Gareth's Sermons

My Peace I Give To You

2010-05-09T13:42:00.002+01:00

Jesus gives us something: his Peace, or his Shalom. This gift is more than anything we can want. And it seems that in this world, and in our culture, we want an awful lot. Since we already want all that the world can give, it is difficult for us to imagine more than that, which the world cannot give.

Yet, that is God’s gift to us in Jesus: God’s shalom, God’s peace, is greater than anything we can desire or imagine. God’s peace, means becoming a people who seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbours as ourselves.

When Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” he is telling us to be people who bring God’s Peace to all people and to all the nations.

Jesus wants to give us all Peace. Jesus wants to give us all of this and more than we can either desire or imagine. Jesus doesn’t want us to worry, he doesn’t want us to get stressed about exams or about what other people think about us Listen as he calls to us, He says: My own Peace I give to you; I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. Peace I leave with you. It is yours to have and to give to the rest of the world.

Amen.

Love one another

2010-05-02T22:34:00.003+01:00

The Collect for today asks God to “increase our love for one another, that both in name and in truth we may be disciples of the risen Lord Jesus, and so reflect by our lives the glory that is yours”.

Once there was a church that had the phrase “I am the way, the truth and the life” on a sign above its iron gate. The church and its message intrigued a young man, so he decided to go there on Sunday. He was not welcomed. No one spoke to him, or smiled, or offered him a handshake. After the service he left in a puzzled state.

In the Bible, God reveals that nothing in His creation is profane, that the “purity code” is a limitation imposed by humans, not God, and that keeping that purity could in fact be hindering God. This was something obviously lost on the folks in the small church that the young man visited. They were uneasy with somebody they didn’t know, so they kept their distance, “he might not be like us”.

Have you ever thought about what’s going on in the world today? Have you ever wondered why many are afraid of immigrants, legal or not? Have you ever wondered why many are afraid of people of different a sexuality? Do you understand that Sunday morning can be the most exclusive, segregated, and separate time of the week? All week long we work with, bump up against, commute with, and eat with people who are not like us, but often on Sunday we attend a church that consists mostly of people like ourselves.

There are exceptions, of course. But many of our churches do not look anything like the communities that we live in or the grocery shops we shop in. Why is that? Do you ever wonder?

The writer of Revelation offers a passage often read at funerals. The image of death having been vanquished, of mourning and crying being no more, and of God wiping away every tear is a powerful image, followed by the declaration that God is making all things new. One of those new things is surely the way we experience one another, as diverse gifts of the God who made us all.

If we begin to think about people who differ from us in race or culture or sexuality, then see them as gifts to us from God. And that gives us a wholly different point of view toward the many people sent to us by God. We can turn away from them, but are we not then also turning away from God?

When we hear the gospel and Jesus’ own words call us to love one another, “Just as I have loved you.” This is not a phrase easily dismissed. Jesus’ entire ministry, including his death and resurrection, hangs on this phrase, “Just as I have loved you.” Jesus loved people in a radical way. Today he would be – and often is – in the supermarket talking with the checkers, the shelf fillers, and the customers finding their way through a bewildering array of products. He is there because that is where all the community goes. He is there because that may be where a lonely newcomer to town gets a smile at the cash register, or even a query, “Are you new here?”

But what about church? What about that Sunday morning experience that is often the place where we see only familiar faces, only people like us, only people we know? Is Jesus there? Of course he is, but he is there to welcome the stranger – whoever walks in that door timidly and tentatively looking for new community. Are we ready for that? Do we seek those people? Would they be welcomed, truly welcomed here?

Not long ago the young man who had visited a church and was made to feel like an outsider was back in the neighbourhood and walked by the church he had visited on that Sunday. It had been many years. The sign “I am the way, the truth, and the life” still stood above the iron gate. Then he saw that the church doors were boarded over, as were many of the windows. The church was obviously closed and looked as though it had been for some time. He walked on, wondering what had happened. We can draw our own conclusions, but if that church had welcomed him and others instead of being closed to what God was sending them on frequent occasions, the end of their story might have been very different indeed.

Easter Sunday 2010

2010-04-04T13:22:00.006+01:00

Easter moves around a lot from year to year. Unlike Christmas, which always falls on December twenty-fifth, no matter the day of the week, Easter can fall on any Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th. There is, in fact, an entire section of the Book of Common Prayer devoted to finding the date of Easter Sunday in any given year. Read it some evening if you are having a difficult time falling asleep.

Before you drift off, you will learn about golden numbers and Sunday letters, astronomical and ecclesiastical equinoxes, and the phases of the moon – all of which are critical in determining when exactly it is that we celebrate the feast of the Lord’s Resurrection. In fact, the dating of Easter was one of the earliest controversies to face the early English Church long before the time of Henry VIII. Sadly, it has not been the last. But that is another story.

Time has always been important to Christians for the simple reason that our redemption takes place in time. Unlike the gods and heroes of mythology, Christ lived among us in time and history. He was born. He grew up. He preached the kingdom, and he died. It is recorded there in scripture for all to read. It is part of salvation history.

And as the Gospel of Luke tells us, on a certain first day of the week – specifically at early dawn – Christ’s empty tomb was discovered, and the proclamation of his Resurrection began as the women made their way back to the eleven and told them what they had seen and heard. That proclamation continues to this day.

It is no wonder then that over centuries the Church has been so precise and meticulous about the timing of such an important feast. But as arcane as the computation is for establishing Easter Day, it is only part of the story. For not only is Easter a special time, it is quite literally special time. It is time out of time, time like no other.

The Resurrection is something completely unique and unprecedented. Here is how New Testament scholar Holt Graham explains the Easter event:
“We do not understand it and indeed cannot. … It never happened before, and it has never happened again. What we have learned from ordinary existence is no help when we come up against the absolutely unique happening. It is in the full and literal sense a mystery. It occurred beyond the boundary line of our existence.”

The Resurrection in other words, while a part of our salvation history, nevertheless occurs beyond our experience and senses. Other scholars explain the Resurrection as the “bursting forth” into time – into history – of eternity itself. It is as if all eternity were concentrated into this moment when Christ overcomes death and the grave, and the infinite sweeps away the temporal. Yet if the Resurrection is unique in our experience, it is essential to our existence as Christians.

No one saw the Resurrection. No one knows just when it happened or how. There was no car chase. No film on the News at 10. No leads. No body. No CSI. No Gill Grissom! The tomb is open and empty, abandoned except by a couple of ethereal, angelic figures and a few devoted, if somewhat disconsolate, women. For something at the very heart of our faith, this remains pretty slim pickings. Where was BBC News? Where were the press?

But of course we don’t get any of it. There is quite literally nothing to this story. An empty tomb. Our great Christian symbol of life and hope is found in something missing, something not there, a displacement. “The Case of the Missing Body,” as mystery writer Agatha Christie might have called it. It is indeed a mystery, but unlike anything Agatha Christie ever imagined.

For this empty tomb is full of meaning. From this empty tomb, hewn in rock, we as Christians draw forth all of our faith and hope for this world and for the kingdom to come. At this empty tomb we find the Christ of eternity alive in the here and now. From this chasm, a symbol of death and defeat, comes forth victory and life itself. Christ’s tomb is the earthen fissure through which God’s love pours out upon our parched world of sin and death.

We do not know how this is so. But then there are a lot of things we do not know. How life began in some ocean lagoon billions of years ago, for instance. Or even how our parents fell in love. Just as our lives today are in some real sense mysteries we shall never fathom, so is the Resurrection for us a sharing in the mystery of God’s own life. Or perhaps more to the point, it is a sharing by God in our lives.
Time is on our side. Our life and our world mean something. They are not random events, and we are not lost among the dust and debris of history, footnotes in a book of no meaning or consequence. In this single event, the Resurrection, everything is changed for all time. We live now in Christ forever. In Baptism, we have been raised with him, and death no longer has a grip on us. We seek now, as Paul says, “the things that are above, where Christ is.”

As Christians, we do not see and then believe. We believe so that we may see. And what we see in the Resurrection is our lives transformed. “Let the whole world see and know,” we pray in one of the final liturgies of Holy Week, “that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.” Christ’s Resurrection is finally the most real thing there is… or ever was… or ever will be!

The Lord is risen indeed.

Amen. Alleluia.

Luke 2 v 22-40 Expect the Unexpected

2010-01-30T16:07:00.001Z

Snow, something we are not really used to dealing with. When it fell recently in large quantities, we were somewhat unprepared. For a few days it seemed as if everything had ground to a halt. The roads were treacherous, people couldn’t get to work, services were grounded, and we ran out of salt-grit. Some children, were treated to that rare and wonderful thing: a snow day or two.

For so many, an unexpected heavy fall of snow – especially on a weekday – is inconvenient, dangerous and frustrating. But perhaps we can all remember (and maybe just a few of us feel this still) the joy of a few hours’ liberation from the normal course of events: that feeling that things don’t always run their normal course, that sometimes everything goes topsy-turvy and we can build snowmen, make snow angels and risk our necks on a sledge. Alas, it never lasts long, but these interruptions to the everyday course of events can become treasured memories that stay with us for the rest of our lives

We read today of a really intriguing part of the Gospel story. Intriguing, not because it is packed with angel choirs and extraordinary events as the last part of the story was, and not because it is smattered with miracles and drama like the next bit will be, but because it speaks of a time of getting back into the swing of everyday life. Apart from one other significant event when Jesus is twelve, it is the last thing we hear of Jesus as a child – in fact the last thing we hear of him for about thirty years. And in the meantime, things get back to normal. Well almost!!!!

Mary and Joseph circumcise their son after eight days, and they set off to the Temple at Jerusalem to perform the ritual that every good Jew would perform – they offer a sacrifice to the Lord for their firstborn boy. The pattern of life and worship begins to resume. But then they are approached by Simeon – someone whom we know nothing about apart from the fact he lived in Jerusalem and believed God had told him he would not die before seeing the Messiah. It’s easy to picture this devoted man being – well, slightly odd. He takes the child – a little nerve-racking for a parent – and praises God for having let him see God’s salvation, although not without offering some disturbing words too.

And as this is happening, Anna the prophet comes upon them and begins to tell all those around that that baby was the one they had been waiting for: the redemption of Israel. We’re very polite about Anna, and, of course, hindsight proved her right, but this is a woman who has lived in the Temple for what could have been about sixty years, doing nothing but fasting and praying. She’s eccentric, to put it mildly. It’s easy to imagine that Mary and Joseph might have been a little embarrassed by this interruption to their quiet ceremony. But it is in this interruption by two out-of-the-ordinary people that God speaks, and this human baby is once more named as the saviour of the world. Food for thought as Mary and Joseph return home to Nazareth and begin the business of raising their child.

Application

For most of us, it is not the drama of the angels and shepherds that best reflects our experience of Christian life, but the more mundane interruption of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple as Mary and Joseph get on with the rituals of life and worship. The Spirit of God often moves in the interruptions and disturbances that take place as we try to get on with things. The thing is, do we see it? Just like that snow, interruptions can be inconvenient, dangerous and frustrating. We do our best to avoid them most of the time. But they can be liberating, joyful and the key to opening up new ways of being God’s people. Mary and Joseph were probably attuned by their recent experiences to observe and listen to God’s intervention in their lives. But what would we have done? Hugged the child to ourselves and scuttled on our way? Laughed it off with that embarrassing laugh we do. Who knows? Let’s pray that we may be open to the interruptions that God sends and to the changes that they might bring to our way of looking at things.

SUMMARY

1. Interruptions to the flow of everyday life can be both frustrating and liberating; a heavy snowfall can be inconvenient and dangerous, but it also can result in that rare treat – a day off school.

2. There is a “getting back to normal” feel to Mary and Joseph’s actions as they take Jesus to the Temple to perform the rituals after childbirth. But that ritual is interrupted by Simeon and Anna as they prophesy about the child.

3. Our experience of Christian life is often very much like Mary and Joseph’s: it is in the interruptions to everyday life that God speaks. We need to be able to take the time to hear.

Julie Bowen

First Sunday After the Epiphany/The Baptism of Our Lord

2010-01-10T09:42:00.001Z

January 10, 2010 – First Sunday After the Epiphany/The Baptism of Our Lord Year C

Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky." These lovely works by poet John Masefield talk about the sailor's almost irresistible draw to the water.

It’s been said that since our bodies may be up to 75 percent water, we are automatically drawn to water. We know certainly that the body cannot exist without water – picture the old film Ice Cold In Alex where the soldiers in lorry are overcome with heat and exhaustion in the desert, no oasis in sight, a burning sun scorching the sand. No flowing streams, no rain, no hope for those caught unprepared in the desert. It’s as if heat and drought themselves yearn for water and so pull the water of life out of living things until bones collapse and blanch on the desert floor.

“I must go down to the sea again.”

Our hearts ache for the touch of water on our dry skin when we consider the desert. But then we imagine other films, “The Perfect Storm” or “Moby Dick.” We remember the desperation and horror of those caught in real-life tsunamis. Plenty of water there. More than plenty – too much. Instead of being life-giving, the water brings death. The sea, the blue-green and tranquil sea that painters love to capture on a beautiful summer’s day, becomes an enormous force, bigger than life, dangerous, frightening. It becomes black with fury, tossing ships like toys, overwhelming miles of landscape and claiming to its black depths lives, villages, and a future’s hope.

Water – life and death – hope and despair. In a way, we have absolutely no control over water; some pray for rain, others pray for the rain to stop. Water, like the air we breathe, is completely essential, and yet it brings death as well as life. Perhaps it’s those properties of water that make it such a perfect symbol of the grace of baptism.

Water is one of the most evident features in scripture. From the graceful beginning words of Genesis where the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, through the story of Noah and the covenant between God and God’s people, to the Red Sea, and then to today’s anointing of Jesus’ ministry through his own baptism, water has woven the story of God’s life and ours together.

Baptismal water flows over us today. In Isaiah, we’re reminded that even as we pass through raging waters, God is with us. Overflowing rivers will not drown God’s people. And why? Because the word of the Lord through Isaiah says, “Fear not: for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, and you are mine.” Of course water here is an image. Earthly water and fire – another image – can do us bodily harm, but when we dig deeper and hear what God is saying, we realize that God is reminding us that no earthly thing can keep us from the love and comfort of God. Even if natural water or fire overwhelms our bodies, God’s spirit is with us. God’s love comforts and heals.

In the gospel, water is used both figuratively and literally. John the Baptist offers the people of that time a baptism of repentance. The Jews are drawn to the waters of the Jordan to be cleansed of their unfaithfulness to God’s law. They are drawn by John’s words. Many may be drawn by the simplicity of his message. This is how you can live lives faithful to God’s law: tax collectors, don’t cheat; soldiers, don’t threaten or extort; all of you, share what you have with the poor. John offered them a chance to be renewed. And this was a very good thing. The Jordan’s water cleansed both body and soul.

It seems sensible that some would mistake John for the Messiah, but John introduces Jesus by using the two images heard in Isaiah: water and fire. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” This is a new baptism. This new baptism will do more than forgive sins, it will create the community of God. This community would be guided by the Holy Spirit. This baptism announced that the kingdom of God was at hand. As the heavens opened at Jesus’ baptism, the voice of God anointed the mission and ministry Jesus would live out among God’s people. God has pitched a tent among the people.

This isn’t just an historical telling of the start of Jesus’ ministry. This message is for us, too. But you might say, we know this story. We know it’s important to be baptized. We even baptize babies, not only adults, as they did in the early church.

But do we really know? Do we really take our baptisms seriously today? We certainly still take water seriously, its ability to effect both life and death, but if we really took our baptism seriously, wouldn’t our world and our church look different? Think about those promises we made at our baptism and then reaffirmed at our confirmations. We promised to keep alive the apostles’ teachings and the prayers. We promised, as those people did at the Jordan, to acknowledge our sins, repent, and return to the Lord. We promised to see Christ in each other and to respect the dignity of every human being. We promised to work for justice and peace. We didn’t promise just to think all these things would be nice. We promised to DO something about them – to WORK for them. Are we? From the look of the world and the church, we must not be doing too good a job.

This is why we have a lectionary cycle. This is why the church asks us to consider the story of our salvation, and everything that entails, over three years’ of readings. It helps us to look at all God has done for us. It helps us to remember that no matter what, God cares deeply for us and promises to be our strength. Hearing again and again the story of John and Jesus at the Jordan should cement in our minds that we must keep the mission and ministry of Jesus alive. We are asked to pray. We are asked to keep Jesus’ teaching alive by sharing in the liturgy, preaching God’s word, and then taking what we have learned out to others.

"I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;"

Our call to keep alive the good news of the gospel and to spread the love and compassion of God cannot be denied.

The Pastor as Narrative Leader

2010-01-04T16:10:00.001Z

My Archdeacon, The Ven. Dr. Paul Wright sent me this...

The Pastor as Narrative Leader
by N. Graham Standish

Humans are living stories of experience. Our lives can be scripted like a narrative. In fact, when we think of individual lives in this way, what we discover is that those who live what seem to be successful lives have a generally compelling life narrative of overcoming obstacles in order to achieve. Those who seem to have dysfunctional lives often have life stories that read like disconnected or stuck narratives in which the main character struggles to overcome obstacles. Instead of overcoming obstacles, these obstacles overwhelm her or his life. Understanding the role of story is crucial to understanding the role narrative plays in leadership.

