Friends' Meeting House

Sermon for Christmas Eve Communion at Stebbing

2011-12-25T08:57:00.000Z

Well since last year’s Christmas Eve sermon arose from an American folk song I thought we should have something a little more English this year.

I first heard this song at the funeral of a friend of mine called Bill. He was a big fan of the Port Isaac fishermen, and his family chose the song because it fitted well his personality.

The thing is, if I’m honest, Bill had a bit of a downer on himself - he liked to think that God considered him as something only slightly higher up the food chain than a worm, a bit of a no hoper. Though he was a successful businessman several times over and had a loving family, he was content to think that God didn’t think much of him, and indeed that he deserved it.

If you know me you’ll be able to tell straight away that Bill and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye on this one!

And I chose to share Bill’s funeral song with you tonight, not because I think you’re all a bunch of no hopers jokers and rogues, because clearly you’re not.

Christmas is a time of hope – a time of thanksgiving, but the thing is, there may well be some others like Bill here tonight who think they’re no good, who think that God wouldn’t be interested in blessing them.

If that’s you, I have news for you, even from a song about doubt and adventure.

St Paul writes to Titus, “for the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people”

To all people – salvation is on offer to everybody, not to some self-selecting elite or exclusive clique.

So if ever you have felt left out by the church, if ever we have seemed more interested in ourselves than in the wider life of this village, I must apologize to you and ask your forgiveness. Church is not a club for perfect people, in fact it would more accurately be described as a bunch of no hopers jokers and rogues – but ones who have experienced God’s grace, and who know that even with all their failings they have significance and value in the eyes of God.

We all do, you see. We all have that significance because God doesn’t only love the church; he loves the whole world.

And this love is not the same as human love – we have to decide to love, even our family relationships can be strained by difficult circumstances, but God’s love is eternal and unchanging. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than he does, nor is there anything we can do actually to make God love us less than he does, because it is his very character to love – God is love.

So does it matter how we live then, if God loves us anyway? Last week the Prime Minister called for a return to traditional Christian values, as a way to fix the problems in our society. I guess I would cautiously welcome that statement, but would want to say that it is not Christian values in themselves that will fix anything. Paul writes to Titus that it is the grace of God that teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. I understand that to mean that we need again and again to experience God’s grace, that our lives may be transformed into the likeness of Christ. We do not achieve this in our own strength by obeying rules, but by allowing God to shape our lives, our attitudes and our behaviour. Only then will society truly be changed. Jesus (and St Paul actually) were all about grace, not law. Trying to stick to the rules did not get God’s people very far before Jesus came, and actually it hasn’t got them very far in the time since his first coming either.

You see the thing is, though I’ve already said I don’t want you to think I am deliberately comparing this congregation to a bunch of no hopers, jokers and rogues, actually even the most upright of us has fallen short of the glory of God- the ideal standard set by God for what human life should be.

If you miss a target by 1 mm or 1 mile, you’ve still missed it. The Bible’s way of explaining this is that we have all sinned, we have all done things that are wrong, and so none of us really are in a position to judge others whose moral behaviour when you see it on the news or in the papers may seem to be worse than ours.

And it does matter how we live because sin cuts us off from God. Our imperfections cannot stand in the presence of his perfection. It does matter how we live, but it also matters who we get to help us live.

And don’t forget, God’s love for us is eternal and unconditional. Just as we still love our children when they are naughty, God still loves the human race even in our wrongdoing. The first Christmas was part of his plan to rescue humanity.

And this is what He did. The fact that Jesus lived and walked on this earth is historically undeniable. There is more evidence of the existence of Jesus than there is of Julius Caesar. He was born in Bethlehem, lived a perfect life never sinning once. He loved & healed people, taught them about God and was then falsely accused and crucified by the Romans outside Jerusalem. He did all this willingly because He loved you so much that He wanted to save you. None of us can save ourselves from moral downfall, no matter how much the Prime Minister encourages us. Only God can do that. That’s why Jesus came. That’s what the first Christmas was for.

So what? You might be saying. God loves me, that’s fine thank you. Thing is, you have to make a decision. To benefit from the consequences of Christmas – and of Easter – we all need to choose the life God offers us. He is saying “Come”, but this is not the road to nowhere, it is the highway to heaven, and to truly find hope and purpose in life we must all declare our intention to take this journey with Jesus. A journey that leads not up a ladder to the stars, but to a new life in Christ, that lasts for eternity.

My friend Bill was able to accept the challenge to journey with Jesus before he died, but I don’t recommend waiting until the last minute.

There is a strange ambiguity in the line from that song “everybody knows that this reality’s not real”. For our lives today are as real as they can be – with all our struggles, joys and sorrows. I wouldn’t want to deny you the reality of what we live. Yet at the same time this world is not all there is. There is more to life, there is hope, a future, salvation, freedom and forgiveness – in the Kingdom of God, an alternate reality brought in by the coming of Jesus, which will be fully present when he returns.

So, in summary, the Christmas message is

God loves us all

We have all sinned

Jesus was born and died to save us from separation from God

And the question is, what will we do about it? Where will we get our hope from?

Stebbing Carol Service Sermon 2011

2011-12-18T21:36:00.000Z

So, what do you want for Christmas?

Let me start by saying that other department stores are available – borrowing their idea does not imply endorsement of that particular one.

Gifts you can’t wait to give.

All I really want to say tonight is that like that little boy, God has a gift for you that he can’t wait to give, that he longs to be able to share with you.

And in spite of appearances sometimes, like that little boy, God is more interested in giving to you than receiving from you or from me or from any of us.

It probably isn’t a gift you’ve asked for, though if you’ve heard about the Alpha course we ran this autumn you may have it on your list.

It isn’t anything you’ll need to unwrap, nor is there is a danger that you’ll want to take it back to the shop and exchange it for something else.

It isn’t embarrassing like those socks or that scarf or that hideous tie, and it won’t break after a week. Its batteries don’t run out – indeed it has its own eternal power source.

Money can’t buy this gift, as the Beatles sang many years ago, but as Michael Ball sang not quite so long ago, it does change everything.

That little lad in the John Lewis ad had been waiting impatiently for a few weeks to give his gift, but God has been waiting for the entire history of the universe to give you – yes you – a gift.

That little lad kept his gift a secret, hiding it away in the cupboard, but God made plain his gift to everyone, a long time ago.

The reason we give gifts at Christmas is to remind ourselves of the gift God gave us that first Christmas – the gift of his love, expressed in the coming to earth of his son born as a poor baby in a small village in the Middle East; Jesus, the Christ.

Money can’t buy love, but as we shall see, love changes everything.

The coming of Jesus was an amazing act of love – that the eternal God should stoop to become a mere human being. Yet the most amazing gift was yet to come, when Jesus died on the cross.

The cross, and the empty tomb of the resurrection are God’s way of saying “I have a gift for you”. In a way then, this gift has been on clear display under a metaphorical Christmas tree for 2000 years, waiting for us to notice it, and claim it as our own.

And many people have done just that. 2.3 billion people, that’s 33% of the population of the world are Christians today. And tomorrow there will be 80,000 more Christians, as across the world 80,000 people accept the gift that God longs to give, the gift of his love in Jesus Christ.

The compelling thing about that little lad in the advert is that we are set up by the music and pictures to think that he is waiting impatiently to receive gifts, not give them.

What makes it so moving – or creepy depending on which YouTube channel you watch, is that he confounds our expectations and walks past the gifts piled up for him to fetch and give a single special gift to his loved ones.

And some people here I am sure are thinking that God only wants to take from us, just wants to receive our worship, our money our time and so on. Yet as I have already said, God is more interested in giving than receiving, and that’s true all the time, not just at Christmas.

We give of those things willingly if we have received the gift God gives – the gift of his love, the gift of new life in Jesus Christ.

And how do we receive this gift, how do we get this eternal life, you may be inwardly asking.

It is by invitation only. That is, you have to invite the giver into your heart.

When we come before God and ask forgiveness for the things we have done wrong, and invite Jesus to enter our lives, to become a part of who we are, he comes willingly and gives freely of his love.

Now don’t get me wrong, God’s love is always there for everyone, but to really know that love we need to ask Jesus to give it to us. We can also ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus. What a gift that may turn out to be for some of you tonight.

One final thing though. That advert has a pleading refrain – “please please please let me get what I want …”

As much as God longs to give you that gift, he won’t badger you or beg or plead. Look at this picture – its called “The Light of the World” by Holman Hunt.

It depicts Jesus standing by a door, waiting to enter. The painter explained that this represents our hearts, our lives that Jesus longs to be part of. His critics said “but there is no handle on the door, how will he get in?” Hunt replied, “ the handle is on the inside.”

The handle is on the inside – Jesus can only enter our hearts if we open the door and let him in.

I started by asking you what you want for Christmas. I know what God wants – a relationship with you. And if that’s what you want too, your wish can come true tonight.

At the end of the service our trained prayer ministry team will be glad to help you ask for and receive the gift that God longs to give you, but for now, let us pray …

2011-10-09T15:00:00.000+01:00

I-dolatry? A sermon involving Steve Jobs

This sermon was preached at St Mary's Stebbing on 9th October 2011
The readings were Exodus 32, 1-14 and Matthew 22 1-14.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, whodied this week, said in 2005 “You’ve got to find what you love”. He meant interms of career choice, but I’m stealing his wisdom for us today as we look atwhat our priorities should be as Christians. This is not a re run of our “yourchurch needs you” thing from last month, though if you hesitated then you mightnot today!

You’ve got to find what you love. You’vegot to find things in life that will nourish strengthen stimulate and grow youto be the person God made you to be. You need to work it out. That sounds as ifI’ve gone all heretical and forgotten about grace, but our working out ofcourse will involve God, or at least it should.

When we read the narrative of the goldencalf, once again we are going to be likely to identify ourselves with Moses,who remained faithful and who intervened on behalf of Israel so that the Lordrelented. Yet I am convinced that every church today and down the ages has itsGolden Calf. We have a golden calf and we need to allow God to break it downand burn it up as Moses did with the original.

What is our Golden Calf? It could be manythings, but I think watching this video might help us see what we need to do toroot it out - by the way, ignore the captions, they are a bit distracting.

So what’s more important to us – rules, orlove? For 5 years I’ve been working towards a situation here where our churchis seen as inclusive and welcoming of all people of all ages and all socialgroups, and I know I am not alone in rejoicing at the fact that there has beena sea change. You only have to look at our Alpha course to see that the villagecommunity does not see itself as so separate from the church community anymore. At last more and more people are beginning to trust us, beginning torealize we are not that weird and that we are committed to the transformationof this community. But there are stillmore steps on this journey.

The thing is when the Israelites made thegolden calf they did it with the co-operation and direction of their actingleader Aaron. He was trying to keep the community focused on God – after thecalf and its altar are made he says “Tomorrow there will be a festival to theLord” – in his mind this is still Yahweh worship, not idolatry. That’s a hugelyimportant lesson for leaders – or potential leaders, in the importance ofauthority and of faithfulness to the truth, to God, to his Spirit and his Word.If we lose that, we don’t just lose direction for ourselves, but for the peoplewe lead.

Now, I’m not going to compare myself toMoses and I could point you to some Aaronesque leadership mistakes I have madein the distant and recent past, but preachers I feel work best when theyinclude themselves in the teaching – we, rather than you …

The consequences of the idolatry of theGolden Calf was a reduction in numbers of the people of Israel by about 3000,after Moses commanded the Levites to effectively cull the people. Our goldencalves, our over adherence to the way we do things, to the expectations we haveof what church is for, even our reliance on technology, all have the potentialto destroy this fellowship if we let them get in the way of the task that Godis calling us to – to reach out to the people of this community with the goodnews of the love of God. We are not a stiff necked, stubborn people, are we?

Now Alpha is the most significant way inwhich that has been done during my time here, but I am convinced there is moreto do. Alpha is not for everyone – in fact church was we do it today is not foreveryone.

We are unlikely in the short term to besetting up a skate park or a rock venue, but at least we are trying to expresschurch differently – in Feast and Soul Space, in YouthConnect and Scamps. Ifyou don’t get what is going on in those contexts don’t panic cos to be honestit probably means they are not designed for you. There is an argument that saysfresh expressions of church can be spoiled if too many established Christiansgo to them1 Perhaps we should be encouraging people to come with us if we do go– as happened on Sunday at Feast.

Worship can sometimes be a golden calf – asin the kind of church we like to go to. That tends to function more on anindividual basis, but it is true that we can make an idol out of worship itself– as addressed in the song “the heart of worship” by Matt Redman. As I willnever tire of saying, worship is not primarily supposed to entertain us, it issupposed to bless God, and in so doingwe are also uplifted and nourished then that’s great, but the primary focus ofour worship must be God, and not the quality of our playing or singing, thesnazziness of the visuals or the sound system or the lights.

Worship is not a consumer product to bebought and sold on iTunes, it comes from our hearts and goes to the heart ofGod. It may come as a surprise to you but God does not have a favourite form ofworship. He just longs for us to share in the celebration of his Kingdom.

And to bring our two readings together, thepresence of a golden calf, an idol, disrupting the spiritual life of a personor a church, is likely to be a reason why that person, that church, end upbeing cast in the role of the invited guests, who miss out on the weddingbanquet because their priorities are wrong and they put themselves first, notGod, not the Kingdom.

And those who are on the edge of church –who get married here, who come to a funeral here, who bring their children forbaptism, who are on Alpha, or who come to Soul Space, to Scamps or even some ofthe families who come to Feast, in my mind these are the ones – both good andbad please note – that the servants of the king go out and invite to thebanquet.

The sad thing is in the long view, many ofus started off there, as seekers, as people who were invited to church, to socialsto Christmas services and so on. We came to faith through the witness of theChristian community, but somehow we have become infected by what has beencalled churchianity, where the church – what we stand for, how we think peopleshould behave, how we want things to stay, all that has become the rules thatwe live by, replacing or strangling the relationship we should be living by – arelationship with God in Christ, a saving relationship.

Now to my mind the way to shake the burdenof that idol off our shoulders is to look outside the church – no one couldfail to be moved by the stuff Becky shared with us about Uganda, or the stuffwe hear from Ukraine, Romania and India – but just as we are blessed to hearthe testimony of those who come to faith, let us resolve to keep our faith asfresh and new as those people we hear about.

By engaging with those who do not yet knowJesus, we gain an understanding – or in my case a reminder, of what it is liketo live like that. Moses had to plead with God for the Israelites, and I’vespent a fait bit of time recently pleading with God for the people of thisChristian community and those whom he has chosen who are currently beyond it.

God is at work out there, and as we havebeen saying a fair amount recently, we need to look for what the Spirit isdoing, and join in. If that means we have to take risks then that’s fine, infact I’d say its more likely that we will coincide with the work of the kingdomif we are taking risks, and if it means we fail then that’s also OK as long aswe get back up and keep going – let’s not forget Apple sacked Steve Jobs in1980.

In the same speech in which Jobs said youhave to find what you love – which reminds me by the way, we should do thatbecause that’s what God did, that is the message of the parable of the lostsheep - in that same speech to StanfordUniversity graduating class in 2005, Jobs gave 2 other pieces of advice whichare relevant to our situation. He said, “Stay hungry, and stay foolish”.

If we let our spiritual hunger, our desireto know God more intimately, to get deeper into his word and to walk in stepwith his Spirit, if we let that subside, we risk the creation of a golden calf,the idol of static faith that thinks it has got there, thinks it has arrivedand got everything sorted. That’s when relationship with Jesus turns intorelationship with rules.

And if we never want to appear foolish, ifwe are always going to play safe and keep ourselves to ourselves, we won’t beable to take the risks necessary to reach out from our comfort zone into theworld we don’t know any more.

You’ve got to find what you love

Stay hungry

Stay foolish

For many are invited, but few are chosen.

Jesus loves Osama - now that's got your attention!

2011-05-08T14:22:00.000+01:00

Now that Lent is over I am back to using a script (just so that I can meet the challenge to deviate from it when prompted) I can post here the sermon from this morning. It will soon also be available in audio format at the St Mary's Stebbing website.

The readings were Acts 2, 36-41 and Luke 24 13-35

Luke 24 verse 14 & 15

“They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.”

Well this week there has certainly been a lot of stuff for us to talk about in the news, nationally and internationally. From the Royal Wedding to the death of Bin Laden to the elections on Thursday, opinions continue to be divided in homes, shops, pubs, newspapers and across the world via the internet.

“As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.”

I wonder, would our discussions of world and local events differ, if we remembered more frequently that Jesus is walking with us, and wanting to inform how we think and act in response to what we hear.

That’s exactly what he was doing on the road to Emmaus, bringing clarity and understanding, restoring hope and faith and ultimately revealing himself in the breaking of bread.

At Easter I usually teach on counter arguments to objections to the resurrection, and this year was no exception. It was therefore a slightly strange experience this week to be reading of a death, and the non-appearance of a body, leading to claims that the person wasn’t really dead.

Christian voices around the world are saying quite a variety of things about the death of Osama Bin Laden. Almost as soon as it was announced, the internet news media were flooded with various versions of a quotation from a 1963 work by Martin Luther King, who said,

• "Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness:

only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

He of course was speaking of how the life and ministry of Jesus inspired his own life and ministry, yet those words cut to the heart the uber-patriotism of the chanting crowds at Ground Zero.

And since then both Bishop Tom Wright and Archbishop Rowan Williams have expressed disquiet about the raid on Abbottabad. I am sure they both did that prayerfully and after serious reflection. In other words, they allowed their relationship with Jesus to shape their thoughts. The Emmaus road experience, of having Christ at our side to make sense of things, can be a useful one these days, and not just for Archbishops!

So how do we tune in? How do we access that experience that Cleopas and his companion were blessed with?

Well there are three things we can say about Emmaus.

The first is, “they were talking” – the sharing of thoughts, emotions, worries hopes and disappointments in fellowship with our brothers and sisters, is a way we can learn how God works, how we are the body of Christ. It’s a big reason why Christianity is not am individual but a corporate faith. So an Emmaus principle is “talk to someone about it, and listen to others”

Related to that is “we had hoped” – the two were unafraid (because they didn’t know it was him) to tell Jesus all the things they had hoped for – even as they thought they had lost them. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, that we are the walking wounded, not a triumphant conquering force. The way of the cross is a way of suffering, not of human power and authority. So let us be unafraid to express our struggles, our doubts, our difficulties, for in so doing we may grow in faith and confidence – even if only because we realize “it’s not just me then”.

The second is “in all the Scriptures”. If we want to know how Jesus’ mindset was formed, we need only read the Old Testament. We need Jesus to guide us thought it too, we need New Testament coloured glasses to read the stories of genocide and invasion, otherwise we are liable to fall into the trap of those Ground Zero chanters again.

Jesus explained to Cleopas and his companion how God’s plan was laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures; they shared a knowledge of those scriptures but Jesus gave them new meaning. How often do we share things we have learnt or read in our Bible study with our friends or family? One of the legs upon which our fellowship stands is the Bible. Let us then be accountable to each other in reading it and sharing that experience.

Another of those legs is our tradition. “Then their eyes were opened”. This is the third resource that Emmaus gives us.

The Emmaus story is one of the reasons that I am such a sacramental person. Cleopas and his friend and family had their eyes opened to Jesus when he broke the bread. Now, we don’t see Jesus like that in communion, but I see here a strong encouragement from Christ to his church to break bread together, that we may continue to grow in faith, to tap again into the Emmaus road experience – a knowledge of Christ’s presence with us along the way.

And that final thought brings us to the Acts reading, about which I could go on at great length, but that’ll have to wait for another day. Suffice it to say that here also faith is expressed in what we now refer to as the sacrament of baptism – repent and be baptised. A key verse, which will bring us back to where we started, is verse 39 “the promise is for you and your children and all who are far off”.

I have 2 things to say about this as I conclude.

First, the promise is for you and your children. I don’t think that means “your children when they grow up” it means the children standing next to you now. That’s why I remain an advocate of the baptism of infants, and of the admission of believing children to communion, as well being committed to an all-age church.

Second, “all who are far off”. This is ambiguous to a degree – I’m sure there are missionaries who read this and were called “far off”, but it most powerfully speaks to me of the people who are far off from the gospel, from a knowledge of the love and saving power of God. It is easy to forget, to quote a church poster displayed across Australia in 2006, that Jesus Love Osama.

So let us allow the Emmaus experience to build our faith and our fellowship, that all who are far off may hear and respond to the message we declare.

Good Friday 2011 The Way of the Cross

2011-04-22T18:33:00.000+01:00

One of the blessings of the late Easter this year is that our annual Good Friday pilgrimage across the benefice was never going to be troubled by the horizontal snow and high winds, rain and hail that we had enjoyed on the same walk in previous (earlier) Holy Weeks.

This year the weather was hot; very hot. It was always a relief to reach the next church and enter, to feel the cool air suround us. We used the Common Worship Way of the Cross, with a dramatised passion narrative ably performed by members of all 4 churches. There is already talk of upping the ante a little next year with the addition of costumes and the possibility of setting Peter's denial in the White Hart in Stebbing High Street.

People of all ages from 5 to 75 (at least) took part, and although not every pilgrim walked the whole way, everyone was glad of the hot cross buns and drinks at the end of the journy in St Mary's, Lindsell

Nothing compares ...

2011-02-08T17:33:00.000Z

Once again the old steam driven tower pc I persist in using won't let me cut and paste into a Facebook note so I am replying to one I was tagged in here.
It is the "Favourite Music for Worship" meme, following hot on the heels of a previous one about your least favourite chorus, which I declined to do (as it would have taken all day to decide which one of many cringeworthy things I have sung over the years would get that title).

So here are the questions
1.What is your favourite piece of music for congregational singing? Why?

2.What is your favourite piece of music for performance by a group of specialist musicians within a liturgical context? This might be a worship band or a cathedral choir or just a very snazzy organist or something else entirely, but the point is that it is not congregational singing and it is live music in liturgy.

3.What is your favourite piece of music which makes you think about God to listen to outside of your place of worship? Why? This could be secular music.

4.What is one thing you like about the music at your usual place of worship? Have you told the musicians about this lately?

And these are my answers. Reading this? You're tagged!

