a knot that even God cannot penetrate.
But that hard knot doesn't remain static. Like a malignancy, it slowly grows and spreads and poisons the soul, so that God is squeezed out and the coldness and the hardness and the evil take over. The effect of lack of forgiveness on a whole nation can be seen very clearly in Northern Ireland or in the former Yugoslavia.
The treatment for lack of forgiveness is simple, but never easy. Like lancing a deep-rooted boil without anaesthetic, it's very painful. It can mean suffering the depths of humiliation, because at the very least it means swallowing pride.
And it seems to me that forgiveness for serious offences lies solely in God's hands. Most mere mortals would probably be incapable of forgiving, for example, a child molester or a murderer. But inasmuch as we are unable to forgive, so to that extent we are cut off from God and are slowly poisoned by insidious evil within ourselves.
Perhaps the way forward is to ask God for the gift of forgiveness, then to try to open up all parts of our inner being to God. It will undoubtedly be a painful process and probably a long process, but the one who eventually is able to forgive will be the winner.
Forgiveness is tied up with understanding. Once I begin to understand the reasons for another's actions, I can begin to forgive them for those actions. God understands everything about all of us. He knows what's happened to us in the past. He knows why we act the way we do, and therefore he can and does fully and completely forgive us, whatever the sin.
If I fail to forgive, it has an effect on the other person, but nothing like the effect it has on me. If I really want inner, spiritual health and an increasing ability to love, then I must learn to forgive in all circumstances, seventy times seven.
Many Blessings to you,
Gareth
Come away to a deserted place
I don’t know about you but I always seem to fill the time available to me. I seem to need to be doing something. Perhaps that’s what human beings are like?
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."
So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
Mark 6:30-34
In Mark’s Gospel, Christ tells his disciples to do something. What he says is: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” In other words, he tells them to take a break to devote some time to being rather than doing. Often Christ tells us the same thing.
Yet often we ignore this command. We want to follow Jesus and are willing to take action, but when it comes to rest, when it comes to Jesus telling us to take a break for a while, the protestant work ethic kicks in: We’ll do something big and brave, but rest is too simple and so we ignore what Jesus tells us.
Jesus has his reasons for inviting his disciples to rest. They have just returned from a mission. He had sent them out in pairs and in haste. They were not to encumber themselves with gear or supplies, but simply trust local hospitality to meet their needs. They were not to linger where they were not wanted. Instead, they were to be on the move, calling people to repentance, casting out demons, anointing the sick. It was work they had never done before, and once they returned, they must have been exhausted.
Many of us do critically important work and find ourselves exhausted. Yet we don't rest. We may even believe that we cannot or should not rest. We push ourselves in a way that we would never push others. Our life may be productive, we may check off everything from our daily “to do” list, but deep down we recognize something’s wrong, that we lack a sense of deep meaning, and so we feel cheated.
The disciples have returned from their travels, but the pace has not slackened. As the Gospel reports, “Many were coming and going, and they had no time even to eat.” Does that scene sound familiar to you? Is your workplace like that? Is your home like that? This is a common experience for people today. Many are coming and going, and they have no time even to eat.
Jesus listens to the disciples as they report on all they did and taught in the numerous places they visited. He does not, however, tell them to throw themselves into action again with even greater abandon. He doesn't ask them to do something difficult and dangerous or big and brave. Instead, what he asks for is disarming in its simplicity: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”
Jesus invites us to rest, but we treat rest as a four-letter word. If people are resting, we may be suspicious of them. If we are resting, we may be suspicious of ourselves. There's always more to do, further ways to justify our existence by what we produce. In the face of this, Jesus smiles and says, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”
If asked, most of us could recite something of the pattern of our work as we engage in it day by day, week after week. I wonder, though: Can we do the same regarding our rest? Do we have patterns established that ensure that going off by ourselves to rest for a while is a reality for us, rather than simply a desire?
Some of us may lack such patterns of rest, but we can take steps to establish them. Gradually we can build into our lives rhythms of rest and solitude to balance out the busy rhythms that already pulsate so strongly. It can be done.