Over the years I have noticed a definite difference between good leaders and great leaders, a difference that is more than just a matter of great leaders doing certain things better than good leaders. Good leaders lead people toward a goal. They are able to articulate a common aim for an organization, a department, a team, or a congregation. They are able to get people on board enough so that the goals become common goals. And these good leaders are able to motivate people to want to achieve these goals.

What seems to make great leaders great is not that they are better at envisioning and articulating goals, as well as being better at uniting and motivating people to achieve these goals. What I notice is that great leaders seem to craft a story, a story that inspires others in the organization, team, or congregation so that they willingly become a part of and live out this story in their work and lives. Great leaders, through their whole style of leadership, tell a story about the organization or congregation that becomes a blueprint for its ongoing growth.

To be a narrative leader means to be something very similar to a novel writer. It means to be able to see not only life in general, but also a congregation's life, as an unfolding story that to some extent she is the author of. Obviously the pastor is not the author, but then again, most writers of fiction will tell you that they are not truly the authors of their stories either.

Many writers also speak of writing as a process of listening to their muse.
Pastors also have a muse: Christ. The more open we pastors are to the Spirit as we lead, the more the Spirit guides us not only to craft our own story, or the congregation's story, but also to make these stories part of the larger story that God is writing about life throughout the universe. The great pastoral leaders write a story discerned through prayer.

As the author listening to his muse, the pastor recognizes when the congregation is or isn't meshing with God's story. And he finds a way to bring it back into harmony. At the same time, he still sees pain, crisis, death, birth, divorce, marriage, difficulty, and celebration as crucial elements of the story. He understands that without these elements, the story has no life. As a result, he is always looking for ways to turn the more difficult situations into times of redemption, reconciliation, and resurrection.

Adapted from Living Our Story: Narrative Leadership and Congregational Culture, edited by Larry A. Golemon, copyright C 2010 by the Alban Institute.

The Second Sunday of Advent 2009

2009-12-06T09:19:00.001Z

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” — Luke 1:76

Imagine for a moment a world and society in which our worth and wages were not determined by our work but rather by an entirely different standard. Suppose we were not assessed for our adult skills, but for our childlike abilities – our capacity to be vulnerable and spontaneous, to show our feelings, and to live fully in each moment given to us. Suppose further that our annual performance appraisal was done not by our supervisor at work but by our children – or grandchildren – at home, or perhaps even by “children gathered from west to east,” to borrow words found in our readings today.

It opens up all sorts of possibilities. Those who do not have children of our own would not be let off the hook. A child would be assigned to you for the occasion – preferably one not of our own choosing – just to make the evaluation fair and equitable.

Rather than a rating for promptness, we would probably have a scale reflecting the ability to lose all sense of time and place for hours on end. For the ability to lay carpet or hang wallpaper in a straight line, we would substitute skill with Legos or Tonker Toys or the latest video games. And original contributions to high-quality academic publications would be replaced by interesting bed-time stories, peer-reviewed and assessed by panels of children from the neighbourhood. The talent for making tasty pizza, and hamburgers that taste like Big Macs – preferably seven days a week – would merit extra points on our performance assessment scale.

Our world would certainly be a different place. Some of us would be in serious trouble and would have a lot of catching up to do. However, instead of being encouraged to sign up for evening classes, we would probably be required to enroll in the preschool program for a couple of terms. For all of us, priorities would change in a hurry as we came to terms with the new values and norms. After all, our livelihood would depend on it.

Perhaps we could even try this new way of doing things in the world of politics and high finance. There might be a little confusion at first, but it would be worth it. “No hitting” and “plays well with others” would take on new meaning as we appraised global leaders. And the world would be a more sensible place as Matchbox cars were substituted for BMWs as status symbols, Barbie-doll fashions replaced Prada and Armani, and Pokémon cards became the new coin of the realm.

Alas, the world has a long way to go in learning to cherish the child. Child-care workers are still among the lowest paid professionals in the country. According to some experts, they rank just below casual farm labourers and assistant zoo snake-handlers.
We should seek Child-inspired patterns of living during this holy Advent season. It probably does take a child to lead us back to that which is precious and holy – to the kingdom of heaven itself. A child, after all, would understand about the kingdom of heaven – at least until an adult tried to explain it.

Perhaps this is on Zechariah’s mind in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke as he encounters his neighbours gathered in the temple for the circumcision of his child. “What then will this child become?” the neighbours ask, as they reflect on the events surrounding the birth of John, who is to become the Baptist. But they are not so much thinking of “child-inspired patterns of living” as they are the destiny and future of the extraordinary child before them.

For the aged Zechariah the answer to their question comes easily as he is “filled with the Holy Spirit” and speaks. “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High;” he proclaims, “for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” His words are an allusion no doubt to the traditional understanding of John’s future role as precursor of the Christ. Yet in some sense it is the child himself who is the prophet of the Most High because every child is an image of the loving and blameless God who sent his Son to be born among us in humble circumstance. Only a child can call us back to the simplicity and fullness of divine love.

If, in our contemporary world, we have learned to dispense with child-inspired patterns of living, we have also all too often learned to dispense with children themselves. Their images haunt us in scenes of famine in faraway lands. We read with horror of their abuse in our own country and elsewhere. In some quarters, children have even become as disposable as holiday wrappings and tinsel, lovely in their festive attire but otherwise nonessentials, neither profit centres nor revenue enhancers.

This Advent season we must learn again to treasure the child, whether it be children of our own families and neighbourhoods or those “gathered from east to west” throughout the world. But we can only do this by first rediscovering and cherishing the child still within each of us – hidden beneath layers of needless complexity and sophistication. Midway through this Advent season of preparation and wonder, we open ourselves to the child who approaches our doorstep in the cold and dark of our winter hearts. Let us welcome that infant visitor and become what John – and we ourselves – are called to be: prophets of the Most High.

Amen.

The First Sunday of Advent 2009

2009-12-06T09:15:00.001Z

Advent, this season on which we embark today, these few short weeks of repentance, preparation, and expectation, begins with a picture of the end of the world. Jesus, already well aware of the likelihood of his own demise, is preaching prophetically about the destruction of the world people knew. And indeed, just a short 40 years later, in about 70 A.D., the Romans put down the last Jewish uprising, destroyed the temple, and the world for many ended. The Temple was the centre of the world for Jews, who still mourn its loss.

Jesus’ prophetic words give us a chill down the spine as we hear them today. There has been a lot of “distress among nations” for some time now, and people do “faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.” Trying to explain this passage as fixed in time is not a helpful exercise. In our context today it is just as relevant.

Sometimes you have to say things in a prophetic way to get people’s attention. Sometimes you have to tell people the awful truth: that things are a mess and we are all somehow responsible for it. Sometimes you have to say disturbing things to get people agitated enough to change their behaviour.

Not long ago a couple went to a church, a large and prosperous church, for the first time. As they walked into the building they smiled at a number of people, but no one greeted them. Everyone was preoccupied with herding the choir and acolytes, getting business attended to about the coming bazaar, and depositing their children in Sunday school. As they entered the church, an usher in the back handed them a bulletin while engaged in earnest conversation with someone else, his face turned away from them. Afterward, the couple agreed the congregation was too preoccupied to engage in the simple act of hospitality.

And so are we, too preoccupied. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, translates part of this passage from Luke today, “Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping” (Luke 21:34). A season of preparation and expectation should permeate all that we do, from expecting and welcoming visitors, to focusing on what’s really important: our relationship with God and the Messiah who is to come.

So, are there any tools offered in this Sunday’s readings, any hope we can grasp, any piece of advice we can take home and dwell upon? Let’s start with the collect. “Keep us alert. Make us attentive to your word, ready to look on your Son when he comes with power and great glory. Make us holy and blameless, ready to stand secure when the day of his coming shakes the world with terror. “
This is a gracious prayer in which we ask God to help us. We can’t do it ourselves. A wise bishop one said, “People fix problems, God redeems messes!”

Let’s play that scene from the church again: It’s Sunday morning. A couple arrives for the first time and they are greeted at the door by someone who says, “Welcome. May I sit with you this morning?” After Church, they are taken to coffee and introduced to the clergy, and others. It’s all about them, and suddenly they’re not strangers, but part of a new community of welcome and light instead of the preoccupied one above.

{In Jeremiah, we get a short and pithy message: “God keeps his promises.” Nobody has to wonder about that. Jeremiah had to tell his wealthy friends and others that things weren’t right between them and God. But he also got to say that God was going to do something about that, even if they weren’t. He was going to re-establish righteousness, a right relationship between God and God’s people. In this brief passage one has the feeling it’s a done deal, so you might as well enjoy the show! The passage also proclaims God’s intention of justice and righteousness in the land – a hope that has sustained faithful people through many faithless times, and continues to do so. God redeems messes.}

In the passage from I Thessalonians the writer prays that the people who are the beloved believers will be blameless before God at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all the saints. And it all comes out of the boundless love that they share with one another. They have imitated Christ, and their reward will be Christ’s sustaining love forever.

So, we have the tools of grace, faith (promises kept), and our capacity to imitate Christ to use in our Advent journey. We can still shop, maybe even go to a party or two, but they’re not the main thing. The main thing is that even when the news is bad, and in the world it’s not very good right now, even when terrible things are happening and we get them flashed live into our homes, they are not God’s message. God’s message is a response. “Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

“How much should I give to the Church?”

2009-10-04T16:25:00.000+01:00

“How much should I give to the Church?” This is the dilemma faced by most Anglicans as we consider our pledge and giving to the work of the church. People are often asked to give the church a tithe, a tenth of income. But a tenth of what income? Gross income? Net income? Earned income? Investment income? It’s just too confusing.

So here is a radically different way of going about this. Why not give it all – 100% – to the church, or better yet, to God?

Yes, you heard that right. Give 100% of your income to God and the work of the church. While you are at it, throw in your time and talent for good measure. Certainly makes stewardship a lot easier. You do not even need a calculator for this one. Hold nothing back.

How can you and I possibly do this?

Well, when you stop to think about it, we really do not have a choice. As the old saying goes, you can’t take it with you. There are no pockets in burial shrouds. In fact, everything will eventually be returned to God as its rightful owner anyway, including our very lives. So why not be gracious about it and give it all back right now – lock, stock, and barrel?

Truth be told, probably only one person in all of Christian history has ever come close to succeeding at this. That is none other than the humble Saint Francis of Assisi, whose feast is celebrated in many churches today, October Fourth. Having turned all of his possessions and great family wealth over to the poor and downtrodden of his community, Francis literally stood at the cathedral steps shivering in his loin cloth until the mortified bishop came along and covered him with his robes.

Francis gloried in what he called holy poverty and even spoke of “Lady Poverty” as his bride in Christ. Unencumbered by worldly distractions and possessions, he experienced the utter freedom and abandon of “the little children” mentioned in today’s gospel account. Others soon came to join Francis in a life of simple community and prayer. They became known as Franciscans.

While such radical gospel living may have worked well enough for Francis and his followers centuries ago, it might prove a bit more problematic for us today, as well intentioned as we may be. So here is a suggestion.

Let’s pledge 100% of our income, and ourselves, to God.

But then, let’s make an honest inventory of what we need to survive – and even thrive – as a child of God. The Lord will understand this, as all the things we need come from God to begin with. We might want to keep that roof over our heads, so we will need money for the rent or the mortgage. In today’s world, most of us will probably need a car to get to work and church and practically anywhere. So better put aside something for the car payment and petrol and occasional repairs.

Then there is the matter of eating. Since we no longer live in an agrarian society as did Francis, we will need grocery money to feed ourselves and our family. And of course these days who could dare forget to figure in the high cost of dental care and education? But after we have calculated out what we truly need and added in a little more for entertainment because “God loves a cheerful giver,” the rest will go to God and the work of the church. For most of us, this will probably come out somewhere around 10%. For a few, perhaps more.

Why go through this exercise? Why not just give the 10% in the first place and be done with it?
Well, you can certainly do that if you want to. And God bless you for it! But for the rest of us, it can be a worthwhile exercise to inventory our lives at least once a year, remembering that we “all have one Father,” as our lesson from Hebrews tells us. We are all God’s children.

Jesus demonstrates in today’s gospel account that it is to such as “the little children” gathered in his arms “that the kingdom of God belongs.” Little children of course know implicitly that “the kingdom of God” is the only treasure in life worth having – at least until the example of grown-ups teaches them otherwise. Alas many folks today, children and grown-ups alike, stand little chance of finding the kingdom amid the clutter of their busy lives filled with playthings and possessions too numerous to count.

Like Francis, we all need to simplify and we all need to remember the kingdom.
Amen.

Invitation to a Public Forum

2009-07-24T11:19:00.000+01:00

PUBLIC FORUM
To discuss the recent EDF Networks Power cuts to be held at Saint Martin’s The Parish Church of Barnehurst, Erith Road, Barnehurst, Kent. DA7 6LE

Wednesday 29th of July at 7:30pm (doors open at 6:30pm)

As you will be well aware the recent power cuts in the DA postcode areas have caused much distress to many members of the public. Saint Martin’s Church is hosting a Public Forum to debate and discuss the power cuts and the way that EDF Networks have handled them.

Confirmed members of the panel will include David Evennett MP, Local Councillors, The Head of Bexley Council, Directors and Senior Management from EDF Networks plus other politicians and several members of the press.

Tea and coffee will be served afterwards.

For more details please phone The Rev’d. Gareth Bowen 01322 523344

Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

2009-06-21T10:45:00.001+01:00

The early Christians adopted a simple drawing of a boat with a cross for a mast as one of the symbols of the church. In an age of persecutions from the outside and controversy and conflict on the inside, in their experience, the emerging church must have seemed like a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Recalling the story of Jesus' calming of the sea, like those first disciples in the boat, the early Christians must have joined in their desperate prayer, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Little has changed in the intervening years. The winds of change and the waters of chaos continue to beat hard on the worldwide church and the people of faith. Christians are still being martyred in shocking numbers in tribal, ethnic, and religious wars around the world. At home, the church is fiercely divided around issues of authority, liturgy, sexuality, and cultural diversity, so that Synods and Conferences can start with feelings of foreboding as they look to the business before them with suspicious eyes, preparing to build alliances of power to bolster their respective sides. Today, the prayer of many in the church is: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Our private lives are not spared stress and storm as our individual little boats are tossed about by the waves of economic uncertainty and change, war, divorce, sickness, and death. Hardly a week goes by that we do not face the fearsome realities of these events, either impacting us personally or our neighbours or our friends in the church, and nightly the troublesome images of television news intrude into our homes from the larger world. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

In today's Gospel, our Lord calms the wind and the waves and says to the tense disciples, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" He surely intended the link between faith and fear. The opposite of faith is not doubt or unbelief; those tend to be doctrinal differences. No, the opposite of faith more often as not is fear. We fear the unknown. We fear the undiagnosed lump in the breast, or the persistent cough. We fear infections or, Swine Flu. We fear losing control of our bodies and our health because of aging. We worry about how changes in politics, technology, or the economy will influence our jobs and the income from our savings and retirement funds. We fear people who are different to us, that is why the BNP has managed to get 2 seats in the European Parliament, fear. Fear is like waves ever seeking to knock us off our footing -- our faith footing.

The story that follows, one of faith in a potentially fearful situation, was told by a Church minister. He told of his days as a Navy submariner during World War II. "We would often come under depth charge attack," he said. "The other sailors would be trembling with fear, while I just leaned back and read a book. One of them asked how I could be so calm. I explained to him that in my childhood I had very little supervision from my parents, so I spent many hours each day at the beach. Sometimes a huge breaking wave would catch me by surprise and drag me under the water, rolling me in the sand. But I learned when I would just relax thousands of air bubbles like the fingers of God would catch me up and lift me to the surface. Now, whenever I find myself in trouble, I just relax and wait for the fingers of God to reach under me and lift me up."

Faith is a stance toward life. According to psychologist Erik Erikson, faith is a confidence that is typically acquired very early in life when a child learns to expect his or her environment and the people in it to be reliable and trustworthy. During the Cold War, when we were all living with the possibility of nuclear annihilation, some researchers interviewed children to see how worried they were of nuclear war. What they discovered was that the children with the least amount of fear were those whose parents were active in nuclear disarmament efforts, or who regularly attended church, or who were deeply involved in the social issues of their communities. These parents did not feel hopeless in the face of tremendous challenges. They invested themselves in actions to change the world around them and remained optimistic that what they could contribute would make a difference. As a result, the attitudes of the parents infected the emotional and intellectual stance of their children. These children did not feel helpless. Rather, they saw that their parents and their church and the other involved citizens of their community maintained faith and were doing something toward resolving problems.

I once met a man who, several years ago, within a period of six months, lost his last surviving parent and grandparent, as well as a favourite aunt and uncle. It dawned on him at the time that all of the people in his life who loved him unconditionally were dead, and that he was out in the front of the line. About the same time, he was made redundant because of lack of funding. In those painful and challenging months, he wrote down his own definition of faith. I share it with you: Faith is the simple trust that life still can be good despite the fact that it is very painful and difficult. Out of the worst of experiences that he could have imagined, he found many little bubbles of love, joy, and hope in the form of friends, family, and church lifting him upward like the fingers of God. And the worst year of his life was followed by what he declares to have been one of the best years of his life.

"Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" In these rather impatient words directed to his disciples, our Lord brings into focus to the polarities of faith and fear. Faith is a stance and how we stand up to those things that would threaten us and how we manage our fears makes all the difference. In the midst of troubles, try reaching up your hand to God and saying, "Help!" And when you reach your hand out to others around you and say, "Help!" the fingers of God will never fail to reach down and lift you into new and reassuring experiences of God's grace. AMEN.