1. My favourite piece of music for congregational singing would have to be Keith & Melody Green's "There is a Redeemer". It was a close run thing between this and "Thine be the Glory", but I went for it in the end because it was sung at my ordination, and also because it was one o f the first songs I learnt following my conversion in the mid 80's. The slight downside is that I usually end up thinking about Rory McGrath while singing it because he kind of looks like Keith Green...

2. I don't like the idea of performance in worship (justabout getting used to the concept of worship musicians having a "set list") but I am always very blessed by the worship team at St Mary's Church, Stebbing, when they play during the distribution at communion services. It doesn't really matter what they play!

3. The title of this post gives this one away. "Nothing Compares 2U by Prince (or more usually Sinead O'Connor). It's like a Psalm for me, a lament, though I know not all the lyrics really work. I'd love to do just the chorus in a Taize service one day.

4. See 2, and also, the organists in Lindsell and the Salings (who are both reading this via Facebook) never cease to bless me with their dedication and talent and desire to diversify.

What have I said Now?

2011-01-24T20:05:00.000Z

This Sunday we were hearing in church about the calling of the first disciples from Matthew's Gospel. I'd never really paused to think much before about what Zebedee [no giggling at the back] thought when his sons James and John got up from their nets and followed Jesus. In terms of the theology of vocation, it may be (as in this case) that the effects of that calling, that conviction, are positive for those who are called, those who come to that conviction, but less so for others around them, family, colleagues etc.
On Sunday morning I preached about calling from this story (Matthew 4, 12-23). In the sermon I uttered words I never expected to say again after I said them last when I was about 7:

I am Zebedee

(we were playing on a pogo stick ...)

You see I suspect that even if James and John and their father had already heard of or about or even from Jesus before this lakeside encounter, with the best will in the world, there must have been a little bit of a sarcastic "oh, well so long and thanks for all the fish then" from Zebedee. Perhaps he did have an appreciation of the validity of his sons' calling, perhaps not, but the stark fact is he was 2 crew members down. That can't have been easy to swallow.

I am Zebedee

because the diocese of Chelmsford lost 300 or more people over the weekend. They followed their own convictions, their own calling (the clergy among them would probably go with the latter) into the Ordinariate [?sp] - Pope Benedict's accommodation for Anglicans departing to Roman Catholicism. I am Zebedee even though I don't personally know any of these people, but we are a fair few crew members down as a result of their expression of their calling or conviction. My opinion on it is not relevant to the decision, but it has an effect on me because the family that has been torn apart is my family, the Anglican diocese of Chelmsford. Oh yeah, great timing too - a happy "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" to you too Holy Father ! [rant over]

They would say I'm sure (as James and John would say) "We have to go". They don't have to go, the Church wants them to stay and the diocese of Chelmsford is working hard to support them and others like them, but they want to go - it is their conviction, based on their opinion of the matter in hand (namely the making of women Bishops among other alleged 'departures from tradition'). I happen to disapgree with them enormously but I think it is a mistake to go.

Which brings me to the whole concept of the power of personal opinion. This weekend on Sky Sports Richard Keys and Andy Grey expressed personal opinons, which were broadcast unknown to them. The opinions (which I wont repeat here but if you live in a vacuum click the link) were widely condemned as unacceptable. Grey and Keys clearly hold convictions about women in sport which are a little old fashioned to put it politely. Had they been savvy enough to realised their mics were live I'm fairly sure they'd have been more discreet, but now we all know what they think, even though they have apologised.

I don't think those opinions are God-given. When it comes to the Ordinariate, that is a harder thing to say, as I do believe, even if I disagree, that many of those 300 or so souls genuinely did seek God's input on their decision to cross the Tiber. whether they found God's answer for anyone beyond their own selves is another question.

In all of this one thing we should remember (as Yoda might put it); forgiveness is not the same as saying it doesn't matter.

And finally, to bring two great films together in one pastiche, since I am married to a woman priest I can say ...

I am Zebedee and so's my wife

When your heart's not open

2011-01-05T15:53:00.000Z

For Christmas this year I received "The Ballad of John Clare" by Hugh Lupton. It is without doubt the best novel I've read since 1981 (When I read "To Kill a Mockingbird"). It is a fictionalised biography covering a year in the life of the poet John Clare. It is set in 1811, at the time when in the countryside between Peterborough and Northampton where Clare was born, the land was being enclosed, following earlier legislation. At the heart of the story is the enormous feeling of injustice felt by the poor ands the smallholders when their rights to graze stock or grow crops on common fields were taken away. Lupton quotes the 16th century verse that arose from the first protests against enclosure:

"The law locks up the man or woman,

Who steals the goose from off the common.

But leaves the greater villain loose,

Who steals the common from off the goose."

So this year marks 200 years since that part of countryside (along with a lot of the rest of it) was effectively privatised, having previouslyy been either held in common or at least in the hands of a greater number of individual owners and tenant farmers. Those whose livelihoods were removed fell into dire poverty. As the industrial revolution got underway, many moved north to the city to try to find work in mills and factories, leaving their families and their roots behind. It was a turning point for England.

There has been a lot of talk in the media and the blogosphere this week about another anniversary, the 400th birthday of the King James Bible (KJV) first published in 1611. This date was also a turning point, but for very different reasons.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say I think that 1811 is the more significant anniversary. Much has been made of the importance of the KJV in terms of its contribution to the English language - we all use phrases in our written and spoken language today that arose from the text of the KJV, there's no getting away from that. 1611 also marked a pause in the very turbulent place that was the English religious landscape of the 16th and 17th centuries. The KJV was for centuries a unifying text, to which the Christian Anglophone world looked. The British Empire took it with them in missionary endeavour, and even today the likes of Bono and Melvin Bragg wax lyrical about the beauty of its language.

Which is where the problem starts for me. The Bible wasn't written to sound nice, it wasn't meant to be a preserver of language or culture; it was meant to tell a story, the story of God, and to introduce us to a person - Jesus Christ. Now, no one Bible translation is perfect, indeed the modern science of translation has a lot to say about the impossibility of actually properly translating anything. The KJV, I feel, was a good tool for its day, but like the ancient farming tools that were overtaken by the seed drill and the subsequent mechanisation of farming, it has been superseded by better, more accurate, more scholarly and more comprehensible Bible translations, and we need to let it go. It may have been a thing of beauty, but the KJV also contains (to our ears) myriad words and expressions that are not only meaningless but also in some cases do not do justice to the original text. Just google "kjv inaccuracies" to get a flavour of this.

Now, I realise 1811 is a bit of a non-specific anniversary, but I still feel that 200 years since the end of widespread smallholder and common land farming is a more important anniversary to mark. The injustice of it led in some cases to open conflict between the landed gentry and the peasantry - a real live class war. For today's protester this intense and bitter disappointment and feeling of being crushed has come to the surface again. Our class structure and social and economic landscape was formed by the consequences of enclosure. It contributed at least as much as the Industrial revolution to the breakdown of family ties and rural roots. Never forget, the nuclear family didn't exist in the pre-industrial, unenclosed age. People lived much closer to their relatives in multi-generational groups.

1611 and 1811 do have something in common though. They have both caused us as a nation to idealise - the Bible and the countryside respectively. After enclosure, the corporate mindset of the rural population always looked back fondly upon the pre-industrialised farming villages. This formed the "chocolate box" image of thatched cottages and winding lanes that we still operate on today as an archetypal rural scene. It wasn't really like that though (or at least not for long), even if people have been trying to recreate rural life in that image ever since.( I'm often tempted to suggest middens and no running water should be included in planning permission in villages where the planners want to preserve the chocolate box!)

After its publication the KJV froze in time the religious language of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and froze alongside it a set of religious assumptions (behind the translated text, from the minds of the translators) many of which have long disappeared, especially with regard to gender, to race and to the created order. We haven't changed our theology of these things by abandoning biblical (read: KJV) truth, but by studying the original texts (i.e. Hebrew and Greek) and discovering (sometimes also though science) that ther are other ways of understanding. To look back at the KJV is to idealise language in the face of a snowballing development of newer words and forms of language (innit?) I hesitate to suggest, but I believe it to be true, that those who also look back to the KJV for an idealised "traditional" faith, are holding back the church in mission, strangling us like a dog on a choke chain. It wasn't ever really like that, and can never be again.

The landscape of rural England is changing again in this age. Eco-town, anyone? Maybe not, but something has to give in the quest for more and better housing (but that's another story). Chocolate box villages are only on chocolate boxes; everywhere else has Range Rovers and Sky dishes and youth crime just like anywhere else.

The landscape of religious England is also changing in this age. I don't know how its going to turn out, but it is by trusting a person (Jesus) rather than a book (the KJV) that I intend to ride the storm.

Languages are meant to evolve, not to stay the same. English will still be English even when the KJV is long forgotten (that's "when" not "if") . I'm not sure 'evolve' is the right term for Christianity, but I do believe our faith is meant to adapt to each new culture in which it finds itself. You wouldn't take the KJV to an undiscovered tribe in the Amazon now, so why make the descendants of the disenfranchised farmers of 1811 read it here?

Not properly researched, I know, but there you go!

Christmas Eve Midnight Communion sermon 2010, St Mary's Church, Stebbing

2010-12-26T20:09:00.000Z

This sermon was preceded by a video of "Nothing But a Child" by Steve Earle . What follows won't really makes much sense unless you click the link or at least google the lyrics.

Readings, though we had them, were fairly irrelevant (OK for purists the gospel was Matthew 1 18-25).

You know, they say Christmas is for the children, but we mustn’t forget that it started with a child too. That’s what that song is all about – and my apologies to the purists who say we shouldn’t involve the wise men until next week.

I love that line “once again we all can be children for a while”. Christmas evokes many childhood memories for us – good, and maybe bad too.

We are all someone’s child, and many of us have children and grandchildren of our own. In this the first Christmas service, just few hours before the earliest little risers will be asking to unwrap presents, let’s spend some time in reflection, thinking about children. As well as that song you’ve just listened to, I’d like to stimulate that reflection by reading you a poem.

This was written by an atheist friend of mine. The poem is called “waiting”, and this is what she told me about it.

“’Waiting’ is about the birth and subsequent illness of my third son. He was in hospital until he was 3 months old."

waiting

always on the stairs,

or in a lift, or on a path or street or hill that is

not there, but on the way, or

going to. where you see

nothing all around you

unread books on dark-shut trains,

silent taxis.

windowless rooms.

at christmas

in the church, uncomprehending

looking at your life

and seeing not the star, but just

the hole where it should be, while you wait for him

and wait,

then wonder,

when he's given, from so far away,

light,

for the one

who can't believe.

To be honest, it’s tempting to just leave it there, but if I do we’ll be singing O come all ye faithful too early, so I’d better continue.

You know there is only one thing about Christmas that I don’t like, and that’s having to sing “Away in a manger”. I know the children love it and are cute when they sing it in the nativity play, but in the middle 2 lines of the second verse that carol drifts into heresy – firstly because it claims Jesus didn’t cry. Now, he was a fully human child born on a cold night in in very rough conditions; he cried alright! Secondly, in saying Lord Jesus look down form the sky, “Away in a manger” perpetuates the myth that God is distant, disconnected from earth, and only interested in making sure we make it through the night. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The heart of the Christmas message is the word made flesh – God coming to live and breathe and speak and work among us. And the great thing is that even though Jesus did depart this earth, his presence is still with us by his Spirit, whom he sent to be our comforter and guide. the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of those who believe. He is God, but not distant.

Having said all that – and I hope it didn’t turn into a rant – I perhaps need to give “Away in a Manger” another chance because of the third verse. Remember, we are thinking about childhood tonight.

We’re thinking about a child who was long expected but whose arrival was not as expected. We’re thinking about the difficulty of birth, of the fragility of a new human life and perhaps about the impossibility of parenting sometimes, when they get a little older!

We started with “Nothing but a child could wash those tears away, and guide a weary world into the light of day”. Jesus’ life and death, but supremely his resurrection, are what achieved that- the dawning of a new day, a new life, eternal life for those who believe. He didn’t do it all as a child, but he had to come as a human baby to fully live a human life, to fully redeem human life.

So you see, childhood is truly the heart of Christmas; in Jesus, God came as a child to remind the world that we are all his children. Even the adults are children, and for more than just a while.

If you tonight are in the church, uncomprehending, looking at your life and seeing not the star, but just the hole where it should be, then take a look with me at the last verse of Away in a manger. These words sum it all up really, in terms of how you get all this to work.

Be near me Lord Jesus I ask thee to stay

close by me for ever and love me I pray

bless all the dear children in thy tender care

and fit us for heaven to live with thee there.

The key word is ask – if you ask Jesus to be with you then he will come into your life. You may not feel any different – though some of you will – but a simple invitation is all he is waiting for, to come into your life, your heart and soul, and claim it again for his own. The hole where the star should be is filled by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. If you still have any doubts about this remember that God wants to be with us, he longs to be with us – the Angel told Joseph that Mary’s baby would be called Emmanuel – that means God with us, and that is what he longs to be. He’s just waiting for us to ask him.

Remembering that we are all someone’s child, the last two lines of Away in a manger can be our prayer too – asking God to bless us, but also to make us ready for eternity.

And if you’re getting cynical and thinking this is just a one off in the spirit of Christmas, let me take you back to another line from that song. Now, the birth of any child is a special occasion, which can inspire us and change our lives. But the birth of the Child we celebrate tonight means that we all can have another chance allowed – forgiveness is what the cross we see there brings. Forgiveness and a new start.

Yet if you are still “the one who can’t believe” let me say I respect that position, but would want to challenge you with a final thought.

The validity of all this, of Christmas, of the gospel, of the church and Christianity, does not hinge on whether or not people believe it. In that sense our faith or lack of it has no impact. God’s amazing plan for the world, to save his children, doesn’t need our permission to be true, but Christ does need our permission to include us in the fruits of that plan

let us pray

'A life on every face

2010-11-24T18:07:00.000Z

Ekklesia, The Church Mouse, Michael Wenham and Cranmer's Curate are among many people blogging away at the moment around the subject of the Pete Broadbent Facebook debacle and the Bishop of London's subsequent [overre-]action in withdrawing Bishop Pete from public office.

I have emitted many deep sighs about this sorry affair over the last few days, and probably need to write this post just to get stuff out of my system (but I shall be careful not to rant (too much)).

I like Bishop Pete. We met at NEAC, and we were Facebook friends until I recently culled him along with a number of other "famous" people clogging up my wall (mostly because he goes on about Spurs all the time).

He has been good for the church and good for Spring Harvest for many years. He is an Open Evangelical like me, and so there have been very few things he has ever said in public that I have disagreed with. Until now.

If you read the church press or read Anglican blogs or news feeds you will be fully aware of the kind of mudslinging that goes on between conservatives and, well, everybody else really, around the topics of Women Bishops, homosexuality, Flying Bishops, and so on and so on. On the Internet in particular feathers can fly. Very rarely does anyone get disciplined for (say) slagging off the Bishop of Chelmsford or Rowan Williams on the Ugley Vicar or slagging off Reform on Fulcrum. People lick their wounds and retreat out of range until things flare up again, or they (like me) get sick of the circular arguments and stop posting.

But Bishop Pete's Facebook discussion has elicited a big can of worms being opened. The comments, which weren't even as public as some stuff one reads,( e.g. the comments on the Guardian's Comment is free every time Christianity gets a word in edgeways, which can make your blood boil) have been splashed around the world, and the chap has been withdrawn from public office - I guess that means he's just doing a desk job.

One one level I'm thinking "you wally, Pete" - I don't think he should have posted what he did. But on another level, I'm bearing in mind cases such as that of the Priest who blessed a homosexual couple - and who received (from the Bishop of London no less) a letter slapping him on the wrist and telling him not to do it again. And that was for doing something that we have all been specifically told no to do; like, not ever. To my mind that applies, under church discipline, even if you disagree with it. Why wasn't he asked to "withdraw from public office"? After all, the daily mail (and yes those lower case letters are deliberate) hardly approved!

OK, breathe now .....

The wider issue I suppose is, do we take seriously what we have to do and say to be a minister in the CofE? All those ordained have to swear an oath of allegiance to their Bishop and to the Queen. Bishop Pete must have done that - most recently at his consecration as a Bishop. Clearly he didn't mean it, as he is a declared Republican, but what is also clear is that being a Republican is not a bar to ministry in the Anglican church. Do the oaths mean anything then? Or are they just anotherr anachronism clogging up Ministry.

Don't get me wrong, I disagree with Bishop Pete about the Wedding and about the Royal family per se. I am just increasingly frustrated that both liberal and conservative words and actions go unpunished while leaving the church rather bruised and battered, and thus (actually, albeit indirectly) the Monarch under attack.

I can't see a way back for Bishop Pete under the current bishop of London. He was supposed to also be looking after the Stepney episcopal area during the vacancy there so that can't be much fun for them either.

I was going to call this post "Just remember there are two side to every story" from Billy Bragg's "It says here" but in the end went for an intriguingly relevant line from Talk Talk's "Such a shame"

Facebook books meme technical fail

2010-11-22T13:01:00.000Z

I was tagged in a note on Facebook, but owing to my rubbish computer, I was unable to comply there so am doing it here.

Instructions: Copy this into your Facebook NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt and underline the ones you’ve seen the movies of. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernier

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

My only comment would be that 100% of the classic literature titles here that I have marked as read I read before the age of 18 and probabaly haven't picked up since then - that's English and French S level in the 80's for you! So there should be a way of marking "read for pleasure" over against "read at school/college".
anyway, consider yourelf tagged if you are reading this

I'll always remember

2010-11-11T13:48:00.000Z

As I mentioned in a recent post, my grandfather died in 1942.
I only found out yesterday that 10th November is the anniversary of his death, for that is the date that his ship, HMS Martin, was sunk by a U-Boat off Algiers. He was 42, which is very old for a stoker. Had he lived, he'd have been one of those men who said "I fought in two world wars for the likes of you".

Just today, as I was doing my remembering, I started to look for songs around the theme of remembrance and stumbled upon "Union Street (Last Post)" by Show of Hands. you can find the lyrics (with comments) here. If you have Spotify you can listen here. Can't find it on Youtube.

The song makes reference to 14th June 1982, the day the Falklands fell - and my 16th birthday!

I pray that, by 2022, there may be fewer BFPO correspondences because our troops are home.

Incidentally did you know that Army chaplains can furnish you with the names of soldiers who would like to receive letters ...

happiness more or less

2010-11-01T20:36:00.000Z

Recently, in a discussion on the Psalms, a friend used the expression "all human life is here". I had usually associated that with the News of the World, but it does work for the variety of emotions you find there - cries of joy, of anguish, of depair, of praise, of love and of revenge adorn the hebrew Bible's hymnbook. We concluded by saying it would be good if our worship gave enough space for such a breadth of emotion. It doesn't really though, does it?
I also concluded that it was about time I stopped suppressing my emotions when I am deployed pastorally. You know like when you are at a funeral you probabaly don't expect the minister to be overly emotional because (and cringe, I have used this phrase of myself0 they are paid to keep a straight face. It is quite hard to shock me, but now I am unafraid to weep at a funeral I am taking, if only because (like the psalmists, I feel) I would want everyone there to feel comfortable expressing emotion.
Then again, I watched Marley and Me tonight and blubbed like a girl ...

What do you think?
(btw since I am fasting from Fb this week please reply here)

With a mind made up

2010-09-20T13:23:00.000+01:00

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

(for non latin speakers (!) a translation is here.)

You know, my paternal Grandfather was born a Roman Catholic. He died aboard HMS Martin in 1942, so I never got to ask him why he converted to Anglicanism. I'd often wondered whether it was in order to get married, but my dad thinks it was because in the Navy in World War 1 they had church parade on board ship - it was just for Church of England. If you were from any other church you had to scrub the anchor chain instead. Easy decision I guess, but in a strange way I resent that it was pretty much forced upon him by institutional religion (in this case the C of E).

And that is perhaps part of why I have such an ambivalent attitude to the Pope,which I have all the time and am only talking about now obviously because of the visit and the beatification of Cardinal Newman. On the one hand I respect the man as an elder, as a man who (let's face it) has a very difficult job, and actually as a man who talks about Jesus a lot. I feel sorry for him becaus he is constantly in the media glare and everywhere he goes we will be reminded by tabloid and broadsheet alike that he was in the Hitler Youth etc. I also feel sorry for the guy because his is not a job you can retire from. On top of that when he was criticised last week it was usually by people who are critical of Christianity per se so by implication I stood with him on some of those issues.

Roman Catholicism is the religion of my Father's family (though they were originally Irish Quakers who were disowned for "marrying out") and if Grandpa had been a bit more devout I might have been in the crowd yesterday as His Holiness beatified John Henry Newman. I'm certainly with Macca when it comes to the Irish question.

On the other hand I frequently find it hard to respect him, or more spcifically the church he speaks for and leads. It is hard to avoid the terrorism of the IRA. It is hard to avoid (especially in my role as Child Protection Officer for the benefice) the complete mess that has been caused by the Catholic church's attitude to paedophile priests in the past. It is hard to avoid the hideous behaviour of the conquistadores' priests in Latin and South America. It is hard to avoid the current disater area that is Catholic Africa facing up to HIV and AIDS without the aid of condoms. In a nutshell it is hard to avoid the fact that the Roman Catholic church has had too much power and has let it go to their heads, doctrinally (Papal infallibility, ) socially (the Christian Brothers, especially in Ireland and Australia) and morally (AIDS in Africa again). There are so many reasons to agree with people like Stephen Fry or Peter Tatchell.

But I just can't do that and its more than just a family thing. I suspect that my mechanism for coping with this love/hate relationship with the Holy See is to make a disctinction between religion and faith. It is religious ethinicity, not faith and spirituality that caused the Troubles. It was misguided imperialism disguised as mission, not genuine evangelisation (even in the Catholic sense) that decimated the aboriginal population of South America. Roman Catholic faith and devotion can be seen as admirable (though wasn't it ironic to have an epistle re-iterating the uniqueness of Christ as mediator yesterday!), even if the institution itself is hard to stomach.

So for every Cortez there is a Boff and a St Francis Xavier
for every Walter Kaspar there is a Mother Teresa of Calcutta and a Vincent Donovan

And let's not forget the rapprochement that the Charismatic movement has brought about. In many ways it is my charismatic spirituality that helps me find connections with Catholic devotion and spirituality. Franciscan and Ignatian approaches to spirituality, the Lectio Divina Bible reading approach, and the good side of hagiography have all enhanced my personal prayer life and faith over the years.