Monday is my day off I don’t answer the phone, I don’t check my E-mails, I don’t work, my mobile stays switched off. I just spend the day just being. Being at peace. Being with Julie.
The French mathematician and theologian Blaisé Pascal once said that “more than half this world's ills come from how people cannot sit in a room alone”. Our refusal to rest can hurt us, the people around us, and the endeavours to which we devote ourselves.
A lot of us try to function without the Rest Factor that Jesus wants us to include in our lives. We're busy, but the results are disappointing. When we factor in some rest we are not working as much, but what we do is more significant, more meaningful than it was when we were always on the go.
As human beings we may be willing to do something dangerous and daring or big and brave but we should also take time out from doing to rest and just to be… after all we are human beings not human doings!
Many Blessings,
Gareth
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."
So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
Mark 6:30-34
In Mark’s Gospel, Christ tells his disciples to do something. What he says is: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” In other words, he tells them to take a break to devote some time to being rather than doing. Often Christ tells us the same thing.
Yet often we ignore this command. We want to follow Jesus and are willing to take action, but when it comes to rest, when it comes to Jesus telling us to take a break for a while, the protestant work ethic kicks in: We’ll do something big and brave, but rest is too simple and so we ignore what Jesus tells us.
Jesus has his reasons for inviting his disciples to rest. They have just returned from a mission. He had sent them out in pairs and in haste. They were not to encumber themselves with gear or supplies, but simply trust local hospitality to meet their needs. They were not to linger where they were not wanted. Instead, they were to be on the move, calling people to repentance, casting out demons, anointing the sick. It was work they had never done before, and once they returned, they must have been exhausted.
Many of us do critically important work and find ourselves exhausted. Yet we don't rest. We may even believe that we cannot or should not rest. We push ourselves in a way that we would never push others. Our life may be productive, we may check off everything from our daily “to do” list, but deep down we recognize something’s wrong, that we lack a sense of deep meaning, and so we feel cheated.
The disciples have returned from their travels, but the pace has not slackened. As the Gospel reports, “Many were coming and going, and they had no time even to eat.” Does that scene sound familiar to you? Is your workplace like that? Is your home like that? This is a common experience for people today. Many are coming and going, and they have no time even to eat.
Jesus listens to the disciples as they report on all they did and taught in the numerous places they visited. He does not, however, tell them to throw themselves into action again with even greater abandon. He doesn't ask them to do something difficult and dangerous or big and brave. Instead, what he asks for is disarming in its simplicity: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”
Jesus invites us to rest, but we treat rest as a four-letter word. If people are resting, we may be suspicious of them. If we are resting, we may be suspicious of ourselves. There's always more to do, further ways to justify our existence by what we produce. In the face of this, Jesus smiles and says, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”
If asked, most of us could recite something of the pattern of our work as we engage in it day by day, week after week. I wonder, though: Can we do the same regarding our rest? Do we have patterns established that ensure that going off by ourselves to rest for a while is a reality for us, rather than simply a desire?
Some of us may lack such patterns of rest, but we can take steps to establish them. Gradually we can build into our lives rhythms of rest and solitude to balance out the busy rhythms that already pulsate so strongly. It can be done.
Monday is my day off I don’t answer the phone, I don’t check my E-mails, I don’t work, my mobile stays switched off. I just spend the day just being. Being at peace. Being with Julie.
The French mathematician and theologian Blaisé Pascal once said that “more than half this world's ills come from how people cannot sit in a room alone”. Our refusal to rest can hurt us, the people around us, and the endeavours to which we devote ourselves.
A lot of us try to function without the Rest Factor that Jesus wants us to include in our lives. We're busy, but the results are disappointing. When we factor in some rest we are not working as much, but what we do is more significant, more meaningful than it was when we were always on the go.
As human beings we may be willing to do something dangerous and daring or big and brave but we should also take time out from doing to rest and just to be… after all we are human beings not human doings!
Many Blessings,
Gareth
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