Trinity Sunday 2009

2009-06-07T11:45:00.001+01:00

As Christians we have a different and distinctive way of understanding God, one that sets us apart from everybody else. And even though the prayers, the creeds, and most of the symbols we use in worship are thoroughly Trinitarian, the bulk of our thinking about God is not.

So, since today is Trinity Sunday, the day when Curates traditionally preach (because the Trinity is such a big subject), we are called upon to pay special attention to the way God has been revealed in the Christian faith, we should consider the Trinity. Of course, God is a whole lot bigger than anything we can say or imagine, so all references to God will be at best metaphorical and incomplete. At the same time, this vision of the Trinity of God is true, and it matters, and it makes a difference.

There are two basic perspectives we can bring to the Trinity, to the doctrine that one God exists in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, the Trinity describes the way that we, as Christians, experience God. We know God as God is revealed in the person and life of Jesus -- and this revelation happens by and through the Holy Spirit. That is, the Trinity speaks to how we discover and experience who God is. This is the perspective usually offered when talking or preaching about the Trinity.

But there’s more. The doctrine of the Trinity also talks about who God is; it talks about what God is really like inside. This is where the mystics and the theologians sort of run together, and speak perhaps with more poetry and awe than precision. But let’s look for just a minute at what they say about God, borrowing some language from the third century.

Once upon a time, way before the beginning of everything -- not at the beginning, but before the beginning -- God the Father, who is love and who therefore must love, God the Father speaks his own name; He says his own word. And God the Son is begotten -- true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. The Son is the second person of the Trinity. Later, after the beginning, the Son will become incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and will be born as Jesus of Nazareth. The Son is what happens when the Father expresses Himself, when the Father reaches out in His love. Now, the Son loves the Father, for the Son is the Father’s word, the Father’s self. And the Father loves the Son, totally and without reservation, and so the Father and the Son are bound together in love.

This love, which binds together the Father and the Son, is also real. This love is God the Holy Spirit -- the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. And the Son and the Spirit are of the same substance, the same stuff, as the Father; that’s the only stuff there is. In this way the Godhead is complete. Three persons, each distinct, each real, each from before the beginning, each and all are one God. The one-ness of God is discovered precisely in the free act of love by which the three persons of the Trinity choose to give all to each other. This relationship is what makes God who God is. Put another way, God is what happens when the Father loves the Son in the Spirit.

St. Augustine says this about the Trinity: “Now, love is of someone who loves, and something is loved with love. So then there are three: the lover, the beloved, and the love.” This relationship of love, God the Holy Trinity, is the foundation, the bedrock of the universe; it is the heartbeat of all creation. Everything that is begins here, has its purpose and its meaning here, and will find its fulfilment here.

Such is the living centre of the Christian understanding of God. We insist that God is not a mean old man with a beard; that God is not some unconscious force out of Star Wars; and that God is not that peculiar little committee -- two guys and a dove -- that we often imagine. Instead, God exists, at His heart, as a relationship of love -- one God in three persons, the well-spring of existence.

That’s a quick look at the Trinity, at our alternative to the “mere monotheism”. It is a complex, dynamic, and exciting understanding of who God is and what God is like. Like any good theology, it has consequences, and it sets the stage for how we can live.

If you think about it for a minute, it’s no wonder, as Peter says, that the Church learned very early that they could tell whether they were truly entering the mystery of Christ by how well they were managing to love one another. Relationships of love are what God is all about.

And it is no wonder that the one new commandment that Jesus gives us is the commandment to love one another; which is the commandment to imitate Jesus and his life -- to imitate his life as a human being among us, and at the same time to imitate his life as the only begotten Son.

It is through this command, seen in the light of our notion of God as the Trinity, that we can begin to see what God really wants from us and what God really wants for us. God’s will for us, God’s desire for us, is, first of all and most of all, that we choose to share his life -- that we become more and more deeply a part of that conversation of love, that constant, obedient, and joyful relationship that is the very core of who God is.

After all, we are created in God’s image -- in the image of the Trinity. So, the more our lives are shaped and formed by the life of love we see in the person of Christ and in the life of God, the closer we get to our best and truest selves. The more we become who we really are.

This business of the Trinity is not just abstract theology, it is very immediate, and very personal. In some very important ways, it is about us -- about us here and now; and about us forever.

The heart of creation is love, and we are both created and invited to enter that love, and to share that love. The divine love is our source, our vision, and our final end. That is good news. It is good news about why we exist; and it is good news about our destiny. It is worth paying some attention to.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Amen.

Sermon for the Feast of The Ascension

2009-05-21T21:00:00.001+01:00

So much has happened. We have now walked through the story of His life, death, and resurrection. Now, with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, so much more is promised – but not yet fully given.

Jesus’ last words in The Gospel According to Matthew restate the promise, “Remember: I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Yet, before we receive this gift in its fullness, we will pass through a time when it feels as if we’ve been left to our own devices. What is there to be learned in that time?

In our collect for this feast day of the Ascension, we recite that “that when Christ returns in glory all nations may be gathered into the kingdom.”

We may have thought that Jesus came just for some of us, to redeem only a portion of God’s creation. Those who first followed Jesus and were blessed to be personally reconciled with the Risen Lord, face to face, and who returned to rejoin the fold – they probably believed that at first.

But in this magnificent mystery of Jesus’ Ascension, the glory shared so far with but a few radiates out to fill every corner of creation – including those places we may have presumed were irredeemable.

The Ascension is essentially a festival of the future. By it, we see that the life we receive by faith has a destiny, and that destiny includes far more than we have yet asked or imagined. We are called to move with God in the power of the Spirit as it is being given, to move outside our usual circle to seek and serve God’s presence and life in every corner of creation. This will be for us both a struggle and a delight.

Of course, we need to believe we share this calling and give ourselves to be lifted up by Christ and with Christ, allowing God to forgive and heal us, to send us forth empowered, just as Jesus was sent into the world. With Jesus, we are to be incarnate in daily life, to speak truth to power, to extend a healing touch to those from whom others would flee, and to be ready to take up the cross we are given daily. We are to follow Jesus, even through death, into new life.

Are we ready to embrace so full a calling for ourselves?

Jesus gave us what came to be called ‘the Great Commission’, “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

And that’s it... there is no back-up plan.

No back-up plan because the grace set free by the Resurrection, the Ascension, and ultimately the gift of the Holy Spirit is sufficient to affect God’s plan of salvation. The abiding question is whether and how we will choose to join in that work. Will we participate fully in the mending of creation, or will we choose to stand back and watch from a comfortable distance? And what a tragedy that would be, a choice to refuse the invitation to be fully alive.

It is a gift of love, this calling we have received to be as Jesus was and do as Jesus did, as members of Christ’s body. By baptism, we are embraced and challenged to receive the love God offers us in Jesus, and then to move out to share that love unconditionally.

We can choose not to move with God as the life of God radiates out to fill all of creation. We can choose to turn inward and cling to what we have previously recognized as signs of God’s presence among us. Or we can turn in our circles of faith and face outward, rejoicing to recognize and celebrate where God is present and active, even with many who will continue to serve God’s purpose while totally unaware of it.

There is a word in this for each of us personally. Most of us gravitate toward a limited circle of acquaintances, a comfort zone, to which we stay near. So much of our life energy goes into maintaining the borders of that comfort zone, and keeping close to that safe place. And that is a shame. For we know in our hearts that when fully alive, we will find ourselves stepping out of that circle again and again, to discover the Reign of God in ever new ways.

There is a word in this for us as a church and as congregations as well. In these most challenging and difficult times, with great change underway in our finances, our culture, and our global relationships, most will try to keep steering church life back to our personal comfort zones, to hold on dearly to church life as we’ve always known it. But the Risen and Ascended Lord, who is filling all things, calls us to step out of our comfort zone and discover new ways to celebrate life and love, and to share boldly in the work of reconciling the whole world to God.

All of creation is being filled with the life and healing power of God. When we remember this, it changes how we experience everything. For then we will have confidence that whatever we are called to endure now will lead us in God’s time and in God’s way to be raised and lifted up with Jesus to draw the whole world into deeper companionship with God and one another in Christ.

Amen.

To comment on this posting please email... fr.gareth@priest.com

Racist politics - why should Christians be concerned?

2009-05-15T12:54:00.004+01:00

This has been taken from a paper published by The Diocese of Southwark Social Responsibility & Regeneration Working Group and Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns Committee (MEACC). It is reproduced here with permission.

Racist politics - why should Christians be concerned?

Elections to the European Parliament 4 June 2009

“In the June 2009 elections to the European Parliament it is important that all Christians vote and vote in such a way as to ensure that parties with racist views are repudiated at the polls.”
The Rt Revd Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark

The British National Party has made gains in local elections in recent years. This paper seeks to help Christians ask important questions about racist political groups like the BNP and articulate a strong and informed response, based on the Christian belief that all people are created as one race, the human race.

Most Churches shy away from instructing people on how to vote but are agreed that the racist policies and philosophy of the British National Party are incompatible with Christian faith. Far right political groups, of which the British National Party is the prime example, often make “British-ness” a central motif in their policies, but many Christians believe there is something far more sinister underlying this emphasis.

The great majority of Christians believe such sentiments are directly opposed to the Christian view that all people are made in the image of God, and to the vision of a just community where people of all backgrounds live together in equality. The BNP protests that it does not promote racial hatred: its words often have the opposite effect.

The tactics of racist political groups
Churches opposed to this brand of politics have a double challenge: not only does the number of candidates from far-right parties fielded in local, regional and national elections continue to rise, but increasingly there are elected councillors representing those parties. The BNP will try to use their support in certain areas as a platform for winning a parliamentary or London Assembly seat or take control of a local council.

The BNP also has strong links with ‘Civil Liberty’, a lawyers’ association, and ‘Solidarity’, a trade union led by a long-time BNP activist. In local campaigns, frequent tactics include focusing on seemingly ‘race-neutral’ issues such as litter, using ‘religion’ as a shorthand for race, targeting predominantly white neighbourhoods that adjoin more mixed communities and generally exploiting dysfunctional local politics.

It has also been noted that the current focus on migration from now figures strongly in the campaigns of far-right parties, giving a new twist to the racist agenda. An emphasis reinforced by the problems of unemployment that are the result of the economic recession.

What do the Churches say?
Many denominations and other Christian leaders have expressed their concern about and their opposition to far-right political parties whose views many would consider to be racist.

In the Diocese of Southwark the Diocesan Synod passed the following statement at its meeting in November 2007 for the Greater London Assembly and Mayoral Elections 2008. The principles should be applied to the European elections.

“The Bishops and Synod of the Diocese of Southwark call upon the parishes and people of the diocese to take an active part in the election for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly in 2008. Church members are reminded of the value of casting their votes, not least because this would reduce the proportion of votes going to parties which promote racist policies incompatible with Christian discipleship. The parishes and people are urged to work with ecumenical partners to promote Christian teachings and values in all political dialogue and in particular;

To ensure that respect for all people is part of the contribution made by churches to local dialogue

To emphasise that respect for all people requires equality and justice for all people

To ensure that where churches make their buildings available for hustings meetings that any party advocating racist policies are not invited nor permitted to take part in the meeting

To ensure that no literature or promotional material from any political party which advocates racist policies is permitted in any church building nor placed on any church notice board

To co-operate with other groups and organisations working towards these goals.”

What are Christians doing?
BNP electoral success is not one-way traffic. In several places churches have joined forces with other local groups to reverse far-right gains in council elections. A briefing note released by the Church of England in February 2007 makes a number of suggestions. “Be aware of the beliefs and activities of parties that promote racism… Be aware of the way such parties mis-use and distort claims for the word ‘Christian’ in their campaigns and literature… Get advice from those with long experience in dealing with such parties… This is not an area where individuals should work on their own: experience indicates that locally based alliances and strategies are the most effective.”

Questions to wrestle with
Church leaders are unanimous in condemning political views that have racist overtones, but local clergy and members of congregations are in the front-line when it comes to dealing with community issues. The following are some of the questions that churches at a local level may wish to address in order to develop a response to far-right political parties both at election times and also where councillors with a racist agenda have been elected.

What is the level of support for racist political groups in your area and what position, if any, do they have on the local council?

What are the biblical and theological objections to racist political policies?

How is it possible to oppose racist politics without telling people how to vote?

How can Christians support a positive and inclusive vision rather than taking a negative stance against views of which they disapprove?

How should local clergy respond when they find themselves attending functions where candidates or elected members from racist parties may be present?

What local alliances can churches form to promote unity in the community and oppose racist politics?

What can we do to tackle the reasons why people vote BNP?

How can we encourage local church folk to be more engaged in local non-party and party political life?

How can we play a part in telling positive stories to counter the negative stories of the BNP?

How can education for racial justice be built into the year-round programme of a local church?

Useful web links
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/

www.ctbi.org.uk/CB/14

http://www.methodist.org.uk/ - contains background information, suggestions for action and resources for churches. Look for “political extremism” under the A-Z

www.methodist.org.uk/downloads/pi_extremistparties_guidelines_0407.doc

For further information:
Terry Drummond 020 8769 3256 terry.drummond@southwark.anglican.org
Lola Brown 020 7939 9418 lola.brown@southwark.anglican.org
With thanks to The Diocese of Southwark, CTBI Racial Justice Team and the Barking Episcopal Area.

Saint George's Day Sermon 2009

2009-04-23T16:53:00.003+01:00

2 Timothy 2.3-13

Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful –
for he cannot deny himself.

John 15.18-21

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.’

Sermon:-

Walking around lately I have noticed, as I'm sure you have too, by a huge number of flags on car aerials, Red cross on a white background. And in the window of a card shop I was encouraged to buy, and presumably send, a St George's Day card. All very odd. . Because I'm sure if you asked even a handful of English men and women when their patron saint's day was they wouldn't have a clue. But then the advertising industry are ever mindful of opportunities to sell us stuff, as we've seen with the commercialisation of Christmas, and now even Easter, though that in the popular mind I suspect that has more to do with chocolate than the Resurrection.

Compare this with St Patrick, St David, and St Andrew. I think such universal ignorance would not be matched in Ireland, Wales, or Scotland. We only have to think of the huge St Patrick's Day parades in New York, or the wearing of daffodils or leeks in the button hole on St David's day, to realise that England’s patron saint is, well, shall we say a little less popular.

Which is a shame. I suspect one of the reasons is that not much is known about him, and his links to England at least date only from the period after the Crusades. He is greatly venerated by the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and though demoted by the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1963 to optional veneration, you will be happy to know that he was reinstated in 2000. He is the patron saint of - wait for it - Aragon, Canada, Catalonia, China - that was a surprise -, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, and Serbia, so we can scarcely lay exclusive claim to him. He is also patron saint of many cities as diverse as Moscow, Beirut and Genoa, and the patron saint of everything from soldiers (with Saint Martin) and scouts to helping those suffering from leprosy and plague. He obviously has universal appeal. But what can he say to us today?

Well, as far as being patron saint of England, in our increasingly diverse society a Greek-speaking Christian Turk who lived in Palestine and joined the Roman army and was beheaded for refusing to persecute Christians, who as a group would have come from all over the Mediterranean and therefore contained many nationalities - well, as a patron saint of multi-cultural and multi-lingual England he seems peculiarly appropriate. He is not only representative of what it means to stand up for Christian beliefs, and pay the ultimate price, but also of the diversity and inclusiveness of the kind of Christianity which sees all fellow Christian men and women as brothers and sisters, wherever they hail from. Ironic considering the current neo-fascist connotation the flag of Saint George has gained through the BNP and the National Front still irony often comes out of ignorance!
Now cast your mind back to that long list of countries of which George is patron. How many of those would we feel safe in being a Christian? China has only recently relaxed its views on Christianity and the promotion of the Gospel, as has Russia; Serbia we all know about; and times are still tough for Christians in Palestine. Persecution of Christians continues all round the world. What we in England take for granted, toleration, is not a given in many, many parts of the world.

As we approach the Eucharist, it is as well for us to remind ourselves on St George's Day of what it means to be able to participate so freely in this country in this most intimate and personal encounter with our risen Lord. However sketchy are the precise details of George's life, what he stands for is in a sense far more important. Dragons and maidens and the rescuing of maidens from dragons has everything to do with myth but nothing to do with martyrdom. George refused to persecute Christians, and for that he lost his life. He joined a long line of martyrs which stretched behind him, and which stretch forward to us today, and to whose number many will be added in the future. He would not compromise, and he did what was right. Which is why, even though I count myself as Welsh, I for one am proud to call him the patron saint of England.

Amen

I Have Seen the Lord!

2009-04-12T23:08:00.002+01:00

I Have Seen the Lord!

The Light has burst through the darkness. The long night is over. The poet John Masefield cries with us,

Oh glory of the lighted mind.How dead I’d been, how dumb, how blind!

We have walked in sorrow since Thursday night. We were lost. Now light breaks forth and joy visits our minds. We are no longer lost. We blink at the Light, but we are suspicious of sudden joy. After so much sadness, after the loss of hope, joy is a surprise beyond imagining. We blink again, not believing the evidence of our eyes, thinking, We must be dreaming.

Imagine for a moment what it is to be a child like Dylan again. You look around for your parents and fear grips you. You start crying and someone asks: Why are you weeping?

You answer: I am weeping because I have lost my mother and my father. I have lost my anchor. I have lost everything that held me firm on the earth. But there is your mother stretching out her hand to take yours as she says, Come with me, my child You are safe now. And then you hear your father saying, Do not be afraid.