In a sense the Roman Catholic Church is like my dog; most of the time (to me anyway) docile and harmless, but occasionally prone to getting out of control with disastrous consequences for itself and others at a great emotional (and even financial) cost to me. I keep wondering whether to kick it out but can't bring myself to be parted from a faithful companion.

I laugh at jokes about the Pope but I secretly think I ought not to. Am I the only one in this place?

P.S if you can get the source of that lyric in the title without using an internet search then you probably ought to get out more

I'll never be the same [again]

2010-08-07T21:17:00.000+01:00

So, got back from New Wine North and East late last night. Still got lots to process (which I will eventually get around to blogging about) but we had a great week, so here are my top (mostly humorous) reasons why Newark is better than Shepton Mallett (and maybe a couple why it isn't)

1: Its SO much easier to get to from virtually anywhere east of Reading. 1 hour 50 mins beats the 9 hours it took one of my friends to get to Shepton Mallett from Essex a few years back. No more M25 or A303 for me on the last day in July ...

2: The campsite is flat with short grass; no more marital disharmony levelling the van or putting up the awning!

3: It is smaller, only 6 and a half thousand people, so more personal and a lot less queueing.

4: Let's face it, there was less Boden and Joules and more scousers and tattoos and therefore it was more like real life (sorry LSE folk).

5: [Getting theological now, steady on] There was more overt affirmation of women in ordained ministry from the stage. This week for me there was another watershed moment when the evening introductions in the Meeting Place (that's venue 1 in old money)were done by a clergy spouse, who was a man!!

6: There was a concerted effort to explain what was going on for the uninitiated; lots of "you may not have done this before..." This is in the spirit of 1Corinthians 14 for me.

7: AWACS and Red Arrows flypasts!

and 2 why not ...
1: It's just one week, so no cashpoint, no recycling, and a minimal shop. Takeaway food quite limited too. If we had another week, or a Soul Survivor, I appreciate these things would be easier to arrange.

2: Currys .... [you had to be there]

Derivatar

2010-07-21T14:30:00.000+01:00

So, my wife is now the only person in Britain over the age of 12 and under the age of 50 who hasn't seen Avatar because I watched it last night. We got it off Love Film and I did love it.

I enjoyed it so much that I didn't even notice it was midnight when the credits rolled. Let me say that again, I really enjoyed the film, and as I said then, "I believe the hype".

That said, I did spend quite a lot of the time saying "that's like in so and so". Thankfully there was only one " 'ere, wasn't she in Lost?" However I have concluded that this was possibly the most derivative film I've ever seen, in terms of plot, characterisation and indeed props and scenery. So here's my Avatar hall of fame (or should that be shame?)

PLOT
Well, obviously it owes a lot to the Matrix, in terms of the "special one", in terms of going in and and coming out of another world, and so on. When Grace and Jake were awoken and their avatars collapsed I couldn't help thinking of that scene I usually fast forward in the Matrix when Cypher pulls the plug ... The ending (btw as you gather from my opening statement, I'm assuming you've all seen it and won't mind that this is littered with spoilers) was also very similar to the end of the Matrix with the awakening in the other world.

The way Jake changed sides by association with the Na'vi (btw = Hebrew for prophet) was to me lifted straight from Dances with Wolves (Costner's finest moment anyone?) even down to the journal style monologue voiceover.

The basic resistance movement plotline appeared to be derivative of the Magnificent 7/7 Samurai/Bug's Life storyline, or many other little vs big movies I'm sure you can identify. More from Bugs Life in a minute. One might even derive elements of the "fetch the clans" bit from the Lord of the Rings final battle scene.

Naturally the evil general was the usual stereotype, and of course I did enjoy that nerdy guy from Friends/Saving Private Ryan as the sort of evil middle management. Otherwise it was great that most of the characters were smurfs ... sorry Na'vi so you couldn't get distracted by trying to remember what else they'd been in.

PROPS & SCENERY
To me Home Tree did in fact look exactly like Ant Island from Bugs life, but in HD. And while we're with Pixar do you really expect me to take seriously a giant blue character called Sully after I've seen Monsters Inc (a little research never does any harm!)

The armoured suits (like the one the general wore in the final showdown) were clearly actually borrowed from the Matrix props cupboard and just jazzed up a bit for low oxygen use.

The twin prop helicopters reminded me of the twin prop helicopters on Syndrome's island in the Incredibles, and the big gunship reminded me of the Millennium Falcon, except if it had been eating doughnuts since filming stopped on Star Wars.

And the whole Pandora background was like watching a Roger Dean poster come to life (and I know I'm not the only person to have noticed this).

So why did this happen? We're told James Cameron had the idea for this film ages ago when the technology to create it didn't exist. In many senses it was like watching (yet) another animated film like the ones my kids are just growing out of.

My take on it is this; Cameron had the idea for the movie and then he had a dream in which a mash-up of all the films I've mentioned came to him, and then he knew he was ready... He's obviously been watching a lot of Disney films and cartoons on TV (if there was any justice in the movie world, "The Last Airbender" would be called "Avatar") and I like to think he fell asleep looking at the cover from "Tales from Topographic oceans" or some such thing.

I think it was George Harrison who said that eventually all the songs possible would be written because of a finite number of combinations of notes. It seems to me with Avatar we have reached the point where art isn't imitating life, just other art.
But I still thought it was great and will watch it again tomorrow with my "looking out for spiritual reference points" hat on.

Learning to Fly

2010-07-11T17:27:00.000+01:00

Actually that's one thing Jody Stowell won't be doing while she's with us in these parishes. Even though she could ...

But my title is intended to paint a picture of ministers taking flight, both in terms of the ordinations that have just happened (I'm feeling surprisingly emotional looking at the from page of the Church Times with its pic of David Stancliffe taking part in his last ordianations before retirement) and more relevantly here, the arrival of Jody on placement from Ridley Hall in Cambridge to spend 4 weeks here observing what Anglican vicars do.

Although it was a long time ago I have to admit that my behaviour as a placement supervisor is entirely lifted from the bloke who supervised me all those years back. That is to say, carry on pretty much as normal except precede each encounter with "This is Jody, she's training to be a vicar", or "This is my colleague Jody" for short.

Of course you probably realise that when I'm talking about "what Anglican vicars do" I am referring to the business of grassroots parish ministry. Anglican vicars do other things, like battering each other in General Synod over the issue of Women Bishops (on which I have already written ages ago), but parish placements I feel should be about the coal face of gospel ministry, "being with God with the people", or to use our current jargon, making connections.

The best thing about having someone visit like this is it gives me the opportunity to look in the mirror a bit, and reflect on my own ministry. It is also goood to get an objective viewpoint of situations we have observed together. I'm looking forward to the next time this happens, in the autumn.

sermons online

2010-06-02T16:47:00.001+01:00

Just to remind local readers (and those further afield if they so wish) that the sermons from St Mary the Virgin Stebbing are available in audio format here

This is the most recent one available by me.

facebook tag: 20 most influential albums

2010-05-24T13:59:00.000+01:00

this'll be interesting.
I was tagged over on Facebook (like you need me to do a link) to list 20 albums (with reference to vinyl which shows my age) which have had a big influence on me. This post is the response but I'm afraid if you've never heard these you're going to have to google or spotify them yourself.
1. Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits. My dad bought this in the late 50's/early 60's when he hitchiked across the USA. He used to play it to us kids when we were tiny, and I can probably sing most of the songs on it now.
2. Electric Light Orchestra "Out of the Blue" I never owned this on vinyl, but probably taped it off a mate (Charlie, was it you?) Got the CD off eBay last year, and hey presto, all the lyrics came flooding back.
3. AC/DC "Back in Black" Got into this on a French exchange to Grenoble in 1981. Still some of the greatest riffs ever, but the lyrics make me wince in some cases. It is a kind of ambition to use the title track as the recessional music for a licensing in the future!
4. "Heaven and Hell" by Black Sabbath. Bought this off Martin Finey when I was 15. I was never an Ozzy fan really. Again, great riffs and many lyrics that make me shudder now.
5. Michael Jackson "Thriller". Just when it looked as if I was descending into permanent denim/leather/spots/long hair territory, along came MJ with this. I can still remember hearing the guitar solo in "Beat it" (played by Eddie Van Halen) and thinking, maybe there is more to music than rock and roll!
6. Dire Straits "Making Movies". Soundtrack to an anguished adolescence!
7. Telephone "Un autre Monde" Why should the Anglophones have all the good music? It helps that this was the only cassette I carried with me through my year off living in France.
8. Billy Bragg "Life's a riot with Spy vs Spy". Genius.
9. The Wedding Present "George Best" Best live band ever.
10. Half man half Biscuit "Back in the DHSS" Funniest ...
11. The Housemartins "London 0 Hull 4" - all these three mark a new departure in guitar based but "alternative" (whatever that meant) music.
12 REM "No. 5 Document" suede coatrs and sailors caps everyone!
13. U2 "The Joshua Tree" I could pick any of their albums up to the present but this one (and maybe Achtung baby) came out at times when what I really needed to hear was a soaring anthem mixing bitterness and joy, which is what they give you.
14 Guns and Roses "Appetite for Destruction" full circle ...
15. The Rolling Stones "Exile on Main Street" Pure and dirty at the same time. I bought this to prepare for their 1990 tour - still the only time I've ever been to Wembley Stadium.
16. The Indigo Girls debut. Postmodern Angst at its finest
17. Neil Young "Weld" Noise and politics can mix, especially on his version of "the times they are a changing" and "Keep on rocking in the free world".
18.Enya "Watermark" Honeynoon. 'nuff said
19. Dido "No Angel"
20 Crowded House "Recurring Dream" These are both influential because they are music i enjoy with my wife

Pretty sure that shows that not much music has touched me for about 15 or 20 years; hmmm

The Equaliser

2010-04-22T22:42:00.000+01:00

If you like sport, especially football (and Edward Woodward) you might like this The Equaliser

Good Friday walk 2010

2010-04-02T18:58:00.000+01:00

A much smaller body of pilgrims this year (due to adverse weather) began the day at St James Great Saling with refreshingly original reflections on the arrest of of Jesus and Peter's denial, before moving off to St Peter and St Paul Little (Bardfield) Saling for some excellent readings, reflections and poetry (by Carol Anne Duffy) imaginatively bringing to life the relationship between Christ and Pilate's wife, and Pontius Pilate himself.

Then, with some additional late risers we set out for St Mary's Stebbing, where there was a break for lunch and some liquid worship involving handprints in sand, a reminder of our baptism in to Christ's death, and some opportunities to lay our burdens at the foot of the cross. This was most effectively achieved by the placing of stones (picked up on the way or gleaned at the last minute from the churchyard) in a cairn befroe the cross, which we did in silence listening to "Jesus Remember me".

The highlight of that service though was an av presentation using images and music to express the need for salvation for the world, and the wonder of God's gift of the cross.
I wish I could share it with you but there are myriad copyright issues!
Instead you'll have to imagine it; you are looking at pictures of human suffering, war, terrorism and sin, listening to this. Then the images change to those of the passion and crucufixion of Jesus, and hte music changes to this. I mean it was my idea, but it still reduced me to tears. I am very gratful to our av guru Richard for his hard work.

After that we set off in deteriorating weather conditions towards St Mary's Lindsell, where after rain and sleet and wind, we hled a service of an hour at the cross with more inventive and original reflections on the death of Christ.

Afterwards there were hot cross buns and hot drinks, most welcome!

A Facebook Passion

2010-04-01T16:37:00.000+01:00

I almost broke my fast to post this directly on Facebook - just hoping enough people bother to read this when it posts there automatically.

check this out for a different take on Easter

h/t dmk

Maundy Thursday Chrism Eucharist

2010-04-01T14:56:00.000+01:00

This is a rare thing - I don't usually get to take photos at church! This was the assembly of readers deacons priests and bishops outside the Cathedral following the service, in which vows of ministry and service are renewed and oil for anointing is blessed (and distributed - one of my containers leaked so there is a trip to the dry cleaners scheduled for next week!)

The service was great as usual and I enjoyed a bit of networking before and after. Facebook friends will be tagged on Sunday

Happy Easter!

The Archbishop of Canterbury - Archbishop - Christians need to "witness boldly and clearly"

2010-03-31T17:12:00.000+01:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury - Archbishop - Christians need to "witness boldly and clearly"

Out of the Blue and into the Black

2010-03-29T10:13:00.001+01:00

Avatar: the backlash ...

h/t The grumpy Cleric

Palm Sunday at Little Saling

2010-03-29T10:07:00.000+01:00

Readings for this were Psalm 118 and Luke 19 28-the end. I had some help from Rootsonthe web, and Phil Ritchie told me about the Borg & Crossnan stuff.

At the time of Jesus, Jewish people interpreted Psalm 118 as referring to the victory of the coming Messiah. So it was natural that the crowds should draw on it to acclaim Jesus as he approached Jerusalem (v. 26; Luke 19.38. Luke substitutes 'king' for 'one' in the psalm, making the identity of Jesus unambiguous for his readers.)

A fascinating insight into this triumphal entry is given by the scholars Borg and Crossan, with whom I normally take issue on a number of basic points, but who have by their research concluded that the procession of Jesus into Jerusalem humbly riding on a donkey would have been happening at the same time as a procession of Roman soldiers coming into the city with Pontius Pilate who apparently always like to be there for the Passover. So the welcome received by the true ruler’s humble procession would have been in stark contrast to the attitude of the Jews to the arrival of the occupying forces – in other words, no wonder everyone welcomed him, given the alternative.

And of course, Pilate and his forces would have a role to play in the events of the next few days of Jesus’ life and death, so today we mark the arrival on stage of the key players in the drama of the passion

Psalm 118 is a processional one, in which different figures speak out different sections. The opening and closing verses (vv. 1-4, 26-27, 29) are calls to worship by the priest(s) A central figure – perhaps originally the king – praises God for his deliverance in verses 5-18, as the procession approaches the Temple. Then comes the dramatic summons of verse 19. 'Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.' The procession has reached the Temple courts, and in verse 20, Temple officials respond to the king's summons. 'This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.' The arrival in the Temple precincts is the ultimate, joyful sign that God has delivered his servants in their troubles, and verse 21 is another thanksgiving by the king, while verses 22-25 are words of celebration by the people, concluding with a petition for ongoing salvation (v. 25).

When the crowds use Psalm 118.26 to hail Jesus, they are saying 'In the name of the Lord our God you are blessed as you come'. This is what they would have said to the king in the old processions, and what they expected to say to the Messiah whenever he came. Matthew, Mark and John include an additional echo of the Psalm in their report of this incident, the word 'Hosanna', referring to Psalm 118.25, 'save us').

As we read the Gospel story through the lens of the Psalm and vice versa, profound depths of meaning open up.

First, the context for the whole event – as for the arrival of the king and his entourage in the psalm – is the praise of the Lord, Israel's God. As Jesus comes to Jerusalem, this is a fulfilment (the ultimate fulfilment, as we now recognise) of the 'steadfast love' of the Lord (Psalm 118.1-4). This is recognised by the praises of Jesus' contemporaries (Luke 19.37).

Second, the crowds around Jesus specifically link him to the central figure of the psalm, the one they had come to interpret as the Messiah-King they longed for. They not only praise God (v. 37), they bless Jesus in God's name (v. 38; cf. Psalm 118.26). The scandalous nature of this blessing is clearly seen in the reaction of the group of Pharisees (v. 39), but Jesus affirms the crowd's instincts (v. 40). Much is often said from pulpits like mine of how the disciples and the people didn’t get Jesus, didn’t appreciate or understand him for who he is, but here it seems corporately the people are led to acknowledge Jesus as their true king, as we have seen, perhaps in stark contrast to the ruler thrust upon them by the occupying forces of Rome.

Third, the Psalm helps us to enter a little way into Jesus' own thinking as he embarks on this fateful week. He will shortly enter the Temple (Luke 19.45) and we can imagine the summons of Psalm 118.19 in his heart, if not on his lips. He wants to go into the Temple and use it for its proper purpose, to 'give thanks to the LORD'. These are the 'gates of righteousness' – the place, as it were, where the righteous should be at home – but that is not what he will find there, as we see in Luke’s next episode, the cleansing of the Temple. Nevertheless, we can imagine him echoing the thanksgiving of Psalm 118.21 for God's rescue of him thus far. He will continue in faith, despite the sense of foreboding he has both for himself and for the nation (Luke 19.41-44).

Fourth, the events of Holy Week turned out to give a terrible twist to the traditional celebratory meaning of the psalm, used to rejoice in the Lord's reversal of the nation's fortunes. In the psalm they rejoiced that the nations, their enemies were 'cut off' (vv. 10 and11), while 'the stone [Israel/David] that the builders [the nations] rejected has become the chief cornerstone' (vv. 22). But in Luke 20, Jesus will use this very verse to point to the disaster coming on Israel (Luke 20.17). Now it is Israel's leaders who are the builders; Jesus himself is the stone they reject; and so the 'vineyard' Israel will be overrun by 'others', i.e. the nations (Luke 20.15 and16). It was a prophecy sadly fulfilled when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

This psalm would be sung by Jesus and his disciples – as by all other Jews – at the end of their Passover meal in a few days' time (Mark 14.26). It is left to us to imagine the extraordinary mixture of faith and foreboding it would have expressed, and the hopes and fears it evoked, for both him and them.

For us, as we begin another Holy week, knowing what happens at the end, there is no fear, but may this slightly different take on palm Sunday increase our hope and strengthen our faith.

Cheer up, it's Friday

2010-03-26T10:23:00.000Z

"If you don't like this song, there's something wrong with you, fact. Fact" - Chris Moyles, Radio 1, 26/3/10, 9:53am

woohoo!

2010-03-22T09:47:00.000Z

New Bishop of Chelmsford yeeeehaaa

lying awake intent on tuning in on you

2010-03-11T17:16:00.000Z

I'm very pleased to say that sermons by me and my colleagues recorded at St Mary's Stebbing are now available in audio format here. Enjoy! Please use this site, or if you are a member, the St Mary's facebook group, to discuss sermons.

Thanks Dave and Duncan for getting this sorted out

Sermon for 28th Feb, Little Saling and Stebbing

2010-02-28T18:15:00.000Z

Readings; Genesis 15 and Luke 13, 31 to the end. I am endebted once again to rootsontheweb, but also Mike Breen for the stuff on the chopped upp animals.

We are asked only to trust that the God whom we seek will come to us at the right time. How he come is usually up to him, not us.

In Genesis 15 Abram, too, is charged not to be afraid but to expect the fulfilment of God's promises. Abram's righteousness is his trusting response. He takes courage and waits for the Lord.

Genesis 15 is the first of two accounts of a covenant between God and Abram. This chapter focuses on the two promises of descendants and of land. The covenant ceremony described here is an ancient ritual in which the two parties pass between the slaughtered animal sacrifices as a symbolic action of their meeting and agreeing, accompanied by the threat of the fate of the slaughtered animals to any party who violated the agreement. Of course Abram does not see God here but the passing of the brazier and blazing torch between the pieces of the sacrifice show God’s commitment to the covenant. So in fact the emphasis is on God's action and responsibility.

God passes through the animals as fire and smoke as Abram sleeps. The important thing happened when Abram could not participate actively, he could only receive (presumably in a dream or vision) God’s promise. Abram’s deep sleep recalls Adam's, from earlier in Genesis when God created a partner from Adam’s rib as 'flesh of my flesh' (Gen 2.23). These two similar episodes show how human frailty is never a barrier to the plan of God, which for us I hope is a comfort!

The moving flame and smoke anticipate the cloud of fire that will lead the people through the wilderness back to the land promised to Abram. Even though that is a long way off, God’s purposes are already becoming clear to the reader. Abram is still passive; his part is only to trust that, despite present appearances – a childless nomad, God will fulfil the promise for the future of a land and a people to settle it. Abram does believe, and is not afraid. His trusting response is the righteousness recognised by God.

Our language differentiates between trust and belief; others, including the biblical languages do not; but for the purposes of what God is asking of Abram and of us, to trust is to believe. Even the English translations of the Bible vary in their rendering of verses like John 14 verse 1, some have believe, others have trust. We just need to get used to reading one word and understanding (and doing) two things.

And it is a subtle yet important difference that informs the faith of today’s church, or perhaps more accurately the faith of those who do not attend church.

Because to be a Christian is so much more than just to acknowledge that God exists, which is the question that people are usually answering on census forms and the like, giving the figure of 70% or whatever it is; it involves putting our faith – our trust – in God; not in the vicar, not in the building, not in the liturgy nor the music, but in him.

That is what Abram courageously did, and it is significant that he did it from a position of weakness and uncertainty; he did not think he would have any children, but God promised him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and reminded him that he was the same God who had called him onto this journey from Ur in the first place.

Perhaps it was this reminder that prompts Abram’s faithful response to the Lord, but as we saw, he still has it in him to ask God a question – how can I know for sure you are going to get me this land?

God’s answer is the covenant ritual, and the promise that the people would return to the land, but that it would not be plain sailing. Abram’s courageous faith will need to be passed on to his descendants to accomplish this.

Genesis 15 is about a covenant that starts the story of Israel. Luke 13 on the other hand, is the point when Jesus’ focus shifts to his part in the sacrifice that will inaugurate the new covenant. He now is the one who takes courage as he goes on his way to die in Jerusalem. He must wait for God until the time of his own coming in the name of the Lord.

Just as God and man met in the covenant with Abram, as they both passed through the sacrifice, so also on the cross, Jesus, both God and man, passed through the sacrifice, but as victim rather than priest. So the two covenants have much in common. Both are designed to define a future for God’s people.

Herod Antipas is a 'fox', one of those that ruin the vineyard that is God's beloved Israel (Song of Solomon 2.15, Isaiah 5.1). Jesus continues to announce the prophet's good news for the people of God. The conflict will come to its climax in Jerusalem, at God's 'house', where the cherubim's sheltering wings will give way to those of Jesus, outstretched like a mother hen to include the whole cosmos in his love. He is on his way to Calvary and will be faithful until his death. By the 'third day' he will have finished his work and the world must wait for the God who will raise him to life as the one who will come in the name of the Lord.

And as we wait we too need courage, for just as Abram and Christ’s disciples lived with uncertainty, so do we. Lent is a time to reconsider the resources we have to fule that courageous faith; the scriptures, the traditions and wisdom of the church both now and in the past, and of course supremely our relationship with God in Christ.

and I think I better think it out again

2010-02-23T15:53:00.000Z

I'm getting ready for meetings with my first couple of consultees as a Ministry Development Review consultant. In tandem with that, recent events here and elsewhere have also got me thinking again about my leadership style.
Not sure I could pull off this approach, but loved it anyway (h/t anneDroid a prison chaplain)

NB those reading this on facebook, I posted it through blogger and so have not broken my fast!

Candlemas sermon throughout the benefice

2010-02-01T13:08:00.000Z

This sermon was preached three times yesterday, with various local additions depending on the church
The readings were Malach1 3, 1-5 and Luke 2, 22-40. I got the poem and some of the commentary from Roots.

Poem for Candlemas

by Susan Skinner

A candle flame floats

on the mind's eye:

A light from long ago

when old churches breathed

the sound of plain chant

in Rembrandt shadows.

The burnished flame holds

its shadow cone and burns

our winter days to spring.

As we meditate

its gold becomes a flower

of light that drinks the dark.

Now the flame sits

like a silent priest

in a long robe.

True to itself,

it bends but does not lose

its shining shape.

We pray to sit lightly

on our days and find

the shape of God's truth.

Our breath holds his movement,

Our mind holds his silence,

Our heart holds his light.

Luke emphasises the devout Jewish background of Jesus. His parents bring him to the temple and observe the usual ritual for their own purification. The old title for this event was 'The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary' and it is now celebrated as Candlemas or the Presentation of Christ at the Temple, as the idea that women need to be purified after childbirth is now outmoded. These three names reflect three strands in the celebration;

• looking back to the nativity, in thinking about Mary’s first visit to the Temple following the birth of her son.

• looking forward to Easter, as we are reminded in the words of Simeon of the ultimate purpose of Christ’s coming

• and looking at our present situation; at this time of year there are a few shoots of green, snowdrops and daffodils start to emerge, but we will still benefit from the reminder of Christ the true light – for revelation to the gentiles and for the glory of God’s people.

That’s the link to candles, which traditionally would be blessed on this day. Our churches are now lit with electricity so the candles’ only purpose is to point to Christ. The main point of the narrative from Luke 2 is that the infant Jesus was brought to the place of worship by his parents and was recognised as Messiah by Simeon and Anna, two venerable, old saints. The beautiful prayer of Simeon has become standard in the church. It is worth noting the gender balance of this passage. The parents are mentioned together and of the old saints, one is a man, and the other a woman.

For me this gives a great picture of how the church should be today, men and women, young and old (let’s not forget Mary was quite likely to have been a teenage mother), together in the presence of Christ, sensitive to the Spirit’s promptings and worshipping God in awe. Most importantly, even though they were living in a country occupied by an invading force, in relative poverty, they were free to worship as their faith prompted them to. Confident and free.

And we are too! We can be confident that we will not be arrested just for being a Christian. Every now and then the media puts out a scare story, as this week with the vote in the House of Lords concerning the equality bill, but actually our Freedom in Christ is more important than our social or political freedom. In this culture, it is often hard to distinguish between the two, as many of the traditions of our nation derive from our Christian heritage.

As Anglicans we sit somewhere in the middle of national tradition and faithful discipleship, taking I hope the best from both of these worlds, and helping them, in our mission, to meet fruitfully.

Candlemas is a good time to consider being in the middle, as we are at the midpoint between Christmas and Easter; it is also a good time, thinking about freedom, to remember that Freedom in Christ is not the same as uniformity. So that’s where we’re going with this. The Christian way is not usually described in a positive sense as one of compromise, but our freedom, and our position in society work together to mean that if we share a vision, a common desire to see the kingdom come, to see the light revealed to the nations, we are promising together – com-promise – to walk in the way of Christ.

I was talking with a fellow priest this week who described to me how he came to see the importance of allowing Christians to grow as they need to, not as he wanted them to; he described watching his child playing with a toy in which different shapes had to be pushed through different holes. Of course the star shaped piece won’t fit through the circular hole, and the square piece won’t fit through the triangular hole. Being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to be the same as every other Christian. You have your own shape, and so do I. The important thing is to realise that shape and not try to be something or someone we are not.

Simeon and Anna were particular people with particular expectations, all met in their encounter with Jesus, because they were waiting for him. But their responses are different.

Simeon’s expression of praise starts from himself – he knows his life is drawing to a close as the messiah he awaited had arrived – and widens in scope to include the whole world. Anna however has had a selfless life of waiting, but her response is directly to Jerusalem. Two different shapes, if you will, of response to Christ.

So what is your shape? Do you know which hole you fit in?

If you’re not sure, return to the last stanza of the poem we started with

We pray to sit lightly

on our days and find

the shape of God's truth.

Our breath holds his movement,

Our mind holds his silence,

Our heart holds his light.

The shape of God’s truth is a cross.

Mac the knife

2010-01-28T13:41:00.000Z

LOVE IT!

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

thank you cartoon church

D'oh

2010-01-27T20:50:00.002Z

What's that thing called when you can't do anything right?

letter to Ross Williams

2010-01-25T19:30:00.000Z

Facebook Inbox: "To :
rwilliams@globalpersonals.co.uk

Dear Ross,

I wondered if you knew that your companies (White Label Dating and Global Personals) are providing support to maritalaffair.co.uk which exists to encourage people to cheat on their partners? I really admire the work you have done in setting up some brilliant dating websites that bring people together and heard in the recent interview that ‘Your business is Love’. Maritalaffair.co.uk doesn’t seem to fit very well with your core business.

I am working to try and stop maritalaffair.co.uk being allowed to advertise publicly in the UK. I am part of a growing campaign to achieve this. We have contacted media groups, MPs and the local council where the advert is and plan to continue acting until we get these billboards removed.

I am writing to you as I believe your reputation is put at risk by being involved in this website.

We are asking you to commit publicly that White Label Dating and Global Personals will have nothing further to do with maritalaffair.co.uk. Can I ask you to clarify this by Wednesday 26th January 5pm. Please do this by posting a message on our Facebook page (‘Stop marital affair .co.uk advertising publicly in the UK’).

Thank you for your help – we hope you can help resolve this as quickly as possible. It seems so odd for you to be involved in such a horrible website."

Come fly with me ...

2010-01-11T12:46:00.001Z

Ok I admit it, Facebook has seriously dented my blogging energies and time - it's only been sermons really recently, sorry. That's been messed up further by the fact that they are now written on a pc with no internet access.

This blog began (and starting a sentence with those words does not imply I am going to stop blogging!) as a reflective tool for my clergy leadership programme notes. If I'm honest it was also a means of getting things off my chest with my own moderation system in place - a little easier on the blood pressure than some discussion forums can be!

I could have done with my leadership programme notes (and Ruth's Arrow folder) in my back pocket a fair few times recently. This has been our fourth Christmas in the benefice - as many as we've ever had in a parish. It (along with some unfortunate and as yet not completely resolved conflicts) got me thinking back to when I was a curate.

I used to get frustrated that my boss wouldn't always want to go with the great new ideas I was coming up with (OK not just me others too). Now I know that it was because he knew he would get it in the neck from the elements of the congregation who make it their business to keep the church the same as it has always been. As curates together on what was then known daintily as potty training we would wonder what it was that turned keen trendy curates into cautious, stressed out vicars. Now I realise it isn't just a matter of the passing of the years, it's to do with where the buck stops. With a curate, it rarely stops at your desk, as incumbent it always does (even if in practice it doesn't, as with youth work)

What this is coming from inside me I guess is the paradox of collaborative ministry; shared leadership, WOOHOO, everyone loves it, but when things get difficult, it's "What are you going to do about it, you're the vicar ...". This works the other way too - much as I love collaborating, there are times when I feel like knocking heads together and shouting "I'm in charge here!" Not sure I'd ever actually say that though as there are elements who would like me to because they think the vicar should do everything! D'oh!
I understand authority in priestly leadership to be conferred by God via the bishop. It doesn't have to be earned. In the same way, respect for that authority, which some might say needs to be earned, I feel ought also to be a given. Not that the vicar is always right or deserves all the perks he or she can get in terms of freebies and the like, but that congregations and communities ought to remember that their vicar was prayerfully chosen and appointed to serve them; he/she is not a volunteer, neither in the sense of doing this for free (with every respect to NSMs out there) nor in the sense of just stepping forward out of guilt or an excess of free time.

When this understanding collides with other understandings of leadership, that's when you can get the kind of plane crash that Sam was talking about.

St Stephen's Day sermon, Stebbing and Lindsell

2009-12-27T20:49:00.000Z

Acts 6

Phew, that was a busy Christmas, and now here we are all done and dusted (with snow) on the feast of Stephen – well Ok it was yesterday but there you go)
Done and dusted, or as we say in our family, for obscure reasons, fluffed and fluffted.

Because every family has its own ways of doing things – our own little Christmas traditions, our own turns of phrase and our own quirks, some of which others find hard to understand.
Stephen, whose feast we are celebrating today, certainly had his own way of doing things. In Acts 6 we read that he was chosen to serve along with six others, who are traditionally remembered as the first deacons. They were chosen and commissioned by the apostles, and prayer and the laying on of hands initiated their ministry,
Stephen was called and initially served in a specific way – caring for the Greek widows, and ensuring they were given their share of food.

The apostles’ justification for these appointments seems rather arrogant at first – “it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God to wait on tables”. Little did they know that one of the people chosen for an apparently secondary task would end up as an amazing witness. I say apparently secondary, but in fact the congregation – a close look at verses 5 and 3 shows it was not the 12 but the wider Christian community who chose the seven deacons - were instructed to find people who were filled with the Spirit of God.

Stephen and his fellow servants were therefore chosen on the face of it to ease the burden of the apostles so that they could get on with what they thought was the important business of being an apostle. “We will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word”, they said.

But in what follows it is clear that even if the apostles intended it that way, there is no distinction in the eyes of God between the apparently menial tasks (like giving out food to widows) and the allegedly more important task of the ministry of the word.

Stephen is an example to all the believers, and his boldness and faith demonstrated among the people – in the kind of actions that would probably get you sacked these days by the NHS or social services or the education department – got him noticed, and not just by those sympathetic to the Christian faith.

Now it is clear that as a man of faith Stephen brought the values and expectations of the Kingdom of God into the tasks of everyday life – so he didn’t just give the widows their share of the food, he prayed for them as well, and miracles occurred. Without the commission to service in a practical way, however, his spiritual ministry might never have been able to flourish.

It is interesting that the witnesses who testify against Stephen accuse him of pretty much the same things Jesus was accused of; if we had any doubts that these accusations of speaking out in faith were true, they will be allayed by the events of chapter 7, when Stephen speaks at length to the Sanhedrin, explaining the scriptures and the plan of God’s saving actions through history to those who sought to condemn him. His face was like the face of an angel as he stood to speak to them.

The fact that we commemorate Stephen as the first Christian martyr tells you what happens next, but martyrdom need not scare us off the example of Stephen; the New Testament Greek words of martyr and witness are the same. Our witness is going to be painful sometimes.

This week government ministers have been saying churches will need to prepare legal defence teams to counter accusations under new equal rights legislation, and another Christian has lost her job for offering to pray with people in need.

This week also in the Christmas silly season news, an old friend of mine has got into trouble for suggesting to his congregation that they should consider stealing if they are at the end of their financial resources. I’m not going to suggest anything quite so daft, but I will say that Stephen is an example to us all of the importance for standing up for our faith; I will not change the gospel to accommodate those who oppose it, just as Stephen didn’t. I hope that we can all stand united with Christians the world over who face persecution for their faith, but there is nothing like little persecution to galvanise the church. Christmas is perhaps when we are at the top of our game, but let us not be complacent and assume we will have this amount of freedom forever.

So don’t be shrinking violets, in your work or family or social contexts; if we are going to steal Christmas back form the secular society, we need to be prepared to stand up for Jesus.

But we won’t get killed for it, at least not yet. Everyone has their own way of doing things, is where I started this morning; you and I are called to specific ministries in different times and places and to different people; we are not all expected to do and say the same thing sin the same way; the important thing is that we look outwards this new year and seek new avenues in which to speak and act the gospel.

Let us pray

Christmas Eve Communion Sermon

2009-12-27T20:46:00.001Z

I’d like to begin by saying that since we are after the 9pm watershed, in this sermon I will be mentioning Sun Sea and Sex, and in the best tradition of preaching I will talk about sex at the end, to keep you all listening along the way!

Christmas Starts with Christ.

You may have seen that this is the slogan for the Churches Advertising network this year, and so as we start Christmas tonight I would like to reflect on what that might mean exactly for us here in Stebbing tonight.

And not before time! I woke up after the carol service last Sunday to the news that people have organised a “Godless” Christmas celebration, with comedy, music and science instead of Bible readings, Christian carols and worship.

But if you have a Godless Christmas then you just have a mas, which some welsh bloke said means if you take the Christ out of Christmas you just are left with M and S. Personally I’d prefer us to be saying “this isn’t just Christmas it’s (PAUSE) Christmas in Stebbing. In the same way, I prefer to think a godless Christmas leaves you with a mess, not a mas.

A mess because without Jesus there is no point in celebrating Christmas and we may as well go back to just having 21 December as the winter solstice.

But here’s the cliché, and never was it more true to say that “Jesus is the reason for the Season”.

So what does it mean to start with Christ?

Well, throughout advent, which officially ends in a few minutes, the church has been focussing on the expectation of the coming of Christ, both in terms of his birth at Bethlehem and in terms of his return as King, at the coming of his Kingdom.

This is a part of Christmas that doesn’t get much of a look in, as it has to compete not only with Santa Claus, Reindeer, mince pies, chocolate, trees, tinsel, and the Sound of Music but also of course with the baby in the manger, the shepherds the angels and so on, that we rightly recall and think on at this time of year. But of course the principle reason we remember and celebrate his birth is because Jesus didn’t stay a baby, he grew to be a man; a man whose death on the cross, whose resurrection and whose ascension into heaven have inaugurated a new kind of rule; The Kingdom of God. At Christmas we talk a lot about God with us – Emmanuel. But he is only with us in Spirit now; there is so much more to come.

Isaiah prophesied that “the government will be upon his shoulders”, and “of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end”. This, with reference to Jesus Christ, does not mean he is seeking to actually take over the running of our governments now; it refers rather to his return as King, at the final coming of his Kingdom. Don’t let that stop you praying for the government though.

In this church we believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit to Christians means that the Kingdom is among us – as Jesus in fact taught. In practice this means that when we pray for people if they are ill or bereaved, we genuinely expect there to be a move of God to answer those prayers, not always as we expect or even as we would like, but we believe God is at work in the world today. So the Kingdom has come, but it is not yet here – a bit like Christmas has come, but it is not yet here, unless I have rabbitted on so long that midnight has passed and it is already Christmas day.

The Kingdom is yet to come fully; we worship Jesus as a King, but this Kingdom is not of this world.

But the Bible tells us that one day it will be. I was going to say the Bible is clear, but that wouldn’t be right, as it is very confusing and difficult to completely grasp exactly how things will happen when Jesus returns. One thing we must remain focussed on is that he will return. The child born in a manger who grew to be the man who died on a cross will return to be our ruler and judge.

The Kingdom is here, but it is not yet here. People do get better sometimes when we pray for them, but not always; the Bible tells us that when God returns to be with us there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Hope was born at Christmas, and that hope is for the return of the King.

The Kingdom isn’t fully here yet and here’s how we know; when it is here, the Bible tells us that there will be no more Sun, no more sea and no more sex.

We won’t need the Sun because we will be experiencing all the time the glory of God that the shepherds saw for a fleeting moment.

When the King returns it will herald the re-making of creation, and it looks as though Clacton and Frinton will lose out because there will no longer be any sea.

And there will be no more sex. That may seem disappointing, and in a sense it is because sex is a good thing, which we enjoy, don’t we?

Jesus did teach that there is no marriage in heaven, but I’ve got a theory about this; there is no sex in heaven, no sex in the new creation for two main reasons; in no particular order - since there is no more death it is clear that our existence is very different. And you know how sex feels really good, and in the right conditions is an amazing experience, well I think that when the Kingdom of God comes in all its fullness, if you’ll forgive the wording, it’s going to feel like that all the time.

Now that is quite a good reason for wanting to be part of this Kingdom I’ve been talking about, but there are many others, not least the consequences of Christ’s return as King for those who are not his disciples, his followers, his friends. When Jesus returns he will be coming as King but also as judge.

Christmas starts with Christ, but so also do the rest of our lives. Christmas starts with Christ, but so also does our salvation, our deliverance from sin and death, our citizenship of the Kingdom of God.

Christ’s coming to earth, and if we have faith in him, means that when he returns we will have a lot less to worry about.

And a lot more to celebrate.

Christmas starts with Christ, and tonight he could give you a new start. A new start that would mean you will be there when the kingdom comes, and you will see him face to face. (And that thing I said about sex as well)

A new start also that will change your life in the here and now; maybe miraculously, maybe just by a shift in your perception, but he will remake you, as one day he will remake the whole world.

How is this possible, you might be asking/ How can a baby give me a new start? Well don’t forget that the baby whose birth we celebrate tonight is, as the carol puts it “Our Lord in heaven above. And he leads his children on to the place where he is gone.”

He has gone there to prepare a place for us; he wants to welcome us there. To get there all we have to do us reach out and take his hand, put our trust in him.

If you’ve never taken that step of faith, never really trusted in or reached out to the risen, living Christ who is reaching out to you now, but you want to receive the best Christmas present of all, then bring your order of service up to the rail at communion, and we will pray with you. If you still have more questions, there are leaflets at the back of church called “why Christmas?” which will help you so do please take one home with you.

Christmas starts with Christ; will you start a new life with Christ this Christmas?

Let us pray

carol service sermon 2009

2009-12-21T09:20:00.000Z

This is the text from the sermons at Lindsell and Stebbing Carol services over the last 2 Sundays. This the one from Stebbing but it is essentially the same as last week's at Lindsell. The texts were the usual Christmas lessons. The opening jokes were from the Grove Booklets email.

I would like to begin by sharing some directives I received this Christmas
The Union of Shepherds has complained that it breaches health and safety regulations to insist that shepherds watch their flocks without appropriate seating arrangements being provided, therefore benches, stools and orthopaedic chairs are now available. Shepherds have also requested that due to the inclement weather conditions at this time of year they should watch their flocks via cctv cameras from centrally heated shepherd observation huts.
Please note, the angel of the Lord is reminded that before shining his / her glory all around she / he must ascertain that all shepherds have been issued with glasses capable of filtering out the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and Glory.
You are advised that under the Equal Opportunities for All policy, it is inappropriate for persons to make comment with regard to the ruddiness of any part of Mr. R Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr R Reindeer from the Reindeer Games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of this offence. A full investigation will be implemented and sanctions—including suspension on full pay—will be considered whilst this investigation takes place.
I guess if we are laughing about these then there has been a watershed, and the anti-winterval backlash is about to begin! The Grinch may have stolen Christmas, but we’re stealing it back!

The opening words of U2’s 1988 live album, “Rattle and Hum” introducing their version of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” were "This is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles. We're stealing it back."

“We’re stealing it back”. U2 made “Helter Skelter” OK to listen to again; it lost its connotations of racism and murder that Charles Manson had given it in the 1960’s, and just became a joyous rock and roll song again, which is how it should be.

For years in this country, the shops and the television have had a hold over Christmas; they have stolen it from us and from our children. Consumerism and secularisation and whatever the word is for when you want to have more and better decorations, lights and paraphernalia in and on your house than your neighbour have stolen Christmas from us, but instead of complaining about that I’m just going to say,

“WE’RE STEALING IT BACK”

This benefice bucks many trends but one of them is that the attendance at Church is going up. And not just at Christmas. The newspapers and the TV will perhaps tell you the woes of the Church over Christmas – and there are woeful things about Church, let’s be clear. Yet I don’t think it’s the institution that attracts people here, it is the people themselves. In a world where the concept of community has been stolen by facebook twitter and so on, this community is stealing it back. And doing it properly!
And of course beyond our human community we are gathering here with a spiritual community that transcends time and space. This is not the only place to find God in Stebbing, but it’s a pretty good place to start.

Before I finish I will just steal back another Christmas icon.

Mistletoe
You might have some in your house; you might not want to see it in church. It certainly has pagan connotations. I just said church is not the only place to find God here, and living in such a beautiful place does mean that I am constantly reminded of how the created world points to God though its serenity and beauty; of course this idea has also been stolen by the New Age and some elements of the ecology movement, but today,
“We’re stealing it back”
Mistletoe provides us with an amazing illustration of how we are supposed to relate to God. Christmas is the time when we celebrate God’s coming among us as a human child who grew to be our saviour, our teacher and our friend. Sometimes when I read the gospel stories I end up thinking to myself that some people even then, as now, just don’t know how to relate to God. Christmas tells us the story of his coming then; Mistletoe gives us a picture of how we’re supposed to relate to him now.

When you see Mistletoe in the shops or in houses at this time of year it has been cut down from the place it’s mean to be. Mistletoe is meant to grow on a tree; it does not survive on its own. Mistletoe is meant to be connected to a tree; we are meant to be connected to God.
I read recently a novel about a Saxon warrior whose girlfriend returns to a convent, saying to him “I’m like mistletoe, I need a branch to grow on”. Friends, we are all like that; whether we are feeling joyful or doleful, whether or not we feel like celebrating Christmas, we all need a branch to grow on.

And so as I close I want to extend this metaphor a little to show you how, if you don’t already know, you can enter into a relationship with God in Christ. A market gardener at this time of year will be wanting to sell mistletoe for Christmas decorations. He doesn’t have time to go around gathering it from the wild, so he gets hold of some mistletoe berries and he cuts a little slot in the bark of an apple tree. He squashes a berry under the bark, and treats it and seals it; from that little berry grows a new mistletoe plant.

So also with us; you may only have a tiny amount of faith, smaller than a tiny berry, yet God – the apple tree in this picture, is willing to receive you in his warm embrace. As the berry drawn close to the tree flourishes and grows, so also our faith, as we draw close to God in repentance, in worship and in prayer, will flourish and grow.