This is what this sudden joy after so much sorrow feels like. Still we are not persuaded.
We had accepted the end. Now our eyes tell us that it was not the end, something else was happening. Is somebody interfering with our reality? We hear the cry, Don’t give me any false hopes! and recognize our own voice crying.

As we contemplate resurrection, different voices and answers come at us from all directions. They usually begin like this: “The scholars tell us …” for the current trend is to offer explanation and analysis. The sceptics agree: No one can return from death; no one has returned from death. What you see is a vision. The longing of the heart is so great that the mind sees what it wants to see. On and on come the explanations. “The scholars tell us …”

But here comes Mary of Magdala. Let us listen to her words on the resurrection; she was an eye-witness after all. We imagine her answers:

“This is what I too thought at first. That he was the gardener. That he was a vision. That my wounded, orphaned heart was making my eyes see what the heart longed for. But then I remembered that I had given up all hope. My tears were enough testament that I had accepted his death. My grief was as real as that dead body I had watched Joseph wrap in the clean linen. I had seen him being laid in the tomb. This, this is not what I expected. So don’t tell me it was a vision. Still, when I saw the empty tomb, everything inside me asked: Is it possible? Can it be possible?
“In the early morning stillness, a familiar, beloved voice calls my name and all doubts vanish. He knows my name as he knows me. I know his voice. I know that only he calls my name in this manner -- with agape, with knowledge, with assurance, as if calling me back from death, recalling me to life as he had done long ago when he dispelled the demons. ‘Mary!’ I turn to look at him and I cry out, ‘Rabbouni!’ Beloved teacher -- as I used to do. I know who he is. This is not a vision, this is my beloved teacher and friend. My saviour.”

And we who have also been called by name believe her. We may not know him as well as Mary knew him, but we are known by him. For the moment we respond exactly the way she did. We don’t want to lose him again because that will plunge us into darkness. And now that we have seen the light, we don’t want to be left in the dark, ever again. We join the psalmist as he asserts:
I shall not die but I shall live.He will swallow up death forever.

It is the most hopeful thought. We prostrate ourselves before him and grasp at his robe, at his feet, to keep him near us. Do we hear him chuckle? “Don’t hold on to me now. When I go to my Father, I will be available to all of you.”

Mary understands immediately. She trusts him after death as she did before his death. She runs to the other disciples. “I have seen the Lord.”

A wonderfully simple statement. “I have seen the Lord.” She doesn’t describe him, she doesn’t defend her sight of him, she doesn’t analyze her feelings. “I have seen the Lord, and this is what he said to me.”

Ah, if we could only learn to do the same. Peter did learn it. When he preached to a diverse group assembled by Cornelius, the heart of his message was this: “We are witnesses. . . [he appeared] to us who were chosen by God as witnesses and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” Maybe he was remembering Mary’s words to him on that first Easter morning: “I have seen the Lord.”

Paul also heard the same words and repeated them in his own way, crying out: “Have I not seen the Lord?” and then, after reciting a litany of appearances, he affirms: “Last of all, he appeared also to me.”

What about us? This morning we have listened again to the resurrection story. We have sung glorious affirmations of the Day of Resurrection. We will partake of Holy Communion and will affirm our faith. We will see Dylan be baptised. Let us pray the longing of our hearts. Let us ask to feel, to know the Presence. So we too can say with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.”

Amen.

Statement on the crisis in Israel/Palestine by the Bishop of Tonbridge

2009-01-02T22:41:00.000Z

Please find below a statement by the Bishop of Tonbridge regarding the crisis in Israel/Palestine. A copy of this is also available on the diocesan website at www.rochester.anglican.org

TO THE CLERGY AND THE PEOPLE OF THE DIOCESE OF ROCHESTER

Statement on the crisis in Israel/Palestine by the Bishop of Tonbridge

A few short weeks ago I visited the Holy Land with a group from the Diocese of Rochester. We were there to meet individuals and organisations working for peace and reconciliation in that place, including Bishop Suheil Dawani, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.

Last week, on Christmas Eve, the Bishop preached in the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem. “The world waits in eager expectation for people of goodwill, courage and vision to set aside personal agendas, to encourage a change of heart, to empower all people of faith to tear down the walls of cruelty, fear and hatred”, he said, in the presence of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayaad. He continued, “We cannot diminish or escape from the challenges before us which are very real and confront our people. Peace, a just durable peace, is rooted in the reconciling love of God for all the people of this land”.

In Gaza, just two days after the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the people there were subjected to heavy bombardment by Israeli armed forces. As I write, the military action continues. The roots of the conflict in the Holy Land are deep and complex and while recognising the suffering of all parties involved, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are paying a particularly high price. The immediate cause of the present crisis is that, for many months, rockets fired from Gaza have brought terror and disruption to the lives of many living in Israel. This is unacceptable. Similarly, the reaction against Gaza, which has claimed many innocent lives and injured many hundreds of others, is disproportionate and equally unacceptable.

I am reminded of an African saying that when the elephants fight, it is the grass which gets trampled and this has been the case in the present crisis. As well as killing and injuring many innocent civilians in Gaza, the most heavily populated area in the world, it has also seen a number of innocent civilians killed and injured in Israel.

At this time of Christmas and Epiphany, Christians throughout the world are looking to the Holy Land in a spirit of joy and thanksgiving for the events of 2000 years ago: the realities unfolding today are anything but a cause for joy and thanksgiving. Commentators reflect that the seriousness of the situation should not be underestimated. As Christians we should pray both urgently and fervently.

May I ask, then, for you to pray that the spirit of peace and justice may influence those who make decisions about war and peace in the Holy Land. I also encourage you to pray for the casualties of war and for those who grieve for loved ones, as well as for those working hard to bring humanitarian and medical aid to those suffering in the war zone. Will you remember especially the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, an Anglican hospital which has been serving the people of the area for over a century, as it struggles to bring healing and peace to all who come to its doors. Finally, do pray for all those in the Holy Land working for peace and reconciliation, that they may have the strength to continue their work in the middle of such daunting challenges.

May there be an immediate cease-fire so that the voices and actions of ‘people of goodwill, courage and vision’ prevail.

+Brian Tonbridge

1 January 2009

The Light is Coming - The First Sunday of Advent

2008-12-03T14:31:00.000Z

The central theme of Advent and especially to this first Sunday is a firm declaration to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light,” for as we read in Mark, “the Son of Man” is coming with “great power and glory.”

Let us be clear: the God depicted here is not a serene and docile deity. Isaiah calls upon a potent God who would “tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake.” And our actions in response to this coming should be no less robust.

At first look, we welcome such a dominating and mighty God to respond to our needs and concerns. Yet we who believe in a divine being from whom all things flow, also know that such a transcendent force can “bend history.” Put bluntly, if we are not prepared for God’s response to our prayers for the Creator’s presence, the appearance of the divine can be unsettling and threatening to our very lives and our very order. Such a forceful manifestation can bring about significant change. Our desire for the Lord’s coming brings with it risk as well as reward.

There is a little-known fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm entitled “Der Mond,” or in English, “The Moon.” It is a short tale that was adapted by the German composer Carl Orff into an opera. It involves four young rowdy misfits from a land where there is no light – no sun in the day and no moon or stars at night. These are people who “walk in darkness.”

These lads travel to another land where they find the moon hanging on a tree. They steal the moon and bring it back to their land where they charge people money for their use of the moonlight. Eventually, as happens to all of us, they grow old and die. As each one dies, one quarter of the moon is cut away and buried with one of its owners until there is no more light. In the opera, Petrus, “who rules the sky,” descends to the dead and retrieves the four pieces of the moon and hangs it in the sky for the benefit of all.

Yes, this tale is a retelling of the age-old belief that God brings light to the people who, in the words of the prophet, “walk in darkness.” Yes, this is about the season of Advent, which alludes to an arrival, a beginning. It is best understood as a dawning, as in the early morn of a new day. Yes, like the four misfits, this is a time when we come upon and marvel in a new Light. Yes, like the four young men, we can hoard and hide the light. And yes, we, like Petrus in Carl Orff’s opera, are called to share this light with the world.

There is an intrinsic understanding that, no matter what, we welcome the coming of the Lord and that it can happen at any time. Indeed, during the course of our lives, God appears and reappears. At times, we are that very light to the world in what we say and what we do. When we are called to serve and share a warm and friendly smile, we are restored; God’s face shines through our own countenance, and we are saved.

The expectation is that we are God’s hands, God’s light on this earth. God calls us to shine a light, to be witnesses to his mercy and love; not only through our words, but also in our works. We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner. When we serve those in need – like the student who needs tutoring, the lonely homebound person who needs company, those who have lost their homes and possessions because of a hurricane, earthquake, flooding or fire, or those who mourn – we, as in the words of the spiritual, “rise and shine.” We are witnesses to the Lord’s coming – symbolically on Christmas Day, and for real today and all the tomorrows of our lives.

Those who first sang the words of the spiritual, shackled by the chains of slavery, looked with hope to a new day – to a brighter day when the darkness of this inhumane treatment would give way to the light of freedom. Indeed, in response to their oppression, they sang these words with faith and hope. And in this age when we encounter personal and communal challenges that test our mettle, we would do well to join these forebearers in our common history by not cursing the darkness but always seeking the light. Yes, this is the meaning of Advent.

Jesus says in the gospel reading, “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake.”

Amen.

Remembrance Sunday

2008-11-10T20:22:00.003Z

This is a true story about a man called Joseph Bowen, his brother William Bowen and their cousin The Rev'd. Oliver Bowen. William Bowen was my grandfather but this story is the same for millions of families through out Europe.

PONTYCYMMER RIFLEMAN KILLED IN ACTION

On Saturday last, Mrs Elizabeth Bowen, 51 Alexandra Road, Pontycymmer, received the sad official notification that her husband, Rifleman Joseph Bowen, 2nd Kings Royal Rifle Corps, was killed in action in France on 26 July. Rifleman Bowen joined the Army soon after the outbreak of war, and had seen 14 months' active service in France. Prior to enlistment he worked as a collier at the Blaengarw Colliery. He was highly respected throughout the valley, and we regret to state that he leaves a widow and three children to mourn his loss.

Glamorgan Gazette September 1st 1916

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has the following information...
Joseph Bowen died 25th July 1916, service number /5283, buried Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension, Plot 5, Row B, No 23.
There is no other information.

But the book: Men Who Died In The Great War shows that he was born in Amroth, enlisted in Bridgend, resided in Pontycymmer Glamorgan, and died of wounds.

These simple details hide the agonies he must have gone through and do not tell of the misery experienced by his family afterwards, especially his wife and three small children. All over Europe, the same high price was being paid by other ordinary families. For these thousands of families, there had always been hope that their men would return.

William Bowen of Pantygog, my grandfather received the following letter from The Rev'd. Oliver Bowen BA, Cardiff (late of Pontycymmer):-

My dear Cousin,
I have at last been able to fulfil my promise to visit Joe's grave. I have passed through many trials since I came out here, but this experience is quite unique. I failed to reach the cemetery before the darkness came on, and not knowing the number of the grave I had to search for it with the aid of an electric torch, but eventually I found it.
It would be difficult to describe my emotions as I stood by his grave in the dark. Many things came into my mind as I stood there for a while. I felt I was a lonely mourner representing his family far away, and I realised in some measure the sorrow which would have been theirs had they stood at the same spot.
When I thought of his mother, and wife and children especially, my tears mingled with the sacred soil that covered his mangled body. However, other thoughts passed through my mind. I recalled him as I saw him a month or so before he received the fatal wound, and I had the feeling that the grave is not his goal. He seemed to me to have survived that death, and to be vividly near to me in spirit.
It will be a consolation to you all to know that his, and all the other graves in the cemetery, are tidily and even beautifully kept, showing the humane work of sympathetic hearts and hands. The cross stands at the head of the grave bearing his name, number and regiment, and the date of his death in the Somme battle.
He is surrounded by a goodly company of heroes from all parts of the British Empire, and I wished it were possible for me to send a message of consolation to the loved ones of all whose bodies lie there after they had made the supreme sacrifice. I am sure it will have been some comfort to you all to know that I have stood by his grave.
I remembered that Joe volunteered at the call of duty, when he might have kept out of it altogether, and as I turned to come away I thought of the words, "Greater love hath no man than this that a man may lay down his life for his friends." When I return home on leave I will give you more detailed information. With love to Aunt and all the family,
Yours very affectionately,
Oliver.

Some 92 years after, the graveyard is still as well tended as it was then. It lies between the towns of Albert and Amiens along a long straight road that Roman army built to help communications with the different parts of their empire. As straight as the road is, Joseph Bowen must have felt every bump and jolt along it as he was taken from the field of battle to a medical station. His must have been a painful and protracted death: one that he could never have visualised; one thankfully that his immediate family could never know about.

How Legacies make a real difference to the Church

2008-11-03T15:58:00.002Z

How Legacies make a real difference to the Church

Over the centuries, generous Church members have left gifts to their local churches in their wills. These gifts have often been transformational in helping their parish in its mission and in continuing to play its part in the unfolding Christian story of our country.

One parish received a legacy of £37,000. They used it to launch an appeal to build a new church centre to provide much-needed community facilities, and eventually raised over £650,000. Very often legacies are able to provide the initial funding that will unlock the generosity of others, both individual donors and trust funders, using matched funding etc.

Another church used a legacy to employ a children's and youth worker to work with local youngsters. Having a dedicated worker made a real difference to their ministry with young people.

Yet a third parish needed a new heating system to replace the one that blew up. It would cost £18,000 but the parish had very little in reserve. Then a legacy of £20,000 was left to them, and as well as replacing the heating system, the church path and steps were also repaired.

All these legacies have provided an ongoing opportunity to develop parish mission, as well as creating a lasting memorial for those who gave them. Your legacy could make a difference.

50% of adults could cause their loved ones unnecessary expense and problems after their death.....

Research shows that over half the UK adult population have not written a will so far.

Yet without a will that has been properly witnessed, UK law requires the Courts to decide how to distribute an estate according to a fixed legal formula. This takes time, incurs cost and almost certainly differs from what you really wanted. Many other adults have wills that are out of date, containing old addresses, or not reflecting their current family situation.

For nearly 500 years the Church of England has encouraged people to make a will. When Archbishop Thomas Cranmer wrote the first English Prayer Book in the 16th Century, he reminded parishioners to keep their wills up-to-date whilst they were still in good health, for their own peace of mind as well as to help their executors.

You are recommended to review your will regularly as things do change over time :

Out of date wills (e.g. old addresses, missing beneficiaries) can cause unnecessary complications, distress and costs for the surviving family and friends.
As family situations change your wishes may change.
The things you have to dispose of may change.
A new will can be made at any time with a solicitor, and shouldn't cost much. It may be tempting to write a will yourself, but home made wills can be dangerous, and leave your loved ones with problems. A will made with a solicitor or will writer is far more reliable.

Preparing to Make a Will
Here are 5 steps you may find helpful when considering making, or reviewing your will :

STEP 1: Decide what wishes you want represented in your will
Our checklist helps you plan a visit to a solicitor, by taking you through a range of topics including :
What you own.
How you want to leave it.
Who will carry out your will?
Guardians for children.
Charitable & Church gifts.

STEP 2: Choose a solicitor or will writer:
Decide which professional adviser you will use. Chose a solicitor or other professional and contact them to make an appointment. Many solicitors will offer a fixed price for straightforward wills. If you need help finding an adviser, the websites of both the Law Society or Society of Trust and Estate Professionals (STEP) offer lists of members or simply ask a friend.

STEP 3: Meet your solicitor:
Visit your solicitor to write the will. Take the completed Checklist with you. Your solicitor will advise how best to word your Will, although if you are leaving a gift to the church, you may want to take with you the "Glossary and Technical Wording" leaflet that we can supply to you. If your estate is large or complex, your solicitor will also advise whether you might benefit from additional tax planning consultations. Once you are happy that your will reflects your wishes, you will need to sign it in the presence of two witnesses. Most solicitors will arrange this for you.

STEP 4: Letter of Instructions :
Consider also writing a non-binding letter of wishes to accompany the will. This can cover a wider range of wishes you might like to express regarding your funeral, and also bring together information your executors may need.

STEP 5: Keeping your Will safe:
Decide where you will store your Will. You can either keep your Will at home or some solicitors may offer to hold it safely for you. Don't forget to let your family and executors know where it is.

Keeping your Will up-to-date.
Over time things change. The arrival of children or grandchildren, changes in family circumstances, moving house, and many other factors may cause you to want to change the wishes you want expressed in your will. We recommend that you make a note to review your will every five years, e.g. in years with significant birthdays ending in a 5 or 0.

Common Excuses for not making a Will
A recent market research survey of over 2000 UK adults found that 65% of respondents did not have a will. Amongst the common excuses were :

“I’m too young to think about dying”
Unfortunately tragic accidents do happen. Do you really want everything you own to be distributed according to a fixed legal formula? It is particularly important to write or amend your will if you get married or start a new civil partnership, and to appoint potential guardians when you have children.

“I don’t have anything to leave”
But you probably do own a few treasured items that you would like to be passed on to specific relatives or friends. Without a will they will be sold (probably very cheaply) and any money used to pay legal costs or distributed according to an official formula.

“I don’t have the time”
Organising a will is straightforward and only takes a few hours of your time. It will save your family and friends much more time, trouble and expense after your death. It will also provide you with an opportunity to take stock of your life and possessions, and decide on future priorities.