If this Christmas your faith has been stolen by suffering, by tiredness, by business, by despondency or despair, I hereby declare that we are stealing it back

Happy Christmas

Sermon at Stebbing today , Advent 3

2009-12-13T14:59:00.001Z

The good news of God's judgement: Bob Dylan, “Change my way of thinking”, Zephaniah 3, 14-20 & Luke 3, 7-18.

The promise of salvation, and of God's reign of peace and justice, is good news indeed to the oppressed, the outcast, and all who have been treated unjustly. God will deal with those who have oppressed and shamed them. This must also mean, however, that the promise is a real cause of fear and dread for anyone guilty of having inflicted shame and sorrow on God's people. The passages set for this week encourage us to hold these two things carefully in balance. Zephaniah invites us to share in the joy of redemption. God has overcome the enemies of his people and now chooses to be with them – or should that be with us. On the other hand, in the Gospel reading, John the Baptist reminds us of the necessity of changing our ways. Whether we are like the outcast or the tax collector however, the message remains the same; God's judgement is good news because God has provided a means of taking away the judgement against the sinner. Those who live in fear of the wrath of God can be saved if they accept the baptism of repentance and live a life worthy of the gift of forgiveness that they receive from Christ. Event and Process.

We’ve been watching the DVDs from New Wine with Kenny Borthwick in the last couple of weeks at home group. This week he was talking about the coming of the Kingdom as event and process. This resonated for me with what we were talking about last week, the old cliché that God is for life not just for Christmas. We may have expectations that we will perhaps be refreshed and encouraged in our faith over the Christmas period – in a single event, and it is my prayer that that will happen, as it did for some people last Christmas Eve here. Yet, just as the coming of the Kingdom of God is a gradual process, as well as a single event in the incarnation of Jesus, so also our relationship with God is a process as we draw ever closer to him daily through our lives – not just at Christmas, and not even just at Church!

You might think it’s not very Christmassy to be thinking about judgement, but Kenny reminded us that when Jesus said to Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection,” he was in effect saying, “I am Judgement Day, standing right here before you”. For those whose hope is in the Lord, judgement day hold no fear. It is a time of joy.

Zephaniah means 'the one whom Yahweh has chosen'. He was probably prophesying to the people of Jerusalem at about the same time that Jeremiah was sharing God's judgement and words of comfort to the people of Judah. Few biblical prophets describe the wrath of God, or the joy of God, as vividly as Zephaniah does, and in this small section we are able to share something of his love and concern for the redemption of Jerusalem. The idea of God singing with joy reminds us that salvation is what God wants for us. Our salvation is a cause of exultation and rejoicing for God and that is the best measure of how much God loves us. Just as our individual salvation is both event and process, in our initial commitment and our gradual growth in faith and confidence – moving as we do, again in the words of Kenny Borthwick, from having enough light to die by to having enough light to live by, so also the Church’s journey through the Christian year is characterised by events – Advent Christmas, Epiphany and so on, at which we mark the milestones of faith, and a process, by which we journey together onward toward the eventual fill reign of God.

John the Baptist fascinates me. He clearly had issues with the religious authorities of his day, yet his preaching and prophecy was in fulfilment of everything they themselves were actually waiting for. The vitriol of John's question at the start of this passage may surprise us, but it perfectly demonstrates the difference between human judgement and God's grace. The unspoken answer, of course, is 'God warned us' by sending you. But of course it wasn’t just an unspoken answer, it was largely un-acted upon and ignored, unless we count people like Nicodemus. This was John's purpose in life, to call people to repentance, and here he starts with at the top. However, his baptism wasn't intended just for devout and righteous people who were already waiting for the day of the Lord. Neither was it restricted to the descendants of Abraham. Tax collectors, for example were often considered to be outcast from the law and from Jewish society because they worked as Roman agents. The soldiers mentioned would have been Roman soldiers, members of the occupying army. The good news is that all can be saved.

John stresses that baptism on its own is not enough. It marks the start, not the end, of the preparation for the coming of the Lord. It is an event that initiates a process, then as now. I’m not going to say there is nothing in the event, but it is incomplete without the process. Genuine repentance should result in a changed way of life. The repentant were therefore told to consider others and to give to them, as they were able; to undertake whatever work they had with integrity and respect for others. So although Bob Dylan and Kenny Borthwick were right to say that to repent is to change my way of thinking, it is interesting to see how John describes what his hearers need to do as part of their repentance – the event of the changed mind is accompanied by the process of living as redeemed people – what Dylan calls “make myself a different set of rules. So Judgement is not bad news for the repentant sinner. The promise of Christ's imminent arrival is good news to those who hear it. They have been given time to repent and amend their lives – a process so that they are ready to be baptised by Christ with the Holy Spirit and with fire – the ultimate event

Art and Christianity meme

2009-12-04T13:16:00.001Z

I'm pleased to have been tagged by Jon at Between on this meme.
The instructions are to list an artwork, drama, piece of music, novel, and poem that you think each express something of the essence of Christianity and for each one explain why. Then tag five other people. So here goes. I ought perhaps to say at the start that I don't think any of the interpretations I give were actually intended by the artists, except maybe the poem.

Artwork: The Fighting Temeraire A strange choice, maybe it's more about the church than about the essence of Christianity. I heard Nicholas Holtam speak on this painting and what he said has stayed with me since that day in 2002. This is a picture about change - the old warship being towed away to be broken up, a hero coming to a sad end. It reflects Turner's own disquiet about the dawning industrialisation process, thus the tug is a steamship towing a sailing vessel. It is a picture also of brokenness, which is in the essence of Christianity, both in the brokenness of Christ on the cross, and in our brokenness. For me this shows also both for the Church and as an element of our faith, that there is not always a happy ending, but there is always beauty. However there are some signs of hope - there is a sunset (or is it a sunrise?) indicating that life goes on, and something new will come in the morning. So, the inevitability of change, brokenness, beauty and new hope.

Drama: Dr Who Another weird one perhaps, but I think Dr Who is a quintessential Christ figure; he demonstrates enormous wisdom, compassion, self-sacrifice and courage, and he has enormous power at his fingertips though he does not always choose to use it.At a stretch we might say his re-incarnations (not sure if that's the right word, but you knew the thing where one actor leaves and another one starts there is the traditional transmogrification scene) illustrate the beautiful way in which the gospel can be birthed in every culture through time and across the world. Also of course (especially in recent series) the Doctor is paradoxically sexy but asexual, like Jesus. Dr Who also doesn't always have a happy ending but does always have hope. It also has a Sunday school - The Sarah Jane Adventures, and a deliverance ministry panel - Torchwood.

Music: there are a million and one songs that try to express something of the essence of Christianity, but the music I have chosen (the link is just a few minutes, you can buy a CD with an hour or so of it) concentrates not on being holy but on the transformation of something broken ugly and dirty into something beautiful harmonious (that's Tom Waits who joins in) and uplifting. This music is a big reason why I give cash to the homeless. Of course the title is the gospel ...

Poem: The Dream of the Rood. As I said, I think this is the only one deliberately trying to be fully Christian. If I was pretentious (OK, more pretentious than I am) I'd link to the original Old English text. I was given this poem to read by an old lady called Ruth Hook, whose late husband Ross had been a bishop at Lambeth. I used to take her communion when I was a young curate, and she was in a lot of pain most of the time. To help me understand how she dealt with that pain, and effectively also her impending death, she asked me to read this and it made me cry. She used to use her pain as a prayer, as the rood did. Pain is something of the essence of Christianity. Blimey this is getting a bit depressing ...

So lastly let's cheer up with the novel: I've cheated slightly again, mostly because once more there are a million and one books that set out to express the essence of Christianity, so stuff like Tolkien or Lewis would be too obvious. I'm going to go for a Children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit. I didn't read it as a child so can't comment on whether this interpretation works on the original audience (then again I read all of the Narnia books as a child BC without getting even an inkling (if you'll excuse the pun) of the intended message). Nevertheless this book for me captures the essence of Christian faith because it is about the power of love to make us real - to give us the identity we are meant to have in God, because he loves us and longs to be in relationship with us. It also cleverly subverts the modern obsession with outward appearance.

So that's my lot.
I hereby tag Jody, David K, Rachel, KT and Michael W

Enjoy!

Rejoice Rejoice Immanuel shall come to thee

2009-11-29T19:19:00.001Z

Sorry it's been a bit quiet here recently. Facebook is rather taking over my online life.
Today we had a wonderful time at Church for Advent Sunday because:
1)We had a guest preacher, Canon Andy Knowles from Chelmsford Cathedral, who is excellent. His reflections on the prophetic function of the fig tree were stimulating relevant and at times funny. ( I know you'll find that hard to believe if you weren't there, but there you go).
2) The chalice is back (though of course we got a bit caught off guard by the large turnout (it was a benefice service)and nearly ran out of bread and wine).
3) We had a Blue Peter style Advent wreath which was fab.
4) We had 2 ordinands ("home and away") in the congregation (and to ours for lunch).

Only one thing took me by surprise today - the map of Israel behind the words for "O Come O Come Immannuel" on the screen ...

5 deeply de Christian doctrines

2009-11-17T15:30:00.000Z

So many people have been responding to this tag recently its hard to come up wuth anything original, but I did say i would respond to Phil's tag so here goes. They're not really tuaght doctrines as much as doctrinal assumptions from what we sing or say in Church.

1. "The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high or lowly
and ordered their estate."
NO - HE DIDN'T ORDER IT, WE DID! Fortunately we don't sing this any more unless the funeral director is particularly inept (which mine aren't), but sometimes I feel the sentiment is there in conversations, for example, about travellers or why no one from the estate comes to church.

2. "The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes".
OK so he was breastfed, but even those babies cry sometimes!

3. "Christian Children all must be mild obedient good as he."
This is an interesting one; it is not un-Christian to aim for a situation in which children are focussed on Christ as their moral and ethical role model. What is de-Christian about this hymn is that i'm not sure that singing those words with gustio are the best way of going about that aim.

4. "The young people are the church of tomorrow". I get so angry about this that I will just let it stand.

5.All-age worship isn't really church though is it (see no,4)

“You Twit Face”

2009-11-03T17:32:00.002Z

Not an insult, but actually the name of a seminar at last summer’s New Wine conference, examining the impact of social networking Internet websites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Whether we like it or not, the Internet and mobile phones are increasingly playing a role in how people build communities. I am on Facebook, (are you?) Along with a billion people a day, I use YouTube a fair amount (you can use if for useful things like instructions on how to service an Aga, as well as trivial stuff like how to make a rocket with Coca-cola and mints), but I draw the line at Twitter. I suppose we all have our limits!

As I write, staff at the Royal Mail have voted to strike. One of the aspects of the dispute between postal workers and management seems to me to be that the former still have a understanding of the important role they play in communities, in bringing personal communication and information to the sizeable proportion of the population who don’t use the internet, while the latter build their statistics imagining that everyone in Britain is texting and emailing all day every day.

But we are not. Even though there are all sorts of useful things to be found on the Internet (even churches), and even though I enjoy catching up with people I don’t see very often as well as those I do, through Facebook, none of these things are a sufficient substitute for real face-to-face community.

Would Jesus be on Facebook? Perhaps he would, but he’d be one of those people who don’t write much, because his message is simple, “God wants you in his community”. That’s why God didn’t show his love for us by being remote and distant, but by coming to live on earth as a man, and experiencing the joys sorrows pain and celebration of human communities.

Through the advent of Jesus into the world, the whole world was redeemed. Or to put it in the words of Gregory of Nazanius, a fourth century Christian teacher, “That which God did not assume, he did not redeem”. At the end of this month we begin our journey to Christmas in the season of Advent. Countless generations of villagers here have taken that journey; it is part of the heritage of our community. It might be happening all over the world via the Internet, but we can do it together, face-to-face, here. Do join us for our special Advent Sunday benefice service at Stebbing on November the 29^th at 11am, when our preacher will be Canon Andrew Knowles, Canon theologian of Chelmsford Cathedral.

And if I do put this letter on Facebook, it won’t be until after the magazine is published!

With blessings and prayers for Remembrancetide and Advent

A Face in the crowd

2009-10-21T12:03:00.001+01:00

So you may have noticed that I am on Facebook now. I really must insist that I did it for work, to help with the communications for my Course in Christian Studies class. I know you won't believe me but there you go.

Of course there have been some good outcomes, not least getting back in touch with my godson Cameron, and improving communications with people I ought to be better at staying in touch with.

I also use it to stay in touch with people from Church and their far-flung relatives. We have a group for St Mary's Stebbing, so to a certain extent we are developing into an online community, especially for those peopel who for whatever reason are not actually living in the village at the moment.

It's not a substitute for real life human contact of course, but I have begun to notice that in a way Facebook is better than real life because you really have to watch what you say and do. In real life people can have a good old gossip, or a bit of a slagging off session; if you are daft enough to do that on Facebook, everyone can see it. It's a reminder that everything we do is observed by someone.

On the subject of online community, the online sermons thing is nearly there!

Outside its America

2009-10-21T09:05:00.001+01:00

"True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom"

Awesome!
h/t Andy Buckler

So she woke up

2009-10-20T12:57:00.000+01:00

There'll be a few bleary eyed clerics on Sunday morning, with the news that a U2 gig will be streamed live on Sunday at 3.30am UK time

Graceless lady? I think not.

2009-10-14T10:22:00.000+01:00

I don't normally go for Stones covers, but this just blew me away

Harvest sermon from little Saling 11th October 09

2009-10-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

The readings were Psalm 100 and John 6, 25-35

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.

It is good to say thank you. We bring our children up to do it, we say it ourselves all the time; we say “thank God” when we get some good news for a change, but we probably do that without thinking of it as a prayer, let alone a conversation. Yet God always wants to say, “you’re welcome”.

How do I know this, well, just read John 6, 33, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”. Gives life to the world – our very lives are gifts from God.

In human terms, ingratitude can eventually lead to a drying up of wells of generosity. If tasks are thankless, we are perhaps less inclined to do them. But for God, the well never dries up; his love is infinite and is not contingent on us saying thank you.

So why do we do it? At Harvest, even people who don’t believe in God understand the importance of thankfulness, and even though the food on our tables comes from a little further afield these days than it used to, this is a good time of year to acknowledge our debt both to the land and to those that till it for our benefit. These are all gifts from God too.

Have you ever been given a gift and not known how to use it, or even not wanted to use it?

This harvest, someone gave me a marrow. I didn’t know what to do with it (this is your cue to shout “stuff it”)

The marrow sat in our utility room until it went soft, as I had neither time nor energy to properly research recipes that I could cook and that my kids would eat, which involved marrow.

The story is told of a woman who was asked what she would like as a gift. She particularly liked a set of blue and white china she had seen in a shop window, so she asked to that; over many years her family and friends gave her pieces of this china until she had the full set. But when she died, it was all found in the original boxes, having been so treasured that she never dared use it.

Whether we are unable or unwilling to use them, sometimes the things God gives us go unused. So my question for us to consider this harvest time is what has God given us, that we could make better use of, and thus be truly thankful for.

Of course, if that lady had had her friends and family round to tea more often she might have been moved or encouraged to share her gift and use her china. If I had been brave enough o ask, I might have been able to get hold of those marrow recipes that you are preparing to tell me in a moment before it was too late. It seems to me a key to discovering and using our gifts – the gifts that God has given us both in practical and spiritual terms – is other people.

In the Quaker tradition they have a thing called a clearness group – a small band of people who get together and discuss each others’ gifting, and how to put it to best use.

Jesus said “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. This is a great gift, for which I’m sure we are truly thankful, but as those old words form grace at school lunchtime come back to me I am increasingly convinced that to be truly thankful means we need to properly put to use the thing we have been given.

sermon for 11th October at Lindsell

2009-10-12T11:58:00.002+01:00

Yesterday's sermon from Lindsell; the readings were Job 23, 1-17 and Mark 10, 17-31.

Last week we met Job for the first time, and the scene was set for his trials and tribulations. This week we meet him at his lowest ebb.There is a strong tone of judgement in today's lessons, balanced by an equally strong tone of empathetic care for the suffering or oppressed.

”With friends like these, who needs enemies?”Much of the Book of Job contains a dialogue between Job and his so-called 'comforters' who in effect add to his suffering by tempting him to question God, and question his own integrity. Their questions include 'Can a mortal be of use to God?' (22.2) and the accusation that Job must have sinned for his sufferings to happen: 'Is not your wickedness great?' they ask (22.5).Job's reply is a lament that in his suffering God appears to be absent. In fact, behind this lies a desire for justice and the opportunity to be judged by a human law. He wants to find God in order to lay his case before him. His hope is for a just judge with whom an upright person could reason, and then he might be vindicated.But of course the very point is that the problem of innocent suffering remains.

I hope we know that when we watch TV or read the papers about Samoa, Sumatra or the Gaza strip, that these circumstances of suffering are not a case of someone receiving their just deserts. God does not answer this kind of question because he is not inflicting the punishment. He only appears to be absent, and will not reply here to the charges, which Job puts.Job claims that he wants to listen to God, saying 'I would learn what he would answer me' but in fact all Job wants is the opportunity to put his case, which he believes, will be self-evident. Mistakenly, Job thinks that God will not simply brush him aside in a demonstration of power, but that is something to be seen later in his story. Now there is only absence, and this makes Job's suffering appear to be meaningless. Here he feels the pain of the injustice of it all, that God will not even reveal the reason why Job suffers so greatly.

He says, in a strange inverse echo of psalm 139, 'If I go to the east, he is not there, if I go to the west, he is not there' (23.8) and there is a feeling that God does not even care sufficiently to notice what is going on.Briefly, Job wonders whether all this is just part of a test, for people commonly saw suffering as being a trial by ordeal imposed by God, from which the pure gold of righteousness might emerge (23.10) Indeed this idea is quite prevalent today as well. I myself have sought comfort from that verse in times of trial, not realising that Job’s got the wrong idea; this is not a test, this is just life. Nevertheless, we can learn from Job’s fortitude and faithfulness here; it almost seems as if he has been reading the psalms in verses 8 to 12, so familiar his words seem to us.

In the end though, with the mood he’s in, God's refusal to appear plunges Job into a renewed despair, filled with dread before the Creator. Now, rather than daring to seek God, he wishes only to be hidden. Hidden, yes, but still standing, not silenced by the darkness. This kind of resilience will stand in good stead anyone who faces a tough time in life.I was most impressed to read this week of a number of Christians who have been involved in Anthony Gormley’s fourth plinth project in Trafalgar square recently. These plinthers have done a variety of things, from prayer and worship and mediation to preaching. Some faced opposition, including one Roman Catholic priest, who was asked, “Where was your God in Auschwitz or the Tsunami?” He replied simply “Dying, and drowning”.

The rich man of Mark 10 is devout and interested in inheriting eternal life. He has kept the commandments since his youth. However, he is shocked when Jesus, looking at him and loving him, nonetheless asks him to sell what he owns to give to the poor, thus storing up treasure in heaven; so he goes away grieving. This is an interesting encounter for two main reasons.

First, it is important to note that Jesus in asking him to sell his possessions and give to the poor is not asking him to do something in addition to keeping the commandments; rather Jesus is asking him to keep the commandments through engaging in this radical action.Remember Jesus' declaration that to love God with all the heart and to love neighbour as oneself is to keep all the commandments. This is all that Jesus has asked him to do, as a means of confronting the limited extent to which he has been keeping the commandments thus far.

Second, it is important to note the rich man's response: like Job, faced with an apparently impossible task, he goes away grieving. He is not angry, or appalled, or affronted, but saddened. He appears to recognise the validity of Jesus' radical demand but finds it impossible to follow because he is so attached to his possessions. This is surely a case of the word of God, as mentioned in Hebrews, being sharper than a two-edged sword in judging the heart. Both Job and the Rich young man teach us that going the way of the cross is costly.The disciples ask Jesus, “who then can be saved?” because they are thinking that salvation is something we do to ourselves through our actions; Jesus’ reply stresses the primary action of God – Humanly this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. The riches that Jesus describes the end of chapter 10 are not the kind of thing that people today – perhaps even us – would describe as riches. We tend to think of material possessions first and people afterwards; Jesus as usual inverts the table so that the first is last and the last first.

When the tears fall still I will praise you

2009-10-06T10:18:00.000+01:00

Here's another sermon; soon I am hoping to be able to at put some audio on here somewhere but for now you'll have to make do with text.
This owes quite a lot to Roots, and also the tag line came from a post on Father Kris' blog. H/t also to AnneDroid for the concluding link

The readings were Job 1, 1 and 2, 1-10 and Mark 10, 2-16

When it comes to suffering, as we going to be BITTER, BATTERED OR BETTER?

Today's readings hold before us both the sovereignty of God and the dignity of humanity among God's creation.If God is good, what is the source of evil? Through the Book of Job we shall explore this great mystery over the coming weeks. It is a book for all times and all people. Job is not an Israelite, and the book contains no references to either the Covenant or to Jewish Law and traditions. Ancient Israelite wisdom was considered a shared international legacy, and the problem that it addresses is a perennial one.

Job is regarded by many as a literary figure. The argument goes that the carefully constructed speeches, which constitute this lengthy work, could not have been composed under the conditions of suffering described here. Satan's exclamation 'Skin for skin' is an evil celebration of the opportunity to inflict excruciating pain, which would drive out all possibility of connected thought. Regardless of how the narrative was recorded though, what we have here is an exposition of the problem of evil and of undeserved suffering. Job is like Noah, the blameless person who survives the deluge – but one of suffering, rather than water.The initial problem presented is the temptation to blame the suffering on God; 'Curse God, and die' as Job's wife graphically puts it. The effect of giving in to this temptation would be to regard a good God as the source of the evil, and in the face of this temptation Job knows that it cannot be so. His initial reply is simply, 'Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?' (Job 2.10). Previously, in response to the loss of his children and property, he had only said, memorably, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord' (Job 1.20).

St Augustine would take up this theme in seeing evil as the absence or corruption of what is good. But if the loss of what was good is total, then the 'evil' has no independent existence. It owes its presence only to the fact that it has good things to destroy. As Keith Ward has said, in “the Puzzle of Evil”, “Evil is parasitic on good.”

The scene is set. Job has seen that God is good and that the perfect human response to such goodness is to reflect this goodness. And, if the good is taken away, this is only a temptation to turn away from God, rather than evidence that God is less than good. For the God-fearing person, the temptation is there to be confronted. To give in to it would be to become bitter; Job does not , so while he is in for a battering, as we shall see in the coming weeks, the outcome in the end is that he ends up better.