“It’s too expensive to make a will”
Straightforward wills cost less than £100 from expert solicitors. At times you may find solicitors running special offers with reduced rates, or where you can make a donation to charity in place of their fee. If you are elderly and on a very low income you may be able to benefit from Legal Aid. Some charities subsidise wills for certain groups of people (e.g. those over 55).

“Thinking about dying makes me uncomfortable”
The old adage says “There are only two certainties in life – death and taxes!” If we care for those we love, we need to prepare for what is bound to happen at some unknown time in the future.

“I haven’t decided how my estate should be divided yet”
Your wishes (and your family/friends’ needs) will probably evolve over time as your circumstances change. But you can easily work out an appropriate sharing of your estate if you were unexpectedly to die in the next few months.
After that, review your will say every five years or when major life events happen (eg marriage/co-habitation, birth of a child or grandchild) and make simple adjustments as necessary.

“My partner will get it all anyway”
Not necessarily! Married spouses may not get everything, especially if there are children or the estate includes a property. Partners who are not legally married (or do not have a legally registered civil partnership) may get nothing.

"Everyone knows what I want to happen"
Without a written will that has been properly witnessed, the Courts will decide how any estate is to be distributed according to a fixed legal formula that almost certainly differs from what you really want.

Suggested Wording for your Solicitors
We recommend that you seek professional advice when drawing up a will, and the suggested wording below is intended to help your solicitor or professional advisor with specific points relating to the Church.

A legacy from your estate to Saint Martin's, Barnehurst might be simply expressed in a will as:

I give x% of my residuary estate (or £x for a fixed sum) free of all taxes to the Parochial Church Council of Saint Martin’s, Barnehurst in the diocese of Rochester and its successors for its general purposes, and I declare that the receipt of an officer of the Council shall be a sufficient discharge to my executors.

Notes
1. In the days of handwritten or typewritten wills, any amendments to an existing will were done by writing a separate codicil (amendment) document. In these days of word processors, most solicitors will simply produce a new up-to-date document to sign, as this is cheaper and more secure.

2. Legacies to the church should be made payable to the Parochial Church Council (PCC) as the legally accountable body, not to the Incumbent (the Vicar) and Churchwardens.

3. If the donor would prefer the PCC to use part of their legacy for some particular purpose in the church, they are advised to write a non-binding letter to their executors setting out their wishes, and store it with the will. The PCC will then consider their request, and will normally do their best to meet it in the light of the church's circumstances after their death.

4. PCCs are normaly legally excepted from having to register with the Charity Commission, so do not have a unique charity registration number. The current exception is granted under section 3(5) of the Charities Act 1993 by the Charities (Exception from Registration and Accounts) Regulations 1996 (no 180) as amended by The Charities (Exception from Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 (no 1598).

5. A solicitor may want to include phrases in a legacy to your church like "to be applied both as to capital and income"; or "for such purposes specified in the Parochial Church (Powers) Measure 1956 (Section 5) as are charitable". Solicitors may suggest other wordings of charitable legacies to suit particular personal circumstances and wishes.

7. Remember that witnesses to a will or codicil must be independent and cannot receive any benefit. So if a church is going to benefit from a legacy, the document should not be witnessed by any of the clergy or parish officers.

Tax-Efficient Giving

2008-10-26T12:49:00.002Z

PCCs like Saint Martin’s are legal charities and, as such, are exempt from income tax. The tax which has been paid on the giving of Church people can be recovered from the Inland Revenue. Church people should understand that this recovery of tax is not "stealing from the Government" but good stewardship of their resources. The government already takes 17.5% of most of our expenditure as we can’t claim VAT back as most business can.

Gift Aid - How does it work?
Gift Aid is surprisingly easy to use. Gift Aid can apply to donations of any amount, large or small, by cash, cheque, postal order, direct debit, standing order, debit or credit card or even in a foreign currency (including the Euro).
If you are a UK taxpayer, all you have to do is give the Church a simple Gift Aid declaration. This might involve completing a short form or just giving basic details to the Church over the phone.
What's more - one single Gift Aid declaration can apply to all past donations you have made (since April 2000) and to all future donations you make.
As a higher rate taxpayer looking to reclaim tax from your donation, all you have to do is remember to include details of your charitable gifts on your tax form. Also, from April 2003, higher rate taxpayers were able to reclaim tax relief from donations paid to charity both during the previous tax year and during the current tax year, that means the relief is paid that much quicker.
Donors who are liable to tax at the basic rate
If a donor wishes to make a regular net contribution of £100 to the Church, this is paid from their gross income of £128.21, on which they have to pay income tax. At a 22% basic rate of tax they pay £28.21 in tax, leaving £100 to be paid to the Church. The Church can then recover tax at the basic rate from the Inland Revenue and the gift is worth more to the Church than one that does not qualify for tax relief.

Donors who are liable to tax at the higher rate
Donors who are liable to tax at the higher rate (40%) will have paid £51.28 in tax. The Church can re-cover tax only at the basic rate but the higher rate relief can be claimed back by the donor - by entering the details on their Self Assessment tax return. A net gift of £100 to the Church then only costs the donor £76.93. The Church will hope that this reclaimed tax will be used to increase the donation at no extra cost.

Do you qualify?
Providing you pay as much tax (income and/or capital gains) as the Church will be entitled to reclaim on your donations in the same financial year, you are entitled to use Gift Aid. For example, if you wish to Gift Aid your charitable donations that total £100 in one year, you will need to have paid at least £28 in to the taxman in respect of that tax year.

Payroll Giving
Payroll Giving is a flexible scheme that enables you to make donations to the Church (or any charity) straight from your gross salary (before tax has been deducted). This means that you get immediate tax relief on the value of your donation. Therefore, for a basic rate taxpayer wanting to give a £10 donation, it will only cost £7.80, or just £6 for higher rate taxpayers.
Furthermore, many employers are encouraging the scheme by matching their employees' donations. You can give regularly in this way by authorising your employer to deduct a monthly amount, but Payroll Giving can also be applied to one-off donations.

How does it work?
Very easily. Your payments are deducted straight from your salary either as a regular monthly payment or as a once off gift. All you need to do is choose how much you want to give and to which charity or charities, tell your payroll department and they will do the rest.
If you are UK taxpayer, paid through PAYE, your company is almost certainly eligible to offer Payroll Giving (they may refer to the scheme using a specific brand name, such as Give As You Earn). Speak to your employer to clarify whether they offer a Payroll Giving scheme, and if so, your employer will be able to arrange for your payroll administrator to deduct charitable donations from your gross pay.

Payroll Giving - What if my company does not offer Payroll Giving?
If your employer, doesn't offer a Payroll Giving scheme, why don't you suggest it to them? It will be easier than they may think, and plenty of advice is available

Share Giving
Giving shares to the Church or charity is not a new idea, but since April 2000, there is a new tax incentive to make Share Giving even more attractive. Individuals who give shares to charity are entitled to claim back full tax relief against the value of those shares. So, a gift of shares worth £1,000 will only cost a higher rate taxpayer £600, or £780 for lower rate taxpayers and furthermore, no capital gains tax will apply.
There are many reasons why giving shares might appeal to you. You might hold windfall shares as a result of a privatisation or demutualisation that are effectively gathering dust, making little difference to you, but they could make a big difference to Saint Martin’s. Or, you may own small parcels of shares, perhaps as a result of an inheritance that you regard as a bit of a nuisance as they generate more paperwork than income. These could be turned into something of real value to others by donating these shares to us.

How does it work?
Tax relief is available to UK taxpayers donating shares and securities listed on the UK Stock Market, the Alternative Investment Market, and recognised stock exchanges overseas. It is also available for units in a UK unit trust, shares in a UK open-ended investment company (OEIC), and some similar foreign investments.

You can claim tax relief equal to the market value of the shares on the day you make the gift, together with any associated costs such as brokers' fees. Furthermore, capital gains tax (CGT) on any increase in the value of the shares since you bought them, will not apply.

Above all please consider moving to standing order for your regular giovingf and Gift Aid it.

If you have any questions please email me on gareth@bowen.to

Blessings,

Gareth

Giving and Christian Stewardship

2008-10-19T17:43:00.000+01:00

Those of us who have struggled with our weight know well that it is not simply a case of going on a diet for the odd week or two, but of re-educating ourselves in our eating habits that will really transform our situation and bring about a permanent improvement in our health.

A similar programme of re-education needs to be undertaken with regard to Christian Stewardship. Too many still regard it as a means of extricating a parish from its financial problems, as a "crash diet" for a week or two, and not as a way of life in response to God, a steady programme of growth in Christian discipleship.

Christian Stewardship is a response to God

The Christian understanding of Stewardship is derived from our understanding of the nature of the generosity of God.

God the Creator

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.

God the Saviour

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.

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 giving

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.

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

Unless our money gift has cost us something, it is not really a thanksgiving but more like a tip. And one of the tensions in our discipleship lies in whether we live our life and give to God the odd crumb, or whether we give to God first, and then manage the rest. If the Christian disciple does the first, he will never be satisfied: If he does the second, he will always have enough.

Forgive us our sins… as we forgive those who sin against us?

2008-09-30T17:50:00.000+01:00

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.

God so loved the world that God gave … Give us today our daily bread.

2008-09-21T14:42:00.004+01:00

Matthew 20:1-16

The scene in Matthew is becoming more and more familiar. People are waiting for work, waiting to be hired, waiting to earn a day’s wage – which in those days was just enough to feed one’s family. The issue then is one of daily bread. Just like manna in the Exodus narrative. Just as in the prayer Jesus gives us when we ask him how we should pray.

To be hired late in the day and get less than a day’s wages means belt-tightening for the entire family. Not to mention what it does to one’s sense of self-worth to be overlooked or passed by when the hiring is being done. To not be chosen to work creates anxiety.

The lesson here is one of extraordinary generosity. Everyone got a day’s wage. Everyone could go home and feed his or her family. Just as it was with manna, everyone got enough, no one got too much and nothing was left over. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

We say this every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. Does it ever occur to us just what it is we are praying and saying? How many of us have experienced living one day to the next?

Jesus is somehow trying to engineer a return to the wilderness sojourn – a return to manna season – a return to utter and radical dependence on God and God’s daily provisions. God makes it clear to Moses that you cannot gather the stuff up and save it for a rainy day. It goes sour on you. It spoils. It starts crawling with worms and moths. Take it one day at a time and all will be well.

So with Jesus, everyone is given a day’s provision, those who worked all day and those who worked just a few hours. Like any household with children, the cries of those hired early in the day are oh-so-familiar. “It isn’t fair!” they whine. “We were there first. We deserve more because we did more.” And we glibly reply, “Life isn’t fair.”

Or is it? What Jesus seems to be getting at is that what is fair and what is just is established by God, not by our standards of merit, qualifications, and grounds for staking a claim. What is being discussed, as usual, is God’s kingdom – life lived under the reign of God, a God who is generous to a fault, a God whose generosity offends us and baffles us.

Again, consider what it feels like to be hired late in the day with the anxiety of going home empty handed intensifying as each hour passes by. Is even labouring through the heat of the day any worse than having one’s hope of a meal for the family fade away as the sun begins to set in the western sky?

Even apart from the need for daily bread, work is an integral part of creation, and those denied the opportunity, whether for disability, age, or any other cause, must feel a deeper sense of despair and a keen lack of purpose and meaning in life. Work can be stressful, monotonous, and difficult, but to be out of work can be even worse.

I think of all the people who leave home each day, briefcase or tool box in hand, pretending to go to work long after they have been laid off. They cannot face telling their families that they no longer have a job. We are tempted to say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

The temptation is always to assume God serves our sense of what is fair, our sense of “justice.” The temptation is always to believe that somehow those who come to the vineyard first and early are more deserving and have stake to a higher claim on God’s generosity, love, and forgiveness. The temptation is to believe that we can really earn the right to more than bread that is given daily. An even worse temptation is to think that it is always too late to accept the Master’s invitation to work in God’s vineyard.

The good news is that God’s grace is so great and so surprising that it can provide enough no matter how late in the day it is – on the deathbed, in the jail cell, after repeated failures – because the recipient need not add anything to the grace, but simply receive it in order for it to do its life-sustaining work. Even as the sun sets on this life, it is not too late to accept God’s Amazing Grace.

And it is never too soon for the rest of us to begin to consider that heaven’s “enough,” heaven’s daily bread, and heaven’s daily wages make all earthly comparisons look meaningless and silly.

Jesus’ assurance that the last shall be first and the first shall be last is tied to manna season, and settling for bread and wages that are given daily. We are called to be those people who pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and really make an effort to live that out. To live life in God’s kingdom is a journey to return to manna season.

Jesus seems to be announcing a great reversal of places in the kingdom. The New Testament calls this “turning the world upside down.” People outside the church in the first centuries called Christians “those people who are turning the world upside down.”

So if 10 is Bill Gates or the Sultan of Brunei, and 1 is the poorest of the poor, it has been suggested that those who are really clever will live around number 5. That way, when it all turns upside down, they will feel the least amount of disruption in their lives.

Manna season: when everyone has enough, no one has too much. If you store it up, it sours on you. The world lived at number 5.

Sounds easy! But on a global and even national scale, most of us are living conservatively at number 9. Looked at from this perspective, the journey to number 5 looks like a long, long journey. But, says Jesus, it is the journey to life lived in its fullest!

One suspects this journey begins with being as generous to others as God is with us. After all, there must be some reason that God has created us in God’s own image. And as John 3:16 states, “God so loved the world that God gave … .”

God loves and God gives. We are created in God’s image. We are created to love and to give. And to be as surprisingly generous with others as God is with us.

Take Up Your Cross

2008-09-01T13:34:00.002+01:00

August 31, 2008

Matthew 16:21-28

Last Sunday’s gospel was really fun. Fun because Jesus affirmed them and even told Peter he was a rock on which he would build the church. Fun for us, because we can hear that story and also feel affirmed as part of that church that exists as the very body of Christ.

Today, though, it’s not so fun. Today we hear Jesus telling Peter and the disciples the sacrificial cost of what he must do to carry out God’s will for all people – and the sacrificial cost of what they must do as the body of Christ.

Jesus said, “You are right in saying I am the Messiah, but since I am, I must go up to Jerusalem where I will suffer much and be rejected by the religious leaders. There I will be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Typically, Peter took the initiative again, speaking for the disciples: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

In a sense Peter is saying, “We will protect you. We will see that you are accepted and not rejected. We will never let you die.” Peter did not want for his leader to experience pain, unpleasantness, suffering, rejection, death. This did not fit the disciples’ idea of what it meant for their leader to be the Messiah.

Hearing this, Jesus became so angry that he took Peter to task and said to him, “Get behind me Satan!” Frustrated, Jesus was saying, “Peter, once more you do not understand what is going on. You are the one I am most counting on to provide leadership when I am gone. I need for you, above all, to understand, and you still don't know what God truly intends for his Christ and for you.”

Though Peter replied, “Oh, no, Lord, not you,” perhaps he was also saying, “Oh, no, Lord, not me!” It is easy for us to imagine that Peter knew that Jesus’ rebuke meant the same thing for himself and that he did not want to experience pain, unpleasantness, rejection, suffering, death.

We can imagine that it was natural for Peter to feel this way because we also tend to say “Oh, no, Lord, not me!” We do not want to experience pain, unpleasantness, rejection, suffering, death.

Wouldn’t we rather forget what Jesus had to go through? Wouldn’t we rather remember Christmas and Easter and forget Ash Wednesday and Good Friday? Wouldn’t we rather focus only on the pleasant side of the story?

With God, though, it had to be the other way. For through his life, suffering, death on the cross, and resurrection, Jesus saves us by showing us the way to a life of God’s forgiveness, love, and grace – given with no conditions, no strings attached. God provides for us the chance to live a life with a full range of the possibilities potentially present in everyone.

Jesus saves us by his death, by overcoming once and for all the power of sin. Sin no longer can have a death grip over us because Christ makes it clear that God will forgive the sin that we confess and from which we repent in the sincere desire to renew our lives. And because Christ makes us realize that we are the most precious in creation – even worth dying for.

Christ’s death and resurrection give us the hope and purpose to go on in life despite the difficulties or tragedies that may befall us. Jesus laid this out to Peter in telling him, “Let me do what I must do.” He did this by calling all his followers together to tell them once more in the clearest possible terms what was at stake for the world and what he was calling them to do. To truly follow him, they had to follow him all the way to Jerusalem. They had to deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow him.

This is Christ’s call to us, as well. To deny ourselves is to put aside thoughts of our own needs, forgetting ourselves, so that we may remember and care for others. Taking up our crosses is to be ready to endure the worst that may happen to us for being true to God and the values of God.

The Good News of today’s gospel is that being a Christian is not always easy, but it is always life-giving and meaningful. The Good News of today’s gospel is that we have the resources to give up or take on whatever we must for the sake of God. We can make the necessary sacrifices – the offering and giving of ourselves so that God’s work may be done.

The Good News of today’s gospel is that we have the resources to take up our own crosses. We can give ourselves away, not hording our resources, knowing that God gave us life not to keep it but to spend for the sake of God and God’s children. We can take up our crosses to follow Jesus by giving our time, our talents, and our treasure for God’s uses.

The Good News of today’s gospel is being truly faithful to travelling our own hills of Calvary, following Jesus’ steps, doing our utmost to live in his example, striving everyday to do what he would do in our particular situation.

The Good News of today’s gospel is also what Jesus tells us about the result of all this. He asks us to consider the reality that “those who want to save their life will lose it.” What profit is there in having worldly riches but lose spiritual life? But he adds, “Those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

It does not get much plainer than that.

We may sacrifice honour and honesty for profit and self. We may sacrifice principle and Christian values for popularity. We may sacrifice the values of God for the riches of the world. We may do all these things, but today Jesus makes us consider what such behaviour will ultimately gain us. His assurance and his example make it clear that all it gains us in the end is a self-imposed exile from the greatest possible thing in life: God himself and God’s realm.

Unless we sacrifice ourselves to advance God’s purposes. Unless we seek to be one with Christ. Unless we first deny our selfishness and pick up the particular crosses God calls us to bear. Unless we follow Jesus on his journey, surrounded by God. Unless we join the faithful members of the body of Christ in heeding the Good News that is today’s gospel.

Who are you?

2008-07-20T14:30:00.000+01:00

Who are you? Who are your people? Who are your family? Where are you from?
These are questions we’re asked in many different ways every day.

We ask this type of question in so many different ways of just about everyone we meet, that it’s become habit. We assume the person we’re talking to has a family, a place to belong, to talk about, and we’re often taken aback or don’t know how to respond if a person says, “I don’t know, I was brought up in foster homes,” or “My family doesn’t care about me anymore, I’ve just got out of a mental health unit.”

If we’re caring people, we feel for people who find themselves adrift and alone for whatever reason, because that sense of belonging is so important to us as human beings.

You remember the old song, “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.” But if we’re honest, hasn’t each one of us has had a time in our lives when we felt completely alone – cut off even from family and friends? I know I have… in hospital.

What happens to us when all we see or feel is darkness? What happens to our sense of self if we feel that the darkness is our fault? What happens when it is our own fault – a bad decision, deliberate selfishness? There’s no one there to reach out to.

Have you ever felt that way? It’s really hard. What do we do? Some despair, others stay wrapped in anger, others hang in with hope. How do we choose?

Lots of questions. These questions may be overwhelming or they may be questions we’ve never really thought about, but the mere asking makes us think about some of our more difficult days.
Are they unanswerable questions? Not at all, because all of our readings today give us a reason to hope. All of our readings today give us ways to have relationships with others, even when we’re not family.

Being part of a family is what each reading today is all about: God’s family. Saint Paul gives a wonderful definition of how we belong to God’s family.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

There we have it! None of us ever need to fear being completely alone even if we don’t have an earthly family. We all are part of God’s family. We can cry “Abba!” We can be absolutely sure that, as the spirit of God is within every single one of us, we are brothers and sisters of Christ and heirs of God’s glory. Paul also reminds us that this family connection doesn’t break down when we suffer. Christ suffered – we suffer, but we are not left alone as he was not left alone.

When people get ill or we see that people’s suffering is not of their own doing, we often hear things said like, “God never gives you more than you can take” or “This suffering will make you a stronger person.”

But think about how some people react to suffering they think is brought on by a person’s bad choices. A homeless person asks for some change, a young man who’s just got out of jail can’t find a job – that’s their problem, isn’t it? We often hear some say, “It’s their own fault,” or “They’re lazy,” or “My taxes have been supporting him in jail, he doesn’t deserve any help.”

It’s hard to imagine a loving God living in us, calling us children, and yet deliberately giving us something to suffer in order to test us or make us stronger, and if we’re honest about it, the homeless and poor and those who have made bad choices are still children of God, our brothers and sisters, and we must be willing to love them and reach out as we’re able.

What Paul shares with us is that God is with every one of us through whatever happens in our human lives, whether we acknowledge God’s presence or not. God is present no matter what and waits for us to say yes to that presence. God is a very patient and loving God.

Now we might be thinking that this all sounds too easy, that we don’t have to worry about anything but knowing God’s spirit is within us and we’re all set. Of course, we know better.

Hard or easy, whatever our gift, whatever our own suffering may be, we can be sure we’re never alone. God’s promise is all through both the Old and New Testament.

God promises to be with us and keep us. God promises to stay with us until we are with God in eternity.

We are all very fortunate because when someone asks us about our family, we can all say, “My family is all God’s people and we have God’s promise that we will never be alone.”
Amen.

Loyalty... Part of the Scout Law

2008-07-13T12:16:00.002+01:00

In The United States of America, it's still common for school pupils to take the Pledge of Allegiance. This happens quite publicly and may even take place on a daily basis in some schools. Typically, it would involve the pupil facing the flag of the USA and with hand over heart reciting these words:

'I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'

We don’t do that in Britain but Scouts have Laws and Promises...

Scout Promise
On my honour, I promise that I will do my best,
To do my duty to God and to the Queen,
To help other people,
And to keep the Scout Law.

Scout Law
A Scout is to be trusted.
A Scout is loyal.
A Scout is friendly and considerate.
A Scout belongs to the worldwide family of Scouts.
A Scout has courage in all difficulties.
A Scout makes good use of time and is careful of possessions and property.
A Scout has self-respect and respect for others.

So Scouts are called to be loyal… to keep promises…

Do people keep their promises? You can probably remember times when you haven't. Promising something is easy − seeing it through is less easy. Is there any point in making promises these days? What kind of world would it be like if no one promised anyone anything?

And what about loyalty? Where are your loyalties? Are they to your country, your family, your community, your favourite football team? Or, are they really only to yourself? Perhaps we do need to look at ourselves and ask what has happened to loyalty to others beyond ourselves and our families and communities.

Perhaps our loyalty should not be to any particular way of life, but to life itself. Perhaps our loyalty should be to the idea that every person who shares this world with us deserves the chance to live a fulfilling, safe, happy and meaningful life, free from pain, poverty, prejudice and anything else which prevents them from living life to the full.

Christianity believes that life has a fundamental value and that we're all responsible for each other. It's everyone's job to make sure that everyone else's life is worth living.

Now that would be something worth pledging allegiance to.

Here is a pledge of allegiance, a pledge of loyalty which perhaps we could all share…

I pledge allegiance to a world where no one is hungry.
I pledge allegiance to a world where people are free.
I pledge allegiance to a world where truth reigns.
I pledge allegiance to a world where suffering is banished to the history books.
I pledge allegiance to a fair world, a world where everyone has opportunities − no matter what their race, gender or disability.
I pledge allegiance to a better world − a world where there is peace and justice.

Praying the Rosary

2008-06-27T14:13:00.000+01:00

I haven't Preached at Saint Martin's for a few weeks now. I have been making way for Fr. Keith, Julie, Elsie, our Reader and Ann Batchelor, our Reader in training.

I was sent a video by Fr. Simon Rundell a member of the Society of Catholic Priests about Praying the Rosary. You may find it helpful.

Blessings, Gareth.

Greater Awarness, Greater Stewardship

2008-06-01T23:52:00.000+01:00

Global warming has become a very real issue for everyone – natural disasters no longer happen in just undeveloped countries of the world; it is not just the homes and lives of the poor which are at risk any more, not just the weak whose futures are at stake.

During these last few years, many have begun to see the need for radical, far-reaching life changes, greater stewardship of the environment, greater awareness of justice issues. Many who never really recognised the plight of the poorest are now involved in actually taking steps to end poverty; many that had no reason or means of really seeing injustice began actually trying to understand life from the under-side up. Many people from developed countries, who would never before have noticed the true cost of their national pride and independence, are beginning to see and act upon a new understanding of global interdependence. Where before many of us never even heard the informed voices of warning, now we are actually trying to do whatever is needed to avert disaster.

Practical action is now as important as hearing words of warning, understanding our relationships as necessary as recognising our responsibilities. Ideas of who we are and what we therefore do are vitally connected.

Today’s Gospel reading provides us with a clear warning, not of God’s rejection and punishment should we make a mistake or do something wrong, but of our responsibilities to live out our discipleship with distinctive foundational principles. They are given to us by the one who died to bring us back, justified and redeemed, into relationship with God and with one another.

Discipleship is a question of being and doing, speaking and acting, integrating God’s life as seen in Jesus into our daily lives and relationships. When principles of that life are guided by love, righteousness, faithfulness and mercy, so must our lives be. For all ethical decisions and actions, our Christian discipleship will be revealed in what we choose to do, the importance we give to living in serious obedience to God and God’s Word, the principles others will see reflected in our lives.

It is never too late nor untimely for us or our world, however mature or immature we may consider ourselves to be as Christians and as Church, to be reminded that Jesus’ criteria for our discipleship are in our practical obedience, and in our personal relationships with him.

Trinity Sunday

2008-05-19T21:34:00.000+01:00

Many people today are hearing a sermon about the holy Trinity – understandably, as this is what we call “Trinity Sunday.” A lot of congregations are listening to some theological discourse on the inseparability of the three distinct persons of the Trinity – about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit being one God. And good priests and preachers all over the world are trying desperately to make sense of the creation story while encouraging us all to go forth and make disciples of all people.

Now, Biblical study, or philosophical discourse, and theological inquiry are all fine things. But we can miss the greater reality to which they point.

For instance, we Christians argue about whether the God we proclaim as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit really must be referred to only as what some jokingly call “two boys and a bird.” We proclaim sometimes-helpful insights, such as the notion of a God who exists in relationship – not alone or apart from everything and everybody else, but in conversation, both serving and being served, accountable. And we come across delights of Trinitarian theology over the ages, like the idea that the three persons of the Trinity loved each other so much that they became one. To Christians who have any sense of tradition, the doctrine of the Trinity is undeniably an integral part of our faith.

One God in three persons: we can debate and discuss and reason, trying to understand more of this mysterious paradox. Yet there is another strand of thought, one that follows from the likes of Justin Martyr, that seeker for the truth who died in about the year 167. Justin tells us that anyone who thinks God even can be named is “hopelessly insane.” And, just so you don’t think he’s hopelessly insane, consider this: no less venerable an authority than St. Augustine of Hippo in his own treatise on the Trinity, cautions against those who “allow themselves to be deceived through an unseasonable and misguided love of reason.”

So, instead of the usual treatise on the foreshadowing of the Trinity in the Old Testament – you know, those three men who appeared to Abraham under the oak at Mambre, and whom Abraham invited in and entertained in the plural, but went on to speak of as one, in the singular – instead of that kind of thing, let's focus on perception.

When we try to sort out things like the holy Trinity, when we try to establish and fix exactly what it means – we forget that our thoughts are but theories, mere projections of what we would like God to be. “No one has ever seen God,” the Apostle tells us – but that does not stop us from trying, does it? And in our determined search to understand the ineffable, to find out the truth, to know all things – we tend to fall prey to a spiritual kind of blindness. We miss seeing that which is right in front of us, the full presence of God.

There is not one meaning of the Trinity, or one means of describing that reality – but a great wealth of meaning. That assertion also comes from Augustine. And the doctrine of the Trinity, the very human idea of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and all our language about God – these are but symbols of a greater reality. Augustine reminds us that when we think about the Trinity, “we are aware that our thoughts are quite inadequate to their object, and incapable of grasping him as he is; even by men of the calibre of the apostle Paul, [God] can only be seen … ‘like a puzzling reflection in a mirror.’” Our thoughts and words mean nothing in themselves, if we cannot look through them, beyond them, and because of them – to something else.

That something else is a vision of peace and harmony that Jesus proclaimed is very near us. That something is a place of rest and refreshment the likes of which we have not dared to imagine. That something is a time of joyful reunion with all our departed loved ones – and indeed, all the company of heaven. A house with many mansions, a lamb that was slain and who reigns forever, a death unto eternal life.

This is the meaning of the holy Trinity: that there is a God, who made us and loves us and cares for us, who beckons us all home to live with him for ever, who calls us now to a new life of justice, freedom, truth, peace, and – above all – love. In our human state, we are subject to a chronic bout of blindness, in which we sometimes focus our attention elsewhere, and miss seeing the vision of heaven that God has placed right in front of us – each of us, and every day.

May God the holy and glorious Trinity grant that the scales may fall from our eyes, that we all may see what lies in front of us with the eyes of faith. Amen.

Water. John 4:5-42

2008-05-19T21:29:00.000+01:00

This sermon was preached on Sunday 24th February 2008 by Ann Batchelor who is a member of Saint Martin's and is training for the Ministry of Reader in the Church of England.

Water.

We can’t live without water.

In the children’s hymn Water of Life it tells us how important water is.

The first verse is easy to identify with. Anyone with a conservatory which has a glass or plastic roof can easily imagine the sound of the rain falling. We seem to have had more than our fair share of rain over the last year so the sound of rain for some produces the re-action O not more rain! However come the summer we will probably be told to save water in case of a drought.
The second verse could easily describe the work of water aid. A charity which is dedicated to help people escape the poverty and disease caused by living without safe water and sanitation.
The well shaft would be similar to that which the Samaritan would have been visiting when she met Jesus. That such a meeting would have taken place is astonishing. A Jewish man would not have allowed himself to be alone with a woman let alone talk to her. In doing so he would have laid himself open to the risk of impurity, the subject of gossip and being drawn into immorality. The woman was also a Samaritan and the Jews would have nothing to do with them. What was even more surprising was that Jesus asked her for a drink. A complete no no.

Finally the women had a bad character. Jesus was obviously aware of this when she told him she had no husband as he told her that she had had 5 and the man she was currently with was not her husband. This would have been the reason why she visited the well at that particular time of day. She was unlikely to meet anyone who knew her, her past or her immoral lifestyle. This also explains the disciples reaction when they returned.

Any encounter with Jesus has an element of surprise. The woman was eqully surprised when Jesus asked her for a drink. Jesus’ reply that if she knew who he was SHE would have asked him for a drink and he would have provided her with living water.

It was being offered living water which puzzled the woman. During Jesus time living water referred to running water in a stream or river. Not from a well or pond. It’s water that is fresh and clean rather than water that’s been left standing and getting stagnant.

Jesus makes it clear that the living water he is talking about is something quite different. He is talking about a signpost, a guide. The water he is offering will not only quench the thirst but will refresh you with new life which his coming to the world brings. A life that will change, with God’s help.

The woman doesn’t know exactly what Jesus is talking about but she wants to know more. The woman comes to realise that because she has heard Jesus herself she knows that he is indeed the saviour of the world. He provides the living water.

Nobody can live who hasn’t any water.
When the land is dry, nothing much grows.
Jesus gives us life, if we drink the living water
Sing it so that everybody knows.

This last verse explains how the Samaritan woman must have felt. Her life did not amount to much. She met Jesus and realised what he was offering. She gained a new life through him. She went away and told others. IT changed all areas of her life.

When we accept the living water we must be prepared that it will change every area of our lives.
Without Jesus in our lives we can not live life fully. We need to nurture this in ourselves and others. We don’t need to sing out loud but by our thoughts, words and actions we can show Gods love for us.

Pentecost - Happy Birthday Church!

2008-05-12T08:37:00.000+01:00

One of the last things Jesus said to his disciples was that they should wait in Jerusalem for his Spirit to come. So they waited, altogether, meeting in a large house, often eating together. But most of the time, they were waiting and praying.

I wonder what they thought they were waiting for? What would happen when the Spirit of Jesus would come?

They also spent most of the time hiding from the authorities who had persuaded Pilot, the Roman Governor, to allow they to kill Jesus. So whilst the disciples were thrilled that Jesus was alive again, they were still very scared of the religious authorities.

A number of days passed. How long were they to wait? Had they missed it?

There was a special and important feast in Jerusalem, called Pentecost. As well as being Harvest Festival, Pentecost was also a time when the Jewish people thanked God for giving them the Law (for example the ten commandments). It was exactly seven weeks after Passover, when Jesus had been killed. As at Passover, Jerusalem was packed with visitors.

The disciples began this special day by having a meeting to pray. They squeezed into this room in a house, about 120 of them!

As they were praying something strange and brilliant happened. If you had been there you would have said that a gale force wind suddenly blew through the house. Everybody noticed it. Everybody felt it. It swept through the room and everyone was .. well, a bit frightened and excited at the same time.

And then they saw what seemed like fire, but no one was frightened. It was like a fire .. but no one got burnt. Everyone of the disciples was touched in turn.

It was there. He was there. The Spirit of Jesus had arrived. They were so full of joy, not least because Jesus had kept his promise. And they began to sing and shout. Some danced. Some laughed. Many cried.

People passing the house stopped to look through the door.

"It's a party!" they said as they saw the disciples. "They look drunk to me!" said another observer. Peter staggered out of the house. He felt, well, on fire! He felt as thought his very heart would burst if he didn't tell someone there and then about God's gift. And as the other disciples spilled out the house, they too began to speak about God's great love.

And a great crowd gathered.

"They are drunk I tell you." grunted a passer by. "They can't be drunk," said another, "they are telling us about God!"

Peter found somewhere to stand where the great crowd could hear him.

"Everybody here, listen to me. Listen to me"

The crowd hushed and listened.

"We are not drunk! It is only 9 in the morning! But what you are seeing is what God promised. The prophet Joel, many years ago, told us that one day God's Spirit would be poured out on to men and woman everywhere. And this is it! Today is that day!"

The crowd listened even more intently.

"It is all because of Jesus, who was killed in this very city less than two months ago. Yes, he was killed, but God brought him back to life. We knew he was special, because of the wonderful things he did. But now we know who he really was. Who he really IS! Jesus is God's son.

The people were shocked. They could not believe that such a thing could have happened in Jerusalem. Some felt guilty, other ashamed.

"What shall we do?" they asked as they pushed forward to get closer to Peter.

"Say sorry to God, and believe that Jesus is God's son." And with that Peter and the other disciples went into the crowd. They prayed for people, talked to others. And once again, some were laughing, some crying, some even shouting God's praise as they were all touched by the very same spirit of God.