In the Gospel reading, from Mark 10.2-16, the twin themes of divine sovereignty and human dignity underpin Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce. When asked whether divorce was unlawful, Jesus' negative response is based on a view that divorce involves a separation of what God has joined together (Mark 10.9) as well as the assault upon human dignity it can bring (vv. 10–12). Jesus' argument is simple – that divorce in his day was a concession to hardness of heart.

However, the intention of God is that husband and wife should become one flesh and thus complete the other, enabling each to be more than they would be apart. Surely everyone on their wedding day would affirm their desire to be 'one flesh' with the other and to recognise that their good desire was something divinely ordained. Jesus also reminds people that they are to respect the fact that married people belong exclusively to each other: we should not try to break the bonds that God has made.Jesus would have been aware that women were rendered particularly vulnerable in cases of divorce. In the male-dominated Jewish culture of the time women were often reliant upon their husbands for support and protection. The husband could simply dismiss his wife, and she would be powerless to object. In the worst cases, to be divorced could mean penury or being passed round from one husband to another, which was an assault upon the human dignity not only of the wives but also the husbands. We would do well to remember that today Islamic marriage and divorce is operated along fairly similar lines.

It is not my intention this morning to rehearse all the issues and opinions around the remarriage of divorced people, which as you may know the church of England does permit under certain circumstances. I will just say that since we are on the subject of suffering, there are some things we can say about marriage and divorce under the headline, bitter, battered or better.I am in that familiar paradoxical place that vicars often end up in, because I believe that marriage should be for life, but I believe that those who have been divorced should be given grace and mercy, the opportunity for restoration, and ultimately, under certain circumstances, the chance to marry again.

The short version of the force of this argument is that people who get divorced are not worse sinners than people who stay married, and also, as a person who has moral responsibility for the life of a community, I’d rather couples got married – even in a civil ceremony – than just lived together.Aha, you might say, but this passage shows that what you are suggesting is against the teaching of the Bible. Well, I did obviously read it before forming my opinions, and you’ll need to remember a key phrase I have used just now, which is “under certain circumstances”.If we wish to avoid being bitter or battered, there are clearly some circumstances in which we must accept that divorce, though regrettable, is unavoidable, and is sometimes even better for all concerned.

Jesus said divorce was permissible “because of your hardness of heart”. It is a sad fact that it is more often necessary today because of hardness of fists, and hardness of heads.But where the rubber of “under certain circumstances” really hits the road is in the reconciliation of verses 10 to 12 with church of England practice. Look at the text carefully, you will see it says “anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her”.

One of the circumstances in which we say no to marriage requests is if the relationship is the result of one person leaving a marriage for another person, and then wanting to get married to that person. I wouldn’t even do a blessing for that, because that would be to legitimise adultery, or as “Four Weddings and funeral” puts it, “serial monogamy”.In brief, then, like Jesus we celebrate the sanctity of God’s gift of marriage, and like Jesus we seek to bring dignity to the divorced.

I found something on the internet this week on the website of a prison chaplain. If you are feeling bitter or battered, and want to be better, or even of you are not and you need to be encouraged to move on in the faith, listen to this, and consider how our circumstances, even if they are tough, do not compare with how some Christians live today.

http://annedroid-annedroid.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-am-i-here-for.html

There are two sides to every story

2009-09-30T10:51:00.000+01:00

because of this, about the Sun only wanting to back winners (allegedly), it's time we heard this again

That's going to be nearly 30 years old by next May. Strange how so much still resonates today (except of course it's lottery and t**s rather than bingo).

Well I know I'm gonna be ...

2009-09-29T09:59:00.002+01:00

This is awesome and inspiring

Thanks AnneDroid

Girl there's a better life ...

2009-09-28T13:08:00.001+01:00

Inspired by an old college friend's post over at Holy Brit, I went online recently and bought the DVD of City of Ember. My kids loved it and it also appealed to me.

Not just because it's a Walden media film, but mostly because it belongs in that particularly helpful film genre of post-apocalyptic fantasy. I think this is a helpful kind of film because it engenders thought about the following (in no particular order); the end of the world (which you can take theologically, ecologically, politically or all three), how to escape from captivity and helplessness, themes of redemption, the rediscovery of ancient wisdom, the possibility that there is another way of living or another world in which we can live .... you can see where I'm going with this.

City of Ember doesn't have a particularly strong plot (there are a couple of holes which I attributed to post production cutting) but for me a great element of the story was the contrast between the kids who decided to try to escape a doomed underground city, and the people who preferred to stand around singing on "the great day of singing", trusting that "the builders will return".

I'm not saying we earn our salvation, I'm just saying there is more to life and faith than standing round singing; we have to (in the words of John Ortberg) get out of the boat. Stebbing church have been having a little go at this recently. When the photos are in I will post about that too.

But back to post-apocalyptic films. I guess City of Ember is to "the Matrix" (if you need me to link that, where have you been?) what Monopoly Junior is to the real thing; same theme, but simpler plot, shorter and easier to play (and obviously fewer automatic weapons). There are tons of films that effectively tell the same story; struggling survivors (with a variant, Utopian fallacy), post apocalypse, minority rebel, escape, bring deliverance. It is a story of salvation, but not all the films are as overtly Messianic in imagery as The Matrix.

Here's a little selection for you to compare and contrast

Logan's Run
The Island
The Matrix
Equilibrium
WALL-E

Perhaps you can add to this list.

If I was feeling pious I guess I could say there is a fascination for this kind of stuff because subconsciously we all want to escape, we all want to be saved. Actually the appeal has as much if not more to do with the actors and actresses (I think it is possible that Logan's Run was the inspiration for Kenny Everett's line "and then all my clothes fall off...") and rip roaring action/fight sequences.

I first got interested in this genre at school, studying O-level English literature. If I were to say to you, EM Forster, you'd probably be thinking of a Merchant Ivory film with Helena Bonham Carter in it (too many to link to ). Yet in 1909 Forster wrote The Machine Stops (that's the full text, you can get a summary here). To my mind this short story is the daddy of this kind of narrative. If you ever worry about the Internet having too much influence over us, you'll enjoy Forster's scarily prophetic plot. If they made it into a film today it'd be panned as far too derivative of any of the above!

X factor Christianity - Sermon for 20th September at Stebbing

2009-09-20T17:53:00.000+01:00

The focus of today's readings (Proverbs 31, 10-31 and Mark 9 30-37) is that God lifts up the humble and brings down the proud. Once again I am endebted to the work of CT Samuel on Rootsontheweb.com.

I was intrigued by our discussions at homegroup on Tuesday – and by the way you’re not too late to join a group if you would like to – about doing something extraordinary for God. Many of us feel quite incapable to following in the footsteps of a missionary, or going to work in a hostile country. But those things are only extraordinary for the people who do them; God’s extraordinary for you and me is something that he is calling us to. It’s not a competition. That’s why I like watching the X factor at this stage in the series when they are still giving anyone of however little ability the chance to get on stage, on TV, and do their thing. That is extraordinary, even if they don’t get through to the next round; they’ve still done more than me and sung or danced on national TV. It’s not a competition, and so efven if you feel you can’t or don’t do anything extraordinary for God, on reflection you may realise that something you consider to be normal – like praying every day for someone, or like listening to someone who needs to be heard – are actually extraodrianry, but just quietly so.

Wisdom plays a big part in that kind of faith. In our Old Testament reading from Proverbs 31.10-31 the capable woman demonstrates how she incorporates a Divine Wisdom into practical everyday life. Here is a truly astonishing presentation of woman by a patriarchal society! Only the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament portrays such a high view of any woman. Fittingly the good woman here is described in verse 3 and verse 29 in the same way as Ruth (Ruth 3.11). The term used means virtuous, noble, or admirable. It is an expression that elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible refers to power and strength. The Book of Proverbs had given warnings about the dangers of loose women in chapters 1 to 9 so this provides a fitting contrast, going back to the initial image of God's Wisdom personified as a woman.

Could this reflect an increased importance for women after Jews returned from the exile? God's people were no longer a powerful state under a strong male ruler. It was no longer the world of a David or Solomon with many wives, whom they treated as property. The Jews were now a monogamous religious society in which much of their religious observance would depend on the contribution of women to each household. Eating the right food in the right way, and being appropriately dressed would be the responsibility of women. Surely in the difficult circumstances of exile it had been the capabilities and ingenuity of faithful women that had enabled the people to retain their identity as Jews. Now husbands might take their seat with the elders, but it was the women who kept the household running. It was women who translated the theory of what it meant to be a Jew into faithful observance. So God did something quietly extraordinary during the exile in turning his people from a patriarchal to a much more egalitarian society.

The strong woman is a fountain of life and stability for her household. She goes beyond being defined as wife or mother. This housewife is the embodiment of divine wisdom and is the ideal for all human beings. She is free, capable, wise and loving, and the person who holds her entire household together. It is a rural extended family with servants, providing a host of opportunities for her to exercise her management skills. The rich and detailed description of her qualities goes far beyond advice about how to find a suitable wife.

Our Gospel from Mark 9.30-37 continues in some ways around the same kind of theme as last week. First off, we get to think some more about how Jesus, who was of one mind with God, needed to ask his friends “what were you arguing about on the road?” Here it is clear that he knew the answer that they did not want to give, because he answers their question – “who was the greatest” in the teaching that follows. Of course the answer is the same – it’s not a competition, but if you want to win, you must lose. Thus Jesus applies his now it seems regular teaching about his coming passion and death into the lives of his followers.

There is another rebuke here from Jesus like the one Peter got last week. This time it is dealt with in the gentlest way possible. Time is running short, and Jesus leads by example. He must have been aware of infighting among the Disciples about who was the greatest. It clearly wasn't an isolated incident: all the gospels refer to it, and this rivalry even continued at the Last Supper (Luke 22.24). By placing a child among them Jesus taught them that those who wished to be the greatest of all should seek to be the least and servant of all.

They clearly remembered their embarrassment at being asked by Jesus what they had been arguing about, instinctively recognising that they had been behaving badly. Jesus is quite radical in his assertion that greatness is to be found not in self-exaltation but in self-humiliation, not in seeking to be greater but in seeking to be less. Jesus of course embodies this in his own crucifixion and death; a point alluded to in the text itself (cf. Mark 9.31). It makes the point that God values humility and identifies himself with the least and the lowest.

I want to end by making three direct applications of this passage to our life as a church today.

The first one has been a long time coming but we are now in a position to begin preparing primary school age children for communion before confirmation; I will be liaising with Andy and Vicky to ensure that only the appropriate children attend the course of preparation, and we will sometime in the future hold a special service at which we will welcome them to Christ’s table in his name.

The second one applies to the listeners who will be commissioned at the end of today’s service. Listening is not a very high profile ministry, and so it doesn’t appear to be extraordinary, compared to say going to Bible College or working for Tear Fund in The Sudan. However, these listeners have responded to a call from God, they have been trained to listen and in that listening they will exercise a ministry among us and beyond the walls of church. You might not even notice it happening, but it will be there, in fact it already is there.

Following on from that I want to say a few more words about next week’s fete and harvest festival. We are going to be a small part of the village celebrations; it is not a competition to be the snazziest stall or the best thing there; we just want to make connections, to bring the message of the gospel to our community, and to offer people the chance to be prayed for. That is a bit of a scary thing; yet God is calling us to get out of our boat and walk with him; we can ask him now to anoint us afresh for the task, with his Holy Spirit.

Would you please stand.

In the name of the [grand] Father ...

2009-09-14T13:06:00.001+01:00

I saw this and thought of Phil, who often reflects (though not always theologically) on Manchester Utd.

h/t Off the post, and a h/t to Phil for drawing my attention to them, although this act in itself is having a serioulsy detrimental effect on my work rate in the parish (only joking Archdeacon).

You've come a long way, baby

2009-09-10T17:08:00.000+01:00

From this

To this

Not bad for a few months' work Fabio.

got my mojo working

2009-09-05T22:40:00.000+01:00

I loved that expression I read at Get out of Jail free recently - about losing one's blogging mojo. I think that may have happened to me a bit recently. Strange, it's usually hard to get me to shut up! I've still been reading though, as most others seem to be in free flow at the moment what with Greenbelt, new Bible translations, diving footballers etc (Too lazy to link, just browse the blogroll on the left)
Possibly it's because this is a busy time of year for most of us, what with back to school, home groups and church meetings getting back into gear, etc, and so my mind has been a bit full.

On top of which I was ill last weekend - had to miss Sunday at the last minute which was in some senses a downer as I hate being ill, and haven't ever missed a Sunday through illness in 11 years of this gig, but in other ways it was reassuring and encouraging that so many people in our benefice, both licensed and "normal" can just step in and take over at one day's notice.

Momentous event today as our household grew to 5 with the return of our former foster daughter Tabitha (known as Tabz) to our home. She has moved in to get herself sorted and employed and road-legal. The kids think it's great that their big sister has moved in. They think it's for ever (3000 years said daughter S at supper) but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Someday (with her permission) I might tell you about how Tabz came to be living with us, and maybe even why she stopped living with us if I'm feeling particularly in need of catharsis.

I wonder who's watching me now

2009-08-26T12:45:00.000+01:00

Some good news for a change
NO MORE BIG BROTHER ON CHANNEL 4

I'm happy hope you're happy too

2009-08-23T18:35:00.005+01:00

Someone texted the BBC:

"Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne, Donald Bradman, Crocodile Dundee, Merv Hughes, Skippy the bush kangaroo, Kevin Rudd, Jason Donovan, Rolf Harris, Kylie Minogue, your boys took a hell of a beating!"

If you remember Norway beating England (at football) all those years ago then that text is funny. If not, well, just enjoy the moment.

The Snoopy quotation I was after online the other day was

"It's not whether you win or lose, but how cool you are"

Of course, that bit of googling was going on on Friday afternoon when Broad was devastating the Australian middle order, so (being an eternal pessemist when it comes to English sporting achievement) at the time I hadn't seen the score and so I was expecting us to lose, but in a cool way.

For me the highlight of the Ashes is still Strauss' good sportsmanship in allowing the Aussies to substitute their injured 'keeper after the team sheets had been declared, when he could have made them play with 10 men early on in the series. That was cool.

collecting my thoughts about Libya and the US

2009-08-23T13:09:00.004+01:00

This is the collect for today, Trinity 11

O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

And here is the full text of a letter from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, to Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill.

Now, I have many friends and acquaintances on both sides of the Atlantic who were profoundly affected by the Lockerbie bomb. Some lost relatives, some knew their home town would never be the same again.

I also have some friends, acquaintances and family who have worked or are working in the prison system in England and in Scotland. It seems to me therefore in my limited understanding of this thing that the release of Al-Megrahi is being processed and interpreted by at least two different cultural mindsets and two different legal systems, which by implication may reflect two different understandings of God, his compassion and our calling to reflect that compassion in our attitudes.

The Scottish Justice Minister has replied to Mueller's letter stating (among other things) that compassionate release is part of the Scottish justice system, but that it is not part of that of the USA. Scotland can scream as loud and long as they like that this release was done in accordance with the rule of law. The US will never understand that because for them the rule of law means something very different, and given the propensity (not universal I know) for the death penalty, something a lot less compassionate and merciful.

Let's face it, if Mr Al-Megrahi had been tried and convicted in the States it probably wouldn't be cancer that killed him, but a lethal injection or an electric shock.

As for the "hero's welcome" he received, we would do well to remember the media-driven crowd-pulling affairs that occur at any airport when anyone of any repute is arriving. Then we can add into that equation the unpopularity of the States in Libya and the middle east generally.

Then again, the US doesn't tend to give heroes' welcomes to those who return from overseas action - from Gary Powers the downed U2 spyplane pilot (whose family had to wait 40 years to get his medals) to the (perhaps exaggerated by Stallone and co) rejection of Vietnam veterans, to the ungreeted caskets of dead US service personnel flown home during the Bush era from Iraq, so no wonder they disapprove of a few dozen enthusiastic family and friends and some enterprising flag salesmen the other night at Tripoli.

And one more thing, Al-Megrahi did not perpetrate the bombing of PanAm flight 103 (see, I can even write that without looking it up) alone. He is most definitely a scapegoat, and scapegoats are usually prized for their effectiveness in assuaging the guilt of those who are supposed to stop this kind of thing happening. Isn't that one of the reasons the English legal system struggled with the release of Ronnie Biggs?

I (?we) understand power to be properly exercised in showing mercy. Mr Mueller and possibly even Mr Obama seem to understand power to be properly exercised in shows of strength and bullying, and in the throwing out of the pram of toys when things don't go their way. Dare I say that ++KJS and the ECCUSA shares that understanding ...

that's me in the corner [if cricket was a religion!]

2009-08-21T15:06:00.005+01:00

I was looking online for a quotation from Snoopy that I once got in a birthday card a long time ago from an ex-girlfriend, which is going to be the basis of my post - Ashes post next week, and I found this. Enjoy

I can't be that much of a loser as I have at least managed to get the embedding code to work (kind of)!

Vicar's letter to the readers of the village magazines, September 09

2009-08-20T12:41:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,
Did you know that Christian discipleship is like Horse Whispering?

If you are now thinking about Robert Redford and Kristin Scott Thomas, whoa there! I’m talking about the real horse whisperer, Monty Roberts, who is world famous and even trains the horses of Her Majesty, the Queen. To get to the point of this illustration I need to give you a bit of background.

Monty Roberts grew up as the son of a horse-breaker in the desert of the Southern USA. His father’s method of training wild horses was to tie them to a post and scare them until they submitted to his control. Monty watched his father, and the wild horses, and he noticed two things; firstly, that his father was using essentially the same method to bring him up, and secondly that there was a better way of communicating with horses.

He observed that a horse wishing to join a herd went through a long process with the dominant mare of the herd, which amounted to a series of invitations and challenges, communicated with movements of the head and body. These invitations and challenges, Monty realised, could equally well be given to a horse by a human. He imitated the gesture and posture of the horses and found he could very quickly get them to trust him and relate closely to him. Apparently the longest it has ever taken him to get a saddle and rider on to a wild horse is 16 minutes.

So what’s that got to do with Christian discipleship? Well, firstly we need to acknowledge that in the past the worldwide church has behaved like Monty Roberts’ father in scaring people into submission and obedience. I want to assure you, if you still had any lingering doubts, that we don’t do it like that any more! God is not a horse breaker; he is a horse whisperer, giving us loving invitations and gentle challenges through life, to draw us into close relationship with him. Just as Monty Roberts effectively became a horse to communicate with horses, God became a human in Christ so that he could show us how much he loves us.

And secondly, the church now functions as a whisperer, not a breaker. I hope you know you are invited – to come and be heard, to come and be part of something. Yet, if all we ever did were invite people, we would just be a cosy huddle, instead of a vibrant community of faith. Invitation then goes hand in hand, in church life as in horse whispering, with challenge. What do I mean by that? Well, people who’ve been church members all their lives are still on a journey of discovery, learning more from day to day, week to week, about God and what it means to be a Christian. That challenge is open for everyone, no mater whether they’ve never been to church or have been going for 90 years!

Invitation and challenge; we are aiming for a careful balance between the two, because if all you ever got at church was challenge, you’d soon be discouraged, but if all you get is invitation, you’d soon be bored. But with the right amount of both, the result is an empowered Christian community, on a journey of discovery together.

I look forward to journeying with you this autumn

Tim

Concerto for a rainy day

2009-08-20T12:34:00.005+01:00

Finally getting round to reflecting on the teaching and worship at New Wine LSE. I've been whining about the weather for long enough and something has got to distract me from keeping looking at the cricket score today!

I spent the mornings in Venue 2 which is smaller and louder but more relaxed and informal than Venue 1. I liked the fact that normal people, not just New Wine leadership team members, are deemed suitable to pray at the beginning of each session. Mike Breen was the speaker all week. He was reflecting a lot on discipleship, comparing it usefully to Horse whispering (you'll have to download the talks, or read my steal) and giving some really good insights into the significance and typology of the Abrahamic covenant, relating the story of Isaac's "sacrifice" to the sacrifice of Christ and saying some helpful things about the whole PSA debate.

Mike speaks with humour and with speed, but is entertaining enough that when you disagree with him (as I did about bishops) you don't get too cross and keep listening.

In the evenings I joined the herd at Venue 1, which had a variety of speakers. Amy Orr-Ewing was very good, though not exclusively because she was a woman under 50 on the stage at Venue 1 in New Wine (next step an ordained woman - come on you people!)

Michael Duncan blew me away with his testimony and his challenge to men to "step out". I haven't gone forward for prayer at New Wine for about 5 years - that day it was twice - once in the morning at venue 2 for over-burdened ministers , once in the evening at venue 1 for men. Mark Melluish said something very significance during the build up to the prayer ministry following Michael Duncan's talk.

He said (quoting as I remember it) "It's not very politically correct, but I think a lot of women have been waiting for this for a long time, I'd like only women to pray for these men as they come forward". The significance of this, in the light of various debates about New Wine's attitude to gender roles and ministry, is that women were freed to pray over, prophesy over, and speak with authority into the lives of men. OK its not quite the same as the ordination thing but for me it was a significant shift, and it was liberating.

Mark Melluish also spoke very movingly on the last night about the events in his family following his son's serious head injury earlier in the year. This was also a significant evening, touching as it did on issue such as the tension between what happens when God heals and when he doesn't, as well as giving a challenge to our middle class comfort zone when it comes to sharing faith in multicultural environments like ITU family rooms.

The worship this year was also good I enjoy Eoghan Heaslip (aka Shaka Hislop because I can never say his name right) and Kathryn Scott made a nice change. Matt Redman's looking a bit chubby these days but can still cut it, and also in venue 2, Bill Donoghue and Nick Herbert woke me up well in the mornings.

I didn't go to many seminars this year as I spent more time networking and drinking free coffee in the Leaders' Lounge, but I wasn't going to miss "Building an Outward focused church" led by Alan Scott from Causeway coast vineyard. It was ace, and once you've translated "vineyard" to "Anglican" in the cultural references, it was most useful. The most challenging thing he said in the light of the fact that we've just put together our vision statement, was that "If no one is leaving your church, your vision statement is too broad". I guess I'm ambivalent about the Vineyard tendency to say "if you don't like it you know where the door is", but sometimes I wish I could say it!

Other highlights included the good old Groundbreakers family celebrations, and my daughter on stage with the New Wine kids choir. And of course staying up late in the gazebo talking with the gang.

Next year we might try Newark, to see if we can tempt a few more of this lot to come.

Eat what you're given

2009-08-16T21:16:00.001+01:00

This was my sermon today, on Ephesians 5, 15-20 and John 6, 51-58.

It is a strange but nice co-incidence that as we are adapting to the imposition of a different way of taking communion, the readings this week give us the opportunity to reflect on drinking wine, and on the theology of communion as a whole!
The beginning of Ephesians chapter 5 reminded readers that they should be imitators of God (Ephesians 5.1) and offered practical advice on living in the body – the church. This passage is in the same vein. It offers two contrasts – between foolish and wise behaviour (vv. 15-17) and between being filled with wine and filled with the Spirit (v. 18).
For the Ephesians as for us Wisdom contrasts with the foolishness of the godless environment that is the world around us. Wisdom here is more about a whole attitude to life in Christ than an abstract concept or intellectual achievement. The core value of wisdom is that Christians should not wander aimlessly through life or behave as if they were in a moral stupor. There was for the Ephesian church a constant danger that Christians might be fooled by the attractions of the present age. The times required people to be cautious.
In one sense, nothing has changed. I wonder how much we differ from our neighbours who are not sitting next to us this morning. Do our lives from Monday to Friday reflect what we do and say on Sunday? I suspect they do, but we might not even be aware of why this is. There was in the early church a belief that evils increased as the end of the world neared –Mark 13 is an example of this. Wisdom was to be gained and accessed through discerning God's will (v. 17). The church is the principal means of carrying out this task of discernment. Yes, the Spirit speaks to individuals, and yes, the Bible or a hymn or poem can inspire the individual, but the Church (with a capital C to show I mean the universal church, not just our church) is the filter and sounding board and thinking space for these things.
Today there is also a feeling that things are going off the rails. Fed by media stories of crime and violence, of assisted suicide and of economic meltdown, it is sometimes hard for us to avoid thinking that there is an increase in evil in our world. Even in the Anglican Church things are looking a bit shaky; yet I am confident that in the Church of England at least, the corporate discernment of God’s will is still underway.
Paul’s second contrast in this passage is about alcohol, and about self-control, but the text continues to address the difference in moral attitude between the Christian and the non-Christian. Being filled by wine and being filled by the Spirit might both lead to singing, but there was and is a difference – in the first instance the alcohol is in control, in the second, it is the Spirit, when the Christian allows him control of their life. We have a glimpse here of the worship of early Christian communities who continued to sing the psalms of their Jewish heritage and added hymns and spiritual songs. There is no reason to suppose that the purpose of these verses was to address problems relating to the common meal of the community. They are making a pointed contrast rather than a targeted point. The note of praise and worship at the end of this passage is an important counter-balance to a view of wisdom that is worthy and dull. The wisdom that threw a party in the passage from Proverbs is the same wisdom that discerns the will of God.
Our second reading however is of course much more directly about communion. In the readings from John 6 set over the last two weeks, we have seen the unfolding of Jesus' understanding of himself as the bread of life, not just in a symbolic way, but in the flesh. We have also seen the desire of the crowd to keep the discourse about real (in their terms) bread so that Jesus would repeat his sign of feeding them. Now they were discussing how anyone could give their flesh to be eaten (v. 52). It was probably a heated discussion. What did Jesus mean exactly? Was this cannibalism – a charge frequently levelled against early Christianity? As people familiar with the Lord's Supper, Communion or Eucharist, we may be so familiar with the idea of eating the body of Christ that we find it difficult to understand how offensive this might sound to others. We can also become acutely aware of how entrenched our attitudes can become, to things like the cup, the nature of the elements and so on, or even about whether or not we should partake. This is one of my favourite Bible passages, and I would not be exaggerating to say that studying it totally transformed the way I understand and experience the grace of God in the Eucharist. However, I will try in what follows to avoid too much self-indulgence.
In John 6, verse 51, Jesus re-emphasises his claim to be the bread from heaven. Everyday bread has life-giving properties and the only way to get that nourishment is to eat the bread. In the same way, the only way to receive the life-giving potential of the bread from heaven was to eat. Does that mean we can’t truly be Christians unless we are communicants? That’s a tough question, and I would like to answer it gently and deliberately so as to challenge, but not exclude.
First a bit of background; John’s gospel dos not have a last supper account, as the others do, from whence we derive a lot of our communion theology, along with 1 Corinthians 11. Chapter 6 then is the main source of Eucharistic theology for this gospel. In it Jesus clearly identifies himself with the saving provision of God in Israel’s history – the manna from heaven. He also prophetically identifies himself with the elements of the Passover meal that tell of Israel’s deliverance. Thus far, we are in the same territory as the other gospels. John 6 is a little bit more mystic, yet we should always read it in the light of the other three.
Read in isolation, and without care, it can appear that this passage indicates that salvation is achieved through the consumption of bread and wine as body and blood at communion. That would be the conclusion of some scholars who understand this text to be a later insertion to justify and explain the origins of the Eucharist in the early church. However, we need to return to that concept of corporate discernment of God’s will; as a whole, the message of Scripture is not that salvation, our identity as Christians, or even our capacity for relationship with God, is a matter of eating and drinking bread and wine. It does say that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus’ sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. Church practice entails that this faith is expressed by, but not entirely defined by, our participation in the Lord’s Supper.
Having said that, there can be no doubt that the eating of Christ’s body and the drinking of his blood are central to Christian faith and practice. In Church history there has always been a graduating tendency whereby the child, the newcomer or the new convert are gradually drawn into the Eucharistic fellowship. That is not to say (even if the impression is sometimes strongly given) that the catechumens – to give them their traditional name – are in any way less of a Christian than someone who’s been taking communion for decades. Let us remember that at the Last Supper, the denier and the betrayer shared the bread and the cup. It is therefore dangerous to presume that we know who should and shouldn’t take communion. Children, occasional attenders or people who for whatever personal reasons have decided not to take communion, are not a lesser part of the church.

What I think I’m trying to say then, in answer to my own question of a few minutes ago, is that not taking communion does not exclude you from being a Christian. However, being a Christian is about a journey together, towards God in Christ, and we as a church express that journey in our worship by partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the communion. We understand communion in the Anglican tradition as being among other things a means of meeting with God and receiving his grace, a means of reviving and encouraging our faith, and ultimately as an act of worship we were commanded by our Lord to do, in anticipation of his return. The Eucharist does define us, but I hope never in an exclusive way. So I hope to have fulfilled my promise not to exclude anyone; here comes the challenge.
John Wesley, when he was an Anglican minister, called the Eucharist “a converting ordinance”. His heart was strangely warmed by the exposition of Scripture, as I expect ours are too. Yet my heart is warmed by communion. I am so blessed to be your priest because I get to preside here – we all celebrate communion, let’s remember, I am just the president. My heart is warmed because it is where I meet with God, it is a big part of how my faith grows and is sustained, and mostly because I therefore know how much God loves me even though I do not deserve or understand why he should. Let’s be clear that you do not have to fully understand how communion works to be part of it; if that were true, none of us would be able to take the bread and the wine. Neither do you have to be perfect or even nearly so to take the bread and the wine.

I am blessed by those of us who come but do not partake; I just want to say that if ever anyone wishes to change their status from non-communicant to communicant, I would be equally blessed;
“Live not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity …”

Wild boys never chose this way

2009-08-15T12:01:00.006+01:00

We're back from France again. Went to the same place as last year, so I won't bore you with the details. This year was enhanced by hotter weather ( a definite improvement on the mudbath of New Wine, the theological content of which I will get round to posting about eventually) and children old enough to entertain themselves for longer thus leaving me and the missus with more time to read, relax and eat the local fayre, although I definitely do not recommend the tripe!

You know that thing where you say to your kids "Go on, eat up", well I wish I'd never said it after ordering "tripes a l'ancienne" only to discover it tasted like old socks and (possibly because it was a little too "ancienne") had a disastrous effect on my digestive system.

We also took in a local leisure facility called Cap Decouverte which I would thoroughly recommend if you're ever in the area.

Things I did on holiday I'd never done before (or not for a very long time anyway)

1. Eat Tripe (see above)

2. Ride a penny farthing (see photo)

3. Read an entire non-fiction book that wasn't about Theology or sport.

It was "Savage Girls and Wild Boys" by Michael Newton and I found it both moving and fascinating. It is about feral children through the ages and goes from the legend of Romulus and Remus through the medieval wild children of Europe to Kaspar Hauser, to awful stories of modern abuse of children locked away from human contact ( It was written before Josef Fritzl's abuse came to light).

I was interested in it initially because one of the cases was relatively local to where we were staying; then my background in linguistics kicked in (Newton quotes the first books on linguistics I ever read "Transformational Syntax" and "The Articulate Mammal").

Finally my passions were aroused because I just wanted to shout at the author "They have autism!" I know that's a bit of a generalisation, and it doesn't apply to the children who were abused, (except Kaspar Hauser) but the cases Newton examines mostly concern children who have little or no understanding of human language or social interaction, and are discovered living wild with animals. The experts attribute their lack of understanding of human social communication to the fact that they have lived in isolation or with animals whose social communication they do understand. Newton then reflects philosophically on what it means to be human (as opposed to simian/animal) concluding that it has to do with spoken language and "souls" - a useful term he uses to describe the treatment some of these kids went through is "soul murder".

However, having become something of an Autistic Spectrum nerd over the last 18 months (I have a son recently diagnosed as being on the Autistic spectrum and there are at least 2 other kids in our churches on the spectrum - don't get me started on undiagnosed adults), the descriptions of the children just kept pointing towards autism; thus an alternative view might be that far from developing these strange habits while living with animals, these kids had them when they were abandoned and/or rejected by their families and communities - indeed they are the reason they were rejected in the first place.

Any parent of a kid with ASD will know the frustrations that come with that; hundreds of years ago it was acceptable to ride into the woods and leave an unmanageable child there. Being human is a much more inclusive activity these days.

If anyone else out there has any helpful things to say about this I'd value them

O Lord, the clouds are gathering

2009-08-02T11:57:00.001+01:00

This shot was taken the night before we arrived at Shepton Mallet for New Wine 09. We always camp at Wincanton Racecourse, in order to make an earlier start on the Saturday, without havign to get up too early.
New Wine was great in terms of content, but muddy and wet in terms of weather. I will post on the things that impacted me most when I return from France in a few days, but for now just let me say it was good to connect with a few bloggers, including Jody and (briefly) Fibrefairy.

Come on in ...

2009-07-20T14:33:00.001+01:00

We're off to New Wine this week, with a small party from church ( I have to say that as the first thing vicars say to each other when they meet on the showground is "How many have you brought?")

Anyone else going to LSE who wants to get together can come and find this van on White 6

see you there

Seermon for 19th July at Lindsell and Stebbing

2009-07-20T10:02:00.002+01:00

The readings were Ephesians 2,11 to the end and Mark 6, 30 to 44 (I know, playing fast and loose with the lectionary, but what an empty reading if you stuck with the allocated gospel passage!)
Some material from rootsontheweb.

Today’s sermon might be titled “predestination, what’s all that about then, part 2, or, what does it mean to be untied in Christ?” I’m inspired mostly by international events, but if what I share with you helps us on a local level, all the better. The two things in my mind that kicked off this line of thought were the decision this week of the General convention of the TECUSA to overturn a ban on practising homosexuals in holy orders, and the decision of the Greek orthodox church to declare that other churches’ baptism is not valid.

The first part of chapter 2 of the letter to the Ephesians (vv. 1–10) had reminded readers of their liberation from forces beyond their control and their place with Christ. God's grace had saved them, not their own efforts. Today's reading moves on from that to reflect on the unity that Christ brings.

There was in Christ no division between people because of ethnicity, culture or religious background. Gentile believers were first asked to imagine themselves as they might be perceived from a Jewish perspective (vv. 11–12): they did not belong to the elect nation and had no hope. However, Christ has drawn them in (v. 13), not into the old religious context but into a new relationship of peace (vv. 14–18). Christ not only reconciles people to God, but also to one another. Assurance of this double reconciliation is a special contribution of Ephesians. Those who are predestined, then, are not passive but active in relating to each other within the Kingdom of God. In other words, being predestined is not just about sitting back and soaking it up, but about actively proclaiming the unity that has been wrought for us by Jesus.

Even if churches seem sometimes to go into meltdown, we can be assured that the more important body, the Kingdom, remains intact. Once again we a strong illustration of how God’s sovereign will overarches our human understanding of things like time; Paul exhorts his gentile readers to look back at what they were before they came to faith in Christ – and it is that faith in the blood of Christ that has brought them near to God. Yet for God, this perspective has no meaning, as both before and after their conversion he was with them and had chosen them. Their recognition of his choice, and their own submission to his rule and authority brings into effect the power of the Cross.

And the Kingdom, the new temple, the family of God, whatever we call it, is founded in order to bring about a unity among believers – a good thing to remind ourselves of this week.
Although the divisiveness of Old Testament legalism was abolished at the cross and resurrection of Jesus, says Paul in v. 15, the underlying values were not – verse 20 is clear that the prophets play a part in the foundation of the new covenant. Christianity was more than a reshaped Judaism, but God had not given up on the foundational ideals proclaimed under his inspiration. The final verses of the passage use some strong images. Christians are not aliens but citizens and are members of God's household (v. 19). Together they are built into a new temple (vv. 20–22). In this building image we can see a contrast between a dividing wall (v. 14), which kept people apart, and the new structure, which incorporated them and gave them all access to God. Buildings were important symbols of power and glory in the Roman Empire. This new structure symbolised a different reality. It is not a matter of architecture designed to dominate and rule, but of a united community all seeking to serve the cornerstone, Christ.

How we read chapters like Ephesians 2 will be affected by how we interpret the scope of the pronouns – I mean, who we understand the “you”, the “we” to be. If Paul is distinguishing between groups within the church, it is only to make the point that the work of Christ is to unite them. These people he refers to as “you” are not outside the church, they are simply not from a Jewish background – and yet God has chosen to include them in his family. So both we (the Jewish believers, from Paul’s perspective) and “you” – the gentile converts, are united by hope in Christ.

So that’s fine for the first century, but who are “you” and “we” today? If we are talking about different groups within the church, I guess worldwide you can take your pick as to what issue might be dividing God’s people. It isn’t circumcision any more, but it might be sacraments, sex, money, bishops or other aspects of legalism, such a fundamentalist attitude to and reading of the Bible. It might on the other hand be too liberal an attitude to traditional Christian morality. Locally it might be something trivial like those who like one kind of service and those who like another; those who like formality and those who prefer to get messy. Those who like pews, those who don’t.

But don’t spend too much time wondering which group you fit in, just remember that the unity of the church is not something we have to work for, it is something that has been done for us by the grace of God upon the cross of Christ.

The passage emphasises the work of Christ in making one humanity, with the abolition of the fundamental categories that divide people. It also removes the grounds for the division of the Church into multiple sects. Like I say, if you’re at all concerned about what you might be reading in the papers, just hold on to the truth that the Kingdom is not of this world but we are nevertheless citizens of it. And I’m pleased to say that this benefice is enriched by our diversity; we need to remember that the heart of Paul’s’ message to the Ephesians is that you do not have to be the same to be united.

There is a saying that you can choose your friends, but not your family; in the worldwide church right now it would be a good thing if that could be remembered. Of course, alongside it goes the sovereignty of God; churches might be fallible human institutions, but they contain those whom God has chosen. We might not get on with all of them, but they are God’s chosen people – and if we start saying, “no they’re not”, we run the risk of being excluded ourselves – but that’s another sermon.

The opening verses of our gospel reading carry on the story from the mission of the twelve (Mark 6.6b–13) which we looked at last week. We can imagine the excitement of the disciples jostling round Jesus, each wanting to tell their story. What a great picture of unity – all wanting to share, all excited about what Jesus has done in a d through them. That’s the kind of expression of God’s family, God’s chosen people, that I like.

Add to that the crowds attracted by Jesus and there was no space even to eat. Little surprise, then, that Jesus decided to take the Twelve off to a quiet place for debriefing and rest. This is the only time in Mark's Gospel that they are called 'apostles', perhaps emphasising that they were acting in their mission as authorised representatives of Jesus.

Then of course we come to the famous feeding of the 5 thousand. What more can be said about this? Well I’ve been wittering on for a while now so briefly, a few things resonate with me on the topic we address today from these verses.
First, and I’m sure I’ve said this to you before, though Jesus gets the credit for this miracle, it is the 12 disciples who actually have to turn and face the crowds with a few crumbly bits of food in a basket and start sharing them out. This is a picture of how the family of God should be – reliant on God, yes, but not passive, not backward in coming forward to take risks, so that others might have their needs met and so be drawn closer to God.

Second, it is important to note the context of this miracle; these people were not starving for food, but for leadership, for teaching, for knowledge of God; Jesus’ compassion is not initially there because they are hungry, but because no one has told them the good news - perhaps in contrast to those who received the ministry of the 12 in their recent mission. I will never rule out practical and social aid and development as a core part of the mission of the church, but let us not lose sight of the fact that what most people lack is a basic understanding of who Jesus is, and what he has done for the world. Like the disciples with their baskets of food, it is our task to meet that need.

And third, and finally, let us take courage from the tiny amount of resources Jesus used to meet an enormous need. We are a small Church in a small community, but we are God’s family, God’s people here, and we must trust that he will continue to use us for his work, even if we feel inadequate for the task.

Stebbing sporting calendar 09:3 Village vs church Cricket match

2009-07-18T10:32:00.006+01:00

Last night, in typical English fashion, we played a game of cricket in the rain!

Thunder and hail greeted teams from the church and the village as we arrived at the cricket ground. The Barbecue was sizzling away, and meanwhile lots of um-ing and ah-ing went on during multiple pitch inspections by members of both teams and legendary groundsman Wal.

In the end we had the post-match barbecue first to see if the rain would stop, and then we agreed to play 12 overs each, on the practice wicket. The church batted first, and scored the mighty total of 95 for 8 (which is more than we scored last year in 20 overs without the rain!) Despite not having picked up a bat since last years' game I enjoyed myself at the (very muddy)crease, but only managed 3 runs. However, our youth group provided some excellent batsmen who amassed the grand total with great aplomb.

It may have been the lager supplied with the barbecue, but the village team, in spite of fielding some new signings, could only get to 83 for 5 off their twelve overs, in spite of the fact that during their innings the rain stopped! Once again our youthful bowlers did the damage; many runs were scored by the village team due to the inability of the more senior fielders to throw the ball to the stumps from anywhere beyond square leg!

It had been pointed out that the church last won this game when the vicar was umpiring and the vicar's wife was scoring, but that was before our time, and I can confirm that no skulduggery was involved. Here are some more photos to prove it!

Sermon for Stebbing and Lindsell, Trinity 5

2009-07-13T16:19:00.003+01:00

I've rather let my sermons blog go cold, perhaps in anticipation of podcast capability on the imminent but as yet unlinkable-to new Stebbing Church website. However this sermon took a lot of effort to write and deliver so I thought I'd stick it here.

The readings were Ephesians 1, 3-14 and Mark 6 14-29. The background to the opening remarks is that I had just announced 2 deaths, one a teenager with brain cancer.

On the face of it I think you might excuse me, had I decided to choose a gospel reading other than the one we have just had, especially after the news we have shared this morning. However, I do believe that the lectionary is there for a reason, and we have been working our way through Mark’s gospel, so I decided to continue. You might also be wondering what I can say to connect these two readings together, and build up our faith.

Well, they are both about power; not necessarily the same kind of power or the same attitude to power, but power connects them.
Ephesians 1, 3-14 is a prayer of blessing and praise of our powerful God. The blessings received by the recipients of the letter come from God, their greatest benefactor, who consistently works for good and offers salvation through Christ. He may appear distant when described as the ruler of the universe but we know he is near to us as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so also our father.

These verses introduce some themes that run through Ephesians – the relationship of God to the universe, the holiness of God's people and the joy of redemption. The passage includes the astounding claim that, in the end, all 'things in heaven and things on earth' will be brought together in Christ (v. 10 – compare this with Colossians 1.20 which says, “through him [that is Christ] to reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through h s blood shed on the cross). This stretches our imagination beyond our limited horizons, and ultimately shows us how far the power of God can go. It also helpfully focuses our attention on the fact that the power – or for that matter the love – of God is most clearly expressed in the cross of Christ
.
We can read this passage in three ways.
The first is chronological: the Father's original and eternal purpose was worked out in history through Christ and realised later in human experience. It moves not only through time but also from the universal to the personal.
Secondly, we may opt to see it liturgically. The poetic features of the passage indicate that it may have been adapted from an early Christian liturgical format. The pattern is Trinitarian – the Father chooses his people, Christ the Son brings redemption and the Spirit works that out in God's people.
Thirdly we may see it as disputational. It may have been written or compiled to counter claims of Jewish believers that they were superior to non-Jews who had come to faith in Christ: the choice and the power to redeem rests in God, not in the believer. There’s that word again, power. God has the power to redeem humanity, whoever we are, whatever we have done.

These three approaches are not mutually exclusive. We live in Christ because of God's choice. The passage speaks of God's eternal purposes with words like 'chose' (v. 4), 'destined' (v. 5 and v. 11) and 'adoption' (v. 5). There are none of the negative aspects of election. God's choosing is to be celebrated as an act of generosity and love.
Let me just spend a little moment on the concept of predestination. Millions of words have been written and preached about it, especially based on verses such as these. Not all of it has been helpful, and so I digress slightly from the theme of power.

I want to say that it is good to know that God has chosen us, that he knew us before the creation of the world and he has a purpose for us; this is a foundation of our trust in God, even when things seem horrible.

But we must not let our predestination – our chosen-ness, make us complacent; I have often felt that the strange complexity of predestination is well summed up by the Matt Redman song “I found Jesus”, in which we sing “I was lost but Jesus found me, I found Jesus”. It may be true that God chose us, but we still have to choose him; he has worked out our salvation in Christ, but that is ineffective in our lives until we respond to him and are open to his transforming power. In the same way sometimes I feel that the church can be infected with complacency in mission by thoughts of predestination – I guess logically one might conclude that if we were chosen then that’s all great, everyone else will be chosen too, we don’t have to worry about it.