It was wonderful. It was the best ever Day of Pentecost. By the end of the day, at least 3000 people form that big crowd had joined the disciples. The very first church had just been born.

You will be my witnesses... to the ends of the earth!

2008-05-04T21:51:00.000+01:00

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

This verse sets the program for the Christian life; we who are followers of the Risen Christ are also called to be his witnesses wherever we go.

What’s that? You say that this commission was just for the apostles? If that is so, the witnessing would have come to an end centuries ago. Do you think that Peter and John and James ever heard of Barnehurst? Oh, but then perhaps it’s the job of the bishops, the successors of the apostles to be witnesses? Or perhaps the role of witness is meant for all of the ordained clergy?

Think again, the commission is for all us. “You will be my witnesses.” The commission is for all us who are called to take part in the royal priesthood of all believers. Just as Jesus said, “Follow me,” he also said, “Be my witnesses.” So we had better be about doing just that!

But how are we, living in the 21st century, in a place that the apostles never even heard of, to be witnesses to something that happened 2,000 years ago, in a place most of us have never seen? Sure, we’ve read the Bible; we know the story, but does that make us witnesses? Can we give evidence? We weren’t even there!

Let’s look more closely at what Jesus says, “you will be my witnesses.” Our testimony is about him, not just about what happened long ago and far away. We are to give evidence about what we ourselves have heard, seen, experienced. We can’t be witnesses unless we have met the Risen Christ—unless our lives have been transformed by him.

This is something that we, as Christians, probably do a lot more often than we know. St. Francis of Assisi said it well: “Proclaim the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” How many persons in your own life have been witnesses, silent or otherwise, to you?

Probably we don’t think of ourselves in that way. Nevertheless, if the Lord Jesus calls us to be witnesses, we’d better not think of this as something optional. But what we do? How can we get started? It would appear that two things are necessary.

First of all, of course, we can do nothing through our own power. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” Jesus said. As we await the glorious feast of Pentecost next Sunday, let us pray earnestly for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all of us, both corporately and individually.

The second thing that we must do is spoken of in Acts: “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer,” The communal prayer and harmony reflected in the stories from the Acts of the Apostles should serve as a model for our own church community. Any disunity in the Body of Christ will always be an obstacle to the effectiveness of the witness we bear. As the Lord Jesus prayed on the night before he died that we might all be one, so we must pray and act as one.

In the Baptismal Service say, “God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness
and has given us a place with the saints in light. You have received the light of Christ;
walk in this light all the days of your life. Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.” We must be wholehearted in this commitment, in order to be his witnesses.

Let us pray: May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to himself; may the power of the Lord Jesus strengthen us is his service; may the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our souls, and may we be his witnesses wherever we may be. Amen.

The Annunciation

2008-03-31T22:15:00.000+01:00

The feast of the Annunciation marks the visit of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, during which he told her that she would be the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is celebrated on 25 March most years, how ever this year it is transferred to 31 March.

More importantly, since it occurs 9 months before the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day, the Annunciation marks the actual incarnation of Jesus Christ - the moment that Jesus was conceived and that the Son of God became the son of the Virgin.

The festival has been celebrated since the 5th century AD.

The festival celebrates two things:
God's action in entering the human world as Jesus in order to save humanity
Humanity's willing acceptance of God's action in Mary's freely given acceptance of the task of being the Mother of God

The Annunciation and the liturgy
The story of the Annunciation has produced three important liturgical texts, the Ave Maria, the Angelus, and the Magnificat.
The angel's greeting to Mary, which is traditionally translated as "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee," (in Latin Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum) is the opening of the Ave Maria, and a part of the Rosary prayers.
The Angelus consists of three Ave Marias, together with some additional material. It is said three times a day in some Churches.
The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) is the poem with which Mary responds to the Annunciation and celebrates the power of God.

Political implications of the Annunciation
Some feminist theologians find the story of the Assumption portrays women as unacceptably submissive and as colluding with the idea that "women's only claim to fame is the capacity to have babies." They interpret Mary's behaviour as demonstrating passive subordination to male power. Simone de Beauvoir wrote:
For the first time in human history the mother kneels before her son: she freely accepts her inferiority. This is the supreme masculine victory, consummated in the cult of the Virgin.
Other writers have a different interpretation. They don't see Mary as powerless before God, but instead as a woman who makes a free choice to accept God's task for her - a task she could have refused. Mary's acceptance of the role of servant is not, they teach, demeaning, and they point out that Jesus also regarded himself as a servant. And taking up the example of the disciples, they see Mary, through her act of faith, exercising her right to believe what she wants and to cooperate with God in his plan of salvation - a plan that he cannot carry out without her.
Other writers suggest that the story of the Annunciation emphasises the status of women, since in the Incarnation God enlists the help of a woman to create a child of vast importance, and gives men no part to play in this important work.
And in the Magnificat itself, Mary becomes the herald of Salvation, and takes Christianity into the spheres of politics and justice as the first spokesperson for the marginalised people who were the focus of Jesus, and are now the focus of Christians and the Church.

The Bible story of the Annunciation
The story is told in Luke's Gospel, 1: 26-38.
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you."
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

The Second Sunday of Easter

2008-03-31T22:11:00.000+01:00

Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

The journey to Easter is one filled with questioning and reconciliation as we follow the narrative that brings us to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. These stories provide many examples of what God would have us do and be through the living example of his son, Jesus. We even experience through Jesus the mystery of belief complete with its companions: questioning, doubt, and obedience.

The mystery and complexity of belief is woven throughout scripture. They are at the heart of what it means to be Christian, making the stories of mystery and belief essential for our own understanding of faith and challenging our ability to share that part of ourselves with everyone we encounter in obedience.

Aside from the miracle of creation, for which there were no witnesses, most of the stories in scripture invite us into believing through the relationships of others. Take for example the mystery shrouding Mary’s conception or the miracle for Elizabeth both as she recognizes the child Mary bears to be Jesus and as her own unborn child leaps – already going ahead, announcing Jesus. Or consider the miracle of Lazarus or the widow’s child being raised up from death. Or the healing of the lepers, the blind, or people otherwise afflicted. Or the faith of the Syrophoenician woman that her child could be healed if only Jesus would acknowledge her. Or the Samaritan woman at the well whose only task was to draw water but gained new life instead.

All of these are fine examples of what we might want to explain away with reasoning, but in reality they require our belief – a much greater task. Just ask Thomas, who, unlike the rest of the apostles, was not given the opportunity to see Jesus when he first appeared showing them his wounds and acknowledging their disbelief and wonder. Or ask the two apostles in the gospel of Mark who traveled on a road and ate with Jesus before they recognized their teacher. And what about “the disciple whom Jesus loved” who went into the tomb following Peter and saw and believed? Thomas had been known for so much more, but somehow all anyone remembers him for now is being the one who doubted.

What would people say about you? What do you need to “see” to believe? And do people you encounter know by your actions what you believe?

The gospel reading encourages us to be faithful and believe, to trust. There is a temptation then to say that doubting is bad and belief is good, but I would challenge that perspective. Certainly we encounter doubt every day in our lives. But the presence of trust allows us to process information so that even when we cannot see, we can believe. We seldom have unequivocal proof of anything. So how can we ever be certain?

Doubt and faith are not opposites. The opposite of faith in God is not doubt, but believing in something or someone else. The faith journey is filled with doubt, and maybe doubt needs to be present before belief or faith can be realized. Times of questioning can actually lead to deeper relationship with God and reveal new aspects of understanding what we believe. Periods of questioning open our minds to imagine infinite possibilities with God.

When left on our own, we cannot imagine how God would love us, let alone forgive us. Faced with the grandeur of the universe, we wonder at God’s concern over us as little specks in this diverse creative process. We doubt the usefulness of our gifts in a world where it seems there is so much to do. Our doubt becomes the barrier to the fullness of believing and faithfulness. It becomes the stumbling block rather than the passage to a better understanding of our faith.

But when we allow doubt to be a gift from God that opens us up to deeper levels of understanding and closer relationship to God and all God created, we appreciate that faith and doubt are our companions. They coexist, allowing us to see the many paradoxes of God in Christ: human and divine; with us and transcendent; dead and risen, present in the bread and wine. The Easter experience of resurrection challenges any box we might use to confine the God of infinite possibilities. The gospel uses Thomas to demonstrate that God cannot fit into any box and invites us into the imaginative and creative power of God still loose in the world.

Some 2000 years later, Christians all over the world believe, because we know and experience the realness of the stories of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It would certainly have been nice to have been there and known Jesus – to see. Today we are given ample opportunities to see the face of God all around us. We only need to believe, and then we will see.

Jesus calls those who do not need to see to believe “blessed.” And then he commissions us by saying, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He said this to the gathered disciples and then sent them into the world breathing the Holy Spirit upon them.

The First Letter of Peter reminds us, “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of souls.”

We are tempted to believe that these readings are about faith and doubt, but we must not forget the rest of the story – the commissioning. Blessed are we who believe without seeing and receive the Holy Spirit. Blessed are we who rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, sharing these gifts with everyone we encounter. Together with the apostles we are captured by God’s living presence, imagining the infinite possibilities in creating a world that believes even without seeing.

Our faith in Christ, and his resurrection allows us to live as witnesses to the rich diversity of creation as God continues to be present in all that is around us. We rejoice in receiving the power of the Holy Spirit, applying God’s abundant love in ways that bring the fullness of God’s glory, in the presence of the Kingdom, here and now, through our actions.

In this season of Easter let us all come together as companions in resurrection, approaching our doubts as an invitation on our faith journey to believe without seeing.

Easter Day

2008-03-23T12:58:00.001Z

We come together this Easter Day to celebrate. Christ is risen, and we affirm: "The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!" We know that this is a happy day, a day to put on our best clothes, a day to plan a wonderful meal, a day to come to church with the whole family, a day to sing glad hymns. But the people we encounter at the tomb in today's Gospel didn't know that. They weren't having springtime thoughts about flowers coming from the dead earth, or caterpillars turning into butterflies. The thought of eggshells cracking open for baby chicks, or of those prolific little bunnies as signs of new life, did not enter their minds. That's because they were still in the middle of the story.

Mary Magdalene was the first one at the tomb that Sunday morning, according to the Gospel. It was dark when she arrived. She didn't come to check and see if Jesus' body was still there. She came, we can only suppose, to grieve. Probably she wasn't sleeping well. After all, the whole world had come crashing down around her head. She had centred all her hope and trust and love in Jesus Christ, and now he had been cruelly executed. When she arrived at the tomb she found that the stone that sealed the tomb had been rolled away. Running to two of his friends, she said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."

Enter Peter and "the other disciple" into the story. (Most people think that this other disciple is John, since he is referred to as "the one whom Jesus loved.") Peter and John ran to the tomb. They saw the linens, and apparently had some notion about what had gone on, but all they did, at least in this Gospel (John), was go back home. We still don't know a great deal about what their thoughts were, except that John, at least, "saw and believed." Peter and John seem to have "cameo parts" in the story. It tells us much more about Mary Magdalene than about these two disciples.

After Peter and John had gone home, Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. She still thought that someone had taken away the body, and she didn't know where to find it. No wonder the angels asked, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She was asked the same question by Jesus, whom she at first took to be the gardener. She didn't recognize Jesus, the very one she was looking for, because her mind was fixed on finding a dead body. Not until Jesus spoke to her, called her by name, did she know him. At last she had found her Lord. She had come to the tomb with grief in her heart, but her weeping had been turned into joy.

And now here we are, nearly 2,000 years later. We come to church today to celebrate the Resurrection. And, yes, we are dressed up and we are singing those glad hymns, and very probably we will have a good lunch in a little while. But really, aren't we like Mary Magdalene in many ways? Don't we, too, carry around a lifetime of grief in our souls? Perhaps it is the loss of loved ones that causes us grief. Perhaps it is the frustrations and disappointments we have suffered in our lives. Perhaps it is the weight of our own sins, the bad choices we have made in our lives. Perhaps we bear the wounds of pain inflicted by others. Perhaps physical ailments weigh us down. Yes, we believe that Christ is risen. We know we have cause for great joy this Easter Day. But the grief is there, too. However, like Mary, we have a Friend who understands, a Friend who calls us by name. Today, as we celebrate the Resurrection, we can put down our grief at the feet of Jesus, and when he calls our name, we can answer, "Rabbouni! Teacher!"

And finally, look at what Mary did next. Following the Lord's command, she went to the disciples and said: "I have seen the Lord." And she told them everything that Jesus had said to her.

We who gather in this place also see the Lord today. Do we recognize him? We hear him call us by name. Jesus is made known to us as we read the Holy Scriptures, as we receive the Body and Blood, and as we enjoy the presence of our brothers and sisters. And, like Mary, we are called to share with others the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. At the end of this liturgy, we will be dismissed to go forth. Perhaps we need a special form of the dismissal today: "Go in peace and tell the world that you have seen the Lord. Alleluia! Alleluia!"

Ezekiel 37.1-14

2008-03-09T12:53:00.000Z

Many of us hearing today’s Old Testament reading from Ezekiel – that rich and vivid story about the valley of dry bones – instantly remember the words of a song learned in childhood. These words:

The toe bone connected to the foot bone,
The foot bone connected to the ankle bone,
The ankle bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the hip bone,
The hip bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the shoulder bone,
The shoulder bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone,

Less easy to recall, however, are the song’s opening words:

God called Ezekiel one morning,
“Go down and prophesy.”
Ezekiel taught the Zion the powers of God,
And the bones begin to rise.
We’re going to walk around with-a dry bones.
Why don’t you rise and hear the word of the Lord?

The words, of course, come from an old spiritual. There can be little wonder why it emerged out of the experience of African Americans in the southern United States. It welled up from the midst of a people trapped in that dark period of history when legalised slavery still prevailed – when whites stole the labour of captive Africans, who as slaves, mostly embraced the Christian religion of those who enslaved them.

It is easy to understand why those who had, against their wills, been removed to North America found in the stirring words of Ezekiel great cause for hope – easy to understand how they translated that imagery into a song that could help them walk as human beings in the cotton fields of oppression. They understood, like no others, the experience of Ezekiel’s people.

The Israelites of old were also a people enslaved by foreign masters. They had been forcibly removed from their native land into exile, far from their beloved home and accustomed ways, compelled to toil in the service of a conquering nation. Though alive, they felt like they were dead. They were a people without hope. Like a nation of dry bones, they cried out in their misery as all enslaved people must.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, we hear the prophet Ezekiel sharing in vivid detail how God carried him in a vision to a valley full of dry bones – bones symbolic of the rotted bodies of a subjugated people. Then, as the prophet watched in astonishment, the bones were covered with muscle and flesh, and once more encased in skin. They were alive again!

Then Ezekiel prophesied as God instructed him. He told the people of Israel, enslaved in exile, that this vision was God’s way of saying that their lives, all but dead from depression, distress and despair, would have breath put back in them and flesh and muscle returned to their bones. They would be a nation reborn. For those slaves of old, those Israelites separated from home and in bondage, Ezekiel’s vision gave new hope as they dreamed of a time when they would once again be free and whole and could return to their beloved Jerusalem.

There is little wonder why African American slaves embraced this story from the Old Testament as their own. And despite their misery, as they suffered cruel injustice, they gained the same hope as the ancient Israelites. They knew that God gave them a reason to live despite the fact that they were enslaved; a reason to live despite the fact that in spirit, emotion and self-esteem they were mere skeletons of the powerful men and women they had been in Africa; a reason to live despite how often they thought their fate was doomed; a reason to live despite how much they felt they were as good as dead.

Despite all this, their faith gave them the hope of hopes, empowering them to sing with joy, happiness, and trust – to sing a truth that they would indeed rise like the dry bones of Ezekiel’s forsaken valley.

But what is the lesson for those of us who live in a day when human slavery is considered unthinkably obscene? For us, not forced into exile or bound in chains, what can we learn?

Above all, we can recall, as our Lenten discipline reminds us, that we, too, are often subjugated by strong powers – the powers of evil – leaving us enslaved in sin: the sin of selfishness; the sin of neglecting those in need; the sin of lying, cheating, and stealing; the sin of greed and prejudice; the sin of ignoring God again and again.

Such spiritual enslavement turns us away from God’s ways and separates us from our Saviour. It leaves us in a land as desolate as Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones – spiritually dead, mere skeletons who have lost our religious muscle and skin of faith.

What hope is there for us who have erred and strayed from God’s way like lost sheep? The hope is that which Ezekiel envisioned. In our own barren valleys of the soul, we can follow them, gaining strength by realizing there is renewal. We can find new life for these dry bones of ours. We can find the will to move beyond spiritual despair and to embrace the hope that lies in a loving and forgiving God – a God who takes our pitiful spiritual skeletons and gives them flesh and muscle, who takes the spiritually dried-out bones of our faith and gives them life in all abundance.

The African slaves, brothers and sisters in Christ, reach out to us in this generation, from a terrible time in the past to take heart from the word of the prophet. They remind us that God treats us the same as those dry bones of Ezekiel, offering us rebirth, again, and again, and again. When we stumble, our Saviour is there, calling us out of the slavery we have created for ourselves into the light of love and forgiveness. They remind us that as we, through self examination and rising up to hear God’s word, find the Lenten valley of our sinful dry bones, we can, through repentance and the grace of God, go walking with lives restored.

Baptism at Saint Martin’s.