But of course the great thing about predestination is that it is not exclusive. Everyone who hears and responds to the message of God’s love in Christ finds himself or herself included among the chosen. We read that in verse 13. There is no fixed list, with God ticking off names until he gets to the end; rather, he is joyfully adding to the list those who he knew all along would be choosing Christ. Unlike the Jehovah’s Witnesses, we Anglicans do not believe that that hypothetical list in finite.

The power of the cross was not just for a select band; that power has the potential to save every human; the fact that some are perishing is an indictment of the church, not a sign of the cruelty of a selective God.

So we rejoice in the power of God, but let us not be complacent and keep it to ourselves; God is waiting for us to help others choose him. That’s what our vision process has been about, and from what I’m hearing and seeing, it is already beginning to bear fruit.

So, you’re wondering, what on earth is he going to say about the death of John the Baptist?

Well, here we see how people abuse power; this is an example of learning by saying, “don’t do that …”

Herod and his completely dysfunctional family have obtained a degree of political power, though they are effectively puppets of the Roman regime. Perhaps because of this Herod likes to throw his weight around and pretty much takes what he wants – even his brother’s wife.

He’s not completely without redeeming features, though, for the text suggests John was in protective custody to prevent Herodias from having him killed. Clearly, the Baptist’s ministry had reached his ears and he liked to listen to him, we read. But actually we need to remember that this episode is in effect told in flashback, because now the ministry of Jesus and his disciples has come to his attention. People were saying Jesus was John risen from the dead, so we then get Marks’ account of how John came to die.

In the preceding paragraphs we read that Jesus' ministry was being extended through the mission of the Twelve so it was not surprising that he came to the attention of Herod. The parallels between Jesus and John obviously touched a raw nerve with Herod – was this John come back to disturb him? Significantly, in verse 16, when Herod says, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” it is not a question, it is a statement – he obviously believes it to be true.

We can see in Mark's account some parallels with stories in the Jewish Scriptures – e.g. Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings 17 and 18) with John playing Elijah and Herod and Herodias as Ahab and Jezebel. John did not just suffer the consequences of his bold preaching; he also fell foul of the sexual and power politics of the court. Herod, like many leaders before and after him, was willing to sacrifice others in order to maintain his own prestige, honour and power. This stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of life of the twelve in their mission.

In Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome”, which dramatises this incident, Herod says, on hearing of the possibility that Jesus has been raising people from the dead, “I will not allow this man to raise the dead!” This is a fine example of how humans think they can tell God what he can and can’t do. I read about that play on an Internet site discussing the dogmatic, even fundamentalist attitudes of militant atheists like Richard Dawkins. They are so determined that Christianity cannot be true that they behave like Wilde’s Herod, and end up making ridiculous statements that show only their prejudice and none of their wisdom.

On the other hand, the sort of person we are most likely to encounter in our daily lives is more like the Biblical Herod than the fictional one. These are the people who have heard of Jesus, just as Herod had, and who might feel protective of the church, even the Christian faith, even as Herod enjoyed listening to John and protected him.
However, like Herod, they just don’t know the full story; Herod thought Jesus was John raised to life, and our neighbours and colleagues, even our family, may have similar misconceptions about the Christian story and the Christian faith.
Because we enjoy the kind of life in Christ that our first reading from Ephesians describes, ought we not to endeavour to overcome some of these misconceptions? Sometimes the first step on a journey of mission is to say, “Actually that’s not quite what happens”.

Let us then pray for confidence

Some material by Simon Oxley from www.rootsontheweb.com copyright © Roots for Churches Ltd 2009.

Jubilate Deo

2009-07-08T22:36:00.003+01:00

Here are some photos from tonight's Celebration Service and Presentation of Certificates for the Course in Christian Studies, which was held at Chelmsford Cathedral tonight.

The first photo features Phil Ritchie (of Phil's Treehouse) and Sam Norton (of Elizaphanian) and me.

The second one is my CCS group.

Say say say what you want but don't play games with my affection

2009-07-08T12:40:00.003+01:00

Competition: Which of these two is the most ridiculous thing to say?

Revd Al Sharpton (to Paris, Prince Michael I and Prince Michael II)

"There weren't nothing strange about your daddy."

Rt Revd John Broadhurst (to FCA launch) "Satan is alive and well and resides in Church House"

What planet are these people from? These are both free countries, you can say prettty much what you want to whomever you choose, but those speaking into microphones ought to engage brain before opening mouth.

Comment (without prejudice!) If a humble priest-in-charge said what Bishop Broadhurst said, he'd be in deep trouble,

and "nothing strange??? why'd he give us the same name then...?"

You have all been beautiful [I wish...]

2009-07-04T20:22:00.005+01:00

There are some things that wind me up, like this.
There are other things that encourage me, like this.
There are some things that just confuse me, and then there is Rock and Roll .

Stebbing Sporting Calendar 09: 2 - Running Club

2009-06-29T20:04:00.002+01:00

As you may have gathered from yesterday's post I am feeling a little old and doddery at the moment so I was quite pleased with myself for managing to run 3 and a half miles tonight with the running club, which is comprised of a few neighbours from the village. I'd even say it was fun, though I night not say that tomorrow morning!

Glastonbury special SAB

2009-06-29T15:15:00.005+01:00

Have you ever seen Jimmy Greaves and David Crosby in the same room at the same time? Could it be that Greavsie's form dipped in the late 60's because he was using up so much energy touring with CSN&Y?

Time takes its toll, but not on the eyes

2009-06-28T18:52:00.006+01:00

A good day today! The tenth anniversary of my priesting.

This morning at Stebbing they sprung a surprise on me, with a cake (yes that is a cake in the shape of a Bible!) and a gift of a new bike from all the churches in the benefice. As we got ready to go over to church, my wife said to me "You know today is a special day, so you will need to let go of the past and press on into the future."

I thought she was being philosophical or at least making reference to the ongoing vision discernment process in Stebbing, but it turned out she just meant get ready to get rid of your old bike!

Also got my blog Rank, but can't get the widget to embed in my layout so you'll just have to have it in here.

They're out to get you, better leave while you can

2009-06-26T09:41:00.007+01:00

There were 65,500,000 hits on google for Michael Jackson this morning. The entire Internet will soon be overloaded with stuff about his death. It is literally unbelievable, but we said that about Elvis, Lennon, Kurt, Freddie, Bon, the list goes on. I'm sure there will be conspiracy theories hatching even now. It's just a shame that this will distract us from Iran, Afghanistan, Darfur, etc. One death gets lots of attention, other go unnoticed.

I'm not normally one to take celebrity death to heart, and was going to do an "EJ Thribb" for Farah Fawcett today. However, Michael Jackson was such an icon, and he did have quite an influence on me in the early 80's.

I was 16 the year "Thriller" came out. I didn't buy it, but I didn't have to - everywhere you went, every radio station, every TV music show, every disco for most of the 80's would play something by Michael Jackson. At that time I really only listened to rock music played by blokes with long hair wearing denim and leather, and I listened to it very loud. Dance music was not in my repertoire, and I wasn't alone. There were many youth club or school disco's (apostrophe for abbreviation, Lynn Truss fans) at which the girls all danced to one type of music, the boys to another (well, danced is a bit of an exaggeration).
then This happened:

"Beat it" provided dance music for the girls, and rock guitar for the boys. Ironically I guess Michael Jackson is almost solely responsible therefore for my discovery of the opposite sex.

"Thriller" also opened my mind to a much wider variety of music, which enriched my social life no end. It should be an interesting Glastonbury for cover versions.

I was a youth worker in the early 90's when the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him started, and it was weird to be responding to young people's prayer requests - please pray for Michael Jackson ...

Moving seamlessly from nostalgia to cynicism, like Princess Diana before him, there will now be a sustained period of hysteria, conjecture and then eventually exploitation of the brand name. Poor bloke. At least the suicide rate will dip.

If I shed a tear it is more for my own youth that is past, than for the death of a talented but flawed musician. I should think his funeral will knock Diana's into a cocked hat.

My top 5 Michael Jackson Songs?

Beat it - see above

ABC

I want you back - what a bassline

Earth Song even if only because of Jarvis Cocker's moon

Don't stop til you get enough - almost the title of this post.

And I fall, face down (;-)

2009-06-25T10:46:00.003+01:00

Ten years ago this week I was on retreat in Salisbury Cathedral Close in preparation for my ordination as a priest (an event the mechanics of which generated a fair amount of steam in some quarters recently). It was an unusual retreat in that my 2 week old son and his mum came too and we stayed in a flat with a lovely view of the spire, pretty much next door to Mompesson House. I did go to all the addresses and worship though. Strangely enough, three years later my daughter aged 4 months accompanied her mum (with help from her Granny) on my wife's ordination retreat, so don't try to tell me there's no flexibility for families in the C of E ministry machinery! This week I have a friend and former colleague in the same place waiting for the same event on Saturday.

I have recently been given the task of Deanery Warden of Ordinands, and we have also just had a candidate from Stebbing recommended for training for stipendiary ministry on her BAP (:-)). These things together have started me thinking again about the nature of priestly ministry. At college and during my diaconal year there was much rumination about "priestly formation", and stuff was said and things were reflected upon. Probably about ten years ago last Sunday night my rector and I locked ourselves in the church so I could practice presiding at the Eucharist. I have to say that was the most memorable element of any practical priestly formation I had. Namely, don't spill the wine and don't drop the wafers!

You may recall that this blog began as my reflections on a leadership course. That was a good course in the end as it really helped me to get some things (like admin which I hate) sorted out, but it still left me a bit blank in terms of what it is to be a priest today (and yes I have read the book)

Looking back to my own vocational journey and reflecting on the journeys of some others that I am encountering at the moment, both in the blogosphere and in real time and space, I am increasingly of the opinion that vocation to ministry is most genuinely discerned and shaped by people other than those who are called. Other people said to me (and to countless others I know), "you should think about ministry). I did, and look where it got me! Now I am beginning to wonder whether a bolt-on to that is that the very being of a priest is defined by the people and the context in which s/he is ministering. I once had a spiritual director who was very strong on "inhabiting the [Biblical] narrative", but he also very wisely advised me to let the place in which I minister form me as a minister.

On the whole I think this approach has worked for me, mainly because I have always worked in benefices of diverse tradition, so depending on where I am (liturgically or pastorally) on a given day, who I am (or actually, who I am being - not quite acting a role, but not far off sometimes, terrible isn't it!) will vary with the context of the church.

That sounds as though I only regard priesthood as a role rather than a state of being. I don't do ontological change (tempting though it is to imagine the changed status of a baby in the womb of a woman when she is ordained,) but I do think that holy orders are about who you are more than what you do. In fact I believe that about Christianity, about the local church anyway, more and more these days. Its not about programmes and events, its about relationships and "making ourselves available".

Dredging my memory for the aforementioned local ordinand a while back for pictures and metaphors for priesthood, I could only remember the icon - not being God but representing God for someone, pointing onward to Christ, and the periscope mirror - enabling people to see and encounter, communicate with and receive from God, without getting in the way ourselves.

These are really helpful for me to reflect (ha ha) on now, because in daily life theological proactivity is frequently just "What day is it tomorrow?" and theological reflection is usually "what day was it yesterday?"

I have some quiet/reading days scheduled later this month so I might spend a while these things and get back to you.

Bible Books meme

2009-06-20T20:21:00.007+01:00

I have been tagged by Sam. This is how it works

Rules:

1. Name the five books (or scholars) that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible. Note that these need not be your five favourite books, or even the five with which you most strongly agree. Instead, I want to know what five books have permanently changed the way you think.

2. Tag five others.

My five are not necessarily books specifically about Scripture, but all of them have deeply impacted how I read the Bible, and some go further, having influenced the whole of my life and faith. Significantly they are all books I read during my ordination training, but I wouldn't want you to think I haven't read anything since then.

1. "Truth is Stranger than it used to be"; J Richard Middleton and Brian J Walsh SPCK 1995.

At the time in training when everything was up in the air, this book was one that helped me catch things as they came back down to earth; things like "What is reality and how do I perceive it", as well as introducing me to words like "meta-narrative". The cover carries a quote from Tom Wright; "All thinking Christians should read this book". Of all the books I read at college this was the one I didn't actually mind reading all of, even though I didn't have to! I re-read it every couple of years, though it's getting a bit dated.

2. "The Post Evangelical"; Dave Tomlinson SPCK Triangle 1995. He wrote this when he was pastoring "Holy Joes", a church that met in a pub. My brother was going to it at the time, indeed DT spoke at my brother's wedding. I don't think I am a Post evangelical (if there ever was such a thing outside London), but I remain influenced by Tomlinson's take on atonement theories, and I particularly warm to his IKEA flat-pack vs Meccano metaphor. Now that he's an Anglican minister, I expect he'd describe himself as an Affirming evangelical, but some would just say he's a liberal.

3. "God's Empowering Presence; the Holy Spirit in the letters of Paul"; Gordon Fee 3rd Edition 1995. This is the only one that is purely and specifically about the text, being a systematic and comprehensive treatment of Paul's references to the Spirit. In that sense, it's not really a book you read from cover to cover; it lives next to my copy of Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament, and so is classified really as a reference book or Bible dictionary type thing. Sounds a bit dry, but its impact was that it was the first book from a charismatic perspective that I found that told me there are other authentic, faithful ways of reading Paul on gender roles than what Grudem says.

4. "The Prophetic Imagination"; Walter Brueggemann Fortress 1978. I could have put "Texts under negotiation" or "Biblical perspectives on Evangelism". All had a big impact on the way I studied Scripture academically while also going through big changes in my own life and faith. Best thing about these - they're short!

5."God's Home Page"; Mike Riddell BRF 1998. Less academic, more fun and more relevant to where I found myself the year it came out - about to start in ministry. Next week is the 10th anniversary of my priesthood, so I probably ought to read it again, along with Pete Ward's "Mass Culture."

A lot of influence on how I read the Bible actually came from people and places, not just books. For example the single greatest influence was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; another huge thing was doing a course based around the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola. Naturally also the greatest influence on how I read and interpret Scripture is the place in which I am reading and preaching it. That doesn't mean I am simply recontextualising Biblical Truth, it just means as I seek to understand the Bible here, here is unavoidably a huge influence on how (but not always what) I understand.

So I tag Michael W, Kurt, Malcolm, AnneDroid and Howard.

Enjoy!

And he's watchin' us all

2009-06-17T22:04:00.003+01:00

I had an idea tonight; you know how Terminators (in the film and TV franchise) have this thing that happens in their eye whereby they can look at someone and get from a computer programme information like name, date of birth, address, state of health etc.

I could really do with getting one of those fitted, for those moments in pastoral minsitry when you are talking to someone you have met before, who obviously knows who you are, but you have no recollection of who they are or where you met them.

It would really be a great bolt on, as my own RAM drive is getting rather full these days!

Be a man be a mystery man

2009-06-16T20:20:00.004+01:00

Night Jack, the police blogger, has been outed by the Times and disciplined by his force.

I found out about him through the Ugley Vicar, who linked to a pretty scary post (which you won't be able to read now as its all been taken down. I also found the excellent Get out of Jail free through Night Jack, so I owe him thanks for that at least.

Anonymity online is a touchy subject for some; "noms de plume" can enable people to say stuff they wouldn't get away with under their real names. Then again, if they need to hide behind a pseudonym, should they be saying it in public in the first place? It's easy to forget that blogs and discussion forums (?fora) are in fact read by more people than you would expect.

I like the idea of online identity, but it needs to be accessible, thus I know who Elizaphanian, Cranmer's Curate, Revise Reform and Pluralist are, because they do not try to hide, they just have a nickname. You can find them yourself, I can't be bothered to do all those links.

Perhaps Night Jack should have watched Bambi

What do other people think?

Well I love to live so pleasantly

2009-06-16T14:53:00.001+01:00

It was my birthday on Sunday. We went to Bustard Green, which is very secluded and lovely, and had a picnic with newts dragonflies horses and butterflies. The perfect getaway.

I'll never be the same

2009-06-12T10:04:00.002+01:00

A lot of people were talking about this BBC Pentecost Service, but being a TOG I hadn't heard Chris Moyles' comments on Radio 1. It's fantastic stuff - When'a the last time you heard anything so positive about Christianity on Radio 1?

Thank you Annedroid

I want to stick around a while and get my kicks, let's rock ...

2009-06-09T08:43:00.005+01:00

Fulcrum have kindly published online an article I have written called "Why I am still an Anglican", which is an extended version of my first commission. You can comment there or here as you wish.

Enjoy

with a poster of rasputin and a beard down to his knee

2009-06-05T18:38:00.001+01:00

This is good stuff, but I was very distracted by the thought "Clement Freud lives"!

In fact it was a little bit frightening

2009-06-04T19:47:00.006+01:00

So Farewell then

David Carradine

Out of Kung Fu

I used to particularly enjoy

(if that's the right word, not sure)

the bit with the red hot dragon

shaped stone thing,

which you had to carry

with your forearms

thus proving your worth

to the bloke with ping pong ball eyes

whom we all imitated in the playground

mispronouncing his "r"s.

But the most satifying bit

was when you ran out into the snow

To cool off with an (imagined) hiss,

gaining some excellent body art

in the process.

They didn't do that

in Kung Fu Panda,

And I don't like Tarantino.

with apologies to EJ Thribb

Pie Jesu

2009-06-02T14:15:00.006+01:00

This is me and my missus (making her FMH debut) getting pied last Sunday at the Under The Sea Celebration. It was (other than the pie-ing) a brilliant event; nearly150 people, many of whom had never been in the church. A gentle gospel challenge was given, and the kids who came to the Holiday club could share the experience with their parents. We sang the songs they sang, played the games they played and heard the stories they heard. I loved it.

The service was followed by a Barbecue in the sunshine, which deteriorated into a water fight. I had to keep dry-ish as I had a 6pm Evensong (as someone said, from the sublime to the ridiculous!)

In the end, it was a 10 hour non-stop day, as between the two services we essentially stripped all the Pulse scenery from the church and loaded the truck. I was definitely ready for a cold one by 9pm, only to discover I'd given my last Stella to Pete from Pulse!

BGT/North Korea goes nuclear SAB

2009-05-29T19:17:00.002+01:00

Susan Boyle Kim Jong Il

You're the only one that I could live for

2009-05-28T16:30:00.001+01:00

Awesome week this week, Under the Sea Holiday Club at Stebbing. Around 45 kids for four mornings. Your basic crafts games gunge jokes type set up, but, led by the team from Pulse Ministries, with the added extra of some serious prayer, worship, preaching, evangelism and fun!
I counted all the holiday clubs I'd ever done the other day, and reflected back on some of the ones I'd led. We'd be rushing around at the last minute sorting things out, whereas Pulse have us all praying and sharing and reading the Bible together for an hour every morning before we start. It's amazing; people are actually getting there early!

I know its sometimes a touchy subject but I cannot think of a better way to get children interested in Jesus than to actually give them the opportunity to spend time with him. Today we had a church full of kids lying on the floor, with quiet music playing, listening to God. It wasn't just for a few seconds, but for like 5 or 10 minutes there was a peaceful and holy atmosphere. Never seen that before, but want to see it again!

If you're thinking of running a holiday club, I highly recommend Pulse. They are consummate professionals (even though technically they are amateurs as they are not salaried but live by faith) with immense insight and wisdom, yet a gracious way of including what is already on the ground. Their aim is to grow the faith of the whole church, not just the kids, and that is happening here this week. I'm most impressed though that they do not see their role as a hit and run thing, but are committed to relationship with us for the future, and to seeing good follow up from the contacts made this week in the future.

I'm sure I'll be posting about them again!

aww, go on ...

2009-05-23T22:00:00.001+01:00

A marvellous Friday night camp out in a secret location near Stebbing led to a wonderful encounter with these swans this morning. The cygnets don't look to be much more than a couple of days old. When we first met this family the pastoral idyll was somewhat undermined by the arrival of a family of geese with goslings, leading to a turf war which the geese lost.

Come Together, Right Now ...

2009-05-22T13:48:00.001+01:00

Thanks, Rev O - and a much better Beatles lyric

Separated at Birth MPs expenses special edition

2009-05-21T10:22:00.003+01:00

Nick Clegg

David Cameron

You search much deeper within, through the way things appear...

2009-05-20T12:27:00.006+01:00

Have you ever been to Disneyland or Euro Disney (Disneyland Paris or whatever) or any theme park?

has it ever reminded you of a church?

I used to teach English at a University in Paris where many of my students (because they could speak English) got vacation jobs at the then brand new Disney Park at the opposite end of our RER Train line. It was interesting for me to reflect with them about the role playing and the fakery, the play acting that effectively encompassed the whole place; nothing is real.

The characters are being played by people who are not really Mickey or Minnie or Stitch or whoever. They are just doing a job, playing a role. The streets and castles and restaurants and venues are all pretending to be something they are not. They are in the business of entertaining us by deceiving us (though not maliciously) into an experience which though fun is ultimately like the food you get there; very expensive and not sufficient to sustain healthy life.

I'm beginning to see that church (not my church or your church but just generic church) can sometimes stray over into this kind of territory. We are so desperate to attract and welcome people, that we effectively put on a show that is not a true reflection of who we are as a Christian community. We want to welcome people, but to what? We over promise, then we under deliver. I suspect people see through that kind of thing pretty quick and don't come back. Church in that sense then is fake; we are not real; either because we only do God for an hour on Sundays, or because we are afraid that is the case, even if it is not.

If only we could be more honest about who we really are - a broken people, the walking wounded. Church should be a place where we don't wear masks - whether that's individually - "I'm OK really" or corporately " we don't mind what you think or do" (that's more a head in the sand than a mask.)

If people join our church just because they are welcome, but never move on into the transformed life of the Kingdom, then we are Disneyland, because we are only showing the surface, not the depth of our Faith and love. The lunch isn't free, it comes with a price, and no one should say its easy. Disney church will only show the niece bits, not the hurting, the resentment or the depression.

And if we spend all our time and effort making church services look cool and trendy, we have no time or energy left for the business of getting out there to invite others in (or indeed getting out there to listen to where others are at).

Rant over.

Problems? Problems? Don't give me your problems ...

2009-05-05T09:31:00.004+01:00

I've recently begun following the blog of Michael Wenham, at which I discovered the following video, so thank you Michael for this inspirational person.