2008-02-21T20:26:00.000Z

Baptism marks the beginning of a journey with God which continues for the rest of our lives, the first step in response to God’s love. For all involved, particularly the candidates but also parents, godparents and sponsors, it is a joyful moment when we rejoice in what God has done for us in Christ, making serious promises and declaring the faith.

The wider community of the local church and friends welcome the new Christian, promising support and prayer for the future. Hearing and doing these things provides an opportunity to remember our own baptism and reflect on the progress made on that journey, which is now to be shared with this new member of the Church.

The service paints many vivid pictures of what happens on the Christian way. There is the sign of the cross, the badge of faith in the Christian journey, which reminds us of Christ’s death for us. Our ‘drowning’ in the water of baptism, where we believe we die to sin and are raised to new life, unites us to Christ’s dying and rising, a picture that can be brought home vividly by the way the baptism is administered. Water is also a sign of new life, as we are born again by water and the Spirit. This reminds us of Jesus’ baptism. And as a sign of that new life, there may be a lighted candle, a picture of the light of Christ conquering the darkness of evil. Everyone who is baptized walks in that light for the rest of their lives.

As you pray for the candidates, picture them with yourself and the whole Church throughout the ages, journeying into the fullness of God’s love.
Introduction to the Common Worship Baptism Rite

Jesus said, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’
John 10.10

In the first instance please either call The Vicar, The Rev'd. Gareth Bowen on 01322 - 523344 or 07775 - 674504 or call into the Parish Office on Saturdays between 10:00am and 11:00am. We will discuss the baptism service and I will give you an Application Form, please complete the Baptism Application form and return it to the Parish Office.

Saint Martin’s is an Inclusive Church, we are committed to ensuring that those who are excluded in society because of their poverty, different abilities, gender, ethnic origin or any other reason can play their full part in the Gospel of Jesus Christ's unconditional love.

Please ask your guests to ensure that mobile phones are switched off during the service and remind them that no flash photography is allowed in the church. Almost all our baptismal services take place during the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion, at 10:30 on Sunday morning. After the baptism part of the service we have our prayers of intercession and then the Peace. After sharing the Peace please return to your seats as the service continues with the Eucharist. We welcome people of all faiths, and of none, at Saint Martin’s; please respect the beliefs of the church and other people’s need for quiet in which to pray and reflect upon our Lord.

There is no charge for Baptism, but we are obliged to make a statutory charge of £12:00 for a Baptism Certificate. If this fee will cause hardship please talk to the Vicar, The Rev’d. Gareth Bowen.

It costs in excess of £65,000 each year to run Saint Martin’s, which is over £1,250:00 per week. If you would like to make an offering towards the work of the Church please do so and you and your guests may like to use the Gift Aid envelopes so that we can recoup, from the Government, the income-tax that you have paid at no extra cost to you.

We hope to see you at Saint Martin’s, many blessings,

Funerals & Bereavement

2008-02-21T20:22:00.000Z

"God's love and power extend over all creation. Every life, including our own, is precious to God. Christians have always believed that there is hope in death as in life, and that there is new life in Christ over death.

Even those who share such faith find that there is a real sense of loss at the death of a loved one. We will each have had our own experiences of their life and death, with different memories and different feelings of love, grief and respect. To acknowledge this at the beginning of the service should help us to use this occasion to express our faith and our feelings as we say farewell, to acknowledge our loss and our sorrow, and to reflect on our own mortality. Those who mourn need support and consolation. Our presence at the funeral is part of that continuing support."

- from the Common Worship Funeral Service.

Bereavement is enough for anyone to try to cope with without the pressures of organising a funeral. Registering the death can be difficult. Very often the coroner may have to be involved before the death can be registered. This happens when a doctor hasn't been able to ascertain the cause of death immediately.

You will need to contact a funeral director, who will be able to guide you through the organising of the funeral. It is important that you ask the funeral director any questions you might have, and share any thoughts. The funeral director is there to help you.

You can use the Staff Who's Who link below to contact a minister directly, or ask the funeral director to do so. We will liaise with the funeral director to make sure that you are fully supported, and plan a service that meets your needs, and the wishes of your loved one.

In our area, there are a number of possibilities for the funeral service. A service can be held in Saint Martin’s. A service can be held in a crematorium chapel. A service can be held at the graveside in a cemetery. A service in church may conclude with a trip to a cemetery or a crematorium. In this case it is possible to have the funeral in Saint Martin’s, and then to proceed to the crematorium for the committal.

After cremation, it is possible to bury the cremated remains (ashes) in a graveyard or garden of remembrance at a later date. The remains are normally placed in a wooden casket, and are buried in a simple ceremony lasting a few minutes. It is then possible to mark the place with an appropriate memorial.

The clergy from Saint Martin’s are available to pray with anyone who is dying (often with the anointing of oil and/or Holy Communion). Please call The Vicar, The Rev’d. Gareth Bowen, 24hrs a day if necessary, 01322 – 523344 or 07775 - 674504.

We also remember all those for whom we have performed funerals in an annual memorial service, and invite friends and family to join with us.

Lent 1 Parade Service

2008-02-21T20:10:00.000Z

GARETH... This week Christians observe Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Many of us know Shrove Tuesday better as Pancake Day. The Christian season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts for six weeks. In some parts of the world, Shrove Tuesday is known as 'Mardi Gras' and it is a great carnival time with parades, fancy dress and huge floats that process through the towns and villages. Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, has one of the most famous Mardi Gras parades.

JULIE... What does 'Shrove' mean? I always call it Pancake Day because we have pancakes at home then - though I like them, so why don't we have them the rest of the year? And what on earth is 'Mardi Gras'?

GARETH...I like pancakes too, but 'Shrove' comes from a word meaning 'to confess', so Shrove Tuesday means that on Shrove Tuesday you confess all your wrongdoing to God and, if you really mean it, your sins are forgiven. Then on Ash Wednesday you can go to church. In lots of churches they burn the palm crosses from the year before and when you go to church you get a smudge of ash on your forehead. It is like a badge of faith, showing that you are sharing Jesus's pain and temptations.
And 'Mardi Gras' means 'Fat Tuesday' in French, because it is the last day you can eat rich food before Lent, and all the fat in the house has to be got rid of in preparation. The day is just called different things in different parts of the world. Lent is a time when Christians traditionally give things up, read the Bible more, pray more regularly and look forward to Easter.

JULIE... It is not only about giving things up, it's also a time to prepare for Easter. When you do without things you like it can be hard. If you give up chocolates, you can be tempted to eat one - and sometimes give in. During Lent, Christians remember the time when Jesus went into the desert to think about what lay ahead for him. He ate very little and the Devil came to tempt him when he was weak.

GARETH... Jesus was then led away by the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil. For forty days and nights he fasted, and at the end of them he was famished. The devil approached him to tempt him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.' Jesus answered, 'Scripture says, "Man cannot live by bread alone; he lives on every word that God utters."' The devil then took him to the Holy City of Jerusalem and set him on the parapet, the highest point, of the Temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down; for Scripture says, "He will put his angels in charge of you, and they will support you in their arms, for fear you should strike your foot against a stone."' Jesus answered him, 'Scripture says again, "You are not to put the Lord your God to the test."' Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. 'All these,' he said, 'I will give you, if you will only fall down and do me homage.' But Jesus said, 'Begone, Satan! Scripture says, "You shall do homage to the Lord your God and worship him alone."' Then the devil left him; and the angels appeared and waited on him. (Matthew 4:1-11)
Jesus was in the desert for forty days. The number forty comes up a lot in the Bible. The Flood lasted forty days and forty nights; the Israelites followed Moses in the wilderness for forty years. The first King of Israel, Saul, was forty when he became king and David, the great King of Israel, ruled for forty years. There are lots more examples. Perhaps forty is a really important number for the Jewish people.

JULIE... Like Jesus in the desert, thinking about the future and showing his faith in God, many Christians do the same and prepare for Easter by thinking about how they can deepen their faith. A Confederate soldier wrote this prayer during the American Civil War. The Confederates were from the South, fighting against the North.

GARETH...
I asked for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do great things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for,
but everything that I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered;
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

You don't always get what you want or what you ask for but, for Christians, Lent is a time for faith and trust in God; a time when they look to share in Jesus's suffering and put temptation behind them.

JULIE... And if they have faith then, however hard life seems, there will be a silver lining. As I read this poem, let us reflect on the hard, difficult times we have had and how we have dealt with them. Then let us move on to think of a good time that still lifts our hearts when we think of it.

WHY CRY?

You know something wonderful
will always happen.
It always does.
Know what I mean?
Like how
you just opened the window
and the warm breeze
wrapped itself
around your neck.
It will always happen again.
It always does.

January 27, 2008 - Third Sunday After the Epiphany

2008-02-05T13:40:00.000Z

The Bible is full of beginnings; not only the universal one, when God speaks into existence the components of a magnificent cosmos, but other beginnings as well. Thus the human race begins with Adam and Eve, and begins again after the flood with Noah and his family. In old age, Abraham answers the invitation of God to go away from home and begin anew.

The Bible presents us with beginnings over and over again, until at the end a holy city comes down from heaven to earth, and its name is not Jerusalem, but New Jerusalem, for it is a place to begin, the start of what will be forever new.

Some of the beginnings in the Bible are known as call stories. A call story recounts how somebody was invited by God to begin something new and unexpected. God calls this person to begin, and not only to begin, but – and here's the hard part – to persist, to persist so that another beginning can take place.

One day Andrew and Simon, James and John get up when the sky is still dark, walk down to the sea, and hurl nets into the water, anticipating a catch of fish. It is a day like so many other days. Nothing special. These men have engaged in this same routine hundreds of times before. This is what they do, for they are fishermen.

Amid familiar water and nets and fresh fish, rough wood of boats, rhythmic motion of waves, in the midst of this familiarity, for these four men, a beginning takes place.

Jesus turns up at the waterside. Have they met him before, heard about him? It does not matter. Today, as he calls them, a beginning takes place. He glances out at these working men with their nets and their hard-won catch, and announces in a voice almost comic, the way men kid one another, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." The four hear this as a put-down, a dare, a challenge from this landlubber on the shore.

Like every other call story in the Bible, this one is an adventure. According to G. K. Chesterton, "An adventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose."

Other rabbis wait for disciples to come to them. This Rabbi Jesus goes out and finds his own. He looks, not among the likely candidates, the best and the brightest, but down at the docks, where he interrupts fishermen at their work.

An adventure is something that comes to us, that chooses us. Discipleship is the great adventure, for the one who comes to us and chooses us is great beyond all measure. We are taken away from predictable lives, plunged into adventure.

Woe to anyone who dilutes this adventure with dullness, who makes discipleship into something safe.

Happy are those for whom the adventure remains forever sharp, who find themselves always at a new beginning.

Are these four men – Andrew, Simon, James, and John – ready and equipped for the adventure that comes to them, that chooses them, this adventure of discipleship? Jesus at the waterside does not collect resumes; he does not check references. The personal histories of these four do not have the last word about their futures. Christ's call means a new beginning. He takes a wide-open risk by inviting them. They do the same in their response.

Subsequent events do not demonstrate that they are particularly fit for their call. Simon, who will come to be known as Peter, betrays Jesus in an even more boldfaced way than all the rest. James and John, nicknamed the Sons of Thunder, not the most agreeable pair to have around, indulge in dreams about their own enthronement, missing the point completely when Jesus announces that downward mobility is the path to his kingdom. Andrew rarely appears again on the radar. Maybe his flaw is playing it safe. Yet Jesus never withdraws his invitation to any of them to share in his adventure, and partners with Jesus is what they finally become.

The novelist James Baldwin once wrote, "Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it ... the end of safety." The call to discipleship of these four fishermen, the beginning their story represents, implies the breakup of their familiar world, the end of their safety.
They leave behind old securities: the waterside, the boat, the nets, those days of fishing that so resembled one another, and even old Zebedee, the father of James and John, standing astonished in the boat as his two sons suddenly walk away. The new beginning requires this. Disciples must walk away into the future. They may be afraid, but not so afraid that their faith does not lead them forward.

The Bible tells us of this beginning for the four fishermen. They are called out from their occupation about which they know a great deal, in order to fish for people, about which they claim no knowledge.

In the same way, our discipleship means a new beginning, one that appears before us again and again. We keep experiencing the end of safety so that we may participate in a new world. We find ourselves engaged in an adventure, for however strangely, however unjustifiably, Christ comes to us and chooses us, and sends us out to be the next new beginning in the world.

An Epiphany Moment?

2008-01-07T19:22:00.000Z

Sorry for not blogging as usual on Sunday afternoon but time got the better of me!

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Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

Celebrating the birth of Jesus is an incredible opportunity for all Christians to begin again – be born again – to a life of transformation, first of ourselves and then as instruments of transformation in the world. Our scripture readings today mark the feast of the Epiphany, a word that the Dictionary defines as “to show forth, manifest” and “the revealing of Jesus as Christ to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi” and also “a moment of sudden intuitive understanding; flash of insight.” The definition of “epiphany” is apparent in our readings today. We are invited through the feast and its meaning to understand what it means to be a Christian and what God seeks to reveal to us and through us.

Since the early third century, the Eastern Church celebrated the feast of the Epiphany honouring the baptism of Jesus. Together, the feasts of Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost brought together water and light as imagery representing new life. But during the fourth century, the Western church disassociated the baptism from the feast of the Epiphany, emphasizing instead the manifestation of the Good News to the Gentiles through the figure of the Magi. But the symbolism of light and baptism come to life as we consider our readings today along side the season of the year.

Only weeks ago we experienced the shortest day of the year, winter solstice; and now more light, more day comes with each new dawn. Considering that it is much more difficult to see even the most obvious things in the dark, this season invites us to travel toward the light so that we might see what it reveals. But it also compels us to bring all our gifts, no matter how humble, to honour Jesus and all that Jesus stands for in our lives and the world.

A star both announces and guides the wise men as they travel to be witnesses to the birth of Jesus. They bring to him gifts that represent the best of what they can give yet humbly pale in comparison to the great gift Jesus promises to be for the world. They logically seek their “king” first coming through Jerusalem. But as the story tells us, they are met with fear.

Their encounter with Herod illuminates how fear can prevent us from seeing what might bring us closer to God and living out our call to be followers of Jesus. Of course we want to know what might prevent us from our call, but our other readings, (and especially the Psalm,) guide our path for understanding.

Jesus as a light to the world put the spotlight on injustices suffered by the poor and needy. Jesus gave us the hope for peace in abundance and a life free of violence, oppression, poverty and injustice. The writer of the Psalm described it as “rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth.” The poetic nature of the words might seem almost dream-like, but they are very much a reality if we are living life as God intended.

The Psalm is reminiscent of Mission Goals adopted as a way to reconcile ourselves to God and to live out our mission in the Church. They include:

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Achieve universal primary education.
Promote gender equality and empower women.
Improve maternal health.
Reduce child mortality.
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
Ensure environmental sustainability.
Develop a global partnership for development.
Stop our teenagers being killed.

Isaiah calls us to “Arise, shine; for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. … Lift up your eyes and look around.” Indeed we are called to look around us, to be enlightened by what we see, and to offer all our gifts humbly honouring every part of creation. The Mission Goals highlight poverty as the root cause to all eight goals obvious to those who lift their eyes and look around. But Isaiah did not stop there. Isaiah demands that we rise up and shine so that God may come in glory.

Isaiah also said, “If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday … you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

Light is a symbol commonly used in ceremonies and liturgies to signify a light in God’s world. But it can only shine brightly through us and our actions. Light makes things more visible, and our scripture reading demands that we acknowledge the needs of the poor and come out from the dark places that represent complacency and false peace.

Rather than allowing fear to dampen our spirit or darken the day, we have an opportunity to see the light that is directing our path toward the promised kingdom, revealed to us when we see the face of Christ in each other. This new season in the church along with the season of the year on God’s earth is an invitation to be a light in the world.

As we live into these seasons and recall our baptismal covenant, may we arise and shine to see the glory of God possible and do what is needed, we must rise up and say enough is enough and contact our MPs, Councillors, the Police and say we will not stand for one more teenager being killed in our land. Lift up your eyes and look around you. We as a Church have the power to change things, let’s strive to make this land a safe place for our teenagers.

May they know us, as Christians, by our works. Amen.

Christmas Morning 2007

2007-12-25T11:11:00.000Z

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.

Midnight Mass Sermon 2007

2007-12-25T11:10:00.000Z

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.

Saint Martin's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

2007-12-17T17:53:00.001Z

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.

Who likes waiting…

2007-12-09T22:59:00.000Z

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".

Christ The King

2007-11-25T21:29:00.000Z

“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.

Remembrance Sunday

2007-11-11T08:56:00.000Z

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.

Bereavement Service 2007

2007-11-05T14:52:00.000Z

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.

Bible Sunday

2007-10-28T12:39:00.000Z

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.

“Festival of Christmas Music”

2007-10-25T19:53:00.000+01:00

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.

Organ Project!

2007-10-21T13:03:00.000+01:00

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).

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.

Harvest time is a time for remembering to give thanks:

2007-10-14T15:32:00.000+01:00

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:

• 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.

How much is enough?

2007-10-07T12:58:00.000+01:00

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.' "

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.

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

2007-09-23T13:14:00.000+01:00

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.

A question of authority

2007-09-09T15:05:00.000+01:00

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."

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.

Many Blessings,

Gareth

Christian Stewardship is a response to the Creed.

2007-09-07T23:41:00.000+01:00

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

2007-09-07T23:23:00.000+01:00

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,

Gareth

Come away to a deserted place

2007-09-07T23:08:00.000+01:00

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